otp

I know a lot of us use ad-blockers and the like so we don't see ads often anymore. But we can get some insight as to how much certain "services" make by showing ads to the average customer when they have paid ad-free subscriptions available. YouTube, for example. Maybe streaming services.

I'm curious how much most things would cost in this case, especially since so many "services" tend to have maintenance and upkeep costs.

How much would Facebook cost to use if it were ad-free? Snapchat? Windows? (Which is extra gross for having all of an up-front cost, ads embedded, AI included, and pushes for paid subscriptions of its own complementary products...)

According to explanatory documents provided to reporters, potential changes could give landlords more “flexibility” to control who occupies their units and for how long, allowing them to “adjust tenancy arrangements based on market conditions, personal needs, or business strategies.”

[...]

Other, more concrete changes proposed in Thursday’s bill include ending the requirement for landlords to compensate tenants if they or an immediate family member move back into their own property, as long as the tenant is given 120 days notice.

[...]

If passed, Bill 60 would also amend more than a dozen other existing major laws. Other marquee changes would affect how municipalities collect development charges, how the provincial government builds transit-oriented communities, and how Queen’s Park restricts bike lanes and encourages road-building.

(bonus points if it's being used for official business purposes)

One of the tricky things with English is that we often have words that can be combined to form different words.

Like greenhouse. It's a combination of green + house. But a greenhouse is something very different from a green house. Autocorrect may cause some people to make this mistake, but generally, the concepts are understood to be different.

On the other side of things, there's things like "alot" which is mistakenly used so commonly that my autocorrect didn't even care that I typed that (and it's not just because of the quotes!).

Then there are words like login, which as a noun is definitely one word, but as a verb, should almost definitely be two words ("log in to this website", but "this is my login for the website")...but "login" seems to be universally recognized as standard for a verb, even though we don't say loginned for the past tense (we still say "logged in").

And of course, there are other words that are commonly paired together that we don't often see with the space removed, like "Takecare", "Noway", or "Ofcourse". These could all be potential candidates for the "alot" treatment. What makes "alot" special?

So what causes "Please login to the website" to be "correct", but "I workout everyday" to be incorrect? (And maybe everyone is "wrong" about login, or everyone is right about "workout" and "everyday", and the compound word is an acceptable alternative to the versions with the space)

I feel like this would be better in an AskLinguists community here... maybe there's an active one that someone could point me to? But I'm still curious to see what people think

I have 3 credit cards...

1. Oldest, good for groceries, but that's it. It represents about 45% of my total credit card limit.
2. Crappy card, used to have good rewards but now sucks. This is about 40% of my total credit card limit. A few years old. I use it once every few months to keep it active.
3. My current "best" card that I use for most things. Only had it about a year. Represents around 15% of my total credit limit, but I'd like it to be more as it has the best rewards.

I pay off all my cards twice a month and have a great credit score.

I'm wondering if there's any drawbacks to cancelling my crappy card and either applying for a limit increase on my good one or just applying for a new/better card.

I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.

It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion -- let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.

But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it's the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways...so really no difference).

What's the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there's people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don't see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck...

I used to be able to press the microphone button on my home screen and say "Start 5-minute timer" and it would start the timer.

Now, when I do that, it does a Google search for "Start 5-minute timer".

How do I get that functionality back?

I don't want to open an app, and I don't want to use a number pad or anything to enter the number.

EDIT: Thank you! I went into the Gestures section of Settings, and now I can long-press the power button to get the desired behaviour. This might even be more convenient than tapping the mic icon!

1. Tap search button on the bottom.

2. Search like normal for communities with the search term. Results returned like normal.

3. Clicking the unfilled heart (to subscribe) results in the error presented in the attached screenshot.

4. The back button (Android) doesn't work. App must be force-closed.

5. The subscribing action was successful; discovered on reboot.

6. Repeating the steps, but instead of the unfilled heart, clicking on the community successfully navigates to the community.

7. This didn't happen before.

8. I might be one update behind current as of Mar 18

Bananas are ridiculously cheap even up here in Canada, and they aren't grown anywhere near here. Yet a banana can grow, be harvested, be shipped, be stocked, and then be purchased by me for less than it'd cost to mail a letter across town. (Well, if I could buy a single banana maybe...or maybe that's not the best comparison, but I think you get my point)

Along the banana's journey, the farmer, the harvester, the shipper, the grocer, the clerk, and the cashier all (presumably) get paid. Yet a single banana is mere cents. If you didn't know any better, you might think a single banana should cost $10!

I'm presuming that this is because of some sort of exploitation somewhere down the line, or possibly loss-leading on the grocery store's side of things.

I'm wondering what other products like bananas are a lot cheaper than they "should" be (e.g., based on how far they have to travel, or how difficult they are to produce, or how much money we're saving "unethically").

I've heard that this applies to coffee and chocolate to varying extents, but I'm not certain.

Anyone know any others?

I've got a fairly new 14tb Seagate Expansion. It works fine, and I've been using it for a month and a bit.

I don't know how long it's been doing this, but the power supply is making a very faint alarm sound. The power supply is plugged into a Belkin surge protector powered on and with the "protected" status light lit, and it is plugged into an outlet. The HDD is currently not plugged in to a computer.

It's not a beep or electricity. It's a distinct weewooweewoo. I couldn't even determine the source until I pressed my ear against it.

Googling just points me towards typical "my HDD is making a sound, how long do I have until it dies", but nothing pointed me to the alarm sound from the power supply.

I'll check again if it makes the alarm in other conditions, but in the meanwhile, I was hoping someone here might know something.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: The sound only happens when...

• Power adapter is plugged into the HDD, AND the outlet
• HDD is NOT plugged into the computer.

Plugging it into the computer stops the noise from the power adapter.

Due to personal circumstances, I haven't had much time for gaming in the last year.

I did have a couple of months in the summer with some free evenings though, so I dumped a bunch of time into Pokemon Violet, and I also completed Super Mario Sunshine, spending several hours getting those last few shines and blue coins after leaving the game at ~85% completed back in 2022.

Other than those 2 games, I hadn't really played much of anything on the Switch.

My year in review said I put a ton of hours into Pokemon Violet, single-digit hours into F-Zero 99, and less than 1 hour into NES online.

No mention of Super Mario 3D All-Stars.

I was wondering why it didn't count. But then I realized that these year-in-review things are not a nice service or gift to subscribers... they're ADS that they intend people to share with their friends to get their friends to buy more games. (What's a better review than "Your best friend played this game for 200h last year"?)

Since SM3DAS isn't available in the shop, it'd be useless to advertise that game. So maybe Nintendo is excluding it from their calculations...

Can anyone else confirm or deny this? Did anyone have any delisted games make their year-in-review? Or am I just going to need to spend a ton of time 100%ing Super Mario Galaxy in 2024, and only play 2 other games on my Switch? Lmao

I know money can't buy happiness blahblahblah.

Do they do gift exchanges at all?

Do they ask for anything?

They have enough money that they could get anything made or done for them at a moment's notice. Like having ChatGPT, but for services. Ridiculous things we couldn't imagine.

Anyone have any insight into general trends along those lines?