It seems the Obama administration has been making a lot of noise about tax avoidance. Let's make one thing perfectly. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. There is absolutely nothing wrong with minimizing the amount of taxes you owe. Tax evasion, however, is highly illegal. Stashing your profits in a secret off-shore bank account is tax evasion. Finding as many business write-offs as possible is tax avoidance. If a company is using legal loopholes, they have done nothing wrong. If you don't like the loopholes, change the damn law.
I do not like this trend. The Obama administration is purposely trying to make the term "tax avoidance" unpopular. A few years from now it could be conceivable that you will avoid telling anyone that Turbo Tax Ultra-Deduction Edition saved you an extra thousand bucks through business expense deductions you didn't know about, all because you don't want your friends and associates treating you like a leper.
How about we make the punishment for infecting a computer $100 and one day in jail for each system you infect. This way, someone who does something stupid but isn't actually malicious pays a few hundred dollars and spends a few days in jail while the real criminals pay big bucks and spend years in jail. For 180k systems, that's an eighteen million dollar fine and nearly five hundred years of jail time.
Of course, the problem is catching these bastards who tend to live in countries where the government doesn't care or is actively involved in these illegal activities (I'm looking at you Russia).
My experience is based on what my stepdaughter took in school. I did make it a point to complain that the local schools were wasting money on commercial software when free alternatives were readily available. I also voiced my displeasure in them teaching to the advantage of one corporation. I told them they should be teaching skills that were more generally useful, not how to format paragraphs in Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, the woman with the title of "technology expert" at the grammar school barely knew how to turn the computers on. Just one of the many reasons why California schools are doing so poorly.
With our public schools teaching Windows and Microsoft Office as part of the standard curriculum, the training costs to business and government is vastly reduced. A whole generation is entering the workforce with a solid (cough) foundation in a very specific set of commercial software. When/If FOSS becomes the norm that would change, but in the mean time, a lot of people will need to be retrained.
With the world economic situation putting strains on government money, they will be forced to consider cheaper alternatives. OSS can be much cheaper, but its cost is not going to be zero. You have to consider training and support. Even so, substantial savings can be had by going the OSS route. Companies like Microsoft must be shaking in their boots. If OSS gets a decent foothold in government, it will cause an expansion in the private sector. Years from now when the economy improves, OSS will be firmly entrenched.
Hopefully, financially responsibility in government will occur elsewhere as a result, but I'm not holding my breath.
Here's a couple of laws that apply. The police conspired, under color of law, to deprive him of his rights guaranteed by the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 Conspiracy Against Rights
This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).
It further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder his/her free exercise or enjoyment of any rights so secured.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to ten years, or both; and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years, or for life, or may be sentenced to death.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Every few years the game industry goes through a big shake up. Companies die, people lose their jobs. Then it starts all over. I worked on games way back in the Sega Genesis cartridge days (yes, I'm that old). When my job disappeared I chose to get out of the game industry entirely. The pay seems ok on the surface, but you work horribly long hours, so you're actually getting ripped off. The games always suck at the beginning. The physics are experimental, the graphics are blocks and circles, the story line is just a twinkle in someone's eye. By the time the game is even half completed you are so sick of playing it you want to scream. I bet the industry hasn't changed since my days in it.
This is similar to the quote, "perfection is the enemy of success". If you spend all your time trying to find the perfect solution, you never try something that will be good enough to get the job done.
It doesn't even have to be free, just reasonably priced. The record companies are sitting on piles of old blues and jazz music that you can not find unless you frequent dusty old record stores (as in vinyl records) and garage sales. Put those up for a low price. Even at twenty five cents a track they'll make money. Even if the stuff has fallen into the public domain, people would still pay for the convenience of being able to find the music easily and already in a digital format. So what if you won't have gold and platinum volume sales. It's practically free money for them. The cost to host that kind of service is almost nothing. The biggest cost will be converting from album to digital, and that can be mostly automated with modern equipment and is a one time cost.
While the people producing sheet music reply: Only if you pay us one hundred, million dollars...
And this is for music that's been in the public domain for hundreds of years. Except they got a copyright on their arrangement. It's the exact same arrangement that Beethoven wrote, but somehow they could get a copyright on it and you'll get in trouble for duplicating it.
Have you ever copied sheet music by hand? It's a pain in the ass. So it's no surprise that in a time when a photocopier did not exist people would willingly pay a small amount to avoid that tedium. I know my high school almost got in trouble for photocopying sheet music. We spent a day in the music room pulling all the copies and tossing them in the garbage. The extreme high cost of sheet music during my school days was a major contributing factor in copyright infringement. Gee, where have I heard this before?
Seems appropriate considering the crap they put on now. Seriously, does anyone watch that horrid ghost hunting show? I could only tolerate about 10 minutes of it before my lower intestine rebelled and leaped up to sever my spinal column.
There is a very subtle difference. Morals are based on social customs or religious rules. For the most part, you can treat the two as the same, but I tend to make a distinction. If your morals are religious based, you might be following rules you don't necessarily agree with, yet do so because "it is written".
Seriously. This has nothing to do with morality. It is a question about ethics. Is it ethical to throttle P2P? If you advertised unlimited internet access, the answer is no. Throttling would be a violation of the implied contract you have with the customer.
Personally, I see throttling as a reasonable compromise when just a few people are causing a bandwidth issue during peak hours. But first you need to inform your customers of the planned change. Then you need to implement the change in the least intrusive way possible. As someone mentioned earlier, throttling just during peak hours might all that is required.
"Empty Self-Esteem" is the result of praise given for no reason. Kids hear how great they are, even when they are the biggest fark-up in the school so they grow up thinking they can continue to be a fark-up. When they hit the real world they are in for a rude awakening.
Some schools have taken this lunacy a step further. They've discontinued the honor role only classes because it hurts the self-esteem of the kids who aren't good enough to be allowed in those classes. It might make them feel like they aren't as good as the honor students. I have some news for you, you aren't as good as the honor student, asshole. Study harder and maybe you can make the grade.
You do know that 3 drives is the minimum required for RAID5. You can add more drives to the array. I agree, however, that a hot spare is a pretty damn good idea if the data is important.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems the Obama administration has been making a lot of noise about tax avoidance. Let's make one thing perfectly. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. There is absolutely nothing wrong with minimizing the amount of taxes you owe. Tax evasion, however, is highly illegal. Stashing your profits in a secret off-shore bank account is tax evasion. Finding as many business write-offs as possible is tax avoidance. If a company is using legal loopholes, they have done nothing wrong. If you don't like the loopholes, change the damn law.
I do not like this trend. The Obama administration is purposely trying to make the term "tax avoidance" unpopular. A few years from now it could be conceivable that you will avoid telling anyone that Turbo Tax Ultra-Deduction Edition saved you an extra thousand bucks through business expense deductions you didn't know about, all because you don't want your friends and associates treating you like a leper.
IANAL, but I play one on the internet
So where's the downside?
How about we make the punishment for infecting a computer $100 and one day in jail for each system you infect. This way, someone who does something stupid but isn't actually malicious pays a few hundred dollars and spends a few days in jail while the real criminals pay big bucks and spend years in jail. For 180k systems, that's an eighteen million dollar fine and nearly five hundred years of jail time.
Of course, the problem is catching these bastards who tend to live in countries where the government doesn't care or is actively involved in these illegal activities (I'm looking at you Russia).
Pot is as dangerous as heroin.
Ex-GIs might be terrorists.
Canada is as bad as the commies.
Is it any wonder we tend to not believe anything our government says?
It was the most complete version I could find. The SNL website doesn't seem to have any kind of search function.
When I saw this video, the first thing that popped into my mind was Get a life!
That's a nice internet you have there.
It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
My experience is based on what my stepdaughter took in school. I did make it a point to complain that the local schools were wasting money on commercial software when free alternatives were readily available. I also voiced my displeasure in them teaching to the advantage of one corporation. I told them they should be teaching skills that were more generally useful, not how to format paragraphs in Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, the woman with the title of "technology expert" at the grammar school barely knew how to turn the computers on. Just one of the many reasons why California schools are doing so poorly.
With our public schools teaching Windows and Microsoft Office as part of the standard curriculum, the training costs to business and government is vastly reduced. A whole generation is entering the workforce with a solid (cough) foundation in a very specific set of commercial software. When/If FOSS becomes the norm that would change, but in the mean time, a lot of people will need to be retrained.
With the world economic situation putting strains on government money, they will be forced to consider cheaper alternatives. OSS can be much cheaper, but its cost is not going to be zero. You have to consider training and support. Even so, substantial savings can be had by going the OSS route. Companies like Microsoft must be shaking in their boots. If OSS gets a decent foothold in government, it will cause an expansion in the private sector. Years from now when the economy improves, OSS will be firmly entrenched.
Hopefully, financially responsibility in government will occur elsewhere as a result, but I'm not holding my breath.
Here's a couple of laws that apply. The police conspired, under color of law, to deprive him of his rights guaranteed by the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241
Conspiracy Against Rights
This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).
It further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder his/her free exercise or enjoyment of any rights so secured.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to ten years, or both; and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years, or for life, or may be sentenced to death.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242
Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Every few years the game industry goes through a big shake up. Companies die, people lose their jobs. Then it starts all over. I worked on games way back in the Sega Genesis cartridge days (yes, I'm that old). When my job disappeared I chose to get out of the game industry entirely. The pay seems ok on the surface, but you work horribly long hours, so you're actually getting ripped off. The games always suck at the beginning. The physics are experimental, the graphics are blocks and circles, the story line is just a twinkle in someone's eye. By the time the game is even half completed you are so sick of playing it you want to scream. I bet the industry hasn't changed since my days in it.
I plugged in "Ana Popovic", who's CD "Still Making History" was my most recent music purchase. All her CDs are deemed safe. Thanks for the link.
If you like great blues, buy her CD.
If you like hot chicks who play hot blues guitar, buy her CD.
I'll be in my bunk with her CD.
This is similar to the quote, "perfection is the enemy of success". If you spend all your time trying to find the perfect solution, you never try something that will be good enough to get the job done.
It doesn't even have to be free, just reasonably priced. The record companies are sitting on piles of old blues and jazz music that you can not find unless you frequent dusty old record stores (as in vinyl records) and garage sales. Put those up for a low price. Even at twenty five cents a track they'll make money. Even if the stuff has fallen into the public domain, people would still pay for the convenience of being able to find the music easily and already in a digital format. So what if you won't have gold and platinum volume sales. It's practically free money for them. The cost to host that kind of service is almost nothing. The biggest cost will be converting from album to digital, and that can be mostly automated with modern equipment and is a one time cost.
Fair use for educational purposes didn't mean a thing to the lawyers of the sheet music company.
And this is for music that's been in the public domain for hundreds of years. Except they got a copyright on their arrangement. It's the exact same arrangement that Beethoven wrote, but somehow they could get a copyright on it and you'll get in trouble for duplicating it.
Have you ever copied sheet music by hand? It's a pain in the ass. So it's no surprise that in a time when a photocopier did not exist people would willingly pay a small amount to avoid that tedium. I know my high school almost got in trouble for photocopying sheet music. We spent a day in the music room pulling all the copies and tossing them in the garbage. The extreme high cost of sheet music during my school days was a major contributing factor in copyright infringement. Gee, where have I heard this before?
Seems appropriate considering the crap they put on now. Seriously, does anyone watch that horrid ghost hunting show? I could only tolerate about 10 minutes of it before my lower intestine rebelled and leaped up to sever my spinal column.
There is a very subtle difference. Morals are based on social customs or religious rules. For the most part, you can treat the two as the same, but I tend to make a distinction. If your morals are religious based, you might be following rules you don't necessarily agree with, yet do so because "it is written".
Seriously. This has nothing to do with morality. It is a question about ethics. Is it ethical to throttle P2P? If you advertised unlimited internet access, the answer is no. Throttling would be a violation of the implied contract you have with the customer.
Personally, I see throttling as a reasonable compromise when just a few people are causing a bandwidth issue during peak hours. But first you need to inform your customers of the planned change. Then you need to implement the change in the least intrusive way possible. As someone mentioned earlier, throttling just during peak hours might all that is required.
"Empty Self-Esteem" is the result of praise given for no reason. Kids hear how great they are, even when they are the biggest fark-up in the school so they grow up thinking they can continue to be a fark-up. When they hit the real world they are in for a rude awakening.
Some schools have taken this lunacy a step further. They've discontinued the honor role only classes because it hurts the self-esteem of the kids who aren't good enough to be allowed in those classes. It might make them feel like they aren't as good as the honor students. I have some news for you, you aren't as good as the honor student, asshole. Study harder and maybe you can make the grade.
Self-esteem can not be given. It must be earned.
You do know that 3 drives is the minimum required for RAID5. You can add more drives to the array. I agree, however, that a hot spare is a pretty damn good idea if the data is important.
Back in my day we called those "capacitors".
Now get off my lawn!
Don't worry. Those poems are being written. Social networks are packed full of horrendously bad poetry by emo teen girls.