designtofly

It has gotten awful. Every single time I've searched for a generic product (or even a specific brand + model), I'm inundated with these nonsense branded listings. I'm very close to canceling my Prime membership.

I think the best thing that Amazon has accomplished is pushing other retailers to improve their fulfillment process. Just yesterday, instead of dealing with the endless stream of copycat products on Amazon, I purchased a bunch of running gear directly from Nike and it was shipped in less than 12 hours.

I think that humanity is going to look back and see pesticides and herbicides as one of the worst mistakes in history. It's slowly becoming clear just how damaging they are to the world's ecosystem. I urge everyone to stop using them, especially for absolutely needless things like killing dandelions and other vanity uses.

What bypass ratio are your turbofans? Your argument seems to be that because it's a turbofan (bypass > 0), you've "solved" all of the issues with turbojets. But at this size, you've still got a bypass ratio that's much closer to a turbojet than a modern commercial airline engine.

In addition to most "middle class" wealth being tied up in home equity, I would wager that the vast majority of "investments" is tied up in retirement funds. Very few middle class people have regular income from investments. Outside of Silicon Valley where RSUs and ESPPs are common, few people can rely on stocks or other equities to generate any usable income outside of retirement.

I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice.

I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has noticeably improved my experience. Every time I upgrade my phone, I look into the Google flagship Android phones, but they always have some critical flaws that drive me to buy the Samsung Galaxy phones. The same thing happened a few months ago when I chose the Galaxy S9+ over the Pixel 3's. I also always think about switching to Apple iPhone, since I do think they take user experience and privacy more seriously than Google Android.

While I'm on the subject. Samsung, please get rid of Bixby and all of your crappy Samsung apps. I hate the feeling that there's two OS's loaded on my phone... the Android layer and the Samsung layer (which I never use but always get prompted for unless I figure out how to disable it).

I've noticed that sellers have been gaming this metric as well. I was recently shopping for a phone case and other phone accessories. What I found is that sellers are re-purposing SKUs from other highly rated products. I found a ~4.5+ star product with thousands of reviews but saw that most of the reviews were for a completely different item that is no longer being sold. So they'll take a highly rated product, put a different item in its place.

Fair point--you have no idea what happens behind closed doors and what the available budgets are. And you never will. Perhaps the hiring manager decided they are willing to pay 2x the market rate because their pain is quite high. But how likely is it, due to your refusal to name a number, that the company is going to reveal the top of their range? So, yes, there is an information disparity.

But I still think that refusing to name a number shouldn't be the number one point in all of these discussions and blog posts about salary negotiation. You're right, when there are huge amounts of information disparity, either because a company's pain point is significantly higher than market rates would imply, or because a candidate has a rare and unique skill that cannot be easily found, then all of the entry-level negotiating tactics go out the window. But for fair-market jobs and candidates, I think you should be able to know your value well and refusing to name a number is a waste of time and energy.

I don't understand your argument. I never said any value is fixed. Of course a person's value changes from role to role and from company to company. Part of doing your research is understanding the pain points for the company and the value you bring by fixing those pain points.

If you disagree with "a professional knows their value," what are you arguing? That "a professional doesn't know their value?"

I agree with you. I see this advice constantly parroted about, but I just cringe at the amount of work these people go through to avoid naming a number. If you want to deflect the first time the question is asked, fine. But if you have to deflect more than once, you won't come off like a professional. A professional knows their value. If you follow all of the rest of the advice, like doing your research, you'll know what you are worth and it shouldn't be a problem naming a fair price.

The other point I have is that the first number isn't all that important. Yes, it might anchor the starting point, but you'll be in a stronger negotiating position when the written offer is actually made.

I just went through this recently. Yes, their hiring manager asked me what my requirement was for a salary and I gave them a number without any fuss. In their first formal offer, they gave me the number I wanted; however, by that point in the hiring process, it was clear that I was a top candidate, and with other competing offers, I was able to get them to come up another 30%.

In the end, I don't think the best approach is to force the company to make the first offer. They aren't going to give their best offer if you force them to make the first move. The only time that strategy might make sense is if your best number is much lower than their worst number; in that case, you did a lousy job in the research phase and need to take a step back.

CCC does serve affiliate links. If you go to any product page on CCC and click the "Buy" button, you'll end up at Amazon and the URL will have the "tag=camelproducts-20" for their affiliate code in the URL. I'm sure every Amazon-bound link on their website or browser plug-in will do the same.

But those intakes don't work for free. You will encounter huge losses and drag penalties. And military jets aren't designed to fly 3500 miles supersonically the entire way. The vast majority of miltiary jets have a maximum supersonic time that can be measured in minutes.

From the Bloomberg article: "Boom’s software can also run millions of computer simulations a day on its designs, so the startup doesn’t have to spend months tweaking things in wind tunnels."

Can you elaborate what computer simulations this is referring to?