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Azdeus

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Posts posted by Azdeus

  1. 2 hours ago, Malcador said:

    Given that his memories are probably BS from what Alt says, I'm not sure Johnny really did all that much.

    That's pretty much beat for beat from the Firestorm adventure from what I recall. Granted, it's been 15 years or so since I read it, but I don't think I misremember that much.

    Edit; I would probably put less stock in what Alt says to be honest, she wasn't present in the flesh in that attack,

    Spoiler

    she was bits and bytes by then and I seem to remember Spider Murphy slicing her bits and bytes and sending them across the net and hopefully ctrl+c and ctrl+v her together again 😄

     

    • Like 1
  2. 4 hours ago, Raithe said:

    I would say it is much better in terms of look and setup. The stories getting a little more mashed up to change mediums from the book to something that can be filmed for tv without a 14year contract.

    It's done some things I like, some things I don't like.  If you approach it from a "it's not the books directly, it's another version of the story several turns of the wheel different" it works quite nicely.

    There are so many things that they do different that are outright stupid though, that drives me nuts, which is the biggest problem for me. Sure I jested about how they came to Tar Valon from the wrong direction and stuff, but that was mostly because I was making fun of myself. Sceneries and such things I really liked, I honestly loved the skyscraper mountains and details like that. And then they made Perrin the most unlikeable character in the cast with that wife of his.

    It's not so much that they've changed some things as that the changes they did make made absolutely no sense to me and felt pointless. The episode 8(Iirc, trolloc army stuff), the fu? You can't burn out in a circle... Also, Egwene has no talent in healing. Why change that, isn't it enough with all the amazing other things she does?

    And while I can take changes/merging characters and such things, I simply can't stand them changing laws of the universe. It's not so much several turns of the wheel different then, but you break the world that was built. As a gamemaster it grinds my gears when a storyteller does things like that. Hacks.

    • Like 1
  3. 45 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

    What happens if the employer fund tanks?

    Well, Alecta that handles my employers pension fund invested in Silicon Valley Bank, so they lost 600 million dollars. Soooo that money is gone. Unless I misremember things they ditched Swedish Handelsbanken and some other bank for SVB just a couple of months prior.

    Edit; I misremembered, 600 million is just what they lost from SVB investments, they also lost an additional 1.4 billion on other bank investments that they made. They have mange over 100 billion dollars though, so it's "marginal" according to them.

    • Like 1
  4. 8 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

    Ok, "pensions" sound just like 401k. Now for some unsolicited advice, DO IT! Its probably something like; the company will contribute a certain percentage up to a certain percentage that the employee contributes (for example, $1 for every $1 an employee contributes up to 3% of their salary, then 50 cents on the dollar for the next 2% of an employee's salary). It doesnt sound like a lot but it has three strong benefits; #1 its pretax, #2 the company matching contributions, #3 its making money for you. It will start out like a pea rolling downhill, then gain mass as it progresses, finally becoming a large self sustaining money printer. You have the benefit of youth so now is the time to get on board. I wasnt kidding about my retirement funds outperforming my employment earnings and since its tax exempt I honestly dont even notice the 15% missing from my check.

    You don't get to determine how much of your wage gets offset for the pension fund, that's regulated via collective agreements and the government. What you can do is fiddle around with the specific funds that your money is placed into, high risk, low risks, specific stocks and things like that. You can save privately for pension aswell, but that is your net wage one is talking about. If it wasn't for the fact that the union is ****blocking me and my coworkers we could get a 1000$ raise (The wage of a yard jockey working in the harbour is about 1000$ higher than what I earn) and the fact that the ****ing government privatized my employer (Leading to not having access to much better pension funds) I could have afforded to spend 15% out of my pocket to save for pension.

    There is a guaranteed pension that you get based of the tax one which is, today, about 1000$ per month. Which honestly isn't survivable, it definetly won't be survivable considering the sociopolitical and environmental ****storm that is going to hit even way before I'm able to access my pension money. Around the 2050's, this will likely be a true newsreel

     

    • Like 1
  5. 8 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

    This sounds similar to Social Security.

    And this sounds similar to 401k. But neither earns interest or invests in stocks? It just a flat "you get out what you put in"? Pensions were phased out long ago here in the US.

    There is interest atleast, but it varies with age from what little I know, between stocks and just plain interest, and if you show any interest yourself you can make some changes in what funds to choose and stuffs like that. All I know for sure is that I have to work full time until I'm 80 before my pension is the same as my rather pathetic wage is.

  6. 28 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

    European companies dont offer 401k or similar? What happens after retirement?

    Dunno about the rest of Europe, but here a part of your taxes gets placed in state run funds, the employer pays a part of your wage into another fund and then you can save privately aswell if you're well off enough.

    I honestly haven't bothered looking into it, my pension is at 300 ish dollars so I'm going for the Gyttorp special pension.

  7. On 10/10/2023 at 7:11 PM, InsaneCommander said:

    I somehow decided to give Shield Hero another chance. The first episode looks a lot better than the previous season. Let's see how it evolves from here.

    There is one thing in the series that elevates it to a ten for me, the use of a Swedish song as the sombre music for Raftalia when shes heartbroken.

    • Like 2
  8. 38 minutes ago, Sarex said:

    How does that work in a populated area though?

    It's for transfers between terminals, i.e. from Gothenburg to Stockholm, Malmö, Örebro, Jönköping and such. So mainly it's for highways, though there are a few roundabouts to navigate, but as far as I know they have been rebuilt recently to allow longer vehicles to cut through the center part a bit.

    Like this

    • Thanks 1
  9. 2 hours ago, Sarex said:

    My employer is going to start running a new combination soon, it's not as impressive as the land trains, but fullsized truck with container pulling a dolly with a link followed by a trailer. The bottom combination.

    1632835886187.jpeg

    I doubt many drivers are happy about this, but they have nothing to complain about since they're not the people that are going to have to finagle this combination together, that's my job. I get a headache thinking about how much work it's going to be, I ****ing hate links.

    We're not pulling 98 tonnes though, since parcels aren't that compact or heavy generally speaking.

    • Like 2
    • Sad 1
  10. 17 hours ago, Gromnir said:

    that makes more sense, though one wonders how azdeus coworkers recognize comedic sign language efforts, unless they is all well-versed in sign language. 

    HA! Good Fun!

    Mostly because she's quite bemused, and sometimes confused, by my attempts, and some of the teasing is directed at me from giving her more attention than other drivers. I learned today that she doesn't read lips either since she's only ever really used sign language in school and in private. Thankfully (For me) she's good at shaping words, so I can read her lips more than try to follow along her blisteringly fast signing, since I'm hearing impaired I've always used lip reading as support for my bad hearing.

    That said, with the exception of three coworkers, 9 are young enough that I could've been their father without breaking any laws. Edit; Thankfully, they aren't childish enough to make fun of someones disability, except ribbing me a bit when I can't hear what the F they are yabbering about over the radio. 😄

    • Like 2
  11. A deaf girl has started to drive for my workplace, and I've been hanging around her when she shows up to make sure she's ok, since I know a teeny lil bit of Swedish sign language unlike my colleagues. I feel bad for her when something is broken and her hands are full of grease and her only way of communicating is her tapping out messages on her cellphone. Naturally, merciless teasing has begun. 🙄

    And I've to both of our amusement noticed how much of an automatic action it is for me to turn down the radio when I stop to talk to a driver 😄

    It does sometimes fall into David Armand territory for me though 😅

    • Like 5
  12. 7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

    The indifference accusation is incredibly rich, really. I'd bet most people aren't even aware what the conflict is that has killed the most people in the 21st century- it isn't Iraq, or Syria, or Ukraine. The only way the vast majority of people would notice would (have) be(en) if the the coltan spigot had got turned off and their iPhones started costing $100 more.

    It's hard to make people aware of something when there is an information blackout though. Iraq, Syria and Ukraine had/has loads of images and videos come out, journalists weren't being kept out of the area and kept it in the news cycle. And people seem to not read news anymore as much as watch it, and a talking head with scant few still images is less likely to draw attention(Or views if you want to be crass) compared to the barrage that you can get from other places. Same thing with Chinas genocides, not considering that any real action against Poohs actions are likely to quadruple the price of said iphones.

    • Like 2
  13. 3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

    I've always been a fan of Volvos. I don't get to drive one, but I do get to drive a Mack Anthem, which is the next best thing from what's available here in the states IMHO. One feature that I really like on Macks is that they have a 2-stage accelerator pedal where if you push the pedal down further past the first "stop" it will temporarily drop you down a gear and change to more aggressive shift points on the automatic transmission. That's super handy for pulling hills when you are loaded heavy and more than makes up for the fact that Macks have the controls for going into manual mode and manually switching gears on the center console rather than the steering column, given that 95% of the time I would want to manually switch gears would be to drop it down a gear earlier than it would on its own to help pull a hill.

    That reminds me of the time I got to shotgun one of my driver friends in his Volvo FH16 750 dual clutch edition, granted he only had 33 tonnes loaded, but that truck went smoother up an 11% incline than my car does, I noticed the shift more from the change in sound than anything else, amazing stuff :)

    • Like 1
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