A thread which credibly claims Göbekli Tepe is OK. Praise be, if so
“The site is unharmed. They shared a very foggy video, it’s very snowy but stones didn’t fall at all. I spoke with the security guard. Unlike the hundreds of buildings near it… #gobeklitepe #Turkiye”
There has been a subtle change in our flexible working guidelines.
Before: 2-3 days per week in the office.
After: Up to 2 days per week at home.
Full disclosure: I will be in the office 1 day this week.
Obviously I know SFA about jobs, offices and all that malarkey but aren't the WFH arrangements part of the recruitment package about which companies have to be competitive?
Absolutely. They must think that 2 days WFH is sufficient inducement, and more than this has a negative impact on performance.
However, when you have individuals whose base office is different from the rest of their team, being in or out makes very little difference.
2 days WFH (in London) is the worst of all worlds. You still have to live within a reasonable daily commute, buy the full season ticket, and maintain a home office.
There’s a massive business opportunity, for the first company to turn a full City tower office block into a £50/night basic ‘hotel’, of 50 sqft rooms with a bed, a shower, and a bar downstairs. The difficult bit is the plumbing, when hundreds of hot showers are required simultaneously at 7am.
I wfh 2 days a week and it's perfect. No season ticket required as I don't live in the sticks.
Indeed, I do 3 days and it's just tap in at East Finchley, tap out at Moorgate and walk for 5 mins through Finsbury Circus. I think it's £7 per day, no need for a season ticket at £21 per week, no need to pay £170 per month.
Oh, 3 days is great for the top 1%, who can afford to live in London. For those on the couple of tiers below, who have no choice but to move out if they want more than a flat with no good schools, it makes a massive difference.
8.9 million people live in London.
That depends very much, on how exactly one defines “London”.
Bring on the expanded ULEZ. Get those awful polluting diesels off the roads.
In defence of diesel drivers, 15 years ago we were beung encouraged to drive diesels for environmental reasons (lower carbon than petrol). We can't be changing our cars every time there's a change of heart in government.
To be pedantic(!), diesel contains a greater mass fraction of carbon than petrol, as the hydrocarbon chains are longer, therefore have a higher carbon:hydrogen ratio.
But the higher fuel efficiency of diesel engines results in lower CO2 emissions per mile driven in a comparable vehicle.
None of this can be looked at in isolation. If we had voted Remain by 52-48 that too would have been a mistake. So you have to look back in time to the causes of why by 2016 we had exactly two choices - Yes and No, both of which were going to be bad in their effects, and both of which failed to command high levels of consent.
And it is Major's generation of moderate politicians - many admirable including Major himself - who failed to shape the EU in a way which both commanded consent by what it was (basically trade not politics please), and commanded consent by a series of referendums allowing the voters to say Yes, No and Thus Far and Further.
Major got taken for a ride by the EC - willingly. It is ironic that it was his own idiotic Europhile decision as Chancellor to join the ERM that brought about his own downfall as PM and of course he spent his last days in office whining about how he had been misled by the EU over the Maastricht treaty and how unfair it all was.
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
I would guess that for around a third of office jobs, full WFH works well, for a third it's debatable, and for a third it's greatly detrimental. Policy ought to recognise that.
Not in the public sector. There are far, far too many dossers to work without supervision. The private sector may come to that sort of arrangement but in the public sector we clearly have lost a huge amount of productivity since the pandemic, simply - nothing in the country works any more. If those who don't like it leave, I'd be pretty confident in saying we'd lose very little overall anyway and I think I'd be pretty confident in predicting that very few will leave if a 4 day week was enforced.
I don't see 'dossing' as a private v public sector issue. The people most likely to take the piss given half a chance are those who neither enjoy their job nor see much value in what they do. They can be anywhere. I was one at times despite being VERY private sector.
Yes, but the dossers in the private sector aren’t funded by your taxes.
The costs of, for example Private Sector employees spending their working hours on PB will be paid for by someone. Let us see. The average PBer would claim a minimum value of £200 per hour, but out of that hour, 30 minutes is spent posting on PB, so the reality is that the customer is paying £400 per hour for their time. Rip off Britain lives!
If your AI is trained on (say) Getty Images, then is your AI breaching copyright by generating new images based on them?
Funny if Stability reproduced the Getty trademark watermark on some of the images it produced, having learned that to be an integral part of the image
And yes, interesting and very important law suit. I've wondered before (I think on here) about how far the 'derived work' definition stretches, but there's also local copying of these and whether or not that falls within licensing (if indeed there was any licensing).
If your AI is trained on (say) Getty Images, then is your AI breaching copyright by generating new images based on them?
Isn't the lawsuit focused on whether Getty's copyright was breached by the scraping itself? The argument seems to be that the images are licensable but the defendant did not seek a licence it just took the images without permission. If you take a licence, Getty seems to be saying, you can then do what you want with the photos if that use is covered by the deal.
A thread which credibly claims Göbekli Tepe is OK. Praise be, if so
“The site is unharmed. They shared a very foggy video, it’s very snowy but stones didn’t fall at all. I spoke with the security guard. Unlike the hundreds of buildings near it… #gobeklitepe #Turkiye”
Well, I'm pleased, but I'm more concerned about the people.
The people of Syria have had a wretched time over the past eleven years.
The earthquake is already a horrific human catastrophe. I fear the death toll will be in five figures
If it had destroyed the Tas Tepeler (and it looks like they might be OK) it would have been a cultural/civilizational catastrophe as well. Akin to losing all the cave art in France, or every Gothic cathedral in England. Horrendously grim
If your AI is trained on (say) Getty Images, then is your AI breaching copyright by generating new images based on them?
It has very broad implications for all of the trained AI: from Stable diffusion and Dalle to ChatGPT and Bard
If they are using the images / text / content / whatever without paying the required fees, then definitely sue them. They deserve to lose if the allegations are true.
The average PBer would claim a minimum value of £200 per hour, but out of that hour, 30 minutes is spent posting on PB, so the reality is that the customer is paying £400 per hour. Rip off Britain lives!
No
The same PBer would claim they can generate 1 hours worth of value in 30 mins (or less) so the customer still gets a bargain, and so does PB...
There has been a subtle change in our flexible working guidelines.
Before: 2-3 days per week in the office.
After: Up to 2 days per week at home.
Full disclosure: I will be in the office 1 day this week.
Obviously I know SFA about jobs, offices and all that malarkey but aren't the WFH arrangements part of the recruitment package about which companies have to be competitive?
Absolutely. They must think that 2 days WFH is sufficient inducement, and more than this has a negative impact on performance.
However, when you have individuals whose base office is different from the rest of their team, being in or out makes very little difference.
2 days WFH (in London) is the worst of all worlds. You still have to live within a reasonable daily commute, buy the full season ticket, and maintain a home office.
There’s a massive business opportunity, for the first company to turn a full City tower office block into a £50/night basic ‘hotel’, of 50 sqft rooms with a bed, a shower, and a bar downstairs. The difficult bit is the plumbing, when hundreds of hot showers are required simultaneously at 7am.
I wfh 2 days a week and it's perfect. No season ticket required as I don't live in the sticks.
Indeed, I do 3 days and it's just tap in at East Finchley, tap out at Moorgate and walk for 5 mins through Finsbury Circus. I think it's £7 per day, no need for a season ticket at £21 per week, no need to pay £170 per month.
Oh, 3 days is great for the top 1%, who can afford to live in London. For those on the couple of tiers below, who have no choice but to move out if they want more than a flat with no good schools, it makes a massive difference.
8.9 million people live in London.
That depends very much, on how exactly one defines “London”.
Does that proposed expansion include bits of the M25? (To the east, or is it just bad line drawing?) That could be interesting!
North Ockendon in Havering is the only settlement in London situated "trans-M25".
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
There has been a subtle change in our flexible working guidelines.
Before: 2-3 days per week in the office.
After: Up to 2 days per week at home.
Full disclosure: I will be in the office 1 day this week.
Obviously I know SFA about jobs, offices and all that malarkey but aren't the WFH arrangements part of the recruitment package about which companies have to be competitive?
Absolutely. They must think that 2 days WFH is sufficient inducement, and more than this has a negative impact on performance.
However, when you have individuals whose base office is different from the rest of their team, being in or out makes very little difference.
2 days WFH (in London) is the worst of all worlds. You still have to live within a reasonable daily commute, buy the full season ticket, and maintain a home office.
There’s a massive business opportunity, for the first company to turn a full City tower office block into a £50/night basic ‘hotel’, of 50 sqft rooms with a bed, a shower, and a bar downstairs. The difficult bit is the plumbing, when hundreds of hot showers are required simultaneously at 7am.
I wfh 2 days a week and it's perfect. No season ticket required as I don't live in the sticks.
Indeed, I do 3 days and it's just tap in at East Finchley, tap out at Moorgate and walk for 5 mins through Finsbury Circus. I think it's £7 per day, no need for a season ticket at £21 per week, no need to pay £170 per month.
Oh, 3 days is great for the top 1%, who can afford to live in London. For those on the couple of tiers below, who have no choice but to move out if they want more than a flat with no good schools, it makes a massive difference.
8.9 million people live in London.
That depends very much, on how exactly one defines “London”.
Bring on the expanded ULEZ. Get those awful polluting diesels off the roads.
Yep, absolutely brilliant policy from Khan. The smaller one was executed excellently, I expect the expansion to be an even greater success.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
There has been a subtle change in our flexible working guidelines.
Before: 2-3 days per week in the office.
After: Up to 2 days per week at home.
Full disclosure: I will be in the office 1 day this week.
Obviously I know SFA about jobs, offices and all that malarkey but aren't the WFH arrangements part of the recruitment package about which companies have to be competitive?
Absolutely. They must think that 2 days WFH is sufficient inducement, and more than this has a negative impact on performance.
However, when you have individuals whose base office is different from the rest of their team, being in or out makes very little difference.
2 days WFH (in London) is the worst of all worlds. You still have to live within a reasonable daily commute, buy the full season ticket, and maintain a home office.
There’s a massive business opportunity, for the first company to turn a full City tower office block into a £50/night basic ‘hotel’, of 50 sqft rooms with a bed, a shower, and a bar downstairs. The difficult bit is the plumbing, when hundreds of hot showers are required simultaneously at 7am.
I wfh 2 days a week and it's perfect. No season ticket required as I don't live in the sticks.
Indeed, I do 3 days and it's just tap in at East Finchley, tap out at Moorgate and walk for 5 mins through Finsbury Circus. I think it's £7 per day, no need for a season ticket at £21 per week, no need to pay £170 per month.
Oh, 3 days is great for the top 1%, who can afford to live in London. For those on the couple of tiers below, who have no choice but to move out if they want more than a flat with no good schools, it makes a massive difference.
8.9 million people live in London.
That depends very much, on how exactly one defines “London”.
Er, you do realised that that is a map of congestion/emissions charging zones in London, not alternative boundaries of London? The boundaries of London have been clearly and precisely defined since (checks notes) 1965.
Without being too ghoulish (I hope) I have been having this same internal philosophical debate today, in my head (it can get boring in Bangkok around 3pm)
How much is human life worth against cultural heritage
to put it at its most extreme, would we sacrifice all the Christian architecture in the world - from Chartres to Ely, St Peters to Seville, the Duomo of Florence to St Basils Moscow, Durham Cathedral to Notre Dame, Kilpeck church to the Priory of La Tourette, to save one person who would otherwise die?
No, we wouldn’t. Which shows that human life is precious but not all-conqueringly precious
To make it a bit more contentious, would we accept the deaths of 100,000 people if the alternative choice was accept the extinction of all the dolphins and whales, forever?
Without being too ghoulish (I hope) I have been having this same internal philosophical debate today, in my head (it can get boring in Bangkok around 3pm)
How much is human life worth against cultural heritage
to put it at its most extreme, would we sacrifice all the Christian architecture in the world - from Chartres to Ely, St Peters to Seville, the Duomo of Florence to St Basils Moscow, Durham Cathedral to Notre Dame, Kilpeck church to the Priory of La Tourette, to save one person who would otherwise die?
No, we wouldn’t. Which shows that human life is precious but not all-conqueringly precious
To make it a bit more contentious, would we accept the deaths of 100,000 people if the alternative choice was accept the extinction of all the dolphins and whales, forever?
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Ye, pretty much spot on. You are not going to want to miss out on top talent just because they want to work from home. But as you say, this will only apply to those who have already proved themselves. You are going to see much less WFH opportunities for people who are starting off.
The great crisis of both politics and business in the UK is generally poor management skills. This is a theme that has emerged in the serious UK media in the past few months.
In that light the Brexit fiasco is a rebellion against dishonest leadership, and a desire to bring the political process under more democratic control. Even as a Remainer, I could see the logic of that, and although the dishonesty with which the Brexit mob made their case left me coldly furious, they were not wholly wrong.
Some argue that part of the problem is that there is a "Jack´s-as-good-as-his master" attitude across British society. The British do not, in general, admire success except perhaps acting or music. The stereotype of leaders is negative. Britain is not a particularly fair place, and that many think success is not earned, but acquired through cheating. We show remarkable contempt to our public figures across society, from celebrities to business people.
The media has much to answer for too, Paxman´s "who is this lying liar who is lying to me?", attitude was maybe good entertainment, but not a sane way to find a happier and more prosperous country, However, it also goes hand-in-hand with genuine failure: an Oxford PPE degree is a network, not a syllabus, and that goes for bankers or industrialists or journalists as well as politicians.
Tories are in a a leadership vacuum but the palpable lack of vision on both front benches increasingly difficult to ignore. Changing the party of government will change surprisingly little. For example, it wont reverse Brexit, although that is what polls say the majority of voters want.
The problem for the UK is the system of government has delivered so much failure, of which Brexit is only a part, that it is becoming inescapable that major reform is needed. Our local government tier hollowed out by decades of cuts and mostly bankrupt. Our Parliament is woefully undemocratic- the continuing membership of the hereditary Lords in our Parliament is so sad, it is almost funny. A"safe seat" in the Commons is an insult to democracy. The relationship between the central government in Westminster and national governments in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast is rickety, and the failure of local government has destroyed the power of English cities and counties.
Large parts of public administration, from Companies House,the Passport office, to the NHS itself, are in crisis, and the situation is getting worse. We need to talk about these issues. Whether by Royal Commission, Peoples Assemblies or some other public debate, we need to rebuild leadership of, and trust in our system of government.
We need a new national consensus. Who will lead it?
Spoiler Alert: it won´t be Liz Truss.
Very much agree with this. As a Brexit supporter I have long said I see it as only a first, necessary step in a massive reorganisation and reform of governance in Britain. Ideally including Scottish independence and reunification of Ireland. I doubt I will ever 'trust' our politicians but it would be possible to improve things massively by decentralisation and fundamental reform of many institutions.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Which is just status quo ante
The ultra talented will get a choice. The average worker will, increasingly, be expected back in the office. OR face a pay cut
None of this can be looked at in isolation. If we had voted Remain by 52-48 that too would have been a mistake. So you have to look back in time to the causes of why by 2016 we had exactly two choices - Yes and No, both of which were going to be bad in their effects, and both of which failed to command high levels of consent.
And it is Major's generation of moderate politicians - many admirable including Major himself - who failed to shape the EU in a way which both commanded consent by what it was (basically trade not politics please), and commanded consent by a series of referendums allowing the voters to say Yes, No and Thus Far and Further.
Major got taken for a ride by the EC - willingly. It is ironic that it was his own idiotic Europhile decision as Chancellor to join the ERM that brought about his own downfall as PM and of course he spent his last days in office whining about how he had been misled by the EU over the Maastricht treaty and how unfair it all was.
Yes. Politicians, to be wise in statecraft have to be cleverer than the general voting public, and to look further ahead but also know that in the end the voter is master.
For those who think currency is about weird names on coins in Foreignland and life is much more convenient with a common ERM or Euro for buying ice creams on the beach in Spain, politicians have to know that one day they will realise that currency is about politics, power and who decides, and that one day this becomes obvious. (Ask the Greeks).
Which means that the UK interest for the EU was that not only there was no ERM but also no Euro, even if we could opt out because the Euro is inseparable from state formation, and UK foreign policy has been against a united Europe whether under Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler or anyone else
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Ye, pretty much spot on. You are not going to want to miss out on top talent just because they want to work from home. But as you say, this will only apply to those who have already proved themselves. You are going to see much less WFH opportunities for people who are starting off.
And this is actually a negative thing for a company, not necessarily because of a hit to the experienced individual's productivity, but them being remote and juniors being in the office, means no mentoring, more much difficult to organically learn the tricks and tips from experienced hands, no stamping out bad habits early on etc.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
I would guess that for around a third of office jobs, full WFH works well, for a third it's debatable, and for a third it's greatly detrimental. Policy ought to recognise that.
Not in the public sector. There are far, far too many dossers to work without supervision. The private sector may come to that sort of arrangement but in the public sector we clearly have lost a huge amount of productivity since the pandemic, simply - nothing in the country works any more. If those who don't like it leave, I'd be pretty confident in saying we'd lose very little overall anyway and I think I'd be pretty confident in predicting that very few will leave if a 4 day week was enforced.
I don't see 'dossing' as a private v public sector issue. The people most likely to take the piss given half a chance are those who neither enjoy their job nor see much value in what they do. They can be anywhere. I was one at times despite being VERY private sector.
Yes, but the dossers in the private sector aren’t funded by your taxes.
They are when they are working for private sector consultants providing services to the government.
None of this can be looked at in isolation. If we had voted Remain by 52-48 that too would have been a mistake. So you have to look back in time to the causes of why by 2016 we had exactly two choices - Yes and No, both of which were going to be bad in their effects, and both of which failed to command high levels of consent.
And it is Major's generation of moderate politicians - many admirable including Major himself - who failed to shape the EU in a way which both commanded consent by what it was (basically trade not politics please), and commanded consent by a series of referendums allowing the voters to say Yes, No and Thus Far and Further.
In retrospect Major's mistake was the negotiating the opt-out from the Euro and then forcing it through parliament. We should have had a referendum on the full-fat version like they did in France.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Which is just status quo ante
The ultra talented will get a choice. The average worker will, increasingly, be expected back in the office. OR face a pay cut
But that cut of point has permanently moved a lot further down the pay scale now. It is no longer just the ultra talented. There are companies right now who are facing acute shortages of critical staff because they have tried to push people back into the office. Losing 25% of your staff in a few months is not a sustainable position.
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
...School Safety Guardians would be immune from civil liability for any “reasonable” action taken within the scope of their official duties as a School Safety Guardian. Though these duties include a response to an active shooter situation, line 67 of HB 532 would extend qualifying situations to any involving “bodily harm,” authorizing School Safety Guardians to respond to a wide range of instances which fall short of deadly violence. However, if a School Safety Guardian fails to “carry out their official duties,” this immunity would be waived. If a School Safety Guardian is charged with committing a crime, HB 532 would authorize the defendant to use their status as a School Safety Guardian in their defense. HB 532 would also revise the existing statute on justifiable homicide (97-3-15) to authorize killing a human being “in the performance of duty as a member of a School Safety Guardian Program.” ...
Doesn't sound particularly slanted to me. It sounds quite a lot like extending the "qualified immunity" which has enabled a great deal of consequence free (for the perpetrator) police violence to another set of people, in schools.
Without being too ghoulish (I hope) I have been having this same internal philosophical debate today, in my head (it can get boring in Bangkok around 3pm)
How much is human life worth against cultural heritage
to put it at its most extreme, would we sacrifice all the Christian architecture in the world - from Chartres to Ely, St Peters to Seville, the Duomo of Florence to St Basils Moscow, Durham Cathedral to Notre Dame, Kilpeck church to the Priory of La Tourette, to save one person who would otherwise die?
No, we wouldn’t. Which shows that human life is precious but not all-conqueringly precious
To make it a bit more contentious, would we accept the deaths of 100,000 people if the alternative choice was accept the extinction of all the dolphins and whales, forever?
I suggest we would accept the human toll
So there is a tariff
But that's a fallacious argument, especially as it's always someone else's death; someone else's relatives; someone else's friends.
So what if it was your life? What if you were one of that 100,000. Would you give your life for the dolphins and whales?
What if it was one of your daughters? Both of them? Would you give their lives for the same aim?
If not, why would you trade the lives of 100,000 strangers?
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Ye, pretty much spot on. You are not going to want to miss out on top talent just because they want to work from home. But as you say, this will only apply to those who have already proved themselves. You are going to see much less WFH opportunities for people who are starting off.
However, not much use in the newby coming in on a Friday when the rest of the team (and their boss) are all WFH.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
I would guess that for around a third of office jobs, full WFH works well, for a third it's debatable, and for a third it's greatly detrimental. Policy ought to recognise that.
Not in the public sector. There are far, far too many dossers to work without supervision. The private sector may come to that sort of arrangement but in the public sector we clearly have lost a huge amount of productivity since the pandemic, simply - nothing in the country works any more. If those who don't like it leave, I'd be pretty confident in saying we'd lose very little overall anyway and I think I'd be pretty confident in predicting that very few will leave if a 4 day week was enforced.
I don't see 'dossing' as a private v public sector issue. The people most likely to take the piss given half a chance are those who neither enjoy their job nor see much value in what they do. They can be anywhere. I was one at times despite being VERY private sector.
Yep, people doing borng, pointless tasks.
I struggle with productivity when doing boring pointless tasks such as the screening part of a systematic review*. You're probably going to need to watch people doing boring pointless things that are not very easy to measure and which they know will be measured. Another option, of course, is to try to abolish or automate the boring pointless things.
*I didn't just write that, honest Reviews are very important and not pointless at all, my dear colleagues who do reviews for a living. But they are deathly boring.
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
I would guess that for around a third of office jobs, full WFH works well, for a third it's debatable, and for a third it's greatly detrimental. Policy ought to recognise that.
Not in the public sector. There are far, far too many dossers to work without supervision. The private sector may come to that sort of arrangement but in the public sector we clearly have lost a huge amount of productivity since the pandemic, simply - nothing in the country works any more. If those who don't like it leave, I'd be pretty confident in saying we'd lose very little overall anyway and I think I'd be pretty confident in predicting that very few will leave if a 4 day week was enforced.
I don't see 'dossing' as a private v public sector issue. The people most likely to take the piss given half a chance are those who neither enjoy their job nor see much value in what they do. They can be anywhere. I was one at times despite being VERY private sector.
Yes, but the dossers in the private sector aren’t funded by your taxes.
They are if they are on income support.
What office based roles would though? Usually people on in work benefits are going to be in service roles in supermarkets, cafes or working some other kind of shift role.
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
Yes, I agree. WFH - as we know it, on a large scale - is on the way out
I can see people being allowed to choose to work 4 or 5 days in the office, but below 4 will be seen as a huge perk for senior staff or particular roles. Capitalism will decide this. If you insist on WFH your choice of jobs will be limited and you will be paid less, as companies will think Fuck this, why are we paying you the same as someone who loyally comes in every day (giving us the synergies and corporate team spirit that come from that)
People work together because it works, simple as
HMG needs to get tough on civil servants loafing about
As that BBC report states, WFH has only lasted as long as it has, because employment markets are tight. Unemployment is low. This will not last. Power will return to the employer, and they will want staff in the office 4 days a week minimum
BTW Cities will also demand this. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Bangkok is throbbing and as lively as it ever has been (it’s great) there is no WFH. The city thrives. Denver Colorado has 90% WFH and it’s a fucking disaster, a bleak deserted downtown with many incalculable negatives arising from this -and much harm to the state economy (and eventually USA INC as a whole)
Except of course at the moment exactly the opposite is happening with large numbers of people quitting companies which will not allow WFH and moving to those who will. And of course the people moving are inevitably the ones most in demand so the companies that allow WFH are the ones getting the competitive advantage. Even when unemployment rises and the jobs market tightens, it will be those with the least to offer who will be the ones forced back into the office whilst those most in demand will be able to pick the companies that allow the most flexibility.
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
Which is just status quo ante
The ultra talented will get a choice. The average worker will, increasingly, be expected back in the office. OR face a pay cut
But that cut of point has permanently moved a lot further down the pay scale now. It is no longer just the ultra talented. There are companies right now who are facing acute shortages of critical staff because they have tried to push people back into the office. Losing 25% of your staff in a few months is not a sustainable position.
It's not just that, either. It's also that evidently some jobs are more suited to WFH than others.
Even the original article which got Leon so excited said this: ...According to a January 2023 survey of 1,806 US workers by recruitment-agency Monster, while half of employers believe giving employees flexible schedules has worked well, a third who planned to adopt a virtual or hybrid model have changed their minds from a year ago..
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
...School Safety Guardians would be immune from civil liability for any “reasonable” action taken within the scope of their official duties as a School Safety Guardian. Though these duties include a response to an active shooter situation, line 67 of HB 532 would extend qualifying situations to any involving “bodily harm,” authorizing School Safety Guardians to respond to a wide range of instances which fall short of deadly violence. However, if a School Safety Guardian fails to “carry out their official duties,” this immunity would be waived. If a School Safety Guardian is charged with committing a crime, HB 532 would authorize the defendant to use their status as a School Safety Guardian in their defense. HB 532 would also revise the existing statute on justifiable homicide (97-3-15) to authorize killing a human being “in the performance of duty as a member of a School Safety Guardian Program.” ...
Doesn't sound particularly slanted to me. It sounds quite a lot like extending the "qualified immunity" which has enabled a great deal of consequence free (for the perpetrator) police violence to another set of people, in schools.
Shooting a child is a "reasonable action", you think?
If your AI is trained on (say) Getty Images, then is your AI breaching copyright by generating new images based on them?
It has very broad implications for all of the trained AI: from Stable diffusion and Dalle to ChatGPT and Bard
Getty wouldn’t likely care - if the AI company had licenced the images, rather than scraped their website, for their training data. The fact that the AI was churning out their watermark, placed across their unlicensed website images, is the problem.
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law: -Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians" -Identities unknown to public -Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus -No liability if they shoot a kid. https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
Where do I sign up? Oh bugger it's Mississippi.
That's the other problem with the scheme. Those that it attracts are likely to be among the least suited to be performing the role. (I am assuming you were jesting, of course.)
Going back to my earlier chat about Twitter, one of the things credited with bringing their dev and feature pipeline back into a solid position was reinstating the 4 day in office week. Disney are also doing likewise, we're mandating a three day week from next FY and all new hires have full time written in as default with flexible working being a company handbook modification. Some people have said they will leave if the the policy is enforced but I'm not afraid to lose them. I think the next PM will have to impose this on the public sector as well, a minimum 4 day working week in office, anyone who doesn't like it can get fucked and find a different job. Chances are they won't leave.
I would guess that for around a third of office jobs, full WFH works well, for a third it's debatable, and for a third it's greatly detrimental. Policy ought to recognise that.
Not in the public sector. There are far, far too many dossers to work without supervision. The private sector may come to that sort of arrangement but in the public sector we clearly have lost a huge amount of productivity since the pandemic, simply - nothing in the country works any more. If those who don't like it leave, I'd be pretty confident in saying we'd lose very little overall anyway and I think I'd be pretty confident in predicting that very few will leave if a 4 day week was enforced.
I don't see 'dossing' as a private v public sector issue. The people most likely to take the piss given half a chance are those who neither enjoy their job nor see much value in what they do. They can be anywhere. I was one at times despite being VERY private sector.
Yes, but the dossers in the private sector aren’t funded by your taxes.
They are. The mixed economy is a fungible holistic entity. All funds all, with individual net givers and net takers depending on what they do and how much they extract for doing it.
Comments
The people of Syria have had a wretched time over the past eleven years.
But the higher fuel efficiency of diesel engines results in lower CO2 emissions per mile driven in a comparable vehicle.
"School Safety Guardian Program" is closer to becoming law:
-Schools secretly designate teachers as "Guardians"
-Identities unknown to public
-Guardians must carry concealed firearm at all times on campus
-No liability if they shoot a kid.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TorenBallard/status/1622711261506011151
And yes, interesting and very important law suit. I've wondered before (I think on here) about how far the 'derived work' definition stretches, but there's also local copying of these and whether or not that falls within licensing (if indeed there was any licensing).
If it had destroyed the Tas Tepeler (and it looks like they might be OK) it would have been a cultural/civilizational catastrophe as well. Akin to losing all the cave art in France, or every Gothic cathedral in England. Horrendously grim
The same PBer would claim they can generate 1 hours worth of value in 30 mins (or less) so the customer still gets a bargain, and so does PB...
The dam has burst and there is little chance of it being restored at the top end of the jobs market.
📈19pt Labour Lead
🌹Lab 46 (-1)
🌳Con 27 (+1)
🔶LD 9 (=)
➡️Reform 5 (-1)
🌍Green 4… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1622986891917201415
How much is human life worth against cultural heritage
to put it at its most extreme, would we sacrifice all the Christian architecture in the world - from Chartres to Ely, St Peters to Seville, the Duomo of Florence to St Basils Moscow, Durham Cathedral to Notre Dame, Kilpeck church to the Priory of La Tourette, to save one person who would otherwise die?
No, we wouldn’t. Which shows that human life is precious but not all-conqueringly precious
To make it a bit more contentious, would we accept the deaths of 100,000 people if the alternative choice was accept the extinction of all the dolphins and whales, forever?
I suggest we would accept the human toll
So there is a tariff
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/researchers-extract-training-images-from-stable-diffusion-but-its-difficult/
The ultra talented will get a choice. The average worker will, increasingly, be expected back in the office. OR face a pay cut
For those who think currency is about weird names on coins in Foreignland and life is much more convenient with a common ERM or Euro for buying ice creams on the beach in Spain, politicians have to know that one day they will realise that currency is about politics, power and who decides, and that one day this becomes obvious. (Ask the Greeks).
Which means that the UK interest for the EU was that not only there was no ERM but also no Euro, even if we could opt out because the Euro is inseparable from state formation, and UK foreign policy has been against a united Europe whether under Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler or anyone else
...
Doesn't sound particularly slanted to me.
It sounds quite a lot like extending the "qualified immunity" which has enabled a great deal of consequence free (for the perpetrator) police violence to another set of people, in schools.
So what if it was your life? What if you were one of that 100,000. Would you give your life for the dolphins and whales?
What if it was one of your daughters? Both of them? Would you give their lives for the same aim?
If not, why would you trade the lives of 100,000 strangers?
I struggle with productivity when doing boring pointless tasks such as the screening part of a systematic review*. You're probably going to need to watch people doing boring pointless things that are not very easy to measure and which they know will be measured. Another option, of course, is to try to abolish or automate the boring pointless things.
*I didn't just write that, honest
Oh bugger it's Mississippi.
It's also that evidently some jobs are more suited to WFH than others.
Even the original article which got Leon so excited said this:
...According to a January 2023 survey of 1,806 US workers by recruitment-agency Monster, while half of employers believe giving employees flexible schedules has worked well, a third who planned to adopt a virtual or hybrid model have changed their minds from a year ago..
This thread has now reached Trussian levels of career progression
Those that it attracts are likely to be among the least suited to be performing the role. (I am assuming you were jesting, of course.)