spongebue

@spongebue@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's been downhill since 2020⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It was kind of a meme that 2016 sucked. Then Trump got elected at the end and everything magically got better for everyone and we all lived happily ever after.

  (Do I really need to include the /s here?)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  • they are cable-less, thus need to be charged separately

  I’ll give you that, but my bone conduction headset lasts a few days with the amount I use

  • they are cable-less, thus it is easier to lose them

  Meh. I’ve put corded earbuds in my pocket and probably worn them out faster that way. Bluetooth headsets I tend to leave on (much to my wife’s annoyance) and that makes them last longer in my experience.

  • bluetooth implementation is a potential security vulnerability

  Aha, that van outside must be tapping into me listening to The Dandy Warhols! I knew it! (In all seriousness, if security is that critical you probably shouldn’t be doing whatever it is over WiFi, which is pretty much unavoidable with a phone)

  • transmission by radio will always be less energy efficient than transmission by wire

  Are we really talking about saving energy here? That’s like… Moisture in the bucket levels. Not even a drop in the bucket

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Choose a house with 1 extra room, courtesy of your WFH savings.

  You’re not totally off-base there

  An itemized cost paid straight by your employer will have the effect of encouraging them to waste less of your time with a commute.

  When WFH is an option. Where it isn’t (eg, the sandwich dude)…

  They might try to hire locally, might pay for moving expenses, might keep you out of rush hour traffic, might be worried about keeping you late such that now you’re driving on overtime, might actually align their concerns with the planet’s by reducing all the oil going literally up in flames to transport people around to do knowledge work in a cubicle.

  I have a really hard time seeing this actually happening in practice, especially on low-level jobs. Or people who live with their family (of whom others work elsewhere). Or when you say “hire locally” I say “can’t get a damn job in my field because I don’t live nearby and moving would take my wife away from her job”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My brother got arrested for a dime bag. His picture got put up on the jails website. And they advertise. So shouldn't my brother get paid at least a little for providing clicks?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, any law is only as good as people following it (and enforcement for violations)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My brother got arrested for a dime bag. His picture got put up on the jails website. And they advertise. So shouldn't my brother get paid at least a little for providing clicks?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Jail rosters are generally public information. I live in a fairly blue state with a lot of prisons (Colorado) and can look up any prisoner in the state system online.

  Part of the thinking is that if it were secretive, the government could just disappear people (rightfully a concern with ICE right now) without anyone knowing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  From a financial perspective, and IF one does make significantly more, I guess maybe.

  From a relationship perspective, using my 2x 30 minute commutes for workplaces an hour apart example, if I had to take two additional hours out of my day away from home every work day, while my partner had to take 2 minutes… Woof. Even if there’s a perfectly logical financial reason that’s hard not to feel resentment over.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re talking about giant differences in location (cross-country) which, of course, would need some hard decisions to be made. I’m talking about realistic compromises that may have to be made between a couple with very different work locations in the same general area. When I talked about Lincoln vs Omaha, NE, those two cities are an hour apart. But could be a 30-minute commute in opposite directions for each. Maybe one person works in downtown Chicago, while the other works in the O’Hare airport. Maybe people work in two different boroughs of NYC. If the employer incentived an employee to live nearby, what about their family who works across town? Things crumble apart with that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Coming in hot with my personal financial situation, eh? Nice. For what it’s worth a major reason I was able to buy the home I have is because we’ve been here over a decade - bought just as the crash started to recover. The last thing I want to do is take a “fuck you, I’ve got mine” attitude but that doesn’t mean I can’t point out giant issues with ideas people are coming up with. You’re welcome to pick apart those arguments, but if you feel the need to go after me personally instead, maybe you should think about why that is.

  Like when you bring up taking location into account for an office location. I live on one side of the metro area, many of my coworkers live elsewhere. Take a company with enough people working somewhere, and their “average” location will probably end up near the middle of the city - more than likely a downtown area. Which brings us right back to where we started.

  What’s more, everything you say may theoretically work for one person going to one workplace from one home. What about a married couple who work in entirely different places? If one person has a job in (for example) Omaha, NE and the other in Lincoln, that couple could conceivably live in between those two cities and each have a sorta long but doable commute. If a company were to “provide a benefit like a subsidized loan for property closer to the work” (you mean like a mortgage?) that would not only be insane for that random shop with 3 employees (not all business owners are automatically in the <1%) but it would put that employee’s partner at a disadvantage by making them have a longer commute.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Because I’m talking about different things: paying for commute times for jobs that could be done at home, and paying for commute times in general.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, I agree with a lot of what you said but also we haven’t had any federal minimum wage bumps in a decade and a half. States that follow federal minimum wage haven’t exactly kept their cost of living frozen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Arguably there is an average commute time baked into the wage already along with other expenses people have in life. I’m not sure it needs to be itemized out as its own thing.

  And this also assumes an IMO flawed assumption that working from home is entirely expense-free. I have a decent work area in my home. If I didn’t, that space could be used for another kid’s bedroom. Or a craft room for the wife. Or a dedicated Lego room. Or a sex dungeon. Maybe some of those things can be paired up with an office easily enough, but that’s my choice, not my employer’s. Plus there are other day to day costs, like the electricity to run my equipment, the Internet connection I probably would have had in the 21st century but technically don’t have to, heating/cooling costs… You get the idea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The implication of this is that if that job can’t be done from home, it’s not theft. So the guy making pretty decent money in an office job that could be done at home should get compensated for their commute, but the sandwich artist making far less should not because that can’t be done at home?

  And before we start saying that everyone should have their commute compensated, that has a lot of baggage to it too. I live in the suburbs. I chose to live there knowing there was a trade-off between having more house for the money, but also spending more time in my car to get anywhere. If I were searching for a job, I wouldn’t want to be passed over for it because of the longer commute time I was expecting to have from my own choice in where to live. And let’s say I decided to move 3 hours away to be closer to my in-laws or something. But don’t worry boss, I’ll keep working here! I just won’t be in the office for more than 2 hours a day unless you want to pay me overtime. That’s… A little ridiculous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, so we have a lot effed up in our system right now and I’m not trying to discount that. But this is like high school economics level stuff when I ask…

  At $150/hr, you could afford to buy a an average home with a years pay.

  Between the lowered supply of creating houses (in that it becomes more expensive to produce a house because everyone is getting paid a hell of a lot more) and the increased demand for housing because everyone has a bigger number in their bank account… Do you really expect that housing prices would just… Stay the same?

  I’m also curious when any society at any point in history has been able to sustain decent housing with about a year’s worth of wages?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The “wat” increases as this post goes on

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should you look for a relationship if it feels like a compromise?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like you value alone time and independence but also want some sex - even just casual sex. Honestly, I don’t see a problem with that on the surface; just because the norm is committed, heterosexual, monogamous, cisgender, same-race relationships doesn’t mean everyone has to follow that, so long as your boundaries (and theirs) are clear and agreed upon with anyone you get involved with. You may have a hard time finding someone looking for something similar, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong - just different.

  The one thing I’d watch for is making sure you don’t see women as a source of sex and that’s it. Not saying you would, but what you describe COULD be a starting point for that kind of mentality, which is not a good place to be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  More like you’ve gotten in the elevator fart-free with someone many times before, but then they planned to fart next time without telling you. We all know who did it, the problem is that the other person wasn’t aware that what happens in that elevator ride was going to change because they kept it a secret until the doors shut, and then there was no way out

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So by that logic, everything they do is public, whether they talk about it or not?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Public now. Secretive at the time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨👁️🐽👁️⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Boy, after getting a notification with this reply I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what I could have possibly said to spur it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨👁️🐽👁️⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So what you’re saying is, my eyes are also lungs?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I beat the roaches in this house?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I had a minor but very noticeable infestation a few years ago, I’m guessing from a used blender I bought (picked up from someone at a not very nice looking apartment). Tried all kinds of things, and what finally made it go away was Advion bait gel and a general understanding of where they like to be. Just a tiny dab in lots of places. Obviously start in the areas you see them most, but my understanding is that they don’t really like open areas. So put a tiny bit in every little corner, crack, and hole you can find. From what I remember, roaches will eat their own after they die, which means they’ll ingest that bait gel and one “dose” will cause a nice chain reaction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There are definitely people learning a second language being accused of AI slop.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah. If I’m learning a new language, I’m going to speak like a toddler at first. I’m more likely to be accused of that than an LLM capable of long paragraphs giving minimal accuracy about stuff

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah… So for those of us more or less forced into a car-dependent city plan, EVs are pretty awesome and much better for the climate than an ICE car. But they also take a different mindset than the gas-powered cars we’ve spent decades living with.

  Muddying the waters with irrelevant comments like that, things not specific to EVs at all, doesn’t help any. Yes, it happens, and yes, it’s creepy. I even posted on the old site about how to disable it on my car (same username, feel free to check my posts). But when you add in stupid stuff like that, you’re not helping anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you really think that or are you looking for an opportunity to make a statement?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, volts and amps are apples and oranges. Home electric circuits mostly run on 120 volts, but some bigger things like stoves and central air run on 240 volts instead. Amperage is the other piece of the puzzle. Wire sizing is largely based on how many amps the circuit can carry. Multiply the two together, and you get watts. Divide that number by 1000, and you get kilowatts.

  My car’s battery has a capacity of 65 kilowatt-hours, meaning it can run 65 kilowatts for an hour, 1 kilowatt for 65 hours, 13 kilowatts for 5 hours… You get the idea. Same idea goes for charging. My 240V 40A charging setup (which runs on a 50A breaker) can give almost 10 kilowatts of power, meaning my battery will be charged 0-100 in about 6.5 hours. A regular outlet gives about a kilowatt and can do it in about 65 hours. But before you think that’s useless, remember that you can easily plug in daily and if you only use a fraction of your battery each day, it’s no big deal at all!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How much do you drive in a year? What kind of car are you looking at?

  For the average driver, a 120V (normal) outlet on a smaller car is actually perfectly fine most of the time. If you think you might get a bigger car, or multiple EVs, you may want to look into a level 2 setup. And while you’re at it, use thicker wires so you can run more power through it. But don’t feel like you have to go overboard. I think the sweet “buy once, cry once, hard to come up with a situation where this isn’t enough” number is a 50 amp 240V circuit running a 40A charge cord (always charge at 80% of your circuit rating, max).

  But if your panel can’t take it or you want to do it cheaper or whatever, a 20A 240V circuit is on the lower end of the level 2 spectrum and it can still do a lot… Like, more than double that “average driver” amount for level 1. And here’s the fun part: everyone is so afraid of 240V and think it takes special wiring or whatever. It really doesn’t. I’ve got a 240V air compressor outlet on a 20A circuit, just like what I suggested a minute ago. It uses the exact same wiring as the 120V next to it. The only difference? It’s connected to two “opposing” hots with a double breaker (not terribly more expensive) rather than a single hot on a single breaker plus a neutral as you’d see on 120V. All you need to do is wrap the white wire (usually neutral) with a colored (not green, that’s ground) electrical tape to indicate that it carries current. Do it on both sides. Easy peasy, up to code, and uses really affordable wiring.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t forget the 80% rule! Because those ratings are made for shorter periods of time drawing electricity, and cars usually charge for hours, you need to charge at 80% of the circuit rating. So really you’ll charge at 120V x 12A =1.4kW. Not only that, but if you have anything else on that circuit you need to leave room for that too. My car defaults to 8A on level 1 unless you tell it to do 12, in which case you get just under a kilowatt.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that number is a bit off. Yes, there is overhead when charging a car to run its battery management system, heat losses in the wiring, etc. But it’s not 20-30% of the ~kilowatt of power you’d run through level 1. A quick search says that 20% loss is at the higher end for level 1 (probably 15% on the lower end) but even level 2 has about a 10% loss.

  The bigger issue is that level 1 just doesn’t have nearly as much power as level 2. Most cars charge at level 1 at 8-16 amps. Most level 2 setups charge at a few times that, plus the voltage is doubled so the total power ends up being about 10x as much. But that’s not to say everyone needs that power either. Honestly, for the average driver it’s quite easy to make level 1 work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The solar industry is full of parasites because it's easy to sell solar to uneducated customers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you know where to start with something like that? I’m pretty handy, love working with electrical stuff, and live in a very sunny area (Colorado)… But I am also afraid of heights and have a really high roof on my split-level house. Is there any reasonable way to buy the material, hire out anything that involves a ladder, and do everything on the ground myself? I always thought it would be pretty much all or nothing (DIY vs having it done) but now you have me thinking…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wyoming launches first state-backed stablecoin on seven blockchains⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been there, I think. The place is real but everything inside of its borders and the borders themselves are not.