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deanCommie commented on Amazon cuts 16k jobs   reuters.com/legal/litigat... · Posted by u/DGAP
RansomStark · 12 days ago
No, this is exactly how Amazon management works.

Members of a team creates a report explaining the state of their small section of the business, usually a 2x2 grid of boxes to fill.

This is then reviewed, usually in an in person meeting that requires full team participation.

These are joined together to create a weekly business review, that will require another meeting to review.

Each month the WBRs are combined to created the monthly business review, with a massive meeting requiring participation by multiple teams.

The pyramid of documents and meetings continues all the way up to the CEO.

I should probably point out, none of this information is unavailable at any level, its copied and pasted from system to 2x2 then copied from doc to doc. It's a spectacle that needs to be seen to be believed.

And that just the reporting, planning is another exercise in multiple report writing that I'll save for another day. But, hopefully you get the idea.

Amazon is 90% internal document writing and 70% work (9-5 does not really exist, it could, it just doesnt).

It's essentially a massive jobs program for middle management that aren't capable enough to join the TSA and that's being unfair to the TSA.

The only reason I can think for the existence of the reporting is to give managers something to do between pipping staff.

deanCommie · 6 days ago
i'm curious, how do you think other large companies operate with regards to reporting progress/status/results up the management chain?

At least at companies where the upper management is aware enough of the details to make good judgements, and the business is critical enough for some reason that low level management can't just be entrusted to yeet/yolo-things into production?

deanCommie commented on     · Posted by u/kreyenborgi
deanCommie · 8 days ago
We need to get past the point of binary perspective. The question isn't whether any one of us is innocent or guilty. The question is of what.

The word "rape" makes people visualize the most extreme scenarios of strangers in the night attacking those weaker than them, and assaulting them with violence.

But there are still significant parts of the world, even the western world, where "marital rape" is considered an oxymoron.

So people tried to come up with a generic neutral term like "sexual assault" which could mean everything from someone's worst rape nightmare, to unwanted touching in a sexualized manner in a crowd.Because that's the reality - physical contact requires consent. And consent is........complicated.

If I say "Do you consent to sex with me?" and you say "yes", did you consent? Yes.

If I say "Do you consent to sex with me, so I don't murder you", and you say "yes", did you consent? No.

Everyone can plainly understand the above. But finding the line for consent shifts can be surprisingly difficult.

* "Do you consent to sex with me, so I can give you the antidote to the poison you accidentally ingested"

* "Do you consent ..., so I can pay for life-saving cancer treatments that you need so that you otherwise can't afford?"

* "Do you consent ..., so I can pay for your rent, and otherwise you will be evicted?"

* "Do you consent ..., so that I don't fire you from the job you have?"

* "Do you consent ..., so that I no longer support you financially in a way that is currently entirely based on good will, and you've come to depend on it, and are scared of losing, because you've moved across the planet to be in my orbit, and now it looks like if you disappoint me, I'll turn on you"

Gaiman's accusations are at the end of this spectrum. Should he be in jail? I don't think so. Should he lose his livelihood? That's entirely up to his fans. Is he "innocent"? Well, if the facts aren't in dispute, I don't think so.

Which is why it' so frustrating and unhelpful to see writers and newspapers like https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y07w7nyxzo dwell on details like:

> Gaiman's legal papers also included WhatsApp messages which he says back up his case, in which Ms Pavlovich thanked him for a "lovely lovely night" and told him their relationship was "consensual".

PLENTY of sexual assault victims "thank" their assaulter, and assure them things were consensual even when they're not. Because they still feel at risk. Or because *THEY DON'T WANT TO ADMIT TO THEMSELVES THAT THEY'RE A VICTIM*.

Nobody wants to feel like they were violated. Nobody wants to admit that they didn't consent. Nobody wants to have the burden of now being the one to decide what to do about this - on a social level, on a criminal level, etc.

Admitting you were assaulted is saying "OK, so do i want this to be something I have to admit about myself for the rest of my life? To waste countless time and money and stress and anxiety to pursue justice that probably won't happen? To risk my own safety and sanity?" No wonder so many people don't.

None of this may change anything that's in this Project. But the whole framing of it pisses me off. It leaves no room for nuance. This man is probably not a monster. That doesn't mean he's not an abuser.

deanCommie commented on Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"   shreevatsa.net/post/dougl... · Posted by u/speckx
rurp · 19 days ago
It's been some years since I watched the show so I've probably forgotten a fair amount, but I remember it differently. I recall Tennant arguing at various points that it's probably the more obvious suspect/explanation. It's the whole you're probably hearing horses not zebras thing. Which in reality is the more competent approach. Crimes usually are committed by the most obvious suspect and pursuing more obscure theories is a worse approach.

But of course in a TV universe that's completely flipped on its head, nobody makes shows about normal straightforward cases.

This same conflict bugged me about the movie Zero Dark Thirty. The main analyst is 1000% sure that her hunch is correct and is constantly aggressively adamant about it, despite a lack of hard evidence. The others analysts are shown being much more rational, giving probabilities to their assessments and grounding conclusions in evidence. But since it's a movie of course you know the heroine is going to be correct and all of the other people seems like indecisive fools. But in reality someone who acted like her would be an absolute train wreck and the sober rational ones would be getting things done consistently with far fewer screw ups.

deanCommie · 18 days ago
Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty, it has WAY more problems than that - https://www.tiktok.com/@trademoviespodcast/video/75653617056...
deanCommie commented on Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union   rockpapershotgun.com/id-s... · Posted by u/simjue
deanCommie · 2 months ago
Somewhere, John Carmack, in his new conservative era, is seething.
deanCommie commented on Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled   jayd.ml/2025/11/10/someon... · Posted by u/jaydenmilne
JumpCrisscross · 3 months ago
I used to pay for YouTube premium. I stopped doing that, uninstalled the apps, and now use it through the browser with adblockers. (Yes, on my phone and iPad.)

It works so well I’ve gotten at least half a dozen neighbours to do the same. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a definitive step up in UX.

deanCommie · 3 months ago
I mean I pay for Youtube Premium because I use Youtube Music instead of Spotify.

I get a very unopinionated but effective music player that has all the music I need, and it doesn't try very hard to "upsell" itself to me unlike Spotify because to Google YouTube is the real money driver.

So to me getting no YouTube ads as well is well worth it.

deanCommie commented on The realities of being a pop star   itscharlibb.substack.com/... · Posted by u/lovestory
bigiain · 3 months ago
You're right, of course.

But often there are obvious and "easy" answers that are anything but easy for the person who needs those answers.

"Just cheer up, depressed person!"

"Just eat less and exercise more, fat person!"

"Just stop shooting up, heroin addict!"

"Don't accept generic lifestyle creep, pro athlete who's teammates are all living it up like they live in a gangsta rap music video!"

I'm sure there are lots of pro sports players that get and heed advice just like yours, and finish out their short and bright sports career well financially set for their remaining 60-ish years when they're no longer capable of earning half a mil plus a year being athletes.

But I'm also fairly sure the career and lifestyle, and the managers, hangers on, and sycophants they're surrounded with push then hard the other direction.

I'm not from the US, so I don't have a real understanding of US pro sports and the way people end up there, but I have this impression that it's "one of the ways out of the ghetto" for at least some of them. People who won the genetic lottery, but lost the birth demographics lottery. They've never had generation wealth or even a middle class safety net. They don't have family or friends who have experience or advice about what to do with suddenly having way more money that anybody the have even known. They don't have family or close friends who can recommend trusted financial advisors or lawyers. Any advice they're getting risks coming from people they ane not certain they can trust to have their own interests at heart, and aren't trying to skim their own percentage off the top.

I don't exactly pity someone who earns 500k+ a year in a short pro sports career, and blows it all ending up poor. But I think I can understand how the system is set up - if not to actively encourage that outcome, at the very least that system probably doesn't do as much to protect against it as they could.

deanCommie · 3 months ago
I think there's an even simpler point that people who make fun of athletes for blowing their paychecks instead of saving them miss:

* These are elite athletes at the top of their pyramid, which means they have an absolutely bonikers elite competitive drive that got them where they had so far.

They were probably the best player on every team they've been since kindergarten. They've made it to the top of the pyramid and most want to keep going. Championships, all-stars, MVPs, all of these are things they are USED to getting at every level so far, and they want to keep going.

So when they sign there $X00,000 rookie deal they're not thinking "OK how do i save the most of this for my retirement", they're thinking "how do i get $Y,000,000 deal next? And the $WZ,000,000 deal after that?" And of course then I'll be set for life, and it will be easy to save and retire cuz i'll be rich.

This is just human nature.

deanCommie commented on A $1k AWS mistake   geocod.io/code-and-coordi... · Posted by u/thecodemonkey
cowsandmilk · 3 months ago
S3 Gateway endpoints break cross-region S3 operations. Changing defaults will break customers.
deanCommie · 3 months ago
Changing defaults doesn't have to mean changing existing configurations. It can be the new default for newly created VPCs after a certain date, or for newly created accounts after a certain date.

And if there are any interoperability concerns, you offer an ability to opt-out with that (instead of opting in).

There is precedent for all of this at AWS.

deanCommie commented on Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper   windowslatest.com/2025/11... · Posted by u/DearAll
deanCommie · 3 months ago
What's missing from this history though is that when WhatsApp went from an Electron app to a native windows app it got decisively worse.
deanCommie commented on The 'Toy Story' You Remember   animationobsessive.substa... · Posted by u/ani_obsessive
yCombLinks · 3 months ago
The texture of the film grain makes Mulan and Aladdin really look better. The large simple filled sections look like they have so much more to them.
deanCommie · 3 months ago
I agree with you, but "better" is subjective, and this change was ON PURPOSE because most consumers would disagree with us.

It's why they all have "motion smoothing" turned on all their TV's too. Yes, it's animation, but the Blu-rays look "higher resolution", and look "smoother" and less "noisy".

All the artistic benefits you and I see are lost on most watchers.

deanCommie commented on The 'Toy Story' You Remember   animationobsessive.substa... · Posted by u/ani_obsessive
phantasmish · 3 months ago
The original DVD was way, way less green than later releases, which were changed to match the more-extreme greens used in the sequels. IDK if it was as subtle as in the theater (I did see it there, but most of my watches were the first-run DVD) but it was far subtler than later DVD printings, and all but IIRC one fairly recent blu-ray that finally dialed it back to something less eye-searing and at least close-ish to the original.
deanCommie · 3 months ago
Doesn't the fact that they made it super-green in Matrix 4 proves that it should never have been blue? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR0YBqhMtcg

u/deanCommie

KarmaCake day5470June 27, 2015View Original