this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
94 points (99.0% liked)

Casual Conversation

3276 readers
100 users here now

Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.


RULES (updated 01/22/25)

  1. Be respectful: no harassment, hate speech, bigotry, and/or trolling. To be concise, disrespect is defined by escalation.
  2. Encourage conversation in your OP. This means including heavily implicative subject matter when you can and also engaging in your thread when possible. You won't be punished for trying.
  3. Avoid controversial topics (politics or societal debates come to mind, though we are not saying not to talk about anything that resembles these). There's a guide in the protocol book offered as a mod model that can be used for that; it's vague until you realize it was made for things like the rule in question. At least four purple answers must apply to a "controversial" message for it to be allowed.
  4. Keep it clean and SFW: No illegal content or anything gross and inappropriate. A rule of thumb is if a recording of a conversation put on another platform would get someone a COPPA violation response, that exact exchange should be avoided when possible.
  5. No solicitation such as ads, promotional content, spam, surveys etc. The chart redirected to above applies to spam material as well, which is one of the reasons its wording is vague, as it applies to a few things. Again, a "spammy" message must be applicable to four purple answers before it's allowed.
  6. Respect privacy as well as truth: Don’t ask for or share any personal information or slander anyone. A rule of thumb is if something is enough info to go by that it "would be a copyright violation if the info was art" as another group put it, or that it alone can be used to narrow someone down to 150 physical humans (Dunbar's Number) or less, it's considered an excess breach of privacy. Slander is defined by intentional utilitarian misguidance at the expense (positive or negative) of a sentient entity. This often links back to or mixes with rule one, which implies, for example, that even something that is true can still amount to what slander is trying to achieve, and that will be looked down upon.

Casual conversation communities:

Related discussion-focused communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Food bank in the US. Food drives and individual donations of food don't really mean shit to food banks and they result in overwhelmingly low quality food. Your local food bank isn't hurting for your expired cans of coconut milk or your forgotten boxes of Kraft mac & cheese. Sugary junk and expired food will be sorted out and tossed. Most staple foods at food banks are distributed by the federal government or purchased by the food bank. Most other foods are donated in large volume by supermarkets and manufacturers. What food banks really need from you is donations of money, not food.

Another thing about food banks is that some supermarkets and manufacturers abuse them to dump their spoiled, expired or overproduced goods and get a tax write-off on them. I worked at a medium sized food bank that would throw away multiple pallets of sugary bakery items from Walmart every day because they didn't meet our nutrition guidelines and Walmart had been told repeatedly not to donate them, but they did it anyway for the tax write-off. Ever walk into a Walmart and wonder how they can have so much bakery crap on display and sell it before it expires? Yeah, most of that stuff will be marked down multiple times and then trucked to the local food bank where it will be thrown away. Trader Joe's also does this with their returns (most of their donations are unusable). Whole Foods on the other hand is really amazing about donating tons of high quality stuff on a daily basis.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

This only makes me hate walmart even more

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

I wonder if you could get some kind of IRS tax fraud bounty on Walmart for that, but I'm guessing the odds are pretty low especially with the current administration.

[–] [email protected] 86 points 4 days ago (3 children)

They patent ways to generate green energy so nobody else can use them and they can continue to make obscene profits selling oil and gas.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

Similar strategy to software companies, who buy upcoming competing companies and then kill the products.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Those companies are just begging to be nationalized.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago

I'm not surprised but lord that's bad

[–] [email protected] 52 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The last tech job I worked marketing for had a security product (you probably have used it without knowing it). They had a group in-house they called the "Tiger Team": people who were supposedly tasked with testing the security of the product. You got into the "Tiger Team" by finding a flaw in the security.

The "Tiger Team" did nothing. At all. Didn't even meet. Hell, half of them didn't know who the other members were. The job of the "Tiger Team" was to sign the NDA that had dire consequences if you spoke to anybody else about the "Tiger Team" and/or the security flaws in the product.

So basically the "Tiger Team" existed only to conceal flaws in the product. Not to fix them or find more.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

I swear, security companies have the worst security practices.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

When does the NDA expire? I need deets

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I didn't sign an NDA, the guy I was dating did. And the company is long zombified (Entrust).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

What beans? I already spilled them: Entrust had "Tiger Team" that consisted entirely of people who'd found flaws in the security of the product; it existed entirely to NDA-bind the "team members" to squelch talk about the security failures.

You want me to spill the beans on the flaws? Can't. I do marketing, not techie stuff. I just know about the "team", not about the things people found to get into it.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The physical infrastructure of the internet (fibre and copper cables) is held together with string and 'temporary' fixes. Not a metaphor in any way.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Wait 'til you hear about the software infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

Wait till you hear about our bridges and roads. This is standard human activity. Build something then ignore it till it breaks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Hey that random dude from Nebraska should not be lumped in with this.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 4 days ago

Shell has caused a lot more oil spills, both big and small, than they'd ever admit. I didn't work there, but I've been on ships around their oil rigs.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 days ago

I feel like this should be common sense, but goddamn does it come up often as fuck. If you're going to a built-in bakery, like in a grocery store or Starbucks little bakery display, we don't fully make 90% of that shit. It comes in pre-made. The shit we do put in the oven is mostly to warm it or just finish it off.

We most likely don't even have the box to tell you exactly when the supplier baked it. We sell them that quickly. We just slap icing on.

We have to put out so much product in a day, on such tight timing, that if we had to mix and bake our own cakes and bread, we'd be constantly out. That is part of why our shit is cheaper than a high-end independent establishment.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 days ago (3 children)

No one really cares if you have a nice day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Similarly, strangers who greet you by asking how you’re doing also don’t care about the answer. People actually get really uncomfortable if you say anything negative.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I promise you I care, I don't know who you are but the idea that you're happy fills my heart with joy.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago

😱😱😱

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

We used to routinely disable safety interlocks on production machines. A guy almost got decapitated once while performing maintenance.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

We as in you did? If so, Fuck you. I know too many people who have been injured because of assholes who disabled those interlocks. LOTO is a lifesaver.

Edit: ok I saw in a later post that you didn't do that. But still - to anyone who considers disabling a safety interlock - just jump right in after doing so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I tell all the new guys "if your manager doesn't want you want to lock something out, call me. I'll lock it out. There's nothing in this place worth getting hurt for."

Here, our equipment is old enough that sometimes powering things down means they don't come back up properly. I'd rather fight getting a machine back up and running vs having to hear about someone being injured.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Many SQL servers use scripts that run as domain administrator. With the password hard coded in.

Several of the various servers are very old. W2K, 2003, 2008. SQL server, too.

Several of the users run reports via rdp to the SQL server - logging in as domain admin.

Codebase is a mashup of various dev tools: .net, asp, Java, etc.

Fax server software vendor has been out of business for a decade. Server hardware is 20 years old. Telecom for fax is a channelized PRI carrying POTS - and multiport modem cards. Fax is used for processing checks.

About a 3rd of the ethernet runs in the office have failed.

Office pcs are static IP. Boss says that's more secure.

They were hacked about a year ago. They changed the domain admin password and restored the backups. That's it.

They processed money to/from the Fed.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

80-90% of the entire cybersecurity business is because Windows is still being used.

[–] blarth 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Pretending Linux doesn’t have vulnerabilities?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s about 2% of the entire cybersecurity industry. So - sure, knock yourself out on that, but the $ isn’t as big.

[–] blarth 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Tell me you don’t work in large enterprise environments without telling me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Automation is so incredibly resource intensive and generates so much waste. I can't see how letting ourselves become more dependant on automation is as beneficial as businesses and mislead common people make it out to be.

As demand increases, so does maintenance, upgrades and power consumption. Everything electronic requires plastic. Which is shipped in more plastic. Which is shipped on skids wrapped in more plastic. And when those electronics fail, then that is just more waste plastic because it's easier, quicker and cheaper to replace rather than fix.

Electronics and automation are so fun and interesting. It's amazing watching a line run at full speed in production. But it's so painfully depressing how awful it is for our environment. The dust and oils are awful for the living beings that work in those environments. The repetitive jobs that it creates is absolutely awful for the mental wellbeing for the people who work there.

The mental damage of being there was so bad to me that when it came time to discuss severance pay at the labour board meeting after my wrongful termination, I purposely let the lawyers keep in a part in the contract/paperwork saying I could no longer work at any company under that international organization. They thought I would fight that so they would have reason to lower my severance pay. Nah. I took my winnings, which included getting the HR manager fired, and fucked right off.

Years later and I still feel a deep shame and regret for the time I spent in the automation industry and for all the damage and waste I caused while being in there.

Along with eliminating wealth hoarders who generate extreme amounts of waste, lessening our dependence on technology and automation are things I personally believe will be key to a liveable future. It's a bit shocking to me how often I receive negative or angry criticism when I share these thoughts though.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I've worked for the government. However chaotic, beaurocratic and badly managed it is, it's 1000 times worse. Laziness is endemic and so many people just won't work

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They paid for the CEO to have an expensive townhouse downtown even though they only visited the area like 2 weeks total per year and lived on the opposite coast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

It’s really insane how some truly wealthy people waste everyone else’s money. Like, claw and fight to get more and screw everyone else over, then just waste their money on stuff like that. I know a guy who got very wealthy from starting a health insurance plan in the 80s (first PPO in a Midwest state). He owns this gigantic 20 million dollar house in the mountains in Colorado and is there for sale, like 2-3 weeks a year. Pays people to watch it, clean and maintain it. Such a stupid waste of resources.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (6 children)

YMMV:

  • Dollar General: nobody watches the cameras unless someone reports something
  • USPS: exploitative. Has the ability to manipulate politics (political ads are not guaranteed to be delivered)
  • Amazon Warehouse: exploitative
  • Amazon DSP: exploitative. DSPs were created to bypass labor laws
  • Restaurants: most fried foods, and many not fried, are frozen. This is not just fast food, think steaks.
[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Tons of restaurants serve premade stuff from US Foods or Sysco. Lie about it, too. I worked at a BBQ restaurant whose secret sauce recipe was adding smoke flavoring and red wine vinegar to 5 gallon buckets of Cattlemen’s.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Locally owned and operated retirement home that got new management after og owner retirement.

They changed the logo to a cross when they changed all their old company practices to a more for profit approach. All during covid when they cut everything too.

Hired on with the expectation of a 3 month raise. Lol no. First job and first lesson that if it's not in writing it doesn't exist.

One time I found molded beans in bulk storage. Was instructed to scrape off the top layer and use the rest since truck wasn't coming and we needed it.

Hardies would routinely ship molded product. Options were pick around the refuse or have nothing. Sometimes a dishwasher or line cook would go to the store with a list when it was too bad.

The actual secret? You can do a lot to food and still be ok. Honestly got me over my food pickyness. Don't fuck with the danger zone and you're good.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If something has mold, specifically, then that whole food and anything else in the same package is bad, even if you can't see the mold on other pieces. This is because mold is a microorganism and you only see it with your eyes when an extremely large amount collects.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not sure how much of a secret or how unique this is to this industry but in sign writing, they'll charge customers bloated prices that includes the cost of all materials, then use offcut and leftover materials from previous jobs anyway.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

Privileged cunts get paid $300K+/year to do fuck all. But that is coming to an end, we just summarily cut one cunt’s salary in half and it’ll go lower if that cunt doesn’t actually produce. For complicated reasons, the cunt can’t be fired.

load more comments
view more: next ›