Okay, I'll bite: Why do you need to have a copy of your electric bill from more than seven years ago?
I used to be seriously obsessive/compulsive about filing paid bills, bank statements, credit card statements, and so forth. Then, about two years ago, as I was doing my year-end clean-up (moving everything from hanging folders into labeled manilla envelopes, moving said envelopes into a storage cabinet), I suddenly realized that I hadn't yet needed a single piece of paper that was more than two months old, and even that was a rarity.
My current filing scheme goes like this:
Bank statements (by this I mean any asset account, including things like 401(k)s) are retained for one year; even then, individual statements are tossed anytime a "summary" is sent (such as quarterly or year-end statements).
Bills, once paid, are shredded (if I need to prove I paid it, I can use the bank statements). Exception: bills which might be tax-deductable are retained (so far, I've never had enough to warrant itemizing, though, so I end up tossing these when I file my taxes).
All transactions go into GnuCash, so I can track things like average monthly electric bill (if such a thing ever actually interests me).
All paystubs for the current year are retained; they're shredded when the W-2 arrives.
Once a year, I get a copy of my credit report; it gets compared to the previous year's, then the older one is shredded.
All paperwork actually germane to taxes are kept together in a manilla folder; I haven't decided how long is "long enough" to keep these, so this is where my oldest financial papers reside.
Even this feels a little over-the-top to me. The last time I had a money problem that required an old piece of paper to resolve was in May of 1999, and I caught the bank's error less than a month after it occurred.
I'm not an economist, so salt to taste, but it seems to me that the choice as you've set it up is suspciously similar to the Broken Windows fallacy (not a dig at Microsoft, btw).
Look at it like this:
On the one hand, you could spend $399 and end up with an office-productivity suite (namely, Microsoft Office).
On the other hand, you could spend $399 and end up with an office-productivity suite (this time, OpenOffice) and 8-10 video games for your platform of choice (I'm assuming most games go for $40-$50 new).
You've pumped exactly as much money into the economy as you would have otherwise, but you got more bang for your buck, plus (in this particular case) the money is likely to pass through more hands.
Not to bash Microsoft, but they're an especially bad choice in this case, because they tend to hoard cash, which means it really isn't as helpful to the economy as a succession of people spending the same money.
I would assume that people who didn't sign up for the new licensing would continue to use their existing MS products while working on a migration path.
[Emphasis added.]
The assumption that there's any sort of migration at all is what I'm questioning. I see no reason why a company can't stick with (e.g.,) Office 97 forever.
Since 1/3 of their existing customers didn't sign up to their new Office licensing scheme, that means they are obviously planning to switch to something else.
You're making the rather brazen assumption that users must stop using their already-installed base of software.
[O]f course anyone who produces, for want of a better word, intangiable products has the right to be able to make a living from them.
I would clarify your comment by stating that people have the right to try to make a living from them. I produce the intangible product of unintentionally amusing people with my frequent social gaffes. I should not, however, expect to make a living from it. Being a dork is not a growth sector in this economy.
As much as people don't like to think of it in these terms, Kazaa and the RIAA are competitors offering nearly the same goods. As long as consumers don't think the RIAA's "value-add" is worth the price differential, Kazaa will win.
Personally, I do think the RIAA offers something that Kazaa can't: the ability to re-rip the songs with my preferred quality level/file format. Granted, most of their selection sucks, but Kazaa matches them there, so it's a moot point.
Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't something along the lines of, "I wish you would go back into the bottle," work? (Not saying the RIAA's task is that simple; just critiquing the meme.)
Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.
on
Paperless Billing?
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· Score: 1
Oh, yeah. I guess that'd be the polite thing to do.
They also have $0 liability for charges if the card is stolen (most cards opt for the legal limit of $50) and no annual fee. I have the College Student Card, because I was a student when I applied (duh). The only downside to that is they keep sending me all these "hip" ads; they don't seem to realize that people age, and often graduate.
They're offering new College Student accounts a rate of 13.99% (9.9% for 6 months). I had my card for seven years when I got offered the new rate, and a more or less spotless payment history. I hope this is helpful.
This is pretty much my story, too. It took me a week's worth of spare time to shred all that stuff, but it felt pretty good to do it (especially those "convenience checks" my credit cards kept sending me). Anyone need a four-drawer filing cabinet?
Citibank is a massive conglomerate, and so doesn't necessarily do things consistently across the board, but the company holding my MasterCard got bought out by them a couple years ago, and I'm able to get old statements mailed to me free of charge. I asked them for the absolute oldest statements, because I had poor record-keeping habits when I first got the card, but they purge their records after seven years.
I used to do the same thing (actually, to be honest, I used to keep statements going back for seven years). Now, I've cut it down to just one year for my checking account, and don't bother keeping anything else. I'm a fanatic about tracking all my expenditures and payments in GnuCash, so if there's an error, I catch it the same month in which it occurs.
But, I can see how that approach might not work for everyone.
Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.
on
Paperless Billing?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I assume you're joking about the envelope-licking, but one incentive to go paperless is that it reduces their costs, which means they'll be capable of charging you less. These days, it's easy enough to roll any balance to a new card, so those with good credit can demand a lowered APR (case in point: about a year ago, I decided to cancel one of my cards, and told the sexy-voiced woman they transferred me to that another credit limit hike wouldn't make me change my mind, so they offered to permanently drop my APR to 6%; that changed my mind).
I should point out that I got the Game of the Year edition of Homeworld. That one came with the soundtrack on a separate CD (along with the latest patch). I don't think Cataclysm or Homeworld 2 are rippable.
I'll second the nomination of Interstate '76 as a damned good soundtrack. Also, I really like the soundtrack to Homeworld, and one of the things that makes both these soundtracks so memorable for me is the fact that I was able to rip the music from the CD. I still listen to both on a regular basis. I really wish more game publishers would do this. Instead, you get music files in some weird format. Or worse, they put it inside the executable. (I realize it's probably piracy concerns that cause this, but it still annoys me.)
Disclaimer: I'm a more-or-less happy Fifth Third customer, so salt to taste.
The terms of service are quite plain: deposits aren't available for withdrawal until X days after they're credited (3, I think). All banks process withdrawals before credits, in order of greatest withdrawal to greatest deposit, and all banks ding you as many times as possible along the way. The USPS only goes so fast, so if you're in the red, it'll take a few days for them to inform you, anyway. Finally, it's your responsibility as an account holder to ensure the funds are actually available before you write a check/visit an ATM/etc.
In college, I got dinged by Fifth Third all the time, including five dollars per month for going below my minimum balance of three hundred dollars. I was fairly irresponsible with money in those days, though. I haven't had to pay any service fees to a bank in a couple of years now.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I'll bite: Why do you need to have a copy of your electric bill from more than seven years ago?
I used to be seriously obsessive/compulsive about filing paid bills, bank statements, credit card statements, and so forth. Then, about two years ago, as I was doing my year-end clean-up (moving everything from hanging folders into labeled manilla envelopes, moving said envelopes into a storage cabinet), I suddenly realized that I hadn't yet needed a single piece of paper that was more than two months old, and even that was a rarity.
My current filing scheme goes like this:
Even this feels a little over-the-top to me. The last time I had a money problem that required an old piece of paper to resolve was in May of 1999, and I caught the bank's error less than a month after it occurred.
I'm not an economist, so salt to taste, but it seems to me that the choice as you've set it up is suspciously similar to the Broken Windows fallacy (not a dig at Microsoft, btw).
Look at it like this:
You've pumped exactly as much money into the economy as you would have otherwise, but you got more bang for your buck, plus (in this particular case) the money is likely to pass through more hands.
Not to bash Microsoft, but they're an especially bad choice in this case, because they tend to hoard cash, which means it really isn't as helpful to the economy as a succession of people spending the same money.
[Emphasis added.]
The assumption that there's any sort of migration at all is what I'm questioning. I see no reason why a company can't stick with (e.g.,) Office 97 forever.
QED
You're making the rather brazen assumption that users must stop using their already-installed base of software.
Hear! Hear! What exactly do people think the words "at-will employment" mean?
His name is Robert Paulson.
No more so than convincing 20th Century Fox to turn a pulp novel into a big-budget film.
I would clarify your comment by stating that people have the right to try to make a living from them. I produce the intangible product of unintentionally amusing people with my frequent social gaffes. I should not, however, expect to make a living from it. Being a dork is not a growth sector in this economy.
As much as people don't like to think of it in these terms, Kazaa and the RIAA are competitors offering nearly the same goods. As long as consumers don't think the RIAA's "value-add" is worth the price differential, Kazaa will win.
Personally, I do think the RIAA offers something that Kazaa can't: the ability to re-rip the songs with my preferred quality level/file format. Granted, most of their selection sucks, but Kazaa matches them there, so it's a moot point.
Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't something along the lines of, "I wish you would go back into the bottle," work? (Not saying the RIAA's task is that simple; just critiquing the meme.)
Oh, yeah. I guess that'd be the polite thing to do.
AT&T Universal Card
They also have $0 liability for charges if the card is stolen (most cards opt for the legal limit of $50) and no annual fee. I have the College Student Card, because I was a student when I applied (duh). The only downside to that is they keep sending me all these "hip" ads; they don't seem to realize that people age, and often graduate.
They're offering new College Student accounts a rate of 13.99% (9.9% for 6 months). I had my card for seven years when I got offered the new rate, and a more or less spotless payment history. I hope this is helpful.
This is pretty much my story, too. It took me a week's worth of spare time to shred all that stuff, but it felt pretty good to do it (especially those "convenience checks" my credit cards kept sending me). Anyone need a four-drawer filing cabinet?
Citibank is a massive conglomerate, and so doesn't necessarily do things consistently across the board, but the company holding my MasterCard got bought out by them a couple years ago, and I'm able to get old statements mailed to me free of charge. I asked them for the absolute oldest statements, because I had poor record-keeping habits when I first got the card, but they purge their records after seven years.
I used to do the same thing (actually, to be honest, I used to keep statements going back for seven years). Now, I've cut it down to just one year for my checking account, and don't bother keeping anything else. I'm a fanatic about tracking all my expenditures and payments in GnuCash, so if there's an error, I catch it the same month in which it occurs.
But, I can see how that approach might not work for everyone.
I assume you're joking about the envelope-licking, but one incentive to go paperless is that it reduces their costs, which means they'll be capable of charging you less. These days, it's easy enough to roll any balance to a new card, so those with good credit can demand a lowered APR (case in point: about a year ago, I decided to cancel one of my cards, and told the sexy-voiced woman they transferred me to that another credit limit hike wouldn't make me change my mind, so they offered to permanently drop my APR to 6%; that changed my mind).
I should point out that I got the Game of the Year edition of Homeworld. That one came with the soundtrack on a separate CD (along with the latest patch). I don't think Cataclysm or Homeworld 2 are rippable.
I'll second the nomination of Interstate '76 as a damned good soundtrack. Also, I really like the soundtrack to Homeworld, and one of the things that makes both these soundtracks so memorable for me is the fact that I was able to rip the music from the CD. I still listen to both on a regular basis. I really wish more game publishers would do this. Instead, you get music files in some weird format. Or worse, they put it inside the executable. (I realize it's probably piracy concerns that cause this, but it still annoys me.)
Three? Seven? Nine hundred sizty-two? Please, enlighten us.
They meant to say, "local-service provider", as in: it's a true decendant of Ma Bell.
Because your local phone company is a regulated infrastructure provider.
I heard a better variant:
Se^x = e^x+C
I'll explain it if no one gets it.
It's really rather mundane: Fifth National Bank merged with Third National Bank.
Disclaimer: I'm a more-or-less happy Fifth Third customer, so salt to taste.
The terms of service are quite plain: deposits aren't available for withdrawal until X days after they're credited (3, I think). All banks process withdrawals before credits, in order of greatest withdrawal to greatest deposit, and all banks ding you as many times as possible along the way. The USPS only goes so fast, so if you're in the red, it'll take a few days for them to inform you, anyway. Finally, it's your responsibility as an account holder to ensure the funds are actually available before you write a check/visit an ATM/etc.
In college, I got dinged by Fifth Third all the time, including five dollars per month for going below my minimum balance of three hundred dollars. I was fairly irresponsible with money in those days, though. I haven't had to pay any service fees to a bank in a couple of years now.
So... your plan is to create a justification for the fees they charge you?
I think you mean Infocom.
Infocom --> Activision
Infogrames --> Atari