all paper tax returns are entered by one transcriber, and key-verified by another.
with a few hundred million individual tax returns to process, even a half a percent error rate still means thousands of errors, regardless of how old the software is.
there are much worse fuck-ups that could have happened. waiting an extra 2 weeks for your money just ain't that big a deal.
the new systems, those few that are in place, run in parallel with the old systems.
certain returns, and all the associated data for that TIN (SSN) are put on the new system. IIRC they started with 1040EZs that meet certain criteria. if the taxpayer changes so they don't meet that criteria, they get moved back to the old system.
it's pretty fucking hairy.
there's also alot of business bullshit involved. CSC was put in charge of managing the modernization contract. they at one point decided to fire many contractors and use their own people (which they were not supposed to do) and did a fucking brilliant job of delaying the project.'
with an enormous system of databases with duplicate information all over the fucking place, on 40 year old computers, run by 55 year old government employees, that has to process billions of transactions between april 15th and about may 2nd (and that's just individual tax returns), it's a little... uhh, complicated making a complete overhaul of such a system. especially when the former IRS commisioner (rosotti? i forget) had the insane idea of wanting to replace most of the goddamn infrastructure all at once instead of, oh, doing something that makes sense like replacing it one piece at a time.
for me, i always give the subtitles the benefit of the doubt with respect to a better translation. i'm sure it's different per case, but it seems to me it's easier to translate to text than to translate to audio that has to fit a particular timeframe.
it doesn't always have to be, but a big draw for a lot of video games is immersion. it'd be hard to get immersed in something like splinter cell at a chuck e. cheese.
it gets worse i think (i welcome correction on these facts).
i assume now that the two biggest cell phone providers will be cingular and verizon.
cingular is co-owned by baby bells.
verizon wireless ~= bell atlantic.
it's been 20 years since the bell breakup, your ground lines are still mostly owned by bells, your wireless towers are owned by bells, and the biggest cell phone companies are bells.
hell's bells.
i picture a room full of crusty old stockholders drinking champagne, lighting cubans with $100 bills, and laughing all the way to the bank.
anyone else play the first try at doing 3d contra on the ps1? sweet fucking jesus what a piece of shit.
on a serious note, while i think whoever nintendo worked with to produce metroid did a fantastic job, i don't really think consoles are good for twitchy FPS shooters.
now if they do something like duke nukem manhattan project, with droolerific side scrolling action in a nice 3d environment, then i will be all over that.
i've had no problems asking in existing gaming forums. i imagine it'd be a might difficult to gain enough traffic to make this site worthwhile (in either $$$s or usefullness, both requiring a good amount of active users).
you're right in a sense: the existence of viruses and such force us to install protective software which does nothing to improve our computer systems. they are more like antibiotics and vaccinations in the biological world: it supplements existing defenses, or creates defenses where none exist.
HOWEVER, if viruses and other exploits cause OS programmers to write better code that prevents exploitation in the first place, now that would be something useful.
(there's plenty of more explicit comparisons to evolution to be made if anyone wants to.)
>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.
that's just standard CYA. a lot of lawyers and such include it at the end of every email.
which makes sense even in plain english: if you are having a conversation about apple, you are talking about the company, or maybe someone's pet fish named apple. if you were talking about fruit you'd be talking about apples.
if this is true (which other comments seem to indicate it may no longer be), most telemarketing calls are done by out-sourced call centers. THEY will not be allowed to call you, and it may be a long time before a company decides they want to go back to doing in-house telemarketing.
(i stole this idea blatantly from a post in the discussion on this on arstechnica)
their snail mail gift certificates look like spam (junk mail) as well. it doesn't say amazon anywhere on the envelope, they come from "A2Z Gift certificates", and are easy to get mixed up with the onslaught of credit card offers and other crap. i made a point to call someone i mailed one to using amazon's site (the rest i mailed to myself to hand-wrap) to make sure they didn't toss it by accident.
Re:It all went downhill when Gene died
on
Critics Pan Nemesis
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
>>...now Enterprise can't keep its story consistant with the events of the Kirk era that happen 100 years later.
>>Far be it from me to be an "Enterprise" apologist, but I remember reading somewhere that there's an official explanation for this in the writers' guide or something.
that would be in the section of the writer's guide titled "Cop-Out". the fact of the matter is, B&B are too fucking busy trying to put some hot, sweaty, vulcan-human shower room scenes on the screen to pay much attention to little details like plot, continuity, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
all paper tax returns are entered by one transcriber, and key-verified by another.
with a few hundred million individual tax returns to process, even a half a percent error rate still means thousands of errors, regardless of how old the software is.
there are much worse fuck-ups that could have happened. waiting an extra 2 weeks for your money just ain't that big a deal.
the new systems, those few that are in place, run in parallel with the old systems.
certain returns, and all the associated data for that TIN (SSN) are put on the new system. IIRC they started with 1040EZs that meet certain criteria. if the taxpayer changes so they don't meet that criteria, they get moved back to the old system.
it's pretty fucking hairy.
there's also alot of business bullshit involved. CSC was put in charge of managing the modernization contract. they at one point decided to fire many contractors and use their own people (which they were not supposed to do) and did a fucking brilliant job of delaying the project.'
with an enormous system of databases with duplicate information all over the fucking place, on 40 year old computers, run by 55 year old government employees, that has to process billions of transactions between april 15th and about may 2nd (and that's just individual tax returns), it's a little... uhh, complicated making a complete overhaul of such a system. especially when the former IRS commisioner (rosotti? i forget) had the insane idea of wanting to replace most of the goddamn infrastructure all at once instead of, oh, doing something that makes sense like replacing it one piece at a time.
for me, i always give the subtitles the benefit of the doubt with respect to a better translation. i'm sure it's different per case, but it seems to me it's easier to translate to text than to translate to audio that has to fit a particular timeframe.
Remember what happened last time they did that? FF9.
as opposed to FF8, where they try to recapture the profitabilitymagic of FF7 with twice as much angst and 4 times the side quests?
FF9 was a breath of fresh back-to-basics-air after FF8
What makes me wonder is how 'complete bullshit' gets modded up...
welcome. you must be new to slashdot.
don't forget mosquitos.
tell whatever drone answers the phone that you need to speak to his/her supervisor.
keep moving up the ranks until someone takes action.
your phone calls produce nothing because the people you are talking to have no authority to take any action.
Why must video game playing be so solitary?
it doesn't always have to be, but a big draw for a lot of video games is immersion. it'd be hard to get immersed in something like splinter cell at a chuck e. cheese.
it gets worse i think (i welcome correction on these facts).
i assume now that the two biggest cell phone providers will be cingular and verizon.
cingular is co-owned by baby bells.
verizon wireless ~= bell atlantic.
it's been 20 years since the bell breakup, your ground lines are still mostly owned by bells, your wireless towers are owned by bells, and the biggest cell phone companies are bells.
hell's bells.
i picture a room full of crusty old stockholders drinking champagne, lighting cubans with $100 bills, and laughing all the way to the bank.
anyone else play the first try at doing 3d contra on the ps1? sweet fucking jesus what a piece of shit.
on a serious note, while i think whoever nintendo worked with to produce metroid did a fantastic job, i don't really think consoles are good for twitchy FPS shooters.
now if they do something like duke nukem manhattan project, with droolerific side scrolling action in a nice 3d environment, then i will be all over that.
i don't know about the other consoles, but i only saw one game worth a damn on the snes list (f-zero).
maybe it's Bikke?
i've had no problems asking in existing gaming forums. i imagine it'd be a might difficult to gain enough traffic to make this site worthwhile (in either $$$s or usefullness, both requiring a good amount of active users).
you're right in a sense: the existence of viruses and such force us to install protective software which does nothing to improve our computer systems. they are more like antibiotics and vaccinations in the biological world: it supplements existing defenses, or creates defenses where none exist.
HOWEVER, if viruses and other exploits cause OS programmers to write better code that prevents exploitation in the first place, now that would be something useful.
(there's plenty of more explicit comparisons to evolution to be made if anyone wants to.)
>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.
that's just standard CYA. a lot of lawyers and such include it at the end of every email.
why make it complicated.
http://www.google.com/search?q=apples works fine.
which makes sense even in plain english: if you are having a conversation about apple, you are talking about the company, or maybe someone's pet fish named apple. if you were talking about fruit you'd be talking about apples.
or worse, a candidate could be elected based on skills and values instead of based on fundraising money acquisition.
if this is true (which other comments seem to indicate it may no longer be), most telemarketing calls are done by out-sourced call centers. THEY will not be allowed to call you, and it may be a long time before a company decides they want to go back to doing in-house telemarketing.
(i stole this idea blatantly from a post in the discussion on this on arstechnica)
How about a new releases section to cream off most of these storys? Keep the main page for "stable" releases
or a seperate article category/subject for non-stable releases so we can check in preferences to omit all these RCx announcements off the main page.
You'll be hearing from my lawyers soon.
-George Lucas, Inc.
>>NOBODY WILL BUY BEER IN PLASTIC CONTAINER!!!
they already do if you haven't noticed, there's been plastic bottles of shitty beer out for years.
and if you drink beer out of a can*, you clearly don't have enough taste to care about what kind of container it comes in.
* - a notable exception to this is draught cans.
i was going to joke and say "what the hell is that, scientology," thinking it was a quote from some sci-fi book.
but google showed me to be correct on both counts.... that's some weird shit.
their snail mail gift certificates look like spam (junk mail) as well. it doesn't say amazon anywhere on the envelope, they come from "A2Z Gift certificates", and are easy to get mixed up with the onslaught of credit card offers and other crap. i made a point to call someone i mailed one to using amazon's site (the rest i mailed to myself to hand-wrap) to make sure they didn't toss it by accident.
>> ...now Enterprise can't keep its story consistant with the events of the Kirk era that happen 100 years later.
>>Far be it from me to be an "Enterprise" apologist, but I remember reading somewhere that there's an official explanation for this in the writers' guide or something.
that would be in the section of the writer's guide titled "Cop-Out". the fact of the matter is, B&B are too fucking busy trying to put some hot, sweaty, vulcan-human shower room scenes on the screen to pay much attention to little details like plot, continuity, etc.
bingo.
i recommend reading Lila too if you liked the philosophy in zen.