Slashback: Bouncing, Taxing, Releasing

Tonight's Slashback brings you more on Florida's LAN-taxation proposal, the BBC's public archive (which won't be quite as big as you might have hoped), one user's plea to those who respond to viruses, and more. Read on for the details. They're taxing whatnow and hownow? Chad Eric Watt, author of the story posted yesterday on Florida's proposal to tax LANs, writes with a helpful clarification:

"The layout of our Web page doesn't do a great job of showing that the story continues on a second page. That's where I explain what is up for taxing.

Quoting the story now:

'...That brings them under the purview of the proposed rule, which includes computer networks as 'substitute communications systems' -- subject to a 9.17 percent state tax, plus local option taxes.

In Orange County, the local tax typically runs between 5.5 percent and 6.5 percent. That would bring the total tax to between 14-15 percent.

[end of first page, you hafta click to get to the rest of the story]

Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation.'"

He also provides this link to the full, uninterrupted text.

Willie Sutton has met his betters. Syphtor writes "DE Tech has responded to a reporters inquiries as to their patent claims (DE Tech refuses to say why NZ firms were targeted first) DE Tech appeared previously in the /. article, Australian Gov't Moves To Block E-commerce Patent. Latest: the patent has been just granted in Virginia 'after five years of making changes in the application.'
Legitimate protection of IP or a 'fishing expedition worthy of a Sicilian Mafia protection racket.'?"

Well, not releasing everything, No, not as such, that is, you see ... An anonymous reader writes "According to this press release from the BBC, the 'BBC creative archive' (earlier on slashdot) will not be as full as previously assumed. As the page says, 'The BBC Creative Archive would make selected BBC material universally available for private not commercial use in the UK.' (my emphasis) Looks like we won't be able to get the Hitchhiker's Guide and complete works of Monty Python after all, folks."

Who, really, is Peter Lynds, and how old is he? evil_one666 writes "You may remember that Slashdot reported a few weeks ago on ground-breaking work in the understanding of time. Well, it appears that it was all a hoax. While the Guardian is running a story that suggests several interesting conspiracy theories (although they seem to think that Peter Lynds is in fact legitimate), Museumofhoaxes.com present some convincing evidence that he is in fact a 17-year-old student at the same radio college at which he claimed to be a 27-year old-lecturer. Astute Slashdot readers rightly pointed out some big red flags, the first time the topic was aired, and Cesar Sirvent, a researcher in the field, has a list of links related to the controversy here."

Outlook Express not yet left out to rot. dr. electron writes "As stated previously on Slashdot, Outlook was to be slaughtered. Now MS says, in a article on Internet Magazine, it won't be, but developed further. They blame communication problem inside the company about the previous press release. Maybe the ongoing development of Outlook Express isn't the biggest news here, I find the reason 'communication problem' a bit odd (It's not a small decision to kill a product)."

Speaking of Outlook and anguish: caseywest, among others, has had enough blame redirected into his email box. He writes "This is my plea, my Public Service Announcement. Please, please stop bouncing email viruses! I don't run any windows computers, and /dev/null'ing viruses are trivial. I cannot, however, say that this problem is only a Windows-only menace. My email address is plastered all over the internet. As a result, I'm receiving thousands of bounced messages claiming I sent a virus. This is costly, let alone wrong! I didn't send you that virus! If you admin an email server, please answer chromatic's one question test. If you're bouncing email viruses, please reconfigure your filters to send viruses to /dev/null, and save us all money on bandwidth, hard disk space, and general anguish. Thank you."

Comments

Re:Whiner

[Seth Finklestein]

Excellent post.

I recently read a magazine article that claimed that "more than 90% of the Fortune 500 use Microsoft Outlook." Why is this?

1. Microsoft Outlook 2002 has an inferior interface to Mozilla Messenger.
2. Microsoft Outlook is riddled with security holes that are never patched because Microshaft would rather threaten so-called "hackers" under the DCMA.
3. Microsoft Outlook has no spam filter.
4. Microsoft Outlook insists on using HTML and displays all images including web bugs.
5. Microsoft Outlook is closed-source.
6. Microsoft Outlook requires you to install Microsoft Exchange server, which costs $20,000 per license and is also closed-source. It also runs exclusively under Windows "Server," which is just Windows NT Workstation 2000 (or whatever it's called) with a different registry entry.
7. Microsoft Outlook costs $100 per seat. Netscape Messenger costs $0 per seat.

In short, I predict that Microsoft Outlook will be dead within 3 months.

Re: Well, not releasing everything

[Artifakt]

I'm not at all sure that US citizens have any special right to access here (as opposed to say the citizens of France or Afghanistan), but it's possible they do. Lendlease and other WW2 programs sank some US money into the British entertainment industry - at the very least this included recording some music and prooducing some film footage such as used for the Victory at Sea series. How much, if any, went towards TV programming, building or upgrading studios, and so on is something on which I have never seen a straight answer from either the British government or the US GAO. It looks at least possible US citizens have some special status in re access to these files, and it would be nice to get that point cleared up.

Re:Wrong

[Skjellifetti]

Ok. Under Reagan, inflation recovered from the Jimmy Carter mess very quickly, and remained very low for the rest of the 80's bottoming out at 1.86% in 1986, so inflation didn't play a very big roll in that (source).

Wasn't Reagan that did that, it was Fed Chairman Paul Volker, a Carter appointee, who drastically cut growth in the money supply. Inflation had been building in the system due to Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter all running deficits while the Fed played fast and loose with the money supply.

I contend that the Reagan supply side economics helped the economy grow.

Probably did as much damage, long term, as help. You won't be getting as much Social Security. What the deficits did then and do now is allow this generation to spend profligately while making our children pay the bill. But then, how young are you? Maybe that's not such a bad idea...

Actually, public debt as a % of the GDP was higher under Clinton than under Reagan (source).

Actually, those figures you cited are mostly Bush I administration. The numbers only go to 1995 and do not include the surpluses generated in the later years of the Clinton administration.

The defense spending invested heavily in technology, and that helped the hi tech industries grow.

Mr. Cato Institute man, you can't have it both ways. Why do you believe the Defense Dept is better at picking high tech winners than private industry? Shouldn't DARPA funds be cut and the taxes returned to hard working Americans who will let good ol' capitalism sort out the winning ideas from the losers? Or do you only apply your Libertarian notions to gov't departments that you don't like?

If you carefully read the Cato cruft, it is easy to see that they have artfully defined each of their measures to show their guy (Reagan) in the best light. But the measures are usually falaciacious. Why so is left as an excercise for the student since I have to go to work early to hang onto the job I am lucky enough to still have under the Bush II administration.