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Twisted Anti-Vaxxers Rush to Blame Matthew Perry’s Death on Covid Vaccine
  • The link seems obvious, honestly. If you get a vaccine, that's .5ml adding to your body weight... you go get in a pool without factoring that in, next thing you know, you're at the bottom running out of air. If he ate within half an hour of getting in... well, he was just courting death at that point.

  • Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American
  • This situation has turned into a real cock for so many people.

    The place I got my mortgage through sends out emails regularly with updates on my home value, current rates, and other assorted stuff. I originally bought this house at the tail end of 2020. It's not the best house around, still needs work, but it had the room we needed, was in our budget (220), and the payment was low because the rate was great (2.75). Our original plan was stay here a bit, get rid of some debt, and then maybe try to find what we'd like to be our forever home, wherever that may be (we're 44).

    That idea went south in a hurry. What once probably wouldn't have been worth sinking extra money into to fix, may now be the only choice. The aforementioned newsletter has a section where it shows what you could "save" at current rates by refinancing or taking cash out. The most recent one said I could "save" -$213400, meaning if we refinanced to take cash out to fix things up right now, it would cost us the entire price of the home yet again, on top of what the home and interest will already cost. Where a home in the 400's was achievable before, our home in the 200s would nearly not be now.

    I feel terrible for people having to try to achieve home ownership at this point, or probably for the rest of the decade. On the one hand, I understand how fortunate I am to have gotten in when I did, and to have a home period; on the other, like many, I'm now essentially trapped, which has the ripple effect of keeping both rates and prices high because most people aren't going to trade a sub-3% mortgage for 7%+, assuming they can even find a place to go at this point.

    Add in corporations branching out into a new area to do their level best to eliminate the concept of ownership for the majority of people, and politicians focusing on the more serious global issues like who goes in which bathroom, and my hope for the future couldn't be squashed any further if you put it in a hydraulic press.

  • American XL bully dogs to be banned after attacks, Rishi Sunak says
  • Not sure why people downvote this, it's objectively correct. We bred these dogs to be what they are, we can absolutely breed something else to take its place. This is really basic evolution and trait selection.

    I think they're great looking dogs, but I also think they need a similar ban in the US, barring a few highly specialized breeders, who can essentially reverse what was done to them over a period of generations. I don't want to see them go away entirely, I'd just like them controlled until we can breed out what we've bred in.

  • Open source community figures out problems with performance in Starfield
  • I'm inclined to believe this, and this likely isn't even the whole extent of it. I've been playing on a Series X, but decided to check it out on my Rog Ally. On low, at 720p with FSR2 on, I'd get 25-30fps in somewhere like New Atlantis. I downloaded a tweaked .ini for the Ultra preset and now not only does the game look much better, but the city is up closer to 40fps, with most other areas being 45-60+. Makes me wonder what it was they thought was worth the massive cost that the default settings give, with no real visual improvement.

    Another odd thing, if I'm playing Cyberpunk or something, this thing is in the 90%+ CPU and GPU utilization range, with the temps in the 90c+ range. Starfield? GPU is like 99%, CPU sits around 30%, and the temp is <=70c, which basically doesn't happen playing any other "AAA" game. I could buy Todd's comments if the frame rate was crap, but this thing was maxed out... but not getting close to full utilization on a handheld with an APU indicates something less simple.

    I'm hoping the work from Hans finds its way to all platforms (in one way or another), because I'd love to use the Series X but 30fps with weird HDR on a 120hz OLED TV actually makes me a little nauseous after playing for a while, which isn't something I commonly have a problem with.

  • Brain's Weight Switch Found: May Let Us Eat What We Want, Finally
  • I had actually looked into that and yeah, because it isn't technically indicated for weight loss most insurance companies have dropped covering it barring severe medical need. Unfortunately, I'm like 80lbs overweight, and even having high blood pressure wasn't enough to drop the $300/no it would cost out of pocket.

    It makes sense, I mean why cover $300/mo while I lose weight when you can cover my eventual six figure bypass and hospital stay, or roll the dice and hope I just die?

    I did hear that there is some version of it that has (or is soon getting) approval for weight loss so... maybe!

  • [POLL] Do you use/require a headphone jack on your phone?
  • I use a headphone jack when I'm looking for a particular listening experience, which I have amp / DAC / etc for. If I'm using my phone to listen, I'm both not worried about sound quality, and don't want to be tethered to it by a cord.

    I suppose if I were really arsed about it, I'd just get a USBC dongle. That said, I can see where that would be a hassle for people that prefer wired, and I think I've held only a couple of phones in my life that couldn't have just accommodated a headphone jack instead of saving the 1.5 cents it probably costs to leave it out.

    I'll admit, my initial decision to just use wireless was more from seeing the writing on the wall; airpods sales would need to basically evaporate to get most of the manufacturers to course change at this point. Hell, the phone I'm currently using is the first I've had in years that even came with a charging brick in the box, so I'm assuming ditching the cable is next, followed by microtransactions to use various built in apps and services... like the phone dialer. Need to keep them margins infinitely expanding to appease shareholders.

  • China Decides iPhones Pose a National Security Risk
  • People are down voting this, but I think the point is valid. Unless they are switching to only allowing Chinese branded phones with an entirely Chinese homegrown OS on them, then Apple isn't even the most worrisome device for them to carry.

    I'd think anything Android would also be off the table. Anything made by a US ally, anything with a chip, of any kind, manufactured or designed by the US or an ally, and so on. Otherwise, this strikes me as locking the front door for security, but leaving all the other doors and windows open.

  • China Decides iPhones Pose a National Security Risk
  • People are down voting this, but I think the point is valid. Unless they are switching to only allowing Chinese branded phones with an entirely Chinese homegrown OS on them, then Apple isn't even the most worrisome device for them to carry.

    I'd think anything Android would also be off the table. Anything made by a US ally, anything with a chip, of any kind, manufactured or designed by the US or an ally, and so on. Otherwise, this strikes me as locking the front door for security, but leaving all the other doors and windows open.

  • Brain's Weight Switch Found: May Let Us Eat What We Want, Finally
  • Every time I see one of these weight loss miracles, I wait for the other shoe to drop... and it usually does.

    As I have learned the hard way in my own life, the weight loss miracle is setting a calorie limit and strictly adhering to it (barring medical complications... which, let's face it, most of the people who say those cause issues with them losing weight probably don't have them).

    The weight loss miracle I'm waiting on is the pill that rewires your brain to change your relationship with food because, man... that's the hard part. Having to constantly fight my own brain - no, you aren't hungry, you're bored; yes, you actually are satisfied eating a happy meal for 550 cals, you actually do not need a 2 cheeseburger meal large size at 1200 cals, and so on - that's the struggle for me. I'm down from 270 to 240 so far, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't still a constant fight, which is probably what makes relapsing after taking all these drugs such a common thing.

  • Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design - but that’s not boring, Bethesda insists
  • I don't necessarily mind them, but they seem to be out of control in this one. I ran from the UC place in Atlantis to my ship, landed on Mars, ran into the town to a quest giver, and when I opened my map next, I had dots ALL OVER IT.

    I popped open my quest log, and there were 11 random quests I didn't even realize I had hoovered up just running from location to location. The thing that kind of bothers me about it is that that's more than double the amount of quests I had intentionally picked up.

    It's okay if I explore and uncover some of these myself, Todd.

  • What is the worst scenes in all of star trek?
  • Although I could argue there are worse scenes in general, the one with the most impact for me, that almost cut my Trek fandom short... the handholding jellyfish at the end of TNG's debut 2 parter.

    I watched it when it first aired, and I cringed so hard that my family thought I had a stroke. Really, those episodes were full of stuff that made you feel like an ass telling your friend new to Trek that "it gets better," but that really was the whipped cream and cherry on top.

  • FCC says “too bad” to ISPs complaining that listing every fee is too hard
  • One of those weird, rare situations where Google seems to do something right. They said the cost was $100, and every month I pay $100. I'm assuming fees are built into that, but my bill never deviates from the price I was told, which is really all I care about.

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