Comment Re: Remote work undercuts unions (Score 1) 131
Aaaand striking seems quite doable regardless of union members being remote. Both stop-work and gathering in protest shift in nature but are eminently doable.
Aaaand striking seems quite doable regardless of union members being remote. Both stop-work and gathering in protest shift in nature but are eminently doable.
If only there were enough people to be able to do (work toward) **both** of these goalsâ¦
lol, if you think a language for manipulating matrices is 1-2-3â(TM)s âoesecret sauceâ, thereâ(TM)s not much hope.
Back in my University days , 1990s, early 2000s (I was there a decade, grad, postgrad all that) I was a fairly regular bar-fly at the on campus student pub. Learned more in that pub talking to academics and other students over pints than I ever did in the classroom.
Around half way through my degree a new face turned up, a man in his early 70s with a polite british accent, Kev, walked up to our table with a jug of beer and introduced himself. We where a pretty diverse lot, so we made a space, and all of us became fast friends.
He had retired a while back, had a career as an industrial chemist that sent him around the world, spent a lot of time in africa, and generally had an almost endless stream of stories to tell. After a few years of retirement, he decided to go and do a chemistry degree again, because when he had retired he felt the world had left him behind in his knowledge., so he went back to scratch to catch up on all the developments the previous 40 years had brought. No intention of working again, but he didnt want to spend his twilight years as a bored retired person with 20 cats and a drinking problem.
He had a blast too with his newfound circle of 20yo friends. Smoked his first joint, discovered the joys of 90s indie pop, occasionally got himself in trouble with the ladies, but generally had a polite british demeanor that got him out of a lot of trouble too. We all knew his morals came from a different era, so we cut him a bit of slack. We dubbed him "The worlds oldest teenager".
I visited him a few months ago. Age finally caught up to him, and I doubt he has much time left. He ended up hooking with one of our groups elderly mothers (that was..... awkward) and ended up looking after her after her son died and she fell to pieces, but its clear he hasnt got much time left. His body is just falling to pieces.
Still, I thoroughly recomend to anyone who's retired to consider going back to university if, or you've got the funds to pay for it. Too many old folks just retire and stop doing anything, and the lack of activity in both the brain and body end up killing them. And don't worry about all those young folks. If your a friendly, fun and active person, chances are all those young folks will adore you for your stories and wisdom, and you get to have a second youth.
While I think the high end models are actually very impressive, the one on top of google search results is a drooling idiot and regularly just makes up nonsense. Just yesterday I searched for information about radiation suits on the "Dune Awakening" game (very fun), and it utterly hallucinated a big bunch of nonsense about it being 3 piece, with exchangable breathing apparatuses and the like. None of that is true. I *think* it was cribbing details from Fallout. (It mentioned "Radaway" tablets, which are from fallout) but it was so matter-of-fact about it being part of the Dune awakening, and clearly the results bellow it on the search directly contradicted it. Its not a good implementation of generative AI.
I have a friend who used to work for a call center. Specifically for Visa. He told me they have idiots on the line because most clients are just idiots.
I asked him why the fuck whenever i call the support number i have to listen to my statement read by a computer. Your total is x. Your minimum is y. Your statement due date is z. Your available credit is $, and on and on and on. He said, it's because 90% of our calls were people asking for that information. They made it skippable, so people skipped that part and insisted in asking the same to a human. So they made it unskippable and still, a few people get through and ask for the questions the IVR just answered.
So yeah. Support is very expensive if all of your agents have to be qualified, knowledgeable, and able to help, because 90% of the clients don't need that. They need a human that will spoonfeed them the same information they can get over the IVR or an app.
I don't believe the government has the right to ban me from harming myself in their eyes.
If you signed a contract stating that you agreed either to forgo any treatments for health issues arising from your choice to smoke or agreed to pay for all such treatments out of your own pocket, then fine. But, and especially if you live in a country with socialized medicine, then everyone else is paying for your treatment. So to minimize everyone's expenses for your completely avoidable health issues, the government is doing what it's doing. And they haven't stopped you from harming yourself. They just put images and words on the package.
Interestingly I was talking at the weekend to a guy who used to work for a soda company here. He said the glass bottles used to be made and filled locally where he worked because they were heavy and difficult to transport, but switching to plastic allowed the company to centralize production in a city hundreds of miles away and ship them here instead. And, obviously, sack him and most of the other local workers.
But the MBAs got a boost to their stock options.
We're no longer allowed to bury plastic because it requires digging holes and digging holes causes Climate Change or something.
This is why we now ship the plastic to the third world so they can throw it into the ocean instead.
It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff.