Is not about taxing the items that are sold (as you are already supposed to report these on your state tax filing) but Amazon would be required to tax money it pays out to affiliates. This is a double taxation! Amazon is already required to pay any business tax on itself and the affiliate that receives money from Amazon needs to report this as income (to be taxed).
There is a business in Asheville NC that derives approximately 2/3rd's of its income from Amazon affiliate sales. Now the NC legislature wants them to be taxed on it once when the payment is actually made and again when they pay income tax? As a result the business is closing up shop in NC and moving to another state. Way to go NC! No not only are they not going to get the affiliate tax money their greedy little hands so desired, they will also be missing out on the income tax the owners paid, the other local businesses that supported the moving business will be hurt (more lost tax revenue), shops and restaurants they ate at, etc... the list goes on and on and on. Our governor actually was saying how this was such a good thing (the tax) and it was a way to "make up" the budget deficit. What an idiot.
As with most things in life, there probably isnt really a clear cut answer to this question. Microsoft was obviously very good at what they did or they would not have become as successful as they are today.
If Microsoft did not fill this role in tech then I am sure someone else would have been glad to do it. I would also bet that there would be all of the same problems with whoever else filled the role as we have with Microsoft today.
Now I am not a big fan of Microsoft either but I do tend to agree that the reasons sited in the case for the break up are wrong. Your arguments for demonstrating harm are not very compelling either as they could be looked at from a different angle.
Lets take a look at what you say "demonstrates harm".
"The ILOVEYOU virus and its infinite children. Though MS didn't write the virus, the existence of the hole combined with the monopoly they have in the OS market are what really caused the problem. If somebody wrote a virus for a tiny hole in BeOS would it have affected the world like this one did?"
This argument is fundamentally flawed and not even worth a real response.
"Incompatible file formats between its own products year after year. I love it when Office97 tells me Oh, not everyone has Office97, you should save in Office95 format."
You do still have the option to save it as an older file format. In fact, there are quite a few choices you can save your file as, some not even Microsoft products like Lotus or Wordperfect.
"Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day."
This is only an opinion with no real evidence you could use to back it up. For every report you provide that says this is true someone else could provide a report that says they have not rebooted in months.
"People *ignore* these things..." People ignore these things because they do not really prove anything besides the fact that you dont like Microsoft.
"There are some signs of bad science on the CNN site though. I don't believe Eros is in danger of hitting the earth because it has a stable orbit. I hate it when the news over-exagerates dangers, such as when the researcher from the RHIC said there is a small possibility of a black hole being created."
I hate it when people cant read... The article never said eros was in any danger of hitting earth. What it did say was "Learning about Eros could offer them clues to prevent such a catastrophic collision."
Instead of forcing a union on the whole industry why not only unionize the so called "entry level" positions like tech-support workers??
Those types of workers are generally paid hourly and do not need a degree. I know some of you say a degree is not neccessary for any IT job and perhaps you are right but most companies whether it is right or wrong will promote/hire someone with a degree over someone without.
Most tech support workers also work in shifts and have lots of other similarities to other unionized positions.
Anyone have an idea about how much noise would be generated by a ton of these fans all going at 1 million revolutions per minute?? It seems to me that it has the potential to be even noiser than what we have now.
There really is no need for a book on PHP. I taught myself totally from scratch using online resources. Here is a short list of the ones I found most useful:
PHP - This is the site that started it all. Make sure to check out the documentation section.
I look at web design this way. It is sort of like a book or magazine. All books, magazines, newspapers, etc... have the same basic look and feel. Lets examine a newspaper. There are columns of text and graphics placed on a page. All newspapers follow this format. Websites are the same way, text and graphics are layed out on a page. This could be viewed as the design.
I personally have no problems with anyone copying my design, layout, whatever you want to call it. Just like a newspaper they can have the same general layout.
The place where the line is drawn is when they start copying content without permission, including graphics.
After taking a look at the two sites in question it is obvious that hobbes copied the news graphic from linux.com. Did he gain permission for this? If not then he is violating copyright. If he has permission to use this grpaic and all his content is original, I dont see a problem.
I'm not so sure about your comment on Most programmers still choose performance over stability and security
Most will choose stability, and I think, no I hope more are choosing security when programming but this also falls under the category of human error.
You say: We may not be able to fix the people, but I think fixing the the software is possible. All it requires is ridding the world of software licences that deny responsibility. Once financial gain is at stake, corporations will put a lot more time into security, and hopefully a lot less in screwing eachother for financial gain.
No matter what we do there will always be human error as a factor. No matter how much time is spent on a project looking for security holes there will, dare I say, always be another hole to be found by the bored teenager, security professional, etc...
I think that is what Schneier is trying to say. No matter what we do there are always security problems and we just have to be prepared for those problems the best we can.
this is a very troublesome issue. the way i interpret it is if the mpaa actually wins in the appellate/supreme court then the first amendment means nothing.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
"Synchronization with PC
With our Rsync Cradle and QuickSync software, you can easily exchange information between your Agenda and your Windows or Linux PC. You can also send & receive email and connect to internet."
the olympics used to be for the amateur. then "sports superstars" starting showing up like the "NBA Dreamteam". how ridiculous. now the independent internet media groups cant even cover something that is supposed to be for the world. very sad.
It seems to me that the arguments presented in the article that there is no other intelligent life anywhere else in the entire universe are more absurd than the ones that say there is life. So it would seem the lesser of two seeming absurd statements would be to accept an extraterrestrial intelligence as existing.
For example:
1) "Tipler and Zuckerman note that crossing the Galaxy can be done at a fraction of light-speed over hundreds of millions of years. Given that our solar system is billions of years younger than many others, shouldn't someone be at our doorstep?"
To me this proves nothing. Some counter arguments: the aliens ignore us, if we are so new they passed us a long time ago, it is a ridiculous way to travel that way over hundreds of millions of years, etc...
2) "And even if aliens were ignoring us, after so many years something like Van Neumann machines "would start ripping apart stars and transforming galaxies. We couldn't miss it," Tipler says"
The above argument makes no sense whatsoever. Why would aliens create something that could travel great distances by self replication make something that would destroy what they were searching? "Ripping apart stars and transforming galaxies", bah!
This final quote just seems wrong to me. Why would an artificial intelligence create a virtual universe? What pupose would it serve? If the new intelligence is so smart, great, whatever why would they waste time (even though it would be small for so great an intelligence), resources, etc... on something so worthless?
"Humans will be succeeded by an artificial intelligence that will explore and broaden to a universal consciousness that could even create an identical virtual universe down to every individual who ever lived, says Tipler"
Slashdot Mirror
Is not about taxing the items that are sold (as you are already supposed to report these on your state tax filing) but Amazon would be required to tax money it pays out to affiliates. This is a double taxation! Amazon is already required to pay any business tax on itself and the affiliate that receives money from Amazon needs to report this as income (to be taxed).
There is a business in Asheville NC that derives approximately 2/3rd's of its income from Amazon affiliate sales. Now the NC legislature wants them to be taxed on it once when the payment is actually made and again when they pay income tax? As a result the business is closing up shop in NC and moving to another state. Way to go NC! No not only are they not going to get the affiliate tax money their greedy little hands so desired, they will also be missing out on the income tax the owners paid, the other local businesses that supported the moving business will be hurt (more lost tax revenue), shops and restaurants they ate at, etc... the list goes on and on and on. Our governor actually was saying how this was such a good thing (the tax) and it was a way to "make up" the budget deficit. What an idiot.
F - U - D
This is really dumb and I can't believe its even getting any attention at all on sites like slashdot.
I for one love all the loki games and think they do a better job on most of them than the original windows version!
Keep up the good work Loki!!
If Microsoft did not fill this role in tech then I am sure someone else would have been glad to do it. I would also bet that there would be all of the same problems with whoever else filled the role as we have with Microsoft today.
Lets take a look at what you say "demonstrates harm".
This argument is fundamentally flawed and not even worth a real response.
You do still have the option to save it as an older file format. In fact, there are quite a few choices you can save your file as, some not even Microsoft products like Lotus or Wordperfect.
This is only an opinion with no real evidence you could use to back it up. For every report you provide that says this is true someone else could provide a report that says they have not rebooted in months.
"People *ignore* these things..." People ignore these things because they do not really prove anything besides the fact that you dont like Microsoft.
I hate it when people cant read... The article never said eros was in any danger of hitting earth. What it did say was "Learning about Eros could offer them clues to prevent such a catastrophic collision."
Since the site seems to be /. already here is a link to the google cache:
ascii.dyne.org
Those types of workers are generally paid hourly and do not need a degree. I know some of you say a degree is not neccessary for any IT job and perhaps you are right but most companies whether it is right or wrong will promote/hire someone with a degree over someone without.
Most tech support workers also work in shifts and have lots of other similarities to other unionized positions.
Just my $0.02
Anyone have an idea about how much noise would be generated by a ton of these fans all going at 1 million revolutions per minute?? It seems to me that it has the potential to be even noiser than what we have now.
Kinda defeats the whole purpose of wireless doesnt it?
Hope these sites help out.
I look at web design this way. It is sort of like a book or magazine. All books, magazines, newspapers, etc... have the same basic look and feel. Lets examine a newspaper. There are columns of text and graphics placed on a page. All newspapers follow this format. Websites are the same way, text and graphics are layed out on a page. This could be viewed as the design.
I personally have no problems with anyone copying my design, layout, whatever you want to call it. Just like a newspaper they can have the same general layout.
The place where the line is drawn is when they start copying content without permission, including graphics.
After taking a look at the two sites in question it is obvious that hobbes copied the news graphic from linux.com. Did he gain permission for this? If not then he is violating copyright. If he has permission to use this grpaic and all his content is original, I dont see a problem.
I'm not so sure about your comment on Most programmers still choose performance over stability and security
Most will choose stability, and I think, no I hope more are choosing security when programming but this also falls under the category of human error.
You say: We may not be able to fix the people, but I think fixing the the software is possible. All it requires is ridding the world of software licences that deny responsibility. Once financial gain is at stake, corporations will put a lot more time into security, and hopefully a lot less in screwing eachother for financial gain.
No matter what we do there will always be human error as a factor. No matter how much time is spent on a project looking for security holes there will, dare I say, always be another hole to be found by the bored teenager, security professional, etc... I think that is what Schneier is trying to say. No matter what we do there are always security problems and we just have to be prepared for those problems the best we can.
Right at the top of the main page on mp3board.com is a place to search for mp3's by artist or title on Gnutella.
So I guess this means they have to sue themselves for contributing to the contributors of copyrighted materials!
this is a very troublesome issue. the way i interpret it is if the mpaa actually wins in the appellate/supreme court then the first amendment means nothing.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
plus so many more things i cant list them all.
am i interpreting this correctly?
According to this page: http://www.agendacomputing.com/ products/details.jsp it does sync with Linux.
"Synchronization with PC With our Rsync Cradle and QuickSync software, you can easily exchange information between your Agenda and your Windows or Linux PC. You can also send & receive email and connect to internet."
the olympics used to be for the amateur. then "sports superstars" starting showing up like the "NBA Dreamteam". how ridiculous. now the independent internet media groups cant even cover something that is supposed to be for the world. very sad.
It seems to me that the arguments presented in the article that there is no other intelligent life anywhere else in the entire universe are more absurd than the ones that say there is life. So it would seem the lesser of two seeming absurd statements would be to accept an extraterrestrial intelligence as existing.
For example:
1) "Tipler and Zuckerman note that crossing the Galaxy can be done at a fraction of light-speed over hundreds of millions of years. Given that our solar system is billions of years younger than many others, shouldn't someone be at our doorstep?"
To me this proves nothing. Some counter arguments: the aliens ignore us, if we are so new they passed us a long time ago, it is a ridiculous way to travel that way over hundreds of millions of years, etc...
2) "And even if aliens were ignoring us, after so many years something like Van Neumann machines "would start ripping apart stars and transforming galaxies. We couldn't miss it," Tipler says"
The above argument makes no sense whatsoever. Why would aliens create something that could travel great distances by self replication make something that would destroy what they were searching? "Ripping apart stars and transforming galaxies", bah!
This final quote just seems wrong to me. Why would an artificial intelligence create a virtual universe? What pupose would it serve? If the new intelligence is so smart, great, whatever why would they waste time (even though it would be small for so great an intelligence), resources, etc... on something so worthless?
"Humans will be succeeded by an artificial intelligence that will explore and broaden to a universal consciousness that could even create an identical virtual universe down to every individual who ever lived, says Tipler"