Those salaries look pretty decent, until you factor in the cost of living out there. I get a good laugh from folks who are paying $1M+ for homes and need four room-mates just to make it work. I would love to see someone track / post their expenses for a few months just to compare how outrageous things really are.
I would post mine, but don't want all the California types moving here as they tend to bring all the silly ideas that caused them to move away in the first place along with them.:D
When I look at my Satellite channel lineup ( full package* except premium channels. Eg: No HBO, Showtime, etc ) a rather large percentage of channels are of material I will never watch.
Channels:
In languages I don't speak. Religious channels. Home Shopping style channels. Infomercial channels.
When I actually took the time to cull out all the crap I didn't want to see, I was left with maybe twenty channels in all. Maybe.
So, perhaps the cord cutting isn't solely because of the price hike, rather the fact the typical user gets a really piss poor amount of content to watch and they have begun to question why they're spending so much on what is, in reality, so little.
*I only have a dish because I get it at a crazy discount. If I was paying full price for the available content, I would not have it at all.
" If you signed a piece of paper saying you would be personally responsible for anything the insurance company didn't pay even if the doctor/dentist performed medically unnecessary services, well, maybe you should read before signing next time."
Had any surgeries or in-patient services recently ? One of the forms you -must- sign is the one that states you will be responsible for all costs that your insurance decides not to pay. Don't want to sign it ? No procedure for you. Guess you don't really need it that badly huh ? ( I have been tempted to sign that form as Mr. Mickey Mouse because they never pay attention anyway )
However, when they come after you with that bullshit, you tell them that one of the mandates they agreed to by accepting $insurance is the fact they can only bill X price for Y procedure. ( Which is clearly spelled out in the contract between the provider and the insurance company ) They don't get to charge whatever they want, get X from insurance then come after you for the remainder. Tell them to go fuck themselves. If they continue or send you to collections, tell your attorney to tell them to go fuck themselves.
" Good for Facebook. Why doesn't Slashdot remove similar hate speech? "
Facebook is under the microscope at the moment, so they're doing everything they can to placate the masses. ( Though I don't think it will save the platform )
I would say because Slashdot users do a pretty good job of burying most of the racist stupidity via mod points. Unless you're viewing with your filter set to " Gimme the bottom of the pond " comments, they are relatively unseen.
when dinner is finished, you hand your card to the wait staff and it's denied ?
I'm sorry, I don't have another card. Do you take cash ?
I prefer to use cash because every card compromise I've ever had ( including the latest chip cards ) have been wait staff at restaurants who simply copied what they needed from my card.
( They do it with gift cards too so use low denomination varieties so it gets used up in one go )
Were I to fit an electric motor inside the frame of a bicycle to provide me with " certain advantages " over the other competitors in a professional race, they have a very simple term for it.
It's called: Cheating
We can play Word-Fu all day long, but in the end, what they did was try to cheat their way to victory.
The absolutely hilarious part is this: Even CHEATING, they still lost.
Don't feel bad, PayPal did the same thing to me, albeit for different reasons.
Way back in the beginning, PayPal allowed you to create an account using nothing more than a Credit Card. So, I created an account. I never kept more than ~$50 or so in it as it was just for misc purchases I would make.
One day, I get an email from PayPal informing me that evil Russian hackers had attempted to log into my account and, for my protection of course, they limited access. Fine. So I called them up and told them that since I rarely used the account, to just close it out and send me whatever funds were left within it.
Were it so easy:|
"Oh no", they said, "we can't allow you to close out the account until you provide us with the following information: "
1) Phone number 2) Bank account number to my checking account
I argued that if " evil Russian Hackers " were trying to get into my account, why on Earth would I want to link this new information to it ? Just shut it down, close it out and be done with it.
They told me no.
So, I changed my password to some ungodly long phrase and let the account sit there, unused, for years.
PayPal sent me hate mail ( which I ignored ) from time to time informing me that if I didn't comply with their demands that they would close the account out. ( Which is what I wanted in the first place )
After a few years of this, they eventually did close it out and blacklisted me from using their services. ( Not that I lose a lot of sleep over that mind you. If a website only uses PayPal as their payment processor, I go find the item I want elsewhere. Simple as that. If it doesn't exist elsewhere, I just don't buy it. )
So, the way I see it is this:
Until PayPal gets regulated like the banking entity it's pretending to be, I wouldn't trust them for anything because they have shown time and time again that they are about as shady as they come.
To get between networks, you need a layer three device ( aka router ).
Is simple enough to build an ACL that says âoe Do not let devices from network X talk to network Y. âoe
Also simple enough to prevent certain devices from talking to other devices on the same network and / or blocking access to pretty much anything you want.
It just requires a bit of forward planning / thinking.
Assume everything connected to your networks are potential entry points and / or downright hostile.
First thing I thought of was Monster and their digital HD audio cables at a bazillion percent markup.
Have you looked at music waveforms lately ? There really isn't any dynamic range. Everything is cranked just shy of the clipping limits across the entire song.
only because the retailers are charging a fortune for them. I suppose there is a limit to what the miners are willing to pay for them.
Nvidia 1080s are plentiful at the Fry's I was at earlier this evening. They have price tags of $1k each which is probably why they're sitting there on the shelf.
Easy answer: It requires a Constitutional Amendment.
Simply get Congress to sign off on it ( which will get them all voted out of office ) then get 75% of all States to do the same ( which will also get them voted out ) and you can make it happen.
You can apply the same logic to illegal immigrants flowing into the self proclaimed " Sanctuary State ".
Which is exactly why the rest of the US has problems with CA's stance on it because we know they're just going to end up everywhere else due to CA's high cost of living.
" Nothing to be concerned about because if Google got caught doing something crazy like perusing all the files on your system, the backlash would be epic. "
These days, I've come to realize Google or Microsoft ( of their own design or at the behest of another . . . *cough* Intelligence Commmunities *cough* ) going through your effects with a fine toothed comb and flagging anything of interest they may find. If they get caught, they get a slap on the wrist, a reprimand ( with stern sounding language no less ) and their promise to never do it again.:|
Then, we simply wait until the storm dies out, and start again under a new name.
We truly can trust no one anymore because it seems that even the trustworthy are simply hiding the knife until we look away for a moment. ( No, I don't consider either G or M to be trustworthy, but there is always someone who loves to speak up when X gets caught doing something stupid claiming they would never do such a dastardly thing. Like DuckDuckGo or Tor or $League_of_anti_evil_corporation )
At some point in the near future, this problem will work itself out. Housing prices within reasonable commuting distance to the major tech hubs in CA are already at ludicrous levels.
Companies are having to pay astronomical salaries to their employees just so their workforce can afford to live nearby. Even then, home ownership is laughable.
They will, eventually, wise up and move their operations to a lower cost of living area and save gobs of cash from salaries alone. It would be stupid not too and I'm surprised shareholders haven't demanded it in their quest for ever increasing profits.
While you West Coast folks probably make 2x what I do, I OWN my home ( read that: Paid for ), both vehicles are paid for and that residual now feeds retirement accounts.
I can do far more with half the salary, so tell me again why I would want to live somewhere like SF ?
Cue up another " hotfix " that will be deployed half a dozen times before it's ready to screw things up again. My condolences in advance if you're running Windows 10 and the unstoppable update machine:|
If you think you're going to reach the Chinese market with the same bullshit methods you're using on us, think again. To even get a shot, you're going to have to satisfy God Emperor Jinping and I've got bad news.
If you're not a Chinese company, with Chinese interests in mind, you're wasting your time.
If the FBI would actually do their job, they would have had access to those phones via warrant BEFORE the whole thing went down.
It turns out, most of the crazy shit happening today is usually KNOWN to the FBI before the SHTF, they just never do anything or act upon this information.
If you get word that X is gonna shoot up a bus full of Nuns, you get a warrant going and you start watching the folks in question. Hell, even Apple will help you if you have a proper warrant.
But, going back to at least 9/11, that's just not how Federal Law Enforcement or Intelligence operates.
Slashdot Mirror
isn't always gold as the saying goes.
Those salaries look pretty decent, until you factor in the cost of living out there. I get a good laugh from folks who are paying $1M+ for homes and need four room-mates just to make it work. I would love to see someone track / post their expenses for a few months just to compare how outrageous things really are.
I would post mine, but don't want all the California types moving here as they tend to bring all the silly ideas that caused them to move away in the first place along with them. :D
Syria, much like Iraq, is simply a testing ground for both sides to see how well their new toys perform outside of a controlled environment.
Neither side can show what they're really holding though lest they spoil the surprise.
As a result, these are the minor, expendable assets they're playing with atm.
Albeit, at the expense of Syrian lives.
It will never happen by anyone who lives in a country like the US. Besides the decline in education, the mindset is wrong.
Capitalism ensures that an ongoing treatment of a disease is far more profitable than curing one.
As a result, the Nobel for curing something like Cancer will never have an American name attached to it.
iTunes is bad enough. I run it in a VM so it can't get its tendrils into my main OS.
Mixing iTunes with Windows 10 is akin to crossing the streams of a portable particle accelerator.
Absolutely nothing good can possibly come from it.
Maybe Microsoft is doing this so the end user won't know who to blame when their system keels over. :D
When I look at my Satellite channel lineup ( full package* except premium channels. Eg: No HBO, Showtime, etc ) a rather large percentage of channels are of material I will never watch.
Channels:
In languages I don't speak.
Religious channels.
Home Shopping style channels.
Infomercial channels.
When I actually took the time to cull out all the crap I didn't want to see, I was left with maybe twenty channels in all. Maybe.
So, perhaps the cord cutting isn't solely because of the price hike, rather the fact the typical user gets a really piss poor amount of content to watch and they have begun to question why they're spending so much on what is, in reality, so little.
*I only have a dish because I get it at a crazy discount. If I was paying full price for the available content, I would not have it at all.
" If you signed a piece of paper saying you would be personally responsible for anything the insurance company didn't pay even if the doctor/dentist performed medically unnecessary services, well, maybe you should read before signing next time."
Had any surgeries or in-patient services recently ? One of the forms you -must- sign is the one that states you will be responsible for all costs that your insurance decides not to pay. Don't want to sign it ? No procedure for you. Guess you don't really need it that badly huh ? ( I have been tempted to sign that form as Mr. Mickey Mouse because they never pay attention anyway )
However, when they come after you with that bullshit, you tell them that one of the mandates they agreed to by accepting $insurance is the fact they can only bill X price for Y procedure. ( Which is clearly spelled out in the contract between the provider and the insurance company ) They don't get to charge whatever they want, get X from insurance then come after you for the remainder. Tell them to go fuck themselves. If they continue or send you to collections, tell your attorney to tell them to go fuck themselves.
E-Locks with a built in backdoor ( intentional or otherwise ) are even less secure.
I wish the DOJ would learn such things.
as they would absolutely lose their shit to find out we aren't the " chosen " ones.
It would cause an existential crisis for a vast majority of the human species to learn such a thing.
Not to mention the major religions would discredit such things because they would lose control over their flocks overnight.
They're never going to give up that power.
" Good for Facebook. Why doesn't Slashdot remove similar hate speech? "
Facebook is under the microscope at the moment, so they're doing everything they can to placate the masses.
( Though I don't think it will save the platform )
I would say because Slashdot users do a pretty good job of burying most of the racist stupidity via mod points.
Unless you're viewing with your filter set to " Gimme the bottom of the pond " comments, they are relatively unseen.
View at +2 and above and you'll rarely see them.
when dinner is finished, you hand your card to the wait staff and it's denied ?
I'm sorry, I don't have another card. Do you take cash ?
I prefer to use cash because every card compromise I've ever had ( including the latest chip cards ) have been wait staff at restaurants who simply copied what they needed from my card.
( They do it with gift cards too so use low denomination varieties so it gets used up in one go )
I don't have these issues with cash.
" Certain Advantages " ?
Were I to fit an electric motor inside the frame of a bicycle to provide me with " certain advantages " over the other competitors in a professional race, they have a very simple term for it.
It's called: Cheating
We can play Word-Fu all day long, but in the end, what they did was try to cheat their way to victory.
The absolutely hilarious part is this: Even CHEATING, they still lost.
Don't feel bad, PayPal did the same thing to me, albeit for different reasons.
Way back in the beginning, PayPal allowed you to create an account using nothing more than a Credit Card. So, I created an account. I never kept more than ~$50 or so in it as it was just for misc purchases I would make.
One day, I get an email from PayPal informing me that evil Russian hackers had attempted to log into my account and, for my protection of course, they limited access. Fine. So I called them up and told them that since I rarely used the account, to just close it out and send me whatever funds were left within it.
Were it so easy :|
"Oh no", they said, "we can't allow you to close out the account until you provide us with the following information: "
1) Phone number
2) Bank account number to my checking account
I argued that if " evil Russian Hackers " were trying to get into my account, why on Earth would I want to link this new information to it ? Just shut it down, close it out and be done with it.
They told me no.
So, I changed my password to some ungodly long phrase and let the account sit there, unused, for years.
PayPal sent me hate mail ( which I ignored ) from time to time informing me that if I didn't comply with their demands that they would close the account out. ( Which is what I wanted in the first place )
After a few years of this, they eventually did close it out and blacklisted me from using their services. ( Not that I lose a lot of sleep over that mind you. If a website only uses PayPal as their payment processor, I go find the item I want elsewhere. Simple as that. If it doesn't exist elsewhere, I just don't buy it. )
So, the way I see it is this:
Until PayPal gets regulated like the banking entity it's pretending to be, I wouldn't trust them for anything because they have shown time and time again that they are about as shady as they come.
Any time you make changes that impact someoneâ(TM)s income in a negative way, people get angry about it.
How angry depends on how badly they were screwed over in addition to the individuals personality.
See any news story about a recently fired employee who came back armed to the teeth with vengeance on their mind.
This type of behavior is far from unique to online venues.
To get between networks, you need a layer three device ( aka router ).
Is simple enough to build an ACL that says âoe Do not let devices from network X talk to network Y. âoe
Also simple enough to prevent certain devices from talking to other devices on the same network and / or blocking access to pretty much anything you want.
It just requires a bit of forward planning / thinking.
Assume everything connected to your networks are potential entry points and / or downright hostile.
First thing I thought of was Monster and their digital HD audio cables at a bazillion percent markup.
Have you looked at music waveforms lately ? There really isn't any dynamic range. Everything is cranked just shy of the clipping limits across the entire song.
They need to fix that first.
The fun part is companies haven't figured out what happens when you take a square and cut off enough corners.
You end up with a circle.
If you work anyplace long enough, you see that the old become new again once enough time passes. :|
only because the retailers are charging a fortune for them. I suppose there is a limit to what the miners are willing to pay for them.
Nvidia 1080s are plentiful at the Fry's I was at earlier this evening. They have price tags of $1k each which is probably why they're sitting there on the shelf.
Easy answer: It requires a Constitutional Amendment.
Simply get Congress to sign off on it ( which will get them all voted out of office ) then get 75% of all States to do the same ( which will also get them voted out ) and you can make it happen.
Have fun.
You can apply the same logic to illegal immigrants flowing into the self proclaimed " Sanctuary State ".
Which is exactly why the rest of the US has problems with CA's stance on it because we know they're just going to end up everywhere else due to CA's high cost of living.
I would have said:
" Nothing to be concerned about because if Google got caught doing something crazy like perusing all the files on your system, the backlash would be epic. "
These days, I've come to realize Google or Microsoft ( of their own design or at the behest of another . . . *cough* Intelligence Commmunities *cough* ) going through your effects with a fine toothed comb and flagging anything of interest they may find. If they get caught, they get a slap on the wrist, a reprimand ( with stern sounding language no less ) and their promise to never do it again. :|
Then, we simply wait until the storm dies out, and start again under a new name.
We truly can trust no one anymore because it seems that even the trustworthy are simply hiding the knife until we look away for a moment. ( No, I don't consider either G or M to be trustworthy, but there is always someone who loves to speak up when X gets caught doing something stupid claiming they would never do such a dastardly thing. Like DuckDuckGo or Tor or $League_of_anti_evil_corporation )
It really gets old.
At some point in the near future, this problem will work itself out. Housing prices within reasonable commuting distance to the major tech hubs in CA are already at ludicrous levels.
Companies are having to pay astronomical salaries to their employees just so their workforce can afford to live nearby. Even then, home ownership is laughable.
They will, eventually, wise up and move their operations to a lower cost of living area and save gobs of cash from salaries alone. It would be stupid not too and I'm surprised shareholders haven't demanded it in their quest for ever increasing profits.
While you West Coast folks probably make 2x what I do, I OWN my home ( read that: Paid for ), both vehicles are paid for and that residual now feeds retirement accounts.
I can do far more with half the salary, so tell me again why I would want to live somewhere like SF ?
Cue up another " hotfix " that will be deployed half a dozen times before it's ready to screw things up again. :|
My condolences in advance if you're running Windows 10 and the unstoppable update machine
If you think you're going to reach the Chinese market with the same bullshit methods you're using on us, think again.
To even get a shot, you're going to have to satisfy God Emperor Jinping and I've got bad news.
If you're not a Chinese company, with Chinese interests in mind, you're wasting your time.
and you haven't deleted Facebook already, you're behind the curve I'm afraid.
You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?
If the FBI would actually do their job, they would have had access to those phones via warrant BEFORE the whole thing went down.
It turns out, most of the crazy shit happening today is usually KNOWN to the FBI before the SHTF, they just never do anything or act upon this information.
If you get word that X is gonna shoot up a bus full of Nuns, you get a warrant going and you start watching the folks in question. Hell, even Apple will help you if you have a proper warrant.
But, going back to at least 9/11, that's just not how Federal Law Enforcement or Intelligence operates.
Sad.