The Citrix vulnerability got us. There is a mitigation while we wait for a patch.

We inherited our Citrix environment after the company wisely chose to lay off every engineer that built it ... Interestingly, netscaler is FreeBSD (thank the gods) with some added nonsense.

In any event, we caught this cold and now have to clean install netscaler. Initial forensics don't look too bad as the exploit ran commands as "nobody" but we are taking no chances and will nuke/pave the VM.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 12, 2020, 15:38:

CthulhuFan wrote on Jan 11, 2020, 20:10:

jdreyer wrote on Jan 10, 2020, 15:29:

CthulhuFan wrote on Jan 10, 2020, 14:31:

NKD wrote on Jan 9, 2020, 11:12:
Unions aren't viable as a one time thing that pops up and gets you a nice contract that lasts forever. You need an organization that can foot the bill for lawyers and handle all the shit that a gaggle of random employees who aren't experts in labor law can't do. Plus considering that companies love to do shady shit to keep people from forming a union in the first place, it's not something you want to give up once you have it.

A contract with an organization that no longer exists doesn't really have much teeth.

I would argue that is the point of a PAC.

1. A pro-employee PAC gets its funding from unions.

This should be funded by individuals

Individual contributions are even more anemic than union contributions.

2. Even a PAC funded by unions can't compete with the amount of money, access, and lobbying that a corporation can afford to spend, and thanks to cases like Citizens United, there is no upper limit corporations can spend promoting their views and getting their legislation passed.

I'm going to need a source on that shit. I do, however, agree that funding for local elections should be limited to locals/constituents. Outside influence in a local area should not be tolerated.

Here's one source on PAC spending, there are many. Here's a primer on Citizens United, where the Supreme Court decided that money equals free speech.

3. The amount of influence corporations have on legislation is documented here:

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

Emphasis mine.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree here. You're talking about "Chrony Capitalism". I don't like it either.

Actually, crony capitalism is related, but a bit different. Certainly corporations manipulate the political process to engage in crony capitalism. However, they also manipulate politics more broadly to reduce regulation, reduce worker benefits and salaries and protections, etc. in order to improve their bottom line.

Until corporate money is completely prohibited from the political process, there's truly no way to have a real democracy that operates for the people. Until then, unions are a necessary evil to counter the power of corporations.

"Corporate" money ... how about eliminating out of district funding for political campaigns. See the current fiasco going on in VA re:2A right now.

I mean, we are right there on the same line of thought with this:

Until corporate money is completely prohibited from the political process, there's truly no way to have a real Republic

.

I understand that's absurd these days but real, effective politics should be as local as possible and should be shielded somehow from outside interference or manipulation.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 10, 2020, 15:29:

CthulhuFan wrote on Jan 10, 2020, 14:31:

NKD wrote on Jan 9, 2020, 11:12:
Unions aren't viable as a one time thing that pops up and gets you a nice contract that lasts forever. You need an organization that can foot the bill for lawyers and handle all the shit that a gaggle of random employees who aren't experts in labor law can't do. Plus considering that companies love to do shady shit to keep people from forming a union in the first place, it's not something you want to give up once you have it.

A contract with an organization that no longer exists doesn't really have much teeth.

I would argue that is the point of a PAC.

1. A pro-employee PAC gets its funding from unions.

This should be funded by individuals

2. Even a PAC funded by unions can't compete with the amount of money, access, and lobbying that a corporation can afford to spend, and thanks to cases like Citizens United, there is no upper limit corporations can spend promoting their views and getting their legislation passed.

I'm going to need a source on that shit. I do, however, agree that funding for local elections should be limited to locals/constituents. Outside influence in a local area should not be tolerated.

3. The amount of influence corporations have on legislation is documented here:

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

Emphasis mine.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree here. You're talking about "Chrony Capitalism". I don't like it either.

NKD wrote on Jan 9, 2020, 11:12:
Unions aren't viable as a one time thing that pops up and gets you a nice contract that lasts forever. You need an organization that can foot the bill for lawyers and handle all the shit that a gaggle of random employees who aren't experts in labor law can't do. Plus considering that companies love to do shady shit to keep people from forming a union in the first place, it's not something you want to give up once you have it.

A contract with an organization that no longer exists doesn't really have much teeth.

I would argue that is the point of a PAC.

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 8, 2020, 14:04:
mises
Any organization that opposes child labor laws and is anti-immigrant gets my support. /s

This is neither an argument or a rebuttal.

Prez wrote on Jan 8, 2020, 12:52:
As with most everything as complicated as organized labor and the capitalist model the reality is far from either extreme that both sides project. There is a lot of truth to the claims made in the links provided by Cthulufan... but there is a lot of glossing over of inconvenient truths and omissions of facts that would provide a more complete representation of the subject such as why unions were formed in the first place and how historically they greatly improved the working conditions of the American worker. On the flip-side, I have been dealing with unions for most of my adult life, and know first-hand that there is a lot of what unions do that is, at best, counterproductive and, at worst, detrimental to the business its workers are employed by. There is just no denying that unions can be uncooperative, unrealistic, and unwilling to accept basic reality when at contract negotiations. They demand things that harm productivity and fly in the face of reality all the time. I've seen it many times over the course of almost 30 years.

What it comes down to, as has been stated previously, is that unions are a necessary evil in the modern work force. They stand as the only check and balance against unfettered capitalism which, let's face it, has nothing to do with proper treatment of workers. To pose raw capitalism as being at all inherently altruistic is either painfully naive or grossly misinformed. Unregulated capitalism is as brutal as any economic system ever devised.

First, and foremost, thank you for the thoughtful and non inflammatory reply. Civility will get you everywhere.

One thing I want to point out about your response is that it /seems/ like you assume unions are a permanent thing. IMO they should not be; they should spring up to address certain issues and disband when those issues have been addressed. Raw capitalism, as you say, is just freedom of exchange and not a system of government. I'm trying to remain salient and not diverge too much and failing ...

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 8, 2020, 11:14:
Do you have sources for all this harm?

Sure. But that is completely secondary to the main point of my statement. To quote Ellen Ripley "You two will get what you contracted for. Just like everybody else". Don't like it? Leave.

In practice: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/04/17/uaw-corruption-ad-center-union-facts/3494620002/

Fundamental theory:
https://mises.org/library/how-labor-unions-hurt-workers
https://mises.org/library/union-myth

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jan 7, 2020, 12:57:

Here is the self destructive mentality common in non-millionaire people these days, mostly in the US, but other countries also. "Screw Unions, I want to be fired at any time, for any reason, and work 7 days a week, 60 hours a day for no extra pay!"

That seems pretty self entitled. Somebody creates something and decides to hire labor in order to make it bigger and more successful. Laborers contract with the owner for employment as in both parties agree to the terms. Unless it's in your agreement with your employer, you don't deserve anything other than what you contracted for.

Safety and other things are certainly topics/needs properly addressed by grass roots temporary unionization but long standing unions are a scam and harm both employees and employers not to mention entire local community economies.

Final Sacrifice ... Top notch.

Yeah, absolutely; Tom and Crow had some absolutely hilarious bits. The rascally raccoon bit comes immediately to mind and that's one that puts both me and my daughter in stitches instantly. So, yeah, some of the bits were epic.

Mike is my favorite but I'm sad to see this new series come to an end especially considering all the other Netflix branded garbage they are churning out.

I have a real soft spot for this game; the exploration *especially the gliding* was really, really fun. The labor point system is really why I stopped playing because that's really where they hit you for paying up.

Legitimately some of the most MMO fun I've ever had due to the resource scarcity as mentioned earlier as far as risk/reward for moving trade packs around the world. Really good looking and fun game.

Pirate farming was one of my favorite activities; if you are good with getting off the beaten path you can just set up shop anywhere (still have to spend labor points though) and setup a farm but the risk is you'll get your shit ganked.

I liked this game quite a bit but the P2W/mobile style monetization really killed it for me. I will definitely keep an eye on this buy to play version.

* REMOVED *
This comment was deleted on Aug 20, 2019, 17:18.

I played through everything they had about two months ago and it was great fun. Can't wait to fire it up again soon to check out the finished product.

Instabuy.

EDF! EDF! EDF!

Darks wrote on Jun 18, 2019, 19:30:

Quinn wrote on Jun 18, 2019, 16:00:
Man this looks fucking ridiculous. To each their own though. Good that you guys have fun.

I know right! I cant understand how shit like this gets funded. its like kids from the 80's have invaded our timeline.

Hey, I resemble that remark! Sadly, my budget is blown so I'll have to wait until next month to buy it but I can't wait.

Screw them. Offer it for free? I'm sailing the high seas on this one, just on principle. That will teach them to offer it w/out my favorite DRM...

MeanJim wrote on Jun 5, 2019, 16:06:

I had a friend that was super into Diablo when it came out. It's one of those games I never understood the hype around it.

No worries, everyone likes different stuff. For me it was awesome but, as with all games, you do you and I'll do me (to each their own).

Somehow I missed this back in the day. Was it any good? While Grim Dawn scratches my D2.5 itch, I may be tempted to pick this up and play it provided I can find my installation media for the base game.

Wesp5 wrote on May 30, 2019, 02:40:

Cutter wrote on May 29, 2019, 23:37:
Sure hope they have the Nosferatu in this.

Missing clans have been promised as free DLC, so expect Nosferatu and Gangrel then!

I've been trying not to follow/get too hyped so I don't die of anticipation but, man, that sucks that I have to wait for DLC to play Gangrel.

Remove item durability or MOB respawn and I'm down. The first attempt was not too shabby and I say that as someone who hates zombie flicks/games.