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Cake day: August 23rd, 2023

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  • There was a show I remember way back called “Testees” where it followed a couple of guys who were human Guinea pigs for some pharma company. Each episode was generally about some new drug and the horrible/hilarious side effects and shenanigans that would ensue. There was also a 3rd guy who was basically Frank from It’s Always Sunny, and the B plot would flow him sometimes. In one episode, the company actually makes a penis enlargement pill that works, however a little too well. It’s so big that every time he gets an erection, he blacks out from the drop in blood pressure. Been a while since I’ve thought of that show lol.



  • You don’t know why someone is speeding, and it’s not your job to enforce traffic laws. There was a story I remember reading a while back of someone’s friend having a chainsaw accident, and them watching their friend bleed out in their car because some dumb piece of shit figured they’d play traffic cop and blocked them in traffic. If you see someone driving aggressively, just assume they’re driving that way because they’re about to shit their pants, and let them go on their merry way. Report them if you want, but don’t endanger yourself and others trying to be a “hero”



  • despite all our previous statements to the contrary and verifiable statistics counter to this narrative

    This was by far the most frustrating part of the RTO push at my old company. The unofficial motto I was always told was “Show me the data”, as it was basically impossible to push for any sort of decision without solid data to back it up, even if everyone in the group thought it was a good idea.

    When RTO was announced and the big all people town hall was held, multiple group heads stood up and asked the execs why they were doing this, and what data they had to back it up. Literally, and I quote from one of the execs, “Well, we don’t really have any, but we feel that people will be more productive, will be sharing more ideas and innovating when in the office.”

    Yes, the executive at a multi-billion dollar automotive company literally said with a straight face to thousands of engineers who’d been working almost entirely from home for the past 3 years “This decision is based on feels, not reality”. Even better was since there was already an initial non-mandatory RTO push, some absolute chads even interrupted them to pull up hard data showing they had been tracking productivity since the RTO push, and their group members were significantly less productive on days they were in-office. Not only that, but they also showed there literally wasn’t the office space to fit everyone. The exec just hand waved it away and said “I’m sure we have plenty of desks for everyone”.

    It’s absolutely infuriating seeing these people getting paid millions, if not billions, to suck so hard at basically everything.



  • If you think that prevents this, you’re wrong. My company did the same thing, and when they announced RTO, people pointed out that they only had enough capacity for maybe 80% of the employees to fit. Management’s response? “I’ve seen empty desks in (other unrelated building on the other side of campus), I’m sure we’ll make it work”.

    Don’t think that something silly like “physical space” or “maximum occupancy limits” will get in the way of a stupid decision.






  • Except they promised it was going to be the NBT in trucking and that companies would be stupid to buy anything else, and it was supposed to be in mass production 5 years ago. In actuality they delivered a couple dozen prototypes to a single company (at least as far as I’m aware) that is using them solely for greenwashing their delivery fleet. Even then, they’ve been absolutely unreliable heaps that probably have cost Frito-Lay far more headache than the slight PR bump they got from them. Oh, and don’t forget that any truck driver will tell you they have an absolutely useless cabin that was clearly designed by someone who had never even been in a truck cab before, and was designed solely for the techbro demographic to gush about, in between its 0-60 time and unrealistic range.

    Meanwhile, I see Rivian-made Amazon delivery vans literally every single day, and have legitimately seen more companies operating Nikola semi trucks (the ‘scam’ company that supposedly only could roll a truck down a hill) than the Tesla Semi. And that’s just startups, not counting the actual Mercedes and Volvo Class 8 trucks that are already on the road. It amazes me how people seem to act like Tesla has delivered on literally any promises they’ve ever made, when in actuality it’s just an incredible feat of goalpost moving.



  • “Romex” is a brand name for a type of non-metallic (NM) insulated wire. It’s pretty much the standard for 95% of the wire that’s run in a typical house in North America, and kind of looks like a big flat extension cable. There’s an external plastic sheath that holds all the wires together (that’s the non-metallic part, as opposed to say, running it in metal conduit), and then each wire inside is also insulated, aside from the ground conductor. When you see something like 12/2 or 10/3, that’s the wire gauge (12 or 10 gauge) and then the number of current carrying conductors on the inside (2 or 3, plus a ground).


  • Would you prefer the FTC just forces them to cut prices, and then give both the corporations reason to sue them, as well as more right-wing talking points about “big government stealing money from Ma and Pa grocer”? The unfortunate reality is that if the FTC don’t do this investigation and come back with hard proof, no matter how blatantly obvious what the large grocers are doing actually is, they will play the victim and make it even harder to take any hard action against them.

    The other reality is that, even if it’s not actually the case, if it turned out that it was just “inflation” and all those companies did have to raise prices to stay afloat (again, not saying this is the case at all, just simply playing devil’s advocate), the FTC would face an absolute shitstorm if they took action and it did actually do serious harm to grocers/the broader food supply chain. Again, not a “Oh no, profits were only up 20% YoY instead of 35% because of the FTC action” but a “We will literally be selling all our products at a severe loss and will be bankrupt in weeks”. They have to understand exactly how much they’re fucking people over to take action, because historically there have been plenty of times where a well-intentioned “Stop fucking people over” rule, has caused much greater consequences down the line.

    It sucks and is disgusting that in such a wealthy nation that we have people going hungry at all, but at least they’re attempting to finally do something about this specific issue, and hopefully will at least discourage shit like this in the future.



  • Depending on water temperature (so you’re not burning energy to maintain body temp), salt vs fresh (you’re more buoyant in saltier water), and body fat composition (fat adds to your natural buoyancy), I can definitely see someone who’s in decent shape managing 10 hours. I think the record is over 100 hours, so 40 is definitely going to be well above “normal” but not necessarily superhuman.