KombatWombat
@KombatWombat@lemmy.world
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 3 days ago:
Yeah maybe you’re right about Kamala’s unpopularity being reflected on Democratic congressional candidates. Everyone’s quick to point fingers about why the election results are the way they are (myself included of course), but it’s honestly hard to say which factor had the most impact.
And I feel the same way about the electoral + popular vote thing. If the Democrats are going to lose anyway, a convincing defeat can at least be a wake up call for change. And this way we don’t have to worry (much) about people claiming it was rigged.
- Comment on On a lighter note: Why do people still buy fast food? 1 week ago:
The obvious answer is that it’s fast, tasty, and requires minimal effort for the consumer, especially if it’s getting delivered. But it also tends to be very cheap compared to dining out. I don’t know what you are ordering where a combo is so much but I normally get a bunch of food from Taco Bell to eat over the course of two days. I can get 2000 calories of food I like to eat for $12.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
It’s true that Trump had a simple majority of votes, but you can win the electoral college and lose the popular vote; this is typically what happens for Republican victories. Kamala lost MI, PA, and WI by 3% or less. If those had flipped, she would have had her 270. You are right that third party votes wouldn’t have been enough though. The bigger problem was reduced turnout from people not voting at all.
The fact that Republicans also managed to do so well in Congress to me suggests that the problem for Democrats wasn’t really just their choice for presidential candidate. Voters really care about immigration and inflation right now, and those tend to be stronger for Republicans.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
This is actually a very good comparison, thank you.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
You are still participating by choosing to be a bystander to injustice. Abstaining when you can support something less bad only says to others that you do not care how bad it gets.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.
If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
It’s important to remember the Holocaust happened largely because people didn’t do enough to stop it. “First they came for the Communists…” and all that. The Nazis were a fairly minor party for years, but they were able to consolidate power because their opposition wouldn’t rally against them. Coalition requires compromise.
I am not happy with the Democrats either, but they were the better option. And abstaining from a decision between bad and worse doesn’t help anyone. By allowing Trump to take power again when we might have stopped it, we are all responsible for what comes next.
- Comment on Donald Trump's sentencing was postponed to after the election to avoid any assistance of election interference. Can he be sentenced while he is President Elect? 1 week ago:
Honestly, there is a reasonable chance he gets assassinated this term. No one is out of reach from the sword of Damocles.
- Comment on Is there a name for the trope where a story is high fantasy at first glance, except for it's not fantasy and is actually set in a post-apocalypse dystopian future? 1 month ago:
The TvTropes links are mostly right though? It matches the third variation of Earth All Along. The linked examples match what OP is describing except not being restricted to Fantasy.
- Comment on Unity scraps runtime fee, hikes subscriptions instead 2 months ago:
This wouldn’t be 25% of your profit, it’s just increasing one of your expenses by 25%. It looks like it’s going up to $3000.
- Comment on Risk of Rain creators Hopoo Games join Valve 2 months ago:
It also helps that there isn’t a competitive mode yet. Until recently it didn’t even track your stats in a visible way. Also, people can only get in by being invited, so you have to have had at least one person who has vouched for you in some way, which probably selects against the most toxic personalities.
- Comment on How different would the world be if school never ended but you could leave and come back anytime you elect to? 2 months ago:
Yeah I actually work in a dev team where about half of us picked up programming outside of college. That includes our boss, who’s also the most technically proficient in my opinion. He went through a Microsoft-certified boot camp instead. Some of my uncles are engineers that had college paid for by their company, since they were already shown to be valuable workers without it.
I get the appeal of being able to just look for a candidate’s school instead of doing more heavy-lifting when evaluating a candidate, but the growing over-reliance is to everyone’s detriment. Companies will be missing out on some real talent, and qualified applicants have trouble getting the opportunity to prove themselves.
- Comment on Why does the USA have so few legal protections for ordinary people, and how can we change that? 2 months ago:
I am not a lawyer, but consumer protections should generally kick in when an issue is actually evaluated in a court. If you are being charged for things you believe to be unfair, you would need to refuse to pay, then see them in action after the business escalates it. Often, a predatory business will give up when it knows it doesn’t have a case. But it’s pretty hard to work on behalf of a citizen if they ultimately are convinced that they do have an obligation to pay after all.
I agree with the other commenter on the first issue. If you have been paying the amount you were charged, and then hit with surprise retroactive charges, you would have a serious case in small claims. I expect a judge would favor you if it’s as described. $1000 for late fees is exorbitant, especially when the glitch was from their software and not rectified quickly. Unless you’re leaving out relevant details that explains the situation better.
For the second issue, needlessly cumbersome cancellation processes are considered dark patterns and may be illegal in some cases. These cases are being enforced more recently, even against large companies like Amazon. For your pest control case though, if you face pushback when cancelling it’s pretty simple to tell them you won’t be using their services and will refuse to pay. If you already paid, you may be able to issue a chargeback after explaining the situation to your bank. Seeing as how you would be being charged for services not done, I don’t see how the business could contest that after being informed of the cancellation. You would still be on the hook for a (reasonable) cancellation fee, as lost business from a cancelled reservation does represent real damages.
We are a country with a litigious history and we have recognized considerable rights for consumers. Just because you feel powerless doesn’t mean you are.
- Comment on How different would the world be if school never ended but you could leave and come back anytime you elect to? 2 months ago:
Of course, and any job will expect some degree of training anyway. But there’s only so much that can be tested for before hiring someone. A degree is just a reference from the university that you meet their standards of mastery at whatever major at whatever level. Some jobs expect you to have one just like some expect you to have references from individuals, but others will have other tests for qualification which may even just be an interview conversation. Apprenticeships are pretty similar; each is an individual or group staking their reputation on vouching for your competency. Even a GED or high school diploma is a reference, just from an organization or a public institution.
- Comment on Anon's experience at a coffee shop 2 months ago:
My favorite:
- Comment on Sid Meier’s Civilization VII - Gameplay Reveal Trailer 2 months ago:
At 15:05 it isn’t clear what is meant by a “full campaign”, but it does sound like you can set up games to be only one age. I hope so, as I am skeptical about swapping civilizations. It was actually the primary thing that put me off Humankind, rather than a selling point. Resetting not only your Civ’s identity but also the world’s resources, map size, and the tech tree is concerning. If one age isn’t an option, I am sure mods will save us at least.
Mod support and multiplayer are huge interests for dedicated fans, so hopefully we will get more information soon. VI improved a lot from V, so I expect it will be good.
I prefer the new graphics to Civ VI’s overall, but I don’t want to say it actually tops V until I’ve played it myself. A few screens seemed visually unfinshed. Story events, navigable rivers, leader skill trees, and the calamities at the end of ages seem intriguing at least. No mention of a world congress, hopefully they have a better system in mind than VI’s.
Still curious about culture progression. They didn’t show a card system like VI, so that at least makes me hopeful. Ideally I would like a permanent unlock/upgrade tree and a way to temporarily boost something at a cost in another system, like edicts in Stellaris.
Looks like districts and wonders still take a tile to build, but now other buildings do too? Cities sprawl out a lot, and are diverse within. Perhaps we will be able to build duplicate buildings that were previously one per city, especially since they mentioned city specializations. It also seems like workers/builders might be attached to a particular city rather than movable units.
Overall, I’m a bit less excited and more worried. There were a lot of changes from V to VI that I was disappointed with from the onset and honestly they did not grow on me.
- Comment on Anyone else feel like Trump has a much higher chance to win then Presidency than Kamala? 2 months ago:
There doesn’t seem to be a pattern for whatever name politicians become known by colloquially, except last name is most common. Hillary makes sense to distinguish her from Bill, but I remember people generally using her first and last. Kamala is usually Kamala, but you see Harris too. Trump is Trump, but you’ll see people use his first name at times (like r/TheDonald). Biden is still referred to as Joe occasionally. Bernie was much more common than Sanders. For supreme court justices, it’s usually last name or first and last. I’ve never seen anyone refer to AOC as just Alexandria. Obama is Obama, but I’ve seen Barack in really informal contexts. Nancy Pelosi is first and last. Elizabeth Warren is either first and last or just last.
- Comment on Anon is a test subject 4 months ago:
I remember seeing a video of a rubber arm experiment that goes through a series of exercises to convince someone’s mind that a rubber arm placed against their shoulder is theirs, while the real one is blocked out of sight. Once these phantom sensations are in place, the organizer then hits the rubber hand with a hammer, causing great shock in the subject but no real harm. The immediate panic is exaggerated by the fact their mind can’t actually move “their” hand out of the way when they see the swing coming.
Another study had organizers shine a harmless light on participants’ arm for a few minutes and see how they react, allegedly for some sampling purpose. The twist was that they would have the real subjects stay in a waiting room beforehand and watch actors leave while appearing to be in considerable pain from the session where the light was targeting. They then experienced a significant burning sensation from the “laser” despite the organizers insisting it was harmless. Some would go as far as to raise their voice and demand the experiment stop.
The idea is that people can be convinced that something is painful just from others’ reactions to it. This may have been what the organizers were actually testing for, and the electrical shock wasn’t real or was barely large enough to felt. But OP was just immune to being influenced. I would expect the ability to follow cues from others has strong correlation to success at socializing, so considering they use 4chan OP might actually just be built different.
- Comment on Paradox Interactive has completely cancelled "Life By You" 4 months ago:
I only played Stellaris off and on, but I went years without buying an expansion and always thought the new systems were complete and better than what they replaced when I returned. Breaking current saves is frustrating, so I guess you would need to delay an update if you had one you planned on returning to.
If you didn’t know, you can roll back to older versions of steam games with some work. A few games have a built-in system, but most of the tile you have to manually replace files after redownloading the old versions.
- Comment on Balatro - Patch 1.0.1f 6 months ago:
I like most of these changes. Several jokers that immediately justified building around got toned back.
Magician giving two lucky cards instead of one makes lucky cat a lot stronger, and it’s getting buffed independently already. Steel joker nerf and glass joker buffs seem good too. Campfire nerf is harsh, but justified.
I’m surprised hologram isn’t getting nerfed. It quickly pays off with already good stuff like DNA or even certificate, and even without much synergy just buying standard packs makes it strong.
The vampire and midas mask nerfs seem overly harsh though. It was a powerful combo, but it required two specific uncommon jokers and time to scale. With both parts being harder to proc, and the payoff being cut in half, I can’t think of a situation where you would really want vampire. I guess if you have face card synergy you could run midas mask for a while until you have most of your deck golden, but even then I would be tempted to swap to something else pretty quickly. Golden cards just don’t have much payoff. I would have buffed the devil tarot to target two before the magician for the same reason.
- Comment on If you work for a gig app in the US they make you go thru this charade when doing taxes where you're treated and taxed as an independent business owner. joke country 10 months ago:
Second this. It is free for federal, and iirc $15 for state. Also, you can upload submissions from Turbotax if you used them before so many fields will be pre-filled out. I actually preferred the freetaxusa experience to turbotax having used both.
- Comment on Cleaning my overstuffed inventory 10 months ago:
I have a hoarding problem too, so I will share a few tips.
- As others have said, the wiki is really good in this game, and can be launched from the chat. If you’re wondering how useful something is, the wiki page will have a list of aquisition methods so you can verify if you can get another copy later. Also good for clearing out the turn in to npc items, as it tells you where to find them.
- For things that aren’t account/soul bound, I usually just sell them on the trading post if they aren’t immediately useful. If you need it again, just buy one back for a slight premium. I think of it like a storage unit.
- If you don’t want to do the above, look into creating a personal guild just for guild storage. Again, this only works for stuff that isn’t bound and takes some up front work and money, but in terms of cost per slot, it is very efficient.
- Mule characters are a common if cumbersome solution to this. Just create a new character and offload stuff through your bank. Anything you need again later they can send back.
- I would recommend upgrading to 18 slot bags when they seem affordable. Keep in mind you get most of your money back from selling your old bags on the trading post, so don’t worry about settling for something affordable now. There are also some achievements and thing that reward large bags.
- Most vendors have a sell tab with a button to sell all junk. Use this, as there is no other use for those items. Items that mention “this has no value outside of a collection” or similar can also be safely sold to an npc, as they are added to the collection on aquisition. If they are leftovers for renown hearts or similar, just delete them.
- If you have excess for non-ascended crafting components, I would go to the bank and sell off the stack and repeat the next time it gets full. Ascended crafting mats are unfortunately account bound but you can get rid of these with gobblers/converters for a reward if you want to get those.
- If you haven’t already, get familiar with two buttons in your inventory: deposit all materials and compact. The former moves stuff to its dedicated slot in your bank and the latter gets rid of gaps in your bags so new stuff goes to the bottom. The dedicated slot is also accessed for crafting too…
- Rare/yellow gear and below can generally be salvaged (or sold to the trading post) without worry, since they are common enough random drops. There might be some bound gear from your initial character creation, leveling, or achievements that are technically unique, but they are replaceable with much better things anyway. Any unique skins would be granted on salvage/aquisition. Again, you can use the wiki if you want to be sure.
- Comment on Should I just quit urban and social life for a rural and lonely life? 1 year ago:
Congratulations on escaping a bad situation! Stories like this have become all too common, but I think sharing how it gets better does some good. I honestly haven’t given much thought about where I want to spend my golden years, but financial independence is a big goal of mine.
And as for that last part, we’ll have eternity to appreciate the simplicity of death. I wouldn’t be too eager to be done with the world of the living when there’s a lot of cool stuff out there to explore and not much time to do it.
- Comment on Should I just quit urban and social life for a rural and lonely life? 1 year ago:
Without knowing more about your life, this kinda sounds like burnout to me. It is very common is tech fields especially. I would recommend trying to dial back on work if it’s killing your soul like this.
I worked at a high-paying dev job right out of college that consumed my life and put me in a very bad place mentally. I could not sustainably output what I needed to, and evetually I got fired. But walking out of the meeting I could not stop smiling from the tremendous relief I felt (this was when Covid was big so I had a mask on fortunately). It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was unemployed for a few months afterwards which is probably the happiest I’ve ever been. I didn’t travel or do anything noteworthy besides starting a small passion project. Finances weren’t an issue since I had a lot saved up and low expenses covered by unemployment.
After applying to places in no rush whatsoever and stressing my newfound appreciation for work-life balance in interviews, I ended up getting a job at a nonprofit government-adjacent company with full work-from-home and basically no time tracking. I make less but I can go through things at a pace I can handle and it makes a world of difference.
So if you have felt this way for a while I would recommend taking a break before committing to abandoning civilization. People with tech jobs like us tend to have options so don’t feel like it has to be misery or the wilderness. Because I can promise you there are places that will allow you to live as a human being. And it may just reignite your passion too. If you still feel like it after stepping away for a time, you can always escape society more dramatically later instead.
Also, I don’t want to diagnose you or anything when I don’t even know you but there could be some overlap with depression here when you lose passion for life and just generally become jaded at the world like this. Make sure you are communicating how you feel with people you feel comfortable around. Remember that things can always get better, although it sounds like you have been thinking about how to achieve that plenty already. But if things aren’t getting better, you might need to be the instigator for that change so I wouldn’t be afraid to go for it after exploring easier stuff first. Maybe just give camping a shot while you figure this out.
I didn’t mean for this to get so long, but you’re post resonated with me a lot I guess!
