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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • It’s not worth the effort and testing. People would only experience it once every 3-4 years, depending on when they get a new laptop. Must still shouldn’t have to worry since other software would install that version of .NET already.

    Plus, people don’t bother to read error messages anyways. Another tool I created would create PDFs of the financials. The first section would be pulled from the EPM and the second would be a data dump of every transaction for each cost center. If the totals don’t match to the dollar, the script would throw an error.

    90% of the time, it was because the EPM data was being refreshed as it’s scheduled to do so every half hour and takes 3-4 minutes. So I had the error message tell the person to just go take a quick break and come back. Still, people would email me saying they don’t understand why they’re getting the error and it would always be fixed if they just wait.


  • I don’t even work in IT but I make complex Excel tools for my Finance team.

    I get an email about once every week or two from one of my coworkers asking what to do about an issue. Nearly every single issue would have been resolved if they just read even the first few instructions.

    My favorite is a specific tool we use to review the financials. It relies on Scripting.Dictionary which is only present in .NET 3.5.1 or prior. The very first instruction on the file says you need to download it. There’s even a very handy button right there which will take you to our software center to install it.

    Yet every single time someone gets a new laptop, they immediately assume that the file is broken.







  • droans@lemmy.worldtoMemes@sopuli.xyzI'm working on it, ok?
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    8 months ago

    You will never make more interest on an investment than you will get charged interest for the same amount as a loan. Ever. It does not happen.

    This is barely more accurate than a coin flip. Until 2021, it wasn’t that difficult to find loans with rates under 5%. Anything under 4% is basically free money and you’re normally better off investing in something low risk than to pay extra.

    So for me to sit on money that could go towards paying down debts, I’m just needlessly paying more in interest than I would be otherwise.

    If you don’t have any emergency funds, or not enough to cover a single large emergency, this is dumb. Cars break, roofs leak, etc. Even if you have an emergency where you can pay on credit, you’ll likely be looking at credit card interest rates. Or, you lose your job. Fun fact, most job loses occur when the economy is struggling. Another fun fact, most investments are doing really fucking poorly when the economy is struggling.

    Keep some money on hand in case something happens.




  • OpnSense would be the easiest way if you wanted to go. It’s still not easy, but the articles online should help you out.

    First you’d need a machine. I’ve got an m920q I bought off eBay for $135 after shipping.

    The computer will likely only have one Ethernet port. And it’s likely the port is Realtek which isn’t supported well.

    So, you’ll need to get yourself a NIC (a fancy term for a network card). There are good forum posts and articles online about the best NICs to buy for your needs. Intel is a must. However, you can find many of their NICs online labeled as another brand - usually HP, Lenovo, or Dell. Again, the forum posts will tell you what to look for.

    If you bought the same computer I mentioned above, you’ll also need a riser and a bezel. Amazon and eBay will have a good selection.

    Now assemble it. Flash the computer with OpnSense. Don’t plug it in as your router yet. Follow along with some basic setup guides online to figure out how you want it configured.

    Once you’re happy, plug it in as your router and test that it works. If not, you’ll need to put your old router back in place until you can figure out what you need to change.


  • droans@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlMust win
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    9 months ago

    They haven’t had an expansion franchise since 2002 and it’s unlikely it’ll happen any time in the near future. 32 teams is perfectly balanced - each conference has 16 teams and four divisions. Each division has four teams.

    It would also be very expensive.

    You’d need a stadium that met the NFL standards. The average stadium costs about $2B. Fortunately for her (and unfortunately for the rest of us), taxpayers on average pay about $1.2B of that. We’ll be very generous and assume they paid even more or she received a substantial loan that will be paid off otherwise, leaving her with about $250M out of pocket.

    It should be noted that the opposite is more often true for expansion teams, though. Cities don’t want to pay for the stadium because there’s more risk with new teams. They could decide to leave very quickly, the owners might not have the capital to keep the team afloat, etc. The Texans were the last expansion team and nearly all of the cost for their stadium was privately funded.

    Now, the NFL also charges a fee for expansion teams. This mostly has to be a guesstimate because we haven’t seen one in two decades. The Texans paid $700M at the time so we can assume it would be closer to $1.5B now.

    After that, you have the practice facilities and offices. Cities don’t usually cover that. You might be able to get away with using local facilities for a couple of years, but that won’t be enough to actually create a competitive team. A safe low-end estimate for this would be $150M. The Cowboys paid $1.5B for their facilities, but other teams have paid as low as $125M.

    Finally, the last big cost is payroll. This by itself would sink any chance she has.

    The NFL requires all guaranteed contracted salaries to be placed in escrow. I’m not sure where that rule came from, but I can probably guess Al Davis is to blame. A single year’s salary would be $225M for 2023 and around $240M for next season.

    However, most of the big name players have guarantees that would destroy that. The most common is a signing bonus. Teams love them because the salary cap rules would allow them to amortize it over the length of the contract, including “void years”. Your QB would receive about $200M immediately upon signing. The expansion draft picks and early draft picks would be another $300-500M likely. In the end, the salary escrow plus bonuses would be about $500M-1B.

    So assuming everything goes her way, she’d be on the hook for close to $2.5B immediately plus the reoccurring costs.

    It should also be noted that the NFL isn’t really a great way to make money as an owner. It’s really just a long term retirement hobby for billionaires. They could just go invest in companies or whatever, but they buy NFL teams because they like football and it occupies their time. Yeah, they’ll make money, but not as much as they otherwise could. There’s a reason most owners hate the idea of a super-billionaire like Bezos owning a team.




  • droans@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlMust win
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    9 months ago

    He had one target for one yard in the first half. Travis Kelce is the best TE currently in the NFL and considered to be the third best ever to play the game.

    Since all the receivers for the Chiefs are mid at best this year, he’s got some reason to be pissed. One of them, Kadarius Toney, was put on the gameday injury report for the AFCCG as being out for a leg injury and “personal reasons”. He then went public saying his leg was perfectly fine and he had no personal reasons to skip the game… Basically clarifying that the actual reason he wasn’t playing was because he’s ass.

    But Travis Kelce was also being guarded by Fred Warner during the first half who is one of the best linebackers in NFL history.

    It could be a diva moment, sure. But it’s the Super Bowl. Good teams know that you trust your studs. Romo would throw to Dez in double or triple team coverage, knowing he’d come down with it. Peyton Manning would chuck it at Marvin Harrison no matter who was on him. When someone is that good, all you’ve got to do is get the ball in their vicinity. Either they’ll come down with it or they’ll keep the defenders from getting it.

    It’s still stupid to yell at your coach like that and physically push him, but Andy Reid was making a lot of boneheaded decisions in the first. They went into halftime down 10-3. They did change things up during the second half, though. Kelce ended up with 9 receptions for 93 yards while the Chiefs won 25-22 in OT.


  • droans@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlGold for house
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    10 months ago

    Yes and no.

    Gold has been used as a currency historically for many reasons. It’s inert. It has a low melting point. It’s malleable and easily divisible. It doesn’t tarnish. A piece of gold from 2,000 years ago will be the same weight today as it was then. It also is attractive, which gives it value for jewelry. And, importantly, it’s predictably rare and can be mined.

    Today, it’s also valuable for electronics. Its inability to tarnish makes it fantastic if you need a connection to be corrosion resistant.

    There’s a reason gold still holds its value even though it’s not used for currency anymore.


  • droans@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlGold for house
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    10 months ago

    I’m seeing $412K as the average price of a home in 2023, not $495K. And gold was $2,135 in 2023. The price in gold is still higher in 2023, though about 193 bars for a home.

    Couple other notes, more related to the post.

    1920 is an oddly good year to use. It’s just after WWI. Industrialization and modernization are taking off across the US. Worker’s rights are beginning to take hold and working class people are now able to afford homes. It’s before the Roaring 20s, so you’re not going to get the actual details obscured with the market rush and subsequent depression.

    There is a couple important downsides though…

    Firstly, mortgages didn’t really exist back then. I mean, they did, but they were horrific. You’d have to go to an insurance company because banks wouldn’t offer them. The terms would give the insurance company full ownership of the property. If you were lucky, it would be a balloon loan - pay only the interest during the 5-10 year term and then pay the entire balance at the end. If you were less lucky, it was a lifelong contract where you only paid the interest plus fees every month.

    There was an alternative but most people didn’t have access to it: membership in a Savings and Loan corporation, also known as Building and Loan or thrifts. You’d join as a member and agree to buy X shares every month. If you give a notice (30-90 days usually), you would be allowed to cash out the shares plus interest earned for their actual value. When you wanted to buy a home, you would be allowed to use your shares as collateral. Each monthly payment would pay for the interest and a certain number of shares. Once you had enough shares, you would redeem them to pay off the loan. A bit complicated, but S&Ls were fantastic for the common person. They were owned by the members of your community and all loans went to support said community.

    Secondly, kind of related to the first point, there were no 30 year mortgages. Home prices are virtually tied to the monthly payment and a thirty year mortgage allows for lower monthly payments. Prices might get out of line a bit, such as right now, if people believe that interest rates will drop and they can refinance later. Personally, I don’t think we’ll see any drops for at least two years and, even then, we won’t see anything like the 2020-2021 rates unless we experience an economic catastrophe like 2008. You want higher rates when the macro environment is strong and lower rates when it’s weak. Cheap debt in a good economy is basically a handout to the rich - makes you wonder why Trump pushed the Fed to keep them low back in 2018-2019…