Not to be sarcastic, but Natural gas already has an infrastructure delivery system from the west coast to the east coast. It's in every major town and city already. It doesn't have to be trucked around by big rigs, and despite it's volatile nature, it's fairly safe even in catastrophic accidents. Because instead of pooling on the ground, it rises into the air and dissipates quickly. Frankly, your argument holds well for Hydrogen, but not Natural gas.
The infrastructure exists, it's reasonably cheap and easy to convert most vehicles already in use, and the resource is reasonably abundant. HOWEVER, it's not a renewable energy source, any more than oil is. So we wouldn't actually be solving any of our problems by switching.
If you used something that wasn't a public resource based around text strings, then yes.
Better still... show a bank of images, ask which one has a happy little girl in it. (all images contain a girl, only one obviously happy). Randomize the backend with a cryptographic routine (so the file names don't give anything away) and you are set for a while. Computers are terrible at such things, people are pretty good at it.
This assumes only text CAPTCHA. Iconic based CAPs exist, and are incredibly simple for humans to solve, and very difficult for computers to solve. 4 human face pictures. The question says "which one is smiling?" Now, I realize that even that can be computed, eventually. But the cost is MUCH higher for a computer than for a human. Further, that's the simplest possible example, and hardly encompasses all the possible variations or difficulties. Computers are really good at raw power. They SUCK at pattern recognition (although they are getting better quick) and they REALLY suck at emotional response. The concept of a CAPTCHA is sound, we just need to get away from text based systems. Because as OCR and raw power become more common and more powerful, they won't hold up.
I was just going to mod you into oblivion... however. You are trying just a little too hard, and I think I'd rather let everyone else notice for themselves.
To be fair, you make a good point. (2 actually). To still be fair, you are probably the most rational Apple fanboy I've seen in years.
You are correct, anything is better than a 40mm when dealing with home defense. Of course, the only thing I know of that is man portable and shoots a 40mm is a grenade launcher, and you probably don't want to be using that in your house anyway.
Humor aside, I'm going to argue the choice of a shotgun in QCB. You get points for the sound it makes when you load a shell. Everyone knows that sound, and they aren't going to be happy hearing it. That's pretty much where your advantages end though. Even assuming you have room to wield the gun properly, which is assuming a lot, it's slow to fire, slow to reload and effectively unaimable. By that, I mean, if your wife is behind the bad guy, you can't miss her, even if you want to. I personally prefer a nice pistol with short load rounds. My preference is for the FN five seven. It shoots a little bullet with excellent trajectory and with short load rounds, the penetration is minimal. (it will go through standard walls, but not a 2x4) It has 20 round clip and even an idiot can handle one. The recoil is minimal, and with a tactical light on the front, it's terribly easy to aim. See the bright dot? That's where the bullets will go.
Well, I can assure you he's going to jail the first time he uses it on someone. Crazy or not.
As the lawyer, and police officer both told me. Don't wound people. Either let them walk away, or kill them. Wounding them just puts you in court for the next 2 years while the thief rakes you for money. Point being, dead men tell no tales, and while it's possible next of kin will sue you, its your word against a dead thief (that tried to kill you, remember?). A guy in a wheel chair is sympathetic. Stories of a thug with a knife don't lead to sympathy.
You missed the point entirely. Between your front door and the court house, that badge doesn't mean a lot. It's the GUN that gives authority. Once you are in the courthouse, it's a different matter, until then, argue all you like, but remember that the man with the gun makes the rules.
What is with all the people here taking the time to point out that this is an OPed piece and therefore not directly washington posts' opinion? Great, we get it, now get some perspective. They published it. They therefore take some responsibility for it. Or... wait... hold on... Or we could say they have no responsibility because it's not their opinion, they just put it out there... like, what was the name of that site... they did something like that... oh yeah, wikileaks.
I don't really care what your opinion of WaPo is, nor for that matter wikileaks. But please try and have at least some semblance of rational thought. Just this once.
That may be how it works, mainly because most people buy whatever they are told. However, legally speaking, if you aren't "under arrest" you can get up and walk out. Try it. If they don't want you to leave, they will feed you some bullshit. Continue walking, and you'll probably find yourself under arrest, and everything that comes with that. Like your lawyer.
I like how you conveniently ignore digital locking mechanisms that can be both unique, and easy to give access to. While at the same time allowing for better access tracking and instant lock out of compromised codes. The only reason banking, and ATMs don't have good security is because they choose not to as a cost cutting measure. Since banks are rarely liable for money they let be stolen, they have almost no reason to fix the massive flaws in their systems. This extends to almost every facet of money. From credit cards to ATMs.
I respect that you are working from a contractors point of view, and dealing with complicated and effective security would be a huge pain for you. That doesn't change the fact that it should be done anyway. A little more time and complication would save an awful lot of money in the long run. It's not like we are going to see LESS of this kind of crime. How much longer before someone comes up with a device that allows anyone to walk up to an ATM and force it to spit all the money out?
I've worked on ATMs. The security assumes you as a tech are honest. If you aren't, it would be easy to setup any number of scams. From card skimming to outright forcing the machine to spit out money. Also, they never asked for my keys back, so I have a key ring with 40 odd keys on it, that at last check, opens pretty much every ATM around.
I'm guessing you are too young to have any idea about this, but you do know that computer monitors have been exceeding the HD spec since years before there was an HD spec? Furthermore the GP is right, HD isn't a video spec. It's a marketing term. The monitor in front of me says "HDdisplay" in the corner of the bezel. Gee, which HD mode supports 1920x1280 at 120hz? The TV also connected to this computer says HD in the corner. But it won't run at that resolution. It prefers 1920x1080 at 65hz. One of these displays is 16x10 one is 16x9, they don't support the same video modes, or refresh rates. So what the HELL does HD mean anyway? Exceeds ?x1080? My ancient CRT (in the closet) does that, and it predates "HD" by at least 5 years.
I decided to test my Treo too. I know, old school but the results are fun.
First off, important to note that this phone has an antenna on top. It's not really in a position where holding it is easy or typical. Soooo
So when trying to cover the antenna with my hand, I notice a COMPLETE LOSS of bars. From strong signal to NOTHING AT ALL. No network. Further exploring has yielded answers. It turns out that when you put your hand around the antenna, you also place your hand over the radio on/off button. This phone is so bad that when you cover the antenna with your hand, it turns itself off!!!! The OUTRAGE. I'm calling for a recall.;)
Actual results may vary this does not constitute scientific evidence. It's barely even anecdotal.
Lets have a little perspective shall we? What % of the population sees a doctor? 80% or better, right? What percent of the population drives? 80% or better, right? What % owns macs.... 1-3%. Right? So in your world, 250million people are exactly the same as 9 million people? Really?
How about some more perspective, 120$ vs 755$ for a new screen. Compared to oil changes (you brought it up) at 15$ for home and 35$ at a oil change shop (or 50$ anywhere else). I'm gonna forgo the math and just assume you can spot the disparity (oh damn, sarcasm again).
I believe the original point was that apple "care" is less than entirely reasonable when it comes to things like this. Which based on what I'm seeing here, is entirely true. Further, I wonder how people would react to Dell if you had to set an appointment for service (in or out of warranty). Lastly, why do you think the cost matters? I'm guessing they bought it used, but in what world does the total cost having anything to do with this conversation? Are you seriously trying to imply that because they didn't pay enough, they got what they deserved? Seriously?
People like you are why we use the term fanboi. Another word that fits nicely is zealot. You are welcome to worship apple (they do make good shiny), but please, have some moderation for crying out loud.
Considering the amount of free press and hype that/. gives apple, it's only fair they portray the other side as well. Don't you think? Oh crap, I forgot, fanbois don't like to be called out on the facts.
I don't have an iphone, I won't be buying one, and it has nothing to do with media perceptions. However, when you build yourself up to be the top, you make yourself a target. This kind of reception problem might in fact be common in some phones, but apples is the perceived "top", and therefore the primary target, making a mistake like this is worse for apple than it is for HTC, or Nokia.
Lastly, just put a fucking antenna on the phone like every phone for 20 years has had, and these problems disappear entirely. (because no one holds the antenna to talk on the phone) I know I know, function before form, how ridiculous.
Accurately speaking, the chicken embryo is IN the egg. Parts of the egg become parts of the embryo, but the shell especially is a separate entity with regard to the chicken life cycle.
To reply to your sig first, No, we just think "fanboi" and laugh a little.
to get back to your post, care to site any evidence to back up your crony-ism? I'll admit I don't have any of the new smart phones, but my old treo gets better signal than any phone I've ever seen in real life usage. As I'm about to upgrade, I'm curious what testing has shown for the newer crop of phones. I'd hate to downgrade the main feature of my phone (actually using it as a phone) just to get a flashy interface and youtube integration.
How about I copy anything I damn well please and you can shove your artificial scarcity into the nearest orifice? In fact, let me give you a simple choice. Continue this charade of an economy based on "scarcity", OR create an economic paradigm where cost+value = price.
Everyone, including the so called "artists" has a right to make money on their works. Those that provide good works for reasonable prices with high levels of value, will. Those that rely on lying, cheating, stealing and trickery, and control of distribution... won't. The real world has shown this, time and again. Music and media is the latest in a long line of battlefields fought for rational economics. Of course, money and power tend to win out of rational thought, at least for a time. The fight is costing us far more than the shift in paradigms will, and it's not even delaying the shift. Itunes is the number 1 music market in the world. That didn't take long. How much longer before Apple realizes they can cut the middle men out and just open their own publishing studio?
There are a lot of really talented people in the music industry. Almost none of them work with or for the RIAA anymore. Once the plaque of lawyers is done picking the bones, the RIAA, and most of the rest of the "professional recording" industry will collapse and reform, hopefully into something a little more intelligent and rational. (I know, call me an idealist).
What jurisdiction do those countries you name have? Did these acts of piracy take place in US coastal waters? Because if the didn't, I fail to see any legal jurisdiction the USA might have. Further, placing arms on a non-military ship in international waters violates a couple of international accords. While I support the idea of shutting down the murderous thugs, doing so illegally is rather hypocritical, and undermines any righteous goals.
Oh yeah, and why is the US and other countries using their MILITARY to protect civilian cargo ships? Who is paying for that I wonder?
That doesn't even make sense. You are insinuating that a very fast machine can out process not only every current machine on the network, but every transaction they have processed in the past (assuming 100% uptime for any given node).
This is only a reasonable assumption when you talk about using top 500 hardware configurations that cost millions of dollars. Frankly, i'd be mighty impressed if you could come up with the hardware, and any significant amount of run time out of it.
Lastly, doing so gets you NOTHING. If your chain is valid, all you've done is use a million dollars worth of hardware to create 2euros worth of BCs. If it's invalid, and fraudulent, it won't be accepted by the rest of the network and won't ever achieve reliable status to begin with. Presumably you could, once you had the longest chain begin altering the chain, but the chances are they thought of that and solved it cryptographically. If you'd like to attack their cryptography, then feel free, but I'm guessing it's not bad. Further, I'm going to assume you don't have the resources to break it, and if you did, there are (currently) better targets.
If we assume this takes off, and BCs end up with a meaningful exchange rate, or get accepted as general money, then your point begins to have some merit. Because it just might be worth while to re-purpose an MPP cluster for a week. However it still doesn't break anything in the system, nor allow you to alter the record chain, so you still haven't done anything except become the oldest record holder (longest).
It's one thing to apply the tax at the location of transaction. (assuming the final shipping address to be such). It's quite another if you try and apply the taxes the seller online. The reason being a great many sellers online never handle your product at all. So customer C makes an order with online store S, who passes the order to dropshipper D, who passes the order to Distributor Y, who passes the order to Manufacturer M. Assume all these parties are in different states. Who pays which taxes?
Even more fun, the customer is in california. The manufacturer is too, but the reseller the customer purchased from is in Mass. So even if we simplify the supply chain down this far, you still have to figure out who owes which taxes on which purchase. Technically speaking, each link in the chain represents a sale. Frankly, trying to calculate sales taxes on a typical ecommerce transaction will drive you nuts in short order.
Yes, this applies to amazon too. They have fulfillment warehouses in several states, their servers are in more than one place, their resellers list items from third party dropshipppers/distributors. The supply chain isn't any simpler just because it's a big name company.
Lets review. MSN is an IM program. It allows for person to person direct communication. Facebook is a social network. It allows for everyone you know to meet everyone else you know.
So your point is that if facebook has a privacy flaw, then it's ok for every other form of communication to have this flaw too? Try again.
Consider if your phone, instead of ringing, told the caller the last 5 people you talked to. Would that be ok because facebook does the same thing? I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't accept that.
Most of us are smart enough to post only what we want public on facebook, and use IM or something else for private communications. My guess is you are young, and think you should be able to post privately to facebook, or maybe you just don't think privacy is important. It doesn't matter, because you are missing the important part, which is IM != Social network. What the fuck do they teach kids these days?
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be sarcastic, but Natural gas already has an infrastructure delivery system from the west coast to the east coast. It's in every major town and city already. It doesn't have to be trucked around by big rigs, and despite it's volatile nature, it's fairly safe even in catastrophic accidents. Because instead of pooling on the ground, it rises into the air and dissipates quickly. Frankly, your argument holds well for Hydrogen, but not Natural gas.
The infrastructure exists, it's reasonably cheap and easy to convert most vehicles already in use, and the resource is reasonably abundant. HOWEVER, it's not a renewable energy source, any more than oil is. So we wouldn't actually be solving any of our problems by switching.
If you used something that wasn't a public resource based around text strings, then yes.
Better still... show a bank of images, ask which one has a happy little girl in it. (all images contain a girl, only one obviously happy). Randomize the backend with a cryptographic routine (so the file names don't give anything away) and you are set for a while. Computers are terrible at such things, people are pretty good at it.
This assumes only text CAPTCHA. Iconic based CAPs exist, and are incredibly simple for humans to solve, and very difficult for computers to solve. 4 human face pictures. The question says "which one is smiling?" Now, I realize that even that can be computed, eventually. But the cost is MUCH higher for a computer than for a human. Further, that's the simplest possible example, and hardly encompasses all the possible variations or difficulties. Computers are really good at raw power. They SUCK at pattern recognition (although they are getting better quick) and they REALLY suck at emotional response. The concept of a CAPTCHA is sound, we just need to get away from text based systems. Because as OCR and raw power become more common and more powerful, they won't hold up.
I was just going to mod you into oblivion... however. You are trying just a little too hard, and I think I'd rather let everyone else notice for themselves.
To be fair, you make a good point. (2 actually). To still be fair, you are probably the most rational Apple fanboy I've seen in years.
You are correct, anything is better than a 40mm when dealing with home defense. Of course, the only thing I know of that is man portable and shoots a 40mm is a grenade launcher, and you probably don't want to be using that in your house anyway.
Humor aside, I'm going to argue the choice of a shotgun in QCB. You get points for the sound it makes when you load a shell. Everyone knows that sound, and they aren't going to be happy hearing it. That's pretty much where your advantages end though. Even assuming you have room to wield the gun properly, which is assuming a lot, it's slow to fire, slow to reload and effectively unaimable. By that, I mean, if your wife is behind the bad guy, you can't miss her, even if you want to. I personally prefer a nice pistol with short load rounds. My preference is for the FN five seven. It shoots a little bullet with excellent trajectory and with short load rounds, the penetration is minimal. (it will go through standard walls, but not a 2x4) It has 20 round clip and even an idiot can handle one. The recoil is minimal, and with a tactical light on the front, it's terribly easy to aim. See the bright dot? That's where the bullets will go.
Well, I can assure you he's going to jail the first time he uses it on someone. Crazy or not.
As the lawyer, and police officer both told me. Don't wound people. Either let them walk away, or kill them. Wounding them just puts you in court for the next 2 years while the thief rakes you for money. Point being, dead men tell no tales, and while it's possible next of kin will sue you, its your word against a dead thief (that tried to kill you, remember?). A guy in a wheel chair is sympathetic. Stories of a thug with a knife don't lead to sympathy.
"There is no problem that cannot be solved by the suitable retroactive application of high explosives".
Had you blown up the nutter first, your house would be fine.
You missed the point entirely. Between your front door and the court house, that badge doesn't mean a lot. It's the GUN that gives authority. Once you are in the courthouse, it's a different matter, until then, argue all you like, but remember that the man with the gun makes the rules.
What is with all the people here taking the time to point out that this is an OPed piece and therefore not directly washington posts' opinion? Great, we get it, now get some perspective. They published it. They therefore take some responsibility for it. Or ... wait... hold on... Or we could say they have no responsibility because it's not their opinion, they just put it out there... like, what was the name of that site... they did something like that... oh yeah, wikileaks.
I don't really care what your opinion of WaPo is, nor for that matter wikileaks. But please try and have at least some semblance of rational thought. Just this once.
Funny thing about traps. They don't work out so well for the bait.
That may be how it works, mainly because most people buy whatever they are told. However, legally speaking, if you aren't "under arrest" you can get up and walk out. Try it. If they don't want you to leave, they will feed you some bullshit. Continue walking, and you'll probably find yourself under arrest, and everything that comes with that. Like your lawyer.
I like how you conveniently ignore digital locking mechanisms that can be both unique, and easy to give access to. While at the same time allowing for better access tracking and instant lock out of compromised codes. The only reason banking, and ATMs don't have good security is because they choose not to as a cost cutting measure. Since banks are rarely liable for money they let be stolen, they have almost no reason to fix the massive flaws in their systems. This extends to almost every facet of money. From credit cards to ATMs.
I respect that you are working from a contractors point of view, and dealing with complicated and effective security would be a huge pain for you. That doesn't change the fact that it should be done anyway. A little more time and complication would save an awful lot of money in the long run. It's not like we are going to see LESS of this kind of crime. How much longer before someone comes up with a device that allows anyone to walk up to an ATM and force it to spit all the money out?
I've worked on ATMs. The security assumes you as a tech are honest. If you aren't, it would be easy to setup any number of scams. From card skimming to outright forcing the machine to spit out money. Also, they never asked for my keys back, so I have a key ring with 40 odd keys on it, that at last check, opens pretty much every ATM around.
Yes, it's called Marketing 101.
I'm guessing you are too young to have any idea about this, but you do know that computer monitors have been exceeding the HD spec since years before there was an HD spec? Furthermore the GP is right, HD isn't a video spec. It's a marketing term. The monitor in front of me says "HDdisplay" in the corner of the bezel. Gee, which HD mode supports 1920x1280 at 120hz? The TV also connected to this computer says HD in the corner. But it won't run at that resolution. It prefers 1920x1080 at 65hz. One of these displays is 16x10 one is 16x9, they don't support the same video modes, or refresh rates. So what the HELL does HD mean anyway? Exceeds ?x1080? My ancient CRT (in the closet) does that, and it predates "HD" by at least 5 years.
I decided to test my Treo too. I know, old school but the results are fun.
;)
First off, important to note that this phone has an antenna on top. It's not really in a position where holding it is easy or typical. Soooo
So when trying to cover the antenna with my hand, I notice a COMPLETE LOSS of bars. From strong signal to NOTHING AT ALL. No network. Further exploring has yielded answers. It turns out that when you put your hand around the antenna, you also place your hand over the radio on/off button. This phone is so bad that when you cover the antenna with your hand, it turns itself off!!!! The OUTRAGE. I'm calling for a recall.
Actual results may vary this does not constitute scientific evidence. It's barely even anecdotal.
Wow, so being a sarcastic ass is fun, who knew?
Lets have a little perspective shall we? What % of the population sees a doctor? 80% or better, right? What percent of the population drives? 80% or better, right? What % owns macs.... 1-3%. Right? So in your world, 250million people are exactly the same as 9 million people? Really?
How about some more perspective, 120$ vs 755$ for a new screen. Compared to oil changes (you brought it up) at 15$ for home and 35$ at a oil change shop (or 50$ anywhere else). I'm gonna forgo the math and just assume you can spot the disparity (oh damn, sarcasm again).
I believe the original point was that apple "care" is less than entirely reasonable when it comes to things like this. Which based on what I'm seeing here, is entirely true. Further, I wonder how people would react to Dell if you had to set an appointment for service (in or out of warranty). Lastly, why do you think the cost matters? I'm guessing they bought it used, but in what world does the total cost having anything to do with this conversation? Are you seriously trying to imply that because they didn't pay enough, they got what they deserved? Seriously?
People like you are why we use the term fanboi. Another word that fits nicely is zealot. You are welcome to worship apple (they do make good shiny), but please, have some moderation for crying out loud.
Considering the amount of free press and hype that /. gives apple, it's only fair they portray the other side as well. Don't you think? Oh crap, I forgot, fanbois don't like to be called out on the facts.
I don't have an iphone, I won't be buying one, and it has nothing to do with media perceptions. However, when you build yourself up to be the top, you make yourself a target. This kind of reception problem might in fact be common in some phones, but apples is the perceived "top", and therefore the primary target, making a mistake like this is worse for apple than it is for HTC, or Nokia.
Lastly, just put a fucking antenna on the phone like every phone for 20 years has had, and these problems disappear entirely. (because no one holds the antenna to talk on the phone) I know I know, function before form, how ridiculous.
Accurately speaking, the chicken embryo is IN the egg. Parts of the egg become parts of the embryo, but the shell especially is a separate entity with regard to the chicken life cycle.
To reply to your sig first, No, we just think "fanboi" and laugh a little.
to get back to your post, care to site any evidence to back up your crony-ism? I'll admit I don't have any of the new smart phones, but my old treo gets better signal than any phone I've ever seen in real life usage. As I'm about to upgrade, I'm curious what testing has shown for the newer crop of phones. I'd hate to downgrade the main feature of my phone (actually using it as a phone) just to get a flashy interface and youtube integration.
How about I copy anything I damn well please and you can shove your artificial scarcity into the nearest orifice? In fact, let me give you a simple choice. Continue this charade of an economy based on "scarcity", OR create an economic paradigm where cost+value = price.
Everyone, including the so called "artists" has a right to make money on their works. Those that provide good works for reasonable prices with high levels of value, will. Those that rely on lying, cheating, stealing and trickery, and control of distribution... won't. The real world has shown this, time and again. Music and media is the latest in a long line of battlefields fought for rational economics. Of course, money and power tend to win out of rational thought, at least for a time. The fight is costing us far more than the shift in paradigms will, and it's not even delaying the shift. Itunes is the number 1 music market in the world. That didn't take long. How much longer before Apple realizes they can cut the middle men out and just open their own publishing studio?
There are a lot of really talented people in the music industry. Almost none of them work with or for the RIAA anymore. Once the plaque of lawyers is done picking the bones, the RIAA, and most of the rest of the "professional recording" industry will collapse and reform, hopefully into something a little more intelligent and rational. (I know, call me an idealist).
What jurisdiction do those countries you name have? Did these acts of piracy take place in US coastal waters? Because if the didn't, I fail to see any legal jurisdiction the USA might have. Further, placing arms on a non-military ship in international waters violates a couple of international accords. While I support the idea of shutting down the murderous thugs, doing so illegally is rather hypocritical, and undermines any righteous goals.
Oh yeah, and why is the US and other countries using their MILITARY to protect civilian cargo ships? Who is paying for that I wonder?
That doesn't even make sense. You are insinuating that a very fast machine can out process not only every current machine on the network, but every transaction they have processed in the past (assuming 100% uptime for any given node).
This is only a reasonable assumption when you talk about using top 500 hardware configurations that cost millions of dollars. Frankly, i'd be mighty impressed if you could come up with the hardware, and any significant amount of run time out of it.
Lastly, doing so gets you NOTHING. If your chain is valid, all you've done is use a million dollars worth of hardware to create 2euros worth of BCs. If it's invalid, and fraudulent, it won't be accepted by the rest of the network and won't ever achieve reliable status to begin with. Presumably you could, once you had the longest chain begin altering the chain, but the chances are they thought of that and solved it cryptographically. If you'd like to attack their cryptography, then feel free, but I'm guessing it's not bad. Further, I'm going to assume you don't have the resources to break it, and if you did, there are (currently) better targets.
If we assume this takes off, and BCs end up with a meaningful exchange rate, or get accepted as general money, then your point begins to have some merit. Because it just might be worth while to re-purpose an MPP cluster for a week. However it still doesn't break anything in the system, nor allow you to alter the record chain, so you still haven't done anything except become the oldest record holder (longest).
It's one thing to apply the tax at the location of transaction. (assuming the final shipping address to be such). It's quite another if you try and apply the taxes the seller online. The reason being a great many sellers online never handle your product at all. So customer C makes an order with online store S, who passes the order to dropshipper D, who passes the order to Distributor Y, who passes the order to Manufacturer M. Assume all these parties are in different states. Who pays which taxes?
Even more fun, the customer is in california. The manufacturer is too, but the reseller the customer purchased from is in Mass. So even if we simplify the supply chain down this far, you still have to figure out who owes which taxes on which purchase. Technically speaking, each link in the chain represents a sale. Frankly, trying to calculate sales taxes on a typical ecommerce transaction will drive you nuts in short order.
Yes, this applies to amazon too. They have fulfillment warehouses in several states, their servers are in more than one place, their resellers list items from third party dropshipppers/distributors. The supply chain isn't any simpler just because it's a big name company.
Get a BB gun and find out.
I suppose you just just ask your neighbor to kill the light for a night or two, but that isn't any fun.
Lets review. MSN is an IM program. It allows for person to person direct communication. Facebook is a social network. It allows for everyone you know to meet everyone else you know.
So your point is that if facebook has a privacy flaw, then it's ok for every other form of communication to have this flaw too? Try again.
Consider if your phone, instead of ringing, told the caller the last 5 people you talked to. Would that be ok because facebook does the same thing? I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't accept that.
Most of us are smart enough to post only what we want public on facebook, and use IM or something else for private communications. My guess is you are young, and think you should be able to post privately to facebook, or maybe you just don't think privacy is important. It doesn't matter, because you are missing the important part, which is IM != Social network. What the fuck do they teach kids these days?