Nothing stopping both from being true. The court judgements[0] aren't faked. It genuinely appears Underwood really was screwed over. That said, it doesn't take much for a CMO to look at the situation and figure out how to market the product from there. Something something lemonade.
Only reason I mention that is that is you're not really faking the grassroots part if you really do have a good origin story--you just got... lucky?
Additionally, it's not like this necessarily got posted out of the blue. There's another Huy Fong sriracha shortage due to a Mexican crop failure driven by climate change. So anyone wondering why they can't buy it will naturally encounter this story.
And as you mentioned, that lawsuit has pretty convincing evidence of a multi-year plan to really screw the supplier in order to get even more fantastically wealthy. Amazing greed combined with profound stupidity about the difficulty of reliably sourcing 2 _thousand_ acres of ripe chilies. There's been a decade of rolling shortages.
I'm a huge supporter of GitLab, I love their product. Facilitated the use of it for my work and really admire how open their product development and company morals are. So when I say that this is probably one of the worst decisions they can make I hope you can understand I don't say that casually.
The problem with running an open company (check out their handbook[0] if you don't understand what I'm referencing) is that you can be held accountable to your values when you break them. All these blog posts regarding the "current macroeconomic climate" make it sound as though they've been blindsided by the downturn in the economy. To me, that's just a straw man. If you listened to any economist or financial adverser, even while the economy was doing okay in 2022, most knew there was a recession coming[0].
Even if they didn't know that, and they were completely ignorant (of which I would expect multiple executive level firings), they bragged in the Q3 Earnings Call on 12/05/2022 that "We added over 200 new team members in 3Q and we continue to experience lower attrition than the industry"[2], undoubtedly as they were planning layoffs. According to Wikipedia, Gitlab had 1,630 employees in January of 2022, so assuming they added 500 new employees in 2022, 7% layoffs would be about 150 positions. Given that, I love this quote from that same call[2].
> As Sid and I have said over the last several quarters, our number one priority is growth but we
will do this responsibly.
The "I" that quote is Sharlene Seemungal, acting CISO[3]. I don't even have to research the layoffs to know that neither Sid nor Sharlene have suffered from the layoffs.
All that said, it's laudable the level of investment you took in ensuring the employees you laid off have a good transition--but it would be better if you didn't play the corporate bullshit shocked pikachu face game when the downturn everyone knew was coming came and actually hired responsibly.
Note, these are not normal bikes. From the article:
> A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike. Another thing that makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour.
Made me curious what they actually look like[0].
Seeing that, I’d tend to reset my presumptions about wearing helmets with these. There’s definitely going to be a different injury profile with these bikes than the bikes you rode as a kid. Without seeing those injury profiles I’d probably say you can’t really deduce anything from this announcement.
This assumes that it's completely impossible to not hit your head when you fall on your side. Which is blatantly not true. This isn't a three-wheeler bike which is much harder to tip over. It's just a two wheeler that's longer. I can attest from personal experience that if you fall sideways, chances are you'll crack the side of your skull open. I got into a bike accident where someone T-boned me and if I hadn't had the helmet on, at the very least I'd have a concussion
The idea that you don't need to wear a helmet cause you won't fall over the handlebars is nonsense
> A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike.
Disregards that going over the handlebars happens in case if frontal collision, which can definitely happen with a 15m bike. Would you hurt your head? Who knows, because they're not looking at that statistics.
> makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour
Victim blaming. Assumes that accidents can be prevented by having a safer behaviour. They're lowered, sure, but anecdotally in all the bike accidents of people I know, the car involved did something stupid, and there's no prevention from that, whatever you train people for, short of not going on the road, they're at the mercy of people driving 2 tons of steel whilst texting. Multiply by the extended time they spend out, and it becomes statistics
I'd like to wear helmet as a passenger as well as a driver on such bike. The helmet doesn't add almost any inconvenience, is reasonably cheap and light. Why not wear it?
I use shared bikes one-way quite often and I usually carry my helmet around, strapped to a backpack. In colder weather I would cycle in a business shirt. No issue with a helmet.
The argument that is mentioned in the article -- "increasing helmet wearing rates make cycling more dangerous per mile... because while helmets definitely help in the event of a crash, that risk compensation results in more collisions. So riders wearing helmets take greater risks, and those driving around them take greater risks too."
Exactly. I've read the article but I don't find the argument very convincing. The helmet is light enough I don't think about it when driving. Does it really alter my driving style to be riskier?
I've cracked two helmets when I was younger. One in a forest, going downhill. Most probably, I wouldn't go there without a helmet. The other one was in a city, while distracted*. In the second case, the helmet definitely didn't have any influence on what I did. In both cases, I wore the helmet voluntarily and I was glad to have it.
The company from the article is definitely in a conflict of interests. Banning helmets, it doesn't have to provide (and check) protective gear for drivers and passengers. Also, it doesn't focus customers' attention towards potential risks.
* Putting a phone back into my bag, I accidentally hit a brake. Silly, don't ask me how I did that. Fortunately, no car was around.
Car drivers often get head and brain injuries if they are involved in a collision with another car or with a tree/building. Do you wear a helmet when you drive? The helmet doesn't add almost any inconvenience, is reasonably cheap and light, as you say.
Unless you're on a racetrack or driving a test vehicle, probably not.
For the record, I do wear a helmet on a racetrack in a car. :-) It adds major inconvenience, but the general risk on a racetrack is greater because you're pushing the vehicle to its limits.
The risk/inconvenience ratio seems OK for me when driving a car without a helmet but not for biking without a helmet. I'm not advocating for mandatory helmets. But I would feel very uncomfortable if they would be banned.
I think most people will disagree with you on how big of an inconvenience a helmet is. At least I will.
In Europe most people didn't even wear helmets when they went skiing (on-piste) until a few years ago. Now pretty much everyone does, but it's one more thing you'll carry with you everywhere you go. And on warm days I sometimes have to take my helmet off in the gondola because it gets very warm.
Yeah when I visited Europe I didn't wear a bicycle helmet either. American cities are a different story, with poorly designed roads and poorly designed vehicles with large blind spots around the A pillars especially.
Sure. It makes the profile slightly different. But is it enough different to eg say the risk of head injury is 99% reduced? I doubt it.
Theres plenty of scenarios left. What about and impact from the side and the rider falling in an arbitrary direction? A car rear ending it? And while a front-flip due to heavy breaking is unlikely, I’m sure if the front tire hits a high enough obstacle at enough speed it would still do it
Cars change lanes and make unindicated turns. All the risks from the side are still there, plus over the handlebars the length from the seat to the front of this bike is not impossible. Even hitting the bike itself isn't some magic protection where a helmet wouldn't help, could even be worse.
I wish more people would see this! Judging by 95% of the comments on here, people think it's just "helmets in general" that they're talking about. The don't seem to realize that these are not normal bikes.
thats a massive strawnan. tfa is not saying accidents dont happen. theyre saing that their data show that wearing helmets has a net negative affect, all things considered. tfa is about statistics of large numbers of situations, and is not making any claims about individual bikes being magical.
My friend has given me permission to freely use the video of them falling and cracking their helmet.
I won't use it....because the internet is a cunt..but, things do go sideways, too.
I changed my mind; I don't think any of the people, the driver/pedaller nor the passengers should have to wear helmets because that would make them look stupid!
All due respect but this comment demonstrates a naive understanding of COVID and mask mandates. It's possible this comment is just trolling as it's the only comment your account has made but I'll attempt to address the issues with it regardless.
First, calculating a theoretical number of deaths through end result statistics does not result in a number that can be used to support a logical argument. When approximating deaths for something like COVID, the things that matter are:
1. The fatality rate of COVID, assuming the hospital you're treated at has sufficient means to treat you.
2. The fatality rate of COVID, assuming the hospital you're treated at does NOT have sufficient means to treat you.
3. The contagiousness/ability of the virus and likelihood that you'll spread the virus to someone else once you've contracted it (R naught). Basically, think of this as the number of people you'll infect if you get the virus.
4. The number of people in a population who can be infected by an individual at any specific time (effective reproduction number)
You can't just take a slice of time and say "6" people will die, and remove mask mandates, as COVID spreads through exponential growth. The benefits of wearing a mask compound, just like not wearing mask compounds in a worse way. Think of it this way. If the R naught of a virus is above 1, (say 1.1) then the virus will continue to spread. If it continues to infect more and more people, unchecked, it will eventually infect almost everyone. If it infects everyone, with a fatality rate of 1.6% in Missouri, it will kill thousands, not 6.
The ways available to us to stop COVID are to attack all facets mentioned above. I won't go into all of them, as mask mandates solely aim to curb 3. The goal of mask mandates is to make it so if you have the virus, you infect less than 1 person, so that the virus stops spreading.[1] But the benefits affect all the above, such as, if the virus continues to spread (R naught above 1), then eventually we run out of hospital capacity. If we run out of hospital capacity, the death rate skyrockets, as many preventable deaths are no longer preventable. So, mask mandates now also potentially benefit healthcare capacity (flatten the curve, remember?).
So, to specifically isolate the issue with your argument, the number of cases per 100k with and without masks doesn't matter if the virus is still spreading. If it's still spreading, it will still infect everyone eventually, and take its 1.6% of the population at the end of the day. Mask mandates are one component (on top of vaccines, social distancing, hygiene, etc) to lowering the R naught below 1.
So, is it reasonable, to impose a mandate such as this that negatively alters people daily life to this extent, in order to prevent tens of thousands of deaths in the all-state from dying?
To clarify, this is not the auction for the VIN 001 Bronco, this is an auction for an NFT for the VIN 001 Bronco. From the auction page:
> This one-of-one NFT commemorates the sale of the VIN 001 Ford Bronco First Edition sold on March 27, 2021, and includes 1 x exclusive video, 1 x illustration and 3 x still images, all relating to the historic sale of this VIN 001 at Barrett-Jackson, for you to enjoy in your Motoclub digital wallet! The winning bidder of this Limited Edition NFT will also receive an exclusive Barrett-Jackson VIP Muscle Lounge ticket package for two to the 2022 auction of their choice.
This reminds me of a story from college, regarding a business law class (US laws mostly). This class was interesting for a variety of reasons, but also pretty humorous as the professor was a full time lawyer, and taught the class because he enjoyed educating people. Generally, I've enjoyed the classes most where the professor brought real world experience to the podium and this class fit that bill perfectly.
As part of the class we went over a variety of law case studies. The professor had a bit of a schtick or joke where he would ask "can they sue?"--and the answer was always yes. There was no plausible case you could not litigate. The followup question was always where the details were. "Will this case get thrown out?" or "Will they win" was usually where the discussion occurred. The reason for that, is in US law, the bar is incredibly low for being able to litigate a case.
This case is no different. According to the reversal[0], effectively the court found it's plausible that the known reward system snapchat has (popularity, endorphins, whatever you want to call it) in combination with the speed filter, is not unrelated to the accident. That's all they said, and I believe that's the correct decision--they aren't saying Snap is to blame--just that the very high bar to throw out a case has not been met.
Personally, wouldn't read too much past that. Will this case succeed? Most likely not. Will it get settled? Probably a fair chance.
At least one lawsuit has already been filed[0] with most likely more coming. I really don't see how Robin Hood can spin this in their favor, or recover from this from a PR standpoint.
First, I believe that number comes from this article[0], which doesn't tell the whole story. Did some research and found some more info with the help of this article[1]. In Q1, Citadel paid $12,583,220.60 to fulfill orders from Robin Hood[2]. I can't put together the total percentage of their order fulfillment revenue, but this website seems to suggest 91 million[3], but if you add up the totals from[2] they don't sum to 91 million--so I can't quite determine the percentage of revenue it works out to, but it appears Citadel is their biggest order fulfillment client.
"Intentional financial harm" is not illegal, otherwise shorting stocks would be illegal. There is also no court precedence for normal market maneuvers that happen to have a significantly negative outlook on a company. Imagine if Gamestop sued TD Ameritrade for facilitating short market orders for Goldman Sachs? It would be a joke. Same thing for if Melvin sues--they over exposed themselves and paid for it.
There's nothing here that's illegal. Insider Trading, Pump and dump schemes, etc all require coordinated distribution or communication of false and/or non-public information. What's happening with GME is happening in the public, in full view of everyone, with a goal of exploiting a hedge fund that overexposed itself through a short squeeze. Short squeezes are legal, and have a large storied history over the last couple decades.
Good point. Hedge funds pay for things that are ostensibly public, but with very high entry points, to understand the market - witness satellite surveilling of Chinese factory activity, Walmart parking lots, laying private fiber.
WSB was the very definition of public information, open social media.
Only reason I mention that is that is you're not really faking the grassroots part if you really do have a good origin story--you just got... lucky?
[0] https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2021-b30...