You know a law is spot on when the big companies that would lose a locked revenue channel are screaming that they don't want it to happen.

HR sent meeting notices 45 minutes in advance of the meeting time with a bolded warning not to forward them. Coworkers compared notes, most didn't get that invite. HR sent out other meeting notices that were for 30 minutes after the first one, also with warnings not to forward them. Coworkers compared notes, most did get those.

Both groups knew what was coming.

The first meeting started late and lasted a total of 4 minutes. The CTO signed on, said he wasn't taking questions, that we were all being laid off with a 60 day notice to transition our work, and that HR would be calling each of us later that day. Then he signed off. Total elapsed time - 4 minutes.

The second meeting was almost as short, telling those people they still had jobs.

Impersonal? Yes. It's about what we expected from that CTO. So as of 9:04am that day I stopped caring about my job or the company. What were they going to do, fire me?

I know my seat can recline. However I also know that doing it invades the space of the poor fellow flyer behind me and can make their teeny tray unusable. So rather than use those 2 inches of angle I just keep my seat upright. To me that's the most common sense approach to the situation.

With airlines squeezing more and more seats into their planes this sort of conflict is going to happen more often. As it is those trays are almost useless and the tiny bit of recline can make it so you can't even fit the shotglass of soda on it.

What do I do if someone ahead of me decides to recline their seat? I deal with it. I'm short enough that it's not painful to me and if I really need them to sit upright I'll ask politely. If they decline then I know they have a different opinion about airplane courtesy than I do. I can't change that.

It's one of those things that will never be resolved unless the seats are modified so they can't recline. Then the issue is moot. But they can, people have opinions, and that's that.

If I can uninstall it then I don't care if it comes with the OS or not. Cleaning bloatware is part of installing a new operating system anyway.

I'm more concerned with being able to put the 3D stuff back. Hopefully it's in their store and free.

My employer doesn't seem to care about separating out the interchangeable parts and vital employees. Interchangeable - call center people who are pretty much a revolving door anyway. Vital employees - the tech people who bring new clients onboard, make system changes, keep the databases running, etc. Of course they're going the "interchangeable parts" route when it comes to remote work. And of course they're going to find themselves very short handed in the vital employees area. One senior manager I know of kept trying to get upper management to see reason and has come to the conclusion that it's going to have to break before they see the problems with their reasoning.

When this kind of obvious gouging is found (everywhere) then whatever contracts the companies have with the municipality/county/state should be declared breached in bad faith and municipal internet installed. That's the only long term solution to internet provider problems. Make internet a public utility and that's that.

The followup to the furor they caused was that if you have BOTH the hashtag and you @ DisneyPlus then they feel they have the right to take your tweet and use it however they want for all eternity. If you just use the hashtag they're benevolently going to let you think they won't take your tweet and use it however they want for all eternity.

To be fair at least they're giving some notice about it. Most places just do it without telling you.

Jo is one of the foremost people in making face shields and getting them certified for medical use. Almost everyone who has "invented" one has been forced to admit they modified one of his designs. He made them open source so everyone could use them and modify them as needed but if you're going to do it then credit the guy who made them first.

https://blog.prusaprinters.org/from-design-to-mass-3d-printing-of-medical-shields-in-three-days/

Read more of his blog entries to find out what else he's doing to help in this time of crisis. Maybe he's being too humble but dammit he deserves credit for the work he's doing.

The company can't supply the parts during the crisis. Trying to sue people who are making the parts now would be .. detrimental to their future as a business.

Once things settle down again and their supply chain is working then they have a real standing to require people stop making the part.

Hopefully their pricing will come under the microscope along with all the other very highly priced medical items out there. There's a point where they've recouped their costs in research and getting manufacturing certified for medical use. After that the excess money is just gouging the system. In my opinion.

I'd like to refine that. Prosecutors want every suspect CHARGED with the maximum crime possible for what they did. After that they'll offer a plea bargain that has the accused saying they're guilty of what the original crime should have been. So the prosecutors get credit for being Tough on Crime(tm) plus all the juicy court fees that come from the process.

I have Google Plus on my phone. It's no longer a consumer application but I can't uninstall it.

I have some kind of TV remote app that's no longer supported but I can't uninstall it.

I have a whole lotta vendor apps I can't uninstall.

The phone is sold with storage specs but they don't mention that half the storage is full of things you can't delete. I own my phone so in theory I can root it and clear out all that nonsense but I'm not tech savvy enough to want to do that.

Unless it's absolutely necessary for the phone to function they should be able to be uninstalled. The actual amount of storage space should be prominent in the advertising (64GB storage, 12GB usable) so people know what they're getting.

In my opinion.

There's a growing market for this that mot people aren't seeing. Those who are alone. Seriously alone.

I just got out of the hospital (twice in succession) and had to have prescriptions filled. I was taking Lyft to and from the hospital because I literally have no one I know here who I could ask to help me. Trying to get to the store to get my prescriptions was not a good experience.

For those who don't have friends, families, partners, etc. this kind of thing is game changing. It would have been great to somehow have my prescriptions delivered to me - for a reasonable fee - rather than trying to figure out when I would be well enough to safely drive to and from the store.

Yes. Having retail pharmacies at or near hospitals makes sense. But that's not the standard in America. And it's not always possible to get your prescriptions in advance of your treatment. They don't always know what you're taking home and some of them they don't want you to have on hand ahead of time.

Grocery delivery saved me after knee surgery. I had help that one time which let me get my prescriptions filled after the surgery. But that help isn't available to me now. There's really no way to get one-time prescriptions filled and delivered in most places short of going in person.

Nicotine isn't particularly hazardous.

I have to disagree with you there. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs out there, more so than heroin. And it's got a whole host of negative effects on the body. If you look at it objectively it should be a Schedule 1 drug.

I'm still getting credit monitoring from the last big data breach. So I'll get double for a while and then when the next one happens I'll get double again. At this point every credit agency should be required to provide free credit monitoring to everyone.

I'm disappointed in the monetary verdict. Rather than capping it at a dollar amount if possible it would have been far more of a punishment for them to pay out everyone who had their data compromised a fixed amount and then more for those who had proof of having to deal with identity theft. The cap is that combination of values.

I was going to go for the under 10 hours payment but changed to credit monitoring since then I'll at least get something out the deal. Trying for cash means a check for $0.37 in a year or so.

Apple is helping the Right to Repair legislation along nicely. The farmers who need it to make a living aren't fancy enough to get a lot of momentum but when Apple starts locking down something as simple as a battery swap (or something that should BE simple) then a lot more people are going to get upset. Even if those people never use a third party repair service.

This is exactly what the tractor companies do. The owners can replace parts but the equipment won't function until a service rep shows up and flicks some kind of software flag saying it's OK to run again.