Me too. The product was great but it was too much to take in. They didn't just learn anything from the Snowden revelations but instead put people from the government in the board. I'd rather prefer to keep using my pendrive, thank you.
It's a knee-jerk reaction to totalitarian domestic propaganda.
Has a tendency to breed confused, alarmist, emotional and untechnical conversation.
Here's the truth: Russia isn't evil. Neither is the United States. But they are enemies. The people are getting caught in a propaganda war, which has shifted conversation from the venue of technical to ideological. (Propaganda, in practice, breeds ideological self-affirming thinking.)
The breakdown of conversation isn't the fault of the "traitors who support the evil Russians" or the fault of the "domestic saboteurs who support the US mass propaganda apparatus" but the fact that the two countries can't get their shit straight and work toward a post-Cold War without throwing acid at each other.
(I'm rewriting the last sentence of this over and over because I realize its going to attract ever-yet more comments of the form "but Russia's evil and they started it and you can't really compare the US and Russia - can you?". Screw it.)
I'm surprised how often people are starting to carelessly refer to Russia as "enemy". I think "adversary" is a more accurate term, on the same level as China.
The governments of both sides say they want cooperation but are are annoyed at each other's behavior and actions. However I don't think the people of either country treat the other as "enemy", like they did during the cold war. Back then each side was afraid that the other one may attack them preemptively out of ideological reasons.
Russia by itself is merely a western rival which could normally be worked with by sane western governments.
But Putin is a hostile who's popularity, having ruined the economy, depends on endless conflict and so will never be appeased. Even the extremely pro Putin White House is repeatedly embarrassed by the one sided-ness of the relationship.
But that's a side issue here. If one wanted to save a free discussion site from de-facto censorship and vandalism by totalitarian shills, one would need to apply the ban-hammer with ruthless zeal. Possibly viewing threads like this one as a honeypot to locate them.
One would not, for example, cater to that censorship by penalizing news of cyber attacks off the front page. Which, among other things, eliminates discussion of mitigation strategies.
The post-Soviet era is and was not the end of history. Geopolitical competition exists as a human condition.
Much of the "communist versus capitalist" competition that "justified" the Cold War, was actually just a result of two powers that were going to compete anyway pushing competing views of global economic-political organization.
The competition was not itself about economic philosophies. Rather competition of economic philosophies was the result of conflict.
The United States today is a waning power relative to the rest of the world. However, it's still the de facto superpower.
The American strategy is to keep its foot on Russia's neck and while containing the possible rise of China's power (seeking to keep it to a regional, rather than global setting).
Yes, the Cold War is still going. There's less of a chance of an immediate nuclear exchange, but the US and Russia continue proxy warfare (e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Iran) and propaganda warfare (e.g. US and Russia's interference in one another's elections)
Seems punitive to me, rather than 'fair'. US copyright law has no jurisdiction the same as German copyright law, other than by coincidence of geography/volunteer base. I think Project Gutenberg is doing the best thing it can for itself. I associate the project with doing the best thing it can for people.
In general, we're going to run into increasing numbers of cases like this.
Military funded (DARPA's Social Media in Strategic Communication program) to develop the research necessary for running highly automated global-scale social network propaganda campaigns.
Coworker at Fortune 500 does this. Old housemate at different Fortune 500 did basically this (slept on the floor, only owned cardboard boxes, one week of clothes and a car).
Both of these people are incredibly rich. One came from parents with oil and financial sector money. The other has multiple real estate properties. Both have six figure incomes.
Other people I know in the tech sector are less extreme, but nonetheless have various plans for exiting the corporate world so that they can feel financially independent enough to retire early and then work on problems they find enriching/bring value to people rather than shareholders/etc.
Though one of them was obsessed with immortality and saving up for when cryogenics and Kurzweil's singularity were figured out. So I guess it's not all about the rat race for everybody.
Becoming rich (assuming it’s not handed to you by your parents) isn’t about how much you earn [0], but about how much you save. If you earn $120k/year, but only spend $20k/year, after five years you will have half a million in the bank.
The hard part is convincing yourself (and your family) that you don’t need to go that resturant or you don’t need that new car. Obviously younger people have the advantage here, as they typically have less attachments.
There’s a point where this can get a bit too extreme, but it depends on what’s important for you. Having that house within walking distance of your office, or cycling 10 miles to work and retiring at 35? If this is interesting to you, take a look at the various financial independence/early retirement communities.
[0] After a certain point, but I’d argue pretty much everyone working in tech is there.
I hate to split hairs, but you'll take home about $80k on a $120k salary, so the plan you've proposed would require over eight years of slumming it, not five.
More on topic, imagine that you try to retire with $500k in the bank at 35. Even if you're willing to slum it at $20k/year for the rest of your life, you'll only make it to 60! And that's ignoring the elephant in the room, inflation. With mandatory health insurance, $20k/year's going to be tough to clear too. You're probably going to have to seek disability status to qualify for government assistance at some point if you are fixed on the "early retirement" goal.
Now, it's not like you're going to throw the $500k in a mattress. Surely some combination of bonds, index funds and specie can spare you from the worst of outcomes. I don't know about you, but all of this sounds like a mean and tentative existence to me, babysitting a nest egg. There's not much wiggle-room for taking risks, like starting a business that's more interesting than "freelance programmer."
In summary, I doubt that one can retire early with any comfort off of a decade of decent earnings. That's not really controversial, but it disagrees with your financial advice, which I suspect is dangerous. I think it's a bit irresponsible to suggest that somebody spend the prime of their life squeezing out every last penny. I think it's unrealistic to suggest that the difference in rent between a convenient walking commute and a safe, 10-mile bicycling commute can equal the budgeting difference you've proposed. Lastly, you're ignoring the opportunity cost of living like a monk when it comes to professional networking, or more important things like having a varied and healthy social life.
Please don't take what I said too seriously, it's not meant as "life advice you should follow to the T". It was merely intended to provoke a discussion about an alternative to the way most people deal with personal finances.
As I mentioned, there are plenty of people who practice 'financial independence' who have done this before, what I'm saying is nothing new. Early Retirement Extreme [0] is a good introduction to the subject. Mr Money Mustache [1] is a bit less extreme. These are still rather extreme examples though, so no not everyone will be able to retire in 5 years, but a lot of the advice they can follow, and at least save up an emergency or investment fund of a decent amount.
I think it's irresponsible and dangerous to live paycheck to paycheck, and take on mountains of debt just to buy something you don't really need, but plenty of people do that every day.
You can live on $24k/year from $600k in invested assets. With mandatory health insurance, its income tested, not means tested; living on $24k/year means a family's premiums will be heavily or fully subsidized (under current ACA law).
> In summary, I doubt that one can retire early with any comfort off of a decade of decent earnings.
It can be done.
"A Brief History of the ‘Stash: How we Saved from Zero to Retirement in Nine Years"
This guy and his wife are making $160k gross in 2003, and that's on the fifth year. I plugged that into a .gov inflation calculator just now and got $216k equivalent today! Some numbers are omitted, but they're nearing $200k by 2004 and certainly clearing it by 2006. Then when he "retires" he's pulling 50k with a side business? Everything about this is misleading.
True, though sometimes that choice may involve something paying for necessary medical care or caring for a child. You could choose to do neither, but not in practicality.
I would really like to know more about the involvement of the Stanford Research group in enabling these exploits. Speculating on a whim here, but it wouldn't seem like much research would be needed with the exception of perhaps either WEP/WPA injection/extension/decryption attacks OR wireless frame injection attacks that exploit the data link layer.
> The Tesla brand name takes this seriously. Question the headlines, opinions, etc.
> You are safe using Tesla. What happened to this person won't happen to you.
> The driver made some questionable decisions; the blame isn't uniquely Tesla's. Other safety mechanisms not under Tesla's control also failed.
> Statistically, Tesla Autopilot is safer than not using Autopilot.
> We accept that we will not be able to prevent all deaths. You need to too. Telsa has saved lives in addition to taking them. Focus on this please.
> We care about safety.