Hollywood accounting uses the same tax law as any other corporation. They are not evading taxes, they are avoiding taxes, which is completely legal and the laws are in place to encourage you to avoid taxes because they feel that the certain laws that allow you to avoid taxes would cause them greater revenue in the end. For instance, payroll is deductible, but if you hire more people, than the IRS gets more money from the overall benefit to the economy than they would have by just taxing you on the money if you HADN'T hired more people.
The difference in Hollywood Accounting is that they would actually have the gall to offer a contract based on net profit, which they know in advance will be zero or less, whereas hopefully most other businesses would not do that.
Some companies I have been involved with have done the same as Hollywood. They have based my bonus on performance, not on my performance, but that of the company. Which means that if they don't want to pay me a bonus this year, they just have to increase the CEO's pay enough to bring the profit down to zero. Or they could pay a dividend to the shareholders, etc, etc.
If the guy was discovered spying in China and sending secrets to the U.S., he wouldn't have to suffer the indignities of an indictment. But his family would be billed for the bullet.
Why is pedophilia wanting to have sex with children, but every other -philia is someone who loves something? Bibliophiles aren't interested in having sex with books. Seems to me like the real definition of pedophile is someone who platonically loves children, which doesn't seem like that bad a thing. Maybe the word they are searching for here is pedarasty? No wait, that one also seems to have a definition that doesn't correspond to the roots of the word.
I think too many people dwell on the word nigger which in and of itself has no power outside what people give it.
Yes, and despite the fact that we change the "acceptable" word to refer to a race of people every 10 years, the fact is that it is not the word but the attitude of the people who use the word that lends it power. No amount of attempting to legislate attitudes or force political correctness on people will change what people think. You can only hopefully prevent them from acting on it.
My company also deals with Healthcare. I don't think the TSA agent would get in trouble with HIPAA as he is not covered by the HIPAA rules. It would be more likely you who could be fined or face jail time for allowing a non-covered entity to view that HIPAA protected information.
I think I would carry around my company's standard HIPAA Business Partner Agremment and let the guard know that before I can let him search my laptop that I need someone with legal authority (like vice president or higher) to sign for the TSA to read and sign the agreement.
I think there is something missing within their service terms, like numbers. Okay, so you might not be able to grow as fast you want, well, before I sign on the dotted line, how fast CAN I grow?What happens to people who exceed this amount? Bounce to a higher rate plan, get charged extra for the extra growth?
I think Yahoo is just the latest company to cash in on the "hidden a-la-carte" fee structure. Just like cell phone plans, "Free checking" and just about every other "flat rate service", you can no longer tell in advance what you are going to get charged for something, and every time you tear open a bill, you know there is a good chance that it is going to be 50% higher than the month before because of some obscure item buried deep in the fine print.
I don't mind giving ownership of Pi to some clever patent lawyer. But no sneaking using a mathematical symbol. We need to know the EXACT value they want to patent. So they would first have to write down ALL the digits before I would be willing to hand over the patent.
In fact, I propose that we begin this process right now. Something as widely used as Pi is sure to bring in billions. We need to get ALL the lawyers busy writing down the digits of Pi immediately.
I guess it picks whichever type of gas is best for your car, but some cars will run just as well on different types of octane, and some people (usually mistakenly) like to 'treat' their car to a higher octane.
Also, at over $100k, I don't think it will be an instant hit. It was hard enough for most stations to justify putting in the car swipe systems on the pump. Mostly because of lost revenue on impulse buys inside, but this robot would be even worse. The person wouldn't even have to leave the car, so he isn't going to be buying any overpriced snacks. Maybe they should make the robot take snack orders as well.
However, you know as well as I that the media companies have absolutely zero incentive to reduce prices for the masses who use less bandwidth.
That's not true. They could easily go the same route as banks do with their "Free Checking". They can build several tiers of monthly usage at set prices, monitor their customer's usage and send them a flyer advertising the rate of a tier BELOW their current monthly usage, make the plan a one year contract, and of course tack on a generous $5/GB overage fee. Soon enough you have people on the $25 a month plan paying $60 for internet service.
Our local power monopoly a few years ago started up some wind farms, and offered all of their customers a deal to get signed on to wind power. They very carefully worded the flyer so that it appeared at first glance that the cost of wind power was actually going to be 75% of the cost of regular power. However, if a lawyer were to read it through two or three times, they would come to the correct conclusion which is that the cost of the wind power is a 75% surcharge ON TOP of the regular utility price.
What if your Homeowners Association says you cannot have a dish on your property. Does a Homeowners Association have the legal right to enforce a monopoly? Because the last one I was in had this rule, and I kept my DirectTV dish in storage and went with cable because of that rule.
Exactly. It looks to me like two of the most important things on slashdots mind is whether Ron Paul will make it easier for slashdotters to smoke substances that are currently illegal and whether Ron Paul will make it easier for slashdotters to obtain free music and software by means which are currently illegal.
Maybe they figure our votes aren't worth much or that hardly any of us vote.
I know this story is slanted such that we are supposed to feel that only Ron Paul cares enough about us to actually respond, but the truth of the matter is that despite slashdot's large readership, a significant fraction of the readership is not eligible to vote in U.S. elections, whereas large U.S. newspapers can boast a much larger percentage of eligible U.S. voters. Also, politicians still pay more attention to print publications than to internet publications. Print media still holds more respect. One of my coworkers once told me he had e-mailed his resume to 100 companies and not gotten a single response. I told him that I would bet money that he had sent his resume by regular mail to the company that he would have gotten multiple responses. Of course, that would have cost him over $40 in stamps, plus more effort to address everything. This is the same reason you are more likely to get a response from a politician if you send them a letter than an e-mail. You have to put more effort into a letter, so they are going to pay more attention to it.
That sort of thing is very much city based code. This came up here in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas due to the recent ice storm and the huge number of electrical masts and circuit boxes which were destroyed. It was made very clear that the permit must be pulled by a licensed electrician. Now, you could pay your buddy the electrician $50 to pull the permit and then go repair it yourself and have him sign off. But it was made quite clear that the city code in all cities nearby Oklahoma City require a licensed electrician to pull the permit.
I guess you could technically not pull a permit at all, but if you lost power you would be taking your chances on whether the electric company would notice your repairs and inquire about the permit when they come to switch you back on.
The way I see it, A software Engineer is actually tasked with designing an application based on the requirements given and with knowledge of the software tools at his/her disposal. A software Engineer may not ever write single line of code, though he/she should be knowledgeable on the particular language and development framework chosen. A Software Engineer would probably have a strong background in programming, and like most engineers, probably still likes to tinker around with the technology.
So go to university for 4 or so years and you'll get the respect you crave.
I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. My job title can be Software Engineer (though it could be even if I dropped out of High School here in the U.S.). However, I cannot call myself a Professional Engineer even with my degree because I would have to go spend about $5,000 on a certification program, in addition to the $30,000 or so I spent on college.
Interestingly, even if I did get the Professional Engineer certification, I would still not be entitled to so much as change out a circuit breaker box. That requires an Electrician's license.
I wonder if wiimotes can get spatial disorientation? In humans, the inner ear has fluid filled circular tubes used as accelerometers. When you tilt your head to the left, the fluid on that axis stays stationary, and moves against flagella in the the tubes, which your brain has learned to identify as a tilting of your head to the left. Now, if you continued to turn your head to the left at a constant rate of speed, friction rather quickly starts the fluid moving at the same rate as your head, thus the brain does not sense a continued tilt to the left, but believes it is stationary. Humans counteract this problem by having eyes, which can see what is going on and override the lack of signal from the inner ear. Obviously if you are blindfolded or flying in a cloud, there is no outside reference, and you can quickly lose track of your orientation. This is called spatial disorientation.
I wonder if you turned the Wiimote at a constant rate, if it would suffer similarly, or if the infrared sensor acts as eyes to aid it in establish orientation.
Of course, this has little if anything to do with God. The only reason Church is mentioned is because the NFL chose to send a letter to the Church telling them they can't watch the show. The issue is not Church, but the size of the TV. The NFL could just as easily send me a letter telling me not to watch the Superbowl, since I own a 62" TV. At issue here is the fact that Neilsen ratings are a hopelessly outdated system that is not able to accurately gauge how many people are watching the TV. They assume a certain number per set, but if it is a large set, there could be 50 or more people watching, and the NFL could lose out on advertising revenue. If the Church could send in something that said "100 people watched your stupid football game", then I am sure they wouldn't have been hassled.
What's with all this anger against the Church for showing the free over the air transmission for free to Church members and members of the community? They are not even charging admission! Where is the outrage against the sports bars who are profiting from the display of the Superbowl?
The whole point of Churches being tax-exempt is the idea that they are a social good. Rather than have the government take your money and inefficiently dole it out to various needy people, the Church is SUPPOSED to fill that role, same with other non-profits. Too be angry that a Church is reaching out socially to the community through an entertainment event is just wrong. In this day and age it is good to see a Church fulfilling its obligation to reach out to the community. There are way too many out there who enjoy tax-exempt status while maintaining there little club and condemning everyone outside their four walls.
You hit the nail on the head as far as my conundrum with voting. As you point out, Bush says ABC and then does XYZ. This is typical of Republicans, and although I agree with many of the planks in their platform, they never seem to remain true to their platform once taking office.
Now, as you point out, I should vote for someone who isn't a lying bastard. Well, since we know the republicans are a bunch of liars, then it isn't going to be someone who says ABC. Instead it will be something like DEF, and they will truly do DEF. You say I should vote for them because they will do what they say they will do. Trouble is, I don't like DEF. So now what?
Slashdot Mirror
That's not any better. It is not an alien world. It is a normal world. If we were to go there, WE would be aliens.
Hollywood accounting uses the same tax law as any other corporation. They are not evading taxes, they are avoiding taxes, which is completely legal and the laws are in place to encourage you to avoid taxes because they feel that the certain laws that allow you to avoid taxes would cause them greater revenue in the end. For instance, payroll is deductible, but if you hire more people, than the IRS gets more money from the overall benefit to the economy than they would have by just taxing you on the money if you HADN'T hired more people.
The difference in Hollywood Accounting is that they would actually have the gall to offer a contract based on net profit, which they know in advance will be zero or less, whereas hopefully most other businesses would not do that.
Some companies I have been involved with have done the same as Hollywood. They have based my bonus on performance, not on my performance, but that of the company. Which means that if they don't want to pay me a bonus this year, they just have to increase the CEO's pay enough to bring the profit down to zero. Or they could pay a dividend to the shareholders, etc, etc.
If the guy was discovered spying in China and sending secrets to the U.S., he wouldn't have to suffer the indignities of an indictment. But his family would be billed for the bullet.
Why is pedophilia wanting to have sex with children, but every other -philia is someone who loves something? Bibliophiles aren't interested in having sex with books. Seems to me like the real definition of pedophile is someone who platonically loves children, which doesn't seem like that bad a thing. Maybe the word they are searching for here is pedarasty? No wait, that one also seems to have a definition that doesn't correspond to the roots of the word.
Rule of thumb is basically: What you don't like people to do to you, don't do it to others. Regards Michael
What if I'm a masochist?
I think too many people dwell on the word nigger which in and of itself has no power outside what people give it.
Yes, and despite the fact that we change the "acceptable" word to refer to a race of people every 10 years, the fact is that it is not the word but the attitude of the people who use the word that lends it power. No amount of attempting to legislate attitudes or force political correctness on people will change what people think. You can only hopefully prevent them from acting on it.
My company also deals with Healthcare. I don't think the TSA agent would get in trouble with HIPAA as he is not covered by the HIPAA rules. It would be more likely you who could be fined or face jail time for allowing a non-covered entity to view that HIPAA protected information.
I think I would carry around my company's standard HIPAA Business Partner Agremment and let the guard know that before I can let him search my laptop that I need someone with legal authority (like vice president or higher) to sign for the TSA to read and sign the agreement.
I think there is something missing within their service terms, like numbers. Okay, so you might not be able to grow as fast you want, well, before I sign on the dotted line, how fast CAN I grow?What happens to people who exceed this amount? Bounce to a higher rate plan, get charged extra for the extra growth?
I think Yahoo is just the latest company to cash in on the "hidden a-la-carte" fee structure. Just like cell phone plans, "Free checking" and just about every other "flat rate service", you can no longer tell in advance what you are going to get charged for something, and every time you tear open a bill, you know there is a good chance that it is going to be 50% higher than the month before because of some obscure item buried deep in the fine print.
I'm going to write a sit-com about a sassy robot.
Also, who would have suspected that something with a 1/30th the wingspan and 1/50000th the mass would be able to spin 8 times faster?
I don't mind giving ownership of Pi to some clever patent lawyer. But no sneaking using a mathematical symbol. We need to know the EXACT value they want to patent. So they would first have to write down ALL the digits before I would be willing to hand over the patent.
In fact, I propose that we begin this process right now. Something as widely used as Pi is sure to bring in billions. We need to get ALL the lawyers busy writing down the digits of Pi immediately.
I guess it picks whichever type of gas is best for your car, but some cars will run just as well on different types of octane, and some people (usually mistakenly) like to 'treat' their car to a higher octane.
Also, at over $100k, I don't think it will be an instant hit. It was hard enough for most stations to justify putting in the car swipe systems on the pump. Mostly because of lost revenue on impulse buys inside, but this robot would be even worse. The person wouldn't even have to leave the car, so he isn't going to be buying any overpriced snacks. Maybe they should make the robot take snack orders as well.
However, you know as well as I that the media companies have absolutely zero incentive to reduce prices for the masses who use less bandwidth.
That's not true. They could easily go the same route as banks do with their "Free Checking". They can build several tiers of monthly usage at set prices, monitor their customer's usage and send them a flyer advertising the rate of a tier BELOW their current monthly usage, make the plan a one year contract, and of course tack on a generous $5/GB overage fee. Soon enough you have people on the $25 a month plan paying $60 for internet service.
Our local power monopoly a few years ago started up some wind farms, and offered all of their customers a deal to get signed on to wind power. They very carefully worded the flyer so that it appeared at first glance that the cost of wind power was actually going to be 75% of the cost of regular power. However, if a lawyer were to read it through two or three times, they would come to the correct conclusion which is that the cost of the wind power is a 75% surcharge ON TOP of the regular utility price.
What if your Homeowners Association says you cannot have a dish on your property. Does a Homeowners Association have the legal right to enforce a monopoly? Because the last one I was in had this rule, and I kept my DirectTV dish in storage and went with cable because of that rule.
Exactly. It looks to me like two of the most important things on slashdots mind is whether Ron Paul will make it easier for slashdotters to smoke substances that are currently illegal and whether Ron Paul will make it easier for slashdotters to obtain free music and software by means which are currently illegal.
Maybe they figure our votes aren't worth much or that hardly any of us vote.
I know this story is slanted such that we are supposed to feel that only Ron Paul cares enough about us to actually respond, but the truth of the matter is that despite slashdot's large readership, a significant fraction of the readership is not eligible to vote in U.S. elections, whereas large U.S. newspapers can boast a much larger percentage of eligible U.S. voters. Also, politicians still pay more attention to print publications than to internet publications. Print media still holds more respect. One of my coworkers once told me he had e-mailed his resume to 100 companies and not gotten a single response. I told him that I would bet money that he had sent his resume by regular mail to the company that he would have gotten multiple responses. Of course, that would have cost him over $40 in stamps, plus more effort to address everything. This is the same reason you are more likely to get a response from a politician if you send them a letter than an e-mail. You have to put more effort into a letter, so they are going to pay more attention to it.
That sort of thing is very much city based code. This came up here in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas due to the recent ice storm and the huge number of electrical masts and circuit boxes which were destroyed. It was made very clear that the permit must be pulled by a licensed electrician. Now, you could pay your buddy the electrician $50 to pull the permit and then go repair it yourself and have him sign off. But it was made quite clear that the city code in all cities nearby Oklahoma City require a licensed electrician to pull the permit.
I guess you could technically not pull a permit at all, but if you lost power you would be taking your chances on whether the electric company would notice your repairs and inquire about the permit when they come to switch you back on.
The way I see it, A software Engineer is actually tasked with designing an application based on the requirements given and with knowledge of the software tools at his/her disposal. A software Engineer may not ever write single line of code, though he/she should be knowledgeable on the particular language and development framework chosen. A Software Engineer would probably have a strong background in programming, and like most engineers, probably still likes to tinker around with the technology.
So go to university for 4 or so years and you'll get the respect you crave.
I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. My job title can be Software Engineer (though it could be even if I dropped out of High School here in the U.S.). However, I cannot call myself a Professional Engineer even with my degree because I would have to go spend about $5,000 on a certification program, in addition to the $30,000 or so I spent on college.
Interestingly, even if I did get the Professional Engineer certification, I would still not be entitled to so much as change out a circuit breaker box. That requires an Electrician's license.
I wonder if wiimotes can get spatial disorientation? In humans, the inner ear has fluid filled circular tubes used as accelerometers. When you tilt your head to the left, the fluid on that axis stays stationary, and moves against flagella in the the tubes, which your brain has learned to identify as a tilting of your head to the left. Now, if you continued to turn your head to the left at a constant rate of speed, friction rather quickly starts the fluid moving at the same rate as your head, thus the brain does not sense a continued tilt to the left, but believes it is stationary. Humans counteract this problem by having eyes, which can see what is going on and override the lack of signal from the inner ear. Obviously if you are blindfolded or flying in a cloud, there is no outside reference, and you can quickly lose track of your orientation. This is called spatial disorientation.
I wonder if you turned the Wiimote at a constant rate, if it would suffer similarly, or if the infrared sensor acts as eyes to aid it in establish orientation.
Of course, this has little if anything to do with God. The only reason Church is mentioned is because the NFL chose to send a letter to the Church telling them they can't watch the show. The issue is not Church, but the size of the TV. The NFL could just as easily send me a letter telling me not to watch the Superbowl, since I own a 62" TV. At issue here is the fact that Neilsen ratings are a hopelessly outdated system that is not able to accurately gauge how many people are watching the TV. They assume a certain number per set, but if it is a large set, there could be 50 or more people watching, and the NFL could lose out on advertising revenue. If the Church could send in something that said "100 people watched your stupid football game", then I am sure they wouldn't have been hassled.
What's with all this anger against the Church for showing the free over the air transmission for free to Church members and members of the community? They are not even charging admission! Where is the outrage against the sports bars who are profiting from the display of the Superbowl?
The whole point of Churches being tax-exempt is the idea that they are a social good. Rather than have the government take your money and inefficiently dole it out to various needy people, the Church is SUPPOSED to fill that role, same with other non-profits. Too be angry that a Church is reaching out socially to the community through an entertainment event is just wrong. In this day and age it is good to see a Church fulfilling its obligation to reach out to the community. There are way too many out there who enjoy tax-exempt status while maintaining there little club and condemning everyone outside their four walls.
You hit the nail on the head as far as my conundrum with voting. As you point out, Bush says ABC and then does XYZ. This is typical of Republicans, and although I agree with many of the planks in their platform, they never seem to remain true to their platform once taking office.
Now, as you point out, I should vote for someone who isn't a lying bastard. Well, since we know the republicans are a bunch of liars, then it isn't going to be someone who says ABC. Instead it will be something like DEF, and they will truly do DEF. You say I should vote for them because they will do what they say they will do. Trouble is, I don't like DEF. So now what?