eclectic_electron

@eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

eclectic_electron,

You clearly haven’t heard of private equity

eclectic_electron,

I just got a 2018 Honda Odyssey and it’s great. It has the touch screen, but also has physical buttons for almost all of the climate and radio stuff. That’s how it should be IMO. Just give us both!

eclectic_electron,

I don’t think chickens raised for meat live anywhere near 2 years. Yeah, a quick google shows around a 2 month harvest time for chickens raised for meat. That’s a big part of why chickens are such amazing creatures and make such an affordable protein source, they can be sustainably* harvested year round. (Sustainably as in without decreasing the size of your flock.)

Laying hens are productive for two to three years. They rarely make it into the human food supply though, after that long the texture and flavor of the meat changes and American consumers don’t prefer it. You can probably get them through a local butcher shop, though they might have to order it for you.

In a small and well managed flock, chickens can live 6 to 8 years. In the wild, I don’t think modern chickens would exist at all. Ask anyone who’s kept chickens, keeping the hawks and foxes and raccoons etc. out of them is a constant and eternal struggle.

eclectic_electron,

Surprisingly relevant lol

eclectic_electron,

Landlords take on risk. For example, when I rented an apartment, I came home one day to a plumbing disaster. I called emergency maintenance and left. The landlord fixed it and paid for my hotel in the meantime. As a home owner now, that would be entirely on me to figure out. I’m pretty handy, but I have no disrespect for someone who doesn’t want to be responsible for that.

More importantly, selling a house costs about 10% of the value of the house, and the first few years of a mortgage you’re mostly paying interest. If you move every 3 years, it’s actually cheaper to rent than to buy. It’s just that your money is going to a landlord instead of to banks and realtors.

So while I see your argument that landlords don’t “deserve” the money they make, practically they’re an important part of the housing market, and I respect people who make an informed decision to rent.

eclectic_electron,

I’d be willing to bet you bought at least a few years ago, and probably couldn’t afford the house you’re in now if you had to buy it today. I’m in a similar spot. It definitely feels wrong. The rapid increase in prices in the housing market in the past few years is ridiculous. I think it’s a lot more complicated than “landlords” though. I think a lot of the issue stems from restrictive zoning that prevents the construction of small homes in dense neighborhoods. A lack of respect for trade jobs also contributes, with massive shortages of skilled construction workers driving prices up.

Granted, I live in a relatively affordable smaller city. If I were in a city with a lot of real estate speculation like LA or Toronto I might feel differently. But speculators aren’t landlords. I have a much bigger beef with a speculator who let’s a house sit empty than a landlord renting out apartments.

eclectic_electron,

What do you mean no choice? There’s always a choice.

Realistically many people don’t have a choice to buy, because they don’t have the credit score, reliable income, or down payment, but I don’t see why that blame falls on landlords and not on the banks or the government?

eclectic_electron,

I think a big component of the problem is location. I may have a different perspective living in a low cost of living city. Just a few years ago I lived in a two bedroom apartment that was $650/mo. It was old and not very nice, but totally functional and reasonably safe. It was a bigger complex so the landlord was a management company. They weren’t amazing or anything, but they held up their end of the lease. I understand the situation somewhere like NYC or California is going to be radically different.

I think that’s where a really interesting question comes in though, do people have a right to housing? Or a right to housing in the place they’re currently living? It’s a big difference. Forcibly relocating people is… Problematic at best. But there are places like LA where it’s almost physically (geologically) impossible to build enough housing for everyone who wants to live there.

If you haven’t already I’d recommend listening to the podcast mini series “according to need” by 99 percent invisible. I really appreciated the perspective it offers into some of the practical challenges of trying to get homeless people housed.

Ultimately I don’t know that I’d call housing a “right”, purely for semantic reasons, but I do think the very existence of homelessness and housing insecurity is a devastating critique of our social and economic systems. I didn’t think we’ll ever have a system that completely eliminates renting/short term housing, but we do clearly need to change a lot of things about how housing works now.

eclectic_electron,

They are not the same, but it is still disappointing to see lots of lazy, reactionary arguments, circle jerking, etc even if you agree with what someone is ultimately supporting.

eclectic_electron,

People aren’t comparing it to alternatives, they’re comparing it to Google 5-10 years ago.

Google used to be astoundingly good at figuring out what it was you wanted, and finding out for you. Now there’s a lot more SEO garbage and meaningless fluff clogging every results page, and if your search could even remotely be related to buying something, it’s only products and ads.

eclectic_electron,

But the stadium will bring so much economic benefit to the city! Well get at least 4 new fast food restaurants hiring only minimum wage workers, and a small boost in hotel revenue!

Transit won’t bring any return on investment. Only poor people use transit and they don’t have any money. And if someone who has a car does use transit that’s hurting the economy! Think of the poor gas station owners and car dealers!

/S /S /S /S /S

eclectic_electron,

Because they like having money? Running a university is legitimately very expensive and there’s always more to do. I think it’s more common with people who went to business school or became pro athletes, etc. They end up with very profitable careers and a fond recollection of their time in college. It’s worth it to the university to ask almost everyone just in case, because sometimes they find that one whale alum.

eclectic_electron,

Athletics is actually petty profitable, since athletes can’t be paid, so the school gets all the money for sponsorships, tickets, merch, etc.

It can actually be a problem for the schools, since athletics isn’t allowed to be profitable. They have to spend all the money athletics brings in on athletics, which is why the athletics department ends up with all the fancy new buildings.

eclectic_electron,

It kinda does do that, just indirectly. Even if the university can’t profit directly off of athletics, a successful sports season increases application rates and donations. Basically it boosts the brand recognition and brand identity of the school.

It’s still painful to me that the class size at my engineering school basically doubled the year after the university won some basketball championship. I don’t want to believe that people, and especially engineers, are that influence-able but the numbers don’t lie

eclectic_electron,

Getting rid of a toilet might be easy. My trash company accepted one as my once a month “large item”. I just had to dry out all the water and bag it up with the tank and bowl in separate bags.

Upgrading to a modern toilet with a good MAP score was a huge upgrade and not terribly expensive compared to other projects. I think we’ve plugged it maybe once since we got it? The old toilet needed to be plunged regularly.

If you decide to take it on just give your trash company a call first and see what their policies are.

eclectic_electron,

The baking soda will just neutralize the vinegar though? And you’ll get salt water? Vinegar is good at getting smells out though.

eclectic_electron,

An army marches on its feet and fights on its stomach. Good boots and good rations win wars.

(Since modern armies maneuver in vehicles more than by foot you can replace boots with vehicles but the core concept still holds)

eclectic_electron,

Some games still do AoE 4 has the HD assets as an optional DLC so you can decide whether it’s worth the drive space/download time.

eclectic_electron,

Blame the great vowel shift.

But also, English spelling can’t standardize because English pronunciation isn’t standard. West Coast vs Midwest vs South vs East Coast have vastly different accents. Any spelling reform that makes English phonetic for one would be wrong for the others.

And it keeps changing! People keep moving and interacting with other languages, adding and dropping words and accents over time.

eclectic_electron,

Nah if your want the good deals you have to use the store specific apps

eclectic_electron,

The worst is when the banner is unobtrusive, almost unnoticeable, but nothing on the site is clickable until you interact with it

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #