The Maple Leafs live to see another game. The Real Madrid-Bayern match was a good one. And Ipswich are a point away from auto-promotion into the EPL. And that’s all I’ve got for sports today. On to…the links!
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But wait, how does that apply in court? I thought they overturned the verdict. Isn’t this double-jeopardy?
Popcorn! Get your popcorn! I like how these media outlets say the cops are causing the violence. Well, that’s what happens when trespassers refuse to leave peacefully. They’re only gonna say please so many times before they have to result to physical means to return the trespassed property to the owners.
How the hell does this make any sense at all? None of these people have visas. They have not had asylum hearings. And this was done surreptitiously without legislation. In a world where the constitution mattered, everybody involved from the government would be removed from office.
And she’s right. Title IX is a law. And it has specific language in it. That language mentions “sex,” not “gender identity.” This should be a slam-dunk in court. But we’ll have to see how it goes since words don’t mean anything anymore.
If they’re getting their work done on time, what’s the issue? If they’re not keeping up, then they need to be held accountable. Pretty simple.
Maybe the birds should change their behavior. Why you gonna make building owners spend a fortune when the birds are the stupid ones here? Seriously though, if the buildings were built to code, then I don’t see how they can make them spend a bunch of money to make the windows retarded bird-friendly.
Fight! Fight! Fight! The whole competition stinks. And I’m ok with that.
I’m starting to wonder if they’ll survive. He won’t get bailed out like the automakers in the aughts did. He’s been too critical of the government to get that special treatment. So I am really starting to wonder if they’ll make it.
Here’s a fun one. An underrated band. This one is especially solid. Enjoy them both.
And enjoy this lovely Wednesday, dear friends.
It depends. Since he was not acquitted by jury, a dismissal of the first trial’s retsults by an appeals court can result in a new trial unless it is overturned with prejudice.
Basically, since the jury said guilty and the judge said “the trial was a bit fishy” the result is a do-over.
As a practical rule Double Jeopardy is to prevent fishing for a guilty verdict after acquittal. If the Jury goes “Not Guilty” they have to come up with different charges to drag you back to court.
Or switch between federal and state jurisdiction – even for the same crime.
+1 federal hate crime
Forget legal technicalities. Alvin Bragg is running that shitshow.
One — One thing I’m sure the PPP push did over the last 3 years is match up just about all the basic market for EVs to product. It would not at all surprise me that it would take major hurdles to get EV sales now beyond replacement.
Two — Hasn’t Musk himself said more than once recently that China’s going to eat everyone’s lunch due to having the minerals, batteries (and corrupt market dumping and slave labor) *cough* cost structure?
I’m kind of thinking that maybe he’s decided it is time to divest himself from Tesla. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to keep a business going that he doesn’t think is going to be long term (come to think of it… how are those Solar roofs coming? Power walls? All that stuff seems to have faded away with the subsidies…. I like Elon as much as probably anyone ’round these parts mainly for SpaceX… but he’s good at what he does, and what he does appears to often be taking advantage of government money too…)
Anyway, morning all.
China still has a quality control problem, especially with their cars bursting into flames, airbags not deploying, etc.
And Ford and GM don’t? 😉
The price point means nobody’s buying those.
It’s not so much a lack of quality control as much as it is population control. Don’t need the one child policy if exploding cars keeps your population in check.
I think they’re backpedaling on that these days as they’re looking at one hell of a population crash inside of the next generation, iirc.
They should be fine now that men can have babies.
Given the evidence of China under the CCP as the land of shortcuts, I go with the simpler explaination that nobody working on the product gives a shit about it, and so long as it rolls out the door, they’re going to do whatever saves them effort.
It doesn’t — but if that gets you… the PPP administration is purportedly gearing up for one hell of a hold my beer action on that front. Talk about a middle finger to everyone outside of Dearborn if they do it.
Maybe they can board with members of Trannies for Palestine.
QUILTBAGS for the Quran!!!
Sounds like suicidal ideation, can we get a psych hold on them?
Jews for Jesus for the next generation!
Well, that’s what happens when trespassers refuse to leave peacefully.
It’s Finals. Can I Go Home?
LARPing has consequences?
Can’t help but think that as we increasingly treat young adults as children until they’re nigh unto 30 these days… they’re going to act more and more like toddlers.
And that isn’t all govt policy – we’ve fucked up our society real good.
This is the fight I have with my wife more and more every day as the (adult) kids get older.
Humor at IU Bloomington, quite near where I dormed! Start w the good! Uni. and State Police arrested 56 “protesters” last week at “pro-Palestinian encampments.” Quite near my former dorm. (I was the only one in my crew on Smith 3 to NOT get detained/arrested by the 5-0. (Sincerely unrelated, I also know the Lt. Gov. That’s its own level of insanity.)
The predictable: Faculty Council Prez called for the IU prez’ “resignation or removal” after IU/ ISP actions. Voted “overwhelmingly” for no-confidence.
Indiana’s been kicking recently. Favorably, especially regarding schools. Not as reaching as FL, but pronoun shit is being slowed/stopped.
Upper Edu is a useful spark plug, letting Most Folk see how batshit Team Blue’s lil puppies are. The Blue Banner can’t be (terribly) internally happy. I started IU in 2005 at age 18, when Facebook still required a uni email. It’s overt how silly it’s all become. Well. It SHOULD be to Most Folk.
It doesn’t go into great detail where exactly on campus they were (and it is a little surprising given how liberal Athens can be — but maybe after being in the spotlight for Laken Riley they’ve decided to err on the side of law and order for a bit) but I was pleased to see that one of my old stomping grounds was having none of it. Don’t know how the North Avenue Trade School (other stomping ground) is impacted….
My brother is one of the cops involved in clearing the protesters out of IU Bloomington. He said it has been a massive annoyance, but that most of the “protesters” are well known to the cops. They’re the ones out there causing trouble every time. He also said that the cops are not being given the resources they need (like water), which makes for a very long day when the protesters get rowdy.
Yeah, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that “Palestine” is just an excuse for the usual black bloc assholes to cause trouble. All the commie slogans kind of give it away.
If they are trustifarians, maybe I can be persuaded against intergenerational wealth transfer on blood lines.
So, honest question – who would the money go to instead?
Oh there’s no real way to prevent it. Worst of all would be the govt getting it.
Really, this is just another avoidable result of prosperity.
🤔
So, if we authorized the use of lethal force just once, the protester problem would just go away for good?
It only lasts for 50 years or so…
Well, that’s good enough for now.
“Where have all the protectors gone?…” 🎶
Team Blue realizes that a summer of love is bad for incumbents. So they are just fine tamping this shit down so they can drag the corpse of Joe Biden over the finish line.
The Democratic convention will be interesting. I’m staying the hell away from Chicago that week.
As mentioned on The Fifth Column, it’s not 1969 – protesters will be limited to their “free speech cages” and won’t get within a mile of the actual delegates.
I predict it’ll be a nothing-burger.
And the MC5 won’t be staging a concert in Lincoln Park this time around.
I’ll have to let my wife know about that, she’s a proud IU grad.
You’ve got me — but I’m more than a little biased having been remote for some time now.
Well — I understand some of what I assume is the motivation for return-to-office — companies got juicy tax breaks or other benefits from cities when they placed sites, the cities are pissed that they’ve lost tax revenue due to WfH (because people don’t want to deal with the traffic and/or crime and whatnot), so they’re putting pressure on their buddy execs to get the sheep back in the pens so they can fleece them, dammit.
I also somewhat understand the micromanaging power complex of needing to see the workers in their cubes — though I don’t agree with it.
And before anyone starts — as Sloopy said, yes the key is that the work must get done. And yes, if you really need to be on-site (manufacturing or whatnot) you should be. And yes, it is the company owners who sign the paychecks who can make the decision (and the employees who disagree can leave). Free association and all. Just saying that for a lot of folks where the coworkers are in 5 different continents, no one they work with would be in the same office and it is all done via networked computing anyway — WfH makes much more sense for a lot of people. Not everyone can – but for those who can, getting back the 2 to 4 (or more) hours that would be stuck commuting matters.
I haven’t spent a dime in the city of Albany since they put in red light cameras.
… Except at the Greek truck, because their salad with chicken is too good. (it’s the same chicken they use for their souvlaki with all the seasonings just placed atop a greek salad. I get over having to pick out the olives.)
My opinion would vary based on my age.
At my age I’m completely over going into the office. WFH or else. If my company disagrees I’ll find one that doesn’t. No biggie.
I actually did this, but didn’t realize that there was a fancy name like hush-cation for it.
Went to South Carolina for three weeks with my wife. Didn’t bother telling anyone at work and they never knew.
The main reason I didn’t tell anyone is that my current employer seems to think they should know a lot more about my life that I think they should. Rather than open an entire can of worms with them, I just didn’t say anything. Everyone I work with now is remote. Our HR thinks that this means that they really have to keep tabs on certain things lest they be surprised by some remote craziness.
I’m a bit torn on the whole idea of working vacations. On one hand, it is great for someone like my wife who gets to go along and have a nice time while I work. On the other hand, I always feel a bit guilty because I’m in some new place and don’t get out sightseeing as much as I think I should because I’m putting in my 8-5 work day.
On the last trip we had a shit bomb explode and I put in a huge week of work. I felt really bad because Mrs. Holiness had to do a lot of stuff on her own because I was working and in meetings trying to figure out how to fix things.
I travel for work and bring my wife often.
She knows I’ll be on a ship all day so she does her sight seeing while I’m working.
When I’m by myself I stay in hotels outside of the city, but if she comes with me, we stay downtown so it’s easy for her to walk around.
Unfortunately my job is not remote.
The last work trip my wife had where I tagged along was to Vegas. She hates Vegas and I love it. It was perfect for the both of us and I had a winning outing so got to deposit some money in the bank when we got home. The only downside was I tried to do some GM performance drive they were having and failed the breathalyzer they give you before the event. I hadn’t started drinking yet that day.
In the before times I took some 3 week long vacations where I’ve carved out a week to actually work. We have offices all over the world where I can pop in and work.
If they’re getting their work done on time, what’s the issue?
There isn’t one. It’s just a hit piece against WFH sponsored by whatever unholy conglomeration of interests decided that “back to office” needed to happen.
I work on “vacation” every time I travel back to Dallas. It lets the girls spend more time with family, and I get face time with some folks in my department. Win-win.
Given half the article seemed to be devoted to “how to pick your hotel destination” I was wondering if it was a stealth ad for a travel agency or something. I didn’t care enough to look deeply.
We just hired a senior guy to backfill my position as I go from full time to contractor. I am convinced that he has not quit his old job or he has some other side hustle going on. He never answers chats or emails in a timely manner.
I can’t get him to actually meet with me so I can do some knowledge transfer. One of the few meetings I got him to finally show up at, he got a call and point blank told me he had to take this and left the meeting.
My boss also has noticed the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if this new guy doesn’t last much longer.
People like this are exactly why old skool managers hate remote work. If this chucklehead was in the office, he’d at least have to focus on the job he was hired to do.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Where did you get such a cute idea?
Sorry. Lost my mind there for a bit. But maybe he’d get bored and at least try?
There’s also a question about what counts as “timely”. I don’t camp out on my phone, so texts can go unread (and unanswered) for hours at a stretch. Substantive email responses also don’t go out for some time, as they require thought. Non-substantive ones often don’t get sent at all, because non-substantive. I find the massively on-line thing at work just as immature and annoying as I do in the social world.
He does sound a little fishy, though.
Commercial realtors are the enemy.
Commercial Realtors are just trying to pay off the real villains.
The politicians know that if those offices aren’t quietly funding all the city boondoggles a mob will show up with pitchforks and torches if they try to make up that deficit by directly taxing the residents.
I’ve seen enough food “reality” shows to see the vegans get special treatment every time – they are always winning steak challenges and such. It is of course complete bullshit and I suspect the same is happening with the not-cheese mentioned in the article.
Ya I noticed that too. “Never cooked steak before in my life” is either a lie or they get special treatment cause it add controversy and drama.
If men can compete in women’s sports, vegans can certainly win steak-grilling contests.
Grocery shopping last weekend, GF noticed vegan cream cheese on the shelf. She had some thoughts… 🙂
Almond cheese? Just tofu with better branding? The world wonders….
Have they solved the issue where vegan “cheese” doesn’t melt?
Unless it’s changed, I don’t recall that on Chopped. Vegans usually get bounced in the first round if it has meat in it, I do recall one episode in which a Kosher chef had to do non-kosher things for the first two rounds (from memory it was pork and shellfish) who wound up winning.
I grew tired of Chopped. Nothing to learn from and it’s all just weird combinations of shit.
For me it’s a decent background noise show.
One thing about that show that really annoyed me was the whole “I’m here to prove [identity group] can compete in the kitchen.” schtick that came up every other episode. Especially after it was clocking several hundred female contestants who were there to prove the exact same thing.
As a customer, I don’t give a rat’s ass what identity group you identify with so long as you keep a clean kitchen and serve good food.
But that just kept popping up on that show. I strongly suspect the producers prompted it even through subconscious choice of contestant.
Mrs OBE and I noticed that too. “I am here to prove women can cook” doesn’t go as far when most cooking competitions I have watched have female winners.
Given that “Grandma’s cooking” is regarded as one of the gold standards of quality (in a generic sense) I was never of a mind that they couldn’t.
I suppose you could torture some statistics about sex ratios in professional kitchens of a given michelin rating, etc, to show a disparty – but it just rings hollow.
Well, from my vantage point, what I see are “Men are chefs; women are cooks.” Same with “Men are tailors; women are seamstresses.”
It matters.
Where do you see that? I mean that question as an honest inquiry to gain perspective and not a dismissive statement implying it doesn’t happen.
That always would irk me on Forged in Fire.
“I’m here to represent women”, “I’m here to prove wone can make blades”.
I always root for the women who just act like bladesmiths.
How else is a woman supposed to prove she belongs in the kitchen?
By making me a damn fine sammich?
Uh uh…”grassroots”…
Fucking liars.
Yup. Completely grassroots. That’s why these “protests” all sprung up at the same time with similar signage and coordinated messaging.
Pay no attention to the foundations behind that curtain, Dorothy!
Gets a little muddy with social media though. Coordination can occur quite quickly and they have their insular bubbles they live in day to day on those socials.
And of course the press investigated those claims and published their findings that either, yes, there is outside organization or no, could find no evidence of it, right? I mean, rather than a sneering dismissal like “well, they claim that X . . . “
That would require actual journalism rather than he said she said reporting.
He won’t get bailed out like the automakers in the aughts did. He’s been too critical of the government to get that special treatment. So I am really starting to wonder if they’ll make it.
The tech and IP will make for an attractive buyout. He also has SpaceX which he uses to quietly beat DC with.
See my comments in last night’s thread. I think this was dumb. Rich infant pitched a fit because the leadership in his charging division wasn’t reducing costs quickly enough. It’s typical Tesla.
Tesla could probably help themselves by building a 500+ HP gas powered sports car. Or a couple hybrids even, so long as they’ve got good range and look sharp.
That won’t happen as it’s “off brand” for them.
Sell them under the “Edison” badge?
Lol – I like it.
A rare outbreak of sanity in Washington: House Speaker Mike Johnson will hang on to his job. Democrats say they’ll help defeat the GOP malcontents trying to oust Mr. Johnson, and to call this episode from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene a stupid and futile gesture would be unfair to Bluto.
Typical WSJ position, but good line!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-speaker-mike-johnson-marjorie-taylor-greene-gop-e202cb7c?st=nzzeoo6wnc9t54t&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Hard to believe that the Speaker was once a position of high authority in DC, that a backbencher wouldn’t dare to challenge.
A reward for keeping the gravy train with stops in Ukraine and Israel going, no doubt.
No surprise that the WSJ is cheering for the Repub majority in the House being brought to heel by the Dem minority.
Greene’s gesture has one, probably intended, result, though: it shows who Johnson really answers to.
And the majority of officeholders.
Happy May 1st people!
You know what that means…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1GD_T-3oLU
*lyrics NSFW
Was expecting
https://youtu.be/rHomETco0MI
Also nsfw lyrics
I prefer this version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2Kgabnaeo
Duh!
Isn’t this what tort law is for?
And all predicated on the ‘promising career prospects’ aspect? Seriously, just shoot us in the head.
I guess I’m just dumb, but if there was that level of fraud, why aren’t the Art Institutes being held accountable?
So in other words she’s doing nothing…
This was written before the cops finally were called in last night to Columbia.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/minouche-shafik-columbia-president-student-protests-spiral-68609268?st=b3aay854rgksw9j&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Maybe this is why Kamala tweeted out Trust Women
Seems they can’t keep a handle on their schools.
So, the noisy people in the next block of cubes over are being moved to a different office location.
Should I be happy or worry about whoever is getting moved into that space?
Your office doesn’t have hotel seating? So primitive!
I can’t even believe that they would allow you to have some sense of ownership of your cube. You work should be preparing you for the “you will own nothing and like it” future.
“It’s what our research suggest employees want! And foosball, of course.”
“So, no one actually asked the employees then.”
Anyone working for a company with hotelling has a justifiable homicide claim for going postal on upper management and HR.
Officially, corporate took my assigned desk and switched me to hoteling. I haven’t been to the office since 2020.
What if I told you that we were combining our hotelling with ….
an open floor plan!!!!!
Then you’d be justified locking HR and upper management inside and firebombing the building.
I love the fact that HR seems to always have a hand in these switches from normal cubes to open floor plans or hotelling, but they all have offices.
“Well we have sensitive conversations so of course we need an office for privacy!” Yet they seem to feel the rest of the cattle don’t need it.
Just bring up PCI and PII protections, then you can get the worst of both worlds.
/remembers the PCI call center one location set up, no outside electronics, no paper, separate badge swipe to enter, in a fish tank
Well, what with all the love of WFH, you should be happy to have a seat and not be forced to lean against a wall when you come back to the office.
Run, don’t walk.
I was on a call yesterday with a guy who was in the open hotelling office. I could hear 3 other conversations going on in the background while trying to parse what he was saying.
It’s a nightmare. Meetings all day from cubes just doesn’t work.
Cubes? I’d have killed for a cube after the remodel. It was just row after row of desks with little partitions to make it slightly harder to see the person across from you.
This is pretty close to what my office was and is like.
You say I have to work in a room like that? With other people?
I quit.
One of the first projects I worked on started without a budget. So there were 5 of us flunkies that ended up sitting at 6 foot buffet tables in the middle of a floor that was being renovated. Absolutely everything had been gutted and we had extension cords that ran 50 ft from the wall of the floor over to our little pod. We got to know each other very well.
There was one closet near the elevator shaft that still had a door. It was 5 ft wide and maybe 20 feet deep. The five of us were always trying to come up with a reason we should be able to sit in there and everyone else should remain at the tables. No one could ever come up with a winning argument.
Later we had some new flunkies join our project and one of them ended up getting the chair/desk in the closet. Later, the gal who got the closet told us that she thought we hated her because we locked her away in the closet. We told her that we hated her because she got to sit in the closet with some privacy.
That wasn’t even the worse place I’ve ever had to work from. When I’ve been a regular employee I have been lucky to have actual offices and have spruced them up pretty nicely. When I’ve been consulting/contracting I have been stuffed in the absolute worse spots at any given client site. Worse place was BestBuy. I shared a single cube AND computer with another consultant. This was at their old corporate HQ which was a monstrosity of a building.
trshmnstr:
That sounds like the standard for most call centers, it’s only the sales group and the like that may get full sized walls.
If you agree to be in the office 3+ days a week, you get an assigned cube/office. Otherwise, use the app and reserve a space when you come in.
Back when I was doing 1 day a week, in practice I just had the same cube every time.
I still have the key to the drawer sitting on my desk in front of me, at home. I wonder what happened to the keyboard and trackpad in there…
Goodbye noisy neighbors. Hello stinky neighbors.
…microwaved fish curry… 🤢
Did you ever stop to think that it was the other people who didn’t want to sit next to the tall, silent guy with strangling gloves?
Hey! I have never strangled anybody in this office.
Daily Ray of Sunshine
Vacation: In the salaried part of our team, we’ve always unofficially had 2 different types of vacation. Sometimes you’d tell your folks “I’m off but I’m going to jump in on ABC call.” or “I’m off but text or call me if you need anything.” And sometimes it would be “I’m totally offline.” All this was way, way before everybody was playing Covid and making remote work an issue. I’ve done calls from the beach and answered texts from a deerstand. Flexibility works both ways.
Agreed.
My dad used to get sort of pissed because I’d have my work cell phone along on hunting trips. He sort of got it when I told him that if I left it at home, then this 10 day trip would have been 4 days.
I don’t think some of these people pushing for a return to rigidity realize what will happen when the employees insist that the rigidity is a two way street. Good luck running a broadly dispersed company when most people log on at 9 and log off at 5.
I am far more willing to work past the end of my nominal shift on days when it doesn’t mean my commute gets pushed into rush hour.
Back when I commuted, my schedule was rigidly tied to my commute. I left in the middle of meetings because I had to catch the train home. Last night I was in a meeting an hour after I normally end work.
I always hated working late. Coming in early, sure, every day, but quitting time was quitting time.
I would never start on time (8) if I had to commute.
Like I’ve said, return to the office would be basically a 30% pay cut, since I was hired during the coof days.
I’m curious about what constitutes a workday in various places.
Here in Minnesoda, it is 8-5 with an hour for lunch. I remember having to tell a contractor working for me that he couldn’t show up 9-5, take a lunch and bill me for 8 hours. He was from the East Coast and said everyone there did it.
An hour for lunch?
What spore of madness is that?
Half an hour is New York standard.
I haven’t had a 1/2 hour lunch since I worked in a supermarket in college.
In my experience NY office jobs are always 1 hour.
Odd. I’d have thought downstate would be fifteen minutes.
If you take it.
My co-workers and I usually eat at the desk.
OTH, nobody bats an eye if you take a 2 hour lunch occasionally because you essentially ate at the desk for the last two weeks.
I don’t know how you can go out, order lunch, eat it, and get back to your office in 30 minutes. Maybe if you bolt down a hot dog standing on the sidewalk?
Go… out?
Why would you leave your desk?
Do many office workers in NYC bring their lunches to work? I thought NYCers ate out all the time.
I would guess as many as do anywhere else.
Eating out is expensive.
I do 8:30 to 5:30 on days when I take a lunch break (usually 45 minutes) and 8:30 to 5 when I don’t.
6:30 to 4 here.
Current and previous several jobs have been 0800 – 1700 with a nominal hour for lunch.
Same here. I work in NY, office I don’t visit in NJ, mothership in OH.
9-5 is a distant memory.
When I worked in govspace it was common for people to claim they worked through lunch so they could charge it.
“Yeah, you get paid by the year. ‘Normal around here is nominally 8-5, so pretty much do that. If you want to adjust to something like 7-4 or 7:30-4:30, that’s fine too. Just be mostly consistent. Adjusting to something like 8:30-5:30 ain’t gonna fly though, and I shouldn’t have to explain why. And if you need to flex, then go for it. But remember that your job isn’t just to be an individual contributor – for some things your presence and availability for others is just as important.”
When I was an account manager, it was when needed to when done, with lunch on the costumers time frame.
Horrific
Some on campus said they were stunned it took so long before officials stepped in to stop the clashes.
Ananya Roy, a professor of urban planning, social welfare and geography, condemned UCLA’s lack of response to the counter-protesters.
“It gives people impunity to come to our campus as a rampaging mob,” she said early Wednesday. “The word is out they can do this repeatedly and get away with it. I am ashamed of my university.”
That’s the trouble with mob rule. Sometimes the wrong mob wins.
The whole thing just reminds me of this…even the opening quote.
But she was totally on board with the commie protestors, no doubt. Until those fucking Jews showed up.
My great-uncle was a prof at that uni. She would have hated him: he was Jewish.
We have a nice chunk of the next generation that’s made being a victim into a lifestyle.
Well, pretending to be a victim, anyway.
UCLA has a pro-Israel Antifa versus pro-Palestine Antifa battle. As long as they stay out of normal people’s way and don’t wreck things, let them fight to the death.
I agree, but I don’t think they are staying out of people’s way and not wrecking things.
A shame. Maybe free bus rides out to the desert somewhere… And no ride back.
Tesla could probably help themselves by building a 500+ HP gas powered sports car. Or a couple hybrids even, so long as they’ve got good range and look sharp.
Why would they do that? They have a set of good niche products. Unfortunately, they tried to outgrow their niche (with the encouragement and assistance of Big Nanny.
Another take on the Tesla situation from a financial guy I read: https://www.keithfitz-gerald.com/blog/tesla-could-triple-call-me-crazy (from April 1).
Main point: “The company hasn’t been about cars for a long time. The charging network could be worth billions as it becomes the de facto global standard, AI is going to permeate the company as robotics and DoJo come online. And Unka Elon wants to redefine the assembly line in a move that could boost production margins by 50%.”
What puzzles me is that he nuked the charging network department. I’d like to know his thinking on that, since it seems the valuable long tail of EV market share capping out.
I wonder if the chargers are not actually profitable on average.
They have to be, what with all the local, state, and federal tax billions being thrown at them.
Maybe on the energy, but Tesla didn’t qualify for much on the construction as until recently the connector didn’t qualify.
This is almost lost to time – Elon invested heavily in Tesla Motors as a way to get carbon offsets for another business effort. When Tesla actually took off he was delighted, but I do not think the entire thing is close to his heart. If it starts to fail he will jump.
I think he’s invested. Mind you he won’t be poor if it fails, but I think he IS invested.
I thought it was to (a) develop battery technology for spaceflight applications and (b) make money to reinvest in spaceflight.
Yes’ he’s invested (financially) now, but it’s publicly traded so the exit is relatively easy. How psychologically committed he is to Tesla, I have no clue.
Well, that’s what happens when trespassers refuse to leave peacefully
One man’s trespasser is another’s squatter.
If the yahoos pulled out a supposed lease they had for that building would the cops back off? Wouldn’t they be squatters and be protected by the full might of the State of New York?
You don’t need to show a lease, just claim one.
It’s not a residential building though. Zoning would render the claim moot.
These dumbasses should have taken over a dorm and claimed it as a residence and they’d probably have left them alone, although I think even in NYC you have to be there more than a month to make that claim.
High levels of fear also have been reported by pro-Palestinian students, which Block did not mention — an omission that outraged some campus members.
“It is quite shocking and demoralizing that the chancellor notes only the antisemitism faced by Jewish students when in fact there has been a significant number of incidents of racism and violence against Palestinians, Muslims and in fact anyone considered a supporter of Palestinian rights,” said Sherene Razack, a professor of gender studies.
Guess what, Hon- if you’re out there blocking roads and bridges, you should feel more than a little tingle of fear for your wellbeing.
Calling bullshit on that claim.
Agreed. Absolute BS.
Silence is violence.
Also, fuck the pro-Hamas shitbird.
I’m sure many examples of anti-Muslim/Pali racism and violence were given.
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/01:
*23/23 words
🎯 Perfect accuracy
I played https://squaredle.com 05/01:
*48/48 words (+2 bonus words)
🎯 In the top 9% by accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 354
OT: Re Echo and the Bunnymen*, is this more what you had in mind?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWz0JC7afNQ
*What is a bunnyman, anyway?
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/01:
*23/23 words (+7 bonus words)
📖 In the top 9% by bonus words
I played https://squaredle.com 05/01:
*48/48 words (+15 bonus words)
📖 In the top 8% by bonus words
🔥 Solve streak: 287
Meh.
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/01:
23/23 words (+5 bonus words)
📖 In the top 22% by bonus words
I played https://squaredle.com 05/01:
48/48 words (+8 bonus words)
🎯 In the top 18% by accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 245
Shit. Newey leaving after development of the RB17. Put your money on an Aston Martin WDC/WCC double starting in 2026.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/breaking-red-bull-confirm-legendary-f1-designer-newey-is-to-leave-the-team.3zzQGetyOSLSxMH6QeeA2P
Wow. I thought the rumors of him leaving RB were bullshit.
The Aston move confirmed? I find it hard to imagine Newey wanting to deal with Lawrence Stroll, money truck or not.
Aston move not confirmed, but he already brushed the Ferrari money truck off earlier because he doesn’t want to live anywhere but the UK. Aston is a more logical move than Merc. I also think Stroll and Krack would give him more control (and more money) than Toto would.
Now if Aston could just get rid of moneybags’ inept son and get Sainz on board they might have a chance to unseat Red Bull or at least win some races.
I think the #1 factor in whether remote work is good or not is if there are concrete milestones/deliverables. If you have those, it is easy to tell if the remote worker is “getting their work done” or not.
Coding is a good job when it comes to that, you can see how much code they wrote, how many features the completed, etc. If they are screwing around you will find out soon.
Sales? Can you really tell how many cold calls they made? HR? Pulllleeeeeeeeaze!
Sales is easy to permit remote working – switch them to a commission-based pay. If they don’t close deals, they don’t make money, so if they faff about, it’s their loss.
HR? Fire their worthless asses.
There are entire classes of roles where screwing around on company time is the primary thing you’re getting paid for. When I first met my wife, she had one of those jobs. Maybe 1.5 hours of work to do in an 8 hour day. She was confused why I was so unresponsive to her IMs and texts.
I’ve had to get used to periods of unproductivity with the current role. I’m essentially “on call” for niche legal issues, and if the business I support isn’t dealing with those issues, I can be running at 50% of capacity or less. I try to make myself busy, but I’ve also had to learn to embrace doing stuff around the house during work hours because otherwise I’m just sitting there for an hour waiting for an email to come in.
So you are saying the legal push to form Free Cascadia is like being in ‘Nam?
I ended up transferred into such a role. I manage a team of application admins and I worry that there’s not enough work to fill the workdays of the people in the group, but we need to maintain coverage so that when work does arrive it can be handled promptly. We do have ongoing projects to improve the applications (plus routine patching) but these are ‘hurry up and wait’ workloads where most of the time is spent trying to coax other groups to do what they need to do for it to progress.
Coming from a role where I had spent years as the single point of failure (last man standing when everyone else jumped ship – more than once), I’m often confused by not being able to find enough work for my own plate, especially after delegating to make sure my direct reports have stuff to do.
Yes, it’s a weird feeling. Today, I have two projects that aren’t blocked by somebody else needing to provide me a response. One will take 15 minutes. The other will take 45 minutes. Then I’ll spend the rest of the day fixing our Salesforce instance or reading about AI to stay current on the technologies I support.
I have the opposite.
There is never a shortage of work. Everyone is overloaded.
Same same.
In fact, I shouldn’t be dicking around here…
(in my defense – 5 meetings scheduled today, so I don’t really have a good chunk of time to get real work done – https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)
Thats the hard part of maintenance and maintaining up times/availability. We can’t just go out and tinker, even if a small problem, if its providing the services as advertised. So we have down time. I try to fill most of it with reviewing emerging technologies, keeping theory fresh, etc. If I didn’t do that, I’d have too much downtime and would be looking for another job.
However, when things break, its 8-10-15 hour shifts day after day sometimes working the problem.
That’s basically my role as well as being support. If the customer doesn’t have issues (or we’re waiting on patches/processes/other groups/answers), there’s not much for me to do.
Sales? Can you really tell how many cold calls they made?
This is the whole point of Salesforce *spit* and other tracking tools. Every lead and contact goes into it. Just check the dashboard.
Was watching over my car salesman’s shoulder when I bought my truck. He had a tracking tool on his PC of everyone who walked in or was sold, next steps, timeframe, notes, etc.
From my short period in sales, if you aren’t closing, you are failing. Good products sell themselves, so go work for a company with a good product.
But, technical people hate that, and want metrics. Hence, the evil that is Salesforce. Salesmen want to make money, they are on commission, so they are hustling. Don’t worry about how many cold calls they are making (plus, cold calls are shit for selling. You might as well rely on mailers, the dry hump of marketing.)
Pope of America
The Biden administration on Wednesday announced that it would forgive more than $6.1 billion in student debt for 317,000 former students of The Art Institutes, the once giant chain of for-profit schools.
He is come to wash away our
sinsobligations.Underwater basket weaving is a much-needed skill in the work force.
No court, no due process, just declare it so and toss the cash around. What a fucking joke.
And once again, he’ll brag about how he moved heaven and earth to make this happen even after “they said I couldn’t do it”. Yet his hands are completely tied regarding the border. What a POS.
https://www.campusreform.org/article/humboldt-hamas-militants-hijack-campus-damage-estimated-in-millions/25346
“The University [Cal Poly Humboldt] condemns in the strongest terms all forms of hatred, bigotry, and violence,” the university said in a statement.”
Yet it has allowed protestors to take over buildings, cause millions of dollars of damage, and force the closure of the campus of the rest of the semester. Could the people running the university possibly be more gutless and cowardly?
I’ve said it before. These aren’t protestors. They’re demonstrators. Demonstrators in support of Gaza/Palestinian/Hamas/terrorism.
Not to mention communism/totalitarianism/etc.
Cause their now former president wasn’t having none of it so they ousted him, or so I read here
The faculty wants this.
Er, not ousted, but they want him gone.
I hate to do this, because I’m so over that story, but it’s such an impressive steaming pile of self-serving treacly romanticised hogwash I cant resist
Noem has defended her story by proclaiming that Americans want “leaders who are authentic”. It’s a bad excuse. It’s also untrue, because Noem, like so many other political firebrands who are infiltrating and redefining the Republican party, is anything but authentic.
Her political brand is simply a veneer – a fake, stylized brand of dangerous Trump Republicanism whose moral roots are about as deep as a bad facelift. This brand not only fails what used to be the Republican party; it is also destroying and dividing the US, and it’s more evident than ever here in the American west.
In Montana, the Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, has a registered cattle brand, yet he owns no cattle. He takes agricultural tax exemptions on his luxury estate in Bozeman even though he doesn’t do much serious ranching or farming.
und so weiter
Democratic candidate for governor of Montana. “Reformed gun industry exec” (Kimber- I looked him up). He blasts out all the Democrats’ talking points like grapeshot. And the icing on the cake- his two sons were part of that horse shit global warming children’s crusade lawsuit. It was nice of the Guardian to provide him with this valuable campaign assistance.
Kimber exec moved out to MT as a Democrat? Where’s my shocked face at?
Just heard on Fox while channel surfing… Northwestern and Brown are caving to the commie mobs. Free rides for Pali kids and guaranteed Pali prof slots.
That’s going to end well.
Incentives…How do they work?
Next, kick out the jews so the Palis can have safe spaces.
Maybe they can hire Sami Al-Arian for one of those gigs?
Arne Slot to Liverpool? I didn’t see that coming.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/insider/story/_/id/40053481/liverpool-data-decision-hire-arne-slot-candidate-replace-klopp
Pandora thinks I still live in Montana, so I have been getting Montana political ads, almost exclusively for Jon Tester. That Republican running against him is a moneybags phony baloney carpetbagger from back east. Just like every other Republican political candidate west of the Missouri.
I’m getting Vindman ads. Want to trade?
Private Vindman is running for office?
https://ballotpedia.org/Eugene_Vindman
Ford quality strikes again!
May 1 (Reuters) – Ford (F.N), opens new tab is recalling 242,669 units of its 2022-2024 Maverick vehicles over the failure of rear tail lights to illuminate, causing it to reduce the vehicle’s visibility, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Wednesday.
I hit my rear taillight with my knee the day before while climbing into the bed and cracked the lens. Luckily it’s not LED. Still, can’t buy just the lens cover, it’s a single part assembly.
Have you thought abotu sealing the crack with epoxy to keep moisture out?
Yes. May do that in the mean time. Luckily there’s a fair amount of nearly brand new assemblies on eBay at about 20% of new price. Takeoffs from upfitters who have removed the beds for service bodies (where chassis cab isn’t available or wasn’t ordered).
Only the fairest most honestest journalisming allowed
Sarah Phillips was on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington for meetings Saturday when she saw social media posts calling for help protecting students’ free speech rights.
When Phillips, an anthropology professor at IU, arrived at the site of the campus protest she recognized some of her students, “completely peaceful,” standing face-to-face with what she described as heavily armed riot police. Reflexively, she started walking toward them.
“My instincts just kicked in,” she told NPR on Monday. “And a few moments later, I found myself on the ground, handcuffed and being marched with some students and other faculty to a bus that was ready to take us away to the local jail.”
Marvel at our viewpoint diversity and evenhanded coverage.
“My instincts just kicked in,”
Yeah, I’m sure that’s a euphemism for “totally peaceful conduct” right there.
Instincts and reflex to walk TOWARDS the heavily armed riot police. That’s a bright person with keen instincts.
How else are you to become a martyr and a 15-minute TV star with a compliant media slobbering all over you for your bravery?
Oh look, NPR!
And professors are increasingly standing with students, in what many describe as an effort to safeguard the students’ right to protest.
“As a faculty member who cares about freedom of speech — who sees freedom of speech as the bedrock of democracy and really as the foundation for a public education — I see it as my responsibility to speak up when I see harm being done to students and their rights being violated,” Phillips said. “And if my voice isn’t enough, then I’m going to have to speak up, so to say, for them in other ways.”
Free speech. That’s egghead-speak for “I’m right and you’re stupid.”
Two professors were among the 28 people arrested at Emory University on Thursday, after the administration called in city and state police to disperse a protest. Both high-profile arrests were captured on bystander videos.
In one, economics professor Caroline Fohlin approaches several police officers as they wrestle a protester to the ground, asking “what are you doing?” and telling them to get away. As she approaches, one officer grabs her by the wrist and flips her onto the sidewalk. Another comes over to help zip-tie her hands behind her back, as she protests: “I am a professor!”
*guffaws, slaps knee*
Based on that article, there is no reason to assume a single college professor in America is not totally on board with the protests. That’s some real grade A journalisming, NPR.
I guess I don’t get it. The cops show up at private university, at the university’s request I assume, to deal with protesters interrupting their business, then rough up a professor who wasn’t protesting?
FAFO.
No sympathy from me for that chick.
I probably don’t agree with her on much, but she seemed to be doing what a decent professor should do – looking out for her students’ welfare.
If you take her story completely at face value. Not sure why I would do that for somebody who has made themselves part of a demonstration and is sticking her nose in as demonstrators get arrested. Keep in mind, as a professor the odds are quite high that she is a hardcore leftist who is currently a Hamas supporter.
Back in the day, let’s not forget, the point of civil disobedience was to get arrested. Of course, those were actual peaceful protests, not illegal occupations marked with vandalism, theft, threats, and violence. These people even suck at LARPing the civil rights movements (which is definitely in their minds, make no mistake).
“There I was, just minding my own business, and the cops arrested me for nuthin!”
I guess It’s not only the cops who have PR groups to de-emphasize their role in the incident.
So you can watch exactly what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5t5ldOXvwQ
You can’t really see it in the video, but she admitted on video later that she hit one of the cops in the head while they were making the arrest, prompting the other cop to intervene.
As she approaches, one officer grabs her by the wrist and flips her onto the sidewalk.
Not what happened, as you can see in the video. There was more going on than that between him grabbing her when she approached, and being put on the ground.
Sounds about right. Not surprising, at all.
That “as she approaches” is a flat-out lie. She walks up starts yelling and grabbing, the cops try to get her out of the way without arresting her, and then they put her on the ground when she passes up the chance to move on. Don’t know if he intentionally maneuvered her onto the grass rather than the concrete, but that’s where she landed. I like the way they gather up her stuff for her and let her give a speech to the camera after.
I’m thinking a little pepper spray/CS spray would go a long way at these encampments. My approach would be to kettle them up and arrest everybody, as well as everybody who tries to interfere like she does. The demonstrators are making sure nobody who isn’t at least supportive is allowed in, so you’re not going to get innocent bystanders (unlike street demonstrations).
Have you thought abotu sealing the crack with epoxy to keep moisture out?
JB Weld makes a good clear two part epoxy for such situations.
Thrasher, who has reported on various Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests over the years, says these sorts of encampments are “really amazing pedagogical spaces” where lots of valuable learning can happen, from interfaith prayers to lending libraries.
You’ll learn a lot about Maoism in practice. You might even get a dunce cap of your very own.
Well, except for maybe one faith, possibly two.
My current faith requires a blood sacrifice of godless commies to ensure prosperity.
Our current trevails are the result of not feeding the sky gods their diet of godless commies.
“Why do the police have tanks or military equipment!” /protestors or whatever they are.
Great question, something many libertarians have been questioning for decades
If you take her story completely at face value.
Exactly. I can’t help but assume there was precious little de-escalation involved. More like screeching, and possibly even ineffectual grasping and pushing. Also, that “You can’t do this to me, I’m a professor!” business is just too precious.
Someone tell me this is a stupid idea and why –
I have a fan that had a tiny fuse embedded in the plug for the outlet. That fuse burned out last year and I can’t get it out to even see what I’d need to replace it. As such I’ve been thinking of cutting off the plug, soldering on a new fuse-free plug (by making one solder connection for each wire in the cord) and sealing the connection with heat-shrink cable wrap (one on each wire, and one or more over the joint itself.)
That way the fan would run again…
Well you could just buy a straight blade plug and just wire it and skip the whole soldering and heat-shrinking…or is it a different type of plug? And if there was a fuse on it, its probably something in the fan itself that needs protecting…
It’s a regular three prong wall plug as far as I can tell. I don’t want to crack open the fan housing to change it out inside the mechanism.
And I’m really at a loss as to why it has a fuse as the fan is the second least complicated I own – one mechanical lever for on/off/speed and the typical pull up mechanical linkage for osccilate. The only simpler one is the box fan for the window which can’t occilate. The innards should be fairly resilient against surges that don’t trip the breaker.
Don’t have to do that. Purchase a 125v 15a plug, cut off the offending plug, strip away some sheath, strip your three wires, wire it accordingly and then you are good to go. Apparently a lot of box fan manufacturers do this and probably piss poor design of the motor.
I do have a tendency to over-complicate solutions.
I am perplexed by the fuse.
Me too.
Streamlining the process
The nation’s bedrock environmental law is getting a makeover.
President Joe Biden today announced a final rule to revamp the administration’s implementation of the 54-year-old National Environmental Policy Act in an effort to speed up permitting for key clean energy projects.
The rule is critical for achieving Biden’s green agenda as he mounts his 2024 reelection bid, writes Kevin Bogardus. But it’s already facing pushback from Republican lawmakers and Democratic foe Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
The rule sets deadlines and page limits for the environmental reviews that agencies conduct for all projects seeking permits. It requires one agency to lead the review of any particular permit, rather than giving veto power to multiple agencies.
The changes will apply to permits for both clean energy projects — including solar storage and electric vehicle charging — and those involving fossil fuels. But some clean energy projects may be eligible for even more accelerated reviews.
President Get-Things-Done to the rescue.
I’m absolutely certain the new rules will be applied equally. Of course, they have already basically regulated future fossil fuel energy projects out of existence.
I have a fan that had a tiny fuse embedded in the plug for the outlet. That fuse burned out last year and I can’t get it out to even see what I’d need to replace it. As such I’ve been thinking of cutting off the plug, soldering on a new fuse-free plug (by making one solder connection for each wire in the cord) and sealing the connection with heat-shrink cable wrap (one on each wire, and one or more over the joint itself.)
You can buy generic replacement 120v plugs at the hardware store. Why does the fan need its own fuse?
🤷♂️