Notices by Rod Hilton (rodhilton@mastodon.social), page 7

All of the collective community support engineers offered to each other was a low-layoff-phenomenon.

I've worked in environments where employees are stack-ranked and the bottom x% is removed each cycle. One thing you will notice in those environments is there's no such thing as going into Slack and asking for help. Nobody will help you. The more you struggle, the less likely they are to get canned.

"Clean Code"? Why? So someone else can take over this codebase after I get laid off? Hard pass.

We're going to see a major increase in code silos, code that is difficult to read, land-grabs, and people being protective of what they build. Whatever people have to do to become costly to lose, that's what we're going to see.

If you make someone's paycheck depend on their ability to prevent someone else from taking over their code, that's what is going to happen.

Back when companies started tracking LoC output as a measure of engineer quality, it wasn't long before engineers started making their code extremely verbose and needlessly long.

If you make someone's paycheck depend on something game-able, they're going to game it.

And all the goodwill around "collective ownership" is going to disappear in favor of "job security" real soon.

Teach this junior engineer how the code works? Pfft, why? So you can lay me off?

One consistent thing about these layoffs seems to be how "random" they are, that it doesn't seem to be performance-based.

That pretty much eliminates any motivation someone has to be a top performer.

If you want to protect your employment, kicking ass at your job isn't the way to do it. The only way to do it is to be the only person who understands x, y, z modules in the codebase. Become unfireable.

If you're a top-level manager and don't see the moral hazard that creates, big oof.

Hold the line https://www.axios.com/2024/01/16/ceo-return-to-office-wars

Now that Threads is testing federation, the "debates" are starting back up.

Post some shit about how federating with Threads is going to destroy the universe and you're getting blocked. Retoot some bullshit like that and you get unfollowed. I can't take it anymore.

I still haven't heard a remotely sane reason to be so against it. 100% of the time I got into it with someone, they wound up eventually saying something fully unserious.

You know a feature is good when they have to default opt you in or they know that nobody in their right mind would enable it.

https://boingboing.net/2023/12/14/dropbox-is-sharing-users-files-with-openai-heres-how-to-opt-out.html

"You're gonna try and blackmail me with MONEY?" - guy who said he'd never reinstate Alex Jones because his child died in his arms and just did it a year later because he desperately needs MONEY

https://apnews.com/article/alex-jones-x-account-elon-musk-90cfc990631dec5e8f337167fbe16372

God the internet sucks now. Google any question and the top 10 results are all just endless AI blabbering, it's like how every essay written in high school started with "Since the dawn of time, mankind has wanted to..."

Employees: We like working in the same homes where we sleep. There's no commute, it's very convenient.

Google: Nah we need you back in the office. But we built hotel rooms here so you can still sleep in the same place you work and there's no commute.

Employees: Uh yeah that's what we already had...

Google: That'll be $99. Which you pay us. To trap you in the office we demanded you come back to.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23820061/google-hotel-bay-view-campus-return-to-office

Twitter getting rid of light mode, I presume because when Elon sees screenshots of Tweets and they aren't in dark mode he doesn't think they look cool enough.

And yes, many people with visual impairments, including myself, cannot read light text on dark backgrounds.

https://archive.is/CaMyR

Right now if you search for "country in Africa that starts with the letter K":

- DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.

- Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.

This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:

"There are no countries in Africa that start with K."
"What about Kenya?"
"Kenya suck deez nuts?"

Google Search is over.

@Gargron ok https://news.google.com/search?q=boston%20cop%20slide&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

I think I'd be questioning my life choices if I was part of a profession that people loathe so much that a video of someone getting horrifically bodied by a metal slide elicits absolutely zero sympathy just because the person in it is also a member of that profession.

@mattgriffin See, this is a problem...

This video has become a viral meme on Twitter/X, Bluesky, TikTok, and Threads. And folks on Mastodon have absolutely no idea it happened, I haven't seen it even mentioned.

Say what you will about this making Mastodon "better", it sure isn't the place to be if you want to know wtf your friends are talking about.

Anyway it's this: https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-police-officer-hurt-tumbling-down-childrens-slide-video-incident-goes-viral/OLD3ZMRC7FHEJBLWZBRLMKJVP4/

Starting a support group for people who sat through all 6 episodes of #SecretInvasion

lol cry more

#remotework

"How is he sending cash to Andrew Tate and other right wingers if they're bleeding money, it makes no sense"

It does actually. He's gearing up to declare bankruptcy to get out of paying his employee severance lawsuits and shut the site down. That's why his narrative shifted from "we'll be break-even in June" to "rev down 50%"

He wanted to give his right-wing supporters some of the remaining cash on the way out.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitters-cash-flow-still-negative-ad-revenue-drops-2023-07-15/

I 100% support the writer's strike... but looking over the details here the proposal for actors is even worse, positively dystopian levels.

One day's pay to be body and face scanned, then your likeness used in any projects in perpetuity with no consent and no residuals.

No real actor means no hair & makeup, no wardrobe, no assistants.

One day of pay to be replaced forever after.

https://gizmodo.com/sag-aftra-ai-actors-strike-amptp-ceos-likeness-image-1850638409

@Gargron @jawarajabbi

Show me one other mastodon instance where 500 instance admins signed a pact to block it preemptively and I'll accept your claim that Threads isn't different 😂