> Aside from that, there are people who go into consulting and gain a lot of skills
If what the author claims is true and consulting is basically making up numbers to fit some conclusion and general fluff work, I'm not sure that's a valuable skill to pick up. Sure, you could pick up networking and ...?
There's all types of consulting at all levels. I worked for years at a small IT consulting company owned by my brother where we worked to fill the gap of companies that couldn't afford to hire more than a single "IT guy" (or anyone at all) to supplement their needs. We had plenty of good relationships with IT people at companies we worked with. We did everything from AD admin to a few Linux servers to full HA deployments and custom internal webapp development.
It all depends on what you're offering and what the customer needs. We wanted long term contracts, so it was always in our best interest to provide a good solution. If companies outgrew us and wanted to insource IT, we would document and hand over what we managed, because to do otherwise not only would be a dick move, but it would kill our reputation.
I imagine it's much different for a big name firm that never gets called out on doing a shit job because that would cast decision making of the executives that called upon them I to question.
You're talking about IT consulting, while parent is talking about strategy/management consulting. Very different types with very different outcomes altogether.
I think they were conflated farther up thread, not initially by me.
>>> Aside from that, there are people who go into consulting and gain a lot of skills, and others who do the least work possible and leave. Some who find great fulfillment in the right corners of the work, some who find it totally dispiriting.
So I don't think it's entirely obvious which type of consulting was being discussed at the point I replied. Even so, I'm not sure the type matter as much as might be thought, I'm positive there are management consultants that bring useful knowledge and real benefits to the table. I think the incentive alignments make that harder, because of some of the same reasons I noted previously, but I don't think the type of consulting really matters, other than one type or the other being more common at different levels.
Exactly. If bitcoin mining drives demand for solar, leads to solar production jobs in the US and increases R&D leading to more efficient panels - awesome. But if companies start to go public based on the premise of mining bitcoin at the cheapest possible price - I doubt they'll invest in Solar/wind/geo[0].
[0] Yes, I know mining in Iceland is a thing. But mines in Iceland don't make up a huge chunk of the network.
The issue is finance firms will get (are getting) involved. It becomes easy to purchase an inefficient energy production source (old coal, natural gas, etc.) that cities/counties/states are trying to get rid of which would otherwise sit dormant and require some sort of upkeep. As soon as such a company goes public they'll have more money to purchase up more (financially cheap, environmentally expensive) sources of direct electricity and they'll be bound to do so since it's in the best interest of the shareholder to continue to mine.
Perhaps bitcoin is a nice academic theory and would work well if humans were responsible. Just like nuclear cars are nice in theory - so long as people don't have accidents.
Edit:
> If needed, we can better incentivize green bitcoin mining with carbon taxes or renewable energy mining subsidies.
Plastic is a wonderful material but virgin plastic is cheaper than recycled and various attempts to artificially decrease the price of recycled plastic via government incentive programs haven't worked.
Electronics are awesome, but despite efforts to recycle electronic waste it all ends up in third world countries where it gets burned off. it's just cheaper that way. Some ecyclers were even caught trying to game the system. Taking government incentives and still shipping e-waste overseas.
I'd like to believe in the idea that some sort of incentive program would come into place but so far none have worked in the may other industries that desperately need it.
An “old energy production source” can be cheaper now because the environmental damage it causes is an unpriced externality. A carbon tax solves that by giving a price to that environmental damage. Suddenly, fossil fuels only make sense in the rare cases where renewables cannot be used.
That's one way of encouraging investment in green energy sources but may not be perfect. Again, it's a wait and see game. Further, for a firm starting up mining ops your cost isn't just the variable cost of electricity, you also have the fixed cost of the plant. If the cost of a coal plant + cost of electrical production/maintenance + carbon tax < cost of a solar plant + cost of electrical production/maintenance then clearly coal here is the winner.
How do these laws affect companies like SquareSpace[1] (companies which provide a site builder and hosting)? If someone builds a site which violates these laws is SquareSpace held responsible? Is it up to SquareSpace to police the content on their customers sites (comments sections, content, etc.)? Or do they have some sort of immunity or contractual immunity from these laws which places the responsibility of content on the end customer/site owner?
[1] I'm using SquareSpace as a placeholder. I think netfliy, wordpress builders and hosts, and other similar companies could also be impacted(?)
Because of SESTA/FOSTA, Section 230 no longer provides immunity for websites or website infrastructure from civil or criminal liability with regards to knowingly hosting trafficking-related content (however how "knowingly" and "trafficking-related" would be defined/interpreted in a court case, I'm not aware). Square space would theoretically be liable even if it is an intermediary/provider of infrastructure but neither a producer nor direct provider of content.
Before SESTA/FOSTA, SquareSpace would have legal immunity from suits regarding user-generated content and only users would be held liable if the content was determined to be criminal. SquareSpace has not and is not legally responsible to police content of it's users. Doing so would violate the SquareSpace's 1st amendment rights as a private company. However, under third party doctrine, SquareSpace could be subpoenaed for (theoretically)narrowly tailored and relevant user information by a court of law. Netlify, wordpress and other hosts would similarly be held liable to the degree SquareSpace is: knowingly hosting trafficking-related cotent.
However bigger question is how far does this go? To the registrar level (e.g. Namecheap)? The DNS (ICANN/IANA)? What about Internet Exchanges and Peering (e.g.AMS-IX)? While SESTA/FOSTA hasn't been tested at these levels, it theoretically implicates the entire infrastructure of the Internet should just one site host sex-trafficking related material. This would violate the sovereignty of other nations and gives the US government universal jurisdiction. Hopefully this can be resolved at some point by the Supreme Court. Hopefully.
> Because of SESTA/FOSTA, Section 230 no longer provides immunity for websites or website infrastructure from civil or criminal liability with regards to knowingly hosting trafficking-related content
§230 explicitly never limited criminal liability, and arguably didn’t limit civil liability for knowingly distributing unlawful content (publisher liability, which it expressly prevents, applies without knowledge; distributor liability, which some courts have found it implicitly prevents as well [IIRC, only the 11th Circuit had ruled on this, at the federal appellate level] applies to knowing distribution).
And FOSTA-SESTA adds no-knowledge civil liability for owning, managing, or operating an information system with “reckless disregard of the fact that such conduct contributed to sex trafficking”.
Prior to FOSTA/SESTA, would a search engine be considered liable for knowingly distributing unlawful content? The 1st Circuit argued that was not the case[1] by citing Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley vs Roommates.com. Trafficking-related content would require inducement/incitement of action by the website (not mere advertisement, invitation or facilitation thereof) in order to be deemed unlawful. Trafficking-related content on a website was not, on its own, per se unlawful to distribute knowing or unknowingly. That was the case until Backpage's founders were indicted and FOSTA/SESTA was passed.
>>And FOSTA-SESTA adds no-knowledge civil liability for owning, managing, or operating an information system with “reckless disregard of the fact that such conduct contributed to sex trafficking”.
And this is the concerning bit I had in my last paragraph.
Being subpoenaed makes sense. If SquareSpace (or cloudflare, namcheap, etc.) is required to police content, hosting goes back to costing hundreds or thousands of dollars a month just to pay for the content moderators (at every level?).
Are you accounting for family connections? High income families tend to have connections which can help. If your parents are good friends with a lawyer at a top law firm you no longer have to apply on your own merit. Poor families lack these connections and students have to apply on their own. Something to consider.
A gift is just that, a gift. The party giving the gift isn't expecting anything in return. In the streaming example, you're providing entertainment for "gifts". That's an exchange of goods/services for monetary gain and hence taxable.
Yup, kept my 2015 13" pro till I bought the 16" a few months ago. The touch bar is meh for me though. I find it quicker to change volume with physical keys than touch bar but it's not a huge issue. However, love that the physical escape came back. That was big.
