In most schools, a D satisfies a course requirement outside your major, but not a course requirement within your major. That makes a lot of sense, really, as it provides more leniency in classes that are less critical to your specific degree. The alternative would be grading major students on a different curve, but that blows up when people start exploiting it by changing majors at the last minute....
This might be true in college, but this is high school we're talking about. I've never heard of anyone majoring in anything in high school.
The school that I work at is very might like this. I work in a junior high. You only have to pass 2 of 4 core classes (English, Math, Science, Social Studies). You can fail two of those, plus PE and exploration class and still move on to either 8th or 9th grade. Your GPA doesn't start until 9th grade, so most kids don't care what they do and don't pass until then. They also "find" ways to pass kids in elementary school. Last year, I worked with a kid who could read and write on a 3rd grade level and he was in 7th grade. Not only did he pass, he was on the honor roll 3 out of 4 marking periods.
Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of homeless in New York City to pick up bottles and cans. I grew up in upstate New York. Though NYC has a large population, it is only a small part of the state.
So I have an older computer (P4 I think) that has no memory. A friend gave it to me and I had thought of putting memory in it (DDR 1 I think), but was told it would cost less to buy a new computer. I think this might be a good computer to turn into a linux computer and finally learn to use linux. I have pics of the motherboard here. I don't really have the money to buy memory, no one in my town wants the computer, and there's nowhere to recycle it either. So, it just sits in the back room collecting dust.
Mandatory bottle refunds actually work, despite the dire warnings from the soda and beer industry, and fierce opposition from the reactionary right.
Really? In my home state of New York, there are thousands of bottles and cans littering the streets even though you have to pay a nickel on each can when you buy them. How is this forced recycling working? Sure, there are folks that actually recycle and/or take their cans back to get their money back, but there are just as many cans and bottles on the streets now as in the '70s and '80s.
Have you driven much outside of major metropolitan areas in the USA? It certainly doesn't sound like it. I've driven a 5-speed since 1990. I don't have cruise control. Most of the highways I drive on certainly have twists and turns. The town I grew up in was in New York State (yeah, there's a whole state and not just a city). It has many curvy bends and blind corners. The USA is gigantic. There are numerous places where the highway, as well as regular roads, do not have a logic to them. My home town build most of the roads as they needed them. There is no grid pattern there. Also, roundabouts exist in the USA. We just don't have them at every intersection like in Europe.
I have "fetched" a loaf of bread many times without a car. I still do. I'm not afraid to walk a mile to do such things. I also walk to the doctor's, dentist, and optometrist. I lived for nearly three years without a car and walked everywhere I needed to go, except work. I took the bus for that.
If you think there is no need to beat a dead horse, why did you even bring up that your European driving rules, manual cars, and roads are so much better than what's in the USA? For the record, I've driven in Canada, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, and The Netherlands. Italians are the worst drivers that I have ever seen. Ireland reminded me a lot of growing up in New York and driving there. I found there are idiots in every country. I found decent, courteous drivers in every country.
To label everyone as the same type of driver is stupid. One friend in Holland, I refuse to ride with. Another friend in Holland is one of the safest driver's I've ever seen. It's the same anywhere. Also, if you really want to look at why there are so many automatics in the US, ask the car companies. They offer one manual for every 10 automatics at the dealer. Some Hyundais don't even have an option to purchase it as a manual (iirc. it's the Tuscon). There are only two members of my family in New York who cannot drive a stick. Where I live now (Western Nebraska), you'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't drive a manual.
Remember, America is a big place. Driving styles vary from place to place. Roads vary from place to place. The ability to drive varies drastically from city to city, even within one state.
no, recharge times are not really a issue. but you have to realize that you use a electric car differently then a gas powered one.
you charge it at home at night, and its full in the morning, every morning. most people could do a week on a single nights charge.
that one time a year(if that) where you have to go further then the cars range you can always borrow or rent a gas powered car (or even take the train or something)
the one thing holding electric back is purchases price. the lithium batteries are expensive (all the rest is cheaper)
If this car were to be bought by someone like me, I regularly have to travel more than 248 mile range it has. From my home, the places I regularly travel to are 228 miles RT, 316 miles RT, 340 miles RT, 424 miles RT, and occasionally one trip that is 842 miles RT. This is also the distances between my home and these cities. It doesn't include driving around while there. All the trips, with the exception of the last one, are usually day trips. I visit these places about 15 times a year, so pretty much any electric car will not work for my purposes.
There are no trains or buses here. I am also not going to borrow or rent a car for such purposes either. It's just not practical for me. I realize that I am not most people, but there is a large majority of the population for which an electric car would not be practical even if it were affordable.
In many "at risk" districts teachers spend more than half their day making sure the kids aren't hungry, are behaving in class, have their homework completed, and have the supplies that they need like pencils.
I can't speak to a wider trend, but I can verify this in the case of at least one public school. My wife teaches 9th graders and regularly brings food for her students just to make sure they have eaten, because there isn't any at home. She also gives them books that she's finished reading, because otherwise they wouldn't have any at home. Turns out when somebody actually takes the time to figure out what they're interested in, and then provides those books, these kids really like to read.
There's a similar thing at the school I work at as well. These kids usually get free breakfast and lunch at school and on Fridays the kids go to the office before going home and get a brown paper bag with food for the weekend for the kid. This is all voluntary and the food comes from other students. It's all anonymous so as to try and minimize embarrassment for the poor students.
There's on kid in particular who has told me several times that he is glad to come to school because he gets two meals a day there and he doesn't have to listen to his parents fighting. His parents even refused to buy him soap and deodorant for PE class. One of the kids in his class gave him some and I honestly think that his shower after PE every day is the only shower he gets. He always comes to talk to me after school, even though it's just for 15 minutes because that's 15 minutes someone pays attention to him and 15 minutes less he has to be at home for. He's a bright kid, but his parents just don't care. His home life sucks, so he doesn't get a lot of homework done. The sad thing is, if his parents gave a shit, he'd be an A student instead of a C student.
I have to agree with you there. I work in a junior high as a special ed teaching assistant (I sit in class with special ed students and help them with whatever they need) and there are some great teachers here, but they still have students who are failing. Some students just don't give a damn and, "eh, it's a D. It's passing," is their attitude. One particular science teacher has tried her damnedest to get these kids motivated this year and nothing works.
We do a lot of labs and hands on stuff that's cool. I often wish my science teachers had done these sorts of things when I was in junior high. The kids who don't care just whine about how they have to do classwork and they don't see the point in washing their hands after handling mold, bacteria or a cow's heart. Last week, we got to see several different kinds of protists under the microscope and most of them could have cared less.
This same teacher reminds them nearly every day, up to two weeks before a test, that they need to study, yet the kids never take their textbooks home and then fail or get a D and they don't care. She's done pretty much all she can. The rest is up to the students.
Now, there are some bad teachers here. One is retiring this year. She's just sick of it after 37 years and is done trying. She even said that in the last 2-3 years she's seen her attitude change and it's time to go. The other three are all in their second year and, hopefully, won't be asked back next year.
Ten years ago, I worked for Nebraska Bookstore. It's not huge when compared to Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I worked in their catalog department. When we rang up an order, out of state purchases got 0% tax and, if it was shipped in-state, there was a little chart above the register with each city listed alphabetically and what their tax was. This was because, in Nebraska, there is a state tax and a city tax. So, they figured out what the two together were and made a handy list for us.
Everything we did was manual but, from what I've heard, they now have a computer program that figures it out for you and you just punch in the complete total (purchase+tax+shipping) when you ring it up. I would assume that since this was ten years ago, there are better programs now to do the same thing.
The problem with longer school years (adding extra days) is that the money to pay staff has to come from somewhere. That is, most likely, going to come from raising taxes. I don't think the federal government will give the money to offset the difference. Remember, it's not just teachers that need more pay for more days, it's the support staff from teaching aides to janitors that will also be required to be there.
Another problem is that many schools tend to push kids along, even though they don't know the material. Maybe if there were actual consequences to failing, kids might learn more.
You also have to worry about teachers that just don't know their stuff. The school district I work in has a lot of really good teachers, but the ones that aren't stick out big time. The problem is, I live in a very rural area and not a lot of people want to work here. There is a large chunk of teachers that grew up in the area, went to college, and came back.
You can't just say get better teachers and/or make the school year longer without really thinking through what that means, how you're going to pay for it, and how it's going to be implemented.
Is there any chance that they make something like this for ide/pata drives? Yeah, I'm old, but I've got about 10 drives like that and each one has 75-160 GB on them. They're a real pain to swap out all the time on the 5 external enclosures that I have.
I got chastised on another website for stating that teachers should be proficient in their content areas. I was told that teachers shouldn't have to know everything, despite the fact that they are teaching these subjects to the kids.
I work as a teacher's aide in an elementary school. The teacher in the classroom has no idea where countries are located (she claimed Brazil was in Africa), how they are pronounced or who their leaders are. She can name Queen Elizabeth, but not Gordon Brown.
Now, I understand that she's an elementary teacher, but she has to teach social studies and science to these kids and she doesn't know the basic information. She teaches kids that have state exams in these areas, yet isn't prepared to learn the information herself. When we had testing last week, there were several questions on the exams that she never covered because she just didn't know. At least for this teacher, if it's not in the book, don't ask her about it.
The problem is that there were many people who finished a game within a couple of days and then returned it, claiming they didn't like the game. Essentially, they got to play it for free.
Other people would install windows, return it, then the next person got an invalid key. This pretty much happened to all types of media once people figured out the myriad ways to scam the system. It was a big enough problem that the rules for all media had to be changed.
I never understood how this works either, but I moved 18 months ago to a town with around 18,000 people in it. When I have given my number to people where required (for example at work), people always say, "Oh you live up by the hospital." This always creeps me the hell out because I do live up by the hospital and it wouldn't take more than a few hours to figure out where I lived. I haven't a clue how they know because they just say, "I know by your number."
Granted, this is a landline, but I've been told people can narrow you down to a few blocks by a cell number too.
Do you pay an ungodly wheel tax or road tax when you renew your registration at the DMV? There is such a tax in Nebraska, thus the reason for no toll roads. There isn't a tax like that in NY, so you pay for the tolls.
Also, if you live in the St. Louis area you have to have a vehicle inspection and emissions inspection. Where do you think all that money goes? You're getting nickel-and-dimed as much as people who have to pay tolls.
When I lived in North Carolina, you had to pay property taxes, even if you rented. I suspect some of that cash went to the DMV.
I would rather have tolls and pay for the roads I use than be forced to pay for some arbitrarily high tax every year when I renew my license.
What about things like MLB online. It's the only way to see the baseball games that I want to see. You take that stream (800k iirc) and multiply that by 3.5 hours per game. 6 games a week. How close to that cap would a person come just by watching baseball online?
I don't own a TV anymore so this is my only option. I suspect that I'll be limited in my other online activities if I renew. It seems like MLB won't be getting my money once these caps go through.
This doesn't even begin to address all the streaming videos that are out there that other companies want you to watch. You pretty much will be forced to put a monitoring program on your computer or pay through the nose.
When I bought my new TV in September 2004, I purposely looked for one that had HDTV built in so that, in 2006, I didn't have to fuck around with boxes or looking for a new TV. To me, that's 4.5 years that I know of for people to get their act together. If they haven't done it now, they aren't going to do it until their blessed TV goes dark and they are forced to get off their asses and sort it out for themselves.
I was getting an oil change on Thursday at the Chevy dealership and was chatting with a bunch of the salesmen while I waited. They said that they are likely going to get rid of Saturn as it hasn't made a profit since they began. The guys also told me that if you look at a Yukon and one of the other SUVs (can't remember which one right now), they have the same body, engine, etc., except for one bit on the front end. One of those is also likely to be gone soon as well.
The guys told me that GM is going to really pare down their offerings of vehicles because it's stupid to compete against yourself. They also said that GM is seriously considering selling or shutting down Cadillac. Also on the chopping block is Pontiac, Buick, and possibly GMC trucks, though no decision has been made on those.
Lastly, they said that there is no way that Chevy will be shut down partly because of name recognition, they're the best known, and they are still selling many Chevys as opposed to the rest of the GM vehicles.
I'm all for it. Stupid people should face the consequences of their actions. Teens who talk on their cells while driving are about as stupid as they come. Let 'em have it... I just don't want to be in the oncoming lane when they finally learn their lesson.
Yep, this happened a few weeks ago. It was a 15 year old girl texting while driving (you can get a license here at 14 to drive to and from school). She hit another car head on and the two men in the other car are now dead.
She's been arrested and will probably go to jail, but she's still alive, while two guy who weren't doing anything wrong are now dead.
i dunno wtf you need a pager for if you have a cell phone. Get a nice cell that does all the bells and whistles YOU desire and you're gtg.
There are many hospitals that still won't allow cell phones around their equipment and still have bans on having cell phones in the hospital. However, pagers don't cause the interference that cell phones do. Thus, pagers are still important in some areas. If you work in a hospital, a pager is a handy thing to still have.
I don't use my debit card for three very simple reasons.
1) Most places where I live, particularly gas stations, put liens on the card ($50-300) when I use them to buy stuff. I don't have that amount of cash to just be held up for several days.
2) Many merchants are charging more for using them. Last night at the movies, there was a new sign that says if you use a debit card, there will be an additional 30 cent fee.
3) If I ever succumb to a phisher or have my card stolen while I'm out somewhere, all my money is gone. I now cannot pay any bills. The bills I have paid will start bouncing as they come in and the money is gone from my account.
Blaming the post office is kind of silly. In 20 years of mailing my bills, I have only had a bill be late once and that was because a hurricane hit Florida before my payment arrived and could be processed. I simply called the credit card company and they erased the finance charges. They were doing this for everyone.
I carry one mastercard around and I have the 800 number memorized should I ever get robbed. I simply can't afford to not be as proactive as possible because I don't have thousands of dollars that I can just pull out of a hat should any of the above ever happen.
The only reason Wal-Mart is donating this stuff is because they can get back 100% their investment. The buyer won't take back damaged goods and, if they throw the stuff out, they can make a claim on it. However, if they donate the stuff, then they get to claim the retail price, not the price they paid for it.
It's also well known that people who sell cell phones are compensated more than regular employees. This is true in most retail stores. What exactly do your cashiers make and what state do you live in? Do you live in a state that has a higher minimum wage than the federal limit? Just saying that your cashiers make more than minimum doesn't count for much when we don't know where this is. I know a man who makes $9 an hour at Wal-Mart, however the state minimum is $7.50. Even at full-time, he still lives at home because he can't afford not to.
Your Wal-Mart might be nice, but, in the five towns that I've lived in, they were always filthy, sometimes the produce was rotting, and the employees were non-existent or couldn't be bothered to help you. The cashiers acted like you were interrupting their day. Contrast that with Target and the store was always clean an employees friendly. The one in my town has particularly helpful employees, which has impressed me because I've worked retail and it's hard to be nice every damned day.
Maybe your Wal-Mart is the exception to the rule, but, in my experience, they are a terrible company to work for and to shop in, so I simply don't.
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In most schools, a D satisfies a course requirement outside your major, but not a course requirement within your major. That makes a lot of sense, really, as it provides more leniency in classes that are less critical to your specific degree. The alternative would be grading major students on a different curve, but that blows up when people start exploiting it by changing majors at the last minute....
This might be true in college, but this is high school we're talking about. I've never heard of anyone majoring in anything in high school.
The school that I work at is very might like this. I work in a junior high. You only have to pass 2 of 4 core classes (English, Math, Science, Social Studies). You can fail two of those, plus PE and exploration class and still move on to either 8th or 9th grade. Your GPA doesn't start until 9th grade, so most kids don't care what they do and don't pass until then. They also "find" ways to pass kids in elementary school. Last year, I worked with a kid who could read and write on a 3rd grade level and he was in 7th grade. Not only did he pass, he was on the honor roll 3 out of 4 marking periods.
Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of homeless in New York City to pick up bottles and cans. I grew up in upstate New York. Though NYC has a large population, it is only a small part of the state.
So I have an older computer (P4 I think) that has no memory. A friend gave it to me and I had thought of putting memory in it (DDR 1 I think), but was told it would cost less to buy a new computer. I think this might be a good computer to turn into a linux computer and finally learn to use linux. I have pics of the motherboard here. I don't really have the money to buy memory, no one in my town wants the computer, and there's nowhere to recycle it either. So, it just sits in the back room collecting dust.
Mandatory bottle refunds actually work, despite the dire warnings from the soda and beer industry, and fierce opposition from the reactionary right.
Really? In my home state of New York, there are thousands of bottles and cans littering the streets even though you have to pay a nickel on each can when you buy them. How is this forced recycling working? Sure, there are folks that actually recycle and/or take their cans back to get their money back, but there are just as many cans and bottles on the streets now as in the '70s and '80s.
Have you driven much outside of major metropolitan areas in the USA? It certainly doesn't sound like it. I've driven a 5-speed since 1990. I don't have cruise control. Most of the highways I drive on certainly have twists and turns. The town I grew up in was in New York State (yeah, there's a whole state and not just a city). It has many curvy bends and blind corners. The USA is gigantic. There are numerous places where the highway, as well as regular roads, do not have a logic to them. My home town build most of the roads as they needed them. There is no grid pattern there. Also, roundabouts exist in the USA. We just don't have them at every intersection like in Europe.
I have "fetched" a loaf of bread many times without a car. I still do. I'm not afraid to walk a mile to do such things. I also walk to the doctor's, dentist, and optometrist. I lived for nearly three years without a car and walked everywhere I needed to go, except work. I took the bus for that.
If you think there is no need to beat a dead horse, why did you even bring up that your European driving rules, manual cars, and roads are so much better than what's in the USA? For the record, I've driven in Canada, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, and The Netherlands. Italians are the worst drivers that I have ever seen. Ireland reminded me a lot of growing up in New York and driving there. I found there are idiots in every country. I found decent, courteous drivers in every country.
To label everyone as the same type of driver is stupid. One friend in Holland, I refuse to ride with. Another friend in Holland is one of the safest driver's I've ever seen. It's the same anywhere. Also, if you really want to look at why there are so many automatics in the US, ask the car companies. They offer one manual for every 10 automatics at the dealer. Some Hyundais don't even have an option to purchase it as a manual (iirc. it's the Tuscon). There are only two members of my family in New York who cannot drive a stick. Where I live now (Western Nebraska), you'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't drive a manual.
Remember, America is a big place. Driving styles vary from place to place. Roads vary from place to place. The ability to drive varies drastically from city to city, even within one state.
no, recharge times are not really a issue. but you have to realize that you use a electric car differently then a gas powered one. you charge it at home at night, and its full in the morning, every morning. most people could do a week on a single nights charge.
that one time a year(if that) where you have to go further then the cars range you can always borrow or rent a gas powered car (or even take the train or something)
the one thing holding electric back is purchases price. the lithium batteries are expensive (all the rest is cheaper)
If this car were to be bought by someone like me, I regularly have to travel more than 248 mile range it has. From my home, the places I regularly travel to are 228 miles RT, 316 miles RT, 340 miles RT, 424 miles RT, and occasionally one trip that is 842 miles RT. This is also the distances between my home and these cities. It doesn't include driving around while there. All the trips, with the exception of the last one, are usually day trips. I visit these places about 15 times a year, so pretty much any electric car will not work for my purposes.
There are no trains or buses here. I am also not going to borrow or rent a car for such purposes either. It's just not practical for me. I realize that I am not most people, but there is a large majority of the population for which an electric car would not be practical even if it were affordable.
In many "at risk" districts teachers spend more than half their day making sure the kids aren't hungry, are behaving in class, have their homework completed, and have the supplies that they need like pencils.
I can't speak to a wider trend, but I can verify this in the case of at least one public school. My wife teaches 9th graders and regularly brings food for her students just to make sure they have eaten, because there isn't any at home. She also gives them books that she's finished reading, because otherwise they wouldn't have any at home. Turns out when somebody actually takes the time to figure out what they're interested in, and then provides those books, these kids really like to read.
There's a similar thing at the school I work at as well. These kids usually get free breakfast and lunch at school and on Fridays the kids go to the office before going home and get a brown paper bag with food for the weekend for the kid. This is all voluntary and the food comes from other students. It's all anonymous so as to try and minimize embarrassment for the poor students.
There's on kid in particular who has told me several times that he is glad to come to school because he gets two meals a day there and he doesn't have to listen to his parents fighting. His parents even refused to buy him soap and deodorant for PE class. One of the kids in his class gave him some and I honestly think that his shower after PE every day is the only shower he gets. He always comes to talk to me after school, even though it's just for 15 minutes because that's 15 minutes someone pays attention to him and 15 minutes less he has to be at home for. He's a bright kid, but his parents just don't care. His home life sucks, so he doesn't get a lot of homework done. The sad thing is, if his parents gave a shit, he'd be an A student instead of a C student.
I have to agree with you there. I work in a junior high as a special ed teaching assistant (I sit in class with special ed students and help them with whatever they need) and there are some great teachers here, but they still have students who are failing. Some students just don't give a damn and, "eh, it's a D. It's passing," is their attitude. One particular science teacher has tried her damnedest to get these kids motivated this year and nothing works.
We do a lot of labs and hands on stuff that's cool. I often wish my science teachers had done these sorts of things when I was in junior high. The kids who don't care just whine about how they have to do classwork and they don't see the point in washing their hands after handling mold, bacteria or a cow's heart. Last week, we got to see several different kinds of protists under the microscope and most of them could have cared less.
This same teacher reminds them nearly every day, up to two weeks before a test, that they need to study, yet the kids never take their textbooks home and then fail or get a D and they don't care. She's done pretty much all she can. The rest is up to the students.
Now, there are some bad teachers here. One is retiring this year. She's just sick of it after 37 years and is done trying. She even said that in the last 2-3 years she's seen her attitude change and it's time to go. The other three are all in their second year and, hopefully, won't be asked back next year.
Ten years ago, I worked for Nebraska Bookstore. It's not huge when compared to Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I worked in their catalog department. When we rang up an order, out of state purchases got 0% tax and, if it was shipped in-state, there was a little chart above the register with each city listed alphabetically and what their tax was. This was because, in Nebraska, there is a state tax and a city tax. So, they figured out what the two together were and made a handy list for us.
Everything we did was manual but, from what I've heard, they now have a computer program that figures it out for you and you just punch in the complete total (purchase+tax+shipping) when you ring it up. I would assume that since this was ten years ago, there are better programs now to do the same thing.
The problem with longer school years (adding extra days) is that the money to pay staff has to come from somewhere. That is, most likely, going to come from raising taxes. I don't think the federal government will give the money to offset the difference. Remember, it's not just teachers that need more pay for more days, it's the support staff from teaching aides to janitors that will also be required to be there.
Another problem is that many schools tend to push kids along, even though they don't know the material. Maybe if there were actual consequences to failing, kids might learn more.
You also have to worry about teachers that just don't know their stuff. The school district I work in has a lot of really good teachers, but the ones that aren't stick out big time. The problem is, I live in a very rural area and not a lot of people want to work here. There is a large chunk of teachers that grew up in the area, went to college, and came back.
You can't just say get better teachers and/or make the school year longer without really thinking through what that means, how you're going to pay for it, and how it's going to be implemented.
Is there any chance that they make something like this for ide/pata drives? Yeah, I'm old, but I've got about 10 drives like that and each one has 75-160 GB on them. They're a real pain to swap out all the time on the 5 external enclosures that I have.
I got chastised on another website for stating that teachers should be proficient in their content areas. I was told that teachers shouldn't have to know everything, despite the fact that they are teaching these subjects to the kids.
I work as a teacher's aide in an elementary school. The teacher in the classroom has no idea where countries are located (she claimed Brazil was in Africa), how they are pronounced or who their leaders are. She can name Queen Elizabeth, but not Gordon Brown.
Now, I understand that she's an elementary teacher, but she has to teach social studies and science to these kids and she doesn't know the basic information. She teaches kids that have state exams in these areas, yet isn't prepared to learn the information herself. When we had testing last week, there were several questions on the exams that she never covered because she just didn't know. At least for this teacher, if it's not in the book, don't ask her about it.
The problem is that there were many people who finished a game within a couple of days and then returned it, claiming they didn't like the game. Essentially, they got to play it for free.
Other people would install windows, return it, then the next person got an invalid key. This pretty much happened to all types of media once people figured out the myriad ways to scam the system. It was a big enough problem that the rules for all media had to be changed.
I never understood how this works either, but I moved 18 months ago to a town with around 18,000 people in it. When I have given my number to people where required (for example at work), people always say, "Oh you live up by the hospital." This always creeps me the hell out because I do live up by the hospital and it wouldn't take more than a few hours to figure out where I lived. I haven't a clue how they know because they just say, "I know by your number." Granted, this is a landline, but I've been told people can narrow you down to a few blocks by a cell number too.
Do you pay an ungodly wheel tax or road tax when you renew your registration at the DMV? There is such a tax in Nebraska, thus the reason for no toll roads. There isn't a tax like that in NY, so you pay for the tolls.
Also, if you live in the St. Louis area you have to have a vehicle inspection and emissions inspection. Where do you think all that money goes? You're getting nickel-and-dimed as much as people who have to pay tolls.
When I lived in North Carolina, you had to pay property taxes, even if you rented. I suspect some of that cash went to the DMV.
I would rather have tolls and pay for the roads I use than be forced to pay for some arbitrarily high tax every year when I renew my license.
I use DU Meter.
http://www.dumeter.com/?LangID=EN
It works pretty well for me. It costs $25, but I know there are other versions out there that are free.
What about things like MLB online. It's the only way to see the baseball games that I want to see. You take that stream (800k iirc) and multiply that by 3.5 hours per game. 6 games a week. How close to that cap would a person come just by watching baseball online?
I don't own a TV anymore so this is my only option. I suspect that I'll be limited in my other online activities if I renew. It seems like MLB won't be getting my money once these caps go through.
This doesn't even begin to address all the streaming videos that are out there that other companies want you to watch. You pretty much will be forced to put a monitoring program on your computer or pay through the nose.
When I bought my new TV in September 2004, I purposely looked for one that had HDTV built in so that, in 2006, I didn't have to fuck around with boxes or looking for a new TV. To me, that's 4.5 years that I know of for people to get their act together. If they haven't done it now, they aren't going to do it until their blessed TV goes dark and they are forced to get off their asses and sort it out for themselves.
I was getting an oil change on Thursday at the Chevy dealership and was chatting with a bunch of the salesmen while I waited. They said that they are likely going to get rid of Saturn as it hasn't made a profit since they began. The guys also told me that if you look at a Yukon and one of the other SUVs (can't remember which one right now), they have the same body, engine, etc., except for one bit on the front end. One of those is also likely to be gone soon as well.
The guys told me that GM is going to really pare down their offerings of vehicles because it's stupid to compete against yourself. They also said that GM is seriously considering selling or shutting down Cadillac. Also on the chopping block is Pontiac, Buick, and possibly GMC trucks, though no decision has been made on those.
Lastly, they said that there is no way that Chevy will be shut down partly because of name recognition, they're the best known, and they are still selling many Chevys as opposed to the rest of the GM vehicles.
Discover starts with 6011, 62, and 64.
American Express starts with 34 or 37 and are only 15 digits long.
You can check the whole list on wikipedia.
I'm all for it. Stupid people should face the consequences of their actions. Teens who talk on their cells while driving are about as stupid as they come. Let 'em have it... I just don't want to be in the oncoming lane when they finally learn their lesson.
Yep, this happened a few weeks ago. It was a 15 year old girl texting while driving (you can get a license here at 14 to drive to and from school). She hit another car head on and the two men in the other car are now dead. She's been arrested and will probably go to jail, but she's still alive, while two guy who weren't doing anything wrong are now dead.
i dunno wtf you need a pager for if you have a cell phone. Get a nice cell that does all the bells and whistles YOU desire and you're gtg.
There are many hospitals that still won't allow cell phones around their equipment and still have bans on having cell phones in the hospital. However, pagers don't cause the interference that cell phones do. Thus, pagers are still important in some areas. If you work in a hospital, a pager is a handy thing to still have.
I don't use my debit card for three very simple reasons.
1) Most places where I live, particularly gas stations, put liens on the card ($50-300) when I use them to buy stuff. I don't have that amount of cash to just be held up for several days.
2) Many merchants are charging more for using them. Last night at the movies, there was a new sign that says if you use a debit card, there will be an additional 30 cent fee.
3) If I ever succumb to a phisher or have my card stolen while I'm out somewhere, all my money is gone. I now cannot pay any bills. The bills I have paid will start bouncing as they come in and the money is gone from my account.
Blaming the post office is kind of silly. In 20 years of mailing my bills, I have only had a bill be late once and that was because a hurricane hit Florida before my payment arrived and could be processed. I simply called the credit card company and they erased the finance charges. They were doing this for everyone.
I carry one mastercard around and I have the 800 number memorized should I ever get robbed. I simply can't afford to not be as proactive as possible because I don't have thousands of dollars that I can just pull out of a hat should any of the above ever happen.
The only reason Wal-Mart is donating this stuff is because they can get back 100% their investment. The buyer won't take back damaged goods and, if they throw the stuff out, they can make a claim on it. However, if they donate the stuff, then they get to claim the retail price, not the price they paid for it.
It's also well known that people who sell cell phones are compensated more than regular employees. This is true in most retail stores. What exactly do your cashiers make and what state do you live in? Do you live in a state that has a higher minimum wage than the federal limit? Just saying that your cashiers make more than minimum doesn't count for much when we don't know where this is. I know a man who makes $9 an hour at Wal-Mart, however the state minimum is $7.50. Even at full-time, he still lives at home because he can't afford not to.
Your Wal-Mart might be nice, but, in the five towns that I've lived in, they were always filthy, sometimes the produce was rotting, and the employees were non-existent or couldn't be bothered to help you. The cashiers acted like you were interrupting their day. Contrast that with Target and the store was always clean an employees friendly. The one in my town has particularly helpful employees, which has impressed me because I've worked retail and it's hard to be nice every damned day.
Maybe your Wal-Mart is the exception to the rule, but, in my experience, they are a terrible company to work for and to shop in, so I simply don't.