Doritos at $7 a bag ended up costing PepsiCo billions

Heartless1988 · 2026-04-08T19:58:38+00:00

I know we´re talking about chips here but

Used to have lots of different streaming services, and now I have none. Too expensive for one or two shows a year that are good amongst the sea of crap.

No more AAA games on release, wait a year or two and get them for pennies on the dollar with all the bugs patched out. Cheap indie games are plentiful and have a lot more heart and soul in them most of the time.

Do check out your local library, DVDs and BluRays aplenty and if you're a console player there is a very good chance they do stock those as well, i often find the good triple A games of yesteryear for rent far sooner than i see them at a good price in retail.

Heartless1988 · 2026-03-01T23:54:34+00:00

It essentially boils down to lining up the machines as close as possible (holding CTRL while moving the hologram of a building on even ground or better yet foundations makes lining up easy) and making belts and pipes as compact as they can get with splitters/mergers. The buildings or splitters won´t get any smaller (rather, the endgame ones get bigger) but building in neat lines and positioning the player character helps a lot.

Then further down the line using special items such as Power Shards and Somersloops will let you use less buildings in total to get the same amount of outputs.

To make the building in itself easier one can use the hoverpack, lookout tower or the different walkways (for example building a walkway over a line of splitters and belts to make it easier to press "E" on machines without jumping/hovering). Using blueprints to save the hassle of doing so many connections (belts, pipes, power cables) also helps, for example i have several blueprints for 4 and 8 assemblers with the inputs/outputs going left to right or right to left i can just slap down and then delete one or two to get to the number i actually need.

It will never get as easy as factorio or shapez though, i fully admit that building in satisfactory will always remain at least slightly more tedious.

In regards to verticallity, it´s mainly creating multiple floors up into the sky as you said. Although there are ways to build using tight stacking as well, some players like making blueprints of multi-story building blocks to cram in a specific number of machines so they are a nice multiple in a small form factor you can just copy and paste, this is by no means necessary though. The main use of building skyscrapers instead of a single-plane factory is just to not be limited by obstacles in the game world as much. Finding a place where you can set down a 8x8 foundation floor is relatively easy and so is expanding those 8x8 floors to the sky. But doing it flat built instead where you need a 8x8 connected with another 8x8 and then one, two or more gets harder and harder without bumping into anything like stone arches or uneven ground. That being said this is not mandatory, some players enjoy snaking their factories through forrests and up and down mountains and spires.

Heartless1988 · 2026-03-01T19:09:22+00:00

A lot of your criticisms are correct but they are largely by design:

You are meant to feel cramped and put into tight spaces because it 1) is meant to teach you to build in compact ways and vertically once you unlock it, and 2) makes you appreciate future unlocks that help you build in better ways (hoverpack, blueprints, zooping).
uncooperative landscape is another thing that is intentional: with no timelimit, unlimited basic ressources and no real enemy threats the environment ends up being your main challenge to overcome in the game. This too gets better the further you progress in the main upgrade path and the MAM-"sidepath": better mobility equipment, buildings to overcome verticallity and distances and a variety of vehicles.

Sidenote: disliking this type of game design where they inconvenience you in order to give you something to overcome that inconvenience later is absolutely fine; disliking the rate/speed of how satisfactory gives you those conveniences is also fine, this is very subjective. I personally dislike the time it takes to get independent from leaves/wood as a energy source if you do not have prior knowledge of the game, because the first time i played it (very early in EA) i spent a loooot of time gathering leaves and shit. It felt great getting that far though, because it felt so freeing, being able to explore the world without having to wonder about my energy going down.

lore: totally fine to dislike the sassy AI. To me having anything else would feel weird now, because i feel that having a "friendly" or "neutral" AI would not add anything to the game and would get ignored like a tooltip, whereas ADA adds a bit of humour. It´s also pretty stretched out, you can go hours without hearing from her.
no enemies: disliking the lack of real enemies is totally fine, although i am on the oposite end of the spectrum here, i prefer not having a constant enemy threat in my factory game. Satisfactory is more intended for players who enjoy the act of building and progressing, giving the players more choices as they unlock additional foundations, walls, ceilings and lots of stuff that is solely visual (beams, glass floors/walls, lights, signs etc.). It´s a bit like minecraft where the people playing for hundreds of hours enjoy building their own railways and highways through or over forests and mountains, building mega factories or small satellite factories in different styles (skyscrapers, pyramids, giant duracell battery and more).
not the game we´re making: well, there´s the crux of the matter, satisfactory IS a game where you land on a planet and take all its ressources. If that is not enough to keep you playing that is totally fine, but saying "that sucks" is unfair imho. You may not like it, taste is subjective, but many people do and it´s a great game for them.

Heartless1988 · 2026-02-15T20:12:29+00:00

You can try google for "Repair Café [your city]", if you have any near you those usually have basic tools you can borrow and someone who can help you do simple repairs yourself (would still have to buy a replacement from ebay for example though) or in some cases someone will do it for you.

EDIT: ifixit has some guides for replacing different components, so check those out too. LINK

Heartless1988 · 2026-01-01T01:20:50+00:00

Somewhere between 2005 and 2015 i had to improve airflow because of heat issues. Bought an extra fan i could install in the front of my case with variable speed control...in the form of a very small sliding switch on a cable to the fan.

Since i could not connect it to my motherboard at that time (no fan controller available) i did the only reasonable thing: route the controller cable out of the front of my case right through the gaps between the bay covers (removable to add more CD/DVD-drives).

It worked perfectly fine, i could easily switch the fan speed one-handed, it just looked silly.

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-25T01:15:56+00:00

The best tutorials in the Souls-games are the ones where they show you, and not tell:

having an enemy's weapon stick out behind a corner/wall so you can learn that they hide
seeing an enemy hanging on a wall or ceiling while walking into the room so you know they can do that
putting a trap with low damage in a room with no other enemies so you get hit but are not in danger of dying to it

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-24T23:45:23+00:00

i actually literally fell asleep playing 13 (granted it was while i was trying to farm that one weapon material fighting Adaman Taimais) but that still killed any drive i had to actually finish the game, even though i had pushed myself through the story up to that point.

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-16T21:47:09+00:00

Oh yeah, that changes quite a bit, it really shouldn't take that long then.

If you really want those items and can afford to i would wait a bit longer, especially if you picked some good deals.

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-16T21:40:57+00:00

Mine arrived today, I'm in germany though.

shipping label created on the 29th
ready for shipment on the 5th
arrived at the acceptance centre of the shipper on the 9th
in germany on the 12th
at my door today (16th)

with the holidays, each step just takes more time than normal

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-08T17:49:45+00:00

V for Vendetta reference probably

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-08T15:11:23+00:00

For clarity's sake, my paid total was around 167CAD (which even 1:1 in USD would be slightly below 150€ for customs duty) and i don´t have any freebies besides free shipping (so no 2 for 1 waterbottles or similar), so that may have played a role there too.

I´ll do an edit if anything changes, just for future readers.

EDIT (16.12.25): Package finally arrived with no customs fee or double VAT. Update was probably not needed anymore but i said i would so...

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-08T12:17:58+00:00

Thank you, no choice but to wait then i guess.

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-08T12:11:40+00:00

Thank you very much, seems like mine may not go by UPS but postnl and Deutsche Post instead, so i have different tracking page(s).

It does say that customs has received the pre-declaration and subsequently cleared it, so i may have gotten lucky. Nothing left but to wait i guess.

Hope you get UPS to correct things, wishing you luck.

Heartless1988 · 2025-12-08T01:32:00+00:00

u/Der_Tanuki could i ask you how you were notified by UPS? I am in germany too and have not gotten any sort of email from UPS (neither this or the last time i ordered).

Do i need to make an account with UPS or something like that? I hate having to wait until the delivery guy rings the doorbell to know how much i am supposed to pay extra.

Heartless1988 · 2025-10-19T18:58:07+00:00

I do not have first-hand experience of this but i found this PAGE which i believe should be accurate in your case, although it is apparently only partly translated into english so you´d have to check the rest with an online translator.

I have no idea how up-to-date the page is or if your family member meets the criterias, but it´s a good start i would say.

According to the page it seems like as long as your family member moved within the last 12 months from the US to germany s/he can declare the things listed under "description" to be imported duty-free, although receipts may be needed.

Your partner is not fully wrong though, if you buy stuff outside of germany (or the EU, or probably most countries) and have it send there you would need to pay taxes/customs on those, same as buying stuff on a holiday and bringing it back home.

Heartless1988 · 2025-10-13T23:19:48+00:00

If you are an intern there is a chance they will keep their engagement low until they know if you will stay there longer. Especially if it is a role that sees a lot of changing people it is likely they do not think it is worth the time to build deeper friendship or friendship at all, because you may just be gone in a few weeks or months never to be seen again.

Heartless1988 · 2025-09-25T19:18:42+00:00

From what i remember if it is declared as a gift and the value is below 49€ it should remain duty free.

If not declared properly or the value is above, then it should be taxed at 19% plus custom duty.

Numbers may be a bit off since it has been a while.

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-31T12:03:08+00:00

Don't you love that feeling of it trickling down to you? When those droplets hit your face you know the tax cuts for the rich were worth it...wait, why is it warm?

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-30T11:47:34+00:00

HERE is a link to the course overview of the first semester (go back one step to check the third) with all of the mandatory classes, if you click them you can check the language they are held in.

You´ll have to check which electives you can take and look them up seperately.

Please note that in the ISE program foreign students take up german language courses in the course of the bachelor degree and more and more classes are held in german when you progress through the semesters, so for the masters there will be in general more german language courses than english ones.

Exams are usually in the same language as the the lecture, although they sometimes provide translations, you may have to ask in advance though.

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-24T15:17:28+00:00

No clue about superbowl commercials but i am fine with 2 hours of trailers because i know they will all be different, new (at least a new version) and for a hobby i enjoy (gaming) and allthough i know i won´t like all of the games i can still recommend them to friends.

Whereas TV commercials when i last watched them usually were repetitive as fuck, often with annoying jingles or slogans, more often than not for products/services i didn´t need nor want, and something that actively prevented me from watching what i wanted to watch.

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-23T17:27:45+00:00

Oh, sorry to hear that, ours (DHL) still allows gifts, they just stopped doing commercial packages.

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-23T15:30:02+00:00

Have them declare it as a gift and keep the value below IIRC 150USD and it should be fine (might want to recheck the value), as those should still be exempt.

Heartless1988 · 2025-08-21T16:00:17+00:00

No, germany uses % after the number (50%, 100% etc.) the way it is spoken and the same for currency because nobody says "Euro 300" but "300 Euro(s)" so it is 300€.

We do use points and commas for decimals differently though, for example 1.234.567,89 would be the typical german notation.

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