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The Machine Fired Me

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Re: The Machine Fired Me

#371

Post by calv »

milesvp wrote: post #59
eridius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple explanation: they did in fact see what you were doing and just didn't want to tell you because they don't want to teach cheaters how to evade bans. They were hoping after the first review that you would start playing by the rules.

Even simpler explanation is that false positives are real. All sufficiently complex systems have them. I'd imagine that triggering a false positive the first time greatly increases the likelihood that a second false positive is triggered. I'd also further assert, that simply being an HN reader means you are more likely to trigger a false positive than the rest of the population. Blizzard does some very aggressive mem…

This. I got a false positive on Runescape about 4 years ago, they won't even let you appeal because it was a serious offence. Lost my best account, and they cancelled my membership. Never paid for the game again after that, on my new account.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#372

Post by LarryL »

Spooky23 wrote: post #218
rectang wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, wage theft. Now we're not just talking about a lost opportunity to reward a loyal worker. If you're right, somebody ought to be going to jail.

Its not wage theft. Contractors aren’t humans, from a human resource pov.

> Contractors aren’t humans

Real story from one of the (big) french telecom companies I worked for, as a contractor (a few years ago)...

In that company, a regular employee was given a full desk, contractors were only given 2/3 of a desk (meaning 2 desks put side by side for 3 persons).

Also, contractors were NOT allowed to go to ANY conference. Even when it was about technical stuff that was directly for their project. We had to rely 100% on a transmission of information by our managers/team leads. This led to humorous results, to say the least. Things like: a BIG meeting with plenty of people and managers, who then decided a HUGE technical change on the network, without the ONLY expert because he happened to be a contractor. Once given the results of the meeting, the guy was in a "WTF?" shock. He told me that be immediately binned the request: it basically asked him to disable the authentication server! Not the best decision for a BIG ISP, LOL. Seriously, that's almost beyond belief. (But I have other incredible stories similar to this one).

As a contractor, I have really been mistreated A LOT. So much so that I've sworn never to do it again.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#373

Post by v_lisivka »

krapp wrote: post #364
pc86 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not racism, that's laziness. Or perhaps just being a bad engineer, if you want to be more cynical about it. It's not that hard to find both conscious and subconscious examples of systemic or individual racism. Engineers taking the easy path with webcam facial recognition is probably not a good one and serves only to give more fuel to those who claim people jump to the racism cry too quickly.

> That's not racism, that's laziness. Or perhaps just being a bad engineer, if you want to be more cynical about it. It can be both. An attitude that considers facial recognition software acceptable if it only recognizes light-skinned people is both lazy and racist. Only choosing to test on light-skinned people is racist because doing so assumes dark skinned people are an exception or an outlier, rather than an equal…

Whites have dark skin at the end of each summer.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#374

Post by isostatic »

rspeer wrote: post #282
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sue in small claims court for week 1. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Sue in small claims court for week 2. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Repeat as necessary. Offer settlement in return for not suing anymore.

Is this just wishful thinking that, if something went wrong with your paycheck, the world would be just and there would be an easy legal remedy waiting for you? From what I understand, you can only sue for $1000 or less in small claims court. An IT contractor who is making $1000 or less per week has bigger problems.

Separate claim for each lost day then.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#375

Post by vinceguidry »

Rjevski wrote: post #319
UweSchmidt wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful, automatic processes can give you trouble, cancel your service or hurt your credit rating. I recommend complying with the process, mentally account for the extra costs when you sign up, stick to defaults and avoid complexity whenever possible. On the other hand nowadays companies do respond to complaints much better than a few decades ago if you file complaints through their websites. Taking it to social medi…

> cancel your service By the time I arrive to this stage, I’ve already got a replacement lined up and all it takes is to flick a switch. > hurt your credit rating From experience, the problem eventually gets resolved and they cancel any black marks on your credit report. But personally I never cared about mine anyway.

The other thing about credit reports is that 1) companies not in the business of providing credit have an uphill battle to claim that you're indebted to them, and 2) you can challenge such things, and the law requires them to show evidence.

Due process has favored debtors for some time now, but the information isn't published, leaving shady "credit cleanup" companies to charge hundreds to do what you can do in many cases simply by logging into a website.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#376

Post by mozumder »

vvanders wrote: post #194
bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

That show was incredibly on the mark, if Black Mirror was a comedy it would have been that show. The episode about the black engineer who isn't detected by the motion sensors is basically straight out of HP's webcam fiasco[1](although the show takes it to the logical and hilarious extreme). [1] http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2009/12/hp-webcam-c...

Black Mirror IS a comedy. Nothing in it is realistic.

Don't take it seriously.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#377

Post by krapp »

v_lisivka wrote: post #373
krapp wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not racism, that's laziness. Or perhaps just being a bad engineer, if you want to be more cynical about it. It can be both. An attitude that considers facial recognition software acceptable if it only recognizes light-skinned people is both lazy and racist. Only choosing to test on light-skinned people is racist because doing so assumes dark skinned people are an exception or an outlier, rather than an equal…

Whites have dark skin at the end of each summer.

True, but that doesn't really contradict the premise of my comment.

The assumption of ones own race being the default color for humans (rather than an arbitrary value) that leads to facial recognition software being trained on a data set so narrow that the resulting software can't even recognize skin colors that diverge from that norm is as much about implicit, albeit unintentional, racial bias as it is the particular technical problems involved and the need for engineers to cut costs and meet deadlines.

It's not entirely racist, but racism is a component.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#378

Post by mseebach »

rectang wrote: post #340
mseebach wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He elaborates a bit in the comments - it seems he's entitled to the money, but couldn't be bothered: "So I had to do an appeal, and go through a long process that I did not care much to go through. I had a mind in quitting after all." Sounds very strange that he wouldn't care to do a bit of paperwork, which he from the sounds of it could probably well justify to do on company time, with the manager and director being…

"Fishy" is a very ungenerous read on the worker opting out of an arduous appeals process and cutting their losses. And if there's anything in the comments about "the manager and director being supportive", I don't see it -- where did you get that?

The bit about the manager and director is in the main article. There's nothing about pay, but they're presented as entirely sympathetic and angry about the system on his behalf.

As for "fishy", I find it very strange that someone writes an article emphasising twice that they're out three weeks of pay, but then couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. There's breach of contract, this isn't a long and arduous appeals process, it's open and shut, and if it isn't you have a lawyer deal with it, and recoup expenses, too. And if the guy just doesn't care about it, then why does he mention it twice?

And for the purposes of this, and the other sub-thread that is incredulous about this, this is not an American thing: If you're a contractor in Europe, and you don't get paid, and you then don't do anything about that, then you don't get paid. There's no process that automatically fixes things when the aggrieved party doesn't ask for them to be fixed (and yes, even in Europe, there's a bit of annoying process and paperwork to deal with).

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#379

Post by lmm »

rixed wrote: post #348
lmm wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pharmacist can, and should, use their human judgement to refuse to dispense drugs even when prescribed. But they don't and shouldn't use their human judgement to dispense drugs that weren't prescribed; this is by design and for good reason. It's a two-person rule: you only get the drugs if both the pharmacist and the doctor formally agreed you should get them.

The problem seems to be that the drug has indeed been prescribed, but the writing was erroneous. This is not about "should we freely sell drug", but about "should we use human judgment in addition to paper orders". Clearly, some commenters are also trying hard to be robot-swappable. :)

The prescription was for the wrong drug, i.e. the wrong drug was prescribed and conversely the right drug was not prescribed. The pharmacist can, should, and quite possibly did use their human judgement to refuse to dispense the wrong drug, even though it was prescribed. But by design they don't have the authority to dispense the right drug without getting a doctor to formally prescribe it.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#380

Post by rando444 »

mozumder wrote: post #376
vvanders wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That show was incredibly on the mark, if Black Mirror was a comedy it would have been that show. The episode about the black engineer who isn't detected by the motion sensors is basically straight out of HP's webcam fiasco[1](although the show takes it to the logical and hilarious extreme). [1] http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2009/12/hp-webcam-c...

Black Mirror IS a comedy. Nothing in it is realistic. Don't take it seriously.

Just because nothing in it is realistic, does not make it a comedy.
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