I never thought about it until I saw pictures of the rovers with the layer of dust on the solar panels, but it seems like it would be somewhat trivial to send the next one with... say... a revolving brush that could somehow clear the dust off the panels periodically... or perhaps a puff of compressed air from the end of a robotic arm. Seems like the dust has been one of the main set-backs for power generation on the mission. Coming up with a good way of dealing with that could extend the missions indefinitely... precluding other mechanical failures, and a failure of the dust-removal system itself.
Exactly... One can imagine all manner of crazy situations we may get into. For example, a website selling 3D shutter glasses being required to have a blind-accessible website. Or how about required closed captioning for your YouTube videos!
Seriously?... One meter of sea rise over the next century? I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but those kinds of figures just floor me. And it's astounding to me that people actually believe crap like that.
Do the math. There's not enough surface water/ice on all the continents COMBINED to raise the ocean levels by one meter... even if ALL the surface water somehow migrated all at once to the sea.
A decade ago I would have agreed with you, and you are probably still correct. These days I have to wonder, however. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently upheld the practice of municipalities condemning and acquiring private property owned by a citizen - for the sole purpose of giving it to another citizen because the latter plans to develop the property such that it better benefits the tax collections for the municipality. Government does need to be able to take private land - with just compensation to the owner - for public use such as roads, parks, etc. The framers of the constitution never intended that power to be used in ways it has been recently. The revenue generating potential (for the state) of what another citizen plans to do with the land outweighs the fact that the land is mine.
Therefore, It is possible that the courts will side with the state. The revenue generating potential of having a mini billboard on something that travels state-owned roads may outweigh the fact that it is supposedly owned by me.
In my experience, (and granted I have a small statistical sampling) the kids one might think were most likely to succeed in life at about the 10th grade level... usually were the ones who wound up as drug-heads and/or in jail for various crimes by the time they were the age of college freshmen or sophmores.... and the kids one might expect to be losers usually turn out to be the most successful.
SNOW is not generally a problem when it comes to defrosting windows... it's ICE. Keep in mind, some of us live where much of the frozen perciptiation we get is not like the nice fluffy and powdery snow you may get. It's a totally different ball-game when there's a layer of ice on your windshield twice as thick as the glass itself. Sometimes you have to let the engine warm up enough to melt the undersurface before it can be scraped off.
Actually, FAX machines - as we currently know them - are already on their way out. Current FAX machines will NOT work on VOIP networks. And as most telephone networks are moving toward VOIP - it's just a matter of time before they are big, expensive paper-weights.
I don't think switching to a VOIP solution necessitates completely ditching the current infrastructure. Instead of having to have 4 KHz filters on a POTS line and shoving enough voltage down it to ring a freaking bell, they'll just have an IP device on each end of the copper. These days I would expect almost every CO to CO or DSLAM to CO to be IP-based copper or fiber already. This is just basically suggesting we do away with decades-old regulations requiring analog telephone service and switching to a modern digital technology... and take what is ALREADY probably IP-based at the CO all the way down to the end-point.
It WILL require everybody to get a new phone - or some sort of adaptor... but we've already been through that with the transition to digital TV.
Damn straight!... You speak as though that's a bad thing. I am personally in the same boat! I'm the I.T. geek for a relatively small company in Arkansas who ships most of its sales outside of the state. We have NO physical presence outside of Arkansas. Yet in recent years we have received letters from authorities in various other states advising us to begin collecting sales taxes for them.
Because of the nature of our business it might be argued, however, that we DO have nexus in those other states. Ok... Fine... Tell me how much to charge, Oklahoma... Tell me how much to charge, Texas... Tell me how much to charge California... etc. etc. Oh, and be sure to notify me when your tax laws and jurisdiction boundaries change fortnightly... It snowballs to insanity REALLY quick. My wee bitty Arkansas corporation can't afford to hire several additional full-time employees to effectively serve as tax collection facilitators... researching to make sure we are charging the correct rates, filling out and remitting the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of tax forms and sending payments to each tax authority who is owed money.
In the states defense, some have banded together to streamline and homogenize their tax laws [www.streamlinedsalestax.org]... and design a common API with which programmers may interface [www.avalara.com]. Unfortunately, as of this moment only *20* of the 43-ish or so states that have a sales tax are full members. LESS THAN HALF! It *would* be a good solution only if ALL the states in question were members of the group... AND if there was an API with which my custom-built e-commerce platform could interface.
Actually, what we laypersons call a 'sales tax' the states that have them call a 'sales AND USE tax'.... meaning, it not only applies to goods sold within the taxing jurisdiction - but goods sold outside it for USE inside. If you travel to a state without a sales tax, purchase a car and bring it back home to your state which has a sales and use tax - you'll find that you'll probably be getting a bill from your state for not paying sales (use) tax on it.
So, in effect... the souvenir taxation scenario you described DOES, in fact happen. Perhaps not with small trinkets - because it would be impossible for the government to enforce it... But most of these laws DO, in fact, require you to report such purchases to your local or state government and pay such taxes... although nobody ever does. It's difficult to get away with when you're talking about a car, however... because it has to be registered & licensed with the state in question.
It's even more complicated than that, really. As the post points out, Amazon boasts about being able to track millions of individual products. Not only does each taxing jurisdiction (state, county, local) have its own tax rate, but some may have different tax rates for different types of products.
A snickers bar, for example, may be considered 'food' in one state and taxed at an appropriate rate. Whereas another state may consider it to be 'candy' and taxed differently. Some states base their classification on the ingredients... Does it contain peanuts?... ok, it's food. Some states consider it 'food' only if the product is served with eating utensils... i.e. a fork.
So, you can imagine... It's not as simple as plugging in a percentage for a sales order going from point A to point B. It's stupid complicated, unrealistic to expect businesses to do the government's dirty work. The states need to get their tax laws in-tune with the modern age.
Amazon alone would be required to hire hundreds or literally thousands of people... JUST to keep track of this stuff. Now guess how much MORE you're gonna be paying for that little trinket you just bought because it took 2 full-time employees three months to classify the product in all taxing jurisdictions and keep track of the ever-changing laws. It's nuts!
Then how might he explain the barrage of hack attempts from China IP addresses that begin promptly every Friday afternoon just after 5:00 pm in the time zone where my servers are located? Those goobers know EXACTLY when we geeks go home for the weekend and aren't keeping _as_ keen an eye on our systems.
The company for which I work began getting notices from a few states last year that we needed to be collecting and remitting sales tax on goods sold to residents in their states. We are located in Arkansas... nowhere else.
I've never understood what jurisdiction another state has to do anything about it anyway. Besides, to calculate sales tax properly & remit it to the proper authorities in each state is a HUGE burden on a small business - which we are.
In more recent times the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) is an attempt to make things easier for small businesses - but when I got hooked up with the only two companies who offered an SST-authorized software service, I found out they didn't even have a PHP-based API for me to use. My entire system is built in PHP! Not Java... Not.NET. I eventually just threw my hands up and said, Screw it! If they want me to collect the tax for them they can give me tool to do so.
I agree. Something is gonna have to give at some point - it's becoming so burdensome on small businesses to comply with the demands established by banks & government. The company I work for (a relatively small company) in the past year or so has been pressed into PCI standards certification - $$$$, collecting sales tax for ALL states - $$$$, and a few other mandated things that cost money to implement. Now I'm gonna have to implement ANOTHER government-mandated program into my system!?... At this rate there won't be many small companies left with which to DO business.
...is that the Federal Government just instituted another tax (a $19 Billion tax) - that I must pay - in order to use the supposed 'public' airways. Used for some telecomm service - there'll be an additional tax on top of that.....And we wonder why our wireless phone bills are so high.
Neo-moralism? Hey.. From what I understand about this, I agree... It's stupid. A picture of a girl drinking from a cup with a pirate hat on seems pretty innocent to me. But, I'd say we COULD stand to have a little more 'moralism' in U.S. society today; A society in which a wealthy brat Paris Hilton is made a celebrity because of acting out.
On a side note... I really wonder HOW the school became AWARE of the mySpace photo in the first place - student revenge maybe?
no... neither would the U.S... That's why I included the parentietical (among other things) in the OP. China and the U.S. as well as China and 'several other countries' pretend to get along right now because it's financially advantageous for both parties. If that ever becomes in-doubt... look out!
Why do you assume anyone can take on China? 1) I don't assume anyONE could take on China. When was the last war or major military action by a significant power in the world that was conducted only by that power with no additional allied involvement? I can't think of anything recently.
After watching a special on CNBC the other night regarding Zippo (The famous cigarette lighter company) and their battle with Chineese rip-offs... and now this... I'm beginning to realize at some point in the future there will be dire consequences for China's blatent lack of respect for international intellectual property laws (among other things). Consequences as in trade embargos... or even war. Better wake up China! The giant will ignore a mouse nibbling at his ankle only for so long....
Slashdot Mirror
But do you have to put your hands on your hips?
I never thought about it until I saw pictures of the rovers with the layer of dust on the solar panels, but it seems like it would be somewhat trivial to send the next one with... say... a revolving brush that could somehow clear the dust off the panels periodically... or perhaps a puff of compressed air from the end of a robotic arm. Seems like the dust has been one of the main set-backs for power generation on the mission. Coming up with a good way of dealing with that could extend the missions indefinitely... precluding other mechanical failures, and a failure of the dust-removal system itself.
Exactly... One can imagine all manner of crazy situations we may get into. For example, a website selling 3D shutter glasses being required to have a blind-accessible website. Or how about required closed captioning for your YouTube videos!
Seriously?... One meter of sea rise over the next century? I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but those kinds of figures just floor me. And it's astounding to me that people actually believe crap like that.
Do the math. There's not enough surface water/ice on all the continents COMBINED to raise the ocean levels by one meter... even if ALL the surface water somehow migrated all at once to the sea.
A decade ago I would have agreed with you, and you are probably still correct. These days I have to wonder, however. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently upheld the practice of municipalities condemning and acquiring private property owned by a citizen - for the sole purpose of giving it to another citizen because the latter plans to develop the property such that it better benefits the tax collections for the municipality. Government does need to be able to take private land - with just compensation to the owner - for public use such as roads, parks, etc. The framers of the constitution never intended that power to be used in ways it has been recently. The revenue generating potential (for the state) of what another citizen plans to do with the land outweighs the fact that the land is mine.
Therefore, It is possible that the courts will side with the state. The revenue generating potential of having a mini billboard on something that travels state-owned roads may outweigh the fact that it is supposedly owned by me.
In my experience, (and granted I have a small statistical sampling) the kids one might think were most likely to succeed in life at about the 10th grade level... usually were the ones who wound up as drug-heads and/or in jail for various crimes by the time they were the age of college freshmen or sophmores.... and the kids one might expect to be losers usually turn out to be the most successful.
SNOW is not generally a problem when it comes to defrosting windows... it's ICE. Keep in mind, some of us live where much of the frozen perciptiation we get is not like the nice fluffy and powdery snow you may get. It's a totally different ball-game when there's a layer of ice on your windshield twice as thick as the glass itself. Sometimes you have to let the engine warm up enough to melt the undersurface before it can be scraped off.
Actually, FAX machines - as we currently know them - are already on their way out. Current FAX machines will NOT work on VOIP networks. And as most telephone networks are moving toward VOIP - it's just a matter of time before they are big, expensive paper-weights.
I don't think switching to a VOIP solution necessitates completely ditching the current infrastructure. Instead of having to have 4 KHz filters on a POTS line and shoving enough voltage down it to ring a freaking bell, they'll just have an IP device on each end of the copper. These days I would expect almost every CO to CO or DSLAM to CO to be IP-based copper or fiber already. This is just basically suggesting we do away with decades-old regulations requiring analog telephone service and switching to a modern digital technology... and take what is ALREADY probably IP-based at the CO all the way down to the end-point.
It WILL require everybody to get a new phone - or some sort of adaptor... but we've already been through that with the transition to digital TV.
Damn straight!... You speak as though that's a bad thing. I am personally in the same boat! I'm the I.T. geek for a relatively small company in Arkansas who ships most of its sales outside of the state. We have NO physical presence outside of Arkansas. Yet in recent years we have received letters from authorities in various other states advising us to begin collecting sales taxes for them.
Because of the nature of our business it might be argued, however, that we DO have nexus in those other states. Ok... Fine... Tell me how much to charge, Oklahoma... Tell me how much to charge, Texas... Tell me how much to charge California... etc. etc. Oh, and be sure to notify me when your tax laws and jurisdiction boundaries change fortnightly... It snowballs to insanity REALLY quick. My wee bitty Arkansas corporation can't afford to hire several additional full-time employees to effectively serve as tax collection facilitators... researching to make sure we are charging the correct rates, filling out and remitting the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of tax forms and sending payments to each tax authority who is owed money.
In the states defense, some have banded together to streamline and homogenize their tax laws [www.streamlinedsalestax.org]... and design a common API with which programmers may interface [www.avalara.com]. Unfortunately, as of this moment only *20* of the 43-ish or so states that have a sales tax are full members. LESS THAN HALF! It *would* be a good solution only if ALL the states in question were members of the group... AND if there was an API with which my custom-built e-commerce platform could interface.
Actually, what we laypersons call a 'sales tax' the states that have them call a 'sales AND USE tax'.... meaning, it not only applies to goods sold within the taxing jurisdiction - but goods sold outside it for USE inside. If you travel to a state without a sales tax, purchase a car and bring it back home to your state which has a sales and use tax - you'll find that you'll probably be getting a bill from your state for not paying sales (use) tax on it.
So, in effect... the souvenir taxation scenario you described DOES, in fact happen. Perhaps not with small trinkets - because it would be impossible for the government to enforce it... But most of these laws DO, in fact, require you to report such purchases to your local or state government and pay such taxes... although nobody ever does. It's difficult to get away with when you're talking about a car, however... because it has to be registered & licensed with the state in question.
It's even more complicated than that, really. As the post points out, Amazon boasts about being able to track millions of individual products. Not only does each taxing jurisdiction (state, county, local) have its own tax rate, but some may have different tax rates for different types of products.
A snickers bar, for example, may be considered 'food' in one state and taxed at an appropriate rate. Whereas another state may consider it to be 'candy' and taxed differently. Some states base their classification on the ingredients... Does it contain peanuts?... ok, it's food. Some states consider it 'food' only if the product is served with eating utensils... i.e. a fork.
So, you can imagine... It's not as simple as plugging in a percentage for a sales order going from point A to point B. It's stupid complicated, unrealistic to expect businesses to do the government's dirty work. The states need to get their tax laws in-tune with the modern age.
Amazon alone would be required to hire hundreds or literally thousands of people... JUST to keep track of this stuff. Now guess how much MORE you're gonna be paying for that little trinket you just bought because it took 2 full-time employees three months to classify the product in all taxing jurisdictions and keep track of the ever-changing laws. It's nuts!
Um.. yes, AT&T _IS_ forcing one to use their service. You remember that little thing called a contract?
Granted, nobody forced me to *choose* them, but once they are chosen - I'm locked in for two years!
But what happens when after 6 months or 1 year my service begins to suck? Have I no recourse?
I have no idea if this lawsuit has merit or not, but an attitude of 'don't like it, don't use it' is likely an oversimplification of the situation.
It was Dracula!
"We don't even care that we don't care." /obscure?
Then how might he explain the barrage of hack attempts from China IP addresses that begin promptly every Friday afternoon just after 5:00 pm in the time zone where my servers are located? Those goobers know EXACTLY when we geeks go home for the weekend and aren't keeping _as_ keen an eye on our systems.
....Guaranteeing that their server is /.ed after only 2 comments.
The company for which I work began getting notices from a few states last year that we needed to be collecting and remitting sales tax on goods sold to residents in their states. We are located in Arkansas... nowhere else.
.NET. I eventually just threw my hands up and said, Screw it! If they want me to collect the tax for them they can give me tool to do so.
I've never understood what jurisdiction another state has to do anything about it anyway. Besides, to calculate sales tax properly & remit it to the proper authorities in each state is a HUGE burden on a small business - which we are.
In more recent times the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) is an attempt to make things easier for small businesses - but when I got hooked up with the only two companies who offered an SST-authorized software service, I found out they didn't even have a PHP-based API for me to use. My entire system is built in PHP! Not Java... Not
I agree. Something is gonna have to give at some point - it's becoming so burdensome on small businesses to comply with the demands established by banks & government. The company I work for (a relatively small company) in the past year or so has been pressed into PCI standards certification - $$$$, collecting sales tax for ALL states - $$$$, and a few other mandated things that cost money to implement. Now I'm gonna have to implement ANOTHER government-mandated program into my system!?... At this rate there won't be many small companies left with which to DO business.
...is that the Federal Government just instituted another tax (a $19 Billion tax) - that I must pay - in order to use the supposed 'public' airways. Used for some telecomm service - there'll be an additional tax on top of that. ....And we wonder why our wireless phone bills are so high.
with NC's constitution... but since when is it the government's responsibility to make sure the playing field is 'level' - at least in this situation?
Neo-moralism? Hey.. From what I understand about this, I agree... It's stupid. A picture of a girl drinking from a cup with a pirate hat on seems pretty innocent to me. But, I'd say we COULD stand to have a little more 'moralism' in U.S. society today; A society in which a wealthy brat Paris Hilton is made a celebrity because of acting out.
On a side note... I really wonder HOW the school became AWARE of the mySpace photo in the first place - student revenge maybe?
no... neither would the U.S... That's why I included the parentietical (among other things) in the OP. China and the U.S. as well as China and 'several other countries' pretend to get along right now because it's financially advantageous for both parties. If that ever becomes in-doubt... look out!
2) Vastly superior numbers != military advantage
3) I only mentioned war as a distant possibility
After watching a special on CNBC the other night regarding Zippo (The famous cigarette lighter company) and their battle with Chineese rip-offs... and now this... I'm beginning to realize at some point in the future there will be dire consequences for China's blatent lack of respect for international intellectual property laws (among other things). Consequences as in trade embargos... or even war. Better wake up China! The giant will ignore a mouse nibbling at his ankle only for so long....