BertramDitore

@BertramDitore@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My credit union no longer allows me to payoff pending purchases made on my credit card⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I get what you’re saying, but paying a bill before its due date is still paying that bill on time. I also keep track of my spending habits, and am completely on top of and in control of my finances. I just also choose to pay my credit card balance as I go.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My credit union no longer allows me to payoff pending purchases made on my credit card⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I pay my bills on time every month. That’s only one factor for your credit score. Another big part of your score is credit utilization, or the amount of credit you use vs. how much credit you have available to you. So paying off my cards the way I described is how I keep my usage percentage at a minimum. I’ve seen big increases to my score since I started paying closer attention to that factor.

  My checking account pays excellent interest, but my monthly cashback from my credit cards is always more.

  I’m curious why you seem so opposed to some people choosing to use their credit cards this way? Your implication by bringing up debit cards and due dates is that we’re somehow not being responsible with our money, but that’s just not the case. I’m not attacking you, just curious why it seems to bug you?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My credit union no longer allows me to payoff pending purchases made on my credit card⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Debit cards usually don’t offer cashback, perks, or robust fraud protections, and do nothing for your credit score. That last one is the important bit. I used to use my debit card exclusively, and could never get approved for any kind of loan. Once I started using credit cards the way I described in my other comment, my credit score jumped waaaaaay up and I started getting approved for everything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My credit union no longer allows me to payoff pending purchases made on my credit card⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Bugs the shit out of me when companies make it difficult to use their product. I do the same thing as you. I enjoy having $0 balances on my credit cards, and I use them within my means, so I pay them off straight away throughout the billing period. One of my cards (I only have two) makes it really difficult to pay off my balance more than once a month, and they delay those “extra” payments by days, sometimes weeks. I called them out on it and they said “just pay your balance once before the due date.” Fuck that. My other card lets me pay off my balance instantly, whenever I want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there or has there ever been information illegal to possess or have?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  No doubt. It being illegal doesn’t mean it wasn’t morally justified and right in most cases. Just means it took more courage and personal risk to do the right thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there or has there ever been information illegal to possess or have?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  High level leaks of classified material is the first example that comes to mind. The raw Wikileaks data, for example, was widely accessible and easily found by anyone with a quick search, and yet possessing that material was technically illegal, because it was never declassified.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My friend got this when she tried to view a Reddit post about a dental issue that got marked as NSFW⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “Estimate age from selfie”?! Wtf have we become…

  When I was 14, I looked like I was 20. When I was 20, I looked like I was 35. When I was 35, I looked like I was 50. You can’t determine someone’s actual age from a fucking photo. Jesus.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are eugenics bad seen?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re seem pretty confident that eugenics would improve peoples’ lives, but why is that?

  Eugenics has been used, many times, to justify the mass murder or mass sterilization of entire populations, based on unproven racism and hatred towards the Other, be it people with cognitive differences from the “norm,” or all Jews, or gay people, etc. Really whoever the “in” group doesn’t like.

  Eugenicists think anyone that is Other or not in the shape of their ideal human, doesn’t deserve to live. But people who don’t think, act, or look like you still live fulfilling lives, so who gives eugenicists the right to decide who gets to live and who doesn’t? What makes their “ideal pure human” pure and ideal? The answer is usually white and Christian, which exposes the whole thing as absurd.

  I’m sure the original post will get deleted, because these kinds of questions don’t usually last long after they’ve been answered, but there you go, I choose to believe you actually wanted a genuine answer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what books about personal boundaries do you know that don't mention god?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You may be thinking of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. It’s an excellent book, I highly recommend it. It’s super short and taught me SO much about myself and my family.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long before the GOP tries to get the 23andMe data?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ehhh you might be underestimating their desire and capacity to do widespread illogical evil.

  So much of the right’s “ideology” is based on insecurity and blind hatred, that genetic data could believably be weaponized for almost whatever they want. You’re definitely right that they think they get to decide who is a good American and who’s not, but why limit the consequences to deportation/disappearing when eugenics offers them much more permanent solutions?

  Looking at the right’s generational project of clawing back civil and human rights, which has largely been successful, I can definitely see some right wing geneticist with a chip on their shoulder doing massive amounts of damage. There are no shortage of very intelligent people who do incredibly stupid and damaging things with their intelligence. Just look at American tech companies…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Love RDR2⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It really says something about the quality of its world-building that I can glance at someone else’s screenshot and vividly remember riding over that specific bridge.

  Such a good game. And I have nearly zero interest in westerns.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LAPD Eyes ‘GeoSpy’, an AI Tool That Can Geolocate Photos in Seconds⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah I get that, and your frustration is totally valid, it’s just an insane uphill battle to continue producing original content without some evilcorp swooping in to steal all your shit and then resell it as their own. This is the only “solution” they’ve found to still making enough money to eat. But the extra friction is definitely a bit annoying, and they know that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LAPD Eyes ‘GeoSpy’, an AI Tool That Can Geolocate Photos in Seconds⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Their reporting is often based on FOIA requests, which are a public service, so they give free access to those articles without a paywall.

  They have been open and transparent that they require a free account to read their free articles because it prevents LLMs from illegally scraping and plagiarizing their original reporting. Logging in to a free account is a small price to pay to ensure these actual journalists continue to produce excellent work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, it’s really frustrating that we’re watching the grift in real time, and influential outlets like the NYTimes are making all the predicable mistakes and further inflating the bubble to the point where I’m starting to think it won’t be allowed to pop. It feels like there’s nothing we can do about it, because enough people have slurped up the slop and are convinced they already can’t live without it.

  I argue with coworkers every day about the useless generated shit they put in front of me. I argue with friends who believe the grifters have their interests in mind. I’ve started arguing with executives at my company who are hinting that everyone has to start using LLMs. I argue with anyone any time they mischaracterize ChatGPT as AI and not an LLM. I argue with my colleagues who work in environmental sciences that they of all people should understand the practical harms these tools are causing.

  It’s an uphill battle, and I feel like we’ve already lost. It’s exhausting seeing the direction we’re going, knowing it’s the wrong way to go, and yet being stuck on the stupid train going there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Random Screenshots of my Games #64 - Enshrouded (Revisited)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, that sounds awesome. Based on all that, the devs seem solid, I think I’ll give it a try. Thanks for the response!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Random Screenshots of my Games #64 - Enshrouded (Revisited)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This looks pretty amazing, but it also looks huge, and for a game this big I would need assurances that I won’t lose my progress if it leaves early access. Have the devs said anything about their completion timeline? I’ve never played anything in early access, because I frankly don’t trust devs to respect my time. Thoughts?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How abnormal is it for a mother to be her son a fleshlight for his 18th birthday?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That does help explain the strangeness of the whole thing, thanks for sharing. Sounds like things were pretty tough for you, so I’m sorry for that.

  It sounds like he is a bit oversexualized (not sure if that’s the right term), but it doesn’t seem like it’s anything too out of the ordinary for someone figuring themselves out. Many of us probably pushed things a bit too far when we were little, I certainly didn’t understand how uncomfortable it made people for me to run around the house naked when I was young. But we all test boundaries like that when we’re growing up, and usually the adults around us help us find the right boundaries, not stretch them.

  So yeah, with that new context, giving a fleshlight to her 18 year old son is very odd, and does raise some red flags. Sounds like you made the right call cutting things off.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How abnormal is it for a mother to be her son a fleshlight for his 18th birthday?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d be super curious to hear the context if you’re willing/able to share, but it all depends on the relationship between the mother and son. It strikes me as a bit weird and abnormal, and certainly embarrassing, but if you normally talk about sex in an open and healthy way with her, then this might not be as weird as it seems. Parents know their kids play with themselves, and it’s usually healthier to be open about it than to stigmatize it, but actively buying this kind of thing for her son is a bit much in my opinion…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do females got to be so hard to talk or flirt with?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it would be valuable to take a step back and look at how you’re thinking about women in general. This isn’t an attack FYI, I’m trying to be constructive because I totally understand your anxiety.

  Firstly, lose the word “female.” Forget it. It won’t help you anywhere except biology class, and it’s a big red flag. In your brief question, your framing makes it sound like women are some mystical object that you can “get” with exactly the right words or the right amount of money. But they’re just people, and many of them are probably having similar issues talking to men. If you start to actively think about women as fully formed, independent, thinking, feeling human beings who have many of the same problems as you, and many that are quite different, then you’ll have a much easier time approaching them.

  All of that is to say, empathy is critical. If you approach an interaction from a place of empathy—where you’re trying to understand the other person by listening to them and expressing interest—then it’ll slowly start to become natural. I realize that’s all easier said than done, but just thinking about women as complete people who aren’t there for you, but for themselves as individuals, would be a massive first step. Good luck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumor: Star Wars Outlaws Sequel Canceled By Ubisoft⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s totally fair (though I haven’t played any recent Zelda games, so I can’t speak to that). I actually think quite a few recent open world games didn’t need to be open world at all and would have been better if they were more of a single player guided narrative.

  One game that did this perfectly IMO was Guardians of the Galaxy. It wasn’t open world, but you could explore each “chapter” or “level” or whatever as much as you wanted and could replay them individually. That made the whole story feel really tight, coherent, and well thought out. I find myself really wanting that format in some of these big beautiful (and yeah, often boring) open world games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumor: Star Wars Outlaws Sequel Canceled By Ubisoft⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This is pretty disappointing to me. I know it’s kind of an unpopular opinion these days, but I really enjoyed Outlaws. It was just different enough from other Star Wars properties to be novel, but recognizable enough to be convincingly in the Star Wars universe. Sure some characters were a bit flat, missions were repetitive, and it didn’t invent a new revolutionary mechanic or anything, but does every game have to be groundbreaking? I got solid enjoyment out of it, and was looking forward to how they’d continue the story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google co-founder Sergey Brin calls U.N. ‘transparently antisemitic’ after report on tech firms and Gaza⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you intend to profit from the murder of innocent people by helping governments develop weapon systems, then you don’t get to feign innocence and act like a biased dictionary when the world notices the evil you’ve contributed to. As a fellow Jew, I wish he would understand that we don’t have a monopoly on being the victims of genocide.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨E Ink is turning the laptop touchpad into an e-reader for AI apps⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I couldn’t care less about what this has to do with “AI,” but e-ink is horrendously underutilized. It should be so much more ubiquitous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Venmo overdrafted my bank rather than use the balance in my account⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel you. It’s very expensive to be poor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hesitating getting a Switch 2 (1st game console in 15 years)...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The other day I thought to myself, “huh I’ve got a few extra bucks, I think I’ll buy a switch 2.” Then I saw that zelda costs $80. So nope, no switch for me.

  I’m someone who has never played a switch, never held one, and I was about to impulse buy it. So I’d be a brand new customer (my last Nintendo product was the NES), and now I won’t be. Their loss.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Bridgerton’ Star Yerin Ha Reveals She ‘Was Petrified’ to Do Her First Intimacy Scene in Season 4⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have no interest in this show, but I’ve enjoyed Ha in everything else she’s done, and I appreciate her candor about filming intimate scenes. I’d be straight up terrified.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨star wars clone wars trying to find a season a episode number⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, exactly. It seemed important to them to stress that Ahsoka’s training was different from a normal padawan’s, thanks to Anakin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨star wars clone wars trying to find a season a episode number⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s “Practice Makes Perfect.” Episode 5 of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. It’s a miniseries that came out a couple years after Clone Wars ended.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨whoever recommended Almost Human (2013) to me, thanks⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah! I remember really enjoying this, and being super pissed it didn’t get renewed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sony will be releasing "MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL" on 4K Ultra HD on August 26.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For sure. I’ve gotta assume they used the master film for scanning Monty Python, and if it was stored properly they probably wouldn’t have to do a ton of restoration and cleaning, but I don’t know the specifics. 4K77’s work is amazing and admirable, but not really watchable to me for exactly the reason you mentioned. I don’t think any amount of cleanup would fix that kind of degradation, though it’s still an incredible representation and artifact of the film’s history. It’s a shame that project was only necessary because of the Lucas’ stubbornness.