I become a statistical support to the notion that IE 4.0 is the dominant web browser
Only if you use it, in which case it is a valid statistic, in that you are an IE user, regardless of how you obtained it.
...more incentive for new computer buyers to buy Windows98... Does Microsoft get taxed on the copy I pirated because of the way it benefits them?
No, they get taxed on the sales of Windows98. It cost them nothing unusual to generate those sales, so they only deduct their normal costs and pay taxes on what the net profit. They pay no taxes on the copy you pirated, since they received no income for it. If, however, they could identify that you did indeed pirate it, they might be able to deduct something as lost income, but IANACPA! (Certainly, if they found out, you would probably go to jail.)
As for the benefit you provided to Microsoft by being another IE user, that doesn't show up on their books -- it shows up on yours. You are spending time/effort/money to promote someone else's product, in effect. Generally, one would only do this if they get some benefit from so doing (i.e., free t-shirt, some agreement, etc.), but these days there are morons going around paying to have Nike logos slapped all over their cars, or to have the Fila logo shaved into their heads. Go figure. (Of course, I'm one to talk -- I've got Land Rover t-shirts that I paid for.)
So if they sold that them selves and made the $90,000 themselves, then gave the $90,000 to the person, they wouldnt get the deductuction.
Well, no. You see, stock represents the value of the company. If they sell the stock, they are converting some of that value into cash. Same-Same, as a great physics professor used to say. So no tax deduction.
If they give the $90K cash to the employee, (presumably as compensation for work performed,) it becomes an expense -- a cost of doing business, money they have to spend to make more money. (And in fact, stock options are pretty much the same as the company selling the stock themselves and giving the money to the employees, hence the deduction.)
If you have a lemonade stand and sell 20 glasses of lemonade for 5 cents each, you had a gross profit of one dollar. If the lemons cost you 75 cents, however, and you had to pay your little brother 50 cents to squeeze them, you've actually lost 25 cents, a net loss.
One reason companies don't just say "we'll pay you a $90k bonus" is that if the company doesn't do well, they would still have to pay the employees their bonus. With stock options, the employees only do as well as the company. (Which is why stock options should be treated as a bonus, not an integral part of your compensation package.
Microsoft isn't "losing" $90,000 in your example. They are expecting to recover that through work done by the employee.
You're right, of course... but that $90K they spend to get the employee to do the work is still an expense (and a deductable one at that) that they incur in order to do business, just like the employee's salary, rent on their offices, etc.
The employees who get the stock options pay taxes on their profits. It's a cost to the company. If the companies didn't get to take a deduction, it would be double taxation.
Consider this: Say you work at Lego. Because you're an employee, you can buy a Mindstorms kit for cost (say, $50) rather than the $200 list price. Should Lego have to pay taxes on the $150 profit they didn't make from you?
Similarly, if Microsoft has a bunch of stock that's worth $100/share, but they've previously agreed you could buy 1,000 shares for $10 each, they're losing $90,000. You, on the other hand, have just made $90,000. So who should pay taxes on that $90k? And since MS just gave you a portion of the company for 10% of its value, shouldn't they be able to deduct that loss?
You can check out some suggestions for what I'd like this solstice on the web -- I thought everyone did that?
In the "the sky's the limit" category, add guitar lessons from B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Mark Knoppfler, a Delorean, and a Buick Reatta. Oh heck, throw in a 1975 Land Rover 101 FC "Vampire" FFR.
And I would be remiss in not mentioning an Apricot Portable, Ampere WS-1, Canon FlatCat, STM Systems Baby! 1, Xerox NoteTaker, Sol-20, and a host of other really cool computers I'm looking for.
but I'm heading out to the San Francisco area in the next two weeks and am looking for a geek pad myself, to crash at for a few months to a year. Anyone within 50 miles of SF? =)
Well, I'm in the City, but we're pretty full up -- We've got 5 Linux boxen, 2 Win95 boxes, 2 Win98, 1 Win3.11, 3 Macs, 1 MS-DOS box, plus miscellaneous others. We've got ethernet running through the walls to half the house, and 6 phone lines (7 soon, if I can get approval from the CFO (the wife)).
We're pretty lucky, though -- we have a pretty small mortgage. Figure on at least $2k/mo just for rent if you want an actual house, and $1k or more per month for a simple studio. And if you drive, gas is about the most expensive in the whole country (over $2/gal for reg. unleaded). Of course, we've also got BART, MUNI, and lots of other public transit. And, there aren't many other places I would ever want to live.
An excellent question, and one that gets almost continual discussion
amongst computer history buffs. Ten years seens to be a popular rule of
thumb, but I'll give you my take on it. As I see it, there are three
types of vintage computers:
Those computers which are no longer manufactured, and are no longer
in common use. These include computers such as:
Atari, Commodore, and Apple 8-bit home computers
Altairs, IMSAI's, CompuPro's, and a lot of other S-100 machines
A lot of the more well-known classic computers.
Computers which are significantly different from their modern
decendants, even though technically, the same line is still sold today.
This would include:
Early Macintosh computers
Early Vaxen
Some of the more notable early PC's (IBM PC, Victor 9000, a PC's
Limited Clone, etc.)
Computers which represent a significant advance in technology/design
or which departed radically from the norm. Examples are:
That corner PC somebody came out with a few years back
The Monorail -- one of the first consumer-oriented, all-in-one,
flat-screen style computers
An awful lot of portable computers (which is why I collect them. A lot of weird
stuff has been done to pack full functionality into a too-small box.)
The MIT Flea looks more like a swap meet. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but I do want to point out that the Vintage Computer Festival, while it includes a flea market, is much more than that. There will be exhibits, speakers, and even a Nerd Trivia Challenge. The Vintage Computer Festival is more scholarly (well, kinda) than just a flea market. Attendees should expect to learn, as well as buy or sell.
Slashdot, history for nerds. Things that used to matter.
Cute. Actually, very funny. But seriously, let me tell you a little
story. Back about 6 or 7 years ago, I had a client that sold a
minicomputer-based software package, and was developing a microcomputer-
based package to complement it. I was working on the larger system at
the time. One day, I was working away, when I happened to notice a
conversation going on over on the microweenie side of the office. The
programmers were talking about a problem they had encountered in testing
wherein if one person read a record, then another person read the same
record, changed it and wrote it back to the database, and then the first
person made their changes and wrote their version of the record out, the
second person's changes would be lost. They seemed to think that this
was something new and unusual, and needed some kind of new solution to
overcome it. I called it record locking, and took it for granted.
Here's a quote I was going to use in submitting a story about the Vintage Computer Festival (until
someone beat me to it):
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana (born 1863; died 1952)
The point is, you need to know your past, or you will needlessly make
the same mistakes your predecessors made.
The history of computers is an interesting topic isn't there a project cataloging all the different parts of computer history going on?
There most certainly is! Perhaps you missed the story on the Vintage Computer Festival the other day? There are a lot of people involved in preserving the quickly disappearing history of the computer industry, including myself. Check out some of the others, such as:
For tons more, check out the links page at the Vintage Computer Festival, or better yet, come to the VCF at the end of September and experience history in person!
About 8 years ago, I picked up a barcode reader that probably works the same way -- the keyboard plugs into the scanner, the scanner plugs into the kb port, and the scanner simply transmits the barcode as if you had typed the equivalent text. It was in a dumpster near where I was working, and I dug it out, took it home, and plugged it in. It worked, and I was happy.
Then I tried to think of something to use it for. And came up empty.
I used it once or twice while working on a project that required printing some barcodes, but other than that, I never really used it.
So I have to say I'm not sure this will be of much use to anyone, except, perhaps, for the purpose Radio Shack intended it.
Which does not mean, of course, that I'm not going to run out first thing tomorrow and pick up one for myself. 8^)
How to earn a living as a computer historian
on
Computer Historian?
·
· Score: 2
Being somewhat involved in the computer history field myself, I know several people who have made a few bucks off their knowledge -- through providing that knowledge to legal firms for use in patent cases. Prior art is a very big part of proving a patent should not have been given, and having the obscure knowledge of old systems that might have had a particular feature can be very valuable.
With the availability of TONS of historical data on computing at the click of a mouse, the job of a Computer Historian is pretty much obsolete.
Oh sure, and then you find a page like this one which is factually wrong on several levels. (The Gavilan was preceded by the GRiD Compass, and possibly the Sharp PC-5000.) So you can leave such misinformation alone, or you can rely on a computer historian to correct it.
Meanwhile, can you find out what the first PC was? If your lucky, you might come across this page which will test your knowledge and probably surprise you -- it was put together by a computer historian. That same historian has done quite a bit of research into the first pen-based portable, but it's not on the web (yet).
So don't knock computer historians, unless you don't care whether or not your history is correct.
Re:This *should* be a position at every University
on
Computer Historian?
·
· Score: 2
...thinking they know it all, but understanding only a tiny bit of computers beyond the present generation...
And so they blissfully* reinvent the wheel, over and over again...
The resident computer historian at the Smithsonian is Paul Ceruzzi; a very knowledgeable guy. So they already have someone, but other museums might not.
Such as Paul Ceruzzi, who works for the smithsonian, and has written several books on the subject. He's also involved with SHOT, the Society for the History Of Technology.
You might also be interested in the slightly less formal Vintage Computer Festival, taking place at the end of September. There will be plenty of history and historians there. The VCF web site also has a long list of links to museums, collectors, etc.
And, of course, I would be denying my own conceit if I did not mention my own collection of classic computers.
Computer history is a growing field, but not one that I think you could ever get rich in, any more than any other similar field. Certainly it is fascinating to look back and see just how far we've come.
Slashdot Mirror
The Home Page of 4:C has been updated with a message for a small portion of the Slashdot community. (Not YOU, of course. Oh, no. No way.)
You're not very imaginative, are you?
And it was said: "So shall the Internet draw forth from the masses the humour impaired."
Duh. It's a joke.
And it was said: "So shall the Internet draw forth from the masses the humour impaired."
Duh. It's a joke.
I've got 4 in my collection. So far.
Pull that CueCat out from where the sun don't shine and check out the CueCat Collectors Club!
Check out the CueCat Collector's Club! I know mine are gonna be worth millions some day!
So, of course AT&T will be paying the online vendors for providing the reason why AT&T's customers have signed up for internet access, yes?
Only if you use it, in which case it is a valid statistic, in that you are an IE user, regardless of how you obtained it.
No, they get taxed on the sales of Windows98. It cost them nothing unusual to generate those sales, so they only deduct their normal costs and pay taxes on what the net profit. They pay no taxes on the copy you pirated, since they received no income for it. If, however, they could identify that you did indeed pirate it, they might be able to deduct something as lost income, but IANACPA! (Certainly, if they found out, you would probably go to jail.)
As for the benefit you provided to Microsoft by being another IE user, that doesn't show up on their books -- it shows up on yours. You are spending time/effort/money to promote someone else's product, in effect. Generally, one would only do this if they get some benefit from so doing (i.e., free t-shirt, some agreement, etc.), but these days there are morons going around paying to have Nike logos slapped all over their cars, or to have the Fila logo shaved into their heads. Go figure. (Of course, I'm one to talk -- I've got Land Rover t-shirts that I paid for.)
Well, no. You see, stock represents the value of the company. If they sell the stock, they are converting some of that value into cash. Same-Same, as a great physics professor used to say. So no tax deduction.
If they give the $90K cash to the employee, (presumably as compensation for work performed,) it becomes an expense -- a cost of doing business, money they have to spend to make more money. (And in fact, stock options are pretty much the same as the company selling the stock themselves and giving the money to the employees, hence the deduction.)
If you have a lemonade stand and sell 20 glasses of lemonade for 5 cents each, you had a gross profit of one dollar. If the lemons cost you 75 cents, however, and you had to pay your little brother 50 cents to squeeze them, you've actually lost 25 cents, a net loss.
One reason companies don't just say "we'll pay you a $90k bonus" is that if the company doesn't do well, they would still have to pay the employees their bonus. With stock options, the employees only do as well as the company. (Which is why stock options should be treated as a bonus, not an integral part of your compensation package.
You're right, of course... but that $90K they spend to get the employee to do the work is still an expense (and a deductable one at that) that they incur in order to do business, just like the employee's salary, rent on their offices, etc.
The employees who get the stock options pay taxes on their profits. It's a cost to the company. If the companies didn't get to take a deduction, it would be double taxation.
Consider this: Say you work at Lego. Because you're an employee, you can buy a Mindstorms kit for cost (say, $50) rather than the $200 list price. Should Lego have to pay taxes on the $150 profit they didn't make from you?
Similarly, if Microsoft has a bunch of stock that's worth $100/share, but they've previously agreed you could buy 1,000 shares for $10 each, they're losing $90,000. You, on the other hand, have just made $90,000. So who should pay taxes on that $90k? And since MS just gave you a portion of the company for 10% of its value, shouldn't they be able to deduct that loss?
Mind you, IANACPA...
You can check out some suggestions for what I'd like this solstice on the web -- I thought everyone did that?
In the "the sky's the limit" category, add guitar lessons from B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Mark Knoppfler, a Delorean, and a Buick Reatta. Oh heck, throw in a 1975 Land Rover 101 FC "Vampire" FFR.
And I would be remiss in not mentioning an Apricot Portable, Ampere WS-1, Canon FlatCat, STM Systems Baby! 1, Xerox NoteTaker, Sol-20, and a host of other really cool computers I'm looking for.
Well, I'm in the City, but we're pretty full up -- We've got 5 Linux boxen, 2 Win95 boxes, 2 Win98, 1 Win3.11, 3 Macs, 1 MS-DOS box, plus miscellaneous others. We've got ethernet running through the walls to half the house, and 6 phone lines (7 soon, if I can get approval from the CFO (the wife)).
We're pretty lucky, though -- we have a pretty small mortgage. Figure on at least $2k/mo just for rent if you want an actual house, and $1k or more per month for a simple studio. And if you drive, gas is about the most expensive in the whole country (over $2/gal for reg. unleaded). Of course, we've also got BART, MUNI, and lots of other public transit. And, there aren't many other places I would ever want to live.
Nah, just run cabling outside through underground conduit, with weatherproof jacks by the hot tub. After all, you'll want power there too...
First, get a house...
Sorry, but here in San Francisco, houses are not something you can put on your mastercard... 8^)
An excellent question, and one that gets almost continual discussion amongst computer history buffs. Ten years seens to be a popular rule of thumb, but I'll give you my take on it. As I see it, there are three types of vintage computers:
But why not come to the Vintage Computer Festival and decide for yourself?
The MIT Flea looks more like a swap meet. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but I do want to point out that the Vintage Computer Festival, while it includes a flea market, is much more than that. There will be exhibits, speakers, and even a Nerd Trivia Challenge. The Vintage Computer Festival is more scholarly (well, kinda) than just a flea market. Attendees should expect to learn, as well as buy or sell.
Cute. Actually, very funny. But seriously, let me tell you a little story. Back about 6 or 7 years ago, I had a client that sold a minicomputer-based software package, and was developing a microcomputer- based package to complement it. I was working on the larger system at the time. One day, I was working away, when I happened to notice a conversation going on over on the microweenie side of the office. The programmers were talking about a problem they had encountered in testing wherein if one person read a record, then another person read the same record, changed it and wrote it back to the database, and then the first person made their changes and wrote their version of the record out, the second person's changes would be lost. They seemed to think that this was something new and unusual, and needed some kind of new solution to overcome it. I called it record locking, and took it for granted.
Here's a quote I was going to use in submitting a story about the Vintage Computer Festival (until someone beat me to it):
The point is, you need to know your past, or you will needlessly make the same mistakes your predecessors made.
There most certainly is! Perhaps you missed the story on the Vintage Computer Festival the other day? There are a lot of people involved in preserving the quickly disappearing history of the computer industry, including myself. Check out some of the others, such as:
or, for a more international view, try:
For tons more, check out the links page at the Vintage Computer Festival, or better yet, come to the VCF at the end of September and experience history in person!
About 8 years ago, I picked up a barcode reader that probably works the same way -- the keyboard plugs into the scanner, the scanner plugs into the kb port, and the scanner simply transmits the barcode as if you had typed the equivalent text. It was in a dumpster near where I was working, and I dug it out, took it home, and plugged it in. It worked, and I was happy.
Then I tried to think of something to use it for. And came up empty.
I used it once or twice while working on a project that required printing some barcodes, but other than that, I never really used it.
So I have to say I'm not sure this will be of much use to anyone, except, perhaps, for the purpose Radio Shack intended it.
Which does not mean, of course, that I'm not going to run out first thing tomorrow and pick up one for myself. 8^)
Being somewhat involved in the computer history field myself, I know several people who have made a few bucks off their knowledge -- through providing that knowledge to legal firms for use in patent cases. Prior art is a very big part of proving a patent should not have been given, and having the obscure knowledge of old systems that might have had a particular feature can be very valuable.
And if you'd like to pick up some of that knowledge, check out the Vintage Computer Festival!
Oh sure, and then you find a page like this one which is factually wrong on several levels. (The Gavilan was preceded by the GRiD Compass, and possibly the Sharp PC-5000.) So you can leave such misinformation alone, or you can rely on a computer historian to correct it.
Meanwhile, can you find out what the first PC was? If your lucky, you might come across this page which will test your knowledge and probably surprise you -- it was put together by a computer historian. That same historian has done quite a bit of research into the first pen-based portable, but it's not on the web (yet).
So don't knock computer historians, unless you don't care whether or not your history is correct.
And so they blissfully* reinvent the wheel, over and over again...
*as in "ignorance is bliss"
The resident computer historian at the Smithsonian is Paul Ceruzzi; a very knowledgeable guy. So they already have someone, but other museums might not.
Such as Paul Ceruzzi, who works for the smithsonian, and has written several books on the subject. He's also involved with SHOT, the Society for the History Of Technology.
You might also be interested in the slightly less formal Vintage Computer Festival, taking place at the end of September. There will be plenty of history and historians there. The VCF web site also has a long list of links to museums, collectors, etc.
And, of course, I would be denying my own conceit if I did not mention my own collection of classic computers.
Computer history is a growing field, but not one that I think you could ever get rich in, any more than any other similar field. Certainly it is fascinating to look back and see just how far we've come.