You need to be specific about what country you are in. Most don't have such a rule. In any case, if I were to do this, I'd probably wire it to 12V and put in my own control system. It's not rocket science.

Since TFA has a load of speculation such as "any iPhone can ... use Globalstar" without any technical justification, there doesn't seem much need to take Cringely seriously when he talks of Globalstar.

Fair enough. I don't entirely agree with the logic, but everywhere is different. We tend to have very similar cross-squad comms as we used to because various squads were geographically distributed anyway, even when in the office. Can't walk to someone's desk to interrupt when they're 500 miles away. Funnily enough the last in-person cross-squad collab had people on a flight with some Covid cases, so there's that little reminder that being in the office ain't all that. Lots of the newer non-technical people are gagging to get everyone back in though.

Well said. There's definitely a type that promotes the in-office argument. It's usually not the type getting the work done.

Oh god. Is this a trend, because folks are trying it in my organisation too.

There are teams (silos) that work really well, and then there are teams that don't, people who aren't so experienced or competent, and projects without "resource".

So the solution was to break down the silos, which in practice means taking busy people from the teams that work well to do the work that the other teams and projects aren't able to do. The result of course, is that now everyone's fucked and there's even more work piled on top of the same people.

Don't do it. Pay the current rates, hire good people, train good grads, and grow the damn organisation. What you're doing will very likely result in good people who enjoy their work and their team leaving for somewhere that respects them a little more.

So, same as in-person meetings.

Could be nice for industrial control interfaces and similar.

I didn't see that one on the website. What's the country of origin?

Love the idea, but I think the swappable connectors could have been internal for durability. I don't think those swappable pods will age well.

Casual conversations can be had online. Use virtual collaboration drop-in rooms, open all day in the calendar. We do that with voice & sometimes music enabled and it works just fine. You don't need to book a slot with someone just because you're physically distant from them.

It's not really ok. It forces people to co-locate with the office location which limits living choices, and it's still a massive waste of time and carbon on commuting those 2 or 3 days a week.

That hum of activity is the reason we wear noise cancelling headphones in the open plan offices they make us commute to.

It's not age, it's culture, habit, and personality. Some can't work at home due to kids, spouses, or other issues.

However... We should tax the shit out of companies for every employee that has to commute to an office. It's the only thing businesses seem to understand.

> An imperfect product is better than a product that is perfectly documented and architected but not written yet.

That depends on likelihood and impact of failure. Security and safety are pretty important.

It's practice for one on Mars.

All those woke customers of Apple, too.