What's more important is what the policy will be after the sale goes through. Realistically Google can't be held responsible for policies of some company they don't own.
> So, they'd be stopping him without any probable cause?
I understand what you're saying, but the probable cause will be that he was detected carrying a weapon. You can't be too careful. If it saves just one life etc etc.
> I'm walking down the street with a concealed handgun (perfectly legal in 30+ states) and the DHS van shows I'm packing heat. Next thing I know I'm on the ground with a knee in my back and automatic weapons pointed at me. Is this how it's going to work?
Of course. And if you cooperate fully and have all the proper documentation on you, and don't have the bad fortune of being in "the right place at the right time", they will probably let you go, and depending on the state and the precinct you might even get your weapon back. Whee.
But seriously, there are certain political factions that have been looking for something like this for decades. This could get really grim really quickly.
> I mean, have you not seen enough of Tom Hanks in Cast Away [imdb.com]?
Once was enough...
But seriously, you're right about freight. Besides the lack of pilots, think about transporting freight at something like Mach 20. The world just got a lot smaller.
That's because most alternate energy schemes are just a Liberal tree-hugging pipe dream that destroys jobs and wastes money. That doesn't mean that there's no alternate energy scheme that ever works. It does mean that you tend to need big bucks and an overriding reason to make it work. Oh, like the military.
An outbuilding on my property is a candidate for solar because there's no legal way to get city power to it (for reasons unimportant to this discussion) and -- oh yeah -- the neighbors wouldn't permit the noise of a wind farm. My power needs in that particular building are modest enough that I can consider solar without being buried in panels and deep-cycle batteries, else I wouldn't consider it. The initial cost will be about three times the cost of trenching and running a conduit would have cost (had it been permitted) and I now have to factor in maintenance costs, but I don't have a lot of choices. I guess I should go hug a tree now.
Near my work is a skyscraper with five tiny wind turbines on the roof. I read in the local paper that they provide 4% of the building's power on windy days. But they are pretty, and people can point to them and say "See? Wind power!!!" I guess the CEO should go hug a branch. Or a leaf.
What I wrote wasn't clear. "slightly more (approx 5%) than advertised" means that although I'm paying for 20M, (fiber) I'm actually measuring a little over 21 Mb/sec.
Frontier bought the local fiber from Verizon... oh, a year ago I think. I regularly test upload/download speeds and it's always been slightly more (approx 5%) than advertised. With Verizon, and before that Comcast, I would periodically (every one to three months) see download speed drop to a lower tier. (Measured consistently from several tries.) A call to the ISP, they "re-provision" my line and my speed would return. I suspect that this isn't an accident. Enough people wouldn't notice a speed decrease that it's in the company's best interest not to pursue these "mistakes" too enthusiastically.
But as I said, haven't seen this from Frontier, yet. (Just measured last Wednesday.)
I'm talking about regular citizens needing 911 for reasons that may directly be related to protesters, or may only peripherally be related to protesters or possibly not at all. Protesters are not a module that sits over *here* where a group of police can arrive and entirely cover what everything is doing. Have you ever been in a riot? It's not a single entity in a single place, but a decentralized amorphous mass. Deliberately turning off 911 services, and admitting to it *especially* (but not only because) the decision makers expected civil unrest seems to me to be more than enough reason for regular citizens (not rioters) to sue the pants off the people who came up with that idea.
It's also important not to get trapped in a Bat Masterson way of thinking where there are only (a) law enforcement, and (b) potential perps. There are innocent citizens out there also just trying to get back to their homes in San Mateo, and if some guy has a heart attack on the platform and his family is denied access to 911, officials will have some 'splanin' to do. At least, if there is any justice at all in the world.
We're geeks here; we can come up with an answer to this in our sleep. Turn off data services. Reprogram towers to provide 911 access only. But turn off the towers? Amateurs.
Hang on, since they did this by shutting down the antennas, didn't this also include 911 service?
So, when does the class action lawsuit begin?
IANAL, just a citizen who has had occasion to use 911 when another citizen was in immediate peril. I'd think the first move would be to get an injunction to prevent this from happening again. And then sue the living crap out of the BART transit authority for emperiling the public.
Defense: "Your honor, we shut down the cellular system in response to a report that there was going to be civil unrest."
Prosecution: "Really? That's your defense?"
Defense: "Yes."
Prosecution: "Your honor, we would like to change the charge to 'Shutting down 911 service during a time when the defense expected there to be civil unrest.'"
> I wonder what will happen if all a whole generation of IT people are out of work because they are "too expensive". Keep in mind that the age I'm in, means I'm basically starting my "life"... Married, mortgage, kids (or thinking of kids). The prospect of being out of a job in 5 years frightens me to no end.
There are things you can do right now. Start with living a little cheaper each year, and position yourself so that you don't have to be making what you're making now in order to pay your bills. If you get surprised and keep your job, bonus! But if you have to lower your price to remain competitive, preparing now will lessen the impact.
I started in the computer industry before Algore invented the internet, and rode the wave to a solid six figure salary during boom.dot.bust. But we lived like we made a five figure salary, and after the bust, when I *had* to accept a five figure salary in order to resume working, it didn't break us. I realize that people in our line of work will probably never see that kind of money again, but we survive, the lights stay on, and we don't go hungry.
Perhaps. I think part of the issue is that people in our age group do the same things we used to do in our twenties and thirties to find and keep a job, and they just plain don't work anymore.
Finding a job over 50 involves playing to your strengths, just like every other time in your life, but the difference is, your strengths are different, and a lot of people don't recognize that. You may not have the boundless energy of youth, but you have things now that you didn't have then, including maturity, stability, experience, and accumulated knowledge. You may not be able to compete for a job with a 25 year old on his terms, but you can compete on your terms. Finding out what those terms are -- what you can offer right now that you couldn't offer 30 years ago -- is the trick.
Enh, it's not a Republican vs Democrat thing. It's a fiscally conservative vs fiscally liberal thing. And there can be either in either party. It may be somewhat more likely to find fiscal liberals in the Democrat party as it currently stands, but it is definitely not true that voting Republican automatically means spending less money. (You didn't say that, but I just want to make that point clear.)
The primaries, on both sides, are more important than the actual election, I think.
I usually find myself in a quandary in these discussions, being fiscally conservative and socially liberal. (Both sides get to hate me.) But I think now is the time when fiscal conservatism is more important.
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What's more important is what the policy will be after the sale goes through. Realistically Google can't be held responsible for policies of some company they don't own.
I happen to agree, but then how does one explain the legality of sobriety checkpoints?
> So, they'd be stopping him without any probable cause?
I understand what you're saying, but the probable cause will be that he was detected carrying a weapon. You can't be too careful. If it saves just one life etc etc.
> But how much freight actually matters if it gets there 10 hours earlier?
Well, the thing that occurs to me immediately is human organs.
> I'm walking down the street with a concealed handgun (perfectly legal in 30+ states) and the DHS van shows I'm packing heat. Next thing I know I'm on the ground with a knee in my back and automatic weapons pointed at me. Is this how it's going to work?
Of course. And if you cooperate fully and have all the proper documentation on you, and don't have the bad fortune of being in "the right place at the right time", they will probably let you go, and depending on the state and the precinct you might even get your weapon back. Whee.
But seriously, there are certain political factions that have been looking for something like this for decades. This could get really grim really quickly.
> I mean, have you not seen enough of Tom Hanks in Cast Away [imdb.com]?
Once was enough...
But seriously, you're right about freight. Besides the lack of pilots, think about transporting freight at something like Mach 20. The world just got a lot smaller.
> they also announced they are considering exiting the PC hardware business entirely in order to focus on their software business.
Could it be... could this mean... that I will never again have to fix a customer's Pavilion?
Happy days are here again!
The skes above are clear again!
Let's sing a song of cheer again!
Happy days are here agaaaaaainnnnnnnn
But wait... doesn't that mean they'll sell existing stock at heavily discounted prices? Now I'm depressed again...
That's because most alternate energy schemes are just a Liberal tree-hugging pipe dream that destroys jobs and wastes money. That doesn't mean that there's no alternate energy scheme that ever works. It does mean that you tend to need big bucks and an overriding reason to make it work. Oh, like the military.
An outbuilding on my property is a candidate for solar because there's no legal way to get city power to it (for reasons unimportant to this discussion) and -- oh yeah -- the neighbors wouldn't permit the noise of a wind farm. My power needs in that particular building are modest enough that I can consider solar without being buried in panels and deep-cycle batteries, else I wouldn't consider it. The initial cost will be about three times the cost of trenching and running a conduit would have cost (had it been permitted) and I now have to factor in maintenance costs, but I don't have a lot of choices. I guess I should go hug a tree now.
Near my work is a skyscraper with five tiny wind turbines on the roof. I read in the local paper that they provide 4% of the building's power on windy days. But they are pretty, and people can point to them and say "See? Wind power!!!" I guess the CEO should go hug a branch. Or a leaf.
What I wrote wasn't clear. "slightly more (approx 5%) than advertised" means that although I'm paying for 20M, (fiber) I'm actually measuring a little over 21 Mb/sec.
Frontier bought the local fiber from Verizon... oh, a year ago I think. I regularly test upload/download speeds and it's always been slightly more (approx 5%) than advertised. With Verizon, and before that Comcast, I would periodically (every one to three months) see download speed drop to a lower tier. (Measured consistently from several tries.) A call to the ISP, they "re-provision" my line and my speed would return. I suspect that this isn't an accident. Enough people wouldn't notice a speed decrease that it's in the company's best interest not to pursue these "mistakes" too enthusiastically.
But as I said, haven't seen this from Frontier, yet. (Just measured last Wednesday.)
I'm talking about regular citizens needing 911 for reasons that may directly be related to protesters, or may only peripherally be related to protesters or possibly not at all. Protesters are not a module that sits over *here* where a group of police can arrive and entirely cover what everything is doing. Have you ever been in a riot? It's not a single entity in a single place, but a decentralized amorphous mass. Deliberately turning off 911 services, and admitting to it *especially* (but not only because) the decision makers expected civil unrest seems to me to be more than enough reason for regular citizens (not rioters) to sue the pants off the people who came up with that idea.
It's also important not to get trapped in a Bat Masterson way of thinking where there are only (a) law enforcement, and (b) potential perps. There are innocent citizens out there also just trying to get back to their homes in San Mateo, and if some guy has a heart attack on the platform and his family is denied access to 911, officials will have some 'splanin' to do. At least, if there is any justice at all in the world.
We're geeks here; we can come up with an answer to this in our sleep. Turn off data services. Reprogram towers to provide 911 access only. But turn off the towers? Amateurs.
Hang on, since they did this by shutting down the antennas, didn't this also include 911 service?
So, when does the class action lawsuit begin?
IANAL, just a citizen who has had occasion to use 911 when another citizen was in immediate peril. I'd think the first move would be to get an injunction to prevent this from happening again. And then sue the living crap out of the BART transit authority for emperiling the public.
Defense: "Your honor, we shut down the cellular system in response to a report that there was going to be civil unrest."
Prosecution: "Really? That's your defense?"
Defense: "Yes."
Prosecution: "Your honor, we would like to change the charge to 'Shutting down 911 service during a time when the defense expected there to be civil unrest.'"
Just sayin'.
Indeed. And -- BONUS -- companies with older management, like older households, tend to be more stable.
> I wonder what will happen if all a whole generation of IT people are out of work because they are "too expensive". Keep in mind that the age I'm in, means I'm basically starting my "life"... Married, mortgage, kids (or thinking of kids). The prospect of being out of a job in 5 years frightens me to no end.
There are things you can do right now. Start with living a little cheaper each year, and position yourself so that you don't have to be making what you're making now in order to pay your bills. If you get surprised and keep your job, bonus! But if you have to lower your price to remain competitive, preparing now will lessen the impact.
I started in the computer industry before Algore invented the internet, and rode the wave to a solid six figure salary during boom.dot.bust. But we lived like we made a five figure salary, and after the bust, when I *had* to accept a five figure salary in order to resume working, it didn't break us. I realize that people in our line of work will probably never see that kind of money again, but we survive, the lights stay on, and we don't go hungry.
Perhaps. I think part of the issue is that people in our age group do the same things we used to do in our twenties and thirties to find and keep a job, and they just plain don't work anymore.
Finding a job over 50 involves playing to your strengths, just like every other time in your life, but the difference is, your strengths are different, and a lot of people don't recognize that. You may not have the boundless energy of youth, but you have things now that you didn't have then, including maturity, stability, experience, and accumulated knowledge. You may not be able to compete for a job with a 25 year old on his terms, but you can compete on your terms. Finding out what those terms are -- what you can offer right now that you couldn't offer 30 years ago -- is the trick.
Enh, it's not a Republican vs Democrat thing. It's a fiscally conservative vs fiscally liberal thing. And there can be either in either party. It may be somewhat more likely to find fiscal liberals in the Democrat party as it currently stands, but it is definitely not true that voting Republican automatically means spending less money. (You didn't say that, but I just want to make that point clear.)
The primaries, on both sides, are more important than the actual election, I think.
I usually find myself in a quandary in these discussions, being fiscally conservative and socially liberal. (Both sides get to hate me.) But I think now is the time when fiscal conservatism is more important.
So you could buy a newer one.
> So the batmobile was a methamphetamine lab?
Umm. Ok, so if... Wait, let's... Umm...
Alright, I confess. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed.
> And of course, the U.S. has the largest supply according to the chart. How convenient.
And that's bad because....