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goatforce5

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If this post from Cliff was a cunning strategy to increase sales of Acme Klein Bottles, well, it's worked.

I too just ordered one (having been meaning to do so for a good number of years at this point).

MacBook Neo 5 months ago

At some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student.

"Umm, I kinda look like a student."

"Good enough for me!"

I got a student discount.

You can use the Apple Store app to purchase physical items at Apple retail locations (smaller items like cables or cases). I've used it a couple of times, and I feel very awkward using it, so much so that I'll walk out kinda waving the receipt/acknowledgement screen around so that staff/security can hopefully see I'm not nicking something.

I came here to say this. Dave McCormack and Custard were in a popular indie band in Oz in the 90s. A couple of years ago he performed a couple of songs with The Wiggles, and came out on stage saying "Hello everyone, it's me! I'm from the 90s!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEeEjEdTqqk

He uses his normal speaking voice for Bandit, and you can very clearly hear the same voice when he's signing most of the Custard stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_LSm7FjRI

Wisenheimer and Wahooti Fandango are still both great albums (...and then I moved overseas and drifted out of the Custard orbit). For anyone with kids firmly in the Bluey demographic, I bet you could really confuse them by playing Custard at them.

I'm surprised they (i.e. record companies) haven't been trying to push Custard more, given there's a large fan based just waiting to be tapped. It would be fun to see Bandit do karaoke of a Custard song, or sing a few lines when he was in the shower, or just doing chores, etc.

His personal security cost was part of his “All Other Compensation” which amounted to $6,802,824 in 2023, and also consists of his 401(k) or Roth plan, and personal use of company aircraft or car.

https://qz.com/google-amazon-apple-tesla-nvidia-ceo-security...

I suspect a large part of that $6.8m is the cost of operating private aircraft.

e.g. A previous slide in the above link states that Apple's board requires Tim Cook to use a private aircraft for personal and business travel.

Where were you in Australia? And what sort of gambling machines are we talking about?

The laws regulating the use of gaming machines in Australia are a matter for state governments, and as such they vary between states. Gaming machines are found in casinos (approximately one in each major city) as well as pubs and clubs in some states (usually sports, social, or RSL clubs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machines_by_country#Austr...

I popped into an Aldi in Portugal ~6 months ago, and I noticed they had some Trader Joe's products on the shelves. Unsurprisingly, Aldi Portugal is owned by Aldi Nord.

Google Flights will allow you to select how many carry-ons and checked bags you have (depending on the route).

e.g., on an imaginary trip to Las Vegas, the cheapest carrier changed when I added a checked and carry on bag (and the price difference from a budget carrier to a mainline carrier shrunk considerably).

I visited Vegas for the first time this year and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

I was surprised to learn that, despite its reputation as a party city, it isn't technically legal to consume cannabis on the Strip. I guess it's in the interests of MGM and Caesars to keep the alcohol flowing, and all of the profit that comes from that.

I think the problem is that _everyone has one_.

The company's meteoric growth trajectory has slowed down in recent years. According to S&P, sales declined by almost 22 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, the seventh consecutive quarterly contraction.

We got one for the house ~4 years ago. It's still working fine, and we don't need to upgrade to one with Bluetooth connectivity or anything like that.

I'm guessing they found the size of their market wasn't infinite.

In 1983, the 61-year-old potato farmer won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a distance of 875 kilometres (544 mi). The race was run between what were then Australia's two largest Westfield shopping centres, Westfield Parramatta in Sydney and Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne.[8] Young arrived to compete in overalls and work boots, without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran).[9] He ran at a slow and loping pace and trailed the pack by a large margin at the end of the first day. While the other competitors stopped to sleep for six hours, Young kept running. He ran continuously for five days, taking the lead during the first night and eventually winning by 10 hours. Before running the race, he had told the press that he had previously run for two to three days straight rounding up sheep in gumboots.[10] He said afterwards that during the race he imagined he was running after sheep trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, fifteen hours and four minutes,[1] almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne, at an average speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph). All six competitors who finished the race broke the old record. Upon being awarded the prize of A$10,000 (equivalent to $32,067 in 2018), Young said that he did not know there was a prize and that he felt bad accepting it as each of the other five runners who finished had worked as hard as he did—so he split the money equally between them, keeping none.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

My dotcom 1.0 employer did exactly the same thing, although I think ours was called 'Black Box'.

If a recruiter said they had 'Black Box' candidates ready and waiting to come in for interviews we knew the recruiter would lie, cheat and steal to get candidates placed (and their fat commission cheque).

If a recruiter said they hadn't heard of Black Box but would reach out to their pool of candidates, they'd be considered a bit more trustworthy and perhaps worth doing business with.

I've recently joined an existing fully remote team. Once or twice a week someone will start an Among Us session, with a parallel Google Meet video call. People will play Among Us, and then discuss who the Imposter is in the video call. Once the game resumes, people mute their mics and disable video.

It's been a neat way to spend some social time with my new colleagues. Being on non-work calls has helped me get a sense of who my new colleagues are and I feel it's helped me integrate in to the team.

His team also took Kendal Mint Cake up Everest:

Sir Edmund Hillary and his team carried Romney's Kendal Mint Cake with them on the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. The packaging currently includes the following: “'We sat on the snow and looked at the country far below us … we nibbled Kendal Mint Cake.' A member of the successful Everest expedition wrote – 'It was easily the most popular item on our high altitude ration – our only criticism was that we did not have enough of it.'”

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

Imagine a Peppermint Pattie, but intensified by an order of magnitude.