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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • They made it the default option for businesses that routinely buy computers with less local storage than their users need. Pretty much every company I have worked for.

    They then pushed it out hard into the consumer market when SSD came out and the average storage space on lower end models dropped by 75%.

    I see why they did it, how they did it was in usual Microsoft fashion, idiotic.

    It’s sort of their pattern.

    1. Introduce new changes.

    2. Screw it up royalty.

    3. Fix the features that are salvageable and revert most of the remaining except: Double down on the shitty ones that they think will make them more money.

    4. Rinse and Repeat





  • I personally think three things have driven the degradation in the movie theaters

    The lack of competition with theatres as monopolies have formed. This has allowed the average theatre to degrade in quality.

    Most major “blockbuster” style movies are designed for the international market. Lots of long action sequences with little dialogue. Simple character development and plots for easier translation. They are all pretty boring.

    And last, the improvements and price reduction of TV’s and home sound systems. Combined with the fast release of movies onto streaming platforms or pirate sites.

    So what exactly is are theaters selling anymore? A shitty service for a shitty product that is better consumed at home.


  • Yeah the lack of criminal charges indicates that it was a manic episode. She probably spent several weeks in a mental health ward. Otherwise she would have been charged for the abuse to the flight attendants and others.

    She also likely had a ton of drugs in her system as well as the booze. People undergoing manic episodes will take about anything.

    I am not so sure about the FAA fines. The U.S. civil court system is inherently unjust. There are many draconian rules that punish the mentally ill and impoverished.





  • The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.

    We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife’s car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.

    My house payment hasn’t changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.

    The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.



  • “boy do I have thrips” triggered a funny memory.

    When I worked in Ag. Research we had a big international field day. People from 50+ countries visiting in. I got the wonderful job of doing presentations in the field all day long. This was in late summer on a bad thrip year.

    Well, one of the office goons decided that they would order all the staff polo shirts for the three day event. We were all supposed to wear the same color on the specified day.

    They ordered in a light blue, yellow, and green polos. The first day was to be light blue. I “accidentally” wore the green one instead and had a few very irate office goons on my back first off that morning. Strangely enough all of the experienced outdoor staff “accidently” wore the green shirt as well.

    For those that don’t know, thrips are highly attracted to light blue and they bite. I laughed my ass off most of the day.

    The following two days everyone wore green. Except for the one determined office goon who wore the yellow shirt. In a field full of honeybee hives…





  • It’s all about profits. Seedless watermelons usually sell better with American consumers.

    In order to produce fruit on triploid watermelons there has to be regular seeded (diploid) varieties in the field. Traditionally they would use a large oblong traditional seeded (allsweet types). Mainly because there was a market for them and they looked different than the seedless varieties.

    The growers had to dedicate 1/5th of their acres to growing a seeded melons which they could sell at 50% or less than seedless varieties.

    That’s when seed companies introduced dedicated pollinators (non-harvested). These untilized several different dwarf genes and could be interplanted with seedless varities with no loss of space.

    With the exception of the big party markets like the 4th of July, most fields utilize the dedicated pollinators in the U.S. now. For production in Latin America, they export the seedless ones to the U.S. and sell the seeded ones l ones domestically.

    Bottom line, today you only occasionally seeded watermelons in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada.