I have colleagues who sometimes work from home but also is a dependency for others in the office, and those non-commuters are less effective at their jobs when issues arise that require them to interact with somebody else. The office chat programs are often ignored, set to offline / do not disturb, etc. If that person with the issue had commuted in, the rest of us wouldn't be idled by their situation. The work-from-home employee didn't "waste" his time by staying home, but he is wasting other people's time by not being present.
This is exactly right, and I wish I had points to mod you up. Twitter != Internet. Comcast on the other hand does play the role of internet provider and the argument there isn't about which content they carry, but whether they grant performance preferences to some content over others.
As an afterthought to my own post, I wonder how many convictions might be thrown out because any evidence gathered subsequent to an unconstitutional tracking effort by law enforcement becomes inadmissable. Defense attorneys could have a field day with this.
A few years ago I had been drafted into jury duty for the 9th circuit in California. The case involved some sort of Medicare scam involving bogus sales of medical "devices" such as mobility scooters. During the jury selection process, prosecutors asked the pool whether any prospective jurors took issue with warrantless location tracking via cell phone towers. Apparently I was the only person who took issue with this, because the other 71 people in the room did not raise their hands. My public conversation with the court went something like this:
Prosecutor: Why do you take exception to warrantless location tracking?
Me: I believe the 3rd party doctrine is being abused in a manner that is unconstitutional and therefore illegal
Judge: I will decide what is legal and illegal, and your job is to decide innocence or guilt
Me: Richard Nixon once declared that "if the President does it, it's not illegal". We all know how that turned out. I will decide for myself whether the spirit of the Constitution is being violated
Jurors were then adjourned while the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney negotiated a jury pool. The pool was then welcomed back into the room, and I was thanked for my service, but then dismissed.
It's nice to see the Supreme Court finally came to the same conclusion.
No idea why your comment was modded down as you are exactly right. Back in the 90s, hundreds of Sun Microsystems were caught by this trap in which they exercised stock at their low "purchase price" of say $10/share while its fair market value was an order of magnitude greater. The taxes they owed on pieces of paper became the fair market price at time of exercise minus exercise price * number of shares. Then quite suddenly the stock crashed, the IRS came for their taxes the following April, and people who had briefly been theoretical millionaires were instead taxed like millionaires but in fact held nothing of value.
This type of stock option is called an ISO, and they were all the rage as a form of compensation in Silicon Valley, especially during the 90s through 2000s. Many lives were ruined by the taxation of a speculatively valued stock, and the only entity to truly benefit from the sky-high price of those stocks was the IRS. ISOs have since given way to RSUs as they represent a different method of taxation, but I happen to share the court's opinion that stock != money until that stock is liquidated. The value of a greenback is consistent from day to day while stocks, bitcoin, art, etc. are not.
Swamp coolers are far more efficient than AC units and are also highly effective, assuming the climate is hot and dry. In places like the middle east, these would consume far less power than AC units and just need a pittance of water to achieve their efficacy. I have a friend out in Nevada who pointed out to me that all the houses have swamp coolers, with some of them even being integrated into the central cooling system of the house.
All it needs is hot air pulled across a damp membrane with a squirrel cage fan. Couldn't be simpler or cheaper.
You must also recognize that each president that comes in sets a different agenda for NASA. NASA programs take more than a decade to launch (ha!), but their bosses last 4 or 8 years. It's a schizophrenic situation.
Keep in mind that the supercharge network is intended to help people traverse long distances. For the 99% of the time that you drive your vehicle as a city car, your home charging is still the same cost it was before. Tesla has made no secret of its desire to get people off superchargers for their daily charging needs, so this announcement should carry nearly zero impact for people who are using the network as intended.
Somehow I find your assertion about Texans' view of Californians as "the ruling class" to be unlikely. That said, I'm in a SF suburb and have been giving serious thought to relocating to San Antonio to be near family and to get away from the crowds, the expense, and most importantly the hyper-sensitivity I sometimes see about accusations of sexual harassment here. It's amazing to me that I have worked in the valley for 30 years and have yet to see any of the hype so frequently decried by SJWs here in the greater bay area. This isn't to say it doesn't exist, but maybe it's not so pervasive as some people would have the public believe. My hope is that Texas will offer a respite from all of this madness.
I think your points are fair and well stated, but I also think you're overlooking the fact that private ownership often brings with it a profit motive that too often comes at the expense of safety, environmental compliance, and affordability. We have seen too many other stories here on/. where Comcast (another provider of a vital utility) does really nasty things in communities, and then turns around and sues other communities who dare to establish publicly-owned internet. Others here have stated that many US airports are already privately owned, and it may be true that some of them run just fine. My thesis in all of this is that government ownership of vital services is more likely to be helmed as an honest broker than will be seen with private ownership.
This isn't about water, it's about public resources and the damage that is done to any sort of utility or institution when privatization is applied to the public interest. Yes, I can see I'm marked as troll / off-topic, but the damage done when some things get privatized is well documented. It applies to water, prisons, and soon will apply to airports.
And no, it's not about water shortages. It's about how those shortages were responded to.
Having actually had typhoid fever that lasted 7 days before I was finally put on the proper medication, I can really empathize with a population that lived with such horrible illness. The vomiting, diarrhea, and a general sense that your bowels are being constantly twisted like a wet washcloth are just awful. Living with such symptoms until death finally takes you must have been horrific.
This sort of French language and cultural identity protection has been going on for years. I remember once talking to a colleague from Quebec about this. He told me that he had initially been reticent about the idea of moving to the US because there is a sense among the Quebecers that the rest of us English-speaking Americans are out to destroy their cultural heritage. At the time of the conversation he had already been in the US for several years and so I asked him, "well, what is your assessment of American culture trying to destroy French culture?" His response boiled down to, "most of you don't even know who we are. We've been paranoid about nothing."
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is an excellent source of information and white noise. All you scientists need to cease and desist, or pay me money. My goodness the world is getting stupid...
You don't need tax breaks when you manage to avoid paying any taxes at all. In the realm of social justice, this whole thing is obscene. It doesn't benefit society, and it certainly doesn't create jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
I have colleagues who sometimes work from home but also is a dependency for others in the office, and those non-commuters are less effective at their jobs when issues arise that require them to interact with somebody else. The office chat programs are often ignored, set to offline / do not disturb, etc. If that person with the issue had commuted in, the rest of us wouldn't be idled by their situation. The work-from-home employee didn't "waste" his time by staying home, but he is wasting other people's time by not being present.
This is exactly right, and I wish I had points to mod you up. Twitter != Internet. Comcast on the other hand does play the role of internet provider and the argument there isn't about which content they carry, but whether they grant performance preferences to some content over others.
Wish I had mod points, as this is exactly what I do when expressing feigned excitement.
As an afterthought to my own post, I wonder how many convictions might be thrown out because any evidence gathered subsequent to an unconstitutional tracking effort by law enforcement becomes inadmissable. Defense attorneys could have a field day with this.
A few years ago I had been drafted into jury duty for the 9th circuit in California. The case involved some sort of Medicare scam involving bogus sales of medical "devices" such as mobility scooters. During the jury selection process, prosecutors asked the pool whether any prospective jurors took issue with warrantless location tracking via cell phone towers. Apparently I was the only person who took issue with this, because the other 71 people in the room did not raise their hands. My public conversation with the court went something like this:
Prosecutor: Why do you take exception to warrantless location tracking?
Me: I believe the 3rd party doctrine is being abused in a manner that is unconstitutional and therefore illegal
Judge: I will decide what is legal and illegal, and your job is to decide innocence or guilt
Me: Richard Nixon once declared that "if the President does it, it's not illegal". We all know how that turned out. I will decide for myself whether the spirit of the Constitution is being violated
Jurors were then adjourned while the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney negotiated a jury pool. The pool was then welcomed back into the room, and I was thanked for my service, but then dismissed.
It's nice to see the Supreme Court finally came to the same conclusion.
No idea why your comment was modded down as you are exactly right. Back in the 90s, hundreds of Sun Microsystems were caught by this trap in which they exercised stock at their low "purchase price" of say $10/share while its fair market value was an order of magnitude greater. The taxes they owed on pieces of paper became the fair market price at time of exercise minus exercise price * number of shares. Then quite suddenly the stock crashed, the IRS came for their taxes the following April, and people who had briefly been theoretical millionaires were instead taxed like millionaires but in fact held nothing of value.
This type of stock option is called an ISO, and they were all the rage as a form of compensation in Silicon Valley, especially during the 90s through 2000s. Many lives were ruined by the taxation of a speculatively valued stock, and the only entity to truly benefit from the sky-high price of those stocks was the IRS. ISOs have since given way to RSUs as they represent a different method of taxation, but I happen to share the court's opinion that stock != money until that stock is liquidated. The value of a greenback is consistent from day to day while stocks, bitcoin, art, etc. are not.
But Comcast put my contribution in the slow lane
Swamp coolers are far more efficient than AC units and are also highly effective, assuming the climate is hot and dry. In places like the middle east, these would consume far less power than AC units and just need a pittance of water to achieve their efficacy. I have a friend out in Nevada who pointed out to me that all the houses have swamp coolers, with some of them even being integrated into the central cooling system of the house.
All it needs is hot air pulled across a damp membrane with a squirrel cage fan. Couldn't be simpler or cheaper.
Kim has made a lot of commitments, none of them worth the paper they were printed on. I'll believe it when the inspectors believe it.
Well done with the Bender reference!
You must also recognize that each president that comes in sets a different agenda for NASA. NASA programs take more than a decade to launch (ha!), but their bosses last 4 or 8 years. It's a schizophrenic situation.
for example (and sorry for the long link): https://www.amazon.com/Invinci...
I think it was this one that my friend lent me, and it had something like 4 separate story arcs between the covers.
Google: we'll give you the safest phone in the world! Later that day... we don't know how to stop putting malware on our website
Keep in mind that the supercharge network is intended to help people traverse long distances. For the 99% of the time that you drive your vehicle as a city car, your home charging is still the same cost it was before. Tesla has made no secret of its desire to get people off superchargers for their daily charging needs, so this announcement should carry nearly zero impact for people who are using the network as intended.
sigh.
Somehow I find your assertion about Texans' view of Californians as "the ruling class" to be unlikely. That said, I'm in a SF suburb and have been giving serious thought to relocating to San Antonio to be near family and to get away from the crowds, the expense, and most importantly the hyper-sensitivity I sometimes see about accusations of sexual harassment here. It's amazing to me that I have worked in the valley for 30 years and have yet to see any of the hype so frequently decried by SJWs here in the greater bay area. This isn't to say it doesn't exist, but maybe it's not so pervasive as some people would have the public believe. My hope is that Texas will offer a respite from all of this madness.
I think your points are fair and well stated, but I also think you're overlooking the fact that private ownership often brings with it a profit motive that too often comes at the expense of safety, environmental compliance, and affordability. We have seen too many other stories here on /. where Comcast (another provider of a vital utility) does really nasty things in communities, and then turns around and sues other communities who dare to establish publicly-owned internet. Others here have stated that many US airports are already privately owned, and it may be true that some of them run just fine. My thesis in all of this is that government ownership of vital services is more likely to be helmed as an honest broker than will be seen with private ownership.
This isn't about water, it's about public resources and the damage that is done to any sort of utility or institution when privatization is applied to the public interest. Yes, I can see I'm marked as troll / off-topic, but the damage done when some things get privatized is well documented. It applies to water, prisons, and soon will apply to airports. And no, it's not about water shortages. It's about how those shortages were responded to.
https://www.newyorker.com/maga...
This is how you turn the first world into the third world
What does this even mean? I can't figure it out, but I wonder if NLP can...
If you have 1 bucket with 2 gallons and 1 bucket with 4 gallons, how many buckets you got?
Having actually had typhoid fever that lasted 7 days before I was finally put on the proper medication, I can really empathize with a population that lived with such horrible illness. The vomiting, diarrhea, and a general sense that your bowels are being constantly twisted like a wet washcloth are just awful. Living with such symptoms until death finally takes you must have been horrific.
This sort of French language and cultural identity protection has been going on for years. I remember once talking to a colleague from Quebec about this. He told me that he had initially been reticent about the idea of moving to the US because there is a sense among the Quebecers that the rest of us English-speaking Americans are out to destroy their cultural heritage. At the time of the conversation he had already been in the US for several years and so I asked him, "well, what is your assessment of American culture trying to destroy French culture?" His response boiled down to, "most of you don't even know who we are. We've been paranoid about nothing."
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is an excellent source of information and white noise. All you scientists need to cease and desist, or pay me money. My goodness the world is getting stupid...
You don't need tax breaks when you manage to avoid paying any taxes at all. In the realm of social justice, this whole thing is obscene. It doesn't benefit society, and it certainly doesn't create jobs.