You're right in your point about backups. These cloud services present quite a problem in the sense that they're structured to accommodate massive amounts of data. Often times this data is generated within the service itself with no means provided to extract it. So even if the user wanted to be responsible for backing up their data it's often times impossible. Moreover, even if the user wanted to AND had the means to do it, it could be a massive amount of data to sync up -- more than your average user is going to take the time to do.
I had no idea what it was about when I flipped it on, but it's a great hacker movie. The guy who trained Flipper is trying to save some dolphins from being killed in Japan, so he teams up with some folks from Industrial Light and Magic to rig a secret cove with all kinds of spying equipment to catch the guys doing it. Really interesting.
If I got an extra $100 or so on my paycheck, it would have very little economic utility. It would just be added to my pile of savings.
Nonsense. That's great that you'd save the $100, but even if you do that it still has economic utility, presuming you're putting it into a bank account. It then gets lent out to businesses or reinvested into the economy. The bank isn't sitting on a giant pile of money.
In a sense, yes, but that's mainly on the books and it depends on which interest rate you're referring to. You're right, much of the bailout money was used to cushion the capital accounts of these institutions. However, banks are businesses too and at the moment happen to be making tremendous profits, much of it due to the spreads they're getting on the low lending rate from the Feds.
Except that we're not having a capital shortage, we're having a demand shortage. There's plenty of money to be lent out, but there's no demand for it. So it really is the case that that money being spent is better than that money being saved.
In most cases (with exception large or high profile acquisitions) they do. However, the process is much less selective (i.e., most -- but not always all -- engineers in the acquired company get an offer) then if you apply directly to Google. Those who do not get an offer get a generous severance package.
I think it's more that the risk of a no-hire is spread across the whole company rather than it being less. If a potential acquisition target has a critical mass of lackluster employees, Google (and presumably other large companies) simply won't buy the company. So while the bar for you personally may be lower if the rest of your coworkers are good, the bar for you as a group is just as high or higher than individual hires.
To take this joke and place it right back into reality:
Holy fuck, if a bank were to actually track every purchase I make, I'd freak out and switch banks. I always keep a bit of cash on hand so I have the freedom of buying something that isn't tracked by anyone. It's nice to be able to buy a beer without your bank knowing about it, you know?
I really really hope no bank every tries to pull anything like that. Even those of you who use cards for everything must appreciate the idea that you're able to buy things without your bank knowing what you bought, or even that you bought anything at all?
I actually use cash as often as possible, but not out of paranoia or privacy concerns. You can't avoid being a drop in the sea of data collected nowadays, and it's awfully self-centered to think that a for-profit corporation gives a rat's ass that you bought a beer. Using that information to determine my insurance premium? Yeah, that would be a problem.
I tend to use cash simply because I'd rather have more of the money I spend go to the actual retailer (especially if it's a small business) than the bank. As a former retail business owner, I know how oppressive transaction fees are... yes, even debit card purchases.
I hear about this happening all the time, but what amazes me is that people actually get caught. Days and weeks after the incident. If you're thousands of feet in the air, sure you can get a generally vicinity of where it's coming from on the ground...but how then do authorities actually track it down? Presumably the person is long gone...
I made the lucky mistake with Pluggio of not charging from day one. Not because I didn’t want to – but because I didn’t have the payment stuff setup and I was too lazy to do it before launch.
Sorry, but laziness isn't a compelling enough reason not to charge for your application.
