Some companies work on reducing the size of it so manufacturers will be able to put it inside the car behind the mirror. Innoviz is one example https://techtime.news/2025/11/14/innoviz-27/
But china is safe and clean and nice, so it might be worth it. Anyway we got no privacy anymore, cameras are everywhere and we all captured on someone hard disk, so might as well take advantage of the benefits that comes with this technology
The problem is that in the west green energy became a religion while in China it was just a practical solution when it made sense. They didn't have a problem to build a coal based facility or a sun based facility, depends on the needs and cost. Now that green energy makes more sense, naturally they ustilise more of it. In the west though it was all about doom's day predictions, culture wars and cancelations. So it all became a religion war rather than a mere technical consideration.
The wealthy conservatives I know have (government-subsidized) solar installed on their second homes and cabins. They install it the second it makes financial sense.
I don't see anything wrong with what they did, they basically got admin accounts so they can peak into the system and used some libraries from github. What is the problem here? Got a feeling it is just politically motivated, people are not happy that the Trump administration is actually doing something to make systems more efficient and stop money waste of tax payers. I am sure they will make some mistakes along the way and I am sure not every "saving" is actually saving but when you look at so many systems and so much money some errors are expected.
Why those funds were allocated to their ops and not equally to everybody? If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it.
> If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it.
Is there? I feel like there are many cases where this is not true. Supporting disenfranchised groups for one. If you are funding protection for a group of people you don't need to be funding their attackers as well to make it "fair", the funding of the disenfranchised groups is literally you putting your thumb on the scale to try and even things out.
"one side of the political spectrum" is pretty loaded and it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If we are talking about "funding democrats" then sure, that's not good but if we are talking about "funding women's health" then no, I'm not going to play "both sides" games. The sad thing is we live in a country where a large number of people think that "funding women's health" _is_ "serving only one side of the political spectrum".
Unfortunately we're also talking about funding so our rivers aren't on fire. We don't have to speculate on what is left and right because even what is purely sensical is being completely dismantled. People should be fucking outraged but half the country thinks the EPA is "woke." We're genuinely fucked.
Certainly food and cars is not more expensive than most European countries. Health insurance is also not that much expensive, it is only the way you pay it which in Europe is by tax. There is the issue of not being covered if you don't have a job but that's has nothing to do with price. The US is one of the cheapest countries in the world with pretty decent salaries and endless variation in house prices, there also always cheaper cities or alternative states. Try that in Europe or Australia or Canada, good luck.
Hardly any war is symmetric, even when it is in a large sense there are differences in various theaters and specific battle situations. Sometimes you just need both as we can see in Israel which have every technology possible and yet wants to buy more Apache helicopters and Vulcans for air defence, two technologies they thought they will not need anymore
Japan is genius when it comes to implementing those simple things that kids like. Like putting little shallow water areas in playground, all kind of mechanical things and variety of playgrounds from all types dotted all over the city, some would considered to be "dangerous" in the west. There are ones where kids can even light fires and play with working tools or cook. There are theme parks all based on various playgrounds without any electricity driven rides. You can also stamp a special kids book in train stations and even places where kids can act play in various adult "jobs" like cashier or mechanic or whatever. My kids had so much fun at those places, much more than in Disney, although they enjoyed it too.
The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months. For years companies didn't adjust salaries in accordance to inflation and the cost of outsourcing kids care and house care, all that while keeping interest rate low and bailing rich bankers with printing of money. This caused funneling of wealth from the workers to asset holders which increased house and stock prices rather than creating new actual wealth or GDP per capita while destroying almost every class of society except the 1 percenters who became richer. It is about time the system will balance itself otherwise the western world will go back to de facto feudalism.
Isn't this kind of proving the point of RTO from the company's point of view? If you're taking care of your child and doing housework instead of working?
Who cares if you do the job? I have much higher efficency at home compared to office. No distractions, no wasted time communiting. I can organize myself better too. If I need to take a break, I do it and then I do job later, still keeping 8h of work, just splited.
The problem is how you are accounted for doing work. By tasks or by time spent in office... I saw people in office doing nothing, just talks on kitchen or answering emails.. When asked about tasks.. Im working hard sir.. heh.
Its a bit complicated matter, because when you are more efficient, boss usually will attach new tasks so you have to work harder or be even more efficient. And those who are less efficient dont get new tasks.. Not smart..
Thats the idealistic point of view, but management will always wrangle themselves out of it.
"Why aren't you efficient at the office? We've optimized it for efficiency" or "Okay well we'll budget in making you more efficient in office so that you're even more productive here".
Another could be the argument that you need to be highly available during core hours, you shouldn't potentially not be available during the core 8 hour work day of your location, and the best way to force that is you being visible in office by management.
The root of the issue is we value our time, and commuting is basically a loss of time and is not compensated. If we don't make enough money when commuting to make up for how much we value that time, we're losing. Most of us are comparing our salaries to what we used to make before this was the norm, and its not that different from before. So when going back to the "norm" we are losing part of what we consider our compensation packate -> more free time.
I guess it depends on the kind of work. But are there people who really spend all their time in the office continually doing work?
I spend some time pottering about and doing chores during the workday when I wfh. But I also spend lots of time goofing off while at the office. The difference is that while at the office, I have to be constantly vigilant about how I'm perceived by others, so time spend goofing off isn't nearly as rejuvenating and reinvigorating as it would have been at home.
Isn't it pretty normal to only have a few hours of real-work capability per day?
Right, but how much work is done when in the office. You might have the same amount of downtime in the office than at home, but now that down time can't be spent doing something else.
It would be if people were hourly. But devs are all salary so hours should not matter and besides Amazon generally wants more then 40hrs of work anyway
> The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months
You are also not using the office, not commute and pollute.
Companies also put workers through the stress of working in inadequate workplaces - open plane offices to cram as many workers per square feet, like caged hens.
System will not balance itself, as people are just few missing pay checks from being homeless, so nobody is going to risk going against their master, sorry employer.
It will also not come from the government as these are as corrupt as they get.
The system will simply collapse at some point. Most likely the rich will be "hanged" and the cycle will start over.
I can get up early and work an hour, then get the kids ready for school, then work five hours, then take them to my sister's place after school, then work two hours, then have dinner and read them stories before bed, then work another hour.
Can't do that from an office with an hour commute each way.
Ideally we should should hold employees to the work they produce but I still cringe a little when someone calls into a meeting because they had to run an errand. I want management to believe wfh isn't being abused. It's exclusively about the optics. The lack of interruptions is a net positive.
If we miss a deadline, it makes it easy for management to start blaming people not being at their desk. We shouldn't be giving them ammo
Depends on the age of the child. A 10 year old is old enough to be at the house without direct supervision but not be left alone. They would need to go to a daycare if someone were in an office.
The easy argument to this by management is that you shouldn't be taking care of your kids and doing housework while working in the first place. Another argument could be that it punishes those who don't have kids yet or don't want them unfairly working more than those who do.
You can't use the argument of "being able to do things other than work" as an argument because its easily trumped. The best arguments are those having to do with lost time and increased stress due to commuting. Being able to more quickly transition to housework and looking after kids, or just being closer to them in general during your breaks/lunches, etc. You are losing time which is in itself compensation by being forced go to an office for a job that shouldn't necessitate it.
Another is health benefits: more easy access to preparing food at home. Less stress as mentioned. Easier to go to a gym or workout at home. etc.
Yep, working from home is easily 25%+ of my compensation and it doesn't cost the company a dime. I'm shocked executives aren't over the moon that there's a zero dollar perk they can give that's worth significant amounts of money to people.
Surely it's negative cost unless they're still maintaining an empty but fully furnished office building large enough for all employees to work from full time.
Right, but the reason this theory doesn't make sense is because why would the executives of another company give a shit? How would they induce a bunch of tenants to RTO on their behalf?
The company I used to work for was aggressively not renewing leases that they no longer needed given lower office occupancy. I have no doubt that companies trying to force people back into offices have some pretty silly reasons for doing so (including pressure from local governments) but the idea it's all about execs propping up commercial real estate seriously makes no sense even if it satisfies some conspiracy theory impulse.
If someone is paying for rent in a building, then the value does not lower just because nobody is actually using the space. The landlord has a tenant that continues to pay rent at market rate. That's the end of the story as far as the property value goes down. At least for the companies that rent their space. For companies that own their land and buildings, that's another thing, but again, the value is not set based on how many people are working there.
> If someone is paying for rent in a building, then the value does not lower just because nobody is actually using the space.
If company cannot fill the office, it will be looking at downsizing and breaking the lease. If there are many companies like this, then landlord may not find a new tenant at existing rate and they'll either have to lower the rate or sit with empty property. If they have mortgage on it, it is a tough cookie to swallow.
It's similar story for companies who own the buildings. It becomes an asset that is losing value.
Luckily if you're a commercial tenant that's not your problem. My $dayjob actually owns our office and is in the process of selling it. They lined up a buyer in less than a month so it seems there's still plenty of demand.
We are talking about Amazon engineers here. They are in the top 3% of earners, I don't think we need to cry too many tears about them going back to the office.
If people had some sort of class solidarity, then yes. But instead everyone is fighting against everyone to get to the top of the "earners" curve, even if it means a less equal society as a whole, and people seem fine with it. It's a cultural issue that has persisted in the country for a very long time.
Wage earners are working class. You are using "top 3%" as an excuse to c*p on them. This is the crabs in the bucket mentality that the rich want to cultivate amongst working class, so they pull each other down and help maximise profits.
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