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Re:Matt Mullenweg put on 'leave of absence' on Thursday September 10, 2026 @05:29AM (#49640894)
Executives do not get fired like other employees. They have contracts that usually prevent standard dismissal unless they have done something illegal. When they are 'fired', they are still a protected class. Hence the narrative spin: a new 'ceremonial' role, spending time with family, etc. etc.

Make no mistake, he has been fired. It just looks different than a call with HR or a manager and office security telling you to pack up your $hit and leave.

Re:Iceland rejects reopening talks on EU entry on Sunday August 30, 2026 @11:26AM (#49499531)
It is unclear to me how changing from EEA to EU membership somehow protects Iceland (a founding NATO member) against being 'forced to limit their business dealings with Russia'. That is how it relates. Feel free to help me connect the dots.
Re:Iceland rejects reopening talks on EU entry on Sunday August 30, 2026 @06:11AM (#49497308)
Maybe you are not familiar with the EEA. Iceland already has access to the European single market. Just like Norway, who doesn't seem motivated to join the EU, either.
Re:Iceland rejects reopening talks on EU entry on Sunday August 30, 2026 @05:59AM (#49497250)
Iceland is already in the EEA and Schengen. The only upside I have read about would be access to adopting the Euro which has a lower inflation rate than the ISK.

The main downside and likely what steered the vote to no are conflicts with Iceland's fishing industry x EU regulations and becoming more vulnerable to foreign ownership and fishing rights.

Fishing represents 40% of Iceland's total exports according to Wikipedia.

My guess is most voters in Reykjavik have near zero exposure to fishing as an industry.

Re:Mistral Patent for "Code implemented tool calls" on Monday August 10, 2026 @11:53AM (#49245323)
Patents also exist for defensive purposes e.g. if you go after us for x, we will countersue for y.
These were long tenured and valued employees at Apple. They likely already had healthy pile of cash and stock.

Maybe it was the environment at OpenAI encouraging this behavior. Or, is this a particular set of skills some/all of the individuals mentioned were already well-practiced at?

I hope this case goes to court so we can find out.

Re:Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane on Monday June 29, 2026 @12:05PM (#48721046)
The tell here is that it doesn't just say 'stay at home'.

Most European homes have been designed for upper latitude mid-century cool climates. They are extremely efficient at trapping and holding on to heat. Go look at any sub-reddit for central European cities over the past few days and you'll find multiple reports of 35+C conditions inside homes.

Furthermore, you can find plenty of examples over the past week of European supermarket and cinema ACs in failure modes. Not to mention most supermarkets are closed on Sundays.

One real problem outside of the home is that there have been plenty of reported cases of drowning. Unclear if this is just statistical with the mobs of people (some of whom cannot swim, or swim well) who are forced to leave their homes to find relief.

Re:Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane on Monday June 29, 2026 @11:55AM (#48720942)
The primary difference being, Europe is not increasing their number of fault lines or bodies of water. The number of days of moderate to extreme heat in Europe have already significantly increased and will continue to.

Furthermore, the costs of modern cooling are infinitely cheaper than solutions, if they exist, for other natural disasters.

I lived in both Europe and the United States and traveled around the world. This article makes a lot of sense to me.

Quite convenient outcome for the AI labs + hyperscalers that the barrier of entry to running (usable + performant) open source models on your own hardware is getting higher, not lower.
Re:DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @05:51AM (#47763410)
Reuters banned photos processed from RAW over 10y ago. They will only accept JPEGs from the camera.

https://signalprocessingsociety.org/community-involvement/in...

AP has had these rules since the late 90s:

"Only the established norms of standard photo printing methods such as burning, dodging, black-and-white toning and cropping are acceptable. Retouching is limited to removal of normal scratches and dust spots."

https://niemanreports.org/aps-policy-banning-photo-manipulat...

Re:DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @03:22AM (#47762360)
I think this has been imprinted in the photographer world due to long-standing requirements from AP, Reuters, etc. on avoiding post-processing. Video has never had these constraints; post-processing is required to publish the works.
Re:Muse Spark: Scaling Towards Personal Superintelligence on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @01:30PM (#47693477)
meta doesn't exactly instill confidence on using personal data responsibly. hard pass
For the signatories attributing their names and titles, that should be respected to put your reputation on the line. It means something. As for the others who are signing 'anonymous', this is meaningless. Either sign or don't. I would suggest removing that as an option.
Wondering if the lack of regular maintenance on Tesla cars (D2C model vs. dealer + service model) results in more problems being caught at inspection time.
"Bullying" is part of human behavior. Trying to rid the world of this sounds utopian e.g. dangerous.

Alternatively, children having reach and access to bully other children at any time and any place (more specifically, in their own home) is only made possible through technology. Social media absolutely deserves attention.

Also: I was bullied as a child and I suspect this is a claim most adults of any generation can make.

I'm wondering if this is a consequence of employing your own internal ad agency – maybe you are at risk of being out of touch with the audiences you are looking to reach.

Apple ads used to be part of the Zeitgeist (1984, Think Different through the iPod, Mac vs. PC ads, etc.). Now the only Apple ads that people talk about are the cringiest of the cringe: this iPad ad, the 'Mother Earth' bit from last year's iPhone/Watch keynote, etc.

Now compare median income of Germany vs US. Economic opportunity is fading away in Germany. Also, pretty much all cars - especially Audis, VWs, etc are (20-30%) more expensive in Germany vs US.
Re:Why Is Everyone So Unhappy at Work? on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @10:48AM (#38460891)
The main takeaway in this article, which I agree with, is distributed / remote work for all of its benefits also comes with occupational hazards which manifest as mental vs. physical problems so it's more difficult to understand, quantify, and do something about them.
Because it's a mutual beneficial agreement – employers cannot terminate employees without at least 3m compensation.

Also, this law is not optimized for industries (like tech) that have talent shortages.

Amazon is notorious for practicing _forced_ attrition e.g. forcing the relative low performers out of the org (who still might be performing at expectations, onboarding, etc.).
I have always been skeptical of FSD because of liability. The system we have today distributes liability to the driver in almost all circumstances – 94% to 96%, according to one quick statistic. It is difficult to imagine this liability being redistributed to a handful (or even 1 or 2) auto manufacturers who remove the driver from the equation.

In other words, I am not sure that auto manufacturers can afford the liability assuming their system reaches a state in which it is 'safer' than a human driver under any condition. The cost of proving that in courts across the world may not be economically feasible.

Maybe that's the point – more consistency in the manufacturing line might actually reduce costs for BMW and/or allow them to ship more vehicles faster.

Perhaps the majority cost for the option is not for the equipment but for the labor involved in installing it.

I am wondering how many commenters actually read the (clickbait) article; BMW offers the option to purchase the feature permanently. The subscription is optional.

In any case, I see customer value in the optionality for this specific case. Perhaps the biggest reason for not purchasing heated seats is that customers have never used them in the past. Perhaps customers would otherwise not want to commit up-front for a feature they think they don't need or will only use 3-5 months out of the year.

Re:USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @03:52AM (#30916368)
"something sold from a German company is at least an indication that I might get some helpful support if something goes wrong"

Germany is notorious for horrible customer service (e.g. the customer is usually wrong). Does the author assumes that all German companies have the same level of service of a BMW or Mercedes dealership? Hint: those dealerships are in the United States, not Germany.

Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @06:43AM (#29890291)
I see this as a combination of Germans valuing risk aversion more than progress on just about any topic, including reducing carbon emissions combined with an extreme NIMBY / not-invented-here mindset.

The Greens will tell you they can run the country on renewables but will then sacrifice energy independence when the can't make up the difference between supply and demand.

This is why Germany has the most expensive energy costs in Europe. This is why Germany can do exactly nothing to keep Russian interference in-check. And it is also why they continue to prop up coal-produced energy production while still thinking they can lecture other countries on how to achieve sustainable and renewable energy independence.

The stereotype of Germans being driven by science is simply not true (anymore). It has been replaced by complacency and the inability to be optimistic about the future.

Re:Stripe hiring issues make some lose job offers on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @11:30AM (#29405542)
It's really not the case. Job contracts in the United States are rare unless you are approaching or in the C-suite. Employment law is typically enforced at the state level; all states practice some form of 'at-will' employment meaning an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason as long as it's not illegal (e.g. discrimination). States like California and New York might require a bit more paperwork but it's nothing like employee protections and job contracts elsewhere in the world.
Re:DoorDash Joins Forces with Wolt on Wednesday November 10, 2021 @09:24AM (#29174924)
Europeans need to be open to more financial risk in order to create a competitive and robust capital market compared to the United States. Until then, you can expect to read more stories like this.
Re:Joe Rogan, Parody of the Open Mind on Thursday September 23, 2021 @11:47AM (#28630866)
The author points out that Rogan (who I agree is not partisan) frequently has guests that the left loathe but rarely has guests that the left like and/or love.
Re:Joe Rogan, Parody of the Open Mind on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @10:00AM (#28616392)
This is the first critical yet reasonable piece I've read on Rogan. The author correctly points out that there is no left-leaning equivalent to Rogan's format. The author also correctly points out that the left is (too) often delusional in thinking that many of their values have (or could have) broad appeal across the electorate, not mention society at large.

This makes me think of past attempts like Air America to counter right-wing talk radio only to end in bankruptcy. Or MSNBC to counter Fox News only to consistently come in third behind CNN with 25-54 year olds (the demographic that matters for TV advertising).

Perhaps the conclusion is, in the marketplace of ideas with every opportunity of distribution, some ideas just aren't selling. Maybe that's due to bad packaging and marketing but it might also be that the idea itself is bad.

I rarely if ever see this kind of reflection on the left. Hat tip to the author for writing and sharing.

Re:Google may cut pay of staff who work from home on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @11:48AM (#28143523)
Two counter points:

1) I want to be paid _more_ if I'm working from home. My employer doesn't have a right to use my personal property (my home, my energy, my coffee, etc.) without additional compensation.

2) Driving up compensation regardless of location is a great way to incentivize monopolistic behavior (e.g. FAANG) over the talent market while making it more difficult for new / smaller orgs to compete for talent.

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