Layoffs are common very large companies because of how they operate.

Although they start as innovative companies once they hit a certain size threshold internal inertia prevents any significant innovation.

In order to maintain growth they must buy smaller innovative companies and capitalize on the innovation using their vaster resources.

After they have sucked every last bit of money the purchased innovation, they layoff employees they purchase with the innovative company and all those they added in its ramp up.

They then go on the hunt to purchase the next smaller innovative company.

Mega corporations are a parasite on the economy.

The last major antitrust action on this scale in the U.S. 8 years to process.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

This type of lawsuit is why the billionaire bro’s are backing the senile rapist and felon. Making them play somewhat fair ruins their business plan.

Firing middle managers is a fun way to kill the company. Not that cleaning house is a bad idea. Unfortunately the people making decisions of who to keep and who to let go are usually idiots.

Middle Managers are promoted for two reasons: technical expertise and ass-kissing expertise. Now the technical experts tend to not mix well with incompetent parasitic c-suite types idiots. The ass-kissers are beloved by the c-suite as that is their only role in life.

So when firings come around guess who they get rid of? Then 1-3 years later everyone is shocked when everything starts to fall apart.

They also need to remove the limited liability from companies for intentional illegal activities.

illegal business practices should be charged to the people involved instead of the company. The executives who made the decision to break the law lose personal assets.

Otherwise the shitheads just pass the company losses onto the employees: no raises, hiring freezes, layoffs, reduction in benefits, etc…

First off, your rheumatologist is the most important doctor you will be dealing with. For some reason the field collects some odd ones with poor people skills. You may get lucky and find a good one right off the bat. However if the doctor seems to not be listening to you, understanding and explaining your symptoms, go for a second opinion or a third or a fourth opinion. It took my wife 5 different ones to finally find a good one. It’s a 3 hour one waytrip to see him but it’s worth it. We will likely be moving up closer to him in a few years.

Second be patient with the meds. It will likely take several tries to find something that works. However not too patient, waiting too long can make the disease progress further. However once the right cocktail is found you’ll feel a bunch better, until you don’t. Changing meds is common and normal no matter how long you have it.

Last, if your in the U.S. and have to deal with our shitty system, get ready to fight insurance. It will be a constant battle if you geton one of the criminally prices drugs. Just don’t give up and eventually you will win. One drug refill took my 2 months of twice weekly calls to push it through.

I have been using custom start menus since the whole win8 full screen disaster. Every time I see the default win 10 or Win 11 menu I cringe. So much crap in the way.

Process optimization reaches a point of diminishing returns. Then if tweaked further it degrades the performance. Microsoft reached the close to the optimal OS design at Win7. It’s all been downhill since then.

The mobile OS systems are reaching the same point. Optimization has occured and most of the “new” additions degrade the user experience.

Terms and conditions are NOT copyright law. They are a separate agreement that is the companies “wishlist” of things they want the consumer to agree too. It’s common for them to spell out terms in direct conflict with copyright law.

The reason that an iTunes video purchase is encrypted is because it is illegal to break the encryption in order to make a copy (DMCA). However capturing the playback and transforming it to another medium is for personal use is fair-use.

There is also no time limit to how long a person can save the copy for. As long as they had legal access to the content at the time of making the copy. For example say I recorded a football game from a streaming service. I can save that copy for personal use for the rest of my life even though I purchased a one time only streaming.

Not an expert, but in the U.S. making a copy of a broadcast for personal use is legal under fair-use. Anything that loads up on your computer screen you can make a copy and save it for personal use. So screen captures are by definition legal.

How exactly you copy the material on your screen gets tricky under the DMCA clusterfuck. Breaking encryption to copy the material is illegal unless there is an valid exception for fair-use. What exactly those valid exceptions are is above my paygrade.

Large corporations rarely innovate and try new things. Most innovation comes from smaller players with limited market share taking risks.

Large companies buy out smaller ones who create cash cows from taking large risks. The large company then milks the cash cows until they are completely dead.

The consolidation of studios to a few megacorporations has led to this inevitable end. The solution is simple: break them up. If we have 30 or so similar sized studios competing, we will get better movies/TV again.

“Mahana, you ugly. Come down from that tree now.”

How can any movie compete with that truly epic line?

I am of the opinion that most “supply” issues are due to investors. Except in certain geographic areas we do not have a shortage of actual physical housing. What we have is a shortage of available housing at a mixed pricepoints for purchase.

All housing that investors purchase for rentals removes it from the supply.

Traditionally investors have sought out entry level housing for rent. They invest in building rental complexes. They make all cash purchases and then rent it out to people who otherwise would have been first-time homebuyers. Investors used to be the low end offer. Blatant price fixing has increased rent outrageously. Now investors are the high end offer and removing supply constantly.

With AirB&B, the middle and even upper range market that traditionally has had less investor competition is now a major target. This has led to price wars for investment purposes on previously safe segments.

The first solution to the housing supply is simple: taxing income from rent so that selling the property is financially more lucrative. It will have to include a prohibition against rental increases to cover the taxes as well.

The second is to mandate zoning and new construction to match the market needs not the needs of the investors.

Last would be to create a program where builders who focus on entry level housing receive incentives from governments (also include hefty penalty for substandard construction).

About that global warming and subtropical diseases being able to survive further north and south.

Yeah… Welcome to the new normal.

Not really exeptional except it is commercial grade. It’s not the random stuff you get from the local brand. The local brand is whatever. Sometimes it’s really good, other times it’s pretty poor.

The most common difference is in a test called “falling number”. Falling number is a fast easy way to figure out if an enzyme that degrades starch has been activated (alpha-amylase). Intact starch in flour creates a matrix in solution and thickens it. When alpha-amylase is activated it degrades the starch and makes it thinner.

For baking you want a thicker dough that holds together. It’s how you get light and fluffy breads. The thicker dough traps CO2 produced by yeast or an acid/base reaction better.

Timeshares are written up as if they were property. Property that she shares with other people and is contractually required to pay for the upkeep. It’s basically a never ending money generator for the owners. Think of it a hotel where all the rooms are rented out to people who agreed to pay for them no matter if they use it or not.

As the owner of “property” she has a few choices. First off read the contract.

The management company sometimes reserves the right to buy the property back. Usually a good option - the “Owner” loses money but gets out of the never-ending bills.

She can also sell/give the timeshare to somebody else on the timeshare selling site. This transfers the ownership to somebody else who might like it.

If the property has degraded in value because of lack of maintenance from the management she might be able to get out by civil lawsuit. This is unlikely as most timeshare companies do exactly the bare minimum to meet their contractual obligations.

I did a little assassin creed run this summer. Started with Unity and went to Odyssey.

Unity by far has the best story-line. The game mechanics are also more focused on being an assassin, not a brawler. Sneak and stab, drop smoke and disappear when you get in trouble.

Syndicate - they changed the focus to more brawling. However the mechanics were pretty bad and the storyline was predictable and stupid to say the least. You can still play the assasin for most of it if you want.

Origins - They went all out into brawling with this one. Complicated all of the controls. Easiest way to make it through the game is as an archer. The story lines are dull and some are just plain weird. The offer you tons of different options in gear but only a few are worth keeping. Not much chance to actually assainate anyone. Lots of weird half baked stuff like the naval warfare in the story line but nowhere else.

Odyssey - it’s basically the same as origins. They spent more time fleshing out the mechanics. Added in a ton of options but you only use a few. Added in a ton more brawling combat and very little assassination. In many instances trying to play as an assassin is just not possible. The combat is often broken. Beating the bosses is all the same. Spam arrows while dodging until they weaken, get a hit in and run away- repeat. Save often because the game crashes regularly.

Yes I played all the way through and beat the main quests and side quest on all of them.

I have a Dyson. It’s really quite terrible with weak suction. I got it free from my sister-in-law when it “broke”. It took me an hour to disassemble it and clear out all the clogged sections. In order to keep it working it needs a full disassemble and cleaning around once a year. It’s an excellent example of a shitty design.

My other vacuum is one I got 18 years ago that still works well. The brand has since gone to shit so I can’t recommend them now.

What to look for:

First look at the amps on the bottom. Amps = suction power. The more amps it draws the stronger the motor is.

Second you want a beater bar. This is the belt driven part that spins. This makes the vacuum much more effective on carpet. It gets pet hair a lot better.

Third you want something with common easily replaced air filters. These clog easily and need to be replaced constantly. Look for machines with oversized filters.

And last, look for something simple to break apart and fix that you can find affordable replacement parts for online. Fixing a broken vacuum is generally pretty simple.

These are generally midrange machines not the cheapest but not the most expensive. In the long-term these tend to be the most economical in terms of performance/cost.

Windows did a few vital things that Apple failed miserably on in the 90’s.

Mac dropped support for legacy software and hardware on every new OS in the 90’s. Microsoft maintained backwards capability. It was a major reason windows was more resource intensive and had more bugs. It was a smart move because windows OS was able to handle more software and hardware than Macs. This is the top reason why windows demolished Mac in sales.

Microsoft’s business model allowed greater range of pricepoints. Most users in business or at home do not need the capabilities of the lowest priced Mac model. You don’t need much to check e-mail, browse the web, and do some basic word processing. Apple did not service this largest section of the market at all.

The one I see the most is:

“We avoided any semblance of rational experimental design and got significant results.”

Evaluating products based upon quality not being loyal to a brand ca save you a ton of money.

Brand loyalty is taking advantage of the brain being lazy. It doesn’t want to reprocess every little thing. So when something has worked well in the past, people tend to grab the same brand. It takes a lot for people to reconsider their choices again.

Once companies break the brand loyalty due to shit performance, it is extremely difficult to get it back. This is why mismanaged brands that have gone to shit, always attempt to rebrand themselves.

The most memorable example of this for me was a long time ago. I was newly married and very poor. I was just starting to build my tool collection in the apartment.

I needed a circular saw to repair some craigslist furniture. So I carefully went around to the hardware stores looking at the prices. They were all more than I was willing to spend.

Then in Walmart one day I took a look at what they offered. It was pretty much an exact replica of the top of the line model at 1/4 of the price. The box was a bit dusty and next to another saw with the same name and UPC. It was obviously a newer box of the same item. It was the cheapest looking thing I could imagine. Completely different from the older one. It looked like a great way to lose some fingers and toes.

I grabbed the solid looking one and walked happily out of the store. It’s had a lot of use since then, and it’s still working flawlessly. I am still the proud owner of all my fingers and toes.