He didn’t even work for the company, his wife did. She had him record the lines on a tape recorder in their livingroom. She sold it to the company for a few hundred dollars.

Best audio book I’ve listened to… Dungeon Crawler Carl. Great story. Amazing audio book production.

I agree with what you’re saying. They got the phone from Carrier A with the expectation the phone plan went with it. Once the phone is paid off, they can take the phone to Carrier B. Since they phone is basically bought on an interest free loan, the interest is recouped by the plan, and the collateral for not paying is a loss of the phone plan and use of the phone. To leave the plan, payoff the phone.

That does require that, the moment the phone is paid off, it should be automatically unlocked. There shouldn’t have to be a request or additional waiting. And the customer should be notified that it’s unlocked along with an explanation that they can now use the phone with any other provider.

Historically, this is exactly how theological disputes were handled. See Crusades on Wikipedia for more information.

If that were the case, how did you know to post about it?

I get why people are upset by the headline. It is written to provoke anger. Unfortunately, anger at the wrong issue.

I understand the argument that a large company can absorb the cost of workers they don’t currently. Though it’s unrealistic to expect them too.

I lived in the Quad Cities for a number of years. A large majority of people I know, both family and friends, worked for either Deere or Case IH - until they closed the plant in East Moline.

Layoffs are a yearly thing. Deere, Case, Caterpillar, they all hire a bunch of people in the beginning of the year and lay them off towards the end. It’s typically around August or September, and they announce it in July. Everyone in the Quad Cities knows it. It is expected. Sometime early next year, they are going to hire these jobs back. The people who take these jobs go into it knowing this is going to happen.

It can suck being let go and some people might struggle with it. Those who are used to this cycle treat it as a well-paying seasonal job. Many already have something else lined up. This is only a single, anecdotal, data point, so take it with a grain of salt… one of my uncles works for Deere and is a bus driver for one of the school districts. He knows Deere is going to let him go by fall so he has the driving job for the rest of the year. In spring, he will go back to Deere.

Perspective is also important. Deere has somewhere between 80k and 85k employees. They are laying off < 1000 based on this story. That’s the equivalent of a small, 80 person company hiring 1 person to get through the holiday season, then laying them off in January. Next year, they will do it again.

Headlines like this are nothing more than a distraction from real issues. For example, why does any company have multi-billions of dollars in profit to begin with? It just means they are charging more than they need to. The farmers who buy Deere equipment then have to charge more for their produce. Which means the stores have to charge more. Which means we pay more for our food. Deere’s profits are leading to higher food prices for everyone. To me, that is more of an issue than 1/80th of their workforce being in a hire/layoff cycle.

Carl and Donut?

I run a development department, and nobody who reports to me comes to the office. We have been 100% remote since 2020… much to the chagrin of HR. Others in IT come in, but no developers. I see no reason to change it either. I question why I even come in most days.

Without looking it up, I don’t know how many people I’ve interviewed over the last 4 years, but there’s been a few. I’ve only had one person who indicated he wanted to be in an office. Every other person wants fully remote. The most common comment I’ve heard from people is saying they will settle for hybrid if full-remote isn’t available.

There’s some value to having people work together in-person, but I’d rather give my teams the flexibility to choose for themselves rather than force it.

Just another BS article designed to get clicks.

7/144 = 4.9% With the information presented and using the same jump-to-conclusion analysis, energy drinks reduced the likelihood of a cardiac arrest by over 95%.

I winder how many of the 144 had brown hair. Let’s guess 30%. The article could read, “People with brown hair have a 30% likelihood of cardiac arest. Why hair dye saves lives?”

Over a lifetime, 7% to 8% is a good return. If you are safely building a portfolio, and looking at year over year, then anything between 8% and 12% is pretty good. If you are closer to retirement or just more risk averse, then around 5% to 7%. Really, anything above inflation means you are making money.

Everyone is going to have different definitions of “good.” It all depends on your goals, risk aversion, and stage of life. Your best bet is to find a financial advisor who can tailor a plan to your needs.

Let me get this straight. You were made fun of by a guy who works for Disney. An organization that’s ridiculously protective of their brand and famous for not being fucked with. One of the most litigious organizations, with an army of lawyers who know more about entertainment law than anyone on the planet. And you’re plan is to sue these people? Good luck.

Fear and caution are not the same thing.

Do you really think the US has any real concern about being attacked? There is plenty to say about US policies, both good and bad. Part of that is the nearly $1T per year spent on the military. I don’t think you’ll find many credible people who think attacking the US will be good for whoever does it.

Attacking the US has been, historically, one thing that tends to unite the country. We - Americans - like building shit and we like fighting people. We never stop building new weapons. But when there is no-one to fight, we fight each other. There is a huge social divide in the US right now. You want to fix that, attack us.

*Edit: spelling

“Would have liked to run tests on the sea shells.” ~Mordin Solus (Mass Effect 3)

Why does my neighbor lock the door to his house? What if he is doing something in there I don’t agree with - like praying to a different god than me? How am I supposed to stop him? If I can’t just walk into his house whenever I want, I wouldn’t even know. This type of security can’t stand. Door locks are NSFWorld.

If you are using the concepts and writing the code yourself, you’re fine. If you are copying/pasting code from work to your personal project, you’re commiting IP theft. I’d recommend never doing that. On the otherhand, if it is for a peraonal project that you will never give away or sell, no one will know. Id still recommend not doing it, but to each their own.

Then why would the company be against paying minimum wage?

People want someone or something to blame. I think the reason is that certain groups think everything can be controlled. It’s too much of a challenge to their world view to have a large scale desaster not be attributed to someone’s fault. This causes them to dig in more with conspiracies. It’s easier to accept wild theories than change their world view.

It seems to typically be people who don’t have critical thinking skills. Those who can’t see past the superficial. A story that, on the surface, matches something that is true, then gives a speculative leap to something that isn’t, is hard for them to disregard. If A is true, and C happens sometimes with A, then A causes C. Without the ability to realize, B was skipped. Or to say it in a different way, its hard for some to realize correlation is not causation. So, conspiracies are born.

Ex: The ice is melting in Antarctica. Scientists are there all the time, drilling holes to get samples. If you drill a hole in an ice cube, more air gets to it and it melts faster. Therefore its the so called scientists that are causing the icecaps to melt. Maybe they are even putting heaters in it to speed it up just so they can say they were right. We need to stop these scientists before they kill us all. And so on.

More of a physical representation of a debt, but in essence, yes.

I buy a rock from you with $5, that $5 represents the debt I incurred by taking the rock. You have the $5 that you can use to barter for something else. At the end of the day, the government is backing my debt for the rock with a physical piece of paper. Except it isn’t physical anymore now that everything is digital. So, I suppose its more like the bits of data that represent the physical money that represents the debt for the rock is backed by the government. Although that money is actually physical at the bank that conducted the electronic transaction, and they borrowed that physical money from the fed. But even then, it is inflated since not every dollar a bank transacts with, is backed by something physical since the reserve ratio is not 100%. And that is when it starts becoming confusing.