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Comment Not so wonderful. (Score 1) 187

The wonderful thing about freeing up human resources is they can go on to do other things.

In prior times, there was always a go-to industry that replaced the old. In current times, no such area exists long enough to be viable.

manufacturing has become cheaper and as a result we tend to manufacture more junk.

There's more manufacturing, but the quality has declined.

Submission + - Samsung Officially Unpacks Galaxy S6 And Galaxy S6 Edge At MWC (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: Today, at Mobile World Congress, Samsung took the veil off of its much-anticipated Galaxy S6, and also the Galaxy S6 edge. As has been heavily rumored, the S6 foregoes the plastic shell of its predecessor and integrates metal and glass instead, resulting in a far more premium feel, a thickness of 6.8mm, and a weight of 138g on the normal S6 and 132g on the edge. Samsung made it a point to mention that the metal it uses in the S6 is 50% stronger than other smartphones- a Apple bendgate jab, perhaps? Both the S6 and S6 edge share the same hardware, which includes a 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display. That gives us a resolution of 2560x1440, and a high pixel density of 577 ppi. The new phones also include an octa-core processor (2.1GHz quad + 1.5GHz quad), 3GB of DDR4 memory, and LTE cat 6 (300/50Mbps) support. Also of note is the phone's rear 16 megapixel f/1.9 camera, which Samsung says will launch in less than a second (0.6 seconds, to be exact). The front camera is no slouch either, also boasting an aperture of f/1.9, and coming in at 5 megapixels. The company says that the phone can add 4 hours of battery-life after a mere 10 minutes of charging, and when compared to the iPhone, it charges up to full in half the time. The S6 also has built-in wireless charging as well.

Comment Walmart is a Southern, "know thy place" company (Score 1) 301

Actually, the best method for avoiding union interference is to not treat employees like shit, thus removing incentive to join a union.

Agreed. Companies of Northern/Midwestern states figured that treating their employees with respect was the best and cheapest way to limit (and prevent) unionization.

Unfortunately, most of those states, save Ohio in the Midwest, have been overtaken by political interests that ramrodded the Southern way of business. To undo that will be like Hercules cleaning the Augean stables.

On the other hand, I hear Walmart does quite well with their "burn anyone who so much as mentions the word 'union' alive" policy, so I could be way off base.

That's not so much Wal-Mart but a prevalent Southern mindset for any company wishing to do business in the South (or in sufficiently Southernized states like Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin). Volkswagen's intent to form works councils was met with political interests that intimidated enough people to vote against it - out of fear. Similar unionization efforts with other employers have received the same "kill it with fire, no matter how much it costs!" philosophy.

The Southern idea is that every resource on Earth and above must be expended to kill off unionization, then follow it up with an employers' union - like a staffing agency or temporary labor service.

Comment On the contrary. (Score 1) 301

It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...

On the contrary, Google should give the Teamsters a wide berth since "interesting things" tend to happen to entities that oppose them (which are legitimized by a Supreme Court decision). Such engineers would find themselves on the wrong end of things when their buses have otherwise unexplained low reliability.

Comment Ah, the standard Southern argument. (Score 0) 301

They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.

That applies to staffing agencies, which are no more different than labor unions - yet don't get crushed. Same bad representation for the staff under them, bad contracts for the larger part, and nobody really gets a good deal in the process.

Why do staffing agencies, temporary labor and the like get a pass despite being a union in every function save for being an employer's tool of evasion? Perhaps they need their PATCO moment so that they finally die or evolve beyond benefits-evasion.

And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing theft in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak.

You're wrong. Unions are strong in the South, just that they're the ones that represent employers and only employers that abide by the South's playbook.

For example, Volkswagen talks about setting up workers councils, and the entire South's political interests go into an apoplectic fit. The Tennessee state legislature and various political groups intimidated them near instantly; if they unionized, Volkswagen risked losing economic preferences along with other forms of intimidation towards workers. If Volkswagen succeeded, everything and the kitchen sink would be thrown at them to financially fail, as done in the 19th and early 20th Century.

Theft from the South killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because the South built its economy on theft of Northern business.

Fixed that you to correct for fact.

[automation argument]

Someone has to do the maintenance for the buses.

Comment Have the courts determine facts first, not press. (Score -1, Troll) 89

[article]

That presumes that such information comes from parties interested in fact-finding and have not betrayed the trust of other individuals to gain it. Right now, such information from Snowden cannot be relied on as fact, but as a source of disinformation until a court can properly clear it.

Treating him and the "journalists" and "activists" as fugitives/co-conspirators is the only proper course of action until such are brought to due process. While the evidence against him is certain to convict, that does not give license to hide - it only gives license for others to find and bring him/others in.

Of course, that may be disheartening enough to have people do (-Infinity, Troll/Disagree/Overrated/Flamebait), but modbombing does not change the truth.

Comment Re:do you want exodus? (Score 1) 145

3. I love short three month [musician term]. After all I earn in three month more than I need for 15 month of living.

Then you end up paying the "advantage" back due to diseconomies of scale. On the other hand, the more permanent person has less worry over the same 15 months and better benefits.

Such short-term work is part of the problem, not the solution - as most people do not have the ability to outright refuse good work.

Comment On the other hand, not good for US citizens (Score 2) 176

One can throw all the money in the world towards an H1-b, but citizens have something more valuable - freedom to move between employers. Guest worker programs only serve to square the circle of having a legal, captive, non-citizen labor supply in a First World country.

Kill off the guest worker programs and then see how much businesses have to cater to citizens - as they cannot offshore everything.

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