I have several Tampermonkey scripts to keep Youtube useable:

Additionally uBlock, and a plugin to alter the number of results per row (so I don't wind up with gigantic tiles/icons on a large monitor).

It's a complete disaster without these. :/

They have a name for it: Dead Sea Effect.

I wrote a program to figure out what day of the week this landed on (assuming it is in fact October 2nd, 151441).

It's a Saturday.

Real downer on the start of the weekend.

That kid in the middle looks harrowed; like every day is an endurance test.

The worst is when they phrase the response as if there was just some slight, funny misunderstanding on the part of the machine; "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that! Did you want to..."

For some reason that one really drives my ire.

They did call her the "Queen of Mean." She was an unrepentant asshole in her own time.

This is why I gave up trying to run my own email server. It became clear it was turning into a racket quite a while ago. I would hear from someone that they didn't receive an email, so I'd check with their provider and sure enough I'd been blackholed.

I'd go through all the steps to clear everything, re-send the message and it would go. Send a second message and my server was instantly blackholed again for "spamming" or "suspected open relay" or some other reason. All the "Big Guys" as you call them of course carved out exceptions for each other, but no matter how many security signatures or other measures I implemented it was basically an instant lockout.

It got to the point where I was forced to sign on with a "Big" provider for routing.

According to this, Texas has ~7% of their prison population in private facilities. The national rate is ~8%.

"Hey, listen, motherfucker!"

The measurable benefits seem good and I wouldn't suggest ending the program, but I do wonder with schemes like this how many fewer Mercedes, BMWs, and Land Rovers are in the city vs. Hondas, Toyotas, and Kias.

Maybe I am just a cynic but the statement about "...supporters were those who drove into the central business district the most frequently" carries a subtext that "now that the f'in poors are out of the way I can get where I'm going quickly!"

Man I miss land yachts. Modern luxury brands / models are all built as "luxury performance;" no one builds a rolling sofa anymore and that is a disappointment.

I had one recently that (when changing / creating the password) would allow you paste into the "new password" field but not the "confirm password" field. Super annoying.

I just opened dev tools, pasted it into the "value" property for the control, and kept on truckin'. Just nuts that had to be done though.

Please don't construe my comment here as a defense of the company; I'm only providing some context here regarding how he may have been hired.

If you've never worked near or in an industry like this, you may not be familiar with "cattle call" hiring. There's basically a standing advert from the company for work at the plant: Show up Monday morning at 05:00 and you can be working the same day if they hire you in. Typically there's a group of 10, 20, or maybe more lined up for a job. Everyone is told to bring a photo ID and a social security card.

The kid in the article looks slight, but at 16 he was probably close enough to adult proportions to look like he could do the work. He'd line up with everyone else in front of a table and eventually have his turn to talk to the manager / hiring officer. They'd take his ID and SS card and write down the info, and ask the required questions for the I9 form, likely filling it out for him and signing off as translator / preparer assistance. Then they hand back the credentials and he waits off to the side.

Once they have enough applicants to fill however many positions they need, they send the remainder home. Everyone is given a timeclock ID number. Anyone working the day shift is taken immediately to the plant, handed PPE and tools, and put to work. Second and third shifts are sent home and told to come back in the afternoon or at midnight.

And that's it. That's the extent of the contact during the hiring process. At the end of the week there's a check waiting for you at the plant office. Next Monday the company repeats the process to fill positions for people that didn't show or quit during the week.

The company has 3 days to submit the I9 form, and if it comes back invalid they must terminate employment. But with stolen identities they likely clear and that's the end of any scrutiny. If you asked that hiring manager on Tuesday to pick out someone he hired Monday morning, he probably couldn't do it.

In a conversation the other day the film Contempt came up, and we looked up the movie and were surprised Brigitte Bardot is still around at 90.

Your first paragraph reminded me of a short story: There Will Come Soft Rains.

I daily a 1996 Jeep Cherokee. Manual transmission, manual windows, manual door locks. The basic radio was broken before I got it. It does have computer engine control with OBD2, but even that is simple in comparison.

When something breaks or maintenance is needed, it's a straightforward fix with typical tools. I've come to appreciate the simplicity.

A fun little thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXKUcsvhQc

"There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. But there are few old, bold pilots."