I guess I'm a little confused. If I ask my DB for all of the contacts with a first name containing the letter "Q", I'm expecting it to only return that subset of my contacts. Obviously, it'll need to decrypt the contact names somewhere. So if the DB isn't doing it (which I've always thought was the efficient place to have it done, hence the indexing, and not transferring the many unmatched contacts), then which part is doing that hard work?

Something's weird here.

Like I said: Mark my words. Remember them in 50 years.

It's the change to the rut-filled routine that is good. People tend to instantly notice existing problems being instantly solvable; they don't notice new problems gradually developing.

You can't judge me today. Wait a few decades. Judge me then.

Mark my words. 4-days are better than the usual 5-days. 3-days are better than the usual 4-days. Interestingly, 5-days are better than the usual 4-days.

It's the change that's beneficial.

See, now that's what I'm talking about. Your words were all well-defined, unambiguous, and didn't require a committee to determine them.

Though, I didn't understand the neckbeard. Also, If I'm one big dick, wouldn't that make the sucking easy for you, not me?

Now that you have a mastery of words, perhaps you can backtrack and use that new skill to describe a solution to the problem at-hand.

Just remember, your suggestion needs to be specifically-understood by the entities you're expecting to perform the actions. If your suggestion involves another committee to regulate or judge or discern those actions, then you've merely kicked the can down the road, as it were.

...and hey, didn't this guy at amazon just get an enormous raise when amazon upped everyone's salaries? Is this guy really suing for way less than 1% of his salary?

(I'm not in California, and I'm not in the USA.)

There are plenty of expenses that employers (also in california) never covered -- like commuting expenses. Obviously your commute to work was a necessary expenditure for work; the question is only is it in direct consequence of the duties.

We've said no since the dawn of time. You're expected to get to and from work as a personal expense, and you can't even write it off. And this makes sense for the over-arching logic of everyone-does-it-and-therefore-meh.

We've been using the word "telecommute" (with an interesting etymology, by the way) as a notion of virtual commuting. So I'm totally fine with it not being covered any differently than traditional transit expenses.

All of that said, my country has a separate set of finance laws. Basically, if you work from home, in a dedicated part of your home (i.e. a dedicated home office, no matter how small), you get to write-off that space. There are (of course) three different ways you can write it off, depending on how specific you want to be -- a federally-set per-day dollar amount (I think last year it was ~$2/day, and is basically a single checkbox on the annual tax form), a full-form itemized amount (with a letter from your employer itemizing your required expenses), and a percentage of your home basically as rented-to-yourself-from-yourself (which yes, can include your kitchen counter if that's your desk).

In any event, it costs your employer absolutely nothing, it's a considerate tax savings, (considerable too!) and there really is nothing to complain about. Even if you choose the easy-instant method, $2/day still ought to cover the essential telecommute costs for what we all know isn't the only reason you use internet service at home.

And last year, its usage spiked as you would expect. And nobody had any problems with it.

Oh, and it doesn't need to be 100% from home. 50% is enough.

Or, I suppose, you can complain, sue, and waste everyone's time and tax dollars on courtrooms. After three years of battle, maybe you'll cover the cost of parking at the courthouse.

"procedural"
"improves"
"chances"
"obvious"
"things"
"cracks"
"relevant activities"
"on record"
"motivation"
"things"
"right"
"viable"

All completely meaningless words.

Which came first, the chicken or the "egg" -- "egg" is a meaningless word.
Dinosaur eggs came before chickens, for sure.
You probably mean "chicken egg". Which came first, the chicken, or the "chicken egg".

"chicken egg" is a meaningless word. Is that an egg laid by a chicken? Or is it an egg from which a chicken hatches?

Either way, your definition of "egg" answers the question.

Define your words, and most problems don't actually exist.

Came here to say that. And I'll focus on your third point of simply taking a mindful break to relax. I enjoy pausing my work-day in the middle, and spending 15 minutes to make a great cup of coffee (syphon), then spending 20 minutes drinking it -- watching the oils dance on the surface in the sunlight.

If I were to agree with the term "predatory", I would apply it a little differently.

It's not that they prey on the consumer, in terms of taking advantage of the consumer's ignorance. Instead, I'd argue that they take advantage of the consumer's lack-of-borrowing power compared to their own. And I think that's exactly what this article winds up describing by accident.

Last year, interest rates were very very low. So these companies could easily borrow money at 2% annual interest. In quantity, very close to a mere 1%. My mortgage (and line of credit) is at 1.75% (locked in two years ago, and for another three).

But with interest rates rising towards 8%, these companies can't profit from late payments anymore, simply because their overhead costs are already double what they used to be, and expected to double again.

None of that is "taking advantage" of anybody, until you notice that I (middle-class, homeowner, ~40, perfect credit, dual-high-income, no-kids) could always borrow huge sums of money at roughly the same interest rate as those companies; on the other hand, the typical consumer (younger, lower-or-lower-middle class, renter, mediocre credit, single-modest-income, kids) can't borrow very much at all without paying 20% interest.

The problem here is our standard societal problem. It's fine that people who start low need to struggle to get up -- my grandparents earned nickels a day; it took three generations to get to me. The problem is that those people who start low are faced with the harshest of disadvantages that simply don't equate.

The easy concrete example: I can borrow a huge sum of money at 2%, they should be able to borrow a small sum of money at the same 2%, or a large sum of money at 20%. But instead, the fact is that they only have the option to borrow a small sum of money at 20%. Which is insanely unfair.

It basically ensures that nothing short of a lottery ticket could possibly elevate them. There are many such lucky-breaks to be had, but they are dwarfed by the number who need them.

The shame of it all is that I want them to succeed and elevate. It's better for me if they do -- in a whole host of selfless and selfish reasons too.

Yes, I've done my part and continue to do so. I've provided large loans at zero interest. I donate modest sums to boots-on-the-ground causes in my city. But again, my efforts are dwarfed by what is needed.

So that's the way I'd attribute the word "predatory". They profit from the systemic problem, and actually exist solely because of it, all the while being in a good position to resolve it, yet not doing so.

Perhaps they profit less than others. I'm not sure that makes them virtuous.

That's how I see it anyway.

Oh yeah, 'cuz that's the problem!

Ah, well done on dodging the "if" as a word; alas you've left all of your conditional statements in-place.

"expected to follow"
"as part of"
"certification process"
"sign off"
"expected practices"
"breach occurs"
"audit shows"
"all the listed steps"
"turned down"
"sufficient warning"
"security expert"
"held reliable"

Now all you need to do is to define, bound, and quantify each and every one of those terms, and you've got the perfect law! Of course, you've just created three new accreditation systems, and at least five different lists that need to be kept up-to-date by at least two of those accreditation systems.

And, you still haven't addressed the other half of my argument -- that you still can't sue anybody for small potatoes.

They didn't do anything incorrectly. The pipe cracked due to weather, birds, sun, and insects.

Way to pluck a single phrase out of a complex argument, and then find a single failure scenario from thousands of non-failures, and then be vague and completely non-committal in your "something incorrectly".

My argument wasn't that we never hold anyone accountable for anything. My argument was that there are countless times when we don't hold people accountable. I gave concrete examples of each, multiple times, and then translated them into the IT world in a way that would invalidate the benefits of the OP's suggestions.

If you want to debate my stance, you would need to at least attempt to debunk the majority of my concrete examples, or at least the majority of my translations.

Instead, you said: "if" and "something". So I'll remind you that if your grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon. And something would be different.

If you're going to have a legitimate point, you'd typically want to replace "if" with "when". "When you can prove that they did something incorrectly...". To which, in this case, of course, the response would be "and when would that something be?" -- because you haven't actually said anything at all.

As for your theoretical hypothetical undescribed vague scenario, I'll point you to the other day's recent discussion about modern legal systems, and I'll point out that you would never sue a plumber for a cracked pipe even if he did indeed do something incorrectly. The most you could sue him for would be the cost to replace the pipe, which itself would likely max-out at the amount that you'd originally paid him to install it -- which itself might not even cover the cost of replacing it -- and all of that wouldn't even cover the cost of the courthouse parking and filing costs, let alone any attorney fees -- and that's before considering the minimum ten hours of opportunity cost. And further damage caused by the water from the cracked pipe (of which we spoke not) would be covered by your home insurance, not the plumber's insurance. You have a deductible which again is likely larger than that water damage. Your insurance premiums would go up as a result of that claim, so it's really not worth it in the long run even if it is in the short run. And, since you didn't have a service contract with the plumber, they weren't licensed correctly, or you didn't have the work inspected by a by-law officer, your insurance has denied your claim. And if you did have all of that done correctly, most insurance companies will still put up a fight long enough that you've now lost twenty hours of opportunity cost.

I already come, pre-installed with dynamic milk testing technology. I can determine whether or not milk is drinkable without a phone, and without a printed date.

My tongue can tell if it's poison.
My nose can tell if it's sour.
My ears can tell if it's producing gas.
My eyes can tell if the carton/jug/bag is bulging.

And since I store my milk correctly, the printed best-by date is often a month past, making it completely inaccurate.

I look forward to this new QR technology -- another bit of inaccurate technology that my own capabilities can readily conquer.

I think you've just re-iterated my point. So I guess I'll switch sides -- you know, to keep the argument going.

The problem with modern legal systems is that they refuse to translate anything.

We had smoking and anti-smoking laws and signs and regulations for decades. Apparently those don't apply to vaping. Needed all new laws. We had laws for taxis, which apparently don't translate into ride shares.

Modern laws are never written for fundamentals -- in-air oral drugs, commercially-provided vehicle transit. There are certainly very good reasons for that. The problem is that those benefits come with enormous detriments.

The biggest problem with modern legal systems is that you really can't use them. You can't sue someone for $100. No matter how simple and how clear-cut the issue is, $100 doesn't cover parking at the courthouse. So already, you aren't going to utilize justice for anything small -- which is 99% of a person's need for justice. I'm not going to sue someone for scratching my car -- even $1'000 isn't worth the time and hassle and expense of a lawsuit for anyone with a job, let alone a career, or a business. That same concept extends to $1'000'000 for larger issues with larger corporations.

So most of modern legal systems are really just for media coverage. And by the time the murderer goes free, it's been six years and we've all stopped caring. Modern laws are initial-guidelines-only, and then the threat of legal action is basically the end of it for the vast majority of scenarios.

Which is why we've implemented all sorts of work-arounds for the law -- from bad-reviews, to star-ratings, to marketing and access.

So if you're asking me what I think we should do in the IT sphere, I think we should start writing laws the way we write code -- some laws (whoa, not all laws) but some laws ought to be based on the result, not on the action. We call those assertions in programming.

And some of them would be plainly obvious.

-credit card data must be encrypted -- such that brute-force efforts would take more than 100 years at the time of decryption.

-you're accountable for any data stolen by any means, that you've held for more than six months.

-logging into someone else's database, with a login/passcode (so not injection), is illegal, I don't care how you got it, how you used it, or why it wasn't harder to do. You know, just like breaking into someone's house is illegal, no matter how thin the glass windows were. entry is entry.

-selling someone else's data, is like selling someone else's eggs.

-publicly describing how to break into someone's systems is like publicly describing how to break into your neighbour's house. it's both illegal and stupid, since your house is pretty much the same.

The big point here is something that IT has never understood. We all have vulnerabilities. They can't be fixed. Your windows are glass. Bolt cutters exist. The fuse to your air conditioner is outside your house. The exhaust from your furnace is an exposed pipe about the size of a banana.

You can't stop a person from killing you with a baseball bat on the sidewalk in two seconds. You can't stop selling bats. You can't remove sidewalks. You won't sell enough helmets.

You simply make it illegal, and make it certainly enforceable -- and maybe even easily so. And then you accept the 90% solution, not because that's enough, but because we then have bigger problems elsewhere.

Alas, modern legal systems are terrible for any of this. And modern IT is even worse.

To be clear, I'm not at all complaining. I make money because of the latter. My Beloved does because of the former. Additionally, governance is a forever-impossible task for many reasons, including the fact that our governance systems are equally hindered by rapid change. I'm very happy that I'm not tasked with solving these problems, nor even addressing them.

Ha! If we're to be damned, let us be damned for what we really are.

See you...out there.