There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Wrench

@[email protected]

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Wrench ,

Then they shouldn’t have reviewed it if their decision was made before even holding the product in their hand.

They could have reviewed it from the point of view of an R&D curiosity with the potential future iterations and cost reductions as the new startup finds their feet. Because, you know, that’s what it was. But they decided to shit all over it for dishonest reasons instead.

Wrench ,

Your area must be polar opposites than mine, then. I live in Southern California, which is extremely, ridiculously, competitive right now, and for the foreseeable future.

The old fixer uppers are typically estate sales from elderly that passed or moved to assisted living. They are generally fine, but outdated because the elderly owners didn’t renovate since they moved into the house 30+ years ago. They or their family isn’t going to bother updating it, and they don’t need to in this market.

Depending on the location, and the quality of the build, that means there can be some serious issues with the place too. I saw tons of houses up on hills that have clear signs of erosion causing the house to slope towards the hill. This isn’t an upkeep problem, but a problem with poor to mediocre build quality, with 50-70 years of age to expose these kinds of issues.

New homes are all comparatively small and built on top of each other with no yards, to maximize lot space. Most new construction I see are houses to close together, you can touch your exterior wall and your neighbor’s at the same time. Rooms are tiny so they can advertise more bedrooms, street parking sucks, and you’re at the mercy of an HoA.

Wrench ,

That’s a bit revisionist.

Mozilla and Thunderbird existed as decent alternatives, but they had a tiny market share of generally tech minded people, which was a much smaller subset of the population than it is now.

Chrome and Gmail came in and completely demolished the market. They came in with a strong brand name, and a huge suite of features that worked well, and really ignited the Cloud app paradigm.

I have mained Firefox on desktop throughout the decades. But give credit where credit is due.

Wrench ,

You asserted that it was really Mozilla that set up IE’s downfall, and that’s what my dissent is about.

en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Mozilla/Netscape hovered around 20-30% throughout the 2000s. I.E. was the clear winner without any danger of losing its throne until Chrome came along.

Being a steady competitor != destroy. Chrome and the Google suite is what upended the lopsided browser war.

Wrench ,

I’m not well versed on the details surrounding this, but it sounds like Pi pivoted to supply businesses during the chip shortage, instead of direct to consumer in the more hobbyist space.

That seems like a win win, well within moral business practice.

Yes, Pi was founded (afaik) as a cheap minimalist PC. No thrills or bullshit, with a strong moral stance on making a barebones PC available to all.

Pivoting to help keep a global chip shortage from causing a global collapse of anything needing simple circuit boards isn’t evil. It’s helping everyone get through potentially a lot worse than not having access to a mostly hobbyist device. And it probably meant they could use their own impacted supply line in the most efficient way possible.

Hopefully the consumer Pi isn’t lost for good, but this seems far from corporate greed, but a necessary concession during a global disaster.

Wrench ,

There’s a guy at my company that lives in Sacramento, and commutes twice a week to go in the office in mountain view. That’s a 4 hour commute with no traffic.

His entire team is in the San diego office. There’s literally zero point, but I guess his manager isn’t willing or capable of fighting for an exception to the hybrid mandate.

Wrench ,

That’s not really reflective of the market in reality. Rent in a competitive market (I.E. anywhere people want to live) tends to hover around the cost to own, buying with 20% down, plus property tax and mandatory homeowners insurance required by the mortgage holder.

In fact, usually it’s cheaper to rent than it is to buy with only 20% down and good credit.

This is because people do this calculation, come to the conclusion “it will cost us a little more, but we get to own our dwelling, our payments eventually go to principal (though this is rigged by the banks too), and hopefully the market goes up and we get equity”

Yes, the market fluctuates, particularly in economic crisis. But it teeters back and forth based on the costs to buy and rent. Because if rent exceeds the cost to buy, investors snap up property just to rent it out, and that raises demand on real estate to the cost goes up.

Wrench ,

Your use case reflects what I said exactly.

For someone to buy your condo today, they will be signing up for a mortgage whose monthly cost is near the going rent price. And most likely, more than the going rent price.

If they were to just buy and rent it out, they will likely be doing so at a loss.

The market going up or down after the purchase of the property is independent. It may go up, it may go down. That’s the gamble you make if you’re doing it as an investment.

Your experience happened to take place at an extraordinarily good time to already own property., and FOMO was certainly fueling the frenzy during the peak.

Whether that continues to be the case is unknown. Economists are all over the map.

Wrench ,

I agree. It sucks all around right now for anyone on the market to rent or buy. We’re all squeezed. Only people that had the luxury of owning and/or capital and foresight to invest are happy right now.

The wealth divide has only increased substantially.

But that doesn’t mean that rent is “predatory” except in the cases of long time owners hiking rates when their costs have stayed the same. The reality is that rent is closely related to the current cost of buying at any given time.

Wrench ,

My “libertarian” friend refused to watch the Jan 6th hearing, but declared with conviction that we were throwing grandma’s in jails for peacefully protesting.

He was aghast that I supported the “murder” of Ashley Bobbit. Who was “peacefully protesting”.

I showed him the actual videos surrounding her death, of her violently breaking through the door, the multiple warnings, and the context around congressmen being trapped in the next room with no other exit.

He was shocked for about 30 seconds, and then he dismissed it by moving to another topic where liberals are evil. It almost seemed like he would have a moment of introspection that maybe his news sources were not being honest with him.

And he’ll vehemently deny being a republican or conservative, and says Fox News is mostly trash (while saying it’s not as bad as CNN).

Wrench ,

And has someone who quit over poor compensation, those are exactly the bullshit reasons I told HR on my way out, as to not burn bridges.

When I was younger, at least. Old me doesn’t give a shit anymore.

Wrench ,

I refuse your anecdotal argument after giving my purely anecdotal argument, and then somehow link that to a completely unrelated topic

CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden's 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70% (edition.cnn.com)

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this...

Wrench ,

I suspect conservative people like yourself no longer identifying as Republican may be a factor.

I have a couple former republican friends who are still very conservative, but aren’t trumpers and voted libertarian or independent last election.

They do still have a bit of distrust around Jan 6th and criminal allegations because, well, they avoid looking into them deeper, so don’t know who to trust. But they’re not foaming at the mouth.

Wrench ,

I have a conservative leaning (they mostly call themselves libertarian) who aren’t exactly pro Trump, but anti liberal.

I find it extremely weird how anti Trans they are, considering they’re accepting of homosexuals in a “sure, whatever, doesnt bother me” and “might have an acquaintance or two that are gay” kind of way. But the idea of Trans people existing somehow threatens their children really is prevalent in that group.

They grew up in an environment where gay acceptance was pushed hard in school and society, and they seem to be on board because of it. But changing ones own genitalia somehow bypasses all of those lessons.

It’s maddening how they fall for this rage bait bullshit that their media pushes.

Wrench ,

Definitely. I think the libertarian branding is more just an excuse to not be blamed for the actions of the republican party. “I didn’t vote for them, I voted independent”.

But yes, their brand of libertarian is “I should have the freedom to enroll Mt kids in a school that represents my morality, even if that morality is stripping away rights of someone else”

Wrench ,

A little easier to understand the significance:

A grand jury has ruled that the evidence presented is sufficient enough to warrant a trial to determine if a crime has been committed.

Typically grand juries are either random citizens (selected via jury duty), or volunteers within the community, depending on the city rules. They are not elected positions, nor are any legal qualifications required. It’s simply high level evidence, and descriptions of laws that may have been violated.

It’s not an indication of guilt, just that there’s enough of a question that is worth holding a trial to determine guilt.

Edit - at least, that’s what a grand jury usually is. I wouldn’t be surprised if federal charges on a former president requires more qualified grand jurors than the baker down the street, or retired carpenter with time to kill that comprises your typical grand jury

First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (www.nbcnews.com)

First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

Wrench ,

Natural predator of the laser raptor

Drunk Delta Passenger Sexually Assaulted Mom and Teen Daughter on 9-Hour 'Nightmare' Flight: Lawsuit (people.com)

The man verbally and sexually harassed the plaintiffs, a mother and her 16-year-old daughter, on a nine-hour flight from JFK Airport to Athens, Greece last year, according to the Tuesday filing, which accuses the airline of gross negligence.

Wrench ,

Airlines should be required to have at least a row of seats vacant. The current standard of intentionally over booking gives the flight staff very few options to deal with unruly passengers. SOMEONE needs to occupy the seats next to belligerent passengers, because there aren’t any other options.

This is a problem created by airline greed.

Wrench ,

I agree in principle, but not in reality. We will never get student loan relief if we shoot for “perfect”.

Yes, schools will raise prices in response, if they don’t have to share any responsibility for the loans. Every time we get some way to enable students to pay for college, schools raise the price more. It’s a fact, and I agree that they will be dicks again if they can.

But, that does not exclude half measures to give relief now. We can have an imperfect non-solution now, and go for the long term solution later if it helps people get by.

Lenders should have to do things like credit-worthiness checks on students.

Impossible. 18 year olds don’t have extensive credit histories, if they have any. It’s simply an impossible thing to evaluate.

Wrench ,

Their target audiences are home flippers who just need the cheapest stainless steel appliances that look fine at a glance, and cheap landlords that don’t understand that they’re choosing themselves more money in the long run.

Wrench ,

The problem is that they blatantly collude with the other two pillars. They can’t make their own laws, but they can collude with the others to bring a case to their doorstep to make a ruling not based on precedent or good faith interpretation of the law.

They effectively can create whatever laws they want, just with extra steps.

Wrench ,

What’s new is that they didn’t have a great way of banding together. The village idiots were shunned, or had small groups that wiser people just rolled their eyes at.

Now they’re bigger and more organized, to the point that the size / availability of their crazy ideas seems to lend credibility for many.

And that money is being poured in to weaponize their chaos and hate.

Wrench ,

Or leather seats, random bacteria that hitched a ride, etc. Hell, plastics are derived from biological material and could qualify if you really stretch your definition. It’s a nothing statement.

Ubisoft will delete your account if you haven't logged for some time (Even if you owned games in it) (gamerant.com)

Ubisoft claims they do not want their players to lose access to their accounts but it’s pretty clear they do want to (so they can repurchase probably), otherwise they would not implement such feature 🤷...

Wrench ,

That’s about when I initiate the refund and block all companies listed in production.

Heroes of Might and Magic for me. Bought it, installed, saw I needed a 3rd party launcher, went through the hassle to create an account, got spammed with upsale bullshit once, Uninstalled and demanded refund. Steam was like “ok, fair enough”

Haven’t bought a 3rd party launcher game since, except GTA which I didn’t really understand that’s what I was doing.

Wrench ,

What’s a more tight knit community than a Klan?

People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit... (www.theverge.com)

People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit…::People are dissatisfied with the technology in their cars, according to a new survey from JD Power. They especially don’t...

Wrench ,

I find it stupid as hell that there are conditionary alerts and changed UI when in “car” mode on phone apps, as well as Bluetooth pairing being disabled while driving.

I get it, they want you to not use the apps while driving. But you know what’s even more distracting than messing with a device while driving? Trying to troubleshoot unexpected UXs while driving

Not to mention that passengers exist. Convincing my friend to pull over and put the car in park so I can be navigator and DJ for our little road trip was certainly more distracting than just having an open and predictable UX

Wrench ,

My wife’s old Volt would beep at fucking everything. Parallel parked and backing up? You’d think the car was about to explode. Put in drive with enough room to pull out? Same.

Really cemented my desire to drive my old beater into the ground.

Wrench ,

What would you expect the algorithm to be if not to recommend the apps installed and used the most on their platform?

I don’t use TikTok or FB, but it’s hard to blame them for suggesting apps that they have concrete usage data on saying they are the most used.

What happened to the Crimea bridge and why is it important? (www.aljazeera.com)

Traffic on the single bridge that links Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and serves as a key supply route for the Kremlin’s forces in the war with Ukraine came to a standstill on Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing a couple and wounding their daughter....

Wrench ,

The war zones are the homeless colonies.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •