Costco evening employee here:
Yeah, we check those at closing time. As well as behind the mattresses, the bathrooms and anywhere else someone might reasonably hide. There are generally people stocking stuff for 3-4 hours after the store closes and from 5 hours before the store opens in the morning.
There's a small window when the place is completely empty, but it's only from about midnight to 4am.
What they did to that developer is why I quit reddit and refuse to go back.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but I'm in Canada and I've noticed none of this. No video load delays, no anti ad-blocker pop ups, none of it. I'm not going to stop using Firefox or Ublock Origin though.
Used Ubuntu Linux for a year back around '08-'09. Didn't have a great experience and went back to Windows. Since then I've never had a reason to try it again. That said, I've nothing but respect for those that use a flavour of Linux or Mac OS. At the end of the day doing the things you need done is what matters and if a different OS than mine gets you there, that's awesome.
The day I can't get around youtube ads is the day I stop using youtube. I already refuse to use it on my mobile device or my TV, due to the ads.
I work in a Costco. They treat me very well. Far better than the Walmart I worked at prior. Pay is far better too. As an example, I helped run the night shift as an Overnight Support Manager at Walmart. My topped out pay in that role was 50 cents an hour more than my starting pay at Costco. Now, 18 months later, I make more as a frontline grunt at Costco than I did in that management role.
3 years from now, as a frontline grunt, I'll be making more than the Assistant Manager I worked under at Walmart.
I'm positive I hate them for what they did to me and our kids. Every so often, when I feel myself slowing down a little bit or becoming complacent at what I've built in the wake of her destruction, I pull out that little coal of fury and blow it back into a roaring fire that propels me forward into the future and lights the way for my kids toward a better path than what I walked.
Good. I hope they get the book thrown at them. Their stated purpose, which they put on their website, was the overthrow of our government and it's replacement with a junta with them forming 2/3rds of it.
Contrast this to Trump blocking disaster relief for California and Puerto Rico when he was President.
"And with enough evaders,
Escaping from the game,
The rule becomes an empty shell
That rules in only name..."
Used Ubuntu for a year and while initially it was nice, I got tired of having to spend two weeks learning which magic spells to chant at my computer every time I wanted to install a given application.
I'd use Mac again, except that it tries to punish you every time you go outside the Apple box. For me, Windows is the right balance of ease of use, scaling degrees of complexity, and ability to boldly go where I have no damn business going.
Your experience may vary, and that's good, because you shouldn't have to like what I like, and vice versa.
As someone who lived during a large chunk of the Cold War, let me add some personal perspective on this. You are absolutely right in that the Soviet Union and the West were in a war from WWII on. A spy war, an economic war and several hot proxy wars.
The US lost nearly all of those, but they did win the economic war, and in doing so broke the USSR economically and politically.
After the USSR fell, the Cold War was over. Done. Finito. To emphasize this, capitalism came pouring into all the former SSR's and former Soviet citizens got to taste consumerism triggering chaos that took a full generation to hammer out. And then the 2010's came along and Russia began using it's natural resources to become more and more integrated with Europe.
To the point where some analysts were beginning to be worried that Russia might come to dominate the EU economically.
In fact, if Putin had waited another 5 years Europe would likely have become so dependant on Russian natural gas that they would literally have been unable to effectively protest any move Russia made, in fear of them turning off the tap. Russia was on the road to being THE dominant power in Europe, and Putin literally threw it ALL away chasing dreams of a renewed Russian Empire.