40 mW * 20 hours = 800 mW hours. So in an area with reliable wind, $5 yields you about 1 watt-hour a day (or some multiple, but even 5 watt-hours isn't particularly useful). I really can't think of any practical use for 1 watt-hour per day (This amount of energy is roughly equivalent to 250 milligrams of sugar, which is quite a lot less than a single sugar cube).
So it is small and portable, which are nice, but it is also nearly useless, which isn't so nice.
(In the U.S., 1 watt-hour per day costs somewhere waaaaay less than $0.25 a *year*)
Last time I checked, the micro-loan organizations did not include 'pay you back' as a feature (they use the returned capital to fund more loans, which is great, but there really isn't a good reason to obfuscate this).
I don't think his point was simply that the cost per watt was bad, I think it was also that the power output of 1 or 10 of them isn't really worth much.
There are apps that take the place of iTunes (I don't own an iPod, but I imagine that they work just fine). I think they usually just use usb mass storage to transfer data and then build the music database. Floola looks pretty nifty, it will run directly from the iPod on several different platforms:
I didn't mean to imply that the files were worth months of my life, I meant several months worth of accumulated files can be backed up for $2 and 10 minutes of time.
There is at least a chance that more home users were buying it out of confusion than on purpose (or were selecting the Linux version and then requesting support for Windows (drivers, etc.)).
Sure, but it isn't really all that hard to make offsite backups (especially for stuff that is only semi-replaceable, my documents and so forth easily fit on a single DVD). An hour or two a year setting it up so that a catastrophe costs months of files instead of years of files isn't all that expensive.
To some extent, we have reached an age where most people are more nationalistic than they are racist (maybe that should only be 'many' people, I don't really know, but the difference between 1880 America and 1980 America is pretty clear).
Actually, white skin is an adaptation to low levels of radiation (Vitamin D, ya see). The adaptation goes in both directions (people from regions with higher effective radiation levels produce more melanin, etc.), but the 'white' race, especially the northern European one, very likely adapted away from producing melanin (the existence of a mitochondrial eve from Africa makes a pretty strong case for this).
So if sometime down the road someone comes up with a safe, easy technique to change skin color (and it even wears/grows off like hair color), discriminating on skin color would all of the sudden be a fine thing to do?
Yeah, you can lose your number. I use Virgin Mobile, which is add $20 every 90 days or lose service, but they also keep an account active for a year for $90 (so it is a concern, but it isn't a huge headache):
As I said in response to the reply above, many people have phones and monthly plans that are well beyond 'need' (so presumably, they are paying what they are paying because of want).
I guess someone could cook up an argument about needing a $300 phone with a camera and to talk for 1,000 minutes a month, but I don't think I would buy it (30 years ago, people thought hard about talking for 100 minutes of long distance and they did fine, etc.).
I use Virgin Mobile. They offer decent per minute rates (they are obscene if you compare them to a monthly bucket, but I very much prefer to overpay 1 minute at a time, rather than 1 month at a time, and the overall amount that I pay is less than most monthly plans, because I don't use a lot of minutes):
They are probably somewhat more expensive than other carriers, but they come with less headaches (I have my account set up such that if I forget to pay, my phone stops working; I prefer this to being charged at their whim, and so on).
Basically, I don't think it has a whole lot to do with the plans being fair or not. Sprint spent months and months advertising their fair and flexible plan, where as long as you let them overcharge you each month, they agree not to *really* overcharge you for any given month. Presumably, it worked, as they are still doing it.
There is a lot of back and forth; I tend to think that anybody paying for a fancy phone and big monthly bucket is zooming right past 'need' into 'want' territory (which, for me, undercuts the necessity of regulation, people are willingly paying for plans that they merely want), but I do see where defining exactly what needs and wants are is not straightforward.
I think separating service and equipment might be a pretty good regulatory model, but it isn't just the tie together, there are problems with consumer savvy (most of the prepaid services work pretty well for phone and sms, and basic phones cost ~$20 (or are giveaways...with no contract)).
They didn't promise to charge you based on their costs.
The problem with cellular competition in the US isn't collusion or some other nonsense, it is that people are happy to participate in a model where they are always paying (at a pre-negotiated rate) for more than they are using.
If people weren't happy to shovel $1200 a year to the phone companies for unlimited use, the price would be a lot more reflective of what it costs to provide.
Slashdot Mirror
What, when it was about finding the next meal?
The insinuation that at sometime in the past people had, on average, more of some quality that Jerry Seinfeld is failing to exemplify is just bizarre.
40 mW * 20 hours = 800 mW hours. So in an area with reliable wind, $5 yields you about 1 watt-hour a day (or some multiple, but even 5 watt-hours isn't particularly useful). I really can't think of any practical use for 1 watt-hour per day (This amount of energy is roughly equivalent to 250 milligrams of sugar, which is quite a lot less than a single sugar cube).
So it is small and portable, which are nice, but it is also nearly useless, which isn't so nice.
(In the U.S., 1 watt-hour per day costs somewhere waaaaay less than $0.25 a *year*)
Last time I checked, the micro-loan organizations did not include 'pay you back' as a feature (they use the returned capital to fund more loans, which is great, but there really isn't a good reason to obfuscate this).
I don't think his point was simply that the cost per watt was bad, I think it was also that the power output of 1 or 10 of them isn't really worth much.
In case you are being obtuse by accident, in current common usage, when referencing a number, 'scores' generally means 'many'.
Definition 7:
http://www.answers.com/score
There are apps that take the place of iTunes (I don't own an iPod, but I imagine that they work just fine). I think they usually just use usb mass storage to transfer data and then build the music database. Floola looks pretty nifty, it will run directly from the iPod on several different platforms:
http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=WiwiHome
I didn't mean to imply that the files were worth months of my life, I meant several months worth of accumulated files can be backed up for $2 and 10 minutes of time.
There is at least a chance that more home users were buying it out of confusion than on purpose (or were selecting the Linux version and then requesting support for Windows (drivers, etc.)).
Sure, but it isn't really all that hard to make offsite backups (especially for stuff that is only semi-replaceable, my documents and so forth easily fit on a single DVD). An hour or two a year setting it up so that a catastrophe costs months of files instead of years of files isn't all that expensive.
If you have to be nice to someone, you aren't looking after your security.
To some extent, we have reached an age where most people are more nationalistic than they are racist (maybe that should only be 'many' people, I don't really know, but the difference between 1880 America and 1980 America is pretty clear).
Actually, white skin is an adaptation to low levels of radiation (Vitamin D, ya see). The adaptation goes in both directions (people from regions with higher effective radiation levels produce more melanin, etc.), but the 'white' race, especially the northern European one, very likely adapted away from producing melanin (the existence of a mitochondrial eve from Africa makes a pretty strong case for this).
So if sometime down the road someone comes up with a safe, easy technique to change skin color (and it even wears/grows off like hair color), discriminating on skin color would all of the sudden be a fine thing to do?
That must get tricky when you talk about it.
Yeah, you can lose your number. I use Virgin Mobile, which is add $20 every 90 days or lose service, but they also keep an account active for a year for $90 (so it is a concern, but it isn't a huge headache):
http://web.virginmobileusa.com/help/account/management/service-preserver
Their data service probably isn't what you want though:
http://web.virginmobileusa.com/help/plans/data-packs/how-it-works
(Several of the other prepaid services had similar 1 year periods for ~$100 last time I looked around, I think AT$T and T-Mobile especially)
As I said in response to the reply above, many people have phones and monthly plans that are well beyond 'need' (so presumably, they are paying what they are paying because of want).
I guess someone could cook up an argument about needing a $300 phone with a camera and to talk for 1,000 minutes a month, but I don't think I would buy it (30 years ago, people thought hard about talking for 100 minutes of long distance and they did fine, etc.).
I use Virgin Mobile. They offer decent per minute rates (they are obscene if you compare them to a monthly bucket, but I very much prefer to overpay 1 minute at a time, rather than 1 month at a time, and the overall amount that I pay is less than most monthly plans, because I don't use a lot of minutes):
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/rates/minute.do
And it is a simple matter to go monthly (without a contract...):
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/rates/month.do
They are probably somewhat more expensive than other carriers, but they come with less headaches (I have my account set up such that if I forget to pay, my phone stops working; I prefer this to being charged at their whim, and so on).
Basically, I don't think it has a whole lot to do with the plans being fair or not. Sprint spent months and months advertising their fair and flexible plan, where as long as you let them overcharge you each month, they agree not to *really* overcharge you for any given month. Presumably, it worked, as they are still doing it.
There is a lot of back and forth; I tend to think that anybody paying for a fancy phone and big monthly bucket is zooming right past 'need' into 'want' territory (which, for me, undercuts the necessity of regulation, people are willingly paying for plans that they merely want), but I do see where defining exactly what needs and wants are is not straightforward.
I think separating service and equipment might be a pretty good regulatory model, but it isn't just the tie together, there are problems with consumer savvy (most of the prepaid services work pretty well for phone and sms, and basic phones cost ~$20 (or are giveaways...with no contract)).
They didn't promise to charge you based on their costs.
The problem with cellular competition in the US isn't collusion or some other nonsense, it is that people are happy to participate in a model where they are always paying (at a pre-negotiated rate) for more than they are using.
If people weren't happy to shovel $1200 a year to the phone companies for unlimited use, the price would be a lot more reflective of what it costs to provide.
Why do you hate lumberjacks?
In an earlier article, someone said full power was next year. Are you guessing from information, or guessing?
I'm not sure critical thinking courses would help a whole lot.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Gecko:DeCOMtamination
Do you mean starting from when you posted your comment or starting from when you find out that the world ain't gonna be here no more?
It's good to know that there are other people out there who hate turkeys.