There was an initial large disruption as they dumped a huge number of packages into alternate delivery systems that weren't prepared for the sudden massive increase in load. Within a few weeks, it had settled down, and shipping times had improved enough that same-day and next-day shipping were once again available, albeit with shorter "order by" windows. The quality of the delivery experience has dropped significantly (in terms of failed/late deliveries) due to them relying exclusively on "Intelcom" (a gig delivery service) rather than Amazons own delivery system.

My understanding of how it works, at least for Montreal (which used to have multiple Amazon warehouses in the metro area), is that all orders are shipped from the Toronto area, a ~6 hour drive away. Amazon loads orders onto big Amazon trucks (semi trailers) and drives them to an Intelcom distribution centre in Montreal, and Intelcom handles the last-mile delivery. Intelcom doesn't do inter-city delivery, and Amazon doesn't have any infrastructure in Montreal (or Quebec more broadly).

As for why Amazon services Montreal's orders from Toronto (a ~6 hour drive away) instead of Ottawa (a ~2 hour drive away), my only guess is that Ottawa (1.5m metro pop) wasn't big enough absorb all of Montreal's (4.3m metro pop) demand, but Toronto (6.2m) was.

That ultimately won't matter, because the workers have already been laid off, and the courts can't order Amazon to reverse the decision. The best case scenario is that several years down the road, Amazon will have to make a one-time payout to the workers.

I can't tell if this is parody or not.

Are they?

This century Russia has engaged in a offensive wars against Ukraine and Georgia, put down a couple of internal rebellions and fucked around intervening in five or six conflicts in their neighbourhood and Africa.

Iran has maintained a few proxy militia groups to counter Israel.

China has... done nothing. Specifically refused to engage in any international military action. Not since Vietnam, actually.

Wikipedia's list of wars involving the US is split into multiple pages, despite the US only existing for a few hundred years. The one for 2001 to present is long, I'm not going to count them. Some of them are anti-pirate operations, mostly legal anti-terrorist actions and a UN sanctioned international actions. There are also some illegal offensive wars, a couple of them massive. Betrayal of allies, torture, lots of war crimes.

Domestically, yeah, the US is a better place to live than Iran, especially if you're a woman, although the US is working hard to change that. Probably better than China or Russia too depending on what you value. Internationally none of them hold a candle to the US of A.

https://github.com/apple-oss-d...

Or the kernel specifically: https://github.com/apple-oss-d...

To be fair, this is an example of the CIA on good behaviour. No ACTUAL assassinations, probably, not a whiff of torture, not a single government overthrown.

Amazon will replace workers with robots the second it is feasible. This won't do anything to change that.

Is there any risk of being caught in the lie? Here it's possible that your employer will get at least a sense of your previous salary because they need to handle income taxes for that year.

I do it anyway and it's never backfired, but I suppose in theory...

One of Amazon's warehouses in the Montreal area (Laval) unionized. Amazon took the nuclear response and closed every warehouse in the entire province, seven in total. All Amazon orders destined for Quebec are now shipped from Ontario.

It is illegal* to ask if candidates are married.

It is illegal* to ask if candidates have children.

It is illegal* to ask if candidates live with their parents.

* In America.

I agree with the last part in parethenses. Do you have citations for the rest?

Not for lack of trying. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/judge-blocks-rfk-jr-from-scaling-back-childhood-vaccine-recommendations.

Bwah? The article I linked to is on Harvard's news site. It is not just about Harvard. As that article notes there's been about 500 million dollars of contracts canceled. Note that even if that were all Harvard (which it isn't) that would be a sizable chunk even in their endowment. And this has on top of that had a major chilling effect causing corporations to stop doing mRNA treatment research in general.

While I generally share the cynicism and doubt about AI as seen here in many Slashdot comments, your comment made me wonder if this is enshitification versus shitting their pants.

When you talk about milking their customers for what they can get, to me that usually connotes that the company is doing well and has little competition, so they can get greedy and get away with it.

However, as I read the article, this sounds more like reality is setting in. After burning money and trying to establish some buzz and activity, they now see that revenue needs to pick up before they spend through their venture capitalization. That is true for any business, but for AI where solid business seems to be lagging behind the hype, this could just be a sensible reality check, trying to preempt a panic before the red line approaches.

I also get a sense, from reading the news and Slashdot comments, that "reality check" time is starting to set in across the AI business spectrum, maybe not yet intense, but the start of a trend that will likely accelerate. Either companies go bust, as many like to predict, or users who have come to love whatever they do with it now find that free lunch is over.

Looks interesting, I'll take a look when I get back in to work.

Bombing people doesn't really help them.

I see Israel has started its usual tactics of destroying all the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon, in preparation for annexing part of it.

Behold, some tech bros:
https://www.historyhit.com/fac...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They might have launghed then, but they're not laughing now.