Obviously, they don't watch Fox/Faux NEWS ;P

Texas doesn't "charge", it discounts!!!

.

We give data centers 30 year locked in rates, much lower than any "household", then we pay them not to use electricity, if needed. It's all for the "common" good. So Texans won't see any darn charge ... on bills. That would be CORRUPT, darn it!

We will see the BRAND NEW "Ultra TB" drives soon. Like the UHD ... it'll "Lower" the cost.

On a completely different different note.....What's the difference between Marketing and Fraud?

I was in IT for nearly 20 years. Indian headhunter companies are a huge problem. Both Republican and Democratic organizations have found significant fraud issues with them. There are a few "advantages", as a company might see them.

One lower pay, which may or may not play a role at that level. Two, it's much more difficult and dangerous for them to switch jobs before they at least get a green card (which if memory serves can be from 5 (very low) to 10 years in the making) They can be easily deported (refused visa renewal) during that time. So they basically can't and won't complain about long hours or calls 24/7. Of course, they normally start as contract which means zero benefits from the company then they might be hired after 5-7 years; and only then start accumulating time to exceed that standard two weeks PTO. The last one, I can think of offhand, is that also because of fear of losing their visa, they are often "yes" men/people. As, in can we do X in two weeks. If it doesn't materialize tends to be finger pointing to people or foreseeable factors. If it does get "completed", it's often buggy but, again Execs get their buy in and can point fingers down, if not satisfactory.

H1-B was "specifically" not meant to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor, but that it's exactly what it has done for many, many years. There was a minimum pay set in 1989 of 60K, which has never been raised (Bi-Partisan attempts were made but those were buried in subcommittee never to receive a vote). H1-B has indirectly subsidized businesses paying for it by displacing american workers through giving away citizenship. It's that simple. If you've only had one IT job, and/or aren't in the industry, you may not know but I've both been replaced when an Indian firm took over all IT in a company and I've worked for one of the headhunter companies. I've seen fraud, the breaking of security laws (federal), more than once. People that ignore the issues with H1-B don't seem care about American's losing jobs and/or careers, benefits, job stability. If someone claims to support diversity, H1-B overrides any and all American's; so you can forget about Black, Latino, Women, in IT.

To clarify, I'm not Immigrant, but H1-B went from something to subsidize American companies with "Highly Skilled" workers that we didn't have in the U.S. to a replace American's and lower benefits. It has made IT the lead in professional gig-work. Also, I don't claim to know about any other field. I don't know if there are Indian headhunter companies in other industries that companies contract with.

Lastly, if you are young, I would advise against IT as a carrier. Unless/Until those Indian headhunter companies are no longer a factor, it's a sure way to low pay, low benefits, and long hours, calls and text when your off work (vacation and middle of the night included), and almost zero job stability

I both agree and disagree. Usually, those that complain about the "government" are the ones that put those in charge who are dismantling it and making it worse for non-billionaires. I blame one party most, but the other party isn't blameless. The government is another legal entity that doesn't exist outside of that context just like a corporation. You can't trust it or blame it, only the people who run it and/or it's structure/rules and how they adapt or don't. Corporations are more ephemeral than government as they change beyond recognition and still exist, in a comparatively short amount of time.

Our government was designed with checks and balances, but they obviously don't function anymore, because they weren't designed with "ends justifies the means" in mind. They were based on the some assumptions officers of the government having some base line morals . They couldn't imagine the amount money, from mega-corps in mind. Money wins elections in the modern age. 2010 Citizen's United Supreme court decision was the death nail to what was left of our democracy. See the democracy index where we are conservatively listed as a flawed democracy.

Megacorps run by executives and billionaire's through hedge funds run our government and both parties. Republican's used to believe in a free market, but now, profit by any means seems to be the rule. The Democratic party used to be the labor party, but not anymore. Neither side cares or is representative of the populous of our country. I've acquainted myself with some early economic theory. None of it was designed with international megacorps in mind. From many international indexes from Happiness, Wealth, Health and more, Nordic countries do best, but both sides argue that we are too diverse to follow their model, no one has yet to explain why that is to me, except to say that we couldn't "agree" to follow those models.

From my understanding the nordic models are mostly social democracies. They treat their citizens as integral parts of their society, were both sides are willing to let American's "fall through the cracks" while they implement their priorities. America doesn't believe in human rights for it's populace anymore. I don't believe the communist ideal. I do believe it has never been implemented in the way Marx envisioned but I do believe in the "workers unite" philosophy. We should support good international organizations like the UN, WHO and others without strong-arming them with the threat of funds. WHO once rated each countries health care but stopped. I can guess why.

I'm sorry this is pessimistic but I believe, at least the neither side cares about American's is very true. Everything is binary, for or against. There is no middle ground, no open discussion. Democracy dies in darkness and that's where we are. Whether it be the Supreme Courts shadow docket or Bill's shoved into sub-committee never to see an open vote. There is no discussion or argument, just hard disagreements. I don't know how biased news used to be before donald, but it's become very biased, on both sides. I believe one side is worse, but instead of becoming better the other side bought into selling their side too, rather than staying unbiased i.e. they made liberal elitism true, and liberal news bias true. Whether it was somewhat true before donald or not.

I watched a Ted talk years ago on how refined sugar acted like a poison to us. I've worked on my personal war against refined sugar since then. I remember High Fructose Corn syrup was supposed to be really bad, but I don't remember why exactly. This makes it much worse but it was already bad. I still have a friend who is morbid

We really need to rein in both the suger and corn lobby. Suger is way too prevalent today. I was happy to see the "added suger" to the ingredients list but companies lie on that too. I'm sure it's a loophole like if it's an integral part of ... b.s. Hopefully, it will backfire on those companies, with others, as it does with me. We need to stop all corn subsidies and really all farm subsidies. Farms are large corps, mainly now and most corn goes to feed or stuff like chips and corn syrup. It's been a huge boondoggle for a long time now.

Compared to that dumb OS requirement, I love this. If it can actually preserve anonymity, this is so much better.

I'm sure will piss off financial backers for all the full ID because we want to track and sell your data companies in the U.S. and/or the NSA/Admin who seem to want to fully track everyone too E.G. IME and the new personal router ban which black-box requirements for the exception that every company will need.

While I agree with @Pseudonymous Powers and I agree that immigrants can be wonderful people, it's not that simple. H1-B has been monopolized by Indian headhunter companies, in IT for years. Past administrations on both sides have found lots of fraud. I was in IT for 20 years and have been laid off, when one of those companies took over the entire IT department. Then later, I've worked for them. Initially H1-B was meant for "highly skilled workers" that we didn't have in the U.S. and it was specifically not supposed to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Hence a minimum salary of $60k was set in 1989. Multiple bipartisan efforts were made to update that but all were buried in subcommittee never to be voted on. Through those Indian companies IT has largely become professional gig work as many jobs are contract. Interviews have become much harder as they expect you are an exact fit for jobs. I suspect that there is couching or direct answers when those Indian head hunter firms are involved. One reason is that I tutored an Indian women in IT that had so little knowledge as to astound me she got the visa; She admitted her last job was HR, and that it was her first IT role. She couldn't have passed the interview I had. Even if you forget about the fraud, and replacing American workers, there is still huge security issues. I saw that personally, Indians without clearance accessing a government database. It was a low security one, but still had a clearance requirement that was not met. I read recently that an executive of one of the major Indian companies got caught selling data to the Russians. Who would be surprised at this? With H1-B came Indian managers and Indian workers rights (or lack thereof). Forget about American minorities in IT, much of IT in the U.S. isn't done by American's at all. Lastly, some competition is good, but between being locked into a company for years because of fear of visa not being renewed, and probably cultural norms, no one takes much responsibility or stands up to management. I wouldn't want to guess at the technical debt in the U.S. All this makes security much worse e.g. personal security issues, technical debt issues, under qualified personnel, failed deadlines and over promised results, metric manipulation

I used to have lots of faith in "trusted" sources but I have less now than I ever did.

Some of it is the Sinclair Broadcast Group following Murdoch's example of intentionally biasing news. Some is the President/FCC being used to punish by disallowing sales. I've read that countries that have publicly funded but independent public news tend to have healthier democracies and that makes some sense to me. My biggest problem wish even "trusted" sources is that it seems polarized too. There is no nuance; so they seem to be painting a biased picture as well.

on H1-B, news doesn't mention that

1. It was for "highly skilled" workers we didn't have in the U.S.

2. Specifically never meant to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. That's exactly what it does in IT (why else would it be mostly Indian workers)

3. The minimum salary of 60k set in 1989 in accordance with 1 and 2. It has never been raised.

4. The fraud and lowering of workers rights by Indian head hunter companies. One girl I was training, didn't know basic computer skills and confessed that her former job was HR.

5. That in IT companies employ mostly Indian H1-B (or former), whether directly or indirectly (some IT departments are completely outsourced to Indian Head Hunter companies.)

6. H1-B workers can't change jobs easily so can be abused.

7. It's a security issue. I've seen H1-B access a government database without authorization. It was a low security, but required at least 3 years in the U.S. to get the government authorization.

Some of this used to be reported on but mostly before 2016. I've heard NPR mention H1-B when talking about the wall and illegal immigration without further context. Others just talk about the Indian workers that might be affected by any push-back to the abused program, without considering middle-aged U.S. workers that can no longer find a decent job with decent pay/benefits like affordable health insurance. Only recently higher universities like Rice and others have talked about getting low pay for IT graduates. Keep in mind these were the last to be affected.

Another topic is wind power. I'm for it, but I did some research on my own about birds they kill. They do kill birds, but it's not a they shouldn't be used, it's a mitigation issue to me. In the Netherlands, i think, They made the blades striped, and that helped allot from what I read. There were several other methods that we don't use that seemed to help but again, this wasn't in regular daily type news.

Locally, There really isn't any news that's critical or investigative into my cities politics or policies and there really needs to be.

The financial incentive is not there for good investigative, unbiased news anymore. Of course, sensationalism has always been a problem

This happens all the time. Legal definitions get changed to no longer reflect the dictionary definition. I still remember when news organizations had to walk back on editorials calling trump a traitor for the Ukrainian extortion racket, because lawyers were mentioning how the legal definition was very narrow. Too me, unless you are specifically referring to the law, you should be able to say a dictionary definition term without fear of reprisal, even if it's an opinion.

"Charities" by the IRS definition aren't necessarily "charitable" by people's understanding of the term. Insider trading is legal, if there isn't a financial quid pro quo, from my understanding. I'm no lawyer so correct me if wrong but I remember listening to a story that basically said as much e.g. I think, if an executive tells a friend information without getting anything back (except maybe similar info from the friend, sometime later) then they aren't criminally pursued. Again, if someone knows exactly, it would be interesting to learn even if wrong.

Even, if I'm not correct in my examples, I know there are tons out there. They corrupt laws. One is by changing definitions and another is by using laws meant to protect people against them or for corporations (e.g. 14th amendment/corporate personhood)

I don't know much about that cameras but that's scary.

Let me know when the class action starts.

I did "request" deletion and have as much proof, as was possible; so ...yeah.... I'm guessing maybe I can get a cheap lunch out of them, maybe not, but might as well try as they use my dna without permission

H1-B has replaced American workers for cheaper foreign labor in IT, which it was "specifically" never meant to do. Corporations for years claimed there were not enough "skilled" American labor, but in reality, it was really only a shortage of workers willing to work at low pay. A minimum of 60K was the only protection against this, but that rate was set in 1989, and has never been raised. There wasn't a shortage, but there probably is now. I'm a genx'r with ~20 years in IT, but I can't do it anymore, and I'm not really wanted. Not because I don't know anything, but because it's mostly contract, and mostly Indian now for low pay, long hours, and little to no benefits. Also, because of H1-B fraud, resumes basically have to exactly match what they want i.e. if you weren't doing the same exact job yesterday, you're not what they want i.e. plug'n play. That and my age. They want young H1-B workers that are stuck for 5-7 years until they get a green card. There is very little "American" IT left in America, except the H1-B workers with 7-10 who are now citizens. Forget about women and minorities in IT, there aren't any natively born Americans. I'm not anti-immigrant, but Indian IT companies, along with "American" corps, have made IT the first professional gig work. In my mind, it's just the first.

I'm surprised this guy was caught. I firmly believe Indian firms tell applicants what to say in an interview, much of the time. One reason, is because I had to train an Indian girl that not only didn't know the job skills, but really didn't know computers. I asked, and she told me this was her first IT job, the last job she had was HR. Even though I didn't mention it, others on the team went out of her way to tell me she mispoke or I missheard. It was weird. I didn't bring it up to any management or anything but I definately got "push back", without doing any pushing on my own. Anyway, there is no way she passed the same interview I had, on her own; we weren't at different levels.

Lastly, later I did bring up a security breach because I didn't want to be complicite and lose my "career". They had been using and accessing a government DB without clearance. It was low level clearance, but it did require at least 3 years in the country and they didn't have that. As far as I know, nothing came of it. This was a top 10 U.S. bank.