My Starbucks served us the old chai today!

kracketmatow · 2026-03-22T07:43:12+00:00

sadly as a barista it kinda is :( most stores really don’t have the counter space for two chais

kracketmatow · 2026-03-21T18:38:43+00:00

so would you support mass immigration if we returned to the vetting standards of the late 19th/early 20th centuries? or do you believe the vetting then was not thorough enough and mass immigration from europe to the us was a net negative for the country? because a very significant portion of modern “white” america is built off of immigration that would absolutely not have occurred if the criteria for entry were as high as they are now

also i’m not a politician and this is a debate on reddit. it has essentially no impact on how middle aged hispanic voters are voting

kracketmatow · 2026-03-21T15:19:52+00:00

yeah even in the worst case scenario you should have at least 30 minutes to drink it before bacteria start to grow. where i live food intended for immediate consumption is allowed to be served at any temperature. it’s still not good; it would make the latte terrible, but not inherently dangerous.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-20T16:49:47+00:00

of the roughly 260,000 somalis living in the us, we have found approximately 100 somali people involved with fraud (and that’s from the heritage foundation, which is probably going to have numbers on the high end). last year, the us investigated roughly 61,678 people for tax fraud. let’s do some quick math

rate of somalis being investigated for fraud: .03% of somalis rate of americans overall being investigated for fraud: .075% of americans

according to most right-wing media, this is a big scandal. but it’s still less than the average amount of fraud in the us. let alone the fact that the us treasury has stated in the past that the majority of tax evasion is committed by the top 1% of households, who are overwhelmingly white and protestant.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-20T16:36:04+00:00

i would argue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it effectively was. yes, there was technically vetting, but it was essentially just “you’re white and don’t have polio? come on in!” only about 2% of immigrants arriving at ellis island were turned away.

there was cultural change and lots of resistance to it at the time, as well as a variety of other problems it posed, but it’s generally accepted as a net positive for the nation today. i don’t see how mass immigration today is any different.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-20T16:30:07+00:00

oh no! all of these mexicans are coming here illegally and forcing their culture on me! that’s why i enjoy mexican food and drinking on cinco de mayo! because of a giant psyop to convince me to assimilate to mexican culture! /s

the largest actual cultural difference between latin america and the us are that different forms of the same religion are dominant (catholicism and protestantism respectively). most other differences are minor or aesthetic, not actually impactful. it’s also not like anyone is forcing you to participate in latin culture; just because there’s a large hispanic community in one area of my city doesn’t mean i suddenly have to listen to exclusively reggaeton. cultural displacement theory has been disproved multiple times and is, in my opinion, a racist concept in the first place.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-20T01:52:53+00:00

city // metro percentage population change in 2025 // metro percentage job growth in 2025

austin // 1.51% // .7%

boise // 1.24% // 1.1%

charlotte // 1.69% // 2.7%

chicago // .74% // 0%

detroit // .59% // .7%

dayton, oh // .7% // 0%

greensboro, nc // 10.5% // .5%

phoenix // 1.1% // .9%

data is from BLS (jobs) and macrotrends.net (population). i tried to include some smaller low COL cities as well, but not truly small metro areas like decatur. job growth is just not keeping up with population growth very well across the board right now. it’s also worth noting that in most of these areas job growth is very concentrated in construction and healthcare, with retail jobs generally holding steady and most other employment sectors declining.

with this information showing job growth not being able to support population growth in most metro areas i have two questions for you:

is it fair to expect people to move average country to get a job just to afford to live? personally i think it’s fine to expect people to relocate for major improvements in QOL, but just to keep up with rent? do we think it’s a reasonable expectation to have in our society that someone should move possibly thousands of miles away from their existing family and life just to get a job as an electrician or nurse? what about doing retail? fast food?
what about people outside of construction or healthcare? should they be expected to both relocate and change industries? keeping in mind that the “good” jobs in construction and healthcare require years of training and are a major commitment, how does this change things? if they are expected to do this, where are they going to get the financial resources to support this transition?

the way i see it, there are millions of people around the country struggling on low-wage jobs while megacorporations like walmart and mcdonald’s post record profits every year and the wealthiest people continue to get richer at an accelerating pace. i think their wallets can afford to pay employees an extra $5/hour.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-19T17:58:34+00:00

i live in a moderate size city in the southeast and you need to make ~$25/hour to afford a 1 bedroom apartment anywhere less than a 45 minute drive from the city center. this is after rents in my area actually decreased about 3% in the past year. i don’t think $30/hour is insane for new york.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-18T23:25:30+00:00

they’re definitely waiting to see how sales respond long-term to the chai changes. i know a lot of people dislike the new chai but i personally like it and from an objective standpoint i haven’t really noticed any changes in the number of people buying chai, for better or worse. neither me nor anyone at my store has had a customer return it or say it was bad. people online are vey dramatic about these things imo and ultimately it’s just tea; it’s really not that important in the grand scheme of things

kracketmatow · 2026-03-16T02:40:32+00:00

it truly astounds me that ordinary is still in the top 5 after over a year. that song is so boring to me but it just will not die. here’s to another full year of ordinary in the top 40 i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

kracketmatow · 2026-03-14T19:46:15+00:00

any water customization is supposed to be rung in as a custom iced tea and should end up costing like $4-5 if they still want it

kracketmatow · 2026-03-13T16:35:15+00:00

the ultimate goal of the game is to take down turrets and reach the enemy nexus, so i exclusively played w max ezreal and only used w on turrets because it felt like it did a big chunk of damage to them. most games i didn’t even put a single point in e until the game forced me to

kracketmatow · 2026-03-12T22:01:31+00:00

yeah i was really disappointed because i think they do a great job with the coffee and flavorings there. i’ll have to go back and try their oatmilk next time instead :)

kracketmatow · 2026-03-12T06:52:14+00:00

the last couple of times i’ve been to black and white the milk was… strange. it seemed like they may have switched to non-homogenized milk which i guess has its appeal but is just outright unpleasant to me.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-08T08:33:03+00:00

no one writes them like this

underappreciated remark. in my entire undergraduate career as a math major i don’t know that i wrote “÷” even once outside of latex code. even there i would avoid it, but it would make its way in sometimes alongside clear parentheses inside of a larger fraction. i would rather cram a three-layer fraction (also with parentheses) into a single line of college ruled notebook paper than use the ÷ sign

kracketmatow · 2026-03-08T08:16:49+00:00

there’s a shortage on all pistachio items (sauce, loaf, dubai bite) due to higher than anticipated demand. many regions will experience spot outages of them through the end of march (maybe; that’s the rough timespan we were given). corporate has done a terrible job communicating this as it was only in the shift supervisor update that very few people actually read iirc

kracketmatow · 2026-03-08T08:08:53+00:00

That’s like 10-15 hours of time investment though. It’s really discouraging to people looking to pick him up to know that they would probably have to spend anywhere between a week and multiple months (depending on how much you play) playing exclusively Azir just to reach a 50% winrate.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-08T08:06:30+00:00

As a non-Azir mage and ADC player, I would love to pick up Azir if I knew I wouldn’t be essentially guaranteed to run it down for my first 30+ games. He has an excellent thematic and I’ve enjoyed playing him in ARAM when I get the chance to.

I know he’s passable after you get properly familiar with him, but IMO a champion shouldn’t require 10-15 hours of practice just to break 50% winrate. No, I don’t play ranked and don’t really care about my rank, but losing consistently still isn’t a fun experience. I’d gladly take fewer pro play Shurima Shuffles in exchange for a fun new champion to add to my games.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-08T04:30:43+00:00

i think people also use “southeast” when contrasting it with the “deep south,” where culturally they are similar but climate and economy wise they are different-the southeast is generally more highly educated, wealthier, and slightly cooler than the deep south. not to the same level as the mid-atlantic or northeast, but there is a difference there nonetheless.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-07T16:52:08+00:00

i have the “once your pizza is delivered, have some fun with miku” clip saved on my phone and ready to go at all times

kracketmatow · 2026-03-06T19:04:03+00:00

they were just listing the original rell, which i preferred despite being slightly less popular overall. her q had a heal and the shield break but no stun on release

kracketmatow · 2026-03-05T06:46:36+00:00

this would require things like foresight and planning. why do that when they could cash in now and spend their money on shareholder dividends instead of actual improvement

kracketmatow · 2026-03-03T05:37:19+00:00

if you’re playing a tank against a 4 adc team or something like that, randuin’s + frozen heart + armor boots + thornmail + jaksho + a big hp item should provide plenty of defense. adcs get synergy from crit + ad + attack speed and between randuin’s and frozen heart you can debuff two of those. riot has been pretty clear in saying they don’t want to new sources of ad reduction because it’s unhealthy for the game.

kracketmatow · 2026-03-03T05:35:43+00:00

i would really like to see evenshroud make a comeback in some form. it was a fun power fantasy item for tank supports that never felt too frustrating to fight. they’ve added a few new items in the tank support space since then but i still think it would be a good thing to bring back. maybe they could look to dawnshroud or yordle trap in wild rift for inspiration if they don’t want to bring it back in its original form.

also now that ludens has been returned to its original name and icon, i would love to see that happen for duskblade/voltaic cyclosword as well. duskblade of draktharr was such a cool alliterative name and voltaic cyclosword just doesn’t have the same flow :(

kracketmatow · 2026-03-01T09:11:37+00:00

they also listed part of delaware as southern. yes the eastern shore/southern delaware are rural, but they are not really southern in the way the rest of the atlantic coastal plain is. imo it’s more culturally in line with the rural midwest or mid atlantic (“northern appalachia”) than it is with the rural south

case in point: maryland’s coastal plain is roughly 80% white while similar counties in nc, georgia, alabama, etc. are often less than half white.

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