Search giant Baidu fires its head of public relations after she outraged Gen Z workers. From a report [non-paywalled link]: The head of public relations at a major Chinese tech firm gained hundreds of thousands of followers seemingly overnight after posting a series of viral videos laying out her unapologetically tyrannical management style. The videos also earned her a pink slip from her employer after they set off an explosion of criticism among Gen Z Chinese fed up with the intense work culture that prevails in their country's tech industry. "I'm not your mother-in-law. I'm not your mom," Qu Jing, a vice president at Chinese search giant Baidu, said in one widely excoriated clip, referring to a colleague who was struggling with a recent breakup. "I only care about your results." In other videos, she criticized employees who didn't want to work weekends and dismissed complaints from one subordinate that messages she sent to a group chat late at night had kept a crying child awake. "Why should it be my business that your child was crying?" she said. On Thursday, as public outrage soared, Qu removed the videos from her account on Douyin, TikTok's sister platform in China, and replaced them with an apology. She said she had tried to do a good job but had been too impatient and hadn't adopted "a proper approach." Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li was furious at Qu and fired her on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter. A top Baidu executive told employees that Qu's comments were "inappropriate and didn't represent and reflect the real culture and values of Baidu," the people said. The management also promised to review the company's corporate culture and working systems, they said. China's hard-charging tech industry relies heavily on a Darwinian work culture that demands near-total devotion to the workplace. Tech workers coined the term "996" to describe the typical schedule: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Half a decade ago, videos like Qu's were just as likely to garner a shrug as generate controversy. But younger Chinese, much like their counterparts in the U.S., are increasingly skeptical of the pressure to work themselves ragged in pursuit of financial success. They have coined their own terms -- "lying flat" and "letting it rot" -- to describe their antipathy to the grinding ethos of 996.

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Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, diving in to the ideas that underpin the hobby we love with a bit of Game Theory. We’ll sound off in the space above, and invite you to respond down in the comments, telling us what you’re playing this weekend, and what…

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Librarians are fighting a nationwide battle against high e-book prices, which so far has yielded minimal results. Despite efforts and temporary legislative victories, strict renewal and loan policies imposed by publishers keep e-book costs high, limiting the number of popular titles libraries can offer and leading to frustration among patrons. Axios reports: Publishers typically require libraries to renew the license to each e-book every two years, or after 26 loans -- policies that libraries call prohibitively expensive. This restricts the number of e-books -- particularly popular bestsellers -- that they can lend out to patrons, who are angry and baffled by the limitations. Readers love the free (to them) apps that allow them to borrow countless e-books and audiobooks: Libby (the dominant one, run by OverDrive) and hoopla. But some libraries say that the cost of renewing their contracts with OverDrive and hoopla are prohibitive, so they're dropping the apps -- hoopla in particular. The Association of American Publishers argues that it must protect the rights of copyright owners -- that is, authors -- to be fairly compensated for their work. hoopla and Libby say they're just the middlemen. "It's really not up to us, to be honest," Ann Ford, a vice president at hoopla, tells Axios. "It's the publishers that make the rules." Libraries have a "unique and determinative public mission" that should entitle them to more favorable e-book purchasing terms when using public funds, says Kyle Courtney, a lawyer and Harvard librarian who drafted model e-book legislation for states. "These are nonnegotiable contracts, and the libraries have been trying to get a deal for years. We need the coercive power of the state sitting behind us at the table saying, 'We need a special slice of the pie.'"

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An anonymous reader shares a report: One Raspberry Pi often leads to another. Soon enough, you're running out of spots in your free RealVNC account for your tiny boards and "real" computers. Even if you go the hardened route of SSH or an X connection, you have to keep track of where they all are. All of this is not the easiest thing to tackle if you're new to single-board computers or just eager to get started. Enter Raspberry Pi Connect, a new built-in way to access a Raspberry Pi from nearly anywhere you can open a browser, whether to control yourself or provide remote assistance. On a Raspberry Pi 4, 5, or Pi 400 kit, you install Pi connect with a single terminal line, reboot the Pi, and then click a new tray icon to connect the Pi to a Raspberry Pi ID (and then enable two-factor authentication, of course). From then on, visiting connect.raspberrypi.com gives you an encrypted connection to your desktop. It's a direct connection if possible, and if not, it runs through relay servers in London, encrypting it with DTLS and keeping only the metadata needed for the service to work. The Pi will show a notification in its tray that somebody has connected, and you can manage screen sharing from there.

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Steve Albini, among the most influential and respected figures in American independent music, known for producing Nirvana, The Pixies, and his bands, has died. As confirmed by the staff of his recording studio to Pitchfork, Albini died of a heart attack. He was 61.

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Stack Overflow's new deal giving OpenAI access to its API as a source of data has users who've posted their questions and answers about coding problems in conversations with other humans rankled. From a report: Users say that when they attempt to alter their posts in protest, the site is retaliating by reversing the alterations and suspending the users who carried them out. A programmer named Ben posted a screenshot yesterday of the change history for a post seeking programming advice, which they'd updated to say that they had removed the question to protest the OpenAI deal. "The move steals the labour of everyone who contributed to Stack Overflow with no way to opt-out," read the updated post. The text was reverted less than an hour later. A moderator message Ben also included says that Stack Overflow posts become "part of the collective efforts" of other contributors once made and that they should only be removed "under extraordinary circumstances." The moderation team then said it was suspending his account for a week while it reached out "to avoid any further misunderstandings."

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