"The problem is that unless you're a principal or spend ridiculous amounts of money on work expenses, it's almost impossible to ever come up with enough dough to cover the 40% of your salary that you're going to lose in self-employment tax, let alone surpass the standard deduction."
try 15.3% (for the amount up to 87,500 and 2.9% on everything beyond that) self employment tax. half of that is what you would usually pay anyway as a W2 employee in social security and medicare.
also, you can take half of the self employment tax that you pay off of your adjusted gross income so that it won't count for the regular income tax.
Essentially, the more you make above $87,500 the less of a tax penalty versus an equivalent W2 salary. But even below that magic number, the extra tax will really only amount to about 5-6% if you consider that the self employment tax replaces the social security and medicare taxes.
I'll agree that it was not a transgression of federal wiretapping laws, but wouldn't this fall under trespass laws? Though, the employer probably did not have a stated policy against this type of thing, so at best he could fire him, but if someone unauthorized came onto someone's property to do this then it would be trespass, unless of course they had a court issued warrant.
It is like a vampire, they can only cause you harm you in your home if you invite them in.
"What about newspapers? Sure, you can argue that newspaper ads aren't "intrusive", in a time-dependent way, but would a newspaper or its advertisers welcome a service that made it free or easy to eliminate all ads, and keep the other content, while still keeping the newspaper cost at 50 cents?"
The difference is that tv, especially broadcast television, is a much more limited resource than a newspaper. Anyone can start up a newspaper and start distributing it, it is not regulated in the least. Which is a very good thing, but also appropriate for the medium which allows for naturally unlimited competition. If you don't like the content or presentation of one newspaper, another could take its place without much trouble.
Television, especially broadcast television is considered a public resource. So, we as individuals have every right to demand that the use of the airwaves meets our best interests and not solely those of the licensees. We can argue about the rightness of that approach, but until broadcasters stop using public airwaves and the public rights of way (cable) then I demand that I be able to view the content anyway I damn well choose.
Come on, what about Maracaibo? I can't seem to find any theories on the internet claiming Lago de Maracaibo as the lccation of the lost city. Doesn't the geography and location make a better fit?
" In "western" civiliation there is no history of this story prior to Plato."
History? You mean written history? There ain't a whole lot of written history before Plato. The oral tradition was seemingly much stronger back then. And even if there were previous writings about Atlantis, there are really not many original writings left over from before that time.
You make a classic mistake in applying modern historical standards to ancient times where there aren't an abundance of primary source materials. Sure he could have made it up for all we know, but it seems more likely that it was a story that was told to him or else he had access to some more ancient text. It still could have been a story with no or very little basis in fact, but I don't think there is any good basis to say that Plato made up the story from scratch. He says he didn't and I believe him.
This is a good point, at the time BeOS seemed like the cool new thing with its SMP approach and NeXT had been in a specialty niche for a while without any desktop development. BeOS for all its lack of applications was already a working desktop OS on the PowerPC platform that people could buy pretty cheaply and try out. Unlike those early versions of linux, it booted up on Mac hardware without any great configuration hassles for most people.
Maybe BeOS served its purpose as a demonstrator for technology whose time is yet to come.
If someone sent out an email spoofing their address to protect their identity, which described in detail some form of corruption in china, then that person was sent to jail for 9 years we would be up in arms. Many might even be demanding sanctions.
Merely the act of sending an unsolicited email, even with a spoofed email address should not be criminal. The fraud with actual victims is what should be the factor that matters most. And it should be delt with as fraud should be. Also, those that lost money should be tracked down and compensated by the defendant. That should be the objective of prosecuters, to right the wrong, not just to put a trophy verdict up on their wall.
This is a less clear issue than most of the anti spam posts make it seem. Sure this guy was an easy target, sending out beastiality and get rich quick emails, but the law is for all of us not just the bad guys.
"I'm pretty sure putting missiles on the unmanned Predator drones over Afghanistan was a violation of a similar treaty, one that said you can't weaponize drones (and thus make a hideous, inhuman robot army)"
Hideous? I think think they are pretty cool looking.
I do not deny it, various media are the only way we can perceive the world which we do experience directly, but we have more choices of media now than in the history of mankind. Information is everywhere. The overall quality has not gone down, just the quality of information offered to couch potatoes has recently diminished a bit. But even they have reasonable choices available at the push of a button. People need to buck up and take full responsibility for what they choose to believe and stop blaming others for their stupidity.
" I do believe in the concept of personal accountability, but I also believe that the media is partially responsible for shaping our behaviour. They contribute to our personal knowledge (through both information and misinformation) and that affects how we react to events and other people."
The media is not responsible for shaping our behavior, we allow it to shape our behavior. If people don't recognize and seek out good values versus bad that is unfortunate, but it must be considered entirely their responsibility. If the only institution that shapes your values is the entertainment industry, then you you are doomed.
Life is not what is handed to you as you sit on your couch.
If the CIA really wants to read my/. posts, tap my phone and hear me order a pizza, or read my e-mail mailing lists that I subscribe to, more power to them.
"Matthew 7:1 & 2: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
The FCC judged Stern on the basis of his profane speech. Stern is not alleging that the FCC used profane speech."
Whether he is stating it that way or not, Stern certainly is accusing the FCC of indecency of a no less insidious character. It is indecent to censor others speech. It is against nature. It is against God.
I have no doubt that they will be looking to replace their current links to yahoo maps and mapquest when doing an address search.
I look forward to see if they can improve online map services and reduce the costs. The competition in email services has already forced others to improve. I would expect more of the same from google, which is a good thing.
Cheap shot? When someone sits in a position of moral judgement over others, everything is fair game. Judge not others lest you be judged, remember?
It is a undeniable that Powell got his position because of politcal favor. Powell doesn't actually deny that it played a role, just that it wasn't "the only basis." To deny it is silly. I suspect that Clinton owed Colin for not running against him in 1996 and there were probably many other reasons as well. But it is perfectly fair to point out that someone who sits in moral judgement of others is no priest himself and does sit in his position purely on his own merits.
That said, I don't think that it is fair to say that Powell is particularly unqualified, just that no one really is qualified and it is a shame on us that we can't figure out a better way to behave than to go around taking money from people who say things that we don't like.
"Neither does the fact that the FDA insulates American companies from competition by embargoing cheaper drugs and equipment for years after they are proven and used in Europe."
"Proven"? I don't think you understand. Unless it has met FDA approval it is by definition unsafe, since the only authority for what is safe is the US government.
What we get when we give up freedom for safety is whatever they allow us. Being "safe" sometimes has greater cost than the risk.
"Is this like the predication that we'd run out of IP addresses in the late 1990's. We all know that happened. Wait, no it didn't. Humans fixed the problem with private networks and NATing. In the process, they improved security and sanctity of their networks."
And in the process lost end-to-end addressability.
That the only reasonably priced connectivity available now has one dynamically assigned IP means a loss of potential. NAT and dynamic IP addresses mean additional overhead for direct two way communications, such as VOIP, video, gaming servers, IM. This overhead leads to additional cost and complexity which means that more things won't get said and done. Sure some of those things might be frivolous, but more communication always leads to more economic activity. Even if you don't think very much of other people, their ease of communication, frivoulous or not, means that more goods and services will be exchanged. More economic activity benefits everyone, including you.
So, sure NAT is great if all you want to do is browse web pages, but if you want to have a vibrant interactive network, then remote hosts are going to have to be able to reliably contact your hosts to exchange data.
As for the security of a NAT, it is a similar type of security that says that you lock your doors and don't go outside after dark, sure you won't get mugged, at least during that time. But you do lose something even if you never realize it.
Slashdot Mirror
to get people to upgrade, you just have to find "critical" security bugs in your old software. Of course Microsoft has known this for many years.
"The problem is that unless you're a principal or spend ridiculous amounts of money on work expenses, it's almost impossible to ever come up with enough dough to cover the 40% of your salary that you're going to lose in self-employment tax, let alone surpass the standard deduction."
try 15.3% (for the amount up to 87,500 and 2.9% on everything beyond that) self employment tax. half of that is what you would usually pay anyway as a W2 employee in social security and medicare.
also, you can take half of the self employment tax that you pay off of your adjusted gross income so that it won't count for the regular income tax.
Essentially, the more you make above $87,500 the less of a tax penalty versus an equivalent W2 salary. But even below that magic number, the extra tax will really only amount to about 5-6% if you consider that the self employment tax replaces the social security and medicare taxes.
I'll agree that it was not a transgression of federal wiretapping laws, but wouldn't this fall under trespass laws? Though, the employer probably did not have a stated policy against this type of thing, so at best he could fire him, but if someone unauthorized came onto someone's property to do this then it would be trespass, unless of course they had a court issued warrant.
It is like a vampire, they can only cause you harm you in your home if you invite them in.
" I'm holding out to find the G-Spot"
I've always thought that is what google should name a new google dating service.
"Itll be built 10 years after everybody stops laughing and I think they have stopped laughing."
I'm still laughing, so I guess it is still more than ten years out.
"What about newspapers? Sure, you can argue that newspaper ads aren't "intrusive", in a time-dependent way, but would a newspaper or its advertisers welcome a service that made it free or easy to eliminate all ads, and keep the other content, while still keeping the newspaper cost at 50 cents?"
The difference is that tv, especially broadcast television, is a much more limited resource than a newspaper. Anyone can start up a newspaper and start distributing it, it is not regulated in the least. Which is a very good thing, but also appropriate for the medium which allows for naturally unlimited competition. If you don't like the content or presentation of one newspaper, another could take its place without much trouble.
Television, especially broadcast television is considered a public resource. So, we as individuals have every right to demand that the use of the airwaves meets our best interests and not solely those of the licensees. We can argue about the rightness of that approach, but until broadcasters stop using public airwaves and the public rights of way (cable) then I demand that I be able to view the content anyway I damn well choose.
Come on, what about Maracaibo? I can't seem to find any theories on the internet claiming Lago de Maracaibo as the lccation of the lost city. Doesn't the geography and location make a better fit?
"Amazing. All those speaking on topics they know so very little about. Oh well. I guess that's your right to do so."
You an expert on speaking out of your arse?
" In "western" civiliation there is no history of this story prior to Plato."
History? You mean written history? There ain't a whole lot of written history before Plato. The oral tradition was seemingly much stronger back then. And even if there were previous writings about Atlantis, there are really not many original writings left over from before that time.
You make a classic mistake in applying modern historical standards to ancient times where there aren't an abundance of primary source materials. Sure he could have made it up for all we know, but it seems more likely that it was a story that was told to him or else he had access to some more ancient text. It still could have been a story with no or very little basis in fact, but I don't think there is any good basis to say that Plato made up the story from scratch. He says he didn't and I believe him.
This is a good point, at the time BeOS seemed like the cool new thing with its SMP approach and NeXT had been in a specialty niche for a while without any desktop development. BeOS for all its lack of applications was already a working desktop OS on the PowerPC platform that people could buy pretty cheaply and try out. Unlike those early versions of linux, it booted up on Mac hardware without any great configuration hassles for most people.
Maybe BeOS served its purpose as a demonstrator for technology whose time is yet to come.
If someone sent out an email spoofing their address to protect their identity, which described in detail some form of corruption in china, then that person was sent to jail for 9 years we would be up in arms. Many might even be demanding sanctions.
Merely the act of sending an unsolicited email, even with a spoofed email address should not be criminal. The fraud with actual victims is what should be the factor that matters most. And it should be delt with as fraud should be. Also, those that lost money should be tracked down and compensated by the defendant. That should be the objective of prosecuters, to right the wrong, not just to put a trophy verdict up on their wall.
This is a less clear issue than most of the anti spam posts make it seem. Sure this guy was an easy target, sending out beastiality and get rich quick emails, but the law is for all of us not just the bad guys.
"I'm pretty sure putting missiles on the unmanned Predator drones over Afghanistan was a violation of a similar treaty, one that said you can't weaponize drones (and thus make a hideous, inhuman robot army)"
Hideous? I think think they are pretty cool looking.
I do not deny it, various media are the only way we can perceive the world which we do experience directly, but we have more choices of media now than in the history of mankind. Information is everywhere. The overall quality has not gone down, just the quality of information offered to couch potatoes has recently diminished a bit. But even they have reasonable choices available at the push of a button. People need to buck up and take full responsibility for what they choose to believe and stop blaming others for their stupidity.
" I do believe in the concept of personal accountability, but I also believe that the media is partially responsible for shaping our behaviour. They contribute to our personal knowledge (through both information and misinformation) and that affects how we react to events and other people."
The media is not responsible for shaping our behavior, we allow it to shape our behavior.
If people don't recognize and seek out good values versus bad that is unfortunate, but it must be considered entirely their responsibility. If the only institution that shapes your values is the entertainment industry, then you you are doomed.
Life is not what is handed to you as you sit on your couch.
If the CIA really wants to read my
Yes exactly, more power to them.
Did someone say Pufferbelly?
"Matthew 7:1 & 2: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
The FCC judged Stern on the basis of his profane speech. Stern is not alleging that the FCC used profane speech."
Whether he is stating it that way or not, Stern certainly is accusing the FCC of indecency of a no less insidious character. It is indecent to censor others speech. It is against nature. It is against God.
Damn it.
I have no doubt that they will be looking to replace their current links to yahoo maps and mapquest when doing an address search.
I look forward to see if they can improve online map services and reduce the costs. The competition in email services has already forced others to improve. I would expect more of the same from google, which is a good thing.
Cheap shot? When someone sits in a position of moral judgement over others, everything is fair game. Judge not others lest you be judged, remember?
It is a undeniable that Powell got his position because of politcal favor. Powell doesn't actually deny that it played a role, just that it wasn't "the only basis." To deny it is silly. I suspect that Clinton owed Colin for not running against him in 1996 and there were probably many other reasons as well. But it is perfectly fair to point out that someone who sits in moral judgement of others is no priest himself and does sit in his position purely on his own merits.
That said, I don't think that it is fair to say that Powell is particularly unqualified, just that no one really is qualified and it is a shame on us that we can't figure out a better way to behave than to go around taking money from people who say things that we don't like.
"A downside would be their hesitation to react with force when necessary."
There should be hesitation.
"I say the most efficient way is to just wait for them to come invade us. Uses no resources."
Well, we would use no resources. But they would take all ours...
and at least one beautiful woman to make her their bride, if Ming the Merciless is to be taken as archetype.
"Neither does the fact that the FDA insulates American companies from competition by embargoing cheaper drugs and equipment for years after they are proven and used in Europe."
"Proven"? I don't think you understand. Unless it has met FDA approval it is by definition unsafe, since the only authority for what is safe is the US government.
What we get when we give up freedom for safety is whatever they allow us. Being "safe" sometimes has greater cost than the risk.
" Do not mix price and quality. Higher price doesn't necessarily mean higher quality."
;)
Also, Don't mix moderation and quality. Higher moderation doesn't necessarily mean higher quality.
"People who don't understand how things should be done are befuddled when confronted with the way they are done."
You are people too.
"Is this like the predication that we'd run out of IP addresses in the late 1990's. We all know that happened. Wait, no it didn't. Humans fixed the problem with private networks and NATing. In the process, they improved security and sanctity of their networks."
And in the process lost end-to-end addressability.
That the only reasonably priced connectivity available now has one dynamically assigned IP means a loss of potential. NAT and dynamic IP addresses mean additional overhead for direct two way communications, such as VOIP, video, gaming servers, IM. This overhead leads to additional cost and complexity which means that more things won't get said and done. Sure some of those things might be frivolous, but more communication always leads to more economic activity. Even if you don't think very much of other people, their ease of communication, frivoulous or not, means that more goods and services will be exchanged. More economic activity benefits everyone, including you.
So, sure NAT is great if all you want to do is browse web pages, but if you want to have a vibrant interactive network, then remote hosts are going to have to be able to reliably contact your hosts to exchange data.
As for the security of a NAT, it is a similar type of security that says that you lock your doors and don't go outside after dark, sure you won't get mugged, at least during that time. But you do lose something even if you never realize it.