No but I think I can still think like one and I can remember what would have gotten my interest back then before dropping out because video games were so much more interesting :')
Before I realized this world is just as interesting, but school does everything to make you bored of it before you can explore it.
Even in the most interesting fields, 95% of everything is boring work. That even goes for the individual tasks. Found a good physics problem? Well, you might be excited about it but 95% of solving it is going to be thinking about assumptions and doing rote mathematical manipulations. You are likely to get sick of it before even getting to any answer, much less the right one. There are also many important/useful fields that are not very interesting.
In a sense, the most important thing school does is to build up within students a tolerance of boredom and an appreciation of the fact that most work is potentially boring.
Most people are not like that. Even playing video games will be boring, if it's your JOB. Much more so if you need to do hundreds of hours of cerebral work to get to the point where you can have a little fun lol...
Not that most people like games, but everyone has their own goal, even if they haven't discovered them yet, even if it's just to chill in a nice place and do nothing all day, they can still find better ways to be lazy! (build better furniture, explore the search for the ideal climate etc.)
What is with all this defeatist give-up-by-default attitude? There's NO fucking way that the current common system of human education, which has been pretty much the same for hundreds of years, is perfect.
I'm just being real. If admitting that life is a hell of a lot of work makes me defeatist, so be it. The current system of human education is "only" several hundred years old, but that is long enough to see what works and what doesn't for the most part. What sure as hell doesn't work to reach success and provide for society is to loaf around aimlessly as if we don't know what skills are useful for modern life.
Your argument is that calling Vim niche should exclude someone from being able to talk about CS. Please rethink your stance and your tone and consider if you’re helping the discussion.
When I worked with Rdio the RIAA sued them because users would make playlists named "Now that's what I call music < X >" with the same songs as the CDs. All the songs were fully licensed to be streamed on the service. The RIAA won those lawsuits.
edit: they might have actually settled, but the RIAA got what they wanted with no concessions
The RIAA doesn't seem to have a very good track record in cases that go to court, but the whole 'we're gonna sue you for eleventy billion dollars and destroy your life with our thousands of lawyers, but give us $20 right now and we'll call it even' seems to be quite effective.
You know, you might be right that in the end it was a settlement of sorts. I remember for a while they were fighting it specifically because it was about playlists (named groups of songs) which was not defined in the licensing in a way that clearly did or did not overlap with albums. The more I think about it, there was such a threat of refusing to renew licenses that it's possible they renewed with explicit language that prevented these playlists. I know for sure the playlists were purged. All said it was a hilarious amount of lawyer money over some of the dumbest CDs ever.
They have enforcement powers if they they prevail in the suit and the people who have legal power enforce their will. Which is something that has happened in the past. That includes them just successfully abusing the defendant into settling, no matter if they would have won in the long run.
The RIAA clearly has the power to enforce economic harm on anyone who has to defend their lawsuits. Against small enough defendants, that makes their positions extremely relevant.
Anyone can sue anyone. Just because they think something is illegal, doesn't mean it's actually illegal. They still need to convince a judge. Therefore their stance on whether you can rip CDs is irrelevant.
Lawsuits only get expensive when they can’t instantly be dismissed.
If I sue you for something ridiculous like using telepathic mind control to get my dog to bark satanic messages, the judge will just dismiss the case pre trial. If you launch a bunch of such frivolous lawsuits I can get a lawyer to counter sue you and win on contingency with zero out of pocket expenses.
How do you think a manager should handle the case where a company forces the manager to select one person from the team for a bogus (in bad faith) PIP?
From the view of the team the ideal manager is a shield overhead protecting them from the crap coming down from above, the manager should refuse and push back.
From the view of “is this good for the company?” the manager should push back on bogus bad faith tasks and the structures which make them exist.
I understand that from the manager’s own perspective their income might be priority one - but then I wonder if they are just a conduit for senior management crap to flow through, harming their team morale, what are they actually doing that’s worthwhile?
If it is bogus, hopefully it still won’t be out of the blue - warning to the team that it’s coming to someone - and they could try and arrange it as an encouragement to leave, with payout, with recommendation, before it’s a total surprise. The manager must know whom they would and would not fake-PIP, and from Yossi Kreinin’s assertions that employees know their managers’ minds better than they say, the employees likely know who is in favour and who isn’t.
This would almost certainly get me fired, but I would simply refuse the request. If I truly don't believe anyone on my team has earned themselves a spot on a PIP I wouldn't put anyone on one.
I have to expect the response would be either (a) threatening to fire me or (b) threatening to force my boss to make the decision with less knowledge of each of my reports' performance. In either case, though, those aren't my decisions to make and I can only take control of whether or not I'm willing to PIP reports that I don't think deserve it.
reply