or you live in zip-code 54494 and are travelling to Dallas, TX or Salt Lake City, UT. You must be one of those people who have never realized that not every one lives in a metro area.
In both those cases, flying wins by a mile. The difference is even greater than for the NY-Chicago example I gave. For Dallas, you'd save nearly 8 hours by flying. For Salt Lake City, you'd save 10 hours. You must be one of those people who have never looked at a map.
Zip code 54494 (rural Wisconsin) to Dallas, TX: 7.5 hours door to door flying, 15 hours driving. Driving: 1,058 miles, 15 hrs 48 minutes per Google Maps. Say 15 hours, assuming you can average 70mph including all breaks. Flying: Leave at 7:20AM, drive to Madison, WI (1 hr 50 per Google Maps), arrive 2 hours early (again, excessively early). Catch 11:20AM flight to Dallas. Arrive at 1:40PM. You're downtown by 3PM.
Zip code 54494 to Salt Lake City: 8.5 hours door to door flying, vs. 18.5 for driving. Driving: 1,397 miles, 20 hrs 20 mins per Google Maps. Say 18.5 hours, assuming you can average 75mph, including all breaks. Flying: Leave at 2:30PM, drive to Madison, WI (1 hr 50 per Google Maps), arrive 2 hours early (again, excessively early). Catch 6:40PM flight to Salt Lake City. Arrive at 8:50PM. You're downtown in 30 minutes at most, but let's call it 10PM to add some padding.
The margins for dealer sold cars are HUGE, thousands and thousands of dollars in commission for the better sales guys per car.
Seriously? I'm certainly no fan of car dealers, but if you think salesmen are getting several thousand dollars per new car in commission, you're kidding yourself. Average commissions are around $500 per vehicle.
My wife and I can drive half-way across the country in the same amount of time we can fly
Hogwash, for all but very specific itineraries (i.e. small place A served only by carrier X to small place B served by only carrier Y).
Let's take a VERY conservative example, tilting all the assumptions in favor of driving.
Take New York to Chicago, for example (which, at about 750 miles, is only about 1/3 of the way across the country).
Leave home at 7:30AM three hours before your flight, ample time to get to the airport two hours before your flight (that's an hour more than you need).
Take a 10:30AM flight from Laguardia, arrives O'Hare at noon.
You'll be in downtown Chicago by 1:30PM, even if you're slow through the airport, and you take public transport downtown.
That's seven hours, door to door, with a LOT of cushion. When I do the trip, it's about five hours, door to door.
If you're driving that same route, it's 794 miles, or 12 hours (without traffic or breaks) - more likely 13 or 14.
So, for this trip, which is a lot less than "halfway across the country," driving takes essentially 2x as long as flying.
Well, if we want to be really technical (and I love a good pedantry battle!), the iPhone was announced with Cingular, but launched with AT&T Mobility. The AT&T (formerly SBC) acquisition of BellSouth (which owned the rest of Cingular) closed in December 2006, the iPhone was announced in early January, but by the time it actually launched in June, the Cingular name had been dropped in favor of the AT&T brand.
AT&T would love nothing more than a rapid reduction in the price of handsets. Means a combination of lower subsidies for AT&T, and lower prices (and hence higher usage/take rate) for consumers.
France is McDonalds's number three market globally (after the US and Japan). On a per capita basis, it has more McDonalds than any European country other than Austria.
Nevermind that you have to go seriously out of your way to find a TV that even has a cablecard slot in it... TV makers are racing to cram more Apps in, ethernet and wifi ports, USB, and all that, but ignore cablecard completely. First world problems...
As far as I know, nobody's still making a TV with a CableCard slot in it. It added significantly to the product Bill of Materials, and there was extremely little consumer interest, so the TV makers gave up.
"Apparently, a lot of people are figuring it out, because 8% of US households got rid of cable last year, and the trend has not peaked yet."
While I've seen that number bandied around, it's hogwash, put nicely. Total pay TV subs declined about about 250k last year, on a base of 100 million. Households grew a bit, though, so if you adjust for that, you come up with about 500k households cut the cord, or about 0.5% of the base.
Yes, it's not totally irrelevant, but the benefit is small, when compared to the in city driving. On the highway, the non-hybrid uses 11% more gas. In the city, it uses 76% more.
Amen - I had a 520d in the UK as a rental for a couple of weeks. Good power off the line (even for the 5 series, which ain't a small car), excellent at cruise, averaged about 42-43mpg in a wide mix of highway, city, and twisty (!) rural roads.
The gas mileage was a lot less impressive than what I was expecting, though the large proportion of highway miles and my penchant for speeding in wide open spaces (did you know the Prius will happily cruise at 110mph?) doubtless had something to do with that. Frankly if most of your driving is highway I don't see the point, my $17,000 non-hybrid Honda Civic is competitive with the Prius when it comes to highway driving.... I can milk 43-44mpg out of my Civic without trying that hard, and that's despite living in a hilly region.
On the highway, the hybrid aspect becomes essentially irrelevant. If you took the Prius, and replaced the battery with an equivalent weight of lead, you'd get essentially the same highway mileage. It gets good highway mileage because its a (relatively) light car with excellent aerodynamics (like the Civic). Hybrids really shine (on a MPG basis) off the highway, where you recover the lost energy from braking in city traffic.
As an example, look at the Ford Fusion, which is available in a hybrid and non-hybrid version. On the highway, the hybrid gets 41mpg, vs. 37mpg for the regular version. In the city, however, the hybrid gets 44mpg, vs 25mpg for the regular version.
Sigh. Assessing a regulation requires you to look at the benefits AND costs. Banning cars would certainly save a lot of lives, but at huge societal costs. Requiring registration of firearms, and tracking transfers, to allow the sources of illegally used firearms to be determined, would have very modest financial cost, and place minimal burdens on the vast majority of law-abiding firearm owners, while making significant progress toward keeping guns out of the hands of people (criminals and the mentally ill) who _shouldn't_ have them.
Interesting take. From a consumer perspective, I really won't eat anywhere (other than grabbing a sandwich) that doesn't take reservations, or where I'm not sure that I'll get a table on arrival. Life's too short to wait in restaurant lines. I'm perfectly happy, however, when restaurants require a deposit to hold a reservation. For example, I have dinner plans for tomorrow night. Restaurant (booked via OpenTable, FWIW), runs a $100 per person authorization on my credit card at the time of the reservation. If I no-show, I lose the deposit.
. Also, if you look at the franchise agreement being discussed for Portland, it doesn't include the requirement (which is pretty much standard in cable franchises) that the franchisee serve 100%, or close to 100%, of homes in the municipality by X years after deployment starts. Google has made it very clear that, if they face that kind of franchise requirement, they'll move on to another market.
One additional note - looking at the doc, this ISN'T a cable franchise - Google won't be offering cable TV service (as they do in Kansas City). As a result, they avoid the buildout requirements that would come with a cable franchise agreement.
This is one of the big lies the incumbents have been telling. Google has made no installation decisions based on economic return or economic capability.... The only requirement is that people sign up for the service (and it can be the free service they intend to sign up for.
1. FYI, the free service requires a $300 installation payment (or $25/month for a year), so it's not truly free. Those free customers will offset nearly half of the cost of passing them with the fiber. 2. They certainly ARE making the prioritization decisions based (at least in part) on economic return. The neighborhoods with higher committed take rates (whether for a monthly service or the upfront $300 only) are getting service, while those with low committed take rates aren't getting service (because the economic return is lower). Also, Google has been very open that they're only looking to deploy fiber in markets where the cost per home served (combination of take rate and cost per home passed) is low enough to make economic sense, and where the city government is willing to work with them. You'll notice none of the cities they've talked about deploying to are in the Northeast (weather, higher labor cost, both raise deployment costs). 3. Also, if you look at the franchise agreement being discussed for Portland, it doesn't include the requirement (which is pretty much standard in cable franchises) that the franchisee serve 100%, or close to 100%, of homes in the municipality by X years after deployment starts. Google has made it very clear that, if they face that kind of franchise requirement, they'll move on to another market.
1. The "Fiberhoods" are really key here. Google's getting official authorization to deploy only in neighborhoods where it makes economic sense, and not being required to build out through the whole city. 2. It's by no means certain that Google will deploy at all: "This franchise agreement is an important step along the path to Fiber, so it’s great that it’s been approved. There’s still a lot of work to do beyond this one agreement, but we hope to provide an update about whether we can bring Fiber here later this year,” said Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres in an email.
Merchants don't want the hassle of dealing with credit card fraud, though. They will probably not mind doing business with you face to face with your insecure CC, as long as you have some kind of ID that proves that you're you, but don't count on them doing any kind of business with you via internet.
Except that the EMV (chip and pin) cards are no more secure than the magstripe cards when used online. Chip and PIN only makes it harder to use a faked card in person.
That's kind of like saying that, if Tiffany has an agreement to buy 100% of the gold coming out of a given mine, that Tiffany has expertise in gold mining.
Iridum turned out to be a huge success, but not for the expected reason. The U.S. Government bought into it, buying half the capacity, just in time for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. DoD and the State Department have lots of people in the middle of nowhere who need to communicate, and Iridium does the job for them. Most ships of any size have an Iridium phone or two on board.
Iridium airtime is now around $1/minute. U.S. Government usage is now under 25% of use, and the number of users is slowly increasing. There's an SMS message capability, and lots of devices in remote areas report in using it. Messages cost about $1/KB, which, considering some US carriers were charging $0.20 per SMS message, isn't bad.
If you let me discard the costs of building _anything_ in bankruptcy, I could call it a huge success.
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or you live in zip-code 54494 and are travelling to Dallas, TX or Salt Lake City, UT. You must be one of those people who have never realized that not every one lives in a metro area.
In both those cases, flying wins by a mile. The difference is even greater than for the NY-Chicago example I gave. For Dallas, you'd save nearly 8 hours by flying. For Salt Lake City, you'd save 10 hours. You must be one of those people who have never looked at a map.
Zip code 54494 (rural Wisconsin) to Dallas, TX: 7.5 hours door to door flying, 15 hours driving.
Driving: 1,058 miles, 15 hrs 48 minutes per Google Maps. Say 15 hours, assuming you can average 70mph including all breaks.
Flying: Leave at 7:20AM, drive to Madison, WI (1 hr 50 per Google Maps), arrive 2 hours early (again, excessively early). Catch 11:20AM flight to Dallas. Arrive at 1:40PM. You're downtown by 3PM.
Zip code 54494 to Salt Lake City: 8.5 hours door to door flying, vs. 18.5 for driving.
Driving: 1,397 miles, 20 hrs 20 mins per Google Maps. Say 18.5 hours, assuming you can average 75mph, including all breaks.
Flying: Leave at 2:30PM, drive to Madison, WI (1 hr 50 per Google Maps), arrive 2 hours early (again, excessively early). Catch 6:40PM flight to Salt Lake City. Arrive at 8:50PM. You're downtown in 30 minutes at most, but let's call it 10PM to add some padding.
The margins for dealer sold cars are HUGE, thousands and thousands of dollars in commission for the better sales guys per car.
Seriously? I'm certainly no fan of car dealers, but if you think salesmen are getting several thousand dollars per new car in commission, you're kidding yourself. Average commissions are around $500 per vehicle.
My wife and I can drive half-way across the country in the same amount of time we can fly
Hogwash, for all but very specific itineraries (i.e. small place A served only by carrier X to small place B served by only carrier Y).
Let's take a VERY conservative example, tilting all the assumptions in favor of driving.
Take New York to Chicago, for example (which, at about 750 miles, is only about 1/3 of the way across the country).
Leave home at 7:30AM three hours before your flight, ample time to get to the airport two hours before your flight (that's an hour more than you need).
Take a 10:30AM flight from Laguardia, arrives O'Hare at noon.
You'll be in downtown Chicago by 1:30PM, even if you're slow through the airport, and you take public transport downtown.
That's seven hours, door to door, with a LOT of cushion. When I do the trip, it's about five hours, door to door.
If you're driving that same route, it's 794 miles, or 12 hours (without traffic or breaks) - more likely 13 or 14.
So, for this trip, which is a lot less than "halfway across the country," driving takes essentially 2x as long as flying.
Well, if we want to be really technical (and I love a good pedantry battle!), the iPhone was announced with Cingular, but launched with AT&T Mobility. The AT&T (formerly SBC) acquisition of BellSouth (which owned the rest of Cingular) closed in December 2006, the iPhone was announced in early January, but by the time it actually launched in June, the Cingular name had been dropped in favor of the AT&T brand.
AT&T would love nothing more than a rapid reduction in the price of handsets. Means a combination of lower subsidies for AT&T, and lower prices (and hence higher usage/take rate) for consumers.
Yes, because nobody could ever launch a smartphone exclusively with AT&T and have it be a success...
France is McDonalds's number three market globally (after the US and Japan). On a per capita basis, it has more McDonalds than any European country other than Austria.
Nevermind that you have to go seriously out of your way to find a TV that even has a cablecard slot in it... TV makers are racing to cram more Apps in, ethernet and wifi ports, USB, and all that, but ignore cablecard completely. First world problems...
As far as I know, nobody's still making a TV with a CableCard slot in it. It added significantly to the product Bill of Materials, and there was extremely little consumer interest, so the TV makers gave up.
"Apparently, a lot of people are figuring it out, because 8% of US households got rid of cable last year, and the trend has not peaked yet."
While I've seen that number bandied around, it's hogwash, put nicely. Total pay TV subs declined about about 250k last year, on a base of 100 million. Households grew a bit, though, so if you adjust for that, you come up with about 500k households cut the cord, or about 0.5% of the base.
Yes, it's not totally irrelevant, but the benefit is small, when compared to the in city driving. On the highway, the non-hybrid uses 11% more gas. In the city, it uses 76% more.
Amen - I had a 520d in the UK as a rental for a couple of weeks. Good power off the line (even for the 5 series, which ain't a small car), excellent at cruise, averaged about 42-43mpg in a wide mix of highway, city, and twisty (!) rural roads.
The gas mileage was a lot less impressive than what I was expecting, though the large proportion of highway miles and my penchant for speeding in wide open spaces (did you know the Prius will happily cruise at 110mph?) doubtless had something to do with that. Frankly if most of your driving is highway I don't see the point, my $17,000 non-hybrid Honda Civic is competitive with the Prius when it comes to highway driving.... I can milk 43-44mpg out of my Civic without trying that hard, and that's despite living in a hilly region.
On the highway, the hybrid aspect becomes essentially irrelevant. If you took the Prius, and replaced the battery with an equivalent weight of lead, you'd get essentially the same highway mileage. It gets good highway mileage because its a (relatively) light car with excellent aerodynamics (like the Civic). Hybrids really shine (on a MPG basis) off the highway, where you recover the lost energy from braking in city traffic.
As an example, look at the Ford Fusion, which is available in a hybrid and non-hybrid version. On the highway, the hybrid gets 41mpg, vs. 37mpg for the regular version. In the city, however, the hybrid gets 44mpg, vs 25mpg for the regular version.
Sigh. Assessing a regulation requires you to look at the benefits AND costs. Banning cars would certainly save a lot of lives, but at huge societal costs. Requiring registration of firearms, and tracking transfers, to allow the sources of illegally used firearms to be determined, would have very modest financial cost, and place minimal burdens on the vast majority of law-abiding firearm owners, while making significant progress toward keeping guns out of the hands of people (criminals and the mentally ill) who _shouldn't_ have them.
Couple minor tweaks:
Do you think unvaccinated Creationists should be denied universal healthcare if they claim the right to bear Linux-based arms?
Interesting take. From a consumer perspective, I really won't eat anywhere (other than grabbing a sandwich) that doesn't take reservations, or where I'm not sure that I'll get a table on arrival. Life's too short to wait in restaurant lines. I'm perfectly happy, however, when restaurants require a deposit to hold a reservation. For example, I have dinner plans for tomorrow night. Restaurant (booked via OpenTable, FWIW), runs a $100 per person authorization on my credit card at the time of the reservation. If I no-show, I lose the deposit.
. Also, if you look at the franchise agreement being discussed for Portland, it doesn't include the requirement (which is pretty much standard in cable franchises) that the franchisee serve 100%, or close to 100%, of homes in the municipality by X years after deployment starts. Google has made it very clear that, if they face that kind of franchise requirement, they'll move on to another market.
One additional note - looking at the doc, this ISN'T a cable franchise - Google won't be offering cable TV service (as they do in Kansas City). As a result, they avoid the buildout requirements that would come with a cable franchise agreement.
This is one of the big lies the incumbents have been telling. Google has made no installation decisions based on economic return or economic capability. ... The only requirement is that people sign up for the service (and it can be the free service they intend to sign up for.
1. FYI, the free service requires a $300 installation payment (or $25/month for a year), so it's not truly free. Those free customers will offset nearly half of the cost of passing them with the fiber.
2. They certainly ARE making the prioritization decisions based (at least in part) on economic return. The neighborhoods with higher committed take rates (whether for a monthly service or the upfront $300 only) are getting service, while those with low committed take rates aren't getting service (because the economic return is lower). Also, Google has been very open that they're only looking to deploy fiber in markets where the cost per home served (combination of take rate and cost per home passed) is low enough to make economic sense, and where the city government is willing to work with them. You'll notice none of the cities they've talked about deploying to are in the Northeast (weather, higher labor cost, both raise deployment costs).
3. Also, if you look at the franchise agreement being discussed for Portland, it doesn't include the requirement (which is pretty much standard in cable franchises) that the franchisee serve 100%, or close to 100%, of homes in the municipality by X years after deployment starts. Google has made it very clear that, if they face that kind of franchise requirement, they'll move on to another market.
You could, but it would be a VERY tough suit to win. Boards get a lot of discretion under the business judgment rule.
1. The "Fiberhoods" are really key here. Google's getting official authorization to deploy only in neighborhoods where it makes economic sense, and not being required to build out through the whole city.
2. It's by no means certain that Google will deploy at all: "This franchise agreement is an important step along the path to Fiber, so it’s great that it’s been approved. There’s still a lot of work to do beyond this one agreement, but we hope to provide an update about whether we can bring Fiber here later this year,” said Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres in an email.
Get your humanities degree and you'll most likely end up working in tech support and spending your day correcting other people's grammar.
FTFY
Merchants don't want the hassle of dealing with credit card fraud, though. They will probably not mind doing business with you face to face with your insecure CC, as long as you have some kind of ID that proves that you're you, but don't count on them doing any kind of business with you via internet.
Except that the EMV (chip and pin) cards are no more secure than the magstripe cards when used online. Chip and PIN only makes it harder to use a faked card in person.
That's kind of like saying that, if Tiffany has an agreement to buy 100% of the gold coming out of a given mine, that Tiffany has expertise in gold mining.
Iridum turned out to be a huge success, but not for the expected reason. The U.S. Government bought into it, buying half the capacity, just in time for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. DoD and the State Department have lots of people in the middle of nowhere who need to communicate, and Iridium does the job for them. Most ships of any size have an Iridium phone or two on board.
Iridium airtime is now around $1/minute. U.S. Government usage is now under 25% of use, and the number of users is slowly increasing. There's an SMS message capability, and lots of devices in remote areas report in using it. Messages cost about $1/KB, which, considering some US carriers were charging $0.20 per SMS message, isn't bad.
If you let me discard the costs of building _anything_ in bankruptcy, I could call it a huge success.
Really? Your local telco doesn't offer any DSL service? I believe you, but your situation is REALLY rare.
FYI, they don't manage mapping satellites. They buy the imaging (primarily from DigitalGlobe).