My theory is: free publicity. Just like the fashion industry comes up with ridiculous clothes that no one would ever wear, attention whores will constantly do outrageous things so that people will talk about them. The number of electrons spilled over this stupid mouse port placement over the years is uncountable. But the repeated conversations keep Apple in the public consciousness as a fashionista.

In the early days it seems pike Stack Overflow tried to regulate engagement from trolls. They encouraged support for dumb/newbie questions and discouraged obnoxious behaviors.

I’m guessing that’s just a losing battle. I don’t think there’s much hope of keeping a good moderator for free. It’s a tough, thankless job. Troll/poor moderators are free.

Are American rents rigged by algorithms? Pay for a subscription to our service to find out!

If I didn’t know better, I would say this sounds like Farley giggling and winking in order to make a play for his next CEO gig.

One Youtube channel suggested it was tax incentives. Cities give tax incentives to large corporate offices in order to bring customers, er… employees to the cities.

Work from home means offices no longer meet qualifications for tax breaks. Ergo CEO freakouts.

Don’t know if it’s true, but it does sound plausible to me.

All those teachers over at the middle school ARE pretty elitist.

/s

We can’t even care about innocent people anymore. The right ridicules that as dangerous. We have to frame being against killing innocent people as being concerned for children. But then the right diminishes that even further. No! Only unborn children deserve protection, but only when politically expedient.

In truth, the right wants to be able to kill anyone they want with impunity.

That is the nature of greed. There is no thought of the future or consequence.

The Saw anniversary DVD.

In my experience, groups of people will ignore inconvenient but correct answers until the problem explodes into their collective faces.

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." -- George Orwell

Uber Black is “Luxury rides with professional driver.”

“Professional” insinuates “paid”, so the other Uber drivers aren’t paid?

Nah, it’s corruption only when poor people do it. When rich people do it it’s just “smart business”.

It’s likely you won’t find a rock this big when digging a basement, but as we can see here, it’s not something you can safely take for granite.

I confirm that mine has not increased in size over the last 30 years. Maybe I’m in the control group?

We’re raised by parents that must be obeyed for our own safety. Some people eventually learn to accept their parents are imperfect people and not gods. Many people do not. They look to kings and gods to protect and provide for them.

Those that have power negotiate with kings and gods. People without power attempt to use the only techniques they know to negotiate with their kings and gods: begging and/or pledging loyalty and service in exchange for scraps.

Of course this is but one of many reasons many people worship power.

We don’t have to know how to fly a plane to know flying one into the ground is bad technique.

And anyone that does have net metering will be kicked off if they ever add capacity in order to support that new electric water heater.

I just tell them I don’t have a phone. Even if I’m still holding it in my hand. Most don’t want to engage. They likely figure they’re not payed enough for that.

Why does the Hellboy in the still remind me of Liam Neeson?

My bowels have been questioning a lot lately, so it’s not entirely without precedent.