Pirate everything, block ads, guillotine billionaires
Is that supposed to be unethical? Well I guess pirating everything includes things where paying would be fair.
They said unethical
I wish I could pirate food and rent and then I’d be all set!
Not a lifehack, just a reminder that legality is not an indicator of whether something is ethical
For the US: The Supreme Court has ruled that flashing your lights to alert other drivers of an upcoming speed trap is protected by your First Amendment rights.
Flipping off a cop is also protected, but that’s less helpful to others.
Why would you help someone driving dangerously and putting others at risk?
Going 5 over the limit and feeding money to pigs via ticket revenues is not “dangerous driving”
If someone’s doing 105 im not flashing them obviously
I guess it probably varies by location but 5 over the limit doesn’t usually result in anything either. It’s normally just people going significantly over that get fines.
Also it’s a limit, not a target. Plenty of roads have a limit that is too high to actually drive at safely too.
Something tells me you’re one of those who parks it in the passing lane going at or below the speed limit.
I don’t drive, it’s bad for the environment and costs loads of money.
You have a lot to tell drivers for someone who doesn’t drive. Consider that your perspective is heavily biased and likely inaccurate
Inaccurate? Its a fact that you are more likely to die or be seriously injured if a car hits you at a higher speed.
Going 35 vs going 30 on collision increases chances for pedestrians to die by up to two times btw
But pedestrians rarely travel that fast.
Why is there a pedestrian walking across the road while there’s a car coming at them at 35 mph?
Wait wat, does the money go to the cops in the US?
I do get where you’re coming from, but there are a lot of roads where the speed limit is artificially low (or temporarily lowered for no legitimate reason) for the sole purpose of collecting income from speeding fines
This part. I live in a rural area near a city; lots of people commute into town, and the main road there is flat, wide, straight, not residential, not even any livestock near the road, just open fields. The limit is 35, and half the people I know have gotten at least one $375 ticket for doing 40. It’s literally just a cash grab designed to take money from poor people trying to get to work.
202·9 days agoThey’re helping the other drivers, not the murderous Nazi pigs.
How adorably naive.
Fuck tha police
ACAB
US drivers do it regardless to help other drivers avoid getting unfair/unjust tickets. We’ve been ticketed 275$ going 1mph over the speed limit (it was down hill bruh) when we were 19 in the middle of no where Texas.
Also we no longer drive because we were never supposed to drive and we hate doing it anywho
Also we no longer drive because we were never supposed to drive and we hate doing it anywho
What do you mean? Do you live in NYC or something? I drive 4-6 hundred miles a week
We lived in nyc, Pittsburgh, middle of no where Maine and rn in Spain. In USA we either took the bus, rode a bike or walked. Can’t drive because of disabilities but did it when we were 16-19 because we were forced to while temporarily living in Oklahoma and Texas
Yeah such an American take lol
In EU I would be glad that anyone going over speed limit is fined, even 1kmph, these rules are there so drivers don’t kill pedestrians. If someone is afraid to be fined for going 1kmph over limit, just slow down a bit
Especially when you keep in mind that the speedometer reads higher than your true speed, so if your true speed is over you were clearly speeding intentionally.
Drive at 30 in a 20, end up killing a child with your massive SUV - which is another problem in its self…
Get your speedometer calibrated. It should read your proper speed
You’re a disgusting law enforcement shill. Cops have too much money as it is. If they’ve got time to sit on the side of the road and steal from us, then they must have cleaned up ALL the crime in the city, so their services are no longer required. Go be a school crossing guard.
Speeding cars kill like, so many people. Am I also a disgusting law enforcement shill now?
And if my flashing lights slow down somebody, so they don’t get a ticket, then it’s a great outcome for everybody but the cops.
Besides, nobody’s getting actively killed in my example, stop being so dramatic. I’m just flashing my lights in the neighborhood to alert my neighbor, and save him a ticket. That’s who I owe my loyalty to, not the cops.
Obviously, if it’s the guy who is always speeding through the neighborhood, I’m going to let that guy blow on past the cop. They deserve each other.
stop being so dramatic
disgusting law enforcement shill
🙄🙄
Don’t speed, don’t normalise speeding. Acab yes, but not because of speeding tickets lol
So maybe from your perspective, flash your lights when you think incoming traffic is going too fast?
Keep in mind, what you’re seeing is the combined speed of yours and theirs
Cops have too much money as it is
Found the American
Torrent everything. If it’s legal for a company to cancel my subscription then torrenting isn’t unethical.
Use the free tier if you are low-income. Privacy and security shouldn’t be for those with money.
If it’s legal for the Zuck to torrent all the books, it’s legal for me to torrent a few books.
Alternative option is not to pirate the books and instead read the public domain ones that are just free. Project Gutenberg is a good completely legit source of free books.
If libraries didn’t already exist and you tried to make one now, you would be arrested and likely get pretty hefty sentencing for copyright infringement.
Books are one of the few things I am more than willing to pay full price for.
Sure the publishers eat a lot of the money, but the authors don’t do too badly.
The very nature of a book (unless something is published as an e-book only) keeps it from being enshittfied like streaming audio and video services. If someone were to print an ad in the book, I could just rip it out and throw it away.
Books are one of the last places where you just will not see an ad or be tracked, or have popups, and other irritating “features”.
Books are good.
I’ve seen some children’s books with popups.
Slightly more seriously though, I do have some books that have an advertisement for something else from the author or publisher.
I feel like being I am pedantic on the points here so I will make a point of saying that I agree with the spirit of your comment.
Books used to come with ads all the time in the early 20th century, especially cheap paperbacks.
I’m not sure about unethical, but blocking ads is a big one for me. The WWW is unusable without blocking ads.
That’s just good advice 😂
When I wanted to start using contact lenses, they gave me a pair of those that last one month for free to try them out, I didn’t find them entirely comfortable so they gave another pair of another brand, and a third one. Then I started again on another place, and another, I think I went a full year without paying for contact lenses.
you wouldn’t download contact lenses… /jk
Absolutely.
Me right now
Worked as a lab manager for some of those one hour shops to pay for college. The drs would tell me horror stories where people would go to the strip malls and get these cheap “contact” lenses that had smiley faces or some shit on them. They wear them then swap them with friends. Basically not taking hygiene into account. They’d get some serious eye infections. Like nearly lose your sight serious eye infections.
Oh wow, another former optical lab tech in the wild.
I switched fields years ago and I’m glad I did. Visiting glasses shops today, there’s almost no on-site lab to speak of anymore. Maybe some finishing machines, but I haven’t seen a full surface lab in years.
I don’t have anything to add to the contact lens story except - wow, that’s nasty.
The optometrists over here change an extra fee for lens fittings on top of the fee for an eye exam. I think it’s $80 for us after insurance.
This might be specific to Spain then. I don’t know how the shop that sells prescription glasses is called, here they are called óptica. Their margins are big enough that they don’t charge you for the eye exam, the fitting or the test contacts.
In America, they have the big profit margin, AND they still have up charges for everything else. It’s the American way.
Years ago, before everybody had a printer with a scanner, I went into an office supply store to have a document scanned. They charged me $10, scanned my document, returned my document, and said Thank You.
I asked for a copy of my scan, but that was another $15. I had assumed that the original $10 also included a copy of the scan on some form of media, but No, the $10 was just to scan it into their computer. It was another $15 to take it home with me.
BTW, I spoke with the manager, who acted like I was being totally unreasonable to assume that paying $10 for them to scan a document they have no interest in into their computer was a weird thing to sell, and that ANYONE would assume that it includes a copy of the item you scanned. He eventually refunded my $10, and I got it done somewhere else.
That’s how things are done in America.
I know in the UK margins tend to be high on things like glasses and lenses but they lose money on even standard eye tests (it’s worse if they pick something wrong and need to do further investigation)
A long time ago, before car keys with buttons were common, I had a car with one key with buttons. They didn’t work well, so I went to the relevant dealership to get another key.
They charged me $80 and gave me another key, which admittedly did have functional buttons, but in so doing they further broke the original key - the buttons no longer worked at all. They then told me that I should not have expected to pay $80 and come out with more than I’d brought in.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The first time I went to that dealership, I asked to test drive one of their cars … The salesperson to whom I spoke claimed that they didn’t have any license plates to spare while visibly holding one in his hands.
Doctor offices used to charge a dollar per page to transfer records.
Circuit City used to charge a 25% restock free if you bought something and it wasn’t right.
Banks here used to charge a fee for writing too many checks, another fee for having not enough activity, or another fee for just having an account.
A family member of mine gets charged for sticking their own finger.
Wow.
None, I strongly advocate for ethics in all things.
Now if we want to talk about illegal lifehacks, that’s a different ballgame.
do you have any ethical but illegal life hacks in mind?
other than Internet piracy
Throwing away junk mail that isn’t addressed to you is a felony in the United States
but throwing it into the street is only a misdemeanor for littering.
What is your best illegal lifehack?
If you’re ever in charge of a young child with a stroller, it’s the ultimate shoplifting tool. You can cram all sorts of things under or behind it under the guise of fussing with the baby, and just walk out afterwards, no one wants to stop a fussy baby from leaving a store. Use this to harm predatory corporations that you can’t ethically give money to.
That’s true, but when you work checkout, you’re told to look there, specifically. And cameras, so be careful. If you steal meat, for instance, move to a non monitored isle, something cheap they don’t care about you stealing, so they don’t monitor it, and stash the meat there. But also Buy one of whatever you steal. They see you pick stuff up, but they can’t really tell you picked up 2 of the same slab of meat, they see you pay for one, they think all is good. Be super friendly and nice to all the staff. It’s not them you’re stealing from, they hate the system as much as you. Wear glasses, and mildly but not flashy upmarket clothing. Don’t wear hoodies or sunnies or nondescript clothing. And then you’re magically invisible. After working in a supermarket for multiple years, I can tell you exactly who they watch, and who they don’t.
Oh, also, watch out for security disgused as shoppers, they’ll walk around with a basket without any refrigerated items, just weird random junk, and they look at the people more than the shelves, walk too slow, and they’ll randomly follow you, so go in weird directions so you can spot them, act like you gotta double back to a few different weird isles, out of order, then it’s too obvious for them to follow you. Then If you see them try to follow you, but get frustrated, you definitely know to steal away from them. Or come back another day, they’re not there every day, or all day.
Storytime, I had a lady with a stroller come through, saw her all the time. She never looked me in the eyes, never bought much, was always a little off, avoidant to the point of rude. I always knew something was off, but i never check prams, because f that. One day I see a line of big burly blokes lined up at the exit to my register, I was running, “what’s up fellas?” “Here to catch a thief, don’t worry about it” they apprehend her, she had been loading her pram, chockas full, with meat slabs, they tell me later, they watched her put them all in her stroller. They watch the expensive stuff like a hawk.
Don’t feel bad stealing from corporations, they don’t feel bad stealing from you.
Also in bigger stores like Target, there may not be an unmonitored aisle. Just… look up, if you don’t believe me. But maybe not too obviously.
Many places punish employees for excessive “loss” in their departments. Sometimes explicitly.
Even ignoring that places will price “loss” into their products, I think it’s important to consider that this can affect “the little guy” too. Disproportionately at times, imo
Pricing in the loss only makes sense if it recovered any of the losses. And if it did, I’m pretty sure they would’ve already done it regardless of whether there’s any loss since it would just be pure profit in its absence.
Pricing in the loss only makes sense if it recovered any of the losses.
Maybe I’m not understanding what you mean, but I don’t think that’s true. They raise prices to account for the fact that they will not receive any money and lose out on what they paid for some percentage of the items.
And if it did, I’m pretty sure they would’ve already done it regardless of whether there’s any loss since it would just be pure profit in its absence.
Not necessarily. Not if they’re trying to beat a competitor’s price, for instance.
Those same competitors exist even if you steal from them. If raising prices means they make less profit due to those competitors, then they can’t raise prices to offset losses either.
Stuff some cash in an envelope and send it to Sweden for a totally anonymous mullvad account, download and set it up on your device (legal)
Download qbittorrent, go to the settings and bind it to your mullvad connection (legal)
Torrent every single 1 and 0 you consume, and seed that shit forever and eternity (mixed legality)
If you get junk mail with a return envelope, it’s automatically paid by whoever sent it, so you can mail back whatever you want, like vulgar imagery or blank forms
I recently used such an envelope to return a sheet where I had just written “poop”, using my left hand for extra aesthetics. I also added some screws and nuts I had laying around in case it’d increase the postage. My GF called me childish. I call it the result of ignoring the no-spam-registry everyone in my country is legally bound to follow.
Those are typically paid by weight. Several spammers have gotten envelopes full of gravel because of me.
It’s paid by weight and thickness so fill it with trash like pieces of cardboard and sand.
Sand sounds a bit mean. Postal service is not our enemy.
They show me nothing but naked hostility. The feeling is mutual.
Or bricks.
The post office got wise to that. Changed their regulations so that business reply mail cannot be used as a shipping label.
Fuck, I’m gonna start doing this. I’ve tried to get the postal service to return to sender, but they never do.
Every year, call your insurance/internet/phone/TV etc. provider and tell them one of their competitors gave you a lower quote and you want them to match it or come close.
They will often give you a better rate just for asking. It’s easier if you do have an actual quote to compare it against but you don’t need one. Everything is made up. Just ask to pay less and threaten to stop paying them and they’ll often just give it to you.
Even if they refuse, just say, “Okay. I need some time to think about whether or not I want to continue our relationship or switch.” Hang up and do nothing.
Tell your boss too. I told a boss that I’d been offered 25% more elsewhere which was enough for me to take it unless he wanted to match it, he did.
My ISP charges $15/mo for gigabit. I don’t really anticipate beating that.
They charge another $15/mo for a static IP, which they apparently require to allow port forwarding, but if I called annually about it they’d probably catch on. They already know me by name because, despite being several states away, they provide internet access exclusively to my city in my state and I’m apparently the only person here who wants port forwarding.
USA centric.
This is known as policy walking and has been banned in the UK by the FCA.
(edit - specifically for insurance)
——
@nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Why the downvote with zero engagement?
Wait what??
The consumer is barred from swapping providers annually to get better rates? Or are they barred from lying about fake quotes to get a better rate from their current provider?
Edit: By chance did you mean “price walking”? I did some searching online and I couldn’t find anything about the UK forbidding consumers from changing insurance companies to seek lower prices by searching for “policy walking” but I did find something about insurers slowly increasing prices on customers (thus creating the need for the behavior I suggested) called “price walking”, though I didn’t see anything about it’s legality. Admittedly, I’m just skimming while working.
A new customer and a renewing customer should get the same price.
If you go to an insurance company to get a quote, as a brand new customer or a renewal, the price should be the same.
Historically, its to prevent companies giving lower prices for the first year and then raising it for the second year.
Youre not allowed to increase the price just because its not a new customer.
Its nothing to do with regulating the customer - its regulating how insurance companies price their products for new vs existing customers.
I said policy walking, but price walking might be the more accurate term
Oooooooh that makes sense! Thanks for explaining. Yeah I wish we had legislation around it here, it’s stupid that I have to play games to get lower prices on things.
Wish that were the case where I live. Still I’ve noticed that what they’re now doing is offering the same price to everyone, but then giving the option of free Netflix for 1 year as a sign up bonus or the equivalent credit towards your service for that year, which effectively is the same practice.
To me the it sounds a bit more likely that they’re regulating insurance companies and not the customers.
insane, huh?
I’m downvoting specifically because you took the time to return to your comment and ping users with a mention, just to complain about downvotes.
Not USA centric.
It is also solid advice here in Germany and probably many other countries.
Your comment might be UK centric…
You may notice I specifically called out my comment as UK centric.
You monster.
Worked for me in Europe. Do this yearly now.
Removed by mod
It was a question. I do not recall you at all. Why do you care enough to follow me around and downvote?
what “dumb shit” have I said today? Would you like to correct me on UK insurance law? How did that “make you feel dumber”?
edit - and thats all of our interaction in the last year. Youre this upset cause I didnt like a game you like?
Removed by mod
I gave specific, UK advice, in a thread that isnt country specific, since the comment I replied to was defaulting to USA centric. Not sure why youre so upset about that? At least I clarified the exact country Im talking about, rather than assuming everyone is from the same place.
You’re the one thats upset here lmfao
Youre the one following me around arbitrarily downvoting.
I looked back at our last interaction. I actually said something positive. I was sincere about you enjoying starfield. Why is that “making you feel dumber”?
Need a phone charger? Walk into any hotel, say you stayed here a while ago, and accidentally left your phone charger in your room. You’re finally back in town, and decided to swing by to see if they have a lost-and-found box. 99% of the time, they’ll just pull out a cardboard box full of chargers and let you pick one. No questions asked, no follow-up, no verification. They get left behind in hotel rooms all the time, so the hotel’s lost-and-found is almost always full of them.
I used to freelance, and used this all the time when I was between gigs and just needed to chill for a few hours. If I had taken the train downtown and didn’t have my car charger, I’d just find whatever hotel was closest after my gig, and stop there. They’d let me grab a charger, and I’d pop over to a cafe to sit and watch TV/YouTube on my phone for a while. And then when it was time to leave for my next gig, I’d just leave the charger at the cafe for someone else to find later. I didn’t worry about keeping track of them, because I never intended to hold onto them in the first place. My car charging cable is from a hotel. My bedside charging cable is from a hotel. My desk charging cable is from a hotel. I haven’t actually purchased a USB-C cable in literal years.
I tried this. The hotels attached the room and date on the lost item, so unless you’ve got those they aren’t going to give you anything if you can’t match them. Maybe some others don’t, so worth a try anyway?
I’ve tried this, and it doesn’t work. If you’re not average-looking enough, the receptionists will be suspicious of you and ask you to name your room number and who you were with. Just ask to borrow a charger in a pinch so you can get 5% battery or something.
… What do you look like?
Like a regular person but with distinctive features. Lol
Yeah but how can you tell that you’re getting the right charger for your phone? No two chargers are the same; they have different wattage ratings and use different charging standards.
If you grab any old charger without knowing the model number, it’ll charge your phone, sure, but not necessarily at its maximum possible charging speed unless you get lucky or take extra time to examine and research each charger until you find the right one. And I don’t know about you, but I’d feel awkward about pulling out my phone to Google random chargers while digging through a lost and found box with the employee just standing there. I rather just spend the money on a compatible charger designed for my phone’s charging standard.
Chargers have the wattage ratings printed directly on them. And the rating will simply be the maximum that the charger can provide. Wattage is pulled, not pushed. So if you plug your phone into an oversized charger, the phone will only draw what it needs.
Just grab the highest wattage you see, and the phone will pull what it needs.
Caveat that this only applies to USB chargers. If you find some random non-USB, old-school type charger (like the ones with the round connectors) that fits your device, don’t plug it in until you’re sure that the voltage and polarity are correct.
Compatible isn’t what you think. Phones want to boast about how fast they charge, but that’s not really good for your battery. You may have a phone that does adaptive charging. It’s pulling way less than it advertises so that it can prevent depleting your battery capacity over time.
If the plug fits, you’re fine. It will either charge slower, which helps protect your battery or it’s over what your phone requires, in which case your phone only pulls what it needs. You’ll be fine either way
Keep a reflective umbrella in the passenger seat. When an asshole with death beams tailgates you, have the passenger open it across the back seats
I would do this alone. I just don’t trust assholes not to shoot into my car and kill my family.
Get a bulletproof one like the Penguin.
a machine gun one.
I like this one
I doubt it would have any effect on the driver behind you. Too much light diffraction in general. And umbrellas are curved.
I actually own the original GoLite reflective backpacking umbrella. I’m aware they exist. I just know they aren’t, like, a mirror.
deleted by creator
I angle my sideview mirrors to reflect back at them. It tends to force them to back up a little
How do you know it’s reflecting back at them? I have tried and am never sure how to aim it.
I do the same, but primarily to get their headlights from blinding me through the side view mirror.
Watch youtube through other apps like Grayjoy If people are having a conversation in a dumb spot, walk through the middle of them
Use Morphe
What is Morphe?
It’s like ReVanced, which is not working anymore. Morphe works. https://morphe.software/
Almost a really, really stupid show.
Is grayjay any better than newpipe
For me it is, newpipe had way more instances of loading very slow or not at all when i tried to use it
This one is good, but one issue (and I hope someone has a fix for me please I’ll love you forever):
GrayJay
Authentication [YouTube] P:Login required (No fallback) Reason: Sign in to confirm your ageNewPipe
This video is age-restricted. Due to new YouTube policies with age-restricted videos, NewPipe cannot access any of its video streams and thus is unable to play it.Ytdlnis
ERROR: [youtube] OC49ZUiuidc: Sign in to confirm your age. This video may be inappropriate for some users. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-yt-dlp for how to manually pass cookies. Also see https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-youtube-cookies for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies(Note, using these cookies requires an acct, not an effective bypass.)
In my experience those disappear after a while, no idea what google does to cause that to happen
Not for me, it seems consistent. Maybe there’s a country I can VPN into that has no age restrictions or something though, I’m hoping.
If you really want to piss people off, treat every individual with compassion and dignity. Even (especially) if they don’t treat themselves like that.
Also, corporations are not people, my friend. So use the above to help guide your social engineering tactics.
Not unethical or illegal, but avoiding a barrier, if you have a problem that a company won’t solve using regular customer service means, spend time to find their email formula (FnameLname or FLname or FnameL @company.com) do some online searching, and then email your unhelpful CSO person and start to CC senior people in the company “to bring this error to their attention.”
If the unhelpful CSO person hasn’t messed up, then it’s no heat on them and their supervisor will just say “ugh, just get rid of this guy,” and solve your problem. I’ve used this method a dozen or so times, works well.
When I have an issue with a corp and have to talk to a human I start with an apology to that individual.
“Hey I have an issue with X about Y, but I have nothing against you as a person. You’re just trying to do your job and probably deal with a ton of verbal abuse. I apologize in advance if I get upset or use crude language during this call. Be aware that I’m not upset at you I’m upset at the company policies.”
This works so well. I’ve been on the receiving end of that, and I wanted more than nothing more than to help resolve their issue. I felt acknowledged and validated, and wanted nothing but to return the favor. Do this.
Having been of both sides of this situation, this is excellent advice and will get you much better results on average because you get the CSR on your side and invested in a positive outcome almost every time.
Yeah nearly every time they end up on my side.
My latest issue that didn’t help at all with with a Verizon call to a CSR in India. She was a human robot reading a script. Didn’t listen to me at all just following her prompts. An AI would’ve done a better job.
This is called the corporate carpet bomb. And yes, it is often very effective because the upper management doesn’t like being bugged by small things like this. So they’ll often acquiesce just to get you to go away. And it usually only takes one upper manager to bother. Even if nine of them ignore you, the tenth will tell their underlings “hey, what’s the problem here? Why am I being CC’ed? Just fix whatever it is so I can stop getting emails about it.”
Having worked corporate c-suite level escalations this is absolutely the case. It was fun dressing down directors and managers well above me because I had a mandate from above them to hold their feet to the fire and get shit done.
If you are working as a contractor and make above a certain wage it can be worth it to setup your own LLC/S-corp. I did it one year at the advice of my CPA and it immediately knocked off 30% of my AGI. Lowered my pass thru income and tax liability. Saved me many thousands over 20 years. Its what every corporation in America does.
What did you do just pay yourself in options and drive the stock price up with buy backs? I guess you could buy your competition and load them up with all of your debt while paying you and your friends bonuses.
I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work for small corporations where no one else even knows you exist. The share value is likely just going to be the company’s net asset value.
If you want a free quarter, make an online order at Aldi that is large enough for them to load into a cart and also justify you taking the cart out to your car. Return said cart to the cart line and boom free quarter.
I’m about to be so rich.
