Random Thoughts II

[MadMax]

oh hai, I herd u like flying, so I put a return trip in your return trip

[StN]

Stop haxoring the inflight system! That's it - no fly list for you...

[MadMax]

Right. That's one workmates PC fixed ... Two more to go. Actually one belongs to an ex-staff member. All three have the same fault: dead or half dead hdd.

[Lightspeed]

The jaw-dropping police/prosecutor scandal in Orange County, Calif.

This quote at the end is something that horrifies me about the current state of the world:

What’s newsworthy is not that it’s unique. What’s newsworthy is that we actually found out.

[DrTiTus]

These badged men repeatedly lied about the existence of the records, then faked amnesia when confronted with proof of their dishonesty.

The old "I do not recall" defense. We are all familiar with this one. The world's power structure is rotten.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

The world's power structure is rotten.

Reading the help and advice subs on Reddit really highlights this. North Korea has its gulags and it's hard to top that, but 10s of millions of US Americans live in dire circumstances that are often thrust upon them due to no fault of their own, except being vulnerable. And when there is personal fault the consequences far outweigh that fault. Any perceived fault is an excuse to lay it all on.

And that's the most powerful country in the world, with plenty of eyes upon it. I don't think most countries are relative sanctuaries from this power like NZ is.

[Ab]

"I didn't even think an Army guy could spell 'New Horizons'"

ahfuck gold

[Lightspeed]

Alan Moore is an insightful man:
Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Alan Moore is an insightful man:
Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore

+1

[Ab]

You know somewhere there's an entire subculture of people fapping over this.

http://www.zmonline.com/photos/zm-ph...eries/?photo=8

[MadMax]

because rule 34

[pxpx]

This is what happens when you start talking about salaries at google:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/happens...laries-google/

[Lightspeed]

This is my favourite bit:

"Don't you know what could happen?"

Nothing. It's illegal to retaliate against employees for sharing salaries.

Fucking bosses thinking they can play this shit. And they can. Nothing quite like seeing the look on the face of a manager who has just realised they can't play that with me and actually have to do their job rather than relying on bullying.

[[Malks] Pixie]

That story rings a bell - when I was working at *unnamed government department* a bundle of us shared our salaries one evening after work at drinks (not on site). A manager was there and overheard and we all ended up having separate meetings with our respective bosses - tried the same shit.

"You can't go round sharing that information! It's private and confidential!"
- "Yes that's right, to me, not you my employer. I'm sure that anyone in HR can look up my salary."

"It undermines good faith bargaining during wage negotiations!"
- "Well it undermines YOUR bargaining position, but only if you haven't been operating in good faith to start with."

"It can damage team performance if someone is seen to be more valued than another person in the same role!"
- "Well... perhaps if we're doing the same role, for the same amount of time, to the same performance level then perhaps there shouldn't be wage disparity?" (Funny thing was we were all in different teams, doing different roles, for different amounts of time and with different levels of experience)

"Well this meeting will serve as a verbal warning!"
- "No it won't, because if it does then all of us will be going to the SSC and bringing in employment lawyers."
"Oh."

That was a fun week.

Pixie

[Lightspeed]

It's funny how organisations hire serious people for serious roles but the management can't help but relate to staff via a parent <-> child dynamic.

[Ab]

Been there, done that. I'll never forget the look on the face of my boss - with whom I had a good relationship - during salary review time when he was bullshitting me on salaries and I said "Let me interrupt you right there and say that this is a very close team and we've all told each other what we're on".

It was like jaw, drop.

[Spoon1]

Does anyone know what "NO CHOR" sprayed on the footpath means? Something to do with cables? (It's road/civil works related in some way.)

[blynk]

I know I really shouldnt care. But this Crotch shot debate from Dancing with the stars.
Did the photo only show her underwear, or did it actually show more?
I know I can probably find the photo, but Im at work.

[fixed_truth]

in b4 lipslip.jpg

[CCS]

Originally Posted by blynk

I know I really shouldnt care. But this Crotch shot debate from Dancing with the stars.
Did the photo only show her underwear, or did it actually show more?
I know I can probably find the photo, but Im at work.

Haven't seen it myself, but pretty sure it only showed a flash of undies.

[blynk]

Thats what I thought, but then with all the controversy, and there was a comment in one of the papers talking about vagina shots, I started to wonder.

Ok, I now care even less.

[CCS]

That is the Herald's stock-in-trade these days. Manufactured outrage over nothing, front page headline.

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by Ab

Been there, done that. I'll never forget the look on the face of my boss - with whom I had a good relationship - during salary review time when he was bullshitting me on salaries and I said "Let me interrupt you right there and say that this is a very close team and we've all told each other what we're on".

It was like jaw, drop.

I'm worried that it'd open Pandora's Box to be that open. It's going to piss someone off, either myself unintentionally if they reveal they're on far more for the same role/performance, or my colleague if I've misjudged them.

[ZoSo]

Ankles suck. Need them to work for that Shaun Johnson step!

[Brutus]

Teams sharing what they're getting around pay-rises etc, does cause management headaches.

I've left a job as I only got a 2% pay-rise when others in the team got 5%.
This was working on a production line, I was one of the fastest workers on the line.

When queried, management told me that because I was so fast, I could have been doing more to help out the other slower people on the team.
To be clear, it wasn't that I wasn't helping them, it was that I could have done more.
So I was given a lower pay-rise than the slower people on the team...
I resigned 2 weeks later.

[madmaxii]

Forgot the /forums. Here's what I got:

dyl666: as we all know our perception of things is completely warped when on drugs so it shouldn't be necessary to have to explain how the car could both be the size of an actual ferrari and still fit on my toilet roll holder

Good times

[Lightspeed]

Maybe this will be what finally prompts action on climate change:
Climate change threatens coffee production

[crocos]

Unlikely; It's been threatening coffee production with noticeable impact for a couple of years now. Ditto for cocoa.

[[Malks] Pixie]

So I've randomly scored some work in the econometrics arm of Pharmac outside from my tutoring work. This'll be... interesting.

Pixie

[Spoon1]

Originally Posted by Spoon1

Does anyone know what "NO CHOR" sprayed on the footpath means? Something to do with cables? (It's road/civil works related in some way.)

So Rince thinks it's "no Chorus" which makes sense but at the same time, why bother missing 2 letters when you've already written 6? Seems dumb to me.

[Lightspeed]

Speed of glacier retreat worldwide 'historically unprecedented'

Researchers have recorded rapid rises in meltwater and alarming rates of glacial retreat, which are accelerating at a pace double that of a decade ago

Freaking alarmists, AMIRITE?

[MadMax]

So I'm looking at an old website I look after and it has a function on the product search page that searches your invoices for any purchases for each result and offers a link to view those invoices.

So I'm thinking I'll be a hero and add a section to the bottom of the page that displays a list of the most frequent items that are common between those sales orders - effectively "last time you purchased items in this search you also purchased ...". Can't be that hard I'm thinking, just work out how the invoice search works and base it on that.

... Except my skills in this field are limited to simple MySQL queries with the help of Google. I've done plenty of basic MySQL queries from the console before but I'm like WTH is this INNER JOIN BOLLOCKS!

Still, I'm keen to nut this out.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Speed of glacier retreat worldwide 'historically unprecedented'



Freaking alarmists, AMIRITE?

No, we're fucked all right.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Ab

No, we're fucked all right.

The problem is everyone is either in the "It's fine, we'll leave it for later, we're a "fast-follower, we can't afford it right now, they are doing more bad than use" inaction camp.
Or the "We're fucked, it's too late" defeatist camp.

Need more people in the "Sure there's an issue, but lets work out how to deal with it, and make the sacrifices we need to make to make the future better for our children" camp.

[MadMax]

sacrifices only delay the inevitable

[MadMax]

Leading and opening article on tv3's Story is a bit of a much ado about nothing imho. (Property "investors" short cutting the process and offering an early bid in return for giving the estate agent a double dipping on the subsequent sale)

We purchased our first home by making a offer where the owner was keen to sell, saving both of us from an auction.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Or the "We're fucked, it's too late" defeatist camp.

Doomed.

[crocos]

I'm gonna sing the Doom song now!

[MadMax]

geez, teaching mr 5 year old maths ... hard work

[MadMax]

Keep hearing star craft in Eric Claptons's bad love