BonnieBrown

I am president of our HOA board here in so cal and our biggest line item to maintain is our asphalt roads. They are technically private streets so we can set whatever rules we want (within the bounds of the law and needing a board approval) but we are definitely owners of the streets and have to pay to maintain them (which is absurdly expensive if you weren't aware how much asphalt work costs).

Didn't ditch at the one near me. They greatly expanded self checkout actually and are down to 1 lane with an employee ringing people up as opposed to ~12 self checkout stations

Yah there is a huge difference in conquering and occupying a land. Insurgent fighters in occupied lands are very difficult to get rid of - as the US learned the hard way in Iraq and the Russians will in Ukraine.

Yah I work for a SaaS ecommerce platform/provider that specializes in wholesale/B2B companies and apparel suppliers and this is accurate.

Additionally I would mention sites that only exist for RFQs (requests for quotes) and don't actually have pricing anywhere on the site. You load a bunch of items into what is effectively a quote request "cart" and then submit. From the backend of the system the business owners can then provide you with whatever arbitrary pricing they deem to fit. One of these sites on our platform is actually wildly successful but sells very niche product.

Also, I will mention the promotional products industry where there is an additional "decoration" step to the ordering process. Think of putting your companies logo on a mug. So not only are you buying the blank mug but you are also purchasing your decoration method of choice (screen print, digital print/full color, laser engraving, etc.) to get your logo/design on to the mug which has a complex pricing structure of it's own. There are many companies that have developed software to visualize what the item would look like with your logo before you even purchase it - some with pretty convincing results.

fund, since I can't figure out how to edit and correct that typo

Gosh isn't that the truth. I remember reading on reddit years ago about a "study" where college students drove on freeways in a wall, one in each lane, going exactly the speed limit no faster and no slower. It backed up traffic for miles.

Where I am in Southern California the freeway speed limit in most places is 65 MPH. EVERYONE drives over 65 MPH on the freeways. I think you are more likely to get pulled over on the freeway if you are in the left lane actually going 65 than if you are going 75-80 in one of the middle lanes (the speed everyone else is going so it looks normal).

This just creates a situation where basically everyone is "breaking the law" and gives cops a reason to arbitrarily pull anyone over that they want.

I fully agree with you that speed limits are not about safety they are about instilling fear in citizens that at any moment you could be pulled over and harassed (even worse for colored people) and about being a source of revenue to find this tyranny

I am an American in California working as a Project Manager at a small ~30 person eCommerce "engine" startup. One of my new colleagues on the PM team is a very nice Indian girl and she always says "do the needful" in JIRA tickets and in general email communication. Before she joined the team about 2 months ago I never once in my life heard anyone in America say "do the needful". I am American and have lived here my entire life. I always thought the saying was slightly funny and almost "cute" in that no native American English speaker ever describes tasks to be done as being "needful".

Where did that saying come from in India?

Yah you are entirely wrong. I lived in Santa Cruz for 4 years while going to school. If you dont think the residual wealth from just over the hill raises housing prices and drives out lower cost-of-living housing the same way that it happened in SF proper you are willingly deluding yourself of the truth.

In my 4 years at Santa Cruz I was not aware of one low-rent housing development being built. There was one developed on West Cliff near the boardwalk but it was like 3.5k for a 2 bedroom apartment and that was the only one I was aware of.