Hwy. 17 between Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz are two lanes of 65MPG traffic. Maybe at 2am without any accidents.

During rush hour, (8am and 5pm commutes), it turns into slower, congested traffic where drivers seem to forget the "1 car length for every 10MPH" rule I learned in Driver's Ed in 1970. Back in the 2000s, there used to be a web site "HWY17 HALL OF SHAME" where people would post phone camera pics of assholes who followed to slowly complete with license plate visible. I'm sure Auto Insurance companies had interns inputing those license plates and times into their database, just in case a policy holder made a claim. I wonder how many Underwriters used that info to raise rates.

With the advent of Teslas, the car length calculation goes out the window now. They zip in and out of traffic on 101 and 17 like they're playing Mario Cart. I used to rag on BMWs, but Tesla drivers are the ones playing games with physics now.

There's also the issue of WHERE they would be volunteering their time. If they live and work in a city, say SF, and the nearest warehouse is in Milpitas, will Amazon pay for the additional commute? What if the distance is greater, like 300 miles? That, AFAIK, _is_ illegal.

I had a neighbor in a similar situation. She has a very old HP Envy 5530. She can still get cartridges for it but all the management pages use http: instead of https: with a certificate. Safari won't open the management web interface at all. I had to use Chrome and found the printer rejected the HP-branded cartridges as fake.

I told her to buy a Brother Laserjet. It took a couple months but she finally got a Brother Inkjet. It can print, scan, copy, and fax. And it's connected through her Wifi. She gifted me the old printer and I'm not sure I want to bother futzing with it. I'm very happy with my Brother Laser printer.

I always cross out the binding arbitration and the disparagement clauses on the paperwork I'm given during onboarding. As a contractor, these clauses started showing up about 7 years ago mostly from out of state contracting agencies. I argued with the corporate attorney abou them and ultimately walked away. Every time one of their recruiters contacts me I tell them I won't sign their employment contract with binding arbitration. They still keep calling.

The problem with this is that they know next to nothing about how the military works. And unless they former servicemen, they'll likely be to arrogant to learn or listen to their gunnery Sargent who's job it is to make sure they don't screw up and get everyone in their unit killed. I don't know how many stories I've read where the newly minted lieutenant was saved by their Gunny and schooled in how to be a good officer. Or ones where the idiot "accidentally" steps on a mine and dies, saving the entire platoon from certain death by stupidity.

If you add in the Trump tariff but remove Windows, I'll bet it costs about the same. So the laptop still costs about the same but now you have to pay extra for a Windows license (not subject to tariffs, perhaps) if you still want a Windows laptop. Or you could live with Fedora or Ubuntu and Libre Office.

I'm sure every Karen has the "chargeback on my credit card" in their arsenal of "let me talk to your manager" tricks. This complaint will be straightforward. Service is being discontinued and "replacement service doesn't suit your needs". Most credit cards are pretty liberal about refunding dissatisfied customers for services they didn't get or didn't like.

An internet connected oven, toaster, and fridge are treading awfully close to Cory Doctorow's novella UNAUTHORIZED BREAD. It's where there are IoT connected appliances in rent-subsidized apartments and the vendor gets a kick back from food purchased at stores with deals with those manufacturers. Put unauthorized food in the fridge, it turns off. Try to toast bread you baked from scratch after you bypassed the DRM scanning of your oven, it won't work. And of course it's a 5 year prison sentence and $100000 fine for bypassing DRM. I helped my 80yo neighbor navigate her new oven, printing out the manual which did NOT come with the oven. I highlighted the key press sequences for a variety of tasks like setting the clock, setting a delay time, setting the oven temperature, broiling, and turning on burners. I also had to explain the difference between broiling, baking, and convection features. She had no interest in the air fryer feature and made the sign of the cross when I asked if she wanted to pair the oven with her iPhone.

Some states require drivers who've been prescribed CPAP machines to use them for a certain number of hours. Not doing so can affect sentencing in the case of a traffic accident AND car insurance rates.

I watched the 1st episode of BELOW DECKS and thought it was very silly. Didn't watch any others. But I kept watching STRANGE NEW WORLDS until the musical episode. That's just to cringe for me. BUFFY could do it, but why should all shows copy that, like FLASH etc?

I watched about 20m of the aforementioned THE AGENCY. I stopped right after the Michael Fasbender character takes the trainee out to see how good she is at "acquiring an asset" at a bar. WATSON, a recent House-knockoff, lasted a full episode before the "Meh" response came up between my fellow TV show watcher (we're Waldorf and Statler personified). However, BRILLIANT MINDS kept my interest for the full 13 episode run even though the last episode planted plot seeds for subsequent episodes that likely won't happen. During the 1st season of NIGHT AGENT, I stayed with it until the guy's boss betrayed him which made me walk on the rest of the series. I read the 1st chapter of the Reacher novel PERSUADER and I'm doubtful I'll make it through the first 3 episodes of the show. Pity, because I like how Reacher took out the bad guys in 2nd season. Maybe there's an EQUALIZER saturation effect happening here. I didn't bother watching the last one set in Italy after watching the first 10 minutes where he kills all those guys at the winery. In contrast, DARK WINDS and MONSIEUR SPADE kept me coming back again and again. I eagerly await DW #3.

When Teams became a subscription service, I ripped it out of my Ansible config file and deleted it from all my machines. With the Skype announcement this morning, I just did the same thing with Skype. Before the lockdown, recruiters used to specify what video platform the perspective employer would use for the interview. I begrudgingly installed Teams in the beginning but once it required a subscription, I told recruiters I don't do Teams. Turns out that was a great screening technique because Microsoft-heavy employers didn't ask for interviews. I wonder if anyone is using BlueJeans or GoToMeeting any more.

I hope the MBA who thought of this is now looking into new and exciting opportunities at MacDonald's. Or they're retasked to replace the cleaning staff at buildings 100 miles from their home where they have to commute 5x/week for swing or graveyard shift.

Yep. I've got a chassis from AliExpress that just shipped today. When and if it arrives is anyone's guess. Last couple of things I bought from there were delivered by a courier rather than USPS. Amazon's costs are surely going up. I wonder what their head of Logistics is doing right now.

Yep. The closest I ever got to programming in High School was writing the ACHTUNG! warning using Fortran-II on the IBM 1620 system console running at the local community college. Eventually, I started farting around with APL on their terminals when I started attending community college. But no computers in LA City Schools in the 60s or 70s.