MaPfJa - Slashdot User

RIAA Victim Jammie Thomas Gets a New Lawyer 241

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday May 20, 2009 @08:10AM from the whiz-kid dept.

newtley writes "Only days after Brian Toder, her previous legal representative, had decided discretion was the better part of valour, leaving her fend for herself against the RIAA, Jammie Thomas says another lawyer has come forward with an offer of pro bono help. He's K.A.D. Camara from Camara & Sibley in Houston, Texas, says Jammie. And, 'He's the youngest person in history to graduate from Harvard Law school with honors,' she points out. Nor will her retrial be delayed, as was expected. It'll now go forward in June 15, as slated. 'I'm so happy!' Jammie said."

The Walking House 304

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:25AM from the baba-yaga-eat-your-heart-out dept.

What is 10' tall, has six hydraulic legs, and is powered by the wind and solar panels? The prototype pod house built by art collective N55 in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the help of MIT, N55 built the pod over a two-year period at a cost of £30,000. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods. One of the designers says, "This house is not just for travellers but also for anyone interested in a more general way of nomadic living." It won't be long now until the Japanese make Howl's Moving Castle.

Submission + - Rare Semi-Identical Twins Discovered

Submitted by daftna on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @01:38PM

daftna writes: Twins can be identical, fraternal and apparently semi-identical, scientists now report.

Researchers discovered twins who are identical on their mom's side of the equation but share only half their genes from dad.

Here's how it happened: Two sperm cells fertilized one egg — an event assumed to be very rare — then split into two embryos.

Comment What kind of tax do you prefer? (Score 2, Interesting) 919

by MaPfJa on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @07:17AM (#6169366) Attached to: U.S. E-Commerce Sites To Collect EU VAT

Well, government just has to get its taxes somewhere. So you either tax the money the moment it's earned (income tax), or the moment it's spent (VAT, special taxes on gasoline, alcohol, tabacco...).

Income taxes can easily be enforced locally, but people don't like to have their hard-earned money taken away before they even saw it.

VAT and their likes _could_ be enforced locally, i.e. the place where the money is actually spent. So if I buy a TV in Luxembourg, I pay 15% VAT to the the local government, and if I buy it in Sweden, I pay 25% VAT. But this difference in taxes would create a shift of consumption towards the low-VAT countries, so the idea of locally enforcing VAT was frowned upon by several governments (usually in countries with a high VAT). Thus it never happend. VATs are due where you live, not where you spend your money.

"Tax-free shopping" is possible because of this. As a German citizen, you can buy that camera in Japan, get back that 5% VAT you payed, return to Germany, and pay the 16% VAT at the German customs . (Nobody does it and everyone claims that they had the camera before they left the country...)

Extending this idea of "pay VAT where you live" to the internet is only logical, as not doing so would open a loophole, and shops would go online just to save the VAT. Also, requesting that the individual customer pays his taxes (as it's done with tax-free shopping) somehow doesn't work as advertised, so goind after the businesses and requesting them to collect the taxes makes sense, in a way :).

Personally, I prefer VATs over income taxes, because _I_ can decide the time my money is taxed. If I want to save money, I can earn interest on my full income and I can pay the taxes the day I buy that new computer/gadget/house/whatever.

(On a sidenote, in Europe you usually see the prices printed including VAT, so nobody notices how much VAT they pay. You'd have to read the fine print on your receipt.)

Governments being what they are, obviously like to tax both ways instead of deciding on one sort of taxes. But I disgress...

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