The financial institution should then call you at the phone numbers of record, that you gave when you opened the account, to confirm that it is indeed you that is making the purchase.
And the new wave of Identity Theft would be to change the phone numbers of record such that one could request a purchase, answer a pay phone and pickup the merchandise.
Identity theft is about making someone else pay for the goods. As long as we operate on plastic currency, it's going to be a problem. Back in the old day (cash/gold only) it used to be called counterfeiting.
The government has been "fighting" this for a LONG TIME and I don't see them winning yet. I'm sure whatever they're going to do next will merely be more expensive, less convenient and equally ineffective.
If it makes you feel better, allow me to suggest that homicide is to sex crime as murder in the first is to child rape. The post I was replying to originally suggested that one "mistake" should not trouble an individual forever. I disagree when that "mistake" might be categorized as Child Rape vs. Sex Crime or Murder-1 vs. Homicide.
It has been my experience with these databases that they disclose the severity of the crime and judging from date of infraction and age of offender one can reasonable assume whether it was a case of 19yo boyfriend with 17yo girlfriend or 35yo nutjob with a minor. The difference between these classifications can determine whether or not you would be banned from my house forever.
As for traffic accidents, there are accidents and there are road rage or drunken stupor induced accidents. Personally I don't see the problem comparing those distinctions to the various distinctions between sex crimes. But if you need it spelled out for you...
Great. You want to punish someone forever from one mistake. Way to have a system of justice dude.
No, I want to have as much information that I can about the environment my children play in. Just like I don't allow my (known) AA friends to babysit my alcohol collection. Is that punishing them for past mistakes or just playing the odds that past behavior is a good indication of future behavior?
Do you have something against insurance companies raising rates on people with multiple traffic incidents to?
Let's not even argue the fact that many traffic accidents can be correctly classified as accidents whereas few child rapes can be similary explained.
The 60-70mph sweet spot is artificial based on current traffic laws, gearing and your engine's most efficient RPM (power band).
On my '96 Kawasaki ZX-9R, I noticed that my mileage increased with speed. I averaged 40mpg at 70mph, but hit 50mph at 100mph when treking across CA on a road trip. That's because 100mph was about 6K rpm and at the bottom of that motorcycle engine's power band. Theorhetically, mileage would hold at 50mpg a bit fast than that before aerodynamics started robbing the efficiency from the equation. Regardless, I wasn't willing to experiment much higher than that.
I write this in a futile hope that we can avert misguided suggestions like enforcing speed limits to improve fuel economy. This is an engineering problem, not a legislative one.
I'm not sure that people must colonize space immediately. For me, it's like playing those old sim games. Do you spend limited research dollars on building 1960's style moon bases, or keep pressing on and shooting for nanotech before you move off the planet? If you can hold on long enough before colonization, you can move far more people and reach self-sufficiency much sooner.
You know, it was only a few hundred years ago that we thought the Earth was flat and the Universe was a light show put on for our benefit. What a change a few hundred years makes. We now know a few facts:
The Earth is round.
There are a lot more planets like this one out there somewhere.
Every rand(150000) years, something wipes out the majority of higher lifeforms on this Earth and life starts over from the bacteria, bugs, fishes and whatever managed to survive.
It's that random element that's meant to sort your priorities. If we could plan on the next mass extinction holding off until say 3014, then of course we should work on nano-tech and ion propulsion. Or maybe we could build wormholes to the furthest stars!
Perhaps some other species has had the luxury of time to accomplish such grand feats of technology and knowledge. But I'll bet my last dollar that they were not confined to a single planet when they did it.
Just like Java before it, Python is the latest "answer to all our problems" in software development. I'm betting that we'll see another replacement within three years.
But the real problem is that it seems the majority of developers will use any justification to use Python, no matter how thin. Once acheived, they begin their campaign of rewriting entire projects from whatever crappy, unmaintainable language we last used to whatever soon-to-be-crappy-and-unmaintainable new language they want to play with.
This ongoing effort to move from old language to new seems to be driven by little else than a developer's desire to work with cool new stuff. It robs our businesses of tremendous productivity and makes it that much harder to succeed. I've seen bugs put off for years because they were in the old-language code and the developers didn't want to touch it until the major rewrite scheduled real-soon-now. I've seen perfectly good code bases thrown away with no justification given or some flimsy speculation that new language will be better/faster/more.
It is this campaign to use new languages that robs businesses of huge amounts of productivity. Not merely the effort to rewrite stable code with new code in new languages, but the effort to test it, the effort to find and fix bugs. The effort to achieve the previous code's stability with multiple cycles going from 0.0 to 3.0+ over the course of years.
So if you're looking at Python or some new language as an interesting way to do your type of software development work, please consider how much further your business could advance if you just train your current development staff and new hires in whatever language you are already using.
I may not be working into my 80s, but I will be paying taxes to fund schools until I die. That's part of why my estimates are double yours.
Also, we pay taxes to cover the costs of education, not per pupil. These taxes are "progressively" assessed based on our ability to pay. Not that there is anything progressive about that socialistic scheme. But it does mean that I will pay whatever is required to fund the schools. My $150-200K is based on an extrapolation of my current tax status over the 62 years that I expect to be paying taxes on my property and earnings.
Oh, and while I hope to retire after ~65, I don't hope to stop earning a substantial income. And even Social Security payments are subject to taxation.
Finally, the "if you don't like it, move elsewhere" argument is counter productive. It's MY country (state, county, city, district), damnit, and I have every right to try to change this one, not get out because I don't agree with the current level of corruption.
In my opinion college was even worse. Here I am paying thousands of dollars per semester...
Your parents were also paying thousands of dollars for high-school. Federal, State and Property taxes all send some cash to your local public schools. Here's the beautiful part: You pay whether you attend or not.
Our local levy assesses about $800 per year for our school district on our house based on its property value. As I have children, I actually have an expectation of reaping some benefit from this tax. But consider that I'll easily pay $49,000 over 62 years of working and owning a house of this size into this levy alone... And this is only 30% of their funding!! Am I getting what I pay for from my public schools?
Hardly.
Not only is the pace of education disinterestingly slow, but they teach kids poor techniques for solving problems (I see a lot of guestimation exercises when my children are more than capable of doing the math). They also fail to explain or "teach" concepts to our children. This is where parents have to step in for an hour or two per night to help the children understand what is going on.
Now I'm not avoiding being involved in my children's education, but consider the parallel: If you hire someone to do a job and then have to spend an hour or two per day to make sure they are doing the job correctly, what do you do?
I don't know about you, but I'd like to fire them and find someone more competent to teach my children.
And to anyone suggesting I send my kids to private schools, please consider that because of my income level, I'm already paying $150-$200K through taxes and levies to support the public school system over the course of my lifetime. As long as I'm paying that, and our many other useless taxes, I cannot AFFORD private schools.
While 4% is certainly worth chasing, your analogy broke down here:
Would you be happy buying a 12-pack at the corner store, but having to sacrifice one can/bottle to some guy at the exit door for no apparent reason?
Piracy is akin to buying a twelve pack at the store and seeing the guy at the exit getting a thirteenth beer for free. The store isn't missing any beer. You're not missing any beer. The guy at the exit has a free beer he'd thought he'd like to taste. You can argue about the "loss of opportunity" to sell the poor bum a beer, but the fact is that no one lost anything due to this magical replication of beer.
Stretch your minds a bit and imagine what's going to happen when we have matter to energy to matter replicators. Call them scanning-nano-assemblers if it makes it easier to digest the technological possibility. Will:
Warner charge you for copying a physical CD from your friend's collection?
Ford charge you for turning a mound of dirt in your yard into an exact copy of your friend's new Mustang?
Waterford charge you for replicating a twelve piece set from the one set you bought so you could have friends over? Or maybe you're just replicating the crystal because you enjoy the sound it makes when you smash it against your fireplace every night.
Apple sue people who copy iPods complete with purchased tracks onboard?
The day is coming when the above, or something relatively similar, will be possible. The current argument against end-user "piracy" is no different.
1. this won't be a replacement tax, but rather an additional tax.
2. there will have to be some supporting laws such as "tampering with the GPS tracker on a vehicle punishable by $1B and two consecutive life imprisonment terms.
3. we'll need a complex DB to find people who travel virtually no distance between fuel-ups.
4. development of this database seems to have slipped some milestones... and GPS-Tax revenues are not quite what was expected, please raise the per-gallon gas tax to fund further development of the database and enforcement software.
5. compliance is up! but people have moved closer in and are now travelling much less. as a result, the few remaining in the outskirts are insufficient to fund the major highways... which are rapidly becoming unusable.
6. Our cities are cesspools of crime due to overpopulation and crowding! Gah! Home values are skyrocketing, no one can afford to buy a home of their own now and multi-family, 100-year leases are starting to become common. We need to find some more rich people to subsidize this housing market...
7. Interstate commerce is complaining because the roads are unusable and this is affecting delivery of goods and foodstuffs! Obviously we can tax the truckers to repair the Interstates... Everybody pays!
As usual, the government seems to be living up to my expectations of "a problem in search of revenue."
The simulations suggest that over the next hundred years we could see average rises of average temperatures of up to 11K, more than twice what was previously thought.
What I find shocking is that someone previously thought the temperature could rise as much as 5,500 degrees! No wonder there is so much concern about this Global Warming thing!!
I thought slashdotters were intelligent. Every post here is saying global warming is a sham. If you actually spend some time looking you will find out that global warming doesn't just mean it gets hot. It means everything goes hay wire. Most likely is that we will have hotter summers and colder winters. Weather will be extreme. More tornados, more hurricanes, more droughts and more floods.
Oh how dismissive of you to assume intelligence over those with opposing views.
The piece that the FUD generators overlook is that historically, the Earth is still in a cool phase. We just had a mini-ice-age for crying out loud. I welcome a return to warmth! Granted, this may turn many equatorial climes less hospitable, but the gain to polar territories will certainly offset this change.
As mentioned above, there are certain geo-political implications to all this that should be of concern. But as we cannot predict the weather more than three or four days in advance today, I hardly think anyone is qualified to determine which countries are going to be uninhabitable after a hundred plus years of warming. For the record: I suspect none.
Obviously the changing climate will require adaptation. Change often does. Your waterfront property might not be worth rebuilding every year. Your flood plain home may devalue significantly. Your sunny oasis vacation home might find itself amidst a ghost town. And yes, it could get so bad that millions or billions of unprepared and unadaptive people die.
The problem that I've always had with global warming theories is that they ascribe all the damage to human activity as if the Earth were some steady-state system that would maintain a 21C average temp if humans disappeared. This simply is not the case and there is plenty of historical evidence pointing this out. Rapid climate change happens. It is the precursor of mass extinctions because species tend to adapt slowly.
But instead of trying to put a limit on the energy we can consume as if our insignificant car-farts could make a difference to The Planet, our politicians should be encouraging energy consumption and development of technology. The monies necessary to fund improvements in efficiency will only be available when the demand for energy outstrips the available supply. More importantly, by building our civilization up, we increase the pace and diverisity of research... possibly into fields that can solve problems of agriculture in arid or chaotic environments.
It's only with intelligence and technology that mankind has a chance adapting quickly enough to the next catastrophe. The problem with global-warming fear mongers is that they're advocating solutions that will ensure mass extinctions remain a viable threat for mankind's future.
Human beings are natural procrastinators, suck-ups and incompetents. There are smatterings of brilliance and good work ethics out there as well, but they tend to run in the minority. These traits exist in equal proportions around the world, not merely concentrated in [some country you want to hate].
The problem with outsourcing is that you introduce significant comm-latency to the process of discovering which type of humans you've hired.
Sure they're more complicated, but they're safer... or are they? Gun control proponents would have you believe they are safer for kids and victims because they won't cause accidental suicides and cannot be used if stolen. That's supposed to be justification enough.
However, we all know someone will crack and post the info on circumventing each model produced. So the criminal will activate or re-personalize the weapon rather easily. Now we're just protecting police officers from grab-and-shoots.
As for the accidental kid shootings... okay maybe toddlers will stop shooting themselves. That will save what, one child every five or ten years? But teenagers are going to blow right through this like they have every other lock since the beginning of time. So don't expect school shootings to abate one bit.
The really subtle and nice thing about smart guns is that they rely on electronics. Which means your weapon can be remotely disabled by an EMP generator... no doubt a new tool coming to LEOs near you. That should make no-knocks much safer in a few hundred years once the antique guns are completely removed from circulation.
Why the big hub-bub? They happen. Its part of living in this giant green and blue globe. Instead of freaking out and building ourselves fallout shelters, how about we all take time to donate time or effort into helping those that are in need from the last disaster?
Perhaps because some of us are planners and prefer investing what little time and money we have into protecting our families from the possible tragedies in our own lives.
Preparing for retirement (loss of income), children's college (loss of opportunity), or building substantial homes with foundations (loss of trailer/mobile home). This sort of long-term planning isn't cheap and often prevents those of us paying already oppressive taxes (which are redirected toward disaster victims without any credit to us) from contributing additional income toward those who must react to the tragedies that have befallen them.
In a world of six billion, there will ALWAYS be tragedies. People are going to die. People are going to lose homes, lives, children. Some of those people will even have prepared for the worst and merely have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yes, that could be you on a vacation you saved ten years to take.
For those of you wondering how your $500 contribution can possibly make a difference: It cannot. Chances are even that $1.8M over on Amazon will get lost in the bureaucracy. Or someone will buy food with it that will spoil in customs because the roads to the devastated areas are closed. If sending blind cash makes you feel better, go for it. If joining the Red Cross/Peace Corps floats your boat, I admire that. More power to you, at least your time/money will be spent effectively.
But here's another way you can contribute to disaster victim relief: If you're living in a trailer park or a straw hut on the shores of some ocean, I suggest you take what spare cash you can muster up and do the responsible thing: Move. Build a taller, concrete house. Insist your dwelling/workplace is up to code. Try to store some fresh water/food in your pantry. Do what you can to avoid being a victim when the disaster strikes your neighborhood.
Planning puts you in the driver's seat. Puts you on the rescue crew rather than the victim list. And it can make a huge difference to those you care about the most.
But I'm sure the DMCA only applies to the pursuits of profit vs. your pursuit of piracy. So the pirate's encryption is unprotected whereas the MPAA's encryption (no matter how weak) is sacrosant.
My current employer does it. We have to. When we test our product to give marketing their numbers for publication, we have to make certain assumptions for the variables. Want to know how fast a Porsche goes? Straight line or curvy road? How curvy? Oh, straight then. Windy or calm? Sea-level or alpine desert?
There's no equivalence between marketing numbers and YOUR reality because the variables change. So in a bake off you have to try tuning for the customer's variables. And when you do, you find that the performance falls off because, duh, marketing published the optimized numbers. That's not deception, but a common denominator with the competition.
Think about it. When was the last time the "how fast" question was answered with worst case numbers? You get best case, always.
Then you bake off and it sucks.
Then if the vendor has a good Sales Engineer and Support team, they'll tune it for your variables and get the performance where you'll make a buy.
It has long been a tradition of life on this planet to compete for resources. In fact, that's the primary tradition of life: Survival. The "American" mode of survival includes gas guzzling cars to get us too and from our jobs and suburban malls. We've got lots of land to cover and rail/bus just doesn't work well enough to maintain our agressive schedules. As I recall, we work more than the EU countries and don't have as much free time.
It's not denial. Sure, we might be contributing to global climate changes. So what? The alternatives proposed by greens or environmental conservatives are largely unacceptable:
We're not going to scale back our lifestyle.
We're not going to scale back our consumption.
If the price of fuel goes up, our tradition is to work harder to afford it.
We're not going to move into tiny little boxes and commute only on electric trains.
We're not going to stop having children so the energy needs plateau.
We're not going to stop building faster computers and better technology to reduce the average person's energy needs.
Yes, we're working on more efficient solutions, because cheaper is a competative advantage.
Yes, we're going to outgrow this planet.
Yes, resources are going to become scarce and more expensive.
Yes, we're going to be driven to the brink of war and beyond over oil, water and eventually even surface area for solar energy.
Yes, things are going to change and get much worse until they get better.
But the rate of innovation and generation of new tech is going to continue to drive resource consumption, etc, until there is not enough Earth to supply us and Space starts looking affordable.
Having previously worked at Wizards (circa 1996), let me assure you that the core staff and founders are a bunch of gaming enthusiasts who stumbled into a multi-million dollar enterprise with MTG. Having made that pile of money, they tried to do what any bunch of gaming enthusiasts would try to do: make more games! And failing at many of those, they did what any multi-million dollar company would do: buy-out their competition (Although one could easily argue that D&D was neither competition nor worth buying).
Having acheived success so rapidly from Peter's basement, you can only imagine the wide variety of talent at that company. A fair portion of it mediocre at best, yet still scattered throughout the heirarchy. They did not go through proper growth and attrition phases that weed out the incapable or at least prevent them from obtaining positions of great responsibility. So I'm completely unsurprised that they've put out another mediocre ho-hum piece of work amidst their many knock-offs of MTG. I mean, the protected incompetents have to produce something from time to time or risk the appearance of doing nothing, right?
But as far as D&D goes, as I recall, WotC snatched up a failing business out of sincere desire to make games as big as the movies and TSR's alternative to being owned and managed by sincere, enthusiastic... gamers... was likely financial oblivion and obscurity.
The $50 price tag might prohibit you from picking up this coffee table book and having a good laugh. But remember that WotC is keeping the game of our childhood alive at no small cost to itself. And unless they can demonstrate the ability to forge new genres and release completely new games that reap success similar to the core MTG, their ability to continue to do so is finite. As it stands, their games only imitate the movies through merchandising and in so doing will never be their equivalent.
Fact is, with most FTE positions, you're not much more secure than a contractor when the lay-offs hit. Costs are costs and management would rather offer a no-good FTE to the gods than lose a highly productive contractor. So don't worry about that too much.
However, there are risks and costs to contracting and your compensation for them is only measured in money. Figure 30-50% more than you would expect to make as a FTE. This breaks down as follows:
salary: 72.5% FTE equivalent Federal Tax: 25.0% FTE equivalent SS Tax: 7.5% FTE equivalent SS Tax: 7.5% (W2 employers usually pay this) Vacation/Hol: 12.0% (figure six weeks per year) Benefits: $x,xxx (depends on age, dependants) Risk: 8-16% (figure 4-8 weeks to find new job)
I base such calculations against a 2080 hour year so divide your annualized benefits appropriately and make sure you allow for them to increase 15-20% per calendar year.
Of course your prospective employer will downplay the risk, downplay the benefits (since those would be deducted from your FTE paycheck) and downplay the vaca/holiday time as well. They'll also tell you that self-employment taxes are deductible, yada-yada. So try to avoid disclosing the details of your thinking there. Contracting involves risk and cost, your surcharge for 1099 vs. W2 is 50% or whatever works for you. Be prepared to walk away vs. discounting what you think you are worth.
Risks? If your contract-employer does go out of business, you'll be left holding a worthless paper invoice and will have lost 15-30 days income or more. You might even get sued for the previous 90 days of payments you already received (yes, it happened to me). FTEs have some legal protection from this and are guaranteed up to ~$4280 in priority claims by federal law. Contractors have no such protections and are merely lost in the sea of claimants.
Other tips?
Net 15 terms on your invoices. Enforce the penalties for late payments be re-invoicing with the included late fee.
Don't round up your hours. You don't want to be told that your one hour of work doesn't justify the two or three hours you billed. Better to charge a lot and be generous with your hours in favor of the employer. Work hard, work focused, track your time honestly. Be percieved as an incredibly productive resource, although expensive.
Watch the payments. Call the bank and verify funds when you get the checks. Make sure they clear your bank. Look for other signs of fiscal health/instability and heed them.
Keep your resume current and circulating. Make sure you keep up your networking and don't hesitate to take on additional contract work on the side.
It's better to work less, but expensive, for two employers, than lots for one.
Let's try increasing the basic taxes instead of layering additional confusing taxes on everything:
they already tax by weight in the sales tax since raw material has a direct cost.
taxing by mass of the vehicle would inappropriately hit those who don't drive much or have managed to buy a conservative car for commuting and a gas guzzler for when they really need to haul ten sheets of plywood home from home despot.
the annual licensing fee is a joke. It's completely unrelated to usage, wear, etc. so it's the wrong place for this. Plus a high licensing fee results in... you guessed it, unlicensed vehicles.
Gas taxes are the best place for usage taxes. Guzzlers would get hit extra hard, as you'd hope based on their mass. Not only that, but the feedback is regular and persistent... and enforcement is unavoidable, pay or don't drive.
Of course, it's also going to be the most opposed because it hits everyone and no one can get out of it.
Or maybe it's because the citizenry knows the government is horribly inefficient and a gas tax would soon be followed by a hike to the sales tax, the annual license tax, road usage taxes, rinse, repeat.
We need to repeal the government and privatize the roads.
I only bring this up because I find it annoying when people refer to hydrogen as an energy source.
What do you think powers the sun?
If this hydrogen powered concept vehicle is really solar powered, then so are all the oil/gas engines on the planet since the Sun is the only significant energy source within a few light years of here.
Still, it's a stupid project. Hydrogen/Solar/Wind/Fart power will become economical and common when and only when oil is neither.
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The financial institution should then call you at the phone numbers of record, that you gave when you opened the account, to confirm that it is indeed you that is making the purchase.
And the new wave of Identity Theft would be to change the phone numbers of record such that one could request a purchase, answer a pay phone and pickup the merchandise.
Identity theft is about making someone else pay for the goods. As long as we operate on plastic currency, it's going to be a problem. Back in the old day (cash/gold only) it used to be called counterfeiting.
The government has been "fighting" this for a LONG TIME and I don't see them winning yet. I'm sure whatever they're going to do next will merely be more expensive, less convenient and equally ineffective.
Own?
You're kidding right?
Owning propery went out the window with the concept of property taxes (aka, RENT payments to the government).
One lesson to take away from this: When <corporation> comes knocking with an offer to buy, up it a few percentage points and SIGN.
Another lesson to take away from this: Location, Location, Location. Make sure you build your dream/retirement home some place that sucks.
Oh dear, you've caught me in a mixed metaphor.
If it makes you feel better, allow me to suggest that homicide is to sex crime as murder in the first is to child rape. The post I was replying to originally suggested that one "mistake" should not trouble an individual forever. I disagree when that "mistake" might be categorized as Child Rape vs. Sex Crime or Murder-1 vs. Homicide.
It has been my experience with these databases that they disclose the severity of the crime and judging from date of infraction and age of offender one can reasonable assume whether it was a case of 19yo boyfriend with 17yo girlfriend or 35yo nutjob with a minor. The difference between these classifications can determine whether or not you would be banned from my house forever.
As for traffic accidents, there are accidents and there are road rage or drunken stupor induced accidents. Personally I don't see the problem comparing those distinctions to the various distinctions between sex crimes. But if you need it spelled out for you...
Great. You want to punish someone forever from one mistake. Way to have a system of justice dude.
No, I want to have as much information that I can about the environment my children play in. Just like I don't allow my (known) AA friends to babysit my alcohol collection. Is that punishing them for past mistakes or just playing the odds that past behavior is a good indication of future behavior?
Do you have something against insurance companies raising rates on people with multiple traffic incidents to?
Let's not even argue the fact that many traffic accidents can be correctly classified as accidents whereas few child rapes can be similary explained.
The 60-70mph sweet spot is artificial based on current traffic laws, gearing and your engine's most efficient RPM (power band).
On my '96 Kawasaki ZX-9R, I noticed that my mileage increased with speed. I averaged 40mpg at 70mph, but hit 50mph at 100mph when treking across CA on a road trip. That's because 100mph was about 6K rpm and at the bottom of that motorcycle engine's power band. Theorhetically, mileage would hold at 50mpg a bit fast than that before aerodynamics started robbing the efficiency from the equation. Regardless, I wasn't willing to experiment much higher than that.
I write this in a futile hope that we can avert misguided suggestions like enforcing speed limits to improve fuel economy. This is an engineering problem, not a legislative one.
You know, it was only a few hundred years ago that we thought the Earth was flat and the Universe was a light show put on for our benefit. What a change a few hundred years makes. We now know a few facts:
It's that random element that's meant to sort your priorities. If we could plan on the next mass extinction holding off until say 3014, then of course we should work on nano-tech and ion propulsion. Or maybe we could build wormholes to the furthest stars!
Perhaps some other species has had the luxury of time to accomplish such grand feats of technology and knowledge. But I'll bet my last dollar that they were not confined to a single planet when they did it.
Just like Java before it, Python is the latest "answer to all our problems" in software development. I'm betting that we'll see another replacement within three years.
But the real problem is that it seems the majority of developers will use any justification to use Python, no matter how thin. Once acheived, they begin their campaign of rewriting entire projects from whatever crappy, unmaintainable language we last used to whatever soon-to-be-crappy-and-unmaintainable new language they want to play with.
This ongoing effort to move from old language to new seems to be driven by little else than a developer's desire to work with cool new stuff. It robs our businesses of tremendous productivity and makes it that much harder to succeed. I've seen bugs put off for years because they were in the old-language code and the developers didn't want to touch it until the major rewrite scheduled real-soon-now. I've seen perfectly good code bases thrown away with no justification given or some flimsy speculation that new language will be better/faster/more.
It is this campaign to use new languages that robs businesses of huge amounts of productivity. Not merely the effort to rewrite stable code with new code in new languages, but the effort to test it, the effort to find and fix bugs. The effort to achieve the previous code's stability with multiple cycles going from 0.0 to 3.0+ over the course of years.
So if you're looking at Python or some new language as an interesting way to do your type of software development work, please consider how much further your business could advance if you just train your current development staff and new hires in whatever language you are already using.
I may not be working into my 80s, but I will be paying taxes to fund schools until I die. That's part of why my estimates are double yours.
Also, we pay taxes to cover the costs of education, not per pupil. These taxes are "progressively" assessed based on our ability to pay. Not that there is anything progressive about that socialistic scheme. But it does mean that I will pay whatever is required to fund the schools. My $150-200K is based on an extrapolation of my current tax status over the 62 years that I expect to be paying taxes on my property and earnings.
Oh, and while I hope to retire after ~65, I don't hope to stop earning a substantial income. And even Social Security payments are subject to taxation.
Finally, the "if you don't like it, move elsewhere" argument is counter productive. It's MY country (state, county, city, district), damnit, and I have every right to try to change this one, not get out because I don't agree with the current level of corruption.
In my opinion college was even worse. Here I am paying thousands of dollars per semester...
Your parents were also paying thousands of dollars for high-school. Federal, State and Property taxes all send some cash to your local public schools. Here's the beautiful part: You pay whether you attend or not.
Our local levy assesses about $800 per year for our school district on our house based on its property value. As I have children, I actually have an expectation of reaping some benefit from this tax. But consider that I'll easily pay $49,000 over 62 years of working and owning a house of this size into this levy alone... And this is only 30% of their funding!! Am I getting what I pay for from my public schools?
Hardly.
Not only is the pace of education disinterestingly slow, but they teach kids poor techniques for solving problems (I see a lot of guestimation exercises when my children are more than capable of doing the math). They also fail to explain or "teach" concepts to our children. This is where parents have to step in for an hour or two per night to help the children understand what is going on.
Now I'm not avoiding being involved in my children's education, but consider the parallel: If you hire someone to do a job and then have to spend an hour or two per day to make sure they are doing the job correctly, what do you do?
I don't know about you, but I'd like to fire them and find someone more competent to teach my children.
And to anyone suggesting I send my kids to private schools, please consider that because of my income level, I'm already paying $150-$200K through taxes and levies to support the public school system over the course of my lifetime. As long as I'm paying that, and our many other useless taxes, I cannot AFFORD private schools.
If you cannot see the movie, disable adblock.
The flash is embedded in a URL that doesn't pass my http://*/ads/* filter.
Piracy is akin to buying a twelve pack at the store and seeing the guy at the exit getting a thirteenth beer for free. The store isn't missing any beer. You're not missing any beer. The guy at the exit has a free beer he'd thought he'd like to taste. You can argue about the "loss of opportunity" to sell the poor bum a beer, but the fact is that no one lost anything due to this magical replication of beer.
Stretch your minds a bit and imagine what's going to happen when we have matter to energy to matter replicators. Call them scanning-nano-assemblers if it makes it easier to digest the technological possibility. Will:
The day is coming when the above, or something relatively similar, will be possible. The current argument against end-user "piracy" is no different.
...such as:
1. this won't be a replacement tax, but rather an additional tax.
2. there will have to be some supporting laws such as "tampering with the GPS tracker on a vehicle punishable by $1B and two consecutive life imprisonment terms.
3. we'll need a complex DB to find people who travel virtually no distance between fuel-ups.
4. development of this database seems to have slipped some milestones... and GPS-Tax revenues are not quite what was expected, please raise the per-gallon gas tax to fund further development of the database and enforcement software.
5. compliance is up! but people have moved closer in and are now travelling much less. as a result, the few remaining in the outskirts are insufficient to fund the major highways... which are rapidly becoming unusable.
6. Our cities are cesspools of crime due to overpopulation and crowding! Gah! Home values are skyrocketing, no one can afford to buy a home of their own now and multi-family, 100-year leases are starting to become common. We need to find some more rich people to subsidize this housing market...
7. Interstate commerce is complaining because the roads are unusable and this is affecting delivery of goods and foodstuffs! Obviously we can tax the truckers to repair the Interstates... Everybody pays!
As usual, the government seems to be living up to my expectations of "a problem in search of revenue."
The simulations suggest that over the next hundred years we could see average rises of average temperatures of up to 11K, more than twice what was previously thought.
What I find shocking is that someone previously thought the temperature could rise as much as 5,500 degrees! No wonder there is so much concern about this Global Warming thing!!
I thought slashdotters were intelligent. Every post here is saying global warming is a sham. If you actually spend some time looking you will find out that global warming doesn't just mean it gets hot. It means everything goes hay wire. Most likely is that we will have hotter summers and colder winters. Weather will be extreme. More tornados, more hurricanes, more droughts and more floods.
Oh how dismissive of you to assume intelligence over those with opposing views.
The piece that the FUD generators overlook is that historically, the Earth is still in a cool phase. We just had a mini-ice-age for crying out loud. I welcome a return to warmth! Granted, this may turn many equatorial climes less hospitable, but the gain to polar territories will certainly offset this change.
As mentioned above, there are certain geo-political implications to all this that should be of concern. But as we cannot predict the weather more than three or four days in advance today, I hardly think anyone is qualified to determine which countries are going to be uninhabitable after a hundred plus years of warming. For the record: I suspect none.
Obviously the changing climate will require adaptation. Change often does. Your waterfront property might not be worth rebuilding every year. Your flood plain home may devalue significantly. Your sunny oasis vacation home might find itself amidst a ghost town. And yes, it could get so bad that millions or billions of unprepared and unadaptive people die.
The problem that I've always had with global warming theories is that they ascribe all the damage to human activity as if the Earth were some steady-state system that would maintain a 21C average temp if humans disappeared. This simply is not the case and there is plenty of historical evidence pointing this out. Rapid climate change happens. It is the precursor of mass extinctions because species tend to adapt slowly.
But instead of trying to put a limit on the energy we can consume as if our insignificant car-farts could make a difference to The Planet, our politicians should be encouraging energy consumption and development of technology. The monies necessary to fund improvements in efficiency will only be available when the demand for energy outstrips the available supply. More importantly, by building our civilization up, we increase the pace and diverisity of research... possibly into fields that can solve problems of agriculture in arid or chaotic environments.
It's only with intelligence and technology that mankind has a chance adapting quickly enough to the next catastrophe. The problem with global-warming fear mongers is that they're advocating solutions that will ensure mass extinctions remain a viable threat for mankind's future.
Human beings are natural procrastinators, suck-ups and incompetents. There are smatterings of brilliance and good work ethics out there as well, but they tend to run in the minority. These traits exist in equal proportions around the world, not merely concentrated in [some country you want to hate].
The problem with outsourcing is that you introduce significant comm-latency to the process of discovering which type of humans you've hired.
Bad for whom?
Sure they're more complicated, but they're safer... or are they? Gun control proponents would have you believe they are safer for kids and victims because they won't cause accidental suicides and cannot be used if stolen. That's supposed to be justification enough.
However, we all know someone will crack and post the info on circumventing each model produced. So the criminal will activate or re-personalize the weapon rather easily. Now we're just protecting police officers from grab-and-shoots.
As for the accidental kid shootings... okay maybe toddlers will stop shooting themselves. That will save what, one child every five or ten years? But teenagers are going to blow right through this like they have every other lock since the beginning of time. So don't expect school shootings to abate one bit.
The really subtle and nice thing about smart guns is that they rely on electronics. Which means your weapon can be remotely disabled by an EMP generator... no doubt a new tool coming to LEOs near you. That should make no-knocks much safer in a few hundred years once the antique guns are completely removed from circulation.
Why the big hub-bub? They happen. Its part of living in this giant green and blue globe. Instead of freaking out and building ourselves fallout shelters, how about we all take time to donate time or effort into helping those that are in need from the last disaster?
Perhaps because some of us are planners and prefer investing what little time and money we have into protecting our families from the possible tragedies in our own lives.
Preparing for retirement (loss of income), children's college (loss of opportunity), or building substantial homes with foundations (loss of trailer/mobile home). This sort of long-term planning isn't cheap and often prevents those of us paying already oppressive taxes (which are redirected toward disaster victims without any credit to us) from contributing additional income toward those who must react to the tragedies that have befallen them.
In a world of six billion, there will ALWAYS be tragedies. People are going to die. People are going to lose homes, lives, children. Some of those people will even have prepared for the worst and merely have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yes, that could be you on a vacation you saved ten years to take.
For those of you wondering how your $500 contribution can possibly make a difference: It cannot. Chances are even that $1.8M over on Amazon will get lost in the bureaucracy. Or someone will buy food with it that will spoil in customs because the roads to the devastated areas are closed. If sending blind cash makes you feel better, go for it. If joining the Red Cross/Peace Corps floats your boat, I admire that. More power to you, at least your time/money will be spent effectively.
But here's another way you can contribute to disaster victim relief: If you're living in a trailer park or a straw hut on the shores of some ocean, I suggest you take what spare cash you can muster up and do the responsible thing: Move. Build a taller, concrete house. Insist your dwelling/workplace is up to code. Try to store some fresh water/food in your pantry. Do what you can to avoid being a victim when the disaster strikes your neighborhood.
Planning puts you in the driver's seat. Puts you on the rescue crew rather than the victim list. And it can make a huge difference to those you care about the most.
But I'm sure the DMCA only applies to the pursuits of profit vs. your pursuit of piracy. So the pirate's encryption is unprotected whereas the MPAA's encryption (no matter how weak) is sacrosant.
We already know who's pocket the courts are in.
My current employer does it. We have to. When we test our product to give marketing their numbers for publication, we have to make certain assumptions for the variables. Want to know how fast a Porsche goes? Straight line or curvy road? How curvy? Oh, straight then. Windy or calm? Sea-level or alpine desert?
There's no equivalence between marketing numbers and YOUR reality because the variables change. So in a bake off you have to try tuning for the customer's variables. And when you do, you find that the performance falls off because, duh, marketing published the optimized numbers. That's not deception, but a common denominator with the competition.
Think about it. When was the last time the "how fast" question was answered with worst case numbers? You get best case, always.
Then you bake off and it sucks.
Then if the vendor has a good Sales Engineer and Support team, they'll tune it for your variables and get the performance where you'll make a buy.
It's not denial. Sure, we might be contributing to global climate changes. So what? The alternatives proposed by greens or environmental conservatives are largely unacceptable:
But the rate of innovation and generation of new tech is going to continue to drive resource consumption, etc, until there is not enough Earth to supply us and Space starts looking affordable.
Get over it.
Having previously worked at Wizards (circa 1996), let me assure you that the core staff and founders are a bunch of gaming enthusiasts who stumbled into a multi-million dollar enterprise with MTG. Having made that pile of money, they tried to do what any bunch of gaming enthusiasts would try to do: make more games! And failing at many of those, they did what any multi-million dollar company would do: buy-out their competition (Although one could easily argue that D&D was neither competition nor worth buying).
Having acheived success so rapidly from Peter's basement, you can only imagine the wide variety of talent at that company. A fair portion of it mediocre at best, yet still scattered throughout the heirarchy. They did not go through proper growth and attrition phases that weed out the incapable or at least prevent them from obtaining positions of great responsibility. So I'm completely unsurprised that they've put out another mediocre ho-hum piece of work amidst their many knock-offs of MTG. I mean, the protected incompetents have to produce something from time to time or risk the appearance of doing nothing, right?
But as far as D&D goes, as I recall, WotC snatched up a failing business out of sincere desire to make games as big as the movies and TSR's alternative to being owned and managed by sincere, enthusiastic... gamers... was likely financial oblivion and obscurity.
The $50 price tag might prohibit you from picking up this coffee table book and having a good laugh. But remember that WotC is keeping the game of our childhood alive at no small cost to itself. And unless they can demonstrate the ability to forge new genres and release completely new games that reap success similar to the core MTG, their ability to continue to do so is finite. As it stands, their games only imitate the movies through merchandising and in so doing will never be their equivalent.
However, there are risks and costs to contracting and your compensation for them is only measured in money. Figure 30-50% more than you would expect to make as a FTE. This breaks down as follows:
salary: 72.5% FTE equivalent
Federal Tax: 25.0% FTE equivalent
SS Tax: 7.5% FTE equivalent
SS Tax: 7.5% (W2 employers usually pay this)
Vacation/Hol: 12.0% (figure six weeks per year)
Benefits: $x,xxx (depends on age, dependants)
Risk: 8-16% (figure 4-8 weeks to find new job)
I base such calculations against a 2080 hour year so divide your annualized benefits appropriately and make sure you allow for them to increase 15-20% per calendar year.
Of course your prospective employer will downplay the risk, downplay the benefits (since those would be deducted from your FTE paycheck) and downplay the vaca/holiday time as well. They'll also tell you that self-employment taxes are deductible, yada-yada. So try to avoid disclosing the details of your thinking there. Contracting involves risk and cost, your surcharge for 1099 vs. W2 is 50% or whatever works for you. Be prepared to walk away vs. discounting what you think you are worth.
Risks? If your contract-employer does go out of business, you'll be left holding a worthless paper invoice and will have lost 15-30 days income or more. You might even get sued for the previous 90 days of payments you already received (yes, it happened to me). FTEs have some legal protection from this and are guaranteed up to ~$4280 in priority claims by federal law. Contractors have no such protections and are merely lost in the sea of claimants.
Other tips?
Of course, it's also going to be the most opposed because it hits everyone and no one can get out of it.
Or maybe it's because the citizenry knows the government is horribly inefficient and a gas tax would soon be followed by a hike to the sales tax, the annual license tax, road usage taxes, rinse, repeat.
We need to repeal the government and privatize the roads.
Worse, how many species out there are being wiped out that we know/knew nothing about?
Or how many new species are coming into being at the same time which we ALSO know nothing about??!
I think I hear a tree falling... or I might if I were in the forest.
I only bring this up because I find it annoying when people refer to hydrogen as an energy source.
What do you think powers the sun?
If this hydrogen powered concept vehicle is really solar powered, then so are all the oil/gas engines on the planet since the Sun is the only significant energy source within a few light years of here.
Still, it's a stupid project. Hydrogen/Solar/Wind/Fart power will become economical and common when and only when oil is neither.