This isn't about international transactions, those have a different set of rules... for example if one buys from the US while living in most European countries, customs will force you to pay the local VAT. This is about state-to-state transactions within the US.
If you do what you're talking about, the result would be that all internet companies would set up P.O. boxes in whichever state had the lowest sales tax (for example, Delaware), and then simply put all their transactions there...
It may be somewhat complicated, but the fairest solution is to tax based on the destination. There would need to be some sort of national database set up so that merchants could look up tax rates by address, or better yet, just have it done by state. Having to pay each county would be a bit much, but it's not unreasonable for online merchants to have to send tax revenues at the end of the year to each state they sent merchandise to.
Hey, are you a little angry buddy? Relax a little, I was mistaken, I should have said independents and conservative Democrats. I personally do like most things in the bill, and frankly am amazed that anyone can hate them as much as you seem to.
For instance, it mandates that insurance companies cannot charge you more for insurance based on most pre-existing conditions. This is simply the right thing to do.
It depends on the courses, and the curving system.
At my undergrad institution (USNA), the GPA distribution of the graduating class was essentially a normal curve centered at 3.0 (2.0 being the minimum to graduate, 4.0 the highest possible), with a small local maxima at 4.0 to account for the few students who put in the effort to maintain a perfect GPA.
When I did my masters at Stanford the distribution was a little different, but that was because you needed to maintain a 3.25 in your specialty to get your masters, and a 3.5 to move on a phd. That's not to say the courses were easy. Trust me, getting an A in "Elementary Plasma Physics" was no small accomplishment. Yes, maybe the class averaged a 3.35, but the 10 people in that class were some of the smartest people I've ever met...
Socialists are taking over this nation? Since when? You clearly need to read up on the definition of socialism. Government regulation does not socialism make.
Or just mandate that envelopes must have a machine readable label, either printed from an automated machine at the post office or from a printer at home. There... now every letter can be routed by an automated system.
Because the healthcare bill didn't have a robust public option, the positive feedback spiral of insurance, healthcare chains, big pharmy can rocket up.
You can't really blame Obama for the lack of a robust public option... he tried for it, but Republicans blocked it. Perhaps he compromised too readily, but at least Obamacare mandates coverage. That's a step in the right direction... the real problem is that they didn't put in provisions to strictly control costs...
Planning for a 90 sol mission when the rovers clearly have the potential to last far longer is bound to lead to suboptimal choices.
They didn't "build the components to only last 90 days"... they built them as sturdily as they could given weight restraints, then estimated that under the most extreme conditions, they would only last 90 days. The conditions have been considerably better than "the worst possible", so the components have lasted much longer.
How about an airborne pathogen that remains dormant in it's host for 2 years, then suddenly goes wild and kills the host? I'd say that, according the Bacon's law, most of humanity would die off quite rapidly after the first death occurred. You can't take measures against a disease you don't know exists...
You will never get anywhere in politics without money, and you'll never get money without money
While it's certainly easier to make money if you already have some, I would say most of the most visible billionaires (especially in tech) made their money starting from essentially nothing.
Western democracies are extremely good at keeping intact the old aristocratic systems, while managing to convince the general public that they actually have a say.
Western democracies, especially the US government, were created with strong provisions to ensure that it is difficult to change the status quo (i.e. checks and balances). While you can claim (with some truth) that this was done to protect the rich, it also protects many other minorities by ensuring that it is difficult for the majority to enact changes which effect them in a negative way. The general public has also enacted sweeping changes in American government over the past century. Look at Social Security, the Civil Rights movement, and gay rights in the past decade.
Democracy is the most ingenious invention ever for keeping people in check.
Of course it is, it's a form of government. Government exists, essentially by definition, to keep people in check. The beauty of Democracy is that it does it without, for the most part, causing levels of oppression which the people deem insupportable. Perhaps one day humanity will discover a form of government which can maintain order with a gentler yoke.. but that day has not yet arrived.
Sure you're free to "effect social change", you just might not be all that effective; the system in place in most "free" countries makes it difficult, but not impossible. This is, in fact, wise, because (believe it or not) not everyone wants to enact the same social changes as you.
I agree. There's no way that Apple is trusting the manufacture of what could be tens of millions of chips to an unproven technology. Even if (and that's a big if) TMSC could manage to get chips delivered on schedule, there's no telling what sort of reliability issues you'd be seeing 6 months down the road... especially with something like "3D" chips. I really don't think that Apple's business execs are crazy enough to take a risk like that.
Just because there is only one app running doesn't mean it is running in a single thread. While most apps might not take advantage of multithreading at the moment, if quad core processors become the norm I'm sure you'll see them starting to use it. That is assuming that Apple actually put multithreading into their iphone SDK.
I think a more interesting point is that they don't usually check the fingerprints of Americans entering the US... only foreign passport holders.
in most other countries, taking fingerprints is seen as something only ever done to criminals and is NOT used as a form of identification in any circumstances
I don't know about "most other countries", but I know for a fact that to get a French passport you have to give your fingerprints. I know this because I have a French passport in addition to my American one. As a side note, this makes it a hell of a lot easier to travel between the EU and US. You can take the "local" line on both ends =).
all ten fingerprints of every single entrant to the country
To be honest this isn't that big of a deal. You've always needed to be identified to enter the country... the fingerprinting is just a more rigorous form of identification. The difference between presenting a passport and presenting your fingerprints is really just semantics. Not to mention that you forfeit the right against unreasonable search and seizure when crossing an international border. The only thing that could change that would be the elimination of borders entirely.
After all, if you can't identify and/or search people crossing the border, why bother having a border in the first place?
Apple's licensing costs are in US dollars and their revenues are in US dollars and hence the cost of these goods in USD is independent of the Australian currency.
Actually, I believe they have to reach a licensing agreement in every country they wish to sell music in. I could be wrong though.
A rising Australian dollar does in fact entitle me to purchase more goods from overseas - that's the very definition of what a rising Australian dollar means. My local hardware store sells imported power drills - made in the US by a US company and bought with US dollars. As the Australian dollar rises, these imports become cheaper and the Australian price of imported power drills falls accordingly.
Again though, they are being sold in Australia, not the US. Your local hardware store is not obligated to lower the price of the drills because they're paying less to buy them in the States. They may decide to, but they should not be required to. Not to mention if Apple has to pay licensing fees in Australian dollars, the whole argument of their costs going down is just plain wrong.
Theoretically the free market should prevent price gouging from happening.
I agree that the free market is failing in this case, I just don't buy the argument that prices of music should be pegged to the US dollar. There's a lot that goes into selling music in a country, even if your distribution network is entirely digital. Apple should be allowed to set prices to take these things into account. They have all sorts of local costs that you're not considering, even beyond licensing fees. Advertising, technical support, legal fees, etc etc... Now even taking all these into account, they may still have a higher profit margin in Australia then the US due to the exchange rate changes, but you can't simply say that "Their cost to sell a song to a consumer in the US is the same as it is to sell one to a consumer in Australia". That is clearly not true.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure your Internet is cheap, but how much do you pay for a cocktail?
Just like Hubble is an antique, right?
If you do what you're talking about, the result would be that all internet companies would set up P.O. boxes in whichever state had the lowest sales tax (for example, Delaware), and then simply put all their transactions there...
It may be somewhat complicated, but the fairest solution is to tax based on the destination. There would need to be some sort of national database set up so that merchants could look up tax rates by address, or better yet, just have it done by state. Having to pay each county would be a bit much, but it's not unreasonable for online merchants to have to send tax revenues at the end of the year to each state they sent merchandise to.
But in either case, it is definitely not the location of the purchaser that makes the determination of where the transaction is "taking place".
I'd say that's exactly where it takes place... where the goods were transferred from the seller to the buyer, ie at their doorstep.
For instance, it mandates that insurance companies cannot charge you more for insurance based on most pre-existing conditions. This is simply the right thing to do.
Well, except that 1.3 of 7 is more than 1.5 of 6...
At my undergrad institution (USNA), the GPA distribution of the graduating class was essentially a normal curve centered at 3.0 (2.0 being the minimum to graduate, 4.0 the highest possible), with a small local maxima at 4.0 to account for the few students who put in the effort to maintain a perfect GPA.
When I did my masters at Stanford the distribution was a little different, but that was because you needed to maintain a 3.25 in your specialty to get your masters, and a 3.5 to move on a phd. That's not to say the courses were easy. Trust me, getting an A in "Elementary Plasma Physics" was no small accomplishment. Yes, maybe the class averaged a 3.35, but the 10 people in that class were some of the smartest people I've ever met...
Socialists are taking over this nation? Since when? You clearly need to read up on the definition of socialism. Government regulation does not socialism make.
Or just mandate that envelopes must have a machine readable label, either printed from an automated machine at the post office or from a printer at home. There... now every letter can be routed by an automated system.
Because the healthcare bill didn't have a robust public option, the positive feedback spiral of insurance, healthcare chains, big pharmy can rocket up.
You can't really blame Obama for the lack of a robust public option... he tried for it, but Republicans blocked it. Perhaps he compromised too readily, but at least Obamacare mandates coverage. That's a step in the right direction... the real problem is that they didn't put in provisions to strictly control costs...
Fortunately this is in large part compensated for by the ability to search for keywords.
The Constitution was always intended to be, and IS, a living changing document. That's why it can be amended!
Exactly... and it's not a mistake you're likely able to learn from.
Planning for a 90 sol mission when the rovers clearly have the potential to last far longer is bound to lead to suboptimal choices.
They didn't "build the components to only last 90 days"... they built them as sturdily as they could given weight restraints, then estimated that under the most extreme conditions, they would only last 90 days. The conditions have been considerably better than "the worst possible", so the components have lasted much longer.
How about an airborne pathogen that remains dormant in it's host for 2 years, then suddenly goes wild and kills the host? I'd say that, according the Bacon's law, most of humanity would die off quite rapidly after the first death occurred. You can't take measures against a disease you don't know exists...
You will never get anywhere in politics without money, and you'll never get money without money
While it's certainly easier to make money if you already have some, I would say most of the most visible billionaires (especially in tech) made their money starting from essentially nothing.
Western democracies are extremely good at keeping intact the old aristocratic systems, while managing to convince the general public that they actually have a say.
Western democracies, especially the US government, were created with strong provisions to ensure that it is difficult to change the status quo (i.e. checks and balances). While you can claim (with some truth) that this was done to protect the rich, it also protects many other minorities by ensuring that it is difficult for the majority to enact changes which effect them in a negative way. The general public has also enacted sweeping changes in American government over the past century. Look at Social Security, the Civil Rights movement, and gay rights in the past decade.
Democracy is the most ingenious invention ever for keeping people in check.
Of course it is, it's a form of government. Government exists, essentially by definition, to keep people in check. The beauty of Democracy is that it does it without, for the most part, causing levels of oppression which the people deem insupportable. Perhaps one day humanity will discover a form of government which can maintain order with a gentler yoke.. but that day has not yet arrived.
Sure you're free to "effect social change", you just might not be all that effective; the system in place in most "free" countries makes it difficult, but not impossible. This is, in fact, wise, because (believe it or not) not everyone wants to enact the same social changes as you.
Thanks. I wasn't saying that it doesn't exist, I just don't do any iphone programming, so I didn't know.
I agree. There's no way that Apple is trusting the manufacture of what could be tens of millions of chips to an unproven technology. Even if (and that's a big if) TMSC could manage to get chips delivered on schedule, there's no telling what sort of reliability issues you'd be seeing 6 months down the road... especially with something like "3D" chips. I really don't think that Apple's business execs are crazy enough to take a risk like that.
Fantastic bit, thanks for that.
Just because there is only one app running doesn't mean it is running in a single thread. While most apps might not take advantage of multithreading at the moment, if quad core processors become the norm I'm sure you'll see them starting to use it. That is assuming that Apple actually put multithreading into their iphone SDK.
Actually, since, as you say, "it is a base 12 system", it would make more sense for it to go from 0-11. So 10am 11am 0pm.
in most other countries, taking fingerprints is seen as something only ever done to criminals and is NOT used as a form of identification in any circumstances
I don't know about "most other countries", but I know for a fact that to get a French passport you have to give your fingerprints. I know this because I have a French passport in addition to my American one. As a side note, this makes it a hell of a lot easier to travel between the EU and US. You can take the "local" line on both ends =).
all ten fingerprints of every single entrant to the country
To be honest this isn't that big of a deal. You've always needed to be identified to enter the country... the fingerprinting is just a more rigorous form of identification. The difference between presenting a passport and presenting your fingerprints is really just semantics. Not to mention that you forfeit the right against unreasonable search and seizure when crossing an international border. The only thing that could change that would be the elimination of borders entirely.
After all, if you can't identify and/or search people crossing the border, why bother having a border in the first place?
Apple's licensing costs are in US dollars and their revenues are in US dollars and hence the cost of these goods in USD is independent of the Australian currency.
Actually, I believe they have to reach a licensing agreement in every country they wish to sell music in. I could be wrong though.
A rising Australian dollar does in fact entitle me to purchase more goods from overseas - that's the very definition of what a rising Australian dollar means. My local hardware store sells imported power drills - made in the US by a US company and bought with US dollars. As the Australian dollar rises, these imports become cheaper and the Australian price of imported power drills falls accordingly.
Again though, they are being sold in Australia, not the US. Your local hardware store is not obligated to lower the price of the drills because they're paying less to buy them in the States. They may decide to, but they should not be required to. Not to mention if Apple has to pay licensing fees in Australian dollars, the whole argument of their costs going down is just plain wrong.
Theoretically the free market should prevent price gouging from happening.
I agree that the free market is failing in this case, I just don't buy the argument that prices of music should be pegged to the US dollar. There's a lot that goes into selling music in a country, even if your distribution network is entirely digital. Apple should be allowed to set prices to take these things into account. They have all sorts of local costs that you're not considering, even beyond licensing fees. Advertising, technical support, legal fees, etc etc... Now even taking all these into account, they may still have a higher profit margin in Australia then the US due to the exchange rate changes, but you can't simply say that "Their cost to sell a song to a consumer in the US is the same as it is to sell one to a consumer in Australia". That is clearly not true.