frostycakes's recent activity

  1. Comment on Death to nickels in ~finance

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    It even varies within a city, there's quite a few shopping centers around the metro where I live that are special redevelopment districts with an additional sales tax that's to pay off the...

    It even varies within a city, there's quite a few shopping centers around the metro where I live that are special redevelopment districts with an additional sales tax that's to pay off the redevlopment bonds.

    Plus, some places have asinine setups. Here in Colorado, sales taxes are remitted to each individual county and city, in addition to the percentage that goes directly to the state, instead of sending it all to the state and having them handle distribution down to the city and county level.

    4 votes
  2. Comment on What's your favorite music album to get high to? in ~music

    frostycakes
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    Like many here, I've gotta go back to my college stoner days for some full album recs. Total Life Forever - Foals (this has a chill indie vibe, but isn't like, soporifically slow) We Are the Night...

    Like many here, I've gotta go back to my college stoner days for some full album recs.

    • Total Life Forever - Foals (this has a chill indie vibe, but isn't like, soporifically slow)
    • We Are the Night - The Chemical Brothers (if you haven't watched the video for Salmon Dance before, it's one of the most delightfully silly music videos out there)

    This one is absolutely going to date me (at least even more than the prior two did), but:

    • pretty much anything in the early Pretty Lights discography - especially the 2010 trilogy (Making Up a Changing Mind, Spilling Over Every Side, and Glowing in the Darkest Night), or Filling Up the City Skies.

    • All Hour Cymbals - Yeasayer

    • Like Drawing Blood - Gotye (he's so much more than the one hit wonder he's seen as here in the US, and is excellent stoned music)

  3. Comment on [SOLVED] Is there an easy way to tell if a laptop has USB-C charging? in ~tech

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I had an Asus Transformer 2 in 1 (running Windows) that had USB-C, but still charged through micro USB only. My current Zephyrus G14 also only supports USB-C charging through one of its ports,...

    I had an Asus Transformer 2 in 1 (running Windows) that had USB-C, but still charged through micro USB only.

    My current Zephyrus G14 also only supports USB-C charging through one of its ports, does not support passthrough (so no using it while charging on USB-C, only the full barrel port adapter), and relatedly, only supports a max of 100W through the USB-C port (the barrel port adapter supports up to 240W, and I'm pretty sure it comes close when gaming since the dGPU has a max power draw of 90W alone).

    It'll work in a pinch when traveling (and not doing anything but the lightest of gaming), but it's not reliable for regular use.

    However, I think most of that is a limitation of gaming laptops in particular-- my partner has a Lenovo Thinkpad that came with a stock 45W USB-C charger, and that is the only means of charging said laptop. It still will only charge off of one of the ports, though.

    1 vote
  4. Comment on Are you tech-savvy enough? in ~tech

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    Seriously. In what world is Android comparable to a desktop distro, when countless businesses use Android devices in production for real work every day? Even throwing shade on desktop Linux is...

    Seriously. In what world is Android comparable to a desktop distro, when countless businesses use Android devices in production for real work every day?

    Even throwing shade on desktop Linux is misguided, as if RHEL and SUSE Enterprise don't exist. Lowe's even spins their own custom in-house Linux distro that runs on everything the business uses. I worked for them in college, and the two Windows machines in the whole store were in the department that did custom kitchen and bath orders and the paint mixing machine, as they used software that was Windows-only and did not run well on WINE (and I think the mixer had hardware driver issues too, as the computer was embedded in the whole machine and was not networked).

    I have loads of non tech-savvy coworkers who have zero issue using the Zebra devices (running Android) we do lots of our jobs through, and on a personal level, my mother is about as tech-inept as it gets, and she's had no problems running Android phones (and has not had any malware issues or non-hardware related failures, and I, like many of us, act as family tech support) since she first switched to one from a Blackberry (which she did have a few issues with over the years).

    2 votes
  5. Comment on Who's afraid of Hasan Piker? in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    Counterpoint: Ethan Klein is a Weaselly Little Liar (this is not a Hasan video, fwiw) I don't think Ethan Klein is the person you want to push, given how he reacted to a creator going through the...

    Counterpoint: Ethan Klein is a Weaselly Little Liar (this is not a Hasan video, fwiw)

    I don't think Ethan Klein is the person you want to push, given how he reacted to a creator going through the "content nuke".

    13 votes
  6. Comment on Grammar errors that actually matter, or: the thread where we all become prescriptivists in ~humanities.languages

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    Is it odd that I've always thought the 'to be' dropping comes off as very British to my American ears? I can't say that I've heard or seen that all that often here. I'm in agreement though, the...

    Is it odd that I've always thought the 'to be' dropping comes off as very British to my American ears? I can't say that I've heard or seen that all that often here.

    I'm in agreement though, the language quirks that bother me feel involuntary. I don't say anything, naturally, but I can't help but cringe whenever, for example, I hear '-or-' in a word pronouced like 'are' (so 'horrible' sounds like 'harrible'), even though that's a dialect/accent difference, not grammatical.

    4 votes
  7. Comment on Only about 40% of the Ted Cruz "woke science" US database is woke science in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    The more I find out about him, the more he looks like an absolute ghoul hiding behind a doctorate and $10 words. Siskind should have never been a practicing psychiatrist, and I feel for any of his...

    The more I find out about him, the more he looks like an absolute ghoul hiding behind a doctorate and $10 words. Siskind should have never been a practicing psychiatrist, and I feel for any of his former patients.

    (He did stop practicing a few years back, right? I hope he's no longer actively practicing, at the least.)

    2 votes
  8. Comment on Only about 40% of the Ted Cruz "woke science" US database is woke science in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    It's ridiculous how many people, even on Tildes, want to carry water for Siskind and his pretty awful beliefs. I'm with you in that he really shouldn't get airtime here, but the techbroification...

    It's ridiculous how many people, even on Tildes, want to carry water for Siskind and his pretty awful beliefs. I'm with you in that he really shouldn't get airtime here, but the techbroification (even if it's just due to the ridiculous preponderance of tech-employed people in the userbase) of Tildes makes that a nonstarter.

    4 votes
  9. Comment on Trade tariffs tomorrow and now US President Donald Trump is jockeying for Canadian water. Americans, what's your take on this? in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I guess we're going to have to develop a taste for yaupon tea if we want untariffed caffeine. Luckily it doesn't taste bad (it tastes very similar to yerba mate IME, which makes sense as it's a...

    I guess we're going to have to develop a taste for yaupon tea if we want untariffed caffeine.

    Luckily it doesn't taste bad (it tastes very similar to yerba mate IME, which makes sense as it's a pretty close relative), but it's definitely different from coffee.

    1 vote
  10. Comment on The US "Ice Cream Truck Song" is rooted in racism in ~music

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I had to do some digging to find what my local ice cream trucks played (Denver area), turns out it's Red Wing. I didn't know there were any other ice cream truck songs before this post, even.

    I had to do some digging to find what my local ice cream trucks played (Denver area), turns out it's Red Wing.

    I didn't know there were any other ice cream truck songs before this post, even.

    2 votes
  11. Comment on She didn’t get an apartment because of an AI-generated score – and sued to help others avoid the same fate in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    And we wonder why a homelessness crisis exists. People's need for shelter should outweigh any desires on the part of landlords who are accepting state subsidies for tenants. If they don't like it?...

    And we wonder why a homelessness crisis exists. People's need for shelter should outweigh any desires on the part of landlords who are accepting state subsidies for tenants.

    If they don't like it? They should throw support behind state owned and operated public housing again then, and let the scummy investor class go back to playing with solely market rate apartments. It's the cost of not having a robust public housing system, and it's the landlord class who should bear the brunt of those negative externalities, not the tenants in need, regardless of why the tenants are in said financial situation.

    4 votes
  12. Comment on She didn’t get an apartment because of an AI-generated score – and sued to help others avoid the same fate in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    We're talking about people who are definitionally the former here, as they have subsidized housing vouchers. Credit scoring should be prohibited when you have a tenant whose housing voucher...

    We're talking about people who are definitionally the former here, as they have subsidized housing vouchers. Credit scoring should be prohibited when you have a tenant whose housing voucher guarantees that income will be coming in to the landlord, period.

    6 votes
  13. Comment on She didn’t get an apartment because of an AI-generated score – and sued to help others avoid the same fate in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I mean, if you're a landlord accepting subsidized housing vouchers, that seems like a criterion that should not be used. It's not as if one is going to be in a good financial situation when...

    I mean, if you're a landlord accepting subsidized housing vouchers, that seems like a criterion that should not be used. It's not as if one is going to be in a good financial situation when they're eligible for said vouchers, and the whole point is to house those in need. Defeats the entire purpose, IMO.

    It's sickening that the desires of these landlords outweighs the need to get people into housing, especially with subsidized vouchers that they choose to accept.

    6 votes
  14. Comment on She didn’t get an apartment because of an AI-generated score – and sued to help others avoid the same fate in ~society

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    Seems odd, as credit cards would be the first thing I'd let fall behind in a situation where I needed to make rent and had to choose a bill to not pay on time. Hell, I have had to make that exact...

    falling behind on credit card bills is a strong marker for a risky tennant

    Seems odd, as credit cards would be the first thing I'd let fall behind in a situation where I needed to make rent and had to choose a bill to not pay on time. Hell, I have had to make that exact choice when I was out of work and a new job ended up starting months later than it initially was slated to.

    Using credit card debt alone does not reflect the fact that people will pay rent/mortgages before almost any other bills they have. I had to default on a credit card in my situation, but my rent was paid on time and in full during that entire time. I'm fine with the fact that it took a long time to be able to qualify for a credit card again afterwards, but why should the fact that someone prioritized their housing payments in a tight situation be used to determine that they're a bad tenant? Makes zero sense, once one digs below the surface.

    11 votes
  15. Comment on Is ADHD really that debilitating? in ~health.mental

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    As someone who was diagnosed and medicated as a child, don't be so certain of that. I still could never finish my 4 year degree (granted, there were outside life factors on top of the ADHD that...

    But if I had been diagnosed and medicated as a child, I am very certain that I would have made different choices in my life that would have let me be more of the person who I always wanted to be, but always felt like I couldn't achieve being.

    As someone who was diagnosed and medicated as a child, don't be so certain of that. I still could never finish my 4 year degree (granted, there were outside life factors on top of the ADHD that led to that as well, I'm not going to pin that solely on my ADHD). I still have an extremely difficult time with executive function, my place is a disaster, I work in a grocery store in my thirties, I still use massive anxiety as a coping mechanism to get shit done, I have few to no hobbies because I just can't stick to something to get good enough to be satisfied, and frankly, I still don't know myself all that well.

    Getting diagnosed and medicated early was to make me manageable for others, it was never focused on helping me self-actualize. That seems to be what the focus of childhood ADHD treatment was in the 90s/early 00s. So long story short, there's nothing that says you would be in a better position had you been diagnosed earlier, and there's a chance you could be in a worse one for it.

    The attitudes that people have towards those of us with ADHD are even worse when you know exactly what it is that causes the behaviors/symptoms, and any attempt at asking for tweaks to make systems work better for your ADHD are met with "stop using your disorder as an excuse, you have pills for that". I think that oddly enough I might have been better off not being diagnosed till adulthood, when ADHD treatment science improved farther than just pills and tough love.

    5 votes
  16. Comment on The elite college students who can’t read books in ~life

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I use Quad9 and have no issue with them.

    I use Quad9 and have no issue with them.

    1 vote
  17. Comment on DirecTV and Dish to merge, creating US pay-TV giant, as AT&T completes exit from entertainment in ~tv

    frostycakes
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    Hopefully getting this debt offloaded will allow Dish to actually get their act together re: rolling out their mobile network. It's ridiculous that they've built out so many cell sites, yet can't...

    Hopefully getting this debt offloaded will allow Dish to actually get their act together re: rolling out their mobile network. It's ridiculous that they've built out so many cell sites, yet can't seem to move their customers over to their own network instead of paying through the nose to T-Mobile and AT&T for their MVNO agreements.

    Then again, Charlie Ergen is a cheap and honestly pretty incompetent leader, so I'm not too optimistic until he's out of the management picture, or the financial situation continues to deteriorate to the point that they have to sell off to someone else (assuming another company wants a greenfield Open RAN 5G-only network, since companies like Rakuten Mobile aren't having much success in that space either).

    4 votes
  18. Comment on ‘Paper or plastic?’ will no longer be a choice at California grocery stores in ~enviro

    frostycakes
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    I'm shocked that we were ahead of this curve in Colorado, and are stricter about our plastic bag ban-- there's no exceptions based on what is being sold or the size of the store here, afaik. The...

    I'm shocked that we were ahead of this curve in Colorado, and are stricter about our plastic bag ban-- there's no exceptions based on what is being sold or the size of the store here, afaik. The grocery store I work at has paper bags still (that do cost the $0.10/bag still), but it seems the majority of our customers (in a suburb that leans conservative, in the heart of local oil and gas production country) have adapted to either bringing their own or just carrying out their stuff just fine, despite the grousing when this first started for about a month or so.

    The real surprising one is that Walmart ditched single use bags entirely (no paper ones) after this ban, I would have thought they would fight tooth and nail against this.

    I wish we'd see some action on food containers, although I have noticed more and more places going to (industrially) compostable containers in the last couple years, at the least.

    3 votes
  19. Comment on Google Pixel 9 launch event live coverage: all the news in ~tech

    frostycakes
    Link Parent
    I kind of wish they'd return to what they did with the OG Pixel and have the width taper down along the phone, so the cameras still stay flush with the back. I can't say I hate the camera bump...

    I kind of wish they'd return to what they did with the OG Pixel and have the width taper down along the phone, so the cameras still stay flush with the back.

    I can't say I hate the camera bump though, I do like it more than the camera square that the 4a 5G had (and the ones on the past couple iPhone generations), and I like the rounded take on it of the 9.

    1 vote
  20. Comment on Any good auto or renters insurance companies? in ~finance

    frostycakes
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    I'll throw in for Lemonade for renter's insurance, at least. They've consistently been cheaper than anyone else for the same amount of coverage, and were quick to pay out for some damaged stuff...

    I'll throw in for Lemonade for renter's insurance, at least. They've consistently been cheaper than anyone else for the same amount of coverage, and were quick to pay out for some damaged stuff after a tree branch broke a window in my apartment during a storm, causing a lot of water damage.

    They offer car insurance too, but I haven't tried that yet, so I can't speak to it. I've just been lazy and kept my policy with The General for my cheap old shitbox, as I needed SR22 insurance once upon a time, and just never switched away after I no longer needed it. I wouldn't get a new policy for a new car with them, though. I haven't had much reason to consider going through the effort to switch, plus my rates have dropped consistently with every renewal so far.

    2 votes