• 172 Posts
  • 223 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: March 13th, 2023

help-circle













  • O’Brien also outlined evidence that was withheld that pointed to Michael Holman — a former police officer, who died in 2015. Evidence showed that Holman’s pickup truck was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment, that he tried to use her credit card, and that her earrings were found in his home.

    The appellate court’s ruling said the record “strongly suggests” that police buried their investigation into Holman.

    One of the appellate court judges noted particular concern about what happened when Holman, the discredited police officer, couldn’t be ruled out as the source of a palm print detected on a TV antenna cable found next to the victim’s body.

    The FBI asked for clearer prints, but police didn’t follow up. Jurors never heard about that or other evidence because the police never informed prosecutors.









  • At the scene, multiple people pulled over in a car and fired with at least one automatic weapon at one person before getting back into the vehicle and fleeing the scene, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said in an update Sunday morning. More than 100 shell casings were collected at the scene, among other pieces of evidence, and bystanders were caught in the crossfire.

    Thurmond said the shooting was not random and may have stemmed from an alleged murder-for-hire against an individual in the Five Points South entertainment district at the time. No one is in custody, but police are asking for businesses and witnesses to report any information they have.

    City and police officials believe a switch — a small device that can convert a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic weapon — may have been used in the shooting.

    https://wbhm.org/2024/birmingham-police-4-dead-dozens-injured-in-five-points-south-mass-shooting/



  • I haven’t bought anything via the Amazon site in years. At least three, possibly five or more. Anything I need I can get elsewhere either online or in person without supporting Amazon’s anti-union, worker-exploiting policies. I won’t even use AWS for business purposes because of how they treat their workers. Boycott away, there are plenty of Amazon options that are “good enough” if not actually better.


  • Ah yes, the fumes. That “Waste To Energy” incinerator is west of town in the area known as “West Plains”, near I90, near the airport, and not far from Fairchild AFB which these days is a locus of refueling operations and other support functions. Huge, 4-engined planes coming and going all day long. Long ago the AF firefighting ops polluted the groundwater there with PFAS chemicals and much of it is no longer fit to drink. Between that, the air pollution from military and civil air operations, and whatever comes out of the stacks at the W2E plant, I have to imagine the denizens of the area have evolved some powerful pollution-resistant genetics. Or maybe they just die young from cancer and respiratory and neurological diseases. Fortunately it’s a pretty low-income zone (think ‘typical military town’ - old skool Bremerton-ish) so all that disease can just be blamed on personal poor decision-making (like the decision to live there). A shame really, West Plains now has a ginormous Amazon warehouse that the residents could slave at (in addition to the super-Wally’s and the casinos) if they’d Just Say No to cancer and all those other tempting diseases.





  • A “quick haircut” sort of place (kind of a barber, sort of , but super-high-volume and just one worker, the owner) that I’ve been using for a while now has a super-annoying dark-pattern in their payment flow. They book appointments, and take in-person payments using Square. After your cut, when you’re paying via their hand-held kiosk with a card, the screen shows you a bunch of huge “tip amount” buttons, and it’s implied that the customer has to choose one of them, while the provider looks on, in order to finish the transaction and leave (probably not true - they’ve already got your CC info by that point). Guess which button is highlighted/pre-selected and front-and-center! That’s right, 20%. If you want to select another tip, or no tip, you have to select another button while she watches you do so. The owner lists all prices on her square website, and it’s those prices you think you’ll be paying when you book an appointment online, but she still feels the need to be tipped. You KNOW that the provider/barber has configured Square to present that UI to the customer. Not quite the same as the restaurant fees scam, but it’s actually more manipulative though, in my view.





  • The redundancies follow declining revenues and shrinking profits.

    “Redundancies” is apparently now a noun that refers to employees being laid off.

    Intel announced it was eliminating 16,000 people – to curb capital expenses.

    Headcount is now a physical asset I guess. Corps must be taking depreciation expenses on employees now in addition to salary expenses. Ka-ching!

    After my first browse of the article I was wondering if it had been spewed out by some of the crappy AI that Cisco is so keen on.