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windthrown

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Ian's Shoelace Site 6 months ago

If you read his support page it's apparent why not. This is a labor of love which he can still hardly keep afloat after trying a variety of income sources such as ads and direct sponsorships.

https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm

Why Support Ian?

I've devoted two decades of mostly altruistic labors to the niche topic of shoelaces. I spend probably 60 hours a week continuously improving this website, answering visitors' questions, solving their shoelace problems – even granting permission for my material to be re-used by other educators.

All of this effort earns me less than 1/5 of the Australian National Minimum Wage.

I'm thinking of calling this my “Million Dollar Website” – not because it's worth a million dollars but because it has cost me a million dollars compared to what I could have earned at a regular job (based on an average Australian annual wage of $50,000 × 25+ years).

Any support that you can give will be gratefully accepted and warmly appreciated.

In theory sure but have you been following Congress for the past decade? They can't even come to terms on continuing resolution funding bills, let alone pass complex rules related to new contentious technologies. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist but is something that makes you think this might drastically change?

What is your basis for "It’s more costly to handle cash than to pay credit card companies."? It seems much more likely that they are encouraging cash with lower prices to avoid paying the typical ~1-5% transaction costs to Visa/MasterCard/Amex rather than a large scale tax evasion scheme.

I understand your point about handling cash requiring more labor (no self serve, armored trucks, etc) but I'd be surprised if the cash sales were less profitable than credit cards.

Yeah while the recent Dane County turnout was impressive I am similarly not convicted that it can be extrapolated to WI statewide elections generally. The Supreme Court race had huge spending and happened as the Dobbs decision was very fresh - it remains to be seen if that's an anomaly or maintainable.

I'm not sure where to find whole beans but I'm pretty sure many brands of instant coffee (e.g. the Folgers and Nescafe of the world) actually use Robusto or at least a blend of Robusto and Arabica.

"venues have a lot of expenses, including employing staff and keeping up with the rising costs to put on shows including building upgrades, insurance, paying suppliers and more."

Ah yes, those exotic expenses unique to putting on concerts, including paying employees and not stiffing vendors...none of us in other industries could possibly understand. I'm frustrated because an offer of a refund still feels like a partial win for Ticketmaster. While I am not a ticket holder in this case, past attempts to collect refunds have involved so many hoops and demand such a privacy-violating amount of personal information to "prove" you are owed money, that it doesn't feel like a worthwhile trade off for anything less than $20.

I am not familiar with the legal specifics but per the article:

"Although Freenom is based in The Netherlands, some of its other sister companies named as defendants in the lawsuit are incorporated in the United States."

Agreed. To your initial point Jack Daniel's marketing relies so heavily on being "Tennessee Whiskey" I think it would be harder for them than other companies to threaten to move to a state with looser rules (e.g. Boeing in SC).

I don't think anyone believes that the company will do this out of the kindness of their hearts but rather are hoping that this attention spurs new regulations. The company basically admits that's what it would take in the article:

"Melvin Keebler, general manager of the Jack Daniel Distillery, said in a statement that the company 'complies with all local, state, and federal regulations regarding the design, construction, and permitting of our barrelhouses.'"

Thank you that is an important clarification. To me the line between legality of the page and practical outcome seems like a distinction that's getting greyer. If I can be arrested and held in jail for four days with impunity, that's enough to scare me from criticizing the police, even if I am confident I might ultimately prevail in court.