Welcome to Thunderdome

Funny happenstance:

I have an Audible subscription, because when I was taking my kid to/from ATL all the time I was racking up lots of road hours, and audio books help the miles pass. But now he's here and I'm driving less, my monthly credits were stacking up, so I paused my membership.

ALl good.

But then they charged me again, and I got on a CustServ chat to see WTF. Long story short, at the end the person asked what genre I liked so he could recommend something. Sure, I'm game, let's see what he has to say.

He recommended the Silmarillion. and I thought wow, for me that's a good recommendation.

Then I remembered they just made a LotR show for a billion dollars and they need to shill it every way they can.

Those cheeky bastards.

Alexa facing some cuts?

Review includes the devices unit, which includes Alexa and where documents show operating losses of $5 billion annually in recent years

Rumour is 10k job cuts at Amazon this week.

Fucking Elon...

I use Alexa's competitor, the google stuff.

Functionality keeps getting removed because they keep getting hit by random tech companies for copyright/patent violations (SONOS hit them with a "hey we own the ability to change audio from room to room" recently, for example. Google removed it and broke some stuff, and still hasn't fixed it). My google home ecosystem has been working less and less well. I heard it's the same for all of them, as they get lawsuited.

So I wonder if their giving alexa less support now since it's less functional.

Leisher wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:46 pm Fucking Elon...

I think you meant fucking W.

No I mean fucking Trump.

Minor bitch session and subtle racism ahead:

GF broke my favorite coffee mug. Ordered a replacement on amazon. Didn't realize it was a Chinese 3rd seller.

Ordered November 16, had a Dec 1 delivery date. Tracking info never updates, Dec 1 arrives and it changes to "running unexpectedly late." On December 5 it changes to "arriving tomorrow." On December 6 it says "Delivered November 21." Has all kinds of arrived/departed info, all of a sudden.

Nuh uh.

Amazon wouldn't do an automatic refund because "It's been delivered." Mm hmm. Told me to contact the seller. Mmm hmmm.

Went ahead and did that. When I don't hear from them in 48 hours I'll be contacting fucking amazon and telling them about 3rd party sellers in china.

3rd party sellers are the worst. Even worse, they pollute the real Amazon if they sell the same product + it gets comingled at the warehouses.

Unrelated, but related...

I once emailed Shein, a Chinese company, a very straight forward question: "How do you pronounce your company name?" This was a debate between my two youngest.

They emailed back, "Shein".

I responded, "Yes, but how is it pronounced if being said out loud."

They responded back, "Shein".

I did not try again.

To be fair, Mandarin is phonetic. So in their language, it's "obvious"

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:14 pm To be fair, Mandarin is phonetic. So in their language, it's "obvious"

Totally fair, but in English it's a funny exchange.

Leisher wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:00 pm Unrelated, but related...

I once emailed Shein, a Chinese company, a very straight forward question: "How do you pronounce your company name?" This was a debate between my two youngest.

They emailed back, "Shein".

I responded, "Yes, but how is it pronounced if being said out loud."

They responded back, "Shein".

I did not try again.

Phonics, mother fucker, do you speak it?

Me: Hey, this item was missing from my order.

Amazon: Ok, what item do you want to return?

Me: No, it's missing.

Amazon: OK

Me: This one.

Amazon: OK, how would you like to return it to us?

Corporate workers are frustrated with management and staging a walkout.

Awesome! Sometimes drastic situations require drastic actions, and more and more I'm convinced corporations aren't run by the best and bright, but by those with dirty knees or blood ties.

In an email Tuesday evening, organizers of the walkout said more than 1,800 Amazon employees have committed to participating to call attention to employee frustrations on multiple fronts, including the company’s push to get workers in the office at least three days a week.

And you lost me...

Leisher wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 2:52 pm Come back to the office or you won't be working for Amazon.

I don't ever want to work FT in an office again. I just don't like it. I'm in the office 4 days a month right now. Perfect.

You're lucky. I'm back FT, but I do have the flexibility to work from home whenever.

Leisher wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 3:25 pm You're lucky. I'm back FT, but I do have the flexibility to work from home whenever.

My job was like this before covid, though. The funny thing was traveling Feb 2020 and thinking "Man, maybe 4 days a month is too much travel." lol

At least most jobs have increased flexibility beyond pre-covid levels.

They updated the Prime app on chromecast today. I had to spend about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get to me "continue watching" screen. Couldn't search listings, or anything.

Real damned good interface decisions. I hope someone got a promotion over it.