...I am biased, but there is logic behind my bias.
Municipalities require licensing for taxi services because the taxi drivers are conducting the actual business transaction -- agreeing to transport the customer for a price, whether pre-agreed or subject to a meter reading, at the point of pickup within the municipality.
Most municipalities also require background checks for the drivers and company owners, and have safety requirements for the vehicles, as [a means to ensure customer safety | a revenue generator].
Passengers, however, are unscreened and unknown. They might come in from a phone call, or they might hail a taxi on the street.
Most of the risk, both financial and otherwise, falls on the drivers.
So, along come Uber, Lyft and their ilk, conducting the transactions online (thus, outside the municipality) and essentially reversing the standard cabbie/passenger dynamic: the passengers are pre-identified (to sign up, they needed a cell phone, a credit card and a valid address to go with it), and the drivers are unknown (except to the companies, which do little or no effective screening). The vehicles used are unlikely to meet the requirements for taxi use, and are often flat-out unsafe for drivers, passengers, or bystanders.
The companies start doing business anywhere they like, and fight against the requirements -- only if challenged -- with funds from their financial backers.
Municipalities are not happy about this, for both safety and financial reasons. Taxi owners and drivers, most of whom have invested considerable time and money to clear regulatory hurdles, are understandably upset at this end run around the law.
Imagine if Internet gun sellers showed up doing business in NYC or Washington, D.C. and claimed similar exemption from the local (highly restrictive) laws...
I work for a major assisted living provider.
Not only do we not have a plan, we don't have a clue. Our Windows machines are still running an old version of Java, and everyone is local Administrator. There is no official policy against downloading or installing stuff, so the place is a Festival of Malware. We have three people on the Security team for 60,000+ computers.
We were fresh off a seven-night cruise in New Orleans, with a lot of dirty clothes to wash, and our hotel did not have laundry facilities for the guests.
So, I said to my Nexus 6p, "OK, Google: I need a f***ing laundromat."
I never imagined there was so much laundromat pr0n in the world...
After we had played the heck out of the one-disk Doom demo, someone gave us a bootleg copy of the 3-disk full game.
We played it, were suitably awestruck, and called the phone number in the game.
"Hi, we're calling because someone gave us a bootleg copy of Doom...
Suspicious voice: "And...?"
"...and we want to pay for it. How much do we owe you, and where do we send the check?"
Stunned silence, then "Send it to this address, and mark it attention [forgotten name]. Oh, and make sure you include your return address!"
Some weeks later, a large box arrived with a retail copy of Doom, and a whole bunch of Doom and Castle Wolfenstein swag.
Pepco is a power distribution company: it has not generated any power since they sold all their power plants to Calpine in 2010. Exelon is buying retail customers for its generation output.
I don't know about the Exelon side, but Pepco was totally blindsided by the commission's original ruling. They were in meetings, watching the vote live, and they had no fallback plan in case it didn't go through. The Pepco folks are surprised it appears to have gone through now, and they wouldn't be shocked if something derailed it at the last moment.
I was replacing an iPhone, and I liked the size, the screen and the camera. I still like all those features, but I can't wait until the contract is up so I can get whatever the latest and biggest Nexus phone is at that time.
It works great, but it's like a two-year forced vacation from downloading apps. It doesn't have SiriusXM or Square apps, for FSM's sake... if I'd known those would never arrive, I'd have passed on the experience.
My wife and I have a Bernie Sanders yard sign out front... and we also own guns, and we have concealed carry permits.
If Fios offers the channel, we'll check it out.
My cell phone number is the primary for my small business, and it has been in the Yellow Pages for over 10 years. I get the usual spam aimed at personal numbers, plus an amazing array of business-to-business (OK, mostly scammer-to-business) telemarketers.
I can't tell them what I really think for fear of being Google-bombed...
Inspiron 7746
Core i7-5500U
16 GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
1TB Seagate 5400RPM hybrid HDD
DVD-RW (replaced it with a BD-RW drive)
17.3" 1920x1080 touchscreen
nVidia GeForce GT 845M graphics with 2 GB video RAM
Wiped the drive on arrival and reinstalled Windows 8.1, Office 365, etc.
The only part of it I don't like is the illuminated keyboard: lit or not, it's almost impossible to see the markings on the keys.
What do you mean, no choice? Whenever I get one of those popups that says they want my cell phone number "for better security", I click the "no thanks, maybe later" option.
Of course, all that's for nothing if they can dig up phone numbers by any means necessary.
My cell number is also my business phone, so I had to provide it to create a merchant account.
Your new home should have a 12 VDC electrical system supplied by batteries (charged by solar panels) to run lights, fans, and anything else that does not require AC line voltage.
This will avoid the 20% losses creating AC from stored battery power, and will greatly decrease your reliance on the local electric company.
1) I have a Nokia Lumia 1520 Windows phone (yes, I'm the guy).
2) I accepted credit cards with Square, until I got a Windows phone: Square does not offer a Winfone app.
3) Nobody else offered a decent merchant terminal app with fair prices until PayPal Here came to the Windows Store.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with PayPal for now... whoever calls and/or texts, and whoever advertises on those calls and/or texts, can expect some serious abuse and adverse publicity.
Licensed, legitimate cab companies run a gauntlet of state & local regulations before they can collect fares. Uber and Lyft bypass them, start operating, and then act surprised when their illegal operation using unlicensed, unvetted drivers run into trouble.
In most places, the individual drivers and/or the company itself are required to have mercantile licenses... where are theirs?
When I did Windows XP images for clients, I always set the Default User profile to display extensions.
I did this without asking, without any discussion beforehand, and only had to defend the decision once near the end of the design project... my defense was, "This is the right way to do it, so that's what we're doing." End of discussion.
Marijuana does not impair a persons motor skills or reflexes.
A drunk driver is dangerous because they are likely to lose control of their car.
A stoned driver is not nearly as dangerous: they can control their car, and react to danger, just fine. The most likely mistake a stoned driver will make is to miss their exit because Stairway to Heaven is on the radio.
I work in support, and I still find the CMD environment and batch file language to be incredibly powerful tools. I've written everything from simple one- or two-command files to long, interactive programs that interact with other batch files and, by writing to the Registry, resume after reboots. Sometimes, in a crisis, I'm the only one who can produce a reliable solution the same morning that the crisis starts...
I bought a brand-new-in-box Western Electric 500 a few years back from oldphones dot com (great site)... it still works on Comcast, and it has the best sound of any landline phone ever made.
How do they know when it's going to rain? They always lie down before it rains... are the cows hooked in to NOAA? Or, is that where AccuWeather gets that "probability of precipitation" number?
We live near a big oil refinery in Delaware City, where huge mile-long oil trains arrive all the time. They pass on a track that's about a mile from us. A big house fire happened between us and the tracks about a month ago... we were ready to bug out.
FWIW (not much), I've bought forty or fifty 2.5" and 3.5" drives a year for the last nine years, mostly for resale in my computer repair business; lately, I pick them up at our local Tiger Direct retail store or order them from Amazon. I have the fewest problems with Seagate drives.
Almost every time I buy another brand, the damn thing takes a crap and I get to do the job again for free. (Thank FSM Maxtor went away: they were the WORST).
Slashdot Mirror
...I am biased, but there is logic behind my bias.
Municipalities require licensing for taxi services because the taxi drivers are conducting the actual business transaction -- agreeing to transport the customer for a price, whether pre-agreed or subject to a meter reading, at the point of pickup within the municipality.
Most municipalities also require background checks for the drivers and company owners, and have safety requirements for the vehicles, as [a means to ensure customer safety | a revenue generator].
Passengers, however, are unscreened and unknown. They might come in from a phone call, or they might hail a taxi on the street.
Most of the risk, both financial and otherwise, falls on the drivers.
So, along come Uber, Lyft and their ilk, conducting the transactions online (thus, outside the municipality) and essentially reversing the standard cabbie/passenger dynamic: the passengers are pre-identified (to sign up, they needed a cell phone, a credit card and a valid address to go with it), and the drivers are unknown (except to the companies, which do little or no effective screening). The vehicles used are unlikely to meet the requirements for taxi use, and are often flat-out unsafe for drivers, passengers, or bystanders.
The companies start doing business anywhere they like, and fight against the requirements -- only if challenged -- with funds from their financial backers.
Municipalities are not happy about this, for both safety and financial reasons. Taxi owners and drivers, most of whom have invested considerable time and money to clear regulatory hurdles, are understandably upset at this end run around the law.
Imagine if Internet gun sellers showed up doing business in NYC or Washington, D.C. and claimed similar exemption from the local (highly restrictive) laws...
I work for a major assisted living provider.
Not only do we not have a plan, we don't have a clue. Our Windows machines are still running an old version of Java, and everyone is local Administrator. There is no official policy against downloading or installing stuff, so the place is a Festival of Malware. We have three people on the Security team for 60,000+ computers.
We were fresh off a seven-night cruise in New Orleans, with a lot of dirty clothes to wash, and our hotel did not have laundry facilities for the guests.
So, I said to my Nexus 6p, "OK, Google: I need a f***ing laundromat."
I never imagined there was so much laundromat pr0n in the world...
After we had played the heck out of the one-disk Doom demo, someone gave us a bootleg copy of the 3-disk full game.
We played it, were suitably awestruck, and called the phone number in the game.
"Hi, we're calling because someone gave us a bootleg copy of Doom...
Suspicious voice: "And...?"
"...and we want to pay for it. How much do we owe you, and where do we send the check?"
Stunned silence, then "Send it to this address, and mark it attention [forgotten name]. Oh, and make sure you include your return address!"
Some weeks later, a large box arrived with a retail copy of Doom, and a whole bunch of Doom and Castle Wolfenstein swag.
Pepco is a power distribution company: it has not generated any power since they sold all their power plants to Calpine in 2010. Exelon is buying retail customers for its generation output.
I don't know about the Exelon side, but Pepco was totally blindsided by the commission's original ruling. They were in meetings, watching the vote live, and they had no fallback plan in case it didn't go through.
The Pepco folks are surprised it appears to have gone through now, and they wouldn't be shocked if something derailed it at the last moment.
I was replacing an iPhone, and I liked the size, the screen and the camera.
I still like all those features, but I can't wait until the contract is up so I can get whatever the latest and biggest Nexus phone is at that time.
It works great, but it's like a two-year forced vacation from downloading apps. It doesn't have SiriusXM or Square apps, for FSM's sake... if I'd known those would never arrive, I'd have passed on the experience.
...not. The only thing worse than Outlook... is the alternatives.
My wife and I have a Bernie Sanders yard sign out front... and we also own guns, and we have concealed carry permits. If Fios offers the channel, we'll check it out.
Windows batch files, written in Notepad.
It was well worth the price of SiriusXM.
My cell phone number is the primary for my small business, and it has been in the Yellow Pages for over 10 years.
I get the usual spam aimed at personal numbers, plus an amazing array of business-to-business (OK, mostly scammer-to-business) telemarketers.
I can't tell them what I really think for fear of being Google-bombed...
Inspiron 7746
Core i7-5500U
16 GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
1TB Seagate 5400RPM hybrid HDD
DVD-RW (replaced it with a BD-RW drive)
17.3" 1920x1080 touchscreen
nVidia GeForce GT 845M graphics with 2 GB video RAM
Wiped the drive on arrival and reinstalled Windows 8.1, Office 365, etc.
The only part of it I don't like is the illuminated keyboard: lit or not, it's almost impossible to see the markings on the keys.
What do you mean, no choice? Whenever I get one of those popups that says they want my cell phone number "for better security", I click the "no thanks, maybe later" option.
Of course, all that's for nothing if they can dig up phone numbers by any means necessary.
My cell number is also my business phone, so I had to provide it to create a merchant account.
Your new home should have a 12 VDC electrical system supplied by batteries (charged by solar panels) to run lights, fans, and anything else that does not require AC line voltage.
This will avoid the 20% losses creating AC from stored battery power, and will greatly decrease your reliance on the local electric company.
1) I have a Nokia Lumia 1520 Windows phone (yes, I'm the guy).
2) I accepted credit cards with Square, until I got a Windows phone: Square does not offer a Winfone app.
3) Nobody else offered a decent merchant terminal app with fair prices until PayPal Here came to the Windows Store.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with PayPal for now... whoever calls and/or texts, and whoever advertises on those calls and/or texts, can expect some serious abuse and adverse publicity.
Licensed, legitimate cab companies run a gauntlet of state & local regulations before they can collect fares. Uber and Lyft bypass them, start operating, and then act surprised when their illegal operation using unlicensed, unvetted drivers run into trouble.
In most places, the individual drivers and/or the company itself are required to have mercantile licenses... where are theirs?
When I did Windows XP images for clients, I always set the Default User profile to display extensions.
I did this without asking, without any discussion beforehand, and only had to defend the decision once near the end of the design project... my defense was, "This is the right way to do it, so that's what we're doing." End of discussion.
I take it you've never smoked, then.
Marijuana does not impair a persons motor skills or reflexes.
A drunk driver is dangerous because they are likely to lose control of their car.
A stoned driver is not nearly as dangerous: they can control their car, and react to danger, just fine. The most likely mistake a stoned driver will make is to miss their exit because Stairway to Heaven is on the radio.
I work in support, and I still find the CMD environment and batch file language to be incredibly powerful tools. I've written everything from simple one- or two-command files to long, interactive programs that interact with other batch files and, by writing to the Registry, resume after reboots.
Sometimes, in a crisis, I'm the only one who can produce a reliable solution the same morning that the crisis starts...
I bought a brand-new-in-box Western Electric 500 a few years back from oldphones dot com (great site)... it still works on Comcast, and it has the best sound of any landline phone ever made.
How do they know when it's going to rain?
They always lie down before it rains... are the cows hooked in to NOAA? Or, is that where AccuWeather gets that "probability of precipitation" number?
We live near a big oil refinery in Delaware City, where huge mile-long oil trains arrive all the time. They pass on a track that's about a mile from us. A big house fire happened between us and the tracks about a month ago... we were ready to bug out.
FWIW (not much), I've bought forty or fifty 2.5" and 3.5" drives a year for the last nine years, mostly for resale in my computer repair business; lately, I pick them up at our local Tiger Direct retail store or order them from Amazon. I have the fewest problems with Seagate drives.
Almost every time I buy another brand, the damn thing takes a crap and I get to do the job again for free. (Thank FSM Maxtor went away: they were the WORST).