Consumers don't need to scream, they just need to vote with their dollars.
Pfft. A complete waste of time when all the carriers suck. If one the big carriers launches a price/service war, then this will happen. Until then, it's a pipe dream.
So... You move into a house that acts as a Faraday cage, and somehow it's the cell provider's problem?
As long as his new house is inside their coverage area, and he doesn't have lead walls or anything...yes, it should be.
No wireless technology guarentees coverage everywhere. The laws of physics must be obeyed.
Considering how the Japanese can frequently use their phones for internet access in the subway, my sympathy for the U.S. cell phone carries on this issue is between slim and none, and Slims on his way out of town.
How about costing half as much? How about the fact that Nintendo has consistently produced great games in house, whereas Microsoft just has Halo, and only because they bought Bungie?
I don't really understand what the incentive is for companies to release free downloadable content.
Many reasons: new content helps keep their game in the news and encourages new sales. Sometimes the content isn't even "new", it was stuff that was cut out of the game to meet a release date and has now been put back in. It allows the publisher to keep re-releasing the game with new maps and mods while keeping the price up; you could find Half-Life packages on shelves going for $50 just before Half-Life 2 shipped. New stuff can encourage first time buyers to keep playing, making for a larger online community. Finally, you might win the proverbial lottery and an expansion or mod will be more popular than the origional game, a la Counter-Strike.
Nonsense. Santa Clara County wants taxes in this case from people who SHOULD NOT be paying them, and won't be paying them.
Corporations use property. Property is taxed. It is not the job of the federal government to give free rides to for-profit businesses, or shield them from local taxes. So yes, Google SHOULD BE PAYING PROPERTY TAXES HERE. Now, would you like me to explain how 2+2=4 as well?
Ah, so you're one of those who wants to tear everyone down to the same low level.
Ah, thanks for putting words in my mouth.
You must be the only one who doesn't aspire to being wealthy. Thanks for trying to trash the American dream, fuckwit.
Of course it's my dream to work hard and make it rich. But it's not my dream that all of my decendants get to sit around on their asses while everyone around them has to bust theirs to make a living. This country was founded in part on not having an aristocracy...but endless inherited wealth is an aristocracy. But I guess your goal is to be lazy. Shitcock.
It's greedy to want or expect taxes from anyone not liable for them, and/or to want or expect taxes from anyone not in one's tax jurisdiction. Google, as renter, is not liable for any property taxes no matter from whom they rent.
Wow, I see that patented right-wing Tardlogic is out in force today. You think a for-profit owner of an apartment building or office complex is exempt from property taxes? Just who do you think said landlord will pass the cost of those taxes onto? You, the renter. Not only that, but if the landlord gets hit with a 5% property tax increase, he'll increase your rent 10%. Every time. So nothing is quite as funny as a renter crowing about being exempt from property taxes when he's the one who gets hit by them the hardest. I hope you rent.
NASA, a federal agency operating on a federal reservation or enclave, is not within the local or State tax jurisdiction.
And it's not the federal government's job to give corporations a free ride, especially ones that are worth billions.
Enter Greed from stage left. Far left.
Lay off the Tardlogic, pal, and you'll go far. Otherwise I hope you move to this town and have to pay higher taxes to make up for the $3 million a year that Google will be exempt from.
Google pays rent to NASA. NASA's federal facility is untaxable by State or local authorities. NASA provides Google with the infrastructure and services; Google pays to build out what isn't already there.
Wow, miss the point much? Just how does all of that not reinforce the point that Google will be running a million square foot facility while not paying a cent in property taxes?
Just how would Google be exempt from paying taxes themselves, hmmm? Aren't they a corporation subject to all the usual taxes?
Yes, and one of the usual taxes is property taxes. Which Google will be exempt from in the case. Hence the anger on the part of the city. Obviously.
Renters, it should be noted, are never responsible for property taxes in any case.
Wow, here's a clue. Even if you rent, your landlord pays property taxes. And if his property taxes go up, he will pass that cost along to you ASAP. Only he'll use that as an excuse to raise your rent even more, and put the difference into his own pocket. It's so funny to watch a renter crow about not paying property taxes when he's the one who gets hit by them the hardest. Now NASA is a federal agency, and thus exempt from local taxes. And this is why the city has a problem with it, and so would you if you were a local resident with any sense.
Google does NOT own the land, so that improvement does not benefit Google.
No, they're just going to be running a million square foot facility. How does that not benefit Google again?
I'm quite familiar with two small cities local politics, and I was appalled at the wastefulness and idiocy in decision making.
And your point is...what? That your experience applies everywhere? And as if there was no wastefullness or idiocy in business.
If the city is out of money, I'm 100% certain its because of sweetheart deals with a road construction contractor, garbage hauler, or retarded cable franchises. Period.
Or maybe they made certain committments to the city employees to provide them retirement benefits and are having a hard time doing that because of a bad economy means less revenue...sort of like what happens all the time to businesses. Period.
So on the one hand he shouldn't be doing what he's doing because he's taking money out of someone's hands, and on the other hand, what he's doing doesn't make any difference so no one should care? Just how stupid are you?
Apple has threatened those who attempted to distribute music in Apple's DRM format (i.e. Real).
BFD. It's Apple's format and Apple's player. Until Apple becomes a monopoly in the online store and music player markets, neither you nor Real have any grounds for complaint whatsoever.
Apple doesn't. Sorry, the fact that the iPod can play MP3s doesn't excuse Apple's anti-competitive practices.
Sorry, that's utter nonsense. Nothing prevents you from buying an iRiver or a Dell DigitalDJ or a Rio or an mp3 Walkman and buying music from Wal-Marts site or Buymusic.com or Napster or Real or even buying a regular pressed cd and putting it in whatever format you want.
I've never seen a dime from either program. I don't ever expect to.
Just because you don't get the exact same amount of money in services back that you pay in taxes doesn't mean that you don't benefit from the services they provide. So yes, you do benefit from Social Security and Medicare, reguardless of wether or not you collect them directly.
So, you're wrong, they go to SOME of the American people. But then again, so do government contracts for war supplies.
Having nearly 2,000 Americans die for a lie benefits no one.
So now that I've made you look ridiculous and ignorant, care to try again, so I can have a bit more fun?
Considering you depend on tardlogic, that has never happened nor will it ever happen. Go home your sister wants you to come back to bed.
Which was and still is a completely valid reason for invading since Iraq was attempting to purchase materials for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
No, they weren't.
And they already had quite a bit.
No, they didn't. I suppose you are one of those polled who think that Saddam had WMD's and that we found them already. This crap was all debunked years ago.
They just didn't have massive stockpiles of ICBMs that the Left suddenly thinks we went there to get.
Nice revisionist history. Here, lets review: three years ago Bush said that Saddam had signifigant stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and was actively trying to aquire nuclear weapons. Bush said this wasn't a war of choice, it was a war of necessity, and that Saddam was such a threat that we had to take him out right now. Of course, this all turned out to be false.
Try playing a game with yourself. It's called, "what if Clinton did it". What if Clinton had convinced the nation to spend hundereds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives on what turned out to be false pretenses. What if Clinton had sat on his ass for half an hour while he knew an American city was under attack. What would your reaction be if Clinton gave multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to a company formerly headed by his Vice President. And so on.
Sure, and those are all critical targets in a war such as WWII, where the German army was dependant on oil refined in Austria and was occuping land with hostile locals that were happy to out them. That doesn't cut the mustard when you're "defending" a country from large segments of its own population in a war of attrition. The Viet Cong didn't need railroads, bridges or dams to wage its war when all they needed was to backpack some mines and sniper rifles through the jungle. Same goes for the Iraqi insurgency - they don't need tanks or supply lines when their weapons are IED's and assault rifles. And last time I checked, every household was allowed to have one AK-47.
Going into Iraq, bridges, ports, rail stations, power stations, warehouses, government buildings, and a wide variety of others were targeted.
Yup, and if we hadn't gone all out in bombing civilian infrastructure, we wouldn't have as much of a problem with reconstruction or winning over the Iraqis.
Obviously, exactly what it is: an origional copy. It means you are selling the Rolling Stones CD you bought in 1995 and not a cdr copy.
Legally this is a murky question.
No, it's not.
The copyright law says you have no right to make copies of that book except for certain exceptions, and this isn't one of the listed ones.
You are confused. You are thinking about rules on how you use someone elses copyright work as part of your own, or on public performances. You had to have taken at least one English class in your life. You must remember that while you cannot copy an editorial out of the back of Time, you can quote a paragraph as long as it's properly sited.
You're going about this the wrong way. As I said before, copyright is not about the right to make copies, but control of distribution. The DMCA goes around all that by outlawing the bypassing of copy control mechanisms.
If you disagree with anything I've said above, please provide some support for your position.
It's called time shifting. And the only reason this was an issue in the first place is because copying and distributing are getting easier and easier as technology advances. Hence, the DMCA.
Yeah, they CAN pay taxes, but that doesn't mean they will or should.
Um, yes it does. Paying taxes is a basic civic duty. Unfortunatly, there are a whole lot of greedy and self-centered people in this country who can't see past their own noses.
Frankly, I think we should stand with Google against these taxes, not degenerate into warfare over who isn't paying their "share" of taxes.
But that's the point: they aren't paying their fair share of taxes. As one person in TFA pointed out, Google is creating demand for local services without paying for them. And, every dollar that Google is exempt from is one that local taxpayers will have to make up for. If you were a town resident and paying higher taxes so a multi-billion dollar company doesn't have to pay any, I think you'd be singing a different tune.
You keep the game your playing, the politicians win.
Or in this case, the city employees who will actually get a retirement plan.
Fuck the services, bring me the head of the local tax man; that's all the service I need from the local government.
Sure...except it will cost you 4x as much to get services from private business that you currently get from public taxes. And they wont be as good.
Only in America can the government justifly levying additional taxes on an entity outside its jursidiction
Google is a for-profit business getting a free ride on public land. It has no business being outside the cities jurisdiciton.
based on the governments desire to pay for its own reckless spending
Yes, the city wants to actually ensure a modicum of a retirement plan for its employees. Greedy bastards, just give them some empty refrigerator boxes and a Weber grill.
Wow, maybe you shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. Landlords pay property taxes, and guess who that cost gets passed on to? The renter. More to the point, the size of the rent increase is always greater than the size of the property tax increase.
Sure, since this is a government agency, there most likely is not any property tax to be passed along. But if a for-profit business uses public land it had damn well better pay public taxes, or they have no business being there.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder why they didn't go with Bluetooth rather than IR.
Still doesn't make it right..
Nothing's wrong with it in the first place.
Consumers don't need to scream, they just need to vote with their dollars.
Pfft. A complete waste of time when all the carriers suck. If one the big carriers launches a price/service war, then this will happen. Until then, it's a pipe dream.
So... You move into a house that acts as a Faraday cage, and somehow it's the cell provider's problem?
As long as his new house is inside their coverage area, and he doesn't have lead walls or anything...yes, it should be.
No wireless technology guarentees coverage everywhere. The laws of physics must be obeyed.
Considering how the Japanese can frequently use their phones for internet access in the subway, my sympathy for the U.S. cell phone carries on this issue is between slim and none, and Slims on his way out of town.
The GameCube offered nothing that the Xbox didn't
How about costing half as much? How about the fact that Nintendo has consistently produced great games in house, whereas Microsoft just has Halo, and only because they bought Bungie?
No replacements
Other than having to get a new disc for each and every customer, that is.
I don't really understand what the incentive is for companies to release free downloadable content.
Many reasons: new content helps keep their game in the news and encourages new sales. Sometimes the content isn't even "new", it was stuff that was cut out of the game to meet a release date and has now been put back in. It allows the publisher to keep re-releasing the game with new maps and mods while keeping the price up; you could find Half-Life packages on shelves going for $50 just before Half-Life 2 shipped. New stuff can encourage first time buyers to keep playing, making for a larger online community. Finally, you might win the proverbial lottery and an expansion or mod will be more popular than the origional game, a la Counter-Strike.
Nonsense. Santa Clara County wants taxes in this case from people who SHOULD NOT be paying them, and won't be paying them.
Corporations use property. Property is taxed. It is not the job of the federal government to give free rides to for-profit businesses, or shield them from local taxes. So yes, Google SHOULD BE PAYING PROPERTY TAXES HERE. Now, would you like me to explain how 2+2=4 as well?
Ah, so you're one of those who wants to tear everyone down to the same low level.
Ah, thanks for putting words in my mouth.
You must be the only one who doesn't aspire to being wealthy. Thanks for trying to trash the American dream, fuckwit.
Of course it's my dream to work hard and make it rich. But it's not my dream that all of my decendants get to sit around on their asses while everyone around them has to bust theirs to make a living. This country was founded in part on not having an aristocracy...but endless inherited wealth is an aristocracy. But I guess your goal is to be lazy. Shitcock.
It's greedy to want or expect taxes from anyone not liable for them, and/or to want or expect taxes from anyone not in one's tax jurisdiction. Google, as renter, is not liable for any property taxes no matter from whom they rent.
Wow, I see that patented right-wing Tardlogic is out in force today. You think a for-profit owner of an apartment building or office complex is exempt from property taxes? Just who do you think said landlord will pass the cost of those taxes onto? You, the renter. Not only that, but if the landlord gets hit with a 5% property tax increase, he'll increase your rent 10%. Every time. So nothing is quite as funny as a renter crowing about being exempt from property taxes when he's the one who gets hit by them the hardest. I hope you rent.
NASA, a federal agency operating on a federal reservation or enclave, is not within the local or State tax jurisdiction.
And it's not the federal government's job to give corporations a free ride, especially ones that are worth billions.
Enter Greed from stage left. Far left.
Lay off the Tardlogic, pal, and you'll go far. Otherwise I hope you move to this town and have to pay higher taxes to make up for the $3 million a year that Google will be exempt from.
Google pays rent to NASA. NASA's federal facility is untaxable by State or local authorities. NASA provides Google with the infrastructure and services; Google pays to build out what isn't already there.
Wow, miss the point much? Just how does all of that not reinforce the point that Google will be running a million square foot facility while not paying a cent in property taxes?
Just how would Google be exempt from paying taxes themselves, hmmm? Aren't they a corporation subject to all the usual taxes?
Yes, and one of the usual taxes is property taxes. Which Google will be exempt from in the case. Hence the anger on the part of the city. Obviously.
Renters, it should be noted, are never responsible for property taxes in any case.
Wow, here's a clue. Even if you rent, your landlord pays property taxes. And if his property taxes go up, he will pass that cost along to you ASAP. Only he'll use that as an excuse to raise your rent even more, and put the difference into his own pocket. It's so funny to watch a renter crow about not paying property taxes when he's the one who gets hit by them the hardest. Now NASA is a federal agency, and thus exempt from local taxes. And this is why the city has a problem with it, and so would you if you were a local resident with any sense.
They are paying RENT.
RENT IS NOT TAXES.
Google does NOT own the land, so that improvement does not benefit Google.
No, they're just going to be running a million square foot facility. How does that not benefit Google again?
I'm quite familiar with two small cities local politics, and I was appalled at the wastefulness and idiocy in decision making.
And your point is...what? That your experience applies everywhere? And as if there was no wastefullness or idiocy in business.
If the city is out of money, I'm 100% certain its because of sweetheart deals with a road construction contractor, garbage hauler, or retarded cable franchises. Period.
Or maybe they made certain committments to the city employees to provide them retirement benefits and are having a hard time doing that because of a bad economy means less revenue...sort of like what happens all the time to businesses. Period.
Ah yes, my flamey reply to a flame get's modded down, whereas the origional flame goes untouched. I see we've got our top minds at work modding again.
So on the one hand he shouldn't be doing what he's doing because he's taking money out of someone's hands, and on the other hand, what he's doing doesn't make any difference so no one should care? Just how stupid are you?
Commies have only obtained power through either conspiratorial coups, or by usurping popular non-communist revolutions.
Or by appealing to the poor and the desperate. Works great in countries with vast income disparities.
Apple has threatened those who attempted to distribute music in Apple's DRM format (i.e. Real).
BFD. It's Apple's format and Apple's player. Until Apple becomes a monopoly in the online store and music player markets, neither you nor Real have any grounds for complaint whatsoever.
Apple doesn't. Sorry, the fact that the iPod can play MP3s doesn't excuse Apple's anti-competitive practices.
Sorry, that's utter nonsense. Nothing prevents you from buying an iRiver or a Dell DigitalDJ or a Rio or an mp3 Walkman and buying music from Wal-Marts site or Buymusic.com or Napster or Real or even buying a regular pressed cd and putting it in whatever format you want.
I've never seen a dime from either program. I don't ever expect to.
Just because you don't get the exact same amount of money in services back that you pay in taxes doesn't mean that you don't benefit from the services they provide. So yes, you do benefit from Social Security and Medicare, reguardless of wether or not you collect them directly.
So, you're wrong, they go to SOME of the American people. But then again, so do government contracts for war supplies.
Having nearly 2,000 Americans die for a lie benefits no one.
So now that I've made you look ridiculous and ignorant, care to try again, so I can have a bit more fun?
Considering you depend on tardlogic, that has never happened nor will it ever happen. Go home your sister wants you to come back to bed.
Which was and still is a completely valid reason for invading since Iraq was attempting to purchase materials for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
No, they weren't.
And they already had quite a bit.
No, they didn't. I suppose you are one of those polled who think that Saddam had WMD's and that we found them already. This crap was all debunked years ago.
They just didn't have massive stockpiles of ICBMs that the Left suddenly thinks we went there to get.
Nice revisionist history. Here, lets review: three years ago Bush said that Saddam had signifigant stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and was actively trying to aquire nuclear weapons. Bush said this wasn't a war of choice, it was a war of necessity, and that Saddam was such a threat that we had to take him out right now. Of course, this all turned out to be false.
Try playing a game with yourself. It's called, "what if Clinton did it". What if Clinton had convinced the nation to spend hundereds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives on what turned out to be false pretenses. What if Clinton had sat on his ass for half an hour while he knew an American city was under attack. What would your reaction be if Clinton gave multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to a company formerly headed by his Vice President. And so on.
Dams? Prohibited.
Sure, and those are all critical targets in a war such as WWII, where the German army was dependant on oil refined in Austria and was occuping land with hostile locals that were happy to out them. That doesn't cut the mustard when you're "defending" a country from large segments of its own population in a war of attrition. The Viet Cong didn't need railroads, bridges or dams to wage its war when all they needed was to backpack some mines and sniper rifles through the jungle. Same goes for the Iraqi insurgency - they don't need tanks or supply lines when their weapons are IED's and assault rifles. And last time I checked, every household was allowed to have one AK-47.
Going into Iraq, bridges, ports, rail stations, power stations, warehouses, government buildings, and a wide variety of others were targeted.
Yup, and if we hadn't gone all out in bombing civilian infrastructure, we wouldn't have as much of a problem with reconstruction or winning over the Iraqis.
What is an original copy?
Obviously, exactly what it is: an origional copy. It means you are selling the Rolling Stones CD you bought in 1995 and not a cdr copy.
Legally this is a murky question.
No, it's not.
The copyright law says you have no right to make copies of that book except for certain exceptions, and this isn't one of the listed ones.
You are confused. You are thinking about rules on how you use someone elses copyright work as part of your own, or on public performances. You had to have taken at least one English class in your life. You must remember that while you cannot copy an editorial out of the back of Time, you can quote a paragraph as long as it's properly sited.
You're going about this the wrong way. As I said before, copyright is not about the right to make copies, but control of distribution. The DMCA goes around all that by outlawing the bypassing of copy control mechanisms.
If you disagree with anything I've said above, please provide some support for your position.
It's called time shifting. And the only reason this was an issue in the first place is because copying and distributing are getting easier and easier as technology advances. Hence, the DMCA.
Yeah, they CAN pay taxes, but that doesn't mean they will or should.
Um, yes it does. Paying taxes is a basic civic duty. Unfortunatly, there are a whole lot of greedy and self-centered people in this country who can't see past their own noses.
Frankly, I think we should stand with Google against these taxes, not degenerate into warfare over who isn't paying their "share" of taxes.
But that's the point: they aren't paying their fair share of taxes. As one person in TFA pointed out, Google is creating demand for local services without paying for them. And, every dollar that Google is exempt from is one that local taxpayers will have to make up for. If you were a town resident and paying higher taxes so a multi-billion dollar company doesn't have to pay any, I think you'd be singing a different tune.
You keep the game your playing, the politicians win.
Or in this case, the city employees who will actually get a retirement plan.
Fuck the services, bring me the head of the local tax man; that's all the service I need from the local government.
Sure...except it will cost you 4x as much to get services from private business that you currently get from public taxes. And they wont be as good.
Only in America can the government justifly levying additional taxes on an entity outside its jursidiction
Google is a for-profit business getting a free ride on public land. It has no business being outside the cities jurisdiciton.
based on the governments desire to pay for its own reckless spending
Yes, the city wants to actually ensure a modicum of a retirement plan for its employees. Greedy bastards, just give them some empty refrigerator boxes and a Weber grill.
Idiot.
Wow, maybe you shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. Landlords pay property taxes, and guess who that cost gets passed on to? The renter. More to the point, the size of the rent increase is always greater than the size of the property tax increase.
Sure, since this is a government agency, there most likely is not any property tax to be passed along. But if a for-profit business uses public land it had damn well better pay public taxes, or they have no business being there.
Pull your head out of our posterior.
Speak for yourself, asshat.
this means the Googleheads will be *shopping* at whatever local Santa Clara malls exist; and they'll be paying sales tax, too
So it's the responsibility of the employees (and the other country residents) to make up for Google not paying taxes? That's crap.
This is a win for Google. This is a win for NASA. This doesn't cost Santa Clara a dime, because NASA pays for all the local services.
And who do you think pays for NASA, dumbass?
Why the fuck should google pay for *any* of the local politics?
Because the rest of us fucking have to, that's why.
What's in it for us?
The taxes they should be paying in the first place, maybe?
You're creating a magnet to draw a ton more six-digit income workers and Google stock millionaires
Which means...what exactly? That Google should be exempt from paying taxes themselves?
hardly a justification for going after Google for new tax revenue
How is it greedy to want taxes from somebody who should be paying taxes?
There may be other, more justifiably reasons for doing so
How about not making local taxpayers fork out more cash so a multi-billion dollar corporation is exempt?