Half a brain? ESR is a pontificating whack job, who's only contribution to opensource was an open mouth and a single program so horribly written it was virtually unmaintainable.
I'm guessing you haven't tried a Fresh install of any version of Linux lately. Its no harder than windows. There is actually less tinkering required than with windows. Especially for those distributions that have aimed their packaging at the new users.
The obstacle is that it was difficult to buy a pre-configured Linux machine. Nobody installs windows these days either. They buy it pre-installed.
At best it will force the hand of Intel, nVidia and AMD to make it so their drivers work on Linux, but everyone else, unlikely.
Well Intel and AMD are much better community players than is nVidia.
With the focus of Windows slowly shifting to tablets, and web based versions of their Cash Cow Office, and with Ubuntu's minimalist desktop or KDE's robust one covering just about anyone's needs for home computing, and small business computing.
IBM and Intel seem to have a different opinion of OpenOffice and OfficeLibre than you do.
The last thing holding home users to windows is TurboTax Quickbooks.
I said the tax should be uniform. I didn't say the expenditures should be uniform.
We don' expect Texas to fund its own navy, or Montana to fund its own weather satellites. Some things are so important that they should be funded by all the users.
The only way it runs dry is if you are willing to call him a liar. His correction was not about himself, but about what was the inspiration for his book, which ONLY he would know. When some third party, with Z|ERO knowledge about his inspiration was allowed to make something up, the author himself was not able to correct it. This is arrogance of the highest order. And its not the only example.
Wouldn't work, because, as it stands today, as shown in the ArsTechnica story, a company would not be considered authoritative on its own products or services.
Sure, why not give everyone or any product or any company mentioned file a reply? Its disk storage, at worst case, and you could apply length limits. Doesn't have to be featured on the main page, it could simply be linked as a foot note.
Disk is dirt cheap, and history would thank you. Most companies would probably not even bother.
Dynamic recompile of win32 apps? How does that work? I mean theoretically, you should be able to do on the fly interpretation of binary code, but that didn't sound like what you meant.
Germans are taught that they are morally superior for having once been the world's worst rogue state, and having virtually invented mass extermination. By a twisted logic, having seen the error in their ways, they are now somehow better able to cast judgement on other countries.
The most patriotic man america has produced in a long time is living in forced exile in Russia.
If you read some press stories about the sock puppet companies they are mostly targeting products or corporations, attempting to manage commercial reputation.
In truth, this is not always unwarranted. When someone writes about the rash of Brakes failures on Toyota vehicles, the company ought to be able to have a clearly labeled Official Response position, rather than having them feel forced to resort to sockpuppetry to get some actual facts, or corporate nattering as the case may be, across.
Having policies in place that forbid official statements just begs for sockpuppet tactics. There have been cases where authors of books had their remarks removed because they were not considered a credible source for information about their own books.
Furthermore, it would seem that as long as the sockpuppet was indicated, in a foot note, as a paid source of a product or company, that fact alone should make the posting more official and credible rather than less so. Who is more authoritative on the capabilities of a product than the manufacturer? Some random user perhaps?
Cool. I'll go out and buy a used WWII tank. I'll only drive it down to the corner McDonalds for dinner. My taxes should be very low because I drive very short distances and obviously that causes extremely low damage to the streets.
When you ruin a road and it can be shown that you were the one that did it, you get to pay the whole bill. So, go ahead, Your neighbors would love to have you pick up the whole paving bill.
You still insist on ignoring the fact that electric vehicles pay no tax at all, and yet they wear the roads just a much as vehicles of equal size.
Even if it looks great, its still Windows RT. So they have written off the business market, leaving only the home user market, but anyone who wants a tablet that is incompatible with everything else has already bought an ipad. If the same hardware could dualboot Android, they might have something, but RT destines it for the dustbin of history.
I think it should be that way, because that is the way the law was written, that is the compact the government had had with the people when they got this law passed. Its a promise that has been systematically broken and because of this our infrastructure is falling to ruin. Income tax is designed for everything else, but gas taxes were promised for transpiration infrastructure improvement and maintenance.
I suppose you are ok with Social Security taxes being spent on Missile Defense systems and Forest Service logging programs? I suppose you will be fine with taking Obama care premiums and using it for foreign aid and repairing bridges?
Those who won't learn by the broken promises of the past are bound to relive them in the future. Be careful what you wish for.
You don't have to have a full electric car to avoid most gas taxes. All you need do is commute withing the electric range of your car, and/or plug in at both ends of the commute.
Your gas tax can be cut to a 10th of what it was, but your road use and damage remains the same.
You know you can set those to any value you like right, with a set of tweezers? And there are always new gauge clusters to be had at the auto wreckers.
If the government did that with me, id simply have two gauge clusters and swap them out (takes maybe 20 minutes) every time before I had to go in for my evaluation.
And what, exactly, is the reasoning for taxing those extremely fuel efficient cars? I thought the entire point of a fuel tax was to discourage consumption of fossil fuels.
Well you thought wrong. Perhaps that is why you are so confused. Being wrong on your basic presumption makes addressing the rest of your post pretty pointless.
You tax fuels to build and maintain roads. Roads don't cease needing maintenance just because you drive a Nissan Leaf.
A distance based tax hits PRECISELY the issue. It taxes those who use and wear out the roads more than those who don't.
Mandate this as the only system, for ALL states, and drop ALL fuel taxes. ALL of them.
That way we can stop bickering about tracking in-state vs out-of-state mileage, and just read the odometer once a year (or as often as you want).
It would probably have to be a federal system, with a unified tax rate, but that's not all bad. We pay for the Army at the national level, why not the roads. But the funds would have to be dedicated to road building and maintenance, and we have been singularly unsuccessful at forcing the federal government to adhere to this.
Vehicles go in once a year, tack it onto the registration afterwards.
Exactly.
But Not all states mandate vehicle inspections.
So make a system whereby you could have your odometer read at any dealership, or service station, at least once per year, and reported by VIN. The owner gets a tax bill from the state, which in turn forwards some monies to the feds, or pay the feds directly if you trust those bastards.
You can eliminate all this worry about tracking and out of state vs in state by simply mandating a national tax rate, and apportioning the funds to states via any agreed upon graft and corruption prone techniques.
(It costs more to maintain roads in winter climates and mountainous areas, so the formula would be complex, but that's what computers are for.)
You end up taxing gas guzzlers, but that was never the intent of fuel taxes. You've changed the entire reason for taxing fuel.
Hint: It was to build and maintain roads.
You need only extend to the point of absurdity to see this is unworkable. When (nearly) everyone drives an electric vehicle, the gas tax would bring in virtually zero money.
But the roads wouldn't magically stop needing maintenance.
There is already a tax on tires. Its insufficient.
Like gas taxes, it too is a point of diminishing returns, because tires last much longer than in the past.
The problem is tax at the point of sale (for gas, tires, etc) don't cover the cost of road maintenance, (or so we are told), and will do so less and less as more vehicles become electric.
The feds have also been collecting about 18 cents per gallon which was supposed to be used for maintaining the highways. Almost half of this is used for other purposes or simply kept in a mythical account to balance the budget. The Highway Trust Fund is in trouble not because the tax rate isn't high enough, but because of the huge portion of the tax is siphoned off for other uses.
You could do the same with electric charging cars, but that means home-charging would have to go, or each vehicle would have to have a tamper proof charging meter built in. Too much hassle.
So why not just have every state drop the fuel tax altogether, as well as the federal fuel taxes. Just shit can all these taxes as some point certain, say 2 years from now, and start over, dropping all the leakage and baggage that they have acquired over the years.
Impose a federally mandated USE tax based on mileage. (Odometer readings, which would be required once per year, minimum, (or upon sale of vehicle) done at your local filling station by visually or electronically reading the odometer, and reported by VIN, to your STATE government. Heavy semi trailers would have their own odometer. (Many do already.) You could choose to have your's read each time you service the vehicle to spread the tax over smaller bills.
If automakers wanted to add a Near Field Communication chip that could be read by waving a wand over it that would make it easier. It would be located under the hood and not readable from outside. This would allow for future convince but still handle older vehicles.
The Tax should be uniform for all states so there is no bickering about out of state vs in state mileage. It wouldn't matter if the state collected the actual tax or the Feds did. (You have a chance of controlling how your state spends money, but no chance of controlling the feds.)
(There should be ZERO leakage mandated in the law, no siphoning off funds for other purposes, with a death penalty clause for any legislator at any level of government introducing any bill to use the funds for any other purpose other than highway infrastructure maintenance or attempting to remove the death penalty clause.)
They can put in a tracking device when they pay for:
- the device
- the power it draws
- the added gas the weight requires
- and a per mile fee for access to my private life
Or when ever they pass a law requiring it. No sense getting up on your hind legs and thumping your chest (while posting as AC), because as soon as its required you know damn well you will install it.
I hope that when american corporations start seeing their customers scared away by this 1984 crap they'll turn their lobbying powers to reverse the trend. Isn't this how politics work in the US, the country that legalized bribery?
Would someone please hurry up and start scaring them away?!!
Because I'm not seeing any rush to forbid Facebook or Google or restrict use of American Cloud providers. In fact they are growing faster than their off-shore competition.
Oh, yes, we've seen the boastful threats of EU legislation, but the EU can't even agree that Tuesday follows Monday, let alone do any thing to inflict a penalty on anyone using American services.
And in spite of the indignant bashing of all things American (and there is no doubt a great deal of bashing is due), EU countries ae doing the exact same thing. Its just that they don't have a true patriot like Edward Snowden.
But please, drum up support to ban the use of US storage services in all the countries of the world. You will be doing us helpless Americans a huge favor.
How long do the Democrats have to be in office before it becomes THEIR problem and THEIR fault. Isn't 6 years enough time to return to the constitution if they ever intended to?
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Half a brain?
ESR is a pontificating whack job, who's only contribution to opensource was an open mouth and a single program so horribly written it was virtually unmaintainable.
I'm guessing you haven't tried a Fresh install of any version of Linux lately.
Its no harder than windows. There is actually less tinkering required than with windows.
Especially for those distributions that have aimed their packaging at the new users.
The obstacle is that it was difficult to buy a pre-configured Linux machine. Nobody installs windows these days either. They buy it pre-installed.
At best it will force the hand of Intel, nVidia and AMD to make it so their drivers work on Linux, but everyone else, unlikely.
Well Intel and AMD are much better community players than is nVidia.
With the focus of Windows slowly shifting to tablets, and web based versions of their Cash Cow Office, and with Ubuntu's minimalist desktop or KDE's robust one covering just about anyone's needs for home computing, and small business computing.
IBM and Intel seem to have a different opinion of OpenOffice and OfficeLibre than you do.
The last thing holding home users to windows is TurboTax Quickbooks.
I said the tax should be uniform.
I didn't say the expenditures should be uniform.
We don' expect Texas to fund its own navy, or Montana to fund its own weather satellites.
Some things are so important that they should be funded by all the users.
Way to look past the glaring example in the Ars article.
The only way it runs dry is if you are willing to call him a liar. His correction was not about himself, but about what was the inspiration for his book, which ONLY he would know. When some third party, with Z|ERO knowledge about his inspiration was allowed to make something up, the author himself was not able to correct it. This is arrogance of the highest order. And its not the only example.
Wouldn't work, because, as it stands today, as shown in the ArsTechnica story, a company would not be considered authoritative on its own products or services.
Sure, why not give everyone or any product or any company mentioned file a reply?
Its disk storage, at worst case, and you could apply length limits. Doesn't have to be featured on the main page, it could simply be linked as a foot note.
Disk is dirt cheap, and history would thank you. Most companies would probably not even bother.
Dynamic recompile of win32 apps? How does that work?
I mean theoretically, you should be able to do on the fly interpretation of binary code, but that didn't sound like what you meant.
That is pretty much a universal truth.
Germans are taught that they are morally superior for having once been the world's worst rogue state, and having virtually invented mass extermination. By a twisted logic, having seen the error in their ways, they are now somehow better able to cast judgement on other countries.
The most patriotic man america has produced in a long time is living in forced exile in Russia.
Only unlicensed vehicles are taxed as personal property. Vehicle taxes are collected when you license the vehicle and are not taxed as personal property. See column 1 page 1 near bottom: http://www.oregon.gov/dor/PTD/docs/personal-property-assessment-taxation_303-661.pdf
If you read some press stories about the sock puppet companies they are mostly targeting products or corporations, attempting to manage commercial reputation.
In truth, this is not always unwarranted. When someone writes about the rash of Brakes failures on Toyota vehicles, the company ought to be able to have a clearly labeled Official Response position, rather than having them feel forced to resort to sockpuppetry to get some actual facts, or corporate nattering as the case may be, across.
Having policies in place that forbid official statements just begs for sockpuppet tactics. There have been cases where authors of books had their remarks removed because they were not considered a credible source for information about their own books.
Furthermore, it would seem that as long as the sockpuppet was indicated, in a foot note, as a paid source of a product or company, that fact alone should make the posting more official and credible rather than less so. Who is more authoritative on the capabilities of a product than the manufacturer? Some random user perhaps?
Cool. I'll go out and buy a used WWII tank. I'll only drive it down to the corner McDonalds for dinner. My taxes should be very low because I drive very short distances and obviously that causes extremely low damage to the streets.
When you ruin a road and it can be shown that you were the one that did it, you get to pay the whole bill.
So, go ahead, Your neighbors would love to have you pick up the whole paving bill.
You still insist on ignoring the fact that electric vehicles pay no tax at all, and yet they wear the roads just a much as vehicles of equal size.
Even if it looks great, its still Windows RT.
So they have written off the business market, leaving only the home user market, but anyone who wants a tablet that is incompatible with everything else has already bought an ipad. If the same hardware could dualboot Android, they might have something, but RT destines it for the dustbin of history.
I think it should be that way, because that is the way the law was written, that is the compact the government had had with the people when they got this law passed. Its a promise that has been systematically broken and because of this our infrastructure is falling to ruin.
Income tax is designed for everything else, but gas taxes were promised for transpiration infrastructure improvement and maintenance.
I suppose you are ok with Social Security taxes being spent on Missile Defense systems and Forest Service logging programs?
I suppose you will be fine with taking Obama care premiums and using it for foreign aid and repairing bridges?
Those who won't learn by the broken promises of the past are bound to relive them in the future.
Be careful what you wish for.
You don't have to have a full electric car to avoid most gas taxes.
All you need do is commute withing the electric range of your car, and/or plug in at both ends of the commute.
Your gas tax can be cut to a 10th of what it was, but your road use and damage remains the same.
You know you can set those to any value you like right, with a set of tweezers? And there are always new gauge clusters to be had at the auto wreckers.
If the government did that with me, id simply have two gauge clusters and swap them out (takes maybe 20 minutes) every time before I had to go in for my evaluation.
Its already against the law to tamper with odometers if the intent is to defraud. Its also very easy to detect.
And what, exactly, is the reasoning for taxing those extremely fuel efficient cars? I thought the entire point of a fuel tax was to discourage consumption of fossil fuels.
Well you thought wrong. Perhaps that is why you are so confused.
Being wrong on your basic presumption makes addressing the rest of your post pretty pointless.
You tax fuels to build and maintain roads.
Roads don't cease needing maintenance just because you drive a Nissan Leaf.
A distance based tax hits PRECISELY the issue. It taxes those who use and wear out the roads more than
those who don't.
How can you be so daft as to not see this?
Mandate this as the only system, for ALL states, and drop ALL fuel taxes. ALL of them.
That way we can stop bickering about tracking in-state vs out-of-state mileage, and just read the odometer once a year
(or as often as you want).
It would probably have to be a federal system, with a unified tax rate, but that's not all bad. We pay for the Army at the national level, why not the roads. But the funds would have to be dedicated to road building and maintenance, and we have been singularly unsuccessful at forcing the federal government to adhere to this.
Why not just use the values from that?
Vehicles go in once a year, tack it onto the registration afterwards.
Exactly.
But Not all states mandate vehicle inspections.
So make a system whereby you could have your odometer read at any dealership, or service station, at least once per year, and reported by VIN. The owner gets a tax bill from the state, which in turn forwards some monies to the feds, or pay the feds directly if you trust those bastards.
You can eliminate all this worry about tracking and out of state vs in state by simply mandating a national
tax rate, and apportioning the funds to states via any agreed upon graft and corruption prone techniques.
(It costs more to maintain roads in winter climates and mountainous areas, so the formula would be complex, but that's what computers are for.)
You end up taxing gas guzzlers, but that was never the intent of fuel taxes. You've changed the entire reason for taxing fuel.
Hint: It was to build and maintain roads.
You need only extend to the point of absurdity to see this is unworkable.
When (nearly) everyone drives an electric vehicle, the gas tax would bring in virtually zero money.
But the roads wouldn't magically stop needing maintenance.
There is already a tax on tires. Its insufficient.
Like gas taxes, it too is a point of diminishing returns, because tires last much longer than in the past.
The problem is tax at the point of sale (for gas, tires, etc) don't cover the cost of road maintenance,
(or so we are told), and will do so less and less as more vehicles become electric.
The feds have also been collecting about 18 cents per gallon which was supposed to be
used for maintaining the highways. Almost half of this is used for other purposes or
simply kept in a mythical account to balance the budget. The Highway Trust Fund is in trouble
not because the tax rate isn't high enough, but because of the huge portion of the tax is siphoned
off for other uses.
You could do the same with electric charging cars, but that means home-charging would have to go, or each
vehicle would have to have a tamper proof charging meter built in. Too much hassle.
So why not just have every state drop the fuel tax altogether, as well as the federal fuel taxes.
Just shit can all these taxes as some point certain, say 2 years from now, and start over, dropping all the leakage
and baggage that they have acquired over the years.
Impose a federally mandated USE tax based on mileage. (Odometer readings, which would be required
once per year, minimum, (or upon sale of vehicle) done at your local filling station by visually or electronically reading
the odometer, and reported by VIN, to your STATE government. Heavy semi trailers would have their own
odometer. (Many do already.) You could choose to have your's read each time you service the vehicle
to spread the tax over smaller bills.
If automakers wanted to add a Near Field Communication chip that could be read by waving a wand over it that would make it easier.
It would be located under the hood and not readable from outside. This would allow for future convince but still handle older vehicles.
The Tax should be uniform for all states so there is no bickering about out of state vs in state mileage.
It wouldn't matter if the state collected the actual tax or the Feds did.
(You have a chance of controlling how your state spends money, but no chance of controlling the feds.)
(There should be ZERO leakage mandated in the law, no siphoning off funds for other purposes,
with a death penalty clause for any legislator at any level of government introducing any bill to use the
funds for any other purpose other than highway infrastructure maintenance
or attempting to remove the death penalty clause.)
They can put in a tracking device when they pay for:
- the device
- the power it draws
- the added gas the weight requires
- and a per mile fee for access to my private life
Or when ever they pass a law requiring it. No sense getting up on your hind legs and thumping your chest (while posting as AC),
because as soon as its required you know damn well you will install it.
I hope that when american corporations start seeing their customers scared away by this 1984 crap they'll turn their lobbying powers to reverse the trend. Isn't this how politics work in the US, the country that legalized bribery?
Would someone please hurry up and start scaring them away?!!
Because I'm not seeing any rush to forbid Facebook or Google or restrict use of American Cloud providers.
In fact they are growing faster than their off-shore competition.
Oh, yes, we've seen the boastful threats of EU legislation, but the EU can't even agree that Tuesday follows Monday,
let alone do any thing to inflict a penalty on anyone using American services.
And in spite of the indignant bashing of all things American (and there is no doubt a great deal of bashing is due),
EU countries ae doing the exact same thing. Its just that they don't have a true patriot like Edward Snowden.
But please, drum up support to ban the use of US storage services in all the countries of the world.
You will be doing us helpless Americans a huge favor.
How long do the Democrats have to be in office before it becomes THEIR problem and THEIR fault.
Isn't 6 years enough time to return to the constitution if they ever intended to?