scrum-treats

Such a classic!

Believe Quora. Believe the news articles. Believe the current and former employees that post and comment on HackerNews. Here's some light reading:

"Amazon leaders are worried that a 'Day 2' mindset is seeping in at the company" [1]

"A top Amazon executive recently said he had 'no data' to support the company's return-to-office mandate, prompting criticism from frustrated employees"[2]

"Inside Amazon's little-known Slack channel for performance improvement: Leaked messages reveal anguish, despair, but also community"[3]

"I was a manager at Amazon. My boss encouraged me to quit after I defended a high-performing employee who was about to get the lowest performance rating."[4]

"Amazon employees are internally sharing mock leadership principles that make fun of the company's aggressive RTO policy: 'Disagree and comply'"[5]

"A bunch of Googlers who used to work at Amazon are internally sharing horror stories about their former employer's 'frupid' and aggressive culture"[6]

"'Stress, burnout, churn, and a cut-throat atmosphere': An internal Amazon study slams the company's culture."[7]

"'Frupidity' is a new word making the rounds inside Amazon, a combo of the company's 'frugality' leadership principle and 'stupidity'"[8]

"This leaked document shows exactly how Amazon managers evaluate employee performance and decide pay"[9]

"An Amazon manager told staff to collect donations if they wanted to keep buying cereal for their office"[10]

"The downside of life inside Amazon's cloud growth engine: ProServe employees describe a culture of bullying, derogatory remarks, and retaliation"[11]

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-leaders-aws-day-two-m...

[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-mock-leader...

[3]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-slack-channel-for-wo...

[4]https://www.businessinsider.com/former-amazon-corporate-mana...

[5]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-mock-leader...

[6]https://www.businessinsider.com/former-amazon-employees-who-...

[7]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-earths-best-employer-...

[8]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-use-frupidi...

[9]https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-document-shows-how-am...

[10]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-manager-told-staff-to...

[11]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-proserve-culture-inve...

France going nuclear [1]: "France’s championing of nuclear power as a way of ensuring its energy sovereignty sounds great. But a group of researchers says it's a red herring given France imports all its uranium."

The push for nuclear in the US is a strategic maneuver to increase our position in Africa. It is not about increasing "clean" energy production. What else can you make with uranium and plutonium?? Hmm...

Further, France is slowing nuclear power generation due to heat waves [2]. Further evidence that the nuclear path is not a scalable, viable solution. Meaning, it's a bad idea to invest nuclear energy, let alone for the purpose of transitioning off fossil fuels.

[1]https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220223-does-nuclear-power-gua....

[2]https://efe.com/en/economia/2023-08-17/france-to-reduce-nucl...

Post-US TikTok I am seeing an uptick in pro-military/recruitment videos, as well as right-wing/fascist propaganda. I'm also seeing educational content and leftist discourse flagged at increasing rates. Is this due to influence of the US Government? I think "yes." Propaganda channels prior to US takeover had a different flavor to it. This resurgence of "vanilla" propaganda is all too familiar, and fundamentally lacks creativity. Such a bummer.

Agree. On brand.

Because the precondition (reduction of inequality) is not met.

That was fun! Look forward to tomorrow's puzzle!

Adam Curtis documentaries (e.g., Century of Self[1], All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace[2], HyperNormalisation[3])

[1]https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s

[2]https://youtu.be/I6EBpLfLHCA

[3]https://youtu.be/VzqDMnUG4kk

From the article:

> "Jassy answered a question about the types of music he had been listening to."

Can anyone provide Andy Jassy's answer? I'm curious to learn his go-to jams right now. Thanks!

See also, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34864701.

There are a few reason why 3rd party sellers don't want to go through Amazon. Can someone audit Amazon's warehouses, on behalf of 3rd party sellers, to investigate the proliferation of fake goods (bought by Amazon, not 3rd party sellers)?

If you're not appreciated now, it's likely you just won't be. If bosses are giving you the run around, this is a clear indication of no promotion land. Sometimes mastering and overcoming the current situation is recognizing that it's time to leave the current situation.

For myself I can say this was an unsatisfactory reality with which to reconcile, however, it doesn't change the truth value.

Whatever your chosen path, I wish you the best.

Got it. Thanks for the clarity.

Pretty sure Amazon has been doing this since last year, as part of a cost cutting mechanism, that was also a "go green" push.

Whose to say he hasn't already? Alexa is spyware.

Didn't Docker actually try it earlier this year, e.g., https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-ima...?

See also, significant regressions in Firefox's memory consumption: https://arewefastyet.com/mac/memory/overview?numDays=365

It's weird that Republicans, historically pro-military, would block military appointments. How long before this is considered treason?

What does it mean when there is a number shown (indicative of a network call), however when you check little rat extension no extension in the list shows > 0?

I'm assuming Alexa will be transitioning to AWS side, for generative AI focus.

As for the claim that Alexa is hard to monetize, not really. It's always baffled me how teams can jump head first into pitfalls of monetary loss in that sector, and just keep swimming. Amazon fought to have the competitive edge, and once they had it... nothing.

I'll have to admit, I'm actually curious to see what's next. Change is good.

Downloaded the extension and tested that it's working. QQ: What does it mean when there is a "hit" (e.g., 1 appears), but when I click the extension to investigate all extensions show 0, and the original displayed number disappears?

Also, if I delete an extension, it still appears in the list of extensions in Little Rat. Any easy way to fix this?

Is it possible to not use Google with unfetch.com?

Brave is really showing up in terms of privacy and security focused browsing. What's interesting to me is that Mozilla had Brendan Eich, and excused him. And today, with Eich at the helm, Brave is climbing the ranks while Mozilla finds itself in an ever-increasing slump.

Quality and depth of particular types of training data is one difference. Another difference is inference tracking mechanisms within and between single-turn interactions (e.g., what does the human user "mean" with their prompt, what is the "correct" response, and how best can I return the "correct" response for this context; how much information do I cache from the previous turns, and how much if any of it is relevant to this current turn interaction).

The extent of individual tracking is borderline unconstitutional. We're talking serious breach of individual privacy. If enough people knew and gathered evidence (which I'm happy to describe how to do this), there would be class action law suits. No doubt.

No, nothing offensive. People don't like rational thinking, especially when it points out truths that could take their exceptional comforts away (e.g., high pay and WFH status).

Who knows what could be revealed when people have to be in-office? Perhaps that you are not as skilled as you and your manager(s) assert, and you've taking others' work as your own? Hmm...

Alanis Morissette articulated it quite well: "I'm broke but I'm happy, I'm poor but I'm kind"

Morality doesn't have to come with a price tag.

Wholeheartedly agree. Anyone talking about "most loyal employees" having a "bad taste" from Amazon's latest email and RTO policy enforcement, as if that's supposed to mean something, is very much describing the class of employee your comment addresses.

On the other hand, it shows that there is a power dynamic reinforced:

Managers, VPs, "leadership" all work for Amazon. Just like individual contributors. No one is above the RTO policy, everyone had a clear understanding of their responsibilities. And there's no BS-ing from managers that will save certain employees, certain roles, over others. Instead, managers are tasked with doing their jobs, i.e., ensuring their team(s) adheres to RTO policy. This includes badge etiquette. Quite clear cut.

If you didn't think you were being tracked, you are delusional. You work for FAANG. And your company is not performing well right now. Further WEF shows Amazon is an early adopter of equipment used to track workplace performance.

As for the "loyalty" comment, this screams "I happily agreed to treat certain current and former employees really shitty, because I am so loyal to Amazon's workplace culture. And now Amazon is treating me the same way, and that's not fair." Loyalty is from Amazon to shareholders, private investors and partners. You know, business. Never forget that.

> “We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised,” Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told Decrypt by email. “We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it.”

AI-generated "garbage" content has been an issue for at least 2 years now. Saying the words != carrying out the action. Amazon is notorious for lip service only responses.