"""The deposition took on a surreal air at times, with Draeker refusing to say whether or not he is a lawyer and in one spectacular moment testifying that as president of Loki he could say how much had been paid to Scott Draeker and when, but as Scott Draeker he could not say whether he actually received the money."""
There has to be one level between you and the company you are really doing work for.
This isn't at all true. There are 20 criteria that the IRS uses to determine if you are a company or not. The number of levels between you and the end client is *not* one of them. Think about it, that would be an endless loop. Company A wants you to do some Java for them. They can't hire you directly because of this rule so Company B hires you instead. But B cannot hire you because of this rule, so company C steps in. But C cannot... You are *really doing work* for the company that is issuing your paycheck. Just ask them...
Another thing to keep in mind is that there isn't any one rule that throws a flag in the computers for this one. Of those 18-20 rules you must hit like a third of them before the IRS will consider you to be an employee.
Most Companies just do not want to be exposed to that kind of problem. Not all, but most
This is anecdotal evidence that I don't believe for an instance. In Chicago I can state with high confidence (Texas and California with lower confidence) that you have this exactly backward. First the vast majority of Chicago companies will deal with contractors directly (including, in my direct experience, GE, Ameritech/SBC, Whirlpool, AON and Siemens).
Second, the handful of companies that wouldn't deal with contractors were *all* consulting companies who wanted to hire as a w-2 because they wanted to lower the total cost of my time and thereby make a larger profit. Hey, more power to them, but doing so isn't my best interest so that handful doesn't get the privlege of my services until I need them more than they need me.
"Most employers will not know what OpenSource means and will probably think you're some kind of communist code hippie if you try to explain it to them."
Yup. Look at this guy. I just hope he isn't a hiring manager!
Ok, first of all I was *joking*. Just trying to point out that the persons example was a poor one.
Second:
I intend to use my constitutionally protected guns to protect my family and my neighbors. It's your duty to do the same.
You're a flaming idiot if you think that your guns are going to protect you from the US government. Don't believe me? Ask the Taliban, that's about the match-up of technology your suggesting. Hell, ask Iraq, they were far better armed that either the Taliban or you and they got their butts kicked all over the desert.
The fact that MPEG doesn't use anything more sophisticated than this suggests to me that there probably aren't any algorithms which consistently work better.
Not that I know, but it could also be that there aren't any algorithms that work better considering the horsepower available in many devices. There could be many algorithms that work much better assuming a dual Athlon 1900+'s to execute it.
(Disclaimer, I run poliglut.com and am therefore somewhat in competition with FR (I say somewhat because he's conservative and we don't play favorites))
The fair use thing is pretty obvious IMHO. He violated the standard and should be held accountable.
What really bugs me though is that he ran his site nominally on a free speech platform and now not only deletes aritcles, but bans users who's opinions he disagrees with. (We don't do that at poliglut and I don't even *like* half our users;-))
I've been incorporated for 5 years now, so I wanted to give my view of a couple things:
Pros of Incorporation:
Reduced Tax burden through use of write-offs
You can write off many things even if you don't incorporate. I talked with my accountant about this some time back, so I don't remember all the details, but it turned out to be something like 50-60% of what I would have spent I could have been writing off anyway (assuming you itemize). So, talk with your accountant about this before you make a decision (oh, and you need an accountant).
Cons of Incorporation:
Increased time overhead to keep books, separate accounts, licenses etc
This you should definitely do even if you keep a real job. Even if you don't have seperate accounts, you want to keep track of business expenditures in order to itemize those you can and talk to your boss and tell him why he should subsidize your expenses.
"C" Corp taxed twice
This is bit of a red herring. I've always run a C because you have different retirement planning options (i.e. I can put away nearly twice as much under my C corps plan as under others). In return for that, my C corp pays a handsome bonus at the end of every year in order to avoid profits (the profits are what the tax is on).
I agree with the vast majority of what you've said though. It's wise to be careful and make sure you are comparing apples to apples. A $50/hr w-2 position with health insurance and other benefits can be a much better deal than a $60/hr contract position where you must take care of all that yourself.
On the other hand, if you have crummy insurance, a car that you can sell to the company, can save a lot for retirement (e.g. you're still living on $30/hr even though your salary has increased), then $50/hr as a contract may still be worth considering.
Let me retirate one thing. Get an accountant.
I spend about a thousand a year on mine. He does my quarterly reports (which I could easily do myself, but I like having him checking my work more than once a year) and my year end filings. Because of this, he is familar with my company, plans and needs when I call him for advice on specific issues (e.g. leasing v buying vehicles).
Ok, I admit that I'm not a hardware hacker, but during my fantasies of becoming one I've had several people recommend The Art of Electronics to me. I've even bought it (twice). Easy enough to understand.
If Microsoft didn't know that what they were doing was illegal doesn't change the fact that it was. They may be punished differently in such a case, but they still committed a crime.
Of course you have to be more naive than an honest politician to believe that they didn't know what they were doing in the current case...
I think I know rumor one that should be dispelled in the ad:
Q: Is Linux a corporation with a PR department full of marketroids?
A: No. Linux is a bunch of individuals and several corporations, each of which runs (or is) a PR department. In addition, among the most popular sites on the internet slavishly devote themselves to linux and knocking down not only other operating systems, but even ideas spawned from other operating systems. Think of linux more like the borg, many semi-autonomous organizations and people working towards the common goal of make and operating system do exactly what they want it to.
I just got out of a colloqium presented by one of the researchers and she was careful to point out that they do not have cells that can fully differentiate, just that they have cells that they have *so far* been able to turn into anything they want. They haven't tried everything yet.
What that review doesn't tell me is whether the book addresses security as a software issue. Many system exploits can be traced to specific programming practices, often to kernel level, but more often in userspace code.
This book is not a programmers manual, so you will have to keep looking if that's what you want.
I understand what you are looking for, but I wonder if it isn't too language specific to be a practical seller.
Now, it's not quite so interesting. The early adopters have been, at least in part, co-opted by car MP3 players. If I had a long commute, you can bet that's the direction I would invest my car audio dollars.
Nah. Well, maybe not nah. Just be careful not to interject too much of what *you* want into what the general public wants.
Of the 15 people in my family, I can imagine 1 getting MP3, 5-6 getting sat radio and the others sticking with FM. Of the 1 getting MP3 (Me), I'll get sat radio also.
This is a huge market, IMHO.
Also on the BBC via poliglut
on
GM DNA Spreading...
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The better question would be, would I ever want to work for mainstream companies again!
Ok, here's what I would do. See if they'll use you as a contractor. Doing so has certain monetary and philosophical advantages that should lessen the stigma in the eyes of future employers. If you can concurrently get another client or two then you will be in an even better position.
It's very common in high energy physics for it to take years to process the data. There is a very complex system in building the detector itself. This is not assembly line stuff. Once the detector is built and taking data it still takes a while to understand the behavior of the detector itself. There can be pieces broken (one trick I was just told about the other day is that a collision detector will have tubes run through it that a radioactive source is dragged through in order to create signal to different components in a controlled fashion as it moves through the tube) that need to be accounted for, manufacturing variance between different pieces of the same component and millions of other such details. Once that's done then 'real' data taking starts. The preliminary analysis starts immediately, but the reason these experiments run as long as they do is because they need that much data to produce solid results. Experiments are expensive to run and if they could run shorter they would.
Once the data is taken, the final analysis is begun in ernest. The data (petabytes for large collider experiments, but I don't know the size of nutev) is sent all around the world and scientists poke and prod it into shape. One thing that is easy for/.ers to appreciate is the software involved. There are millions of lines of code involved with a modern detectors controls systems and millions more with the analysis of the data the detector produces. Getting this stuff right and testing it to make sure is hard, time consuming work.
I know of at least one project that stopped taking data in '92 that is still be actively analyzed and has a chance of producing interesting results.
Slashdot Mirror
"""The deposition took on a surreal air at times, with Draeker refusing to say whether or not he is a lawyer and in one spectacular moment testifying that as president of Loki he could say how much had been paid to Scott Draeker and when, but as Scott Draeker he could not say whether he actually received the money."""
There has to be one level between you and the company you are really doing work for.
This isn't at all true. There are 20 criteria that the IRS uses to determine if you are a company or not. The number of levels between you and the end client is *not* one of them. Think about it, that would be an endless loop. Company A wants you to do some Java for them. They can't hire you directly because of this rule so Company B hires you instead. But B cannot hire you because of this rule, so company C steps in. But C cannot... You are *really doing work* for the company that is issuing your paycheck. Just ask them...
Another thing to keep in mind is that there isn't any one rule that throws a flag in the computers for this one. Of those 18-20 rules you must hit like a third of them before the IRS will consider you to be an employee.
Most Companies just do not want to be exposed to that kind of problem. Not all, but most
This is anecdotal evidence that I don't believe for an instance. In Chicago I can state with high confidence (Texas and California with lower confidence) that you have this exactly backward. First the vast majority of Chicago companies will deal with contractors directly (including, in my direct experience, GE, Ameritech/SBC, Whirlpool, AON and Siemens).
Second, the handful of companies that wouldn't deal with contractors were *all* consulting companies who wanted to hire as a w-2 because they wanted to lower the total cost of my time and thereby make a larger profit. Hey, more power to them, but doing so isn't my best interest so that handful doesn't get the privlege of my services until I need them more than they need me.
"Most employers will not know what OpenSource means and will probably think you're some kind of communist code hippie if you try to explain it to them."
Yup. Look at this guy. I just hope he isn't a hiring manager!
I just wanted to poke cliff in the ribs for defining software as something that doesn't require another application to execute.
Dude, you've just eliminated *all* scripting languages from the definition of software.
*My* next step would be to ask the gaming extortion folks where you can find the definition of 'software'. There should be one.
Ok, first of all I was *joking*. Just trying to point out that the persons example was a poor one.
Second:
I intend to use my constitutionally protected guns to protect my family and my neighbors. It's your duty to do the same.
You're a flaming idiot if you think that your guns are going to protect you from the US government. Don't believe me? Ask the Taliban, that's about the match-up of technology your suggesting. Hell, ask Iraq, they were far better armed that either the Taliban or you and they got their butts kicked all over the desert.
I've been waiting for literally *years* for a CPU that will trick my operating system! Nirvana, I kiss you!
I could use a gun to rob a bank -- should guns be outlawed?
Yes. But they are constitutionally protected.
The fact that MPEG doesn't use anything more sophisticated than this suggests to me that there probably aren't any algorithms which consistently work better.
Not that I know, but it could also be that there aren't any algorithms that work better considering the horsepower available in many devices. There could be many algorithms that work much better assuming a dual Athlon 1900+'s to execute it.
(Disclaimer, I run poliglut.com and am therefore somewhat in competition with FR (I say somewhat because he's conservative and we don't play favorites))
;-))
The fair use thing is pretty obvious IMHO. He violated the standard and should be held accountable.
What really bugs me though is that he ran his site nominally on a free speech platform and now not only deletes aritcles, but bans users who's opinions he disagrees with. (We don't do that at poliglut and I don't even *like* half our users
Every time an article discussing DSL or cablemodem comes up there is someone who misses this!
This time it's you. The poster said 1,000Mb. That's a gigbit pipe. He meant (I assume!) either 1Mb or 1000Kb.
I've been incorporated for 5 years now, so I wanted to give my view of a couple things:
Pros of Incorporation:
Reduced Tax burden through use of write-offs
You can write off many things even if you don't incorporate. I talked with my accountant about this some time back, so I don't remember all the details, but it turned out to be something like 50-60% of what I would have spent I could have been writing off anyway (assuming you itemize). So, talk with your accountant about this before you make a decision (oh, and you need an accountant).
Cons of Incorporation:
Increased time overhead to keep books, separate accounts, licenses etc
This you should definitely do even if you keep a real job. Even if you don't have seperate accounts, you want to keep track of business expenditures in order to itemize those you can and talk to your boss and tell him why he should subsidize your expenses.
"C" Corp taxed twice
This is bit of a red herring. I've always run a C because you have different retirement planning options (i.e. I can put away nearly twice as much under my C corps plan as under others). In return for that, my C corp pays a handsome bonus at the end of every year in order to avoid profits (the profits are what the tax is on).
I agree with the vast majority of what you've said though. It's wise to be careful and make sure you are comparing apples to apples. A $50/hr w-2 position with health insurance and other benefits can be a much better deal than a $60/hr contract position where you must take care of all that yourself.
On the other hand, if you have crummy insurance, a car that you can sell to the company, can save a lot for retirement (e.g. you're still living on $30/hr even though your salary has increased), then $50/hr as a contract may still be worth considering.
Let me retirate one thing. Get an accountant.
I spend about a thousand a year on mine. He does my quarterly reports (which I could easily do myself, but I like having him checking my work more than once a year) and my year end filings. Because of this, he is familar with my company, plans and needs when I call him for advice on specific issues (e.g. leasing v buying vehicles).
Make sure you get an accountant.
Ok, I admit that I'm not a hardware hacker, but during my fantasies of becoming one I've had several people recommend The Art of Electronics to me. I've even bought it (twice). Easy enough to understand.
What Microsoft did (if intentional) is
If Microsoft didn't know that what they were doing was illegal doesn't change the fact that it was. They may be punished differently in such a case, but they still committed a crime.
Of course you have to be more naive than an honest politician to believe that they didn't know what they were doing in the current case...
What's the best way for genuine, qualified, informed candidates to distinguish themselves from this rabble?
The genuine, qualified, informed candidates will not need slashdot's help to distinguish themselves. If you do, you aren't. See you at McDonald's.
I think I know rumor one that should be dispelled in the ad:
Q: Is Linux a corporation with a PR department full of marketroids?
A: No. Linux is a bunch of individuals and several corporations, each of which runs (or is) a PR department. In addition, among the most popular sites on the internet slavishly devote themselves to linux and knocking down not only other operating systems, but even ideas spawned from other operating systems. Think of linux more like the borg, many semi-autonomous organizations and people working towards the common goal of make and operating system do exactly what they want it to.
I just got out of a colloqium presented by one of the researchers and she was careful to point out that they do not have cells that can fully differentiate, just that they have cells that they have *so far* been able to turn into anything they want. They haven't tried everything yet.
I'm confused. Isn't this the same court that said Casey could join the PGA tour with his bad legs?
I guess the supremes must be frustated golfers who never worked a line.
Yes, but religion is a harmless, quaint anachronism these days.
Tell it to the 6K or so people killed on 9-11-01. They might not share your interpretation of 'harmless'.
What that review doesn't tell me is whether the book addresses security as a software issue. Many system exploits can be traced to specific programming practices, often to kernel level, but more often in userspace code.
This book is not a programmers manual, so you will have to keep looking if that's what you want.
I understand what you are looking for, but I wonder if it isn't too language specific to be a practical seller.
Now, it's not quite so interesting. The early adopters have been, at least in part, co-opted by car MP3 players. If I had a long commute, you can bet that's the direction I would invest my car audio dollars.
Nah. Well, maybe not nah. Just be careful not to interject too much of what *you* want into what the general public wants.
Of the 15 people in my family, I can imagine 1 getting MP3, 5-6 getting sat radio and the others sticking with FM. Of the 1 getting MP3 (Me), I'll get sat radio also.
This is a huge market, IMHO.
poliglut discussion
Mesage hiding is fun.
Try a whois on cetus-links.org for my most recent one.
And, yes, that email addr works.
The better question would be, would I ever want to work for mainstream companies again!
Ok, here's what I would do. See if they'll use you as a contractor. Doing so has certain monetary and philosophical advantages that should lessen the stigma in the eyes of future employers. If you can concurrently get another client or two then you will be in an even better position.
I was going to answer his question, but burned through $150 of billing time reading his page and typing this reply. :-(
It's very common in high energy physics for it to take years to process the data. There is a very complex system in building the detector itself. This is not assembly line stuff. Once the detector is built and taking data it still takes a while to understand the behavior of the detector itself. There can be pieces broken (one trick I was just told about the other day is that a collision detector will have tubes run through it that a radioactive source is dragged through in order to create signal to different components in a controlled fashion as it moves through the tube) that need to be accounted for, manufacturing variance between different pieces of the same component and millions of other such details. Once that's done then 'real' data taking starts. The preliminary analysis starts immediately, but the reason these experiments run as long as they do is because they need that much data to produce solid results. Experiments are expensive to run and if they could run shorter they would.
/.ers to appreciate is the software involved. There are millions of lines of code involved with a modern detectors controls systems and millions more with the analysis of the data the detector produces. Getting this stuff right and testing it to make sure is hard, time consuming work.
Once the data is taken, the final analysis is begun in ernest. The data (petabytes for large collider experiments, but I don't know the size of nutev) is sent all around the world and scientists poke and prod it into shape. One thing that is easy for
I know of at least one project that stopped taking data in '92 that is still be actively analyzed and has a chance of producing interesting results.