He was forced to leave because otherwise they would have had to deal with the corruption issue.
Gay, straight, married, single, don't put you illicit lover on the state payroll, especially for a job that they are LEGALLY unqualified for (didn't have the clearance for the position).
The only one talking about the gay thing was him who wanted to be a martyr while coming out of the closet with his wife standing next to him.
The Governor of New Jersey wasn't ousted for his sexual orientation, but rather for behavior related to his sexual choices.
With respect to the presidents issue, etc.
We have relative equality at this point, but things take time.
To have a non-White, non-Christian male president, you need to have someone who was born in the post-Civil Rights, era, who had "relative" equality their whole life.... or all those people are at a disadvantage. To really have a chance, you need two generations of that, because the most significant indicators for success in life are thing like your intelligence, your education, and your parents education.
Once you clean up the legal system, it takes time to flow throughout society.
Look, I had an all-Compaq shop pre-HP/Compaq merger. I hated Dell because I found their support lacking and loved Compaq, but I LOATHED HP gear. What did I do during the merger? Well, I was so distraught with our options in Windows land, that we finally started experimenting with Mac desktops and other options and made changes.
It wasn't dumb, it wasn't short sighted, my vendor was going through an upheavel and I didn't know what to do, so it was time to evaluate everything.
If I adopt Firefox (which I'm currently considering) then I need to migrate everyone's bookmarks over. I also need to believe that Firefox will be supported. We originally adopted Apple's Safari browser because it was easy to install in/Network/Applications, which Panther broke, and now each desktop has their own browser. We're now considering Firefox.
HOWEVER, if I don't know what is going to go on in Mozilla land, and suddenly I may have no upgrade OR migration path, that is a problem, and I need to know that I will have a browser with bug fixes that makes sense.
Forget paid vs. free support, I need to know that I won't be left high and dry with an out of date browser, intranet apps that take advantage of features in one that aren't in the other, and then be abadonned by someone turning 16, discovering girls, and losing interest in supporting their projects.
I dunno, talk to members of the Jewish diaspora that aren't Orthodox and are under 60, and you'd be shocked at the utter lack of support for the state of Israel. It is definitely higher than the atheists that they share their other political beliefs with, but it isn't that pro-Israel...
The American "Christian Zionists" seem to be much more pro-Israel than any other group...
Quite frankly, this is absurd. Our school system is absolutely out of control.
The "top students" are held back by a school system designed to create factory workers, a system that doesn't foster creativity. All these absurd feel good plans about improving the performance at the bottom seem to be implemented by holding back the top. Our TOP STUDENTS need to be supported. The future Researchers, Engineers, and Captains of Industry are taken from the people that excel in various areas, those people need to be enabled to achieve, not thrown into an environment where they tend to engage in self destructive behavior that is counter productivity.
After that top 1%, the next 49% need to get a decent well-rounded education that prepares them for college life. They need to learn the skills needed for their middle-class life in suburbia that they are heading towards. They will have a house, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a steady job. Right now, those people tend to NOT be the next 49%, but rather, the children of the previous middle-class... NOT BECAUSE OF SYSTEMATIC RACISM or other stuppid liberal dogma, but BECAUSE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN BROKEN SINCE WWII. We have been shuffling people through an absurd system that was broken with the GI Bill and lots of people randomly going to college. Whoever took advantage of the broken post-WWII situation has set up their family for 3 generations, because the school system DOESN'T give you the skills you need, you get those from your parents who have been playing the game for generations.
With a proper school system, perhaps instead of the next 49% being send to the middle class, we can get that to 59% or 69% and expand the middle class.
The next big chunk, all but the bottom 5-10% should receive basic life skills and knowledge that lets them join society, while encouraging them to learn a skilled trade. Plumbers and Electricians do FINE financially, better than many college graduates. Those are SKILLED positions that aren't being outsourced, and people that aren't made for the office park should be encouraged to become skilled labourers.
As far as the bottom? They should learn whatever life skills we can give them, hopefully a value system that encourages non-criminal behavior, and hope to get them basic skills and that things work out. These PEOPLE WILL NOT have a good life in ANY system, but we shouldn't give them diplomas when they can't read. ALL THAT THAT DOES is devalue the high school diploma.
What hurts your people that SHOULD go to college but can't afford it is the social promotion designed to help them. We have RADICALLY devalued a high school diploma by handing them out to everyone (same thing with a AA/BA), and screwed these people. Let the botom-run drop out, and the next rung be allowed to enter the world with a high school diploma, instead of requiring college for anything in the middle class.
Its not that silly... My wife uses her iBook in the Kitchen to pull up recipes when cooking, which isn't that absurd. I really want one of the flat panel machines for that purpose. However, I really don't want a Windows machine to maintain, and Linux still isn't the most userfriendly, but I'm considering it, but a Mac Mini with a small screen... tempting...
Look, kids right out of undergraduate engineering don't have the experience to ship products beyond small little apps (which may be worth a lot financially, but technically impressive stuff requires experience). Managers straight out of MBA programs don't have the ability to be senior managers. Newsflash: school is phenominal and teaches you concepts, experience seasons you.
Look, I know plenty of brilliant self taught programmers. They slam out code fast as hell. However, they often make basic mistakes that create maintenance problems that they would have learned with a basic CompSci education (note: dropping out of school having finished most of a CS degree isn't self taught, neither is reading through CompSci text books, if you picked up the theory in a formal matter, you got the knowledge).
I have a S.B. in Comp Sci from a decent school. Without experience, I couldn't program, and as I manage more than program, I don't have the experience. Yet with that basic grasp of the theory, I can often catch basic mistakes in the design phase. So the education was worthwhile, but experience is important.
I am in an MBA program right now. Its a survey program, I study a little economics, a little management theory, a little accounting, a little finance, etc., etc., basically the basics of the theory of business. Without years of business experience, the coursework would make no sense, and learning how to apply it professionally is ALSO a challenge.
But guess what, having studied the basics of managerial techniques, I stopped making the BASIC mistakes that the literature catches. I also understand numbers that come out of a ledger now.
Could I audit a Fortune 500? Absolutely not. Can I read their financials and understand where the numbers come from? Decently. However, if I wanted to be a stock analyst that was good, I'd need a LOT more EXPERIENCE than the education gives me.
Knocking MBAs for not being business geniuses is like knocking 22 year old CS graduates for not being able to knock out an office suite. Knowledge is the building block.
Guess what, I'd take a guy with 10 years experience over a recent MBA any day of the week. However, want to bet that in 3 years the MBA w/ 3 years post-MBA experience has gained more than the guy with 13 years and no MBA?
The US has NEVER defaulted on a debt payment (post Civil War, might have during that). One of the smart things Clinton did during the government shut-down was violate all sorts of government accounting rules to get the debt payments out.
As a result, US Debt is considered 0-risk. It is the ONLY debt instrument in the world that is considered zero risk. Even other government debt has a small implicit risk premium in it.
Right now, the US raises money at no risk premium. If the US defaulted or increased the money supply (which would cause massive inflation and force the markets to devalue its currency... devaluation as policy requires a peg, normally to the dollar), the would cause the US to start paying a risk premium.
All of a sudden, you would have 10%-15% inflation from oversupply of money, and the US risk premium going up to 5%, for example, and now government bonds pay 15%-20%... How much do you think that your mortgage needs to be now? 25%, 30%?
Basically, the US CAN get out of its mess with massive printing of money, but the results would be catastrophic.
HOWEVER, your comment about the bank is 100% on, and I believe it is the current financial strategy. Continue to buy products from China for "worthless" sheets of paper (paying 4%-4.25% interest), then slowly increase the money supply and inflation to 4.5% or 5%, and inflate your way out of the mess. All of a sudden, the money is devaluing faster than your interest payments, tax revenues go up, and debt repayment is less painful.
Many countries played games like this, but it is normally to buy capital goods and other means of production... we've used it for consumer spending, which is why we may be in a bind.
Mild inflation is nice, but reasonable (5%) inflation) wouldn't kill us, and might be a way out of our mess.
1. Increase "hourly" rate, 30% should do it to cover taxes, etc. 2. Hop on your wife's health insurance. I did that after I got married, and my business has employees with a generous health package (I pay 100% because I don't want to track contributions/opt-outs)... it was much nicer to have her company pick up half... Otherwise, find a local coop. 3. Retirement planning. 1st, Max our the Roth IRA, if elligable. Then, incorporate yourself as an S-corp, no tax implication, but it's slightly cleaner than a sole propreitorship. Then do any of the retirement plans that interest you, SEP-IRA, SIMPLE, Keogh, Profit-Sharing... 4. Learn some basic accounting, and find a CPA that will cheaply set things up for you. I skipped that, cost me a few thousand dollars and LOTS of headache to compensate for saving $250 upfront.
It's a great option, if the pay works out. Also, if you can get some of the work to be remote (which they technically HAVE to allow as a contractor, there are IRS rules for who can be a contractor), you can always later hire someone to do it. I.e. if you only have to be onsight 2 days/week, you could eventually raise your rate sufficient to hire someone to do the job and land a second gig...
Work one location M/W, another T/Th, and keep Fridays for bookkeeping.
In that scenario, you spend all your office time with "face time" and working on extending/enhancing the contract, and have your employee do the projects. Just email them the assignments and back to networking...
A long running belief has been the turnout favors the Democrats. The UNWRITTEN part of the piece of convention wisdom is the implication "The overwhelming majority of Americans like the Democrats, but the GOP wins because their people count for more because they show up." This piece of CW undermines the GOP and enhancing the Democrats (the point of it), by stating that EVEN though the GOP tends to win the Presidential Election (where people tend to consider candidates more than incumbancy+party), there is no mandate because they only win from turnout.
The BIGGEST gain that Bush made for the GOP was in a HUGE turnout, he won, and won by a decent margin for a close election. (Yes the electoral college chooses the presidency, which is important for close elections like 2000, in general the "election margin" is the popular vote, not the electoral one.
By winning with a high turn-out, Bush has served to validate the legitimacy of the GOP and their winning of elections. The "turn-out myth" has left the Democrats holding decreasing amounts of power for 10 years while claiming to be the party of the people, which kept the Republicans from advancing major change (they never seemed to realize that they are in the majority).
More than ANYTHING ELSE, this is Bush's mandate, high turnout got him elected. And with this, Bush can attempt to undo all the New Deal -> Great Society initiatives he wants, safe and secure in the knowledge that it isn't going to awaken the secret Democrat majority.
Weekend polls trend democrat. Weekend days TEND to be ignored in tracking polls. However, we vote on a Tuesday, so to "capture" the final weekend, the tracking polls are used that include the weekend.
This results in a democratic leaning sample.
Further, Kerry's surprise endorsement on that Friday MADE them WANT to use the weekend to capture what happened, so bad polls were used.
In other words, the polls going into the final week showed Bush winning, weekend tracking polls and the morning exit polls showed Kerry, but the final totals were more reflective of general trends.
Remember, AOL has a HUGE dial-up play, as they also bought Compuserve a few years ago. They now have a low-end Netzero competitor Netscape Dial-up to compete in the low end (they have phone access numbers everywhere, why not differentiate with AOL Service and other packages).
Every ISP ships a "browser" that is normally a rebranded IE. Why wouldn't AOL ship a Netscape browser for Netscape service?
You have an interesting definition of open source community. I wouldn't call the people that were working on Mozilla during the rewrite the "open source community," but that is definitional I suppose.
I normally refer to the employees of a company as employees, but if you like your "touchy feely name," go for it.
Netscape opened the Mozilla source code. Netscape supplied almost ALL the programmers. The fact that they licensed it under generous terms HARDLY lets the "community" get credit for it.
They seem to busy wallowing in self-pity to figure out how to hit a kick ass market.
Every other web service system is slow and annoying... Konfabulator is FAST...
But why hit a kickass market when you can complain that Apple copied you.
I'm not going to buy a third-party version of a built in utility that will take advantage of Apple's system improvements... but I would by an Enterprise-ready cross-platform Web Services platform... but I NEED to be able to roll out Widgets from the server.
I wanted to use Konfabulator for my Intranet stuff. Basically, instead of manually consolidating information from all my servers, I was going to add REAL simple reporting scripts that could be accesseed via Konfabulator, and let everyone on my network access them.
HOWEVER, the Konfabulator guys have made it a User based system (in OS X, settings are stored in "Library," and you have a ~/Library,/Library,/System/Library, and/Network/Library... Konfabulator will ONLY use the ~/Library, where it SHOULD go ~/Library (User based),/Library (Computer Based),/Network/Library (network based), and support there had no interest in that feature.
If you had a cross platform (do the Windows port in Qt and you have a free Linux port), and you have a GREAT system for Enterprise customers that want something like Widgets to get information available to users without running a complicated Intranet. And for me, add Kerberos support to your fetching code and it works with my Single-sign on environment... Do that, and you are also selling site licenses, as well as your personal users.
However, for that, you need to run cross platform, which is entirely possible. Hell, if you don;t want to search the libraries, than do what Apple does with Kerberos settings... they write them to a file/Library/Preferences/edu.mit.kerberos (instead of/etc/krb5.conf), but they are pulled out of the LDAP cn=config group and rewritten if changed and the local machine had an unedited file...
Give a reason for Enterprise groups to think that you can make their lives easier, and you get bigger sales.
20 years ago, there were three television networks, now their are six including 4 majors.
10 years ago there was CNN.
Now there is CNN, MSNBC, and Fox NEws channel.
10 years ago there were Newspapers, Magazines, and Television.
Now, add the Internet.
I really don't see where all this doom-and-gloom is coming from.
Life is getting better. Computers get faster. We buy stuff cheaper because the Internet makes it possible to get lots of stuff from everywhere.
I don't get it, there are more and more exciting new things. 5 years ago, ecommerce was the bastion of a few. Now, people earn their livings buying and selling on eBay.
So many new opportunities, low interest rates make home ownership affordable, you can invest small amounts of money and build a retirement fund.
I don't get it. Things are happening everywhere, and y'all find stuff to whine about.
"off shoring" waah waah waah
Whatever, we import goods and services, we export goods and services. When we import from a cheaper source, it keeps inflation down.
Do you realize for the past year or two you could get 30 year mortgages for less than 6%? The Fed's overnight rate was BELOW the rate of inflation, and inflation didn't spiral out of control because of those cheap imports.
Life is good and getting better. Sure their are challenges, but you pull yourself up and muddle through. It's never been easier to start a small business, the Internet makes it possible to sell stuff all over the place.
What's frustrating is that one earns more by becoming an electrician than an electrical engineer.
There is lies the problem. The market is a funny thing, aligning interests in fair compensation. Granted, some of the skilled "surplus money" is really because of government regulation requiring licenses...
However, why is it automatic that the guy that sits at a desk designing circuits is worth more than the guy dealing with potentially dangerous amounts of voltage in old walls or a construction site?
You should make more because you have a 4 year degree and possibly a Masters?
What makes you so valuable?
So a guy in his 50s should make more money because he spent four years drinking and studying a little in college?
People with rare skills will be compensated for them.
Most engineering positions don't require rare skills.
More importantly, for skilled labor, the market is SMALL, figuring a 50 mile radius. For white collar office jobs, the market is global, and competition is fiercest.
One of the biggest problem we have in this country is that our universities feed off the public trough, paying professors to feed gibberish that makes people feel special for going to school there.
The cushy middleclass was a SHORT TERM result of certain changes, and a lot of assumptions that college -> wealth, because pre-Baby Boomers, the rich went to college.
I have no problem with electricians or others make more money than I do. I do what I think I am best at, and run with it. Create value, claim your piece of it. Don't believe that you are entitled to money because of your education, its the skills that you bring to the table and your ability to negotiate your piece that you and your family depend on.
My wife is in an accounting program to become a CPA. To maintain her certification once she has it, she needs to do "continuing" education.
If someone lost their job and can't get a new one, a few courses in one semester to gain new skills may not be a bad idea.
Look, my undergrad is CS, I can pick up a new language in a second, no question. But if I was looking for work as and people wanted Java/.Net experience, and I couldn't land a job, going to a community college for 3 months to take a Java course and a.Net course wouldn't be a bad idea.
It's NOT about getting an AA, or a BS, the world is a market economy, and you need to market yourself. If the lack of experience with a language hurts, then instead of sitting home and doing nothing, gain new skills.
The other poster mentioned that his wife has been out of work for 3 years.... While it is TRUE that most of what goes on in the business world is 30 year old computer science, doesn't change the fact that when I'm interviewing, a PhD out of work for 3 years with a chip on her shoulder wouldn't get the job, even over someone right out of school. It's about the attitude.
I'm MUCH more impressed with someone that sucks it up and takes a job "beneath" them and goes to night school to brush up on skills than someone with a PhD that thinks jobs or continuing education is beneath them.
Everyone needs to gain new skills constantly. Community Colleges are a PERFECT place to offer "vocational" classes for out of work professionals. Look, 4 year schools teaching CS are going to teach concepts, but if you work in one place for 10 years, you may miss out on what is going on in the business world. Community Colleges don't have the powerful, entrenched, academic elitsts running the show.
The junior Senator from Massachusetts DOESN'T have a plan, he has a litany of complaints. As do the posters here.
The people that moved on generally thought "this was retarded behavior, why is he a jackass attacking people for acusing him." He accepted his responsibility, and people thought "that was retarded behavior, he knows it was retarded, let's go celebrate the high earnings from Enron and Worldcom and spend out paper profits on bigger houses.":) Some tongue in cheek comments in there.
However, ANY time this administration (or any administration) comes out and says anything was done wrong, by anyone, the other site JUMPS on it, and the MEDIA jumps on it.
Look at the accounting scandels. These things blew up, restating earnings back to 2000 (when Clinton was in office) and some into 2001 (before Bush's people were everywhere), and got caught. All of a sudden, the Democrats went on the ATTACK for the corporate friends of the administration.
When anything wrong happens, if the White House orders and investigation, the media and Democrats jump on it.
How do you expect anyone to admit a mistake when it becomes a point of attack.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said, "Based on our intelligence, we believed that Saddam was a grave threat and could have weaponized WMDs in months, and the faulty inspection process was undermining our allies and allowing the summer heat to jeopardize operations. We feared that if we didn't move then, we would have needed to wait 8 months, at which point we would have had troops in Kuwait and other Arab nations for nearly a near, destabalizing the regimes. Had we known that Saddam wasn't going to get WMDs until 1-2 years after France and Germany successfully undermined sanctions, we would still have wanted to remove Saddam, but might have used our military operations against other dangers in the area first."
If he said THAT, Kerry would say, "See, the Administration lied about the justification, have been lying for months, and are continuing to lie for you. Your sons and daughters died for a mistake."
As a result, no one acknowledges errors, that just quietly adjust policy and deny mistakes.
Alex
I guess it will die because you say so...
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Will VoIP Kill the PBX?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I use my copier multiple times a week, we keep paper records for anything financial.
I use my fax ALL the time, because if I need to send a physical document to someone, EVERYONE has a fax machine. If they have a fax server, than they get it electronically.
My phone system CANNOT go down. If a server goes down, people get coffee and get back to work, plus their already open documents are fine and they can save locally until it comes back up. If the phone system goes down, no sales are taking place.
The sales guys that bring in the money into the company aren't going to tolerate ANYTHING but reliable telephony. However, the "vritual PBXes" give the appearance of hardware, the flexibility of software, and a roll-out in the middle.
I can upgrade my Ethernet-based PBX with a few hundred software upgrade when I want new features. It's better than a hardware roll-out, but ultimately, it uses dedicated hardware for interfacing with the world.
We use 3Com's NBX system for our small business. The convenience of a PBX, with the convenience of running over Ethernet and/or IP and configuration via web browser. That meant no independant telephony guys, just building the system and configuring it.
There are VoIP gateways, but to be honest, we just have one location go out of PSTN and another over a T1, it wasn't worth going through the headaches, but for a larger company, it is. However, we can tie together over our VPN the two systems, so inter-office calls go over IP, not the phone system.
As the PBXes are being interfaced via computer, there is no need to have the telephony guys in their own world.
Sorry, I'm not an accountant, I was trying to illustrate a point.
What he was advocating was essentially capitalizing an expense, which wouldn't be revnues, but would decrease expenses, which would hit the income statement, and the amortized amount would be less than 1m.:)
Yes I enjoy nitpicking...:)
The point remains, his comment just showed a lack of understanding, MAJORLY.
Do things like that generate good will for Google, absolutely. Do they hit the financials as he was stating? Absolutely not.
The posters point was that these things show up on financials, my point is that they don't.
Alex
None of that shows up on a balance sheet
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The Google News Dilemma
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· Score: 4, Informative
No they do not.
Good Will on a Balance Sheet is the "excess" paid for a company when the acquisition is accounted for using the Purchase Method (the only one now allowed). You take all the acquired company's assets, price them to "fair market value" and make them assets on your book, then whatever premium you paid is "good will." You used to have to amortize Good Will over 40 years (because it isn't real), but now you get to keep it as "brand value" or whatever, and if it ever becomes worth less, you can write it down then.
HOWEVER, developing your own brand value, you can't put that on the balance sheet because how would you value it? Do you think that Google can just say, hmm, Google News is really cool, let's add another $10m this quarter to the good will account. Lookie here, $10m in revenue because we increased this asset?
Before stating that things show up somewhere in financials and give armchair advice, you might want to research what they are.
Good Will on a balance sheet is VERY DIFFERENT from what Good Will is in conventional thought.
There are ways to do SSL over Kerberos (i.e. using Kerberos to verify the entities and setup the SSL connection)... GPG give syou end-to-end encryption, but authentication is only as good as your way of getting people's public key.
Jabber DOES SSL, Apple's Jabber is Kerberized... I'm going to do some guessing...
BTW: GPG client->client does prevent the server from getting the message, which solves that problem. However, we both need to talk to a server to find each other, and a way to authenticate ourselves to that server...
And Kerberos is a great way to do that...
Enthusiasts want to push the processing and structure to their home machines for ultimate control. Those of us making business decisions want EVERYTHING on the servers that we keep an eye on, not the end user machines that we try to lock down and get complains and have to unlock them.
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He was forced to leave because otherwise they would have had to deal with the corruption issue.
Gay, straight, married, single, don't put you illicit lover on the state payroll, especially for a job that they are LEGALLY unqualified for (didn't have the clearance for the position).
The only one talking about the gay thing was him who wanted to be a martyr while coming out of the closet with his wife standing next to him.
The Governor of New Jersey wasn't ousted for his sexual orientation, but rather for behavior related to his sexual choices.
With respect to the presidents issue, etc.
We have relative equality at this point, but things take time.
To have a non-White, non-Christian male president, you need to have someone who was born in the post-Civil Rights, era, who had "relative" equality their whole life.... or all those people are at a disadvantage. To really have a chance, you need two generations of that, because the most significant indicators for success in life are thing like your intelligence, your education, and your parents education.
Once you clean up the legal system, it takes time to flow throughout society.
Look, I had an all-Compaq shop pre-HP/Compaq merger. I hated Dell because I found their support lacking and loved Compaq, but I LOATHED HP gear. What did I do during the merger? Well, I was so distraught with our options in Windows land, that we finally started experimenting with Mac desktops and other options and made changes.
/Network/Applications, which Panther broke, and now each desktop has their own browser. We're now considering Firefox.
It wasn't dumb, it wasn't short sighted, my vendor was going through an upheavel and I didn't know what to do, so it was time to evaluate everything.
If I adopt Firefox (which I'm currently considering) then I need to migrate everyone's bookmarks over. I also need to believe that Firefox will be supported. We originally adopted Apple's Safari browser because it was easy to install in
HOWEVER, if I don't know what is going to go on in Mozilla land, and suddenly I may have no upgrade OR migration path, that is a problem, and I need to know that I will have a browser with bug fixes that makes sense.
Forget paid vs. free support, I need to know that I won't be left high and dry with an out of date browser, intranet apps that take advantage of features in one that aren't in the other, and then be abadonned by someone turning 16, discovering girls, and losing interest in supporting their projects.
Alex
I dunno, talk to members of the Jewish diaspora that aren't Orthodox and are under 60, and you'd be shocked at the utter lack of support for the state of Israel. It is definitely higher than the atheists that they share their other political beliefs with, but it isn't that pro-Israel...
The American "Christian Zionists" seem to be much more pro-Israel than any other group...
Not happy about it, just observing it...
Alex
Quite frankly, this is absurd. Our school system is absolutely out of control.
The "top students" are held back by a school system designed to create factory workers, a system that doesn't foster creativity. All these absurd feel good plans about improving the performance at the bottom seem to be implemented by holding back the top. Our TOP STUDENTS need to be supported. The future Researchers, Engineers, and Captains of Industry are taken from the people that excel in various areas, those people need to be enabled to achieve, not thrown into an environment where they tend to engage in self destructive behavior that is counter productivity.
After that top 1%, the next 49% need to get a decent well-rounded education that prepares them for college life. They need to learn the skills needed for their middle-class life in suburbia that they are heading towards. They will have a house, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a steady job. Right now, those people tend to NOT be the next 49%, but rather, the children of the previous middle-class... NOT BECAUSE OF SYSTEMATIC RACISM or other stuppid liberal dogma, but BECAUSE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN BROKEN SINCE WWII. We have been shuffling people through an absurd system that was broken with the GI Bill and lots of people randomly going to college. Whoever took advantage of the broken post-WWII situation has set up their family for 3 generations, because the school system DOESN'T give you the skills you need, you get those from your parents who have been playing the game for generations.
With a proper school system, perhaps instead of the next 49% being send to the middle class, we can get that to 59% or 69% and expand the middle class.
The next big chunk, all but the bottom 5-10% should receive basic life skills and knowledge that lets them join society, while encouraging them to learn a skilled trade. Plumbers and Electricians do FINE financially, better than many college graduates. Those are SKILLED positions that aren't being outsourced, and people that aren't made for the office park should be encouraged to become skilled labourers.
As far as the bottom? They should learn whatever life skills we can give them, hopefully a value system that encourages non-criminal behavior, and hope to get them basic skills and that things work out. These PEOPLE WILL NOT have a good life in ANY system, but we shouldn't give them diplomas when they can't read. ALL THAT THAT DOES is devalue the high school diploma.
What hurts your people that SHOULD go to college but can't afford it is the social promotion designed to help them. We have RADICALLY devalued a high school diploma by handing them out to everyone (same thing with a AA/BA), and screwed these people. Let the botom-run drop out, and the next rung be allowed to enter the world with a high school diploma, instead of requiring college for anything in the middle class.
Alex
How much could they lose in the lawsuit...
All their illgotten gains, plus damages... depending on state law, triple damages isn't unheard of.
You cannot do something blatantly against a contract because the lawsuit will collect less.
Alex
Geeze... SSN can be used to steal your identity, EIN is harmless, just linked for 1099s. If you want a new one, the IRS will give it to you.
If you are a sole proprietor (not an LLC), you can still get an EIN.
You go to IRS.gov and fill out the form. It's web based now (last few years), takes about 15 minutes to fill out, and you get an EIN immediately.
There is no reason to EVER give out your SSN except for a W-2 job, if its a 1099, just give your EIN.
Alex
Its not that silly... My wife uses her iBook in the Kitchen to pull up recipes when cooking, which isn't that absurd. I really want one of the flat panel machines for that purpose. However, I really don't want a Windows machine to maintain, and Linux still isn't the most userfriendly, but I'm considering it, but a Mac Mini with a small screen... tempting...
Alex
Look, kids right out of undergraduate engineering don't have the experience to ship products beyond small little apps (which may be worth a lot financially, but technically impressive stuff requires experience). Managers straight out of MBA programs don't have the ability to be senior managers. Newsflash: school is phenominal and teaches you concepts, experience seasons you.
Look, I know plenty of brilliant self taught programmers. They slam out code fast as hell. However, they often make basic mistakes that create maintenance problems that they would have learned with a basic CompSci education (note: dropping out of school having finished most of a CS degree isn't self taught, neither is reading through CompSci text books, if you picked up the theory in a formal matter, you got the knowledge).
I have a S.B. in Comp Sci from a decent school. Without experience, I couldn't program, and as I manage more than program, I don't have the experience. Yet with that basic grasp of the theory, I can often catch basic mistakes in the design phase. So the education was worthwhile, but experience is important.
I am in an MBA program right now. Its a survey program, I study a little economics, a little management theory, a little accounting, a little finance, etc., etc., basically the basics of the theory of business. Without years of business experience, the coursework would make no sense, and learning how to apply it professionally is ALSO a challenge.
But guess what, having studied the basics of managerial techniques, I stopped making the BASIC mistakes that the literature catches. I also understand numbers that come out of a ledger now.
Could I audit a Fortune 500? Absolutely not. Can I read their financials and understand where the numbers come from? Decently. However, if I wanted to be a stock analyst that was good, I'd need a LOT more EXPERIENCE than the education gives me.
Knocking MBAs for not being business geniuses is like knocking 22 year old CS graduates for not being able to knock out an office suite. Knowledge is the building block.
Guess what, I'd take a guy with 10 years experience over a recent MBA any day of the week. However, want to bet that in 3 years the MBA w/ 3 years post-MBA experience has gained more than the guy with 13 years and no MBA?
Alex
The US has NEVER defaulted on a debt payment (post Civil War, might have during that). One of the smart things Clinton did during the government shut-down was violate all sorts of government accounting rules to get the debt payments out.
As a result, US Debt is considered 0-risk. It is the ONLY debt instrument in the world that is considered zero risk. Even other government debt has a small implicit risk premium in it.
Right now, the US raises money at no risk premium. If the US defaulted or increased the money supply (which would cause massive inflation and force the markets to devalue its currency... devaluation as policy requires a peg, normally to the dollar), the would cause the US to start paying a risk premium.
All of a sudden, you would have 10%-15% inflation from oversupply of money, and the US risk premium going up to 5%, for example, and now government bonds pay 15%-20%... How much do you think that your mortgage needs to be now? 25%, 30%?
Basically, the US CAN get out of its mess with massive printing of money, but the results would be catastrophic.
HOWEVER, your comment about the bank is 100% on, and I believe it is the current financial strategy. Continue to buy products from China for "worthless" sheets of paper (paying 4%-4.25% interest), then slowly increase the money supply and inflation to 4.5% or 5%, and inflate your way out of the mess. All of a sudden, the money is devaluing faster than your interest payments, tax revenues go up, and debt repayment is less painful.
Many countries played games like this, but it is normally to buy capital goods and other means of production... we've used it for consumer spending, which is why we may be in a bind.
Mild inflation is nice, but reasonable (5%) inflation) wouldn't kill us, and might be a way out of our mess.
Alex
1. Increase "hourly" rate, 30% should do it to cover taxes, etc.
2. Hop on your wife's health insurance. I did that after I got married, and my business has employees with a generous health package (I pay 100% because I don't want to track contributions/opt-outs)... it was much nicer to have her company pick up half... Otherwise, find a local coop.
3. Retirement planning. 1st, Max our the Roth IRA, if elligable. Then, incorporate yourself as an S-corp, no tax implication, but it's slightly cleaner than a sole propreitorship. Then do any of the retirement plans that interest you, SEP-IRA, SIMPLE, Keogh, Profit-Sharing...
4. Learn some basic accounting, and find a CPA that will cheaply set things up for you. I skipped that, cost me a few thousand dollars and LOTS of headache to compensate for saving $250 upfront.
It's a great option, if the pay works out. Also, if you can get some of the work to be remote (which they technically HAVE to allow as a contractor, there are IRS rules for who can be a contractor), you can always later hire someone to do it. I.e. if you only have to be onsight 2 days/week, you could eventually raise your rate sufficient to hire someone to do the job and land a second gig...
Work one location M/W, another T/Th, and keep Fridays for bookkeeping.
In that scenario, you spend all your office time with "face time" and working on extending/enhancing the contract, and have your employee do the projects. Just email them the assignments and back to networking...
Just a few thoughts...
Alex
A long running belief has been the turnout favors the Democrats. The UNWRITTEN part of the piece of convention wisdom is the implication "The overwhelming majority of Americans like the Democrats, but the GOP wins because their people count for more because they show up." This piece of CW undermines the GOP and enhancing the Democrats (the point of it), by stating that EVEN though the GOP tends to win the Presidential Election (where people tend to consider candidates more than incumbancy+party), there is no mandate because they only win from turnout.
The BIGGEST gain that Bush made for the GOP was in a HUGE turnout, he won, and won by a decent margin for a close election. (Yes the electoral college chooses the presidency, which is important for close elections like 2000, in general the "election margin" is the popular vote, not the electoral one.
By winning with a high turn-out, Bush has served to validate the legitimacy of the GOP and their winning of elections. The "turn-out myth" has left the Democrats holding decreasing amounts of power for 10 years while claiming to be the party of the people, which kept the Republicans from advancing major change (they never seemed to realize that they are in the majority).
More than ANYTHING ELSE, this is Bush's mandate, high turnout got him elected. And with this, Bush can attempt to undo all the New Deal -> Great Society initiatives he wants, safe and secure in the knowledge that it isn't going to awaken the secret Democrat majority.
Alex
Weekend polls trend democrat. Weekend days TEND to be ignored in tracking polls. However, we vote on a Tuesday, so to "capture" the final weekend, the tracking polls are used that include the weekend.
This results in a democratic leaning sample.
Further, Kerry's surprise endorsement on that Friday MADE them WANT to use the weekend to capture what happened, so bad polls were used.
In other words, the polls going into the final week showed Bush winning, weekend tracking polls and the morning exit polls showed Kerry, but the final totals were more reflective of general trends.
Alex
Remember, AOL has a HUGE dial-up play, as they also bought Compuserve a few years ago. They now have a low-end Netzero competitor Netscape Dial-up to compete in the low end (they have phone access numbers everywhere, why not differentiate with AOL Service and other packages).
Every ISP ships a "browser" that is normally a rebranded IE. Why wouldn't AOL ship a Netscape browser for Netscape service?
Any additional roll-out is a bonus.
Alex
You have an interesting definition of open source community. I wouldn't call the people that were working on Mozilla during the rewrite the "open source community," but that is definitional I suppose.
I normally refer to the employees of a company as employees, but if you like your "touchy feely name," go for it.
Netscape opened the Mozilla source code. Netscape supplied almost ALL the programmers. The fact that they licensed it under generous terms HARDLY lets the "community" get credit for it.
Alex
I did...
They seem to busy wallowing in self-pity to figure out how to hit a kick ass market.
Every other web service system is slow and annoying... Konfabulator is FAST...
But why hit a kickass market when you can complain that Apple copied you.
I'm not going to buy a third-party version of a built in utility that will take advantage of Apple's system improvements... but I would by an Enterprise-ready cross-platform Web Services platform... but I NEED to be able to roll out Widgets from the server.
Alex
I wanted to use Konfabulator for my Intranet stuff. Basically, instead of manually consolidating information from all my servers, I was going to add REAL simple reporting scripts that could be accesseed via Konfabulator, and let everyone on my network access them.
/Library, /System/Library, and /Network/Library... Konfabulator will ONLY use the ~/Library, where it SHOULD go ~/Library (User based), /Library (Computer Based), /Network/Library (network based), and support there had no interest in that feature.
/Library/Preferences/edu.mit.kerberos (instead of /etc/krb5.conf), but they are pulled out of the LDAP cn=config group and rewritten if changed and the local machine had an unedited file...
HOWEVER, the Konfabulator guys have made it a User based system (in OS X, settings are stored in "Library," and you have a ~/Library,
If you had a cross platform (do the Windows port in Qt and you have a free Linux port), and you have a GREAT system for Enterprise customers that want something like Widgets to get information available to users without running a complicated Intranet. And for me, add Kerberos support to your fetching code and it works with my Single-sign on environment... Do that, and you are also selling site licenses, as well as your personal users.
However, for that, you need to run cross platform, which is entirely possible. Hell, if you don;t want to search the libraries, than do what Apple does with Kerberos settings... they write them to a file
Give a reason for Enterprise groups to think that you can make their lives easier, and you get bigger sales.
Alex
No Free Press?
20 years ago, there were three television networks, now their are six including 4 majors.
10 years ago there was CNN.
Now there is CNN, MSNBC, and Fox NEws channel.
10 years ago there were Newspapers, Magazines, and Television.
Now, add the Internet.
I really don't see where all this doom-and-gloom is coming from.
Life is getting better. Computers get faster. We buy stuff cheaper because the Internet makes it possible to get lots of stuff from everywhere.
I don't get it, there are more and more exciting new things. 5 years ago, ecommerce was the bastion of a few. Now, people earn their livings buying and selling on eBay.
So many new opportunities, low interest rates make home ownership affordable, you can invest small amounts of money and build a retirement fund.
I don't get it. Things are happening everywhere, and y'all find stuff to whine about.
"off shoring" waah waah waah
Whatever, we import goods and services, we export goods and services. When we import from a cheaper source, it keeps inflation down.
Do you realize for the past year or two you could get 30 year mortgages for less than 6%? The Fed's overnight rate was BELOW the rate of inflation, and inflation didn't spiral out of control because of those cheap imports.
Life is good and getting better. Sure their are challenges, but you pull yourself up and muddle through. It's never been easier to start a small business, the Internet makes it possible to sell stuff all over the place.
Alex
There is lies the problem. The market is a funny thing, aligning interests in fair compensation. Granted, some of the skilled "surplus money" is really because of government regulation requiring licenses...
However, why is it automatic that the guy that sits at a desk designing circuits is worth more than the guy dealing with potentially dangerous amounts of voltage in old walls or a construction site?
You should make more because you have a 4 year degree and possibly a Masters?
What makes you so valuable?
So a guy in his 50s should make more money because he spent four years drinking and studying a little in college?
People with rare skills will be compensated for them.
Most engineering positions don't require rare skills.
More importantly, for skilled labor, the market is SMALL, figuring a 50 mile radius. For white collar office jobs, the market is global, and competition is fiercest.
One of the biggest problem we have in this country is that our universities feed off the public trough, paying professors to feed gibberish that makes people feel special for going to school there.
The cushy middleclass was a SHORT TERM result of certain changes, and a lot of assumptions that college -> wealth, because pre-Baby Boomers, the rich went to college.
I have no problem with electricians or others make more money than I do. I do what I think I am best at, and run with it. Create value, claim your piece of it. Don't believe that you are entitled to money because of your education, its the skills that you bring to the table and your ability to negotiate your piece that you and your family depend on.
Alex
My wife is in an accounting program to become a CPA. To maintain her certification once she has it, she needs to do "continuing" education.
.Net course wouldn't be a bad idea.
If someone lost their job and can't get a new one, a few courses in one semester to gain new skills may not be a bad idea.
Look, my undergrad is CS, I can pick up a new language in a second, no question. But if I was looking for work as and people wanted Java/.Net experience, and I couldn't land a job, going to a community college for 3 months to take a Java course and a
It's NOT about getting an AA, or a BS, the world is a market economy, and you need to market yourself. If the lack of experience with a language hurts, then instead of sitting home and doing nothing, gain new skills.
The other poster mentioned that his wife has been out of work for 3 years.... While it is TRUE that most of what goes on in the business world is 30 year old computer science, doesn't change the fact that when I'm interviewing, a PhD out of work for 3 years with a chip on her shoulder wouldn't get the job, even over someone right out of school. It's about the attitude.
I'm MUCH more impressed with someone that sucks it up and takes a job "beneath" them and goes to night school to brush up on skills than someone with a PhD that thinks jobs or continuing education is beneath them.
Everyone needs to gain new skills constantly. Community Colleges are a PERFECT place to offer "vocational" classes for out of work professionals. Look, 4 year schools teaching CS are going to teach concepts, but if you work in one place for 10 years, you may miss out on what is going on in the business world. Community Colleges don't have the powerful, entrenched, academic elitsts running the show.
The junior Senator from Massachusetts DOESN'T have a plan, he has a litany of complaints. As do the posters here.
The people that moved on generally thought "this was retarded behavior, why is he a jackass attacking people for acusing him." He accepted his responsibility, and people thought "that was retarded behavior, he knows it was retarded, let's go celebrate the high earnings from Enron and Worldcom and spend out paper profits on bigger houses." :) Some tongue in cheek comments in there.
However, ANY time this administration (or any administration) comes out and says anything was done wrong, by anyone, the other site JUMPS on it, and the MEDIA jumps on it.
Look at the accounting scandels. These things blew up, restating earnings back to 2000 (when Clinton was in office) and some into 2001 (before Bush's people were everywhere), and got caught. All of a sudden, the Democrats went on the ATTACK for the corporate friends of the administration.
When anything wrong happens, if the White House orders and investigation, the media and Democrats jump on it.
How do you expect anyone to admit a mistake when it becomes a point of attack.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said, "Based on our intelligence, we believed that Saddam was a grave threat and could have weaponized WMDs in months, and the faulty inspection process was undermining our allies and allowing the summer heat to jeopardize operations. We feared that if we didn't move then, we would have needed to wait 8 months, at which point we would have had troops in Kuwait and other Arab nations for nearly a near, destabalizing the regimes. Had we known that Saddam wasn't going to get WMDs until 1-2 years after France and Germany successfully undermined sanctions, we would still have wanted to remove Saddam, but might have used our military operations against other dangers in the area first."
If he said THAT, Kerry would say, "See, the Administration lied about the justification, have been lying for months, and are continuing to lie for you. Your sons and daughters died for a mistake."
As a result, no one acknowledges errors, that just quietly adjust policy and deny mistakes.
Alex
I use my copier multiple times a week, we keep paper records for anything financial.
I use my fax ALL the time, because if I need to send a physical document to someone, EVERYONE has a fax machine. If they have a fax server, than they get it electronically.
My phone system CANNOT go down. If a server goes down, people get coffee and get back to work, plus their already open documents are fine and they can save locally until it comes back up. If the phone system goes down, no sales are taking place.
The sales guys that bring in the money into the company aren't going to tolerate ANYTHING but reliable telephony. However, the "vritual PBXes" give the appearance of hardware, the flexibility of software, and a roll-out in the middle.
I can upgrade my Ethernet-based PBX with a few hundred software upgrade when I want new features. It's better than a hardware roll-out, but ultimately, it uses dedicated hardware for interfacing with the world.
Alex
We use 3Com's NBX system for our small business. The convenience of a PBX, with the convenience of running over Ethernet and/or IP and configuration via web browser. That meant no independant telephony guys, just building the system and configuring it.
There are VoIP gateways, but to be honest, we just have one location go out of PSTN and another over a T1, it wasn't worth going through the headaches, but for a larger company, it is. However, we can tie together over our VPN the two systems, so inter-office calls go over IP, not the phone system.
As the PBXes are being interfaced via computer, there is no need to have the telephony guys in their own world.
Alex
Sorry, I'm not an accountant, I was trying to illustrate a point.
:)
:)
What he was advocating was essentially capitalizing an expense, which wouldn't be revnues, but would decrease expenses, which would hit the income statement, and the amortized amount would be less than 1m.
Yes I enjoy nitpicking...
The point remains, his comment just showed a lack of understanding, MAJORLY.
Do things like that generate good will for Google, absolutely.
Do they hit the financials as he was stating? Absolutely not.
The posters point was that these things show up on financials, my point is that they don't.
Alex
No they do not.
Good Will on a Balance Sheet is the "excess" paid for a company when the acquisition is accounted for using the Purchase Method (the only one now allowed). You take all the acquired company's assets, price them to "fair market value" and make them assets on your book, then whatever premium you paid is "good will." You used to have to amortize Good Will over 40 years (because it isn't real), but now you get to keep it as "brand value" or whatever, and if it ever becomes worth less, you can write it down then.
HOWEVER, developing your own brand value, you can't put that on the balance sheet because how would you value it? Do you think that Google can just say, hmm, Google News is really cool, let's add another $10m this quarter to the good will account. Lookie here, $10m in revenue because we increased this asset?
Before stating that things show up somewhere in financials and give armchair advice, you might want to research what they are.
Good Will on a balance sheet is VERY DIFFERENT from what Good Will is in conventional thought.
Alex
There are ways to do SSL over Kerberos (i.e. using Kerberos to verify the entities and setup the SSL connection)... GPG give syou end-to-end encryption, but authentication is only as good as your way of getting people's public key.
Jabber DOES SSL, Apple's Jabber is Kerberized... I'm going to do some guessing...
BTW: GPG client->client does prevent the server from getting the message, which solves that problem. However, we both need to talk to a server to find each other, and a way to authenticate ourselves to that server...
And Kerberos is a great way to do that...
Enthusiasts want to push the processing and structure to their home machines for ultimate control. Those of us making business decisions want EVERYTHING on the servers that we keep an eye on, not the end user machines that we try to lock down and get complains and have to unlock them.
Alex