Book: Grow tree. Create paper. Use for a hundred years or so. Paper rots. Repeat.
iGadget: Mine toxic heavy metals. Make gadget with slave labor that last for a few years. Burn electricity to use gadget. Throw gadget in landfill when done. Repeat.
The problem is everybody thinking that everything in life has to be profit-making. Not everything is about turning a profit. Anybody going to college in order to net a return is missing the point of an education, entirely.
Experience will teach you to put slot A in slot B or what to type in when the server goes nuts, but it doesn't teach you how to be a well-rounded, reasonable, thinking adult person. There's a world of difference between a person with and without a college education.
Wow. That's a pretty big chip on your shoulder. I'm not going to try to knock it off (not that I could), but I disagree completely. There's no organized system to create unemployed, in debt college graduates. You're taking a shortcut in that you're manipulating a very complex system in order to fit a story that only exists in your head that you have created out of your own anger and frustration. The requirements for being employed in this economy have changed, AND the US is in the middle of a big, permanent, unavoidable downward adjustment in standard of living. College educations are invaluable in teaching people how to reason and creating well-rounded human beings.
What you're proposing is that a large percentage of individuals, of their own free will, somehow compel the US government to do what is morally and ethically right. I admire your ideas, but the fact of the matter is that 99.9% of people wouldn't be aware of or care about legislation like this unless it impacted them personally and directly. I really don't see any other viable alternative for getting through to people the importance of legislation like this.
This made me laugh. Yes, the overpriced textbook industry that charges people almost annually for minor updates will be destroyed by the overpriced electronic gadget company that charges people almost annually for minor updates. Fantastic. That's a real step forward.
we need to educate each other with fair and open discussion and debate,
I seem to remember people bringing assault rifles to "grass roots" public rallies immediately after the current president was elected. How, exactly, does one engage this (very large) segment of the population in "fair and open discussion and debate"?
Yes, Peter Pan. That's how it *should* work, and that IS the way it works in Neverland. Unfortunately, in the real world, most of the general population is either too stupid or too selfish to care about anything that doesn't directly effect their wallet.
It sounds like you've been playing a bit too much Tropico 4. Only in video games and movies does your suggestion of ruling by fear actually work. If you look at real life history, you'd realize that what you said was really silly.
Every piece of modern software out today does automatic updates. There is no technological hurdle to doing this.
So you're saying is that brick and mortar stores, that contribute very directly to their community have to collect sales taxes, but people who contribute nothing to their local community and sell online *don't* have to collect taxes? That doesn't make any sense, unless you're saying that mail order is a societal good that needs to be heavily subsidized by brick and mortar retailers.
The reality is that anybody who can't use the bevy of cheap and abundant software to manage their business' finances, including making tax payments, shouldn't be in business. Running any business is arguably, one of the most difficult "professions" due the the depth and breadth of knowledge required to run even a seemingly simple business. This nightmare scenario of a compliance nightmare coming from supposed techies is a joke. No business owner is worried about this, other than those who have built their business on avoiding collecting sales taxes. This isn't even on most business' radar because everybody knows it would be a few software tweaks from the existing software vendors, and it's done.
I'm not saying it makes sense. I AM saying that it won't be an expensive or difficult hurdle for any online business. This idea that keeping track of a few tens of thousands of tax jurisdictions is some kind of technological impossibility that will require business owners everywhere to spend nights up with calculators and forms and checkbooks is just patently absurd. The services are already there, and they're about $200/year. Big deal.
"I imagine Quickbooks could start adding features for this but damn, sending checks to every city/state/town is gonna be annoying as hell."
Check out EFTPS for federal taxes. It's built in to Quickbooks. I haven't written a check for any kind of taxes (payroll, sales tax withholding, federal withholding, etc.) in more than 5 years.
" Forget writing your own ecommerce site. Forget using open source e-commerce software. To keep track of this data, which could end up making a company liable for large fines, means you'll have to hire a company since you can't trust to be indemnified otherwise."
The same thing can be said of payroll taxes. Don't pay those, and you're going to jail. The way most small companies do it in Quickbooks is "Employees -> Payroll center -> Pay taxes". I think you may have to click "pay now" after that... maybe a "next". It's automated, simple, and a cost of doing business, albeit a relatively tiny one.
The technical limitations argument is really hollow. It's a very very tiny technical hurdle that could generally be solved with a "SELECT decTaxRate from tSalesTax where strZipCode='" + strZipCode + "'".
I hate to break it to you, but the amount of storage space to store every zip+4 in the entire United States along with a tax rate is less than the size of this web page in your cache right now. If you've ever used a database, you'd understand that what you're saying about the difficulty and expense of such a tiny amount of data and calculations is pretty silly.
You obviously have never run a business either, so I'll tell you this... tax returns are calculated and remitted electronically. You may be thinking of the Mad Men era, with accountants working with pencils and calculators, filling out forms. I don't think that I can even mail in a check for sales tax in my area, anymore. It's a one button procedure that anybody with functioning frontal lobe could accomplish. Calculations are done in the bookkeeping software. Every business that is larger than a lemonade stand uses bookkeeping software.
5000+?!?! Oh Jesus!! Stop the presses!!! Where, oh were would online retailers get a device that could hold thousands(!) of numbers?!?! It would take some sort of mainframe computer to store and calculate all of those numbers!!!
Bingo. Expecting Internet retailers to collect your sales tax is another case of fscking over the little guy who can't afford to waste their time collecting dozens of taxes for different states.
Uh huh. Yeah. Every heard of "computers"? They're really good at storing and crunching numbers. I bet there are a few online retailers that own "computers".
Slashdot Mirror
I just dropped a real book on the ground. I can still read it. Now, somebody please to that with an iGadget and please tell me what happens...
Book: Grow tree. Create paper. Use for a hundred years or so. Paper rots. Repeat.
iGadget: Mine toxic heavy metals. Make gadget with slave labor that last for a few years. Burn electricity to use gadget. Throw gadget in landfill when done. Repeat.
I think I'll stick with real books, thanks.
By your count, 2/3 of all billionaires (if that's a measure of intelligence/reason/etc) are college graduates.
The problem is everybody thinking that everything in life has to be profit-making. Not everything is about turning a profit. Anybody going to college in order to net a return is missing the point of an education, entirely.
Experience is worth FAR MORE than education.
Experience will teach you to put slot A in slot B or what to type in when the server goes nuts, but it doesn't teach you how to be a well-rounded, reasonable, thinking adult person. There's a world of difference between a person with and without a college education.
Wow. That's a pretty big chip on your shoulder. I'm not going to try to knock it off (not that I could), but I disagree completely. There's no organized system to create unemployed, in debt college graduates. You're taking a shortcut in that you're manipulating a very complex system in order to fit a story that only exists in your head that you have created out of your own anger and frustration. The requirements for being employed in this economy have changed, AND the US is in the middle of a big, permanent, unavoidable downward adjustment in standard of living. College educations are invaluable in teaching people how to reason and creating well-rounded human beings.
I'm certain the feds can back-track the traffic and find more ip addresses to servers which were compromised and home addresses which controlled them
That's why open wireless networks are so great.
I have yet to read any factual statements telling why Gmail is any better than Yahoo, either. What's your point?
It doesn't matter what you agree with or support, when it comes to free speech.
What you're proposing is that a large percentage of individuals, of their own free will, somehow compel the US government to do what is morally and ethically right. I admire your ideas, but the fact of the matter is that 99.9% of people wouldn't be aware of or care about legislation like this unless it impacted them personally and directly. I really don't see any other viable alternative for getting through to people the importance of legislation like this.
This made me laugh. Yes, the overpriced textbook industry that charges people almost annually for minor updates will be destroyed by the overpriced electronic gadget company that charges people almost annually for minor updates. Fantastic. That's a real step forward.
quit lowballing on pay
If you're aware of an industry that does NOT pay as little as the market will bear, please let us all know.
we need to educate each other with fair and open discussion and debate,
I seem to remember people bringing assault rifles to "grass roots" public rallies immediately after the current president was elected. How, exactly, does one engage this (very large) segment of the population in "fair and open discussion and debate"?
That is how the system should work.
Yes, Peter Pan. That's how it *should* work, and that IS the way it works in Neverland. Unfortunately, in the real world, most of the general population is either too stupid or too selfish to care about anything that doesn't directly effect their wallet.
I would stay in Neverland, if I were you.
It sounds like you've been playing a bit too much Tropico 4. Only in video games and movies does your suggestion of ruling by fear actually work. If you look at real life history, you'd realize that what you said was really silly.
So then, because you don't make enough money, you're saying you should be exempted from doing what every other business does?
This is not going to be once and done software.
Every piece of modern software out today does automatic updates. There is no technological hurdle to doing this.
So you're saying is that brick and mortar stores, that contribute very directly to their community have to collect sales taxes, but people who contribute nothing to their local community and sell online *don't* have to collect taxes? That doesn't make any sense, unless you're saying that mail order is a societal good that needs to be heavily subsidized by brick and mortar retailers.
The reality is that anybody who can't use the bevy of cheap and abundant software to manage their business' finances, including making tax payments, shouldn't be in business. Running any business is arguably, one of the most difficult "professions" due the the depth and breadth of knowledge required to run even a seemingly simple business. This nightmare scenario of a compliance nightmare coming from supposed techies is a joke. No business owner is worried about this, other than those who have built their business on avoiding collecting sales taxes. This isn't even on most business' radar because everybody knows it would be a few software tweaks from the existing software vendors, and it's done.
It's just a cost of doing business. There are lots and lots of them. This is a relatively minor one.
I'm not saying it makes sense. I AM saying that it won't be an expensive or difficult hurdle for any online business. This idea that keeping track of a few tens of thousands of tax jurisdictions is some kind of technological impossibility that will require business owners everywhere to spend nights up with calculators and forms and checkbooks is just patently absurd. The services are already there, and they're about $200/year. Big deal.
It sounds like your employer is an idiot. Sorry.
http://www.zip2tax.com/z2t_Services.asp
"I imagine Quickbooks could start adding features for this but damn, sending checks to every city/state/town is gonna be annoying as hell."
Check out EFTPS for federal taxes. It's built in to Quickbooks. I haven't written a check for any kind of taxes (payroll, sales tax withholding, federal withholding, etc.) in more than 5 years.
" Forget writing your own ecommerce site. Forget using open source e-commerce software. To keep track of this data, which could end up making a company liable for large fines, means you'll have to hire a company since you can't trust to be indemnified otherwise."
The same thing can be said of payroll taxes. Don't pay those, and you're going to jail. The way most small companies do it in Quickbooks is "Employees -> Payroll center -> Pay taxes". I think you may have to click "pay now" after that... maybe a "next". It's automated, simple, and a cost of doing business, albeit a relatively tiny one.
The technical limitations argument is really hollow. It's a very very tiny technical hurdle that could generally be solved with a "SELECT decTaxRate from tSalesTax where strZipCode='" + strZipCode + "'".
I hate to break it to you, but the amount of storage space to store every zip+4 in the entire United States along with a tax rate is less than the size of this web page in your cache right now. If you've ever used a database, you'd understand that what you're saying about the difficulty and expense of such a tiny amount of data and calculations is pretty silly. You obviously have never run a business either, so I'll tell you this... tax returns are calculated and remitted electronically. You may be thinking of the Mad Men era, with accountants working with pencils and calculators, filling out forms. I don't think that I can even mail in a check for sales tax in my area, anymore. It's a one button procedure that anybody with functioning frontal lobe could accomplish. Calculations are done in the bookkeeping software. Every business that is larger than a lemonade stand uses bookkeeping software.
5000+?!?! Oh Jesus!! Stop the presses!!! Where, oh were would online retailers get a device that could hold thousands(!) of numbers?!?! It would take some sort of mainframe computer to store and calculate all of those numbers!!!
Bingo. Expecting Internet retailers to collect your sales tax is another case of fscking over the little guy who can't afford to waste their time collecting dozens of taxes for different states.
Uh huh. Yeah. Every heard of "computers"? They're really good at storing and crunching numbers. I bet there are a few online retailers that own "computers".