There's a syndrome to describe this sort of irrational paranoid behavior and I'm sure they make a drug to fix it. Yikes in deed! I shutter to think what horror would come to pass if someone could reconstruct this post from across the street. Oh wait, I have an internal modem. These are the same kind of people who refuse to shop on line because it requires that they transmit their credit card number through an SSL conenction, but gladly give their credit card to an 18 year old waitress in chili's who makes less than minimum wage. I bet he is reading this alright... assuming his aluminum foil hat isn't blocking his eyes.
This reminds me of a survey I heard about around 10 years ago. The people taking the survey asked people if they would support a law to ban the use of this horrible solvent. It's found in all our lakes and rivers! It causes some metals to oxidize! In sufficient quantities, it can kill people! What was the solvent? Dihydrogen Oxide. An overwhelming number of people favored the ban.
While this may be a killer app, it certainly won't be for cell phones. I see the main market for this to be the replacement of active matrix notebook displays. If they can get the resolution to 1024x768, you can take that fold-up keyboard for palms and mix them with a small computer brick. The brick stays inside the bag and uses a possible wireless connection to the headset and keyboard. You could also replace desktop displays with this thing. Use some kind of shield to black out room light and you'll have a very emmersive heads up display. Wearable computers as well, maybe that's the cell phone angle. This reminds me of that ST:TNG episode where everyone was getting high on that head-moutned video game. Cool stuff.
TARKIN: The National Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that Hillary Rosen has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
TAGGE: That's impossible! How will the RIAA maintain control without the bureaucracy?
TARKIN: The Major Labels now have direct control over territories. Fear will keep the consumers in line. Fear of the DMCA and the New Police State
VADER: Don't be so proud of this technological terror you've created. The power to prevent copying is insigificant next to the power of open source.
In my experience, 1099 (Independent Contractor) is the best option, and the 14% cut they're taking is reasonable. I've heard as low as 10% for 1099, but 14% is decent.
The cut the consulting firm takes should be the same whether it's 1099 or corp to corp. Since they're different, I smell a rat. Unless this is the client telling him this in which case there may be a different reason for doing this. Independants and corps may come out of different budgets.
From first-hand experience (in California), avoid setting up a corporation unless you can realize some ancillary benefits such as purchasing health benefits or equipment with pre-tax dollars. The downside of a corp is that maintaining your corp is a royal PITA--assume you will spend 4-8 hours monthly just making certain you stay compliant with stupid little rules. Or you can pay an accountant/lawyer to do that for you ($200-500/month).
You can *always* realize benefits from starting a corporation. If you're not, get a new accountant. In most situations, you'll get more benefits from a corp though. If you're married with a mortage, kids, and two car payments, you can reap huge rewards from incorporating. It can be a pain to maintain the corporation, but it's not that big a deal. My accountant give me free advice and I'm expecting to pay $1000 to $2000 for him to do both tax returns. The monthly accountant expense is only if you want him to track every little thing for you.
W2 sucks for several reasons: you can't deduct anything from taxes, you're depending on your body shop to collect for you (and you have little legal recourse if they don't), your only retirement savings options are whatever the body shop offers (at best a 401K with crappy mutual funds), and a 38% cut is way too high.
W2 through a consulting firm is an ideal way to get into consulting to see if it's right for you before going to the trouble of incorporating. As a w2 employee, you can sue for your pay and win regardless of whether they were able to collect from their client. The 38% cut is a bit high. You'll hear that 30% is the norm, but you can negotiate a better cut when the economy isn't so bad. Also, if you're relying on 401ks for retirement, you're a fool. As a consultant, you can make double and put that money away in your corporation. Then your corporation can invest that money and get better tax shelters. Consider this: If you make $100 an hour, you should be able to put away $100,000 a year and still live an ok life. If you can do that for ten years, you'll have $1,000,000. But investing that money with a 10% return over that same ten years will yield a number closer to $3,000,000. Then you retire while your corporation pays you $300,000 (the 10%, remember?) a year. I'll take that over social security any day.
1099 allows a minimum of hassle, decent deductions, and up to $13500/year into a SEP-IRA. If you really want it, you can still purchase liability insurance as a 1099 contractor, though I've often heard of liability insurance (whether for a 1099 or small Corp) as "sue-me bait". Basically, if you don't have over $100,000 in assets or policies, you're not worth sueing.
You'll get far better deductions and investment opportunities as a corporation. Liability insurance is often *required* by clients or middle-man consulting firms. Usually, they require $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 in coverage. This costs around $400 a year. I've *never* heard of a consultant getting sued for liability. I'm sure there are horror stories here and there, but I have yet to hear one.
If you work corp to corp, yes, you do have to start a corporation and pay taxes. Typically, you get bilked, because your corporation must hire you, and pay you a salary. Not only will you have to pay taxes on the income you are paid by your own corporation, but your corporation will have to pay taxes on the money they pay you. Any additional income is subject to taxation as well - and unlike an independent contractor, you cannot just seize any excess cash in the corporation and claim it as your own.
This is just plain wrong. If you have an C corporation, you're taxed personally on the income that your corporation pays you. Any money that your corporation is paid that isn't paid to you is taxed at the corporate rate. It's true that you're taxed, then you're taxed, but the corporate *profit* is taxed at the corporate rate which starts at 15%, and your personal income is taxed as usual, but since your personal income is less than what the corporation made, you're in a lower tax bracket. And in many cases, your corporation may still officially make less profit because of the deductions. Consider this: If you have a car lease payment of, say $500 a month. And you consider (for taxation purposes) that car to be a business car, you can deduct the entire $500 (plus maintenance and repairs) per month. As a person with a $500 payment, you really are paying, oh, $650-$700 a month in pre-tax dollars. But the corporation only paid $500. So where did the rest go? It was taxed at 15% instead of your higher personal income tax rate, it also didn't contribute to an increase in your tax bracket. Because really, you can now afford to pay yourself less income because that lease payment isn't coming from your personal income anymore. The deductions go on and on. There's also nothing that says that you can't work 1099 for your own corporation. Or have more than one corporation in order to limit your exposure to state income taxes and limit liability. So really, there's nothing that says you have to become an actual employee of your corporation. And it's true that you can't just take the money from your corporation, but in most cases, you wont need or want to. And if you do need it, there are ways around it such as your corporation loaning you money.
If you work as an independent contractor, yes, you will still have to pay taxes, and be responsible for insurance, etc, but you won't get taxed twice. You will still have to pay taxes at the self-employed rate, which can be substantial.
You really shouldn't work 1099. Instead, get an S corporation and you'll get all the benefits of 1099, but more tax flexibility. You should always work corp to corp. Make sure the check is made out to your company name and not your personal name. And there's nothing magical or frightening about the self-employment tax. When you're an employee, you pay half of your social security and other things and the company pays half. When you're self employed, you have to pay all of it. That's the self employment tax. You're really not winning or losing. You break even.
As an employee, your employer worries about taxes and insurance, and you have two additional advantages:
Employees are usually harder to fire/get rid of when the project ends. If your current employer doesn't like you, they need do little more than a non-renewal of your contract to get rid of you. However, as an employee, most good corporations will have firing procedures which must be used, and in some, it takes six months or more to fire an employee. This means that you will have ample time to search for another job should things go south. As a contractor, your workplace could wait up to the last minute to tell you that they aren't going to renew your contract.
This is also completely wrong. I've been far more stable as a contractor than an employee. This is because companies hide bad news from employees so that there's isn't an exodus. It's true that companies can end contracts with no notice, but most states are right-to-work states where employers can do that also. Companies may have policies that dictate firing procedures, but when the company is hurting, they can change policies instantly. Usually, you see when contracts are ending and can plan for them. Also, the extra money (assuming you're fiscally responsible) can help when searching for a new contract. This year, I've been out of work for two weeks. I had three days notice from a contract. That was the first time ever I didn't have a new contract the following monday.
Liability: if you accidentally hose the database as a contractor, you can be held (in some cases) criminally liable for the data loss. As an employee, the only thing that they can do is fire you. If you go with the contract option, you will have to get insurance to cover this kind of situation, where as an employee, you won't.
This is partially true. But as a contractor you can get (well, most clients require it) liability insurance. This insurance costs a few hundred dollars a year. Not a bad sum when you consider that you can make double as a contractor. Also, I seriously doubt you would be charged with a criminal offence. IANAL, but they would need to show intent. If it was an accident, they could certainly sue *your corporation* in *civil* court. That's what the insurance is for.
You mean all your eggs are in one basket. I prefer 1000 ini files to the registry any day. If you really want to keep them together, make an INI directory in the windows directory and quit complaining.
Shhhhh not so loud! I'm just now finishing up a project to get a major credit card company off of OS/2 once and for all. If they "discover" this, they may buy it and extend my contract!
In this case, I saw it first hand. But I'm not surprised this is the kind of thing that ends up as urban legend. Disney is often the target of urban legends. There is a lot of silliness that goes on at disney though. Employees (I mean cast members) have been scolded for refering to people in mickey mouse costumes. That actually is Mickey Mouse! My step father was an architect for disney for 25 years. My mother was a secretary for disney for 9 years. I saw the light after only 8 months. In disney, they call it pixey dust. It's like a magic brainwashing dust that gets sprinkled on you when you arrive at work. You're supposed to believe you're in another world while working. It's the only job I've ever had where I was ordered to smile.
While working for the rat-king a number of years ago, I went to lunch in the cafeteria under the magic kingdom. I walked in and saw Snow White, in complete costume and makeup, sitting on her boyfriend's lap smokign a cigarette.
Maybe Snow can start start taking credit cards to turn tricks in the alleys of main street.:-D
This reminds me of a program I had for my Amiga. It would play Greensleeves by moving the seek head in the floppy drive at varying frequencies. There was one for the c64 also, and I'm sure it works on PCs too. Anyone know if such a thing exists for a PC?
It doesn't matter how many schools microsoft "gives" software to. These kids aren't going to learn marketable skills. What matters are the quality of teachers and the student's willingness to learn. My kids attend a private school and have a computer class. What are they learning? Typing. Because the teacher doesn't know anything else. What do you think happens in poor schools? We'll be lucky if they're even turned on. And from that point on, it's math blaster and mavis beacon. This won't add one bit to the user base of microsoft tools. The lucky kids learn word, which is knowledge transferrable to another product anyway.
It's a personal choice I guess. For me, it's hard to understand why someone would be a salaried employee. I'm kind of jaded though. I've had more than my share of bad experiences as an employee and probably less than my share of bad experiences as a contractor.
I gave up long hours, unreturned loyalty, broken promises, screwed up politics, possibly some stability, and just plain weird people, for planned end dates, separation from most politics, no pay for time off, and double the money. For me, it was a good trade.
I tend to chuckle at the stability argument also. For most, that's probably true. But I've missed less work as a contractor than I have as an employee. As a contractor, I see the end coming and can plan for it. When a company closes (one I worked for was seized by the IRS!) it's usually without warning.
As an IT consultant, it's way too dangerous for me to get close to co-workers. On rare occaisions, I can socialize with other consultants. But usually, it's only after working with them for a few months. Wage slaves and their managers are nearly always completely in the dark about what it's like being a consultant. I'm not sure if they just don't do the math, or if they think the consulting firm gets 90% of the rate. But when people discover what I can usually make, they seem to go a little nuts. Maybe it's the programmer who thinks they work harder than I do (which is probably right), or the manager who thinks they've done their time and deserve it more than me. But if they get too close, they see too much. My comfortable $700 car is my only cover. Co-workers that work for the client, without fail, always ask me where I live for some reason. I'm always vague because I live in a neighborhood with million dollar homes (mine is nowhere near that) on a well known golf course in the chicago area. So I can't invite them over. And the wife and kids mean I don't really want an active after work night life. So I keep to myself at work. I don't have pictures on my desk. And I only consider a closer friendship with other independants who already know the well-known secret. My right-wing political opinions and religeous leanings are also frequently unpopular.
To advertise my personal life is to invite disaster.
They should wheel barbeeque carts into the ring after WWF matches and have Pamela Andersen host the show. That's what they need to keep the ratings up! The wrestlers could be the judges! Wouldn't it be funny to watch The Rock eat speetbreads? And Pamela could say, "And the secret ingredient is... breast of chicken!"
And, even better, the new consoles are also DVD players, so with one box in your living room, you can play games, watch movies, and listen to music, and none of the boxes are more complicated than having a "power" and a "reset" button.
I just purchased an ati all-in-wonder radion card. I pluged a computer into my big screen tv and the cat-5e I ran through my walls during construction. So with one box in my living room, I can play games (mame looks great), watch movies, listen to mp3s, and watch to dvds. Oh, I can also use my machine as a digital vcr, I record tv shows and convert them to divx later. I can surf, burn CDs, schedule things for recording, watch divx movies over the lan, and post to slashdot. All this from a pII-450 with not enough memory which was previously collecting dust.
Oh and by the way, I have the dreamcast version of quake 3. It doesn't have the equivelent of "invert mouse" so the game is basically useless for me. I'd also like to see you play age of empires with your ps2.
My nine-year-old daughter and I were having a discussion about a month ago. She was studying the bohr model of the atom in her science class. I became interested when she started talking about the nucleus. So I asked, "which particles are inside the nucleus?" She didn't know so I described protons and neutrons. Then I asked, "which particles are outside the nucleus?" She thought for a minute and said, "Croutons?"
My wife and I laughed for about a half hour, since she always steals the croutons from our salads at restaurants.
Slashdot Mirror
This way all you have to do is mouth words into the phone...not actually speak!
My daughter talks without saying anything. Maybe she could get a job testing these things.
Maybe our soldiers could dress like Japanese Nurses.
Alright, I'll put the catalytic converter back on my nova. Geez, who'd a thought one chevy nova would cause that much of a stir?
There's a syndrome to describe this sort of irrational paranoid behavior and I'm sure they make a drug to fix it. Yikes in deed! I shutter to think what horror would come to pass if someone could reconstruct this post from across the street. Oh wait, I have an internal modem. These are the same kind of people who refuse to shop on line because it requires that they transmit their credit card number through an SSL conenction, but gladly give their credit card to an 18 year old waitress in chili's who makes less than minimum wage. I bet he is reading this alright... assuming his aluminum foil hat isn't blocking his eyes.
How long before someone writes a plugin that removes clothing for selected women?
This reminds me of a survey I heard about around 10 years ago. The people taking the survey asked people if they would support a law to ban the use of this horrible solvent. It's found in all our lakes and rivers! It causes some metals to oxidize! In sufficient quantities, it can kill people! What was the solvent? Dihydrogen Oxide. An overwhelming number of people favored the ban.
Actually, CmdrTaco should change his name now. It doesn't look too good being married and being known as "command her taco".
At last! Pr0n on the morning train commute and no one will know... well, as long as I keep my coat on my lap anyway.
While this may be a killer app, it certainly won't be for cell phones. I see the main market for this to be the replacement of active matrix notebook displays. If they can get the resolution to 1024x768, you can take that fold-up keyboard for palms and mix them with a small computer brick. The brick stays inside the bag and uses a possible wireless connection to the headset and keyboard. You could also replace desktop displays with this thing. Use some kind of shield to black out room light and you'll have a very emmersive heads up display. Wearable computers as well, maybe that's the cell phone angle. This reminds me of that ST:TNG episode where everyone was getting high on that head-moutned video game. Cool stuff.
TARKIN: The National Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that Hillary Rosen has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
TAGGE: That's impossible! How will the RIAA maintain control without the bureaucracy?
TARKIN: The Major Labels now have direct control over territories. Fear will keep the consumers in line. Fear of the DMCA and the New Police State
VADER: Don't be so proud of this technological terror you've created. The power to prevent copying is insigificant next to the power of open source.
In my experience, 1099 (Independent Contractor) is the best option, and the 14% cut they're taking is reasonable. I've heard as low as 10% for 1099, but 14% is decent.
The cut the consulting firm takes should be the same whether it's 1099 or corp to corp. Since they're different, I smell a rat. Unless this is the client telling him this in which case there may be a different reason for doing this. Independants and corps may come out of different budgets.
From first-hand experience (in California), avoid setting up a corporation unless you can realize some ancillary benefits such as purchasing health benefits or equipment with pre-tax dollars. The downside of a corp is that maintaining your corp is a royal PITA--assume you will spend 4-8 hours monthly just making certain you stay compliant with stupid little rules. Or you can pay an accountant/lawyer to do that for you ($200-500/month).
You can *always* realize benefits from starting a corporation. If you're not, get a new accountant. In most situations, you'll get more benefits from a corp though. If you're married with a mortage, kids, and two car payments, you can reap huge rewards from incorporating. It can be a pain to maintain the corporation, but it's not that big a deal. My accountant give me free advice and I'm expecting to pay $1000 to $2000 for him to do both tax returns. The monthly accountant expense is only if you want him to track every little thing for you.
W2 sucks for several reasons: you can't deduct anything from taxes, you're depending on your body shop to collect for you (and you have little legal recourse if they don't), your only retirement savings options are whatever the body shop offers (at best a 401K with crappy mutual funds), and a 38% cut is way too high.
W2 through a consulting firm is an ideal way to get into consulting to see if it's right for you before going to the trouble of incorporating. As a w2 employee, you can sue for your pay and win regardless of whether they were able to collect from their client. The 38% cut is a bit high. You'll hear that 30% is the norm, but you can negotiate a better cut when the economy isn't so bad. Also, if you're relying on 401ks for retirement, you're a fool. As a consultant, you can make double and put that money away in your corporation. Then your corporation can invest that money and get better tax shelters. Consider this: If you make $100 an hour, you should be able to put away $100,000 a year and still live an ok life. If you can do that for ten years, you'll have $1,000,000. But investing that money with a 10% return over that same ten years will yield a number closer to $3,000,000. Then you retire while your corporation pays you $300,000 (the 10%, remember?) a year. I'll take that over social security any day.
1099 allows a minimum of hassle, decent deductions, and up to $13500/year into a SEP-IRA. If you really want it, you can still purchase liability insurance as a 1099 contractor, though I've often heard of liability insurance (whether for a 1099 or small Corp) as "sue-me bait". Basically, if you don't have over $100,000 in assets or policies, you're not worth sueing.
You'll get far better deductions and investment opportunities as a corporation. Liability insurance is often *required* by clients or middle-man consulting firms. Usually, they require $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 in coverage. This costs around $400 a year. I've *never* heard of a consultant getting sued for liability. I'm sure there are horror stories here and there, but I have yet to hear one.
Microsoft's head of security
Isn't that like the taliban having a minister of women's rights?
If you work corp to corp, yes, you do have to start a corporation and pay taxes. Typically, you get bilked, because your corporation must hire you, and pay you a salary. Not only will you have to pay taxes on the income you are paid by your own corporation, but your corporation will have to pay taxes on the money they pay you. Any additional income is subject to taxation as well - and unlike an independent contractor, you cannot just seize any excess cash in the corporation and claim it as your own.
This is just plain wrong. If you have an C corporation, you're taxed personally on the income that your corporation pays you. Any money that your corporation is paid that isn't paid to you is taxed at the corporate rate. It's true that you're taxed, then you're taxed, but the corporate *profit* is taxed at the corporate rate which starts at 15%, and your personal income is taxed as usual, but since your personal income is less than what the corporation made, you're in a lower tax bracket. And in many cases, your corporation may still officially make less profit because of the deductions. Consider this: If you have a car lease payment of, say $500 a month. And you consider (for taxation purposes) that car to be a business car, you can deduct the entire $500 (plus maintenance and repairs) per month. As a person with a $500 payment, you really are paying, oh, $650-$700 a month in pre-tax dollars. But the corporation only paid $500. So where did the rest go? It was taxed at 15% instead of your higher personal income tax rate, it also didn't contribute to an increase in your tax bracket. Because really, you can now afford to pay yourself less income because that lease payment isn't coming from your personal income anymore. The deductions go on and on. There's also nothing that says that you can't work 1099 for your own corporation. Or have more than one corporation in order to limit your exposure to state income taxes and limit liability. So really, there's nothing that says you have to become an actual employee of your corporation. And it's true that you can't just take the money from your corporation, but in most cases, you wont need or want to. And if you do need it, there are ways around it such as your corporation loaning you money.
If you work as an independent contractor, yes, you will still have to pay taxes, and be responsible for insurance, etc, but you won't get taxed twice. You will still have to pay taxes at the self-employed rate, which can be substantial.
You really shouldn't work 1099. Instead, get an S corporation and you'll get all the benefits of 1099, but more tax flexibility. You should always work corp to corp. Make sure the check is made out to your company name and not your personal name. And there's nothing magical or frightening about the self-employment tax. When you're an employee, you pay half of your social security and other things and the company pays half. When you're self employed, you have to pay all of it. That's the self employment tax. You're really not winning or losing. You break even.
As an employee, your employer worries about taxes and insurance, and you have two additional advantages:
Employees are usually harder to fire/get rid of when the project ends. If your current employer doesn't like you, they need do little more than a non-renewal of your contract to get rid of you. However, as an employee, most good corporations will have firing procedures which must be used, and in some, it takes six months or more to fire an employee. This means that you will have ample time to search for another job should things go south. As a contractor, your workplace could wait up to the last minute to tell you that they aren't going to renew your contract.
This is also completely wrong. I've been far more stable as a contractor than an employee. This is because companies hide bad news from employees so that there's isn't an exodus. It's true that companies can end contracts with no notice, but most states are right-to-work states where employers can do that also. Companies may have policies that dictate firing procedures, but when the company is hurting, they can change policies instantly. Usually, you see when contracts are ending and can plan for them. Also, the extra money (assuming you're fiscally responsible) can help when searching for a new contract. This year, I've been out of work for two weeks. I had three days notice from a contract. That was the first time ever I didn't have a new contract the following monday.
Liability: if you accidentally hose the database as a contractor, you can be held (in some cases) criminally liable for the data loss. As an employee, the only thing that they can do is fire you. If you go with the contract option, you will have to get insurance to cover this kind of situation, where as an employee, you won't.
This is partially true. But as a contractor you can get (well, most clients require it) liability insurance. This insurance costs a few hundred dollars a year. Not a bad sum when you consider that you can make double as a contractor. Also, I seriously doubt you would be charged with a criminal offence. IANAL, but they would need to show intent. If it was an accident, they could certainly sue *your corporation* in *civil* court. That's what the insurance is for.
Everything's in one place...
You mean all your eggs are in one basket. I prefer 1000 ini files to the registry any day. If you really want to keep them together, make an INI directory in the windows directory and quit complaining.
Shhhhh not so loud! I'm just now finishing up a project to get a major credit card company off of OS/2 once and for all. If they "discover" this, they may buy it and extend my contract!
In this case, I saw it first hand. But I'm not surprised this is the kind of thing that ends up as urban legend. Disney is often the target of urban legends. There is a lot of silliness that goes on at disney though. Employees (I mean cast members) have been scolded for refering to people in mickey mouse costumes. That actually is Mickey Mouse! My step father was an architect for disney for 25 years. My mother was a secretary for disney for 9 years. I saw the light after only 8 months. In disney, they call it pixey dust. It's like a magic brainwashing dust that gets sprinkled on you when you arrive at work. You're supposed to believe you're in another world while working. It's the only job I've ever had where I was ordered to smile.
While working for the rat-king a number of years ago, I went to lunch in the cafeteria under the magic kingdom. I walked in and saw Snow White, in complete costume and makeup, sitting on her boyfriend's lap smokign a cigarette.
:-D
Maybe Snow can start start taking credit cards to turn tricks in the alleys of main street.
This reminds me of a program I had for my Amiga. It would play Greensleeves by moving the seek head in the floppy drive at varying frequencies. There was one for the c64 also, and I'm sure it works on PCs too. Anyone know if such a thing exists for a PC?
It doesn't matter how many schools microsoft "gives" software to. These kids aren't going to learn marketable skills. What matters are the quality of teachers and the student's willingness to learn. My kids attend a private school and have a computer class. What are they learning? Typing. Because the teacher doesn't know anything else. What do you think happens in poor schools? We'll be lucky if they're even turned on. And from that point on, it's math blaster and mavis beacon. This won't add one bit to the user base of microsoft tools. The lucky kids learn word, which is knowledge transferrable to another product anyway.
It's a personal choice I guess. For me, it's hard to understand why someone would be a salaried employee. I'm kind of jaded though. I've had more than my share of bad experiences as an employee and probably less than my share of bad experiences as a contractor.
I gave up long hours, unreturned loyalty, broken promises, screwed up politics, possibly some stability, and just plain weird people, for planned end dates, separation from most politics, no pay for time off, and double the money. For me, it was a good trade.
I tend to chuckle at the stability argument also. For most, that's probably true. But I've missed less work as a contractor than I have as an employee. As a contractor, I see the end coming and can plan for it. When a company closes (one I worked for was seized by the IRS!) it's usually without warning.
As an IT consultant, it's way too dangerous for me to get close to co-workers. On rare occaisions, I can socialize with other consultants. But usually, it's only after working with them for a few months. Wage slaves and their managers are nearly always completely in the dark about what it's like being a consultant. I'm not sure if they just don't do the math, or if they think the consulting firm gets 90% of the rate. But when people discover what I can usually make, they seem to go a little nuts. Maybe it's the programmer who thinks they work harder than I do (which is probably right), or the manager who thinks they've done their time and deserve it more than me. But if they get too close, they see too much. My comfortable $700 car is my only cover. Co-workers that work for the client, without fail, always ask me where I live for some reason. I'm always vague because I live in a neighborhood with million dollar homes (mine is nowhere near that) on a well known golf course in the chicago area. So I can't invite them over. And the wife and kids mean I don't really want an active after work night life. So I keep to myself at work. I don't have pictures on my desk. And I only consider a closer friendship with other independants who already know the well-known secret. My right-wing political opinions and religeous leanings are also frequently unpopular.
To advertise my personal life is to invite disaster.
They should wheel barbeeque carts into the ring after WWF matches and have Pamela Andersen host the show. That's what they need to keep the ratings up! The wrestlers could be the judges! Wouldn't it be funny to watch The Rock eat speetbreads? And Pamela could say, "And the secret ingredient is... breast of chicken!"
I hope it's better than this:
http://www.y2khai.com/khai02.html
It's like this and like that and like this and huh.
And, even better, the new consoles are also DVD players, so with one box in your living room, you can play games, watch movies, and listen to music, and none of the boxes are more complicated than having a "power" and a "reset" button.
I just purchased an ati all-in-wonder radion card. I pluged a computer into my big screen tv and the cat-5e I ran through my walls during construction. So with one box in my living room, I can play games (mame looks great), watch movies, listen to mp3s, and watch to dvds. Oh, I can also use my machine as a digital vcr, I record tv shows and convert them to divx later. I can surf, burn CDs, schedule things for recording, watch divx movies over the lan, and post to slashdot. All this from a pII-450 with not enough memory which was previously collecting dust.
Oh and by the way, I have the dreamcast version of quake 3. It doesn't have the equivelent of "invert mouse" so the game is basically useless for me. I'd also like to see you play age of empires with your ps2.
My nine-year-old daughter and I were having a discussion about a month ago. She was studying the bohr model of the atom in her science class. I became interested when she started talking about the nucleus. So I asked, "which particles are inside the nucleus?" She didn't know so I described protons and neutrons. Then I asked, "which particles are outside the nucleus?" She thought for a minute and said, "Croutons?"
My wife and I laughed for about a half hour, since she always steals the croutons from our salads at restaurants.