"If we stop having to work for money, society will collapse."... "People only appreciate the things they have to work for. It's easy to see this in anyone's children who never had to work for anything. They are called "spoiled" for a reason."
Hmm, well i have universal healthcare and i sure as shit appreciate it. I appreciate clean water, clean air. We ALL work for these things, pay taxes for these things, etc. But I don't directly work in the healthcare field or the water treatment plant.
Working at an industrialized "job" or "career" is the work people say is on the way out. Working raising a family, working on yourself by learning skills, cleaning your home, and other types of "work" will never end.
I for one think those things are more worthwhile than pushing paper all day. Working for money is an outdated concept if society can cheaply and easily produce everything we need such as food and shelter.
"Work is a critical need for humans to thrive."
You seem to equate "for pay" with work, however as i have demonstrated above, there is plenty of unpaid work I am sure you already do in your life.
And even if 90% of all people sat on their ass and watched youtube and smoked weed all day, if everything was provided for everyone, the remaining 10% could easily innovate and move society forward. And whats so wrong with that?
Please. apple cant even get their mouse to scroll properly. Always has this crazy lag that's absolutely unusable for me. Even if you adjust the sensitivity it is there and it sends chills up my spine using the mouse in osx.
Meanwhile windows 7 is rock solid, compatible with way more software, and does everything perfectly. And oh, no app store and forced account creation!
The things microsoft has done with windows 10 pale in comparison to the invasiveness that is OSX on a daily. All of which is fully accepted by the fanbois as "ease of use" features. Because really, apple users don't know any other way than having mommy apple babysit them and coddle them and tell them that they are special.
people buy apple products because 1) they want to look cool (fashion) and 2) because they are already locked in to an ecosystem that is very hard to get out of once you have invested in it. They don't buy apple products for their longevity, ease of repair, or quality. They certainly don't buy apple because they care that its unix.
And FYI, i have a friend or two with a hackintosh. So considering that its all intel chips below, it is not too hard to invalidate your first claim. Plenty of PC's can run OSX if you set them up right.
So subway contracted someone to do tests and *gasp* they published the ones in their favour? and because its on ars technia that somehow makes it reliable?
Hmmm who do i trust more, the impartial Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is partly funded by taxpayers and almost always does an amazing job, or an american multinational corporation whoes goal is profit.
CBC has more integrity than almost any other news organization, and certainly much more than any for profit company. If they were wrong, I am sure they will own up to it. But i bet they aren't wrong. They just started a fight with one of the biggest multinationals there is, who can throw literally millions at defending themselves of this. Giving people millions of dollars changes most peoples minds about most things. Including very much, scientists and labs.
"Time to find a cheaper apartment, or better yet, buy with a fixed-rate mortgage"
This thread is full of ignorance...
Firstly rents, in major canadian cities, "cheaper" means moving 1-2 hours away from your place of work. You pay more to live closer to downtown and not waste 4 hours commuting a day. Im sure major american cities are the same.
Secondly, mortgages, we are in a housing bubble and only a fool buys anywhere near the top of a bubble.
So as with most financial things on/., your wonderful advice does not apply to all but a small segment of the population. Other people saying they make 140k and have trouble saving? if that was me, i would be banking 90k a year... Some people are stupidly overpaid and I raise a family of 4 on 50k per year in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.
People who waste money, spend more than 1k on a car, shop retail when there is craigslist available, etc are out there for sure, maybe even the majority of people. However the answers for others are not necessarily so easy as you make it seem. Everyone would want to have cheaper rent for instance, its far easier said than done. Especially with the amount of renovictions and fixed term leases occurring these days. And yeah i dont have 2 million for a "starter" house thanks.
"And the law actually requires a minimum of $1,350 refund for the seat if forced off. "
Someone on a reddit thread yesterday said that this happened to them, they were offered $600 to leave the plane. However when they did leave the plane, they discovered that the $600 was not actually CASH money but rather 12 $50 vouchers for air travel that could not be combined and expired one year from the date issued.
So yeah, people assume that this is all cash money being offered to the patrons but i bet it wasnt.
" Consequently a proper study would have to look at all aspects of a person's life to determine the extent to which their job or their boss or something else caused them to have problems"
Well i didn't read the article, but i assume they controlled for this and used statistics. Statistics that take into account people being people and having human traits and such which bias things.
After accounting for all that (which i would hope they did) you can then blame different companies for different levels of burnout and analyze those companies.
Basically I don't get your point. One would assume they controlled for other factors and are then coming to this conclusion making your point moot. Otherwise, it wouldn't be very scientific would it? Your concerns would have been implicitly addressed by them doing a "study" about this. One assumes that this is a scientific study and not a social media poll....
I read it as them saying "after we controlled for all other variables, company culture is to blame". Not sure why you wouldn't assume the same.
i'm so tired about hearing about fucking trump, his family, his problems, his manufactured outrages. Every fucking day i have to read that attention whore and his kins name in the news. We need reddit type filters that will block all trump related stories on slashdot.
then all you americans can enjoy your pro and anti trump jerkoff by yourselves while your country becomes obsolete.
"What is really happening is that people are resisting change."
No, whats happening is that UI's are all being dumbed down for fucking phones. And more so, all new interfaces are designed first and formost for the web and fucking phones. (look at the new v centre for instance, where it was perfectly acceptable to have a thick client and that really didn't bother anyone. But no, vmware wants more people using their shitty unfinished web interfaces, so they obsolete the client thats better, and you got no choice but to comply)
If "the future" is every software being firstly designed for smartphones, which track you, market to you, cost and cost more, and allow features to be changed, or outright switched off at developers wills and whims - your damn right I will resist that!
Flat design, with its lack of proper definitions between elements, elements that change and display differently based on context, are even more infuriating as my eyes and brain get worse with age.
Win2k will always be the best OS microsoft ever did. Embracing new for the sake of it being new is only for fanbois and early adopters, both classes of people whom I abhor and always have. Most people just want a tool that works, and stays working. Designer trends are the opposite of what software UI design should be focusing on. It should be universal accessibility and tried and true menus and interfaces. Instead we get "the pretty" and designers fucking up everything with the embrace of the latest fads.
Whenever i watch some OTA, i consider the commercials to be mini movies of sorts and love watching them for their anthropological value - getting the pulse of society.
However that quickly wears off as the same commercials are always played in the next commercial break, and the next. And then i am just grateful i almost never have to put up with that crap anymore.
". I think that the correct solution is to legally enforce transparency in ALL layers of society, maybe even to change technology so that secrets become impossible for EVERYONE"
Cosmo: I might even be able to crash the whole damn system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty: no more rich people, no more poor people, everybody's the same. Isn't that what we said we always wanted?
Martin Bishop: Cos, you haven't gone crazy on me, have you?
I assume that the government is run just as sloppily as most corporations I have worked for. I doubt people are taking much personal risk. I doubt they audit every file copy that happens, and even if they did, it could have come off a going bad raid drive thats mirrored and not encrypted at all and sent for destruction.
There are always people who are above the rules and audits. There are always people who see whats going on around them, and don't like it. It only takes one person who cant sleep at night because of it, to cause a leak. If the corporation or government that you work for is behaving illegally or immorally, its even easier to justify your own illegal behaviour.
Its fairly easy to commit crimes undetected if you don't go around bragging about them and cover your bases. Or so I have heard...
"* Climbs up tower and replaces part: ehhhh...you win.
You have me on that last one. Replacing parts still requires a human. For now"
I could easily see that being replaced by a modular design of easy to fail parts and a drone. Drone flies up, puts part multitool into slot, unslots it and transfer the one from its drone bay in place. Optical sensors verify the repair and no air leaks.
Manually switching parts is difficult only because the parts havent been designed to be switched by a robot. Once that happens, game over. You've probably seen videos of robotic tape libraries already. https://www.google.ca/search?t...
All thats needed is to design and build the system. We have the technology. Making it cheaper than paying some forest ranger 50k a year to do it on the otherhand might take a while.
"In case you can't pick up on it, I definitely do not favor government dependence. People seem to be depressed as hell when they are dependent."
I used to feel that way till i went on government provided 9 month paternity leave which is the norm in canada. I worried about not working for about the first month, but by the end of it I was really used to walking in the parks with my son in the stroller and generally experiencing the wonder of life with him.
Of course i think it does depend on why you are dependant. In my view, i earned that paternity leave (been paying into EI for 20 years and never went on unemployment...) and spending time with my son is the most important way i could be spending my time.
A guaranteed basic income I think I could easily view as my right, same as i should have a right to healthcare, safety, fire protection and the other things the government provides.
" Often, it's to create or preserve brand recognition so that when you do make a purchase, you're likely to choose their brand over one you've never heard before"
Just happened to me. I had to choose between two brake pads, centric which i had never heard of, and monroe which is literally everywhere with their yellow ads. I ususally choose based on price for most things, but in this case, both pads were within 2 dollars of eachother, so i went with the more well known brand.
Pipe dream. 20 years happens in the blink of an eye. We will have the exact same problems and then some in 20 years. "Waiting" for "technology" to solve our problems is not a real solution. You might as well just sit back and wait for the singularity to occur, or jesus to come back...
If you said 100 years that might be more believable. There are plenty of resources still in the ground to go after first, rather than having the will to make some kind of garbage mining fantasy profitable...
"Yahoo re-issues email addresses after they've been deleted."
Yes and the city *gasp* re-uses home addresses when people move! And -- get a load of this - the phone company re-uses telephone numbers when you cancel your account! It's almost like people should be responsible for updating their own contact information! Nah thats crazy talk...
I would think that slashdot re-uses UIDs for a 4 digit to have made such a pathetically fear mongering post such as this. Obviously mailservers re-use email addresses if a user is deleted. That's what deleting should mean!
What kind of BS is this? ISPs do reassign email accounts. What you say may be true for yahoo, but most ISP provided email, once its deleted, its deleted and someone else can re register it. Its really up to you to change your contacts and let them know about the switch. Email was never designed to be a secure medium and has no identity matching at all.
Perhaps web mail companies are different, but they surely do not represent all mail servers out there.
Not really. Find your local college radio station. They usually have diverse and interesting programming. I find most of my new music now adays from eclectic DJs on small university transmitters. And there are never any commercials on CBC radio. So you have options for sure.
The reviews and the message boards were the best part of imdb. That and the parental advisory section are the only reasons i really go there.
I wonder if they will keep the reviews part of it. If not, its a real shame. Many people put probably millions of collective hours into reviews and posts on there. To have it all simply deleted is a real waste of human effort, to future historians and to humanity at large.
One can only guess that this is due to financial constraints, which is sad. I loved being able to discuss small aspects of movies with equally passionate people on there. I had a period where i reviewed every movie that i watched, and can easily go back to see those still from 2003 and older.
Truly a sad day and a loss of original content from the birth of the internet age. One wonders if there shouldn't be laws stopping companies from doing this, similar to heritage housing laws that some cities have. This kind of info is priceless and will be more and more priceless as history moves on. Hopefully someone like the internet archive can archive it all before its too late.
How many people have to die in your estimation before we can call it a doomsday scenario? 2/3rds of the worlds population? Technically "life can continue to prosper" with as little as two people surviving, but i think a mass population decline caused by climate change (and ensuing wars for remaining resources and arable land) qualifies as doomsday for most.
FYI some small amount of people will likely survive a nuclear holocaust too. Many studies state that.
" Comparing [climate change] to total destruction of half of the world while the [other] half would have to live in nuclear fallout for thousands of year is just a joke."
I think you will be surprised at how much humans have been conditioned for a particular climate. Climate change will most assuredly effect us for many thousands of years too, if the problem is let to run out its course without intervention. Both situations fundamentally change the configuration of the planet. Are they binary equal? no. Are they similar enough to both be considered a "doomsday scenario" for currently existing humans in currently existing places? You bet! Especially considering that the definition of doomsday is "a time of catastrophic destruction and death" which can easily encompass any global mass dying event, such as the ones climate change predicts by the end of the century.
I would have probably avoided discussion of an employees personal medical problems with your clients. When ever something comes up at my workplace the exact nature of the illness is private, the fact that they are "on leave" is not. You don't go around telling everyone that someone has cancer, as that is their own decision to make. You simply say that they are not available on such and such a day. The reason is not important and frankly inappropriate to discuss.
So yeah i think you were rightly chastised for discussing the specific reason that the person was on medical leave. And if you cant get why people (especially a WOMEN in HR) would object to PMS being labeled as a "medical problem" then i feel sorry for you and the women in your life. Hint, no women wants to have their PMS acknowledged negatively. They may want more intimacy at that time, more attention, but they certainly don't want you pointing out anything bad about that time of the month.
As an aside, i would recommend that she gets an IUD or depo. Depo completely stops the period and an IUD will make periods less emotional than being on the birth control pill. The pill in my experience, is the number one cause of horrible PMS. My 2 cents there if you do want to help your friend with her issue.
Sometimes its not that the world is getting more sensitive and trying to punish you. Sometimes its that your being a dick for talking about peoples problems in more detail, and in a more public fashion, than is really necessary. Even if said person is not offended, or claims to you that she is not. That's why HR departments exist! So its no surprise they pounced on this, and really not indicative of the decay of society or whatever other narrative you are trying to push here. Medical issues are usually taboo for polite conversation in the workplace. It's as simple as that.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, well i have universal healthcare and i sure as shit appreciate it. I appreciate clean water, clean air. We ALL work for these things, pay taxes for these things, etc. But I don't directly work in the healthcare field or the water treatment plant.
Working at an industrialized "job" or "career" is the work people say is on the way out. Working raising a family, working on yourself by learning skills, cleaning your home, and other types of "work" will never end.
I for one think those things are more worthwhile than pushing paper all day. Working for money is an outdated concept if society can cheaply and easily produce everything we need such as food and shelter.
You seem to equate "for pay" with work, however as i have demonstrated above, there is plenty of unpaid work I am sure you already do in your life.
And even if 90% of all people sat on their ass and watched youtube and smoked weed all day, if everything was provided for everyone, the remaining 10% could easily innovate and move society forward. And whats so wrong with that?
Please. apple cant even get their mouse to scroll properly. Always has this crazy lag that's absolutely unusable for me. Even if you adjust the sensitivity it is there and it sends chills up my spine using the mouse in osx.
Meanwhile windows 7 is rock solid, compatible with way more software, and does everything perfectly. And oh, no app store and forced account creation!
The things microsoft has done with windows 10 pale in comparison to the invasiveness that is OSX on a daily. All of which is fully accepted by the fanbois as "ease of use" features. Because really, apple users don't know any other way than having mommy apple babysit them and coddle them and tell them that they are special.
people buy apple products because 1) they want to look cool (fashion) and 2) because they are already locked in to an ecosystem that is very hard to get out of once you have invested in it. They don't buy apple products for their longevity, ease of repair, or quality. They certainly don't buy apple because they care that its unix.
And FYI, i have a friend or two with a hackintosh. So considering that its all intel chips below, it is not too hard to invalidate your first claim. Plenty of PC's can run OSX if you set them up right.
So subway contracted someone to do tests and *gasp* they published the ones in their favour? and because its on ars technia that somehow makes it reliable?
Hmmm who do i trust more, the impartial Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is partly funded by taxpayers and almost always does an amazing job, or an american multinational corporation whoes goal is profit.
CBC has more integrity than almost any other news organization, and certainly much more than any for profit company. If they were wrong, I am sure they will own up to it. But i bet they aren't wrong. They just started a fight with one of the biggest multinationals there is, who can throw literally millions at defending themselves of this. Giving people millions of dollars changes most peoples minds about most things. Including very much, scientists and labs.
This thread is full of ignorance...
Firstly rents, in major canadian cities, "cheaper" means moving 1-2 hours away from your place of work. You pay more to live closer to downtown and not waste 4 hours commuting a day. Im sure major american cities are the same.
Secondly, mortgages, we are in a housing bubble and only a fool buys anywhere near the top of a bubble.
So as with most financial things on /., your wonderful advice does not apply to all but a small segment of the population. Other people saying they make 140k and have trouble saving? if that was me, i would be banking 90k a year... Some people are stupidly overpaid and I raise a family of 4 on 50k per year in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.
People who waste money, spend more than 1k on a car, shop retail when there is craigslist available, etc are out there for sure, maybe even the majority of people. However the answers for others are not necessarily so easy as you make it seem. Everyone would want to have cheaper rent for instance, its far easier said than done. Especially with the amount of renovictions and fixed term leases occurring these days. And yeah i dont have 2 million for a "starter" house thanks.
Someone on a reddit thread yesterday said that this happened to them, they were offered $600 to leave the plane. However when they did leave the plane, they discovered that the $600 was not actually CASH money but rather 12 $50 vouchers for air travel that could not be combined and expired one year from the date issued.
So yeah, people assume that this is all cash money being offered to the patrons but i bet it wasnt.
Well i didn't read the article, but i assume they controlled for this and used statistics. Statistics that take into account people being people and having human traits and such which bias things.
After accounting for all that (which i would hope they did) you can then blame different companies for different levels of burnout and analyze those companies.
Basically I don't get your point. One would assume they controlled for other factors and are then coming to this conclusion making your point moot. Otherwise, it wouldn't be very scientific would it? Your concerns would have been implicitly addressed by them doing a "study" about this. One assumes that this is a scientific study and not a social media poll....
I read it as them saying "after we controlled for all other variables, company culture is to blame". Not sure why you wouldn't assume the same.
because fuck trump, that's why.
i'm so tired about hearing about fucking trump, his family, his problems, his manufactured outrages. Every fucking day i have to read that attention whore and his kins name in the news. We need reddit type filters that will block all trump related stories on slashdot.
then all you americans can enjoy your pro and anti trump jerkoff by yourselves while your country becomes obsolete.
8 more years of this shit?
I think the best estimate was this engineer here
https://imgur.com/gallery/KVdS...
17 billion in materials alone.
http://imgur.com/a/n0JUK
No, whats happening is that UI's are all being dumbed down for fucking phones. And more so, all new interfaces are designed first and formost for the web and fucking phones. (look at the new v centre for instance, where it was perfectly acceptable to have a thick client and that really didn't bother anyone. But no, vmware wants more people using their shitty unfinished web interfaces, so they obsolete the client thats better, and you got no choice but to comply)
If "the future" is every software being firstly designed for smartphones, which track you, market to you, cost and cost more, and allow features to be changed, or outright switched off at developers wills and whims - your damn right I will resist that!
Flat design, with its lack of proper definitions between elements, elements that change and display differently based on context, are even more infuriating as my eyes and brain get worse with age.
Win2k will always be the best OS microsoft ever did. Embracing new for the sake of it being new is only for fanbois and early adopters, both classes of people whom I abhor and always have. Most people just want a tool that works, and stays working. Designer trends are the opposite of what software UI design should be focusing on. It should be universal accessibility and tried and true menus and interfaces. Instead we get "the pretty" and designers fucking up everything with the embrace of the latest fads.
Whenever i watch some OTA, i consider the commercials to be mini movies of sorts and love watching them for their anthropological value - getting the pulse of society.
However that quickly wears off as the same commercials are always played in the next commercial break, and the next. And then i am just grateful i almost never have to put up with that crap anymore.
Uh with text you have to have a cel phone. And to be really useful you have to have a smartphone. Texting is for 14 year old girls anyways.
What the hell happened to slashdot? Everyone is a smart phone zombie now being tracked 24x7...
Cosmo: I might even be able to crash the whole damn system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty: no more rich people, no more poor people, everybody's the same. Isn't that what we said we always wanted?
Martin Bishop: Cos, you haven't gone crazy on me, have you?
Or a more recent example, trolltrace.com
I assume that the government is run just as sloppily as most corporations I have worked for. I doubt people are taking much personal risk. I doubt they audit every file copy that happens, and even if they did, it could have come off a going bad raid drive thats mirrored and not encrypted at all and sent for destruction.
There are always people who are above the rules and audits. There are always people who see whats going on around them, and don't like it. It only takes one person who cant sleep at night because of it, to cause a leak. If the corporation or government that you work for is behaving illegally or immorally, its even easier to justify your own illegal behaviour.
Its fairly easy to commit crimes undetected if you don't go around bragging about them and cover your bases. Or so I have heard...
Except, you know, an expert at getting through borders undetected, or anyone who has experience with social engineering...
So congrats, you weeded out the amateur criminals, and have a false sense of security about the professional ones.
I could easily see that being replaced by a modular design of easy to fail parts and a drone. Drone flies up, puts part multitool into slot, unslots it and transfer the one from its drone bay in place. Optical sensors verify the repair and no air leaks.
Manually switching parts is difficult only because the parts havent been designed to be switched by a robot. Once that happens, game over. You've probably seen videos of robotic tape libraries already. https://www.google.ca/search?t...
All thats needed is to design and build the system. We have the technology.
Making it cheaper than paying some forest ranger 50k a year to do it on the otherhand might take a while.
I used to feel that way till i went on government provided 9 month paternity leave which is the norm in canada. I worried about not working for about the first month, but by the end of it I was really used to walking in the parks with my son in the stroller and generally experiencing the wonder of life with him.
Of course i think it does depend on why you are dependant. In my view, i earned that paternity leave (been paying into EI for 20 years and never went on unemployment...) and spending time with my son is the most important way i could be spending my time.
A guaranteed basic income I think I could easily view as my right, same as i should have a right to healthcare, safety, fire protection and the other things the government provides.
"Social media IS driving americans insane"
FFS!
Just happened to me. I had to choose between two brake pads, centric which i had never heard of, and monroe which is literally everywhere with their yellow ads. I ususally choose based on price for most things, but in this case, both pads were within 2 dollars of eachother, so i went with the more well known brand.
Pipe dream. 20 years happens in the blink of an eye. We will have the exact same problems and then some in 20 years. "Waiting" for "technology" to solve our problems is not a real solution. You might as well just sit back and wait for the singularity to occur, or jesus to come back...
If you said 100 years that might be more believable. There are plenty of resources still in the ground to go after first, rather than having the will to make some kind of garbage mining fantasy profitable...
Yes and the city *gasp* re-uses home addresses when people move! And -- get a load of this - the phone company re-uses telephone numbers when you cancel your account! It's almost like people should be responsible for updating their own contact information!
Nah thats crazy talk...
I would think that slashdot re-uses UIDs for a 4 digit to have made such a pathetically fear mongering post such as this. Obviously mailservers re-use email addresses if a user is deleted. That's what deleting should mean!
What kind of BS is this? ISPs do reassign email accounts. What you say may be true for yahoo, but most ISP provided email, once its deleted, its deleted and someone else can re register it. Its really up to you to change your contacts and let them know about the switch. Email was never designed to be a secure medium and has no identity matching at all.
Perhaps web mail companies are different, but they surely do not represent all mail servers out there.
Not really. Find your local college radio station. They usually have diverse and interesting programming. I find most of my new music now adays from eclectic DJs on small university transmitters. And there are never any commercials on CBC radio. So you have options for sure.
The reviews and the message boards were the best part of imdb. That and the parental advisory section are the only reasons i really go there.
I wonder if they will keep the reviews part of it. If not, its a real shame. Many people put probably millions of collective hours into reviews and posts on there. To have it all simply deleted is a real waste of human effort, to future historians and to humanity at large.
One can only guess that this is due to financial constraints, which is sad. I loved being able to discuss small aspects of movies with equally passionate people on there. I had a period where i reviewed every movie that i watched, and can easily go back to see those still from 2003 and older.
Truly a sad day and a loss of original content from the birth of the internet age. One wonders if there shouldn't be laws stopping companies from doing this, similar to heritage housing laws that some cities have. This kind of info is priceless and will be more and more priceless as history moves on. Hopefully someone like the internet archive can archive it all before its too late.
How many people have to die in your estimation before we can call it a doomsday scenario? 2/3rds of the worlds population? Technically "life can continue to prosper" with as little as two people surviving, but i think a mass population decline caused by climate change (and ensuing wars for remaining resources and arable land) qualifies as doomsday for most.
FYI some small amount of people will likely survive a nuclear holocaust too. Many studies state that.
I think you will be surprised at how much humans have been conditioned for a particular climate. Climate change will most assuredly effect us for many thousands of years too, if the problem is let to run out its course without intervention. Both situations fundamentally change the configuration of the planet. Are they binary equal? no. Are they similar enough to both be considered a "doomsday scenario" for currently existing humans in currently existing places? You bet! Especially considering that the definition of doomsday is "a time of catastrophic destruction and death" which can easily encompass any global mass dying event, such as the ones climate change predicts by the end of the century.
I would have probably avoided discussion of an employees personal medical problems with your clients. When ever something comes up at my workplace the exact nature of the illness is private, the fact that they are "on leave" is not. You don't go around telling everyone that someone has cancer, as that is their own decision to make. You simply say that they are not available on such and such a day. The reason is not important and frankly inappropriate to discuss.
So yeah i think you were rightly chastised for discussing the specific reason that the person was on medical leave. And if you cant get why people (especially a WOMEN in HR) would object to PMS being labeled as a "medical problem" then i feel sorry for you and the women in your life. Hint, no women wants to have their PMS acknowledged negatively. They may want more intimacy at that time, more attention, but they certainly don't want you pointing out anything bad about that time of the month.
As an aside, i would recommend that she gets an IUD or depo. Depo completely stops the period and an IUD will make periods less emotional than being on the birth control pill. The pill in my experience, is the number one cause of horrible PMS. My 2 cents there if you do want to help your friend with her issue.
Sometimes its not that the world is getting more sensitive and trying to punish you. Sometimes its that your being a dick for talking about peoples problems in more detail, and in a more public fashion, than is really necessary. Even if said person is not offended, or claims to you that she is not. That's why HR departments exist! So its no surprise they pounced on this, and really not indicative of the decay of society or whatever other narrative you are trying to push here. Medical issues are usually taboo for polite conversation in the workplace. It's as simple as that.