There never was any luster. Not something I've ever heard anyone discuss in any context.

If you really believe that soldiers and/or sailors aren't trained to do exactly that today, you're living in a fantasy world.

Seems to depend on location. In my home city in Europe, it was 3-4 times a day, even shortly after the war.

Numbers mean nothing once enough inflation is involved. But back in those same days, a mailman could support a family on his salary. Not a luxury life for sure, but enough to rent a place and put food on the table. Women working was still a somewhat new thing.

Yes, this stuff is moving digital as well. At different speeds in different countries.

"No, Davies can't fix the autocannon even if your lives depend on it. Division says to shoot him in the arse if he so much as touches it."

Nice bit of fiction, but here's what actually happened when Sgt. John Basilone fixed a machine gun under fire. The results look a little different, don't they?

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.

Numerous stores already track you via your phone's Bluetooth signal.

That's easy to prevent: just turn your Bluetooth off when you're not using it and make sure it's off before going into any store that you suspect is using it to track you. Personally, I can't remember the last time I've had it turned on. Of course, I can't use those fancy wireless earbuds (or any other kind) because they don't fit my ears.

If people would like to get their âoedisabilityâ tested and verified with more than an echo chamber and paid for personally, then the results will speak for who should be recognized vs. who should be questioned instead of coddled.

In my case, any disabilities I'd be claiming would have been tested and verified by the VA. (Currently, I'm 30% disabled, all disabilities Service Connected as I posted earlier.) Would you find that sufficient, and if not, why?

You needed a handbook for that?

Anyone who ever went to a business meeting could've told you that.

By my experience, it takes only 4 things to make a meeting productive: a) someone is in charge of the meeting and moderation, b) that someone had time to prepare, c) everyone in the meeting has received an agenda with enough lead time to have read it and (if necessary) prepare their part, at least a bit and finally d) there is at least a simple protocol of the meeting for those who couldn't attend, those who dozed off in the middle, and those who claim next week that something else was agreed on.

I suspect that if they tried filtering out people like me that way, they'd soon find themselves on the wrong end of a law suit. Why? Because all of my disabilities have the magic words "Service Connected" attached to them which means that the disabilities I'm claiming have been tested for and verified.

seriously, slashdot? It's 2025 and you still can't do the Euro sign?