Interesting Links for 22-03-2013

[andrewducker]

• Public consultation backs lowering drink drive limit in Scotland
  (tags: scotland alcohol driving )
• Cyrpus bailout plan: good idea, badly implemented?
  (tags: banking cyprus )
• Why Charlie Stross doesn't self-publish (much the same reason I'm not a contractor)
  (tags: charlesstross writing publishing )
• Trans woman commits suicide after being bullied

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

> reading contracts, accounting, managing other people

I do very little of that as a freelance developer. No contract reading ever, not very much accounting, and not much managing of other people.

[andrewducker]

You don't have contracts with the people you're doing the work for?

And you do, from previous conversations, spend a fair bit of time dealing with lots of the stuff around development that a pure developer wouldn't have to.

[momentsmusicaux]

I once worked for a developer in Edinburgh who wanted a contact for a fixed-rate quote for the work. Never again.

I bill the client each month for the hours I work, they pay me. That's it.

I do a fair bit of meetings and discussions about what the project should be doing. But I prefer to be in on that, rather than to be just handed requirements which patently make no sense!

[tobyaw]

When I was contracting, I typically didn’t have a contract. In one case I had a purchase order raised for the first week of work, and that was extended by verbal agreement. Which continued for years.

I chose to create my own limited company, and roll my VAT and PAYE by hand, at least partly so I could gain an understanding of how it all worked. Company registration and reporting is straightforward, costs little, and doesn’t take much time. VAT is almost ridiculously easy. And PAYE is an abomination that I found almost impossible to get right.

Of course, with the new rules for electronic reporting, it is all an order of magnitude more complex than it was a few years ago.

[andrewducker]

Just as a note - I don't agree with a lot of the stuff said in the "racist joke incident" post - the person writing it is _also_ being offensive. I was more interested in how the company he was working for handled it.

[bart_calendar]

The company handled it really well.

I doubt they will ever hire him again, however, because, whoa, difficult employee.

[xenophanean]

I thought they did alright. They recognised that there was a bad situation, saw if it could be resolved with talking, and said he could take further action if he needed to. I do wonder a bit if the guy got a bit of power, and went a bit mad with it though.

That said, "Oh, have a sense of humour" when someone's being nasty about you is not a good response, and I'd be angry in the same situation. He just didn't seem to feel satisfied until he'd made everyone feel far, far worse than he had.

(I'm not saying he shouldn't have quickly stamped on the racism, he did, it was dealt with, and rightly so. It was just his clearly apparent desire to punish, punish, punish. It makes him come across as someone who'd got some power, and used it for cruelty.)

[danieldwilliam]

What was it about his behaviour that you found objectionable?

[vereybowring]

The Economist e cig article is about the best any mainstream media has managed so far from a users perspective. Looks like some journalists can still do proper research and come to a reasoned conclusion. Not like The One Show last week and The Wright stuff this week (TV as there are just too many ill-researched newspaper/magazine articles to pick from

[gonzo21]

The Cyprus bank thing crossed the one line that must never be crossed in banking, it threatened depositors holdings.

Yes, if they'd made it clear the fine was only going to be levied against those who held more than 100k in deposits, then they might have gotten away with it. But the fact that nobody seems to have considered the real and permanent damage done to the entire EU banking sector by letting the genie out the battle as regards seizing peoples money, just staggers the imagination.

Because from now onwards, if there is even the slightest whiff if a similar scheme being introduced in an Italy or a Spain or even a France, there will be a run on the banks that will make the Northern Rock fiasco look like a sunday stroll.

In a year of horrendous economic fuckups, I really genuinely think this has been one of the worst.

[a_pawson]

When you deposit money in a bank there is a risk attached, which is something the really ought to be addressed. The way the system is supposed to work, the depositors should have lost 100% of their savings. Losing only a percentage could be seen as the better option.

[gonzo21]

This I feel is a question of criminality on the part of the banks. When you make a deposit in a bank, assuming you're not getting a crazy interest rate by putting your money into some sort of investment product, you have I think a reasonable expectation that the money is safe, and not going to be gambled away by the banks on risky products.

Of course part of the problem seems to have been that the Cypriot banks were offering 5-6% rates of interest, way higher than anywhere else in the Eurozone, and this is why billions of Russian capital flooded into the country.

So should the people have realised it was a risky investment and put their money elsewhere.... or did they have no choice...

Either way, another nail in the coffin of the Eurozones banks. Now that public confidence is arguably irrevocably shattered I think it only a matter of time until they start to crumble.

[andrewducker]

Hence, the tax shouldn't have been on ordinary people who didn't have any choice, but only on the big investors, who did.

[bart_calendar]

I really wanted to have sympathy for the guy in the racist joke incident but he is a far bigger asshole then the two people who told the joke

[bart_calendar]

I've also teased people from the Netherlands that their language has too many fucking consonants. I guess I'm racist against Dutch people.

[naath]

I don't think all jokes about languages are racist, certainly not. But I think that this joke was - not because it made fun of Chinese, but because it says that Chinese is "just" "random noises", which is clearly not true. I also think that this sort of joke (which is often funny) is not really super appropriate for telling

I totally agree with you that his write-up puts him in a bad light too.

I think the company responded pretty well - minor incident, so get together a meeting to try and see if everyone can agree on a good way to proceed, keep the meeting civil and professional as much as possible.

[bart_calendar]

See, I took the joke as a variation of the famous joke in Kentucky Fried Movie where there are two Chinese martial arts experts and one American martial arts expert about to fight each other to the death and one is named "Long Wang", the other is "Hung Wow" and the American is named "Enormous Genitals."

I.e. just making fun of how the language sounds to an untrained and uneducated ear.

I don't think this particular telling of the joke is particularly funny, but I don't think it's directed at people. It's directed at sounds.