mruniverse

I read it was partly inspired by "Local Hero" (Bill Forsyth movie). The visiting Russian singer felt like a direct lift of the visiting Russian fisherman in "Local Hero".

We got rid of QA engineers a few years ago. I think some VP will hear what Nadella is doing and start their innovative initiative to start hiring QA engineers.

It might not be simple. It could be very hard, very expensive. Is it worth doing? Does it have value?

Would it be so bad if most of the CEOs are white men? All the execs are white men?

But I don't want to pick on white men. Let's say would it be so bad to let the incumbents call the shots. Let the incumbents hire only who they want to hire.

What if we don't assume any bias and just look at outcome?

We stipulate that bias should play no part in decision making. Only the outcome should matter. If the outcome doesn't match racial balance of the society we make it so.

I think people can have unconscious bias.

But in hiring, I think it's mostly conscious. What I mean is that I think people will see a long Indian name they can't pronounce and skip that resume or put it off until later. That's conscious. They'll see someone who looks like themselves and feel more comfortable talking to them. That's conscious. Etc.

Should business have freedoms that are good for business but bad for society?

Isn't the whole reason for businesses in the first place is that they improve society? They are an efficient way to allocate resources for the good of everyone involved. It runs by rules that we set. And we tweak those rules. And it seems DEI may be one of those rules that aren't good and we can change it.

But the end goal shouldn't be defined as anything that is good for business is good for society.

The purpose of our state is to provide for its citizens. So we decided to use a market economy because it seems the most efficient way to do that. But we make up the rules that it runs by and we can change the rules as we see fit.

So it seems now we are saying DEI is not a good rule. Can we make a better rule or is the goal of that rule not good?

I think it's more unsaid than unconscious. But putting that aside, if DEI is purposeful and deliberate while the "natural state" of things is not (unconscious bias), is that how we should leave it?

Should businesses have the freedom to exclude if it's unconscious?

I think it's always conscious one way or the other. With or without DEI.

It could be close to blind if communication were only done through writing and the candidate names were not known.

Is the business perspective the right one to go with?

Let's say it's legal to discriminate on race in hiring in the US. Then a Japanese restaurant hires only Japanese workers because they find customers prefer it. Do we want to have this?

The reason people like her is that she gets them interested in the guest. Not many interviewers can do that. She'll interview some blues artist you've never heard of and the next thing you know you're looking them up on Youtube.

I thought Apple's Blue Ocean stuff were:

* Macintosh

* iPhone

* Apple Store

It feels Google phones are very nice prototype projects from a darling business unit. Used to show off cool software for trade shows.

Yes, at the time it was all about desktop publishing and graphic design. It wasn't until the end of the 90s that PCs started to make its way into that niche.

Also it didn't feel like Apple was for consumers until the iPod came out.

Seemed like you always needed a trio of main apps. In the graphic design market of the 90s, it was Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator. To a lesser extent it was Pagemaker, Photoshop and Freehand.

I can see it being nice if it's like Minority Report, where you can swipe small screens away, etc. Talk and it types. Glance to the left to see how the builds are going, etc. It could also be a nice virtual whiteboard. Usually it's hard to know how nice hardware can be without the apps. And you don't have to be in your office.

I think a gesture is actually worse. They can say, hey look, I'm just like you. If I can work like this so can you. So buck up. When in fact they can go into their reserved conference room any time they want. Or not even use their bigger cube with 2 assistants. Just get the corner office and keep your gestures.

What is the merit here?

I think you can answer your own question. Did you "give" anything to the people who were empathetic and listened to you?

Here's what the professor had to say:

“I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,”

https://hamlineoracle.com/10750/news/who-belongs/

As long as it's only thinking people odd.

Not sure if the professor felt existential about it but she said:

“I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,”

https://hamlineoracle.com/10750/news/who-belongs/

Tolerant enough to support an art history professor who showed an image depicting Muhammad?

How sensitive are Muslims to other peoples way of life?

I think he was angry too, but that makes it all the more impressive.

Execs who are/were developers is a good sign for me.

Had this happen recently. Their manager insisted we make the fix since it was in our repo. He was so rude about it that I pushed back and there was a long heated back and forth. Then a colleague found their PR and the associated ticket. I added them to email thread and included our director. Then radio silence for a couple weeks. In the end we had to fix it anyway.

Number 3 seems about right. My Vulcan brain thinks that something like number 1 must the answer, but my lizard brain knows that the food pellets drop when I follow number 3.

Back in the day, our CEO's neighbor mentioned that our site didn't work well on Microsoft's WebTV. WebTV appeared on our list of supported platforms.

The larger the company is, the better this works. Who knows what everyone really does? It's only the direct peers that will give side glances. And even then, it's risky. You can be seen as having sour grapes, not being a team player, etc. And everyone's busy with their own work as is. Why bother trying to call someone out? Large companies run on apathy.

The problem I see is that even though managers have a different skillset, they have out-sized influence on technical or technically related decisions. And a lot of times it's more than just influence; They just make the decision themselves.

I think physical menus are an opportunity to make your restaurant memorable. QR code menus lean toward commodity.