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EnderMB , (edited )

Haha, what do you base that on?!

My experience is the exact opposite. I'm a software engineer at a big tech company, and in this climate even they are unable to sponsor a visa to the US from the UK. Literally anywhere else? Sure, no problem at all, whether it be Europe, Singapore, China, Japan, Egypt, Australia, anywhere we have an office - except America.

Americans, welcome anywhere! We've got two in my team alone this year, and in 5 years they can get permanent residency. I know managers that want me on their team because I built tooling for them, but they're not allowed to hire me because it would require a visa...

EnderMB ,

That's absolute nonsense. Most countries have similar paths to entry. They also have paths that support specific jobs that are required by the country - something the US does not. Finally, many of them have easy and clear paths to naturalisation - again something the US doesn't have.

Just because unskilled nationals make it into your country, it doesn't mean that immigration in your country is easier than other countries. Every right-winger moans about the same thing in every country you've listed...

EnderMB ,

I'm almost positive that David Beckham isn't a citizen of the US. That's almost definitely by choice, given that he'd meet the criteria for investment several times over.

While I appreciate the offer, I think my wife would probably not be too happy with me taking another lover. 😂

EnderMB ,

A lot of people are giving Tesla shit here, but surely there should be regulations in place to ensure something like this isn't allowed to be released for public use?

EnderMB ,

When I was at school, Sunny D and Vodka was a recommended mix to make you ill enough to throw up and miss school the next day. I can't believe people willingly drink this shit...

EnderMB ,

All of big tech is really worried about this.

  • Apple is worried about its own science output, with many of their office heavily employing data scientists. A lot of people slate Siri, but Apple's scientists put out a lot of solid research.
  • Amazon is plugging GenAI into practically everything to appease their execs, because it's the only way to get funding. Moonshot ideas are dead, and all that remains is layoffs, PIP, and pumping AI into shit where it doesn't belong to make shareholders happy. The innovation died, and AI replaced it.
  • Google has let AI divisions take over both search and big parts of ads. Both are reporting worse experiences for users, but don't worry, any engineer worth anything was laid off and there are no opportunities in other divisions for you either. If there are, they probably got offshored...
  • Meta is struggling a lot less, probably because they were smart enough to lay off in one go, but they're still plugging AI shite in places no one asked for it, with many divisions now severely down in headcount.

If the AI boom is a dud, I can see many of these companies reducing their output further. If someone comes along and competes in their primary offering, there's a real concern that they'll lose ground in ways that were unthinkable mere years ago. Someone could legitimately challenge Google on search right now, and someone could build a cheap shop that doesn't sell Chinese tat and uses local suppliers to compete with Amazon. Tech really shat the bed during the last economic downturn.

EnderMB ,

I remember joining the industry and switching our company over to full Continuous Integration and Deployment. Instead of uploading DLL's directly to prod via FTP, we could verify each build, deploy to each environment, run some service tests to see if pages were loading, all the way up to prod - with rollback. I showed my manager, and he shrugged. He didn't see the benefit of this happening when, in his eyes, all he needed to do was drag and drop, and load the page to make sure all is fine.

Unsurprisingly, I found out that this is how he builds websites to this day...

I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again — Ludicity ( ludic.mataroa.blog )

How stupid do you have to be to believe that only 8% of companies have seen failed AI projects? We can't manage this consistently with CRUD apps and people think that this number isn't laughable? Some companies have seen benefits during the LLM craze, but not 92% of them. 34% of companies report that generative AI specifically...

EnderMB , (edited )

I work in AI as a software engineer. Many of my peers have PhD's, and have sunk a lot of research into their field. I know probably more than the average techie, but in the grand scheme of things I know fuck all. Hell, if you were to ask the scientists I work with if they "know AI" they'll probably just say "yeah, a little".

Working in AI has exposed me to so much bullshit, whether it's job offers for obvious scams that'll never work, or for "visionaries" that work for consultancies that know as little about AI as the next person, but market themselves as AI experts. One guy had the fucking cheek to send me a message on LinkedIn to say "I see you work in AI, I'm hosting a webinar, maybe you'll learn something".

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of cool stuff out there, and some companies are doing some legitimately cool stuff, but the actual use-cases for these tools where they won't just be productivity enhancers/tools is low at best. I fully support this guy's efforts to piledrive people, and will gladly lend him my sword.

How many people actually want fully on-site IT jobs?

I've been looking for a new job as a software developer. The huge majority of job listings I see in my area are hybrid or remote. I just had an introductory phone call with Vizio (which didn't specify the location type in the job listing). The recruiter told me that the job was fully on-site, which I told her was a deal breaker...

EnderMB ,

There is one reason I think onsite works, and that's for relocation.

If you are from the US and you want to move to the UK, how do you intend to move via work if your work is remote?

I love remote work, but I've not heard a rebuttal for this other than "don't let foreigners move here" or "let's let people move based on their level of education".

EnderMB ,

Why would a company decide to grant you a working visa when you will primarily be remote? Furthermore, why would the government grant you a visa when you could, in theory, work from your own country?

EnderMB ,

Haha, what?

We literally predicted Trump before you voted for him, because of the right-wing populism that caused Brexit.

A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back ( www.windowscentral.com )

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a...

EnderMB ,

Outside of the "Microsoft bad" comments, this is a prime example of why big tech companies need to stop promoting AI leads to a position where they are able to have influence over initiatives outside of AI.

The worst thing to happen to basically every product/service in tech right now is AI. It's made Google unreliable in the eyes of normal people for the first time in decades, it's destroying trust in Amazon content across reviews and Kindle, it's adding features to Facebook that no one ever wanted, etc.

EnderMB ,

Oh, they still do these...

I've heard some stories where managers had to lay off most of their team, then put the remaining on performance plans, and then when those people were fired, they had no directs and then had to convert to a IC role they were woefully unable to do, transfer (lol good luck), or leave.

EnderMB ,

Uhhh....it's had AI backing it for most of the decade

EnderMB ,

Alexa has had AI backing its services for the better part of a decade.

Source: I worked on some of it.

EnderMB ,

Sadly, Lemmy is too small to have many active niche communities of its own, so as already said your best bet is just viewing all.

Alongside this, viewing specific instances can give you a slightly more curated experience than just all of Lemmy.

EnderMB ,

Fair play to Usyk. For practically every fight he's had in HW he's been tipped as under-dog, with people saying that the strength, size, and power of the the heavyweights in the division would be too much for him. Every time he's been proven wrong.

Obviously, there will be a rematch, because apparently boxing is WWE now, but hopefully people now put respect to Usyk's name, as the first undisputed champ since Lewis, and the man that dominated two weight divisions.

EnderMB ,

While public transport is undoubtedly fantastic, let's not pretend that it's a great option in many European countries. I'd love to take the train in the UK, but thanks to the Tories it would cost me more to take the train (when it works) than it would to drive and park.

The key is public ownership of public transport.

EnderMB ,

There has never been a better time for someone to swoop in and remake web search. Hell, there are probably dozens of software engineers from Google that have direct experience with search AND were laid off.

I'm surprised that no one is trying to compete with Google at the weakest point it's been since going public.

EnderMB ,

I'm not so sure that's true in big tech any more.

When goals aren't met, or projects don't show validity in the market, those teams get wound down and the employees are laid off. Moonshot projects still exist, but it's not uncommon to see execs be parachuted into new orgs with the plebs being fired.

EnderMB ,

That's definitely not what's happening right now at Amazon (where I work), and based on what I've heard from coworkers from Google and Meta, it's basically the same story over there.

Hell, we've just had another layoff in our Games division, and many software engineers were enticed to work there so they could cut their teeth on games tech instead of standard micro-services. Now, they're frantically battling against external candidates for the few internal roles available.

After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year ( www.billboard.com )

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not...

EnderMB ,

I'd love to, but in terms of pure availability I can get almost everything I've ever wanted to listen to, aside from some weird geoblocking or removal of defunct band's back catalogues.

EnderMB ,

You would be mortified at how many people in big tech, including those that have directly experienced injustice or unfair treatment at work, simply want no part of a tech union.

Frankly, some industries absolutely need it (e.g. games). If they'll put up with what they put up with and still choose not to unionize I don't really know how software engineers will...

EnderMB ,

They also committed to providing open dumps of their data to make it free to all. At the start, they were doing all the right things.

EnderMB ,

DBZ fan. Lots of things:

  • SSJ4 could be canon. It just requires a full moon and a tail. When all the Saiyans in-universe don't have them, it's kinda impossible...
  • Becoming SSJ easily (Goten and Trunks) is easily explained by saying that because their fathers already were SSJ by the time of conception, it had become a natural reflex to them, rather than a barrier that needed to be broken.
  • They've been able to blow up planets since the days of 9000 power levels, probably even with 1000, yet with power levels of 1B the fights are largely the same. Explain this as some sort of ki concentration, where your energy has...more energy per energy, or something?
  • Goku's "telepathy" was always just him feeling someone's energy, and feeling how flustered and overwhelmed they are. He does a similar thing to Future Trunks, but it wasn't called telepathy, it was "searching his emotions" - another BS way of saying "shit, you don't look good, what's up!".
  • The Dragon Balls take a year to charge, but are often usable pretty much right away - the RR army get them 8 months after they were used, and despite being used to revive Goku the Earth balls are used basically a month later because Kami is revived. Maybe just explain it as Kami needing time to revive them as they're intrinsically linked? It Kami goes on bed rest, you'll have Dragon Balls in a few weeks...
  • Launch didn't disappear. She married Tien, they have kids, and she stays at home to raise them.

I could probably write a book to "fix" the show, but these fixes just tend to annoy fans because they want a "canon" answer to a show that is hilariously broken.

Stack Overflow and OpenAI Partner ( files.mastodon.online )

https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/112394551768481505...

From the official stackoverflow account: We’re thrilled to announce we’re partnering with @OpenAI to bring best in class technical knowledge and the world’s most popular LLM models for AI development together! This groundbreaking partnership with OpenAI will drive our mission to empower the world to develop technology through collective knowledge.
ALT
EnderMB ,

It's funny how Stack Overflow was created because forums were shit for programming discussion, and because Q&A was dominated, sold, and locked down by Experts-Exchange.

Now, pretty much the second the final founder bailed (and jumped on the AI train) SO starts enshittifying its product...

EnderMB ,

I've always found horses to be weird animals. They have personality, but have no expression outside of losing their shit. Their posture also looks uncomfortable as fuck, always being stood up, and being on small hooves despite being huge.

I've always said that they're prisoners in their own bodies.

EnderMB ,

Not sure if you're serious or not.

He's LITERALLY the reason Tory MP's are both fucking useless, or leaving/quitting in droves. When he gutted the party for not backing his Brexit vote, he got rid of lots of established conservative politicians, replacing many with populists.

The Conservative party doesn't have many actual conservatives in it any more. Many feel that they've been forced out, and even those looking to join feel that they're just a right-wing party on the tails of Reform.

It's one of the reasons I'm so excited for a GE. It'll likely result in a Labour landslide, but it'll also potentially be the biggest decimation of the Tories since Thatcher, probably more so because she was still ultimately a Conservative. If they can't root out the populists, the party is basically dead.

EnderMB ,

Source: I've done student outreach for Amazon (sitting at a booth, chatting to students, doing student program interviews).

That ship has sailed. While big tech still means big salaries, many graduates are now smart enough to realise that the magic number a company says they'll pay you every year is meaningless if they'll lay you off three months from now to appease some shareholders.

They see OpenAI, and they see a startup that basically mopped the floor with ALL of big tech in something they supposedly did for the better part of a decade. I genuinely think we're a few small success stories away from FAANG being completely relegated to boomer tech like IBM.

Google is done, IMO. The same goes for Meta, the two big tech companies that showed people how "fun" an office could be. They're now relegated to normal companies...and their output over the last few years show a set of companies with few stand-out winners. Do you really want to slog through a tough CS degree and a 4-5 stage interview process requiring months of prep to work on Google Docs, or work hard for years only to be woken up every night for a whole week because Amazon Fashion is suffering downtime, all while VP's move to different departments in a blindingly obvious move to avoid department shutdowns and being associated with mass job losses?

IMO, if Google stick with Sundar, and Amazon stick with Jassy, they are done. They'll lose their status and go into slow decline over the next decade.

EnderMB ,

Are you disputing that their AI offering is better than what Google have produced in the same space?

EnderMB ,

Unironically, yes.

I worked for a client where we had successfully delivered a working FOH site and booking/order system. A new head of marketing joined, and from the first meeting this guy proclaimed himself as a "tech lead" and evangelist. He wanted "full FTP access" within the first 5 minutes of our meeting. We told him we didn't use FTP as everything was deployed via our CI pipeline, and he kicked off.

After some crisis meetings, he said he wanted to change the entire CMS to be HTML boxes, threatening to ditch us if we didn't give him what we wanted. They were paying lots for this change, so in the end we obliged. He proceeded to delete basically everything we'd built, and tried to replicate all functionality using a A/B injection tool and a HTML field. Clients were pissed, because none of it worked, and they lost some serious money from it.

In the end, we rolled back and said "fuck it, full git access, you're a dev now", and at midnight he brought the site down because he decided to rewrite some db transaction logic to write data to another store. To him, transactions were "outdated tech", and he tried to clean it up by just performing destructive changes on their own...

In the end, they ditched us, and we were glad to be gone (they bought out their own contract). Sadly, he got his way, changed his title to "lead tech director", hired a team, and their site went from fairly slick to looking like something from Geocities. That company no longer exists, and sadly, I can't remember his name so I can't see where he failed upwards to.

EnderMB ,

I'm getting some serious "The Most Interesting Man In The World" vibes from your cat.

EnderMB ,

Funny enough, I probably did more software engineering as a web dev than I did as a software engineer at some companies.

In the UK, at least, the only difference typically between a web developer and a software engineer is £15-20k in salary. Frankly, we're all software engineers...

EnderMB ,

I doubt the number of C# developers would drop even 1% due to Unity fucking itself.

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