I've seen examples similar on the abuse of food stamps. Seeing people pay for soda with food stamps at a convenience store was probably the worst. They'd then turn around and buy a couple packs of cigarettes and a bottle of some alcoholic beverage with their own cash and go out into their new "modified" car. I'm sure there are people that are at both ends of the spectrum here. Ideally foodstamps would be more like WIC (Women Infant & Children) vouchers (wife and I were on that briefly between the time I graduated and found my first job) where only specific items could be purchased.

Turning off the light near the front door generally works. Having lived in a rental community, I've seen people put up a simple sign on the door that indicated they weren't participating. Remembering back to when I was a kid, if the light wasn't on, I was definitely skipping that house to make the best use of time gathering candy. If this guy is getting harrassed, likely he's "deserved" (at least in the eyes of the kids) it by actions through the rest of the year.

That's pretty much what my employer has done. Sites are categorized and when we attempt to visit a blocked site, we get a page with details of why the site isn't accessible and a link is included to make a request to change access. For some categories, we also get a link to override the block (have to login with our VPN IDs) or we get a link that basically says we acknowledge that we're visiting a site where caution needs to be used. I'm not sure what software is being used, but seems a reasonable approach for an employer to take to control bandwidth usage and site visits for non-business purposes.

So your saying all we need is the Gatherer addon and we're set?

I haven't seen a huge amount of billable rate information but 10x seems a bit high compared to those I have. The range I usually see falls in the 1.5 to 2.8 multiplier range for what a customer is billed versus employee salary (not including benefits). If you are seeing your work billed for 10x the amount, perhaps you are to blame for undervaluing your work.

I think where you have more of an issue voting 3rd party is when the Republican and Democrat candidates are very close in the race. If the 3rd party candidate doesn't stand a chance of winning (which means trusting the polls unfortunately), you may find that you have to vote for one of the two possible winners that is either closer/less opposite your views.

I can see it now, a motion gesture of "touch your elbows behind your back" to start any activity for the hot receptionist

Might want to read up on Executive Order 13233 - Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act. Most information will generally become available within 12 years (with several exemptions listed in the link, primarily for security reasons).

Voting for the third party candidate is throwing your vote away.

I voted for Kodos.

I agree that it needs revised or removed. I just doubt that the first thought of the Nissan engineers was "how can we invade the privacy of our customers".

I can see where it could be abused, but maybe the original intent was to interact with traffic services so people could build better traffic reports (i.e. traffic on route X moving at 15 MPH, recommend alternative route Y moving at 45 MPH).

Even if not publicly known, as long as it is something that can't be used against you, it is fine. Saying you "view porn" online isn't that big of a deal for most people. Would I want my parents to know something like this? It wouldn't be my first choice, but if they found out, it isn't that big of an issue. I'm sure my parents wouldn't care to explain some of the "romance novels" my mother had or magazines my father had. The ability to blackmail someone with this sort of information is greatly dependent on the individual, but I'd guess that most people prefer it remain private, but wouldn't care much if it became public.
b The greater concern here, as others mentioned, is the use of government systems or even employer owned systems. I doubt most people will accept funding people viewing sites like these. The viewing also opens up possible harassment lawsuits, which may end up further funded by the public.

Do you have any evidence showing that all contractors make less than fully employed equivalent employees? I'd be surprised if that was the case with more skilled IT folks.

Anything in business is a risk. Even a contract wouldn't necessarily help if the company collapsed. Contractors need to set their rates appropriately to account for events like this. I tried to convince my father on this while he briefly tried to start up a small plumbing company. He had a hard time justifying in his own mind his labor rates above what he thought he would get paid if working as an employee at another company. He'd charge about $20/hr, way below what it cost him to run as a business. He wasn't factoring in travel, tools, insurance, taxes, etc... Needless to say, his company didn't last very long.

Contractors don't necessarily cost the company less. I worked as an on-site contract employee at a local government site. The county director wanted to pull a few of the contractors in to work as government employees (we were working on the 911 system conversion). When I compared my pay and benefits from being a contractor to what the government offered, I was better staying where I was employed. Add the overhead of the company i worked for and I'm sure the cost for me as a contractor was significantly better than a direct employee.

Public transportation isn't necessarily that much better in more densely populated areas. I live between Baltimore and DC and you'd think I would have plenty of options to get to/from work using public transportation. My transportation by self driving is about 25-30 minutes ( 14.3 miles) normally. I did a route plan exclusively using public transportation (did not include a taxi) and the shortest available trip was about 130 minutes and it would cost me about $4.60 one way. The fuel cost is certainly getting closer to what I'd pay for the commute (normally get about 32 MPG), without factoring in the rest of the cost of owning/operating a vehicle. The big problem is the amount of time. Not only do the trips involve more than double my current time, they add about 1 mile of walking and that time as well. All this for a trip that takes me toward DC. I use to work at a location west, so wasn't really going toward either city, and the trip was longer and more expensive still.

I've seen several examples of this, two affecting my me and my wife, one affecting a neighbor. - Me: My Visa debit card had a few mysterious charges that were caught by the bank before I even had my next statement. I was inconvenienced by it since I was out and my card was declined at a restaurant. The bank cleared up all the charges, but I was fortunate to have some cash on hand to cover the bill when the card was denied because of the bank deactivating it.

- Wife: Similar situation, her card had a few small charges on it and one big charge from an auto repair shop over in Pakistan. We caught that one when the balance ended up way off. I recall it being about 4 smaller charges that could be accounted by both of us having access and the total for those being less than $25 total but the $1500 charge for the auto repair shop jumped out at us.

- Neighbor has the last name Smith and someone apparently with the same name (living about 10 miles away from us) opened several accounts/cards in their common name with the rest of her information but another address. My neighbor spent about 2 years trying to resolve the problem.

I don't think the parents examples are too extreme.