I feel like that’s not a thing you can just initialize and assume everyone knows what you mean (but you did show the program, so all good in the end). ![]()
Yea I was like WHAT THE HELL IS THAT, but with the photos I figured it out. Thankfully it’s not some obvious thing that made me feel old ![]()
I hope you had fun at the show though! I have never seen an outdoor movie. How fun.
Edit: I have been to a drive in a few times. That’s not the same though.
Oh I know…

That’s why ya gotta see it and join the club…
UK/Ireland theater release in just a week!
(I know, I’m being silly/annoying
I just love the movie/show/project! So fascinating to look into the last few months.)
Also update: my friends did enjoy the film, the audience as well. Everyone was pretty well behaved, though people cheered once at the opening credits started and especially at the big climactic moment of the film.
The TOPS organizers said this was probably the biggest crowd in attendance to see an outdoor movie in the 10+ years they’ve been doing this program. (And usually, the larger the crowd, the more rowdy they’d be throughout the film, but not this time!)
The angle of viewing was not ideal, but most of the film was still easily parsed, plus they had closed captions on for the entire film so that was great!
There was a short film that played first called Moon & Back I thought was cute. About two women who are in a relationship but one of them is going on a one-way-trip to the Moon in 2 days, so they try to have the time of their life before that happens.
Director was there to intro it. She was ecstatic that this was probably the biggest crowd she’d ever show her short film to, it was sweet.
Jay McCarroll was also there, also spoke of how stunned he was that the movie blew up as much as it did especially via word of mouth. So cool.
Matt couldn’t make it because he was at a Warhammer tournament apparently, ooh.
I’m jealous, that’s so cool.
Most likely the Anthony Bordaine bio pic.
As this weekend is the 250th Anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence, I’m curious to know how many other members of the forum were around for the Bicentennial back in '76?
- Yes! I was here to celebrate 200 years!
- No, I wasn’t born yet.
- Not my country or don’t wish to say.
While I was around, I was under a year old, so…
Still, I’m glad I’m not the only one on this forum!
If I am being honest I absolutely had a feeling you were. The feeling was so strong that I actually had included it as a joke for my profile picture poll before I got rid of the descriptions.
I hope it was for the “Liberty '76” one then!
I hate to break it to you but I changed to the winner yesterday, the Patriotic Indian was the winner. That being said the piece was also painted for the Bicentennial.
Oh, I know which one won. I was just talking about the description for one that didn’t win.
Bad News, seems disc will be extinct in less than 2 years ![]()
Nowadays the world market is like keeping the selling control to consumer.
Maybe someday we may have to buy a subscription to the underwears we wear for some days and pay to extend its use
and then give it back to companies.
It all started with cloud computing in my IT profession.
Perhaps we were harsh on the game Key Card by Nintendo. Something is something so long as it isn’t a code in box.
Sadly this started way back long ago. When I bought computer games in the 1990s I was really just buying a license to play it… but bc that license came on a floppy disk there was no real way for the company I bought it from to terminate my license. I think this fight was lost decades ago.
Buying something once with the intention to use it repeatedly afterward is how it is supposed to be. You only rent things that are too expensive to buy, and only subscribe to things that are ongoing and update regularly. This did not used to be the case with gaming, and while I can understand the regular updates part - although there’s no reason for game companies to release games until they’ve updated everything into one package - the whole thing of not owning what we buy is an irritating and dishonest practice, used to justify nothing but corporate greed. Find any way to squeeze every penny out of the consumer, because companies have a legal responsibility to maximize profits for the shareholders in any way they can. That fact, fiduciary duties, the requirement to maximize profits rather than serve the consumer, is the real problem at the heart of our current societal discontent, when one really boils down the source of all issues. It can all be traced back to this requirement, one way or another.
I agree, except for a caveat with this point
There’s no legal obligation to make profit, and some companies don’t even pay their shareholders dividends at all. But if there’s no dividends and no stock growth, the board are likely to be voted off by the shareholders (minus the ones who are shorting). It’s less the company being greedy and more their owners being so.
But you’re right that the financial angle is the primary one. I’ve voted in shareholder meetings for options that don’t widen profit margins nor increase stock price, but to me are morally the best course of action. But even then it does have to be pitched with dollar signs on it ![]()
“Let’s not cut healthcare for anyone below manager level, because that would mean significantly reducing the quality of life of thousands of employees”
Becomes:
“If we cut healthcare, the PR damage will damage the stock price. The walk-outs will increase recruiting costs, and profits will narrow. Do we want dividend yield down to 1%?”
In the US, there are companies who are under legal responsibility to maximize profits. I haven’t looked this up directly, but I have heard it from a source I trust, and watched a clip of a congressional committee asking heads of medical companies how many represented a company with such a legal responsibility, and many raised their hands. So it may not be all-encompassing, but it’s too frequent that I assume any big company that pulls shit like this has that.
I believe your source is referring to Dodge v Ford Motor, wherein Henry Ford cut dividends to use the money to expand the company. The Dodge Brothers (who were using those dividends to set up a rival car manufacturer) sued on the grounds that Ford was putting the company interests ahead of the shareholders. It went to the Michigan Supreme Court, who ruled that Ford had to prioritize the shareholders before the company, its employees or customers - which began a doctrine known as ‘shareholder primacy’.
The ruling has since been disputed as unenforceable, as the definition of ‘best interest’ is so broad as to be almost meaningless, and would allow shareholders to sue board members for any perceived failing. How much profit is enough, and over what time period? A dollar a day would technically be profit, so that muddied the waters.
A piece of case law known as the business judgment rule basically says that as long as board members are exercising sound judgment without conflicts of interest, the law takes their word for what ‘best interest’ means, even if that means reducing profits. This gives them protection against shareholders making legal claims against profit margins or losses - like in the case of Airgas, where the directors were protected from litigation for not taking an action that would’ve made shareholders a lot of money, because it wasn’t in the best interest of the company.
The decision in eBay v. Newmark did try to define ‘best interest’ as profit maximization, but still were unable to be more specific, because even actions that reduce profits may increase them in the long run. Hence deferring to the business judgment rule.
Board members do have a duty of loyalty, which means they must prioritize the company over their personal interests, which is sometimes also used to argue for profit maximization and shareholder primacy.
Shareholder primary seems to be a doctrine supported by economists like Milton Friedman and high-yield investors, but has no concrete basis in law. Neither of the court opinions in Dodge v Ford, nor eBay v Newmark became law. A caveat is Delaware (where the lion’s share of US corporations are domiciled), where the concept is more popular and more likely to be argued (successfully or not) in court. My guess is the medical companies you saw were probably Delaware based, and so are subject to the culture of shareholder primary.
Sorry for the wall of text, I researched this just now ![]()
TL;DR it seems to be a common misconception that it’s the law, but is frequently cited as such
Ok, so perhaps it’s not an actual legal requirement, but it is treated as such in practice, or at the very least as the official policy of a company’s board, and as such is still the source of every problem that can be traced back to corporate influence, which is most of them at this point in history.
