Tag: bleeding
‘Love Lies Bleeding’ trailer: Kristen Stewart falls for ’80s bodybuilder Katy O’Brian in romantic thriller
Blow up bleeding statues in the fiery hellscape of Hunt Showdown’s latest event
Yee haw, buckle up, root and also toot, for the Devil’s Moon event has kicked off in Hunt Showdown. The event sees Crytek’s excellent multiplayer cowboy sneak ’em up periodically set fire to big parts of each map, where you blow up creepy bleedy statues for points that unlock new weapons and traits. There’s one that makes you invisible to monsters, which sounds ridiculously powerful – which is probably why the traits will only be in play until the event ends on January 15th.
Twitter layoffs are the deepest of a thousand cuts. Here’s where else big tech is bleeding.
Given the fog of war, it is hard to know exactly how large the carnage is inside Twitter as I write this. The company’s internal FAQ, we can confirm, says that “roughly” half of employees are being ousted by CEO, co-owner, and sole director Elon Musk. That would be a bloodbath with few precedents in tech history: “Roughly” (!) 3,750 people in a single company in a single day.
Musk took to Twitter late Friday to blame “a massive drop in revenue due to [unnamed] activist groups” pressuring advertisers, and claimed that “everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance” (in return for signing what exactly, we don’t know). Earlier reports suggested the severance offer was for one month. Former employees have launched a lawsuit noting a 60-day notice requirement in federal law.
We should caution that Musk is a misinformation maven and noted troll; that “roughly” 50 percent may end up being lower so Musk can look kind by comparison. He’s busy threatening a “thermonuclear name and shame” of former Twitter advertisers; you can’t accuse him of having consistent business logic.
Here’s what else we should caution. Even the horror of 3,750 firings isn’t much compared to the tech sector as a whole, which has shed (or released plans to shed) 52,000 employees since the beginning of 2022 (here’s the most complete list). Musk can probably boast of having the single largest firing round of the year in tech, but New York’s struggling bike-with-screen seller Peloton has laid off more overall (4,084 since January).
A lot of the tech firings didn’t make Musk-sized headlines, in part because a lot of them were (and are) being carried out carefully and compassionately. But they’re happening nonetheless, and the fog of war is everywhere in tech. Let’s look for trend lines in the major firing incidents prior to Twitter, starting with the murkiest:
Meta
Facebook’s parent company, which is ever more tightly controlled by Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of Sheryl Sandberg’s leaving, put as many as 15 percent of its workforce on “Performance Improvement Plans” in October. You may have seen a bunch of headlines suggesting Zuck fired 15 percent of the company; that’s because employees expect the PIPs to lead to their eventual ouster. We don’t know if this is the case, not yet. Zuck may consider it more seemly to cut headcount at the holidays, when fewer people are paying attention to news.
Memo to Elon Musk from your comrade in social media evil: This is how you fire people without risking an instant federal lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Meta has instituted a hiring freeze and rescinded a handful of job offers – not great, but not yet the same as pink slips. It’s worth pointing out Meta has unique troubles (Apple nuked Facebook’s advertising model, Zuckerberg is losing billions on a VR dream his employees don’t understand) that don’t apply to the industry as a whole.
But the industry as a whole is definitely trending the same way. Let’s turn to that ancient bellwether:
Microsoft
Hey, remember the dot-com crash of 2000? That stock market decline, a long time coming thanks to overvalued startups, was sparked by news that an antitrust judge had thrown the book at Microsoft.
Well, the company isn’t nearly as prominent in tech as it was in the Bill Gates era, but it is still out there ahead of market trends. The Redmond, Washington-based company did a “quiet” round of layoffs in October, reportedly in the realm of 1,000 people.
But in an odd coincidence, there’s good news at Microsoft China: That division plans to increase its headcount by 1,000, according to a September announcement. That news came despite China’s generally weak economy and tough new U.S. restrictions on chip imports.
Snap
Back in August, the company formerly known as Snapchat announced one of the year’s deepest cuts: Around 1,200 workers, or 20 percent of its total workforce. That wasn’t a surprise, however. Snap may have been a social media icon back in the day, but unlike Twitter and Facebook, it never found a sustainable way to turn a profit.
One of the most telling signs that Snap was circling the drain: Its stock price had already nosedived by around 80%. Quick reminder that Twitter is now private, there is no stock market pressure, and the only reason it can’t turn a profit now is the $13 billion debt that Musk’s buyout forced the company to put on its books.
Everyone Else
Musk wasn’t the only one exploding an employment bomb in downtown San Francisco this week. The rideshare company Lyft made a similar move. It laid off nearly 700 people, citing the coming recession. So did a financial tech company called Stripe, laying off another thousand. The cryptocurrency industry meanwhile has shed thousands this year, perhaps more than any other sub-group of tech firms.
We could go on, but let’s stick to the names you know. Intel, which is struggling with slow PC sales and reportedly plans to cut “thousands” of jobs by the end of the year. Musk may have competition yet! Notably, however, we’ve heard of hiring freezes but no major layoffs at major tech giants: Apple, Google and Amazon. (The latter is in fact gearing up for the holiday season by hiring 1,500 workers).
Other layoffs merely suggest a company grew too fast during that period where we were all in COVID lockdowns using their products. Twilio, a business communications platform, said in September it would lay off 900 people – but it also hired more than 4,000 since 2020, so you could call it a post-pandemic correction if there weren’t, y’know, actual human livelihoods involved.
Hiring and firing in the tech world beyond the U.S. seems to be offering the same mixed message. Ottawa-based Shopify also rapidly expanded during the pandemic; now it’s slashing 10 percent, or 1,000 employees. Australian business software giant Atlassian is currently trying to hire exactly the same number of people; maybe these Commonwealth countries can work on some kind of exchange.
In short, the trend is that there is no trend — not yet, anyway. Tech companies are hunkering down in general, but some are better placed than others. It’s almost as if the tech industry 20 years after the dot-com crash is vast and nuanced, with an incredible range of services and opportunities.
And that leaves Elon Musk with even less excuse for his precipitous pink slips.
I was horrified when I walked into my three-year-old son’s room to find him bleeding from the mouth – I feel helpless
A MUM has told of the horror moment she walked into her three-year-old son’s room and found him bleeding from the mouth.
Katie Brett, 31, says there have also been times she’s gone to check on her son Konrad in the night and he’s not breathing.
Katie Brett has opened up about the months of hell she’s endured with her son Konrad[/caption]
The 31-year-old says there were times Konrad would wake up covered in blood, or struggling to breathe[/caption]
The solo mum-of-two says she’s been through months of hell and, even after getting a diagnosis for her three-year-old, she still feels helpless.
Konrad has tonsils that are so big they block his airway, and is in need of surgery.
But the Lancashire mum says it’s been a long road to getting that answer.
She said: “It’s just horrible. There’s been so many times I’ve been crying down the phone to the hospital which is just exhausting.
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“It’s just so hard seeing your child so poorly, and knowing that you could put him to bed one night and he might wake up all because of his tonsils.”
She said Konrad contracted a mystery virus at just seven months old, which left him sick for eight weeks.
Then, one night, she received an alert on a sleep app and went to check on him and realised he wasn’t breathing.
She said the following months were horrific, as her wee boy’s tonsils were constantly causing him pain and he regularly stopped breathing.
Most read in The Sun
Katie says she would also find him bleeding from the mouth, and covered in blood.
The mum said she spent months fighting for answers, and claims she was dubbed an “overprotective mother” and even lost her job.
Then, when the family got Konrad’s diagnosis, they were told he needed surgery – which Katie says her boy may have to wait a year for.
She said: “It doesn’t just affect me and Konrad, it affects his brother Colton-Joe as well.
“There’s been times when Konrad has fallen poorly in the middle of the night, and I’ve had to drag them both out of bed in the night.
I just feel like there is nothing I can do.
Katie Brett
“Even one time Colton-Joe had to come in the ambulance with us, and then get picked up from the hospital by a family member.”
Katie called the recent months “very frustrating”.
She added: “You love your kids more than anything in the world, and you would do anything for them.
“But I just feel like there is nothing I can do.”
Katie’s sister Sasha Marsden was tragically murdered at the age of 16 in 2013 and the family holds an annual rounders tournament in memory of her.
Katie said: “We decided to raise money in my sister’s memory, we was suppose to raise money for Macmillan.
Most read in Health
“But the organisers said that if Sasha was given a choice, she would want to help her nephew so the money went to Konrad’s surgery instead.”
You can donate towards Konrad’s surgery here.
Watch moment ‘photographer floored’ by Margot Robbie’s friends during ‘attack’ that left him bleeding with broken arm
THIS is the moment a photographer was allegedly floored by Margot Robbie‘s Brit pal after a row outside a restaurant.
Pedro Alberto Orquera claims he was left with a broken arm while lying bleeding on the floor following a street brawl.
The alleged incident happened when Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne left a restaurant at 3am[/caption]
The incident allegedly happened when Wolf of Wall Street star Margot, 32, and Brit model and actress Cara Delevingne left a Buenos Aires restaurant at 3am on Sunday.
Mr Orquera, 61, tried to take pictures as they got into an Uber.
A scuffle is then said to have broken out, which led to the arrests of two British film-makers, Josey McNamara and Jac Hopkins.
Footage shows a man dressed in black walking along the pavement as another, with a white top on, runs up behind him.
During a brief chase, the man in black appears to be kicked two or three times before he falls to the ground.
He narrowly misses falling under a car that comes to a halt at a zebra crossing.
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In documents lodged with a city judge and prosecutors, Mr Orquera, stated: “Ms Robbie — who I could identify — touched the shoulder of one of her security personnel and indicated with her finger towards me.
“It was then that several people began to beat me up and the chase began.
“I felt that they managed to hit me and I got knocked down to the pavement with such speed that if I had fallen headfirst they would have killed me.”
His lawyer, Matias Morla, told The Sun last night that it was possible that Margot could be charged.
He said: “Pedro and other witnesses say that Margot pointed at him when she was behind the car and saw the photographer.
Most read in Showbiz
“She sent them to hit him. She shares in the blame because she was directing them to the photographer.
“We are going to ask she become a defendant and co-participant.
“She should not be considered a witness but one of the defendants who has to give evidence.”
Mr Orquera took photographs as Cara, 30, and Margot left the exclusive Patagonia Sur restaurant.
McNamara, a film producer and business partner of Margot, and Hopkins, a key grip on the Aussie star’s upcoming Barbie movie, were arrested at the scene.
They spent Sunday in custody.
On Monday morning they covered their faces with rugs as they were bundled into a car to be interviewed by prosecutors.
In an interview from his hospital bed, Mr Orquera described the incident as a “brutal” and “cowardly” attack.
‘COWARDLY ATTACK’
He said: “They tried to take my camera to delete the pictures that I had taken.
“I started running away from them because they were hitting me.
“While I was running from them they kicked me hard so my camera went up in the air and I fell on the floor and injured my arm.
“I was bleeding an awful lot. I was losing a lot of blood. In a few minutes the police arrived.”
Last night, it was not known whether Cara and Margot — who left the scene before police arrived — were still in Argentina.
McNamara and Hopkins are said to have told police Mr Orquera was “responsible for his own injuries” as no consent was given for photos.
Read More on The Sun
Sources also claim the photographer ran off and fell on his own.
Margot’s reps were asked to comment.
Margot Robbie and producer pal Josey McNamara[/caption]
Josey McNamara, pictured with Margot Robbie, was also arrested after the fracas[/caption]