high school? we did those volcanoes in second or third grade, and we didn't use vinegar and baking soda. We used pyrotechnics.
IKR? We had rifle teams in high school, too!
These days with the risk-adverse atmosphere prevalent in most US public schools bringing such minor pyrotechnics to school would likely earn you "uber-'clock-boy' terrist" status and a long talk with the Dept. of Homeland Security! ( The US 'DHS' is such an Orwellian/totalitarian-image-invoking name! Probably for good reason.)
Cue mdsolar to tell us why capturing CO2 is bad (for his business).
Why, could you begin to imagine the results of a railroad tanker-car full of vinegar derailing and causing a spill that hit that 66,000 tons of baking soda!?!?! Do you even realize how many science-fair volcanoes that would equal!?!?! My God, the humanity!
Also, if you're a private contractor, you're required to pay the portion of Social Security taxes that your employer would have: i.e: you pay 1.5x what a standard employee would. Does anybody know? Does Uber issue 1099s to their "contractors"?
I've been in many 'working/gigging' bands, and they way that the money is typically handled is that the bar/venue either pays the band member who is designated as the 'manager/accountant' in cash or check, who then pays the band members in either cash or check (usually depending on whether the band is of the long-term variety or 3-5 local guys landing the occasional summer gig) and the 'manager/accountant' will issue the band member a 1099 either mailed (or delivered in person) at the time they're paid or at the end of the month (in the case of the 'casual' band with changing members & few/no 'regular' gigs) or (in the case of full-time working bands) issued yearly prior to tax-return season in the US.
Under the same set of guidelines being used regarding Uber, might it be possible that some judge/court would rule bands/band-members 'employees' of the bar/club?
If the average local bars/clubs had to treat band members as employees there would be no more 'bar bands' as we've come to enjoy at the local bar on a Friday/Saturday night. I don't know about you, but I can only stand 'karaoke night' at local dives in VERY small doses! 0_o
Another part of this whole debate is how free is the individual to exchange his time & labor as he may see fit as best suiting his personal circumstances and preferences? When and why should the freedom for an individual to decide and to choose for themselves be removed from the individual under threat of deadly force and possible incarceration? Is the individual not the one best suited and motivated to decide what is in his own best interests?
No this is about Google demonstrating that it was hiring the best people for the job, not people based on race.
How do you prove a negative? Any data Google offered could easily be used against them even if Google did not discriminate in any way if those evaluating said data decide to go after Google. They've done it to large defense contractors they wished to apply pressure against in the past. We're not talking about 'reasonable standards' of proof as the average person would understand it here, we're talking about federal bureaucrats. The deciding factor with bureaucrats is typically whatever grows their power, prestige, and aligns with their politics and the politics of the bureau involved which may or may not align with the current administration. Presidents and Congresses come & go, but bureaucracies are forever.
Sorry if this contradicts your Political Correctness^W conspiracy theory.
I still say I'll wait to see how things pan out, which I do not think unreasonable in the least. I do think automatically assigning innocent and righteous motives to government agencies & bureaucrats under such circumstances to be unrealistic and politically motivated and/or biased.
" These requests include thousands of employeesâ(TM) private contact information which we safeguard rigorously"
Doesn't fucking matter. For tax purposes, these things MUST be known. ZERO EXCUSE.
Umm, the IRS is not requesting the data. This isn't about taxes, it's about hiring quotas and affirmative-action compliance. The IRS has all the employees' contact info necessary for tax purposes.
This sounds more like a politically-correct witch hunt on the part of the government. Maybe I'm wrong, I await proof that contradicts it.
This gets very, very tricky. I don't think presumed consent in this particular area bothers me per se, but I can imagine a lot of other issues where presumed consent would scare the living daylights out of me. Sounds like a very slippery slope.
Would the rich and powerful hire people to keep track of those who had compatible organs and arrange suitable 'accidents' in case that rich & powerful person needed one or more of their organs? Given a powerful enough person, would someone who had opted out be harvested anyways and the legal repercussions avoided because of overwhelming amounts of money/political power, as we've recently seen in action concerning serious felony-level criminal mishandling of top-secret government information/papers/data?
We need to be *extremely* careful here, as the repercussions of a poorly thought-out/implemented/enforced set of laws here could easily turn nightmarish.
I think the real problem is that, at least in the US, the government has spent the last 60-80 years dumbing-down the populace so the government could convince them of most anything, only to have others taking advantage of their gullibility as well, throwing a wrench into their Orwellian Newspeak/MiniTruth schemes.
As a professional musician I beg to differ. I look at recordings as simply advertising and promotion for live shows, nothing more. The paradigm has changed and no matter how many laws are passed or DRM mandated, people will share/distribute whatever they want. There's no putting the horses back in that barn, it's burned down. People naturally tend to share their culture. It's basic human nature and no law will change that.
If a law turns a large percentage of otherwise fairly honest people into lawbreakers, then what's broken is the law, not the people.
Copyright law has jumped the shark with things like the DMCA and 'forever minus a day' being ruled as within the 'for a limited time' part of copyright. It no longer serves the original purpose and intent of copyright. People are justified IMO to ignore unreasonable, unjust, and ridiculous laws designed to hold a societies' culture hostage for entire lifetimes for fun and profit.
Copyright was a bargain to make sure that culture like music entered the public domain after a reasonable time-frame. That bargain has been violated to hell and back, and so people feel no guilt in sharing music, movies, etc.
Yes, because iTunes is the only digital distribution platform and has every recording ever made, and because it's impossible for them to change that policy at their whim with an updated TOS...oh, wait...
What's that? These people are doing the opposite, unlawfully downloading the few songs that the major labels released this week, while ignoring the 53 million songs they can legally get for free, the ones that aren't produced by the major labels? I wonder why they insist on getting the major label music and ignore the vast majority of music, which isn't produced by major labels. I guess they actually DO really want something that the major labels offer, they're just crooks who decide to take it illegally rather than spend the $1 to buy it on itunes or Amazon or whatever.
Or, maybe they want DRM-free recordings in the quality/format that *they* choose and which can't be "disappeared" from their "library" at the whim of some corporation, or maybe want copies of music no longer offered by the labels/studios.
Cheap is nice, but there are other reasons equally valuable to many listeners. The old business model died when general purpose computers and the internet became ubiquitous. The MPAA/RIAA/labels/studios are the present-day equivalent of buggy-whip makers desperately trying to fight progress and preserve the old paradigm instead of taking advantage of the opportunities new technology and new methods of distribution offer.
It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the major labels/studios and/or the US government are the ones responsible for the DDoS attacks...actions which, if performed by an individual, would be prosecuted as criminal acts. But then, it's become almost a daily routine that the government is discovered to have broken the laws we must obey. 'Law for thee but not for me' seems to be the normal attitude and policy with the US government. Another good reason to keep government size, scope, and powers to the minimum needed to prevent chaos and lawlessness. When it comes to governments, with great size and power comes great corruption.
Yes. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell the same thing to multiple people, or to otherwise knowingly sell more of a product than you have.
Broadband ISPs do it as a standard practice. I believe it's a corollary of "too big to fail"..."contributes/lobbies too much to prosecute" in both the ISP and airline cases. At least that's the way it is in the US where we have the finest government and legal system money can buy.
Honest question. Do you actually believe that more than 90% of climatologists have somehow been bribed to lie?
Bribed? No.
It's much simpler than that. It's selection bias. One does not become a respected 'climatologist' unless one prostrates oneself at the altar of CAGW. As soon as one questions CAGW, one suddenly goes from 'respected' to 'nutjob/whacko'. It's also a handy club to beat down those who would question the theories; "Shut up! You're not a climatologist!".
All you just did was prove you're a terrible businessman who can't do math.
No, it proves you have no clue what you're talking about. There may have been one or two customers who made minimum wage, but the vast majority made far above. I'm talking truckers back in the day when they made darned good money. The increase in minimum wage did not affect the vast majority of my customers.
And, we're talking a repair shop...does increasing minimum wage cause a flood of broken radios? Geez man, use that lump on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack!
You try to come off as sooo intellectually superior, but you actually sound like a clueless douche that has never run a business.
Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.
But yours is, right?
I've held part-time jobs that paid less than minimum wage and I liked it, as it fit my life at that time. Nobody forced me to work those sorts of jobs, it was a *choice*. I did not want another full time or nearly full time job.
People here act like employers are black-bagging workers off the street and forcing them to work at gunpoint. Both workers and employers want these kinds of jobs as options.
High minimum wage also results in workers laid off and small businesses being replaced by big-box stores that can afford higher wages. It also helps suppress new competition for established players. I operated a small business at one time (CB radio sales & service back in the CB haydays) and when the State minimum wage increased, I had to let one of my people go and cut the hours for the other. High minimum wages also shrink opportunities for entry-level workers.
I had a look at it a while back, and the only way to get to a salary you will not starve on...
Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on. Not every worker is seeking a full-time job, like college students, soccer moms, or someone who has full time employment but wants to earn a little extra income around Christmas season for gifts, or someone who does not have a regular schedule and so wants the flexibility of a 'gig' job.
Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options? For many people it would mean that instead of earning a little extra cash on their schedule to make ends meet, they wouldn't have that option and wind up seeking government assistance and/or become homeless.
Can someone explain what exactly was hacked (voting machines?) and what is the evidence that the Russians are responsible?
Why are you wasting time asking silly questions!? Angry you should be, yes! Russians! Hacking!! Russians hacking! US election!! Hacking! Pay no attention to the corruption behind the curtain! Russians! Hacking! Election!
US Politics is when judged against the more centerist European Politics VERY right wing.
It's only 'centrist' to those whose ideological 'center' is more Left. It's a matter of personal perceptions of the individual being asked and/or stating his opinion.
Dude, if you think what comes out of Bruxelles is "leftist", you might want to watch out, you're about to fall off the right end of the political spectrum.
I think you and OP are confusing 'Left-Right' with 'more-authoritarian/less-authoritarian'. Either can be very authoritarian. Left at it's extreme is Marxist/socialist/communist and Right at it's extreme is fascist/dictatorship.
It's like a set of railroad tracks. One rail is Left, the other Right, and stretch from anarchy to authoritarian.
Shut up moron, this affects FAR MORE PEOPLE than the tiny sliver of intelligencia who are responsible for crafting or using it.
Yes, yes it does, and in very, very bad ways on multiple levels. It affects every US citizens' civil rights. It gives carte blanche to domestic surveillance which invariably will lead to authoritarianism & a police-state which we already see the beginnings of with things like 'parallel construction'. It weakens security for everyone on the internet and makes them vulnerable to bad actors, both criminal and State-sponsored. It threatens the national economy and foreign trade where we already see it affecting exports of US IT hardware.
The rank & file, especially by this point, know full-well the kind of authoritarian, criminal, and *dangerous* people they work for. If they continue to 'just do what they're told' they will be just as guilty as the German prison camp guards of WW2. They have a choice. Walk away. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
So YOU shut up. The ends do not justify the means. I think that many of those in US intelligence have stared too long into the Abyss, and it has stared too long back into them. They are rapidly becoming what they originally started out to combat. They need to have their toys taken away and kicked out of the sandbox.
I hope things get extremely 'interesting', in the Chinese-curse way, for those at the upper levels of power in the US intelligence services who happily make everyone less-safe so they can play Big Brother. Live by the hack/exploit, die by the hack/exploit.
Just create an open source free downloadable app that lets drivers and riders hook up with no central business at all. Have a rating system that allows riders to rate the drivers. Allow the rider and driver to negotiate their own rates. And run it heavily encrypted and/or connected through TOR to prevent snooping.
"The first rule of Ride-Share Club is; Don't talk about Ride-Share Club!" Cut out the ability for anyone, like the government, to know who you deal with or if or how much money changed hands in the process.
One side-effect of this cracking-down on working by 'gig' by the various governments, is how it may affect your average gigging musician/band playing the local bar/club. If local bars/clubs have to treat bands/musicians as employees, you'll see an end to live music in all but the largest venues and you'll only see major artists.
Exactly. CA has a solution looking for a problem. Sure, under CA inflated electricity rates you'll save $40 for an additional $14 in hardware. But in other states you'll save $10 but pay $14. Oh, and lets add the additional design, supply chain changes, etc etc for another $10. So it will cost $24 to save $10. Typical SoCal logic.
Almost there. You have to think like a government regulator, though.
The Feds or each State will simply pass a law that raises electricity rates so that everyone saves hundreds or even thousands! You'll be literally *begging* for more energy-efficient PCs! (Because you don't want to freeze come winter!)
Pretty sure that 'compelled writing' is still 'compelled speech'. XD
Only until such time as this or another judge says it is not and sends you to PMITA prison for refusing.
Don't worry, though. In a few decades the SCOTUS *might* decide to take it up, and *possibly* reverse it. That is, IF you happen to not have died in prison of violence or old age and the SCOTUS *does* actually reverse it, and not go along with the lower court judge.
Slashdot Mirror
high school? we did those volcanoes in second or third grade, and we didn't use vinegar and baking soda. We used pyrotechnics.
IKR? We had rifle teams in high school, too!
These days with the risk-adverse atmosphere prevalent in most US public schools bringing such minor pyrotechnics to school would likely earn you "uber-'clock-boy' terrist" status and a long talk with the Dept. of Homeland Security! ( The US 'DHS' is such an Orwellian/totalitarian-image-invoking name! Probably for good reason.)
Strat
Cue mdsolar to tell us why capturing CO2 is bad (for his business).
Why, could you begin to imagine the results of a railroad tanker-car full of vinegar derailing and causing a spill that hit that 66,000 tons of baking soda!?!?! Do you even realize how many science-fair volcanoes that would equal!?!?! My God, the humanity!
Strat
Also, if you're a private contractor, you're required to pay the portion of Social Security taxes that your employer would have: i.e: you pay 1.5x what a standard employee would. Does anybody know? Does Uber issue 1099s to their "contractors"?
I've been in many 'working/gigging' bands, and they way that the money is typically handled is that the bar/venue either pays the band member who is designated as the 'manager/accountant' in cash or check, who then pays the band members in either cash or check (usually depending on whether the band is of the long-term variety or 3-5 local guys landing the occasional summer gig) and the 'manager/accountant' will issue the band member a 1099 either mailed (or delivered in person) at the time they're paid or at the end of the month (in the case of the 'casual' band with changing members & few/no 'regular' gigs) or (in the case of full-time working bands) issued yearly prior to tax-return season in the US.
Under the same set of guidelines being used regarding Uber, might it be possible that some judge/court would rule bands/band-members 'employees' of the bar/club?
If the average local bars/clubs had to treat band members as employees there would be no more 'bar bands' as we've come to enjoy at the local bar on a Friday/Saturday night. I don't know about you, but I can only stand 'karaoke night' at local dives in VERY small doses! 0_o
Another part of this whole debate is how free is the individual to exchange his time & labor as he may see fit as best suiting his personal circumstances and preferences? When and why should the freedom for an individual to decide and to choose for themselves be removed from the individual under threat of deadly force and possible incarceration? Is the individual not the one best suited and motivated to decide what is in his own best interests?
Strat
No this is about Google demonstrating that it was hiring the best people for the job, not people based on race.
How do you prove a negative? Any data Google offered could easily be used against them even if Google did not discriminate in any way if those evaluating said data decide to go after Google. They've done it to large defense contractors they wished to apply pressure against in the past. We're not talking about 'reasonable standards' of proof as the average person would understand it here, we're talking about federal bureaucrats. The deciding factor with bureaucrats is typically whatever grows their power, prestige, and aligns with their politics and the politics of the bureau involved which may or may not align with the current administration. Presidents and Congresses come & go, but bureaucracies are forever.
Sorry if this contradicts your Political Correctness^W conspiracy theory.
I still say I'll wait to see how things pan out, which I do not think unreasonable in the least. I do think automatically assigning innocent and righteous motives to government agencies & bureaucrats under such circumstances to be unrealistic and politically motivated and/or biased.
Strat
" These requests include thousands of employeesâ(TM) private contact information which we safeguard rigorously"
Doesn't fucking matter. For tax purposes, these things MUST be known. ZERO EXCUSE.
Umm, the IRS is not requesting the data. This isn't about taxes, it's about hiring quotas and affirmative-action compliance. The IRS has all the employees' contact info necessary for tax purposes.
This sounds more like a politically-correct witch hunt on the part of the government. Maybe I'm wrong, I await proof that contradicts it.
Strat
This gets very, very tricky. I don't think presumed consent in this particular area bothers me per se, but I can imagine a lot of other issues where presumed consent would scare the living daylights out of me. Sounds like a very slippery slope.
Would the rich and powerful hire people to keep track of those who had compatible organs and arrange suitable 'accidents' in case that rich & powerful person needed one or more of their organs? Given a powerful enough person, would someone who had opted out be harvested anyways and the legal repercussions avoided because of overwhelming amounts of money/political power, as we've recently seen in action concerning serious felony-level criminal mishandling of top-secret government information/papers/data?
We need to be *extremely* careful here, as the repercussions of a poorly thought-out/implemented/enforced set of laws here could easily turn nightmarish.
Strat
Is using Facebook for news.
I think the real problem is that, at least in the US, the government has spent the last 60-80 years dumbing-down the populace so the government could convince them of most anything, only to have others taking advantage of their gullibility as well, throwing a wrench into their Orwellian Newspeak/MiniTruth schemes.
Strat
I'll just leave these here.
https://warthunder.com/en/news...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Strat
... or b) admit you're just a crook,
As a professional musician I beg to differ. I look at recordings as simply advertising and promotion for live shows, nothing more. The paradigm has changed and no matter how many laws are passed or DRM mandated, people will share/distribute whatever they want. There's no putting the horses back in that barn, it's burned down. People naturally tend to share their culture. It's basic human nature and no law will change that.
If a law turns a large percentage of otherwise fairly honest people into lawbreakers, then what's broken is the law, not the people.
Copyright law has jumped the shark with things like the DMCA and 'forever minus a day' being ruled as within the 'for a limited time' part of copyright. It no longer serves the original purpose and intent of copyright. People are justified IMO to ignore unreasonable, unjust, and ridiculous laws designed to hold a societies' culture hostage for entire lifetimes for fun and profit.
Copyright was a bargain to make sure that culture like music entered the public domain after a reasonable time-frame. That bargain has been violated to hell and back, and so people feel no guilt in sharing music, movies, etc.
"They can't stop the signal, Mal."
Strat
So your excuse is nearly a decade out of date.
Yes, because iTunes is the only digital distribution platform and has every recording ever made, and because it's impossible for them to change that policy at their whim with an updated TOS...oh, wait...
Strat
What's that? These people are doing the opposite, unlawfully downloading the few songs that the major labels released this week, while ignoring the 53 million songs they can legally get for free, the ones that aren't produced by the major labels? I wonder why they insist on getting the major label music and ignore the vast majority of music, which isn't produced by major labels. I guess they actually DO really want something that the major labels offer, they're just crooks who decide to take it illegally rather than spend the $1 to buy it on itunes or Amazon or whatever.
Or, maybe they want DRM-free recordings in the quality/format that *they* choose and which can't be "disappeared" from their "library" at the whim of some corporation, or maybe want copies of music no longer offered by the labels/studios.
Cheap is nice, but there are other reasons equally valuable to many listeners. The old business model died when general purpose computers and the internet became ubiquitous. The MPAA/RIAA/labels/studios are the present-day equivalent of buggy-whip makers desperately trying to fight progress and preserve the old paradigm instead of taking advantage of the opportunities new technology and new methods of distribution offer.
It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the major labels/studios and/or the US government are the ones responsible for the DDoS attacks...actions which, if performed by an individual, would be prosecuted as criminal acts. But then, it's become almost a daily routine that the government is discovered to have broken the laws we must obey. 'Law for thee but not for me' seems to be the normal attitude and policy with the US government. Another good reason to keep government size, scope, and powers to the minimum needed to prevent chaos and lawlessness. When it comes to governments, with great size and power comes great corruption.
Strat
Yes. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell the same thing to multiple people, or to otherwise knowingly sell more of a product than you have.
Broadband ISPs do it as a standard practice. I believe it's a corollary of "too big to fail"..."contributes/lobbies too much to prosecute" in both the ISP and airline cases. At least that's the way it is in the US where we have the finest government and legal system money can buy.
Strat
Honest question. Do you actually believe that more than 90% of climatologists have somehow been bribed to lie?
Bribed? No.
It's much simpler than that. It's selection bias. One does not become a respected 'climatologist' unless one prostrates oneself at the altar of CAGW. As soon as one questions CAGW, one suddenly goes from 'respected' to 'nutjob/whacko'. It's also a handy club to beat down those who would question the theories; "Shut up! You're not a climatologist!".
Strat
All you just did was prove you're a terrible businessman who can't do math.
No, it proves you have no clue what you're talking about. There may have been one or two customers who made minimum wage, but the vast majority made far above. I'm talking truckers back in the day when they made darned good money. The increase in minimum wage did not affect the vast majority of my customers.
And, we're talking a repair shop...does increasing minimum wage cause a flood of broken radios? Geez man, use that lump on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack!
You try to come off as sooo intellectually superior, but you actually sound like a clueless douche that has never run a business.
My lawn, off of it get!
Strat
I've held part-time jobs that paid less than minimum wage and I liked it, as it fit my life at that time. Nobody forced me to work those sorts of jobs, it was a *choice*. I did not want another full time or nearly full time job.
People here act like employers are black-bagging workers off the street and forcing them to work at gunpoint. Both workers and employers want these kinds of jobs as options.
High minimum wage also results in workers laid off and small businesses being replaced by big-box stores that can afford higher wages. It also helps suppress new competition for established players. I operated a small business at one time (CB radio sales & service back in the CB haydays) and when the State minimum wage increased, I had to let one of my people go and cut the hours for the other. High minimum wages also shrink opportunities for entry-level workers.
Strat
I had a look at it a while back, and the only way to get to a salary you will not starve on...
Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on. Not every worker is seeking a full-time job, like college students, soccer moms, or someone who has full time employment but wants to earn a little extra income around Christmas season for gifts, or someone who does not have a regular schedule and so wants the flexibility of a 'gig' job.
Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options? For many people it would mean that instead of earning a little extra cash on their schedule to make ends meet, they wouldn't have that option and wind up seeking government assistance and/or become homeless.
Strat
Can someone explain what exactly was hacked (voting machines?) and what is the evidence that the Russians are responsible?
Why are you wasting time asking silly questions!? Angry you should be, yes! Russians! Hacking!! Russians hacking! US election!! Hacking! Pay no attention to the corruption behind the curtain! Russians! Hacking! Election!
SQUIRREL!!
Strat
I don't even like Facebook. But it's still like.... oh a company is making money... lets sue. Almost as bad as my home state of California.
As Margaret Thatcher once said; "Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."
Strat
US Politics is when judged against the more centerist European Politics VERY right wing.
It's only 'centrist' to those whose ideological 'center' is more Left. It's a matter of personal perceptions of the individual being asked and/or stating his opinion.
Strat
Dude, if you think what comes out of Bruxelles is "leftist", you might want to watch out, you're about to fall off the right end of the political spectrum.
I think you and OP are confusing 'Left-Right' with 'more-authoritarian/less-authoritarian'. Either can be very authoritarian. Left at it's extreme is Marxist/socialist/communist and Right at it's extreme is fascist/dictatorship.
It's like a set of railroad tracks. One rail is Left, the other Right, and stretch from anarchy to authoritarian.
Strat
Shut up moron, this affects FAR MORE PEOPLE than the tiny sliver of intelligencia who are responsible for crafting or using it.
Yes, yes it does, and in very, very bad ways on multiple levels. It affects every US citizens' civil rights. It gives carte blanche to domestic surveillance which invariably will lead to authoritarianism & a police-state which we already see the beginnings of with things like 'parallel construction'. It weakens security for everyone on the internet and makes them vulnerable to bad actors, both criminal and State-sponsored. It threatens the national economy and foreign trade where we already see it affecting exports of US IT hardware.
The rank & file, especially by this point, know full-well the kind of authoritarian, criminal, and *dangerous* people they work for. If they continue to 'just do what they're told' they will be just as guilty as the German prison camp guards of WW2. They have a choice. Walk away. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
So YOU shut up. The ends do not justify the means. I think that many of those in US intelligence have stared too long into the Abyss, and it has stared too long back into them. They are rapidly becoming what they originally started out to combat. They need to have their toys taken away and kicked out of the sandbox.
Strat
Things could get pretty exciting soon.
I hope things get extremely 'interesting', in the Chinese-curse way, for those at the upper levels of power in the US intelligence services who happily make everyone less-safe so they can play Big Brother. Live by the hack/exploit, die by the hack/exploit.
Karma's a bitch, ain't it boys?
Just wait until the *next* breach!
Or has it already happened? ;)
Strat
Just create an open source free downloadable app that lets drivers and riders hook up with no central business at all. Have a rating system that allows riders to rate the drivers. Allow the rider and driver to negotiate their own rates. And run it heavily encrypted and/or connected through TOR to prevent snooping.
"The first rule of Ride-Share Club is; Don't talk about Ride-Share Club!" Cut out the ability for anyone, like the government, to know who you deal with or if or how much money changed hands in the process.
One side-effect of this cracking-down on working by 'gig' by the various governments, is how it may affect your average gigging musician/band playing the local bar/club. If local bars/clubs have to treat bands/musicians as employees, you'll see an end to live music in all but the largest venues and you'll only see major artists.
That will be "the day the music died".
Strat
Exactly. CA has a solution looking for a problem.
Sure, under CA inflated electricity rates you'll save $40 for an additional $14 in hardware. But in other states you'll save $10 but pay $14. Oh, and lets add the additional design, supply chain changes, etc etc for another $10. So it will cost $24 to save $10. Typical SoCal logic.
Almost there. You have to think like a government regulator, though.
The Feds or each State will simply pass a law that raises electricity rates so that everyone saves hundreds or even thousands! You'll be literally *begging* for more energy-efficient PCs! (Because you don't want to freeze come winter!)
Easy-peasy!
Strat
Pretty sure that 'compelled writing' is still 'compelled speech'. XD
Only until such time as this or another judge says it is not and sends you to PMITA prison for refusing.
Don't worry, though. In a few decades the SCOTUS *might* decide to take it up, and *possibly* reverse it. That is, IF you happen to not have died in prison of violence or old age and the SCOTUS *does* actually reverse it, and not go along with the lower court judge.
What's to worry?
Strat