The spammers have all but ruined e-mail. Despite very protective measures, I think 90% of my email is spam.
Now they want to move on to voice mail. While that IS an improvement over making my phone ring (or vibrate), it will just make voice mail worthless too. I predict a lot of people setting a message along the lines of, "Thanks to spammers, I no longer receive voice mail. Please try to reach me another time." and then keeping their inbox full so no one else can leave a message.......or turning off voice mail entirely, if that is an option for them.
That's all fine and dandy - but what about the millions who do NOT fall into the group you mention? That's a rich market - why ignore it? Why not make a product for THEM too? It doesn't HAVE to be either/or.
I don't understand why the studios don't pursue the opportunity to make more profit for themselves. Charge me $15 to see a new release movie and keep ALL of it for yourself. Allow the usual suspects (Apple, Amazon, Netflix) to distribute it with a $2 markup for themselves. I'll pay $17 for that. Easily. Hell, I'd pay $20.
Do that AND continuing distributing movies to theaters for people who want the obnoxious "social" atmosphere of movie going. Everybody wins!
At home, I have a screen, stereo, a remote with a pause button, quiet environment, suitable lighting, food, drinks, free parking, proximity to the spawn of my loins and distance from inconsiderate assholes - everything I need for a good movie experience EXCEPT the fucking movie. That is ALL I require. That's ALL I am interested in paying for.
If I could get "once per day" or even "once per week" access to current run movies, I'd gladly pay for that. A year in advance too.
The good news is they FINALLY took Rants & Raves out of "personals" and put it under Community / Local News.
I never did understand why it was under "personals" to begin with. I mean, most of the insults there were pretty personal - but even so - it did not seem to fit with all the other "personals" categories.
Still not interested. Even if you lower your price all the way to zero.
Now, what I WOULD be interested in is a subscription service that let me watch movies on the day of release AT HOME. That would actually have some value to me.
Amazingly, even though it was not a requirement, I had three years of computer science in high school, in 1986, 1987 and 1988.
Not everything needs to be a requirement.
On the other hand, I only had one year of foreign language, because I had a rotten teacher that made me say "fuck this" even though I was inherently interest in the topic. Foreign language wasn't a requirement either.
On the other, other hand, I had three years of PhysEd because it WAS a requirement, even though I was on the cross country team and played volleyball - and the last thing I needed to waste my time doing in high school was being in PhysEd with a bunch of dumbasses.
California - and Californians, and other Blue States and their residents, are BIG BELIEVERS in those with money providing subsidies to those without money. So what's the problem here?
"California has built a government-heavy, highly regulated state and it is not working to produce the results we want. The solution is more government and more regulation".
You sir are part of the problem. You displaced a middle income family from living at that house and it's happening more and more across the country.
You sir, are insane. I didn't buy the only shitty house in this city. There are plenty of other shitty houses for people to choose from. There's certainly no shortage. This PARTICULAR shitty house was for sale for six months before we bought it. If someone else wanted it, they had ample opportunity to buy it before we did.
Aside from that - I'm supposed to buy as much house as I can possibly afford, so that I TOO can be only one job loss or other bad break away from losing my house and/or going into bankruptcy? What the fuck kind of logic is that? It's the very same logic that puts many people in the exact shitty situation that they find themselves in.
Maybe I could stretch myself even more buy hiring a lawn guy, a house cleaner and a home repair guy - since that would provide jobs for people! Fuck - I didn't realize I am so evil until now. Thanks for helping clue me in!
Well, you are also a two income household where the study is indicating a single income household. So, given a spouse that makes as much money, they'd be looking at 11-16%. Your 6% is good. I doubt others near you have an equally great deal as that is typically far below the historical average, and I'm guessing you got a really good deal or are living below your means (lower than other people of similar pay anyway). Actually, the deals for the high tech workers isn't bad and is near past historical (middle class) averages where housing now (and has been for decades) the largest household expense as the past largest (33-50%), food, has dropped drastically along with clothing.
Yeah - I was going to mention the whole two vs one income thing. And you're right. And yes, she makes basically the same money I do. So even as SINGLE people, either one of us would basically be paying only 11% or so on our house. Of course, as single people, we would buy less house and be paying even less. Probably more in the 9-10% range. But you hit on another point. The real key is living below your means. We didn't get any great deal on our house (we probably paid a little too much), but we did buy MUCH (MUCH MUCH!) less house than we could have. We also drive old and/or crappy cars. The people in our neighborhood would be totally shocked if they knew how much money we make. Food and clothing...our food budget is about the same as our house payment (we're a family of 3). Clothing? Shit. Not even a blip on the radar. At the end of the day, the key to having money to buy shit is to STOP BUYING SHIT - including houses you can't afford.
My wife and I do OK. Between the two of us, we make a good chunk of change. We also live in Pittsburgh. Now, while I grant you, Pittsburgh IS a shit hole, we're also only paying 6% of our (pre-tax) monthly income for our house payment (loan, property taxes, insurance). SIX PERCENT!! That leaves an awful lot left over for other things. There is NO WAY I would want to live someplace where we were paying 28% for a place to live - let alone 33% or whatever. That's just insane. There is NO amount of money that someone would ACTUALLY be willing to pay that would be sufficient for me to actually live in places like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, etc. We will settle for our hum-drum, not-very-exciting jobs that easily allow us to live on one paycheck and bank the other one.
Maybe you've heard of taxes? In a place like California, between paying local, state and federal income taxes, plus social security and medicare taxes, the government is probably letting you have only HALF of your paycheck. Perhaps 60% of you're lucky. So of the 50-60% you're allowed to keep, spending 28-30% of it on a place to live is going to give you maybe 20-30% for ALL other expenses. I certainly wouldn't want to live that way.
I can't understand why superhero movies are so popular? Who, over 12 years old, is going to see them? They come out with a new one every 3 months and they all look identical to me. They also make a ton of money, so they will continue make them. I only see art films myself.
Because people can watch "art films" at home. Who wants to watch a serious movie in the company of a bunch of noise-creating, inconsiderate assholes?
1). The movie theater "experience" still sucks - mostly due to the audience. Loud sound systems and small screens don't help. If they don't fix that, even going to the movies for FREE isn't much of a value proposition as far as I am concerned.
2). The content itself largely sucks. There's only maybe a maximum of 3 movies/year I want to see anyway. This year I saw three, and only TWO of those three I liked (++ to Planet of the Apes and Rogue One, -- to The Last Jedi). There may be plenty of other interesting movies, but I can easily wait until they come out for home viewing, even if it it takes years.
With the superhero movies - you can let the assholes be assholes and it really doesn't matter too much because you're not going to miss some complex plot point while telling the asshole next to you to shut the fuck up and just OPEN HIS FUCKING CANDY ALREADY instead trying to discretely open it for another half hour.
Not really, I seldom see people spending $12-15 per person on food. Ticket prices bring in the most cash. And people who go to matinees are cheap bastards.
That's not to say the food is super over priced, but it's not the lions share of revenue.
I know I'm an outlier....but....
We saw The Last Jedi over the weekend. We (2 of us) saw it at Alamo Drafthouse. Besides the $20 we spent on tickets, plus the $3 (or whatever) Fandango fee, We spend $60 on dinner at the theater, plus another $15 or so on beer after the movie started. Plus tip. Overall, that is about $100.
Slashdot Mirror
The spammers have all but ruined e-mail. Despite very protective measures, I think 90% of my email is spam.
Now they want to move on to voice mail. While that IS an improvement over making my phone ring (or vibrate), it will just make voice mail worthless too. I predict a lot of people setting a message along the lines of, "Thanks to spammers, I no longer receive voice mail. Please try to reach me another time." and then keeping their inbox full so no one else can leave a message.......or turning off voice mail entirely, if that is an option for them.
No Sheryl. Another alternative is to opt out of Facebook.
IMHO, it is the best option.
Pretty obvious
Yes, it is.
Now, what problem is it a solution to? That's the mystery.
I never suggested a company should be all things to all people. All I suggested is that they not be quote so narrow-minded.
Same could be said for some Slashdot posters.
These companies every piece of information about you that they can. That's their business model. How can anyone be surprised at things like this?
Change your passcode.
On the "Enter your new passcode" screen, there is a link called "Passcode Options". Click that.
You then have three choices to choose from:
1). Custom Alphanumeric Code
2). Custom Numeric Code
3). 4-Digit Numeric Code
That's all fine and dandy - but what about the millions who do NOT fall into the group you mention? That's a rich market - why ignore it? Why not make a product for THEM too? It doesn't HAVE to be either/or.
I don't understand why the studios don't pursue the opportunity to make more profit for themselves. Charge me $15 to see a new release movie and keep ALL of it for yourself. Allow the usual suspects (Apple, Amazon, Netflix) to distribute it with a $2 markup for themselves. I'll pay $17 for that. Easily. Hell, I'd pay $20.
Do that AND continuing distributing movies to theaters for people who want the obnoxious "social" atmosphere of movie going. Everybody wins!
At home, I have a screen, stereo, a remote with a pause button, quiet environment, suitable lighting, food, drinks, free parking, proximity to the spawn of my loins and distance from inconsiderate assholes - everything I need for a good movie experience EXCEPT the fucking movie. That is ALL I require. That's ALL I am interested in paying for.
If I could get "once per day" or even "once per week" access to current run movies, I'd gladly pay for that. A year in advance too.
The good news is they FINALLY took Rants & Raves out of "personals" and put it under Community / Local News.
I never did understand why it was under "personals" to begin with. I mean, most of the insults there were pretty personal - but even so - it did not seem to fit with all the other "personals" categories.
If I were rich, I wouldn't bother watching movies at all.
Still not interested. Even if you lower your price all the way to zero.
Now, what I WOULD be interested in is a subscription service that let me watch movies on the day of release AT HOME. That would actually have some value to me.
Amazingly, even though it was not a requirement, I had three years of computer science in high school, in 1986, 1987 and 1988.
Not everything needs to be a requirement.
On the other hand, I only had one year of foreign language, because I had a rotten teacher that made me say "fuck this" even though I was inherently interest in the topic. Foreign language wasn't a requirement either.
On the other, other hand, I had three years of PhysEd because it WAS a requirement, even though I was on the cross country team and played volleyball - and the last thing I needed to waste my time doing in high school was being in PhysEd with a bunch of dumbasses.
So I did some work with a spreadsheet. Here is what I found concerning where our income goes, living in a relatively "cheap" city and state:
27%: TAXES! That's federal, state, local, social security, medicare and property taxes. Doesn't include sales tax.
7%: Daycare (one child).
7%: Food (family of 3).
5%: Mortgage payment
5%: Utilities, HOI and Cell Phones
That is 51% of our income. Everything else scales down from there.
Taxes are our biggest expense, BY FAR. They're a bigger expense than our daycare, food, mortgage, utilities and such COMBINED!!
California? Not for any amount of money. Not for $200K/year and a FREE FUCKING HOUSE 20 MINUTES FROM WORK. No thank you.
Eh, there are plenty of places you can live in California for less; they're just not places you'd want to live.
Because they're IN California.
You couldn't pay me $1M/year to live anywhere in that state. Or New York, for that matter.
Or any state in this list: Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland.
Once again, you're ignoring taxes. Go lop off the taxes from that $250K and $100K is, and see how much you ACTUALLY make.
Then figure out how much 12% and 33% of your pay is, with what you have left over.
Then go figure out how much things like daycare and sales tax are in a place like SF vs a more pedestrian town.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
You have to look at ALL the higher costs living in a high cost area vs a low cost area.
Only after you have done that can you determine if the "spread" is significant enough to bother with.
The reason California taxes everything else so high is....because it and other blue states subsidize most of the red states.
California - and Californians, and other Blue States and their residents, are BIG BELIEVERS in those with money providing subsidies to those without money. So what's the problem here?
That article can be summarized thusly:
"California has built a government-heavy, highly regulated state and it is not working to produce the results we want. The solution is more government and more regulation".
FYI, New York is a state, not just a city.
Yes, yes it is.
Here in western NY you can easily buy a three-bedroom house in a nice suburban neighborhood for less than $200k.
Yes, yes you can. And you'd still be living in New York. No thank you.
You sir are part of the problem. You displaced a middle income family from living at that house and it's happening more and more across the country.
You sir, are insane. I didn't buy the only shitty house in this city. There are plenty of other shitty houses for people to choose from. There's certainly no shortage. This PARTICULAR shitty house was for sale for six months before we bought it. If someone else wanted it, they had ample opportunity to buy it before we did.
Aside from that - I'm supposed to buy as much house as I can possibly afford, so that I TOO can be only one job loss or other bad break away from losing my house and/or going into bankruptcy? What the fuck kind of logic is that? It's the very same logic that puts many people in the exact shitty situation that they find themselves in.
Maybe I could stretch myself even more buy hiring a lawn guy, a house cleaner and a home repair guy - since that would provide jobs for people! Fuck - I didn't realize I am so evil until now. Thanks for helping clue me in!
Well, you are also a two income household where the study is indicating a single income household. So, given a spouse that makes as much money, they'd be looking at 11-16%. Your 6% is good. I doubt others near you have an equally great deal as that is typically far below the historical average, and I'm guessing you got a really good deal or are living below your means (lower than other people of similar pay anyway). Actually, the deals for the high tech workers isn't bad and is near past historical (middle class) averages where housing now (and has been for decades) the largest household expense as the past largest (33-50%), food, has dropped drastically along with clothing.
Yeah - I was going to mention the whole two vs one income thing. And you're right. And yes, she makes basically the same money I do. So even as SINGLE people, either one of us would basically be paying only 11% or so on our house. Of course, as single people, we would buy less house and be paying even less. Probably more in the 9-10% range. But you hit on another point. The real key is living below your means. We didn't get any great deal on our house (we probably paid a little too much), but we did buy MUCH (MUCH MUCH!) less house than we could have. We also drive old and/or crappy cars. The people in our neighborhood would be totally shocked if they knew how much money we make. Food and clothing...our food budget is about the same as our house payment (we're a family of 3). Clothing? Shit. Not even a blip on the radar. At the end of the day, the key to having money to buy shit is to STOP BUYING SHIT - including houses you can't afford.
My wife and I do OK. Between the two of us, we make a good chunk of change. We also live in Pittsburgh. Now, while I grant you, Pittsburgh IS a shit hole, we're also only paying 6% of our (pre-tax) monthly income for our house payment (loan, property taxes, insurance). SIX PERCENT!! That leaves an awful lot left over for other things. There is NO WAY I would want to live someplace where we were paying 28% for a place to live - let alone 33% or whatever. That's just insane. There is NO amount of money that someone would ACTUALLY be willing to pay that would be sufficient for me to actually live in places like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, etc. We will settle for our hum-drum, not-very-exciting jobs that easily allow us to live on one paycheck and bank the other one.
Maybe you've heard of taxes? In a place like California, between paying local, state and federal income taxes, plus social security and medicare taxes, the government is probably letting you have only HALF of your paycheck. Perhaps 60% of you're lucky. So of the 50-60% you're allowed to keep, spending 28-30% of it on a place to live is going to give you maybe 20-30% for ALL other expenses. I certainly wouldn't want to live that way.
HA, HA!!
I can't understand why superhero movies are so popular? Who, over 12 years old, is going to see them? They come out with a new one every 3 months and they all look identical to me. They also make a ton of money, so they will continue make them. I only see art films myself.
Because people can watch "art films" at home. Who wants to watch a serious movie in the company of a bunch of noise-creating, inconsiderate assholes?
1). The movie theater "experience" still sucks - mostly due to the audience. Loud sound systems and small screens don't help. If they don't fix that, even going to the movies for FREE isn't much of a value proposition as far as I am concerned.
2). The content itself largely sucks. There's only maybe a maximum of 3 movies/year I want to see anyway. This year I saw three, and only TWO of those three I liked (++ to Planet of the Apes and Rogue One, -- to The Last Jedi). There may be plenty of other interesting movies, but I can easily wait until they come out for home viewing, even if it it takes years.
With the superhero movies - you can let the assholes be assholes and it really doesn't matter too much because you're not going to miss some complex plot point while telling the asshole next to you to shut the fuck up and just OPEN HIS FUCKING CANDY ALREADY instead trying to discretely open it for another half hour.
Not really, I seldom see people spending $12-15 per person on food. Ticket prices bring in the most cash. And people who go to matinees are cheap bastards.
That's not to say the food is super over priced, but it's not the lions share of revenue.
I know I'm an outlier....but....
We saw The Last Jedi over the weekend. We (2 of us) saw it at Alamo Drafthouse. Besides the $20 we spent on tickets, plus the $3 (or whatever) Fandango fee, We spend $60 on dinner at the theater, plus another $15 or so on beer after the movie started. Plus tip. Overall, that is about $100.