foodandart
@foodandart@lemmy.zip
- Comment on Lemmy users logging on to level set the Blue Wave enjoyers 4 days ago:
As I remember it, the colors were more business pinstripe gray for the conservatives and blue for the democrats.
- Comment on $1.8 trillion was wiped out from the US stock market yesterday, where did it go? 1 week ago:
Oh, you’ll get no disagreement from me on that.
If the stock valuation is enough that it can be leveraged to get loans that can be paid off with the accrued gains ON said value, yeah, it needs to be taxed as if it is earned income.
Just reading on how Elon Musk secured the capital to buy Twitter brought that one home.
The angle I was going for isn’t that they’ve poor, it’s that they are locked into a system that means they don’t use or need liquid capital - like you or I do - to get what they want.
Given that when one has billions, the banks charge YOU to hold it, this is why the private equity groups have become so pernicious.
All that untaxed wealth with nowhere to go, so it becomes a powertool for real estate investments to leverage more money out of the working and middle classes or to buy out publicly traded businesses and run them into the dirt.
We’re back to the 1980’s again, an echo of the Michael Milliken/Ivan Boesky scandals - only this time the targets are wildly larger and hitting main street.
- Comment on $1.8 trillion was wiped out from the US stock market yesterday, where did it go? 1 week ago:
God, wouldn’t that be a dream!
- Comment on $1.8 trillion was wiped out from the US stock market yesterday, where did it go? 1 week ago:
It only ends up being really “there” if the stake- and stockholders withdraw their shares and cash out. It’s all paper valuations.
Many billionaires are actually what is known as paper tigers in that their wealth assets aren’t real, (as in real estate) because the “wealth” is based on numbers on balance sheets and little else.
- Comment on Please, for the love of sanity stop using Reddit 1 week ago:
Anyone using old.reddit.com could easily jump to old.lemmy.(… whatever… I’m on .zip) and not miss a beat.
I sure didn’t.
- Comment on inspired 2 weeks ago:
LOL!
Oh dear God…
- Comment on Must be a strange feeling that something you used to use is now only seen in museums 3 weeks ago:
…never knew people used to dial only 4 digits…
Yup… the trick was having your LATA code be on the mechanical switcher. They could address 9,999 numbers. Which in a town that at the time had maybe 1,900 people… it was glorious.
- Comment on Must be a strange feeling that something you used to use is now only seen in museums 3 weeks ago:
You’d think that maybe - just maybe - they’d see a movie or show that had older phones on set and see them in use? What era was that show Stranger Things set in?
Lotsa rotary phones in use at that time… but then again, who actually watches a show when everyone’s got their noses glued to their devices. LOL!
- Comment on Must be a strange feeling that something you used to use is now only seen in museums 3 weeks ago:
TIL, thank you for that!
Also, if you were in a rural area that had the LATA code (the first three numbers after the area code) on a mechanical switcher, you did not have to use the LATA code. Could just dial the last 4 digits. My dad’s farm was in a town that was still sitting on a mechanical switch until the early 2000’s so in the early 80’s we had a budget party line (we were one long ring, while the neighbors had two shorter rings and there was a third person - whom we did not know, that was a phenomenally LONG call maker - you’d sometimes have to wait an hour or so for the guy to get off the line) and all of our friends were just 4 numbers… Can remember many - 8345, 8652, 8033 (<- my best friend in 10th grade…)
It was a decidedly different, and less expensive, world.
- Comment on Must be a strange feeling that something you used to use is now only seen in museums 3 weeks ago:
The real fun bit is watching 12 year olds try to dial out on one.
I kept my desktop rotary until 2017 when I got a cell phone with the landline number ported to it.
NGL, the desktop rotary was a Godsend in the winter of 1996 when the Northeast got hit by a massive ice storm that took out power for weeks across parts of the region. Phone lines are more robust - also the power lines intercept the falling trees or catch the ice so while power would often be out, the phones would be just fine.
What folks didn’t get about the rotary phones is that part of the spring-loaded mechanism under the dial is a magneto that puts voltage into the line as you dial.
Think of the old 1930’s movies where the phones had cranks on them - you would actually charge the circuit to make the call. When dial tone phones came on the market big time in the early 80’s the phone company increased the monthly fee by $3.50 to dial-tone phone users in order to make up for them having to provide power to the phone.
I had a fun time getting that charge removed from my bill… would be talking to the operator and dialing the phone as I did so they could hear the rotary click stops… Ahem… Fix that bill, thankyouverymuch…
- Comment on I neither confirm or deny that I just procrastinated away from jobs to draw my rendition of 'myth of sisyphus' laundry edition 4 weeks ago:
Oh dear Gods. This is about it…
- Comment on the only thing that never trickles down is the money 4 weeks ago:
Yup. To the point it was utter bullshit, when George Bush Sr. (remember him?) was running against Reagan in 1979, he called the “trickle-down” theory “voo-doo economics”… and he was right. Once it became obvious he wasn’t going to get the nod for President, he was tapped by Reagan who chose him as his running mate, to get him to shut up about it and the rest is history.
I’ve been saying for decades, we’re now in the deep voo-doo doo-doo.
- Comment on 5 weeks ago:
It would become REALLY unpleasant once the “pleatherette” coating on the seat starts to disintegrate and stick to your skin, like the ear cushions do.
For the premium prices they charge for their kit, Bose plastics break down pretty damn quick.
I’ve got a pair of Denon cans (AH-D210s) from 1998 with cords that are as supple and nice as the day theyr were bought (ofc the pads have been replaced multiple times since the foam always goes flat first) and the plastic on my Bose earbud wires disintegrated within 18 months… Color me unimpressed.
Ugh.
- Comment on Anon loves GOG 5 weeks ago:
Am not certain. I’m just holding fast with the two games I have - No Man’s Sky just did another massive update and has a ton of new shit to do so I’m faffing around with the new space base building parts (too cool for words!) and enjoying the hell out of it for now.
- Comment on Anon loves GOG 5 weeks ago:
I need a second HDD for storage of the GOG installers I have and it’s killing me that I can only run a handful of games at a time. Stupid small SSD. Currently have two installed, NMS and Zero Dawn and I’d love to finish the Witness at some point in this century. Ugh.
- Comment on I guess it's come to this 5 weeks ago:
Can we have anime tiddies?
- Comment on Can also ask your mom 1 month ago:
I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles.
- Comment on Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there? 1 month ago:
Agreed, no need for it to be manned after it’s built. Maybe the occasional trip for general maintenace and that’s it…
- Comment on Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there? 1 month ago:
The ONE justifiable thing I could see is to set up a massive telescopic observatory on the far side of the moon.
Why the far side? Because the moon goes into eclipse many times a year and on those occasions when it’s a full lunar eclipse - at the far side, it is in the shadow of earth and is for a few minutes, the darkest place in the solar system we can have massive equipment arrays permanently set up to look into deepest space.
- Comment on Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there? 1 month ago:
I don’t see any good reasons to rush humans to mars…
More to the point, no human has yet left the safety of earth’s magnetic field. The moon is well inside it and that is why the astronauts could go there, and come back and not end up riddled with cancer.
Mars has no magnetic field so going there and coming back will be a trip that likely incurs a shortened lifespan.
Will need to sort the diseases that come of solar radiation exposure first.
- Comment on Foul. 1 month ago:
Heaven only knows. Welles died decades before youtube.
Which Ninja is he referring to? The guy in Die Antwoord?
So many questions.
- Comment on I will not be opening for Ed Sheeran 1 month ago:
Yeah… so sorry Ed… I probably should just leave a message for him on my voicemail saying I’ll be unavailable.
I have to wax, uhhhh… the lawn.
- Comment on No Man's Sky 10th anniversary Cosmos update is here, and that means orbital bases, space station ownership - and yes, you can finally fly to the sun 1 month ago:
That sounds like your friend was in a custom mode that was set to eaasier than you.
I build in Creative mostly now (2,000+ hours in) and have been visited by griefers that tried to shoot me (didn’t work, 'cos hello… creative!) and in one case, the guy came in surrounded by a cloud of VERY salty Sentinels that swarmed my base area and were chasing and shooting at both of us.
It’s quite irritating to get shot at while you’re trying to build something.
Once he cottoned on that I wasn’t killable, he checked out the build, gave a thumbs up and left and the Sentinels went with him, never to be seen again.
It’s definitely weird when different play modes meet, for sure.
- Comment on Are we at a point in human history where we can get robotic limbs and other things to better our day to day lives? Like a robotic arm where I can pick up 100lbs with one arm and so forth? 1 month ago:
100 lbs with one robotic arm? Can you currently carry 100 pounds on one side of your body? If not… uhh, having an arm attached to you that can carry 100 pounds will be meaningless. The REST of you has to have the strength to carry the arm and the 100 pounds.
Unless it’s like some exoskeleton armature you climb into.
- Comment on Keep them secret 1 month ago:
This is EXACTLY it.
- Comment on Fuckin CEO's and billionaires gotta go 1 month ago:
Ehhh, no. The millionaires right below them will erupt in a frenzy to take the top spot and assert control of as much as they can.
Say what you will, but those most vicious ones at the top spend a lot of energy keeping the ones who are just below them, in their places. I see that a ton of misery would spring loose as the multi-millionaires fight each other to get to the top.
- Comment on How are you going to never forget 9/11 this year? What are you never forgetful for? 2 months ago:
It is precisely why we are here at this point in time.
Watched it unfold over the past 15 years as my grandparents generation passed into memory - their actual experiences of WWII and the warnings for our country - and it’s now only in our memories of them and their stories… and it’s scary as fuck to see the kids - like at that kickboxing fight in Orlando that had 20-something idiots unfurling a Nazi flag.
Stupid fucks.
- Comment on Every payment option has a fee 2 months ago:
Yup! The baer where I buy my coffee on occasion has their menus listed with two prices… The card prices are 4% higher. So an item that is priced at 7 bucks cash is listed as $7.28 for card.
Makes me so glad that I have never signed up for a card.
Over 60 with NO credit rating… delightful.
- Comment on Every payment option has a fee 2 months ago:
Insurers have never been “honest business”…
- Comment on Every payment option has a fee 2 months ago:
…That’s customer service for ALL companies. Nothing works any more…
The insurance company that we use for our cars is delightful to deal with. I haven’t even had to wait long, just leave a call back number and get a response within 15 minutes. Then again, it’s a regional insurer, (Maine, NH and MAssachusetts) not a national one.
Funny as hell, as I just got a bulk mailer for Progressive Auto insurance and it was offering me coverage as low as 67 dollars a month for a basic liability policy… For one car.
::sighs:: My dear, sweet dudes at Progressive… I pay 740 bucks a year… for TWO cars.