NateNate60

@NateNate60@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I knew I should have cancelled the order 😑⁩ ⁨⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  While it does sound unfair, eBay policy requires you to upload a tracking number by policy. If there is no tracking number eBay will treat it as having never been shipped. This is laid out in their policy pages. You can only satisfy the shipping requirement by using a tracked service and the one indicated by the buyer.

  It’s a strict logical operation. eBay sides with the buyer unless all of the following are satisfied:

  • A tracking number is uploaded within the specified turnaround time on your listing (I believe it defaults to 2 or 3 working days)
  • The tracking number corresponds with the buyer’s indicated shipping service (ex. using USPS Ground Advantage when the buyer indicated Priority Mail will fail this requirement)
  • The package was shipped to the exact address given to you by eBay
  • The tracking status indicates “delivered” or "available for pickup"
  • If the order total exceeds $750, you required a signature for the package

  If you fail any of the requirements, you are at the buyer’s mercy. It’s harsh but it’s fair.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I knew I should have cancelled the order 😑⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Shipping without tracking is pretty dumb though. I can’t speak for Canada Post but in your neighbour to the south, USPS in my experience has lost about 3% of letters with handwritten addresses and about 1% of those with a computer-printed address.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where has the tax money "saved" in uk austerity gone?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The Sovereign Grant was some £86 million, which certainly sounds like a lot, but the reality is that heads of state are actually just really expensive no matter whether you have a republic or a monarchy. Maybe you could argue that a president could just quietly exist in the background while people expect a monarchy to be lavish and fancy, at least to a degree. There’s a lot of pomp and ceremony associated with the head of state, because they not only represent the government of a country but also serve as a cultural symbol for the nation as a whole.

  For comparison, in the US, excluding the policy departments within the Executive Office, the White House Office and Executive Residence and presidential salary budget lines totalled almost $94 million in FY 2025. This does not include the cost of Secret Service protection (paid by the Department for Homeland Security) nor does it include the cost of Air Force One trips (paid by the Department of Defence). And while Brits complain about their monarch not having to pay tax, I think the fact that the American president, or at least the current one, cheats on his taxes is also a somewhat open secret.

  I’m American and technically also British despite never having been there (I hold a type of second class citizenship through Hong Kong), and I honestly think £86 million is a bargain for the UK monarchy considering their cultural draw and the fact that they’re not just the head of state of the UK but a dozen other countries as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do gangs that collect protection money actually do any protecting?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Did they (the gangs who asked for protection money) actually ever catch the people responsible or blamed to be responsible?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon learns a new spell⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Rowling was always known to be slightly racist but people mostly dismissed it as a sort of fantastically stupid racism. As in, the “ha ha this racist stereotype is so dumb, see how ridiculous it looks when I put it in my wizard book” sort.

  I don’t think it was until she started going full TERF that people began to realise that she’s not making fun of the stereotypes; she actually thinks casual racism is a funny and cute thing to do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Most of the large ones only take bank transfers and cryptocurrency now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How’s this confusing? They’re a Puritanical group. They do Puritanical things. Literally nothing deep about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uber Eats or something idk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So what did you mean when you began your comment with “actually it’s the inverse”? Inverse of what?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uber Eats or something idk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m a bit confused by what you’re trying to say here. It seems non sequitur if you are trying to say “borrowers of higher interest rate benefit less from inflation”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uber Eats or something idk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Your maths is not right. Inflation, in absolute terms, is a larger benefit to people with higher interest rates.

  Let’s consider the scenario where inflation is 10% for simplicity, and two borrowers who each borrow $100, but Borrower A at 5% annual simple interest and Borrower B at 25% annual simple interest. Both borrowers borrow the money at the beginning of Year 0.

  Borrower A owes $105 in Year 1 dollars at the beginning of Year 1. This is equivalent to $95.45 in Year 0 dollars.

  Borrower B owes $125 in Year 1 dollars at the beginning of Year 1. This is equivalent to $113.64 in Year 0 dollars.

  Compared to a 0% inflation rate, Borrower A saved 9.55 Year 0 dollars and Borrower B saved 11.36 Year 0 dollars. Borrower B saved 1.81 more Year 0 dollars than Borrower B due to inflation (but paid 17.55 Year 0 dollars more overall because of interest).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uber Eats or something idk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Inflation reduces the real buying power of the money used to repay the loan by the inflation rate each year, regardless of your loan interest.

  In absolute terms, inflation is better the higher your interest rate is, because the number of dollars it saves you goes up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think one other factor that people have not considered is the monitor. To run all games at 4K maximum settings, yes, this type of PC might be required. But at lower resolutions, such as 1080p or 1440p, this is overkill and one would be able to run any game as maximum settings even with a computer costing a third as much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Important distinction: A triangle is a three-sided polygon. For example, a quarter-circle is not a triangle, despite being a three-sided shape.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Speak American⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re overthinking it slightly.

  • French flag represents the language called "French"
  • Spanish flag represents the language called "Spanish"
  • Russian flag represents the language called "Russian"
  • German flag represents the language called "German"
  • Portuguese flag represents the language called "Portuguese"
  • Japanese flag represents the language called "Japanese"
  • Korean flag represents the language called "Korean"
  • Chinese flag represents the language called "Chinese"
  • Italian flag represents the language called "Italian"
  • But somehow, the British flag doesn’t represent a language called “British”, but rather, one called “English”, despite there existing an English flag
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Speak American⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Scottish people having to click on a British flag knowing it will display English (there is a perfectly good flag for England that people refuse to use 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk Cuts Funding for Internet Archive⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll start:

  Image

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is it about humans when society rewards individuals with the power of millions they want to use it to fuck up society?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If the question is asking about Trump, Orban, Putin, or your other favourite dimwitted world leader, it’s because these people usually don’t actually want to fuck everything up. They want to make their country (or their notion of the groups of people they regard as their country) prosperous and glorious. But they’re just unable to take in the fact that their policies and leadership are actually leading them further away from this goal. It really is just a deadly combination of incompetence and inability to self-criticise.

  In the case of Trump, who is a pre-eminent example of this, he really does think that tariffs will make the US richer. He is a moron, of course, but that’s what he thinks. He doesn’t “know” that tariffs will damage the American economy and America’s international reputation, because he doesn’t grasp the concept at all. Anyone who has observed his thinking for any period of time after he got into politics can observe that it is very feelings-driven and not very fact-based. And a lot of his government’s policy is also ego-driven, which explains why it is seemingly always falling for Russian propaganda and why he wants to be on good terms with Putin. Though Putin is no universal genius either, one thing that he is very good at, as a result of his KGB training, is manipulating others to get what he wants. It certainly does help Putin a lot that Trump is pretty easily manipulated. And as for Trump’s comments about wanting to take over Canada, take over Greenland, take over Panama, &c. &c., most non-US observers describe that as clear evidence of his mental decline. J. J. McCullough, a Canadian political commentator, described it as being “obvious” that Trump is “losing it”.

  And ironically, since Joe Biden’s mental competence was called into question in the last US election, while Biden’s senility manifests mostly in the form of stutters, speech blunders, and random mostly-inert goofiness, Trump’s senility seems to manifest in a desire to take over the world and become God-emperor of Mankind, which is objectively more dangerous for a world leader.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There is no limit in the Constitution that prohibits individual US states from exchanging representatives with foreign countries or from expressing or sending support to them. However, there are some caveats, of course, and it’s a very nuanced area of law that has interesting implications:

  1. Accepting formal diplomatic representatives from another power is deemed under international law to mean recognising the independence and sovereignty of the power whose representatives you are accepting. Which essentially precludes formal diplomatic ties from consideration. This is why the US doesn’t accept diplomats from the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan) and refuses official Taiwanese diplomatic and service passports, but is more than happy to accept “unofficial” representatives.
  2. Any representatives sent would not have the power to contract treaties as US states are not competent under US law to enter into treaties or make any other binding obligation to other countries. This is problematic because that means they can’t even do as much as rent an office space in another country without the involvement of the US federal government.
  3. The primary reasons that a country might consider hosting a diplomatic mission of a foreign power is so that they can (1) complain to the ambassador about that foreign power doing things that they don’t like, (2) so that the foreign power can issue passports and visas within the host country, (3) so that consular services can be provided by the foreign power to its citizens or subjects living within the host country, and (4) negotiate treaties. Since US states don’t really do anything abroad that can’t be handled or complained about through the US Department of State, and because US states don’t issue passports or visas, and because consular services to US citizens is already provided through the diplomatic missions of the United States, it is unnecessary for any country to consider hosting a US state diplomatic mission.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cool post but how is this a shitpost

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Electoral politics doesn't get the job done⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The media will always exist and people will always base their decisions on the information they receive in the media. This is inevitable in any society with the degree of complexity we have today. It is just not possible to gather all the information ourselves about any but the most personal of topics. That is why free, unbiased, and independent media is an extremely important part of liberal electoral democracy. And for the greater part of the past two centuries, this is what we more or less had. Yes, major media outlets have always been somewhat controlled by the upper class (whether in the form of media companies or local media magnates), but until quite recently, most of them didn’t care about using those outlets as propaganda pieces; they just cared about continuing to collect their subscription money, which is likely the best-case scenario for privately owned for-profit media. It is astonishing that this system lasted as long as it did.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon becomes a shrimp farmer⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Okay, you got me there. I’ll admit that’s a pretty good use for cryptocurrencies

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon becomes a shrimp farmer⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Blockchain is the perfect solution to none of life’s problems

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually for used stuff eBay is way cheaper. And for many things, it doesn’t matter whether it is new or used.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Benefit cheats could lose driving licences in anti-fraud drive⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why not a community order?

  This is such a strange punishment which is completely unconnected with the offence in question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What year is it⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  5

  4

  3

  2

  1

  0

  Ouija board explodes and the lights start flickering. The front door slams shut and you can hear it locking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Images of 'Saint Luigi Mangione, The patron saint of health care justice' have been making rounds on social media"⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, the Popeis the absolute sovereign dictator of Church dogma, so if he says tomorrow that Luigi is a saint, then all 1 billion Catholics worldwide must listen

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Images of 'Saint Luigi Mangione, The patron saint of health care justice' have been making rounds on social media"⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Pope Frances has the opportunity to do the funniest thing here

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Two in one stupidish question- Debate about United Healthcare CEO and best place to have it⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As for your family discussion, generally it’s advised to avoid bringing up controversial topics because it almost never ends well.

  That being said, I’ve found that the following statement is pretty universally agreeable:

  Thompson led a company that was number one in the industry in denying coverage for routine and life-saving healthcare to people who had paid good money for and were legally entitled to coverage, meaning it’s almost certain that multiple people have died as a result of the policies he oversaw the execution of in the name of profit. So while I don’t condone murder as a method to solve problems with the healthcare system, it’s difficult for me to feel any sympathy for the victim.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there anything Lemmy has more/better content for than Reddit and other mainstream sites?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you really like socialism this is the place to be

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Epic’s main selling point was it’s lower storefront fee (15% vs 30%, if I recall). It didn’t offer any other benefits for consumers and I think Epic realised rather quickly that the people who are actually supposed to be paying money for all of this are the buyers and not the sellers, and thus they’ve resorted to strategies like making games “exclusive” or trying to bribe players with free games.