Actually, in times of recession, low-cost forms of entertainment like movies and recorded music do fairly well. People like to be distracted. People will also buy small luxuries when they can't afford big ones. This is, perhaps, part of the RIAA's thinking: "We're in a recession, and our revenues have traditionally held steady in recessionary times."
Cases in point: the 1930s were one of the high points of the movie industry. Ditto stage musicals. People would gladly pay a quarter to go to the movies and forget their troubles for a couple hours. The recession of the early 1990s was also when things like Starbuck's got a boost. People who can't afford a new car will spend $4 on a cup of coffee.
Of course, considering movie ticket and CD prices these days, one can hardly consider movies and recorded music cheap entertainment anymore.
Delaware has no sales tax, but Pennsylvania does. As one can guess, lots of Keystone Staters buy lots of big-ticket items in Delaware. (Heck, the slogan on Delaware's "Welcome to Delaware" signs on I-95 proclaim Delaware to be "The Home of Tax-Free Shopping.") About ten or so years ago, if not more, the Gov. of Penna. went to the State of Delaware and asked them to pass a law requiring Delaware merchants to collect Penna. Use Tax on sales made in Delaware to Penna. residents. It took then-Governor Castle at least fifteen minutes to stop laughing.
These are the same people who complain when Penna. residents circumvent the expensive state-run liquor stores (a leftover from the post-Prohibition years) and buy their booze in NJ or DE. Stupid, expensive taxes do nothing but encourage tax evasion.
Boston? I'm surprised. I live in Medford and a Sprint PCS phone (Qualcomm 2700) barely works either at my house, or at my workplace in Southie. I experience something like 80% dropped calls. (It works reasonably well everywhere else I usually travel, though, and it's cheap, which is why I haven't ditched them yet.) Also it seems that 1900 MHz has really poor building penetration. If I'm inside with marginal signal, it improves greatly if I go outside--and that's in a wood-frame house, no metal or concrete in the way. Being in a building didn't seem to make much difference on Cell One, unless I was deep in a concrete office building or in a basement.
I switched from Cell One because I was tired of them nickel and diming me--roaming on Cell One costs an arm and a leg. Example: My phone is based in Boston. If I'm in Philly and want to call another number in Philly, I get charged a $4/month "roamer admin fee", plus $0.60/min roaming, plus $0.25/min long distance Philly to Boston, and another $0.25/min LD Boston to Philly *again* (yes, you pay freight *BOTH* ways! double dipping, anyone?). Also LD on Cell One costs $0.25/min, in addition to the airtime.
So you either get good coverage with BAM/C1 and pay through the nose, or crummy coverage with SPCS. I know that there are *lots* of locations inside Rt 128 where SPCS coverage drops as well. Also there's no SPCS coverage for a couple miles on the Mass Pike near Framingham.
IMHO it's going to be hard for SPCS to improve coverage in the Boston area--this is Massachusetts, where everyone wants their phones to work but nobody wants cell towers in their town!
I, for one, still read Usenet. The S/N is still high enough in the groups I read (even the ones in the alt.* sewer) to be worthwhile. DejaNews searches turn up a wealth of useful information, too.
The spammers have made me stop posting, though. Once you post to Usenet, your email address becomes instant fodder for the spambots. It's a shame, because the desire to not get spammed has outweighed my desire to be a help to the net community by sharing whatever clues I might have in a way that might benefit someone. Yet another instance of how spammers have ruined part of the 'net and made it worthless.
Perhaps most of all, the death of Usenet saddens me because I met my fiancee on alt.folklore.urban back in 1994, and we've been together (albeit long distance for most of those years) ever since. It's like discovering that the Lover's Lane where you made out with your first SO has been turned into a toxic waste dump.
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Actually, in times of recession, low-cost forms of entertainment like movies and recorded music do fairly well. People like to be distracted. People will also buy small luxuries when they can't afford big ones. This is, perhaps, part of the RIAA's thinking: "We're in a recession, and our revenues have traditionally held steady in recessionary times."
Cases in point: the 1930s were one of the high points of the movie industry. Ditto stage musicals. People would gladly pay a quarter to go to the movies and forget their troubles for a couple hours. The recession of the early 1990s was also when things like Starbuck's got a boost. People who can't afford a new car will spend $4 on a cup of coffee.
Of course, considering movie ticket and CD prices these days, one can hardly consider movies and recorded music cheap entertainment anymore.
On a personal level, 2001 didn't completely suck.
On a global level, it was something else entirely.
May we all be better off a year from now. May peace and good things find you in 2002.
BillDelaware has no sales tax, but Pennsylvania does. As one can guess, lots of Keystone Staters buy lots of big-ticket items in Delaware. (Heck, the slogan on Delaware's "Welcome to Delaware" signs on I-95 proclaim Delaware to be "The Home of Tax-Free Shopping.") About ten or so years ago, if not more, the Gov. of Penna. went to the State of Delaware and asked them to pass a law requiring Delaware merchants to collect Penna. Use Tax on sales made in Delaware to Penna. residents. It took then-Governor Castle at least fifteen minutes to stop laughing.
These are the same people who complain when Penna. residents circumvent the expensive state-run liquor stores (a leftover from the post-Prohibition years) and buy their booze in NJ or DE. Stupid, expensive taxes do nothing but encourage tax evasion.
I switched from Cell One because I was tired of them nickel and diming me--roaming on Cell One costs an arm and a leg. Example: My phone is based in Boston. If I'm in Philly and want to call another number in Philly, I get charged a $4/month "roamer admin fee", plus $0.60/min roaming, plus $0.25/min long distance Philly to Boston, and another $0.25/min LD Boston to Philly *again* (yes, you pay freight *BOTH* ways! double dipping, anyone?). Also LD on Cell One costs $0.25/min, in addition to the airtime.
So you either get good coverage with BAM/C1 and pay through the nose, or crummy coverage with SPCS. I know that there are *lots* of locations inside Rt 128 where SPCS coverage drops as well. Also there's no SPCS coverage for a couple miles on the Mass Pike near Framingham.
IMHO it's going to be hard for SPCS to improve coverage in the Boston area--this is Massachusetts, where everyone wants their phones to work but nobody wants cell towers in their town!
I, for one, still read Usenet. The S/N is still high enough in the groups I read (even the ones in the alt.* sewer) to be worthwhile. DejaNews searches turn up a wealth of useful information, too.
The spammers have made me stop posting, though. Once you post to Usenet, your email address becomes instant fodder for the spambots. It's a shame, because the desire to not get spammed has outweighed my desire to be a help to the net community by sharing whatever clues I might have in a way that might benefit someone. Yet another instance of how spammers have ruined part of the 'net and made it worthless.
Perhaps most of all, the death of Usenet saddens me because I met my fiancee on alt.folklore.urban back in 1994, and we've been together (albeit long distance for most of those years) ever since. It's like discovering that the Lover's Lane where you made out with your first SO has been turned into a toxic waste dump.
Bill