consulting company i work at hired a grip of these people for construction and public land projects. struggle with guilt that our success is the result of capitalizing on incompetence and lies
we certainly charge at least 3x cost for gov to employ them on top of whatever severance they might have received. the work still needs to be done and specific people know how to do it. sort of becoming a staffing agency because theres so much profit in it. makes my stomach sick writing this out
McKinsey and other consulting firms are built on this principle. Lobby for “retiring” or deskilling people in organisation and then replace them with your own contractors once problems arise.
Basically irrelevant to taxpayers. Their salaries or triple their salaries will add up to a difference of a couple dollars on the average tax bill. Doge didn't actually cut any of the big expenses. It was only intended to cut the effective things.
> Please forward your next raise to me, since it will only raise your taxes.
Joking aside that's not really how taxes work (in the USA anyway).
A raise might move you into a higher top marginal tax rate, but only the money you earn above that new bracket threshold gets taxed at the higher rate, everything below the threshold continues to get taxed at the same rate as before.
Raises don't increase your taxes (though you might end up with a slightly higher top tax rate solely on the new money you weren't making at all before).
While I probably wouldn't make a career out of it, I have the same feelings about painting. It's a satisfying zen and I love doing weekend painting projects on the house.
This wouldn’t hold up in court, to my knowledge. If you have a tool that is solely designed this way for technical reasons, then there isnt trademark infringement. Just make sure to market it as the “B” screwdriver or whatever. The same thing with the Nintendo case for their logo on cartridge protection, I don’t think that ever held up in court.
Private Internet Access has denied under oath that they have logs to turn over.
There is no reason to think that more reputable activist providers like Mullvad or AirVPN would if a party like PIA already doesn't.
I'd steer clear of NordVPN though. They have lots of controversy in their history and they are very financially motivated, considering the deluge of YouTube sponsorship and ads they pay for each year. Still don't think they would lie about no logs but why risk it.
Private Internet Access has denied under oath that they have logs to turn over.
Did they also testify under oath there is no lawful intercept API or anything similar? That does not require logs. In fact when the feds would set up phone call intercepts on telco switches we would intentionally disable logs and put the mainframes into "test mode". And that is even before people start playing legal word games like calling lawful intercept "debugging" or something else. Lavabit [1] found out what happens if lawful intercept is not available.
Just me personally, I would always assume a service I do not entirely control and operate is doing what it can to comply with lawful intercept requirements and they are likely playing word games to not drive away their members and I would not blame them. I am just the properly paranoid type in part due to a good upbringing by a properly paranoid person.
<I am just the properly paranoid type in part due to a good upbringing by a properly paranoid person.>
I say you've properly got your eyes open. Anyone who thinks anything you do online is completely private is naive. IF any government wants to know what you've been up to online, nothing can stop them. Privacy is a thing of the past, we should vote only for politicians who say they want the government out of our backyards, banks and bedroom. Oops, too late!
Considering it was a LEA that put them in court, yes, I don't think they were playing word games. Otherwise the LEA would have just forced them in court to intercept.
However, I also think threat model comes into play here. If you don't want advertisers to track you or to download some torrents, a VPN provider works great. If you want to hack into NORAD, probably do that from a secondhand laptop on Tor over a public wifi.
I just don't think one can seriously say "Orion browser is a thing" if it is definitely not a thing for 95% desktops out there (the exact % may be different depending on the source of data, etc.). And Windows (around 70% of the market share) version is not expected until late 2026.
I find tech leads to be the most difficult people in any organization to work with (always with exceptions), I think it’s because they are still learning the lead part, and at the same time are trying to prove themselves.
Coming in with a hexagonal overhaul is a great example. At least in this case it seems the writer didn’t dig his heals in too much.
I think it's also that they have a vision and unfortunately this means they have to say no to landing PRs that don't make sense to the overall vision often. And nobody likes to throw away work.
It's an equity investment, and yes they're agreeing to a committment to protecting the rights of the creators.
> Disney and OpenAI affirm a shared commitment to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators.
>Alongside the licensing agreement, Disney will become a major customer of OpenAI, using its APIs to build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+, and deploying ChatGPT for its employees.
>As part of the agreement, Disney will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.
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