![[Valid RSS]](miscpictures/rssvalidated.gif){kind=small}
The Forum
| New Thread | Mark All Read |
You are not logged in. As long as you are not logged in, you will only be able to read the forum.
Many features including posting and editing will be disabled.
Login on the right or create a username here.
Many features including posting and editing will be disabled.
Login on the right or create a username here.
SteamBirds —
Dan
edited Yesterday, 12:21 am
SteamBirds, recommended recently by Penny Arcade, is also recommended by me. It is an extremely fun tactics game.
I've got 56 stars. Beat me in this game too Joe. I am the Marshal of the RAF!
I've got 56 stars. Beat me in this game too Joe. I am the Marshal of the RAF!
-
Re: SteamBirds — Joe edited Thursday, March 11, 8:53 pmWell spring break starts tomorrow...
at 26 so far just playing on my laptop at work. -
Re: SteamBirds — babada Yesterday, 10:09 am42 stars (so far).
If you like this game, there is a board game that is nearly identical made by Fantasy Flight Games. I don't remember the name.-
Re: SteamBirds — steven Yesterday, 4:11 pmThat game would be wings of war.
-
Re: SteamBirds — babada Today, 7:38 amYeah, that's it.
-
-
Whaaaaaaaaa! —
Grant
Friday, March 12, 10:09 am
If you like Sabotage from the Beastie Boys, and you like Battlestar, you might like to watch this (almost) shot by shot redo of the music video.
FF Next —
boskei
Wednesday, March 10, 9:52 am
Final Fantasy XIII is Purdy. And out now if you don't have it.
-
Re: FF Next — steven Wednesday, March 10, 10:23 ami'm really liking it so far. its surprisingly challenging for being this early in the game. graphics are extremely pretty.
-
Re: FF Next — boskei Wednesday, March 10, 10:33 amYeah, I have only put about an hour and a half into it myself (it is being hoarded by Joanna) but I really like it so far. I hear that it is supposed to be "just ok" until about the 15 hour mark, at which point it gets excellent. So considering I like it now, I can't wait until I get that far in.
-
Re: FF Next — Grant Wednesday, March 10, 10:37 amYou should just buy another copy. Problem solved!
-
Re: FF Next — steven Wednesday, March 10, 10:48 ami have about 6 hours into it. the paradigm shift system is really interesting and fun.
-
-
-
Re: FF Next — Joe Thursday, March 11, 10:58 pmFor anyone who doesn't have it yet, Target is giving out $10 gift cards with both the PS3 and 360 editions. I now have my spring break planned.
GoGo CoCo ShowShow —
Joe
Thursday, March 11, 11:42 am
Conan @ The Orpheum May 18.
Teamcoco.com
Teamcoco.com
National ID Card and You —
boskei
Tuesday, March 9, 8:57 am
So, its in the news again. The US Government is making another pass at a National ID card that would be required to gain employment. I don't honestly know a lot about it since I just started reading up on it, but I am curious what you all think about it. What benefits/drawbacks do you see to having one ID card to rule them all? ... So to speak.
Personally I am torn on the idea. I think there needs to be a real unification effort on national identification in some way. But at the same time I don't like my personal information known to anyone who doesn't need to know.
I didn't used to care as much until the last couple years. Joanna works at Walmart and she tells me about how many foreign, poor, etc type people come in with huge welfare checks to be cashed. Many with as much in welfare money as she makes actually working a real job. And then I look at my taxes and I am paying 25-30% and still owing at the end of tax season.
I could go on, but I am more interested in other opinions than my own.
Personally I am torn on the idea. I think there needs to be a real unification effort on national identification in some way. But at the same time I don't like my personal information known to anyone who doesn't need to know.
I didn't used to care as much until the last couple years. Joanna works at Walmart and she tells me about how many foreign, poor, etc type people come in with huge welfare checks to be cashed. Many with as much in welfare money as she makes actually working a real job. And then I look at my taxes and I am paying 25-30% and still owing at the end of tax season.
I could go on, but I am more interested in other opinions than my own.
-
Re: National ID Card and You — Dan Tuesday, March 9, 9:44 amWe already have it in the form of the poorly-designed social security cards. I don't see a problem with it. I'm not sure where you are headed with the welfare/taxes part. That seems like a different issue than privacy, and it is unclear how it is connected to a universal ID system.
-
Re: National ID Card and You — boskei Tuesday, March 9, 9:52 amI guess the specifics are more that this "new" ID card would require biometrics (finger prints, etc) as a means to prohibit companies from hiring illegal immigrants (my point about welfare and taxes). To the Social Security card bit, it was never intended to be a national identification card, to my knowledge the only card that holds that right now is the drivers license.
Show/Hide not quite a rant
Basically I think a universal identification card could be a good thing, but I am too sure of the negative implications that would make many many people be so against it as I am seeing as I look into the topic.-
Re: National ID Card and You — Dan Tuesday, March 9, 5:02 pmMost illegal immigrants pay social security (automatically withdrawn from their wages) without ever being eligible for social security benefits. (The linked article is from 2005 but I've read the same basic story several times more recently.)
Businesses will not stop employing illegal workers while they are willing to work for lower wages than their American counterparts*. The economic benefits are too great, and there is effectively no negative consequences even when they are caught. The economies of most first-world countries are funded by the exploitation of cheap labor, legal and illegal.
Illegal immigration policy is a dirty secret in this country because our economy would be destroyed if it were eliminated, but we do not have a fast, cheap, easy, or secure path to legal citizenship. As a matter of national policy, the path to legal employment must be fixed before the enforcement issue of illegal immigration can be addressed. The creation of seasonal worker permits would be a good first step in this direction.
*This ignores the problem that there are not enough people willing to do many of these jobs—crop harvest for example—even at higher wages.
There is a whole pile of information on wikipedia, as usual.-
Re: National ID Card and You — babada Wednesday, March 10, 9:57 amBusinesses will not stop employing illegal workers while they are willing to work for lower wages than their American counterparts*.
A common objection I hear in response to this point is that illegal workers can be paid "under the table" which allows for employers to avoid paying minimum wage or taxes. Is there any credibility to this objection?-
Re: National ID Card and You — Dan Wednesday, March 10, 11:31 amIt depends on the employer, but not really as far as I know. Medium and larger companies can't do that because it exposes them to accounting problems, so they just do little or nothing to validate SS information. When these companies don't want to pay minimum wage, they just don't pay their employees for all the hours worked. (This approach isn't restricted to illegal employees. Many corporations have lost class action lawsuits over failure to pay full hours and overtime.)
As an aside, how is that an objection to the point? It is the entire premise of the point. Maybe I misunderstood.-
Re: National ID Card and You — babada Wednesday, March 10, 11:48 amBecause some people think that a law abiding American will be undercut by someone who can get paid under the table. The employer spends $X to pay employee $Y. When an employer cuts costs, the cuts come out of $Y, not $X. Paying under the table allows $Y to be closer to $X. Even if the law abiding American is willing to work for less, there isn't any legal way to do so because $5/hr under the table costs the employer less than $5/hr normally. The law abiding American would have to drop below $5/hr to compete with someone being paid under the table.
I think the argument is bogus for a number of reasons, but I hear variations on it a lot.-
Re: National ID Card and You — Joe Wednesday, March 10, 12:29 pmThe $5/hr is more to the employee "under the table" than to the legal employee. The employer isn't paying out any taxes on the money they are paying. You don't get taxed on output but rather on input intake.
-
Re: National ID Card and You — Dan Wednesday, March 10, 3:25 pmAn employer does not pay payroll taxes. I don't know if this is what Joe meant.
They may have per-employee costs like benefits, and they might be able to save on those. Some larger corporations that employ many low-wage people have specific strategies to minimize these costs, such as keeping employees an hour or two under the full-time level to avoid legislatively-mandated benefits.-
Re: National ID Card and You — BGerdin Wednesday, March 10, 3:46 pmActually, the employer does pay payroll taxes. These taxes are withheld from each paycheck and are paid on a quarterly basis. The absence of this tax revenue where there used to be revenue would be a big red flag to the IRS and cause an audit. If the employer never did their business legally and only paid in cash, thus avoiding all taxes and IRS oversight, they could then avoid this audit exposure at the IRS.
-
Re: National ID Card and You — Joe Wednesday, March 10, 5:05 pmBy not paying I meant that it is not in addition to the $5/hr. It's really that the employee is giving the money to the employer to pay the taxes for them. You can set it up so you don't really pay anything in from your check and then you just have to balance it at the end of the year by paying in a bunch.
-
Re: National ID Card and You — babada Wednesday, March 10, 9:39 pmSure, I understand this. But if the bare minimum that needed to be earned was $5/hr the employer would only have to pay the employee $5/hr under the table. If payroll taxes were taken out of the employee's check than the employer would need to pay the employee over $5/hr.
An employee being paid under the table can undercut an employee paying payroll taxes because they essentially tell the employer to keep the difference.
Again, I do not agree with this argument. This is just something I hear.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Re: National ID Card and You — babada Tuesday, March 9, 11:33 amI agree with Dan.
More details:
* I am against SSN because they aren't unique and the number space is too small
* People/businesses are using SSN as a personal identifier
* I am for a strict ID replacement in the sense that I get a number when I am born or nationalized that is a nationally unique number
* I am for a country code being prepended to make United States IDs globally unique
* Uniqueness should be designed so that one number always points to a specific identity. I have less of a problem with a person having more than one ID. This would allow for flagging IDs as compromised due to identity theft and so on.
More thoughts on identification issues:
* Fingerprints should be recognized as not uniquely identifying
* Driver's licenses, passports, and other legal identification should be associated with your national ID
* I have no problem with medical records being associated with your national ID
* I have no problem with financial records being associated with your national ID
* Medical and financial records are generally associated with SSN now, anyway, and it is ridiculously trivial to match someone's banking information to their medical information if you already have both pieces.
* Electronic medical records are quickly becoming mandatory and will probably pose a bigger threat to hacking and identity theft than it ever should be
-
No special glasses required. —
Mike
Wednesday, March 10, 8:57 am
-
Re: No special glasses required. — steven Wednesday, March 10, 10:53 amthanks for sharing that. it was awesome.
-
Re: No special glasses required. — Dan Wednesday, March 10, 11:32 amThat's funny. They did some impressive editing to make the dialogue work.
Single ladies —
Dan
Wednesday, March 10, 9:34 am
xkcd. Terrific.
-
Re: Single ladies — boskei Wednesday, March 10, 9:50 amFantastic.