RickRussell_CA @ RickRussell_CA @lemmy.world

was RickRussellTX @ reddit

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2 yr. ago

I'm an IT professional and I am not sure of that at all.

Perhaps. There is a lot you can do to present the right appearance w/ respect to financial transactions. There's not so much you can do when companies are exchanging data about your routine activities behind you back. Or they assume it is about you, who is going to hold them to account? Nobody.

we don’t need to worry about lions eating us

Someone didn't read the line item in the EULA.

they are laying off globally

"Globally" presumably includes Texas.

Obvs, I don't have any insight whether they laid off Texas employees at any greater or lesser rate than their global rate, but "a reduction in our Texas workforce" is completely vague, and could refer to layoffs or voluntary departures.

no conspiracy here. Texas just sucks

It's possible that they are trying to distract from the layoffs, AND Texas just sucks. The two are not exclusive.

This seems highly suspicious.

Bumble laid off 37% of their workforce just 2 weeks ago:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/bumble-to-cut-37-of-jobs-plans-app-overhaul-to-revive-growth

If you read the article, Ms. Monteleone says:

We — since SB 8 — have seen a reduction in our Texas workforce by about a third. Those employees are choosing to move elsewhere,” she told the audience at the event. “There are a variety of laws in Texas that I think many people find incompatible with living a healthy life and being their authentic self,” added Monteleone, suggesting that not all the departures may be tied directly to this specific piece of legislation, but possibly to several other Texas laws or proposed laws that don’t sit well with Bumble’s employees.

Not a word about their decision to cut their own workforce -- some of them are surely part of that "reduction in our Texas workforce" (note how she doesn't say they transferred to other locations, or left the company of their own free will). I guess their huge layoff happened "since SB 8"? cough

It sounds like they are trying to do damage control, by spinning their layoffs into a narrative about TX reproductive medicine laws.

Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to see big companies like Toyota, JP Morgan, and USAA give the finger to Texas. But I don't think Bumble is being honest about this, and I don't think they constitute a blip on the radar of the TX economy.

I wonder how selling the car impacts the data stream? If you could show that the automaker and LexisNexis aren't properly handling the transition of the car's owner from one to another -- effectively penalizing the original owner for the actions of a subsequent owner -- there might be a legal angle of attack to assert damages.

We're headed rapidly toward a social credit system, but run by our corporate overlords instead of government. To quote The Stupendium:

You seem so surprised, what did you expect?

We're thinking outside of that box that you checked

The terms were presented in full to inspect

You scrolled to the end just to get to "Accept"

In many jurisdictions a woman having nonconsensual sex with a man isn’t even considered rape

It wasn't defined as rape in the US until 2013. The FBI only considered "penetration" to be rape until the definition was revised, so national statistics didn't represent ANY female-on-male rapes, unless the female used a body part or object on the male victim's anus.

It’s still possible the daughter was sick of her hyper-involved dad, and planned the whole thing

What the actual F, dude?

Spectrum's "deal" for my location was 500/10 mbps for $90/month "introductory price". I asked what the price would be at the end of the introductory period, and they refused to tell me.

Meanwhile, Frontier gives me 2/2 gbps for $100/month, no price changes.

I have no interest in TV, I don't even pay for streaming, so at the end of the day Internet performance is all I care about.

I was surprised that Stewart was so glib.

Yes, watching video on your phone, in short bites, is "like" TV, and arguably some of that content can come from full-fledged "TV shows" with diverse talent and production companies and cable distribution...

But surely it has not escaped Stewart's notice that a shocking amount of eyeball time is now on video content that is not produced by mainstream media -- instead made by small creators & online teams working from their homes. And if you doubt the impact of that, go down to Walmart or Target and spend some time on the toy aisle. The shelves are PACKED with Baby Shark, Cocomelon, Busy Beavers, Blippi... all of these streaming-first non-mainstream brands that are mostly famous because of Youtube.

It's odd, because Stewart himself is the one who benefited when cable TV made "narrowcasting" a thing. And now that there are even narrower narrowcasts, he can't seem to see that it's an existential threat to his way of making content.

I am so, so, SO glad I'm now in a home with access to fiber Internet. Real, 2 gigabit symmetric fiber.

The cable company keeps sending me glossy ads in the mail - several per week - trying to get me to go back to 1/4 the bandwidth at the same price. Uhhhh... no.

I'm not even saying that I disagree with the decision to intervene in Kuwait, but it was certainly militant, and NATO nations certainly had other "resorts" to insure their own security. I'm having trouble coming up with any argument that Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, for example, threatened the security of a NATO member.

For starters, it’s anti-militant—kind of the point—unless it has no other viable resort

Umm. Well. Are we including NATO-sponsored invasions err... peacekeeping conflict-resolution interventions?

NATO doesn't only operate in defense, there have been a long list of NATO-sponsored interventions outside NATO membership: Kuwait/Iraq, the Balkans, Libya. One can argue whether NATO operations were justified in those cases, but I don't think any of them could be described as anti-militant, or that there were no other viable options. Doing nothing was an option, for example.

He's got radioactive nuts.

Where did he get a squirrel-sized spider costume?

Did Squirrel Girl make it for him? DID SHE ALREADY HAVE ONE JUST IN CASE?

That's almost certainly the case. Here's a breakdown of funding at UCLA that shows 25% of research funding coming from non-government sources. The rest is federal, state, or other government.

I worked at a US university for 12 years, I can't speak to what happens in Canada, but here in the US it's definitely a mix. Student tuition is not used for research at all, at least not in any research program I've ever heard of.

In fact, research grants are garnished (usually to the tune of 30% or more) to pay general university expenses, and student instruction is part of that budget.

All true, but where is the money for university research coming from?

I mean, some of those research grants come from the same private companies. There's value to them in using that money to train the next generation of scientists, in addition to funding basic research they can use directly.

But, admittedly I don't claim to know how the research dollars are split between private/government/other.

EDIT: Here is a study from UCLA covering 2010-2015 funding that shows about 75% of funding comes from government, and 25% from private industry, charities, or other non-government sources.

The purpose of hard age limits isn't just to restrict the autonomy of minors.

It's also to allow adults to know where they stand, with respect to the law, and eliminate ambiguities that could be used for selective enforcement.

As an adult, I can't decide whether to sell alcohol to a minor, or have sex with a minor, etc. based on some concept of "real world maturity". And if you give prosecutors flexibility in charging adults with crimes based on some mushy concept of maturity, you can probably guess who will get the shaft: poor folks, and black & brown & red folks.

I don't know that hard age limits are "fair" to minors, I suppose I would probably agree that they are not. But we have to consider what is fair to the person who might be accused of a crime.