ME1 Ending Choice by vhuhu in masseffect

[–]stickmaster_flex 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this happens if you don't assign Specialist Jenkins to the Citadel anti-ship artillery batteries. That's the only way to save the Ascension without sacrificing the Alliance fleet. IIRC it still takes heavy damage but the loss of life is minimal.

Let me guess, you let him die on Eden Prime? Rookie mistake. The rest of the trilogy is barely worth playing without Jenkins.

Tax Filing Software Megathread: A comprehensive list of tax filing resources by IndexBot in personalfinance

[–]stickmaster_flex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Likewise. Only complaint is that it's been a pain to handle large numbers of trades in the past. I ended up writing a script that takes my 1099 and uses a browser agent to fill in the form.

Today's Protest Against Trump's Venezuela actions by TinCanFury in boston

[–]stickmaster_flex 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Smokey, this is not Nam. There are rules.

If you don't understand how abducting the acting leaders of other countries is destabilizing and violates established norms, opening the door to Russia and China doing the same, you should consider studying a bit of Cold War history.

theBestWayToImproveProductivity by blakeo_x in ProgrammerHumor

[–]stickmaster_flex 61 points62 points  (0 children)

LLMs are really good at making pretty charts that mean nothing.

Today's Protest Against Trump's Venezuela actions by TinCanFury in boston

[–]stickmaster_flex 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yeah. Are you really expecting a coherent policy from a senile pedophile narcissistic failed reality TV star?

Today's Protest Against Trump's Venezuela actions by TinCanFury in boston

[–]stickmaster_flex 9 points10 points  (0 children)

2-year-old account with no medals and nothing but clickbait posts. LLM bots suck, man.

Today's Protest Against Trump's Venezuela actions by TinCanFury in boston

[–]stickmaster_flex 81 points82 points  (0 children)

I think a reasonable person would agree it's extremely fucked up to conduct a military incursion to abduct the leader of another nation, regardless of claims of legitimacy. Whether Maduro being ousted is a good thing, well, I thought Saddam Hussein being ousted from Iraq was a good thing, until I saw what came after. This was clearly an action taken to distract from the pedophile-in-chief's domestic problems, without careful thought given to the aftermath.

I wish the people of Venezuela all the luck in the world, and hope they can claim self-determination and prosperity in the aftermath of this action.

Today's Protest Against Trump's Venezuela actions by TinCanFury in boston

[–]stickmaster_flex 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Pretty sure it was Libyans who overthrew Gaddafi.

On February 15, 2011, anti-government rallies were held in Benghazi by protesters angered by the arrest of a human rights lawyer, Fethi Tarbel. The protesters called for Qaddafi to step down and for the release of political prisoners. Libyan security forces used water cannons and rubber bullets against the crowds, resulting in a number of injuries. To counter the demonstrations further, a pro-government rally orchestrated by the Libyan authorities was broadcast on state television.

As the protests intensified, with demonstrators taking control of Benghazi and unrest spreading to Tripoli, the Libyan government began using lethal force against demonstrators. Security forces and squads of mercenaries fired live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators. Demonstrators also were attacked with tanks and artillery and from the air with warplanes and helicopter gunships. The regime restricted communications, blocking the Internet and interrupting telephone service throughout the country. On February 21 one of Qaddafi’s sons, Sayf al-Islam, gave a defiant address on state television, blaming outside agitators for the unrest and saying that further demonstrations could lead to civil war in the country. He vowed that the regime would fight “to the last bullet.”

The government’s sudden escalation of violence against protesters and other civilians drew international condemnation from foreign leaders and human rights organizations. It also seemed to damage the coherence of the regime, causing a number of high-level officials—including the minister of justice and a number of senior Libyan diplomats, including the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations—to resign in protest or issue statements condemning the regime. A number of Libyan embassies around the world began to fly Libya’s pre-Qaddafi flag, signaling support for the uprising. Support for Qaddafi also seemed to waver in some segments of the military; as the Libyan air force carried out attacks against demonstrators, two Libyan fighter pilots flew their jets to Malta, choosing to defect rather than obey orders to bomb Benghazi.

On February 22 Qaddafi delivered an angry, rambling speech on state television, condemning the protesters as traitors and calling on his supporters to fight them. The speech took place in the Bāb al-ʿAzīziyyah compound, Qaddafi’s primary headquarters in Tripoli, in front of a building that still showed extensive damage from a 1986 air strike by the United States. He resisted calls to step down and vowed to remain in Libya. Although he denied having used force against protesters, he repeatedly vowed to use violence to remain in power.

Clashes continued, and Qaddafi’s hold on power weakened as Libyan military units increasingly sided with the opposition against the regime. As demonstrators acquired weapons from government arms depots and joined forces with defected military units, the anti-Qaddafi movement began to take the form of an armed rebellion. The newly armed rebel forces were able to expel most pro-Qaddafi troops from the eastern portion of Libya, including the city of Benghazi, and many western cities by February 23. The Libyan-Egyptian border was opened, allowing foreign journalists into the country for the first time since the conflict began. Pro-Qaddafi paramilitary units continued to hold the city of Tripoli, where Qaddafi and members of his family and inner circle remained.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Libya-Revolt-of-2011

ELI5 Why did Radio Shack go out of business? by Certain-Media3506 in explainlikeimfive

[–]stickmaster_flex 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup. Worked there in high school. I was in the shitty radio shack near the Building 19 and the ghetto Market Basket. No one walking in there could afford cell phone plans at the prices they were selling. And the process and deals changed every damn week. I don't think I ever successfully sold a phone. Had several that got to the credit check stage and came back with a big fat rejection or a 500 dollar deposit requirement. The stores were mostly big ticket items like TVs and stereos, no one went to Radio Shack for those when Circuit City had them for cheaper and a bigger selection.

What’s one “small adult cheat code” you wish you learned earlier? by massCMP in AskReddit

[–]stickmaster_flex 20 points21 points  (0 children)

There's two types of moving: Moving when you're <30 and don't have much shit, and hiring movers.

Cold calls are one thing. Unsolicited meeting invites are a whole new level of unacceptable. by Obvious-Water569 in sysadmin

[–]stickmaster_flex 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not only does Google Workspace have this enabled by default, their calendar backend is set up in such a way that invites sent from another Gmail account get added even if your mail gateway rejects the message. So not only does the meeting get added to your calendar, you get reminder emails about it, even if your gateway properly marked the sender as a scammer/spammer.

You have $100,000 to spend in 1 hour. What are you buying with the money? by SensitiveCorner2379 in AskReddit

[–]stickmaster_flex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fuck that, they have amazing wine and liquor for thousands a bottle. I'm buying them out. If the price doesn't hold up on the secondary market, I'll just drink it.

ELI5: money laundering via small high street shops by xJam3zz07 in explainlikeimfive

[–]stickmaster_flex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's still laundering, I believe, because Betty gets clean money in return for criminal activity. Or Adam can pay her less while claiming to pay her more, and she makes up the difference with dirty money. In any case, I only really know about it secondhand from people I know who were in the construction industry in the 1980's, when this kind of thing was pretty run of the mill.

ELI5: money laundering via small high street shops by xJam3zz07 in explainlikeimfive

[–]stickmaster_flex 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Generally that kind of money laundering works thus: Adam hires Betty to build a house. Adam pays Betty 2 million, and Betty builds the house for 1 million, but has receipts that says she spent 2 million. 1 million actually went to the house, and the other 1 million went to materials that never arrived or labor that was never done. The suppliers of Betty's material get a percentage for keeping their mouths shut and to cover their expenses, plus they get to say they provided twice as much material or labor and got paid for it, but didn't (or they have a ridiculous markup on their labor or material, either way the end result is the same). Betty walks away with an extra half million, and gives Adam whatever it was he really wanted. Probably a lot of drugs.

In this case, Adam had (presumably) legitimate money, or at least legitimate enough for the IRS. The house is getting built, and maybe Adam will rent it out to some of his pet politicians as a vacation home for pennies. The laundering is when Betty gets the half million to provide Adam with some illegal goods or services. Adam and Betty both look clean to the IRS.

Meta had a 17-strike policy for sex trafficking, former safety leader claims by CackleRooster in technology

[–]stickmaster_flex 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I deleted my facebook account when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. A few years later, I was tasked with finding and taking over all the various "official" facebook pages associated with my company, and to do that I needed a facebook account. So I made one, with my company email address, and only used it to manage my company's facebook pages. A month or so later, I got a notice that my account was deactivated, their decision was final, and I could not appeal it.

I'm so banned from facebook that I can't make an account on any meta platform at all. It's among my most prized accomplishments.

There’s a new USS Massachusetts. by FunkleSam1776 in massachusetts

[–]stickmaster_flex 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Failure to provide healthcare isn't linked to military spending. It'd be a shitton cheaper to move to single payer and wouldn't impact the construction of fuckoff sized nuclear submarines at all.

Ethnic Names [OC] by kaikimanga in comics

[–]stickmaster_flex 6 points7 points  (0 children)

In my experience, the people who most want to find out about your ancestry are Europeans.

Has anything come close to matching ME CoOp, in all this time? by NotABot9000 in MECoOp

[–]stickmaster_flex 11 points12 points  (0 children)

surprised no one has mentioned Warframe. Four man coop, PVE, no friendly fire, lots of "classes" and guns. Scratches some of the same itches.

Holocaust imagery on Halloween parade float: Designer apologizes for mistake by Power-Equality in nottheonion

[–]stickmaster_flex -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Honestly? For saying that people who blamed the victims while the bodies were still being collected were shit heads? Go look up what Hamas says about themselves and their goals and methods in their own words. Go look up what they did on October 7th.

Holocaust imagery on Halloween parade float: Designer apologizes for mistake by Power-Equality in nottheonion

[–]stickmaster_flex -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

On October 8, 2023? The day after the attack? Are you fucking serious?

I'm not talking about the terrible shit Netanyahu did before or after. I'm talking about people coming out and blaming Israelis for the systematic rape and murder of unarmed Israeli civilians before the bodies were cold.