AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)

Do people really put the bubbles on the outside? The bubbles have much thinner plastic than the smooth side; it seems intuitively obvious that you put the softer bubble against the thing being protected and the thicker plastic towards the outside world.

Right - so?

This make me sad, English major or otherwise. I mean, you can look up at the moon and see when the far side is at least partially illuminated.

Okay, good info. Sadly, is hard to trust anything with the Google name these days.

I’m an old guy with a CS degree. I watched the Internet and the web come into existence. I had so much excitement and hope for it. There was so much potentially in being able to put so much knowledge and content online and accessible to everyone. To have applications you could run from a common interface. I thought it would be so glorious.

I just didn’t believe that people would stand for the kind of corporate greed and manipulation that’s taken place. It’s one of the saddest things ever.

Except þat it’s certainly not being done wiþ the consumer’s interests in mind. It’s done for surveillance capitalism, and it’s done for control.

That was my whole point. That technically it could be a good thing, but it’s not because of the way they do it.

Not sure I could trust a TV made by Google.

I still have to have a separate device with cables going to it.

Oh, that’s a good point too.

I don’t agree. I don’t need my TV to keep up with the latest software like I do my computer. I’d like it to load apps for the streaming services and search YouTube videos. If it can do that today, it can do that five years from now.

Fewer devices, my TV is mounted to the wall, so fewer cords. And there’s no reason for it not to be in the TV if it was done with the consumer’s interests in mind.

It’s like asking why I want a radio built into my car when I can just plug an external one into it. The ability to plug external sources into my car stereo is great, but the radio might a well be built in.

The problem would be that not everyone keeps their contact info up to date (I’ve probably moved twice since I became a member), some of the people would no longer be members, if they mail out a bunch of checks, some of them won’t get cashed, etc. Doing that is going to eat into the refund, so there will be less to hand out.

And, personally, I didn’t care that much. Most of the stores who sold things at higher prices because of tariffs have no record of who bought bought what, but I still want to see them go after the government for the money. Reducing future prices seems simple.

Yeah, I’m sure they have data on sales by membership. But it would be complicated by the number of people whose contact info is out of date, the ones who are no longer members, mailing checks that don’t get cashed, etc. For sure not impossible, just a lot harder and more expensive.

Summarizing: Costco paid tariffs on things, and so they raised prices accordingly, passing those increases on to their customers. The tariffs were recently ruled illegal, so Costco is suing the government for reimbursement of the illegal tariffs, and have said they’ll pass the repayment on to customers by lowering future prices. A group is unhappy with that approach and is suing to force Costco to reimburse customers who paid the higher prices in the past, not pass the money through future sales.

I’m guessing it’s much, much harder to figure out who paid the higher prices in the past and how to get the money to them. Personally, I’m just happy Costco is trying to force the government to reimburse the tariff money. I could see them using the refund to lower or eliminate membership prices for anyone who was a member during the time the tariffs were in effect.

The smart TV part is conceptually okay, but the bullshit is unspeakable. I actually like that TVs have apps for the streaming services and stuff, if they didn’t have to be evil about how they implement it. But they’re evil, so here we all are, wanting completely dumb TVs.

Sounds great except that, you know, they’re made of black licorice.