I used to do my own taxes, and I made a similar mistake one year in the early 2000s. Fortunately I caught it myself, but I decided at the time that my taxes had become too complex for me to trust entirely to myself, and I started using preparation software. I still go through everything myself to make sure the software has things approximately accurate - at least to the extent that any differences would require fines and not jail time.
Since my wife has been self employed, I wrote a spreadsheet that automates schedule AI to calculate my quarterly tax payments. Since I have a full-time job with withholdings that I've cranked up, we don't have to mail quarterly payments every quarter. But I run through schedule AI to the current quarter, calculate how much it says I should have paid already, and mail in a check if there's a difference versus my actual withholdings. At the end of the year I know I'll be close enough (within $1000) on tax owed to tax paid that no penalties will apply, and I don't even have to include my schedule AI with my taxes. The "approximate" part is that I don't bother to use the lower tax rate for capital gains in the schedule AI work, so it should bias me towards overpaying a little bit, which is acceptable enough to me.
I think "real property" is like "real estate" - you know, land and buildings.
Rules like that aren't that hard most of the time. "At the state level, I can exempt income I received that was a refund of a QEZE credit for real property taxes? Do I own any real estate? No? Skip that. Did I pay or receive a QEZE credit, or even know what a QEZE credit is? No? Skip that. Do I remember getting a refund check from any state or local government in the past year that wasn't from the previous year's taxes? No? Skip that."
I think they identify problems below the gumline, or some problems inside the teeth. I presume they could find a cancerous mass in a jaw sooner and save some lives too. Perhaps when smoking/chewing was more prevalent that was a good service, but the odds of a modern nonsmoker getting jaw cancer are likely quite low.
You don't get mod points unless your account has been in "good standing" for a certain amount of time. A new account won't receive them immediately; it may be a year or more.
Hence, in order to have at least five accounts at any given time with mod points (so you can slam a single post from +5 to 0 on your own) you need to have planned ahead and set up 7-10 accounts at least a year in advance. And as some accounts could get banned, you might need some extras going too. Hence, "farming" - but of accounts for mod points, not of mod points directly.
A company called N Town communications had a box that did this in 1999. They were an internet startup in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a way to "bring the web home", as they called it, their proprietary device intercepted HTTP traffic for all of their customers, reconstructed the web pages, inserted them into a frame with an ad bar along the top, and then broke it down and sent it on.
The bar also had a link to your mail box, a search bar (not something browsers had at that time), and maybe local time / temp / etc. The business plan was for local newspapers to use their advertising department to sell ads for these bars, which would be displayed only for local ISP customers wherever they browsed. Hence, "bringing the web home". For the customers, they received ultra-low-cost dial-up internet service. (I believe they were $5 a month for the test ISP they ran in Knoxville.) The real business model, of course, was to sell these boxes to ISPs around the country that want to partner with the local paper, and to get those papers a way to take a cut of internet ad revenue.
Anyway I think the technology was patented by them in 1999 or so, and so I expect this new tech is either owned by the same folks or about to get their pants sued off by those same folks. I knew a guy who worked on technology there. They were out of business by the end of 2000 but someone has to own that patent.
...and someone with a monopoly shouldn't be allowed to force those wanting to buy the monopoly product to also buy other, lesser products. Obviously the law for pay TV doesn't work that way right now, but morally I think it should.
This should of course be within reason, assuming legislators can craft laws with reason. For cable-style channels, allowing a-la-carte selection by channel makes sense. Letting consumers choose by the television show on a given channel may not even by technically feasible. On the other hand, for internet subscriptions, selling by the channel or even by the episode might by possible.
In my opinion, a reasonable consumer-friendly compromise position would be: 1. Owners of a channel or set of channels with similar theme and content can market them as a bundle or as a la carte (e.g. ESPN with EPSN2 and ESPNU since content is often moved from one to the others). 2. The cable providers - or the consumers directly - can negotiate with the providers (with their wallets, if they must) to break up such similar-content channel bundles. 3. Owners are forbidden from bundling unrelated (by theme) channels. Disney can't force ABC Family on people who just want to buy ESPN. This applies equally to cable and internet subscriptions - there's not even a need to make special laws for the internet here. 4. Owners and cable providers are forbidden from forcing certain channels or channel bundles into certain tiers. Consumers have the ultimate right to select the theme-based channel bundles they prefer without having to buy any other "lower tier" bundles to get there. 5. Charging an exorbitant rate for a popular channel bundle is legal, of course. But throwing non-theme-related channels into the same bundle "for free" is illegal, unless those other channels are also free to anyone who wants them without the costly channel. In other words, Disney can't make ESPN $20 a month then provide all their other channels for free, unless consumers are allowed to drop ESPN and receive all the other channels for free.
I'm not sure I value the comments of the people who are only interested before we have any facts. I could read plenty of those on CNN.com and choose not to.
I do think, though, that having editors create and submit some of their own stories could help speed the flow of content. If something happens that they know will be a slashdot story, it might make sense to write a blurb and post it as an editor, rather than wait for it to make it through the firehose process. It can always be posted again two days later when a better-written blurb makes it through the firehose.;)
You just bolded parts of it. Let's bold some other parts?
It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.
All those other clauses about threats and physical harm are joined by OR - the conjunction where both sides don't have to be true. The law is just as violated if some suggests you fuck yourself and the request annoys or offends you.
When I (recently) joined Facebook, I knew it would be a real name use, and I take care to craft my image appropriately.
When I "joined" (started using) Google, I wasn't in the same frame of mind, and I use some of their products anonymously, using handles I don't necessarily want attached to me real name.
I'm concerned that, by joining Google+, all of those things will then be attached to my real name in a public way. Hence I have not joined despite multiple invite requests.
Google would need to come out and explain how Google+ is kept separate from their other products, and I wouldn't have everything linked together, for me to be convinced it was safe to join. Since basically they are doing the exact opposite, I stay away.
On the other hand, the West (including South Korea) got pretty upset about the latter. I would like to think we're better than the Soviet Union, despite the opinions of those like the GP.
I think the recourse a foreign national would have within the US legal system is "shit-all". The foreign national would need to take it up with his or her respective state department, which could then bring it up with the US, or could try to get other countries to stop honoring the agreement for US nationals.
I don't want the SCOTUS using treaties as a basis for any decision, as their sole purpose should be to decide if other laws (and treaties) are Constitutional. If they start putting treaties on par with the Constitution then things like ACTA can be enacted by only the executive and Senate with no recourse to the courts.
And crime rates have fallen across the board for years. That correlates to basically everything that's happened over that time period: the rise of computers and the internet, the proliferation of television and reality TV, the deregulation of the airline industry, proliferation of birth control, the rise and fall of AIDS.
I think implying causation between the crime rate and any given one of them is unwise without further proof.
No no, you have it all wrong. Our neighbors, who were burgled last year, had one of their guns stolen. That uplifted it to a much more serious crime (at least here in Texas), and they got police attention until the guilty party (a Mexican gang from the other side of town, who just picked their house at random) was busted.
Here's how you do it: 1. Get a gun. Register said gun. 2. Pour molten solder into the barrel of said gun. 3. Leave said gun in plain sight in your home. 4. If your house is burgled, report your gun stolen immediately. The police will pay attention. 5. Have no fear that your gun will be used to hurt yourself or anyone else, except whoever tries to use it.
My first/last name combo is unique. Last time I went through Google, I had to go through the first dozen pages to find a link that wasn't me (and it was obviously a name aggregation page that randomly included my first and last names among thousands).
I think the parent is describing the following scenario:
1) Hacked Gawker puts a sign in with Gmail account button on the page. 2) You click that and a NEW HTTPS window shows up, sent to you by GO0GLE, with a certificate and everything. 3) You enter your Gmail address and password. Behind the scenes, go0gle logs into google, somehow gets around google's geographic logon restrictions, and takes control of your account. 4) If go0gle chooses to deceive you further, they hand back google's encrypted token and you proceed with your session, blissfully unaware of what just took place.
HTTPS is only as good as the certificate provided. But even with a good fake certificate for a good fake domain, you need to drive customers to your site. Not many people will click a link to google from www.warez.ru. Hacking Gawker could then open a distribution vector.
Slashdot Mirror
No, private tax returns aren't public.
I used to do my own taxes, and I made a similar mistake one year in the early 2000s. Fortunately I caught it myself, but I decided at the time that my taxes had become too complex for me to trust entirely to myself, and I started using preparation software. I still go through everything myself to make sure the software has things approximately accurate - at least to the extent that any differences would require fines and not jail time.
Since my wife has been self employed, I wrote a spreadsheet that automates schedule AI to calculate my quarterly tax payments. Since I have a full-time job with withholdings that I've cranked up, we don't have to mail quarterly payments every quarter. But I run through schedule AI to the current quarter, calculate how much it says I should have paid already, and mail in a check if there's a difference versus my actual withholdings. At the end of the year I know I'll be close enough (within $1000) on tax owed to tax paid that no penalties will apply, and I don't even have to include my schedule AI with my taxes. The "approximate" part is that I don't bother to use the lower tax rate for capital gains in the schedule AI work, so it should bias me towards overpaying a little bit, which is acceptable enough to me.
I think "real property" is like "real estate" - you know, land and buildings.
Rules like that aren't that hard most of the time. "At the state level, I can exempt income I received that was a refund of a QEZE credit for real property taxes? Do I own any real estate? No? Skip that. Did I pay or receive a QEZE credit, or even know what a QEZE credit is? No? Skip that. Do I remember getting a refund check from any state or local government in the past year that wasn't from the previous year's taxes? No? Skip that."
I think they identify problems below the gumline, or some problems inside the teeth. I presume they could find a cancerous mass in a jaw sooner and save some lives too. Perhaps when smoking/chewing was more prevalent that was a good service, but the odds of a modern nonsmoker getting jaw cancer are likely quite low.
That only works on a subset of channels at any given time. They don't have enough bandwidth to do it for everyone all at once.
You don't get mod points unless your account has been in "good standing" for a certain amount of time. A new account won't receive them immediately; it may be a year or more.
Hence, in order to have at least five accounts at any given time with mod points (so you can slam a single post from +5 to 0 on your own) you need to have planned ahead and set up 7-10 accounts at least a year in advance. And as some accounts could get banned, you might need some extras going too. Hence, "farming" - but of accounts for mod points, not of mod points directly.
Apple also invented gravity. They just chose to let Isaac Newton observe them for publicity.
A company called N Town communications had a box that did this in 1999. They were an internet startup in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a way to "bring the web home", as they called it, their proprietary device intercepted HTTP traffic for all of their customers, reconstructed the web pages, inserted them into a frame with an ad bar along the top, and then broke it down and sent it on.
The bar also had a link to your mail box, a search bar (not something browsers had at that time), and maybe local time / temp / etc. The business plan was for local newspapers to use their advertising department to sell ads for these bars, which would be displayed only for local ISP customers wherever they browsed. Hence, "bringing the web home". For the customers, they received ultra-low-cost dial-up internet service. (I believe they were $5 a month for the test ISP they ran in Knoxville.) The real business model, of course, was to sell these boxes to ISPs around the country that want to partner with the local paper, and to get those papers a way to take a cut of internet ad revenue.
Anyway I think the technology was patented by them in 1999 or so, and so I expect this new tech is either owned by the same folks or about to get their pants sued off by those same folks. I knew a guy who worked on technology there. They were out of business by the end of 2000 but someone has to own that patent.
...and someone with a monopoly shouldn't be allowed to force those wanting to buy the monopoly product to also buy other, lesser products. Obviously the law for pay TV doesn't work that way right now, but morally I think it should.
This should of course be within reason, assuming legislators can craft laws with reason. For cable-style channels, allowing a-la-carte selection by channel makes sense. Letting consumers choose by the television show on a given channel may not even by technically feasible. On the other hand, for internet subscriptions, selling by the channel or even by the episode might by possible.
In my opinion, a reasonable consumer-friendly compromise position would be:
1. Owners of a channel or set of channels with similar theme and content can market them as a bundle or as a la carte (e.g. ESPN with EPSN2 and ESPNU since content is often moved from one to the others).
2. The cable providers - or the consumers directly - can negotiate with the providers (with their wallets, if they must) to break up such similar-content channel bundles.
3. Owners are forbidden from bundling unrelated (by theme) channels. Disney can't force ABC Family on people who just want to buy ESPN. This applies equally to cable and internet subscriptions - there's not even a need to make special laws for the internet here.
4. Owners and cable providers are forbidden from forcing certain channels or channel bundles into certain tiers. Consumers have the ultimate right to select the theme-based channel bundles they prefer without having to buy any other "lower tier" bundles to get there.
5. Charging an exorbitant rate for a popular channel bundle is legal, of course. But throwing non-theme-related channels into the same bundle "for free" is illegal, unless those other channels are also free to anyone who wants them without the costly channel. In other words, Disney can't make ESPN $20 a month then provide all their other channels for free, unless consumers are allowed to drop ESPN and receive all the other channels for free.
I'm not sure I value the comments of the people who are only interested before we have any facts. I could read plenty of those on CNN.com and choose not to.
I do think, though, that having editors create and submit some of their own stories could help speed the flow of content. If something happens that they know will be a slashdot story, it might make sense to write a blurb and post it as an editor, rather than wait for it to make it through the firehose process. It can always be posted again two days later when a better-written blurb makes it through the firehose. ;)
Now the people who farm accounts for mod points can use all those accounts to get other opinions banned!
No moderator would be able to tell if an account is or isn't a shill. Sorry, this just won't work.
As are photo lineups.
You just bolded parts of it. Let's bold some other parts?
It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.
All those other clauses about threats and physical harm are joined by OR - the conjunction where both sides don't have to be true. The law is just as violated if some suggests you fuck yourself and the request annoys or offends you.
When I (recently) joined Facebook, I knew it would be a real name use, and I take care to craft my image appropriately.
When I "joined" (started using) Google, I wasn't in the same frame of mind, and I use some of their products anonymously, using handles I don't necessarily want attached to me real name.
I'm concerned that, by joining Google+, all of those things will then be attached to my real name in a public way. Hence I have not joined despite multiple invite requests.
Google would need to come out and explain how Google+ is kept separate from their other products, and I wouldn't have everything linked together, for me to be convinced it was safe to join. Since basically they are doing the exact opposite, I stay away.
The Soviet Union's responses were pretty much the same:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
On the other hand, the West (including South Korea) got pretty upset about the latter. I would like to think we're better than the Soviet Union, despite the opinions of those like the GP.
Air travel is safe because of tremendous efforts exerted towards making the process safe.
That's really funny. Sad, but funny.
I think the recourse a foreign national would have within the US legal system is "shit-all". The foreign national would need to take it up with his or her respective state department, which could then bring it up with the US, or could try to get other countries to stop honoring the agreement for US nationals.
I don't want the SCOTUS using treaties as a basis for any decision, as their sole purpose should be to decide if other laws (and treaties) are Constitutional. If they start putting treaties on par with the Constitution then things like ACTA can be enacted by only the executive and Senate with no recourse to the courts.
And crime rates have fallen across the board for years. That correlates to basically everything that's happened over that time period: the rise of computers and the internet, the proliferation of television and reality TV, the deregulation of the airline industry, proliferation of birth control, the rise and fall of AIDS.
I think implying causation between the crime rate and any given one of them is unwise without further proof.
No no, you have it all wrong. Our neighbors, who were burgled last year, had one of their guns stolen. That uplifted it to a much more serious crime (at least here in Texas), and they got police attention until the guilty party (a Mexican gang from the other side of town, who just picked their house at random) was busted.
Here's how you do it:
1. Get a gun. Register said gun.
2. Pour molten solder into the barrel of said gun.
3. Leave said gun in plain sight in your home.
4. If your house is burgled, report your gun stolen immediately. The police will pay attention.
5. Have no fear that your gun will be used to hurt yourself or anyone else, except whoever tries to use it.
As it happens, though, it was the lawyers for both parties talking. After that they went out together for caviar.
Do you put your TOS in your HTTP GET requests?
My first/last name combo is unique. Last time I went through Google, I had to go through the first dozen pages to find a link that wasn't me (and it was obviously a name aggregation page that randomly included my first and last names among thousands).
I think the parent is describing the following scenario:
1) Hacked Gawker puts a sign in with Gmail account button on the page.
2) You click that and a NEW HTTPS window shows up, sent to you by GO0GLE, with a certificate and everything.
3) You enter your Gmail address and password. Behind the scenes, go0gle logs into google, somehow gets around google's geographic logon restrictions, and takes control of your account.
4) If go0gle chooses to deceive you further, they hand back google's encrypted token and you proceed with your session, blissfully unaware of what just took place.
HTTPS is only as good as the certificate provided. But even with a good fake certificate for a good fake domain, you need to drive customers to your site. Not many people will click a link to google from www.warez.ru. Hacking Gawker could then open a distribution vector.
I doubt FBI counterterrorism are the government agents that will be making health care decisions.
Sure. Pay in cash, and that's how it will be. Can't pay in cash? Well according to some people you should just opt out of health.