Companies don't PAY sales tax, they COLLECT it. The people in Texas that order from Internet retailers like Amazon are the ones who pay, or don't pay, sales tax. Amazon just collects the tax from the customer, and then pays it to Texas.
One difficulty is that if a Texas consumer wants to buy an item online, and they pay sales tax when ordering it from Amazon.com but not tax if ordering from (e.g.) buy.com, then Amazon will lose business. So it's in Amazon's best interests to NOT collect sales tax from Texas customers if they can avoid it.
There is no clear answer here. On the one hand, you have the Streamlined Sales Tax movement (http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/) that is trying to enact legislation in as many states as possible requiring retailers to collect tax from customers, regardless of whether the retailer has a presence in that state. The intent is to "level the playing field" and close the no-tax loophole of ordering from out of state - allowing in-state merchants to compete fairly with out-of-state merchants. If this were enacted, Amazon would collect the tax and so would everyone else - so no one would be at an advantage or disadvantage in that regard.
That sounds well and fine, but the difficulty is the mechanics involved. Sure, Amazon and Wal-Mart and other big companies can code their web sites & shopping carts to figure out where the customer lives, and collect sales tax appropriately. The problem is that setting up a web site to do this is expensive - there are data subscriptions and a lot of coding involved. Over hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions, the cost is minimal. But the effort required by Amazon is really not much different from the effort required from doggiechewtoys.com or any other mom-n-pop operation - except that the little guys don't have the transaction volume to dilute the up-front costs. So it is VERY hard on small businesses to make this kind of change.
Nice thing about eBooks is they are not tied to a single device. I start one on my tablet, read a bit more on my PC, and some more on my iPhone. My spot in the book is always up to date, I can pull it up on any device I want and continue right where I left off.
So not "Seeing" the Kindle or iPad coming out of a restroom stall, doesn't mean they weren't reading an eBook in there.
Some things have moved around and I need to explore changes to see how features work differently before I complain about anything. However there are things I see that I do like.
I like that the Reply & Parent links are now text rather than buttons.
I like the clean look, agree that slimming the margins would allow a lot more information in given screen real estate and would not hurt anything.
Performance in Chrome 8.0.552.237 / WinXP is fine, this is not a particularly high horsepower computer. "Seems" better performing than before, e.g. loading a reply window always took a while before but this one snapped into place immediately.
"The US Bureau of Prisons, however, has decided to make Mr Kernell serve out his term in the low-security prison camp nearly 300 miles from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee."
Seriously guys, when you're incarcerated, you don't have a choice which facility you will be housed in. The USBOP is obviously making an example out of this guy, and I can totally understand why. What I don't understand is why this article seems to be doing a lot of crying on behalf of Kernell. Don't commit the crime if you're going to whine all the way to prison. It's that simple.
I've seen nothing to indicate that Dwayne has the last processing machinery in existence, just the last one in use. Plus, processing could be done without the machine they're using (it's an industrial model designed for high-volume work) - the problem is the chemicals. Kodak isn't making them any more.
Actually, you sir, are incorrect. If you watch the video, you can note he specifically says he walked through the body scanner and he found the blades on his person.
If you were right, I'd agree with you. He does discuss a body scanner (probably millimeter wave, not backscatter) but he specifically says that the blades were in his LAPTOP BAG, which would have gone through a normal X-ray scanner. He does not express it very clearly, he mentions going through the scanner and then brings out the blades that TSA "Missed" - but keep listening and it's clear from the context (e.g. "Also missed nuts & bolts that were IN THERE") that the blades were in his bag, not on his person. Link to video
Thank you HTC for Alpha testing the HTC EVO on the general public!
It wasn't alpha testing, it was just typical crappy HTC design & construction quality. Complaining about a junky HTC is like complaining that the scroll wheel on a Blackberry doesn't work smoothly. Yeah, they ALL do that (thankfully BB came out with a solid-state scroller finally).
The one phone I had that gave me zero hardware issues long-term was the iPhone 3G. YMMV.
There is no such thing as an impregnable commercial website.
Never has been.
Never will be.
It doesn't actually have to be "impregnable", it just has to be able to scale larger than the resources their opposition is able to muster. They got that.
That's not correct - that was months ago, long before the backscatter. They missed the blades in his carry-on.
I don't think his situation was too unusual - I went through 5 airports in 2 weeks last winter(including Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta) and finally at LaGuardia they noticed a pocketknife I had forgotton was in my laptop case.
Re:That's one heck of a "long goodbye"
on
Goodbye, VGA
·
· Score: 1
As far as I know there are no VGA-DVI adapters (DVI-VGA does exist).
DVI-A to VGA adapters exist, but the video card must explicitly support DVI-A (Analog) - it's simply a way to map VGA analog video and digital video into a single DVI connector. If the video card is DVI-D (Digital) only, then it can't be converted to VGA.
You could get/make an adapter from VGA to DVI-A but most monitors' DVI ports support DVI-D only, if they support VGA they will have a discrete VGA port.
TFA is basically a troll. Starts with, "...looks like Google is pulling a Steve Jobs with Chrome..." - not exactly an unbiased statement.
Then, "According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments". What, did he google on the word NO CAPS LOCK and come up with that quote? Whom did he ask? Was it an official comment or a joke?
Is there a soft caps lock feature? (I'm guessing yes). As infrequently as caps lock is legitimately used, a soft key sequence will work fine & free up keyboard real estate. I would not be surprised if the VAST majority of caps lock presses are accidental anyway.
I had an employer several years ago that gave decent vacation time (1-4 weeks depending on tenure), and they gave 40 hours a year of sick time. The cool part was that your last paycheck of the year, you got paid for whatever sick time you hadn't used. Great incentive not to use it!
The company got bought by a big corp and that bennie was the first to go:-(
True, they are usually the fastest network.
At least the cap isn't only 2 GB like on some other networks -_-
That's far from my experience; I travel with a Verizon and an AT&T USB modem and use whichever is faster. I have found that most of the time Verizon is 3G service, where AT&T is sometimes not - but when I do get 3G from AT&T, it's always WAY faster than Verizon.
I worked with a contract programmer several years ago, we kept in touch as he travelled around the country. He emailed me when he moved to Des Moines, and about 6 months later I emailed that I would be travelling through there - message bounced back. I checked his FB profile and found a message from his brother that he'd passed away, with an email address for the brother.
Most of my FB "Friends" are people that I don't see or talk to one-on-one for years at a time, but FB lets us keep in touch. I would greatly appreciate family notices on their profiles if they were to die.
For instance, if Apple really was acting like a startup and willing to "cannibalize its own products" as it were, we would have seen a CDMA iPhone a while ago. However, if Apple released one of those they may lose their choice revenue sharing with some of the exclusive iPhone carriers. So instead they stuck with GSM which means thats in two of the most important markets on the planet, US and Japan, the iPhone is relegated to the shittiest carrier.
In the US, at least, you got it backwards. AT&T's data service has problems, sure. But it's faster and higher capacity than Verizon's. The troubles are CAUSED by the iPhone and the extra load users have put on the network. AT&T has had issues, Verizon would have been reduced to a steaming pile of slag.
Obviously the article writer didn't break out a calculator and verify his numbers... however there is some basis in fact for that multiplier. The "Cost" of an Apple 1 was $500.00, the "Retail" was $666.66 (a 33% profit for the reseller). The auction price was approximately 425x the "Cost".
I had a 3G on iOS 4.0.1 before getting my iPhone 4, and the performance of the 3G on iOS4 is abyssmal. Absolutely blown away by the iPhone 4.
The 3G is essentially the same processor platform as the original iPhone and IMHO would have been better off if Apple capped the 3G at iOS3, as they did the original iPhone.
TFA is all about AirPlay, which to me is a niche feature. Maybe not minor, but I doubt most iPhone/iPad owners will ever use it. There are a lot of nice updates, as shown on Apple's site:
AirPrint, Find My iPhone/Pad/Pod, on-demand remote wipe, respond to calendar invitations, SMS message tones, on-device TV show rental... Lots of features that I suspect will get more use than AirPlay.
Slashdot Mirror
The article is about Katz, published by Indiana University.
Six-dimensional hyper-ham
I don't think that's a kosher example...
Companies don't PAY sales tax, they COLLECT it. The people in Texas that order from Internet retailers like Amazon are the ones who pay, or don't pay, sales tax. Amazon just collects the tax from the customer, and then pays it to Texas.
One difficulty is that if a Texas consumer wants to buy an item online, and they pay sales tax when ordering it from Amazon.com but not tax if ordering from (e.g.) buy.com, then Amazon will lose business. So it's in Amazon's best interests to NOT collect sales tax from Texas customers if they can avoid it.
There is no clear answer here. On the one hand, you have the Streamlined Sales Tax movement (http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/) that is trying to enact legislation in as many states as possible requiring retailers to collect tax from customers, regardless of whether the retailer has a presence in that state. The intent is to "level the playing field" and close the no-tax loophole of ordering from out of state - allowing in-state merchants to compete fairly with out-of-state merchants. If this were enacted, Amazon would collect the tax and so would everyone else - so no one would be at an advantage or disadvantage in that regard.
That sounds well and fine, but the difficulty is the mechanics involved. Sure, Amazon and Wal-Mart and other big companies can code their web sites & shopping carts to figure out where the customer lives, and collect sales tax appropriately. The problem is that setting up a web site to do this is expensive - there are data subscriptions and a lot of coding involved. Over hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions, the cost is minimal. But the effort required by Amazon is really not much different from the effort required from doggiechewtoys.com or any other mom-n-pop operation - except that the little guys don't have the transaction volume to dilute the up-front costs. So it is VERY hard on small businesses to make this kind of change.
What to do? Beats me.
Nice thing about eBooks is they are not tied to a single device. I start one on my tablet, read a bit more on my PC, and some more on my iPhone. My spot in the book is always up to date, I can pull it up on any device I want and continue right where I left off.
So not "Seeing" the Kindle or iPad coming out of a restroom stall, doesn't mean they weren't reading an eBook in there.
Some things have moved around and I need to explore changes to see how features work differently before I complain about anything. However there are things I see that I do like.
I like that the Reply & Parent links are now text rather than buttons.
I like the clean look, agree that slimming the margins would allow a lot more information in given screen real estate and would not hurt anything.
Performance in Chrome 8.0.552.237 / WinXP is fine, this is not a particularly high horsepower computer. "Seems" better performing than before, e.g. loading a reply window always took a while before but this one snapped into place immediately.
Copy/Paste now works in Chrome - thumbs up!
"The US Bureau of Prisons, however, has decided to make Mr Kernell serve out his term in the low-security prison camp nearly 300 miles from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee."
Seriously guys, when you're incarcerated, you don't have a choice which facility you will be housed in. The USBOP is obviously making an example out of this guy, and I can totally understand why. What I don't understand is why this article seems to be doing a lot of crying on behalf of Kernell. Don't commit the crime if you're going to whine all the way to prison. It's that simple.
Not to mention that Ashland is the nearest low-security federal prison to his home. It's not like there is a prison in his neighborhood.
I've seen nothing to indicate that Dwayne has the last processing machinery in existence, just the last one in use. Plus, processing could be done without the machine they're using (it's an industrial model designed for high-volume work) - the problem is the chemicals. Kodak isn't making them any more.
Whoosh....
He was making a joke about Chrome (the browser). Maybe a bit too subtle...
1296/50000
iPhone 4, Safari, iOS 4.2
Actually, you sir, are incorrect. If you watch the video, you can note he specifically says he walked through the body scanner and he found the blades on his person.
If you were right, I'd agree with you. He does discuss a body scanner (probably millimeter wave, not backscatter) but he specifically says that the blades were in his LAPTOP BAG, which would have gone through a normal X-ray scanner. He does not express it very clearly, he mentions going through the scanner and then brings out the blades that TSA "Missed" - but keep listening and it's clear from the context (e.g. "Also missed nuts & bolts that were IN THERE") that the blades were in his bag, not on his person. Link to video
Thank you HTC for Alpha testing the HTC EVO on the general public!
It wasn't alpha testing, it was just typical crappy HTC design & construction quality. Complaining about a junky HTC is like complaining that the scroll wheel on a Blackberry doesn't work smoothly. Yeah, they ALL do that (thankfully BB came out with a solid-state scroller finally).
The one phone I had that gave me zero hardware issues long-term was the iPhone 3G. YMMV.
There is no such thing as an impregnable commercial website.
Never has been.
Never will be.
It doesn't actually have to be "impregnable", it just has to be able to scale larger than the resources their opposition is able to muster. They got that.
Adam Savage of Mythbusters walked through a backscatter with two 12" razor blades and they never noticed.
That's not correct - that was months ago, long before the backscatter. They missed the blades in his carry-on.
I don't think his situation was too unusual - I went through 5 airports in 2 weeks last winter(including Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta) and finally at LaGuardia they noticed a pocketknife I had forgotton was in my laptop case.
As far as I know there are no VGA-DVI adapters (DVI-VGA does exist).
DVI-A to VGA adapters exist, but the video card must explicitly support DVI-A (Analog) - it's simply a way to map VGA analog video and digital video into a single DVI connector. If the video card is DVI-D (Digital) only, then it can't be converted to VGA.
You could get/make an adapter from VGA to DVI-A but most monitors' DVI ports support DVI-D only, if they support VGA they will have a discrete VGA port.
Wikipedia article on DVI
TFA is basically a troll. Starts with, "...looks like Google is pulling a Steve Jobs with Chrome..." - not exactly an unbiased statement.
Then, "According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments". What, did he google on the word NO CAPS LOCK and come up with that quote? Whom did he ask? Was it an official comment or a joke?
Is there a soft caps lock feature? (I'm guessing yes). As infrequently as caps lock is legitimately used, a soft key sequence will work fine & free up keyboard real estate. I would not be surprised if the VAST majority of caps lock presses are accidental anyway.
The company got bought by a big corp and that bennie was the first to go :-(
BTWI am American and live in Texas.
Well you're certainly not native to Texas. Most folk I know from there claim to be "Texans living in America".
Never ask anyone if they're from Texas. If they are, they'll tell you. And if they aren't, there's no need to embarrass them by asking.
True, they are usually the fastest network. At least the cap isn't only 2 GB like on some other networks -_-
That's far from my experience; I travel with a Verizon and an AT&T USB modem and use whichever is faster. I have found that most of the time Verizon is 3G service, where AT&T is sometimes not - but when I do get 3G from AT&T, it's always WAY faster than Verizon.
And it's not just me...
I worked with a contract programmer several years ago, we kept in touch as he travelled around the country. He emailed me when he moved to Des Moines, and about 6 months later I emailed that I would be travelling through there - message bounced back. I checked his FB profile and found a message from his brother that he'd passed away, with an email address for the brother. Most of my FB "Friends" are people that I don't see or talk to one-on-one for years at a time, but FB lets us keep in touch. I would greatly appreciate family notices on their profiles if they were to die.
For instance, if Apple really was acting like a startup and willing to "cannibalize its own products" as it were, we would have seen a CDMA iPhone a while ago. However, if Apple released one of those they may lose their choice revenue sharing with some of the exclusive iPhone carriers. So instead they stuck with GSM which means thats in two of the most important markets on the planet, US and Japan, the iPhone is relegated to the shittiest carrier.
In the US, at least, you got it backwards. AT&T's data service has problems, sure. But it's faster and higher capacity than Verizon's. The troubles are CAUSED by the iPhone and the extra load users have put on the network. AT&T has had issues, Verizon would have been reduced to a steaming pile of slag.
(a 33% profit for the reseller)
Speaking of not breaking out a calculator... the MARKUP was 33%, and the PROFIT was 25% :-P
Obviously the article writer didn't break out a calculator and verify his numbers... however there is some basis in fact for that multiplier. The "Cost" of an Apple 1 was $500.00, the "Retail" was $666.66 (a 33% profit for the reseller). The auction price was approximately 425x the "Cost".
The 3G is essentially the same processor platform as the original iPhone and IMHO would have been better off if Apple capped the 3G at iOS3, as they did the original iPhone.
TFA is all about AirPlay, which to me is a niche feature. Maybe not minor, but I doubt most iPhone/iPad owners will ever use it. There are a lot of nice updates, as shown on Apple's site:
http://www.apple.com/ios/
AirPrint, Find My iPhone/Pad/Pod, on-demand remote wipe, respond to calendar invitations, SMS message tones, on-device TV show rental... Lots of features that I suspect will get more use than AirPlay.
I have mod points... but I can't figure out how to mod TFS as "Trolling" or "Flamebait".