I am just wondering, but is it normal (in USA) for companies to charge your creditcard directly for subscriptions?
Subscription providers prefer credit cards, because they don't have to send out a monthly bill. The customer retention rate is also higher, because the payment is automatic.
Customers without credit cards can typically use a debit card instead.
Merchants also like credit/debit cards, because according to the merchant agreement: as long as they follow the card issuer's rules regarding pre-authorization of the transaction and deliver the service/product as agreed, they get paid. There are some exceptions, but in general they don't have to worry about someone running up a large bill and then refusing to pay.
He was on his third computer (which I built for him). We bought him the first one for Christmas when he was in his late 70's.
At first, he used it mostly for email (remember Juno?). But after he learned to use it, digital photography was his primary reason to use the computer. He had been into film photography all his life, but digital opened a whole new world for him.
I never got him set up with photo sharing sites. But, he loved to crop/correct photos and paste them into greeting cards. A couple of years ago, I taught him how to construct a slide show, put it to music, and burn it on a DVD that his friends without computers could view on their TV's.
He still had literally thousands of printed photos and slides. I've put them into climate-controlled storage, until I have the time to scan them and archive the photos on CDs.
Don't many EPOs reside behind the old "In case of fire, break glass"? That sounds relatively foolproof.
Yes, but not until after someone has accidentally pushed it.
We had an EPO button near the door, as required by code. But, it had no guard at all on it -- not even a shroud that required you to press the button with a thumb (instead of the heel of your hand).
We usually stacked boxes of continuous feed paper (for a line printer) against the wall, on the other side of the EPO button from the door. One day, someone delivered more paper and was stacking it, and you guessed it: a box slipped and smashed into the EPO button.
The next day, maintenance installed a shroud around the button.
I find it interesting that FIOS can do 100 Mbits now, thought Verizon does not offer that service yet.
FIOS deployments started (and are continuing) with B-PON, which is 622 Mbps downstream and 155 Mbps upstream on a single fiber. A single fiber is split to serve as many as 32 customers. Also, Verizon is upgrading select markets to G-PON (2.4 Gbps downstream and 1.2 Gbps upstream), with more to follow.
I'm not sure where the 100 Mbps limit came from, other than the fiber can probably be provisioned to serve a smaller number of high-speed customers. The Optical Network Terminal (ONT) has a 100-Base-T connection to the customer's network, so that may impose a practical limit.
I'm very susceptible to "contagious yawning", When I watched this episode of Mythbusters, it set off a yawning fit that lasted for hours. Now, I refuse to watch it when it is re-broadcast.
Just reading a discussion about the episode has set me off. It's not as bad this time, but I had no urge to yawn 5 minutes ago, and now I'm yawning about twice a minute.
I expect that some people aren't affected by "contagious yawning". Maybe, even most people aren't affected. But, I certainly am.
And when are these asshats going to learn that cell phones do not interfere with flight controls? You'd figure at least one of them had to watch that MythBusters episode.
Mythbusters is an entertaining show, but their methodologies aren't exactly rigorous.
Consumer RF devices vary widely in their behavior. Any testing effort would have to include a large sampling of what is available (and/or still in use). All it takes is one harmonic that collides with the navigation receiver's tuned frequency. It doesn't even have to be very strong.
A pico-cell in the interior of a plane is a good remedy, as it can tell phones to keep their effective radiated power as low as possible. But in the US, I don't think it's an option until the equipment is built and certified for use in the aircraft.
Doesn't it kind of scare you how much people on Slashdot know about assault weapons?
In the US, Assault weapon is a pejorative that was used to inflame public opinion. It was subsequently defined by both federal and various state laws, using characteristics that were mostly cosmetic, and did not include other firearms that were identical in function but didn't look "scary".
The military-issue M-16 and AK-47 are actually assault rifles. There are also semi-auto civilian versions of these firearms that do not meet the legal definition of "assault weapon".
You don't have to buy an M-16 from Uncle Sam. Just get a Colt AR-15 and find someone to manufacture a new sear and selector switch. Bingo, you have an M-16. It's not that difficult, just illegal.
An M-16's full-auto trigger sear will not work in an AR-15 receiver. It was intentionally designed that way.
Frankly, there should be no such thing as withholdings. It's just a way for the government to get an advance on YOUR money. We should all just cut a check at the end of the year to pay our taxes.
Unfortunately, even if you aren't subject to withholding (because you are retired, or self-employed), you still have to pay installments at least quarterly. And, if you wait until the last quarterly payment to pay all of it (or most of it), you will be subject to a penalty.
So it does mention it... however, you did put a very different spin on it.
No, the GP was correct. He said that Whitman could not shoot as freely as before.
I've been to the top of the UT tower. The "waterspouts" are narrow openings in the concrete wall that is effectively the railing around the outside of the observation deck. Each of them is inches wide AND inches deep, forming an effective concealment. But, unlike a real turret, they don't move. That restricted Whitman's field of view and reduced his potential targets.
You should've seen what TurboTax (boxed) did when I let it import data from one of my brokerage accounts.
I had the same problem a few years ago when I tried to import data downloaded from my brokerage. But, I knew to check it carefully, because I download transactions into Quicken throughout the year, and knew that they are often mis-classified by the brokerage (or perhaps the service they use to provide them for download). I carefully compared them to my year-end statement and corrected any errors. In subsequent years, I have entered them myself.... usually before the end of the tax year (and before the download is available), so I can adjust my last estimated tax payment.
TurboTax is like any other software program: if you don't verify the input data, the result will be suspect.
You probably made a data entry error in TurboTax -- not necessarily entering the wrong amount, but clicking the "yes" button when you should have clicked "no" (or vice versa).
Based on the difference in taxes ($280 owed vs. $700 refund = net $980) and presuming a 28% marginal tax rate, the difference in taxable income was $980 / 0.28 = 3,500).
The personal exemption was $3,100 for tax year 2004. All you had to do was enter the personal exemption incorrectly (as in accidentally tell it you could were being claimed as a deduction on someone else's return), and you would have gotten the results you observed.
If your taxes were that simple, just looking at the generated 1040 (or 1040A) would have revealed whatever error (yours or theirs) that was occuring. So, I'm skeptical of your claim.
I've had several people screaming about their lawyers are going to sue us and so on... But I really doubt most of these people ever saw their money back
Forget the lawyers. Call your credit card issuer.
I paid for a year's DSL in advance (at a discount) from a local DSL provider that had a good reputation. They even agreed to a refund if I left before the year was up. But shortly thereafter, they were bought by another ISP that had a well-deserved bad reputation.
A few months later, my DSL went down for a week -- the second or third outage since the acquisition, but the longest one so far. It was some sort of administrative screwup that cut off the ISP's link to the rest of the 'Net. I had already planned to change providers when my year's pre-paid service was up. But, the long outage was enough to accelerate my switch.
Fortunately, I had a second phone line at the time. So, I didn't have to wait for them to release their claim on my primary line. For a brief time, I actually had DSL from two different ISP's on the two different lines. But, when I called to cancel my service and request a refund, they replied: "no refunds". I pointed out my agreement with the ISP they bought, and they were unmoved. I offered them one last chance, saying that I would get my refund -- the only issue was whether they got dinged by their credit card processor for a charge-back.
They still refused, so I called American Express -- who I used to pay the original bill. I explained the situation to Amex, and their only question was: "did you sign anything that committed you to pay for a year of service?" I said "no" -- knowing they would pose the same question to the ISP. I also knew that the ISP couldn't produce any such agreement.
Within a week, American Express credited my account for an amount that was pro-rated according to the remaining (unused) months of service.
My point: if you can, pay your ISP with a credit card. It gives you a lot more leverage, because they are bound by the merchant agreement.
I'm yet another happy Linode user. I have two: one for personal use and one that I administrate for my employer.
I was a Speakeasy subscriber as well, hosting my personal mail server at home. But, when I switched to Verizon FIOS, the additional cost for "business" service (static IP and no port 80/25 blocking) was significant, and I could rent a decent-sized Linode for less.
I'm actually happier with the off-site hosting, as it's more reliable. And, Linode's administrator interface is just as good as "being there".
This time, it looks like someone purposely set up a test case at the same high school (in McLean, VA), by submitting a paper and specifying that it not be archived -- then found that it was.
Last time, I wondered if it was appropriate for a public high school to require students to contribute their papers to Turnitin.com's database. You might be able to make a compelling argument that private schools and public/private universities could do so as a condition of admission. But, how do you reconcile truancy laws and forced contributions to a privately owned-and-operated company?
I still find myself wanting to take turns faster and change lanes as if no one was really there (no signaling, etc) after playing a few games of Gran Turismo and I'm 28.
After playing SOE's PlanetSide for a while, I was driving through a parking lot one day and reflexively swerved to avoid driving over an oil stain (a dark spot on an otherwise mostly clean parking lot).
In Planetside, mines are not visible until you are close to them. If you are driving at full speed, you usually cannot stop fast enough to avoid them. The best you can do is to not drive right over them, which reduces the damage.
In the parking lot, I came around a row of cars and there was this dark spot that looked like a mine. It took me a while to stop laughing, and later that night my entire outfit was laughing at me when I told them about it.
The subject faced exactly that dilemma. The fact that she has the genetic abnormality meant that her mother also has it. However, she has a rocky relationship with her mother, and they aren't on speaking terms.
But, the information was relevant to another important issue. I'll refer you back to the article to see how it turned out.
It gives me the impression that the IRS employee didn't know what the question was.
It looks like a form reply to me. I suspect it's the one that is sent to people that ask: "why do I have to pay to file electronically?".
Personally, I believe the IRS should be paying electronic filing fees. They are saving at LEAST as much money by not having to enter the data themselves. If you include the error-checking done at the source, there's also a reduction in the number of exceptions they have to handle.
The typical electronic filing fee is $15-17. If the IRS offered a flat $5-10 for every return that was filed electronically, Intuit (and the others) wouldn't have to collect the fee from the consumer, and their volume would probably double.
There used to be a 1040PC form, which could fit an typical return on a single page. It was generated by something like TurboTax, and was optimized for scanning. But, the IRS stopped accepting the 1040PC in 2000.
but why don't the US use Pay As You Earn, like the UK do? Surely it's easier for everyone, including the taxman?
FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes are straight payroll taxes, deducted at the source. Those are easy to compute, and only require adjustment at the end of the year if you were an employee at two different jobs and earned enough to exceed the wage limit ($94,200 last year).
There's also withholding for income taxes (both state and federal). But, there are many things that can affect your ultimate tax liability: income from investments, deductions for home mortgage interest, etc. The tax return is really just a final settlement for the tax year, with the taxpayer paying the final amount or getting a refund. Preferably the final amount is small -- if you get a refund, you don't get interest on the extra money that you gave to the government. If you owe a lot, you can potentially get hit with a penalty (subject to a few exclusions that give you a bye for the year).
Honestly, that's the same guarantee you you get with a commercial tax program or from an accountant.
Intuit warrants TurboTax for calculation errors, but that's all. You also can pay extra for a professional to review your return and make recommendations, but as you note, there's no guarantee they will catch everything.
You can also pre-pay for representation if you get audited. I suspect that's a high-profit item for them -- kinda like the extended warranty offered by the big-box electronics stores.
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Subscription providers prefer credit cards, because they don't have to send out a monthly bill. The customer retention rate is also higher, because the payment is automatic.
Customers without credit cards can typically use a debit card instead.
Merchants also like credit/debit cards, because according to the merchant agreement: as long as they follow the card issuer's rules regarding pre-authorization of the transaction and deliver the service/product as agreed, they get paid. There are some exceptions, but in general they don't have to worry about someone running up a large bill and then refusing to pay.
He was on his third computer (which I built for him). We bought him the first one for Christmas when he was in his late 70's.
At first, he used it mostly for email (remember Juno?). But after he learned to use it, digital photography was his primary reason to use the computer. He had been into film photography all his life, but digital opened a whole new world for him.
I never got him set up with photo sharing sites. But, he loved to crop/correct photos and paste them into greeting cards. A couple of years ago, I taught him how to construct a slide show, put it to music, and burn it on a DVD that his friends without computers could view on their TV's.
He still had literally thousands of printed photos and slides. I've put them into climate-controlled storage, until I have the time to scan them and archive the photos on CDs.
Yes, but not until after someone has accidentally pushed it.
We had an EPO button near the door, as required by code. But, it had no guard at all on it -- not even a shroud that required you to press the button with a thumb (instead of the heel of your hand).
We usually stacked boxes of continuous feed paper (for a line printer) against the wall, on the other side of the EPO button from the door. One day, someone delivered more paper and was stacking it, and you guessed it: a box slipped and smashed into the EPO button.
The next day, maintenance installed a shroud around the button.
FIOS deployments started (and are continuing) with B-PON, which is 622 Mbps downstream and 155 Mbps upstream on a single fiber. A single fiber is split to serve as many as 32 customers. Also, Verizon is upgrading select markets to G-PON (2.4 Gbps downstream and 1.2 Gbps upstream), with more to follow.
I'm not sure where the 100 Mbps limit came from, other than the fiber can probably be provisioned to serve a smaller number of high-speed customers. The Optical Network Terminal (ONT) has a 100-Base-T connection to the customer's network, so that may impose a practical limit.
As noted in this episode description, "It is green" was a reference to nearly the same line spoken by Scotty in By Any Other Name, TOS, episode 51.
Maybe they can program the phone to detect when the user is driving a vehicle and disable the phone.
I'm very susceptible to "contagious yawning", When I watched this episode of Mythbusters, it set off a yawning fit that lasted for hours. Now, I refuse to watch it when it is re-broadcast.
Just reading a discussion about the episode has set me off. It's not as bad this time, but I had no urge to yawn 5 minutes ago, and now I'm yawning about twice a minute.
I expect that some people aren't affected by "contagious yawning". Maybe, even most people aren't affected. But, I certainly am.
Mythbusters is an entertaining show, but their methodologies aren't exactly rigorous.
Consumer RF devices vary widely in their behavior. Any testing effort would have to include a large sampling of what is available (and/or still in use). All it takes is one harmonic that collides with the navigation receiver's tuned frequency. It doesn't even have to be very strong.
A pico-cell in the interior of a plane is a good remedy, as it can tell phones to keep their effective radiated power as low as possible. But in the US, I don't think it's an option until the equipment is built and certified for use in the aircraft.
No, the FCC ban has been in place for a long time -- at least since the late 80's, even before cell phones became ubiquitous.
And to clarify, the FAA doesn't completely ban cell-phones. The aircraft operator has the option to allow:
Any other portable electronic device that the part 119 certificate holder has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used
If you read the entire regulation, you'll see that almost ANY electronic device is banned unless the aircraft operator has made this determination.
In the US, Assault weapon is a pejorative that was used to inflame public opinion. It was subsequently defined by both federal and various state laws, using characteristics that were mostly cosmetic, and did not include other firearms that were identical in function but didn't look "scary".
The military-issue M-16 and AK-47 are actually assault rifles. There are also semi-auto civilian versions of these firearms that do not meet the legal definition of "assault weapon".
An M-16's full-auto trigger sear will not work in an AR-15 receiver. It was intentionally designed that way.
And no, I'm not going to explain how.
Unfortunately, even if you aren't subject to withholding (because you are retired, or self-employed), you still have to pay installments at least quarterly. And, if you wait until the last quarterly payment to pay all of it (or most of it), you will be subject to a penalty.
The Cue Cat is included in The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time
No, the GP was correct. He said that Whitman could not shoot as freely as before.
I've been to the top of the UT tower. The "waterspouts" are narrow openings in the concrete wall that is effectively the railing around the outside of the observation deck. Each of them is inches wide AND inches deep, forming an effective concealment. But, unlike a real turret, they don't move. That restricted Whitman's field of view and reduced his potential targets.
Had you stopped there, I would have agreed. But instead, you went off on your own rant.
Let's make a deal: you shut up with YOUR shit for a day, and I'll do the same.
I had the same problem a few years ago when I tried to import data downloaded from my brokerage. But, I knew to check it carefully, because I download transactions into Quicken throughout the year, and knew that they are often mis-classified by the brokerage (or perhaps the service they use to provide them for download). I carefully compared them to my year-end statement and corrected any errors. In subsequent years, I have entered them myself.... usually before the end of the tax year (and before the download is available), so I can adjust my last estimated tax payment.
TurboTax is like any other software program: if you don't verify the input data, the result will be suspect.
Based on the difference in taxes ($280 owed vs. $700 refund = net $980) and presuming a 28% marginal tax rate, the difference in taxable income was $980 / 0.28 = 3,500).
The personal exemption was $3,100 for tax year 2004. All you had to do was enter the personal exemption incorrectly (as in accidentally tell it you could were being claimed as a deduction on someone else's return), and you would have gotten the results you observed.
If your taxes were that simple, just looking at the generated 1040 (or 1040A) would have revealed whatever error (yours or theirs) that was occuring. So, I'm skeptical of your claim.
Forget the lawyers. Call your credit card issuer.
I paid for a year's DSL in advance (at a discount) from a local DSL provider that had a good reputation. They even agreed to a refund if I left before the year was up. But shortly thereafter, they were bought by another ISP that had a well-deserved bad reputation.
A few months later, my DSL went down for a week -- the second or third outage since the acquisition, but the longest one so far. It was some sort of administrative screwup that cut off the ISP's link to the rest of the 'Net. I had already planned to change providers when my year's pre-paid service was up. But, the long outage was enough to accelerate my switch.
Fortunately, I had a second phone line at the time. So, I didn't have to wait for them to release their claim on my primary line. For a brief time, I actually had DSL from two different ISP's on the two different lines. But, when I called to cancel my service and request a refund, they replied: "no refunds". I pointed out my agreement with the ISP they bought, and they were unmoved. I offered them one last chance, saying that I would get my refund -- the only issue was whether they got dinged by their credit card processor for a charge-back.
They still refused, so I called American Express -- who I used to pay the original bill. I explained the situation to Amex, and their only question was: "did you sign anything that committed you to pay for a year of service?" I said "no" -- knowing they would pose the same question to the ISP. I also knew that the ISP couldn't produce any such agreement.
Within a week, American Express credited my account for an amount that was pro-rated according to the remaining (unused) months of service.
My point: if you can, pay your ISP with a credit card. It gives you a lot more leverage, because they are bound by the merchant agreement.
I'm yet another happy Linode user. I have two: one for personal use and one that I administrate for my employer.
I was a Speakeasy subscriber as well, hosting my personal mail server at home. But, when I switched to Verizon FIOS, the additional cost for "business" service (static IP and no port 80/25 blocking) was significant, and I could rent a decent-sized Linode for less.
I'm actually happier with the off-site hosting, as it's more reliable. And, Linode's administrator interface is just as good as "being there".
This time, it looks like someone purposely set up a test case at the same high school (in McLean, VA), by submitting a paper and specifying that it not be archived -- then found that it was.
Last time, I wondered if it was appropriate for a public high school to require students to contribute their papers to Turnitin.com's database. You might be able to make a compelling argument that private schools and public/private universities could do so as a condition of admission. But, how do you reconcile truancy laws and forced contributions to a privately owned-and-operated company?
After playing SOE's PlanetSide for a while, I was driving through a parking lot one day and reflexively swerved to avoid driving over an oil stain (a dark spot on an otherwise mostly clean parking lot).
In Planetside, mines are not visible until you are close to them. If you are driving at full speed, you usually cannot stop fast enough to avoid them. The best you can do is to not drive right over them, which reduces the damage.
In the parking lot, I came around a row of cars and there was this dark spot that looked like a mine. It took me a while to stop laughing, and later that night my entire outfit was laughing at me when I told them about it.
The subject faced exactly that dilemma. The fact that she has the genetic abnormality meant that her mother also has it. However, she has a rocky relationship with her mother, and they aren't on speaking terms.
But, the information was relevant to another important issue. I'll refer you back to the article to see how it turned out.
It looks like a form reply to me. I suspect it's the one that is sent to people that ask: "why do I have to pay to file electronically?".
Personally, I believe the IRS should be paying electronic filing fees. They are saving at LEAST as much money by not having to enter the data themselves. If you include the error-checking done at the source, there's also a reduction in the number of exceptions they have to handle.
The typical electronic filing fee is $15-17. If the IRS offered a flat $5-10 for every return that was filed electronically, Intuit (and the others) wouldn't have to collect the fee from the consumer, and their volume would probably double.
There used to be a 1040PC form, which could fit an typical return on a single page. It was generated by something like TurboTax, and was optimized for scanning. But, the IRS stopped accepting the 1040PC in 2000.
FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes are straight payroll taxes, deducted at the source. Those are easy to compute, and only require adjustment at the end of the year if you were an employee at two different jobs and earned enough to exceed the wage limit ($94,200 last year).
There's also withholding for income taxes (both state and federal). But, there are many things that can affect your ultimate tax liability: income from investments, deductions for home mortgage interest, etc. The tax return is really just a final settlement for the tax year, with the taxpayer paying the final amount or getting a refund. Preferably the final amount is small -- if you get a refund, you don't get interest on the extra money that you gave to the government. If you owe a lot, you can potentially get hit with a penalty (subject to a few exclusions that give you a bye for the year).
Intuit warrants TurboTax for calculation errors, but that's all. You also can pay extra for a professional to review your return and make recommendations, but as you note, there's no guarantee they will catch everything.
You can also pre-pay for representation if you get audited. I suspect that's a high-profit item for them -- kinda like the extended warranty offered by the big-box electronics stores.