Back in the 1980's, there was one record store company I ended up buying CD's from. It was in Indianapolis called Tracks. I quit going to other places at the time like Camelot Music and other chain stores. Tracks use to be in Indy, Bloomington, W. Lafayette and even got to Evansville. One thing, they carried items that you couldn't get at the chain stores - import CD's. There was one import I got that were not available at the chain stores - The Best of Steve Miller. Since this was a time prior to CD burners, I would tape off of my CD's to listen to my tunes in my car (even though frowned upon by the RIAA). They carried Metal Tape which the mainstream stores did not carry.
On the RIAA, they had ads at the schools supported by the administrators encouraging the students to write to members of Congress to support a tape tax. The thing was you buy a CD of a given album. If you wanted to listen to it in your car, since there were not any CD players for cars, the RIAA wanted you to buy their cheap quality pre-recorded tape of that same album. Homey didn't play that. With the metal tape, the music quality stayed good and the tape player didn't want to eat the tape unlike the pre-recorded ones.
In some ways, schools parallel the workplace. The workplace is getting more intrusive on what you outside on your own time. Can you say drug testing for example. Also, some companies frown on some risky activities such as motorcycling. The biggest thing is getting fired for bogging even if anonymous and even not mentioning company name.
On one hand, the bullying needs to end but how far can a school go without being intrusive. One idea is the school steps in only if the behavior affects the classroom as mentioned. The connection should be documented just in case of future legal action. Most schools districts have a legal department and that department needs to be utilized just like companies.
What is worse, I as a Sys Admin, I have to look for different products for my users. The items I am interested in are technical specs. This means having to go to corporate web sites with a lot of fancy flash. The problem with the corporate web sites, they are designed by marketing types for marketing types. Marketing type of people don't care about your time and don't have a problem wasting it where you have dig deep just to get some simple specs. Better yet, to get the specs requires a call. Makes it difficult especailly if you need to get some info for your manager who wants and wants it yesterday !
In my old job, a lot of the leadership hired in were from IBM (old school - suit days). It was a "live to work" culture. Since working in that group, it affected your life outside of work. You were expected to show up for company social events especially with the interaction to the community (PR items). You were exepected to refrain from certain recreational activities (legal) such as motorcycles, four wheeling to name a few. On the company social events, even though you were on your own time, you were epected to abide in the company dress code. On vacations, you were not only expected to get approval to take time off (given anyway) but also you had to leave contact information and where you were at at all times. You also had to get approval to leave town.
One time, I got a $156 speeding ticket in Wisconsin. It was for 13 over the limit. It is not on my Colorado driving record but yet, my manager from my old job found out about. It was used against me in my performance appraisal at that time. I thought that was bullshit but our company considers much more than you work, they consider "the whole person" or in some circles, known as the 360 degree look.
There are numerous people that have at some point done something that would end up on record, speeding, parking fines, maybe even financial problems at some moment in time.
If you are too independent, they cannot control you and make it much harder to buy you off especially if they want something illegal/unethical done. Other employers besides banks are interested in seeing their employees in debt.
So at least some US banks actually like to see their employees comfortably deep in debt. Just in case so that they do not develop too much independence.
In one job I worked, my manager found out about how I was doing financially. This was a basis to deny me a pay increase. I have no debt. The cars & house are paid off. Basically, I was smart on how I spent my money. It pissed him off. This made it basically impossible for him to buy me off like other people who are especially heavily leveraged. When the pay increase came, I didn't get one. I found this out through second hand sources.
I confronted him on this and he basically said it was easy, take your SS#, have a friend run a credit report. Just that simple !
I would like to meet the executive who decided to put their product into "consumer proof" packaging. I would like to run their d*ck/t*ts through a mulinex ! At least they can put a pull tab where you can yank on it, package opens without the need for any fancy tools.
What is worse working in gov't, you are required to inventory all items INCLUDING advertisements and blank pieces of paper. You are not allowed to throw anything away. When you get 50 items, the packaging is such a pain in the ass to open multiple times.
First, you don't see much of the family business anymore since by the time the original proprieters die, it is very successful and worth more than the exemption. In order to pay the tax, the business has to be sold. Another thing, where did many of the family farms go ? We now have more "corporate farms" than anything. Why do many corporate executives and corporations support keeping the tax ? Poeple like George Soros, William Gates Sr. (Bill Gates of M$ daddy) support the death tax.
Easier to control people when they work for "The Man" instead of making a living off of their own business. I work for "The Man" and it sucks - dress codes, unpaid overtime, not being permitted to take vacation or be told to cancel vacation at great expense ! I have been exploring other avenues to "escape". With the death tax, why should I work hard to get a business going when my children will not be permitted to inherit it because they have to sell in order to pay ?
Second, the rates are outrageous. The top braket is 55%. That is punitive !
I have favored the Republican side since they were more hands-off but the last several years, I have not been happy with the Republicans. Can you say Patriot Act, Real ID Act to name a few. They did not see it as important to make the tax cuts permanent such as getting rid of the death tax permanently. In 2011, it is back with full force and vengenace.
One of my favorite Congressman is Rep. Ron Paul. We need ore poeple like him.
Since the Democrats now control Congress, we need to see about getting rid of the Real ID Act - get it repealed. Passed without discussion, without debate.
Keep the dems out because of high taxes and nanny state laws like motorcycle helmets, 55 mph national maximum speed limit. Also get rid of the repubs because of the Real ID Act, Patriot Act (namely because of bully Sensenbrenner).
So what is the alternative ? Time for 3rd parties like Libertarian, Constitution, Green.
A better system would be to draw names of people out of the phone book and go serve a term in the House or Senate and then go back home. Their employer will be required to keep their job while their employee is serving in Congress. The person serving in Congress would have their salary be based on 150% of their pay from home. The additional money would help on housing plus time away from home/family. This would take care of imcumbency and people from elitist ivy league schools would have much less influence. Hopefully, there would be people with more common sense making the laws instead. Also to keep cost down, Congress is in session for 90 days in the Winter time. There might be some flaws in this idea but it is a start.
The Real ID Act to bring in de-facto National ID is pretty bad. If this was tried even back as late as the 1960's, many people would be up in arms about it but yet, it is law of the land. The media didn't report on it when it was going through the legislative process, it was passed very well secretly by being included as a rider on a military spending bill that was a must pass and even with it being known, not much hell has been raised about it.
With the linking of state motor vehicle databases which makes identity theft very easy, not many concerns has been raised so far !
Another help which is not offered by Windows or even Mac, Virtual Screens which are prevalent in Linux such as on KDE or FVWM. One virtual screen runs web browser, another one has an edit window for programming and another for compiling and debugging for example.
Reminds me when over 10 years ago, I worked for a company that did its payroll in-house. Every year right around January, we get the layouts from the IRS on how to print the W2 forms. Every year, we had to screw around to nake changes. It is simple moving of fields but we have to spend a whole day moving the items and then doing test runs. What made it more difficult, we didn't get any data to test since payroll info is considered confidential. I raised the question why they made these mundane changes and was told because they were the IRS and to remind us they are in charge.
I was disappointed when the Republicans took congress in 1994 that we were on the path towards more simpler taxes - simple tax code like Dick Armey's postcard tax return. The whole system should be shitcanned. Bad enough you have to pay a large amount of money for taxes but add insult to injury, you have to spend several days figuring what you have to pay and if you are wrong, hello back-taxes and more penalties.
More importantly, the code changes EVERY year, they just can't leave it alone, so it's not a one time investment. Keep in mind, this is not something that does the 1040EZ form - taxes for businesses and people who do a lot of investing and have a lot of deductions and so forth can be very complex and all need different forms. This is not a replacement for the $50 income tax program you can buy every year.
There are other annoying rules that employees have to put up with in a down job market.
Dress codes - mandatory participation in corporate fashion show.
Expected unpaid overtime such as working on Saturdays/Sundays and being required to follow corporate dress code even on weekends.
Limitations on taking vacation such as having to get permission to leave town in addition to getting permission to take vacation.
When you get to take vacation, you are told that your vacation is from Monday to Friday and does not include your weekends. Your weekends around vacation are considered time you may have to work at the discretion of your company.
You are required to check in each day while on vacation.
Mandatory late Friday afternoon meetings called by the executives.
You have to leave on a business trip on Saturday and you are required to comply with the corporate dress code even on Saturday when you are not going to do business that day.
Remember an old movie from around 1983 - Blue Thunder which was about this surveillance helicopter that can spy on anyone. To add on top of that, the was on-board computer to tap into any database around the country. This was 23 years ago. People are asleep and this kind of crap goes through without even a whimper of protest.
A privilege is something that is given upon a whim of someone who in a position of authority. It seems like anything in society is given as a privilege, therefore subject to withdrawl based upon arbitrary whim. A job is a privilege, taking vacation is a prvilege, owning a house is a privilege. I have been told these B.S. lines many time but yet, I don't buy it.
All of us executives are very happy that telecommuting is getting a black eye. We want you in the office and while you are here, you better be in your dress slacks, dress shirt and dress shoes, not jeans, shorts, t-shirts or sweatshirts, or sandals. We insist that you are here during normal business hours of 8am to 5pm. We don't care if you have to fight traffic not be able to get home until 6pm and have no time to enjoy the outdoors. That is for weekends only if we permit you the weekend off. It is also about politics as well. If you are at home working, you will miss out on our politics and games.
Breaks are only given at the discretion of the company, the company I work for does not allow breaks, cigarette or otherwise. Lunches are included with this, not mandatory.
Does the boss get upset if you take 10 minutes to take a dump ? I know some managers look for people even going into the bathrooms and harassing their subordinates while on the toilet !
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the 1980's, there was one record store company I ended up buying CD's from. It was in Indianapolis called Tracks. I quit going to other places at the time like Camelot Music and other chain stores. Tracks use to be in Indy, Bloomington, W. Lafayette and even got to Evansville. One thing, they carried items that you couldn't get at the chain stores - import CD's. There was one import I got that were not available at the chain stores - The Best of Steve Miller. Since this was a time prior to CD burners, I would tape off of my CD's to listen to my tunes in my car (even though frowned upon by the RIAA). They carried Metal Tape which the mainstream stores did not carry.
On the RIAA, they had ads at the schools supported by the administrators encouraging the students to write to members of Congress to support a tape tax. The thing was you buy a CD of a given album. If you wanted to listen to it in your car, since there were not any CD players for cars, the RIAA wanted you to buy their cheap quality pre-recorded tape of that same album. Homey didn't play that. With the metal tape, the music quality stayed good and the tape player didn't want to eat the tape unlike the pre-recorded ones.
In some ways, schools parallel the workplace. The workplace is getting more intrusive on what you outside on your own time. Can you say drug testing for example. Also, some companies frown on some risky activities such as motorcycling. The biggest thing is getting fired for bogging even if anonymous and even not mentioning company name.
On one hand, the bullying needs to end but how far can a school go without being intrusive. One idea is the school steps in only if the behavior affects the classroom as mentioned. The connection should be documented just in case of future legal action. Most schools districts have a legal department and that department needs to be utilized just like companies.
What is worse, I as a Sys Admin, I have to look for different products for my users. The items I am interested in are technical specs. This means having to go to corporate web sites with a lot of fancy flash. The problem with the corporate web sites, they are designed by marketing types for marketing types. Marketing type of people don't care about your time and don't have a problem wasting it where you have dig deep just to get some simple specs. Better yet, to get the specs requires a call. Makes it difficult especailly if you need to get some info for your manager who wants and wants it yesterday !
In my old job, a lot of the leadership hired in were from IBM (old school - suit days). It was a "live to work" culture. Since working in that group, it affected your life outside of work. You were expected to show up for company social events especially with the interaction to the community (PR items). You were exepected to refrain from certain recreational activities (legal) such as motorcycles, four wheeling to name a few. On the company social events, even though you were on your own time, you were epected to abide in the company dress code. On vacations, you were not only expected to get approval to take time off (given anyway) but also you had to leave contact information and where you were at at all times. You also had to get approval to leave town.
One time, I got a $156 speeding ticket in Wisconsin. It was for 13 over the limit. It is not on my Colorado driving record but yet, my manager from my old job found out about. It was used against me in my performance appraisal at that time. I thought that was bullshit but our company considers much more than you work, they consider "the whole person" or in some circles, known as the 360 degree look.
There are numerous people that have at some point done something that would end up on record, speeding, parking fines, maybe even financial problems at some moment in time.
If you are too independent, they cannot control you and make it much harder to buy you off especially if they want something illegal/unethical done. Other employers besides banks are interested in seeing their employees in debt.
So at least some US banks actually like to see their employees comfortably deep in debt. Just in case so that they do not develop too much independence.
In one job I worked, my manager found out about how I was doing financially. This was a basis to deny me a pay increase. I have no debt. The cars & house are paid off. Basically, I was smart on how I spent my money. It pissed him off. This made it basically impossible for him to buy me off like other people who are especially heavily leveraged. When the pay increase came, I didn't get one. I found this out through second hand sources.
I confronted him on this and he basically said it was easy, take your SS#, have a friend run a credit report. Just that simple !
I would like to meet the executive who decided to put their product into "consumer proof" packaging. I would like to run their d*ck/t*ts through a mulinex ! At least they can put a pull tab where you can yank on it, package opens without the need for any fancy tools.
What is worse working in gov't, you are required to inventory all items INCLUDING advertisements and blank pieces of paper. You are not allowed to throw anything away. When you get 50 items, the packaging is such a pain in the ass to open multiple times.
I disagree.....
First, you don't see much of the family business anymore since by the time the original proprieters die, it is very successful and worth more than the exemption. In order to pay the tax, the business has to be sold. Another thing, where did many of the family farms go ? We now have more "corporate farms" than anything. Why do many corporate executives and corporations support keeping the tax ? Poeple like George Soros, William Gates Sr. (Bill Gates of M$ daddy) support the death tax.
Easier to control people when they work for "The Man" instead of making a living off of their own business. I work for "The Man" and it sucks - dress codes, unpaid overtime, not being permitted to take vacation or be told to cancel vacation at great expense ! I have been exploring other avenues to "escape". With the death tax, why should I work hard to get a business going when my children will not be permitted to inherit it because they have to sell in order to pay ?
Second, the rates are outrageous. The top braket is 55%. That is punitive !
I have favored the Republican side since they were more hands-off but the last several years, I have not been happy with the Republicans. Can you say Patriot Act, Real ID Act to name a few. They did not see it as important to make the tax cuts permanent such as getting rid of the death tax permanently. In 2011, it is back with full force and vengenace.
One of my favorite Congressman is Rep. Ron Paul. We need ore poeple like him.
Since the Democrats now control Congress, we need to see about getting rid of the Real ID Act - get it repealed. Passed without discussion, without debate.
Keep the dems out because of high taxes and nanny state laws like motorcycle helmets, 55 mph national maximum speed limit. Also get rid of the repubs because of the Real ID Act, Patriot Act (namely because of bully Sensenbrenner).
So what is the alternative ? Time for 3rd parties like Libertarian, Constitution, Green.
A better system would be to draw names of people out of the phone book and go serve a term in the House or Senate and then go back home. Their employer will be required to keep their job while their employee is serving in Congress. The person serving in Congress would have their salary be based on 150% of their pay from home. The additional money would help on housing plus time away from home/family. This would take care of imcumbency and people from elitist ivy league schools would have much less influence. Hopefully, there would be people with more common sense making the laws instead. Also to keep cost down, Congress is in session for 90 days in the Winter time. There might be some flaws in this idea but it is a start.
The Real ID Act to bring in de-facto National ID is pretty bad. If this was tried even back as late as the 1960's, many people would be up in arms about it but yet, it is law of the land. The media didn't report on it when it was going through the legislative process, it was passed very well secretly by being included as a rider on a military spending bill that was a must pass and even with it being known, not much hell has been raised about it.
With the linking of state motor vehicle databases which makes identity theft very easy, not many concerns has been raised so far !
Another help which is not offered by Windows or even Mac, Virtual Screens which are prevalent in Linux such as on KDE or FVWM. One virtual screen runs web browser, another one has an edit window for programming and another for compiling and debugging for example.
Mother (MPAA), may I enjoy the movie. Can I have permission to skip the commercials ?
Link to Court Order
Spamhaus is still on the air !
ICANN should have the sense to ignore the court order espcially if they are not in Illinois.
Reminds me when over 10 years ago, I worked for a company that did its payroll in-house. Every year right around January, we get the layouts from the IRS on how to print the W2 forms. Every year, we had to screw around to nake changes. It is simple moving of fields but we have to spend a whole day moving the items and then doing test runs. What made it more difficult, we didn't get any data to test since payroll info is considered confidential. I raised the question why they made these mundane changes and was told because they were the IRS and to remind us they are in charge.
I was disappointed when the Republicans took congress in 1994 that we were on the path towards more simpler taxes - simple tax code like Dick Armey's postcard tax return. The whole system should be shitcanned. Bad enough you have to pay a large amount of money for taxes but add insult to injury, you have to spend several days figuring what you have to pay and if you are wrong, hello back-taxes and more penalties.
More importantly, the code changes EVERY year, they just can't leave it alone, so it's not a one time investment. Keep in mind, this is not something that does the 1040EZ form - taxes for businesses and people who do a lot of investing and have a lot of deductions and so forth can be very complex and all need different forms. This is not a replacement for the $50 income tax program you can buy every year.
Need TP for bunghole, heh, heh, heh, heh (thinking of Beavis laugh from Beavis & Butthead)
Remember an old movie from around 1983 - Blue Thunder which was about this surveillance helicopter that can spy on anyone. To add on top of that, the was on-board computer to tap into any database around the country. This was 23 years ago. People are asleep and this kind of crap goes through without even a whimper of protest.
Sounds like some elitist crap.
A privilege is something that is given upon a whim of someone who in a position of authority. It seems like anything in society is given as a privilege, therefore subject to withdrawl based upon arbitrary whim. A job is a privilege, taking vacation is a prvilege, owning a house is a privilege. I have been told these B.S. lines many time but yet, I don't buy it.
To get a chance to get the BMW/$100,000; you must sell your soul to the SCO Corporate Overlords !
All of us executives are very happy that telecommuting is getting a black eye. We want you in the office and while you are here, you better be in your dress slacks, dress shirt and dress shoes, not jeans, shorts, t-shirts or sweatshirts, or sandals. We insist that you are here during normal business hours of 8am to 5pm. We don't care if you have to fight traffic not be able to get home until 6pm and have no time to enjoy the outdoors. That is for weekends only if we permit you the weekend off. It is also about politics as well. If you are at home working, you will miss out on our politics and games.
</sarcasm>
Breaks are only given at the discretion of the company, the company I work for does not allow breaks, cigarette or otherwise. Lunches are included with this, not mandatory.
Does the boss get upset if you take 10 minutes to take a dump ? I know some managers look for people even going into the bathrooms and harassing their subordinates while on the toilet !