> If there is no compelling (safety) reason they just don't redesign systems on passenger aircraft.

True

I remember reading somewhere that the flight computers need to receive new navigation data every 4 weeks and the updates are still issued as floppy disks because it's not worth the cost of redesigning the system and getting it certified

When a company makes a profit, and has cash on hand, there are a few things they can do with that cash.

They could spend it to improve the company's operations. (buy better equipment, repair stuff, train staff, etc.) But people who buy and hold the company's stock as an investment generally don't like that, so companies don't do a lot of that.

The company could give all their employees raises. But the people who buy and hold the company's stock don't like that, because it doesn't make the stock price go up, and doesn't make them any money.

The company can issue some of its profits as a payment to the people who hold stock. This is called a dividend. This does make stock-holders more money, but dividends are taxable income, and the people who buy and hold stocks don't like to pay taxes.

The company can literally purchase some of its own stock off the stock market to take back. Buying stock creates demand, and reduces the supply of available stock that other people could buy, so that often results in the stock price increasing. People who buy and hold stocks like it when the value of their stocks increase, so they like this.

Stock buy-backs are very literally open attempts by the company to manipulate the stock price, and for a very long time, they weren't just frowned upon, but outright illegal.

Depends on the country and what you plan to do while you are there. Most countries in the EU have treaties with the US that allow US citizens to go there as tourists without getting a travel visa. How long you can stay depends on the country. Students are usually required to get a student visa. Workers are usually required to have workers visas in most countries.

Since the 90s (I think) dual citizenship has been possible for US citizens, meaning you don’t have to give up your US passport in order to also become an Italian citizen, for example. I am eligible to obtain Italian citizenship so when I file and receive recognition by Italy I will have two passports.

There are also rights we have via treaty like the ability to own property or start a business. Again this varies by country.

Keep in mind that US citizens living abroad still pay federal income tax to the US.

I'm poor as hell. Is that the red and white wires? Lol

It's a simple calculation as to whether the company can make more by investing in the company or cashing out. Also, executives don't live forever. At some point, they want their money.

It's frowned upon because it's a good sign growth is slowing or ending. But that doesn't mean it's not a good decision for those with skin in the game.

If you own part of a company, you want to be paid, right?

Airliners rarely if ever keep the same interior product for the entire 20-30 year lifespan of a plane. Maybe 10-12 years tops until the interior is ripped out and replaced.

And I've flown on many Air Canada flights with IFE circa 2006 that have a single audio jack in the armrest.

Broadly speaking every country makes up their own rules for how non citizens can come to the country legally, how long they can stay for and what they have to do to become permeant residents and citizens.

This will be slightly different for each country, even within the EU.

Same applies to who they let become a citizen from birth.

The main argument against it seems to be that companies should be doing something else with that money, such as paying their employees more, investing in better/safer/more efficient equipment or technology to make their workers' lives easier, etc. Rather than simply putting it in their own pockets as profit.

So the negativity is mostly from people like unions, who want better pay and conditions for their workers, or certain elements of the "people before profits!" strain of the political Left

It’s extremely rare that burglars disable cameras. If anything they typically walk up to the cameras and smash them, or they steal the DVR that the cameras record to. The vast majority of the time they just cover their face and don’t worry about the cameras.

In an apple, making it seedless wouldn't change the overall shape much- the different texture that signifies the core would still be there- and people have been trained to not eat the 'core'. In cherries, it's already a expensive to pick such small fruits, removing the stone would make them even smaller, increasing the cost to harvest.

I adore UFO's (stoneless peaches) and would absolutely love to have a stoneless cherry tree in my yard! Not commercially viable but a fun oddball plant for gardeners.

A stock buy back is when a company buys some of its own stock. As doing so reduces the amount of shares available, it results in the stock price going up - the whole supply and demand idea.

This is one of two ways a company can distribute cash to its investors, with the other one being to pay a dividend. With this, the company just directly pays the owner of each share of stock some amount of money.

The rich will generally prefer a buy back due to how it affects taxes, at least in the US. Notably, the rich can take loans using the stock as collateral allowing them to defer paying taxes, often permanently as no tax is owed until the stock is actually sold. Dividends get taxed immediately, using the same rate as if you sold stock.

A common complaint is that the same companies performing the buy backs are saying they cannot afford to pay their workers more, despite spending many thousands per year per employee on the buy backs. This is also at the same time the company is trying to get tax breaks or stimulus money so they can stay in business.

Buying back stock and paying dividends are *exactly* the same thing: giving back cash to shareholders.

Depending on countries tax laws, one is more financially attractive (if dividends are more or less taxed than capital gains etc).

The headlines would be the same : Company is making record profits and paying dividends (instead of increasing salaries, I assume?)

High dividends / Stock buy back may make financial analysts raise an eyebrow because the company is essentially saying :
"I have no worthwhile investment to spend this on, I'll give it back to shareholders"

The only hurdle is in accurately measuring distances to other galaxies. But we can do that with a bit of math and physics (of supernovas specifically. They're called "standard candles").

Other than that, it's just looking. The sky is literally there.

I drill wells for a living from time to time and not every time is water gaurenteed. Our company has been drilling in the same area for 50 years or so, so we know roughly where we have no chance of hitting water and there are fairly large patches of land we wont waste our time on. Each company will have their own limits based on the rig and equipment, we can drill 620ft or so before we wont drill anymore.

The seeds of canned cherries have been mechanically removed prior to being canned. Every one of those cherries grew with a seed in the middle of it originally.
The bananas we eat are technically seedless. We clone the plants to make more.

Well… yes and no.

My Wi-Fi router and security cameras are on a UPS. You’re going to have to wait a few hours after cutting the power for it all to shut down. And during that time I’m getting a constant stream of alerts on my phone that the power is off.

[edit] Oh, and I should probably have mentioned that my power arrives in an underground conduit to my breaker box, and my breaker box has a camera pointed at it that you can’t get to without setting off an intrusion alarm first.

With a properly set up modern security system, there isn’t really much short of an EMP that’s going to black out both the security cameras plus the hidden cameras in any timeframe reasonable to be effective for a burglary.

For that you need the human factor so that the warnings are being ignored by the time any burglary is attempted — or just move fast enough and disguised enough that nobody can catch you in time.

But these days with gait recognition being a thing, you’ll still probably be ID’d.

I worked for a company that made an acquisition in 1982 that required the death one of the legacy computer systems. The reason we killed the better computer system is that it only had a single digit space for production facilities, and the merged company had ten.

and depending on the camera, it could have a backup battery anyways

It is highly frowned upon by the left, and the media is predominantly leftist, so when they report on stock buy backs it is almost always in an unfavorable light since the left is anti-capitalistic.

I'm agnostic with regards to buy backs--I don't know if they are necessarily good or bad, but I disagree with the government trying to control things. This is the company's money so they can do with it what they will. The left says that this is unfair since they're given tax breaks and loans and such. I'm more than happy with the government not picking winners and losers by not providing the companies with these sources of cash.

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No, it didn't. You dug wells and found water, but you could have dug them in the places that it didn't indicate, and you probably would have also found water. It's nonsense.

TV and movies make it look cool but in real life power is required. If the power is out then the cameras are not capturing information.

Anywhere between the place you're trying to de-power, and the place supplying the power, is a place you can disrupt that power supply. Bits of equipment like fuse boxes/breaker boxes and transformers are easy enough to alter in a way to cut power to a certain building (or set of buildings) if you know what you're doing.

Also this is technically not legal advice, but please do not try and mess with your power grid in order to do crimes, it's most likely another felony charge or two if you do it.

The theory is that the muscle contraction pulls your hand / arm away from the electrified thing you touched, rather than pushing you on to it.