Turn off your TV. It does *wonders* for commercials, in that you don't have to see any more of them! Case in point: I have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm not suggesting that people should feel "guilty" about not shopping locally. Not at all. That doesn't accomplish anything. I'm suggesting that people should *think* about how they spend their money. I'm suggesting that if this trend continues, we'll all wake up one day living in a society that I can't imagine a lot of people actually liking. But then again, we have insane suburban big-box sprawl, and people seem to love that. Maybe I'm just out of touch with "regular" people.
I need a new hard drive today. I'll go down to my local store and buy one. I can have one in ten minutes. Not only that, but the sales people can answer any questions I might have about it. If it's defective, I bring it back to the store and buy a new one. You buy one online. You'll have it no earlier than Tuesday (if you pay for overnight shipping and if the random online store ships same day). If it's defective, you've got to wait a few more weeks to ship yours back, and get a replacement. There are more than likely, no real people who can answer any questions you might have about it.
And of course, I know that my purchase supports my neighbors, and my town, and my state. Your purchase supports a warehouse somewhere in the middle of a field in the MidWest, where people are paid minimum wage to put stuff in boxes.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Sure, the current tax structure is a mess all over, whether it's at the local, state, or federal level. It's a nightmare to negotiate, and it's lopsided in more ways than anybody could hope to enumerate. I'm talking about morality on a local level.
Local stores MUST collect and pay sales tax. If they don't then the owners, quite literally, go to jail. There's no room for negotiation there.
The problem is when people choose not to buy locally in order to skirt sales tax. When people do that, they're ignoring all of the other benefits that local stores provide (instant access to whatever they want, the ability to see and use the product before they buy, before and after sales support, etc.) in order to shave a few nickels. Those people are penalizing local merchants for a system that they (the local merchants) cannot change. They're also making a conscious effort not to support their community. They're choosing NOT to support their neighbors. They're choosing NOT to support their local governments. People really need to think just a tiny bit beyond their own wallets, and consider if they'd like living in a community with no local retail businesses, since that is the logical result of their actions.
The Constitutional piece will have to be dealt with. Obviously, the "Founding Fathers" couldn't predict "online shopping", so changes will have to be made. I don't know how or why or when, but something will be done about it.
That adds up.
Sure it does. But it's certainly not an undue burden. The online stores already have *significant* savings over brick and mortar when it comes to rent, utilities, employees, building upfit and maintenance, shoplifting and shrinkage, etc. The cost advantage that online retailers have over physical retailers is *enormous* to say the least. Having to pay a small fee (or even a large fee) to a service that maintains all of the tax rates and payments is in no way an undue burden. It's a cost of doing business, and if the online retailer can't cut it, then so be it.
It used to be fun to live in Washington State, having no income tax, while shopping totally in Oregon, which had no state sales tax. My friends that lived in Vancouver Washington were overjoyed at their 20% higher net-of-taxes income possibilities.
You're saying that it's "fun" to deliberately game the system to avoid paying taxes? So what? That doesn't make it right morally, ethically, or legally. That's certainly not something that I would brag about. Did your friends ever think beyond their own wallet, as to the damage that they were doing to Washington's brick and mortar businesses? Did your friends ever consider if Washington would be such a great state to live in if most of the brick and mortar stores said "Fuck it. We can't compete with these people who just want to avoid paying taxes. We're closing up shop"? What you're describing is really the height of selfish, greedy consumerism run amok.
The fun starts when you get ZipCodes that span City, County or State boundaries...and also when you start having to apply taxes historically because of crediting returns, etc.
That's a very, very simple programming problem. Crunching numbers is what computers are good at. As a brick-and-mortar and online retailer, I'm not really worried. Most employers already pay for a payroll tax service that makes sure that all of the deductions are correct when writing paychecks.
The thing is, that you can look at this issue like it's money-grubbing on the part of the politicians, which I'm sure is part of the story. Another important thing to realize is that some kind of national sales tax collection law thing is necessary to protect brick and mortar stores. There's no possible way that a brick and mortar store can compete with an online store if price is all people care about (and apparently, from the number of Slashdotters who say that they buy a lot online, price *is* the only issue to many people). Even if somehow web hosting costs were even in the neighborhood of the costs it takes to run a physical location (they aren't), that sales tax makes the difference in price.
In the U.S. you would need a complete database of Zipcodes, and, or addresses to resolve the tax rate. Ugh! Now you have to maintain that, and that is probably on a monthly basis, not even yearly.
It's not a big deal. That's a cost of doing business. Besides, if this happens, it'll be built into all of the major shopping cart software inside of a week.
Somehow, I doubt that people buying a $600 game system will care if their power bill goes up $1 (or $10 or $20) a month. Power is one of those things that most people ignore and simply pay unless it's completely out of whack. My commercial power bill fluctuates by sometimes as much as a hundred bucks a month, but even that's not enough to make it worth my time to figure out what might be causing it.
Have any of us bothered to look at the patents? Are they good and valid? Did Verizon truly invent something, and thus, perhaps, because of their investment, deserve some level of protection against theft in exchange for them contributing to the overall body of knowledge? Perhaps these patents are bogus, but I haven't seen anyone in this discussion yet attack Verizon/the PTO on the merits of the patents.
By "us", do you mean the kids and geeks who read Slashdot, as opposed to the professional patent attorneys that work for Verizon and Vonage? Do you really think that it matters what a bunch of unqualified regular people who happen to read a geek blog think?
TV as we know it is a rapidly dying market. More than half of the people I know don't have an antenna/cable/satellite TV. I haven't had a "TV" for anything other than games and DVD's for 5+ years. The quality of the content on "TV" is consistently "lowest common denominator" and it's beyond absurd to pay for TV (cable or satellite), and then have to sit through advertisements.
You're right... Imagine the Slashdot anger if the Feds said that all Linux needs to be standardized according to RedHat v204.x. Oooh! That would be naaaasty!
Apparently, Mr. Upton has never played any of the modern Grand Theft Auto games. I'm personally insulted that he called my favorite series of games "trash". He should probably realize that calling one of the best selling games in video game history "trash" is equivalent to alienating (or just plain pissing off) a very large percentage of his constituents. I can't imagine a politician calling a mainstream music act "trash". Ann Coulter is trash. Grand Theft Auto is a very good video game for adults.
In case anybody has somehow forgotten... Microsoft went from not existing, to becoming the #1 software producer in the world inside of 25 years. They're one of the smartest, largest, and most profitable companies in the world. Call me crazy, but I'd bet that they have a pretty damn good team of lawyers that had this whole situation figured out a long time before anybody in the public ever caught wind of the MS/Novell deal. You guys can debate about what you think that the law says all you want, and even "PR whore" Bruce Perens can wave his hands around and predict the demise of Microsoft, but I find it very, very hard to believe that Microsoft would make as large a mistake as Bruce and his GPL buddies seem to think that they did.
Yeah, I got the newer version of the PS2 that Sony shipped me after I wore out the drives on the first two PS2's, I had. Good point about the remote in the dark... I've been using it for so long (and I know all of the buttons by now), that I forgot about that.
Those interested in a home theater want dedicated hardware. They don't want audio/visual performance compromised.
I couldn't disagree more. I use the PS2 as my "home theater" DVD player because it's one of the best I've seen/used and I'm a movie nut. I think that the days of having 10 black plastic boxes in your living room just to play the same shiny plastic discs is quickly ending. There's no reason to have all of that redundant electronics when you've got stuff like the PS2. From what I understand, in Japan, and other places where real estate is insanely expensive, that using game boxes as DVD players is actually quite common. (DVD player in the Wii and DVD player in the Xbox 360
I really like having one tiny, unobtrusive box that handles all of my games, music, and movies. I think that having a stand-alone DVD player is absurd in this day and age. There's simply no reason for it in most cases.
I love this silly blog... "according to news sources..."... like it's some kind of secret database. Here's a better source: http://www.skyhookwireless.com/ On their front page
"Skyhook Wireless provides a software-only positioning system that leverages a nationwide database of known Wi-Fi access points to calculate the precise location of any Wi-Fi enabled device. "
Who would be surprised about this? Are there still people out there who think that there's some magical way of being attached to the Net and still being anonymous? You've gotta be especially naive to think that your wireless router, broadcasting information into the air, isn't going to be picked up by somebody other than you.
Slashdot Mirror
Turn off your TV. It does *wonders* for commercials, in that you don't have to see any more of them! Case in point: I have no idea what you're talking about.
This product costs $10K to have support for 50 machines. That's $200/device. I thought that OSS was supposed to be cheaper?
I'm not suggesting that people should feel "guilty" about not shopping locally. Not at all. That doesn't accomplish anything. I'm suggesting that people should *think* about how they spend their money. I'm suggesting that if this trend continues, we'll all wake up one day living in a society that I can't imagine a lot of people actually liking. But then again, we have insane suburban big-box sprawl, and people seem to love that. Maybe I'm just out of touch with "regular" people.
They close.
I need a new hard drive today. I'll go down to my local store and buy one. I can have one in ten minutes. Not only that, but the sales people can answer any questions I might have about it. If it's defective, I bring it back to the store and buy a new one. You buy one online. You'll have it no earlier than Tuesday (if you pay for overnight shipping and if the random online store ships same day). If it's defective, you've got to wait a few more weeks to ship yours back, and get a replacement. There are more than likely, no real people who can answer any questions you might have about it.
And of course, I know that my purchase supports my neighbors, and my town, and my state. Your purchase supports a warehouse somewhere in the middle of a field in the MidWest, where people are paid minimum wage to put stuff in boxes.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Sure, the current tax structure is a mess all over, whether it's at the local, state, or federal level. It's a nightmare to negotiate, and it's lopsided in more ways than anybody could hope to enumerate. I'm talking about morality on a local level.
Local stores MUST collect and pay sales tax. If they don't then the owners, quite literally, go to jail. There's no room for negotiation there.
The problem is when people choose not to buy locally in order to skirt sales tax. When people do that, they're ignoring all of the other benefits that local stores provide (instant access to whatever they want, the ability to see and use the product before they buy, before and after sales support, etc.) in order to shave a few nickels. Those people are penalizing local merchants for a system that they (the local merchants) cannot change. They're also making a conscious effort not to support their community. They're choosing NOT to support their neighbors. They're choosing NOT to support their local governments. People really need to think just a tiny bit beyond their own wallets, and consider if they'd like living in a community with no local retail businesses, since that is the logical result of their actions.
The Constitutional piece will have to be dealt with. Obviously, the "Founding Fathers" couldn't predict "online shopping", so changes will have to be made. I don't know how or why or when, but something will be done about it.
That adds up.
Sure it does. But it's certainly not an undue burden. The online stores already have *significant* savings over brick and mortar when it comes to rent, utilities, employees, building upfit and maintenance, shoplifting and shrinkage, etc. The cost advantage that online retailers have over physical retailers is *enormous* to say the least. Having to pay a small fee (or even a large fee) to a service that maintains all of the tax rates and payments is in no way an undue burden. It's a cost of doing business, and if the online retailer can't cut it, then so be it.
It used to be fun to live in Washington State, having no income tax, while shopping totally in Oregon, which had no state sales tax. My friends that lived in Vancouver Washington were overjoyed at their 20% higher net-of-taxes income possibilities.
You're saying that it's "fun" to deliberately game the system to avoid paying taxes? So what? That doesn't make it right morally, ethically, or legally. That's certainly not something that I would brag about. Did your friends ever think beyond their own wallet, as to the damage that they were doing to Washington's brick and mortar businesses? Did your friends ever consider if Washington would be such a great state to live in if most of the brick and mortar stores said "Fuck it. We can't compete with these people who just want to avoid paying taxes. We're closing up shop"? What you're describing is really the height of selfish, greedy consumerism run amok.
The fun starts when you get ZipCodes that span City, County or State boundaries...and also when you start having to apply taxes historically because of crediting returns, etc.
That's a very, very simple programming problem. Crunching numbers is what computers are good at. As a brick-and-mortar and online retailer, I'm not really worried. Most employers already pay for a payroll tax service that makes sure that all of the deductions are correct when writing paychecks.
The thing is, that you can look at this issue like it's money-grubbing on the part of the politicians, which I'm sure is part of the story. Another important thing to realize is that some kind of national sales tax collection law thing is necessary to protect brick and mortar stores. There's no possible way that a brick and mortar store can compete with an online store if price is all people care about (and apparently, from the number of Slashdotters who say that they buy a lot online, price *is* the only issue to many people). Even if somehow web hosting costs were even in the neighborhood of the costs it takes to run a physical location (they aren't), that sales tax makes the difference in price.
In the U.S. you would need a complete database of Zipcodes, and, or addresses to resolve the tax rate. Ugh! Now you have to maintain that, and that is probably on a monthly basis, not even yearly.
It's not a big deal. That's a cost of doing business. Besides, if this happens, it'll be built into all of the major shopping cart software inside of a week.
Somehow, I doubt that people buying a $600 game system will care if their power bill goes up $1 (or $10 or $20) a month. Power is one of those things that most people ignore and simply pay unless it's completely out of whack. My commercial power bill fluctuates by sometimes as much as a hundred bucks a month, but even that's not enough to make it worth my time to figure out what might be causing it.
Have any of us bothered to look at the patents? Are they good and valid? Did Verizon truly invent something, and thus, perhaps, because of their investment, deserve some level of protection against theft in exchange for them contributing to the overall body of knowledge? Perhaps these patents are bogus, but I haven't seen anyone in this discussion yet attack Verizon/the PTO on the merits of the patents.
By "us", do you mean the kids and geeks who read Slashdot, as opposed to the professional patent attorneys that work for Verizon and Vonage? Do you really think that it matters what a bunch of unqualified regular people who happen to read a geek blog think?
TV as we know it is a rapidly dying market. More than half of the people I know don't have an antenna/cable/satellite TV. I haven't had a "TV" for anything other than games and DVD's for 5+ years. The quality of the content on "TV" is consistently "lowest common denominator" and it's beyond absurd to pay for TV (cable or satellite), and then have to sit through advertisements.
You're right... Imagine the Slashdot anger if the Feds said that all Linux needs to be standardized according to RedHat v204.x. Oooh! That would be naaaasty!
Apparently, Mr. Upton has never played any of the modern Grand Theft Auto games. I'm personally insulted that he called my favorite series of games "trash". He should probably realize that calling one of the best selling games in video game history "trash" is equivalent to alienating (or just plain pissing off) a very large percentage of his constituents. I can't imagine a politician calling a mainstream music act "trash". Ann Coulter is trash. Grand Theft Auto is a very good video game for adults.
In case anybody has somehow forgotten... Microsoft went from not existing, to becoming the #1 software producer in the world inside of 25 years. They're one of the smartest, largest, and most profitable companies in the world. Call me crazy, but I'd bet that they have a pretty damn good team of lawyers that had this whole situation figured out a long time before anybody in the public ever caught wind of the MS/Novell deal. You guys can debate about what you think that the law says all you want, and even "PR whore" Bruce Perens can wave his hands around and predict the demise of Microsoft, but I find it very, very hard to believe that Microsoft would make as large a mistake as Bruce and his GPL buddies seem to think that they did.
Yeah, I got the newer version of the PS2 that Sony shipped me after I wore out the drives on the first two PS2's, I had. Good point about the remote in the dark... I've been using it for so long (and I know all of the buttons by now), that I forgot about that.
Those interested in a home theater want dedicated hardware. They don't want audio/visual performance compromised.
I couldn't disagree more. I use the PS2 as my "home theater" DVD player because it's one of the best I've seen/used and I'm a movie nut. I think that the days of having 10 black plastic boxes in your living room just to play the same shiny plastic discs is quickly ending. There's no reason to have all of that redundant electronics when you've got stuff like the PS2. From what I understand, in Japan, and other places where real estate is insanely expensive, that using game boxes as DVD players is actually quite common. (DVD player in the Wii and DVD player in the Xbox 360
I really like having one tiny, unobtrusive box that handles all of my games, music, and movies. I think that having a stand-alone DVD player is absurd in this day and age. There's simply no reason for it in most cases.
Speak for yourself. I want a box that can play games, music, and movies, all in one.
I love this silly blog... "according to news sources..."... like it's some kind of secret database. Here's a better source: http://www.skyhookwireless.com/ On their front page
"Skyhook Wireless provides a software-only positioning system that leverages a nationwide database of known Wi-Fi access points to calculate the precise location of any Wi-Fi enabled device. "
Who would be surprised about this? Are there still people out there who think that there's some magical way of being attached to the Net and still being anonymous? You've gotta be especially naive to think that your wireless router, broadcasting information into the air, isn't going to be picked up by somebody other than you.
Just curious... do most people still use *tape* for backup? Personally, I use multiple hard drives and a DVD burner on a daily basis.
And has doing all of what you described been worth saving $200?
I don't understand what my business blocking IP traffic from China and Russia has to do with your sister's problems with Comcast.
Maybe because that's the ultimate way to fix all wireless problems?