Yes. According to my experience in my small corner of the world, around 2010, the cool people had iPhones, but when you wanted to do serious business, you still used a BlackBerry. Unfortunately, some easily-influenced executives often would prioritize looking cool and just let their I.T department figure out how they can get their work done, even though Apple had nothing that could compare to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

On top of that, most consumers and gullible executives didn’t see the hidden benefits of BES, because with Research In Motion’s (RIM) push to enter the consumer market, all the marketing material out at the time focused on the comparatively impotent consumer offering, BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), instead.

Trying to survive in the narrow-margins of the consumer market killed RIM. In 2011, you would get teased for having a BlackBerry if you didn’t know how to stand up for yourself and articulate how no other mobile device had the level of magic* making everything work in the back end.

* BES ran on a dozen JAVA services which required arcane magic to work.

Good point.

The reality is that the rich have ways of making gains look like losses on paper. Capital gains taxes mainly hurt people who can’t afford an accountant.

Do those things have the same Return On Investment?

Some times you’ve got to spend money to make money.

No way.

I received opiates after abdominal surgery only after I explained why my pain level was only stated as a 3 or 4 out of 10, if 10 was “The worse pain [I] could possibly imagine.”

2/10 is manageable temporarily but not chronically.

3/10 was the limit where I could hide it. It requires a lot of energy to maintain composure.

4/10 was where movement was restricted.

I can’t quite remember what five and six were.

7/10 means I can’t form complete sentences uninterrupted.

8/10 means I have mostly lost the ability to communicate and I begin to hallucinate.

9/10 means I am unable to understand where I am or what’s happening to me. It’s around this point where I have blacked out.

Never ask someone with a healthy imagination to work on a scale where the limit is the worst they can imagine. Besides, is the scale linear or logarithmic?

Loblaws, I think.

You’ve pointed out an aspect of this that has escaped too many. You don’t fight nationalism with more nationalism. This trade war can only result in stronger trade partnerships with other nations.

You’ve got an interesting take on grammar, and you have me at a disadvantage. I’d love to understand what you just wrote in your first paragraph.

I’d eat these if they didn’t have milk in them.

Hopefully candy makers will get a clue one day soon that incorporating as many unnecessary allergens as possible in a single product is bad for business.

If the baddies don’t want to be a part of something, that means the thing is worth supporting, right?