AFK BRB Chocolate

Funny, that word was used in a book I was reading over the weekend and I looked it up.

Old guy checking in. I was a computer science major, graduating in 1985. My goal at the time was to go into computer animation (note that Toy story, the first full length computer animated movie, wasn’t released until ten years later). But there was a big computer animated project that was canceled or tabled just before my last semester, so the market was flooded with out of work animators and I decided I’d better do something different. I was getting married, and I needed a job.

I had good grades, but I didn’t think there was much that made my resume stand out from my classmates, each of whom was making 100+ copies of theirs and applying to every software job they could find. So instead, I asked everyone I knew if they knew anyone who worked at a place that hired software people, and asked if they could get me a name of a hiring manager. I got seven or eight of those, and I sent each of them a letter with my resume, mentioning who pointed me their direction. Out of that I got three interviews and two job offers. My first job ended up being writing control software for the space shuttle main engines, and I stayed at the company almost 40 years. I just retired in January.

As I understand it, it’s the effect of a number of policy decisions intended in the surface to stabilize the economy. They stopped approving minimum wage hikes, they accepted a higher rate of unemployment due to factory automation, etc. Also, the difference between worker and executive compensation has grown tremendously.

I don’t know if it’s an urban legend, but the story I had always heard was that chocolate became very scarce during the war, as milk was rationed, but Hershey’s figured out how to make decent tasting chocolate from spoiled milk, which was easier to get since no one wanted it. The war went on long enough that Americans eventually expected chocolate to taste like that, so after it ended they reformulated to keep the signature taste while using fresh milk.

That’s why the right aligned with evangelicals all those years ago. Prior to that, Republicans were actually for abortion rights as a personal freedoms thing. But then they started with the family values stuff, casting Democrats as literally against God. “You need to vote for us because we’ll protect marriage, keep you safe from the sin of homosexuality, and most importantly will protect the babies from being murdered.” Once in office, they could pass all of the tax cuts for the wealthy and reduce corporate oversight, which was the actual goal.

I worked for almost 40 years at a company that made rocket engines. For the first couple decades (and all the time prior to my starting there), the head of the company was someone who came up through the ranks. They were very knowledgeable about rocket engines, or at least very knowledgeable at the aspect that they worked on (there are a lot of specialties involved), and somewhat knowledgeable about the others.

But as the company traded hands, we ended up with CEOs or GMs that knew nothing about rockets and instead were just focused on the business aspects of it. Some of them were smart people, but they wouldn’t have cared if the company was making spoons or skateboards. From my vantage point, the company really went downhill when that happened, but I don’t think it’s uncommon these days.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy knows nothing about logistics.

Yes Putin sought NATO membership, but NATO was formed as a check on Soviet aggression, so that’s a nonstarter. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, and they thought they’d cakewalk into Ukraine as well. There’s no slant where Russia is the good guy in this. You sound like a propaganda machine.

Russia sent people to talk about peace

You mean the country that started the war by invading another country wants to discuss a peace they could have by simply getting out of that country? Russia, who has violated more than one ceasefire? What a bunch of crap.

I’m an American and I’m upvoting this. After 2016, I thought that there were some misguided people who didn’t realize what they were doing, but that the first Trump term would push the pendulum hard the other direction. I felt a little validated when Biden won in 2020, but it wasn’t as one sided as I’d hoped. But Trump winning decisively in 2024 tells me that everyone knew and did it anyway. People are getting what they want: rampant racism, sexism, and global bullying.

So yes, we suck, and no one should trust us as a country, regardless of the fact that there are many of us who knew how catastrophic another Trump term would be.