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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 11th, 2023

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  • It means puzzled and/or confused.

    Many authors seem to think it means amused mixed with some confusion or puzzlement or something else like that.

    Some dictionaries have started to include definitions along those lines, which is correct to do if that is becoming a common usage. But that makes the word bullshit because it no longer conveys a clear meaning. Unlike some words that gain new meanings through misuse, it’s usually not clear which meaning is intended from context. Usually I can easily imagine a character’s response to something to be either of these definitions so I often can’t understand the author’s intention. I often find myself taken out of the story while I try to understand which meaning I should use. Because of this I think the word has become useless and shouldn’t be used.




  • “A Transport For London camera study of 7,500 cyclists at five junctions found in 2007 that, contrary to popular perception, most cyclists do not run reds: 84% of the cyclists stopped at red traffic lights.”

    This surprised me. I haven’t noticed that many cyclists running reds. The tone seemed to suggest that was a good statistic for some reason. That is way too high. If 16% of cars ran red lights my life expectancy would be about three days. I’m in favor of cyclists bending or breaking rules to protect themselves but I don’t think running reds qualifies. Everyone should always stop at reds. I’m a bit of a scofflaw when it comes to some traffic laws but that’s too far.












  • If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

    The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is pure profit.

    We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

    Edit: tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.


  • You can’t get it in the boonies. I live in a city and my insurance, with an earthquake rider, is only a few hundred a month. My coworker lives in sparsely populated area (by the standards of this metro area) and his insurance costs a little over 7x as much, and continues to rise.

    And it’s deserved too. These people move out there because they’re the type that want to “own land,” but then none of them maintain it. I’ll go over to his house for a party and be in the backyard and everywhere I look, his property and every property it touches, as soon as you go beyond the area immediately around the house that is actually used, the entire ground is covered by kindling. One dropped cigarette and his entire neighborhood is gone.


  • All the bullshit with tipping on food delivery apps made me stop using them years ago.

    First I hear the apps are stealing tips. Then they’re not stealing tips anymore. Then maybe they’re stealing some of the tips.

    To try and avoid all that I tried to use cash. The drivers don’t get their base rate reduced and they get the entire, non-reportable cash tip. Then my food started taking twice as long and arriving cold because the drivers thought I was stiffing them.

    My theory is the apps do this (pre-tipping) on purpose to discourage cash and after-tipping so they can lower what they pay the driver and they’ll still accept the order because they see the higher after tip amount. So now the apps might not be technically stealing tips, but they’re using up front tips to allow them to reduce their shitty base rate for everyone.

    Now if want delivery it’s pizza, Chinese, or one of the few other places with their own drivers. I’ve had this policy for years now and I don’t see myself ever going back unless it’s an emergency.

    Bonus to me: all my takeout/delivery is now 20-30% cheaper. Everyone should really take a look at the inflated prices they’re paying and decide if it’s really worth saving a short drive.