Re:Why all Internet access should be taxed
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EU Web Tax Proposed
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· Score: 1
Last I checked, New Hampshire had no sales tax on pretty much anything either. Instead they have toll booths, fire works which you can buy but not use (really!), and liquor stores. So they basically try to get most of their money out of people coming north from Massachusetts to get fireworks that are illegal in Massachusetts, buy cheap liquor, and use expensive roads...
Recently, though, they've been trying to pass a sales tax to pay for of all things public education and have been having one hell of a time getting the voters to accept it. So pretty soon, sales taxes will be pretty much nation-wide here in the USA.
So why not on the internet too, I guess? But would that be state-level, or national-level? On goods coming into the nation? There are still issues to be resolved.
Re:Well there's only one solution to that..
on
EU Web Tax Proposed
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· Score: 1
Based on the article, I believe that there already IS a VAT on EU good sold on line. What the new tax does is that when things are being imported INTO the EU from other nations, there is a VAT on them. So if people in the EU wanted to buy their latest book from Amazon.com - oh, right, that patent thing - sorry, bn.com, they would have to pay a tax. This type of thing would hurt US sales in the EU, which is why Clinton is against it.
As I don't live in the EU and IANAL, I can't really say exactly how this works and what it effects. But from what I can tell, this is only on software bought over the Internet, and "services" whatever that might be. (Maybe a tax on pr0n sites?)
Yes, but the AUP is quite vague on that point. It seems that right now all they won't allow is kiddie porn at the Prince of Sealand's request. There is still plenty of questionable material to be had.
And, according to another post, HavenCo will be taking control of the island, which means they can define legal/illegal (maybe, I dunno the exact terms). It's still a sticky issue.
At one point it was mentioned that HavenCo would have several locations where it would attempt to store data. Where else do you plan on building havens? Will these havens be redundent? (Will data at Location A be duplicated on servers at Location B?) Presumably, this would allow you to shuffle content around to sites where it is legal.
So how do you plan on making sure that content going into your datahaven is from valid sources, and then do you expect to do a review of all data and THEN send it to an appropriate site? Or are users responsible for knowing the laws of the country where the data is to be sent to? Similarly, are users restricted to one site, or can they request multiple HavenCo locations?
Waitaminute. You're Signa[letter I, eye] 11, not Signa[letter L, elle] 11. And you're saying that falsely representing someone as someone else is wrong?
Then again, the user pages look identical. So is Signa[eye] the same as Signa[elle]? Ouch, this is making my head hurt, trying to differentiate between an I and an l... make it stop... make it stop...
And also use a comma for separating the "whole" number part from the "fractional" part. (As in $3.000,00...) This can get very confusing and weird, but...
Hey, FFVII and VIII both worked fine for me. I just stuck the CDs in and started playing.
Oh. You must mean on a PC.
Seriously, they're more fun on the PlayStation, esp. VIII with a DualShock. Don't bother with the PC versions (esp. if you don't have one of the three supported video cards).
Please note that Windows actually does give a nicely vague message which says something along the lines of "If the problem continues, please contact the vendor" when it GPFs. Doesn't really hint what caused the problem, or tell you in nice term what went wrong.
Which is lots of fun if you program and keep on GPFing your own programs - hmm, I guess I'd be the vendor. Now why the fsck doesn't this work?
I dunno about the rest of you, but it takes my system around 30 seconds to boot up. (Including BIOS, LILO timeout, etc.) It would get VERY annoying to think "hmm - I'll play some Quake right now" and then reboot, wait for the BIOS to boot, check memory, then start booting the game's OS, then play the game. Same time waiting while the game is going down, and back to the system.
Besides, there are times when I'll be running Windows to do word processing (I wasn't thinking about Linux compatiblity when I bought my WinPrinter...), then I jump into a quick Counter-Strike game, then go back to actually doing work. If I had to reboot EVERY TIME I wanted to play a game, I would play games quite a lot less often.
(Unless it's Counter-Strike, which I've proven that I am quite willing to boot into Windows to play - but then again, when you're at college, have a LAN, and can often get 20 players (the max allowed) going at once, life is good... And I know Counter-Strike CAN work under WINE, but it's not really playable, IMHO.)
The bottom line is that it's annoying to have to reboot just to play a game. It's a lot nicer to just be able to jump into a game for a bit and then immediately return to your shell and continue doing whatever.
Would you expect what you're saying in your post to be considered of the same weight as something you read in a newspaper article? Could you be sued for libel for something you post? The web is different then print, when things are going to print, generally there is peer review of the content and people check to make sure what they are saying is true.
On the Internet, a simple PUT command on an FTP server can allow content to be viewed worldwide. Publishing stuff on the web is a lot easier than on paper, and in general, should be considered a lot less accurate. (Can you say, "potato powered web server?")
Did the kid expect anyone to actually read the content, or did he just want to put it out there to get rid of it from inside? There is a difference between publishing something in a newspaper and simply making it available on the web.
It's easier to put content on the web, and generally speaking, the expectations for truthful content is not the same as when you pick up the daily Times.
The Pennsylvania legislation defines a virus as any "computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer."
Hmm, except for the replicating itself portion, I think that Internet Explorer could fall under that! I was unaware that when I installed a new version of Windows (Win95 OSR2, OK?) that Internet Explorer would automatically install itself. It caused unauthorized activities. I was unaware. Therefore, it's a virus!
And how about QuickTime 4? I didn't give it authorization to duplicate itself and take over all my audio/visual plugins in both Netscape and Internet Explorer. I was perfectly happy with my MIDI and WAV plugin for Navigator, but it instead took control! I was uninformed of this result, and I didn't authorize it to do that.
So? MP4 would be MPEG Layer 4 compression - also usable for audio compression. (Just like MPEG Layer 3 can also be used for video compression unless I'm mistaken.) So they were just preparing in case a new MP4 format comes out which allows better compression and quality. The people making the MPEG format will continue improving it and adding new layers.
Ignoring the flamer (although I'm responding to his post) can we see some links to where you did your research Signal? Or were you really just karma whoring again?
(Or did you do this offline through secret NASA contacts?)
Personally, I think the MS lawyers have given up on this trial and are now moving on to the appeal. They are hoping to waste time if nothing else, until things change in their advantage if they can. At one point it seemed like they were hoping to wait until the next election to see if a change in the presidency might improve their chances of winning. Now I think they're concentrating on winning on appeal and have given up on this case, short of a huge oversight by either the judge or the DoJ.
Eh, what? What I actually was saying (since you missed where I said that I didn't think that applied here) is that there are circumstances where it can be considered "right" (in the moral sense of the word) to break the law.
And then I said I didn't think that applied to this particular situation.
And BTW, people listen to Bach, to Teleman, to Mozart, and all sorts of old "other people's" creations all the time without second thought. We consider it a right. It is a right to go to the library and read books. You have a right to read what I'm posting here. In a sense, yes, it is a right to see other people's creations. And it is most definately a right for people to have access to "societies creations." Hence people worried about getting Internet access into libraries (and then censoring what they can be used for... sorry, wrong issue). It's why people commission the arts.
Also, why isn't television a "natural right?" You own a tube, you can watch any of the stations allowed by the FCC.
Unfortunately, I don't think this law is unfair. However, should a law infringe on our basic natural rights, then it is not just our right to disobey it, it is our duty as well. At least accoring to Thoreau, who has inspired some really great people in history. But the next time something like DeCSS happens and you want a historical context for spreading the source around, remember Thoreau's essay.
Disclaimer: No, you really don't have a right to break any law you disagree with.
Personally, I'd recommend starting with Java. Most major colleges with CS programs use Java in their introductory courses. With garbage collection and a fairly easy to use API, kids can very quickly and easily get something to appear on the screen. And since it's a virtual machine, they won't have to worry about accidently trashing the system - they shouldn't be able to access the power to do that.
Java has some problems which prevent it from being used in serious applications, but it should be fine to use for people just starting out. It takes away much of the complexity about programming, and contains many functions that make it easy to do things that should be simple. It's also powerful enough to lead them into GCC.
Plus, the SDK is free (as in beer), so that the cost is low. (And if you don't mind signing a NDA, you can actually get the source...) It also has some Linux support, so that programs they write can run under Linux, but they needn't leave Windows if they'd rather not.
There are plenty of tutorials and documentation that can be gotten off the web and the documentation which can be gotten from Sun is fairly comprehensive.
The link to the Sun page is http://java.sun.com/ and there are links to the various JDKs from there. (Direct link to the JDK 1.3 page is here, but it's missing non-Windows support right now, so the Java2 Second Edition page may be a better place to start.
That could be really funny if you were able to break into one of those and start controlling someone's house. Start turning the lights on and off. Set the entire neighborhood to start playing one song over and over again. If people had colored lights, maybe you could turn their house into a disco remotely.
Course, that could also be a cool trick. "Watch this!" Click a link and your house lights up and starts playing some cool song. Or the entire neighborhood lights up and starts playing the same song...
There are links to get players on the archive pages.
There is actually a Linux SPC player released on the GPL, so you can actually play the songs in Linux! Otherwise, you'd need DOS or Windows. And AFAIK, there is NO support for these formats on other platforms, sorry!
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Recently, though, they've been trying to pass a sales tax to pay for of all things public education and have been having one hell of a time getting the voters to accept it. So pretty soon, sales taxes will be pretty much nation-wide here in the USA.
So why not on the internet too, I guess? But would that be state-level, or national-level? On goods coming into the nation? There are still issues to be resolved.
As I don't live in the EU and IANAL, I can't really say exactly how this works and what it effects. But from what I can tell, this is only on software bought over the Internet, and "services" whatever that might be. (Maybe a tax on pr0n sites?)
Shouldn't it by irst-fay ost-pay?
PlayStation dimensions: Listed as 17" x 4.25" x 11.25" based on this Sony product page.
To convert to millimeters, multiply each by 25.4: 431.8 mm x 107.95 mm x 285.75mm.
(Similarly, divide the mms by 25.4 to get inches, so the PlayStationOne is ~7.6" x ~1.5" x ~5.7")
Another post makes that clearer, though.
And, according to another post, HavenCo will be taking control of the island, which means they can define legal/illegal (maybe, I dunno the exact terms). It's still a sticky issue.
So how do you plan on making sure that content going into your datahaven is from valid sources, and then do you expect to do a review of all data and THEN send it to an appropriate site? Or are users responsible for knowing the laws of the country where the data is to be sent to? Similarly, are users restricted to one site, or can they request multiple HavenCo locations?
Then again, the user pages look identical. So is Signa[eye] the same as Signa[elle]? Ouch, this is making my head hurt, trying to differentiate between an I and an l... make it stop... make it stop...
And also use a comma for separating the "whole" number part from the "fractional" part. (As in $3.000,00...) This can get very confusing and weird, but...
Oh. You must mean on a PC.
Seriously, they're more fun on the PlayStation, esp. VIII with a DualShock. Don't bother with the PC versions (esp. if you don't have one of the three supported video cards).
Which is lots of fun if you program and keep on GPFing your own programs - hmm, I guess I'd be the vendor. Now why the fsck doesn't this work?
I dunno about the rest of you, but it takes my system around 30 seconds to boot up. (Including BIOS, LILO timeout, etc.) It would get VERY annoying to think "hmm - I'll play some Quake right now" and then reboot, wait for the BIOS to boot, check memory, then start booting the game's OS, then play the game. Same time waiting while the game is going down, and back to the system.
Besides, there are times when I'll be running Windows to do word processing (I wasn't thinking about Linux compatiblity when I bought my WinPrinter...), then I jump into a quick Counter-Strike game, then go back to actually doing work. If I had to reboot EVERY TIME I wanted to play a game, I would play games quite a lot less often.
(Unless it's Counter-Strike, which I've proven that I am quite willing to boot into Windows to play - but then again, when you're at college, have a LAN, and can often get 20 players (the max allowed) going at once, life is good... And I know Counter-Strike CAN work under WINE, but it's not really playable, IMHO.)
The bottom line is that it's annoying to have to reboot just to play a game. It's a lot nicer to just be able to jump into a game for a bit and then immediately return to your shell and continue doing whatever.
Use the preview button Luke, use the preview button... >:)
On the Internet, a simple PUT command on an FTP server can allow content to be viewed worldwide. Publishing stuff on the web is a lot easier than on paper, and in general, should be considered a lot less accurate. (Can you say, "potato powered web server?")
Did the kid expect anyone to actually read the content, or did he just want to put it out there to get rid of it from inside? There is a difference between publishing something in a newspaper and simply making it available on the web.
It's easier to put content on the web, and generally speaking, the expectations for truthful content is not the same as when you pick up the daily Times.
The Pennsylvania legislation defines a virus as any "computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer."
Hmm, except for the replicating itself portion, I think that Internet Explorer could fall under that! I was unaware that when I installed a new version of Windows (Win95 OSR2, OK?) that Internet Explorer would automatically install itself. It caused unauthorized activities. I was unaware. Therefore, it's a virus!
And how about QuickTime 4? I didn't give it authorization to duplicate itself and take over all my audio/visual plugins in both Netscape and Internet Explorer. I was perfectly happy with my MIDI and WAV plugin for Navigator, but it instead took control! I was uninformed of this result, and I didn't authorize it to do that.
Hmm... Time to call a lawyer...
Nah, I got a story accepted once. So anyone can do it!
So? MP4 would be MPEG Layer 4 compression - also usable for audio compression. (Just like MPEG Layer 3 can also be used for video compression unless I'm mistaken.) So they were just preparing in case a new MP4 format comes out which allows better compression and quality. The people making the MPEG format will continue improving it and adding new layers.
Dictionary.com entries on Iridium seem to suggest FascDot is right. Sorry 575.
(Or did you do this offline through secret NASA contacts?)
Personally, I think the MS lawyers have given up on this trial and are now moving on to the appeal. They are hoping to waste time if nothing else, until things change in their advantage if they can. At one point it seemed like they were hoping to wait until the next election to see if a change in the presidency might improve their chances of winning. Now I think they're concentrating on winning on appeal and have given up on this case, short of a huge oversight by either the judge or the DoJ.
And then I said I didn't think that applied to this particular situation.
And BTW, people listen to Bach, to Teleman, to Mozart, and all sorts of old "other people's" creations all the time without second thought. We consider it a right. It is a right to go to the library and read books. You have a right to read what I'm posting here. In a sense, yes, it is a right to see other people's creations. And it is most definately a right for people to have access to "societies creations." Hence people worried about getting Internet access into libraries (and then censoring what they can be used for... sorry, wrong issue). It's why people commission the arts.
Also, why isn't television a "natural right?" You own a tube, you can watch any of the stations allowed by the FCC.
Sure it does, if the law is unfair. It's called civil disobedience.
Unfortunately, I don't think this law is unfair. However, should a law infringe on our basic natural rights, then it is not just our right to disobey it, it is our duty as well. At least accoring to Thoreau, who has inspired some really great people in history. But the next time something like DeCSS happens and you want a historical context for spreading the source around, remember Thoreau's essay.
Disclaimer: No, you really don't have a right to break any law you disagree with.
Just have to wonder how many people realize that the makers of Quake III and the makers of Commander Keen actually have quite a lot in common... hehe.
Java has some problems which prevent it from being used in serious applications, but it should be fine to use for people just starting out. It takes away much of the complexity about programming, and contains many functions that make it easy to do things that should be simple. It's also powerful enough to lead them into GCC.
Plus, the SDK is free (as in beer), so that the cost is low. (And if you don't mind signing a NDA, you can actually get the source...) It also has some Linux support, so that programs they write can run under Linux, but they needn't leave Windows if they'd rather not.
There are plenty of tutorials and documentation that can be gotten off the web and the documentation which can be gotten from Sun is fairly comprehensive.
The link to the Sun page is http://java.sun.com/ and there are links to the various JDKs from there. (Direct link to the JDK 1.3 page is here, but it's missing non-Windows support right now, so the Java2 Second Edition page may be a better place to start.
Good luck!
Course, that could also be a cool trick. "Watch this!" Click a link and your house lights up and starts playing some cool song. Or the entire neighborhood lights up and starts playing the same song...
Links to the archives:
There are links to get players on the archive pages.
There is actually a Linux SPC player released on the GPL, so you can actually play the songs in Linux! Otherwise, you'd need DOS or Windows. And AFAIK, there is NO support for these formats on other platforms, sorry!