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Posts
3
Comments
114
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Yeah, ironic that the USA, which produced FDR, is now producing all these “gig economy” companies that rely on mistreating employees, and also allows underpaying staff expected to make it up in tips. Vulture capitalism for the win, baby! Ever since Reagan at least.

  • NSW primary schools did give students a few annual health checks in the ’80s and ’90s. There were hearing checks, visual acuity checks, colourblindness checks, and a few other things. I think they did weigh students, but don’t quote me on it as I could be mistaken. However, it didn’t appear on report cards. I think it was only ever used for referring a student to a medical specialist, or for welfare checks in extreme cases.

  • Uber is a scummy company with a history of scandals. Here’s a list from a few years ago: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-company-scandals-and-controversies-2017-11?op=1

    Their whole business model is to operate a taxi service while claiming it isn’t a taxi service, to avoid following regulations for taxi services. In cities where they’ve been been forced to follow regulations, they’ve lost their licenses to operate multiple times. For example:

    • Lost license to operate in London in 2017 and 2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50544283
    • Can’t find a link at the moment, but they lost their license to operate in Việt Nam entirely for tax evasion and improper business registration

    Uber under-pays drivers. With the rates they pay, driving for Uber is effectively a reverse mortage on your car. They prey on vulnerable people. Businesses that can’t pay a living wage shouldn’t exist. Remember FDR:

    No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

    By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.

    (1933, Statement on National Industrial Recovery Act)

    Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you – using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.

    (1938, Fireside Chat, the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act)

    I haven’t actively looked into GoGet’s dealings, but they don’t have the same history of well-known scandals that Uber has.

  • Yeah, it should be possible to issue death sentences to companies. But the government isn’t even willing to revoke their license to operate a casino, because “it brings so much money into the state”. Totally amoral.

  • That’s pretty good. Soles are the first thing to go for me, too. I know it isn’t directly comparable, because I’m doing outdoor, primarily on paved surfaces, at a substantial speed, and need my shoes to handle adverse weather. But damn, I wish I could get a pair of shoes that last me years.

  • I was gonna say, my usual is 15 or 20 km per day, but if I do 23 km I'm gonna be worn out. 23 k steps is still pretty good.

    How long does a pair of boots last him? I've been wearing Brooks Glycerin running shoes. They're good for about 2,000 km on paved surfaces, but I keep wearing them past that because I don't like paying for new pairs.

  • Are you on a wage (employee), or a rolling contract (consultant)? If you're on a wage, then yes, you need to treat those days as being last financial year. If you're on a rolling contract, you treat the entire month as being in the financial year when the invoice is issued.

  • Crown Resorts’ lawyers have warned the federal court that the casino operator would face “significant financial hardship” if forced to immediately pay its $450 million settlement with Australia’s financial crimes regulator Austrac.

    Isn’t that the whole point of a fine? If it wouldn’t cause them any hardship, they’ll just treat it as the cost of doing business.

  • It’s true that you can’t see electricity, though. Neither electrons in motion (electric current) nor excess charge carriers (static electricity) are visible. Visible sparks are ionised air, not the electricity itself.

    Whether you can touch electricity is a bit of a weird question. You can touch an object carrying a static charge, and you can touch a conductor. But are you touching the “electricity”? It’s a weird semantic argument.

    • A lot of Melbourne isn’t served very well by public transport
    • Melbourne public transport largely assumes you’re travelling to or from the CBD – if you aren’t, it can be effectively useless
    • Standard business hours a thing so that you know other businesses will be open around the same time, facilitating communication, so everyone needs to get to work in a relatively short time window