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Comments · 6,467

  1. Re:Why dealerships get a free ride on New Jersey Auto Dealers Don't Want to Face Tesla · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If we remove the dealer who is going to stock parts, deliver them, and install them?.....Eventually either you stop getting parts and service for cars after 5 years or your start getting gouged in ways you can only imagine

    Yes, quite true. I'll just run down the road to my local (California) MG dealer to get parts for my '71 MG...... Oh wait!

    Guess what, parts for my MG usually cost less than than equivalent parts on new cars.

  2. Re:Feds... on New Jersey Auto Dealers Don't Want to Face Tesla · · Score: 2

    Tesla wants to open a store in New Jersey to sell cars in New Jersey. That's not interstate commerce, no reason for the Feds to get involved.

    I go to my local pharmacy to fill a prescription -- it is treated as interstate commerce for the purposes of legislation. How is it different?

  3. Re:dumb way to explain on Embarrassing Stories Shed Light On US Officials' Technological Ignorance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To make "storage/memory" as the words for "Hard-drive" & "RAM" guarantees confusion.

    1. We already have logical terms that roughly distinguish the two functions: RAM and ROM

    "ROM". You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  4. Re:supreme court on Embarrassing Stories Shed Light On US Officials' Technological Ignorance · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Courts are supposed to weigh cases based on the facts and arguments presented, and not so much on their own personal experiences.

    Conextual knowledge is usually required to make good decisions. Without that context, decisions are likely to be random. Yes, the lawyers should present information to develop context, but where to start? Do they have to start with 1 + 1 = 2 ? Obviously not. So what assumptions should they make about the knowledge of a judge? Probably they start with what a ordinary person would know; but if a judge knows less than an ordinary person?

  5. Re:False advertising. on WSJ: Americans' Phone Bills Are Going Up · · Score: 1

    Those fees are mandated taxes that they have to charge - much like sales taxes. Is the retailer/seller the one responsible for charging you the tax? No - they are simply acting as tax collectors for the various Governmental agencies that demand they collect said tax. I do not hold my motorcycle dealer responsible for the sales and license taxes that the State of California charges.

    Your motorcycle dealer may pay property taxes on his buildings. Does he add that as a fee that he charges you? In the specific case I mentioned, a car rental service charged me a fee for the property taxes on the cars -- this is a tax, but the company must pay it whether or not I rent the car, so it is a cost of doing business, not a tax imposed by a government entity on my rental contract.

    But back to phones, in a recent T-Mobile phone bill I see the item:

    "Other fees and government-related Obligations"

    This is explained as:
    "These fees relate to your service. They may be imposed on us and passed through to you pursuant to your contract" This falls far short of a claim that the fees are merely a pass-through of taxes imposed on T-Mobile that are specific to the service that T-Mobile supplies to me.

    The bill also includes an item "Federal Universal Service Fund". Once again, this is a charge imposed on the carrier. The FCC does not require the carriers to pass this charge through to end users. In other words, it is a cost of doing business. It is also predictable and applies equally to all states (so could be included for advertising purposes in all states).

  6. Re:False advertising. on WSJ: Americans' Phone Bills Are Going Up · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Trouble with this is the carriers won't be able to run national ads with their pricing. Instead the price will have to be concealed until you're about to sign up. Some states (Nevada) you pay around 7%, whereas others (I think NY?) it's 25%.

    If it were purely taxes that the company must collect and hand over based purely on what you pay, I could agree with that, but when it is nebulous "fees" that are really cost of doing business that the company incurs, it's not reasonable. Furthermore, some of the fees relate to Federal fees that are the same in all states.

    In the example I was quoting (renting a car at an airport), the company has enough information to quote the exact price with all fees at the time of booking.

  7. False advertising. on WSJ: Americans' Phone Bills Are Going Up · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't understand how businesses are allowed to tack on fees to bills without disclosing these fees in their prices. Somehow they can't quote these fees when you are booking the service, but they can calculate them when billing for the services.

    Some years ago, I rented a car from a large airport and one of the fees tacked on was for the property taxes paid on the car. Why don't they just tack on another fee for the property tax on their buildings, or their staff costs, car depreciations? These are all costs that must be paid by the business whether or not I had rented the car -- just like the property taxes on the car.

    I am just waiting for prices for cellphone and car rental services to be $1 with the rest of the cost as "taxes and fees".

  8. Mine has gone down. on WSJ: Americans' Phone Bills Are Going Up · · Score: 2

    I was on contract with T-Mobile: a family plan and one phone (out of 4) 18 months through its 2-year contract (the other 3 were past their 2-year contract period). T-Mobile allowed me to switch immediately to their monthly plans, with a reduction of about $60/month.

  9. Cost effectiveness on Snowden Says No One Listened To 10 Attempts To Raise Concerns At NSA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps the criticsm of the NSA should focus on the very poor use of resources. Billions of dollars are used to spy on US citizens with no benefits, while the administration appears to have been caught completely unprepared for the events in Crimea.

    Perhaps a re-allocation of those resources would be beneficial to US interests.

    Unless, of course, the real reason for the spying on US citizens has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with suppressing free speech and legal dissent.

  10. Re:Salary amplification in... on Austin Has Highest Salaries For Tech Workers, After Factoring In Cost of Living · · Score: 1

    Austin is still something of a deal, since compared to California, you get about 25% of your salary back through not paying income taxes,

    California has the advantage that if you buy a house, you will get a much more expensive property and, over time the value of that house goes up, such that, when you come to sell, you will have a lot more profit on the sale than if you lived in Texas. You can then move to a cheaper state.

    Of course, the above doesn't work if you retire in California.

  11. Re:The nature of responsibility on BPAS Appeals £200,000 Fine Over Hacked Website · · Score: 1

    If fact the negligence in this case was the fault of an external IT contractor who stored the captured data on the website CMS, after the requirements has been change to specifically exclude this feature because of security concerns. However the DPA doesn't take this into account. Data loss is an absolute offence, no negligence is necessary. If the organisation loses the data they are guilty.

    If you are correct, then the BPAS should be able to sue the contractor, since it was the contractor's sole fault that the data was stored.

  12. The exam board are paritally to blame on Jewish School Removes Evolution Questions From Exams · · Score: 1

    The papers are being deliberately mishandled by the teachers. It doesn't matter that the effect of the mishandling does not increase the marks *. The exam board should refuse to mark every one of these papers and blacklist the teachers from ever administering exams again.

    * Note: as far as they know. How can they be sure that there is no cheating going on?

  13. Re:Not illegal to charge for a service on Mozilla Is Investigating Why Dell Is Charging To Install Firefox · · Score: 1

    That's why T-Mobile can say "We're better than AT&T" or whatever on their ads. They don't need permission to use AT&T's name, they just can't use their name to refer to anything but the real AT&T.

    The article refers to the UK and UK trademark law has restrictions on this. You can only name your competition if your are making an objective comparison. That's why when Pepsi made adverts promoting taste comparisons to Coca-Cola, they did not name Coca-Cola.

  14. Re:Is that legal in the UK? on Mozilla Is Investigating Why Dell Is Charging To Install Firefox · · Score: 4, Informative

    How dull do you have to be to pay someone to do this for you?

    Very, since in the EU, users are prompted to do an automated install of an alternative browser on first use (except those times when the choice was "accidentally" missed out of builds of retail copies of Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8).

  15. Re:I agree with the board here on Steve Ballmer Blew Up At the Microsoft Board Before Retiring · · Score: 1

    The Win8 phones are fine, and while they had a rough launch, their market share continues to grow

    Yeah, except that the market share for Windows phones has stopped growing -- in fact it declined from Q3 to Q4 2013. What maket share Microsoft has is based on the low price products like the Lumia 520.

  16. Re:So, doomed to fail? on Bitcoin Exchange Flexcoin Wiped Out By Theft · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So what we have is a bunch of startups who think they know how to be like a bank, but are failing utterly.

    Is this is a systematic flaw in Bitcoin itself, or Schadenfreude by companies who have yet to learn they are nowhere near ready for holding onto something like this?

    There is another possiblity: that these exchanges are operating as designed.

    Who can most easily rob a bank? The people running it, of course.

  17. Re:Interesting . . . on Child Porn Arrest For Cameron Aide Who Helped Plan UK Net Filters · · Score: 1

    Isn't it Guilty Until Proven Innocent in the UK? Or is it France?

    No, and no.

  18. Re:Why? on The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM" · · Score: 1

    teabags don't compost -

    Yes, they do, if you use the right composting method, a worm composting bin.

  19. Re:Why? on The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM" · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Your forgetting the grinding of the fresh beans to put in that press. Otherwise, your gratuitous snootiness is entirely pointless.

    Firstly: "you're", not "your".

    As for grinding coffee, it's not like I can go and buy ground coffee, is it? Oh wait ......

  20. Re:Parasitic Rentiers on Inventor Has Waited 43 Years For Patent Approval · · Score: 1

    What value has this man added to a single piece of equipment sold in the last 40 years? What part of these machines relied on his effort or ingenuity? If his patent had never been filed, are we to seriously believe that progress would have been held back by so much as an hour.

    This case is a classic example of how the patent system does not benefit innovation or society. The patent that the article focuses on is secret, which means that "his invention" has not benefitted any product. On the other hand, it is very likely that others have made the same "invention" and actually used it in a product.

  21. Re:iPod connectors/compatibility since at least '0 on Apple To Unveil Its 'iOS In the Car' Project Next Week · · Score: 1

    I wonder why Apple can't make AirPlay mirroring with touch to an in-dash display a standard. For makers, it would make it something Android could support

    I think that you just answered your own question.

  22. Re:Firrrst post the noo on Scottish Independence Campaign Battles Over BBC Weather Forecast · · Score: 1

    IMHO, the simple fact is that Scottish MPs are largely aligned with the Labour party and, when in power, Labour would be unable to do anything without the support of Scottish MPs.

    "Your opinion" and "fact" are two very different things. The figures do not support this assertion.

    The Scottish MPs make less difference than I had realized, but that page also relies on a very dodgy assumption: that the SNP would vote with the Tories.

    Also, your "facts" are not what you claim -- in that page, there are election results where the Scottish MPs did make a difference.

  23. Re:Firrrst post the noo on Scottish Independence Campaign Battles Over BBC Weather Forecast · · Score: 1

    Your statement would also be true if Scotland and England were interchanged.

    But budget issues are not the only things that the UK parliament votes on.

    IMHO, the simple fact is that Scottish MPs are largely aligned with the Labour party and, when in power, Labour would be unable to do anything without the support of Scottish MPs.

  24. Re:Tell me again... on U.S. Students/Grads Carrying Over $1 Trillion In Debt · · Score: 1

    I know students who would have to work half their lifetime to pay back the "student debt", but the same universities are attending have dramatically cut the number of tenured profs, while "part time" profs and TAs have to cover more and more of delivering the course load...and are purposely kept at "part time" status to the point they school will drop courses to make sure they don't work more than the number of hours the law says you must treat them as full time staff.

    And at the same time, the executives who run the universities are being paid ever more.

  25. Re:Firrrst post the noo on Scottish Independence Campaign Battles Over BBC Weather Forecast · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not Scotland's fault that there is no devolution settlement for England. Personally, I have always thought it ridiculous that devolution is so asymmetrical, with different devolved powers in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and none whatsoever for England. But that isn't Scotland's fault.

    Devolution, perhaps, but the asymmetry could have been corrected by Scotland's MPs. Before devolution, English MPs abstained from voting on things that concern only Scotland, so why do Scottish MPs not abstain from things that only affect England (cf. West Lothian question)?