You're not forced to do anything. It is a tax for not buying health insurance. Your choice is to either buy health insurance or pay more tax.
Not very dissimilar to the tax credit for mortgage insurance. One could argue that the government is forcing people to have a mortgage. Not true. They are encouraging people to take out mortgages by giving people with mortgages a tax break. The choice is to either buy a mortgage or pay more tax.
It really is an argument of semantics, but if you boil that all away, you are paying more tax for not buying something.
I have a Nest thermostat, and you can use about 90% of the feature set without the internet or connecting it to their servers. The basic idea is that the thermostat doesn't need to be programmed. It learns the schedule it should keep based on you adjusting it. You turn on the heat when you wake up. You turn it down before you go to work. Then you turn it back on when you get home from work. Finally, back down before you go to bed. It will learn when you wake up, when you go to work, when you get home from work, and when you go to bed...adjusting it's own programming based on what it sees.
The biggest thing the internet provides is the ability to control it via a smartphone/website. There are no service fees for this functionality. They have also publicly stated that they are committed to supporting the thermostats for the very long haul. The first gen of thermostats they released has a 5 year warranty, so they are supporting the internet functionality/software updates for at least that long.
Then don't use the fingerprint sensor. You can still use a good-old-fashioned 16 character password made up of lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols.
But in introducing the feature, apple even said that 50% of users don't create a passcode, even the 4 digits one, because people find it inconvenient. The fingerprint sensor is for THOSE users. To make "good enough" security convenient.
If you need/want something more than "good enough" you can still do that.
So... Let's see...People are now going to go to their Primary Care Physician (which they can now afford to visit regularly because they have insurance that covers the visit), and that Primary Care Provider says to them "Bob... You really should lose 20 pounds. Here are some programs that you can take advantage of at no extra cost thanks to your new insurance providing it for you." I bet that a significant percentage of those people are going to actually take advantage of those programs.
I will grant you, that in a specific case, an individual might not give a shit. They won't take advantage of the programs that their insurance is offering. Good for them. That's their choice to do that.
But, in general, people don't want to be fat. There is a very significant number of overweight people out there who WANT to lose weight. There is a HUGE weight loss industry out there. Almost 61 BILLION dollars in 2010...Billion... With a B. Beeee....People who can afford it are paying a LOT of money to become thinner.
Now, the insurance companies have all the numbers. If they figure out that it's less expensive to pay for a Weight Watcher's program than it is to pay for the extra medical costs that obesity brings to the table, then they will give people the option...and maybe even give them a carrot to lead them that way...
My current insurance company has a carrot... You earn points for doing physical activity, going to the gym, participating in healthy eating programs, etc. You can redeem these points for real things like DVDs/BluRays, Starbucks Cards, etc.
Of course, it's up to the individual to actually do it, but if you put the programs out there, a large percentage of them will participate and that brings the overall costs down for everyone, which leads to lower rates.
Then your comment was, at best, completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand or completely misleading at worst. FICA is the medicare tax that has absolutely nothing to do with the ACA. Considering your comment "there is a tax" was sandwiched between two other sentences that directly mention Obamacare, all in the same paragraph about how much Obamacare is bad for business, all in an article about Obamacare, the strong implication in your statement is that Obamacare introduced a tax for every single employee.
I am not a fingerprint analyst, so I can't give an answer as to what they are actually doing, but a couple of methods come to mind on how you could generate the same hash out of slightly different, but similar, pictures of the same thing. Particularly if you can make the assumption that the image you are gathering is a finger print:
Rather than hash the actual bitmap image of the fingerprint, you process the bitmap image, generate statistics from that image that has a high-probability of being unique to each individual fingerprint, but not to different pictures of the same fingerprint.
For example, Rather than hashing the bitmap, your hash data could include a combination of all of the following: * type of fingerprint (loop, whorl, arch, tented arch, combinations of the types, and i'm sure there are sub-types, etc.) * the number and length of scars, imperfections, etc. * use an algorithm to determine a "center" or "focal" point of the print, and the distance from that point to the previously mentioned imperfections * the distance and direction from the individual perfections to all of the other imperfections * shape, size, and direction of imperfections * the average depth of the "valleys" in your fingerprint * the average width of the "valleys" in your fingerprint
So once you've collected all of the above information, it has a high probably of being unique to an individual, but if you have slightly different pictures you will produce the same information. Once you produced the information, hash it and that becomes your password.
But then again, i'm not a fingerprint analysis expert. I am sure there are dozens (or more) of ways you can algorithmically identify fingerprints so that different pictures of the same print will produce the same result.
That is true usually...except that Walmart isn't selling iPhones at any real significant discount. The iPhone 5 16gb is going for $649 on their website without a contract. That is the full retail price of the iPhone 5 16gb. There is no discount. So, it sounds like Apple made Walmart it's bitch and they are the ones forced to raise their prices.
How about a man who is marrying a woman who is infertile? They can't have kids, without help. How about a senior man and woman? They can't have kids, and probably don't want them anyway. What if the husband has a very unfortunate run in with a weed wacker and is no longer able to produce offspring? Perhaps a perfectly fertile husband and wife decide that kids aren't for them?
All of these situations, the couple is unable, or unwilling, to have children naturally... and yet their marriages were recognized under DOMA.
Would your requirement than a marriage be only valid when the couple is able to naturally produce offspring cause any marriage between a couple where the wife started menopause to be annulled?
Having children, while often times is one of the results of marriage, is not a requirement of marriage.
Except if you actually analyze what the tax brackets are, it's not really a tax break. And in a lot of cases it's a tax PENALTY.
Let's do a couple basic examples:
Couple 1: Wife earns $40,000 a year. Husband earns $40,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, they would each pay $5,928.75 in taxes on their individually filed tax returns. This is a total of $11,857.50. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 2: Wife earns nothing, stay at home spouse. Husband earns $80,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, the wife would pay $0 in taxes. The husband would pay $15,928.75 in taxes. This is a total of $15,928.75 in taxes. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 3: Husband works a part time job to help out around the house, earns $25,000 a year. Wife earns $55,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, the wife would pay $9,678.75 in taxes. The husband would pay $3,303.75 in taxes. This is a total of $12,982.50 in taxes. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 4: Wife and husband both earn $450,000 a year... They're both CEOs! If they weren't married and had to file separately, they would each pay $125,268.50 in taxes on their individually filed tax returns. This is a total of $250,537.00. If they were married, their $900,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $265,268.50.
(Source, US tax brackets for 2013 on earned income, and some basic excel skills)
So let's analyze...
Couple 1, it makes absolutely no difference whether they are married are not. They will each pay the same tax no matter what. Couple 2, They clearly get a benefit in their taxes from filing jointly. However, they are earning the same amount of money as couple 1 and paying the same amount in taxes as couple 1, IF they are married. They would pay MORE if they weren't married. Couple 3, Pretty much the same as couple 2, however, the benefit to filing jointly isn't as great. Couple 4, They actually get a tax PENALTY because they are married. If they weren't married, they would pay a combined tax of $250,537. But by getting married, they pay a combined tax of $265.268.50. It's almost a $15,000 penalty!
The above examples do assume there are no deductions and other such tax tricks that would lower your overall taxable income.
The basic idea behind filing jointly when you're married is that you are able to pool your tax brackets. In general, it will make zero difference if you are both earning relatively equal pay. However, if one person is earning significantly more (or is earning ALL of the income), then you can divide all of the income you earn equally between both of your two tax brackets. The idea being is that it's not the husband's money or the wife's money... it's BOTH of their money, regardless of who actually earned it.
That logic does break down when you start to get in to the higher tax brackets. If you earn gobs of money each year, then you can actually pay higher taxes by getting married.
These types of questions just speak volumes to the ignorance that is prevalent in society in regards to this issue. I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not. I think and hope that you are.
Basically, all the Supreme Court said today was that "If a state recognizes a same-sex marriage, then the federal government must also recognize that marriage."
So at this point, it's up to the individual states to define what is a marriage within their state. The federal government MUST accept that definition of marriage. No more. No Less.
So basically, if a state were to recognize polygamous marriages as legal, then I would think that the federal government would have to accept them. If a state were to recognize a marriage and one (or more) of the participants in the marriage were under the age of 18, then I would think the federal government would be required to recognize those marriages as well...in fact, many states do recognize marriages between people under the age of 18 and the federal government does recognize them.
I do believe that there are no states that currently recognize polygamous marriages. But some states do allow marriages by persons under the age of 18, some of them require parental consent and other various requirements to be legal.
Now, as a completely separate issue, pretty much all of the proponents of same-sex marriage haven't been advocating for polygamy or pedophilia. The argument has always been, and this is my view as well, "As long as the marriage between two consenting adults, it should be legal."
This means that bestiality isn't being advocated for, animals aren't capable of giving consent. It also means that pedophilia isn't being advocated for, since minors are typically unable to give consent in many legal situations and they aren't adults. It also means that polygamy isn't being advocated for, since it involves more than two people.
But, for me, marriage is viewed as more of a life-long contract of commitment to each other. So, in my view, bestiality shouldn't be legal, since animals don't have the legal or even the mental capacity of giving consent. Marriage with minors also shouldn't be legal, since minors don't have the legal capacity to enter in to most contracts by themselves, and are often times not developed enough to make those decisions in the best way anyway (which means they lack the ability to make a properly informed consent).
Marriages with 3 or more partners is more of a grey area for me. If everyone is capable of giving consent and they all consent to the arrangement, and everyone is an adult, then I see little issue with it since it doesn't really impact me in any meaningful way. "Pursuit of happiness" and all that...do whatever you want. My only doubt on it would be the fact that there are no real "three-way relationships". There are only all of the possible two-way relationships that can exist between the three (or more) individuals.... i.e., you can't have one relationship with 2 other people, you can only have 2 (or more) relationships with one other person.
The summary got it wrong. According to TFA: "The retailer can then sell the pre-owned game at whatever price they like, although as part of the system the publisher of the title in question will automatically receive a percentage cut of the sale. As will Microsoft. The retailer will pocket the rest."
It looks like the customer's cost is going to be £35. According to the article: "Many readers are asking whether the £35 will be additional cost on top of the price of buying the game. No, we believe that the £35 figure – which is not our number, incidentally – would cover the entire transaction. If correct this would leave retail with a cut per sale of around £3.50." So, to me, it sounds like the retail cost of used games to the buyer will be £35...of which the retailer would get a 10% slice of. The person trading in the game would also get some amount of that money, and then microsoft would get the rest and split it with the publisher.
The fuzzy line is regarding whether there's reason to search in the first place (which is more of a question regarding the Fourth). Should the simple fact that a computer may have aided the crime be probable cause? Does there have to be evidence showing which computer was utilized (like only allowing the search of one computer behind a router's firewall instead of fishing in all of the computers - and what if there's multiple owners?...).
I don't think it's a 4th amendment issue. If you are already in the discovery phase of a trial, you are well beyond probable cause for a warrant. The prosecutor would simply go "we need to search in the safe to see if there is any incriminating evidence." If you've already made it to trial, then there probably is probable cause that incriminating evidence could be in any of your belongings. Even if the computer was shared, if it's something that the defendant used, then the prosecutors should have no problem getting a warrant to search it.
I think the issue the Judge raised in this particular instance is that the government hasn't proven that the defendant is even ABLE to provide the encryption keys. If you say to the judge, under oath, "I don't have access to the encryption keys" or "I am unable to remember the pass phrase" then, unless there is evidence to the contrary that the prosecution can produce, the judge has to take your word for it.
The judge simply can't throw you in jail indefinitely in contempt of court for failing to do something that you are actually unable to do. Now it's up to the prosecution to prove to the judge (beyond a reasonable doubt) that you should know the encryption key or did possess the key and then later destroyed it. The prosecutor will have to find evidence that he knows, or should know, the encryption key. If he can do that, then the judge will then have the ability to find the defendant in contempt for not providing the encryption key and hold him indefinitely until he provides the key, or if the key was destroyed then charge you with obstruction of justice.
I think a really interesting test case would be if a criminal used a confession or otherwise key incriminating evidence as the pass phrase for an encrypted device. If they plead the Fifth, and then were compelled anyway - how much would be ruled inadmissible?
If I were a judge, I could resolve that pretty easily...The prosecutor is allowed to use anything they find within the encrypted device/archive as evidence, but the fact that your pass phrase for the device was "I, adamstew, admit to killing Mr. John Doe on Feb 28, 2067". The jury would simply see the evidence that was found on the encrypted device, but the actual content of the pass phrase would be kept from the Jury and deemed inadmissible.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I just watched a lot of Law and Order. I am just pretending to be a lawyer on the internet. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.
The human factor is SOLELY responsible for 57% of ALL driving related fatalities. The human factors is partially responsible for another 36% of all driving related fatalities.
This means that the human factor is a factor is 93% of all driving related fatalities. A self driving car, even if it only eliminates HALF of the fatalities where the human factor was only partly responsible, you're still reducing the number of driving related fatalities by 75%. However, I suspect that self-driving cars would eliminate more than half of the human-partly-resonsible driving fatalities.
Think about that. 3 out of 4 of all road related deaths could be prevented by self-driving cars. Even if it eliminates NONE of the fatalities where a human was only partly responsible, you're still preventing more than half of all driving related deaths.
agreed. Human Factors are the SOLE cause of more than half of all traffic fatalities and at least partially responsible in 93% of all traffic fatalities. Self driving cars would eliminate almost all human factors from traffic fatalities.
I am sure that self driving cars will introduce some of their own factors, but since the vehicle itself is only partly responsible in about 12% of driving fatalities and only solely responsible in 2% of driving fatalities, I would trust the vehicle technology far more than I trust myself and other drivers. Even if self driving cars DOUBLED the rate of driving fatalities where the vehicle was partly responsible and didn't eliminate ANY of the fatalities where the human factor was only partly responsible, it will still eliminate more than half of ALL driving related fatalities.
Having self driving cars would eliminate the "drunk driving" cause of traffic fatalities, as well as all of the "distracted driving" fatalities as well. That is, according to your own numbers, 47% of all driving fatalities.
Also, according to Wikipedia The speed that someone was driving was listed as the cause for 5% of fatal crashes, and "driving to fast for the road conditions" was listed as another 11% of fatal crashes. A self driving car would also, probably eliminate almost all of these crashes...so there is another 16% of all fatal crashes.
In fact, there was a study done in 1985 that concluded that the human factor was SOLELY responsible for 57% of all fatal car crashes. It also found that the human factor was entirely or partly responsible for 93% of all fatal crashes...these are the situations where there may have been bad road conditions or other outside factors, but the driver didn't react in the best way to avoid an accident. These numbers are almost 20 years old, but they are probably still representative of the current stats.
A self driving car should eliminate nearly all of the 57% of crashes where the human factor contributed solely. It should also eliminate a healthy portion of the remaining 36% of fatal crashes where the human factor was a contributor as the car can be programmed to respond in the best possible way to a huge number of road conditions.
Based on these numbers, I believe it is reasonable to say that self driving cars should eliminate about 75% of all fatal crashes. Technology and machinery is also, when compared to the human factor, extremely reliable...particularly when it is designed correctly. I have no problems saying that self-driving cars will eliminate 75-90% of all fatal crashes.
I am also certain that there will be some outlier situations where, if the driver had been in control the entire time, that a fatal accident would have been avoided...The technology failed and the car drove over a cliff, or the signal sent to cars about a railroad crossing didn't activate, etc, etc... but those incidents would be offset by a HUGE margin with the number of incidents that the self driving cars prevented. These same arguments were made against seat belts! There have probably been several examples where someone who was wearing there seat belt drove in to a lake and drowned because they couldn't get free of the car because of the seatbelt. But it is proven that seat belts save FAR many more lives than they cost.
True... But I also don't think the average person is going to know that these options for start menu replacements are even available. They are just going to say "I don't care for Windows 8... can I still get Windows 7?" and the only way to get Windows 7 now (for the average user) is to pay for Windows 8 pro to use the downgrade rights to get Windows 7.
There are probably still some older Windows 7 desktops/laptops in the sales channels, but these will probably run out soon. You can still find some OEM windows 7 licenses on NewEgg and Amazon, but again these are from when Microsoft was still selling these licenses. Eventually these channels will dry up as well. Then the only option will be to buy a Windows 8 Pro license and use the downgrade rights to get Windows 7 Pro.
This is because you bought the pro version of Windows. You actually bought a Windows 8 Professional license and used the downgrade rights to install Windows 7 Pro....Well, actually, Dell did that. You technically bought a Windows 8 license, Dell just exercised your downgrades rights for you as a convenience.
The world went through this same exact thing back when Windows Vista was being sold. You could still buy computers with Windows XP... you just had to buy a Windows Vista Business/Pro license to be eligible to install Windows XP Professional.
Microsoft isn't selling Windows 7 licenses anymore. PC manufacturers can't get new Windows 7 licenses to install on to their new computers. Their only option is to buy a windows 8 professional license and use the downgrade rights that come with the professional edition license to install Windows 7. This adds $100 to the cost of the windows license and therefor adds $100 to the price of the computer. They had this same issue with Windows XP when Vista came out... you had to pay more for the computer just to get XP because you had to buy the professional edition of the OS.
The problem is getting to the SSD. It took the folks at ifixit, professionals who do this kind of thing day-in-and-day-out, over an hour to even take the cover off to get to the inside of the machine. It required a heat gun and a tool to separate the black-tar-like adhesive. They said it was a new record on how long a device took them to gain access to it's insides.
Then you have to remove more than 50 screws to get to the underside of the main board to be able to remove the SSD.
As part of their removal process they said that the majority of people who decide to take apart their surface will likely break it because there are four cables that surround the inside perimeter of the display and that you will cut one of them unless you are extremely careful.
And even once you take it apart, you still have the challenge of putting it all back together again. Since you've now broken the adhesive that goes around the outside, you would then have to scrub it all off from the complete perimeter of the device, obtain new adhesive, and apply it again.
No... this is not a repair that 99.9% of people could conceivably perform in their own home.
You give a CEO his base pay, but then you give bonuses in the form of stock options. A stock option is the ability to buy the company's stock at $X price at some point in the future, no matter what the actual price of the stock is at that time.
So, lets say I start work as a CEO for a company. The stock price at the time is $10.00. I am given stock options that are good in 5 years to be able to buy 1,000,000 shares of the company I work for at a guaranteed $10.00, no matter what the price of the stock is at the time.
So, if the stock goes up to $15.00 in 5 years, then I can buy 1,000,000 shares of the company stock for $10 and immediately sell them for $15, and make an instant $5 million dollars. As the price of the stock goes up, so does the value of the stock options.
If the price of the stock options only goes up to $10.30, then the stock options are only worth $300,000. If the stock goes negative, then the stock options are worthless.
Basically, it's to reward the CEO for making the price of the stock go up.
Now, the CEOs have discovered a lot of tricks that can artificially inflate the price of the stock in the short term, so they can cash in their options. But the things that they do for these short term price inflations end up being bad for the company in the long run...accounting gimmicks, and such.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not forced to do anything. It is a tax for not buying health insurance. Your choice is to either buy health insurance or pay more tax.
Not very dissimilar to the tax credit for mortgage insurance. One could argue that the government is forcing people to have a mortgage. Not true. They are encouraging people to take out mortgages by giving people with mortgages a tax break. The choice is to either buy a mortgage or pay more tax.
It really is an argument of semantics, but if you boil that all away, you are paying more tax for not buying something.
I have a Nest thermostat, and you can use about 90% of the feature set without the internet or connecting it to their servers. The basic idea is that the thermostat doesn't need to be programmed. It learns the schedule it should keep based on you adjusting it. You turn on the heat when you wake up. You turn it down before you go to work. Then you turn it back on when you get home from work. Finally, back down before you go to bed. It will learn when you wake up, when you go to work, when you get home from work, and when you go to bed...adjusting it's own programming based on what it sees.
The biggest thing the internet provides is the ability to control it via a smartphone/website. There are no service fees for this functionality. They have also publicly stated that they are committed to supporting the thermostats for the very long haul. The first gen of thermostats they released has a 5 year warranty, so they are supporting the internet functionality/software updates for at least that long.
Nest has actually released an API for their learning thermostats. http://nest.com/blog/2013/09/25/calling-all-developers/
While it's not necessarily an open standard, they are playing nice with others to be able to add new functionality to their products.
Then don't use the fingerprint sensor. You can still use a good-old-fashioned 16 character password made up of lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols.
But in introducing the feature, apple even said that 50% of users don't create a passcode, even the 4 digits one, because people find it inconvenient. The fingerprint sensor is for THOSE users. To make "good enough" security convenient.
If you need/want something more than "good enough" you can still do that.
So... Let's see...People are now going to go to their Primary Care Physician (which they can now afford to visit regularly because they have insurance that covers the visit), and that Primary Care Provider says to them "Bob... You really should lose 20 pounds. Here are some programs that you can take advantage of at no extra cost thanks to your new insurance providing it for you." I bet that a significant percentage of those people are going to actually take advantage of those programs.
I will grant you, that in a specific case, an individual might not give a shit. They won't take advantage of the programs that their insurance is offering. Good for them. That's their choice to do that.
But, in general, people don't want to be fat. There is a very significant number of overweight people out there who WANT to lose weight. There is a HUGE weight loss industry out there. Almost 61 BILLION dollars in 2010...Billion... With a B. Beeee....People who can afford it are paying a LOT of money to become thinner.
Now, the insurance companies have all the numbers. If they figure out that it's less expensive to pay for a Weight Watcher's program than it is to pay for the extra medical costs that obesity brings to the table, then they will give people the option...and maybe even give them a carrot to lead them that way...
My current insurance company has a carrot... You earn points for doing physical activity, going to the gym, participating in healthy eating programs, etc. You can redeem these points for real things like DVDs/BluRays, Starbucks Cards, etc.
Of course, it's up to the individual to actually do it, but if you put the programs out there, a large percentage of them will participate and that brings the overall costs down for everyone, which leads to lower rates.
Then your comment was, at best, completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand or completely misleading at worst. FICA is the medicare tax that has absolutely nothing to do with the ACA. Considering your comment "there is a tax" was sandwiched between two other sentences that directly mention Obamacare, all in the same paragraph about how much Obamacare is bad for business, all in an article about Obamacare, the strong implication in your statement is that Obamacare introduced a tax for every single employee.
I am not a fingerprint analyst, so I can't give an answer as to what they are actually doing, but a couple of methods come to mind on how you could generate the same hash out of slightly different, but similar, pictures of the same thing. Particularly if you can make the assumption that the image you are gathering is a finger print:
Rather than hash the actual bitmap image of the fingerprint, you process the bitmap image, generate statistics from that image that has a high-probability of being unique to each individual fingerprint, but not to different pictures of the same fingerprint.
For example, Rather than hashing the bitmap, your hash data could include a combination of all of the following:
* type of fingerprint (loop, whorl, arch, tented arch, combinations of the types, and i'm sure there are sub-types, etc.)
* the number and length of scars, imperfections, etc.
* use an algorithm to determine a "center" or "focal" point of the print, and the distance from that point to the previously mentioned imperfections
* the distance and direction from the individual perfections to all of the other imperfections
* shape, size, and direction of imperfections
* the average depth of the "valleys" in your fingerprint
* the average width of the "valleys" in your fingerprint
So once you've collected all of the above information, it has a high probably of being unique to an individual, but if you have slightly different pictures you will produce the same information. Once you produced the information, hash it and that becomes your password.
But then again, i'm not a fingerprint analysis expert. I am sure there are dozens (or more) of ways you can algorithmically identify fingerprints so that different pictures of the same print will produce the same result.
That is true usually...except that Walmart isn't selling iPhones at any real significant discount. The iPhone 5 16gb is going for $649 on their website without a contract. That is the full retail price of the iPhone 5 16gb. There is no discount. So, it sounds like Apple made Walmart it's bitch and they are the ones forced to raise their prices.
Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1102/
"We increased sales by 300%"... but when you only sold 3 phones last year, you still only sold 9 phones this year.
The revenue is for any device bearing the "Surface" name. It includes all models of Surface RT and Surface Pro.
How about a man who is marrying a woman who is infertile? They can't have kids, without help.
How about a senior man and woman? They can't have kids, and probably don't want them anyway.
What if the husband has a very unfortunate run in with a weed wacker and is no longer able to produce offspring?
Perhaps a perfectly fertile husband and wife decide that kids aren't for them?
All of these situations, the couple is unable, or unwilling, to have children naturally... and yet their marriages were recognized under DOMA.
Would your requirement than a marriage be only valid when the couple is able to naturally produce offspring cause any marriage between a couple where the wife started menopause to be annulled?
Having children, while often times is one of the results of marriage, is not a requirement of marriage.
Except if you actually analyze what the tax brackets are, it's not really a tax break. And in a lot of cases it's a tax PENALTY.
Let's do a couple basic examples:
Couple 1: Wife earns $40,000 a year. Husband earns $40,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, they would each pay $5,928.75 in taxes on their individually filed tax returns. This is a total of $11,857.50. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 2: Wife earns nothing, stay at home spouse. Husband earns $80,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, the wife would pay $0 in taxes. The husband would pay $15,928.75 in taxes. This is a total of $15,928.75 in taxes. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 3: Husband works a part time job to help out around the house, earns $25,000 a year. Wife earns $55,000 a year. If they weren't married and had to file separately, the wife would pay $9,678.75 in taxes. The husband would pay $3,303.75 in taxes. This is a total of $12,982.50 in taxes. If they were married, their $80,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $11,857.50 for their jointly filed tax return.
Couple 4: Wife and husband both earn $450,000 a year... They're both CEOs! If they weren't married and had to file separately, they would each pay $125,268.50 in taxes on their individually filed tax returns. This is a total of $250,537.00. If they were married, their $900,000 of joint income would yield a total tax of $265,268.50.
(Source, US tax brackets for 2013 on earned income, and some basic excel skills)
So let's analyze...
Couple 1, it makes absolutely no difference whether they are married are not. They will each pay the same tax no matter what.
Couple 2, They clearly get a benefit in their taxes from filing jointly. However, they are earning the same amount of money as couple 1 and paying the same amount in taxes as couple 1, IF they are married. They would pay MORE if they weren't married.
Couple 3, Pretty much the same as couple 2, however, the benefit to filing jointly isn't as great.
Couple 4, They actually get a tax PENALTY because they are married. If they weren't married, they would pay a combined tax of $250,537. But by getting married, they pay a combined tax of $265.268.50. It's almost a $15,000 penalty!
The above examples do assume there are no deductions and other such tax tricks that would lower your overall taxable income.
The basic idea behind filing jointly when you're married is that you are able to pool your tax brackets. In general, it will make zero difference if you are both earning relatively equal pay. However, if one person is earning significantly more (or is earning ALL of the income), then you can divide all of the income you earn equally between both of your two tax brackets. The idea being is that it's not the husband's money or the wife's money... it's BOTH of their money, regardless of who actually earned it.
That logic does break down when you start to get in to the higher tax brackets. If you earn gobs of money each year, then you can actually pay higher taxes by getting married.
These types of questions just speak volumes to the ignorance that is prevalent in society in regards to this issue. I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not. I think and hope that you are.
Basically, all the Supreme Court said today was that "If a state recognizes a same-sex marriage, then the federal government must also recognize that marriage."
So at this point, it's up to the individual states to define what is a marriage within their state. The federal government MUST accept that definition of marriage. No more. No Less.
So basically, if a state were to recognize polygamous marriages as legal, then I would think that the federal government would have to accept them. If a state were to recognize a marriage and one (or more) of the participants in the marriage were under the age of 18, then I would think the federal government would be required to recognize those marriages as well...in fact, many states do recognize marriages between people under the age of 18 and the federal government does recognize them.
I do believe that there are no states that currently recognize polygamous marriages. But some states do allow marriages by persons under the age of 18, some of them require parental consent and other various requirements to be legal.
Now, as a completely separate issue, pretty much all of the proponents of same-sex marriage haven't been advocating for polygamy or pedophilia. The argument has always been, and this is my view as well, "As long as the marriage between two consenting adults, it should be legal."
This means that bestiality isn't being advocated for, animals aren't capable of giving consent. It also means that pedophilia isn't being advocated for, since minors are typically unable to give consent in many legal situations and they aren't adults. It also means that polygamy isn't being advocated for, since it involves more than two people.
But, for me, marriage is viewed as more of a life-long contract of commitment to each other. So, in my view, bestiality shouldn't be legal, since animals don't have the legal or even the mental capacity of giving consent. Marriage with minors also shouldn't be legal, since minors don't have the legal capacity to enter in to most contracts by themselves, and are often times not developed enough to make those decisions in the best way anyway (which means they lack the ability to make a properly informed consent).
Marriages with 3 or more partners is more of a grey area for me. If everyone is capable of giving consent and they all consent to the arrangement, and everyone is an adult, then I see little issue with it since it doesn't really impact me in any meaningful way. "Pursuit of happiness" and all that...do whatever you want. My only doubt on it would be the fact that there are no real "three-way relationships". There are only all of the possible two-way relationships that can exist between the three (or more) individuals.... i.e., you can't have one relationship with 2 other people, you can only have 2 (or more) relationships with one other person.
The summary got it wrong. According to TFA: "The retailer can then sell the pre-owned game at whatever price they like, although as part of the system the publisher of the title in question will automatically receive a percentage cut of the sale. As will Microsoft. The retailer will pocket the rest."
It looks like the customer's cost is going to be £35. According to the article: "Many readers are asking whether the £35 will be additional cost on top of the price of buying the game. No, we believe that the £35 figure – which is not our number, incidentally – would cover the entire transaction. If correct this would leave retail with a cut per sale of around £3.50." So, to me, it sounds like the retail cost of used games to the buyer will be £35...of which the retailer would get a 10% slice of. The person trading in the game would also get some amount of that money, and then microsoft would get the rest and split it with the publisher.
The fuzzy line is regarding whether there's reason to search in the first place (which is more of a question regarding the Fourth). Should the simple fact that a computer may have aided the crime be probable cause? Does there have to be evidence showing which computer was utilized (like only allowing the search of one computer behind a router's firewall instead of fishing in all of the computers - and what if there's multiple owners?...).
I don't think it's a 4th amendment issue. If you are already in the discovery phase of a trial, you are well beyond probable cause for a warrant. The prosecutor would simply go "we need to search in the safe to see if there is any incriminating evidence." If you've already made it to trial, then there probably is probable cause that incriminating evidence could be in any of your belongings. Even if the computer was shared, if it's something that the defendant used, then the prosecutors should have no problem getting a warrant to search it.
I think the issue the Judge raised in this particular instance is that the government hasn't proven that the defendant is even ABLE to provide the encryption keys. If you say to the judge, under oath, "I don't have access to the encryption keys" or "I am unable to remember the pass phrase" then, unless there is evidence to the contrary that the prosecution can produce, the judge has to take your word for it.
The judge simply can't throw you in jail indefinitely in contempt of court for failing to do something that you are actually unable to do. Now it's up to the prosecution to prove to the judge (beyond a reasonable doubt) that you should know the encryption key or did possess the key and then later destroyed it. The prosecutor will have to find evidence that he knows, or should know, the encryption key. If he can do that, then the judge will then have the ability to find the defendant in contempt for not providing the encryption key and hold him indefinitely until he provides the key, or if the key was destroyed then charge you with obstruction of justice.
I think a really interesting test case would be if a criminal used a confession or otherwise key incriminating evidence as the pass phrase for an encrypted device. If they plead the Fifth, and then were compelled anyway - how much would be ruled inadmissible?
If I were a judge, I could resolve that pretty easily...The prosecutor is allowed to use anything they find within the encrypted device/archive as evidence, but the fact that your pass phrase for the device was "I, adamstew, admit to killing Mr. John Doe on Feb 28, 2067". The jury would simply see the evidence that was found on the encrypted device, but the actual content of the pass phrase would be kept from the Jury and deemed inadmissible.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I just watched a lot of Law and Order. I am just pretending to be a lawyer on the internet. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Forgot to add that road conditions only contributed to only about 1 in 3 of all car fatalities. Where the human factor contributed to 93% of them.
okay... how about some statistics to back up the claim: Human factors in Driving Fatalities
The human factor is SOLELY responsible for 57% of ALL driving related fatalities.
The human factors is partially responsible for another 36% of all driving related fatalities.
This means that the human factor is a factor is 93% of all driving related fatalities. A self driving car, even if it only eliminates HALF of the fatalities where the human factor was only partly responsible, you're still reducing the number of driving related fatalities by 75%. However, I suspect that self-driving cars would eliminate more than half of the human-partly-resonsible driving fatalities.
Think about that. 3 out of 4 of all road related deaths could be prevented by self-driving cars. Even if it eliminates NONE of the fatalities where a human was only partly responsible, you're still preventing more than half of all driving related deaths.
agreed. Human Factors are the SOLE cause of more than half of all traffic fatalities and at least partially responsible in 93% of all traffic fatalities. Self driving cars would eliminate almost all human factors from traffic fatalities.
I am sure that self driving cars will introduce some of their own factors, but since the vehicle itself is only partly responsible in about 12% of driving fatalities and only solely responsible in 2% of driving fatalities, I would trust the vehicle technology far more than I trust myself and other drivers. Even if self driving cars DOUBLED the rate of driving fatalities where the vehicle was partly responsible and didn't eliminate ANY of the fatalities where the human factor was only partly responsible, it will still eliminate more than half of ALL driving related fatalities.
Having self driving cars would eliminate the "drunk driving" cause of traffic fatalities, as well as all of the "distracted driving" fatalities as well. That is, according to your own numbers, 47% of all driving fatalities.
Also, according to Wikipedia The speed that someone was driving was listed as the cause for 5% of fatal crashes, and "driving to fast for the road conditions" was listed as another 11% of fatal crashes. A self driving car would also, probably eliminate almost all of these crashes...so there is another 16% of all fatal crashes.
In fact, there was a study done in 1985 that concluded that the human factor was SOLELY responsible for 57% of all fatal car crashes. It also found that the human factor was entirely or partly responsible for 93% of all fatal crashes...these are the situations where there may have been bad road conditions or other outside factors, but the driver didn't react in the best way to avoid an accident. These numbers are almost 20 years old, but they are probably still representative of the current stats.
A self driving car should eliminate nearly all of the 57% of crashes where the human factor contributed solely. It should also eliminate a healthy portion of the remaining 36% of fatal crashes where the human factor was a contributor as the car can be programmed to respond in the best possible way to a huge number of road conditions.
Based on these numbers, I believe it is reasonable to say that self driving cars should eliminate about 75% of all fatal crashes. Technology and machinery is also, when compared to the human factor, extremely reliable...particularly when it is designed correctly. I have no problems saying that self-driving cars will eliminate 75-90% of all fatal crashes.
I am also certain that there will be some outlier situations where, if the driver had been in control the entire time, that a fatal accident would have been avoided...The technology failed and the car drove over a cliff, or the signal sent to cars about a railroad crossing didn't activate, etc, etc... but those incidents would be offset by a HUGE margin with the number of incidents that the self driving cars prevented. These same arguments were made against seat belts! There have probably been several examples where someone who was wearing there seat belt drove in to a lake and drowned because they couldn't get free of the car because of the seatbelt. But it is proven that seat belts save FAR many more lives than they cost.
True... But I also don't think the average person is going to know that these options for start menu replacements are even available. They are just going to say "I don't care for Windows 8... can I still get Windows 7?" and the only way to get Windows 7 now (for the average user) is to pay for Windows 8 pro to use the downgrade rights to get Windows 7.
There are probably still some older Windows 7 desktops/laptops in the sales channels, but these will probably run out soon. You can still find some OEM windows 7 licenses on NewEgg and Amazon, but again these are from when Microsoft was still selling these licenses. Eventually these channels will dry up as well. Then the only option will be to buy a Windows 8 Pro license and use the downgrade rights to get Windows 7 Pro.
This is because you bought the pro version of Windows. You actually bought a Windows 8 Professional license and used the downgrade rights to install Windows 7 Pro....Well, actually, Dell did that. You technically bought a Windows 8 license, Dell just exercised your downgrades rights for you as a convenience.
The world went through this same exact thing back when Windows Vista was being sold. You could still buy computers with Windows XP... you just had to buy a Windows Vista Business/Pro license to be eligible to install Windows XP Professional.
Microsoft isn't selling Windows 7 licenses anymore. PC manufacturers can't get new Windows 7 licenses to install on to their new computers. Their only option is to buy a windows 8 professional license and use the downgrade rights that come with the professional edition license to install Windows 7. This adds $100 to the cost of the windows license and therefor adds $100 to the price of the computer. They had this same issue with Windows XP when Vista came out... you had to pay more for the computer just to get XP because you had to buy the professional edition of the OS.
The problem is getting to the SSD. It took the folks at ifixit, professionals who do this kind of thing day-in-and-day-out, over an hour to even take the cover off to get to the inside of the machine. It required a heat gun and a tool to separate the black-tar-like adhesive. They said it was a new record on how long a device took them to gain access to it's insides.
Then you have to remove more than 50 screws to get to the underside of the main board to be able to remove the SSD.
As part of their removal process they said that the majority of people who decide to take apart their surface will likely break it because there are four cables that surround the inside perimeter of the display and that you will cut one of them unless you are extremely careful.
And even once you take it apart, you still have the challenge of putting it all back together again. Since you've now broken the adhesive that goes around the outside, you would then have to scrub it all off from the complete perimeter of the device, obtain new adhesive, and apply it again.
No... this is not a repair that 99.9% of people could conceivably perform in their own home.
on a mac, it is. You need a 3rd party boot loader for your mac, but you can tri boot with OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu on a mac.
That's what stock options are supposed to do.
You give a CEO his base pay, but then you give bonuses in the form of stock options. A stock option is the ability to buy the company's stock at $X price at some point in the future, no matter what the actual price of the stock is at that time.
So, lets say I start work as a CEO for a company. The stock price at the time is $10.00. I am given stock options that are good in 5 years to be able to buy 1,000,000 shares of the company I work for at a guaranteed $10.00, no matter what the price of the stock is at the time.
So, if the stock goes up to $15.00 in 5 years, then I can buy 1,000,000 shares of the company stock for $10 and immediately sell them for $15, and make an instant $5 million dollars. As the price of the stock goes up, so does the value of the stock options.
If the price of the stock options only goes up to $10.30, then the stock options are only worth $300,000. If the stock goes negative, then the stock options are worthless.
Basically, it's to reward the CEO for making the price of the stock go up.
Now, the CEOs have discovered a lot of tricks that can artificially inflate the price of the stock in the short term, so they can cash in their options. But the things that they do for these short term price inflations end up being bad for the company in the long run...accounting gimmicks, and such.