No... bad idea, because that reveals the security answer to the bank account which is more important
(my favorite color is Gold, by the way, particularly when associated with large quantities of a periodic table element by the same name)
But then again... different sites are not linked together anyways.. so how can you really establish that different people really are the same person?
You cannot.
The sites are different, so the same username is not authentically the same across multiple sites, not ever.
On IRC networks, the same handle or nickname can be used by hundreds or thousands of different people, even different ones on different places.
So there is no probable association based on just username, at least not automatically.
The prospect you, I, or any random teenager could go to some random forum and signup with username CmdrTaco or BillGates,
and post something that inadvertently gets people knocking on someone else's door at midnight is kind of scary.
judging on the RAID part of your comment seems you're talking about small servers.
No; I am talking about servers of all sizes, but it would be the opposite of what you think. If there are any servers that do not use some form of RAID technology, they are likely to be small servers or not very important.
oracle or such had always been assigned some LUN from a big storage,
It sounds like you are talking about SAN storage; which is sometimes used for mission critical databases. The exact RAID level of the array and what LUNs are carved from is in fact even more CRITICAL for DB server performance on a large storage system than on a direct attach storage configuration. There are systems with hardware RAID configurations for all types of storage whether SAN, NAS, or directed attached.
on which i have no control and neither the expertise to configure. RAID is done in there
Major mistake if you are the database system architect / DB admin and not asserting some control or checks of how one of the most important facilities required by the database system is configured.
Just because another admin knows how to configure this: Does not mean they are giving you an acceptable, optimal configuration for your database system.
Perhaps that particular issue wouldn't be such a big one if storage admins didn't so often get things totally wrong. Or pick RAID5 because it will use up less Gigabytes of expensive disk, or RAID6 because it's "super fault tolerant", despite database performance being total crap in most real world cases.
Seems you've know only lame sysadmins. Like i've seen bad dba's.
The worst case denominator is what you have to anticipate. If you're the DBA, then making the database system work correctly is your job. And leaving important architectural elements to chance puts your job in jeapordy.
The skills of system admins varies. One of the DBA's jobs when architecting the database system is to make sure it's done right, regardless of their coworker's skill level; in some cases, this may involve checking others' work/documentation, especially, if the system is in production and results don't meet calculated expectations. The DBA needs root just to use the proper tools with their analytical skills to attempt to investigate and troubleshoot the mismatch between expecations and results, so they can escalate to sysadmin, if they isolate something to a probable hardware problem, for example.
Trivial things like shared memory limits and such i know... Im used to get some info for each product i have to install on the machines where i am root and i'm not shy to ask to the DBA or simply the person that needs my support for how to do my job easer and the result better for both of us.
You're probably missing the point... there is not "one good value" for a lot of settings.
The DBA needs to make determinations as to proper values, there are tradeoffs involved, and the right ones can even change.
The DBA needs certain access to even be able to do basic analysis.
DBAs needing root isn't necessary as long as you have proper corroboration, communication, and trust between system admins and DBAs.
Sysadmins needing root isn't necessary, as long as you have proper corroboration,
communication, and trust between system admins and the manager overseeing them.
Got a great idea and want to get it past security without trouble? that's simple... simply get buy-in from a senior executive. get him to adopt it as his pet project and get it working on the Dev servers. now when he announces it Security cant do anything but say yes and do your bidding because they do not dare tell the Senior VP of marketing that they wont let his project run.
They should go to the VP of marketing and ask him about delaying the implementation of the project to try to address some security issues, and inform him that the devs didn't give corporate security a heads up to even start considering the security ramifications.
Then a few weeks later, they can deliver a shiny report to the VP quantifying the risk that this new effort brings to the company, explain what the risks are, and propose mitigations to the risk (some of which involve removing things from the project, locking it down, or spending a lot more money),
as well as the risks and costs for going forward with no changes.
After the VP weighs his options, he may cancel the project, due to the cost created by not involving security planning at Stage 1.
Do I make enemies withing security? yup. Every one of them hated me because my default approach to them was an end run. And it was simply because the security guys were incapable of thought outside of the "lock it all down" OMG OMG! DANGER DANGER! WE got a iphone/ipod app launched for use in the company and made every one of the security guys froth at the mouth and fall on the floor convulsing when I end ran them to a VP who loved it and wanted every sales person to have it. They lost their mind at allowing 190 non company locked up iphones and ipods connected to the holy internal wifi.
Just wait when my ipad system for sales forecasting get's greenlighted and they have to allow 200+ ipads on it as well...
Just wait 'til Security has to have an auditor in with a pen test that involves sneaking in an iPhone with malware installed, and gives the company an F rating on a SOX audit, with demands that the "open wifi policy" cease, and 10-million$$ fines for the company.
This is a result of poorly designed DBM systems (and other products) that have to be installed and configured as root.
That's one reason, but DBAs also need root to correctly tune servers to be database servers and troubleshoot issues with DB servers that involve use of root-requiring software tools such as Dtrace or systemtap.
The DBAs with specialized expert knowledge of database systems need root to reign in on the lesser-informed general system admins who do not understand the unique and particular performance considerations for DBM applications and the DBM involved.
The general sysadmin's job is not to know about database server applications or which specialized tunings the DBA may choose for their application (which do require root to implement).
In particular, the DBA needs to reign in on sysadmins just throwing up new database volumes as RAID5 with no special alignment of partition sectors, instead of something sane like properly aligned partitions using RAID10; and the DBA needs to be able to check things like proper memory/disk/paging behavior configurations.
Most of the considerations a DBA or _good_ storage admin are expected to understand, but are way out of the league of even a good general sysadmin.
Why is there reason to be "concerned"? It is an interesting find, but that solar gas won't do much to harm Earth.
The concern is that gas escape from our sun might actually burn out and go red giant in 5.4 billion years instead of 5.5 billion years,
reducing the lifetime of earth by perhaps 200000000 years or so.
Michael Deal - Vice President and Associate General Counsel - Amazon.com
Robert Eldridge - Vice President, Investor Relations at Amazon.com
Dave Clark - VP of North American Operations - Amazon.com
[snip]
Now you are playing dumb. Either that, or you just do not understand what a corporation is.
Each different corporation is a separate legal person
The Officer lists can be identical. The names can be highly similar. They can even have the same customers. That does not mean that they are the same corporation.
Each corporation has its own papers, its own separate assets and business activity.
Identical management personnel does not mean the corporations are the same legal entity.
The state of Kentucky cannot force a corporation incorporated there to merge with a corporation incorporated in Washington.
Each corporation also has some constitutional rights that prevent any state from arbitrarily assigning their property to another corporation that happens to have similar name and the same management.
I'm really amazed that people on here will play fanboi for Amazon. Their whole business model is to shuffle physical locations to shop for the lowest taxes, and incentives to move in.
I'm not discussing whether Amazon is being good or not here.
Amazon.com Inc is clearly attempting to structure their business in a way as to minimize any unnecessary tax liability, however, which is their management's responsibility and fiduciary duty to their shareholders, to maximize profit.
So, they were given an incentive to move *TO* Texas, took advantage of the deal, didn't pay the legally required sales tax, and now that their sweet deal is ending, and the state wants them to pay up, they're making a stink about how unfair Texas is to them.
Well, standard negotiating tactics; get the best deal you can. If you cannot get a good deal, then leave. Amazon wants the best tax deal they can get for wherever they decide to locate their distribution facilities. If they can't get it anymore, they should move to a place where they can, if it makes financial sense to do so. The folks in Texas got dollar signs in their eyes, thinking they could end the deal that brought Amazon there and work on finding creative ways of trying to sneakily end-run around the constitution and try to get tax money for their out-of-state operations anyways.
The problem is, given the amount of money at stake, it's worth Amazon's while to ship out.
I am not really being a fan of Amazon here, but the antics Texas is trying to attempt are much worse.
Obviously Amazon has gone to lengths to avoid having any physical presence in Texas legally speaking, so the larger company's core business won't be paying sales taxes for mail order sales.
Texas wants to grasp for straws and find any way possible to make big Amazon pay sales tax due to its subsidiary having a distribution center in their state.
Amazon is only able to pull this off in the first place, because they are an internet company, and they don't need a physical location in Texas to sell to people in Texas.
There are probably a thousand of different ways they could make the same thing happen, for example, they could make a separate amazon.com.tx.us site out-of-state owned by another company (with technology integration and 'strategic partnership'), for sales to Texans, or separate corporations for making separate sales to various states, but the end result is the same.
They avoid the selling company having a physical presence.
The result is there is no tax liability -- unless Texas simplifies their insane tax code and creates new tax laws taxing the fulfillment of sales/distribution of goods on behalf of another company.
Anyone can sell through Amazon, much like selling through eBay, except they take a 30% off the top.
If you don't like it, then don't sell on Amazon. It should still be possible to profit selling through Amazon;
I know some folks in Texas are pretty dumb, but how did they think they'd fool anyone by tagging 4 extra letters on to the company name
The question is not if the company has the same name... it's Are they the same company?
Just because companies have similar names does not make them the same.
If my dad happens to have the same first, middle, and last name as me, and we live in different states: mine has no income tax, and his does, I can basically guarantee the state he lives in cannot bill me their tax rate on any of my income; even if the federal government allowed states to tax resident income earned in other states.
If the state tried to take me to court, and they declared I was the same person (based on my name or relationship), their declaration to the court would essentially constitute fraud.
Trying to assume companies are the same just because the names are similar IS dumb.
LOL.... If having a similar name makes another company liable for your debts,
I suppose I could in theory name my company Awmazon, setup a distribution center in texas,
contract with an online vendor to distribute stuff they sell, and point the state at Amazon.com for any collection for sales tax purposes
(EG)
That would overstep the boundaries of the federal government. State governments govern their own taxes, constitutionally.
This would not overstep the boundary, and states do govern their own taxes, with the exception that the states cannot tax or otherwise regulate the event of interstate commerce in any way whatsoever, as the right to regulate interstate commerce in any way is specifically reserved for the federal government by the constitution.
The purchase of goods from another state, the transportation from a place in one state to a place in another state,
and transfer of ownership from a person in one state to a person in another state,
and the right to use goods in one state that had been purchased from a person/place in another state, are all interstate commerce.
A state can tax and regulate sales that do not cross state lines, in just about any way they please.
They can even impose conditions on what goods residents are allowed to buy/sell/own,
as long as they don't attempt to create additional conditions based on whether goods
were obtained through interstate commerce.
For example: a state can forbid any resident from buying a drug it determines to be illegal.
A state cannot allow a resident to buy sugar from someone in Louisiana and ban them from buying Connecticut sugar; even if the state that wants to pass the ban is one of those two states, they do not have the power to do so.
A state can charge a property tax on an item owned or used in the state, because that is within their power.
A state cannot choose to charge a property tax on an item owned or used in the state obtained through interstate
commerce, and waive or credit the fee if purchased in-state.
For example... Florida cannot charge a 'bottled water tax', and waive/exempt bottled water purchased from a seller inside the state from that tax.
A state can tax a seller for a sale made in state, because that's within a state's power.
A state cannot tax a sale where the seller is out of state, because that's within the federal government's power.
For example: A merchant in Alaska sells a bottle of water to me in New York.
New York has no legal power to obligate the seller to pay any tax, because the seller is outside their jurisdiction;
no presence in New York, therefore, not subject to the laws or jurisdiction of NY.
New York has no legal power to obligate the company that transports the item to the buyer pay any tax on the sale of the item,
because it is an interstate commerce transaction.
New York has no legal power to obligate the buyer pay any kind of tax on the sale of the item, because the seller is out of state and it is an interstate commerce transaction.
This whole tax from the state it comes from/tax from the state you live in needs to be decided (federally) and set in stone once and for all. Same goes for who collects it and when.
The Federal government needs to just assert its authority, apply a flat 1% tax to all inter-state transactions and a 10% tax to inter-state transport of goods,
and prohibit the states from further taxing the sale, use, transportation, or possession of goods exchanged through interstate commerce.
The Federal government can then distribute a portion of the proceeds of this indirect tax to the states involved in the transaction.
Meh. This isn't an onerous business tax. Pretty much all states have this tax. You have a physical presence in the state you pay sales tax. Dell does it. I have no clue why Amazon thought they could skirt it.
Amazon.com, Inc. does not have a physical presence in the state of Texas.
Some company Amazon contracts has a facility in the state of Texas that distributes goods, which are ultimately required to fulfill Amazon's orders.
You can still use the ZIP code to verify a transaction. You just can't store that information. That's all. I think its a good policy, though zip codes are a weak security system!
Businesses need to store the entire result of the CC authorization, which generally includes customer name and billing address, so they can verify the nature of the transaction later, should the customer dispute or attempt to repudiate it.
Childhood is about teaching children to be GOOD ADULTS. It is not only about protecting them from the evil world. It is about teaching them to deal with and survive in this evil world and maybe even to help it be less evil. Sure, protect your kids, but you're not doing your job as a parent if that's ALL you do.
She teaches 11th grade Honors English students.
11th Grade High school students are adults, not children.
If the students have not learned proper respect, discipline, and proper academic behavior and attitude long before that point, there is little chance of them learning any of that the easy way.
The teacher said nothing that is not true of some students at any level.
There are always plenty of "lazy" students; of course, that is a matter of opinion.
A teacher might perceive a student as lazy who is just busy with something else.
Lack of respect would be if the teacher had actually used those comments,
rather than just talking on some random blog about wanting to put those comments on some students' grade reports.
It's a frickin' personal weblog... so it's not even obvious whether that was a serious desire, a joke, random comments,
or just the product of one day's frustrations over a year ago.
Seems like if anyone had a rational reason to object to the post, they should have done so back when it was written in Jan 2010, not 13 months later.
Especially seeing as, well, the post doesn't even exist anymore online.
actually, are not about specific students but what she would like to have available as report card comments. Still inappropriate and not very smart blogging in such an identifiable manner.
Perhaps she just had a moment of irrationality back in Jan 2010 when she wrote it? Perhaps the comments really were accurate for some students, if frank. Obviously she didn't use those comments on their report cards which is what counts.
What she posted online was some rant in a personal blog entry, not directed comments about her students.
Check out this one....
And she teaches advanced honors-level courses to high school students who exhibit such behavior?
Journals are graded on the attitude and enthusiasm the students display regarding and during SSR time, and the quality and quantity of the journal responses. The aforementioned student suffered a bit of a set back when he decided he didn't like the book he was reading....
He ranted and raved and made a spectacle, ended up not reading, and pretty much displayed the same behavior the next SSR day
So, accordingly, I took points off for attitude and for entry quality (since he didn't actually READ on a couple of his ranty days), and I wrote to him in the grade comments section that he doesn't deal well with setbacks, had displayed a negative attitude and needs to learn how to move past disappointments with not having the book he'd prefer reading available to him, and that his language was inappropriate.
When handing back the sheets, he immediately made a big show exclaiming how he didn't curse in his book and how it's not fair how I took off points, etc. Then he demanded that I show him where he'd displayed this negative attitude and where the curses were. I ignored him at first, correcting him only to say that I'd said his language was inappropriate but didn't say he'd cursed. He forced the issue, though, by stomping over with his journal and slapping it on the desk making his demand again. This time, since we now had an entire audience and I knew the words would speak for themselves and damn him, I obliged. I said, "Not that I need to justify your grade to you, but here..." and I proceeded--after a short pause during which time I was leafing through to find the offending passages and the students were starting to snicker, thinking he'd called my bluff--to read, verbatim, the offending passages. I read all 3 of them, and he started getting annoyed, trying to stop me by saying, "Alright alrightalright!" but I kept going until I was done, then I finished off by noting, "And for the record, this is exactly the type of behavior I was referring to, also. Your arguing has just eaten into your grade for this batch of SSR reading and journaling. Perhaps you should just get to work." He did.
There seem to be more interesting tidbits avail via webcache if you search around...
check out this one
Frustration Incorporation; Iratation Nation; Saturday April 17, 2010: Natalie M.
The first semester of this school year, when I had a parade of whiny, entitled kids run to the guidance department to tell on me for giving them the low grades they earned on their shoddy papers, sort of scarred me. I consider myself very fair with my grading There is an expectation which I set forth at the onset... Then, when kids get their graded papers returned to them, there's a strange level of surprise and cries....
For the second paper, then, my first order of business was to decide that I was going to give them the paper topic question up front before we even read the literature....
The second order of business was to assess the previous results from past compare-contrast papers. Those papers are classically not very good. Why, I wondered? I know why: because I usually have them compare 2 pieces of literature, and those 2 pieces are often in verse (poetry) form, so maybe they'd have better things to say if they didn't have so much working against them. So I chose a prose version of Beowulf (one that I usually do with the Basic kids, which is certainly accessible to Academic level students) and decided to have them compare images of light and dark within in it (which are so prevalent that to miss them would mean one didn't read the text)
As I've been grading them (since Wednesday. They are averaging Cs with me being generous in the grading), I've become increasingly disgruntled. It's as though I didn't give them any instruction at any point in time. I might as well have said, "Write a paper on this book. But don't bother reading the book!" Here's the major issues I've seen:....
I can say with some degree of certainty that I have spent longer grading and commenting on some of their papers than they did writing them in the first place. I am absolutely giving them a lot more thought.
I don't know when it happened that thinking and working and effort became impossible tasks. But I do know that I have just about had it. I'm at the end of my rope.
..... I'm not even supposed to enforce my late penalties (even though I'm doing it anyway) because the shift is toward separating so-called behavioral characteristics (responsibility, meeting deadlines, being awake in class, for instance) from summative assessments (the paper quality itself). This means, for example, that if the kid who handed in his paper on Thursday had written an A paper, that he should get an A on it despite it being 2 days late.
It doesn't matter what we do in the classroom, because kids today just don't care. They don't want to learn. They don't want to work. They don't want to think. And if we try to hold them accountable, we're the bad guys.
So put the blame about this misunderstanding on whoever you want, the Vatican just wanted to make clear they have not and will never allow such a thing.
Perhaps the Vatican was afraid they'd come out with a version 2.0 that would include a "virtual confession" between the confessor and a virtual priest in a chat room, using voice recognition and AI; OR an appointment for a videophone conversation with a priest?
If you don't see the body it's not dead. It's physically possible to search the dump and find those drives. The compressor in the truck isn't strong enough to destroy the drive so it should still be readable. It would be very labour intensive but in the current (US) economy that isn't an issue.
The idea "enough labor" can do it... is basically equivalent to saying someone put your car keys in a little baggie and hid it somewhere on the shore pf Pensacola beach, told you about it a week later. They didn't give you a clue where along the shoreline they dropped them off, or what the water currents were like at high tide on that day.
And you think it is definitely possible to find the keys, and use the key fob to open your doors, if you only get enough people on the task of finding them along that massive shoreline and digging through the massive piles of sand offshore that are constantly having new material piled on top .
Slashdot Mirror
a symbol and an RGB code for your favorite color
No... bad idea, because that reveals the security answer to the bank account which is more important (my favorite color is Gold, by the way, particularly when associated with large quantities of a periodic table element by the same name)
Hm... username can indeed betray hackers.
But then again... different sites are not linked together anyways.. so how can you really establish that different people really are the same person?
You cannot.
The sites are different, so the same username is not authentically the same across multiple sites, not ever. On IRC networks, the same handle or nickname can be used by hundreds or thousands of different people, even different ones on different places. So there is no probable association based on just username, at least not automatically.
The prospect you, I, or any random teenager could go to some random forum and signup with username CmdrTaco or BillGates, and post something that inadvertently gets people knocking on someone else's door at midnight is kind of scary.
judging on the RAID part of your comment seems you're talking about small servers.
No; I am talking about servers of all sizes, but it would be the opposite of what you think. If there are any servers that do not use some form of RAID technology, they are likely to be small servers or not very important.
oracle or such had always been assigned some LUN from a big storage,
It sounds like you are talking about SAN storage; which is sometimes used for mission critical databases. The exact RAID level of the array and what LUNs are carved from is in fact even more CRITICAL for DB server performance on a large storage system than on a direct attach storage configuration. There are systems with hardware RAID configurations for all types of storage whether SAN, NAS, or directed attached.
on which i have no control and neither the expertise to configure. RAID is done in there
Major mistake if you are the database system architect / DB admin and not asserting some control or checks of how one of the most important facilities required by the database system is configured. Just because another admin knows how to configure this: Does not mean they are giving you an acceptable, optimal configuration for your database system.
Perhaps that particular issue wouldn't be such a big one if storage admins didn't so often get things totally wrong. Or pick RAID5 because it will use up less Gigabytes of expensive disk, or RAID6 because it's "super fault tolerant", despite database performance being total crap in most real world cases.
Seems you've know only lame sysadmins. Like i've seen bad dba's.
The worst case denominator is what you have to anticipate. If you're the DBA, then making the database system work correctly is your job. And leaving important architectural elements to chance puts your job in jeapordy.
The skills of system admins varies. One of the DBA's jobs when architecting the database system is to make sure it's done right, regardless of their coworker's skill level; in some cases, this may involve checking others' work/documentation, especially, if the system is in production and results don't meet calculated expectations. The DBA needs root just to use the proper tools with their analytical skills to attempt to investigate and troubleshoot the mismatch between expecations and results, so they can escalate to sysadmin, if they isolate something to a probable hardware problem, for example.
Trivial things like shared memory limits and such i know ... Im used to get some info for each product i have to install on the machines where i am root and i'm not shy to ask to the DBA or simply the person that needs my support for how to do my job easer and the result better for both of us.
You're probably missing the point... there is not "one good value" for a lot of settings.
The DBA needs to make determinations as to proper values, there are tradeoffs involved, and the right ones can even change.
The DBA needs certain access to even be able to do basic analysis.
DBAs needing root isn't necessary as long as you have proper corroboration, communication, and trust between system admins and DBAs.
Sysadmins needing root isn't necessary, as long as you have proper corroboration, communication, and trust between system admins and the manager overseeing them.
Got a great idea and want to get it past security without trouble? that's simple... simply get buy-in from a senior executive. get him to adopt it as his pet project and get it working on the Dev servers. now when he announces it Security cant do anything but say yes and do your bidding because they do not dare tell the Senior VP of marketing that they wont let his project run.
They should go to the VP of marketing and ask him about delaying the implementation of the project to try to address some security issues, and inform him that the devs didn't give corporate security a heads up to even start considering the security ramifications.
Then a few weeks later, they can deliver a shiny report to the VP quantifying the risk that this new effort brings to the company, explain what the risks are, and propose mitigations to the risk (some of which involve removing things from the project, locking it down, or spending a lot more money), as well as the risks and costs for going forward with no changes.
After the VP weighs his options, he may cancel the project, due to the cost created by not involving security planning at Stage 1.
Do I make enemies withing security? yup. Every one of them hated me because my default approach to them was an end run. And it was simply because the security guys were incapable of thought outside of the "lock it all down" OMG OMG! DANGER DANGER! WE got a iphone/ipod app launched for use in the company and made every one of the security guys froth at the mouth and fall on the floor convulsing when I end ran them to a VP who loved it and wanted every sales person to have it. They lost their mind at allowing 190 non company locked up iphones and ipods connected to the holy internal wifi. Just wait when my ipad system for sales forecasting get's greenlighted and they have to allow 200+ ipads on it as well...
Just wait 'til Security has to have an auditor in with a pen test that involves sneaking in an iPhone with malware installed, and gives the company an F rating on a SOX audit, with demands that the "open wifi policy" cease, and 10-million$$ fines for the company.
This is a result of poorly designed DBM systems (and other products) that have to be installed and configured as root.
That's one reason, but DBAs also need root to correctly tune servers to be database servers and troubleshoot issues with DB servers that involve use of root-requiring software tools such as Dtrace or systemtap.
The DBAs with specialized expert knowledge of database systems need root to reign in on the lesser-informed general system admins who do not understand the unique and particular performance considerations for DBM applications and the DBM involved. The general sysadmin's job is not to know about database server applications or which specialized tunings the DBA may choose for their application (which do require root to implement).
In particular, the DBA needs to reign in on sysadmins just throwing up new database volumes as RAID5 with no special alignment of partition sectors, instead of something sane like properly aligned partitions using RAID10; and the DBA needs to be able to check things like proper memory/disk/paging behavior configurations.
Most of the considerations a DBA or _good_ storage admin are expected to understand, but are way out of the league of even a good general sysadmin.
Obligatory South Park reference. Involving video with kid unplugging and replugging a giant LinkSys-like router to fix the internet.
Unfortunately the 60 second clip was taken down due to copyright issues, so there is no link for me to back up this reference with.
Why is there reason to be "concerned"? It is an interesting find, but that solar gas won't do much to harm Earth.
The concern is that gas escape from our sun might actually burn out and go red giant in 5.4 billion years instead of 5.5 billion years, reducing the lifetime of earth by perhaps 200000000 years or so.
Michael Deal - Vice President and Associate General Counsel - Amazon.com Robert Eldridge - Vice President, Investor Relations at Amazon.com Dave Clark - VP of North American Operations - Amazon.com [snip]
Now you are playing dumb. Either that, or you just do not understand what a corporation is. Each different corporation is a separate legal person
The Officer lists can be identical. The names can be highly similar. They can even have the same customers. That does not mean that they are the same corporation. Each corporation has its own papers, its own separate assets and business activity.
Identical management personnel does not mean the corporations are the same legal entity.
The state of Kentucky cannot force a corporation incorporated there to merge with a corporation incorporated in Washington.
Each corporation also has some constitutional rights that prevent any state from arbitrarily assigning their property to another corporation that happens to have similar name and the same management.
I'm really amazed that people on here will play fanboi for Amazon. Their whole business model is to shuffle physical locations to shop for the lowest taxes, and incentives to move in.
I'm not discussing whether Amazon is being good or not here. Amazon.com Inc is clearly attempting to structure their business in a way as to minimize any unnecessary tax liability, however, which is their management's responsibility and fiduciary duty to their shareholders, to maximize profit.
So, they were given an incentive to move *TO* Texas, took advantage of the deal, didn't pay the legally required sales tax, and now that their sweet deal is ending, and the state wants them to pay up, they're making a stink about how unfair Texas is to them.
Well, standard negotiating tactics; get the best deal you can. If you cannot get a good deal, then leave. Amazon wants the best tax deal they can get for wherever they decide to locate their distribution facilities. If they can't get it anymore, they should move to a place where they can, if it makes financial sense to do so. The folks in Texas got dollar signs in their eyes, thinking they could end the deal that brought Amazon there and work on finding creative ways of trying to sneakily end-run around the constitution and try to get tax money for their out-of-state operations anyways. The problem is, given the amount of money at stake, it's worth Amazon's while to ship out.
I am not really being a fan of Amazon here, but the antics Texas is trying to attempt are much worse. Obviously Amazon has gone to lengths to avoid having any physical presence in Texas legally speaking, so the larger company's core business won't be paying sales taxes for mail order sales. Texas wants to grasp for straws and find any way possible to make big Amazon pay sales tax due to its subsidiary having a distribution center in their state.
Amazon is only able to pull this off in the first place, because they are an internet company, and they don't need a physical location in Texas to sell to people in Texas. There are probably a thousand of different ways they could make the same thing happen, for example, they could make a separate amazon.com.tx.us site out-of-state owned by another company (with technology integration and 'strategic partnership'), for sales to Texans, or separate corporations for making separate sales to various states, but the end result is the same. They avoid the selling company having a physical presence. The result is there is no tax liability -- unless Texas simplifies their insane tax code and creates new tax laws taxing the fulfillment of sales/distribution of goods on behalf of another company.
Anyone can sell through Amazon, much like selling through eBay, except they take a 30% off the top.
If you don't like it, then don't sell on Amazon. It should still be possible to profit selling through Amazon;
I know some folks in Texas are pretty dumb, but how did they think they'd fool anyone by tagging 4 extra letters on to the company name
The question is not if the company has the same name... it's Are they the same company? Just because companies have similar names does not make them the same. If my dad happens to have the same first, middle, and last name as me, and we live in different states: mine has no income tax, and his does, I can basically guarantee the state he lives in cannot bill me their tax rate on any of my income; even if the federal government allowed states to tax resident income earned in other states. If the state tried to take me to court, and they declared I was the same person (based on my name or relationship), their declaration to the court would essentially constitute fraud.
Trying to assume companies are the same just because the names are similar IS dumb.
LOL.... If having a similar name makes another company liable for your debts, I suppose I could in theory name my company Awmazon, setup a distribution center in texas, contract with an online vendor to distribute stuff they sell, and point the state at Amazon.com for any collection for sales tax purposes (EG)
That would overstep the boundaries of the federal government. State governments govern their own taxes, constitutionally.
This would not overstep the boundary, and states do govern their own taxes, with the exception that the states cannot tax or otherwise regulate the event of interstate commerce in any way whatsoever, as the right to regulate interstate commerce in any way is specifically reserved for the federal government by the constitution.
The purchase of goods from another state, the transportation from a place in one state to a place in another state, and transfer of ownership from a person in one state to a person in another state, and the right to use goods in one state that had been purchased from a person/place in another state, are all interstate commerce.
A state can tax and regulate sales that do not cross state lines, in just about any way they please. They can even impose conditions on what goods residents are allowed to buy/sell/own, as long as they don't attempt to create additional conditions based on whether goods were obtained through interstate commerce.
For example: a state can forbid any resident from buying a drug it determines to be illegal. A state cannot allow a resident to buy sugar from someone in Louisiana and ban them from buying Connecticut sugar; even if the state that wants to pass the ban is one of those two states, they do not have the power to do so.
A state can charge a property tax on an item owned or used in the state, because that is within their power. A state cannot choose to charge a property tax on an item owned or used in the state obtained through interstate commerce, and waive or credit the fee if purchased in-state.
For example... Florida cannot charge a 'bottled water tax', and waive/exempt bottled water purchased from a seller inside the state from that tax.
A state can tax a seller for a sale made in state, because that's within a state's power. A state cannot tax a sale where the seller is out of state, because that's within the federal government's power.
For example: A merchant in Alaska sells a bottle of water to me in New York.
New York has no legal power to obligate the seller to pay any tax, because the seller is outside their jurisdiction; no presence in New York, therefore, not subject to the laws or jurisdiction of NY.
New York has no legal power to obligate the company that transports the item to the buyer pay any tax on the sale of the item, because it is an interstate commerce transaction.
New York has no legal power to obligate the buyer pay any kind of tax on the sale of the item, because the seller is out of state and it is an interstate commerce transaction.
3: Google looks at the patents, decides they do indeed cover VP8 and designs VP9 specifically to avoid them.
Meanwhile.... VP8 loses credibility, and people move back to AAC before Google can finish work on VP9?
Or getting a job..
No... that's much longer than a month for most people.
If you are constrained by the job, that could be a life sentence.
The rumors of "release" (also called retirement) are vastly overstated
This whole tax from the state it comes from/tax from the state you live in needs to be decided (federally) and set in stone once and for all. Same goes for who collects it and when.
The Federal government needs to just assert its authority, apply a flat 1% tax to all inter-state transactions and a 10% tax to inter-state transport of goods, and prohibit the states from further taxing the sale, use, transportation, or possession of goods exchanged through interstate commerce.
The Federal government can then distribute a portion of the proceeds of this indirect tax to the states involved in the transaction.
Meh. This isn't an onerous business tax. Pretty much all states have this tax. You have a physical presence in the state you pay sales tax. Dell does it. I have no clue why Amazon thought they could skirt it.
Amazon.com, Inc. does not have a physical presence in the state of Texas.
Some company Amazon contracts has a facility in the state of Texas that distributes goods, which are ultimately required to fulfill Amazon's orders.
Dell has physical stores.
Not everyone likes your artwork. Including your own body.
Well, they say everyone's a critic
This is right up there with locking yourself in a cage for month - a totally meaningless, useless trick meant only to get attention.
In the US, hundreds of thousands lock themselves in a cage every year by committing misdemeanors and getting jailed.
You can still use the ZIP code to verify a transaction. You just can't store that information. That's all. I think its a good policy, though zip codes are a weak security system!
Businesses need to store the entire result of the CC authorization, which generally includes customer name and billing address, so they can verify the nature of the transaction later, should the customer dispute or attempt to repudiate it.
Childhood is about teaching children to be GOOD ADULTS. It is not only about protecting them from the evil world. It is about teaching them to deal with and survive in this evil world and maybe even to help it be less evil. Sure, protect your kids, but you're not doing your job as a parent if that's ALL you do.
She teaches 11th grade Honors English students. 11th Grade High school students are adults, not children. If the students have not learned proper respect, discipline, and proper academic behavior and attitude long before that point, there is little chance of them learning any of that the easy way.
The teacher said nothing that is not true of some students at any level. There are always plenty of "lazy" students; of course, that is a matter of opinion. A teacher might perceive a student as lazy who is just busy with something else.
Lack of respect would be if the teacher had actually used those comments, rather than just talking on some random blog about wanting to put those comments on some students' grade reports.
It's a frickin' personal weblog... so it's not even obvious whether that was a serious desire, a joke, random comments, or just the product of one day's frustrations over a year ago.
Seems like if anyone had a rational reason to object to the post, they should have done so back when it was written in Jan 2010, not 13 months later. Especially seeing as, well, the post doesn't even exist anymore online.
actually, are not about specific students but what she would like to have available as report card comments. Still inappropriate and not very smart blogging in such an identifiable manner.
Perhaps she just had a moment of irrationality back in Jan 2010 when she wrote it? Perhaps the comments really were accurate for some students, if frank. Obviously she didn't use those comments on their report cards which is what counts. What she posted online was some rant in a personal blog entry, not directed comments about her students.
Check out this one.... And she teaches advanced honors-level courses to high school students who exhibit such behavior?
No... she did not. She was very vague and just listed some general comments she "wished she could use" for some students.
Also, this is dated January 2010. What are the chances that she would be teaching the same students in 2011, anyways?
There seem to be more interesting tidbits avail via webcache if you search around... check out this one
I'd consider that statement as justifying a firing.
I don't think the comment is serious. It is obvious sarcasm. The whole post looks like tongue in cheek humor.
Her blog post indicates she wanted that on her list of canned comments, meaning she thinks it a suitable remark in general for some students.
Anyone who's ever had to tame a room with some unruly kids should be able to understand that one.
So put the blame about this misunderstanding on whoever you want, the Vatican just wanted to make clear they have not and will never allow such a thing.
Perhaps the Vatican was afraid they'd come out with a version 2.0 that would include a "virtual confession" between the confessor and a virtual priest in a chat room, using voice recognition and AI; OR an appointment for a videophone conversation with a priest?
If you don't see the body it's not dead. It's physically possible to search the dump and find those drives. The compressor in the truck isn't strong enough to destroy the drive so it should still be readable. It would be very labour intensive but in the current (US) economy that isn't an issue.
The idea "enough labor" can do it... is basically equivalent to saying someone put your car keys in a little baggie and hid it somewhere on the shore pf Pensacola beach, told you about it a week later. They didn't give you a clue where along the shoreline they dropped them off, or what the water currents were like at high tide on that day.
And you think it is definitely possible to find the keys, and use the key fob to open your doors, if you only get enough people on the task of finding them along that massive shoreline and digging through the massive piles of sand offshore that are constantly having new material piled on top .