pmjordan

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331.
by pmjordan 14y ago
IIRC, in Austria, cash tips are tax-exempt, but exactly what constitutes a tip (and who can receive them) is defined by tight rules. I suspect it might be similar in Germany.
332.
by pmjordan 14y ago
With $2.1m in funding, I suspect it might not be too hard to get E2 visas. (non-resident visa for the purpose of managing an investment in the US) They also recently relaxed the rules on self sponsoring H1Bs if the company has enough cash.
333.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Mozilla and its successors, Firefox and Thunderbird are actually built on XUL[1], which is an XML-based UI description language which can be mixed with HTML and SVG, styled with CSS and programmed just like HTML with JavaScript. Then there'
334.
by pmjordan 14y ago
You might want to disable the data roaming setting in the "Cellular Data" section of the phone's Settings. It actually defaults to off in my experience, but maybe some SIM-locked ones have it enabled by the carrier by default? Otherwise, I
335.
by pmjordan 14y ago
It's actually not the rendering engine but interpretation of code downloaded from the netwOrk (i.e. JavaScript) which must use Apple's interpreter. That interpreter happens to be tied into their browser, so using it for other things is impr
336.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I've had certain websites require VbV for purchases. I can only assume the transaction fees are lower for such transactions, or they got some kind of other deal from their merchant bank. The worst part is the information required for the
337.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Microsoft are keen to position Windows 8 on ARM as "just like Windows 8 on x86," when in fact it is nothing of the sort.
338.
by pmjordan 14y ago
This is by and large a very minor point. I typically define a macro similar to this: #ifdef __cplusplus #define CFUN extern "C" #else #define CFUN #endif and mark any C-callable functions with it. Easy. The real linkage probl
339.
by pmjordan 14y ago
While Mobile Safari was a trailblazer in terms of mobile browser experience, I get the impression Apple no longer cares about it since doing a 180 from their "no native apps" stance. It's phenomenal how often that thing crashes on my iPad (
340.
by pmjordan 14y ago
This obviously depends on your environment. I don't recommend doing this in embedded devices or an OS kernel (this is probably why even C++ OS kernels have exceptions disabled, and no STL implementation). But if you're just an app running i
341.
by pmjordan 14y ago
If you think your biggest problem is forcing your team to use the prescribed language or language subset, it probably isn't.
342.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I think it's probably worth knowing the language and at least trying out all of it. Holding an opinion from an ignorant position is just blind dogma. Who knows, you might discover a delightfully useful facet.
343.
by pmjordan 14y ago
While it isn't a strict superset, there aren't any C features you can't use in C++, unless you count lack of pointer type safety as a feature . This was the original point I was making (and note how I didn't say it was an actual superset
344.
by pmjordan 14y ago
If you're happy for your program to crash on memory alloc failure, just don't handle them. It's often perfectly acceptable to do so.
345.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a real contender for a C++ replacement. I just don't understand the attitude that because some aspect of C++ is distasteful, going back to pure C is the answer.
346.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I wouldn't go so far as to actually turn of exceptions at the compiler level. I just see no need to use them in my own code. And as for failing STL allocations: a lot of the time you realistically can't recover anyway, and where you can and
347.
by pmjordan 14y ago
This strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. While the criticisms are valid, and people love to hate C++ for all sorts of reasons (I avoid C++ exceptions altogether), C++ is for practical purposes a superset of C, so if a
348.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Strange procedure, but I wouldn't be surprised if your accountant knew more about this than the bureaucrats at the Finanzamt or the SVA. In my experience, the former are friendly but useless and the latter are hostile, inefficient and usele
349.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I assume the grandparent post is referring to the staggering amount of cash they've been burning. (personally: who am I to judge - they've clearly convinced investors they're on the right track)
350.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Generally, it doesn't allow you to walk the list given the pointer to an entry. You always need to know the addresses of two adjacent list entries. And yes, this limits its usefulness in practice. I tend to only need doubly linked lists whe
351.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Pretty much everything looks like a memory address. There is currently a memory address "hole" on x86_64 which doesn't, but any number between -140737488355328 and 140737488355327 can represent a virtual memory address. Prefetching any occu
352.
by pmjordan 14y ago
There's always -ansi -pedantic -std=c99 I actually find some of the GCC extensions quite nice for correctness. I assume #defines that expand to nothing on other compilers still class as "GCC gunk" though. :-)
353.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Interesting. I specifically asked at both the SVA and the Finanzamt and they both told me it wasn't possible. Well, too late for me, unfortunately, I got screwed in 2010 and I'm about to shut down my business in Austria anyway.
354.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Or the claim that it's a financial burden. Layoffs involve expensive severance payments.
355.
by pmjordan 14y ago
It's a terrible deal because you have to pay your top marginal income tax rate (37.5-50%) of your "good" year on that money that isn't even yours, which you otherwise wouldn't, as social security payments are tax-deductible. In the "bad" ye
356.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Veering into the crash barrier of off-topicness, but... How did you get screwed in Austria? It's hard to overstate how much the SVA (the social security provider for self-employed people) annoys me. The amount you pay them in theory depen
357.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Yes, there is also a strong bias against employing non-natives (or at least non-Germanics) in Austria, orthogonal to the other issues, which was quite shocking after living the previous years of my adult life in the UK, which has a much mor
358.
by pmjordan 14y ago
To be clear: collective bargaining normally only sets minimum conditions. You're free to negotiate for more, the employer just might not go with it. And I know what you mean about foreign clients: the majority of my contracting revenue ha
359.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I don't know if it's still the case, but bankers used to receive 16 salaries in Austria. The 4 bonus months presumably taxed at the low rate. That said, it's irrelevant if you get paid 14 salaries or 12 salaries that are 1/6th higher and co
360.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Some context/perspective on the Austrian employment situation: * Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate

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