Logbook: Money
Site back to working order.
Had to take my site down due to fuckery with SEO tools . Overall, The site should be faster now. In its simplest form Yoast updated a plugin that made me realize that something was going on in the back end of the site. I have removed Yoast due to them enshittification. Yoast it seems has move some of its SEO tools the the paid end of things with little to no notice. I think if they are going to do that might be nice to send a notification. For now i will sit back and enjoy my coffee.
When Companies pick apart their software and sell off each piece as a service they can stick it up their rectum. They run the plug-in like they are the snap on tool truck that wants to sell you each time you use a wrench.
I have updated some stuff , nothing front facing.. Just a bit under the hood.
AI and Fast food, A marriage made in hell.
I have been thinking, I was hungry and went to a Burger King and there was a profound difference. The store was near empty, The front kiosk was devoid of life and replaced with computers. At the wall was 3 computers that had screens with “order here!” , In the first five seconds of looking around I felt unwelcomed with a place that looked closer to a funeral home , most of the old decor was removed. In its place was ugly sterile furniture.
Before this to make an order you walked up to a human and said “Hi i would like to order a original chicken sandwich meal. They would put that in the machine, you’d pay with cash and be on your way.
Now there is a massive change that basically makes you create the meal from scratch. You go to the machine, you tap order . You scroll around through menus until you get to your original chicken sandwich. From there it goes into a conundrum. You get a menu with 45 different options. Mentally you are going “I just want a fucking original chicken sandwich” . They have made the same trap that subway has, Go there and try to order and Italian sandwich, you spend 10 minutes trying to remember the base components of the damn thing. This methodology turns you into an unpaid worker.
With this, the human element is gone. they have replaced 3 workers that could be floaters helping in rushes with stuff, Now its 3 to 5 cold machines that sit there , they don’t say hello, they don’t say Hi nice day isn’t it what would you like to order. You have to dick around with a machine for 10 minutes because you have no idea how to assemble the thing you want. Now with the cost of those machines and the upkeep and the electricity they have replaced 3 to 4 workers with a machine that likely cost more than what those workers would of made in the time those employees would of made in the churn lifetime of those workers. Not only that those machines are likely taken care of devs that are paid to keep the machines updated. This tech is not fire an forgot , there is a near constant maintenance. You likely replaced 4 workers with a computer that cant help in a rush when a school bus drops 70 kids plus 4 teachers. Those computers cant help bag , get fries, and help with other things. so with the leftover staff they are now picking up the fluff work that normally is hidden from them and their process time doubles. these machines are strategically inefficient. They have hidden costs, while workers may fuck up, machines can absolutely fuck up because they are absolutist. These machines do not have intuition , they will not adjust the frialator because they can not see 4 school buses pull up and 5 teachers approaching.
Outside it gets worse , the person who used to be on the radio is gone . replaced with an AI that basically is dumber than dirt because variable is its enemy , If you say I’d like an order of umm A whooper with fries and a coke and um no cheese. the AI will likely fuckup.
“We are witnessing the loss of humanity of America through a drive-thru speaker. We traded the ‘Hi, how are you?’ with machines that can’t handle a stutter or slurring. These machines are a ADA nightmare under the guise of Innovation, They replaced the ‘Floater’ with a ‘lamp that pretends to be a computer. And when the system inevitably crashes with the arrival 4 school buses, they’ll blame the Staff instead of the machines that caused it.
Is amazon ok?
Amazon has been weird lately, Just a bunch of things I have noticed .
For one amazon prime Video is getting weird. Not sure if this applies to everyone but, Watch a TV show on amazon… Rather than go to the next episode It returns you to the Amazon Prime Video screen, I thought it might of been a fluke in the amazon app. I tried the same thing on my samsung TV , Same thing happened! Loaded up a brand new firestick that i have for media sharing Same problem?
This alone may not have anyone going Hmmm but there are other things Amazon Resale has people complaining because of people order X and get Y. Other items are shipped and people are getting refunds and told to dispose of Item.
They also are heavily leveraged into AI and their Rufus is dumber than a brick. They are putting hundreds of billions into AI and are hemorrhaging money for this.. They are trying so bad to be next Facebook in a way by being Big Data and they do not know how to do it . Costs for their AI outwiegh there standard app approach. The way it is going Jeff Bezos might have to use low grade fuel for his plane.
Amazon is also hiding reviews from normal users and instead show compensated reviews. Compensated reviews are garbage because the only way to keep getting items is give a glowing review. I’d take 10 Honest reviews over a single review where the person received the item for free.. They are so badly losing their way that they are bleeding long time customers turned off by this approach. Amazon probably knows they are losing a small percentage of customers. They are over leveraged and I am willing to bet they dont know how to get back . but even month to month if they lose 0.25% customers , You don’t have a leak you have a crisis , because even in that small percentage they are losing “whales” people that are big spenders.
If you go by this metric it works out to big money and the more that leave would be catastrophic.
| Metric | Regular Member | The “Whale” (Top Tier) |
| Est. Annual Spend | $1,400 | $12,000+ (Business/Bulk) |
| 0.25% Monthly Churn | 625,000 users / month | ~6,250 high-spenders / month |
| Annualized Users Lost | 7.5 Million Users | 75,000 “Whales” |
| Direct Revenue Loss | $10.5 Billion / year | $900 Million / year |
| Subscription Fee Loss | $1.3 Billion (at $179/yr) | (Included in revenue) |
So right now Amazon is using an enshitification phase while they try to bet the house on Rufus. Rufus has the tact of getting a pickaxe to the skull. If you ask google it gives you what you want while Rufus throws shit at you and goes HERE THIS IS WHAT YOU BUY NOW! At a guess Amazon knows they are bleeding but they are so committed to their act that they are reducing everything just to keep the ship running. So piss away customers and hope they can profit. if amazon had incrimented the changes rather than try to use a grenade to empty a bucket people may have tolerated this. But even marketwise they are pissing away money , The stock is down 8.18% in the last 6 months.
While amazon serves better as the general store they are trying to get into a neiche market and they have no fucking clue how to do it because they seem to be trying a what can we replace while not realizing th e limitations on the new.
They’ve replaced the general store with a high-stakes AI experiment, and right now, the experiment is blowing up in everyones face like wile E coyote trying to catch a profitable roadrunner.
Anyways, back to my coffee after this steamy thought.
Removing the penny was a bad idea and a scam.
In the year 2026 we bid farewell to the penny, But was the death of this penny warranted? I say no. Others will say yes and scream and stomp their feet saying “It CoSts 3.7 cents to make!” While this is a factual number i am going to call bullshit on this. There are more factors in the penny that make that 3.7 sound expensive but in reality the real cost of a penny is a fraction.
Pennies in of themselves are not a one time use commodity. If you have pennies laying around check the dates on them. More times than not you will find pennies that are 10+ years old. But is removing the penny logical? No…
Removing the penny from the currency system will inherently will not save any money for the average consumer. moreover, It will cost Americans much more than ever. Going forward with the elimination of the penny corporations and their products are suppose to round the prices to the nearest nickel. I really do not think they will use this logic at all. They will go for the greedy approach and round right to the next dime. This is an automatic Gift to companies. They will part out everything and charge you through the ass for the product.
Imagine a device made of 37 small parts, each costing 3 cents.
- Actual Cost: $1.11
- Fair Rounding: $1.10
- Corporate “Creative” Rounding: They’ll price each part individually at $0.10, turning a $1.11 product into a $3.70 expense.
Do i trust companies to do the right thing? Absolutely not! They will use methodology to make a bigger profit and scale their prices to make rounding in their favor. Companies are out there and they are not in the business to make humanity better. they are out to screw the consumers for the benefits of the shareholder. Do I believe every company will do this? No, they will start out honest at first but, once profits take a dive, they will use creative rounding in order to scale profits. Because why Improve when you can use some magic rounding and make a huge profit. I’ve made an example below to show how rounding can run away with pricing!
| Calculation Method | Price for 37 Parts | Percent Increase |
| Original Cost ($0.03/part) | $1.11 | — |
| Total Price Rounded (Fair) | $1.10 | -0.9% (Small loss) |
| Nickel Rounding (Per Part) | $1.85 | 60% Increase |
| Scam Corp Rounding ($0.10/part) | $3.70 | 233.3% Increase |
As you can see, this is not only bad but it can be completely destructive. But i digress I’ve strayed a little bit here. The statement a penny costs 3.7 cents is a shortsighted idea. Lets look at the penny. Does it magically disappear if it is used? No. Does it break easy? No! is the penny reusable? YES! A penny can stay in circulation for up to 25 years and be reused up to 2500 times. if the penny was a one time use device it would be a terrible thing! we’d be using more resources than it costs. but the penny in a year can be used 100 times. So lets break the costs down. since a new penny is not needed after use we can spread these costs. If we are to break this costs per used the penny is actually a very cost effective device.
If we say a penny is used 100 times in a given year in the first year the cost of this penny is actually closer to 0.037 Cents ! If we go for the average lifetime of a penny (25 years) 0.000148 cents. the cost analysis here shows the penny to come out on top, It’s worth it to keep. Why hide the penny? it can account for stealth inflation that hides inflation by elimination lower currencies to make it look like efficiency.
The Bottom Line: The “3.7 cents to manufacture” argument is shortsighted. Killing the penny isn’t about efficiency; it’s about stealth inflation. By eliminating the smallest unit of currency, we make it easier for corporations to hide price hikes and “round” their way into your retirement fund.
Good morning are you happy to see me or is that caffeine in your underwear … Wait what?
Caffeine infused underwear.. Let that soak in for a moment or not . Why in the hell would you want caffeine in your underwear? Worse yet its being marketed as a weight loss product!
The Federal Trade Commission said Wacoal America and Norm Thompson Outfitters, which owns Sahalie and others, were accused of deceptive advertising that claimed their caffeine-impregnated clothing would cause the wearer to lose weight and have less cellulite.
The bullshit factor is in the millions range at that point because if I counted all the Caffeine in my system at any given point i’d be about 2 pounds. 
Of all the weird places to put caffeine , I think it would be underwear or ass. Who ever thought of that must of been bored beyond sanity .
Attack of the Christmas part III
Another year another holiday , What used to be called Christmas creep to me is now attack of the Christmas. When they started Christmas stuff in October I was angry, but now it seems we cant get the fuck through summer without some sort of Christmas. Every Year we are losing the war on Christmas , soon we are going to get Christmas advertisements in April .. I was walking through a store in AUGUST… and what do I see to fill me with enough rage to make me light plastic santa clauses on fire… this…..
Are you fucking kidding me… ?
My answer to this ..
Stores wonder why there Christmas sales are so poor around Christmas. They do not think that forcing christmas down our throat early and earlier is a bad thing. Actually it is . It starts to wears people out faster when they start having christmas music vomited out of every speaker in store just to get in the “spirit” of shopping. This does not get me in the spirit at all, moreover it gets me in the spirit of getting the fuck out of that store faster. In the long run companies lose out on profits by spreading out christmas more because people are like likely to impulse buy with christmas that is months and months away. Instead they will make decisions that will save some money and not do the christmas rush. Not that I support the christmas early thing, but it spreads a lesser profit over a year and actually could result in less profits for the company. These companies should put christmas back where it belongs after thanksgiving and focus on that time rather than bitch and moan that black friday was a huge loss. Well fucking Duh …. People bought all there shit in August when you started putting your shit out.
If you give me the choice of proctology by hand grenade or Christmas music in the middle of the year. I will most definitely take the hand grenade thank you . It is less painful and it gets you out of listening to the Christmas music.
As far as advertisements are concerned K-mart has earned a special place in hell this year. They put on a commercial for christmas by saying it was not a Christmas commercial. They seriously need a lesson in fucking timing.
They use weasel wording to get around the topic that its a christmas related commercial and try to act coy about it . By saying its not christmas and having santa drive by in a handicap cart … wow fuck you K-mart. Whoever the suit at K-mart thought this was a great idea should have a polar ice cap shoved up his ass.
More coffee….. We all need it some days.
Since I’ve moved into my new place, I have a conundrum for the ages. As a drinker or better said a former drinker of outside coffee because I was too impatient to wait for the coffee pot , have the coffee cool down than make it into an iced coffee. I’ve bought coffees from almost every major company that served iced coffee. But as the years press on and the coffee gets watered and cheapened its getting very hard to make a choice , Now i can’t blame the companies , Its more over the franchisees . There are problems all around, They have crazy employee turnover and skip on machines in order to earn more money.
Formally, You’d have well trained employees that could manipulate the machines , now they just do whatever the hell they please when making coffee. For the milk and cream containers they have straws that need to be cut to a certain length , You just do not see that anymore, also the portioning has gone fucking nuts. Dunkin Donuts for explain if you ask for extra sugar , You summon the Brimley god and have to sign a contract.
I’ve said in other post that i’ve sort of cracked the enigma code of ordering from dunkin donuts, if you look at the receipts they do not list regular sugar/ Medium sugar /Extra sugar/Extra super Diabeetus sugar. If you watch the cash register when you order a coffee you will see the coffee droid press the Sugar button with a fix amount of sugar 1 2 3 4 5 6 sugars normally, I’ve seen these go higher. For the poor souls that do not know this system and ask for extra extra sugar they normally get this in there coffee!
There maybe a dunkin donuts under that pile! After they get a bulldozer to check where it is .
Honey Dew on the other hand 95% of the time they are fairly good repulsing the Brimley god away, Even asking for extra sugar the does not quake with the Eventual resurrection of the Brimley god. On a rare occasion at honey dew though you will get a new worker that makes the mistake of it but they are whipped tortured and appeased to the brimley god so he does not rise. My only problem with honey dew these days is travel time. I walk or ride my bike so its a little bit of a huff to get to my preferred coffee. Though my bike was just stolen not too long ago. So my options are not really that great right now due to limited travel and health issues and being disabled does not help me get a bike .
Starbucks ….. Is …. Special , there is no way about this, they are just damn special. The last time I attempted getting coffee from there was a failure on all levels. Ten monkeys on miralax had a better chance of getting my coffee, I walked in thinking hey no line, A guy working on a particle physics book and 5 workers…. I thought to myself “this just might work” The person in front of me ordered a simple coffee and I thought this will be quick. I have no idea of the mental breakdown between five workers and two customers could reach critical mass this easy. So after standing around watching these coffee baristas in action, THis is where all things started going down hill. Out of the 5 coffee droids 4 had short outs and the register droid was broken as well. The order was made and from Cashout to coffee serve was longer than 10 minutes. I have never seen so many question in my life about an order and I tried to be patient. While Starbucks is a bit higher in price i was ready to pay the premium to avoid Dunkin Gonuts. Wrong move there, I should of just rolled around in coffee grinds while forcing K-cups into my eyes. I ended up leaving ten minutes into this exorcize of watching how coffee is made by professionals.
This was the final straw, I’ve gone to making my own iced coffee. Sure it has a learning curve, but the money savings are excellent. In 3 weeks i’ve only bought myself coffee outside the house 2 times and both were goooooood.
You can make your coffee any damn way you want it . Even if you want nuclear death coffee or coffee that you can mess with genetics with and rewrite the base of the universe. Overall i’ve spent 10 dollars on making my own coffee and its worked out really well. I keep perfecting my coffee to the taste i want. which is pretty much Stronger than all of the coffee shops aaround without tasting like burnt donkey ass (starbucks) Coffee Flavored Water (dunkin) Or A fairly ok Coffee for day to day that i miss (Honey Dew) . But the savings are extreme by making your own coffee…. I’ve likely been saving somewhere around 5$ a day by avoiding coffee shops.
Note: this post was made at 4:30, I’m half brain-dead.
With a new place to live i am testing more ways to make coffee and trying to replicate drinks from coffee places and see what I can come up with. I have pretty much nailed down iced coffee to perfection of what i want.
In two and a half weeks my wallet is also noticing that i am saving money on my attempt to make my own coffee, From my own math so far in 2.5 weeks if i had gone to a store for coffee everyday I would of spent over 70.40 in coffee , Thats fucking insane, Since I’ve started this i’ve spent less than 15$ for coffee and still have half a bag left.
I am curious to see where this goes and see how much of a savings there is by the 21st of this month… Lets see…
Coffee post to follow up shortly!
The price of coffee and you.
About 3 years ago the price of coffee went up in all the coffee places around, which was understandable due to the market price of coffee went through the fucking roof. now that the markets are going back up yet again chains are putting there coffee prices slightly higher, the problem is the prices never went back down when the price of coffee (commodity) went down.
Yes the prices have jumped for year 2014 but look at the price in 2011 , we should of seen a decrease in those prices. I know someone will say BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER PRICES. Oil has stayed somewhat stable but what ever the fuck they do to increase on that is always a mystery, its like someone goes “SHIT the suns out SOMEONE INCREASE GAS PRICES QUICK!” . Milk prices are slightly up and there is a multitude of reasons for that that could get its own post, but considering the milk to coffee ratio it would have a lesser effect on the total price.
A lot of the times companies find the easy way to raise the price of things is “insert random thing happening here to a small portion of the total that really doesn’t have on effect on the thing in question”. Bob shit himself again.. RAISE PRICES! of all the times I’ve read about oil refinery fires and how they are going to spike gas prices , doing a little research you find out that said refinery is only responsible for 0.1% of total fuel production, that makes you go WTF are they making there? It seems every other commodity market has gone into the practice of manufactured disasters or some sort of market manipulation to increase prices.
CWT financed ten rounds of herd retirements from 2003 to 2010, during which CWT was responsible for removing over 500,000 cows from production, reducing the nation’s milk supply by approximately 10 billion pounds…. By the end of the program in 2010, it was responsible for a cumulative increase in milk price revenue of $9.55 billion.
That resulted in a class action suit for price fixing. Since its not about supply and demand, its more over about money and more money. So at this point I’ll stick to making my coffee at home.
Dunkin Donuts unveils coffee flavored donuts …….. WTF?
Apparently Dunkin Donuts just does not get it… they have completely lost connection with there customer base. They have released a Coffee flavored donut… Denis Leary has an opinion to this new donut.
Dunkin Donuts has lost there fucking minds. They are going to make coffee flavored donuts but not coffee fucking flavored coffee. Most dunkin donuts you walk into you have a shot in the dark on getting a coffee that is remotely drinkable for long. Generally when you order and iced coffee and use the system of dunkin donuts that they have , You can get an ok flavored coffee but when its hot outside by the time you walk 50 feet from the store you are drinking coffee water. Its an annoying prospect, it makes you want to fire your coffee like a hand grenade that really has no gratification.
The Glazed Coffee Creme donut is made with a glazed yeast shell and filled with coffee buttercream. It’s topped with a drizzle of chocolate icing. The Coffee, Creme & Sugar Donut is also made with a glazed yeast shell and stuffed with coffee butter creme and topped with powdered sugar. The two donuts will only be available for a limited time at participating Dunkin’ Donuts locations.
At a guess these donuts maybe a better flavor than their coffee , who knows I might stick a straw into a donut and just see. Honey Dew donuts on the other hand has gone to another extreme they have made a Maple Bacon donut.. Breakfast overload! They are not fucking around…
While bacon is good, Putting bacon on everything on the fucking planet just doesn’t work all the time.
No!
WTF?
MMMMM bacon tits…. but no.
YES! FUCKING BACON SANDWICH…
Anyways… enough bacon.. Dunkin Donuts is so proud of their new donuts they have put out a press release for it .
Dunkin’ Donuts also unveiled new Coffee Creme Donuts, the brand’s first donuts made with Dunkin’ Donuts’ famous Original Blend Coffee.
Utoh… re-read that… made with Dunkin’ Donuts’ famous Original Blend Coffee.. Joy! Boiled ass in donut form now! Rather than fuck with a time tested recipe for donuts .. why not make… COFFEE??? If Denis Leary walked into a dunkin donuts right now he’d go on a rampage , smoke 17 packs of cigarettes than go on the hunt for the elusive coffee flavored coffee.
Mind you these day the closest coffee places to me are Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks… its like a personal hell of coffee drinking, I’ve gone from getting coffee out of the house to getting coffee from the coffee maker. The last trip I made to starbucks was a 15 minute wait while 5 people could not figure out how to make coffee…. it was a strange and awe inspiring journey into a strange land, my hope for coffee places fades as they fuck about, I am waiting for the release of Bacon flavored sour patch kid coffee from either place at this rate.
Coffee musings….. Dunkin Donuts Vs Honey Dew Donuts.
I just realized something… it’s fucked up alright…. Yes , there has not been a coffee post in ages…
For the coffeecommander to make such an error .. this has to be fixed for the one that drinks more coffee than the combined amount of water in the great lakes..
Now for my situation has changed and I’ve had to take some concessions… While I do have access to Honey Dew Donuts at times due to the harsh winter I’ve had to goto Dunkin Donuts …. A lot.. The problem is most cities and towns will bitch when residents do not shovel their walk, Yet when a business does not do it they seem to get a blind eye. With the choice of walk to dunkin while getting killed because you have to walk in the road versus walking triple the distance in the road and getting killed because its a major artery through the city, I chose the lesser of two chances of death . But, With that I take an even greater risk with my coffee. I usually order the same coffee year around, and being there so much you’d think one of the donut droids would get my coffee after a time? FUCK NO… they say its easy to order a coffee from Fuckin Gonuts.
This picture I’ve posted makes it look easy… but, You have a better chance of beating Arnold Schwarzenegger at one liners. At first I’d order my coffee like I used to when I had a Honey Dew down the street. Large iced coffee , Large , Milk with sugar on the dark side..
I’ve always ordered my coffee on the dark side because it keeps them from making the same screwed up mistake you’d think they would learn after the nine billionth time, If you try to match consistency with cream with milk, that’s not coffee you’re getting. You’re getting a milk flavored with coffee at that point. I’ve tried everything with drunkin donuts to get my coffees right and its just a miracle when they did until I noticed something. When they ring your order up to make it they go through a very convoluted route to do so with the register. I don’t know if they track coffee metrics if there is such a thing, but they do take your order through the register with stunning accuracy. but, that’s where the accuracy ends.
If you look at this example receipt, Its very telling to an anal level. One hot coffee medium 1 skim milk 2 equal. Again… why the hell that’s on the receipt is beyond me . I really don’t think its for customer gratification.. I can’t see someone opening a coffee and slamming the receipt down yelling about how there was only supposed to be 2 equal in there but he can taste 5. As soon as your order completes the next steps as far as a dunkin droid making your coffee is near black magic as far as I can figure. But using terms like “regular milk”, “Extra sugar” and dark gets you a fucking science project every time where you can only guess the contents. There are very few dunkin donuts I trust to order a coffee with little input as possible, very rarely I’ll say at dunkin donuts “large iced coffee, milk, with sugar.” Getting back to the register though.. If you order your coffee and with somewhat fair amount of consistency, and you are a regular at a particular dunkin donuts. Watch the register, if you see what the person puts in on the amount of Milk or cream (pick your poison) and sugar. By watching that you can go back to that dunkin donuts and with some amount of accuracy you can get a repeat performance on coffee service. Asking for regular milk on the numbers they input into their registers I’ve seen everything from 3 to 7 on that. funnier is the machines they use are funny as hell because calibration is different from week to week and even day to day at times, You’d think with a machine to help along the process to make your coffee they would be pretty static on how much milk is in your coffee. Not even close.. Asking for 1 milk one day will sometimes get you this much
about a thimbles worth..
or
This monster fuckload of milk
Sugar of course has the same issues at dunkin. I cut down on sugar completely after having coffee with more than an inch of sugar in the bottom. So again at dunkin donuts I have mitigated how much sugar by going by numbers. its not fool proof but it works.
Saying extra sugar at dunkin donuts appeases the Brimely Overlord.
It all feels like a damn science to order a damn coffee from Dunkin Donuts, At honey dew I’ve never had that issue and even if they do screw up usually its a one timer if you turn up again.
The final point on dunkin donuts and honey dews coffee is the most confusing one. they both order from the same distributor for their grinds… yet, the coffees are so astronomically different its confounding. If you let your ice melt in a dunkin donuts coffee the flavor is just … water coffee… there’s no way around it the coffee is done. If you do the same with honey dew, even after the ice as melted you still get a pretty good tasting -ice coffee.
So, at this point i cant wait for warmer weather and a bit of a longer walk for better coffee , I’d just rather have good taste than need a mathematics and science degree to order a fucking coffee.