I've been using it to counter disappointing performance reviews in a professional way that aligns with policy to "further develop the employee". I've use it to create first drafts of proposals for changing business processes (saved me hours of time just outlining an argument). I've uploaded most of our PDFs and had it do some "fuzzing" in a sense to find logic errors, or slightly diverging interpretations of policy terms. This has been used to feedback to our policy and planning folks to cover a hole, or clarify some random document. I've definitely used AI to respond to a bad coworker or supervisor when I'm depressed I have to suffer under/around them. I still proofread the mistakes, but I make more mistakes when I'm trying to sound professional and just depressed about the work. Took this to a dark place, but there's more success than papering over BS. I've helped get 4 new benefits for our employee type with my proposals and the supporting "evidence" the LLM can drag up and justify in an opening brief. The type of employee I am is expected to receive 22% higher pay this year.
I used to think I don't have the bandwidth or headspace for understanding our collection of policy documents. There are rare experts. LLMs have lowered the barrier to entry for m e to contribute. I wish I could be specific, but I helped uncover that certain benefits were not available to the type of employee I am, and how previous pay comparisons were done assuming something about total compensation. Well, my employee doesn't have benefits so the numbers they were comparing against were not representative of us. Got a proposal in there, an got a few executives to say "ohh".
I work in a very large organization with 50,000 people. It's painful and discouraging listening to the person at the top, or their close deputies, because the documents they publish for mission goals are so abstract and boundless. Nothing I want ever seems directly addressed in these documents that get passed to all of us.
However, I've learned that the middle managers below C suite are looking at these objectives and justifying their own plans in alignment with this. Whatever the people who actually "do" want to do in 2025, must be in support of this abstract crap that frustrates me.
I've had more success in the last 2 years aligning my wants and interests with those of my middle managing-leadership, as they orient toward the executives.
Executives are often trying to enable with vapid bullshit, and really it just shows they shouldn't talk to the people who "do". I think a better way of approaching the workforce and inspiring loyalty to the org, is to trust a deputy to read you into their particular program area so the high-level executive can come in and speak "to you" at an unexpected/encouraging moment. I've seen that done well, but not all hands messaging - ever.
(All blanket statements have exceptional circumstances where they should be disregarded.)
I watched this, and the commentary from the 2nd tour guide seems non-serious. I did think the "valley girl" accent is what threw me off, but I stopped watching at "super cool sled". I just don't understand who their audience is with this type of commentary.
If, in a technical settings, someone consciously interprets the valley girl sound itself as an indication of inarticulate, insincere, and disinterested; then, then they’re perpetuating biases against a regional accent, which is completely unacceptable. The harder problem is getting people to notice when they’re unconsciously doing so, and then to compensate for their own bias when listening to – and judging – others.
(Your comment makes sense otherwise, no argument here — I’m only here for the valley girl subthread.)
Hmm. I will say from past experiences I've only found the 'valley girl' accent to be in certain parts of California, and not representative of Californians. Growing up I remember when my sister and her friends adopted this style of speaking for a time. Usually at school, this was (from my perception) to project an air of being disinterested in bored in conversation toward authority figures. I also found it when someone wasn't capable of demonstrating a deep knowledge of something (where the bias comes into effect). I know it's incorrect, but I have many friends that think Californians don't have an innate accent and I've often thought this about how I sound when going elsewhere.
I think your comment makes sense, and I appreciate the way you detailed this.
The first thing I did when I encountered js in the 90s was write map and reduce. After leaving Mozilla I published a npm package with my hacks. I was very happy to find someone else had done a much better job at it and was actually maintaining it.
I think I'm misunderstanding what this can be used for, but something I'd love to see become "perfect" is preserving a GUI application state across reboots/logins/etc. Especially with flatpak GUI apps.
This is called image computing and Lisp/Smalltalk did it. Emacs has a form of it called undump.
I dislike it because it violates the "rule of least power". Basically, if you never have to validate your internal data, you can never tell it's corrupt.
I appreciate you making this distinction; it's one I haven't understood clearly. My outside impression is that right-to-work is a campaign to smear unions, though I understand in some areas/professions they can only hire union workers.
Closed shop: must be a full union member to have the job
Fair share: you don’t have to join, but you must pay the portion of dues that go towards contract negotiations and enforcement
Right to work: they can’t make you do anything. In some cases even going as far as saying the employer does not have to deduct dues for members (who have agreed to it) pay
> even going as far as saying the employer does not have to deduct dues for members (who have agreed to it) pay
I'm surprised you frame this as an extreme example. Regardless of one's views on unions (they have their place), it seems way off for the employer to deduct those payments. Perhaps it's a convenience, but as a worker that is my money to pay to the union; if the union and the employer orchestrate the transfer of my membership payment behind closed doors before the money hits my account, it's makes it harder to feel the union is truly acting in my interests.
This is not just a matter of hygiene; for example, I was once in a (notoriously corrupt and socially reactionary) union here in Australia that represents retail workers. I didn't have a choice in the matter and my membership payments were deducted by my employer. About a decade later, a court ruled that a deal made between that employer and the union had left workers worse off (but was in the interests of the union bureaucracy). Incidents like this seriously damage the reputation of the union movement.
Having your dues deducted automatically in an environment of compulsory unionism doesn't seem to have much to do with empowering workers at all!
Compelling employers to pull the wages for dues is a way to make sure the worker pays no matter what. Don't you see? A blue collar worker can't be trusted not to piss away their wages at the bar and be able to come up with their union dues.
Trading 1 trash platform for another. LinkedIn could be such a great place if it didn't abuse your information and subscribe to such dark patterns. I still remember having my entire address book harvested and spammed (way back when). I will never forget that. I will never trust LinkedIn. Doesn't matter what they do.
I’ve never used it. Never even created an account… though I was on the receiving end of said address book harvesting, so they just created an account “for” me and spam me as if I’m a user nonetheless.
I use LinkedIn as in have an account, but I basically never log in except once every few months to accept invitations and maybe to update something on my profile. So from an ad selling perspective I might as well not have one.
I didn't even know LinkedIn had ads. I assume they made all their money from charging companies to post job postings (which are ads I guess) and recruiters to be able to reach out
I have an account there, but I wouldn't even see if I got a DM from someone I know because I eventually got sick of the recruiter spam to my email and marked it as such. I check it like once a year maybe? Do people actually use the site when they're not actively looking for a job? So far I've never even used it for that, and don't really know why I have a profile.
Well, I think the vast majority of LinkedIn ‘users’ never actually log in to it. Like, I have a LinkedIn account, because it’s virtually mandatory these days, but, given that I’m not looking for a job, I maybe look at it once every couple months to accept/reject connection requests, and that’s it.
For hiring, there are good alternatives, most often regional, and they can thrive since both sides of the deal are interested in any small/exotic pools of candidates, there is no need for masses. In the EU Honeypot comes to mind.
I maintain a daily email to myself in a shared mailbox. I have 3 sections:
SIGNIFICANT
\* topic1
\* this happened
\* topic2
DONE
\* This project
\* Made this change
\* Made another change
\* Some training
\* Completed this section
TODO
...
I'm in a setting where I'm incredibly temporary. I could be tasked elsewhere tomorrow. Every day I reply to my previous email and work on the draft throughout the day as my notebook. At the end of the day I send it, received in the mailbox I'm attending. I title the email "Captain's Log" and my supervisor and peers can read it, as well as the draft, whenever. This keeps them clued in on where my head is at, what I'm working on, etc. Great for performance reviews mostly. Not as convenient as something like my Remarkable tablet.
I've been using it to counter disappointing performance reviews in a professional way that aligns with policy to "further develop the employee". I've use it to create first drafts of proposals for changing business processes (saved me hours of time just outlining an argument). I've uploaded most of our PDFs and had it do some "fuzzing" in a sense to find logic errors, or slightly diverging interpretations of policy terms. This has been used to feedback to our policy and planning folks to cover a hole, or clarify some random document. I've definitely used AI to respond to a bad coworker or supervisor when I'm depressed I have to suffer under/around them. I still proofread the mistakes, but I make more mistakes when I'm trying to sound professional and just depressed about the work. Took this to a dark place, but there's more success than papering over BS. I've helped get 4 new benefits for our employee type with my proposals and the supporting "evidence" the LLM can drag up and justify in an opening brief. The type of employee I am is expected to receive 22% higher pay this year.
I used to think I don't have the bandwidth or headspace for understanding our collection of policy documents. There are rare experts. LLMs have lowered the barrier to entry for m e to contribute. I wish I could be specific, but I helped uncover that certain benefits were not available to the type of employee I am, and how previous pay comparisons were done assuming something about total compensation. Well, my employee doesn't have benefits so the numbers they were comparing against were not representative of us. Got a proposal in there, an got a few executives to say "ohh".
It's been fun.