When I got to the point where my eyes were focused on the TV as much or more than on the computer screen, I realized it was time to quit playing WoW. The game requires so much repetition, it gets quite boring. Maybe if I'd had one of those programmable keyboards, I might have stuck it out a little longer; or maybe not.
Just for one example, as a rogue, I once spent 2 hours levelling up my lockpick skill: push button assigned to lockpick skill, click chest, wait 3 seconds, repeat. I still can't believe I willingly suffered through that.
Then again, roaming around trying to find some ore that wasn't being farmed also got pretty frustrating.
Also, I often set myself to DND because I got tired of all the spam messaging going on. Even when not DND, the only time I responded to messages was from the few people I ran around with. Everyone else got ignored.
I worked in tech support for a software package that is effectively trusting the user to respect the legalities. The user purchases a certain number of licenses for the product, and gets a CD. Now the weirdness starts.
The "license key" is installed from the CD. It is identical to that on every other copy of the CD sold. It is good for a certain date range, usually beginning when that version of the software was produced and ending at some arbitrary date in the future where whoever chose it is sure that nobody will ever be using it again. That was a lot of fun when people were running systems forward for Y2K testing, and they weren't stopping at 2001; they tested way out, some to 2010, some to 2036 (or 2038?, whenever the 32-bit unix date rolled over). The only reason the software failed was because the license was not valid for the date the system thought it was.
Anyone who knows the license mechanism, or the install mechanism (and it's common knowledge for the sysadmins who install it) knows where to find the key. It's just a string of characters, apparently gibberish, but it's the same on every machine. You don't even have to copy it, because installing the software installs it. I have yet to hear a good explanation for why it even exists or why I have to treat it as "confidential" (if for some reason your's gets screwed up, you have to reinstall to fix it; I'm not allowed to email it to you).
Even further weirdness... a previous version gave you an option to run a command to enter the number of licenses you purchased, then logged a message any time usage exceeded that limit. It didn't stop you from doing anything, just filled the error log, prompting many calls to support to find out what was going on. And even if we had set it to stop you from exceeding the limit, all you had to do was run the command and set a higher limit! So, in the next version we got rid of that (what was the point anyway?), and got a bunch of calls asking why that command isn't working anymore.
So, not only was there no effective copy protection, but all the licensing issues ever did was generate a lot of calls to support. At least I got some easy ones like that fairly often.:) I have no idea how many people who called support had legitimate copies or pirated copies, or if they were using more copies than they paid for. I had no way to check even if I wanted to find out. I assume enough people were paying to keep it profitable.
Re:that's a steep investment
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My point was that even if you ignore the marketing expense completely, they still had a net loss. I'm sure there's some office space costs involved, but it seems like most of their budget is going to be bandwidth, POTS connectivity, electricity, salaries, and other repeating costs. If you add in lawyers and E911 compliance efforts, and any new fees our legislature tries to impose, I don't see how they'll maintain $25/month and even just break even.
Re:marketing expenses a little excessive?
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· Score: 1
Nope. Even if you ignore the marketing expense, their net earning were negative. After all, 7% of their net loss still remains if you completely discount the marketing expense.
Similarly from "I don't own this music" I can deduce "I don't have the right to give this music to my friend"
Wrong. From "I don't own this music, but I do own this copy of the music" I can deduce "I have the right to give this copy of the music to my friend, but I do not have the right to copy it and keep a copy when I give it to my friend. I also have the right to let my friend listen to my copy of this music. I also have the right to let my friend borrow my copy of this music. I also have the right to sell my copy of this music for whatever price I set if I can find someone willing to pay that price."
Location. Land lines tend to be restricted to home and office. Cell phones tend to go everywhere, and in public areas are often quite annoying if not handled nicely. For example, how hard is it to kill the ringer after the first ring (if you must have it ring instead of vibrate in the first place)? My phone does it, and it's one of the cheap "free with a contract" phones.
I used to answer the phone every time, no matter what. Then I spent a year in a home office and had to train myself to ignore the home phone when I was working. That's one of the best things I've ever done. It was hard at first, but then I figured out there was nothing magical about the phone that required me to pick it up when it rang. That has carried over to my cell phone, too.
Re:Why do the phones have to be so noisy?
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Polite Cell Phones
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Ok, so I listed 3, not 2, and forgot to go back and change it. Sorry.
Why do the phones have to be so noisy?
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Polite Cell Phones
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· Score: 1
My two biggest peeves about cell phones:
1) *ring* (pick it up) *ring* (look at screen) *ring* (think about answering) *ring* (answer it)
2) *bleep* after every sentence
3) volume control
My phone has a button that I use to kill the ringer after the first ring as I pick up the phone. It remains silent while I look at the screen and think about if I want to answer or not.
My phone also doesn't *bleep* after every sentence. I don't seem to have much trouble figuring out when I am finished talking or when the person on the other end starts or finishes.
It is possible to crank the volume of my phone up to where I can hear it when holding it about 10 inches away. I can't think of any reason I'd want to do that though. It certainly can't go so loud that I can hear it, and often even understand what is being said, from 5-10 feet away. No phone should be able to go so loud, but experience shows that plenty do. If someone is that deaf, they should get a hearing aid; after all what to they do about hearing things when they aren't on the phone?
That impresses me, too. Places that want me to call for a price never get a call from me. I could understand that for some custom setup, but there is no good reason to hide prices for standard goods and services.
marketing expenses a little excessive?
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Vonage IPO
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Our net loss for the nine months ended Sept.30, 2005, was $189.6million. During the same nine-month period, our marketing expenses were $176.3million."
Wow. Their marketing expenses totaled 93% of their net loss. I wonder how what their revenue and net loss would have been without all that marketing expense?.
Sounds like they aren't going to be able to maintain the all-you-can-use service for only $25 much longer.
You forgot the requirement that they direct the noise to your ears only and not disturb everyone around you.
It's amazing how many people think that the cheap earbuds they wear can only be heard by the wearer. Sitting 3-4 feet away, I can often understand every word being sung, at least on those songs where the singer can be understood. With 2 or 3 such people around, I get a headache from the clash of noise.
In an office setting, with open-top cubicles, sound carries an incredible distance. Try not to irritate your co-workers. Try out the headphones you like, adjust the volume to what you like, then get someone else to wear them while you sit a few feet away and listen while doing other relatively quiet tasks like reading a web page, typing a slashdot post, or playing solitaire. If you can still hear the music, maybe these aren't the right headphones for you after all.
I also wouldn't let my 2 year old be wandering around without me. I wouldn't let my 6 year old or 10 year old do so either. It is the parents' job to monitor their child completely until that child is a major,
My wife was with him. I was at our table with my other son. She had no reason to expect some kid to just lash out and punch him as he was walking by.
As for some of your other points...
Another reason parents don't have time is because they both have to work to pay for all the things they think they need, including cable TV and a new car every few years. Housing prices don't help things either; a house has got to be one of the only things in existence that gets more expensive with every sale.
You say you see no common morality, then go on to start a short list of what should be common. I agree with all the items in your list, but if given some time could probably think of a few more to add. Others may disagree. So, again, what should be common?:)
As for diet, maybe teaching how to watch what you eat, how to impose self-discipline instead of eating it all just because it's there, and other general concepts like that. As for our understanding of what's good for you and what's bad for you, that does seem to change a lot over time. You would prefer that every person must experiment for him/herself and see what happens 20 years down the road when it's too late to do anything about it?
And about teachers being overworked... They have to teach all day, usually with a one hour break and 15-20 minutes of lunch before returning to supervise the students. Only after the students go home do they get time to grade homework and prepare the next days lesson plans. Yeah, absolute basics probably would require only 3-4 hours a day in the classroom. All the extra stuff grew over time as people wanted other things taught. Remember, our government is run by people who want to appear that they are pleasing the majority of people or at least the loudest mob.
The proper role of education is to teach people how to think (not what, but how) and how to learn. It should also teach useful skills. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are only some of those skills. Basic health, including diet and exercise, are others.
Morality is a hard one. The problem lies in figuring out what should be common to everyone and what should be left to the individual's family and culture.
Most teachers don't want to be parents to their students; they want to be teachers. However, way too many parents either don't have the time or inclination to be parents, so often the teachers end up filling that role as best they are able. The government sees what is happening and tries to take on some of that itself instead of leaving it up to the already-overworked teachers. I'm not saying this is right, only that it is what is happening. If more parents would take responsibility for their children, this wouldn't be an issue.
If parents weren't so quick to anger when someone else disciplines their children for doing something wrong, this wouldn't be an issue.
For example, just yesterday while we were at a restaurant, my two year old son was punched by a 6-8 year old just because he was in the way while walking toward the game room. He's got a nice bruise on his cheek now. My wife didn't do anything but pick him up, because she didn't want to cause a commotion. She wouldn't point the kid out to me either. If I'd seen it, I'd've grabbed the other kid and made him take me to his parents to let them know what he'd done, and hope they'd agree that was wrong.
the only solution I could think of would be to price items to come to an even amount AFTER tax, and that would just get tedious...
Tedious for who? As a customer, I would love to know in advance the total price I will be paying. Especially at grocery stores, where different types of items get different amounts of sales tax; because of that, I can't even keep a running tally and apply a simple percentage. Sales taxes in different areas are different, and I generally have no way to find out what they are. I would not find after-tax pricing tedious at all.
What I'd really like to know is if there will be some way for me to ssh in to my server and "press" the power button for a virtual machine and have it start up. Or, will it require that I be able to export my display before I can start it up? And would there be any way to remotely grab the console of an already active virtual machine?
Isn't that what running lights (not headlihts) are for? You know, the setting on the headlight switch between "totally" off and "headlights on". They turn on the tail lights and some small amber lights on the front. Every car I have ever been in has this setting. I very rarely see anyone uing it.
"off" is for daylight conditions.
"running lights" is for questionable conditions where you are having no trouble seeing but are afraid others may.
"on" is for night when you need the light to see.
As for your comment about using headights "to be seen", I repeat my previous comment: "I can usually see cars with headlights off at night better than ones with headlights on during the day."
I find it easier to see there is a car and what it is doing when it is not projecting a focused beam of light directly at me. With the light, I can tell there is something there but often can not tell much more than that. Without the headlights, it is easier to see what is near the car, how the car is behaving (going straight, weaving around), see if the driver has a phone to his ear, etc. Sometimes when the road is just a little curvy, I can't even tell which lane the headlights are in, and that would be easy to see if I could se the car itself.
Headlights are a necessary evil at night. They are unnecesarily dangerous during the day. If your goal is just "to be seen", that's what normal running lights are for, not headlights.
I also run with my headlamps on, even in full daylight.
I don't understand this. Are you blind? I hate people who drive with headlights on during the day, especially sunny days when the sun is within a few hours of the horizon. Those headlights add a lot of extra glare to the road, making it hard to see the car as anything more than yet another spot of light. A car with headlights off is easily idnetifiable as a car.
Driving in the city with regular street lighting, I can usually see cars with headlights off at night better than ones with headlights on during the day.
And what is the deal with people thinking that high-beams are fine during the day? The way they're focused right at eye level, they appear brighter than the sun.
Of course, it seems most SUVs come with some super-bright sun-strength headlights. My headlights are plenty bright enough for driving around at night, even without street lighting. Why do these vehicles need lights so bright that when they pull up behind me, my car casts a shadow in its own headlights?
I think the comment was more along the lines of "they finished almost equal, but CMU required extensive work prior to the race, plotting the route, manually identifying obstacles, etc instead of just pulling up to the starting line and going"
landscape measuring: Don't they already have a close estimate from simple measurments, such as walking the perimeter? Are you trying to buy exactly, to the seed, the right amount to plant? If you spill a cup when opening the bag, will you then have to go buy a new bag?
pile volume: A measuring wheel could give you more accuracy than a GPS with a half meter (50cm) margin of error. Do GPS devices have an option for figuring out the radius, circumference, or area of a circle you just walked? I can't find that option on mine.
buoy altitude: Most lake reports I see don't offer a measurment with a +/- half a meter error factor. I'm not quite sure what the point of this one is, anyway. The water level (altitude of the water surface) will be practically the same across the lake, for all except maybe the largest lakes. What I'd be more interested in is the water depth at any specific point.
search/rescue: While I'm sure that having the GPS unit report within an error of 50 cm would be really nice, I doubt the searchers will call off the search if they land and you aren't sitting on the reported location. A 50 meter error would leave a small bit of area to search, which may be difficult depending on terrain, but I'd bet that the searchers will have to drop further away than that anyway and work their way toward you. Even in open terrain, a helicopter landing within 50 meters will blow a lot of dust and small debris around, something they wouldn't want to do to an injured person.
One thing I can see highly accurate GPS being useful is for survey teams determining the property lines. However, with continental drift occurring, those numbers would have to updated every few years depending on the accuracy of the measurement. Besides, don't surveyors use existing known points as references, something that would typically move with the rest of the land?
"lack of imagination"? I don't agree that needing to know which lane the car is in is a necessity. Instead, when the car is a mile or so away from the exit (or more for many-lane highways during rush hour) just announce "Your exit is approaching on the right (or left if that is the case). Take exit number NNN in one mile." A 50 meter error at that distance will be so insignificant it will be irrelevant.
In your case, suppose the right lane was temporarily closed, say for an accident. I'd get very irritated at the GPS driver screaming at me "I told you to get in the right lane! Do it now or you'll miss your exit! Move over! Move! Move! MOVE!" Okay, it'd probably be more like every 10 seconds "You are in the wrong lane. Please move to the right lane as soon as possible." but that would have me muttering "I can't you stupid computer. Shut up." and getting irritated that it keeps repeating that.
As anyone using GPS to navigate big cities know, accuracy can rapidly drop to 20 meters or worse, which is frankly no longer all that useful when you're trying to locate a particular adress.
If it can get you within 20 meters (or let's say even 50) and you still can't locate a particular address, I don't think that problem is with the GPS system.
An error of 50 meters or less should put you on the right street or really close to the intersection of the right street. If you're in a residential area, look at the numbers on the mailboxes, curbs, or houses. The numbers are generally in order, odds on one side of the street, even on the other. If you're in a business area, look at the numbers on the buildings, or even just read the signs identifying the businesses.
The $1.25 restocking fee for keeping it over a week past the due date is worse than the former $5 late fee for keeping it one minute past the due date?
I can tell you have had some pretty bad experiences with Blockbuster, but...
That is how their no late fees program works. You can reverse the charge within 30 days and pay a restocking fee, but the fact they don't advertise this fact in that no late fees campaign ticks me off."
The very first time I heard about the "no late fees" my first thought was "there has to be a catch". Bo on their website and in their stores, every ad or pamphlet I picked up had fine print describing exactly what would happen and when. I never thought any of it was misleading. "No late fees" is completely accurate. You will not be charged a late fee, but if you keep it more than a week past due, then by the rental agreement they asume you intend to purchase it (I don't have a receipt with me, but I am pretty sure it clearly states the purchase price and date that will occur).
I always used to have trouble getting my wife to get movies she rents back on time, incurring horrendous late fees; now I am able to take care of returning them on the weekends without worrying about it. I have never yet fallen into the purchase/return scenario, because I understand that there is a return deadline, that it isn't a brick and mortar version of NetFlix.
Blockbuster made no attempt to hide what would happen. They may not have made a great effort to call attention to the part that wasn't the main focus of the deal, but it was always available for anyone who took 30 seconds to look. Are that many people really too lazy or illiterate to spend 30 seconds reading the fine print on a deal that sounds too good to be true?
It sure would be nice to track down the UPS/FedEx/DHL truck when I'm waitign on a delivery. Can I leave to go run some errands, or is it already in my neighborhood so I should stick around?
I wouldn't want it just for that, but if it was being put in place already, that would be a feature useful to the general public.
Of course, if this were available to the general public, the smart criminal could then get the plate numbers of all the police cars and have a very easy way to track their movement.
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Just for one example, as a rogue, I once spent 2 hours levelling up my lockpick skill: push button assigned to lockpick skill, click chest, wait 3 seconds, repeat. I still can't believe I willingly suffered through that.
Then again, roaming around trying to find some ore that wasn't being farmed also got pretty frustrating.
Also, I often set myself to DND because I got tired of all the spam messaging going on. Even when not DND, the only time I responded to messages was from the few people I ran around with. Everyone else got ignored.
The "license key" is installed from the CD. It is identical to that on every other copy of the CD sold. It is good for a certain date range, usually beginning when that version of the software was produced and ending at some arbitrary date in the future where whoever chose it is sure that nobody will ever be using it again. That was a lot of fun when people were running systems forward for Y2K testing, and they weren't stopping at 2001; they tested way out, some to 2010, some to 2036 (or 2038?, whenever the 32-bit unix date rolled over). The only reason the software failed was because the license was not valid for the date the system thought it was.
Anyone who knows the license mechanism, or the install mechanism (and it's common knowledge for the sysadmins who install it) knows where to find the key. It's just a string of characters, apparently gibberish, but it's the same on every machine. You don't even have to copy it, because installing the software installs it. I have yet to hear a good explanation for why it even exists or why I have to treat it as "confidential" (if for some reason your's gets screwed up, you have to reinstall to fix it; I'm not allowed to email it to you).
Even further weirdness... a previous version gave you an option to run a command to enter the number of licenses you purchased, then logged a message any time usage exceeded that limit. It didn't stop you from doing anything, just filled the error log, prompting many calls to support to find out what was going on. And even if we had set it to stop you from exceeding the limit, all you had to do was run the command and set a higher limit! So, in the next version we got rid of that (what was the point anyway?), and got a bunch of calls asking why that command isn't working anymore.
So, not only was there no effective copy protection, but all the licensing issues ever did was generate a lot of calls to support. At least I got some easy ones like that fairly often. :) I have no idea how many people who called support had legitimate copies or pirated copies, or if they were using more copies than they paid for. I had no way to check even if I wanted to find out. I assume enough people were paying to keep it profitable.
My point was that even if you ignore the marketing expense completely, they still had a net loss. I'm sure there's some office space costs involved, but it seems like most of their budget is going to be bandwidth, POTS connectivity, electricity, salaries, and other repeating costs. If you add in lawyers and E911 compliance efforts, and any new fees our legislature tries to impose, I don't see how they'll maintain $25/month and even just break even.
Nope. Even if you ignore the marketing expense, their net earning were negative. After all, 7% of their net loss still remains if you completely discount the marketing expense.
Wrong. From "I don't own this music, but I do own this copy of the music" I can deduce "I have the right to give this copy of the music to my friend, but I do not have the right to copy it and keep a copy when I give it to my friend. I also have the right to let my friend listen to my copy of this music. I also have the right to let my friend borrow my copy of this music. I also have the right to sell my copy of this music for whatever price I set if I can find someone willing to pay that price."
I used to answer the phone every time, no matter what. Then I spent a year in a home office and had to train myself to ignore the home phone when I was working. That's one of the best things I've ever done. It was hard at first, but then I figured out there was nothing magical about the phone that required me to pick it up when it rang. That has carried over to my cell phone, too.
Ok, so I listed 3, not 2, and forgot to go back and change it. Sorry.
2) *bleep* after every sentence
3) volume control
My phone has a button that I use to kill the ringer after the first ring as I pick up the phone. It remains silent while I look at the screen and think about if I want to answer or not.
My phone also doesn't *bleep* after every sentence. I don't seem to have much trouble figuring out when I am finished talking or when the person on the other end starts or finishes.
It is possible to crank the volume of my phone up to where I can hear it when holding it about 10 inches away. I can't think of any reason I'd want to do that though. It certainly can't go so loud that I can hear it, and often even understand what is being said, from 5-10 feet away. No phone should be able to go so loud, but experience shows that plenty do. If someone is that deaf, they should get a hearing aid; after all what to they do about hearing things when they aren't on the phone?
That impresses me, too. Places that want me to call for a price never get a call from me. I could understand that for some custom setup, but there is no good reason to hide prices for standard goods and services.
Wow. Their marketing expenses totaled 93% of their net loss. I wonder how what their revenue and net loss would have been without all that marketing expense?.
Sounds like they aren't going to be able to maintain the all-you-can-use service for only $25 much longer.
It's amazing how many people think that the cheap earbuds they wear can only be heard by the wearer. Sitting 3-4 feet away, I can often understand every word being sung, at least on those songs where the singer can be understood. With 2 or 3 such people around, I get a headache from the clash of noise.
In an office setting, with open-top cubicles, sound carries an incredible distance. Try not to irritate your co-workers. Try out the headphones you like, adjust the volume to what you like, then get someone else to wear them while you sit a few feet away and listen while doing other relatively quiet tasks like reading a web page, typing a slashdot post, or playing solitaire. If you can still hear the music, maybe these aren't the right headphones for you after all.
My wife was with him. I was at our table with my other son. She had no reason to expect some kid to just lash out and punch him as he was walking by.
As for some of your other points...
Another reason parents don't have time is because they both have to work to pay for all the things they think they need, including cable TV and a new car every few years. Housing prices don't help things either; a house has got to be one of the only things in existence that gets more expensive with every sale.
You say you see no common morality, then go on to start a short list of what should be common. I agree with all the items in your list, but if given some time could probably think of a few more to add. Others may disagree. So, again, what should be common? :)
As for diet, maybe teaching how to watch what you eat, how to impose self-discipline instead of eating it all just because it's there, and other general concepts like that. As for our understanding of what's good for you and what's bad for you, that does seem to change a lot over time. You would prefer that every person must experiment for him/herself and see what happens 20 years down the road when it's too late to do anything about it?
And about teachers being overworked... They have to teach all day, usually with a one hour break and 15-20 minutes of lunch before returning to supervise the students. Only after the students go home do they get time to grade homework and prepare the next days lesson plans. Yeah, absolute basics probably would require only 3-4 hours a day in the classroom. All the extra stuff grew over time as people wanted other things taught. Remember, our government is run by people who want to appear that they are pleasing the majority of people or at least the loudest mob.
Morality is a hard one. The problem lies in figuring out what should be common to everyone and what should be left to the individual's family and culture.
Most teachers don't want to be parents to their students; they want to be teachers. However, way too many parents either don't have the time or inclination to be parents, so often the teachers end up filling that role as best they are able. The government sees what is happening and tries to take on some of that itself instead of leaving it up to the already-overworked teachers. I'm not saying this is right, only that it is what is happening. If more parents would take responsibility for their children, this wouldn't be an issue.
If parents weren't so quick to anger when someone else disciplines their children for doing something wrong, this wouldn't be an issue.
For example, just yesterday while we were at a restaurant, my two year old son was punched by a 6-8 year old just because he was in the way while walking toward the game room. He's got a nice bruise on his cheek now. My wife didn't do anything but pick him up, because she didn't want to cause a commotion. She wouldn't point the kid out to me either. If I'd seen it, I'd've grabbed the other kid and made him take me to his parents to let them know what he'd done, and hope they'd agree that was wrong.
Tedious for who? As a customer, I would love to know in advance the total price I will be paying. Especially at grocery stores, where different types of items get different amounts of sales tax; because of that, I can't even keep a running tally and apply a simple percentage. Sales taxes in different areas are different, and I generally have no way to find out what they are. I would not find after-tax pricing tedious at all.
What I'd really like to know is if there will be some way for me to ssh in to my server and "press" the power button for a virtual machine and have it start up. Or, will it require that I be able to export my display before I can start it up? And would there be any way to remotely grab the console of an already active virtual machine?
"off" is for daylight conditions. "running lights" is for questionable conditions where you are having no trouble seeing but are afraid others may. "on" is for night when you need the light to see.
As for your comment about using headights "to be seen", I repeat my previous comment: "I can usually see cars with headlights off at night better than ones with headlights on during the day."
I find it easier to see there is a car and what it is doing when it is not projecting a focused beam of light directly at me. With the light, I can tell there is something there but often can not tell much more than that. Without the headlights, it is easier to see what is near the car, how the car is behaving (going straight, weaving around), see if the driver has a phone to his ear, etc. Sometimes when the road is just a little curvy, I can't even tell which lane the headlights are in, and that would be easy to see if I could se the car itself.
Headlights are a necessary evil at night. They are unnecesarily dangerous during the day. If your goal is just "to be seen", that's what normal running lights are for, not headlights.
I don't understand this. Are you blind? I hate people who drive with headlights on during the day, especially sunny days when the sun is within a few hours of the horizon. Those headlights add a lot of extra glare to the road, making it hard to see the car as anything more than yet another spot of light. A car with headlights off is easily idnetifiable as a car.
Driving in the city with regular street lighting, I can usually see cars with headlights off at night better than ones with headlights on during the day.
And what is the deal with people thinking that high-beams are fine during the day? The way they're focused right at eye level, they appear brighter than the sun.
Of course, it seems most SUVs come with some super-bright sun-strength headlights. My headlights are plenty bright enough for driving around at night, even without street lighting. Why do these vehicles need lights so bright that when they pull up behind me, my car casts a shadow in its own headlights?
I think the comment was more along the lines of "they finished almost equal, but CMU required extensive work prior to the race, plotting the route, manually identifying obstacles, etc instead of just pulling up to the starting line and going"
landscape measuring: Don't they already have a close estimate from simple measurments, such as walking the perimeter? Are you trying to buy exactly, to the seed, the right amount to plant? If you spill a cup when opening the bag, will you then have to go buy a new bag?
pile volume: A measuring wheel could give you more accuracy than a GPS with a half meter (50cm) margin of error. Do GPS devices have an option for figuring out the radius, circumference, or area of a circle you just walked? I can't find that option on mine.
buoy altitude: Most lake reports I see don't offer a measurment with a +/- half a meter error factor. I'm not quite sure what the point of this one is, anyway. The water level (altitude of the water surface) will be practically the same across the lake, for all except maybe the largest lakes. What I'd be more interested in is the water depth at any specific point.
search/rescue: While I'm sure that having the GPS unit report within an error of 50 cm would be really nice, I doubt the searchers will call off the search if they land and you aren't sitting on the reported location. A 50 meter error would leave a small bit of area to search, which may be difficult depending on terrain, but I'd bet that the searchers will have to drop further away than that anyway and work their way toward you. Even in open terrain, a helicopter landing within 50 meters will blow a lot of dust and small debris around, something they wouldn't want to do to an injured person.
One thing I can see highly accurate GPS being useful is for survey teams determining the property lines. However, with continental drift occurring, those numbers would have to updated every few years depending on the accuracy of the measurement. Besides, don't surveyors use existing known points as references, something that would typically move with the rest of the land?
In your case, suppose the right lane was temporarily closed, say for an accident. I'd get very irritated at the GPS driver screaming at me "I told you to get in the right lane! Do it now or you'll miss your exit! Move over! Move! Move! MOVE!" Okay, it'd probably be more like every 10 seconds "You are in the wrong lane. Please move to the right lane as soon as possible." but that would have me muttering "I can't you stupid computer. Shut up." and getting irritated that it keeps repeating that.
If it can get you within 20 meters (or let's say even 50) and you still can't locate a particular address, I don't think that problem is with the GPS system.
An error of 50 meters or less should put you on the right street or really close to the intersection of the right street. If you're in a residential area, look at the numbers on the mailboxes, curbs, or houses. The numbers are generally in order, odds on one side of the street, even on the other. If you're in a business area, look at the numbers on the buildings, or even just read the signs identifying the businesses.
The $1.25 restocking fee for keeping it over a week past the due date is worse than the former $5 late fee for keeping it one minute past the due date?
I always used to have trouble getting my wife to get movies she rents back on time, incurring horrendous late fees; now I am able to take care of returning them on the weekends without worrying about it. I have never yet fallen into the purchase/return scenario, because I understand that there is a return deadline, that it isn't a brick and mortar version of NetFlix.
Blockbuster made no attempt to hide what would happen. They may not have made a great effort to call attention to the part that wasn't the main focus of the deal, but it was always available for anyone who took 30 seconds to look. Are that many people really too lazy or illiterate to spend 30 seconds reading the fine print on a deal that sounds too good to be true?
I wouldn't want it just for that, but if it was being put in place already, that would be a feature useful to the general public.
Of course, if this were available to the general public, the smart criminal could then get the plate numbers of all the police cars and have a very easy way to track their movement.
I haven't read the article; this is just my preference...
Figure out the root password.
Figure out how to login.
Issue a shutdown command.
After completing the shutdown, you'll get your windows desktop back.