It’s not a scam, it’s a link from FedEx (or in my case UPS) to pay tariff and duty charges. Believe you me, I triple checked the whole thing and made sure it was legit before I even considered paying for it. If you are shipping an item directly from outside the US, a lot of times those charges are left for you to deal with (resellers on eBay or Amazon for stuff from China would pay for those in advance, which is why it’s not always normal). It’s a bigger thing than it used to be, because it used to be that if the value of an item was less than $800 (I believe, it’s been a min), there wouldn’t be duties on it unless it was a big item or some other unusual circumstances. However, Trump screwed that up with the tariff changes, so extra charges are collected by the shipping company directly. The problem is that I wasn’t warned ahead of time (I thought it was coming from the Philippines so the charges wouldn’t be a thing), and that seems to be increasingly the norm for ordering directly from the manufacturer, given soo many are in China or countries we have decided it is a “good” idea to impose tariffs on (which the customer has to pay).

Yep. Accidentally imported some parts for my car (thought they were in the states, but no, China), got a random message about duty fees. I initially thought it was a scam, but got another, so I followed the link on a safe device (laptop running Linux). It gave a valid address from the shipping company with details that verified my order, so I had to pay or it wouldn’t be delivered. Very annoying, should have been told earlier that I needed to pay duties/tariffs so I could plan accordingly.

Probably, yeah. It seems like the newer they got the more points of failure they had. Not really sure about a year range just noticed that stuff like how the power cords used to be standard replaceable ones changed to hardwired ones. My opinion is to get one used more to save money, because if you’re just using it to cook beans or the like there isn’t too much of a benefit to getting a commercial one. If you’re really worried about making it last decades (I wouldn’t personally), then getting a non electric one probably would be preferable. I’ve seen old sears pressure canners still in use, but they do need newer seals every now and again. They just aren’t as easy to break out if you’re just making a quick meal though.

The only commercial grade pressure cookers I’ve heard of that are BIFL are the all American brand, and their electric sterilizer is very pricey but nice (came across it when I had a hyperfixation for growing mushrooms a while ago). But honestly, if you’re just using it for cooking a used instant pot or even a ninja pressure cooker will be fine. I’m partial to instant pot, because I’ve had a couple (upgraded to bigger sizes), and some of the old ones are clearly made to last a surprising amount of time (and have in my experience).

“Oops, left a mess (had a crumb on the counter). $350 cleaning fee.”

Agreed, but he is a Nazi, so thinking isn’t really a strong suit…

Yep. He basically argued that being famous as a Nazi was already making it impossible to find work, and a mark on his record would just make it worse. And then mentioned the second kid on the way to sell the sob story.

Yup. Grew up listening to classic country, and while there were definitely stereotypes (he/she ran off and left the singer heartbroken/they died and left were heartbroken), they were obviously not formed by committee. This new stuff has no “soul” or underlying point, and is very obviously pushed because it targets a specific type of person.

My point is that while it’s a pc, it’s more positioned to be a console. If steam limited sales to one per customer and only for established steam accounts for the first runs (like they are already beginning to do for the steam deck and controllers), then they could force it to be more of a console. I do think it’ll still be a bad launch, as the goal of the steam machine clearly is to put them in Xbox territory for regular consumers, and the current price and any other changes probably won’t help that for new customers.

If only. Instead you will hear songs about trucky-trucks, beer, and fishing sung in only the most generic pandering tones with influences of whatever music is currently popular at the time.

Not particularly. Steam gets 30% back on all game sales, so if they can make sure the steam machine gets only to people with established steam accounts, then they’re probably coming out ahead.

Oh, I agree, I just found it rather funny that a random person was able to bring down teams ram usage without much trouble, something that Microsoft doesn’t seem to care about. Teams really needs just to be paired back to messaging and video/audio calls, all of the other stuff just aren’t used.

Yep, not to mention it’s a basic messaging program, but it regularly uses 1-2gb of ram on a lot of machines at my workplace. Had a coworker vibe code a lightweight version (terminal based), he pretty easily got it down to 80ish mb, and it mostly worked (the whole thing was mostly for shits and giggles, but surprisingly usable).

Sounds great unless you don’t really agree with them, and then you’re forced to stay with people that you are constantly arguing with, often without much of the outlet of other places to go that a lot of places that have had multi generational households have had.

Apparently, they share some commonalities with the Taliban.

Yeah. You show me a Linux user, I’ll show you someone who has worked in tech support with primarily windows machines.

Also maybe last longer, but the hold your pee is probably more applicable.

Not only that, but if there are chemicals in that water that can’t be filtered, that’s just in the well water now. As someone who grew up on well water in the country, that’s terrifying, as you aren’t gonna get water pumped in at a price that is viable. Especially when you realize most of rural Georgia is like that (same with a lot of southern states).

Don’t forget AI (that scraped Stack overflow) providing a slightly different basic solution, that usually works (at least until you think about improving it).