Publicly traded companies blow my mind a little bit.

It’s not enough to make steady, consistent profits. Give out reliable quarterly dividends and make it so your investors make their money back plus a little extra over time. Free money is not enough for the ownership class.

Growth isn’t enough either. Buying something for X and selling it for 1.1X so you make money even without a dividend isn’t enough for the investor class.

You have to grow infinitely. You have to grow faster than everyone else. You have to beat the projections. Make your product smaller and shittier & sell it for the same price. Lay off 10% of your workforce after record profits to cut costs. Force ads and subscriptions and data mining into every possible space. Undercut your smaller competitors until they fold, then jack up your prices. Break the law, fuck over your workers, buy out politicians, move your production lines to countries with no labor laws.

Being publicly traded actively rewards evil and anti-human behavior.

Been thru most of these. Lived with chronic pain. Wife and I lost our jobs this year within a few months of each other. Had someone credibly threaten to sue me for more than I could afford. Dealt with depression & suicidality. Worked from home with a gun on my desk because the cops wouldn’t do anything about my batshit insane neighbor.

The list of problems I have proven to myself I can survive grows longer every day. I have the contact info for a good psychiatrist, lawyer, and physical therapist. I know who my support network is, and exactly how far I can stretch a dollar. Yes, bad things happen now that are worse than when I was younger. But I am stronger and more in control of my life. Problems that would have broken me down when I was just starting out are things I can now handle without so much as elevating my heart rate.

And, there are new joys that have only become accessible to me through the benefit of experience! Fears I have conquered, hangups I have gotten over, people I have warmed up to.

Getting older doesn’t just suck. I think it just seems that way because people (on the internet at least) find it really easy and relatable to complain.

Thank you for your wonderful and informative comment! I went out back to see if she was still there / look for an egg sack, and snuck another pic. She’s quick! Ran up the fence as soon as she saw me!

RIP Kumoko.

True that! Almost got a face full of this guy earlier this week:

I wonder if spiders put webs in front of windows to catch bugs that fly towards the light, or if they put webs all over a building and we only see the ones near the windows?

Cute comic!

BRONCO IS TAKING HIM INTO THE SCREWS, KENNY!

I’m glad I’m not the only one with that criticism. I enjoyed the first game so much more because of that.

Octopuses have zero hands, but it only takes one gun to kill a cat so this works out.

In the US, there is a history of white performers using blackface to play caricatures of black people, leaning hard on racist ethnic stereotypes. From Wikipedia:

The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century.[1] The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.[2][3] Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.

He prayed for a TV and a gun. Clearly both were answered, hallelujah!

deleted by creator

While NFA items are a different story, you’re generally allowed to manufacture anything you could legally buy in a store. So no suppressors / SBRs / destructive devices without the appropriate paperwork & tax stamps, no machine guns without all that and a time machine, and no fun allowed if you’re a prohibited person. Other than that, there’s nothing* stopping you from printing, say, a semi-automatic rifle with a 16 inch barrel or a glock frame.

*Federally. Also, I am a dumbass and not a lawyer, do your own research.

Relevant XKCD

Java. It’s familiar, it’s the one I use most at my job, and I’m not in love with any other language enough to choose something less pragmatic.

Tools that use a GUI are just as good (if not better) than their CLI equivalents in most cases. There’s a certain kind of dev that just gets a superiority complex about using CLI stuff.

Googling something is probably the most efficient way to find an answer, in the same way that flavorless nutrient shakes are probably the most efficient way to fuel your body. Asking questions and conversing about the answers is fun. It’s madness to abandon an entire genre of human conversation just because some search engine exists.