im afraid that everyone has the forbidden drawer. the drawer that should never be opened except as a last ditch effort to find that one appliance that seems to elude you in every other drawer. you can try to destroy the drawer, but it will always come back in some form.

what if i want to answer the question but i have none of the relevant knowledge and also don’t really understand the question itself?

in real life i usually have a pretty deadpan delivery, so i dont laugh at those for the most part. but when texting/posting online, i usually laugh at the funny ones. maybe it has to do with the time in between when i think of the joke and when i tell the joke. in real life, there’s not much time in between for laughter, but typed jokes are a bit more premeditated

it also bothers me when people say “my algorithm” to refer to the thing that recommends posts to them. people shouldn’t ever say “my algorithm” unless they personally own a copy of the kick-ass prog-metal band

a couple always means two.

every time anyone says “a couple”, i ask them if they mean two. it’s not pleasant exchange for either of us, but it must be done

i also hate how hotels will now call people “guests” instead of customers. some restaurants do this too. it just makes things feel more gross and corporate. like it’s trying to force the whole “we’re all a family here” mentality on the customers

quite a few of them are “natural monopolies”. for those unaware (source):

A natural monopoly is a type of monopoly in an industry or sector with high barriers to entry and start-up costs that prevent any rivals from competing. As such, a natural monopoly has only one efficient player. This company may be the only provider of a product or service in an industry or geographic location.

ie, cable companies, electricity suppliers, amazon. it’s really complicated and really expensive to build the infrastructure needed to meaningfully compete in those industries.

another relevant concept is the “network effect”, defined as (source):

a business principle that illustrates the idea that when more people use a product or service, its value increases.

this kind of thing is more applicable to things like social media companies (they’re more appealing the more users they have). this makes it hard to compete with social media companies because convincing people to use your new app is really hard if the usefulness of it depends on everyone’s friends already being on it. (this is also part of the reason twitter is taking so painfully long to die)

both concepts illustrate the different barriers to entry that exist when trying to compete with these giant companies. these barriers are also what allow these huge companies to get so complacent.

(i’m not happy about quoting investopedia or wharton, but they do give simple definitions of both concepts so i did it just this once.)

In 2023, a full-time worker needs to earn an hourly wage of $28.58 on average to afford a modest, two-bedroom rental home in the U.S. This Housing Wage for a two-bedroom home is nearly four times higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

source: https://nlihc.org/oor/about

this isn’t even taking into account groceries, transportation, medical expenses, etc. the problem is not buying too many carbonated drinks.