What I am saying is that my experience thus far is that the equation has always worked out in favor of online purchases, regardless of sales tax. Your mileage may vary.
The problem with this suggestion (and I know this from experience) is that if you bump into this thing from the side, or really at all, the binder clips pop right off and the whole thing falls apart. Additionally, anything you pull off one of these shelfs is likely to catch on a binder clip and pop it off.
I'm afraid this is one of those better-in-theory-than-in-practice ideas.
Sales tax never enters into the equation for me. I can drive to a store with a crappy selection (or multiple stores w/crappy selections, depending on what I'm buying), or I can click a button and the thing that I want shows up on my doorstep a few days later.
Another approach is the pianobar command-line Pandora client (native Linux, ported for Apple, and can be compiled in Cygwin). It can submit to last.fm via a helper script, and doesn't require me to give some 3rd-party site my Pandora and last.fm usernames and passwords.
Glad to see the link to the Felix Salmon post on Reuters. Donate unfettered funds to a well-known aid organization and let them decide how best to allocate the money.
Yup, that's been my approach and experience as well. I don't see the point in berating some poor slob in a call center--it's not like the person making the call has any real choice in the matter anyway.
@verset: "And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique."
I predict that regardless of whether or not Bern's results are replicated, this paper will serve as the basis for countless claims by charlatans and their gullible followers that SCIENCE HAS CONFIRMED IT IS TRUE!