Little Rants

Worldly and otherworldly topics
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Catoptric
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Re: Little Rants

Post by Catoptric » Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:24 am

Ben Shapiro Set To Testify To Congress On Alleged Collusion Against Conservatives In Ad Industry
https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shap ... d-industry



At first, I was almost convinced that Ben Shapiro was defending his actions in promoting spammy sound bites in his broadcasts, but it seems he might actually be on the "good side."
Spoiler
Show
Shapiro has also long had GARM in his sights — the advertiser coalition which controls 90% of global advertising dollars and counts the biggest corporations in the world as its members was the subject of the first episode of his Facts series. He described GARM as part of “a network of global elites who have created a universal framework full of guidelines and ratings designed to enforce ‘approved’ narratives and punish disapproved ones.”

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On the topic of inflationary growth through "printing" (adding squiggly zeroes using crayons on bank accounts) of trillions of dollars, which makes the economy look "bigger,' is akin to people confusing centimeters with inches and thinking they've impressed upon some self-actualization.

The reality hasn't seemed to set in yet, as to where this is heading. . . This is everything that Keynes warned about with inflationary bloat created by offsetting the inevitable downturn in economies (inflation that has affected some countries far worse than 2008 and earlier crises.) Not to mention how automation could quickly overtake the menial tasks in repetitive job environments, and mostly what people are left with are massive Real Estate Investment Firms, and a Plutocracy that ensures that they continue to maintain power over the serfs who can't ever escape the circumstances of how wealth accumulates (echoes of the Gilded Age.) The very issues systemic in business has also plagued many with ongoing issues of performance tracking where fake representation of stats are used to game a system, and any number of shifting accountability as well as grifting off subsidies, can be used to appear successful while devouring the very source of that fleshed out images. Companies can go decades with the same problem of chasing after data points while gutting the core of a business, while simultaneously working for their own accumulation of wealth through stock payouts. People will be sold lies that might appear convincing enough, even when they are demonstrably false from the beginning, and yet will cling to the idea that it's not a lie because the alternative is far too damaging to their desire for it to be right. People will allow themselves to be exploited as long as they are part of the crowd, and are merely gravitating towards what won't alienate them from the flock.

The image of maintaining the illusion of progress is infinitely more compelling to want to maintain than the desire to acknowledge the conditions of deception used to prop up the illusion of success; that all is not what it seems. The negative repercussions are easier to place with a "fall guy" or "scapegoat" than to be accountable for decisions that had a precedent decades in the making, and which the short-term interest will always have more immediate appeal to the majority who are unwilling or incapable of delaying gratification for future generations.
Last edited by Catoptric on Thu Jul 11, 2024 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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HighlyIrregular II
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Re: Little Rants

Post by HighlyIrregular II » Thu Jul 11, 2024 12:04 am

Just as there are some things you'd like to but are not supposed to keep in the medicine cabinet because of the heat and humidity, I think if you spend most of you time in the bedroom in the summertime with the BR AC running, and it's at least 10 degrees cooler there, you should keep unrefrigerated foodstuffs in the BR. So, I moved a bunch of jars and extra oil to the fridge and I intend to put a bunch of other stuff in the bedroom. Supplements, bottles of water, etc. And it's the kitchen that has the most free space, except for the living room which is equally hot, so I'll probably move some bedroom stuff into the kitchen or LR. It's just not cost effective to keep the LR AC on so long when I'm not there just to keep the kitchen steadily cool.

And during heat waves like the current one, it's miserable working in the kitchen and eating. I need a more powerful LR AC that will overcome the heat absorbed by the walls and furniture and quickly cool the LR and kitchen when I'm there. Even if I have to aim it directly on me, that's fine if the air is cool by the time it reaches me. If I get a more powerful AC, MAYBE it will cool the LR enough by just being on when I'm there that I won't have to move food into the BR, but it will always be cooler in the BR so it will still be the best place for food.

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HighlyIrregular II
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Re: Little Rants

Post by HighlyIrregular II » Thu Jul 11, 2024 5:39 am

I had to bring my new chair up a flight of stairs yesterday. Never let the mail carrier know you have a hand cart, and play weak. He learned too much when he came to pick up my old chair for a return.

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Catoptric
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Re: Little Rants

Post by Catoptric » Wed Jul 17, 2024 10:19 am





Faith is a mental illness

Because it is tribalism and creates herd mentality, while denegrating acts of altruism for the sake of the individual from moral imperative, instead of a self-serving (i.e. "I do good because others/god/social-media that panders to a social paradigm that I ascribe to will reward me, and for no other reason than ro pretend to do good or pander to that surface level artifice; should good will exist?") purpose. Society shouldn't be defined by a myopic vacuum of insular ideologies, because it fails to resolves issues, if all it requires are baseless "thoughts and prayers."

Costco selling apocalypse-ready food buckets: 150 servings with 25-year shelf life
https://abc7chicago.com/post/costco-off ... /15063150/

Similar to Jim Bakker's Apocalypse Chow (along with his grift on Covid.) If he wasn't in prison during the Y2K freak out you can guarantee he would have been selling this in addition to other nonsense.





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The Degree Deluge: Is the Obsession with Credentials Outpacing Common Sense?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/degree-d ... iff-fnune/


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A book (Trump tie-in)

Sh*tshow!: The Country's Collapsing . . . and the Ratings Are Great (2018) Charlie LeDuff


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Texans Respond To Hurricane Power Outages By Assaulting Utility Workers Just Trying To Restore Their Power
https://jalopnik.com/gateway/texans-res ... 1851597534




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Catoptric
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Re: Little Rants

Post by Catoptric » Sat Jul 20, 2024 7:29 pm

From the Author of

Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America (2017) Danielle DiMartino Booth





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On another note. . . Ptolemaic (Egyptian Dynasty burial from the time they took over.)

Mysterious 2,000-year-old sarcophagus tomb found in Egypt – and NO ONE knows what’s inside
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/98 ... rchaeology

It's been opened since then, and the surprising thing wasn't what it contained, but rather that people were petitioning to drink the raw sewage water which three skeletons (believed to be soldiers) found within it. . .

What's Inside This 2,000-Year-Old Mystery Sarcophagus?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... rcophagus/
Spoiler
Show
Scientists have finally decided to open the mysterious, 2,000 year old, massive black sarcophagus discovered in Alexandria, Egypt, which the Internet has been speculating wildly about. Could it hold the remains of Alexander the Great? Could it unleash a curse or an incurable disease?

It turns out, the sarcophagus held the remains of three skeletons, as well lots of reddish, ancient sewage water. LiveScience reports that scientists are just starting their analysis of the skeletons. One skeleton seemingly suffered an arrow wound, which suggests the trio might have been soldiers. So far, the sarcophagus has not revealed any inscriptions, art, or artifacts buried with the skeletons. And it’s still a mystery why the skeletons were buried in such a massive sarcophagus: at almost nine feet long, five feet wide and six feet tall, the sarcophagus is the largest ever found in Alexandria.

Now, almost 7,500 people have signed a change.org petition requesting to drink the sewage liquid from the ancient sarcophagus. Experts suggest that this is not a good idea. Sewage contains potentially dangerous microorganisms, including viruses, bacteria and other pathogen. Some bacteria can form endospores, which can survive in decaying specimens for thousands, or even millions of years, microbiologist Rolf Halden, a professor and director of the Center for Environmental Health Engineering at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, told Livescience.

Not that it's likely to deter the people who might want to drink the sewage liquid. “We need to drink the red liquid from the cursed dark sarcophagus in the form of some sort of carbonated energy drink so we can assume its powers and finally die,” mummy-juice petition starter, Innes McKendrick writes.
Last edited by Catoptric on Sun Jul 28, 2024 2:46 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Little Rants

Post by HighlyIrregular II » Tue Jul 23, 2024 7:09 pm

The people who create headlines like this need to better consider how they might be interpreted. The first thing I saw was the large text, about Biden dropping out of race but finishing term, and "Fact check" as if that's what's being fact checked. The second thing I saw was the bold "Fact check by USA TODAY" and "False." I was like "wow, really?" and I eventually reread everything and saw what the actual "Claim" was.
Biden headline factcheck.jpg
Biden headline factcheck.jpg (34.58 KiB) Viewed 4151 times

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Re: Little Rants

Post by Catoptric » Mon Jul 29, 2024 5:34 am



Warren Farrell - The Myth Of Male Power (1993)

Wife sparks a lively debate on whether it’s sexier for a man to ‘provide or go 50/50' - and the majority of women argue it’s ‘unattractive’ for husbands not to financially support them
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... 50-50.html



Also related (original post)
https://ifunny.co/picture/sent-100-appl ... -BbmtYyFB8

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Re: Little Rants

Post by HighlyIrregular II » Tue Jul 30, 2024 5:27 pm

Not to diminish the value of cops and high level security people, but I've noticed that security jobs are among the easiest jobs to get. Three people I knew in high school who were extremely poor students and very timid with confrontations ended up being security guards and still are. Two lost their jobs at some point, one because of issues with confrontations and the other probably because he was a dick. The third one got suspended because he refused to do a part of his job that he was afraid to do. They were also all physically dirty (two well into adulthood and the other I lost track of). I don't know if this tendency has anything to do with the "failure" of the Secret Service or if they purposely gave Trump a lower level of protection because he's Trump, but I wouldn't be surprised either way.

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Re: Little Rants

Post by Catoptric » Wed Jul 31, 2024 5:24 am

Something I discovered is that Ebay is overrun by shell companies using multiple different accounts that are selling the same inventory.

"The Chinese eBay market to the US is via shell companies ran by theGovernment and each company has 12,000 employees, the company gives them an Ebay account under a avata name they register with the company, the company buys the largest store packages for them and pays for the top notch sales packages on top of that."

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/M ... 0of%20that.

Some company addresses seem to be from China while pretending to be a made up address in Japan (one that physically could not exist, similar to how a business entity will sometimes claim to own an office that people pay to have access to that just happens to be used only when they need to pretend to have a physical address for documentation.

Though I was familiar with some aspects of this already:

I resorted to using my original car sensors after spraying throttle body cleaner which may have helped (though more than likely it was just tightening an exhaust clamps that isolated the vacuum integrity needed for O2 sensor readings. The ones I bought off Ebay were crap that immediately caused electric arcing and smoked up (I assumed originally that electrical tape wasn't thermal resistant enough for an engine, but it may well have been a faulty sensor since that doesn't usually correspond to smoke so easily unless it threw a reading.)

They still charge about $60+ for 4 sensors that weigh about 1/10th of an lb, and they cost about $4-6 per pound weight to produce, so I shouldn't feel too bad for demanding a refund on something that clearly was never properly tested for issues and could easily have caused much bigger problems with my electrical system.

I tend to consider the business operations of China to be akin to how Kim Jong Un prints funny-money that resembles our own currency (which may partially explain the desire to go completely digital.)
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Re: Little Rants

Post by HighlyIrregular II » Thu Aug 01, 2024 2:24 am

There are farms not far from me. Have been last place I lived too. I've taken busses past them. I've looked at them in Google's street view. Never have I seen a fruit or vegetable in them. Just greenery.

Never have I seen a kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, capybara, or any other interesting wildlife in Google's street view of Australia. I've researched where kangaroo crossings are and I found the signs but never a kangaroo.

Edit: ChatGPT helped me:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/stree ... e_vignette

https://www.google.com/maps/@-35.636026 ... &entry=ttu

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