UK/EU has had contactless payments via our bank cards for about 2 decades now. America caught up eventually some years later

When phones got the ability to act as our bank cards, it made sense for them to use something compatible with the same technology that was already deployed

Funnily enough, America (and I guess also Korea, given the companies) dragging their heels on standard contactless is one of the main reasons why Samsung/LG briefly put out a couple of generations of phones that had a magnetic stripe mimicking payment feature in addition to standard NFC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_secure_transmission)

Data centres notoriously don’t have heads, but I love the enthusiasm

We kinda have two choices:

Some flavour of socialism where people get what they need for free

Or

Turbo-rio-de-janiro style inequality where we all live in slums

Now the 2nd one is what the ultra rich want and they have a lot of power, so it’s kinda on the rest of us to make the first happen instead

Honestly I don’t know why, but submerging a big machine just makes it look 10x cooler (in a figurative sense, in addition to literal)

I don’t make the rules

Damn, great composition

I just grip the box closed after I’ve pulled what I need and yank it free

I think it’s usually the bottom side of the opening with the serration, so probably that side

People can (and do) still say what they like today, other people aren’t also obligated to smile and clap though. Very few people are gonna be particularly pleased about being insulted.

TBF, you’re probably more likely to get punched in the face for saying those things rather than following hearing them these days. I’d probably see that as the better situation of the two, kids should stand up for themselves.

If year on year we can get kids to be less shitty to each other, it’s hard to argue that isn’t good thing.

I don’t think soup brain is capable of considering this

Johnstones Trade Smooth Metal Paint (Tinted) 0.8L - True Blonde

https://www.brewers.co.uk/product/AF12506690N/ppg12-12-true-blonde

Say le way

Say le way

Say le way

Money and sales charts

Being top of a sales chart was a big deal a couple of decades ago as it usually meant a product got better placement on the shop shelves

So then marketing budgets could be focused on different areas at different times, meaning greater chance of getting higher in the charts

That and localisations generally taking time and studios not wanting to cannibalise sales of a local version with imports

Also regional pricing, they could sell more in poorer countries for lower prices, but they didn’t want to give up the greater amount they can ask for from richer countries

Edit: clarity

Most people seem to go for either codeberg or gitlab as alternatives

Barely used doesn’t mean useless

They’re not for regular people making regular transactions, it’s kinda intended for high value transactions

Wealthy people selling things (semi-)privately to each other is one obvious one, things like those £50k watches. Sometimes these wealthy people want to do their spending with utmost discretion, so cash is king.

Another is pawnbrokers, private currency exchanges and similar kinds of business that just have to deal with a lot more cash than is typical.

Don’t get me wrong, its usage will definitely be in decline, but I don’t see them taking it out of rotation any sooner than the fiver

Well two wrongs clearly make a right when it comes to chicken wing dips

For a lot of businesses, typically the kind that most people don’t generally review, a good rating doesn’t really mean anything, a bad rating might if there’s a few of them.

For restaurants, cafes and bars it depends where you are. Every area will have one or two sites/apps where most people typically review these kinds of business. So in some areas Google reviews are a pretty good gauge of things, in others they’re basically useless.

The other thing to figure out is what “good” actually is for a given area, because a 4.7 in some areas could mean one of the best meals you ever have, and in others it could just be an average rating.

Whenever I’m traveling to a new area and looking for that kind of thing, I can usually find people talking about the above for a given area either on travel forums (or places like Reddit) or by watching a few travel vlogs focused on food options, where it often comes up as a topic.

Edit: clarity, don’t just use “place” to mean all three of area, business and website in every instance, kids!

see people […] spent $25…$45…$30 on gas

I spend $7 ~ $13 […] three times a month

3 x 13 = $39

it’s not nearly as close as what I’ve seen other people spend.

?

Oh no, don’t get me wrong, I work from home just fine.

If I’m working from a cafe, restaurant or bar, I’m spending the whole time there distracted

Which I guess is indeed a personal issue, so far play

Any time I’ve gone to “work” from home somewhere fun, no actual work is getting done, no matter how genuinely I try

I feel like this one is relatively uncontroversial

URL pronounced as “earl” however? I’ll spend all of my remaining energy in life ensuring the person saying it is stapled to the bottom of the Mariana trench with rebar