There’s a report from Apple Insider where a former employee alleges that Apple changes their job title to “Associate” once the employee leaves.
While that probably didn’t hurt Jonny Ive when he left, for the hundreds of other employees that simple change in their job title after they leave, can be devastating.
Just imagine yourself working for Apple for 10 years, working your way up the corporate ladder. You started out as an associate, and through hard work, education, and perseverance you make it to manager of your department. Then your spouse has to take another job in a different city.
You’re faced with divorce or moving to be with your family.
You choose family, thinking that your years at Apple will be worth something as you attempt to find a new job in your new city.
Your resume says you were a department manager but when new prospective employers contact Apple, they say you were an associate for those years. So now you’ve “lied” on your resume and job applications.
Not to mention being an “Associate” for 10 years doesn’t look like you’ve got much ambition.
It also means that your career is being torpedoed by a company you gave your all to. Most HR people wouldn’t question a major corporation like Apple. They’re the “Good Guys” after all.
It’s almost as if Apple is being the hurt lover. “If you leave me, I’ll make sure no-one will want you!”
This is abusive and wrong!
Apple looks a little less fresh and a lot more rotten.
There have been rumors for years that Apple wasn’t particularly fair or nice when it came to their treatment of employees. Up to now, I’ve wondered if the rumors were true, or just ex-employees being upset. I’d chosen to believe it was sour grapes on the part of the employees.
After all a shitty executive can make the entire company seem bad to those suffering under their direction. I’d chalked these rumors up to that sort of thing. Now, I’m not so sure.
When I was dealing with hiring directly, all I could ask a former employer was if the person had worked for the employer, their last job title, and the dates of employment. Way back in the day, I could ask about last salary, and if the employee was eligible for rehire. A discrepancy between the last job title reported by an employer and the job title listed on a resume was a red flag.
It honestly never occurred to me that any company would change a former employee’s last job title after they’d left the company. That’s just superunfair and pointless.
Perhaps I’m just sensitive from my own eternal job search. But I’m glad Apple has never responded to any of my applications. The last thing I need or want is another job that should be amazing to turn into another shithole experience. If Apple is changing job titles like this, I rather think Apple might be the latter instead of the former.
I’ll be wondering, and thinking about this, the next time I consider an Apple purchase.
Will my concern be enough to prevent me from buying something from Apple? I think it will depend on the item and if I can find something similar at a better price.
Apple may well have become evil, just like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and God only knows how many others.
Wednesday, Michelle Malkin and her Husband were banned from using Airbnb over a speech she gave in November.
Michelle Malkin is a conservative author and journalist.
Malkin explains, “The speech delved into the K-20 metastasis of anti-white curriculum, the corporate media’s whitewashing of black-on-Asian attacks, and the long campaign to censor nationalist dissidents who put America first.”
“This is consistent with action we’ve taken to ban people associated with this conference in past years. Removal means that your account will no longer be accessible, and you won’t be able to create another one. As we can see that your Airbnb travels are typically reserved via your husband’s account, we will also proceed in removing his account.”
So I ask, “WHAT THE FUCK?”
Is this where we’re going?
In an attempt to silence anyone with dissenting opinions, daring to exercise their first amendment rights, corporate America will take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of The Constitution?
Airbnb is not alone. PayPal, GoFundme, and others in the financial sector have done similar.
GoFundMe as of Wednesday Feb 2, 2022 has reportedly frozen 10 million dollars donated to support the Canadian Trucker Convoy. I ask again WTF? Who is GoFundMe to tell donors that they cannot donate money to a cause they believe in? Ohhhh, right… You are only allowed to donate to approved causes. Got it!
Here’s a thought… Fuck off! GoFundMe.
I cancelled my PayPal account years ago because they started picking and choosing which businesses they would send MY Money to. Uh excuse me. It’s my fucking money! You PayPal need to be reminded that without me putting cash into an account, YOU don’t earn transaction fees or interest.
That’s a lesson that all banking institutions need to be reminded of.
Airbnb is no different. I’d bet that since many of the properties are still owned by individuals they’re not going to take kindly to Airbnb telling them to whom they can and cannot rent their properties.
I’ll personally find a KOA Campground and sleep in a tent before I put any money in Airbnb.
Airbnb is an availability and transaction processor. The odds of the property owners actually knowing how many missed rental opportunities for their properties is low.
They’ll never see that someone was interested, because Airbnb is by default censoring their view and limiting their income in doing so.
Ms. Malkin rightfully asks, “will Airbnb also delete the accounts of my children? How many other families had Airbnb done this to?”
The conference that Malkin spoke at is associated with a group the Southern Poverty Law Center, and The Anti Defamation League, has designated as a hate group.
That’s interesting since SPLC often designates hate groups as racists and Ms Malkin is clearly of Asian descent.
Why would a minority speaker be asked to give a talk at a racist hate groups conference?
This to my eye, is nothing less than a blatant attempt at corporate control aimed squarely at silencing conservative voices and it should not stand.
Unfortunately, the only way to register our displeasure is with American dollars. That means that Airbnb will continue this behavior until they see their application deleted from phones and their revenue fall.
I wonder if they could sustain the monetary losses that Facebook has seen over the past 24 hours?
232 Billion dollars, “poof!” Zuckerberg personally lost 30 Billion in personal worth.
I believe that Airbnb owes Ms Malkin a personal apology, and they owe the American people an apology for attempting to infringe upon the First Amendment in violation of Constitutional law.
Corporations, need to be thumped on their noses with a baseball bat, and told “NO! BAD DOG!”
They need to be reminded that the freedoms guaranteed by The Constitution of the United States apply equally to everyone regardless of the persons political beliefs.
Further, corporations need to be reminded that they exist to perform a service or manufacture goods, nothing more. They are paid based on their performance not their political leanings.
Americans will pay for goods and services that offer value and those that do not, will end up in the burning dumpsters of history.
Airbnb, GoFundMe, and Facebook may well be the first services that should end up in that flaming dumpster.
Ms Malkins’ story isn’t being picked up by the main stream media. That’s unfortunate, because it should be. It would be, if Don Lemon had been treated in similar fashion.
Take a look at your phone, if you’ve got Airbnb loaded, delete it. Most of the time, someone with a rental in an area you want to visit, has the rental information on a local community web site as well.
Contact them directly and perhaps you’ll save a few bucks because if the owner of the property doesn’t have to pay the Airbnb transaction fee they may be willing to pass some savings on to you.
Stop using GoFundMe! This isn’t the first time they’ve failed to perform their function. They’re not providing the service they claim to provide. Cash out and leave them with no new revenue.
While Ms Malkin is a conservative, her political affiliation doesn’t matter. You may not agree with the Canadian Truckers and that’s okay just remember; Eventually, corporate entities will increase their control on everyone unless we as a people thump them on the nose.
Maybe a month or two ago I ran across a nifty computer keyboard in some publication. At the time I thought, “It’s really nice, I like that it’s mechanical, It’s cool that you can order it with switches that are firm, medium, or light, which allow you to have a keyboard that is exactly what you want, but dang that’s really expensive,”
So I moved on to the next thing and forgot the manufacturers name. After all, the 8 year old keyboard I’ve got works just fine and I’m used to it.
Then yesterday, my reliable old keyboard started missing space bar presses and occasionally other keys as well. I considered the problem and admitted that it might be time for me to pony up the cash for a new one. I tried to go back and find the article in my Apple News History. I haven’t found the article I was looking for but did stumble across the Alec Baldwin, George Stephanopoulos interview where Baldwin tearfully claims he didn’t pull the trigger.
What a load of runny horse shit!
I was able to let the statement of the Armorer from the production “Someone must have put a live bullet in the gun,” go because that statement was so stupid it required no comment.
Had I commented at the time, I’d have said, “No Shit dumbass!“
But Alec Baldwin crying and saying he didn’t pull the trigger?
Oh hell no, I can’t let that one go.
The gun reportedly used in the crime, (Yes, it was a crime!) was a period specific Colt revolver or a replica of the venerable Colt revolver. This gun, as are most guns, is a purely mechanical machine. There are no batteries, no electronics, no circuitry, and no software.
Guns in general are relatively simple machines that exist in the real physical world and require real physical actions to operate. They can’t be hacked.
The person holding the gun is the power source and the directing intelligence.
As you can see from the diagram, (Thank you Nichols Ranch), There are approximately 24 components in a revolver. (24 in the diagram, there could be fewer in other models) The last two components in the diagram above are the Bullet and its shell.
Functionally, you could loose the grips and the logos, possibly the ejector rod and spring, and the cylinder cover, and still have a functional weapon. It would probably bruise your hand if you fired it without the grips but the weapon would still work as designed.
There is no magic here. This is simply an elegant mechanical system.
To fire the assembled weapon requires the following steps.
Open the cylinder cover Put rounds (a bullet and its shell) in at least some of the chambers of the cylinder. In this case a maximum of six chambers can have rounds inserted. Close the cylinder cover Cock the hammer. Take aim Pull the trigger
Repeat the last three steps as necessary five more times, then start at step one.
Note there are three inherent safety mechanisms present.
If rounds are not loaded, the gun is not ready to fire If the hammer isn’t cocked, the gun is not ready to fire. If the trigger is not pulled, the gun will not fire, even if rounds are present and the hammer is cocked.
I’m not a gunsmith, but if I’m looking at the diagram correctly, it appears that the action of cocking the hammer is what causes the cylinder to rotate, moving the next round to firing position.
This mechanical simplicity is why the revolver and integrated shells & bullets revolutionized guns.
Prior to the revolver, the choice was a cap and ball pistol, which basically gave you one shot, then you had to spend a minute reloading before you could take a second shot (think about a cannon). That’s probably why everyone carried a sword with their pistol.
For close to 200 years, the revolver has been around, it’s well understood, reliable, and has undergone some evolution but not a whole lot.
There is a variation of the revolver where pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer.
This is why when handling a weapon you never put your finger on the trigger, and you never take anyone’s word for it, that the weapon is not loaded. You always check!
Even then if you need to pull the trigger (as in you’re checking proper function,) you always aim in a safe direction. You do not pull the trigger unless you are sure that no-one is downrange.
Given the simplicity of the revolver that Baldwin was probably using, for him to claim he didn’t pull the trigger is a bald faced lie. He may not remember pulling the trigger, but he sure as hell did.
The only other scenario that has a remote possibility is that he partially cocked the revolver when he pulled it from the holster. In that scenario though, it’s far more likely that he would have had the weapon fire the moment it cleared the holster.
I rather suspect that in that scenario Baldwin would have shot himself. I also suspect that the mechanism that rotates the cylinder would not have brought a round into correct firing position since the hammer wouldn’t have completed its travel.
That being said, if the weapon was worn or had been abused it’s a remote possibility.
However there wouldn’t have been enough of a delay for Baldwin to have brought the weapon to a firing position for the view of the camera. (They were rehearsing, the assumption is they were trying to frame a shot.)
No matter what. In this situation Alec Baldwin was the person holding the weapon. Baldwin was the person who violated gun safety protocols. Baldwin is the person who clearly still has no idea how guns work.
Ultimately, Alec Baldwin is the person who shot two people, one fatally. Alec Baldwin is therefore the responsible party and must answer for his negligence.
Update: I was just reading another article on Baldwin’s interview.
Baldwin said, “So, I take the gun and I start to cock the gun. I’m not going to pull the trigger,” he continued. “And I cock the gun, I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun – the gun goes off.“
Was the gun cocked Alec or was it not? In this type of gun if you’re holding the trigger down and you pull the hammer back then release it the gun will fire. You’d know that if you’d paid attention in any of the on-site gun training you’ve no doubt received during your many years of movie making where you were handling guns. You’re essentially describing that you “fanned” the hammer.
Stephanopoulos stated, “There are some who say you’re never supposed to point a gun on anyone on a set no matter what.”
Baldwin replied, “Unless the person is the cinematographer, who’s directing me at where to point the gun for her camera angle,” Baldwin replied. “I didn’t point the gun at her, and she said, ‘Hey, man, don’t point the gun at me.’ I pointed the gun in a direction she wanted.”
Is it me or does Baldwin’s reply sound like he was trying to blame the victim?
“Do you feel guilt?,” Stephanopoulos asked.
“No. No,” Baldwin said. “I feel that someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.“
What a piece of Shit Alec Baldwin is!
He goes on to describe how he has dreams and emotional distress. Trying to paint himself as the victim.
Really? Alec Baldwin, you are filth! I cannot even describe how reading your responses has sickened me.
I hope the family, the members on set, and everyone in the production sues you into poverty. I hope the police, the district attorney, the judge, and a jury throw the book at you. I hope you end up doing hard labor in a prison in New Mexico for the rest of your miserable life.
It’s one thing to have this be an accident. It’s quite another for you to try to slime your way out of responsibility and essentially say, she was asking for it.
In addition to all of the absolute bullshit that is California…
Traffic, Lockdowns, Abridgment of rights, Water shortages, Electricity Shortages, $500 Auto Registration Fees, Incompetence of the State Government and all the state’s government offices, State waste of tax dollars. Complete lack of planning, Crime, Outrageous Property Taxes, Outrageous Gas prices .55 on every gallon of gas really? Shitty roads, Outrageous State Income Taxes, and on and on and on…
I mean, pick literally any subject and then look to California to see how to do it exactly wrong.
I hate this place and everything about it.
There was a time when the benefits outweighed the hassle. That time is long gone.
This is a losing proposition any way you cut it.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some good people here and even some good Representatives in the Legislature. The problem is there are too few people with any common sense and those numbers apparently are dwindling.
The straw that has broken this camels back is EDD.
I don’t think there’s ever been a more incompetent government entity short of perhaps the last of the Roman Empire, maybe King George III’s tax collectors or court.
First EDD screwed up their modernization of their computer systems. They contracted with, and hired a bunch more people to actually do the work. Apparently the work not only didn’t get done, but they bought a shit ton of equipment that sat in its boxes until the warranties expired. Then the equipment sat for another few years until it was literally obsolete and had to be scrapped.
They were completely unprepared for the number of unemployment claims that were being filed when the pandemic hit. How did they address this? By putting more people on the phones supposedly to answer phone calls, which of course still didn’t get answered.
Oh yeah, there were hearings and excuses and in the end, after the uproar died down nothing was done. No heads rolled, and EDD went right back to its usual incompetent self.
They screwed up who was being paid during the pandemic. Turns out they paid a lot of people that perhaps weren’t eligible for benefits.
What? You mean they threw taxpayers dollars at people that shouldn’t have received benefits??? Yep… in at least the hundreds of millions of dollars range if not billions.
Now, EDD is sending out stupid emails that demand the people who received benefits prove they were eligible to receive those benefits and they’re threatening to charge 30% penalties on those benefits.
But of course the email they send you provides links to the EDD website that frankly is a hot steaming pile of shit. So even if you want to comply with their demand the odds are you can’t since the site sucks so bad.
Just connecting to their web site makes me and my computer morons. The intellect draining capacity of California’s EDD site should be harnessed and used to combat hackers and cyberterrorists the world over.
Come to think of it, the EDD site could be used as a firewall. It’s amazing at creating endless loops of login after login.
The funny parts of EDD’s demands are that they seem to think; A) The criminals who gamed the system are going to send documentation. B) That they’re going to get the money they threw away back from criminals who gamed the system.
Hey California EDD, NEWSFLASH Those people are in the wind and you’re not going to find them!
D’Oh!
But for people who had legitimate claims. We’re having to jump through hoops to clean up EDD’s fuckup.
When you talk to EDD they predictably absolve themselves of responsibility by saying the Federal Government is who is requesting this information.
That is probably true, however EDD should have all the data. They should not be asking for tax returns. After all if EDD approved a person for unemployment benefits that presumes that EDD knows who your previous employer was and verified that you were eligible for benefits in the first place. RIGHT?
It gets better, the EDD representatives are apparently unsure what exact documents you need to provide. Do you need to provide the entirety of your tax returns or just a copy of the W2 or will pages from your California Tax return suffice? They’re not sure.
“It’s the Federal Government that’s asking, it goes into a computer to determine if the document is right…“
Uh huh.
Having spent some time working for a Federal contractor, I can tell you that the Feds are pretty damn specific about what they want to see.
But wait, there’s more! EDD told a representative from a legislator’s office yesterday that they’d called me, (they did). I wasn’t available to take their call so they went to voice mail. This same person told the same legislative representative that they’d left a voice mail, (they did not). I sent screen shots proving the point to the legislators representative. So I have a little bit of a trust issue with EDD.
I have a real problem with providing EDD documents of this sensitive nature.
They’re incompetent, they’ve reported at least one data breach if I recall correctly. I’ve caught them literally lying to a California Legislator’s office.
Given their incompetence and Laissez-faire attitude about what they seem to need I’m concerned that by providing these documents in an electronic format I’m just setting myself up for identity theft.
After all what better hacking target than an organization with a proven track record of stupidity? Just imagine all the wonderful identities that will suddenly be available for the picking.
EDD appears to be auditing the citizens. EDD needs to be audited by a totally independent source. Maybe a group of accountants from Texas or Florida? Someone who’s not likely to sweep things under the carpet in the interest of not embarrassing California.
They made this mess. Why should the citizens be hassled, threatened, or further annoyed to help them clean it up?
I believe, California’s corruption and incompetence goes from the top all the way down to the local level.
I’m sick of it.
Voting is pointless because the people who’ve created this fucked up system greatly outnumber the people in this state who demand fiscal responsibility.
With that realization, I choose to work to get my ass out of here.
Even if that means divorce after 33 years and leaving the house and everything else behind. Honestly at this point I’m thinking about cutting my losses and doing anything to be free of this third world shit hole.
At least in another state I might have a shot at a job where I don’t have to worry about skin color quotas and layer upon layer of politically correct bullshit!
Fuck California!
p.s. In case you had any doubt… I’m not in a very good mood today.
The upshot is that another of Biden’s nominees has some questionable theories.
Saule Omarova puts forth in the paper, what looks like a plan to make the Fed, The Bank of the people.
That would certainly make the IRS’s job easier when they have to monitor our bank accounts for all transactions over $600.
Instead of messing about with paperwork and reporting structures from 100s of banks, they’ll just be able to link their computers to the Federal Bank and bingo! Every citizens transactions will be available and taxed real time.
No more worry about filing your taxes either. The IRS would know how much you made, from what sources, and they could just take their percentage of your earnings right off the top. (Pretty much like today…)
I could see an initial run on banks if this nominee is approved. The secondary run on the banks will be if the US government put her theories into practice. There’ll be folks who move their money into offshore banks as well but not everyone has the cash to make that a viable option.
I’d be right there demanding all my money from the bank, my retirement fund, and my small pension too. Then I’d do my best to convert all of it into some kind of durable goods that could be exchanged. The barter system is looking better and better all the time.
Imagine the chaos if something like a centralized Federal Bank suddenly made all your private bank accounts illegal.
It would make your life ever so much easier. Get a ticket, don’t worry it’s automatically pulled from your one single account.
Need to pay your ACA bill? No worries That will be taken out of your account before your mortgage. Oh, and about your mortgage… well the Federal Bank has determined that you’re not actually eligible for that mortgage, so you’ll have to move to lower cost housing.
I could see a situation where we each had only one credit card with percentage rates based on your Government loyalty score. BTW your credit line is decreased the older you are because… well your life isn’t going to be that long, and you’ll need to repay your debt before you die.
I know I’m being somewhat reactionary, but come on folks. When has our government ever not taken advantage of the citizens?
Why the heck is it that all of the administration’s nominees appear to be complete whack-jobs?
At first I could excuse it, because I thought that they were trying to get their feet under them. But now? How is it possible that nominee after nominee has some kind of weird questionable, perhaps anti American philosophy? One or two I could let pass, but now it’s starting to look like a systematic plan to screw everyone over.
The thing is, if only one or two whack-jobs were appointed we could keep an eye on them. But when so many are being exposed in the nomination process, I have to wonder how many have been installed in the halls of government without undergoing some kind of congressional approval process.
I’m not intending to suggest that there isn’t room for change or improvement in our banking systems, or in fact any other systems. I’m saying that when you talk about changing things, perhaps a lighter touch is necessary.
Update:
Since I wrote this, it appears that 5 Democratic Senators have announced they will not support Saule Omarova’s nomination for the position. That pretty much causes this Biden nominee to crash and burn.
It does beg the question of who Biden will nominate next. Given his history of nominees, I wonder if he’ll choose someone only slightly better, or will he nominate the corpse of Mao Zedong (forgetting the Mao is dead)? I guess only time will tell.
