If you add in the Trump tariff but remove Windows, I'll bet it costs about the same. So the laptop still costs about the same but now you have to pay extra for a Windows license (not subject to tariffs, perhaps) if you still want a Windows laptop. Or you could live with Fedora or Ubuntu and Libre Office.

I'm sure every Karen has the "chargeback on my credit card" in their arsenal of "let me talk to your manager" tricks. This complaint will be straightforward. Service is being discontinued and "replacement service doesn't suit your needs". Most credit cards are pretty liberal about refunding dissatisfied customers for services they didn't get or didn't like.

An internet connected oven, toaster, and fridge are treading awfully close to Cory Doctorow's novella UNAUTHORIZED BREAD. It's where there are IoT connected appliances in rent-subsidized apartments and the vendor gets a kick back from food purchased at stores with deals with those manufacturers. Put unauthorized food in the fridge, it turns off. Try to toast bread you baked from scratch after you bypassed the DRM scanning of your oven, it won't work. And of course it's a 5 year prison sentence and $100000 fine for bypassing DRM. I helped my 80yo neighbor navigate her new oven, printing out the manual which did NOT come with the oven. I highlighted the key press sequences for a variety of tasks like setting the clock, setting a delay time, setting the oven temperature, broiling, and turning on burners. I also had to explain the difference between broiling, baking, and convection features. She had no interest in the air fryer feature and made the sign of the cross when I asked if she wanted to pair the oven with her iPhone.

Some states require drivers who've been prescribed CPAP machines to use them for a certain number of hours. Not doing so can affect sentencing in the case of a traffic accident AND car insurance rates.

I watched the 1st episode of BELOW DECKS and thought it was very silly. Didn't watch any others. But I kept watching STRANGE NEW WORLDS until the musical episode. That's just to cringe for me. BUFFY could do it, but why should all shows copy that, like FLASH etc?

I watched about 20m of the aforementioned THE AGENCY. I stopped right after the Michael Fasbender character takes the trainee out to see how good she is at "acquiring an asset" at a bar. WATSON, a recent House-knockoff, lasted a full episode before the "Meh" response came up between my fellow TV show watcher (we're Waldorf and Statler personified). However, BRILLIANT MINDS kept my interest for the full 13 episode run even though the last episode planted plot seeds for subsequent episodes that likely won't happen. During the 1st season of NIGHT AGENT, I stayed with it until the guy's boss betrayed him which made me walk on the rest of the series. I read the 1st chapter of the Reacher novel PERSUADER and I'm doubtful I'll make it through the first 3 episodes of the show. Pity, because I like how Reacher took out the bad guys in 2nd season. Maybe there's an EQUALIZER saturation effect happening here. I didn't bother watching the last one set in Italy after watching the first 10 minutes where he kills all those guys at the winery. In contrast, DARK WINDS and MONSIEUR SPADE kept me coming back again and again. I eagerly await DW #3.

When Teams became a subscription service, I ripped it out of my Ansible config file and deleted it from all my machines. With the Skype announcement this morning, I just did the same thing with Skype. Before the lockdown, recruiters used to specify what video platform the perspective employer would use for the interview. I begrudgingly installed Teams in the beginning but once it required a subscription, I told recruiters I don't do Teams. Turns out that was a great screening technique because Microsoft-heavy employers didn't ask for interviews. I wonder if anyone is using BlueJeans or GoToMeeting any more.

I hope the MBA who thought of this is now looking into new and exciting opportunities at MacDonald's. Or they're retasked to replace the cleaning staff at buildings 100 miles from their home where they have to commute 5x/week for swing or graveyard shift.

Yep. I've got a chassis from AliExpress that just shipped today. When and if it arrives is anyone's guess. Last couple of things I bought from there were delivered by a courier rather than USPS. Amazon's costs are surely going up. I wonder what their head of Logistics is doing right now.

Yep. The closest I ever got to programming in High School was writing the ACHTUNG! warning using Fortran-II on the IBM 1620 system console running at the local community college. Eventually, I started farting around with APL on their terminals when I started attending community college. But no computers in LA City Schools in the 60s or 70s.

I quibbled with the lawyer who drew up the consulting contract for THE SELECT GROUP. I countered that the non-disparagement clause didn't make sense because as a consultant if I told the client they were being stupid (i.e. making me turn off backups), I had a right to tell them they were being stupid. He took that clause out.

During the lockdown in 2020, I asked on LinkEdIn on how I should react to an in-person job interview where most of the people conducting it were unmasked and indoors. No one responded to that post one way or the other. But a lot fewer recruiters reached out to me on LinkEdIn about roles I might be interested in. Eventually I set my profile to private, then deleted it altogether. DICE wouldn't let me delete my profile so I think I just loaded it with crap. I still get an occasional recruiter asking if I'm interested in a role, although lately they're for much more senior people with 10-15 years of experience instead of a minium of 5 years. I guess people are staying put with their heads down.

If it was the corporate legal team that thought of this, then whoever decided to "make it so" and go public with it needs their head put on a pike outside one of the parks. The backlash for this is going to be big and pillorying a "responsible party" be it a decision maker or the external legal team that came up with it will go a long way once they settle the wrongful death litigation for 6+ figures.

While it's not really part of the Polite Society picture I have of Brits in general, this sort of "You need to come in 5 days a week or your fired" didn't work very well for Melon Husk here in the US. He didn't care and his legal team is ignoring all the forced arbitration sessions required by their employee agreement. US Courts will just enter default judgements on X/Twitter and he'll pay way more. Then there's the IE employee who refused to click on the "do you want to continue working here" email. I don't know if the UK is a "right to work" situation, but I suspect NOTHING startup is more or less going to end up in court over this AND end up paying lots of severance. The CEO must not be from the UK or thinks he's smarter than their corporate counsel. Idiot.

Most of the time, Target (love to beat up on them) either doesn't have what I went there for (razors, detergent, Hershey's Nuggets, Crystal Light). I gave up getting any underwear or socks. That aisle is always a mess because people pick through it and don't put stuff back. Associates fight an uphill battle keeping stuff sort of in the right section. I don't have that problem with my local CostCo.