I think future technology will allow the car to detect another car or pedestrian too close to the exhaust system and disengage it. I don’t know, some wild thought I just had.
You can't just "disengage" a car that's six feet off the ground. You have to land it gently with the nozzle engaged or you don't have a car anymore, and maybe you don't have a driver either.
Everyone can be stripped off their citizenship now that birthright is debatable (Supreme Court upheld with a narrow 6-3). At which point they are illegals.
The infra we are building for our future dictator is awesome.
Remember those horrible vicious ni… I mean Haitians in Springfield? The ones who are "poisoning the blood of the country", "probably have AIDS", and are "eating the dogs" and "eating the cats"?
They were legal, every last one of them. They were under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). There was no "law and order" justification to object to their presence. Didn't stop the GOP from going after them. Trump and Vance viciously attacked them with the full support of the conservative media. The administration repealed their TPS protection, turning people who had done no wrong into fugitives.
This is about race. Always has been. When they run out of "illegals", they'll turn people into "illegals". When they run out of immigrants entirely, they'll overturn the 14th Amendment and start stripping citizenship from native-born Americans of the wrong color. They've already tried just that, and three motherfuckers on the Supreme Court voted to let them.
what's the problem with ending a temporary protection status? it's supposed to be temporary it's in the name, unless I'm mistaken that program started 16 years ago that seems way past temporary.
There is no problem if it is done for rational reasons and in a fair/unbiased way, but if it is done for irrational reasons (xenophobia, racisms, bigotry, etc) and in unfair/biased way then that is a major problem; the motivations and methods matter.
They were given protection status do to an earthquake it's been 16 years it seems rational to return them home. What would be a fair reason to end this temporary status to you?
I don't think length of time is the rational indicator of whether or not the status is still necessary, the present conditions within the country would be the rational indicator, yes?
What is the present condition in the country that prevents them from returning? What condition would be acceptable in your mind to make returning them ok?
Are you suggesting we should move people from safe conditions to unsafe conditions simply because you don't like the length of time they have been in safe conditions?
For me personally, the conditions should be as safe or safer than the current conditions under which a person resides before considering removal of protective status, or else it would be cruel and inhumane to move them (to worse conditions).
I think preventing unnecessary human suffering should be the number one concern, do you not?
The name for TPS is not the program is temporary, rather the protection itself is temporary protection (hurr durr) until either the person can return home or seek other means of legal status.
After 16 years why wouldn't they be able to return home? The protection was given due to an earthquake how long are we supposed to allow temporary protections to last?
Haiti is in a state of anarchy, completely taken over by gangs. There are no elected officials in the entire country. It is one of the most dangerous places in the world.
I didn't say anything about race? You said that Haiti is in full blown anarchy and overrun with gangs. Why is it racist not to want people from a country that you referred to as incredibly dangerous?
> So the country is too dangerous because of the people? Why would we want people from one of the most dangerous places in the world in our country?
So it turns our you weren't "just asking questions" in good faith, but rather pushing the old progressively-louder dog whistles. It always boils down to the collectivism of handwaving about "those people".
At this point I not longer give any credence to arguments about "immigration". There are legitimate criticisms to be made for sure, but they're utterly minuscule relative to this revanchist movement to destroy what little Constitutional liberties we have left.
Because it was done for racist reasons. "Poisoning the blood of the country" and all that. The government is not allowed to do anything for an illegal reason.
The protection was given due to an earthquake it's been 16 years that crisis is over there is nothing racist about sending people home after the crisis we sheltered them for is over.
My experience has been different, most retailers have accurate delivery times, unless you shop for things like furniture at C&B or WestElm for which they don’t keep local inventory. The only appeal Amazon has for me is the subscribe and save option and that you can find almost anything. For example I have a legacy air filtration system for which I cannot find replacement filters for, except on Amazon. For anything else there seems to be a better alternative today.
The value was driven by the size of the user base. We gave each user an arbitrary price but didn’t understand how to turn that into actual money. So if you had a website with 30M users it was valued at $900M. The late 90s early 2000s were wild times in VC, and some lucky people realizing how nonsensical all that was cashed out on time.
I use Amazon to buy cheap stuff like zip ties, printing paper and ink and some cleaning products. Almost every single major purchase I go directly to the manufacturer website or a specialized store. For example, I would never buy photography gear on Amazon. I go to Adorama or BH. For my favorite brands in say hiking or running gear I go to REI or RunningWarehouse or visit my local brick and mortar store. Amazon has truly become the convenience store for me, my average purchase is under $10. Almost everyone today offer free or inexpensive quick shipping and easy returns. They also have better customer service.
> Almost every single major purchase I go directly to the manufacturer website or a specialized store.
Let's take an example: If a Brother printer is full price from Staples, Best Buy and the Brother website, but $50 off on Amazon, why would I not order on Amazon and save myself $50? As it is, Best Buy and Staples are also operating marketplaces when buying online.
> Almost everyone today offer free or inexpensive quick shipping and easy returns. They also have better customer service.
I beg to differ. I bought a GPU from a local store that turned out not to be compatible with my workstation. Returning it was a huge hassle, I paid a 15% restocking fee. The next time I ordered a GPU, I went through Amazon. When it too didn't work, they took it back, no questions asked, full funds returned.
"why would I not order on Amazon and save myself $50?"
Because of principles?
It seems that in the past 20 years the concept of boycotting a company in response to their behaviour has been lost.
The last widespread boycott I remember was from the late 2000s against Sony, I can't even remember why ( rootkits on CDs? ) but I'm still boycotting them now as it's an automatic reaction.
Unfortunately not many people have principles which overcome the desire for convenience. I stick to my principles hard, so much so I will happily go without convenience items, but I very rarely meet anyone else who does.
I do sympathize with them though. Convenience isn't necessarily bad, but when it's at odds with important principles, it seems there are too few people willing to take the hit anymore.
oh please. where do you stop boycotting? can you name a few companies that aligns with your principles? I feel like every major company I deal with has skeletons in its closet. if i were to start boycotting companies, i'll have a hard time getting anything done.
Better to have no morals or principles than have any, as I always say! /s
Every company is going to have competitors that would love your business over these major companies. Pick your battles and do your best. It's only hard because the status quo is designed to be stupidly easy.
If you find a Brother printer is full price from Staples, Best Buy, and the Brother website, but $50 off on Amazon, you take that price information to your in person Staples or Best Buy and ask if they price match it. They look at your rewards card/members card, say "Sure" and throw in extra toner at a good price. Or they point out that you are looking at a counterfeit product on Amazon and you get a good collective laugh.
If a Brother printer is $150 from Amazon, but $100 on Staples, Best Buy and the Brother website, why would you not order on a non-amazon site and save yourself $50?
Answer: you probably would, but Amazon engages in illegal, coercive price fixing to drive up the prices on those other sites by $50.
Yeah sure, except that benefits the consumer. Amazon offers three things that are incredibly convenient for the consumer:
(1) Same day or next day shipping
(2) No hassle returns for a full refund
(3) No cost for return shipping. In some cases, the shipper will come to my door (!) to pick up the return package at no cost.
What was it like before Amazon? An internet filled with every possible storefront someone threw together with a CGI script, sketchy payment processes and dark patterns that hide information or trick you into extras. Getting something actually delivered was a crapshoot at best unless one went with a known vendor (ex. Best Buy).
What's the next credible alternative for merchants without Amazon? There's Shopify. I hold my breath every time I order from a website using Shop Pay. There's no clarity on when it will ship, sometimes details are excellent, other times the merchant forgets to add a tracking number. Return policies are merchant specific (read: very inconsistent), and Shopify takes zero liability if a package goes missing. They leave it up to me to sort it out with the merchant, as a result, ordering anything above $100 feels risky.
The lower risk of ordering from known vendors was a thing all the way back to the days of the Sears Catalog and other big mail-order houses. That wasn't new with the internet.
With Amazon, there is a whole tier of customers who order stuff, use it for their one-time need, and then return it. All for ultimately no cost to them, but all the rest of us pay for it.
That's not just happening on Amazon, tho. Hang out on /r/smallbusiness and you'll find tons of tiny retailers asking for help on how to deal with the same problem.
Returns for store credit only; restocking fees; buyer pays return shipping are the things most other retailers do. You just need to add a little reasonable friction to the process.
Are the higher prices in the room with us? Amazon is always at least as cheap. I mean they literally track the prices on competitors and auto-update them.
Well, according to TFA, you're still paying an Amazon tax, which is itself similar to the Visa tax, which apparently we all pay even if we use cash to purchase directly from manufacturers (so long as the manufacturer also sells their product on Amazon).
I don't know about "increasingly." I think there are two places in my area of the city that offer a cash discount. These kinds of tactics really aren't convincing customers to use cash - maybe if they turned it around to "a 3% fee will be added to card transactions" then people would care. Anyway, discounts are enough of a pain that it's not worth the accounting.
Look at your costs, including card transactions fees, and spread that across your pricing. It's no different than pricing in all other business expenses - do you complain you're paying a "toilet tissue tax" because you don't use the toilet when you stop in? Paper products in the bathroom are a cost, and those costs are put into the price everyone pays for a donut.
Now, I'll agree having a minimum plus percentage of every transaction is predatory.
If you have enough cash customers, total card transaction costs are not 3-5% of revenue. If you don’t, you’re definitely putting 3-5% back into your pricing to cover the fees.
You're right. But in my anecdotal experience, there are about half as many adding the surcharge as providing the discount.
Ultimately, my point is (not even addressing the legality of Visa's compulsory pricing attempts) the cost of upfront analysis to set pricing appropriately is easily dwarfed by the cost of labor and throughput when adjusting the price by employees at the point of sale. Maybe the merchants adjusting at sale are getting a benefit in the form of customer awareness, but I have doubts.
For the cheap stuff, I usually find the quality better and sometimes lower prices by going to a shop like Home Bargains or B&M. Thats UK specific but I'm guessing there must be these sort of shops in the US too.
This is true for even mid range purchases. I was debating pre-ordering a game from Nintendo's website or Amazon and ended up chosing Amazon because of the return policy and how fast it gets delivered.
I think of my wife and myself as extroverts and we do have a very large social circle. Still we don’t host as often as we wanted, maybe once every two months. One of the reasons is it can get very expensive. The last party we threw was a Sunday brunch for about 15 adults and a handful of kids, and we spent over $500 just in pastries. People still bring stuff but we don’t expect them to. Dinner can get even more expensive particularly if you cook meat dishes these days. Then all the time it takes which also translates into money. To host a dinner party it takes me part of the week shopping and the entire weekend cooking and organizing. So most times is better just to call a couple of friends and go out to a restaurant.
$25 a person just in pastries is pretty astounding. I think I could make it happen with the most expensive bakery (which is imo not the best in town but close to it) and eating little else. So hats off, that’s impressive. Hope they were enjoyed, great pastries are really a delight.
I could see it easily if it's a "catered" order e.g. specific numbers of each type of pastry, packaged carefully, etc. vs. just going down to a retail bakery and buying whatever they made that day and throwing it in a box.
Eh, in this economy I think it's fine to request contribution, either material or monetary. Also once every two months or so is pretty decent, cheers to you
I have a reliable system running for years on a Surface Pro 2022, so not sure what your experience with Windows was. It does take a few tweaks to remove some of the junk but otherwise it is a solid work environment IMO. The same can be said of Linux, it can be a real PITA finding and configuring drivers for something that should not take more than a few seconds. So both environments can definitely be a shitty experience unless you know what you are doing.
I have been a decade long windows user (and still am), I administer a computer room with MacOS and use Linux. So I know all three pretty well.
Try reinstalling that surface pro with windows 11 without a Microsoft account. Windows is okay, but every update introduces new bullshit, bloatware, accounts you're forced to use, UI-changes. Linux is reliable in the sense that you can chose when and if you want to change things and there is always a way to do it the way you want to do it (something that is the big weakness of MacOS).
Additionally KDE Plasma is the best Desktop UI on all operating systems today. Scripting and automation on Linux is killer, ... The only reason for Windows/MacOS is certain software that doesn't performantly run on Linux (or if Linux scares you).
> The same can be said of Linux, it can be a real PITA finding and configuring drivers for something that should not take more than a few seconds.
If you value your own dignity you should see that these scenarios are worlds apart. In one case you have a trillion-dollar company actively working against your own interests. On the other hand, you had some trouble finding drivers for a volunteer-driven project, which is a problem that you are actually empowered to fix.
I already cancelled Netflix and HBO, I guess Hulu is next. It feels almost like a yearly 10-20% increase across streaming services and the content hasn’t improved. There’s just more crap to filter out. I think I may just be happy with Criterion only once I’m done with a couple of shows on Apple TV.
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