hackerdragon

[hackerdragon]

So, reports of an unprecedented egg “shortage” are exaggerated. Nonetheless, egg prices — and egg company profits — have gone through the roof. Cal-Maine Foods — the largest egg producer and the only one that publishes its financial data as a publicly traded company — has been making more money than ever. It’s annual gross profits in the past three years have floated between 3 and 6 times what it used to earn before the avian flu epidemic started — breaking $1 billion for the first time in the company’s history. All of this extra profit is coming from higher selling prices, which have been earning Cal-Maine unprecedented 50-170 percent margins over farm production costs per dozen. Taking Cal-Maine as the “bellwether” for the industry’s largest firms — as people in the egg business do — we can be pretty confident that the other large egg producers are also raking in profits off the relatively small dip in egg production.

High persistent profits are an anomaly for the industry. Historically, egg producers have responded to avian flu epidemics—and the temporary rise in egg prices that often accompanies them—by quickly rebuilding and expanding their flocks of egg-laying hens. “Fowl plagues”—as these epidemics used to be called—have been with us since at least the 19th century. Most recently, large-scale avian flu epidemics hit egg farms in 2015 and 1983-1984. The egg industry responded to both of these destructive events by sprinting to rebuild and expand the egg-laying hen flock — something which checked price increases and ultimately made sure prices went back to pre-epidemic levels within a reasonable time.

As Cal-Maine Foods explained in its 2007 Annual Report: “In the past, during periods of high profitability, shell egg producers have tended to increase the number of layers in production with a resulting increase in the supply of shell eggs, which generally has caused a drop in shell egg prices until supply and demand return to balance.”

This time around, however, that’s not happening. Despite high profits, the egg industry has somehow maintained a stubborn deficit in egg production capacity. Hatcheries — the firms that supply hens to egg producers — have throttled the pipeline of hens instead of expanding it. According to the Egg Industry Center, the size of the flock of “parent” hens — the hens used by hatcheries to produce layer chicks for egg producers — plummeted from 3.1 million hens in 2021, to 2.9 million in 2022, to 2.5 million hens in 2023 and 2024.

Meanwhile, hatcheries have been hatching significantly fewer parent chicks to replace aging ones — nearly 380,000 (or 12 percent) fewer in 2022 compared to the year before, and even fewer parent chicks in 2023 and 2024 — leaving the parent flock older and more likely to produce eggs that fail to hatch. That could explain why, although hatcheries reported producing 125-200 million more fertilized eggs to the USDA in each of the last three years compared to 2021, the number of eggs they’ve placed in incubators and the number of chicks they’ve hatched from those eggs has either declined or stayed basically steady with 2021 levels in every year since.

As for egg producers themselves, you may be surprised to learn that they have added between 5 and 20 million fewer pullets to their farms in every one of the last three years than they did in 2021. As the USDA observed with some astonishment at the end of 2022, “producers—despite the record-high wholesale price [of eggs]—are taking a cautious approach to expanding production[.]” The following month, it pared down its table-egg production forecast for the entirety of 2023 on account of “the industry’s [persisting] cautious approach to expanding production.”

In other words, the only thing that the egg industry seems to have expanded in response to the avian flu epidemic is windfall profits — which have likely amounted to more than $15 billion since the epidemic began (judging by the increase in the value of annual egg production since 2022), and appear to have been spent primarily on stock buybacks, dividends, and acquisitions of rivals instead of rebuilding and expanding flocks. When an industry starts profiting more from *not* producing than from producing, it’s a sign that something isn’t right. It could be an innocent bottleneck. But when it lasts for three years on end with no relief in sight, it's usually a sign of something else that’s pervasive in America — monopolization.

As the coming installments in this series will detail, the fundamental problem in the egg supply chain today is the simple fact that every industry involved in turning an egg into a chicken and turning a chicken into an egg—from the breeders and hatcheries that create the hens to the producers who use the hens to make eggs—has been hijacked by one or two financier-backed corporations, with the incentives flipped from competing entities seeking to produce more eggs to an oligopoly trying to restrain the production of eggs.

On one end of the egg supply chain, you have two companies who control chicken genetics, the billionaire-owned Erich Wesjohann Group and the private-equity-backed Hendrix Genetics. Headquartered a short car trip apart in Cuxhaven, Germany, and Boxmeer, Netherlands, these private firms have systematically gained control over the supply of egg-laying hens to American producers over the past two decades by buying out or suppressing rivals and challengers. Today, no egg producer in this country can expand the number of hens in its flock — or even replace the hens it already has when they age out or die — without the cooperation of this duopoly. And, since the value of hens rises with the price of the eggs, when the price of eggs is high these two barons have a clear interest in keeping the supply of pullets to producers on a tight leash — so the high prices stick.

On the other end of the egg supply chain, you have the largest egg producer in the country and the world, Cal-Maine Foods.

Matt Stoller from his monopolisation/cartel report; something that has clicked recently is the way that business seeks to maximise profit margin over volume, which often leads to reducing production, brittle supply chains, high prices, and ultimately shortages.

in principle this isn't supposed to happen under capitalism, because someone earning high profit margins should be outcompeted by new entrants willing to earn slightly lower profit margins, until (in the perfect frictionless market) the rate of profit should be whittled down to the rate of risk free return (government interest rates?) plus epsilon (a little bit).

obviously this does happen in reality for a number of reasons, and the Problem of Profits is a fun question to dig into, but the problem of persistently high profits is a more concerning issue and appears to be growing across multiple industries.

antitrust law is supposed to prevent market concentration that leads to this outcome but has been toothless since the '90s, allowing dramatic consolidation across dozens of old industries (groceries, agriculture, pharmacies, television, newspapers) and of course new industries (tech giants).

government regulation often ends up favouring incumbents, but it seems that contractual arrangements between suppliers and industry bodies and buying agents to form tight cartels are a bigger problem: if egg prices are high you might think to start an egg farm, but you need to find someone who will sell you chickens and someone who will buy your eggs, when the industry is using every means at their disposal to cut off market access to new entrants.

and of course if you have access to the gargantuan amount of capital required to attempt a serious challenge to an established cartel, why exactly would you want to start a price war with them when you can instead find some other unprotected industry to buy up and establish a cartel of your own?

capitalism seems to have entered a phase of its development equivalent to WWI, where defensive operations by incumbents are more successful than offense by new ventures, keeping the battle lines frozen in place (presumably the soldiers dying in their millions would be workers and consumers in this analogy).

[hackerdragon]

VMII - PlayStation Ambient Mix (Water Segment) Tomb Raider II - Lara Croft Overture Final Fantasy VII - A Secret Sleeping In The Deep Sea

[hackerdragon]

another thing is that like. windows does have a lot of customization in the form of third party tools.

a lot are paid.

listen yeah wallpaper engine is 5 dollars thats really not that much but. animated wallpapers are just a freebie you get with most Desktop Environments and interactive wallpapers aren't too hard to set up

oh yeah paid thing start11 or startallback shell/UI replacements for windows and they're paid but like i can replace my entire desktop environment for free on linux and its encouraged! its part of the setup for a lot of distros!

like just in general why is so much windows shit paid. everyone and their mother recommends revo uninstaller for fixing broken shit from inproperly uninstalled apps amd clearing files. sucks ass and is 25 dollars. proper package management is built into every fucking linux distro. package management is what MAKES a distro.

oh want to recover some files, EaseUS recovery shit is 70 bucks, diskdrill 90.

"rufus" is a good program but "balena etcher" was the most suggested program for a while for writing to disks and it straight up became malware filled with ads after a while. it writes an ISO to a usb drive. this is a built in core utility in linux (dd) why was that the best on windows for a while.

people used to use WinRAR. people still do. use 7zip and put your files in a fucking zip or a tar.gz/tar.zst or so help me god. nobody wants your fucking .rar file. also windows 11 supports rar out of the box. and again. 7-zip.

[hackerdragon]

AIPAC has been furiously urging House Democrats to release messages of steadfast support for Israel in its war with Iran, the Prospect and Drop Site News have learned, even as bipartisan lawmakers come together on a War Powers Act resolution to prevent U.S. troops or funds being used in yet another Middle East conflagration. One member relayed that a colleague had received literally 100 phone calls from members of AIPAC and its allied pressure groups. AIPAC wants House Democratic members to state explicitly that they “stand with Israel” in its actions against Iran aimed at destroying the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capability, and add that Iran “must never have a nuclear weapon.”

...

According to a review of member statements at their congressional websites and on social media, 28 House Democrats have issued messages saying explicitly that they “stand with Israel,” or some close variation thereof. Another 35 express unequivocal support for Israel without using the magic words “stand with Israel” precisely, but they leave no doubt as to the member’s support. And 16 others express “soft” support for Israel, without quite the same inflammatory language. Three statements have been held up by AIPAC in particular, according to sources familiar with the situation, as models for others to follow. Those are from Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Mike Levin (D-CA), and George Whitesides (D-CA). All are “frontline” members who had relatively close elections in 2024.

...

The “stand with Israel” caucus includes some usual suspects who have long backed up Israel’s actions, from Reps. Ted Lieu and Brad Sherman in California, to Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Lois Frankel in Florida, to Problem Solvers and New Democrats like Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Brad Schneider (D-IL). But freshman and swing-state members are also well represented—precisely the type of members who survive on large campaign donations from the likes of AIPAC. First-term representatives Johnny Olszewski (D-MD), April McClain Delaney (D-MD), Herbert Conaway (D-NJ), John Mannion (D-NY), and Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) were all in the explicit “stand with Israel” caucus, while freshman members Luz Rivas (D-CA), Sarah Elfreth (D-MD), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Laura Gillen (D-NY), and George Latimer (D-NY) agreed with the sentiment but without the explicit “stand with Israel” wording. Other members in perennially difficult electoral battles, like Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), stood with Israel as well, along with numerous members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

completely and very normal that a minimum of at least 40% of elected Democrats in Congress are basically fully on board the "Bomb Iran" train. super awesome and cool.

can someone remind me one more time how you "reform" this party? i guess as long as all of these congresspeople say that they love gay people and abortion and scrunch up their face and say "mmmm noooooo i don't like" when Donald Trump ships another few hundred innocent migrants to Guantanamo unimpeded then they can be in support of killing as many Arabs as humanly possible.

good thing these politicians aren't easily bought or i'd start to think they might abandon those issues too one day if pressed hard enough.... hmm....

[hackerdragon]

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted to “activating powerful clans in Gaza” to counter Hamas, as corroborated by former right-wing Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as well as media investigations showing his militia operating in Israeli-controlled zones, armed with AK-47s seized from Hamas and redistributed with the approval of Israel’s security cabinet.  Another critical piece of this strategy emerged in March with the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a privatized aid consortium ostensibly designed to bypass Hamas in aid provision. Instead, it has become an instrument of control, routing humanitarian supplies through militias like Abu Shabab’s, with access ultimately contingent on biometric registration and political vetting. GHF’s credibility collapsed quickly. Within days of beginning operations, its CEO resigned, citing violations of humanitarian principles, while a Swiss NGO asked authorities to investigate the organization. Critics within the Israeli government accused GHF of being a Mossad front, with Lieberman condemning what he called “the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars [in Israeli taxpayers’ money].” On the ground, GHF’s aid distribution sites have resembled concentration camps: gaunt civilians penned behind barricades in the baking sun, watched by armed contractors in American tactical gear. At the center of it all stood Abu Shabab, clad in fresh fatigues and flanked by propaganda banners proclaiming his new “anti-terror force.” His social media channels, now in Arabic and English, proclaim the group a “voice of truth against terrorism for a safe homeland.” The lesson of Abu Shabab’s role in the GHF is clear: Israel’s goal is not to govern Gaza, or even to eliminate Hamas, but simply to ensure no one else takes over. By fracturing the territory into rival fiefdoms controlled by power-hungry clans and criminal gangs, Israel dismantles the possibility of a unified political resistance to its genocide. And just as importantly, the result of Gaza’s social disintegration would be to further inhibit any possibility of a Palestinian future in the enclave — and to drive more Gazans to leave. 

12 June 2025

[hackerdragon]

[hackerdragon]

General PSA's for begginer alt crafting

- superglue heats up when in contact with fiber, your craft can start smoking or even catch on fire

- you can wash clothing painted with acrylic paint in the washing machine if you turn it inside out and use the lowest temperature

- don't put painted clothes in the dryer.

- you can wash clothes with metal bits in the washing machine but use the handwashing setting, dry the metal bits with a paper towel before hanging them to dry, and know that it WILL be loud

- synthetic dye is needed to dye synthetic fibers and requires a long time simmering in a boiling pot. This WILL stink up the house and you NEVER want to make food in that pot again

- faux leather is vinyl not leather. Get vinyl paint to paint on it

- don't use your teeth as tools, they don't regenerate. Reconstructing enamel costs a small fortune (ask me how I know.)

- when handsewing a lot through thick fabric get thin needles, it will require less force and be less taxing on your wrists. When machine sewing get a higher grade needle (~130 for jean)

- embroidery floss is overpriced and not as strong as it looks. For sewing on heavy stuff get denim thread, it will last forever

- don't feed a 60$ home sewing machine ten layers of denim before you learn how much a servicing fee costs, these things are dellicate

- spray paint is best applied from 30-40cm away, in swift movements. Putting too much or applying from too close will cause drips. You can sand them down and apply a new layer of paint AFTER they dry. Wipe the can nozzle after painting if it's messy, you don't want it to clog and become unusable

- water based markers on fabric will bleed, if not instantly then with time, alcohol markers will fade with time

- most fabric glues are machine washable up to a certain temperature. modgepodge is not waterproof, hitack is handwash only. Check the instructions

- the flatter the surface the easier hot glue will peel off. Faux leather stands no chance, fibers like yarn will hold it best, but is impossible to remove the glue from them in the future

- rivets are a thing that exists, only require a hammer to install and can be used as permanent fabric attachment

- studs, gromets and other metal junk at small fabric stores are laughably overspriced

- acetone (found in nail polish remover) will remove acrylic stains out of furniture, flooring and faux leather, if used in excess can damage the laquer. Can also be used to remove prints and glue off of plastic (do a small test before commiting, might melt the plastic it it's grade is low)

- residue from stickers (and k-tape) can be removed with oil

- acrylic stains cannot be removed out of clothing or carpet so protect your area before painting and don't wear clothes you care about

- if your thread keeps getting tangled or snagging while handsewing try waxing it

- you can lock in screw-in spikes with screw lock glue if you're scared of them falling off because they unscrew

- you can add washers to screw-in spikes if you're scared of them falling through flimsy fabric or too big of a hole

- if you're making anything out of soda cans have a metal file on hand, they are deceptively sharp and will hurt you and rip through fabric you're installing them in

- bleach can be found in mold killing spray (don't touch that shit with bare hands. chemical burn.)

- fabric paints are no different from slightly dilluted acrylic. You can make it yourself by adding a bit of fabric softener to acrylic or honestly even water

- if you are setting anything with an iron use parchment paper or a pressing cloth to pervent your stuff from sticking to your iron and ruining it

- if you want a safety pin somewhere permanently pinch it shut with pliers

- as much as you can, avoid putting glue on clothing, it makes it really hard to change your decisions later on and upcycle the project in the future

- kiss your friends

[hackerdragon]

[hackerdragon]

greta was time's person of the year a few years ago. she was adored by all liberal world leaders and parties. and when she learnt about people's struggle under occupation and colonialism, she stood in solidarity with them . she now stands with palestine and armenia and kashmir and every oppressed person in the world. she could have been rich as fuck by simply remaining as a climate activist. yet she chose to do the right thing. i love her for her integrity.

[hackerdragon]

with the protests in LA today and the violent federal and local pushback from police: we (me and my editor ryan fae) are accepting leaks, insider data, and public + leak archives relevant to ICE/DHS, LAPD, LASD, and anyone else that could shift the power of knowledge to the people if it were published.

in my words:

for now it's just minor archival data and some older data, but YOU can make a change to that.

we have three bits up already. the below article will be updated constantly. contact info at the bottom of the article. we promise anonymity and general source protection.

[hackerdragon]

The National Guard's response to civilian protests risks a 21st century Kent State Massacre.

The Guard was federalized during the New York postal strike in 1970, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and during the 1967 Detroit uprising. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the National Guard to help enforce civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s.

But it is the 1970 deployment of the National Guard to crack down on anti-war protests in Kent, Ohio that best illustrates the danger of involving the military in civilian law enforcement.

That April, President Richard M. Nixon expanded the Vietnam War by invading neighboring Cambodia, supercharging the anti-war movement. In Kent, protests in response led to vandalism and prompted Republican Governor James Rhodes to deploy the Ohio National Guard. On May 4, Guardsmen opened fire on antiwar protesters at Kent State University, firing 67 rounds over a period of just 13 seconds, killing four students – Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder – and wounding nine others.

[hackerdragon]

A trans woman was just sentenced to 15 years in prison for defending herself from an attacker. She wanted no part in the fight and witnesses described her actions as self-defense. With right-wing media constantly portraying her as "evil" since the incident, the trial was over before it began.

[hackerdragon]

WHY WE MASK: IT'S NOT 'JUST A COLD' 2025 ED

My COVID-19 comic is BACK, babeee, because all these respiratory viruses sure didn't go anywhere! I took all your generous feedback from WHY WE MASK 2024 to make the free printable zine the best version of itself. Mainly, I edited all the dang text to be as simple and clear as possible! Which is harder than it sounds, but worth it to reach more readers. Also I did a million tiny visual fixes that no one will notice but me :P

Thank you to everyone who's read and shared the zine, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone masking out there! It's never too late to start taking care of each other.

website version - featuring: clickable endnotes! working URLs!

free downloadable version - print & distribute your own copies! (donations to our print fund welcome but not required)

our patreon - help me & my partner @earnestattempts keep making comics like this one!

send us questions, comments, etc at laurellynnleake@gmail.com (we love seeing pics of the zine out in the wild)!

Extra pages under the cut, including sources for all the endnotes

[hackerdragon]

The headline: UK Drug Dealer Feeling Bleu After Cheese Photo Leads To Arrest

The article: Police cracked encryption on a privacy-focused phone service provider and ran fingerprint analysis on photos posted by users.

Like I get that law enforcement does things like this, that’s literally what it exists for, I’m just really upset by the cutesy framing.

Also. Like. Don’t organize shit online or over the phone. Law enforcement has been pressuring tech companies to put backdoors into encrypted services for years, this whole crackdown happened because of a device-level attack, and you never know who’s listening.

And yeah. If you’re setting up an anonymous ID online for any reason do not, under any circumstances, post or share any identifying information under that ID or with devices associated with that account.

[hackerdragon]

HOLY SHIT. KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM IS FUCKING FREE?!??!?!

it looks like they're either abandoning KSP or someone fucked up big time, either way you can LITERALLY GET IT FOR FREE ON THE WEBSITE RIGHT NOW ACCORDING TO THIS REDDIT POST

you ONLY need to add the email thats in the post. and then you have FREE kerbal space program. YES THIS INCLUDES THE DLC!!

this game is a very fun and goofy rocket-building sandbox/space simulator and it has a robust modding community. normally it's like $40 for the base game and $70 for all content. if you are concerned about storage it's like maybe 5 GB? not a big game at all. anyways it is LITERALLY FREE GET IT NOW