Production companies that hold on to rights that they won't use. Computer companies holding on to source code and materials for games that are long past commercial viability.
Let's see: Presuming that Borders has a shop in every state, and since their website doesn't ask where you live, essentially this means that their ENTIRE BODY of online sales are exposed to taxation. From every state. Which means that if they make $100 sale, they should plan to pay:
-4% ALABAMA -5.6% ARIZONA -6% ARKANSAS -7.25% CALIFORNIA -2.9% COLORADO -6% CONNECTICUT -6% FLORIDA -4% GEORGIA -4% HAWAII -6% IDAHO -6.25% ILLINOIS -6% INDIANA -5% IOWA -5.3% KANSAS -6% KENTUCKY -4% LOUISIANA -5% MAINE -5% MARYLAND -5% MASSACHUSETTS -6% MICHIGAN -6.5% MINNESOTA -7% MISSISSIPPI -4.225 MISSOURI -5.5% NEBRASKA -6.5% NEVADA -6% NEW JERSEY -5% NEW MEXICO -4.25% NEW YORK -4.5% NORTH CAROLINA (6) -5% NORTH DAKOTA -6% OHIO -4.5% OKLAHOMA -6% PENNSYLVANIA -7% RHODE ISLAND -5% SOUTH CAROLINA -4% SOUTH DAKOTA -7% TENNESSEE -6.25% TEXAS -4.75% UTAH -6% VERMONT -5% VIRGINIA -6.5% WASHINGTON -6% WEST VIRGINIA -5% WISCONSIN -4% WYOMING (3) -5.75% DIST. OF COLUMBIA = 248.525% cumulative sales tax
= $248.52 in taxes, BEFORE they even pay Federal Corporate Income tax.
Is it just me or does the phrase "...I was reading the blogs the other day...." sound almost precisely as desperately trendy as "...I was surfing the web the other day..."
Does anyone who actually USES the internet regularly use these terms, or is it only my mom?
While I sympathize with the people who develop carpal tunnel and related conditions, I honestly think this is silly.
Yes, hundreds if not thousands of people suffer from these maladies. Out of how many tens or hundreds of millions of people who pound away at computer keyboards pretty much all day?
If you like a Dvorak keyboard, great. Personally, I'm a touch typist and can't even stand the "ergo" keyboards for more than a few minutes.
Like atheists, body artists, and lesbians: I don't really understand why these people are so freaking evangelical about their beliefs. Can't they just do what they find works better for them and STFU about it?
"Call me crazy, but I feel a far more comfortable dealing with people dressed as they want to be dressed, with whatever visible body modifications they have."
You don't have a problem with body piercings/tats/whatever? Fine. Start a company. Hire whomever you want. Better still, patronize companies that have staff with body art, let your dollars validate your point.
If I own a company, I should be able to set standards HOWEVER I like - and that *includes* being racist, sexist, ageist, whatever. Let the market decide if I succeed or fail. If I'm running a strip club and I'm willing to bet my paycheck on a few octogenarian dancers, it's my dime. If I have a tech support company and I only want to hire clean cut non-overweight white males, that's MY business.
The government may not discriminate, it must be open to all. Somehow moral crusaders managed to get this extended to private business and citizenry. I *thought* the constitution guaranteed us freedom of thought and freedom of association as private citizens, but apparently that's no longer ok.
R-i-g-h-t. Let's just run with that baseless speculation accepted as fact, shall we?
Militaristic NASA gave us: - Mercury - Gemini - Apollo - a host of probes, satellites, technology.
"Civilianized" NASA has given us: - the Space Shuttle - about a 50/50 success rate on mars shots - a couple of OUTSTANDING landers on mars - cassini
I don't think militarized NASA did quite so badly.
And FWIW, I think a) if someone is going to develop space weapons, I hope it's us that develops space weapons first b) I'm not naive enough to believe that we're the only ones working on it.
NOW whose got the ridiculous overbearing government extending copyright regulations to absurd lengths to show that they are purely moronic tools of the Recording Industries?
(looks at Europe) (looks at the US)....both of us.....(*cries*)
Dateline: 2012 In further developments, the allegedly dimwitted IBM computer 'test brain' has again outpolled the latest Democratic presidential hopeful, leaving the former "major" political party now in third place and scrambling for some good news. Leading mainstream media sources have suggested anonymously that somehow this computer has managed to run a global repressive conspiracy, convince congress to throw the country into a war for its personal enrichment, and personally engineered a massive McCarthyist conspiracy without leaving a single trace piece of damning evidence. DNC chairperson Dean was heard to comment "It's apparently way smarter than we gave it credit for. Otherwise we have to consider ourselves just really, REALLY stupid."
OP modded "funny" - I bet this one's modded Flamebait. Why don't we just simplify the system and have a "-1 Conservative" rating (or is -1 not enough)?
I.e. can we please perma-comment every new release of a console system with a news article "New Console (X): The Death of PC Gaming?"?/. needs a "-1 redundant" category.
I'd rather see the school day extended to match real-life work hours (0800-1700) with a minimum of homework outside of that.
1) it gets kids conditioned to what they should expect in real life. 2) the school day is only about 30% (or less) actual work right now, most of it is mindless and useless repetition. it's not like this extension of the day would be grueling 3) IMO the time between the end of school and the end of (parents') workday is when you have the most 'issues' with school-age children 4) teachers could work a full day. I hear a lot of teachers complain that they need 'prep' time - well, most of the schools around here are DESERTED by 4 pm, and if you did year-round school teachers could use the 1 wk/mo or 2 wk/quarter to do their 'prep' instead of painting houses all summer.
I tried Open Office, and basically liked it; however, the resource budget for running it on Windows boxes made it start to really drag after 2 or 3 days of constant use. Maybe it's gotten better since then?
Those IDIOTS said that if you federally funded stem cell research using new human-derived cell lines, it would just be a slippery slope from that to the point where people would be created just to be exploited, like creating clones so that we could disassemble them for their useful parts.
What craziness was that, huh? I guess we've shown them!
I mean, everyone knows that clones aren't REALLY humans, and aren't entitled to life, liberty, those sorts of things.
Yes, it IS the American way of fighting, to invest billions in systems to strike from space...because the American public has been so brainwashed that the appearance of a single US soldier dead is enough to swing public opinion.
Besides that, I'd rather have a military that fights to win, not to be 'fair'.
Re the post above: if you think the game is starting now, you're pretty naive. I suppose you imagine the Chinese space initiatives are based entirely on a desire to throw Peace and Love into orbit? Perhaps daisies? The same sort of logic would have said 90 years ago - OMFG, what are we doing ARMING PLANES? Why are we starting such an arms race in the peaceful skies? Well I'll tell you, only the 'good guys' bother wondering. And if they wonder too long, they don't have to bother about it.
And re the OP: gee, it would be **terrible** to have the evil Chinese have the power to rain death down upon us in a matter of minutes. Oh wait - you're apparently forgetting the entire COLD WAR? I grew up knowing that, if things turned sour, nuclear annihilatory death was maybe 90 minutes away. So? Why would you think suddenly the Chinese would get a great big complex about space weapons doing what MIRV land-based ICBMs have been able to do for nearly 40 years?
Please let me make it clear: I *entirely* agree with you on the need for nuclear power, and the value in removing the leverage the Middle East has on the world.
That said...."Witness the French. As most of their electricity is nuclear generated they are not hostage to oil and dont need to get sucked into the middle-east. This gives them the advantage of taking the moral viewpoint on these issues instead of the national security viewpoint." The shoveling of barrelfulls of kickback money on the oil-for-food program probably doesn't qualify as the "moral viewpoint" to most observers.
Re that, why is/was there such outrage and certainty that "Bush did this for his oil buddies and to enrich Cheney/Haliburton" when there is NO concrete evidence of this, yet here where there is a documentary trail of French officials and UN officials/children getting oodles of boodle - doesn't seem to bother anyone?
It's somehow illegal for me to take the shows that you make available on TV for Free and send them to anyone else for Free?
Huh? How is it hurting you that I'm spreading the popularity of your show at my expense for bandwidth, etc. I mean, if you broadcast a show to 2 million viewers, and then I p2p it to another million, isn't more viewers WHAT YOU WANTED?
Or are you still believing that we're actually sitting and WATCHING the adverts that you slip into the show about every 10 minutes now, rather than using that time to take a leak, talk on the phone, eat, whatever else we need to do?
At *some* point, someone's going to figure out that most advertising is complete bunkum, and we're going to have the biggest economic crash in history, as well-dressed but penniless marketing people beg for spare change to wash your windshield or do a market study.
I can see a number of people from my desk, all of whom are a decivolkswagen or smaller in size (ok a couple are probably bigger) and AFAIK all of them have names?
It's taken careful observation to recognize them, since their average albedo (i.e. brightness) is pretty low. But through a thorough analysis of donut-crumb tracks and the oscillation of the water in the cooler, I can pretty certainly infer their locations making direct visual identification a mere formality.
You know, I personally don't mind at all. I'm GLAD there are going to be federal standards, so that places where political correctness has run amok can't wreck the system for others.
IIRC Kalifornia now allows (or is considering allowing) people to refuse to have their pictures on their d/ls for some goofy religious fear. Likewise pictures wearing a facial veil.
Personally, I don't really want to share the public roads (or an airplane) with someone who fears being identified.
We trade freedom for security ALL THE TIME - it's pretty much the foundation of the concept of civilization. Tell you what, in fact. You start an airline where you are at your libertarian best - NO ID required, NO freedom-limiting searches - and let's see how you do? Note, I'll be riding the plane with all the other ignorant, freedom-hating cattle that don't mind Federal ID standards.
I'm sure it's coincidental that this would also mean that 99.99% of the games anyone has ever heard of or would have at home COULDN'T be installed and run in any reasonable way on these machines....yeah, coincidence.
1) "It all boils down to X basic themes that never change" - well duh, boil it down that far and life really only has a single track "gameplay": be born, eat, sleep, hopefully mate, die. Frighteningly linear, that. Why does anyone bother to play?
2) To suggest that "nothing is any different" only highlights the fact that: a) John-John's never really PLAYED video games, and confines his interaction to them with a walk past his kids playing them, and an occasionally-muttered "why don't they get outside once in a while?". Despite superficially 'similar' games, there's a world of difference between Castle Wolfenstein and HL2. b) MMOGs, John. Ever heard of them? Kind of a big deal now, didn't really exist until what, about 2000? Bit of a step forward, gigantic shared worlds, playing against other humans? c) John's never even HEARD of Katmari Damancy, King of Dragon Pass, or a whole HOST of games that ARE novel, unique, interesting, and fun. I think John should stop making choices about computer games based on the Wal-Mart software bin and actually look around a little. Yes, it might mean he spends 30 minutes picking out a birthday gift for John Jr. instead of 5 minutes, but hey...
I guess what I'm saying is that perhaps his views are the way they are because as far as computer gaming is concerned - he's playing 'easy mode'.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never really understood this.
Production companies that hold on to rights that they won't use. Computer companies holding on to source code and materials for games that are long past commercial viability.
WTF?
Let's see:
Presuming that Borders has a shop in every state, and since their website doesn't ask where you live, essentially this means that their ENTIRE BODY of online sales are exposed to taxation. From every state. Which means that if they make $100 sale, they should plan to pay:
-4% ALABAMA
-5.6% ARIZONA
-6% ARKANSAS
-7.25% CALIFORNIA
-2.9% COLORADO
-6% CONNECTICUT
-6% FLORIDA
-4% GEORGIA
-4% HAWAII
-6% IDAHO
-6.25% ILLINOIS
-6% INDIANA
-5% IOWA
-5.3% KANSAS
-6% KENTUCKY
-4% LOUISIANA
-5% MAINE
-5% MARYLAND
-5% MASSACHUSETTS
-6% MICHIGAN
-6.5% MINNESOTA
-7% MISSISSIPPI
-4.225 MISSOURI
-5.5% NEBRASKA
-6.5% NEVADA
-6% NEW JERSEY
-5% NEW MEXICO
-4.25% NEW YORK
-4.5% NORTH CAROLINA (6)
-5% NORTH DAKOTA
-6% OHIO
-4.5% OKLAHOMA
-6% PENNSYLVANIA
-7% RHODE ISLAND
-5% SOUTH CAROLINA
-4% SOUTH DAKOTA
-7% TENNESSEE
-6.25% TEXAS
-4.75% UTAH
-6% VERMONT
-5% VIRGINIA
-6.5% WASHINGTON
-6% WEST VIRGINIA
-5% WISCONSIN
-4% WYOMING (3)
-5.75% DIST. OF COLUMBIA
= 248.525% cumulative sales tax
= $248.52 in taxes, BEFORE they even pay Federal Corporate Income tax.
Is it just me or does the phrase "...I was reading the blogs the other day...." sound almost precisely as desperately trendy as "...I was surfing the web the other day..."
Does anyone who actually USES the internet regularly use these terms, or is it only my mom?
While I sympathize with the people who develop carpal tunnel and related conditions, I honestly think this is silly.
Yes, hundreds if not thousands of people suffer from these maladies. Out of how many tens or hundreds of millions of people who pound away at computer keyboards pretty much all day?
If you like a Dvorak keyboard, great. Personally, I'm a touch typist and can't even stand the "ergo" keyboards for more than a few minutes.
Like atheists, body artists, and lesbians: I don't really understand why these people are so freaking evangelical about their beliefs. Can't they just do what they find works better for them and STFU about it?
Yeah, but you would have to make the whole journey in a brown box with a smile on it.
:(
No, that's just how you'll finally be delivered.
"Call me crazy, but I feel a far more comfortable dealing with people dressed as they want to be dressed, with whatever visible body modifications they have."
You don't have a problem with body piercings/tats/whatever? Fine. Start a company. Hire whomever you want. Better still, patronize companies that have staff with body art, let your dollars validate your point.
If I own a company, I should be able to set standards HOWEVER I like - and that *includes* being racist, sexist, ageist, whatever. Let the market decide if I succeed or fail. If I'm running a strip club and I'm willing to bet my paycheck on a few octogenarian dancers, it's my dime. If I have a tech support company and I only want to hire clean cut non-overweight white males, that's MY business.
The government may not discriminate, it must be open to all. Somehow moral crusaders managed to get this extended to private business and citizenry. I *thought* the constitution guaranteed us freedom of thought and freedom of association as private citizens, but apparently that's no longer ok.
R-i-g-h-t. Let's just run with that baseless speculation accepted as fact, shall we?
Militaristic NASA gave us:
- Mercury
- Gemini
- Apollo
- a host of probes, satellites, technology.
"Civilianized" NASA has given us:
- the Space Shuttle
- about a 50/50 success rate on mars shots
- a couple of OUTSTANDING landers on mars
- cassini
I don't think militarized NASA did quite so badly.
And FWIW, I think
a) if someone is going to develop space weapons, I hope it's us that develops space weapons first
b) I'm not naive enough to believe that we're the only ones working on it.
NOW whose got the ridiculous overbearing government extending copyright regulations to absurd lengths to show that they are purely moronic tools of the Recording Industries?
....both of us.....(*cries*)
(looks at Europe)
(looks at the US)
Dateline: 2012
In further developments, the allegedly dimwitted IBM computer 'test brain' has again outpolled the latest Democratic presidential hopeful, leaving the former "major" political party now in third place and scrambling for some good news. Leading mainstream media sources have suggested anonymously that somehow this computer has managed to run a global repressive conspiracy, convince congress to throw the country into a war for its personal enrichment, and personally engineered a massive McCarthyist conspiracy without leaving a single trace piece of damning evidence.
DNC chairperson Dean was heard to comment "It's apparently way smarter than we gave it credit for. Otherwise we have to consider ourselves just really, REALLY stupid."
OP modded "funny" - I bet this one's modded Flamebait. Why don't we just simplify the system and have a "-1 Conservative" rating (or is -1 not enough)?
Is there a way to 'sticky' comments to subjects?
/. needs a "-1 redundant" category.
I.e. can we please perma-comment every new release of a console system with a news article "New Console (X): The Death of PC Gaming?"?
I'd rather see the school day extended to match real-life work hours (0800-1700) with a minimum of homework outside of that.
1) it gets kids conditioned to what they should expect in real life.
2) the school day is only about 30% (or less) actual work right now, most of it is mindless and useless repetition. it's not like this extension of the day would be grueling
3) IMO the time between the end of school and the end of (parents') workday is when you have the most 'issues' with school-age children
4) teachers could work a full day. I hear a lot of teachers complain that they need 'prep' time - well, most of the schools around here are DESERTED by 4 pm, and if you did year-round school teachers could use the 1 wk/mo or 2 wk/quarter to do their 'prep' instead of painting houses all summer.
I tried Open Office, and basically liked it; however, the resource budget for running it on Windows boxes made it start to really drag after 2 or 3 days of constant use. Maybe it's gotten better since then?
those silly, stupid American conservatives.
Those IDIOTS said that if you federally funded stem cell research using new human-derived cell lines, it would just be a slippery slope from that to the point where people would be created just to be exploited, like creating clones so that we could disassemble them for their useful parts.
What craziness was that, huh? I guess we've shown them!
I mean, everyone knows that clones aren't REALLY humans, and aren't entitled to life, liberty, those sorts of things.
Yes, it IS the American way of fighting, to invest billions in systems to strike from space...because the American public has been so brainwashed that the appearance of a single US soldier dead is enough to swing public opinion.
Besides that, I'd rather have a military that fights to win, not to be 'fair'.
Re the post above: if you think the game is starting now, you're pretty naive. I suppose you imagine the Chinese space initiatives are based entirely on a desire to throw Peace and Love into orbit? Perhaps daisies? The same sort of logic would have said 90 years ago - OMFG, what are we doing ARMING PLANES? Why are we starting such an arms race in the peaceful skies? Well I'll tell you, only the 'good guys' bother wondering. And if they wonder too long, they don't have to bother about it.
And re the OP: gee, it would be **terrible** to have the evil Chinese have the power to rain death down upon us in a matter of minutes.
Oh wait - you're apparently forgetting the entire COLD WAR? I grew up knowing that, if things turned sour, nuclear annihilatory death was maybe 90 minutes away. So? Why would you think suddenly the Chinese would get a great big complex about space weapons doing what MIRV land-based ICBMs have been able to do for nearly 40 years?
Please let me make it clear: I *entirely* agree with you on the need for nuclear power, and the value in removing the leverage the Middle East has on the world.
That said...."Witness the French. As most of their electricity is nuclear generated they are not hostage to oil and dont need to get sucked into the middle-east. This gives them the advantage of taking the moral viewpoint on these issues instead of the national security viewpoint."
The shoveling of barrelfulls of kickback money on the oil-for-food program probably doesn't qualify as the "moral viewpoint" to most observers.
Re that, why is/was there such outrage and certainty that "Bush did this for his oil buddies and to enrich Cheney/Haliburton" when there is NO concrete evidence of this, yet here where there is a documentary trail of French officials and UN officials/children getting oodles of boodle - doesn't seem to bother anyone?
I just don't get it, I guess.
It's somehow illegal for me to take the shows that you make available on TV for Free and send them to anyone else for Free?
Huh? How is it hurting you that I'm spreading the popularity of your show at my expense for bandwidth, etc. I mean, if you broadcast a show to 2 million viewers, and then I p2p it to another million, isn't more viewers WHAT YOU WANTED?
Or are you still believing that we're actually sitting and WATCHING the adverts that you slip into the show about every 10 minutes now, rather than using that time to take a leak, talk on the phone, eat, whatever else we need to do?
At *some* point, someone's going to figure out that most advertising is complete bunkum, and we're going to have the biggest economic crash in history, as well-dressed but penniless marketing people beg for spare change to wash your windshield or do a market study.
...Horsewhip and Buggy manufacturers are irate that their purpose for being disappeared. Quick, someone sue to get automobiles banned!
I can see a number of people from my desk, all of whom are a decivolkswagen or smaller in size (ok a couple are probably bigger) and AFAIK all of them have names?
It's taken careful observation to recognize them, since their average albedo (i.e. brightness) is pretty low. But through a thorough analysis of donut-crumb tracks and the oscillation of the water in the cooler, I can pretty certainly infer their locations making direct visual identification a mere formality.
Perhaps he should have used this on his webserver BEFORE posting to /.?
You know, I personally don't mind at all.
I'm GLAD there are going to be federal standards, so that places where political correctness has run amok can't wreck the system for others.
IIRC Kalifornia now allows (or is considering allowing) people to refuse to have their pictures on their d/ls for some goofy religious fear. Likewise pictures wearing a facial veil.
Personally, I don't really want to share the public roads (or an airplane) with someone who fears being identified.
We trade freedom for security ALL THE TIME - it's pretty much the foundation of the concept of civilization. Tell you what, in fact. You start an airline where you are at your libertarian best - NO ID required, NO freedom-limiting searches - and let's see how you do? Note, I'll be riding the plane with all the other ignorant, freedom-hating cattle that don't mind Federal ID standards.
I'm sure it's coincidental that this would also mean that 99.99% of the games anyone has ever heard of or would have at home COULDN'T be installed and run in any reasonable way on these machines....yeah, coincidence.
1. borrow money you don't have ...
2. use it to fund an office of people who won't actually work
3.
4. profit!
Anyone else find it ironic that the best jobs a bunch of obviously talented phd's can get is WRITING SCRIPTS FOR AN ANIMATED SHOW?
I mean, nothing against Futurama, but still that says something about the job market, and what we value (with our $$) in this farked-up society.
Is it really broadband?
(1.5m bps connection - 1.476m bps censor/filter = 24k bps)
1) "It all boils down to X basic themes that never change" - well duh, boil it down that far and life really only has a single track "gameplay": be born, eat, sleep, hopefully mate, die. Frighteningly linear, that. Why does anyone bother to play?
2) To suggest that "nothing is any different" only highlights the fact that:
a) John-John's never really PLAYED video games, and confines his interaction to them with a walk past his kids playing them, and an occasionally-muttered "why don't they get outside once in a while?". Despite superficially 'similar' games, there's a world of difference between Castle Wolfenstein and HL2.
b) MMOGs, John. Ever heard of them? Kind of a big deal now, didn't really exist until what, about 2000? Bit of a step forward, gigantic shared worlds, playing against other humans?
c) John's never even HEARD of Katmari Damancy, King of Dragon Pass, or a whole HOST of games that ARE novel, unique, interesting, and fun. I think John should stop making choices about computer games based on the Wal-Mart software bin and actually look around a little. Yes, it might mean he spends 30 minutes picking out a birthday gift for John Jr. instead of 5 minutes, but hey...
I guess what I'm saying is that perhaps his views are the way they are because as far as computer gaming is concerned - he's playing 'easy mode'.