Posts by HereIAmJH 237 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Aug 2010
No doubt the reason why someone like Amy Klobuchar is involved is profit.
Never underestimate the Swifties. Regardless of what anyone might think of her music, she has a very loyal fanbase. About the only thing you could do worse than keeping them from seeing her, is doing something that they perceive as hurtful to Swift. Just ask Scooter. I suspect that is the reason Congress is taking a look at event ticketing.
I'd rather get slapped by Will Smith than 'Kanye' Taylor.
Diesels are more likely to not start in very cold weather than gas engines. (I own both, I am well aware of the grief of a cold diesel) So should you ban diesels so that no one can possibly get stranded because their fuel filter gelled up in the middle of nowhere?
"Light diesel"? I doubt there is a significant difference in weight between winter and summer diesel. In the US, summer diesel is #2 kerosene and winter diesel is a mix of #1 and #2 kerosene. #1 has no paraffins in it. Paraffins 'cloud' at a higher temperate, so reducing them reduces the risk of your fuel system getting blocked in cold weather. But the paraffins add BTUs to the fuel, so they are important for fuel economy.
People need to take some personal responsibility. If the weather isn't suitable for the vehicle that you own, maybe you should stay home. Doesn't matter whether you're driving a gas F150 or an electric F150.
And note, highway closures due to bad weather aren't unique to Wyoming.
Going forward, every astronaut gets suits for both launch vehicles before their mission....
Though something I have been wondering about, does Russia even have a replacement for MS-23? How long can they continue to build capsules with the sanctions?
Very short form it seems to say you upload it in fixed-length, indexed slices, so the client (with a slight lag) can pull each slice in the right order, catch up when it loses bits, and so forth.
Sounds like you're describing TCP.
I would guess it more focused on this:
Amazon.com and Twitch knew, or should have known, that the adaptive multibit rate technology of the '473 patent was foundational to the Amazon and Twitch streaming systems.
And that is probably more related to monitoring the stream and adjusting the quality to match the available bandwidth. IE. if 720p is jittering, then drop the quality down to 480p until the network recovers.
From the patent:
12. A method according to claim 11, wherein downloading the sequence comprises determining a data bandwidth of the network between the server and the client computer and selecting one of the quality levels responsive to the determined bandwidth.
And the part of me that learned the OSI model is silently crying at this sentence:
Preferably, the one or more client computers download the encode sequence using an Internet download protocol, most preferably HTTP or alternatively, UDP or RTP.
Paying extra isn't a guarantee. Being a large percentage of a cloud provider's income is your guarantee. You have to be big enough to cause pain when you are unhappy with the service provided. And if you are that big, why are you not hosting your own cloud and keeping the profit?
I think some of it was pointing out the hypocrisy of celebrities pushing Green agendas while flying around on private jets. It's not new, they said the same things about Al Gore.
And it's not stalking because no one is tracking a person. Nor are they tracking his personal car. It's a jet that he controls that may or may not contain Elon Musk. These posts are just filtering public data. He could fly commercial, that would solve the 'problem'. He could charter a jet so the tail number wasn't associated with him or his businesses.
Note that air traffic control is a public system paid for with public dollars. If the public has an interest in the byproducts, they have paid for it. Should police blotters be kept private because it might embarrass an accused criminal?
The (former) richest man in the world can afford to bury you or I in legal bills from baseless lawsuits.
I'm not really one to support Go Fund Me campaigns. I generally feel that people cause their own problems, and they should be responsible for finding their own solutions. But should there be a need for an @ElonJet defense fund, I'll likely contribute. This is just too bizarre. It's the jet that is being tracked, not the person who is (or is not) on it.
And to think, a few short months ago I didn't have an opinion about Musk at all.
Its not unknown in startup culture for people who are working late to bed down somewhere rather than drive home tired.
Judging by the tone of a lot of comments here it seems that most people are unaware of startup culture and how it works.
Twitter isn't a startup. And these employees aren't going to be rewarded for getting in on the ground floor. Sleeping at work so they can put in more hours to help the company succeed isn't a choice they are going to make. I would guess that most of the employees that do the high risk/high reward type of jobs have already moved on to actual startups. They certainly wouldn't be there giving free labor to make the second richest man in the world more money.
They will likely determine that rest areas are OK as long as they are not permanent living spaces.
There are special requirements for areas where people sleep. Fire alarms, safe exits, arc fault circuit breakers. Most are focused on people not dying from fires while asleep. This being San Francisco, there are probably ordinances related to earthquakes too. A commercial building built for office space wouldn't have spent the additional money for anything related to that if it wasn't required. The codes department would probably look at it from the perspective of a hotel.
You've obviously never had to deal with city Codes departments.
Recent example, in a deep red county in a deep red state; I have an existing steel shed in my back yard. It is old, ugly, rusty, and beat up. To replace it I have to get a permit from the city. But they won't allow me to put the new shed in the same location that this one has been in for 30 years. It's a couple feet too close to the house. Due to easements, setbacks, various other rules, and terrain, the new shed would basically have to be put in the middle of my back yard, removing most of the utility of having a back yard. And I'd have to either move the garden or remove a tree. And don't ever let your yard get 8" tall, even in the spring.
BTW, my real estate taxes went up 45% last year. They said they needed to catch up from a decade of incompetence. But that's a pretty big increase to swallow all at once. I somehow doubt they will lower it now that the housing bubble is over.
China has become an unreliable supplier over the last couple years.
Ask GM and Ford how they liked having 10s of thousands of vehicles sitting in parking lots waiting for chips. Rumor has it that GM has also had to retest, repair and recertify hundreds of pickup trucks due to rodents chewing on wires while the trucks were waiting.
Global JIT manufacturing took a huge hit due to COVID and the following shipping fiascos. Businesses are looking at all those lost sales due to lack of inventory. Retailers like Walmart and Target also took it in the shorts when orders for Christmas showed up late and they had to sit on the inventory for almost a year, or sell it at a discount. Wanna buy a fake Christmas tree in February? So there is a lot of interest in shortening supply lines. TSMC is undoubtedly getting huge $$ to build fabs in the US.
With highly automated manufacturing, labor will no longer be a primary cost. They'll be looking at the cost of equipment, taxes, and incentives to determine where to build new plants.
Competent software engineers cost much more than an Indian sweatshop programmer so the beancounters use the cheap labor and do not care about adverse outcomes.
Unfortunately, it's not just 'cheap' outsourced labor that is the problem. Even 'Engineers' pulling big salaries and so called Project Managers are causing these problems. I am surprised at how many professional developers struggle with basic concepts. But we're Agile, so everything is rosy.
Personally, I don't fear a SkyNet type (or I Robot) human subjugation. I'm not convinced the human race is capable of developing AI that can extend itself beyond humans. AI isn't smarter, just faster. I'm more worried about the self-drive (or self anything) sloppy coding turning anything with a computer into Maximum Overdrive because someone heard of the 80/20 rule, and QA and security became part of the 20.
I suppose we should just be happy that Teslas crash into emergency vehicles, not school buses. See, I can be a glass half full kind of guy.
Yeah, they took away the cubes. Now we have call center desks where you sit shoulder to shoulder, look directly past your monitor at the cow-orker across from you. Open Plan for Team Building. For jobs that require individual concentration......
As a knowledge worker, I consider Open Plan offices hostile workspaces.
Let's not let the manufacturers off the hook so easily. First, they should know the privacy implications of their app, even if it's OS/SDK related. Second, they should be pushing back on Apple/Google about tying disparate technologies, as well as violating the trust of consumers. I have always felt that Android security isn't granular enough. Apps that are not dependent on your location should have the option of turning off location services. The only time GPS should be required (ex, you can choose not to use an app) is for emergency services. And even there it's only necessary if you are in an area where your phone can't talk to multiple towers.
There is also the painful lesson of COVID that supply chains need to be more distributed, if not local. For the US, you aren't going to encourage chip manufacturing without tariffs, bans, or subsidies. Corporations have decided that China has the cheapest manufacturing and cheap is the most important thing.
What about if that megaphone is essentially the only way of hearing somebody?
So anybody in a stadium should have access to the announcer's mic so that they can give their opinion? "Bad call Ref, are you blind, or just stupid!"
Suppose twitter dropped all democrat candidates a month before the election? Suppose Google decided not to return any search results for Republicans or had Chrome block all Republican candidates sites?
Suppose the credit card companies and banks decided they would only process donations for their preferred candidate
Suppose they did and all their customers went somewhere else? Twitter didn't dump Trump because they were offended by what he said. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by didn't get him booted. He got booted because Twitter was worried they'd lose advertisers if they didn't. Note how fast big customers are suspending their Twitter ad campaigns right now.
At some point these monopolies have to be regulated in a different way from a bakery not making a gay wedding cake.
None of the entities that you have mentioned are monopolies.
Telegram has an image problem, since they are the preferred system for conspiracy theorists and YouTube scammers.
And if they are about free speech, why do I need to download an app and sign up for an account if all I want to do is read what people are saying? They still get their page hits and ad views without putting everything in a walled garden, they just can't collect my personal info and link it to ads.
as he expects everyone to work as hard as he does
Some things to keep in mind; the hours he spends at the office are HIS choice. He can plan ahead for it. He has complete control over expectations. He has assistants to get his meals, bring him clean clothes. If he needs to shower the company will get him a nearby hotel room and an executive car to drive him there and back.
When he spends the afternoon on Twitter trolling people, or playing Kerbal Space Program, he is 'working'.
*Really* hoping that you are just using that wording because you know how that is how HR would end up phrasing it!
It's called a euphemism, look it up. But yes, I chose the phrasing because it's HR Speak.
Having said that, with the bluntness of Musk's "He's Fired!" tweets, I have no problem with the conversation pendulum swinging back the other way a little. In my career I have been laid off twice, and both times it was "your position has been eliminated".
Take this into account, someone has worked for the company for years, and likely has had to sweat blood on at least one project. Now the company has had an extreme change of culture and what you did yesterday means absolutely nothing today. Legally, yes in the US we are largely "at will". Even if you don't have the capability of human compassion, you should probably consider the visual aspect and it's effect on the people you do want to keep.
And maybe an even better approach would be to understand why people who have been with the company 8 years have such low morale that they feel the need to act out.
flame of glory after roasting Musk
I've read a number of articles about this, and I haven't seen anything attributed to Eric that would be out of line, and in many ways it would be expected, if the forum had been different. For example, a tech meeting with new management to discuss why an app is under performing. But Musk chose a public twitter rant to throw his team under the bus.
OTOH, looking at Eric's recent tweets he's obviously not happy with the direction Twitter is going. So if I were in charge I would have told HR to tell him that they are going to let him go so he can find a position that is a better fit. Everything we're hearing from Musk points to him making the work environment toxic. Life is too short to work 80 hr weeks only to have your boss tell you that you suck.
Maybe Super Musk will learn Android programming in his free time and single handedly save Twitter.
"Worth" - to those who think losing ~$0.25bn a year is 'good business'.
How many years did it take Amazon to show a profit? Is it truly a loss if the business is worth more year after year? Looking at one line on the financials is not always a good indication of how the business is doing.
Never had a Twitter account. Or Facebook. So doesn't really matter to me if Twitter survives. From a purely technical viewpoint (as career IT), I have to wonder if we are watching Twitter implode. Will there be outages in the next few days as all the corporate knowledge gets let go or leaves on their own? "Systems are down because Dave always took care of that, and Dave is gone......" I've worked at a company that had recurring layoffs and brain drain was painful. Morale is going to be horrible, and rumors are that Musk has already decreed 80 hour work week death marches to meet his deadlines. Anybody with any kind of skills will be mass mailing their resumes to all those recruiters that are always flooding our inboxes. It would be interesting to see statistics on the number of Twitter employees that have updated their LinkedIn profiles this week.
He's cutting payroll to reduce expenses. But if he loses the confidence of the advertisers where won't be revenue.
On top of that, social media sites provide a platform. Content creators are what brings in the eyeballs. Piss off the content creators and they will find another platform. Or more likely, they are already also on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, etc, and Twitter just becomes irrelevant. Then Twitter won't have to page views to support their ad pricing.
Maybe I'm just underestimating the loyalty of Twitter users. Dunno. Feels like a train wreck.
You start your post claiming that Russia is almost out of weaponry and they're being pushed back by plucky little Ukraine and you end it by claiming Putin will steamroller the whole of Europe unless we escalate.
The problem is the threat that is basically "give me what I want or I'll use my nukes". The world has pretty much drawn the line in the sand that Russia is not going to take Ukraine. I don't know if they will stand in solidarity all the way through Ukraine recovering Crimea, but unless things go really bad I expect NATO nations will continue to stand behind Ukraine until the Russians are pushed out of the rest of their country.
The nuclear threats are problematic, because nuclear deterrence is based on MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). That means there HAS to be a punishing response to any use of nuclear weapons. There is a lot of talk about Putin being backed into a corner, but so is the rest of the world if Russia uses nukes or we back down to Putin's nuclear threats. The MAD part is what stops their use, but if someone gets what they want my simply threatening, or using tactical nukes without being punished, then there is no deterrent.
It's very easy to see the progression going down the same path as with Hitler if other nations don't take a stand and stick to it. You can't cower in the corner and cry "he might use nukes" while he rolls through Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. He would be free to use the same 'referendum' approach in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Or even Finland.
Starlink satellites are not in geostationary orbit. They pass over a particular location for a short amount of time. While above the horizon they take client traffic and transmit it back to ground stations for backhaul. When they drop below the horizon they are supporting the ground stations in the next location in their path and a trailing satellite is supporting Ukraine ground stations.
Two things:
1. They possibly could have moved satellites initially to put them in an orbit that crosses Ukraine. Or launched a new ring. But that is a sunk cost not an ongoing one. The satellites might not have enough fuel to move anywhere else.
2. Even if they turned off coverage for Ukraine, there are likely other countries that are being supported by different parts of their orbit.
Ongoing costs would be satellite depreciation (fixed cost shared by all markets in it's path, and would just be ignored if you are no longer going to provide support, because you won't replace them at end-of-life), customer support, and backhaul.
I think Musk has become a liability to his companies. While I wouldn't purchase a Tesla, because with their practices related to customer service, parts, and repairs, it's more like a lease with equity. I'll give them credit for advancing BEV technology. We wouldn't see Ford and GM moving to full BEV in the future without Tesla. And SpaceX is a real asset to the US space program.
Having said that, lately Musk has completely turned me off on wanting to do business with any of his companies. Starlink could be incredibly useful, but I'm probably going to stick with 5g for Internet access outside of metropolitan areas. I'm leaning toward Ford for BEV, unless Subaru pulls their head out of their ass.
I'm struggling with the math. Market price on the terminals is $600. Even at 40k terminals that only comes to $24m. The cost of the satellites is a fixed cost. Operating them will remain regardless of whether service is being provided to Ukraine. The $80 or $110 month subscription fee is revenue, not a cost. So is SpaceX paying $375m a year in backhaul just for Ukraine?
If SpaceX isn't turning a profit, tax credits aren't helpful. And I doubt Ukraine is recognized by the IRS as a charity anyway. I personally wouldn't be opposed to the US gov't reimbursing SpaceX retail price on the terminals they donated. (retail, because with supply chain shortages these terminals would have probably been sold). And then verifiable operating costs for Ukraine customers. (not full subscription costs, because in an open market they wouldn't have those customers)
But $400m a year, not a chance. Even at full subscription rate those customers would only contribute ~$53m. (assuming 40k terminals at $110/mo)
Also - it's unclear who will suffer from having the energy removed from the water flow, but it's highly likely to be consumers. Shitty low-pressure shower anyone?
My guess is that in most municipal water systems, adding micro hydro in the delivery pipes would end up requiring more pumps or taller towers to maintain acceptable pressures. If the pressure drops too much you also risk back flows that will contaminate the water.
There are probably situations where reservoirs and water sources are at higher elevations than necessary, but I doubt there are very many.
We have supply driven inflation as people were paid to do nothing or not produce as much.
We have supply driven inflation because people are buying things. It comes from a number of factors. There are still COVID initiated supply side problems. Just ask Ford about their Blue Oval badge shortage. There is also still pent-up demand from the serious supply side shortages over the last couple years.
And from a US perspective, we have been at full employment for quite a while and that is creating supply side inflation in the labor market. You may not get a raise from your current employer, but if you change jobs you likely will see a considerable increase.
Then of course, there is the steep increase in energy costs. Gasoline costs may have come down, but the diesel that gets all the goods to market is still very high.
The way the Fed 'cools off the economy' is by making things more expensive. They just want to choose where those more expensive items are. Here are two ways how it works: higher mortgages reduces the demand for new houses. Fewer new houses get built, fewer salaries required to build them. Labor market softens and consumer purchasing power starts to drop. Trickle down starts with the durable goods and goes from there. This ripples through the economy and the Fed hopes for a 'soft landing' when equilibrium shifts to less demand.
Then comes the second part, higher capital costs make it less profitable for businesses to expand. That softens labor demand. If product demand stays high they can raise prices to increase profits. But also costs increase the closer a business gets to maximum capacity with their current equipment.
So with fighting inflation its; be careful what you wish for. All paths leading to less inflation mean people are going to lose their jobs. Those who keep their jobs will be better off. Those who don't, well, it sucks to be you.
How about those of us who have been in the industry for a very long time, and don't want to reward Microsoft for their previous bad behavior by giving them money that we don't have to?
If I need 100% MS Office compatibility, I have machines with MS Office. For everything else that just needs to create an occasional document or spreadsheet, those machines all get LibreOffice. With the added benefit that I don't have to worry about document compatibility between Windows/Mac/Linux platforms.
I would like to propose a phone-call-less office,
I would also like to propose an understanding that Instant Message doesn't mean the other person has to drop what they are doing and provide an Instant Response.
But having said that, your approach wouldn't solve your problem. They'll just want a huddle or zoom instead. Almost daily I receive meeting requests for things that could easily be resolved with a couple e-mails. And generally they have a dozen attendees where only 2 or 3 people will actually speak.
Remember, this kind of electrical power doesn't magically appear anywhere that an electrician hooks up a plug ... it has to be generated somewhere first.
Capacity will come as demand increases. Unless you're in Texas.
While I do believe we should be building new nuclear plants using this century's technologies, there is also a lot of new solar and wind generation coming online every year. Something the Federal government should be addressing are distribution networks.
SQL Server is a mature product. SSMS is a pretty good tool. So serious question, what does it need that would require a new release? The only thing that really causes me grief is the config program for SSRS has to run as local admin. I'd also prefer the Failover Cluster manager to run under some group besides local admin so that DBAs could move roles between nodes, but that isn't part of SQL Server.
(unlike the no-wind cold snap a year ago which took down their grid)
The problem with the cold wasn't the windmills. They did produce less energy due to icing, because Texans don't need to pay for de-icing on their stuff like other states.
The major cause was natural gas equipment freezing, which caused power plants to shut down from lack of fuel. Which caused problems at nat gas facilities due to lack of electricity.....
And again, under current conditions wind mill operators are having to reduce output because grid operators haven't invested in their infrastructures and aren't capable of carrying all the power produced by windmills.
The Texan solution to this problem is their Senator promoting bitcoin mining to use 'excess' power and then shutting down during high usage periods. What he failed to mention is that they're getting windfall profits for being 'good citizens'. Have to wonder whether they got incentives to locate in Texas and how much they are donating to political campaigns.
Also have to wonder how long until pure speculation starts with companies gambling on wholesale contracts during peak usage.
I'd also like to point out that nat gas peaking plants are designed specifically for fast startup and shutdown during heavy usage. They have hours of notice, it's not like it's some mystery that the 100* temps forecast for the afternoon is going to cause a considerable increase in usage.
Of course, someone has to invest in peaking plants and with power producers being disconnected from the the end users (their customers are local grid providers), they have no incentive for building extra capacity that will sit idle most of the time.
Maybe Bill could invest in technology to reduce the maintenance on absorption chillers and make them a better fit for residential use. Imagine, a tech that uses heat to make cold. Let the energy come from that big bright light in the sky. And if you still need cooling at night, you can either use a small heatpump backup or use natural gas to supply the heat. And it's been around long enough most of the patents should have expired.
Personally, when I'm shopping for an expensive item that I want to last for 10-20 years, I prefer simple tech.
Wouldn't it be nice if Congress could do something productive without all the partisanship and drama. Small, incremental steps to getting back to doing their jobs. I say we put a 5 page limit on all bills until Congress manages to make significant progress. No more padding and back room deals. More developing trust between peers, less quid pro quo.
Desoto is on the edge of the KC metro area. I think 1.7m people can manage 4000 more. The town is minutes away from the Kansas Turnpike. They have their choice of intermodal facilities for major rail lines. And with the purchase of Kansas City Southern rail by Canadian Pacific, a direct route from Mexico to Canada.
Well, they were given a significant shit sandwich when they walked into the Whitehouse.
The economy is running so hot that we've been at effective full employment for a year. A lot of businesses are still closing early, not because of COVID, but because they can't hire enough people to stay open longer. You would think having everyone working would make people happy, but the stock market wants cheap labor which means there needs to be significant layoffs. That of course will kill consumer confidence that is already shaky due to inflation.
The ideal way they would cool things off is by bumping the interest rate at the Fed. The idea there is they can control what type of inflation we have. But instead oil/gas are out of control and the government has little it can to about that, other than threatening them with profiteering during a crisis.
Honestly, I'm not sure the Chinese tariffs would affect the supply/demand curve too much at this point. There is just too wide of a gap.
They have also discussed removing the fuel taxes for a while, but there is no trust in the petroleum industry to not take that as even more profit. And with transportation costs being such a large part of the current inflation, you have to get fuel prices under control to accomplish anything. The rest of the world would scream, and I doubt they'd even consider it, but a sure way to drop domestic fuel prices would be to have an export tariff on oil and gas. Dropping the cost of diesel would show up in just about everything you buy.
I was interested in looking at it until you said it was built on systemd. I have been using Artix, which is also based on Arch, for several years. I prefer KDE over Gnome, and the lightweight desktops are just a little too lightweight for me. Although I tend to use LxQT most of the time.
I prefer rolling release distributions. We can probably blame Microsoft, but I have never liked doing full version upgrades on a PC ever since getting burned by Win95. Rolling releases let me do it a little at a time, while with a full version upgrade I tend to want to format the drive and start fresh.
I'm using OpenRC to avoid the systemd cancer. And about my only complaint with Artix is the community is too small. So often you have to fall back to Arch documentation to find a solution to a problem. That can be problematic in areas where Artix diverges from Arch.
Programmers are fungible,
And this is why so many businesses have shit software. "I just need a stack of coders, who cares if they have domain knowledge" I worked for a company that had big layoffs every year or so. It was like dealing with a company with Alzheimer's. All your business knowledge kept walking (or getting pushed) out the door. "Don't touch that app, Bob is the only one who knows how it works. And he left with the last Voluntary Separation."
WFH was fine when it was the business putting IT on-call 24 hours a day. But employee's wanting to save a couple hours a day commuting, can't have that.
The reason hiring programmers from those other markets isn't a bargain is language and cultural barriers.
I have lost more work to windows patching than any other threat to PC users in 3 decades. Never walk away from a Windows PC without saving all your documents and memorizing all the documents and web sites you have open. I personally prefer to apply patches on my schedule and do the reboot. Then I know everything has been saved and I can get the system back in the correct state for being productive.
I set up WSUS on my home network and upgraded all my Win10 machines to Pro/Enterprise so that I could regain control of patching. And I have to say; <sarcasm>WSUS is s dream to configure and manage in your spare time.</sarcasm>
Generally the local gov't entity (City/County) issues the bonds to pay for infrastructure because their credit gives them a better lending rate. The agreement with the companies include a revenue stream that pays back the bonds over a number of years. TIF (Tax Increment Financing) and CIDs (Community Improvement District) are what you will commonly hear about.
The problem comes in when the contract isn't fully executed. Economy turns and the company doesn't fully build out, etc. Or there are miscalculations on the revenue stream. One local one I can think of is a small town that financed infrastructure for a new Walmart that was going to anchor a shopping center. The sales tax revenue was going to pay off the bonds. The rest of center was never built out and WM alone didn't produce enough sales tax revenue to cover the bond payments. The town had to lay off police officers to pay the bond or risk their credit rating.
So since the city apparently guaranteed the bonds, they are responsible for the $300m. If Foxconn doesn't pay the annual $36m (for the next 20 years), they'll have to seize the property and sue. While making the bond payments in the meantime.
This is why you want to elect competent people, even at the local level. You have given them the authority to make contracts in your name that you will be financially responsible for.
It's not about being unappreciative of getting something for free. My biggest problem was with the part that I pay for. My domain registration is attached to my G-Suite. They had no problem transferring it over from GoDaddy when I set up G-Suite. But Google didn't offer any way to manage it after I shut off G-Suite. (you log into the management console with an email on your domain, that goes away when you kill your G-Suite subscription) They won't let you manage it from a GMail account. And then GoDaddy wants to charge you to transfer it back to GoDaddy from GoDaddy Wholesale so that I can pay for my renewals from my GoDaddy account.
All I ever used G-Suite for was emails for my personal domain. I simply swapped my MX record to a forwarder, parked the domain, and actually have a better process set up with some filtering rules to handle multiple 'mailboxes'. The end result of dealing with customer support is I'll not be doing business with GoDaddy ever again and I'm evaluating my future business with Google. I have clients on Google Maps and I personally use Google Fiber. BTW, Google Domains support was down right rude.
I signed up for the new personal G-Suite option, but only so I can manage my domain until I decide which registrar to switch to.
The difficulty for the platforms is that they want it both ways. There have been various attempts to classify the social media platforms as common carriers. They don't want that, because they want to be able to exercise some sort of control over the content they carry. But the alternative is to exercise control over the content they carry - and that then makes them responsible for the content they carry, removing the "safe harbour" protections.
You have this backwards. They wanted common carrier status and they lobbied for it because they didn't want to be responsible for the content posted on their systems. When the Communications Decency Act was being lobbied the ISPs and various 'content' systems were very concerned with the RIAA and getting sued because people posted copyrighted material.
The point of Section 230 was that if they were completely hands off, no editorial control, they would be considered a common carrier and not responsible for how their systems were used. Ex. AT&T doesn't get prosecuted because someone uses a phone to make a drug deal.
But here is the rub, people saw all the 'nasty' stuff that can be posted in forums and social media and berated their politicians to 'DO SOMETHING'. So politicians started hearings and lawsuits and said 'you must remove objectionable content'. Craigslist relented, and BackPage disappeared. Thus putting the platforms in the situation they didn't want, because it costs them money. They have to hire people to 'edit' the content on their systems based on a set of vague, ever changing requirements for acceptable use.
Now they are in a lose/lose situation where they need to remove the 'objectionable' content, but not the stuff that each jurisdiction determines meets their vague determination of a 'viewpoint', and all of it could change next week.
IIRC*, it actually derives from a note added to the decision by a clerk. This was later turned into a precedent and expanded to the "Corporations are people".
Well then we are all good now. Current Supreme Court doesn't believe we are bound by precedent.
Even though my understanding of our legal system is that it is built on precedent so that issues are settled and not continuously re-litigated in hope that the next judge will have a different view of the law.
Kind of makes the Supreme Court irrelevant too.
Personally, what I find annoying about corporate 'personhood' and it's right to free speech is that it is basically a megaphone for wealthy to drown out the opinion of others. And they can do so anonymously.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
