newnamenewface

> Now consumers have two companies to choose chips from instead of one functional monopoly due to a trade secret moat... Win for consumers.

If we were considering this purely from the lens of consumer choice, allowing IP theft seems like a no-brainer. But it's pretty clear from the last few years how important supply chains are to the countries they reside in (and how their absence is strongly felt). To phrase it another way, suppose IP theft makes an industry outright unprofitable in a country and those jobs disappear in that country. It can take decades to spin that stuff up again and the consequences can be disastrous. From that perspective, it's understandable why governments would want to tamp down on IP theft. That said, the story described in the OP is tragic and reflects a perverse situation where someone who came to America seeking those things we promise to the world was considered guilty for chasing the American dream.

I had a similar experience trying to set up my family on a password manager. Something relatively simple to tech-inclined folks is like pulling teeth for the average person. For me, fortunately much of my family has some tech savvy but even still I'm 1/4 due to being across the country from most of them.

> It's also kinda unfair to expect people to have seen Omikron coming

Perhaps, it's unfair that the government is obligating severe COVID restrictions on travel for citizens (and non-citizens, alike) in a country with 80+% vaccination rates for a disease that's essentially endemic at this point. NZ seems to be just pushing the problem down the line at this point. There will never be a time where they can just open without any cases so why are they still so incredibly restrictive?

FWIW: I am not a NZer, I don't plan to visit NZ any time soon, and I'll admit I'm relatively unversed on the political situation in NZ.

Something makes me doubt you could point out any society in history where the rich and well-connected are treated like everyone else. Not to say I think this is necessarily a good thing (or necessarily a bad thing, either) but them's the rules of the world.

I think a lot of people like the hobbyist collection aspect of DVDs. There's also a pretty significant contingent of people who want access to films that have no (or no consistent) streaming options. Also, lots of films and TV shows that do not have licensed content.

Can I ask, was this sacrifice necessary? Were you earning decent wages or was he actually struggling to make ends meet? It is far more selfish to pursue more money than you (or your kids) need and miss out on your children's formative years than to just hold a single decent paying job.

I actually agree with you over the other comments. I think the idea of industriously trying to be the worst worker you possibly can (while not being fired) is one of those self-defeating efforts to do less work where you actually do more work in a lot of ways. You've got to justify to yourself continually that you're not being a drain or a bad person. You've got to juggle context switching between two roles during an overlapping period, making both more difficult than they would be individually and leaving yourself worse able to focus generally. (I suppose you could probably block your schedule to make this work better but I can't see a silver bullet solution for all the time.) You've got to compartmentalize your jobs and your interaction with coworkers. I know that with my personality, these factors would be major drags on my mental and emotional well-being. I would feel like a fraud for a long time before getting used to something like this.

With a business, while you deal with some similar issues (compartmentalization, context-switching), I expect they'd feel far less invalidating (again, to me/those with similar personality types) because you'd know you were actually applying yourself to do the best you could.

The strike was averted with a last minute deal as of a few hours ago.

You take my assertion as agreement or belief that this is ok. It's not, but if you're working to support family or pay off debts, the decision quickly loses its philosophical or moral character and only has a practical one: do I continue to make money or do I risk my livelihood and potential earning?

Makes me think that your best bet is to find a lawyer with this domain knowledge or (more craftfully) become a lawyer with this knowledge and charge ann exorbitant but less than double tax fee to consult others how to achieve this.

And you never work in your professional industry ever again... Black listing is very real in almost any situation where technically you can report someone for something heinous.

Is it? Sounds like OP gave some additional background, unless those bits about the housing market and the business are in that song. I think OP referenced the song but the events described happened in their life.

This is complete hearsay but I was sat next to a engineer working on the project on a recent flight. He mentioned to me that 1.) it would be delayed past October till December, and probably early into next year, and 2.) COVID, like any good excuse, was being used because it was there and not necessarily because it caused the delays.

Maybe the engineer was just telling a story with a bit of flair but I believed him.

Denver, Colorado has previously decriminalized magic mushrooms.