redserk

I’m not disputing that Congress can cede power to the Executive Branch. Rulemaking and regulatory agencies like the FTC and FCC are great examples of this.

I will argue that the inconsistency in the Supreme Court’s rulings are creating an environment where some independent agencies will receive special consideration based on their function. This sets up an environment where Congress loses out on the collaborative benefits and safeguards of independent agencies in favor of the courts further empowering the Executive.

Incorrect.

The FTC is not simply under the executive branch, it’s defined to be an independent agency.

The handling of the Federal Reserve and the FTC cases are creating a very interesting situation for how agencies can be defined by Congress.

After graduating college I joined a company that paid generally below-market for everyone and had a significant number of H-1B employees and contractors.

The benefits were legendary but the pay was 20-30% lower than what was around.

I don’t have evidence of wrongdoing but I’ve occasionally wondered if it was some kind of scheme.

Fortunately laws aren’t limited to be exclusive to large business interests and, at least occasionally, can be drafted with intent to benefit consumers in a market.

How is being subject to a double-digit tariff on devices sold to American consumers — one of Apple’s most critical markets — in the best interest of shareholders?

And actually, I’m now forgetting if those tariffs are in play on phones again or not because of how chaotically the tariffs have been applied. I can’t be the only one losing track.

Let’s assume the tariffs are in play though. Apple now has to perform some combination of:

- reduce margins on devices sold in the US

- move manufacturing to a lower-tariffed country

- raise prices to offset tariffs

All of these impose unnecessary costs to the company compared to 9 months ago and risk alienating their consumer base. How is this to the benefit of shareholders?

The old “book smart vs street smart” rings loudly.

I completely disagree with much of what the Trump Administration is pushing, but they seemed to execute on the “street smarts” while policy wonks and others who want to analyze are preoccupied discussing policy.

Frankly it’s embarrassing how gullible and easily tricked much of the intellectual class is.

I don’t think I’ve had a counterfeit good come in, but the number of times I’ve heard about it led me to start going to other retailers for things I wanted guarantees on: cleaning products, personal hygiene items, and expensive electronics/accessories.

Amusingly after that, I saw I could get nearly everything else off AliExpress for cheaper. My usage of Amazon practically evaporated.

If you’re going to spend the effort to rewrite your chat conversations back into email, you might as well throw those summaries into a wiki or other documentation system..

I think you could probably whip something very basic and crude up with fzf and the “—-preview” flag

Sentry mode doesn’t record audio.

I’d be willing to bet they would take privacy protections a bit more seriously.

At this point I wouldn’t rely on PiHole DNS logs alone. You’d need to check network traffic from the device in general, it could use DoT/DoH.

And I suppose there’s the even-creeper Amazon Sidewalk: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

I hate sounding like I’m wearing a foil hat but there are a lot of easy ways to get around trying to neuter smart devices now.

How is this practical advice in a thread where someone mentions that the clampdown happened without notice?

The "shoulda done..." advice isn't useful in the slightest, and I'd argue is malicious with how often it's done simply to satiate a poster's ego.

You can save a lot of money on random stuff from Temu/Aliexpress compared to Amazon. In my experience, often times going to be the same exact item.

Bags, odds and ends around the house, component assortments, screw assortments, and some tools (with careful judgement).

Sometimes the difference is only 1/3rd the cost, but I’ve had some items be 1/20th the cost by removing Amazon and whichever third party seller.

There is no evidence anecdotal or otherwise to back this assertion.

Many stores near me appeared to cut cashiers before they added self-checkouts. If anything, adding self-checkouts increased the number of available options to get out of the store faster.

I'd place my bets on curbside pickup getting pushed more before cashiers get added given how popular it's become as an option.

“Europe” isn’t some homogenous system.

What?

Neither will the majority of hobbies for self-enrichment.

It isn’t unreasonable to want some alone time.

In a completely isolated bubble I’d be inclined to agree that scientific research might not do so badly, but the current set of politics completely rejects generally-accepted scientific norms.

After all, why bother doing research when the guy ultimately responsible for choosing your funding will take a sharpie to any data you collect if it looks bad?

Subtle Elixir/Erlang advocacy here.

I don't think our system of separation of powers was designed with the modern political party system we currently have in mind.

I’m satisfied with the very subtle AI implementations in their products.

Take the Photos app. I can type any object like “car” and it generally locates photos containing a car. This is far more useful to me than a LLM to generate paragraphs of text on a phone.

Big tech has been ignored for quite some time compared to other industries.

I’d own a lot less stuff if there were more opportunities to rent infrequently used items.

As it stands, I have a workshop and electronics bench with many tools that will go unused for years but are critical when I need them and too expensive to buy and throw away.

I love that Hurricane Electric provides this service but I found a few video streaming sites ended up blocking it last I tried a couple years ago.

That said, if it isn’t blocked for the services you use, I found it pretty straightforward to use.

I think it is worth calling out how expensive it can be to go out and do things now though.

$10-12 beers and $15 cocktails gets expensive over a few weekends.

Also the lack of factoring in the current cultural backlash.

Lots of free data was available because nobody cared or knew it was being used as training data a few years ago.

But now? Why publish a side project on GitHub if the current marketing for AI is effectively “we will use this to eliminate your job”?

I’ve noticed an increased interest in keeping side projects private in my circles.

Intelligence also shouldn't be assumed to cross between disciplines either.

Being able to code isn't the end-all-be-all skillset the industry likes to pretend it is.

I think this would rely on an assumption that there is always supply available to draw on.

At some point there is no supply to alleviate the problem. Some effects may be dampened by new ride share drivers signing up, but even then, not everyone wants to be a driver regardless of compensation.

I don’t know of a good approach to free-market around a supply limitation in the short-term.

At some point the question is: "Do we trust the employee we've had on the books for the last few years".

Fortunately, the mid-sized places I've been at generally trust the employee's story when it comes to expenses -- at least unless it becomes a pattern.

If my workplace took the hotel's side for a bogus charge, I'm not sure I'd want to stay working there...