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Comment Re:Start paying people normal salaries (Score 1) 208

If the price in the menu is $100 and you're expected to give a 20% tip then you actually end up paying $120.

If the price in the menu is $120 with no tip then you actually end up paying $120, which is fair for all.

Hiding the true price by expecting tips is misleading.
The tipping system tries to guilt people into paying more, an up front price does not.

If the tip is not mandatory, then people will seek a discount by not paying it, which shifts the costs onto other people. If you're not intending to go back (ie you're just a visiting tourist not a regular) then other than the attempts to make you feel guilty you actually have no reason not to do this. Do you want to be paying more so that tourists can get a discount?

No the tipping system is stupid. Calculate the cost of paying servers, and add it to the prices on the menu, add the relevant taxes too so the price you see is the price you pay.

Comment Re: So? (Score 1) 24

A SCSI scanner should at least be a standard so it shouldn't need device specific drivers...
An ancient SCSI scanner from the 80s or 90s should still work today, providing you have a working SCSI controller.

Much worse are the scanners with proprietary interfaces, or proprietary protocols over other interfaces (parallel, usb, even their own proprietary isa/pci controller cards). You may find your scanner wasn't actually SCSI at all if you had to get a specific controller for it, a proper SCSI scanner should work with *ANY* SCSI controller.

Comment Re:This is wrong (Score 5, Interesting) 208

Trying to solve the problem with tips is completely wrong.

No. Tipping is the problem, and the problem has gotten entirely out of hand. Make tipping illegal, and employers will be forced to pay wages that will retain their employees, and then, in turn, raise prices to compensate. At which point, we will have the system that Europe has been using for longer than I know, where being a waiter is not a stop-gap employment option while you're trying to do something else, but a respectable profession. There are establishments I frequent in various parts of the Continent where I see the same waiters working there, year after year, and there is never any problem with the service. Tipping is not expected, and if you do, it's a couple of percent. The prices on the menu are the prices you pay. No extra taxes, no extra tipping. Completely transparent.

It is pure commercial greed that prevents the US from adopting the same rational standard, and instead we get the fraud where the price you see is nowhere near the price you pay, except in very specific, isolated cases like fuel and airline tickets.

Comment Re:Start paying people normal salaries (Score 5, Informative) 208

Noone is advocating raising prices. They're just advocating for quoting the actual price up front. You would end up paying the exact same amount, it's just declared up front instead of misleading you with artificially lower prices and expecting you to make up the difference with a tip.

Comment Re:You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score 1) 147

This whole story is about CCTV, therefore NVR or cloud keys as these are where CCTV is hosted.

Having to use a different device in addition to the NVR defeats the point, especially considering a lot of users are on networks where they're forced to use the ISP-supplied gateway.

Even if the gateway does DDNS that's not relevant on a modern IPv6 network as the actual NVR device will have its own address rather than forwarding a port from the gateway address. Keep in mind that a good percentage of the world is stuck behind CGNAT so the gateway has an unreachable legacy address and home devices are only reachable over IPv6 (or not at all if the ISP is so lousy that they've not deployed v6 yet).

Comment Re:Robot vacuum cleaners - meh (Score 1) 100

That's what's driving the recent increase in asthma: a more aseptic environment.

I ate dirt as a child, and I almost never get sick. My wife lived in a pristine environment and gets sick at the drop of a hat. These anecdotes are examples that are backed up by reams of rigorous science, some of which was done by a friend of mine, looking at the rate of respiratory illness in Papua New Guinea populations pre- and post-westernization. Their conclusion: we would be healthier if we lived with dirt floors.

Comment Re:You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score 1) 147

No, you could also use a VPN and access it directly as well.

Not on mobile. At least when using an iOS device you get a message that video streaming is not supported, and forcing you to use the mobile app.
For other clients the web interface works directly.

There is discussion about the lack of direct connectivity in the mobile app here:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.ui.com%2Fquest...

The ability to directly connect is now available, but hidden away, and it doesn't validate the SSL certificate which introduces a security risk.

Yes there is. I am using it now. That has been available in the web user interface for years, I think. When last did you last use/look at Unifi's gateway???

I'm looking at one hosting a small number of CCTV cameras right now.
You cannot configure IPv6 on the "cloud key" device or on the dedicated CCTV appliances, it just picks up an address from SLAAC/DHCPv6 but doesn't display it anywhere in the UI.
There is no DDNS support within the cloud key device. There may well be DDNS support if you're using their gateway, but that would be for the gateway itself not for the cloud key where the cctv is hosted.
With IPv6 every device has its own address, so you don't have to resort to multiplexing multiple devices through a single address (or not even being able to do that if you're stuck with CGNAT).
I don't use any of their routing products because the IPv6 support was/is very poor. We only have CCTV and wireless stuff.

Comment Re:Shortage? (Score 1) 204

Taking the best from everywhere results in a brain drain from the less desirable locations.
Losing their best people results in a country falling behind others.
You get a rapidly growing problem - the country is shit so people leave if they can, only the worst are left behind so the country deteriorates further.

Comment Re:You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score 1) 147

They don't provide cloud *storage* but they do heavily push you towards cloud connectivity.

The mobile app did not support direct connections at all until recently.
Although now it does, it explicitly ignores SSL certs when connecting directly resulting in MITM risk.
Although the controller is reachable via HTTPS, it does not let you view video from a mobile device and forces you to use the app, this appears to be an arbitrary limitation as you can access it just fine from an ipad which is basically a large iphone.
Support for IPv6 is very poor (many users have CGNAT for legacy traffic so IPv6 is the only way to reach devices).
They broke IPv6 completely for a while - the HTTPS service did not listen on the v6 address even when the device did and could be accessed via SSH.
There is no support for custom SSL certs unless you use third party scripts, and the updates keep breaking those scripts.
There is no support for dynamic dns without third party scripts.

Comment Re:You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score 1) 147

Until recently the only way to access the cameras from mobile was through the cloud service, you could access the device over https directly but then it wouldnt let you view video if you were doing so on a mobile device.

The mobile app still defaults to forwarding everything through the cloud, and although there is now an option to connect directly in the most recent versions it does so by ignoring the SSL certificate making you susceptible to MITM attacks.

Their IPv6 support is also very poor, and there are a lot of networks using CGNAT for legacy service so inbound legacy traffic is not possible. There is no option to configure IPv6 through the web interface, no mention of it at all, although the device will acquire an address via SLAAC and DHCPv6.

The controllers themselves don't provide an easy way to load a proper SSL certificate, although it can be achieved with third party scripts.

There's also no built in dynamic dns support which is needed if the ISP keeps changing your prefix.

What I need is something that supports SSL over IPv6, and lets me use a valid cert preferably providing an easy way to request one from letsencrypt or other such services. The unifi stuff can be forced to work with third party scripts, but they still try to push you towards their cloud service and you still have the security risk due to the lack of ssl cert checking in the mobile app.

Comment Shortage? (Score 5, Insightful) 204

The risk is it could lead to shortages of critical skills that end up harming Switzerland's competitiveness.

The chance of someone capable of learning critical skills being born in switzerland is the same as anywhere else, if the swiss are not training their own citizens to perform these critical roles then that's already a failure on their part.

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