The_v
@The_v@lemmy.world
- Comment on Layoffs every 2 years 1 day ago:
The place was a toxic cesspool at the time. An investment group had purchased 7 different companies and forced merged them in the space of 3 years and went on a massive hiring spree. The company I started with was 350 people. The company I left was over 4,000 people
It was an illegal layoff that I could taken them to court over. However the in-house lawyer knew what was going on and made them give me one hell of a severance package to stop me from suing them. I basically got everything I reasonably would have gotten if I sued.
That ended up being the most profitable year of my life.
My boss ended up CEO for a few years. It didn’t go well.
- Comment on Layoffs every 2 years 1 day ago:
I am on my 3rd layoff in 10 years.
First one I had all sort of dirt on my boss who was kissing ass to climb the corporate ladder. I was a massive liability as I knew what a waste of space he was. They laid me off with some really week excuses and a years wage/benefits to keep me quiet.
Second one we got a new CEO who decided to make massive changes to the company “to make it more profitable”. It hasn’t shown a profit since and the layoffs are a yearly tradition now.
The last one was this past fall. Smaller company over-invested when times where good. Then the market turned around and they are in trouble. One of those small “family” businesses, me and 20 others got kicked out of the family.
So as of now I have my own business. I am on track to make 100% more than I ever have before working for someone else.
Just for shits and giggles I also have an interview tomorrow for a C-suite position in a tropical country. It’s too fucking cold here.
- Comment on Sounds like a problem for them, not me. 1 week ago:
It started when the company I worked for had a policy against supplying dual sim phones. I have had my personal number for close to 20 years so I am not letting it up. So I carried two phones. At first I was annoyed but over time I got used to talking on one phone and using the other for notes and reference.
Now that I am self employed having the two phones is a habit with how I work.
- Comment on Sounds like a problem for them, not me. 1 week ago:
I hit the point in my professional life when I just stopped asking for time off.
I started using phrases like “I will be out from July 15th to August 9.”, “I won’t be in that day.”, “Sorry that conflicts with my schedule.”.
For a while I kept getting random calls for stuff while I was on vacation. That’s about the time I started carrying 2 phones. The work phone and laptop got left at home.
- Comment on Jeep Introduces Pop-Up Ads That Appear Every Time You Stop 1 week ago:
This is not that new.
Android auto would allow apps to play ads when the car was in park.
After using the ad support version of Pandora for most of a decade, when the full screen video ad popped up on my 2016 work truck, it was immediately and permanently uninstalled. I used 128gb microSD in my phone instead.
I’ve never used a streaming service for music again.
- Comment on imagine 1 week ago:
See, totally not evil, yep no evil enterprise here, just the happy little aspirin people, no horrific evil history to be seen La de da t… 🎶
- Comment on imagine 1 week ago:
I don’t think you quite understand what a hybrid for annual crops is. Hybrids in trees are fundamentally different. Same word different meaning.
- Comment on imagine 1 week ago:
They make their money from royalty payments for GMO traits. It’s up to 3x more profit than they get off the seed alone.
- Comment on imagine 1 week ago:
Stop your bullshit.
Not only are they fertile, it is standard protocol to purchase competitors hybrid F1 seed and produce F2 seed in most species (except corn). Eventually plant breeders create inbreds (self-pollinating for 6+ generation’s). These inbreds are the used to make new F1 hybrids. In Europe this is referred to as “plant breeders rights”.
In corn they have to get a little bit more creative. Corn breeders have to keep distinct genetically distant breeding pools to maintain heterosis in their the resulting hybrids. They pull traits from a competitors hybrid utilizing backcross breeding into their breeding pools.
- Comment on imagine 2 weeks ago:
Monsanto doesn’t even exist anymore. It was bought out by the totally not evil company Bayer a while back.
Of course Bayer has suffered quite a bit of indigestion over gobling up that morsel over the years.
- Comment on imagine 2 weeks ago:
Where the fuck do people come up with this shit?
No the “vast majority” of crops are not infertile. They are hybrids. Farmers buy the seeds because of a genetic phenomenon called heterosis AKA hybrid vigor. It takes expertise and a shit ton of money to make hybrid seed. If growers could get the same performance from saving their own seeds only an absolute dumbfuck would buy seeds from a seed company.
Now there are a few species that hybrids can only be made by taking advantage of mutants that have male sterility genes. The resulting hybrids are still fertile (produce viable female gametes) but need an outside source of pollen. Examples: onions, sunflowers and carrots.
The only “sterile” seed sold is seedless watermelon aka triploid seed. Seedless watermelons are only sold because the market demands it thanks to a push by the USDA after being created in Japan pre-WW2. The margins on seedless watermelon seed are often 40-50% less than hybrid diploid seed. And don’t get me started on the research cost - 14-15 generations for a new female line versus 7-8 for seeded types.
- Comment on imagine 2 weeks ago:
Not even close.
Seedless watermelons are a triploid. These are hybrid between a tetraploid female and a diplod male. The plant has three copies of every chromosome and is unable to produce fertile gametes aka completely sterile.
Fruit formation is triggered by fertile diploid pollen (planted in the field In a 4:1 ratio). The fruit then continues to grow without embryo formation in the fruit seeds (pips).
- Comment on imagine 2 weeks ago:
Saving seed for the farms own use is expressly allowed under plant variety protection and patent laws in the U.S.
This is why the seed companies created contracts that they require all growers to sign before being allowed to purchase GMO crops. The prohibition from saving seed is from the signed agreement not from the patent or PVP.
Say if you got grain from the farmer for your bird feeder. Then if you happen to use the grain as seed to plant some for next year’s bird feeder — completely legal. You are not bound by the agreement between the farmer/seed company. Unless you try to sell the grain/seed to another person. Then you are in violation of the seed companies patent in the U.S.
Remember that corn shows a severe amount of inbreeding depression. So the F2 plant will not produce as much as the farmers F1 did the year before.
- Comment on imagine 2 weeks ago:
That’s exactly why the original terminator gene was a joint USDA-ARS /delta-pine effort. The USDA-ARS was looking for ways to prevent GMO species from escaping and causing issues.
You know the shit that actually happened. For example -
Creeping Bentgrass
opb.org/…/gmo-grass-oregon-creeping-bent-scotts-m…
Wheat -
www.nature.com/articles/499262a
Corn/teosinte
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
People require different amounts of repetition to remember something in long term memory. The average is 8-10 repetitions if I recall correctly. What we define as gifted is really a lower required number of repetitions. Photographic memory is very rare but it only requires 1 repetition. Most “gifted students” require 2-4 repetitions to recall it. Students that struggle can require 30+ repetitions to recall the information. Some of the learning impaired can have 1000+ repetitions and never learn it.
What’s fascinating to me is that somebody can be a low repetition in some areas but high repetition in others. For example, a person can have a high ability to remember imagery but struggle with names and language.
To add in more complexity, short term memory varies as well. Some people have an exceptionally strong short term memory. These people excel at the study and forget it method. Give them a long sequence to remember for a short while like the old Simon game and they win everytime. Other people struggle to recall a sequence longer than 3 or 4.
Now what your friend is describing is the ability to process information. This is referred to sometimes as critical thinking. Just like memory this varies greatly by individual it also varies by age. Most people don’t start to develop the skill until their mid-20’s if they ever do. A large percentage of the population never develops this ability. Unfortunately this skill also commonly degrades as you get older.
FYI microeconomics is basically a little bit of vocabulary and critical thinking. Most of the text books could really be a pamphlet if they got rid of all the fluff.
- Comment on We overpaid you and need you to pay back $.23 1 month ago:
I once had to sit down with a suppliers accountant because the billion dollar company I worked for couldn’t figure out why the PO and the invoices on about 50 orders were slightly off.
Reason: The supplier and billion dollar companies systems used different units of measure. So the conversion created a rounding error as the billion dollar company only went out 4 decimal places This led the the invoices being between $0.01-$0.05 off. All told the difference was $0.01.
It took us 2 hours and I had to buy the suppliers accountant lunch to get it sorted out.
- Comment on everybody liked that 2 months ago:
He assassinated an immoral asshole who has profited on the needless pain, suffering, and death of millions.
The reaction can’t be too surprising.
- Comment on You know what, fuck you [un-Jags uar icon] 2 months ago:
It cost at last 50 million in a fancy name designer fees.
- Comment on This world is cruel… 2 months ago:
Or be in a religious cult like Mormons. Of course they will send you to a foreign country and confiscate your passport until your 1.5-2 years are over.
- Comment on Websites: Then vs Now 2 months ago:
Why google became the dominate search engine in the first place was because every other search engine was an ad infested nightmare fuel.
There is a limit of shit that people will put up with. Google is pushing that limit hard right now. Which is why I no longer use it.
- Comment on "And now for some golden oldies!" 3 months ago:
Followed by your grandfather’s favorite Nirvana!
- Comment on Business execs just said the quiet part out loud on RTO mandates — A quarter admit forcing staff back into the office was meant to make them quit 3 months ago:
Depends on the individual curcumstances.
Not a lawyer, but have had way to many trainings on unemployment law over the years.
Circumstance 1: An employee moved further away from the office and can no longer feesibly make the commute to the office. Back to office mandates would be a change in the primary work location. The employee would qualify unemployment even if they “quit”. This is the same for people who started remotely.
Circumstance 2: The employee became the primary caregiver of children or a relative due to the flexibility allowed in working from home. A back to the office mandate would not allow them to continue this. The employee can argue for unemployment due to a change in the required work schedule (my wife successfully did this back in 2010).
Circumstance 3: This one is a bit harder. The employee has performed their job superbly from home. They clearly and openly (preferably in writing) have stated they will not work in the office. The company has a back to the office mandate and then fires the employee for not showing up. The employee can argue this was a creative firing and the employer is on the hook for unemployment. The employee must have evidence that managers were aware of their unwillingness to work from the office prior to the mandate.
- Comment on Funky Little Rodents 4 months ago:
Public indecency in front of a group of police officers was goto for many homeless people in my state. It’s a minor crime with up to 90 days in jail.
Flash th cops in late November, get out in early March.
Much safer than trying to live on the streets over the winter.
- Comment on Horse-flippers? Have any horses from history, ever been fitted with horseshoes that improve their ability to swim? 4 months ago:
LMAO. I did have some fun making this one up. Like any good but fiction it’s a mixture of facts and fabrications to make it believable.
Well…spit… growing up on the ranch we had between 13 to 18 horses around all the time. Everything from Arabians to some workhorses.
100% true. I even sent a nice loogie to get into character.
Now we only shoed them in late summer for the fall when we were working cattle.
Partially true - we shoed them in late summer as it was our pack train for guided hunts etc. we only used the 3 quarter horses to work cattle with. Those we kept shoed year round.
Now swimming is an interesting topic. During the hot days in the summer we would hop on a few hoses bareback and race across in the ponds.
Fabrication. The ponds were all spring fed and came out of the ground at 40F. The ponds held a 50F temperature all summer. Nobody swam in them other than a few dares. We did stock them with trout.
You would think the massive workhorses with their oversized hooves would win. Poweful, strong animals with big flippers on the bottom. Unfortunately they were the slowest in the water. They were stiff and inflexible, dumb and slow. They tended to swim a few feet, decide it was too much work, turn around and find some nice grass to eat.
This is one of my better fabrications. I used the personality of the Belgium’s we had. They were slow and powerful and always eating. However I never once saw them swim. We used them for trail clearing and pack horses in the woods.
Now the Arabians with the smaller stature and dainty little hooves were by far the fastest in the water. The fastest was horse named ugly. He was a swayed back ill tempered little guy with a massive chip on his shoulder. He just had to be first everywhere. He was almost as vicious as the Spawn of Satan aka “Shetland pony”. Now Spawn of Satan didn’t like the water because brimstone and water don’t go together so we never got him to swim.
Mix of fabrication and truth. Ugly was an smaller appaloosa whose name started out as chief. So we called him Chief Ugly then just Ugly. The Spawn of Satan was really called “Cookie” but if you know anything ponies the Spawn of Satan is more apt.
What’s curious is after they were shod and their hoofs trimmed down, they all seemed a wee bit faster. I guess the smaller hoof works better for their swimming mechanism.
Total bullshit. I have no idea what makes a horse swim faster or not.
- Comment on Horse-flippers? Have any horses from history, ever been fitted with horseshoes that improve their ability to swim? 4 months ago:
Well…spit… growing up on the ranch we had between 13 to 18 horses around all the time. Everything from Arabians to some workhorses.
Now we only shoed them in late summer for the fall when we were working cattle.
Now swimming is an interesting topic. During the hot days in the summer we would hop on a few hoses bareback and race across in the ponds.
You would think the massive workhorses with their oversized hooves would win. Poweful, strong animals with big flippers on the bottom. Unfortunately they were the slowest in the water. They were stiff and inflexible, dumb and slow. They tended to swim a few feet, decide it was too much work, turn around and find some nice grass to eat.
Now the Arabians with the smaller stature and dainty little hooves were by far the fastest in the water. The fastest was horse named ugly. He was a swayed back ill tempered little guy with a massive chip on his shoulder. He just had to be first everywhere. He was almost as vicious as the Spawn of Satan aka “Shetland pony”. Now Spawn of Satan didn’t like the water because brimstone and water don’t go together so we never got him to swim.
What’s curious is after they were shod and their hoofs trimmed down, they all seemed a wee bit faster. I guess the smaller hoof works better for their swimming mechanism.
- Comment on Bitey 4 months ago:
Yes.
For a long time identifying bacteria required growing them on different media. If then bacteria didn’t grow on the media, we didn’t know what it was. However for most pathogenic bacterium we did figure out how to culture them.
Then molecular biology advanced to a level where we can amplify and sequence a single bacterium’s DNA. This has led to a continuous stream of new species discoveries from different environments.
Finding a new pathogenic bacteria for humans is still a rare discovery.
- Comment on Home Depot 4 months ago:
I keep looking at it wondering … Why? The others are common. The truck, however took a little special reasoning.
- Comment on Academic writing 4 months ago:
Academia is usually about minutiae, not concepts. Sometimes they get so hyperfocus in small areas that they are completely unable to give a general summary of what they are doing in the bigger picture. To do so would require them to understand things outside of their very narrow field of study.
- Comment on Coleoptera 4 ever 5 months ago:
Cancer is a DNA mutation. Those mutations can be hereditary, random chance, or environmentally caused.
- Comment on Rip 5 months ago:
My personal theory:
First off, raw milk does taste noticably different than pasteurized and homogenized milk you find at the store.
Pasteurization: heating the milk triggers the unfolding of proteins (Denaturation). This is what kills the bacteria but can also change the flavor of the milk.
Homogenization. This process breaks up the fat into smaller segments so they stay in solution in the milk. The result is a less creamy flavor.
People instinctually associate flavor with nutritional value. They think that better flavored food = better for you. This sort-of works in tomatoes and a few other fruit/vegetables. However taste perception is a complex blend of genetics, environmental conditions, and psychology. So the results are inherently unpredictable and completely unreliable.
The unpasteurized crowd all fall for the 'it tastes better so it must be better". They then make all sorts of excuses to justify their instinct. " Big corporate milk is evil!!" Blah blah blah.