memfree

memfree , 13 hours ago

I have my TV, sound system, and computer all in my living room. They all use the same amplifier and speakers. Would that work for your situation?

memfree , 26 days ago

You are confusing the stats. You can't talk about the total U.S. population with any of these numbers.

Rather, if you look at the subset of 30 states that report who is a registered Republican/Democrat, you can get a count for those states: 35.7 million R/45 million D. Also 32.5 Independent, but no mention of non-partisan or unaffiliated. It also does not include alllll the people who aren't registered. It also excludes all the folks who aren't letting anyone know they have a gun.

memfree , 25 days ago

Yeah, I don't know many people who end up with two guns and stop there. One gun? Maybe. After that, it gets like they need friends.

One of the silly 'tests' of what makes for a REAL Alaskan is to have more guns than mammals living in the house. My non-scientific casual survey concluded that to be fairly accurate, and would probably apply to several other of our more rural states as well (REAL Montanan, etc.). Side note: dog mushers keep their dogs outside, so the stat held for them, too.

memfree , 2 months ago

I'm one of the old people. I WAS a speed runner. About 40 years ago, I got a union job as a cashier. The customer put their items on the belt, the cashier scanned the items, and the bagger sorted the items and put them in paper or plastic bags. Cashiers were required to memorize the produce codes and process at MINIMUM 30 items per minute. The timer ran from the moment you unlocked your register to the moment you relocked it or opened the drawer. You would leave your register locked while the customer started putting things on the belt. You greet them and make a mental note of what sort of items are where while the belt brings the load to you. Once the belt is at least half full, you'd unlock the register and start grabbing and scanning items in a fluid motion that passed them over the scanner and on towards the bagger -- sorting as best you could as you went. As soon as you were done, you'd hit 'total' and lock the register until the customer was ready to pay. You'd help the bagger and chat while this happened. Then the customer would hand over cash or check (they were just starting to do credit and debit in grocercy stores so those weren't common), so you'd unlock the register, take their payment, open the register and get change. Your best speeds were always going to be for express checkout (10 items or less), but there is a cruel loop in that because managers schedule fast people for express, but you won't be as fast unless you get scheduled there.

As I recall, we didn't get to see our items-per-minute until the end of the day -- not per-transaction, but it was still fun to see who had the best scores.

As a customer, I NEVER use self-checkout because: 1) I'm not working if you aren't paying me, and 2) every time I've tried to use self-checkout, the machines could never, ever keep up with me. Sometimes the issue was the bagging area was trying to weigh things, sometimes the scanners themselves were bad/slow, and sometimes ... I don't know, the dang machines are just barely working? Anyway, it is never worth it for me. Additionally, I find it better to do my own bagging than to allow anyone else to do it.

Side note: The typical bagger can not bag as fast as a cashier can scan because they have to wait for: cans on the bottom/bread on the top, frozen in one bag/lettuce no where near frozen, detergents and chemicals by themselves/pet foods also by themselves.

memfree , 2 months ago

It depends on the weather and the cost. I remember when gas stations offered "full service" or "self service". Full service cost more per gallon, but in addiction to pumping gas, they cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and wiper fluid levels, and might even put air in your tires if they were obviously low. If you wanted it done for you, you paid more. Seemed fair. These days, gas is cheaper in New Jersey than surrounding states, so you pay LESS to have someone else take care of you.

memfree , 3 months ago

When asked for my favorite color or song, I figure the person wants to talk and is looking for a way to start (or continue) a conversation. Maybe the person is just bored and looking for something to talk about. Maybe they are hoping I wax rhapsodical about how how awesome my song is and my detailed evidence proving why all must acknowledge its true greatness. Okay, strike that last bit. No one wants me to go one that long.

memfree , 3 months ago

“tell me something you accomplished or learned this year”

That's gonna sound hostile to a good chunk of people. Rather than asking 'what', it demands 'tell me'. Next, it supposes the other person be accomplished in act or learning. It is the difference between saying, "How you doin'?" and "Prove you are worth my attention."

memfree , 3 months ago

Not new, but I use my electric blanket as a foot-warmer all winter long. It is more properly a 'throw' since it isn't big enough to be a blanket. Using it now. I can keep the heat lower as long as my feet are toasty.

memfree , 3 months ago

I generally agree except I try not to shop Amazon. For stuff like this, monoprice is my jam.

memfree , 3 months ago

Good point.

Well, if you ARE in the US, here's a sample 2.1 cable for $5

memfree , 3 months ago

If you trust this source, it turns out that it is pretty easy to see your camera feed even if your camera is off: https://techxplore.com/news/2024-02-camera-hackers-spy-cameras-walls.html

I read about it on lemmy, too. I guess I -- or one of us -- should have cross posted it here from its .world source: https://lemmy.world/post/12081766

Edit to add excerpts:

Results vary on how far away someone would have to be in order to eavesdrop on these different devices. For some, a peeping Tom would have to be less than 1 foot away; for others, they could be as far away as 16 feet.

For consumers, Fu says a plastic lens cover might not be guaranteed to protect you—infrared signals can still get through them––but it is a good first step to battling this kind of cyberthreat.

memfree , 3 months ago

Rather than a TV, I just have a Roku box that I plug into my TV, and it had the same issue. I started it up today and was met with a box that said something like, 'By clicking this, you agree to the updated terms' -- and there's no option to VIEW the terms, the users simply must agree to them or they can't use the box. I wish I had a small child to click through this junk for me (without me knowing or seeing it) because it seems unreasonable pay good money for a 'thing' and then have the maker arbitrarily and unilaterally pull a Darth Vader, "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

Maybe we should get congress to require companies to fully reimburse consumers for this tactic.

memfree , 3 months ago

I do not remember seeing that option, so I don't know if I missed it or if they added that later. It is good to know there is a way to see it, though.

memfree , 3 months ago

I think it is getting downvoted because most things you buy (like toasters and shoes) can be used once you buy them. Nothing keeps you from continuing to use them after purchase. Even with computers, you agree to the OS license on purchase/install, and then you get to keep using it. At least historically, if a new update has a new license, you could refuse the upgrade and keep using the old version. For recurring payment items like monthly subscriptions, it makes sense that you can't keep the original terms, but for one-time purchases, you should not have to change what you bought unless they are willing to take it back for a full refund.

memfree , 3 months ago

Uuhh, I do the same as Schmidt and leave the food out. It works fine NOW, but let me tell you about when it failed. I've had different cats for decades and never had a problem until my current cat, who was listed at the shelter as 'shy'. They told me she'd escaped people multiple times and they'd only managed to get her out of the walls the previous day (after she'd been hiding in them for over a week). She was adult, but small and thin and harboring a deep hatred for being confined (she isn't 'shy', she's extremely willful). We brought her home and she immediately found a hiding spot behind the oven, near the food and water that was out for the finicky older cat. For the first week, the only way we knew the new cat was still in the house was because we'd wake up, find the cat bowl empty and a big pile of cat vomit on the floor. We'd clean up the vomit, fill the bowl, and generally leave the kitchen alone as much as possible. After that initial week, the cat figured out that there would always be food. She would not starve. She did not need to gorge, and gorging was not comfy. Eventually she came out and accepted her new 'family'. She continued to over-eat a bit too much for several months, but she settled on a chunky weight and has stayed at it for several years now.

Now I have a theory: I suspect that cats who experience food insecurity are far more likely to gorge themselves, and may never stop as long as they suspect their food supply is limited. If you want to test that theory with your own cats, I would be interested in hearing the results.

memfree , 4 months ago

1. People were fine buying actual-paper news even though it was filled with advertising.
2. When cable TV started, several channels (but not all) were ad-free, and you paid a price for the cable bundle.
3. Those ad-free channels quickly started airing ads because: why not? Also: there used to be a limit on how many ads could air on broadcast TV, but that regulation was lifted. Ads became inescapable.
4. With the advent of the internet, people suddenly had to pay a provider to get to a web page that also had ads. This mirrored buying the (still available) newspapers. When speeds surpassed early dial-up, they briefly started coming in with sound, too. That was too far.

---

Already burned by cable-TV's massive surge in advertising, there was no way you were going to get the average consumer to put up with ads AND pay for an internet provider AND pay extra for content. Now that we're also getting tracked everywhere by every marketer, it is increasingly hard to ask consumers to pay for content when the real money is selling eyeballs to marketers.

Who to blame? I'm going to blame legislators for reducing the upper tax brackets. In the 40s and 50s, the upper brackets were over 90%. That meant you could get rich, but not extravagantly filthy rich. As a basic philosophy, one could figure it as: someone making a massive excess in funds was probably exploiting something the government was either already providing or was going to have to pay for later, so... let's just collect that revenue now. Note that during the same period, businesses were only taxed about 30-50% for the higher brackets, so if you owned the company, you might leave funds there, invest in the company itself (a write-off), and take a smaller salary since it would otherwise get eaten by taxes.

Anyway, if you have progressive taxes with extremely high rates on the upper end, then people (and companies) can't amass the same power. They are less able to bribe and corrupt everything. The government has more funds for roads, schools, and enforcement agents for things like food-safety and port-controls. This does, of course, presume people have some reliable new sources that are reporting which government individuals are crooks and liars, and who has which of them in their back-pockets. Now that we've burned that all down, I'm not sure who is willing to give us a readable summary of what bills are being written, shelved, and voted on by whom -- but we need that information to get in the hands of an educated populace who will vote for flawed-but-generally-honest people that will act on behalf of their constituents first rather than a handful of rich funders.

memfree , 4 months ago

I'm not old enough to remember him personally, but I do remember the 80s when FM Rock stations still played The Doors and Led Zeppelin incessantly. Back then, there was a syndicated radio show that -- for one episode -- broadcast interviews with the surviving band members. I distinctly remember the tone of voice (though not the exact words or quantity) of one of them saying, "I saw him take threee huuundred micrograms of acid" (at some location). Sounded angry and astounded just on the retelling. I think that's also where I heard bandmates talking about Jim pleading out to a possession charge and being required to do public service announcements instead of going to jail. He was a jerk about it. The PSAs were grouped as "Speed Kills" and he was supposed to hammer that home, but was ruining each take, saying things like (but not exactly cuz I don't remember), "Speed kills. Smoke pot, instead!"

From my personal view of his music, we had all The Doors albums in my house when I was growing up, so I'd heard them all. For reference, we also had Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, some Beatles, Rolling Stones, and other stuff like that.

I think Jim Morrison had a tight band behind him and wrote some decent lyrics. I think 'Light my Fire' was over-played and other songs should have gotten more attention. I do, however, appreciate that each band member got to solo on that, and the song's greatest weakness is that those solos get cut for airplay. It isn't even that the solos deserve special attention, but the song is too short and repetitive without it.

memfree , 4 months ago

Three links to the same story: letter recommends referring to all students as “they” and “them” to avoid “gendered pronouns” like “he” and “she.”

• https://scoop.upworthy.com/teacher-maliciously-complies-with-dont-say-gay-bill-to-use-they-them-pronouns-for-all-kids
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dont-say-gay-he-she-sabotage-teacher-letter-moms-for-liberty-florida_n_62489f02e4b0587dee6a3a1a
• https://news.yahoo.com/memo-circulated-florida-teachers-lays-234351376.html

'Unrelated' Aftermath:

• https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/11/03/florida-teacher-fired-for-using-gender-neutral-title-mx-in-class-materials/
• https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/12/13/teachers-florida-pronouns-lawsuit/

memfree , 4 months ago

Note that teachers have an open lawsuit. Specifically:

• 1. The initial letter was signed, "Thank you, Mx. XXXXXXXXXX"
• 2. Florida teacher fired for using gender-neutral title Mx.
• 3. That teach and two others challenged the law in federal court, arguing the state’s laws on titles and pronouns is unconstitutional.

memfree , 4 months ago

It should be illegal for Utilities to become for-profit. They should either be government run or non-profit, but only in the business to provide a needed service and NOT to make money.

For clarity: By 'Utilities', I mean items for which local residents have little or no choice in the provider (power/electric lines, water/sewer lines, hospitals) AND which either are or are nearly essential for modern living (it'd be hard to get a job without it, OR social services might take your kids if you don't provide the item).

memfree , 4 months ago

Agreed!

memfree , 4 months ago

I can cook and clean at home. I'm not giving people money to make me do work.

If I am at a restaurant, I am either extremely tired or celebrating something. If I'm tired, I don't want to get up or do anything. If I'm celebrating Grandma's 88th birthday with her kids and their spouses all 60-75, I don't want any of THEM to have to clean plates while trying to navigate their walkers with their shaking hands and aching backs. It is enough that they made it to the restaurant. Don't make them work. Also, I want to be with them, but if we had the crew to clean up after the whole family, we would have stayed home. We paid the restaurant so we'd have less work to do.

memfree , 5 months ago

Amen, brother. I LOVE parrots. I WANT to have them as screaming, demanding, insanely destructive friends, but it feels cruel to force them to live with humans. They care about their mates and their flock and humans are bad, inattentive partners for parrots.

If a human insists on avian friends, I'd suggest a small set of chickens outside in the yard. They are very domesticated, not endangered, and can rely on one another for most their socializing needs. You can even put them in diapers for visits in the house. Before considering, beware that all kinds of predators want to eat your pet chickens.

memfree , 5 months ago

I've done ducks. They are a lot of work. They're very messy, but have big personalities. They are adorable as ducklings but once they are grown you are -- at best -- just another duck to them. They don't want human affection if they have a flock. Geese, on the other hand will love you as MOM forever if you raise them from goslings. The lady here with domestic turkeys has some very affectionate examples, too, but I remember a book where the author raised wild turkeys and was attacked by one of the Toms once it was breeding age.

memfree , 5 months ago

Archive link: https://archive.fo/UG1wQ

Some excerpts:

One example was a news site called Worldtimetodays.com, which is littered with full page and other ads. On Wednesday it published an article about Star Wars fandom. The article was very similar to one published a day earlier on the website Distractify, with even the same author photo. One major difference, though, was that Worldtimetodays.com wrote “Let’s be honest, war of stars fans,” rather than Star Wars fans. Another article is a clear rip-off of a piece from Heavy.com, with Worldtimetodays.com not even bothering to replace the Heavy.com watermarked artwork. Gary Graves, the listed author on Worldtimetodays.com, has published more than 40 articles in a 24 hour period.
Both of these rip-off articles appear in Google News search results. The first appears when searching for “Star Wars theory” and setting the results to the past 24 hours.

There are a few different ways to use Google News...
...search by “topic,” such as “artificial intelligence,” “Taylor Swift,” or whatever it is you’re interested in. Appearing in topic searches is especially important for outlets looking to garner more attention for their writings on particular beats. 404 Media, at the time of writing does not appear in topic searches (except people, funnily enough, writing about 404 Media, like this Fast Company article about us and other worker-owned media outlets). As in, if you searched “CivitAI,” an artificial intelligence company we’ve investigated extensively, our investigations would not appear in Google News, only people aggregating our work or producing their own would.

memfree , 5 months ago

Any opinion on using startpage.com?

memfree , 5 months ago

They got mad at her when an item was missing out of a 4-bag $80 order (they unbagged and checked everything there on the counter).

That one seems valid. That person got burned before with the staff not bothering to do their job and were NOT going to short their friend whatever item(s) the staff kept for themselves. Sure, you can say the counter girl didn't do the bagging, but she's the one that the customer is supposed to tell, and it is hard not to be angry when you've paid for stuff and you're getting shorted -- AND there's almost surely another person relying on you to get it right this time. It shouldn't take so much effort to just get the stuff you paid for.

memfree , 5 months ago

... but they WEREN'T doing their job. I've been a counter cashier at a burger joint. Most of the job was getting the order correct and taking in money properly, but I also has to to things like add extra relish packets and see that I was giving them the correct food. That's the job. You give the customer what they ordered. That is the EASY part. The hard part is dealing with the people trying to scam you with bill-switching/wrong-change schemes (though I suspect those are less common as fewer people use cash now).

memfree , 5 months ago

That's true, but I don't know how much of a stink was made. If someone is unbagging everything at the counter, they've probably been burned before, so I can see some reason to take a harsh tone -- enough to show they're tired of the BS. If, instead, they started throwing things and screaming obscenities, yeah, that'd be an overreaction.

memfree , 5 months ago

That'd require the child be home, first. Mom was worrying because he hadn't come home from the bus and no one was picking up the phone at the school or the bus company. I'm going to guess that getting into the house would have been noticeable because calling the cops was not mom's go-to move -- and they proved her prioritization correct by being useless.

memfree , 7 months ago

One of -- if not THE -- primary causes for attraction is proximity. If you see someone often, you are much more likely to become attracted to them. Family members and 'unavailable' people such as those already married are typically, but not uniformly, excluded.

After that, we tend to be initially attracted to pretty people with symmetrical features, good health, and of a similar social status (we are also attracted to those of higher social rank, but they will tend to self-select themselves to be less frequently proximate as well as rejecting overtures from potential mates of lower status). That still doesn't matter as much as frequent exposure to someone. Ideally the exposure occurs when you are both in a good mood. Bad moods make for less attraction. We also like people with whom we share common interests, habits, and so on, such that more similar people are more likely to become attracted to one another.

So, yeah, 'friends' are generally going to trigger psychological cues of attraction in any group. Most everyone has to deal with such feelings and quash them when appropriate. Some people have a hard time dealing and either pursue when that makes them creepy or they fail to respond when the feeling is mutual.