I think most people have no clue of the amount of water pressure available on most of these toilets. Somebody posted a link to a photo down thread, but this isn't your typical European bidet with the water pressure that sort of "oozes" out like a gentle faucet or something. Most of the Japanese toilets can start at that low level of pressure, but you can generally turn them up so high you could basically give yourself an enema with one.
And if you get it wrong, it pisses right back at you!
Yes, I first visited Japan around 1990, and I remember the first time I encountered one of those toilets. (Well, the functions weren't quite as advanced as what you linked, but still several odd buttons.)
Curious, I pressed a couple of buttons (expecting maybe a different flush or something -- one of the buttons played music or something, if I recall), and that exact scene happened to me. Some bizarre protuberance jutted forth from the back of the toilet and sprayed water all over the room. Thank goodness I wasn't sitting on it at the time, because I think it was set to maximum jet force, and I don't think I have the right "demeanor" to appreciate that.
Instead I just had to mop up the room. And later had a really awkward conversation in broken English/Japanese with my hostess about why her towels were all soaked.
I've since encountered these toilets many times and have thought of getting one myself. But if I ever owned a home with one, I'd put up an instruction sheet in 5 languages on the wall or something when guests came by.
First, I want to be clear that I don't know what Trump did here -- whether or not his actions were appropriate given the circumstances, etc. However...
If you've ever kissed a girl without asking her explicitly 'can I kiss you now?' you've pretty much done what Trump has done.
Wow. Setting aside the fact that groping genitals is generally considered at least a little more intimate than a kiss, there IS something about his phrasing that makes this SOUND a little different from your scenario.
Namely, Trump says "I don't even wait." Your interpretation is that he doesn't preface a kiss without some Victorian protocol saying, "Dear lady, may I be granted the favor of a kiss?" or something. Yes, I suppose it could mean that. It could also mean that Trump is implying he doesn't even "wait" for implied consent. (In the context of the quote, it sounds like he's talking about novel encounters with people he doesn't know well, rather than a sort of "date context" or something where the "implied consent" might be easier to tease out. )
But I agree that we don't have enough context to know precisely what he meant here. HOWEVER, I think the more concerning turn of phrase comes later in your quotation, namely "when you're a star they LET you do it".
That's not a phrase of implied consent. He doesn't say, "When you're a star they WANT you to do it." The implication of the phrasing is that the woman is "letting" you do something that she's at best somewhat ambivalent about. If we're only talking about a kiss, maybe that amounts to a miscue or sexual harassment. But then Trump follows it with "You can do anything" and then talking about groping genitals. Again, no mention of the woman's desire or wishes -- "You can do anything."
So, IF one chooses to take the preceding "they LET you do it" to mean the woman is giving less than strong affirmation even for a kiss, following it up with crotch grab just because "you can do anything" might be mistaken -- in this linguistic context -- as implying sexual assault.
Again, I don't know whether Trump was actually intending to say that, because he says all sorts of crap that he obviously doesn't mean literally. He also could just be bragging in the context where this statement was recorded, rather than referring to his actual practice. Or whatever.
But if you take his PHRASING literally, it seems to indicate significantly more aggressive behavior than simply failing to offer a Victorian verbal query before a kiss.
Apologies for the repeated post, but I accidentally did an incorrect "cut-and-paste" right before hitting "submit," which resulted in repeating the words of much of the post several times.
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or whatever.
There were three different components to this study. All have some problems.
(1) The first used Amazon Mechanical Turk to get people to answer a bunch of personality questions. There was no actual assessment of whether people were ACTUALLY lying. instead, they were given a series of questions "using the Lie subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised short scale," However, despite its name, this test isn't actually used to determine whether people are prone to lie in general! This subscale is used, as the study notes, for social desirability responding.
That is, in the context of a personality test, this set of questions is used to fish out the people who are likely choosing answers based a little more on their "idealized" personality traits or what they might think would be "likeable," rather than being more realistic in their responses. Rather than a sort of "lie detector" test, it's more a test of how much a person wants to represent themselves as socially desirable. It has questions like, "If you say you will do something, do you always keep your promise no matter how inconvenient it might be?" If you answer "yes," the test assumes you to be a LIAR. But of course it has no way of knowing whether you are lying -- it rather assumes if you have more idealistic norms about social behavior that you're more likely to less realistic in your own self-reporting for personality questions.
Anyhow, this is a TERRIBLE proxy for "dishonesty" generally. It basically is measuring how close people want to try to adhere to social norms. And avoiding profanity in many situations is also trying to adhere to social norms. So it's basically a tautology that they found a correlation in the first study.
(2) Okay, on to the next one. Here, again, they didn't actually determine whether people were telling falsehoods. Rather, they looked at a bunch of Facebook messages and statistically analyzed how many times people used 1st and 3rd person pronouns, motion verbs, and anxiety words. They claim that this is a good way to tell how "honest" people are. Except the study they use as a benchmark to calibrate the frequency of these linguistic categories (this study) involved people giving detailed responses to prompts, both telling the truth and lying. The average words for the samples varied from 124 words for one category (people expressing a position on abortion while videotaped) up to 529 words (were people expressed an opinio
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or wh
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or whatever.
There were three different components to this study. All have some problems.
(1) The first used Amazon Mechanical Turk to get people to answer a bunch of personality questions. There was no actual assessment of whether people were ACTUALLY lying. instead, they were given a series of questions "using the Lie subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised short scale," However, despite its name, this test isn't actually used to determine whether people are prone to lie in general! This subscale is used, as the study notes, for social desirability responding.
That is, in the context of a personality test, this set of questions is used to fish out the people who are likely choosing answers based a little more on their "idealized" personality traits or what they might think would be "likeable," rather than being more realistic in their responses. Rather than a sort of "lie detector" test, it's more a test of how much a person wants to represent themselves as socially desirable. It has questions like, "If you say you will do something, do you always keep your promise no matter how inconvenient it might be?" If you answer "yes," the test assumes you to be a LIAR. But of course it has no way of knowing whether you are lying -- it rather assumes if you have more idealistic norms about social behavior that you're more likely to less realistic in your own self-reporting for personality questions.
No rule of the casino was broken, they're nullifying it because state law says the presence of marked cards means the game is not lawfully played and thus void regardless of whose fault that is.
Exactly. A lot of people posting here are missing the legal reasoning of the ruling, which is NOT based on the fact that these two guys acted fraudulently, but rather the fact that the game was VOID from the start because it did not conform to the rules for LEGAL gambling and gaming under state law.
But there's something very odd about using that reasoning in this case, because the casino explicitly agreed to the terms of these guys -- including offering a specific card deck, instructing the dealer to turn cards based on player's instructions, instructing the dealer NOT to disturb card rotation prior to reshuffles, etc. That all is suspicious enough, and casinos generally do NOT allow players to dictate that many rules to avoid PRECISELY these kinds of problems. I'd imagine the only reason they allowed it in this case is because they hoped to sucker more money out of a high profile gambler. Unfortunately, their strategy of offering a MODIFIED GAME failed when it was they who were suckered out of money.
But why does the fault then fall only on the players? From the ruling conclusion:
As we previously found, by their own design,
Ivey and Sun played games at Borgata that violated important
provisions of the CCA and thereby breached their agreement with
the casino. They must disgorge the benefit they received as a
direct result of the breached contract
Yes, "Ivey and Sun played games" but the casino offered the marked deck and agreed to numerous manipulations that ultimately modified the odds. If this was indeed an "illegal game" under state law, why is the casino not culpable, at least for negligence for failing to adhere to reasonable gaming standards and thereby offering illegal gaming? If a private person ran a flawed game like this, they'd likely end up fined or even in prison. And likely any money transferred during illegal gaming would be confiscated.
I'm fine if the casino wants to argue that it engaged in offering an illegal game, but by doing so, they should submit to being punished according to provisions for offering illegal gaming in their state (including government confiscation of winnings). But if they don't want to argue they were engaging in illegal gaming by THEMSELVES offering marked cards, etc., then they'll likely just have to admit they were fools and just live with banning these people from their casino in the future, rather than recovering money. Or, they could actually prove the defendants committed FRAUD in some way to void the contract. (And maybe there is enough evidence to support that; I don't know. But it's not the legal reasoning used here.) The way the case was decided is not very consistent legally.
You're missing quite a few things here. Decline in government subsidies has been a factor, particularly at state institutions. But you also have a lot of other "run like a business" stuff that's taken over higher ed in the past couple decades. The two biggest factors are (1) growth of unnecessary administrative bureaucracy (at many colleges administration and associated staff have often grown at double or triple rate of faculty or student body), and (2) the "arms race" in campus "life" and facilities. Colleges now try to sell prospective students on the cool high-tech new dorm, with the gourmet dining option and the expanded gym next door with an Olympic swimming pool and climbing gym or whatever. I exaggerate only slightly (well, at some places, not at all). Buildings are expensive to build and maintain, along with the required staff. There's other stuff too, but these are some of the huge monetary sinkholes in higher ed these days.
(Full disclosure: I've taught at the college level, so I'm pretty familiar with the budgets.)
I forgot one obvious exception -- weed ordinances targeting invasive NON-native plants are often endorsed by environmentalists, but such plants are generally a serious threat to local flora.
You certainly have a point that many cities have created environmental problems by banning "natural" and "native" plants.
On the other hand, it's interesting that the sentence I quoted ("The environmentalists push for it") is one with no citation. You seem to be from Canada; I'm not as familiar with environmental politics there. But the U.S. at least, weed ordinances in cities are hardly pushed by environmentalists as that term is commonly understood in the U.S. The laws may be pushed by local busybodies worried about their neighbor who doesn't keep a monoculture lawn precisely mowed and instead chooses to let wildflowers and such grow more freely -- which some people consider "unkempt." Those people may be concerned about their neighborhood "environment" in the sense that they believe that some mid-20th century suburban ideal of the well-kept lawn is the only possible plantlife that should be seen in the city. But I really doubt anyone calls them "environmentalists" except ironically.
Yeah, I'm actually a bit surprised that so many people here just casually dismiss the fact that most American companies are engaging in pervasive and systemic deception on a regular basis. For the cynical among us, I'm sure people think that's true a lot of the time -- but prices are a pretty fundamental fact displayed by sellers (possibly THE fundamental fact). A lot of people here, for example, tend to be dismissive of ads, which they feel are mostly misleading and deceptive. I've seen a lot of posts arguing for their complete eradication. But displaying "fake prices" is okay?
Yes, it's common practice. Yes, it's not new. (I remember being shocked maybe 10-15 years ago when I went into a department store after probably not shopping in one for 5 years. And I couldn't believe how EVERYTHING was listed 50-70% off! I remember sales before that, sometimes exaggerating things, but it seems we took a turn somewhere in the past 20 years where this practice of inflating "retail price" became PERVASIVE.)
But just because it's common doesn't mean it's a good thing. While we're at it, can we do away with claims of "now with 30% MORE!" on product packaging unless that claim is followed explicitly by "more than... X" where X is a detailed explanation of what actually has less and when it had it?
When I first cancelled my cable TV subscription, I was paying so much less overnight. The problem is, as other people have followed suit and "cut the chord" TWC has started charging more for internet service to make up for losing TV subscribers.
This practice isn't anything new. Back when I was a Comcast customer in the early 2000s, it was actually cheaper to have cable internet plus "basic cable" than to have just cable internet by itself. At the time, I think I was told it had to do with local licensing or something, or some extra legal "rights" it gave Comcast when it was a TV provider rather than just an internet provider.
Anyhow, I don't know the exact reason, but for quite a few years I actually paid $5-10 LESS per month to have "basic cable" bundled in with my internet service. I never watched much TV -- at first the bundling was actually quite extensive. For paying $5-10, I got a lot of the standard cable stuff (History, SciFi, Discovery, A&E, all that..). Then after a few years it decreased to truly "basic" cable, with only something like 16 channels -- major networks + public access stuff.
Point is -- this doesn't surprise me at all. At least now the cable companies seem to have a somewhat sensible reason for doing it to keep up their revenue. I can't imagine they were afraid I was going to be a "cord cutter" when I signed up for cable back in 2001 or whatever... even though I was, because I didn't care about TV and just wanted internet access.
TWC increased my monthly payment for internet by $15/month this last month (10 for the plan, 5 for renting the modem).
Just checking, but did this happen at some "anniversary date" after you signed up for service? It seems almost all the big cable companies now do this thing where EVERY subscription price is a "12-month deal" or something.
So, you sign up for some service that costs $29.99 one year, and then the next year after that "new subscriber period" it goes up to $44.99. Then the next year it creeps up to $49.99. Then the next year it creeps up to $54.99. Etc.
As someone who dealt with TWC in the past, I once tried to get some salesperson who called me to actually tell me what the ACTUAL price was for the service. Not some "12-month" deal. The STANDARD price. Basically, I couldn't get an answer from her. I'm sure legally TWC may be required to provide such information somewhere, but I dare you to try to find that on their website as you're trying to sign up for service.
Everything just will say "prices valid for first 12 months or service" or whatever.
I'm sure there's some actual cap on prices somewhere, but having had TWC for four years and talking to neighbors and friends, it's clear that the pricing is completely wacko and chances are they'll just keep inching it up until you complain or quit the service.
I didn't try this myself, but I've read online that if you complain about such increases loudly enough (e.g., on social media, etc.) and point it out to some cable companies, then they might actually lower your fee back down to some more reasonable "temporary" amount. Threatening to leave to a rep on the phone might work, but it seems even that doesn't budge a lot of businesses anymore... they'll just let you go. It's only if you start shaming a cable company in public that they'll actually be responsive.
I don't want to subscribe to a damned streaming service. I don't want to subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't want to subscribe to Netflix. I don't want to subscribe to HBO. I want to subscribe to specific shows.
I believe Amazon offers something like what you describe, namely a TV Season Pass, where you can purchase an entire season of a TV show, even one that's still on the air. For many series, new episodes will become available soon after airing. I believe some other online services offer such an option too.
I'm sure one complaint you'll probably have with this model is that many shows seem to have a relatively high price. If you want streaming access to all seasons of several big-name shows, you might end up spending more than an annual subscription for the three services you mention.
On the other hand, these are "purchases," which don't just give you temporary monthly access or whatever. (Well, as much as streaming services can ever be "purchases." Obviously these are only "purchased" as long as Amazon is around and offering this streaming.)
you subscribe to get a ton of content that you don't want, just so you can get the small amount of content you do.
It's always a trade off. Networks can subsidize all their content through monthly fees, or they can make money through individual shows. The problem is that you're going to pay a LOT for access to POPULAR individual shows (whether by buying DVDs or purchasing streaming access to specific shows) because the networks can't depend on your subscription revenue in general.
It's like anything -- buying in bulk makes things cheaper, but only if you use enough of it. Buying in smaller amounts means sellers will jack up the price to ensure they're still making a profit overall.
Exaggeration, hyperbole, and confusing a personal opinion with a law of nature... Man, you hit the trifecta there.
Uh... exaggeration and hyperbole are the same thing. How exactly can they make up two parts of a trifecta?
Anyhow, this is far from merely a "personal opinion." Monopoly has been criticized ever since it was originally rejected by Parker Brothers for game play that grew too long and tedious. They only picked it up after it became a minor "craze" in the mid-30s. It certainly had novel elements that made it appealing, but that doesn't mean it also didn't have serious flaws.
Anyone who has played a lot of Monopoly knows a number of the major flaws for family gaming. But don't listen to me on this. Here's just one post which sums up a lot of the major issues:
It suffers from problems that most game designers nowadays try to avoid. First, players can be eliminated. This is no fun -- unless, of course, the eliminated player finds something better to do than play Monopoly -- and games are meant to be fun. Second, there is often a runaway leader. Someone can snap up a juicy monopoly early on, and that quickly becomes that. The rest of the game is pro forma and boring. And games aren't meant to be boring. Third, there is what's known to game designers as a kingmaking problem. A losing player can often choose, typically via a lopsided trade of properties, who wins the game. This is also no fun and negates whatever skill was required to begin with.
Oh, and it also takes a really long time to play.
This is hardly the only criticism of the game. See for example here or here. And if you want some more criticism along with recommendations for better, more engaging games, see here.
None of this means a given person can't or shouldn't like Monopoly. It just means that most people who spend a lot of time playing a variety of board games tend to think Monopoly has serious flaws. And if you're trying to meet certain common goals of family gameplay (e.g., long-term engagement for most people, avoiding long drawn-out concluding play between a minority of players that is exceptionally unlikely to actually change the outcome, etc.), Monopoly has only one advantage -- it's well-known. If you're willing to try out "new things," there are a lot of really good options out there.
So after book stores, Amazon now wants to push Banana stores out of business?
But, really, the kind of service I get from my local fruit dealer just can't be matched. I mean, Carlos really knows his bananas. He's familiar with all the types: green, slightly green, mostly yellow, spotted, heavily mottled, and brown. I know the ones we mostly get in the U.S. are all clones with exactly the same genetics, but Carlos really knows his stuff. And the service! Once I had sprained my ankle, and Carlos even helped me carry my box of bananas home. Can you get that service from Amazon?
What I really love are the special guests Carlos brings in. He's had growers and pickers who talk about where the bananas come from -- and sometimes they even have special banana signings by these celebrity pickers! I've kept a few of the signed skins... sure they're so black now that it's difficult to make out the signature, but they do have a certain ap-peel, if they know what I mean!
Lately, they tend to have children's time at the banana stand. My neighbor says it's all just propaganda to get kids used to still going to local banana sources, but I think it's good community engagement. From the banana slide to the games of "banana relay," there's a lot of great clean fun! (They did try a game of "hide the banana," but the weird guy Fred who lives next to the stand participated and... well, let's just say that game is no longer deemed appropriate for kids...)
And really, what can rival the browsing experience you get at a physical banana stand? I see banana possibilities there that you'd never get from "banana recommendations" in Amazon! Who knew they could come in bunches with even 7 or 8 bananas? I've even seen bunches that have long ones AND short ones together! Can't get that from a some electronic app for buying bananas.
Do any of you Apple fanatics NOT see that Apple screwed you by removing a port and FORCING you into the wireless headphone market they own most of?
Just give up the argument. There are those who have bought into the Apple "mystique" and those who haven't. To the former, it will always be "But Apple is being BOLD, moving on to new tech!" To the latter, like you, there will always be the most cynical interpretation, where everything is about profits. Just like the pro-life/pro-choice debate, the two sides are operating from completely different premises about the world.
No, if we really want to change people's minds, we need to revisit the Apple propaganda of the past couple decades. I'm sure many of us remember those "Mac vs. PC" commercials that ran for many years with the cool hip guy as the Mac and the stodgy guy in a jacket and tie as the PC.
I really don't understand why no one has made a new parody of those considering the loss of standard ports on so many Apple devices recently. Does anyone remember those Mac vs. PC commercials where the Mac was the "cool guy" who could just talk to anyone, whereas the PC wasn't prepared to interface with various gadgets?
Time to turn that around.
Commercial opens with Mac dressed in cool outfit saying to PC, "Hey, look how slim and sleek I am!" Then some other people appear, and the PC just starts going around shaking hands and talking to everyone. But Mac disappears off-screen and comes back wearing all sorts of crap hanging off of him everywhere. He tries to go around and shake people's hands and talk to them, but he can't find the right piece of random mechanical junk hanging off of him to make it work. Finally, the Mac guy asks the PC guy for "tech support" and the PC guy helps rummage through a giant box of dongles to find the right one. The PC guy pulls it out and says, "Here it is -- and only $29.99!"
Unless someone starts producing ads like that, this Apple crap will have no chance of stopping. In a few years, we'll have dongles upon dongles just to use a 5-year-old computer with a new Apple device.
If it costs more and a dentist tries to use only the new fillings so he can make more profit, patients will simply go to a different cheaper dentist who uses the old fillings.
If it costs less and a dentist tries to use only the old fillings so he can preserve his profit, people will simply go to a different cheaper dentist who uses the new fillings.
Either way, the dentist who tries to take the route with larger profit margin will lose customers and probably go broke.
Yeah, if only things worked like that when it comes to medicine and dentistry. Usually to get a quote on a procedure from a dentist, you'll need to pay for an exam, which is probably at least $50-100, and if they insist on new X-rays (as many offices do), that's quite a bit more.
So, you can try out another dentist for a "second opinion," but you'll likely ending up losing any gain in savings (and probably more) by doing the switch.
My experience talking to friends and family makes it pretty clear how many dentists these days seem out to make profit with unnecessary costs and procedures.
That's not to say there aren't "good" dentists out there. I have one. She's awesome. I don't have any problems and have good indications for bone and jaw, so she decreased recommended frequency for X-rays, whereas most dentists these days seem to insist on doing new ones at least once per year, no matter what. The only thing her office occasionally does is have the hygienists mention the possibility of whitening treatments or whatever, which I'm sure is an attempt to "upsell" patients -- but they're not pushy about it, so I don't care.
Meanwhile, just about everyone else in my family has gone from dentist to dentist over the past decade, often treated with a recommendation for multiple thousands of dollars of dental work after a first visit. Heck, I have a relative who is nearly 100 years old who recently had 3 teeth pulled by a dentist for no apparent reason -- well there were stated reasons of course, but not sufficient to deprive a 100-year-old woman from her teeth that she wasn't having problems with -- and charged her a ridiculous amount. (She was having trouble with one tooth; the dentist took 3. Now she only has a handful of teeth left in her mouth and has trouble chewing food.) Of course, now the dentist is trying to sell her dentures or even implants and the cost of many thousands... for a woman who is nearly 100 years old! Why not just leave her remaining teeth in unless she's having noticeable problems?? How many more years can they be expected to last? I've had other family members who asked if there was a cheaper option or who only wanted to fix one or two teeth, but the dentist refused unless ALL the recommendations were fixed (again, costing several thousand dollars).
Talk to old people sometime about their experiences with dentists. Unless they're lucky to have an honest one, you may be surprised at what you hear. (To be fair, I think many of today's dentists also are trained not to distinguish between absolutely essential care and other stuff that's not always needed or could provide a more temporary fix. Yet another family member had a dentist for 30 years -- this family member always had tooth problems even from when he was a kid. But this dentist kept this family member well for decades, fixing little problems as they came up. The dentist retired and the new dentist came in... suddenly this family member needed thousands of dollars worth of dental work, and the dentist claimed over half of his teeth should be extracted or were "pre-extraction". We're talking about a retiree approaching 80 years old. Why not let him keep his teeth? The newer plan seems to be if a tooth isn't perfect, extract and recommend an implant or something. Most people can't really afford that sort of thing, particularly older people.)
I'm sure you think I'm making some of this stuff up. But we KNOW dentists do things like unnecessary extractions. Heck, there are studies claiming that over 2/3 of wisdom tooth extractions are unnecessary. But they're a serious cash cow for dentists and oral surgeons.
If they had a more representative test, Apple's bug wouldn't have mattered. Moreover, they should've tested with another browser to see if the results were replicable there.
I agree with you that they probably should have tried some other things OR contacted Apple and said, "Hey -- we're not getting battery life anywhere near what you claimed. What's up?"
That would have been NICE of them to do. But I hardly would say the test was invalid.
These aren't scientists on some sort of fact-finding mission, trying to root out the causes of hardware behavior. They're writing consumer reviews, using default software (which in this case is actually software MADE by Apple). Why exactly should their testing protocol require them to check 3rd-party software's performance (which, if it came out more poorly, would probably receive complaints from Apple fans -- "Why didn't they test it with default stuff?").
But this got more clicks, right? Releasing a test that's OBVIOUSLY broken is more interesting than going back and verifying that you did everything right, or asking Apple what's going on.
I love these conspiracy theories. If you were talking about some crap unknown review site, maybe I could understand doing something outlandish for the clicks. But Consumer Reports? If they KNOW a test is broken, they KNOW the error will be found -- and then they KNOW they'll have to retract.
For a company whose business model is trying to help consumers sort out reliability, having too many errors like this would be a DEATH SENTENCE.
The more logical explanation is that they legitimately thought their testing protocol uncovered a significant discrepancy in reported battery life, and they thought it was important for consumers to know about. I agree that it would have been NICE of them to call up Apple and get them to check for bugs first or whatever, but if Consumer Reports spent all their time asking businesses to figure out why their tests don't live up to expectations, they'd waste all their time becoming a QA service for corporations, rather than serving consumers.
There were multiple problems here -- some with Consumer Reports, some with Apple. Why are you so intent on trying to deflect blame from Apple for a buggy piece of software? This is NOT the first time that Apple has released laptops with buggy software that made them run in funny ways. (I've been the victim of it myself.) And, you know what, I'm going to hold Apple to a slightly higher standard on this than other hardware manufacturers, because basically the ENTIRE point of paying for the Apple premium in hardware is because you get good software/hardware integration and support for a VERY limited class of hardware options. There's simply no excuse even for obscure bugs given how locked-down they have their hardware and integrated software. (And if it were the first time something like this happened, I'd give them a pass. But there have been much worse bugs in the past.)
Testing protocol flawed. Apple bug discovered. Both are apparently now fixed.
(By the way, I want to be clear when I mention modern weather records, I'm talking about all the "observation stations" on average -- lots of them run by random people -- many of which don't have high-precision equipment. It is of course possible to have more accurate electronic devices today, but non-professional observations stations frequently don't have devices that have the precision of thermometers commonly used 100+ years ago.)
Yes, better calibration helps getting more accurate results with less uncertainties, but it's highly unlikely that all calibration errors were in the same direction and skewed over time into the opposite direction.
Good lord folks -- I'm tired of this discussion coming up periodically and people talking out of their asses.
Look: thermometers dating back the mid-1800s were highly precise and did not need frequent calibration. They had perfected glass tubes of mercury and could make very even marks on them by that point. A late 19th-century thermometer had precision that was easily within +/-0.1 degree. (For specialized applications and laboratory thermometers, there were plenty that were manufactured by the late 1800s to be read down to 0.01 degree.)
And a sealed glass tube doesn't need repeated calibration if it's not disturbed or damaged. The issue here is simply how good the (somewhat permanent) calibration was. By the first couple decades of the 1900s, there were standards organizations which existed that would do standardized calibrations (i.e., where you could get a standard calibrated thermometer or send one away to be checked for calibration). We have actual logbooks when many thermometers were checked for accuracy. We have actual logbooks where thermometers were replaced and the old thermometers were compared with the new ones in terms of their scales and calibration. Etc., etc.
Just because you cannot fathom that people 100 years ago could read a thermometer or manufacture an even glass tube doesn't mean they didn't. They did. We still have many of these thermometers today to prove it. A 1900-era thermometers is about as accurate as a 1900-era RULER.
In fact, in terms of precision AND accuracy, what you should be questioning instead is MODERN electronic thermometers, which DO need frequent calibration and are frequently only accurate to maybe +/- 1 degree even when calibrated properly. But they're used for convenience because they no longer need a human to go look at it and write it down. Ask any meteorologist who knows anything about temperature measurement, and he'll likely tell you that stuff they were using decades and even over a century ago (often accurate to +/-0.1 degree) is more accurate than the stuff weather records are generated with now. (And regardless, that +/-1 degree or whatever is plenty to generate an average over several years to compare temperature records.)
No -- the real issue in dealing with old records is questions of siting and distribution. Historical thermometers weren't always located in the best of places, but again, most were, and we generally have records of those that were. The biggest statistical issue is that we didn't have such even distribution for samples all over the globe, so there's some sampling bias. Again, there's a lot of work statisticians do to take this into account when looking at long-term global averages.
Anyhow, I personally have complete confidence that those statistical analyses are good and reflect the overall trend. But people who are arguing that old thermometers were bad and needed frequent calibration simply have ABSOLUTELY no clue what they're talking about.
I always thought that Yahoo was well-named, a company run by a bunch of Yahoos...
I know, right? (For those that don't get it, here's what the word yahoo actually means when not yelled by a cowboy.)
To the guy in the summary who said: "I'm old enough to remember when Yahoo was a series of directories on a University's computers"... well, I'm old enough to remember when 'yahoo' was a name for a boorish idiot.
The long term problem with streaming is going to be artist compensation. The streaming financing mechanism works in revers - it takes consumer's entire life to "listen" to a track enough times to represent the $1 up front for rights to listen forever. This means the artist gets their $1 over 10-50 years rather than up front. This is really bad for new, mediocre, or unpopular artists while being "ok" for established artists that can afford to live on 1/10th the pay at time of track release.
THIS. Streaming is definitely convenient for many people, but it's a terrible deal for artists, generally speaking. Spotify, for example, pays out less than half a cent per stream (less, I think, for the "free" listeners, rather than the paid accounts). So, if you account for the fact that online download sources are taking a cut, the revenue might be around 70 cents for a downloaded track. A specific user would have to listen to that track well over 100 times to bring in the same revenue.
How many tracks in your music collection do you listen to more than 100 times in a reasonable span of time? I suppose it depends on what sort of user you are. Some people have favorite songs on playlists that they'll literally listen to thousands of times. Others have thousands of songs and rarely listen to anything more than a dozen or so times. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle.
As AC noted, the issue isn't necessarily unworkable by major artists who already have established careers and reputations. But for some new or lesser-known musicians, getting a $10 fee for albums or a $1/track fee may just provide enough trickle of revenue to keep them going with a hobby and lead them to try to do more stuff that will get broader attention. If that revenue (which might be only the thousands or even hundreds of dollars) is now reduced by an order of magnitude in streaming revenue, that may not be enough for artists to stay interested.
I know there's this popular myth around that artists are "creators" and will just create stuff no matter what -- they have some "impulse" to do so. That may be true to some extent. But most people also have bills to pay, too. Having a few hundred or a few thousand dollars coming in extra may justify taking all that extra time in evenings and on the weekends to try to "make it" as an artist... or at least justify an ongoing hobby. But at some point for every artist it's just not worth it.
I'm a pretty decent keyboardist. I used to play for a lot of weddings (and funerals and other events). It's INSANE the kind of prices people pay for wedding crap, so I could easily rake in money that way if I want to. And I'd be sharing my talent and whatever too. But the stress and the hassle of weddings just became not worth it to me. (It's just the craziest day in most people's lives.) Now instead tell me that my revenue for playing at a wedding was an order of magnitude lower -- a few small bills rather than a few hundred dollars? No way I'd have played more than a service or two before quitting that stuff.
Also #6 is needlessly autocratic, slightly narcissistic, and (if you ever executed on that threat) quite possibly abusive.
"Abusive"? ABUSIVE?! Are you serious?
If the parent does such things arbitrarily, then I suppose it might be considered "autocratic," but guess what -- families with minor children are NOT democracies! Yes, parents should try to gradually grant more "rights" to their kids over time and help them understand freedom (and I personally believe we're an overprotective society now that doesn't introduce enough freedom early), but ultimately kids are under their parents' care until they cease to be a minor (or are "emancipated" legally).
So a parent is not only responsible for trying to raise the kid well, but the parent is ALSO legally a party to a child's actions, if it can be shown the parent was negligent in supervision or something. Thus, it's perfectly reasonable that -- in sufficiently dire circumstances -- a parent may restrict or even delete online material to protect both the child and him/herself.
Wow. "Daddy stopped me from logging into Facebook -- I'm calling the Child Abuse Hotline!" I just don't even know what to say.
Energy efficiency mandates will do that. The compressors in new refrigerators have to be so small that they run constantly, which imposes more wear and tear.
While that might explain SOME of the issues for specific appliances, it certainly isn't the only reason for poor product lifespan nowadays.
I have a stand mixer given to me by my mother, who bought it in the 1960s. She used it very frequently for decades (she used to bake wedding cakes as an occasional side job). Then she gave it to me about 15 years ago. It's still going strong.
I know two people who have bought the same popular brands of mixer in the past decade, and they've both had serious problems. I know this is anecdotal, but there are reasons why you can still sell a 40+ year old stand mixer on Ebay for decent money: people know they'll probably continue to work longer than most of the stuff sold today.
Same thing with many other appliances. Most consumers are simply happier to pay less, so manufacturers oblige and make cheaper, less durable stuff. The problem is that it becomes very difficult to even find the truly durable stuff anymore. Many manufacturers which used to be known for making stuff that would last decades simply don't seem to make that stuff anymore (even in their higher end models).
Give me an appliance that are built to last for at least a decade.... and I'll start letting you throw Wifi in it.
I absolutely agree with everything you said -- but I will just add that it's these "features" that frequently decrease product lifespan.
For example: Why are modern stoves loaded with digital displays and buttons to select temperature, etc.? Why can't I just have a mechanical dial to select temperature? Seriously -- ovens tend to reach temperatures above 500 degees F (much higher if you use self-cleaning). And no matter how much heat shielding you put around stuff, there are going to be major temperature swings, which can't be good for just about any electronic component.
I've known two different people who have had catastrophic failures of stoves occur on holidays, not because of anything wrong with the mechanical elements of the stoves, but because the electronic units failed suddenly. If only they had a manual dial to turn them on, the stoves could have been used fine. Yet it's becoming increasingly difficult to find stoves/ovens without fancy (and completely unnecessary) electronic components.
Similarly, I don't need a washer/dryer that talks to me or has a digital readout of what it's doing with my clothes. Just an old-school dial I can turn and a few mechanical selector buttons or switches is fine, thank you. And my refrigerator definitely doesn't need a screen or wifi. For most appliances, even basic electronics are just more stuff that can wrong with an appliance -- and most of this for very little gain.
Slashdot Mirror
How does it clean with just water?
I think most people have no clue of the amount of water pressure available on most of these toilets. Somebody posted a link to a photo down thread, but this isn't your typical European bidet with the water pressure that sort of "oozes" out like a gentle faucet or something. Most of the Japanese toilets can start at that low level of pressure, but you can generally turn them up so high you could basically give yourself an enema with one.
And if you get it wrong, it pisses right back at you!
Yes, I first visited Japan around 1990, and I remember the first time I encountered one of those toilets. (Well, the functions weren't quite as advanced as what you linked, but still several odd buttons.)
Curious, I pressed a couple of buttons (expecting maybe a different flush or something -- one of the buttons played music or something, if I recall), and that exact scene happened to me. Some bizarre protuberance jutted forth from the back of the toilet and sprayed water all over the room. Thank goodness I wasn't sitting on it at the time, because I think it was set to maximum jet force, and I don't think I have the right "demeanor" to appreciate that.
Instead I just had to mop up the room. And later had a really awkward conversation in broken English/Japanese with my hostess about why her towels were all soaked.
I've since encountered these toilets many times and have thought of getting one myself. But if I ever owned a home with one, I'd put up an instruction sheet in 5 languages on the wall or something when guests came by.
First, I want to be clear that I don't know what Trump did here -- whether or not his actions were appropriate given the circumstances, etc. However...
If you've ever kissed a girl without asking her explicitly 'can I kiss you now?' you've pretty much done what Trump has done.
Wow. Setting aside the fact that groping genitals is generally considered at least a little more intimate than a kiss, there IS something about his phrasing that makes this SOUND a little different from your scenario.
Namely, Trump says "I don't even wait." Your interpretation is that he doesn't preface a kiss without some Victorian protocol saying, "Dear lady, may I be granted the favor of a kiss?" or something. Yes, I suppose it could mean that. It could also mean that Trump is implying he doesn't even "wait" for implied consent. (In the context of the quote, it sounds like he's talking about novel encounters with people he doesn't know well, rather than a sort of "date context" or something where the "implied consent" might be easier to tease out. ) But I agree that we don't have enough context to know precisely what he meant here. HOWEVER, I think the more concerning turn of phrase comes later in your quotation, namely "when you're a star they LET you do it".
That's not a phrase of implied consent. He doesn't say, "When you're a star they WANT you to do it." The implication of the phrasing is that the woman is "letting" you do something that she's at best somewhat ambivalent about. If we're only talking about a kiss, maybe that amounts to a miscue or sexual harassment. But then Trump follows it with "You can do anything" and then talking about groping genitals. Again, no mention of the woman's desire or wishes -- "You can do anything."
So, IF one chooses to take the preceding "they LET you do it" to mean the woman is giving less than strong affirmation even for a kiss, following it up with crotch grab just because "you can do anything" might be mistaken -- in this linguistic context -- as implying sexual assault.
Again, I don't know whether Trump was actually intending to say that, because he says all sorts of crap that he obviously doesn't mean literally. He also could just be bragging in the context where this statement was recorded, rather than referring to his actual practice. Or whatever.
But if you take his PHRASING literally, it seems to indicate significantly more aggressive behavior than simply failing to offer a Victorian verbal query before a kiss.
Apologies for the repeated post, but I accidentally did an incorrect "cut-and-paste" right before hitting "submit," which resulted in repeating the words of much of the post several times.
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or whatever. There were three different components to this study. All have some problems.
(1) The first used Amazon Mechanical Turk to get people to answer a bunch of personality questions. There was no actual assessment of whether people were ACTUALLY lying. instead, they were given a series of questions "using the Lie subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised short scale," However, despite its name, this test isn't actually used to determine whether people are prone to lie in general! This subscale is used, as the study notes, for social desirability responding.
That is, in the context of a personality test, this set of questions is used to fish out the people who are likely choosing answers based a little more on their "idealized" personality traits or what they might think would be "likeable," rather than being more realistic in their responses. Rather than a sort of "lie detector" test, it's more a test of how much a person wants to represent themselves as socially desirable. It has questions like, "If you say you will do something, do you always keep your promise no matter how inconvenient it might be?" If you answer "yes," the test assumes you to be a LIAR. But of course it has no way of knowing whether you are lying -- it rather assumes if you have more idealistic norms about social behavior that you're more likely to less realistic in your own self-reporting for personality questions.
Anyhow, this is a TERRIBLE proxy for "dishonesty" generally. It basically is measuring how close people want to try to adhere to social norms. And avoiding profanity in many situations is also trying to adhere to social norms. So it's basically a tautology that they found a correlation in the first study.
(2) Okay, on to the next one. Here, again, they didn't actually determine whether people were telling falsehoods. Rather, they looked at a bunch of Facebook messages and statistically analyzed how many times people used 1st and 3rd person pronouns, motion verbs, and anxiety words. They claim that this is a good way to tell how "honest" people are. Except the study they use as a benchmark to calibrate the frequency of these linguistic categories (this study) involved people giving detailed responses to prompts, both telling the truth and lying. The average words for the samples varied from 124 words for one category (people expressing a position on abortion while videotaped) up to 529 words (were people expressed an opinio
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or wh
Consider people who say 'darn, frick', etc.. We all know what they're saying, and they're really lying to themselves by 'editing' how they're expressing themselves.
There are various reasons people avoid profanity, but one of the primary reasons is out of politeness or concern for not offending those around them. Some might consider failure to adhere to politeness conventions to be "honesty in expression," but it could also simply be a social convention. I reflexively say "Thank you" to the toll-booth person who accepts my toll, but I'm not actually grateful to them. It's just a social convention and reflex to thank people who provide a service to you. Similarly, I walk around saying "How are you?" to people as I pass them in the hallway or whatever, but it's well-known that most people aren't seriously asking that question in more than a cursory "standard greeting" sense.
Are all of these people "lying" or not being "honest"? Or are they simply falling social convention, which also dictates that profanity is inappropriate in various social situations?
My distinction here is not a minor one, because desirability to adhere to social convention is actually arguably what this study measured, rather than "honesty" or whatever.
There were three different components to this study. All have some problems.
(1) The first used Amazon Mechanical Turk to get people to answer a bunch of personality questions. There was no actual assessment of whether people were ACTUALLY lying. instead, they were given a series of questions "using the Lie subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised short scale," However, despite its name, this test isn't actually used to determine whether people are prone to lie in general! This subscale is used, as the study notes, for social desirability responding.
That is, in the context of a personality test, this set of questions is used to fish out the people who are likely choosing answers based a little more on their "idealized" personality traits or what they might think would be "likeable," rather than being more realistic in their responses. Rather than a sort of "lie detector" test, it's more a test of how much a person wants to represent themselves as socially desirable. It has questions like, "If you say you will do something, do you always keep your promise no matter how inconvenient it might be?" If you answer "yes," the test assumes you to be a LIAR. But of course it has no way of knowing whether you are lying -- it rather assumes if you have more idealistic norms about social behavior that you're more likely to less realistic in your own self-reporting for personality questions.
Anyhow, this is
No rule of the casino was broken, they're nullifying it because state law says the presence of marked cards means the game is not lawfully played and thus void regardless of whose fault that is.
Exactly. A lot of people posting here are missing the legal reasoning of the ruling, which is NOT based on the fact that these two guys acted fraudulently, but rather the fact that the game was VOID from the start because it did not conform to the rules for LEGAL gambling and gaming under state law.
But there's something very odd about using that reasoning in this case, because the casino explicitly agreed to the terms of these guys -- including offering a specific card deck, instructing the dealer to turn cards based on player's instructions, instructing the dealer NOT to disturb card rotation prior to reshuffles, etc. That all is suspicious enough, and casinos generally do NOT allow players to dictate that many rules to avoid PRECISELY these kinds of problems. I'd imagine the only reason they allowed it in this case is because they hoped to sucker more money out of a high profile gambler. Unfortunately, their strategy of offering a MODIFIED GAME failed when it was they who were suckered out of money.
But why does the fault then fall only on the players? From the ruling conclusion:
As we previously found, by their own design, Ivey and Sun played games at Borgata that violated important provisions of the CCA and thereby breached their agreement with the casino. They must disgorge the benefit they received as a direct result of the breached contract
Yes, "Ivey and Sun played games" but the casino offered the marked deck and agreed to numerous manipulations that ultimately modified the odds. If this was indeed an "illegal game" under state law, why is the casino not culpable, at least for negligence for failing to adhere to reasonable gaming standards and thereby offering illegal gaming? If a private person ran a flawed game like this, they'd likely end up fined or even in prison. And likely any money transferred during illegal gaming would be confiscated.
I'm fine if the casino wants to argue that it engaged in offering an illegal game, but by doing so, they should submit to being punished according to provisions for offering illegal gaming in their state (including government confiscation of winnings). But if they don't want to argue they were engaging in illegal gaming by THEMSELVES offering marked cards, etc., then they'll likely just have to admit they were fools and just live with banning these people from their casino in the future, rather than recovering money. Or, they could actually prove the defendants committed FRAUD in some way to void the contract. (And maybe there is enough evidence to support that; I don't know. But it's not the legal reasoning used here.) The way the case was decided is not very consistent legally.
You're missing quite a few things here. Decline in government subsidies has been a factor, particularly at state institutions. But you also have a lot of other "run like a business" stuff that's taken over higher ed in the past couple decades. The two biggest factors are (1) growth of unnecessary administrative bureaucracy (at many colleges administration and associated staff have often grown at double or triple rate of faculty or student body), and (2) the "arms race" in campus "life" and facilities. Colleges now try to sell prospective students on the cool high-tech new dorm, with the gourmet dining option and the expanded gym next door with an Olympic swimming pool and climbing gym or whatever. I exaggerate only slightly (well, at some places, not at all). Buildings are expensive to build and maintain, along with the required staff. There's other stuff too, but these are some of the huge monetary sinkholes in higher ed these days.
(Full disclosure: I've taught at the college level, so I'm pretty familiar with the budgets.)
I forgot one obvious exception -- weed ordinances targeting invasive NON-native plants are often endorsed by environmentalists, but such plants are generally a serious threat to local flora.
That environmentalists push for it.
You certainly have a point that many cities have created environmental problems by banning "natural" and "native" plants.
On the other hand, it's interesting that the sentence I quoted ("The environmentalists push for it") is one with no citation. You seem to be from Canada; I'm not as familiar with environmental politics there. But the U.S. at least, weed ordinances in cities are hardly pushed by environmentalists as that term is commonly understood in the U.S. The laws may be pushed by local busybodies worried about their neighbor who doesn't keep a monoculture lawn precisely mowed and instead chooses to let wildflowers and such grow more freely -- which some people consider "unkempt." Those people may be concerned about their neighborhood "environment" in the sense that they believe that some mid-20th century suburban ideal of the well-kept lawn is the only possible plantlife that should be seen in the city. But I really doubt anyone calls them "environmentalists" except ironically.
Yeah, I'm actually a bit surprised that so many people here just casually dismiss the fact that most American companies are engaging in pervasive and systemic deception on a regular basis. For the cynical among us, I'm sure people think that's true a lot of the time -- but prices are a pretty fundamental fact displayed by sellers (possibly THE fundamental fact). A lot of people here, for example, tend to be dismissive of ads, which they feel are mostly misleading and deceptive. I've seen a lot of posts arguing for their complete eradication. But displaying "fake prices" is okay?
Yes, it's common practice. Yes, it's not new. (I remember being shocked maybe 10-15 years ago when I went into a department store after probably not shopping in one for 5 years. And I couldn't believe how EVERYTHING was listed 50-70% off! I remember sales before that, sometimes exaggerating things, but it seems we took a turn somewhere in the past 20 years where this practice of inflating "retail price" became PERVASIVE.)
But just because it's common doesn't mean it's a good thing. While we're at it, can we do away with claims of "now with 30% MORE!" on product packaging unless that claim is followed explicitly by "more than... X" where X is a detailed explanation of what actually has less and when it had it?
When I first cancelled my cable TV subscription, I was paying so much less overnight. The problem is, as other people have followed suit and "cut the chord" TWC has started charging more for internet service to make up for losing TV subscribers.
This practice isn't anything new. Back when I was a Comcast customer in the early 2000s, it was actually cheaper to have cable internet plus "basic cable" than to have just cable internet by itself. At the time, I think I was told it had to do with local licensing or something, or some extra legal "rights" it gave Comcast when it was a TV provider rather than just an internet provider.
Anyhow, I don't know the exact reason, but for quite a few years I actually paid $5-10 LESS per month to have "basic cable" bundled in with my internet service. I never watched much TV -- at first the bundling was actually quite extensive. For paying $5-10, I got a lot of the standard cable stuff (History, SciFi, Discovery, A&E, all that..). Then after a few years it decreased to truly "basic" cable, with only something like 16 channels -- major networks + public access stuff.
Point is -- this doesn't surprise me at all. At least now the cable companies seem to have a somewhat sensible reason for doing it to keep up their revenue. I can't imagine they were afraid I was going to be a "cord cutter" when I signed up for cable back in 2001 or whatever... even though I was, because I didn't care about TV and just wanted internet access.
TWC increased my monthly payment for internet by $15/month this last month (10 for the plan, 5 for renting the modem).
Just checking, but did this happen at some "anniversary date" after you signed up for service? It seems almost all the big cable companies now do this thing where EVERY subscription price is a "12-month deal" or something.
So, you sign up for some service that costs $29.99 one year, and then the next year after that "new subscriber period" it goes up to $44.99. Then the next year it creeps up to $49.99. Then the next year it creeps up to $54.99. Etc.
As someone who dealt with TWC in the past, I once tried to get some salesperson who called me to actually tell me what the ACTUAL price was for the service. Not some "12-month" deal. The STANDARD price. Basically, I couldn't get an answer from her. I'm sure legally TWC may be required to provide such information somewhere, but I dare you to try to find that on their website as you're trying to sign up for service.
Everything just will say "prices valid for first 12 months or service" or whatever.
I'm sure there's some actual cap on prices somewhere, but having had TWC for four years and talking to neighbors and friends, it's clear that the pricing is completely wacko and chances are they'll just keep inching it up until you complain or quit the service.
I didn't try this myself, but I've read online that if you complain about such increases loudly enough (e.g., on social media, etc.) and point it out to some cable companies, then they might actually lower your fee back down to some more reasonable "temporary" amount. Threatening to leave to a rep on the phone might work, but it seems even that doesn't budge a lot of businesses anymore... they'll just let you go. It's only if you start shaming a cable company in public that they'll actually be responsive.
I don't want to subscribe to a damned streaming service. I don't want to subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't want to subscribe to Netflix. I don't want to subscribe to HBO. I want to subscribe to specific shows.
I believe Amazon offers something like what you describe, namely a TV Season Pass, where you can purchase an entire season of a TV show, even one that's still on the air. For many series, new episodes will become available soon after airing. I believe some other online services offer such an option too.
I'm sure one complaint you'll probably have with this model is that many shows seem to have a relatively high price. If you want streaming access to all seasons of several big-name shows, you might end up spending more than an annual subscription for the three services you mention.
On the other hand, these are "purchases," which don't just give you temporary monthly access or whatever. (Well, as much as streaming services can ever be "purchases." Obviously these are only "purchased" as long as Amazon is around and offering this streaming.)
you subscribe to get a ton of content that you don't want, just so you can get the small amount of content you do.
It's always a trade off. Networks can subsidize all their content through monthly fees, or they can make money through individual shows. The problem is that you're going to pay a LOT for access to POPULAR individual shows (whether by buying DVDs or purchasing streaming access to specific shows) because the networks can't depend on your subscription revenue in general.
It's like anything -- buying in bulk makes things cheaper, but only if you use enough of it. Buying in smaller amounts means sellers will jack up the price to ensure they're still making a profit overall.
Exaggeration, hyperbole, and confusing a personal opinion with a law of nature... Man, you hit the trifecta there.
Uh... exaggeration and hyperbole are the same thing. How exactly can they make up two parts of a trifecta?
Anyhow, this is far from merely a "personal opinion." Monopoly has been criticized ever since it was originally rejected by Parker Brothers for game play that grew too long and tedious. They only picked it up after it became a minor "craze" in the mid-30s. It certainly had novel elements that made it appealing, but that doesn't mean it also didn't have serious flaws.
Anyone who has played a lot of Monopoly knows a number of the major flaws for family gaming. But don't listen to me on this. Here's just one post which sums up a lot of the major issues:
It suffers from problems that most game designers nowadays try to avoid. First, players can be eliminated. This is no fun -- unless, of course, the eliminated player finds something better to do than play Monopoly -- and games are meant to be fun. Second, there is often a runaway leader. Someone can snap up a juicy monopoly early on, and that quickly becomes that. The rest of the game is pro forma and boring. And games aren't meant to be boring. Third, there is what's known to game designers as a kingmaking problem. A losing player can often choose, typically via a lopsided trade of properties, who wins the game. This is also no fun and negates whatever skill was required to begin with.
Oh, and it also takes a really long time to play.
This is hardly the only criticism of the game. See for example here or here. And if you want some more criticism along with recommendations for better, more engaging games, see here.
None of this means a given person can't or shouldn't like Monopoly. It just means that most people who spend a lot of time playing a variety of board games tend to think Monopoly has serious flaws. And if you're trying to meet certain common goals of family gameplay (e.g., long-term engagement for most people, avoiding long drawn-out concluding play between a minority of players that is exceptionally unlikely to actually change the outcome, etc.), Monopoly has only one advantage -- it's well-known. If you're willing to try out "new things," there are a lot of really good options out there.
So after book stores, Amazon now wants to push Banana stores out of business?
But, really, the kind of service I get from my local fruit dealer just can't be matched. I mean, Carlos really knows his bananas. He's familiar with all the types: green, slightly green, mostly yellow, spotted, heavily mottled, and brown. I know the ones we mostly get in the U.S. are all clones with exactly the same genetics, but Carlos really knows his stuff. And the service! Once I had sprained my ankle, and Carlos even helped me carry my box of bananas home. Can you get that service from Amazon?
What I really love are the special guests Carlos brings in. He's had growers and pickers who talk about where the bananas come from -- and sometimes they even have special banana signings by these celebrity pickers! I've kept a few of the signed skins... sure they're so black now that it's difficult to make out the signature, but they do have a certain ap-peel, if they know what I mean!
Lately, they tend to have children's time at the banana stand. My neighbor says it's all just propaganda to get kids used to still going to local banana sources, but I think it's good community engagement. From the banana slide to the games of "banana relay," there's a lot of great clean fun! (They did try a game of "hide the banana," but the weird guy Fred who lives next to the stand participated and... well, let's just say that game is no longer deemed appropriate for kids...)
And really, what can rival the browsing experience you get at a physical banana stand? I see banana possibilities there that you'd never get from "banana recommendations" in Amazon! Who knew they could come in bunches with even 7 or 8 bananas? I've even seen bunches that have long ones AND short ones together! Can't get that from a some electronic app for buying bananas.
Seriously. What we need to teach kids today is There's always money in the banana stand!
Do any of you Apple fanatics NOT see that Apple screwed you by removing a port and FORCING you into the wireless headphone market they own most of?
Just give up the argument. There are those who have bought into the Apple "mystique" and those who haven't. To the former, it will always be "But Apple is being BOLD, moving on to new tech!" To the latter, like you, there will always be the most cynical interpretation, where everything is about profits. Just like the pro-life/pro-choice debate, the two sides are operating from completely different premises about the world.
No, if we really want to change people's minds, we need to revisit the Apple propaganda of the past couple decades. I'm sure many of us remember those "Mac vs. PC" commercials that ran for many years with the cool hip guy as the Mac and the stodgy guy in a jacket and tie as the PC.
I really don't understand why no one has made a new parody of those considering the loss of standard ports on so many Apple devices recently. Does anyone remember those Mac vs. PC commercials where the Mac was the "cool guy" who could just talk to anyone, whereas the PC wasn't prepared to interface with various gadgets?
Time to turn that around.
Commercial opens with Mac dressed in cool outfit saying to PC, "Hey, look how slim and sleek I am!" Then some other people appear, and the PC just starts going around shaking hands and talking to everyone. But Mac disappears off-screen and comes back wearing all sorts of crap hanging off of him everywhere. He tries to go around and shake people's hands and talk to them, but he can't find the right piece of random mechanical junk hanging off of him to make it work. Finally, the Mac guy asks the PC guy for "tech support" and the PC guy helps rummage through a giant box of dongles to find the right one. The PC guy pulls it out and says, "Here it is -- and only $29.99!"
Unless someone starts producing ads like that, this Apple crap will have no chance of stopping. In a few years, we'll have dongles upon dongles just to use a 5-year-old computer with a new Apple device.
If it costs more and a dentist tries to use only the new fillings so he can make more profit, patients will simply go to a different cheaper dentist who uses the old fillings.
If it costs less and a dentist tries to use only the old fillings so he can preserve his profit, people will simply go to a different cheaper dentist who uses the new fillings.
Either way, the dentist who tries to take the route with larger profit margin will lose customers and probably go broke.
Yeah, if only things worked like that when it comes to medicine and dentistry. Usually to get a quote on a procedure from a dentist, you'll need to pay for an exam, which is probably at least $50-100, and if they insist on new X-rays (as many offices do), that's quite a bit more.
So, you can try out another dentist for a "second opinion," but you'll likely ending up losing any gain in savings (and probably more) by doing the switch.
My experience talking to friends and family makes it pretty clear how many dentists these days seem out to make profit with unnecessary costs and procedures.
That's not to say there aren't "good" dentists out there. I have one. She's awesome. I don't have any problems and have good indications for bone and jaw, so she decreased recommended frequency for X-rays, whereas most dentists these days seem to insist on doing new ones at least once per year, no matter what. The only thing her office occasionally does is have the hygienists mention the possibility of whitening treatments or whatever, which I'm sure is an attempt to "upsell" patients -- but they're not pushy about it, so I don't care.
Meanwhile, just about everyone else in my family has gone from dentist to dentist over the past decade, often treated with a recommendation for multiple thousands of dollars of dental work after a first visit. Heck, I have a relative who is nearly 100 years old who recently had 3 teeth pulled by a dentist for no apparent reason -- well there were stated reasons of course, but not sufficient to deprive a 100-year-old woman from her teeth that she wasn't having problems with -- and charged her a ridiculous amount. (She was having trouble with one tooth; the dentist took 3. Now she only has a handful of teeth left in her mouth and has trouble chewing food.) Of course, now the dentist is trying to sell her dentures or even implants and the cost of many thousands... for a woman who is nearly 100 years old! Why not just leave her remaining teeth in unless she's having noticeable problems?? How many more years can they be expected to last? I've had other family members who asked if there was a cheaper option or who only wanted to fix one or two teeth, but the dentist refused unless ALL the recommendations were fixed (again, costing several thousand dollars).
Talk to old people sometime about their experiences with dentists. Unless they're lucky to have an honest one, you may be surprised at what you hear. (To be fair, I think many of today's dentists also are trained not to distinguish between absolutely essential care and other stuff that's not always needed or could provide a more temporary fix. Yet another family member had a dentist for 30 years -- this family member always had tooth problems even from when he was a kid. But this dentist kept this family member well for decades, fixing little problems as they came up. The dentist retired and the new dentist came in... suddenly this family member needed thousands of dollars worth of dental work, and the dentist claimed over half of his teeth should be extracted or were "pre-extraction". We're talking about a retiree approaching 80 years old. Why not let him keep his teeth? The newer plan seems to be if a tooth isn't perfect, extract and recommend an implant or something. Most people can't really afford that sort of thing, particularly older people.)
I'm sure you think I'm making some of this stuff up. But we KNOW dentists do things like unnecessary extractions. Heck, there are studies claiming that over 2/3 of wisdom tooth extractions are unnecessary. But they're a serious cash cow for dentists and oral surgeons.
If they had a more representative test, Apple's bug wouldn't have mattered. Moreover, they should've tested with another browser to see if the results were replicable there.
I agree with you that they probably should have tried some other things OR contacted Apple and said, "Hey -- we're not getting battery life anywhere near what you claimed. What's up?"
That would have been NICE of them to do. But I hardly would say the test was invalid.
These aren't scientists on some sort of fact-finding mission, trying to root out the causes of hardware behavior. They're writing consumer reviews, using default software (which in this case is actually software MADE by Apple). Why exactly should their testing protocol require them to check 3rd-party software's performance (which, if it came out more poorly, would probably receive complaints from Apple fans -- "Why didn't they test it with default stuff?").
But this got more clicks, right? Releasing a test that's OBVIOUSLY broken is more interesting than going back and verifying that you did everything right, or asking Apple what's going on.
I love these conspiracy theories. If you were talking about some crap unknown review site, maybe I could understand doing something outlandish for the clicks. But Consumer Reports? If they KNOW a test is broken, they KNOW the error will be found -- and then they KNOW they'll have to retract.
For a company whose business model is trying to help consumers sort out reliability, having too many errors like this would be a DEATH SENTENCE.
The more logical explanation is that they legitimately thought their testing protocol uncovered a significant discrepancy in reported battery life, and they thought it was important for consumers to know about. I agree that it would have been NICE of them to call up Apple and get them to check for bugs first or whatever, but if Consumer Reports spent all their time asking businesses to figure out why their tests don't live up to expectations, they'd waste all their time becoming a QA service for corporations, rather than serving consumers.
There were multiple problems here -- some with Consumer Reports, some with Apple. Why are you so intent on trying to deflect blame from Apple for a buggy piece of software? This is NOT the first time that Apple has released laptops with buggy software that made them run in funny ways. (I've been the victim of it myself.) And, you know what, I'm going to hold Apple to a slightly higher standard on this than other hardware manufacturers, because basically the ENTIRE point of paying for the Apple premium in hardware is because you get good software/hardware integration and support for a VERY limited class of hardware options. There's simply no excuse even for obscure bugs given how locked-down they have their hardware and integrated software. (And if it were the first time something like this happened, I'd give them a pass. But there have been much worse bugs in the past.)
Testing protocol flawed. Apple bug discovered. Both are apparently now fixed.
(By the way, I want to be clear when I mention modern weather records, I'm talking about all the "observation stations" on average -- lots of them run by random people -- many of which don't have high-precision equipment. It is of course possible to have more accurate electronic devices today, but non-professional observations stations frequently don't have devices that have the precision of thermometers commonly used 100+ years ago.)
Yes, better calibration helps getting more accurate results with less uncertainties, but it's highly unlikely that all calibration errors were in the same direction and skewed over time into the opposite direction.
Good lord folks -- I'm tired of this discussion coming up periodically and people talking out of their asses.
Look: thermometers dating back the mid-1800s were highly precise and did not need frequent calibration. They had perfected glass tubes of mercury and could make very even marks on them by that point. A late 19th-century thermometer had precision that was easily within +/-0.1 degree. (For specialized applications and laboratory thermometers, there were plenty that were manufactured by the late 1800s to be read down to 0.01 degree.)
And a sealed glass tube doesn't need repeated calibration if it's not disturbed or damaged. The issue here is simply how good the (somewhat permanent) calibration was. By the first couple decades of the 1900s, there were standards organizations which existed that would do standardized calibrations (i.e., where you could get a standard calibrated thermometer or send one away to be checked for calibration). We have actual logbooks when many thermometers were checked for accuracy. We have actual logbooks where thermometers were replaced and the old thermometers were compared with the new ones in terms of their scales and calibration. Etc., etc.
Just because you cannot fathom that people 100 years ago could read a thermometer or manufacture an even glass tube doesn't mean they didn't. They did. We still have many of these thermometers today to prove it. A 1900-era thermometers is about as accurate as a 1900-era RULER.
In fact, in terms of precision AND accuracy, what you should be questioning instead is MODERN electronic thermometers, which DO need frequent calibration and are frequently only accurate to maybe +/- 1 degree even when calibrated properly. But they're used for convenience because they no longer need a human to go look at it and write it down. Ask any meteorologist who knows anything about temperature measurement, and he'll likely tell you that stuff they were using decades and even over a century ago (often accurate to +/-0.1 degree) is more accurate than the stuff weather records are generated with now. (And regardless, that +/-1 degree or whatever is plenty to generate an average over several years to compare temperature records.)
No -- the real issue in dealing with old records is questions of siting and distribution. Historical thermometers weren't always located in the best of places, but again, most were, and we generally have records of those that were. The biggest statistical issue is that we didn't have such even distribution for samples all over the globe, so there's some sampling bias. Again, there's a lot of work statisticians do to take this into account when looking at long-term global averages.
Anyhow, I personally have complete confidence that those statistical analyses are good and reflect the overall trend. But people who are arguing that old thermometers were bad and needed frequent calibration simply have ABSOLUTELY no clue what they're talking about.
I always thought that Yahoo was well-named, a company run by a bunch of Yahoos...
I know, right? (For those that don't get it, here's what the word yahoo actually means when not yelled by a cowboy.)
To the guy in the summary who said: "I'm old enough to remember when Yahoo was a series of directories on a University's computers"... well, I'm old enough to remember when 'yahoo' was a name for a boorish idiot.
The long term problem with streaming is going to be artist compensation. The streaming financing mechanism works in revers - it takes consumer's entire life to "listen" to a track enough times to represent the $1 up front for rights to listen forever. This means the artist gets their $1 over 10-50 years rather than up front. This is really bad for new, mediocre, or unpopular artists while being "ok" for established artists that can afford to live on 1/10th the pay at time of track release.
THIS. Streaming is definitely convenient for many people, but it's a terrible deal for artists, generally speaking. Spotify, for example, pays out less than half a cent per stream (less, I think, for the "free" listeners, rather than the paid accounts). So, if you account for the fact that online download sources are taking a cut, the revenue might be around 70 cents for a downloaded track. A specific user would have to listen to that track well over 100 times to bring in the same revenue.
How many tracks in your music collection do you listen to more than 100 times in a reasonable span of time? I suppose it depends on what sort of user you are. Some people have favorite songs on playlists that they'll literally listen to thousands of times. Others have thousands of songs and rarely listen to anything more than a dozen or so times. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle.
As AC noted, the issue isn't necessarily unworkable by major artists who already have established careers and reputations. But for some new or lesser-known musicians, getting a $10 fee for albums or a $1/track fee may just provide enough trickle of revenue to keep them going with a hobby and lead them to try to do more stuff that will get broader attention. If that revenue (which might be only the thousands or even hundreds of dollars) is now reduced by an order of magnitude in streaming revenue, that may not be enough for artists to stay interested.
I know there's this popular myth around that artists are "creators" and will just create stuff no matter what -- they have some "impulse" to do so. That may be true to some extent. But most people also have bills to pay, too. Having a few hundred or a few thousand dollars coming in extra may justify taking all that extra time in evenings and on the weekends to try to "make it" as an artist... or at least justify an ongoing hobby. But at some point for every artist it's just not worth it.
I'm a pretty decent keyboardist. I used to play for a lot of weddings (and funerals and other events). It's INSANE the kind of prices people pay for wedding crap, so I could easily rake in money that way if I want to. And I'd be sharing my talent and whatever too. But the stress and the hassle of weddings just became not worth it to me. (It's just the craziest day in most people's lives.) Now instead tell me that my revenue for playing at a wedding was an order of magnitude lower -- a few small bills rather than a few hundred dollars? No way I'd have played more than a service or two before quitting that stuff.
Also #6 is needlessly autocratic, slightly narcissistic, and (if you ever executed on that threat) quite possibly abusive.
"Abusive"? ABUSIVE?! Are you serious?
If the parent does such things arbitrarily, then I suppose it might be considered "autocratic," but guess what -- families with minor children are NOT democracies! Yes, parents should try to gradually grant more "rights" to their kids over time and help them understand freedom (and I personally believe we're an overprotective society now that doesn't introduce enough freedom early), but ultimately kids are under their parents' care until they cease to be a minor (or are "emancipated" legally).
So a parent is not only responsible for trying to raise the kid well, but the parent is ALSO legally a party to a child's actions, if it can be shown the parent was negligent in supervision or something. Thus, it's perfectly reasonable that -- in sufficiently dire circumstances -- a parent may restrict or even delete online material to protect both the child and him/herself.
Wow. "Daddy stopped me from logging into Facebook -- I'm calling the Child Abuse Hotline!" I just don't even know what to say.
Energy efficiency mandates will do that. The compressors in new refrigerators have to be so small that they run constantly, which imposes more wear and tear.
While that might explain SOME of the issues for specific appliances, it certainly isn't the only reason for poor product lifespan nowadays.
I have a stand mixer given to me by my mother, who bought it in the 1960s. She used it very frequently for decades (she used to bake wedding cakes as an occasional side job). Then she gave it to me about 15 years ago. It's still going strong.
I know two people who have bought the same popular brands of mixer in the past decade, and they've both had serious problems. I know this is anecdotal, but there are reasons why you can still sell a 40+ year old stand mixer on Ebay for decent money: people know they'll probably continue to work longer than most of the stuff sold today.
Same thing with many other appliances. Most consumers are simply happier to pay less, so manufacturers oblige and make cheaper, less durable stuff. The problem is that it becomes very difficult to even find the truly durable stuff anymore. Many manufacturers which used to be known for making stuff that would last decades simply don't seem to make that stuff anymore (even in their higher end models).
Give me an appliance that are built to last for at least a decade.... and I'll start letting you throw Wifi in it.
I absolutely agree with everything you said -- but I will just add that it's these "features" that frequently decrease product lifespan.
For example: Why are modern stoves loaded with digital displays and buttons to select temperature, etc.? Why can't I just have a mechanical dial to select temperature? Seriously -- ovens tend to reach temperatures above 500 degees F (much higher if you use self-cleaning). And no matter how much heat shielding you put around stuff, there are going to be major temperature swings, which can't be good for just about any electronic component.
I've known two different people who have had catastrophic failures of stoves occur on holidays, not because of anything wrong with the mechanical elements of the stoves, but because the electronic units failed suddenly. If only they had a manual dial to turn them on, the stoves could have been used fine. Yet it's becoming increasingly difficult to find stoves/ovens without fancy (and completely unnecessary) electronic components.
Similarly, I don't need a washer/dryer that talks to me or has a digital readout of what it's doing with my clothes. Just an old-school dial I can turn and a few mechanical selector buttons or switches is fine, thank you. And my refrigerator definitely doesn't need a screen or wifi. For most appliances, even basic electronics are just more stuff that can wrong with an appliance -- and most of this for very little gain.