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Monday, 17 September 2018

TE Data appears to be blocking slack

**#8 PSA- TE Data appears to be blocking Slack, the popular business productivity app that incorporates text-based chat and file sharing features. For four years now, we’ve used those features to speak with each other in the dead of night as we produce Enterprise. We’ve had access issues for days now, and so have other companies. Our yearlong subscription is now essentially worthless to all of our remote staff, and it seems we’re going to be forced to deploy a rival product today at both Enterprise and our parent company. Why is TE Data, an internet service provider, blocking Slack? Because, we’re told, Slack provides voice calling features, which might eat into the mother company’s revenues.

The TE Data Customer Service Baboon, who hasn’t made an appearance in Enterprise since 2015, is pleased. The stock market is a dumpster fire right now. Nobody knows what the Emerging Markets Zombie Apocalypse means for anything from this autumn’s IPO window to our ability to retain hot money — or the state’s management of its debt position. High interest rates are going to delay the return of corporate borrowing — but will need to stay high to keep the hot money here. Court cases that should have been settled nearly a decade ago are still lingering on. But protect a few pennies of an antiquated revenue stream? You betcha.

As our blood pressure returns to somewhat less stratospheric heights, we recommend the following reading for your morning commute:

  • The new head of the San Francisco Fed is a high-school dropout who toiled in a donut shop and at a Target before going back to school and becoming a noted labour economist. (New York Times)
  • A push to execute clerics who weren’t on board with the Qatar Smackdown is allegedly rattling the Saudi power structure. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The UAE is going to let (comfortably well-off) folks retire there and obtain long-term residence visas. (Bloomberg)
  • The guys who built Salesforce has bought Time magazine, the latest in trend of tech moguls buying up media companies (cf: Bezos, Jeff, and the Washington Post). (Reuters)
  • We’re not alone in thinking the Apple Watch 4 stole the show at the company’s fall event last week. (New York Times)
  • Volkswagen is going to stop making the Beetle next year with a limited run “Final Edition” that puts an end to Der Führer’s favourite vehicle. (Road and Track)

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