Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal Journal: Foreign Worker solution: Alien payroll tax

We have several foreign/non-US-citizen-worker labor problems in America:

  • For some jobs, there are not enough workers, so work doesn't get done.
  • For some jobs there are not enough workers at prices the market will bear, so work doesn't get done.
  • People don't like illegal aliens because they are a "domestic outsourcing," taking "American" jobs

A solution:

  • Open-door immigration to anyone who isn't a criminal, terrorist-wanna-be, unhealthy, or otherwise undesirable.
  • A payroll tax equal to the minimum wage for all non-citizen workers. For individual contract labor such as day-laborers, some tech workers, and most entertainers, tax the payer an equivalent amount.

This would strongly discourage hiring non-citizens for low-wage jobs while at the same time giving any employer a legal way to hire someone if they really wanted to.

The $13K-$14K/year increased costs would also make it harder to hire lower-middle-wage workers and make it somewhat harder to hire mid-wage tech workers. It would have virtually no effect on those filling 6-figure+ positions. It is precisely those positions where it's in America's best interest to hire the best candidate no matter what his country of citizenship.

--
If America decides it really does want to have more lower-wage non-American workers, the tax could be capped at 75%, 50%, or even 25% of the wages for lower-wage workers, with the tax itself capped at the minimum wage, currently $5.85/hr.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Essay on capital punishment

Capital punishment is the ultimate punishment. It should be reserved for those who:

* caused a death. The death penalty for treason, rape, or other crimes where no death results is simply cruel and unusual.
* committed their act in cold blood without any mitigating circumstances. The slightest mental illness, the slightest intent not to kill, the slightest other circumstance which, if not present, would have resulted in a non-lethal outcome means life in prison is better.
* is, barring divine intervention, beyond redemption. The slightest acceptance of moral responsibility, even after sentence is handed down, means the execution should not go forward.
* the person would endanger the lives of others if he were incarcerated for life in the most secure prison possible

Very few people are simultaneously immoral or amoral and at the same time not mentally ill.

Of those who are, most can be kept from killing again by incarceration. For some, incarceration in a "supermax" prison may be necessary.

The number that is left is either very small or zero.

Since the combination of these conditions never or almost never happens, it is simply much more efficient to have life in prison than to have a death penalty.

I marked this "Pay no attention to my musings." If this shows up on Firehose then then the 'hose is hosed.

User Journal

Journal Journal: The inflation-adjusted morgtage payment

Problem:
Adjustable rate mortgages rise too fast.

Solution:
Mortgages whose payments go up with inflation, and down with deflation. The term of the loan shrinks or expands as needed, with a balloon payment of the remaining balance after some fixed period of time, say, 10 years past the stated term of the mortgage.

Twist:
Have the interest rate adjust with inflation as well, rather than the prime lending rate.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Please give this holiday season 1

This holiday season please give to those less fortunate.

Most of us in the IT industry are what they call "highly compensated." With our 80-hour work-weeks we might not have time to serve dinner every week at the local soup kitchen, but we can buy a lot of soup.

This Christmas season, please share the joy and give to a reputable human-services charity such as the Red Cross, The Salvation Army, or your local shelter or soup kitchen.

You've been bitten by the Charity Profile Virus: Please make your own version and attach it to all of your online profiles through the Christmas 2007 season.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Microsoft should do monthly security rollups 1

Problem:

When I install a machine from scratch I have to update dozens or over 100 items. This takes time and consumes network bandwidth.

Solution: Monthly security rollups.

The August 2007 rollup for XP should include every "important" XP base OS patch not included in SP2. Ditto for every other month since SP2 came out until the end of service for SP2. It would not include "important" updates to optional software or important updates to device drivers. It would include important updates to other important updates of course.

When run without options, it installs everything that is applicable to this machine or, for slipstreams, the target directory.

It would also have a "slipstream" option, an "unpack" option, and a "select" option.

The "slipstream" option would apply the service to a directory instead of the installed Windows.

The "unpack" option would create a mini-installer, one for each update.

The "select" option would limit which fixed got installed, slipstreamed, or unpacked.

The whole thing could be driven from a GUI or from a command line + response file.

Additional workload for Microsoft:

The package would be what you get if you take a base XP SP2 CD then run Windows Update again and again until there are no more important updates. As such, MS wold not be on the hook for much more in the way of testing. This is purely a packaging/delivery issue. The only real work would be resolving any dependencies that require more than one reboot.

If I had this, I could install:
XP, SP2, last month's security rollup, .NET 1.1, 2, 3, and their updates, IE7, MS Office, its latest service pack, and the latest version of Microsoft Update, all without getting on the network. Then when I finally did update, I'd have a much smaller number of updates to grab. If all I cared about was the base OS without optional updates, this would be a 2-step process: Install XP from the SP2-slipstreamed CD, then install the August updates.

User Journal

Journal Journal: 4x2.5" desktop RAID in a 5.25" bay 1

Does anyone know of a 5.25" drive bay that can hold 4 2.5" SATA drives, preferably in a "pop-in/pop-out" configuration suitable for a RAID-5 or 2xRAID-1 configuration?

User Journal

Journal Journal: AACS key: The number that dare not speak its name

72-character template, treat as 1 line

01 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF 01 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF 01 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF

AACS key:
09f9 1102 9d74 e35b d841 56c5 6356 88c0

AACS key embedded in template, using italics. Substitute bold, strikeout, &nbsp, or font color=background color for other options.

<i>0</i>1 23 45 67 8<i>9</i> AB CD E<i>F</i> 01 23 45 67 8<i>9</i> AB CD EF 0<i>1</i> 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF
0<i>1</i> 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF <i>0</i>1 <i>2</i>3 45 67 8<i>9</i> AB C<i>D</i> EF 01 23 45 6<i>7</i> 89 AB CD EF
01 23 <i>4</i>5 67 89 AB CD <i>E</i>F 01 2<i>3</i> 4<i>5</i> 67 89 A<i>B</i> C<i>D</i> EF 01 23 45 67 <i>8</i>9 AB CD EF
01 23 <i>4</i>5 67 89 AB CD EF 0<i>1</i> 23 4<i>5</i> <i>6</i>7 89 AB <i>C</i>D EF 01 23 4<i>5</i> <i>6</i>7 89 AB CD EF
01 2<i>3</i> 4<i>5</i> <i>6</i>7 <i>8</i>9 AB CD EF 01 23 45 67 <i>8</i>9 AB <i>C</i>D EF <i>0</i>1 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF

AACS embedded as plain text, replace with x:

x1 23 45 67 8x AB CD Ex 01 23 45 67 8x AB CD EF 0x 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF
0x 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF x1 x3 45 67 8x AB Cx EF 01 23 45 6x 89 AB CD EF
01 23 x5 67 89 AB CD xF 01 2x 4x 67 89 Ax Cx EF 01 23 45 67 x9 AB CD EF
01 23 x5 67 89 AB CD EF 0x 23 4x x7 89 AB xD EF 01 23 4x x7 89 AB CD EF
01 2x 4x x7 x9 AB CD EF 01 23 45 67 x9 AB xD EF x1 23 45 67 89 AB CD EF

There are many variations on this theme, using may representations of the number.
Suggestions: Pick one, turn it into a bitmap, and use it as the background for protest images or videos.

As a 16x16 bitmap, X=1, .=0. Note: spaces inserted by Slashdot, remove them to make it look right:

....X..XXXXXX..X
...X...X......X.
X..XXX.X.XXX.X..
XXX...XX.X.XX.XX
XX.XX....X.....X
.X.X.XX.XX...X.X
.XX...XX.X.X.XX.
X...X...XX......

I marked this as "publish" not "publicize." If it winds up on the /. feed it is totally unintentional.

User Journal

Journal Journal: web sites to visit

http://www.hakspace.net/
Hacker social networking site

http://www.internetworkexpert.com/resources/iosonpc.htm
Dynamips Cisco simulator for PCs

User Journal

Journal Journal: What is your favorite 20th-century OS? 1

What is your favorite 20th-century OS version or distribution? Mainframe OSes are fair game.

The main rule is has to be officially unsupported as of January 1, 2000. Rule #2 is you had to actually USE it at least once. No "I heard the Amiga was cool."

I like the Commodore 64 and MacOS 2.0.

User Journal

Journal Journal: bochs-based personal web server appliance

Stripped Linux kernel with LAMP or BSD-AMP server, SMB server, and SMB client, firewall. Device drivers for "bare minimum box" plus linux-side TAP/TUN driver or emulated driver for virtual ethernet device. No USB, etc. No loadable module support. Firewall locked down to just what's needed for ssh, smb, and web, plus configuration port.

Tiny configuration-port listener that listens for config info relayed from a config file on the Windows box. If config file is missing, default info is sent: IP address, username of user that launched it, and user's "My Web Pages" or "My Web Site" or "My website" folder or $wwwroot share. Config file also specifies whether to use samba. Config file also specifies apache config file, which defaults to using Windows-side files.

Optional:
kernel boot option will include IP address of windows machine, so firewall can enable config port input from that address.

smbmount mounts the share.

Apache runs.

Estimated total size: 10s of MBs.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Solution to the tariff arbitrage 2

Free-calling schemes based on tariff arbitrage are supposedly costing AT&T $250M.

Problem: Domestic long-distance companies are unfairly subsidizing international calls.

How would you solve this problem?

Here's two solutions I've thought of, I'm sure there are others:

Easy solution: Long-distance companies charge more for calls terminating to "high-fee" destinations.

This creates another problem: It makes legitimate calls to actual people living in those areas cost more than some international calls. It also puts more fine print in long-distance-carrier advertisements.

A better solution:

Set price caps at twice the statewide average, based on the number of lines served. So if the average phone line in Iowa has a termination fee of 1c, then the most you will pay for any particular line is 2c.

A modified version:

Because some mom-and-pop telcos need a certain minimum income to survive, they will be allowed to charge more than 2x the statewide average as long as their total income from connection fees is less than a certain amount per line. If all their lines are normal people, they will be able to charge 10c or whatever per call and not exceed the cap. If most of the lines are "free call" companies, they'll hit the limit within the first day or two each month.

Either way, large-scale regulatory arbitrage will no longer be cost-effective.

User Journal

Journal Journal: How to cure illegal immigration and solve HB-1 visa issues 5

How to cure illegal immigration and solve the HB-1 visa in one fell swoop:

Allow anyone who is employable and not a danger to society in for work or immigration purposes. Allow dependents under the age of 18 in also. The only illegals will be the unemployable, the criminal, and anyone else who is individually banned.

Anyone allowed in for residency should be eligible for public assistance such as welfare, should the need arise.

Many immigrants come to earn money that they send right back home. Do NOT allow anyone, including citizens, to send money abroad unless they are current with their taxes and have repaid any public assistance received in the last year, including taxpayer-provided emergency room visits.

Tax non-citizens, including permanent residents, an income surtax on all income over the local poverty level for their family size. This will encourage people to become citizens and raise the salary requirements of what are now HB-1 visa-holders.

This surtax should be dedicated to offsetting the impact new immigration, particularly then non-citizen working poor.

This plan will result in a short-term influx of Latin Americans, high-tech workers, and others. This will be a shock to America but it will fade. In the long term we will have larger immigration than we do now, but it will be all documented, regulated, and taxed. Overall, it will be good for the economy.

What needs to be done ahead of any such law:
1) tamper-evident, biometric, easy-to-verify identity cards for everyone. This shouldn't be a "national" identity card, one that is state-issued should be fine as long as it is tamper-evident, contains a picture, fingerprint, or other biometric information, and can be verified immediately with the issuing authority. Verification should validate all information on the id, including name, address, d.o.b., and biometric information such as a picture.
2) the cities, states, and economic sectors likely to be impacted by a sudden influx of immigrants need to be prepared for such an influx. This means housing, schools, and the like should be in the planning stages and federal funds available so they can be built quickly if the influx happens. These homes, schools, etc. can be temporary and low-cost if planners don't see new immigrants permanently settling in the initial move-in areas.

User Journal

Journal Journal: How does your ISP handle top-usage customers? 489

Does your ISP cap overall usage? What happens if you go over the cap? Does it force you into a higher-priced plan, throttle you for the rest of the month, cut you off for the month, or terminate your service entirely?

I don't mind paying for what I use, but I'm looking for a list of cable and DSL providers that won't leave you high and dry like Comcast does if you go over the official or unofficial limits.

Slashdot Top Deals

A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.

Working...