I knew I was done when I had to fill out a form to schedule a meeting to form a committee to train people how to fill out the form to schedule meetings. I wish I was making this up.

Another time we had a "Design for Six Sigma" meeting to determine the best option for a component. When we came up with the best option, the person in charge of the meeting said we had to start all over again since that's not the outcome sought by upper management. So I said, why don't we add a column for "What bossman wants" weight it higher than any other requirement? Did not go over well.

Also money.

I worked in the power industry about 15 years ago, and there was always resistance to anything newfangled. There was one exception. The ability of the HMI (we called them MMI back then) to communicate with the outside world was seen as a godsend. You could remotely tap the datalogs and see trends in things like air intake differential pressure, oil temperatures, mag sensors. All of these things would provide us with valuable information, and it was even better if you could correlate it across multiple sites. Back then it was all read only though.

I don't know when they started letting things get changed remotely. I'm not surprised at all. It was always a PITA to have to send a field tech out to a site to do a system update. So I guess it was only matter of time before the ability to write changes became a desirable feature. But even on an air-gapped system, if you have somebody there to make updates without proper vetting, you're still hosed. Just MITM between the mother-ship sending the update and the onsite guy with permissions to change things. It's not a real-time attack, but it could still be devastating.

You realize words in English can have multiple definitions, right? From a dietary and chemical standpoint, almond milk is much more like cow milk than juice. It is fats and proteins in a liquid. Juice is primarily sugars (sort of like skim milk). If you want to be picky about it, "milk" at the grocery store is nothing like raw cow milk either. In my house we don't even drink cow milk. And if we have some in the house, it is specifically referred to as "cow milk."

Maybe instead we should make a law that says all milk has to specifically be labelled with what animal (or plant) it comes from! Not to mention describing the processing that took place. Whole milk would become "centrifugally separated 4% butterfat recombined pasteurized cow milk with added vitamin D and and reduced lactose." YUM!

Why does the dairy industry think it gets to define how we use words? That's not how language works. Of course, I live in a part of the world that refers to any carbonated beverage as a coke, so what do I know?

Almond milk is no more juice than it is milk. It doesn't come from a fruit, and it's not pressed out of a plant as a liquid. It is a white mixture of protein and fat suspended in a liquid, and in that regard is much more like milk than juice. Just because the marketing department came up with a sensible thing to call a product, doesn't mean they are conniving to deceive anybody.

Next thing you know, people will be all pissed off because peanut butter isn't really butter. When it comes to names we have given things, "we have always done it that way" is a perfectly cromulent argument. If everybody knows what almond milk is, then changing the name to something else will cause more confusion, not less.

Yeah. If we wanted Net Neutrality, we shouldn't have elected Ajit Pai. Oh wait, we didn't.

When it comes to just about anything that has regulations issued by the executive branch, there is some broad and vague law behind it. If the regulated groups squeal, it is up to the courts to decide whether the rule fits within the governing CFR. That's not the same as judges making the law. They're interpreting the law to determine whether the executive branch acted within the authority granted by the legislative branch. That's how checks and balances are supposed to work.

Yes, they did need to "renew" it in the new HR system; use whatever word you like...that is the word the article used. Renew, enter, update â" whatever it was, it wasn't done, and his contract was incorrectly terminated.

A human being forgot to renew his contract in the new HR system.

"His firm was going through changes, both in terms of the systems it used and the people it employed.

His original manager had been recently laid off and sent to work from home for the rest of his time at the firm and in that period he had not renewed Mr Diallo's contract in the new system."

And the problem was sorted out (too long, too faceless, perhaps), and he was allowed back to work.

She had little patience for idiots and blowhards. I don't think the local station could get picked up on the bunny ears at the farm. So we had to settle for national broadcasts on the satellite. Every now and then, the national anchors would toss to the local stations, but the satellite feed would still have the national guys. It was funny to see them acting like regular humans, rather than suits. It's commonplace now (GMA, etc), but back then it was still novel.

Other things I learned: That light switch works both ways; shit or get off the pot; warn somebody once, then go ahead and let them stick their finger in the socket the next time they try it; bacon grease is the best for frying eggs; fresh spring water on a hot day is good for body and spirit; sweep in small strokes; weevils are extra protein; cats don't always land on their feet; don't cross that bridge till you get there; ripe tomatoes with a little salt and pepper can be a meal; iodine works; if you converse while you work it takes longer, but it goes by faster.