This happens all the time in the corporate world. It's not good when it's you that is fired or encouraged to leave, but it very often leads to a boost in stock prices or increased profitability. If a company has too many employees and not enough profit, then you shrink the numbers. Maybe it happened because they grew to fast, there's a temporary down turn, etc.
If you think this is the death knell for Ubuntu, then do you think layoffs at other corporations are the death knell for those guys too?
Ubuntu has embraced snaps more than any other distribution so that sets them apart.
This is called a representative democracy. They voted in the leaders. If the citizens don't like it then they can vote them out of office again.
There is also the hypocrisy of the southern conservative states whining that they should be free of federal rules and regulations, but then turn around and try to restrict the rights of the local governments.
Of course the whole thing is about who pays for the politicians. If you think the Tennessee state legislators have the citizen's best interests in mind here, you need to look closer.
Conservative politicians are not libertarians. They're basically identical to liberal politicians, both are up for sale to the highest corporate bidders.
The government here only stepped in when it was clear that the commercial provides had zero interest in providing reasonable service. The city government is responsible for providing necessary infrastructure and services to its residents, including water, sewer, power, etc. If there are commercial entities providing such services then governments will usually rely on them or contract to them, but will provide their own services when necessary. Broadband access to the internet is rapidly becoming a necessary infractructure, so it is the responsibility of governments to ensure the infrastructure exists even if the corporate interests continue to treat it as a luxury item suitable only for the largest cities.
Fair competition is irrelvent when there is no competition because of a monopoly, or when there is no competition because no provider is even in the market to begin with. People need to stop worshiping an unfettered free market as if it was the answer to everything and start noticing when the free market screws things up. The major ISPs can compete with governments, they just don't want to since it's easier for profits to rely upon the inability of their customers to choose better options.
I read it. I've never seen a retention policy that had to be signed. Instead I hear about a policy and we're expected to follow it.
Two most common rationales I see: "we might be sued or audited, so don't permanently delete emails" versus "we might be sued or audited, so delete your old emails"
Generally I see that old emails are kept, until IT complains about being low on disk space or the user gets an angry warning about being out of allocated server space.
The typical windows user won't know to do this. The typical Windows 10 user does not even have install media or know where to find it. Probably they run around to find the windows 7 cd stuck somewhere in the packaging the computer came in, then call up microsoft to get upgraded to windows 10, start searching to see if they ever stored the license key somewhere other than on the computer they can't get to boot up, and then eventually end up at Best Buy asking for someone to help them.
I made a backup of windows 8 install media, and saved my key somewhere (thumb drive), but that's not a typical windows user. Their computer may not be technically bricked, but if you have to go get professional help to recover then the distinction that it's not really bricked is not too important. Not much difference between returning a device to where you bought it from to get it fixed versus sending back to the manufacturer.
You could perhaps spread research costs around to all projects. Such as in the olden days when major corporations had research arms out of which a few major advances and profit engines would arise as well as lots of smaller advances that would contribute much less to the bottom line. But then this really messes up costs for the commonly used drugs as well. This would make drugs for rarer drugs cheaper, but the drawback is that it makes the common drugs more expensive. The profits from Viagra are not paying for the malaria drugs.
Ultimately you've got capitalism getting in the way of good medicine. The solution at the moment is to not sell to the patients directly, but to third parties. Such as insurance providers, the WHO, and non-profits. The marketing is to the doctors, who usually don't see the costs ($10/pill to do the job versus $1000/pill to do the job with less stomach upset, so that if you hide the price tag the doctor recommends the second one). The drawback to this solution is that it only encourages the pharma industry to continue the price gouging.
I thinkt he solution may be bad PR. Even if this isn't fair, since the researchers aren't in the business to become rich, it sends a signal that people are watching.
Generally the tactic is to assume most of the little parties won't take you to court, most of the rest will accept a hush-up settlement, and the few remaining who go to court is a reasonable business expense. So that 1/3 who win against large corporations are a small fragment of total parties affected by contracts.
And corporate lawyers aren't really so great from what I've seen. There is a lot of rote work by underworked and underpaid underlings. I've heard from engineering contractors relating stories about screw ups with legal. Such as "your contract says X", and when the actual contract is produced the company will say "oh, that must be the old contract, let me give you the new one and you can sign that", and then the company appears befuddled and confused when the contractor doesn't give in. Very often they seem to want everyone under the same umbrella and rules and aren't prepared to deal with exceptions. They will often just want to fire and re-hire someone as the easiest way to resolve contract disputes and get everyone into the same category.
That's only partially true. There a lot of wiggle room once you have enough to survive. There are lots of side effects that show up in evolution. If something tastes good then creatures will eat it whether or not there was any evolutionary advantage.
Tigers will try to eat humans, even if there easier choices, these are attacks of opportunity. And tigers are not less evolved than humans.
Too often I see scientists trying to create an evolutionary explanation for everything whether an explanation is needed or not. And the more soft the science is the more hand wavy the explanations end up being.
I think this is the big divide between Microsoft and Slashdot. Microsoft thinks that "only requires users to click a few buttons" is a positive thing. Slashdot thinks "please give me more control since this is my machine".
With only a "few buttons" this means it will use the defaults more often, which generally in Microsoft's case is a bad idea. Remember that this is the company that allowed executing attachments arriving in email as the default action, and the company that thought upgrading to Windows 10 without asking first was a good default. Windows has been a long tortured history of removing user choice; each release making it harder to customize.
I don't think Trump is anything. He doesn't really have any political stances beyond what he thinks the current crowd of people around him want to hear, and when it doubt he just says what is in his brain at the time. The closest label would probably be "contrarian". He's only Republican because that's the party he hung his coat on, but he doesn't subscribe to the existing party platform. He takes some very non-libertarian views, especially if those views will get him votes.
Some people are addicted though. I have a friend who struggles to make ends meet financially. Yet he keeps seriously considering getting smart lighting only because he loves anything new in tech (which is why he finds it hard to make ends meet financially). He think it's cool, and he's baffled why other people don't. If it's tech and it's new he wants it; if it's tech and from last year then it's on a pile in his bedroom.
First job I had they wanted the slacks and button up white shirt. Which was kind of a pain when you were carrying boxes, changing printer ink, installing tape drives, crawling through the ceiling dragging cable, and so forth. Those slacks would wear out fast compared to denim.
I don't see this. I've been here over 30 years. For me and others I never saw it about power. Anyone who did was quickly shunned, no one like working next to the guy with the ego. *Nobody* was irreplaceable, there were people who could replace them. Instead it's about comfort. Ties suck, period. You used to have to deal with them in the past (or on the east coast), but once they aren't required then why wear them? Work was an extension of college, if you didn't wear ties in college then it made sense not to wear them on the job (and in the past, students did wear ties at college, before my time though).
What I've seen is that it doesn't matter. 30 years ago or today, you'd see someone in a tie sitting next to someone in a tee shirt doing the exact same job.
If it was about power then you'd be seeing the VPs walking around in speedos.
The snag comes if you look like you didn't even bother. Sure, if you have an hour notice for a sudden interview then you show up with what you're wearing. But when you see someone come in like they just grabbed whatever clothes were on the floor, it sends a strong signal of "I just don't care about you or your company, I'm only here so my parent/spouse doesn't complain about me being a slacker." With the very casual California dress code I'm still amazed that occasionally you see someone who takes it too far even for here (no one in bicycle shorts yet, but I'm sure that happens:-).
A very important thing in an interview is to look and act like you want the job. You can be superb at skills but if people think you aren't interested they're going to consider the other candidate instead.
Hmm, IT seems to mean "help desk" at most places I've been at. Maybe at a website oriented company there are IT people keeping up the production servers AND developing on them. But usually the backoffice servers I see may be administered by IT but developed on by people who aren't in the department labeled "IT". "Operations" isn't "IT" even if many of the skills overlap. The people creating software as products to sell or to put into hardware that is sold are not "IT" even if some IT people also do a lot of programming.
Back before things were called "IT" I essentially worked in that area as a system admin and developer. Ie, we actually wrote real programs, not scripts. The meaning of "IT" kept changing over time, expanding to sometimes include anything remotely connected with computers, and at the same time the programming aspect declined, the allegiance shifted from IBM to Microsoft, etc. But constant through it all was that the primary job of IT was computer support services for the company.
I'm 53 and wearing tee-shirts most of the time, polo/knit shirts at other times. Button up shirts tend to be loose fitting. I only tuck in a shirt when it's a wedding or funeral. But since they made me manager I did get some new shirts without holes in them. I should upgrade but people wouldn't recognize me if I did.
I worked at Lockheed for awhile, in research labs. I had to wear slacks and white shirt. I would occasionally head over for a meeting at the main plant. One day a guy said "you must be from the labs". I asked how he knew and he said "because you don't have a tie". So ya, wearing slacks and white shirt and I still stood out as too casual...
Why a hoodie though? Is this an east coast thing? It looks uncomfortable. I got one as a present once and hated it. Too tight, with an annoying flappy thing hanging down the back. Give me a plain jacket or sweat shirt, but the hood part is just dumb. If you're somewhere cold, why not really wear something warm; is that hoodie really going to help if it's raining or snowing compared to a jacket?
I have not seen hoodies at work, ever, even on casual Fridays. The dress codes in California are very lax, tee-shirts are normal attire, even by some CEOs. But hoodies are not something you see often. Maybe at the sorts of jobs where a developer is someone who creates content, or a startup run by frat buddies as their first job, but not at a real company.
Slashdot Mirror
And no one wants to hear either.
This argument is getting tense.
This happens all the time in the corporate world. It's not good when it's you that is fired or encouraged to leave, but it very often leads to a boost in stock prices or increased profitability. If a company has too many employees and not enough profit, then you shrink the numbers. Maybe it happened because they grew to fast, there's a temporary down turn, etc.
If you think this is the death knell for Ubuntu, then do you think layoffs at other corporations are the death knell for those guys too?
Ubuntu has embraced snaps more than any other distribution so that sets them apart.
This is called a representative democracy. They voted in the leaders. If the citizens don't like it then they can vote them out of office again.
There is also the hypocrisy of the southern conservative states whining that they should be free of federal rules and regulations, but then turn around and try to restrict the rights of the local governments.
Of course the whole thing is about who pays for the politicians. If you think the Tennessee state legislators have the citizen's best interests in mind here, you need to look closer.
Conservative politicians are not libertarians. They're basically identical to liberal politicians, both are up for sale to the highest corporate bidders.
The government here only stepped in when it was clear that the commercial provides had zero interest in providing reasonable service. The city government is responsible for providing necessary infrastructure and services to its residents, including water, sewer, power, etc. If there are commercial entities providing such services then governments will usually rely on them or contract to them, but will provide their own services when necessary. Broadband access to the internet is rapidly becoming a necessary infractructure, so it is the responsibility of governments to ensure the infrastructure exists even if the corporate interests continue to treat it as a luxury item suitable only for the largest cities.
Fair competition is irrelvent when there is no competition because of a monopoly, or when there is no competition because no provider is even in the market to begin with. People need to stop worshiping an unfettered free market as if it was the answer to everything and start noticing when the free market screws things up. The major ISPs can compete with governments, they just don't want to since it's easier for profits to rely upon the inability of their customers to choose better options.
I read it. I've never seen a retention policy that had to be signed. Instead I hear about a policy and we're expected to follow it.
Two most common rationales I see:
"we might be sued or audited, so don't permanently delete emails"
versus
"we might be sued or audited, so delete your old emails"
Generally I see that old emails are kept, until IT complains about being low on disk space or the user gets an angry warning about being out of allocated server space.
The typical windows user won't know to do this. The typical Windows 10 user does not even have install media or know where to find it. Probably they run around to find the windows 7 cd stuck somewhere in the packaging the computer came in, then call up microsoft to get upgraded to windows 10, start searching to see if they ever stored the license key somewhere other than on the computer they can't get to boot up, and then eventually end up at Best Buy asking for someone to help them.
I made a backup of windows 8 install media, and saved my key somewhere (thumb drive), but that's not a typical windows user. Their computer may not be technically bricked, but if you have to go get professional help to recover then the distinction that it's not really bricked is not too important. Not much difference between returning a device to where you bought it from to get it fixed versus sending back to the manufacturer.
You could perhaps spread research costs around to all projects. Such as in the olden days when major corporations had research arms out of which a few major advances and profit engines would arise as well as lots of smaller advances that would contribute much less to the bottom line. But then this really messes up costs for the commonly used drugs as well. This would make drugs for rarer drugs cheaper, but the drawback is that it makes the common drugs more expensive. The profits from Viagra are not paying for the malaria drugs.
Ultimately you've got capitalism getting in the way of good medicine. The solution at the moment is to not sell to the patients directly, but to third parties. Such as insurance providers, the WHO, and non-profits. The marketing is to the doctors, who usually don't see the costs ($10/pill to do the job versus $1000/pill to do the job with less stomach upset, so that if you hide the price tag the doctor recommends the second one). The drawback to this solution is that it only encourages the pharma industry to continue the price gouging.
I thinkt he solution may be bad PR. Even if this isn't fair, since the researchers aren't in the business to become rich, it sends a signal that people are watching.
Generally the tactic is to assume most of the little parties won't take you to court, most of the rest will accept a hush-up settlement, and the few remaining who go to court is a reasonable business expense. So that 1/3 who win against large corporations are a small fragment of total parties affected by contracts.
And corporate lawyers aren't really so great from what I've seen. There is a lot of rote work by underworked and underpaid underlings. I've heard from engineering contractors relating stories about screw ups with legal. Such as "your contract says X", and when the actual contract is produced the company will say "oh, that must be the old contract, let me give you the new one and you can sign that", and then the company appears befuddled and confused when the contractor doesn't give in. Very often they seem to want everyone under the same umbrella and rules and aren't prepared to deal with exceptions. They will often just want to fire and re-hire someone as the easiest way to resolve contract disputes and get everyone into the same category.
That's only partially true. There a lot of wiggle room once you have enough to survive. There are lots of side effects that show up in evolution. If something tastes good then creatures will eat it whether or not there was any evolutionary advantage.
Tigers will try to eat humans, even if there easier choices, these are attacks of opportunity. And tigers are not less evolved than humans.
Too often I see scientists trying to create an evolutionary explanation for everything whether an explanation is needed or not. And the more soft the science is the more hand wavy the explanations end up being.
I think this is the big divide between Microsoft and Slashdot. Microsoft thinks that "only requires users to click a few buttons" is a positive thing. Slashdot thinks "please give me more control since this is my machine".
With only a "few buttons" this means it will use the defaults more often, which generally in Microsoft's case is a bad idea. Remember that this is the company that allowed executing attachments arriving in email as the default action, and the company that thought upgrading to Windows 10 without asking first was a good default. Windows has been a long tortured history of removing user choice; each release making it harder to customize.
I don't think Trump is anything. He doesn't really have any political stances beyond what he thinks the current crowd of people around him want to hear, and when it doubt he just says what is in his brain at the time. The closest label would probably be "contrarian". He's only Republican because that's the party he hung his coat on, but he doesn't subscribe to the existing party platform. He takes some very non-libertarian views, especially if those views will get him votes.
Some people are addicted though. I have a friend who struggles to make ends meet financially. Yet he keeps seriously considering getting smart lighting only because he loves anything new in tech (which is why he finds it hard to make ends meet financially). He think it's cool, and he's baffled why other people don't. If it's tech and it's new he wants it; if it's tech and from last year then it's on a pile in his bedroom.
I have a smart phone with bad voice quality because they don't sell dumb phones with good voice quality anymore.
I have a long stick that costs ten cents that I use to push the button when I'm too tired to stand up.
First job I had they wanted the slacks and button up white shirt. Which was kind of a pain when you were carrying boxes, changing printer ink, installing tape drives, crawling through the ceiling dragging cable, and so forth. Those slacks would wear out fast compared to denim.
I don't see this. I've been here over 30 years. For me and others I never saw it about power. Anyone who did was quickly shunned, no one like working next to the guy with the ego. *Nobody* was irreplaceable, there were people who could replace them. Instead it's about comfort. Ties suck, period. You used to have to deal with them in the past (or on the east coast), but once they aren't required then why wear them? Work was an extension of college, if you didn't wear ties in college then it made sense not to wear them on the job (and in the past, students did wear ties at college, before my time though).
What I've seen is that it doesn't matter. 30 years ago or today, you'd see someone in a tie sitting next to someone in a tee shirt doing the exact same job.
If it was about power then you'd be seeing the VPs walking around in speedos.
The snag comes if you look like you didn't even bother. Sure, if you have an hour notice for a sudden interview then you show up with what you're wearing. But when you see someone come in like they just grabbed whatever clothes were on the floor, it sends a strong signal of "I just don't care about you or your company, I'm only here so my parent/spouse doesn't complain about me being a slacker." With the very casual California dress code I'm still amazed that occasionally you see someone who takes it too far even for here (no one in bicycle shorts yet, but I'm sure that happens :-).
A very important thing in an interview is to look and act like you want the job. You can be superb at skills but if people think you aren't interested they're going to consider the other candidate instead.
Hmm, IT seems to mean "help desk" at most places I've been at. Maybe at a website oriented company there are IT people keeping up the production servers AND developing on them. But usually the backoffice servers I see may be administered by IT but developed on by people who aren't in the department labeled "IT". "Operations" isn't "IT" even if many of the skills overlap. The people creating software as products to sell or to put into hardware that is sold are not "IT" even if some IT people also do a lot of programming.
Back before things were called "IT" I essentially worked in that area as a system admin and developer. Ie, we actually wrote real programs, not scripts. The meaning of "IT" kept changing over time, expanding to sometimes include anything remotely connected with computers, and at the same time the programming aspect declined, the allegiance shifted from IBM to Microsoft, etc. But constant through it all was that the primary job of IT was computer support services for the company.
I'm 53 and wearing tee-shirts most of the time, polo/knit shirts at other times. Button up shirts tend to be loose fitting. I only tuck in a shirt when it's a wedding or funeral. But since they made me manager I did get some new shirts without holes in them. I should upgrade but people wouldn't recognize me if I did.
I worked at Lockheed for awhile, in research labs. I had to wear slacks and white shirt. I would occasionally head over for a meeting at the main plant. One day a guy said "you must be from the labs". I asked how he knew and he said "because you don't have a tie". So ya, wearing slacks and white shirt and I still stood out as too casual...
If you take the bus you don't have 14 hours left in a day to work!
Why a hoodie though? Is this an east coast thing? It looks uncomfortable. I got one as a present once and hated it. Too tight, with an annoying flappy thing hanging down the back. Give me a plain jacket or sweat shirt, but the hood part is just dumb. If you're somewhere cold, why not really wear something warm; is that hoodie really going to help if it's raining or snowing compared to a jacket?
I have not seen hoodies at work, ever, even on casual Fridays. The dress codes in California are very lax, tee-shirts are normal attire, even by some CEOs. But hoodies are not something you see often. Maybe at the sorts of jobs where a developer is someone who creates content, or a startup run by frat buddies as their first job, but not at a real company.