Only it's not really the same "Slashdot" any more now, is it? It's like a sex slave being passed around from one plantation owner to another, but none of 'em likes her enough to cough up a weddin' ring.
The most recent of which was only a few days ago, and I actually found out about through ARS, not slashdot...
You need to talk to an accountant. My company is an S-Corp. I need to keep everything separate, and my accountant files a return for my business and a separate return for my personal finances.
However, the benefit of the S-Corp is that after you pay all employees a modest Salary (including the owner) You can pay out profits as capital gains to the share holders. (S-Corps have shares that can be bought/sold; but I assume most people on Slashdot will just be the sole owner of all their company shares.) The capital gains are then taxed at 15% which is usually much lower than your normal income tax bracket.
Of course due to various laws you want to talk to an accountant about this. Each state is different, and the IRS will not be happy with you (i.e. audit, possible fine) if it deems that you did not pay yourself an appropriate salary.
It depends on the various laws in your state, and your particular situations, but the S-Corp starts making more sense then the LLC when you have revenues of $50,000-75,000. The more money your company is making the better deal the S-Corp becomes. As mentioned by an earlier post, you will need an accountant with the S-Corp, and the cost savings of the S-corp will need to outweigh the extra fees in managing the corporation. An S-Corp is usually more expensive in the cost of filing fees as well.
On a website like slashdot, it surprises me that my earlier comment was not immediately recognized as sarcasm.
As you mentioned, professing a love of windows on Slashdot is not a normal reaction. Anyone on this site doing so is either trolling or trying to provide comic relief. Seeing how I logged in instead of posting as an AC, believe me that the latter is true.
In the world of computers, I'm ancient. (roughly 40) I learned to program on an old Commodore Vic-20. I even taught myself 6502 assembler on it. It had 5K of RAM, but I was lucky enough to have the whopping 16K memory expansion cartridge. (Which cost more money at the time than you can get a RAID unit now including a few TBs of storage; and that doesn't account for inflation either.)
Of course I don't think of myself as old but I do wish the youngen's would keep their useless bloated widgets, off my desktop.
I pretty much agree with you... It seems that what few older developers are left actually care about making things work. There are a few younger ones that do, but not many and the number seems to get fewer and fewer each successive year.
How about " \ . " to profess our love of windows. Of course if we can round up a few million bucks, maybe we can get a corporate designer to come up with something as exciting as 4 colored squares in a square pattern.
(FYI, the new windows logo reminds me of the millions AT&T spent when spinning off Lucent to come up with the "coffee stain" logo that was ridiculed by most including a Dilbertstrip.)
They elect not to make an offer because I would be too good for the job.
Amazing that they could say that with a straight face. More amazing is that you actually believed them.
I know I am feeding the AC TROLL, but this does happen. It happened to me about a year ago.
I applied for a position with a company that had two offices, one in Atlanta near my house and the other in Warner Robbins, GA, about 3 hours away.
After the interview even I realized that it was not the job for me. They really needed a mid-level developer, not a senior developer such as myself. However, you should always remain professional... Even though it felt like time was wasted you never know what can happen next. I thanked them for their time, exchanged pleasantries, and then returned home.
About a half hour after I left, the project manager I met called me... I really impressed their team. They were telling me that they wanted me on the team and were going to talk to their client and possibly renegotiate their contract in order to redefine the role a Sr Developer with the proper payscale. They just needed to talk to the CEO in order for him to approve the major change.
It turns out that the CEO did not want to renegotiate with the client so that job opportunity was gone. However, he was about to start a brand new pet project of his own and a week later interviewed me personally for the new position. Ultimately, it did not work out, the new position was for me to lead a new team. I have the experience for that and would have been brought on, but, as a team lead I would have been expected to be onsite. As the CEO's pet project, he wanted it at his location 3 hours from my house. I turned it down because I was not willing to relocate, and we both knew that a 3 hour commute (each way) would not last very long before burnout sets in.
Moral of the story: 1) Yes, you can be overqualified 2) You should still be respectful of others even when it seems like your time was wasted... (It is never wasted when you leave a good impression.) 3) An AC TROLL will never learn 1 & 2 because neither will ever happen to him/her/it. 4) It obvious that the TROLLS are still unemployed due to the amount of time that have on their hands.
No stupid compositors that require ridiculous effects that are recipe for X crashes and stalls...
Funny how often that completely invalid position is repeated. Your graphics card is optimized for 3D acceleration. You have a little supercomputer sitting there waiting for you to ask it for help. Compositors take a lot of the workload off your slow main CPU and offload it to that supercomputer. If you can get the round corners and wiggly windows for free because your graphics card is the end result of a few billion R&D dollars making it good at that stuff, why not? Especially with something as slow and power-hungry as your P4, I'd rather let the coprocessors do as much of my desktop's work as possible.
Nothing is free... Yes the GPU does a lot... However, the GPU still needs to be told what to do and given the information to do it. The GPU will take care of your 2D and 3D effects and physics (depending on the age and quality of your graphics card) without a direct impact on the CPU. However, the CPU still needs to spend time looking for input events to determine when the GPU should start those effects. The memory still holds this information on the effects. The system bus still needs to transfer the data from memory to the GPU for it to know the parameters of the effects. The GPU still uses power and increases the internal heat of the system.
Now, a modern computer has created ways to minimize the slowdown such as direct access from the GPU to system memory. However, it only minimizes the slowdown, it does not eliminate it. BUT, the one thing that is still used is memory... The more detailed the effect or more detailed images, the more raw memory is required. The more memory in use for storing graphic data, the less can be used for application data. The less available memory you have, the more virtual memory and disk i/o you will use. Once you start using a lot of i/o, your system will slow to a crawl. (And everything now starts using all these little effects, so it is not just your bloated desktop, it is all your bloated apps, and even bloated hardware drivers rendering your 4GB of memory today inadequate to compensate.)
First, I admit that I am not fond of KDE4 or Gnome3. I am looking at my next primary desktop using either LXDE or Mate if it is stable. I care much more for usability and stability than I do for gee-whiz features.
While I agree that they will not have the full community behind them, I wonder more about what effect this will have specifically on the developers. I believe that developers are the most limiting factor and I wonder if developers are split between all the different window managers, which project, if any, will actually have the necessary resources for continued development.
Apple and MSFT pay millions of dollars to developers to do all those truly shit jobs so those bugs don't end up affecting the end user, whereas the devs for a lot of the stuff in Linux are doing the work gratis so the truly shit jobs aren't done.
As a developer, I can say that I do not consider bugfixes "shit jobs." I look at it as a piece of the complete process. I admit that I am not always fond of doing it, but their is a self-fulfilling feeling of accomplishment when you find and correct a nasty bug. My preferred environment includes a mixture of both new development AND maintenance.
However, I do admit, that there are a bunch of so-called "developers" out there that only want new development and refuse to work on maintenance. They always want to work on cool new gee-whiz features without suffering the hell of working on the crap that they wrote...
There are a plethora of the latter type of "developers" which is why I think we get people adding "gee-whiz" features that no one really asked for while it always takes a long time for someone to clean up the code afterwords. The window managers in linux are perfect examples of this... When KDE4 was released, it was a piece of trash, only recently have people be starting to like it. Gnome 3 will probably be the same way, no one likes it now, but when the good developers start eradicating the nasty bugs, people will begin to open up to it... (Of course I am more interested in LXDE right now, because I care more for functionality than I do for gee-whiz effects.)
Best to have a couple of elite guys to motivate each other, a bit of camaraderie and some healthy competition.
True, but you do not need the entire team to be elite.
Two or Three work well... I agree with the earlier comment by YttriumOxide... Your elite coders know what they are doing, they also know where their own skills are limited and are willing to learn... even from less competent developers. (Yes, anyone can have a good idea.) But, the elite coders will also learn from each other and become even better.
Having one elite coder means that one person will define everything even if he makes a mistake. Having 2 or 3 allows for some discussion about the best way to proceed. Having too many is the same as having too many cooks... the code gets spoiled.
There is one thing though... If your elite coder believes that he is so far above everyone else that he never makes a mistake, doesn't need to learn anymore, or can't learn anything from someone "beneath" him, he is not an elite coder and needs to be removed... He will become a detriment to any project he is on.
Maybe this is a good reason for copyright reform...
They are just licenses these days. They are not tangible so it's hard to apply property rights to them.
A good point. As said before, when you die your collection dies with you.
It's a great business model though - you have to buy it again rather than passing it on through death or disinterest.
It does help the author/rights holder if people are forced to buy new copies. Yet if copyright laws were reformed and we drop the ludicrous life + 70 years and adopt a more modest 25 years, or something like the 14 years plus a 14 year renewal if the person was still alive like the original copyright bill, it really wouldn't matter because all digital books and music that you can no longer leave as inheritance would actually have a good chance of being public domain when you die. (or soon thereafter.)
Unfortunately, trying to get our corrupt politicians to do anything in the interest of the people with all the Mickey Mouse lobbyists in DC will never happen.
This sort of shit disgusts me, so I still buy real books and CDs. If new content is not being produced in this way, there is still plenty to read and listen to.
I here you... While I buy technical texts in digital format (more for ease of use, searching, cheaper, and much lighter to haul around,) I still prefer to have actual books for reading. I can read them with a candle or flashlight if the power is out, or while camping, and when I am done, I can even loan them out (or just give them away) to friends.
You fail at logic. You think that it is OK for people to have a "choice" to not buy insurance and must live with the consequences, but note that you would not be able to buy insurance if you lost your current coverage.
Actually, I think the parent poster's logic is sound. You either misinterpret his logic or are faulty yourself.
I think every state requires you to buy auto insurance and all mortgage companies require homeowners insurance. This is to prevent dumbasses from not doing something they really have to do.
But I'm perfectly okay with people who want to make their own choices, as long as they accept the consequences of their choices.
He is basically agreeing that people need insurance. People can opt out if they are willing to not seek treatment without paying up front.
If people hate the 'socialism' of medicine, then I hope they're not driving on the interstates, sending their kids to public school, and won't be accepting social security and medicare, neither of which you 'paid for', but which are paid to you by others as your tax dollars paid for your elders as you worked.
Again, while people are whining "Socialism" and its horrible not respecting individual rights, he makes the point that socialism is necessary in certain cases.
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
That deserves repeating...
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a year when your rates did not go up?
Personally, my individual plan rates have gone up 20% every year. It did not matter whether Obama was in office or Bush. (prior to 2001, I was on a company plan and only paying a portion of the total amount, so I can not include the Clinton years.)
It sounds to me like the AC is under 30. $2000 to $3000 works out to $165 to $250 a month. When you are 40 or over expect that amount to triple, (or more.)
I bought an individual plan through Blue Cross. When I started in my mid 30's it cost that much. EVERY YEAR it goes up 20%. Yes, every April when I renew, it goes up another 20%. When I turned 40, it went up an additional 20%. I complained that they just raised my rates two months earlier, and they said I still have to pay the additional 20% because now I was older...
Now I pay closer to $9000 a year for an individual plan. After speaking with my close friends, they pay roughly that as well. Yes, I did everything I could including increasing deductibles, etc, yet it still goes up constantly. Also, I can not change to a different carrier, because unlike group plans, individual plans are not required to cover pre-existing conditions; if I change, I lose coverage. Even though I can't wait for this part of Obamacare to take affect, I am still wary. They may be force to cover pre-existing conditions, but that doesn't mean they have to make their policy affordable to you. Never try to outguess the weasel quotient of insurance companies.
Wrong. You'll pay several times more out of pocket than an insurance company would pay...
Wrong:
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reported a CT scan of the abdomen costs about $2,400 for patients insured by Blue Shield of California, while the Los Alamitos (Calif.) Medical Center cash price is only $250... Another local California hospital charges insured patients $415 for blood tests that cost only $95 in cash.
It depends... Many places that offer items and services that have lots of competition will lower their prices in certain circumstances: 1) you pay in full or make arrangements to pay in full at the time of the service. If you wait until after the service is done, you no longer have the opportunity to bargain. 2) you tell them you do not have healthcare. (Filling out all the paperwork and filing it cost a lot of time and effort.) This is not as important as the first. 3) They have competition. It may depend on the area but this includes things like flu shots, MRIs, blood/urine tests; but rarely will it cover hospital stays, ambulance service, or emergency care.
If you look, you will also find many good doctors willing to help out on costs as well. While it seems that there have been many in recent years that became a doctor for financial gain only, there are many that care about their patients. If you have a good one, many will go out of there way to help, especially if you are an established patient with them before you fell on hard times (or lack of insurance.
As for anything that can only be done at a hospital, good luck. A little over 10 years ago, I had surgery. (I decline to elaborate for privacy) I was admitted by 8am, was in a semi-private room by 11 (after the anesthetic wore off) and was released the next day around 3pm. For that 31 hour stay, I was charged $20,000. That only included rental of the OR, my brief stay in recovery, and an overnight stay in a semi-private room. All doctor bills, anesthesiologists, radiologists, etc where not included, and it was a normal semi-private room, I was not in intensive care.
Well, my insurance company denied the initial claim... (even though I pre-approved it with them) and the hospital was sending me many sternly worded requests for the full $20,000. They wanted every dime or else... Finally the insurance company decided that they would pay... For the entire bill, my insurance company paid $800 to the hospital. After the nasty letters from the hospital, I called up the insurance company to verify... They agreed that they miscalculated and sent the hospital an additional $100. All the letters from the hospital stopped.
So, long story short, the hospital wanted $20,000 for rental of the OR and a one night stay and started sending nastygrams, but they accepted $900 from the insurance company as payment in full.
When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: âoeSteve, do you know why I came to work today?â Steve: âoeWhat do you mean, Ben?â Me: âoeWhy did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldnâ(TM)t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I donâ(TM)t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. â Steve: âoeI guess.â Me: âoeWell, then why did I come to work.â Steve: âoeI donâ(TM)t know.â Me: âoeWell, let me explain. I came to work, because itâ(TM)s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. Itâ(TM)s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life. Itâ(TM)s why I come to work.â Steve: âoeOK.â Me: âoeDo you know the difference between a good place to work and a bad place to work?â Steve: âoeUmm, I think so.â [continues to drone on in this patronising and insulting vein...]
What an insufferable prick.
When I read the article, I saw this conversation, and I could picture this guy in my head... Claiming to be a nice guy, yet cutting the subordinate's responses short.
This combined with the 12-16 hour days makes this guy sound like the classic arrogant control freak.
The best thing anyone working for him can do is to look and try find another job quickly... yet with all the forced hours it is nearly impossible to have any time to look without being noticed.
The exodus of high level leaders at same time, however can definitely kill a company. Think of it this way, if several generals or even majors of an army quit at the same time, it leads the army directionless for a fair bit.
However, in this analogy, Zuckerberg is a dictator. He has majority voting share and it is obvious he does what he wants. (Think Instagram, which was done by Zuckerberg before he told the board.)
When the voice at the top is the only one that gets heard, it really doesn't matter how many underlings leave, even if they are high-level.
GPS-revealing apps already weird me out -- along with peoples' obliviousness to personal safety and/or security
I agree. I look at all the popular titles on android and there are so many I will not install because it requests either "your location" or "phone identity".
There are exceptions for actual apps like google maps or gas buddy, where location is actually needed to enhance the usefulness of the app. However, Angry Birds and many other games will never see the light of day on my phone.
Slashdot Mirror
Only it's not really the same "Slashdot" any more now, is it? It's like a sex slave being passed around from one plantation owner to another, but none of 'em likes her enough to cough up a weddin' ring.
The most recent of which was only a few days ago, and I actually found out about through ARS, not slashdot...
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/slashdot-sourceforge-freecode-sold-to-jobs-site-company/
Makes you wonder if they are starting to regret their role as a sex slave.
You need to talk to an accountant. My company is an S-Corp. I need to keep everything separate, and my accountant files a return for my business and a separate return for my personal finances.
Personally, I find that idea pretty disgusting.
But, as long as the monkey is willing to do it and you are not forcing him, I do not care what you are doing in the privacy of your own home.
However, the benefit of the S-Corp is that after you pay all employees a modest Salary (including the owner) You can pay out profits as capital gains to the share holders. (S-Corps have shares that can be bought/sold; but I assume most people on Slashdot will just be the sole owner of all their company shares.) The capital gains are then taxed at 15% which is usually much lower than your normal income tax bracket.
Of course due to various laws you want to talk to an accountant about this. Each state is different, and the IRS will not be happy with you (i.e. audit, possible fine) if it deems that you did not pay yourself an appropriate salary.
It depends on the various laws in your state, and your particular situations, but the S-Corp starts making more sense then the LLC when you have revenues of $50,000-75,000. The more money your company is making the better deal the S-Corp becomes. As mentioned by an earlier post, you will need an accountant with the S-Corp, and the cost savings of the S-corp will need to outweigh the extra fees in managing the corporation. An S-Corp is usually more expensive in the cost of filing fees as well.
On a website like slashdot, it surprises me that my earlier comment was not immediately recognized as sarcasm.
As you mentioned, professing a love of windows on Slashdot is not a normal reaction. Anyone on this site doing so is either trolling or trying to provide comic relief. Seeing how I logged in instead of posting as an AC, believe me that the latter is true.
The more spent on Facebook ads, the less spent elsewhere.
Waste the time of the people who are wasting their time by using facebook in the first place.
Of course the biggest reason why I support facebook ads, is the fact I deleted my facebook account over 2 years ago.
You're an older guy aren't you?
In the world of computers, I'm ancient. (roughly 40) I learned to program on an old Commodore Vic-20. I even taught myself 6502 assembler on it. It had 5K of RAM, but I was lucky enough to have the whopping 16K memory expansion cartridge. (Which cost more money at the time than you can get a RAID unit now including a few TBs of storage; and that doesn't account for inflation either.)
Of course I don't think of myself as old but I do wish the youngen's would keep their useless bloated widgets, off my desktop.
I pretty much agree with you... It seems that what few older developers are left actually care about making things work. There are a few younger ones that do, but not many and the number seems to get fewer and fewer each successive year.
How about " \ . " to profess our love of windows. Of course if we can round up a few million bucks, maybe we can get a corporate designer to come up with something as exciting as 4 colored squares in a square pattern.
(FYI, the new windows logo reminds me of the millions AT&T spent when spinning off Lucent to come up with the "coffee stain" logo that was ridiculed by most including a Dilbert strip.)
They elect not to make an offer because I would be too good for the job.
Amazing that they could say that with a straight face. More amazing is that you actually believed them.
I know I am feeding the AC TROLL, but this does happen. It happened to me about a year ago.
I applied for a position with a company that had two offices, one in Atlanta near my house and the other in Warner Robbins, GA, about 3 hours away.
After the interview even I realized that it was not the job for me. They really needed a mid-level developer, not a senior developer such as myself. However, you should always remain professional... Even though it felt like time was wasted you never know what can happen next. I thanked them for their time, exchanged pleasantries, and then returned home.
About a half hour after I left, the project manager I met called me... I really impressed their team. They were telling me that they wanted me on the team and were going to talk to their client and possibly renegotiate their contract in order to redefine the role a Sr Developer with the proper payscale. They just needed to talk to the CEO in order for him to approve the major change.
It turns out that the CEO did not want to renegotiate with the client so that job opportunity was gone. However, he was about to start a brand new pet project of his own and a week later interviewed me personally for the new position. Ultimately, it did not work out, the new position was for me to lead a new team. I have the experience for that and would have been brought on, but, as a team lead I would have been expected to be onsite. As the CEO's pet project, he wanted it at his location 3 hours from my house. I turned it down because I was not willing to relocate, and we both knew that a 3 hour commute (each way) would not last very long before burnout sets in.
Moral of the story:
1) Yes, you can be overqualified
2) You should still be respectful of others even when it seems like your time was wasted... (It is never wasted when you leave a good impression.)
3) An AC TROLL will never learn 1 & 2 because neither will ever happen to him/her/it.
4) It obvious that the TROLLS are still unemployed due to the amount of time that have on their hands.
No stupid compositors that require ridiculous effects that are recipe for X crashes and stalls...
Funny how often that completely invalid position is repeated. Your graphics card is optimized for 3D acceleration. You have a little supercomputer sitting there waiting for you to ask it for help. Compositors take a lot of the workload off your slow main CPU and offload it to that supercomputer. If you can get the round corners and wiggly windows for free because your graphics card is the end result of a few billion R&D dollars making it good at that stuff, why not? Especially with something as slow and power-hungry as your P4, I'd rather let the coprocessors do as much of my desktop's work as possible.
Nothing is free... Yes the GPU does a lot... However, the GPU still needs to be told what to do and given the information to do it.
The GPU will take care of your 2D and 3D effects and physics (depending on the age and quality of your graphics card) without a direct impact on the CPU. However, the CPU still needs to spend time looking for input events to determine when the GPU should start those effects. The memory still holds this information on the effects. The system bus still needs to transfer the data from memory to the GPU for it to know the parameters of the effects. The GPU still uses power and increases the internal heat of the system.
Now, a modern computer has created ways to minimize the slowdown such as direct access from the GPU to system memory. However, it only minimizes the slowdown, it does not eliminate it. BUT, the one thing that is still used is memory... The more detailed the effect or more detailed images, the more raw memory is required. The more memory in use for storing graphic data, the less can be used for application data. The less available memory you have, the more virtual memory and disk i/o you will use. Once you start using a lot of i/o, your system will slow to a crawl. (And everything now starts using all these little effects, so it is not just your bloated desktop, it is all your bloated apps, and even bloated hardware drivers rendering your 4GB of memory today inadequate to compensate.)
First, I admit that I am not fond of KDE4 or Gnome3. I am looking at my next primary desktop using either LXDE or Mate if it is stable. I care much more for usability and stability than I do for gee-whiz features.
While I agree that they will not have the full community behind them, I wonder more about what effect this will have specifically on the developers. I believe that developers are the most limiting factor and I wonder if developers are split between all the different window managers, which project, if any, will actually have the necessary resources for continued development.
Apple and MSFT pay millions of dollars to developers to do all those truly shit jobs so those bugs don't end up affecting the end user, whereas the devs for a lot of the stuff in Linux are doing the work gratis so the truly shit jobs aren't done.
As a developer, I can say that I do not consider bugfixes "shit jobs." I look at it as a piece of the complete process. I admit that I am not always fond of doing it, but their is a self-fulfilling feeling of accomplishment when you find and correct a nasty bug. My preferred environment includes a mixture of both new development AND maintenance.
However, I do admit, that there are a bunch of so-called "developers" out there that only want new development and refuse to work on maintenance. They always want to work on cool new gee-whiz features without suffering the hell of working on the crap that they wrote...
There are a plethora of the latter type of "developers" which is why I think we get people adding "gee-whiz" features that no one really asked for while it always takes a long time for someone to clean up the code afterwords. The window managers in linux are perfect examples of this... When KDE4 was released, it was a piece of trash, only recently have people be starting to like it. Gnome 3 will probably be the same way, no one likes it now, but when the good developers start eradicating the nasty bugs, people will begin to open up to it... (Of course I am more interested in LXDE right now, because I care more for functionality than I do for gee-whiz effects.)
Best to have a couple of elite guys to motivate each other, a bit of camaraderie and some healthy competition.
True, but you do not need the entire team to be elite.
Two or Three work well... I agree with the earlier comment by YttriumOxide... Your elite coders know what they are doing, they also know where their own skills are limited and are willing to learn... even from less competent developers. (Yes, anyone can have a good idea.) But, the elite coders will also learn from each other and become even better.
Having one elite coder means that one person will define everything even if he makes a mistake. Having 2 or 3 allows for some discussion about the best way to proceed. Having too many is the same as having too many cooks... the code gets spoiled.
There is one thing though... If your elite coder believes that he is so far above everyone else that he never makes a mistake, doesn't need to learn anymore, or can't learn anything from someone "beneath" him, he is not an elite coder and needs to be removed... He will become a detriment to any project he is on.
Maybe this is a good reason for copyright reform...
They are just licenses these days. They are not tangible so it's hard to apply property rights to them.
A good point. As said before, when you die your collection dies with you.
It's a great business model though - you have to buy it again rather than passing it on through death or disinterest.
It does help the author/rights holder if people are forced to buy new copies. Yet if copyright laws were reformed and we drop the ludicrous life + 70 years and adopt a more modest 25 years, or something like the 14 years plus a 14 year renewal if the person was still alive like the original copyright bill, it really wouldn't matter because all digital books and music that you can no longer leave as inheritance would actually have a good chance of being public domain when you die. (or soon thereafter.)
Unfortunately, trying to get our corrupt politicians to do anything in the interest of the people with all the Mickey Mouse lobbyists in DC will never happen.
This sort of shit disgusts me, so I still buy real books and CDs. If new content is not being produced in this way, there is still plenty to read and listen to.
I here you... While I buy technical texts in digital format (more for ease of use, searching, cheaper, and much lighter to haul around,) I still prefer to have actual books for reading. I can read them with a candle or flashlight if the power is out, or while camping, and when I am done, I can even loan them out (or just give them away) to friends.
You fail at logic. You think that it is OK for people to have a "choice" to not buy insurance and must live with the consequences, but note that you would not be able to buy insurance if you lost your current coverage.
Actually, I think the parent poster's logic is sound. You either misinterpret his logic or are faulty yourself.
I think every state requires you to buy auto insurance and all mortgage companies require homeowners insurance. This is to prevent dumbasses from not doing something they really have to do.
But I'm perfectly okay with people who want to make their own choices, as long as they accept the consequences of their choices.
He is basically agreeing that people need insurance. People can opt out if they are willing to not seek treatment without paying up front.
If people hate the 'socialism' of medicine, then I hope they're not driving on the interstates, sending their kids to public school, and won't be accepting social security and medicare, neither of which you 'paid for', but which are paid to you by others as your tax dollars paid for your elders as you worked.
Again, while people are whining "Socialism" and its horrible not respecting individual rights, he makes the point that socialism is necessary in certain cases.
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
That deserves repeating...
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
So shall we all stop weinering about coming to the same damn conclusion that just about everyone else on the planet has? People are too stupid and shortsighted to buy health insurance, but you have to have it, since almost nobody can pay out of pocket for a major car accident, cancer or a heart attack.
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a year when your rates did not go up?
Personally, my individual plan rates have gone up 20% every year. It did not matter whether Obama was in office or Bush. (prior to 2001, I was on a company plan and only paying a portion of the total amount, so I can not include the Clinton years.)
It sounds to me like the AC is under 30. $2000 to $3000 works out to $165 to $250 a month. When you are 40 or over expect that amount to triple, (or more.)
I bought an individual plan through Blue Cross. When I started in my mid 30's it cost that much. EVERY YEAR it goes up 20%. Yes, every April when I renew, it goes up another 20%. When I turned 40, it went up an additional 20%. I complained that they just raised my rates two months earlier, and they said I still have to pay the additional 20% because now I was older...
Now I pay closer to $9000 a year for an individual plan. After speaking with my close friends, they pay roughly that as well. Yes, I did everything I could including increasing deductibles, etc, yet it still goes up constantly. Also, I can not change to a different carrier, because unlike group plans, individual plans are not required to cover pre-existing conditions; if I change, I lose coverage. Even though I can't wait for this part of Obamacare to take affect, I am still wary. They may be force to cover pre-existing conditions, but that doesn't mean they have to make their policy affordable to you. Never try to outguess the weasel quotient of insurance companies.
Wrong. You'll pay several times more out of pocket than an insurance company would pay...
Wrong:
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reported a CT scan of the abdomen costs about $2,400 for patients insured by Blue Shield of California, while the Los Alamitos (Calif.) Medical Center cash price is only $250... Another local California hospital charges insured patients $415 for blood tests that cost only $95 in cash.
It depends... Many places that offer items and services that have lots of competition will lower their prices in certain circumstances:
1) you pay in full or make arrangements to pay in full at the time of the service. If you wait until after the service is done, you no longer have the opportunity to bargain.
2) you tell them you do not have healthcare. (Filling out all the paperwork and filing it cost a lot of time and effort.) This is not as important as the first.
3) They have competition. It may depend on the area but this includes things like flu shots, MRIs, blood/urine tests; but rarely will it cover hospital stays, ambulance service, or emergency care.
If you look, you will also find many good doctors willing to help out on costs as well. While it seems that there have been many in recent years that became a doctor for financial gain only, there are many that care about their patients. If you have a good one, many will go out of there way to help, especially if you are an established patient with them before you fell on hard times (or lack of insurance.
As for anything that can only be done at a hospital, good luck. A little over 10 years ago, I had surgery. (I decline to elaborate for privacy) I was admitted by 8am, was in a semi-private room by 11 (after the anesthetic wore off) and was released the next day around 3pm. For that 31 hour stay, I was charged $20,000. That only included rental of the OR, my brief stay in recovery, and an overnight stay in a semi-private room. All doctor bills, anesthesiologists, radiologists, etc where not included, and it was a normal semi-private room, I was not in intensive care.
Well, my insurance company denied the initial claim... (even though I pre-approved it with them) and the hospital was sending me many sternly worded requests for the full $20,000. They wanted every dime or else... Finally the insurance company decided that they would pay... For the entire bill, my insurance company paid $800 to the hospital. After the nasty letters from the hospital, I called up the insurance company to verify... They agreed that they miscalculated and sent the hospital an additional $100. All the letters from the hospital stopped.
So, long story short, the hospital wanted $20,000 for rental of the OR and a one night stay and started sending nastygrams, but they accepted $900 from the insurance company as payment in full.
When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: âoeSteve, do you know why I came to work today?â
Steve: âoeWhat do you mean, Ben?â
Me: âoeWhy did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldnâ(TM)t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I donâ(TM)t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. â
Steve: âoeI guess.â
Me: âoeWell, then why did I come to work.â
Steve: âoeI donâ(TM)t know.â
Me: âoeWell, let me explain. I came to work, because itâ(TM)s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. Itâ(TM)s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life. Itâ(TM)s why I come to work.â
Steve: âoeOK.â
Me: âoeDo you know the difference between a good place to work and a bad place to work?â
Steve: âoeUmm, I think so.â
[continues to drone on in this patronising and insulting vein...]
What an insufferable prick.
When I read the article, I saw this conversation, and I could picture this guy in my head... Claiming to be a nice guy, yet cutting the subordinate's responses short.
This combined with the 12-16 hour days makes this guy sound like the classic arrogant control freak.
The best thing anyone working for him can do is to look and try find another job quickly... yet with all the forced hours it is nearly impossible to have any time to look without being noticed.
Dick Cheney doesn't play this pussy face punching game...
Birdshot to the face! BOOM!
Cheney was appropriately named....
I was a Newt already...
But the spell failed to make me the republican presidential nominee despite its guarantee.
The exodus of high level leaders at same time, however can definitely kill a company. Think of it this way, if several generals or even majors of an army quit at the same time, it leads the army directionless for a fair bit.
However, in this analogy, Zuckerberg is a dictator. He has majority voting share and it is obvious he does what he wants. (Think Instagram, which was done by Zuckerberg before he told the board.)
When the voice at the top is the only one that gets heard, it really doesn't matter how many underlings leave, even if they are high-level.
Command length != penis length
True, but how well you use it may be inversely proportional to the largest command length you are comfortable with.
GPS-revealing apps already weird me out -- along with peoples' obliviousness to personal safety and/or security
I agree. I look at all the popular titles on android and there are so many I will not install because it requests either "your location" or "phone identity".
There are exceptions for actual apps like google maps or gas buddy, where location is actually needed to enhance the usefulness of the app. However, Angry Birds and many other games will never see the light of day on my phone.
I'm sorry, I meant mostly the United States. We unfortunately have too much Democracy to the highest bidder.
Actually in Europe, the EU courts are more likely than the US to actually stop an a potential problem like this secure bootloader.