What he said: the game should be about the players, not the refs.
In tennis, for example, the "hawkeye" system allows players to challenge a limited number of referee calls. This works really well: the players cannot challenge every call they dislike, but if they're convinced the call was wrong, they can.
Football (soccer) provides a counterexample: the offsides rule is difficult for the referee to enforce, and nearly impossible for a fan to genuinely see - you have to be looking in too many places at once. This results in yelling at the ref, not because you genuinely thing they were wrong, but because you have no idea, but the call went against your team.
The offsides rule could probably be better enforced with a "robot", however, that won't solve the problem for the fans. The actual problem is a rule that is too difficult to see/enforce. Fix the rule first, then think about introducing technological aids.
From what I've been reading, being liable to pay sales tax is even worse than you think. It's not just a matter of keeping track of the 10,000 or so different jurisdictions. It's much worse than that. Here's a quick overview of the issues as I understand them:
- Every jurisdiction has different rates (a combination of state, country, city, and possible other taxes).
- Different jurisdictions categorize products differently. Pre-prepped food? Food containing flour? Cloths? Work clothes? Every jurisdiction has an accumulation of exceptions and special considerations, and they are all different. So it's not only the tax rates by jurisdiction, it's the cross-product of the tax rates and the categorization of the particular products that you sell.
- You can't just send off a random check, and expect it to get cashed. If you are paying sales tax somewhere, you need to register so that they know who is paying them, and why. Of course, once you are registered, you have to file summary reports of how much you paid, for what sales, etc.. This report is typically due monthly, maybe quarterly in some places - and once you are registered, you have to file every period, even if you had no sales in that area. The specific reporting requirements also vary by jurisdiction.
- Finally, as a registered entity, you may be subject to other taxes and fees in addition to sales tax.
The court decision will have no immediate effect, but it will eventually lead to a completely untenable situation for all but the largest of businesses. This is a situation that only Congress can resolve: it is precisely interstate commerce, and precisely their responsibility to devise a fair and simple interstate solution. For example: set state-level average sales taxes, with zero variation and zero special categories, and require reporting only for periods where products are actually sold. Let the states distribute the taxes internally, however they see fit. Of course, that won't happen, because Congress is incapable of actually doing its job ("Go do nothing somewhere else"). Watch the lobbying dollars flow...
VW plays fast and loose with diesel emissions to gain performance, and is fined billions. Intel plays fast and loose with speculative execution to gain performance, and...nothing.
While Intel hasn't broken any regulations (AFAIK), they have sold defective goods, likely deliberately. It's time for them to at least reimburse all customers for the damages.
Ah, the continuing regression into hieroglyphics. One might have thought that we had language for a reason. And now, changing the icons that people have learned?
I haven't used Office much since they invented the ribbon. That was the last push I needed to move to OpenOffice and now LibreOffice.
Agile is a good concept - I've included the Agile Manifesto in my courses for years. The problem is: Agile is no better than the people implementing it.
I've just witnessed this (again) in a recent project. The PM had just gotten a promotion, but he had to finish this project. He used Agile as an excuse to basically abdicate (or maybe he was always a lousy PM), and he let the developers and the customer talk together directly. The customer thought this meant that all of their ideas were flowing into the project every two weeks. The developers thought the customer was changing requirements every two weeks. The result was inevitable: a project that is 3/4 finished everywhere, totally finished nowhere, and is now likely to land both companies in court.
Crappy management is not saved by Agile. Given good management and a good development team, any methodology can work - pick the one best suited to the project and the people.
Lying to the FBI definitely should not be a crime. They use this to nail people who are otherwise innocent (Martha Stewart), to pressure people into pkea bargains, etc.. Often it's bullshit, because misstatements or fallible memories are errors, not lying. Or they pressure you and trick you into a misstatement.
Aside from the implications of the built-in GPS tracker, do note that the plates are designed to show advertising. They show the full-sized number while the vehicle is in motion, but when stopped, the number can be reduced in size, shoved in a corner, and the rest of the plate used to display ads. At the moment, for corporate fleets, the idea is for the corporation to display whatever they want. It won't be long before private plates also become advertising platforms.
What's remarkable, is the continuing criticism of Trump for this kind of thing. His predecessors were no better - and often worse - but they were given a free pass by the media. Obama used an ordinary Blackberry for years. Hillary's email server was a disaster.
I'm not in the US, but from here it seems to me that Trump is pissing off all the right people. If the DC establishment and the media dislike him so much, he must be doing something right.
Google is going to great lengths to block auto-playing audio, but it seems to me that they are missing the obvious solution: give the user control.
Personally, I don't want any autoplay, not audio and not video. Give me the option to disable both. News sites that automatically start playing some video - if I went to the site to read some article, I don't even want the video downloaded, much less played.
Give the user control over default settings: should audio/video be (a) played, (b) downloaded but not played until requested, (c) not even downloaded unless requested. Add a whitelist option. Done.
"Maps is also getting a new tab called “For You” that will feature recommendations specifically tailored to you. Google is using a new “match number” system, which will generate a personal score on how much it thinks you’ll like the recommendation based on your past likes and reviews"
Great, so instead of just helping you get to your destinition, you will be plastered with ads on the businesses you walk by.
Also, with the current interface, like you would a paper map. With the AR interface, the temptation will be to hold the phone in front of your face, so that it replaces your view of the street. Anyone who thought phone-zombies were already bad - Google says "hold my beer".
Low temperature fuel. Like the LoX and liquid hydrogen used by the Space Shuttle? This complaint doesn't even make sense.
A quick read through TFA, and the second linked article: it's not NASA saying this, it is some unknown group of NASA "advisors". The only person specifically named worked for Boeing. Which is to say that SpaceX's competitors are concerned. The fact that NASA has allowed those competitors to speak to the press as "NASA advisors" just shows the level of corporate cronyism present in the game. And, yes, NASA could stop them - if they were really serious, it would be "contact the press and demand a retraction, or contract xyz is cancelled".
ULA has got to be seriously scared. As in "need a change of underwear" scared. It's all well and good to suck up overpriced contracts, as long as any competition is held at bay with overregulation. However, when a competitor not only jumps the regulatory hurdles, but is 1/10 the price, _and_ has an actual product, as opposed to vaporware... Well, there comes a point where the cronyism is seriously endangered.
ULA will get nasty before they give up - this is just the warm-up. I hope SpaceX has good lawyers, and also a really good security force. I expect all sorts of staged lawsuits - maybe some class actions if they can find an excuse. Meanwhile, a well-placed bullet hole in the fuel tank of a launching rocket might dent that safety record.
Unions are my first thought as well. They often define these incredibly narrow jobs, in order to create more roles for more people. I've told the story before, but my first encounter with this was installing a sewage plant automation system. My company had programmed the computer, and we were installing the computer and the software. As part of these, I was sent around to all the various valves and actuators and such, with the job to test whether or not wire A on the one end really did correspond to the wire labelled "A" on the other end.
For this, I obviously needed someone from the sewage plant, who knew where all the valves and actuators were physically located. Fine, that's two of us. Now the union rules start: neither of us was allowed to do anything. There was the guy who opened the physical casings. There was the second guy who physically attached the leads from the multimeter. There was the third guy who was allowed to actually look at the multimeter. And there was the fourth guy, from operations, who had to be physically present because union regulations said so. Six people, in total, where only two were needed (as an EE, I was perfectly capable of handling the connections, multimeter, etc.).
Did any of these people resent having such a narrowly defined job? Imagine, for example, the guy who is allowed to attach the multimeter leads to the actuator, but was not allowed to actually look at the multimeter: does that job make any sense? I dunno, but I expect after a while you just figure it's a cushy job, requiring little effort, and you're glad to go home at the end of the day and drink a beer.
The result, of course, is higher taxes (in this case, because the sewage plant is paid for by taxes), or else needlessly expensive products (US auto makers' downfall: to stay price competitive, given union-driven labor costs, they have to cut corners on quality).
Of course, the other group are government bureaucrats. In private industry, cruft is eventually cleaned out by falling profits. The government has no such external constraint. So there are plenty of bureaucrats who shove papers around. They may not realize how useless their job is, because they are just complying with regulations - it's the regulations that need to go, thus eliminating the excuse for the useless positions. But that would reduce someone's little empire, so it never happens...
It will be just like in the US: politicians want to look concerned, so - wow - they're going to summon him and make him answer questions. The questions, themselves, of course, will be softballs. It's all about being seen on camera.
"teachers would have to gather and report ever-changing KPIs and sift through the new raft of curriculum and regulation changes, organise health and safety reviews and personal and school recertifications"
Um...no? Those requirements are mandated by the very same bloated administrative staff, just at different levels. Those are the first people to fire. Start at the top (federal level), fire them all, because they have no mandate to be involved in local education in the first place. Then work your way down through the layers: State, county and city. Cut out the administrative crap all the way down.
Most of the stuff written by women under the heading "SciFi"... isn't. There are exceptions, for example, Bujold has written some good stuff. However, lots of what claims to be science fiction has no science in it. Just stating "this story is in the future" doesn't make it SciFi. Some authors will try to toss in some random sciency-sounding words, but these turn out to be gibberish.
Why are there fewer women authors of actual science fiction? I assume for the same reason that there are generally fewer women in science and engineering: lack of interest. On average, women seem to prefer interacting with people, whereas on average guys tend to like things. The one area where women have entered in larger numbers is medicine - i.e., science dealing with people.
Regardless, SciFi does not have a problem of stale-pale-and-male. It happens that some people apparently object to what actually is scifi, and want to change the content underneath that label. That's fine, I'll go right on reading hard SF, which is mostly written by pale-and-male authors.
The problem isn't the amount of money allocated for schools. The problem is where that money goes - namely, to bloated administrative costs. Fire half of the non-teaching staff, set the salaries of the rest so that no one earns more than the teachers, and - magic - suddenly schools will have plenty of money.
Of course, that's only the first problem with public education in the US. There are a whole lot of other problems: the culture of passing students who ought to fail, the inability to fire incompetent teachers, discipline problems, etc...
It seems that lots of these services don't actually have very many women online. So they create fake profiles, and - no proof, just suspicion - probably pay other professionals to keep those profiles active: to chat with guys and give them false hope they might actually be speaking with an actual woman. Given the huge number of fake profiles, it is understandable when the guys to pay another professional to weed out all the fake profiles. Of course, it's a shame for the real people out there, whose time is being wasted.
Alternatively, one could try to meet women in the physical world. What a concept...
It would be funny, how sexy AI in general (and machine learning in particular) has become. Except for the fact that it's actually pretty sad. I've been in this area off and on for more than 30 years, and things really have not advanced all that much. The incredible advances in computing power mask the lack of progress in the "intelligence" and "learning" parts.
His point is this: the rules are different everywhere. Not all states make clothing non-taxable. Some have different rates for different categories of things - and those categories differ (or don't exist) in other districts. It's not just the tax rates that differ, it's what they apply to. On top of that, the seller would have to find, fill out, and file forms for all the different districts. For a small company, that is a pile of work. If you think that's even possible, you haven't worked with many governmental agencies and their forms...
Finally, there is the simple question of jurisdiction: why should a company in Texas have any liability to follow laws and regulations in New York? Or vice versa? The jurisdiction applies to the person in the state. In the case of interstate sales, that is the buyer of the goods.
I'll go farther, much farther. To prevent the "too big to fail syndrome", and excesses of corporate power, any big company should be broken up, or forced to divest. Pick a size, based on turnover, or market capitalization, or whatever.
Set that value relatively low. If market cap, then no more than $100 billion, possibly a lot less. Hitting that value should be extraordinarily painful, possibly including immediate closure. That way, that companies will divest voluntarily, in an organized fashion, long before they hit it.
As a corollary, I think acquisitions should be severely penalized. Too many big companies buy up the small companies that would eventually be their competition. Which makes the big company bigger, and stifles innovation.
I've tried this all ways: on paper, computers allowed for help (use your IDE, why not, but answers on paper), and I have some quizzes that are purely on the computer. There are two issues to consider here:
- First, and most obviously: cheating. As soon as you allow student-owned electronics, you open the door to connectivity. If not WLAN, than via mobile phones or ad hoc networks or even bluetooth. This is very difficult to control, and is the primary reason that my school still officially prohibits electronics during exams.
- Second, if you're going to allow a computer, you had just as well allow an IDE and make it more "real world". The thing is, this makes exams more difficult for all but the best students. People who are not (yet) very good a programming might be able to show a believable (but uncompilable) concept on paper, and get reasonable partial credit. As soon as they have a computer, it is natural to expect a program to run. The poorer students will lose lots of time trying to get their program to actually work, and are therefore more likely to fail such an exam.
For the last point: I'm not sure this is bad. Personally, I think the world needs a lot fewer mediocre and lousy programmers. However, while that would improve overall software quality, it would mean less code written overall and make software even more expensive than it is.
If Facebook were serious, they would stop storing this data at all. Data not collected cannot be compromised.
Of course, that goes against their business plan. So, instead, they make a lot of noise about a couple of purely cosmetic changes, and go on selling all your data to anyone who wants it.
Cambridge Analytics? That wasn't an accident or an oversight. That was business as usual, Facebook making money. They are only annoyed that they got caught.
Slashdot Mirror
What he said: the game should be about the players, not the refs.
In tennis, for example, the "hawkeye" system allows players to challenge a limited number of referee calls. This works really well: the players cannot challenge every call they dislike, but if they're convinced the call was wrong, they can.
Football (soccer) provides a counterexample: the offsides rule is difficult for the referee to enforce, and nearly impossible for a fan to genuinely see - you have to be looking in too many places at once. This results in yelling at the ref, not because you genuinely thing they were wrong, but because you have no idea, but the call went against your team.
The offsides rule could probably be better enforced with a "robot", however, that won't solve the problem for the fans. The actual problem is a rule that is too difficult to see/enforce. Fix the rule first, then think about introducing technological aids.
From what I've been reading, being liable to pay sales tax is even worse than you think. It's not just a matter of keeping track of the 10,000 or so different jurisdictions. It's much worse than that. Here's a quick overview of the issues as I understand them:
- Every jurisdiction has different rates (a combination of state, country, city, and possible other taxes).
- Different jurisdictions categorize products differently. Pre-prepped food? Food containing flour? Cloths? Work clothes? Every jurisdiction has an accumulation of exceptions and special considerations, and they are all different. So it's not only the tax rates by jurisdiction, it's the cross-product of the tax rates and the categorization of the particular products that you sell.
- You can't just send off a random check, and expect it to get cashed. If you are paying sales tax somewhere, you need to register so that they know who is paying them, and why. Of course, once you are registered, you have to file summary reports of how much you paid, for what sales, etc.. This report is typically due monthly, maybe quarterly in some places - and once you are registered, you have to file every period, even if you had no sales in that area. The specific reporting requirements also vary by jurisdiction.
- Finally, as a registered entity, you may be subject to other taxes and fees in addition to sales tax.
The court decision will have no immediate effect, but it will eventually lead to a completely untenable situation for all but the largest of businesses. This is a situation that only Congress can resolve: it is precisely interstate commerce, and precisely their responsibility to devise a fair and simple interstate solution. For example: set state-level average sales taxes, with zero variation and zero special categories, and require reporting only for periods where products are actually sold. Let the states distribute the taxes internally, however they see fit. Of course, that won't happen, because Congress is incapable of actually doing its job ("Go do nothing somewhere else"). Watch the lobbying dollars flow...
VW plays fast and loose with diesel emissions to gain performance, and is fined billions. Intel plays fast and loose with speculative execution to gain performance, and...nothing.
While Intel hasn't broken any regulations (AFAIK), they have sold defective goods, likely deliberately. It's time for them to at least reimburse all customers for the damages.
"an action is associated with the icon"
Ah, the continuing regression into hieroglyphics. One might have thought that we had language for a reason. And now, changing the icons that people have learned?
I haven't used Office much since they invented the ribbon. That was the last push I needed to move to OpenOffice and now LibreOffice.
Agile is a good concept - I've included the Agile Manifesto in my courses for years. The problem is: Agile is no better than the people implementing it.
I've just witnessed this (again) in a recent project. The PM had just gotten a promotion, but he had to finish this project. He used Agile as an excuse to basically abdicate (or maybe he was always a lousy PM), and he let the developers and the customer talk together directly. The customer thought this meant that all of their ideas were flowing into the project every two weeks. The developers thought the customer was changing requirements every two weeks. The result was inevitable: a project that is 3/4 finished everywhere, totally finished nowhere, and is now likely to land both companies in court.
Crappy management is not saved by Agile. Given good management and a good development team, any methodology can work - pick the one best suited to the project and the people.
Lying to the FBI definitely should not be a crime. They use this to nail people who are otherwise innocent (Martha Stewart), to pressure people into pkea bargains, etc.. Often it's bullshit, because misstatements or fallible memories are errors, not lying. Or they pressure you and trick you into a misstatement.
Aside from the implications of the built-in GPS tracker, do note that the plates are designed to show advertising. They show the full-sized number while the vehicle is in motion, but when stopped, the number can be reduced in size, shoved in a corner, and the rest of the plate used to display ads. At the moment, for corporate fleets, the idea is for the corporation to display whatever they want. It won't be long before private plates also become advertising platforms.
All of these chicken littles view these changes in nature as if they are happening in a vacuum.
Nature is like a beanbag. Push here and it pops out there. One change spawns another change. Nothing is static and nature isn't in a vacuum.
Tell that to the Mammoths, Dinosaurs, and the obligate anaerobes that predated cyanobacteria.
Just because a system is resilient doesn't mean you can do whatever the hell you want to it and come out fine.
Mammoths turned into elephants. Dinosaurs turned into birds. Etc.
Consider what is required to make this "rare" incident possible:
- Alexa must continually record audio, and upload these recordings.
- Alexa has access to your contacts list.
- Alexa is able to send email, including attachments.
How many people have any idea that Alexa has these capabilities? In particular, that Alexa is recording audio and uploading it to who-knows-where?
Ok, ok, most people wouldn't care if they did know. I'll go cry in a corner now.
What's remarkable, is the continuing criticism of Trump for this kind of thing. His predecessors were no better - and often worse - but they were given a free pass by the media. Obama used an ordinary Blackberry for years. Hillary's email server was a disaster.
I'm not in the US, but from here it seems to me that Trump is pissing off all the right people. If the DC establishment and the media dislike him so much, he must be doing something right.
Google is going to great lengths to block auto-playing audio, but it seems to me that they are missing the obvious solution: give the user control.
Personally, I don't want any autoplay, not audio and not video. Give me the option to disable both. News sites that automatically start playing some video - if I went to the site to read some article, I don't even want the video downloaded, much less played.
Give the user control over default settings: should audio/video be (a) played, (b) downloaded but not played until requested, (c) not even downloaded unless requested. Add a whitelist option. Done.
"Maps is also getting a new tab called “For You” that will feature recommendations specifically tailored to you. Google is using a new “match number” system, which will generate a personal score on how much it thinks you’ll like the recommendation based on your past likes and reviews"
Great, so instead of just helping you get to your destinition, you will be plastered with ads on the businesses you walk by.
Also, with the current interface, like you would a paper map. With the AR interface, the temptation will be to hold the phone in front of your face, so that it replaces your view of the street. Anyone who thought phone-zombies were already bad - Google says "hold my beer".
Low temperature fuel. Like the LoX and liquid hydrogen used by the Space Shuttle? This complaint doesn't even make sense.
A quick read through TFA, and the second linked article: it's not NASA saying this, it is some unknown group of NASA "advisors". The only person specifically named worked for Boeing. Which is to say that SpaceX's competitors are concerned. The fact that NASA has allowed those competitors to speak to the press as "NASA advisors" just shows the level of corporate cronyism present in the game. And, yes, NASA could stop them - if they were really serious, it would be "contact the press and demand a retraction, or contract xyz is cancelled".
ULA has got to be seriously scared. As in "need a change of underwear" scared. It's all well and good to suck up overpriced contracts, as long as any competition is held at bay with overregulation. However, when a competitor not only jumps the regulatory hurdles, but is 1/10 the price, _and_ has an actual product, as opposed to vaporware... Well, there comes a point where the cronyism is seriously endangered.
ULA will get nasty before they give up - this is just the warm-up. I hope SpaceX has good lawyers, and also a really good security force. I expect all sorts of staged lawsuits - maybe some class actions if they can find an excuse. Meanwhile, a well-placed bullet hole in the fuel tank of a launching rocket might dent that safety record.
Unions are my first thought as well. They often define these incredibly narrow jobs, in order to create more roles for more people. I've told the story before, but my first encounter with this was installing a sewage plant automation system. My company had programmed the computer, and we were installing the computer and the software. As part of these, I was sent around to all the various valves and actuators and such, with the job to test whether or not wire A on the one end really did correspond to the wire labelled "A" on the other end.
For this, I obviously needed someone from the sewage plant, who knew where all the valves and actuators were physically located. Fine, that's two of us. Now the union rules start: neither of us was allowed to do anything. There was the guy who opened the physical casings. There was the second guy who physically attached the leads from the multimeter. There was the third guy who was allowed to actually look at the multimeter. And there was the fourth guy, from operations, who had to be physically present because union regulations said so. Six people, in total, where only two were needed (as an EE, I was perfectly capable of handling the connections, multimeter, etc.).
Did any of these people resent having such a narrowly defined job? Imagine, for example, the guy who is allowed to attach the multimeter leads to the actuator, but was not allowed to actually look at the multimeter: does that job make any sense? I dunno, but I expect after a while you just figure it's a cushy job, requiring little effort, and you're glad to go home at the end of the day and drink a beer.
The result, of course, is higher taxes (in this case, because the sewage plant is paid for by taxes), or else needlessly expensive products (US auto makers' downfall: to stay price competitive, given union-driven labor costs, they have to cut corners on quality).
Of course, the other group are government bureaucrats. In private industry, cruft is eventually cleaned out by falling profits. The government has no such external constraint. So there are plenty of bureaucrats who shove papers around. They may not realize how useless their job is, because they are just complying with regulations - it's the regulations that need to go, thus eliminating the excuse for the useless positions. But that would reduce someone's little empire, so it never happens...
It will be just like in the US: politicians want to look concerned, so - wow - they're going to summon him and make him answer questions. The questions, themselves, of course, will be softballs. It's all about being seen on camera.
"teachers would have to gather and report ever-changing KPIs and sift through the new raft of curriculum and regulation changes, organise health and safety reviews and personal and school recertifications"
Um...no? Those requirements are mandated by the very same bloated administrative staff, just at different levels. Those are the first people to fire. Start at the top (federal level), fire them all, because they have no mandate to be involved in local education in the first place. Then work your way down through the layers: State, county and city. Cut out the administrative crap all the way down.
Most of the stuff written by women under the heading "SciFi" ... isn't. There are exceptions, for example, Bujold has written some good stuff. However, lots of what claims to be science fiction has no science in it. Just stating "this story is in the future" doesn't make it SciFi. Some authors will try to toss in some random sciency-sounding words, but these turn out to be gibberish.
Why are there fewer women authors of actual science fiction? I assume for the same reason that there are generally fewer women in science and engineering: lack of interest. On average, women seem to prefer interacting with people, whereas on average guys tend to like things. The one area where women have entered in larger numbers is medicine - i.e., science dealing with people.
Regardless, SciFi does not have a problem of stale-pale-and-male. It happens that some people apparently object to what actually is scifi, and want to change the content underneath that label. That's fine, I'll go right on reading hard SF, which is mostly written by pale-and-male authors.
The problem isn't the amount of money allocated for schools. The problem is where that money goes - namely, to bloated administrative costs. Fire half of the non-teaching staff, set the salaries of the rest so that no one earns more than the teachers, and - magic - suddenly schools will have plenty of money.
Of course, that's only the first problem with public education in the US. There are a whole lot of other problems: the culture of passing students who ought to fail, the inability to fire incompetent teachers, discipline problems, etc...
It seems that lots of these services don't actually have very many women online. So they create fake profiles, and - no proof, just suspicion - probably pay other professionals to keep those profiles active: to chat with guys and give them false hope they might actually be speaking with an actual woman. Given the huge number of fake profiles, it is understandable when the guys to pay another professional to weed out all the fake profiles. Of course, it's a shame for the real people out there, whose time is being wasted.
Alternatively, one could try to meet women in the physical world. What a concept...
But the MBAs will hire them for key roles because AI is the new blockchain & everyone just must be doing it - whatever it is.
You want to 3-D print the blockchain, and HTML it into a Bitcoin
It would be funny, how sexy AI in general (and machine learning in particular) has become. Except for the fact that it's actually pretty sad. I've been in this area off and on for more than 30 years, and things really have not advanced all that much. The incredible advances in computing power mask the lack of progress in the "intelligence" and "learning" parts.
Let's put his two core statements in closer proximity: "public opinion in general has no influence on political decisions" and "we need a law".
Hold up your hand if you see the problem...
His point is this: the rules are different everywhere. Not all states make clothing non-taxable. Some have different rates for different categories of things - and those categories differ (or don't exist) in other districts. It's not just the tax rates that differ, it's what they apply to. On top of that, the seller would have to find, fill out, and file forms for all the different districts. For a small company, that is a pile of work. If you think that's even possible, you haven't worked with many governmental agencies and their forms...
Finally, there is the simple question of jurisdiction: why should a company in Texas have any liability to follow laws and regulations in New York? Or vice versa? The jurisdiction applies to the person in the state. In the case of interstate sales, that is the buyer of the goods.
I'll go farther, much farther. To prevent the "too big to fail syndrome", and excesses of corporate power, any big company should be broken up, or forced to divest. Pick a size, based on turnover, or market capitalization, or whatever.
Set that value relatively low. If market cap, then no more than $100 billion, possibly a lot less. Hitting that value should be extraordinarily painful, possibly including immediate closure. That way, that companies will divest voluntarily, in an organized fashion, long before they hit it.
As a corollary, I think acquisitions should be severely penalized. Too many big companies buy up the small companies that would eventually be their competition. Which makes the big company bigger, and stifles innovation.
I've tried this all ways: on paper, computers allowed for help (use your IDE, why not, but answers on paper), and I have some quizzes that are purely on the computer. There are two issues to consider here:
- First, and most obviously: cheating. As soon as you allow student-owned electronics, you open the door to connectivity. If not WLAN, than via mobile phones or ad hoc networks or even bluetooth. This is very difficult to control, and is the primary reason that my school still officially prohibits electronics during exams.
- Second, if you're going to allow a computer, you had just as well allow an IDE and make it more "real world". The thing is, this makes exams more difficult for all but the best students. People who are not (yet) very good a programming might be able to show a believable (but uncompilable) concept on paper, and get reasonable partial credit. As soon as they have a computer, it is natural to expect a program to run. The poorer students will lose lots of time trying to get their program to actually work, and are therefore more likely to fail such an exam.
For the last point: I'm not sure this is bad. Personally, I think the world needs a lot fewer mediocre and lousy programmers. However, while that would improve overall software quality, it would mean less code written overall and make software even more expensive than it is.
If Facebook were serious, they would stop storing this data at all. Data not collected cannot be compromised.
Of course, that goes against their business plan. So, instead, they make a lot of noise about a couple of purely cosmetic changes, and go on selling all your data to anyone who wants it.
Cambridge Analytics? That wasn't an accident or an oversight. That was business as usual, Facebook making money. They are only annoyed that they got caught.