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I’m skeptical of this point. Growing up Baptist, I was taught that temptation itself is not a sin because Christ was sinless and he was tempted in the desert by the devil.

“Manage to live”? Is that the standard for the richest country in the history of humanity? That’s some short sighted thinking. Are those “managing to live” saving for retirement? Can they see a doctor? Can they afford to have children?

As for moving to a cheaper place… their jobs are in the city. That’s why they live there to begin with.

Have you missed the inflation crises? Have you missed the absolute fleecing of the middle class due to stagnant wages? Have you missed the student debt crisis? Have you missed the disinvestment in black and brown communities? Have you missed the ramshackle, near collapse of public transit and other infrastructure? Have you missed the teacher/police/fire/EMT/911 operator shortage? Have you missed the homelessnesss/housing crises?

What city have you been living in?

Just grab a bottle of 5HTP from your local upscale supermarket and you’ll be fine.

“EV sales” includes plug in hybrids. I’m a big proponent of plug in hybrids as a good transition vehicle for those not willing / able to to full EV, but they should be reported separately.

Absolutely right. The fact that it even got a full trial shows there are legal questions here.

You can't sue someone for mimicking someone else's voice well enough to be confused for the mimicked creator's voice. Some people can do some voices quite well.

Oh you most certainly can. In fact, you can sue someone for sounding too much like himself. Just ask John Fogerty.

I doubt they have the storage for all those discs. Won’t they just let everyone keep them?

The agreement outlines that 35% of that local portion that is returned to Cupertino is handed by the city to Apple—to the tune of $107.7 million since 1998. California took notice and launched an audit.

So $4m a year?

The Adopted Budget is budgeted at $130,587,325 and is funded by $130,244,157 in revenue.

So taxpayers are “missing out” on 3% of their budget in exchange for 65% of 1% of Apple’s online sales in California. How much does the city get in return for this deal? And, wouldn’t Apple just choose somewhere else to direct the funds otherwise?

Apple has to choose where to allocate the tax funds. That’s the law. That Cupertino offered the best deal for them is a quirk of the law, not a shady deal by Apple. As well: their headquarters are located there. It’s not like they shopped around for the best kickback deal by allocating it to some little town on the coast.

Cupertino is facing a 73% reduction in local tax revenue. California is taking issue with the agreement and examining the extent to which the California purchases attributed to Cupertino are proper.

Err, what? There’s some math here there doesn’t add up. Did the article mean to say that Apple has contributed $107m per year since 1998 — so $2.6b? If so, Cupertino is facing a 96% reduction not 73%.

I must be missing something here. Could someone point me in the direction of the right math?

They were able to rebuild… because the US funded it.

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent.

That’s about $187B in 2022 dollars. In addition to technology and trade.

… followed shortly after Breton Woods, which secured trade for the rest of the world in exchange for not joining up with the Soviets.

The EU is pushing for (has already ratified?) rules against even pre-installing Apple apps, or at least making it easy to remove them. I’m certain that Apple, who sells their phones directly, will be able to keep the carrier bloat at bay.

But I also share that concern. It’s one reason I don’t use android as a daily driver.

It seems like everyone in these discussions sees only two worlds: lawless hellscape of intrusive, data-stealing apps that permit freedom or “walled garden” of good apps that restrict it and users’ freedom. The truth, as always, is already somewhere in between. And it will be after iOS 17.

Let’s see how Apple innovates in this space. It’s time. The iPhone is 16 years old this year. Time to users get behind the wheel if they want to.

There is an entire genre (vaporwave) that is rooted in sampling stuff like this. It’s a treasure trove.

Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason.

Also, navigable waterways. Transporting goods by water costs 1/100th what it costs to transport over land. After the US established a corp of engineers to dredge our waterways to make them passable, the ability to transport goods increased substantially, making internal trade extremely cheap.

And we treat them, for that hard work and entrepreneurial spirit quite terribly. As a native born American I’ve been appalled at the mistreatment of H1B workers, and even those on other more “generous” employment terms.

Some of the brightest, hardest working and genuinely wonderful people I’ve worked with have practically crawled over hot coals to get here. They are indeed a source of the United States’ economic dynamism and we would do well to treat them well if we intend to maintain that dynamism.

Not if they are totalitarian and have plans to invade a sovereign nation it borders.

You cannot ignore the values of these states in this discussion.

Many eyes have been batted over Russia’s erratic leadership. One one extended instance was called The Cold War.

As for China, if you can’t hear the war drums being beat over the threat to Taiwan, get your hearing checked.

Sounds like Lukas is aromantic and asexual, which doesn’t preclude having meaningful friendships with any gender.

I’m a huge EV fan. My family has owned four over the past 6 years.

That pedigree out of the way, I’ll give my cynical take: this will get rolled back by President DeSantis in a hot fucking minute.

They are lending their brand to Bookshop.org, which profits also from selling books (that’s how they can afford to stay in business).

I’m a big fan of Bookshop. I just wish they could break into the DRM free epub business. Libro.fm managed to get into the DRM free audiobook business somehow.

The Rosenhan experiment is now widely believed to have been a hoax.

A new plant costs like $10B. We could build 8 of them if we got back what was stolen from the Paycheck Protection Program.

How do you know the union workers wont get those benefits if a contract hasn’t been signed?

There is nothing stopping companies from offering the same benefits to union employees that non-union employees are getting.

Sure, but it could be construed as promising benefits to employees to discourage their union support, which violates the NLRA [0] and indeed was cited by Merck, Sharp & Dohme Corp. in the dispute against them back in 2019 [1]. No company with a sane legal department would treat a counterparty differently than the contract stipulates, even if such a treatment could be considered 'preferential.' The legal risk is just too great.

[0]https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/human-resources/article/nation... [1]https://ogletree.com/insights/nlrb-explains-when-granting-be...

refuses to negotiate afterwards

Refusing to negotiate is illegal, the NLRB has ruled on that in the Starbucks case.

From reading the article you linked, it appears they violated the law by refusing to negotiate, not by giving non-union workers benefits that they didn’t give to union workers.

I think the ultimate solution is an economic system which fundamentally recognizes that workers are involved with enterprise and deserve an ownership and controlling stake in it. That might create the opportunity for this relationship to become one that is more cooperative.

I believe this is how Germany does it. I may be getting the details a bit off, but I believe corporate boards have to have a worker’s/union representative as a member. This makes total sense to me.

Is there an update to this story? The story doesn’t cite what law the NLRB claimed was violated, only that doing what starbucks did interfered with their ability to organize. The final paragraph mentions that the case is yet to be heard:

The regional complaint will be heard by an administrative law judge at the NLRB. Once a decision is reached, either side can appeal to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington.

Full disclosure: I’m operating on logic, not an expertise on labor law. I am genuinely interested in expanding my understanding of labor laws and process.

It’s not like we can run an A/B on the benefits for every employee and every company, but I can speak for one particular industry and one company during one particular point in time: automobile manufacturing and Toyota. During the 2008 financial crisis, the perception at Toyota by many employees was that, while their wages were nominally lower than their counterparts at unionized companies, it made them more robust to the economic downturn, resulting in fewer layoffs of permanent workers. This is not to say that unionization didn’t have its place in the conversation. What I heard directly was that “the threat of unionization is enough for us to get the benefits and pay raises we ask for.”

Here’s the problem I have with this discourse:

Apple also withheld new benefits from unionized locations, drawing outcry from labor advocates.

I am pro-union. Fight for your rights! But understand what you’re getting into: once you engage with a third party (union) to negotiate for you, you will only get what you bargain for. The animus around unequal benefits ought to be directed to their union leaders, who need to do their fucking jobs and bargain for the benefits. That’s what you pay them for!

It’s up to the individual and the collective to figure out how and whether unionizing benefits them in the context of their employer-employee relationship. Eyes open: the company has interests too. Mischaracterizing those interests is a disservice when you’re at the negotiating table.

The thing with copyright is, it seems to me: You cannot ask for them to change the rules. You just have to break them.

Absolutely. Break them and support the people who facilitate the disobedience. Fuck the copyright lobby, fuck publishers, and fuck anyone who gets in the way of me reading what I want in whatever form I want.

The people who are preventing you from reading what you want in the form you want it are not protecting some sacred system of authorship reward. They have no ethos. They are simply protecting the interest of their masters, for pay.