I believe self-driving cars will eventually take over. However, this accident does highlight one fallacy, namely the idea that a human driver can be expected to supervise a near-perfect self-driving car.
Just think about it: If your car has been driving perfectly for a whole year, would you find it easy to keep your eyes glued to road and your hands to the steering wheel, just in case the car’s computer has a nervous breakdown? Wouldn’t you start playing with your smartphone, eat a sandwich or even doze off for ten minutes?
What this accident shows is that Google’s model (where the car is fully autonomous and the passengers don’t even have access to a steering wheel) is correct, and Tesla’s is doomed. If a car is driving on its own, nobody should pretend that a human is ultimately in charge.
But that doesn't deal with getting you up earlier during summer than during winter. I suggest defining 6am to be the time when the Sun rises. Yes, that means the day length wouldn't be constant, but I'm sure that wouldn't be a real issue these days.
I quite like the idea too. There is of course a potential problem about how to classify users by subject areas (a problem that doesn't exist on Slashdot): An expert in one field will not know anything about many other fields, so the karma would have to be subject-related, I presume. Unless the karma is basically to catch trolls and well-meaning idiots, but then we still need a different system to classify users.
A different issue is that I think articles need to be classified according to their completeness, with different editing permissions. E.g.:
Stub articles: Anyone can edit these (including anonymous users).
Standard articles: Any registered user with positive karma can edit these.
Good articles: Only users with positive karma and knowledge of the field can edit these.
Featured and disputed articles: Only users with high karma and expert knowledge can edit these.
You wouldn't necessarily need a population growth like that, you could just require people to work for 500 years before they retire.
An interesting side effect would be that most people would die from accidents, suicide and such things, just like young people today but unlike old people.
What prevents me from switching from QWERTY to something better is the fact that QWERTY keyboards are all over the place. If I switch over, I never want to use a QWERTY keyboard again, and that is simply not possible at the moment.
Even if all major operating systems allowed you to switch to a keyboard layout defined somewhere on the Internet (preferably without having to type too much to do so), there's still the problem that the key symbols cannot be changed on the fly.
Now, if LCD keyboards became common (especially in Internet cafes and the like), the idea might take off.
Now, states have some real control over employers and retailers within their jurisdiction, but they can't do a whole lot outside of it.
Well, in the EU, largish companies (such as Amazon) have to add the VAT (sales tax) of the customer's country of residence. Small companies add the VAT of their own country of residence instead. It's a good example of an area where the EU is more tightly integrated than the US.
Another interesting difference between VAT in the EU and sales tax in the US is that in the former, the VAT is included in the prices you see in shops. I've never really understood why Americans prefer to do all that mental arithmetic...
As it is clearly stated in the article, the problem is with EU law, which among other things states that individuals are in charge of information about them; this means that they can request to see all information held about them and to get it deleted. Storing private emails after the user has deleted them seems to run counter to this law.
Furthermore, in many EU countries there are certain rights that you cannot sign away in a contract, so Google cannot just point to the terms and conditions.
The solution might be to prevent EU residents from signing up to Gmail.
I don't understand how she can start talking to two companies already. According to EU rules, such valuable deals have to be decided by a public invitation to obtain tenders.
So, the government could plan to put a computer in every home of Belgium, but then Suse, Redhat or other Linux companies would have a chance to show they are cheaper than Microsoft.
I'm not sure. While I'm certainly no expert on this, I think the EU mostly is able to something about American firms when they are merging or something like that. I doubt the EU would be able to order Microsoft to split up because it is based in the US.
In Europe, it's regarded as a basic democratic principle that no exit polls or results are published until all the polls are closed.
Depends. At the Euro election in Denmark in September, exit poll results were published continuously throughout the day. It may be outlawed soon, but for the time being, it's legal.
Commission bids to slap VAT on foreign firms' Internet sales
By Peter Chapman
FOREIGN firms would face value added tax bills on Internet sales to EU consumers for the first time if Union governments accept radical new proposals drawn up by Single Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.
Under draft laws due to be adopted by the full European Commission next Wednesday (7 June), US companies selling video games or music for downloading over the Web to Europeans would have to charge VAT ranging from 25% in Sweden and Denmark to a mere 15% in Luxembourg or 12% on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
The regulations would apply to 'services' which can be delivered electronically, such as software, music and commercial broadcasting services including satellite television. Physical goods ordered electronically would not be affected by the changes.
The multi-billion-euro market for services is set to rocket as more business goes online, exemplified by the pop star Prince's decision to turn his back on record sales and release all future tracks on the Net.
The proposals to be unveiled next week are part of Bolkestein's plan to plug glaring loopholes in the Union's value added tax regime which, among other things, allows foreign firms to escape levies on Internet sales to EU customers. "We want to create a level playing field for European industry. The current tax rules are a disincentive for e-commerce. We want to make things as simple as possible for companies," said a Commission source.
The initiative is also designed to ensure that Union-based firms are not penalised when they sell to customers outside the EU. These companies - which currently often face being taxed twice, both in the Union and abroad - would escape any EU VAT charges on their sales. The only taxes payable would be those levied by the countries where the final consumer was based.
However, some industry experts warn that the disparity in Union VAT rates will open a political Pandora's Box.
They are already predicting that the proposal, which will directly target the US' dynamic e-economy, will be rejected by those member states which impose high rates of VAT and would therefore gain little from the scheme.
This is because firms would register with the tax authorities in only one member state and pay VAT on all their sales to private customers in the Union from there; although in the case of business-to-business sales, the tax would be paid by VAT-registered EU customers directly to their local tax authorities.
Tax attorney Guido De Wit of Brussels-based law firm De Bandt, Van Hecke, Lagae and Loesch - who advises the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) in Brussels - said the planned single place of 'establishment' would be far less complicated for firms than the likely alternative: forcing them to register for VAT separately in every country where their customers are located.
But he warned that it could lead to many foreign companies opting to establish themselves in Luxembourg, the EU member state with the lowest rates of VAT. This would mean non-Union companies would still have an advantage over EU firms based in other member states with higher VAT rates.
It would also result in the Grand Duchy gaining a huge cash windfall in VAT receipts from foreign companies selling over the Web. This would raise hackles in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, which have fought to prevent Luxembourg bagging the lion's share of an estimated 100-billion euro windfall from a planned tax on cross-border savings.
Amcham believes that these problems would be better addressed globally through the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a view shared by Washington.
Re:This effectively only applies to intangible goo
on
EU Web Tax Proposed
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· Score: 1
You were just lucky.
You are required to pay VAT on all imports from outside the Union if the value exceeds something like EUR10.
But if the customs authorities are busy, you may have a lucky day.
A few years ago, lots of the stuff I bought from Amazon went through without VAT, but now the customs office has discovered that taxing Amazon deliveries makes a lot of money, so now I normally have to pay 25% extra on everything (including the shipping charges).
The result? I mostly buy books from other EU countries where the VAT rate is much lower.
As others have said, most of the technology to give you 3D images on a screen requires you to stand in some fixed position or the like.
I'd think (though I may be wrong) that the only sure way to ensure perfect 3D vision would be to use separate screen for each eye, but there doesn't seem to happen much in that area. Are the glasses just too heavy? Or is it damaging the eyes?
Oh well, maybe we'll have to wait for the day when we can just connect our brain directly to the video card.
1) Countries in the European Union are not that different from states in the USA. Are you up-to-date on recent developments of the EU?
2) Commerce is not everything, but it is important for European dot-com companies. But anyhow, my arguments apply just as well for organisations, universities etc.
It seems to me that lots of people, presumably mostly Americans, have problems understanding why the.eu domain is needed.
But imagine that every US state had its own TLD with no common TLD; then you'd have www.microsoft.wa, www.redhat.nc (or is that www.redhat.sc?), www.nytimes.ny, and so on. It'd be completely messy -- you would have to remember for every company where it's based, and companies based in several states would have to settle on one TLD as the primary one.
That's how it is in Europe: It a common market, so it's becoming increasingly irrelevant where a company or organisation is based, and very often there simply is no good choice -- hence the European Union has to use.eu.int, and most companies prefer.com domains.
For large monolithic states like the USA, India, the European Union, or China, country codes may make some sense, but I really think that it would be better to abolish this country-based system.
If you really want to distinguish between geographic entities, it can easily be done as e.g. eu.redhat.com vs. us.redhat.com or eu.parl.gov vs. us.parl.gov vs. zh.parl.gov.
In the recent chat about trade on europa, I asked Mr. Lamy, the Trade Commissioner, about the Internet Tax Moratorium and so on. His answer was:
On the trade front, there was a moratorium on import duties concerning anything sent over the web: this moratorium ran from 1998 to end-99: it is no longer in place, formally, but nobody is planning to try to put customs duties on the net. Domestic taxes (sales tax, VAT) are a different matter, they are not covered by WTO: OECD in Paris is currently discussing what to do. The dilemma is that it is hard to tax immaterial things...
It seems that the Danish and German authorities don't work the same way...
But it probably worked more like that in Denmark before, but a couple of years ago they discovered that people were buying lots of American products via the Internet, and so they started to check parcels much more carefully.:-(
If you're living in the European Union, you normally have to pay VAT on everything you buy (ranging from 15% in Germany to 25% in Sweden and Denmark). There are two exceptions, though: (1) If the product is worth less than appr. $10 and coming from outside the EU, you don't pay taxes. (2) If you're buying something from a company that sells less than appr. $50.000 a year to your country, you will have to pay the VAT in that country.
A few examples from Denmark:
I buy a book worth $7 from Amazon.com. I pay no taxes (but the shipping will be expensive, at least $6).
I buy a book worth $50 from Amazon.com. I pay 25% VAT of both the book and the shipping at the time of delivery (appr. $50 + $6 + 25% = $70).
I buy a book from Amazon.co.uk (which sells a lot of books to Denmark). I pay 25% VAT (but this amount will be added by Amazon.co.uk).
I buy a book from Amazon.de (which didn't sell a lot to Denmark last time I checked). I pay German book VAT (reduced-rate, 7% ASFAIK).
It's really a mess, and I hope that the Commission will soon succeed in simplifying those rules.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe self-driving cars will eventually take over. However, this accident does highlight one fallacy, namely the idea that a human driver can be expected to supervise a near-perfect self-driving car.
Just think about it: If your car has been driving perfectly for a whole year, would you find it easy to keep your eyes glued to road and your hands to the steering wheel, just in case the car’s computer has a nervous breakdown? Wouldn’t you start playing with your smartphone, eat a sandwich or even doze off for ten minutes?
What this accident shows is that Google’s model (where the car is fully autonomous and the passengers don’t even have access to a steering wheel) is correct, and Tesla’s is doomed. If a car is driving on its own, nobody should pretend that a human is ultimately in charge.
But that doesn't deal with getting you up earlier during summer than during winter.
I suggest defining 6am to be the time when the Sun rises. Yes, that means the day length wouldn't be constant, but I'm sure that wouldn't be a real issue these days.
A different issue is that I think articles need to be classified according to their completeness, with different editing permissions. E.g.:
You wouldn't necessarily need a population growth like that, you could just require people to work for 500 years before they retire.
An interesting side effect would be that most people would die from accidents, suicide and such things, just like young people today but unlike old people.
What prevents me from switching from QWERTY to something better is the fact that QWERTY keyboards are all over the place. If I switch over, I never want to use a QWERTY keyboard again, and that is simply not possible at the moment.
Even if all major operating systems allowed you to switch to a keyboard layout defined somewhere on the Internet (preferably without having to type too much to do so), there's still the problem that the key symbols cannot be changed on the fly.
Now, if LCD keyboards became common (especially in Internet cafes and the like), the idea might take off.
And VAT rates do vary a lot, compare for instance 0% on books in the UK with 25% in Denmark.
Well, in the EU, largish companies (such as Amazon) have to add the VAT (sales tax) of the customer's country of residence. Small companies add the VAT of their own country of residence instead. It's a good example of an area where the EU is more tightly integrated than the US.
Another interesting difference between VAT in the EU and sales tax in the US is that in the former, the VAT is included in the prices you see in shops. I've never really understood why Americans prefer to do all that mental arithmetic ...
As it is clearly stated in the article, the problem is with EU law, which among other things states that individuals are in charge of information about them; this means that they can request to see all information held about them and to get it deleted. Storing private emails after the user has deleted them seems to run counter to this law.
Furthermore, in many EU countries there are certain rights that you cannot sign away in a contract, so Google cannot just point to the terms and conditions.
The solution might be to prevent EU residents from signing up to Gmail.
Probably because they don't risk the huge lawsuits that could easily be the result in the US.
So, the government could plan to put a computer in every home of Belgium, but then Suse, Redhat or other Linux companies would have a chance to show they are cheaper than Microsoft.
I'm not sure. While I'm certainly no expert on this, I think the EU mostly is able to something about American firms when they are merging or something like that. I doubt the EU would be able to order Microsoft to split up because it is based in the US.
Depends. At the Euro election in Denmark in September, exit poll results were published continuously throughout the day. It may be outlawed soon, but for the time being, it's legal.
I think you should read it if you're interested in this; unfortunately the article is no longer on-line, but I kept a copy:
You are required to pay VAT on all imports from outside the Union if the value exceeds something like EUR10.
But if the customs authorities are busy, you may have a lucky day.
A few years ago, lots of the stuff I bought from Amazon went through without VAT, but now the customs office has discovered that taxing Amazon deliveries makes a lot of money, so now I normally have to pay 25% extra on everything (including the shipping charges).
The result? I mostly buy books from other EU countries where the VAT rate is much lower.
Is it possible to buy fan T-shirts anywhere?
Now it'll be interesting whether the case goes directly to the Supreme Court, and generally whether the judgment will stand.
I sure hope it will.
I'd think (though I may be wrong) that the only sure way to ensure perfect 3D vision would be to use separate screen for each eye, but there doesn't seem to happen much in that area. Are the glasses just too heavy? Or is it damaging the eyes?
Oh well, maybe we'll have to wait for the day when we can just connect our brain directly to the video card.
2) Commerce is not everything, but it is important for European dot-com companies. But anyhow, my arguments apply just as well for organisations, universities etc.
But imagine that every US state had its own TLD with no common TLD; then you'd have www.microsoft.wa, www.redhat.nc (or is that www.redhat.sc?), www.nytimes.ny, and so on. It'd be completely messy -- you would have to remember for every company where it's based, and companies based in several states would have to settle on one TLD as the primary one.
That's how it is in Europe: It a common market, so it's becoming increasingly irrelevant where a company or organisation is based, and very often there simply is no good choice -- hence the European Union has to use .eu.int, and most companies prefer .com domains.
For large monolithic states like the USA, India, the European Union, or China, country codes may make some sense, but I really think that it would be better to abolish this country-based system.
If you really want to distinguish between geographic entities, it can easily be done as e.g. eu.redhat.com vs. us.redhat.com or eu.parl.gov vs. us.parl.gov vs. zh.parl.gov.
On the trade front, there was a moratorium on import duties concerning anything sent over the web: this moratorium ran from 1998 to end-99: it is no longer in place, formally, but nobody is planning to try to put customs duties on the net. Domestic taxes (sales tax, VAT) are a different matter, they are not covered by WTO: OECD in Paris is currently discussing what to do. The dilemma is that it is hard to tax immaterial things...
Buyer's country determines sales tax.
I thought that Scotland had a separate legal system...?
But it probably worked more like that in Denmark before, but a couple of years ago they discovered that people were buying lots of American products via the Internet, and so they started to check parcels much more carefully. :-(
A few examples from Denmark:
It's really a mess, and I hope that the Commission will soon succeed in simplifying those rules.
Looks like a pattern to me... :-)