ramble81

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When did it become normalized to start passing credit card processing fees to the customer?

Maybe my memory is faulty, but I never remembered having to pay a surcharge to use a credit card. Now everywhere I go there are signs saying that there is a 2.5-3.5% surcharge to use a car (and others that say that there’s a 2.5-3.5% discount for using cash, I assume to get around wording)

ramble81 OP ,

Even worse. We have what’s called MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) and the “Suggested” part does a lot of heavy lifting. Two crazy examples

  • Car dealers will add a “dealer markup” sometimes in the tens of thousands range above MSRP if a car is in demand
  • Nintendo actually threatened to pull their products from Amazon (I think) because they dared to go under the suggested price (more like mandatory)

Basically it’s a free for all where the consumer is saddled with trying to find the best deal, if there is one.

ramble81 ,

Concentration camps… call it what it fucking is.

What advice or tips do you have which sound like nonsense but really work?

When I can't sleep, I turn around and sleep "upside down" - moving my pillows to where my feet were beforehand, and my feet to where my head was beforehand - and I stick with that for a week or so. It gives me a week or so without insomnia and then wears off, so I have to turn myself back around for the next 7-12 day period. ...

ramble81 ,

Went to try three distros (Mint, Zorin, Ubuntu) all three either failed on boot (even just in the “try” state) or really really did not like my graphics card (Battlemage).

Could I go through and start troubleshooting, tweaking settings, making sure everything is configured correctly? Yes…. But after wasting a few hours just trying to get something to boot, “it just works” with Windows looks better all the time. I’m too old to want to jailbreak and tinker with shit.

ramble81 ,

I have a B580 and frankly it’s perfect for what I want. I run my games at 1440p and generally can get 60-90fps (depends if it supports XeSS 2). E33 was a decent benchmark and it passed just fine. I normally play slightly older games so it suits my needs.

As for transcoding, it can seriously knock it out. H.264 QSV with an RF of 22 on a 1080p stream averages 315fps. H.265 is a bit slower but still faster than realtime. It really is a transcoding powerhouse there.

ramble81 ,

My problem is I had a list of lemmit.online communities I had subbed to, which should still exist but you can’t sign up for them directly so you could never browse the full list. Now I’ll have to find all of those again.

ramble81 ,

So now comes the big question. With it gone, are there any other replacement instances to…. fill that niche?

ramble81 ,

I was just reading a story this morning, that the GOP is now looking to scuttle the SAVE act as functionally it’d require passports in most all states except a few.

Why are they trying to scuttle it? They finally saw the data that most people who own passports are actually left leaning in nature. Throughout the south, majority of republicans don’t have passports.

This law could inadvertently flip all of the Red strongholds in attempt to get swing states. Gotta love it.

ramble81 ,

Next murder mystery…. Someone was injected with a concentration of this substance.

Wait a minute, isn’t that what the venom of some snakes or spiders does? Causes the blood to coagulate?

ramble81 ,

Fuck ICE

ramble81 ,

Even putting up some walls with some fake plants would be an improvement.

ramble81 ,

This will be interesting to see because one of the arguments I always hear about why our prescription prices are so much higher than the rest of the world is that “companies do their R&D here and need to recoup the cost”…. What’s going to be their excuse when companies pull out and we still have high prices.

ramble81 , (edited )

So? This argument infuriates me because it’s similar to the “too big to fail” argument. It’s basically saying “yes this crime is legal because the alternative is worse”. Who is she to decide that these pedophiles are allowed to get away with it?

ramble81 OP ,

Higher yes, but people acting like it’s a complete lawless wasteland? That’s what I’m talking about. People so damn afraid that they’re going to be murdered the moment they set foot in it in broad daylight. That’s just affluenza speaking. Go through a lot of disadvantaged areas and you’ll find generally people are just trying to make it by. Thanks for proving my point.

ramble81 OP ,

Given that it’s literally in the dictionary I’m using definition B. Basically the more wealthy you get, the more you think disadvantaged places are a hive of scum and villainy. And not even uber rich people. Once you hit middle class. I have so many friends and relatives that just freak out over the idea of even passing through, coworkers too.

ramble81 ,

There were pictures from his party at MaL that showed the Bad Bunny halftime show in the background!

ramble81 ,

So who owns Gallup, that’s making them do this?

ramble81 ,

I have a Universal Devices device that connects to Insteon, Z-Wave, Zigbee, network, IR, etc. The best thing about it, it’s 100% local only. There is a remote website you can use to control your devices when you’re not at home, but if they ever go under, just fire up a VPN or be on your LAN and you’re merrily on your way. No spying, nothing.

Also like that it supports programs and scripts to tie things together, so a single button from your remote can enable “movie mode”, close the curtains, dim the lights, etc.

What to do with my car?

So here’s an interesting one. I have a car with a 72-month note, that I’m halfway through. The payments are pretty high, around $1,100/mo (luxury sports car). I just checked the Black book value, and the value on other sites and I have almost $20K in equity in it right now. I also have enough saved up to pay it off and still ...

ramble81 OP ,

That makes sense, so basically ignore the $20K extra equity and hope that the value still holds when I look at selling it?

ramble81 OP ,

Yeah I generally change out cars every 3-4 years. I tend to get cars I like, not ones that are known for the long haul. Quite a few of them there is no way in hell I’d own outside of warranty! I usually lease at least one car, but like buying one too in case things really go sideways as it’s easier to sell at a moments notice (breaking a lease is suicidal usually).

ramble81 OP ,

Basically it’s nearly free money from appreciation that wasn’t expected and I’m torn on accessing it, or ignoring it since it wasn’t expected. The base amount I paid is irrelevant in this case as it’s a sunk cost.

ramble81 OP ,

Good way of looking at it. Thank you.

Millions of student loan borrowers aren't repaying their loans — and defaults are up ( www.npr.org )

Roughly a million borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans late last year, with millions delinquent on their payments and sliding toward the same fate. That's according to federal data and the latest Household Debt and Credit Report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which dropped on Tuesday. The report ...

ramble81 ,

Can they garnish a spouses wage? My SO has the loans and she doesn’t work anymore. Tempting to just say fuck it.

ramble81 ,

Is TX one? I bet TX is one. All they care about is business and money.

ramble81 ,

“Prostate suffers”… as in you suffer from having a prostate?

ramble81 ,

Interesting approach, but where does that leave taxis?

ramble81 ,

So when you agreed to him saying the Republican Party, and before his clarification, which way were you interpreting it?

ramble81 ,

I mean isn’t the Maestro logo just a color variation of the MasterCard one? That should have been the biggest clue. And the name Maestro is just a play on Master.

ramble81 ,

Have the day you voted for!

ramble81 ,

Isn’t that usually how plea deals work? Reduced or eliminated punishment so you can flip them to get a bigger fish?

ramble81 ,

So I know a data leak is serious, but I can’t help but think “what’s a chat log with a toddler actually look like?”

Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month ( www.theverge.com )

Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults. ...

ramble81 ,

I really hope they do. When a support forum says “join us on discord” I immediately nope the fuck out. I have never used discord and I don’t plan on it.

ramble81 ,

Carnival…. luxury? I have never seen those two words so close together in any sentence. Carnival is one step up from Margaritaville at Sea.

ramble81 ,

Fair, but the ship in question was the Carnival Encounter.

ramble81 ,

Was that an A&W reference?

ramble81 OP ,

Amended to note you can’t give it away. It all can only be used for your own selfish gain.

ramble81 OP ,

Yes but which is worth more. The money and knowledge, or ignorance and happiness?

ramble81 OP ,

Sadly aren’t most of us. I’m curious if people would rather be rich and burdened, or poor and blissfully unaware.

ramble81 OP ,

Interesting to see how many others would take the money.

ramble81 OP ,

More so do you want money and knowing how fucked the world is, including things that haven’t come to light yet or blissfully ignorant happiness.

ramble81 OP ,

I’ve tried, but the problem is I enjoy both and also apparently have commitment issues.

ramble81 ,

Getting spit roasted by Bubba and a black man.

Semmerling - Riding Bean OVA

(XuChulainn) (2026) ...

A smirking woman with blue eyes and brown hair styled with a long, voluminous side-swept fringe, sitting on a green cushioned sofa with her legs crossed and her right hand holding a black handgun pointed toward the floor. She wears a white blazer with black lapels over a light-blue pleated blouse and purple waistband, paired with a white skirt, dark gray translucent tights, and white shoes. The background consists of a large window directly behind her featuring gray horizontal blinds at the top, revealing a cityscape with several gray skyscrapers under a clear, light-blue sky.
ALT
ramble81 ,

I have this OVA but haven’t watched it yet.

Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club ( www.theguardian.com )

Pluck an email at random from the millions in the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library. It is a Saturday evening in February 2013, and Jeffrey Epstein is messaging Bill Gates’s assistant about guests for a dinner he wants to organise. ...

ramble81 ,

One of my questions has always been: Who has taken things over now? Because you know a lot of them haven’t just magically stopped.