Warm up
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- What industry do you work in and what is your role?
- What are your responses in your role / position?
- Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
- How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
- What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
- How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
- What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?
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General discussion about your workweek:
- Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
- Anything of interest happening?
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Script
1. New York (CNN Business)Two of the most classic pieces of Americana are coming together this summer: drive-in theaters and Walmart.
Beginning in August, the retailer is converting 160 of its US store parking lots into drive-in movie theaters. As the pandemic continues, drive-in theaters have been making a comeback as a safe alternative to the traditional movie theaters that remain closed in much of the country.
2. Walmart (WMT) is partnering with Tribeca Enterprises, the Robert De Niro-backed media company, to program the films. Locations and movie titles haven’t yet been announced, but they will be revealed later on a special website.
The event will run through October and encompass more than 300 showings.
3. Drive-in movie venues have been popping up all over the country, with small business owners forced temporarily to shut down their traditional theater operations opting to reopen old drive-in locations or build makeshift theaters in parking lots in a bid to make up for lost income.
Discussion
- What steps have some businesses taken to make up for lost income in Tokyo?
Script
4. The language of computing is changing in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Twitter is dropping the terms “master,” “slave” and “blacklist” from its code after two engineers lobbied for the use of more inclusive programming language. America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), is taking similar steps.
“Words matter,” Michael Montano, the head of Twitter’s engineering team, said in a tweet on Thursday. “We are committed to adopting inclusive language in our code, configuration, documentation and beyond.”
5. “Master” and “slave” refer to one process in the code that controls another, while “blacklist” describes a list of items that are automatically blocked, such as forbidden IP addresses.
At Twitter (TWTR), “master” and “slave” will become “leader” and “follower” or “primary” and “replica,” while “blacklist” will become “denylist.”
6. Debate over the language used by engineering teams has been amplified in recent weeks by the Black Lives Matter movement, which is forcing companies to reckon with discrimination and the treatment of Black employees following Floyd’s death.
7. JPMorgan Chase will also remove “master,” “slave,” and “blacklist” from its internal materials and code. The news was first reported by Reuters and the BBC.The effort at Twitter was spearheaded by engineers Regynald Augustin and Kevin Oliver.
8. Augustin, who is Black, tweeted that he was inspired to push for changes after an email went to the engineering team with the line “automatic slave rekick.” “Seeing it was infuriating,” he said. “I’ve been used to seeing the word ‘slave’ throughout my [computer science] education but this was different.”
9. The list of words that will start to be swapped out — which Twitter said is not exhaustive — also includes “grandfathered,” which will become “legacy status,” and “dummy value,” which will become “placeholder value” or “sample value.”
1. Do you think this will have any significant impact on race relations?
2.
Can you think of any examples where language has changed due to political correctness in Japan?
Phonetic Chart
