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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Not sure of your means, but we can boycott. Organizations like Trader Joe’s and Aldi are a bit cheaper than their competitors while offering also using different sources. Likewise organizations like H Mart or your local farmers market source locally, giving the middle finger to Tyson (who claims inflation and profits) and Kellogs (who uses shrinkflation to claim profits). Obviously this doesn’t work for everyone, but I think the majority of city dwellers can make these moves. This also is a fuck you to any local grocery stores trying to do the same bullshit (Walmart).

    In the same vein, and what I’ve done, alternative meal companies have come A LONG way. The company Huel has a instant noodles, pasta, and candy bars that are macro balanced with vitamins and nutrients all for about $5/meal. I know most people will skip this, but they’re actually really good. Mac N Cheese, pasta Bolognese and Cajun pasta have actually gotten me to go mostly vegan. There’s another one called Outstanding Foods that has cheese puffs, cookies and pork rinds that are macro balanced and delicious as well. My daily meals are often some pasta like Mac N Cheese, one of the Huel shakes (I have a ninja creami so this is ice cream in the summer), and coffee mocha cookies, and another shake. That’s 1800 calories with balanced macros and vegan that I didn’t have the really cook or think about. If I’m working out, I swap the last shake for a protein shake.



  • I think the bigger part is it lowers the barrier to entry for others.

    There are spots where, if I wanted to build a 10 br apartment complex, I’d have to have a 20 space parking lot. That means I either need more land or more construction for a parking deck. Expand that out to 100/200 units and you can quickly see where this becomes a barrier.

    Not to mention, this further necessitates parking because now my nearest neighbor is further away, which could have simply been a bar or grocery store.

    Now I’m not someone that can afford to build something that big, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see new builders move into the market.


  • And if this sounds dystopian to you.

    I anecdotally got into a CEO data conference, where leaders were discussing strategy and tactics. Biggest topic of the day was, why can’t I track how many times someone sees my physical store/billboard/sign and makes a decision. Geofencing + your cellphone GPS isn’t accurate enough for these guys, they want to know how long you stared at the store, what made you move in, what demographics you belong to, and how can they maximize your likelihood to purchase more stuff.

    Why does this matter? People are more likely to buy more stuff in a store wandering around than on a market place where they just swap tabs to get the same thing from somewhere else.

    If I can make my store front like temu to get you in and keep you there, then it’s likely you’ll be interested in buying more stuff you didn’t know you wanted.



  • Speaking from the pharmacy perspective.

    Banks wove their way into drug transactions as a middleman called Pharmacy benefits managers. They stand between insurance and pharmacies to prevent collision, but instead, what we see is insurance companies pay a lot for drugs, while pharmacies see very little for that drug. Over 50% is being taken by the PBM because they’re “preventing” collision. Don’t even get me started on the vertically integrated pharmacies like CVS and United who abuse their position to force consumers to use their pharmacies instead of competitors or use “technological advancements” to keep their prices lower than their competitors.

    NYC is currently trying to pass legislation to fix this, but that’s only at the state level.

    Wall Street needs to get the fuck out of healthcare and healthcare needs to stay the fuck out of Wall Street. Once a healthcare org talks about share holders, we’re no longer talking about patients.


  • Bad take.

    Code is about working with a limited set of tools and making them work for whatever task is in front of you.

    Inspiration is from interacting with something and receiving insight.

    The best coders meld the two and push the industry forward. If you impose self limitations like this on yourself, then you’ll never advance yourself.

    This is like saying you read lord of the rings and now can’t play DND because the fantasy source material was ‘stolen’.