Microsoft has unveiled a new paid parental leave policy on Thursday that will affect the more than 1,000 firms it does business with across the U.S. An anonymous reader shares the report from the Washington Post: Technology giants in the United States offer some of the country's most generous employee benefits, but the workers who mow the lawns or serve lunch in the company cafeteria -- jobs that are often staffed by outside firms -- tend to get far smaller packages. Microsoft announced a new policy Thursday that it hopes will shrink that gap, pledging it will ink contracts only with service providers who give their employees 12 weeks of paid family leave. Per the requirement, mothers and fathers who perform work for Microsoft -- biological and adoptive -- must receive 12 weeks of leave at two-thirds of their wages or up to $1,000 weekly. The announcement comes as Washington state, where the company is based, prepares to introduce paid family leave for workers, the fifth state to do so. Microsoft currently offers its direct employees 12 weeks of paid family leave at full pay, and birth mothers receive an additional eight paid weeks for physical recovery.

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I also thought he was a spitballer. The kind of kid who sat in the back of the classroom and made wisecracks about the other kids and the teacher. But he never went to the board. He did a lot of shooting from the hip. Choosing Sarah Palin was a great example. A brainstorming session, do something bold, and oops a tragic mistake. He did it again when he suspended his campaign because of the financial crisis, called a big meeting in DC to brainstorm ideas. He had no ideas, couldn't even lead the meeting. Obama did. He would have been a terrible president. We might have done a few bold and disastrous things, and I'm sure the important stuff would have fallen through the cracks. We were right not to elect him president in 2008.

Stressed out, overworked, or just over it: Workers in Japan who want to leave their jobs -- but don't want to face the stress of quitting in person -- are paying a startup called Exit to tell their bosses that they won't be back are paying a startup called Exit to tell their bosses that they won't be back. Local media reports: "Quitting jobs can be a soul-crushing hassle. We're here to provide a sense of relief by taking on that burden," said Toshiyuki Niino, co-founder of Senshi S, a startup he and childhood friend Yuichiro Okazaki launched last year. The company operates Exit, a service that relays an employee's intention to resign for a fee: $450 for full-time employees and $360 for part-time workers. Repeat clients get a $90 discount. Whether or not people consider that expensive depends on how desperate they are. But if business is any indication, many regard it as a worthy investment for some much-needed peace of mind. In the one year since Niino and Okazaki set up shop, they have mediated the resignations of roughly 700 to 800 clients from across the nation as the number of requests surge. Amid a tight job market and an improving economy, more workers are changing jobs, lured by higher salaries and fewer hours.

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I just want to add, it's sad that he's gone. I felt this more deeply than other celebrity deaths. I guess we really get to know politicians. For a musician their music doesn't die with them. Same with writers.

I did a lot of driving in the last 48 hours, and that means I listened to lots of podcasts. And a lot of them were about John McCain. Surprising to me that I wanted to hear more about him, even though in life, I felt I knew all I wanted. I had mixed feelings about him. I remember when he ran against Bush and first did great and then got whipped. He does do a good New Hampshire town hall. He likes to say how honest he is, but I heard him do a lot of lying, esp about the Iraq War. That's the worst. To let people call you honest, to call yourself honest, while you're lying. That's worse than just being a liar. Anyway, he was an interesting person. One thing he said in an interview in the mid-2000s is that we should repeal Roe v Wade and then have a great debate about it. I wanted the interviewer to ask him why we can't have the debate before repealing it? I can't imagine there's anything more to say that hasn't already been said a billion times. It's a morally ambiguous situation. No amount of debating will change that. Some things just are. We will never come to agreement. Accept it. Now tell me again why appealing Roe v Wade is the right thing to do? Of course he's dead now, so we'll never know. ✓

November event that sparked protests in Pakistan was scrapped over security concerns, says far-right Dutch politician.

The latest TV "must have" that you actually don't really need -- at least right now -- has arrived at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. That's 8K, the super-crisp display technology that has four times the resolution of 4K screens. CNET: Samsung on Thursday showed off the Q900, which packs in more than 33 million pixels. The 85-inch TV will be the first 8K TV to hit the US market when it goes on sale in October, although Samsung didn't specify the price. Its arch rival LG a day earlier announced what it called "the world's first" 8K OLED TV. It showed the 88-inch device to some reporters in January at CES but didn't specify when there would be an actual product for consumers. Meanwhile Sharp began shipping the LV-70X500E 70-inch 8K monitor earlier this year to Europe after launching it in late 2017 in China, Japan and Taiwan. 8K TVs dramatically boost the number of pixels in the displays, which the companies say will make pictures sharper on bigger screens. "We ⦠are confident that [consumers] will experience nothing short of brilliance in color, clarity and sound from our new 8K-capable models," Jongsuk Chu, the senior vice president of Samsung's Visual Display Business, said in a press release.

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Back in 2009 (I think; I don’t feel like checking) a whole bunch of people on Twitter turned on me all at once. It felt like a mob. The mob wasn’t in any way self-aware or coordinated — but it still felt like a single driven thing.

This wasn’t over culture or politics or social issues — it was over my own software and a mistake (actually two simultaneous mistakes) I had made. (The details are unimportant.)

Twitter was much younger then, with fewer people, and it was still a mostly-fun place.

But I went into a serious funk and for a year considered leaving the tech industry altogether. Shuttering this blog. Just quitting. Which is a consequence completely out-of-proportion to my actual mistakes, which were forgotten pretty soon as people moved on to other topics.

But I didn’t forget my experience. I never really recovered all the way — something left me, something about how I think about people, something I can’t quite name or describe, but it was a good thing and it left.

I’m lucky, of course — if anyone can come back from something like this, it’s someone as all-around fortunate as I am.

* * *

The mob never apologized. Mobs never do.

Imagine: a bad thing happens to you, which you perceive as wildly disproportionate, and, later on, the actors never say they’re sorry.

But who would an apology come from? A mob can’t apologize.

I started to wonder if I really deserved it after all. Maybe the mob discovered the truth about me, that I’m a bad person. I thought about what penance I should pay. (Eventually I did decide on a penance, and I did pay it, and that was wrong.) I wondered if I shouldn’t quit so much as accept a shunning.

For a long time after everyone forgot.

Anyway: that’s what that’s like.

* * *

And maybe this is why I’m extra-sensitive to social media mobs. What I went through is tiny compared to what other people have been through. Not worth remembering by anybody, not even me (though I can’t help it).

Then there was this thing with Wil Wheaton getting booted from a Mastodon instance. I don’t know much about Wil (I did watch Star Trek, of course) or what mistakes he may have made.

And I don’t care. The power of mobs in Mastodon reminds me of the power of mobs in baby Twitter of 2009. Which is to say: it’s entirely possible it will get worse and worse — as it did on Twitter — to the point where lives can be ruined and even threatened.

So I’m thinking about whether or not to stay.

Insect crop damage could result in the loss of two loaves out of every 12 by the century's end.

Lights, camera, action: Venice rolls out the red carpet for its Film Festival and Al Jazeera takes a sneak peak at this year's contenders for the Golden Lion.

Bosco Ntaganda faces 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for acts allegedly committed in 2002-2003.

Land reform a key issue ahead of elections next year, experts say, turning up debate over legacy of apartheid.

Future of $5bn project in limbo after court rules Canada failed to adequately consult with Indigenous people.

The UK's prime minister wraps up a three-day Africa tour in Kenya. With Brexit looming, what can rebuilding old links help shore up Britain's economy?

Technology news outlet TechDirt on Thursday published a hell of a story about the ways telecom lobbyists are going to try shifting the blame for a range of recent developments -- including net neutrality, competition, privacy, and cybersecurity -- to internet companies. The outlet cites talking points that it received in an accidental email that was supposed to go to a different Mike. Here's an excerpt from the story, which shares the privacy section: MESSAGE: Here is the modern reality of consumer protection: the greatest risks are posed by companies on the internet's edge. Privacy is a shared responsibility -- and the burdens and obligations can not rest solely with ISPs and must be applied equally across the internet ecosystem. The increased scrutiny of Facebook and other edge provides offer a significant opportunity for Congress to implement clear and consistent rules that apply equally to all companies in the internet ecosystem. And when they begin the process of establishing best practices for privacy, they will need to look no further than broadband providers. For years, our members have embraced strong consumer privacy policies, because they understand the success of any digital business depends on earning their customers' trust. Consumers and companies alike deserve one set of protections and rules of the road. This is the best way to ensure consumer protection while also providing the necessary flexibility for a competitive and innovative marketplace. TechDirt editor Mike Masnick writes: There's a brief section later in the document, suggesting that they play up Trump now fighting with Google, and suggest that's a good point to drop in the "same rules for edge" providers meaningless argument: Trump/Google Drama: People have spent years clamoring for ISP net neutrality. We need same rules of the road for edge. On net neutrality: MESSAGE: Our nation's broadband providers strongly support net neutrality -- without 1930's-era regulations -- and with consumer protections that are consistently applied across the entire internet ecosystem.

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