bloomingeek

My motto has always been: "Don't let your car or your doctor get too old, they'll both kill you." Doesn't exactly apply to this case, but the idea is you have to trust something, so you must err on the side of caution.

I know a thousand more things about cars then I will ever know about doctoring, which scares the hell out of me.

Fine, put up or shut up. Post some proof.(About WD-40, not slippery things.)

<Servant leadership works really well when you have high agency individuals, and can grow high agency individuals. I have definitely been on the other side of that with control freak Machiavellian / nearly adversarial leaders as well.>

This. Every time I've lead people, IF they were already or were able to become high agency, we were efficient and capable. Control freak managers were usually guilty of what they obsessed over before they became managers. Good workers always leave bad managers in time, which always hurts the company.

It's basically the same for our automobiles, just try to disable the "phone home" parts connected to the fin on the roof. Do we really own out cars if we can't stop the manufacturer from telling us we need to change our oil through email?

Love it, Samuel L and pre-Newman in the same scene! (Well, almost.)

Excellent article! I think another take away is that we should all take a class on electrical wiring safety. Wiring is fun and very interesting, but can be very dangerous. Classes and the literature that comes with it are invaluable. However, Youtube and the literature will only take you so far, safety wise. (I'm not affiliated with any tech school, I learned by being in the trades under the guidance of trained electricians, with test stands and real life testing.)

I'll bite on this one. I've been saying to anyone who will listen here in the states: my generation, the Boomers, needs to die out and/or get the hell out of the way. We're trashing almost everything because of a cult of hero worship.

Here in the states, when we moved into our house that was built in the late 60's, every room had a phone jack. The exterior of the house had cabling strung onto the back and one side with lines installed, through the brick, into the separate rooms. There was also a line or two in the attic. Sometime in the early 90's, after I fired Southwestern Bell, I striped away all the wiring. Two of out kids had new homes built, both were wired with Ethernet cable only for communication.

<I can’t stress enough how much we love our phone sockets. It’s not uncommon to have a one bed flat with 2 phone sockets in the living room and 2 phone sockets in the bedroom and a master socket in the technical room. It’s ridiculous.>

My wife and I rented a flat in Amsterdam a few years ago. I noticed that there was a phone jack in the water heater room, which I thought was strange. Now I know. (I was looking for the broom, BTW.)

Not sure if this would fit the bill for you, but I really like it:

96GB Mp3 Player with Bluetooth 5.0 - Aiworth Portable Digital Lossless Music MP3 MP4 Player for Kids with FM Radio HD Speaker for Sports Running Super Light Metal Shell Touch Buttons (Actual Amazon description)

The "touch screen" is only for moving around the menu. The menu is easy to remember. Sound quality is really good and it takes a mini SD card. Right now, $40.

I'm kind of this way also. My work motto was always: "Be the best worker and you'll always have a job." This was easy, because I was always curious about how things worked and didn't mind helping others. In my thirties, while training for a new position, I thanked my trainer for his help and he told me: "You seem willing to work and now I won't have to do your job for you." That simple statement changed how I thought about coworkers. Gradually, I became less helpful to the ones who thought it was a good idea for me to do their job with/for them.

<And the most successful parasites are always those which can alter their host environment to be more amenable to themselves, and if you’re a parasite taking the form of a bad idea, that means hijacking your host’s rationality.>

After reading this, I thought, damn he just described the current administration. Then I kept reading and saw:

<It all led, inexorably, to Trump.>

Yeah(!), I think I'm gonna bookmark that site and reread it a few more times.

How dare you!

We bought our first minivan in 1998, a Ford Windstar. It was purchased to run our teenagers to activities, but I quickly fell in love with all the other things it could do, including what you've mentioned above. We put a ton of miles on it before trading it in. Next was a 2007 Town and Country with two sliding doors! By this time we were running grandkids and it was perfect.

After deciding to replace it, we struggled to decide what kind of vehicle to upgrade to. For our lifestyle and the side projects I like to do, another minivan was the obvious choice. Now it's a 2018 Pacifica and we're retired. The quality is outstanding, with 112K miles on it, I expect to put on another 100K before seeing what's available for the next upgrade. None of these vans ever gave us any engine or transmission trouble, despite the high number of miles I was able to put on them.

<If they should be motivated by doing the decent thing, why mention tenfold praise?>

Not that most corporations care, being trashed for decisions that hurt their consumers is run of the mill these days. Companies that get praise from their customers tend to stay in business and sell lots of product.

<I don't see why not. They see that good behavior gives a better outcome. They'll do good behavior in the future.>

Reluctantly improving means they were either going to or already screwed their customers. Companies that admit mistakes are praised. To think that a company who is called out will in the future continue to do good for consumer decisions is a little naive.

<"You didn't inherently make the right choice, so even the right choice you made is actually bad" is just... really, really childish.>

Please explain.

In my ideal world, corporate responsibility is a must. Making junk products or killing product updates because they can't sell you the updated version is irresponsible. They listened to feedback because they know their products are overpriced for the market, so they decided to do the right thing, but only after they were called out. That's backwards. Corporations don't know the meaning of nice, only money.

And therein lies the fault, they only do "good" because they were made to do it. Rewarding them for "reluctantly" improving won't change their bad behavior. They should improve because it's the decent thing to do. By doing the decent thing, the praise would have been tenfold, which is the best incentive. (I do appreciate your comment because most companies do live in a moral vacuum.)

My guess, they were afraid to ruffle the feathers of their higher-ups. Yes, that's moronic, but this is the world we can find ourselves in IF the bosses are egotistical kingdom makers.

Excellent work.

I think the author is trying to say in today's world we face a sort of moral/societal vacuum of privacy. The more we try to remain private, whether by being an open book or by some type of digital way, it's basically futile or will eventually be broken.

My spin, as a recovering perfectionist, is when you've done everything you can to be "innocent" and the political or whatever wind changes, the pit of despair is a real and devastating thing. When this happens, sometimes the decisions that are made are desperate.

<I am just the properly paranoid type in part due to a good upbringing by a properly paranoid person.>

I say you've properly got your eyes open. Anyone who thinks anything you do online is completely private is naive. IF any government wants to know what you've been up to online, nothing can stop them. Privacy is a thing of the past, we should vote only for politicians who say they want the government out of our backyards, banks and bedroom. Oops, too late!

Monsanto has muddied the waters on many studies and was caught. They are currently involved in many lawsuits and have lost most.

Most modern home AC systems have, as a rule of thumb, ten percent fresh air intake. This varies, depending on the home size and state and local codes. On my home the fresh air vent is high up in my attic, which should protect me from over spraying of chemicals. However, if you have a window unit or an on ground system this will affect your exposure.

In an effort to save money, some will close their fresh air vent, this is not recommended because of the lack of air trade out in the system.

<indiscriminate spraying from the air>

As a city dweller, I used to use Roundup along my fence line. Then I read an article in a newspaper about spraying chemicals when there is a breeze. So I read the label on the Roundup bottle and it said absolutely do not spray in any windy conditions. Next I polled my coworkers about this and they all said they just stay upwind!

The bottle label also said Roundup is active for up to 30 days, then I thought about my dogs. I no longer use any chemical for lawn care.

As to the plight of the farmers: I wonder if most of them bothered to used proper personal protection gear when spraying? Even if they had enclosed cabs, the chemical would still coat the tractor and tank surfaces which can be rubbed against at any time.

If corporations are considered "legal persons", when they break the law, should they go to jail? If a corporation was forced to shut down because of law breaking, which would be a terrible burden to the workers and the customers, would that lead to corporations becoming more responsible "persons"?

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-...

LMAO!

So true! A little over fifty percent of the rat population would rather watch fox news and spend more time oiling up those weapons for when "it hits the fan".

Your response, to me, is profound. I've lived in a deeply red voting state (OK) all my life. I never could understand how voters could vote against their best interests and to the harm of others. Perhaps your "sub-optimal psychology in play" is a reasonable answer.

You sir, should write a book. (Yours is the best interpretation of MAHA I've heard yet.)

We also have a bad case of idol worship.