I'm going to assume this was orchestrated by a smooth-talking consulting agency. They're known to promise you anything you ask for, bite off more than they can chew, and pass the costs on to the customer. Many of them will play the roll of friend and advocate, while charging outrageous mark-ups and billing for unnecessary services. They're very good at spending other peoples' money. And if it's a small-time group (or individual and handful of their firnds), they won't even have enough assets to reimburse you if you successfully sue them.

I spent some time working for a consulting company, and the president made it very clear that I worked for them and not the customer, and was to make decisions and tell the customers things that were in the consultant's best interest even if not in the client's best interests. Some may be okay with that, but it really ground my gears. People hire consulting groups because they're not experts in a field, trusting them to BE the experts, and make decisions in their best interest. Often they get neither. Some consultants do a great job of looking like they know what they're doing while scrambling in the background trying to make it happen when they lack the knowledge and experience to pull it off. Then by the time the client figures this out, a great deal of money's been burned without results. Worst case, they've committed you to a course of action and stalled out your company mid-stream in a transition when it all falls apart and it becomes obvious they can't handle it. This leaving you stuck in the middle where you can't function as-is, can't go back, and they can't figure out how to finish the transition. And that's what this is looking like.

Consulting groups like that really ought to have to be bonded and insured in case they leave you stranded in a bad spot like that. At least then you'd have a safety net that can drag you back to where you were before critical systems got ripped out, and you can get back to business.

The classic counter-argument is you can't falsely cry Fire! in a crowded theatre. It's not freedom of speech, it's intentionally causing public harm. (whether or not you benefit from the outcome, but that just makes it all the more deplorable if you do)

Politicians have always been keen to intertwine "freedom of speech" with "freedom from consequences". They're afraid of laws that could prevent them from lying when they want to, which for a politician, can be quite often. So they'll wrap Freedom from Consequences in a Freedom of Speech blanket to gather support and protect their interests.

Unfortunately, lately we've had a larger than average number of powerful politicians shoveling misinformation like it's snow in Chicago, while attacking the press for calling them out on their lies. They don't want to put controls on misinformation because they're benefiting from it. And part of that is keeping their voter base entertained, so it's a problem of positive feedback. More misinformation gets them more votes, and more votes keeps them in office, to block laws and spread more misinformation.

It's gotten to the point where the politicians don't care if they're caught red-handed in lies. They just complain about the press and public being being 'woke' and how unfair it is that they're getting 'canceled'. Somehow ends up getting them more support instead of less.

I'd love to be a part of fixing this, but I just don't see how to break the cycle. I've got a vote but it's not helping, and it's deeply frustrating!

1. you're boosting their ego
2. you're adding to their portfolio they show their customers

This short attack was almost certainly not intended to cause problems, it was intended to advertise their services and show off their capabilities.

Stop feeding the trolls. I get it, I KNOW, it gets clicks, but please just STOP.

A chunk of that money is unrecoverable due to various circumstances like death, and the money was just sitting in the bank, building interest. But of course it's being used by the bank to invest in also. All of that cash is going to get yoinked out of the banks, which is going to ultimately hurt the banks.

And who gets the money? Is it just being confiscated by the government for general use like a tax? Or is there some dedicated public program the money is earmarked for?

And I'm sure they know that there will be a chunk of accounts that technically COULD be updated, but it's just not worth the effort for the account holders, either due to it being too small to bother with, or it's a middling amount but has too many hoops to jump through, or hoops they don't WANT to jump through. So again, grab the cash. They're small amounts, but it's going to add up.

And of course there'll be the chunk of them that are fruits of illegal activity, where the owners don't want to take the risk, and so again, yoink goes the cash.

This is looking like quite a (self-made) windfall for the government?

Spreading known lies to the detriment of others ought to be illegal. But the politicians would never support such a bill. For too many of them, that's their bread and butter.

DHS/NSA/FBI has been doing something ILLEGAL for years?! I'm absolutely shocked!

Will there be a shred of accountability? of course not!

Like high speed photography, small lenses require a lot of light, and are useless without it. I wonder how practical something like this can be? At the very least they're going to need to be paired with some pretty high tech image sensors. Regardless, it also brings into question how high the resolution could practically go.

Small, high res, low light, and fast shutter speed are all competing against each other, and you usually have to at least compromise on one (or two) to do well with the others. If you're starting out with a very small lens, there's going to be a lot of compromise going on, which will greatly limit the number of applications you can use it in.

loved that performance in Total Recall.

So this is where we're headed? Fail to pay them and they explode?

USB-A is legacy and is going away. It's like serial ports and VGA. Get an adapter for single accessories (they're CHEAP, like $5 for two) or get a little travel dock if you need several USB-A ports and only have one or two USB-C. (or go wireless)

Everything is either going wireless (because it can) or USB-C (because of the laundry list of upgrades it provides)

In a few years the only new things I expect to see on the market that are USB-A are the handful of things still trying to get minimal power or charging. Though even charging is going away due to the low power delivery of USB-A.

Right now Woot's got a dual USB-C 35w GaN charger for $7, and a decent USB-C travel dock for $14. If you're still clinging onto USB-A, start your transition now. Just rip off the band-aid and get it over with.

I'm surprised that any (non-dictator) government today doesn't have a clear path-of-succession in place. The US has like six steps of succession iirc?
Sure, when you're digging that deep into the barrel you're not getting someone with the best of qualifications for the position, but at least you have a name.

Any group that complains they should be the only ones to use something as common as a generic feather in their logo loses all my respect.

And I don't like other groups caving to complaints like this because it sets a terrible example.

Go check out the artifical sweetener "L-glucose", it's glucose, but mirrored. It still tastes sweet, but the body can't metabolize it.

and humans eat as many as 100 spiders per day!

it's easy to get impressive numbers when you prefix it with "as much as". That's just the upper limit. Often not even anywhere near the average

Clickbait.

People that consider themselves vital, but then have to take steps to create artificial vitality - their own actions are proving them wrong.

If you were truly vital, your simple absence would be a disaster all by itself. If you have to engineer that condition, you're NOT vital. This is just an arrogant, self-important narcissist behaving badly and getting what they've got coming, at the cost of others.

I don't think there are enough stories like this in the news. It's pretty easy to find accounts BY such individuals that created kill switches and caused chaos when they were dismissed. It's good to see one of them get hat they deserve. Jokers like this give the rest of us a bad name.

I didn't realize China even HAD any IP laws on the books over there? Do they specifically say "except when we copy IP from another country because that's OK", or do they just "selectively enforce" it that way?