Don’t reply at all unless you talk to a lawyer. Seriously, no good can come from it. Quietly disable/delete whatever they list, and never mention it again.
First, a massive amount of content is removed. You won’t find a lot of popular, unencrypted content these days on usenet. It’s all encrypted and obfuscated now to avoid the bots
Speaking of bots, I don’t think you realize how much of this process is automated, or how wide of a net is being used. The media corporations all have enormous collected libraries of material. It gets posted constantly to all sorts of places. This includes public torrents, public usenet, YouTube, PornHub (yes, really, even for non-porn), Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr, GNUtella, DDL sites…
The list goes on and on. Each one gets scanned for millions of potentially infringing items, often daily. No actual people are doing those steps.
Now, throw in things like private torrents, encrypted usenet posts, invite-only DDL, listings that use ‘3’ instead ‘e’ or those other character subscriptions… These require actual humans to process. Humans that cost money, and a considerable amount of it. As a business, you have to show a return on investment. Fighting piracy, even at its theoretical best, doesn’t increase revenues by a lot.
You mention revenue and breaking even, but you left out an important detail. Your time is free. They don’t have to pay $10/month, they have to pay $10/month + $20/hour for someone to deal with it. And most pirates of that level will just find another method.
It doesn’t matter if they’re making money. Google/Alphabet is a for-profit company. A big part of this means they have to make as much money as possible. MBA programs literally teach that any unrealized potential profit is lost money.
They could rake in a trillion dollars in ads, and they’d still do this if it meant they could get 1.1 trillion instead.
Get them a nicer version of things they already get. Fancy coffee, hot sauces, soap, candles, pens, that sort of thing. It loses some of its charm, but that could also mean a gift card to a nicer restaurant. Just make sure it’s enough to cover the meal.
This works especially well if they’re pretty cheap and wouldn’t get things like that, simply because they’re too expensive.
You can also go for some very pseudo-luxury items. Vermont Maple syrup (or Maple candies - seriously, it’s just crystalized sugar, but it seems so rich), sausage and cheese sets, chocolate oranges…
Finally, here’s the biggest tip - Don’t wait until December to think about it. Pay attention through the year. They will almost certainly mention something offhand to you. A passing comment like “we never have enough -----” or “---- never works right” are perfect opportunities. Just make a note on your phone. Feel free to ask probing questions and even tell them that’s what you’re doing- if it’s before Halloween, they’ll almost certainly forget by Xmas anyway.
As someone who doesn’t remember those days, why was it so ridiculous to get a burger without a bun? Even without lettuce wraps, it seems like it would’ve been simple enough to throw/stack in the wrapper/box. Messy, but simple. These days, it’s commonly eaten with a fork.
A half gallon of cold brew coffee is up to $7. I can make it myself for a fraction of that, but it’s more labor for me.
I mean, only a little bit of labor. Even with premium grounds, I can’t imagine it costing more than 50 cents to make a half gallon. As for labor, just throw it all in a pitcher, give it a quick shake or stir, then leave it in the fridge for a couple of days. Pour it through a standard filter. I use the basket from my regular coffee maker.
Making your own cold brew is one of the most cost-efficient DIY foods out there.
Are they obfuscated in any way? Depending on your client, you may not be able to see the names and subjects. But if you didn’t have the NZB, is there any real chance you could find it otherwise?
A number of posts have mentioned brands, but it’s very important to consider the line within the brand. Consumer-oriented lines from HP (Pavilion, Essential), Dell (Inspiron, Vostro), and Lenovo (Idea pad, Legion) are absolutely terrible. Plastic everything, difficult/impossible repairs, no upgrades, etc. Every corner that can be cut, has.
Instead, look to the enterprise lines. Lenovo Thinkpad (my preference)/Think centre, Dell Latitude/Precision, HP Elitebook. I usually find the older ones (3-5 years old) that are off-least after enterprises are done with them, do a minor upgrade, and I’m good to go for a long time. Obviously that will depend on your needs, skill set, and desires.
It was never a hard cutoff, nor was it universal. Technology has long been a big factor, which means people in rural/poor areas were a decade+ later in experiencing the same generational norms.
Even cultural cornerstones are variable. For instance, you might remember the Challenger, or you might not, depending on your early childhood schools and your memory. The news about Magic Johnson or Kurt Cobain may have shattered your worldview, or you may not have even noticed.
But even in the best case, these are only useful as a rough guide. You should not be trying to do anything specific with these generalizations.
This gets complicated. The small heater is almost certain to be resistive electric heat. Your central heat could be anything. In my area, the gas furnace is usually cheaper to run for the entire house than it is for a space heater in a single room.
OTOH, if you have a resistive electric furnace, your advice is spot on
A lot of people have very strong opinions of brands based on a woefully inadequate sample size. Typically this comes from a higher than expected failure rate, possibly even much higher than expected. It could’ve been a bad model, a bad batch at manufacturing, improper handling from the retailer, or even an improper running environment. But even the greediest data hoarders only have a few dozen drives, often in just a couple of environments and use-cases.
Very few of these results are actually meaningful trends. For every person that swears by WD and will never touch a Seagate, there’s someone else that swears by Seagate and will never touch another WD. HGST and Toshiba seem to have a very slight edge on reliability, but it’s very small. And there are still people that refuse to touch them because of the “Death Star” drives many years ago.
It’s also very difficult to predict which models will have high failure rates. By the time it becomes clear one is a lemon, they’re already EoL.
I avoid buying WD new because of their (IMHO completely illegal) stance on warranty, but I’m comfortable buying their stuff used.
Don’t worry too much about brand. Instead go for specs and needs. Follow a good backup strategy and you’ll be fine
The standard US “Nutrition Facts” label is very limited and typically doesn’t include much information on micro nutrients. I don’t know how it compares to other regions, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.