This is how the LNG argument typically goes: if we build up LNG capacity, we can ship it to China who can use it to replace coal burning power plants which emit significantly more CO2 than LNG fired plants do.
That sounds nice — but do we have any_ commitments from China that this would actually happen? Or is it more likely that they’ll just build more LNG capacity on top of their existing coal capacity?
To me, the latter seems more likely than the former.
I certainly wouldn’t run to HR right away — but unfortunately, it’s true sometimes that people just aren’t a good fit for whatever reason. Deadweight that isn’t able to accomplish the tasks that need to be done doesn’t do you any favours — if you’re doing your job and their jobs because they just can’t handle the tasks that’s hardly fair to you, and isn’t doing the organization any good — eventually you’ll burn out, nobody will pickup the slack, and everyone will suffer for it.
My first instinct in your situation however would be that everyone has got used to the status quo, including the staff you have to constantly mentor. Hopefully if you can coach them into doing the work for themselves and keeping them accountable to tasks and completion dates will help change the dynamic.
I’m a tech manager with a 100% remote team of seven employees. We’re a very high performing team overall, and I give minimal hand-holding while still fostering a collaborative working environment.
First off, you need to make outcomes clear. Assign tasks, and expect them to get done in a reasonable timeframe. But beyond that, there should be no reason to micro-manage actual working hours. If some developer needs some time during the day to run an errand and wants to catch up in the evening, fine by me. I don’t need them to be glued to their desk 9-5/10-6 or for some set part of the day — so long as the tasks are getting done in reasonable time, I let me employees structure their working hours as they see fit.
Three times a week we have regular whole-team checkins (MWF), where everyone can give a status update on their tasks. This helps keep up accountability.
Once a month I reserve an hour for each employee to just have a general sync-up. I allow the employee to guide how this time is used — whether they want to talk about issues with outstanding tasks, problems they’re encountering, their personal lives, or just “shoot the shit”. I generally keep these meetings light and employee-directed, and it gives me a chance to stay connected with them on both a social level and understand what challenges they might be facing.
And that’s it. I’ve actually gone as far as having certain employees who were being threatened with back-to-office mandates to have them converted to “remote employee” in the HR database so they’d have to lay off threatening them — only 2 of my 7 employees are even in the same general area of the globe (my employees are spread in 3 different countries at the moment), and I don’t live somewhere with an office, so having some employees forced to report to an office doesn’t help me in the slightest (I can’t be in 6 places at once — I live far enough away I can’t be in any of those places on a regular basis!).
Your employees may have got used to you micro-managing them. Changing this won’t happen overnight. Change from a micro-manager into a coach, and set them free. And if they fail…then it’s time to talk to HR and to see about making some changes. HTH!
That if a racoon saw you swimming, it would swim out to you and sit on your head and drown you.
My fully adult mother actually feared this was something that could happen to her children, and she warned us of this “danger” every summer when we were young.
I know you weren’t directly questioning my assertion, but in case anyone else happens to think I’m just blowing smoke: Coloured Fuel | DriveSmart BC.
I can see Republicans going after Obama for things...
Please list these “things” and the laws they are in violation of.
All time, probably the Cinesphere at Ontario place — one of the very first IMAX screens ever built, inside a geodesic sphere.
Currently (and closer to home) the IMAX theatre at our local museum. They show all sorts of IMAX formatted films (they have a full 4K Laser IMAX projection system), and their snack bar is hard to beat: excellent popcorn and hot dogs, lots of snack options, and the prices for which don’t break the bank (especially when compared to all the other theatres in our area). Last time I went (to see Oppenheimer) I got a large popcorn, large Coke, and a cup of gummy treats — and I think I spent a whole $12 (CAD).
And while I don’t have one, they have an annual pass available.
That I’m a handsome sex machine, with charisma to spare.
No idea who started that one. 🤷🏻♂️
Does this pump also dispense marked fuels through the same hose?
In my province of residence gas stations near farming communities often sell “marked fuel” (fuel with an added red dye in it) that are taxed less, and which are intended for farming machinery, road work equipment, boats, and other non-highway use only. If you’re caught with red-dyed fuel being used for any other purpose you can be charged with an offence, and levied fines or other penalties.
If you dispense a small amount of regular gasoline after another purchaser had bought marked gasoline, the dye in the fuel remaining in the lines likely isn’t diluted enough to tell the difference — and you could (hypothetically) then be charged with possessing marked fuel without the proper paperwork.
(Anywhere I’ve ever seen marked fuels sold usually has a separate hose for the marked fuel to be dispensed from to prevent this from happening — but I don’t know your gas station or where you live, so maybe they rely on dilution rather than separation to differentiate?)
If the Soviets hadn’t cut corners and Chernobyl hadn’t happened in this first place, this is likely where we would already be.
Easy. Have nuclear power plants operate as government run and backed corporations (what we’d call a “Crown Corporation” here in Canada).
That way you can mandate safety and uptime as metrics over profit. It may be less efficient from an economic standpoint (overall cost might be higher), but you also don’t wind up with the nuclear version of Love Canal.
Creative Labs did wavetable synthesis well before the AWE32 — they released the Wave Blaster daughter board for the Sound Blaster 16, two full years before the AWE32 was released.
(FWIW, I’m not familiar with any motherboards that had FM synthesis built-in in the mid 90’s. By this time, computers were getting fast enough to be able to do software-driven wavetable synthesis, so motherboards just came with a DAC).
Where the Sound Blaster really shined was that the early models were effectively three cards in one — an Adlib card, a CMS card, and a DAC/ADC card (with models a year or two later also acting as CD-ROM interface cards). Everyone forgets about CMS because Adlib was more popular at the time, but it was capable of stereo FM synthesis, whereas the Adlib was only ever mono.
(As publisher of The Sound Blaster Digest way back then, I had all of these cards and more. For a few years, Creative sent me virtually everything they made for review. AMA).