CoffeeJunkie @ CoffeeJunkie @lemmy.cafe

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1 yr. ago

...this. Let's have a talk about basic security and prevention, because it's important.

First of all, I wanted to factor in prices, but according to this webpage, the replacement social security cards should be free. However. I wouldn't know from personal experience, and cannot verify.

By a combination of a small miracle, some neglect, and then some careful choices to safeguard it...I still have my original SS card. I would recommend getting a little passport case or something, and some metal plates or hard plastic cards to keep the SS card from bends/creases. Then you can place it in a blaze barrier document bag like this one. No, you don't need this exact one, all I did was type in 'blaze barrier document bag' into Amazon because that's the branding on mine. I just looked at it. $20 bag, goes a long way keeping that card safe & unmolested.

Those bags aren't entirely fireproof & it's only one layer; they've done extreme tests & the contents can (possibly) become slightly torched. That's where you can buy a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox for next to nothing secondhand, I know I've got at least 2 & I think one was $5 & the other $10. Arguably more effective than the bag, my friend's house burned down but he had a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox & it kept his personal documents & pictures of his deceased mother fully intact.

Also noteworthy: fireproof concrete lined filing cabinets (I recommend FireKing), sometimes you can find them cheap used because they're a heavy nuisance item. If you have a basement, put the fireproof/resistant stuff in your basement or ground floor. It's more stable there & should survive.

Then for those interested in the eccentric & the extreme, dive down the rabbithole known as Starlite fireproof coatings. While we may never know the exact formulation of this wonder material as it was presented, it turns out Maurice Ward merely rediscovered the lost art of intumescent materials that release layers of carbon char when exposed to heat. You can buy intumescent paint like this one & it'll essentially fireproof any material you paint!

So in conclusion, yes, you can buy fire resistant filing cabinets. Even "fireproof" ones. And safes, and lockboxes, and document bags, and even intumescent paint. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Not all of us live in cities, nor would we ever want to. I do not have access to public transportation to take me to & from one of my jobs.

If you are able, yes, kind of amazing perks & I'd use it. It would certainly save me more than a little money in car insurance, maintenance, fuel, potential for accidents, etc. But it is not a feasible option, specifically for me.

Always have been. 🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

Okay....now that the left is finding every reason to hate on Tesla, allow me to help: this is, and always has been, a massive fucking myth. It never was more energy efficient than a regular ICE vehicle.

Mainly because of its construction. Mining the cobalt, etc for the batteries is very energy intensive. Then there's the tires. AFAIK, you can't just throw any old tires on a Tesla vehicle. You have to buy their special tires with all these sensors in them. I think there are knockoffs, but still. You also have to change the tires more frequently than traditional ICE vehicles, because they wear out faster, because the Teslas are heavier. A car weighs as much as an SUV or truck (3,582 lbs - 4,065 lbs), the Model X Plaid weighs 5390 lbs, and the Cybertruck weighs 6000-7000 lbs.

The damage doesn't stop with the vehicle itself; we must also consider the impact of heavier vehicles on the roads. It will also cause the roads to wear out faster than normal.

Unless it's crashed or burned in protest or whatever, IIRC, a Tesla vehicle can redeem itself from its massive environmental cost to produce & such. But only after many hundreds of thousands of miles on the road, and by the time that occurs, you'll need to replace the battery. "Tesla batteries can last between 300,000 to 500,000 miles, which translates to about 1,500 battery charge cycles." Kiss another $13K - $20K goodbye to swap out that battery for a new one.

So with its far simpler & straightforward construction out of readily available material, coupled with a sprawling existing infrastructure...the ICE car is more eco-friendly and cheaper to operate! And the hybrid vehicles are better than both full-electric & ICE, best of both worlds.

Can't say I relate specifically to that, but I can relate to staying up later because you enjoy what you're doing. Everybody else shuts the hell up & you can focus in on...whatever you want to do. I also think my desire to stay up later stems from wanting control over my day & my time, so while I absolutely should sleep, part of me is like, "NO! Sleep is a waste of time. I want to do this instead!"

That's basically why I do it. I don't edge. Maybe if you indulged a little more in physical labors, you can wear your body out & really get some good sleep. Idk it's literally exhausting, but that's when I sleep the best. When I burn myself up all day long, spending myself on labors.

Yes. As I understand it, fabric softener softens the fabrics. Obviously. Which makes them more prone to ripping, tearing, and just deteriorating faster. In addition to being another cost, both financial & possibly environmental, it's plain unnecessary.

I buy some really nice clothing & I want my clothes to last as long as possible. Most of my clothing takes a long time to wear out. My recipe for success for the last 10 years is precisely as follows:

I have a frontloading washing machine, which uses far less water & it doesn't have an agitator screw thing in the middle that grabs your wet clothes (clothing is weakest when it's wet). I button & zip my pants, and anything else with a zipper like a jacket, so the zippers aren't attacking clothes during the wash cycle. Nice clothing, I turn inside-out to preserve designs or outward-facing fabric. I use the ECOS greywater friendly laundry detergent from Costco, and I just use more of it like I dump a full cap or 1.5 caps per load. In case it's not as effective as conventional, just use more. Plus 1 scoop OxiClean (idk the greywater/waste impact of OxiClean; I'm convinced it's a powerful multipurpose cleaning agent that is gentle on clothing).

All clothing is treated the same, whites & brights & colors & blacks, all get washed together, I couldn't care less. Run washer on Tap Cold, Extra High Spin, Heavy Soil level every time. No matter the load. So my washer works extra hard to gently wash my clothing & then wring nearly all the water out of it. The harder you run the washer, the less work is done by the dryer, which save you electric/gas & is gentler on your clothes.

Then my athletic gear, wool socks, and denims never go into the dryer, I let those air dry. The rest is gently run through the dryer & "it is what it is", it's mostly stuff that doesn't really matter.

It takes longer to write out than to do, you can see, it's quite expedient. I don't separate. I dump a lot of simple, gentle detergents in. Wash when dirty, wring out water, dryer if necessary. I'm telling you: my clothes last a very long time. Less is more.

American? Fellow American?

Just wondering. Because "going Home Alone" on anyone who tried to kick you off is a terrible idea. Americans are used to the idea of behaving like a little shit without suffering negative consequences, or at least they're delayed for years & years because of "your rights"....Asian countries, especially as a foreigner? You have no rights. Fuck your rights. Be polite, be respectful, comply, or you are almost guaranteed to have strong negative consequences.

Asian countries like Japan look & behave like they do because they have a strong moral order that is rigorously enforced. I think maybe 7-8 years ago, I saw they developed a non-lethal high power bean bag cannon that, when it hits you in your center mass, will make you sit your ass down & reconsider your life choices. IIRC, as you're doing that, I think the cannon can deploy an electrified net to further disable you.

Your best bet is to be a fairly well-off, fully legal, kind, polite country hermit. That assimilates to their culture.

J6, big can of worms. I can agree that the individuals who vandalized government property, broke doors & windows & such, terrorized elected officials, and attacked police receive a terrorism charge. I mean why not. It would enforce order, civility.

Coincidentally, I have a guy who talked with a pardoned J6er. An older man. According to him, he saw a police officer take out a baton & beat the shit out of an older woman for no reason, then he tried to just disappear back into the crowd of police. Old man visually tracked him, tracked him down a short while later, and administered his own beatdown on the policeman. Old man was identified, plead guilty to charges, jailed until recently. In retrospect, he admitted he "shouldn't have done that".

Again, according to his testimony. I wasn't there, idk. I see a decent amount of ACAB on these forums, and if he's being honest...that was his reason for attacking a police officer on Jan 6th. Because he was beating the shit out of an older woman with his baton, without cause. ¯°_o)/¯

Unpopular take, but I do believe this qualifies as terrorism. Definition 1, "the unlawful use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government, with the goal of furthering political, social, or ideological objectives." Definition 4, "intimidation or coercion by instilling fear". Haven't seen it escalate to the level of physical violence, fist/gun fights yet. But it meets the definition of terrorism.

"SELL YOUR SWASTIKAR NAO." Sounds to me like...intimidation or coercion by instilling fear.

There is more than slight difference between setting a single Toyota Camry on fire or spraypainting a single Ford F150 & specifically torching 10 Tesla charging stations, torching/shooting 17+ Tesla cars, latexing a Tesla robot, and damaging 4+ Tesla showrooms. An isolated incident can be written off as vandalism; multiple specifically targeted attacks (at least 32 objects, properties of like brand) & fuck knows how many more swastikas & nonsense put on cars out in the wild...that strikes me as the unlawful use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government, with the goal of furthering political, social, or ideological objectives. AKA, terrorism. You can't do or encourage the literal definition of a thing & then deny you're that thing. If you're going to be a bitch, you gotta be the whole bitch.

I have no idea personally, I'm just telling you what I observe. And from what I've observed, it's not this stupidly simple operation that anyone can do & it's "basically a money printing machine", as others on here are telling you.

If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense. As a general rule. That solar farm has gone under & sold ownership twice in idk 7-8 years.

I am pro-solar panel, and I was anti-wind turbine because the old fiberglass blade turbines filled with oil were dumb. But as I understand that technology, too, is improving & idk we'll have to see how the new ones perform. Seems to me doing these things on a more commercial scale where you're selling it to the grid can get a little fucky. There are reasons why it's slowly taking off. There are reasons why people build, then sell, then the buyers sell. It's probably a tricky endeavor with its own challenges.

YMMV. We've got a local solar farm & the operation has gone belly-up, changed hands twice. It's got to be on its third investor/owner. Also depends on the quality of your build & your local weather; that solar field isn't even fully operational yet. Got hit by a massive hail storm maybe almost 2 years ago, it had to have smashed a couple hundred solar panels.

If you're interested in it, I'd be very careful. Insure everything. Ask everybody, people in the industry if possible.

Anti-China-Goods rant aside, I would also contest your claim they're coming up on the US. Growing up I was told this, and halfway believed it, but the evidence for a prosperous China just isn't there & the evidence against them is growing every day. Despite their numerous attempts to hide negative press. While still technically a formidable foe with power based on sheer numbers & basic technologies alone, China is a struggling world power riddled with problems, like a body with cancer. Effectively making them a paper tiger.

First & foremost, know this: China's worst enemy has, and always will be, China. The CCP rules with an iron fist, then there are unintended consequences. The one child policy (and people's preference to have their one child be a boy) created a terrible gender imbalance & consequences we see playing out today. As of 2021 & reacting to slowing birthrates and an aging population, the CCP now allows families to have up to 3 children. More on that in a bit...

Look into the Four Evils campaign, a movement that led to famine, the starvation of an estimated 20-30M people. It's a fascinating little read & a perfect example of going to extremes, and unintended consequences.

Some of China's GDP & "growth", kind of like the US, is fake. They've built entire cities nobody lives in, empty malls with no stores. It looks good on paper, all that construction & work being done. But how good is that work? And what's it all for, sitting empty, rusting/rotting/crumbling away into nothing? They, too, have a real estate bubble ready to burst.

Fake accomplishments & claims abound. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. They claim nuclear fusion. They claim they can turn deserts into lush, healthy forests. They claim amazing technologies & weapons, no you can't see them, but trust me bro our scientists have totally verified it multiple times. So legit. 🙄🙄🙄

Much like the US & UK, but on crack -- they're using all this technology to enshittify the lives of their residents. To press that boot of authoritarian rule more firmly onto their necks, controlling every aspect of their lives, cracking down on dissent, etc. Social credit scores like a Black Mirror episode (specifically S3E1, "Nosedive", a good watch!). The crazy COVID crackdowns, which led to...

The disenchantment of the youths, millennials & Gen Z. Granted this has been festering for years before covid, but all the weird social shit around covid led to the Tang Ping movement in China, informally known as "Let It Rot". An overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated youth slaving away for the CCP, facing an aging population to care for, has decided to just let it all rot. Juice isn't worth the squeeze. Why try to date, why marry, why have any children at all, let alone 3? What's the point of it all, to help the CCP? The assholes...running & ruining their lives? Nah. Let it rot. Very fascinating stuff, Google it.

So between their copy-paste or outright fake "innovations", their fake real estate & holdings, their poisoned food, their poor, impoverished populations, their aging population, their despondent & depressed youth, etc...I don't think things are looking so hot for China. The more you learn, the more the narrative unravels. It's pretty sad that they have so many people & don't dominate the world, but again, it's mostly China's fault. Even their own citizens resent China, with damn good reason. Ultimately, their actions (and inaction) will not allow China to succeed.

Nah it's not about the quality, it's about the Chinese Communist Party & some of the sketchy-ass companies they just allow to operate over there. When I was on Reddit I had a comment I could point to with some examples. But I care, deeply, about this issue & I think it's important to not only highlight claims but bring the receipts to back it up. So please...enjoy.

Might add to this/refine later. There's nothing racist about this, this is merely a fraction of many, many shady business scandals I can recall off the top of my head. Things that people did, and were allowed to be shipped out to the public, they do not care. I implore you to exercise caution when trying out new electronics of any kind from China (AKA virtually all electronics), and not to knowingly purchase & consume their food.

Chinese companies sold toxic drywall to the United States, which was installed in homes & offgassed fumes. If you ask me, you've got to be pretty stupid to buy Chinese drywall, why would you do that? To save $5? But I digress...

It is disturbingly common for Chinese footwear, especially footwear designed for babies/toddlers/children, to contain high levels of lead. This shipment contained Chinese footwear with 300 ppm lead; that is 3x the maximum lead exposure level acceptable by law. Lead exposure, poisoning is mainly through eating or breathing, however, kids put on or take off their shoes...hands go in mouth. Or hell some kids are putting their mouths on shoes. That's lead exposure. And as everyone is quick to point out, these are small & growing bodies, not adults. So while "they'll live", there really is no safe level of lead exposure for children.

Moving on from freaky footwear, there's the 2008 Chinese milk scandal. They were intentionally sneaking melamine into milk to fraudulently boost protein levels. Melamine, a plastic used in the production of whiteboards & countertops, doesn't even mix into milk naturally. That took effort, dissolving with formaldehyde or another chemical before they could poison your milk. Drinking this milk resulted in kidney stone production, kidney failure, etc...thousands of hospitalizations & 6 dead babies. Thankfully, the CCP harshly came down on the baddies. 2 executions, three life imprisonments, two 15-year prison sentences, and the firing or forced resignation of seven local government officials and the Director of AQSIQ. The former chairwoman of China's Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison. Also, a Chinese company poisoned pets via melamine "enhanced" wheat gluten, used in wet pet food.

Nefarious fuckery aside, I just would not eat food imported from China, as there's a good chance it is contaminated with heavy metals. More recently than that 2014 article, I've heard from multiple sources that Chinese garlic is fertilized with human sewage, then bleached when it's time to sell it in the US. Now utilizing sewage as fertilizer in agriculture, as a concept...doesn't scare me. But do I trust the standards of the people applying it? Yeah, again, hard pass. And the bleaching, probably not bad. Bleach is food safe when it dries. But do I trust them to do it, safely & effectively? No. It is ironic, I see people defending the practices when China does it, but those same practices are probably not allowed for US produce. Little hypocritical.

They poisoned our youth & poor with cheap THC vape juice carts, using Vitamin E acetate as a binder. It works well as a binder, but when introduced into the lungs, the sticky oil coats the lungs & interferes with the function of the alveoli, resulting in a fascinating condition I can only call..."dry drowning". You're not in the water, you breathe in the air, but your lungs can't process the air for oxygen & you die. Having vaping friends, I specifically recall China being blamed for the practice of Vitamin E binder oils. They did it because it was cheaper to produce. Most of the people that died were poor or high school kids, trying to get product for cheap.

Moving away from food & into hard consumer goods, can't forget about the hoverboards. Just Google "Charging hoverboard burns house down" & you'll get a lot of stories, even a few deaths.

Anything with a battery, really, is a risk. We know this. But depending on the manufacturer, subsequent testing, and I would also argue charging methods...we can reduce the risk as much as possible, or the manufacturer can increase our risks by cutting corners to save money.

TL;DR -- China Is Asshole

Mine is pretty obvious.

I will check them out later! I've been wanting a robot vacuum for a while now but I also am wary of Chinese bullshit.

I want a really good one that doesn't connect to the internet in any way. 👍🏻 Even if that kills some of its smart features.

I don't appreciate the Luigi praise or the DOGE leaks, either, but I recognize that I'm in the minority on Lemmy (lol) & idk to a certain extent I respect freedom of speech. The DOGE email leak is public info, in that it was leaked to the public....

In any case, we're all in agreement: R!ddit deserves to die. Just because they were the first runaway success public forum doesn't mean they own it forever. Especially when they shit the bed, suppress freedom of speech, kill 3rd party apps, & farm out user data for AI scraping.

Stop begging for feet pics! 😆

All hail....the Jesussy

😏