It does depend on the ad. For most Internet content, I block ads. If it is a provider I visit regularly, and the ads are discrete, I'll add a whitelist rule for that site. It is possible to have decent, unintrusive ads that are germane to the topic at hand, and those really aren't that annoying. When I have to click through a 2-minute long video ad for some stupid movie when I'm trying to read a book review, I have issues... but the video ads on Reuters.com streaming video service, or at the end of TED talks videos, for example, are discrete, and unintrusive, and I really don't mind them. In fact, for TED talks I make a point of watching the video to the end specifically to watch the ads, because of the quality of the content they're producing.
I'm on a non-capped DSL 5meg service, that costs about the same as Bell's 6/1 which comes with 25GB of cap. the company I'm with also sells a 15mbit cable service with no monthly cap. If I preferred, I could also get a cellular internet connection with no usage cap on it... there's two carriers in this area that sell such a service, both in the $40/mo range, and both offering HSPA speeds with a theoretical max of 7.2/7.2 (though in my area, my speed varies from 3.5-4.5 on average, which is why I went with the DSL).
Uncapped providers do exist in Canada, and they have coverage for most Canadians. You just need to look at the alternatives to the incumbents.
It isn't the same, and wouldn't be enough to satisfy many women. And I say that as a woman who can't get pregnant due to a lack of a functioning uterus. Part of me desperately wants to have children (in spite of being a lesbian, and despite my partner bringing 4 kids from her previous marriage), and I can say quite plainly that adoption or using a surrogate isn't the same. If there was a surgical procedure that could give me the ability to bear children myself, I would leap on it. And if the opportunity to be part of developing that procedure arose, I would have a very hard time saying no, even in full awareness that it could put my own life at risk, and lead to an increased chance of a miscarriage... a small chance of bearing a healthy baby is better than no chance of it.
Seems to work for DHS... and it has worked for the aviation industry for more than 50 years.... Do you have any idea how many regulations exist today in aviation specifically because somebody tried doing it differently, and people died as a result?
It does depend on the car, though. Lexus and Porsche do make cars that are "fun" to drive, but I agree with you that none of them are even close to value for money when you consider what you can get for less than half the cost.
For example, I am at a complete loss as to why the folks from Top Gear don't buy an entry level Subaru Impreza for their "reasonably-priced car". It is not significantly more expensive than the Kia they're using right now (only about £1000 more, if I reckon the conversion right, though I am basing it off Canadian pricing, and what I paid for my 2011 Impreza in February), but it is a far more enjoyable car to drive. It is better designed for driving fast, it gets decent fuel economy, it handles very well, and it is simply fun to drive (added bonus: it has a traction control off button that actually kills the traction control). The Mitsubishi Lancer is just as fun to drive, and in the same price range, though the base Lancer isn't all-wheel drive like the Subaru.
And both the Impreza and Lancer are far better designed than anything I have ever seen with a Chevy badge on it, even the rebranded Daewoo cars. (I traded up from a 2007 Chev Aveo to the Impreza, so I actually owned one of the rebranded Daewoos for 4 years)
I actually don't allow advertising crap to influence me.
Hehe... if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you....
Seriously, advertising is so ubiquitous that it is practically impossible to not be exposed to it on a daily basis. How can you possibly believe that it has never influenced your decision-making process on every single purchase you have ever made?
I freely admit that advertising does affect my decision making process... though I will also point out that it doesn't always affect it in the way the advertisers want: if I see an ad telling me I should buy a Ford because Chevrolet keeps falling apart, I will make a conscious point of avoiding everything with the Ford name on it. Doesn't really happen that much in automotive advertising, but happens all the time in food and domestic product advertising... tell me why I *should* buy your product, don't waste my time telling me why I *shouldn't* buy the competition's. There is something to be said for countries where negative advertising like that is illegal....
Your experience with ebooks is obviously quite limited... I have a Kobo ebook reader, and my uses have not been hindered by DRM on the books. The book store ties in with Smashwords and Gutenberg, so there's a very large selection of free books available, there's no geographical or language restrictions, and most ebooks on the store are cheaper than the paperback.
Amazon and Sony treat their customers like criminals. But it's downright naive to believe that every player in the game does.
Go ahead and give it a whirl, then... avgas isn't very hard to find, it isn't mixed with ethanol, and is usually over 130 octane. Try it in your car, and tell me if you get enough of a boost in mileage to justify the increased cost in running it.
Of course, Avgas has lead in it, just like all the gas in the 1960's did. It's an unfortunate necessity for developping the high octane fuel. It'll fuck up your catalytic converter and then some, but if you really do think running super high octane gas will improve your emissions then give it a whirl. If you'd rather not take a chance on the lead, you can still get 103 octane unleaded gas at some stations.
I doubt it'll be the end of HFCS, because that is still in common use in parts of the world that never subsidised ethanol production. What it will do, however, is reduce the demand for corn as a fuel, which will mean more of it is available for use in food, which is how it should be. Food prices are way higher than they need to be, largely because so many industries are using food for non-food purposes.
If we're going to use ethanol as a fuel, we should be getting it from stuff that isn't a major part of the food chain, like wood pulp, or certain types of seaweed or algae blooms. It isn't significantly harder to make from those sources than from corn, and we won't be hurting the global food supply. Hell, even if you're going to use corn as a base for your ethanol fuel, you shouldn't be using the part of the corn that gets eaten, you should be using the husk, the silk, and the stalk as biomass for fuel production.
Considering that my TV is 5 years old now, and it has 3 HDMI inputs and 2 Component video inputs, as well as VGA and DVI... (and keeping in mind that Component video will scale to 1080p), perhaps it is time you invested in a better TV? Right now my TV has far more inputs than it actually needs... the satellite pvr is hooked up to Component 1, the Wii is on Comp 2, the Bluray player is on HDMI 1, and the HTPC is on VGA. That leaves me with 2 HDMI and 1 DVI input still wide open. Plenty of space for more HD devices, if I had any reason to want them.
And if you don't want to pull cables or invest in a purpose-built player, you do realize that you can now get TV's with a built-in BluRay as well?
He may have meant putting in API calls in the program they're benchmarking as a test of how well the compiled program communicates with external libraries that may or may not be done in a different language... but I don't see how that would make for a valid benchmark, since there's system-level bottlenecks in place that could artificially fudge any results you're getting.
As for why he would put Assembly in the same category... maybe he meant switching to inline assembly in your code? I dunno. Proper native complied ASM should be significantly faster than a higher level language, though it does have to be written specific to the hardware it's being run on (instead of just being compiled for it), which can turn people off. If you're going to include ASM in a benchmark against Java, you may as well write something in machine code/hex and compare that for speed, too, though...
Doesn't even cost that much more to switch to cell, actually... you can get unlimited local plans in Canada for $25/mo from some carriers (and $35/mo from the "fight brands" owned by the major players). Compare that against a home phone that'll cost you minimum $20/mo not including call waiting, call display, or voicemail, and the math's easy. In the US, as long as you don't want data, voice doesn't cost *that* much more, from my research...
There are some countries where you can buy an unlocked iPhone by buying it directly from Apple instead of from a carrier.... Canada is one of them, and the Canadian version most definitely will work with ATT (since it works on Telus, Bell, and Rogers, who all use the same technology and frequencies as ATT).... of course, I ended up buying an LG phone for half the price with more features.:)
Having a CMS of some sort makes it easier for the content updates to actually update content without having to edit the files manually. You define the stylesheet, the header, the footer, the layout, then they add the news items which automatically take the formatting that's already designed. It's not really any different from doing it in static pages that look like:
<html> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"> </head> <body> <!--#include FILE="header.html" --> your content here <!--#include FILE="footer.html" --> </body> </html>
It's just moving the filesystem from an actual filesystem into a database.
Even good coders have off days. I used to prefer writing all the code/scripts in Notepad, but switched to Geany because of the automatic syntax checking and formatting. It's not that I'm not capable of doing it right myself, it's because it makes it easier to find typos.
As for my answer to the OP's question, if he's got database access, he's best off installing a CMS of his choice, and using that to do his website. It'll make updates easier, and he won't have to worry about his program of choice going the way of the dodo, because he can always keep it installed on his system.
Doubt it'll happen... but if it does, you can always wait for Kobo to come out with a colour touch screen. I would be very surprised if that doesn't happen with the next generation of the Kobo reader, since they already have a really nice touch screen greyscale version that handles PDF better than any other ebook reader on the market right now. (and better than some Android tablets, to boot).
Kobo has gone on the record saying they are officially, as a company, against DRM and other ways to criminalize their customers, and that they will never lock down the Kobo. One of the main reasons I chose the Kobo Touch when buying a new ereader recently. (the other is the international bookstore, something that the Nook and Kindle are seriously lacking).
Hasn't Britain ruled that as long as the newspaper is publishing what it believes to be the truth, it can't be sued for libel/defamation? In other words, if the newspaper checks their sources, and publishes facts it can verify to the best of its ability (but could still be false), it is protected. The libel can be filed against the source of the information, but not the newspaper itself. (and of course, as the 4th estate, the newspaper has a right to protect the identity of its sources)
I'm pretty sure such a ruling has been made in the states, and I know it's been done in Canada.
If you cannot afford a defense, you can probably qualify for assistance from the Legal Aid society.
And if you have a reasonable chance at winning your defense, you can probably also find a lawyer who's willing to work pro bono, with the intention of extracting his payment from your accuser when the courts find against him.
In other words, Just because you don't think you can pay for a lawyer, don't let that stop you from trying to find a lawyer if you need one. You'd be surprised what options are out there to you.
You'd be surprised how many people don't realize that google.ca, google.fr, google.co.uk, google.de, google.cn, google.jp, etc. exist. They type in google.com because that's what they've been coached to type in.
The difference is that in Britain and South Africa (and most other civilized nations), frivolous lawsuits get dismissed with prejudice, and the person filing the lawsuit often gets asked to pay for the court costs not only of the defendant, but of the state, too.
There *are* armed police on every plane. They're called Air Marshals.
And the cockpit doors are closed and locked, and fortified. Pilots don't need to be armed. It's a good system for preventing hijackings: witness the fact that there hasn't been a hijacking since they started fortifying the cockpit doors.
That said, armed police on every plane and fortified cockpits do nothing against a small bomb in your carry on... one that's just big enough to cause an explosive decompression, or placed just over the fuel tank?
Personally, I think they should use explosive-sniffing dogs instead of super expensive technology that's prone to failure, but TFA is talking about an improvement over the current gate rape situation, and frankly, it's one I wouldn't really object to. I am also surprised that TFA didn't include a screencap from the movie Total Recall.
Never left the continental US, have you? Admittedly you can take a car by ferry, but transatlantic or transpacific ferries pretty much don't exist. You can book passage on a cruiseliner and put your car in the hold, but a transatlantic crossing usually runs in the $4000 range, not to mention taking 4-5 days depending on the route.. There's bridges too, but bridges tend to have expensive tolls... $50 for the one between PEI and New Brunswick, for example. At that kind of price, and with the cost of gas, it is cheaper for me to simply fly there.
I can understand where you're coming from but do think a little before assuming that everybody who flies is just doing it for puddle jumps. I have flown on short hops twice in my life... once from Ottawa to Toronto, as a leg on a flight to Winnipeg, and once from Montreal to Ottawa, as a leg on the return flight. Admittedly, Montreal is only 2h from Ottawa and it would have been faster and cheaper to drive than to wait for the layover, but the military was paying for it, and they weren't interested in logic at the time. That is, coincidentally, the only trip I have taken by plane where driving would have even been possible, as every other flight I have taken has been intercontinental, or a connection to an island, or to the extreme north where roads don't exist.
Orange prepay in the UK also has stupidly long expiry times for the top-ups. You put in £10, and it'll last a year. Compare that to cell carries in Canada/US, $10 will expire in 30 days. You have to put in $100 for it to last a year with most carriers.
You are right about $50/mo being ridiculous for an entry level contract. I am paying less than that for a smartphone plan with data, 300 anytime minutes, unlimited incoming, and unlmited evenings/weekends.
No it wouldn't. You're looking at the wrong carrier... get a prepaid phone from Telus, pay $7/mo for unlimited calling to one number, and they won't expire your number when you stop topping it off, because you're still paying for a monthly addon.
The cheapest actual landline phone you'll ever find is about $15/mo, and that's after multiple discounts. Unless you're talking VOIP, which isn't a bad idea. I'd have to check the actual pricing, but I know you can get a DID for $2/mo from voip.ms, and usage about $0.01/min. Since the line is outbound only, you can get away with just paying usage, without having a DID. Or if you're a real cheapskate, there's also freephoneline.ca which will give you a "free" phone number/voip line, on the condition that you listen to advertising every time you make an outbound call....
I have gone pure cell for my normal usage. I don't ever use a landline at all, though I do have one still. The plan I got from Koodo includes all the data I ever use (I just use it for gmail, it's on wifi most of the time), unlimited incoming calls, 300 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings/weekends, and doesn't cost significantly more than a landline with all the features. I even opened a yak account, and use the cell for long distance ($0.035/min for canada/us calling, $0.05/min to the UK/Germany/Mexico, etc...). The reason I still have a land line? I work for ma bell, and it is cheaper for me to get a featureless landline phone that I'll never use than it is to pay the band rate for a dry loop for my wholesale DSL account.
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It does depend on the ad. For most Internet content, I block ads. If it is a provider I visit regularly, and the ads are discrete, I'll add a whitelist rule for that site. It is possible to have decent, unintrusive ads that are germane to the topic at hand, and those really aren't that annoying. When I have to click through a 2-minute long video ad for some stupid movie when I'm trying to read a book review, I have issues... but the video ads on Reuters.com streaming video service, or at the end of TED talks videos, for example, are discrete, and unintrusive, and I really don't mind them. In fact, for TED talks I make a point of watching the video to the end specifically to watch the ads, because of the quality of the content they're producing.
I'm on a non-capped DSL 5meg service, that costs about the same as Bell's 6/1 which comes with 25GB of cap. the company I'm with also sells a 15mbit cable service with no monthly cap. If I preferred, I could also get a cellular internet connection with no usage cap on it... there's two carriers in this area that sell such a service, both in the $40/mo range, and both offering HSPA speeds with a theoretical max of 7.2/7.2 (though in my area, my speed varies from 3.5-4.5 on average, which is why I went with the DSL).
Uncapped providers do exist in Canada, and they have coverage for most Canadians. You just need to look at the alternatives to the incumbents.
It isn't the same, and wouldn't be enough to satisfy many women. And I say that as a woman who can't get pregnant due to a lack of a functioning uterus. Part of me desperately wants to have children (in spite of being a lesbian, and despite my partner bringing 4 kids from her previous marriage), and I can say quite plainly that adoption or using a surrogate isn't the same. If there was a surgical procedure that could give me the ability to bear children myself, I would leap on it. And if the opportunity to be part of developing that procedure arose, I would have a very hard time saying no, even in full awareness that it could put my own life at risk, and lead to an increased chance of a miscarriage... a small chance of bearing a healthy baby is better than no chance of it.
Seems to work for DHS... and it has worked for the aviation industry for more than 50 years.... Do you have any idea how many regulations exist today in aviation specifically because somebody tried doing it differently, and people died as a result?
It does depend on the car, though. Lexus and Porsche do make cars that are "fun" to drive, but I agree with you that none of them are even close to value for money when you consider what you can get for less than half the cost.
For example, I am at a complete loss as to why the folks from Top Gear don't buy an entry level Subaru Impreza for their "reasonably-priced car". It is not significantly more expensive than the Kia they're using right now (only about £1000 more, if I reckon the conversion right, though I am basing it off Canadian pricing, and what I paid for my 2011 Impreza in February), but it is a far more enjoyable car to drive. It is better designed for driving fast, it gets decent fuel economy, it handles very well, and it is simply fun to drive (added bonus: it has a traction control off button that actually kills the traction control). The Mitsubishi Lancer is just as fun to drive, and in the same price range, though the base Lancer isn't all-wheel drive like the Subaru.
And both the Impreza and Lancer are far better designed than anything I have ever seen with a Chevy badge on it, even the rebranded Daewoo cars. (I traded up from a 2007 Chev Aveo to the Impreza, so I actually owned one of the rebranded Daewoos for 4 years)
I actually don't allow advertising crap to influence me.
Hehe... if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you....
Seriously, advertising is so ubiquitous that it is practically impossible to not be exposed to it on a daily basis. How can you possibly believe that it has never influenced your decision-making process on every single purchase you have ever made?
I freely admit that advertising does affect my decision making process... though I will also point out that it doesn't always affect it in the way the advertisers want: if I see an ad telling me I should buy a Ford because Chevrolet keeps falling apart, I will make a conscious point of avoiding everything with the Ford name on it. Doesn't really happen that much in automotive advertising, but happens all the time in food and domestic product advertising... tell me why I *should* buy your product, don't waste my time telling me why I *shouldn't* buy the competition's. There is something to be said for countries where negative advertising like that is illegal....
Your experience with ebooks is obviously quite limited... I have a Kobo ebook reader, and my uses have not been hindered by DRM on the books. The book store ties in with Smashwords and Gutenberg, so there's a very large selection of free books available, there's no geographical or language restrictions, and most ebooks on the store are cheaper than the paperback.
Amazon and Sony treat their customers like criminals. But it's downright naive to believe that every player in the game does.
Go ahead and give it a whirl, then... avgas isn't very hard to find, it isn't mixed with ethanol, and is usually over 130 octane. Try it in your car, and tell me if you get enough of a boost in mileage to justify the increased cost in running it.
Of course, Avgas has lead in it, just like all the gas in the 1960's did. It's an unfortunate necessity for developping the high octane fuel. It'll fuck up your catalytic converter and then some, but if you really do think running super high octane gas will improve your emissions then give it a whirl. If you'd rather not take a chance on the lead, you can still get 103 octane unleaded gas at some stations.
I doubt it'll be the end of HFCS, because that is still in common use in parts of the world that never subsidised ethanol production. What it will do, however, is reduce the demand for corn as a fuel, which will mean more of it is available for use in food, which is how it should be. Food prices are way higher than they need to be, largely because so many industries are using food for non-food purposes.
If we're going to use ethanol as a fuel, we should be getting it from stuff that isn't a major part of the food chain, like wood pulp, or certain types of seaweed or algae blooms. It isn't significantly harder to make from those sources than from corn, and we won't be hurting the global food supply. Hell, even if you're going to use corn as a base for your ethanol fuel, you shouldn't be using the part of the corn that gets eaten, you should be using the husk, the silk, and the stalk as biomass for fuel production.
Considering that my TV is 5 years old now, and it has 3 HDMI inputs and 2 Component video inputs, as well as VGA and DVI... (and keeping in mind that Component video will scale to 1080p), perhaps it is time you invested in a better TV? Right now my TV has far more inputs than it actually needs... the satellite pvr is hooked up to Component 1, the Wii is on Comp 2, the Bluray player is on HDMI 1, and the HTPC is on VGA. That leaves me with 2 HDMI and 1 DVI input still wide open. Plenty of space for more HD devices, if I had any reason to want them.
And if you don't want to pull cables or invest in a purpose-built player, you do realize that you can now get TV's with a built-in BluRay as well?
He may have meant putting in API calls in the program they're benchmarking as a test of how well the compiled program communicates with external libraries that may or may not be done in a different language... but I don't see how that would make for a valid benchmark, since there's system-level bottlenecks in place that could artificially fudge any results you're getting.
As for why he would put Assembly in the same category... maybe he meant switching to inline assembly in your code? I dunno. Proper native complied ASM should be significantly faster than a higher level language, though it does have to be written specific to the hardware it's being run on (instead of just being compiled for it), which can turn people off. If you're going to include ASM in a benchmark against Java, you may as well write something in machine code/hex and compare that for speed, too, though...
Doesn't even cost that much more to switch to cell, actually... you can get unlimited local plans in Canada for $25/mo from some carriers (and $35/mo from the "fight brands" owned by the major players). Compare that against a home phone that'll cost you minimum $20/mo not including call waiting, call display, or voicemail, and the math's easy. In the US, as long as you don't want data, voice doesn't cost *that* much more, from my research...
There are some countries where you can buy an unlocked iPhone by buying it directly from Apple instead of from a carrier.... Canada is one of them, and the Canadian version most definitely will work with ATT (since it works on Telus, Bell, and Rogers, who all use the same technology and frequencies as ATT).... of course, I ended up buying an LG phone for half the price with more features. :)
Some people do, yes.
Having a CMS of some sort makes it easier for the content updates to actually update content without having to edit the files manually. You define the stylesheet, the header, the footer, the layout, then they add the news items which automatically take the formatting that's already designed. It's not really any different from doing it in static pages that look like:
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
<!--#include FILE="header.html" -->
your content here
<!--#include FILE="footer.html" -->
</body>
</html>
It's just moving the filesystem from an actual filesystem into a database.
You use an editor that's actually designed to handle those, like Geany. It handles inline code quite nicely, and is cross-platform.
Even good coders have off days. I used to prefer writing all the code/scripts in Notepad, but switched to Geany because of the automatic syntax checking and formatting. It's not that I'm not capable of doing it right myself, it's because it makes it easier to find typos.
As for my answer to the OP's question, if he's got database access, he's best off installing a CMS of his choice, and using that to do his website. It'll make updates easier, and he won't have to worry about his program of choice going the way of the dodo, because he can always keep it installed on his system.
Doubt it'll happen... but if it does, you can always wait for Kobo to come out with a colour touch screen. I would be very surprised if that doesn't happen with the next generation of the Kobo reader, since they already have a really nice touch screen greyscale version that handles PDF better than any other ebook reader on the market right now. (and better than some Android tablets, to boot).
Kobo has gone on the record saying they are officially, as a company, against DRM and other ways to criminalize their customers, and that they will never lock down the Kobo. One of the main reasons I chose the Kobo Touch when buying a new ereader recently. (the other is the international bookstore, something that the Nook and Kindle are seriously lacking).
Hasn't Britain ruled that as long as the newspaper is publishing what it believes to be the truth, it can't be sued for libel/defamation? In other words, if the newspaper checks their sources, and publishes facts it can verify to the best of its ability (but could still be false), it is protected. The libel can be filed against the source of the information, but not the newspaper itself. (and of course, as the 4th estate, the newspaper has a right to protect the identity of its sources)
I'm pretty sure such a ruling has been made in the states, and I know it's been done in Canada.
If you cannot afford a defense, you can probably qualify for assistance from the Legal Aid society.
And if you have a reasonable chance at winning your defense, you can probably also find a lawyer who's willing to work pro bono, with the intention of extracting his payment from your accuser when the courts find against him.
In other words, Just because you don't think you can pay for a lawyer, don't let that stop you from trying to find a lawyer if you need one. You'd be surprised what options are out there to you.
You'd be surprised how many people don't realize that google.ca, google.fr, google.co.uk, google.de, google.cn, google.jp, etc. exist. They type in google.com because that's what they've been coached to type in.
The difference is that in Britain and South Africa (and most other civilized nations), frivolous lawsuits get dismissed with prejudice, and the person filing the lawsuit often gets asked to pay for the court costs not only of the defendant, but of the state, too.
There *are* armed police on every plane. They're called Air Marshals.
And the cockpit doors are closed and locked, and fortified. Pilots don't need to be armed. It's a good system for preventing hijackings: witness the fact that there hasn't been a hijacking since they started fortifying the cockpit doors.
That said, armed police on every plane and fortified cockpits do nothing against a small bomb in your carry on... one that's just big enough to cause an explosive decompression, or placed just over the fuel tank?
Personally, I think they should use explosive-sniffing dogs instead of super expensive technology that's prone to failure, but TFA is talking about an improvement over the current gate rape situation, and frankly, it's one I wouldn't really object to. I am also surprised that TFA didn't include a screencap from the movie Total Recall.
Never left the continental US, have you? Admittedly you can take a car by ferry, but transatlantic or transpacific ferries pretty much don't exist. You can book passage on a cruiseliner and put your car in the hold, but a transatlantic crossing usually runs in the $4000 range, not to mention taking 4-5 days depending on the route.. There's bridges too, but bridges tend to have expensive tolls... $50 for the one between PEI and New Brunswick, for example. At that kind of price, and with the cost of gas, it is cheaper for me to simply fly there.
I can understand where you're coming from but do think a little before assuming that everybody who flies is just doing it for puddle jumps. I have flown on short hops twice in my life... once from Ottawa to Toronto, as a leg on a flight to Winnipeg, and once from Montreal to Ottawa, as a leg on the return flight. Admittedly, Montreal is only 2h from Ottawa and it would have been faster and cheaper to drive than to wait for the layover, but the military was paying for it, and they weren't interested in logic at the time. That is, coincidentally, the only trip I have taken by plane where driving would have even been possible, as every other flight I have taken has been intercontinental, or a connection to an island, or to the extreme north where roads don't exist.
Orange prepay in the UK also has stupidly long expiry times for the top-ups. You put in £10, and it'll last a year. Compare that to cell carries in Canada/US, $10 will expire in 30 days. You have to put in $100 for it to last a year with most carriers.
You are right about $50/mo being ridiculous for an entry level contract. I am paying less than that for a smartphone plan with data, 300 anytime minutes, unlimited incoming, and unlmited evenings/weekends.
No it wouldn't. You're looking at the wrong carrier... get a prepaid phone from Telus, pay $7/mo for unlimited calling to one number, and they won't expire your number when you stop topping it off, because you're still paying for a monthly addon.
The cheapest actual landline phone you'll ever find is about $15/mo, and that's after multiple discounts. Unless you're talking VOIP, which isn't a bad idea. I'd have to check the actual pricing, but I know you can get a DID for $2/mo from voip.ms, and usage about $0.01/min. Since the line is outbound only, you can get away with just paying usage, without having a DID. Or if you're a real cheapskate, there's also freephoneline.ca which will give you a "free" phone number/voip line, on the condition that you listen to advertising every time you make an outbound call....
I have gone pure cell for my normal usage. I don't ever use a landline at all, though I do have one still. The plan I got from Koodo includes all the data I ever use (I just use it for gmail, it's on wifi most of the time), unlimited incoming calls, 300 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings/weekends, and doesn't cost significantly more than a landline with all the features. I even opened a yak account, and use the cell for long distance ($0.035/min for canada/us calling, $0.05/min to the UK/Germany/Mexico, etc...). The reason I still have a land line? I work for ma bell, and it is cheaper for me to get a featureless landline phone that I'll never use than it is to pay the band rate for a dry loop for my wholesale DSL account.