howrar
@howrar@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Why do some laws exist if everyone is expected to just break them? 6 hours ago:
It’s not just a matter of others getting butthurt. It’s actively dangerous to be driving at a different speed from the rest of traffic, regardless of whether you’re going faster or slower.
- Comment on How did a simple phone call become so problematic? 2 days ago:
You get a play/pause and even the ability to seek. Lucky you.
- Comment on How did a simple phone call become so problematic? 3 days ago:
Not once have I had a usable voice mail UI. Forced to go through 10 seconds of menu between each message to delete and select the next one, and 90% of them are people just hanging up after realizing they hit voice mail. Then the few times I do get an important message, I have to replay the full message multiple times to transcribe the number I need to call. No seeking, no ending the playback after I’ve passed the bit I needed, often terrible audio. Why do you do this when you have my email?
- Comment on [deleted] 5 days ago:
The Q anon vibes probably come from the claims that a small group of powerful people taking advantage of their position to direct the world in an undesirable way.
I’d say that the main difference between the two is that the video you posted says “person X says they want to do Y”, whereas QAnon is more like “person X secretly wants to do Y”.
- Comment on Costco union representing 18,000 workers authorizes nationwide strike 1 week ago:
Stop scanning your card for a few visits and report back.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Or throw the can of soup into a blender
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
I’m pretty sure those were given as examples and not an exhaustive list.
- Comment on Anon tries to learn Japanese 1 week ago:
That would be a fair assessment if someone presents you with the two choices and you choose to ghost. But often what happens is that you just completely forget that the app existed. The question of cost never even comes into play.
- Comment on Is it ok to clean my humidifier with H2O2? 2 weeks ago:
I don’t know if the H2O2 is going to cause any problems, but if you have one of those ultrasonic type humidifiers and you do manage to dissolve the black goop, turning it on will just toss that goop onto all the surrounding surfaces.
- Comment on iykyk 2 weeks ago:
It basically comes down to finding the longest chain of carbons, then you number each of the carbons on that chain and list off things that are attached to that carbon. For example, 1 carbon = methyl, 2 carbons = ethyl, etc.
- Comment on Look Ma, No Batteries! Hands On With Lenovo's Self-Charging Keyboard 3 weeks ago:
Unlike conventional batteries, supercapacitors have an exceptionally long lifespan, lasting hundreds of thousands of charge-discharge cycles, whereas lithium batteries typically last only five years or less.
So, what’s the conversation rate between charge-discharge cycles and years?
- Comment on This is the life I dream of from my cubicle 4 weeks ago:
Writing with this thing sounds difficult because most of us write with our fingers. Proper writing technique is all arms since that allows you to write much more without fatigue. So as long as your elbows and shoulders are intact, you can just duct tape a pen to your stump and write just as well as you can with a hand. Think of writing on a chalkboard, but scale it down to a piece of paper.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 4 weeks ago:
Yes, you’ve already said this but it doesn’t answer the question. Repeating yourself won’t change that. What I asked when I originally responded to you was why the simpler alternative of renting at cost isn’t acceptable. So far, you’ve told me
A tenant never gains anything once the terms of the lease expire […] as long as the price of rent is a positive number.
[…] Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.
Which can mean any of the following:
- There are no costs associated with renting so at-cost is 0
- You are not aware of what there is to gain from renting over owning
- You do not need those benefits yourself and therefore no one else does either
- You disagree with the concept of money being an abstraction for physical goods and human labour (There’s something special about owning home equity that is different from having the money to buy that same equity and that can’t be translated to a monetary value?)
I’ll rule out #1 because you also said
Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals.
Which means you do acknowledge the existence of a cost to rental units.
So what is it that you don’t agree with? Is it one of the things I’ve listed, or did I miss something?
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 5 weeks ago:
Can we keep the context of what we’ve previously discussed instead of rewinding the conversation and repeating ourselves? I thought we agreed earlier that it’s fair for tenants to pay for expenses related to usage of the home and it makes sense to distribute that over time across all tenants.
[…] Imagine being the tenant that moves in just as the roof needs replacing and getting hit with a bill in the tens of thousands for a roof that you’re only going to be using for a year or two.
Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals. […]
It sounds like you understand now how that number comes about and why it isn’t zero, right?
[…] I’ve already told you I don’t agree. Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.
[…] What’s this business about itemized bills to make them fair if the bills are zero?
Landlords don’t do that. Until they do, they’re parasites. […]
Did I misunderstand what you’re saying here? I understood it as meaning that an itemized bill for your rent with the ability to negotiate in order to come to a fair deal for both parties is sufficient condition to qualify as non-parasitic.
You can’t convince me that a landlord can provide potentially multiple properties worth of value over the span of a lease
Nor would I ever try to because I don’t believe they do either.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 5 weeks ago:
We’re not talking about what they currently do though. The question is what they should do in order to be fair and non-parasitic. Where the threshold lies between parasitic and non-parasitic.
So far, I understand that you’re convinced ownership is necessary if any payment is involved. What I don’t understand is why*. We agreed that people should be paid for their labour. What makes home rentals special in that regard?
- Mainly to understand how a system with such a rule can make sense.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
I wouldn’t be trying to convince you of it if you agreed, would I?
What’s this business about itemized bills to make them fair if the bills are zero?
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
We already agreed that market rate is too high. What I’m trying to convince you of is that there exists a non-zero positive value that is reasonable to charge someone as rent. It sounds like you understand now how that number comes about and why it isn’t zero, right? How to ensure that the deal is fair is a whole other matter. The point is that such a deal exists.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
The fact that many of these expenses don’t occur monthly is precisely why most people prefer having them split up and paid over time instead of being billed at the time of the work. It makes for much more predictable expenses, and we like predictability.
Imagine being the tenant that moves in just as the roof needs replacing and getting hit with a bill in the tens of thousands for a roof that you’re only going to be using for a year or two.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
Right, so that makes sense then. We don’t need an exchange of physical goods to make a fair exchange because labour and expertise has value. And ownership is not a service that merits payment. We agree on both of these points.
Renting out a home doesn’t have to involve any work on the part of the owner, but it can. Think of all the work you need to do as a home owner and that you wouldn’t need to do when renting. These are the services you get.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
Sorry, I’m having a hard time making sense of your must-transfer-physical-object stance. How do you have a functioning society without services?
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
once the terms of the lease expire
I feel like this is the main point of contention. No, you’re left with no new physical assets after spending that $1. But why is that a problem? Not everything is about physical possessions. If you purchase a meal and eat it, you’re left with nothing at the end of the meal. If you pay someone to move an old couch out of your home, then you’re left with nothing after they’re done. If you pay a taxi to drive you home, you’ve again gained nothing physical at the end of the transaction. But in all these cases, you’ve gained something, or else you wouldn’t spend your money there.
When you pay a landlord for shelter, you’ve exchanged some sum of money so that you’re protected from the elements and live to see the next day. Similar to buying a meal and eating it.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
Right, because the system is broken.
Exactly. So what’s not to understand? A broken system means problems exist, and you can do things to compensate for those problems. Things that provide value to others. Now, we can go into what it means to “need” something and whether we ever actually “need” anything, but that’s a whole other discussion and not the one we’re here to have. In this context, “someone needs to do X” means that doing X provides value to someone else.
It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.
Co-ownership refers to the ownership structure, doesn’t it? I’m talking about the threshold you proposed for the landlord-tenant relationship to not be parasitic.
the landlord ends up with more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).
And I’m saying it doesn’t have to be that way. Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant? And if you set it to market rates, then it benefits the landlord. There exists some middle ground between $1/month and market rates where it’s a net neutral.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
I don’t understand what you mean by this. No one needs to rent anything to anyone, if resources are distributed fairly.
But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.
If a renter pays the same amount of money as the landlord pays towards their mortgage, and the renter has paid rent for as long as the landlord has paid the mortgage, the renter should have as much equity in the property as the landlord does.
That’s a rather arbitrary rule. You would still need a bunch of stipulations on top of that to make sure it’s fair to the renter.
Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?
Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right? My definition of parasitic requires being a net negative to the “host”. The threshold between parasitic and non-parasitic is at net neutral for both parties, and we’re discussing where that line is.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 month ago:
People who don’t want to buy a home at that location would still need a place to live. Someone needs to rent it to them. Until someone comes along to create government housing or whatever, this is the best we can offer as an individual.
On the topic of transferring equity, how much is reasonable equity? Why not rent at cost instead of charging more and giving it back in a different form?
- Comment on Pro-tip for this capitalistic hellscape 1 month ago:
I imagine they would have the same eating experience as those mini shrimps commonly used in Chinese cooking. Meaning, great tasting but very unpleasant texture due to the shell.
- Comment on I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store 1 month ago:
I’ve been picking them up religiously after I found out I missed Frostpunk. The only ones I’ve played were the big names like Control, Death Standing, and the old Fallout games. For everything else, the client doesn’t give you enough information to decide if it’s worth your time or not. I keep having to go back and forth between Epic and Steam to read reviews and the “similar to other games you’ve played” thing. It’s not worth the effort.
- Comment on Binary search 1 month ago:
It sounds dumb, but if the footage was on tape and not easily seekable, then I can see that happening.
- Comment on how do you workout when you don't have much time? 1 month ago:
My workouts are organized such that on any day, the order of the exercises is also their importance. So if there’s ever a need to cut things short, I still do the same workout but I’ll cut it short somewhere in the middle.
If I know what I’m losing a whole workout somewhere, then there’s one of two things I can do. If my body is well recovered, then on the last workout before the break, I’ll bring the intensity way up with lots of myo-reps and drop sets and increase the number of sets. If I’m in need of recovery, then I don’t do anything special and just treat those days as a deload.
The question you should be asking is what you’re trying to achieve with each element of your workout and how important it is for you. For example, what do you get out of stair climbing that you don’t from running-walking or stretching? If there isn’t anything specific, it may well be that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do something. Consider also what your body might need recovery from. For example, does running hurt your joints? If so, then maybe use that opportunity to take a break from it.
- Comment on Woman, 95, left lying on cold pavement with broken hip for five hours as 'not a priority' 1 month ago:
You seem to be using a definition of “available” that’s different from everyone else.
When they say “available”, it means someone who is not actively doing something. A paramedic who’s tending to another patient is not an available paramedic.
- Comment on human anteaters 2 months ago:
We need people like you as health inspectors.