Both Apple and Google need to look at Firefox here. Tabs are not perfect, but Firefox is doing it the right way.
No, they really *don't* need to look at Firefox here.
If you like the way Firefox does things, then you should just use Firefox. Safari is for people who don't like favicons and don't want to see them, and Chrome is for people who like the tabs shrunk so small that you only see tab outlines. If you think Firefox is so much better, then just use that and stop trying to push these giant companies with expert UX designers to change.
Personally, I like Firefox's UI well enough, esp. compared to Chrome, so I use Firefox. I don't use Safari because I'm not an idiot who'd spend thousands on a laptop that has no ports, or buy a phone that doesn't work at all with my laptop OS or any of my music and requires special non-standard charging cables.
Companies do not have that much power. They have some political power (see the Citizen's United case) to get favorable legislation passed, but that doesn't really translate to any power over you at a personal, day-to-day level. They have no power to use direct violence against you, at least not in the US. They've violated labor laws, sure, but that's all stuff about working hours, safety conditions, stuff like that. But your employment there is strictly voluntary. No one is forced to work for any particular company; that's literally slavery. People only put up with BS because they feel they don't have a better alternative at the time, and don't want to try getting on welfare I guess, but that's simply not the same. It's just like people who stay in lousy marriages because they think it's better than being on their own either alone, or without the same level of income that their spouses bring in. No one calls a situation like that "Stalinist".
In the way of Stalinism, yes. I mean, it's possible for other institutions to try to act authoritarian, but their power is quite limited, because they're not a government (with some exceptions, such as "company towns" in the US back in the 1800s where the company owned everything and had hired thugs to keep people in line). A company can't really be authoritarian: if you don't like the way they're treating you, you're free to leave at any time, and there's plenty of worker-protection laws on the books these days.
The term refers to the method of enforcing and reinforcing an ideology.
Right, and the only institution that has the power of enforcement in modern times is a government. A church may have an ideology, but they can't force you to donate or prevent you from leaving. And companies obviously do have ideologies, but again basic employment law prevails and you can quit any time.
but if I said Nazi you would claim I was trying to Godwin the discussion.
No, I wouldn't. I never say that, because it's an utterly stupid thing to say. If a comparison with Nazis is warranted, then by all means make it. That whole "Godwinning the discussion" thing is such bullshit. "I win! I win! You brought up Nazis! I win!" -- something only a complete idiot would say, but I have seen it here from time to time.
But the Nazi comparison makes little sense here again because we're talking about a company; companies in the US may have too much political power IMO, but they don't have any power to use violence against employees they don't like. The Nazis had thugs (like the SA (stormtroopers)) that would use violence against political opponents, and they got control of the government.
Don't worry, before long USB-c will be the new standard. They couldn't stick with microUSB forever. What's important is that everyone's moving to it, it's just a pain in the interim. It won't be like the bad ol' days when every company had its own proprietary charging plug.
This should be a good lesson in moving for a job. As soon as a company doesn't need you any more, that's it, unless they happen to be really nice and give you a severance. So if you're being moved on a company's dime, make sure it's 1) a place you want to go, and 2) you're not going to be up shit-creek if the job dries up (i.e., don't let a company move you to someplace where there's zero jobs for you if things go south). These situations are great if you wanted to move to that place anyway, since moving is expensive, but if it's not a place you want to go at all, it's time to either refuse, or start looking for a new job (or both).
You must have never traveled for any company ever in your lifetime.
I've done a lot of traveling for an engineer that doesn't work in sales. Things varied by company; some companies gave me a company credit card and didn't question things (but I didn't run up unreasonable expenses either), others gave me a credit card but made me submit an expense report afterwards, others I had to buy stuff on my own and then submit an expense report to get reimbursed.
Try making unjustifiable changes to your itinerary and getting the company to pay for the change fee. Nope. Try checking a couple extra bags to carry all the stuff you bought while on that trip -- same "nope" for those fees. Order a couple rounds of room service for all your buddies, nope, not covered, nor is getting a suite when you had a single booked.
Yes, it'll all be covered if you're paying on a company credit card. No, it won't be covered if you have to get reimbursed. I wrote this in my prior message. If you abuse the privilege, you'll lose your company card, or even get fired, but these guys were already fired, but they presumably still had their company cards (again, if it's not the kind of company that makes you buy stuff yourself and get reimbursed; usually it's just tiny companies that go that route).
Because they'd lose. "Hookers and blow" on the hotel bill are not legitimate travel expenses, nor would a $1000 dinner be. And $300 on the mini-bar bill? Ha.
"Hookers and blow" is excessive, I'm really talking about a few hundred or so in charges. Yes, they WILL be covered, because the company has to pay the credit card. When employee do stuff like this, they get reprimanded, have to pay it back, or get fired. These guys are already fired. They can do what they want; what is the company going to do, double-fire them? They can sue them, but it'll cost the company a lot more in legal fees and lawyer time then they'll get back for $1000 of charges or less.
Now I know you've never traveled for a company.
No, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Per-diem rate? WTF is that? I've traveled for only a couple of places that had such a thing; usually it's government-related stuff that has such a thing. No, it's not "fraud" to charge stuff to your company's expense account that's exorbitant, like a ridiculously fancy dinner or room service, it's just abuse that the company can deal with on its own. Good luck getting the DA to prosecute someone for charging a $250 dinner to their company credit card; that's the stupidest thing I've read all day.
How is it fraud? The company can't just fire them on the spot and expect them to pay their own hotel bills and return airfare; by sending them on *company-approved* travel, the company is responsible for all their travel bills. That includes any extra hotel charges and airline fees.
Now the problem is if they have to get reimbursement from the company for travel costs, or if they have a company credit card that the company pays. If the former, it's not worth it because it'll be too hard getting the company to reimburse, and would probably require suing them, which certainly won't be worth it. If it's the latter, then the company would have to try suing them, which of course isn't worth it for a few hundred $$$. There's no fraud; all those expenses are justifiable travel expenses. (I'm not so sure about "table time" though, I'm really only talking about room charges, extra-baggage fees on the return flight, etc.)
Horrific I know, suggesting the current work environment could be improved.
It's not "horrific", but it's a very bad idea, in almost any workplace. Pointing out the workplace sucks is basically saying that the bosses are incompetent, because they're the ones who made the workplace what it is. Of course, many (most?) workplaces do suck for various reasons, and most bosses are incompetent, but bosses don't like to hear criticism from their underlings; after all, the bosses got where they are because they're so great, right?
Criticizing your workplace just identifies you as a malcontent or boat-rocker, and almost no bosses want to have people like that around.
The safe route is to keep your mouth shut and your head down, don't criticize your boss or your workplace (unless you have a good exit plan ready and aren't worried about losing your job--in this case you can afford higher risk which has a small chance of paying off), and if you're unhappy, look for another job, and vent about it anonymously online.
On the flip side, it seems to be highly illegal for companies to fire employees based on their political leaning
Citation needed.
There's no law I'm aware of to this effect. Instead, in a right-to-work state (which CA is, and so are 48 other states), you can be fired for almost anything, or no reason at all. You just can't be fired for something that falls into a protected class: race, sex, etc. Political leanings and affiliations are not protected classes.
In any normal company, if you do something that annoys the boss, you can certainly be fired, even if outsiders think it's excessive or unwarranted.
Apple got around it by having to provide a free dongle with every iPhone that converts microUSB to Lightning.
Presumably, Android phones could do the exact same thing. They just don't bother, because it's cheaper and easier to just build microUSB into the phone directly. Only Apple insists on having its own stupid port, as their legions of kool-aid drinking customers are happy to pay them $$$ for overpriced cables; this just doesn't work with the Android sellers.
ITs called 'Lib-er-ty' Specifically i should have the option of NOT providing my location constantly.
AML doesn't provide your location constantly, only when you call 911. Don't like it? Don't call 911. Deal with your emergency by yourself.
Any smartphone that doesnt offer root by default should be banned outright, no exceptions. See i can spout unrealistic absolutes too.
Now this idea I can get behind. I fail to see why it's "unrealistic". If people own a device, they should be able to change the software on it if they choose. They can do this on any PC, so why shouldn't they be able to on their phone? What's more, I can offer a good argument for such a law: the device makers and carriers have a horrid record of keeping their devices secure, because they'd rather sell you a new one than patch the security holes in ones they've already sold. Fine; make it illegal for them to lock you out of changing your software, and community-produced projects like LineageOS can offer alternative software loads. Along with this, it should be illegal for the device drivers to be closed-source. Otherwise, if this isn't agreeable, then the device makers should be liable for any damage caused by any software exploit, in perpetuity.
Yep, and I'm OK with this. If people don't like it, they shouldn't buy an iPhone; there's tons of alternatives available. If they insist on an iPhone, they should be willing to pony up $$$ for overpriced accessories for it. Think of it as a "stupidity tax".
Well it didn't take long for someone to bring up the Zune. A failure at every level.
Was it? It was ugly, at least in the "turd brown" color, but that's not a reflection of hardware quality. The whole 3x3x3 sharing thing was utterly stupid, but again that's not hardware. The overall execution was really bad, and an obvious "me too!" to Apple's ultra-popular iPod. But how was the actual Zune hardware?
I read the memo, unlike you. IANAL, but believe he's got a pretty solid case. The Stalinist tactics being used by many are being illuminated.
Unlike you, I have not read the memo, and I am also not a lawyer.
However, I do know the very basic definition of Stalinism, and this isn't it. In a Stalinist state, the government oppresses people and regulates speech, and it also owns and controls the means of production. Google is not the government, therefore it's quite impossible for anything here to be compared to Stalinism. Google is a private company (well, a "publicly-traded" company), and it's in a state (1 of 49, only WY isn't) that's a "right to work" state. You might argue that it's monopolistic, or that big tech companies have too much power in general, etc., but there's nothing remotely resembling Stalinism here.
I do find it disturbing how this is going down, but don't blow things out of proportion by using terms like "Stalinist". What we have is really more like the opposite: the corporations are too powerful, and have too much power over government.
Are the "Goldwater conservatives" the same conservatives who believe in white nationalism, or the same conservatives who want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy?
The environmentalist liberals, and the centrists who agree with the settled science on global climate change, aren't the same liberals who buy into identity politics, "check your privilege", etc. (though there's surely a lot of overlap: the extremists probably all agree with climate change, but the set of people who agree with climate change is FAR larger than the set of radical liberals).
There's no evidence of hypocrisy, there's only very strong evidence that you don't understand basic set theory and Venn diagrams.
Stop being an idiot. I'm an Xer too. There's a difference between a proper name (White as a surname) and a general and inaccurate term for an ethnic group (white or black). Show me any decent example of people capitalizing those; you won't find any. This has nothing to do with texting; no one except maybe stupid Southern racists ever capitalized white or black for ethnic groups in my lifetime that I can recall.
I capitalize White when referring to the race, the same you would capitalize Hispanic or Black.
Where the hell did you ever get the idea that you capitalize "black"? You don't. That's insane. Hispanic can be optionally capitalized; it's not a color like white or black. No one writes "John was a Black man..." Are you elderly or something?
Truth be told, I don't work in California; a California-based company bought us out. I have not left because IT jobs are not that plentiful here and I haven't found one hiring.
Time to find another job, even if it means packing up and moving. Try the defense sector; you won't find a whole lot of ultra-liberalism there.
As a CIS White heterosexual man (married with 2 kids) with a right-centrist political leaning and Christian faith
First of all, I'm not really into all these identity politics, but even I know that "cis" is not an acronym nor is it capitalized. It's a Latin word IIRC. And why did you capitalize "White"? An adjective isn't capitalized either.
Anyway....
I find myself scared to express my opinions at work. I work for a very large international company based out of California which does not disguise its liberal leanings.... My company spent mega-bucks fighting my sect's stance on moral issues.
So why are you still working there? Last I heard, tech jobs in California are plentiful, and all you have to do if you don't like your job is walk across the street and get another one.
Given your background, it sounds like you'd be happier if you moved out of CA and to the southeast. There's not nearly as many tech jobs there, but there's a few, and your right-wing views will be much more accepted there (though if you're "right-centrist", you might found yourself feeling like a leftist there in some parts).
Remember the old saying: "birds of a feather stick together". You're in the wrong flock.
Because I can think of a number of other people railroaded out of a job because of online "outrage."
Like who? If you're thinking of Brendan Eich, that situation isn't comparable. Executive positions are not like rank-and-file engineering jobs, and executives (esp. the CEO) can be let go by the board for really any reason; it's the downside of that kind of job. The CEO is basically the public face of the company, and while his job is supposedly to run the company, it's really more about being the company's top salesperson than anything, and the CEO's personal life reflects directly on the company. So if the company doesn't like the way the CEO makes it look, it has every right to replace him. Also, as I recall, in the Eich case it was Eich himself who voluntarily stepped down during the controversy, because he didn't want Mozilla to be harmed by the controversy, and it worked: as soon as he left, it all died down. Some companies can get away with a highly controversial CEO (or one who's just an obvious asshole), such as Oracle, but a non-profit software company like Mozilla simply can't. Even Uber couldn't; they finally removed Kalanick because of all the controversy and bad press, even though there was no evidence I'm aware of tying him personally to any harassment; just the fact that it happened under his watch was enough.
Again, to repeat myself, corporate executive positions are NOT like normal W-2 employee jobs. Stop comparing them. They have very little in common.
Yup, exactly. There's tons of free space in cities where PV panels can be installed, and one big place is on top of large commercial buildings like malls and big-box stores. They already have high-power grid connections there to tap into, and lots of unused square footage on the roof that no one looks at, and is generally very ugly-looking from the air. It would also be useful to cover parking lots with them; all that area isn't doing anything useful, and many people would prefer to park under such panels to keep their cars out of the sun or precipitation. Property owners would get a steady income from the power company from this stuff (or at least a significantly lower power bill, depending on how much power they use themselves).
EVs may not be the solution, but surely they are a major step in the right direction?
Absolutely. I really think this "advisor" in TFA must be a paid shill or something to even suggest they're not the answer to air pollution because of brake pads and tires. It's utterly ridiculous to even consider, especially considering that EVs don't use their brakes nearly as much.
If anything, I'd be more concerned with the battery waste. We need to make sure all of that is consistently recycled.
I wouldn't worry about that. Today's typical lead-acid car batteries enjoy a phenomenally successful recycling rate, and they don't contain any valuable lithium like EV car batteries would. When something is pretty valuable, and is recyclable, it generally doesn't go to waste because trashing it is just like throwing money in the trash. And stuff like that would be mostly serviced by professionals, just like today, and if not it'd probably have a "core charge", just like today with many parts that are refurbished.
You might be able to one day have cars link up via electromagnets or something and cut the wind resistance because they travel as a group. That would imply I'd have to trust the car(s) in front of me and behind me not to do something really stupid,
You don't need magnets, you just need autonomous control. This is already planned as one of the features when auto-driving cars become commonplace.
In the ideal case there some of the automobiles may actually turn their engines off so the others can run at optimum and over time you would take turns.
No, you wouldn't do that, even if the cars were physically linked. It'd put too much load on a small number of cars for no reason. You're talking about electric motors here, not gas engines; electric motors are perfectly capable of working at low-load with extremely high efficiency unlike gas engines. Also, in good high-speed trains like the Shinkansen, all the cars have their own motors; you get better traction and acceleration that way, and don't need one gigantic motor pulling everything.
You're going to have to explain why you think government policies to make in-city housing costs lower would cause jobs and people to leave. That's the strangest thing I've read all day.
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Both Apple and Google need to look at Firefox here. Tabs are not perfect, but Firefox is doing it the right way.
No, they really *don't* need to look at Firefox here.
If you like the way Firefox does things, then you should just use Firefox. Safari is for people who don't like favicons and don't want to see them, and Chrome is for people who like the tabs shrunk so small that you only see tab outlines. If you think Firefox is so much better, then just use that and stop trying to push these giant companies with expert UX designers to change.
Personally, I like Firefox's UI well enough, esp. compared to Chrome, so I use Firefox. I don't use Safari because I'm not an idiot who'd spend thousands on a laptop that has no ports, or buy a phone that doesn't work at all with my laptop OS or any of my music and requires special non-standard charging cables.
Companies do not have that much power. They have some political power (see the Citizen's United case) to get favorable legislation passed, but that doesn't really translate to any power over you at a personal, day-to-day level. They have no power to use direct violence against you, at least not in the US. They've violated labor laws, sure, but that's all stuff about working hours, safety conditions, stuff like that. But your employment there is strictly voluntary. No one is forced to work for any particular company; that's literally slavery. People only put up with BS because they feel they don't have a better alternative at the time, and don't want to try getting on welfare I guess, but that's simply not the same. It's just like people who stay in lousy marriages because they think it's better than being on their own either alone, or without the same level of income that their spouses bring in. No one calls a situation like that "Stalinist".
So only a government can be authoritarian?
In the way of Stalinism, yes. I mean, it's possible for other institutions to try to act authoritarian, but their power is quite limited, because they're not a government (with some exceptions, such as "company towns" in the US back in the 1800s where the company owned everything and had hired thugs to keep people in line). A company can't really be authoritarian: if you don't like the way they're treating you, you're free to leave at any time, and there's plenty of worker-protection laws on the books these days.
The term refers to the method of enforcing and reinforcing an ideology.
Right, and the only institution that has the power of enforcement in modern times is a government. A church may have an ideology, but they can't force you to donate or prevent you from leaving. And companies obviously do have ideologies, but again basic employment law prevails and you can quit any time.
but if I said Nazi you would claim I was trying to Godwin the discussion.
No, I wouldn't. I never say that, because it's an utterly stupid thing to say. If a comparison with Nazis is warranted, then by all means make it. That whole "Godwinning the discussion" thing is such bullshit. "I win! I win! You brought up Nazis! I win!" -- something only a complete idiot would say, but I have seen it here from time to time.
But the Nazi comparison makes little sense here again because we're talking about a company; companies in the US may have too much political power IMO, but they don't have any power to use violence against employees they don't like. The Nazis had thugs (like the SA (stormtroopers)) that would use violence against political opponents, and they got control of the government.
Don't worry, before long USB-c will be the new standard. They couldn't stick with microUSB forever. What's important is that everyone's moving to it, it's just a pain in the interim. It won't be like the bad ol' days when every company had its own proprietary charging plug.
This should be a good lesson in moving for a job. As soon as a company doesn't need you any more, that's it, unless they happen to be really nice and give you a severance. So if you're being moved on a company's dime, make sure it's 1) a place you want to go, and 2) you're not going to be up shit-creek if the job dries up (i.e., don't let a company move you to someplace where there's zero jobs for you if things go south). These situations are great if you wanted to move to that place anyway, since moving is expensive, but if it's not a place you want to go at all, it's time to either refuse, or start looking for a new job (or both).
You must have never traveled for any company ever in your lifetime.
I've done a lot of traveling for an engineer that doesn't work in sales. Things varied by company; some companies gave me a company credit card and didn't question things (but I didn't run up unreasonable expenses either), others gave me a credit card but made me submit an expense report afterwards, others I had to buy stuff on my own and then submit an expense report to get reimbursed.
Try making unjustifiable changes to your itinerary and getting the company to pay for the change fee. Nope. Try checking a couple extra bags to carry all the stuff you bought while on that trip -- same "nope" for those fees. Order a couple rounds of room service for all your buddies, nope, not covered, nor is getting a suite when you had a single booked.
Yes, it'll all be covered if you're paying on a company credit card. No, it won't be covered if you have to get reimbursed. I wrote this in my prior message. If you abuse the privilege, you'll lose your company card, or even get fired, but these guys were already fired, but they presumably still had their company cards (again, if it's not the kind of company that makes you buy stuff yourself and get reimbursed; usually it's just tiny companies that go that route).
Because they'd lose. "Hookers and blow" on the hotel bill are not legitimate travel expenses, nor would a $1000 dinner be. And $300 on the mini-bar bill? Ha.
"Hookers and blow" is excessive, I'm really talking about a few hundred or so in charges. Yes, they WILL be covered, because the company has to pay the credit card. When employee do stuff like this, they get reprimanded, have to pay it back, or get fired. These guys are already fired. They can do what they want; what is the company going to do, double-fire them? They can sue them, but it'll cost the company a lot more in legal fees and lawyer time then they'll get back for $1000 of charges or less.
Now I know you've never traveled for a company.
No, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Per-diem rate? WTF is that? I've traveled for only a couple of places that had such a thing; usually it's government-related stuff that has such a thing. No, it's not "fraud" to charge stuff to your company's expense account that's exorbitant, like a ridiculously fancy dinner or room service, it's just abuse that the company can deal with on its own. Good luck getting the DA to prosecute someone for charging a $250 dinner to their company credit card; that's the stupidest thing I've read all day.
How is it fraud? The company can't just fire them on the spot and expect them to pay their own hotel bills and return airfare; by sending them on *company-approved* travel, the company is responsible for all their travel bills. That includes any extra hotel charges and airline fees.
Now the problem is if they have to get reimbursement from the company for travel costs, or if they have a company credit card that the company pays. If the former, it's not worth it because it'll be too hard getting the company to reimburse, and would probably require suing them, which certainly won't be worth it. If it's the latter, then the company would have to try suing them, which of course isn't worth it for a few hundred $$$. There's no fraud; all those expenses are justifiable travel expenses. (I'm not so sure about "table time" though, I'm really only talking about room charges, extra-baggage fees on the return flight, etc.)
Horrific I know, suggesting the current work environment could be improved.
It's not "horrific", but it's a very bad idea, in almost any workplace. Pointing out the workplace sucks is basically saying that the bosses are incompetent, because they're the ones who made the workplace what it is. Of course, many (most?) workplaces do suck for various reasons, and most bosses are incompetent, but bosses don't like to hear criticism from their underlings; after all, the bosses got where they are because they're so great, right?
Criticizing your workplace just identifies you as a malcontent or boat-rocker, and almost no bosses want to have people like that around.
The safe route is to keep your mouth shut and your head down, don't criticize your boss or your workplace (unless you have a good exit plan ready and aren't worried about losing your job--in this case you can afford higher risk which has a small chance of paying off), and if you're unhappy, look for another job, and vent about it anonymously online.
On the flip side, it seems to be highly illegal for companies to fire employees based on their political leaning
Citation needed.
There's no law I'm aware of to this effect. Instead, in a right-to-work state (which CA is, and so are 48 other states), you can be fired for almost anything, or no reason at all. You just can't be fired for something that falls into a protected class: race, sex, etc. Political leanings and affiliations are not protected classes.
In any normal company, if you do something that annoys the boss, you can certainly be fired, even if outsiders think it's excessive or unwarranted.
Apple got around it by having to provide a free dongle with every iPhone that converts microUSB to Lightning.
Presumably, Android phones could do the exact same thing. They just don't bother, because it's cheaper and easier to just build microUSB into the phone directly. Only Apple insists on having its own stupid port, as their legions of kool-aid drinking customers are happy to pay them $$$ for overpriced cables; this just doesn't work with the Android sellers.
ITs called 'Lib-er-ty' Specifically i should have the option of NOT providing my location constantly.
AML doesn't provide your location constantly, only when you call 911. Don't like it? Don't call 911. Deal with your emergency by yourself.
Any smartphone that doesnt offer root by default should be banned outright, no exceptions. See i can spout unrealistic absolutes too.
Now this idea I can get behind. I fail to see why it's "unrealistic". If people own a device, they should be able to change the software on it if they choose. They can do this on any PC, so why shouldn't they be able to on their phone? What's more, I can offer a good argument for such a law: the device makers and carriers have a horrid record of keeping their devices secure, because they'd rather sell you a new one than patch the security holes in ones they've already sold. Fine; make it illegal for them to lock you out of changing your software, and community-produced projects like LineageOS can offer alternative software loads. Along with this, it should be illegal for the device drivers to be closed-source. Otherwise, if this isn't agreeable, then the device makers should be liable for any damage caused by any software exploit, in perpetuity.
Yep, and I'm OK with this. If people don't like it, they shouldn't buy an iPhone; there's tons of alternatives available. If they insist on an iPhone, they should be willing to pony up $$$ for overpriced accessories for it. Think of it as a "stupidity tax".
Well it didn't take long for someone to bring up the Zune. A failure at every level.
Was it? It was ugly, at least in the "turd brown" color, but that's not a reflection of hardware quality. The whole 3x3x3 sharing thing was utterly stupid, but again that's not hardware. The overall execution was really bad, and an obvious "me too!" to Apple's ultra-popular iPod. But how was the actual Zune hardware?
I read the memo, unlike you. IANAL, but believe he's got a pretty solid case. The Stalinist tactics being used by many are being illuminated.
Unlike you, I have not read the memo, and I am also not a lawyer.
However, I do know the very basic definition of Stalinism, and this isn't it. In a Stalinist state, the government oppresses people and regulates speech, and it also owns and controls the means of production. Google is not the government, therefore it's quite impossible for anything here to be compared to Stalinism. Google is a private company (well, a "publicly-traded" company), and it's in a state (1 of 49, only WY isn't) that's a "right to work" state. You might argue that it's monopolistic, or that big tech companies have too much power in general, etc., but there's nothing remotely resembling Stalinism here.
I do find it disturbing how this is going down, but don't blow things out of proportion by using terms like "Stalinist". What we have is really more like the opposite: the corporations are too powerful, and have too much power over government.
Not the same liberals.
Are the "Goldwater conservatives" the same conservatives who believe in white nationalism, or the same conservatives who want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy?
The environmentalist liberals, and the centrists who agree with the settled science on global climate change, aren't the same liberals who buy into identity politics, "check your privilege", etc. (though there's surely a lot of overlap: the extremists probably all agree with climate change, but the set of people who agree with climate change is FAR larger than the set of radical liberals).
There's no evidence of hypocrisy, there's only very strong evidence that you don't understand basic set theory and Venn diagrams.
Stop being an idiot. I'm an Xer too. There's a difference between a proper name (White as a surname) and a general and inaccurate term for an ethnic group (white or black). Show me any decent example of people capitalizing those; you won't find any. This has nothing to do with texting; no one except maybe stupid Southern racists ever capitalized white or black for ethnic groups in my lifetime that I can recall.
People are that stupid.
The 2016 Presidential election cycle proved that conclusively, not just in the final general election, but also in the primaries for both parties.
Sounds like the guy watched "Jerry Maguire" a few too many times....
In the real world, it doesn't work out well in the end for the one rocking the boat.
I capitalize White when referring to the race, the same you would capitalize Hispanic or Black.
Where the hell did you ever get the idea that you capitalize "black"? You don't. That's insane. Hispanic can be optionally capitalized; it's not a color like white or black. No one writes "John was a Black man..." Are you elderly or something?
Truth be told, I don't work in California; a California-based company bought us out. I have not left because IT jobs are not that plentiful here and I haven't found one hiring.
Time to find another job, even if it means packing up and moving. Try the defense sector; you won't find a whole lot of ultra-liberalism there.
Kind of hard to access most of that cable when it's underwater though... And it's not even 1000 miles long to reach Europe.
It's no problem for the Russian Navy to access that cable.
As a CIS White heterosexual man (married with 2 kids) with a right-centrist political leaning and Christian faith
First of all, I'm not really into all these identity politics, but even I know that "cis" is not an acronym nor is it capitalized. It's a Latin word IIRC. And why did you capitalize "White"? An adjective isn't capitalized either.
Anyway....
I find myself scared to express my opinions at work. I work for a very large international company based out of California which does not disguise its liberal leanings. ... My company spent mega-bucks fighting my sect's stance on moral issues.
So why are you still working there? Last I heard, tech jobs in California are plentiful, and all you have to do if you don't like your job is walk across the street and get another one.
Given your background, it sounds like you'd be happier if you moved out of CA and to the southeast. There's not nearly as many tech jobs there, but there's a few, and your right-wing views will be much more accepted there (though if you're "right-centrist", you might found yourself feeling like a leftist there in some parts).
Remember the old saying: "birds of a feather stick together". You're in the wrong flock.
Because I can think of a number of other people railroaded out of a job because of online "outrage."
Like who? If you're thinking of Brendan Eich, that situation isn't comparable. Executive positions are not like rank-and-file engineering jobs, and executives (esp. the CEO) can be let go by the board for really any reason; it's the downside of that kind of job. The CEO is basically the public face of the company, and while his job is supposedly to run the company, it's really more about being the company's top salesperson than anything, and the CEO's personal life reflects directly on the company. So if the company doesn't like the way the CEO makes it look, it has every right to replace him. Also, as I recall, in the Eich case it was Eich himself who voluntarily stepped down during the controversy, because he didn't want Mozilla to be harmed by the controversy, and it worked: as soon as he left, it all died down. Some companies can get away with a highly controversial CEO (or one who's just an obvious asshole), such as Oracle, but a non-profit software company like Mozilla simply can't. Even Uber couldn't; they finally removed Kalanick because of all the controversy and bad press, even though there was no evidence I'm aware of tying him personally to any harassment; just the fact that it happened under his watch was enough.
Again, to repeat myself, corporate executive positions are NOT like normal W-2 employee jobs. Stop comparing them. They have very little in common.
Yup, exactly. There's tons of free space in cities where PV panels can be installed, and one big place is on top of large commercial buildings like malls and big-box stores. They already have high-power grid connections there to tap into, and lots of unused square footage on the roof that no one looks at, and is generally very ugly-looking from the air. It would also be useful to cover parking lots with them; all that area isn't doing anything useful, and many people would prefer to park under such panels to keep their cars out of the sun or precipitation. Property owners would get a steady income from the power company from this stuff (or at least a significantly lower power bill, depending on how much power they use themselves).
EVs may not be the solution, but surely they are a major step in the right direction?
Absolutely. I really think this "advisor" in TFA must be a paid shill or something to even suggest they're not the answer to air pollution because of brake pads and tires. It's utterly ridiculous to even consider, especially considering that EVs don't use their brakes nearly as much.
If anything, I'd be more concerned with the battery waste. We need to make sure all of that is consistently recycled.
I wouldn't worry about that. Today's typical lead-acid car batteries enjoy a phenomenally successful recycling rate, and they don't contain any valuable lithium like EV car batteries would. When something is pretty valuable, and is recyclable, it generally doesn't go to waste because trashing it is just like throwing money in the trash. And stuff like that would be mostly serviced by professionals, just like today, and if not it'd probably have a "core charge", just like today with many parts that are refurbished.
You might be able to one day have cars link up via electromagnets or something and cut the wind resistance because they travel as a group. That would imply I'd have to trust the car(s) in front of me and behind me not to do something really stupid,
You don't need magnets, you just need autonomous control. This is already planned as one of the features when auto-driving cars become commonplace.
In the ideal case there some of the automobiles may actually turn their engines off so the others can run at optimum and over time you would take turns.
No, you wouldn't do that, even if the cars were physically linked. It'd put too much load on a small number of cars for no reason. You're talking about electric motors here, not gas engines; electric motors are perfectly capable of working at low-load with extremely high efficiency unlike gas engines. Also, in good high-speed trains like the Shinkansen, all the cars have their own motors; you get better traction and acceleration that way, and don't need one gigantic motor pulling everything.
You're going to have to explain why you think government policies to make in-city housing costs lower would cause jobs and people to leave. That's the strangest thing I've read all day.