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. If there wasn’t some conflated or exaggerated reason easily at hand, those directors in charge of approving the proposal would just say force majeure (covid) supply chain inflation OR knowingly avoid ever pressing a supplier to reduce their inflated margins. They knew they could present a component supplier’s price as a reason to cover their arbitrary and all the downstream suppliers’ arbitrary price increases. I never saw the gov (DCMA or DCAA- paper tigers) extract any meaningful price concessions. There were good people working there, but it was clear they were there only to prevent the grossest malfeasance in production, not any contractual price gouging. The whole supply chain was just a 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.

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

Just a warning on MS email services. I stopped paying for OneDrive and the DAY my sub expired they stopped allowing me to receive or send emails on my linked Outlook and Hotmail email addresses. Not sure whether this same policy applies to stand alone legacy Hotmail accounts, but it’s the same company running the service.

In terms of which company I detest more: I think it’s still Microsoft hands down. At least Google doesn’t suspend send / receive if you stop paying. MS is a dumpster fire of tax evasion, monopoly, and predatory behavior.

Yes it happened. But for US Navy fanboys to be cheering this on and gloating is laughable. How about the Bonhomme Richard burning IN SAN DIEGO harbor? How about the loss of the USS Thresher? Blatant hypocrisy and attribution bias to say Chinese corruption and incompetence is at fault for the sinking of the sub, yet attribute no malice or incompetence to the US losses.

Oh and not to mention FAT LEONARD?!

Come on. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

(And I’m a US mil veteran who isn’t a fan of the CPC)

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.

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.”

Wow that’s true, what a crock.

USAA strikes me as the most Wonder bread Texas Aw Shucks company that smiles to your face while outsourcing as much as possible (and stabbing you in the back in the process). Case in point. USAA only allows TOTP through Symantec’s proprietary app. I’m moving everything away from them except for auto insurance (which will likely go away at some point too as they’re not really that valuable for that anymore either).

I wish I could believe this but too many of my family and friends have allowed themselves to be so badly propagandized by Fox and the like that they refuse to even consider voting for anyone but the christofascist death cult. They willingly suspend disbelief for their mindless satisfaction of “but I will never vote to be like California”, “socialism is evil”, etc. I believe they are irredeemable. Maybe I’m a bit too George Carlin nihilistic to think we survive this…or it allows me to cope.

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Yet

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.