partial_accumen

I mean, he has been writing sci-fi since the '80s. But if you go back and read some of his earlier stuff, he really hasn’t grown much as a writer. In fact, I think he kind of peaked in the '90s

…but enough about Orson Scott Card. We’re talking about Zahn here. /s

And that’s the point where I threw the book down. And realized I’m probably done with yet another author teen me loved who adult me just sees more clearly.

You outgrew this author. There’s all kinds of books I read as a kid, then when I go back an re-read with the eyes (and mind) of an adult they’re no longer worth the re-read. Keep the fond memories of what you read in your youth, but just put a mental warning note on there that they may not hold up today.

Some authors are also products of their time. I was reading some Heinlein a little while ago, and it was far more incredibly misogynistic than I remember reading of him decades ago. Was it this particular work or was it through everything he wrote that I just didn’t pick up on before?

Heinlein, at least, has the defense of writing over 60 years ago. Zahn has no defense as a modern author.

You can pay for ubi by taxing the robots, both physical and digital.

This suggestion is raised frequently, and quickly falls apart under scrutiny.

Give you me your definition of a “digital robot”.

This may be your lucky day then! You can likely use that lifetime sub now!

I did the Sirius lifetime deal a few years offered before the one you did (in 2003 I think?). At the time they called it the “Friends and Family” promotion. It was only $300 at the time for lifetime sub, and they gave you the hardware for free. I’m still using that same lifetime sub today.

I was told that was the last time I would be able to do that and in the future I’d be paying a $75 transfer fee and be forced into a monthly subscription.

This was absolutely true this was the rules at one point. However there was a rule change (via lawsuit maybe?) that allows UNLIMITED TRANSFERS and the fee is only $35/transfer. Its even on the SiriusXM website FAQ:

“Please note: You may transfer an active Lifetime Subscription to another radio an unlimited number of times. For each permitted transfer of a Lifetime Subscription, you will be charged a $35 transfer fee, and the transfer must be effectuated through your Online Account.” source

Your account is likely still alive with your name on it! Contact them and get back into it!

Further, back when you and I bought our lifetime subs the SiriusXM streaming service didn’t exist. It is actually pretty robust now. With your lifetime sub (even without it being on a vehicle), you have full access to unlimited commercial free streaming in their best quality bitrate (there was a time that they offered reduced bitrates for lifetime users but that’s gone now too).

For me, because of a further discount I only paid $230 for my lifetime sub because I got a credit for my previous monthly service and I’ve now had it for over 22 years. So if you do the math, I’m paying 87 cents per month for full in-car and streaming SiriusXM. Lifetime deal was SO worth it!

My power company charges triple rates from 2pm-7pm weekdays.

Holy crap! Triple for those hours?!

I have a western facing home solar array, for me that is most of my prime power generating hours (besides winter months, of course). 2:30pm to 3pm is my peak generation of the day. I just checked my numbers and I’m still generating more than my house consumes until about 8pm. This will change a bit when it gets hotter and the AC is running more.

The USA was actually on a survivable path with our low domestic birth rate because of the large immigration was compensating. Well, now we’ve fucked that up royally by kicking out our immigrants, and also made ourselves a pariah on the global stage so no new immigrants will want to come here.

Either there would be some sort of UBI program in place for workers that get replaced by robots

UBI wouldn’t be just for workers that get replace by robots. The “U” in “UBI” is Universal, meaning everyone gets the Basic Income. From the guy with untreated mental illness that hangs out in the park to the richest billionaire.

Now, the company says it imagines an “Uber-type of setup” to fill their ranks, with gig workers logging in remotely to argue with customers from the comfort of their own homes.

Alternate headline: “Identity thieves salivating at prospects of gain unvetted positions at consumer financial company”

Agreed. No AI voice changer please. Hopefully every one of us at one point in our lives has been read a story by someone else. Never once did the fact that all the different characters dialog was coming from one voice did that detract from the story or the immersion.

I’ve listened to audiobooks recorded with extremely deep masculine voices (think James Earl Jones) and when the voice actor was doing the voice of a 5 year old girl, (in only a slightly higher whiny timbre which matched the character traits) it was never immersion breaking. However, AI voice would. If I want different actors for different characters I’ll listen to radio dramas.

it’s just as likely to read that as assuming Microsoft will block all content in order to ensure the safety of sensitive data.

Hang on. If you’re rejecting rational use cases that companies use Teams for, then your assumption must be that Microsoft will block ALL screen capture when a teams meeting is occurring whether its of the Teams meeting content being shared or not. As in, even the presenter would be blocked from doing screen captures of their own system. Why isn’t that your conclusion?

Why are you, again, from the headline only, assuming that screen capture would mandatory for just content shared to you by a Teams presenter? You chose a middle ground, but why didn’t you choose full blocking?

Sniff tests have to be adapted when things tend to stink in general, or companies regularly try to cover up their smell.

So are you adapting yours back now because yours was proven wrong?

What part of the headline suggests the feature is mandatory? Assuming its mandatory doesn’t pass the critical thinking “sniff test” because what is sensitive is purely subjective. Microsoft has no way of knowing what data you consider sensitive. As in, there’s no way Microsoft could make it mandatory on only “sensitive” data.

There’s another one free with many Public Libraries that has streaming movies and TV called Hoopla. That same service also has ebooks and audiobooks for streaming or download.

I suspect that instances outside the US will simply be too small a factor to bother with.

Aren’t the largest (by user population) Lemmy instances already located outside of the USA? .world is in the Netherlands, I believe. Sopuli.xyz in Finland, etc. Even Midwest.social is not hosted in the USA.

This is the first post you haven’t been praising the 1950s as a better time for workers.

Isn’t at all, but you’re reading whatever you want into my posts. So keep on keeping on. 👍

Do I need to quote you back to yourself? Okay, these are your words:

“If you look at what many consider to be the golden age of American corporations after the second world war, the notion of a ‘company man’ was a celebrated one”

“but it’s worse now than it was in the – what I’m now calling the first – gilded age.”

I think we’ve hit the end of productive conversation between the two of us on this subject. I appreciate your conversation up to now. You’re welcome to keep going, but I won’t be responding on this thread anymore. I hope you have a great day!

I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove here to be honest. Of course there’s been shitty behavior all along.

This is the first post you haven’t been praising the 1950s as a better time for workers. Thats what I was trying to prove. All your prior posts were speaking nostalgically about the “better time” for workers in the 1950s. Besides a small set, it wasn’t better, and many times worse. Thats all.

My point is simple: corporations are a made-up concept and one of the main things people are supposed to get in the deal to allow them to exist in the first place is efficient allocation and utilization of human resources.

Efficient for the corporations. Not efficient for an individual.

It seems to me they are admitting that they cannot do that. In which case, the deal should be renegotiated.

Their goal isn’t your goal. There can be an argument made whether capitalism should exist, but under the current system they are behaving as capitalists. Workers welfare isn’t their primary goal, and in fact, only a goal at all as required by law (OSHA, DoL rules).

It wasn’t a utopia by any stretch, but in today’s economy Intel will openly celebrate laying people off and having less employees.

…and…

The wealth distribution wasn’t perfect, great, utopian, or even good during the entire history of the US, but it’s worse now than it was in the – what I’m now calling the first – gilded age.

You’re painting the 1950s as a better time for workers than today, and except for the white, male, white collar workers, I think your position is just fiction.

There were some bad things that were even worse in some cases happening back to lots of other groups (again besides white, male, white collar workers).

Things like:

• 1952 President Truman using the power of government to suppress wages of workers to keep the price of steel lower to fund the Korean war effort. source
• 1950, a record (for the time) 4843 work stoppages PDF source
• 1956 Whirlpool Tracking workers and firing any the exhibited “pro union” ideas source
• 1951 police jailing children of workers that were on a strike picket line source

I’m not defending corporations of today, I’m pointing out that there’s been shitty behavior all along. The 1950s were not a pro-worker era as you’re trying to paint it as…unless you were white, male, and white collared worker. If so, then yes, it was great.

In theory, it would allow them to reduce costs to compete better with rivals and sell more.

Selling more could mean lower profits over all. If you have to build out extra production capacity (new fixed costs) to create more product that you’re receiving a lower price on, then it could have been more profitable to sell fewer units but at a higher cost creating more profit.

Example: If you’re at 90% capacity on your $1 billion factory selling your product for high price/high profit, and you lower your price which increase sales by 20%, you now have to another $1 billion factory to product the 8% of product not producible at your first factory. You’ve now lost nearly $1 billon from your larger sales.

I blame bitlocker.

If you look at what many consider to be the golden age of American corporations after the second world war, the notion of a “company man” was a celebrated one, and companies bragged about how they treated their employees. In that era, unlike today’s, shedding employees was not seen as an achievement but rather either a necessary evil, or a sign that the company was going down the tubes.

You’ve got rose colored glasses on. This was only true if you were white, male, and a white collar worker.

At the same time for everyone else, employers were increasing working hours, reducing workplace safety, in exchange for higher worker wages:

“During the years when wages were rising, working conditions were deteriorating. Employers made up for higher wages by negotiating higher levels of output into union contracts. And the labor leaders–seasoned veterans of business unionism by the 1960s–were all too willing to comply. Time off in the form of vacations, coffee breaks and sick leave all fell victim to new work standards negotiated in the 1950s and 1960s, while automation, forced overtime and speedups allowed management to more than compensate for high wages. During the period from 1955 to 1967, non-farm employees’ average work hours rose by 18 percent, while manufacturing workers’ increased by 14 percent. In the same period, labor costs in non-farm business rose 26 percent, while after-tax corporate profits soared 108 percent. And during the period between 1950 and 1968, while the number of manufacturing workers grew by 28.8 percent, manufacturing output increased by some 91 percent.”

source

These were horrible cameras that sold like crazy back then. Because a diskette only held 1.44MB and the write speed of floppies was so slow, Sony compresses the hell out of the images to that you can fit a higher number of images on a diskette and so that they write to the diskette quick enough to take the next picture.

The result was really poor quality images out of these on the settings that everyone used.