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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: January 10th, 2024

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  • The money you’re paying DoorDash isn’t going to the drivers, so I don’t know how driverless cars will reduce the costs. Having driven for DoorDash off and on over the past couple years, they typically only pay $2 per delivery, plus whatever tip the customer gives. I’ve read they additionally charge the restaurants around a 30% commission on all orders, which is why the prices are so much higher than in the restaurant; the restaurants raise the prices so that they still get roughly the same money after the commission is deducted.

    I’m not really sure where all that money goes with DoorDash. They clearly try to keep support costs as low as possible. I’m guessing they lose a lot to refunds, legitimate or not. But I still don’t understand how the prices can be so high yet they always seem tight on cash.





  • I was just looking into this and going to post a similar question to the community. I saw a post recently about Friendica and thought that and Pixelfed might be things I’d be interested in self-hosting my own accounts, since I’d probably want those to be things I keep followers-only and connect only with people I know IRL. I’ve only used shared web hosting before and Friendica looked straightforward enough, but Pixelfed seemed much more involved. I’ve never done anything with a VPS before; I think I could do it but if anything went wrong I might be in trouble. Would that be an okay starting point or is that jumping in the deep end? I assume I’d be able to host both on the same VPS?



  • I haven’t bought any of the new consoles; the only thing I’ve seen come out that’s interested me but I can’t play on the previous generation is Microsoft Flight Simulator. Maybe someday I’ll get a Series X for that, but I think I’d enjoy the experience on PC better anyway (really curious to try it in VR with my Quest) so I think I’d rather spend the money on building a new gaming PC that can handle that.

    I’m not consciously cutting off any generation, I just haven’t had the time for as much gaming now and I haven’t had the budget to pursue the latest and greatest, especially if I probably won’t have time to play it anyways.



  • I rode in an older luxury one (I’m not sure how luxury a Chrysler New Yorker was seen at the time, but it had clearly been a premium model) years later as an adult and it was plush and comfy. Kind of annoying to get in and out of because it really grabbed at your clothes, but I can understand why it was once seen as a luxury feature, especially compared to the vinyl in my dad’s pickup truck!



  • Portal and Portal 2 are some of my all-time favorite games. They’re about the only games I enjoy watching other people play, primarily when they’re playing for the first time—it kind of lets me relive that wonder of the first play through. Going through those with my stepdaughter (only 10 at the time) not long after I married her mom was a highlight of my life and really helped us form our own bond. As we progressed through I realized that chamber 17 was going to be rather traumatic for her because she was going to absolutely love the weighted companion cube, so we stopped playing for a few days while I ordered a stuffed weighted companion cube and gave it to her right after the level. As we neared the end of the game I explained to my wife about the Cake. She owned a bakery at the time and we presented kiddo with a cake like the one seen at the end of the game when she won. We did Portal 2 as well, me watching as she played the solo campaign and then we did the co-op together. I’d highly recommend it for any parent who likes gaming to share these with your kids.







  • I started working in local TV news 17 years ago. I figured out pretty quickly there’s enough actual news happening to fill the 24-hour cable channels, but sending out reporters and photographers (maybe even producers) is expensive. It’s much cheaper to just have somebody in the studio blabbering on about a few things and trying to stoke reactions from the audience. It can even build a bigger audience than actual news.

    Sports radio and TV is an even bigger (though less damaging) example of this. They have a lot of time to fill when games aren’t on, and a lot of times they just put someone on who will give the dumbest take possible just to get the audience mad and have an argument with someone else in the studio or even let the audience call in to argue.




  • Where my in-laws live in northern Quebec multiple companies offer driveway snow removal services where they send a large tractor. On one end is a large (expandable) blade that they use to pull the snow down to the street and on the other end is an auger they use to throw it up into the yard. They come multiple times to allow you to move cars or just keep up with ongoing snowfall.

    I’ve never seen that anywhere else; is that a service in your area?