half the sites you use every day are held together by a handful of exhausted on-call engineers, a pile of scripts nobody fully understands anymore, and duct tape. a surprising amount of the internet is one expired certificate or one fat-fingered config push away from going down for an afternoon.

The chances of your children's private info, including SSN, birthdate, birthplace, address, etc being leaked and out there on the dark web is fairly high because most school districts in this country have shit network security and work with SaaS vendors that house all this data and are also vulnerable. People heard about the big Canvas hack earlier this year. What people dont seem to realize is that hack wasn't unique and similar events happen fairly often across our country and sometimes to individual school districts. Its a real problem thats just being ignored by our government.

I have been in academic research for almost 30 years, and the amount of cherry picked or just completely made up data in research papers should concern everyone. In the past it was very rare and now it is almost common practice. It's driven by the pursuit of increasingly scarce funding sources.

How much personal information people willingly broadcast without realizing it. You don't need fancy dark web hacks or breach databases. 90% of a person's digital footprint, routine, and history can be fully mapped just by stitching together completely public, harmless-looking breadcrumbs.

Software is terrible not because of bad developers or bad testing. It's the CEOs who make business decisions to placate stockholders by releasing too soon and/or ignoring known bugs.

Data privacy is a myth On Reddit too.

Free Wifi is a trap. Its data mining. They dont put it in as a favour to you, they're collecting i formation and corporations are using it. I dont know how it works but the amount of information they can glean from you is... Frightening. I was at a seminar on guest wifi where the company selling the access points was telling us about all the information gathering they are capable of... To them it was a selling point. To me it was a good reason never to log on to free wifi again

Astrophysics. People publishing data from space instruments rarely have a good grasp on the details of how that instrument actually performs, especially if it's been in space for awhile. They'll still assume it's performing the same as it did when it launched, which is usually a more idealized version of that instrument. Results in general should have far larger error bars than published and it greatly weakens them. This can even extend to the teams that build the instruments. I was doing a in-depth analysis of two separate space-based instruments that SHOULD agree with each other and they never did. Two spectrometers, observing the same events, giving different results, with errors that don't cover each other's results.

Prosecutors employ investigators who routinely check social media during pre-trial prep. Stop posting to your social media and delete your history. It’s low hanging fruit to use your public posting history against you. That goes double for divorces and triple for bankruptcy fraud.

I used to work in cybersecurity. So much of the misery you are subjected to? Theatre, as part of a project built solely for some "senior leader" to be able to put their name on something. Much of the 'technology' is Emperor's New Clothes. Things like 18FA just to read today's lunch menu, or your corporate laptop seeing 99% CPU usage because of some ZTNA bullshit that blocks absolutely everything and prevents you from doing your job? Nah. That is a classic example of sealing all the exits only for the robbers to depart via the entrance. A lot of these hacks and data breaches happen because some teenager has spearphished your IT manager, or phoned up your helpdesk and talked his way into the VMWare estate. And nobody ever learns from it. The whole thing made me miserable and I began to seriously ask why I bothered.

Your college saves lots of data on you, including your birthdate, where you were born, where you went to high school, previous addresses, your mother’s maiden name, and other key data points. Basically most the things that allow identity verification. This data is captured when you’re a student and kept for decades/indefinitely after you graduate. Colleges are also non-profits and those with access to these databases aren’t always well trained in data security. Employees aren’t always fully vetted. These databases are a big liability to society, IMHO.

In social media, most of the posts that ask open form questions are made by bots with a fuck ton of karma in order to make more karma so that they can sell that account to an advertiser later. You'd think that the mods of said social media would simply see right through an obvious marketing scheme, but they'd rather just ban the truth instead.

Market research The figures that look different at a glance might not be statistically different depending on a sample size and how close the proportion is to the "center" (e.g. 45% and 55% probably wouldn't be statistically different on a usual sample size). Speaking of a sample size, for many businesses it's enough to ask around 50-75 people to make a conclusion about a good share of population. And these people usually paid for their answers (though we are trying to hide the brand behind the study), so it's barely representative at all.

How many big name companies are storing things like credit card details and personal information in plain ass text in a database.

Your online profile, collected from everything you touch electronically knows more about you than anyone you know. It knows more about you than you do. Any kind of IQ test, personality test, which celebrity am I quiz is a psychological profiling tool used to enhance the complete list of all your online activity. Think using a landline telephone helps? A hack called Salt Typhoon has permanently installed software to record every phone call made worldwide. It can't be fixed.

People don't understand. Not even close. What advertising knows. Like. We know you better than you know yourself. We can make you depressed. Happy. Addicted. We can destroy your relationship. We can make you believe you want something. Machine learning algorithms with the amount of data we have on you are so fucking good at exploiting every tiny weakness in your psyche that you'd install adblockers in a hurry if you grasped even a fraction of the capabilities. And even then it's only moderately effective.

The biggest open secret in computer science is that the entire modern digital world is a fragile house of cards held together by copy-pasted code, duct tape, and unpaid open-source volunteers. While the public assumes massive banks, airlines, and tech giants run on hyper-optimized code, billions of dollars in infrastructure actually rely on obscure software libraries maintained by solo developers in their spare time. Furthermore, a shocking amount of global financial transactions still run on ancient, 1960s-era COBOL code underneath slick modern apps. Because fixing every bug is too expensive, tech companies regularly ship software filled with hundreds of known glitches, simply filing them away as long as they don't completely crash the system.

Not my industry, but tapping a card that doesn't ask for a PIN is not secure. A Subway near me was caught stealing cards by capturing the RFID for customers that tapped the POS pad. Happened to me twice before I started using my phone's tap pay instead and keeping the card locked.

I work in building profiles of reddit users. We post leading questions to get users to give demographic data about themselves so we can package it and sell it. Rinse and repeat. every day. It's all clearly explained in the T&C page 272 paragraph 6b.

microsoft PCs done slow down because the machine is old. It’s designed to do that so you’ll buy another super fast PC and start it all over again

Algorithm is a terrible word, used as a filler by non technical folks to describe anything they don’t understand. Algorithm is anything a program does. Basically any set of instructions is an algorithm.

Digital entertainment served via algorithms often includes deliberate frustrating experiences, designed to keep users more engaged. People don't get addicted to static experiences, much like a Casino where you lose 100% of rolls would garner 0 patrons. So they employ random reinforcement techniques, deliberately choosing when to show quality content, garbage content, ragebait content, etc... modeled after a pattern to get users addicted to apps. --- It's pretty commonly known in social media. But multi-player video games employ the same concept, called an: "EOMM" system: Engagement optimized matchmaking. Which is basically the video game publisher profiling users into buckets depending on communication styles/skill/playstyle. And then purposely fitting them into match-made lobbies designed around specific predictive outcome patterns (User will be more likely to play if next X games are X/Y/Z pattern) to milk engagement.

Telecommunications providers store audio-recordings of all calls for a certain period of time. If a customer reports a voice quality problem, they can access that specific recording to diagnose issues like bad audio or dropped connections. The recordings are also made available to law enforcement authorities for criminal investigations when legally requested. Once the retention period expires, the recordings are automatically deleted according to the provider's data retention policy.

All those talking about data security is bullshit, your data is stored in clear text in databases where the developer have full access, to. (And all intruders) And it kind of has to be this way, because you simply can't search for an address or anything else on a database if the data is hidden.

I work in cybersecurity. Almost every company has been hacked. If they haven’t, they’re going to be hacked in the next year or two. Most (like >70%) are social engineering. Phishing. It is surprisingly easy to get people to click on something and have them give their credentials in a fake login window. L

They (anyone paying for the service not just the government) can playback a recording of your session on a website. Not just the links you clicked, but like a screen recording showing what you saw on your screen while scrolling, where your mouse moved even without clicking, etc. it can be played back like a recorded video. You don’t have to click anything at all to give your “data”

Hospitals have notoriously shitty IT security and frequently get hacked/their systems encrypted.

I work in education and most of the decisions are made based on legal and funding issues, not child development or learning. We call them the "box people" who sit in cubicles 10 miles away from the nearest child and make decisions without a whit of experience or concern for the practicality of it all. It's especially bad for kids with IEPs or early childhood, where the whole thing becomes a tangled mess of licensing, SPED law, and funding. The actual children become data points, not people with needs. I really believe in public education but it is not currently functional. The bureaucracy alone is failing the kids before they even set foot in the building.

Elementary school teachers and staff get assaulted by students everyday in every school. Not each teacher, everyday but in every school, everyday, at least one teacher/staff is assaulted. Parents don't think it's happening bc we're not allowed to talk about it (or they just don't care - as long as their work day isn't getting interrupted and they have free child care)

Most faculty have little to no training in how to teach effectively. Student ratings have zero correlation with learning. Most of the time they are completely ignored. Adjuncts are usually only paid a few thousand for teaching a semester long course, have no health insurance, and many are on food stamps and do gig jobs to survive. 80% of students go to community college with the intention to transfer to a 4-year university and graduate with a bachelor's. Only 15% succeed in doing so. Only 60% nationally graduate from universities, 40% in STEM disciplines.

My dad works as a high school teacher, he says “Parents and students think that the system of education works in the best way but actually the bad behaviors of some students in the class make teachers unable to show their full experience although they have it”.

Most professors have no formal training in teaching.

If you’re an academic researcher, working on federal grants such as the ones awarded by NSF, DOE, NIH or others, the academic institution will skim 50-75% of that grant in assessments and overhead. The PI usually receives 25-30% of the award.

I work in recycling. Metal recycling to be precise, but I have connections in plastic/e waste/landfills/residential/etc recyling as well Even if you recycle every possible thing you could and think you're doing your part, I'd say a solid third of it goes straight to a landfill without even the attempt to recycle it. Of what's left, maybe a third of that is rejected for whatever reason also to be sent to a landfill. The remainder is actually recycled in some way. There's a lot of reasons why but the biggest by far is simply greed Metal recycling is one of the better, if not the best industry as far as recovery and we still operate with the expectation of significant loss

I worked in the parks industry in Colorado. A certain amount of water is allowed for a city like Denver to keep its golf courses top-notch. That water comes from the western slope, up to several hundred miles away. If only a percentage of that water is used, then you are allowed that new, lesser amount. So they will just keep sprinklers running to avoid having any amount taken away. While the mountains might experience a drought and get hit with wildfires, devastating wildlife, farmlands and homes (due to excessive water use in the front range), the golf courses look great.

Work in trash, most of yalls recycling goes to the dump. Sometimes straight into a trash truck, sometimes the recycling truck just dumps at the landfill while these 2 examples are rarer it does happen. Most of the recycling at recycle centers just don't make it through and wind up at the dump for some reason or another. Like most plastic, except the shit milk jugs are made of, are just not cost effective to recycle anymore and when it was it was being shipped over seas to be used as fuel... Then you have paper/cardboard, this shit is easily contaminated. Wet? Cardboard has tape? Trash. Someone put a bunch of shit in their recycling can that also contaminate the paper products, shit some neighborhoods I've serviced was 60%+ regular trash in their recycling cans. And that shit wrecks the machinery that sorts that shit if it wasn't caught during hand sorting. Now with that said glass, cans, and milk jugs are consistently recycled properly. The rest is a crapshoot and highly depends on the center it's sent too and what your neighbors put in their cans. Fun bonus info shit you can't recycle but most people think you can: Shredded paper Bubble wrap Wood Styrofoam Plastic bags Electronics Rubber/tires Fabric Garden hoses

Oil & gas industry - after the BP blow out in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, there were immense efforts to clean up all the spilled oil floating on top of the sea water. BP outsourced the clean up efforts to a company called Nalco which utilized a “dispersant” called Corexit. The dispersant is basically a fancy version of dawn dish soap. AKA, the oil attaches itself to the dispersant and becomes too heavy to float and essentially sinks to the bottom of the ocean out of view of any cameras and news networks. Yes, you guessed it, the oil is still there. Just sunk at the bottom of the ocean.

sooo much soil is polluted, it's crazy, and the governement would need a loooot of money to remove it all responsibly. meanwhile it all threatens our soilwater (our drinking water), flora and fauna. there's so much going on.

State environmental permits for discharging contaminants into a body of water are often written in terms of concentration, not quantity. In order to continue to operate while remaining compliant with the permit sites often just increase the amount of water they are discharging, lowering the concentration of the contaminant. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in the large body of water it ends up in.

Most water fountains don’t have a filter. You’re just drinking regular city/county tap water. The same water that flushes the toilet.

Most trees don't need to be trimmed. Big tree trimming companies that work for municipalities are the worst scum bags who lobby the cities and city tree guy to pay them to trim trees they sometimes don't or take a branch or two off. The only time trees need to be trimmed is if they are a danger to the public or infrastructure but just having a heavy/natural top is no danger. These trees have been around longer than humans and some how there's an industry profiting off of their abuse. We need more trees and it's great when these companies promote planting them where they'll survive but the shady side none of them admit is it's a for profit business and they need to be trimming regardless of whether trees need it or not

A lot of the drinking water you get from the tap is just the wastewater from upstream that has been treated.

An overdraft fee is actually an incredibly high interest rate loan but, since they call it a fee and it doesn't vary with the charge amount it doesn't have to follow interest rate caps. For example, if you pay a $35 fee to cover $100 and have to pay it back with your next paycheck (assume 2 weeks) that is an interest rate of 913%

I work in finance. typically helping people with debt, budgeting, investing - most people don’t know that credit card interest accrues on a daily basis and that their APRs skyrocket to 30% when their accounts get maxed out. Most clients think the credit card companies on our their side….yeah they want you in the 40 year interest cycle lol. credit card companies are not your friends

Ex auditor of big 4. The audited report isn't as "yay no fraud" as most people think. There is even a line stating along the phrase "reasonably confident the report is not materially misstated". Don't take it as bullet-proof.

Tax accountant. No the the IRS does not know how much you owe. You want to be try to be precise as possible though incase you are audited. If you are audited then they will know exactly how much you should owe for that year.

I’m an accountant and worked for the IRS. I don’t think most people realize how common tax avoidance is, whether that’s just not filing a return or filing a return that understates the tax liability. The IRS studies something known as the tax gap. Simply put, it’s the difference between what the IRS calculates the country’s tax liability is versus what actually ends up being collected. The latest data from 2022 puts the tax gap at over $600 billion per year.

Public Libraries have to beg local and state (mostly state) governments for funding. Most of the cool stuff your local library has added? Yeah that came from either grants or donations. The actual funding is fought for very hard every single day. The best thing you can do to support public libraries? 1) get a library card most importantly, 2) get involved and vote in local and state elections, 3) go utilize all the free shit available at libraries so we keep getting money to continue having that cool stuff for you guys.

I'm a social worker in a medium sized city with a bad reputation for having a lot of homeless people. I frequently interact with homeless folks, as well as people who are on the verge of losing their housing. You will often hear people say things like, they don't want to get help, they chose this, they're all on drugs, etc etc. Yes, sometimes that's true, but from my experience it is not the majority of cases. The most common thing I hear for why people become homeless is an unexpected loss of income. This could be getting fired or laid off, or an income earner in the home leaves or dies, or a medical situation makes it impossible for them to work. Things like this happen all the fucking time. So many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and if you lose that paycheck for even a month or two, everything falls apart. People can lose their housing in the blink of an eye. To add insult to injury, once you become homeless, it is so fucking difficult to get out. There are nowhere near enough resources for all homeless people to get sheltered. Even if they are determined to get into a shelter bed, it often takes weeks or even months. Even, and sometimes especially, families with children. There are just are not enough resources, funding, beds, counselors, etc etc etc. It's hard as fuck to find work as a homeless person. You don't have an address to put on a resume (or a laptop to make the resume). Homeless folks often lose all of their belongings in tent sweeps, including documents like IDs, birth certificates, etc. Folks living on the streets are frequently victims of theft and sexual assualt. They are exposed to the elements. Their bodies break down faster. And all of this is before we even get to the subject of how homeless folks are treated by everyone else, despite the fact that they may themselves be one or two missed paychecks away from being in the same situation.

Government agencies will blow money on shit that’s not necessarily needed at the end of the year to burn up the rest of the money in their budget. If they don’t spent all the money their budget will get reduced next year.

Screenwriters who write for TV don't really write specific episodes. The union requires that someone be credited for each episode and they technically do actually sit down and write it, but between the writers room thourouly outlining the episode and all the extra drafts and revisions afterward (sometimes even full rewrites) it would be much more accurate to say that the whole room writes every episode.

Military and commercial manufacturers bid for jobs. Much like getting a house remodeled by a handyman over a remodeling company. The projects go to the lowest bidder and budget restrictions are made for any improvement ideas from the workers that’ll produce better or faster results. All in the means to keep the management pockets full with bigger bonuses. So all the projects for commercial or military applications are therefore built half-assed and under budget. Quality is still there but with what you can make out of it. All these companies value innovation and efficiency yet when it comes down to it. They lack severely. So when you’re flying or using a specific hardware heavy technology. It’s very possible it could’ve been manufactured better or faster but it didn’t because someone’s pocket got full instead of the actual project. This issue also stems into every aspect of our lives. From doctors to lawyers to police to anything with a management oversight. They’d rather focus on their bonuses being hefty while our processes continue to be mediocre.

The amount of money made in video games over encouraging dopamine and gambling addiction in children is so large that I'm honestly surprised there's been no serious attempts at legislation.

Those commercials for pharmaceuticals everyone says they hate? The odds someone sees an ad and asks their doctor about the drug? 80%. The odds that the doctor will subsequently prescribe it? 70%. Those are really big numbers. Notice how all the ads are for long term chronic conditions? No one-off 5 day courses of antibiotics getting air time. All the ads are for new drugs, of course. That being said, 95% of them are “me too” drugs. No better than what’s already available and likely generic: just another drug company wanting a piece of the pie and making you think it’s the greatest invention since sliced bread. Only 5% are novel, meaning superior or first of a kind. Big Pharma may be evil and pernicious, but they ain’t stupid.

Almost no small businesses do what they should for cybersecurity of your data. They aim to check the minimal number of boxes to meet agreements and insurance requirements (and even then it may be more theatre than substance) Independently owned healthcare organizations are often even worse. HIPAA and other compliances are often incompletely implemented . If it doesn’t make money for the business and/or the risk doesn’t seem imminent- investments in security and even changes in basic behaviors are often ignored.

the computer code for banks is basically spaghetti held together with chicken wire and tape.

Farmed salmon are so overcrowded that they get sick and develop sores. It's absolutely disgusting, and it's awful to see them suffering.

Fountain soda machines are disgusting 90% of the time. Even the places that claim to clean and service them regularly. The amount of time it takes to properly clean them along with poor placement means it's usually to much hassle for everyday employees to properly clean and replace filters of they do it all. I work with technicians that do service calls to restaurants and gas stations daily and the condition of almost all the machines is sickening.

If you are ever on a long term care insurance plan to receive assistance from a home health aide, DME, etc. There are two facts: 1. Case managers are actively being told to give you the least amount of hours of assistance per week as possible. 2. If you become the ultimate Karen you will ALWAYS get what you ask for. It will take time to go up the chain but you will win. 50 hours of care per week? Complain. New shower? Complain. New Wheelchair? Complain. I'm talking daily conversations with the worker, supervisor, regional manager, etc. I promise you, it will get done. So be the squeaky wheel. Insurance banks on you giving up the fight and they don't want to deal with a judge in a hearing over the issue. They'll give in eventually.

Chefs in restaurants don’t wear gloves hardly ever- because gloves are dirty and gross. Corporate places that insist on gloves result in cooks wearing the gloves for a long period of time, resulting in cross contamination. If I’m making your food without gloves I am very clean and tidy and I wash my hands a lot. I only wear them when dealing with sloppy wet stuff. What I’m saying is that gloves are in absolutely no way a sign of cleanliness or lack of contamination.

Vegetables that come canned are cooked in the can.

Retired now, but your health insurance routinely denies anything out of the ordinary - challenge it!

I don’t know how shocking it is but at least in the US, all those regulations on chemicals like PFAS’ and other environmentally dangerous compounds? Those regulations rely on the manufacturers reporting their hazards to the DOT. If a company is, say, wrong about a hazard due to a lack of testing because they keep their labs stocked with out of date equipment, those reports aren’t necessarily gonna be accurate.

Lots of vodka and gin from “craft” distilleries is just bulk neutral spirits from larger more industrial distilleries redistilled to recut the heads and tails and incorporate botanicals. No starch conversion, sugar extraction, or fermentation is taking place on premises to create of these products.

Agriculture. The amount of farmers and pest control/crop advisors who lie about what pesticides are being used on their crops is staggering. Even on crops that are technically organic, or are exported to other countries with stricter regulations. I work in one of the most strictly regulated states in the US and the reporting and auditing process basically amounts to "just trust me bro"

Rabies testing (if required) means after an animal is euthanized, we have to sever their head, and one of us has to deliver the head (in a cooler on ice) to the state health department.

The biggest open secret in insurance that the public doesn’t realize is that most carriers aren’t really making their money off your premiums—they are essentially massive hedge funds wearing a hard hat. The actual goal of an insurance company is to collect billions in premiums, pay out as little as possible in claims for as long as possible, and invest that massive pile of money (the "float") into real estate, private equity, and high-yield markets. The premiums you pay just give us the chip stack to play Wall Street, which is why a company can technically lose money on coverage for years and still report record-breaking profits. Because of this, the entire claims process isn't just about verifying if your loss was real; it's heavily engineered as a game of administrative attrition. Initial denials, endless requests for repetitive paperwork, and confusing policy jargon aren't always accidental red tape—they're calculated friction. Regulators know it, and the industry knows it, but the business model relies on the fact that a massive percentage of people will simply get exhausted, frustrated, or confused and give up on pursuing a payout they’re fully entitled to. On top of that, your loyalty to an insurance carrier is actively weaponized against you through something called "price optimization." Actuarial algorithms don't just calculate your actual risk of having an accident or a house fire; they calculate how likely you are to notice a rate hike and shop around. If the data shows you’re a passive customer who has stayed with the same company for five years, your rates will steadily creep up simply because the system knows you won't leave, while a brand-new customer with the exact same risk profile gets a vastly cheaper rate next door.

I'm a produce clerk. The amount of times that something has hit the cooler floor and I've just swept in back into it's container like nothing happened is pretty bad. Wash your produce folks.

In an ophtamology med. Many people believe the blue filter of the glasses helps with vision protection. This is essentially a "yes, but actually no" situation. Blue filter is recommended for people whose prescription is relatively low and/or work or study a lot with computers or like using screens (gamers, desingers, etc.). While blue filter does block a certain type of color, the reason why people feel they vision gets damaged is because they don't blink enough. Blinking bathes the cornea and the sclera with a new tear film and protects and nourishes them, but sometimes people are so focused on the screens that they forget to blink. This is also why people with these problem often have symptoms of dry eye. Interestingly, another reason the blue filter is recommended is because part of the electrochemical impulse that transforms light from outside into images in the retina (and then goes to the brain) doesn't go to the brain 100%. Part of it also goes to the sector of pupila retraction (Edinger Westphal nucleus) to regulate the pupila according to the amount of light present, and the other part goes to the sector of the brain which regulates melatonin (cicle of sleep). And yes, there are studies that say that some of the cells in the retina, depending on how close they are to the macula, have more affinity with blue light. So, people with blue filter should also be recommended to have breaks of 20 minutes for each hour of screen usage (if we're generous) and never use the screen with 100% illumination. The warm color mode is also a good alternative and kids most of all, should never use screens more than 1 hour and a half daily in general. Less if younger. But we all know how most parents are with that nowadays. TLDR: Blue filter in glasses won't really help you if you don't use screens responsibly yourself.

Alcohol is not "empowering," in fact its addictive and quite damaging.

Worked in a pharmaceutical manufacturing and shipping plant. Almost all over the counter medicine is simply relabeled and sent to the corresponding company. All the big chains use the exact same product, just with their label on it.

I used to work at a 24/7 McDonald’s. all cooked product has a shelf life of about an hour and then you have to throw it out. after 10pm, that doesn’t happen because orders are too unpredictable and food wastage would get the manager fired if we actually followed the procedure, and also drunk idiots won’t tolerate waiting for fresh stuff to cook. also grills have to be cleaned at some stage, but we’re on skeleton crew levels of staff until 7am, so if orders come in you’ve got to stop cleaning to make the orders so if you’re one of those drunken idiots that come in between 2-3am, your beef patties could have been sitting there since about 9pm

Cows have to be actively pregnant to produce milk

Most people think supplements are FDA approved before they’re sold. They’re not. “Natural” doesn’t automatically mean safe. Plenty of natural ingredients can have side effects or interact with medications. Expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better. A lot of the price is just marketing and branding. “Clinically proven” often sounds more impressive than it is. Sometimes it’s based on one small or weak study. Third-party tested and FDA approved are completely different things, but a lot of people use them interchangeably.

Airline. Don't check a bag with lithium batteries in it. Carry them on. People don't pay attention to this requirement when checking the boxes, and it's the next disaster waiting to happen.

A lot of money spent on cancer research is wasted off the bat because a lot of the the originating stock for the cell lines people use for research are contaminated, and no one is willing to deal with it. It's a lot more complicated than that for sure, but I tried to distill it to a relatively short sentence.

In agriculture there is an insect called psylla. The bug eats the fruit on the tree and then sh*ts on the fruit which causes the fruit to be sticky.

I managed a family florist and gift/events and wedding services business for over 15 years. Several "open" known secrets within the trade. 1. Flowers usually come shipped to a florist "dry packed" which means they are cut at the farm (usually Equador, Columbia, etc) wrapped in bundles depending on size and packaged into large boxes for shipment. The travel route for Florida is usually FARM (south america) > miami (where many will go to the miami flowers market where florists can go in person and bid on/purchase them or bid and purchase online and have them shipped) > florist. If the florist buys from a wholesale florist and not directly from the farm or company importing them, the route adds a stop, Miami > wholesaler > florist. The wholesaler can be in the same city or close by but is often out of the city or even state, depending on which one is used. For example, flowers purchased in North Florida can come from Dothan, or Montgomery Al, or other places. It is MUCH cheaper to order them directly from the farm, but it is more convenient to get them from the wholesaler because there is usually a wholesaler running each day of the week so if a florist needs flowers for a special order or just more of something, they can pay more and get it same day. When they come from the farm, and bypass the wholesaler, sometimes the flowers have cold packs which help keep them fresh (especially in the hottest months of summer) but most of the time they are shipped as is, fresh cut, and by the time they reach the florist (sometimes 2-3 days later) they have still not ever been put in water. When the florist gets them, they "process" the flowers, which entails cutting them a second time at an angle so they drink better and allow more oxygen in, stripping the extra leaves or foliage off, and placing them in a bucket of clean water which has flower preservative in it. This is called "hydrating" when they drink for the first time. Flowers can last usually up to a week in coolers after processing but should be used much quicker for best results. ~~ When the flowers are ordered early to avoid holiday increased pricing, they are held in coolers in the original boxes and dont see water for up to an extra week, which means by the time the flowers go out to the customer, they are already over a week old, even if they have only been in water for 24 hrs. 2. In the summer, certain roses run between .25-.35c/head (rose). In the winter, they are a bit more but usually do not pass $1/head unless it is a specialty rose. Holidays and special seasonal times, roses can climb to $2-2.5/per head; Vases can run anywhere between $1-5/per container, sometimes more for the specialty items. ~ My point here is, a florist can charge $75-$100/dozen or more for roses arranged in a vase throughout the year. During a special season or holiday, (especially Valentines) roses can go for $100-200/dozen depending on the occasion and way they are arranged, variety of rose, vase used, etc. The most a florist ever has in a normal dozen roses is usually $20-25 and that is if a really nice vase or container is used (we're including wire, ribbons, cards and card holders, etc) and often the florist has as little as $8-10 in a dozen. So the markup is extremely high on roses, and it is not uncommon for a florist to make over $25k JUST in dozens/half dozens, etc of roses on Valentines. With an average of only $2500 in product, that is a huge profit of over $22k. JUST FOR ROSES, then there are mixed dozens with other flowers added in, assorted arrangements like daisies, carnations, etc, and of course the more exotic flowers such as lillies, orchids, etc. A single valentines (just three or four days) can make a good florist over $50k in PROFITS. 3. If a florist waits until holiday pricing kicks in for a holiday or special season, such as Valentines, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc, prices can more than double for flowers and hard goods (vases, ribbons, basically anything not live and perishable) Florists should NOT do this, but often will place their order for flowers BEFORE the holiday increase in pricing takes affect. This in turn means they pay sometimes half as much or even less than if they were on holiday pricing, and also means the flowers come even earlier than they would have. Which means they have to be held for up to a week or maybe longer before they are used. 4. Funerals are one of the times that florists make the most money (profits) per order, because a florist might sell a standing spray or casket spray for $150-$1000 and they prolly only have $30-250 in it. A large funeral can make a florist thousands in profits, but one bad funeral piece can cost reputation because people expect a loved one's final flowers to be perfect and last until the funeral is over and the body is buried. 5. It is not uncommon for some funeral homes to hold the body of the deceased for up to a week until the family has paid for the costs of burial and other things. Sometimes people make arrangements and do not have the money to fulfill the order. Instead of burying the person and collecting later, some funeral homes will hold the body and only continue with services when the bill is paid in full. This causes extra odors and other issues (like more than one service at the same time) when people do not pay up front or on time. 6. Florists are supposed to wire every rose, which entails sticking a small gauge wire into the head ot the rose and wrapping it widely around the rose stem, bending the wire back on the stem when reaching the bottom or close to it. This makes the head of the rose stand taller and for longer, even after the rose dies if it is done properly. Often roses do not get wired. Wire is expensive, because it comes in very large, heavy boxes. Florists save alot if they do not wire their flowers. 7. Corsages and boutineers for weddings, prom, etc, are supposed to be wrapped and wired, and the stems stuck down into a water tube. This allows the flowers to drink water even after they are made and in use. Often Florists do not use water cubes and just wrap the stem, making it where the roses do not properly drink. 8. Florists often use "wire services" which are basically 1800-flowers, Bloomnet, teleflora, etc. These services cost alot and these are what is being used when you call one of those numbers and order through them. The florist is actually making the order, the "flower gatherer" as they are called such as teleflora, or 1800flowers, just is the platform used to order the flowers.

I work in agricultural industry and the “organic” label is a hoax. Another way to make more money for the same product. They are not treated special nor are grown different. Similar concept to clothes “made in Italy”, as long as the end serves the “organic” approval which could be hand plucked instead of machine. No real way of identifying organic vs not organic. Sometime those that are not as fresh or have not been sold after a certain time, will be labeled as ready to eat. Such as avocados where they say “ready to eat today” etc. All produce is a way to make sure they are not wasted while trying to make more money off of expiring produce.

My previous industry: Every single health or bodybuilding supplement is a lie. One way or another it is wildly impotent with falsified claims barely squeezed through legal requirements

Employer Sponsored Coverage can still exclude pre existing conditions. The Employer Group healthcare plans are not governed by the ACA nearly as much as people expect. They are still governed by ERISA which hasn't been updated in decades. That is why healthcare costs can continue to rise. Because the stuff the ACA governs is still a minority player. Employers have no problem paying the increase in costs because it is all pre tax expenses. The plans are self funded so the government really can't do much to stop them from sheltering more and more money every year from taxes. Until they replace the tax benefits of Employer Sponsored Health Insurance by reforming ERISA, healthcare will not improve. They need to offer other financial products that can be pre tax or else they will have a tax increase and that just is not going to happen.

There is no standard for what constitutes a food safe pottery glaze.

Every single restaurant is constantly fighting an uphill battle to keep pests out. Even the cleanest, most well maintained restaurants will occasionally get roaches or less commonly, rats. Most of the time they come in on deliveries - especially cardboard boxes. Roaches fucking love cardboard. The only thing that separates good restaurants from bad ones is how diligent they are at maintaining proper pest control habits to prevent a stray visitor from becoming an infestation.

Most restaurant ice machines are a health hazard. A very high risk to your gastrointestinal health. They are not cleaned and sanitized nearly often enough, if ever, until they stop working altogether. To most restaurant owners and managers it’s an unnecessary expense and out of sight out of mind.

The companies selling peptides use Chinese knock off peptides that sometimes aren’t from an FDA approved facility

Prescription dog food is garbage- same process as making wonder bread: firebomb all the actual nutrients out, add synthetic vitamins back in, pour the slurry into a mold and burn it to a crisp. Clinics get a percentage of the food sales, vets are paid on a percentage of the clinic's annual gross, so it's in the vets best interest to prescribe the food. Everybody makes money, especially when they sell the client on a reorder/subscription plan.

Servers will often go for hours without washing their hands. Some restaurants do not have hand washing sinks handy, even if they're supposed to. Front of house staff, especially while busy, will be touching money, payment machines, dirty plates etc, and then touch your dinner plates, cutlery, cut your bread etc. Germ farms.

Food that you buy in large supermarkets is left out at room temperature for hours while the shelves are restocked. It's almost never checked to see if it's over the 8°C tolerance that would allow bacteria to grow. Frozen food is the same. When supermarkets go through the night it's often the case that the products that won't fit on the shelf will be left warm all night. Smaller stores have less stock and also are less likely to fill at night so the cold chain is broken less often.

At the pharmacy if they drop any pills on the floor they just pick them up and put them in the bottle again. No the floors are not cleaned regularly.

The U.S. has over 624,000 highway bridges. 42% are 50 years or older, exceeding their operational lifespans, but most are still safe to drive over. 42,000 (or about 7% of all bridges) are in “poor” condition and require significant repair or rehabilitation. Many of these are heavily traveled. **In fact, this amounts to 168.5 million trips, every single day, across structurally unsound bridges.** Most people have no idea the condition of the bridge they’re driving on and will never give it a second thought.

Cruise Ships. You think the entire crew is well trained to handle emergency situations? Well…

I'm in the nuclear industry; public would be shocked to truly learn that its way safer than most other industries.

The airplane you are flying on fails all the time during flight but you don’t know it because of the way redundant systems take over. Flight critical systems often have triple redundancy with systems that operate differently (like primary hydraulic and secondary electromechanical) so the same mode of failure can’t affect the backup system.

The corruption in public construction contracts is built in. Change orders, claims, and other mechanisms are legal ways for contractors to screw the funding agencies on public projects. This is the real reason things like trains, highways, schools, etc go so badly over budget.

There's no checks and balances to make sure your airline pilot is mentally healthy, and they would risk losing their license if they thought something was wrong and sought help. The regs were written in the 60's and have never been updated and the FAA refuses to do anything about it.

Airliners get struck by lightning all the time. It's not a big deal. If you fly there's a real possibility you've probably been on one when it got struck.

Cement is not concrete and concrete is not cement.