He might have delivered a lot of revenue growth yea, but Google culture is basically gone. Internally we're not very far from Amazon style "performance management"

To upper management types that’s a feature not a bug.

Just curious how is this working out if I am working for an American company in Europe and I come to us for a meeting let's say? I will be there for a few days and actually working at the local branch.

The moral of this story is, if you chose to say otherwise at the border, make sure that enforcement can't access contrary statements like this one.

Probably not, and he will be shunned by his community. The Roma problem is at this moment unsolvable and it will lead to some sad situation at some point :(.

Often when I look at how us works it seems to me that a lot of political action, censorship and coercion is privatised there, so it looks superficially like you have more degrees of freedom because you are limited by private actors and not the state.

I grew up in western Germany. My SO in the GDR (eastern Germany) before the Iron Curtain fell.

Comparing my experience and hers (or her family's) gave me an interesting view of freedom. Namely that I think there isn't one freedom. Not in the universal sense.

For example. In the GDR it was a bad idea to critique the state/government/socialism. But I know quite a few cases of people telling their boss he was an asshole. Without any consequences.

Compared to Western Germany. We could call our politicians names, critique our government, call democracy an idiotic for of representation but tell g our corporate bosses they were idiots could destroy your life.

Just an extreme example of what I mean with different forms of freedom.

In the end I think it always comes down to a society needing to decide where to limit the freedoms of their people to ensure as much freedom as possible for all members of society. And future generations.

Our constitutional court for example declared the climate change efforts of our former government not sufficient to ensure freedom of future generations as doing nothing (or too little too late) now would burden future generations to an extent that is not in line with our constitution. Limiting our freedom right now (taxes, limits to how fast to drive, and so on) to ensure freedom for yet unborn.

In my country during the communist times many cities that had some industry nearby were heated with the excess heat from those factories.

May I ask what country that is?

You can see a few examples on this page, it mentions Sweden, Austria and Finland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

None of which have ever been communist, however.

GDR had it in a lot of places (only german: https://www.prenzlauerberg-nachrichten.de/2011/06/07/kleine-...) these isolated pipes are still quite common in eastern germany. The cause was there was no gas and most energy came from coal burning and having centralized heating was more effective - also often industries supplied heat.

In Soviet Russia, factories work you.

You guys are definitely not playing xcom and seeing 99% shots miss.

No that would be blind.

I can't believe no-one mentioned keratological lenses. Not only gives you a glasses free experience during the day, they also slow or stop the progression of myopia. Aren't these avaliable in the US?

Our daughter is using Ortho-K lenses. She's been wearing them for about 10 months now and they are very good. They are more 'myopia control' than fixing the underlying issue, but it means she can do sports etc without worrying about glasses (she's still little).

For the uninitiated (as I was), they are hard plastic lenses that are worn at night. Initially the optometrist will take a variety or measurements of the eye and then a pair of lenses is manufactured. They are thicker than the standard disposable lenses and take a while to get used to and can be uncomfortable for a few weeks until you adjust to them. They work by shaping the outer part of the eye during sleep, when removed in the morning the outer part of the eyes have retained the shape from the lenses. Light entering the eye is then bent correctly and vision is almost 20/20.

If she was to stop wearing them her eyes would return to her standard myopic level, but hopefully not be any worse than before.

I had to google this. For the lazy:

“[Keratological] lenses correct your vision while you sleep. They do this by applying a controlled shape to the cornea which is the front surface of the eye, eliminating myopia (short –sightedness).”

I was part of many left wings groups and I remember there was a transitional period in which there was a lot of talk about intersectionalism, that is how we need to not only take into account the class, but also race, gender, sexual orientation etc. Then slowly the class part dissappeared so only the latter were left to intersect.

If some vibration on the launch pad is that serious, what will it happen during the actual launch with a lot more vibrations and g forces?

I think the difference is whether the vibration is expected. Vibrations from being launched are probably accounted for and tested numerous times, while an unintended vibration caused by a "sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band" could cause unforeseen damages to the instrument.

The probe is rated for that.

It is not rated for being dropped.

The statement does not actually say anything about the magnitude of the vibrations during this incident, let alone how they compare to those expected during launch.

"Some vibration" doesn't give the same feeling in the reader as the techs and engineers on the floor felt when they heard a 10 Bn USD science project that millions of people are hoping to learn from crashes into the ground.