araes

This was a large enough issue, there's a Sept 20th, 2025 Daily Mail, This is Money article titled "REVEALED: Boss behind Games Workshop's £5bn Warhammer boom" [1]

Quoting:

  "this is the first picture of Kevin Rountree, the publicity-shy boss of the company behind Warhammer miniatures"

  "surfaced last week at the firm's Nottingham HQ where he was up for re-election at its annual meeting"

  "He isn't interested in publicity and is not on social media"

[1] https://archive.is/r6t8C#selection-953.76-953.176

Anyways, the original point was, that it's crazy sounding that one of the largest companies would have a CEO that nobody's seen (apparently agreed upon by the Dispatch, and the Daily Mail, and the Financial Times [2]). The image on the Warhammer wiki is possibly the same (looks kind of different than the Daily Mail pic)

Quoting Financial Times:

  "its chief executive, Kevin Rountree — formerly of the firm now known as PwC, and farmer-and-British-posho apparel provender Barbour — has virtually no profile (the Sunday Times, which recently listed Rountree as one of its businesspeople of the year, had to use a photo of an Ultramarines Space Marine instead). “He’s a real person — he’s not some kind of character out of Warhammer 40k,” Ashworth-Lord told us."

To the point of openly requesting a picture:

  "Obviously, if someone does have a photo of big Kev or wants to let us know if he’s a slandered South Shields sand dancer or similar, we’re contactable in the usual ways."

Credit to @defrost https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563037 for the FT link.

[2] https://archive.is/2h16k#selection-37545.5-37587.1

Despite following this stuff some, I think I was about as confused to where they were.

Did not realize most of the actual production was still at 4nm range. Apparently mostly Fab 34, Leixlip, Ireland (4nm, 3nm, Meteor Lake). Actually thought it was somewhere in Malaysia or America. "Normal" EUV manufacturing. [1][2]

[1] https://newsroom.intel.com/de/intel-foundry/updates-intels-1...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...

Apparently, Fab 52 has started making stuff (1.8nm, High-NA EUV, Panther Lake), yet they're still in try-out and testing mode, and not really production. Working fab though. [3]

[3] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/in...

Wikipedia stuff listed looks kind of weird frankly. Seems like they send them all the way to Malaysia for packaging. Also, really severe difference between 22nm/14nm/10nm sites (9 different sites with at least one size, 4 with all three sizes) and 7nm/4nm/3nm/2nm/1.8nm/1.4nm. Nothing listed on 7nm, only 1 listed 4nm/3nm, 2nm got scrapped, only listing 1.8nm, and 1.4nm. They apparently moved a bunch of stuff around also to be more confusing. 10nm became Intel7 and 7nm became Intel4. [4]

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_nm_process#Expected_commerci...

Gururu's comment and the quoted text from the article seems like a reasonable possiblity for what's going on.

  "we’re developing Intel14A as a foundry node from the ground up in close partnership with large external customers. This is essential to designing a process that meets specific customer requirements and enables us to address a broader segment of the market. Going forward, our investment in Intel 14A will be based on confirmed customer commitments."

That could definitely read that Intel has some customers, and they just don't want to talk about them openly all that much. Lots of possible reasons, depending on who the customers are.

Other thing, personally, is that there's very little ability for "normal" people to request something being manufactured. And at least in part, that probably disincentivizes large customers. It's 1000's of millions of dollars, or it's nothing.

I can't really request a "couple" wafers, or 1000's of chips. Even if I know what I'm doing, and request "just lithography me something" because they require significant upfront Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) & IP integration costs to use Intel's RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery.

Except, even for big people, that's probably still daunting. You can't "try" something. Sign the $1000 million order, or go talk to somebody else. You can't do a "lets try a $million order, or $10 million order, and if we like it, maybe a $1000 million order."

I get that they don't want people to just steal their tech, with some cheapo order, and that below some amount, it's probably more work just trying to even load their files in the machine and print something (even if they know what they're doing). Yet it's probably still a disincentive.

Rumor mill places the wafer cost at $25,000-$30,000 / wafer [1] (which is a whole nother issue with the lack of transparent pricing, ref is a Twitter post...). However, being able to pay double(?, quad?, probably way more, 10x?) that and get a short run wafer would probably have a larger number willing to "try something". (even if it was, "we'll print what you send, and if it's broken and doesn't work, it's your fault").

[1] https://x.com/zyl19911/status/1876466680169414861

To be fair to Intel, TSMC is basically almost the same. If you're not Samsung / Nvidia scale, they probably don't want to talk with you.

Edit: Probably for my own reference. The short run stuff is usually referred to as Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) Shuttle Programs and Tower Semiconductor has a relatively well written site [2] describing the basic idea and requirements.

[2] https://towersemi.com/manufacturing/mpw-shuttle-program/

Looking through GlobalFoundries, Advanced Micro Foundry, Microchip Technology, and Tower (people that offer MWP), it's really difficult to find a site that lays out "what we expect from you", "what the base costs are", "what additional fees are", "what you can expect to receive".

Edit2: Actually, the MOSIS people [3] (out of University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering [4]) have a really cool site that shows all the various process design steps and lets you add and remove and create your own). [5]

[3] https://www.mosis2.com/

[4] https://www.isi.edu/

[5] https://www.mosis2.com/fab-service-explorer

After reading through the Shopify website, this story's confusing. This is kind of what Shopify advertises. Like, it's basically their service.

Initially read this, and thought they were some other retailer with quasi-direct sales, and Amazon was scraping, and then listing stuff like it was on Amazon. Yet, Shopify from [1] and [2]:

[1] https://www.shopify.com/marketing

[2] https://www.shopify.com/channels

Their spiel is "Unify your marketing ... all from one place." and then they go on to list Target, Walmart, eBay, and ... "Amazon". (also Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat) "Sell everywhere people scroll, search, and shop"

It's literally their business. That's what you pay them to do. "Sync your product catalog to the leading marketplaces, then easily manage and fulfill every order in one central place."

Couple things that are "maybe" honestly wrong. Maybe opted out of Amazon as a partner, inside Shopify? Also, inventory not actually being updated and communicated to Shopify / Amazon correctly?

The way this site reads it seems like you could find out you have some influencer spokesperson and your products are on Walmart shelves somewhere and not even realize it.

Don't know about the rest of the article, yet this part is insane sounding

  "reclusive chief executive, Kevin Rountree, of whom no public photographs exist, was named The Sunday Times “business person of the year".

The company has a £6,000,000,000 market cap, and the CEO was named business person of the year by The Sunday Times for FTSE 100 leadership. Operates a global gaming business with 1000's of employees, 570 stores, 7,000 independent retailers, dozens of official events, and probably 100's to 1000's of sponsored events. Subreddit with over 1 million members, and an estimated 2.4 million+ monthly visitors to community sites. Fans known to be kind of obsessive.

Nobody has ever photographed them. Ever.

No talks, no conferences, no presentations, no public appearances, no Q&A's, no recorded video conferences, no awards acceptances, ... nothing.

The CEO. Main executive management. Set company strategy. Managing operations. Serve as main link to the company. Drive company culture. Act as public face for the organization.

Nothing. No pictures.

Cool project, and at least with the New Yorker images there's such an enormous amount of diversity that there's actually quite a bit to compare against.

Also, just really cool to see quite how much diversity there has been in New Yorker front page images. Not actually that many archives that provide such a clear, easily viewable format just for browsing through all the art and looking at how the New Yorker has changed it's art style over time. Quite a few would probably qualify as "art" in and of themselves.

Also, some kind of neat discoveries while browsing through the archive. "Crazy, that looks like a Far Side ... wait, that's cause Gary Larson drew the cover." No idea Gary Larson did any magazine covers. [1]

[1] 2003-11-17, Gary Larson, https://shoplurker.com/labs/newyorker-covers/covers/2003/590...

Did something kind of similar a while back with Magic the Gathering cards, except it was using the Perceptual Hash from https://www.phash.org/ The visual clustering display (such as this example from 5th Edition [2]) I think is what some people are suggesting would be valuable. Provide an idea about "why" they're related.

[2] https://araesmojo-eng.github.io/araesmojo-html/images/Projec...

Been a long time (2018), yet pretty sure it was two dimensional "Image Feature Extraction" kinda of like this other example [3] with card colors collapsed to a single average color to give an idea of color pattern distribution.

[3] https://digitalsloan.com/project-blog/cbri

Boring answer. Your first case - testing for app development, web development, display variations, device feature variations.

A little bit of @hnburnsy's answer, with segmented logins and emails separated by phones with layered restoration so it's difficult to accidentally get bricked by having one system get malware, system faults, or other failures. Two-Factor Auth also gets separated around between devices.

At least one way to look at this is from generally agreed upon "world issues" [1], since the subject is "make the world a better place." Survey among the 8,000,000,000, and a large percent would agree that many are issues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_issues

Of those, ones that I personally think are actually meaningful, and less subject to opinion, tend to be mostly "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" [2] as a starting point for evaluation.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Basic needs that must be met for survival, and which significant portions of the population in many areas have difficulties with.

- air, water, food, heat, clothes, shelter, and sleep

Security needs to not be in a constant state of suffering and worry

- health security, personal security, emotional security, financial security

Of those listed on the article for "global issues" that then speak to many of those.

- poverty alleviation, malnutrition and lack of food / water access, waste (consumer waste, food waste, waste disposal, landfills, recycling, water pollution, air pollution), human rights (exploitation, abuse, enslavement, torture).

Of the climate change stuff, there's a lot that's unfortunately too easy to argue about. However, there's a few that maybe meet standards where large numbers would agree.

- desertification, ecosystem collapses, large scale biome losses / deforestation

Of a lot of the rest, unfortunately (also personal opinion) many are just too easy to argue about, and heavily dependent on where you're from, perspective, and relation to a group or area.

- terrorism, migration, democracy, big data (?), carbon, inclusiveness

Quite a few of the rest, I agree they're issues, just whether they reach the level of global critical / catastrophic issues? Many also seem to be issues that have recently gotten everybody's attention, yet there is suspiciously little mention of things like "lack of shelter / clothing access", "lack of heat sources", "sleep deprivation", "basic needs health care access"

Used to work in the government, and they had a Likelihood / Consequence Risk Matrix [3] for evaluating some of the flight and mission hazards. Most of the stuff listed personally rates somewhere up on the (Moderate, High, Very High) Likelihood / (Moderate, High, Very High) Consequence. Stuff that would almost always be Yellow to Red, and require mitigation actions or attempts. Many of the ones that don't meet my criteria tend to be too easy to fight about the Likelihood or the Consequence results. "Is 'Big Data for Sustainable Development' a near term Moderate+ likelihood / consequence?" Seems too easy to argue about to be on the United Nation's critical list of global issues.

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-023-00305-z/figures/2

Anyways, best attempt at providing advice on "make the world a better place." Frankly, think most people's work on Earth probably does not meet the criteria.

"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. On the sixth day of Hate Week... it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

“Big Brother is Watching You.”

> But this seems murky to me.

It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.

General survey of ferry prices in the 25+ meter range to give you an idea. Length number can be changed to filter for longer / shorter. There's 37 in the 25+ range, 19 in the 50+ range, and 11 in the 100+ range currently, although a few false positives on the keyword matches.

https://www.yachtworld.com/boats-for-sale/length-25/keyword-...

Needs verification on the normal user side of the experience. Like noted, unclear whether the ads are completely deleted, or just deleted from what regulators would return in search results.

Later part makes it sounds like the ads were at least deleted from the Japanese / Taiwan results areas completely, and then just redistributed to other geographic areas.

  "If an unverified advertiser is blocked from showing ads in Taiwan, for example, Meta will show those ads more frequently to users elsewhere, creating a whack-a-mole dynamic in which scam ads prohibited in one jurisdiction pop up in another."

However, still difficult to tell from the story what the experience of "normal" Japanese / Taiwan users is relative to what regulators view.

Notably, from a different article about fake accounts, and how much they cost, Japan's regulation seems to be working (at least somewhat). [1] Fake Accounts for Facebook Available (US, 157,401, @$0.13/account; Japan, 16, @$3.00/account, Dec 31st, 2025 data)

[1] https://cotsi.org/platforms?view=map&platform=fb

Much more reasonable then. Like noted earlier. Really horrible financial layout. Teeny text (btw, thousands)

Suspicion is you're correct, and is it's probably something like payments or money to developers who have games on the GOG platform. However, the definition in the document is kind of self referential.

"Cost of Sales" is 100% "Cost of goods for resale and materials sold"

and "The Cost of goods for resale and materials sold represents mainly the cost of sales of goods for resale and materials sold via the GOG.COM platform"

Kind of self referential. Everything else is in the CD PROJEKT RED group (Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges).

If your suspicion is correct then that would also imply that historical games are either almost always the same 70/30, or GOG is not really making that much on "historical" games (ie, most of the money is recent indie releases). And, kind of implied that they're not really selling that much. At maybe 10 EUR average, that's only like 1000 games a quarter.

Notably, its really difficult to find anything other than an online article that actually talks about the 70/30 split situation. Google links to Wikipedia for evidence that then links to a 2013 Engadget article. Nothing appears to actually spell out the financial terms on GOG's actual site.

If you happen to know where that type of legalese is on the GOG site, that would actually a helpful ref.

Standard reply.

In the most recent tax filing season data available (2024), there were tax returns of:

                                        Top 1%       Top 5%      Top 10%       Top 25%       Top 50%   Bottom 50%  All Taxpayers
  Number of Returns                  1,535,899    7,679,495   15,358,991    38,397,477    76,794,954   76,794,954    153,589,908
  Average Income Taxes Paid           $653,730     $187,468     $108,251       $50,963       $27,891         $667        $14,279 
  Adjusted Gross Income (Millions)  $3,872,395   $6,182,180   $7,745,525   $10,613,602   $13,191,209   $1,531,038    $14,722,247

If we then break those into the actual groups, and numbers per group, then we find their Average Per Capita Income

                                             1          2-5         6-10        11-25        26-50       51-100
  Number of Returns                  1,535,899    6,143,596    7,679,496   23,038,486   38,397,477   76,794,954
  Income Taxes Paid (Millions)      $1,004,063     $435,594     $222,966     $294,234     $185,068      $51,225 
  Adjusted Gross Income (Millions)  $3,872,395   $2,309,785   $1,563,345   $2,868,077   $2,577,607   $1,531,038 
  Average Tax Rate                       25.9%        18.9%        14.3%        10.3%         7.2%         3.3%
  Average Per Capita Income      $2,521,256.28  $375,966.29  $203,573.91  $124,490.69   $67,129.59   $19,936.70

Numbers slightly differ from 2024 IRS Data Book that was published later. 161 million total returns, 2.7T vs 2.2T. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf

From those numbers, being generous with the $100,000 to $200,000 return category, I get 16.6% (26.8M / 161M) made more than $150,000

Cost of Sales is eating them alive.

They lose ~72% of every PLN/EUR/USD they bring in. Their financial statement is Really confusingly laid out. However, pg 36 has comparison. GOG is actually not THAT tiny of a segment (percentage-wise, absolute EUR / PLN numbers are still small). 49k PLN / 300k PLN for the CD PROJEKT Red and 350k total.

Compared to CD PROJEKT RED, insanely horrible cost of sales ratio.

July 1st, 2025 to Sept. 30th, 2025 (Numbers are in PLN, directly from document)

                 CD PROJEKT RED     GOG.COM
  Sales revenue         303,133      48,982
  Cost of sales          23,310      35,151

January 1st, 2025 to Sept. 30th, 2025 (Numbers are in PLN, directly from document)

                 CD PROJEKT RED     GOG.COM
  Sales revenue         658,575     143,285
  Cost of sales          61,307     103,075

PLN numbers can be verified (GOG quarterly is really on the order of 10,000 EUR) by looking at pages 30-31 with export sales summaries.

For comparison to the 72% ratio, their main video game creation business spends 7-8% on cost of sales.

From page 8 "Selling expenses represents costs of marketing activities relating to the GOG.COM platform and the work on the development and processing of sales executed through that platform."

From some of the rest of the document, it seems like "maybe" some of that is prepayments and costs related to providing the software.

Personal view, while it may be beneficial to not have to deal with GOG from an operational perspective, a significant percentage of sales are on the platform for their own software, and CD PROJEKT's title releases heavily influence sales figures on GOG, so it may end up limiting themselves from an otherwise beneficial distribution channel. Probably provides better negotiating position also if you're trying to barter with Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Valve, ect... However, if the partnership continues with the next owners, may not be an issue.

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. After investigation, the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

Also,

Tۜۜۜۜۜeۢۢۢۢۢsۛۛۛۛۛtۙۙۙۙۙiۚۚۚۚۚnۨۨۨۨۨg۫۫۫۫۫

T◌ۜ◌ۜ◌ۜ◌ۜ◌ۜe◌ۢ◌ۢ◌ۢ◌ۢ◌ۢs◌ۛ◌ۛ◌ۛ◌ۛ◌ۛt◌ۙ◌ۙ◌ۙ◌ۙ◌ۙi◌ۚ◌ۚ◌ۚ◌ۚ◌n◌ۨ◌ۨ◌ۨ◌ۨ◌g◌۫◌۫◌۫◌۫◌۫◌

|ۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗۗ|ۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘۘ|ۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙۙ|ۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚۚ|ۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛۛ|ۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜۜ|۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟۟|۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠۠|ۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡۡ|ۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢۢ|ۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧۧ|ۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨۨ|۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫۫|۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬۬|ۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤۤ.

Tۜۜۜۜۜeۢۢۢۢۢsۛۛۛۛۛtۙۙۙۙۙiۚۚۚۚۚnۨۨۨۨۨg۫۫۫۫۫

Author's specific examples: Aۜۢۛۜۢۛۜۢۛۜۢۛۜۢۛ Bۙۚۨ۫ۙۚۨ۫ۙۚۨ۫ۙۚۨ۫ Cۣۣۣۣۣۣۣۭۭۭۭۭۭۭ Dۣۭۣۭۣۭۣۭۣۭۜۢۜۢۜۢۜۢۜۢ

Further Tॅॅॅॅॅeॆॆॆॆॆsेेेेेtैैैैैiॉॉॉॉॉnँँँँँgॄॄॄॄॄ with oೄೄೄೄೄtೋೋೋೋೋhೌೌೌೌೌe్్్్్rඃඃඃඃඃ lិីឹឺុូួើឿៀេែៃោៅំះៈ៉៊់៌៍៎៏័៑្៓aᢅᢅᢅᢅᢅᢆᢆᢆᢆᢆn଼ାିୀୁୂୃେୈୋୌ୍ୖୗg֒ ֓ ֔ ֕ ֖ ֗ ֘ ֙ ֚ ֛ ֜ ֝ ֞ ֟ ֠ ֡ ֣ ֤ ֥ ֦ ֧ ֨ ֩ ֪ ֫ ֬ ֭ ֮ ֯ ְ ֱ ֲ ֳ ִ ֵ ֶ ַ ָ ֹ ֻ ּ ֽuﬞ ﬞ ﬞ ﬞages .

Now attempts with superscript A Bⷠⷡⷢⷣⷤⷥⷦⷧⷨⷩⷪⷫⷬⷭⷮⷯⷰⷱⷲⷳⷴⷵⷶⷷⷸⷹⷺⷻⷼⷽⷾⷿꙴꙵꙶꙷꙸꙹꙺꙻꚞꚟ Cꙷꙷꙷꙷꙷꙷꙷ Dⷶⷠⷡⷢⷣⷷⷤⷥⷦⷧⷨⷩⷪⷫⷬⷭⷮⷯⷰⷱⷲⷳⷻ E F G H (Some kind of work, U+32x thru U+34x were E-G, U+20Dx was H, work on websites, just won't copy/paste to forum)

Edit: Apparently, you cannot write direct html entities.

Edit: And you cannot directly write the characters either. Rendering seems rather finicky on Firefox, while Chrome seems somewhat consistent.

Actually, on Chrome, copying the characters directly "kind of" worked. They're still shown next to each other, yet some of them combined and actually created towers.

Writing the HTML entities on a private webpage and then copying them over seemed to work the best.

Edit: Apparently, at least some of the Devanagari unicode behaves similarly.

Edit: Several other languages combining marks taken from https://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~richard/unicode-sample-3-2.html and https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/category/Mn seem to also work.

After further testing, Both browsers are really finicky, and have wildly different interpretations of pasting combining characters directly, vs writing HTML entities, vs copying the combined stack from an existing site.

I find it difficult to read "hand-rolled paper trading solution" without thinking toilet paper. "focus on strategies that prevents heavy losses"

I donno, I think I kind of like somebody else's skill objective about trying out shitposting. It's the age deucine (credit @naasking).

That's a very specific skill development. I'd ask why Forth, yet guess because "must be beautiful"?

Seems like kind of strange / yet somewhat appropriate choice since Forth "traditionally use neither operating system nor file system." and "A full-featured Forth system with all source code will compile itself". Bootstrap your own operating system on a computer with literally nothing.

Interesting to read about though as a tangent, very different kind of language. "grammar has no official specification" "looks the word up in the dictionary" and then does whatever the dictionary specifies.

Good luck on the project though, seems like it fell out of use in the 80's and only got recovered recently. The Forth Interest Group comments on the subject are funny too. [1] "What ANS Forths are available?" -> "The simple answer is: none" Apparently somebody (Vincent Hamp) got it to work on Thumb-2 ISA (ARMv7-M and newer) though. Tiny. 7kb flash, 320B of ram. [2]

[1] https://www.forth.org/ansforth/ansforth.html

[2] https://gitlab.com/higaski/Shi

From research on a comment in another area, the European Union at least says "no" on the toy claim. Things in the EU "not considered as toys". [Directive 2009/48/EC, Annex 1] 14. "Electronic equipment, such as personal computers and game consoles, used to access interactive software"

[Directive 2009/48/EC, Annex 1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...

Only exception is stuff that's kind of a "specially designed personal computer" meant to "have a play value on their own".

Weirdly, even specially designed console like a Switch, Playstation, or XBox are not really legally a "toy" in the EU.

Had to look up the rules on bows and arrows in the European Union when I got to [4.17.4] Bows and arrows. "bows offered for sale with arrows are to be considered as toys" Wait. What? Like, all bows and arrows?

[4.17.4] https://law.resource.org/pub/eu/toys/en.71.1.2014.html#s4.17...

Took a bit to find, yet eventually [Directive 2009/48/EC, Annex 1] "List of products that, in particular, are not considered as toys"

9. "bows for archery over 120 cm long"

[Directive 2009/48/EC, Annex 1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...

Pfew. Not, quite that crazy.

Since you're from the "local" area (Belgium), do you happen to know why the numbers have declined over the years? From this article [1] it seemed like it was hugely popular pre-WWII (3,750) with that article quoting 500 in the modern era.

Less acceptable currently, other alternatives? Still seems famous and popular, just not quite as much as it used to be.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geel#A_model_of_psychiatric_ca...

We have those around our town in a bunch of neighborhoods. Not sure on the usage rates, yet thought they were a pretty cool idea when I saw them, and they seem to always have books available (ie, not like they're just being taken and emptied)

The "terribly sad" part doesn't seem like it really got enough. 3,000 direct losses, and 7,000 with projected secondary / tertiary losses is pretty devastating in a town of 11,000.

There's jobs in the local area. At 50 miles nebraska.gov Jobs has ~2,500 [1], Indeed has ~1,000 [2], and ZipRecruiter has ~500 [3]. However, not many that a Tyson Food cattle worker can probably easily qualify for. Most tend to be at least somewhat specialized, and quite a few that require something like nursing, healthcare, education, or otherwise.

American Foods Group LLC in Kearney, NE apparently at least has jobs that are related "Beef Production, $19.65 - $26.00, 4500 employees, process 4 million pounds of beef a day". [4] Looks like maybe the best available in the area.

Still, even if several thousand leave, that's still a pretty enormous hit on 11,000. Lose a 1/4 - 1/2 your population in a couple months or so.

[1] https://neworks.nebraska.gov/vosnet/jobbanks/joblist.aspx?en...

[2] https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=Lexington%2C+NE&radius=50&s...

[3] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/jobs-search?search=&location=Le...

[4] https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=30014a5bd9219934&from=shar...

> ranchers have an incentive to sell off their cattle now to capture those soaring profits

This part seems like the main part of the article. They're looking at huge sales returns and relatively low feed costs that just dropped a bunch (since 2022-2023 highs) and want to rake in the money.

Pretty much that economist quote "'Do I sell that animal now and take this record high check?' 'do I keep her to realize her returns over her productive life when she’s having calves?’ 'so far the side that’s been winning is to sell her and get the check.'"

Personally, wonder whether they're actually going to bother with more herd. The low prices possibly incentivize selling high cost cows at low feed prices and raking in as much as they can before the prices go down.

And it all seems nonsensical, since cattle herds have been going down in size pretty much continuously since 2000 [1] while prices have been going up almost continuously except for 2015-2020 [2] (which is notably when herd sizes actually went UP). So when prices go down, herd sizes go up. People don't try have have more cows to make more money, they just sell the cows now.

[1] https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2025/07-25-2025.php

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LE%3DF/

Admittedly, the food thing generally is kind of BS anyways about the drought and otherwise. The drought was probably an issue (prices went up during 2022-2023), yet Hay is still pretty much on the same linear trend it's been on since 1970. [3] Alfalfa Hay also went up locally in 2022-2023, yet dropped back to normal trends relatively quickly after (basically almost the same linear up since 1970). [4] It matters, it just doesn't seem to matter that much.

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU0181

[4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01810101

Cattle sales prices keep rising, farmers keep selling, rather than betting on long-term elevated prices and large herd sales.

EDIT: Consideration after, think it all seems nonsense, cause if this was gambling, then usually the response would be to double down, add more money, or similar if a player was raking in money at the table. If the table turned against them, and they got poor returns, then usually they'd walk away, or find a different table. Instead, they're "winning" and getting huge sales prices, so they ... have less cows?

This entire article sounds suspiciously familiar. Like CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) / CDS (Credit Default Swap) 2.0. They're even using the "squared" terminology again.

The article's available at: https://archive.ph/mQzlF

Lets take a bunch of sketchy investments, package them into difficult to comprehend risk packages, sell ourselves dividends and fees based on debt loading, and then try to shuffle them off to somebody.

Except now, apparently the debts and the equity available look sketchy enough, that it's turning into "continuation vehicles". Nobody external will actually buy the private equity that's for sale. Backlog of 31,000 companies and interest rates that make all the debt look bad.

So make a different fund and sell the old equity to the new fund. Basically selling themselves their own companies and then pulling in new investors based on rewriting the valuation. The "squared" is doing that again and again with all their held equity.

In the example provided, Clearlake bought Wheel Pros at $420 million in 2018, and then sold it to themselves at $2300 million in 2021. Meanwhile, they loaded on debt and went on a buying spree "buy(ing) up almost every competitor that made accessories for the wheels of cars and trucks". Shiny hubcap market crashed and Wheel Pros went bankrupt.

There's "supposed" to be external independent review of the valuation, yet obviously that's not happening the way it's supposed to all the time. Another example provided, Energy & Minerals Group, "forced investors to vote on the sale on short notice, provided different data to different investors and would not allow the investors to confer with each other about the deal. (how that's even enforced)"

Looks super sketchy, and agree with the people from the Alaska Permanent Fund and Texas Teachers Retirement.

Cigarette companies (no surprise) are known to do a similar type of price fixing, although in their case it's targeting high-income shoppers for lack of discounts.

Noticed it a while locally, and national data agrees. If you want to shop for cigarettes, shop in low income, minority areas. [1] Cigarette companies specifically target stores with regular, habitual, high-income smokers for high prices and lack of discounts, while offering significant bargains in stores less than a mile away. [2]

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6689253/

[2] https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-indus...

It's almost like they learned nothing over 100 years other than how to hide their behavior better.

- And, thanks for the reference on the book. Never seen it before, yet not very surprising it looks pretty much like the Gilded Age with '"robber barons" who's fortunes were made at the expense of the working class, by chicanery and betrayal of democracy.'

The TURD acronym (Truncate, Update, Read, Delete) will become popular for taking anything human made, removing all the actual human part, consuming, and then dumping.