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User: Gunfighter

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  1. Re: It's crossed my mind as well on Some Companies Choose Microsoft's Cloud Service Because They're Afraid of Amazon (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    First off, in case you didn't know, AWS is IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service while Azure is PaaS - Platform as a Service.

    AWS also offers PaaS and SaaS options in addition to IaaS.

  2. Re:Now I'm internet old... on Bruce Perens Calls For Open Source, Security, and Data Rights In IBM Ad (youtube.com) · · Score: 2

    I'll be right back. Grabbing my iCane.

  3. Re:How does someone who cleans toilets work from h on Could Technology Companies Solve Traffic Congestion? (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Some answers here.

    How does someone who cleans toilets work from home? It depends. Do they have to go to the office first every morning and then out to customer sites? If so, eliminate the trip to the office. My point was to eliminate travel when it is not necessary for tasks that can be accomplished remotely, not to just "have everyone work from home from now on."

    As for the "surge pricing" (I'll borrow a term from Uber here), I think that would be an interesting approach. The corruption problem would certainly throw some monkey wrenches into the system, but I like where you're heading with the concept.

  4. Re:Revolutionary idea on Could Technology Companies Solve Traffic Congestion? (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Did I say "all jobs"? I'm sorry. I must have mistyped it. What I meant was...

    Reward companies (and people) who work from home with incentives to keep them off the road.

    Oh wait.... that is what I typed. Nevermind.

    The object is to help solve a problem: traffic congestion. This doesn't mean removing all traffic from the road, it means removing some of the traffic from the road, hopefully to the point where traffic congestion is no longer a problem. In this case, my idea is to remove some of the traffic by taking the jobs that can be done from home (knowledge workers, IT, customer service, administrative work, etc.) and encouraging them to work from home through some sort of rewards and incentives system.

  5. Re:Obvious Question: on First Object Teleported From Earth To Orbit (technologyreview.com) · · Score: 1

    They asked it.

  6. Revolutionary idea on Could Technology Companies Solve Traffic Congestion? (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My entry:

    Reward companies (and people) who work from home with incentives to keep them off the road.

    Can I have my $5k now?

  7. Re:Lost $800 Million on Uber Lost $800 Million In Third Quarter (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    ... and not even showing up to pick you up if they don't feel like it will be profitable enough for them.

    Uber drivers learn over time which rides look most profitable and which ones are likely a waste of time. I know some in my area are more selective than others in deciding which pings (ride requests) they will accept.

  8. Re:How can they make money? on Uber Lost $800 Million In Third Quarter (cnbc.com) · · Score: 2

    I average around $10 / hr. in my area if I only drive on Friday and Saturday evenings when the demand is high. This is counting up all of the time I am "online".

    I usually park and read a book between rides, so if you only count the time I'm driving it comes out to a bit more.

    Once I take out expenses and $0.54 / mile, I come out to a loss on paper. I have a vehicle with a low cost-to-operate, so I end up in a better position than other Uber drivers in the long run.

  9. Re:The no-rules no-ethics new dotcom boom on Uber Lost $800 Million In Third Quarter (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Those of us who have been through dotcom 1.0's boom and bust know that there are patterns here - high stock valuations, no profitability, no real exit strategy, and hope of acquisition. What makes this time a bit different is that the ethics of the businesses are pretty challenged this time around.

    /agree

    With Uber, you get a company that knows it gets a free ride (no pun intended) on the people who sacrifice their personal vehicles' wear and tear that won't be fully covered by the money they receive,

    This is true to a certain extent. I don't live in a big city, and I drive for Uber only on the side, and only for quick cash when I need it. This "quick cash" is pretty much tax-free by the time I deduct expenses and $0.54 per mile using the IRS standard rate. The business losses I incur from driving for Uber will lower my taxable income from my "day job" and my LLC I have set up for consulting on the side. On the flip side, I don't think driving for Uber full-time is a sustainable long-term business model.

    is schizophrenic when it comes to its disposition on whether its drivers are employees or contractors,

    They're pretty adamant about it: You're a contractor.

    fails to impose safety standards and inspections of both vehicles and people,

    I was required to undergo a background check, provide my driving record, and provide a copy of the inspection results of my vehicle's inspection.

    actively encourages people breaking the law by not requiring their drivers to have commercial insurance policies on their vehicles

    The laws in my state do not require drivers who drive for Uber or Lyft (the only two legal ones here) to carry insurance beyond their regular insurance. Rather, Uber provides a policy, with an insurance policy certificate from an insurer licensed in the state as required by the law, to cover the additional insurance requirements mandated by the state law regarding companies like Uber and Lyft.

    and acting as a taxi company,

    Taxis can be hailed from the curb. Uber and Lyft drivers can only legally accept pre-arranged rides here. There is a difference. The DMV in my state does carry out an occasional surprise inspection in some areas where an inspector will try to get an Uber driver to take a "side drive" for direct pay or something similar.

    and pretending to be an insurance company in violation of law by claiming they will self-insure for a million dollars of public liability without a certificate from the respective insurance commissions of the states they do business in.

    I'm looking at the insurance policy Uber obtained for my driving. It is from a third party insurer who has been licensed and operating in my state since three years before Uber was launched.

    Revenue growth isn't hard when you throw enough resources at something. A million average people will happily pick up something cheap or free and easy no matter whose expense its at. Profit growth is an entirely different animal. I believe when the legal chickens come home to roost, Uber will come out to be made out to be one of the biggest boondoggles in the latest dotcom boom. These days, there's a type of challenged ethics pervading the corporate culture of the new boom where people just go break the law and hope that things will sort themselves out. In the long run, it isn't the smartest business strategy in the world, and it isn't just Uber - and yes, I'm looking at you Theranos and Magic Leap. Even when the companies are legitimate, it seems the premiums people pay for them are ludicrous and defy the most basic business analysis of recovery of investment in a profitable way. I can't imagine this will all end well even if the magnitude of the failures are masked by inflation and currency devaluation.

    I'm with you on

  10. Recursion on Are We Seeing Propaganda About Russian Propaganda? (rollingstone.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wait.... how do we know whether or not this /. post is propaganda about propaganda about propaganda?

    This recursion stuff gets confusing sometimes.

  11. I've encountered medical scribes twice now:

    1. During a trip to my ophthalmologist, the doctor did the examining and talked the entire time (not to me) while the scribe took the notes.

    2. During my most recent trip to the ER (for a relative, not for myself), the doctor came in with a medical scribe. The scribe wheeled in a cart with a laptop and stood quietly in the corner. The scribe's job was to do nothing but take notes for the doctor while he examined the patient.

    In both settings, the setup seemed to work very well. Perhaps this is the answer to the "over-data" problem described in the OP.

  12. Faulty UPS? on BT Internet Outage Was Our Fault, Says Equinix (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    If it's a UPS that's not U, doesn't that just make it a PS? Perhaps an IPS, or even a PoS?

  13. Re:Pissing contest on Slashdot Asks: What's Your Computer Set-Up Look Like? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well - getting you on the UID is the easy part, oh young one! ;-)

    Sure is. ;)

  14. From the horse's mouth on Ask Slashdot: Worthwhile Security Training Courses? · · Score: 1

    I just spoke to a recruiter in my company's MSSP division. Recommendations:

    CISSP (you're all set)
    OSCP
    CEH

    Tack on some SIEM certs or experience for good measure.

  15. Yes. Publish them through a DNS Blacklist similar to others or add them to an existing one. Establish rules and guidelines for removal procedures.

  16. Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb on Jeb Bush Comes Out Against Encryption · · Score: 2

    I think we should establish privacy as a Constitutionally protected right under the 9th Amendment.

  17. MongoDB on U.K. Government Seeking To End Reliance On Oracle · · Score: 1

    Just switch it to MongoDB. I hear rumor it is "webscale." ;)

  18. Re:Bad calculation on Microsoft Uses US Women's Soccer Team To Explain Why It Doesn't Hire More Women · · Score: 1

    Couple this with the fact that 120,000 of those 140,000 positions don't really need a CS degree to do the work the position requires, and you have a better picture of the problem a lazy HR department causes.

  19. Learn to.... on The Tools Don't Get You the Job · · Score: 2

    1980's: Learn to use a computer
    1990's: Learn to use a word processor
    2000's: Learn to use Microsoft Word
    2010's: ?????
    2020's: PROFIT!

  20. Alternate Approach: Suspend Competitor's Account on Nasty Business: How To Drain Competitors' Google AdWords Budgets · · Score: 1

    Is your competitor putting Google Ads on their website? Are they making any decent money off of it? Click on their ads repeatedly until Google suspends their account.

    This happened to me, but not from a business competitor. I put some Google Ads up on my WoW guild's forums hoping it would help offset the cost of hosting. One of our rival guilds on our server ran up the clicks to the point where my account was suspended for click fraud and I was no longer permitted to place Google Ads on ANY websites, even after an appeal.

  21. 1980's Elementary School on How Early Should Kids Learn To Code? · · Score: 1

    I just turned 39. When I was in elementary school in the 1980's, going to the computer lab to learn about computers entailed learning the following:

    * Basics of the computer system
    -- Input
    -- Output
    -- Storage
    -- Bits and bytes

    * Booting the computer

    * Programming in the BASIC programming language
    -- Operations (mostly arithmetic)
    -- Printing output to the screen/printer
    -- Conditionals
    -- Loops
    -- Subroutines
    -- and... the dreaded GOTO

    As a result, I knew how to "program" before I even started junior high. I didn't take any other program-related courses until high school (BASIC and then Pascal), but I continued studying on my own at home. Contrast that with today: My children will have a lot of computer courses teaching them how to use the computer for research, office automation, etc.; but they mostly likely will not be exposed to computer programming until high school.

  22. End Time Zones on Is Daylight Saving Time Worth Saving? · · Score: 1

    Just do away with time zones all together.

  23. Re:I applaud them on Facebook Paid 0.3% Taxes On $1.34 Billion Profits · · Score: 1

    I use roads, including both private and public roads.
    I depend on regulation from both the government and private entities.
    I am, in some ways, a self made man; however, that's not to say I have not relied on others to get to where I am today.
    You may think me naive or an idiot if you like. Keep in mind, though, that the government already taxes the income earned by the individuals who work at the company. The company's retained earnings will eventually be taxed when they are paid out in the form of dividends or wages down the line.... or I guess the company could just lay off a bunch of people and hand the money over to the government as a corporate tax now? Personally, I think the money is better off staying with the company and they owe it to their employees and other stakeholders to try and make sure they can continue to make payroll and deliver the goods and services expected of them. If that means taking legal steps to avoid taxes, then that's what needs to happen.

    P.S. Your comment made me laugh when it conjured up this image:
    http://184.173.194.236/~worm64/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/statistRoadsZombies.jpg

  24. I applaud them on Facebook Paid 0.3% Taxes On $1.34 Billion Profits · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Tax avoidance is a good thing. Kudos to Google and every other company who keeps the government's thieving paws out of their coffers by any and all legal means available to them.

  25. Re:Dreading the Day on BitCoin Card To Launch In 2 Months, Says BitInstant · · Score: 5, Funny

    Us old folks still remember the day when the speed limit was 2.5989246 × 10^-15 light years per second on the highway. Nowadays, you see people zooming along at 3.78025396 × 10^-15 light years per second in the 3.07145635 × 10^-15 light years per second zone. It's MADNESS!

    Where's my cane?