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They are all manufactured in the same place, so efficiency would flow across the borders.Apparently impotency does not.
Almost half of Cialis sales are in USA and that does not include all the "discount viagra online" sales which are recorded in Canada, but are then shipped to US. http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=16591

Surely the zero-cost technology that's available to Skype and Google is also available to the world's cell carriers. In other words, there's no practical reason that cell carriers (ours and the overseas ones) should charge so much -- only a greedy reason.

Skype is not zero cost. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth, using Skype at home you pay for the bandwidth by way of your ISP. Heavy Skype usage would screw over the already overloaded cellular networks and they would lose money on it.

Seems fair, right? It is -- up until the day you finish reimbursing your carrier for your phone. Maybe that happens in the eighth month of ownership, maybe in the 14th month. But at some point during the two years, you'll have finished repaying the subsidy.

And here's the part you can legitimately get angry about. If your monthly fee includes payment for the phone itself, how come that monthly bill doesn't suddenly drop in the month when you've finished paying off that handset?

For many contracts the carrier does not MAKE any money until you pay off the subsidy. What used to go into paying off the phone subsidy instead becomes profit, you know, that thing companies try to earn so that they can stay in business, not to mention spend tens of billions of dollars per year upgrading their cellular networks.

TEXT-MESSAGING FEES Why has the price of a text message gone to 20 cents, from 10, in two years? There was no big technology shift. There was no spike in the cost of electrons.

Because carriers want people to move to unlimited messaging plans. Holy shit how easy is that to figure out? Why do half size products at the super market cost 70% of the price of the full size product? It isn't all due to packaging, it is to encourage you to buy the larger size package!

And then when I call in for messages, I'm held up for 15 more seconds. "To listen to your messages, press 1." Why else would I be calling!?

I have never seen a US carrier (I haven't looked at pay as you go plans though) that counts checking voice mail against your minutes. I have only examined bills for AT&T and T-Mobile though, so maybe Verizon or Sprint is screwing him here.

Right now, the cell carriers spend about $6 billion a year on advertising.

Looking at the numbers he links to, that is actually impressively low considering how much more they spend on R&D.

AT&T did not say how much it will spend on this year's upgrades but said it spent more than $6 billion on infrastructure statewide from 2006 to 2008. It said its capital expenditures companywide for 2009 will total between $17 billion and $18 billion.

---Asterisk VOIP News

Also

AT&T announced that since the Telecom and Video Reform Act (HEA 1279) was signed into law in 2006, through 2008, AT&T's total capital investment has exceeded $1 billion across Indiana. As part of its ongoing expansion, AT&T also unveiled plans to add more than 35 new cell sites throughout Indiana in 2009.

---http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=34689
(Emphasis mine)

Now I don't like AT&T. I don't like Verizon. I am pretty meh about Sprint, and I do like T-Mobile's customer service. I think the carriers all do rip people off, saying they should give us free international calling or not make a profit anymore is downright stupid.

Good for them, but it's worth noting that they've previously been fined for violating election laws by selling uncertified equipment to the State of Indiana.

Nah. It's science fraud, in my opinion. The technique seems real, but the use is exaggerated. Employees would just wash their hands in a solution of soap and chlorine bleach before they went to work. The soap and bleach tears the molecules of complex compounds apart.

Those who were especially careful would wear gloves when they handled an unusual substance.

That kind of exaggeration of the benefits of some new science is common now. Maybe Griffin Analytical Technologies is looking for investors. Maybe it is an advertisement. Certainly any scientist knows about the effects of bleach.

My opinion: Too much P.R. to be completely honest.

Here's something covering the opening of the new Purdue nanotech center...perhaps relevant for someone who can use the after-knowledge...

"Parents may deem content inappropriate for what ever reasons they like, but that does not mean that others are obliged to protect their children from such "evils" if they do not deem it similarly inappropriate."

So, liquor stores should not be fined or regulated because it's the parents' fault that their minor went in and bought a six-pack? You're missing the point here, yes, parents have the sole responsibility of keeping harmful material out of their children's way, but that doesn't mean that certain measures outside the parent's view shouldn't have some basic levels of regulation in place. Under your logic, the liquor stores should have free reign to sell to whomever they want. If the parents don't like it, the parents should have taught their kids better, right? That's absurd. Even the best taught kids will dabble in harmful things if they are presented to them. So, the most basic and harmless way to prevent that, is to make the purchase of such items (like sexual and violent video games), hard to access in the first place. A strong fine and harder regulations are all these senators are proposing, not the suppression of free speech like everyone is making this out to be:

"The Clinton-Lieberman-Bayh bill, the Family Entertainment Protection Act, prohibits any business from selling or renting a Mature, Adults-Only, or Ratings Pending game to a person who is younger than seventeen. On-site store managers would be subject to a fine of $1,000 or 100 hours of community service for the first offense; $5,000 or 500 hours of community service for each subsequent offense. The bill also requires an annual, independent analysis of game ratings and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct an investigation to determine whether hidden content like in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a pervasive problem and take appropriate action. In addition, the bill will help ensure that consumers have a mechanism to file complaints with the FTC and that the FTC will report these complaints to Congress. Finally, the bill authorizes the FTC to conduct an annual, random audit of retailers to monitor enforcement and report the findings to Congress.

Illinois, Michigan, and California have all passed state laws to prohibit the sale of violent video games to minors."

source



"The computer game industry would be smart to buckle down and create a rigid and reasonable rating system. It should enforce it, it should guarantee the guide's integrity and should punish its own when they break it."

Yeah, a lot of industries should do a lot of things for themselves, but that's the whole point, they don't. When industries are acting irresponsibly (like environmental polluters), the gov must step in to protect the little man bellow the corporate level. That's one of the main roles of gov: to protect those that can't protect themselves. That's all this legislation is doing. It's not about blocking free speech in the slightest. If that were the case, these senators would be calling for an all out ban of the games, they are not, they are simply putting limits onto who can buy them. That's not such a hard pill to swallow, is it?

Apparently, they got almost 1 million dollers from the USMC for this. And yet they can't afford a real webpage. Does anyone else smell a scam?

While i'm inclined to agree with everyone else that this is a scam, I can't be too sure. So here's my assumptions about why it's fake (in addition to aforementioned free website/e-mail):
1) In the picture, the "soldier" doesn't look older than 14
2) The "soldier"'s shirt is not tucked in, nor are there any insignia on the shirt. A definite no-no.
3) The "soldier" is not wearing combat boots, nor are his pants tucked into the boots. Another no-no for real soldiers.
4) The "weapon" definately looks like a paper tube wrapped in gift wrap. Additionally, whatever that spring thing is at the end of the tube looks rusty. Call me a sticker but methinks that a weapon that shoots electricity would not have a rusty thing at the end.

Now here's why I think this could be real, just incredibly, incredibly stupid looking:
1) WHOIS indicates that the website has been registered since 1997. While not entirely unplausible, it seems unlikely that for just a joke someone would have registered the website that long ago, and would have reregistered it.
2) A Google search show some interesting things. Like the Pete Bitar who is the president/register/etc. is VP of American Aviation where his bio mentions this xtremeads thing. A little bizarre that a professional company would mention a fake project for the bios of their personnel.
3) The google search also found an article from the Inside Indiana Business that mentions the company and the president. Once again, it seems unlikely this guy could fool that many people. Although not entirely unplausible.

Anyways, those are my feelings, what do you all think?