themeatbridge

@themeatbridge@lemmy.world

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themeatbridge, (edited )

Temu isn’t a new idea. There have been many international shopping apps before. Temu is just currently popular.

Intellectual property law is quite different in China. Some might say it’s non-existent, but I think that’s an oversimplification and I don’t want to get bogged down in an argument over international economic law. Point is, China has a lot of manufacturing facilities, and make a lot of the products you know and love.

It’s no secret that once a product is made in China, the designs and details become available to other manufacturers in China (and in other countries, but Temu is a Chinese company). Temu works with manufacturers directly to sell product directly without the markup, marketing, warehousing, etc that come with normal e-commerce.

Benchmade needs to let you know they make knives, they need to create designs that are high quality and people like, and then they have to stand by their product. They also need to turn a profit. Temu just needs to profit, and they are probably willing to take less of a markup in exchange for volume. The low cost is their marketing.

Now when it comes to a knock-off, and this goes for anything, but we’ll use Benchmade knives as the example, the results depend on what sort of knock-off you’re getting.

The best case scenario is that it’s the same design, same materials, possibly even the same manifacturing plant that makes real Benchmade knives. Then you get a high quality knife at close to factory direct prices. Congratulations, you’ve scored a steal, and I do mean that you’ve purchased a product that has been stolen. The ethics of that are on you, I’m not here to judge.

The next best possible knock-off is the same design, same materials, and maybe the same manufacturer, but it’s a knife that didn’t pass qualtiy control standards. It would have become a Benchmade knife, but for some reason it was not made to spec. Maybe the printing was off and you get an otherwise impeccable Bonchmude knife. Or maybe the steel was improperly hardened and the blade will snap when you apply pressure. Provided you don’t hurt yourself or get eaten by the bear you were trying to stab, worst case is you’re out the price of the knife. Temu isn’t going to stand by their product, because it’s not actually theirs.

The third possible knock-off is a generic version of the knife design. Seeing the sales of quality knives, the manufacturer decides to copy the design to make something that looks like a quality knife, but make it as cheaply as possible. Plastic replaces metal parts wherever possible, glue replaces welds, and the metal used is referred to as “steel-adjacent.” This is going to be a piece of crap for sure, and won’t actually be worth the price you pay for it, even if it’s free.

Here’s the big problem with Temu, there’s no telling which is which from the product postings. You see the same generic photo from four different item listings, and the knife you buy today won’t be there tomorrow. Even if you order two of the same product from the same manufacturer, you could get two wildly different quality levels. And you’re far more likely to get the third kind than either of the first two.

Think of the Temu stuff as disposable. “I’ll probably throw this away evetually.” It’s worth it if you use the thing and don’t throw it away immediately. Now, I said I wasn’t going to judge, hut the last thing I’ll say is that we could all do with a little less waste. Let’s all of us think twice before shipping disposable products halfway across the world.

But other than that, if it’s “worth it” is really up to you.

themeatbridge,

I’m 42. Does everyone get a pill? My wife? My kids? My parents?

Jumping back 20 years puts me out of sync with everyone I care about. I’m not sure I’d even want it.

themeatbridge,

All the HVAC control systems are anti-opensource. They pretend like their proprietary controls are trade secrets worth billions in research and development, but ultimately they are all just glorified mercury switches. Honeywell, Johnson, Mitsubishi, Schneider, Trane, Siemens, none of them want to allow third party control without getting their beaks wet with licensing fees. Even their commercial departments have started phasing out support for protocols like BACNet and Modbus.

Temperature sensors are cheap as shit. Low voltage relays are cheap as shit. Even digitally controlled zone dampers shouldn’t cost more than $100 installed. If you can access your ventilation in your attic or basement, you could zone every room in your house for less than it costs to replace a single AC compressor, and run it all on a raspberry pi.

But you need to know what you’re doing, and they will throw every hurdle in your way. No contractors would risk drawing the ire of their suppliers by doing it for you.

themeatbridge,

Hold me closer, Tony Danza…

themeatbridge,

24 Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25 There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels[a] of silver, and a quarter of a cab[b] of seed pods[c] for five shekels.[d]

26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

27 The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”

themeatbridge,

Any caterer or restaurant in the DC Metro area would have provided $5000 worth of food for the publicity alone.

themeatbridge,

There are layers of absurdity. It’s some kind of a porcupine appreciation club, and everyone has one. And then his deflated. Do porcupines deflate? Is that a thing that happens? They have little sharp pokey bits, maybe that’s something that happens. Is he embarrassed? Angry that someone might have deflated his porcupine?

Or was his a fake, inflatable porcupine? Was he pretending to have one, and why? Peer pressure? Are people with procupines so popular in this scenario that it would be worth pretending?

Or maybe he’s infiltrated the group. Perhaps his cover is now blown, like his fake porcupine. Maybe he’s giving everyone the side eye to see if they will attack?

Ultimately, I think the joke is us, sitting here, wondering about a deflated porcupine, trying to figure it out.

themeatbridge, (edited )

This feels like a Cow Tools category of comics, where Gary Larson is tickled by the idea but nobody else really understands why.

themeatbridge,

No capes.

Literally. None of those characters wear capes. Kang, Flash, Mr. Incredible… no capes.

themeatbridge,

Any apocalyptic or post apocalyptic that is supposed to end on a hopeful note.

themeatbridge, (edited )

That was my understanding as well, except I assumed the person riding the bear threw the patron through the window, and everyone else is just running away from that fight.

themeatbridge,

Also, most fictional romantic gestures would be considered stalking in real life.

themeatbridge,

Do lightsabers cut adamantium?

themeatbridge,

Become popular? It’s been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format.

I’m gonna stop you there, because I’ve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.

Everything you said about linguistics is entirely crap. English is not a proscriptive language. English linguistics doesn’t indicate anything at all. It is descriptive, and is anything but consistent. There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. Words are pronounced the way they are understood, and if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly.

You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic, like “encyclopaedia,” but the problem there is that the word itself is like 35 years old, and there are people like me who have been using the word since there was only one acceptable pronunciation who aren’t likely to change.

themeatbridge,

In addition to the other helpful replies, one of the major flaws of the Fermi paradox is that it fails to account for the vastness of time. Our failure to observe spacefaring intelligent life is the metaphorical equivalent of a baby born at some point in human history somewhere on earth, opening it’s eyes only long enough to blink, and not observing Cher. It doesn’t mean that Cher doesn’t exist, or even that Cher should be observable given that humanity is so large and old.

themeatbridge,

I’m not unsympathetic to the fuckcars movement, but I have to ask about the road salt. When it snows and the roads are icy, what’s supposed to happen? What’s the plan for getting around, for getting to work, for getting to school? We can be using beet juice and other less impactful de-icing brines, but you still need the cars to get people where they need to go. Is the argument that people should stay home? Are we suggesting that colder climates just shouldn’t be populated? Busses need the road salt, too. Trains and trolleys de-ice their tracks. Even urban areas where you can walk everywhere need to salt the sidewalks.

themeatbridge,

Your typical ICE car driver does not live a more sustainable lifestyle because of guilt.

themeatbridge,

Info: How many people live in the kingdom?

There’s a five in six chance you are picked 1 out of X, and a one in six chance you are 10 out of X.

If you’ve been picked, there are three possible outcomes.

Flipping the lever kills you. 5/6 x 1/X

Flilling the lever saves you and 9 other people. 1/6 x 1/X

Flipping the lever does nothing at all. 1/6 x 9/X

From a purely statistical standpoint, you’re five times more likely to die flipping the lever, but the expected value, measured in lives saved, for flipping the lever is twice as high as not.

From a purely altruistic measure, you should always flip the lever, because at worst you kill yourself, at best you save 10 people, and you can do it with significant confidence that it doesn’t actually matter.

But back to my original question, 5/6X vs 1/6X vs 9/6X where as X approaches infinity, the difference becomes negligible.

themeatbridge,

Is a spooky dooky when you take a big shit and then there’s nothing in the bowl?

themeatbridge,

If I had a talking appliance, with a unique name and a personality, I’d probably remember it. If someone tried to sell you an old game console, and it had your gamertag saved on it, you’d probably recognize it. Or maybe you named your first car, and 20 years later someone tried to sell you the same model and mentioned it was called Cecilia, you’d be like “I used to have a Honda Civic named Cecilia! What a coincidence!”

themeatbridge,

All evidence so far to the contrary.

themeatbridge,

Are we including the Clone Wars? Because for me, that filled in a lot of gaps and made the movies more enjoyable.

themeatbridge,

Which is the entire point of the show. This guy probably had a Scarface poster in his man cave.

themeatbridge,

And here I was, making insightful comments and poop jokes for free, like a chump.

themeatbridge, (edited )

That’s the ridiculous thing about this entire case. This was a web designer and bigot who made websites for married couples. There were no homosexual couples asking the designer to make them a wedding website. She had one fake web request, and the Illegitimate Court said she had a right to discriminate against imaginary people.

This opens the floodgates to the rest of the bigots who want to protest the existence of people they hate by denying them services.

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