Tag Archives: tech

Google’s caste system is bad for workers—and bad for Google, too — Quartz

We were at the world’s most enviable workplace, allegedly, but were repeatedly reminded that we would not be hired full-time and were not part of the club. Technically, we were employees of a legal staffing agency whose staff we’d never met. We didn’t get sick leave or vacation and earned considerably less than colleagues with the same qualifications who were doing the same work.
— Read on qz.com/1494111/googles-caste-system-is-bad-for-workers-and-bad-for-google-too/

Sounds like Google is Uber for office workers. It does not appear to help create a very conducive culture all around.

I work remotely but feel a sense of culture that most of my office jobs have not had. Being fully employed is a big part of this as it gives one level of equality. Open meetings with the entire company is critical. Free access and encouragement to speak freely with anyone on the company is also critical. Companies and cultures die in silence.

While I might miss some water cooler banter I am also missing the micro aggressive non-verbal bullshit that is constantly rampant in any office space. Since I work for the work and not the social ness of my workers this seems like a good trade off.

Yes I like my coworkers and think I would probably hang out with most of them if we lived near each other. However I spend enough time outside of work to have a healthy social life.

The Digital Maginot Line

The Digital Maginot Line
— Read on www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/11/28/the-digital-maginot-line/

Influence operations exploit divisions in our society using vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem. We have to move away from treating this as a problem of giving people better facts, or stopping some Russian bots, and move towards thinking about it as an ongoing battle for the integrity of our information infrastructure – easily as critical as the integrity of our financial markets. When it’s all done and over with, we’ll look back on this era as being as consequential in reshaping the future of the United States and the world as World War II.

This is what I am trying to get at when I say that social networks aren’t useful. There are much better methods of communication than signing up for a closed system that is purpose built to agree with you on everything. Resulting in your unwavering attention and obedience.

Got something to say? Start a blog.

WordPress Resource: Your Website Engineer with Dustin Hartzler

In today’s episode we talk about getting your site prepared for the new Gutenberg Editor which comes with WordPress 5.0 in just a few weeks.
— Read on yourwebsiteengineer.com/413-testing-all-things-gutenberg/

Gutenberg is coming. Have you tried writing with it? I think that from a purely writing perspective the G is a nicer experience than the classic editor. It is a cleaner interface that is focused on the text. There are no boxes separating your text from the rest of the screen. When you hit enter it creates a new paragraph block. If you want to shift blocks around it is as easy as dragging them around. You can also convert the block to another block type.

The biggest catch so far is adding in-line images. At this point the workflow in the classic editor definitely makes it easier to add an image and align it to left or right and have text flow around it. In the G this process takes a few more actions that aren’t super intuitive to accomplish.

All that said I think the important part for bloggers is that we get back to focusing on the content. That’s what our users are here for.

What do you think? Is the G great or is it the first of the four horsemen of the WordPress apocalypse?