date:20130505

Re: [FRIAM] API alternative?

2013-05-05 Thread Arlo Barnes

For either phrase, either assume your audience knows what you are talking
about or define the terms before you go on. Explain that it is like a
control panel you can receive data from and send instructions through, and
being so generally defined does not go into details of implementation.
-Arlo James Barnes

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] API alternative?

2013-05-05 Thread Owen Densmore

Agreed.  In unix command line pipe terms, the API is the
goes-into-goes-outof (gozintagozouta) GIGO? for the library.  This is how
Sun engineers talked with management about new projects and indeed became a
buzzword.

TL;DR

Actually, if you include the unix command arguments, you get a lovely
example of a Turing model: input, state, output.


   -- Owen


On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Arlo Barnes arlo.bar...@gmail.com wrote:

 For either phrase, either assume your audience knows what you are talking
 about or define the terms before you go on. Explain that it is like a
 control panel you can receive data from and send instructions through, and
 being so generally defined does not go into details of implementation.
 -Arlo James Barnes

 
 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
 Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
 to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[FRIAM] Fwd: National Internet sales tax: Why I love the Marketplace Fairness Act, and you should, too. - Slate Magazine

2013-05-05 Thread Owen Densmore

This is an interesting article, appearing in the S.F. New Mexican sunday
edition.
 (SFNM left out two paragraphs)

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/04/national_internet_sales_tax_why_i_love_the_marketplace_fairness_act_and.html

Its interesting on a number of
 net culture as well as tax law perspectives:

- The SFNM paper has a virtual publication's article.  Slate and HuffPost
seems quite popular. The new R
euters






?

- The article discusses retail tax, but with interesting nuances

- Amazon supports it because they want to build large warehouses in most
states for same-day delivery

- Look out WalMart!

- The law will only go into effect if all states simplify their tax codes
and provide free software to on-line businesses

- Conservatives and Liberals both agree that its time now .. the web
businesses no longer need the
subsidy
.

- As the population ages, they'd be fine with on-line buying with same day
delivery, even from local businesses, and this law is likely to build an
ecology for easy delivery, vans for example.

- 
There is an exemption for on-line stores with less than $1million annual
revenues.

- The exception is being considered unfair with large, but not nation wide,
on-line retailers, and by eBay who services many of them.

   -- Owen

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: National Internet sales tax: Why I love the Marketplace Fairness Act, and you should, too. - Slate Magazine

2013-05-05 Thread Gillian Densmore

Grr just no, the net is one of the few places where we aren't nickled and
dimed with taxes or gulable consumers see 1.99 and think a penny less than
2 dollars is a savings.

On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote:

This is an interesting article, appearing in the S.F. New Mexican sunday
edition.
(SFNM left out two paragraphs)

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/04/national_internet_sales_tax_why_i_love_the_marketplace_fairness_act_and.html

Its interesting on a number of
net culture as well as tax law perspectives:

- The SFNM paper has a virtual publication's article. Slate and
HuffPost seems quite popular. The new R
euters
?

- The article discusses retail tax, but with interesting nuances

- Amazon supports it because they want to build large warehouses in most
states for same-day delivery

- Look out WalMart!

- The law will only go into effect if all states simplify their tax codes
and provide free software to on-line businesses

- Conservatives and Liberals both agree that its time now .. the web
businesses no longer need the
subsidy
.

- As the population ages, they'd be fine with on-line buying with same day
delivery, even from local businesses, and this law is likely to build an
ecology for easy delivery, vans for example.

-
There is an exemption for on-line stores with less than $1million annual
revenues.

- The exception is being considered unfair with large, but not nation
wide, on-line retailers, and by eBay who services many of them.

-- Owen

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: National Internet sales tax: Why I love the Marketplace Fairness Act, and you should, too. - Slate Magazine

2013-05-05 Thread Russ Abbott

Actually I think Farhad Manjoo makes a good case for the Marketplace
Fairness Act. He points out that taxes are already owed on Internet
purchases. It's just that nobody pays them. The act would require online
merchants to collect the taxes owed -- just as they do for non-online
sales. Besides that, the act would require states to simplify their tax
systems and provide free software to companies if they want the companies
to collect taxes from citizens of their states.

Of course nobody likes to pay taxes. But taxes are necessary to support
government, which itself is necessary. We are among the lowest taxed people
in the world. So the amount of taxes we pay isn't the issue. Wanting even
lower taxes is simply both unrealistic and selfish. Objecting to taxes is
like objecting to traffic lights. Of course they slow you down. But
consider the alternative. Furthermore, conservative economists (as Manjoo
points out) prefer sales taxes to other forms. So this is the sort of tax
that conservative economists favor.

Read the article. It all makes pretty good sense.

*-- Russ Abbott*
*_*
*** Professor, Computer Science*
* California State University, Los Angeles*

* My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688*
* Google voice: 747-*999-5105
Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/
* vita: *sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
CS Wiki http://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/ and the courses I teach
*_*

On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 2:29 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.comwrote: