Oh, shit. There goes the planet.

As I understand it:

• Rule #1 is the current system (6.2% on income up to $110,100)
• Rule #2a is the Democrats' short-term goal and the primary subject of TFA (4.2% on income up to $18,350, 6.2% on remaining income up to $110,100, then revert to rule #1 after February)
• Rule #2b is a hypothetical case (4.2% on income up to $110,100, then revert to rule #1 after February)
• Rule #3 is the Democrats' long-term goal (4.2% on income up to $110,100, lasts through December)

Consider Alice (annual income $24K), Bob (annual income $72K), Charlie (annual income $120K), and Dave (annual income $1.2M):

• Rule #1 - Alice pays $124/month, Bob pays $372/month; Charlie pays $620/month through November and $6.20 in December; Dave pays $6200 in January and $626.20 in February)
• Rule #2a - Alice saves $40 + $40 = $80, Bob saves $120 + $120 = $240, Charlie saves $200 + $167 = $367, Dave saves $367 + $0 = $367
• Rule #2b - Alice saves $40 + $40 = $80, Bob saves $120 + $120 = $240, Charlie saves $200 + $200 = $400, Dave saves $2000 + $202 = $2202
• Rule #3 - Alice saves $40 * 12 = $480, Bob saves $120 * 12 = $1440, Charlie saves $200 * 11 + $2 = $2202, Dave saves $2000 + $202 = $2202

So the purpose of #2a is as a stepping stone to #3, and the purpose of #2a instead of #2b is a hedge in case they don't get #3; Dave doesn't get his bigger savings unless Alice also gets hers.

And even then, you'd throw it in anyway and cackle with sadistic glee, wouldn't you? I sure as hell would.

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." -Jack Handey

btw, in "hashing the same password with different salts", "the same password" is precisely the problem on both sides of the analogy. How do you get the same unencrypted password/fingerprint to not pass through whatever the current hash/salt happens to be? If the salt is a PIN, then that's a whole additional factor.

Yes, we heard you the first time, now bugger off.

Back on-topic: Not only are fingerprints liftable, but (at least when I tried them out a couple years back) they didn't work for crap anyway. I would have screamed bloody murder if they'd been a requirement rather than an option. Checking Wikipedia, there are other methods like iris scans, as well as basically the equivalent of hashing the same password with different salts; anyone know how viable any of those things actually are lately?

This. More specifically, Googling (2012 Social Security tax cut) leads to http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/20/payroll-processors-say-two-month-fix-undoable/

According to the proposed law, the two-month extension of a 4.2 percent taxable wage is applied only to the first $18,350 of income. Wages exceeding $18,350 paid during the first two months of 2012 would be subject to a 6.2 percent Social Security tax rate.

Yes, any decent payroll software has tax table updates, but they don't all support multi-tier rates like this. I consult on an accounting suite with a payroll module, and they had to release a full-on code patch this year to support a change in Connecticut that took effect in August, whereas they usually just release simple updates that save you the trouble of hand-entering all the new rates.

I use fvwm, you insensitive clod! #okaynotreally

We-el, unless the school also buy up girlsof.xxx ...

Except the server-side database was limited to about 300 URLs for which the WebZine feature was available, so why upload all your URLs instead of just downloading theirs?

Yes, the difference between the top and bottom of the barrel at any given moment is significant (perhaps about 2 orders of magnitude, assuming that the points shown are typical), but the difference between the barrel now and the barrel in 10-15 years is about equally significant. That same Cray was 5 times less efficient than the IBM PC (about 5 years later), and about 1 million times less efficient than your typical modern laptop (about 35 years later).

But how will they run up their ad numbers?

Only after sinking however much money into lawyer's fees, and awards that low are fairly obvious code for "we're required by law to award you something, but you're a real asshat so you get the absolute minimum amount allowed".

From a quick scan of TFA, the final judgment boils down to:

• The spammers missed several deadlines, then blamed the last one on their lawyer dropping the ball and his partners being tied up on other cases at the time, then got an extension of a few weeks and promptly busted out a dozen-odd witnesses (they'd previously claimed that only the boss knew the relevant info) and upped their claim to about $135M. Even negligence would be grounds enough for them to lose something, and furthermore this history is evidence enough that they're deliberately screwing around and thus grounds enough for them to lose more.
• The spammers were demanding Spamhaus to disclose irrelevant details about its employees and equipment (it was pointed out that Spamhaus doesn't track who downloads their list, so wouldn't know which ISPs might be using it to block spam).
• Said boss's back-of-the-envelope estimate (cost of one e-mail multiplied by number of e-mails he thinks were blocked because Spamhaus listed them as an alleged spammer) bounced around so much ($11M to $135M to $122M to $30M) that he was clearly exceeding his reasonable business knowledge, thus the whole idea was thrown out for lack of evidence.
• The $27K was based on "okay, fine, we'll buy you lost three client contracts a month earlier than you would have otherwise", but $27K was revenue and it was pointed out that they should be looking at profit instead. Said boss claimed it was pure profit because "the e-mails were already sent"; this was questioned generally and specifically, and also thrown out for lack of evidence.

The AC's link goes to a domain squatted by those "what you need, when you need it" assholes.

Here is the site that I assume the AC meant to link to (one of several near-identical sites, also including cancerfungus.com).

Here is a Wikipedia article mentioning Tullio Simoncini, the guy behind said site:

Other criticisms were directed to Mazzucco after his decision, starting September 2008, to publicize an alternative cancer therapy based on Sodium bicarbonate and proposed by Italian ex-doctor Tullio Simoncini. Said therapy is currently unproven, and Simoncini was expelled from the Italian Medical Association after he was tried and found guilty of fraud and manslaughter, since a patient died, allegedly as result of Simoncini’s treatment.

For bonus points, here is a defense of the idea written by David Icke, infamous "world leaders are really evil reptile aliens in disguise!" conspiracy theorist. And here is another positive mention at cancerfightingstrategies.com, and here is that site's "where to get products" page with a mix of bogus vitamins, bogus berries, and faith healers.

Here's some more explanation from TED and from his own current company..

TFAs are largely about questioning whether
(a) it was indeed the human's fault
(b) the robot effed up first, then the human took over and attempted (unsuccessfully) to recover