Except $100,000 is a pittance to any company big enough to be importing cheap labor in the first place. These are companies that shrug off billion-dollar fines, they have $100k in the executive boardroom couch cushions, so it’s absolutely worth it for them to pay $100k to the government in exchange for getting a $50k per year discount on labor for that role.
One of my greatest academic achievements was a very long, in-depth research paper that was assigned on the first day of the semester and due on the last. “Don’t put it off until the end,” our teacher warned us, “because you won’t be able to finish this in a couple of hours. You should be doing a little bit of work on it every week.” It was to be deeply-researched, extensively endnoted, and (if I recall correctly) fifty pages long, single-spaced, 10pt.
Except I had a full-time job throughout college, and that semester my schedule found me going to work immediately after that (morning) class, both days, every week. By the time I was off work, the thought of that assignment had left my undiagnosed ADHD brain entirely. The semester melted away like the cotton candy in that raccoon video.
And suddenly the last day of class was approaching. I requested the prior day off of work, figuring that I’d work the whole day on it. Only I made a mistake: I hadn’t requested the day before it was due. I had requested the day it was due. I’d be working four full days of work, with classes (and at least one early final exam), and then the paper would be due, and only after that would I have the day to write it.
But you do what you have to, and when you’re 19 years old, the vagaries of time and sleep seem almost meaningless to you. I was going to get off work at 6pm, which was 14½ hours before the assignment was due. My university had a 24-hour computer lab, which was good, as it was 2004 and I didn’t have internet in my apartment (how did I ever live like that?).
So I went home, ate a quick dinner, and went to school, locking myself into the computer lab at 8:00pm. When I poked my head out the door at 7:30am, the sun was bright and the air slightly crisp; and I held 52 freshly-printed pages in my hand. I was done early (technically) and had beaten the page count (also technically). I felt like I had beaten the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. I ate breakfast to supplement the copious amounts of Nutty Bars and soda I had consumed overnight, and then I turned the paper in; and as class that morning was “optional,” I opted to go home, where I discovered that perhaps time was not so vague at all, nor sleep, and I went unconscious for the rest of the morning and a decent chunk of the afternoon.
A week later, I got my grades back. At that point in any semester I was always beyond caring about how well I had scored, but I looked anyway out of curiosity.
“Well done!” she had written in the notes. “I can tell you really put a lot of time into this. 95/100”
I mean, technically she was right, I had put a lot of time into it: the 11½ hours immediately leading up to my turning it in, to be precise.
I assume you think this was a good idea because it encouraged businesses to hire locally rather than hiring internationally. But really all it did was ensure that large companies (rather than immigration officials) were in charge of deciding who was and wasn’t allowed to work in the United States. Rather than improving overall employment, it just reinforced oligarchy.
- 250 USD toaster with no ads
Minimal ads, come on, let’s not get crazy here
And they still are, having a great time.
Yeah, I don’t know what the US malfunction with KFC is. Obviously capitalism, but beyond that.
City, but a small one. And yeah, food was good, but the floor and average were both lower there.
I moved to New Zealand six months ago, and I have had exactly one truly bad meal since I’ve been here. I haven’t eaten any Maori food, so I guess all the food I’ve eaten has been from another country.
The one that surprised me the most was KFC. We moved from one state away from Kentucky, and we had to come here to have truly good KFC.
I was expecting the Chinese food to be good here, but it’s really good. So is the Korean, Indian, and Malaysian food. The fish and chips are good. The burgers are great, even from McDonald’s. The absolute best was Filipino food from a tiny little restaurant in a random strip mall near Sylvia Park. That food changed my life.
In fairness, I have had a couple of “fine” meals—as in, “well, nothing special, but it was fine.”
The one bad meal was Pad Thai made by Thai people at a Thai restaurant down by the beach. It was just way too sweet, which makes me wonder if they saw me and made it “for a white guy” or something.
I feel like if you’re writing the sentence “an optional, paid version of our browser that offers Brave […] without its extra features,” you need to sit back and take a long, hard look at yourself.
Ruby Bridges–the little girl featured in maybe the most famous photo of desegregation, being walked home from school by US marshals, the photo that inspired Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With”–she’s still alive. And not super old, either; she’ll turn 72 this September.
That’s the fact that blows me away about segregation.
“The past is never dead; it isn’t even past.”
Animators also tend to take a lot of shortcuts, though; especially when it comes to backgrounds in shots. I could definitely believe that some animator was like, “ok, we need a science-y looking decoration back here” and so they went on a royalty-free stock 3D asset website and downloaded this one based only on what it looked like.
Oof, that’s an intrusive thought I wasn’t expecting to develop. Good call, no metal then.
I agree that we could all stand to be a lot less convenience-driven. But there’s also a level at which, until the companies providing that convenience are forced (by public demand or by regulation) to provide a product that people will accept, most people won’t give up that convenience. Which makes my complaint less of a personal feeling of grumpiness and more of a call for something that could actually work for more people.
That’s what I tell myself, at least.
I’ve had silicone straws before that also had a lot of nucleation sites because of texturing, and ended up foaming up the drink in the process of sipping, too. Is there a particular thing I should look for? Or do I just need to suck it up (ha) and buy a titanium straw?
I agree that sipping is probably the best option. My problem is that most to-go cups at restaurants use lids for structural reinforcement; they make the cup less sturdy (because it’s cheaper) and count on the lid to keep it stable.
For clumsy and forgetful people (it’s me, hi, I’m the problem) the option right now seems to be buying a reusable straw that ends up sitting in my silverware drawer permanently, living with the fact that I’m just always going to have some sort of stain on my shirt, or drinking subpar, flat sodas. Or, I guess, switching to a non-carbonated drink. None of them are my favorite options. Come on, scientists!
I feel like this comment is written for a different post…?
Yep, right now that seems like the best option to me. But the problem is that most to-go cups at restaurants require lids for structural integrity. It’s also not the greatest solution for particularly clumsy people (like me) who tend to spill drinks down their shirt.
I used to listen to an actual play podcast wherein one of the cast was really good at specifically identifying phrases and sentences that could be sung to the opening lines of “Camptown Races” and singing out “DOO-DAH! DOO-DAH!!” My favorite one was “Polynesian shark-tooth sword.” (This might be a Kingdom of Loathing thing?)
And then, of course, there’s the xkcd and resulting generators that, beautifully, find Wikipedia articles (or really any random line of text) that can be sung to the tune of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” I especially like the ones where they fit surprisingly well and you’re also like, “wait, why is that a Wikipedia article?!” like “Private Purchase Naval Weapons,” or the ones that are only singable because of a parenthetical clarifier like “Silver Comet (roller coaster).”
Moved to New Zealand.
I just said, in the very comment you’re replying to, that an additional fee doesn’t do that. Even if the goal is a good one, this isn’t an effective way to do it. $100,000 is a pittance to any company big enough to be importing overseas labor in the first place. Even if it wasn’t, it’s absolutely worth it for them to pay $100k now in exchange for getting a $50k per year discount on labor for that role.