I am actually not sure how TFA comes to the conclusion that spanish would be a good second language. The question should be "assuming I already speak English, which second language should I speak."
That question can't really be answered on its own. If you live in the United States Spanish is probably a solid choice for you. If you live in Finland not so much...
It's a shame that it will likely be centuries before mankind figures out how to be more informationally efficient and come up with some sort of "basic" language. I'd even go along with Esperanto if the powers that be would just pick something and move the human race to it.
What "powers that be" do you suppose there are who have the wherewithal to move the entire human race to a single language? What do you do with the multitude of words that can't neatly be translated? Words that carry a special meaning for the underlying culture? Your desired future sounds oppressive, monolithic, and dull. And I say that as a native English speaker...
You can talk to dogs in any language. They cannot understand complex sentences
That depends on what breed of dog and how you define 'complex'. Border Collies are well known for their grasp of vocabulary; we could give our BC commands along the lines of "Go into Steve's room and get the red toy." and she'd do it. That sentence is complicated enough to place it out of reach for many humans who have only limited English abilities.
If she is earning more, then she needs to suck it up and pay her taxes
If you seriously pay tax on all of your income you're either lying or insanely anal retentive. Do you pay taxes on lottery winnings <$600? That's income, so if you didn't you're stealing. What about odd jobs you do for friends? Are you going to claim with a straight face that you keep track of such monies to the penny and claim them on your State and Federal taxes? I doubt it very much.
Few people would try to earn a living without paying any taxes whatsoever. But nearly everyone is going to accept cash in lieu of a check when the opportunity presents itself; why should I pay taxes on some extra cash I earned helping the neighbor with their PC? Or watching their kid for them when they were in a jam? You may be retentive enough to track such money to the penny but you're squarely in the minority there my friend.
So the two-prong test under Sony is a) does'the product have substantial non-infringing use and b) does the seller / manufacturer/ superior promote the product as useful for infringement.
Let's not stop there. It can further be said that most torrent sites meet both of these criteria. They can be useful for finding perfectly legitimate, non-infringing material, and those that actively promote infringement don't tend to last very long.
And the protocol itself can be said even more to have legitimate uses. Many sources of open-source software allow downloading via BitTorrent.
That's only because you mumble.
I speak (and read and write) both Mandarin and Spanish.
Spanish is a lot easier for an English-speaker to learn.
But Mandarin is, at least IMHO, much more interesting. I enjoy the characters, preferring the traditional ones, coping with the simplified ones.
The most difficult problem I had learning Chinese is that the dominant system of romanization, pinyin, is wholly non-intuitive and conflicting to me as a reader of English. It's frustrating because there are *very* few sounds in Chinese that really couldn't be well-approximated with normal English character order and usage. The exceptions, like the pinyin 'r' sound, could be marked another way (for instance, as the Spanish Ñ.) So learning how to say a word without a native speaker turned out to be a real problem. I got a heck of a boost when a real Chinese restaurant opened in our little town.
"A fening is 1â100 of a Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark"
That's cognate with penny.
check your license. it has your address on it.
"Local traffic only" doesn't mean "residents only" it means "only vehicles which have an origin or DESTINATION" here.
All that proves is you don't -live- there. It doesn't prove you don't have some destination there.Perhaps your visiting or picking up a friend to carpool with. Another poster mentioned simply driving by a house for sale you might be interest in buying... etc.
Worse the only way an officer would be able to catch you would be to follow you from start to finish, pull you over, and then hope you can't think fast enough on your feet to come up with a reason for being there better than "my gps suggested this route to work".
Google is not a US corporation. Last I heard they were Irish.
All the employees and assets within US borders are under US jurisdiction.
Renting a mailbox in ireland and calling it your primary residence doesn't give you the equivalent of diplomatic immunity.
(Although it does give you some tax advantages if your big enough, until / unless they close the loophole.)
Gosh-o-gosh. Techies on slashdot? What's the world coming to?!?!
You wanted me to just say "iPhoto", right?
lol...
The "paying the babysitter" scenario was the one I conceded was easier in the EU than the States. It would be nice to have such functionality here but I hardly feel like I'm living the dark ages for not having it. It goes one of two ways:
1) She gets cash. This is usually the preference in the States for such transactions because it's tax free income. I certainly prefer cash for the various side gigs I have.
2) She gets a check. Funds are available next business day 99% of the time.
As I said, it's not as sexy, but it gets the job done. Person-to-person payments are pretty low on the list of things I'd fix with regards to the American financial system. And yes, there are problems with paper checks, and they should go away, but on balance there's not a lot of fraud being committed with them. The bigger fraud issue is cloned credit cards, which I did point out.
With the exception of the person-to-person transfer I can do everything you just outlined with the app from my podunk small town community bank. None of what you've discussed is news to people living the States. We've had bill payer services for quite some time. Most venders will be paid electronically and those few that aren't configured for electronic payments will be mailed a physical check by the bill payer service.
Person-to-person transfers aren't quite as seamless in the States but they're not exactly rocket science either. I so choose I can likewise avoid the physical bank; our silly paper checks have been able to be remotely deposited for some time now. I usually choose to walk them down to the bank, since it's an excuse to get out of the house and be sociable, but I can just as easily deposit them with my phone and the funds are available on the same schedule (next business day 99.9% of the time) as they would be if I presented the check in person.
to the banks, overdraft fees are a profit center
I've never done business with a bank large or small that didn't offer an overdraft line of credit if you asked for it. Overdraft fees are simply a tax on stupidity. Balance your checking account properly and you'll never have one. Get a LOC for those few circumstances that may lie outside your control, like your employer messing up your payroll deposit or some such.
I've had a checking account for 17 years and I've never paid a single overdraft fee....
"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." -- Russell Baker
