Be willing to bet they were greasing their profit margins to an insane degree. I used to work at one of the slimy defense contractors (second tier right below the primes). There is this law called TINA (Truth in Negotiations Act). Anything under $2.5M required ZERO cost justification. So managers / directors would bump price right up to the ceiling regardless. Even when the TINA threshold was crossed, they had a bottomless bag of reasons to juice their margins beyond anything reasonable. The thinnest justification would work because the gov knew there was basically no competition left thanks to mergers, acquisitions & consolidation (that politicians directly benefited from). If there wasn’t some conflated or exagerrsted reason easily at hand, those in charge of approving the proposal would just say COVID supply chain inflation OR knowingly avoid ever pressing a supplier to reduce their inflated margins knowing they could present it as a reason for price increases. I never saw the gov extract any meaningful price concessions. It was just one giant cesspool of greasy contractors from top to bottom. Number go up, more bombs forever. So glad I’m out of that parasitic, death merchant industry.

Great point about the relentless slaughter of Arabs. So easily forgotten how many innocents America slaughtered during this time period. America is morally rotten to the core, high on its own supply of hatred and cruelty.

Bitwarden’s last update made the iOS categorically worse and impacted the Pin unlock functionality on Linus desktop. Guess I’m migrating to Proton’s offering along with the rest of their suite. Hope they don’t go down the enshittification rabbit hole anytime soon.

Excellent suffering lol. I love the authenticity. So many of the YouTubers now are manufacturing unpleasantness, and it’s so easy to spot. Come on, there must be plenty of true travel disasters out there, but the algorithms don’t find them!

I’m interested in this too now haha

Seriously!! Not my smartest move.

Most EHS departments are like most HR departments. Perception management to benefit 1) the department and 2) the company. Any possible way EHS can use lax regulations (most places outside the EU) to avoid accountability, it will happen in nearly every circumstance.

I worked in EHS for a time. The amount of scab, toxic and corrupt behavior I saw made me NOPE out of that career field real fast. EHS got more people fired and swept more incidents under the rug than anyone else. Masters of gaslighting and virtue signaling.

Of course there will be exceptions, and I’m sure you’re one of them.

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Migrate to Calibre and use Calibre Virtual Libraries. However based on the comments I’m reading, it looks like you want something that is not application based. Good luck with that.

I do have to give it to Quiznos for pioneering guacomole on a sandwich. I don’t think any other nationwide chain had done that. Oh yeah and they made the worst / most addictive commerciala ever with the Rats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

The only Quiznos that I have eaten at in the last 3-4 years is in the Spokane Airport, and it is TERRIBLE. Like the worst microwaved rubber chicken you’ve ever had. Thankfully, Spokane Airport is finally getting a renovation with local restaurants in the terminal, so I think Quiznos will be down another location.

Ah yes your comment represents the convergence of suburbanhell and capitalisthell!

This is a terrific article. It’s well researched and cuts through the chaff Big Tech monopolies spew to obscure their propaganda. I especially enjoyed this part:

“Although these large technology companies may not be full state-owned, China’s socialist government ensures that they act in the interest of the country and the people, not simply wealthy shareholders.

The US system is exactly the opposite. Large corporations control the government, and create policy on behalf of wealthy shareholders.”

Who are they kidding? These shit bags travel by private jet shitting on the rest of the world probably 60% of the time anyways. Like it matters where they “reside”. Just die or get guillotined already.

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Yet

70% cherry picking here. Uzbekistan is the way it is because of its remoteness and lack of exploitable natural resources not because of some state level benevolence. Look at what the Soviets did to Kazakhstan (RIP Aral Sea)…no matter how you spin it there is a huge chasm between the ideals of the USSR and the way its leaders exercised their power and authority.

A name is just a simple reference to a system composed of interrelated and essential OS components: Kernel, windowing system, networking tools, virtual memory, user interfaces, the list goes on…

Yes GNU is an essential suite of tools but so is X (or Wayland) and many other unnamed yet critical subsystems.

Now GPL licensing on the other hand, THAT is a foundational precept to FOSS that deserves sole credit back to a single project.

Just wanted to follow-up on my comment. I was thinking about it today, and I believe ProPublica or some professional journalist or grad school student should engage in a project to study the underlying factors that drive poor VA outcomes. I’m sure it’s been done, but it would be nice to see some more research.

I would be willing to bet there are significant correlation in terms of VA system health outcomes and a range of socioeconomic variables (demographics, voting patterns, etc.).

My hypothesis is that, just like most government outcomes, the most conservative areas also treat veterans the worst and disapprove a shockingly high percentage of disability claims. Having this information in the public domain might influence reforms at the worst-offending VA / VBA systems.

I’m sorry to hear that. I think so many problems stem from the vast differences in quality of care between VA / VBA systems. If you get lucky, it seems amazing. If you are in a bad system, it’s a bureaucratic nightmare.