An acquaintance of mine has basically been doing this for years in the form of slop code written by the cheapest outsourcing firms on earth who cannot comprehend rudimentary requirements and have no concept of coding standards. But management insists this is the most cost effective way of doing things, rather than just having a competent group of qualified people do it right from the start.

It seems as depressing as you’d think.

It helps that there’s a pretty robust modding community. It gives the game good replayability, in addition to all the improvements and changes CDPR have made. Sure, a huge percentage of the mods are sexy outfits, but that’s pretty normal for a heavily modded game.

I’m sure without context ytmnd.com seems insane.

Always worth posting this classic.

It was pretty useful as a kid for feeding my Gameboy and Game Gear with batteries I rescued from the junk drawers of friends and family. If they were low, I knew I had to save more often to avoid losing progress if they went dead while I was playing.

I think it’s a combination of tariffs being protectionist and that presidential authority to issue them without Congress has expanded with time (though arguably without the legislation to justify that). It plays very well with the American manufacturing renaissance pipe dream he sells.

Even if they did, Musk gave it to his own PAC, not the Trump campaign.

Maybe if you have a super low cap, high fees, and they automatically close your position at a pretty conservative point. But that’d hardly be worth any broker’s time with that risk/reward, unless they are hosing the borrower with insane fees. Though if that’s the case, putting up collateral would be cheaper (even if you have to borrow it from somewhere).

You definitely do need money. No broker is going to let you short without collateral, and you’re going to be paying interest for the duration of your short position beside any fees/commission.

If you are a homeowner, property transaction records are public information in the US. Plenty of data brokers collate from the numerous city/county databases for those who only know your name.

Amazon literally did this with diapers.com that led to them acquiring the company and shutting it down. I’m sure they’ve done it in hundreds of other product spaces as well.

Many monopolies form by first using a dominant market position to sell at a price no competitor can afford to match. Choice has already been removed before the “competition” folds or pulls out of the market. The consequences don’t happen overnight; you feel the squeeze before the “true” monopoly emerges. Amazon isn’t going to sell at a cheaper price once their competitors go out of business out of the kindness of their hearts.

Further, high consumer price is just one form monopoly power takes. Reduced labor power, wages, and worse working conditions are other important concerns, in addition to removing product variety and innovation incentive.

Your bonus point is depressingly significant. The number of people I’ve heard say something like, “I don’t like x, y, z about Trump, but I like that he speaks his mind and tells it like it is in his opinion” drives me crazy. When did it become admirable to be an unfiltered boor?

Most states have laws restricting faithless electors in some way, including voiding such votes (which has happened). Though, some lack enforcement mechanisms. The Supreme Court has upheld penalties for faithless electors within the past five years. As a result, it’s vanishingly rare.

It’s still a dumb system that is unrepresentative and relies too much on people just doing the right thing, but this characterization isn’t totally accurate.

The shareholders in question suing are a public employee retirement fund. I wouldn’t exactly consider retired sanitation workers and bureaucrats societal leeches, but to each their own I guess.

This is a notoriously difficult thing to prove out either way in data, and I’m sure it varies situationally.

The Mariel Boatlift natural experiment did not demonstrate a decrease in wages or increase in unemployment. It makes sense: immigrants both work and consume (i.e., create demand). Unless every immigrant happens to work in the same industry/union, the sum total of immigrants may create demand for labor equal to or greater than they fill.

It also may have the impact you’re suggesting. But it doesn’t have to be zero sum. And, understandably, people only remember when they lost a job potentially tied to immigrant labor. Nobody asks if the job they’re applying to was created due to demand immigrants added to the economy (and how could a company know that?).

It’s been 8 years since VI came out. That’s the longest they’ve gone between releases since the original. It’s also difficult to say if it’s necessary without actually seeing what VII has to offer. If it’s VI with a new coat of paint, then I agree. But I hope they bring a novel aspect like districts was for VI that made it worth it.

Exactly. If it’s a regulated industry, they’re not just paying for Teams. They’re paying for someone else to worry about meeting certain compliance requirements and take the heat if things go wrong. I’m not sure how many companies besides Microsoft can offer that. At most it’s a fraction of the available options.

Not being in constant contact with everyone you know, and not having a neverending stream of notifications assaulting you via your phone.

When you got to see relatives who lived far away, you talked about what had been going on in their life because you probably had no idea.

You read, listened to, or watched the news when you wanted to, unless someone you know told you sooner.

If you had to wait somewhere without a book or magazine, you just sat there with your thoughts. During childhood, you learned how to be bored and practice imagining things.

Check out their controversies section on Wikipedia. This doesn’t seem out of character for this publication. It’s more likely incompetence than malice.