Author: openjargon

• Jay Cadmus was laid off in his 50s after more than two decades at IBM.
• He was unemployed for six months and had to pause his 401(k) and his kid's college savings. 
• Cadmus said he experienced ageism in his search and found younger people got jobs he applied for.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jay Cadmus, a communications advisor, about being laid off at age 55. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I worked for IBM for 23 years in various roles. I started in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I did internal communications, local and regional media relations, and speechwriting for the general manager.

I had roles working on IBM's sponsorship of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta in its software group, technology, and web content. My final job was as the media relations manager for the global technology services division.

I hoped I'd be able to keep working at IBM until I finished my career unless another great opportunity presented itself.

I was laid off in September 2015 when I was 55. I was surprised when my boss told me, but I wasn't shocked. I'd been laid off earlier in my career and always knew it was a possibility.

I had been laid off before — in my 30s

I was laid off at 31, only three months after joining the organization where I was working. I had two kids and a mortgage — I wasn't prepared.

The experience changed my perspective. After that, I viewed every role as a bridge job.

Over the years, I kept my network current, updated my résumé at least twice a year, kept my LinkedIn profile current, and always looked for other opportunities.

So, when I was told I was going to be laid off from IBM in August, I was ready for it. My résumé was already updated, and I started applying for jobs on my way home.

I knew that it would be harder the 2nd time around

Time wasn't on my side. I thought it would take me several months if not longer, to find my next opportunity. I knew being older, there were fewer opportunities because I'm more expensive, and there are fewer roles where the hiring manager is looking for someone with that level of experience.

When I was laid off at 31, I was given two months' notice in October, and by February, I had landed another position. I was younger, cheaper and the job market was probably a bit different.

I had a kid at home and a mortgage

After my 2015 layoff, I looked for freelance consulting work because I needed an income to bridge the gap until I landed a new job. My third child was still living at home, and I had to pay the bills and mortgage.

We had to make some financial adjustments as a family. I thought getting a new job could take as long as a year. We paused our investments in our funds for our kid's college and our retirement.

My wife increased her work hours from part-time to full-time, and because of that, we were both able to enroll in her company's health insurance.

I reached out to a business associate who ran a small marketing firm. He was growing and needed people to work. The next week, I started doing freelance content writing for him. Some weeks, I worked 30 hours on freelance projects; some weeks, it was 12 hours.

It wasn't as much as I had been making, but it was significant. Doing something kept me from worrying about my finances.

I networked to find job opportunities

I treated finding a job like having a job. I applied for 60 jobs, spoke to around 20 recruiters, and got between eight and 12 interviews. I only applied to jobs I knew I had a chance of getting.

Whenever I saw a job I wanted, I found someone at the company who worked in that function on LinkedIn and reached out. That could help slip my résumé to the top of the stack. The human element was important.

My greatest asset was the network I'd built over the years. When I reached out to people, they told me about job opportunities in their networks.

I was very organized. I kept records of every job I applied for, every interaction I had, and every contact I made in my network so I knew when to follow up.

I experienced ageism in my search

There is some bias against older employees. In some interviews, I could see the light go out in their eyes when they realized my age.

There was one job I didn't get where I saw the person they ended up hiring was much younger and had significantly less experience than I did or even than the job had required.

Employers are never going to tell you it's because of your age, but it was in the back of my mind.

I landed a job after 6 months

I heard about a job through a contact in my network. I'd applied for a role at her company and hadn't gotten it. During a chat with her afterward, she said a recruiter had reached out to her the previous week with a role. She didn't want it because she wasn't looking to move but thought I'd be a good fit.

She gave the recruiter my name, and I landed the offer three weeks later, in March 2016. It was such a relief to have a salary and to start saving again for my son's college fund and my 401(k), which I had paused for six months.

The job I landed was tough but interesting. I worked in the company's consulting group on organizational change and management practices. I'm still there. I do all the communications for the company's sales.

I thought I'd retire in 2021, but I haven't yet. Maybe one day, I'll start up my freelance and consultancy work again. I'll always do this work just because I enjoy it and I'm pretty good at it.

If you have been laid off in your 50s or 60s and would like to share your story, email ehopkins@businessinsider.com.

• A self-described "professional" troll posted that their cousin, a juror in Trump's hush money trial, predicted his conviction.
• The Facebook post became the subject of a letter from the judge to prosecutors and Trump's lawyers.
• While it wouldn't be grounds for a new trial, the post may raise questions, a former prosecutor told BI.

About 24 hours before a Manhattan jury made Donald Trump the first-ever former president to become a convicted felon — a person going by the name "Michael Anderson" made a little-noticed Facebook comment.

"Thank you for all your hard against the MAGA crazies!" he wrote in a comment on an unrelated post on the official page of the New York State Unified Court System.

"My cousin is a juror on Trumps criminal case and they're going to convict him tomorrow according to her. Thank you 🙏 New York courts!!!! ❤️"

In a Friday afternoon letter, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, alerted prosecutors and Trump's defense lawyers about the comment.

"Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System's public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention," Merchan wrote.

But it's far from clear that the comment is genuine.

Anderson — if that is his real name — claims to be a troll.

Business Insider located the Facebook comment, which was timestamped 4:39 p.m. on May 29, a day before the jury verdict. It was made in response to an unrelated Facebook post about a program from the New York state court system to promote diversity.

"Now we are married ❤️ 😁," he posted in response to another Facebook comment, which criticized his purported cousin.

On his Facebook page, Anderson describes himself as "Transabled & a professional shit poster." His profile picture is an image claiming his account is restricted. His cover photo broadcasts the slogan: "Facebook: Wasting peoples lives since 2004."

Few posts are publicly visible on Anderson's page. Visible ones appear to be food videos and comedic Reels, a product from Facebook owner Meta that seeks to emulate TikTok videos.

"As appropriate, the Court informed the parties once it learned of this online content," Al Baker, a spokesperson for the New York State Unified Court System, told Business Insider, declining to comment further on the incident.

Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, as well as representatives for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Anderson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent through Facebook, but in a public post added to his profile shortly after BI reached out, he wrote, "Take it easy, I'm a professional shitposter," along with a laughing emoji and the Wikipedia definition of shitposting.

While it remains unclear how significant the Facebook post will become during the proceedings leading up to Trump's sentencing, it could complicate things.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told BI that the social post, though apparently trolling, could raise questions about whether outside influences managed to find their way into the jury deliberation room, which is one of the few times the defense could use jury deliberations as grounds to appeal for a new trial.

However, he said, the burden for a new trial is high and would require the defense to show an outside influence prejudiced the jury enough that the outcome may have been different without exposure to it.

"A stray comment on social media is not enough for a new trial," Rahmani said. "But if the defense can get a declaration from a juror that they discussed the case with family members, then Judge Merchan would hold an evidentiary hearing to examine the juror to determine whether the improper influence and prejudice took place.  I don't think a statement from the family member is enough if it's not supported by a juror affidavit."

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Rumors of a pair of Sonos-branded headphones have been swirling for nearly as long as the company has been a household name. After all, Sonos sells many popular wireless speakers and soundbars, so why not add a pair of headphones to the mix?

Following years of speculation, Sonos' long-awaited headphones have arrived. They're called the Sonos Ace ($449), and they perform great for a pair of flagship Bluetooth headphones. But the keyword there is Bluetooth. Many fans hoped the brand's first headphones would work like its portable Roam and Move speakers, which use Bluetooth on the go but also support WiFi to stream music at home and group with other Sonos audio gear. However, WiFi streaming on the Ace turned out to be wishful thinking.

Don't get us wrong, the Ace still stack up well against the best over-ear headphones from Bose, Sony, and Apple. But they don't do a lot to stand out from the pack. The biggest difference, on paper anyway, is the Ace's ability to pair with a Sonos Arc soundbar for private listening, but we could not get this feature to work with our setup. We also ran into an issue with some faint signal noise with transparency mode engaged.

Still, despite some hiccups, it's no small feat that Sonos' first headphones offer performance that rivals many top competitors. Even with their quirks, the Ace's mix of great sound, fantastic noise-canceling, and an incredibly comfy fit results in a formidable pair of high-end Bluetooth headphones.

The Ace headphones are well-designed and easy to use

Apart from the issues we encountered with the headphones' TV Swap feature (more on that below), the Ace's setup experience is as slick and smooth as you'd expect from a brand of Sonos' pedigree.

Opening the box reveals a fuzzy gray case made from 75% recycled plastic bottles. Unzip it, and you'll find a minimalist pair of matte headphones in black or Soft White wrapped around a bean-shaped pouch. Designed to harbor the Ace's dual USB-C cables for wired playback and charging, the pouch attaches via a strong magnet at the case's center, efficiently utilizing the space. The whole layout feels equally aimed at style and substance.

The headphones themselves borrow aesthetic touches from rivals like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and Apple AirPods Max but with a Sonos twist, bearing the same elegantly stripped-down design cues found across all Sonos products. From the Ace's sleek rounded ear cups and laser-etched logo to their steel arms and cushy, vegan-leather pads, this is a familiar package that still manages to strike its own chord.

On the right ear cup are dual control buttons, including a multi-function "content key" for playback and volume via a mix of taps and slides. There's also an adjacent key to swap between noise canceling and transparency modes. The two keys are easily distinguishable by touch for error-free control in nearly any setting. On the left cup is the power/pairing key and a USB-C input for charging and wired playback. 

Downloading the Sonos app helps you quickly pair the headphones to your mobile device and add them to your list of Sonos devices where you can monitor status and battery life. Tapping the Settings icon lets you adjust features like bass and treble, head tracking for spatial audio effects, and multi-point audio to pair the headphones to a second device like a laptop or tablet.

The flexible band and fluffy pads give the Ace an edge in comfort

Comfort is always subjective, but we can say without hesitation that the Ace are the most comfortable noise-canceling headphones we've encountered, beating out favorites like Bose's QuietComfort Ultra and the Sony WH-1000XM5. After a week of wearing the Ace nearly all day, every day, we rarely experienced an inkling of discomfort.

Frankly, we're not sure how Sonos did it. At 313 grams, the Ace are lighter than Apple's AirPods Max, but still outweigh both Bose and Sony's top models by a good 60 grams. You can definitely feel the heft as you swing your head around, but somehow between their ultra-soft pads and taut yet judicious clamping force, they manage to pull off the proverbial headphone trick of nearly disappearing on your head over time.

The fit is also quite stable, staying put even on light hikes and other semi-rigorous activities. Without an IP certification for water resistance, we wouldn't recommend the Ace for sweaty jogs or gym regimens, but they're excellent companions for nearly any other task.

The sound is rich, smooth, and detailed

The Ace offer a smooth and mellow sound signature. They have a penchant for digging up lush and vivid instrumental timbres, all spread across a deep and expansive soundstage. The overall performance stacks up well with some of the best-sounding headphones in their class.

The Ace do exhibit a darker tonal color than you'll find in rivals like the spritely Bose QuietComfort Ultra. But this doesn't affect the Ace's talent for exposing fine details. Horns are breathy and full. Strings are smooth and lush. Acoustic guitars ring with a golden sheen. The ability to precisely place all these instruments in the mix may be the Ace's most impressive sonic feature, allowing you to explore each instrument independently or simply sit back and let them wash over you.

There's some sparkle in the treble for pristine clarity in high-flying percussion and loads of definition in instruments like buzzy synths and distorted electric guitars. At the other end, bass is full and punchy without being overwhelming. Unlike many headphones we test, the bass is fairly balanced by default, though we still dropped it down a notch or two in the EQ settings to clear up space in the soundstage. We also turned off the Loudness setting, which tended to make things sound a bit boomy.

On occasion, we wished for a bit more presence and clarity in vocals and dialogue, particularly when listening to podcasts, but we never struggled to hear minute details like vocal fry or room echos, allowing us to notice sounds we'd missed in previous listens. Hardwiring the Ace via a USB-C-to-3.5mm cable offers even better definition, including support for lossless audio at up to 16-bit/48Hz resolution. 

The Ace supports head tracking for stereo content, which keeps the sound anchored when you turn your head to mimic the effect of listening to speakers positioned in a fixed location. This is also supported with Dolby Atmos 3D audio when synced with an Arc soundbar, but we couldn't get that feature to work. However, with stereo content, head tracking works similarly to rivals, effectively simulating a home theater environment.

Noise-canceling and transparency modes are phenomenal, aside from one hiccup

The Ace's incredible noise canceling is a triumph worth celebrating. This is top-tier cancellation that stacks up with some of the best pairs available, seeming to suck the air out of the world and plant you in an isolation chamber of solace.

We tested the feature indoors with studio speakers playing sound effects as well as outdoors on hikes and dog walks, where it was most impressive. Tapping the button can almost extinguish the world, from city din to chirping birds. Even traffic-laden streets glide into a soft whisper.

In head-to-head tests, only Bose's mighty QuietComfort Ultra outpowered them, reducing sounds like keystrokes and drone effects to an even lower murmur. Even so, the Ace's ability to offer such stark silence without a modicum of added white noise makes them a contender for one of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy.

The Ace also have an excellent transparency mode that's designed to let in environmental sounds to keep you aware. This mode is vividly clear and natural. It's so good that we were able to wear them virtually all day without skipping a beat, similar to Apple's latest AirPods. Though we weren't able to test the Ace directly against the AirPods Max, based on previous listening, we're confident you won't find a more natural-sounding transparency mode on the market.

However, there is one notable caveat to our praise. With this mode engaged, we occasionally heard mild connection noise in the right earcup. Sonos sent us two models to test and this issue was present on both. It's not enough to be a nuisance in most scenarios (it's audible only when connecting for a call or between songs in a quiet room), but it's still disappointing from headphones this pricey.

That said, it's not uncommon for debut products to arrive with a few bugs, so this could be ironed out with firmware.

The Ace's lack of WiFi streaming is disappointing, and we couldn't get TV Swap to work

The Ace have many top features you'd expect from flagship noise-canceling headphones, like multi-point pairing, sensors to pause audio when you take them off, and various other settings from within the Sonos app. Their battery life of up to 30 hours per charge is highly competitive, and we could use them all day for multiple days without the need to charge.

However, the Ace's inability to group with other Sonos speakers to stream music and other audio sources over WiFi is something of a letdown, even if it would have been unique among their peers. It's not particularly surprising at this price — we would have expected another $100 or so added in to get seamless support for both WiFi and Bluetooth — but it does put the Ace in a somewhat siloed position within the Sonos ecosystem.

The consolation prize for the Sonos faithful is the ability to wirelessly switch audio between the Ace headphones and a Sonos Arc soundbar (and eventually the Beam and Ray). This is handled via a TV Swap button in the Sonos app, currently for iOS users only. This means you can hear movies and TV shows privately through the headphones without disturbing others. And this mode supports Dolby Atmos, so you can get a surround sound effect through the headphones. But even with an iPhone and a new Sonos Arc soundbar on hand, no matter how many times we tried, we couldn't get either pair of Ace headphones Sonos sent us to sync with the Arc.

Sonos' support team told us "You've encountered a rare bug that our team is aware of and working to address in a future release." The headphones use a 5GHz connection for this feature (despite their lack of full WiFi support), so it's possible our network played a part. But the fact that we could easily group the Arc with a Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 speaker for multi-room playback made the issue all the more curious (and frustrating).

We expect a firmware update to address this — this is Sonos, after all — and we'll update this review with any changes as we continue to test.

Should you buy the Sonos Ace?

The Sonos Ace's many talents, from their fabulous noise canceling and transparency modes to their comfortable fit and sweet sound, instantly put them in the conversation with other top wireless headphones on the market. From that perspective, they're worth considering for those with an ample budget.

That said, their lack of full WiFi compatibility with the Sonos ecosystem may disappoint some ardent Sonos fans, not to mention the troubles we encountered, like their mild connection buzz and refusal to sync with the Arc soundbar over our network. 

We still recommend putting the Sonos Ace on your shortlist — they're just too damn comfortable and well-armed not to be — but we'll wait until Sonos addresses the issues we encountered before giving them our full seal of approval.

• Marine geophysicists just published the widest survey of the Cascadia Subduction Zone to date.
• The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a fault located off the Pacific Coast shoreline, from Northern California to British Columbia. 
• It's can produce "giant" earthquakes, and the researchers identified the most dangerous part of it.

Hidden off the US Western shore, beneath the Pacific Ocean, is the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This fault is capable of generating earthquakes larger than magnitude 8 that can be felt hundreds of miles away, and a recent study has pinpointed the most dangerous segment along its 700-mile-long stretch.

The results will help scientists assess earthquake and tsunami risk for this region, including one particularly vulnerable state: Washington.

"This has been a subduction zone that's been under-studied with the kinds of tools that we have available now," geophysicist Suzanne Carbotte, a Bruce Heezen Lamont research professor at Columbia University, told Business Insider.

Armed with state-of-the-art technology that can probe deep beneath the ocean floor and create images, Carbotte and her team produced the first comprehensive survey of Cascadia's complex, below-ground composition. They published their work today in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

The researchers discovered that Cascadia is broken up into at least four segments, which had been suggested by previous studies but never confirmed, Carbotte said.

The picture "before our study was a smooth surface with no obvious relationship to this segmentation," Carbotte said. "But that smooth surface was based on very, very sparse data. And in places, no data."

This new picture provides a much more accurate view of Cascadia's complexity, and of the risk it poses to the US West Coast.

How the Cascadia Subduction Zone causes earthquakes

Cascadia is essentially the border between two tectonic plates: the massive North American continent, and the smaller Juan de Fuca plate.

The Juan de Fuca plate is gradually sliding (or subducting) eastward beneath the North American plate, which creates a megathrust fault: a place where tectonic plates move against each other in a dangerous way.

The stress that's driving the Juan de Fuca plate under North America is continuous, Carbotte explained, but the plate's movement is not. Sometimes, it gets stuck.

When locking up like this, the plates can only absorb stress for so long before they finally rupture, triggering an earthquake, she said.

This is what scientists think happened about 300 years ago when the zone ruptured offshore and the resulting earthquake formed a massive tsunami that slammed into the coast of Japan.

While Cascadia hasn't produced a great earthquake since 1700, it's only a matter of time.

Scientists can't predict earthquakes but they can get a better idea of risk by understanding the fault's complex structure deep below ground.

Carbotte and her team have moved the needle significantly on that front.

Zeroing in on risk

Carbotte and her team found lots of variability in the megathrust's structure, which likely means that the hazard varies at different locations along the fault, said Janet Watt, research geophysicist at US Geological Survey Santa Cruz who was not involved in the study.

"It's not a one-size-fits-all answer, but it gives us an appreciation for that complexity," Watt, speaking about Carbotte's results, told BI.

Additionally, understanding that Cascadia is broken up into segments is key to assessing earthquake hazard, Watt said. That's because this segmentation means that the megathrust could rupture in pieces, rather than all at once. This could impact the size of future earthquakes, because shorter ruptures trigger smaller quakes.

What's more, the unique characteristics of each of these segments means each one poses a different level of risk. Another key finding from Carbotte's study is that one of Cascadia's segments is probably more likely to produce a great earthquake than the others.

This particularly dangerous segment essentially spans the coast of Washington, running from the northern Oregon border to southern British Columbia. It's flatter and smoother than the other segments, meaning it could trigger the largest earthquakes, Carbotte told BI in an email.

Plus, this segment likely extends further into the US than the others, which is bad news for the state of Washington. If this segment ruptured, Washington's coastal communities could face the most extreme shaking, although the quake would extend far beyond state borders, Carbotte wrote.

Knowing that could help this state prepare for the worst-case scenario. "I think this is an example of a study that will lead to action in the future in terms of building resiliency along the coastline. And it'll be exciting to see where the science takes us," Watt said.

Carbotte's research emerges in the context of many other studies that are currently working to bring our picture of Cascadia into sharper focus.

"This is one particular study of a larger community effort that is going on to [understand] the system, and then communicate what that means to communities on the coastline and inland, and how we can actually turn science into action," Watt said.