Except that this is not the Best. Economy. Ever. Employment is still low, stock is still down, petroleum products are still horribly expensive. Oh yeah, and we're still entrenched in a losing battle with terrorism. What a great time to be alive and ignorant . ..
Not every decade can be the 90's. If you look at things from a historic perspective, right now the economy is doing great. People look at politics and the economy comparing things to last decade. That's really not a smart thing to do, as the last decade was almost the equivalent of a second industrial revolution.
Of course, right around the corner is another recession (IMHO, maybe even depression). Right now though, things are lookin up! These things are cyclical, but that's not to say everything that happens has happened before.
Basically, all I'm saying is: lighten up, because there's jack you can do about it anyway.
Just a reminder to ACCEPT jury duty if you get called. It is one of the best ways to directly affect how things work in the U.S.
Sure, aside from the (already mentioned) fact that 99.9% of the time it's DUI or something else inane.
Also, most of the time, juries are advised to not judge the law, but judge whether or not someone broke the law.
Of course, there's jack they can do to you as a juror if you say "Hey, I can't in good conscience let this kid go to jail for something this stupid; NOT GUILTY!" However, the judge can claim a mistrial if he finds out that's the reason for the 'not guilty' verdict, even after the verdict is read.
If I ever get on a jury for a law I disagree with, the defendant is going to walk either by hung jury, mistrial, or not guilty verdict, and that's that.
The fact that it crashed was probably Apple's "bad", but the fact that it resulted in a BSOD is obviously Vista.
Maybe this has to do with the added layer of complexity (presumably for DRM) between the kernel and video-utilizing programs... or is that just for DirectX programs?
Just recently, the FDA has quietly changed the labeling requirements on using irradiation to package food with. Now, It is called pasteurization. Yup, just like Milk's process (which simply flash heats and cools the milk).
Actually, they got approval to label it cold pasteurization, which is exactly what it is.
"Information-based society" is a cop-out. It's still libel, and it's about bloody time the law started CATCHING UP to the "information-based" society. I don't give a damn about the technology that is or is not involved - People still should be held responsible for their actions.
While TFA is referring simply to school kids, I hope your statement has similar constraints. Children are one thing, but 18 year olds have rights--or, at least, they should.
Harassment law in this country has gotten way out of hand. (please note I realize TFA was about canada, I'm talking about the US anyway)
The problem with the government trying to shield everyone from everything is that they are at the mercy of bullies (of all types) when the government isn't around. There's also the issue of the bully's rights--they should have the RIGHT to put up a website or newspaper ad stating "so and so is ghey huhehe". Hell, Alex Hamilton posted disparaging rants in the newspapers of his day about all kinds of people.
I think this shielding issue is introducing a whole new generation of kids with terrible character flaws. Unable to deal with things on their own, at age 18 they are totally oblivious to the world around them, and require grounding. This is why the Peace Corps have record membership right now--kids who have been under-exposed to the world around them realize their lacking in character and wish to fix themselves.
Wrapping every bully on the knuckles and trying to make everyone into milk toast hurts not only the bullies but the bullied. How do you know you're weak if you've never been tested? How do you rise above things that you don't know are there?
I wonder if ferns ever look at us and laugh saying that non-quantum-sourced energy is so 3 billion years ago.
Maybe so, but then some herbivore eat a thousand of them, we eat a hundred herbivores, and we're the benefactor of all their magic!
If humans were photoheterotrophic or photoautotrophic, we wouldn't have enough energy to do much more than sit there sulking like a stupid fern. One of the sad realities of a creature like Swamp Thing (an apparent photoautotroph) is that he wouldn't really be able to move quickly at all. It'd be very easy for some cow to walk up and start nibbling on him (oh sweet irony). Adrienne Barbeau would have to dump his ass for something higher on the food chain like an amoeba.
Adrienne Barbeau was hot in Swamp Thing. You really want to give that up just so you can have quantum-enhanced solar power? Wait, that does sound pretty cool.
The iPhone is not to blame. They just wanted to say "iPhone NOT delayed" at the same time as they announce that Leopard is delayed. The first thing I thought when I saw Leopard in October was does that mean iPhone in October, also? It is running OS X Leopard one would assume, not Tiger. So they are saying don't worry you'll get your iPhone.
Uh? From Apple:
iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.
So yes, the push for an on-time iPhone release apparently cost us Leopard on time.
This was a stupid move, and I think the stock price drop in store for today will reflect that (after hours trading had AAPL losing $2 already).
I recently purchased an Apple TV for my parents who have a 46" 1080p LCD TV.
I'd have to say that the associated press conclusion is correct about iTunes video content--barely watchable. They said the picture was "fuzzy", but I think they were really referring to the annoying artifacts present in low quality mpeg streams.
That is not to say that the AppleTV is crap, however. When playing high def content (that you rip yourself from DVD or from HDTV), it's not half bad. The thing can output at 720p at 4000kbit/s (maybe with a software upgrade (VLC)), iTunes just doesn't sell that kind of content.
Still though, with these kind of resolutions on these ginormous TVs, you're going to see artifacts even on some overly-shrunk DVD movies.
I bought the AppleTV so I could jerry rig it into something useful. If I were buying it simply based on its stated features, it's so useless I'd have a hard time justifying the $300 price tag.
Relatively silly? Why? This allows free competition, and open flow of goods (hint- different countries sell different music, and sometimes people want that different music; blocking this trade will only push people to piracy to get what they want).
Scenario: 1) People in France like to sue companies for anything and everything. (for the sake of argument) 2) Company wants to sell a product in happy-go-lucky (never-sue) UK and France 3) To compensate for law suits, they have to either charge more in the UK than they would otherwise or take the product off the shelves in France.
Price discrimination helps businesses and customers. You know senior citizen pricing on movie tickets and stuff? That's price discrimination, and it's not morally wrong nor does it hurt anybody. So what if a young guy like me can't get $3 off, BFD. I guess I understand the EU's trepidation about allowing this, but in the end, it's probably best not to mess with it.
Realizing that they cannot compete with American (or Asian) tech companies, the EU once again tries to legislate to produce home grown competition.
Though this post is flamebait and not really true in the case of technology companies, the EU does subsidize farming and Airbus. Before someone brings it up: the US subsidizes farming too, but that doesn't make it right. Moral relativism is dumb.
This case isn't about subsidies anyway, it's about obeying a (relatively silly) law in Europe stating that people are allowed to buy any product sold in Europe from any country at that particular country's price. Over the internet, this usually isn't problematic, but with arbitrary restrictions Apple has to endure because of it's agreement with the record companies, Apple may have to shut down stores in countries where licensing fees per track exceed the prices charged in other EU members, or they may have to raise prices in the other countries so they can remain solvent in certain member states.
Either way, I think is a flaw in the EU laws. Whatever Apple decides to do, it's only going to hurt both Apple and/or its customers. It's a classic example that will probably be used by anti-regulation advocates to demonstrate how "all" regulation is bad.
I don't understand [...] my money. It's not charity if you're taking money against someone's will to pay for it. I'm living in this hot-ass desert called Phoenix [...] Where's my government check for not being a burden on the rest of the country? Hey, just give me half what you gave those Katrina people and I'll STILL be saving you money. My bills are higher anyway so I can pay for my A/C. [...] Some people say that blaming Katrina victims is like blaming a rape victim [..] Rape squads; think about it.
Who the hell modded that insightfull and why?
I'm wondering the same thing and I'm the one who wrote it!
Not just because I didn't even take my own ideas seriously (as made dead obvious by the last paragraph), but because it was a quasi-conservative post on slashdot and we all know those are flamebait:)
In the brief moments at +5, however, the post inspired a half dozen interesting posts and intelligent responses (some modded as such) to said posts. Sure, there were a bunch of nonsensical reactionary flames, but it begs the question: Why is Flamebait -1 and not +1?
America continues to worry about losing its edge in the high-tech industry.
Meh. The top 5% of minds in the country ALWAYS accounted for 99% of innovation.
I'm not alarmed by these figures. If we actually had a graph indicating that we're growing "dumber", that would be something. The last graph of that sort showed a flat but mildly positive slope in test scores over the last century. So, according to that, at least, we're getting 'smarter.' Try to keep an open mind when it comes to alarmist headlines:)
I doubt we'll lose our "edge" in technology. The industry will just grow, and it'll grow in other geographic locations faster than ours, simply because ours is too large to continue growing at their rate. As long as we still grow, we'll be fine. There's enough wealth in the world to go around, and we create more every day.
I don't understand: I have chosen to live in a place (Arizona) with no major natural disaster issues aside from possibly wildfires and flooding.
Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in disaster-prone areas?
Seriously: it's nice that we're trying to help out the "needy", but you're helping out people who are victims of their own folly, and you're doing it with my money. It's not charity if you're taking money against someone's will to pay for it. I'm living in this hot-ass desert called Phoenix year after year while these coastal homeowners are getting federal money to rebuild after the cyclical storms wipe out their houses.
Where's my government check for not being a burden on the rest of the country? Hey, just give me half what you gave those Katrina people and I'll STILL be saving you money. My bills are higher anyway so I can pay for my A/C.
I think it's wonderful Wal-Mart helped out the Katrina victims. It's their money, they can do with it as they please. It's probably a stupid idea to give to people just because they did something stupid, but their hearts are in the right place (probably focusing on their own PR).
Some people say that blaming Katrina victims is like blaming a rape victim for walking down that scary dark alley in the first place... But it's a little different. Imagine if there was a big sign in front of the alley that said "WARNING: Periodically, the rape squad raids this alley and rapes everything in it" and the person went ahead and built a freaking house there. That's what it's like. Rape squads; think about it.
Too true though. I had a friend who was arrested in Mexico for (long story short) not paying a bribe to a policeman. He was never charged. Another friend of mine bribed the officials to get him out of jail. The entire ordeal was off the books.
A word to the wise: the police bribe was cheaper--you best pay up.
France is much worse but at least they're realistic. France is basically a police state. It grants citizens rights on a piecemeal basis. That way, their version of the Patriot Act is just taking rights away from citizens that they were 'lucky' to have been 'granted' in the first place. People bitch less when their rights are taken when you convince them that they were only on loan beforehand.
Sad part is, I'm only lying about half of that. Can you guess which half? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
This is why my post was titled "Not that it matters, but..."
I'll repost this here (thanks to Beryllium Sphere(tm)): Article I, Section 9: "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state."
It really doesn't get much clearer than that.
The Supreme Court may have ruled differently, but that only makes them wrong.
They have also ruled that a woman growing marijuana for herself and only herself in her own home is somehow "interstate commerce." We all know this is false, yet getting wrapped up in legalese and focusing more on the consequences of agreement than the fact that she was right ended up with her losing her case.
Of course, you could argue that according to the constitution, the Supreme Court is basically infallible and can rewrite the constitution as it pleases.
So, again, my carefully worded response: Not that it matters, but I don't think this is legal under the constitution.
I don't think this is legal under the constitution. The sales are made outside WA and therefore cannot be taxed by the WA government. A lot of governors have tried this crap, I don't think any have succeeded though.
It's stupid anyway. Sales taxes in Seattle are up to 9.1% which is pretty damn ridiculous. If I were living in WA and this went through, I'd move. Internet purchases help make WA living more affordable.
Used to be a free country... before the Patriot Act!
That's the thing: No, we didn't.
The government has been encroaching on our personal liberties one piece at a time for a century.
You may want to blame the government of the past 30 years, but here's a quote from former attorney general and later Supreme Court justice, Robert H Jackson in 1940--61 years before USA PATRIOT Act.:
With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.
Realize this was back in 1940, when the federal body of law was half what it is today.
I would argue that focusing on the last few decades of law is the exact reason why we can't get serious reform. Once the American people wrap their heads around how much and how long they've been screwed over the years, it'll really put the problem into the correct context.
Both parties have given incredible powers to the government over the years, and "the lesser of two evils" mentality is to blame. Once you realize how terribly they both have systematically and deviously plotted and executed their plans to control you, you'll realize that neither of the two can be trusted.
Of course, this all sounds like alarmist melodramatic BS... until you see this.
We were robbed because we were afraid of what our fellow citizens were doing. By bowing to the the pressures of the 'crisis of the day,' we allowed the government to seize control. The alien and sedition acts made it a crime to criticize the federalist government. The FBI was doing (illegal) drive-by shootings on the homes of suspected KKK members. Alleged Communists were "convicted" without proper trial by the hundreds (sometimes 50 at a time). Alleged child molesters have been tracked down and their property searched and seized without proper warrants. Now, with the advent of the terrorist into our country, the executive branch doesn't even need to explain itself when it knocks down your door.
"Funny story: I have this shiny new ElGato EyeTV Hybrid here,"
Sorry, Typo: I meant the "EyeHome," not EyeTV. I own an EyeTV too.
Re:This whole article is an embarrassment to Slash
on
AppleTV Hits the Streets
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You do realise not everyone in the world is an IT nerd/geek/(insert knowledgeable stereotype here) so you will probably understand why Apple keeps things so simple.
Part of the reason I own a Mac is because it's built for novice users to learn quickly, but it also has some real power under the hood.
AppleTV has the latter but not the former.
The AppleTV was designed by the makers of ElGato's EyeTV. Apple literally walked into ElGato and took their entire development team for it (it involved duct tape and tasers, from what I understand). The EyeTV had the ability to play tons of different formats including divx and VIDEO_TS. You could also browse the web (the real web, not special-formatted pages) and it was less than $200.
So all this really is is just a crippled version of a product Apple bought and killed. Don't tell me this was in an effort to make it easier to use. The video lock-in of this was specifically to point people towards Apple and keep people locked into Quicktime and iTunes.
The "hard apple" I'm sleeping on was the fact that I own an EyeTV and this immediately became unsupported when Apple "bought" the ElGato developers. I've been looking for a replacement ever since, and this AppleTV just doesn't measure up, even though it costs way more.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that this is not the Best. Economy. Ever. .
Employment is still low, stock is still down, petroleum products are still horribly expensive.
Oh yeah, and we're still entrenched in a losing battle with terrorism.
What a great time to be alive and ignorant . .
Not every decade can be the 90's. If you look at things from a historic perspective, right now the economy is doing great. People look at politics and the economy comparing things to last decade. That's really not a smart thing to do, as the last decade was almost the equivalent of a second industrial revolution.
Of course, right around the corner is another recession (IMHO, maybe even depression). Right now though, things are lookin up! These things are cyclical, but that's not to say everything that happens has happened before.
Basically, all I'm saying is: lighten up, because there's jack you can do about it anyway.
In almost every episode they do something that invalidates their own findings.
Sometimes they don't things more than once (even when required), other times they don't adequately recreate the conditions of the "myth."
The show is entertaining as hell, and sometimes they do conclusively prove things.
Just a reminder to ACCEPT jury duty if you get called. It is one of the best ways to directly affect how things work in the U.S.
Sure, aside from the (already mentioned) fact that 99.9% of the time it's DUI or something else inane.
Also, most of the time, juries are advised to not judge the law, but judge whether or not someone broke the law.
Of course, there's jack they can do to you as a juror if you say "Hey, I can't in good conscience let this kid go to jail for something this stupid; NOT GUILTY!" However, the judge can claim a mistrial if he finds out that's the reason for the 'not guilty' verdict, even after the verdict is read.
If I ever get on a jury for a law I disagree with, the defendant is going to walk either by hung jury, mistrial, or not guilty verdict, and that's that.
The fact that it crashed was probably Apple's "bad", but the fact that it resulted in a BSOD is obviously Vista.
Maybe this has to do with the added layer of complexity (presumably for DRM) between the kernel and video-utilizing programs... or is that just for DirectX programs?
At least with censorship laws you know that you can't trust the press. I find the voluntary censorship of the US press far more insidious.
Regardless of law or political pressure, if you think you can trust the press, you're an idiot.
Secondly, this is BS. It ignores the fact that MS sold more products in that period that just WinXP than just an OS, things like Office.
Also, M$ would probably sell Windows for the same price regardless of patent settlements.
So therefore, M$ is the one paying the 'tax'.
Just recently, the FDA has quietly changed the labeling requirements on using irradiation to package food with. Now, It is called pasteurization. Yup, just like Milk's process (which simply flash heats and cools the milk).
Actually, they got approval to label it cold pasteurization, which is exactly what it is.
"Information-based society" is a cop-out. It's still libel, and it's about bloody time the law started CATCHING UP to the "information-based" society. I don't give a damn about the technology that is or is not involved - People still should be held responsible for their actions.
While TFA is referring simply to school kids, I hope your statement has similar constraints. Children are one thing, but 18 year olds have rights--or, at least, they should.
Harassment law in this country has gotten way out of hand. (please note I realize TFA was about canada, I'm talking about the US anyway)
The problem with the government trying to shield everyone from everything is that they are at the mercy of bullies (of all types) when the government isn't around. There's also the issue of the bully's rights--they should have the RIGHT to put up a website or newspaper ad stating "so and so is ghey huhehe". Hell, Alex Hamilton posted disparaging rants in the newspapers of his day about all kinds of people.
I think this shielding issue is introducing a whole new generation of kids with terrible character flaws. Unable to deal with things on their own, at age 18 they are totally oblivious to the world around them, and require grounding. This is why the Peace Corps have record membership right now--kids who have been under-exposed to the world around them realize their lacking in character and wish to fix themselves.
Wrapping every bully on the knuckles and trying to make everyone into milk toast hurts not only the bullies but the bullied. How do you know you're weak if you've never been tested? How do you rise above things that you don't know are there?
I wonder if ferns ever look at us and laugh saying that non-quantum-sourced energy is so 3 billion years ago.
Maybe so, but then some herbivore eat a thousand of them, we eat a hundred herbivores, and we're the benefactor of all their magic!
If humans were photoheterotrophic or photoautotrophic, we wouldn't have enough energy to do much more than sit there sulking like a stupid fern. One of the sad realities of a creature like Swamp Thing (an apparent photoautotroph) is that he wouldn't really be able to move quickly at all. It'd be very easy for some cow to walk up and start nibbling on him (oh sweet irony). Adrienne Barbeau would have to dump his ass for something higher on the food chain like an amoeba.
Adrienne Barbeau was hot in Swamp Thing. You really want to give that up just so you can have quantum-enhanced solar power? Wait, that does sound pretty cool.
Uh?
From Apple:
So yes, the push for an on-time iPhone release apparently cost us Leopard on time.
This was a stupid move, and I think the stock price drop in store for today will reflect that (after hours trading had AAPL losing $2 already).
I recently purchased an Apple TV for my parents who have a 46" 1080p LCD TV.
I'd have to say that the associated press conclusion is correct about iTunes video content--barely watchable. They said the picture was "fuzzy", but I think they were really referring to the annoying artifacts present in low quality mpeg streams.
That is not to say that the AppleTV is crap, however. When playing high def content (that you rip yourself from DVD or from HDTV), it's not half bad. The thing can output at 720p at 4000kbit/s (maybe with a software upgrade (VLC)), iTunes just doesn't sell that kind of content.
Still though, with these kind of resolutions on these ginormous TVs, you're going to see artifacts even on some overly-shrunk DVD movies.
I bought the AppleTV so I could jerry rig it into something useful. If I were buying it simply based on its stated features, it's so useless I'd have a hard time justifying the $300 price tag.
Relatively silly? Why? This allows free competition, and open flow of goods (hint- different countries sell different music, and sometimes people want that different music; blocking this trade will only push people to piracy to get what they want).
Scenario:
1) People in France like to sue companies for anything and everything. (for the sake of argument)
2) Company wants to sell a product in happy-go-lucky (never-sue) UK and France
3) To compensate for law suits, they have to either charge more in the UK than they would otherwise or take the product off the shelves in France.
Price discrimination helps businesses and customers. You know senior citizen pricing on movie tickets and stuff? That's price discrimination, and it's not morally wrong nor does it hurt anybody. So what if a young guy like me can't get $3 off, BFD. I guess I understand the EU's trepidation about allowing this, but in the end, it's probably best not to mess with it.
Realizing that they cannot compete with American (or Asian) tech companies, the EU once again tries to legislate to produce home grown competition.
Though this post is flamebait and not really true in the case of technology companies, the EU does subsidize farming and Airbus. Before someone brings it up: the US subsidizes farming too, but that doesn't make it right. Moral relativism is dumb.
This case isn't about subsidies anyway, it's about obeying a (relatively silly) law in Europe stating that people are allowed to buy any product sold in Europe from any country at that particular country's price. Over the internet, this usually isn't problematic, but with arbitrary restrictions Apple has to endure because of it's agreement with the record companies, Apple may have to shut down stores in countries where licensing fees per track exceed the prices charged in other EU members, or they may have to raise prices in the other countries so they can remain solvent in certain member states.
Either way, I think is a flaw in the EU laws. Whatever Apple decides to do, it's only going to hurt both Apple and/or its customers. It's a classic example that will probably be used by anti-regulation advocates to demonstrate how "all" regulation is bad.
I'm wondering the same thing and I'm the one who wrote it!
Not just because I didn't even take my own ideas seriously (as made dead obvious by the last paragraph), but because it was a quasi-conservative post on slashdot and we all know those are flamebait
In the brief moments at +5, however, the post inspired a half dozen interesting posts and intelligent responses (some modded as such) to said posts. Sure, there were a bunch of nonsensical reactionary flames, but it begs the question: Why is Flamebait -1 and not +1?
Can you please provide some references for that graph? [shows flat but slight increase in test scores]
I looked for more information for a couple minutes and have given up.
I saw it in this 20/20 special.
America continues to worry about losing its edge in the high-tech industry.
:)
Meh. The top 5% of minds in the country ALWAYS accounted for 99% of innovation.
I'm not alarmed by these figures. If we actually had a graph indicating that we're growing "dumber", that would be something. The last graph of that sort showed a flat but mildly positive slope in test scores over the last century. So, according to that, at least, we're getting 'smarter.' Try to keep an open mind when it comes to alarmist headlines
I doubt we'll lose our "edge" in technology. The industry will just grow, and it'll grow in other geographic locations faster than ours, simply because ours is too large to continue growing at their rate. As long as we still grow, we'll be fine. There's enough wealth in the world to go around, and we create more every day.
I don't understand: I have chosen to live in a place (Arizona) with no major natural disaster issues aside from possibly wildfires and flooding.
Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in disaster-prone areas?
Seriously: it's nice that we're trying to help out the "needy", but you're helping out people who are victims of their own folly, and you're doing it with my money. It's not charity if you're taking money against someone's will to pay for it. I'm living in this hot-ass desert called Phoenix year after year while these coastal homeowners are getting federal money to rebuild after the cyclical storms wipe out their houses.
Where's my government check for not being a burden on the rest of the country? Hey, just give me half what you gave those Katrina people and I'll STILL be saving you money. My bills are higher anyway so I can pay for my A/C.
I think it's wonderful Wal-Mart helped out the Katrina victims. It's their money, they can do with it as they please. It's probably a stupid idea to give to people just because they did something stupid, but their hearts are in the right place (probably focusing on their own PR).
Some people say that blaming Katrina victims is like blaming a rape victim for walking down that scary dark alley in the first place... But it's a little different. Imagine if there was a big sign in front of the alley that said "WARNING: Periodically, the rape squad raids this alley and rapes everything in it" and the person went ahead and built a freaking house there. That's what it's like. Rape squads; think about it.
Hey! You stole my joke!
Too true though. I had a friend who was arrested in Mexico for (long story short) not paying a bribe to a policeman. He was never charged. Another friend of mine bribed the officials to get him out of jail. The entire ordeal was off the books.
A word to the wise: the police bribe was cheaper--you best pay up.
This is the only sentence in the entire post with the word "Mexico." I didn't read the rest.
I just spent all my mod points for today, but if I had any left I'd mod this up simply because it's conceptually funny.
Observe:
Thanks, M. Gregory Thomas(tm) (what??), you are totally batshit nuts and have given me 2 minutes of amusement.
How about France?
France is much worse but at least they're realistic. France is basically a police state. It grants citizens rights on a piecemeal basis. That way, their version of the Patriot Act is just taking rights away from citizens that they were 'lucky' to have been 'granted' in the first place. People bitch less when their rights are taken when you convince them that they were only on loan beforehand.
Sad part is, I'm only lying about half of that. Can you guess which half? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
This is why my post was titled "Not that it matters, but ..."
I'll repost this here (thanks to Beryllium Sphere(tm)):
Article I, Section 9:
"No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state."
It really doesn't get much clearer than that.
The Supreme Court may have ruled differently, but that only makes them wrong.
They have also ruled that a woman growing marijuana for herself and only herself in her own home is somehow "interstate commerce." We all know this is false, yet getting wrapped up in legalese and focusing more on the consequences of agreement than the fact that she was right ended up with her losing her case.
Of course, you could argue that according to the constitution, the Supreme Court is basically infallible and can rewrite the constitution as it pleases.
So, again, my carefully worded response: Not that it matters, but I don't think this is legal under the constitution.
I don't think this is legal under the constitution. The sales are made outside WA and therefore cannot be taxed by the WA government. A lot of governors have tried this crap, I don't think any have succeeded though.
It's stupid anyway. Sales taxes in Seattle are up to 9.1% which is pretty damn ridiculous. If I were living in WA and this went through, I'd move. Internet purchases help make WA living more affordable.
That's the thing: No, we didn't.
The government has been encroaching on our personal liberties one piece at a time for a century.
You may want to blame the government of the past 30 years, but here's a quote from former attorney general and later Supreme Court justice, Robert H Jackson in 1940--61 years before USA PATRIOT Act.:
-Robert H. Jackson
Realize this was back in 1940, when the federal body of law was half what it is today.
I would argue that focusing on the last few decades of law is the exact reason why we can't get serious reform. Once the American people wrap their heads around how much and how long they've been screwed over the years, it'll really put the problem into the correct context.
Both parties have given incredible powers to the government over the years, and "the lesser of two evils" mentality is to blame. Once you realize how terribly they both have systematically and deviously plotted and executed their plans to control you, you'll realize that neither of the two can be trusted.
Of course, this all sounds like alarmist melodramatic BS... until you see this.
We were robbed because we were afraid of what our fellow citizens were doing. By bowing to the the pressures of the 'crisis of the day,' we allowed the government to seize control. The alien and sedition acts made it a crime to criticize the federalist government. The FBI was doing (illegal) drive-by shootings on the homes of suspected KKK members. Alleged Communists were "convicted" without proper trial by the hundreds (sometimes 50 at a time). Alleged child molesters have been tracked down and their property searched and seized without proper warrants. Now, with the advent of the terrorist into our country, the executive branch doesn't even need to explain itself when it knocks down your door.
"Funny story: I have this shiny new ElGato EyeTV Hybrid here,"
Sorry, Typo: I meant the "EyeHome," not EyeTV. I own an EyeTV too.
You do realise not everyone in the world is an IT nerd/geek/(insert knowledgeable stereotype here) so you will probably understand why Apple keeps things so simple.
Part of the reason I own a Mac is because it's built for novice users to learn quickly, but it also has some real power under the hood.
AppleTV has the latter but not the former.
The AppleTV was designed by the makers of ElGato's EyeTV. Apple literally walked into ElGato and took their entire development team for it (it involved duct tape and tasers, from what I understand). The EyeTV had the ability to play tons of different formats including divx and VIDEO_TS. You could also browse the web (the real web, not special-formatted pages) and it was less than $200.
So all this really is is just a crippled version of a product Apple bought and killed. Don't tell me this was in an effort to make it easier to use. The video lock-in of this was specifically to point people towards Apple and keep people locked into Quicktime and iTunes.
The "hard apple" I'm sleeping on was the fact that I own an EyeTV and this immediately became unsupported when Apple "bought" the ElGato developers. I've been looking for a replacement ever since, and this AppleTV just doesn't measure up, even though it costs way more.