I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people

Tinfoil hat theory would be that the evil leaders of real life (the ceos, the billionaires, etc) are planting the seeds so that if their plans fail and a revolution comes, they won’t be summarily executed

This one is appealing in that they refund the fee even if it’s from some other bank. So you can go to the ATM at the corner shop that charges $3 to withdraw, and get that refunded at the end of the quarter. Most banks don’t have fees at their own ATM, but this is no fees anywhere. For rich people.

I think i meant smart phone. Apparently cell phone adoption was in the 60%+ range in 2005

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

Oh yeah I forgot about that. One of the banks here refunds ATM fees if you have a minimum balance of $2500 (and waives the monthly fee if you have $25,000). Like, my guys, the people who don’t have money need that fee waived a lot more. But the bank just wants to make money and that means appealing to rich people.

Sometimes I get mad about how we in practice have basic income for the rich. If you have a few million dollars, you can park it in zero or low risk investments (eg: high yield savings, bonds) and get free money. Then you can just fuck off and pursue your dreams. No risk. Lots of reward.

But if you’re poor? Well you better take any job for any salary or you’re just a parasite blah blah blah. All pain, some risk, little reward.

All other things aside, 20 years is a long fucking time. 20 years ago we barely had cell phones. The iPhone was 2007 I think.

My monthly food bill is typically around $120.

• A lot of beans or other canned vegetables: $30
• Bread: $5
• Peanut butter, $8
• bananas: $10
• rice: $10
• Other fruit that’s on sale: $10
• Some fresh vegetables (usually onions, broccoli, peppers): $10
• Flour: $10 (may last more than a month)
• yeast: $5
• Seasonings: $5 (also lasts more than a month)
• Cheese: $5
• Tomato sauce: $5
• Pasta: $5

I got laid off a while ago so I’m trying to make my dollars go farther. When I had a well paying job, I’d also buy more stuff, but nothing too crazy. I miss hummus the most, I think. I never buy soda.

The other day I was with someone and we decided to order food like old times, and it was like $40 for two of us. I was like, fuck, that’s a third of my whole month’s budget right there. But I don’t want to live like a monk all the time.

At one of my past jobs I wanted to institute a “put a dollar in the jar” rule every time someone made a useless bug report.

“The site is down” -> dollar in the jar.

“I’m trying to access the site via the public internet in firefox 136.0.3, and I’m getting a 500 on [request], and then the whole page is blank. Here’s a screenshot.” -> good

Sometimes people don’t know. Sometimes they don’t care. But if there’s no consequences, people aren’t going to change. And if they’re not going to change, at least we can do a team lunch every week with the jar full of money.

will humanity ever learn to stop acting like dumb angry monkeys?

Seems unlikely.

As to your broader point about the tools themselves not being bad, the root problem remains capitalism, or “a few people have unaccountable power over many”

I feel like the current AI stuff has been net negative. It prompted layoffs and hiring freezes, but then didn’t produce quality results.

Oh I remember this post. I remember being surprised to see The Courtneys on the list. They’re a fun band. Did a nice live show when I saw them, once.

The original or the remake? I think the original is more solid overall, but the remake has some fun stuff.

Did you know in the original, you can get more than one support effect on a spell if you have more than one copy? I only learned this like last year, despite playing the game when it was new. So you can do like

[ Ultima + MP Absorb ] [ Ultima + HP Absorb ] [ Ultima + Quad Magic ] in your armor, and when you cast ultima it’ll Absorb HP, MP, and cast four times.

Also that will freeze the game on the 2nd to last boss.

I believe so. Otherwise you’re testing memory as well, which would make the results very confounded.

I can’t find the one I did, but https://www.varsitytutors.com/6th_grade_reading-comprehension-problem-440865 seems free.

https://www.k12reader.com/subject/reading-skills/reading-comprehension/6th-grade-reading-comprehension/ also came up.

I think 6th grade is reading for plot. Just a basic plot with a few characters. No complex themes. No unreliable narrators. Limited vocabulary.

I found an online test for it somewhere and it was like

“Sally was born in Canada and lived there until she moved to the United States when she was thirteen. She spends summers in Canada with her aunt and uncle, but spends the rest of the year in Boston. This year, she’s graduating from high school and planning on attending college. She wants to see more of the country, so her top picks for college are in California and Chicago.”

“Where does Sally live during the winter?”

“Where did Sally spend her childhood?”

“Where do Sally’s aunt and uncle live?”

You’re not going to find as many people who read badly on a majority text platform like this.

I think I remember some doge goon asking online about using an LLM to parse JSON. Many people don’t understand things.

One of the many things being a cheapskate protects me from.

Sparse areas have other costs. Like, you can’t get anywhere without a car, there’s fewer jobs, less social stuff. Cities have much higher potential on most metrics that matter.

I think a lot about a post I saw that said “you hate every piece of capitalism but refuse to connect the dots to see that picture”

no different than taking a bunch of books you bought second-hand and throwing them into a blender.

They didn’t buy the books. They took them without permission.

Lots of people don’t get anything resembling a speedy trial in the US.