New Testingstan

Oxymoron wrote:

weemadando wrote:18 days straight of work...

Is that even legal ?

In France (TM), employers MUST let their employees have at least 1 day off every seven days.

Is Ando in Australia? I can't remember. Anyway, an American employer could theoretically schedule their employees to work 24/7/365 and be in compliance with all federal and state labor law. That said there are professions where this would not be legal (manufacturing and canning are key examples that come to mind).


Now, here's a question for you and other non-Americans: do left-wing parties ever use the US as a negative example? In other words something like "hey, look at where America's been going for the past few years, that's what happens when the right-wing gets elected"?

uraniun235 wrote:Now, here's a question for you and other non-Americans: do left-wing parties ever use the US as a negative example? In other words something like "hey, look at where America's been going for the past few years, that's what happens when the right-wing gets elected"?

Yes.

Though the Parti Socialiste (our current president's party), which has turned complacent and economically-liberal, would refrain to play this card too much, as pointing the obvious leave you open to accusations of "populism", "hypocrisy" and "lack of realism" from the Right and the Medias : "Why do you hate working, you worthless piece of profiteering filth ?!".


The credo of the Right for ten years has been to try to "restore" in the French People the "love" for "hard work" - the much talked about Valeure Travail (more or less : "The Value of Labor"). Basically just trying to get us to feel guilty for not working long enough, when we produce more revenue per hours worked than 95% of the world (disclaimer : figure may be inaccurate) ; and when people are already so stressed-out by high-workload that France is the country that consume the most mind-altering prescription drugs (anti depressant, etc...) per capita in the world.

fuck the bourgeoisie

Oxymoron wrote: [...] and when people are already so stressed-out by high-workload that France is the country that consume the most mind-altering prescription drugs (anti depressant, etc...) per capita in the world.

And I forgot to add in the numerous case of work-related meltdowns, depressions & suicides.

adr wrote:fuck the bourgeoisie

It's funny, 'cause for something like 4 or 5 generations (maybe more), my family has been, by all accounts, from the (petite-)Bourgeoisie, on both sides of the family tree ; even if we are very firmly anchored on the Left, and have strong affinities with the Communists (& Anarchists, in some ways).

I can perfectly sympathize with the sentiment though.

Oxymoron wrote:

uraniun235 wrote:Now, here's a question for you and other non-Americans: do left-wing parties ever use the US as a negative example? In other words something like "hey, look at where America's been going for the past few years, that's what happens when the right-wing gets elected"?

Yes.

Though the Parti Socialiste (our current president's party), which has turned complacent and economically-liberal, would refrain to play this card too much, as pointing the obvious leave you open to accusations of "populism", "hypocrisy" and "lack of realism" from the Right and the Medias : "Why do you hate working, you worthless piece of profiteering filth ?!".


The credo of the Right for ten years has been to try to "restore" in the French People the "love" for "hard work" - the much talked about Valeure Travail (more or less : "The Value of Labor"). Basically just trying to get us to feel guilty for not working long enough, when we produce more revenue per hours worked than 95% of the world (disclaimer : figure may be inaccurate) ; and when people are already so stressed-out by high-workload that France is the country that consume the most mind-altering prescription drugs (anti depressant, etc...) per capita in the world.

Americans bust their fucking asses, they sure as hell aren't loving it. That's a new one on me though, "hey elect us so we can work harder!"

But at least someone out there is trying to get people to learn (what NOT to do) from the American example.

uraniun235 wrote:

Oxymoron wrote:

weemadando wrote:18 days straight of work...

Is that even legal ?

In France (TM), employers MUST let their employees have at least 1 day off every seven days.

Is Ando in Australia? I can't remember. Anyway, an American employer could theoretically schedule their employees to work 24/7/365 and be in compliance with all federal and state labor law. That said there are professions where this would not be legal (manufacturing and canning are key examples that come to mind).

Ando is aussie. At a guess, this is probably a result of end-of-financial-year hectic work schedules, where EVERYONE has to work bullshit long hours.

Now, here's a question for you and other non-Americans: do left-wing parties ever use the US as a negative example? In other words something like "hey, look at where America's been going for the past few years, that's what happens when the right-wing gets elected"?

we're too busy trying to turn into Lil' Amurica for that

I could have sworn I saw a Labor ad where they called a Howard health reform "American style".

But that was it.

Our politicians don't really need to, we live above you and our news is full of the US imploding.

Ando's victim of the whole 'we can't force anyone to do extra work, but if you don't, others will suffer' mentality that plagues office environments

Yeah, it's "voluntary" overtime, where if you don't volunteer to work the hours they've scheduled you for, then you are not a team player and this will be reflected on your next performance assessment.

All that said, it's a short burst of crazy that will in effect see my pay doubled for a month. And because of the timing, the excess tax that I pay will be back with me very shortly.

So, I'll put up with it for now.

So I was talking to this girl I met today, friend of a friend, and apparently the table's conversations was about philias and phobias. She told me she's a dacryphiliac, which I googled when I got home and holy fuck it's a real thing. What is wrong with people? We are a fucked up species.

Phantasee wrote:What is wrong with people? We are a fucked up species.

Well you just answered your own question. We don't understand the full nature of human psychology except that, as with any other product of evolution, it's the imperfect result of maximum immediate gain with no thought towards the long term consequences. Human imagination combined with human sexuality resulting in non-sexual things being sexualized? I'm not surprised.

And personally I don't see anything wrong with dacryphilia so long as it's properly managed/manageable, just like any other sexual inclination. Not all crying is negative, and with some effort I'm sure even a dacryphiliac can find someone of compatible tastes so both can productively fulfill their fetishes.

so one of my favourite professors at my uni is teaching a 'game of thrones and philosophy' course in the fall

possibly the first of its kind in, like, the world

so that's kind of cool

There are classes on Potter, of all things. Potter.

full disclosure: last semester, this professor taught a class on potter

What was discussed? Sexism in the series? Classism? Black/white morality?

a. i didn't take it

b. do you just have like these rote criticisms of shows that you feel the compulsive need to bring up whenever they're mentioned (re: that game of thrones youtube thread on teo where you bring up your impression of the first vs second season in a thread that literally has nothing to do with that at all) or do you actually think that you're engendering lively discussion

I can go into detail on Rowling's sexism if you want, and the black/white morality at play.

I know I'm not engendering lively discussion. It was just an observation that was struck by seeing the images from the first season. Try to be more offended, okay?

I've been waiting for ages for thanas to publish the thread at SDN so I can have lively discussion.

Edit: It's compulsive now to talk about disappointments twice?

oh my gawd windows has been bugging me with "oh hi there is a new version of messenger do you want to upgrade"?

and i said no because i know the new version is a horrible piece of shit in all regards compared to the previous one

but now it said "oh hi we downloaded the new version for you and you can't log in unless you let it install all its 5430 MBs of bullshit kthx"

goddamnit

well fortunately turns out you can circumvent that shit by running the program in xp compatibility mode

ya pretty much

Dooey Jo wrote:oh my gawd windows has been bugging me with "oh hi there is a new version of messenger do you want to upgrade"?

and i said no because i know the new version is a horrible piece of shit in all regards compared to the previous one

but now it said "oh hi we downloaded the new version for you and you can't log in unless you let it install all its 5430 MBs of bullshit kthx"

goddamnit

well fortunately turns out you can circumvent that shit by running the program in xp compatibility mode

I heard all the kids are using this new thing called "Skype" that is like an IP phone through your computer and can do video catshit too! Oh look, it's a resource hog and also importunes you frequently to download the greatest, latest "update." At least it does that to me more than MSN Messenger, and at least my MSN password works for my 360 too. But I may be cheating, my netbook runs XP SP3.

Sometimes just picking up the phone is a more efficient way to communicate!

starku wrote:Skype is the definition of inefficiency

That said seeing Alyeska talk about his team speak server = lolllll

Seems that Free=Great!(Skype) isn't always the best case, unless Free=Great!(MSN Messenger) is a loss leader for a massively profitable evil capitalist entity. Office 2015 ain't cheap, you know, and ya gotta drum up the buyers anywhere you can. Maybe it's time for Bill and Melinda to buy Google.

Hey now starku, I'm not used to this reaction from you, don't get all Harry and Ron on me. Don't betray your av man.

As an aside, have you seen MSoft's gross margins? 60%-65% GROSS and 20-some % net? Holy shit and THEY ARE THE COMMODITY IT SOFTWARE PLAY!

EDIT

How much margin is Apple making if MainStreamSoft is in the 20% net range? Shit, that's a LOT of Chinese workers and suicide nets' worth of yuan I bet. Glad I own a South Korean made droid.

fact: i have never paid for a microsoft product

nor have i pirated one

but yeah with their margins they can afford to give lots of people lots of stuff for free especially if it gives their competitors a hard time


also skype is owned by microsoft now soooo