Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

[Andy Black]

Bought an amazing car I always wanted. Mercedes S550.

Owned it 13 months. Got run off the road once...

And today... sandwich smashed by an a lady who "didn't have her coffee today." What a stupid bitch.

There are so many things wrong with it I'm sure it is totaled. Parking sensors, air bag lights, trunk won't open, fluids leaking.

Yeah, it's too easy to total an S class. It is done.

Wife and I are fine... But still. Disappointing. Glad we were in the S instead of the truck though. Clearly a safe car. I'll buy another...

Whoa. Sorry to hear that. Glad things weren’t worse though.

 

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[Kak]

Interestingly enough about this crash... The "active headrests" blew. They evidently have an airbag like charge in them to reduce the likelihood of whiplash.

We were both kind of wondering why it didn't hurt at all. The repair place started talking about how this wasn't just a fender bender if those things went off. The worked like a charm though.

View: https://youtu.be/IojwFw86q0Y

Who knew? But kind of cool!

 

[Ocean Man]

Interestingly enough about this crash... The "active headrests" blew. They evidently have an airbag like charge in them to reduce the likelihood of whiplash.

We were both kind of wondering why it didn't hurt at all. The colission place started talking about how this wasn't just a fender bender if those things went off. The worked like a charm though.

View: https://youtu.be/IojwFw86q0Y

Who knew? But kind of cool!

Jeez.. I’m glad you guys are okay! God bless.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

I’ve never met a real person who thinks the earth is flat, but I see posts all the time with 100k likes making fun of people who do. Where are they?

I think there’s a psychological phenomenon where people feel smarter for making fun of things even if they haven’t actually happened.

It’s like knowing that the sky is blue, and being proud that “at least I know the sky is blue.” Congratulations for making the most basic observation possible!

I saw the same thing with vaccines and autism. TONS of posts making fun of people who “think vaccines cause autism.” Not a single thing suggesting any person in real life actually thinks they do! If anything, I saw a few people argue from more of a “my body, don’t tell me what to put in it” standpoint, but that was it (that’s a whole other debate).

Has anyone met someone who believes the earth is flat, unironically? As in, not internet trolling to get replies and rile everyone up. I haven’t. But see lots of memes making fun of these imaginary people.

It’s like joining the “I’m smart” herd, without doing anything smart. Or anything at all, really.

 

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[LordGanon]

*blows the horn* I got a job!

Now, you possibly think I must be insane posting that here. Hear me out: I did it for my mental health. "How is that possible?" I actually started taking my own advice.

One thing I always tell people who start as freelancers or entrepreneurs is that they should try to stay in contact with other humans, or at least get a separate room for work, because seeing the same desk all the time will drive you crazy at some point.

I like to spend time alone. And it's important to spend time alone. But my social contacts are currently lacking. I lost three circles of friends due to changing life situations and moving. Sure, I got friends all over the republic - but no one close by and those a little closer have kids.

I wanted to be in contact with people again. I tried everything. Meetups: COVID-closed. Bars: Alcoholic. Sports: COVID-closed. And even the church choir: COVID-closed. Family: COVID-cautious.

So the only way to actually get out of the house and meet people these days was getting a job.

Now I'm hired for 10-20 hours a week for social work. Going to school with disabled kids. Helping out families under supervision of the government. Leisure activities for people returning from juvenile hall.

I'm not doing it for the money. I get paid to do something I desperately need and still got enough time to build my business.

 

[PizzaOnTheRoof]

View attachment 35138

Or a badass product photo for his million dollar online vape shop...

I’ve never met a real person who thinks the earth is flat, but I see posts all the time with 100k likes making fun of people who do. Where are they?

I think there’s a psychological phenomenon where people feel smarter for making fun of things even if they haven’t actually happened.

It’s like knowing that the sky is blue, and being proud that “at least I know the sky is blue.” Congratulations for making the most basic observation possible!

I saw the same thing with vaccines and autism. TONS of posts making fun of people who “think vaccines cause autism.” Not a single thing suggesting any person in real life actually thinks they do! If anything, I saw a few people argue from more of a “my body, don’t tell me what to put in it” standpoint, but that was it (that’s a whole other debate).

Has anyone met someone who believes the earth is flat, unironically? As in, not internet trolling to get replies and rile everyone up. I haven’t. But see lots of memes making fun of these imaginary people.

It’s like joining the “I’m smart” herd, without doing anything smart. Or anything at all, really.

Behind The Curve on Netflix is a good documentary on flat earthers.

They do exist and its hilarious.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

*blows the horn* I got a job!

Now, you possibly think I must be insane posting that here. Hear me out: I did it for my mental health. "How is that possible?" I actually started taking my own advice.

One thing I always tell people who start as freelancers or entrepreneurs is that they should try to stay in contact with other humans, or at least get a separate room for work, because seeing the same desk all the time will drive you crazy at some point.

I like to spend time alone. And it's important to spend time alone. But my social contacts are currently lacking. I lost three circles of friends due to changing life situations and moving. Sure, I got friends all over the republic - but no one close by and those a little closer have kids.

I wanted to be in contact with people again. I tried everything. Meetups: COVID-closed. Bars: Alcoholic. Sports: COVID-closed. And even the church choir: COVID-closed. Family: COVID-cautious.

So the only way to actually get out of the house and meet people these days was getting a job.

Now I'm hired for 10-20 hours a week for social work. Going to school with disabled kids. Helping out families under supervision of the government. Leisure activities for people returning from juvenile hall.

I'm not doing it for the money. I get paid to do something I desperately need and still got enough time to build my business.

congrats. Until your business has really started to make you enough money to support yourself, this is perfect. Just don’t lose sight of the end goal and don’t waste your evenings and weekends

 

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[StrikingViper69]

I’ve never met a real person who thinks the earth is flat, but I see posts all the time with 100k likes making fun of people who do. Where are they?

I think there’s a psychological phenomenon where people feel smarter for making fun of things even if they haven’t actually happened.

It’s like knowing that the sky is blue, and being proud that “at least I know the sky is blue.” Congratulations for making the most basic observation possible!

I saw the same thing with vaccines and autism. TONS of posts making fun of people who “think vaccines cause autism.” Not a single thing suggesting any person in real life actually thinks they do! If anything, I saw a few people argue from more of a “my body, don’t tell me what to put in it” standpoint, but that was it (that’s a whole other debate).

Has anyone met someone who believes the earth is flat, unironically? As in, not internet trolling to get replies and rile everyone up. I haven’t. But see lots of memes making fun of these imaginary people.

It’s like joining the “I’m smart” herd, without doing anything smart. Or anything at all, really.

I think Love Island is popular for a similar reason...

 

[ZF Lee]

Just finished a graded college assignment on some Derivatives mega-questions.

It was all about stock options.
We studied more about the hedging component, rather than the money-print operation taught in MJ's thread. I didn't truly appreciate how clever options are to fight back bad price drops or spikes until I dug in further.

For some reasons, I googled my questions (which are 100% original, non-textbook), and was shocked to find them turn up on Chegg and CourseHero!

Apparently, you can ask tutors your homework questions, and get answers, but they are put in public-view.

I looked at the answers that the Chegg/CourseHero tutors gave.
Turns out that this 'shortcut' for lazy, desperate students wasn't that perfect.

They used different terminology that any hawk-eyed prof could spot easily.
For example, our lectures used the term 'bull call spreads', but the Chegg folks used 'debit call spreads'.

And the tutors didn't put up any math workings, but just threw in some Excel table or handwriting scrawls.

In a question on comparing hedging strategies, where they just gave prices of puts and calls without specifying what strategy you should discuss on, I felt that my professor wanted to see how elaborate of a strategy you could do.

So you could go for a bear put spread (you'll just buy and sell puts) or a straddle (combo puts and calls). But the tutor answers just did direct call or put options....with some questionable calculations on the payoff table.

I guess that's how desperate college students will get once the deadline starts knocking, the COVID shut-in stress gets to their heads and whatnot (especially when the invisible derivatives can be rather un-intuitive at times until you do the math)

I'm not sure how my profs will do anything about it if they find out.

But it's actually ILLEGAL to do that on Chegg/Coursehero. I read their terms of usage, and its actually full-blown plagiarism. In fact, profs can call them directly for information on the student who posted it (e.g. email address) if they wanna track culprits down.

As for myself?

I can understand hating college assignments and deadlines.

But I've found that there's better ways of finding answers than just straight-out asking for spoon-feeding from the study platforms. And it's a lot more interesting to find something different than the books taught when you do the work yourself.

What frightens me though is myself imagining that 50-70% of my Finance major batch might be walking out later with degree-in-hand, but F*cking untrained in finance...having skimmed through with Chegg/online copycatting. No wonder employers pay fresh grads peanuts...

And it's not the FIRST time I saw this happen.

I once googled my HRM essay question on remote working, and saw it pop out on Chegg!
I looked at the tutor's answer and said, 'It sucks. I can do better.'

I struggled a little with it, as there weren't many journal articles out there that reviewed human resources with remote working. I had to think of other similar keywords to search up like 'telework' or 'culture'.

Got a good A for my non-copycatting efforts.

 

[MA81]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7H4KznI6M

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7H4KznI6M

That was legendary, not for the take on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, but the last scene in the clip ... the pregnant Karen stuffing her face with junk food and carbonated sugar water, claiming to be some advocate for health. And don't even get me started on Bill Gates and his smug laugh when talking about pandemics, like he actually loves what's happening, no doubt. Thanks for the share.

 

[BellaPippin]

Ok, I'll wait for the next video first before saying anything. I feel the next one would be way better!
There's a lot of potential in these type of YT channels, because it can spin off to ASMR art niches and art for depression/anxiety/self-awareness niches.

You're right! Ideally I would like to live-stream mostly and monetize that way, but I'm going to do a few content ones as well to help start the audience going. I'll share the video as soon as I have it done. If you know about lighting and stuff please do help with constructive criticism! I'm an absolute beginner.

And yes part of the content of my channel is sort of related to mental health/self-awareness since a ton of the blocks and reasons people don't make art are usually things like fear of failure behind procrastination, like it happened to me. There's not much of that as there is tutorials or straight demos/speedpaintings so I hope it stands out.

 

[BellaPippin]

*blows the horn* I got a job!

Now, you possibly think I must be insane posting that here. Hear me out: I did it for my mental health. "How is that possible?" I actually started taking my own advice.

One thing I always tell people who start as freelancers or entrepreneurs is that they should try to stay in contact with other humans, or at least get a separate room for work, because seeing the same desk all the time will drive you crazy at some point.

I like to spend time alone. And it's important to spend time alone. But my social contacts are currently lacking. I lost three circles of friends due to changing life situations and moving. Sure, I got friends all over the republic - but no one close by and those a little closer have kids.

I wanted to be in contact with people again. I tried everything. Meetups: COVID-closed. Bars: Alcoholic. Sports: COVID-closed. And even the church choir: COVID-closed. Family: COVID-cautious.

So the only way to actually get out of the house and meet people these days was getting a job.

Now I'm hired for 10-20 hours a week for social work. Going to school with disabled kids. Helping out families under supervision of the government. Leisure activities for people returning from juvenile hall.

I'm not doing it for the money. I get paid to do something I desperately need and still got enough time to build my business.

That sounds like a great part-time community related job. How did you find it, if I may ask? That will probably be the kind of part-time job I'd like to get as soon as I'm able to cut the full-time income

 

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[sparechange]

Did anyone see the "blast from the past" forum interface briefly?
It was kind of royal blue, very retro.

Don't know if that was a new or previous version but it wasn't pretty.

Everything seemed smaller and cramped.

I saw it and now it's back to the better one.

Hopefully that's not the new one :O my eyes have ptsd

 

[sparechange]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4bOAQDr0Ss


Alright this is just hilarious and awesome...

Cop makes the guy RUN handcuffed and look at that beautiful pup, very well trained.

 

[Xeon]

For those bootstrapping a business and starting up, learn from these guys:

 

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[Mutant]

So came across this on Instagram, but it originates on tiktok (@itsdanielmac for both) where he asks people with nice cars what they do for a living. He's done a few & they're going viral.

http://instagr.am/p/CF9zRJsHYjM/
I wonder if anyone will have such a life changing moment as MJ did from just this?


The angle taken in the article below about this is hilarious - let's just say the fact that the platform's called Pedestrian is perfect.

This TikToker Asking Rich Car Owners What They Do For A Living Is Hilarious Yet Infuriating

 

[sparechange]

For those bootstrapping a business and starting up, learn from these guys:

LOL dam cheap people, I bought my first car last night and the guy came by with it barely above empty, then said he'll comeback... the cheap **** ran his personal errands and brought it back BELOW empty and said don't worry you still got some mileage on it! Oh yeh refused to haggle for a $50 discount to while bragging about running multi million dollar companies, yeh ok buddy my bs detector was pinging so loud.

 

[sparechange]

Under insane amount of stress atm, I seriously might end up in a straight jacket lol.

Behind schedule (a week) have to send out some orders, can't hire a driver, noone wants to help me

Production is a bit of an issue

Organizing everything is so much work........

I don't think people know how much is actually involved in running a business, I mean it looks easy but yeh no. If I can get through the month without having a heart attack it should be a good year (hopefully)

I'm having so much anxiety in the middle of the night I can feel my heart thumping in my chest due to being under so much stress.......

''You rich lucky bastard''

Big shoutout to the people that made it through the tunnel alive, I can smell a bankruptcy looming in the air although currently have the whole country blowing up my website with interest so it's putting me into a weird spot mentally.

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

Under insane amount of stress atm, I seriously might end up in a straight jacket lol.

Behind schedule (a week) have to send out some orders, can't hire a driver, noone wants to help me

Production is a bit of an issue

Organizing everything is so much work........

I don't think people know how much is actually involved in running a business, I mean it looks easy but yeh no. If I can get through the month without having a heart attack it should be a good year (hopefully)

I'm having so much anxiety in the middle of the night I can feel my heart thumping in my chest due to being under so much stress.......

''You rich lucky bastard''

Big shoutout to the people that made it through the tunnel alive, I can smell a bankruptcy looming in the air although currently have the whole country blowing up my website with interest so it's putting me into a weird spot mentally.

I have no idea what your situation is but it sounds like you need better systems and processes at your business if you are under this much personal stress and doing this much work yourself. Granted, that can’t be done overnight. Good luck, you can handle this for now!! Just keep pushing.

 

[LordGanon]

How did you find it, if I may ask?

My aunt does city council work for the inclusion of people with disabilities and recommended talking to one of the agencies here, because they are always looking for people. Especially men, who are hard to come by in this sector, but are often preferred by the clients.

 

[Xeon]

Under insane amount of stress atm, I seriously might end up in a straight jacket lol.

Big shoutout to the people that made it through the tunnel alive, I can smell a bankruptcy looming in the air although currently have the whole country blowing up my website with interest so it's putting me into a weird spot mentally.

Think about what comes after that. The girls, the yatch, the luxury cars, the mansion......

 

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[Xeon]

LOL dam cheap people, I bought my first car last night and the guy came by with it barely above empty, then said he'll comeback... the cheap **** ran his personal errands and brought it back BELOW empty and said don't worry you still got some mileage on it! Oh yeh refused to haggle for a $50 discount to while bragging about running multi million dollar companies, yeh ok buddy my bs detector was pinging so loud.

Btw, the way that guy in the video "fix" his shower head is an absolute genius. It could even be a productocracy in the making.

 

[BellaPippin]

Under insane amount of stress atm, I seriously might end up in a straight jacket lol.

Behind schedule (a week) have to send out some orders, can't hire a driver, noone wants to help me

Production is a bit of an issue

Organizing everything is so much work........

I don't think people know how much is actually involved in running a business, I mean it looks easy but yeh no. If I can get through the month without having a heart attack it should be a good year (hopefully)

I'm having so much anxiety in the middle of the night I can feel my heart thumping in my chest due to being under so much stress.......

''You rich lucky bastard''

Big shoutout to the people that made it through the tunnel alive, I can smell a bankruptcy looming in the air although currently have the whole country blowing up my website with interest so it's putting me into a weird spot mentally.

I definitely know that weird spot, minus the whole internet blowing my website with interest for a product.

See if brain-dumping everything on a page helps some. It helps me quite a bit.

 

[Mutant]

Came across this today. It's quite the perspective check for a Linkedin post.

 

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[sparechange]

Another lil rant.

Saw the perfect apartment yesterday and even though I can easily afford the 6 months rent upfront + 6 weeks deposit, they need me to have a guarantor who's a homeowner making £26k+ a year. Despite the fact I'm paying the entire term up front... Hmm.

You should see how it works in vancouver, even if you have the money upfront they need to check your credit and employment history.. pretty nuts AND make you sign a 1 year lease

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Sad...

Eddie Van Halen, Hall of Famer Who Revolutionized the Guitar, Dead at 65

Guitar great Eddie Van Halen has died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 65.

www.rollingstone.com

 

[sparechange]

Called all of my old employers to ask if they could help me, no dice. Funny how that works, I'll remember that......

I remember talking to my old boss and telling him I'm quitting to move on and he said when you strike it big hit me up, right on it..

Dear Dave, thanks for the support *****

 

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[ElleMg]

You should see how it works in vancouver, even if you have the money upfront they need to check your credit and employment history.. pretty nuts AND make you sign a 1 year lease

Oh man I heard the rent is really high over there. I visited Vancouver about 5 years ago and really enjoyed it, but was surprised by how many homeless there were.

Yeah it's kinda crazy most landlords would happily take me on as I can pass the right to rent check and the affordability isn't a problem as I'm paying upfront, but letting agents have strict policies and some aren't even willing to hear me out as I'm trying to explain my situation.

I'm going to go in person to some letting agents and try speak to the managers and just tell them the situation and say 'if you get a landlord who is happy to take money upfront, here are my details'. With the current uncertainty, if they actually take what I say on board, I'm sure there are some landlords who would happily take my money up front.

 

[ElleMg]

Under insane amount of stress atm, I seriously might end up in a straight jacket lol.

Behind schedule (a week) have to send out some orders, can't hire a driver, noone wants to help me

Production is a bit of an issue

Organizing everything is so much work........

I don't think people know how much is actually involved in running a business, I mean it looks easy but yeh no. If I can get through the month without having a heart attack it should be a good year (hopefully)

I'm having so much anxiety in the middle of the night I can feel my heart thumping in my chest due to being under so much stress.......

''You rich lucky bastard''

Big shoutout to the people that made it through the tunnel alive, I can smell a bankruptcy looming in the air although currently have the whole country blowing up my website with interest so it's putting me into a weird spot mentally.

I feel you, @sparechange. People think when you have money you have no problems. There must be an element of bitterness or something, it's bizarre the way people overlook your issues just because you've got money in the bank.

Hope you manage some less stressful nights. My body has randomly decided to wake up with feelings of anxiety at 5am every day now. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed things improve and the stress gets a little less intense for ya!