What You've Done Today - Don't do today, what you can get someone else to do tomorrow

[Gfted1]

@Azdeus You should buy little tiny bars of gold and silver. The way I figure it, Im not really spending money, Im simply moving money around. And as a bonus, the fatcats cant get it!

[Azdeus]

9 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

@Azdeus You should buy little tiny bars of gold and silver. The way I figure it, Im not really spending money, Im simply moving money around. And as a bonus, the fatcats cant get it!

I very much doubt many of the companies selling those are above board either, forcing banks to keep handling cash is more satisfying. My deepest wish is that programs such as Swish be banned. On the plus side, I got to act as a bank around here when someone ddos'd the card readers for foodstores. For some reason though, I'm still viewed as a nutter

[melkathi]

First art exhibition was yesterday. Was just one among 43 artists participating, but it was a great experience and got very positive reactions.

 

Uploaded some photos to Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq6EBfXrmbp/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Edited April 13, 2023 by melkathi

[Keyrock]

18 hours ago, Azdeus said:

I very much doubt many of the companies selling those are above board either, forcing banks to keep handling cash is more satisfying. My deepest wish is that programs such as Swish be banned. On the plus side, I got to act as a bank around here when someone ddos'd the card readers for foodstores. For some reason though, I'm still viewed as a nutter

What is Swish?

Regarding banks, it is worrying when some of them start going under then the fed has to bail them out. Oops, that's right, the current administration has assured out that they won't bail out banks any more, so instead it's an "injection of capital" or whatever flowery synonym for bail out they're using these days. Then they feed us the hilarious line that taxpayers won't pay a cent for this. Bull****, taxpayers ALWAYS foot the bill, one way or another, they'll just get creative in how they disguise and distribute said bill.

Far more worrying than that, though, is the potential for our government to leverage this and use it as a scare tactic to get people to buy into a centralized digital currency. We MUST reject any and all attempts to institute a CDC or any steps toward that end at all turns because a CDC has some terrifying dystopian implications. Even if the current administration's aims for instituting a CDC are completely benign (a likely story) that doesn't mean a future administration wouldn't abuse the power and control it would inherit over people's money. Once we allow the government to take away any of our liberties in the name of "security" they will never give them back (see also: Patriot Act).

[Azdeus]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

What is Swish?

Regarding banks, it is worrying when some of them start going under then the fed has to bail them out. Oops, that's right, the current administration has assured out that they won't bail out banks any more, so instead it's an "injection of capital" or whatever flowery synonym for bail out they're using these days. Then they feed us the hilarious line that taxpayers won't pay a cent for this. Bull****, taxpayers ALWAYS foot the bill, one way or another, they'll just get creative in how they disguise and distribute said bill.

Far more worrying than that, though, is the potential for our government to leverage this and use it as a scare tactic to get people to buy into a centralized digital currency. We MUST reject any and all attempts to institute a CDC or any steps toward that end at all turns because a CDC has some terrifying dystopian implications. Even if the current administration's aims for instituting a CDC are completely benign (a likely story) that doesn't mean a future administration wouldn't abuse the power and control it would inherit over people's money. Once we allow the government to take away any of our liberties in the name of "security" they will never give them back (see also: Patriot Act).

Right, forgot to add in the link. It's a mobile payment system, with about 80% of people in Sweden using it. The banks here are doing their damndest to stop using cash at all, so they can rake in even more profits in the end. I'm vehemently against it though and do my best to use cash as much as possible.

[Gfted1]

Huh, I dont have a single cent of physical money on me, havent in years. Aside, imo, physical money can become worthless as fast as digital.

[Keyrock]

3 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Right, forgot to add in the link. It's a mobile payment system, with about 80% of people in Sweden using it. The banks here are doing their damndest to stop using cash at all, so they can rake in even more profits in the end. I'm vehemently against it though and do my best to use cash as much as possible.

There's that, plus the conspiracy theory angle is that digital purchases are easy to track whereas cash purchases are much harder to track. So if somebody wants to know what people are buying, when, and how often, whether it's the government doing the snooping, corporations, or whoever, that's easy to do if everybody buys everything digitally.

[Azdeus]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

There's that, plus the conspiracy theory angle is that digital purchases are easy to track whereas cash purchases are much harder to track. So if somebody wants to know what people are buying, when, and how often, whether it's the government doing the snooping, corporations, or whoever, that's easy to do if everybody buys everything digitally.

That would fit very well into the EU/Swedish plan to mass surveil everything, like "Chat Control 2.0"

[Keyrock]

9 hours ago, Azdeus said:

That would fit very well into the EU/Swedish plan to mass surveil everything, like "Chat Control 2.0"

As far as conspiracy theories go, I think this is a rather plausible one, give that data has become one of the top, if not THE TOP, commodities of the internet era. The data doesn't necessarily have to be used for nefarious purposes, it could just be companies trying to asses spending patterns for sales strategies. Still, I'm not cool with it.

[Azdeus]

51 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

As far as conspiracy theories go, I think this is a rather plausible one, give that data has become one of the top, if not THE TOP, commodities of the internet era. The data doesn't necessarily have to be used for nefarious purposes, it could just be companies trying to asses spending patterns for sales strategies. Still, I'm not cool with it.

Unsurprisingly, I've not met many people at work and such that seem to mind. Most common logical error being "I've got nothing to hide". Most people also don't have a basic comprehension that putting backdoors into encryption makes encryption practically irrelevant. Oh well.

[Keyrock]

31 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

Unsurprisingly, I've not met many people at work and such that seem to mind. Most common logical error being "I've got nothing to hide".

Yeah, that's faulty logic for allowing more surveillance and control. I'm willing to bet that most people have at least 1 or 2 skeletons in their closet. I, myself, may need a bigger closet in the future.

For the sake of argument, let's just assume that Janet, a 17 year old student I just created out of thin air, is squeaky clean. She gets good grades, she doesn't smoke or do drugs, she's friendly to everyone, and she goes to church every Sunday. Janet has no problem with people snooping on her data and having control of her money, plus the current administration legitimately has our best intentions at heart (a likely story ). Their goal for snooping on data and installing systems to control money is to find suspicious activity, for example people buying lots of weapons, ammo, and chemicals that could be used to make explosives, that could be an indicator of a terrorist group. Janet supports centralized digital currency and the measure is pushed through legislature and instituted.

Fast forward 10 years. Janet has made some mistakes in her life, this is a thing that people do. She got in with a bad crowd went down a dark road and did some things she now regrets. She's mostly back on the up and up, but she now has some things in her past that don't exactly portray her in the best light. More importantly, the administration has changed and this new administration has different views and is much more authoritarian. Janet is not a fan of this new administration and is part of a group speaking out against them. Said new administration now has the ammunition (mistakes in her past) to paint Janet as a dangerous individual and the tools (CDC) to freeze her bank account, the very tools she supported a decade earlier. This authoritarian administration has no qualms whatsoever with using flimsy arguments, or even fabricating "evidence" as an excuse to use the tools they inherited to their full extent to stamp out political dissidents.

People don't think these things through. They're fine with giving the government tools of control when people they like and agree with are in control because those nasty people from the other side can be silenced with them. What happens when the people from the other side come into power and inherit said tools? Oops.

Anyway, sorry to get political in this thread. I'm going to a baseball game today.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Keyrock

[Guard Dog]

Feeling pretty good today. Rode the stationary bike for 20 minutes. Been a while since I could do that!

[LadyCrimson]

Pork rind "chips":
Pre-diabetes - "It's like styrofoam, gross, where's the chocolate."
Post-diabetes - "It's like styrofoam fried in lard, but at least it has no carbs - I'll eat the whole bag."

...nothing much going on here, the weather is really nice tho.

[Keyrock]

I went to see the Charlotte Knights host the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (tremendous team name). I guess it's no longer BB&T Ballpark, now it's Truist Field.

Anyway, it was a nice evening and night, minus the rain from the bottom of the 6th until the top of the 8th.

Knights won it 3-2 in the 10th inning on the ol' suicide squeeze play.

Once I got a beer and a half in I got to heckling the 1st base umpire, as you do. Good times.

[LadyCrimson]

When you keep hearing an occasional phone-like notification sound (two-note), kinda loud, in your room but can't figure out what it's from. It's not the phone (checked numerous times). It's not the tablet. Doesn't seem to be the computer or PS4. It's not the old laptop you have plugged in under a desk just to keep it charged/never used (can't imagine why it would make that sound anyway). It almost sounds like it's coming from my purse in one room corner, but there's nothing in that purse. So you do the only thing you can do...ignore it and hope it perm. stops eventually.

...tech ghosts?  

[Raithe]

On 4/14/2023 at 11:47 AM, Azdeus said:

 Most common logical error being "I've got nothing to hide".

Give them the old "You might have nothing to hide, but are you willing to trust the judgement of whatever people manage to get in control of it?"

[Azdeus]

26 minutes ago, Raithe said:

Give them the old "You might have nothing to hide, but are you willing to trust the judgement of whatever people manage to get in control of it?"

I think that'd fly over most of their heads though, I mean... they don't think having neo-nazis in the government is that much of a problem...

[Gfted1]

4 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

...tech ghosts?

You should check your HVAC vents and smoke detectors for pre-existing cameras. Or maybe just the battery is low.

[LadyCrimson]

Feels like every couple weeks I break down all these little boxes to toss in the recycle bin. And every week more little boxes from Amazon show up on the doorstep, where said boxes get tossed on the floor somewhere to sit forever. It is not me, it's hubby and his little hobby parts.

I keep tossing stuff away/de-cluttering as I age, he keeps buying ever more physical stuff. It's mostly little stuff, but it still drives me nuts. Stop buying stuff!

Not that he's entirely alone re: stuff. One issue I still have is wanting to reuse food containers. Can't toss those plastic yogurt/butter/pickle whatever containers, that would be wasteful and they're like free tupperware, or seedling planters, or junkdrawer organizers! Next thing I know I have 20 containers in a cupboard.  I toss some. Then I can't stand to toss out more containers. Repeat. It's my one physical hoarding 'thing.' Got that from my can't-toss-anything grew up on a poor farm, mom. Thanks mom.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Gfted1]

I finally grew enough hair on my ass to take the plunge and open up my laptop to install another 8GB RAM more. I was nervous about the creaking noises that I heard while watching the how to video so I bought myself an iFixit "prying and opening tool assortment" kit and it went super easy! Huzzah!

[Bartimaeus]

Those iFixit toolkits are actually pretty handy, even the most basic one that they sell. Laptops are kind of random as to how difficult they will be to open up and replace a part - some of them it's literally just a matter of opening the outside back of the chassis and it being a dead simple operation, some of them you instead need to open up the middle/inside of the chassis and they drape these incredibly stupid connectors that are tiny and fragile exactly over where you need to get access to that will break with but the most gentle of tugs.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Sargallath Abraxium]

...went ta the oldest grandkid's first Spring Hockey practice today fer the "traveling team"...li'l bugger's first year playin' goalie an' not only did he make the team but he's gonna be the Starter...jus' like Papa was when I was a wee lad...costin' me a small fortune cuz I said when he was 4 that we'd pay fer hockey an' now that he's 8 I's already regrettin' me big yap...Grandkid's be still better, though; feed 'em full o' sugar an' send 'em back fer theys mother ta deal with...revenge be sweet!!...

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

[Malcador]

Refigerator needs replacing, so that's fun.  Tempted to get a Bosch one, given how everyone talks them up to me , and our Bosch dishwasher and washer held up to heavy use for 10 years.  But 4k for a fridge, argh.

[Sarex]

16 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Refigerator needs replacing, so that's fun.  Tempted to get a Bosch one, given how everyone talks them up to me , and our Bosch dishwasher and washer held up to heavy use for 10 years.  But 4k for a fridge, argh.

Bosch gets a down vote from me. My recommendation if you want to spend the money already is either a Liebherr for the EU manufacturer or from the US Subzero (though I don't know if they have mid range priced models).

The new big tech in fridges are the variable speed compressors so take a look if the one you are looking at has that, but the price premium for those is double.

[majestic]

My wife's cousin is driving me crazy. He got arrested some time ago for possession of a large quantity of drugs in Germany, and has recently been sentenced to three years on probation. He is from the Balkan area and his German is decent enough to be told what to work on, but he is ill equipped to read legalese. One of the conditions of probation is that he is to sign up for regular drug testing. He, being the absolute moron that he is, has of course already lost the one part of the document that details precisely what sort of testing he needs to sign up for.

He also asked about this on the same day that was basically the deadline to sign up. Man, that idiot will be the first person to fail probation by being too dumb to sign up for a drug test, not for failing it.