From Wikipedia:

A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate (usually of an apartment house) is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights associated with the individual ownership and controlled by the association of owners that jointly represent ownership of the whole piece. Colloquially, the term is often used to refer to the unit itself in place of the word "apartment". A condominium may be simply defined as an "apartment" that the tenant "owns" as opposed to rents.

The difference between a condominium and an apartment is purely legal: there is no way to know a condo from an apartment simply by looking at or visiting the building. What defines a condominium is the form of ownership. The same building developed as a condominium (and sold as individual units to different owners) could actually be built someplace else as an apartment building (the developers would retain onwnership and rent individual units to different tenants).

"Condo" really refers to the legal arrangement, although it has taken on a meaning of "apartment that you own" in recent years. Condominium laws didn't even come into effect in the US until the 60s really. In cities with older dense urban housing stock, older apartment buildings are still often owned through a cooperative instead.

They're not restricting sales to US Citizens. They're restricting sales to US residents (presumably people who have an account with a credit card billing address in the US).

As somebody who grew up and learned to drive in southern California but who now lives in Seattle, this is the best depiction I've ever seen of how people drive in Seattle. Still, one of the best things about Seattle compared to LA is that you at least can live a life without being completely dependent on your car.

I have to call bullshit on this. Microsoft has a very relaxed alcohol policy which basically boils down to don't let alcohol adversely affect the way you do your job. Alcohol is frequently provided at official and unofficial events on and off campus.

Also, Washington is the least religious and least churched state in America.

1. The 5,000 layoff number is nation (or world) wide, not just confined to Redmond.
2. Even with the layoffs and other hiring reductions, there's still not enough space in existing buildings for existing employees in Puget Sound.
3. These plans were made several years ago. Building has been going on for a while already.

Maybe we'll have it by 2030. That is if we don't follow the typical Puget Sound political process of voting on it a half dozen times before it gets killed.

There just aren't a lot of jobs out there doing core operating system or compiler design work. I'd say most software jobs fall into the vague category of business applications--programs for performing HR/sales/inventory tasks, either completely custom or extending some sort of existing product. There's a lot of web oriented stuff out there today too--ASP.NET, PHP, J2EE, AJAX, etc. Not that most slashdotters are interested in hearing it, but Microsoft is one of the few places that still hires people to develop complex platforms. Windows (kernel, APIs like DirectX), compilers (VB, C#, C++, IronPython, Powershell), SQL Server come to mind.

In Vista (and presumably Windows 7), I don't think updates are done through the browser like they were in XP. When you navigate to the update site, it'll scan your system then tell you to open "Windows Update" from the control panel.

I don't think the physical presence aspect is affected by this legislation at all. Previously, digital downloads were just not applicable to sales tax in Wisconsin, much like food or medical supplies are not taxable in certain states. If Apple or Amazon don't have a business presence in the state, their stores will probably remain sales tax free.

I'm not sure why these articles are such news. We've been paying sales tax on digital downloads in Washington for as long as I can remember. We have both an Apple (via Apple Stores) and Amazon (headquarters and all) presence too.

One of the more unexpected consequences of term limits in California has been a shift in power from individual politicians to political parties. When elected officials can only stay in office for a short while, you end up with a bunch of amateurs. In the Assembly, a member can only serve for 4 years total. That holds for all members, including the Speaker and other high ranking officials. However, parties can keep their leadership as long as they like. Because the parties are where the experienced people are, more of the real decisions on platforms, legislative priorities, etc. are made at that level.