All I read about was them copying your factual information. While they should have attributed you because of basic journalistic ethics, that's all this is about.

This guy is way too serious about information. Here's a clue: No one has monopolies on facts or ideas. While not attributing things may be impolite (and violate codes of ethics), it's certainly not theft.

Having a publication distinguishes you from the thousands of other CS folks. As others have said, it is a good thing that stays with you the rest of your career.

It won't get you a job in its own right (usually), but it will help.

As others have suggested, try and get University funding. Or family to help (if they're able).

It may not be the most exciting experience, but it will be helpful for your career. And, who knows, it may be exciting and you might make excellent connections.

Good luck! I hope your University helps you out!

I've taken enough time to learn how Drupal works to know I don't want to work with Drupal.

Wordpress works better for basic content management that clients can easily use without calling me all the time. Plus, it's more easily theme-able than Drupal is out of the box. Add to that the ease with which my clients can change themes or add plugins and Wordpress far outshines Drupal in basic content management. (And it appears to run better, too.)

For custom content management I either find an already in place program or roll my own. For example, had to work on a website for an academic journal. I initially tried a few CMSes, including Drupal, but each offered significant complexity on my end AND the user end. No dice.

Then I found the Open Journal Systems (OJS). Their solution worked for my specific task. It was a bit complex, but I wouldn't have had to write my own modules to do what I needed. Plus, it was more intuitive for my users. (Although it's user-workflow is still a bit clunky.)

For other systems, such as basic customized contact management systems, I roll my own. The rise of frameworks utilizing the MVC principle is a blessing.

It's long been a good maxim to separate the data from the code from the layout. MVC frameworks like Rails or Cake help do that up front instead of me having to design the separation myself. Drupal? Not so much.

I'd say Drupal, in the broadest sense, could be called a framework. Nevertheless, I don't know why you would want to use it that way. The maintenance required for custom Drupal sites -- and I mean having to field calls from users fixing or modding modules, or adding new ones, or teaching them how to use existing things, on top of fixing problems and tuning it for resources -- is beyond what I want to provide. I'd rather Wordpress or Rails.

And, more importantly, unlike most Drupal "developers" I know I'm not a "developer;" I'm a web designer who can hack away at stuff. If a client needs a developer I tell the client to get a real developer, or choose to use a more simple solution. TCO isn't something to be sneezed at, although it can be hard to educate clients on it.

Finally, why is it so many Drupal people say something like:

Really? Here's the skinny: Drupal is supposed to make development easier. Why the heck should I have to learn what amounts to a new bloody language to make Drupal "work," to access it's "full power." Heck, I'll just learn to access the full power of PHP (or learn an MVC framework like Rails) rather than spend "the time to actually learn Drupal;" time I could better spend getting projects done with the knowledge I have.

Access for "the concept of hooks," really? It's not bloody rocket science, I could take the time to learn it, but once again why should I? If Drupal is going to make itself so bloody hard to use, why don't I just code from scratch?

And don't give me that malarkey about security and avoiding cross-site scripting and avoiding SQL-injections. If you're spending the time to create a complex site that needs to take advantage of the solutions that lead to possible security problems like that then you'll also have the time to read up on best practices.

You may be able to argue Drupal, or even Wordpress, are frameworks. Nevertheless, Drupal is a bear to work with, fickle, frustrating, and overly complex.

Perhaps for complex websites it's worth it, but I don't make complex websites. I make simple ones. The few times I tried to use Drupal to do so they became far from simple.

I'd rather code from scratch than use Drupal.

Yes. This is exactly what I said.

There is also a Bridge in Brooklyn. I can sell you my interest in that Bridge in Brooklyn.

I'm sure, since you are so very capable of using logic and reasoning, you will be willing to do this.

Unless I slice it as First Amendment law questions being settled; non-First Amendment questions being unsettled. Given that the original comment replied to said it isn't a question of First Amendment law, I'd think that was a bit relevant.

Then again, many folks don't understand what the First Amendment does protect against. See, example, Sarah Palin, Dr. Laura, Christine O'Donnell, many Fox News contributors, and most of England. (Of course, England has a bit of an excuse, being a foreign country to the Constitution and all.)

Your understanding is not quite accurate. The First Amendment protects against government regulation of speech. Here, the City of Anniston is acting as employer and not government. Anniston is not telling it's citizen's "No saying bad things about us!" but rather telling its employees not to do so.

There are still restrictions. These restrictions boil down to two areas. First, regulatory law may limit when the city can fire someone for Facebook speech. These regulations may be through union contract, through Federal law (Fair Labor Standards Act, but not something that generally impacts speech), and local law (State, County, City).

The second is 1st Amendment Law. This comes into play if there are questions of whether the specific firing act was done to impermissibly infringe on free speech. For example, a city employee being fired because they put up an election sign for the mayor's competitor. This doesn't allow the same employee to go around calling the mayor "A lying, cheating bum who runs this city terribly"; especially if this guy works in the mayor's office. The mayor (and city) has a corresponding right to ensure their employers and work environment are in the best interest of the city.

A similar type of restriction is the insurrection example. When applying for most state or federal government jobs you usually must sign an "I don't want to overthrow the government" form. The state and federal government don't have to hire you if you want to overthrow them; similarly, they can fire you if you want to overthrow them.

Free speech isn't an absolute right; as folks have routinely mentioned in these comments, it may be free but it carries consequences.

Actually, it's even more complicated than this.

It depends on the type of employee and the subject of the speech. Further, the larger scope of rights given to public employees are regulatory in nature, not constitutional (i.e. First Amendment based).

Which is regulatory law, not First Amendment law.

Actually, it is more or less settled law. The question is the scope of when these restrictions can be applied. Also, labor contracts with unions may restrict this, as might internal state or city regulations. But as a pure matter of First Amendment law, it is settled. The question is whether regulatory law prevents it.

Payroll tax isn't a tax on payroll. If you're self employed then you still pay the tax (despite not having a payroll). This is called Self Employment Tax.

All payroll tax is are your FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare).

The reason these exist is because companies used to not have pensions or retirement plans. (A large percentage still don't.)

These services offset the social cost and monetary burden that would otherwise be placed on the U.S. for taking care of old folks with no money and no healthcare. It also decreases the burden placed on families to care for the older generation.

In an employer/employee situation, the system is set up to put part of the burden on companies to pay these tax amounts, part on the employees. If you work for yourself, the whole burden is placed on you.

So perhaps you should understand what this tax is for before you knock it as a problem tax. What it does is reduce the cost of caring for old people by making those future old people help pay for their care while they're young and working. And it is income based.

Oh, and it was the Democrats who reduced the payroll tax by defeating Republican efforts at filibustering it. Amazing.

Probably because of posts like this one!

But seriously, the problem with this post isn't that it highlights the craziness of the tax system. It's that it incorrectly tries to tie a tax dodger's attempt to hide income from the IRS to CEO attempts at major companies (Steve Jobs @ Apple, Vikram Pandit @ Citi) to boost company moral by taking $1 salaries and, instead, basing their pay on performance through stock options.

There may be valid arguments that this CPA should be allowed to do what he attempted to do. There are no valid arguments that this guy is getting nailed while rich executives are not. Even worse, painting this guy as the 'little guy' is disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst, since he made almost half a million in the year in question.

Cry me a river for the $500k income taking a $20k hit for FICA. (Of which, only $106k of his income counted towards the Social Security percentage.)

The reason $1 execs don't have to deal with this is simple. Their salary is $1 and they don't make money off of company 'profits.'

But, you might say, they own stock! In fact, the only reason these folks might agree to such a compensation scheme is the stock!

And you'd be right, partly. They agree to this for two reasons: 1.) Stock options and 2.) they're already wealthy.

But this doesn't matter for income purposes. Why? These $1 executives aren't getting profit disbursements or dividends on their stocks. Therefore, they can only make money on the stock options if they sell the stock. (Which, by the way, they're often prevented from doing for a number of years.)

In contrast, this CPA had a small corporation where he was likely the sole stockholder. (I say likely because I didn't read the link. I'm lazy. Besides, I wanted to show off this knowledge. Oh, and another reason it's likely he's a sole stockholder is because it's likely a professional corporation where only other CPAs can be shareholders. Lawyers, doctors, and other professional get these restraints, too.)

Trying to 'trick' the IRS by paying yourself a meager salary and then taking the rest in profits won't fly. The IRS can, at their option, treat solely owned corporations like this as sole proprietorships under the tax code. Corporations and LLCs aren't tax vehicles per se; they're liability reduction vehicles under state law. The tax code has simply been designed to allow for tax benefits in certain circumstances, but these are not dependent upon 'structure' as much as it is 'actual use.'

Basically it comes down to if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then the IRS will call it a duck even if the duck calls itself a goose. Similarly, if a CPA tries to avoid tax liabilities by calling himself a corporation, setting himself a salary, and then giving himself a dividend on the rest of the profits then the IRS will call that not a 'profit' but, rather, an 'income.'

This is totally different from a $1 executive who only gets $1, gets stock options he can't use for 3-10 years, and 'realizes' no income because all he's gotten are stock interests that can't be sold and picture of Georgia Washington.

The Slashdot contributor is right about one thing -- rich folks do have better tax advisers. Then again, going to bloody H&R Block or simply spending 30 minutes reading the IRS website can give you this information, too.

It's not rocket science.

/rant

I've read a few of these books in hopes of using Drupal for various projects. I always ended up throwing up my hands in frustration and using something other than Drupal.

Steep learning curve is right. I'd rather use something more simple, such as Wordpress, or code it all myself in Rails or PHP.

But I'll probably try once more to figure it out, and I might even buy this book. I mean, Drupal just sounds soooo bloody promising. But every time I try and use it for a project I end up using something else. Still, like a moth to the flame I go . . .

Hogwash.

News organizations have a right to publish information. The government cannot chill free speech by declaring some things 'publishable' and other 'non-publishable.' The Supreme Court dealt with this in the Pentagon Papers case.

And how much legal trouble is Wikileaks in? No one with Wikileaks has been charged with a crime related to the disclosure of top secret information. Julian Assange's only charge is under some Swedish law for sexual misconduct of some kind. It has no legal relation to the Wikileaks disclosures. (Now, political relations are quite different than legal. Those charges may be a legal tool to reach a political end, but that's different than they being a legal tool based on the disclosures themselves.)

Compare with Bradley Manning. He is charged with espionage because he violated his oaths as a soldier and someone who deals with confidential, top-secret information. He cannot, legally, disclose this information. This is because of his relationship with the U.S. government — a relationship most U.S. citizens do not have. (I certainly don't have top secret clearance of any kind; I also don't have a duty to not disclose top secret information.)

Finally, how much trouble have these leaks really caused? Has anyone really learned anything they didn't know?

The saddest thing is the reaction from the U.S., the world champion of free speech, to someone's exercise of free speech.