Wages are not downstream of profits - they are a price in a market for labor. If companies could pay 0 they would pay 0, and if employees could charge infinite they would charge infinite.

It's better this way - otherwise employees at companies that make no money would have to take no salary.

theoretically. it's never going to match the input exactly though and therefore it will generate noise of its own. it's conceivable that there would be less variation in this noise, due to quantized nature of the system that synthesizes the cancellation, and that a fixed synthesized signal for long durations could exhaust parts of the cochlea that are used to the high variability of natural sounds and/or trigger an adaptation in auditory cortex.

or the software is bad or the anc mic fails, and it generates a high pitched whine that causes short term tinnitus.

just spitballing because it's fun. would be interesting to analyze the frequency responses to benchtop and realistic scenarios for anc in modern earbuds.

also would be interesting to understand the psychophysical response to those behaviors!

It makes way more sense to do value analysis purely on what what you gain vs what it costs rather than trying to factor in the cost of making or implementing said item.

I don't care if the bill of materials is really high, that's no reason for a consumer to be any more sympathetic for a price; similarly, costing almost nothing is no reason to deride a price. That's the company's problem.

It's optimal to just focus on what you get for what you pay.

As a meat eater I liked the occasional Boca burger. They were always just stupid expensive (recollecting college) and never stuck in my mind as a periodic way to reduce meat consumption.

But I am one of those people with a hybrid only because I like the gas mileage.

I have not yet concluded whether I believe in free speech without limits, but I can at least say with confidence the following:

- Freedom of speech is of extremely high importance for any free society and should not be taken for granted

- Removing it in any capacity should be done with extreme care and free of any bias one way or another, with a lot of thought put into any future consequences

- Speech without a platform isn't speech at all

- Private companies' interest should have little, if any, control over the ability of the public to speak

- Just because a private company is legally allowed to do something, doesn't mean they should

- The marketability of speech (for financially or politically) should have no bearing on whether it's allowed or good

I don't know if all of this is being upheld. I think a lot of interests are at play here. I have no easy answers or even recommendations other than that everyone think about what objective barometers they really think makes speech allowable or not.

(Edit: list rendered real bad)

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them.

I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial". But thats not the case. If you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.

You can join a club, pick a new hobby, learn a new language, volunteer or even start a revolution. Be as social or not social as you want, but the beauty of it is that thats time you have complete freedom over. I choose that over contrived interactions with a random set of people who happened to do enough Leetcode problems to get in the same room as you.