As for your gratuitous statement about who will and won't pay the taxes, you do know that 79% of the tax burden is carried by the top 20% of income earners, right?
But did you know that 40% of all sick days are Mondays and Fridays? I don't know if your statistics are correct or not, but assuming they are: so what? If the top 20% of the earners made 79% of the income, then even with a "flat tax" you could get figures like that.
What would you want, a regressive tax scale? A wealth deduction? If someone makes $100k a year, and pays somewhere around $25k in taxes, do they have a right to bitch about the guy making $26k and paying $1000 or so? Should the $26k guy also owe $25,000 in taxes to be fair?
A sale is a sale and income is income. If the law says there is a tax on income it should apply uniformly to everyone.
If you're an average person selling off unwanted stuff on ebay and buying the junk you want instead, then you aren't going owe income tax. You already paid income tax on the money you made to purchase your junk years ago. Most of it has not appreciated, to put it bluntly. If the IRS were to start playing hardball and try to tax you on the sale as Capital Gains, you would play hardball right back and show them your original basis and then the IRS would owe YOU for your loss. Likewise if they tried to call it ordinary income -- you're selling it at a loss, so no income. And then you'd started claiming your ISP fees as business expenses, and you'd take the home office deduction for the space you use to photograph and package your old junk. So the IRS won't come after ordinary "garage sale" type transactions.
Natch, this wouldn't apply so much to someone whose business is turning stuff over on ebay. They could be taxed on income the same way the corner store is, because they are presumably making a markup by buying wholesale and selling retail.
When I came to USA first I was amazed to see how much of the expensive stuff is left around the homes completely unsecured. 1000$ grills, 800$ deck furniture, children's toys, garden tools, garden sheds are all left unlocked and no one would steal them.
There's some unwritten rule about not stealing outdoor furniture and stuff like that. Even when my wife was my girlfriend and was living in a "bad" neighborhood, no one ever messed with her porch furniture. Sure there was gunfire in the hood, and her landlord's maintenance guy was murdered a few blocks away. And her house was broken into and her laptop stolen. But the porch furniture was always left alone.
Out of curiosity... since this is a completely social hack, and is just a means to trick somebody into opening up a compressed file and running the included executable... why would a Mac or Linux user be immune? Cannot Mac and Linux users also run executable programs from their desktops? You're confusing the ability to run a program of your choice with the means by which someone is fooling you into thinking you should choose to run it, right?
Sure, you could write a trojan targeted toward those OSs. And you could presumably trick users w/o regard to the OS they use. But it's far more likely that the windows user is logged in with full Admin privileges. The Linux and Max users are probably not, limiting the extent that the trojan can mess with their systems. You probably could trick the Mac and Linux users to log in as admin, to change the file mode to executable, and run the trojan. However, at each step, the user might just wise up and have second thoughts. Wouldn't stop all cases, but with something like this, it doesn't hurt to improve the odds in the good guys' favor.
And you know what? It was his prerogative, just like it was the current administration's prerogative to fire those attorneys. It's my understanding that every administration is free to replace US attorneys at their choosing. I suppose Clinton was a bit smarter with timing having gotten rid of those attorneys shortly after haven been elected to office.
And up until now, the replacements had to be confirmed by the Senate. Like with the cabinet, who are also "rampaged" at the beginning of a presidential term. Firing the attorneys and replacing them with lackeys isn't the whole issue here. The issue is that thanks to the USA TRAITOR Act, Senate confirmation is no longer necessary when you do your firings at the "right" time.
Wow, that's a first. The Bush administration usually just assumes expanded powers with less oversight, and then claim that they had those powers in the first place (followed by blaming the whistle blowers).
Kinda makes you wonder what they're already doing this time . . .
. . . when we go to work, if our sysadmins aren't locking down our systems from spying (which can be between divisions in a corporation, too), then they aren't doing their jobs.
I think that when a company starts spying on itself, it's probably a sign that it has grown too big.
SiteKey depends on users to expect the key image, but the absence of the image doesn't usually trigger warning bells because they're not very common. You need some sort of phishing detector which says, "Hey, this site is known to require a SiteKey and isn't sending it to you."
In fact, everyone I've talked to who needs one of these "guess the picture" schemes to login to their bank wishes they would go away. If, one day, they stopped seeing the sitekey thing, most folks would be relieved, not suspicious.
Even if it is some pointless war, someone should put an end to it, because the government there is obviously not willing to do it.
If you've got a plan, you should share it. But for a lot of people, it will be a tough sell. Pretty much everyone is aware of what happened when the US intervened in Iraq. Many people still remember Somalia. Why would this turn out differently if "someone put an end to it"? That's a serious question.
They're going to take XP off the market, then a couple months later after they get tired of everyone bitching about Vista, they'll reintroduce it as Windows Classic
Well they can just forget it, man, cause I've got Windows Clear, now!
As you mature in your career job, you realize that there is so much more to life than your PC.
I was willing to read your argument for Windows up to this point. You know, when you called other OS users "immature" (and throw in "irresponsible"). Then I realized that you're just another crank who got promoted up to the level of his incompetence.
Oh, don't like my personal comment? It's a little late for that. Go ahead, call me "undependable", too.
The fact of the matter is, your OS choice has nothing to do with age or maturity. If you really were as old as you thought you were, you'd remember that all the companies/sectors you mentioned were using good old IBM big iron 30 years ago (those that existed). Because no one gets fired for buying IBM. And their middle managers were saying the exact same things you are now.
Please consider my other comment to this parent. I did find it, and then I posted it.
I must be pretty dense today, because I went back to the cousin(?) post and looked at it, and all I can tell is that you said you said something. As far as "Office Action" WRT this patent, I cannot locate any such thing on the USPTO website. Perhaps if you hummed a few bars or quoted something . . . but since I've taken up a contrary position, I'm not gonna beat myself up for coming up empty.
I'll grant that Norm makes a purchase of beer in some of the quotes cited. But I still cannot see how some guy's homespun transcript of selected dialog from a TV show he watched has any relevance. If Wikipedia is suspect, then surely some guy (possibly named "Bryan")'s old compuserve page is, too.
You were arguing that they had to produce any relevant documents or face accusation that they deliberately omitted it -- and that therefore the Norm! page was relevant. But if that were so, wouldn't the mountain of documents be enormous? Not just channel catfish-enormous, but continent-sized? What about Greta Garbo in 'Anna Christie': "Gif me a visky, ginger ale on the side, and don' be stingy, baby."? And that would just be transcripts of fictional examples of purchases.
Now I'm not arguing that Amazon's patent is legit, either. I don't believe that it's at all innovative to sell something to someone you know and charge it to their account. But I also cannot see the logic in submitting "Norm!" either.
I suspect that you have not read the patent application file. If I am correct, then I doubt that you have much basis for saying what is and is not obviously irrelevant.
If you had anything, you'd have produced it. Just one example of a bar, a tavern, a watering hole, or of Norm, Woody, Sam, Diane, Cliff or of beer or tabs. Maybe even the name "Cheers".
The patent itself -- 5,960,411 (Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network) -- all 19 pages, is accessible at Google. Searchable, too. There's no mention of any of these things. If it had anything to do with the patent, we would find something in the text.
Good question. A double-A battery on my desk is about 7 cc. And you can get about 1-3 Watts out of a NiMH cell for 30-90 minutes. Taking the 3W number would give you around 0.4W/cc. So let me rephrase that: very good question.
Rather than juggle all three, there is no reason why the cell phone can't do everything and more.
I don't need to carry my music with me everywhere, so I could only use two: the phone and the PDA. And I don't want a combo device. I want the display on my PDA to be largish, and my phone to be smallish. You can't do both in a way that will suit me. Sure the phone can be a acceptable address book (read only), but I have no desire to use it as a calendar, memo pad or any other PDA application. When I don't need the PDA, I leave it at home or the office.
For those who want an all-in-one like the iPhone: more power to you. Enjoy. But I really hope that another decent PDA will come along before my Visor Prism dies.
So he posts knowingly fake allegations that can (and probably will) ruin someone's career, and then he cringes because he's put on report? I think he got off lightly.
He should be thankful he wasn't expelled. I don't know if the relevant jusrisdiction has criminal libel - if not that's another thing the little jackass should be grateful for. Finally, what if some vigilante had acted on this false information?
Who modded this "Troll". Note the extreme hyperbole. The guy's being sarcastic.
Your ISP is subsidizing the cost of equipment instead of charging you an up-front sign-up fee. If you leave, your monthly payment is no longer paying that off. It makes perfect sense.
I've known people that bought all their equipment -- cable modem or DSL modem and line filters -- and still got hit with the "early termination" fee. It's not about the equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
But did you know that 40% of all sick days are Mondays and Fridays? I don't know if your statistics are correct or not, but assuming they are: so what? If the top 20% of the earners made 79% of the income, then even with a "flat tax" you could get figures like that.
What would you want, a regressive tax scale? A wealth deduction? If someone makes $100k a year, and pays somewhere around $25k in taxes, do they have a right to bitch about the guy making $26k and paying $1000 or so? Should the $26k guy also owe $25,000 in taxes to be fair?
If you're an average person selling off unwanted stuff on ebay and buying the junk you want instead, then you aren't going owe income tax. You already paid income tax on the money you made to purchase your junk years ago. Most of it has not appreciated, to put it bluntly. If the IRS were to start playing hardball and try to tax you on the sale as Capital Gains, you would play hardball right back and show them your original basis and then the IRS would owe YOU for your loss. Likewise if they tried to call it ordinary income -- you're selling it at a loss, so no income. And then you'd started claiming your ISP fees as business expenses, and you'd take the home office deduction for the space you use to photograph and package your old junk. So the IRS won't come after ordinary "garage sale" type transactions.
Natch, this wouldn't apply so much to someone whose business is turning stuff over on ebay. They could be taxed on income the same way the corner store is, because they are presumably making a markup by buying wholesale and selling retail.
There's some unwritten rule about not stealing outdoor furniture and stuff like that. Even when my wife was my girlfriend and was living in a "bad" neighborhood, no one ever messed with her porch furniture. Sure there was gunfire in the hood, and her landlord's maintenance guy was murdered a few blocks away. And her house was broken into and her laptop stolen. But the porch furniture was always left alone.
Sure, you could write a trojan targeted toward those OSs. And you could presumably trick users w/o regard to the OS they use. But it's far more likely that the windows user is logged in with full Admin privileges. The Linux and Max users are probably not, limiting the extent that the trojan can mess with their systems. You probably could trick the Mac and Linux users to log in as admin, to change the file mode to executable, and run the trojan. However, at each step, the user might just wise up and have second thoughts. Wouldn't stop all cases, but with something like this, it doesn't hurt to improve the odds in the good guys' favor.
Double Holy Crap! You can download disk images of many of the old Cinemaware games! http://www.cinemaware.com/vault.asp?vault=games
And holy crap! Wings is available again -- on the GBA! http://www.cinemaware.com/gbawings_main.asp Now can I had a flight stick for a Game Boy?
And up until now, the replacements had to be confirmed by the Senate. Like with the cabinet, who are also "rampaged" at the beginning of a presidential term. Firing the attorneys and replacing them with lackeys isn't the whole issue here. The issue is that thanks to the USA TRAITOR Act, Senate confirmation is no longer necessary when you do your firings at the "right" time.
Everyone dies. He's just hoping it happens in a particular order.
Kinda makes you wonder what they're already doing this time . . .
I think that when a company starts spying on itself, it's probably a sign that it has grown too big.
In fact, everyone I've talked to who needs one of these "guess the picture" schemes to login to their bank wishes they would go away. If, one day, they stopped seeing the sitekey thing, most folks would be relieved, not suspicious.
If you've got a plan, you should share it. But for a lot of people, it will be a tough sell. Pretty much everyone is aware of what happened when the US intervened in Iraq. Many people still remember Somalia. Why would this turn out differently if "someone put an end to it"? That's a serious question.
Well they can just forget it, man, cause I've got Windows Clear, now!
I was willing to read your argument for Windows up to this point. You know, when you called other OS users "immature" (and throw in "irresponsible"). Then I realized that you're just another crank who got promoted up to the level of his incompetence.
Oh, don't like my personal comment? It's a little late for that. Go ahead, call me "undependable", too.
The fact of the matter is, your OS choice has nothing to do with age or maturity. If you really were as old as you thought you were, you'd remember that all the companies/sectors you mentioned were using good old IBM big iron 30 years ago (those that existed). Because no one gets fired for buying IBM. And their middle managers were saying the exact same things you are now.
You mean when she searches in your nightstand and under your bed every time she comes over to make sure you haven't violated the EULA?
I must be pretty dense today, because I went back to the cousin(?) post and looked at it, and all I can tell is that you said you said something. As far as "Office Action" WRT this patent, I cannot locate any such thing on the USPTO website. Perhaps if you hummed a few bars or quoted something . . . but since I've taken up a contrary position, I'm not gonna beat myself up for coming up empty.
I'll grant that Norm makes a purchase of beer in some of the quotes cited. But I still cannot see how some guy's homespun transcript of selected dialog from a TV show he watched has any relevance. If Wikipedia is suspect, then surely some guy (possibly named "Bryan")'s old compuserve page is, too.
You were arguing that they had to produce any relevant documents or face accusation that they deliberately omitted it -- and that therefore the Norm! page was relevant. But if that were so, wouldn't the mountain of documents be enormous? Not just channel catfish-enormous, but continent-sized? What about Greta Garbo in 'Anna Christie': "Gif me a visky, ginger ale on the side, and don' be stingy, baby."? And that would just be transcripts of fictional examples of purchases.
Now I'm not arguing that Amazon's patent is legit, either. I don't believe that it's at all innovative to sell something to someone you know and charge it to their account. But I also cannot see the logic in submitting "Norm!" either.
If you had anything, you'd have produced it. Just one example of a bar, a tavern, a watering hole, or of Norm, Woody, Sam, Diane, Cliff or of beer or tabs. Maybe even the name "Cheers".
The patent itself -- 5,960,411 (Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network) -- all 19 pages, is accessible at Google. Searchable, too. There's no mention of any of these things. If it had anything to do with the patent, we would find something in the text.
The fact is, someone just screwed up.
Good question. A double-A battery on my desk is about 7 cc. And you can get about 1-3 Watts out of a NiMH cell for 30-90 minutes. Taking the 3W number would give you around 0.4W/cc. So let me rephrase that: very good question.
I don't need to carry my music with me everywhere, so I could only use two: the phone and the PDA. And I don't want a combo device. I want the display on my PDA to be largish, and my phone to be smallish. You can't do both in a way that will suit me. Sure the phone can be a acceptable address book (read only), but I have no desire to use it as a calendar, memo pad or any other PDA application. When I don't need the PDA, I leave it at home or the office.
For those who want an all-in-one like the iPhone: more power to you. Enjoy. But I really hope that another decent PDA will come along before my Visor Prism dies.
Ya, but you gotta admit that Bing Crosby gives it a romantic touch. What a voice . . .
Who modded this "Troll". Note the extreme hyperbole. The guy's being sarcastic.
Cute.
Both of those would be great names for a band!
So what's your magical plan to avoid unforeseen catastrophes?
We did that once, and they re-formed. This time, make sure to dump the remains into molten steel.
I've known people that bought all their equipment -- cable modem or DSL modem and line filters -- and still got hit with the "early termination" fee. It's not about the equipment.