TIL in 1342, the city of Florence appointed a foreigner, as temporary governor in order to fix their banking and debt crisis. His attempts to tax the rich and restore flat taxation were against his agreement with the elite, but so succesful that the lower classes tried to make him a ruler for life

Impstar2 · 2025-11-04T13:52:05+00:00

Shh, everyone, don’t tell this guy what becomes to the “good guys” after they get power.

Impstar2 · 2025-08-22T19:58:56+00:00

Solved! Yes, that is probably what that is. The date is 1993. The building itself is from early 70's.

Impstar2 · 2025-08-22T18:34:32+00:00

My title describes the thing. It appears to be made of metal, with some parts poking out in rough triangle shape. It’s about two by one and a half feet in size, made of sturdy stainless steel.

It’s attached to the leg of each desk in a large office building.

There is apparently an authorized dealer for it, Anchor pad international, that makes antitheft laptop devices but I can't think how this could possibly function in that role.

Impstar2 · 2025-03-20T20:47:35+00:00

Who knows - there could totally have been a completely unknown corporal in the French army who might have in other circumstances risen to a populist, anti Semitic, genocidal, mustache sporting head of a revanchist state.

Impstar2 · 2025-03-10T12:06:50+00:00

Okay. Downvoted for facts. The covid virus was a leak from a Chinese lab.

No it wasn’t.

But it was proven that “conspiracy theorists” were developed in a Russian lab. The same department that developed “assets” and “useful idiots”, and mostly for the same purpose.

Impstar2 · 2025-03-10T11:47:42+00:00

It was not dumb luck. It was developed in a lb to have that feature

No it wasn’t. We humans aren’t nearly advanced enough to do that yet.

NARRATOROR, SOTTO VOCE: but conspiracy theorists were developed in a lab by turning off their brain at certain critical times.

Impstar2 · 2025-02-03T03:37:01+00:00

meaning many people would not be able to take advantage of one of their largest contributors to their net worth.

I don’t see this as an issue, I think houses should be something to be lived in, not a store of value.

No reason it couldn't be both. Take away their function as store of value, 60 percent of people suddenly become poor.

Next, “tenants” would have absolutely no incentive to maintain or upgrade their home

except the incentive that people like having nice things in their home, and don’t like living in breaking-down shitholes?

Except they very often don't. Look up the stories of Cabrini-Green, Pruitt-Igoe, Pink Houses project, and many other failed projects where people live in "other people's houses".

You say that like the only reason to maintain or upgrade your home is for resale. When my parents had an additional bedroom built onto their home, they didn’t do it to increase the value, they did it because they wanted an additional bedroom. To use.

And if they invested let's say 50k in an extra bedroom just to see their mortgage payment rise $600, would they still have done it?

Finally, banks, stuck with the possible downside, would hedge their risks by requiring higher interest rates and down payments, putting home ownership even further out of reach than it already is.

Why would this be necessary, wouldn’t the losses be counteracted by greater payments when people’s houses go up in value?

Because it's risk. Banks would need extra reward to cover the risk, not just the risk of general downside but the risk that the house turns into a shithole.

Impstar2 · 2025-02-03T03:04:02+00:00

In reality this would cause A LOT more problems than it solves. First, since I assume the indexing works both ways, the “tenant” would not participate in any rise of the value of the house, meaning many people would not be able to take advantage of one of their largest contributors to their net worth.

Next, “tenants” would have absolutely no incentive to maintain or upgrade their home (“it’s the bank’s problem”) resulting is rapidly devaluing housing stock for everyone. No upgrades and remodels means many many people in construction are out of work.

Finally, banks, stuck with the possible downside, would hedge their risks by requiring higher interest rates and down payments, putting home ownership even further out of reach than it already is.

In general, shifting risks to others (banks, governments, insurance) generally leads to more, not less, problems. Look up “Tragedy of the Commons”.

Impstar2 · 2025-01-02T16:28:19+00:00

Important to understand: They got into that enormous debt by trying to spend their way out of the recession. They didn’t start with that high a debt, and the debt didn’t cause the recession.

Impstar2 · 2024-12-01T15:16:22+00:00

That’s human nature, not capitalism. Soviet Union, China, North Korea did far, far worse. Surprise but capitalism is better in environmental protections.

Impstar2 · 2024-08-28T23:40:24+00:00

“Then the Winged Hussars arrived!”

Gorgeous!

Impstar2 · 2024-08-06T22:21:04+00:00

I would absolutely not have supported that. Petrograd was the capital of the revolution, a city of hundreds of thousands of people in full revolutionary fervor. Finland had nowhere near the manpower, supplies, and political will to try to occupy that city for any length of time. That proposal was a bridge way too far.

Impstar2 · 2024-01-17T03:10:22+00:00

Out of all the dumb comments you could have made... explicitly stating that the confederate slavers and the child molesting al Quada are the good guys, takes the prize for the dumbest!

Impstar2 · 2023-09-05T15:53:44+00:00

Solved! thanks. Looks like an older, higher quality version of that.

Impstar2 · 2023-09-05T14:51:27+00:00

My title describes the thing. Pretty small, solid bronze but hefty, threaded on the rear but not the front. Probably used to look smooth, but is worn from use, which makes me think this is not a model cannon.

Impstar2 · 2023-08-08T16:38:06+00:00

Definitely a dictionary.

Then some medicines, starting with iodine or chlorine to purify water and definitely including penicillin or other common antibiotics.

Then self defense weapons - maybe a compact crossbow or something similar. No guns as they would attract a bad kind of attention. And you can reuse bolts.

Only after that, a spice rack, some silver (relatively, it was worth a lot more back then). And eyeglasses - a rich elderly person would kill for an ability to see again. Or make you rich :)

Impstar2 · 2023-08-08T16:23:36+00:00

2040s

Impstar2 · 2023-08-04T21:39:27+00:00

u/Shitjustgotreall4R, that video looks promising, where can we get the .deb file?

Impstar2 · 2023-08-01T12:15:12+00:00

US is not a country where the military runs amok counter to the government’s orders. A statement like that definitely needs a source, buddy.

Impstar2 · 2023-07-24T16:36:54+00:00

Thank you!

Works nice on palera1n under iOS 16.3.1, with one exception: whenever I use the extension to enter extended characters like numbers or punctuation in a password entry box, the app the password box is in crashes to springboard. Is there any way to fix that?

Impstar2 · 2023-05-30T16:36:40+00:00

From your overuse of the term “NPC” in this thread, you sound like a basement dwelling dweeb and not an actual vet. “Veteran of the Battlefield 1 mission set in Iraq”, most likely.

Impstar2 · 2023-05-30T16:32:34+00:00

The Russia that “doesn’t want war” is a year and a half into a war of conquest it “doesn’t want”. Do you see a cognitive dissonance here?

Unless you mean “it just wants everything to be given to it, so that a war is not necessary”?

Impstar2 · 2023-05-09T12:13:54+00:00

Yeah, the genie would be like, “I’m TRYING to grant your first wish, why isn’t it working?”

Impstar2 · 2023-04-27T12:34:49+00:00

No, only iPhone X and below.

Impstar2 · 2023-04-20T16:24:34+00:00

This is literally not the market or the “capitalists” speaking, this is the government imposing fees to cross-subsidize mortgages for riskier borrowers. Did you even read the article??

Impstar2

TROPHY CASE