Remember when cash registers used to be glorified calculators? Now they are cheap PCs running poorly configured operating systems. You have tons of attack vectors open from USB ports to unneeded services. That and credit card companies are too fucking cheap to switch to chip and pin. The only reason the rest of world switched was because the companies were forced to. Not in the good old USA.

That's a *very* strong assertion. In fact, it seems like the sort of thing that the courts would stop, hard. It's essentially extortion. It's absolutely the sort of thing that would send customers screaming... and discouraging everyone around them. I find it hard to believe that any reputable cloud service provider would dare risk their business by doing something like that.

The Eastern half of Colorado is in the Great Plains so it is valid to call that part of the state the Midwest. Denver sits on the West edge of the Great Plains. Everything west of Denver is the Rocky Mountains.

All of the dates I could find were all post Obama dates.

You have to wonder if the media would have "ran a story by the CIA" before there was a president in the oval office they liked. There were e a lot of CIA leaks published under Bush...

This is exactly why you should not elect a candidate the press favors, because collusion is only natural.

That's 32 exit row seats just on United. To assert you have to book months or even a year in advance is not credible.

I'm saying that I always have booked months to a year in advance, and have not been able to get those seats.

That's great if it's possible, perhaps I've just had bad luck.

I gave up on normal airlines because of this and fly only Southwest when possible, were I have a shot at the better seats.

Really? You can have all the weapons a police force can have?

No Asshole.

The police can have all the weapons *i* can have.

The fact you can't understand the difference is very disturbing.

Tall people are free to purchase bulkhead and emergency row seats right now.

Really? How do you do that? I would every time if I could.

I have NEVER ONCE been able to get an emergency row or bulkhead seat in advance, despite being willing to pay more to do so. They are always taken even if I book many months or a year in advance.

That rate is the highest possible rate, not what corporations actually pay.

What a great system, where buying influence in government gets you reductions off an astronomically high tax rate.

Perhaps it would be better to have a system with fair tax rates that didn't beg for corruption?

Based on my right to bear arms to defend myself against the government, I want "Weapon Equity."

So do I.

Only it doesn't mean some retarded nonsense like "I want a tank".

No, it means that no police force should have any weapon *a citizen cannot*. In short, I don't want a tank or APC - but neither should the police have them.

I am OK with the military being better armed, because they are a professional force with lots of training in using advanced equipment.

Umm, Google doesn't define detailed requirements for technical positions. In fact, they don't even hire people for specific positions. The interview and hiring process is all about identifying people who are smart and can think on their feet, and decisions about what projects to put them on come after the hiring decision has been made. It's expected that almost nothing you know from any previous job will even apply at Google because the environment and tools are so different (everything is custom, in-house).

What you're describing definitely does happen -- I've seen it! -- but it's not relevant at the companies involved here.

This class action has nothing to do with H1-Bs. I don't think it was even so much about keeping wages down, as it does executives thinking their friends shouldn't be "stealing" from them. Though it definitely did prevent wage increases.

Why waste your time parading to an empty street?

This is right in the middle of SF (4th & Howard). If nothing else there are a ton of cars going past all the time.

Then the whole week long there are thousands of Apple developers walking in and out and handing around outside enjoying the weather (yes, sometimes SF has nice weather in June and this was one of those years).

But basically if you are dedicated you are THERE. That's really the point. They were not there for anyone but the cameras, then it was off to Starbucks or wherever.

"Evil" is probably too strong, but Microsoft's misdeeds were considerably worse than merely making products that were less than ideal. Microsoft engaged in some pretty shady business practices which were clearly detrimental to the competitive landscape, harming consumers not just by providing inferior products but by actively preventing better products from being able to reach them.

The most serious of these actions was in the agreements they made OEMs sign in order to sell machines with Windows (and before that, DOS). Because the MS OSes were dominant, OEMs had to have access to their products, so Microsoft leveraged that by requiring OEMs to sign exclusivity agreements guaranteeing that the OEMs would not offer for sale PCs with any competing software. This is the abuse that the anti-trust trial really should have focused on, not the browser wars.

There were many other examples, though. Lots of cases in which Microsoft abused their OS dominance to prevent competitive apps from running well, stabbed business partners in the back, made moves to suppress useful new technologies until they could get around to making their own (generally inferior) version, etc. Largely, this was just business as usual for an aggressive and not particularly moral company, but given Microsoft's commanding position much of it really crossed the line.

And, of course, there's the fact that when Microsoft got hauled into court and ultimately signed a consent decree agreeing to limit certain anti-competitive behaviors, they just ignored the decree.

I could go on, but it doesn't matter. All of that is in the past, because Microsoft, while still very powerful, is no longer in a position to be as dangerous as they were, and the company does seem to have mellowed and become a somewhat better corporate citizen as well.

But they definitely were much worse than what you describe, though clearly not evil on the scale of ISIS.

Companies are not "moving assets to another country" (by which you obviously mean earnings). They are earning money in other countries, on which BTW they pay tax in those countries, and then the profit they have opted not to move back to the U.S. because they face a monstrous tax (40%!!!!) on the amount the would bring back, which remember THEY HAVE ALREADY PAID TAXES ON WHERE INCOME WAS MADE.

Look at the chart of corporate tax rates around the world, the US rate is way higher than any other country.

Would you take a 40% pay cut on your earnings?

Your suggestion has some implicit assumptions which I don't think are valid in this case. At the level of Apple, Google, et al., they don't hire H1-Bs to suppress wages. At Google, at least, I know that salary is a non-issue in the hiring process. Salary requirements aren't even considered until after the hire/no-hire decision is made, and even then they have little impact on the offer... Google offers what it considers reasonable based on your experience, etc. And, actually, Google offers such good money that it's uncommon for candidates who receive offers to turn them down. So Google is paying enough to attract American talent. Google also hires people on H1-Bs, but only because Google hires anyone who is legally hire-able and can make it through the interview process and hiring committee. I strongly suspect that Apple is the same.

I'm not denying that there are segments of the industry who hire H1-Bs in preference to Americans in order to keep wages down, but I really don't think that's the case at the companies involved in this case.