In this case: the best way to find a needle in a haystack is to tell the people that the haystack is filled with needles and reward them for giving you information on the location of a needle in the hopes that one tip will give you the location of the ACTUAL needle.

If by government, you mean State Government then yes, they do rely on sales tax. But most (if not all) states that collect sales tax ALREADY have a mechanism in place to charge sales tax on out of state purchases directly to the consumer. It's called a 'use tax' and states should be using THAT to collect the sales tax due. Do you know how many businesses I deal with that don't pay the use tax when they buy stuff from Amazon? States should have focused on collecting this tax instead of wishing for some magical solution that would drop revenue in their laps. So, now instead of auditing state citizens, states are going to have to create centralized departments to deal with basically every online company in the entire country and start auditing them. Sounds like a much more expensive solution to collect what should be the SAME amount of use tax revenue.

This is only a rough draft but in the right hands has the potential to solve the H1-B 'issues' AND help the unemployment numbers.

The businesses that are snatching up the visas claim that there is not enough local talent to fill the positions while opponents claim that the lower wages paid the visa holders undercuts any chance of locals filling any of those open positions.

First, require that H1-B visa holders are paid based on some industry standard adjusted for the region where visa holder is employed.
Second, require that prior to hiring an H1-B visa worker, the company that holds the visa must hire a local candidate, pay them at the very least minimum wage with medical benefits and then train that person to do the job they lost out to the visa worker within say a 12-18 month period.

These two rules would remove ANY financial benefit to using the H1-B program, has the potential of easing unemployment, gives people needed training and could even help with the move to off-shoring IT work which seems to be the goal of some of the 'consulting' companies that bring on gobs of H1-B workers.

Do you think this is feasible?

This fits in nicely with yesterday's story about employers asking for employees Facebook credentials. Now, if you fork over your password you can go to jail. I'm constantly amazed by how idiotic many of these new laws are, violating a terms of service agreement should not be a criminal offense, mind boggling!

Instead of telling your employer to pound sand, you only have to tell them that Facebook's terms of service clearly prohibits you from sharing your password.

Unfortunately, all of the GPS devices I've used that display the speed limit, the speed limits are included with the map data and aren't dynamic.

Before you can even collect sales tax you will have to register with each state and pay for a sales tax id ($100 for CT alone). I don't believe for a second that states are going to give sales and use tax ids away for free either. I don't see how this is going to work for anything but the largest online retailers and I'm still not convinced that this doesn't violate interstate commerce.

Instead of requiring retailers to PAY the sales tax, they should only be required to remit sales logs and let the state collect the use tax from whoever purchased the goods. But, that makes too much sense and would again put the responsibility on the state to collect the money when all they really want is a ride on the internet sales gravy train.

Quoting the judge: 'the publisher lost any ability to control what happens to its books after their first sale abroad'

I'd like to see this concept applied to anything that is purchased outright. If the publisher lost the ability to control what happens to the book then shouldn't Microsoft lose the ability to control what happens to an XBox after first sale? Modifying the hardware of something that you own should NOT be against the law.

Cool...

But, where are the instructions to do this mod?

If H1B visa holders were allowed to find other jobs then there is no point in issuing H1B visas, just issue s regular work visa. The whole point of the H1B visa is to allow companies to hire people for skilled jobs that they are unable to fill with local talent. They are by design short termed and extremely limited in scope so the visa holder must leave the country when the visa has expired.

Widening the scope of the H1B visa shouldn't be an option. I'd like to see H1B visas become even MORE restrictive. Cut the number of H1B visas issued, shorten the term, limit the number allowed per company. In fact, I'd also like to see something implemented where once a visa issued for a company has expired they can't apply for another visa for a certain length of time, also require companies applying for H1B visas to fund programs to train people for the skill they are applying for visas for, something in the ballpark of $50K per year per visa. Would accomplish two goals, would guarantee that there is training for skills that are obviously in demand and would make bringing in H1B workers more expensive, thus possibly forcing companies to hire locally again.

I know these aren't top of the line but I just bought a pair of Dell S2340M monitors, $160 each at Best Buy. They're 1920x1080 and I think they screen is pretty good for the price.

I just looked at that website and browsed some of the projects. Based on how much the people putting up these projects want to spend, you probably WOULD be better off working at McDonalds.

There are NO states in the US where it is illegal to record a phone conversation. Most states require that at least ONE party consent to the recording, other states require all parties to consent to the recording.

If you want to record phone conversations you simply have to state that the conversation may be recorded for quality control purposes. If the other party doesn't hang up or object then that is implied consent.

DAMN - That should read 'This is NOT 100% accurate'.

This is 100% accurate. When you license a song you have to pay two fees. The first is for whoever owns the copyright on the song, the second is for the actual recording. So, Coulton should have some recourse for his 'recording' of the song being used.