The funniest/saddest thing about tech bosses fighting unions so hard is that many of the very same things they complain non-stop about their employees would vanish with a healthy and strong union.
Worries about employees hopping from company to company? Offer them a pension and unions have perks and promotions based on seniority, people won't be leaving.
Struggling with DEI initiatives? Giving the Union rep a seat at the table means that you'll be rid of toxic managers and keep your most valuable diverse employees.
Struggling with recruiting talent? A clear union contract showing what the company will give in exchange for what expectations, you'll have a whole class of people who want stability over chasing the highest paycheck beating a path to your doorstep.
Activist shareholders bullying you about needing to do layoffs even when you know it's not going to actually benefit the company? Tell the investors "Sorry, but we can't do layoffs without risking Labor action." The Activist investors will go away and you'll get more investors who want to hold for the long haul.
Worried about hostile takeovers? Not with a union. Vulture capital will leave your business far alone - Unions are their kryptonite.
Trifecta of outage trifectas.
In the last week, my city was among the municipalities hit by three separate outages of Internet, mobile data, and voice services.
One was caused by equipment failure, one was caused by idiot construction workers digging up a fiber cable, and one was caused by copper thieves too stupid to realize fiber conduits don't have copper.
I am not a happy computer fairy.
new bog post. i gave an old boombox aux in and made it usb powered https://maple.pet/blog/upgrading-an-80s-hitachi-boombox
re: Space Karen
SpaceX needs its license suspended or revoked.
The only way they're getting anyone to Mars is by blowing up Earth. Even then, their ignorance-fueled design decisions will probably result in the landing vehicle performing an "unscheduled lithobraking maneuver."
Futurism, "Debris Rains Down on Protected Wildlife After Starship Explosion": https://futurism.com/wildlife-starship-explosion
San Antonio Express-News, "Lingle: SpaceX launch elevates environmental risks at Boca Chica": https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/article/lingle-spacex-launch-elevates-environmental-17911357.php
Space Karen
Phrases of the week:
1. "Rapid Unscheduled Excavation" of the space launch structure.
2. "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly" of the space launch vehicle.
Elon is:
* a sociopath who cares less about the public than a Superman villain,
* an arrogant dick who cares less about the environment than a Captain Planet villain, and
* a rank idiot who knows less rocket science than a typical KSP player,
and I'll never understand why anyone thinks he's any kind of good.
Of course, it didn't work.
The thing is, it never worked, & the non-DSL ISP they switched to me from never bothered to troubleshoot past the router's Internet port or otherwise make sure their customer could actually use the Internet service they were paying for.
I did, & I now have another happy customer. But this network mess today drained me.
Space Karen has always been a fucking idiot.
Ars Technica: "Musk admits NPR isn't state-affiliated after asking questions he could have googled": https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/musk-admits-npr-isnt-state-affiliated-after-asking-questions-he-could-have-googled/
Uspol-adjacent / wealthcare parody
LB's movie/show idea reminded me of "Black Jack," Osamu Tezuka's manga serial about a surgeon who lost his license for performing a life-saving surgery his contemporaries refused, and who went underground to keep doing so, often refusing to burden his patients with crippling medical debt.
Uspol-adjacent / wealthcare parody
Movie/ show idea: breaking bad except he's counterfeiting life-saving medicine that big pharma charges $$$,$$$ for and selling it at affordable prices on the street, and the FBI is hunting him like Nic Cage in Lord of War trying to catch him illegally manufacturing/ selling the drugs.
The #Windows10 Media Creation Tool has been around and regularly updated for almost 8 years, and it *still* requires you to log in to a full-on Administrator account, just to download and save an image to a USB flash drive.
No, not "Run As Administrator." That's not enough. "Run As Administrator" in a Standard User account still quits with the message, "To use this tool, you must be signed in to Windows using an administrator account."
INTERNET RATIONALIST: Consider the following thought experiment. Imagine a hyperintelligent artificial intelligence–
ME: No
INTERNET RATIONALIST: What
ME: I am declining to imagine the hyperintelligent artificial intelligence.
INTERNET RATIONALIST:
ME: I'm thinking about birds right now
INTERNET RATIONALIST:
ME: Dozens of crows, perched atop great standing stones
Y2k38 problems starting to show up early:
https://www.calendar-australia.com/holiday/easter-sunday/4-20-2025/
✨ Kind 'Net Help Desk fairy by day. ✨
✨ Weird & furry Unix fairy by night. ✨
✨ Sometimes a retrocomputer fairy. ✨
✨ Pays the ComputerFairi.es bills. ✨
✨ Sparkly✨shellscript✨princess. ✨
✨ Age: Mere days younger than ✨
✨ the Intel 4004 & Unix 1st Edition. ✨
✨ Follow requests welcome. ✨
✨ ✨