Random Rants Q': I protest against subtitles

[Samson]

Video Leaks Of NRA's Wayne LaPierre Missing His Mark On Elephant Hunt as he and his wife each kill an elephant.

Don't watch the video in this NPR link if you don't want to see each of them kill one. It is pretty terrible and needless. They are both terrible people that should know better.

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/9915...ne-lapierre-missing-his-mark-on-elephant-hunt

I am also not going to watch the video, and I feel very uncomfortable killing things with brains 4 times the size of ours for fun.

However, if poor countries are going to preserve their wildlife, then they need an economic reason to do so. "We" killed all our large animals 'cos we had an economic reason to do so, and without a reason not to it is in other countries self interest to do so. I would hope that we could find more enlightened ways of doing it (global tax?), but in the absence of this a well managed hunt, that allows very wealthy people the opportunity to pay vast amounts of money to some of the poorest counties in the world to kill old, injured or problem animals is that so wrong?

 

[Cutlass]

And you object to mayonnaise?!?!

Humanity objects to mayonnaise.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Video Leaks Of NRA's Wayne LaPierre Missing His Mark On Elephant Hunt as he and his wife each kill an elephant.

Don't watch the video in this NPR link if you don't want to see each of them kill one. It is pretty terrible and needless. They are both terrible people that should know better.

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/9915...ne-lapierre-missing-his-mark-on-elephant-hunt

iirc, the NRA was originally founded because the men joining the Union Army during the Civil War had poor marksmanship, compared with the Southerners joining the Confederate army. Way to go, Wayne. You're not just a scumbag, you're a scumbag who doesn't even practice what he preaches. I'm also not going to watch the video, but from what I read, it sounds like his marksmanship is hardly any better than mine.

 

[Zkribbler]

My Filipino bank just lowered the interest it pays on savings account to 1/10% per year.

 

[really]

The accounts I look after for work are being charged negative rates - they charge us for keeping cash on deposit.

 

[JohannaK]

Who exactly? If you mean I should negotiate a higher paying contract with someone I would otherwise give a tip to I am a bit lost. Companies should pay people more, and that is what I was getting at.

I mean? What is this post?

Of course Denkt is saying the COMPANIES should pay employees properly. Tipping as practiced in the US is an abomination, and it all has to do with the abysmal working culture and employee protections (read: none). It's a mystery how they're not the ones emigrating to greener pastures.

Then again, if you want to get rich not having to pay your employees or pay for employee protections offers great advantages...

 

[The_J]

My girlfriend is mad at me for me being normal .

 

[Takhisis]

Humanity objects to mayonnaise.

To quote JohannaK, ‘What is this post?’

 

[Cutlass]

To quote JohannaK, ‘What is this post?’

A truth you find too uncomfortable to face.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I am also not going to watch the video, and I feel very uncomfortable killing things with brains 4 times the size of ours for fun.

However, if poor countries are going to preserve their wildlife, then they need an economic reason to do so. "We" killed all our large animals 'cos we had an economic reason to do so, and without a reason not to it is in other countries self interest to do so. I would hope that we could find more enlightened ways of doing it (global tax?), but in the absence of this a well managed hunt, that allows very wealthy people the opportunity to pay vast amounts of money to some of the poorest counties in the world to kill old, injured or problem animals is that so wrong?

The problem is that most of these POSs don't want to kill an old, injured, or problem animal because they don't think it will make as nice a trophy.

My girlfriend is mad at me for me being normal .

Does that mean she thinks you're boring, or just that you both have differing views of what's normal?

I'd be curious to know how many people think it's normal to arrange the furniture partly for the cat's benefit, rather than my own. I do it because she's elderly and can't jump as high as she used to. Therefore I've arranged things so she won't have to. I'm told it looks weird, but I don't care. Maddy lives here. Other people don't.

 

[AdamCrock]

My girlfriend is mad at me for me being normal .

overcome, adapt, evolve !! Like Kerrigan in Star Craft 2 !

 

[AdamCrock]

... and it will eventually end like this :

I guess games , movies and series do eventually teach some of the moral code .... our politicians so efficiently lack ....

 

[The_J]

Does that mean she thinks you're boring, or just that you both have differing views of what's normal?

The latter.
I googled afterwards, and it definitely seems that my views on the subject were more normal.
Luckily she's not angry anymore .

I'd be curious to know how many people think it's normal to arrange the furniture partly for the cat's benefit, rather than my own. I do it because she's elderly and can't jump as high as she used to. Therefore I've arranged things so she won't have to. I'm told it looks weird, but I don't care. Maddy lives here. Other people don't.

Depends on if it's inconvenient for a normal person.
If not, and if it just looks weird: Whatever. As you say, it's your apartment.
My mom also had little stools/helper-items (how would I call it?) standing around so that the cat could get easier on the bench/sofa/etc.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I had no idea that they were that unreliable delivering to apartments.

Yeah if your apartment has more than a dozen units, you're rolling the dice with every order. It's very frustrating.

I watched. The wife has a cleaner kill than the husband, but it was pretty sad in either case. The elephants don't even seem to regard the humans as a threat. I guess some countries depend on this kind of tourism for their economy, but it was still sad to see elephants die like this.

It reminds me of a time I went to the Philadelphia Zoo... There is a huge statute of a mother elephant and a baby elephant following her, right up front. However, there are no elephants at the actual zoo. My son, then a toddler, got excited about the elephant statue, and assumed there were elephants at the zoo. After viewing the ape exhibit near the statue, he asked to see the elephants... to which I replied "Buddy, I don't think there are elephants here... how about we go see a nice tiger or lion?", to which he became very stern, and pointed his fat little toddler finger at me and proclaimed... "No! No Daddy! I want to see ej-ju-fents and baby ej-ju-fents!"

When we did finally see some elephants in the zoo... the Providence, RI zoo IIRC, it was super sad, because the elephants, one in particular was obviously in mental/emotional distress. They even had a placard trying to explain away why one of the elephants was constantly shifting and swaying back and forth. It was obvious that the elephant was in severe distress. I don't know... on the one hand I like being able to expose my kids to animals from all over the world, but on the other hand... the animals are essentially prisoners. I can appreciate a balance between those issues, but shooting wild elephants in the face for amusement seems to step over that balance.

We decided we aren't taking the little one to the zoo. We're undecided about letting him go on a school trip, but we personally won't support them. I know they do some good research and conservation work, but I think on balance they do way more harm than good and there are much better ways to fund conservation and research than locking up animals in tiny habitats that are almost always outside of their climate zone. It's just awful, and it's particular bad for the charismatic megafauna that require basically continent-sized ranges, or basically any bird that's restricted to small enclosure instead of the vast open sky. I don't shame people for supporting zoos, but I won't support them myself.

And I think there's a special place in hell for the owners of SeaWorld and other similar aquariums.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I know what you mean, and I know that tipping is different over there, but:

1. They make so little as base because they generally get good tips. If they did not, the "gig economy" companies like deliveroo would actually have to pay their staff properly. The tipping is effectively subsidising these companies.
2. By paying cash on delivery you are not stiffing anyone who actually does their job.
3. By paying cash rather than electronically it may mean they do not pay tax on it, which I feel they totally should not have to, as it is a gift and gifts are not taxed (in the UK anyway).

They don't really make good tips. There was a user here a long time ago, his tag was like 'thepizzaman' or something and he was a delivery driver and broke down how awful the job is. The companies pocket the delivery fee which most people think is part of the tip. This means they often get no tip at all, and depending on how crooked your restaurant is, they will then skim even more off your tip. I personally worked for a pizza place that demanded a cut of every driver's tips on top of the delivery fee. This was the same place that regularly forced people to work overtime and then stiffed them on overtime pay by shifting hours into future weeks to get everything under the 40 hour straight-time limit. The entire industry is rife with petty wage theft, labor abuses and corruption, and it's the drivers that often get the worst end of it.

And as @Birdjaguar said, me stiffing an individual driver won't make the companies behave any better. On 2, I agree, but with many apps you don't have a choice due to Covid.

And the thing is, even if the person does a bad job of delivering, that doesn't mean they should get less than minimum wage. Like, imagine if every job was such that you only got paid a decent wage if you really excelled on every single task, day in and day out. It'd be flipping mad, it's unworkable.

This whole system started as a way for white business owners to skip paying any wages for black servants; it makes no logical sense and it's deeply unfair. There's this veneer of plausible deniability, 'Well if they did a good job they'd get a good tip,' but in reality that's nonsense in my opinion. How many hard working people get stiffed for the most arbitrary of reasons, because the tipper was looking for an excuse to not pay up? How many are stiffed due to circumstances outside of their control, like @Sommerswerd's driver that showed up only to be told the restaurant wouldn't fill the order?

And while the law has a clause that when a driver or server makes less than minimum through tips, the company must cough up the difference, there is 0 enforcement and basically every local restaurant willfully fails to comply with this and lies to their employees about what the law actually says. Some of the bigger national chains are better about this because they have to due to the level of scrutiny they get in financial audits, but they make up only a fraction of all the restaurants in the US - most are local mom and pop joints and are quite often crooked af.

If you can't tell, my first career was in the food industry and it was not a positive experience.

 

[JohannaK]

Real shocker...

 

[Arakhor]

They don't really make good tips. There was a user here a long time ago, his tag was like 'thepizzaman' or something and he was a delivery driver and broke down how awful the job is.

I believe you mean @Askthepizzaguy. He is a legend in the CFC Mafia circuit.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yeah if your apartment has more than a dozen units, you're rolling the dice with every order. It's very frustrating.

When they hire, do they give the applicants a literacy test and hire the ones who fail?

I can forgive delivery people getting lost inside the building I live in, since it's not square or rectangular. It's shaped like a propeller, with three 6-storey wings sticking out from a central hub. There are maps beside the elevators, but who bothers looking at maps?

When a delivery form has a space for instructions, I try to make it as precise as possible, telling them to go this direction to the elevator, that direction when they get off, which side of the hallway I'm on, etc. I've been told by some of the drivers that they really appreciate that, so they don't wander aimlessly around the hub, wondering which wing I'm in (there are signs, but they're not really visible unless you already know about them).

 

[choxorn]

Yeah if your apartment has more than a dozen units, you're rolling the dice with every order. It's very frustrating.

What, they can't even find the right building? Is it impossible to tell them apart, or something?

They don't really make good tips. There was a user here a long time ago, his tag was like 'thepizzaman' or something and he was a delivery driver and broke down how awful the job is.

I believe you mean @Askthepizzaguy. He is a legend in the CFC Mafia circuit.

The legend of ATPG, Dark Lord of the Sith and of the Diamond Cojones, extends far beyond these realms and to every corner of every Mafia-playing forum on the internet.

 

[Arakhor]

Hobbs is not an initiate of the Dark Art of Mafia, so I was going easy on him.