My husband turned a stainless steel hex nut on a lathe to make my wedding ring. Later on we bought a CZ engagement ring at Fedco. Not everybody is stupid.

Companies can only use the info to try to sell us stuff. Unlike the governments, they have no police power. Microsoft can't force me to use Windows, but governments can take my money by force. If they can't get a warrant, that's their problem.

My Pixel2 works fine. Not much bloatware. Coat me $120 with 128GB when it was 3 years old, unused. Camera good, sound bad. Replaced the battery after 3 years for $60. I'll replace the battery in another 3 years if it needs it. I'd like a telephoto lens, but that's the only drawback.

Planning. We and the toddlers need to be on the other side of the country by next Monday. Check out the van, fill the fluids, fill the ice chest, fill the food box, pack the clothes, pee, go. Which way? I don't know, let's decide when we have to. Multiple decision points along the way. Gas available everywhere. Same with parts stores if we need to fix something and grocery stores for food. Did this maybe a dozen times, combining touring with business. Return trip with no time limit. I would hate to have to organize better than that.

Do people still do this? It's the only way to travel.

Yes it was. Way better, at least for the literate.

Each corporate entity was assigned a raise pool -- a percentage of payroll perhaps equal to inflation, perhaps a bit more or less. Zero-sum game. What one employee got, another didn't. If a top highly-paid performer in a group was given the raise he deserved nobody else could get one -- and in all likelihood the top guy deserved MORE. Given the nature of the group I dealt with, we had ONLY top performers; anyone less was quietly laid off. Having to give performance reviews (good) that justified only a tiny increase was an exercise in diplomacy -- of which I don't have very much. Over the years it came down to "Sorry, it was your turn last year". The only reason people stayed was the unique and glamorous nature of the job itself.

It can only be worse now.

We pay for it one way or another. How about making the cost of the program a direct tax credit? I pay HRB $35 for the software and I deduct $35 from the tax I owe. Saves the government the expense of setting up their own program, saves us money and gets the software companies to leave the poor beleaguered congressdroids alone.

I'm pissed that we no longer get CDs. How much can it cost to include one in the little cardboard box that we buy? AOL used to swamp us with the damn things...

Why is it necessary to say anything more than "They started it"?

And this is why I would never have an HMO. It's worth money to be able to fire a turkey, and you have no way of knowing who was in the bottom 10% of his med school class -- but he's probably working for an HMO.

I guess some of us aren't actually tethered to the damn things!

Granted, I'm retired and probably won't get urgent calls in the middle of the night unless somebody died. Still, the damn phone is for MY convenience and it seems obvious that it needs to be turned off every once in a while in order to force those stupid apps that lurk in the shadows to off themselves. Turn off the computer, turn off the phone, brush teeth, pee, hop into bed. How hard can it be?

What, Europeans can't drive long distances without hitting something? No wonder you have so much public transportation.

Exactly. When and where and as far as I want. Privately, without being subjected to the presence of possibly violent addicted loons and vomit on the floor. True, we're subject to the availability of gas stations, but those are pretty much everywhere -- and we can always carry a jerry can if that seems necessary.

The simple fact that I can get to a place with my car in half an hour or on public transportation in 5 hours should be sufficient proof that personal individual transportation is essential. Those who say the solution is MORE TRAINS AND BUSES don't see that that provides the same set of problems as the MORE FREEWAYS concept they deplore.

Having hired people to work at a high-tech edu-governmental site for 12 years, I have SOME standing
here, although it may be several decades old.

There were ALWAYS degree requirements, but Art History would have put you into the 'professional' class (as opposed to the peonage) as well as a BS in Math from Caltech. True, the Math guy would probably be paid more, but the Art History guy wouldn't have his career options automatically limited. Some of the best people had no degree at all and a job history of, say, pump jockey at a marina. They were never paid as much as the hopeless losers (who at first seemed so promising) with degrees.

Requiring a degree is just a way of cutting the pile of resumes down to a manageable size. The managers who actually make the choices don't want to think about more than a few candidates (never more than 6). The HR people pick out a dozen possibles (out of hundreds), call in the likeliest for interviews and send the ones without visible defects on to the managers.

The managers' criteria generally involved non-technical factors; one manager rejected a really good candidate because he didn't want to
supervise somebody older than himself. One technically-excellent guy was rejected because he was virtually inarticulate -- a basement-dweller
genius type, which is what was actually wanted.

Looking back, the people I had a bad feeling about during the interview (pure gut feel, nothing to point at) ended up being "let go" within a year
for various reasons, most of which were unwillingness to actually do the work. Most of those people had degrees.

The best computer people I know taught themselves how to do it. They had jobs to do and used computers to do the work. They think a degree in CS is silly. Coding is what you do to get the job done, not an end in itself.

I'm not saying all degrees are useless, just the ones that teach you how to do something you could learn to do with some books and a computer.
Maybe not even books any more...

I buy the HRBlock software but mail paper to the IRS and the state. No way do I trust either TT (who failed once) or HRB to file electronically for ANY reason. BUT the IRS claimed I hadn't sent my payment on time so they dinged me for a late-payment penalty PLUS interest. I KNOW I mailed everything on time; they just lost my envelope for a few months. I convinced them based on my many decades of NEVER filing late to forgive the penalty, but I still owed $30 in interest. They warned me that this was a one-time forgiveness and that additional sins would be harshly dealt with.

Since all I had was photos of all the envelopes I mailed that day (clearly no proof of anything except putting stamps on addressed envelopes) I sent them a check. This convinced me -- for the first time -- to send this stuff by certified mail, but I really resent it. Pay a bribe/extortion fee to the USPS to do their job THAT WE ALREADY PAY THEM TO DO? Damn.

"Nice tax payment you got there. Be a real shame if something happened to it..."