The thing I would like to know is in actual fact how much is deductible from your taxes.
Well, I don't think it exists anymore, but if it were like all other non-refundable tax credits, probably the lowest marginal tax rate multiplied by the amount paid.
So, if you were paying 25% federally, and 18% provincially, you'd get bach 17% federally and 3% provincially, or some such. And that assumes it was deductable at 100%. I've heard it was deductable at 10% and was to increas 10% over time until it reached 50%. And, there was a cap.
It really was peanuts compared to the cost of the private education.
In contrast, parents with a kid in public school are paying their taxes as normal, which would be only a fraction of the cost of the education
And there's the rub.
Many parents have kids in public schools, and pay far more in the portion of their income tax earmarked for education, than the cost of that education.
Note, I wrote "far more". Not an amount that would include a 10% or 15% subsidy for the poor.
What I'm objecting to, and what you and most everybody else is ignoring/missing, is that parents who send their kids to private schools get their taxes refunded. Why? How is that fair? Those kids are still perfectly eligible for the public system, but the (rich) parents want little Billy to have an "elite" education. Public school's not good enough for little Billy. They want him to go to private school.
Several reasons.
1. Little Billy removes overcrowding in the public schools. His absense improves that system and yet, because he still gets an education, he is not becomming an undeducated future burden on society.
2. Little Billy, with his supposedly "elite" education, can be expected to earn more and this be taxed more than the average Canadian. His "elite" education will produce precisely those people who are productive to carry the burden for those who aren't.
3. Even if Littly Billy grows up to be Big Bill, and has kids of his own, and sends them to a private school and gets refunds for all of them, this is likely a very small effect on the taxes he pays.
The real losers here are the middle class, who want a better education for their children (and, indirectly, by removing them from the public school system, relieving overcrowding), and who can't because of the high taxes they already pay.
If Mom (or Dad) stays home to raise the kids, while Dad (or Mom) goes to work, they are not rewarded for relieving pressure for subsidized day care. Instead, Dad (or Mom) get's taxed as a single, with a token tax credit at the lowest marginal tax rate of some $7500 for supporting a spouse. One can't file jointly in Canada.
The public schools are absolutely awful. In the year that my daughter attended a public school in Ontario, we had to remove her because of sanctioned physical abuse she suffered after it was learned she lived in the U.S., and found that no public school had a caffeteria where children could purchase a hot lunch -- there being no caffeterias or dual duty gyms/cafeterias. Children had to eat cold sandwiches in their classrooms. The reason we learned was that having a mechanism where kids could purchase meals was "unfair" to those that could not. This despite the fact that the competition between catering companies to supply school lunch programs in the U.S. is so fierce that much of the economies of scale trickle down to discounted meals -- I can't feed my kid at the price she pays to eat lunch in school.
Canadians, increasingly, are getting fed up at the outragous taxes they pay, for poor services.
No one minds subsidizing the truely needy. But when a large percentage of that subsidy ends up feeding not the needy, but the state bureaucratic apparatus, something is very wrong: Just look at the percentage of people employed in the public service in Canada. It's what, one out of seven, in the province of Quebec?
Our tax dollars were robbed, and the services they are supposed to pay for are abysmal.
Even the Supreme Court of Canada agrees that delay in getting health care justify seeking it privately (which is generally illegal in Canada, being "unfair" to those who can't afford it).
But the real telling measure is that (a) the very rich and (b) elected politicials who supposedly represent the substantially less rich masses are unaffected by all of this.
If any country needs a tax revolt, it is Canada.
What I wonder is this, if one starts, how many expats living in the U.S. will start to stream over the undefended Canadian borders, AR 15s in hand, to reclaim what was stolen from them?
How can they prove that you did not take them TO the U.S. in the first place?
Er, it's up to you to prove to the nice custom's inspector you took them out of Canada.
When one leaves Canada with personal belongings of significant value, like cameras, one fills out customs forms, with description and serial numbers, and gets a customs stamp on them, to prove they originated in Canada.
Last time I entered Canada, I almost got arrested for "inciting a riot" because of the NRA bumper stickers on my car that say "Freedom is not Free" and "Crime Control, not Gun Control".
Well, this Canadian prefers the U.S., warts, Bush, and all.
At least Bush, too, will, pass.
Can't say the same about attitudes in a place where most think it is O.K. that the government can prevent a person from paying a doctor to help them when they're sick, even when the Supreme Court says this is perfectly fine. Or a place where killing an armed intruder trying to rob your store gets you a murder charge that sticks.
I left Canada to find my fortune in the U.S. Just a somewhat lesser evil, tax-wise, perhaps, but "lesser" enough, to make my family and I leave so I can feed them with my earnings instead of a bunch of welfare lardasses and corrupt politicos.
Cherist, it got so bad in Canada, that we were vilified for spending our money after taxes if there
might be someone, somewhere, who could not afford to spend their earnings the same way. Hire a kid to mow
your lawn in Whitby, ON, and you might just find your neighbors trying to lynch you for engaging in "slave
labour of the youth".
My parents came to Canada poor as shit, losing everything to communists in easternb Europe, when there was
no social safety net, and still managed to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, only to be once
again robbed.
Socialists and communists everywhere are a parasite on society and need to be eradicated.
Either fuckoff trying to take our rights away, or do away with this stupid tax!
So, throw the thieving bastards out of power. Get a million people to protest and storm the Commons, and I'm with you.
I had tried to fight the corruption politically, and found that the most effective things to do was to leave, and stop funding the thieves via my income, goods, and service taxes. I find I have far more to contribute to real charitable causes this way.
But, what can you say about the citizens of country who accept a constitution that lets the government overrule the courts? Homilies about, "Oh, they would never abuse the power," and such.
Lemme tell you something buddy, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You've got an insanity where it is illegal for a sick person to contract with a doctor to help them. (Except, of course, for my son, who is an American, and is allowed to pay for service. "Nyeah, nyeah, indeed.") Because this is "unfair" to those citizens who can't afford it. Hello? What part of "having paid one's fair share of taxes" to support the poor and other "worthy" social causes have made it wrong to spend one's post-tax earnings, in the way one sees fit?
Clearly, the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed.
So, you'd think that sanity would prevail.
But, no, The Quebec government trots out the "Nothwithstanding Clause" as some sort of "nyeah, nyeah, NYEAH, nyeah".
Canadian socialists (communists is a more fitting term since they try to redirect all earnings by restricting what one can do with post-tax money) deserve to be made to pay for their thievery and the suffering they have inflicted on those that actually work and have carried the rest for decades.
I said it's un ethical to just create another download site that's pay rather than link to a site that gives it away for free.
I'm with you on charging for burning to CD-ROM for people who don't have fast internet I have sold and do currently sell CD-ROMs of Linux distros, I just don't think it'd be right to set up a paypal shopping cart on my website to allow access to download something that people could download from the original site for free.
I think you're arguing that taking advantage of someone's ignorance is wrong, and while that may be true, taking the time to explain where and how to get something you got for free costs, well, your time.
Even if I agree with that, I don't think it's illegal or that it should be. Clearly, anyone who obtains a firefox CD at a price suggesting that their ignorance was taken advantage of, would clearly cry "unfair", thus soiling the reputation of the merchant, and his business will quickly dry up.
IOW, the "lack of ethics" of which you speak is self-correcting when it comes to the ignorant masses that would otherwise be relieved of their coin. I think that's good enough.
Now that you put it that way, as a libertarian, I've always opposed prohibitions against prostitution and public female nudity.
Of course, with my luck, and the gender non-discrimination laws, I'd likely face rampaging horde of severely obese naked male hookers all named Bubba, if such prohibitions were ever reversed. The thought that I could probably outrun them with success is little comfort after that mental image crossed my conciousness (a.k.a. goatse effect).
The interesting bit is the argument that such licenses will make it difficult to advise merchants and enforce the law.
Well, it's already hard to advise complience with laws, there being so damn many of them. Witness the thriving legal industry.
If she really felt that way, she should investigate libertarianism which advocates very few laws (non-initiation of force or fraud) and very little government (providing a dispute-settlement mechanism of last resort, protection from criminals, and being charged with defence from foreign invarers). Somehow, I don't think her sentiments lie in that direction though. She just wants her job to be easier.
Usually it's the other way around: to support a growing government, more laws are enacted and more legal complexity results requiring a growth of government in the areas of enforcement. An interesting symbiosis between politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers arises, as these groups all benefit. The complexities of free software licenses should be welcomed as increasing complexity.
I suspect though, that the real fear is that free software is becoming popular, and thus a threat to proprietaray alternatives. The evidence is that one can essentially take what is free, add modest value in the form of physical packaging, and still be profitable on the basis of volume. Two newpence a copy profit times a million copies equals twenty thousand pounds.
This isn't the first difficulty free software faces. Because the margins on added value are generally so slim (support contracts being an exception), the cost of legal complience in order to offer a good or service for sale can eat up a large part of that gross margin. Witness the implied warranty. If it can't be disclaimed, and the margins are thin, what merchant can afford the risk of non-fitness for use? They cynic in me says that implied warranties favour the larger merchants over the smaller ones more than they protect the consumer. Whatever happened to "caveat emptor"?
Free software is risky. You're on your own when it comes to evaluating it's suitability for your purposes. It isn't the investment in the capital good that is the issue -- it is the investment of one's time in performing the evaluation. Historically, users of free software were also producers of it (even if only for their own consumption), and their skills at evaluation were high and/or their time was inexpensive to them.
But now, we have a new class of user who is generally incapable of making expert evaluations and values their non-working time. Do we not need implied warranties to protect them?
I don't think so. I don't think we need implied warranties at all. The suitabily of products and the quality of services can be determined by (a) reputation and (b) review. Smart consumers already research what they purchase, in effect either doing research themselves, or relying on independent reviewers. Why should they also have to pay for the costs associated with merchants having to honour implied warranties? About the only argument that can be made in favour of implied warranties is they fill a role when independent reviewers do not yet exist, or a reputation has not yet been established.
But, there is a two-fold problem here: If reputation has not yet been established, and a market is too small to support independent reviewers, the overall risk to consumers is small simply by the sheer smallness of their number. IOW, it isn't a problem big enough for governent to get involved in. Furthermore, undue burdens such as implied warranties hinder growth of innovative new products and services because the overhead they represent is significant.
Clearly, established merchants and producers of proprietary software have a vested interest to hinder the spread of free software as much as possible, and will use any politically palitable argument to do so, including the call for legislation with which they can comply at little cost, but which proportionally far more burdensome
Oh sure, I can enter my contacts, and use voice recognition with a Bluetooth earbud to say "call home", but can I ask it to "say time"?
No.....
I have to grab the damn thing off my belt clip and look at it.
Damn idiots.
(And while it might be a clever hack to add a time service phone number called "time", that's a horribly inefficient waste of bandwidth just to avoid having to grab the phone).
I know of someone who got routinely pulled over for speeding, in a particular part of town that was impossible to avoid, from a practical standpoint (as in drive 50 miles out of your way aroind the town) when he wasn't. He fought some of the tickets, but the judge got so incensed that he'd order him to "pay the damn thing and don't waste the court's time or your money!" (fighting the ticket cost way more than the ticket, but it became a matter of principle).
This became so irritating, that he had one of his cars modified so it was physically impossible to go more than 5 mph under the speed limit in that area.
Sure, enough, he gets ticketed after about a month. He goes to court. The (same) judge gets real mad at seeing this "troublemaker" again. He presents his evidence, and reluctantly, the judge dismisses the case.
He then files suit against the officer, police department, and anyone else he can think to name, in a massive harassment suit.
He wins.
Of course, as these things go, the cop gets fired, a new one hired, and the corrupt department gets its fines... except from him. They know to leave him alone.
Ya know, I'm a foreigner in the U.S. working toward getting my green card. I have to keep my nose clean -- what might be a misdemeanor for a citizen can be a felony for me in an immigration court (there is a whole separate court system for non-citizens related to their immigration status), and that can get me deported. Why not extend the idea to law-enforcement officers, and politicians?
If I break the law, I get deported. Let Soviet Canuckistan deal with me.
If a citizen robs a store, he gets a fine and maybe jail time.
If a cop breakes the law, they get death.
If a politician breaks the law, they get a life of hard labor.
"But, then we'd have no cops or government!" I hear y'all cry.
No, we'd have honest cops, and honest government. Less of each, to be sure, but I rather think that would be a good thing.
First of all, if you did bother to moderate me "troll", then you voided that moderation by posting in this topic.
Perhaps he decided a response outweighed his mod?
Second of all, if you have used the "troll" moderation here ever, then you have partaken in an action that is strictly anti-democratic and overtly anti-American.
Not at all. One can always browse at -1 without too much inconvenience. The mob gets to vote, and we get to decide if we care how they do. Damn libertarian, if you ask me.
You must be new here, or you're one of the Neo-Grammar-Nazis, they are a bunch of pussies, I tell ya.
What part of "play the part of..." don't you understand?
Jeebus Krist, man! You can't tell the difference between playing a part (perhaps badly, on purpose) and being a differnt kind of "something"? I sure hope they don't let you code.
Perhaps the solution for software development is building a consistent core that just works and then plugging new modules into it...
Yes, but that takes time, and time spent is market window closing.
It's a fine approach when developing for one's self because the "market window" does not close (except if what you need suddenly becomes available elsewhere, in which case, you-the-customer doesn't care that you-the-developer was too late).
One would think that it is also fine when developing for a customer who's specific needs you know you don't quite know. After all, if you get the gist of what the customer wants, you can design a system that is tunable to the specifics as you determine what they are. The problem is that the further away from the specific scenarios you get for lack of effective communication, the more you have to generalize, and the longer it takes. One can build a wonderful framework, only to find no time to finish the "plugins".
So, there's a push to get the specs "perfect" up front, so such generalization isn't necessary.
Welllll now, that's a fool's errand, isn't it?
Perfect?
The more time you strive for perfection in specification (which you will never achieve, except in toy applications and fairy tails), the less time you have to generalize to provide wiggle room for imperfections, and you'll be right back to square one.
What really angers me about the neat little diagram is the "pipeline" approach with the programmer at the end: clearly, with all the "up front" effort, the programmer can't help but "get it right", and if not, it's the programmer's fault if the customer is unhappy. After all, we put all this "effort" up front.
Effort does not equal results.
The right approach is to engage the customer in the process, and not just some specification phase of an outdated waterfall model. Given the customer's stated requirements ("this way", "that way", and the most important, "I don't know yet") and the technical feedback ("easy", "hard", "impossible", "inconsistent", "yeah, we can make that easy to change"),
one can incrementally refine what one is doing, and chose the right mix of generalization and "setting in stone" to get the job done.
But, this requires ongoing translation between customers and engineers, not just some up-front "understanding" and "getting paid" by "artists" who then are absolved of all responsibility. For that to work would require technical staff to know all the questions they need answered in advance, and, even for us gods of tech, this is impossible.
In summary, if you ask us "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" (because, after great effort, you find that "life", "the universe", and "everything" matter most to your customer) don't be surprised if we say "42" (and we can answer only because we heard the question from a previous customer).
And, you know, this "over"generalization does pay off, in the end. It's called GNU/Hurd. It'll just take another ten million years to finish. Interim work does look promising, though.
I just don't get uber-powerful media center PCs that have fans, and are therefore not silent.
I can understand the need for lots of processing power, disk I/O bandwidth, and fast drives (distinguishing between disk peak and sustained transfer rates), and that this generally results in extensive heat production, and thus the need for cooling.
But, such a device really belongs in a separate room -- a geek would put one in his server rack.
It might be convenient that it could also provide a convenient UI, with TV output, rather like a TV studio feed monitor, but it's not the sort of thing I want in my media room because of the noise. I'd only accept it if I was desperate and couldn't also afford a front end unit, charged solely with display.
The problem is that everyone focuses on the processor-intensive backend functionality, and does not produce a seperate frontend unit.
MythTV addresses this very issue architecturally, but trying to build a silent Myth frontend remains difficult: MPEG2 decoding, particularly at HD resolutions taxes the CPU, and H/W MPEG2 decoders generally lack Linux support usually due to the absense of documentation without NDA. An exception to this is the work poineerd by David George and later taken up by Ivor Hewett of the OpenChrome project.
OpenChrome serves as a fork of unichrome development for the Via Unichrome® CLE266 and Unichrome Pro® CN400 northbidges: the CLE266 contains a "crippled" MPEG2 decoder that is good to SD resolutions, and the CN400 contains an MPEG2 decoder good to HD resolutions (and a bit beyond) and an MPEG4 "accellerator". Readers will recall that the original unichrome drivers were based on reverse engineering of Via's binary-only drivers. I'm not certain, but I think that Via finally opened their own drivers, with the exception of MPEG2 and MPEG4 hooks. These drivers replaced the reverse engineered unichrome drivers, which now lack any MPEG2 or MPEG4 support... except for Ivor's Openchrome work.
The practical upshot of all this is that one can obtain low power Eden C3 CPUs on motherboards with CN400 northbridges that require little (one fansink putting out 14 to 20 dBa of noise on the 1.0 GHz nanoITX board) or no (800 MHz nanoITX) board. The CN400 is also available on some Socket370 motherboards (made known to me thanks to a long thread here with one "evilpiper"), so that one could use a fanless P III or C3 CPU if one wanted.
To be fair, "networked" DVD players exist which can do the same thing, but (a) they all rely on a UPnP host (I'm not sure of the state of UPnP support on Linux), (b) aren't as flexible as a MythTV frontend, and (c) probably won't render anything better than 480p without all sorts of DRM.
So, when I see the latest "media PC" article describing some uberpowerful system with a zillion (zillion, adj.: 1. many. 2. more than zero in the context of a media PC's fans) fans, I ask myself, "Yeah, but what about the silent part in the media room?"
I have CDs over 20 years old. It damn well was fair then to make backup copies when I licensed the content on them, and I damn well will.
Of course, with all the recent brouhaha of it arguably not being fair use anymore, I've generally stopped buying new retail CDs. I get most new CDs directly from independent artists.
A CPU socket is only a couple mm larger than the CPU itself. They omit a socket to save on cost, not size.
True, but the nanoBGA package is 15mm on a side. Socket 370 is HUGE, by comparison.
Yes, well, at this point we've established that there is a lot you don't know. Let's see. How about these:
Since (a) building this is a hobby, and (b) I did most of my net search last summer, it is quite possible that more boards became available, yes. The Commell LV-667 (if I remember the product number correctly) was available then, with a CN400, in a mini-ITX form factor, but a VT-1623 instead of a VT-1625, so I didn't pay attention if it was Socket-370.
The Socket 370 mini-ITX mobos are nice and flexible, but all the one's I've seen require a chassis with a fan, or those that have a CN400 are incompatible with fanless mini-ITX chassis that use a heatpipe.
In many cases, it (a) wasn't clear if fanless was an option, (b) manufacturers rarely return calls of people interested in building "one of-s" (understandably), and (c) I didn't have a research lab or the time to evaluate every possible candidate.
"I remain unconvinced that one can decode even just HD MPEG2 in S/W without an extremely power hungry CPU,"
Yes, well... If you're not prepared to believe me, and won't bother to do the slightest bit of research on your own, I can't possibly help you.
Research how? All the research I've read on Linux HTPCs included dire warnings about not being able to do HD MPEG2 decoding in software on anything resembling a fanless system. It is possible that that is incorrect, but untill I see someone describe the system they built, with evidence that it can do that, I will remain skeptical. It was a David George who first pointed out success on a Commell LV-667 using a CN400. But, his solution (a) was noisy, and (b) was limited to a VT-1623 instead of a VT-1625 TV encoder. That turned me on to a nano-ITX with a CN400, and VT-1625, particularly when the 1.0 GHz system was advertised as fanless. It isn't, sadly, but the 800 Mhz system is, and would likely be adequate.
Frankly, I'll probably build another machine if WMV 9 or H.264 content becomes all that prevelent. I figure it will take at leasrt a couple of years, and probably more before I can't get "ordinary" DVDs anymore.
I suppose it isn't quite fair of me to throw in the VT-1625 requirement at the last minute, but it was a tipping point. I just plain forgot about it. Whether the processor is socketed or not, on a cheap $400 mobo for an embedded system also wasn't an issue, yet you harp on it with regard to flexibility.
If you know so much about rendering video in fanless, or almost fanless systems, without relying on specialized hardware, or proprietary software, there's a world of Linux HTPC builders who are all ears.
The nanoITX motherboard takes a Eden processor in a soldered-in nanoBGA form factor. While the C3 might be available in a Socket 370 form factor, I know of no motherboards taking a Socket 370 CPU and offering a CN400 northbridge.
Later versions of the nanoITX motherboard have an integrated "coldLuke" package that combines the Eden processor with the CN400 northbridge.
I doubt one could make a nanoITX mobo with a Socket 370 socket -- it would take up far too much real estate, given that the nanoITX form factor is 12 cm. by 12 cm.
I take issue with this comment: Well, since the hottest and most important part, BY FAR, in any system is the CPU, that's exactly how you need to search for the most appropriate system, no matter what goal you have in-mind.
The most important bit is application performance per unit heat, in a fanless system. A wimpy CPU, with dedicated application-specific hardware, can be a better fit, than a powerful CPU without such hardware.
An earlier comment of yours complained that dedicated MPEG2 (and MPEG4) hardware does little for other codecs, and this is certainly true. There is an argument for using the most powerful procesor one can find, and engineering a fanless cooling system for it. However, (a) I remain unconvinced that one can decode even just HD MPEG2 in S/W without an extremely power hungry CPU, (b) other formats can be transcoded in backend machines, if necessary, (c) fanless cooling for power hungry CPUs gets very expensive, (d) there will always be some exotic codec for which the CPU will be inadequate in real time.
Given the push for cheap, quiet, set top boxes, I see compute-expensive codecs that gain popularity implemented in hardware at about the rate that consumers or cable TV providers are willing to swap said hardware. So, I'm not worried all that much about locking my mythfrontend to MPEG2 and MPEG4, and not being able to render HD WMV 9 or whatever. Frankly, the fact that it can hold 20 of my favorite DVDs and some 240 CDs and replace a big and heavy cabinet of same, is good enough for the next five years for me. HD isn't even a big requirement for me, but rather insurance for what I might wish it could render in the near future.
Or you can visit the ffmpeg/xine/mplayer project, and read the mailing lists to see what hardware others are using for HDTV playback.
I did.
That's where I got the notion that only a noisy 2.x GHz Intel or AMD proc, with all the associated cooling problems was the only S/W only solution for HD MPEG2 decoding. And H/W-assisted solutions were not supported by open source drivers, for which I had a preference.
I don't know what you're talking about, as far as "build a mobo".
I thought that would be obvious from context. If you throw a bunch of CPU part numbers and specs at me, it sure looks like you think I will build a system around a particular processor, that is, design and build the motherboard from scratch. I suppose I could google for motherboards with particularly interesting processors, but that strikes me as an ass-backwards way of finding an integrated, quiet, system capable of rendering HD MPEG2 video.
Instead, I googled for "slient H/W MPEG2" or some such, and found Via's offerings. I then found the hdmythtv.us site (which no longer exsts) which extolled a Via-based mini-ITX Commell board, employing a CN400.
You can just swap the CPU in your nanoITX if you like.
Are you sure? I know of no Intel or AMD chips in that form factor. Of course, that doesn't meean they don't exist. As you can tell, I don't follow every little CPU variant from the major manufacturers.
The bottom line is that the Via Eden processor with CN400 northbridge looked as the most likely capable of meeting my requirements, and it comes damn close. Even ignoring the nanoITX form-factor, and accepting a bigger mini-ITX or even micro-ATX form factor, all the other options that were easy to assemble involved systems requiring fans, some arguably quite noisy (by people who had done so); or expensive heatpipe solutions (I had actually considered a HushPC system at one point, until I read that even a speedy P4 could not decode HD MPEG2 in real time). Actual success reported with the CN400 on hdmythtv.us was the clincher for me to like the CN400 northbridge.
The system isn't quite as stable as I'd like -- I do see the occasional dropped frame. I'm told Via's binary drivers are better than Ivor Hewett's openchrome effort, but I prefer to support the open source effort. Then again, I haven't optimized the O/S: I slapped a full FC3 install on it, with all the default services, as a first try, to avoid dependency hell.
The bottom line was that reported real-time HD success on a CN400 in a mini-ITX board weighed far more heavily in my decision than anecdotes of what "should be" fast enough. As always, YMMV.
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Tell that to the Toronto shopkeeper who got jailed after shooting at three armed thieves, one of whom died by bleeding to death in an ally.
You got the name of the place wrong, it's "Soviet Canuckistan".
Well, I don't think it exists anymore, but if it were like all other non-refundable tax credits, probably the lowest marginal tax rate multiplied by the amount paid.
So, if you were paying 25% federally, and 18% provincially, you'd get bach 17% federally and 3% provincially, or some such. And that assumes it was deductable at 100%. I've heard it was deductable at 10% and was to increas 10% over time until it reached 50%. And, there was a cap.
It really was peanuts compared to the cost of the private education.
And there's the rub.
Many parents have kids in public schools, and pay far more in the portion of their income tax earmarked for education, than the cost of that education.
Note, I wrote "far more". Not an amount that would include a 10% or 15% subsidy for the poor.
Several reasons.
1. Little Billy removes overcrowding in the public schools. His absense improves that system and yet, because he still gets an education, he is not becomming an undeducated future burden on society.
2. Little Billy, with his supposedly "elite" education, can be expected to earn more and this be taxed more than the average Canadian. His "elite" education will produce precisely those people who are productive to carry the burden for those who aren't.
3. Even if Littly Billy grows up to be Big Bill, and has kids of his own, and sends them to a private school and gets refunds for all of them, this is likely a very small effect on the taxes he pays.
The real losers here are the middle class, who want a better education for their children (and, indirectly, by removing them from the public school system, relieving overcrowding), and who can't because of the high taxes they already pay.
If Mom (or Dad) stays home to raise the kids, while Dad (or Mom) goes to work, they are not rewarded for relieving pressure for subsidized day care. Instead, Dad (or Mom) get's taxed as a single, with a token tax credit at the lowest marginal tax rate of some $7500 for supporting a spouse. One can't file jointly in Canada.
The public schools are absolutely awful. In the year that my daughter attended a public school in Ontario, we had to remove her because of sanctioned physical abuse she suffered after it was learned she lived in the U.S., and found that no public school had a caffeteria where children could purchase a hot lunch -- there being no caffeterias or dual duty gyms/cafeterias. Children had to eat cold sandwiches in their classrooms. The reason we learned was that having a mechanism where kids could purchase meals was "unfair" to those that could not. This despite the fact that the competition between catering companies to supply school lunch programs in the U.S. is so fierce that much of the economies of scale trickle down to discounted meals -- I can't feed my kid at the price she pays to eat lunch in school.
Canadians, increasingly, are getting fed up at the outragous taxes they pay, for poor services.
No one minds subsidizing the truely needy. But when a large percentage of that subsidy ends up feeding not the needy, but the state bureaucratic apparatus, something is very wrong: Just look at the percentage of people employed in the public service in Canada. It's what, one out of seven, in the province of Quebec?
Our tax dollars were robbed, and the services they are supposed to pay for are abysmal.
Even the Supreme Court of Canada agrees that delay in getting health care justify seeking it privately (which is generally illegal in Canada, being "unfair" to those who can't afford it).
But the real telling measure is that (a) the very rich and (b) elected politicials who supposedly represent the substantially less rich masses are unaffected by all of this.
If any country needs a tax revolt, it is Canada.
What I wonder is this, if one starts, how many expats living in the U.S. will start to stream over the undefended Canadian borders, AR 15s in hand, to reclaim what was stolen from them?
Er, it's up to you to prove to the nice custom's inspector you took them out of Canada.
When one leaves Canada with personal belongings of significant value, like cameras, one fills out customs forms, with description and serial numbers, and gets a customs stamp on them, to prove they originated in Canada.
Last time I entered Canada, I almost got arrested for "inciting a riot" because of the NRA bumper stickers on my car that say "Freedom is not Free" and "Crime Control, not Gun Control".
At least Bush, too, will, pass.
Can't say the same about attitudes in a place where most think it is O.K. that the government can prevent a person from paying a doctor to help them when they're sick, even when the Supreme Court says this is perfectly fine. Or a place where killing an armed intruder trying to rob your store gets you a murder charge that sticks.
I left Canada to find my fortune in the U.S. Just a somewhat lesser evil, tax-wise, perhaps, but "lesser" enough, to make my family and I leave so I can feed them with my earnings instead of a bunch of welfare lardasses and corrupt politicos.
Cherist, it got so bad in Canada, that we were vilified for spending our money after taxes if there might be someone, somewhere, who could not afford to spend their earnings the same way. Hire a kid to mow your lawn in Whitby, ON, and you might just find your neighbors trying to lynch you for engaging in "slave labour of the youth".
My parents came to Canada poor as shit, losing everything to communists in easternb Europe, when there was no social safety net, and still managed to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, only to be once again robbed.
Socialists and communists everywhere are a parasite on society and need to be eradicated.
So, throw the thieving bastards out of power. Get a million people to protest and storm the Commons, and I'm with you.
I had tried to fight the corruption politically, and found that the most effective things to do was to leave, and stop funding the thieves via my income, goods, and service taxes. I find I have far more to contribute to real charitable causes this way.
But, what can you say about the citizens of country who accept a constitution that lets the government overrule the courts? Homilies about, "Oh, they would never abuse the power," and such.
Lemme tell you something buddy, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You've got an insanity where it is illegal for a sick person to contract with a doctor to help them. (Except, of course, for my son, who is an American, and is allowed to pay for service. "Nyeah, nyeah, indeed.") Because this is "unfair" to those citizens who can't afford it. Hello? What part of "having paid one's fair share of taxes" to support the poor and other "worthy" social causes have made it wrong to spend one's post-tax earnings, in the way one sees fit?
Clearly, the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed.
So, you'd think that sanity would prevail.
But, no, The Quebec government trots out the "Nothwithstanding Clause" as some sort of "nyeah, nyeah, NYEAH, nyeah".
Canadian socialists (communists is a more fitting term since they try to redirect all earnings by restricting what one can do with post-tax money) deserve to be made to pay for their thievery and the suffering they have inflicted on those that actually work and have carried the rest for decades.
I'm with you on charging for burning to CD-ROM for people who don't have fast internet I have sold and do currently sell CD-ROMs of Linux distros, I just don't think it'd be right to set up a paypal shopping cart on my website to allow access to download something that people could download from the original site for free.
I think you're arguing that taking advantage of someone's ignorance is wrong, and while that may be true, taking the time to explain where and how to get something you got for free costs, well, your time.
Even if I agree with that, I don't think it's illegal or that it should be. Clearly, anyone who obtains a firefox CD at a price suggesting that their ignorance was taken advantage of, would clearly cry "unfair", thus soiling the reputation of the merchant, and his business will quickly dry up.
IOW, the "lack of ethics" of which you speak is self-correcting when it comes to the ignorant masses that would otherwise be relieved of their coin. I think that's good enough.
Of course, with my luck, and the gender non-discrimination laws, I'd likely face rampaging horde of severely obese naked male hookers all named Bubba, if such prohibitions were ever reversed. The thought that I could probably outrun them with success is little comfort after that mental image crossed my conciousness (a.k.a. goatse effect).
When the U.S. lifted the prohibition against alcohol manufacture and consumption, people were not jailed for not being drunks.
Well, it's already hard to advise complience with laws, there being so damn many of them. Witness the thriving legal industry.
If she really felt that way, she should investigate libertarianism which advocates very few laws (non-initiation of force or fraud) and very little government (providing a dispute-settlement mechanism of last resort, protection from criminals, and being charged with defence from foreign invarers). Somehow, I don't think her sentiments lie in that direction though. She just wants her job to be easier.
Usually it's the other way around: to support a growing government, more laws are enacted and more legal complexity results requiring a growth of government in the areas of enforcement. An interesting symbiosis between politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers arises, as these groups all benefit. The complexities of free software licenses should be welcomed as increasing complexity.
I suspect though, that the real fear is that free software is becoming popular, and thus a threat to proprietaray alternatives. The evidence is that one can essentially take what is free, add modest value in the form of physical packaging, and still be profitable on the basis of volume. Two newpence a copy profit times a million copies equals twenty thousand pounds.
This isn't the first difficulty free software faces. Because the margins on added value are generally so slim (support contracts being an exception), the cost of legal complience in order to offer a good or service for sale can eat up a large part of that gross margin. Witness the implied warranty. If it can't be disclaimed, and the margins are thin, what merchant can afford the risk of non-fitness for use? They cynic in me says that implied warranties favour the larger merchants over the smaller ones more than they protect the consumer. Whatever happened to "caveat emptor"?
Free software is risky. You're on your own when it comes to evaluating it's suitability for your purposes. It isn't the investment in the capital good that is the issue -- it is the investment of one's time in performing the evaluation. Historically, users of free software were also producers of it (even if only for their own consumption), and their skills at evaluation were high and/or their time was inexpensive to them.
But now, we have a new class of user who is generally incapable of making expert evaluations and values their non-working time. Do we not need implied warranties to protect them?
I don't think so. I don't think we need implied warranties at all. The suitabily of products and the quality of services can be determined by (a) reputation and (b) review. Smart consumers already research what they purchase, in effect either doing research themselves, or relying on independent reviewers. Why should they also have to pay for the costs associated with merchants having to honour implied warranties? About the only argument that can be made in favour of implied warranties is they fill a role when independent reviewers do not yet exist, or a reputation has not yet been established.
But, there is a two-fold problem here: If reputation has not yet been established, and a market is too small to support independent reviewers, the overall risk to consumers is small simply by the sheer smallness of their number. IOW, it isn't a problem big enough for governent to get involved in. Furthermore, undue burdens such as implied warranties hinder growth of innovative new products and services because the overhead they represent is significant.
Clearly, established merchants and producers of proprietary software have a vested interest to hinder the spread of free software as much as possible, and will use any politically palitable argument to do so, including the call for legislation with which they can comply at little cost, but which proportionally far more burdensome
Check with Ivor. This looks familiar and a known problem.
No.....
I have to grab the damn thing off my belt clip and look at it.
Damn idiots.
(And while it might be a clever hack to add a time service phone number called "time", that's a horribly inefficient waste of bandwidth just to avoid having to grab the phone).
This became so irritating, that he had one of his cars modified so it was physically impossible to go more than 5 mph under the speed limit in that area.
Sure, enough, he gets ticketed after about a month. He goes to court. The (same) judge gets real mad at seeing this "troublemaker" again. He presents his evidence, and reluctantly, the judge dismisses the case.
He then files suit against the officer, police department, and anyone else he can think to name, in a massive harassment suit.
He wins.
Of course, as these things go, the cop gets fired, a new one hired, and the corrupt department gets its fines... except from him. They know to leave him alone.
Ya know, I'm a foreigner in the U.S. working toward getting my green card. I have to keep my nose clean -- what might be a misdemeanor for a citizen can be a felony for me in an immigration court (there is a whole separate court system for non-citizens related to their immigration status), and that can get me deported. Why not extend the idea to law-enforcement officers, and politicians?
If I break the law, I get deported. Let Soviet Canuckistan deal with me.
If a citizen robs a store, he gets a fine and maybe jail time.
If a cop breakes the law, they get death.
If a politician breaks the law, they get a life of hard labor.
"But, then we'd have no cops or government!" I hear y'all cry.
No, we'd have honest cops, and honest government. Less of each, to be sure, but I rather think that would be a good thing.
Perhaps he decided a response outweighed his mod?
Second of all, if you have used the "troll" moderation here ever, then you have partaken in an action that is strictly anti-democratic and overtly anti-American.
Not at all. One can always browse at -1 without too much inconvenience. The mob gets to vote, and we get to decide if we care how they do. Damn libertarian, if you ask me.
What part of "play the part of..." don't you understand?
Jeebus Krist, man! You can't tell the difference between playing a part (perhaps badly, on purpose) and being a differnt kind of "something"? I sure hope they don't let you code.
Yes, but that takes time, and time spent is market window closing.
It's a fine approach when developing for one's self because the "market window" does not close (except if what you need suddenly becomes available elsewhere, in which case, you-the-customer doesn't care that you-the-developer was too late).
One would think that it is also fine when developing for a customer who's specific needs you know you don't quite know. After all, if you get the gist of what the customer wants, you can design a system that is tunable to the specifics as you determine what they are. The problem is that the further away from the specific scenarios you get for lack of effective communication, the more you have to generalize, and the longer it takes. One can build a wonderful framework, only to find no time to finish the "plugins".
So, there's a push to get the specs "perfect" up front, so such generalization isn't necessary.
Welllll now, that's a fool's errand, isn't it?
Perfect?
The more time you strive for perfection in specification (which you will never achieve, except in toy applications and fairy tails), the less time you have to generalize to provide wiggle room for imperfections, and you'll be right back to square one.
What really angers me about the neat little diagram is the "pipeline" approach with the programmer at the end: clearly, with all the "up front" effort, the programmer can't help but "get it right", and if not, it's the programmer's fault if the customer is unhappy. After all, we put all this "effort" up front.
Effort does not equal results.
The right approach is to engage the customer in the process, and not just some specification phase of an outdated waterfall model. Given the customer's stated requirements ("this way", "that way", and the most important, "I don't know yet") and the technical feedback ("easy", "hard", "impossible", "inconsistent", "yeah, we can make that easy to change"), one can incrementally refine what one is doing, and chose the right mix of generalization and "setting in stone" to get the job done.
But, this requires ongoing translation between customers and engineers, not just some up-front "understanding" and "getting paid" by "artists" who then are absolved of all responsibility. For that to work would require technical staff to know all the questions they need answered in advance, and, even for us gods of tech, this is impossible.
In summary, if you ask us "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" (because, after great effort, you find that "life", "the universe", and "everything" matter most to your customer) don't be surprised if we say "42" (and we can answer only because we heard the question from a previous customer).
And, you know, this "over"generalization does pay off, in the end. It's called GNU/Hurd. It'll just take another ten million years to finish. Interim work does look promising, though.
(Nothing personal, it's just that if I'm going to play the part of a grammar nazi, I should be insulting.)
I can understand the need for lots of processing power, disk I/O bandwidth, and fast drives (distinguishing between disk peak and sustained transfer rates), and that this generally results in extensive heat production, and thus the need for cooling.
But, such a device really belongs in a separate room -- a geek would put one in his server rack.
It might be convenient that it could also provide a convenient UI, with TV output, rather like a TV studio feed monitor, but it's not the sort of thing I want in my media room because of the noise. I'd only accept it if I was desperate and couldn't also afford a front end unit, charged solely with display.
The problem is that everyone focuses on the processor-intensive backend functionality, and does not produce a seperate frontend unit.
MythTV addresses this very issue architecturally, but trying to build a silent Myth frontend remains difficult: MPEG2 decoding, particularly at HD resolutions taxes the CPU, and H/W MPEG2 decoders generally lack Linux support usually due to the absense of documentation without NDA. An exception to this is the work poineerd by David George and later taken up by Ivor Hewett of the OpenChrome project.
OpenChrome serves as a fork of unichrome development for the Via Unichrome® CLE266 and Unichrome Pro® CN400 northbidges: the CLE266 contains a "crippled" MPEG2 decoder that is good to SD resolutions, and the CN400 contains an MPEG2 decoder good to HD resolutions (and a bit beyond) and an MPEG4 "accellerator". Readers will recall that the original unichrome drivers were based on reverse engineering of Via's binary-only drivers. I'm not certain, but I think that Via finally opened their own drivers, with the exception of MPEG2 and MPEG4 hooks. These drivers replaced the reverse engineered unichrome drivers, which now lack any MPEG2 or MPEG4 support... except for Ivor's Openchrome work.
The practical upshot of all this is that one can obtain low power Eden C3 CPUs on motherboards with CN400 northbridges that require little (one fansink putting out 14 to 20 dBa of noise on the 1.0 GHz nanoITX board) or no (800 MHz nanoITX) board. The CN400 is also available on some Socket370 motherboards (made known to me thanks to a long thread here with one "evilpiper"), so that one could use a fanless P III or C3 CPU if one wanted.
To be fair, "networked" DVD players exist which can do the same thing, but (a) they all rely on a UPnP host (I'm not sure of the state of UPnP support on Linux), (b) aren't as flexible as a MythTV frontend, and (c) probably won't render anything better than 480p without all sorts of DRM.
So, when I see the latest "media PC" article describing some uberpowerful system with a zillion (zillion, adj.: 1. many. 2. more than zero in the context of a media PC's fans) fans, I ask myself, "Yeah, but what about the silent part in the media room?"
Of course, with all the recent brouhaha of it arguably not being fair use anymore, I've generally stopped buying new retail CDs. I get most new CDs directly from independent artists.
True, but the nanoBGA package is 15mm on a side. Socket 370 is HUGE, by comparison.
Yes, well, at this point we've established that there is a lot you don't know. Let's see. How about these:
Since (a) building this is a hobby, and (b) I did most of my net search last summer, it is quite possible that more boards became available, yes. The Commell LV-667 (if I remember the product number correctly) was available then, with a CN400, in a mini-ITX form factor, but a VT-1623 instead of a VT-1625, so I didn't pay attention if it was Socket-370.
The Socket 370 mini-ITX mobos are nice and flexible, but all the one's I've seen require a chassis with a fan, or those that have a CN400 are incompatible with fanless mini-ITX chassis that use a heatpipe.
In many cases, it (a) wasn't clear if fanless was an option, (b) manufacturers rarely return calls of people interested in building "one of-s" (understandably), and (c) I didn't have a research lab or the time to evaluate every possible candidate.
"I remain unconvinced that one can decode even just HD MPEG2 in S/W without an extremely power hungry CPU,"
Yes, well... If you're not prepared to believe me, and won't bother to do the slightest bit of research on your own, I can't possibly help you.
Research how? All the research I've read on Linux HTPCs included dire warnings about not being able to do HD MPEG2 decoding in software on anything resembling a fanless system. It is possible that that is incorrect, but untill I see someone describe the system they built, with evidence that it can do that, I will remain skeptical. It was a David George who first pointed out success on a Commell LV-667 using a CN400. But, his solution (a) was noisy, and (b) was limited to a VT-1623 instead of a VT-1625 TV encoder. That turned me on to a nano-ITX with a CN400, and VT-1625, particularly when the 1.0 GHz system was advertised as fanless. It isn't, sadly, but the 800 Mhz system is, and would likely be adequate.
Frankly, I'll probably build another machine if WMV 9 or H.264 content becomes all that prevelent. I figure it will take at leasrt a couple of years, and probably more before I can't get "ordinary" DVDs anymore.
I suppose it isn't quite fair of me to throw in the VT-1625 requirement at the last minute, but it was a tipping point. I just plain forgot about it. Whether the processor is socketed or not, on a cheap $400 mobo for an embedded system also wasn't an issue, yet you harp on it with regard to flexibility.
If you know so much about rendering video in fanless, or almost fanless systems, without relying on specialized hardware, or proprietary software, there's a world of Linux HTPC builders who are all ears.
Later versions of the nanoITX motherboard have an integrated "coldLuke" package that combines the Eden processor with the CN400 northbridge.
I doubt one could make a nanoITX mobo with a Socket 370 socket -- it would take up far too much real estate, given that the nanoITX form factor is 12 cm. by 12 cm.
I take issue with this comment: Well, since the hottest and most important part, BY FAR, in any system is the CPU, that's exactly how you need to search for the most appropriate system, no matter what goal you have in-mind.
The most important bit is application performance per unit heat, in a fanless system. A wimpy CPU, with dedicated application-specific hardware, can be a better fit, than a powerful CPU without such hardware.
An earlier comment of yours complained that dedicated MPEG2 (and MPEG4) hardware does little for other codecs, and this is certainly true. There is an argument for using the most powerful procesor one can find, and engineering a fanless cooling system for it. However, (a) I remain unconvinced that one can decode even just HD MPEG2 in S/W without an extremely power hungry CPU, (b) other formats can be transcoded in backend machines, if necessary, (c) fanless cooling for power hungry CPUs gets very expensive, (d) there will always be some exotic codec for which the CPU will be inadequate in real time.
Given the push for cheap, quiet, set top boxes, I see compute-expensive codecs that gain popularity implemented in hardware at about the rate that consumers or cable TV providers are willing to swap said hardware. So, I'm not worried all that much about locking my mythfrontend to MPEG2 and MPEG4, and not being able to render HD WMV 9 or whatever. Frankly, the fact that it can hold 20 of my favorite DVDs and some 240 CDs and replace a big and heavy cabinet of same, is good enough for the next five years for me. HD isn't even a big requirement for me, but rather insurance for what I might wish it could render in the near future.
I did.
That's where I got the notion that only a noisy 2.x GHz Intel or AMD proc, with all the associated cooling problems was the only S/W only solution for HD MPEG2 decoding. And H/W-assisted solutions were not supported by open source drivers, for which I had a preference.
I don't know what you're talking about, as far as "build a mobo".
I thought that would be obvious from context. If you throw a bunch of CPU part numbers and specs at me, it sure looks like you think I will build a system around a particular processor, that is, design and build the motherboard from scratch. I suppose I could google for motherboards with particularly interesting processors, but that strikes me as an ass-backwards way of finding an integrated, quiet, system capable of rendering HD MPEG2 video.
Instead, I googled for "slient H/W MPEG2" or some such, and found Via's offerings. I then found the hdmythtv.us site (which no longer exsts) which extolled a Via-based mini-ITX Commell board, employing a CN400.
You can just swap the CPU in your nanoITX if you like.
Are you sure? I know of no Intel or AMD chips in that form factor. Of course, that doesn't meean they don't exist. As you can tell, I don't follow every little CPU variant from the major manufacturers.
The bottom line is that the Via Eden processor with CN400 northbridge looked as the most likely capable of meeting my requirements, and it comes damn close. Even ignoring the nanoITX form-factor, and accepting a bigger mini-ITX or even micro-ATX form factor, all the other options that were easy to assemble involved systems requiring fans, some arguably quite noisy (by people who had done so); or expensive heatpipe solutions (I had actually considered a HushPC system at one point, until I read that even a speedy P4 could not decode HD MPEG2 in real time). Actual success reported with the CN400 on hdmythtv.us was the clincher for me to like the CN400 northbridge.
The system isn't quite as stable as I'd like -- I do see the occasional dropped frame. I'm told Via's binary drivers are better than Ivor Hewett's openchrome effort, but I prefer to support the open source effort. Then again, I haven't optimized the O/S: I slapped a full FC3 install on it, with all the default services, as a first try, to avoid dependency hell.
The bottom line was that reported real-time HD success on a CN400 in a mini-ITX board weighed far more heavily in my decision than anecdotes of what "should be" fast enough. As always, YMMV.