Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
It would for many min-wage workers, sure. But if you don't have to worry about bills, you'd get bored and still find something to do. So this allows more people to start their own small business and work for themselves instead of some corporation that will just extract the excess of their labor. There would be a massive drop in the unemployment pool, which would cause many issues with larger businesses that rely on labor value extraction to operate. However, smaller businesses, especially in rural areas with a lot of farmers and/or ranchers, would likely do better since there would be less money leaving the town to pay for utilities (or trips to Walmart, since everyone now has more money to spend on things besides food/housing/bills and can afford to shop at smaller stores). This would also pad the pockets of Mom-n-Pop shops, which would keep prices down and allow more competition against big box stores, which in turn keeps more money local and improves the local economy.
Comment · 2 years ago
The bad results are not a surprise, given the method they used. Giving someone less than the federal minimum wage for a month isn't going to incentivize people very much.
Comment · 2 years ago
There was more than just articles that I posted, but it was flagged for some reason. Whatever
Comment · 2 years ago
Not even one mention that the guy WAS in fact cheating, but we can't have pesky details like that in a fear mongering article, now can we?
Comment · 2 years ago
I'm kind of surprised that we haven't started integrating the spores of Pestalotiopsis Microspora into plastic products to break them down faster later. They could seal spores between two layers of a bioplastic, then have the non-bioplastic as an innermost layer to protect the bioplastic from liquids, and the outermost layer be a mix of plastics and bio-plastic. This way it will still degrade, but slowly, until degradation reaches the spore sandwich layers, which will then quickly degrade and inoculate the spores to begin growing and consume the rest of the outermost layer and begin degrading the innermost layer. This (in theory) should eliminate nearly all, if not actually all, of the plastics involved.
Comment · 2 years ago
You should be able to get a basic consultation with a lawyer, often for free, or a small sum ($20-50). It sounds like you're being jerked around a lot and they're trying to steamroller you into compliance. Keep refusing their attempts until they send you a check or credit to your bank account and keep everything they send you and you send them. The more evidence you have that they were not engaging in good faith, the better your case will be if it has to go to court.

If you're lucky though, a nasty letter from a lawyer will often make these business give in as they finally understand that you're serious about litigation. I've had to do such a thing when a commercial property company tried to charge me for damages that already existed, but I had pictures from when I moved in to show they were not caused by me, so it would have cost them more to take me to court than to ignore it and get a new lessee in.

Best of luck!

Comment · 2 years ago
I think the "swap station" idea is pretty close to what we have now and would transition easiest. Fuel deliveries are typically dispatched on a route that will service more than one location (unless it's an emergency drop), so there's already a distributed refueling system in place to be updated.

You're right that it would take multiple swap stations on nearly any given route that doesn't go too far out of an interstate or frequently traveled highway. So smaller towns or out-of-the-way towns will likely be forced to pay higher costs to get the deliveries using a regular fuel-driven truck, at least until they can solve the EV drive distance issue(s).

I think the biggest point of contention over this will be when Mom-n-Pop stores start going under fast due to the barriers of entry to afford so many expensive, large, and very heavy batteries. That's not even considering possible requirements to use specific machines for safety reasons, which I imagine will also jump when Mom-n-Pop try to wing it.

Comment · 2 years ago
Except an employee's contribution isn't static, while their cost is.

$7.25 x 8 hours = $58 for the day. However what they create is based on output, which for most businesses, varies day by day along with their sales.

A McDonald's could sell 500 burgers in one day at one location, but only 300 at another. In this case the employee at the larger restaurant generates 2/5 more value than the employee at the smaller one, even if both can output at the same speed and quality. So, in reality, the employee at the larger restaurant is being exploited by 2/5 more than the employee at the smaller location. Which also means the employee at the smaller location is getting paid more for doing 2/5 less work than an equally capable employee.

Profits are multiplicative yet unpredictable, while labor is static and predictable.

Comment · 2 years ago
If you don't have a whole lot in funds, a candle business can be mostly done with one person until sales pick up enough to require help making enough of them.

If you like/don't mind marketing you could try the RedBull route and have a beverage company work with you to make some new drink and you'll only have to worry about the business side of it and not deal with production/distribution.

Depending on where you live, a vending business could also be an option, as the biggest costs are at the start, then it's just maintaining supplies, ensuring stock minimums, and doing occasional maintenance on them. You don't even have to start that big; coin-based vending machines are still around (although used a bit less since COVID) and they're usually less than $200/each for a 3-candy unit.

Comment · 2 years ago
I love the games this guy makes. They're long, but not really grinding and each series has many different mechanics, even though they're all made in the same engine.
Comment · 2 years ago
Or just, properly handle pre-filled configs instead of being lazy?
Comment · 2 years ago
You probably should not use jQuery unless you have an actual need for it. 10-ish years ago it was helpful because browser features were very fragmented at the time and it was hard to write code that would correctly function across all major browsers. Today, there's little difference (mostly due to them all being the same under-the-hood nowadays) so instead of being a helpful tool, it's being overused for numerous reasons. Most of what jQuery was really good at has now been added to Javascript core or there is a browser API for it.
Comment · 2 years ago
Nah, I keep them in an encrypted environment file that I have to unlock at server startup. I used GPG to encrypt with a key and use a long, complex password for unlock. To make it safer I should probably use a security key instead, or add 2FA before the password prompt to unlock. The guidelines are definitely correct about not using environment variables though, since they can stick around in logs and often stay in memory for the life of the program.
Comment · 2 years ago

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