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Traveler ordered to pay more than $5,000 in fuel costs after flight diverted due to bad behavior
  • Thanks... Yeah that makes sense. I can understand that sometimes the trade-off would make dumping fuel the right choice... I just wonder if the environmental impact factor in.

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    Picture this
  • You don't think companies would opt into letting Google manage "dynamic pricing" for them on a per-user basis? Travel sites already offer this for airlines after you signal intent, such as a destination and date range... And sellers on Amazon already use tools like Sellery to algorithmically reprice items without human supervision. Some products change price hundreds of times per day as a result.

    Big retailers like Walmart are trying to make "personalized pricing" work, which tries to anticipate price tolerance based on past shopping behavior on an individual basis.

    So it's not a stretch at all IMO to imagine Google offering a "personalized pricing" service that you can install on any website, right under the script tag for Google Analytics. Or Amazon, or Walmart, or whoever-- They all have mountains of data on us.

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    Garlic showdown
  • I don't understand Jim's deal. He wanted to charge our protagonist MORE money per bulb than he would charge someone buying less garlic? Why?

    Was it a deeply shortsighted, cynical attempt to turn a quick buck? Was Jim weirded out by the dynamic forming with TokyoSunbather and was trying to put some distance between them? Was there some sort of subtle dynamic occurring where TokyoSunbather would take the best bulbs and leave only shitty ones behind, and that was causing subsequent customers to perceive Jim's stock as low-quality, thereby negatively affecting his reputation?

    I don't understand. Something is missing. TokyoSunbather is either holding something back, or is overlooking a key detail. Either way I want to know. It doesn't make sense. Jim doesn't make sense. What is the missing piece I need to know.

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    Garlic showdown
  • You know, I knew from the other comment what to expect, but the picture still caught me off guard and cracked me up.

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    What’s your “I can’t believe other people don’t do this” hack?
  • Mine is that, except they DON'T complain. Like when someone is showing me a YouTube video on their device and an ad shows up 30 seconds in... I lunge for the mute button while I scan the room for a blanket, clipboard, or other item to shield us, yelling "AVERT YOUR EYES!!" but next to all of my commotion, they're just nodding along placidly like "Oh Coinbase, interesting."

    Like... Aren't you affronted that some company paid another company to make it less convenient to do the thing you're trying to do?! Does the gaudy, pushy tone change to too-loud propaganda designed to coax you away from your money not gall you?!

    "Idk sometimes the ads are interesting. Free month sounds good."

    Jesus christ he's too far gone.

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    Traveler ordered to pay more than $5,000 in fuel costs after flight diverted due to bad behavior
  • So does "dump fuel" literally mean "sprinkle a large volume of jet fuel over a large swathe of countryside?" Does it become diffuse enough that the environmental impact is negligible, or do we get a big splash that kills everything in an AoE?

    Like... I'm surprised the fuel cost is the focus here, and not the environmental impact of releasing jet fuel just... into the air I guess? But maybe it doesn't work the way I'm picturing.

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    Traveler ordered to pay more than $5,000 in fuel costs after flight diverted due to bad behavior
  • Neither the man nor the airline was publicly named, nor was it specified exactly what he did to earn such a hefty penalty.

    Why the hell not? I feel like it's weird for this information to not be public in a case like this-- In this same article, there are three examples of other incidents where the details are known.

    Phrases like the passenger "was disruptive," and “It’s far simpler to obey the directions of airline staff than cause unnecessary issues, which can end up hitting you in the hip pocket” seem weirdly euphemistic to me.

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  • I keep interacting with systems-- like my bank, etc.-- that require (or allow) you to add one or more trusted devices, which facilitate authentication in a variety of ways.

    Some services let you set any device as a trusted device-- Macbook, desktop, phone, tablet, whatever. But many-- again, like my bank-- only allow you to trust a mobile device. Login confirmation is on a mobile device. Transaction confirmation: mobile device. Change a setting: Believe it or not, confirm on mobile device.

    That kind of makes sense in that confirming on a second device is more secure... That's one way to implement MFA. But of course, the inverse is not true: If I'm using the mobile app, there's no need to confirm my transactions on desktop or any other second device, and in fact, I'm not allowed to.

    But... Personally, I trust my mobile device much less than my desktop. I feel like I'm more likely to lose it or have it compromised in some way, and I feel like I have less visibility and control into what's running on it and how it's secured. I still think it's fairly trustworthy, but just not categorically better than my Macbook.

    So maybe I'm missing something: Is there some reason that an Android/iOS device would be inherently more secure than a laptop? Is it laziness on the part of (e.g.) my bank? Or is something else driving this phenomenon?

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    I'm planning to open a new chequing account in the near future, and I'm contemplating bailing on RBC. I've been with them for a very long time, and one possible outcome is that I'll just open a new RBC account and be done with it. That'd be... fine.

    But for a variety of reasons (including my satisfaction with RBC trending steadily downward), I'm thinking about opening this new account elsewhere. I don't have a ton of hard requirements, and I'm not really sure what to look for in a bank, but the following would be nice:

    • Good online banking experience, particularly desktop (RBC is shockingly bad at this)
    • Good credit card; easy to make payments from the new account
    • Minimal fees
    • Easy e-transfers
    • Real security (another thing RBC is terrible at)
    • Neat rewards would be cool
    • Low-fee, low-friction investing would also be cool-- I don't really do much investing, but I'd like to be able to

    Any suggestions would be great, including anti-suggestions if you happen to know of a bank that I should avoid.

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    For reference (as per Wikipedia):

    > Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. > > — Melvin E. Conway

    Imagine interpreting that as advice on how you should try to design things, lol.

    Tbf, I think most of the post is just typical LinkedIn fluff, but I didn't want to take the poor fellow out of context.

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