Saw the video of people playing on this the other day and it was really cool and the engineering was insane.

It’s funny though, this in non physical from has been around for 20+ years. I remember playing Kung Fu Chess with people back in the day which is basically this and it looks like it’s still around.

I play a niche sport that is extremely progressive and has a large trans community. The sport is often played mixed gender with people of all genders on the field at the same time. I play this sport at a high competitive level and have qualified for the national championships a few times.

I have certainly had friends impacted by this. I’ve have friends who had to match up on a gender match that may have benefited from their bodies sex at birth. I’ve had friends who didn’t make a team because the team took a trans athlete over them. I’ve had friends who are nonbinary/trans athletes choose to compete against people born male when they could have matched otherwise.

In the end, I’m so proud of my community because those impacted are often happy for the welcoming environment we’re creating for people. I don’t mean to minimize the impacts to some members of the community, but the benefits are so large I’m glad we choose to support our friends who need welcoming environments. Our trans and non binary community need more environments like these where they just get to be themselves and feel welcomed.

I’m no where near the CEO level, but I am a mid level manager. There are enough different things going on in my org that there is no way I could know how to do everything. However, I view my role as empowering and supporting those who do. I understand I can’t do the things, so I spend most of my time listening to those who can. The problems come when people start thinking they know better than those doing the work. I strongly believe I work for my team, and if that ever gets me out of alignment with upper management, I’ve accepted that means I’ll be let go. But this model has gotten me great success.

I was waiting for this to be a setup and you get mugged to withdraw from your ATM. Glad it turned out better lol.

There’s one other use case I love - i ask it to interview me or challenge me on my ideas. It can sometimes ask questions that cause me to rethink things. But in the end, I’m still the one doing the work. It’s my advanced rubber duck.

I’m in the situation you’re talking about right now. There’s an upcoming restructuring and on paper, I’ve been able to reposition my teams so there’s no job elimination and I’ve found homes for everyone. I’m actually excited about the plan. But I’ve been around the block enough to know that my plan on paper might not be accepted, and that this is just phase one. The funding to contract externally needs to come from somewhere. Laying off entire teams might be what causes me to finally put my own job on the chopping block to save a few others. I could go back to being a staff dev and it’s potentially not even much of a pay cut. But damn do I love everything else about my job, but mental load of these decisions, even when I know they’re the best ones, is a lot.

Don’t worry, many people in those situations will blame Obamacare when they get the bill

My wife has ARFID, and it’s so hard on her. That’s so interesting that you don’t feel hunger, she definitely does but has a very very small list of safe foods she wants.

This exact mechanic is present in the Misborn book series. I don’t want to give spoilers because I recommend the books so highly, but I love the hard science nature of the way the magic system interacts with physics.

I manage a team of about 50. I’ve been in management for about the past decade. Prior to that, I was a technical lead heavily involved in hiring. I’ve also run multiple intern programs that hire by the dozen each summer. I’ve hired hundreds and been in thousands of interviews.

Ive never once seen someone hired because of the color of their skin.

I do however aggressively look for people from different backgrounds to be in my candidate pools when hiring. That can really mean anything. Mono culture is a huge detriment to the org because then everyone ends up thinking the same way. I look for people willing to challenge the status quo and bring unique perspectives while still being a great teammate.

There are probably people I’ve hired who normally wouldn’t have gotten an interview based on their background but then were the best candidate. When I’ve had candidates that are equal, I’ve occasionally hired the one who is most dissimilar in skills/thought process/goals to my current team because that helps us grow. The decision was never someone’s skin color, but their background certainly could have influenced the items I chose as my hiring decisions.

DEI is not just hiring. DEI is creating a culture where people of different backgrounds can succeed. There are so many different ways to be successful at the vast majority of the roles I hire. It’s my job to make sure my org is setup so that people can be successful through as many approaches as possible. This is the part I see most often missed. If your culture only allows the loud, brash to lead, I would have missed many of my best hires over the years who led in varied ways.