I think I can safely say that there is a large demand for a TMBG edition of Rock Band. Is there anything preventing this from happening?
Much to my dismay, there are no accordions available that work with Rock Band.
Correction.. this is a subsidy for all consumers all over the world. What do you think will happen when the US/Amazon comes to an agreement. How long do you think it will be before Canada requires it (which already imposes a flat tax on media because it COULD be used in a nefarious means), or Great Britain, or Japan, or any other location that wants its slice of the pie. Its a slippery slope that ultimately just means internet commerce will die.
I just assumed that other countries already required Amazon to collect taxes on purchases (VAT anyone?). I would be very happy to find out that this is not the case. In either case, your argument is valid, though. Higher costs for US operations will be spread across all the business units and the price of everything will go up to compensate.
How about an internet surtax of, say, 5% on top of any state tax? Or a flat internet tax of 15%? It's past time that internet businesses need government handouts to survive, especially Amazon. And we who are watching teachers, nurses, fire and police - or other vital local services - being laid off or threatening to stop pensions because tax revenues are falling are demanding that businesses who don't need subsidies not get subsidies.
You do realize that Amazon wouldn't be paying sales tax, right? Amazon's customers would be the ones paying the tax. This would just require Amazon to collect the sales tax, which would effectively increase the price of every one of its products and increase overhead to stay on top of sales tax laws in all 50 states. Requiring Amazon to collect state sales tax would make shopping online more expensive for everyone involved.
This isn't a subsidy for Amazon, it's a subsidy for consumers all over the US.
LastPass Pasword Service may have been Hacked.
This is a good story, but the story isn't that they were definitely hacked. It's entirely possible that the anomalous data transfers they mentioned were caused by internal testing and not properly documented, based on the limited information we have available.
Here is a transcript wherein Steve Gibson talks at length about why LastPass is secure.
Consolidated password management works, as long as YOU maintain 100% control. Use Truecrypt locally for securing your password file. Sync the encrypted file to the cloud of you want an "online" backup.
LastPass is basically the exact same thing. It's encrypted locally and sent to them AFTER encryption. They don't store the plaintext passwords. The danger is the same either way if a user doesn't use a strong enough password.
There is a strong divide between (very generally) Western and Asian cultures. In the West we tend to believe that talent and ability is innate, and that your success in life will be down to the use of your gifts. Contrarily, Asian cultures believe that success is directly proportional to the effort the person puts into it. The psychological evidence is they are essentially correct.
This idea is the same one behind the book NurtureShock. Watch how the parents from Hong Kong talk to their children versus the way American parents talk to theirs when it comes to ability and performance.
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