Paulos_the_fog

stavvers, 3 days ago to random

Heads up to anyone using facebook or insta: you'll receive a notification about your data being used to train AIs. The opt out process is deliberately convoluted and you have to fill out a form to object. This is what I wrote in mine, and the objection was immediately registered as successful, so feel free to copy.

Masto reply bores, this is not a post on which to fart out your opinions about Meta or AI or whatever. So don't. I'm sharing helpful info for people who need it, not for you.

mikewas, 6 days ago to random

Why does your credit score drop when you pay off a car loan?

A friend of mine was furious the other day, when he saw that paying off his car loan caused his score to drop about 40 points.

Why does this happen?

Two reasons.

👇

#CreditScore #TransUnion #Equifax #Experian

Paulos_the_fog, 9 months ago to random

What is it about Americans that they seem completely unable to comprehend this?

nyquildotorg, 9 days ago (edited 9 days ago) to random

I've heard the story about how the A&W 1/3 lb burger at the same price as McDonald's Quarter Pounder failed because America is bad at fractions, but I do not believe that's the whole story.

Incredibly important factors:

1. A&W burgers sucked.

2. McDonalds was already an advertising juggernaut by that point. No kids have ever begged their parents to go to A&W to get a burger, which means the parents don't need to buy a bigger burger.

Paulos_the_fog, 6 months ago to random

rbreich, 9 days ago to random

Half of Amazon warehouse workers struggle with food and housing costs.

A third of the workers have had to rely on at least one government assistance program.

Amazon's stock hit an all time high in April. Jeff Bezos is now worth $203 billion.

This is what oligarchy looks like.

Paulos_the_fog, 1 month ago to random

Christ - you have to wonder about the mentality of US politicians. Are they mostly complete fuckin imbeciles!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/oh-dear-god-tennessee-just-passed-a-bill-banning-chemtrails-which-are-not-real/ar-AA1ngcSJ?cvid=55ca01041ac8478cb8c8a87178ae6be2&ei=28

Paulos_the_fog, 3 months ago to random

Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:
"A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
  This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
  After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
  God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
  He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
  In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
  And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clump-fuls of hair and scream in anguish:
  'My God… what… have… I… created?
  If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."

KimPerales, 5 days ago to journalism

Oppressive regimes control & selectively remove media coverage, SM..., that keep them accountable. Netanyahu may be covering up more war crimes:

Israeli officials seize AP EQP & take down live shot of northern Gaza, citing new media law. The QA satellite channel is among 1000s of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP & other news orgs. The AP denounced the move.

#IsraelHamasWar #WarCrimes #IHL #Netanyahu #Media #HumanitarianAid #Transparency

https://apnews.com/article/live-transmission-israel-associated-press-57e8f662907334ba3599156276381190

ChrisMayLA6, 3 days ago to Health

Is the answer to 'dental deserts' to force newly trained dentists to work for the NHS for the first years of their career (or to pay back the costs of their training)?

Well, unless Labour adopt such an approach we may never know, but the crisis in NHS dentistry might be alleviated by some form of national service requirement from dentists (alongside a better funding model!)?.

It may not be the best answer, but these are desperate times in dentistry.

#NHS #health
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/23/new-dentists-could-be-forced-to-work-in-nhs-to-tackle-englands-dental-deserts

thomasfuchs, 9 days ago to random

To make something very clear after the dogpiling and death threats I got yesterday:

You have the right to disagree with and criticize my word choices or opinions.

You don’t have the right to make me listen to you or respond to you.

You absolutely, positively don’t have the right to stalk me after I withdraw consent of communication by blocking you, or to threaten my family or friends with violence or death. Fuck you if you do, or if you associate with those who do.

Paulos_the_fog, 1 year ago to random

This will the photo the world sees of Britain today - a peaceful protestor being arrested for exercising what used to be an inalienable right in the UK!!!

Paulos_the_fog, 2 months ago to random

was just about to buy some avocados yesterday when I noticed that they were marked as grown in Israel - no thanks - I will not support the Israeli economy whilst they are committing mass murder against Palestinian civilians.

weekendspy, 8 days ago to random

Say what you like about 1970s trade unions. But nobody in a full-time job needed food banks then.

Geri, 3 days ago to random

Farage will not be standing

who gives a fuck

Paulos_the_fog, 10 months ago to random

There sure are some REALLY smashing people out there, aren't there

Paulos_the_fog, 18 days ago to random

Paulos_the_fog, 4 months ago to random

Paulos_the_fog, 4 days ago to random

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest as when I was living in Eastbourne and working in Darlington Co Durham, a single from Eastbourne to my place of work on a Monday morning was £144 and that was back in about 1997!

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1902151/train-ticket-cost-london-newcastle-furious-twitter

Paulos_the_fog, 6 days ago to random

Paulos_the_fog, 3 days ago to random

Paulos_the_fog, 3 days ago to random

There were some interviews on the BBC the other day I believe it was in Bolton. They were asking people in the street what they thought about current political situation so on.
I'm not going to insult the people of Bolton, or wherever it was, by tarring all of them with the brush of abject cretinous stupidity that appeared to come out of the ‘stop a random person in the street’ interviews. I think it far more likely that it was the BBC that engineered the extreme right wing bias of the interviewees.
There seemed to be a vacuous obsession with immigration. I don't know whether the imbeciles interviewed realise the reality of the situation that Britain is in. Britain is in fact in dire need of immigration for a number of reasons:
the birth rate is nowhere near high enough to maintain an active workforce that will be needed to pay the pensions of most of the cretins interviewed! Therefore, immigration is an absolute necessity to ensure that there are enough people paying into the pension pot.
Britain does not train anywhere near the number of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other medical personnel needed to fully staff the NHS. There are currently tens of thousands of vacancies for both doctors and nurses and those cannot possibly be filled without immigration!
Fruit and vegetables are rotting in the fields due to the lack of suitable personnel to harvest them. Brits themselves seem not to want to do this kind of work and in the past the pickers have been mainly eastern Europeans who were entitled to come here as EU citizens. Now the conservatives have screwed that up completely, they are not allowed to come so farmers and market gardeners are losing millions due to the in their inability to recruit pickers.
It's a mystery to me what the complete imbeciles interviewed think could be a solution to this issue it's pretty blindingly obvious that the only solution is immigration but they hate that – idiots