Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Bouncing, Taxing, Releasing
"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.He also provides this link to the full, uninterrupted text.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.'"
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."
"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" Does that mean my hand gesture just cost me 9.17%???
Automatics are for old men
Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation.
...
Hey Florida engineers : I have a whole lot of 2BaseT networking equipment for sale, so you can get a tax break! Man, I never thought I'd be able to do something with that crap.
Florida sure knows how to promote the concept of *old*
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm sure the airlines, hotels, and amusement parks (ie Disney/MGM, Universal, etc.), all of whom use extensive computer networks in their operations, are going to be hopping mad about getting slapped with another tax. Ultimately though, that tax WILL be passed to the end users, just as those airport, taxi, and room taxes are charged on visitors in many jurisdictions.
And what exactly was the point of charging this tax in the first place? Is Florida a little too prosperous for their politicans? Do they feel the need to drive some of their economy to adjoining states?
An "Amen" goes out to Caseywest...
This little school system I work for has been beaten to death by these virus notifications lately due primarily to Sobig.F. I'm proud to be one of the people who saw this problem coming up back in June and went and disabled the automatic reply feature...even though I still get an alert myself. What annoys me even more are these virus scanners that "remove" the virus (still may have an executable attached), but go ahead and pass on the email to the "lucky" user.
Moral of the story... The virus writers have gotten "smarter". PLEASE, disable those $#%@ notifications, for they do more harm now than good.
Thanks.
OK, I'm stoopid and all but what part of
/dev/null'ing viruses are trivial.
/dev/nell comment alone was one hell of a hint that he's *probably* on a *nix box.
don't run any windows computers, and
led you to believe that he runs Outlook? Hell the
Please be patient, I'm a work in progress! --Alan Jackson
Considering slashdot readers don't do a great job of reading the actual sites that are posted here, I don't see what the problem is.
Please help metamoderate.
. Microsoft Outlook 2002 has an inferior interface to Mozilla Messenger.
No, it doesn't. Also, Messenger doesn't have a calendar.
2. Microsoft Outlook is riddled with security holes that are never patched because Microshaft would rather threaten so-called "hackers" under the DCMA.
No, it isn't. If you believe it is, post references.
3. Microsoft Outlook has no spam filter.
Wrong again. It has one built in. It's called a "junkmail filter" though.
4. Microsoft Outlook insists on using HTML and displays all images including web bugs.
No, it doesn't. You can tell it whether to use RTF, HTML or plain text for emails.
5. Microsoft Outlook is closed-source.
Big whoop.
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.
No, it's not. And no, it doesn't. Outlook works happily with POP3 and IMAP as well as Exchange. What you get from Exchange is centralized email, centralized contacts handling, and centralized calendaring/scheduling.
7. Microsoft Outlook costs $100 per seat. Netscape Messenger costs $0 per seat.
Ok, you go that right. Kind of. IFF you buy it in a store, it will cost you $109/seat. If you get it elsewhere, it's cheaper. Especially in volume.
In short, I predict that Microsoft Outlook will be dead within 3 months.
Will you be willing to jump up and down and say "I'm an idiot" if you're wrong? Or are you going to be like every other psychic and fraud?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Email needs to be reliable communication medium. If a message can not be delivered, it has to be returned to the sender. It is absolutely unacceptable to simply discard a message.
Want a better idea? Try _blocking_ the message. When I see any executable attachment in a message, my server does not accept the message. It returns a 5xx series message and tells the person to resend it without the attachment. I do the same thing for common virus Subject: lines. The message is rejected with a 5xx error and the user is told to change the subject line.
Although I agree that bouncing a message with a virus sucks, entirely too many legitimate messages are already bounced for various reasons. If a sender can not be sure an email was received or rejected, then email will become as useless as usenet.
One thing that should never happen is notifying the postmaster of a domain that a message contained a virus. I get this all the time. Some anti-virus gateway receives a message claiming to be from someone at a domain that I administer. Instead of just bouncing the message, their software also notifies postmaster@mydomain.com to let _ME_ know that my user has a virus.
The only problem being that the original message was a forgery and has nothing to do with me or my domains. These people take a bad problem, (a virus) and make it worse by DOUBLING the number of messages sent. How idiotic is that? Anytime I see one of those messages, I put that persons entire domain in my blacklist and I will not remove it until I am notified that they have stopped such a stupid practice.
-sirket
"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."
Why do the uninformed have the loudest voice?
Governments should tax things ONLY to raise revenue.
Where did this idea that Governments should use taxes as tools of social engineering ever get started?
I hope the original poster's intent was to point out that the government should think about the ripple effects of taxes, and the resulting net gain in revenue over time. It is not true that raising taxes always increases revenue. In fact, given current taxing I dare say raising taxes will always decrease revenue in the long run as people and businesses leave or generally become less successful.