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Just in case you don't need to sign down pdfs... SUMATRA PDF READER[^] is SUPER fast to open pdf files, lightweight as no other and works like charm.
![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
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My wife applied for a job last night. The application page wasn't bad at all. Nice clean layout, a simple process.
But then attempting to fill in her "Profile" for her account...
It would accept nothing but US-format telephone numbers. This is an international company...that won't accept international phone numbers.
Address? A dropdown pick list of countries that fills a picklist of "states" when a country is chosen. That worked fine.
But when you attempt to save, you get nothing but errors, saying "Country" must be United States. Despite being given the choice of every other country in the world.
I didn't dig into it to see where they're doing their page validation, but I'm assuming backend because the error message looked very SQLy.
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I worked for a US company for years and was forever trying to get them to be more international. When they put phone numbers on the web pages they all had the 011 prefix which is the international access code: from the US. Dates were always mmddyy, and times were always AM/PM. And we had customers in most countries of the world.
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Maybe there is a reason why they are looking for hiring someone 
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Well, if they hire her (Romanian/English two-way translator/interpreter), I'll see if they want an IT weenie, too. 
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I've had a number of sights not accept a standard email domain I've used for over a decade because it was .info . Generally, if I can, I email them an comment that they hired idiots to make their website. I also tell them I took my business elsewhere as a result of the snub.
Many years ago I was writing Point-of-Sale applications. When it expanded to Canada I allowed for Canadian zipcode formats. When they started to sell in Australia I took into account not only the multiple telephone number formats valid at the time but their round up/down to the nearest Aus$0.05 and allowed it to be reversible for recalcs of totals when necessary. And, in the USA, what is taxed (this was dry-cleaning software) varied by state, along with what's called "tagging" - which is how they tell different people's clothes apart when they're all cleaned in one big vat - it had to increment based on the particular system they chose. Added fun: credit card numbers were check-summed on the client side so monthly billings didn't fail from invalid entries.
Or, simply put - allow it to be as accommodating as possible for anyone expected to use it.
That type of development, it seems, went down the tubes when it seemed cheaper to outsource it. Even my current employer learned how that's not really cheaper and you then have the interesting status of "an outsider" having you by the short-hairs.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: a number of sights
if that is not a tell about how you are feeling about it, nothing is.
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In the 80s I worked for the European (UK-based) arm of a major US software vendor. Our remit was to take the application suite (GL, AR, AP, Order Entry) and add support for multiple languages, multiple currencies (including cross-currency transactions), alternative date formats and various flavours of European VAT. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. Also included were multiple trips to US HQ to "learn about" the application. In practice we took it as opportunities to try and educate the US developers on how to write the app so that, if not international out of the box, at least straightforward to add international features to. The US developers were lovely folk, but consistently never really "got" the need to cater for anyone other than their domestic market. The company was eventually taken over by a larger competitor and the application suite dropped. Had it been cheaper to convert for the world market I suspect the outcome might have been different.
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My "big money" bank stumbled around like that for years:
Computer "banking hours".
Mysterious telephone number formats.
Vague references to your "banking #" (is that branch, account, what?!)
A pre-approval process that takes 20 or 30 minutes but crashes and looses everything on the last entry.
What do bulls in china shops do? Anything they want.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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The tax laws have become so complicated that no one - including the tax authorities - can reliably compute the taxes due except in the simplest of cases. Multinationals that have the ability to legitimately register profits in different locations take full advantage of this.
Given that the amount of taxes due is a matter of opinion, the only recourse is to go to court. This wastes time and money, the only beneficiaries being the lawyers.
The only way to restore certainty to tax computations would be a simultaneous, radical simplification of tax law worldwide. Don't hold your breath...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Don't hold your breath...
... Particularly since those who make the laws regularly take advantage of the confusion in order to not pay taxes either ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: radical simplification of tax law worldwide
Which needs to be voted by lawmakers, which have tight links to those running international business. I think the game is biased.
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The Golden Rule, those that have the gold make the rules.
// TODO: Insert something here Top ten reasons why I'm lazy
1.
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I hear what you're saying, but I also consider the net win of using tax law to incentivize desirable social behavior and discourage undesirable behavior in a way that's less onerous than having actual laws or fines.
For example, I can either pass a law to ban smoking, or I can tax it. Of the two options which is the most impositional?
Smoking is a simple example, but realistically there are probably a bunch more reasons I can find to do this kind of thing where it concerns the way businesses do business. For example businesses that benefit society get a tax incentive. Businesses that are a net drag on society (like payday lenders) in terms of overall costing us money, get taxed more, that sort of thing.
So simplification is one thing. I don't disagree with you that the tax codes have become onerous.
It's a big ball of mud and it's probably time for a rewrite. But I'm highly suspicious of flat tax schemes because I think the people proposing them the loudest simply want no financial penalties for costly social behavior.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: using tax law to incentivize desirable social behavior and discourage undesirable behavior
Using taxation policy as an instrument of social policy is a major reason for the complexity of the tax law. It is also a major cause of unexpected consequences, and usually lags behind what is considered socially desirable (e.g. have tobacco subsidies in the US been repealed yet?  )
honey the codewitch wrote: I'm highly suspicious of flat tax schemes because I think the people proposing them the loudest simply want no financial penalties for costly social behavior.
Yes, people should pay the full cost of their actions, but I have my doubts whether taxation is the correct way to do so. For example, sewage charges should reflect the cost of treatment, rather than merely the amount of sewage or some other criterion.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Where it's possible, I agree, but I just don't think you can attach direct costs to certain things, like smoking for example. We know we pay for it collectively - this is doubly true in a country with nationalized healthcare, but the figures are statistical at best.
Or say, even weatherproofing your home. That's something that's probably socially beneficial for a number of reasons. Running a small business most often is too. But direct monetary worth? It's hard to pin down. In these cases, I think the idea is not so much about remuneration as it is encouragement of certain activities. We don't need the actual hard costs to be able to decide collectively that we want to incentivize something, and in many case, I just don't think they're realistic to find.
Let me put it to you as a question. How would you encourage people to start small businesses in your area if you ran the local government?
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: How would you encourage people to start small businesses in your area if you ran the local government?
It is well-known that if you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of something, subsidise it. Small (and large) businesses should not be subsidised; the possibility of making a profit should be enough of an incentive for starting one. OTOH, just because someone is making money (horrors!) is no reason to levy taxes.
Giving the government the power to take money from the citizens by force or under threat of force is terribly destructive; and should therefore be used in homeopathic doses. Taxation should be solely a mechanism by which we collectively pay the costs of running the government. It should not be used as an instrument of social policy, nor should it be used to rob Peter in order to pay Paul.
I have deliberately left open the question of "what is the proper province of government?" because that would verge too closely on politics.
honey the codewitch wrote: I just don't think you can attach direct costs to certain things
I agree that there are activities whose cost is difficult to define - air pollution, for example. In this case, the appropriate model might be that of licensing - a corporation can buy a license to produce a certain amount of specified pollutants, with penalties for exceeding this amount or producing other pollutants. The question is who should collect the license fees. IMO, this should not be the government - such fees tend to disappear in the general fund, and not be used for the clean-up - but a corporation whose only purpose is cleaning up pollutants, and which would use the fees as its sole source of funding. The idea obviously needs a lot more work. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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hxxs://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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You pay the fine ... but still get to pay the taxes too; with interest. Unless someone is sleeping.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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"A tax is a fine for doing well, a fine is a tax for doing wrong." - Mark Twain
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Virtual octopus could do: [^] Quote: Octopuses show all these well-organized, whole-body behaviors, but there’s another side to their actions: ongoing exploration by the arms. A crawling octopus that’s not in a hurry often allows its arms to roam a bit in many directions. When an octopus is sitting fairly quietly, a few arms often range out, like little eels, with their delicate, questioning tips. But this behavior is less apparent at Octopolis and Octlantis, perhaps because these octopuses are less relaxed. I think there is a kind of heightened attention at Octopolis and Octlantis, due to the social complexity, and ever-present question of sex.
A picture suggested by all this is that the octopus body is subject to a kind of mixed control. The body can be partially commanded and steered by the central brain, but the body also has parts that engage in their own ongoing exploration, reacting individually to their surroundings. Centrally coordinated actions can pass over to the exploratory tendencies of the arms. Watching octopuses sometimes results in a series of gestalt shifts, between seeing the animal as a whole whose each arm is a tool, and seeing an arm wander about, apparently in response to what it is sensing itself.
Amoeba story: [^]
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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yay cephalopods.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I find octopi wondrous, fascinating As an amateur student/amazed-onlooker of/at modern neuro-science/psychology in cognition and consciousness, I see a parallel between the increasing understanding of distributed processing in the human brain's regions.
If only I had neurons in my fingers 
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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Carbon number mixed with a short day is an example. (8)
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