On the other hand, most contractors are allowed to subcontract. Say if you are a kitchen contractor on the upgrade and you can't get all your work done (because you took too long on your previous job), you can hire your buddy to help you start this new job. Uber doesn't generally allow you to sub-contract your piecework to your buddy (say your buddy that has a commercial licence and occasionally works for Lyft, so has essentially equivalent qualifications to you). This would fail one of the more common tests for being a contractor vs an employee.

In any case, the IRS has provided reasonably clear guidance in the area of limousine service. If the employing company is a pure dispatch company (e.g., it doesn't control how the drivers drive and the driver is not accountable to the company), then drivers can be considered contractors. If however, the employing company is a transport service (e.g., the company provides detailed instructions to its drivers
and monitors their daily performance and the driver doesn't maintain business like doing advertising or keeping logs), then the drivers must be considered employees.

You mean languages that you don't know aren't *greek* to you ;^)

Short story, some people just have bad tastes and marketing people should keep this in mind.

Summary. Results limited to repeat purchasing of consumer products. With total sales held constant, as the percentage of sales identified from these so-called harbinger-of-failure customers rises from 25% to 50%, the probability of success of that product decreases about 31%. If these customers have repeat purchase, the relative probability of success decrease even more (2 repeat purchases: success decrease 37%; 3 or more purchases: success decreases 56%).

Longer story? The paper describes their data set as follows:

The analysis defines a successful product as one that continues sales after 3 years (and a flop otherwise) based on aggregate sales. But they use data from loyalty card scans to identify groups of customers to test their hypothesis, and they limited their analysis to products that survived at least 1 year to avoid the "noise" associated with no chance to purchase products. FWIW, they do level some suspicion that the use/non-use of loyalty cards bias the data somewhat, however, the analysis was based on the following methodology...

Note they don't attempt to predict out-of-the-gate flop products (like the Zune), they merely note that it seems like some people's tastes for consumer items that are subject to repeat purchase are likely not indicative of ultimate retail success and for some reason this is unexpectedly correlated across different products. Their conclusion is that the preferences of these harbingers-of-failure customers for items are indicative of a negative preference in the greater population and that will likely limit the ultimate growth potential of a product, and stores shouldn't waste precious shelf space on such items favored by these people.

I'm all those folks collecting baseball cards, comic books and antique collectibles would have something to say about this attitude. Also, wasn't this similar to the rationale used to suppress labeling requirements for irradiated strawberries and GM foods (e.g., they were superior to their counterparts and otherwise nutritionally the same)?

Sometimes people just want what they want and feel deceived if they get something else (even if it is "superior" in some way).

So after all this complaining about how counterfeit food and medicine from china is morally repugnant, we decide to turn the tables...

At least we are attempting to save the rhinos, I guess, but seems to me that it's a slippery slope to agree that flooding a market with counterfeit goods is actually a good idea...

I imagine if the drug made the mouse more insane (i.e., struggling more against the impossible). Conversely, I imagine if the drug made the mouse smart enough to know it was impossible, it would appear depressed.

Reminds me of a scene in the Bruce Lee film Enter The Dragon where he realizes he finds himself in a trap and just sits down and waits to make his move.

I assume you mean just in the last few years.

The previous administrations headed by Chirac and Sarkozy weren't really known for being "welcoming" to immigrants... According to OECD statistics, during that time, France recorded one of the lowest rates of immigration among top European countries, and the number of naturalizations fell precipitously (~50%) due to more stringent language skills and culture testing requirements. I believe the average time for naturalization is still hovering about 15 years in France (which no doubt is biased by the fact if you are born in France, you can apply for naturalization at 18). In most other countries, time for naturalization (if allowed by visa) is generally around 5-10 years...

Of course once you become a citizen, it may indeed have an egalitarian nature, but I've heard that prior to naturalization status, it isn't quite as egalitarian as one might expect...

Oh yeah and sadly I *did* listen to it quite a bit. When the Darkside of the moon album dropped from Billboard's list of top albums back in 1988, the person in the dorm room next to me played a 24 hour/day, 7 day/week vigil on his stereo system until the housing department finally had him shut it down for keeping people up at night (esp time and money)...

Although I still have the album myself, I haven't listened to it since '88 because of this incident (and I freely admit to destroying several cassette tapes of Darkside during that 7 day/week vigil/torture)...

AFAIK, that comes from a set of interviews recorded by Roger Waters to create background voice ambiance for the album (and was enshrined in the final mastering) was actually made by Jerry Driscoll.

The full quote was apparently, "There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun." I'm guessing Jerry made that statement to illustrate the mistake that Pink Floyd made, but I could be wrong...

The company that paid you *decided* you were not an employee and gave you a 1099 (presumably after requesting you fill out a W-9 form).
The company could have decided you were an employee, gave you a W-4 and a W-2 at the end of the year.

The company could have done it wrong. It is not up to them, nor is it up to you. The final decision is made by the employment department of the state in which you did the work and it depends on many factors (including if you were restricted in any way to work for only that company and not a competitor at the same time).

Although it technically might be easily apply for permanent residency, depending on your situation, the only realistic chance you have is if you have some "in" like an H-1B.

Depending on your personal situation, it is generally *much* easier to obtain permanent residency if you hold an H-1B visa. The generic option for most people is to get married to a US citizen or enter the green-card lottery (aka the diversity visa program). For example, if you are married already, or if you happen to be coming from a country that sources a large number US immigrants (say india or china), or don't happen to be world class at anything in demand, an H-1B is likely to be the only realistic option to get permanent residency status in your lifetime (other than maybe to have an anchor baby and wait until your kid turns 21 and can sponsor you for permanent residency).

Although a non-union group of worker can "just-walk-out", the company can just replace them in most states. This generally isn't true with a company with a union contract (which covers allowed strikes and work stoppages/slowdowns). Also in the united states at least, there is a distinction between an economic demands strike and an unfair labor practices strike (basically company attempts to subvert collective bargaining, e.g., selective firing, refusal to bargain with a certified union). Any job protections in the case of an economic strike are basically non-existent, unless covered by a union contract.

So if your goal is attempt to walk-out as a group to protest being replaced by cheaper labor, unless you are unionized, you have pretty much just resigned as a group. A better strategy if not unionized is to raise a stink so that the company backs off (hey, sounds familiar)...

When facing a nearly unprovable situation (e.g, the security or insecurity of a system), we often resort to deities and idolatry.

It's much easier to believe in magic pixie dust called security protection that you can apply to some activity which is insecure to make it secure, than to face the reality that the activity itself might be inherently insecure and we must modify our activity to make it secure.

You have a virus, there must exist anti-virus protection, you have malware, there must exist some anti-malware protection, just a little more encryption, and a little more authentication will always help too (just like sunblock and contraceptive devices, you gotta apply that stuff correctly or it doesn't work as advertized). However, as we have seen, the belief in these artifacts are mostly a mirage. It's not to say these things aren't useful to a limited extent, but we want to believe we can use technology to "solve" a problem that is intrinsic. Hope springs eternal.

Sadly, it isn't that simple. Basically what happened is that the Senate passed a bill (62-37) that coupled the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) extension with an amendment that extended a worker retraining program. In the House the bills were decoupled. The vote rejected the *retraining* bill (but passed the TPA bill) which effectively requires a revote by the senate to grant TPA separately (if the goal is to get it in a form for the president to sign it rather than just blame someone for its failure to pass).

The extension alluded to by the OP is that there is an extension clause in the bill that allows the president to request an extension from 2018 to 2021, but the extension must be requested before June 30, 2018. If either house can pass a bill that rejects this extension, it is considered denied. FWIW, a similar extension clause has been in most TPA that have been granted in the past and were generally put in as a safety in case negotiations schedules are not maintained.

The only foreseeable situation that this affects is if one party were in control of both houses and the presidency, the out-party could then still theoretically filibuster a vote on a negotiated treaty in the Senate if the TPA authority was not in effect. However, with the recent change in filibuster rules of the senate regarding nominations by the democrats (the so-called 'nuclear-option' that was exercised), it isn't inconceivable that filibustering a treaty could trigger a similar 'nuclear' option in the senate if it came down to it, so it may not even matter in practice and is kind of a red herring.

As to why TPA is necessary, it of course isn't, but not having it allows a few members of congress to essentially hold the enabling legislation for a treaty hostage by offering amendments or failing to issue a committee report to allow a floor vote. Since adding an amendment would force the negotiators back to the table, it is presumed that other treaty parties would never offer their best level of concessions during ordinary negotiations (saving them to counter future nit-picking terms offered by rouge legislators) resulting in a sub-optimal agreement for us.

The TPA isn't like the war powers resolution in that it is a bill that affects the rules congress applies to itself by simply limiting debate, amendments and other procedural measures (which it is of course free to do to itself and has done many times in the past). The WPR is hotly debated as being unconstitutional in that it appears allows the president to take unilateral action and report on it later without action from congress. Also, the TPA also has many provisions in it directs negotiations a certain way and if the president ignores them, the TPA is effectively revoked (debate and amendments are then allowed in these areas). Unlike the WPR, the TPA allows congress to reject a treaty *before* it takes effect (not after the fact like the WPR).