Ay Ay...

Now I interview graduates who canâ(TM)t explain what a HAVING clause does in SQL

I avoid using HAVING when possible, it's screwy to troubleshoot, especially when dealing with nulls. Instead I break the query into multiple sub-queries (CTEs) via WITH statements.

That's DOGE's side of the story. Many employees found out they had to use their personal card for work travel and then file paperwork for reimbursement. That extra paperwork is created and processed on tax-payer's dime.

Cut-first-and-think-later...or quit.

If the crypto pop coincides with the AI pop, 1930's 2.0.

...cheap Russian oil. Profit!

"It looks like you are attempting grift, would you like help with that?"

At least customers asked for Xboxes.

It will be interesting to see how bad the AI bubble burst kicks MS.

But often it ends up the wrong tool for the job, used like a database or application. When the person who made the spaghetti-sheets leaves, everyone is left scratching their heads.

MS-Access would be a better fit, but it's often frowned upon because amateurs have also damaged its reputation. It's possible to write maintenance-friendly apps with MS-Access, it's just not tuned that way out of the box, and "maintain-ifying" an app is not taught.

(Web equivalents of MS-Access so far suck. The web ruins every CRUD/biz/data idea, I've come to conclude, probably because of the LSD-laced DOM.)

So Bricklin would not have gotten a patent, that's all that means.

Similar happened for lawsuits over dBASE's IP. With a little digging, a couple of similar languages and systems were found for older bigger computers. There was very little in dBASE that was original. The cloners just used synonyms for commands and key-words.

DOS did similar word-play per CP/M. In the early days of software, almost everyone was a dirty rat-thief, perhaps because patenting software was a legally murky area.

...going to fly to CRISPR Island and have their genes edited for a bigger dick, longer jiz, bigger tits, etc.

And we all know that won't happen.

The thing with fines is that all the people ACTIVELY involved have interests that don't align with the public and taxpayers.

The shops are ok with fines if they happen rarely and in manageable amounts. Then they can just factor them in as costs of doing business.

The inspectors need occasional fines to justify their existance. So, counter-intuitively, they have absolutely no interest in the businesses they inspect to actually be compliant. Just compliant enough that the non-compliance doesn't make more headlines than their fines. So they'll come now and then, but not so often that the business actually feels pressured into changing things.

You misunderstand wealth.

Most wealth of the filthy rich is in assets. Musk OWNS stuff that is worth X billions. That doesn't mean he as 140 mio. in cash sitting in his bottom drawer.

Moreoever, much of the spending the filthy rich do is done on debt. They put up their wealth as a collateral and buy stuff with other people's (the banks) money. There's some tax trickery with this the exact details I forgot about.

So yes, coughing up $140 mio. is at least a nuissance, even if on paper it's a rounding error.

The actual story that got buried is that the filthy rich are now in full-blown "I rule the world" mode when their reaction to a fee is not "sorry, we fucked up, won't happen again", but "let's get rid of those rules, they bother me".

These automated tags are about $15-$20 each. If you buy a million you can probably get them for $10, but still. Oh yes, and their stated lifetime is 5 years. And you STILL need an employee to walk around updating because it's done via NFC.

In many cases, there are modern tech solutions, but pen-and-paper is still cheaper, easier and more reliable.

It's not necessarily malice. What I mean is: They are certainly malicious, but maybe not in this.

Now THAT is a rare example of an actually smart law.

No government funds needed to enforce the policy, while the stores have an incentive to post the right prices. Why the max $5 though?

My grandparents and parents sometimes talked about how mail used to work.

Delivery within the same city within a few hours. The mailman would come to your house several times during the same day. Every day.

Telephones changed that. With phones, if something is urgent but not so urgent you go yourself, you can make a call. So the demand for same-day-delivery disappeared. Visiting each house only once means a mailman can cover more houses in the same amount of hours.

Privatizing mail delivery is an astonishingly stupid idea, given that what is left in physical mail delivery is often important, official documents.