Class label = Approx. annual household income
----------- -------------------------------
Low proletariat = Under $35,000
Mid proletariat = $35,000–$65,000
High proletariat = $65,000–$100,000
Lower middle class = $100,000–$150,000
Middle middle class = $150,000–$225,000
High middle class = $225,000–$350,000
Low upper class = $350,000–$500,000
Mid upper class = $500,000–$1 million
High upper class = $1 million+
Here is funny Pattern Analysis/Machine Learning tidbit: Only proletarians get tattoos. The visual occurrence of so many people with tattoos is literally a visual measurement of the shrinking middle class. As the middle class gets smaller, the number of proletarians increases, and we see more tattoos as a result.
That's actually kind of funny. I was going to argue that I know a "Middle middle class" couple who are covered with tattoos, but *all* of their tattoos predate them moving up to middle class. And GothBard has talked about getting a tattoo for many years, but she's never gotten around to getting one.
So I have no counterexamples.
EDIT: On the other hand, tattoos are something people tend to get in their teens and twenties, when they're very low on the income totem pole. When I was 28 our total family income was $60,000. Add a few years, a few job changes, and a few promotions, and as we got older we now make several times that.
Class label = Approx. annual household income
----------- -------------------------------
Low proletariat = Under $35,000
Mid proletariat = $35,000–$65,000
High proletariat = $65,000–$100,000
Lower middle class = $100,000–$150,000
Middle middle class = $150,000–$225,000
High middle class = $225,000–$350,000
Low upper class = $350,000–$500,000
Mid upper class = $500,000–$1 million
High upper class = $1 million+
Who knew?
EDIT: Though in the Bay Area I think you really need to double those, putting me in "Middle middle class" instead...
Speaking of "rich", GothBard found an interesting article on Apple News: To be "rich" in the East Bay, your annual household income has to be $782k/year. To be "rich" in the U.S. as a whole, your annual household income has to be $473k/year.
We hit neither mark, so I will continue to refer to us as "upper middle class". 'Cause it feels better than "rich".
Again I get hailstruck while locking up the yard. While battling winds that want to blow the gates open. Chain-link gates with plastic privacy strips make great sails.
Shiro lost power yesterday thanks to massive storms in Kentucky.
This whole "rain in the summer" thing is *SO* alien to me. I guess that's why people talk about "California weather". Our last rain is typically in April, then we don't see a drop 'til October or November.
Wow. You know different groups of people than I do. My friends *definitely* continue acting like a random crowd unless someone starts ordering them around.
I'm happy you found something to fill your time. My brother retired in 2000 (early Microserf). Then started working again in 2005 because he couldn't figure out what he wanted to do without a job, and he's still at it.
*I* am an unabashed hedonist; I love to travel, stay at high-end hotels, dine at Michelin-rated establishments, and bring friends along for the ride. Even our weeklong Disneyland trips were over $10k because we stayed in suites at the Grand Californian, had no-limit Park Hopper passes, and ate at good restaurants.
So I'm under no illusions; I could retire to any Central or South American country in luxury right now and get that universal health care I crave. I could retire to over 40 of the 50 U.S. states. But my *desired* outlay far outstrips my current retirement savings, and so I keep working.
Look, a lot of people say that making more money makes you happier. But if I make $30,000 a year and Bob makes $60,000, does that mean Bob gets to be happier than me? Why should that be true?
And what if I work long hours, finally get a raise, and now make $32,000 a year am I only a little bit happier?
I don’t think CEOs and big corporations should get to decide how happy any of us can be based on how much they choose to pay you. Working people deserve dignity and real joy, no matter what your paycheck says.
As I've posted upthread (I'm just going to guess you haven't read all 290,000 backposts), such statements are as nonsensical as the recipient chooses them to be.
In 2002, a friend of mine invited me to work for him at his company for a 20% raise. I pointed out that the extra commute time to the South Bay equated to at least 22% more hours, and given South Bay traffic at that time, more likely closer to 30%, so he was actually offering me a lower pay rate. He was aghast. "You can't count commute time in your pay rate!"
And why not? I didn't take the job because the extra money wasn't worth the extra time lost to commute.
In 2022 I interviewed with Amazon. They offered me a 25% raise over my current salary. I asked what their paid time off policy was. When neither the hiring manager, the HR rep, nor a friend at the company were willing to discuss it, I red flagged them. To this day I'm ecstatic I didn't take the job. They even called back a few months later to ask whether I'd reconsider. I asked about PTO again. That ended the call.
Honestly, the happiest people I meet are those who can barely make ends meet ("It'll all work out in the end") or those well-off but comfortably less-than-rich (for example, I can't retire right now to the retirement I desire, but I just bought a $35,000 car with "cash" (a check, technically)).
Those with too little always strive for enough. Those in the middle stress about being rich. The rich somehow make themselves miserable by competing with each other to see who can be the "most rich", as if that's relevant to anything.
Another interesting cultural point: Impus Major is 25 years old. On Friday he's driving up to Redding to take the MCAT. It's a 4-hour drive. (Thank you, Bay Area, for being so heavily-populated that we have to drive for hours to take any statewide or countrywide exams. At least he's not going all the way to Eureka like he had to for his driver's test.)
That 4-hour drive will be the longest drive he's ever done.
It boggles my mind.
In the 1980s, cars were freedom. *AND* the schools had Driver's Ed. *AND* you could get your license at 16 with no restrictions. But in general, every kid I knew drove. Even if they didn't own a car, they had a license and could drive yours.
A possible consequence of this was that long road trips were routine for us. We drove to L.A. (7 hours) when I was 16, and I did it solo when I was 18. GothBard and I would do day trips to South Lake Tahoe (4-5 hours round trip).
Even when the kids were young, I'd drive them on the annual Disneyland trip.
And yet as the kids and their friends turned 16 and then 18, virtually none of them had any interest in cars. "Why would we want to pay for a car, then gas, then insurance, when public transportation works just fine most places, and Uber can get us to the rest of the places?" The kids thought nothing of spending 2 hours on BART and Muni to get to some remote area of San Francisco; they traded driving time for public transportation time. (My excuse for not commuting to work is that it's over 2 hours each way by public transit.)
Somehow between generations driving for 3 hours was replaced by sitting on a bus for 3 hours, and the younger generation doesn't mind. I strongly suspect mobile devices have a lot to do with it; I used to BART to work and do the crossword and I didn't mind the commute at all. If you can play games and chat with your friends while sitting on a bus, why drive?
Still, I'm having him take the Void because it has all the modern safety features and I'm concerned; he's young, he's healthy, he's a safe driver, but if you've never driven more than 2 hours in your lifetime, doubling it to 4 is a lot.
There's a YouTube video titled something like, "We are stupider than the movie 'Idiocracy'" and in it she makes an amazing point:
In the movie, the protagonist uses water instead of energy drink to water the plants, the plants grow, everyone accepts that they should use water instead of energy drink, and the world is saved.
In today's America, the protagonist would use water instead of energy drink to water the plants, the energy drink company would set up a media blitz campaign to smear him and question his methods, anti-water conspiracy theorists would come up out of the woodwork to band against him, bought-out politicians would propose or pass laws banning watering plants with water, and he would receive death threats or be out-and-out killed. And nothing would change. Because, to paraphrase her, "In this country empirical evidence no longer matters."
Speaking of waste, I really have no explanation for the kids' behavior other than, "Corporate influence outstrips parental influence."
I grew up as part of the Silent Spring generation. Conservation and "reduce, reuse, recycle" are fundamentally part of who I am. I tried to share these values with the kids. I know it's not just Silent Spring; watch any European YouTube video and they'll be showing ridiculously convoluted ways for you to reduce your carbon footprint.
Yet the kids (mine and their friends) can't be bothered. Aluminum cans and glass bottles in the landfill bin? Check. In spite of of the fact that every single one of them grew up in an area with recycling for their entire lives. (We didn't get recycling bins until well into my teens.) Leaving lights on because somehow turning them off is too much of a pain? Check! (It didn't help that GothBard read an article that yelling at people to turn the lights off was no longer useful thanks to LED lights, but the things still burn 12 watts each and when someone leaves on 120W of lights because convenience that adds up to dollars a month of waste.)
And now we're in our typical late July/early August fog, and Impus Major is cheerfully using his 750W space heater all day every day. Because somehow a 66°F room is too cold for him, in spite of the fact (or possibly because of it) that I set the house thermostat to 60°F during the day and 50°F at night for his entire lifetime. He should be used to living in a colder house. But he isn't.
And yes, don't even get me started on the privatization of PG&E resulting in me installing solar and being told, "Oh, no. PG&E puts a cap on how much you can install. We'll put in the legal limit, but that's not even going to cover your annual use."
So in spite of having enough money to cover the walls and rooftop with solar, I wasn't allowed to, and the "legal limit" for solar means I owe about $500/year in electricity bills. Idiocy.
I used to live in a townhouse complex where each unit had their own trash bin. My neighbor would frequently overkill my bin so that theirs was only normal filled. I never understood why, because there was no penalty for overfilling your bin, as long as it didn't spill on the ground. Eventually, I got tired of it and started putting their trash bags into their bin. They kept overfillinf mine anyways. So one night, I took all of their bags out of my bin and theirs and piled them on their back porch, right against their back door so they couldn't open it. They stopped putting anything in my bin after that.
My "favorite" so far was getting a Notification of Violation from Waste Management, with a crystal-clear picture of an overfilled bin in front of my neighbor's house.
I called in and said, "That's not my house," and they fixed the citation, but cited the neighbor and told him, "One of your neighbors filed a complaint against you."
It really does seem like Waste Management is doing its utmost to pit neighbor against neighbor...
It seems like every week Waste Management proves yet again why public services should not be run by private companies. (As I've mentioned, even the oh-so-liberal Harvard Business Review posted a study that basically said that the profit motive and the public service motive were almost 100% mutually exclusive, so without incredibly strong regulations and enforcement, this model would fail.)
New Rule #1: If you put incorrect items in the green waste or recycling bins, we will fine you.
So of course no one recycles anything other than plain paper, metal cans, and glass bottles. We're back to 1980s-level conservation, and our landfill bins are eternally overstuffed, because now everything is landfill.
New Rule #2: If you overstuff any of your cans, we will fine you.
So of course neighbors dump their overflow into other people's bins. A week doesn't go by that I find someone else's trash in my bin on Tuesday mornings. It pits neighbor against neighbor and creates strife in the neighborhood. Way to degrade the quality of life for everyone!
And Waste Management's solution? "Put in a Ring doorbell and see who's doing it!"
Oh, that's a GREAT idea. Add to the surveillance state. And for what purpose? Are you going to call the police? "Hey, Neighbor Bob was using my can!" Confront Neighbor Bob? (See, "Degrading the quality of life by pissing off your neighbors".)
And as I've also said, this was pretty darned simple way back at my first tech job in 1999: Dump everything into a single bin except wet green waste. The company hired mentally disabled people at minimum wage to sort the trash. They got full-time employment they might not otherwise have, and it was a cheap, efficient way to get your trash sorted without ratting out your neighbors or fining people for not knowing their plastics.
But paying any unnecessary personnel violates the profit motive, so while a government-run service could easily do so, a private company never would.
When AI spam does horribly wrong: Impus Major just got an email from a headhunter saying that his background was "ideal" for their open position, which started at $140-$170k an hour.
Impus Major promptly pointed out:
(1) That's a pretty wide range of salaries.
(2) At $170k/hour, what's he doing? Laundering Elon Musk's bank accounts?
The inability of corporate executives to get their minds out of the 1970s drives me to distraction.
In spite of multiple well-researched studies throughout the E.U., Canada, and even the United States showing that 4-day work weeks result in happier, more productive workers, U.S. executives are still hidebound against the idea. Our former Senior Vice President used to give us all the Fridays in August off. He commented on how much productivity spiked in August. To no one's surprise, a well-rested, happy white-collar worker is more than 25% more productive than a tired, burnt-out one. As early as the 1970s Lockheed Martin's defense division had a 5/4 model where employees got every other Friday off. Because it made workers more productive.
So yeah, we have a new SVP and she immediately canceled the August Fridays because, "I really need you all working 5 days a week."
Absolutely no research. Absolutely no data checks on productivity over the last few years. Just, "Nope. More hours equals more productivity. End of argument."
So THAT aggravated me so much I took Fridays off anyway, and today I'm refreshed and being astonishingly productive (go figure, and notice that my first batch of posts isn't until later in the morning when I've already hit my first goalpost for the day).
Then there was a whole article about a salaried employee leaving the office 10 minutes early and being taken to task for it by his CEO, leading to a huge argument on who was right and who was wrong.
If you're hourly, the CEO has a point. If you're salaried and you've turned in all your work, the CEO needs to stuff it.
Speaking as someone who grew up then, the 1970s need to die with a vengeance.
EDIT: I still remember the staggering resonance in the 1980s when the U.S. auto industry spent millions asking, "Why are Japanese workers so much better than their American counterparts?" and the answer was, "They're happier with their jobs."
So, ultra-political but also amusing so I've warned you:
Politics:
Frustrated younger voters started a meme that choosing between Democrats and Republicans was like choosing between "Absolutely nothing" and "Diarrhea for everyone".
With the rampant cyclospora outbreak exacerbated by a quick political contribution resulting in the initial outbreak source being quashed, those same young voters are posting, "SEE?!?!?"
As a Californian, the idea of adding sweetener to tea is alien to us. When we visit Shiro in Kentucky we have to very carefully ask, "Do you have unsweetened tea?"
The looks we get are priceless. Even worse than the ones we get on people learning that Californians are visiting rural Kentucky.
The “enshittification” process in the software industry. I guess it is for extracting more value for the company at the user’s expense until the product becomes nearly unusable.
The core problem is a small group of software developers can make decisions that affect a large number of people without their permission.
Being in the industry, I'm going to exonerate the developers. It's the product managers and executives. "We can't keep selling this software unless it has new features! Add this! Add that! Add the kitchen sink!"
It doesn't matter whether it's useful to the consumer or whether the dev thinks it's a terrible idea; it gets mandated by PM and it gets shoved into the final product.
Even Global Megacorporation has a massive amount of astonishing crapware in our product because *one* customer told *one* PM, "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if your software could do xxx?", and it became an ill-defined, high-priority mandate to get that idiot feature into the product.
Even though I've never owned a tom before, we've always had a "guardian kitty". Calypso was a huge, feisty, brilliant cat and took out raccoons and rival cats with terrifying tactics, protecting the timid and docile Sekhmet with conviction. Calliope was simply what we called a "bear cat". She put our current 12-pounders to shame in sheer mass. One of the sweetest cats we ever owned, but her sheer size intimidated all intruders. Sama was dumb as a post, but considered all other moving creatures "food". Even raccoons were terrified of her because she out-and-out simply tried to eat them. And Nefret is half-ragamuffin, half-Siberian. In her prime she was terrifying.
Now we have tiny Morrigan, who isn't a threat to even a newt. We have full-blooded ragamuffin Lenore, who really doesn't seem to deserve fangs or claws because she has no idea what to do with them.
Leaving Mephisto. Who is terrifying. Taunty squirrel learned that with a chunk of his tail. But he absolutely, positively, does not give a spit about the other cats. The "protect your sisters" is absolutely absent in his pea brain. So his "protection" consists of being curious about what the hissing is, wandering over because he's clueless, and having the offending cat take one look at him and say, "Nuh uh."
It usually works, but this morning Lenore is in the yard on her own because Mephisto is off stealing Nefret's food, and I have to pay close attention because we have new cats in the neighborhood and unless Mephisto is in the yard, they consider it their thoroughfare.
As I noticed and removed the last bit of Adobe software from one of my machines (Adobe Reader from my gaming desktop), I started pondering how ens**ttification is so epitomized by the software industry that it's almost comical.
Adobe was the gold standard of utility software. Every web site ran Adobe Flash... until it turned out that Adobe Flash was the most bug-ridden piece of garbage imaginable and most corporate IT departments blocked Flash from running on company machines, while savvy home users did the same (one of my first browser plug-ins was FlashBlock or whatever it was called). Adobe developed the PDF standard that took over the world... then started adding more and more pointless features to Adobe PDF Reader; it's now quite literally 200 times the hard drive space of my free PDF reader and constantly badgers me to buy and use its AI features. I reached the point that it was taking 30-40 seconds to open a document because it was trying to do SO much in the background that it became useless. Adobe Photoshop was the gold standard of picture editing. Now every artist I know hates it and is only forced to use it because corporations haven't moved away from it yet.
Remember when Norton was the gold standard of antivirus software, instead of being considered malware itself? When Google was the gold standard of search engines, instead of feeding you nothing but AI slop and sponsored ads whenever you search for something?
It's just bizarre to me. I watched the compact car revolution of the 1980s as people flocked to simple, reliable, efficient cars. As manufacturers added features, people turned away from the "overbloated" economy cars. Yet in software, there's this sense of, "If your computer won't run it because of all the features we added that you never use, then you need to buy a new computer."
And the software industry wonders why Linux is slowly, inexorably gaining ground. And notice that even Ubuntu was dethroned as the Linux flavor of choice because it became too bloated. It's SO simple it's mind-boggling. "Only install what I ask you to install. Only add the features that I ask for. Upcharge me for additional features."
It's a great business model. Notepad++ is spectacular software because it's "just" a text editor, but there are hundreds of plug-ins to add functionality... that aren't installed by default.
I'll try to avoid getting *too* political, but ever since certain political factions decided to destroy education in this country, I've seen more and more of this: Private companies stepping up to teach their future peons workers exactly what they need to know to be good little worker bees and nothing more.
When you start working, the system gives you a clean slate and a good credit score, promising that years of hard work will build a bright future. During your wealth-building years, you earn money, buy a home, and save, believing you are climbing toward financial freedom. As retirement approaches, you step willingly into the next stage, trusting the lifelong promise that you are transitioning into a peaceful, easy life.
The system celebrates this milestone with glowing ads and big promises, making retirement look like a joyful reward. But as you enter this final phase, invisible forces like taxes, medical bills, and bank fees begin to break down your savings. To onlookers, it looks like a glowing success story, but in reality, your lifetime of hard work is quietly harvested by large institutions. The automated financial machine collects the remaining assets, resets the ledger, and prepares the next generation to restart the same cycle.
Oh, I'm under no illusions. We're leaving the U.S. because retirement here is too expensive. I can pay Spain $400,000 for citizenship for myself and GothBard and get nationalized health care, -or- at the current rates that would pay for two years of long-term care for the two of us.
Yep. What I've read is that if you stop using your credit card, your credit score tanks. I'd kind of like to try it, but until enough stores are charging credit card fees, I'm still making fairly good money using cash-back plastic instead of debit or cash.
Speaking of corporate nonsense, there was a 1-hour mission-critical meeting for me this morning. Except they had a lot of other, incidental information to present. There were three choices:
(1) Hold separate meetings for the incidental stuff and the critical stuff.
(2) Present the critical information first, so those with better things to do could go on their way.
(3) Provide an agenda at the start of the meeting, telling the people only interested in the mission-critical stuff to come back at xx:xx.
And yes, they chose (4) "Provide no agenda and randomly go through the material so those only interested in the critical stuff are trapped in an hour of pointless rambling."
They need to have corporate training on holding efficient meetings. It would save our company alone tens of millions of dollars a year, if not hundreds of millions. Bad meetings cost money.
Do we know why Disneyland, though? As opposed to anywhere else? Is everyone's big school trip to New York or D.C., so the Met and Broadway, or the Smithsonian and the Capitol museums, or whatever other constellation of cultural institutions, are too old-hat for bucket lists?
It is almost like the parks deliver controlled wonder, and moral fables, and a pilgrimage (the family trip), and even communal ritual (parades, fireworks, character meetings), and even a sense of belonging that feels wholesome and transcendent.
Like for some families, the annual or once-in-a-lifetime Disney pilgrimage carries more emotional weight and logistical planning than church.
I've heard the Conspiracy versions framing this as deliberate corporate 'cathedral of consumption' that offers magic without demanding repentance, sacrifice, or inconvenient moral consistency.
Go Blue!
This really is very close to how we felt about it. It was a very controlled environment, with strictly-controlled employees who had to absolutely radiate friendliness and welcome. All with an underlying security system so overwhelming and invisible that most totalitarian nations would give their eyeteeth for it. Wonder? Check! Sense of belonging? Check! Everyone there was there for the experience, and you could strike up conversations with smiling strangers wherever you went.
Once they went all in on Star Wars, the crowd fundamentally changed. People scowled at you if you tried to talk to them. If you weren't wearing Star Wars merch, you didn't even belong in the park. Employees were less controlled. The environment felt less safe. The high-end restaurants were closed and replaced with pizza shops and hot dog kiosks. Then they added Marvel and the experience became downright unpleasant. People would shove their way past you, or curse at you if you blocked their way. Every couple of months I read about a brawl breaking out. At Disneyland. A fricking brawl.
Basically, they decided to go with the lowest common denominator and become just another theme park. (Virtually) No more high-end food. No more tight control over employees or guests. Disneyland used to have an amazingly strict dress code (no bikini tops, no obscenities printed on your shirt, etc.). That got significantly relaxed (I think it's down to "no bikini tops or obscene images" and that seems to be about it).
I live within an hour's drive of multiple theme parks. Why would I drive 7 hours and pay triple the price for what has become "just another theme park"?
The wonder is dead.
EDIT: And since I know Freehold is a Star Wars fan, imagine going to a Star Wars convention wearing *no* branded gear, and when someone asked you, "Which is your favorite movie?" responding with, "Oh, I don't really care about Star Wars."
That was the chilly reception we got. Disneyland became Star Wars land, and if you weren't a Star Wars fanatic you didn't belong.
EDIT: Interesting data point: From when Impus Major was around 10 until roughly 14, we were comfortable letting the kids move independently through the park; for example, Impus Minor frequently wanted to go back to the hotel and watch TV and we'd let him, as long as he checked in with us once he was in the room. Once Impus Major turned 14 we were no longer comfortable letting Impus Minor walk the park alone. So there was definitely a palpable change in the park atmosphere during that period.
Actual work work today so I'll be blissfully quiet for a while, but much like baggage check fees at airlines, the "VIP line fees" or whatever that are now at virtually every SoCal park pretty much sealed the deal of, "I will never go there," for me.
(1) There is a fully-functional line system with a pretty well-designed bypass flow: You can get one "Fast Pass" per ticket that lets you skip the line. Because of demand, those fast passes usually have a window 2-4 hours in the future. So maybe you wait in the 60-minute lines, maybe you wander around, but you at least can get in 3-4 guaranteed rides a day. The system is free.
(2) Corporate heads hate "the system is free". I first encountered "VIP line fees" at Universal Studios, but it scraps fast passes in favor of, "Hey, for an extra $35 per ticket you have a separate VIP line." And yes, the outcome is predictable and intentional: Every park guest buys a VIP pass because without one you can no longer get onto rides. You're in exactly the same line length you were before, but now you've paid $35 for the "honor". Basically, the park raised ticket prices by $35 per person without calling it a price hike.
(3) Now that VIP lines are identical to regular lines, you can buy "super VIP line passes" that put you in a third line, for a mere $150 per ticket... (at least that was true at Universal).
And stupider, and stupider, and stupider.
So if you just want to be in the park and never ride anything, tickets are supposed to seem reasonable. (At over $250 for a single Park Hopper for a single day, *and* with all the added restrictions on Park Hopper tickets, I'd argue that 'reasonable' doesn't come close.) But if you actually want to get on rides, plan on spending quite a bit extra per ticket.
I have $2,800 Disney Dollars lying around, but of course they can be used for less and less 'cause corporation so other than tickets, I don't know what they're good for.
And finally, a conversation today led to the interesting question of, "What, exactly, IS a job?"
I am employed by a global megacorporation. I consider that a "job".
When I was a contractor, I did not consider that a "job" because I didn't have guaranteed employment. I made more income than a lot of people who had "real" jobs, but I still didn't think of it as a job.
So somehow, I equate having a "job" to having regular, guaranteed work. A store owner who opens and closes their shop every day has a job. A store owner who's rich enough that they never bother to visit the establishment does not have a job.
Anyway, these musings came to me because Impus Major's friend came over, saw me editing videos, I mentioned that it's my job, and he said that editing videos is his "job", too. But his "job" is that he posts YouTube videos and he has enough subscribers that he gets income from it. Is a hobby that garners you income a "job"? Does the income level matter? Is Mr. Beast's work a "job" because he makes tens of millions of dollars a year, and my visitor's work not a "job" because he only makes a few hundred?
It really got me wondering about the definition of "job".
If you can live off it it's a job.
Oh, no way. He gets $300-$400/month, as does Impus Major. But at least Impus Major has an employer and a clear specification as to what he needs to do. So much like Tensor, Impus Major's work is definitely a "job". Other Guy's work is "fuzzy".
And finally, a conversation today led to the interesting question of, "What, exactly, IS a job?"
...
I tend to the definition of a job as: A job is when someone trades their time and skills to do work for a company or person, and in return they get paid money.
And that's where amateur YouTubers become a grey area. They are not "trading" their time; many of them are creating the videos because they enjoy it, or because they think it's important, or because they want to be heard. Impus Major's friend would definitely be doing the same thing without being paid, so he's not committing anything he wouldn't be doing anyway. And he's not doing it "for" a company or person, he's posting his work publicly on YouTube for anyone to enjoy.
And the model is, "If enough people enjoy your model, you are generating enough ad revenue for YouTube that YouTube will pay you."
And finally, a conversation today led to the interesting question of, "What, exactly, IS a job?"
I am employed by a global megacorporation. I consider that a "job".
When I was a contractor, I did not consider that a "job" because I didn't have guaranteed employment. I made more income than a lot of people who had "real" jobs, but I still didn't think of it as a job.
So somehow, I equate having a "job" to having regular, guaranteed work. A store owner who opens and closes their shop every day has a job. A store owner who's rich enough that they never bother to visit the establishment does not have a job.
Anyway, these musings came to me because Impus Major's friend came over, saw me editing videos, I mentioned that it's my job, and he said that editing videos is his "job", too. But his "job" is that he posts YouTube videos and he has enough subscribers that he gets income from it. Is a hobby that garners you income a "job"? Does the income level matter? Is Mr. Beast's work a "job" because he makes tens of millions of dollars a year, and my visitor's work not a "job" because he only makes a few hundred?
It really got me wondering about the definition of "job".
Speaking of communication issues:
NobodysHome: Hey, accountant! We got a refund for the Federal taxes and a penalty on the State taxes you did. Does this all look correct?
(cc's Older Brother because he's executor) Accountant: Yep. Go ahead and pay the bill.
Older Brother: Send it to me and I'll pay it.
NobodysHome: (Sends brother a photo of the bill). This is due by the 12th so you should pay it ASAP.
Older Brother: (Crickets chirping)
Don't tell me you'll pay a nearly-due tax bill then go silent the moment I give you the information! TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT YOU PAID!!!
(It's only $14 so if he doesn't say anything by Monday I'll pay it, but I swear people's inability to respond with even so much as an "on it" aggravates me no end.)
We were discussing Disneyland in my FFXIV group and every single one of them said they stopped going because it became too expensive. If those of us with money who want the "classic" Disney experience are gone, and those with lower incomes are gone, who the heck is still going there and filling the parks? (I've heard rumors that the parks are much emptier this summer, but I haven't heard that in the financial reports.)
Midwestern chumps.
Had to stifle a laugh because Impus Minor's girlfriend (a Minnesotan) has been cajoling him for months to get him to take her to Disneyland. I wouldn't call her a "chump", but I think Midwesterners haven't yet truly experienced how far the mighty have fallen.
Modern Disneyland is a dive, through and through. And an expensive dive at that. Who wants that?
Didn't you have leftover Disneydollars from previous years (or whatcha-call-it)? Can you use them at least to cover some of the costs involved.
I have deep conviction that Impus Minor can play the role of grumpy old man saying things like You should have seen it when it was at height of its greatness, and the rides are no longer like they used to be!
I've tried to force the issue by pointing out that I have $2,800 Disney Dollars lying around, but of course they can be used for less and less 'cause corporation so other than tickets, I don't know what they're good for.
I've always loved the Peter Jackson quote (and I hope I'm attributing this correctly) along the lines of, "If you film exactly what's in the book you'll end up with an incredibly boring movie." Some license must be taken; I just object to screenwriters taking far too much and rewriting entire characters or storylines to make them "better". No. Do exactly enough to avoid boredom. No more.
This brings me to Netflix's adaptations of the Harlan Coben novels. GothBard and I love us some Myron Bolitar and we were looking forward to seeing the screen adaptation, but he's not out yet; the miniseries are all from standalone novels. By all accounts Netflix is being magnificently loyal to the books...
...which leads to some amazing frustration with book tropes that don't work on screen.
We're halfway through our second series (Safe was top-notch. The Stranger is mid at best). And again and again we bang our heads against the wall because the protagonist could quickly resolve a situation by saying something very simple, but he doesn't and it generates artificial conflict.
The typical interaction: A man's daughter is missing (seems to be one of Coben's go-tos). He goes to a neutral location (a restaurant or a hospital or a police station). They ask, "Why are you here?"
A rational human being would respond, "My daughter is missing and I heard she was seen here, so I was wondering if any of you recognize this girl."
Instead, he refuses to say. He refuses to answer any of their questions. He acts like an absolute lunatic, tries to sneak into secure areas, etc., etc., and ends up with inevitable conflict and getting thrown out or banned. Because all of a sudden he can't possibly let anyone know what he's doing.
Which is even worse because for the rest of the series he's pretty much, "Excuse me. My daughter is missing. I was wondering whether I could ask you a few questions."
In the book you don't notice it as much (at least I didn't). On screen it's out-and-out painful. "Why are you suddenly silent? What's your mental malfunction? Wait! Why are you doing that? What? Why?"
Suspension of disbelief flies out the window something awful because it's SO obvious on-screen.
Yet in the books it somehow didn't jump out at me so much.
Cost and value aside, I have to admit I'm curious about the idea of people who've stopped going, in terms of demographics. The idea of multiple visits boggles my mind.
We're Californian, so it was an easy(-ish) drive for us. We all fell into the "upper middle class but not super-rich" California income bracket ($200k-$500k/year). We're White, GenX, and brought kids. We did it for the experience, not the rides. We might do 5-10 rides a day, but we were mostly there for the ambience, the dining, and the change of pace. We were comfortable letting the kids roam free because:
(a) Our kids were ridiculously well-behaved, and
(b) it felt safe.
The three other people we talked to who stopped going were younger (early 40s), no kids, from out of state (Texas, Minnesota, Missouri), and lower income (under $100k per year). As far as I know all White, but you're never sure with online friends.
We were discussing Disneyland in my FFXIV group and every single one of them said they stopped going because it became too expensive. If those of us with money who want the "classic" Disney experience are gone, and those with lower incomes are gone, who the heck is still going there and filling the parks? (I've heard rumors that the parks are much emptier this summer, but I haven't heard that in the financial reports.)
Midwestern chumps.
Had to stifle a laugh because Impus Minor's girlfriend (a Minnesotan) has been cajoling him for months to get him to take her to Disneyland. I wouldn't call her a "chump", but I think Midwesterners haven't yet truly experienced how far the mighty have fallen.
Modern Disneyland is a dive, through and through. And an expensive dive at that. Who wants that?
We were discussing Disneyland in my FFXIV group and every single one of them said they stopped going because it became too expensive. If those of us with money who want the "classic" Disney experience are gone, and those with lower incomes are gone, who the heck is still going there and filling the parks? (I've heard rumors that the parks are much emptier this summer, but I haven't heard that in the financial reports.)
EDIT: OK, maybe the lack attendance can be attributed to the ill-fated, "See NobodysHome with no pants on!" campaign...
In Arizona it’s on you to inform the DMV that you have sold your vehicle. If you don’t, you can be held accountable for stuff the person does with your car if they don’t register it.
Yeah, they sent me the form and I filled it out and sent it in. But I'm an obsessive-compulsive. I want a response that says, "We got your form." These days an automated email that does that is essentially free, and can just say, "This is to inform you that we received your change of ownership form for your vehicle with VIN ending in 12345." No significant personal information, just, "We got your letter."
I checked, and due to privacy laws (amazingly enough) there's no way to find out the current owner of a car. So yes, I sent in the form, but there's no way for me to confirm they got it or filed it correctly.
We "donated" the Prius to the Berkeley Humane Society just under 4 months ago.
...
Makes me kind of want to go there and try to buy it back. It was $6000 to get it fixed. I can't imagine them trying to ask for that much at a car donation lot...
What was the CarMax number?
It never had such a thing that I'm aware of. But I contacted Car Donation Services and they confirmed it's for sale on the lot and just hasn't sold yet. Tempted to send the kids there to check it out.
EDIT: Interesting... I thought CarMax was one of those data scraper companies that monitored DMV records, participating repair shops, dealerships, and the like to get complete car histories you could then buy. But Google tells me that no, it's first and foremost a car financing company. And considering I've never financed a car, I suspect my CarMax record would be thin at best.
EDIT 2: Ah, CarFAX is the data scraper, but it's public records. So I could pay a private company for the same information I already have on record and for an ownership check I could just get from the DMV. Payment for convenience.
We "donated" the Prius to the Berkeley Humane Society just under 4 months ago. As with most smaller charities, they contract with a company appropriately called Car Donation Services to handle their car donations. I can't blame the Berkeley Humane Society here, according to Google's AI, "Car Donation Services (located in Martinez, California) has a clean official record with minimal complaints, active state licensing, and a long-standing local history." And yes, I looked them up before I contacted them to make sure I wasn't going to run into trouble.
...but...
...I've received no notification of transfer of title from the DMV.
...I've received no receipt nor notification from Car Donation Services.
...My housecleaner just shared a horror story with me where she donated her car to the American Cancer Society, the change of ownership was never registered, and received a citation for car abandonment in South Lake Tahoe months later because someone just dumped her old car by the side of the road.
On the bright side, I just tried to renew my registration just to find out whether the car was still registered to me and I got the, "I'm sorry. I can't do that, Dave," response, so even if I don't ever get a receipt I seem to at least no longer have the car in my name.
(Yeah, yeah, I'll contact Car Donation Services to find out what's up, but it's my usual complaint about communication. Considering PRA can call me 3-5 times a day, 7 days a week, you'd think Car Donation Services could call with, "Your car has been received at the shop. Your car has left the shop. Your car was determined to be most appropriate for sale/salvage/flower potting. Your car has been on the sales lot for 1 week/2 weeks/12 weeks and has not sold.)
Makes me kind of want to go there and try to buy it back. It was $6000 to get it fixed. I can't imagine them trying to ask for that much at a car donation lot...
Being in tech is getting uglier and uglier for us old grognards. Shiro was lucky and retired by choice. Last(?) year another member of that group got laid off, spent 6 months looking, gave up, and is now "involuntarily retired". He has plenty of money, but he hadn't been expecting to retire so he was left scrambling looking for things to do. Not my kind of issue, but at least I understand it. Another acquaintance just got laid off at 63. His chances of finding new employment at that age are pretty much nil, so he has to accept it as "involuntary retirement".
As I think I've mentioned, my entire game plan is to work 'til I'm 68 and I've accumulated enough wealth to retire anywhere in the world, then move to a country with nationalized health care and decent elderly care for my senescence. I've reassured GothBard many times that we could both lose our jobs today with no severance and we'd lose the house and have to move out of California, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, we'd have a perfectly livable retirement. I'd just prefer it to be a retirement of choice and not a retirement of circumstances, and given the way the tech industry is moving, that's getting less and less likely.
PRA bought a new block of numbers to start August, so they've started in on me again. Checked my phone to be sure I'd be able to record before I answered and nope; must have been one of my old phone/answering machine combos.
So I'm faced with three choices:
(1) Keep rotating PRA's phone numbers in and out of blockage for eternity.
(2) Come up with a kludgy way to record the call while providing the requisite 5-second beep. (I know that if you don't provide the beep people can say, "Oh, I forgot he was recording and I didn't consent to have that part recorded," and it works.)
(3) Answer the phone to a sleazy debt collection agency with a long history and multiple fines for abusive practices and hope that they'll believe me when I say, "You've got the wrong guy."
I figure option #3 will take the least amount of time. "You've got the wrong guy." "We don't believe you." (Goes back to blocking their calls for eternity.) Seems like the most likely outcome, all in all.
I am really rather amazed at just how popular the cat jail catio is. It's basically a chicken coop for cats, with wooden shelves and little wooden cubbies to hide in.
Lenore hates it. Morrigan doesn't have much use for it unless Mephisto is in it; in that case she likes to go in. I think he makes her feel safe. Mephisto, on the other hand, thinks it's the Best. Place. Ever. to spend an afternoon. Which, considering he's the ONE cat who's completely unendangered by anything that can get into our yard, is odd. I'd think he'd rather nap on the lawn or in a flowerbed, but nope. Every afternoon he wants to spend a couple of hours locked in the catio.
Today Nefret finally noticed it (have I mentioned she's 19?), went in, explored the shelves, explored the cubbies, and I dutifully put in the food, water, and blanky as I always do for Mephisto. She took one look around and declared, "This place is MINE now!"
Mephisto is sadness. Though he DOES want to steal her food...
You only realize how much a subject actually means to you when you log into the wrong account and accidentally permanently wipe your entire notes save file.
Do you grind it all back from level 0 or just rage-quit and start a new campaign?
(I've heard horror stories and seen it in action at weddings. If you don't know someone, don't pretend you do. It's like the original AI slop.)
Friend's wedding. The priest noted that we gathered here to join together a man and a woman... And added that it's good because some would to join a man and a man or a woman and a woman... (it was middle of 2000s, I think, so only a few countries and one or two US states had gay marriage at that time).
Let's say there was some eye-rolling among the not-so-conservative bunch of gamers in the back seats.
Yeah, I've heard about that from people. But even worse was one ceremony (forget what) where the pastor went on and on and on about what a pious, righteous man the celebrant was, and how religious they were, and how they attended all these ceremonies, and we were like, "Wow! We didn't know any of that about you!" and he said, "None of it was true! I've never met that man before in my life!"
It was... bizarre.
EDIT: I *think* it was a Catholic wedding with the priest talking about the atheist groom. And yes. Bride insisted on a Catholic wedding even though she was lapsed and he was atheist. Go figure the priest had trouble figuring out what to say about them. It was just... surprising... to see him ad lib during the ceremony.
I'm just dumbfounded that that was your first actual funeral, at your age.
But growing up in the Catholic Church in the Midwest, I guess I went to enough for maybe three or four average Americans by the time I was in high school.
It was very weird taking Princess Sardonica to her very first visitation with an open casket at the age of fourteen. I felt somewhat remiss in my parental duties. I was trying to coach her on etiquette sotto voce as I remembered all the things I *should* have warned her about in advance.
Um, raised by Depression-era California atheists who were also members of the Hemlock Society and Neptune Society? When someone died you burned 'em, had a potluck at a relative or close friend's house, spent the afternoon telling stories of their lives, laughing, socializing, and having fun (Tensor's "celebrations of life" indeed), then the family threw the ashes somewhere.
Everyone in my sphere considered funerals a waste of money and a risk that some pastor who'd never met the person would start waxing poetic about their lives (I've heard horror stories and seen it in action at weddings. If you don't know someone, don't pretend you do. It's like the original AI slop.)
Have my eye on one of those robot cat litter machines that does the dirty work by itself. In general, I'm skeptical of gadgets, mostly because they always break or never live up to the marketing. The price tag is up around $700. I still have to fill it with cat liter and clean it. So i am strongly on the fence about it.
GothBard wants one and I don't, and since I'm the one who cleans the litterboxes, I've won the argument so far. They just take up so much *space*.
But both Younger Brother and Good Online Friend have them, and they both love them. And with 4 cats, even cleaning two litterboxes daily isn't fast enough.
Living with 4 cats: When you make a $500+ order to the pet food delivery place and figure the 100+ pounds of stuff you're getting may last you a month...
...or you could just get a mastiff instead.
Well, my first funeral service in my lifetime was surprisingly almost identical to the many, many memorial services I've attended, except:
(1) Because it was a building designed for such events, a lot more people could attend than our usual, "Meet up at someone's house" events.
(2) It had catering. Food you don't have to cook yourself is always a plus.
So after a lifetime of, "I don't want a funeral," I'm now thinking, "Yeah, what they did for Mr. Stereotype's dad would be just fine with me." It was literally, "Best friend spoke. Widow spoke. Sons spoke. Open mic for everyone else to speak." No praying. No pastors. No one except people who personally knew him talking about his life. All in all a very nice event.
But the most seriously terrifying thing was how nearly-identical to me this guy was. Literally GothBard, Impus Major, AND Impus Minor said during the funeral, "Holy crap! Are they talking about him or you?"
Other than the fact that he got his Ph.D. in Physics and I got my Ph.D. in Math, we were very, very, VERY similar people.
