EnderMB

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in Tesla profits nosedive as more job cuts announced

It's sad to say, but I'm glad we're at a point where shareholders now look at job cuts as a negative, and layoffs don't result in an increase in share price.

Amazon have been cutting jobs for their third year running now, on top of URA, and the only thing keeping our CEO in a job right now is happy shareholders.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in The Man Who Killed Google Search

I've no idea why, but Amazon in particular has a huge number of Indian managers. It's never particularly bothered me, but I do see this sentiment amongst other people of Indian origin - often the most critical of Indian managers.

Is there something specific about Indian leadership that pushes growth above anything else? The sentiment in Amazon is one of ruthlessness, and pushing growth and positive short-term metrics above everything else.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Mildly Infuriating in The post title is "Best Tablet for Kids 2024"

Has anyone tried to scrape Reddit, so that the valuable content from some subs isn't lost for good?

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in UK: Almost a quarter of kids aged 5-7 have smartphones

I went to look around a nursery the other day, one that is attached to a school. We walked past kids that couldn't have been older than 6-7 dancing (possibly filming) to a TikTok vid, on a brand-new looking iPhone.

I'm usually against governments getting involved in the internet, since they have such a piss-poor understanding of tech, but it would be good to see some kind of regulation that bans people of a certain age from operating a smartphone without a limited set of operations (i.e. to contact parents, to get school alerts, etc), alongside school bans for the use of social media on school grounds. My wife is a teacher, and cyber bullying is rampant, whether it's the police getting called in over someone (underage) sending nudes and having them posted online once they break up, or fights being planned via iMessage or WhatsApp, and sometimes even people creating fake Tinder/Grindr profiles of their teachers (or to try to match with them).

Obviously, there are parents that'll just say "fuck it, it keeps them quiet" or ones that'll let them use a smartphone due to peer pressure, but a lot of it can be cut down before it becomes a problem.

In many ways, I'm quite glad I grew up with AIM and MSN Messenger. This kind of online power would have been crazy to me as a kid, and I don't envy kids that have to deal with this landscape.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in Google fires 28 employees after protest over Israel cloud contract

Well...if you believe Blind they are doing more layoffs today.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to 196 in big brain rule

It's hard to say what the best solution to this is, because you're absolutely right, many billionaires don't spend "money" - they leverage their assets to get stuff. If they need to liquidate anything, someone that monitors some portfolio at some wealth management firm will do that with a few clicks and some signatures.

Perhaps the best option is regulation of a banks ability to finance against leveraged assets above a certain threshold? I'd also be for a cap on CEO salaries and bonuses, perhaps with both shareholder and employee approval needed to execute executive bonuses. I imagine that alone would mean most CEO's would lose a fuck-ton of money.

I'd love for a wealth tax to be viable, but it would require balls of steel from the president, and a central tax authority that won't be coerced into accepting loopholes. Even then, it would be hilariously easy to get around by moving wealth elsewhere.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Mildly Infuriating in They really want people to RTO

Same, about a decade for me too, and never worked from my bed once.

If I'm tinkering with something, I might sit on the sofa or lie in bed for half an hour, but no way would I work from bed. Sounds like a sore neck waiting to happen...

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Memes in and you will be happy

That's pretty standard in tech. Most companies have this automated from either the layoffs convo or the email being sent.

Back in 2012 I was laid off in a very short meeting with my boss and HR. This was at 10am when everyone was in meetings, so I left a quiet office and entered the stairwell to leave. My badge got me on, but I was unable to leave. I spent 20 mins awkwardly waiting for someone to either pass by or notice so that I could be escorted out of the building.

I'm at Amazon now, and some of the stories of people losing access are horrible. Some layoffs coincided with RTO, with some people moving across the country (NYC to Seattle) only to be told once their life was packed up and being shipped away that, actually, there wouldn't be a job to move to. There were also stories of IT failures for people, and people basically breaking down in tears at losing their job, when it was only email downtime.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Memes in Scraping scraping scraping.

I love my cast iron pan, but I really cannot get the perfect sheen that everyone else seems to get. The bottom of mine is non-stick now, and I season regularly, but the sides always seem to chip away eventually. Once the chipping starts, I have no idea how to stop other than to strip it entirely and start again.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to solarpunk memes in How is the hydrogen made?

Her Instagram is kept fairly up to date. She is still confined to a bed, and it sounds like she still requires round-the-clock care. Her partner and family are absolute heroes.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in Tesla scraps its plan for a $25,000 Model 2 EV

If you completely take Musk out of the equation, my issues with Tesla are:

• The whole carbon credits thing
• The price point is premium, but the build quality often isn't
• Other companies have largely eaten their lunch, launching solid EV's that rival or better Tesla
• Their reputation was built off of the end-goal of mass-producing affordable EV's, something they will now not do.

EnderMB , 2 months ago to Technology in Microsoft is blocking Windows Customization Tools

It's painful that this needs to be mentioned, and that people will actively argue that it's not true...

EnderMB , 3 months ago to Technology in Google might make users pay for AI features in search results

I'm all for this!

It's what basically every other AI tool wants to do, because building and operating LLM's at this scale is horrifically expensive.

So let them do it. Those that want these tools will pay, and the 99.999% of people that don't give a fuck about AI can just continue as normal.

Hell, if Google want to deshitify their search by removing the ML nonsense they've been loading into it for the last decade or so, even better! Let me pay for that too, and I'll pay them exactly nothing.

EnderMB , 3 months ago to Lefty Memes in That's literally what they're for (article in comments)

I work in big tech, and you would be amazed at how many people will openly decry pure acts of malice against employees - laying off the day before their stocks vest, removing remote working, gaslighting, etc, but who will also openly decry forming a union.

Funny enough, even highly educated people have some weird notions about what a union would do for them. They think it'll make the workforce weaker, will reduce their salary significantly, and will promote laziness and job losses throughout their teams, with absolutely zero evidence to back it up.

What these people are doing is literally paying for the benefits of a union, without the actual union aspect, and with very little power on their side. All a union needs to be is:

• Collective bargaining for a minimum salary offered
• Access to a union rep for disputes
• Access to a union lawyer that specialises in conflict resolution

That's it, and all for a small fee every month/year.

EnderMB , 3 months ago to 196 in Performance Imprulevement Plan

Mostly because I work for Amazon, and can both see the org structure and know how it works in other orgs here.