> The real screaming is coming from workers that took advantage of the situation and re-located to a more affordable residence that is not conveniently located closer to work but is instead further away (why pay high CA rent/taxes/etc to just log in over Zoom for work each day?). You make a good point here. The rent and sales prices of housing in most California cities has increased considerably since 2020. There are probably a decent amount of employees who moved away because they couldn't afford the rent with their current job, who will definitely not be able to afford moving back now lol. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who is correct here. The company will do whatever they think benefits them, and in this case they think having people back in the office is the right thing. Ultimately it's between the company and their employees to work things out. In my own experience, employees don't always back down on these mandates and it's not unusual for the company to end up backing down when they start seeing attrition spiking. It really depends on how much the company needs the employees.

More importantly, when Microsoft offers a product that competes with yours, for free as part of their 365 suite, you're screwed.

Google isn't in "that shithole" SF, it's in Mountain View. To be fair, in Mountain View, over 72% of voters are registered democrats. So it's just as full of "woke" lol. Maybe you can get Elon Musk to buy Google.

I have been hearing plenty about LK-99 and I don't have to use potato-head's bullshit playground.

I chuckled when I read the post because I work at a different company as a remote employee, and if I wasn't within an hour of the office, my company would pay for the travel & hotel room when visiting the office. Of course they don't pay for a room for hybrid employees, and google here is subsidizing the rooms for (hypothetically) hybrid employees.. that's nice I guess. The way their little jingle is written up sounds hilarious though. It's like "Hey we're not paying for your stay! But we'll give you a deal! Just $99 a night!" lmao. Anyway, buddy in one of my discords claims he used to work at google and his total compensation was twice what mine currently is. They do pay you well to be in their office. But everything I've read and heard about Sundar Pichai and Google's recent change of heart with practically everything... I don't think I'd want to work there. Plus their interview process is a bitch and a half because they're famous for paying well lol.

Phillips sells Wiz bulbs now too, and I love those.. they provide all of the same functionality, connect directly to wifi, don't require an internet connection (so you can toss them on an internet-isolated VLAN I suppose), and work great. I'm hoping they last a long time! They're also quite a bit cheaper than the Hue bulbs lol.

From november 2019 to mid-2022 I ran christmas lights every night for like 6+ hours every day. If you normally put em up in november and take them down at the start of january, let's say you're running them 75 days for a normal Christmas season. I ran mine about 622 days. By the end, it is true that all but one string had died lol. I'd say at least half of them lasted about 400 days - about 5 christmas seasons worth. And all of the lights were already at least a few seasons old lol. In fact, thinking back, I bought some of those sets as far back as 2013! Anecdotally anyway, I guess I have to digress with your claim. All things considered, they held up amazingly well. Same with our prewired christmas tree - I've been using the same LED tree for years now. I can't even remember when I bought it. The incandescent version made by the same company only lasted 2 seasons before half the lights on it failed... which is funny because that's usually a wiring problem.... IDK, I have similar thoughts with LED ceiling lights. The ones on the ceiling in my living room are run 24/7 and have been on about 99% of the time the past 4 years. They have become a lot dimmer and yellower, I believe.. but they still work! The one I'm most curious about right now is the LED bulb in my bedroom lamp. That one also runs 24/7. I replaced it about a year ago... the bulb that I had in there before was a corkscrew CCFL from like 2010.

Quitting reddit feels like what I hear other people say about quitting smoking lol. I stopped a week ago and I STILL sometimes find myself opening a browser tab and heading to reddit.com (which I blocked at a DNS level). It's embarrassing. I quit because I hated the CEO's attitude in those posts and regretted ever making an account there. But I don't think I ever want to go back, now that I realize how fucking addictive it was. Nope. Never again.

More crap, more crapware, and fewer rights. WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!?!?! :D