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“Free society” is an oxymoron. Pick one or the other.

This is why republicans are opposed to reasonable gun control. These emergencies are money making opportunities. The more our lives are under threat, the more opportunity there is for businesses to cash in on our fears.

Smith said the panic alarm system at Apalachee, powered by Georgia-based safety solutions company Centegix, has only been in place at the school for about a week.

Other companies also offer technologies that claim to improve real-time reporting in emergency situations, NBC News has previously reported.

Centegix, in particular, advocates for Alyssa’s Law — a measure, passed in seven states and introduced in nine others, that would require schools to install silent panic alarms that are directly linked to law enforcement.

I mean, yes it’s fantastic that we have these technologies to notify emergency services but, what are we doing to actually prevent the emergencies?

We can pass laws requiring states to spend money on buying things from other businesses but we refuse to pass laws actually preventing the emergencies from occurring.

No. Because I have a basic understanding of economics and business operations, it depends.

If you could show me the revenue, profits, sales, investments, and salaries for a company and put their finances in context with the entire industry and external factors, then I could form some opinion about that company or the industry as a whole.

Egg producers on the west coast had to slaughter over four million hens due to bird flu. Taking this single event as it is, it would suggest that the wholesale cost of eggs on the west coast would decrease while the east coast would see prices increase. Because the overall supply of eggs decreased and, as its been reported, the demand has increased, retail prices went up. This price increase is due to the need to acquire eggs from other locations and juggling the supply chain. When dealing with unknown economic forecasts, due to bird flu or hurricanes or forrest fires or covid, an intelligent CFO would increase prices to prepare for a downturn in sales. Then, when they have too much stock, they could sell the product cheaper to get rid of it. If it turns out that there’s a sustained economic stress, they’ve banked some cash to continue operations - employing staff. They might even hoard capital to make investments. These investments could be for needless CEO bonuses, they could be for union pensions, they could be for expanding infrastructure, or buying other failing companies.

“Record profits”, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. How they acquired those profits and what they do with them is what’s to be judged.

Well, that’s entirely incorrect. You can make up all the words you want but those words already exist and have definitions.

Corporate greed and inflation could not be more separate from each other. At least apples and oranges are both fruits.

Honestly, it’s difficult for me to understand how you could compare the two. I’d like to hear your thought process.

I should edit my comment and add “post rage bait”.

You’re absolutely right. I’d describe myself similarly to you. I even created a local community here for my city. But it feels like I’m speaking quietly on top of a mountain while the nearest person is a time zone away. Perhaps a handful of people would stop by and subscribe to the content but this isn’t about subscribing - it’s about engaging. Communities are about exchanging ideas. Posting something that compels people to engage is one way to increase activity. As more people notice the community, they’ll be more likely to engage when there’s enough noise around that doesn’t single them out too much.

The major social platforms know this. This is why they promote trash over quality information. This is why I get frustrated on Instagram because it continues to show me posts from two or three days ago notifying me that I missed an exciting event.

You can post all the great informative content you want on your little corner of the fediverse but without engagement, is it really there?

By permitting advertising.

“Normies” are not “microbloggers”. Most people just want to follow what their friends and family and news organizations and “influencers” are posting.

My biggest gripe with the fediverse (indirectly) is that all the information I would get on Twitter about my city is not available to me - concert announcements, restaurant specials, road closures, major news, hobby meetups, etc. They’re posting on Facebook and Instagram (which is IMO the worst of all social platforms) and slowly adopting Threads. My issue with these platforms is mostly regarding the algorithm deciding what it thinks you want. This is driven by advertising.

Twitter didn’t really pick up steam until celebrities and news outlets were posting and engaging on the platform. Then they pushed hard for ads to increase revenue and expand features and stability (for better or worse). Then they just got greedy. Then they were sold for the dumbest amount of money in the history of sales.

Getting normies here means getting influencers here. Influencers want to make money for being assholes. If you don’t want influencers and ads here, don’t ask for the normies to come. Accept the beauty of this micro micro blogging platform. If you want to share outside the open fediverse, embrace cross posting to the closed platforms. That’s kind of the whole point of it. You can post in your tiny little corner while still engaging with the more popular platforms.

TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.

Kinda. That’s an additional problem caused by resellers. This topic is about farmers and whole sale prices and consumer demand. What you’ve linked to is not inflation but corporate greed.

“On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation,” Groff wrote.

Two different subjects.

Edit: Man, people are so angry about “____” that they completely ignore the facts presented to them. It’s incredible. I can’t understand that after all these years people still put their feelings before facts. I would have thought the world would have collectively learned this lesson by now.

Yes. I don’t understand your question. Are you not aware of what facts are?

I’ll buy the flu and demand angle when I see the egg suppliers post losses.

So you’re rejecting verifiable and well known facts to appease your feelings? Cool.

This is called inflation. Every company ever has done this. Prices are increased explicitly to reduce demand. If they were to lower the prices and take a loss when there’s already no supply, they’d go out of business. Every company adjusts the price of their goods based on demand.

If you’re not happy about it, don’t buy the product. Or, buy products that are already priced at the value they offer. I’ve been paying over $5 for eggs for over ten years. The prices have not changed. Paying a dollar for a dozen eggs is absolutely ridiculous. Finding out that people were pissed because an egg was costing in excess of a dime or two is something I’m still struggling to come to terms with.

If you want to go on about corporate greed in agriculture, you should be looking at the beef and pork producers. The entire industry is a literal organized crime ring run by four companies using a shared database of sales and profits to push prices up in unison.

Rob a bank.

Ugh. Not a fan of podcasts for articles. I’ll check back when there’s a transcript.

Anyway, although I haven’t read Project 2025, from what I have heard, it’s all very familiar Republican talking points. They’ve been pushing towards strict constitutionalism where anything not in the constitution is given to the states - such as dept of ed which Regan ran his campaign in opposition of. “Welfare and education are two functions that should be primarily carried out at the state and local levels.” https://archive.is/xW7RI

I’m definitely interested in reading more about the “roots”.

To back up what’s already been said, you could use another service to create playlists then use a service like SongShift to replicate it on your platform.

A word of caution though. It might not always pick the right song you want from the album you want. Like, you might get a live version or you might get a version from some random compilation album (especially jarring when the album art appears).

You could also just export from SongShift to a CSV file, if that’s your jam.

I’ve always thought the recommendations from Apple were off. I remember that any time I’d play a grunge playlist, it would include Pink Floyd. Last I used it, I thought Pandora was pretty good.

Whether the economy its better under Republicans or Democrats is not open to speculation.

If you’re not trying to create rage-bait, the answer lies in fact-based data which the World Wide Web, I’m sure, has readily available for your review.

Here’s the first result my search engine offered me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party

Note that that link is a Wikipedia article. At the bottom, you’ll find the sources you’re looking for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party#References

Here are a few more articles my search engine produced for me:

April 2024: https://www.epi.org/press/new-report-finds-that-the-economy-performs-better-under-democratic-presidential-administrations/

May 2022: https://newrepublic.com/article/166274/economy-record-republicans-vs-democrats

February 2021: https://www.newsweek.com/us-jobs-income-gdp-growth-startlingly-higher-under-democratic-presidents-analysis-1566313

September 2020: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2020/09/08/republicans-or-democrats-who-is-better-for-the-economy/

June 2016: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/309cc8e1-b971-45c6-ab52-29ffb1da9bf5/jec-fact-sheet---the-economy-under-democratic-vs.-republican-presidents-june-2016.pdf

July 2014: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-economy-grows-faster-under-democratic-presidents-than-republicans/

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. Why go through all that trouble when they’ve already accomplished the end goal you’ve outlined?

I still don’t understand why any human but the worst would even consider voting for this maggot.

Other than general assumptions and track-record and being a business that sells user data, is there any actual evidence or clear and present ways that Meta could do harm to the Fediverse / its users?

All I’ve read is that it seems suspicious and we shouldn’t trust them. I totally agree with that but I’d like someone to give some examples of what they could do as a member of the network. I’ve read how they could post advertising – how would that work?

I ask because, like the previous comment, the idea of following people from other, more popular, federated platforms from the comfort and security of “open source” (?) platforms is appealing. At the same time, if this is leaving me and my platform vulnerable to something specific, I’d like to either proceed with caution or not proceed at all.

The biggest loss for me when leaving Twitter was losing access to so much happening in my community and local news and government organizations. They’re all still posting on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and not moving to the open social web. More and more are moving to Threads though so it would be nice to maintain / regain exposure.

In an alternate timeline, Elon Musk may have actually been a reputable head of the Department of Transportation.

That’s pretty much what we do (including retrofitting 200+ year old farm houses). Just replace your home server with a Crestron box. For people who want to tinker on a regular basis, we could (I have) easily build them a custom interface but you certainly fit the bill of someone who should do it themselves. You’ve chosen this as a hobby and a life long commitment.

You know what they say about plumbers… always a leaky pipe in their house. Having been in the industry for decades, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is futz around with networking and programming. I have wireless Ikea lighting. The battery has been dead on one of my smart buttons for a month and I’m too lazy to take two minutes to swap it.

This is a complicated answer just because there’s so many options and variables. We always tell people to run more wire than they think they’ll need.

Proper speaker wire is fire rated for in-wall use - don’t run lamp cord in your walls. 18 gauge, two pair or four pair is typical. While the walls are open; run at least one Cat6 to TVs, potential wifi access point locations, security camera locations, door bell, light switches, even speaker locations and someplace you think you might want a source component (turntable, etc). If you want controlled shades, they may take special wiring which you’d definitely want to run now. Worse case, 18/4 and Cat6. Everything should start from a central location not far from your electric panel.

You’ll need to balance how you want to control the system with how the system you want can be controlled. If you want in wall keypads or touch screens, that control system needs to be compatible or made compatible with your source gear. If you want to control everything with an iPhone or iPad, you’ll need to look into a control system that’s compatible with that.

Consider that a ubiquitous 110v commercial amplifier can likely power all the speakers in your home but it lacks volume control. Most whole home amplifiers lack a volume control you can operate from a mobile device. There are in-wall volume controls that can sit between the amplifier and the speakers. To use those, you could run 18/4 (and maybe Cat6) from the amp to the volume control then 18/2 from the volume control to the speaker. You could also consider a matrix switcher with preamp. This would distribute one or more sources to the amplifier channel (speaker zone) you choose and possibly give you remote volume control.

Those are just some thoughts. You might want to check out these sites for equipment ideas: monoprice, sweetwater, snapav, russound.