It’s still good pizza, even with the price increase. New Yorkers have honestly been spoiled as everyplace else pays way more.

Thanks - it makes sense except I thought Apple had more cash than anyone so wouldn’t need to do that at all.

I ride NYC mass transit all the time and nobody has ever even looked twice at my corded headphones, much less ever tried to take them, but that may be partly because they cost $490 less than the Apple headphones.

Then I saw a bunch of clones of these Air Pod Max style headphones retailing the other day in lower Manhattan for around $15. Which makes me curious as to how crooks would know the difference just at a glance. But then I noticed that unlike Apple's noise-cancelling model, the clones even come in other colors besides silver.

While I am happy enough with my own corded SONY $10 cans (MDR-ZX110AP), which are reasonably comfortable, fold for slipping into a pocket or bag, work perfectly well for laptop, iPhone for handling calls and music well enough (when using the not-included lightning adapter) or work computer for Zoom, I did consider if I should upgrade to to the Max clones just to give them a shot, although perhaps in a different color than silver.

Anyone here try wearing a set of the Air Pod Max clones on the subway yet, or is that -in light of recent events- just sort of asking for crooks to rob you?

I know Apple used to have a massive mountain of cash, but that seems to be way behind them now as now they have bowed to the market and accumulated $300B in debt..

Can someone explain this puzzling aspect as to why having a mountain of cash ($200B in cash and short term investments) is so bad, but having massive liabilities is considered to be a good idea?

AAPL -
Cash and short-term investments = 48.30B
Total assets = 352.76B
Total liabilities = 302.08B
Total equity = 50.67B

​

Source: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/AAPL:NASDAQ

I don’t know… for connecting to a work VPN, browsing, email, Zoom, streaming, etc, a ChromeBook at the $200 level seems to do everything quite well. For that price you get a machine that takes care of itself with virus and security updates for the next 7 years and is a great every day machine. It is not meant for high intensity compute tasks or gaming though.

Plus, if you for some crazy reason ever decide to loan it out and the person trashes it or loses it, it’s not a major wallop on your budget.

Counterpoint/opinion would be that many municipal workers may not be paid in salary what their counterparts in private enterprise are paid but they typically get pensions, full health and benefits and more stability in terms of job safety. Additionally, there are a lot of employees in the municipal workforce who engage in schemes to enhance their overtime in the final year of their employment so they make much more in (early) retirement due to the padding in their final year.

As a result of much of this nonsense, taxpayers pay astronomical sums for certain health benefits given to retirees (something unheard of in the private sector) as well as the concept of a fully paid early retirement.

I know not every city or state employee is doing this, but there is such significant graft and corruption in multiple agencies and public unions that this barely makes the news anymore.

Personally, I think it’s time to stop some of the gravy-train and get some of our money back. I’m not sure Adams is the guy to do it or if this is where to start but I think we need someone to step up for the taxpayers who are paying through the nose while getting wrecked financially.

Transit options are nice and this one sure is pretty cool but not so cool when it is at a ridiculous cost.

NYC regional transport needs to be consolidated into one agency with a more transparent review process with less politics and more oversight.

If we want to continue to have nice things, we need to do so within reason and figure out how to pay for the stuff we already have.

These ridiculously expensive cost overruns are an outright embarrassment and need to stop. What will it take to get people in charge that can rein in costs?

Maybe an unwanted opinion but I will share anyway.

Many people, including plenty of life-long New Yorkers associate graffiti with criminal activity and violence as it is the hallmark of an abandoned building, or neighborhood where criminals feel safe.

They will fail to see any artistic or historic beauty in tagged walls, only that this place looks like a likely location where you can expected to be mugged or shot. The needles, urine smell, trash and derelicts around will not help matters.

Further, as people grow up and adopt an ownership or community mentality (starting a garden, purchase of a bike, car, hone or condo or even start a family) any perceived nostalgia for graffiti tends to evaporate when it is around what you consider to be ‘yours’

You don’t want to lock up you bike, park your car or walk your dog or have any member of your family in such an area that resembles a slum because you care about how it looks not just to yourself and your local friends but to family and guests.

So, I gave my 2 cents. Downvote away, or perhaps comment or I don’t know, maybe reply with some decent counterpoints.

Hey everybody going around in shops and transit not wearing a mask like this is no big deal...

What? Masks are out of style or something?

OK, hey, keep doing what you are doing and dropping like flies, I guess.

While there is a COVID death spike and the nurses all just went on strike...

So smart.

I sincerely hope those US firms use that money wisely and don’t waste it on foolish things like stock buybacks

A few notes about the exceptional Queens parks, for those who don't know.

Forest Park (in beautiful Forest Hills) has the most 'feels like a giant forest' vibe of perhaps any city park I have visited. The trails are a delight.

Juniper Valley Park, in Middle Village, is often rated as the #1 cleanest park in all the 5 boroughs. It is immaculate, or as close as you can get to that in NYC.

The Gantry is a State Park in Astoria and it is small but very lovely with awesome views of Manhattan that you just can't get in, well Manhattan, for obvious reasons.

There are many more worthy of discovery, some wild and natural like Baisley Pond, some are actually really nice, uncrowded beaches with huge clean boardwalks to bike on or stroll, like Rockaway, and some are notable for everything you can do there (Flushing Meadows with loads of sights in and around it, including the best kept secret botanical garden, known as the Queens Botanical Garden, which charges a modest admission, but is totally worth a visit, and then there is Cunningham Park with it's acres of ball fields and open space.

Agreed. The comparison is fascinating though.

A nice and clean looking public area in NYC but nobody can sit down? Yeah, I’ll take it.

Stupid question: How?

On T-Mobile in JC and NYC I don’t get anywhere near those average speeds but it is usable for Zoom and FaceTime but can say for sure it is terrible for video calls or Personal Hotspot use in suburban parts of Nevada (Vegas or Henderson)

I know a few folks who are older and do not use their phones for music but would love this from a computer to stream to their phone - it's a cool idea and gets us all away from the music industry and advertising industry hegemony.

My thoughts exactly. India has increased their purchases of Russian oil by over 500%, which as a percentage (but not overall) is greater than any other of Russia’s trading partners

India wild scream if it was at war with Pakistan and the west was trading with them, effectively finding their war efforts against a india but has no problem backing Russia because of historical friendliness going back to partition and the Soviet era.

This may not matter to some but India was the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and pushed other nations to not become willing pawns or satellites of the superpowers.

Looks like India has forgotten its position as an erstwhile mora leader among nations and will now pay Putin to kill Ukraine as long as they can make some profit.

Modi has Ukrainian blood on his hands. Karma will come and find India’s leaders and the voters who back fascism.

Haven’t been to Japan but 7-11in Denmark made me think how poor and disgusting our stores in the US are. The quality, value and lovely arrangement of the fresh sandwiches there and the level of cleanliness in the ubiquitous 7-11’s over there was a revelation

This is a big part of the problem.

There is little fear of penalty if a driver decides to be a turd and run lights or act super aggressively, speed, swerve, not allow pedestrians to cross, weave in and out of traffic, do donuts in a random intersection, close down bridges so they can showboat.

Let's get back to setting up random traffic stops. Ticket the general idiots, bring along 10 NYPD tow trucks and confiscate all the ridiculous violators. Then auction off the cars, minus the illegal junk, and use that for more police training and traffic enforcement.

Why don’t other nations call these guys out? And the worst offenders profiteering off the suffering of Ukraine should be subject to a backlash of some sort, or maybe a boycott. India, looking at you!

‘MacBook’ should just say Mac

Nice visual - would love to see just their AirPods broken down

Also hard to imagine 90 billion in a single quarter. Absolutely incredible. They are pulling in a billion dollars a day, every day is a billion dollar day…

One correction:

I am assuming the red dot to reference “Indian” aligns with the graph’s term “American Indian” as there were certainly more East Indians murdered in the city than that one red dot indicates.

The red dot is therefore referencing an American Indian, and not an East Indian victims.