It's a trade off, you short-sighted "idiot". Sometimes things are all about her. Sometimes they are all about you. Not everything in a marriage is about both of you.
The wedding, of all things, should be all about...both of you. And yes, I am married, to a great lady. Neither of us were high-maintenance about the wedding, we planned it together, though by all means I deferred to her on things I didn't care strongly either way for. But I have to echo the earlier comment to a degree - if she doesn't have any consideration for you during the planning of the wedding, it's not generally the best sign that yours will be a relationship of equals.
4. Configure the Vista product with the ultimate version. That is roughly feature equivalent to Ubuntu.
The point isn't to determine how much Windows Ultimate costs ($349 is probably about right), nor is it to perform a feature comparison of Windows vs. Ubuntu. The point is to determine how much the lowest 'Windows tax' is. From what we've seen, standard Windows should get you back about $130. That seems a bit high, as the OEM costs for Windows that I've heard are quite a bit lower. I wonder why they'd offer that high.
I understand that the leg-work to get the data into some useable form is hard work, I do similar work for a living. I was actually picking on Google for their elitist attitude when really the general solution for improvement was simple- ask the darn customer:)
You're helping them tune PageRank by messing with the results which, if you're building a search engine, may not be a good idea to help your competitor.
Yes, and I'm sure that's an issue for the literally hundreds, maybe even *thousands* of people creating their own search engine. Fortunately for Google, there are still a few billion of us who aren't.
Hrm, all those masters and Ph.Ds floating around there and the best they can do is "uh... lets ask our customers?" Jesus, they could have paid some hicks @ a gas station in BFE and figured that one out.
Uh, the relevant part is how to asssimilate all the feedback into something that complements their existing algorithms (for example, PageRank). That's probably beyond the reach of your average janitor. And your average Ph.D., for that matter.
This is one of those kinds of things where if you think it's easy, you clearly don't get it.
I would definitely have a lot to gain if Amazon were to lose, but I can't seem to find it within me to view banner ads on a site that is owned by an affiliate in New York as the "substantial physical presence" required by Quill v. North Dakota.
Normally I would agree - but I think Amazon is hurting themselves with the payment structure. I'm not an Amazon affiliate, but from a quick read of their site they're paying a specific commission based on actual sales. We're not talking just 'pay for clicks', as I read it. At that point, that sure sounds (to my untrained ear) like an agent based referral. To me, if the analogous situation in real life is taxable, then it should be online; if not, it shouldn't. Not being a lawyer, I'm not even sure what the vagaries of that situation are, and there are probably exceptions and loopholes. I guess my opinion, summed up, would be treat online just like, say, catalog sales. Sometimes politicians get confused when you put "teh interwebs" into the mix.
As an aside, I read/. every day and I have always enjoyed your comments here. You seem reasonable and impartial--your thoughtful and informed reply on this subject is no different. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I think that I just see it differently.
Why thanks! That's very kind. No problem with friendly discussion on my end; I certainly didn't think you were being argumentative. Everyone's entitled to see things differently.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you from a common sense perspective that from a common sense perspective, Amazon doesn't have a New York presence. But handicapping the court case doesn't involve common sense.;)
Anyone can make any argument that they wish to, but the fact that the State of New York takes a position that is spurious and tries to enforce it to gain revenue does not make it any less unconstitutional. US legal history is replete with instances where states have made other Constitution-trampling pronouncements, only to be smacked down by one court or another.
I'm not so sure it's that spurious. Here's the issue - remove this from the online world for a moment. Let's say I have a regular business and some guy in New York generates sales leads for me, and I give him a kickback for the sales created from his leads. Does that constitute a presence in the state? I don't know NY law (not being a lawyer, nor a NY resident), but my impression from reading documents related to this case is that such a relationship in real life DOES constitute a presence in the state. I think that's why Amazon is trying to make a case that the Amazon affiliates aren't agents, but that they're just "advertising", and sales kickbacks are just a way of paying for "advertising". To me, that sounds a bit weak, because agents who get commissions aren't passive advertisers from a common-sense standpoint.
If having referral agents in NY means you have a presence in NY, then Amazon is quite likely in trouble. From what I've read, it seems like they're really pinning their case on that argument. To win, they have to convince the judge that they don't have representatives soliciting business in New York. That's going to be hard to accomplish, since that's exactly what their 'affiliates' program seems to do.
New York is grasping at straws in a strictly logical sense, however, with judicial activism on both sides gradually eroding our rights...
Actually, this isn't judicial activism, this case presents trouble for Amazon based on a strict comparison of Amazon's business model with traditional bricks and mortar retail. See above.
For what it's worth, have you closely read the details of this specific case? This isn't as cut and dried as the usual attempt to make a cash grab from internet retail.
I'm surprised that so many have difficulty understanding this. It really goes back to one of the most basic premises that fueled the American Revolution: no taxation without representation. In this case, if the company has no presence in a particular state, it does not derive any benefit from being represented by any governing body of that state, therefore that state has no right to tax said company.
The basic issue here is what constitutes presence in a state. New York is NOT claiming that they have jurisdiction to tax anything sold to New Yorkers. The state's basic argument is that by paying agents in New York for sales referrals, Amazon has created a presence in the state. That's up for the courts to decide.
It's actually quite simple. The good thing about it is that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to change it. That is, if we actually have any rights left.
Unfortunately, this particular issue is quite a bit more subtle than you'd like it to be.
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
There's a new wrinkle here. By law, states have the authority to force retailers to collect sales taxes only if the retailer has a physical presence in the state. So if Company X has its headquarters in, say, Texas, it has to collect tax from customers in Texas. However, since it has no presence in Florida, Florida does not have the authority to force it to collect sales tax.
The grey area is with referrals, or "affiliates." What happens if I get sales leads from someone in New York? You might argue that I thus have a presence in the state. That's certainly the case that New York is making. They're being pretty aggressive, too - they claim that if I have a single affiliate in New York, that all sales to New Yorkers - regardless of whether they're from affiliates or not - are taxable.
Of course, as always people are generally liable for paying "use tax" on out of state purchases, because the company can't be forced to collect it. This is New York's way of redefining what it means to have a "presence" in a state.
Note: I am not a lawyer, on message boards, TV, or otherwise. This post does not constitute advice of a legal, medical, real estate, plumbing, scientific, religious, or other basis.
So pretty much, the better your revenge-making capacities are, the less pure you are? Makes sense.
Ha! That's good stuff. Works in both senses of purity, too - revenge makes the soul less pure, and you'd have to think that revenge is just about the most applied science possible. Not much theory there.
Best toy revenge.
Being an EE I took apart some toys we bought for my brothers kids... I added an extra amplifier and upgraded the speaker to make it loud as hell.
I also disabled the on/off switch and added a tiny ballbearing/contact switch to make it trigger on movement.
Nothing like a furby that screams... MEE EEK OOKA LIKE YOU.... FURBY WANT BRAINS... and is triggered incredibly easy.
Bonus points if you install lithium longest life batteries and superglue the battery door shut.
Oh holy shit, that's going nuclear. What the hell did your brother DO to you?
All I can say is if anyone in the family did that to me...well, as a chemist, I'd make sure their holiday experience was not an enjoyable one, and involved many, many trips to the bathroom.
There's a revenge heirarchy in the academic world, you know. Chemists don't screw with Biologists unless they want an exotic disease. Engineers don't mess with Chemists unless they want to be poisoned. Engineers don't screw with physicists unless they want to their house booby-trapped. Mathematicians don't screw with engineers unless they want...well, what you did to your brother.
Poor mathematicians get no respect, only thing they have to threaten with is doing proofs during dinner.
is 30 years of 2 am blood-curdling screams and blasphemous curses against our lord jesus when a parent happened to step on one of these things barefoot.
You just gave me a 'Nam style flashback to pretty much every night this past week, and it wasn't fun. Good God, kid toys are awful. Stepping on Legos is bad - movement-sensitive toys that start a 15-minute sequence of annoying jabber because I walk within 5 feet of it when I get up to piss at night is the worst.
I swear to God, the next one of my in-laws that buys our kid one of those demonic talking toys, I'm buying their kids a drum set or electric guitar. This shit is war.
Users running Windows 9x who are connected to the internet already have so much spyware and viruses...
You know, it's funny. I've heard that the kernel has changed enough that most modern viruses in circulation aren't *compatible* with the 95/98/Me family anymore.
Sort of a version of "security by obscurity", this is "security by obsolescence".
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
Yeah, but they still understand "he stole $10 million" just fine. Additionally, there's the whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. Remember Mitnick getting solitary because they were afraid he could whistle 9600 baud into a payphone, hack the computers controlling nukes, and start WWIII?
Also, people are paranoid of identity theft. Don't use tech jargon, the prosecutor only has to explain to the public that some dirtbag stole the identities of 200,000 people or whatever. Identity theft is enough of a perceived threat that Visa and other card companies use it in commercials.
I think if it's broken down simply enough, the public will certainly understand.
But how can they get away with not honoring tickets already sold?
Probably because the third parties in question didn't have authorization to sell them. If they had to scrape the site,
I'm guessing they didn't have permission.
So if you're coding in assembly and have to branch, what do you do?
And for that matter, when you make a method/function call, doesn't the compiler create a JMP (goto) instruction?
Clearly the reference is for actual programming languages, not dirty hacks, which assembly language inherently is.;)
But why would you not want to? Sure it is cheaper for the company, but, it is to your advantage too! incorporate yourself...get the tax benefits...etc. Private insurance isn't that bad....pay for much of it with HSA funds you sock away pre-tax...in the long run, you come out way ahead....you can keep from paying SS and medicare on your whole salary that way..big savings, etc.
See my other post here for some more details. Frankly, I hope I never have to work W2 or salary again...just is NOT to my advantage as a worker.
Hey, more power to you. I've considered it, but there are some added complexities with my line of work that would make it a bit prohibitive.
One thing I'm not seeing - as far as SS/medicare, you still have to pay that. In fact you have to pay the employer and employee part, though you get to deduct half of it (if I recall from last time I had to file some of that crap).
Academics aren't profit driven. Any for-profit company is not going to spend money and time to develop software then give it away to competitors. That is not only stupid, but it's illegal, and warrants a lawsuit by the shareholders.
This is extremely true. We are a 95% Linux site- servers and clients, and it is nearly impossible to find industry specific Linux applications. T
Maybe it depends what you do. In math/science fields, there's a ton of Linux stuff. Many applications have unix/windows versions, but many open-source applications are pretty much unix only - or at least, you're on your own if you want to do it in Windows.
If you're talking about polished, high-end business apps, then the problem is the article itself - companies like IBM are sitting on their hands, thumbs pointed north, when they should be making that stuff.
I've wondered about this. Why not just start hiring all people as independent contractors?
Ah, grasshopper, you think you're the first one to think of this? Certainly would solve a lot of problems if companies could classify employees as contractors at will....
...except the IRS is wise to that game and will nail your ass to the wall.;)
Here's the IRS's Form that contains questions that serve as a method of determining whether a given relationship between employer/worker can be that of a contractor or not. And here is a more readable version.
Basically, there's a list of 20 characteristics that distinguish actual contractors from employees that a shady company is trying to pass off as contractors. Things like who sets the hours, who provides the tools, where is the work done, how are they paid, who pays for business expenses, and so on.
And no, I'm not a lawyer, but a company tried to hire me as a 'contractor' scientist one time, which was a nice way of telling me they wanted to hire me but provide no benefits and no security. My guess is that it wouldn't have stood up in court since they would have basically failed every step of that test linked to.
So how does this compare, to BMW for example, where their German workforce is also highly unionized? Have they essentially done the same thing as the U.S. automakers, essentially shipping jobs away from heavy regulations in favor of lighter ones?
I don't think it's so much the strength of the labor regulations - though if you're going to move, choosing less restrictive countries makes sense. But I think it's more of a "do-over". Once your workforce has gone union in a particular country, it's pretty much impossible to un-unionize it, so you basically have to move it overseas somewhere and fight the unionization move there if you want to survive. So Japanese and German companies can make cars in the US, the US companies can make cars in Mexico, etc.
I was thinking the same. Seems a little suspicious, no? This thing gets lost, they catch hell, then it mysteriously appears?
Hell, there's tons of possibilities:
1) Cover-up. They know if they didn't produce this laptop they could lose the contract.
2) Inside job. Employee "borrows" the laptop to steal the data (didn't that happen to TJ Maxx recently?), then surreptitiously returns it when no one notices and lets someone find it.
3) It really was lost. Which makes one wonder, how many laptops are floating around unaccounted for? And anyway, why would you encrypt the non-portable server and leave the highly portable laptop unencrypted? Both should be encrypted, but if you had to pick one - don't you pick the laptop?!?!
Of course, the two layers of passwords is gold. Who wants to bet they were both written on a post-it note attached to the laptop?
Slashdot Mirror
It's a trade off, you short-sighted "idiot". Sometimes things are all about her. Sometimes they are all about you. Not everything in a marriage is about both of you.
The wedding, of all things, should be all about...both of you. And yes, I am married, to a great lady. Neither of us were high-maintenance about the wedding, we planned it together, though by all means I deferred to her on things I didn't care strongly either way for. But I have to echo the earlier comment to a degree - if she doesn't have any consideration for you during the planning of the wedding, it's not generally the best sign that yours will be a relationship of equals.
...for duping the greatest number of people who missed a blatantly obvious joke.
Just because Red Hat made one high-profile mistake, doesn't mean their support service is without value. Jump to conclusions much?
That's not the point. The point is that 1) Red Hat won't fix it, and 2) if you fix it yourself, you invalidate your service contract.
There appear to be workarounds as mentioned, but it shouldn't come to that.
4. Configure the Vista product with the ultimate version. That is roughly feature equivalent to Ubuntu.
The point isn't to determine how much Windows Ultimate costs ($349 is probably about right), nor is it to perform a feature comparison of Windows vs. Ubuntu. The point is to determine how much the lowest 'Windows tax' is. From what we've seen, standard Windows should get you back about $130. That seems a bit high, as the OEM costs for Windows that I've heard are quite a bit lower. I wonder why they'd offer that high.
I understand that the leg-work to get the data into some useable form is hard work, I do similar work for a living. I was actually picking on Google for their elitist attitude when really the general solution for improvement was simple- ask the darn customer :)
Elitist attitude? WTF?
You're helping them tune PageRank by messing with the results which, if you're building a search engine, may not be a good idea to help your competitor.
Yes, and I'm sure that's an issue for the literally hundreds, maybe even *thousands* of people creating their own search engine. Fortunately for Google, there are still a few billion of us who aren't.
Hrm, all those masters and Ph.Ds floating around there and the best they can do is "uh... lets ask our customers?" Jesus, they could have paid some hicks @ a gas station in BFE and figured that one out.
Uh, the relevant part is how to asssimilate all the feedback into something that complements their existing algorithms (for example, PageRank). That's probably beyond the reach of your average janitor. And your average Ph.D., for that matter.
This is one of those kinds of things where if you think it's easy, you clearly don't get it.
I would definitely have a lot to gain if Amazon were to lose, but I can't seem to find it within me to view banner ads on a site that is owned by an affiliate in New York as the "substantial physical presence" required by Quill v. North Dakota.
Normally I would agree - but I think Amazon is hurting themselves with the payment structure. I'm not an Amazon affiliate, but from a quick read of their site they're paying a specific commission based on actual sales. We're not talking just 'pay for clicks', as I read it. At that point, that sure sounds (to my untrained ear) like an agent based referral. To me, if the analogous situation in real life is taxable, then it should be online; if not, it shouldn't. Not being a lawyer, I'm not even sure what the vagaries of that situation are, and there are probably exceptions and loopholes. I guess my opinion, summed up, would be treat online just like, say, catalog sales. Sometimes politicians get confused when you put "teh interwebs" into the mix.
As an aside, I read /. every day and I have always enjoyed your comments here. You seem reasonable and impartial--your thoughtful and informed reply on this subject is no different. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I think that I just see it differently.
Why thanks! That's very kind. No problem with friendly discussion on my end; I certainly didn't think you were being argumentative. Everyone's entitled to see things differently.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you from a common sense perspective that from a common sense perspective, Amazon doesn't have a New York presence. But handicapping the court case doesn't involve common sense. ;)
"the iPhone cannot access Flash or Java - features that are essential to some horribly designed websites."
Fixed.
Anyone can make any argument that they wish to, but the fact that the State of New York takes a position that is spurious and tries to enforce it to gain revenue does not make it any less unconstitutional. US legal history is replete with instances where states have made other Constitution-trampling pronouncements, only to be smacked down by one court or another.
I'm not so sure it's that spurious. Here's the issue - remove this from the online world for a moment. Let's say I have a regular business and some guy in New York generates sales leads for me, and I give him a kickback for the sales created from his leads. Does that constitute a presence in the state? I don't know NY law (not being a lawyer, nor a NY resident), but my impression from reading documents related to this case is that such a relationship in real life DOES constitute a presence in the state. I think that's why Amazon is trying to make a case that the Amazon affiliates aren't agents, but that they're just "advertising", and sales kickbacks are just a way of paying for "advertising". To me, that sounds a bit weak, because agents who get commissions aren't passive advertisers from a common-sense standpoint.
If having referral agents in NY means you have a presence in NY, then Amazon is quite likely in trouble. From what I've read, it seems like they're really pinning their case on that argument. To win, they have to convince the judge that they don't have representatives soliciting business in New York. That's going to be hard to accomplish, since that's exactly what their 'affiliates' program seems to do.
New York is grasping at straws in a strictly logical sense, however, with judicial activism on both sides gradually eroding our rights...
Actually, this isn't judicial activism, this case presents trouble for Amazon based on a strict comparison of Amazon's business model with traditional bricks and mortar retail. See above.
For what it's worth, have you closely read the details of this specific case? This isn't as cut and dried as the usual attempt to make a cash grab from internet retail.
I'm surprised that so many have difficulty understanding this. It really goes back to one of the most basic premises that fueled the American Revolution: no taxation without representation. In this case, if the company has no presence in a particular state, it does not derive any benefit from being represented by any governing body of that state, therefore that state has no right to tax said company.
The basic issue here is what constitutes presence in a state. New York is NOT claiming that they have jurisdiction to tax anything sold to New Yorkers. The state's basic argument is that by paying agents in New York for sales referrals, Amazon has created a presence in the state. That's up for the courts to decide.
It's actually quite simple. The good thing about it is that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to change it. That is, if we actually have any rights left.
Unfortunately, this particular issue is quite a bit more subtle than you'd like it to be.
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
There's a new wrinkle here. By law, states have the authority to force retailers to collect sales taxes only if the retailer has a physical presence in the state. So if Company X has its headquarters in, say, Texas, it has to collect tax from customers in Texas. However, since it has no presence in Florida, Florida does not have the authority to force it to collect sales tax.
The grey area is with referrals, or "affiliates." What happens if I get sales leads from someone in New York? You might argue that I thus have a presence in the state. That's certainly the case that New York is making. They're being pretty aggressive, too - they claim that if I have a single affiliate in New York, that all sales to New Yorkers - regardless of whether they're from affiliates or not - are taxable.
Of course, as always people are generally liable for paying "use tax" on out of state purchases, because the company can't be forced to collect it. This is New York's way of redefining what it means to have a "presence" in a state.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/amazon-sues-new-york-state-to-void-sales-tax-rules/
Note: I am not a lawyer, on message boards, TV, or otherwise. This post does not constitute advice of a legal, medical, real estate, plumbing, scientific, religious, or other basis.
So pretty much, the better your revenge-making capacities are, the less pure you are? Makes sense.
Ha! That's good stuff. Works in both senses of purity, too - revenge makes the soul less pure, and you'd have to think that revenge is just about the most applied science possible. Not much theory there.
Best toy revenge. Being an EE I took apart some toys we bought for my brothers kids... I added an extra amplifier and upgraded the speaker to make it loud as hell. I also disabled the on/off switch and added a tiny ballbearing/contact switch to make it trigger on movement. Nothing like a furby that screams... MEE EEK OOKA LIKE YOU.... FURBY WANT BRAINS... and is triggered incredibly easy. Bonus points if you install lithium longest life batteries and superglue the battery door shut.
Oh holy shit, that's going nuclear. What the hell did your brother DO to you?
All I can say is if anyone in the family did that to me...well, as a chemist, I'd make sure their holiday experience was not an enjoyable one, and involved many, many trips to the bathroom.
There's a revenge heirarchy in the academic world, you know. Chemists don't screw with Biologists unless they want an exotic disease. Engineers don't mess with Chemists unless they want to be poisoned. Engineers don't screw with physicists unless they want to their house booby-trapped. Mathematicians don't screw with engineers unless they want...well, what you did to your brother.
Poor mathematicians get no respect, only thing they have to threaten with is doing proofs during dinner.
is 30 years of 2 am blood-curdling screams and blasphemous curses against our lord jesus when a parent happened to step on one of these things barefoot.
You just gave me a 'Nam style flashback to pretty much every night this past week, and it wasn't fun. Good God, kid toys are awful. Stepping on Legos is bad - movement-sensitive toys that start a 15-minute sequence of annoying jabber because I walk within 5 feet of it when I get up to piss at night is the worst.
I swear to God, the next one of my in-laws that buys our kid one of those demonic talking toys, I'm buying their kids a drum set or electric guitar. This shit is war.
Users running Windows 9x who are connected to the internet already have so much spyware and viruses...
You know, it's funny. I've heard that the kernel has changed enough that most modern viruses in circulation aren't *compatible* with the 95/98/Me family anymore.
Sort of a version of "security by obscurity", this is "security by obsolescence".
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
Yeah, but they still understand "he stole $10 million" just fine. Additionally, there's the whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. Remember Mitnick getting solitary because they were afraid he could whistle 9600 baud into a payphone, hack the computers controlling nukes, and start WWIII?
Also, people are paranoid of identity theft. Don't use tech jargon, the prosecutor only has to explain to the public that some dirtbag stole the identities of 200,000 people or whatever. Identity theft is enough of a perceived threat that Visa and other card companies use it in commercials.
I think if it's broken down simply enough, the public will certainly understand.
But how can they get away with not honoring tickets already sold?
Probably because the third parties in question didn't have authorization to sell them. If they had to scrape the site, I'm guessing they didn't have permission.
So if you're coding in assembly and have to branch, what do you do? And for that matter, when you make a method/function call, doesn't the compiler create a JMP (goto) instruction?
Clearly the reference is for actual programming languages, not dirty hacks, which assembly language inherently is. ;)
But why would you not want to? Sure it is cheaper for the company, but, it is to your advantage too! incorporate yourself...get the tax benefits...etc. Private insurance isn't that bad....pay for much of it with HSA funds you sock away pre-tax...in the long run, you come out way ahead....you can keep from paying SS and medicare on your whole salary that way..big savings, etc. See my other post here for some more details. Frankly, I hope I never have to work W2 or salary again...just is NOT to my advantage as a worker.
Hey, more power to you. I've considered it, but there are some added complexities with my line of work that would make it a bit prohibitive.
One thing I'm not seeing - as far as SS/medicare, you still have to pay that. In fact you have to pay the employer and employee part, though you get to deduct half of it (if I recall from last time I had to file some of that crap).
Academics aren't profit driven. Any for-profit company is not going to spend money and time to develop software then give it away to competitors. That is not only stupid, but it's illegal, and warrants a lawsuit by the shareholders.
Welcome to this century, Mr. Gates.
That's because those apps are written by academics.
And your point is....
This is extremely true. We are a 95% Linux site- servers and clients, and it is nearly impossible to find industry specific Linux applications. T
Maybe it depends what you do. In math/science fields, there's a ton of Linux stuff. Many applications have unix/windows versions, but many open-source applications are pretty much unix only - or at least, you're on your own if you want to do it in Windows.
If you're talking about polished, high-end business apps, then the problem is the article itself - companies like IBM are sitting on their hands, thumbs pointed north, when they should be making that stuff.
I've wondered about this. Why not just start hiring all people as independent contractors?
Ah, grasshopper, you think you're the first one to think of this? Certainly would solve a lot of problems if companies could classify employees as contractors at will....
...except the IRS is wise to that game and will nail your ass to the wall. ;)
Here's the IRS's Form that contains questions that serve as a method of determining whether a given relationship between employer/worker can be that of a contractor or not. And here is a more readable version.
Basically, there's a list of 20 characteristics that distinguish actual contractors from employees that a shady company is trying to pass off as contractors. Things like who sets the hours, who provides the tools, where is the work done, how are they paid, who pays for business expenses, and so on.
And no, I'm not a lawyer, but a company tried to hire me as a 'contractor' scientist one time, which was a nice way of telling me they wanted to hire me but provide no benefits and no security. My guess is that it wouldn't have stood up in court since they would have basically failed every step of that test linked to.
So how does this compare, to BMW for example, where their German workforce is also highly unionized? Have they essentially done the same thing as the U.S. automakers, essentially shipping jobs away from heavy regulations in favor of lighter ones?
I don't think it's so much the strength of the labor regulations - though if you're going to move, choosing less restrictive countries makes sense. But I think it's more of a "do-over". Once your workforce has gone union in a particular country, it's pretty much impossible to un-unionize it, so you basically have to move it overseas somewhere and fight the unionization move there if you want to survive. So Japanese and German companies can make cars in the US, the US companies can make cars in Mexico, etc.
I was thinking the same. Seems a little suspicious, no? This thing gets lost, they catch hell, then it mysteriously appears?
Hell, there's tons of possibilities:
1) Cover-up. They know if they didn't produce this laptop they could lose the contract.
2) Inside job. Employee "borrows" the laptop to steal the data (didn't that happen to TJ Maxx recently?), then surreptitiously returns it when no one notices and lets someone find it.
3) It really was lost. Which makes one wonder, how many laptops are floating around unaccounted for? And anyway, why would you encrypt the non-portable server and leave the highly portable laptop unencrypted? Both should be encrypted, but if you had to pick one - don't you pick the laptop?!?!
Of course, the two layers of passwords is gold. Who wants to bet they were both written on a post-it note attached to the laptop?