Luckily, FairTax would abolish the idea of taxing virtual economies altogether, at least from what I've read and understand. Only services and first-hand goods are taxed, used items are not. Since you never purchased the virtual items to begin with, there is nothing to tax.
One small question arises from companies like Sony and SecondLife that sell virtual goods. Obviousy your monthly access fee would be taxed (recall that under FairTax, income is not taxed, only spending, so it's simply moving your tax due to your spending instead of income).
fairtax.org I don't like fair tax. A 40% tax when you're making $20k can be the difference between having enough money to rent and not being able to afford it. A 40% tax at $200k means you might not be able to afford that nice lakehouse and boat on which you will sip fine alcoholic beverages. Because the economy isn't fair, and encourages you to exploit anything and everything to the detriment of everyone else, and because you benefit more from a stables society when you're making $200k/year than when you're only making $20k/year, taxes should be a higher percentage if your pay is higher. Not enough to remove the incentive to move up in income, but enough so that the tax reflects the benefit you gain from a secure country.
We need a system that taxes wealth (when your money works for you), but not income (still have to work for your money).
And what environmental factors could possible cause that on the moon, which has no atmosphere or tectonic activity?
Static electricity is one thing that keeps moving dust around on the moon. And then there's ejected material from meteor impacts (with gravity that low, stuff kicked up by meteors can travel quite far)
There is also space dust that is constantly falling onto the moon, earth, etc; I forget at what rate. I think it's 1" every 1000 years or something. That would definitely be something to worry about over a period of 50 years.
How is it tha I pirate music all the time and nobody comes after me, but the RIAA seems to go after many people who clearly have no evidence against them? Spoken like a true anonymous coward...
and I am not joking. Since it is often said that we should not worry about net neutrality issues at all and that "free market" and competition will take care of any issues. Keep in mind a good rule of thumb is that when the big ballers proclaim the wonders of the free market and how it will all take care of itself, they most certainly need to be regulated with regards to the subject at hand.
And when the free market happens to them? They go complaining to the government to bail them out, like Delta did when they almost went bankrupt. (In Delta's case they were throwing around $200m retirement packages like candy. No concern for the company, just themselves. True Capitalists. Which was fine with me, except that when the free market took it's toll the government gave them our money to keep them running.)
This could create an environment where corrupt officials are afraid of citizens. That's awesome.
Totally agree. I was just musing about 'in the meantime' when they aren't and this sort of initiative causes flash events that in the short-term may get innocent people's asses kicked/thrown in jail.
I've been thinking for some time now that my next phone upgrade will not only have a camera, but be capable of recording at least 320x240 resolution video at >15fps. Why? For the reasons you all just state.
I didn't want a phone that does more than call people, but then I thought "think of how much safer you would be from abuse if you were recording the incident". Even better, perhaps in 7-8 years our phones might be able to automatically stream the recording to the storage in our wireless enabled cars. What's the cop going to do then? Rip open the dashboard, yank out the communications system?
We may not even have to force this issue; one day the technology may solve it for us in a much less violent, more effect manner.
Wait...So console makers do the whole "morality police" thing regarding what games are released on their consoles? WTF?
No. Console makers do the whole "sales protection" thing regarding what games are released. Their motivation is not to police morality, but to ensure they don't alienate a large portion of the market.
Like it or not, a lot of parents factor in whether content is appropriate when deciding what to buy their kids. And if one console says they won't allow AO content, then a lot of parents will choose that console. You know, as opposed to the PARENTS not allowing the AO content or something. No, we can't have that. That would be too difficult. As for downloadable content, if the parents are so lazy as to not fire up the console every weekend themselves and check it out, Microsoft has you covered...
My interest in the plug-in matrix type game is to visit the billions of places I'll never afford to be able to go, or that simply aren't possible. How about being a noble in the dark ages? Or a knight in a battle? Or be king in your own fantasy world and run the universe. These sorts of "games" would not only be entertaining to the inquisitive type, but would be quite educating as well, both in the strictly historical sense, yet also in the real life sense-- where else would you learn the complexities of running a kingdom? Where could you spar "for real" without fear of getting hurt?
But in reality, games will be the same they are now, there will be enough cool new features here and there to get you to buy it, but none more; else what would they put in the next game? We'll get the same old same old from the usuals, marketed to heaven and shipped from hell.
You can argue that it is necessary to keep Bush in power to fight terrorism, and if people will really do anything to keep flying, this will result in a continual majority for the GOP! No, those people you'd have to force to vote liberal. Those people already DO vote republican.
You forgot being able to watch a recording on your laptop while on the toilet. I'm puzzled as to why MythTV doesn't advertise this feature a bit more, since it's one of my favorites. The only recordings I can imagine someone watching on their laptop certainly aren't something recorded on normal television.... **on their laptop on the toilet
You forgot being able to watch a recording on your laptop while on the toilet. I'm puzzled as to why MythTV doesn't advertise this feature a bit more, since it's one of my favorites. The only recordings I can imagine someone watching on their laptop certainly aren't something recorded on normal television....
What can we gather from all this? Evidently, the great secret and the power of the new craft are its propulsive 'engines' which may or may not be magnetic in nature. Therefore, if they are so radical, I wonder if they can only work within the atmosphere, or if they indeed have been used to go to other nearby bodies in space? No. Just no. The energy requirements for running what is the equivalent of a giant Ionic Breeze air purifier at that scale at that speed are astronomical, literally. As is flying a nuclear reactor. (Can be done; this has been discussed previously in relation to attaching lasers to Boeing 747's.) But you've got to find a way to keep it cool, too (same issue they're trying to overcome now with the laser/747 project).
(although China Vs. the US or Russia in a nuclear shootout would not result in MAD, it would results in the US or Russia being mauled and China being utterly destroyed) No it wouldn't.
Too many politician in the pockets of businessmen. They'd never let that happen.
One of the key functions of RIM-style e-mail is that the server tells the phone that it has to download something instead of the phone polling the server if there is something to do. It is useful if you need to be informed of something immediately after the e-mail arrives instead of waiting until the next scheduled contact.
With reduced cost per megabyte, higher data rates and increased battery life, this is becoming less and less relevant. I am completely happy with my IMAP, mainly because, when I really need to know, my server sends me an SMS that arrives in less than 10 seconds. You pay 10c for every one of those messages? Or the horribly overpiced $10/month for unlimited texts?
It is all about optics... It doesn't matter that their computers are insecure... obviously the problem is that the fact that their computers are insecure should be a top-secret fact. It is not something that they feel needs to be fixed. They are only there for the illusion.
--jeffk++ Further, they have a vested interest in allowing these sorts of things to happen. That way they can go "See? We told you to give up those rights..."
It should be cheap regardless; we already paid $200b for it 20-ish years ago. If they had spent that money like they were supposed to, by October 2006 we'd all have had 45Mbit pipes going to all our homes (yes, even the ones way out in the country).
Then all they'd have to do is buy more Cisco routers to handle the OC-48's and they wouldn't have to pay anything but maintenance.
All I hear is companies whining that their monopolopy isn't paying enough. Can't wait to see the prices we'll be paying to ATT in 10 years. There's a reason the government split them up in the first place.
As for the profits, compared to other industries, oil really isn't that special. Chevron made $0.09 for every dollar sold, the computer tech (motherboards/CPUs/etc) companies averaged some $0.13/dollar, and another common sector we don't fuss about, that I can't recall right now, made $0.11 on the dollar. **in 2006
But they are all played by guys. The real surprise is when it turns out to be an actual female. It used to be that way, but these days with the influx of newbies, most players don't seem to realise that most female characters are played by males. It's amazing how many players start hitting on my gf's female blood elf character within 2 minutes of meeting her (she's always helping lowbies find the flight master or set their hearthstones or whatever) - surely her typing can't be that feminine? >.> I've always played male characters as my 'serious' alts but this one time I rolled a female night elf priest (have you seen male night elves? bletch!) and ended up with a male nelf druid following me around 'helping' me. ><
On the main topic, though - why does it matter if it's an 11-year-old kid, a 42-year-old mother of three, a college drop out, or an IT worker on the other end of that mage? If he or she is courteous, skilled, and knowledgeable then s/he deserves respect regardless of any other factor. That's where online games, and indeed the internet in general, are great - they let you meet the person without prejudice based on appearance, age, gender, or any other factor (except literacy, I guess...:) Why should it matter if that person is currently living in the body of an 11yo boy or a grey-whiskered tabletop RPGer? As you hint at, it struck me immediately that the only problem here is the submitter's pride. He thinks Voice Chat killed the mood; what killed the mood was him realizing he was having his ass handed to him on a golded platter for hours straight over and over by an 11 year old. He didn't like feeling like a noob. Pure pwnage on the 11 year old's part.
In contrast to the submitter's perspective, I found voice chat to be a godsend in WoW when I still played it. Without it you lose the human element of the game, and you forget the noob on the other end (this was other people sometimes, but also myself many times over) is still human. This is only a bad thing. Text conversations fall to hissy fits much faster than they do when you're talking with someone.
I guess I can understand how people would object to this, but honestly, at this point, I don't really care. I had to fill up my gas tank today, and it almost gave me a heart attack. (And before people reply with "drive less", I drive the least I can, I use cruise control and I don't have the AC on if I don't completely need it, etc, etc, etc.)
If Google can help create a car that runs on whatever and doesn't cost a shitload to power up, then let them put their software in it (would you rather have Windows running in it:) ). I realize people haven't been trusting Google as much lately, but I trust them more then the oil companies.
Of course, that's not saying a lot.
You know, the oil companies really aren't at blame here. Combined they only own ~5% of the world's oil. The rest is owned by actual nations. And there is now competition for the oil where there wasn't before. With the global economic growth (places like India) and particularly China, whose consumption has grown some 400% in the past 10 years, America isn't the only country that is buying the oil anymore.
Just be happy US currency is the only currency oil is currently sold for. (Saddam Hussein figured out that didn't have to be, and well, heh, look what happened to him.)
As for the profits, compared to other industries, oil really isn't that special. Chevron made $0.09 for every dollar sold, the computer tech (motherboards/CPUs/etc) companies averaged some $0.13/dollar, and another common sector we don't fuss about, that I can't recall right now, made $0.11 on the dollar.
Sorry I don't have any sources off the top of my head I can cite; so you'll just have to take this as hearsay. But I read the article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (NOT a conservative newspaper, so I'm more inclined to believe it) just Friday; it was a reprint of some writer in a Portland, Oregon journal.
If there is no bandwidth cap (it's slow enough they don't need a b/w cap) then this is a great deal in my opinion. I don't need that Linux ISO _right_ now.
The most annoying thing is they won't tell us who the 610 physicists are! If they us who they were then half of them would immediately collapse into nothingness in the same way shroedingers cat does.
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One small question arises from companies like Sony and SecondLife that sell virtual goods. Obviousy your monthly access fee would be taxed (recall that under FairTax, income is not taxed, only spending, so it's simply moving your tax due to your spending instead of income).
fairtax.org I don't like fair tax. A 40% tax when you're making $20k can be the difference between having enough money to rent and not being able to afford it. A 40% tax at $200k means you might not be able to afford that nice lakehouse and boat on which you will sip fine alcoholic beverages. Because the economy isn't fair, and encourages you to exploit anything and everything to the detriment of everyone else, and because you benefit more from a stables society when you're making $200k/year than when you're only making $20k/year, taxes should be a higher percentage if your pay is higher. Not enough to remove the incentive to move up in income, but enough so that the tax reflects the benefit you gain from a secure country.
We need a system that taxes wealth (when your money works for you), but not income (still have to work for your money).
There is also space dust that is constantly falling onto the moon, earth, etc; I forget at what rate. I think it's 1" every 1000 years or something. That would definitely be something to worry about over a period of 50 years.Static electricity is one thing that keeps moving dust around on the moon. And then there's ejected material from meteor impacts (with gravity that low, stuff kicked up by meteors can travel quite far)
I'm not sure what the problem was with your install, but it's miles faster than installing XP, as in 15 minutes opposed to 35.
And when the free market happens to them? They go complaining to the government to bail them out, like Delta did when they almost went bankrupt. (In Delta's case they were throwing around $200m retirement packages like candy. No concern for the company, just themselves. True Capitalists. Which was fine with me, except that when the free market took it's toll the government gave them our money to keep them running.)
This could create an environment where corrupt officials are afraid of citizens. That's awesome.
Totally agree. I was just musing about 'in the meantime' when they aren't and this sort of initiative causes flash events that in the short-term may get innocent people's asses kicked/thrown in jail.
I've been thinking for some time now that my next phone upgrade will not only have a camera, but be capable of recording at least 320x240 resolution video at >15fps. Why? For the reasons you all just state.I didn't want a phone that does more than call people, but then I thought "think of how much safer you would be from abuse if you were recording the incident". Even better, perhaps in 7-8 years our phones might be able to automatically stream the recording to the storage in our wireless enabled cars. What's the cop going to do then? Rip open the dashboard, yank out the communications system?
We may not even have to force this issue; one day the technology may solve it for us in a much less violent, more effect manner.
This seems to be the workings of the RI/MPAA. Makes perfect sense coinciding with the recent developments in the IsoHunt lawsuit.
Like it or not, a lot of parents factor in whether content is appropriate when deciding what to buy their kids. And if one console says they won't allow AO content, then a lot of parents will choose that console. You know, as opposed to the PARENTS not allowing the AO content or something. No, we can't have that. That would be too difficult. As for downloadable content, if the parents are so lazy as to not fire up the console every weekend themselves and check it out, Microsoft has you covered...
My interest in the plug-in matrix type game is to visit the billions of places I'll never afford to be able to go, or that simply aren't possible. How about being a noble in the dark ages? Or a knight in a battle? Or be king in your own fantasy world and run the universe. These sorts of "games" would not only be entertaining to the inquisitive type, but would be quite educating as well, both in the strictly historical sense, yet also in the real life sense-- where else would you learn the complexities of running a kingdom? Where could you spar "for real" without fear of getting hurt?
But in reality, games will be the same they are now, there will be enough cool new features here and there to get you to buy it, but none more; else what would they put in the next game? We'll get the same old same old from the usuals, marketed to heaven and shipped from hell.
You can argue that it is necessary to keep Bush in power to fight terrorism, and if people will really do anything to keep flying, this will result in a continual majority for the GOP! No, those people you'd have to force to vote liberal. Those people already DO vote republican.
Offtopic tho.
And I've heard this before. Well God forbid you have to read something you already know. Must be nothing to read in the world.
Nice try for informative mod points though.
Too many politician in the pockets of businessmen. They'd never let that happen.
With reduced cost per megabyte, higher data rates and increased battery life, this is becoming less and less relevant. I am completely happy with my IMAP, mainly because, when I really need to know, my server sends me an SMS that arrives in less than 10 seconds. You pay 10c for every one of those messages? Or the horribly overpiced $10/month for unlimited texts?
--jeffk++ Further, they have a vested interest in allowing these sorts of things to happen. That way they can go "See? We told you to give up those rights..."
It should be cheap regardless; we already paid $200b for it 20-ish years ago. If they had spent that money like they were supposed to, by October 2006 we'd all have had 45Mbit pipes going to all our homes (yes, even the ones way out in the country).
Then all they'd have to do is buy more Cisco routers to handle the OC-48's and they wouldn't have to pay anything but maintenance.
All I hear is companies whining that their monopolopy isn't paying enough. Can't wait to see the prices we'll be paying to ATT in 10 years. There's a reason the government split them up in the first place.
On the main topic, though - why does it matter if it's an 11-year-old kid, a 42-year-old mother of three, a college drop out, or an IT worker on the other end of that mage? If he or she is courteous, skilled, and knowledgeable then s/he deserves respect regardless of any other factor. That's where online games, and indeed the internet in general, are great - they let you meet the person without prejudice based on appearance, age, gender, or any other factor (except literacy, I guess...
Maybe he just needs to work on his uber micro.
In contrast to the submitter's perspective, I found voice chat to be a godsend in WoW when I still played it. Without it you lose the human element of the game, and you forget the noob on the other end (this was other people sometimes, but also myself many times over) is still human. This is only a bad thing. Text conversations fall to hissy fits much faster than they do when you're talking with someone.
If Google can help create a car that runs on whatever and doesn't cost a shitload to power up, then let them put their software in it (would you rather have Windows running in it
You know, the oil companies really aren't at blame here. Combined they only own ~5% of the world's oil. The rest is owned by actual nations. And there is now competition for the oil where there wasn't before. With the global economic growth (places like India) and particularly China, whose consumption has grown some 400% in the past 10 years, America isn't the only country that is buying the oil anymore.Of course, that's not saying a lot.
Just be happy US currency is the only currency oil is currently sold for. (Saddam Hussein figured out that didn't have to be, and well, heh, look what happened to him.)
As for the profits, compared to other industries, oil really isn't that special. Chevron made $0.09 for every dollar sold, the computer tech (motherboards/CPUs/etc) companies averaged some $0.13/dollar, and another common sector we don't fuss about, that I can't recall right now, made $0.11 on the dollar.
Sorry I don't have any sources off the top of my head I can cite; so you'll just have to take this as hearsay. But I read the article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (NOT a conservative newspaper, so I'm more inclined to believe it) just Friday; it was a reprint of some writer in a Portland, Oregon journal.
The important improvement would be the latency.
If there is no bandwidth cap (it's slow enough they don't need a b/w cap) then this is a great deal in my opinion. I don't need that Linux ISO _right_ now.
I'm happy with the Physidore 64.
Physicists often have many quarks abouts them.