I dunno, man, do you really want to file suit for "character assassination"? I mean, that just means they're going to read all your old emails, like, verbatim in court (not that they're that old).
I also don't understand all these people that are like "well what would be in your emails if someone went through the last 15+ years!?" Um, not much? Jeez, what have you been sending?
AFL report:
Scottsdale 4, Glendale 2.
Matt Wallner was 1-for-3. He is batting .276.
Michael Helman was 0-for-1 with a walk. He is batting .234.
Kody Funderburk struck out three in three perfect innings. His ERA is 6.11.
Zach Featherstone pitched two-thirds of an inning, giving up one hit and two walks. His ERA is 9.00.
My difficult employee quit yesterday. Took a new gig. I wish them well. I’ve never been happier as a manager.
The job market is pretty crazy right now, worker bees have newfound leverage, and the shortage isn't going away soon. I read a WSJ article the other day with some analysis by Goldman Sachs that says more than 5 million people (out of about 160 million) left the workforce completely during the pandemic. Sixty percent of those have retired and ain't coming back. In September alone, about 4.4 million workers quit their jobs. Approval of unions and collective bargaining are at their highest levels since 1965. There's a real organic movement happening in labor and companies that don't get it and fail to prioritize worker concerns are going to go through some things.
I am experiencing this right now. The company I work for declared everyone needed to return to the office back in June after not giving anyone a raise this year and that caused a bunch of people to say "no, I'm going to get a new job instead". So every team is short handed and I am doing the work of at least three people right now. So I basically told them I am going to continue working from home whether they like it or not and there really isn't anything they can do about it. If they tell me I have to go back in, I'll get a new job.
My institution recently retitled every single employee in a very expensive, poorly executed, “market-based,” multinational consultant firm-driven HR exercise. Salaries did not change unless an employee was below the minimum for their new salary grade. The staff union submitted an open records request for the new title & salary range for every employee. It revealed that the seven people in my title were hosed because four of our other colleagues were given special, higher-paying titles. I discovered that, of us seven, I’m the lowest paid (11.6% below median for the group), yet I am third-most senior, am relied upon for specialist knowledge none of my peers else has, and work in the largest division with the highest volume of annual work.
There are a couple other things chapping my ass, including some toxic behavior in my division and a bias against remote work that ignores 18+ months of high performance evidence supporting a continued majority-remote arrangement. The second has demolished my new three-day-a-week commute to campus, as (due to the school bus driver shortage) the Poissonnière’s school doesn’t start until 9:10 a.m., by which time the commuter bus I have ridden for 14 years stops running in my area.
You are not the only University employee I know upset at the removal of bus stops in Madison, although his problems with it aren't as bad because they only just had a baby. Anyway, it sounds like the University is actively trying to make people quit.
MMSD threw most parents’ schedules into the toilet the week before school started, as one third of schools shifted to earlier starts, too. Meanwhile, Metro had begun changing its service during the pandemic in anticipation of integrating BRT. Several routes, including the regular weekday service route I would have ridden as an alternative to my commuter bus, were simply eliminated.
Naturally, the fallout for employees was greeted with surprise by senior administration, whose children are generally no longer school-age.
There's one huge problem with bringing in a big consulting firm, and I've worked with them since I was in TV. Once management engages the firm, they feel obligated to implement all of their recommendations in order to justify the expense of hiring them in the first place. Doesn't matter if their recommendations are bullshit and counterproductive, they're going to get put in place come hell or high water. I've seen this over and over again.
I had nearly 200 applicants for an entry level position october 2020. HR says that I could see double for this opening. My institution is behind the times WRT some social issues because old New Orleans money, but they pay well and 35 hours a week is full time. Plus they start you at 4 weeks of PTO that increases to 5 after fie years of service and then to 6 weeks after 10 years, they offer free parking, 8 weeks family leave, the best heath care in the city, 16 paid holidays, prime access to mardi gras, flexible work from home..... sweet god why do people complain about working here.....
St. Cloud State beat Nebraska-Omaha 5-1 last night to improve to 8-2 on the season, the two teams play again tonight. The Huskies are ranked #1 in the nation by the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls. Four Minnesota teams are in the Top 10 - SCSU, Minnesota State, UMD, and the U of M, so all of the usual suspects. Most of the Huskies' home games this year are televised on FOX 9+, but I've got tickets for the UND game next month and the UMD game early in January. It's going to be nice to watch a few game from rinkside again.
Ex-Twins news: Allan de San Miguel will be the Royals' bullpen catcher and "strategist" in 2022.
Anyone headed to First Ave tonight? I'm going solo so if anyone want to grab a beer let me know.
Ever since I learned about AT&T bankrolling fascist propaganda, I've been looking for a new cellular provider. I think I've settled on Comcast, even though I have some issues with their business practices, too. But at $30/line for four lines with unlimited voice, text and data we'd save about $50 a month. They use the Verizon network and they have their own network of more than 20 million wifi access points (hello Google Voice app), so that's about as good as connectivity gets. They also integrate voice with their internet service so I can access voicemail on my computer or through the Flex box on my TV. They let you bring your own unlocked phones and even give you a $200 credit for switching current phones, but also have new phones from Apple, Motorola, Samsung and Google at market pricing. They have a promotion right now and are giving new customers free Galaxy A42 phones, but that expires on the 17th. Not sure I'd want that, but Mrs. Twayn and I both need upgrades. The daughters have iPhone 8s but we're still using our old iPhone 5SE models with 16GB of storage. I updated them to iOS 15 a couple of days ago. The iOS and system files alone take up almost 12GB of the 15GB available. That doesn't leave us much room for apps and music and photos and stuff.
If you’re considering upgrading to a newer iPhone and like the physical size of your current SEs, the 13 mini is the way to go. Considering you have a five year old model, even the base 128GB model should last you a good while. You’ll notice some serious feature upgrades at this point. A regular 13 will be larger, but you’ll get a bigger battery and screen, of course.
If the newest phone isn’t a necessity, the 12 mini is also available, but the price difference for a 128GB model is only $50 below the base 128GB 13 mini. I don’t think going for a 64GB 12 mini would be a good idea if you plan to keep your phones as long as your current models; the extra storage space helps you future-proof a bit.
FWIW, my phone (on iOS 15.1) currently has 9.17GB of system files, so yours seems a bit high.
My phone is showing 7.04GB for iOS and 4.56GB for System Data (not system files, my erratum). I assumed that iOS reserves sufficient space for system data (mostly cache, I guess?) bringing it to 11.6GB. And space isn't the only issue, battery life is noticeably shorter than it used to be, like by half or more. But before I buy I want to go brick-and-mortar shopping, cell phone are one of those things I have to try out in person to know if I'll like it or not. Thanks for the recommendations.
Mrs Runner picked up a nice car vent mounted phone holder/charger that's pretty sweet. It holds the phone out of the sunlight and the vent keeps the phone cooler, a couple problems we've had with the phone sitting on the dash panel. Not sure what our next long driving trip will be, but Google Maps will work even sweeter now
Your last sentence is one of the two main reasons I will never get an iPhone. The lack of expandable storage was a, uh, bizarre choice. I keep all my music on a mini-SD card in my phone and its great.
Not so bizarre if you grok the Apple philosophy, it's just greed-driven planned obsolescence.
I think it might have something to do with waterproofing phones well enough to survive life with clumsy owners. (An in-law once killed an earlier iPhone when it fell out of her back pocket into the toilet.) Given the prevalence of cloud-based music streaming services like Spotify and a pretty generous 128GB base config, people are probably more likely to appreciate not destroying a $700+ device than having an SD card for extra storage.
As for Apple & planned obsolescence, I get where the argument comes from, but I don’t think it holds water. iOS 15 runs on my 6 year old iPhone 6S Plus. A battery replacement by Apple a couple years ago ran me $29; its battery currently has 88% battery health. If I trade it in on a new phone, they’ll recycle it for free and give me $65. Same goes for my seven year old iPad Air — it still runs the latest OS, and I can trade it in for $65 and free recycling.
Android 12 came out last month and officially runs on Pixel phones released up to three years ago. Samsung hasn’t announced which of its devices will support Android 12 yet. Last year’s Android 11 was supported by Pixel 2 (2017) and up, while Samsung apparently dropped official support for pre-2019 phones?
Now, Tim Cook-era Apple is totally guilty of caving to Wall Street’s obsession with profit margins. You pay a pretty penny for RAM on a new Mac or for first-party peripherals.
Yeah, I think your point is valid and mine was just half-baked. It's not so much about planned obsolescence as it is controlling consumers' choices, keeping their customers locked inside the Apple universe as much as possible. Before streaming became a dominant paradigm and competitor, Apple was, if I recall, the first out of the gate with digital music sales at any kind of scale with the iTunes store.
My other main objection (ok, other two objections) is that I will, under no circumstances unless its a company paid phone, use any kind of iOS or iTunes.
You’re right; the platform lock-in effect is real. Quarterly earnings calls with investors routinely highlight services revenue because that’s the primary growth area for Apple’s business, and Wall Street expects growth and will punish companies that start to slip when markets for their other products mature. (The smartphone & tablet markets seem to have matured to the point that significant growth is confined to capturing lower end of the price spectrum, where Xiaomi is focused, or dominance in low-revenue “emerging markets.”) Apple makes many dollars on the relative pennies it has to spend for its cloud storage services*, and while I’m sure it costs a lot to maintain contracts with labels for Apple Music, those services have pretty large markets where consumers are still switching based on prestige features.
* I don’t use my whole 2TB, but my only lower option was 200GB, which I would definitely blow through. As you can imagine, I pay a good amount to access additional storage Apple knows I probably can’t fully use.
I assume this pun was intended.
But of course!
I'm curious if anyone here might have a use for a good microscope, or know someone who does, or knows of a local school that could use one. It's my dad's old scope, made by Spencer Lens in Buffalo and it's probably as old as I am or older so probably acquired in the late 50s or early 60s. But it is in real good shape for it's age. It comes with both mirror and bulb illumination, multiple lenses, and there's a box of slides and covers in the case with it. I used it some for biology classes and my girls used it at different times in their schooling. It's free to a good home, I thought I'd offer it here before putting it on craigslist. It does need to be a local pickup, it's fairly heavy and I'm not keen on shipping it anywhere.
Twayn - if it’s still available, I’d be happy to acquire some lab equipment!
So three young men attempted to car jack me outside my house. Thankfully my spidey sense perked up and two other cars drove by right when they were "parking" behind me, so I hurried out of there back home while they were trying to follow me.
Yikes!
Glad you’re okay, Pirate, and particularly that you didn’t have the small fry with you at the time.
Indeed and indeed.