Who watches the watchers? I used to. But then they started watching me. So I was watching them watch me. And they were watching me watching them watch me. And I was watching them watch me watching them watch me. And then we all went cross-eyed.
"Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average"
My memory's already pretty bad and I'm just 33. You mean it's going to get worse? Of course, most of my memory issues seem to stem from a lack of sleep. Two kids will do that to you. My other memory problems (not being able to link most faces with names unless I see the person *MANY* times) go way back.
They might be making huge losses, but they're still giving out bonuses to their top execs. (See AIG.) After all, if they didn't give out bonuses, how would they keep that "top notch talent" at their bank. The same "top notch talent" that are making them the huge pro... I mean that *might* make them huge profits again sometime in the future if the bonus is right.
I wonder how long until you can be served via Twitter. Subpoena's in 140 characters or less!
"@JasonLevine This is a legal subpoena. Respond in 30d or default judgment will be awarded against U. Read entire subpoena: http://is.gd/nyag"
(Yes, I am on Twitter. No, "JasonLevine" is not my Twitter name. I have a "Twitter/blog identity" that is completely separate from my "real name online identity.")
Do I believe that God literally told a man named Noah to build an ark and gather two of every kind of animal together, made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, had the flood waters go above the tallest mountain, then had the entire human race (as well as every species of animal) repopulated from the survivors on board the Ark? No.
Do I think that there was likely some big flood a few thousand years back the account of which became the basis for the story of Noah's ark? Yes.
However, I've heard people who take the Bible (or in this case, the Torah) 100% literally try to "refute" fossil evidence by claiming that the Great Flood mixed up the layers and also tampered with the bones of the animals that died in such a way as to make them seem life fossils which were millions of years old.
Exactly. My wife was a good teacher (admittedly, I might be biased). When our second child was born, we figured out how much it would cost us for her to continue working. Deducting daycare and after-school care from her salary gave us $3,000. PER YEAR! Yes, if she worked, she would only add $3,000 to our annual income. For that $3,000 she would need to deal with cranky parents, moody students (all girl's catholic middle school), administrators, lesson plans, grading papers and all the other stresses of the job. It just didn't seem worth it. So the teaching profession lost a good teacher because it didn't make financial sense for her to continue teaching. (At least temporarily. She wants to get back to teaching one day. Perhaps soon.)
I had several good teachers. They made a difference in my life. At least a couple recognized I was brighter than average and slotted me for advanced classes and mentored me.
I had similar experiences as well as exact opposite experiences. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Demperio, hated kids. (Why do you become an elementary ed teacher if you hate kids???) She particularly hated boys. And she *despised* me. She'd make fun of me in front of the class, send home letters about how bad I was, and assign me "busy work." One of her assignments was for me to write out the alphabet 26 times every night. Each day, I'd turn and it in, she'd hand it back unmarked. My mother quickly caught on and had me hand in the same paper day after day. The teacher didn't seem to realize (or care) about what we did. I actually dropped out of the second grade for a bit to avoid her. (The principal insisted she was his very best teacher and refused to move me.) The teacher even told me I'd never succeed in life.
My next year, we took standardized reading tests. My teacher saw how well I did on the normal level reading test and insisted I take the advanced level one. When I aced that one, I was put in the advanced reading group. I credit her for not only renewing my love of learning, but for setting me on the path that would lead to AP/college level courses in High School and advanced classes in college.
Years later, I was doing quite well in school and returned to my elementary school to rub Mrs. Demperio's nose in it. They told me that she had retired and moved to Florida the previous year. She couldn't even stick around for me to gloat. I later learned that I wasn't the only victim of her teaching style.
Of you could play it the way I always did: Use the cheat codes to effectively give yourself unlimited amounts of money then "buy out" any enemy units/cities you encountered. It didn't work for the capital cities, but once a civilization's capital city was the only one left, they were too weak to seriously fight against me. I could keep a few of them around to toy with from time to time until I just decided to wipe them all out. (And for additional Nerd Points, I used to call it my Financial Borg strategy. Resistance is futile. You will be bought out.)
However, the claim that dinosaurs could have coexisted with humans has evidence (google: Mokele-Mbembe, Cadborosaurus, Kongamoto).
I googled all of those. They're all claims of seeing "dinosaurs" in the present day (or near present day) with no substantial evidence. There's no body/remains (unlike, say Coelacanth) to test. Not even a few clear photos/videos to add weight to the claim. If you call these sort of claims Scientific Evidence, you might as well allow evidence in a murder trial that my friend's uncle's cousin once overheard the defendant say he'd kill the guy.
This isn't to say that it is completely impossible for these animals to exist. Just that the stories aren't supported by any real evidence. And science needs real evidence, not wild tales of monsters.
But all the layers got shuffled around during Noah's Flood!
(No, I'm not being serious, but unfortunately that's the argument you'd get from people who believe that sort of thing. Apparently, those were some magic flood waters.)
Exactly! We use our GrandCentral number when companies ask for our phone number. (Especially if the company is an online outfit that we're not sure we trust 100%.) If the company decides to tele-spam us (or sell our number to a company that tele-spams us), it's pretty easy to deal with them. Just mark those callers as "spam" and you won't be hearing from them again.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that a defendant can insist on a trial going forward. Unless the defendant is countersuing, they get no say in whether the plaintiff can drop the case. Oftentimes, at the point that the RIAA drops the case, the defendant doesn't even know what the lawsuit against them is all about or even that there is a lawsuit against them.
Of course, Ray's links give a more in depth explanation, but I think this is the basic summary of the RIAA's unusual tactics:
1. Group a bunch of unrelated "John Does" that you want to sue into one lawsuit in a court that likely doesn't have jurisdiction over any of those John Does. (Mainly this saves the RIAA time, money, and effort for having the file multiple together. Plus, it probably means that the judge won't look at each individual case and see how flimsy the evidence is.) 2. File for discovery of the identity of the John Does without giving the John Does enough time or information to defend themselves. 3. Once the identity is discovered, drop the case. This way it can't be appealed and steps 1-3 can't be ruled illegal. 4. Have your "Settlement Center" contact each of the individuals threatening a massive lawsuit unless they settle. (This shows that they're not *really* interested in suing these individuals. They just want the information so their Settlement Center can strong arm these folks outside of a courtroom into paying the RIAA.)
Most people, at Step 4 will settle simply because they don't have the time and money to spend to defend themselves. They can pay $2,000 to make it all go away or they can spend weeks in a courtroom (likely one far from where they live), spend thousands on a lawyer (which they *may* recoup via a counter-suit but then again might not), and might face fines in the millions. Sure, more people have been defending themselves recently, so the RIAA's tactics post-step-4 have changed slightly, but that's the basic rundown.
Some people in the UK are also calling for the ban of any pointed chef's knives. These people claim that there's no possible reason for a knife to have a point to it except to stab people. Now, I'm not a chef, but I've done my share of cooking. I will often use the pointed tip of my knife to "stab" a food item if the food (like, say tomatoes) resists my initial slice attempts (e.g. looks like it's going to squish instead of slice cleanly). What's next? Ban scissors? Box cutters (not just from planes but any possession of)? Swiss Army Knives?
We were looking at buying a Netbook for an upcoming trip to Disney World. Taking one of our laptops is possible, but they wouldn't fit in the room's safe and would be bulkier to travel with. Of course, since Disney doesn't provide free Internet access (it's $10 per day for wired access) and since we have so much planned for our stay there (our two kids' first time at Disney World and our first real family vacation since our first child was born in 2003), we'd be unlikely to use the computer much. In the end, other costs (new car to replace my failing old car and new fridge to replace our failing old fridge) have rendered $300-400 for a NetBook that we'll likely use only a few times per year too expensive.
It doesn't even need to be a virtual XP+IE8. SandboxIE can already keep ActiveX controls within a sandboxed environment. If Microsoft built something like this into IE9 or Windows 8 (or whatever the next versions are called) they could easily keep ActiveX around, but sandbox it so it would be safe to use.
14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year renewal would also solve the problem of abandonware. If a company went out of business or was diced up and sold to multiple other companies, leaving the copyright status murky, one would only need to worry about the murky copyright for 14 years maximum. All those games from the 1980's whose copyright owners are unknown would be fair game in 8 years maximum (figuring in the 14 year renewal). Many would be fair game already.
Even on works whose copyright owners are known, how many actually make a significant amount of money after 14 years? How many make a significant amount of money after 28 years? For each Star Wars (in copyright 32 years and still making money), there are a hundred works (games, movies, songs, etc) that aren't making anything significant anymore.
"users should be able to flag to an independent adjudicator anything they regard as mistaken evidence"
That line was the most laughable to me. There was a provision that was put in by a committee (attended by the ISPs) that would have added penalties for false accusations. The Cabinet, however, had apparently already decided to move forward without the added provision and without any ISP input. They then sounded shocked that the ISPs would object and in fact blamed the ISPs for not expressing their views regardless of the fact that they did in the Select Committee.
Back to the dropped provision, though. This provision would have put penalties on false accusations. So if I claimed that you downloaded my copyrighted material and you didn't, I'd face some fines. It would mean that I'd better make sure that my evidence was solid before moving forward and it would have helped prevent abuse of the system. Not that abuse would have been impossible, mind you. But it would have been better than what New Zealanders face now. Without the provision, there is no penalty. So I (or the New Zealand RIAA-equivalent) can go around making false accusations left and right. People can be disconnected based on false accusations and their only hope is getting their account reinstated until the accuser makes up another round of accusations. There should at least be some sort of punishment for false accusations.
3) Their customers didnt kill their store, their bosses did. They shouldnt blame their customers for simply looking for an honest bargain.
You must not have gotten the memo. It's now standard business practice to blame your customers for all your woes. If you don't do that, then might need to place blame on your own company and that just can't be possible. After all: The Company is always right!
-Liquidation company brings in a bunch of sub-standard, old or damaged merchandise, using the buzz of the "going out of business" sale to move this crap.
That would explain the many reports I've heard of people buying broken merchandise from Circuit City's going out of business sales (obviously without realizing it was broken) and then being told "too bad" (or just being ignored). I realize that there's a big caveat emptor factor when buying from a "Going Out Of Business Sale," but the things being sold should at least be relatively workable. A video game disc that's partially shredded with someone's name scratched on the back or a TV with the glass shattered should *NOT* be sold unless the damage is clearly marked.
As a semi-religious Jew with a keen interest in science, that's how I view the bible. I see it as a series of moral guides. Yes, there might be sections with some shred of historical value (i.e. there might have been an actual Abraham), but these "historical truths" are secondary to the moral truths that are taught. And before someone takes issue with some law here or there, I don't believe that all of the laws are applicable in modern society. The Torah goes to great lengths describing which animal sacrifices are to be made when and how and yet Jews today don't perform sacrifices at all. Which laws are applicable and which aren't is a personal issue, I believe.
Back to my point, though. To give an example of how you could interpret the creation story in a non-literal, moralistic manner, I'd turn to a story that a former rabbi of mine once told. He pointed out that there are actually two stories of man's creation. In one, God forms man in His own image as the culmination of creation. In the second, he forms man out of mud. So what does that mean? My rabbi explained that one should always conduct themselves with two statements in mind. The first is: "The entire world was created just for me." The second is: "I am nothing but dirt." If you can balance these two statements in your head, you'll conduct your affairs in a balanced manner, neither letting yourself get too full of pride nor letting yourself get so humble as to downplay your own accomplishments.
The vast majority probably don't go out marching "We're religious and accept science" because they're not interested in pushing their religious beliefs on others. They might also support science, but not know enough on their own to hold their own in an argument with a creationist. (Many creationists are good at giving reasonable-sounding arguments that, false as they may be, will prove troublesome for Joe Average to refute.) The vocal minority, however, wants to convert everyone over to their way of thinking and isn't above marching or getting bills passed to "teach the controversy" or "expose the flaws of evolution." They also don't fear "debate" because they honestly don't care what counter arguments are given to them. They're not interested in logic and reason and normal debate. They're interested in pushing forward God Did It as the official answer so that souls can be saved as people convert en masse to the vocal minority's religious beliefs. (Not that it would happen, but it's the wet dream of the vocal minority.)
That's one of the problems. A Sentra fills my needs (and then some) at a lower price point than the Prius. I've found that hybrids tend to cost around $5,000 more than the equivalent non-hybrid version (if there is one). The Camry Hybrid costs $7,000 more than the Camry. Now some of this $7,000 might be in extra features that come standard in the hybrid version, but the point is no one seems to make an inexpensive, no-frills hybrid. All of the hybrids seem to have lots of extras bundled as standard. If I could have gotten a hybrid vehicle equivalent to my new Sentra for $16,000 or so, I would have jumped at the chance. I wasn't going to pay $5,000+ more to get a hybrid, however.
Because the cost of getting the transmission fixed would likely have been more than the trade-in value of the car. The car's been experiencing little "glitches" here and there for awhile now. Nothing major, but all pointing to us needing a new car. We had planned on getting a new one around July-August (when the 2010s will be out and deals would be great on the leftover 2009s), but the transmission issue forced our hand.
Slashdot Mirror
Who watches the watchers? I used to. But then they started watching me. So I was watching them watch me. And they were watching me watching them watch me. And I was watching them watch me watching them watch me. And then we all went cross-eyed.
"Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average"
My memory's already pretty bad and I'm just 33. You mean it's going to get worse? Of course, most of my memory issues seem to stem from a lack of sleep. Two kids will do that to you. My other memory problems (not being able to link most faces with names unless I see the person *MANY* times) go way back.
They might be making huge losses, but they're still giving out bonuses to their top execs. (See AIG.) After all, if they didn't give out bonuses, how would they keep that "top notch talent" at their bank. The same "top notch talent" that are making them the huge pro... I mean that *might* make them huge profits again sometime in the future if the bonus is right.
I wonder how long until you can be served via Twitter. Subpoena's in 140 characters or less!
"@JasonLevine This is a legal subpoena. Respond in 30d or default judgment will be awarded against U. Read entire subpoena: http://is.gd/nyag"
(Yes, I am on Twitter. No, "JasonLevine" is not my Twitter name. I have a "Twitter/blog identity" that is completely separate from my "real name online identity.")
Do I believe that God literally told a man named Noah to build an ark and gather two of every kind of animal together, made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, had the flood waters go above the tallest mountain, then had the entire human race (as well as every species of animal) repopulated from the survivors on board the Ark? No.
Do I think that there was likely some big flood a few thousand years back the account of which became the basis for the story of Noah's ark? Yes.
However, I've heard people who take the Bible (or in this case, the Torah) 100% literally try to "refute" fossil evidence by claiming that the Great Flood mixed up the layers and also tampered with the bones of the animals that died in such a way as to make them seem life fossils which were millions of years old.
Exactly. My wife was a good teacher (admittedly, I might be biased). When our second child was born, we figured out how much it would cost us for her to continue working. Deducting daycare and after-school care from her salary gave us $3,000. PER YEAR! Yes, if she worked, she would only add $3,000 to our annual income. For that $3,000 she would need to deal with cranky parents, moody students (all girl's catholic middle school), administrators, lesson plans, grading papers and all the other stresses of the job. It just didn't seem worth it. So the teaching profession lost a good teacher because it didn't make financial sense for her to continue teaching. (At least temporarily. She wants to get back to teaching one day. Perhaps soon.)
I had similar experiences as well as exact opposite experiences. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Demperio, hated kids. (Why do you become an elementary ed teacher if you hate kids???) She particularly hated boys. And she *despised* me. She'd make fun of me in front of the class, send home letters about how bad I was, and assign me "busy work." One of her assignments was for me to write out the alphabet 26 times every night. Each day, I'd turn and it in, she'd hand it back unmarked. My mother quickly caught on and had me hand in the same paper day after day. The teacher didn't seem to realize (or care) about what we did. I actually dropped out of the second grade for a bit to avoid her. (The principal insisted she was his very best teacher and refused to move me.) The teacher even told me I'd never succeed in life.
My next year, we took standardized reading tests. My teacher saw how well I did on the normal level reading test and insisted I take the advanced level one. When I aced that one, I was put in the advanced reading group. I credit her for not only renewing my love of learning, but for setting me on the path that would lead to AP/college level courses in High School and advanced classes in college.
Years later, I was doing quite well in school and returned to my elementary school to rub Mrs. Demperio's nose in it. They told me that she had retired and moved to Florida the previous year. She couldn't even stick around for me to gloat. I later learned that I wasn't the only victim of her teaching style.
Of you could play it the way I always did: Use the cheat codes to effectively give yourself unlimited amounts of money then "buy out" any enemy units/cities you encountered. It didn't work for the capital cities, but once a civilization's capital city was the only one left, they were too weak to seriously fight against me. I could keep a few of them around to toy with from time to time until I just decided to wipe them all out. (And for additional Nerd Points, I used to call it my Financial Borg strategy. Resistance is futile. You will be bought out.)
I googled all of those. They're all claims of seeing "dinosaurs" in the present day (or near present day) with no substantial evidence. There's no body/remains (unlike, say Coelacanth) to test. Not even a few clear photos/videos to add weight to the claim. If you call these sort of claims Scientific Evidence, you might as well allow evidence in a murder trial that my friend's uncle's cousin once overheard the defendant say he'd kill the guy.
This isn't to say that it is completely impossible for these animals to exist. Just that the stories aren't supported by any real evidence. And science needs real evidence, not wild tales of monsters.
But all the layers got shuffled around during Noah's Flood!
(No, I'm not being serious, but unfortunately that's the argument you'd get from people who believe that sort of thing. Apparently, those were some magic flood waters.)
Exactly! We use our GrandCentral number when companies ask for our phone number. (Especially if the company is an online outfit that we're not sure we trust 100%.) If the company decides to tele-spam us (or sell our number to a company that tele-spams us), it's pretty easy to deal with them. Just mark those callers as "spam" and you won't be hearing from them again.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that a defendant can insist on a trial going forward. Unless the defendant is countersuing, they get no say in whether the plaintiff can drop the case. Oftentimes, at the point that the RIAA drops the case, the defendant doesn't even know what the lawsuit against them is all about or even that there is a lawsuit against them.
Of course, Ray's links give a more in depth explanation, but I think this is the basic summary of the RIAA's unusual tactics:
1. Group a bunch of unrelated "John Does" that you want to sue into one lawsuit in a court that likely doesn't have jurisdiction over any of those John Does. (Mainly this saves the RIAA time, money, and effort for having the file multiple together. Plus, it probably means that the judge won't look at each individual case and see how flimsy the evidence is.)
2. File for discovery of the identity of the John Does without giving the John Does enough time or information to defend themselves.
3. Once the identity is discovered, drop the case. This way it can't be appealed and steps 1-3 can't be ruled illegal.
4. Have your "Settlement Center" contact each of the individuals threatening a massive lawsuit unless they settle. (This shows that they're not *really* interested in suing these individuals. They just want the information so their Settlement Center can strong arm these folks outside of a courtroom into paying the RIAA.)
Most people, at Step 4 will settle simply because they don't have the time and money to spend to defend themselves. They can pay $2,000 to make it all go away or they can spend weeks in a courtroom (likely one far from where they live), spend thousands on a lawyer (which they *may* recoup via a counter-suit but then again might not), and might face fines in the millions. Sure, more people have been defending themselves recently, so the RIAA's tactics post-step-4 have changed slightly, but that's the basic rundown.
Some people in the UK are also calling for the ban of any pointed chef's knives. These people claim that there's no possible reason for a knife to have a point to it except to stab people. Now, I'm not a chef, but I've done my share of cooking. I will often use the pointed tip of my knife to "stab" a food item if the food (like, say tomatoes) resists my initial slice attempts (e.g. looks like it's going to squish instead of slice cleanly). What's next? Ban scissors? Box cutters (not just from planes but any possession of)? Swiss Army Knives?
We were looking at buying a Netbook for an upcoming trip to Disney World. Taking one of our laptops is possible, but they wouldn't fit in the room's safe and would be bulkier to travel with. Of course, since Disney doesn't provide free Internet access (it's $10 per day for wired access) and since we have so much planned for our stay there (our two kids' first time at Disney World and our first real family vacation since our first child was born in 2003), we'd be unlikely to use the computer much. In the end, other costs (new car to replace my failing old car and new fridge to replace our failing old fridge) have rendered $300-400 for a NetBook that we'll likely use only a few times per year too expensive.
It doesn't even need to be a virtual XP+IE8. SandboxIE can already keep ActiveX controls within a sandboxed environment. If Microsoft built something like this into IE9 or Windows 8 (or whatever the next versions are called) they could easily keep ActiveX around, but sandbox it so it would be safe to use.
14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year renewal would also solve the problem of abandonware. If a company went out of business or was diced up and sold to multiple other companies, leaving the copyright status murky, one would only need to worry about the murky copyright for 14 years maximum. All those games from the 1980's whose copyright owners are unknown would be fair game in 8 years maximum (figuring in the 14 year renewal). Many would be fair game already.
Even on works whose copyright owners are known, how many actually make a significant amount of money after 14 years? How many make a significant amount of money after 28 years? For each Star Wars (in copyright 32 years and still making money), there are a hundred works (games, movies, songs, etc) that aren't making anything significant anymore.
"users should be able to flag to an independent adjudicator anything they regard as mistaken evidence"
That line was the most laughable to me. There was a provision that was put in by a committee (attended by the ISPs) that would have added penalties for false accusations. The Cabinet, however, had apparently already decided to move forward without the added provision and without any ISP input. They then sounded shocked that the ISPs would object and in fact blamed the ISPs for not expressing their views regardless of the fact that they did in the Select Committee.
Back to the dropped provision, though. This provision would have put penalties on false accusations. So if I claimed that you downloaded my copyrighted material and you didn't, I'd face some fines. It would mean that I'd better make sure that my evidence was solid before moving forward and it would have helped prevent abuse of the system. Not that abuse would have been impossible, mind you. But it would have been better than what New Zealanders face now. Without the provision, there is no penalty. So I (or the New Zealand RIAA-equivalent) can go around making false accusations left and right. People can be disconnected based on false accusations and their only hope is getting their account reinstated until the accuser makes up another round of accusations. There should at least be some sort of punishment for false accusations.
You must not have gotten the memo. It's now standard business practice to blame your customers for all your woes. If you don't do that, then might need to place blame on your own company and that just can't be possible. After all: The Company is always right!
That would explain the many reports I've heard of people buying broken merchandise from Circuit City's going out of business sales (obviously without realizing it was broken) and then being told "too bad" (or just being ignored). I realize that there's a big caveat emptor factor when buying from a "Going Out Of Business Sale," but the things being sold should at least be relatively workable. A video game disc that's partially shredded with someone's name scratched on the back or a TV with the glass shattered should *NOT* be sold unless the damage is clearly marked.
As a semi-religious Jew with a keen interest in science, that's how I view the bible. I see it as a series of moral guides. Yes, there might be sections with some shred of historical value (i.e. there might have been an actual Abraham), but these "historical truths" are secondary to the moral truths that are taught. And before someone takes issue with some law here or there, I don't believe that all of the laws are applicable in modern society. The Torah goes to great lengths describing which animal sacrifices are to be made when and how and yet Jews today don't perform sacrifices at all. Which laws are applicable and which aren't is a personal issue, I believe.
Back to my point, though. To give an example of how you could interpret the creation story in a non-literal, moralistic manner, I'd turn to a story that a former rabbi of mine once told. He pointed out that there are actually two stories of man's creation. In one, God forms man in His own image as the culmination of creation. In the second, he forms man out of mud. So what does that mean? My rabbi explained that one should always conduct themselves with two statements in mind. The first is: "The entire world was created just for me." The second is: "I am nothing but dirt." If you can balance these two statements in your head, you'll conduct your affairs in a balanced manner, neither letting yourself get too full of pride nor letting yourself get so humble as to downplay your own accomplishments.
The vast majority probably don't go out marching "We're religious and accept science" because they're not interested in pushing their religious beliefs on others. They might also support science, but not know enough on their own to hold their own in an argument with a creationist. (Many creationists are good at giving reasonable-sounding arguments that, false as they may be, will prove troublesome for Joe Average to refute.) The vocal minority, however, wants to convert everyone over to their way of thinking and isn't above marching or getting bills passed to "teach the controversy" or "expose the flaws of evolution." They also don't fear "debate" because they honestly don't care what counter arguments are given to them. They're not interested in logic and reason and normal debate. They're interested in pushing forward God Did It as the official answer so that souls can be saved as people convert en masse to the vocal minority's religious beliefs. (Not that it would happen, but it's the wet dream of the vocal minority.)
Or, perhaps, the cost of papyrus was just too high: http://www.sumware.com/creation.html
That's one of the problems. A Sentra fills my needs (and then some) at a lower price point than the Prius. I've found that hybrids tend to cost around $5,000 more than the equivalent non-hybrid version (if there is one). The Camry Hybrid costs $7,000 more than the Camry. Now some of this $7,000 might be in extra features that come standard in the hybrid version, but the point is no one seems to make an inexpensive, no-frills hybrid. All of the hybrids seem to have lots of extras bundled as standard. If I could have gotten a hybrid vehicle equivalent to my new Sentra for $16,000 or so, I would have jumped at the chance. I wasn't going to pay $5,000+ more to get a hybrid, however.
Because the cost of getting the transmission fixed would likely have been more than the trade-in value of the car. The car's been experiencing little "glitches" here and there for awhile now. Nothing major, but all pointing to us needing a new car. We had planned on getting a new one around July-August (when the 2010s will be out and deals would be great on the leftover 2009s), but the transmission issue forced our hand.