Why *wouldn't* McDonald's cause gas? There's virtually no natural food in fast food, and what there is is altered to such an extent that the human body doesn't know what to do with it. The human body has not evolved to eat whatever kind of "food" is in fast food, as it's only existed for one generation.
I moved all of my personal and business machines to Chrome months ago because of everything that you described. We still have IE as a fallback for crappy government web sites that require IE. After moving to Chrome, I'm still kicking myself for not getting rid of the headache that Firefox became much earlier than I did. This is one of those cases when I feel that the lack of a top down organizational structure has really hurt the final product. Management by committee rarely works out well.
I thought that one of Linux's claims to fame was that you could run it on ancient hardware? These cards aren't anywhere close to ancient, and are actively in use in who knows how many machines.
The lesson should be: don't shop at Best Buy! Seriously... why in the HELL would you give them more money? Are you bored? Wealthy? Brain damaged? What would it take for you stop stop shopping there?
I have a feeling that if you walked in the store and an employee shot you with a gun, that you'd post saying, "The lesson is: next time you go into Best Buy, wear a bulletproof vest"!
Of course, greed trumps common sense. What else do you get from the small store? You get some of your money coming back in the form of local taxes, and those people working there may patronize *your* business. Sending your money to an anonymous warehouse in the middle of Nebraska is selfish and short-sighted.
"If most people are buying from Amazon solely to avoid sales tax then clearly it's a highly unpopular tax."
What is a "popular" tax that people voluntarily pay? I wasn't aware there was such a thing.
"Amazon doesn't want to pay state taxes not because paying them would make them unprofitable, but because working out the taxes for 50 US states plus all the other countries they ship to (who would probably start demanding tax collection if Amazon caved to the states) is an unholy nightmare."
Not true at all. Everything is automated. It would take exactly *one* table in a database to check against zip codes. It would be very simple to do, and eventually, every online retailer will have to do it, and it'll be integrated into basic accounting software.
I'd argue that there's little rationality in the long term market, as well. Since stocks rarely pay dividends these days, the stock price is completely and totally unconnected from any kind of rationality. It's simply a measure of what people will pay for that stock, and that, of course, is completely irrational.
"I assume the local apple store provides fantastic support to server buyers just as they do for everyone else; for a small business owner this is vital."
As a small business owner, there is nothing more that I want to do than to drive my server down to the local mall when I'm having a problem. (Hint: Successful small businesses generally don't use Apple products).
I can say, "no". As other people have stated, license fees are a drop in the bucket when compared to implementation costs. Money is tight. The *last* thing I would do right now is to disrupt my IT architecture in the hopes of saving a tiny fraction of my IT budget in license fees for proprietary software that is already in place and working.
"But handhelds based upon linux hold great promise. They will come to dominate most of the market I believe."
They might take most of the *consumer* market, but not for work. It may be hard to believe, but most people who work and produce things have to do more than email and browse web pages.
So you think that the hundreds of millions of people who shop there WANT to contribute to employees and manufacturers being treated poorly? I doubt that. I think that most people just don't care about anything other than how much money is in their wallet. I think it's greed, pure and simple.
... I wouldn't touch it. I just don't do business with Wal-Mart for a number of reasons. Of course, I'm just one person among hundreds of millions who just don't care where they spend their money.
My local computer shop sells 27" monitors for $329 every day. I don't understand people who not only purchase obscenely overpriced things with an "Apple" logo on them, but do so with such excitement.
No matter how much you play with taxes, retail might be doomed, because the overall retail experience sucks and conveniently online sucks less.
That's your opinion. Personally, I find that going into actual stores enriches my life significantly more than sitting my butt on my couch. But, to each his own.
I always have a hard time watching so many people make so much money producing exactly value. The tech industry in the US is a joke. A few companies are making useful things, and are making money, but from my point of view, most of it is people looking to make some quick VC cash or VC's looking to own the next Google. Living in a tech hub on the East Coast, I see countless tech companies awash in cash, but producing nothing, and certainly not bringing in any cash. Most of them are belly up inside of a year, but the founders walk away with untold millions every time, and go on to start another company that does nothing, whatsoever. At some point, the greedy VC's are going to learn their lesson and invest in functioning companies, and most of these tech people will be forced to get real jobs.
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Why *wouldn't* McDonald's cause gas? There's virtually no natural food in fast food, and what there is is altered to such an extent that the human body doesn't know what to do with it. The human body has not evolved to eat whatever kind of "food" is in fast food, as it's only existed for one generation.
The words that you used in this post make no sense to me.
It's really a moot point. Google Plus will be the next big thing within 6 months, and Facebook will go the way of MySpace and Friendster.
I moved all of my personal and business machines to Chrome months ago because of everything that you described. We still have IE as a fallback for crappy government web sites that require IE. After moving to Chrome, I'm still kicking myself for not getting rid of the headache that Firefox became much earlier than I did. This is one of those cases when I feel that the lack of a top down organizational structure has really hurt the final product. Management by committee rarely works out well.
I thought that one of Linux's claims to fame was that you could run it on ancient hardware? These cards aren't anywhere close to ancient, and are actively in use in who knows how many machines.
The lesson should be: don't shop at Best Buy! Seriously... why in the HELL would you give them more money? Are you bored? Wealthy? Brain damaged? What would it take for you stop stop shopping there?
I have a feeling that if you walked in the store and an employee shot you with a gun, that you'd post saying, "The lesson is: next time you go into Best Buy, wear a bulletproof vest"!
Of course, greed trumps common sense. What else do you get from the small store? You get some of your money coming back in the form of local taxes, and those people working there may patronize *your* business. Sending your money to an anonymous warehouse in the middle of Nebraska is selfish and short-sighted.
"If most people are buying from Amazon solely to avoid sales tax then clearly it's a highly unpopular tax." What is a "popular" tax that people voluntarily pay? I wasn't aware there was such a thing.
"Amazon doesn't want to pay state taxes not because paying them would make them unprofitable, but because working out the taxes for 50 US states plus all the other countries they ship to (who would probably start demanding tax collection if Amazon caved to the states) is an unholy nightmare." Not true at all. Everything is automated. It would take exactly *one* table in a database to check against zip codes. It would be very simple to do, and eventually, every online retailer will have to do it, and it'll be integrated into basic accounting software.
So Best Buy employees hate the company, Best Buy customers hate the company, but people still shop there? Why?
I'd argue that there's little rationality in the long term market, as well. Since stocks rarely pay dividends these days, the stock price is completely and totally unconnected from any kind of rationality. It's simply a measure of what people will pay for that stock, and that, of course, is completely irrational.
"The real problem is that not many businesses nowadays depend solely on PCs for their income." What kind of business, exactly, are you talking about?
"I assume the local apple store provides fantastic support to server buyers just as they do for everyone else; for a small business owner this is vital."
As a small business owner, there is nothing more that I want to do than to drive my server down to the local mall when I'm having a problem. (Hint: Successful small businesses generally don't use Apple products).
I can say, "no". As other people have stated, license fees are a drop in the bucket when compared to implementation costs. Money is tight. The *last* thing I would do right now is to disrupt my IT architecture in the hopes of saving a tiny fraction of my IT budget in license fees for proprietary software that is already in place and working.
"But handhelds based upon linux hold great promise. They will come to dominate most of the market I believe." They might take most of the *consumer* market, but not for work. It may be hard to believe, but most people who work and produce things have to do more than email and browse web pages.
No, I'd call it more of a refinement or evolution.
So you think that the hundreds of millions of people who shop there WANT to contribute to employees and manufacturers being treated poorly? I doubt that. I think that most people just don't care about anything other than how much money is in their wallet. I think it's greed, pure and simple.
... I wouldn't touch it. I just don't do business with Wal-Mart for a number of reasons. Of course, I'm just one person among hundreds of millions who just don't care where they spend their money.
My local computer shop sells 27" monitors for $329 every day. I don't understand people who not only purchase obscenely overpriced things with an "Apple" logo on them, but do so with such excitement.
Apple: Bringing vendor lock-in to new levels!
No matter how much you play with taxes, retail might be doomed, because the overall retail experience sucks and conveniently online sucks less.
That's your opinion. Personally, I find that going into actual stores enriches my life significantly more than sitting my butt on my couch. But, to each his own.
Good luck when the power goes out.
I always have a hard time watching so many people make so much money producing exactly value. The tech industry in the US is a joke. A few companies are making useful things, and are making money, but from my point of view, most of it is people looking to make some quick VC cash or VC's looking to own the next Google. Living in a tech hub on the East Coast, I see countless tech companies awash in cash, but producing nothing, and certainly not bringing in any cash. Most of them are belly up inside of a year, but the founders walk away with untold millions every time, and go on to start another company that does nothing, whatsoever. At some point, the greedy VC's are going to learn their lesson and invest in functioning companies, and most of these tech people will be forced to get real jobs.
I'm cancelling the streaming service. There's tons of stuff available for streaming, but 99.9% of it is absolute garbage.
Right wing extremists are hilarious. I'd be willing to bet money that you have a small arsenal at home.