Tag Archives: LinkedIn

October 10, 2023 · 05:11

The job never evolved

There was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald and it angered me. The article (at https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/recruitment-labour-hire-companies-collapse-amid-worker-reluctance-to-swap-jobs-20231006-p5ea8q.html) gives us ‘Recruitment, labour hire companies collapse amid worker reluctance to swap jobs’ it is there that we are given “the slowing economy makes employers more reluctant to fork out money to external recruitment firms who are struggling to fill job vacancies with qualified candidates.” First of all, the recruitment firms in Australia are a joke. They never learned anything. They keep on playing the same games for resume collections and mass marketing job filling. Over the last 10 years I have had less than a dozen confirmation emails. We are talking in excess of 300 job applications and less then a dozen replied with something like ‘We have received your resume’ or even ‘We regret to inform you that you have not been selected’ Less then a dozen in over 300 applications. That is the recruitment firm setting, a setting that has less credibility than a cocaine pusher in Sydney’s drug capital called Kings Cross.

They are all about cutting corners and all about reducing costs, all whilst they lose more and more credibility. As such there is every chance that employers are more and more becoming self sufficient in this task. There are more and more corporations with talent pages and career pages.

And the stage of “recruitment agencies were struggling with more vacancies than they could find qualified candidates for” is laughable to say the least. Ageism is merely one factor, the other factor is that more and more recruitment agencies have staff members that seemingly have no clue what they are doing. In one event I met the same recruiter a week later by pure chance and he stated that he hadn’t had any time to read my resume. But there he was collecting more resume’s.

So why don’t we give the setting a twist towards the reality of the stage? Perhaps it should be ‘hire companies collapse due to staff competency and repeated outdated actions’, I think that this is a much more to the point reason. In addition we see all kinds of recruitment firms popping up. There is every chance that one person was good at what he or she did and started their own firm. Makes perfect sense to me, but now we have 8 instead of one firm and these 8 firms are not communicative at all, the previous version wasn’t either. 

There are of course valid reasons and the SMH gives it to us via “A broader collapse in the construction industry, including high-profile businesses Porter Davis and Mahercorp, has reverberated through labour hire companies such as Duet Recruitment, ARI Recruitment, Collar Up Recruitment, GRB 365 Recruitment and PG Labour Services, who have called in administrators as their work dries up”. I reckon that in IT similar settings are happening. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM are all shedding jobs. So there would be an impact. Yet the larger issue is that we see dozens of jobs every day in LinkedIn and those jobs are often pushed by recruiters, who keep on doing the same thing again and again and not communicating any of this. So when we see ‘worker reluctance to swap jobs’, the setting might be that these workers do not trust recruitment firms. All promising a calf with golden horns but in the end whatever they promise isn’t set in stone. Firms promising warm calling and inbound calls all whilst the result is that they are cold calling firms and people don’t like cold callers and whatever bonus is promised is a joke. Recruiters haven’t learned their lesson in over a decade and they continue in the trend of  direct mail companies, all whilst that setting is decades old. You either evolve or you become irrelevant. It is that simple.

Enjoy the day.

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August 30, 2023 · 07:35

A simpleminded A, B, C

It started yesterday when I saw a message pass by on LinkedIn. (See below). 

The honest first thing I thought was ‘Are you effing kidding me?’ It was like an episode of comedy capers. I thought that this level of shortsightedness was a thing of the past, but it seems to me that people will get themselves into heaps of troubles for the longest of times. And what was that term “endless digital potential?” A call to arms for the stupid people? 

So here I am educating the wannabes and the short of cash people, because it is essential. An API is an Application Programming Interface. It is a set of definitions and protocols for integrating application software, or to ‘simplify’ this “a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.” It is a way for others to talk to your software or data. It allows access. To give another reference. You are about to connect an anchor to your boat. But there are Danforth anchors, plow anchors, fluke anchors and several others. It depends on the size of the boat and WHERE you tend to park that dinghy, that largely decides what kind of anchor you need, not what is the prettiest anchor, that tends to be a factor in losing your boat. 

To put it in a better way “digital potential” will be seen when you connect YOUR data to anyone else’s data. Did you consider that? You see this blinders approach to information is nice and those with dollar shaped pupils take notice and want to race to that digital potential, yet the reality is something less nice. It is the chapter of risk.

RISK
Risk is the number one consideration, there is no other. Is it worth doing ‘approach A’ to get to the finish of revenue? 

Bad coding
This is perhaps the largest foe. Right off the bat, if you start off with the premise of bad coding, you are exposing yourself to serious API security risks and that is an issue. But fear not this person thought of that. We are given “That’s why we designed IBSuite as API First!” Yes, really? Security risks are still a massive danger. Unrestricted access to sensitive business flows is the stuff nightmares are made of and a security risk will bring that to your front door. 

Inadequate validation
A security researcher discovered an API payload that would send invalid data to their own user process, which would repeatedly fail to be handled correctly. This error handling loop prevented further access to their user account. This is perhaps the smallest issue, the problem is that failure to handle something correctly implies that something goes somewhere else. Do you know where that somewhere else is? Consider that your former colleagues spend decades optimising the data you have now, would you like others to enjoy that hard work, or keep that in house? 

Hesitating over API utilisation
Some state that in big companies, sometimes management can neglect to track APIs and their utilisation numbers. From this point, you can incur many charges and leave yourself open to security risks due to exposed APIs. So not only are you in danger to hand over your data, you can get charged for it too. Utilisation of data and greed in one nice compact solution, who would have thought it possible? 

Accountability
This does sound like the odd duck out, but in reality it often connects to data loss, Since API’s connect external users and applications with a firm’s internal applications, they are potential paths to a firm’s data. If access to these paths is not controlled, data can reach the wrong hands – and can be stolen, modified, or even irretrievably deleted. So data could get copied and then deleted, to make sure it does not hinder YOUR storage. I wonder if they will charge you to hand the data back? Just a thought.

Risks of XML
I admit, this is the hardest one for me. It is not always easy to put your finger on XML, its usage is too widespread, in the 90’s it was never an issue, more of a fab for some. Yet, 3rd party APIs could be compromised and leveraged to attack other API services. Attacks such as SQL injection, XML External Entity injection, and more, should be considered when handling data from other APIs. This part tends to be tedious but essential. It is time consuming ground work, but it must be done. 

APl incompetence
This is harder for me, I have a massive lack of knowledge here, it is specific niche knowledge that the experts have, yet it amounts to the ability to have a fault-tolerant system. Consider that in the 90’s there was accounting software. If I used a specific expression, the program would crash. No biggie you would think, but at that point I ended being in THAT system, now completely open with supervisor privileges. I had access to the entire mainframe with access to everything. This was a specific setting that was solved 3 weeks later. But what happened when it was not found? Consider that your system is open to anyone that employs such a solution and they get access to everything including the porn pics of your wife and your data. I am willing to bet that option one was a lot more upsetting to you, weird that.

Lack of security
You would think that this is covered, but it is not. Akamai (a US cybersecurity firm) reported “Of note, fewer than 50% of respondents have API security testing tools in place. Even fewer have deployed API discovery tools. Although the survey results suggest enterprises recognise the security risks of widespread API usage, there is no clear consensus on where to prioritise investments”, this matters. Security should be everything when it is about your house and your data. 

This is all mere top-line header consideration. So consider the intro I reacted to and the lack of risks that it shows. So how much risk are you willing to take with your house and your data? If I was inclined to be that short sighted in promoting ‘digital potential’ I would have gone with “APIs are not required, but if you consider and adhere to the risks in a proper way, they are the safest way to connect and explore digital potential. Any eco-system has risks, which is why we designed IBSuite to be a safety first option in exploring the digital oceans for revenue you cannot see now, but to get there in a digitally safe way, one that keeps your data YOURS.” Is it as good? Perhaps not, but it instills value that you as a customer and the data YOU have is used for safe navigation and that matters.

This was a functional boat once, they chose the wrong anchor and in the wrong place that cost them their livelihood. What will you do? Look deeper, look better, look elsewhere? All good questions and it all started by understanding the risks of an API because everything has a risk, not looking at it implies you are taking too many risks with something you can only lose once. 

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June 24, 2023 · 10:11

Path of a slippery slope

We all have that at times and this time it is me on that slippery slope. You see I made reference to the loss that Facebook would be facing, and yesterday I decided to dig deeper into that. You see, I have nothing against Facebook (or Meta), I am not after their channels. Yet my new design will give a larger stage and it will cost Facebook 10%-15% (a rough estimate), I doubt it will go beyond that, and if it does, it will not be for many years. Still according to the numbers I am finding (2022), that would mean a loss of $11-$17 billion to Facebook and there is no other side to that. It will not become my revenue (the revenue of my IP). It will trickle down to me to a small degree at some point and I was contemplating how I could enlarge that trickle effect. But I am deciding against it, because it will impact the bottom line which implies that the negative effect is a lot larger than the positive effect. And as I was looking deeper, I saw that the other branch has additional positive effects. Not more money (perhaps over time), but it sets the stage that the revenue of stage one will be met quicker, which is absolutely good. It is the third branch that has a few items, no negative sides, but I have been looking into getting a more positive impact, positive revenue stream sided. Still there is time for that and perhaps as the third branch is executed, more options become available. In the first I am looking into the option of the Tomes that are connected. There is a stream coming there and it is positive, but there are no numbers, no numbers from any reliable source that would give me this stage to be considered quicker. 

As such there are more sides to consider, especially as Facebook is coming with its own Twitter, there is nothing realistic yet, but I have been considering on how this could be accessed. As Twitter is playing games, I see no real benefit at present, but Facebook has other goals and there more options could evolve. 

Still I am on a slippery slope. I was feeling content and safe when it was all about the IP, as such I am not focussing on the revenue streams (other then a return on investment). You see, here we get Microsoft (who is not allowed near my IP). They are a 5 time loser. The first was their Tablet approach (that Surface thingamajig), which is nowhere near Apple, not even a dent in their revenue stream. This was their first loss. Then they lost their cloud solution to Amazon (that bookshop) which is loss number two, then they lost the console war to both Sony and Nintendo. This beckons the laughter that the strongest console in the world lost to the weakest of them all. That gives us loss number three. They are losing market share to both Apple and Adobe in their core office setting which is loss number four and the streaming war they will definitely lose it to whomever ends up with my IP. And in addition to that, they will lose to Amazon for sure and they will lose to whatever Tencent Technology will bring and they are likely to lose to Apple Arcade (I do not know enough of that solution) as well. This makes Microsoft a loser five times over and as such the implosion of Microsoft is still on for 2026. Which after all those billions invested in keeping Sony smaller is just hilarious on many sides. These elements matter because it places my IP in a premium spot. The idea that I have the ammunition that boots Microsoft in the ass makes me happy, no matter how little I get for it. Still, I need to focus. You see, getting overly happy on one side is not good. I require a critical mind to consider what could be done in three stages.

The first is what I must have (Unreal Engine 5)
The second is what I should have (a clear population with a mission statement)
The third is nice to have (A Foxtrot Uniform to Microsoft and optional additional revenue streams to moi)

These three streams are always considered in the short term, medium term and long term. Americans hate long term, the often lack focus and vision. Yet the long term is always important. It matters towards whatever mission statement you cloak yourself in and how you present the solution. It matters a great deal. Only spreadsheet users focus on the next quarter, but it is not about the next year, it is about the next three years (at least) and that is how I saw that Amazon and Google were leaving billions on the floor (Google more than Amazon). It is a realisation on where one could be heading where the real profit is, because the bulk of all revenue seekers are focussed on the next quarter (where their bonus is). And because of that they leave larger revenue options untouched. Feel free to oppose me on that, but when you do, look at your boss and their bosses on where they are focussed on. It is always a next quarter stage and you tend to lose a lot of revenue that way. Even now we see all the tech companies and places like LinkedIn shedding hundreds of jobs, all whilst a place like LinkedIn had options, they had in their niche options to diversify and keep to their niche. Others are in a similar stage, and when we realise that, other can have a go at finding their option. You see when you the delimitation of a corporation (that next quarter thing) your options open up, not merely mine. All those willing to dream and design past a next quarter will have options they never considered before and that is when you see the meadow with lost revenues. A meadow that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Meta, Salesforce, and several others. They are all shedding jobs and perhaps for them it is a valid setting, but that also means that they aren’t able to make critical adjustments when people are needed and that is where the visionary comes in. I was lucky that my IP started well before they shedded jobs. I was in a pristine place where no one was looking and I have that advantage now, an advantage that will not last. I get that. But for now they aren’t seeing what I am and with the tens of thousands of jobs gone, the manpower to seek around is also faltering for them (which is good for me). Still I know I am on a slippery slope. There are elements that I am most likely to overlook and I do not know which ones (because if I knew, I wouldn’t be overlooking them). 

Still it is a nice weekend for now, I will see what tomorrow brings. Time is not one element one tries to anticipate, it is too tiring an exercise and you tend to overlook more and more elements, they say a stitch in time saves nine, but for the most you tend to live on borrowed time instead of enjoying life and that is a big no no in my book.

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June 9, 2023 · 10:53

That same stuff

That was the first thing I considered when I was reading some story about recruiters. The same thing we have seen for decades. Interrogations, not an interview. Fake promises (experienced that myself) and forever the need to collect as many resumes as possible. It is the old way and covid changed ways, yet it seems that recruiters are in the dark on what they need to do. Like taximeters, trying to get to the next ‘cling’ on the timeline.

And then the largest failing of any recruiter. No communication at all. It is like sending a ship in a bottle into a bottomless pit, never to be heard from again. This is exactly why recruiters have lost well over 90% of credibility of whomever they had contact with. I have (to the best of my knowledge) never had any feedback from a recruiter and over a decade only one has ever arranged an interview. I didn’t get that job, but when I saw the scope of what they needed, they would take someone more experienced. So no hard feelings. One in 10 years. 

Recruiters need to alter their scope, their vision and their approach. Yet as far as I can tell there is no chance of that happening. To be honest, I saw one interesting approach last week. One recruiter (or firm) set the advertisement with the line ‘Would you like to be a millionaire in 2023?’ OK, this might be largely fake, but it would catch anyones eye. And an eye catcher is good, but the rest still matters. And in the past LinkedIn was the one place to go, but it seems that they are taking a page out of the approach that Seek had been making. Job notifications are merely advertisement space and that is how it feels. I might be wrong, but for that the job posters would have to communicate. In this the problem is that my setting is that I have had less than 2% response to my application with 60% of those being “We have received your application” the rest were right out rejections, but that is fair. At least you know where you are at that point. 

Still in Australia in a place where ageism is key, I would think that the people who have the decades of experience are learning. We see messages like “Australia’s skills shortage shows no signs of improving as the latest job reports point to gaps in industries” are abundant, and this was less than 3 months ago. Yet the cold shoulder approach that recruiters give are no sign that there is any work shortage and as stated the thousands of jobs that places like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Google had shed are decent proof of that.  

As such, I am also looking international. Yet at my age that is a dubious approach to take. On the upside, if a firm is large enough and they require me to also man a desk in an international office, that might not be the worst idea to consider. I am still hoping that places like Google and Amazon pen their eyes to the fact that they left billions on the floor, but hey, we can all wish that someone opens their eyes, can’t we?

What is getting clear is that the 90’s approach to recruiting is no longer working and it hasn’t worked for some time. As I personally see it, recruiters are the Direct Marketers of a world that is guiding their postal box straight to the circular filing system. But that might just be me.

For me I am silently enjoying last night’s dream. I was in the Dubai Mall and a baby Cheetah (yes those fast cats) jumped on my lap as I was sitting on a bench, the little rascal curled up and fell asleep. I reckon the holy grail for any cat lover. I woke up with quite the smile on my face.

Enjoy today day, the next weekend is now within reach.

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March 15, 2023 · 22:13

Remembering things

This started when LinkedIn was the source of a question. I suddenly remembered another setting, I wrote about it (when is not important), it was around a year ago, but the part that matters is that this was something Adobe could have used in a number of ways (especially when it decreases the impact of Microsoft). The idea was… let’s start at the beginning.

Above you see the question that shook my mind.

Now take a look below.

Now we see a simple setting towards a project. There is some version control and perhaps Adobe upgraded that part, but too often we see people howl with despair when their version control gives out. USB and Laptop issues are the most common issues, but they are not alone and some go with cloud solutions, yet there are times when connections are lousy, there are cloud security issues, thee have always been cloud security issues and some have more than others, the latter side is that some people tend to rely on local versions, that is fine. Now consider the addition of blockchain to a project file. A file that keeps track of all versions and optionally with Adobe we see actions as well in each version. So now the initial question becomes a mere exercise. A project that gathers the versions and optionally puts them in one place. In this I still like the old DEC (Digital Engineering Corporation) who had VAX/VMS, in the late 80’s they already had version control. At the end of EVERY file there was “;xx” the x’s were a number, as such we could have 99 files called image.jpg. It would take decades for other systems to catch up, DEC was ahead of its time. Now this solution will no longer do and we need to seek alternatives, so how about an alternative use of Blockchain? OR a Blockchain like solution? In a previous article I took that to a whole new level, but that was then and this is now. It was a question that got pushed back to the front of my mind. 

I wonder if anyone else is on that bus ride. Have a great day and please stop crashing drones, they might only be $700K, but it is a waste of good material.

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March 9, 2023 · 21:11

Afford versus Effort

They are apart, but not in the mind of some. You see the old expression “You get an A for effort” got corrupted. I reckon it started after the 90’s when effort was no longer the main dish. It became not what we can do, but what we can afford so that the fat cats can get their bonus, whilst meeting all other obligations. It wasn’t wholly unexpected. I had spoken to some McDonalds people in the Netherlands in the 80’s. They told be about meeting expectations and not overrun it past the 100%, merely meet the expectations of their bosses. Do not be the ‘surprise’ no one sees coming. At the time it was an utter alien thought. I did not catch on to that exercise until mid 90’s. It was weird. You were hired to do your best, but that became you are to do your best as THEY expect you can be a nothing more. I touched on this slightly whilst writing ‘It was one keyword’ 5 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/04/it-was-one-keyword/). This must have stuck in the back of my mind, because it came out yesterday with a vengeance. Two things bubbled up. One reflects on LinkedIn and Facebook. They have (for the most) been all about the quantity and not the quality of stuff. They will give you some runaround on complexity (with loads of yada yada yada), but the foundation is that this was out there years ago. I never mentioned it before as I was designing IP to meltdown Iranian (and Russian) nuclear reactors. I did find a solution with the use of a snow globe (how is that for effort?) But the larger stage is not that, it was the story from some girl with a huge smile telling us how people died. That is how it reflects because that is how her profile picture was set. Big smile, no matter what. I do not care that some people can add emoji’s, we can stage ‘emotions’ like they were sad or angry. It would have been so simple to give any person several profile pics, one solemn, one happy (default), one angry and so on. There I a limit, but I reckon that most are covered with less than 9 profile pictures. There are plenty of accounts that have one picture, these are neutral pictures and that is fine. But showing someone how mines impact the human body with a big smile gives the wrong message. And Facebook and LinkedIn could have done something years ago, there is your A for effort right there, no effort because we get some technology babble on how they could not afford it.

This gets me to the second part. The image gives us a mothers day gift. OK, nice, optionally caring, but why? Not giving the gift, I am all for that (even though my mum died almost half a century ago), but see the second image. 

Now consider this a mockup, set to about 4 inches, optionally in merely in greyscales. The edge has the battery, and an option for an micro SD slot. There would be an USB charging option with the more expensive model having some kind of dock. And we include the one cool thing Microsoft did 30 years ago. We get the about screen to give the holder who it was from and what for (like mothers day). The screen could have not merely a calendar, which the simplest UNIX command (cal), but we could add a dot around important dates, like birthday’s mothers day, fathers day anniversary days and so on. The LCD has a clock option so that they can place it anywhere where they need time and optionally showing images, like pictures. And yes the colour version would be more expensive but that is on the buyer. So why are we looking at some acrylic heart that is reduced to a paperweight within a year? It is a nice gift and the emotion behind it is most likely real, but giving something that has long term impact, is that realisation wrong? Is that now beyond achieving? Why is that? This setting came to me in mere seconds, so why isn’t a player like Amazon all over that? They have pretty much all the technology required, the digital transparent LCD clock is decades old. No one took that for a ride to the next generation? 

That is what shows effort versus afford. We forgot to go all the way, we forgot to take the train to the station past the last station. Technology is cheaper and gets to be cheaper still. In 2005 I bought a 2GB card for my camera for $850. Now that same card is $8, in less then 20 years. So what about the other technology? We forget that our bosses need us, we don’t need them that much, the Covid era made that clear, so go all in, show your maximum effort and you will soon see that the ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ people will try their luck in Uber or they become barbers. You need to shine and as such you need to make your maximum effort so that you get noticed by the right people, because the greed game is unrelenting, some boss will notice this and they will see YOUR value, something your boss was eager to trivialise for HIS needs.

Just consider that for a moment.

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October 16, 2022 · 22:16

There are many roads leading to Rome

It is an old expression and when I was young I never understood it. It is simple, I grew up in the Netherlands. For us it was take the road that leads to the E35, which takes you to Rome. Those in Belgium and Germany had a similar direction. Of course that is not the explanation of the expression, but I was 7 at the time, there was time to learn. And for the most I learned how to learn, so I ended up with two benefits. One, the road to the best Pizza and two a manifest on how to learn. So when I saw the BBC article ‘Office time is not for video calls, says tech boss’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63217973) I was taken aback a little. You see, there are many roads on how to manage a workforce and some marketing firms learned through Covid, that a home founded workforce is efficient, terribly efficient. It also reduces the bottleneck of networks. It might not be enough, but in some cases it is enough to keep the workforce. Also the corporations with a high turnover saw a turnover reduction, not a big one, but large enough. I myself prefers to work in an office. I prefer my home and work to remain separate. That is easily explained. I am for the mot a workaholic. Work comes first and it has done so for decades. To go home is on one side to take the pressure off, on the other side to see if there I anything else that can relax me. So when I see “But being in the office should be an opportunity to do things that cannot be done at home, argues Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive. Sitting at a desk with headphones on is not one of them, he says.” But sitting in your office with a headset (or plugs) listening to music as you work is? I am not opposing his view, because there is merit in his view, but for a lot of companies so is the homework or hybrid setting. I am not one of those, but plenty are. He is a friend of “He champions Amazon’s idea, introduced by Jeff Bezos, where each attendee reads a six-page memo at the start of a meeting as a briefing note, rather than sitting through PowerPoint presentations.” OK, fair enough but not unlike Google, they too left $500 million a month on the floor, so there is improvement available all over the field. I do like the approach as I have an active dislike of meeting PowerPoints. There are plenty of times when this works, but the size of the group where it does not is steadily rising. 

There is a growing need to adjust the workforce. I see a weird traverse of approaches on an international level to find workers and I see the flood on LinkedIn on how great they are instead of properly informing who they are and what they do. A social approach on steroids and they fail to see the point, but it is equally possible that I fail to see their point. I get that, but it is the workaholic in me that take that point of view. And when you filter out the fortune cookie marketing in LinkedIn, how much value do you get? I see offices where video calls are not merely the workforce, it is also the office meetings. Instead of 8 people vacating to a big office, they sit in their offices, at their desks listening to meetings and that is the weird part. It seems that in these meetings people are more intent on listening, the responses are seemingly more clever, but I could be wrong. And this was part of the settings whilst I was contemplating a few new versions of older games, I contemplated what could be possible to take that into a game. Yet I was cautious. You see that as the narrated stage of a game called System Shock. A great game that is (as far as I know) still upgraded to todays gameplay. The game (through videos, messages and voice) give us the backstories on several floors between all kinds of people giving us a setting of what was going on when things were going wrong. I miss that game, it was so close to perfect and its successor (System Shock 2) was equally overwhelmingly as addictive. This too gave me pause to consider. You see when you think back on the original planet of the apes (with Charlton Heston), the idea of a survival game in that setting is interesting, but a game that follows the movie, without copying it is equally appealing. Having a new IP is intriguing, although a week before Gotham Knights not the most illuminating one. And these issues all strike back to the office. All these thoughts take a backseat to office work. In the office it is about work and at home (or anywhere else) the other thoughts come to the foreground, they always do and a hybrid setting is caging off those thoughts, or allowing them to be everywhere and that is how blunders are made. I get that and I was young once (nudge nudge wink wink). We all have things that occupy the brain and it happens. Consider working next to a bakery with fresh cheese rolls being baked every other hour. It doesn’t happen too often, but it happens and now you are working at home metres away from the warm stove making muffins, rolls and all other goods. How long until the homework is driven by rolls, hotdogs and icy cold beer? What we separated for decades (some merely years) does not stop the brain. We still have a load of lessons to learn and until we can shut off work or shut off the home in the brain, we will get issues, we all will. So I have issues with the BBC article, but nothing wrong is stated or presumed. We are all individuals and I believe that I where Stewart Butterfield failed. He had his point of view, which I consider valid, but there are many roads that lead to Rome and there are solutions there too we all need to realise that part of the equation.

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September 26, 2022 · 19:27

You forgot something!

As was looking at a few matters, Reuters gives us an article (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-says-shared-network-costs-is-10-year-old-idea-bad-consumers-2022-09-26/). The article named ‘Google says shared network costs is 10-year-old idea, bad for consumers’, it seems fair from a distance, but it is not. You see the smaller detail is seen in “a push by European telecoms operators to get Big Tech to help fund network cost”, so first we get misinformation, mistreatment and mismanagement form players like Orange, Vodafone, KPN, BEN, Deutsche Telekom and several others. And not THEY want big tech to pay for their stupidity? You have got to be effing kidding me. And as stated, it is a 10 year old idea, as such we see another stage where the European Commission shows itself to be useless, lacking creativity and a mere populous that enjoys the gravy train and gives and produces nothing of value. It seems harsh, but this setting was clear from 2009 onwards when we saw the gaps all over Europe and now that 5G is becoming more and more important, the mobile players in Europe are onestep short of becoming useless and pointless and when Elon Musk’s Star-thingamajig becomes active, these players are done for. So when we see “Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and other big operators have long complained about tech rivals free-riding on their networks, saying that they use a huge part of internet traffic and should contribute financially.” And my issue here, is it really free-riding? I have a certain bandwidth, it is used for Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and a few other parts. I PAY FOR THIS AS DO OTHERS! So how is Google Free-riding? How are other big-tech free-riding? Will we get a clear explanation for that? The article also gives us “Google, owner of YouTube, has done its part to make it more efficient for telecoms providers by carrying traffic 99% of the way and investing millions of euros to do so” and there is also the part that I am willing to accept that they did these investments for selfish reasons, but that is not against the law, is it? I reckon the moment Google makes a deal with Elon Musk and we can all ‘freely’ use that network these telecom companies will cry like little chihuahua’s, the los of data they were capturing will end a few matters and that is not what we see here, are we?

Matt Brittin, president of EMEA business & operations at Google also gives us “In 2021, we invested over 23 billion euros in capital expenditure – much of which is infrastructure,” OK, fair, but I still believe that this was slightly selfish for Google business anchoring. I am not complaining and neither are many others, but that is part of the setting, the Telecom companies are realising that they are about to go the way of the Dodo (like newspapers last year) and now they cry and they require the European gravy train to fix their shortfall, their shortcomings and their lack of innovation. And they are losing more, if Saudi Arabia buys my IP, the evidence will put them in prime position to get my 5G as well and then the market changes even further. It makes sense, as Neom was the inspiration for it, should they not enjoy the benefit? 

It is at that point the clown comes to play. We see that with “EU digital chief Margrethe Vestager urging them to ensure that companies generating the largest traffic on network infrastructure should contribute in a fair and proportionate manner to the costs.” And exactly why to I make the clown reference? You see, most of the traffic is generated by USERS, by PEOPLE who want to know things and most of them seek it on Google, these PEOPLE PAY for that bandwidth, so let hope the clowns in Strasbourg wake up and smell the waterlilies. The generation is made by PEOPLE and they paid for that right, the rest is not on Google, but I reckon that Margrethe Vestager is part of the gravy train that needs to satisfy the needs of the exploitative telecom companies. And is it not strange that the people who paid for this service now see that Google must pay for this? I am certainly surprised, aren’t you?

But that is the shortsightedness of politicians for you.

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May 18, 2021 · 11:04

When is a job not a job?

This is not a farce or a joke, it is a serious question. So at what point have you seen a customer service role, paid $400K a year with the following:

– You will receive an email with a link to start your self-paced, online job application.
– Our hiring platform will guide you through a series of online “screening” assessments to check for basic job fit, job-related skills, and finally a few real-world job-specific assignments.
– You will be paired up with one of our recruiting specialists who can answer questions you might have about the process, role, or company, and help you get to the final interview step.

This is my view of a really silly approach to data collecting!

We get more when we seek deeper quotes like “(name redacted) has turned down high profile tech roles in Europe, preferring to be near his family in Egypt. Crossover enables him to work remotely as a Senior Software Engineer for Trilogy – a role in which he gets to learn new things every day” and it is all possible via a place in Austin Texas (a big city in the USA).

So it took less than 2 minutes to find ‘This company is a scam. Become your own contractor’ This was one source, there were more, the larger stage is found (at https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/Employee-Review-Crossover-for-Work-RVW11216098.htm). 

Now, normally I do not give a fig, I really do not care who they entangle and how they go about it, but in today’s market to find these so called ‘scams’ going on in places like LikedIn is a larger concern. And to make matters worse, they now have over 2.8 MILLION followers. When places like LinkedIn and Indeed cannot keep their offer database clean, the actual people desperately looking for a job will not ever succeed. Places like Australia have to deal with age discrimination for too much, getting data clowns thrown in the mix does not help and the pot of where to find decent and real jobs is getting slimmer. You see, there are all these people that claim that SEEK is the real deal, but consider that they have (today) 9,761 technical support jobs and 484 UNIX jobs in ONE metropolitan area, do you think that adds up? I can give you a guarantee that it does not, I used SEEK in 2012-2014 and I got ZERO returns, not one job was real, they were all recruiters gathering resumes, a fail rate of 100%, pretty impressive is it not?

As I see it, when these ‘providers’, who came in from nothing and offer a decent service, they need to make sure that their service is clean, if not their value goes straight into the basement and it has larger repercussions. So when I see messages that they cannot find people with Digital experience and some people have been applying for years, I merely giggle. One is not looking in the right place (the one who cannot find applicants), they all claim to be in a global economy and they see “Today’s top 1000+ And Digital jobs in Saffron Walden, England, United Kingdom” someone is clearly losing the plot and it is not me, it really is not. For me that part lighted up as my great grandfather came from Saffron Walden and for the viewers, see the image below. Do you really think that place has 1000 jobs to offer?

Saffron Walden

So when is a job offer not a job offer? As I see it when it is a ruse, a scam or mere data (CV) collection. That is my view on the matter. 

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June 16, 2020 · 01:34

Donkey Balls!

The explanation is actually almost too simple, I am writing this whilst I am rewatching the Expanse on Bluray (thanks to the awesome sale JB Hifi had 3 weeks ago). I was watching and browsing whilst I got exposed to ‘Media rules must help news providers harness digital platforms’ value’, the link was on LinkedIn and came from Facebook. I do not disagree with the setting, but the entire issue is much larger and has traps on a few levels. That issue is a little less complicated when we consider the news on the daily mail where we see ‘Top Facebook exec says it DID help Donald Trump win but only because ‘he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen. Period.’ And NOT because of Russia’, the claim was apparantly made by Andrew Bosworth and it was in the Daily Mail on January 8th. It is not the claim that is the issue, it is the linked advertisements that the viewer gets. I ended up with advertisements by Telstra and Microsoft. Now, there was nothing wrong with that, yet if I had not clicked on the story, the advertisements would not have come. That is the issue, even newsmakers need to rely on clicks and there is the first issue. Basically the (short) story has the following 2nd headlines:

  • Andrew Bosworth is a longtime senior Facebook executive and confidant of Mark Zuckerberg
  • Bosworth wrote a 2,500 word memo shared internally with Facebook employees that was published on December 30
  • He claimed the Cambridge Analytica scandal was a ‘non-event’ and admitted the Russians did manipulate the U.S. election
  • Bosworth also essentially branded criticism of the company as fake news because the press ‘often gets so many details wrong’ 
  • The memo was initially leaked to the New York Times on Tuesday before the top executive published it in full on his public Facebook account 

5 times to get the clicks, 5 times to get advertisements and the news channels are in the setting to get CLICKS, making the quality of news debatable and there is the larger issue. When the news becomes a commercial vessel, how can it be trusted?

SO when I looked at the news (according to the Sydney Morning Herald) we get: “It would allow news publishers and digital platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial arrangements, and support the development of a Digital News Council to advance cross-industry collaboration. It would also encourage more transparency for significant changes to the ranking of news content in News Feed and guarantee to publishers we’ll continue to share measurement data on how their content performs on Facebook as well as insights on their audiences, without sharing personal user information.” Here I see that there are optional ‘agreements’ on the sharing of revenue (which I do not debate, or wonder whether that is wrong), yet I do wonder about who has the stronger pull. Revenue based decisions, or news quality decisions and the ambiguity of it deepens the innate mistrust in me and the mistrust of the optional news that it breeds. So the quote “It would allow news publishers and digital platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial arrangements” sets the steps for commercially inclined news, not neutral based and news baked news. It ends up not getting the clicks and that is the larger problem. The digital problem is that there needs to be space for news to set the parameters, yet the click is what gets the revenue and they tend to be on opposite sides of coins of different currency. Better stated was the Expanse response, which was ‘It really is Donkey balls’, the settings a larger one and those relying on click based revenue would not be interested in slaughtering the goose with the golden egg and I get that. But we need to move the news into another stage of the media, now making it revenue based, all whilst those participating should require to pay these newsagents something, it was their material used.

So whether we accept that the previous elections used a much better digital profile, we need to take the news out of it, and give them their own digital channel, not set to a click based system. It requires new levels of innovation on digital media and we all better accept that fast. 

What is the solution?

I actually do not know, but in part it will be creating awareness with the people, they need to realise that they are part of that problem, they are the inquisitive types and usually that is not a problem, yet the push the click based activities forward and at the point they become part of the problem. As I see it, the news might be part of social media, yet they should not be part of the click based equation and until the news starts realising that, as well as the fact that their shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers are part of the problem and not part of the solution, this issue will continue.

So those who have seen the Expanse season three and know that the initial weapon was something more might realise that in the digital media that click is the something more towards a weapon, all thanks to the shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers. We need a much larger change and until cash is taken out of the equation it cannot continue, yet that too is a dicey position, because the news has every right to cash in on materials they created. We cannot ignore that part of the equation.

 

 

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