Random Thoughts

[J N Winkler]

Skyrocket definitely isn't a useful term without some understanding of tolerance for price increases, either for an individual consumer or for some well-defined population thereof.  But by the time you get into concepts of elasticity, substitution, Veblen versus Giffen goods, and so on, you're deep into a first-year economics course.

[GaryV]

It's kind of like the difference between major and minor surgery.

If it's something I buy, the price skyrocketed. If it's something you buy, it was a modest increase.

[ZLoth]

According to dictionary.com, "to rise or increase rapidly or suddenly, especially to unexpected or unprecedented levels." Some examples that I can think of:

• The cost of fuel that occurred in March, 2022 and lasting the entire summer. This (once again) postponed many a post-Covid road trip.
• Product and component shortages causing prices to rise beyond expected budget. Just ask anyone who has purchased a vehicle in the past year or two and having to pay above MSRP.
• Graphics cards for gamers because the supply was snatched up by the cyber currency miners. Even the low-end cards were at $1k+ prices with the exception of the PoS cards.
• Housing prices because of the low interest rates and the need for more space. This caused a "surreal estate" situation where people were picking up a home... any home... because the housing inventory was so low.

[jeffandnicole]

According to dictionary.com, "to rise or increase rapidly or suddenly, especially to unexpected or unprecedented levels." Some examples that I can think of:

The cost of fuel that occurred in March, 2022 and lasting the entire summer. This (once again) postponed many a post-Covid road trip.

Chicken-Egg?  Catch 22?

Prices "skyrocketed" in part because so many people were taking trips.  So while there may have been some people that did have to postpone or scale back trips due to higher fuel (and other) costs, the summer of '22 saw very high demand for fuel, flights, and hotels, indicating that a LOT of people certainly did travel, and the congestion on the highways, especially on weekends, proved that to be true.

[ZLoth]

According to dictionary.com, "to rise or increase rapidly or suddenly, especially to unexpected or unprecedented levels." Some examples that I can think of:

The cost of fuel that occurred in March, 2022 and lasting the entire summer. This (once again) postponed many a post-Covid road trip.

Chicken-Egg?  Catch 22?

Prices "skyrocketed" in part because so many people were taking trips.  So while there may have been some people that did have to postpone or scale back trips due to higher fuel (and other) costs, the summer of '22 saw very high demand for fuel, flights, and hotels, indicating that a LOT of people certainly did travel, and the congestion on the highways, especially on weekends, proved that to be true.

March, 2022 corresponded with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and there was a corresponding spike in gas prices that was probably panic-induced. Of course, with people not being able to go anywhere in 2020 and 2021, they ate the higher cost and traveled anyways.

[Max Rockatansky]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

I would have figured the whole point of "grab and go" is to take it somewhere else (car, room, wherever).

[J N Winkler]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

To me this sounds like a bean counter myopically deciding that guests must be prevented from "stocking up," not realizing that actually enforcing this is a good way to discourage repeat stays.

[formulanone]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

I would have figured the whole point of "grab and go" is to take it somewhere else (car, room, wherever).

To me this sounds like a bean counter myopically deciding that guests must be prevented from "stocking up," not realizing that actually enforcing this is a good way to discourage repeat stays.

I've been to a few places that discourage taking food out of the dining area; even my dining hall in school 30 years ago had the same practice. But most places are okay with a snack on-the-go and certainly a drink and then zipping out to take care of business. Mostly the fancier "club" environs try to prohibit food from leaving, generally permitting whatever what you might fit in one hand and take-away.

During peak-COVID, almost any food served in a hotel had to be eaten elsewhere. I can understand some level of enforcement for taking fourth and fifth servings, but there's been a few rare occasions I've taken more as well (usually if my wife and kids have decided to stay and eat in the room).

[hotdogPi]

Proposed changes to forum guidelines:

...
Opening topics that have nothing to do with the forum's main topic./*We have entire sports and weather boards...*/
...
Using the "report a post" feature to ask an admin something or to report posts that don't break the forum guidelines. Please do not report the same thread more than once./*There are legitimate other uses for reports, such as self-reporting if you accidentally posted something in the wrong board.*/
...
When posting larges quantities of photos, please limit individual posts to include no more than ten, and to spread out larger batches with subsequent posts. This cuts down on the amount of scrolling and load time needed by users to browse photo threads. This is enforced by the forum software. /*The forum software is set to 20 right now, not 10 – it needs to be changed to be in line with this rule.*/
...

[Scott5114]

Proposed changes to forum guidelines:

...
Opening topics that have nothing to do with the forum's main topic./*We have entire sports and weather boards...*/
# The main topic of the sports forum is sports. The main topic of the weather forum is weather.
...
Using the "report a post" feature to ask an admin something or to report posts that don't break the forum guidelines. Please do not report the same thread more than once./*There are legitimate other uses for reports, such as self-reporting if you accidentally posted something in the wrong board.*/
# If it doesn't break the rules, you can also PM the relevant mod (or simply post publicly in the thread asking for assistance, in the case of a self-report or other non-behavioral issue). Reporting a post sends an email to everyone, so it's not the tool of choice for non-urgent requests.
...
When posting larges quantities of photos, please limit individual posts to include no more than ten, and to spread out larger batches with subsequent posts. This cuts down on the amount of scrolling and load time needed by users to browse photo threads. This is enforced by the forum software. /*The forum software is set to 20 right now, not 10 – it needs to be changed to be in line with this rule.*/
# I wasn't aware this was something the forum software even kept track of. Nevertheless, I can't find any option in the admin panel that allows us to change the image count threshold.
...

[hotdogPi]

I took this photo on May 5 in Dracut, MA. This is the nonbinary flag. Because it's Pride Month now, I'm showing it here, although it's been on my Flickr account since one day after I took the photo.

I've walked about 335 miles of unique road, 315 if you exclude trails. I've seen a decent number of rainbow flags and "include everything" flags, but this is the first nonbinary flag I've seen. I still haven't seen any outdoor trans flags yet, although I have seen one inside Reading (MA) Memorial High School. I saw a tiny bisexual flag near the ground at one point, but it didn't occur to me until today that the intent was that there was a light behind it and that it would be projected on the wall of the house at night. (I didn't take a photo of that one because I didn't realize it was intended to be projected.)

[wanderer2575]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

My guess is at least part of it is about Safety Theater.  Minimal handling of the items.

[ZLoth]

For the third time this year, my Amplifi router decided to change the third octet of my DHCP range from 192.168.1.XXX to 192.168.139.XXX, thus knocking me entirely off the Internet from home. I'm looking at replacing my several year old system mesh system with one that supports WiFi 6 and VPN, and this system would more than exceed my needs. The current problem is that my network setup is at the NW corner of my home, and my home office is at the SE corner of my home.

[Scott5114]

I've walked about 335 miles of unique road, 315 if you exclude trails. I've seen a decent number of rainbow flags and "include everything" flags, but this is the first nonbinary flag I've seen. I still haven't seen any outdoor trans flags yet, although I have seen one inside Reading (MA) Memorial High School. I saw a tiny bisexual flag near the ground at one point, but it didn't occur to me until today that the intent was that there was a light behind it and that it would be projected on the wall of the house at night. (I didn't take a photo of that one because I didn't realize it was intended to be projected.)

That's neat. The only pride flag I've ever seen around Oklahoma has been the standard 1979-spec (six-stripe) rainbow. Even that is fairly rare; I think I've seen more Ukrainian flags than that.

This is probably a consequence of Oklahoma being sheltered from the real world, but I wasn't aware people actually used the other pride flags as flags (rather than as, like, components for social media avatars and things like that). While I would probably be willing to fly a rainbow flag as a show of support for the community, I don't think I'd really want to get more specific about it on a flagpole outside my house. (But I'm also generally a far more private person than average, too.)

[Flint1979]

Dollar General has managed to have at least one location in every Michigan county except one and it's not Keweenaw but rather a Lower Peninsula county, Leelanau.

[GaryV]

Paywalled, but this struck me as funny this morning:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/06/04/detroit-police-memo-stop-leaking-to-media/70256347007/

Detroit police officials want to stop information from leaking out to the media, according to an internal memo that was leaked to The Detroit News.

[hotdogPi]

You know how occasionally this site will show a parked domain with "popular suggestions" of what to click? It's clearly not up with the times, as under the Gaming category, it lists PS3.

[Scott5114]

Paywalled, but this struck me as funny this morning:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/06/04/detroit-police-memo-stop-leaking-to-media/70256347007/

Detroit police officials want to stop information from leaking out to the media, according to an internal memo that was leaked to The Detroit News.

We had a similar thing happen with our state Department of Education. Someone leaked an email threatening to fire anyone who leaked any Education department emails.

[vdeane]

How to know you're a nerd: when Ian searches "Stow Declaration of Independence" on Yahoo in National Treasure, you go to Yahoo and do the same search to see if the Liberty Bell really is the top result (spoiler alert: it is).

[jgb191]

I found that driving in Minnesota (especially during the summer season) a lot different than driving in Texas.  Driving between Duluth and the Twin Cities going 75 mph on a 70 zone, I was one of the slower drivers on I-35; I was being passed by several vehicles.  Whereas driving between Corpus Christi and Houston on US-59 driving 70 mph on a 75 zone, I was passing at least ten to twelve vehicles each way (although nearly half of the slower vehicles were large trucks).

And Minnesota's highways seems to be unique in that there aren't any frontage roads to be found on their freeways, and very few flyover ramps on the interchanges.

[vdeane]

And Minnesota's highways seems to be unique in that there aren't any frontage roads to be found on their freeways, and very few flyover ramps on the interchanges.

I wouldn't say that's unique to Minnesota.  Rather, I'd say that pervasive frontage roads are uniquely Texan.  Sure, other states have them sometimes, but not like Texas does.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I found that driving in Minnesota (especially during the summer season) a lot different than driving in Texas.  Driving between Duluth and the Twin Cities going 75 mph on a 70 zone, I was one of the slower drivers on I-35; I was being passed by several vehicles.

I-35 between Duluth and MSP is one of the few fairly heavily enforced roads we have during the summer months as metro vacationers flock to/from the North Shore (it's not outrageously visible like some other states, but you'll definitely see 2-3 troopers on the stretch on summer weekends, especially the closer you are to Duluth)

[Flint1979]

And Minnesota's highways seems to be unique in that there aren't any frontage roads to be found on their freeways, and very few flyover ramps on the interchanges.

I wouldn't say that's unique to Minnesota.  Rather, I'd say that pervasive frontage roads are uniquely Texan.  Sure, other states have them sometimes, but not like Texas does.

Yeah that's true. In Michigan we have service drives that are the frontage roads but in Texas they have them even in rural areas.

[D-Dey65]

Why do some hotels try to make you sit down for grab and go continental breakfast items?  I can understand not wanting cooked food in a room, but pre-packaged items seems odd.  Every once in awhile I run into a hotel that actually cares about this and apparently today was one of those days.  I ran into obstruction attempting to leave the breakfast area with an apple, pear and unopened bagel.

I would have figured the whole point of "grab and go" is to take it somewhere else (car, room, wherever).

To me this sounds like a bean counter myopically deciding that guests must be prevented from "stocking up," not realizing that actually enforcing this is a good way to discourage repeat stays.

I've been to a few places that discourage taking food out of the dining area; even my dining hall in school 30 years ago had the same practice. But most places are okay with a snack on-the-go and certainly a drink and then zipping out to take care of business. Mostly the fancier "club" environs try to prohibit food from leaving, generally permitting whatever what you might fit in one hand and take-away.

Usually, I'm so busy having my breakfast at the motel dining areas, I don't even bother to take the grab and go items elsewhere.