| Thursday,
May 6, 2010 
Hidden tax change in health care bill that affects you.
I saw this
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/
smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/index.htm on CNN.com.
If you buy more than $600 of supplies from anyone, say
a monitor and a couple of disk drives from Fry's, you will be require to get
Fry's taxpayer identification number and submit a Form 1099 to Fry's and the
IRS. I am sure that this will cause some small business owners, especially
those that are not the primary source of income, to drop out.
My Dad, age 87, bales hay for pay. Now he will have to
keep track of where he buys gas and diesel, repair parts and twine and get
taxpayer id numbers and file the 1099s. His business consists of--him. This
is another example of why 2000 page bills are bad.
John Abshier
Alarming indeed. I had not heard of this. It needs
thought.
=============w
Five Morgan Hill students sent home for wearing
American flag T-shirts
http://www.gilroydispatch.com/news/
265404-five-morgan-hill-students-sent-
home-for-wearing-american-flag-t-shirts
"Some Mexican-American students said that their flags
were taken away or asked to be put away, but none were sent home for wearing
red, white and green. Since Boden would not comment, it's uncertain if any
other students were sent home for what they were wearing on Cinco de Mayo."
Clearly I missed what nation I'm supposed to be
serving. Or maybe somebody has along the way.
Other than the story, I'll point out that this is a
fine example of a website more excited about what they can do than
presenting information. Please do not modernize in any direction the Gilroy
Dispatch took.
G
==
Show what is this about???
http://indianapolis.momslikeme.com/members/
JournalActions.aspx?g=246872&m=11721982
&source=stream_home
Cinco De Mayo celebrates victory over the French, not
the USA. And California is not Mexico.
For reasons not clear to me, some teachers confuse
Cinco de Mayo, which was a victory over the Emperor Maximilian who was
installed with French troops including the Legion during the American Civil
War, with the grito del delor and subsequent Mexican rebellion against
Spain. It's a bigger holiday in the US than in Mexico.
==
Wow, what is going on in this country?
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/
local-beat/Students-Wearing-American-
Flag-Shirts-Sent-Home-92945969.html -- BDAB,
Josh
==
Re: Soft Bigotry and the Menlo Park Flag Incident
So let me get this straight--the administrators of
Live Oak High School believe that Mexican students are so unstable, so
emotional and prone to violence, so unable to control their own impulses,
that we must avoid provoking them in any way.
And they say that *WE'RE* the racists?
-- Mike T. Powers
I don't expect further commentary is needed.
Incidentally the Latino students in the school want those who wore American
flag clothing to be punished, and a lot of Latino students are
demonstrating. You must be punished for wearing an American Flag to school.
The invasion by ten million illegal immigrants
continues.
=============
11 Reasons Why Google Has Already
Won the Ebook Market - Cloud Computing from eWeek
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/
11-Reasons-Why-Google-Has-Already-Won-
the-EBook-Market-204294/?kc=rss
Interesting, but not comprehensive. None of these
outlets seem to know how to cultivate a business relationship with vendors.
Ingram is a little better at it.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==
Google to start selling digital books - May. 4, 2010
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/04/
technology/google_books/index.htm?
section=money_technology&utm_source
=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_
campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_
technology+%28Technology%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
Dear Jerry:
Is this curtains for the Kindle? Probably not, but
having been a Google Print Partner, I'm not hopeful that their "solution"
will be any better for publishers. Amazon has made the grave error of trying
to force everyone else to accept their standards so they can control and
dominate the market. You would think that getting rapped on the kncukles
repeatedly with MobiPocket and as a source of Print on Demand books would
have taught them better. Google is a bit more agile but also suffers from
some of the same "If we build it, they will come" arrogance. From a
publishers standpoint, IMO, the people who are the best distributors of
electronic books are Ingram. They service all of the web pages for brick and
mortar stores as well as online ones like FicitonWise and Diesel. Truth to
tell, I don't care where it is sold or at what retail price s long as I get
my percentage. Amazon ties to buy market share with lower prices, but since
time really is money, most people don't comparison shop for e-books, but go
to their usual trusted source. Which is why you want to be in as many
channels as are convenient and easy to service. As you found out, Amazon
Kindle is anything but that. Rule #1 of merchandising: You can't sell it if
you don't have it and if you treat vendors badly you won't have it.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
============
The MPEG problem is both old and
new
Dear Dr Pournelle,
Your correspondent Mike Powers wrote that "Compuserve
had the copyright for the GIF format". The issue was a patent, not
copyright, and Compuserve did not have any right to use GIF; it had to
license it from Unisys, the patent holder, which then took proceedings
against others.
Another correspondent (Gene Horr) mentions that "A few
years back there was similar outcry about the licenses for playing music at
places of business. Hardly a new issue, but they acted like it was."
Once again, this confuses patent and copyright. The
'similar' outcry is about copyright, where the MPEG issue has to do with
patents. The portmanteau word 'freetard' has morphed into a term of common
abuse; it's not helpful here because those complaining can't reasonably be
dismissed as fanatical anti-copyright activists.
In particular, there is a real and present danger
involving the MPEG-LA patent pool; the current license period ends December
31 2010. MPEG-LA has announced it won't make changes involving content which
is free to consumers, but the same is emphatically not true if any fee is
charged. So someone charging a fee for self-made movies in will get hit with
fees which are presently unknown.
The copyright squabble was both an old and a new
issue, and it's ongoing. In the UK the biggest case was against Kwik-Fit
which had a policy against radios going at work. They nonetheless were done
by the copyright collectives in (Scottish) court because the workers refused
to do the bosses bidding. I believe there was an out-of-court settlement. In
the US the bit of copyright law covering performance is §106, section 4, but
this is a world issue.
The public as a whole has not accepted any such
rulings and the issue keeps resurfacing in the courts, for copyright
performance fees are not small. In the case of Paul Wilson, a
sole-proprietor mechanic, they came to 150 pounds sterling (in 2009). He had
been playing his radio in his workshop since 1963, so for him this was
indeed a new issue practically speaking. The copyright collective did not
accept his radio in lieu of the Ł150, and warned him that ongoing spot
checks by what amounts to a private copyright police would target both him
and his neighbours. Even the police in the UK now have to pay such fees for
the majority of police stations. This even bit a packer for a supermarket
who warbled while she worked. The old biddy was quite upset and the
copyright cops had to backtrack in the face of public ridicule, while not of
course conceding an inch of principle.
That principle as the Scottish justice put it is that
if you have control of the workplace, you have a duty to ensure no
unlicensed broadcast takes place. The good judge quietly complained that
this had not been properly argued by either side. That will doubtless happen
soon.
More importantly, there are indeed new issues
concerning the MPEG decoder/encoder licence fees (pace Gene Horr).
First, they might not be adequately brought to the
attention of the consumer; but new laws (UCITA, replacing the Uniform
Commercial Code) make a nonsense of traditional interpretations of
unilateral contract law. In particular they allow for the terms of an
agreement to change post-sale. This I think is the point made by Roy; it is
a much bigger legal issue which also will not go away.
Second, although Mr Horr claims the fees are low, to
take one example $2500 for (one) mass broadcast is still far too much to pay
for an independent movie-maker, and they won't know about it till the
MPEG-LA consortium puts the bite on after any initial success.
Third, Steve Jobs is on record as saying that a new
patent attack is to be mounted on those video and audio codecs which have no
patent encumbrance, such as Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora. For a short time
these were listed as part of the HTML5 standard, but they were ejected for
the threat of "submarine" patents, although Ogg is designed to avoid them,
inefficiency, and no hardware acceleration. The inefficiency and hardware
acceleration can be improved, but a nebulous FUD patent threat can't.
This is a big and important subject. I hope the above
helps see why.
Regards, TC
-- Terry Cole
Patent Law is hopelessly out of date.
===========
Re: The Census Device
A Loyal Reader writes: "If you can come up with a
credible mock-up of an app running on a tablet computer with GPS and the
Google Maps API..."
My immediate thought: "Apple already did that, they
call it the iPhone..."
-- Mike T. Powers
============
forecasting
Jerry: A good read:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/6451/
Team-of-Scientists-Counter-US-Govt-Report-
Global-warming-alarm-will-prove-false--
Climate-fears-based-on-faulty-forecasting-procedures
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the
populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it
with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -Mencken
==
VA AG to Investigate Mann, UVA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03
/AR2010050304139_pf.html
RICHMOND -- Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
II <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/votersguide/
2007/va/candidates/kenneth-t-cuccinelli-ii/> is demanding that the
University of Virginia turn over a broad range of documents from a former
professor to determine whether he defrauded taxpayers as he sought grants
for global warming research. The civil investigative demand <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/
virginiapolitics/Virginia_Attorney_General_CID.pdf> asks for all
data and materials presented by former professor Michael Mann when he
applied for five research grants from the university. It also gives the
school until May 27 to produce all correspondence or e-mails between Mann
and 39 other scientists since 1999.
I count myself as an AGW skeptic, but I find this a
troubling development. This seems more like a way for Mr. Cuccinelli to
score points for himself among conservatives, not a useful contribution to
the scientific debate on global warming. However, given the reluctance of
AGW proponents to turn over data and models, perhaps this is the skeptics'
last recourse.
Tom Fagan
I don't know enough about this to have an opinion,
but my impression is one of distaste unless the charge is deliberate fraud.
This is a request for evidence and may be justified, but I agree, caution is
appropriate. I'm no fan of Michael Mann, but I have no reason to believe he
is acting improperly.
============
The limits of policy
Interesting Op-Ed from the NYT today -
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/opinion/04brooks.html?hp
Roughly a century ago, many Swedes immigrated to
America. They’ve done very well here. Only about 6.7 percent of
Swedish-Americans live in poverty. Also a century ago, many Swedes decided
to remain in Sweden. They’ve done well there, too. When two economists
calculated Swedish poverty rates according to the American standard, they
found that 6.7 percent of the Swedes in Sweden were living in poverty.
In other words, you had two groups with similar
historical backgrounds living in entirely different political systems, and
the poverty outcomes were the same.
A similar pattern applies to health care. In 1950,
Swedes lived an average of 2.6 years longer than Americans. Over the next
half-century, Sweden and the U.S. diverged politically. Sweden built a large
welfare state with a national health service, while the U.S. did not. The
result? There was basically no change in the life expectancy gap. Swedes now
live 2.7 years longer.
Again, huge policy differences. Not huge outcome
differences.
The discussion covers life expectancy, region and
ethnic factors and the effect (or lack thereof) of government policies.
My favorite quote: "Therefore, the first rule of
policy-making should be, don’t promulgate a policy that will destroy social
bonds"
Its a shame that government policy never seems to work
this way.
John Harlow
============
Booms
Your idea of containment booms was fine.
Turns out that the oil companies (us) have been paying
a 8 cent tax per barrel on production/imports to haave the feds have just
such an emergency force. Of course in true government tax behavior they took
the money and spent it on more important needs. So wjen BP asked for the
booms they were not available, so on to Plan B.
Quoting BaensBar Future tech
...If you have the tools to make it work.
When British Petroleum called on the Federal
Government to supply the Fire Booms as called for in the Nation Oil and
Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan (NCP), they ran into a snag. The
Government did have the 10 booms pre-positioned like it was supposed to
under the plan supposedly put into effect in 1994.
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/burning_should_have_started_a.html
The reporter, Ben Raines, has been a pain in the
Governments fundament for some time.
http://www.al.com/specialreport/?mobileregister/mercuryinthewater.html
It's not like they haven't studied the problem.
http://www.iosc.org/papers/00904.pdf
http://www.nrt.org/Production/NRT/NRTWeb.nsf/AllAttachmentsByTitle/SA-64isb-bib/$File/isb-bib.pdf?OpenElement
Maybe Mr Raines could be picked up by the National
Media, but if that happened it would become clear that while BP is holding
up it's end in dealing with the spill, the Government is who is really
responsible for the oil making it to the coast in the quanities it is. It
now looks like like the containment vessel that BP has built and brought in
will be there before the fire booms are.
Keith W--
My real point was and is that oil spills are
inevitable (more comes from shipwreck than from leaking offshore wells) and
the time to test procedures and mechanisms and chemical solutions is before
they happen when tests can be made under controlled conditions and proper
evaluations can be made.
We ought to know about detergents, and other
chemical dispersion agents. We ought to be researching booms and boom
deployments.
And the proper way to pay for all this is a portion
of a separation tax. It seems elementary to me. I thought Reagan believed so
too as Governor. It did not happen, but I am not privy to all the political
machinations. Now would be a good time to try it...
============
Subject: your website design
Dr. Pournelle,
You may have seen this before, but I suppose this is
what your website would look like if it was modernized...
http://www.lemodesittjr.com/blog/
Meh. It appears reasonably well organized and
customizable, but the blog format and forums are pretty much the opposite of
how you want your site to work. Still, it may give you some ideas if you
ever revisit the idea of updating your web presence.
Sean
I prefer what I have now.
===========
Greece -
Hi Jerry,
I've been watching the situation in Greece, and
wondering when or if the people there will get a clue. Then I saw this quote
in a Foxnews story this morning:
"Thanassis Nazaris, an elderly shop owner, said he
expected protests to build after Greeks return from summer breaks and find
they do not have enough money to live." [emphasis mine]
Return from summer breaks? They are facing pay cuts,
and yet they still take vacations? How about cutting back on personal
spending? Words like hubris, ignorance, idiocy, and arrogance come to mind.
Are they having a psychotic break, or do they really not get it? There
simply isn't any more money - you can't tax the turnips any more.
And these are the seeds that Obama has sown here at
home. I just hope they don't sprout.
Cheers,
Doug
You do not understand the aristocracy's needs. Be
quiet and continue to knit.
==============w
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