Luckily for us consumers, at least in the EU we now have GDPR, which you definitely can not ignore.
I wonder if he could just ship an american car with onstar to the EU and start requesting the information using GDPR.
Readit Newsbliblah commented on What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
bliblah commented on The Curious Case of Aurelius Capital vs. Puerto Rico nytimes.com/2019/11/26/ma... · Posted by u/wallflower
> Due to the complexities of Puerto Rico's status as a commonwealth (i.e. not a State) the island is unable to declare bankruptcy. If they could then this issue could easily be solved and would give the government some leverage as is the case in most cases involving financial institutions taking advantage of these loans like was the case in Detroit and NYC.
Was Puerto Rico unaware of this when they took out the loans? Was the law changed out from under them after they had made these deals?
If not, why should we care?
>Was Puerto Rico unaware of this when they took out the loans?
The fact that it went to the Supreme Court of the US [1] means that it is unprecedented and required the highest court in the land to interpret the law means that no parties were fully aware of how Bankruptcy would hold.
bliblah commented on The Curious Case of Aurelius Capital vs. Puerto Rico nytimes.com/2019/11/26/ma... · Posted by u/wallflower
The article is based on two false premises. First, it appeals to the idea that we should give Puerto Rico a pass because it’s poor. But Puerto Rico is not poor. Its GDP per capita is above Italy, and right below Spain and New Zealand.[1] It’s not a third world country where you can say there is a humanitarian basis why they shouldn’t have to pay back money they borrowed.
The other point in the article is simply that these funds are not the original debt holders. But what difference does that make? If your neighbor owes you $100,000, and refuses to pay, I might buy the debt at $50,000 in return for the hassle of collecting it. Is there something wrong with that? Should the debt be forgiven merely because of that?
The article overlooks that legal rules alter primary behavior. People alter their decisions about lending based on what might happen, legally, if the investment goes sideways. The original lenders, who put up money that allows Puerto Rico to pay for various things, did so within a legal regime where it knew Puerto Rico couldn’t declare bankruptcy. They might not have lent the money at all otherwise. Moreover, in general lenders make lending decisions knowing that they can sell bad debt to collection firms or third parties. Eliminating the legal rights of those third parties alters the lending decisions of the primary actors going forward.
[1] I’d go so far as to say that it’s doubtful the author would appeal to Puerto Rico’s poverty if this was a debt owed by Italy, because the reader wouldn’t be as sympathetic. Which frankly is not a very nice thing, viewing Puerto Rican differently than Europeans who are identically situated economically.
I mentioned this in another comment but i'll repeat it.
Due to the complexities of Puerto Rico's status as a commonwealth (i.e. not a State) the island is unable to declare bankruptcy. If they could then this issue could easily be solved and would give the government some leverage as is the case in most cases involving financial institutions taking advantage of these loans like was the case in Detroit and NYC.
To quote the wikipedia article on the topic [1]:
"Puerto Rico or any of its political subdivisions and agencies cannot file for debt relief under Chapter 9, Title 11, United States Code because it applies only to municipalities on the mainland.[55"]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_c...
Having lived in PR my most of life and most of my family being lawyers in both the Federal and the local Supreme Court the insight I get from the situation is that unless the White House gets involved or Congress simply amends that single line in the bankruptcy law then the government has really no leverage and these financial institutions (not lenders, but banks who bought the debt from lenders) will get mostly what they want and cripple the island.
bliblah commented on The Curious Case of Aurelius Capital vs. Puerto Rico nytimes.com/2019/11/26/ma... · Posted by u/wallflower
Is any blame to be assigned to PR for issuing bonds and then not honoring them?
The problem lies in the fact that Puerto Rico (unlike States and other municipalities in the United States) is unable to declare bankruptcy due to being a commonwealth.
If they could then these financial institutions would be unable to raid the island's coffers.
bliblah commented on Stress That Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox (2004) [pdf] econstor.eu/bitstream/104... · Posted by u/ptd
I'm always surprised seeing so many people accepting to commute.
The time waste, the money waste, the environmental waste.
I guess they got sold on the idea they can listen to a podcast on the way to the office...
It's important to think about what we do. Even if we are taken by the storm of life. Pause, and think about what you are accepting to put yourself through.
I think the issue is that a lot of people already live in Major metros where commute time is inversely proportional to rent and just accept it as a fact of life. This is why I refuse to move to LA, SF, NYC, Seattle, etc.
I currently live 15 min away from my job in Miami and pay less than $1k in rent. It is amazing being able to wake up at 8:30, dress and pack lunch and still get to work before 9am.
Most people here who have longer commutes are because they own homes and don't have the luxury of moving around like me, but then again, the own homes which is pretty hard in the cities I mentioned.
Honestly my first filter when job hunting is commute times and the price of rent within a 10 mile radius of the office.
Having had a 90 min commute at one point I realized that it just wasn't worth it unless you could have flexible hours to avoid rush hour and even then it's almost 900 minutes a week lost to "just" driving.
bliblah commented on Nike won’t sell directly to Amazon anymore cnbc.com/2019/11/13/nike-... · Posted by u/omarhaneef
People don't mind buying from a vendor's site directly but the vendor should do their best to reduce the admin / pain of doing so.
Some tips I wish vendors would follow:
1. Don't capture more information than is absolutely necessary for the transaction.
2. Don't force the user to sign up or join anything if they just want to buy something.
3. Don't automatically add the user to your newsletter and send their details to your ad network. Be very explicit that you won't do this.
4. Tell the user up front how much postage will most likely cost and expected delivery time before you capture all their details. You can guess their general location from their IP address of have them select a city.
5. Have multiple payment options (like paypal for example), not just credit card.
6. Up front, tell them what you need from them before they can complete the transaction. Nobody likes working through an endless data collection wizard only to stop half way though because you don't want to give up that data or get bored filling things in.
It's really not that complicated.
The issue is that Amazon and other 3rd party vendors actually offer deals.
I was in the market for some headphones and had a specific brand and make in mind and when I looked in their site they were more than $100 more than Amazon. This has held true for me for a lot of items and even when using price tracker it is pretty much no contest to just buy off any reputable vendor most of the time.
I think it's just that the people who make the goods often have no market sense and rely on outsourcing it for 90% of their sales.
bliblah commented on One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/jmsflknr
With 20 years experience under my belt, it is my firm belief that the workplace is not a place to discuss politics, religion, or other highly personal and divisive issues. Obviously, this extends even more to the workplace itself bringing these topics up.
I'm not aggressive or even obvious about this disposition, I just gently steer clear of violating it. I feel the same should apply to companies, fine if you want to make a stand on some political issue, but don't make a show of it, because it implies that all your employees should agree with your position.
People in the world have different opinions on things, we need to be able to work with eachother on shared interests without making every place and occasion a battleground. If not in the workplace, then where?
On a somewhat related note, I don't consider my colleagues my friends, or, God forbid, the workplace a 'family'. My relationship to my employer is a professional one, trying to disguise this by intermingling personal feelings can only end in tears, when one day you discover that it was such all along, only you deluded yourself (or let yourself be led) into thinking differently.
Hear hear, I'm under 30 but because the industry I work in isn't really as sexy or brand new as some more CS focused ones I tend to work with people who are older and were raised with the type of expectation that the workplace is a place for working and carry themselves more or less restrained in this regard.
I have friends who work in LA and in SF and they constantly bombard me with stories of how employees of all levels (even recent hires) just spew the most extremist political diatribes at all times and some just do it to troll other employees of the different faction. It has gotten so bad that there are several "secret" slack channels for these cliques dedicated to continue gossiping and sharing memes that are pretty distasteful.
Whenever I ask about them reporting it to HR they just tell me that HR doesn't really exist and they pretty much exist just to make sure payroll is distributed.
Just my 2 cents but I prefer just clocking in and talking about the weather than have to put up with that kind of toxicity.
bliblah commented on Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize vice.com/en_us/article/8x... · Posted by u/Frondo
I don't know much about unions.
What are some downsides to joining a union? Are there onerous obligations?
Some unions requires all employees to become members and charge a fee.
Some unions abuse their power to negotiate with the employer to make union leaders wealthy instead of granting benefits to the employees.
Some unions work alongside gangs to rake in illegal profit.
Some unions force all employees to take the same position of the union on certain issues meaning that people who oppose the measure may be blacklisted and pretty much terminated if the union uses its muscle.
Again these are just some unions and YMMV, the history of unions has many pros and cons with some being notorious and others being very much necessary in this day and age.
bliblah commented on Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones economist.com/the-america... · Posted by u/respinal
I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there.
Back then I had no idea how bad this form of travel is for the environment, for the visited cities, for the people working below deck, and so on.
The people I worked with in the main office of the company were really energetic, loved their product, had a great time launching ship after ship (every year a new ship was launched). It was great working with people who loved what they were doing. Compared to other jobs I had till then. I was there when the new hyped prototype was being put into service. Quite an interesting time. We were allowed to test travel on the new ship. It was a cool experience.
From a purely hedonistic perspective. Yeah it felt nice sitting in the sauna, ten decks above see at 6am in the morning and looking out over the waves. It was purely relaxing.
But from a more conscious perspective it was doing everything I could to help destroy this world - and I was so abusing the lower deck people. The ones never being seen by guests. They work horrible shifts, are employed with contracts from the tax heaven states the ships are being registered in.
I was an employee of the same company - but I had massive employment protections and laws governing how long I work, what is considered overtime, and so on. The served me, made my bed, put coffee on my table. They prepared my food - but they were third or fourth class "citizens" on this ship.
I am ashamed looking at it nowadays.
A few years ago me and my parents wanted to take a cruise in the Baltic making several 1-2 day stops and I have to say I felt the same way.
The ship was massive and had pools, a restaurant, live entertainment but it was obvious that all the people who were employed were semi indentured servants.
Most were from southeast asia and worked 6-8 months away from their families. What broke my heart is that only a small portion could leave the ship whenever we docked and most didn't seem to have passports that allowed entry to European countries without visa so they would just wait in the dock and use up the wifi to face time their spouses and children. Except the wife was really bad and the bandwidth quickly peaked and most were left just being miserable.
It was nice being able to visit all these countries that would otherwise have cost a fortune but man the pure human suffering really broke me.
bliblah commented on Electoral College Members Can Defy Voters’ Wishes, Court Rules nytimes.com/2019/08/22/us... · Posted by u/johnny313