I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some exploits that have already been discovered that people have been sitting on in anticipation of support ending soon.

5 forever!

I was thinking about this one too. Not sure if I’ll buy it, but it’s the only one I’m considering at the moment.

Another vote for Freetaxusa. TurboTax might be marginally easier to use, but it is far more expensive and Intuit is a horrible company. If you hate filing taxes (because of the complexity), that is because Intuit and H&R Block lobby congress to keep things complicated so they can sell you their products.

I use a budget app for tracking income and spending on a transaction basis and then keep the rest of my finances in spreadsheets.

I’ve never asked for time off, only informed my boss that I will be off. I have only had push back twice. Once, when I was in high school my boss said I couldn’t, so I quit on the spot (nothing to lose in a minimum wage job when my parents were still supporting me). A few years later, a shift lead (who was not technically my boss) challenged me, I told him I wasn’t asking for the day off, I was providing advance notice that I would not be there that day.

The irony is that I now manage people who have an attendance policy. I try to make sure people have plenty of opportunity to plan time off so they don’t have to call out. They’re going to take the time either way, I may as well know in advance.

I think the point of the post is that they PAID money to the data collectors to get data they themselves don’t want collected, thus becoming part of the problem. That said, I have done the free version of this multiple times with great success!

1. Start finding names. This can be easy, but if you’re trying to deal with a subsidiary, a private company, or a massive conglomerate, it might be more difficult. You can start with things like CEO & COO. Search for things like VP/SVP/EVP/Head of Customer Service (or Customer Experience). Depending on the problem you’re trying to solve, you might look for more specific job titles like CIO, Technical Operations, Network Operations, Accounts, etc. Get several names for roles that might make sense.

2. Find the email address format for the company. Common ones are first initial + last name, FirstName_LastName, etc.

3. Send an email to all of the names you collected in the company’s email address format. Hopefully several of the names are reasonably distinct to make it likely you got the right person. Of course, it’s unlikely that the CEO is John_Smith3, they’re never going to take the numbered address. Be (somewhat) polite, be specific, be as brief as possible; ideally make a reasonable request to resolve the problem. You don’t want to come across as an unhinged lunatic and you don’t (necessarily) need to threaten any specific action. Just ask for their help resolving the problem.

What happens next? They will likely forward the message to someone who has the ability to solve the problem. That person will contact you and make things happen that everyone else said was not possible. You do need to have reasonable expectations though. If you contact your ISP and tell them their outage cost you $1M in lost business, don’t expect much help. But if you tell them you were inappropriately charged $500 for equipment you returned 6 months ago, they’ll probably fix that for you.

Helpful places to find names:

• About section of the company website
• News section of the company website
• Wikipedia
• LinkedIn
• Quarterly Earnings reports
• Industry-specific news sites
• Google News search

My biggest challenge has been with companies that constantly reorg, so I find a name in a news article from 2 years ago and they’ve already changed roles.

I used to work for a cable company. I remember a coworker telling me a long time ago that one of the challenges they used to have was making sure the caller’s TV was tuned to the correct channel. So, the conversation would go like this:

“Please change the channel to 27” (or any other random number that isn’t a locally used channel) “What do you see?” “Nothing…” “Good, change it to 3, now what do you see?” “Nothing…” “Good, change to channel 4” “It works!”

For those that don’t know, there was a long period of time where the auxiliary input into TVs was tuned to either channel 3 or channel 4. There was a good chance that the customer didn’t know which one was correct for their TV and would have assumed that it was already set correctly if you asked.

I mean, depending on where exactly you ended up, it could go either way. I’ve watched some British TV over the years and I frequently need subtitles and I assume the actors are enunciating better than the average person.

I hope you’re not using that map to navigate your new home.

Stock “news” is stupid, the Switch 2 announcement has been expected for a year. The only news is that the company confirmed it will launch this year, which was already expected. Real news is when we start hearing what games will be available at launch (or soon after).

Way back in the late '90s, my first apartment was a brand new development with a T5 connection (I think) that offered each unit 8 glorious Mbps. However, I needed to get that connection shared between 2 PCs in different rooms. Wifi was not an option (expensive and slow), even a router was a major financial investment for me back then. So, I bought an extra network card and a 100 foot crossover cable and ran it down the hallway.

It was so successful, that I continued to incorporate very long cables in my builds for the next 20ish years. Even today, my desktop computer is not wifi capable, but first I migrated to powerline ethernet and more recently mesh wifi with my PC plugged into one of the child nodes.

I don’t like the Witcher because I want to be faithful to Triss, but as soon as Yennefer shows up, all my player choices are disregarded. 5/10, will not play again.

I suspect its being banned because of people using it in public without headphones or earbuds. I was submitted to that experience for an hour+ in a waiting room one time and now I fully supported the ban to prevent it from ever happening again.

Mine is off at the moment.

That’s probably it. I get that many people enjoy overcoming difficult bosses by mastering the tactics, but I find it boring and repetitive. At this point in my life I enjoy games with an engaging story, cozy games, or open games where I can create my own story in my mind as I play it (like The Sims or Mount & Blade…such very similar games :D).

You’re going to have so many scratched rugs and doors…and dropped cans of paint around your house soon! Well, my cats haven’t dropped any cans of paint yet, but based on my experience so far in Stray, it seem inevitable. Enjoy the new additions to your household!

All right then, keep your secrets.

I just finished replaying Life is Strange (the original). Now I’m starting Stray for a first play-through.

I always thought I despised soulslike games because they don’t let you adjust the difficulty level. I tried this game because they recognized that was bullshit and gave you the ability to easily overpower difficult bosses. Now I know I despise soulslike games for some different reason that I have figured out yet. I did not like this game.