The URL made me think of this:

[…]anduril-unveils-barracudam[…]

More like Barracu-DAMN, am I right?

We’ve seen plenty of evidence that the current inflation is almost entirely driven by companies price gouging consumers.

And actually, the fact that the price hasn’t increased is pretty obvious evidence of this.

Do you think, for one second, Apple would accept any appreciable hit to its profit margin if their costs had inflated 1:1 with consumer prices? Especially when they have a perfect excuse to blame a price increase on?

The phone may cost them a little more to make than last year, but I doubt it’s that much.

There’s tons of elasticity built into the pricing already so that carriers can offer discounts.

The point is kind of moot because the phone definitely comes with the cable: https://www.apple.com/iphone-16/specs/

The article is actually about the new AirPods. I was going entirely off the information in the comment I was replying to.

The thing is, the iPhone 14, 15 and 16 all have the same launch price: $799 US

Adjusted for inflation, the 14 and 15 may have cost more, but Apple is almost certainly making that money back somewhere else. Like, say, making people pay for accessories that used to be included?

And at the end of the day, the prices consumers pay for end products don’t follow the exact same curve as the prices megacorporations pay for materials and labor. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that the current inflation is almost entirely driven by companies price gouging consumers. So it’s not really reasonable to assume that Apple’s costs have gone up 1:1 with consumer prices anyway.

But here’s the question: does it cost Apple $20 to make a cable? I seriously doubt it. It probably costs them closer to 20 cents per cable. So in reality, they now make approximately $20 more from every sale than they did before.

Sure, not everyone is buying a cable with every phone. But cables get lost, they wear out, they get stolen by your kids to charge their iPhones because they broke theirs, they get chewed up by pets, etc.

And you can bet your ass that, just like any other high-margin item, the people in the Apple store are gonna be incentivized like hell to get every customer to buy a cable with their phone whether they really need it or not:

Do you have a charging cable?

Is it an Apple cable?

Are you sure you have one that’s USB-C and supports USB Power Delivery?

And it’s not worn out?

You say your dog chewed on it a little but it’s mostly intact and still works?

Well, I’d recommend getting a new one anyway.

Yeah you can get your own if you want but it’s best if you get an Apple cable.

OK great, that comes out to $820 total. And do you want to insure your phone for $5 a month?

It’s fine if they reduce the price accordingly.

If it’s still the same price after they take the cable out, it was never about reducing waste to begin with.

Knowing Apple, that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.

I feel like you either fear and/or despise generative AI, or you think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

There seems to be very little in-between.

Make sure that the other person has a very easy way out of anything they might not like. Then you know they’re enthusiastically consenting for whatever comes next.

Well yes, absolutely. Consent is paramount and enthusiastic consent is the best kind. Bad choice of hyperbole on my part, I’ll admit.

But even so, if you’re not conventionally attractive or charismatic, even just checking can result in getting treated like a creep. The people who constantly say “they worst they can say is no” have likely never gotten “eww, no” as a response before.

But if you have, especially more than once, you kinda just get used to assuming that’s the default answer. That’s kind of what I was getting at.

I’d rather just not have to guess.

Yeah, even when you’re 99% sure the person is flirting with you, you gotta balance that with what might happen if you’re wrong.

Read the situation wrong and you could end up handcuffed on the sidewalk with pepper spray in your eyes.

Fuck that. If not being willing to take that risk means dying alone, I’ll choose the latter.

And what about from the woman’s perspective? Do you really want strange men making guesses about whether you’re flirting with them or not? Knowing exactly what could happen if the wrong guy gets the wrong idea and won’t take “no” for an answer?

I’m not trying to victim-blame or make excuses for anyone. But there’s nothing to win by playing these kinds of mind games, so what’s the fucking point?

Don’t show them this, it’ll shatter their reality

What can I say, it nerd-sniped me.

There’s gotta be a service that does this, though.

With some searching around, I found this place in Oklahoma: https://skullcleaning.com/

They mainly deal with hunting trophies but their price list covers almost every vertebrate animal you could think of: https://skullcleaning.com/services/skull-cleaning-pricelist/

“Human” is conspicuously absent, of course, but then you go to the “Skeletal Articulation” page and the first photo is of a fucking Centaur lmfao: https://skullcleaning.com/services/skeleton-articulation/

I feel like if you called up and asked, you at leastwouldn’t get a hard “no”. I’d bet good money that they’ve done work on human cadavers before.

Raise your hand if you think laying off employees en-masse right before an earnings call should be a crime punishable by death:

✋

^(Only somewhat kidding.)

Seriously though, this is is even extremely misleading to shareholders. It’s blatant manipulation of the numbers, how is it not illegal?

Pretty sure this is legal, they just wouldn’t release an unembalmed corpse for health reasons.

Wouldn’t OP just have to find a qualified mortician willing to do the work?

I mean, it’s a donut shop. There’s at least three others within a couple miles.

I think they mainly stay open to serve cops, and I generally try to avoid them.

I feel like this person’s mind would be blown by a 24 hour donut shop.

There’s one a few miles down the road from me, never been in but I’m tempted every time I drive past.

ITT: people not getting the joke.

I’m a simple man. I see a Stargate reference, I upvote.

I’m not gonna be the “not all men” guy because this person does have a point,

But I will say, if all you look for is negatives, that’s all you’re gonna find.

Ffs, are the Danish getting uppity again? It’s been a quiet few hundred years

Give the haters what-for by breaking the sound barrier on re-entry and turning them into a smoking crater without any propellants or high-explosives.