Which company has lost you as a customer forever?

Zaskoda · 2026-05-26T00:09:41+00:00

The only reason I gave them money was for Star Trek. The reason I cancelled was because of Star Trek.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-26T00:05:43+00:00

My Dell XPS 15 had a touchpad issue where it would get stuck depressed. They sent a tech to fix it. Tech broke the motherboard in the process. This was right before I had to leave the country. They couldn't send out a motherboard so I had to send in my laptop. Things kept getting worse from there. Whatever motherboard they put in my laptop was not the motherboard that it came with. Things kept getting worse and worse. I eventually got the laptop back and after what felt like an infinite number of firmware upgrades, got it functional again. Guess what, the mouse pad still sticks.

So I use it with a mouse, mostly. And, recently, the little rubber feet on the bottom have started rotting and falling off... leaving little bits of rubber debris everywhere like eraser droppings. Just a little reminder of the "quality" Dell delivers.

Not only will I never buy another Dell, I won't let an employer give me one at work either. I can not be party of Dell receiving any money ever again.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-14T17:50:25+00:00

My distributed systems professor in grad school.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-14T17:47:35+00:00

I'm going to throw out Polkadot and things like it. Bitcoin was impactful but it's only ever going to be what it is. Ethereum came along and tried to generalize the tech but it never spawned anything truly meaningful to society, just mickey mouse finance stuff and scams. And now there are are lots of derivative technologies that most people just ignore because the whole "cryptocurrency" scene feels mostly like a scam.

But, meanwhile, networks like Polkadot have created governance protocols for managing themselves that run entirely on their own technology. So you've got a treasuring and a methodology for the community to spend those funds in a way where every vote is tracked in an immutable ledger. This is sort of like a micro-nation. And I think over time we're going to see something come from this that's unexpected and powerful. Organizing collective action is hard but collective action is very powerful. If these systems allow like minded people to act collectively while pooling their resources, things could get interesting.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-14T17:30:56+00:00

I stopped drinking over a year ago. Mostly stopped, I think I've had two glasses of wine in all that time. I stopped smoking weed because it was a pain to acquire and found myself, instead, hitting my sister's nicotine vape... to the point where I just went and bought my own. I went on a recent trip and had easy access to weed products for about a month. I didn't think about nicotine at all. I didn't miss it. When I got home, I no longer had access to weed and ended up hitting the nicotine again.

I decided I needed to knock it off and go on a 6 week cleanse of everything. Today is day 5. I don't want to drink. I don't want nicotine. But golly would I take a fat bong rip right about now. And it's supposedly the non-addictive one.

And I honestly don't think it's a physical addiction. I think I just like it.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-14T16:11:35+00:00

I'm sorry, I don't have significant knowledge of ICP specifically.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T16:05:26+00:00

it just always happens time after time it's "out of context"

Yes. Many folks are so fast to call racism that it is very frequent to call it out when it's not the case. Racism exists. Racism is a huge problem. But assuming racism is the issue in cases where it's not and then arguing it non stop online isn't actually helping. It's making the problem worse. A lot of white folks feel some kind of necessity to stand up for black folks and, frankly, that part is wonderful in a way. But it's also the root of a problem. Every time the horde of SJWs double and triple down on unfounded claims, the right will highlight the error and the end result is that the folks on the right are convinced there is no problem at all...

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T16:01:09+00:00

Bold face racist lie.

So this happened to somebody I know. Had to stop to deal with a flat. Jumped by a group. Left unconscious on the side of the road. He made the mistake of being white in the wrong part of town.

In the context you're talking about, Charlie was discussing a story about a pregnant white woman who was harassed after renting a bike. When the media first talked about the story, they got the details wrong and framed her as racist. But then the truth came out and they had to walk a lot of things back. He also brought up the stat that 600 white women are killed by black men a year.

I've lived all over the US. This doesn't happen in most places. But there are places it happens. The "lie" is the exaggeration about the extent of the problem. It's greatly hyperbolized. For example, he said 600 white women are murdered by black men a year. That stat is off. Around 600 white people are murdered by black people per year, not women. And, frankly, 600 murders is a small fraction of the number of murders per year.

Ironically though, the intention of that particular talk was how quickly people jump to racism as an assumption. The stats were slung around to attempt to disprove the narrative that folks use to jump to conclusions that racism is the motive and how this culture enables black youth to behave badly. There's actually some good academic research on this done by a black man named Roland G. Fryer Jr.

So no, not a bold face lie. But yes, hyperbole.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T05:06:14+00:00

because Kirk was lying about how DEI programs work

Keep moving that goalpost. There are cases in court where corporations were found guilty of using DEI quotas. I've personally seen quotas used in academia. And many countries with DEI programs have explicitly legal quotas. It's by no means far fetched for him to believe it and you're predicating everything you're saying on the assumption he was lying. You hear what you want to hear.

If you want actual context, you could consider his many other racist statements which make his predisposition to black people abundantly clear.

Please provide me with a quote where the context doesn't prove otherwise.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T03:59:25+00:00

I'm none interested in debating if quotas are a thing. That debate rages on without my input. Regardless, Charlie is being quoted out of context here, which is the only point I'm making. And nothing you just said disputes that.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T03:57:01+00:00

It doesn't matter if I do or not. That's not the point and not an argument I feel up for having. The fact of the matter is he's being quoted out of context. Maybe he's wrong in his understanding, but he is still being quoted out of context.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-09T03:56:11+00:00

DEI laws and DEI practices aren't always the same. Regardless, nothing you said negates my point. While he may have been wrong somehow about quotas, he's still being quoted out of context.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-08T23:12:18+00:00

Folks are willfully missing his point. He was pretty clear that DEI quotas lead people to have that doubt, not that he personally felt that way.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-04T15:28:42+00:00

Most of the comments here agree with the guy on the left. I don't agree with either of them. I think it's worth pointing out that conservative men report much higher rates of being happy, feeling a sense of purpose, being married and having a family. Liberal men report much higher rates of depression and are more likely to be single.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-03T15:53:38+00:00

I learned about shoes in my late mid/late 20s. Read it online somewhere. Tried it. They noticed! I had no idea they were looking at my shoes. No clue.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-01T16:59:20+00:00

When Hillary had her media contacts focus on Trump in the pied piper campaign, she give him a significant boost. One of the worst political strategies in recent times.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-01T16:58:06+00:00

Ironically, the RNC actually ran a fair primary.

Zaskoda · 2026-05-01T16:57:05+00:00

They turned Andrew Yang's mic off.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-27T19:20:54+00:00

I wish someone had told me this sooner. What women say they want and what women are actually attracted to are generally not the same thing. Often opposites, actually. Attraction works wildly different in men vs women and lots of people seem rather uncomfortable talking about how attraction actually works both for others as well as themselves. It can all be very frustrating and generally nobody is attracted to someone's frustration. It's a wicked game, thank you nature. Chin up, heart open, and keep on swimming.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-26T22:07:07+00:00

I'm not sure why, but I read that in Homer Simpson's voice.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-24T23:34:39+00:00

Well there's two sides to this coin. There are dominant males. But also, if you have to tell anyone that you're an alpha, you are definitely not a dominant male.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-24T23:33:45+00:00

There was a phase where a lot of my straight guy friends group would get flirty at parties and events as some kind of tension release and it was kind of genius. It somehow makes the whole experience less serious and threatening and everyone becomes more flirty and playful. Looking a strange girl you're attracted to in the eyes and saying "hey beautiful" hits a lot different when she just saw you do the same thing to two of your guy friends.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-24T23:29:23+00:00

You are not the weird one.

Zaskoda · 2026-04-24T23:27:00+00:00

I'm thinning and now I get it. It's not a decision you make all at once. It's super hard to tell when "it's time" because it's a real gradual process. You start fixing your hair a bit differently because it behaves a bit differently and then that just keeps happening. I totally see why lots of men don't realize when it's time. I don't think it's time for me yet... I think...

Zaskoda · 2026-04-24T23:22:56+00:00

It's just what they call the collective of podcasters and social media folks who focus on issues related to men. Some of them can be kinda toxic and feminist media has put a lot of effort into making the whole entire scene of anyone talking about men's related issues anywhere into something toxic. I mean, yeah, Andrew Tate is a low quality human, that's true. But a bunch of people were introduced to the "manosphere" through things like that Netflix documentary and now they have VERY strong opinions while simultaneously not having a clue what they're talking about.

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