W_L

Lol! Just some musings on the concept of time and interpretation of reality. I actually get really depressed, when I smoke weed or eat special brownies for some reason. Haven't done it in years, maybe it's different now.

In terms of IT in the "For Profit" world, you have probably seen more, but in terms of the non-profit world, I have been all over, even more than you. I come from a lower middle class background with a visual disability from birth. I started working in offices as administrative staffer since I was 18, starting at schools, then my college as part of paying off my tuition, and later climbed to be a manager right out of college at age 21. I am at the moment Interim Controller due to my drive towards making sustainability a possibility through operational assessments. Believe me, if IT could be cut down to less than 10%, or 15% in my organization's operating budget $30 million, I would want to implement it immediately. My first job as an intern/staff was in Finance and Tax Strategy working with hospitals and health systems, all of which is non-profit by the way (In the US, especially in the Northeast, our health systems operate under a non-profit framework). Later, I worked with foundations raising capital for housing projects, food pantries, and children's after school programming figuring out how they can get their books organized properly and get themselves to be sustainable. Not everything I touched was turned to gold, but in the heart of the 2008-2010 recession, I at least did what many other people did not have any incentive or desire to do, because I enjoy challenges. I know how these places work and I know how their finances flowed. I also see quotes from them through the boards I have been on and worked with. IT in the US is significantly high portion of overhead costs. A "one person" IT department is not only one person with a computer, it's one person in charge of several different applications, licenses, and data systems all running within a tight compliance infrastructure that is mandated. You also have part time contractors implementing periodic updates to your systems and back up costs for information. That is a "one person" IT Department, not what you were thinking Westie. $100K is already a conservative estimate on IT costs in a standard $1 million dollar operating budget organization, it is probably even higher. Westie, when I say I have more experience than you, I mean it in terms of non-profit world, I have seen a lot more, whether it is education, health care, foundations, or charities. The world of non-profit in the US is complex and unlike their "For Profit" counterparts have fewer choices in terms of operations.. My point is aimed at Non-Profits and Charities, not "For Profit" operations, which you seem to be comparing incorrectly.

What is human nature? A complex array of interactions, emotions, and systems of belief that conjures up a myriad of potential outcomes. I guess for me I look to the future as much as I look to the past. A great thought of the nature of existence is that time is arbitrary, consequences are not. We can measure time based on human terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and centuries, but how can we measure consequences. This is just me musing on the nature of existence, we base our lives on something like time, but in reality, what we should focus on is causality, which creates the basis of who we are. For instance, How did this guy get so old? Seems simple right, time passes by. He's 10 years older, 20 years older, and so on, but in fact, time doesn't exist as you see it. It's an arbitrary plane of dimension. If I were on a different planet with a longer orbital path, where a year passes by relative to us at 2.5x, then 10 years is 25 years and 20 years is 50 years. Maybe, he's old due to his depth of experiences. A common 3rd dimensional view and something writers have played with for ages. You gain experiences and grow a character through it. However, depth does not make you old, it makes you grow. What if the measure of age is not in length, width, nor depth, but consequence itself? I am musing into the metaphysics and the concept of a 4th dimensional framework toward interpretation beyond time and relativity, but into the effects that are created by every interaction. In this view, a 10 year old can be 20 years old due to all the consequences of his life, just as a 20 years old can be compared to a 5 years old due to all the consequences of his life. People argue about age and experience, but what I am thinking is age without framework of time.

Calais is pretty

Based on my accounting experience and the costs associated with non-profit health care organizations, I would counter that you are wrong. Data costs beyond the lower level analyst and data input positions are not cheap, nor is contracting on an annual basis, because these costs are not capitalize. (Now if you were creative, and used a cost to completion method to tie these things together, then yes you could cost them out at a cheaper rate on the books at least. I hate it when people do this as they are basically lying through their teeth, cost of completion method only pushes costs forwards, not account for full contract costs.) Now all this is also dependent on US geographic area, major metropolitan areas are much more expensive than rural areas in terms of these personnel staff, though not contracting. Take for example a simple data warehouse, how much does it cost in the UK? I've got a cost quotes of $10K on average in my quotes ranging between $20K Cisco and $6.5K INX systems, a local based IT provider. Even if I chose the lower cost provider, it is a big annual costs to maintain with infrastructure maintenance costs. In addition, I would like to see how you can place a challenge that the costs of data is inherently the same between both of our systems as European regulators operate on a different precept than American industries. I've worked in this field far longer than you have in specialty on costs within modern legal and regulatory frameworks as defined by American States and Federal law, along with industry guidelines, I feel you don't understand where costs are coming through within the system. PS: I graduated at age 20 with bachelors and 21 with master's while working. Even though you're 1 year older than me, I actually have seen a lot more of the industry. Edit: Need to avoid getting a confrontation over topics in my own blog, unless I want to Rename this WL's Soapbox

True, including the horse part However, if you really want to have fun, Queen Elizabeth could reclaim the hereditary title of Queen of France Wonder if there are still any French Royalists left to support her claim. Imagine how well the French would take it, hehe!

The average costs of US non-profit IT has been going up. Salaries for IT personnel goes about 50-60K, then contracts for data warehousing, licenses with Microsoft/Oracle/Cisco (These guys charge for everything you do), and external servers around another 50K, and I have not even factored in the costs of Computer and Telephone equipment refresh, which usually would be considered a capital factor, not a direct expense. In Europe and UK, you guys have basically created fixed prices for data management based on what I heard about your data regulations, which is not true for the US as we don't regulate data flows.

I saw the posting in the Soapbox and I promised not to get involved in any debates in there, but I have to at least correct some people's understanding on how non-profits work. I hear people say, "You are scamming us and not giving our money to charity." a lot, since I've worked with charities and foundations in the past. I have worked with charities, sat on their boards as an unpaid director, and generally understand why on the accounting side of thing, it's hard to make them functional. 1st. A modern charity or non-profit needs to meet a large list of compliance items, basically governmental and financial regulations, which means that a public charity needs to pay for 1 admin and 1 finance staff at least. Most charities don't pay well, but they need to at least be able to match 20% of market average value for a staff accountant and admin, so $40K and $30K respectively per year in their salaries before the added costs of health insurance and taxes (Yes Non-profit have to pay employment taxes, too). 2nd. Banking costs, like any business that has high amounts of transactions, bank charges transaction fees. It can range from 3-5% of all donations, just for incoming costs. Outgoing costs for checks disbursement heading to help the poor, disabled, or others means another 3-5% is taken out. You already lost 6-10% on bank fees alone, so the concept of a charity giving 99% of their donations to people is already impossible. Don't blame charities for how banks screw them over. 3rd The sad part about charities is that they cannot keep up volunteer work force without offering these volunteers an incentive, i.e. pizza, soda, and other things. Then, there is rental costs for the area and utility bills. All that stuff costs money and it totals up exponentially as the year continues. A single week phone-a-thon can easily hit $5K. 4th Have you guys ever wondered how charities keep track of their records and protect people's personal information if they donated via credit card? Think IT department and/or outside contractors. Most accredited charities have IT departments, because you need to protect credit card and bank account information of the donors from cyber criminals. A small sized one person IT department costs around $100K a year to run. In grand total, if I had $1 million dollars in donations, I could probably only give out $630K-720K or between 60-70% of all donations. The costs grow exponentially with the size of your organization and how much compliance, overhead, and security must be enabled. This is why charities aren't working well, it's not just due to scams, but the reality is they need to pay the bills. It is also one reason, why I don't believe in simple charity, but instead want to train people and help them directly through volunteering time.

Death is manifested by human actions, beyond the limits of right and wrong. All choices lead to death, but how you arrive is where the story will take you.

Which Way Do You Want To Die? By W.L (Foreword: Death is the final destination, the undiscovered country, and the only truth to all existence. There is no avoiding it as nothing that is created can last forever, nothing that is built can hold together, and nothing that is crafted can keep its beauty. However, the path to death is what truly defines life and gives it meaning and purpose.) In the Beginning, there was light…I know you’ve all heard something like that a million times, probably on

ummm...Harlan Ellison is still alive. He's my favorite living science fiction writer left. You know Star Trek the Original Series writer of "City on the edge of forever", Twilight zone/Outer limits story writer, Babylon 5 source writer/"Creative consultant", and his most infamous piece: "A boy and his dog".

I love gravitation, you need to read the EX manga. What type of anime are you into? Yaoi and Shonen-ai get mixed up a lot. Also, do you like cos play, magic, or psychological. Sukisho was cool, but I must warn you that it is very suggestive. What mainstream anime do you like? Are you a manga follower?

Ray Bradbury was a prophet, he basically predicted the late 20th century media driven world. May he rest in peace with the other great science fiction writers of the 20th century. Let's hope that book burnings don't happen, but if they do, I still got my tablet full of stories that I will never be able to finish

Cap punishment debate in soap please, As for lin, i can sympathize, the Chinese view a man's place in society as the carrier of the name and lineage. To be openly gay basically throw centuries of traditions out and make an enemy of many family members. It takes alot of courage or planning.

I thought the PM said that Canada's postal system was inspecting the packages to prevent any more body parts from appearing in the mail. I hope no kids saw the severed limbs or else they will be scarred for life.

Yeah, but if we follow the track record of Henry, wouldn't that put Camilla in danger of getting axed, figuratively and literally Queen Elizabeth is a class act, there are few royal heads of state with her poise, integrity, and general disposition anymore. If King William and Queen Kate can be half as good as her, the monarchy should last decades to come. Anyway, how were the pubs during the Jubilee? Did they have specials on everything except Guiness

I know this might not be everyone's favorite part about games, but I like it nonetheless. Currently, Sins of a Solar Empire is my favorite for modding purposes as I love adjusting the minute details of creating custom planets, ships, and weapons. I know there are mods out for Star Trek, Stargate, and Babylon 5, there are even teams of players developing their own fictional stories based on the game play platform. As a kid, several games got me into the recreation of modding games, one of them was Homeworld. After watching giant space battles on TV, I always wanted to be the one to lead the fleets into titanic struggles against overwhelming odds, too. Other great games for modding include Age of Empire II, Rise of Nations, and FPS games like Halo: Combat evolved on PC. As writers, we create stories in print and develop characters through experience. The same can be said of Modders as well, who create whole worlds with sleepless nights of editing, modelling shapes, and patching sprites. Anyone else have thoughts about modding?

Don't worry y_b , you and i are probably grade c meat Come to think of it, i wonder if there has ever been an Asian meet up.

Does that make George Washington an Assassin? Or are Assassins and Masons, synonymous? This will be an epic game, can't wait.

Now I remember the name I forgot, Jeffrey Dahmer, the US serial killer, who target gay men. This guy just rings of the M.O right down to the dismemberment and necrophilia. James, I don't think people will see this as a reflection on gay guys as let's face it, the victim was also gay (unless you want to separate gay guys into groups with the bottoms being the least likely to go nuts ).

Agreed, don't make me get back into the soapbox before the right time By the way, does anyone know where this psycho was heading? I've been to Berlin and know the place a little, I doubt that he'd travel half way around the world to go to there (Unless he is so deluded to think the wall hasn't fallen yet). Though, the Chinese population has grown tremendously by what I heard and saw in the city, which is kind of creepy that a few months ago, a serial killer might have been staking out places where I had my trip. Also, it's such an American thing to be traveling by air in Europe, the HoF in Germany is far superior to the airlines like Lufthansa in my opinion, unless he was heading towards a foreign location outside the train network.

We only hate king George, if it was Queen Liz, we would throw a parade for her!

I won't lie part of me was afraid that a gay Asian targeting serial killer, who seeks dismemberment and necrophilia, was out there. I knew being gay was dangerous, but i don't think anyone thought it could be so bad. This is not a bad reflection on gay guys, nor a sad reflection on Canadian mental health. It is simply a tragedy and i am glad he got caught, even though the French let him pass thru without incident.

Yeah, I think most of us had the same hopes. At least make it one of the heroes that we can relate to. Maybe Marvel will create a new superhero that we could be happy with. Anyone has a new idea for a superhero? design? Back story? Love interests? Name?

You can say the same for Hockey and Football as well, both had their own walk out issues. I do agree with you the NCAA are much more fun to watch as these players are trying to prove themselves and get better. I don't watch high school games after high school. Besides, I grew up in the era of Jordan with a dad who was a big fan of the old Celtics of the 80's, even though most people of my generation remember only Mike, without the rest of the Bulls (plus Rodman and Pippen, who was a hothead himself, but he got some humble pie in '94-95) at his side he'd be in trouble, too. Basketball at the NBA level should be about good team work and integrating all your strengths together into a strong and versatile dynamic. It is why the Knicks haven't made it to the finals or even semi-finals in years, no amount of money and talent can create a team. No matter how good you are personally, your team is what should matter.