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Californians being taxed for the unsubsidized price of the new iPhone 3GS

dNick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:26:08 +0000

Why is Apple making me pay the tax on the unsubsidized value of the iPhone, in the state of California?? Presumably because Apple will have to pay the state of California that amount when their taxes come due.

So then why is California making me pay for the unsubsidized portion of my new 32gb iPhone 3GS?

The only thing I can come up with is that somehow AT&T, who should be paying this tax, lobbied their way into our state government and convinced the taxmakers to move that tax burden on to the customer, and off of the company.

Clearly it’s not just AT&T, and possibly not at all AT&T, but somehow I feel like consumers are getting screwed and big corporations are getting away without paying their fair share of taxes on subsidized goods.

My new iPhone 3GS was $299 with a two year contract, and I paid $64.66 in tax. Here in Los Angeles, we enjoy a 9.25% sales tax, and 9.25% of 699.00 is $64.66.

So clearly, that 32gb shiny new iPhone costs $699.00, and that’s what AT&T is paying Apple for each one of those babies.

When I checked out of the online Apple store, I paid $299.00 for the phone, plus $64.66 in tax, for a total of, well you do the math.

Since I bought it from Apple, and signed that nice little two year contract in iTunes, which follows from above, that AT&T has to send Apple $300 for my phone…essentially buying that $300 part of my phone for me. Thanks AT&T!

But wait. Because AT&T bought half of the phone from Apple for me, shouldn’t they have to pay taxes on it? I think so. After all, I’m signing a contract that commits me to a two year service contract, and they will handily make back their $300.

Reports from other states say that customers are paying sales tax on the subsidized portion of the phone, and so AT&T must be picking up the bill for the rest. So, it appears this is mostly a California issue…although I believe a few other states are affected. Clearly this isn’t AT&T or Apple screwing us, it’s the California government, some kind of loophole that allows AT&T to squeeze $35 more out of each of us.

Personally, I’m calling AT&T to complain.

iPhone Dev Team does it again with ultrasn0w

dNick — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:59:35 +0000

Once again, the iPhone Dev Team takes AT&T to task. The GUI version of ultrasn0w will be released this Friday, which allows users to unlock their iPhone for use on any GSM carrier. In the US, that would be T-Mobile. However, T-Mobile’s 3G network is not available on the iPhone, as the cell radio in the current iPhone does not support the T-Mobile 3G frequency. EDGE is supported.

Ultrasn0w will be available Friday, most likely found within Cydia, which will be available on a freshly jailbroken phone. Look for updates to QuickPwn and Pwnage Tool that day to jailbreak your 3.0 updated phone.

Skip ahead to the two minute mark in the video, unless you also like to watch paint dry.

iPhone OS 3.0: force quit?

dNick — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:24:49 +0000

Amongst many other large and small changes on the new iPhone OS 3.0 is the inability to force quit applications by holding down the home button for 6 seconds.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed because this method seems to be a much better alternative than the hard reboot. Perhaps they think apps wont’t crash anymore? Right.

Spacer dammit, crappy theme.

Spacer dammit.

There’s an iPhone app for everything

aOoi — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:06:36 +0000

Are you affected by the economic recession, and feeling a little down with the whole situation? Fear not, let iPhone apps help you deal with it.

Source

Somebody must have pissed off someone

aOoi — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:02:19 +0000

Saw this on my way to work this morning.

Slim Shadi Shady’s New Car

dNick — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:14:21 +0000

Check out the Arab’s new car.

Candlebox Rox

dNick — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:56:18 +0000

Fucking Los Angeles. What a bunch of shit heads.

Kevin Martin starts singing an Alice in Chains song, after giving much love to Layne Staley, and the fucking crowd can’t even finish a single verse. What a bunch of self inflated douchebags. Fuck this town sucks balls.

Google Adsense is making me rich

dNick — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:20:01 +0000

Damn this is easy.

Fat Girl (2001): This movie sucks

dNick — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:46:41 +0000

Quite possibly the worst movie ever made, Fat Girl is a piece of shit film.

However, if you’re into pointless movies about slutty teens that end with pointless murder and consenual rape, then this movie is for you. Oops, I just ruined the ending.

Criterion Collection: Making sure you watch the best and worst movies ever.

And as if the movie itself weren’t enough, the special feature interview with the ‘brilliant’ director will make you loathe the movie even more.

But hey, f*ck it. Click the link and buy it.

Fat Girl – Criterion Collection

Shadi Rules

dNick — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:10:09 +0000

Yep, he rules. Sort of.

What NOT to get for your kid

aOoi — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:46:55 +0000

Port 43758 under attack from various IP’s

dNick — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:01:59 +0000

I am writing this post to announce that my firewall is under constant attack at port 43758.

The source port changes, and the source IP address is always different.

Has anyone else seen this? I believe it is causing my router to slow down and become unusable. At it’s worst, the router is receiving 2-3 of these attacks at this port every minute.

Metallica: faking it?

dNick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:58:48 +0000

Somebody is getting fired.

Last night, December 17th 2008, Metallica played the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, CA.

And what an awesome display of fire and light it was. Flame throwers shooting all colors of fire 8 feet in the air, lasers that probably blinded a few hundred long-hairs, and coffins which were hoisted up and down in irony…as Metallica is far from dead.

Thing is, though, that I think I lost a little bit of respect for them about halfway through the show. The track ‘All Nightmare Long’, off their recent album Death Magnetic, basically started playing while they were all off stage and the lights down.

At first I thought some kind of intermission was going to happen. Cool, time for another $13 Pacifico, I thought. But then, in the shadows the boys of Metallica could be seen scrambling to get to their posts and play it off like nothing happened.

It was an awkward moment. The crowd didn’t seem to care though…or even notice. Simply a production snafu. Right?

But so what, they’ve got a few tracks underneath to thicken things up. Everybody does that, right?

It’s not like they weren’t playing their instruments…or singing. They were all absolutely rocking the shit out of all their instruments…and they were far from perfect, well, far enough to know that they weren’t pulling an Asslee Simpson.

Anybody else see this show?

McCain thinks we are all his prisoners!

dNick — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:43:23 +0000

Gosh darnit, this oh I don’t know, this uh, media…and their gotcha journalism. Another example of them liberal partisans doctorin’ up our words, sounding us make no sense, and dubbin’ audio to make a foolery of us.

Listen to Keith Olbermann spell it out

dNick — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:27:02 +0000

Nailed it.