Amazon is one of the few companies out there that gives a shit about security. That attitude doesn't guarantee security, of course, but the (shockingly common) attitude of security as a cost to be minimized guarantees lack of security.
Not sure about Google, as I only know a couple people who work there, but their lack of a major incident thus far (AFAIK) is a good sign.
Even if Amazon really has a new, more secure system (what's that say about their main cloud storage?),
As you should know, when it come to the government, "secure", means "passes audits". Even if it's the same system, the gov cloud passes the needed audits and thus is "more secure".
Then there's this. You can bet it's more secure - in terms of physical security if nothing else.
the fact remains that your data is no longer really in your hands, and will likely never be under your control again
If you're outsourcing your IT, that's already true.
he article doesn't talk about any kind of unnecessary bureaucracy at organisation
Why would you expect it to? And what is "unnecessary"? I've been at places where explaining that there are reams of paperwork to get the simplest thing done would be like a fish explaining water. The guys who can fix customer issues without bothering the customer with a ream of paperwork were golden.
As for the goodwill, that's with other departments of the same company, not with actual customers
That's who the "actual customers" of the IT department are. Obviously.
Every worked for a large bureaucracy? The job can be more that 50% paperwork. Given these guys have goodwill from their customers, chances are they're quite skilled in the "how the system actually works" part of the job.
It's not all about technical skills. It may not even be mostly about technical skills. Why would you want to lose that?
This - sometimes people are unofficial IT project managers. The guys in TFA might just be a couple of losers, or they might be doing something useful every day. Certainly worth asking around.
Pay (and prestige) for any job does not depend on the impotance of the job alone - never has. Any business would be in trouble without someone to clean the toilets.
It's not about importance, but about value of and difficulty in hiring (or replacing) 1 additional person, vs the number of people willing and able to do the job. The more that people either want to do the job (because it's cool) or are able to do the job (even if it's a shit job), the less it will pay relative to similar work, and usually the lower in the pecking order it will be.
Perhaps it's a combination of global competition and the relatively weak labor force participation that's keeping wage growth in check, historically with 4% unemployment you'd expect wage growth about twice the current rate (which is barely beating low inflation).
Give it time. There's some lag proportional to corporate inertia for labor to get negotiating power, but if job growth continues rising wages are inevitable.
You found a sack of lies that supports your beliefs, and so you treat it as gospel and expect everyone else to sing along. You'll find that only works with others who already believe what you do, and like you are closed-minded.
Came here to say this. I just use an old laptop: Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube all work. However, Netflix is on my shit list because they won't stream 4K to the browser, only to the stupid proprietary boxes. Anyone have a work-around?
That's a fair point, but just as replacing everyone every election would be bad, never cleaning house is bad. Large institutions become gradually more corrupt over time, and humanity has never found a fix for that, beyond the bigger hammer approach.
For the same reason, I think we should go back to state-appointment of senators (and then switch back again in 50 years or so) - the corruption is so firmly in place that simply switching the system will disrupt the finely-tune lobbying machine for decades. Both ways are vulnerable to corruption, but there's a win in switching.
Similarly, replacing government agencies with new people (but a similar charter) every 50-100 would be very beneficial. And they're really bad now.
Yes, but assuming the confirmed director of the CIA and Trump are working together (as seems to be the case here), they should be able to fire anyone or everyone in the agency, and hire replacements at their pleasure (well, conformant with EEOC rules etc).
The job of the Congress is to say "make a spy agency, you have $X to work with". The implementation details belong to the Executive branch. If Trump wants to say "out with the CIA, in with the CIB", that's fine and all, he gets to pick who works for him. But we don't need redundant agencies with duplicate charters (and budgets).
Congress holds the purse strings, so this agency won't be funded unless they want it to be, meaning whatever oversight they desire. Personally, I don't see the point in having both this new thing and the CIA at the same time - if the CIA isn't working, and can't be fixed, get rid of it.
Doesn't it report into the same CIA director? So not private. And we know about it? So not secret. And it's a spy agency? So not police. So, yeah, every word in "private secret police" is wrong.
Since I believe in democracy, I'm all for Trump being able to trash any and all federal departments - that's the power the Constitution gives him.
What I object to is the Byzantine palace intrigue bullshit. Don't trust the CIA? Fine - fire everyone, bar them from future government work, and start over. That's very transparent, very open, and sends a clear message to both voters and other departments. This double-secret probation stuff is just the worst.
If I earn and I don't spend what I earn, why don't I have the right to give to my kids? Also, how the heck is $600k (maybe $24k in a trust fund) "your kids will never have to work another day in their lives after you die"?
The top 80% can afford to save something for retirement - it's just a question of priorities, and some do indeed spend it on immediate gratification instead of saving. The top 50% or so can afford to save enough that they'll have the option of not drawing it down during retirement, and leaving something to their grandkids - again a question of priorities of burning it all, or passing some on.
Right now $500k is a bare minimum to supplement social security (as normally invested, that's maybe $20k/year), and you need at least $1M to give some hope of maintaining median-income standard of living in retirement - that's far from "rich".
So that seems like a good bar for the "deductible" on estate taxes: if you're splitting $1-2M 2-3 ways, that shouldn't be taxed. IIRC that's how it works today: $1.5M total before you have to file, and $600k to any given person before taxes kick in there.
No need to eliminate that tax IMO, though like everything it should be inflation-adjusted. A better idea IMO would be to tax inheritance as income (spread out over 10 years or so), so that it's progressive and the more you spread it out, the less total tax is paid. Primogeniture is a well-established society-breaking problem (without it, wealth doesn't usually stay concentrated over centuries).
You might find economic studies of currency interesting. I find it interesting that a currency does not have to be a store of value (you'll find that phrase "store of value" is usual). A currency, really, is just "the most easily exchanged commodity", which BTC fulfills nicely for some people and circumstances. Historically there were "marketplace currencies" that were only used to mediate barter during a market day, and had no value beyond that day.
There are also formally-run "favor banks" at some retirement communities, that have the issue that people tend to die owing favors more than the reverse (people tend to be OK with that, since they're fine with doing favors for the weakest in the community), causing a continuous loss of value - a very depressing sort of inflation, I guess.
Well, gold is a store of value. Admittedly, people use "wealth" in a broad sense, but the useful technical sense is "an asset that generates value over time" (which effectively constrains it to "ownership of the means of production" and "loans").
Slashdot Mirror
Amazon is one of the few companies out there that gives a shit about security. That attitude doesn't guarantee security, of course, but the (shockingly common) attitude of security as a cost to be minimized guarantees lack of security.
Not sure about Google, as I only know a couple people who work there, but their lack of a major incident thus far (AFAIK) is a good sign.
Even if Amazon really has a new, more secure system (what's that say about their main cloud storage?),
As you should know, when it come to the government, "secure", means "passes audits". Even if it's the same system, the gov cloud passes the needed audits and thus is "more secure".
Then there's this. You can bet it's more secure - in terms of physical security if nothing else.
the fact remains that your data is no longer really in your hands, and will likely never be under your control again
If you're outsourcing your IT, that's already true.
he article doesn't talk about any kind of unnecessary bureaucracy at organisation
Why would you expect it to? And what is "unnecessary"? I've been at places where explaining that there are reams of paperwork to get the simplest thing done would be like a fish explaining water. The guys who can fix customer issues without bothering the customer with a ream of paperwork were golden.
As for the goodwill, that's with other departments of the same company, not with actual customers
That's who the "actual customers" of the IT department are. Obviously.
Every worked for a large bureaucracy? The job can be more that 50% paperwork. Given these guys have goodwill from their customers, chances are they're quite skilled in the "how the system actually works" part of the job.
It's not all about technical skills. It may not even be mostly about technical skills. Why would you want to lose that?
This - sometimes people are unofficial IT project managers. The guys in TFA might just be a couple of losers, or they might be doing something useful every day. Certainly worth asking around.
Pay (and prestige) for any job does not depend on the impotance of the job alone - never has. Any business would be in trouble without someone to clean the toilets.
It's not about importance, but about value of and difficulty in hiring (or replacing) 1 additional person, vs the number of people willing and able to do the job. The more that people either want to do the job (because it's cool) or are able to do the job (even if it's a shit job), the less it will pay relative to similar work, and usually the lower in the pecking order it will be.
Perhaps it's a combination of global competition and the relatively weak labor force participation that's keeping wage growth in check, historically with 4% unemployment you'd expect wage growth about twice the current rate (which is barely beating low inflation).
Give it time. There's some lag proportional to corporate inertia for labor to get negotiating power, but if job growth continues rising wages are inevitable.
You found a sack of lies that supports your beliefs, and so you treat it as gospel and expect everyone else to sing along. You'll find that only works with others who already believe what you do, and like you are closed-minded.
Indeed; the trick seems to be getting the outflow higher than the inflow!
Guess we caught him sleeping, or perhaps it's because no one mentioned ad blockers.
There's probably something that could be done with your ... hosts file [wince].
f you successful do that on your HTPC google will take what steps they can to prevent you from getting the content they host.
YouTube has ads?
Came here to say this. I just use an old laptop: Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube all work. However, Netflix is on my shit list because they won't stream 4K to the browser, only to the stupid proprietary boxes. Anyone have a work-around?
That's a fair point, but just as replacing everyone every election would be bad, never cleaning house is bad. Large institutions become gradually more corrupt over time, and humanity has never found a fix for that, beyond the bigger hammer approach.
For the same reason, I think we should go back to state-appointment of senators (and then switch back again in 50 years or so) - the corruption is so firmly in place that simply switching the system will disrupt the finely-tune lobbying machine for decades. Both ways are vulnerable to corruption, but there's a win in switching.
Similarly, replacing government agencies with new people (but a similar charter) every 50-100 would be very beneficial. And they're really bad now.
Yes, but assuming the confirmed director of the CIA and Trump are working together (as seems to be the case here), they should be able to fire anyone or everyone in the agency, and hire replacements at their pleasure (well, conformant with EEOC rules etc).
New administrators would constantly have to learn the complexities of their jobs, and by the time they mastered it, they would have to leave.
You say that like it's a bad thing. The more complex the government, the less I want it to be able to do. It isn't acting in our interests, after all.
The job of the Congress is to say "make a spy agency, you have $X to work with". The implementation details belong to the Executive branch. If Trump wants to say "out with the CIA, in with the CIB", that's fine and all, he gets to pick who works for him. But we don't need redundant agencies with duplicate charters (and budgets).
Congress holds the purse strings, so this agency won't be funded unless they want it to be, meaning whatever oversight they desire. Personally, I don't see the point in having both this new thing and the CIA at the same time - if the CIA isn't working, and can't be fixed, get rid of it.
Doesn't it report into the same CIA director? So not private. And we know about it? So not secret. And it's a spy agency? So not police. So, yeah, every word in "private secret police" is wrong.
Since I believe in democracy, I'm all for Trump being able to trash any and all federal departments - that's the power the Constitution gives him.
What I object to is the Byzantine palace intrigue bullshit. Don't trust the CIA? Fine - fire everyone, bar them from future government work, and start over. That's very transparent, very open, and sends a clear message to both voters and other departments. This double-secret probation stuff is just the worst.
If I earn and I don't spend what I earn, why don't I have the right to give to my kids? Also, how the heck is $600k (maybe $24k in a trust fund) "your kids will never have to work another day in their lives after you die"?
The top 80% can afford to save something for retirement - it's just a question of priorities, and some do indeed spend it on immediate gratification instead of saving. The top 50% or so can afford to save enough that they'll have the option of not drawing it down during retirement, and leaving something to their grandkids - again a question of priorities of burning it all, or passing some on.
Right now $500k is a bare minimum to supplement social security (as normally invested, that's maybe $20k/year), and you need at least $1M to give some hope of maintaining median-income standard of living in retirement - that's far from "rich".
So that seems like a good bar for the "deductible" on estate taxes: if you're splitting $1-2M 2-3 ways, that shouldn't be taxed. IIRC that's how it works today: $1.5M total before you have to file, and $600k to any given person before taxes kick in there.
No need to eliminate that tax IMO, though like everything it should be inflation-adjusted. A better idea IMO would be to tax inheritance as income (spread out over 10 years or so), so that it's progressive and the more you spread it out, the less total tax is paid. Primogeniture is a well-established society-breaking problem (without it, wealth doesn't usually stay concentrated over centuries).
You might find economic studies of currency interesting. I find it interesting that a currency does not have to be a store of value (you'll find that phrase "store of value" is usual). A currency, really, is just "the most easily exchanged commodity", which BTC fulfills nicely for some people and circumstances. Historically there were "marketplace currencies" that were only used to mediate barter during a market day, and had no value beyond that day.
There are also formally-run "favor banks" at some retirement communities, that have the issue that people tend to die owing favors more than the reverse (people tend to be OK with that, since they're fine with doing favors for the weakest in the community), causing a continuous loss of value - a very depressing sort of inflation, I guess.
Well, gold is a store of value. Admittedly, people use "wealth" in a broad sense, but the useful technical sense is "an asset that generates value over time" (which effectively constrains it to "ownership of the means of production" and "loans").
Soon, you'll be able to put your money where your mouth is.