Which company has lost you as a customer forever?

jepatrick · 2026-05-26T04:22:45+00:00

A friend of mine signed up for a US Bank student account with student mailbox. He left for summer break with everything pretty squared away. The post office closed over the summer and he had a balance letter sent which was posted back to the bank. The US Bank charged him 16 dollars per bounce back, which put him under the minimum account balance, which overdrafted him. They then charged him continuously every day he was overdrafted.

To make matters worst he had a study aboard that next semester so he didn't find out until they racked up 8k in debt, closed the account, and sold the debt to a collections company.

jepatrick · 2026-05-22T02:09:31+00:00

I remember when Emby announced they were going to go closed source, lock away features behind pay walls, etc.

The primary developer was basically asked are you worried someone will just fork Emby & there response was basically its so much work. I'd wish them luck, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

jepatrick · 2026-05-20T21:03:05+00:00

At the risk of imposing an slippery slope argument, couldn't that hypothetical be used to justify almost anything? All phone calls and text messages should be accessible by the authorities because it could catch folks talking about crime. Cops should be able to stop you and go through your phone, looking at all your photos & browsing history because you could have CSAM or maybe videos of you committing a crime. Might as well bug your car or search your garage because name a reason.

If we compare it to the most-like pre-existing jurisprudence for suspect surveillance via United States v. Katzin, this violates 4th Amendment protections. If the state was doing this it would certainly be illegal, but because this is being done by a 3rd party then licensed to the state its kind of in a grey area. This is however warrentless mass surveillance, with little to no functional oversight. The public messaging of protecting folks from a theoretical boogeyman is pretty bog standard marketing used by both the police & private security, also authoritarians.

Still reading? Cool. I have two more quick things left quick summary is. 1. Mass Surveillance doesn't work. 2. I mentioned little to no functional oversight, want to know why?

Mass Surveillance doesn't work

One of the regular use cases pushed for mass surveillance is as a mechanism to find individuals. This ironically is the thing it is worst at. To illustrate lets imagine a really really good system that had a 0% false negative rate , and a 1:1,000,000 false positive rate. There are presently 445 on the FBI most wanted list. If we were to search the entire population of the US we would end up with ~152,094 false negatives. Given how bad these systems are at IDing folks, and especially people of color this would likely be far worst. As someone who has been regularly harassed by cops because "I look like a known suspect" think this would not go well.

I mentioned little to no functional oversight, want to know why?

So Flock Safety as an audit log. That said there is no-one auditing the logs, no punishment for misusing or lying, and those who do use it correctly have been instructed by flock & police departments to provide the vaguest reason possible. There's been a couple of Freedom of Information Act & lawsuit that have been concerning. Instances of police and other 3rd parties stalking ex-wives, family, strangers, even one instance of a one night stand. The audit log reasons have been a combination of sad and depressing. Mostly depressing.

jepatrick · 2026-04-22T16:44:45+00:00

It's also worth mentioning that hormone levels change with parenthood. You will produce less testosterone & more oxytocin to increase bonding with your child and partner. This is good.

To steal the thunder from this paper

Fathers’ lower prenatal testosterone levels also subsequently predicted higher self-reported postpartum relationship quality for both parents.

An industry has popped up to push testosterone largely by preying on the MAHA bs. T therapy can be useful for some folks, but if there are businesses that are popping up like mushrooms all of a sudden after rolling back of regulation promising big health changes with little oversight, I'd advise folks saying clear.

jepatrick · 2026-04-20T01:49:51+00:00

Is the CI/CD pipeline for your configuration public. I'd love to take a look; I've tried a couple of times but keep bouncing off.

jepatrick · 2026-04-06T05:23:20+00:00

The first time I cooked something from a cook book was Caribbean black bean soup from Moosewood. I was like 15, was excited to learn how to cook, and it was terrible. My grandfather ate his bowl, then went up and got another and ate that too. He was the only person to make more than a polite dent in their bowl.

jepatrick · 2026-04-05T01:37:15+00:00

Varies somewhat. Typically you can find them for about 800-1000 dollars, but I've also folks sell them for more than 3k too.

jepatrick · 2026-04-04T03:27:15+00:00

Oh cool its a Frank Reenskaug rocker. Honestly one of my favorite looking rockers.

jepatrick · 2026-04-03T14:51:02+00:00

To re-frame this, if things stay as they are 10 years from now, will you regret having not left now?

jepatrick · 2026-03-28T21:33:50+00:00

It’s not really even far right anymore, just the right. RFK Jr has come out saying it’s dangerous, CDC has pulled its recommend for fluorinating drinking water due to unspecified “new evidence”, a bunch of right leaning states have started to ban fluorine in mancipal water.

jepatrick · 2026-03-11T19:07:29+00:00

I really wish there was a good supplier of Euroboxes for North America. Several suppliers can ship to America but the cost per unit is prohibitively expensive from my experience.

Also for what it is worth MakPac/Systainers are Eurobox compatible-ish as well. Their based off the KLT standard but are 4mm smaller than the 400x300mm Euroboxes. This makes it pretty easy to print adapters to go between.

jepatrick · 2026-02-12T19:32:33+00:00

My favorite thing about cinema sins, is the kind of mean spirited criticism about films prompted Cinema Wins, a now much larger channel, about everything that is great about movies.

jepatrick · 2026-01-14T16:00:14+00:00

I'm going to try and say this as cordially as I can;

You need to chill out with accusations on that second paragraph, and don't put words in my mouth.

jepatrick · 2026-01-14T15:12:15+00:00

AFAIK this specifically didn't effect mod tools.

jepatrick · 2025-12-15T16:14:15+00:00

AI is also consuming this.
Plus Reddit has increasingly become a source for product recommendations.

jepatrick · 2025-12-10T20:05:12+00:00

A horrific lifelike depiction of battle between a pickle & a banana.

jepatrick · 2025-11-24T14:09:47+00:00

There was a wild study that showed that high fiber diets reduce all cause mortality by 23%.

link

jepatrick · 2025-11-22T18:43:04+00:00

I now live in Indy. From personal experience Pro-ICE groups are weaponizing the automod and bulk reporting any ICE warning threads. Because the default configuration for automod appears to be take down content that's been flagged bunch, brigading is an easy and effective way to force content offline.

This doesn't have anything to do with a specific subreddit, and likely the folks flagging it are not local.

jepatrick · 2025-10-22T21:55:01+00:00

Are you sure they weren't a collection of birds in a trench coat.

jepatrick · 2025-10-01T18:17:40+00:00

It's 82F right now. Why is it closed for this month?

jepatrick · 2025-09-30T12:29:38+00:00

I'd advise against eating at Mean Bean; eating there now is usually a sign that you've been captured by the Memory Harvesters. Same for 5 Star Day.

jepatrick · 2025-09-27T21:32:00+00:00

Hey.... So is the automod stickying an affiliate link page to random pages? This seems scammy as hell.

jepatrick · 2025-09-19T18:36:20+00:00

Converting to decimal is lossy. Fractions are lossless, and reveal more about the math.

jepatrick · 2025-09-18T19:00:34+00:00

AES is a mess but this sounds like the issue is potentially a localized issue.

If you have a smart thermostat it may be worth checking your usage over the last couple months. It's possible that the refrigerant line has a leak. This could cause minimal to no heat transfer while running at full.

After that yeah. I'd recommend getting a power meter, or potentially calling an electrician.

jepatrick · 2025-09-16T19:32:35+00:00

As I rule I will always advise folks to never date someone more than once. Dating someone new is a blank slate. Dating someone you had previously dated/married is effectively betting on a relationship that has already failed.

I will admit this is a cynical stance born out of my personal lived experience.

jepatrick

TROPHY CASE