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Cake day: February 27th, 2024

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  • And then cheap chinese knock off brands push the products through Amazon, and other online retailers and by the time they are stopped the company has made bank, rebrands, and continues to do the same thing.

    And because China doesn’t care, and the retailer is generally considered oblivious to the situation until proven otherwise they have zero incentive to vet the product.

    Ya: This is an actual real problem.

    Now if quality product made in a western aligned country was actually cost competitive and had good rep for being locally made or at least made in a country with actual enforcement mechanisms that can go after the people/factory when they pull this crap - then, the standards applied will actually matter.

    I mean: Just go look at how many knock off apple products there are - and realize anything of potential value has the same issue going on.


  • At risk of being downvoted into oblivion: People are hyper polarized and unable to have nuanced discussions as a broad generalization any longer. And that, is the core of the problem.

    But where does it stem from? Misdirection - it might not seem relevant, but, I assure you: It is. We have to talk - as a recent video reminded me, and taught me something very important, Beoing. And maybe Intel - but mostly Boeing.

    Back in the Early 60’s - Boeing was Successful, very successful, it was THE MOST SUCCESSFUL airplane company - and it was, surprise surprise: ran by engineers. Then we have Douglas - ran by Finance bean counters. In 67, Douglas was facing bankruptcy, and - as a defence contractor, the US government in it’s infinite wisdom forced Boeing to merge with it, and - to put the cream on the top followed by the crowning toxic jewel on top: The executives that caused the problems at Douglas were put in charge, and - Boeing has gone downhill since. At one point an executive at the new Boeing said something along the lines of: “I don’t want to be distracted by the details of building airplanes” - like, I’m sorry: THAT IS WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES, those aren’t the distractions - that is your core needed responsibility to make sure it’s done right.

    We good with why the above is a problem?

    So lets look at Covid: Finance people want the economy to keep going - so drag their feet on doing what is necessary. Finance people don’t want to be inconvienienced, so… push for changes that are beneficial to them IN THE SHORT TERM. And finally, we see the idea that a Stage 4 Cancer Patient who passes away being labeled as a Covid Death… Why? I think it serves 2 reasons: 1, it makes the hospital numbers look more paletable for awhile - Covid death is “new scary virus” not, “Something we have been dealing with for forever” and 2. It justifies massive inflationary spend by the government - enabling them to effecitvely pick winners (big business), and losers (small business).

    The thing is: This shift - this Financiers over Engineers and people in their field running the show, is both the Republicans AND Democrats. That is: Democrat Social Justice types use inflationary spending to shove money at the cost of EVERYONE at whatever group they are “fighting for” and, Republican types love to shove tax benefits in the hands of their prefered businesses. And what are the fixes? It’s really simple: End Inflationary Monetary Policy.

    Thing is: Sick people masking? Makes sense. Properly cleaning high contact often terribly dirty things like debit pin pads - makes sense. More frequent cleaning of public bathrooms: Makes sense. This isn’t exactly rocket science. But forcing an untested thing onto people, after hiding the details from the public is disgusting. And the fact that people don’t get it - that is a huge problem.


  • It’s also worth noting the term is “capture”. And outside of rare instance - you didn’t really want to kill knights and the like: You captured them, and ransomed them back to their family/liege lord etc.

    And there is a reason the term “Kings Ransom” exists. John the II of France for instance was captured, and Ransomed for something like 300000 gold coins of the day - something like 300 million or up to about 3 billion in today’s dollars (conversion is a little fuzzy but to put it simply: A BLOODY TONNE OF MONEY).