Wolf314159

joined 1 year ago
[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 7 points 2 months ago

Those people aren't the lowest except in pay. Those people are the engineers, the teachers, and the administrators. They execute actual functions that directly benefit society. These are the people that prevent crime through their support of the community. It's like calling the foundation of a building the lowest function of a building. That may be true on the surface, but the metaphor quickly breaks down.

There is another lowest of the low in government that does little in the way of support, unless you're one of the elite. The lowest rung of the government ladder are the people whose job it is to punitively punish people for breaking the laws. They do not prevent any crimes, and the courts have ruled that they are shielded from any responsibility in that regard. They protect inequity between the rich and the poor. They are trained to discriminate and profile. Their very fraternity is rooted in tribal exclusion, us vs. them. They even desecrate the national flag as a symbol of that fraternity. Sometimes that insult even gets worn as part of their official uniform. They restrict and opress rights granted by the law at the whim of politics and oligarchs. They are licensed to murder, with immunity from responsibility. They are encouraged to remain ignorant of the laws that they are tasked with enforcing and they wear that ignorance as a legal shield against consequence and accountability. And yet these gangs of murderous thugs are routinely paid better than any of the others. They are called heroes when they do the bare minimum. They are applauded for showing the bare minimum of humanity.

If this government were a family with the state and federal administration as the parents, then the teachers/engineers/administrators would be the older siblings, aunts, and uncles. The police would rule that house through fear like a toddler on a sugar high with a gun. Occasionally that toddler may shit itself, steal from the cookie jar, or murder a loved one. But all is quickly forgiven because after all they are a only toddler.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, but they're paying attention to the task of scanning items, running the register, and the customer at the front of the line. I don't really think it's reasonable to expect them to keep an eye on that moving target as well. I've seen the very thing happen: Loading my stuff on to the belt, trying to leave a space because there is no divider available, the cashier is busy concentrating on the other things they are doing and the customer in front of them (not me and my stuff), they grab the last item of the other person's stuff, scan it and bag it, turn back to check for more stuff (by this time and while the cashier's back is turned the void I'd left is gone because the belt doesn't stop advancing until a divider or product blocks the sensor). They may not ever see a gap (only the next item to be scanned).

There's no perfect solution here, but I don't see any reason to heap any more responsibility or blame on to an overworked, underpaid, daily abused retail worker just trying to stay sane in one of the most soul crushing and mind-numbingly repetitive jobs I've ever known.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 29 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The belts usually move forward automatically, eliminating any space left intentionally between two groups of things on it once the first group has been removed from the belt.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 5 points 2 months ago

A note about surge protectors: Make sure they are actually surge protectors and not just "power strips" that Amazon has mixed into the search results. Power strips are easy to find in many varieties, made by any number of fly-by-night companies; they'll do nothing to help protect your stuff from power surges. Legitimate surge protectors from reputable companies are much less common. Also, they don't last forever. An older surge protector may still work as a power strip, but over time they may become much less effective as surge protectors.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hot take: Most metal is just Classical Music II Electric Bugaloo.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The nostalgia is the point. Nobody stores crackers in barrels anymore, but everybody did then because it was the best option at the time. Same reason the save icon is a floppy disk.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'd ask a couple thousand people to guess in private. So the most popular answer would probably be either surprisingly close to correct or Cuppy McHazelnutface.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Same era, I used to playing games on my calculator. I suppose you still can, but I used to do it. I remember I had RISK on my TI-89, but the games on my TI-82 were on par with the version of snake shown in the post. We would even trade the games around with the kids that didn't have a computer and/or Internet at home. We'd connect them with funky little cables that looked like audio jacks.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 3 points 2 months ago

To be fair, nothing on the face of this box indicates any relation to chocolate anyway, except the company brand by implication. My only other clue as an outsider was that the wording "Dairy Milk" was just a little too weird to be taken at face value.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This example has really bad optics though, unless you're trying to shine a light on medical cartels and their part in the capitalist distopia Americans live in.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The point is that those are 2 separate and distinct units. I'm not saying it's not a valid representation of time. I'm say the units in this case are actually hours and minutes, not only hours. It is compounded by the fact that the title is talking about time in a way that is ultimately also a ratio (something a colon is also used to represent), the ratio of hours on the device to the hours in a day. There were many other ways to represent this data that would have been less ambiguous, more clearly showing real differences at a glance, and paying attention to using more appropriate significant digits.

This place should be called mapshitposting for how often actual map enthusiasts get voted down for pointing out amateur mapping and statistical blunders here.

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