Open mike 27/12/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 27th, 2019 - 26 comments
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26 comments on “Open mike 27/12/2019 ”

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  1. A 1
    27 December 2019 at 8:35 am

    I'm glad Tim won his case.

    During this time workers were told KME was "still consulting" with employees, that it could introduce the policy under its employment agreement and the system provider, Timecloud, could amend or update the policy "with or without notice to users".

    Fensom raised his concerns about the system in an email to Lane on October 11, telling his employer that

    he was disappointed by KME's lack of communication about its reasons for changing the system. He said he was not comfortable using it.

    Monitoring time-keeping and any emergency evacuation of the site could be achieved by a swipe card which was "less invasive", Fensom said.

    Lane told him workers had been given an opportunity to have their concerns addressed over the previous two months and the system was going to be implemented in mid-October.

    Fensom was on a two week holiday while the system was being rolled out.

    When he returned on October 29, Fensom declined to use the face scanner, and instead signed in on a paper timesheet and carried on with his day.

    That day Fensom was given a formal warning letter for not following KME's health and safety policies.

    ​The next day when he refused again, Fensom was fired for serious misconduct.

    Problem is the ruling is more around procedure of dismissal than being forced to use face scanning tech, with a disturbing flexibility around policy.

    • RedBaronCv 1.1
      27 December 2019 at 11:26 am

      Data privacy for employees from their employer is something that should be on the radar of this government and included as part of work conditions. To allow employers to collect biometric data and pass it on to third parties to do what they want to without consent joins the list of

      signing employees into third party websites to answer questionaires ( again data going where?. )

      wanting personal employees details to reset passwords ( data caches with this information are a hacker magnet)

      posting photo's of employees into various programmes ( email in particular) where there is third party access

      wanting work apps on personal phones

      etc etc

      we need to legislate fast as a lot of this will be scooped into micro targeting. micro targeting used for elections.

      • Sacha 1.1.1
        27 December 2019 at 1:18 pm

        Successive govts refusing to criminalise outright wage theft suggests we will be waiting a long time before they regulate those things.

  2. lprent 2
    27 December 2019 at 12:10 pm

    https://services.metservice.com/towns-cities/invercargill

    Aussie expected to export its weather to New Zealand. Met Service is predicting 27C peak in Invercargill on Tuesday as a big bulge of hot air swirls off the blasted continent. We've been having Auckland winter midday temps down here, as the circum-Antarctica winds have been spreading north (and reversed)…

    I'm afraid to look at the temp in Auckland on Tuesday evening when we return home – probably close to Singapore evening temps I suspect.

    Update: Not so bad – go home to cool down https://services.metservice.com/towns-cities/auckland/auckland-central#!/ten-day

    The weather is being very freaky this year. Partially the SSW affecting the SAM. But also the Indian Ocean Dipole reversal as well.

    More energy in the climate system == more energetic weather effects.

    • Poission 2.2
      27 December 2019 at 12:34 pm

      Expectations (models) suggest strongly that warming of the stratosphere (inverse to GHG) increase the probability of the residence time for a negative SAM .

      https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao_index.html

      The increased chance of transport of both storm belts and increased cloud cover to around 40s was within expectations or to put it another way it has been colder from 40s and the east coast has persistent easterly.

      The SAM is the largest redistribution of atmospheric mass on the planet,and responsible for most of the SH weather regime changes.

      • lprent 2.2.1
        27 December 2019 at 1:57 pm

        Between 30S and 40S on an island in the middle of an ocean with high ground really is the sweet spot.

        I’m family kibitzing at present at 46.4S – moderate weather in summer even with the negative SAM. Has been a bit of crap spring and summer from what I can find out. But way better than where I was two weeks ago.

        I just returned from 51.1N, and apparently it wasn't that bad a winter. Weather depressed the hell out of me. I think I saw the sun a couple of times. First time I have been there. The UK is now the bottom of my list of places to return to.

        Last year I spent much of the year in 1.35N working outside. I got to having the hotel aircond at 27C and even the Auckland summer night high humidity windless stew felt blissfully cool when I got back.

        I'm looking forward to spending more time at 36S. I might freeze my arse off in the workplace aircond (why 22C? – 24C is much nicer) – but I can wear a jersey and a beanie. I might get damp dodging showers biking on the way to and from work – but I have rain radar, overhanging store fronts, a coat, and a short trip.

        Oh well – home soonish.

  3. gsays 3
    27 December 2019 at 12:10 pm

    What struck me was the employer's admission that "Timecloud's real benefits were to reduce time fraud."

    Almost always, a hard truth rather than an easy lie.

    Edit: It’s funny that when a worker does this its called time fraud, but when the owners of capital do it (underpay holiday pay, miscalculated leave entitlements etc), ‘the law is complicated, a system fault, programming error…’

    • gsays 3.1
      27 December 2019 at 12:17 pm

      Sorry Incognito, above meant as a reply to A @ 1.

      • Incognito 3.1.1
        27 December 2019 at 12:22 pm

        Why do you apologise to me?

        Post the comment again, in the intended place, if you wish 🙂

        • Graeme 3.1.1.1
          27 December 2019 at 2:19 pm

          I've noticed a quirk on iPhone (SE, ios 13.3) where the header on Comment panel says "Leave a Reply", with the same header if you are replying to a comment. The only difference is the reply panel has a cancel button above the header, which doesn't seem to do anything.

          On my laptop (Safari 11.1.2) the same panel header is "Leave Comment", but with a Cancel reply button on the right.

          Could be where threads are getting broken.

          [fixed user name 😉 ]

          • lprent 3.1.1.1.1
            27 December 2019 at 2:30 pm

            There are two different themes running on the site. One is for the phones and some tablets. The other is for everything else.

            You’re seeing the differences between the two themes. iPhone does the former and laptop does the latter. I never bothered to make them conform particularly.

            The most likely reason for threads getting broken is that we give people the option to delete their comments for up to 10 minutes after they are made visible. If they do and someone has already left a response, then we get an orphaned reply as their only ‘parent’ comment has slunk away.

            I decided years ago that I couldn’t be bothered fixing this, but that if I saw someone gaming this, then I’d write a patch preventing a delete of the comment for a while, and leave a stub for replies to attach to. Never been enough of a problem to do to date.

          • Incognito 3.1.1.1.2
            27 December 2019 at 2:36 pm

            Different on my laptop (Win10). Each comment has a Reply button to the bottom RH side (unless the thread is too deep) and that will open a/the text editor with a Cancel reply button on the top RH side.

            At the bottom of the post/page you’ll find the default text editor that is already open; it does not have a cancel button but you’ll have 10 min to change your mind about the comment and delete it if you wish (it will be visible during that time).

            Edit: what Lynn said 😉

    • A 3.2
      27 December 2019 at 2:19 pm

      Having looked through Timecloud's website I'd say the most appealing feature would be intergration with multiple payroll systems.

      The system has the option of swipe card, fingerprint or facial scan although it doesn't say if you can have any combo of those three options working together.

  4. lprent 4
    27 December 2019 at 2:13 pm

    A brief reboot. Been 60 days since the last one and the system wants to update kernel and to examine some of the drives.

    • A 4.1
      27 December 2019 at 2:20 pm

      Don't know what that means, but you're awesome.

      • lprent 4.1.1
        27 December 2019 at 2:37 pm

        It means that I was just too lazy or too rushed to do it before I left Auckland last Friday. Probably the former. Because I’d usually do it either after midnight or when I get up early so as not to get grumps from authors or commenters when their comment disappears with the server.

        In the morning case is usually just before I do the zen of the early morning game of Civ6 at 0500 or 0600 while I wait for 0700 when I can make coffee. Mind you that is always I was too lazy to make up a morning thermos the night before.

        55 sq metre apartments mean that you get the morning grump from the bedroom blanket roll complaining when I grind the beans otherwise.

        I am awesomely lazy – I have made a profession out of it. As a programmer it is a valuable skill. You work hard to make sure you don’t have to do the same old crap again and again. But sometimes it causes irritating side-effects in other parts of my life

  5. Johnr 5
    27 December 2019 at 2:13 pm

    Quote I think is worth repeating from my cousins xmas newsletter. She lives in Michigan.

    "I think I'll promote laziness as a lifestyle this year.

    – Smiling uses less energy than scowling

    – It is easier to be kind than raising the energy to be nasty

    – If people did nothing it is probably better for the environment than consuming resources to amass stuff.

    – If nasty people did nothing then there will be less work needed by kind people."

  7. gsays 7
    27 December 2019 at 8:46 pm

    I don't get too excited about e-vehicles normally, this is a cool sounding story.

    autoblog.com/amp/2019/12/26/rivian-r1t-r1s-tank-turn-steer/

    • McFlock 7.1
      27 December 2019 at 10:15 pm

      I like how they kept the bonnet to keep it looking traditional. If there's an engine at each wheel, what to they do with the space – a front trunk like VW beetles?

      Obviously can't have too many revolutionary ideas in a new vehicle lol.