"the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year"

So, have I understood this correctly? If you have a contract with them, they aren't violating it, because they aren't raising your rates. They're just adding a separate administrative fee. Reminds me of the game airlines play: your flight is cheap, but you have to pay the fees for the airports, for fuel, for your luggage, for having wings on the airplane...

This is great for the bean-counters and marketeers, but it's unethical as hell. Why do big businesses lose their ethics? Does MBA stand for "Must Be an A**hole"?

What is your agreement with the contractors? From your statement that you "pay on time" I have the feeling that this is where your problem is.

If you have agreed: "I will pay you $x per hour of work", then you are paying for their time. If bugs need fixed, you need to pay for some more of their time.

On the other hand, if you say "I will pay you $x if you write a program that meets this specification", then you simply do not pay until you have such a program. If it's a big project, it may make sense to define some intermediate milestones, where the programmer receives partial payment. However, a large portion of the payment (at least 1/3) should be released only after the program has passed acceptance tests.

A contractor ought to charge you slightly more for the second option, because the contractor is carrying the risk.

girlintraining writes: "American labor often stresses that people take their own initiative in solving a problem. You're expected to come up with a solution on your own, with little oversight or guidance, and you're given some leeway in making that happen. Yes, some companies are worse about this than others -- I am speaking in generalities here. YMMV. The culture of many of our immigrants is to not take that initiative -- but to only do things under the express guidance of their leaders."

This is an incredibly important point. Many Asian workers have this problem - technically, they are incredibly competent, but they have learned to do just exactly what they are told to do. I have visited Asian programming shops, and watched as the boss instructed his programmers on every detail, all the way down to "you need to put that CD back in its cover". Western management style is to give general directions and leave the initiative to the developers. This combination is a recipe for disaster. It is also a direct contributor to for GPP's complaints about "Substandard code, slipping release schedules, low wages."

You ask the question: "What would it take for me to get out of my mismanaged and failed country of fools and into your country, which appears to be slightly less mismanaged and the changes are being pushed by startups who want to pay me"

The answer is surprisingly simple: Apply for jobs. If the employer decides that you're the person they want, they will apply for a work-permit and deal with the paperwork. Sure, you'll get a lot of rejections - that's always the case when job hunting - but it only takes one acceptance, and you're golden.

FWIW: I emigrated 20 years ago. It's easier now than it was then. Just do it!

What the devil is the federal government (or, indeed, any government) doing, telling companies how they need to package their sales offerings?

In the best case, this is micromanagement. In the worst case, follow the money, just who is paying for the legislation, and how are they going to use it to screw consumers?

I know it's a late reply, but your thoughtful comments deserve a (hopefully equally thoughtful) response from the other side.

- Yes, the government should invest in the long- future. However, current governments mainly invest in the next election. Bureaucracies quickly develop into organizations that don't invest in anything except their own well-being and existence. These are real problems for which we currently seem to have no effective answers.

- Government debt beyond a very low level *is* a bad thing. Why? Because, contrary to what most people think, governments do not have any money of their own. If they spend, it's your tax dollars they are spending. If they borrow, it's your future tax dollars that will pay the interest. If the government "cheats" by printing money, this devalues the currency, and hence is an indirect tax on your assets and income.

- Public education and other services threaten private alternatives, when private alternatives are forbidden or regulated into uselessness. Public education services are often overpriced for the benefits they deliver; education and health care are two prime examples in the USA. Again, it's your money they're spending so inefficiently.

- A point you didn't mention directly, but that was in the post you replied to: Charities, foreign aid, subsidies and many other aspects of government spending may be things that you (or I or someone else) does not want to support. Yet the government takes your money and spends it without your permission. In the best case, this is the majority stealing money from the minority to spend on its own ends. More cynically, this is politicians buying votes with your tax dollars.

There is every reason to use MySQL: It is integrated in pre-configured LAMP stacks, it is ubiquitous, and it "just works". If MySQL isn't good enough, why would anyone change to MariaDB, which is - and will remain - 99% the same thing?

This appears to be a guy trying to take back a product he already sold. Regrets? Doesn't know what to do with his life? Whatever...

Lots of people arguing with the expert that there are still security holes.

Of course there are security holes with the chip and NFC. It's kind of like DRM: in the end, you need to be able to access the content. This means that, ultimately, the content must be decrypted into a usable form. It is at least good news that the card companies are finally - at the speed of a slow snail - adding something resembling security.

Look at the places they called. Likely the hijacker is somewhere in a developing country. Unlikely to be the same country where the poster lives. The ISP will not care, as long as their bills are paid.

The German magazine c't is the equivalent of the old Byte, as it existed 30 years ago in the US: Coverage of every techie hardware and software topic, written by people who actually know what they're talking about. Details, not just marketing fluff. For the the big company IT types, there's the sister publication i'X - not to my personal taste, but an equally good read for its target audience.

I don't know of any equally good magazines in the English-speaking world.

They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control”

Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.

Darn, wrong article, sorry...

They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control,”

Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.

Um, no? If the cops arrest you, they do not have the right to ransack your house.

They can search you and your car. As I understand it, the original idea was simply to ensure that you weren't armed and weren't carrying anything that they didn't want you to have while in jail. Creeping decisions by the courts have broadened this beyond recognition.

Allowing them to search your phone is much more like your house: This has nothing to do with officer safety. They may not want you to have the phone while in jail, so they can confiscate it. However, looking around in your files and messages is like going to your home and rummaging through your personal papers. So far, that *does* require a warrant. Granted, it's an easy warrant to get if you've been arrested.

Then they went the next step: using this guy's phone to set a trap for someone else. IANAL, but this sounds an awful lot like entrapment.

The police want to nail the bad guys. They will use whatever means they can get away with, because their cause is just and their hearts are pure. Mostly, the courts go along with them, because they are all players on the same team. This is all great, until you consider what happens when an innocent citizen falls under suspicion.

If the cops and prosecutors think you are guilty of some crime, they will use whatever means they have to nail you. Then they pile on the charges to intimidate you into accepting a plea bargain, so they can go on to the next case without the trouble of providing any due process. That pic of your kids in the bath? Child porn. That joking message to your friend? Conspiracy. Ridiculous, sure, but do you have the money to defend yourself?

It must be our goal as citizens to keep the system under control.