That sounds like a great way to encourage mediocrity. I won't write the best book possible. I will only write one good enough to sell enough copies to reach my maximum royalty. Your wife's method would reward the Danielle Steele's of the world and punish the Joseph Heller's. I think the ideal way is 20 years alive or dead. What other job pays you for 20 years for what too you maybe 1 or 2 years?
You mean you played slots in the first place? I thought only grannies played slots. I mean the odds are some of the worst in the house. If you want to make your dollar last play BlackJack. That's where you will find me in a week or so.
But the state has always passed that cost onto retailers. It is a lot easier to monitor and occasionally audit thousands of retailers versus millions of consumers. I don't think this is anything "evil" on the parts of the states. If anything I much prefer retailers having to make the effort than having to pay higher taxes so that the state can better enforce it.
And how many states have you submitted tax payments to? Most B&M's just collect sales tax from people regardless of what state they are from (for small dollar items at least). That sales tax then goes to the state that the store is located in.
Are you telling me that when you charge a customer you take his zip code, determine the correct use tax for his state and then pay that tax to his state on his behalf? Big ticket stores do this but usually for only a few states that they have customers from. For example, when I bought my dining room table they charged me NY tax even though they were in CT.
Now imagine an online retailer who has to deal with 50 states with 50 different tax rates, exemptions, etc. This is why they were exempt up to this point. If the states want to get together and come up with a common law and a central clearinghouse for taxes then I think the online retailers, as well as catalog retailers, should definitely collect sales tax.
Online retailers do pay taxes. They pay income taxes. That is not the issue here, however. The issue is whether you and I should pay sales and use tax on items that we purchase from an online retailer out of our own state.
Currently the online retailer is not required to collect the tax since calculating the amount and paying to the various governments is too difficult. It is assumed that anybody purchasing an item online is paying the appropriate use tax for their state on their own.
The states instead would like to simplify the taxation process so that they can rely on online retailers to withhold sales tax.
Re:The First Worm Written By a Microsoft Lawyer...
on
First Worm with a EULA?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This really is not a Microsoft virus. If a person is stupid enough to install an application would be stupid enough to install an application on any platform. They would even be stupid enough to log in as root first if needed. Take a look at the EULA. What the application does is not hidden. It repeats itself several times and even puts it in all uppercase letters.
Example of Future Problems for Linux and other OS
on
First Worm with a EULA?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is a great example of the type of virus that could affect any OS including Linux. If people are dumb enough to install this application with all caps telling you what it is going to do what is to stop somebody from writing a virus that says - "go to a bash prompt and type su and enter your password." Once you have the users permission you can pretty much do whatever you want. That's why education is so much more important than just saying it is a Microsoft only problem.
The accounting industry has been screwed up for as long as I have been alive. I am actually a still-active but not practising CPA who used to work for one of the Big 6 (now Big 4). Turnover in the Big 6 was always outrageous. I would say that 95% of the people I started with left within 4-5 years, most after 2 (the minimum to become certified in my state). I always said that there had to be something wrong with the people who stuck around long enough to become Senior Managers and Partners. Now it looks like I was right.
I think the accounting industry wins the "bullshit" contest hands down. After that is the recording and movie industries followed by the advertising industry (with all the false, misleading advertising going on). I guess IT might be next but I probably could think of more f-ed up industries if I tried. Maybe you are just slightly biased since you read slashdot and not Adweek?
I would hire a hundred experienced individuals with just a bachelors degree before I ever hire one with a masters. In my field, a masters is just an effort to make up for other inadequacies in a person's abilities. It's the same thing with certifications. I would rather you spent your time doing practical work then preparing for your MCSE. Certifications are what unemployed people get to try to get a job.
As for a degree program being an obstacle course - you either finished college 50 years ago or are still in High School. College is a joke. I spent more time drinking and partying than I ever did studying and I still came out Magna Cum Laude with a job offer from the largest accounting firm in the world at the time. College teaches you how to drink heavily and still be able to make it through an exam the next day.
I am not saying that degrees are entirely useless but once you get past your first job it belongs on the bottom of your resume right above hobbies. Real life experience is 100 x's more important than any degree.
That might be the worst argument I have ever heard. Don't you have anything better than that? All a degree program proves is how much money you have. Once you get into the real world you will realize that a college degree is necessary but after your first job no one cares where you got it from. Just wait - you'll see.
Anybody with any common sense should be able to see that there is no connection. This disgusting debate has got to end someday. As the article states, studies have been going on since 1928 and still there is no solid evidence of a link.
Have you seen some of these ridiculous studies. They ask violent juvenile offenders whether they watch violent movies and play violent games. Of course, these kids do. I would be more surprised if they didn't but that doesn't infer cause and effect.
Other studies stick two groups of kids in two rooms watching different movies - one violent and one wholesome. The kids in the violent movie come out more aggresive then those int he wholesome movie. Well, duh. The kids in the other movie are probably half asleep. And what do they mean by agressive? Just becuase a kid play boxes after a movie doesn't mean that he is going to go out an shoot up a school.
As for these kids shooting up schools. These ultra-conservative old foagies always talk about how they are dressed like people and saying violent lines from movies. But what does that prove? If they had read War and Peace maybe they would have challenged their teachers to a duel instead.
The truth is that even with 9/11 and the fighting between Israel and Palenstine we are living in one of the most non-violent times in history. Try being a Christian in Ancient Rome or a woman in Medieval Englang. Go fight the Crusades for imaginary artifacts or grab a gun and go to Normandy.
I really wish that someday the Supreme Court would just say that anything entirely banning anything is unconstitutional and we could just get on with our lives. I will live with rating systems (although I think they are worthless when the parents don't even look) but banning is what is un-Patriotic.
Some people don't work well under extreme pressure, some do. Those that do tend to be percieved as 'smarter' during the normal interviewing process. While a much smarter person that gets flustered in a position like that may be percieved as being less capable, even if under normal working conditions they can perform much better.
I would hire the guy who holds up to pressure 99 times out of 100. The last thing I need is somebody who craps out when a deadline is approaching and a last minute bug is discovered.
I knew a guy in college who did great in his classes but just seemed to be dumb as a lump. After taking a few exams with him I realized what it is. He is just extremely fastidious. He takes every minute that the professor will give him to go over the exam. The problem is that in real life you don't have the time to go over things 10 times. You have to get it right the first time or as damn close as you can.
Education has always been overrated. Everybody learns at different speeds and learn faster with different methods. Traditional education puts everybody on the same treadmill - some students have to run to catch up and others have to stop and wait while everybody else catches up to them. What's even worse is that a student that is working at the right pace probably doesn't receive any of the attention from the teacher.
A well-designed online training option (which this is not purporting to be) will allow a student to work at his/her own pace, receive individual attention from the instructor (via email often but sometimes via telephone), and take advantage of all the information the internet has to offer.
You are thinking of slavery as known in this country. That is only a small example of slavery throughout history. In the US slaves were purchased and had to be transported to the US. In ancient times slaves were often the people of a conquered country and cost the ruler nothing. If you have 80,000 slaves working on a pyramid are you going to make any special effort to fix one? It's not like in the early days of this country when a family had maybe a dozen slaves and each of them held significant value to the family.
His hand was not amputated with "a hot piece of metal". It was cauterized with metal (according to the narrator). They probably cut it off with a saw of some sort (which probably was metal but not necessarily hot). The fact that they cauterized with metal and didn't just run the risk of infection indicates to me that this wasn't just your throw away slaves.
Add to that the quality of food that they were fed along with the speed and quality of the work and you have fairly solid evidence that these were not slaves. The problem is that as Americans (or members of other Modern Western Societies) we can't comprehend being so religiously fanatic as to put ourselves through such torture for our President ( or Prime Minister, etc.). To the ancient Egyptians however, the Pharaoh was God.
You also don't have to look to far back to see Americans working in practically slave conditions. Watch the History Channel and see how they built the Hoover Dam, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, etc. These men worked in deadly situations for basically enough money to feed and clothe themselves and their families. You also don't have to go far back to see children working like slaves in this country and it still happens in many 3rd world countries.
Well he also showed that they performed surgery on them which is not typical of slaves. Historically a lame slave is treated like a lame horse. It is much more likely that it was religous fervor that drove these people to build the pyramids. I would think that anybody who watches the news would understand what religous fervor can make some people do.
Probably because they are under 7 or 8 album (read lifetime) contracts and their older music is being held hostage by the record companies (both the recordings and the songs themselves).
It could also be because these musicians don't nearly have the selling power of the pop-crap that has infected today's music scene and the pop-crap musicians aren't yet motivated to leave the labels.
I liken it to how I am when I am on my way out the door and somebody grabs me to ask a question. Sometimes people just want to live their lives. The other day I met Nigel from the Discovery channel in Central Park. He actually came up to me and my friend and asked directions. I acknowledged knowing who he was, told him I enjoy his show, and gave him directions. Famous people don't mind being acknowledged and complimented but they do have lives to live.
But do they issue recalls for every problem that crops up in a car? They are only going to issue a recall if it is a danger to the end user. And if you believe what the say in Fight Club they only issue a recall when the cost of settling the lawsuits is greater than the cost of issuing the recall.
If that were true, then why are these P2P services making millions as the RIAA claims in the press release? Free is great but people would pay for a quality service that also helps to pay the artists (and not just industry fatcats). The problem is that the RIAA doesn't want to offer that service because it is more profitable to force people to buy the cd's AND download the same songs only temporarily.
What car manufacturer offers free repairs for life? I have to go out and buy that car. The best I have heard of is 10 years or 100,000 miles. If you are referring to recalls then I recommend you watch Fight Club.
I think maybe you missed the point. The point is that to a poor person, the $200-300 you might spend on a monitor is the same as $8000 to you. If it makes you more comfortable, change $40 Billion to $40 Million and $100 Million to $100,000. There are thousands of people worth $40 Million (not me unfortunately).
It's all a matter or perspective now isn't it. If you were worth $40 Billion and already donated a $100 million each year to charities maybe this wouldn't seem so expensive. I mean the money you spent on your computer could feed a who village in some third-world country. Or maybe that money that your company spends on giving you free coffee would be better served finding a cure for cancer? Matthew 7:1 comes to mind - "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
The problem is that the patents a lot of times actually are more specific. In this case the patent mentions bar codes and scanners, etc. The problem is that the patent holder tries to use their patent for a much more vaque purpose. It is up to the courts to throw them out but unfortunately it is usually too expensive for the "infringer" to defend to that point and they end up settling.
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like a great way to encourage mediocrity. I won't write the best book possible. I will only write one good enough to sell enough copies to reach my maximum royalty. Your wife's method would reward the Danielle Steele's of the world and punish the Joseph Heller's. I think the ideal way is 20 years alive or dead. What other job pays you for 20 years for what too you maybe 1 or 2 years?
You mean you played slots in the first place? I thought only grannies played slots. I mean the odds are some of the worst in the house. If you want to make your dollar last play BlackJack. That's where you will find me in a week or so.
But the state has always passed that cost onto retailers. It is a lot easier to monitor and occasionally audit thousands of retailers versus millions of consumers. I don't think this is anything "evil" on the parts of the states. If anything I much prefer retailers having to make the effort than having to pay higher taxes so that the state can better enforce it.
And how many states have you submitted tax payments to? Most B&M's just collect sales tax from people regardless of what state they are from (for small dollar items at least). That sales tax then goes to the state that the store is located in.
Are you telling me that when you charge a customer you take his zip code, determine the correct use tax for his state and then pay that tax to his state on his behalf? Big ticket stores do this but usually for only a few states that they have customers from. For example, when I bought my dining room table they charged me NY tax even though they were in CT.
Now imagine an online retailer who has to deal with 50 states with 50 different tax rates, exemptions, etc. This is why they were exempt up to this point. If the states want to get together and come up with a common law and a central clearinghouse for taxes then I think the online retailers, as well as catalog retailers, should definitely collect sales tax.
Online retailers do pay taxes. They pay income taxes. That is not the issue here, however. The issue is whether you and I should pay sales and use tax on items that we purchase from an online retailer out of our own state.
Currently the online retailer is not required to collect the tax since calculating the amount and paying to the various governments is too difficult. It is assumed that anybody purchasing an item online is paying the appropriate use tax for their state on their own.
The states instead would like to simplify the taxation process so that they can rely on online retailers to withhold sales tax.
This really is not a Microsoft virus. If a person is stupid enough to install an application would be stupid enough to install an application on any platform. They would even be stupid enough to log in as root first if needed. Take a look at the EULA. What the application does is not hidden. It repeats itself several times and even puts it in all uppercase letters.
This is a great example of the type of virus that could affect any OS including Linux. If people are dumb enough to install this application with all caps telling you what it is going to do what is to stop somebody from writing a virus that says - "go to a bash prompt and type su and enter your password." Once you have the users permission you can pretty much do whatever you want. That's why education is so much more important than just saying it is a Microsoft only problem.
The accounting industry has been screwed up for as long as I have been alive. I am actually a still-active but not practising CPA who used to work for one of the Big 6 (now Big 4). Turnover in the Big 6 was always outrageous. I would say that 95% of the people I started with left within 4-5 years, most after 2 (the minimum to become certified in my state). I always said that there had to be something wrong with the people who stuck around long enough to become Senior Managers and Partners. Now it looks like I was right.
I think the accounting industry wins the "bullshit" contest hands down. After that is the recording and movie industries followed by the advertising industry (with all the false, misleading advertising going on). I guess IT might be next but I probably could think of more f-ed up industries if I tried. Maybe you are just slightly biased since you read slashdot and not Adweek?
I would hire a hundred experienced individuals with just a bachelors degree before I ever hire one with a masters. In my field, a masters is just an effort to make up for other inadequacies in a person's abilities. It's the same thing with certifications. I would rather you spent your time doing practical work then preparing for your MCSE. Certifications are what unemployed people get to try to get a job.
As for a degree program being an obstacle course - you either finished college 50 years ago or are still in High School. College is a joke. I spent more time drinking and partying than I ever did studying and I still came out Magna Cum Laude with a job offer from the largest accounting firm in the world at the time. College teaches you how to drink heavily and still be able to make it through an exam the next day.
I am not saying that degrees are entirely useless but once you get past your first job it belongs on the bottom of your resume right above hobbies. Real life experience is 100 x's more important than any degree.
Horseshit.
That might be the worst argument I have ever heard. Don't you have anything better than that? All a degree program proves is how much money you have. Once you get into the real world you will realize that a college degree is necessary but after your first job no one cares where you got it from. Just wait - you'll see.
Anybody with any common sense should be able to see that there is no connection. This disgusting debate has got to end someday. As the article states, studies have been going on since 1928 and still there is no solid evidence of a link.
Have you seen some of these ridiculous studies. They ask violent juvenile offenders whether they watch violent movies and play violent games. Of course, these kids do. I would be more surprised if they didn't but that doesn't infer cause and effect.
Other studies stick two groups of kids in two rooms watching different movies - one violent and one wholesome. The kids in the violent movie come out more aggresive then those int he wholesome movie. Well, duh. The kids in the other movie are probably half asleep. And what do they mean by agressive? Just becuase a kid play boxes after a movie doesn't mean that he is going to go out an shoot up a school.
As for these kids shooting up schools. These ultra-conservative old foagies always talk about how they are dressed like people and saying violent lines from movies. But what does that prove? If they had read War and Peace maybe they would have challenged their teachers to a duel instead.
The truth is that even with 9/11 and the fighting between Israel and Palenstine we are living in one of the most non-violent times in history. Try being a Christian in Ancient Rome or a woman in Medieval Englang. Go fight the Crusades for imaginary artifacts or grab a gun and go to Normandy.
I really wish that someday the Supreme Court would just say that anything entirely banning anything is unconstitutional and we could just get on with our lives. I will live with rating systems (although I think they are worthless when the parents don't even look) but banning is what is un-Patriotic.
Some people don't work well under extreme pressure, some do. Those that do tend to be percieved as 'smarter' during the normal interviewing process. While a much smarter person that gets flustered in a position like that may be percieved as being less capable, even if under normal working conditions they can perform much better.
I would hire the guy who holds up to pressure 99 times out of 100. The last thing I need is somebody who craps out when a deadline is approaching and a last minute bug is discovered.
I knew a guy in college who did great in his classes but just seemed to be dumb as a lump. After taking a few exams with him I realized what it is. He is just extremely fastidious. He takes every minute that the professor will give him to go over the exam. The problem is that in real life you don't have the time to go over things 10 times. You have to get it right the first time or as damn close as you can.
Education has always been overrated. Everybody learns at different speeds and learn faster with different methods. Traditional education puts everybody on the same treadmill - some students have to run to catch up and others have to stop and wait while everybody else catches up to them. What's even worse is that a student that is working at the right pace probably doesn't receive any of the attention from the teacher.
A well-designed online training option (which this is not purporting to be) will allow a student to work at his/her own pace, receive individual attention from the instructor (via email often but sometimes via telephone), and take advantage of all the information the internet has to offer.
You are thinking of slavery as known in this country. That is only a small example of slavery throughout history. In the US slaves were purchased and had to be transported to the US. In ancient times slaves were often the people of a conquered country and cost the ruler nothing. If you have 80,000 slaves working on a pyramid are you going to make any special effort to fix one? It's not like in the early days of this country when a family had maybe a dozen slaves and each of them held significant value to the family.
His hand was not amputated with "a hot piece of metal". It was cauterized with metal (according to the narrator). They probably cut it off with a saw of some sort (which probably was metal but not necessarily hot). The fact that they cauterized with metal and didn't just run the risk of infection indicates to me that this wasn't just your throw away slaves.
Add to that the quality of food that they were fed along with the speed and quality of the work and you have fairly solid evidence that these were not slaves. The problem is that as Americans (or members of other Modern Western Societies) we can't comprehend being so religiously fanatic as to put ourselves through such torture for our President ( or Prime Minister, etc.). To the ancient Egyptians however, the Pharaoh was God.
You also don't have to look to far back to see Americans working in practically slave conditions. Watch the History Channel and see how they built the Hoover Dam, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, etc. These men worked in deadly situations for basically enough money to feed and clothe themselves and their families. You also don't have to go far back to see children working like slaves in this country and it still happens in many 3rd world countries.
Well he also showed that they performed surgery on them which is not typical of slaves. Historically a lame slave is treated like a lame horse. It is much more likely that it was religous fervor that drove these people to build the pyramids. I would think that anybody who watches the news would understand what religous fervor can make some people do.
Probably because they are under 7 or 8 album (read lifetime) contracts and their older music is being held hostage by the record companies (both the recordings and the songs themselves).
It could also be because these musicians don't nearly have the selling power of the pop-crap that has infected today's music scene and the pop-crap musicians aren't yet motivated to leave the labels.
I liken it to how I am when I am on my way out the door and somebody grabs me to ask a question. Sometimes people just want to live their lives. The other day I met Nigel from the Discovery channel in Central Park. He actually came up to me and my friend and asked directions. I acknowledged knowing who he was, told him I enjoy his show, and gave him directions. Famous people don't mind being acknowledged and complimented but they do have lives to live.
But do they issue recalls for every problem that crops up in a car? They are only going to issue a recall if it is a danger to the end user. And if you believe what the say in Fight Club they only issue a recall when the cost of settling the lawsuits is greater than the cost of issuing the recall.
If that were true, then why are these P2P services making millions as the RIAA claims in the press release? Free is great but people would pay for a quality service that also helps to pay the artists (and not just industry fatcats). The problem is that the RIAA doesn't want to offer that service because it is more profitable to force people to buy the cd's AND download the same songs only temporarily.
What car manufacturer offers free repairs for life? I have to go out and buy that car. The best I have heard of is 10 years or 100,000 miles. If you are referring to recalls then I recommend you watch Fight Club.
I think maybe you missed the point. The point is that to a poor person, the $200-300 you might spend on a monitor is the same as $8000 to you. If it makes you more comfortable, change $40 Billion to $40 Million and $100 Million to $100,000. There are thousands of people worth $40 Million (not me unfortunately).
It's all a matter or perspective now isn't it. If you were worth $40 Billion and already donated a $100 million each year to charities maybe this wouldn't seem so expensive. I mean the money you spent on your computer could feed a who village in some third-world country. Or maybe that money that your company spends on giving you free coffee would be better served finding a cure for cancer? Matthew 7:1 comes to mind - "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
The problem is that the patents a lot of times actually are more specific. In this case the patent mentions bar codes and scanners, etc. The problem is that the patent holder tries to use their patent for a much more vaque purpose. It is up to the courts to throw them out but unfortunately it is usually too expensive for the "infringer" to defend to that point and they end up settling.