Even Hersh’s article lacks any kind of supporting evidence, only siting a single unidentified source. His story is plausible, but plausible does not mean true.
Not just paying a loan off early, even having the loan eventually drop off the credit report completely. This month the only change was an old, paid-off mortgage and line of credit dropped off my credit report. My credit score dropped substantially.
Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching...
Not the case. What’s happening here is Windows is removing the ext4 partition completely, expanding the ntfs partition and writing to all of it.
Windows update did that to my <1 year old laptop. I figured it had just wiped out grub, but when it was booted from a live-usb there was no ext4 partition there at all. This has been reported many times.
Microsoft should be sued for this shit. Legal protection from destroying people’s data that is not part of Windows or in a Windows partition, whether deliberately or by negligence, is not something that can be legitimately covered by a license agreement.
I have recently started university and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy, for the dining plan, when it would literally work perfectly fine using your student ID and ordering to a real cashier, LIKE HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR...
The number of business that just expect that everyone has already downloaded and installed their app has become ridiculous.
Best Buy now demands an app be installed for order pick up. They are so sure you’ll have already done that there are no instructions in their parking lot for pick up that don’t include the app, no way to call them, and the lot employees say, “Just use the app and we’ll get your order.” It’s like the 20% tips programmed into just about every payment machine these days. No, I won’t leave you a 20% tip for handing me a receipt.
Even when going to Best Buy’s service desk the reps looked at me like I was crazy. “No, I won’t install your app to pick up an order” was met with confusion and open irritation. Fuck that.
And don’t get me started on ‘Reddit is better in our crappy Reddit app.’
IMO people should not have to know a company’s policies and go through their website to make a purchase. Anyway, it would have been nice if they put that information on the sign in their pickup area, or their pickup reps or desk clerks mentioned it when I told them I didn’t have the app. Instead they made it clear that everyone should either already have the app or install it because they said so.
Way, way too many companies and organizations (like the OP’s) are pulling this kind of crap.
Tasmota is great but I’ve found the number of available devices is limited. For instance Tasmota smart dimmer plugs do not exist, nor could I find a stand alone controller.
Z-wave or Zigbee integration dramatically expand the number of available options and work with local controllers.
The list of Tasmota devices is extremely limited if you don’t want to flash it yourself, but a bit less so if you use Tuya Convert which is done via WiFi. It seems the device list is getting shorter all the time as vendors switch to other hardware implementations, but I seem to remember reading that a new Tasmota version will be coming that supports additional hardware.
To get plug-in dimmer and smart button functionality (Shelly Button 1 didn’t exist at the time) I had to put in Z-Wave. and I’ve since added a few new devices. Z-wave works pretty well, but not flawlessly. My Tasmota stuff just works and works much better than the original firmware on my smart bulbs and plugs.
Just getting my feet wet with Zigbee because I need yet another dimmer plug for a different location, but my understanding is most (but not all) Zigbee devices are not proprietary and work with most controllers. I’ll know next week.
Zigbee does work with a generic controller on Home Assistant and other platforms, and there are >3100 devices that are compatible with zigbee2mqtt, a Zigbee to MQTT bridge that exists to bypass the need for proprietary Zigbee bridges. No proprietary app or Internet access required either, but it was not easy to set up. Here’s a list of supported devices: www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/
The corporate enshittification of once decent products and services continues unabated. Amazons decision to charge for UPS store returns even if the products they delivered were defective was almost enough for me to cancel Prime, but this seals the deal. When Amazon Prime commercials begin my Prime membership and most of my Amazon purchases end.
I had to return a DOA item last week and they imposed the charge for the first time. It depends on your specific situation though. In my case a Staples is physically closer than a UPS store, but I’m never near the Staples while I’m in the UPS store parking lot twice a week.
It wouldn’t bother me if I were returning items because I changed my mind, but when I’m already inconvenienced because of crappy product quality I don’t expect to be further inconvenienced so Amazon can save a buck.
An administrator from a tiny Texas city is accused of orchestrating a plot to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars — while allegedly leading a campaign of abuse to force out two gay dads who moved to town and opened a taco joint....
The Republican congresswoman said “while none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that”
Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off....
True if Soylent Green was immortal and sought money and power at any cost.
The GOP and right wing justices’ blithering about the Founding Fathers, Originalism, and “historical tradition” is absolute, self-serving BS and regularly the opposite of historical reality. If you have a few minutes this history of U.S. corporations is fascinating. An excerpt:
Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:
Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.
The family of a man fatally shot in New Mexico by police officers responding to the wrong house sued the department for wrongful death and other claims in federal court, according to a complaint filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico....
IMO most police are insurable, but if all police are uninsurable because they randomly Derek Chauvin people, then maybe we do need a completely different system of law enforcement.
They literally believe the very existence of gay married couples is an assault on their religious freedom. The unchecked “religious freedom” they want logically would include bigamy and pedophilia, but better not talk about that.
Evangelicals and conservatives want to be protected by American laws but not bound by them, while everyone else is tightly bound by laws, but not protected by them.
“Good Christian” Adulterer Kim Davis conceived twins with her lover while married to another man.
“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10)
Yet another example of an evangelical conservative expecting to be protected by laws but not bound by them, while everyone else is to be bound by laws but not protected by them.
Just the Disney pullout of their Orlando corporate campus has lost the state a billion in taxable spending. Add to that the cancellation of multiple large conventions and the elimination of consideration for future conventions. Thousands of other businesses, organizations and tourists are cancelling trips and avoiding Florida and this is going to add up to an enormous sum that the state will never recover.
Lots of conservatives may be fascists, but I’d be willing to bet their attachment to their own economic comfort is stronger than their ideology. IMO Florida’s had enough of DeSantis and he is going to soon join Scott Walker in political oblivion.
There was conjecture that the FBI wanted Reddit to leave The Donald intact because it created an easy to track community of violent extremists. I’m guessing those who posted threats of violence on there are still under some kind of surveillance. One can hope, anyway.
Encouraging Reddit to leave a forum open allowing potential violent criminals to post their plans is like “providing guns” and “creating a demand”? You’d have to twist yourself into a pretzel to come up with that.
IMO the users here are way more pleasant to spend time with than those on Reddit. The level of hostility in some areas of Reddit was off the charts and it seems the trolls are staying put. This definitely /mademesmile.
If you buy an item and the seller sends one that differs significantly from the description or is defective, you have the right to reject the item and require the seller to retrieve it at their expense - no matter what the seller’s return policy says. You also have the right to a full refund. Rightful Rejection is part of state law and based on the Uniform Commercial Code. It is also written into Visa International’s rules. Don’t believe Citibank representatives or anyone else who tells you otherwise.
If you don’t want to pay new prices for a used item, it’s 100% up to GameStop to make it right. They have to pay to retrieve it and for return shipping. They have to give you a full refund on everything, including shipping charges.
State law always trumps seller policies. The seller can force you to check a box agreeing to their terms of sale but those terms are not enforceable if state law gives you other rights. Unenforceable clauses have been in literally every contract or terms of sale I’ve ever read.
Rightful rejection laws make sense too, especially when you start looking at large purchases. Let’s say you ordered a black car from a dealer 500 miles away and the dealer delivered a pink one. The terms of sale say that you have to return the car to the dealer and pay a restocking fee for a refund. Those terms mean that the dealer has no obligation to deliver what you ordered or paid for and will make a profit (from you) even if they deliver something you didn’t order. That’s where Rightful Rejection laws become indispensable. All you have to do by law is make the product available for retrieval by the seller.
Funny you should mention Amazon - I’m literally dealing with this issue this week. They sent me a DOA item that has to be sent back. Amazon suddenly wants to charge me a fee to return a defective item that they have the legal obligation to retrieve. While I don’t mind dropping things off at a UPS store because I’m regularly a block away, they want me to make a special trip to a Staples or Whole Foods which is not convenient or reasonable. I was just going to order a replacement from them, but because of their new return fee I won’t be buying the replacement from Amazon, or much else going forward. My Amazon purchases will easily decrease by 90%.
Here’s the rub - a retailer does not have to continue to do business with you. If you force Amazon to retrieve an item they can close your account and refuse to sell to you again.
Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…
That reads like something out of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Zaphod Beeblebrox, because of “an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine”, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are actually his direct descendants.
Musk must have been the offspring of an unspeakable accident between Zaphod and one of those Sacramento racks.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he is directing House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, amid pressure from some hard-right members of the Republican caucus to do so....
I live in California in a fairly blue congressional district with a Republican congressman. There’s a great chance this will flip my district in 2024.
McCarthy’s not bright enough to be third in line to be president. Hopefully this and the other BS he’s pulled will cost him his Speakership position and relegate him to a footnote in American history.
So if you haven’t seen something happen it couldn’t have happened to any of the billions of people in the world? If I said my computer won’t power up someone here would insist I don’t know how to press the power button.
The media's Nord Stream lies just keep coming - Jonathan Cook (jonathancook.substack.com)
Man crushed to death by robot in South Korea (www.bbc.com)
The incident occurred when the man, a robotics company employee in his 40s, was inspecting the robot....
Target CEO says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries (www.cnbc.com)
Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets....
Three arrested in U.S. and charged with smuggling military technology to Russia (meduza.io)
Three arrested in U.S. and charged with smuggling military technology to Russia (meduza.io)
Realtors found liable for $1.8 billion in damages in conspiracy to keep commissions high | CNN Business (www.nytimes.com)
Anon on credit scores (sh.itjust.works)
The Medicare Advantage ripoff every American should know about - Raw Story (www.rawstory.com)
If you hit a paywall, try this link: archive.ph/UGwzY
Fulton prosecutors float plea deals to Trump defendants (www.ajc.com)
How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet (www.wired.com)
Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching...
Windows eats partitions (lemmy.world)
I hate how everything requires you to download a shitty proprietary data harvesting app nowadays when everything can be done just fine without an app.
I have recently started university and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy, for the dining plan, when it would literally work perfectly fine using your student ID and ordering to a real cashier, LIKE HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR...
Philips Hue will force users to upload their data to Hue cloud (www.home-assistant.io)
Amazon To Start Running Ads In Prime Video Series and Movies, Will Launch Ad-Free Tier For Extra Fee (deadline.com)
2 Gay Dads Helped Uncover $767,000 Embezzlement Scheme in Texas Town Where 'Officials Called Them Homophobic Slurs' (themessenger.com)
An administrator from a tiny Texas city is accused of orchestrating a plot to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars — while allegedly leading a campaign of abuse to force out two gay dads who moved to town and opened a taco joint....
“I simply fell short of my values”: Lauren Boebert issues apology after being removed from “Beetlejuice” performance (coloradosun.com)
The Republican congresswoman said “while none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that”
Whole Foods argues it can ban BLM masks because the Supreme Court let a Christian business owner refuse same-sex couples (fortune.com)
Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off....
Lauren Boebert says she "fell short of values" after Beetlejuice groping video. (www.theguardian.com)
Family of man killed by police responding to wrong house in New Mexico files lawsuit (www.cbsnews.com)
The family of a man fatally shot in New Mexico by police officers responding to the wrong house sued the department for wrongful death and other claims in federal court, according to a complaint filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico....
Sound of Freedom film producer plots long-shot bid for Mexican presidency (www.theguardian.com)
Just what Mexico needs, a QAnon, Maga nutjub.
New US sanctions target workarounds that let Russia get Western tech for war (apnews.com)
Press release from the State Department home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1731...
With Wide-Ranging New Sanctions, Treasury Targets Russian Military-Linked Elites and Industrial Base (home.treasury.gov)
Kim Davis must pay $100,000 to US same-sex couple she denied marriage license (www.theguardian.com)
Neo-Nazis Gloat as Florida Becomes a Magnet for Hate (www.rollingstone.com)
As white supremacists from as far as Canada revel in intimidating Sunshine State residents, critics blast DeSantis for his silence
'The Donald' forum user gets more than 6 years in prison for battling officers at Capitol riot (www.nbcnews.com)
Reddit Activity Plummeted After The Protests (www.garbageday.email)
Excerpt:...
Paid full price and got this in the mail (open box). GameStop and I have different definitions of “new” (i.imgur.com)
The Batshit Crazy Story Of The Day Elon Musk Decided To Personally Rip Servers Out Of A Sacramento Data Center (www.techdirt.com)
Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…
Kevin McCarthy directs House to open impeachment inquiry into Biden (www.washingtonpost.com)
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he is directing House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, amid pressure from some hard-right members of the Republican caucus to do so....
Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users. (www.ctrl.blog)