It's not just liberal rage; this whole country is turning into a steaming pot of rage, threatening to boil over. It's not a good sign that there's so much clear division in this society now.
Unfortunately, I really can't think of any really good historical parallels. 1930s Germany has some similarities, but unlike them our economy is pretty good (except for some people in it) and we didn't lose some big war we're paying reparations for and we don't have hyperinflation. The fall of Rome has some similarities, but I've never read about them having huge divisions in their society between certain groups of citizens becoming violently opposed to each other. The US before the Civil War has some similarities, but there the division was mainly between different regions (encompassing entire states), whereas here it's not so much, it's more urban vs. rural.
If you want serious programming articles, go to Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com/news). Just watch out if you try posting comments; their moderation is downright oppressive. You'll be down-modded to oblivion if you attempt any kind of humor, and you can easily get banned for behavior that's comparatively civil around here. It's best just to lurk, and use it as a reference to find good articles. But you won't find a better aggregator of programming articles.
Hollywood is more tolerant of chubby or fat guys in dramatic roles than women: John Goodman, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cox, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Hanks, etc.... even Jonah Hill and Jack Black have been cast in serious roles as fat guys.
Another factor, however, is that Hollywood has a lot of cronyism (actors are friends with directors and producers who cast them frequently). Alec Baldwin was a really good-looking guy back in the early 90s or so, not fat at all. Tom Hanks was also quite thin back in the 80s and 90s. Now they're old and fatter, but they're also A-list so they have access to parts that some random new fat guy wouldn't have. John Goodman's been fat as long as I can remember (going all the way back to "Roseanne" in the 80s/90s), but he's also more a comic character, and chubby guys are very frequently used in those roles. I haven't seen too many roles with him as a non-comic character.
The Chinese system has to be shipped to you, which isn't free. It's sold as a single unit, to you, an individual customer, so there's no quantity discount at all. It's sold on Ebay or similar, which has a hefty fee for the seller (12-15%), and it's paid for through Paypal or a credit card, which adds another fee (~3%). Selling stuff individually to people isn't cheap, which is why typical retailers mark up their wares a minimum of 100%, usually more (from the wholesale price). Do you seriously not understand this???
Factories don't buy stuff at retail, or from a wholesaler, they buy it direct from the manufacturer with an exclusive contract at quantities in the millions (a camera is something they can use on every single model they produce, unlike something that's vehicle-specific like a fender or something trim-level-specific like a factory option). Their prices are hence absurdly cheap. Yes, the camera maker has to build in liability to their price, but cameras are not known to fail much, and given the above I can't imagine the factory's price being more than $50. It won't be more than a full mirror assembly. Now the screens are another matter, and probably come from a different manufacturer. But still, the price for electronics in general is cheap these days; if Huawei or whoever can make a low-end Android phone (with high-res camera and screen) and sell it at Walmart for $75, I'm sorry, it's not going to cost an automaker that much for these parts at factory quantities.
Go look up the new price for an entire OEM mirror assembly for any decent new car. It's going to be well over $100, probably at least $150, even for an economy car.
if a child walked behind it I'd know because I'd be able to see it.
That's total bullshit and a lie. You cannot see through steel. I'm sorry, it's impossible. Stop lying. Besides, your 200SX was not representative of older cars, and certainly not pickup trucks which haven't changed much in ages. Pre-2000 (and esp. pre-1990) cars had higher trunk lids because they didn't care as much about aerodynamics.
A reversing camera is no replacement for a head check, Fisheye lenses distort a lot
Reversing cameras don't show the very far sides; that's what RCTA is for, plus a head check in both directions. But they do show what's directly behind you much better than you can see out any back window. Distortion is irrelevant; you're looking for objects in the way so you can stop. Your passenger-side mirror distorts too, but no one cares about that; the point isn't to see accurately, it's to see if something is there or not before you attempt a lane-change.
Radar systems are terrible and prone to false alarms, the reversing radar on my BMW M240i is too sensitive to leaves and other things that are not hindrances.
Maybe you need a better car or something; I've been driving my Mazda for over 2 years now and never had a single false positive on the BSM or RCTA (which is what I assume you mean by "reversing radar"). Leaves??? Are you talking about ultrasonic parking sensors perhaps? Personally I don't even see the point of ultrasonics in the rear if you have a camera; I guess it can be helpful to alarm if you're having a mental lapse or not paying attention, but you should be able to see whatever the ultrasonics see in the monitor.
A blind spot detection system is no replacement for actually turning your head and making sure there is no one next to you.
Sure it is; again, I've never had a false positive or negative. Turning your head still leaves a blind spot with the huge C-pillar in many cars. BSMs eliminate that problem entirely. I still check my mirrors, which are adjusted to eliminate the blind spot as much as possible (something many drivers fail at, they adjust them to see the side of their car really well), just in case.
In fact, I firmly believe that people who rely on technology to save them need to have their licenses removed and should not be permitted to command a vehicle
Personally, I think anyone idiotic enough to think they can see a small child on the ground directly behind their back bumper should have their licenses removed and be forced to spend the rest of their life in a senior center, and also have their voting rights revoked. Their backwards thinking and mis-remembering the past is a symptom of dementia and they're a danger to society.
People who run over their kids are not just bad drivers, but bad parents.
What about when the stupid kid runs over to the neighbor's property (which is about 20 feet away in a modern subdivision) and crawls behind their car? That's why we have rearview cameras. They can't be seen there.
Personally I think we could do with a few less airbags. Not just for weight and mass reduction, but also bad driver reduction
Personally, I think people who espouse these ideas should be rounded up and forced to drive cars with no seat belts or airbags since they think it's such a great idea. Throw in a big spike on the steering wheel too, and remove liability from anyone who's involved in a crash with them.
Why would there be much labor? Cameras aren't mounted in the dashboard; why would you need to disassemble the dashboard to get to them? Cameras are mounted on the trunk, and for side-view ones, they're mounted in the mirrors (and will be moved to pods where the mirrors currently are when they're allowed to get rid of mirrors). This is just nuts; replacing a camera doesn't mean you have to replace every bit of wiring that goes to the camera.
Yes, they'll use higher-quality cameras than what you get on Ebay. However, the seller on Ebay is selling you 1 camera. The automaker is buying *millions* of the same camera. You've never heard of price breaks? They get their high-quality cameras for a fraction of the price of cheap Chinese cameras that are sold singularly with "free" shipping and Ebay fees added in.
I'm not wrong. You're talking about dealer-added options; those things are *always* massively overpriced. Cameras aren't dealer-added options; in this scenario, we're talking about replacing the mirrors with them. That makes them factory-standard. Cars with airbags don't cost a fortune now, as you can get very cheap little economy cars that have a bunch of them. Standard parts do not add much to a car's price tag, if any. Even many other things that are parts of (factory) option packages now are pretty cheap: it doesn't cost that much to get an option package that has heated leather seats, sunroof, etc. Maybe 1-2 thousand, but imagine how much it'd cost to add that stuff at aftermarket prices (from independent shops). Heck, I looked into aftermarket leather sets for my car not long ago out of curiosity (my car has them, but it's an option package), and it was at least $2k IIRC, and that was just for the parts! (It's on online store, you have to install them yourself or take it to an auto upholsterer.) It was way more cost-effective to just buy the car with the leather package, and then get the sunroof, heated seats and mirrors, and whatever else came in the option package/trim level.
Anyway, point is, standard features that are installed on every single car of a particular model at the factory do not add much to the cost, if any (since the base model price is set by market forces). When all the cars in that class, or perhaps all cars even made, have that feature, there's no additional cost to it.
As for OEM replacement part prices, that's nothing new either; they always charge more for that because they can. And dealership prices are even worse. Don't break it. And if you do, don't be stupid enough to go to the dealer for an OEM part; how dumb is that? You can get OEM parts on the internet for typically 30% off dealer prices at numerous parts stores. Cameras, like anything electronic, aren't items that usually fail during the life of the vehicle. And you can always buy salvage parts on Ebay. For comparison, look how much it costs to replace a door mirror (either just the glass, or the whole assembly); those aren't cheap either.
I disagree about them being more expensive. The cameras they use in cars aren't super-high-res like the ones in modern phones, and are really quite cheap. You can get Chinese backup camera systems on Ebay for under $100 now, and that's including the monitor! The cost to an auto OEM for just a backup camera is going to be a fraction of that. Now go look at how much a replacement rearview mirror (for the sides) costs; they're not that cheap, between the big, complex housing (which also folds in, either manually or powered), plus the glass mirror, plus the heating element (many mirrors now are heated), plus the motors to move it around, etc. Replacing all that with a camera would be a big cost savings, and small LCD screens are pretty cheap these days too. However it hasn't happened yet as the regulatory agencies haven't OKed it, but it's coming. It's also questionable how it'll be done; probably smaller monitors mounted near where today's mirrors are, to ease the transition. But they are really handy; I've driven a family member's minivan that has a camera on the right-side mirror, and when you signal a right turn it shows the image on the dash monitor. It shows a nice view that's a lot better than what I'd see with just the mirror, the main problem is it isn't always-on, and it doesn't integrate that well with the existing mirror (the display is in the middle of the dash, not near the mirror).
As for sloping windscreens, that's nothing new. My 2015 car's windscreen isn't any more sloped than the one on my old 1994 Integra, in fact it seems a little less so, though I haven't directly measured them to compare. It's the airbags in the pillar, plus the greater strength needed for modern crash (rollover) standards.
Do you want to die when you have a small accident? That's why.
Lots of glass means not so much steel to protect you from side impacts. Airbags in the A-pillars keep you from dying or being maimed in many types of accidents.
Also, these "workarounds" work a lot better than using your eyes. Rearview cameras have fisheye lenses for a much wider field-of-view than you normally have, and they show you what's directly behind the car. Many children are run over every year by their parents or others when backing out of driveways. It's physically impossible to see a child directly behind a car from the driver's seat, even in older cars. And when I'm backing out of tight parking spaces, the radars in my rear bumper can see oncoming traffic that it's physically impossible for me to see from the driver's seat.
That's why you're supposed to have a blind spot and rear cross-traffic warning system.
Seriously, though, my 2015 car also has poorer visibility than older cars I've had, but honestly I don't have much trouble with it. The main problem is the blind spot and also the rear view when backing out, but it's not a problem: my BSM works great when changing lanes, in conjunction with the big side mirrors (these mirrors are larger than any I've ever had, I'm sure), and when backing out I have a rearview camera plus the BSM turns into a RCTA (rear cross-traffic alert), and even warns me if there's pedestrians walking behind me, as well as oncoming cars. It's not foolproof and you still need to be aware of your surroundings of course, but overall with these aids I'm sure I'm safer (esp. when backing up) than in any of the older cars I've driven that had more of a "greenhouse". The thick front pillars are a bit of a problem though, and not currently alleviated by any technology, so I do have to make sure to check extra carefully for pedestrians.
Why would it be? Same reasons as unpaid overtime, it's basically theft from the employee.
Sorry, no such thing as "unpaid overtime" with a salaried position (assuming of course this is a salaried position in question, but I suspect it is). I've gone on travel many times as a salaried employee; I don't get any bonus for it taking 24 hours/day instead of just 8. But I do get to have a nice, fancy meal on the company's dime, stay in a nice hotel with a pool, and frequently take a trip in a nice city that otherwise I might not see so it's not all bad, at least in my experience (luckily, I never got sent someplace like downtown Detroit when I had to travel).
As for unreimbursed travel expenses being "theft", I really don't think that's the case legally in the US. Ethically I would agree with you, but many of our laws are very unethical. We don't have as many employee protections here as they do in Europe unfortunately.
When I once complained to a Domain Registrar about a bona-fide spammer using them, they said, they can not â" by some sort of the registrar charter â" shut him down for any reason other than non-paying his annual fee.
Maybe they were lying to you, and really didn't care about the spammer's activities. Why should they? Is his spam hurting them? As long as he pays his annual fee, what do they care?
In this case, with the bad national press associated with these groups, it seems GoDaddy wants to distance themselves as much as possible from them, and not be known as "the company that hosts neo-Nazi websites!!" (even though they were just the domain registrar, but that's a small detail that's easily overlooked by someone raging on Twitter).
That in turn will give some young red necklet hope for his future. Don't be a part of that. Ignore them, move on and leave them behind. Most of them will never change, but the young and mutable can weigh the life they will have to lead as a professionally oppressed white man against just living a life, and I have a feeling make better choices for themselves, mostly.
The problem I have here is that, from what I'm seeing, the "red-necks" and other conservatives in this country are the ones having all the kids, along with immigrants and their kids. In short, the educated white liberals aren't having very many. I predict this is going to lead to disaster in 1-3 decades. The liberal plan seems to basically boil down to hoping that the conservatives' kids will see the light and join them, but while that'll work for some, it'll probably be a minority, and we're going to end up with an absolutely huge number of angry racists in the more rural and conservative regions screaming for white nationalist fascism.
I give the USA 20 years, 30 tops, as a unified country.
Stop being stupid. Stalinism also involved forcibly suppressing the individual and exalting government, but that didn't make it Naziism, and in fact the Stalinists and Nazis went to war with each other. Lots of ideologies involve forcible suppression of opposition; the Catholic Church in centuries past comes to mind (remember the Spanish Inquisition?). If you think the Catholic Church back in Medieval Times can be accurately described as a "Nazi organization", then you're just a complete idiot who can't be reasoned with.
As a side note, they could at least have put in the effort to make real torches. All you need is a stick, a rag, gasoline/kerosene, and some wire.
1. That's more work. Tiki torches are simple, easily purchased, and safe. 2. I don't think gasoline would work. Gasoline vaporizes extremely quickly; that's why it works so well as a fuel. It's terrible if you want something that burns for a long time, unless you're just using it to ignite some other material that burns slowly.
Using the tiki torches takes them from intimidating (which I am sure they were going for) to comical. Maybe they were worried about bugs during the rally?
I live in Virginia too, though a couple hours northeast of Charlottesville and near the Potomac river. I'm not sure exactly how it is over there, but over here the mosquitoes are really out of control currently. I can't even walk 20 seconds from my car to my house in the evening without being attacked. Maybe they really did value the anti-pest properties of burning citronella!
Yep, I hope everyone's learned an important lesson here about doing the "right thing".
Remember, no good deed ever goes unpunished.
The next time you see malware about to destroy all of civilization, and you could deactivate it, don't. It's not worth it. You won't be helping yourself, and you'll end up being severely punished for your trouble.
In at least one case, a person quitting those jobs would lose security clearances and prospects for a similar job without clearance.
Citation needed. You don't lose your security clearance when you quit a job with a private company.
A person also loses tenure, benefits, stock options, etc..
Yeah, those are perks of the job, and only last as long as the job lasts (unless the options have vested). But that doesn't physically force you to stay there. It's no different than being married to a rich person. No one calls marriage to rich people "stalinist".
Sure, you have an option of quitting (and paying the price [see above]) but companies have more power and more levers than an employee with the Government.
Companies having more power and leverage than individuals does not equal "Stalinism"-level authoritarianism.
But... why? Can someone please articulate a reasonable explanation of why anyone would do this? Serious question.
Mainly because it's not stuff so important you want to bookmark, and also because bookmarking stuff, and then organizing the bookmarks, is more effort and overhead than just leaving the tabs open and getting back to them later.
However, I do agree that 693 tabs is a bit excessive. I have tons of tabs too, but not that many. I eventually go through them and clean many up (close them). With bookmarks, I'd end up never going back and looking at them, and having a bookmark list that grows completely out of control.
As an analogy, think of a physical desktop back in the days of paper, before computers. You have stuff stacked up, in various places on your desk, waiting for you to get to it and deal with it. If you were to take all these papers, and instead stick them in a box and seal it shut, would you ever get around to dealing with them? No. At the root, the problem is a bit of a lack of discipline, and also the tools not really being that great at helping us organize information (there's only two ways of storing links: keep a tab open, or bookmark it).
A former co-woker told me of his time working for a Taiwan-based tech company. They were expected to pay *all* of their own travel expenses. I would have thought that illegal in the US, but when I looked it up it doesn't seem like it is. Most companies do pay, but it stunned me that it isn't apparently required by law.
No, why would it be? But why on Earth would anyone work for such a company in the first place? The whole point of companies paying for employee travel is to get them to do it: presumably there's a good reason to send them somewhere (and if there's not, that's why many companies scrutinize travel requests, perhaps by a separate department). If you make employees pay for it, they'll generally avoid travel if at all possible, which can end up costing more in employee time and time-to-market (delays in getting work done, delays in trying to work around the lack of being onsite), and also in customer satisfaction (engineers don't want to bother traveling to customer site to deal with problems there), and of course finally in employee turnover. Personally, I wouldn't take a job like that unless I was really desperate, or they were paying very very handsomely compared to other offers. It generally shows the employer is a cheap-ass and doesn't support its employees or want to pay for the tools needed to get the job done. Of course, lots of companies seem to be "cheap-asses" these days, but even so, it's still very much the norm to pay for employee travel, so one that doesn't must be much worse.
Yes, exactly my point. Now if you charge up thousands for Vegas chips, that's probably a different matter. Charging a $100 meal isn't worth squabbling over for a company that size.
No, don't bring back "insanely great". Apple design is what it is now. If you don't think a "professional" laptop should focus solely on "thinner" and "lighter", and you think it should focus on some other metrics instead, then maybe you aren't cut out to be an Apple customer any more.
Lots of people prefer "professional" laptops that achieve thinness and lightness over all else, and don't care one whit about other features like "ruggedness", "serviceability", number of expansion/USB ports, etc., and as a result Apple is the most valuable company on the planet.
If you don't agree with this, then you need to find a vendor that agrees more with your values, instead of sticking with one that is basically the polar opposite of what you want.
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It's not just liberal rage; this whole country is turning into a steaming pot of rage, threatening to boil over. It's not a good sign that there's so much clear division in this society now.
Unfortunately, I really can't think of any really good historical parallels. 1930s Germany has some similarities, but unlike them our economy is pretty good (except for some people in it) and we didn't lose some big war we're paying reparations for and we don't have hyperinflation. The fall of Rome has some similarities, but I've never read about them having huge divisions in their society between certain groups of citizens becoming violently opposed to each other. The US before the Civil War has some similarities, but there the division was mainly between different regions (encompassing entire states), whereas here it's not so much, it's more urban vs. rural.
If you want serious programming articles, go to Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com/news). Just watch out if you try posting comments; their moderation is downright oppressive. You'll be down-modded to oblivion if you attempt any kind of humor, and you can easily get banned for behavior that's comparatively civil around here. It's best just to lurk, and use it as a reference to find good articles. But you won't find a better aggregator of programming articles.
Hollywood is more tolerant of chubby or fat guys in dramatic roles than women: John Goodman, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cox, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Hanks, etc.... even Jonah Hill and Jack Black have been cast in serious roles as fat guys.
Another factor, however, is that Hollywood has a lot of cronyism (actors are friends with directors and producers who cast them frequently). Alec Baldwin was a really good-looking guy back in the early 90s or so, not fat at all. Tom Hanks was also quite thin back in the 80s and 90s. Now they're old and fatter, but they're also A-list so they have access to parts that some random new fat guy wouldn't have. John Goodman's been fat as long as I can remember (going all the way back to "Roseanne" in the 80s/90s), but he's also more a comic character, and chubby guys are very frequently used in those roles. I haven't seen too many roles with him as a non-comic character.
The Chinese system has to be shipped to you, which isn't free. It's sold as a single unit, to you, an individual customer, so there's no quantity discount at all. It's sold on Ebay or similar, which has a hefty fee for the seller (12-15%), and it's paid for through Paypal or a credit card, which adds another fee (~3%). Selling stuff individually to people isn't cheap, which is why typical retailers mark up their wares a minimum of 100%, usually more (from the wholesale price). Do you seriously not understand this???
Factories don't buy stuff at retail, or from a wholesaler, they buy it direct from the manufacturer with an exclusive contract at quantities in the millions (a camera is something they can use on every single model they produce, unlike something that's vehicle-specific like a fender or something trim-level-specific like a factory option). Their prices are hence absurdly cheap. Yes, the camera maker has to build in liability to their price, but cameras are not known to fail much, and given the above I can't imagine the factory's price being more than $50. It won't be more than a full mirror assembly. Now the screens are another matter, and probably come from a different manufacturer. But still, the price for electronics in general is cheap these days; if Huawei or whoever can make a low-end Android phone (with high-res camera and screen) and sell it at Walmart for $75, I'm sorry, it's not going to cost an automaker that much for these parts at factory quantities.
Go look up the new price for an entire OEM mirror assembly for any decent new car. It's going to be well over $100, probably at least $150, even for an economy car.
if a child walked behind it I'd know because I'd be able to see it.
That's total bullshit and a lie. You cannot see through steel. I'm sorry, it's impossible. Stop lying. Besides, your 200SX was not representative of older cars, and certainly not pickup trucks which haven't changed much in ages. Pre-2000 (and esp. pre-1990) cars had higher trunk lids because they didn't care as much about aerodynamics.
A reversing camera is no replacement for a head check, Fisheye lenses distort a lot
Reversing cameras don't show the very far sides; that's what RCTA is for, plus a head check in both directions. But they do show what's directly behind you much better than you can see out any back window. Distortion is irrelevant; you're looking for objects in the way so you can stop. Your passenger-side mirror distorts too, but no one cares about that; the point isn't to see accurately, it's to see if something is there or not before you attempt a lane-change.
Radar systems are terrible and prone to false alarms, the reversing radar on my BMW M240i is too sensitive to leaves and other things that are not hindrances.
Maybe you need a better car or something; I've been driving my Mazda for over 2 years now and never had a single false positive on the BSM or RCTA (which is what I assume you mean by "reversing radar"). Leaves??? Are you talking about ultrasonic parking sensors perhaps? Personally I don't even see the point of ultrasonics in the rear if you have a camera; I guess it can be helpful to alarm if you're having a mental lapse or not paying attention, but you should be able to see whatever the ultrasonics see in the monitor.
A blind spot detection system is no replacement for actually turning your head and making sure there is no one next to you.
Sure it is; again, I've never had a false positive or negative. Turning your head still leaves a blind spot with the huge C-pillar in many cars. BSMs eliminate that problem entirely. I still check my mirrors, which are adjusted to eliminate the blind spot as much as possible (something many drivers fail at, they adjust them to see the side of their car really well), just in case.
In fact, I firmly believe that people who rely on technology to save them need to have their licenses removed and should not be permitted to command a vehicle
Personally, I think anyone idiotic enough to think they can see a small child on the ground directly behind their back bumper should have their licenses removed and be forced to spend the rest of their life in a senior center, and also have their voting rights revoked. Their backwards thinking and mis-remembering the past is a symptom of dementia and they're a danger to society.
People who run over their kids are not just bad drivers, but bad parents.
What about when the stupid kid runs over to the neighbor's property (which is about 20 feet away in a modern subdivision) and crawls behind their car? That's why we have rearview cameras. They can't be seen there.
Personally I think we could do with a few less airbags. Not just for weight and mass reduction, but also bad driver reduction
Personally, I think people who espouse these ideas should be rounded up and forced to drive cars with no seat belts or airbags since they think it's such a great idea. Throw in a big spike on the steering wheel too, and remove liability from anyone who's involved in a crash with them.
Why would there be much labor? Cameras aren't mounted in the dashboard; why would you need to disassemble the dashboard to get to them? Cameras are mounted on the trunk, and for side-view ones, they're mounted in the mirrors (and will be moved to pods where the mirrors currently are when they're allowed to get rid of mirrors). This is just nuts; replacing a camera doesn't mean you have to replace every bit of wiring that goes to the camera.
Yes, they'll use higher-quality cameras than what you get on Ebay. However, the seller on Ebay is selling you 1 camera. The automaker is buying *millions* of the same camera. You've never heard of price breaks? They get their high-quality cameras for a fraction of the price of cheap Chinese cameras that are sold singularly with "free" shipping and Ebay fees added in.
There's no car ever made where you can see directly behind the back bumper from the driver's seat. It's physically impossible.
I'm not wrong. You're talking about dealer-added options; those things are *always* massively overpriced. Cameras aren't dealer-added options; in this scenario, we're talking about replacing the mirrors with them. That makes them factory-standard. Cars with airbags don't cost a fortune now, as you can get very cheap little economy cars that have a bunch of them. Standard parts do not add much to a car's price tag, if any. Even many other things that are parts of (factory) option packages now are pretty cheap: it doesn't cost that much to get an option package that has heated leather seats, sunroof, etc. Maybe 1-2 thousand, but imagine how much it'd cost to add that stuff at aftermarket prices (from independent shops). Heck, I looked into aftermarket leather sets for my car not long ago out of curiosity (my car has them, but it's an option package), and it was at least $2k IIRC, and that was just for the parts! (It's on online store, you have to install them yourself or take it to an auto upholsterer.) It was way more cost-effective to just buy the car with the leather package, and then get the sunroof, heated seats and mirrors, and whatever else came in the option package/trim level.
Anyway, point is, standard features that are installed on every single car of a particular model at the factory do not add much to the cost, if any (since the base model price is set by market forces). When all the cars in that class, or perhaps all cars even made, have that feature, there's no additional cost to it.
As for OEM replacement part prices, that's nothing new either; they always charge more for that because they can. And dealership prices are even worse. Don't break it. And if you do, don't be stupid enough to go to the dealer for an OEM part; how dumb is that? You can get OEM parts on the internet for typically 30% off dealer prices at numerous parts stores. Cameras, like anything electronic, aren't items that usually fail during the life of the vehicle. And you can always buy salvage parts on Ebay. For comparison, look how much it costs to replace a door mirror (either just the glass, or the whole assembly); those aren't cheap either.
I disagree about them being more expensive. The cameras they use in cars aren't super-high-res like the ones in modern phones, and are really quite cheap. You can get Chinese backup camera systems on Ebay for under $100 now, and that's including the monitor! The cost to an auto OEM for just a backup camera is going to be a fraction of that. Now go look at how much a replacement rearview mirror (for the sides) costs; they're not that cheap, between the big, complex housing (which also folds in, either manually or powered), plus the glass mirror, plus the heating element (many mirrors now are heated), plus the motors to move it around, etc. Replacing all that with a camera would be a big cost savings, and small LCD screens are pretty cheap these days too. However it hasn't happened yet as the regulatory agencies haven't OKed it, but it's coming. It's also questionable how it'll be done; probably smaller monitors mounted near where today's mirrors are, to ease the transition. But they are really handy; I've driven a family member's minivan that has a camera on the right-side mirror, and when you signal a right turn it shows the image on the dash monitor. It shows a nice view that's a lot better than what I'd see with just the mirror, the main problem is it isn't always-on, and it doesn't integrate that well with the existing mirror (the display is in the middle of the dash, not near the mirror).
As for sloping windscreens, that's nothing new. My 2015 car's windscreen isn't any more sloped than the one on my old 1994 Integra, in fact it seems a little less so, though I haven't directly measured them to compare. It's the airbags in the pillar, plus the greater strength needed for modern crash (rollover) standards.
Do you want to die when you have a small accident? That's why.
Lots of glass means not so much steel to protect you from side impacts. Airbags in the A-pillars keep you from dying or being maimed in many types of accidents.
Also, these "workarounds" work a lot better than using your eyes. Rearview cameras have fisheye lenses for a much wider field-of-view than you normally have, and they show you what's directly behind the car. Many children are run over every year by their parents or others when backing out of driveways. It's physically impossible to see a child directly behind a car from the driver's seat, even in older cars. And when I'm backing out of tight parking spaces, the radars in my rear bumper can see oncoming traffic that it's physically impossible for me to see from the driver's seat.
Since it's the 8th-generation, "Octium" would be fitting. There was even a Lone Gunmen episode about it...
I need a cloaking device that keeps other cars, namely police, from seeing my car.
An EMP gun to disable other drivers would be good too.
That's why you're supposed to have a blind spot and rear cross-traffic warning system.
Seriously, though, my 2015 car also has poorer visibility than older cars I've had, but honestly I don't have much trouble with it. The main problem is the blind spot and also the rear view when backing out, but it's not a problem: my BSM works great when changing lanes, in conjunction with the big side mirrors (these mirrors are larger than any I've ever had, I'm sure), and when backing out I have a rearview camera plus the BSM turns into a RCTA (rear cross-traffic alert), and even warns me if there's pedestrians walking behind me, as well as oncoming cars. It's not foolproof and you still need to be aware of your surroundings of course, but overall with these aids I'm sure I'm safer (esp. when backing up) than in any of the older cars I've driven that had more of a "greenhouse". The thick front pillars are a bit of a problem though, and not currently alleviated by any technology, so I do have to make sure to check extra carefully for pedestrians.
Why would it be? Same reasons as unpaid overtime, it's basically theft from the employee.
Sorry, no such thing as "unpaid overtime" with a salaried position (assuming of course this is a salaried position in question, but I suspect it is). I've gone on travel many times as a salaried employee; I don't get any bonus for it taking 24 hours/day instead of just 8. But I do get to have a nice, fancy meal on the company's dime, stay in a nice hotel with a pool, and frequently take a trip in a nice city that otherwise I might not see so it's not all bad, at least in my experience (luckily, I never got sent someplace like downtown Detroit when I had to travel).
As for unreimbursed travel expenses being "theft", I really don't think that's the case legally in the US. Ethically I would agree with you, but many of our laws are very unethical. We don't have as many employee protections here as they do in Europe unfortunately.
When I once complained to a Domain Registrar about a bona-fide spammer using them, they said, they can not â" by some sort of the registrar charter â" shut him down for any reason other than non-paying his annual fee.
Maybe they were lying to you, and really didn't care about the spammer's activities. Why should they? Is his spam hurting them? As long as he pays his annual fee, what do they care?
In this case, with the bad national press associated with these groups, it seems GoDaddy wants to distance themselves as much as possible from them, and not be known as "the company that hosts neo-Nazi websites!!" (even though they were just the domain registrar, but that's a small detail that's easily overlooked by someone raging on Twitter).
That in turn will give some young red necklet hope for his future. Don't be a part of that. Ignore them, move on and leave them behind. Most of them will never change, but the young and mutable can weigh the life they will have to lead as a professionally oppressed white man against just living a life, and I have a feeling make better choices for themselves, mostly.
The problem I have here is that, from what I'm seeing, the "red-necks" and other conservatives in this country are the ones having all the kids, along with immigrants and their kids. In short, the educated white liberals aren't having very many. I predict this is going to lead to disaster in 1-3 decades. The liberal plan seems to basically boil down to hoping that the conservatives' kids will see the light and join them, but while that'll work for some, it'll probably be a minority, and we're going to end up with an absolutely huge number of angry racists in the more rural and conservative regions screaming for white nationalist fascism.
I give the USA 20 years, 30 tops, as a unified country.
Stop being stupid. Stalinism also involved forcibly suppressing the individual and exalting government, but that didn't make it Naziism, and in fact the Stalinists and Nazis went to war with each other. Lots of ideologies involve forcible suppression of opposition; the Catholic Church in centuries past comes to mind (remember the Spanish Inquisition?). If you think the Catholic Church back in Medieval Times can be accurately described as a "Nazi organization", then you're just a complete idiot who can't be reasoned with.
As a side note, they could at least have put in the effort to make real torches. All you need is a stick, a rag, gasoline/kerosene, and some wire.
1. That's more work. Tiki torches are simple, easily purchased, and safe.
2. I don't think gasoline would work. Gasoline vaporizes extremely quickly; that's why it works so well as a fuel. It's terrible if you want something that burns for a long time, unless you're just using it to ignite some other material that burns slowly.
Using the tiki torches takes them from intimidating (which I am sure they were going for) to comical. Maybe they were worried about bugs during the rally?
I live in Virginia too, though a couple hours northeast of Charlottesville and near the Potomac river. I'm not sure exactly how it is over there, but over here the mosquitoes are really out of control currently. I can't even walk 20 seconds from my car to my house in the evening without being attacked. Maybe they really did value the anti-pest properties of burning citronella!
Yep, I hope everyone's learned an important lesson here about doing the "right thing".
Remember, no good deed ever goes unpunished.
The next time you see malware about to destroy all of civilization, and you could deactivate it, don't. It's not worth it. You won't be helping yourself, and you'll end up being severely punished for your trouble.
In at least one case, a person quitting those jobs would lose security clearances and prospects for a similar job without clearance.
Citation needed. You don't lose your security clearance when you quit a job with a private company.
A person also loses tenure, benefits, stock options, etc..
Yeah, those are perks of the job, and only last as long as the job lasts (unless the options have vested). But that doesn't physically force you to stay there. It's no different than being married to a rich person. No one calls marriage to rich people "stalinist".
Sure, you have an option of quitting (and paying the price [see above]) but companies have more power and more levers than an employee with the Government.
Companies having more power and leverage than individuals does not equal "Stalinism"-level authoritarianism.
But... why? Can someone please articulate a reasonable explanation of why anyone would do this? Serious question.
Mainly because it's not stuff so important you want to bookmark, and also because bookmarking stuff, and then organizing the bookmarks, is more effort and overhead than just leaving the tabs open and getting back to them later.
However, I do agree that 693 tabs is a bit excessive. I have tons of tabs too, but not that many. I eventually go through them and clean many up (close them). With bookmarks, I'd end up never going back and looking at them, and having a bookmark list that grows completely out of control.
As an analogy, think of a physical desktop back in the days of paper, before computers. You have stuff stacked up, in various places on your desk, waiting for you to get to it and deal with it. If you were to take all these papers, and instead stick them in a box and seal it shut, would you ever get around to dealing with them? No. At the root, the problem is a bit of a lack of discipline, and also the tools not really being that great at helping us organize information (there's only two ways of storing links: keep a tab open, or bookmark it).
A former co-woker told me of his time working for a Taiwan-based tech company. They were expected to pay *all* of their own travel expenses. I would have thought that illegal in the US, but when I looked it up it doesn't seem like it is. Most companies do pay, but it stunned me that it isn't apparently required by law.
No, why would it be? But why on Earth would anyone work for such a company in the first place? The whole point of companies paying for employee travel is to get them to do it: presumably there's a good reason to send them somewhere (and if there's not, that's why many companies scrutinize travel requests, perhaps by a separate department). If you make employees pay for it, they'll generally avoid travel if at all possible, which can end up costing more in employee time and time-to-market (delays in getting work done, delays in trying to work around the lack of being onsite), and also in customer satisfaction (engineers don't want to bother traveling to customer site to deal with problems there), and of course finally in employee turnover. Personally, I wouldn't take a job like that unless I was really desperate, or they were paying very very handsomely compared to other offers. It generally shows the employer is a cheap-ass and doesn't support its employees or want to pay for the tools needed to get the job done. Of course, lots of companies seem to be "cheap-asses" these days, but even so, it's still very much the norm to pay for employee travel, so one that doesn't must be much worse.
Yes, exactly my point. Now if you charge up thousands for Vegas chips, that's probably a different matter. Charging a $100 meal isn't worth squabbling over for a company that size.
No, don't bring back "insanely great". Apple design is what it is now. If you don't think a "professional" laptop should focus solely on "thinner" and "lighter", and you think it should focus on some other metrics instead, then maybe you aren't cut out to be an Apple customer any more.
Lots of people prefer "professional" laptops that achieve thinness and lightness over all else, and don't care one whit about other features like "ruggedness", "serviceability", number of expansion/USB ports, etc., and as a result Apple is the most valuable company on the planet.
If you don't agree with this, then you need to find a vendor that agrees more with your values, instead of sticking with one that is basically the polar opposite of what you want.