otherbarry
@otherbarry@lemmy.zip
- Comment on Are there any historical or modern day true stories (like the story of The Buddha) of someone born rich and privileged who just walked away from their family and turned down money and an inheritance? 1 month ago:
John Robbins would have inherited Baskin-Robbins (he was the co-founder’s son). Grew up quite well off and could have been wealthy through the rest of his life but he chose to walk away from the company due to all the industrialized factory farming and general animal cruelty surrounding the dairy industry. Back then ice cream was all dairy products.
Eventually Baskin-Robbins itself was sold to a multi-national corp & was then sold/acquired a few more times.
- Comment on Weather in New York City - December to January 1 month ago:
You could use a site like wunderground.com to get an idea of what the weather has been like around that time prior years.
www.wunderground.com/history/weekly/…/2023-12-25
For what it’s worth last few years it’s been chilly but kind of on the warmer side. NYC area hasn’t been hit with a huge amount of snow the last few years either, feels like we only get a few days of snow maybe in January/February nowadays.
- Comment on How do I know if a medical issue should be addressed by a Clinic Visit, Urgent Care, or the Emergency Room? 2 months ago:
For what it’s worth urgent care will definitely tell you to go to the hospital ER if they deem it more emergency related. And of course they’ll still bill you for coming in there to ask them :P
In other words urgent care is not emergency care, if that makes sense.
- Comment on Beyond Shadowgate, the sequel to the console version of Shadowgate, launches on Sept 19th! 2 months ago:
Steam link for those interested store.steampowered.com/app/…/Beyond_Shadowgate
I’m also on that Kickstarter, really happy this one is nearing release. Now wondering if I should be doing a play through of the original Shadowgate before jumping into this one.
All the MacVenture games were awesome (Deja Vu and Uninvited are up there too), don’t worry you’ll get a few upvotes from others that used to play these games :)
- Comment on how does a tote bag work? 3 months ago:
When you carry it by the handle it’s so long that it may scratch the ground
Always assumed that’s a short person problem. Source: Am short, same things happens to me.
Maybe there’s a better way to deal with that but what I usually do is add a knot to each handle so the handles are shorter, that way the bags are higher from the ground.
That’s when using re-usable grocery bags/totes with long handles.
- Comment on UPS has started charging for pickups even if you have a prepaid label 4 months ago:
UPS/FedEx has sucked for a while now, rarely are they cheaper than USPS
Well yeah, USPS should be cheaper. They tend to get bailout money from the U.S. government due to operating at a loss e.g. reuters.com/…/us-senate-approves-50-billion-posta… , UPS/FedEx on the other hand just raise their rates / change services to keep their shareholders happy.
In theory if the USPS was allowed to increase rates as much as any private company then they would be as expensive, if not more, vs UPS/FedEx.
- Comment on UPS has started charging for pickups even if you have a prepaid label 4 months ago:
That sounds pretty typical, didn’t know they used to not charge for a residential pickup.
To be fair businesses that have a FedEx / UPS account and have regularly scheduled pickups do get charged for that. It’s one of the items buried in the bills you get from them every week. Maybe the high volume businesses get it for free, not too sure.
I’d expect USPS to do the same but don’t have any direct experience with their billing.
Where I work we have a similar situation, we sometimes have prepaid FedEx labels but no regular FedEx pickup so that has to be arranged differently on our end. We could pay FedEx their pickup fee if we wanted but we don’t ship FedEx every day so it’s kind of a waste of money, and the FedEx drivers would be coming and going without picking anything up most days.
- Comment on GameStop Shuts Down Game Informer, The Longest-Running Gaming Magazine In The US 4 months ago:
Same here, back in the 90’s had multiple year’s worth of Nintendo Power magazines & later on Game Pro as well. I do remember seeing Game Informer around & sometimes bought those issues but never really got into them. I can’t even think of any friends that had Game Informer magazines back in those days.
TBH I’m kind of surprised at those numbers @GammaGames@beehaw.org posted, maybe Game Informer was a bigger thing outside of the northeast U.S. where I was.
- Comment on What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city? 5 months ago:
Yes of course, I meant as a general idea of what you’d aim to do lacking any other information beyond the fact that the bomb itself fell in the local downtown area (going by the post itself).
Thing is if a bomb dropped in the local downtown most people will not know what the scale of the bomb was, what the design was, how far exactly they were from the blast radius, whether it’s ground / atmospheric, wind direction, all that stuff. In that short amount of time you’d just need to run into the nearest still-standing shelter & figure things out from there.
Hopefully with some extreme luck the bomb would fall just as you were walking/driving past your nearest fallout shelter and can easily get in. Or you’re a prepper and aren’t far from your homemade bunker with supplies, radio, and whatnot.
- Comment on What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city? 5 months ago:
Say there is a nuclear explosion in the downtown of my US city.
If it’s that close you then essentially you’ll need to decide whether to die quick or slow :/
If you’re actually planning on surviving you’d need to stay in an underground bunker or something similar for at least 3-5 weeks to be safe enough to travel outside (and we’re assuming you have clean sources of food/water, bathroom, etc, during that time). If you make it that far then afterwards you’d likely want to go outside & get as far away from the radiation zone as possible.
Coincidentally the basement of my work building actually has a fallout shelter sign from back in the day so the basement might survive a blast but I don’t see how I’d make it 3-5 weeks without being extra prepared for that beforehand.
- Comment on I’ve been locked out of PayPal for years because of their mistake 5 months ago:
the web page essentially accuses me of being a criminal and asks for my bank records. No way in hell.
Yeah don’t bother doing that. All that will accomplish is them gathering even more information on you, they rarely/never actually unlock your account & let you use it again. You’ve been permanently blacklisted on their service, just move on. And honestly you don’t need Paypal anyway.
Similar stupid thing happened to me too I think about 10-15 years ago, I was using virtual credit card numbers that my credit card company was generating for me & Paypal thought that was suspicious enough to close my account & permanently blacklist me LOL.
Fun fact: I did learn over the years that I can temporarily create new Paypal account(s) as long as I don’t use the same mailing/billing addresses or credit cards/bank accounts. But then it’s just a waiting game, they usually figure out it eventually and close the Paypal account yet again.
- Comment on How many people actually want fully on-site IT jobs? 5 months ago:
I’ve been fully onsite basically the whole time, including during the pandemic, for me it’s been fine. Gets me out of my tiny studio apartment and keeps my work life at work. Also free A/C / heating at work.
The commute is also part of that decision making - for me the commute is a long walk outside to/from work every day. All that walking around outside sort of levels me out mentally & gets rid of any stress I had, not to mention the exercise.
- Comment on How does the day-to-day work of not wearing shoes in the house? 8 months ago:
Perhaps you’re overthinking this? In the house you can go barefoot, keep socks on, and/or wear slippers/loafers.
When you go outside you put on shoes.
So yes most people would have a shoe rack or just keep their shoes placed near the door. If you have multiple doors sure you can consider keeping extra pairs of shoes there or some sort of in between like outdoor slippers/something for when you just need to go check the mail or whatever.
- Comment on US Question. Will the people that have to wait until 70 to get Social Security ever get what they paid in to it back out before they die since men's life expectancy is only 77 now? 1 year ago:
I don’t think there is an earlier option for less money
Sure there is, go to the SSA website itself the earliest eligibility is 62
www.ssa.gov/retirement/eligibility
You can also register yourself there & see how your estimates based on when you expect to claim social security.
- Comment on US Question. Will the people that have to wait until 70 to get Social Security ever get what they paid in to it back out before they die since men's life expectancy is only 77 now? 1 year ago:
Could you bear to wait eight more years for the 100%? You’ve already waited 62 years! What’s 8 more?
It’s easy to think that way in your younger years. That’s a much difficult request for people actually in their 60’s, lots of people make it to that age with broken down bodies, various illnesses/prescriptions/whatnot & probably can’t see themselves continuing to do the work thing throughout their 60’s let alone 70.
There’s also the problem of holding down a job at that age, ageism exists in a lot of industries so a lot of these people are first in line for layoffs / taking a massive pay cut from their earlier jobs to being a Walmart greeter or just being unemployed.
But sure… in theory if you manage to stay fit & healthy well into your old age & are able to hold onto your normal job then sure working into your 70’s or more could be plausible.
- Comment on Maybe this isn't proper shopping but $18.50 for four veggie burgers, buns, and danish seems like a lot 1 year ago:
Eh it’s not terrible but I usually only buy those burgers when they’re on sale. But I get it, sometimes you want to splurge a bit.
- Comment on Air Canada changed my flight for the 3rd time, I'm now landing in Toronto 1 hour AFTER my next flight departure. 1 year ago:
Might be a bit more than mildly infuriating.