"Saying it's too hard to keep up with all local tax laws just isn't a good excuse given that all large brick and mortar retailers have to do it."
So... if I sell a few hundred dollars' worth of items on the Internet per year, it's fair that I should have to pay six figures to license that tax software? Because otherwise I run afoul of the same local tax laws that you have to deal with.
Sounds like you're advocating that big businesses should drive out little businesses. Yep, that's the American way alright.
Googlebot achieving self-awareness: Funny coincidence, I only just re-read The Adolescence of P1 last week. A fun story (but based on '70s technology; be sure to tighten your disbelief suspenders).
Socialbots: Yeah. I've been seeing those in FB, OkCupid, Yahoo!, and now Tagged. I usually figure it out pretty quickly; why would a woman that young and attractive be interested in me? :)
Even in on-line multi-player team games we get "griefers" -- people whose only purpose is to disrupt the game, even (and especially) for their own team. Aside from being able to piss people off without serious consequence, most of us cannot fathom their purpose.
I simply assume that these clowns are the blog equivalent of griefers. Trolls who troll for the sake of trolling. Fortunately, unlike the games, they can't really disrupt the blog since they don't actually interfere with its performance. Griefers make the game unplayable; trolls are merely annoying. So they don't have to be kick-banned, they can be safely ignored.
Vinyl rocks. But it's difficult to maintain and, shall we say, less portable than MP3s.
This would lead into my "Good Enough" lecture if I felt up to writing it again, but let's just say that most people find CDs and MP3s to be "good enough" quality for their everyday needs, and leave it at that. (Phillips cassettes were immensely popular for several decades despite their inferior quality.)
CDs replaced vinyl not because of their superior quality, but because they're much more convenient, portable, and easier to maintain, and they're recordable (that took some time but it was icing on the cake). So trying to engage the audiophile nature of the masses is useless, because they haven't got one.
You seem to have something against monopolies. I can't imagine what.
My AT&T DSL line had some kind of weird DNS issue or transmission delay something that I could never resolve. For example, it would take 30 seconds (or more, I never timed it) for a Youtube video to start. Every Youtube video. Every time. And lest you think they had something against Youtube, trying to navigate my credit card account site was a lesson in frustration. And lest you think it was because the site was having problems, a) it happened all year and b) I was able to VNC into my work computer and access the same site, at the same time, quickly and with ease. Funny thing is, once it started it was fine. Once the page started loading it loaded quickly. Just took three forevers to go from a mouse click to actually doing something.
I never did figure out WTF the problem was.
So after my year's contract was up I carefully studied the list of alternatives:
- Comcast
I've got Comcast now, and let me tell you, 12mb is blazing. It's a damned shame the latency is over 800ms and the packet loss is about 80%. Oh, not all the time. Just when I'm trying to play Team Fortress online. Sometimes. At random. Good luck trying to get tech support on "random, usually at night and worst at night on weekends".
Of course I've tried an new modem and had a technician out and reset my modem and router about a dozen times and rewired my network and bypassed the router. I'm still in the process of trying to definitively determine if it's the router. It's an expensive router, but an old one. One of the problems is, of course, if I switch from one internal connection to another, I have to power-cycle the modem, because it WILL NOT SERVE UP AN IP ADDRESS twice in a row. Any other DHCP server in the world will do that, but not Comcast's. So there's no way to, say, swap my laptop in for my router and see if the problem persists, without power-cycling the modem.
Two monopolies in the area, nothing else, and you know their customer service is amazing because, well, they've forgotten what customer service is. When you call the only thing they know how to do is reset the modem and, oh, by the way, power-cycle EVERYTHING IN YOUR HOUSE. Including the refrigerator. Release/renew isn't good enough. Oh right, their DHCP server sucks balls, I forgot about that.
Well, I suppose I could just move. Yeah, just like that, it's easy, right? And it's not like I'm in the capitol city of the most populous, and one of the highest tech, states in the US. No, I'm stuck here in the sticks, here in Sacramento, CA. Heck, we even have trees here! Somewhere. I'll have to drive around a while to find it, but I know there's one around somewhere.
I don't know if having real competition would actually cause Comcast and AT&T to actually pay attention to their customers and provide a good, high-quality experience. What I do know is that not having competition has not enabled them to give their customers a good, high quality experience, and it means that here in the benighted and remote hamlet of Sacramento, California I do not have any options (aside from moving... where? Rhode Island?) other than putting up with the incompetence and indifference of two monopoly giants, because the two of them are the Only Game In Town and no consumer advocacy or regulatory organizations actually gives a rat's ass whether they apply Vaseline before they screw me or not.
P.S. They don't actually appear to understand the difference between latency and bandwidth, because every time I talk latency, they go on and on about my bandwidth. Oh, and their tech support people lie. Blatantly and unapologetically.
P.P.S. I just tried to find a US state-by-state bandwidth report I saw last night, but I can't find it now. But here's another. You'd think high-tech California would be near the top, right? Nope. Guess who is? No, go on, you'll never guess. Yep, the aforementioned Rhode Island. Hey, you know, when I think "high tech Internet" I think "Rhode Island". OK, I'm making fun, I'm not suggesting RI is 3rd world or something. But it wouldn't have been my first guess. You know where CA is? 35. Wow, 30th percentile, go us! Our motto: "We don't suck as bad as some other states."
I dunno, maybe it's time to reconnect with my New England roots? Oh hey, our new CA state motto: "We just got our asses kicked by the smallest state in the US."
P.P.P.S. I'm thinking about replacing the router (a Sonicwall TZ 190) in spite of the fact that I don't actually think it's the router. I was looking at this nice Asus as a possible replacement.
On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers
Re:
So... if I sell a few hundred dollars' worth of items on the Internet per year, it's fair that I should have to pay six figures to license that tax software? Because otherwise I run afoul of the same local tax laws that you have to deal with.
Sounds like you're advocating that big businesses should drive out little businesses. Yep, that's the American way alright.
On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers
Re:
To start with, figuring out which directions to bow could become a real nightmare!
On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers
Re: Re: Occam's Razor
On the post: Nikon Sued By Intellectual Ventures For Refusing To Pay The Shakedown Demand
Re: Re:
On the post: DailyDirt: We've Got The Droids You're Looking For...
Socialbots: Yeah. I've been seeing those in FB, OkCupid, Yahoo!, and now Tagged. I usually figure it out pretty quickly; why would a woman that young and attractive be interested in me? :)
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
Re: Re:
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
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On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
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In this case I think "conjecture" is dignifying his claims with the suggestion of actual thought process. To me it looks more like a nervous reflex.
Even there I'm assuming multi-cellular processes to start with, but he has to reach the keyboard somehow.
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
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I simply assume that these clowns are the blog equivalent of griefers. Trolls who troll for the sake of trolling. Fortunately, unlike the games, they can't really disrupt the blog since they don't actually interfere with its performance. Griefers make the game unplayable; trolls are merely annoying. So they don't have to be kick-banned, they can be safely ignored.
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
Re: Grassroots
On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000
Re:
This would lead into my "Good Enough" lecture if I felt up to writing it again, but let's just say that most people find CDs and MP3s to be "good enough" quality for their everyday needs, and leave it at that. (Phillips cassettes were immensely popular for several decades despite their inferior quality.)
CDs replaced vinyl not because of their superior quality, but because they're much more convenient, portable, and easier to maintain, and they're recordable (that took some time but it was icing on the cake). So trying to engage the audiophile nature of the masses is useless, because they haven't got one.
On the post: Pete Townshend Calls iTunes A Digital Vampire; Talkin' 'Bout His Generation...
Talkin' 'bout MY generation
Now you kids get off my lawn!
On the post: MPAA Helped Police Seize 'Pirated' DVDs That Were Actually Fully Authorized
On the post: An Open Letter To Chris Dodd: Silicon Valley Can't Help Hollywood If You First Cripple It With Bad Regulation
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On the post: An Open Letter To Chris Dodd: Silicon Valley Can't Help Hollywood If You First Cripple It With Bad Regulation
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On the post: An Open Letter To Chris Dodd: Silicon Valley Can't Help Hollywood If You First Cripple It With Bad Regulation
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Seriously. Another innovation that threatened to destroy the music industry.
On the post: ABC Affiliates Blocked From Interviewing Johnny Depp Because He Is Promoting A Film Not Produced By Disney
Re: Yet again...
On the post: Chosen Reject's Favorite Techdirt Stories Of The Week
My AT&T DSL line had some kind of weird DNS issue or transmission delay something that I could never resolve. For example, it would take 30 seconds (or more, I never timed it) for a Youtube video to start. Every Youtube video. Every time. And lest you think they had something against Youtube, trying to navigate my credit card account site was a lesson in frustration. And lest you think it was because the site was having problems, a) it happened all year and b) I was able to VNC into my work computer and access the same site, at the same time, quickly and with ease. Funny thing is, once it started it was fine. Once the page started loading it loaded quickly. Just took three forevers to go from a mouse click to actually doing something.
I never did figure out WTF the problem was.
So after my year's contract was up I carefully studied the list of alternatives:
- Comcast
I've got Comcast now, and let me tell you, 12mb is blazing. It's a damned shame the latency is over 800ms and the packet loss is about 80%. Oh, not all the time. Just when I'm trying to play Team Fortress online. Sometimes. At random. Good luck trying to get tech support on "random, usually at night and worst at night on weekends".
Of course I've tried an new modem and had a technician out and reset my modem and router about a dozen times and rewired my network and bypassed the router. I'm still in the process of trying to definitively determine if it's the router. It's an expensive router, but an old one. One of the problems is, of course, if I switch from one internal connection to another, I have to power-cycle the modem, because it WILL NOT SERVE UP AN IP ADDRESS twice in a row. Any other DHCP server in the world will do that, but not Comcast's. So there's no way to, say, swap my laptop in for my router and see if the problem persists, without power-cycling the modem.
Two monopolies in the area, nothing else, and you know their customer service is amazing because, well, they've forgotten what customer service is. When you call the only thing they know how to do is reset the modem and, oh, by the way, power-cycle EVERYTHING IN YOUR HOUSE. Including the refrigerator. Release/renew isn't good enough. Oh right, their DHCP server sucks balls, I forgot about that.
Well, I suppose I could just move. Yeah, just like that, it's easy, right? And it's not like I'm in the capitol city of the most populous, and one of the highest tech, states in the US. No, I'm stuck here in the sticks, here in Sacramento, CA. Heck, we even have trees here! Somewhere. I'll have to drive around a while to find it, but I know there's one around somewhere.
I don't know if having real competition would actually cause Comcast and AT&T to actually pay attention to their customers and provide a good, high-quality experience. What I do know is that not having competition has not enabled them to give their customers a good, high quality experience, and it means that here in the benighted and remote hamlet of Sacramento, California I do not have any options (aside from moving... where? Rhode Island?) other than putting up with the incompetence and indifference of two monopoly giants, because the two of them are the Only Game In Town and no consumer advocacy or regulatory organizations actually gives a rat's ass whether they apply Vaseline before they screw me or not.
P.S. They don't actually appear to understand the difference between latency and bandwidth, because every time I talk latency, they go on and on about my bandwidth. Oh, and their tech support people lie. Blatantly and unapologetically.
P.P.S. I just tried to find a US state-by-state bandwidth report I saw last night, but I can't find it now. But here's another. You'd think high-tech California would be near the top, right? Nope. Guess who is? No, go on, you'll never guess. Yep, the aforementioned Rhode Island. Hey, you know, when I think "high tech Internet" I think "Rhode Island". OK, I'm making fun, I'm not suggesting RI is 3rd world or something. But it wouldn't have been my first guess. You know where CA is? 35. Wow, 30th percentile, go us! Our motto: "We don't suck as bad as some other states."
I dunno, maybe it's time to reconnect with my New England roots? Oh hey, our new CA state motto: "We just got our asses kicked by the smallest state in the US."
P.P.P.S. I'm thinking about replacing the router (a Sonicwall TZ 190) in spite of the fact that I don't actually think it's the router. I was looking at this nice Asus as a possible replacement.
On the post: Chosen Reject's Favorite Techdirt Stories Of The Week
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