I mean, maybe if you bake a stone cold potato that was in the fridge and then cook it for two hours? But even then we’re probably talking about a handful of minutes at the most.

Which car company bar did you say you work for?

A major one.

Just automatically started uploading everything on my hard drive to an account I didn’t set up

Wait, what?

Real question here: has anyone else had luck side-stepping the Live365 signup during/after install? I’ve done this, and I’m very confused that more people haven’t.

Hate that my government is apparently dead set on all of us driving massive trucks and SUVs spending thousands to money lenders, auto manufacturers, and dealerships over realist vehicles.

Doubly so if those parties are campaign contributors. Always follow the money.

In that case, that’s super impressive. But that skin doesn’t look right. Is it the lighting?

Two things here:

1. Unrealistic body standards are a known issue. Yes, fit women exist, but I’m betting there aren’t plus-sized mannequins in yoga pants next to this one. But there absolutely should because, hey, exercise is good for everyone.
2. The “west has fallen” angle cracks me up. It’s so full of dissonance, I can’t even.

Edit: the weird lighting had me thinking that was a plastic mannequin and not a real person. That’s just incredible.

I’ll preface this by saying this shady shit gets all my hate.

It’s tempting to opt for telematics/black box insurance because of the initial cheaper prices but the privacy violations and potential downsides make it not worth it.

The overall problem here is that human psychology tends to frame this difference as a loss not a gain. Given the choice, people will see the cheaper option as the baseline, and then ask “can I afford to pay more for privacy?” instead of affirming “my privacy is not worth this discount.”

Also, those of us that have paid for insurance without such a “discount”, are likely keenly aware of the difference. For new drivers, from now to here on out, the lack of past experience presents a new baseline where this awfulness is normalized. Competition between insurance providers won’t help us here since the “privacy free” option is still profitable and is enticing for new customers (read: younger, poorer). So it’ll take some kind of law, collective action, or government intervention to make this go away.

Have fun fighting with your insurance to get them to remove anything from your record. […] If I had spyware insurance they would’ve dinged me for it.

I think this is the bigger problem. If someone has the data an insurance company wants, you probably agreed to an EULA or signed something that makes their ownership, and its sale, legal. With the “yeah go ahead and use my data” option on the table, the machinery to do this without your knowledge is already in place. All the insurance provider has to do is buy the data from someone else. When the price is right, 1st party spyware isn’t required at all.

Never understood the appeal honestly.

Same here. I spent about 30 minutes trying to play one (DoTA I think?) and figured out:

• Each hero has a zillion upgrades and abilities
• Each hero is basically on their own roguelite style upgrade path
• The game has a dozen or more such heroes
• icons and text too small to play on livingroom TV, controller play out of the question
• at mercy of online match-making algorithm if I’m not in a league/clan/whatever

From this I could deduce:

• There’s no way in hell this is perfectly balanced - too many variables, it may as well be MttG
• Going to take 20 or more hours to dial in a personal play style
• Going to take probably 50-100 to develop a play style that can adapt to most situations
• League play will probably kick my ass, requiring another 50-100 hours of practice/training
• Causal play is out; likely can’t pick up and play immediately due to lobby, variable match times

I’m not knocking the genre as a whole, but this is not for me. It’s too far outside my typical mode of gaming and is likely to just frustrate me more than anything else. I’m familiar with hard to play online games like Quake, TF2, and even Soldat. But those have small power systems that, even with gross imbalances, were still playable because there was usually only one or two scenarios you couldn’t overcome. Adding more on every axis just sounds like a wildly unbalanced system where the skill curve isn’t steep enough, costing a lot of time invested in bad strategies before you figure it all out.

I can only think of two plausible interpretations of this concept.

1. Mage is broke as hell and cobbled together his own grimoire by hand-copying spells from the college library, friends, and the occasional dungeon find. Yeah, a few occult incantations slipped in there, but you’d hardly notice for all the doodles and random “todo” lists from years ago.

2. Death note.

Either way

I think it’s more than that.

The price for these shares is probably not cheap for the individual, but won’t raise a ton of money internally in the grand scheme of things. At least, that’s how it works for employee options and phantom stock. The disparity here is due it’s utility as a retention mechanism. The idea is that, if invested, you’re less likely to jump ship until after IPO. With options and phantom stock, they typically have a “vestment period”, so you have to wait before you can get your money back out.

In this case, Reddit knows it needs its moderators and power users, but can’t afford to employ those people. So we get this weird middle-ground where they entice people to stick around, but they’re still not employees. As a bonus to Reddit Inc., these “investors” will provide ballast for the IPO, because I’m betting this stuff has a vestment period that extends well past the IPO date. Seeing this all on a balance sheet will make other investors feel a lot better about buying or even holding shares when the IPO kicks off.

What I really don’t like about this is that they mention the “DSP” and define it, but are coy about what the actual investment instrument is. What kind of shares are these? What is the price per share?

I must be missing something. How would Google be at all liable for restoring funds stolen by software that they themselves didn’t furnish, on a device that’s out of their control?

Did you post a lot? Do you have email notifications turned on?

My old account has… a lot (six digits worth), of comment karma. But I think I posted a grand total of three times in the last ten years or so. I also have notifications turned off. So, no IPO notification for me.

I can only conclude that this is some kind of scam

That depends on your framing.

Is it a legitimate attempt to sell shares? Absolutely. Completely legal, disregarding OP’s claim of a GDPR violation. There might be wiggle-room to suggest this is some flavor of price manipulation, but I’m not a lawyer or SEC investigator. In order to IPO, there’s a compliance framework that makes this functionally identical to any other IPO on the market.

Are some people who buy this IPO going to be left holding the bag? In a round-about “we’re all playing the same game, but also not” way, yes. For an instant, people will be holding shares in Reddit at the IPO price, and speculation on value will drive that up on the back of the IPO itself. It might plummet later the same day, it may not. But what is going to really burn people is when the primary shareholders “cash out” and sell a huge chunk of that stock. That usually has the effect of signaling that the company isn’t worth what it was anymore. It’s a gamble where the house can destroy your bid before you can manage to pawn your chips off onto the next guy.

From a spectator standpoint, where this may get interesting is where Reddit IPO intersects with r/wallstreetbets.

Edit: dividends are also a thing, but I never hear about that outside of what mutual funds and 401ks are up to. As someone who has no idea how Reddit does or can actually make money, I’m going to guess that’s not going to be a benefit of being a long-term shareholder.

I played Carrom once in-country on a business trip once. It’s an amazingly fast, simple, and incredibly hard game. I had no idea there was an American version!

Do rabbits need a companion, especially if their owners can’t match their energy level? Also, is keeping an indoor rabbit with cats a bad idea?

Any thoughts on F-Zero 99?

For whatever reason, trivia and esoteric facts stick to my brain like glue. My head is packed full of eyebrow-raising, but not always useful, stuff from the internet.

This whole thread is my niche.

You’re the hero we need. Thank you for your service.

PS: how much trouble are we in, out here in the non-nazi segment of the population?

Exactly. I tell this story to remind people that cynics aren’t just old cranks on internet forums. They’re also salespeople that decided to make some cash on our way to (consumer) hell, and they’re entitled to a turn at holding the pitchfork.