I’ve seen Brilliant Earth around for a while if you want lab grown, but I’ve never bought from them personally.

I’d also recommend a Philadelphia jeweler that ships pretty quickly and has always had good products that I have bought from several times, Steven Singer.

Because phones are still not able to shoot as well as a professional camera, never mind the skills needed to frame or light the scene correctly.

How does it increase earning potential? Best case it would flood the market with shit and result in less income due to either dilution of spending amongst thousands of idiots using “ai” or destroy the need for a market in the first place. If everything is ai why would I pay the “artist” instead of just going to stablediffusion or something similar?

The full statement can be found in this news article instead of YouTube.

“Impact’s first shift began at 7:00 AM on the morning of September 27, 2024, as usual. At that time, there had been no flooding alert or warning. Written evacuation plans were posted in conspicuous areas of the plant many months prior to September 27th, 2024. Impact Plastic’s Inc. (“Impact Plastics”) parking lot is in a low-lying area between South Industrial Drive and the plant building. Runoff from adjacent properties and surrounding property often pools in its parking lot during or after heavy rain and often necessitates employees and other visitors at the plant to move their cars. Water began to pool in the parking lot around 10:35 AM on the morning of September 27th, 2024, which is not an unusual occurrence. Public warnings were disseminated via cell phones at approximately 10:40 AM, coinciding with a power outage occurring at 10:39 AM. A decision was made within minutes of the power outage to shut the plant down and dismiss all employees including supervisors. Employees were directed to leave the plant property within minutes of the power outage and certainly no later than 10:50 AM. Bilingual employees translated the announcement in Spanish. Senior management conducted a walkthrough of the facility and attempted to move the company’s server and other important documents. They exited the building around 11:35 and were the last individuals to leave. Subsequent analysis of recorded video footage and photographs has identified both current and missing employees who left the property of Impact Plastics and remained on South Industrial Drive for approximately 45 minutes after the plant’s closure. This group has since been either rescued or reported as missing or deceased. Review also indicates that when employees were dismissed as water was pooling in Impact Plastic’s parking lot, but South Industrial Drive, in front of the plant appears to have been passable. The water pooled in the parking lot was approximately six inches deep as indicated by the water level shown at the bottom of small passenger cars parked at the time reviewed by the company. To Impact Plastic’s knowledge, no one was ever trapped in the building or on its premises. Impact Plastics is aware of the allegations circulated on social media that employees who asked to leave were told not to leave by their supervisors and that supervisors left the plant before other plant employees were dismissed. The allegations are false. Impact did not prohibit its employees from leaving. It did not threaten anyone with discharge from employment. Its senior management were the last, not the first, to leave. Senior management was the last to leave approximately 45-minutes after the plant had been closed and all other employees had been dismissed. Impact Plastics made decisions based on the information available at the time. In times like these, words feel inadequate to express the depth of sorrow we are all feeling. The recent flood has devastated our plant and, more tragically, taken the lives of some of our dear colleagues and friends. Our hearts go out to their families and loved ones.”

Personally I find the attempt to place blame on them being outside the facility to be ridiculous:

Subsequent analysis of recorded video footage and photographs has identified both current and missing employees who left the property of Impact Plastics and remained on South Industrial Drive for approximately 45 minutes after the plant’s closure. This group has since been either rescued or reported as missing or deceased. Review also indicates that when employees were dismissed as water was pooling in Impact Plastic’s parking lot, but South Industrial Drive, in front of the plant appears to have been passable. The water pooled in the parking lot was approximately six inches deep as indicated by the water level shown at the bottom of small passenger cars parked at the time reviewed by the company. To Impact Plastic’s knowledge, no one was ever trapped in the building or on its premises.

One of the best anti-scam advice I was ever given was to always call the number I knew was valid like the one on my insurance card in this instance and verify that way.

Many states have little to no rules on storage. You also don’t really need a license to buy one just to carry it concealed in public (some states don’t even require this step). Of the states that have storage laws like my own, I’m unaware of any that require you to prove safe storage though. The laws only offer a punishment after the fact when something bad happens.

The problem is everything is a massive chain so as one goes, so goes them all so to speak. I have Kroger, Albertsons, and Walmart as my only choices for grocery store. I don’t see any chance that if Kroger does this Albertsons (assuming the proposed Kroger Albertsons merger fails) and Walmart don’t do the same.

Tl;dr it doesn’t need to benefit the customer if the customer has no real choice in where they shop

The goodwill near me wants $21 for a pair of jeans that are very obviously used and fairly thin. A thicker pair of jeans is $15.99 at the Walmart 3 miles down the road…

My town has three stores, Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart. As one goes so go they all most likely on this one so idk how I’d even begin to think about avoiding this longer term…

Do you have something to contradict it?

Edit: well I can’t find anything refuting this poore-nemecek they referenced besides a correction issued to the paper itself so guess I’ll just link it here in case anyone else is interested like I was.

article

I would think Bluetooth or plugging it in once in a blue moon for a firmware/schedule update like the good old days would be far preferable to anything that could connect them to the internet. I’d much rather air gapped and slightly inconvenient than internet enabled spyware all over my house.

Why do these things need to be internet connected in the first place?

Mines at least that as well, it’s good to know come next ups purchase as I would hate to get stuck with that kind of garbage. I’ll have to pay close attention to the battery now when searching

My apc unit has a standard battery that has a replacement from Duracell, which model(s) have proprietary batteries?

One thing they didn’t mention but I’ve seen on the news before is that flood waters often contain carcinogenic/other polluting chemicals leeched from the ground, and other waste streams. How much of that gets left in people’s soil (or wells if they have a well system), or even in their house after rebuilding?

A) you can survive without precooling or set it to start before getting deep into the store.

B)if you want that feature fine, but leave it off everyone else’s car! No cell connections should be installed by default like this. It’s a walking cve list waiting to happen.

Ubuntu is great for works out of the box kind of tasks, I have it on an old MacBook Pro 2012. With a free Ubuntu pro account I can get security updates for 22.10 lts until 2032! It’s already starting to act its age so security updates but a frozen OS helps not further tax it as software gets more complex. Point being there’s a niche even if in most other cases I might prefer something different.

Idk that a lot of people know/understand the difference to be honest.

Edit: difference between obedience and respect

The first time I saw my wife with makeup was our wedding day. Since then at most once every few months for work and then only maybe eye shadow and lipstick. Safe to say I prefer no makeup. Let the natural beauty shine on its own!

Counting the differences in cost (loan, gas, expected maintenance, insurance etc) it came out to where I would have to use the truck to haul something at least a very weekend possibly more to break even with a much newer car vs just renting a truck once or twice a year. Pickups are almost universally owned by people too stupid for middle school math imo.