> Section 560.540 of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), 31 C.F.R. Part 560, authorizes the exportation from the United States or by U.S. persons, wherever located, to persons in Iran of certain publicly available, no-cost services incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet and certain publicly available, no-cost software necessary to enable such services.
> In response to my request for an interview about the case, a Bird spokeswoman emailed:
> “... The accident occurred while Mr. Pena was allegedly operating a Bird scooter illegally on a city-maintained sidewalk with a BAC [blood-alcohol level] over the legal limit, tested positive for marijuana and in violation of the California Vehicle Code.”
The rest of the comments notwithstanding, this is incredibly misleading and scummy wording on Bird’s part. The tests, according to the article, assert THC consumption within the testing window (about a month, or maybe longer), not marijuana consumption at the time of the accident.
- MobileCoin rollout was pretty poorly done and communicated, regardless of the team’s intent. Withholding server source for a year to conceal MobileCoin development really didn’t attract any goodwill, either.
- Phone numbers being required is a bummer. I know that there’s work being done to remove this requirement, and I know that there are valid UX reasons to require phone numbers, but still not desirable for a secure messenger.
- The lack of federation is a valid critique. Moxie has defended this position at length in writing, but I found Matrix’s rebuttal (also a good read) more convincing.
Things I wish were substantiated more strongly:
> The reason the US government hasn't tried to block or hinder Signal, is because it's satisfied with the amount of information Signal can provide to it.
I found this unconvincing; this is a pretty big leap to make without more evidence. (Good counterexamples are all of the Signal alternatives mentioned in TFA.) I also don’t think it’s accurate to say the USG hasn’t tried to block or hinder Signal or E2EE messaging in general.
This reasoning would also disqualify Tor, which the author cites as a technology used in one of the Signal alternatives.
> Signals database [has] Message senders and recipients (via phone number identifiers)
Doesn’t Sealed Sender mean this isn’t the case? To their credit, the author mentions this a couple paragraphs after. I didn’t find that analysis consistent.
It would have been more persuasive to directly address Signal’s blog posts on collected data released in subpoenas (https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/ - maybe I missed it) and the zero-trust model of the protocol itself. Reflections on trusting trust, and all that.
Which may be true, but I'm still suspicious. An update FTA:
> However, many of the users we’ve heard from, and tested ourselves, do not have any such content filtering enabled. We’ve followed up with T-Mobile for additional clarification, but have not yet heard back.
> Employment relationships are presumed to be “at-will” in all U.S. states except Montana. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries where employment is predominantly at-will.
> At-will means that an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason without incurring legal liability.
Also, retaining a lawyer is prohibitively expensive for much of the workforce (even with free consultations, and excluding public options like filing complaints with labor bodies)
Redirect loop for me but I can load the page if I disable Javascript.
Here's a copy of the text (keywords: mirror, archive):
> How To Set Low Expectations At Your Two Remote Jobs
> On April 12, 2021 By Chloe T. In Corporate Life, Multiple Remote Work, Tactics
> One of the keys to success while working two remote jobs is communications and setting low expectations with your boss. You want to give the perception of meeting standards while striving to overachieve in your primary “keeper” job. You want to set yourself up for success, and by success, we mean keeping the two remote jobs for as long as possible. Naturally, with working two jobs, one job will be more demanding than the other. The strategy is to set the workload low in at least one of the two jobs so you can navigate spikes in workload. Remember, the end goal here is to have dual income streams and reach financial freedom sooner.
> Why Is Perception And Setting Low Expectations Important For Remote Work
> We’ve heard it before, perception is everything. This HBR article illustrates a great example of how perception matters at the end of the day, not the real story. The fact is if you’re perceived as a hard worker, it doesn’t matter what you do behind the scenes. In the two job game, you want to be perceived as someone who meets expectations. While in reality, your aim is to do the minimum and get by; don’t get fired while secretly hoping to get laid off. A strategy to achieve a positive perception (and outcome) is accomplished by setting low expectations with your manager.
> Why Setting High Expectations With Your Boss Is A Waste Of Time
> Let’s first start by going over what everyone tells you to do – set high expectations, get promoted. Yes, this leads to more money. That’s great. But let’s look at the ROI because all great employees and MBA’s should care about the ROI on behalf of the company.
> But what about your Personal ROI’s? Indeed’s research concluded that the average employee raise is 3%. It may be a bit higher in tech, so let’s say 5 – 10%.
> You might need to put in 30% more hours, more stress, more work to get a minimal increase in your salary. To me, setting those high expectations to get a promotion is a waste of time. You can get a second job and easily give yourself an 80% “raise” for your work. Also, I’m a good employee by being mindful of ROI’s, my own.
> What I’ve Learned About Setting Low Expectations From Years of Working
> What I’ve learned is expectations need to be set from day 1. I once worked with a new senior manager who always left at five o’clock since his very first day. New hires usually stay late to ramp up quickly. Not this guy. He set the expectation that he would leave the office by five and stuck by it every day. It was genius. A year into the job, he’s still shutting down at five while the rest of us kept working.
> For managers, it’s typically hard to have that conversation, “can you put in more hours?” If your manager adds new tasks, just be clear you cannot complete them in the timeframe given. If you’re labeled as the “guy who leaves at five,” people won’t give you more work knowing you can’t get to it. More work is assigned to you once you do a great job, and it is an endless circle. This story is just one example, but the lesson is to set expectations early and set them low. That way, the only place to go is up.
> Once you set high expectations, you’re always going to fail if you don’t meet them. Like the concept behind the HBR perception article, you can have done great work but once you fail to meet the expectations that’s what people remember. How many times you think you did a great job, but when you have your review, your boss mentions all the “failures” and missed expectations. Sound familiar?
> How To Set Low Expectations At Work With Your Manager
> Let’s get into how you can set low expectations while working your two remote jobs. As we mentioned, set these expectations early.
> Be The One To Drive The Conversation
> Don’t ask what your boss’s expectations are; set them yourself. Instead of going into the conversation by asking what their expectations are, set and communicate them to your manager. By asking what their expectations are, you are putting yourself in a corner. In developing your own low expectations and communicating them, you are placing the burden on your boss to have that difficult conversation with you to say otherwise. Psychologically, it’s harder to say no, than to say yes. Let your boss be the one to say no to you. As a new employee, you’re most likely to slide by for the first review cycle with this method.
> Communicate Often And Early
> Being a great communicator can be a great asset. Think about those who do great work and are not great communicators. What about those who do mediocre work but can communicate. Who do you think will be looked upon more favorably? Set your expectations and make them visible to everyone to know what to expect. Take this as an opportunity to improve your communication skills. With practice comes mastery.
...
> As you can see from this example, the employee overcommunicating comes across as more trustworthy and in control. That’s the perception you want to convey. Even though something is not on track, or you haven’t started at all, just the fact you are communicating the details along the way, people are more comfortable. Also by communicating frequently, you can soften the blow of the miss.
> Explain The Reasons Behind Your Low Expectations
> While setting expectations is excellent, if you can back up your thought process to come to those expectations, you have a better case. Always come to the table with your examples of how you thought through your goal-setting process. For example, if you are new to a particular field, you can put the small milestones to achieve “xyz” goal. With each milestone, you can explain how difficult it was to reach that milestone and drag out the timeline to the next set of milestones to achieve “xyz” mastery.
> Good communicators always over-communicate. They are perceived to be in control, even what’s said is the same message just repeated many times. If you have project updates, and the updates are the same for weeks, you’re still being perceived as a good project manager since you are visible and proactive in communicating. Again it’s about perception. Like the deft hands of magicians, mastering resetting expectation is just as important as setting low expectations at the beginning.
Leverage Your Newbie Card In Setting Low Expectations
> Being new has its advantages. No one knows you, so you start off with a clean slate. You can take advantage by setting low expectations with your manager for your first review cycle. There are many barriers to mastering your remote jobs, such as ramp-up time, company culture, new systems, and different procedures. Let these barriers shine in setting your low expectations – and all the more reasons to have unambitious goals.
> Leverage The Review Cycle
> Understand when the review cycle starts and ends. Set and time your goals to the review cycle. Usually, people set goals for the year, but keep in mind you’re evaluated on review cycles. There’s no use in setting goals for eight months when the review is only four months away.
> Be A Follower Not A Leader
> Realize that not everyone needs to be a leader in every job. Everyone is different and it takes employees of all types to make the company hum. There’s nothing wrong with being a follower and doing what’s expected. Remember, there are no leaders if there are no followers. Avoid the slippery ladder in your career. Take the side door instead.
> Setting Low Expectations And The Two-Job Game Plan
> The game plan for two remote jobs is to set the expectations low with your manager and prolong your hustle until your exit to another job or you’re laid off with a severance. For the second non-primary job, you’re there for one reason only, to collect a paycheck. A paycheck that is 500%+ more than a raise. The goal is to keep the paycheck going for as long as you can with minimal effort.
> 30 days – The first 30 days are easy due to ramp up but are critical to set low expectations. Set yourself up for success in working two jobs. Be that guy or girl who always logs off at five o’clock (even better at four), and let people know. Once you start extending yourself, answering emails and messages after hours, your co-workers will see that as the norm and more work will creep up on you. If you’re never available after a certain time, your colleagues won’t message you because they know you won’t respond.
> 60 days – In the 30-60 day window, you should set goals with your boss if that’s not already done. Drag out the newbie card and claim slow ramp-up time. Identify what absolutely needs to be done, communicate that as your goal, and meet them. Again, it’s all about the perception that you meet expectations, not the work you’ve actually done. You can do little work but as long as you met the communicated expectations you’re golden.
> What If You Don’t Feel Right Low Balling Expectations At Work – Put The Ego Aside
> We’re primed at a very young age to be the best we can be. We look up to leaders in society. If your ultimate end goal is financial freedom, you have to strategize and optimize for that and put your ego aside. You’re aiming to be a leader in your personal life and the truly ambitious one land two jobs. Who cares if you’re not a leader in the public eye of a workplace. You can channel the guilt, if any, towards donating the extra money to a good cause, like the YMCAs. Go do something you care about. Work is just means to an end. Join us in the counterculture towards work.
Unclear why it's "technically impossible" but from this Washington Post article [1] it sounds more like "prevented by business logic," at least according to their source:
> A person familiar with NSO operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters said Sunday that +1 phones are safe from Pegasus no matter where they are in the world. The system is programmed to block efforts to hack them, the person said.
> The person also said Pegasus can determine where a phone is geographically and block any efforts to hack a foreign-registered phone while it is inside the United States.
> But there is no way to determine the nationality of the user of a phone registered to a foreign system.
- Of the many videos hosted by Reddit, some are hosted externally (e.g., by YouTube, Imgur, Gfycat). Some are hosted by Reddit itself.
- There is no easy, "native" way to download rhe videos hosted by Reddit itself.
- SaveVideo is a Reddit bot that can be summoned by mentioning it in a comment. When mentioned, /u/SaveVideo will reply with a direct link to the linked video.
- The creator of SaveVideo (an independent developer) received a fake takedown notice and, interpreting the notice as legitimate, shut down the bot.
- Widespread backlash against the decision garnered the attention of Reddit admins, culminating in this update.
> The SCP Foundation[note 3] is a fictional organization documented by the web-based collaborative-fiction project of the same name. Within the website's fictional setting, the SCP Foundation is responsible for locating and containing individuals, entities, locations, and objects that violate natural law (referred to as SCPs). The real-world website is community-based and includes elements of many genres such as horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy.
> On the SCP Foundation wiki, the majority of works consist of "special containment procedures", structured internal documentation that describes an SCP object and the means of keeping it contained. The website also contains thousands of "Foundation Tales", short stories that take place within the SCP Foundation setting. The series has been praised for its ability to convey horror through its scientific and academic writing style, as well as for its high standards of quality.
> The Foundation has inspired numerous spin-off works, including the horror indie video games SCP – Containment Breach and SCP: Secret Laboratory.
> It's illustrative how Americans get up in arms about how the Chinese dealing with Muslim terrorists in their own country deal with human rights, while they have flown across the world to perform massacres in the country on Xinjiang's western border.
The United States has a long, violent history that continues into the present day. I don't think anyone here is arguing that. It doesn't make the PRC's actions better, nor does it mean that we shouldn't condemn abuses of human rights where we see them.
I've had the same experience. The worst part is that you can only retry a download of a Google Takeout archive so many times before it locks you out, and you have to wait a day or so for a new takeout...
For what it's worth, where I live in California, all of my utilities except for gas are managed by the city government and their prices and service blow the competition out of the water. Didn't have any blackouts last year.
> But I agree with Norquist that it’s a useful exercise for people to go through once a year and write down how much they make and what part of that the government is taking.
Were it that simple, I would agree. This approach is problematic in the US because:
- the tax code is too complex for the average citizen to approach on their own,
- powerful interests such as Intuit have a vested interest in keeping things difficult for their own gain, and
- reporting your income incorrectly (when the IRS already knows what to expect!) can expose one potential criminal penalties.
> I don’t like the idea of socializing people to accept higher taxes by deducting them automatically and making it so they never have to think about how much they’re paying.
I think this is an implementation detail; there are solutions to removing unnecessary pain from tax filing that combat regulatory capture while keeping people involved with the process of taxation. Advocacy for lower taxes and tax reform are not mutually exclusive.
> some people are philosophically opposed to easy taxes
I listened to a couple of episodes of Planet Money a while back that others might find relevant. They address how some state / local governments raise money in regions where opposition to taxes is high.
The Treasury source they cite (https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0322) seems to check out:
> Section 560.540 of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), 31 C.F.R. Part 560, authorizes the exportation from the United States or by U.S. persons, wherever located, to persons in Iran of certain publicly available, no-cost services incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet and certain publicly available, no-cost software necessary to enable such services.