dhork
@dhork@lemmy.world
- Comment on Meta Censors #Democrat when searched for 15 hours ago:
It’s been a common trick for a long time on the right to equate simple disagreement with censorship, and use that as an excuse to practice actual censorship when they take over.
- Comment on Dragonsweeper: A nicely challenging Minesweeper/roguelike combo 1 day ago:
I have been playing this all night, thanks. I did beat it once so far, now I’m trying to clear the board
- Comment on Why is Tesla market cap so high ? 6 days ago:
The price of very large publically traded companies is set entirely by supply and demand. Yes, those shares do represent a tiny share of ownership in the company, which means a share in the profits and assets of the company. But there is no law tying them together. Tesla’s market value is so high because there are more buyers than sellers, it’s as simple as that.
- Comment on Dunkin' added achievements to their mobile app 6 days ago:
They do it because it works. Not only does it lead to more direct sales, but the app is scraping data that can be further used to generate sales, either to the user directly or sale of their data to third parties. And people who don’t like their habits being gamified will simply not install the app.
How many people are going to say “I refuse to go to Dunkin because they went too far gamifying their rewards program in their shitty app I never use”? Probably close to zero. So, the cost of doing it is whatever they pay their offshore contractors, who probably can’t afford to come visit the US, much less go to Dunkin for awful coffee every day.
- Comment on We got several more inches of snow last night after getting over seven a few days ago. I went to my local newspaper's website to find out if there was anything I should know. This was their top story. 1 week ago:
Yeah, that is more incompetence than I am used to. When we get driving bans and other emergency declarations, the local news will put that crawly thing on the bottom of the screen letting us know what’s up. I bet they get complaints when it covers up the score of the game.
- Comment on We got several more inches of snow last night after getting over seven a few days ago. I went to my local newspaper's website to find out if there was anything I should know. This was their top story. 1 week ago:
I live in an area that gets snow regularly. When we get a storm, there are precisely three things the news can report on:
- When will it stop
- Are the roads driveable
- Are there school or business closings
If there is nothing to report in those three topics, then it’s just another slow news day. Just be glad they’re not making TV news reports about trending Social Media topics, that’s what our local news gets into when they run out of Sinclair propaganda (or Bills highlights) to run.
- Comment on If the United States has Cuba banned from things, how does Guantanamo Bay exist? 2 weeks ago:
slate.com/…/how-did-the-u-s-get-a-naval-base-in-c…
The US took the area by force during the Spanish-American War, and then signed a “lease” with no end date with the Cuban government at the time.
I bet every time Cuba says they want to take it back, the US says “Yeah? You and what army?”
- Comment on There's fucking ads in board games now 2 weeks ago:
where air should be monetized
- Comment on There is a fee to close my HSA account 2 weeks ago:
This is because you are not the customer. Your employer is the customer, they are the ones who get to choose the HSA provider for their employees. You are the goods to be sold. The HSA provider is simply harvesting profits.
- Comment on If investing in the S&P 500 is such a surefire way to make money, then why isn't everyone doing it? 4 weeks ago:
It’s not entirely without risk. 2002 and 2008 both saw the S&P lose over 30% for the year. But it is up more often than down year-to-year, and it is usually up by at least 10%.
I found some good charts here, even though it is a EU site:
curvo.eu/backtest/en/market-index/sp-500
If you are investing for the long haul , you will take the occasional 30% haircut if you can get 10-20% the rest of the time. But it would suck if you got that 30% haircut just before you needed to sell…
- Comment on Why is Trump orange? 5 weeks ago:
Have you ever looked at the makeup that theater or TV performers use? It is layered on super thick, so that it looks good from far away, but up close it looks overly made up.
Trump has been on TV so much that he knows all about that. He wants to project an image of vitality, so he layers that stuff on as thick as he can to mask his natural pallor.
- Comment on FedEx has absolutely no clue what 'economy' means. 5 weeks ago:
I bet there is a hidden lower bound to the size of packages their Economy rate, so you are essentially paying the same rate for this Economy letter as you would for a small box. While the First Class rates have separate rates for letters vs. small boxes.
- Comment on Related to the recent question: A family member has told me that my inheritance after they're gone is for becoming a live-with landlord. Is that ethical? 1 month ago:
Yes, it is possible to be a “landlord” in this fashion and keep your ethics intact. Just don’t be an asshole about it.
Charge a reasonable rent for the other apartment, don’t harass them if they are a fewdays lats with rent, keep the place updated and well maintained. And certainly don’t let an AI tell you what to charge. The best possible situation is to rent to a young person just starting out or a young family, who can use the time renting from you in a non-predatory fashion to build up savings to buy a place of their own, then rinse and repeat. Wouldn’t that be fulfilling?
On the other hand, though, look into the basic tenant law in your ares so you know what you’re getting into. Some locales are notoriously tenant friendly. You might rent out your space to someone who signs all the paperwork saying that they will pay rent, and then when the time comes they never pay. This might persist even after their lease is up, and not move out when required to. But as a landlord, it will be totally your choice to decide what to do in that situation. While the law may allow you to evict that person, you don’t have to escalate that far on day 1. The choices would be up to you. You can choose grace and patience if you want. It may not always be enougn.
Your relative is doing this to give you a sustainable path to a better, more stable life. While this path is not for everyone, it doesn’t automatically make you exploitative.
- Comment on Why are Republicans struggling in Swing State Elections? 1 month ago:
It’s simply because they are not paying attention. And I don’t mean that as a put-down, I simply mean that Trump has their attention, not the broader GOP, nor anything about the government. They don’t care about the GOP Agenda, beyond a few of Trump’s sound bites. Many of them have an inherent distrust of politicians yet trust Donald Trump completely.
- Comment on Is there any point for current US-based "skilled immigrants" to stay in the US? 1 month ago:
The sad part is that the brunt of this will likely be borne by nationals from countries that the US President has officially deemed “shithole countries”. Or, in other words, not white. You only have to look at his “Muslim ban” from last time, and know that he will expand it, to see how bad things are gonna get.
You may think you have some protection if you are a permanent resident. And you may have some protection if you are in a state that will not assist the Federal government in rounding people up. But you will continue to deal with the hassle every time you enter or leave the country. Which state you live in doesn’t matter at the border.
In my uninformed opinion, if you decide to stay, you shouldn’t make any plans to leave the country, because you will never really know if your authorization to stay in the country will be arbitrarily denied while you are away. It is probably better to just leave. We will, unfortunately, not be very hospitable to you for the next 4 years (and maybe longer). Unless you are white. Which is all sorts of wrong. But the way it is these days.
- Comment on Found this while going through old stuff. I'm terrible at chess, but I would play expecting to lose just to watch the animations. 2 months ago:
System 7 Ready!
- Comment on If Orange Dickhead dies before taking his oath again will sucession still be applicable? Like Vance the new pres and Johnson the new VP? 2 months ago:
It has never happened before, so we don’t really know. What I think would happen is that Vance would just get immediately sworn in as the President on Jan 20 if God exercises His Ultimate Veto on Trump’s second term.
But the Presidential Succession Act only covers vacancies for the Presidency. Once the office of the President is filled again, nothing else happens. It’s not like everyone else “moves up” a slot. Mike Johnson would probably see the VP position as a demotion honestly.
The Office of the VP would remain vacant until President Vance nominates a candidate, and then it must be approved by both houses of Congress in order for the position to be filled.
- Comment on How screwed would one be if their email provider shuts down? 2 months ago:
How is Mint internationally?
- Comment on How screwed would one be if their email provider shuts down? 2 months ago:
All my shit is in the Google ecosystem. I am fairly confident that Gmail is not going away anytime soon. However, I am more afraid that some obscure ToS violation will forcibly disconnect me from their ecosystem, and I will have to scramble to make sure all my contacts have my alternate info. I am doubly screwed, as a Google Fi customer. If we all get suddenly degoogled, I lose a phone number that I have had for over 20 years.
As good a deal that Fi is for me (I normally don’t use bandwidth unless I travel internationally), I may switch soon just to reduce my exposure to Google.
- Comment on Why is the word "expat" a thing? 2 months ago:
There is another point, at least for Americans. While I know a few people who have emigrated here and still maintain ties with their original homeland, I know others who have intentionally given up their privileges back home. While they may still be citizens of their home country, they owe them no obligations.
The US is different, they tax your income no matter where in the world you make it. if you are living in a country with a tax treaty in the US, you can fully deduct all foreign tax payments so you will likely end up owing nothing to the US. But you still have to file. And in return for that you retain the right to vote from the state you last resided in. Furthermore, it is quite hard to give up your US citizenship. It can be very costly, because we will make you pay taxes on assets as if you sold them before they let you leave, including any retirement funds.
Americans living abroad are much more likely to still consider themselves Americans first, because we remind them about it every April 15th.
- Comment on How would American culture change if the internet went down? 2 months ago:
Right, I think without the Open Internet, we would still be getting fast broadband, but likely tied to your Cable or Telco provider’s network, and things that are currently websites would have to arrange for a presence on each network they want to do business on. And they would probably meter access, just like they do with your electric bill, or your cable company does with a basic tier but then paid access to anything important.
- Comment on How would American culture change if the internet went down? 2 months ago:
I think we need to differentiate a bit between “no Internet” and “no open Internet”. I have just enough grey hair and health problems to remember what life was like before the Internet really took off: you dialed into your ISP, like Compuserve or AOL, over a land line, and were charged per minute. And those services couldn’t really talk to each other. But back then, computers also ran at 10 MHz and couldn’t fit in your pocket.
So there was even connectivity back then, it was just very limited and each ISP had to provide it’s own information, because they didn’t really talk to each other. The same technological advancements would have happened over the last 50 years. Computers and networking would have gotten faster, cell networks would evolve to handle data and be more efficient, and broadband access to everyone’s home and office would have happened. But if the Internet didn’t happen in the open way it did, with an emphasis on open standards, its entirely possible each major media company would have had its own network to subscribe to, and it would be a lot more expensive.
But would that really be bad? Would social media really have eaten our brains if we paid for it per minute?
- Comment on In the US, what is stopping people from bribing members of the electoral college? 2 months ago:
Two reasons:
First, in many states the electors are bound by law to support the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state. The penalties may vary, but the intent is clear: to make sure people realize it is against the law in that state.
But the second reason is that each campaign actually picks their own electors ahead of time. So it’s not like the state has one set that will vote either way, and who can be persuaded. All of the state that votes for Harris are sending electors their campaign hand-picked, and likewise for Trump. So each side is sending their own very partisan people, whose political success is tied to their party. Violating that will ruin their political career in that party.
- Comment on How many Nintendo Switches do I need for a family of gamers? 2 months ago:
You only really need an account to get DLC, but I suppose it’s necessary these days. If you only have one switch for the family than you can make that account yourself. The kids would not have to have their own online accounts until they want to pay for their own content. (As I recall, Nintendo requires additional verification steps for accounts for under 13s, anyway).
And one thing I forgot is that if there are DLC/digital copies active on a primary switch, all accounts can use it. So you can install those and anyone can play. Then, if they ever get their own devices and let you log in and download all that content, they will be able to use it, subject to phone-home provisions. Unless they buy their own copies on their own accounts – then they will be able to use the DLC without phoning home.
- Comment on How many Nintendo Switches do I need for a family of gamers? 2 months ago:
We got a switch when it first came out, that was the only switch we had as a family for a while. It was shared just like any other console. Games like Mario Kart are just as playable on one switch as they are on prior platforms, if you buy more controllers.
Eventually, as the kids got older, we got them switch lites so they could play games on their own. Physical cartridges are definitely sharable, the only catch is that (of course) you can only play one copy at a time and some games have an online/group play component that you can’t experience with one cartridge. So, for instance, Animal Crossing has one island per switch, so if you have two switches in the household you could swap the cart back and forth and both switches can play the game by swapping the cartridge, but characters from one can’t visit the other unless both games are running at the same time. We have bought an embarrassing number of Animal Crossing carts.
Digital copies are tied to a Nintendo account. You can only have one “primary” switch attached to the account. That Switch will be able to run the games on the account without phoning home first. If that account is logged into other switches, they do get access to the games, but only if the switch has internet access to validate that the game is not being played by any other switch on the account. (I ran into this issue whe I wanted to play the BOTW DLC on a second switch on an airplane; I ultimately had to create a second account to buy it a second time on that switch to prevent it from phoning home).
Digital copies also download the entire game into storage, while physical copies have the game in cartridge ROM and much less is stored locally. Getting a Digital copy of a large game might fill up most of your storage. Thisnis why I prefer cartridges, especially now that my kids are older and don’t lose them anymore.
Hope this helps!
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 2 months ago:
I call that “God’s ultimate veto”
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 2 months ago:
That assumes there are no shenanigans with those elections. I believe we will have them. We’ll just have to see how fair they are.
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 2 months ago:
We will know that is happening if there is ever a real movement to abolish the UN Security Council, or at least the permanent seats that have veto power. Until then, the US will always have that power.
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 2 months ago:
Maybe I can pump another 10x out of my Crypto portfolio and retire early.
- Comment on What are the next steps for Americans to help prevent the worsening of genocide in Palestine? 2 months ago:
Sorry to break it to you, but you can’t.
There are a few remaining checks and balances on other issues, and the Democratic Party might be able to use its minority in Congress to strategically delay certain things. But foreign policy is entirely in the President and Congress’s domain. And while Republicans in Congress sometimes have internal bickering that derails their agenda, I expect Trump and Congress to march lock-step on this one. (Their marching might even be a bit like a goose step, come to think of it.)
