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[Arx]

However, 'lenticular' is undeniably the correct description of their shape.

[Akura]

Dammit internet, why do you keep cutting out? It's like my ISP doesn't want me getting shit done on an early Sunday morning.
"Getting shit done" = looking through image threads of Monster Musume, but still.

[McTraveller]

Ordinarily, he's an okay guy. Just not fit for management in my opinion. For example, for Q1, we've barely missed our sales goal(with an associated bonus) by 1-2% of plan. He's blaming it entirely on two days we were closed due to heavy snow. While that's actually plausible, especially since the amount we missed it by is pretty close to what would have been made in those two days, when you have that slim of a margin, there's quite a bit you can do to bump that up. Making sure employees aren't screwing about is one.

He also should not have been our manager in the first place, except that the manager of another store was caught fabricating numbers(to make their store look better) and was fired, and the company president(the guy overseeing 300+ stores worldwide) ordered the manager of our store to take over that one.

So maybe you can help me understand this one - sales goal and quotas have always been kind of a WTF to me.  Unless those quotas are based on a percentage of retail traffic, say, I don't understand how you can actually say "you must sell X units this quarter!" or whatever - a store has limited control of how many people come through its doors, right?  Aside from, say, mind control?  Especially for discretionary items.


But the other WTF from yesterday: I finally went highway driving again after a long while (working from a home office is wonderful).  I am astonished at how many people don't understand basic math: driving 75 in a 70 zone means if you were driving 70 miles it would take 56 minutes instead of 60 (a 7% improvement) - but you're dissipating at least 15% more energy to do it.  And most people are driving for far less than 70 miles on a trip, so aren't even really saving that much meaningful time.

It's even more entertaining when the speeding vehicle is an SUV and has ecological bumper stickers.

[Akura]

So maybe you can help me understand this one - sales goal and quotas have always been kind of a WTF to me.  Unless those quotas are based on a percentage of retail traffic, say, I don't understand how you can actually say "you must sell X units this quarter!" or whatever - a store has limited control of how many people come through its doors, right?

In our case at least, it's based on performance from last year - 100% is doing equal to last year's sales. 105% is actually considered to be the real goal(and has a larger bonus in our paychecks).

And there's actually quite a lot that can be done to affect both the number of customers that come through the doors and the amount of money they shell out. As a thrift store, prices are decided on a piece-by-piece basis. Generally it uses a tiered system* based on item quality with occasionally really high-quality items being priced outside(and much higher than) that system, such as collectible or new(with original tags) designer items. There's actually been repeated problems with the pricers just setting the price to the middle tier since they don't feel like actually examining the product*.

Advertising is another big thing. Our company refuses to pay for TV or radio ads(given the costs, understandable), so our particular store(not sure about other stores) has recently established a management position pretty specifically geared towards getting the word out(and also handles our donation center, see next), and she has recently started to figure out Twitter for this very reason.

Of course, another thing to look at is where our stuff comes from. Ideally, we want as much as possible to come from people just showing up and dropping stuff off, but our store has a pretty decent deal with a local non-profit where we pay them a small amount for every donation plus we can usually rely on them if random people donations fall short(but we pay through the ass for that one). Trying to boost donations really helps us out. We recently had to close 15 stores in the US largely due to supply problems hurting profitability.

[hector13]

Question for you Akura:

Do you do the "asterisk for footnote" thing and deliberately omit the footnote, or are you doing "asterisk for something else"?

[Arx]

The asterisk is surrounded with [abbr] tags, which don't display properly on mobile devices and some versions of Chrome.

[hector13]

The asterisk is surrounded with [abbr] tags, which don't display properly on mobile devices and some versions of Chrome.

Ah.

Never mind then.

[pisskop]

so on a whim i stole a audio copy of 1984 from an acquaintance after they got done with it for their english whatever class.

listening to it got me thinking about the spectrum of political belief as a horseshoe and how the two poles are more alike to each other than the center.

and that got me thinking of my conservative bent and my belief that socialism, or at least some aspects of societal placation, is helpful or even necessary going into the future.  at least a measure of control os required, pleasant or not

and it got me thinking about how dangerously close to being a fascist i was.  different age different country and presto.  buttt, ive also recognized how easily it could have been a religion or even communism.  not the hippie ass revolution tho  :\  never one for disestablishment.

but then i started passively thinking about _how_ control over the masses is exerted.  bread, circus, propaganda, thought crime, and imagry bombardment.

and how much is done by modern capitalism.  and democracy in  general, though its more insidious there...

and how, extrapolated from a sense of plebian morality, the oppression and over-expression of emotions and percieved freedoms is the same thing.  it is a middle step.

and then i think of lenin.  now i was not edumafied in communistic ideology, but i do know he advocated middle grounds as a means of gradual shift from on system to another.


in short, now im redregging up old, old grade 13 identity reconfigurations, about the time i recognized I was wayyy more conservative than my peers despite having spent all of high school trying to be more liberal

[pisskop]

on a slightly less 'bludgeon you in the face' note, im loving the blue photochromatic lense on my new glasses.  everything is a more pleasant color, especially water and the sky, and it really highlights my awesome blue eyes

[Akura]

The asterisk is surrounded with [abbr] tags, which don't display properly on mobile devices and some versions of Chrome.

Ah.

Never mind then.

It's actually the [acronym] tag, but I guess [abbr] does the same thing? *

[George_Chickens]

listening to it got me thinking about the spectrum of political belief as a horseshoe and how the two poles are more alike to each other than the center.

Why, though? Wouldn't Orwell be an example of this being a bit of a silly concept? Orwell spoke on many occasions of his support of a 'classless society', supported collectivization and seizure of the workplace by the workers (also went as far to say that all of his works were for socialism and against totalitarianism, if I'm not mistaken), and even fought, maimed, and likely killed for his beliefs. By all accounts, he was about as far on the left as you could get, and he wasn't afraid of using violence to obtain his goals. But who would compare him to, say, your average Nazi of the time?

[Tack]

Been reading up on Superintelligence (book) and Elon Musk's current R&D into developing a free AI so that people can be protected from the more potentially hostile AI of a company or government.

I've always been kind of a "digital democratic socialist" (i think it'll need translating out of English before it forms any kind of cool abbreviation)- but this whole "AI" thing has really got me thinking.
I make the assumption that a single AI could probably exist within everyone's smartphones at once (or a google AI and Apple AI?), and my first thought was "oh god, the movie Her", but have been getting more and more happy with the idea of a phone which knows if the person you're going to a meeting to is going to be late. Which could be potentially very cool.

I seem to have come to the conclusion that real and lasting communism can only really be born out of slavery- self-imposed or not.
If an AI could say "this job is the one you seem second most happy in" or "that person seems to suit you", and would be perfectly persuasive due to it's ability to run circles around our tiny monkey brains, that would potentially be the start of the most happy and harmless age of mankind.


Of course, that presupposes benevolence which is pretty unlikely, or that a free-thinking consciousness has the best interests of a random primitive species at heart. (That's us)

So I'm kind of frozen between hope for an environmentally sustainable utopia... or "I have no mouth and I must scream"
Especially if it's one of the more sinister companies which gets to make a formative impression on this program we're handing over the keys to the universe to..

[scriver]

listening to it got me thinking about the spectrum of political belief as a horseshoe and how the two poles are more alike to each other than the center.

Why, though? Wouldn't Orwell be an example of this being a bit of a silly concept? Orwell spoke on many occasions of his support of a 'classless society', supported collectivization and seizure of the workplace by the workers (also went as far to say that all of his works were for socialism and against totalitarianism, if I'm not mistaken), and even fought, maimed, and likely killed for his beliefs. By all accounts, he was about as far on the left as you could get, and he wasn't afraid of using violence to obtain his goals. But who would compare him to, say, your average Nazi of the time?

Orwell had the enviable ability to be highly critical of his own phalanx, though, unlike many or maybe even most socialists of his time. See Animal Farm for details.

[wierd]

The person who believes they can do no wrong, ultimately does the most.

It does not matter the specifics of the beliefs as to WHY-- only the what.  When you believe that your actions can have no negative consequences, you are not careful in the application of those actions.

Orwell was aware that actions have consequences, and thus was critical of using something like a chainsaw, when it should be used like a scalpel.

[AzyWng]

Second: I actually took my copy of Jet Set Radio for a spin.

Did you complete the tutorial?

There was no indication of how long I had to skate without hitting anything.

I am not a patient man.