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david koblas › Comments
Skis / Toys / Fun : Web 2.0 development - C++ vs. Java vs. PHP vs. Python - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"If you're new to programming the pain in learning two languages is huge, not only that but the level of detail that's needed for C++ will be quite frustrating. You should have no problem building just about anything in PHP for the web."
- david koblas
huh, how come none of these articles mention a boatload of cash pulling into the bay behind the Y! Sunnyvale campus?
Because cash does not equal growth... Markets care about growth and the long term.
- david koblas
How come elevator buttons aren't toggles so you can select and unselect floors?
Because a lot of people press them multiple times to be sure it registers. But I agree with the need for a way to cancel.
- Dave C
Why not the hold for three seconds to cancel...
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Facebook vs. Google - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Wave feels more like Threaded Groups meets IM. Since based on the demos once you start a discussion you can only refine the discussion or forward it to others -- create new sub conversations. It has some cool/wow factor, but at the end of the day it's just another tool. FB by having distinct "entities" for friendable entities vs. fanable entities makes the service feel a little bit more disjoint. I'm a fan of "Ashton Kutcher" (not) but I might also be one of his friends, why do I need to treat the two entities as distinct. You do make a good point about having different circles of friends on different services, FB has minimal ways to manage your groups of friends. If it was more first class it would probably make things more interesting. That way you can assign a Friend Group to a 3rd party service and that's the circle of friends that would be seen/visiable/accessible on that service."
- david koblas
Here's another datapoint for your prop-13 arguments. This property is selling for $1,500,000, but apparently they only pay $81.66/year in property taxes. http://www.redfin.com/CA...
Reese Jones, Mark Zip, Phil G and 46 other people liked this
Do NOT like. This is what drives me nuts about Prop 13. :(
- Karoli
Nice find.
- τorƍue
That's the fault of the local Assessor's office and has nothing to do with anti-Prop 13 propaganda. Here in Los Angeles, our county Assessor's office is on top of things. Our property has been assessed twice since we move here in early '07. We didn't ask for it, they just did. We just received our most recent assessment yesterday.
- Admiral Anika
Wow. I pay more than that per week!
- Gabe
Anika, "Under Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property is limited to 1% of its assessed value. This "assessed value," however, may only be increased by a maximum of 2% per year, until and unless the property undergoes a change in ownership. At the time of the change in ownership the low assessed value may be reassessed to full current market value which will...
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- Paul Buchheit
Yeah once they sell, boom, it'll go up.
- anna sauce
Our Assessor (Seattle/King County) has other things to worry about: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html.... Interestingly enough, I actually went through the assessment appeals process a few years ago. The body that hears appeals is called the "King County Board of Equalization." So 1984.
- Joe Beda ()
As far as I can tell this property is 100 acres of half-barren hillside (http://maps.google.com/maps...) and it's been on the market for years. Perhaps this $1.5M is just wishful thinking?
- Gabe
It's sale pending, and I doubt it's selling for a whole lot less than the asking price.
- Paul Buchheit
Prop 13: destroying California's public schools now for decades.
- Pete Delucchi
I see someone's already posted the relevant section of Prop 13, showing that property can't be reassessed unless it's sold. Prop 13 sucks.
- Karoli
We just purchased our first home for $100,000 but it's tax assessed for $180,000. I love the idea of limiting tax assess increases until a gain in value is realized. If someone can pull out equity or refinance than increasing assesment would make sense too.
- Christian Burns
What really sucks is to lose your house because your property taxes keep going up and up.
- Todd Hoff
Todd, that's why it would be reasonable to allow people to defer the taxes until the property transacts. That way neither houses nor revenues are lost.
- Paul Buchheit
Prop 13 is a blight on California, robbing it of necessary revenue and leading once vibrant communities to rot from the inside out. Repeal Prop 13! I'll be the first to sign the petition.
- AJ Kohn
Paul if I had 25 years of property tax come due when I sold my house it's likely I would have to pay money out of pocket. Sort of defeats the purpose.
- Todd Hoff
@Todd: If property taxes *had* gone up during the bubble, current homeowners would have stopped the madness and values wouldn't have soared beyond sanity.
- AJ Kohn
If that were so then there would have never been the motivation to pass prop 13 AJ.
- Todd Hoff
81.66/year? Per week? I pay almost that much per day! Still, losing a house because of the tax increase is totally wrong. On the other hand, the idea of deferred taxes seems very reasonable to me.
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
Perhaps LA County has different rules. Here, you can ask your assessor's office to do it or they can be proactive like here in LA and do it for you. We didn't ask for ours be reassessed but due to the economy, they're doing it anyway.
- Admiral Anika
Anika, Napa County has also been reassessing homes purchased in the last few years in order to lower their assessments. I think Paul was saying they can't raise it beyond the legal percentage. But they can lower it.
- Anne Bouey
and they wonder why we're short $11 billion
- Glen Mistletoe
Prop 13 has been very effective. It's taken California from #12 in the nation in per-capita student spending to #50 in only 31 years. Imagine how long it would have taken without it.
- Glen Mistletoe
Another thing that happens here in LA County, when someone makes modifications (renovations) to their home, they get reassessed. That doesn't happen in other counties?
- Admiral Anika
Todd: Do you have any numbers to back up the "likely... have to pay money out of pocket" assertion? I don't have any to show you wouldn't... just thought I'd ask before I fire up Excel to see for myself.
- Ken Sheppardson
Paul, it says that it was listed in January of 2007 for $1.5M. Are you saying that nobody thought the undeveloped property was worth buying at the height of the bubble, but 2.5 years later when housing values have gone down 30% and in the middle of a credit crunch it's suddenly worth buying?
- Gabe
Anika, that does happen in other counties. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen in all counties.
- Anne Bouey
@Anika, yes I've never heard of a county in CA where you don't get reassessed when making improvements to your property.
- Jeff P. Henderson
The problem with Prop-13 is that it creates a disincentive to alienate property. On the other hand, the fact that these people are only paying $81.66/year is downright magical. I am happy for them that they are not being robbed by the government more than $81.66 annually. There should be no property taxes at all.
- O.Shane
Paul's right. The sane and sensible way to deal with Prop 13 is to simply allow people to defer any tax beyond the 2% to the equity in the home. This would allow seniors to live in their homes until they die despite any increase in tax. If they sold their house early and realized a gain on the house then they'd have to pay their fair share. If they didn't sell their house and died in...
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- Thomas Hawk
This won't be popular but why exactly are we solving for folks who might be unable to afford a home over time? Whether it be taxes or other reasons, there is no inherent right to be in the same place. In fact, I'd argue that it's natural to have this type of turnover. It ensures that neighborhoods remain vibrant and are infused with new families and that home values remain sane through a real supply and demand.
- AJ Kohn
++Thomas. Prop 13 is one of the main reasons I would consider moving from California.
- Cristo
WTF?!
- Susan Beebe
This still bugs me; I wish I knew more about it. Even if the property started out at, say, $100,000, then the 1% tax would be $1,000 annually. There's certainly no place in the Bay area that has a tax rate of .08%. There's some information about this we're not getting; for example, the property may have an agricultural use exemption or something. I don't think it's representative of property taxes in general. Of course, I could be totally wrong, but still…
- Glen Mistletoe
The screenshot shows the assessed value = $5908, general tax = $62.78, and tax rate = 1.0629%
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken if I pay 16K * 25 year what's the probability my house has appreciated more than that? Not much. And it's completely up to circumstance. Hit a high and you might be OK. Hit a low and you are screwed. That's bad policy to me.
- Todd Hoff
Todd, if your house hasn't appreciated, then your taxes will not be significantly more than they would be when you bought it (or what it would be under Prop 13).
- Cristo
Cristo you've accumulated a tax bill every year yet the price of your house fluctuates. If your house goes down in those years you'll still be paying taxes. So when you sell at the end and the price of your house has not appreciated greatly you'll end up with a short sale. You've also made the revenue inflow for the government very unpredictable. They'll need to take out interest paying revenue bonds waiting for those houses to turn over.
- Todd Hoff
Todd, it seems rather unlikely that housing prices go down during a 25 year period, but okay. I'm sure there could be some adjustments made for that. Are you arguing in favor of Prop 13?
- Cristo
Cristo I've just watched my house tumble in price, the thought of being on the hook for a long stream of taxes from high value years without any sort of predictable planning horizon is ulcer producing. That would be like the lotto from hell.
- Todd Hoff
If you live in CA, the reason your house rose so quickly in value was partly because of Prop 13. It disincentivizes people to put their properties on the market because moving causes the sellers to pay more property tax on their new property. This constricts the market, forcing a limited supply, and therefore demand spikes the price of available real estate. Furthermore, property taxes are made higher to bring in revenue from those few properties that are actually paying full price.
- Cristo
The reduction in value of houses is actually a good thing, although maybe not personally if you are caught in the tide. Houses are still way over valued in California, and should be a reasonable multiple of income. (E.g. 23:1 in Palo Alto is not reasonable)
- Cristo
Houses aren't trading cards. People stay in their house because it's their house. In fact, being upwardly mobile trading one house for another even bigger house was perfected here. If it wasn't for that you would probably have even less turnover. And property tax rates in CA are 1.25 percentish which is very low. So they don't pay more tax. What happened before is rates increased while...
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- Todd Hoff
They are always areas that are very desirable with outrageous prices. That you can't afford one the most desirable areas of the state shouldn't be unexpected.
- Todd Hoff
Just remember that your focusing on residential -- Prop 13 also applies to commercial property... commercial property doesn't change hands very often. REITs and other entities hold the titles and sit on them for 99 years. Howard Javris the man behind Prop 13 was a commercial property developer.
- david koblas
I am with Shane on this one. Tax income, not property. Why is that I pay a property tax on a necessity like a house but not on, say, a Dali painting in my living room (for the record I own neither)? When I buy a house, that money has been already taxed once. To put things in perspective, I am not a small government supporter. How much to tax and what type of tax are two orthogonal issues.
- Antonio Piccolboni
This is interesting: How High is Your Tax Burden? - http://www.forbes.com/2009... . So we pay 10.5% in CA. Higher than I would like. The average is 9.7%. It's 8.4% in Texas. For 2% I'll take CA. And remember CA year after year has been sending more to the feds than we get back, basically subsidizing the lower rates of the people who...
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- Todd Hoff
There is plenty of residential real estate that doesn't exchange hands. There is even a provision to pass real estate onto heirs without increasing property tax. If you plan to stay in your house forever, why do you care if property taxes are assessed against it until you finally pay? Prop 13 is a ripoff for anyone who wants to buy now, rather than 20 years ago.
- Cristo
Cristo obviously because there's a very high probability I will owe more than I'll sell my house for. So under your plan I'll never sell the house. I'll be stuck because the pain of giant balloon payment on sale is too painful.
- Todd Hoff
So lets run the numbers... Suppose you have a property you purchase for $100,000 outright, and we use that value as your tax basis. Further, suppose the tax rate is 1%, and the value appreciates at 5% per year. Prop 13 says the assessed value can go up a maximum of 2% per year. After 25 years the assessed value will be $160,844. The market value will be $322,510. When you sell, you'll have a $222,510 capital gain.
- Ken Sheppardson
In the last year, the difference in property taxes between what you pay under Prop 13 and without will be $1,617, and over 25 years you've paid $15,697 less than you'd have paid without Prop 13. So you're saying, Todd, that you wouldn't be able to come up with that $16K after having just sold your property for $222K more than you paid for it?
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, will you guarantee me a return of 5% a year by volunteering to pay the difference? And will you guarantee the rates don't skyrocket? And the numbers are much larger than 100K.
- Todd Hoff
Nobody has to guarantee you anything. What the market value did in the intervening years is irrelevant. You can just draw a straight line from the $100K to final sale price. Assume constant appreciation, and if that would've generated more property tax than the straight line 2% assessed value appreciation, you pay the difference.
- Ken Sheppardson
If the final sale price after 25 years is $160K... the same as what the assessed value is, you pay nothing.
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, you will owe property taxes for every year. It will accumulate. It's not based on the final selling price.
- Todd Hoff
And it doesn't matter if the numbers are larger than 100K. If it's 500K, just multiply everything by five.
- Ken Sheppardson
It matters because you toss 16K like it's nothing. $150K is very different.
- Todd Hoff
I think you're imagining a completely different plan than I am, where somehow somebody's trying to determine the market value every year. I don't like that plan either. That's not what I'm talking about. I explained the plan I'm imagining a couple comments up.
- Ken Sheppardson
And yes, if the numbers are 10x... You buy a property for $1M and sell it for $3.2M, realized a $2.2M gain and pay a $160K tax bill. Those numbers are, in fact, very different. By a factor of 10.
- Ken Sheppardson
@Todd: If houses aren't trading cards then why are you worried about the appreciation versus property tax argument? Property taxes should be in line with the value of your home. If the value of your home goes down get it reassessed and pay less property tax. Am I missing something? Property taxes are part of buying a home.
- AJ Kohn
How about this - the insurance company will reimburse housing damages based on your purchase price, not current value. So when your home burns to the ground, if you bought it in 1982 for $150K you'll get that back today. That's the essential inversion of Prop 13 - and I doubt highly that many would enjoy that system.
- AJ Kohn
These "defer the tax" proposals all implicitly assume the house must be worth more when it's sold.
- Andrew C
Property taxes mean that it's not really your house, you really just rent it from the government.
- Christian Burns
On the flip side, do they lower property taxes when the value of the house goes down?
- Morton Fox
Yes, they do lower the tax when it goes down. Some counties reassess automatically, but all counties will do so if the owner requests it. When the tax is lowered I'm unsure if it can then only increase at the 2% rate, or if it is allowed to go back up to its previous high before the prop13 limit kicks in.
- DGentry
Here's an answer for Todd's problem, (which I think is unlikely, btw, and not the reason given for Prop 13). He can pay the property tax on his place when he sells it at the rate it's worth at the time he sells it. So any taxes owed, will be amortized over the time his house was owned by him. If the market is down (and even if it was up before) he is still okay. Right?
- Cristo
OK, here's what I still don't get. I'm going to pull numbers out of a hat here. What if he bought his house in, say, 2000 for $300K, it went up to $500K at the height of the bubble, and now is back to $300K, but he's got to sell because he's moving. He realizes no profit - in fact with inflation he's lost money, let's ignore that - but not only does he owe a pile of property tax, the...
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- Andrew C
That's what I was suggesting, Andrew. You only pay property tax consistent with the realized gain, not the intermediate market value. I don't know if that's a real proposal anybody's considering, or just a though experiment based on Paul mentioning the idea about. In a sense, it's just a local capital gains tax, which you could give some fancy name like "Deferred Property Tax Recovery Fee" or something.
- Ken Sheppardson
Since we're making up the rules for a prop-13 replacement, we can easily refine them to eliminate the "what if I owe more than my house is worth" cases. For example, we could use the sales price to back-compute owed taxes assuming a constant rate of appreciation instead, and completely ignore intermediate market values, so that a temporary bubble will have to effect on your tax bill. We...
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- Paul Buchheit
++Paul. I was trying to say this, but you were much more eloquent.
- Cristo
Are we not paying property taxes on a bi-annual basis?
- AJ Kohn
AJ, your bi-annual payment could remain at the current prop-13 capped rate (2% annual appreciation), and the "market value" deferred taxes would not be due until sale.
- Paul Buchheit
@Paul: Okay, understood. I missed that part of the equation. Would that be the grandfather way to deal with Prop 13, with all new purchases simply adhering to non-Prop 13 property tax assessments?
- AJ Kohn
AJ, the new rule would apply to everyone. The idea is to keep the best of prop-13 (grandma doesn't get kicked out of her house due to rising property taxes) but to recapture the lost revenue and restore fairness so that new homeowners aren't having to shoulder the majority of the tax burden.
- Paul Buchheit
@Paul: I guess I'm a bit more radical. Keeping 'grandma' there simply might not be the best solution. Communities need natural turnover. I'm for some tax remediation based on age - as is done in other states - but it should be based off the current rate and ensure that we're not keeping those who should probably downsize or relocate. I'm guessing I sound callous but should we really keep classes of people in their homes through different structures?
- AJ Kohn
AJ, the problem is we already have Prop 13, so it would have to be sugar-coated to have any chance of passing. Even then, it's so widely liked (because there's a large percentage of voters that benefit from it) that it would be very difficult to overturn.
- Cristo
@Chris: Agreed, it's difficult because so many people *do* benefit from it. Though ... at this point, if you repealed it ... there's a chance that a majority of homeowners would actually pay less in property taxes. Where's the data on this? Who's modeled it? Get someone on it! Because if you could say that 70% of homeowners would pay less property tax, well ... I think we might have something. (Certainly might be the case for homeowners if this applied to business property as well.)
- AJ Kohn
@Ken - ah. I don't think I like that all that much, honestly.
- Andrew C
@AJ, I'm not sure how I feel about Prop 13, but I am certain that your arguments about it's role in promoting the bubble don't stand up to scrutiny. If it's bad policy, fine. But combat it with good analysis. I'm not seeing much of that in this discussion.
- Forrest Cox
I personally fail to understand why everyone loves to complain about revenue - the state is being "robbed" of this, the community is being "deprived" of that. That problem California - and most of the rest of the country, if not world - has is a SPENDING problem, NOT a REVENUE problem. California's public sector is an enormously inefficient waste of productive resources. Therein lies...
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- Forrest Cox
I could be convinced that it's a spending problem, but I would have to see the figures.
- Andrew C
The amount they're paying is based on the original purchase price, right -- which given how low it is, would be from years and years ago. If so, then the sale "correct" that issue. But really, while Prop 13 cost the state tons in revenue, it's also a pretty absurd way to tax people -- on home value. The home has no value until it is sold. It would be like having to pay a huge tax on a...
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- dannysullivan
Danny: RE "It would be like having to pay a huge tax on a stock "gain" if you had stock that went up one year but never was actually sold." -- We have that. It's called AMT :-/
- Ken Sheppardson
Nobody likes paying taxes, but there has to be some revenue to operate the state. Whenever anybody brings up taxes, it's always that particular tax that is absurd.
- Cristo
Besides, technically, you can extract value from your home before selling it. HELOCs, etc.
- Andrew C
Skis / Toys / Fun : Content agregation vs. Human Editors - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"That's part of the idea, but I think part of it is making is a "first tier" experience. Netvibes has a similar feature. But, fundamentally I think there should an "editors" blog portal similar to bloglines.com or wordpress.com where you can build a cross blog content aggregation."
- david koblas
anyone know of a good app to browse json files on Mac OS?
JSONovich in FF to prettyprint/view JSON files.
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Preallocation is a good trick... Brought the runtime down to 2.092 seconds!"
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Cool, thanks. Performance comparison: Perl #1 - 3.227 Perl #2 - 3.702 Perl #3 - 3.091 So, it appears that somebody might want to optimize Array::Util a bit more... In playing with this, since it didn't make sense why Array::Util should be slower found the following "faster" version. Which shows that the "map" call is slow compared to array iteration -- that's not good. sub isect(@@) { my %h; for my $i (@{$_[0]}) { $h{$i} = 1; } return grep { $h{$_} } @{$_[1]}; }"
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Java Version #3 -- turns out like PHP #3 doesn't perform very well and sets a new record... 3992.045 seconds (or 66 minutes, 15 seconds). From the apache commons project... Here's the implementation of intersection, which is great, since you don't have debug your own version... But, probably not going to bring a performance benefit. Collection intersection(final Collection a, final Collection b) { ArrayList list = new ArrayList(); Map mapa = getCardinalityMap(a); Map mapb = getCardinalityMap(b); Set elts = new HashSet(a); elts.addAll(b); Iterator it = elts.iterator(); while(it.hasNext()) { Object obj = it.next(); for(int i=0,m=Math.min(getFreq(obj,mapa),getFreq(obj,mapb));i<m;i++) { list.add(obj); } } return list; }"
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Here's a full version of the PHP module... <?php $x = array(); $y = array(); foreach (file("data.txt") as $line) { list($a, $b) = preg_split("/\\s+/", $line); if ($b !== null) { array_push($x, $a); array_push($y, $b); } } $t0 = microtime(true); $xy = isect($x, $y); $t1 = microtime(true); printf("Set | n = %d : %d intersects found in %f seconds\\n", count($x), count($xy), $t1 - $t0); function isect($a, $b) { return array_intersect($a, $b); } Here's the trivial program that creates data.txt #!/usr/bin/python import random LINES = 1000000 MAX = LINES * 5 print LINES for i in range(0, LINES) : print "%s %s" % (random.randint(0, MAX), random.randint(0, MAX))"
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"Wow, Here's your PHP rundown, with the addition of #2, #3 V1 = 3.850 V2 = 2.000 V3 = 10.064 Which is interesting to note that array_intersect() is clearly doing something less than good..."
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : Array Intersection Bake-off - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"You made me think about another case in python -- def isect(a, b) : h = set(a) return [i for i in b if i in h] Which runs in 1.040 seconds -- 30% off the java times. Though of course we're now in the land of python mimicking perl in terms of obfuscation."
- david koblas
Skis / Toys / Fun : iPhone Objective-C bug? - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"I didn't think I was, isn't "Quiz*" the same as self? @interface Quiz : NSObject { } -(Quiz*)initFromDict: (NSDictionary *)dict; @end"
- david koblas
Star Wars Remixed As Opening of Dallas TV Series - http://laughingsquid.com/star-wa...
Jennifer Gates, Evan Brown, Dennis Bjørn Petersen and 7 other people liked this
wow, that...actually kinda works!!
- Jamie Mack
from twhirl
And, in a weird way, reminds me of the 'Buck Rogers' opening credits.
- Michael R. Bernstein
That is simply awesome.
- Admiral Anika
:(
- Mona Nomura
What's making you sad, Mona?
- Michael R. Bernstein
I feel so 70s all of a sudden...
- david koblas
Watching V for Vendetta again. I love watching this movie for some reason. So visually interesting and well paced despite its flaws.
Amber, binic, Adam Kazwell and 13 other people liked this
I still haven't seen it. Time to Netflix it
- Benjamin Golub
Me too... just rented it again last night... at the self-realization part, outside in the rain. ;)
- Brandon
Is it released?
- Onur Gündüz
Just noticed it's on blu-ray ... into the shopping cart it goes ... good counterpoint to 5th element.
- david koblas
Visually it's a great movie. I'm tossed/torn by the plot turns, but overall it's a good movie, I think.
- Mike Lewis
jessenoller.com - Python Threads and the Global Interpreter Lock - http://jessenoller.com/2009...
Very nice article about threading. The only thing I think is missing here to check GIL performance impact, would be to have the same tests executed using Jython and IronPython.
- david koblas
UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal - http://www.prisonplanet.com/uk-terr...
Rudolf Olah, AJ Batac, EricaJoy and 66 other people liked this
"New laws set to be passed in England and Canada would make it illegal to use bad language or take photographs of police officers, moving us further away from the idea of police as public servants and more towards the notion of cops assuming God-like status. According to the British Journal of Photography, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which is set to become law on February 16, “allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.” The punishment for this offense is imprisonment for up to ten years and a fine. However, even before the passage of the legislation, police in Britain have already been harassing and arresting fully accredited press photographers merely for taking pictures of them at rallies and protests."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
The naive will never get it so what shall we, the few who do, do?
- Internet Strategist
This is very bad for democracy!
- Jeff P. Henderson
One would assume it would cover Video as well, which would make the Rodney King and Oscar Grant tapes terrorist acts.
- david koblas
This is terrible, if only I had an MP to complain to (mine's Stephen Harper...).
- Kenton
The situation in the U.S. is already far worse than most realize. I personally know of ridiculous incidents including a man walking alone to the grocery store (in the town he lives in) with an empty backpack (to carry his groceries home in) being threatened with arrest and a woman (over 50, under 5'3" and under 140 pounds) being dragged to the ground by three police officers and handcuffed because "walking (between a convenience store and the strip mall next door to it) is not permitted" in that town.
- Internet Strategist
More examples 1) Highway Patrol tried to put the OWNER of a truck's wife out on the highway because the law prohibits anyone riding in a truck without some particular form.
- Internet Strategist
Another 2) Woman commuting to her job on a major highway stopped. Police claim they found something in her vehicle, never charged her with anything and kept it. She was still trying to get it back (at great expense) when I last heard. This happens all the time because police can seize and auction property without proving or even charging you with a crime.
- Internet Strategist
3) I was waiting at a tiny truck stop for someone who was running late. Even though I bought a meal, and then dessert and was talking to people who knew me the young girl who worked there wanted to call the police because I had "been there too long". Fortunately for me the older woman who worked there came and asked me why I was still there and then talked her out of calling. Are they teaching young people to call police any time someone they don't know is in a business "too long"?
- Internet Strategist
These five examples all happened in Texas but in five different cities involving different law enforcement agencies. Surely others have heard about similar issues?
- Internet Strategist
Ridiculous, in especially in regards to journalism & excessive police of which occurs frequently
- sofarsoShawn
We have to stand up to this rubbish before it goes too far. Maybe photographers should have a rally and just photograph every policemen along the way. They cant imprison every photographer in Britain.
- Pete Gilbert
@Pete - unfortunately, "we", are too often in the minority. Most do not see this in the greater context of censorship / free-speech (freedom in general) and is not something that really resonates with them.
- JA Castillo
UK government a bunch of assholes.....
- Rob Sellen :o)
UK is sadly weak on civil liberties. Like our American cousins. :-(
- winckel
you *must* be joking.
- MikeAmundsen
Hilarious, I'll have to look into this!
- Toby Graham
So, lets get this straight. Even the BBC can't use a pic of a policeman in thier stories???????
- Roberto Bonini
That's crappy.
- Justin Yost
WTF? They have to go and ruin things for everyone. "Yay" for the UK Government indeed. :(
- Tyson Key
So if you're protesting, are harassed, and photog the cops, you're a terrorist? When did "protect & serve" turn into "know your place, or else"?
- Pete Delucchi
I used to be an anglophile, but the way things are going, the closest I'll come to the UK is watching Top Gear on BBC America. Too bad.
- Steve Lowe
@Internet Strategist, I actually have a Texas story that's ON-topic, but no time to share it at the moment. @Pete D: 9/11/01. And to my British friends: what was done to fight this law when it was before Parliament last year? Actually it looks like it's been stricken, or dramatically revised, in the final bill.
- Anthony Citrano
Explanatory note from House of Lords committee report: "For the offence to be committed, [the] information obtained, published or communicated would have to be such as to raise a reasonable suspicion that it was intended to be used to assist in the preparation or commission of an act of terrorism, and must be of a kind that was likely to provide practical assistance to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism..."
- Anthony Citrano
Thanks Paul, this is what is great about FF from a blogger's perspective, so many good story ideas can be found here. Blogged about this based on your post here: http://thomashawk.com/2009...
- Thomas Hawk
Anthony, do you have a link for that explanatory note?
- Thomas Hawk
and like the meek, well-conditioned sheep we've become, the British people will simply bend over and take it. The French would be setting fire to cars in Paris if their elected representatives tried to get away with this.
- Andrew Terry
Cops, the whole nature of policing is corrupt power exercised corruptly. It brings into question the very mentality of *any* person who wants to be a cop and wield such petty power over their fellow humans. I'm sick of our elected representatives giving in to the "law and order" (laura norder) lobby's request for ever-increasing police-state powers at every turn. Frankly it's time to be militant about it. F--k the police.
- Scot Mcphee
I'm betting on a flash mob (pun semi-intended) of photographers going to London a few hours prior to the introduction, and taking a load of photos of CCTV cameras and police officers...
- Tyson Key
Love prisonplanet.com. Unfortunate to learn that it will be applied in Canada. In Quebec, we can take pictures of officers in a certain way (meaning if it's not to bother them). Obviously, someone who's taking tons of 'em targeting only one guy would be abusive but this?
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Police in Haverstraw, NY, took away a geocache and never returned my calls.
- Morton Fox
I call shenanigans on "Zu". prisonplanet is conspiracy profiteering, nothing more. The people in this thread are talking about actual events and proposed policy.
- Richard ¿digame? Walker
If someone commits or prepares an act of terrorism commits a crime and this should be enough. Taking pictures should not be a crime if someone then break the law with those pictures by doing something dodgy then they should be charged for that crime. Next we might not be able to use the internet or Google Maps or whatever because we might have bad intentions.
- M F
Not good.
- Ontario Emperor
This a joke!! I'm now scared to go up to London and take photographs! Is there anything left that we can take photos of?? :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
a step toward social breakdown with a step toward public servant security
- GlennIsaac
Aren't I silly -- I didn't notice the link is prisonplanet.... which I am hightly skeptical of. The source is the British Journal of Photography, so I guess I have to call shenanigans on myself!
- Richard ¿digame? Walker
@Thomas - sorry for delay, I need to learn to check in on my comments feeds. Yes, I found that at the UK Parliament site. Here's the page for the bill and its progress, revisions, etc. The committee report is in there: http://services.parliament.uk/bills...
- Anthony Citrano
Thanks Anthony. I'm reading it now.
- Roberto Bonini
I wonder how they define bad language, and how they can possibly justify that that provision has a place in a "Counter Terrorism Act". It seems to be a far more dangerous proposition than the already absurd photography provision since there would not be any evidence, a policeman could always justify an arrest by claiming that the suspect used bad language.
- Robin Barooah
Skis / Toys / Fun : Problem with Tomcat WAR ClassPath (help please)? - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"I could put it there, but was really hoping to leave it in the "public" installed location. I've also got a version that copies it to the XXX.war/WEB-INF/lib directory. But, again I've got two copies..."
- david koblas
8 Ways NOT To Get Injured Skiing | SkipressWorld (Usa) - http://www.skipressworld.com/usa...
The video is priceless
- david koblas
Leaks: Yahoo's secret layoff doublespeak revealed! - http://valleywag.com/5106184...
Frederick Akalin, Kolomeetz, Anne Bouey and 23 other people liked this
You have got to be kidding me!
- Bindu Reddy
from Bookmarklet
There's not a thing wrong with these instructions. Beyond the cheesy "Right Management" HR program, there's no double speak. What's the problem here? Layoffs always suck, but at least Yahoo had the common sense to brief the poor bastards who have to fire the poor bastards being sent home.
- Chris Baskind
It is so impersonal and robotic. I am sure these instructions are designed very carefully, in order for Yahoo to avoid any serious legal consequences. However, it also shows how impersonal it is to work for a large corporation....
- Bindu Reddy
I agree with the impersonal part, and having spent years as a manger during the decline of Clear Channel, I've seen (and done) this sort of thing many times. Then it was my turn. Working in this sort of environment is a two-edged sword.
- Chris Baskind
This is better than a lot of companies where they have security escort you out as soon as they tell you.
- Gabe
There is no good way to deliver bad news.
- David Bisset (sn)
ooof. that's a rough day at the office.
- Alex Gawley
Feeling sad for everyone who is going to do this, both sides.
- susan mernit
What does it mean "impersonal and robotic"? Can you please tell me a much better way to lay off 1500 people? At least, from Yahoo's HR department tried to figure out some kind of policy, not to leave the dirty job on everyone's manager shoulders (experience, judgement)
- Todor
I'm with Todor. As much as this *sucks* for everyone involved, having a script like this is essential to getting through it at all without total chaos, and the chaos would be even worse. My heart goes out to everyone who hears it today. : (
- DeWitt Clinton
Meeting length 15 minutes maximum!
- Tobias Boonstoppel
If someone is managing staff and can't be trusted to handle this conversation without line-by-line coaching, that person is probably in the wrong job. That said. Getting laid-off sucks. So does laying people off.
- Reto Meier
from fftogo
I've met many of managers who needed this sort of guidance. A lot of managers have never had to layoff people before, and if they're any good, they wouldn't have to do too many layoffs in their life, so they wouldn't get a chance to practice. My only layoff in my career was handled quite badly, and the manager could have used this script.
- Piaw Na
I agree with Chris and the like. Firing people is not fun (though I have no personal experience with it). I'm sure that as managers get more experience, they drift away from the scripts, but it is nice to have something to start with.
- Robert Felty
Pretty much the standard template that I've seen since I was "downsizing" in 2001 ... Not fun, but the first time around it was handy to have a script. At the end of the of the E@H debacle there was more humor than seriousness.
- david koblas
I like how one of the tips is to avoid making comments like 'Who knows how long I'll be here."
- Jess Lee
There's just no good way to layoff people. It's a serious failure on behalf of the company. It's traumatic for the people who are let go, and there are no words which will make that better. Swiftness and respect are the only recourse. I'm betting a lot of the people doing the firing today have never been called upon to manage a layoff. They'll need these guidelines, and they won't sleep well tonight.
- Chris Baskind
You mean they are setting up meetings where they are going to be fired by a human? Wow! So much more personal than a form letter tucked in with your paycheck.
- April Russo (app103)
Thank you, Paul, for reading these comments. I have some information regarding our organization that I want to tell you in person.
- Jim Norris
Boredom Numbs the Work World - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...
""It was like Dilbert," she said. "I learned a lot about FAA regs and flight rules. And I learned a lot of acronyms. . . . . A lot of times it was just tedious, and I was thinking, I can't believe I'm here and being paid for this.""
- david koblas
from Bookmarklet
Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online service, step-by-step - http://startuplessonslearned.b...
test idea for notewave
- david koblas
Pion Network Library - Boost C++ development library for implementing lightweight HTTP interfaces | Pion Development Community - http://www.pion.org/project...
Pion Network Library lets you run multiple servers listening to any number of ports and network devices. Each server may have its own collection of web services defined which are bound to HTTP resources. Protocols other than HTTP can also easily be implemented for any server. A common thread pool is used to handle operations for all servers. pion-net also supports server-side SSL & TLS encryption when built with the OpenSSL library.
- david koblas
51 Creative Business Cards That Will Make You Look Twice - http://www.quicksprout.com/2008...
I want a Kevin Mitnick business card!
- david koblas
from Bookmarklet
Reunion.com and Wink merge to form new people search site - http://venturebeat.com/2008...
Yusuf İbili, Christopher Galtenberg and Paul Buchheit liked this
"Reunion.com is making $55 million in revenue this year, according to Tensley, and expects to make more than $100 million based on its merger with Wink, and a distribution deal for the two companies’ combined people search product."
- Paul Buchheit
It only took six weeks from the merger to be signed until the press release _finally_ went out...
- david koblas
Tree Squirrels Management Guidelines--UC IPM - http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG...
Tree squirrels are quick to escape when pursued by predators. Some dogs that have full run of the yard will keep squirrels at bay. Predators in urban and suburban areas generally have little effect on tree squirrel populations.
- david koblas
OLED-screen cell phone design speaks truth to complexity - Boing Boing Gadgets - http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008...
I want one...
- david koblas
from Bookmarklet
YouTube - Batman vs. The Penguin: The Debate - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Great quotes: A man like batman who rubs elements with the worst elements of the city..
- david koblas
from Bookmarklet
Skis / Toys / Fun : Web 2.0 development - C vs. Java vs. PHP vs. Python - http://www.skitoy.com/p...
"I think I was hinting that XML processing in PHP is easy... the SimpleXML additions to PHP 5 are a breeze to use (similar to the lxml library for Python). Those languages at least deal with a lot of the memory management issues, etc."
- david koblas
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