It’s interesting that when the modern large enterprise reorgs progress grind to a halt. It’s not that problems go away. It appears that focus is lost while the deck chairs are rearranged. Hmmm.
What to do in reorg limbo?
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
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Posted by reinkefj
Rant: taxes
Sunday, February 26, 2006Taxes
Mark Twain is attributed as saying “The only thing that is certain is death and taxes”. Smart fellow! Liberty dies when someone discovers taxation. I would like to call everyone’s attention to some “interesting” facets about taxation:
(1) Taxes are ill-defined
Everybody know that the money extorted from us that we send “voluntarly” to various strange places. Washington DC. One or more of the various state capitals (Yes, NY taxes NJ residents!) Posibly multiple counties and local municipalities. And any mob of policiticans that can figure out an entity to futher mug us. In this list, I would include: “income” (whatever that is), sales and use, and others of such ilk. We can quibble among our selves that “fees” can be taxes if the are unavoidable (i.e., DMV) and / or if they just go into the general fund (i.e., taxes on gasoline for the roads that don’t get “dedicated” to road construction). Personally I woudl assert that to be “user fee” regardless of how absurd is a tax UNLESS it can be avoided AND it is unarguably dedicated.
But I would assert that there are other forms of taxation that we lose sight of:
(A) Mislabeled “insurance” — social security, unemployment, disability, etc etc etc ARE taxes. Anything you get from them should be considered “lottery winnings”.
(B) Inflation is a hidden tax on assets. If you put a c note in your wallet in 1970 and left it there til today, it’s puchasing power declined 95%. You have paid a 95$ tax. It has the interesting effect that it escalates other taxes. You pay high real estate taxes on inflated property values. You pay higher estate taxes on the inflated assets in your portfolio when you die.
(C) Regulation is a hidden tax. Every business makes you pay more to cover the added costs. It can also mean certain goods and services are unavailable at any price.
(D) Estate taxes are hidden. You get stuck after your dead. And, everyone talks about inheritences coming to the beneficiary “tax free”. My tush! The estate paid a fortune in taxes and “fees”.
(X) Cost of compliance is a hidden tax.
(Y) The opportunity cost of all this is a hidden tax.
(Z) Note that I don’t consider the state lottery a tax, despite its description as a “tax on the poor” or a “tax on stupidity”.
(2) Only individuals pay taxes.
Companies merely markup their prices to cover the cost of taxes that the company pays. So, the price in the market place is the true economic cost and a large glump of accumulated taxes. The problems is that we can not differentiate the dividing line. So, if anyone says, included the hosts of FTL, that they pay X per cent, then you shoud quibble because no one can know EXACTLY how much they pay.
(I’m tired for now!)
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Posted by reinkefj
Considering the question: eamil, web, or rss
Sunday, February 26, 2006Can jasperjottings be improved by going to a blog?
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Posted by reinkefj
While I shipped my alumni ezine on time … …
Sunday, February 26, 2006… I didn’t correct the date in the message. That’s going to confuse some people. Lot’s of reasons and excuses but it upsets me that I goofed it up. Sigh.
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Posted by reinkefj
Windoze, Installs, Software, Support, and … my gripe.
Saturday, February 25, 2006I don’t know who else to gripe at, so I’ll share my gripe with you. Maybe you can form it up into something rational.
Bought IBM’s ViaVoice for a doc I know who wants to speed up writing a book. (You’ve seen various doctors’ penmanship so I think you can see that part of the problem. They don’t do technology nor keyboarding very much better.)
He’d gotten himself a brand new dell that some one gave him a hand setting up.
So, he knew I did “dictation” so he asked for my help.
Bought the software. Oh excuse me, I “licensed” it.
No problem, I’ve installed my copy before on a succession of machines over the last two years.
Argh. The install hangs! Reboot , restart hang, reboot, restart hang.
Look for some support. IBM did something and now support is Nuance aka ScanSoft.
(That’s not good news. I don’t like their non-support of Paperport. So already I’m in trouble.)
I look around their web site. There’s nothing in the “knowledge base” to shed any light on my problems.
I do find that there is a $10 charge to ask a question M-F 9-5!
That really annoys me.
There’s a restocking fee of 20% and a doc who is depending upon my skill, so I am committed.
I spent four hours tinkering with it. Just clear, install, fail, and reboot. After countless times, some error messages and uncountable just plain hanging unresponsively, one install worked!
Now I am not sure that we are out of trouble or that it will work for him, but at least it is installed!
I think we have arrived at a time where brand (i.e., IBM) doesn’t matter, vendor doesn’t matter, promises (implied or explicit) can not be relied upon.
Personally, I am getting off the Windoze express. I’ll be going to Linux as fast as I can. If it isn’t Open Source freeware, then I am not going to buy it. Professionally, I am going to recommend the same thing to any business that will listen.
I’ll pay for service but not for vapor- or abandon- or any other crud-a ware.
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Posted by reinkefj
Very unmotivated
Saturday, February 25, 2006Have to put some time in on the “valley” project.
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Posted by reinkefj
Prepare for winrot!
Friday, February 24, 2006Well luggable is showing signs of winrot. I’ll have to look if there is a formal definition of it, but any windoze user is aware of the phenomina. The system just gets slower. Slower to boot, slower to run, and slower to shut down. The only real solution is a complete wipe of the hard drive, reinstall the pig from scratch or distribution media, reinstall all your software, then reload all your data, and then scramble for what you have missed. Arghhh! I guess I’ll just have to start to prep for the inevitable. Sometimes I think just buying a new machine is easier!
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Posted by reinkefj
Google has Labs, Yahoo has Next!, now Microsoft Research?
Thursday, February 23, 2006http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/
There’s just a wealth of “stuff” to try. Free, but beta.
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Posted by reinkefj
Steve Richards has posted a book review of Daniel H. Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind”.
Thursday, February 23, 2006http://steves.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/19/1772216.html
Steve Richards has posted a book review of Daniel H. Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind”.
It is truly stunning. I’m going to get the book based on this map. While I immediately disagree (I’m a basically disagreeable fellow), I can immediately see the value of a possible “pair-of-dimes” shift. All we really control is our own thinking.
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Posted by reinkefj
Move over Microsoft’s Office Live beta; here’s Google Page Creator!
Thursday, February 23, 2006http://reinkefj.googlepages.com/home
Move over Microsoft’s Office Live beta, and its free page-hosting option, that requires your credit card! (Why do I keeping hearing the line for the Wizard of Oz, “I’ll get you my dear, and your little dog too!”?) Google just offered an easy-to-use web page creator, called logically Google Page Creator, “beta” (whatever that means, since their beta is more stable than some allegedly production quality stuff I run, and 100 MB of storage space.
Note it’s temporarily overwhelmed. But, it’s a winner!
“Thank you for your interest in Google Page Creator! Google Page Creator has experienced extremely strong demand, and, as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.”
I can see a lotta uses for it.
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