It may not be your answer, but it is one potential answer. But to be completely clear: the employer in question maintained an iron fist on their computer base... installing third party software (such as a standalone IMAP or POP3 email client) simply wasn't an option that was available to me. So the options that most people would probably accept as the most obvious and/or best solutions aren't always necessarily available or viable for one reason or another.

At one of my previous jobs, the office internet connection was incredibly overloaded, to the point that if I attempted to use the standard Gmail interface in one tab, my entire browser session would bog down on every tab, to the point that it was almost entirely unusable. My normal habit is to literally always have Gmail (as well as several other tabs) open... so it took me a while to realize that the cause of the issue was exclusively Gmail. When I did, it was a matter of seconds after that to determine that the solution to my problem was their basic HTML view... apparently because basic doesn't perform the same "always on" constant pings back and forth that the standard interface uses to keep your inbox up-to-date at every moment. Night and day difference, after figuring that out; suddenly all of my problems just completely went away, and all I had to do was give up a few modern features during the workday.

So yeah... thankfully, I no longer work at that office -- but I'd have to imagine that other users of similarly overworked shared network connections aren't going to love seeing basic go away.

I'm assuming that teachers using virtual classrooms will do their best to prevent this kind of non-attendance... but how long before tech savvy students find ways to do it anyway?

Then again, I find myself reflecting upon the '80s classic movie, Real Genius, where a very dated but potentially parallel scenario plays out, all the way to the inevitable final state...

So let me get this straight... Microsoft's approach here is basically to gaslight their employees, in the hopes that they won't realize that they're worth more than Microsoft is willing and/or able to pay them?

And then of course, the fact that they're trying to pull this trick has been leaked... likely by a disgruntled manager who didn't get his own bonus this year, either. Gee... who could have possibly predicted that turn of events?

No wonder these "AI" chat systems tend to hallucinate... they were trained on vast collections of fictional works, where playing make believe is the norm rather than the exception. That really explains so much.

Most people in the "top executives" category tend to have pretty substantial egos. Thus, they aren't generally the type of people who listen to researchers... quite to the contrary: no amount of research would have ever convinced these "80%" managers that they didn't already know what was best for everybody. What they actually needed was the practical experience that a little "egg on their face" provided.

And the other 20% that didn't make decisions that they regret? I personally think that represents roughly how many of our societies "top executives" were already competent enough to see the writing on the wall.

I enjoy the kind of work I do. It can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. It can also be frustrating at times. What commonly makes it one or the other is usually pretty easy to identify: put simply, I work for someone else. That "someone else" and their attitudes about the requirements for my job and their opinions (misplaced or otherwise) on how well I'm doing my job can very quickly shove me from feelings of meaningful employment right over to feelings of frustration and tedium.

But I'm one of the lucky ones: I'm a skilled worker in an understaffed arena. There is nothing at all forcing me to stay with any given employer, when that kind of situation arises. I can -- and do -- move on. In fact, I'm in the process of doing so at this very moment; just waiting on paperwork.

So yeah; if I were answering this survey right this second, (or anytime in the past few months, really) I'd likewise feel that my current job is largely meaningless -- not because of the type of work I do... but rather, because the people I work for kind'a suck. That hasn't always been the case -- and hopefully, it will not be the case at my next job.

When you make it more difficult to simply live life without somehow breaking the law, the obvious unintended consequence is that you turn everybody into lawbreakers.

Am I the only person who noticed that nothing in this particular quote necessarily points to non-human activities? And the follow-up, "Grusch said the U.S. likely has been aware of 'non-human' activity since the 1930s" (emphasis added) is very obviously a statement of opinion. I haven't heard/seen the rest of his testimony, but if it's more of the same...

I mean hey, I love a good whistleblower revelation as much as the next guy. But sadly, these aren't the droids we're looking for.

Move along, folks. Move along.

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHNN!!!

This strongly reminds me of a particular scene from Star Trek: The Voyage Home, circa 1986. (And as someone with polycystic kidney disease, I'm very much looking forward to a chance encounter with "Bones" myself, one day.)

Various service providers have been complaining vociferously about Apple's cut of their profit for all of the subscriptions which were initiated via Apple's billing system... so much so, that they have sued in multiple courts around the world in order to avoid having to use Apple's system. One of the questions that these providers frequently ask is, "Why would anyone ever want to pay Apple more in order to subscribe to our service?"

This. This is why. It's not even remotely ambiguous... Apple does exactly what this proposed rule requires... and I'm pretty sure they're the only ones doing it.

Thus, clearly implementing easy cancellation isn't an actual hardship; Apple has already demonstrated that. By extension, they have also demonstrated that consumers are willing to pay more for the convenience of knowing that they can easily cancel without having to go through cancellation hell.

Not a single one of their customers is going to cry a single tear over providers being required to finally enable true customer choice. In fact, there might even be cheering and celebrations in the streets.

Seriously... my youngest son is eight, and he uses my old Surface Laptop for games -- and he has absolutely no use whatsoever for Teams. And yet, it insists on popping up on a regular basis... and each time I attempt to remove it, it eventually reinstates itself. What idiot at Microsoft thought that forcing a business focused chat client down the throats of consumers was actually a good idea?

I should have never upgraded that stupid thing to Windows 11.

... Obviously this means that all win32 apps are going to default to isolation mode, well and truly maximizing security postures and minimizing security vulnerabilities associated with those applications for all Windows 11 users... right?

Right?

Bueller?

Morgan Freeman: Needless to say, that's not what actually happened.

... as he proceeds to (dis)prove his point by lazily using ChatGPT (incorrectly) in an attempt to avoid actually doing his own job.

Dang... This isn't even a case of "the pot calling the kettle black" -- it's more like a case of "the pot calling the silverware black."