But that doesn't change the fact that the second part of the statement (companies want people to work for cheaper) is left out in the press releases and news pieces done on the subject. The situation is portrayed as a dire shortage while old tech workers are fired and new grads are hired on for cheaper. Yes, this is what a market is but the people going into it as workers are not informed about that second half of the statement.
I think it's about the cheap market here. Relentlessly trumpeting that "we can't hire enough skilled talent" encourages more people to get a degree or enter that job market which increases the supply and drops the cost of acquiring talent. A more honest statement would be: "we can't hire enough skilled talent for the wages we want to pay."
It's really no different from the claims in the hospitality and service industry that seek to keep employees there cheap.
You could start your own Journal with OJS or look around in the Public Knowledge Project though you'll probably find (again) that dismally few journals publish good free articles. The reasoning I heard was that the most prestigious journals are expensive and the prestige is tied to that cost. So the cc distributed papers aren't as well-regarded as those with a high price tag behind a firewall.
fwiw I did install OJS just to say I did it and I could've started publishing my own journal within a day if I had the stuff to publish, so joining the PKP shouldn't be that tough for interested institutions (and of course I'm available for consulting at reasonable rates;).
I don't have to do this myself but I have heard about this problem (and wrote a little about it). Your school pays publishers for access to journals and you can't necessarily get to them from home. There is a plugin for Firefox called LibX that makes it easier to search what your school's library has available. It has to be customized somehow to make it work with the school's system. The University of Windsor has customized LibX as Foxy Leddy (Leddy is the school library). Maybe your school has something similar.
No, from elsewhere in this thread it looks like the bill is H. R. 3678 which you can search for (but not directly link to) at The Library of Congress. The relevant part of the definition looks like:
`(D) does not include voice, audio or video programming, or other products and services (except services described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C)) that utilize Internet protocol or any successor protocol and for which there is a charge, regardless of whether such charge is separately stated or aggregated with the charge for services described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C).',
Matter of fact, I don't see anything in the whole bill that says "VoIP". The way I read it, it also excludes anything like TV or radio over IP.
That's helpful. The names on the bill are
Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California, Mr. CANNON, Mr. BOUCHER, Mr. WATT, Mr. ISSA, and Mr. SENSENBRENNER)
Going by the data on the 2005-2006 cycle at OpenSecrets, most of them get a fair chunk of money from some telcos.
Conyers had contributions from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn, Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc in the range of over $9,000 each (they are all in the list of his top contributors at Open Secrets).
Sanchez had contributions from AT&T Inc of $10,000.
Cannon had contributions from AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications, and National Cable & Telecommunications Assn for amounts from $10,000 to $15,000.
Boucher had contributions from AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications, and National Cable & Telecommunications Assn for amounts from $8,000 to $14,000.
Issa got $10,000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn and $11,000 from AT&T Inc.
Sensenbrenner got $10,000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn and $6,500 from AT&T Inc.
Nothing conclusive or anything. There were also contributions from a lot of other companies who might feel differently about the VoIP tax part of this bill, like Comcast and L3 Communications, but it's all food for thought.
I can see how you can hide it easily but that doesn't mean you're not supposed to pay the tax on it, just like in a lot of states you're supposed to remit sales tax for out-of-state purchases. So in practice the tax isn't collected but it's not that a tax isn't levied.
Actually - I read that as VOIP certainly being excluded from the ban (though I agree there isn't much in the article).
Is there any way we can see the proposed amendment instead of just the blurb that Infoworld decided to print? I know Sunlight Foundation backs sites that publish some of this stuff but I have no idea where to find a document like this.
As for how to define VoIP and decide what phone services are close enough to the Telcos territory to get smacked they'll just make up some vague text they can use to sue competitors with later. I wouldn't be surprised if a telco industry body wrote the text of the amendment for them.
If pure VOIP starts getting taxed, then it'll just be adjusted so that it's not technically a VOIP service. E.g. is it VOIP if it includes video? What about in-game voice systems
There are a lot of parts of tax law that are subject to interpretation. Just because it's subjective doesn't prevent them from saying you owe them money.
Here's an easy scenario: VoIP gets taxed when it comes from Vonage or Skype or one of the obvious ones. This goes on for a few years and over time people realize that it's cheaper to buy a World of Warcraft subscription and go use voice chat in Azeroth than it is to buy any phone-only service. The IRS gets wind of it and issues a bulletin clarifying that chat services included in a game are considered VoIP and are therefore taxable at a rate of blah, blah, blah.
It's not any different from a clarification that explains the greens fees on golf-outings where you talk about business aren't tax-deductible.
And yes, I think taxing VoIP (or any other protocol) is stupid and I hope it doesn't happen. But that doesn't mean it won't.
I agree that it's stupid but could you explain again how Skype is untaxable?
It's funny that the original reason for a ban on taxing Internet access had something to do with getting people to innovate without the burden of taxes and yet as soon as we see some innovation it's time for it to get taxed.
So now if I set up a Softphone on my laptop and call an Asterisk server at home I can be charged with evading taxes? I mean, isn't VoIP just a set of protocols?
Seriously though, accounting for every packet takes more than just being a good user, it'd be a monumental task if you've got a desktop Linux distro. I'd like to think that I know all the things that are going out on the Internet from my home network but there are limits, especially when processes are disguising their traffic.
I mean if I find some odd packets going out then discover the name of the host their going appears to be an update server for some application I use then my investigation ends. When that's not a check I do all the time then I'm easy to fool though and my determination could have been wrong for many reasons. This is a problem that's really independent of OS.
It's almost at the point where it'd be easier to have some logging in my router to let me know what's happening. I know corporations have tools like this but is there something straightforward enough for the home Linux geek?
I've been toying with the idea of going to Kubuntu for a while but I haven't had the inclination at the right time:)
It isn't that 64-bit Java doesn't work, it's that there's no plugin for a 64-bit browser. This is even a problem on Windows XP x64 (the red-headed step-child of XP). I could, supposedly, install a 32-bit version of Firefox and use the 32-bit Java plugin but I didn't get that working.
I did discover that 64-bit Konqueror somehow figured out how to run Java applets (though there's no sound) and the kids use that for now.
21% downloaded already. Thought I am considering switching from the x86_64 version to the 32-bit version this time. My only really solid reason for this is the lack of a 64-bit Java browser plugin, and I don't even use it that much (but the kids like Runescape, so qhat can I do).
I agree with your sentiment but to work around the slow connection issues I just pause after a second and let the whole thing come down before I hit play.
Thanks, it's not very easy to read but I found some interesting bits around page 10. They also seem to have done their testing with people whose sleep schedules were disrupted - either deprived of sleep or just had different sleep patterns for testing.
It's not rocket science... it's brain surgery. (Sorry, couldn't resist).
fwiw, I second the notion that the laws of physics be obeyed. Hearts weren't designed to broadcast, they can't compete with other electrical devices.
applying that energy to the floor
Not to be rude, but I don't think that makes sense. I'm applying a force against the floor that's exactly equal and opposite in direction to the force of gravity. The energy these guys want to "recover" isn't energy that I currently expend. If I were expending extra energy then that energy would have to go somewhere now, beyond the elastic potential energy that's already stored in the rubber soles of my shoes and whatnot.
How much energy does this thing recover?
FTA:
The electric current generated by the Crowd Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up a sign about energy. "We want people to understand the direct relationship between their movement and the energy produced," says Juscyzk.
So let's collect energy so we can waste it?
I wonder what it feels like walking on this floor - there's got to be some difference since the energy I normally expend is only enough to hold me up. If there's no perpetual motion machine here then doesn't the energy ultimately come from my breakfast?
There's nothing wrong with it being made by Microsoft. The problem with it is that Microsoft controls the definition of NTFS - it's a closed standard. They can change it and everyone who runs some other implementation of it just has to chase the moving target and dodge any legal action Microsoft (justified or not) decides to take against them.
NTFS is not a solution because Microsoft can change it incompatibly at any time; all they have to do is put something in a Vista update that modifies the file system in a backwards-incompatible way.
And make it incompatible with Windows XP too. In order to keep the ability to move drives between machines running Windows XP and Windows Vista, especially external hard disk drives connected through USB or FireWire, Microsoft will have to continue to support at least NTFS XP in Windows Vista.
Not if it's a feature addition. If they add some feature to NTFS under Vista then that feature doesn't have to be back-ported to XP and this hypothetical new NTFS would render the FOSS implementation incompatible under some circumstances.
It's a closed standard clearly can be used for lock-in.
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But that doesn't change the fact that the second part of the statement (companies want people to work for cheaper) is left out in the press releases and news pieces done on the subject. The situation is portrayed as a dire shortage while old tech workers are fired and new grads are hired on for cheaper. Yes, this is what a market is but the people going into it as workers are not informed about that second half of the statement.
I think it's about the cheap market here. Relentlessly trumpeting that "we can't hire enough skilled talent" encourages more people to get a degree or enter that job market which increases the supply and drops the cost of acquiring talent. A more honest statement would be: "we can't hire enough skilled talent for the wages we want to pay."
It's really no different from the claims in the hospitality and service industry that seek to keep employees there cheap.
You could start your own Journal with OJS or look around in the Public Knowledge Project though you'll probably find (again) that dismally few journals publish good free articles. The reasoning I heard was that the most prestigious journals are expensive and the prestige is tied to that cost. So the cc distributed papers aren't as well-regarded as those with a high price tag behind a firewall.
;).
fwiw I did install OJS just to say I did it and I could've started publishing my own journal within a day if I had the stuff to publish, so joining the PKP shouldn't be that tough for interested institutions (and of course I'm available for consulting at reasonable rates
I don't have to do this myself but I have heard about this problem (and wrote a little about it). Your school pays publishers for access to journals and you can't necessarily get to them from home. There is a plugin for Firefox called LibX that makes it easier to search what your school's library has available. It has to be customized somehow to make it work with the school's system. The University of Windsor has customized LibX as Foxy Leddy (Leddy is the school library). Maybe your school has something similar.
Matter of fact, I don't see anything in the whole bill that says "VoIP". The way I read it, it also excludes anything like TV or radio over IP.
Going by the data on the 2005-2006 cycle at OpenSecrets, most of them get a fair chunk of money from some telcos.
Conyers had contributions from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn, Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc in the range of over $9,000 each (they are all in the list of his top contributors at Open Secrets).
Sanchez had contributions from AT&T Inc of $10,000.
Cannon had contributions from AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications, and National Cable & Telecommunications Assn for amounts from $10,000 to $15,000.
Boucher had contributions from AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications, and National Cable & Telecommunications Assn for amounts from $8,000 to $14,000.
For Watt I don't see anything obvious in his list of top contributors for that time.
Issa got $10,000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn and $11,000 from AT&T Inc.
Sensenbrenner got $10,000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn and $6,500 from AT&T Inc.
Nothing conclusive or anything. There were also contributions from a lot of other companies who might feel differently about the VoIP tax part of this bill, like Comcast and L3 Communications, but it's all food for thought.
I can see how you can hide it easily but that doesn't mean you're not supposed to pay the tax on it, just like in a lot of states you're supposed to remit sales tax for out-of-state purchases. So in practice the tax isn't collected but it's not that a tax isn't levied.
Is there any way we can see the proposed amendment instead of just the blurb that Infoworld decided to print? I know Sunlight Foundation backs sites that publish some of this stuff but I have no idea where to find a document like this.
As for how to define VoIP and decide what phone services are close enough to the Telcos territory to get smacked they'll just make up some vague text they can use to sue competitors with later. I wouldn't be surprised if a telco industry body wrote the text of the amendment for them.
There are a lot of parts of tax law that are subject to interpretation. Just because it's subjective doesn't prevent them from saying you owe them money.
Here's an easy scenario: VoIP gets taxed when it comes from Vonage or Skype or one of the obvious ones. This goes on for a few years and over time people realize that it's cheaper to buy a World of Warcraft subscription and go use voice chat in Azeroth than it is to buy any phone-only service. The IRS gets wind of it and issues a bulletin clarifying that chat services included in a game are considered VoIP and are therefore taxable at a rate of blah, blah, blah.
It's not any different from a clarification that explains the greens fees on golf-outings where you talk about business aren't tax-deductible.
And yes, I think taxing VoIP (or any other protocol) is stupid and I hope it doesn't happen. But that doesn't mean it won't.
I agree that it's stupid but could you explain again how Skype is untaxable?
It's funny that the original reason for a ban on taxing Internet access had something to do with getting people to innovate without the burden of taxes and yet as soon as we see some innovation it's time for it to get taxed.
So now if I set up a Softphone on my laptop and call an Asterisk server at home I can be charged with evading taxes? I mean, isn't VoIP just a set of protocols?
Don't cut the kittens!
Seriously though, accounting for every packet takes more than just being a good user, it'd be a monumental task if you've got a desktop Linux distro. I'd like to think that I know all the things that are going out on the Internet from my home network but there are limits, especially when processes are disguising their traffic.
I mean if I find some odd packets going out then discover the name of the host their going appears to be an update server for some application I use then my investigation ends. When that's not a check I do all the time then I'm easy to fool though and my determination could have been wrong for many reasons. This is a problem that's really independent of OS.
It's almost at the point where it'd be easier to have some logging in my router to let me know what's happening. I know corporations have tools like this but is there something straightforward enough for the home Linux geek?
I guess that settles it, I'll do the 64-bit install and see how things look. Thanks.
I've been toying with the idea of going to Kubuntu for a while but I haven't had the inclination at the right time :)
It isn't that 64-bit Java doesn't work, it's that there's no plugin for a 64-bit browser. This is even a problem on Windows XP x64 (the red-headed step-child of XP). I could, supposedly, install a 32-bit version of Firefox and use the 32-bit Java plugin but I didn't get that working.
I did discover that 64-bit Konqueror somehow figured out how to run Java applets (though there's no sound) and the kids use that for now.
21% downloaded already. Thought I am considering switching from the x86_64 version to the 32-bit version this time. My only really solid reason for this is the lack of a 64-bit Java browser plugin, and I don't even use it that much (but the kids like Runescape, so qhat can I do).
I agree with your sentiment but to work around the slow connection issues I just pause after a second and let the whole thing come down before I hit play.
Thanks, it's not very easy to read but I found some interesting bits around page 10. They also seem to have done their testing with people whose sleep schedules were disrupted - either deprived of sleep or just had different sleep patterns for testing.
Anybody got pointers on this previous research for humans? That could change my daily schedule...
It's not rocket science... it's brain surgery. (Sorry, couldn't resist). fwiw, I second the notion that the laws of physics be obeyed. Hearts weren't designed to broadcast, they can't compete with other electrical devices.
Bullets are legal.
Great, now I get to get on the sweaty train?
Not to be rude, but I don't think that makes sense. I'm applying a force against the floor that's exactly equal and opposite in direction to the force of gravity. The energy these guys want to "recover" isn't energy that I currently expend. If I were expending extra energy then that energy would have to go somewhere now, beyond the elastic potential energy that's already stored in the rubber soles of my shoes and whatnot.
FTA:
The electric current generated by the Crowd Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up a sign about energy. "We want people to understand the direct relationship between their movement and the energy produced," says Juscyzk.
So let's collect energy so we can waste it?
I wonder what it feels like walking on this floor - there's got to be some difference since the energy I normally expend is only enough to hold me up. If there's no perpetual motion machine here then doesn't the energy ultimately come from my breakfast?
There's nothing wrong with it being made by Microsoft. The problem with it is that Microsoft controls the definition of NTFS - it's a closed standard. They can change it and everyone who runs some other implementation of it just has to chase the moving target and dodge any legal action Microsoft (justified or not) decides to take against them.
And make it incompatible with Windows XP too. In order to keep the ability to move drives between machines running Windows XP and Windows Vista, especially external hard disk drives connected through USB or FireWire, Microsoft will have to continue to support at least NTFS XP in Windows Vista.
Not if it's a feature addition. If they add some feature to NTFS under Vista then that feature doesn't have to be back-ported to XP and this hypothetical new NTFS would render the FOSS implementation incompatible under some circumstances.
It's a closed standard clearly can be used for lock-in.