Our cow farm was pretty small scale (~100 head) but we would sell steers for meat at about 18 months, but they would be used by and large for real meat.
*Hamburger* were made by grinding up the heifers who were too old to have any more calves, by and large.
In that case, hamburger is almost "free," since you weren't feeding them to make meat, you were feeding them to make babies.
I believe that this was the idea for Shadowbane going in. When it was still in the development stage, they spoke alot about the "metaplot", and explicitly said that they expected the story to last for 5 years. If you read the Lore behind it, there is obviously a deep overarching story. With their new, announced expansion, it seems that they have planned the game development around the story (new classes and skills and such). This is exactly the stuff that drew me into the game in the first place.
However, I haven't seen any of that. Part of that is my time of play--they don't run events for people playing 10pm to midnight Pacific time. Part of it is that the guilds who formed around aspects of the Lore, to reap the advantages they could get from the metaplot, didn't get that support, and so either got crushed by non-Lore guilds, or mutated into non-Lore guilds themselves. (I'm sure there are exceptions to that, but they would be few.) Hopefully, things will get reversed to something more story-oriented, but the question now is, is that what the remaining players want or expect? Right now, I don't think so.
I think that the reason for this is that for Babylon 5, JMS didn't have to invent film-making at the same time he was writing the story. As long as MMORPG developers are having to write their engine themselves, and are under economic pressure to push it out the door before they can get all the technical issues fixed, I don't see where the storyline can ever be the driver. You can't focus on implementing the story until the bugs are gone, and by the time the bugs are gone, the story you want to/are able to tell isn't the one your player base wants to hear.
You shouldn't be paying sales tax when you buy a gift certificate, because technically, no sale has yet occurred. The value of the gift certificate goes on the companies books as a liability--because they still owe you the merchandise--exactly as though it was a prepayment or a deposit.
The sale takes place when the gift certificate is redeemed and the product is delivered. That's when the sales tax is figured (if any). You can use some of the gift certificate amount to pay the sales tax, or not. Up to you. (So in your example, if the gift certificate was for $1.98, you have to cough up the other $0.18 yourself. If your gift certificate was $3.00, you can pay the whole thing and have $0.84 left, or pay some out of your pocket so that you have more left on the gift certificate.)
So for those keeping score at home, "selling" gift certificates helps your cash flow, changes your balance sheet (whether for good or for ill depends on how much that liability weighs on you), and doesn't touch your bottom line at all. (At least until the gift certificate expires and you get it all as "free" profit.)
Disclaimer: This is basic retail accounting for gift certificates. Apple *might* do it a little differently (multiple payment types can sometimes be hard to deal with), but can't vary too much.
I haven't noticed that so much, but I have noticed that most of the time, I will get songs by the same artist only 2 or 3 songs apart. That always makes me wonder.
But on the other hand, you'd have to actually do the math to figure out how unlikely that is. Remember that if you flip a coin 100 times, it is more likely than not that you will get a string of 9 or more identical flips in a row. And that doesn't mean that the "flip" function is broken, just that these things happen.
Course, there's also the solution of moving the surge protectors out of the way. I've seen those suckers placed where you almost have to kick the switch to stand up.
I don't understand most of the comments here. How is it that parental control and involvement are good, and the Rating System is bad? Without the rating system, how is a non-gaming parent supposed to know why a game might be inappropriate?
I expect movie theatres to enforce their posted age restrictions, and stores to enforce their posted age restrictions. If I think that they are being overly strict, then hell, I'll buy my son the ticket, or the game, or the book, or whatever. But then it's my decision.
And yes, of course a smart or resourceful kid will get around the restriction. (I know I did.) What does that have to do with anything? If I find out about it, I'll punish him. (As much for going around me as anything else.)
BTW, I think that a good, functional rating system is the only way that we get to have the full spectrum of games available to everyone. Stop enforcing that "M" is for adults only, and then you've just given the restrictive right more ammunition to just ban such things outright "for the good of the children".
I agree. When Shadowbane was having similar patch problems, Ubisoft gave all players an extension to their subscriptions equal to the number of days that had been seriously hosed.
So no one got any money back, but they did get more "free" time.
Sony should do this. (And they yet may. Ubi took a couple of days to figure out that's what they were going to do.)
And so we start a child-rearing pissing contest. Come on people, every child is different.
Everything works for some kids. Nothing works for all kids.
The most important thing is to know your child, and what he responds to. Trying to tell other people what works for a child you've never even met is silly.
Not arguing with anything you said, but it is worth noting that by the time they released, Shadowbane was *long* overdue. They'd gotten to the point where they had to release *something*, no matter how many bugs it might have had. (And it had plenty. Though it is a lot better now.)
LoD had 80 BILLION gold?!?! That explains a lot. After having helped build and run a city (also on Death), I can't even comprehend having that much money at one time.
The scary thing is, Death is one of the better servers.
I'm only semi-active at the moment, but won't drop entirely, because the things that they got right are still very cool. Besides, I have to hold on until Panther comes out, so I can actually fight in a seige for once. (That one is apparently an Apple driver problem--not a Wolfpack coding problem. Like anyone here cares.)
I had this problem on my iBook also, fortunately while it was still under warranty.
The problem is that the wires that go to the display go through the hinge. So they can get worn out through normal use (especially if you open and close alot--and who doesn't with a laptop). I believe they have fixed that particular design flaw in newer iBooks (mine is 18 months old). Easy to find details on it in the support forums on the Apple website--it was a reasonably common problem.
Oh wait, you had main board problems. Yes, I had that too. Cracked motherboard, probably happened when they were fixing the previous problem. So thankfully under warranty for me. Applecare is your friend. I've never bothered to get it on a desktop, but I wouldn't go without it on a laptop, because the repairs are so expensive (as you found out).
You're greatly oversimplifying business finances here. And you're also ignoring the fact that it wouldn't necesarily be 50 checks. It could be, as the articles have noted, over two THOUSAND different tax codes to keep track of. Not to mention, anyone who relies exclusively on computers for accounting, without an actual eyeball verification of what's being submitted, is begging for trouble. It would be a nightmarish situation for anyone without a dedicated team of accountants.
And you're vastly overstating the effects.
It would still be only 50 checks, because even when a state has different counties and such that collect fees, the business still only has to pay the state, and then the state passes out the money appropriately. (At least in the states I've done paperwork for--and I can't imagine anyone would be worse than CA!)
Also, having been the accountant who had to reconcile sales at a mail-order company (about $7 Million in sales a year)this would only add a couple of days of work per filing period to one person's job. You already have to double-check everything. If you have any sense, you're already breaking it down by geography anyway, for marketing purposes. The only extra work should be filling out the damn forms.
Having said that, I'm only in favor of this if they make a uniform national *rate* for remote sales, which would make it very easy for businesses to administer. And (as I said elsewhere) if they *don't* do that, I doubt this bill would pass the Supreme Court's test of not placing an undue hardship on the business, anyway.
But overall, this is only fair. If buying a particular product is taxable, then it should be taxable, no matter what channel you bought it from. If you don't like that, then change the basic tax law--don't just try and make a loophole to get around it.
Of course, you paid Use Tax for that refrigerator once you brought it into Washington, didn't you?
(Actually, you should be aware that the WA Department of Revenue will do searches on sales of big ticket items in Oregon to Washington residents, and can follow up on whether you have paid the tax on it. How can they get sales records from an Oregon company, you ask? If it's a chain that does business in both states, they can get access as part of their audit of the WA branch. They usually only pursue really valuable things like cars or boats or jewelry, but you never know.)
I've worked as an accountant in a mail-order business, and was responsible for paying Sales Taxes in the places where we had physical stores, so I know exactly what you're saying.
When this idea was first being kicked around, the idea was that it would only happen if everything was drastically simplified. The rules for what's taxable, the definition of point of sale, the tax rates, everything.
If all the store has to do is collect 5% (or 8% or whatever) on every sale, and then mail the right amount to each state every quarter, well, that's a pain, but that's reasonable. But if they have to keep track of what the proper sales tax is for each state (or county!) individually, then that isn't reasonable.
Remember, the Supreme Court struck this down in the first place because it wasn't reasonable for shippers to be able to keep track of everything. If they don't keep it simple, the Court should strike it down again.
It depends on the Sales Tax law. In the two states I am familiar with (Washington & California) the sale takes place at the point of *delivery*.
In general, I would expect to be taxed based on the point where title passes. That would probably happen at the point that the consumer signs for the package.
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*Hamburger* were made by grinding up the heifers who were too old to have any more calves, by and large.
In that case, hamburger is almost "free," since you weren't feeding them to make meat, you were feeding them to make babies.
However, I haven't seen any of that. Part of that is my time of play--they don't run events for people playing 10pm to midnight Pacific time. Part of it is that the guilds who formed around aspects of the Lore, to reap the advantages they could get from the metaplot, didn't get that support, and so either got crushed by non-Lore guilds, or mutated into non-Lore guilds themselves. (I'm sure there are exceptions to that, but they would be few.) Hopefully, things will get reversed to something more story-oriented, but the question now is, is that what the remaining players want or expect? Right now, I don't think so.
I think that the reason for this is that for Babylon 5, JMS didn't have to invent film-making at the same time he was writing the story. As long as MMORPG developers are having to write their engine themselves, and are under economic pressure to push it out the door before they can get all the technical issues fixed, I don't see where the storyline can ever be the driver. You can't focus on implementing the story until the bugs are gone, and by the time the bugs are gone, the story you want to/are able to tell isn't the one your player base wants to hear.
That's my (recently jaded) view, anyway...
The sale takes place when the gift certificate is redeemed and the product is delivered. That's when the sales tax is figured (if any). You can use some of the gift certificate amount to pay the sales tax, or not. Up to you. (So in your example, if the gift certificate was for $1.98, you have to cough up the other $0.18 yourself. If your gift certificate was $3.00, you can pay the whole thing and have $0.84 left, or pay some out of your pocket so that you have more left on the gift certificate.)
So for those keeping score at home, "selling" gift certificates helps your cash flow, changes your balance sheet (whether for good or for ill depends on how much that liability weighs on you), and doesn't touch your bottom line at all. (At least until the gift certificate expires and you get it all as "free" profit.)
Disclaimer: This is basic retail accounting for gift certificates. Apple *might* do it a little differently (multiple payment types can sometimes be hard to deal with), but can't vary too much.
But on the other hand, you'd have to actually do the math to figure out how unlikely that is. Remember that if you flip a coin 100 times, it is more likely than not that you will get a string of 9 or more identical flips in a row. And that doesn't mean that the "flip" function is broken, just that these things happen.
It will be ice.
Course, there's also the solution of moving the surge protectors out of the way. I've seen those suckers placed where you almost have to kick the switch to stand up.
I expect movie theatres to enforce their posted age restrictions, and stores to enforce their posted age restrictions. If I think that they are being overly strict, then hell, I'll buy my son the ticket, or the game, or the book, or whatever. But then it's my decision.
And yes, of course a smart or resourceful kid will get around the restriction. (I know I did.) What does that have to do with anything? If I find out about it, I'll punish him. (As much for going around me as anything else.)
BTW, I think that a good, functional rating system is the only way that we get to have the full spectrum of games available to everyone. Stop enforcing that "M" is for adults only, and then you've just given the restrictive right more ammunition to just ban such things outright "for the good of the children".
So no one got any money back, but they did get more "free" time.
Sony should do this. (And they yet may. Ubi took a couple of days to figure out that's what they were going to do.)
And so we start a child-rearing pissing contest. Come on people, every child is different.
Everything works for some kids.
Nothing works for all kids.
The most important thing is to know your child, and what he responds to. Trying to tell other people what works for a child you've never even met is silly.
Not arguing with anything you said, but it is worth noting that by the time they released, Shadowbane was *long* overdue. They'd gotten to the point where they had to release *something*, no matter how many bugs it might have had. (And it had plenty. Though it is a lot better now.)
The movie was Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.
The scary thing is, Death is one of the better servers.
I'm only semi-active at the moment, but won't drop entirely, because the things that they got right are still very cool. Besides, I have to hold on until Panther comes out, so I can actually fight in a seige for once. (That one is apparently an Apple driver problem--not a Wolfpack coding problem. Like anyone here cares.)
The problem is that the wires that go to the display go through the hinge. So they can get worn out through normal use (especially if you open and close alot--and who doesn't with a laptop). I believe they have fixed that particular design flaw in newer iBooks (mine is 18 months old). Easy to find details on it in the support forums on the Apple website--it was a reasonably common problem.
Oh wait, you had main board problems. Yes, I had that too. Cracked motherboard, probably happened when they were fixing the previous problem. So thankfully under warranty for me. Applecare is your friend. I've never bothered to get it on a desktop, but I wouldn't go without it on a laptop, because the repairs are so expensive (as you found out).
The DoR might make you prove that the jewelry stayed in OR, though. (Probably not worth their time unless it was really expensive.)
And you're vastly overstating the effects.
It would still be only 50 checks, because even when a state has different counties and such that collect fees, the business still only has to pay the state, and then the state passes out the money appropriately. (At least in the states I've done paperwork for--and I can't imagine anyone would be worse than CA!)
Also, having been the accountant who had to reconcile sales at a mail-order company (about $7 Million in sales a year)this would only add a couple of days of work per filing period to one person's job. You already have to double-check everything. If you have any sense, you're already breaking it down by geography anyway, for marketing purposes. The only extra work should be filling out the damn forms.
Having said that, I'm only in favor of this if they make a uniform national *rate* for remote sales, which would make it very easy for businesses to administer. And (as I said elsewhere) if they *don't* do that, I doubt this bill would pass the Supreme Court's test of not placing an undue hardship on the business, anyway.
But overall, this is only fair. If buying a particular product is taxable, then it should be taxable, no matter what channel you bought it from. If you don't like that, then change the basic tax law--don't just try and make a loophole to get around it.
(Actually, you should be aware that the WA Department of Revenue will do searches on sales of big ticket items in Oregon to Washington residents, and can follow up on whether you have paid the tax on it. How can they get sales records from an Oregon company, you ask? If it's a chain that does business in both states, they can get access as part of their audit of the WA branch. They usually only pursue really valuable things like cars or boats or jewelry, but you never know.)
When this idea was first being kicked around, the idea was that it would only happen if everything was drastically simplified. The rules for what's taxable, the definition of point of sale, the tax rates, everything.
If all the store has to do is collect 5% (or 8% or whatever) on every sale, and then mail the right amount to each state every quarter, well, that's a pain, but that's reasonable. But if they have to keep track of what the proper sales tax is for each state (or county!) individually, then that isn't reasonable.
Remember, the Supreme Court struck this down in the first place because it wasn't reasonable for shippers to be able to keep track of everything. If they don't keep it simple, the Court should strike it down again.
IANAL, but I would think the key phrase is "without the Consent of the Congress". Wouldn't Congress passing this law qualify as consent?
It depends on the Sales Tax law.
In the two states I am familiar with (Washington & California) the sale takes place at the point of *delivery*.
In general, I would expect to be taxed based on the point where title passes. That would probably happen at the point that the consumer signs for the package.