However, if I buy anything out of state, I am required to report it and pay the tax on it in California by law.
Anything purchased online or physically out of state needs to be reported and taxes paid.

And it just translates American Spelling Alphabet (French). Which is mostly one handed spelling.
It would bomb horribly trying to understand any British (English) based finger-spelling, which is two-handed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_Sign_Language_chart.png

And the next question is... which finger spelling language are they translating? American? Irish? British? Australian? International (a mish-mash of English finger-spelling systems) ... every language uses a different set.

The EU Regulatations still have bans on animals and vegetables grown in Germany, UK, Spain, France, and most of Europe. The quarantine range has been reduced since the 80s, but it's still in place, and will probably be for many years to come.

All sheep in parts of Britain still need to be tested for radiation before they're allowed to enter the food-chain.
Wild Boar in Germany for the most part still can't be safely consumed.

We had a full model UN in high school. Since all the seating was assigned ahead of time; the vote-keeping was done entirely on pre-printed ballot sheets. basically in the format:

Sheet 1
Name: Y N A ...
Name: Y N A
Total: [blank] [blank] [blank]

And they were based on the seating at the university's lecture hall we used, they all listed countries in order as they were seated, starting with the centre.
You pass out the sheets to the centre people, and then they pass it along to the end; they're forwarded up;

At the front: Tallied per sheet;
the totals transferred to the log sheet
Sheet 1 :[blank] [blank] [blank] ...
Sheet X :[blank] [blank] [blank]
Totals :[blank] [blank] [blank]

And you had totals, with fairly rapid turn around and summations. Secret votes just had a stack of paper with "Country: ____ Y N A" and they were required to fill it out and put it into the box going around. to be condensed and summarized onto the above formattetd sheets at the front by the two lackies.

Junk character filter? Really? I wonder what the threshold is. Wow, this really makes it a bit difficult to nicely explain the formats, but then what can you really do about it. I wonder what the thresholds are.

I think that is insane that the US can be one of the few countries left in the world that VISA and MASTERCARD don't force the required use of Chip-and-PIN for all purchases. Canada switched over a few years back, most of the EU switched recently. Japan and Korea has switched, as have some south american countries.

Only once in the US had the merchant a terminal and provider that declined my card under "Service not available. Use Chip-and-PIN" when they tried to swipe my card. (That caught me off guard, since I've gotten used to only signing)

But, it's standard practise for VISA/MASTERCARD to require the use of Chip and Pin for all card-present transacions, and with every year, more of the world is upgrading their infrastructure.to support these requirements. I know on my latest agreement it was expilictly stated that "The magnetic stripe is only valid for use in the United States. All credit card transactions must be completed with the use of Chip and Pin"

-- Canada

Not to mention that outside the US, all VISA/MASTERCARD cards require a PIN on the card for the transaction to complete. The magnetic stripe on the credit card has been rendered "Only valid for use in the United States" in most of the world as well. Becasue they are required to use Chip-n-PIN for all in-person transactions.

Only once in SoCal have I been required to use my pin, and that's just because they have international customers. Since I lived there, they swiped the card, and it errored : "Service not authorized. Use Chip And PIN." (I hadn't used the pin on my card in the 4 years since moving to the US, so I had forgotten it, and needed to pay with cash, but that's besides the point)

You obviously have never banked outside the US.
Where if you want to do -anything- you need to look up the TAN from a one-time use pad that's mailed out to you. They ask fory our password, and then "Enter tan 82:"

Keylogger doesn't defeat it, that's the entire point.
Even if a keylogger was able to sniff out your password, unless they physically had your phone, or able to intercept your SMS en route. They would not be able to log in. The SMS is a single-use throwaway, so that it is always required, and not predictable from previous input.

But, they make toilets in japan that play the sound of running water, in the vain hope that it will stop japanese women from continually flushing the toilet while they urinate becasue they think the sound of them urinating sdhouldn't be heard by others.... even if it means htat they have to waste many many gallons of water.

Never saw the text before, and it was still quite legible. This was my first time reading those words, and I did have to do a google search to figure out why people were saying it was a familiar text.

It's quite legible on this laptop (15" screen, 1920x1200 native resolution)
not familiar with the text, but I read the entire thing through with no real hassle.

What is your first-langage, and what portion can't you read?

Currenty Symbol Rupee Sign: U+20A8
It's already encoded, all people have to do is change the symbol on the character from looking like "Rs" to look like the new symbol.

Which is what Microsoft is pushing for.