It would be like you hired a contractor to assess the foundation of your house (your application), and instead he tells you about problems the front door on the adjoining house (your website), or about the foundation of houses in another state (competitors applications). Only an idiot would pay for such a report.
If (and only if) they asked for a comprehensive evaluation of the security of their company, would the web site be included in it, unless the web site is essential to the operation of their application. If they intended to get paid for the work, they shouldn't have reported it through the bug tracking system. It could have been reported independently. I didn't read far enough to see if the bugs were really security bugs, or if they were simply rendering errors.
To play devil's advocate, who says that JC Penny did this themselves? Maybe their head of IT that was just some lay person that worked himself up through the ranks got one of some SEO spam and thought "Hey, this sounds like a great idea!". Not knowing how they conducted business he just went with it.
There's another option here. If I read the article right, JC Penney denied doing it. Searches can make or break a company. So someone who wanted to sink them could have been the one doing it. Throw their links up on every gray market location they can find, and when the target makes it big, start notifying folks (media, search engine abuse departments, etc) about the "blackhat" methods that the target is using.
Who would want to see JC Penney die? Big department stores (Sears, Macy's, Belk Lindsey,etc). The lower box stores (Walmart, KMart, Target). Online retailers (Amazon, eBay, etc). It could have even been a random irate customer, and anyone who's ever worked with customers knows that there's always an irate customer.
Most likely it was a marketing decision by JC Penney themselves. I'm sure the decision was "Do it. Don't get caught. If you do, we don't know anything about it." If it ends up traceable to us, we're firing you over it." Since there wasn't a positive finger pointed, someone got a raise rather than getting fired.
Trader Joe's is definitely a good establishment. Unfortunately where I was, it was chaotic at best to shop there. Pulling into the parking lot, you'd circle with a dozen or so other cars for 20 minutes or so, looking for someone to leave. Shopping inside was reminiscent of trying to walk down Main Street at Disney during their closing fireworks show. Well, or driving on the 5 during rush hour.:) I'm a pretty laid back guy, but when the 20th or so person shoves me, I had to show great restraint from throwing a punch.
That's not to say Von's or Ralph's were much better. The stores weren't so crowded, but when they were on strike, going in or out of the stores were edging on an angry mob beating down a scab worker. Look, I'm just trying to get food, and the other stores are impossible to get into. Back off.
Oh, I hated it out there. I can't say I found one redeeming quality of my time there. Well, one. The day I left. It was the finest day I had in a long time. Of course, it was a few months after my house almost disappeared in a mudslide, and the night before we left, wildfires were burning the hills about 1/2 mile away. Driving out through a cloud of smoke, reminiscent of leaving a war zone in some post apocalyptic nightmare was a fitting end to my time there.
I know you're playing stupid, but that's what the defense will do too. At least I hope you're playing stupid. Lets follow this through.
AMAZON.COM.KYDC LLC, the owners/operators of the facility in question in Irving, Tx, is a corporation registered in the states of Kentucky and Texas.
KYDC is "Kentucky Distribution Center". If you look for other names of corporations they're using for their distribution centers, you'll see the common theme.
Entity Information: AMAZON.COM.KYDC LLC PO BOX 81207 SEATTLE, WA 98108-1207
And they list 21 vice presidents as the officers of the company, all PO BOX 81226 SEATTLE , WA 98108
VICE PRESI ALLEN PARKER VICE PRESI BEN SUMRALL VICE PRESI BRIAN W CALVIN VICE PRESI CHRISTOPHER S YETMAN VICE PRESI DAVE ALPERSON VICE PRESI DAVE H CLARK VICE PRESI DAVE NIEKERK VICE PRESI DAVE SEITELMAN VICE PRESI GIRISH S LAKSHMAN VICE PRESI JASON M BRISTOW TREASURER JASON M BRISTOW VICE PRESI JAY LITTLEPAGE VICE PRESI JOHN TAGAWA VICE PRESI MICHAEL D DEAL SECRETARY MICHAEL D DEAL VICE PRESI MICHAEL J PASSALES PRESIDENT MICHAEL T MCKENNA VICE PRESI RITESH CHATURBEDI VICE PRESI ROB ROBINSON VICE PRESI ROBERT C WEGNER VICE PRESI ROBERT D COMFORT ASSISTANT SARAH DODS VICE PRESI SEAN BOYLE VICE PRESI TIMOTHY C COLLINS
Allen Parker - VP Finance, WW Operations & Customer Service, Logistics and Supply Chain - Amazon.com Ben Sumrall - Finance Director - Amazon.com Brian Calvin - Director- NAFC ACES - Amazon.com Chris Yetman - VP, Infrastructure Operations - Amazon.com David Alperson - General Manager - Amazon.com Dave Clark - VP of North American Operations - Amazon.com David Niekerk - VP Human Resources for Global Operations and Customer Service - Amazon.com David Seitelman David - Regional Director of Fulfillment, Director of Manufacturing - Amazon.com Girish Lakshman - Vice President - Transportation - Amazon.com Jason Bristow - Vice President & Treasurer - Amazon.com Jay Littlepage - VP, Infrastructure - Amazon.com (no longer with Amazon) John Tagawa - General Manager - Amazon.com Michael Deal - Vice President and Associate General Counsel - Amazon.com Michael Passales - Regional Director, North American Fulfillment - Amazon.com Michael McKenna VP Legal at Amazon Europe, Legal Director at Amazon.co.uk Senior Financial Analyst - Amazon.com Ritesh Chaturbedi - Operations Manager - Amazon.com Rob Robinson - General Manager - Amazon.com Robert Wegner - unknown Robert Comfort - unknown (AWS engineer?) Sarah Dods - Attorney - Securities & Corporate Finance - Amazon.com Sean Boyle - Vice President, Amazon Web Services Finance - Amazon.com Tim Collins - Director - Amazon.com
Do you see a trend there? 20 of 22 people listed as officers are employees at Amazon. One worked at Amazon, but is no longer employed, but I'd suspect that will be fixed on the corporation listing at the next filing. One is simply unverified.
But lets overlook that, and skip on to the Kentucky company. Surely, if it's just a name resemblance, this one couldn't be remotely similar also. Kentucky actually has 5 corporations listed, 3 of which are active, including the one in question.
AMAZON.COM BABY, INC. 0618308 I-Inactive FCO-Foreign Corporation AMAZON.COM, LLC 0618515 A-Active - Good FLC-Foreign Limited Liability Company AMAZON.COM.KYDC LLC 0723455 A-Active - Good FLC-Foreign Limited Liability Company AMAZON.COM.KYDC, INC. 0475949 I-Inactive FC
Amazon has been in Irving, Tx since 2005. What date do you think the State of Texas is trying to collect from?
Unfortunately, the article doesn't state that, and it appears that the listed income for Amazon is in total reported sales, not sales to Texas consumers. I did find this article, dated June 2005, which should give some insight into the situation.
Amazon.com to locate massive distribution center in Irving Dallas Business Journal Date: Thursday, June 30, 2005, 3:00pm CDT
Amazon.com will open a massive distribution center in Irving in what is Dallas-Fort Worth's largest industrial lease this year, the Irving Chamber of Commerce said Thursday.
Seattle-based Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will locate in the DFW Freeport area at 2700 Regent Blvd. near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.The center is expected to open by September.
The deal has been one of the most closely guarded deals in the Dallas-Fort Worth market this year.
The Irving City Council cleared the way for the distribution center on May 26, by approving an economic development incentive agreement. The agreement provides tax rebates to the company for six years, with options to extend the agreement up to 10 years.
The Irving fulfillment center will house larger, non-conveyable items from the company's home and garden, electronics and kitchen stores.
Well, that "contract" is actually with Amazon com kydc,. 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, and try to claim it wasn't them. If they wanted to be slick about it, they'd name it "Shipping Cheap Stuff, LLC", or any variety of names that could be thought up.
It would appear that they are talking about the locate "Amazon.com.kydc LLC", at 2700 Regent Boulevard, Irving, TX.
Like any big company, they break up operations into logical blocks. Amazon has Amazon Global Resources, Inc.; Amazon.com.dedc, LLC; Fulfillco.ksdc, Inc.; Amazon.com.kydc, Inc.; Amazon.com Commerce Services, Inc.; Amazon.com Holdings, Inc.; Amazon.com International Sales, Inc.; Amazon.com LLC; Amazon.com Payments, Inc.; NV Services, Inc.; Amazon Fulfillment Services, Inc.; Amazon.com@Target.com, Inc.
You may see a trend there. Wholly owned subsidiaries. That definitely counts as a physical location in that state.
FedEx, UPS, DHL, USPS, etc do also fall under that category, and shipping is appropriately taxed. They, on the other hand, do not count as a physical location in any given state for a vendor shipping through them. They are wholly owned subsidiaries. They are a service provider.
If, say FedEx were owned by Amazon, and FedEx only provided services for Amazon, then they would count as a physical location. As Amazon shipments are only a percentage of any distribution carrier's business, no it doesn't apply.
This is a pretty well understood concept by anyone who does interstate business, with physical locations in multiple states. Otherwise, consider this concept. Say you had shipping facilities in New York and New Jersey. If a customer in New York ordered an item, would you think it to be reasonable to ship the item from New Jersey to avoid the sales tax?
It doesn't appear to be an issue where Texas is laying claim to taxes on every purchase made through Amazon. If it shipped from a Seattle location, to a Chicago customer, that's not anything for Texas to touch. As far as I can tell, they're only trying to collect taxes on items shipped to Texas customers.
You can always give out zip codes such as 12345 or 11101 (Both legit New York zip codes), or 90210 of course.
I prefer "19". Well, binary 10011. Manhattan. For some reason with online forms when I give my standard bogus street address and the zip of 10011, they never kick it back as invalid. That was interesting when I lived in one place. They split the zip code due to the population increase. When I was doing things like buying online, I couldn't use the correct zip code, because it would kick it back as invalid about half of the time. I had to go with the old zip code, even 2 years after the official changeover. It was a bastard for places where their merchant payment gateway validated the zip code. My bank had the right one, and some places would only ship to the billing address validated by my bank.
Most places charge a tax for that. Well, a "fee" for not printing it. That's a huge joke. You're saving them the wasted paper and ink by not being included in the book. Still, when I've had land lines, I always paid it. I haven't been listed in a phone book for.. almost 20 years.
At least cell phones don't show up in the published phone book. Prepaid phones are that much more interesting, where you can register with any information that you'd like.
I was wondering if someone from Cali would post.:)
I don't know if they're still doing it, but when I was out there, you would be charged twice as much for everything in the store without their card. If I remember right, Vons, Ralphs, and Albertsons all did it. In other states, when I say I don't have a card, they just swipe a card that they have handy, and the "discount" is applied.
I paid the extra anonymity tax for a while. Food stuffs there are more expensive than other places in the country. About double from where I'm living now. So a $1 item in the cheaper state is $2 in Cali, or $4 without the store card (approximate pricing, of course).
I finally gave in, and got a card. False name, false (but legitimate) address, and even a throwaway email address. Data-mine that. The guy who "lives" in on an empty lot would buy $300 in groceries every week. Most people are sheep though. You can ask for their name, DOB, SSN, CC number and PIN, email address, and even their email password, and they'll hand it over for the "discount".
I'm happy to be in a state again, where if they do apply such a bogus price increase, they are kind enough to take it off at the register.
There are other conditions that they should be aware of.
I have some decent spine problems. Some days, I can't turn my head more than 5 degrees to the left or right. That's all fine and dandy, they couldn't hope to move my head, since I can't. But some days, it's very painful to turn my head. The nice friendly motion of a barber could be the difference between me getting a haircut, and me screaming in pain.
I just do the preferred thing, and don't let folks move my head around when it hurts.:) Then again, I'm not the type of guy to schedule a hair appointment. My standard instructions are "mow it off, leave just a little." It doesn't matter where I go, if they can't do that without leaving bald spots, they wouldn't really be in the business.
For folks that schedule hair appointments, they're more likely to make the appointment, than consider their own health.
No, "Scary Movie", "Not Another Teen Movie", "Epic Movie", "Disaster Movie, the "Twilight Saga", "Police Academy" (all 7 nauseating installments) and "Zardoz are evil.
For those who haven't seen any of them, especially the last, please don't. Preserve your eyesight, your sanity, and your lunch.
Been there, done that, left a molten hole in the sidewalk. Lately though, folks tend to stick the "terrorist" label on those events. Terrorist? No, I was celebrating the 4th of July dammit.
If we want to address the questions of gender inequality in the workforce for technical professions, it needs to start earlier than the workforce. It needs not letting as many girls loose interest in math and science.
I think you hit it perfectly here. It's a social issue, not a biological one. The problem of inequality is that girls and boys are treated different.
I've been talking to my girlfriend about this as the discussion has gone on. And for the sake of discussion, my IQ is about 135 (132 to 138). My girlfriend's is about 145. I'm well versed in a wide variety of technical and physical work (anything electronic, cars, home repair), and I have an interest in physics, aeronautical science, and astrophysics. I work She's well versed in a wide variety of topics including automotive technology, literature, clothing (design, fabrication, and period recreations), and she also has an interest in astrophysics. Those are just the short lists. Who's smarter? It depends on what you're looking for. She can discuss historical periods and literature. I can diagnose most problems, from weird behavior of your computer (or enterprise network) to a weird noise your car makes, from a layman's description.
We just watched the "Jericho" TV show. Our discussions on the show included social and political behaviors and plot errors, to the various plot holes in the military strategy. And yes, there were enough errors in the show to keep us busy talking about it for a long time.:)
She told me about when she was a little girl in school. She wanted to be an astronaut. She was told "Girls don't do that. Wouldn't you like to raise a family instead?" Myself, I distinctly remember teachers in middle school (around 5th or 6th grade) saying that I was dumb, and I'd only ever work at McDonalds. Funny that, I've never worked at McDonalds, and most position I've worked in my adult life has been for better pay and respect than a grade school teacher who belittles students. Preference at that time was towards children of parents who were rich or socially/politically connected. I'd love to go back and show them where I ended up. Based on their age then, and the amount of time that's passed, they're most likely retired and/or dead.
So, social factors are much larger than how intelligent or capable a person is. Through my life, I've know a lot of people, and their children. The only thing I can strive to do is treat everyone equally. You'd be amazed at what people can do, if they are not treated different because of their sex, color, or other factors.
I think you'll do better at finding the concentration of dense people in Washington.... well... or on the road during morning rush hour. And folks why I show up to work stylishly last, and stay a few extra hours afterwards. It's so I don't have to be on the road with them.:)
So you're saying it's easier to break into their house and steal everything they own, than to bother with an interrogation with a $5 wrench (current market value, $17.98)
Advertising for movies is a **HUGE** industry. It makes everyone involved a fortune (except for us end-users).
Google could...
1) Delist the MPAA's sites, related sites, and any links related to movies released by MPAA related studios.
2) Refuse to accept any advertising from MPAA related studios, and sell advertising at discounted rates to Non-MPAA related studios.
3) Refuse all movie trailers, fan-made trailers, and any other related materials on YouTube and give priority to Non-MPAA related studio materials.
In addition to the Google and YouTube companies, Google has interest in quite a few others. They have 5% of AOL (no AOL ads for upcoming movies, or listings on their movie schedule site). They also have interest or total ownership of 7 advertising outlets. It's hard to advertise your product, if the advertising outlets refuse them.
Refuse advertising to those studios is perfectly legal. They are under no obligation to services customers who are pursuing or threatening legal action. The economic result would be that other studios and independent filmmakers would have an extreme advantage in a marketplace where they are all but locked out. Hmmm, this may not be such a bad thing. Hey MPAA, do your worst! Maybe we'll be saved the horror of yet another sparkly vampire movie, or another formula driven teens slaughtered in the woods by [insert badguy] or the mockery of the same.
I bought a house and moved across the country a few years ago. Because I had bought a house, I was on every creditors list as having money. I received two "checks" for $5,000 and $8,000. Those checks were cashable, but they would have opened a line of credit for me at 24.99%.
Little did I know, one of them also sent one to my previous residence for $9,000. Someone saw it as free money. I found out after the collections company tried to get their money from me. We went around for about 1/2 hour on the phone, and started getting it fixed. They sent me a copy of the check. The thief had to go to 3 banks to find one that would cash it. Yup, one whole day of work, and a $9,000 profit. Apparently the guy didn't even have to show an ID.
Do I trust that the teller at the bank will actually look at the ID, and verify the identity? Nope. Consider other "banking security" methods. For security, they mail your credit/debit card to your house. They mail the book of checks. How hard is it for someone to open your mailbox, and swipe the contents. Usually they'll get junk mail. Once in a while they'll get a brand new credit card or box of checks.
In the end, as I've discovered, unless the thief goes on a huge spending spree, there will rarely be an investigation or prosecution. The banks just look at it as a cost of doing business, and recover their losses through fees that they hit the customer with. Yup, we pay for their mistakes.
None of my passwords contain dictionary words. Well, some may have started out as such, but they're so brutally mangled it's well beyond the normal capabilities of a rainbow table, unless they've computed all possible characters, instead of typical variations. For example, my password to Slashdot may be "lonely nerds in mommas basement", which may now be "l1lyn3rd@M0mazBazmt". Feed that to a rainbow table, and let me know how it goes.:)
(Note: that's not really my password here. It's too easy)
The whole discussion is actually pretty simple. Unless the password is a common one, it's easier to use another attack method.
I've seen it, only because when I'm out shopping I'm looking for the best deal. Since it appears that I know what I'm looking at, and for some strange reason people think I'm approachable. I suppose people can really misjudge people.
I've probably heard every dumb thing customers can ask. If they aren't asking me, they're asking salesmen within earshot. Every time I hear it, I lose a little more faith in humanity. Marketing almost always beats common sense.
I had fun a few months back. I needed a new monitor. I was had picked a nice Asus 24" LCD. It was on sale, and a pretty good deal. One of the salesmen made the mistake of approaching me. I swear, I usually have the "all salesmen should fuck off" aura. I guess I forgot to turn it on. That or maybe he thought I was going to shoplift it.:) Anyways, he came over, and kept asking questions, so I went straight into my dumb-customer mode.
"like, a friend of mine built me a computer. He said it had an aaasooz board thing in it. Will this aaasooz screenie thing work with it?". I kept it up for about a minute, and then laughed and told him I was fucking with him.:) He was very relieved that I wasn't another dumb customer. And hey, he still got his commission, so all was good. At least he didn't have to answer too many dumb questions while I contemplated if I really wanted one.
I think it's quite appropriate that you cited the President of Harvard. What is more appropriate is that he was forced to resign by a majority vote of no-confidence by the faculty of Harvard. The consensus was that he ignored patterns of socialization and discrimination, and focused on the strict male-female evidence. There were also issues of racism.
So a racist misogynistic asshole says women are dumber then men, I guess we should support that, eh? While you'll of course find a segment of the population agreeing with you, you'll also find a segment of the population who dresses up in bed sheets and kills folks who do not have the same ancestral background as them.
But using Mr. Summers own topic, mathematical ability, I'm sure there are plenty of women, and men, who are far more capable than you or I to evaluate the information and come to a proper unbiased conclusion.
Don't forget the wonders that Apple has doe with the "i" prefix. "I iCheated with my iPad, and iTxt'd the iTest with my iPhone to my iFriends and I got this UberLeet iDiploma". e-Cyber be damned.":)
Slashdot Mirror
Ya, a little something like that. :) I'm confident that's not the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if they came out saying something like that.
Actually, it's much different than that.
It would be like you hired a contractor to assess the foundation of your house (your application), and instead he tells you about problems the front door on the adjoining house (your website), or about the foundation of houses in another state (competitors applications). Only an idiot would pay for such a report.
If (and only if) they asked for a comprehensive evaluation of the security of their company, would the web site be included in it, unless the web site is essential to the operation of their application. If they intended to get paid for the work, they shouldn't have reported it through the bug tracking system. It could have been reported independently. I didn't read far enough to see if the bugs were really security bugs, or if they were simply rendering errors.
So you're saying that SEO's belong in the sales department, eh? :)
There's another option here. If I read the article right, JC Penney denied doing it. Searches can make or break a company. So someone who wanted to sink them could have been the one doing it. Throw their links up on every gray market location they can find, and when the target makes it big, start notifying folks (media, search engine abuse departments, etc) about the "blackhat" methods that the target is using.
Who would want to see JC Penney die? Big department stores (Sears, Macy's, Belk Lindsey,etc). The lower box stores (Walmart, KMart, Target). Online retailers (Amazon, eBay, etc). It could have even been a random irate customer, and anyone who's ever worked with customers knows that there's always an irate customer.
Most likely it was a marketing decision by JC Penney themselves. I'm sure the decision was "Do it. Don't get caught. If you do, we don't know anything about it." If it ends up traceable to us, we're firing you over it." Since there wasn't a positive finger pointed, someone got a raise rather than getting fired.
Trader Joe's is definitely a good establishment. Unfortunately where I was, it was chaotic at best to shop there. Pulling into the parking lot, you'd circle with a dozen or so other cars for 20 minutes or so, looking for someone to leave. Shopping inside was reminiscent of trying to walk down Main Street at Disney during their closing fireworks show. Well, or driving on the 5 during rush hour. :) I'm a pretty laid back guy, but when the 20th or so person shoves me, I had to show great restraint from throwing a punch.
That's not to say Von's or Ralph's were much better. The stores weren't so crowded, but when they were on strike, going in or out of the stores were edging on an angry mob beating down a scab worker. Look, I'm just trying to get food, and the other stores are impossible to get into. Back off.
Oh, I hated it out there. I can't say I found one redeeming quality of my time there. Well, one. The day I left. It was the finest day I had in a long time. Of course, it was a few months after my house almost disappeared in a mudslide, and the night before we left, wildfires were burning the hills about 1/2 mile away. Driving out through a cloud of smoke, reminiscent of leaving a war zone in some post apocalyptic nightmare was a fitting end to my time there.
I know you're playing stupid, but that's what the defense will do too. At least I hope you're playing stupid. Lets follow this through.
AMAZON.COM.KYDC LLC, the owners/operators of the facility in question in Irving, Tx, is a corporation registered in the states of Kentucky and Texas.
KYDC is "Kentucky Distribution Center". If you look for other names of corporations they're using for their distribution centers, you'll see the common theme.
In the state of Texas, you will Find this information
And they list 21 vice presidents as the officers of the company, all PO BOX 81226 SEATTLE , WA 98108
Allen Parker - VP Finance, WW Operations & Customer Service, Logistics and Supply Chain - Amazon.com
Ben Sumrall - Finance Director - Amazon.com
Brian Calvin - Director- NAFC ACES - Amazon.com
Chris Yetman - VP, Infrastructure Operations - Amazon.com
David Alperson - General Manager - Amazon.com
Dave Clark - VP of North American Operations - Amazon.com
David Niekerk - VP Human Resources for Global Operations and Customer Service - Amazon.com
David Seitelman David - Regional Director of Fulfillment, Director of Manufacturing - Amazon.com
Girish Lakshman - Vice President - Transportation - Amazon.com
Jason Bristow - Vice President & Treasurer - Amazon.com
Jay Littlepage - VP, Infrastructure - Amazon.com (no longer with Amazon)
John Tagawa - General Manager - Amazon.com
Michael Deal - Vice President and Associate General Counsel - Amazon.com
Michael Passales - Regional Director, North American Fulfillment - Amazon.com
Michael McKenna VP Legal at Amazon Europe, Legal Director at Amazon.co.uk
Senior Financial Analyst - Amazon.com
Ritesh Chaturbedi - Operations Manager - Amazon.com
Rob Robinson - General Manager - Amazon.com
Robert Wegner - unknown
Robert Comfort - unknown (AWS engineer?)
Sarah Dods - Attorney - Securities & Corporate Finance - Amazon.com
Sean Boyle - Vice President, Amazon Web Services Finance - Amazon.com
Tim Collins - Director - Amazon.com
Do you see a trend there? 20 of 22 people listed as officers are employees at Amazon. One worked at Amazon, but is no longer employed, but I'd suspect that will be fixed on the corporation listing at the next filing. One is simply unverified.
But lets overlook that, and skip on to the Kentucky company. Surely, if it's just a name resemblance, this one couldn't be remotely similar also. Kentucky actually has 5 corporations listed, 3 of which are active, including the one in question.
Amazon has been in Irving, Tx since 2005. What date do you think the State of Texas is trying to collect from?
Unfortunately, the article doesn't state that, and it appears that the listed income for Amazon is in total reported sales, not sales to Texas consumers. I did find this article, dated June 2005, which should give some insight into the situation.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2005/06/27/daily41.html
Well, that "contract" is actually with Amazon com kydc,. 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, and try to claim it wasn't them. If they wanted to be slick about it, they'd name it "Shipping Cheap Stuff, LLC", or any variety of names that could be thought up.
That depends on how you define Affiliate.
It would appear that they are talking about the locate "Amazon.com.kydc LLC", at 2700 Regent Boulevard, Irving, TX.
Like any big company, they break up operations into logical blocks. Amazon has Amazon Global Resources, Inc.; Amazon.com.dedc, LLC; Fulfillco.ksdc, Inc.; Amazon.com.kydc, Inc.; Amazon.com Commerce Services, Inc.; Amazon.com Holdings, Inc.; Amazon.com International Sales, Inc.; Amazon.com LLC; Amazon.com Payments, Inc.; NV Services, Inc.; Amazon Fulfillment Services, Inc.; Amazon.com@Target.com, Inc.
You may see a trend there. Wholly owned subsidiaries. That definitely counts as a physical location in that state.
FedEx, UPS, DHL, USPS, etc do also fall under that category, and shipping is appropriately taxed. They, on the other hand, do not count as a physical location in any given state for a vendor shipping through them. They are wholly owned subsidiaries. They are a service provider.
If, say FedEx were owned by Amazon, and FedEx only provided services for Amazon, then they would count as a physical location. As Amazon shipments are only a percentage of any distribution carrier's business, no it doesn't apply.
This is a pretty well understood concept by anyone who does interstate business, with physical locations in multiple states. Otherwise, consider this concept. Say you had shipping facilities in New York and New Jersey. If a customer in New York ordered an item, would you think it to be reasonable to ship the item from New Jersey to avoid the sales tax?
It doesn't appear to be an issue where Texas is laying claim to taxes on every purchase made through Amazon. If it shipped from a Seattle location, to a Chicago customer, that's not anything for Texas to touch. As far as I can tell, they're only trying to collect taxes on items shipped to Texas customers.
I prefer "19". Well, binary 10011. Manhattan. For some reason with online forms when I give my standard bogus street address and the zip of 10011, they never kick it back as invalid. That was interesting when I lived in one place. They split the zip code due to the population increase. When I was doing things like buying online, I couldn't use the correct zip code, because it would kick it back as invalid about half of the time. I had to go with the old zip code, even 2 years after the official changeover. It was a bastard for places where their merchant payment gateway validated the zip code. My bank had the right one, and some places would only ship to the billing address validated by my bank.
Most places charge a tax for that. Well, a "fee" for not printing it. That's a huge joke. You're saving them the wasted paper and ink by not being included in the book. Still, when I've had land lines, I always paid it. I haven't been listed in a phone book for .. almost 20 years.
At least cell phones don't show up in the published phone book. Prepaid phones are that much more interesting, where you can register with any information that you'd like.
I was wondering if someone from Cali would post. :)
I don't know if they're still doing it, but when I was out there, you would be charged twice as much for everything in the store without their card. If I remember right, Vons, Ralphs, and Albertsons all did it. In other states, when I say I don't have a card, they just swipe a card that they have handy, and the "discount" is applied.
I paid the extra anonymity tax for a while. Food stuffs there are more expensive than other places in the country. About double from where I'm living now. So a $1 item in the cheaper state is $2 in Cali, or $4 without the store card (approximate pricing, of course).
I finally gave in, and got a card. False name, false (but legitimate) address, and even a throwaway email address. Data-mine that. The guy who "lives" in on an empty lot would buy $300 in groceries every week. Most people are sheep though. You can ask for their name, DOB, SSN, CC number and PIN, email address, and even their email password, and they'll hand it over for the "discount".
I'm happy to be in a state again, where if they do apply such a bogus price increase, they are kind enough to take it off at the register.
There are other conditions that they should be aware of.
I have some decent spine problems. Some days, I can't turn my head more than 5 degrees to the left or right. That's all fine and dandy, they couldn't hope to move my head, since I can't. But some days, it's very painful to turn my head. The nice friendly motion of a barber could be the difference between me getting a haircut, and me screaming in pain.
I just do the preferred thing, and don't let folks move my head around when it hurts. :) Then again, I'm not the type of guy to schedule a hair appointment. My standard instructions are "mow it off, leave just a little." It doesn't matter where I go, if they can't do that without leaving bald spots, they wouldn't really be in the business.
For folks that schedule hair appointments, they're more likely to make the appointment, than consider their own health.
No, "Scary Movie", "Not Another Teen Movie", "Epic Movie", "Disaster Movie, the "Twilight Saga", "Police Academy" (all 7 nauseating installments) and "Zardoz are evil.
For those who haven't seen any of them, especially the last, please don't. Preserve your eyesight, your sanity, and your lunch.
Been there, done that, left a molten hole in the sidewalk. Lately though, folks tend to stick the "terrorist" label on those events. Terrorist? No, I was celebrating the 4th of July dammit.
Damn. All these years and all those arson charges have all been for nothing.
[looks somberly at the gas cans and lighters]
What to do... what to do...
I think you hit it perfectly here. It's a social issue, not a biological one. The problem of inequality is that girls and boys are treated different.
I've been talking to my girlfriend about this as the discussion has gone on. And for the sake of discussion, my IQ is about 135 (132 to 138). My girlfriend's is about 145. I'm well versed in a wide variety of technical and physical work (anything electronic, cars, home repair), and I have an interest in physics, aeronautical science, and astrophysics. I work She's well versed in a wide variety of topics including automotive technology, literature, clothing (design, fabrication, and period recreations), and she also has an interest in astrophysics. Those are just the short lists. Who's smarter? It depends on what you're looking for. She can discuss historical periods and literature. I can diagnose most problems, from weird behavior of your computer (or enterprise network) to a weird noise your car makes, from a layman's description.
We just watched the "Jericho" TV show. Our discussions on the show included social and political behaviors and plot errors, to the various plot holes in the military strategy. And yes, there were enough errors in the show to keep us busy talking about it for a long time. :)
She told me about when she was a little girl in school. She wanted to be an astronaut. She was told "Girls don't do that. Wouldn't you like to raise a family instead?" Myself, I distinctly remember teachers in middle school (around 5th or 6th grade) saying that I was dumb, and I'd only ever work at McDonalds. Funny that, I've never worked at McDonalds, and most position I've worked in my adult life has been for better pay and respect than a grade school teacher who belittles students. Preference at that time was towards children of parents who were rich or socially/politically connected. I'd love to go back and show them where I ended up. Based on their age then, and the amount of time that's passed, they're most likely retired and/or dead.
So, social factors are much larger than how intelligent or capable a person is. Through my life, I've know a lot of people, and their children. The only thing I can strive to do is treat everyone equally. You'd be amazed at what people can do, if they are not treated different because of their sex, color, or other factors.
I think you'll do better at finding the concentration of dense people in Washington. ... well ... or on the road during morning rush hour. And folks why I show up to work stylishly last, and stay a few extra hours afterwards. It's so I don't have to be on the road with them. :)
So you're saying it's easier to break into their house and steal everything they own, than to bother with an interrogation with a $5 wrench (current market value, $17.98)
I do suggest use of the proper tools.
precision adjust tool
adjustment tool manipulator
leakage preventer
People who purchased these also buy...
Noise suppression supplies
Compartimalized storage and transportation unit
ground modification tool
They could be much worse than just that.
Advertising for movies is a **HUGE** industry. It makes everyone involved a fortune (except for us end-users).
Google could...
1) Delist the MPAA's sites, related sites, and any links related to movies released by MPAA related studios.
2) Refuse to accept any advertising from MPAA related studios, and sell advertising at discounted rates to Non-MPAA related studios.
3) Refuse all movie trailers, fan-made trailers, and any other related materials on YouTube and give priority to Non-MPAA related studio materials.
In addition to the Google and YouTube companies, Google has interest in quite a few others. They have 5% of AOL (no AOL ads for upcoming movies, or listings on their movie schedule site). They also have interest or total ownership of 7 advertising outlets. It's hard to advertise your product, if the advertising outlets refuse them.
Refuse advertising to those studios is perfectly legal. They are under no obligation to services customers who are pursuing or threatening legal action. The economic result would be that other studios and independent filmmakers would have an extreme advantage in a marketplace where they are all but locked out. Hmmm, this may not be such a bad thing. Hey MPAA, do your worst! Maybe we'll be saved the horror of yet another sparkly vampire movie, or another formula driven teens slaughtered in the woods by [insert badguy] or the mockery of the same.
Banks aren't all that smart.
I bought a house and moved across the country a few years ago. Because I had bought a house, I was on every creditors list as having money. I received two "checks" for $5,000 and $8,000. Those checks were cashable, but they would have opened a line of credit for me at 24.99%.
Little did I know, one of them also sent one to my previous residence for $9,000. Someone saw it as free money. I found out after the collections company tried to get their money from me. We went around for about 1/2 hour on the phone, and started getting it fixed. They sent me a copy of the check. The thief had to go to 3 banks to find one that would cash it. Yup, one whole day of work, and a $9,000 profit. Apparently the guy didn't even have to show an ID.
Do I trust that the teller at the bank will actually look at the ID, and verify the identity? Nope. Consider other "banking security" methods. For security, they mail your credit/debit card to your house. They mail the book of checks. How hard is it for someone to open your mailbox, and swipe the contents. Usually they'll get junk mail. Once in a while they'll get a brand new credit card or box of checks.
In the end, as I've discovered, unless the thief goes on a huge spending spree, there will rarely be an investigation or prosecution. The banks just look at it as a cost of doing business, and recover their losses through fees that they hit the customer with. Yup, we pay for their mistakes.
[rant mode suspended]
At least you've learned. :)
None of my passwords contain dictionary words. Well, some may have started out as such, but they're so brutally mangled it's well beyond the normal capabilities of a rainbow table, unless they've computed all possible characters, instead of typical variations. For example, my password to Slashdot may be "lonely nerds in mommas basement", which may now be "l1lyn3rd@M0mazBazmt". Feed that to a rainbow table, and let me know how it goes. :)
(Note: that's not really my password here. It's too easy)
The whole discussion is actually pretty simple. Unless the password is a common one, it's easier to use another attack method.
I've seen it, only because when I'm out shopping I'm looking for the best deal. Since it appears that I know what I'm looking at, and for some strange reason people think I'm approachable. I suppose people can really misjudge people.
I've probably heard every dumb thing customers can ask. If they aren't asking me, they're asking salesmen within earshot. Every time I hear it, I lose a little more faith in humanity. Marketing almost always beats common sense.
I had fun a few months back. I needed a new monitor. I was had picked a nice Asus 24" LCD. It was on sale, and a pretty good deal. One of the salesmen made the mistake of approaching me. I swear, I usually have the "all salesmen should fuck off" aura. I guess I forgot to turn it on. That or maybe he thought I was going to shoplift it. :) Anyways, he came over, and kept asking questions, so I went straight into my dumb-customer mode.
"like, a friend of mine built me a computer. He said it had an aaasooz board thing in it. Will this aaasooz screenie thing work with it?". I kept it up for about a minute, and then laughed and told him I was fucking with him. :) He was very relieved that I wasn't another dumb customer. And hey, he still got his commission, so all was good. At least he didn't have to answer too many dumb questions while I contemplated if I really wanted one.
I think it's quite appropriate that you cited the President of Harvard. What is more appropriate is that he was forced to resign by a majority vote of no-confidence by the faculty of Harvard. The consensus was that he ignored patterns of socialization and discrimination, and focused on the strict male-female evidence. There were also issues of racism.
So a racist misogynistic asshole says women are dumber then men, I guess we should support that, eh? While you'll of course find a segment of the population agreeing with you, you'll also find a segment of the population who dresses up in bed sheets and kills folks who do not have the same ancestral background as them.
But using Mr. Summers own topic, mathematical ability, I'm sure there are plenty of women, and men, who are far more capable than you or I to evaluate the information and come to a proper unbiased conclusion.
Don't forget the wonders that Apple has doe with the "i" prefix. "I iCheated with my iPad, and iTxt'd the iTest with my iPhone to my iFriends and I got this UberLeet iDiploma". e-Cyber be damned." :)