pktgen

Try setting a custom schedule from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM.

> Personally I have come to the conclusion that the best solution is virtual machines with a linux base system. Put every game that is sticky to windows into its own little container and just have hardware passed through.

Is there a Windows license available to consumers that allows simultaneous installation on multiple VMs under a non-Windows-based hypervisor?

> There is no need to regulate unethical employment practices when laborers have the freedom to seek employment elsewhere - the market can sort it out. But we need freedom of horizontal movement first.

And yet even in the supposedly so competitive SV tech market, abusive practices like forcing employees to sign arbitration agreements, at-will employment (can be dismissed with zero notice or severance and for no or any reason not prohibited by law), "unlimited" vacation that is really meant to discourage you from taking it, and long workweeks with no overtime pay are common.

Who doesn't get to deal with any of the above? Union employees (for the most part).

> The news has been full of dozens (maybe hundreds by now) of large and small companies using the tax change to increase employee wages and benefits.

No, there have been dozens or hundreds of companies claiming that tax cuts were responsible for employee compensation increases. Many of those were one-time bonuses, but the tax cuts are ongoing. In some cases where the benefits were ongoing (like Walmart's hourly pay increase), you'll find that they tend to coincide with the overall trend of state minimum wage increases. This is just PR: they're getting ahead of the trend and trying to attribute it to tax cuts rather than other forces.

Also, since employee compensation was tax-deductible even before the tax cut, taxes certainly weren't stopping companies from raising wages before the tax cut.

Employee compensation (wages and benefits) is and was tax-deductible.

> At any rate, your software vendor has no legal responsibility to provide you with security updates. Maybe they should. But you’ll pay for that anyways.

Yes, those costs will ultimately be embedded in product pricing and borne by the customer, but that's good. It gives vendors a financial incentive to develop more secure software and reduce their security update costs (and earn more profit). (Nothing is perfectly secure, but a culture change and following certain practices can help. Think Microsoft pre-trustworthy computing memo and Microsoft today.)

In the old days with perpetually-licensed software, this was handled with a trial period (30-day demo or similar), or, where feasible, a feature-limited demo version (e.g. a game with one level as a demo). This is not a new problem or a problem without solutions.

I agree that subscriptions make perfect sense for services (because servers, support, etc. cost money on a monthly basis), but the trend seems to be to create an arbitrary reliance on a hosted service as a way to justify subscriptions. Luckily 1Password hasn't totally gone that way yet, since they still offer standalone licenses for local vaults, but I feel like it's the direction they're going.

> - It's unreasonable to expect people to pay the full price for minor security fixes that still need to go out

The ideal model for locally-run software, in my opinion, is to sell perpetual licenses to each major version for a one-time cost and promise security and maintenance updates for a certain period. New features can go into new major versions that users have to pay for (sometimes with discounted upgrade pricing), or, on a discretionary basis, as free updates.

This used to be the typical business model for locally-run software. Microsoft, for example, sold Windows versions for a one-time cost, promised security and some other level of updates until a certain year (and new features could be added on a discretionary basis), and provided upgrade pricing for new major versions that added new features. This kept control in users' hands, as their paid-for software could be used forever (at least until and unless external factors, like hardware incompatibilities, prevented it from working), though of course it would be very dumb to use, say, XP today on an Internet-connected machine. I am generally against subscription models for local software where there is no legitimate reliance on an outside service, and also against the trend of trying to create such a reliance for no legitimate reason ("We've added cloud sync and that's what the subscription is for. Servers cost money every month, which is why we're charging you every month." - except I can handle my own file storage and don't want your sync service).

If they have no incentive to upgrade, that's because the newer versions don't add any value for the user. This makes sense: 1Password is a pretty mature product at this point and there probably isn't much room to add new features, unless you want to expand the scope of the product.

That is to say that I personally (and again, this is just my opinion) don't care about any new features and would be unlikely to upgrade from version 6 on that basis. I may upgrade to ensure I will continue receiving security updates and OS and browser extension compatibility updates, but it would be nice to know how long such updates to version 7 are guaranteed for (presumably they will eventually release version 8 for a new fee and discontinue such updates to version 7).

> (and servers / APIs for it)

The users (like me) who are against subscriptions are only using local vaults (managing the storage sync ourselves) and do not care for or want the web/sync services.

Unless the FTC decides to pursue the matter. The FTC can obtain relief for all US consumers and is not bound by the arbitration agreement.

Probably varies by jurisdiction, but I know in my jurisdiction, court fees and related costs (such as the cost of serving the summons on the defendant) are automatically added to the judgment if you win.

I hope we can differentiate "I want the New York Times to remove an article about me" from "I want Equifax to remove its business records about me because I don't consent to them collecting my data for commercial purposes."

The former would clearly run into 1st Amendment concerns, but I'm hopeful the latter can be allowed without the same concerns. Does the EFF oppose the latter type?

> 1Password also holds documents and notes; in my state, documents such as car insurance can be legally carried on your phone for traffic stops. I also have my health insurance cards in there for ease of use.

I wouldn't rely on this because it turns your phone into a single point of failure (your battery could die or your phone could fail at the wrong time). Similarly, I would never rely on mobile wallets without physical cards as a backup.

> The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off those services.

The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's customers in the first place.

Right-to-work is strictly anti-union BS and has nothing to do with non-compete agreements. A quick search suggests that non-competes are enforceable in both VA and NC if they meet certain criteria.

> Can you imagine the company that made this getting into bed with IBM!?

Remember PowerPC Macs?

> They wouldn't be as profitable, sure. Neither would Stripe.

It shouldn't even affect Stripe all that much. The CC fees are just a pass-through expense for them; their product is the infrastructure value-add, which AFAIK nobody is suggesting needs to be price-regulated.

One of the reasons the Federal Reserve was created was to eliminate rent-seeking by banks in check clearing. (The previous system was that banks would clear checks directly among each other, leading to abuses where banks would charge exorbitant fees to other banks.) I'd argue credit/debit cards are just as important today as checks were in 1913. A functioning economy requires a functioning payment system.

> The worker will still qualify for unemployment benefits

The worker would qualify for unemployment benefits even if fired for good-faith poor performance. For terminations, only gross misconduct (criminal acts, deliberately failing to work, etc.) is disqualifying.

Regarding the federal budget and debt, I suggest you read into modern monetary theory (MMT).

> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing. Corporations like stability because it makes their profits predictable and lets them control the mood in the room (innovation, regulation, etc). Low taxes for the rich mean chaos - an extremely large, underpaid, underfed, underrepresented bottom class will not be good for the rich in the long run. High taxes for the rich mean a well-sustained middle class, with money to spend on products made by the corporations. It is also a safer place, with less homelessness, less violence, less hatred.

Agreed. The US has enough economic leverage to ignore the silly threats of "we're going to move our business out of the US if you do [something]" or "the rich will move away if you do [something]." Fine, go ahead and stop operating in one of the largest developed markets in the world. Sounds like a very wise business move (not).

According to Wikipedia [1], the current 15" MBP base config has an i7-7700HQ. According to Intel [2], that CPU supports VT-d. Every mobile chipset in the 100 series (for Skylake) supports VT-d [3]. The 200 series is supposed to be the one for Kaby Lake, but there are no mobile chipsets listed in that series [4]. Also, there are several MBP models with IOMMU support on the Qubes HCL [5].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro#Technical_specific...

[2] https://ark.intel.com/products/97185/Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ-Pr...

[3] https://ark.intel.com/products/series/98456/Intel-100-Series...

[4] https://ark.intel.com/products/series/98457/Intel-200-Series...

[5] https://www.qubes-os.org/hcl/

You can get the fries well-done. Also, animal style fries (peppers optional).

Surprisingly, it's also the only state to require just cause for terminating an employment relationship (not at-will).

You're being downvoted, but I don't know why. The employer's ability to subcontract/outsource bargaining unit work is negotiable in a collective bargaining agreement.

Sure, but throwing large amounts of tax breaks at corporations in the hopes that a few scraps will trickle down to workers as PR efforts is inefficient. There are much more efficient ways of achieving even better outcomes for workers.

Which coincides with state and local minimum wage increases; see http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/news/economy/2018-minimum-wa.... More increases are coming; several states are phasing in increases over multiple years. They're just getting ahead of the minimum wage increases and trying to get good PR out of it ("no, we didn't do this because we were forced to, we did it because we love our workers. cut our taxes more!").

It's very telling that most of the announcements of benefits to workers purportedly attributable to the tax cuts are in the form of one-time bonuses. The corporate tax cuts are ongoing; the bonuses to workers are one-time. These are nothing more than PR moves. Moreover, the headlines are misleading in some cases; for example, Walmart's touted "$1,000 bonus" was actually $200-$1,000 depending on years of service. Only workers with 20+ years of service are getting $1,000.

There have been a few announcements of actual wage increases that corporate PR departments have tried to attribute to the tax cuts, but in every one I've looked at, it was clear the wage increase was just the result of normal market forces and dressed up to pretend it was the result of tax cuts. For example, a few banks (including Wells Fargo) announced a minimum wage increase to $15/hour, but Bank of America announced that same change at the end of 2016, before any tax cuts.

A state law saying "arbitration is awesome, but banning class arbitration is against our public policy" still has the effect of finding part of an arbitration agreement unenforceable. The rule effectively changes an agreement from "We agree to arbitrate disputes. No arbitration will proceed on a class or collective basis." to "We agree to arbitrate disputes. Arbitration may proceed on a class or collective basis." I don't see how the fact that the state rule would only render part of an arbitration agreement unenforceable, as opposed to the entire agreement (like the CA rule did), matters. Quoting Concepcion (emphasis mine):

> We differ with the Concepcions only in the application of this analysis to the matter before us. We do not agree that rules requiring judicially monitored discovery or adherence to the Federal Rules of Evidence are “a far cry from this case.” Brief for Respondents 32. The overarching purpose of the FAA, evident in the text of §§2, 3, and 4, is to ensure the enforcement of arbitration agreements *according to their terms* so as to facilitate streamlined proceedings. Requiring the availability of classwide arbitration interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration and thus creates a scheme inconsistent with the FAA.

...

> Although we have had little occasion to examine classwide arbitration, our decision in Stolt-Nielsen is instructive. In that case we held that an arbitration panel exceeded its power under §10(a)(4) of the FAA by imposing class procedures based on policy judgments rather than the arbitration agreement itself or some background principle of contract law that would affect its interpretation. 559 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20–23). We then held that the agreement at issue, which was silent on the question of class procedures, could not be interpreted to allow them because the “changes brought about by the shift from bilateral arbitration to class-action arbitration” are “fundamental.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 22). This is obvious as a structural matter: Classwide arbitration includes absent parties, necessitating additional and different procedures and involving higher stakes. Confidentiality becomes more difficult. And while it is theoretically possible to select an arbitrator with some expertise relevant to the class-certification question, arbitrators are not generally knowledgeable in the often-dominant procedural aspects of certification, such as the protection of absent parties. *The conclusion follows that class arbitration, to the extent it is manufactured by Discover Bank rather than consensual, is inconsistent with the FAA.*

A state law like this would still manufacture class arbitration, so I don't see how it could avoid Concepcion's holding. And the holding that requiring the availability of classwide arbitration "interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration" seems impossible to work around.

(Also, if there was a possible "backdoor" way of prohibiting class waivers while still complying with Concepcion, I expect California would have tried it already.)

---

response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16162950 (can't directly respond because of the nesting limit):

> Note specifically that it's saying policy judgements cannot override the FAA. It also explicitly says background principle of contract law may affect its interpretation. One of those background principles is traditionally being state law on how contracts are interpreted and what is allowed or not allowed. In fact, that's where all the contract law they talk about is coming from. There is no federal contract law.

But would this state law really be a "background principle of contract law"? It sounds like it would have "a disproportionate impact on arbitration" and "stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the FAA’s objectives" (which, according to Concepcion, is somehow incompatible with class arbitration); it's not just some generally applicable rule. Any state law that tries to require the availability of class arbitration is not going to pass Concepcion under that broad test, no matter the vehicle.

There is no federal contract law, but the current Supreme Court has gotten awfully close when it comes to arbitration. One example: in DirecTV v. Imburgia (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-462_2co3.pdf; unlike the other decisions, this one was not on party lines), the Supreme Court was unwilling to defer to the California Court of Appeals on contract interpretation relating to arbitration.

You should be right, but it's just not something the current Supreme Court will go along with.

> Last i looked, there is pending legislation on this matter, so ...

Do you have a link to that?

> I pointed out that class action/courts generally at least required a licensed lawyer to maintain and work on the suit, which was expensive, whereas arbitration could be done by lay people, and that he was essentially betting that nobody could make it cost effective to have a paralegal or someone manage fifty arbitrations at once, or a class arbitration.

This depends on the state. Some states still consider that to be unauthorized practice of law, even in arbitration.

Even if a law firm wants to manage hundreds of individual arbitrations, finding individual people to opt in makes that very difficult. In consumer cases, the harm to individual consumers is often very small. The law firm would have to advertise to those consumers somehow and those consumers would have to take the time to opt in and give individual attention to the minimally-valued case - just not very practical or scalable.

> Thus, a state law saying "arbitration is awesome, but banning class arbitration is against our public policy", if they exist, should be valid. Preemption must be very clear.

Concepcion seems to make it very clear that such a rule would be preempted by the FAA. The nonsensical reasoning in Concepcion applies just the same if the rule invalidates class waivers specifically (that is, permits the arbitration agreement to be enforced but strikes only the part prohibiting class actions, which would result in arbitration proceeding on a class basis) as it does if the rule invalidates the entire arbitration agreement (as the CA Supreme Court rule did).