ekuNNN posted:

love the taste of fascism

Tom Guycot posted:

Um, excuse me, the term is "people of wealth".

mlmp08 posted:

One girl got caught taking bathroom breaks during class with a teacher who didn’t partake and there was a loving town hall hearing over whether to fine her or ban her from “market day” next go-around.

At first the teacher was kind of annoyed that we were like “whatever” and were going to give a verbal warning or fine the equivalent of a fake quarter. So the teacher amped up the dishonesty of it and watched the class start going full fash until at the end it was the teacher vetoing the absurdly harsh punishments and Scarlett Letter poo poo the class started endorsing.

It did not help that the class was probably 85% white and this girl was Indian American. Pretty sure her ending up in tears and her dad, a professor at Purdue University, flipping poo poo are part of what ended the whole thing early.

we were all dumb 5th graders and it’s not like I was the wise sage in the room, but the whole thing was not fun after that loving “hearing.” I think her dad reached out to other parents, because I got a lecture from my mom about what little cretins we collectively were to her that week.

Shame Boy posted:

My company's not really involved with ~brand engagement~ or the marketing side of things at all, we just make stuff that helps salespeople sell things or order stuff from the warehouse or stuff like that The only aspect of that we're really involved with is stuff like loyalty cards and rewards programs, and boy howdy do retailers ever want to do some creepy panopticon poo poo with those. We're not building anything like that (yet...) but we've been asked about it or how we could integrate with various providers quite a lot.

Like the ultimate goal is that you walk through the door, something identifies who you are (via the app you installed on your phone to get a discount telling them where you are, or facial recognition, or other increasingly more unrealistic options) and starts recording everything you do, every product you look at or select (or look at briefly and put back, because you must secretly want it!!!) and where you go in the store, tying it to a record of everything you've ever bought or even shown a passing interest in. Then you go up to the cash register and all that poo poo is pulled up on the register automatically along with recommendations of other stuff you'd like to buy or maybe a 5% discount on that thing you picked up and put back down, basically just what web stores do but in person and way creepier.

Luckily every system that purports to do this that I've actually seen pitched almost definitely doesn't work worth a drat in practice and relies heavily on you loving that this is happening and helping it out at every step

Jel Shaker posted:

this sounds very much like the classic George R R martin short story “sandkings”, whereby you become so drunk with power when you can control an army of small destructive little creatures

Woof Blitzer posted:

When times are tough we’ll all have to tighten our belts a little bit, and this teen is a great example of the American spirit of frugality!

Jel Shaker posted:

this sounds very much like the classic George R R martin short story “sandkings”, whereby you become so drunk with power when you can control an army of small destructive little creatures

Jel Shaker posted:

this sounds very much like the classic George R R martin short story “sandkings”, whereby you become so drunk with power when you can control an army of small destructive little creatures

H.P. Hovercraft posted:

this morning i learned that in california, the poles that hold up traffic signals take 8+ months to be delivered after ordering

this is because there are only two companies in the entire state that produce these poles to caltrans specs, and they have an absolutely enormous backlog

lancemantis posted:

that's a good grift

Moridin920 posted:

Assuming you're in the USA that sounds like an ADA violation to me.

e: re the escalator

Aidan_702 posted:

I just give up

quote:

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

ekuNNN posted:

love the taste of fascism

Chomp8645 posted:

In a similar vein, my company is a sales rep for another company which produces almost all of the smog testing equipment in California, like 85% or more. Right now there is lead time of about five months on orders for the basic cabinet-style analyzer that most smog shops use.

There is no reason for it other than greed. Some background: They have a near monopoly. There is one other sad company barely eeking by with 15% or less of the market. Part of the problem is that passing state certification to make the equipment is not easy. The smog industry goes through a major update to equipment/methods/whatever mandated by the state every once in a long while, which happened last year (the last such update in California was in 1997). Prior to that there were five companies competing for business in California I think. Two straight up just dropped out with this update, and a third couldn't pass certification by the state.

The one we work with now has such a commanding lead that they don't give a gently caress. The only competitor has been reduced to a shell. Nobody else wants to even try to break into the market. They could easily order enough cabinet analyzers to fulfill every order in the state and have them delivered in 30 days. Instead, they're just waiting for shops with existing units to close so they be recycled into service with new shops, keeping new unit production to a bare minimum (smog shops open and close all the drat time, it's heavy turnover). I was literally sitting in the conference where this was discussed, and that is what was said. Meanwhile, a new shop opening up or anyone looking to expand their operation has to wait five months before they can do anything because it's cheaper to wait for recycle units than build new ones. This is because every unit is bundled with a service contract to the tune of about $500 per month. They get $500 every month from a customer whether they give them a new unit or deliver one that came from elsewhere. But a new one costs money to make, while a transfer is (almost) free. Of course as the sales reps, we get paid once. They literally call it "equipment as a service" and from someone used to hearing "games as live services" it really makes me lol.

Before you have to ask, the company is making BIG loving money in this market.

Shame Boy posted:

Considering one of the first uses of the current wave of VR was virtual big tiddy anime babes jerking you off virtually while an awkward robot moves a fleshlight around, I'm guessing no.

Aidan_702 posted:

Shame Boy posted:

Considering one of the first uses of the current wave of VR was virtual big tiddy anime babes jerking you off virtually while an awkward robot moves a fleshlight around, I'm guessing no.

PhilippAchtel posted:

T-man posted:

Is this headline false?

ekuNNN posted:

love the taste of fascism

Chomp8645 posted:

The answer is yes because once the anime titty-verse is fully realized no one will breed anymore so there won't be women left to harass or men to harass them.

Chomp8645 posted:

The answer is yes because once the anime titty-verse is fully realized no one will breed anymore so there won't be women left to harass or men to harass them.

NO LISTEN TO ME posted:

The escalator at my train station near work has been broken for 6 months and is projected to be broken for at least another 3 because no one makes the parts for it. I'm tired of the 3 story climb every afternoon but can handle it; I feel worse for the people with canes and bad legs that I see every day.

Sjs00 posted:

Why do you feel bad for them? They're the ones who hosed the system into what it is now simply by blindly, stupidly participating

autism ZX spectrum posted:

Elevators and escalators are loving hilariously broken industries. Since they're crazy expensive to install and maintain they're kept in service for as long as physically possible with as much maintenance deferred as legally allowable.

NO LISTEN TO ME posted:

The escalator at my train station near work has been broken for 6 months and is projected to be broken for at least another 3 because no one makes the parts for it. I'm tired of the 3 story climb every afternoon but can handle it; I feel worse for the people with canes and bad legs that I see every day.

autism ZX spectrum posted:

Elevators and escalators are loving hilariously broken industries. Since they're crazy expensive to install and maintain they're kept in service for as long as physically possible with as much maintenance deferred as legally allowable. By the time something finally gives out it's completely out of date and if it's a mechanical thing, the manufacturing/installing company no longer has the tooling to reproduce it. So the thing has to get sent away to some independent machine shop and remade from scratch. In the case of pistons for hydraulic elevators, this process can take like a half year. I think recently the two largest elevator companies merged, too.

Moridin920 posted:

Is there anything at all that isn't hosed up?