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I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

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Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#281

Post by varispeed »

WalterBright wrote: post #268
varispeed wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon pays well. If company has huge billion dollar profits, then they don't pay well. This is pure greed and exploitation. They get great value out of their employees but they don't share it amongst them. They share just enough so they don't look too bad to an untrained eye.

They share it with anyone willing to take a risk and buy a share. Working at a job doesn't automatically give one ownership rights, any more than the mechanic who fixes your car gets a share in the proceeds when you sell it. Many companies, however, do provide ownership rights to employees in the form of stock purchase plans and stock option plans. I don't know if Amazon provides such to warehouse workers, but I'd su…

Payment in salary and real shares (without dilution) is one of the ways that could work. For example if company made 1 billion profit, they could use 30% to buy stock or use their own and redistribute it to employees into their real broker accounts.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#282

Post by MomoXenosaga »

refulgentis wrote: post #260
bane wrote: post #212

I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites. It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the old computer magazine and book industry, and retronauts is mostly made up of struggling video game journalists who cycle between the same magazines and being jobless or freelance. A few of them, especially the more senior folks basically have thrown in the towe…

Someone close to me has worked at Macy's their entire career, through college, after college, through grad school, after grad school. Nearly 15 years now. Much as you mentioned these folks not seeing the closure as a result of the Internet, but rather local competition dynamics, no matter how many stores close or odd situations happen, they believe the precise details of each narrative are what matter (i.e. the alcoh…

Lots of fashion stores with 50+ years of history have gone bankrupt. I guess we'll see if the likes of Primark or Zalando will still be around in 2050.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#283

Post by MomoXenosaga »

ALittleLight wrote: post #246
eplanit wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh -- they've done themselves such harm in recent years by embracing activism and deliberate bias that it's hard for me to feel too bad for the industry. That said, I'll applaud whichever journalists are brave enough to start pushing their industry/art back towards objectivity and diversity of perspective.

They didn't choose activism because they are lazy or ideologues (although the industry may increasingly populated by lazy ideologues). The journalism industry chose activism because it sells better than objective journalism. I could start an online paper about my local town and write purely objective stories. "Town council meeting today went as expected, complicated issue without clear solution continued unsolved". T…

Donald Trump probably saved the New York Times...

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#284

Post by crocsarecool »

refulgentis wrote: post #260
bane wrote: post #212

I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites. It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the old computer magazine and book industry, and retronauts is mostly made up of struggling video game journalists who cycle between the same magazines and being jobless or freelance. A few of them, especially the more senior folks basically have thrown in the towe…

Someone close to me has worked at Macy's their entire career, through college, after college, through grad school, after grad school. Nearly 15 years now. Much as you mentioned these folks not seeing the closure as a result of the Internet, but rather local competition dynamics, no matter how many stores close or odd situations happen, they believe the precise details of each narrative are what matter (i.e. the alcoh…

I guess it’s hard to see when you go to work every day. It’s there. It’s physical. You’re working.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#285

Post by skystarman »

splitstud wrote: post #229
skystarman wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want more immigrants, and yet they support Republicans which massively slashed legal immigration the last time they controlled the government?

You are confused by the fact that both parties SAY one thing about immigration and DO another.

This "both sides" nonsense is complete fiction.

There was a BIPARTISAN senate immigration reform bill that passed the senate in 2013. THIRTEEN Republicans voted for it and every Democrat and independent did.

It went to the house and died there because the Republican majority leader Boehner knew it would pass and refused to let it be voted on. He was beholden to the most xenophobic, bigoted Republicans in his caucus and thought they would vote him out of leadership if he let it pass. He ended up losing his job anyways shortly thereafter for other reasons.

Now the entire Republican party is beholden to the xenophobic bigots and I guarantee you the exact same bill wouldn't find more than 2 votes from a Republican in the senate.

So no, there is no "both sides" here. Democrats have been remarkably consistent about what an immigration compromise looks like, and even were able to pass it in the senate 7-8 years ago, only to be blown up by the Tea Party ur-Trumpists. The GOP has only moved further to the right and will never support anything close to that.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#286

Post by downrightmike »

ggm wrote: post #238

Maybe we should pay Amazon drivers better. Maybe we should build public toilets. Maybe a union...

Amazon is clearly a monopoly, but consumer prices are "low", so they get to keep at it. A lot of the early anti-trust cases in history were pretty petty, and anything has precedent for not being a monopoly. But when you can literally under cut competition until they go out of business, then raise prices afterward, you're a monopoly. Example Diapers dot com, the undercutting did lower prices for consumers.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#288

Post by WalterBright »

jzb wrote: post #280
WalterBright wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not start your own news publication? Run it according to your own rules.

Well, for one thing.. then I'm a publisher, not a journalist. Running a business does not appeal to me in the slightest. Secondly, most of the problems facing publications are market forces that aren't going to go away just because the person at the helm does care about quality. There are publications that succeed by the skin of their teeth. LWN for example. But that's a pretty rare, niche example that would be very…

Your newspaper can be as simple as a web site you create. There's almost zero cost of entry. It can be grown organically, as you develop a reputation for real journalism. Start small by specializing in articles on one topic like, say, what the city council is doing or what Boeing is doing. Become the go-to source of accurate information on that.

It'd be like the olden days when random people would print and distribute pamphlets like "Common Sense".

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#289

Post by refulgentis »

crocsarecool wrote: post #284
refulgentis wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone close to me has worked at Macy's their entire career, through college, after college, through grad school, after grad school. Nearly 15 years now. Much as you mentioned these folks not seeing the closure as a result of the Internet, but rather local competition dynamics, no matter how many stores close or odd situations happen, they believe the precise details of each narrative are what matter (i.e. the alcoh…

I guess it’s hard to see when you go to work every day. It’s there. It’s physical. You’re working.

Exactly, secular trends are hard to spot when you know the details. Tech people look at the alternate present where your revenue is 30% better without the internet, but that's "imaginary" in some sense, it really was the manager who put the store under

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#290

Post by pseudalopex »

mLuby wrote: post #76
deviantfero wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the hispanic comment, Spanish is a naturally gendered language, you cannot form a sentence without giving gender to at least the subject, for example "la doctora toma el café por la mañana" would translate to "the (female) doctor drinks (male) coffee by the (female) morning" because English is a mostly gender neutral language you would loose all gender information by literally translating that sentence. Now if we…

Anyone know how the unusual consonant x was chosen to replace a and o rather than another vowel (like e)? To my untrained ear, les neen-yes sounds more in line with los neen-yos and las neen-yes than lecks neen-yecks (if that's how you'd pronounce it).

Latinx came from LGBTQ Hispanic people. It was influenced by spellings like folx and womxn probably.

It became popular in writing first too.

Some people do say Latine. Probably it will replace Latinx eventually.

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