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The_v

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The_v ,

They made it the default option for businesses that routinely buy computers with less local storage than their users need. Pretty much every company I have worked for.

They then pushed it out hard into the consumer market when SSD came out and the average storage space on lower end models dropped by 75%.

I see why they did it, how they did it was in usual Microsoft fashion, idiotic.

It’s sort of their pattern.

  1. Introduce new changes.
  2. Screw it up royalty.
  3. Fix the features that are salvageable and revert most of the remaining except: Double down on the shitty ones that they think will make them more money.
  4. Rinse and Repeat
The_v ,

The “hard math” can be done easily and quickly with a financial calculator app. The one I have shows the amortization schedule as well.

Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else” - Workers stayed remote even when told they could no longer be promoted. (arstechnica.com)

Big tech companies are still trying to rally workers back into physical offices, and many workers are still not having it. Based on a recent report, computer-maker Dell has stumbled even more than most....

The_v ,

It leaves dell with employees who do their job and have a life outside of work. They will put their hours in but not much more. They do not recommend change or new ways of getting things done, because they don’t care. They will do the minimum and punch the clock for years until they find another better paying job.

The_v ,

Forums were awesome until the ads took over. Then apps like Tapatalk made reading them easier. Then Tapatalk went to shit and power users migrated to reddit (mainly for the easy to use wepage and awesome independent apps.).

Then reddit shit the bed so now Lemmy is filling the gaps.

The_v ,

Yeah the lack of criminal charges indicates that it was a manic episode. She probably spent several weeks in a mental health ward. Otherwise she would have been charged for the abuse to the flight attendants and others.

She also likely had a ton of drugs in her system as well as the booze. People undergoing manic episodes will take about anything.

I am not so sure about the FAA fines. The U.S. civil court system is inherently unjust. There are many draconian rules that punish the mentally ill and impoverished.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say (www.cbsnews.com)

One of the major drivers of the exceptional heat building within Earth’s atmosphere has reached levels beyond anything humans have ever experienced, officials announced on Thursday. Carbon dioxide, the gas that accounts for the majority of global warming caused by human activities, is accumulating “faster than ever,”...

The_v ,

Uh-oh

The_v ,

Windows 11 adoption to business customers is really bad. Most of the adoption to 11 has been from people purchasing new home computers and being stuck with 11 (I have two win 11 computers now).

Since the bulk of Microsoft’s revenue comes from business customers, they have a huge impact on decisions.

At this point the only decision Microsoft can make is to write off win 11 as a failue. Resuming feature upgrades to win 10 makes business sense.

The_v ,

Farming is always environmentally destructive. There is no such thing as “environmentally friendly” farming. The solution is massive investment into the farming infrastructure and rewilding of vast tracts of land.

ourworldindata.org/land-use

We use around half of the arable land for agriculture. The sad fact is we only need to use 10% of it. The rest we farm because we can make a profit. Not because it makes sense.

It would take a complete upheaval of our agricultural system. Massive investment into water storage, irrigation systems and protected culture. It would also mean the forced migration of a millions people from rural areas to be rewilded to areas under intensive agriculture.

Aka it’s not an easy fix. t’s a systematic change to the way we interact with the environment.

So, it’s not going to happen.

The_v ,

Oopsy, the credit cards are maxed out already due to their gouging So purchasing will remain low until credit card debt declines.

Oh wait, that’s not going to happen anytime soon because the landlords are price fixing.

The_v ,

That was my thought as well. I knew a guy that had a similar setup. They had a small pickup truck small camper on the back. He worked nights at a minimum wage job and slept in camper during the day. He migrated around to different stores parking lots.

Running gas for the generator was less expensive than running the engine.

The_v , (edited )

The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.

We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife’s car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.

My house payment hasn’t changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.

The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.

The_v ,

Look up the “TAS2R bitter taste receptor gene family”. It’s a fun little group of genes that control how well bitterness is detected.

I am a moderate bitter taster. So I do not like celery (mildly unpleasant flavor) and prefer cucumbers that contain the recessive bi gene that stops the production of cucubitacin in the plant. The ones that contain the bt gene, the skin gets too bitter for me. This gene mostly stops the cucubitacin production in the fruit but not the plant.

The_v ,

Life is much more complicated than the middle school definition. Some of the more interesting species are “sterile” crosses that have overcome the sterility. For example the ancestry of wheat.

Wheat is mostly a hexaploid aka 6 copies of each chromosome. It arose from a triploid interspecific cross (triploids are always sterile) that spontaneously doubled (hexaploids are fertile).

As a hexaploid it can be crossed to diploid rye to produce fertile offspring called triticale (tetraploid). Crossing triticale to either wheat or rye creates sterile offspring (pentaploid & triploid)

So are they all one species because they can sometimes produce fertile offspring?

The_v ,

The odd thing about crime rates is they are often self-reported from law enforcement. Without proper controls and regulations, a motivated party could easily and routinely fudge the numbers by a lot.

What types of crimes do you think it would be easier to suppress… murder or property damage?

The_v ,

It’s ironic that what most people think of as a highly intelligent person is a polymath aka somebody who is an expert in multiple topics.

Academia today is designed for extreme specialization of knowledge. So it actively selects against anyone that would be classified as a polymath.

It’s a pretty big disconnect between expectations and reality.

Sticky trick: new glue spray kills plant pests without chemicals (www.theguardian.com)

The insect glue, produced from edible oils, was inspired by plants such as sundews that use the strategy to capture their prey. A key advantage of physical pesticides over toxic pesticides is that pests are highly unlikely to evolve resistance, as this would require them to develop much larger and stronger bodies, while bigger...

The_v ,

This is a really, really, bad idea.

The issue is that sticky traps are non-specific. Any insect the size of a trip can be trapped. Then when predators are attracted to all the free food, they are potentially stuck or damaged as well.

Thrips are also one of the easiest species to control using predatory species.

The_v ,

Yes but can they dislodge the glue from their mouth parts? Very unlikely if it’s strong enough to hold the smaller insects.

The_v ,

Swirski mites are my favorite in the greenhouse or nethouse. They work better than any pesticide I have ever seen.

The_v ,

“boy do I have thrips” triggered a funny memory.

When I worked in Ag. Research we had a big international field day. People from 50+ countries visiting in. I got the wonderful job of doing presentations in the field all day long. This was in late summer on a bad thrip year.

Well, one of the office goons decided that they would order all the staff polo shirts for the three day event. We were all supposed to wear the same color on the specified day.

They ordered in a light blue, yellow, and green polos. The first day was to be light blue. I “accidentally” wore the green one instead and had a few very irate office goons on my back first off that morning. Strangely enough all of the experienced outdoor staff “accidently” wore the green shirt as well.

For those that don’t know, thrips are highly attracted to light blue and they bite. I laughed my ass off most of the day.

The following two days everyone wore green. Except for the one determined office goon who wore the yellow shirt. In a field full of honeybee hives…

The_v ,

Now why seedless watermelons suck is an interesting story.

The first intentional creation of a seedless watermelon was done in 1939 in Japan. University breeding programs in the southern U.S. after WWII began using the technology to create the first hybrids. In the early '50’s and '60’s multiple tetraploids were created by the university programs and released to private companies to produce seed with.

These tetraploid lines were “greys”. “Greys” were selected to have a thick hard rind for long distance shipping. They were barely red on the inside and tasted slightly bitter. They all sucked for flavor.

A seedless watermelon hybrid is made by crossing a tetraploid female by a diploid male. The resulting hybrid (triploid) has 3 copies of every chromosome and is sterile.

Fertile stable tetraploids take a long time to create - around 15 generations of you are lucky. Seedless watermelons also took a long time to gain popularity in the market. So nobody put significant money or time into creating more tetraploid inbreds for over 40 years.

From the 1980’s when seedless watermelons were introduced until around 2010, everyone used those shitty old tetraploids as 2/3rds of the hybrid. Since 2010 companies have created new tetraploid to use, but a significant portion still use 70 year old shitty ones.

.

The_v ,

A. They have no significant difference in nutrition than non-GMO. In fact many GMO’s have been created to improve nutrition but sadly not used because of dumbfucks like Greenpeace who would rather have people go blind or die than accept GMO food. For example, rice that produces vitamin A and folic acid have been created but never used.

B. The “Terminator” GMO gene was created by the USDA-ARS and was NEVER released. No seed on the market has ever had a GMO sterility gene. Contrary to public opinion, it was designed to be integrated with other GMO genes to prevent the outcrossing and spread into the environment, not as an IP control mechanism.

The_v ,

Also a bit of trivia I had to double check.

The seedless watermelon against Catholics image.

The original picture is one I took.

The_v ,

They are not all bad. In the early 2000’s a breeder created a logistical method create tetraploids in 6 years (5 generations every 2 years). He used 3 countries to do it in if I recall correctly.

He integrated some of the small seeded deep red fleshed Chinese germplasm combined with the old flavorful allsweet types to make dramatically improved tetraploids.

Other companies have followed suit and the average quality of the fruit has improved. Some of the newer ones have really excellent flavor.

The_v ,

It’s all about profits. Seedless watermelons usually sell better with American consumers.

In order to produce fruit on triploid watermelons there has to be regular seeded (diploid) varieties in the field. Traditionally they would use a large oblong traditional seeded (allsweet types). Mainly because there was a market for them and they looked different than the seedless varieties.

The growers had to dedicate 1/5th of their acres to growing a seeded melons which they could sell at 50% or less than seedless varieties.

That’s when seed companies introduced dedicated pollinators (non-harvested). These untilized several different dwarf genes and could be interplanted with seedless varities with no loss of space.

With the exception of the big party markets like the 4th of July, most fields utilize the dedicated pollinators in the U.S. now. For production in Latin America, they export the seedless ones to the U.S. and sell the seeded ones l ones domestically.

Bottom line, today you only occasionally seeded watermelons in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada.

The_v ,

Genetically the cross is theoretically possible. The difference in size of the individuals, especially the reproductive organs creates a barrier that prevents crossing.

If the differences had been created via natural selection not artificial selection, a great Dane and Chihuahua would likely be listed as different species or subspecies for the same reasons.

The_v ,

Don’t forget Baccilus cereus and Clostridium perfringens.

Although the abdominal cramps and extreme diarrhea might be considered a normal day for those morons.

The_v ,

50 million out of 1.8 billion population. Or 2.78% of the poulaton died.

Today the same death rate for a pandemic would be around 225 million people.

Americans are choking on surging fast-food prices. "I can't justify the expense," one customer says (www.cbsnews.com)

Kevin Roberts remembers when he could get a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a drink from Five Guys for $10. But that was years ago. When the Virginia high school teacher recently visited the fast-food chain, the food alone without a beverage cost double that amount....

The_v ,

Full dinner for my family of 4 at McD’s us $65.

Full dinner at my locally owned restaurant that offers takeout plus lunch the next day from leftovers - $70.

The_v ,

Been on my own since I as 17. The first few years were rough to say the least.

I worked 2 jobs, 30-60 hrs per week and went to college. I shared shitty apartments with some pretty creepy people. I moved so constantly I ended up paying for a post office box so I could get my mail. I did not have a vehicle (no car) so I rode a bike for up to 60 miles per day. Even all that wasn’t enough without government grants and student loans to pay for college.

Food was something that I ate when I had it. I spent a few months with mybe 4-5 real meals. Cornflakes and ramen where the bulk of my diet for a while.

I took the first professional job I could find. It was terrible but it paid well. I gained 50lbs to be at a healthy weight the first year. The next few years I jumped around jobs until I landed in one I liked.

The last few weeks before I graduated college I met my wife. Her family has become mine over the past 25 years.

Today my income alone puts us in the top 10% of earners. My wife makes close to the same. At many crucual times in our lifes we’ve taken advantage of government assistance. To be blunt, it’s not possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You need a helping hand once in a while no matter how small.

The_v ,

He should have had his “soft” targets better protected. Russia has a long tradition punishing the families of those that oppose them.

The_v ,

Pegging the fine against the personal assets of the executives/board responsible for the crime would be more effective.

Fining a corporation just hurts the the employees.

The_v ,

Cheese made from raw milk is a great way to get all sorts of fun diseases like listeriosis.

The cheese making process is also unlikely to kill then virus but the aging process likely will.

The_v ,

Same math I figured out.

At the same time my student loans were at 8% interest. Guess who cashed out every 401K as I changed jobs every couple of years early in my career. I used it to pay off student loans and purchase my first home.

The sad fact is that it’s expensive to be broke. If your debt to income ratio is high, creditors fuck you over. Paying down those student loans has paid me back several times over in lower interest loans for cars and our mortgage

I didn’t really start saving money until after I was 30. To be honest I really didn’t start making a decent wage until I was 35. To put it into perspective, I put more into my retirement account per year now than I would have in 5 years from 20-35 years old.

The_v ,

Mac did have a better OS than Win 95 -Win98 It was smoother and crashed less.

The difference was that Windows still ran DOS programs, 5.25" floppy disks etc… They made the decision to maintain backwards compatibility.

Mac decided to drop support regularly for what they considered “outdated software and technology.” For example: when USB drives came out they canceled support for 3.5" floppies in their OS. Machines that had a 3.5" drive installed could no longer use it. Put a floppy drive in and nothing happened.

Although Mac was a smoother more stable OS, windows had more functionality and greater compatability. Windows was a far superior product because of it. Even with the regular apearance of the blue screen of death.

Linux at the time also suffered from being a terminal based OS. Too much like DOS for way too long. I used it for specific tasks where it excelled at.

The_v ,

I have gotten flamed a few times for telling the Linux fanboys the hard truth.

If I have to hit Terminal even once with an average setup the OS is not ready for mainstream use. No exceptions. It has to work out of the box on the newest systems.

I use Linux the same way that you have: for a few applications that need a rock solid stable system. Once you get the damn thing setup, it truly is wonderful. Stable, reliable, easy to use. But getting there… Fuck that.

I think I had one clean distro install where everything worked. The PC was 7 years old when I installed it.

The_v ,

I had a non-compete handed to me when I lived in California. I laughed my ass off and signed it. When I left the dumbass VP of HR threatened me with it.

My response was “Could you pretty please try to enforce it? My lawyer would absolutely love to represent me in court. FYI you know my lawyer. He was the paralegal that told you the non-compete contract wasn’t legal. You then screwed him over and got him laid him off. Guess who passed the bar exam 6 months ago!”

The_v ,

Most people enrolled in those programs are frequent business travelers who charge it to the company.

When I was traveling all the time I did global entry. Since it was for work, I paid for it with my companies credit card. I also did the interview during company hours, drove to the interview in a company vehicle, and paid for parking and lunch on the company dime.

Nobody blinked at the expense. Of course it was the same month I traveled for 3 weeks, hit 5 countries and 10 states. It took me a full day to do my expense report.

Red Lobster eyes bankruptcy option after $11M in losses from endless shrimp (abcnews.go.com)

“Last year, Red Lobster reported $11 million in operating losses following its flubbed ‘Ultimate Endless Shrimp’ deal, which backfired when it reeled in too many customers after the limited-time promo became a permanent menu fixture last June. The restaurant chain later reported $12.5 million in losses in the fourth...

The_v ,

The previous owners purchased the company via a leveraged buyout. It’s not one quarters losses, it’s the massive long-term debt on it’s books.

This is a handy excuse to fuck over employees and suppliers.

The_v ,

My town had Waving Save. He lived across the street from me when I was in high school.

He would walk the 5 miles to town every day most of the year. He would wave enthusiastically at every passing vehicle.

He was very pleasant but odd.

The_v ,

Had two ponies growing up and 15-18 horses on the ranch.

The two ponies were absolute assholes. Vicious aggressive beast who hated people. The farrier charged double for them.

The 17 hand paint was a big puppy. He’d follow us around looking for loves and your sandwich. He would beg for a PB&J.

The_v ,

Insurance and medical care for my wife with another autoimmune disease has been as high as 30% of our income.

She started a union job with better negotiated insurance. It’s down to 10% of our income now.

The_v ,

As a highly paid professional this is bullshit. Most insurance plans in the u.s. are costing more and covering less every year. They have introduced all sorts of fun things make it more brutal. Evaluating a companies insurance plan has become a critical exercise in evaluating any job offer. Some major companies offer shit benefits packages.

Things they have done:

Raised deductables: The insurance basically pays nothing until the deductible is met. In many plans, this is $4,000+. I have seen them as high as $10,000.

Increased out-of-pocket maximums. This is the maximum amount a person can pay in a year. These are important for chronic illnesses or serious accidents etc. it used to be $4000 in a year for a family. Now I see plans that have $8,000. as the maximum.

Decreases the percentage they pay. When I started working a most “good” insurance plans would pay 90% of the bill. Now 80% is the standard with many “bad” plans only offering to pay 50 or 60%.

Limit medical networks that they do business with. You want to see a Dr or specialist who is not in your network. You are fucked.

What has the government done? Introduced the HSA plan. Basically you can save money out of you paycheck tax free to pay for all these ballooning costs. The plan just happens to be an investment plan in the stock market with high fees and lots of money for Wall Street.

The_v ,

Paraquat federally is on the ropes with new labels and packaging restrictions.

www.epa.gov/…/paraquat-dichloride

Once these types of restrictions happen a permanent ban is usually inevitable.

Which is of course a very good thing. The shit is toxic and kills people.

The_v ,

Not to scare you but it happens every year, constantly. There is always another new disease or an new mutation to an older disease that is attacking crops.

It’s only by constant research, phytosanitary processes and breeding efforts that our food supply is as secure as it is.

The_v ,

It makes more sense if you use it as intended. It’s designed to be a simple way for farmers/gardeners to classify the basic soil composition by particle size.

Take a cup of dirt, put it in a mason jar, fill it full of water, put a lid on tight and shake the hell out of it. Come back in 3-4 days and measure the layers.

This comes in helpful in applying pesticides and basic water management. It’s pretty much pointless for anything else.

The_v ,

This is referred to as hollow heart.

It usually indicates as shortage of available calcium in the plant as the tuber grows. Basically the same thing as blossom end rot in tomatoes, peppers etc.

Some varieties are more prone to developing this than others.

The_v ,

Market requirements are not necessarily driven by capitalism.

Throughout history, needs of the culture determine the plant breeding efforts. Often flavor and nutrition have been traded for yield and storage.

For example the absolute worst watermelon I ever ate was in Uzbekistan. The soviet’s created a long-storage melon that lasts up to 10 months. It’s was about as bad as eating cardboard.

The_v ,

To be fair:

I have seen lot of nonsense spouted by the “experts.” PhD levels who are making bad assumptions outside of their field of expertise. I would say only about 1 in 10 papers I read is worth the time to download it.

It’s an ongoing issue with the high level of specialization in the sciences, especially in academia. Any topic which covers multiple disciplines turns into a clusterfuck.

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