OT: Danger! Time warp!

[rbowman]

You do realize that at the equator you get 12 hours of darkness every day, don't you?

[rbowman]

That backfires when you're still working, have files, and have to start taking the required minimum disbursements. Then you wind up paying more tax. Plus, you can't use the $6500 IRA contribution dodge any more.

[rbowman]

No, they deduct it from your wages at gunpoint (metaphorically speaking). A few people are exempt like if you're covered by the Railroad Retirement Fund but most have 6.2% deducted for the social security tax and 1.45% for Medicare, while the employer pays the same. If you're self employed then you pay the whole 12.4% and 2.9% as a 'self employment tax'.

The US is a socialized country in many ways but since the pols are afraid of uttering the word 'socialism' they manage to f*ck it up.

[Rod Speed]

But that doesn't mean that the employees of the other 90% get stuck with just the state aged pension when they stop working.

That isnt what has happened with pensions and superannuation in any modern first or second world country. In fact few state pensions pay enough for most people to be prepared to have nothing but that once they have retired unless they have no choice on that and its only the dregs of society that don't have any choice on that.

Capitalism isnt a ponzi scheme and its left what Marx proposed for dead and has survived it almost everywhere except North Korea and Vietnam now.

[Rod Speed]

Didn't happen with the chinese who moved to singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

[rbowman]

I can, in dire circumstances, VPN in but I deny knowing anything about VPN to most people. My guys are on rotating on-call status and it's very rare that they have to involve me, much to everyone's relief.

The last time was one New Year's Eve when an ops person informed me a system had to go live on 1 January and he couldn't get it going. I was at the First Night activities so most of it consisted of me standing on a street corner in the cold trying to walk him through a setup that should have been done the week before. I was not happy.

[rbowman]

You too? Some of our clients are prone to hallucinations. After a software release they will swear that the program used to do such and such and our support people will agree with them an file a bug. I'll review to code back to 1998 and find no evidence that it ever did what they thought it used to do.

[rbowman]

I just whisper 'retire' under my breath. It's not a threat just a reminder that he better have some plan for the future.

The scary part is many of my contacts amongst the clients are in the same situation. There was a time when companies eased old farts out the door. It's a sign of the times when in the last election both of the contenders were older than I.

[rbowman]

The French tried something like that. Nobody paid much attention so they gave up:

[rbowman]

I do. My watch now shows 21:21. It's fun when someone asks me what time it is and I forget to translate.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Yes, it's simpler while being just as useful. You don't have to deal with that "am/pm" stuff, and using 12 for 0.

That would be convenient. Where is it like that?

[Huge]

I guess no-one looks at my sig ...

[Tim Streater]

Almost certainly.

[Cindy Hamilton]

ee one hour into the future, as our clocks are out of step with reality.

hanging the clocks, we can make it lighter in the morning or lighter in the evening (much preferred). During summer, we don't need to do either, so m ight aswell leave it the same as whatever we chose in the winter.

the light. Very few people are earlybirds.

he evening....

pen, our places of work open, etc.

for longer, or get nothing for 5 years?

Apparently I was unclear. The government regulates these retirement plans, but individual's investments are in the stock/bond markets just as if they were investing in the ordinary way. The difference is that the money invested was not subject to income tax before it was invested, and there are a few additional rules about where it can be invested and when you can take it out without penalty. If you are really interested:

Cindy Hamilton

[Dave Liquorice]

Townie.

Round here there is only 1 4G network (EE), Voda and Three are 3G, O2 only 2G! Go down the road 100 yds and all four disappear. Indoors to have call that doesn't involve each end repeating themselves 50% of the time or just drop out you have to be upstairs, by a window, on the right side of the house.

[Huge]

Quite. When we moved in here some 21 months ago, the only way you could get any cellphone signal at all was either to go outside or to stand at one end of the hall.

About 9 months later, Voda must have done something and we get 4 bars of

4G. But then I went into the nearest town yesterday afternoon and 4G was flaky and intermittently there was nothing at all.

BTDT. Fortunately no longer.

[Huge]

Try catching a Midland Mainline, North of Derby there's more-or-less no coverage at all until Chesterfield. Then it drops out again until Sheffield.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Right now 0 bars on mine

move a foot to the right and maybe 2. On a good day. With the moon in Scorpio

[James Wilkinson Sword]

e:

Time doesn't necessarily make you old. There is an organism which never= dies. We have crappy genetic cell replacement systems that's all.

-- =

People who live in glass houses should f*ck in the basement.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

In the UK there's a small state pension, and everything else is private and nothing to do with them (although it is tax free). When they pay out, and how much, is between me and the bank. Employers also do private pensions on your behalf.