I'm no tax expert either, but the one I hired when I worked in NY but lived in NJ said that I had to file for taxes in both. Now, all of the taxes from NY were deductible from my NJ taxes so it wasn't like I was paying double taxes, but I did have to file the income for both states. I have no idea how or if things are different for contractors, but all the W2 employees in my office that lived out of state (mostly in NJ and CT) had the same issue.
When I moved to TX, I still had to pay NY taxes even though I was only in the NY office 4 weeks out of the year. Kind of a bummer, but them's the breaks.
True, but you really need to turn them off/in when you leave. Otherwise, it would be like keeping those spare keys after you sell your house/car.
We had someone leave at a previous job that had a couple of back door accounts that were accessed after he left. To delete a live copy of our source tree.
It turned out that it was a fat-fingered accident by a current employee who knew about the back door, but there were a couple of tense moments for a while.
When my camera brakes I don't go out and buy a camera phone: I buy another camera. If camera phones were as good as cameras, then I might consider buying a camera phone as a replacement. I imagine the same holds true for iPods. When my iPod breaks, I doubt I'll replace it with anything other than a new iPod.
This is the crux of the convergence problem. Everyone wants something that does everything they could possibly want, but it must do it just as well as the standalone product and it must do it at or near the same price point.
Since you're from Austin, you might remember the local ISP Jump.net (once Jump Point Communications, then Jump.net, then Allegience/Hosting.com, then bankrupt). For about 2 terrible years, I was a frontline phone tech for dial up customers.
My brother, I feel your pain and apologize for my tone and attitude:). I should have been a bit more understanding and reasonable.
Man, I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but I know I didn't put it there. You obviously know your stuff (like I said in my last post), but you've got a way with people that makes Archie Bunker look like freakin' Mother Theresa. Is there some sort of asshat qualification process at TWC or something? Do all the decent human beings get screened out by the interview process?
Look, whether it's a weak signal or buggy firmware or freakin' sun spots, it's all the same to me. There are times when the DVR does not work the way it's supposed to. Some months those times never show up and some months I battle with this thing 2-3 times per week. The fact that I've tried to get this resolved through TWC support channels and failed miserably every time says loads to me about their customer service.
And of course, after this conversation, I see why I have such difficulty getting a decent, rational person on the phone. It's apparently more important to TWC to be right than it is to actually help resolve the customer's problem.
That's pretty funny. I wonder if you've been out to my house on a dignostic run:).
I, of course, will defer to your expertise in this area. I in fact had a similar problem with signal strength due to neighbohood squirrels really enjoying the flavor of our outdoor coax. However, I still have recurring issues with these boxes. In fact, mine is rebooting as I type. Channel changing and navigating the interface was incredibly slow (on the order of 30 sec. per channel), and eventually the box just crashed.
The last time this happened, we lost all of our recorded shows as well as all of the scheduled recording data. It was like the machine was wiped clean. I hope that doesn't happen this time, because I really want to watch yesterday's Lost:). I do like the box and the service: I just wish they were more rock solid.
I've seen the non-HD version of this box do the exact same thing with absolutely no problems with signal strength.
I've also heard TWC employees claim "It's a signal strength problem" over and over again until one of their techs comes out and discovers that, lo and behold, the signal strength is just fine. Of course, the problem magically goes away when the next software release gets pushed to the end users, which usually involves either a loss of all recorded shows or a loss of all future recording info, or both.
I don't mean to bust your chops or anything, but those SA boxes are buggy plain and simple. If you'd like some real-world examples, check out the Explorer 8000 Yahoo Group. Lots of people have lots of problems with these boxes and very few of them are related to signal strengh.
You mean the ones that I can't afford to live in? Are those the ones you're talking about?
When I worked on Wall St., I lived across the river in Jersey City because that's where I could afford to live, not because I wanted to live there. And even then, I had to either drive or take a cab to the ferry stop because I wasn't about to risk leaving my bike chained up all day.
Not all web servers provide last-modified or etag headers. Infoworld doesn't...
According to the parent's post, Infoworld uses Apache which happnes to provide both. They are also both a part of the HTTP/1.1 spec., which any webserver should support.
It is a problem for those that don't provide them, tho.
But it is offensive, especially when I've just spent x of my hard-earned dollars not 10 feet away from the 'theft prevention' officer.
I'm an honest individual and I've spent my entire life building a reputation of integrity and loyalty. And I'm not supposed to be offended when an employee from a store I've just patronized comes up and asks "Can I make sure you didn't steal something"?
Diarrhea is another sure-fire excuse that can get you out of ANYTHING, not just work meetings.
"Son, I'd like you to come out with me and your future step-mother. I think you might have gone out with her older sister, so it'll be a blast!" "Sorry, Pop. I'd love to, but I have explosive diarrhea and I'd hate to gross out anyone." "Sure Son, we'll, um, get together some other time."
"Developer, we need you to come to our maximizing strategy meeting so we can shift some paradigms and build motivation." "Sure thing, Boss. Can we make sure to get the meeting room next to the bathroom? I've got a terrible case of exploding diarrhea and I've had a couple of close calls today. I haven't crapped on the chair yet, but the day is young." "Um, you know, if we have any questions we can just conference you in. Thanks." "No sir, thank you."
Until someone loses some real big money because of a virus or trojan.
Yeah, yeah, there are "estimated" costs of every virus that comes out. And they're not small potatoes.
But just wait until a virus comes out that silently infects machines, travels slowly enough to be barely noticed and only does one thing: randomly change values in an Excel spreadsheet. Or randomly delete one column from a randomly picked sheet.
It'll be Armageddon: dogs and cats living together, Detroit winning the World Series AND the Super Bowl, etc.
The freezer thing is a common misconception. The best thing to do to keep ground coffee is put it in an air-tight container away from heat, cold and bright light.
The problem with putting it in the freezer is that any moisture in the coffee will condense on the surface of the grounds and what you end up with is freeze-dried coffee. At least, that's what Alton Brown says:).
Basically, you fill the bottom part with water, place some ground espresso in the metal filter, screw the top on, and cook on the stove top. About 3 min. later you've got 3 of the best espressos I've ever tasted. Nice, neat and oh so easy.
And if you look, they've got an electric one that looks perfect for a desktop. Not the cheapest thing in the world, but if you really like your coffee you won't be disappointed.
It's like if your favorite team wins a championship. Sure, you feel great about it, but it's not like you were a part of the victory.
Now that's just a flat out lie. Everyone knows that the Yankees won the AL pennant last year because I ate 10 hot dogs/inning during the Championship series.
They would have won the World Series if I hadn't gone to the hospital because of the aforementioned hot dogs.
I think you'd agree that if everyone paid for their own health care, the consumer's and employee's power would be much greater, and much less susceptible to these sorts of hidden costs.
Spoken like someone that's never had to pay for their own health care, or the health care of their family. If health care were even remotely affordable, then your argument would have merit. But it isn't. Not even close.
I make a good living and my family lives well. We're not rich, but we're comfortable.
When our son was born, we got the bill from the hospital outlining all of the costs that our insurance had to pay. Grand total: $20,000.
Yes, that comma's in the right place. 20 grand. For child birth. There were no complications and Mom and Baby were out of the hospital the next day. There is no way that we would have been able to afford that outrageous sum if we had to pay it out of pocket.
But since we had insurance? We cut the hospital a check for $8.
When I was in high school, I had a dream that I was in this ancient-looking stone room. There were books all over the room, some piled in stacks and some just strewn about. There was a desk in the far corner, with a bunch of candles on it and a large book in the middle.
Somehow, I knew that this was Merlin's study (I was in my King Arthur/Holy Grail/Knights Templar phase) and that the book held the answers to every question and secret I would ever have. I walked up to the desk and opened the book.
The writing was incredibly blurry; almost like I was trying to read it without glasses. I squinted to try and clarify things, but it only made it worse. Then, I remember thinking "Hey, my eyes are closed! I just need to open them and I'll be able to read it.".
So I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the ceiling of my bedroom.
And it's the coding craze that's sweeping the nation!
Google's your friend in this case, as usual. Lots of people have spoken on this subject. Heck, there's even a book or two about it.
For the uninitiated, Refactoring is the practice of restructuring a code base in a disciplined way (shamefully stolen from refactoring.com). Basically, you change the code's structure (hopefully in a good way) with minimal to no changes in the outward appearance of the software. This way, the code gets better (clearer, easier to maintain, etc.), without introducing new bugs and incompatibilities.
There are cases where it's just better to throw away your old code, but those are much rarer than people like to believe. It's almost always better to refactor.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm no tax expert either, but the one I hired when I worked in NY but lived in NJ said that I had to file for taxes in both. Now, all of the taxes from NY were deductible from my NJ taxes so it wasn't like I was paying double taxes, but I did have to file the income for both states. I have no idea how or if things are different for contractors, but all the W2 employees in my office that lived out of state (mostly in NJ and CT) had the same issue.
When I moved to TX, I still had to pay NY taxes even though I was only in the NY office 4 weeks out of the year. Kind of a bummer, but them's the breaks.
--
Mando
These browsers filter out the double clicks.
e ference/events/ondblclick.asp
Really? IE doesn't. In fact, there's an MSDN page that describes the ondblclick event that fires when someone double-clicks a DHTML element:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/r
The only reason I know this is because we actively use this event at work (Don't shoot: it wasn't my idea).
--
Mando
True, but you really need to turn them off/in when you leave. Otherwise, it would be like keeping those spare keys after you sell your house/car.
We had someone leave at a previous job that had a couple of back door accounts that were accessed after he left. To delete a live copy of our source tree.
It turned out that it was a fat-fingered accident by a current employee who knew about the back door, but there were a couple of tense moments for a while.
When my camera brakes I don't go out and buy a camera phone: I buy another camera. If camera phones were as good as cameras, then I might consider buying a camera phone as a replacement. I imagine the same holds true for iPods. When my iPod breaks, I doubt I'll replace it with anything other than a new iPod.
This is the crux of the convergence problem. Everyone wants something that does everything they could possibly want, but it must do it just as well as the standalone product and it must do it at or near the same price point.
--
Mando
Since you're from Austin, you might remember the local ISP Jump.net (once Jump Point Communications, then Jump.net, then Allegience/Hosting.com, then bankrupt). For about 2 terrible years, I was a frontline phone tech for dial up customers.
:). I should have been a bit more understanding and reasonable.
My brother, I feel your pain and apologize for my tone and attitude
Man, I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but I know I didn't put it there. You obviously know your stuff (like I said in my last post), but you've got a way with people that makes Archie Bunker look like freakin' Mother Theresa. Is there some sort of asshat qualification process at TWC or something? Do all the decent human beings get screened out by the interview process?
Look, whether it's a weak signal or buggy firmware or freakin' sun spots, it's all the same to me. There are times when the DVR does not work the way it's supposed to. Some months those times never show up and some months I battle with this thing 2-3 times per week. The fact that I've tried to get this resolved through TWC support channels and failed miserably every time says loads to me about their customer service.
And of course, after this conversation, I see why I have such difficulty getting a decent, rational person on the phone. It's apparently more important to TWC to be right than it is to actually help resolve the customer's problem.
That's pretty funny. I wonder if you've been out to my house on a dignostic run :).
:). I do like the box and the service: I just wish they were more rock solid.
I, of course, will defer to your expertise in this area. I in fact had a similar problem with signal strength due to neighbohood squirrels really enjoying the flavor of our outdoor coax. However, I still have recurring issues with these boxes. In fact, mine is rebooting as I type. Channel changing and navigating the interface was incredibly slow (on the order of 30 sec. per channel), and eventually the box just crashed.
The last time this happened, we lost all of our recorded shows as well as all of the scheduled recording data. It was like the machine was wiped clean. I hope that doesn't happen this time, because I really want to watch yesterday's Lost
I've seen the non-HD version of this box do the exact same thing with absolutely no problems with signal strength.
I've also heard TWC employees claim "It's a signal strength problem" over and over again until one of their techs comes out and discovers that, lo and behold, the signal strength is just fine. Of course, the problem magically goes away when the next software release gets pushed to the end users, which usually involves either a loss of all recorded shows or a loss of all future recording info, or both.
I don't mean to bust your chops or anything, but those SA boxes are buggy plain and simple. If you'd like some real-world examples, check out the Explorer 8000 Yahoo Group. Lots of people have lots of problems with these boxes and very few of them are related to signal strengh.
You mean the ones that I can't afford to live in? Are those the ones you're talking about?
:).
When I worked on Wall St., I lived across the river in Jersey City because that's where I could afford to live, not because I wanted to live there. And even then, I had to either drive or take a cab to the ferry stop because I wasn't about to risk leaving my bike chained up all day.
Lord knows no one wants to live in Jersey City
For those that don't already know, the first edition of this book is available free of charge.
It's a great book and I can't wait for the second edition.
P.S. Send an email to mando.escamilla@gmail.com if you want some gmail invites.
--
Mando
I should have looked at curl before I posted. I thought that perhaps the Last-Modified and ETag headers were somehow being stripped or something.
:).
Touche'
Not all web servers provide last-modified or etag headers. Infoworld doesn't...
According to the parent's post, Infoworld uses Apache which happnes to provide both. They are also both a part of the HTTP/1.1 spec., which any webserver should support.
It is a problem for those that don't provide them, tho.
It's called a Conditional GET.
--
Mando
But it is offensive, especially when I've just spent x of my hard-earned dollars not 10 feet away from the 'theft prevention' officer.
I'm an honest individual and I've spent my entire life building a reputation of integrity and loyalty. And I'm not supposed to be offended when an employee from a store I've just patronized comes up and asks "Can I make sure you didn't steal something"?
--
Mando
Ssshhhhhh!!!
You keep talking about the "in crowd" and schools and stuff, and Jon Katz'll hear you and come back.
Oh sweet Jesus, I've said his name. We're doomed. DOOMED!!
--
Mando
The monkey watches :)
--
Mando
Man, you know you're a sucker when the Apple users* are laughing at your gullibility.
ZING!
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.
* Disclaimer: I am, in fact, an aforementioned Apple user.
--
Mando
Diarrhea is another sure-fire excuse that can get you out of ANYTHING, not just work meetings.
:).
"Son, I'd like you to come out with me and your future step-mother. I think you might have gone out with her older sister, so it'll be a blast!"
"Sorry, Pop. I'd love to, but I have explosive diarrhea and I'd hate to gross out anyone."
"Sure Son, we'll, um, get together some other time."
"Developer, we need you to come to our maximizing strategy meeting so we can shift some paradigms and build motivation."
"Sure thing, Boss. Can we make sure to get the meeting room next to the bathroom? I've got a terrible case of exploding diarrhea and I've had a couple of close calls today. I haven't crapped on the chair yet, but the day is young."
"Um, you know, if we have any questions we can just conference you in. Thanks."
"No sir, thank you."
Problem solved
Until someone loses some real big money because of a virus or trojan.
Yeah, yeah, there are "estimated" costs of every virus that comes out. And they're not small potatoes.
But just wait until a virus comes out that silently infects machines, travels slowly enough to be barely noticed and only does one thing: randomly change values in an Excel spreadsheet. Or randomly delete one column from a randomly picked sheet.
It'll be Armageddon: dogs and cats living together, Detroit winning the World Series AND the Super Bowl, etc.
--
Mando
The freezer thing is a common misconception. The best thing to do to keep ground coffee is put it in an air-tight container away from heat, cold and bright light.
:).
The problem with putting it in the freezer is that any moisture in the coffee will condense on the surface of the grounds and what you end up with is freeze-dried coffee. At least, that's what Alton Brown says
--
Mando
I've gotta second this one here.
A very good friend of mine just came back from Italy and she brought the greatest coffee gift ever: A Bialetti Moka Express stove-top espresso maker.
Basically, you fill the bottom part with water, place some ground espresso in the metal filter, screw the top on, and cook on the stove top. About 3 min. later you've got 3 of the best espressos I've ever tasted. Nice, neat and oh so easy.
And if you look, they've got an electric one that looks perfect for a desktop. Not the cheapest thing in the world, but if you really like your coffee you won't be disappointed.
It's like if your favorite team wins a championship. Sure, you feel great about it, but it's not like you were a part of the victory.
Now that's just a flat out lie. Everyone knows that the Yankees won the AL pennant last year because I ate 10 hot dogs/inning during the Championship series.
They would have won the World Series if I hadn't gone to the hospital because of the aforementioned hot dogs.
--
Mando
I think you'd agree that if everyone paid for their own health care, the consumer's and employee's power would be much greater, and much less susceptible to these sorts of hidden costs.
Spoken like someone that's never had to pay for their own health care, or the health care of their family. If health care were even remotely affordable, then your argument would have merit. But it isn't. Not even close.
I make a good living and my family lives well. We're not rich, but we're comfortable.
When our son was born, we got the bill from the hospital outlining all of the costs that our insurance had to pay. Grand total: $20,000.
Yes, that comma's in the right place. 20 grand. For child birth. There were no complications and Mom and Baby were out of the hospital the next day. There is no way that we would have been able to afford that outrageous sum if we had to pay it out of pocket.
But since we had insurance? We cut the hospital a check for $8.
--
Mando
True story:
When I was in high school, I had a dream that I was in this ancient-looking stone room. There were books all over the room, some piled in stacks and some just strewn about. There was a desk in the far corner, with a bunch of candles on it and a large book in the middle.
Somehow, I knew that this was Merlin's study (I was in my King Arthur/Holy Grail/Knights Templar phase) and that the book held the answers to every question and secret I would ever have. I walked up to the desk and opened the book.
The writing was incredibly blurry; almost like I was trying to read it without glasses. I squinted to try and clarify things, but it only made it worse. Then, I remember thinking "Hey, my eyes are closed! I just need to open them and I'll be able to read it.".
So I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the ceiling of my bedroom.
That was teh suck.
And it's the coding craze that's sweeping the nation!
Google's your friend in this case, as usual. Lots of people have spoken on this subject. Heck, there's even a book or two about it.
For the uninitiated, Refactoring is the practice of restructuring a code base in a disciplined way (shamefully stolen from refactoring.com). Basically, you change the code's structure (hopefully in a good way) with minimal to no changes in the outward appearance of the software. This way, the code gets better (clearer, easier to maintain, etc.), without introducing new bugs and incompatibilities.
There are cases where it's just better to throw away your old code, but those are much rarer than people like to believe. It's almost always better to refactor.
--
Mando