as alive as you need me to be
Ok, I found one of my longer comments on 'being an ex corpo from MSFT'.
I think the original post topic was basically about how the Windows kernel is now such a mess that MSFT can't actually understand it.
I used to do V Dash contracts for MSFT.
I knew that the Xbox 360 3RR, red ring of death problem... was so bad, that it actually would have been more cost effective for MSFT to give each buyer two 360s, instead of one, at the same price, because of how mismanaged the RMA process was... I knew a whole bunch of such details a almost a decade before the documentary on it came out.
Yay NDAs.
...
I was also there during the Windows 8 rollout.
Shut down basically everything for a month, because MSFT 'dogfoods' all their software: Every MSFT worker is beta/alpha testing all MSFT software all the time.
We spent weeks just, unable to have more than 3 windows open at a time, half the tools we used on a daily basis just not working.
We asked them to let us go back to 7, asked them if therr was some way to return to a 7 like GUI.
For weeks they said nope, impossible, Win 8 is an entirely new GUI, totally new OS, the Win 7 GUI isn't there.
Oh then uh, weeks later, yeah, yeah it actually is there, you just have to follow this arcane override proceduren to see and use it.
... And then they just relented, put the non tablet UI fully back in, and called that Windows 8.1.
...
Windows is now layers upon layers upon decades of insane spaghetti code.
Even in Win 10, which was the last version I ever used... there are like 3 or 4 different eras of UI, for various settings menus, which people sometimes need to actually use... but they are considered legacy and thus not important.
Sometimes some newer era UI menus will have some of the options from some of the more buried stuff, but not all of them.
It is a gigantic fucking mess.
I guess I should clarify that I did sign an NDA, and back then, contemporaneous, when I was still trying to work at MSFT, I obviously gave a shit abiut it.
Now, now its like a decade later, I don't like, still have a copy of it, and I also don't fucking care.
I worked in the tech industry, now I despise almost all of it with a burning passion, left it entirely some years back.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised, I've worked at both functional and dysfunctional large corporations, either themselves tech corps or in the tech wing/department of other large orgs.
The PS3 is yes, a great example of making a versatile product that can appeal to many uh, kinds of markets, market demos.
What I am saying is that Valve is probably the most strategically competent tech company in existence, at least in the US, and that they would not willingly allow themselves to be tricked, at the level of long term, big boy corporate strategy.
They are the people who tend to set traps, not walk into them.
You're talking to an ex-Corpo, lol.
Nonetheless, yes, the PS3 is a great example of what you can do with a product, but I'm trying to analyze the uh, 12D chess or whatever, the actual strategic conditions of the situation that would dictate whether or not it actually makes sense for Valve to do something similar with the Steam Machine.
Right now, no, it does not.
Valves whole thing is basically effectively stealing PC and Xbox gaming away from Microsoft.
It would be silly of them to allow their own tactics to be used against them in an unforced error.
I have before in other comments in other threads... but I am about to pass out, and being on mobile with a shit tier phone makes searching my own comment history somewhat cumbersome.
Uh... reply to this in 10 hrs and I will probably be awake and find those old comments?
(Also, its been a while since I worked for them, but even if I was bound by an NDA, I wouldn't give a fuck, I didn't do anything that important, really. Just another V Dash amongst many.)
I had not heard that before, but uh, extremely funny if true.
Its like MacroHard just keeps punching themself in the face.
Valve sells direct to consumer, not via retail.
They're not gonna knowingly do a B2B sale.
A business that wanted to swipe them all would have to create or hire a scalper network of seemingly unafilliated buyers, and I am guessing this would be outside of the capability/risk tolerance level of ... basically everyone right now, as the economy is imploding Hard.
I don't think companies would be able to buy them in bulk, at least not directly.
Valve sells direct to consumer, no retail in the middle, they have their own online storefront (duh).
They're not going to do a B2B mass order.
If a business wanted to try and stockpile them, for whatever reason, to turn into their own thing... or, to try to cause a price panic / supply shortage...
... they'd have to use/create basically a scalper network of essentially unaffiliated people.
Oh I can sing, I just actually know my range, and don't want to embarass myself trying to sing a song I know I can't.
And I also don't want to attempt to explain the concept of vocal range to usually drunk, usually tone deaf people.
Or, I'm uh, too polite to just laugh at you and tell your taste in music sucks.
Yes.
Sorry, its either/both their stock ticker, a fairly common way they refer to themselves internally.
I too used to work for Microsoft.
Wooo boy, being one of two people trying to make the multi hundred, maybe over a thousand node, call center / support tree node system work correctly, for the 360, during the 'red ring of death' (3RR was the code we used for 'you are absolutely fucked')... yeah that was fun.
Moore's Law Is Dead thinks that Valve basically got a bargain bin deal from AMD, who had a bunch of chips they thought were going to be used in a MSFT tablet, but that tablet got cancelled.
So, Valve did some scrapyard engineering, and got a discount on these things that were otherwise never going to be used for anything.
He estimates a total cost to produce of $425, estimates MSRP between $450 to $600, depending on just how hard Valve wants to fuck MSFT with their own leftovers.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJI3qTb2ze8
If this ends up being remotely accurate, it would be basically a corporate demolition of Shakespearian quality.
Gabe... Gabe was once a MSFT employee, you see.
A disgruntled former MSFT employee, you might say.
So... the Dem strategy was... run an insufferable, stuffy, haughty narcissist to counter a more bombastic, less classy, insufferable narcissist...???
Yeah the whole uh... all politics is psychosexual angle is uh... looking a lot more legitimate every damn day.
Yep.
Another day in the Fake-AI apocalypse.
... if anybody can workshop that phrase into something snappier, catchier, that can easily fit into a headline, please do so.
The sooner this all blows up, the less actual damage it will do in the long run.
Call that uh... accelerationist anti-accelerationism.
Doesn't matter, I live in an 'apartment', there's a dumpster.
... you people all have houses?
Must be old, or lucky.
Yep, that's the American healthcare system in a nutshell.
You know, I tend to at least ask them if they could, or if they would be able to do some code task.
Of course, I'm running a local LLM, because I'm not a monster.
Anyway, would you kindly check this codebase for any local/global var declaration or scope conflicts?
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
... they should instead all end with ", thank you for your attention to this matter."
Unmonitored vehicle?
Either literally all or nearly all Uber/Lyft cars have cameras in them, for driver safety, for recording potential accidents, for being able to go the tape when some kind of customer dispute happens.
And I mean yeah, a tattoo artist of masseuse doesn't have their work area in a car, but, you are in a constrained setting, you're already on a bed/table, likely some degree of half naked... wouldn't really be that hard to take someone from that level of restrained to more restrained and/or sedated, then just actually throw them in a car, or a basement, whatever.
I am a survivor of sexual assault.
Anyway, laws and the actual structure by which things operate don't seem to matter to you at all, so, whatever I guess.
If you can justify punishing a mass group of 99% innocent people so that you can irrationally feel more safe than you actually are, that's no different than doing the same thing by race or any other inherent unchangeable element of someone.
Everything to you is customer service, that's how you get a world of abused employees who have no rights.
You not be being able to do statistics properly is not a legitimate reason to be bigoted against an entire class of people.
Doctors and therapists tend not to be contractors, they tend to be employees.
Totally different legal situation.
Which you appear to have glossed over, or just don't care about.
Businesses tend to only function at all within a legal framework, so its kind of important.
Anyway, OnlyFans is not Uber.
Uber would be like that if you could actually examine people's individual profiles, like Tinder, or maybe like AngiesList, an app where local freelance contractors post their whole work related profile for you to try to pick the best person for the job.
But Uber doesn't do that.
Because there's no reason for it to.
Unlike with OnlyFans... UberDriver's looks don't matter. Unlike with AngiesList... UberDriver's work history and experience with HVAC or plumbing or whatever doesn't matter.
All that matters is that they have a car, a liscense, and they can drive you to your destination, and their previous passengers rated them well, or at least did not rate them poorly, if they're fairly new.
(Anytime an UberDriver pulls some dumbass shit with a passenger? Gets in a car accident, their fault or not? Loses their liscense? Basically instantly shitcanned and banned for life from working with Uber.)
(Oh and they all have cameras, because all potential incidents must be reviewable, both for the safety of the passenger, and the driver. You apparently have no idea how common it is for uber passengers to assault their drivers, try to rob them, do ridiculous/dangerous shit in the car, refuse to leave the vehicle at ride termination, get bait called into a grand theft auto carjacking, etc. Its way, waaaay more common than unprovoked violence from drivers toward passengers)
Uber has an algo that assigns the nearest available driver who meets your passenger and distance requirements and it does this by sending out micro contracts out to their nearby active driver pool, and somebody accepts it first.
You as a consumer of an Uber drive... don't have any say at all in who your driver is going to be, you know nothing about them, not when you request the ride.
All this new thing does is not send out those requests to men.
That's not you picking out your favorite specific contractor based on careful consideration, that's you just blanket ignoring half the driver pool because of the genes they were born with.
(And I guesss, with current state of the US, well fuck trans people I guess, who knows what their legal sex or sex in Uber is, at this point)
Do you wanna turn Uber into Tinder, for drives?
Swipe through available driver profiles, get a sense of who they are first?
Here's what'll happen:
The vast majority of men will rarely get any matches when a woman has to match first.
So, that means women drivers have no problem getting male or female passengers, men drivers have no problem getting male passengers, but only a small amount of male drivers will get female passengers.
So... now half the rider population is unaccessible to half the driver population.
Beyond that, pretty people with nicer cars, or... whatever kind of more attractive profile, they will get all the requests, become parasocial micro celebs, and they'll be too busy to meet all demand, so, you'll either be picky, matching with a few busy people, and your rides will not be timely, or, you'll scattershot, and basically always be demeaning to or disappointed by your non 10/10 drivers, even though they're timely and do their job well.
You seriously want to dating app-ify a taxi app?
Its like the literal perfect opposite of how to efficiently solve the logistical problem of 'get passenger from A to B in shortest amount of time'.
Its essentially the most perfectly inefficient system conceivable, for rapidly solving dynamic route planning with a random number and location of drivers, passengers, pickups, destinations.
Next, what happens is male drivers will leave Uber/Lyft, and start a male drivers only app, purely out of spite, because now, they have basically a quarter to a half of their potential contracts as they did before.
Its not like its that technically difficult to make the actual software that is the Uber/Lyft app.
They'll just have to start it in one particularly dense urban area with enough likeminded guys, and it would grow from there, hell maybe do the digital equivalent of a franchise model and just have other cities/regions handled by local maintainers, a layered and variable system of pricing and cost sharing and specifically handling local physical conditions, legal environments. Hell it could even form local unions/chapters.
So... with everything you've said so far, you should be 100% fine with a male only drivers app.
The... reason why this doesn't already exist, is because if you said you were going to make a men only drivers app, most people would say that that's a clearly illegal business model that discriminates against women on the basis of only their sex.
I guess we will see if CA somehow decides that effective, but not strictly formal sexual discrimination against contract workers, in only one direction, is legal.
Yep.
I read this and actually said aloud "Oh Dear God."
I mean, I'm a poor, I don't have... a pension, investments, I'll be lucky if my net worth ever exceeds the FDIC guaranteed $250k...
But uh yeah, yeah, if you have any uh, exposure to the stock market... uh, good luck!
Have fun realizing you were actually just barely less poor than me, this whole time.