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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • I want to be clear about the situation. He made them agree that StarLink wouldn’t be used for offensive operations. (As though any operation is offensive in a fully defensive war.)

    When it came time to attack Russian ships, Elon wouldn’t extend the operational range.

    Because, you know, apparently it’s not fair to go attack the Russian navy before it attacks you… in an ongoing war.

    Hobbling is a good way to put it. It’s not quite sabotage, but it sure as hell wasn’t great.



  • I used to work at a third party store that worked on a different model and was pretty incredible.

    The owner took all the commissions and paid everyone a straight (decent) salary. This caused a number of changes in how the place was run.

    Better customer service. It didn’t matter to us if you were coming in to buy a phone or for a problem with your bill. I’ll happily spend two hours on the phone with the company trying to fix your bill without selling you a thing.

    We had strict standards for process, and our paperwork would be reviewed by someone who did entirely executive stuff. Our stuff always had 'I’s dotted and 'T’s crossed. What I learned from this is that the company was regularly and routinely trying to scam agents. Every month we’d have to reconcile payments with the company and there would always be discrepancies.

    Interestingly, we’d have you sign a separate contract with us instead of the company. If you cancelled service within six months (the charge back period), we would fine you up to $400 and require return of the equipment. This would cover any legitimate charge backs. We had a lawyer on retainer and would regularly sue people for breaching this contract and not paying the fine.

    We kept a stock of loaner phones. If you broke your phone and couldn’t immediately replace it for whatever reason, we’d loan you a phone for a few days.

    Our customers were loyal, and we had a special relationship with the company.

    This was back when the companies were paying agents well. Over time, the company got more and more greedy, and squeezed any decent business model out of the market. The execs who knew our situation loved it because we beat the hell out of any other places for customer service, and we had several large contracts with local companies.

    Of course these execs who knew us were slowly replaced MBA penny pinchers who didn’t know and didn’t care about our unique circumstance.

    One of the earliest squeezes was that the company confiscated accounts that had more than a hundred lines. Those would be now run by the company’s B2B department instead of the agent(s) who landed the contract.

    Oh, and another interesting tidbit. We’d often waive paperwork fees for one reason or another. We got a corporate email that said our competitor had higher fees and didn’t waive them. So you can guess what we did. Raise the fees and stop waiving them. This is how competition works in the real world. Why would anyone go the other way?

    I don’t think our stores exist anymore, but they were pretty great while they lasted.


  • For what it’s worth, this was the message. Maybe it could have been better, but I sent to hours into the void in a vain attempt to get through.

    Newsmax and propaganda like it are poison that don’t reflect reality. Most “mainstream” news can be biased in what they report, but they generally are truthful when stating facts. Newsmax in particular is propaganda intended to enable grifters and foreign interests by convincing us of bullshit. It can absolutely be convincing bullshit if they can do the cult thing of cutting off friends, family, and any unapproved news source. They all reinforce each other and any story sounds good if you only hear one side. Here’s the other side; it’s up to you to decide which one makes more sense.

    As Helene was coming, Congress voted against additional Funding for FEMA. The President (or Vice President) doens’t get a say there.

    Money isn’t being diverted to immigrants. “FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”

    That money can only be legally “diverted” without an act of Congress to “hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, winddriven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion”. It’s not being diverted to immigrants.

    Is $750 supposed to be too much money given away or not enough? What number should that be? And you can get more if you qualify. It’s only the $750 that is instant while they check to see where the money will be spent. Their point is just to make you angry, not to find actualy solutions. You can legitmately argue against any dollar amount. Do you think there’s a dollar amount (even $0) where Newsmax wouldn’t be angry?

    We’re having more and worse hurricanes because of climate change and CO2 emissions that we’re not doing much to stop.

    Republicans are the ones who voted against extending funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including both Alabama senators.