Eh, there isn't really any source material there for them to deviate from. This is essentially well done fan fiction based on another piece of fan fiction, that read more like excerpts of an encyclopedia entry. I didn't find the show to be all that compelling but it wasn't all that bad either. I didn't have much in the way of expectations for it though. Tolkien did a lot of world building but they deliberately wrote this show to fit in where there was a lack of details so as to avoid being boxed in by existing lore.

Budget sure, but even more concerning for pats on the head like quarterly awards that look good when it comes time for getting a promotion. Then you also have every mid and top level bureaucratic manager constantly re-organizing and micro-managing everything under them to put their own stamp on it. I've worked places where the naming/numbering for groups had been done so often and so frequently that you needed to know the previous half dozen designations for your office to function. And figuring out who was responsible for what in each system was a nightmare because they'd be listed under a designation that hasn't been right in years. In organizations with thousands of people and as many projects and systems reshuffling everything every 6-18 months, it's honestly amazing that it all just doesn't collapse.

I'd add that disclosing isn't really enough. I'd impose a 24 hour hold on all transactions and force immediate disclosure of the pending transaction. If I want to make a change to my retirement funds allocations it comes with a 24 hour hold, specifically to discourage people from trying to time the market.

I agree that it is tied to choice in some ways but we are also in an era of historic plenty when it comes to the availability of food/calories. And I've known a number of people from the generation before mine that were seriously malnourished as kids, and even into adulthood. So I expect some of what we're seeing is a result of people not being literally starved.

Mine is almost ten years old and I'm considering upgrading for a fresh battery, so I can get back to it lasting a month on a single charge. If the UI is more responsive that'd be a big plus as well. I definitely wouldn't be disposing of the old one though, that'd get passed down to a kid.

Yeah, "walled garden" isn't really very accurate in terms of Kindles and Amazon. Most of the stuff I have on my kindles wasn't purchased through Amazon. I guess you can't install an application for another storefront on it, but I usually do all my purchases through a PC and then send them to my Kindle anyways.

At one point my career depended on getting skinny. I spent six months working out 5 days a week, an hour of cardio everyday and circuit training 3 of those days. I kept a food journal and reviewed it with a dietician every month. I was stronger and faster at the end of those six months but five pounds heavier and not a fraction of an inch skinnier. I ended up changing careers. Now sure I'm 80 pounds heavier and not nearly as physically capable, but I just don't care about it and it doesn't affect my ability to provide for my family. I've eaten how I please for more than a decade now and while my weight is higher it found a balance and only changes by about 5 pounds from year to year. The only weight loss method that ever worked for me was severe caloric restriction, 1kc a day, which is far from healthy.

Bottom line is that a lot of people probably get sick of fighting their weight and just opt out of the war.

Precision was also driven by industry. Clocks and watches were important as part of the navigational equipment on sailing ships. And railway companies insisted on conductors using watches that were built to precise requirements to be very accurate for their day and age.

At this point I've probably spent more of my life wearing a wrist watch than not. I wear it so I can know the time whenever I by just looking at my wrist. People talk about using their phone as a replacement and I just don't get that. Even when I have carried a cell phone dragging it out of a pocket and then fiddling with it just to see the time has seemed silly. The watch I wear is admittedly more expensive than is strictly required for the purpose, being a couple hundred dollars when brand new, but is is definitely more about function for me than accessorizing.

The cost of housing can be insane, and it's even weirder that people that can't afford a house have to rent, which is more expensive. That said there is still plenty of places to live that aren't horrendously expensive, they just aren't popular. Part of the problem in my eyes is that each generation looks at what their parents have and expects to get all of that right off the bat. They end up drowning in debt trying to get there. It is true though that our parents likely had it easier in some ways. Housing and vehicles being more affordable in general, but that doesn't mean it's out of reach entirely for people today.

Still not necessarily nefarious. If you were in reality a older woman, from a minority group, with a clearly ethnic name, then masquerading as a younger white male could give you considerably better odds of landing the job. If you used your own SSN you'd be giving the game away right off the bat. I'm pretty sure that when your SSN is checked for employment it isn't just a is this number legit, it'll be matched against a name at the least and quite likely gender and date of birth.

I got my auto loan approval from my bank and then went to the stealership. Where I let them play all the games they wanted to reduce the sticker price, while maximizing their long term profit on the sale. My only real requirement was that the loan not have a clause preventing or penalizing early payoff. Once I had the vehicle in my possession I went to the bank where they cut a check for the balance of the stealerships loan and mailed it off.

If I could remember the name I would. As it was I had exactly one interaction with him during my months there and I probably couldn't have told you his name once I PCS'd. Hell I might not have remembered it while I was there. He was the commander of the 336 Training Squadron at Keesler AFB in 2002.

I served under a commander that was eventually found to have been abusing his position to obtain sex from from people in his command. He had been there for a few years or less and the investigators were able to find more than forty victims that were willing to testify. Who knows how many more there were that were too afraid or embarrassed to go on record as having been victimized. With those kinds of numbers you'd think it would have made national headlines or something. Nope, it was just a little blurb in a military periodical and googling it now shows squat.

The idea that people specially trained to manipulate others thoughts and actions would use that for personal gain or advantage isn't much of a stretch.

Germany at the end of WW1 suffered a full defeat and was forced into making reparations payments that crippled the country for decades to come. That in large part riled up the population enough to support a second go. In this case no one is talking about beating Russia all the way back to Moscow, but just pushing them back out of Ukraine. While many countries throughout the world have been sanctioning Russia those sanctions for the most part have been about punishing the Russian leadership. Even if the EU stops buying any Russian gas and oil it isn't like there aren't other markets for those resources.

It's hard to see where labor is overvalued. Wages have been stagnant compared to the increases we've been seeing in productivity and profits for decades. Hell, unemployment is high but you can't find enough people to properly staff a fast food joint where I live. I can hit up most any sit down restaurant in my area and be eating my meal faster than if I tried a drive through.