u/Pilebsa

"I'm a journalist."

"Why are you such a disgusting human being."

Yea, right.

That doesn't mean he didn't pull in to get it changed and get taken advantage of.

That's like somebody didn't tighten the oil drain plug.

I love how the commercials imply the data centers will be paying for this, but if you read the fine print, that's not the case. The data centers will pay if all projected budgets and deadlines are met which is about as likely as Donald Trump honoring a promise to a contractor. Anything over budget will be paid for by Arkansans.

AND if these data centers and the AI bubble bursts, guess who's stuck paying for everything?

You say you're open to criticism, but then you call your critics "haters?"

That seems wildly inappropriate.

So some people argue, "It's a bit late for you to be worried about surveillance when your phone is monitoring everything you do... Why complain now when you've been being tracked?"

To use that same logic, I'd say, "Well it's late to be complaining about paying taxes because you've been paying taxes your whole life, so why complain now?"

It's about the extent to which something is going on, and crossing a threshold of too much. And in the case of Flock (and related companies, because it's not just Flock) these are private companies that have very little regulatory oversight. They're collecting massive amounts of personal data that tracks where people are going, and this data is being sold to the highest bidder. Nobody opted in to this. Whereas we can choose to turn our phones off, we can't opt out of being tracked by these cameras.

With all due respect, your work is indistinguishable from an average person with a camera phone. Your composition is poor. You don't seem to have much concept of lighting, metering and shutter speed, much less depth of field.

In order to charge for photography your work has to look better than what a kid can do with his iPhone.

This isn't the place to promote your budding photo business. It might be acceptable to solicit feedback though, but you don't seem receptive to criticism.

Also, it's really difficult now to make money in the field of photography. Since everybody has a camera in their pocket now, the bar to be able to charge for it is very high. It's not a good career move.

I'm not trying to suggest you can't make a living at this, but it's not an easy field, even for a very experienced person, to make a living in.

There's a reason why ATT has the worst customer service in the history of telecom.

Deluca's is really quite possibly the best pizza in all of Arkansas, if not that area of the country. And I've lived in NYC and it's as good as what you can find up there.

A really nice place to go swimming along 270 is Camp Charleton - it has a specific swimming area and an aquaduct with a waterfall. It's part of the national park/forest system and well maintained.

I wouldn't take any logging roads, but I would take the road to Hickory Nut Mountain.

Best restaurant along the way is Mountain Harbor's Lodge. The Dairyette is basically what you'd find at the food booth of a high school football game.

For breakfast, Mt Ida cafe or 270 Cafe, or the cafe at Shangri La.

Maybe things used to be tightly regulated, but that's not happening as much now. The republicans are basically giving the keys to industry to do what they want. Also you have governors who are now signing NDAs with large corporations so we don't even know what kinds of deals they're making.

Garvin Woodland Gardens is a great place for photographs and they have a really lovely chapel that's photogenic as well.

Hickory Nut Mountain is the top of a mountain west of Hot Springs that you can drive all the way up to and it has a really nice view.

Further west you can visit Mountain Harbor and there's a very scenic area called, "Micah's Point" which is a little wooden hut and deck that overlooks Lake Ouachita that has really nice views, but it is the edge of a cliff, so be careful with dogs.

There's a nice restaurant you can have lunch at, the Lodge at Mountain Harbor. There are trails in the area and even horses you can ride and other activities.

Deluca's Pizza is exceptional. I think the best Mexican place is La Hacienda (and the service is really fast).

There are a number of nice-sized businesses in Hot Springs like that windows manufacturing facility and some government contractors in mid city. Consider reaching out to the larger companies who might benefit from someone in IT, especially an entry level position with expansion opportunities if you can prove yourself valuable.

Potter's Clay also has a wonderful thrift store worth visiting.

While the public service utilities commission typically has to approve standard rate hikes for utility services, there are exceptions, including exceptions for "infrastructure." This is how the power companies make extra money bypassing public consensus, by building infrastructure they they claim -- at first -- is covered by new clientele, BUT any expenses beyond what they claim, will be covered by rate hikes that the public commission doesn't need to approve. These projects always go over budget and the citizens end up paying.

For example, one way shareholders of energy companies can increase their profit is via a fixed profit they get from new capital projects:

Capital Cost Recovery (Rate of Return): Regulated utilities are permitted by state commissions to collect the money they spend on physical infrastructure (like power lines and grid modernization) and earn an approved profit margin—often around 10%—on those long-term investments.

but only if the companies building them are required to cover the added costs that they create.

This "added cost" is often a projected, fixed rate, and if the project goes over budget, which of course what project of this nature doesn't... then the taxpayers cover the rest... that's the catch.