I welcome sales tax for these merchants as it will probably encourage shopping in the local economy, which is better for small business and lesser municipalities.......
What about the small business that buys things on-line, saves money, and passes the savings on to local customers? What about the lesser municipalities who also buy things on-line, save money, and pass the savings on to those whom they govern?
If (big if...) one accepts the proposition that sales taxes are legitimate, then there's no reason Amazon should be any less taxed than the bookstore down the street....
Sales taxes are PAID by the purchaser. They are COLLECTED by the merchant. The merchant is also responsible for sending the collected sales tax money to the appropriate taxing authority. The bookstore down the street collects sales tax from you when you walk into the store and purchase a book. Your home address, work address, state of residency, etc. do not matter.
A very good question. Let me endeavor to give you a good answer.
The purpose of state sales taxes is to provide services to the people and businesses of your state. If I own a business outside of that state, it's not really fair to ask me to pay for services that I am not able to utilize, even if I am selling an item to somebody who lives in your state.
Now, you could point out that a sales tax almost always is passed directly to the consumer, so it's really my customers who are paying the tax, but it's still being collected from my business, which means it's my accounting headache.
Furthermore, as a consumer, I don't mind paying state and local sales taxes on items I buy in brick-and-mortar stores. It's logical... that money goes to pave the road so I can get to the store, and to pay the cops to keep the store from being ripped off, and to pay the fire department to keep it from burning to the ground, it even pays for public education so they can hire minimum-wage 20 year-olds who have an outside chance of getting my change correct. Since state and local infrastructure makes our transaction possible, it seems reasonable to me that we, as buyer and seller, help fund that infrastructure. In the case of something I buy from Amazon.com or EBay, how does the state justify its claim to a slice of the pie? It didn't do anything to facillitate the trade. [Flamebait Warning] Collecting a compulsory percentage without offering anything in return is called racketeering. [Flame off]
The purpose of state sales tax is to collect tax revenue for the state. The state (or locality) is under no obligation to keep the roads paved or fix the pot holes. The locality is under no obligation to protect your store from being ripped off (that is your responsibility (i.e. buy an alarm, gun, etc.)). Should your store catch fire, the fire department is under no obligation to see that it does not burn to the ground. The state is under no obligation to train your perspective employees (i.e. min wage 20 year olds).
You are a business owner and you will collect sales tax for the state/locality whether you like it or not. Whether you receive good services or no services at all. Whether you think someone else (i.e. a private company) could provide better services or not. That is the nature of taxation. It is NOT voluntary, it does not care whether you "mind" or not. You will pay. And when you don't your store will be closed down, your employees will be sent home.
Actually, my position is this: immigration numbers should apply across the board. If I have to face competition from an infinite number of Chinese scientists, I should at least reap the cost savings from having that competition across the economy.
Actual competition would probably also raise wage rates within your profession. A problem with H-1B or any other restrictive immigration program is that the foreigners are on unequal footing. If the foreigner cannot find a job or does not accept a job at low pay they will have to return to their home country. This leads to foreigners driving down the wage rate. Think about it, when you go out and look for a job you can turn it down if the pay is too low, the benefits are inadequate, or reasonable safety standards are not exercised. You will not get tossed out of the country and can continue looking for work. You can also take the time to negotiate with potential employers, form unions (which I do not recommend), start new companies, etc.
If foreigners had the same freedom to pursue these activities I think you would see a much healthier job environment for native born American workers. New companies created by foreigners would also provide job opportunties to Americans. Protectionism ultimately results in poverty for everyone. True competition (without barriers to foreigners) will result in prosperity.
The US Constitution says that you have the right to own a gun. A tool with but one purpose and that is to kill. Killing is illegal
Murder is illegal. Killing to defend yourself or someone else from great bodily harm or death is not illegal. Yes, someone could use a gun to commit a murder or to kill someone in self defense. Most frequently handguns, in this country, are brandished to deter an attack. Guns are thus an effective way to both defend oneself and not bring harm to your attacker.
In the past the U.S. government has classified crypto tools as arms. Could a defense against the DMCA be the second amendment? Could attempts by the FBI to mandate backdoors into crypto systems be an attack on the second amendment as well as the fourth?
The second amendment does not apply solely to firearms. The second amendment is concerned with arms and the right of the citizenry to use them to defend their rights against oppressive and tyranical government. Encryption technology can be a useful arm to defend your rights against unconstitutional laws. Many people feel that the constitution does not authorize the federal government to impose a law such as the DMCA. Cracking tools, are thus arms, used by the people to defend their rights.
Sounds like a bit of a stretch. Maybe, but nonetheless there are many important uses of crypto.
The problem with DRM is that both parties do not necessarily want to keep it (the movie, song, etc) a secret. DRM technology attempts to create a high enough incentive for the customer to want to keep it a secret. So far nothing has been able to do this.
Legislation has everything to do with markets, free or otherwise, indeed no market (free or otherwise) can exist in a complete vacuum of legislation and function coherently (if you really need it spelled out for you, consider any number of ungoverned lands as well as the behavior of the black market itself. Lack of regulation means lack of laws for a court to interpret, i.e. a lack of jurisprudence and the rule of the gun, libertarian myths of anarchistic utopia notwithstanding).
Libertarians support the rights of the individual and believe that individuals bring government into existence in order to protect and secure these rights. Fundamental to libertarian philosophy is respect for the rights of others. Libertarians argue that government should be small and limited to protecting and securing individual rights. Government should not interfere with commerce unless there is fraud.
In regards to issues involving copyright you will find great debate within the libertarian community on this subject. One book that you may find interesting is Copy Fights.
No campaign finance law has ever succeeded in keeping money and big money corporations out of politics. People seem not to care about their individual rights and do not defend them. It is easy for politicians to pass and enforce laws that infringe on individual rights when no one stands to oppose them.
As a consultant I have tried to build my reputation on quality and professionalism. When a company looks to a consultant to do software development they always have concerns. Will the project be done on time and on budget? Will there be a lot of bugs? Will I receive packaged deliverables for everything I ordered? Will I be able to hand these deliverables to my internal developers six months from now to work on? The goal of a consultant, or any professional, is to sell their time for as much money as possible. In order to be able to sell your time for 3x that of the next guy, you have to offer more to the customer in terms of the whole experience. If you are an honest consultant who wants to make a lot of money off your clients in the long term, always ask yourself "What is best for my client? What will satisfy their needs and allow them to make a bazillion dollars from my work? How can I do this project is such a way that the investment they have made in my time will pay off in folds?" If you can develop a reputation for making your clients a lot of money (or saving them a lot of money) you will be able to charge higher rates. And then of course you can go to the Apple Store and buy yourself a $16,000 Dual processor G4 with dual 23-inch cinema displays.
Standardization has a lot of benefits. Operational efficiency is one of them. However, once your standard (over priced over-kill commercial software, is costing you more than lost efficiency it is time to find a new standard. As for expensive government hammers and nails, most of that price is a political reward for a campaign contribution.
More important than invading your privacy, the ID number is used as a tax identification number. Tax avoidance and evasion cost welfare states money and in turn cost the politicians votes. Most European countries have a far higher degree of socialism than the U.S. and thus do whatever they can to keep track of their citizens' financial dealings. The U.S. has been playing catchup for quite some time. In the U.S. the national ID will be sold to us as a way to prevent terrorism. In reality it will be a way to collect more tax.
You either bring Adit over here on an H1B, or send the software to India to be written by his company in Bangalore.
Either way, it's supply and demand, chumpolas - the service economy runs on Mexicans and other south american immigrants, mostly illegal.
Why would software be any different?
It's a global market, folks - if you want to keep your jobs and their 80K salaries, you've got to be better at something than your international competition, just like a steel manufacturer or anybody else who competes in the global economy.
Very true indeed. The best way for Americans to compete is on quality and professionalism. We can charge higher prices (i.e. salaries and benefits) if we provide better quality and professionalism on the job. Having the government come in and protect us from foreign competition will force U.S. companies to either relocate offshore or at least significantly reduce their U.S. workforce.
In regards to H1B and immigration law, the government should not create laws that put foreigners at a legal disadvantage. If foreigners have the same rights as U.S. citizens they will demand adequate salaries and benefits. Weakening immigration law would be better for U.S. engineers. That way companies could not say to immigrants "Hey, since you are a foreigner, you are going to accept a lower salary, fewer benefits, and respect or I am going to call INS and have you kicked out of the country." When foreigners cannot be kicked out of the country so easily, they can demand better.
Just think about it, before you start blaming those "damn foreigners".
Freedom of association and freedom from unlawful search and seizure ensure the peace in our society. At any time, a decent number of motivated people will be discontent with the current government. It is their right and responsibility to try to bring about change in the current government through non-violent means. Being able to organize and communicate in privacy is necessary for these individuals to bring about change.
Throughout time, it has always been the case, that these individuals are in the minority. The majority will go along with whoever wins. Over the last 100 years the power of the US federal government has slowly but surely increased. Those committed to reversing this trend will face more and more invasions of their privacy by those in the federal government with something to lose.
The rule of law does not require you to support,defend, or enforce laws that you find to be immoral or without merit. The rule of law only requires that you try to change unjust laws through peaceful means. In regards to intellectualy property, I urge you to consider that if the IP producer doesn't feel they are making enough money producing, maintaining, and updating the IP it will not occur. I especially urge Mac OS X users to buy the commercial software that they like so that various software producers will continue to produce it.
Ignoring the time value of money figure that $200 is equal to 15.4 months of Tivo service. This is a good deal if you believe : 1) Tivo will be in business in 16 months 2) You will not upgrade to a new recorder
Verio's Virtual
Private Server runs a modified FreeBSD 4.2 to accomplish this. Verio acquired best.com (bay area legends) and their VPS technology quite some time ago.
Scott said "Anonymity breeds irresponsibility. I don't want you to have anonymity. You should not have too much privacy. When you go to rent a cropduster you should have to show this national ID". I am not quoting him exactly, you can get the video of his presentation at:
breakfastbriefings.stanford.edu/video.html
So we have heard this before, McNealy does not believe in privacy. I was tempted to stand up and ask him "How many abortions has your wife had?". He things his Java powered National ID card will make him safe from terrorists. Well Scott when the terrorist has no criminal history and perfectly passes a background check and still decides to die in order to further his cause, how safe will you feel then? McNealy spent the rest of his talk explaining monopolies and why Microsoft is evil and must be stopped. Some/. readers buy into the whole legitimacy of antitrust law. That is an argument for another time. Don't for a minute buy into the idea that Scott McNealy believes in antitrust law, it is merely a weapon against his rival Microsoft. A good question for Scott, "Since Intellectual Property Laws grant Microsoft monopoly power over their software, would you support the repeal of all such laws?" I think the answer would be interesting.
You already gave up most of your civil liberties to have an income tax (16th amendment). Just think about all of the information the government has on you, and all of the powers of the IRS and Federal Reserve.
Re:Apply the same arguments to other areas of safe
on
PDF Virus Spotted
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· Score: 1
Obviously, if the industry cannot police itself, and the free market doesn't yield acceptable results, government regulation is the only reasonable recourse (libertarian knee-jerk reactions aside). In the case of aircraft the FAA has stepped in, and while their are alot of regulations, as a pilot I can say the vast majority of them are reasonable and do a great deal of good.
Most established companies love to see regulation in their industries, particularly when the regulations only affect their competitors. Very few politicians care about your personal safety, your computer security, or anything of the like. Their only goal is to stay in power, they will use regulations as yet another political tool. Government imposed safety regulations result in more adults with a child's mindset.
The fact of the matter is that your average Windows user does not care about security. They do not care to learn about security, they do not care to deal with security. They expect the IT department to deal with it, or Microsoft to deal with it. Most of these mail everybody the virus in the outlook address book are no big deal to most people. So what, they got a few extra e-mails. Even if the virus mails their quicken files to everybody, they probably still won't care. By asking for regulation you are trying to get the government to impose your preferences and values on everyone else. By inviting more regulation into the industry, you will eventually see regulations that you do not believe in (like say the DMCA). What will you do then?
I wonder what China's plan will be when the Olympics roll into town in '08. With thousands of tourists (who likely will want to send email/photos back home and surf the web to see what's happening back home), how do they think they can control the access? Do they plan to only allow unfettered access to the athletes? Or perhaps you'll need to have special access to certain Internet cafe's which will permit access to any web site.
I visited Beijing, China for approximately 6 weeks during the spring of 2000. I used various Internet cafes to check my e-mail, browse the web, and use RealVideo. In some cafes I found that www.cnn.com was blocked, in others it was wide open. I think that the cafes usually found a way to get around the censorship if they wanted to.
An important thing to remember is that in China there are one set of rules for foreigners, one set of rules for regular citizens, and one set of rules for Communist party members. Foreigners and party members can probably look at any content they want. Only the proles must be shielded from the indecent outside world.
My observation of Chinese college students, however, indicates that they are far more fascinated with the Internet than American college students. One local Internet cafe charged 5 renminbi (3 renminbi could buy you a plate of dumplings next door) per hour for Internet access. Students would be there at all hours to send e-mail to friends in other cities and to correspond with people they had never met. Recently some auction sites were becoming popular.
The chinese government is in a difficult position as they want the educated class to be able to use technology for productive purposes. However, they do not want the educated class to be poisoned by outside ideas. Stuart Eichert
To be fair, most people who worked for IBM in the 70s and 80s aren't there anymore. Gertsner fired a ton of people in the early 90s. Maybe it isn't the same company. Then again, lets judge them by their actions not their advertising. Stuart Eichert
Actually the consumers took over. Specifically the non-techie residential consumers who made the Internet a true innovation and commercial success. They do not demand 100% reliability at this time and thus will not pay for it. Now, if the cable TV goes down for 5 minutes you will hear them scream. Until 100% (or rather 99.999%) reliability is really desired (i.e. they will call and yell when it goes down) you will not see too many companies wasting the money on redundancy.
Right now if you said to the average residential DSL subscriber, "hey you are getting like 90% reliability, for an extra $15/mo I can get that up to 99% reliability" he probably wouldn't care. Stuart Eichert
Why do they call them public schools?
on
Sean In The Middle
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· Score: 1
A "public" school would be open to all children of the public, not just the ones deemed acceptable by the school administration. Let's call these schools what they are, "government controlled" schools. Whether Sean or his father likes the government controlled school does not matter. They still will be forced to pay taxes to support it. So will everyone else in town, even if they are 75 years old and don't have school-age children.
Most people seem to think that I will benefit from a more educated populace. I agree. However, this is no justification for taxing me and giving my money to a government controlled school. Government schools will never improve simply because they have a guaranteed funding source (taxpayers) and a guaranteed client base (children of parents who can't afford to pay taxes and private school tuition and who don't want to violate the compulsory attendance laws).
Government run schools are a failure. Stuart Eichert
As a libertarian I have some disagreements with my fellow Libertarians.
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with corporations collecting data about people. Corporations have an innocent and noble aim, to make money.
They have no interest in advancing political agendas or using that information to harm people. They use data to benefit people - through
focused marketing. With information, they can give us the products we want.
Not all corporations are evil. Not all corporations are good. I support the free market, but not every action of every corporation. I am most concerned with corporations that try to use the power of government to achieve their aim of making money. Examples being the RIAA and the MPAA.
n short, we should live in a society of limited government. If the functions that government presently executes, such as defense of the realm
and policing the streets, were carried out by private corporations at the behest of out citizens, everything would be much fairer. Look at the
rioting in Cincinati. If policing were private, that would not have happened.
Individuals decide to riot, not cities. A private police force does not guarantee that people will not riot. There really is no guarantee that others will choose to behave in a peaceful and non-violent manner. As a Libertarian I recognize that life is full of risk and believe that I have a fundamental right to defend myself against violent individuals. Thus no government should take away my right to own firearms, hire security guards, or install an alarm system in my home or business.
Data being available publicvally is good, as long as it is not abused. Corporations have a record of non-abuse, and are owned by the people.
The government does not and is not. That is all we need to know.
Again this is too general. Many individual corporations have a history of non-abuse. However, other individual corporations do not. Remember that corporations are only a legal entity. They are owned, controlled, and operated by individual human beings. Some of these human beings see nothing wrong with using the force of government to achieve their end. They have no problem lobbying for regulations to hurt competitors or rules that invade the privacy of consumers.
Remember that the government does not want privacy or anonymity. No government wants that. The government wants to be able to track everything you do. Think about all of the regulations that the government imposes on you and how they stop you from protecting your privacy. Any and all non-cash (i.e. anything that isn't a cashier's check, money order, traveler's cheque, or currency) financial transactions require the use of your social security number (or taxpayer ID) so that the government can make sure people are paying their income tax. You can't rent an apartment without proving that you have the legal right to live in the US. This allows the government to know where you live and keep immigrants out of the country.
In short, I am not afraid of all corporations. Only those that conspire with the government. Stuart Eichert
Slashdot Mirror
What about the small business that buys things on-line, saves money, and passes the savings on to local customers? What about the lesser municipalities who also buy things on-line, save money, and pass the savings on to those whom they govern?
A tax on one, is truly a tax on all!
Sales taxes are PAID by the purchaser. They are COLLECTED by the merchant. The merchant is also responsible for sending the collected sales tax money to the appropriate taxing authority. The bookstore down the street collects sales tax from you when you walk into the store and purchase a book. Your home address, work address, state of residency, etc. do not matter.
Now, you could point out that a sales tax almost always is passed directly to the consumer, so it's really my customers who are paying the tax, but it's still being collected from my business, which means it's my accounting headache.
Furthermore, as a consumer, I don't mind paying state and local sales taxes on items I buy in brick-and-mortar stores. It's logical... that money goes to pave the road so I can get to the store, and to pay the cops to keep the store from being ripped off, and to pay the fire department to keep it from burning to the ground, it even pays for public education so they can hire minimum-wage 20 year-olds who have an outside chance of getting my change correct. Since state and local infrastructure makes our transaction possible, it seems reasonable to me that we, as buyer and seller, help fund that infrastructure. In the case of something I buy from Amazon.com or EBay, how does the state justify its claim to a slice of the pie? It didn't do anything to facillitate the trade. [Flamebait Warning] Collecting a compulsory percentage without offering anything in return is called racketeering. [Flame off]
The purpose of state sales tax is to collect tax revenue for the state. The state (or locality) is under no obligation to keep the roads paved or fix the pot holes. The locality is under no obligation to protect your store from being ripped off (that is your responsibility (i.e. buy an alarm, gun, etc.)). Should your store catch fire, the fire department is under no obligation to see that it does not burn to the ground. The state is under no obligation to train your perspective employees (i.e. min wage 20 year olds).
You are a business owner and you will collect sales tax for the state/locality whether you like it or not. Whether you receive good services or no services at all. Whether you think someone else (i.e. a private company) could provide better services or not. That is the nature of taxation. It is NOT voluntary, it does not care whether you "mind" or not. You will pay. And when you don't your store will be closed down, your employees will be sent home.
Actual competition would probably also raise wage rates within your profession. A problem with H-1B or any other restrictive immigration program is that the foreigners are on unequal footing. If the foreigner cannot find a job or does not accept a job at low pay they will have to return to their home country. This leads to foreigners driving down the wage rate. Think about it, when you go out and look for a job you can turn it down if the pay is too low, the benefits are inadequate, or reasonable safety standards are not exercised. You will not get tossed out of the country and can continue looking for work. You can also take the time to negotiate with potential employers, form unions (which I do not recommend), start new companies, etc.
If foreigners had the same freedom to pursue these activities I think you would see a much healthier job environment for native born American workers. New companies created by foreigners would also provide job opportunties to Americans. Protectionism ultimately results in poverty for everyone. True competition (without barriers to foreigners) will result in prosperity.
Murder is illegal. Killing to defend yourself or someone else from great bodily harm or death is not illegal. Yes, someone could use a gun to commit a murder or to kill someone in self defense. Most frequently handguns, in this country, are brandished to deter an attack. Guns are thus an effective way to both defend oneself and not bring harm to your attacker.
The second amendment does not apply solely to firearms. The second amendment is concerned with arms and the right of the citizenry to use them to defend their rights against oppressive and tyranical government. Encryption technology can be a useful arm to defend your rights against unconstitutional laws. Many people feel that the constitution does not authorize the federal government to impose a law such as the DMCA. Cracking tools, are thus arms, used by the people to defend their rights.
Sounds like a bit of a stretch. Maybe, but nonetheless there are many important uses of crypto.
The problem with DRM is that both parties do not necessarily want to keep it (the movie, song, etc) a secret. DRM technology attempts to create a high enough incentive for the customer to want to keep it a secret. So far nothing has been able to do this.
Legislation has everything to do with markets, free or otherwise, indeed no market (free or otherwise) can exist in a complete vacuum of legislation and function coherently (if you really need it spelled out for you, consider any number of ungoverned lands as well as the behavior of the black market itself. Lack of regulation means lack of laws for a court to interpret, i.e. a lack of jurisprudence and the rule of the gun, libertarian myths of anarchistic utopia notwithstanding).
Libertarians support the rights of the individual and believe that individuals bring government into existence in order to protect and secure these rights. Fundamental to libertarian philosophy is respect for the rights of others. Libertarians argue that government should be small and limited to protecting and securing individual rights. Government should not interfere with commerce unless there is fraud.
In regards to issues involving copyright you will find great debate within the libertarian community on this subject. One book that you may find interesting is Copy Fights.
No campaign finance law has ever succeeded in keeping money and big money corporations out of politics. People seem not to care about their individual rights and do not defend them. It is easy for politicians to pass and enforce laws that infringe on individual rights when no one stands to oppose them.
As a consultant I have tried to build my reputation on quality and professionalism. When a company looks to a consultant to do software development they always have concerns. Will the project be done on time and on budget? Will there be a lot of bugs? Will I receive packaged deliverables for everything I ordered? Will I be able to hand these deliverables to my internal developers six months from now to work on? The goal of a consultant, or any professional, is to sell their time for as much money as possible. In order to be able to sell your time for 3x that of the next guy, you have to offer more to the customer in terms of the whole experience. If you are an honest consultant who wants to make a lot of money off your clients in the long term, always ask yourself "What is best for my client? What will satisfy their needs and allow them to make a bazillion dollars from my work? How can I do this project is such a way that the investment they have made in my time will pay off in folds?" If you can develop a reputation for making your clients a lot of money (or saving them a lot of money) you will be able to charge higher rates. And then of course you can go to the Apple Store and buy yourself a $16,000 Dual processor G4 with dual 23-inch cinema displays.
Standardization has a lot of benefits. Operational efficiency is one of them. However, once your standard (over priced over-kill commercial software, is costing you more than lost efficiency it is time to find a new standard. As for expensive government hammers and nails, most of that price is a political reward for a campaign contribution.
More important than invading your privacy, the ID number is used as a tax identification number. Tax avoidance and evasion cost welfare states money and in turn cost the politicians votes. Most European countries have a far higher degree of socialism than the U.S. and thus do whatever they can to keep track of their citizens' financial dealings. The U.S. has been playing catchup for quite some time. In the U.S. the national ID will be sold to us as a way to prevent terrorism. In reality it will be a way to collect more tax.
Very true indeed. The best way for Americans to compete is on quality and professionalism. We can charge higher prices (i.e. salaries and benefits) if we provide better quality and professionalism on the job. Having the government come in and protect us from foreign competition will force U.S. companies to either relocate offshore or at least significantly reduce their U.S. workforce.
In regards to H1B and immigration law, the government should not create laws that put foreigners at a legal disadvantage. If foreigners have the same rights as U.S. citizens they will demand adequate salaries and benefits. Weakening immigration law would be better for U.S. engineers. That way companies could not say to immigrants "Hey, since you are a foreigner, you are going to accept a lower salary, fewer benefits, and respect or I am going to call INS and have you kicked out of the country." When foreigners cannot be kicked out of the country so easily, they can demand better.
Just think about it, before you start blaming those "damn foreigners".
Freedom of association and freedom from unlawful search and seizure ensure the peace in our society. At any time, a decent number of motivated people will be discontent with the current government. It is their right and responsibility to try to bring about change in the current government through non-violent means. Being able to organize and communicate in privacy is necessary for these individuals to bring about change.
Throughout time, it has always been the case, that these individuals are in the minority. The majority will go along with whoever wins. Over the last 100 years the power of the US federal government has slowly but surely increased. Those committed to reversing this trend will face more and more invasions of their privacy by those in the federal government with something to lose.
The rule of law does not require you to support ,defend, or enforce laws that you find to be immoral or without merit. The rule of law only requires that you try to change unjust laws through peaceful means. In regards to intellectualy property, I urge you to consider that if the IP producer doesn't feel they are making enough money producing, maintaining, and updating the IP it will not occur. I especially urge Mac OS X users to buy the commercial software that they like so that various software producers will continue to produce it.
Ignoring the time value of money figure that $200 is equal to 15.4 months of Tivo service. This is a good deal if you believe :
1) Tivo will be in business in 16 months
2) You will not upgrade to a new recorder
Verio's Virtual Private Server runs a modified FreeBSD 4.2 to accomplish this. Verio acquired best.com (bay area legends) and their VPS technology quite some time ago.
Thailand National ID System
He justs wants to sell Java cards.
So we have heard this before, McNealy does not believe in privacy. I was tempted to stand up and ask him "How many abortions has your wife had?". He things his Java powered National ID card will make him safe from terrorists. Well Scott when the terrorist has no criminal history and perfectly passes a background check and still decides to die in order to further his cause, how safe will you feel then? McNealy spent the rest of his talk explaining monopolies and why Microsoft is evil and must be stopped. Some /. readers buy into the whole legitimacy of antitrust law. That is an argument for another time. Don't for a minute buy into the idea that Scott McNealy believes in antitrust law, it is merely a weapon against his rival Microsoft. A good question for Scott, "Since Intellectual Property Laws grant Microsoft monopoly power over their software, would you support the repeal of all such laws?" I think the answer would be interesting.
You already gave up most of your civil liberties to have an income tax (16th amendment). Just think about all of the information the government has on you, and all of the powers of the IRS and Federal Reserve.
Most established companies love to see regulation in their industries, particularly when the regulations only affect their competitors. Very few politicians care about your personal safety, your computer security, or anything of the like. Their only goal is to stay in power, they will use regulations as yet another political tool. Government imposed safety regulations result in more adults with a child's mindset.
The fact of the matter is that your average Windows user does not care about security. They do not care to learn about security, they do not care to deal with security. They expect the IT department to deal with it, or Microsoft to deal with it. Most of these mail everybody the virus in the outlook address book are no big deal to most people. So what, they got a few extra e-mails. Even if the virus mails their quicken files to everybody, they probably still won't care. By asking for regulation you are trying to get the government to impose your preferences and values on everyone else. By inviting more regulation into the industry, you will eventually see regulations that you do not believe in (like say the DMCA). What will you do then?
I visited Beijing, China for approximately 6 weeks during the spring of 2000. I used various Internet cafes to check my e-mail, browse the web, and use RealVideo. In some cafes I found that www.cnn.com was blocked, in others it was wide open. I think that the cafes usually found a way to get around the censorship if they wanted to.
An important thing to remember is that in China there are one set of rules for foreigners, one set of rules for regular citizens, and one set of rules for Communist party members. Foreigners and party members can probably look at any content they want. Only the proles must be shielded from the indecent outside world.
My observation of Chinese college students, however, indicates that they are far more fascinated with the Internet than American college students. One local Internet cafe charged 5 renminbi (3 renminbi could buy you a plate of dumplings next door) per hour for Internet access. Students would be there at all hours to send e-mail to friends in other cities and to correspond with people they had never met. Recently some auction sites were becoming popular.
The chinese government is in a difficult position as they want the educated class to be able to use technology for productive purposes. However, they do not want the educated class to be poisoned by outside ideas.
Stuart Eichert
To be fair, most people who worked for IBM in the 70s and 80s aren't there anymore. Gertsner fired a ton of people in the early 90s. Maybe it isn't the same company. Then again, lets judge them by their actions not their advertising.
Stuart Eichert
Right now if you said to the average residential DSL subscriber, "hey you are getting like 90% reliability, for an extra $15/mo I can get that up to 99% reliability" he probably wouldn't care.
Stuart Eichert
Most people seem to think that I will benefit from a more educated populace. I agree. However, this is no justification for taxing me and giving my money to a government controlled school. Government schools will never improve simply because they have a guaranteed funding source (taxpayers) and a guaranteed client base (children of parents who can't afford to pay taxes and private school tuition and who don't want to violate the compulsory attendance laws).
Government run schools are a failure.
Stuart Eichert
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with corporations collecting data about people. Corporations have an innocent and noble aim, to make money. They have no interest in advancing political agendas or using that information to harm people. They use data to benefit people - through focused marketing. With information, they can give us the products we want.
Not all corporations are evil. Not all corporations are good. I support the free market, but not every action of every corporation. I am most concerned with corporations that try to use the power of government to achieve their aim of making money. Examples being the RIAA and the MPAA.
n short, we should live in a society of limited government. If the functions that government presently executes, such as defense of the realm and policing the streets, were carried out by private corporations at the behest of out citizens, everything would be much fairer. Look at the rioting in Cincinati. If policing were private, that would not have happened.
Individuals decide to riot, not cities. A private police force does not guarantee that people will not riot. There really is no guarantee that others will choose to behave in a peaceful and non-violent manner. As a Libertarian I recognize that life is full of risk and believe that I have a fundamental right to defend myself against violent individuals. Thus no government should take away my right to own firearms, hire security guards, or install an alarm system in my home or business.
Data being available publicvally is good, as long as it is not abused. Corporations have a record of non-abuse, and are owned by the people. The government does not and is not. That is all we need to know.
Again this is too general. Many individual corporations have a history of non-abuse. However, other individual corporations do not. Remember that corporations are only a legal entity. They are owned, controlled, and operated by individual human beings. Some of these human beings see nothing wrong with using the force of government to achieve their end. They have no problem lobbying for regulations to hurt competitors or rules that invade the privacy of consumers.
Remember that the government does not want privacy or anonymity. No government wants that. The government wants to be able to track everything you do. Think about all of the regulations that the government imposes on you and how they stop you from protecting your privacy. Any and all non-cash (i.e. anything that isn't a cashier's check, money order, traveler's cheque, or currency) financial transactions require the use of your social security number (or taxpayer ID) so that the government can make sure people are paying their income tax. You can't rent an apartment without proving that you have the legal right to live in the US. This allows the government to know where you live and keep immigrants out of the country.
In short, I am not afraid of all corporations. Only those that conspire with the government.Stuart Eichert