And T-Mo just cut off tethering for their smartphones, unless you want to pay another $15/month. Seriously, getting to the point to finding $100/month a little ridiculous (and I only use around 1gb/month in data with tethering).
Maybe I should just go back to POTS. Leave me a fucking message on my answering machine.
It makes you wonder... If insurance companies reason out "rates" that are more favorable because they can "buy in bulk,' then they need better price negotiators because this shit is so commonplace as to be borderline criminal? My cousin works for an orthopedic company fitting/delivery prosthetics. They have a special "diabetic" walking shoe that he gave me that they charge.. wait for it.. $250 for to the insurance companies. It's no more complicated than the pair of Asics I wear on a regular basis, not really that much lighter, and certainly no more fashionable than the slew of "high end" sneakers I have in my closet. Makes me wonder...
They "seem to think that" because it's in the legal code. A Faxed signature is considered valid, whereas an email is not. If you have a problem with this, please email your local congressional representative so they can print it out and throw it in the trash.
I still prefer my contracts on paper. Loan applications, credit card contracts, mortgages; I want a paper trail with a verified copy in my safe-deposit box. Why? Because I don't fucking trust the Credit Card companies to not go "mucking" with a digital copy in the future. And computers fail, servers fail, off-line storage fails or becomes obsolete (Jaz/Zip drives, anyone?). So, Give me my paper and I'll scan it to PDF for online archival, but I'm also keeping the original. If that makes me a tree killer, fuck the goddamned trees.
Actually, capitalism, in the laissez-faire austrian school, has never been tried either. Everything we have today that approximates or is considered capitalist is actually the bastard child mixed economy with both socialist and capitalist features. I posit that either extreme is complete fantasy and the fanboys of both have elevated their respective economic hypothesis' to religion.
How much does FedEx/UPS charge you to deliver a sheet of paper? I can mail a sheet of paper for, what, 44 cents? There's the old adage of you get what you pay for. I'd also point out that the USPS delivers 600+ MILLION letters and packages EVERY SINGLE DAY. That's gonna be a fucking huge database table if you start issuing each one a tracking number.
I still pull laptops out of the garbage and find many that just need a good cleaning and a fresh OS install. I'm selling a broken laptop on CL right now for $100 (but I'll take $75) because I don't feel like paying $100 for a new LCD and taking the time to install it. I think a lot of folks here don't realize the rest of the world is not on a 6 month upgrade cycle and 5-6 year old hardware is still perfectly serviceable for the web, skype, etc. None of my current machines are newer than 2005, for example, and while I'm planning on upgrading to a new laptop, it's not because my current hardware is lacking, per se, it's because battery life and the associated tech is so much better. (thinkpad is down to about 2.5 hours of usage, my old vaio is lucky to get 45 minutes, the powerbook is at about 45 minutes, as well).
So, yeah, a 5 year old busted (say, just needs an OS install and maybe a new HD and a RAM upgrade?) Dell for $60? Doesn't sound too unreasonable.
Now, if this was a brand spanking new Macbook Air, yeah, I'd be suspicious.
Yeah, news to me, as well. I'm, *gasp*, even a subscriber. Android and iApp, browser-based interface... it has it's issues, but it's still going strong. And better than Spotify, IMO.
Where else you gonna go to get hands on on a large variety of laptops? I'd rather not go by reviews alone, sometimes you just gotta go handle the damn thing.
Not only that, but they up the price by about $80. Granted, getting the recovery disks (THAT I SHOULD ALREADY BE GETTING) almost makes this worthwhile, but I'm gonna be irritated if I have to uninstall even *more* crap.
I went to BB to look at an HP G4-1117DX and all they had were the ones with this treatment.
Passengers don't mean shit.* It's the cargo market that they're going after, ultimately, and with the downturn in the economy, shipments are down. Waaay down. You better believe that if/when the economy turns around American (?) consumers are demanding chinese widgets on the scale of the late 90s, FedEx will have a couple A380s, stat.
*Passengers are the "sexy" market. IBM made a fortune selling non-sexy Thinkpads to business-class workers. The Cargo industry employs more aircraft than any of the passenger airlines. Seriously, ever flown into MEM with FedEx's fleet in? I'm biased, because I worked for FedEx for 10 years and I still bleed a little purple and orange.
The Koreans are extremely good at building container ships these days, and are quite successful at building big ones. They are also building aircraft, satellites, and even rockets, but not on the scale of Boeing. Yet.
Just remember all you "don't worry, we still have the design and innovation here in the US!" types. That shit won't last forever, either. Samsung's design is rapidly eclipsing Sony (yes, they might be "stealing" from Apple, but Sony didn't start out a blank slate, either), Hyundai's Genesis is probably Korea's first "very nice" car... We're in the midst of possibly seeing a shift of technological/industrial lead from Japan to S. Korea, and that's something interesting to observe.
I'm sure they have a profitability chart somewhere that shows where the "break even" point is. Falls below that, and it's not worth maintaining anymore. EVE gets by comfortably on around 60k accounts, I believe, and I have no idea who's left in EQ, but they're still cranking out expansions.
I involuntarily gave it up a bit over a year ago when Blizzard finally phased out powerpc macs. My workstation still handles audio and video editing well, and browses the web like a champ, so no reason to upgrade.
I think the shaking's stopped, though.
On the flipside, I actually do more audio/video work now that I don't have WoW to distract me.
It'll be interesting to see how they can handle the Altrix. I imagine if they keep the platform, they will figure out a way to do something like android on the handset, chromebook when in the dock. With the right data plan/carrier, you've got built-in "tethering," as well. Dear Googlerola: Please don't put the fucking phone BEHIND the screen. Perhaps create a "dock" in the spot where most people put a touchpad and use the phone itself as the pointing device, or as a quicklaunch pad, etc.
I really hope this means more "vanilla", quickly upgraded Android phones. This is where most mfgs are dropping the ball and seem to be reliant on customers getting impatient and just buying a new handset.
Re:It'll never make it through FDA trials
on
Cancer Cured By HIV
·
· Score: 1
Meh. The market is fickle. What have you done for me lately? is a common mantra.
It's mostly an issue of managing expectations. He runs his label because he doesn't trust anyone else to be fair. He makes deals with his bands that he himself would expect someone to make with him. Everyone usually ends up happy, the label is still going strong after 30? years. Sure, no one is driving around in Porsches, snorting up bazillions of dollars in coke and boozing it up in million dollar mansions, but it's a decent, honest living. It can be done, but put away the notion of "rockstardom." I think a lot of label heads are just jealous/angry at these "loser artists" who get all the publicity and get to go to all the "parties", and thus try to cash in on some of that by fucking everyone else. Who knows?
Slashdot Mirror
They'll get through in no time.
That's why I put "20th Level Code Rogue/Network Warlock" on my resume.
"Take the train you unpatriotic, small-dicked paranoid liberal!"
Yeah, we all saw this coming. Papers, please.
And T-Mo just cut off tethering for their smartphones, unless you want to pay another $15/month. Seriously, getting to the point to finding $100/month a little ridiculous (and I only use around 1gb/month in data with tethering).
Maybe I should just go back to POTS. Leave me a fucking message on my answering machine.
It makes you wonder ... If insurance companies reason out "rates" that are more favorable because they can "buy in bulk,' then they need better price negotiators because this shit is so commonplace as to be borderline criminal? My cousin works for an orthopedic company fitting/delivery prosthetics. They have a special "diabetic" walking shoe that he gave me that they charge.. wait for it.. $250 for to the insurance companies. It's no more complicated than the pair of Asics I wear on a regular basis, not really that much lighter, and certainly no more fashionable than the slew of "high end" sneakers I have in my closet. Makes me wonder...
They "seem to think that" because it's in the legal code. A Faxed signature is considered valid, whereas an email is not. If you have a problem with this, please email your local congressional representative so they can print it out and throw it in the trash.
I still prefer my contracts on paper. Loan applications, credit card contracts, mortgages; I want a paper trail with a verified copy in my safe-deposit box. Why? Because I don't fucking trust the Credit Card companies to not go "mucking" with a digital copy in the future. And computers fail, servers fail, off-line storage fails or becomes obsolete (Jaz/Zip drives, anyone?). So, Give me my paper and I'll scan it to PDF for online archival, but I'm also keeping the original. If that makes me a tree killer, fuck the goddamned trees.
Actually, capitalism, in the laissez-faire austrian school, has never been tried either. Everything we have today that approximates or is considered capitalist is actually the bastard child mixed economy with both socialist and capitalist features. I posit that either extreme is complete fantasy and the fanboys of both have elevated their respective economic hypothesis' to religion.
How much does FedEx/UPS charge you to deliver a sheet of paper? I can mail a sheet of paper for, what, 44 cents? There's the old adage of you get what you pay for. I'd also point out that the USPS delivers 600+ MILLION letters and packages EVERY SINGLE DAY. That's gonna be a fucking huge database table if you start issuing each one a tracking number.
I still pull laptops out of the garbage and find many that just need a good cleaning and a fresh OS install. I'm selling a broken laptop on CL right now for $100 (but I'll take $75) because I don't feel like paying $100 for a new LCD and taking the time to install it. I think a lot of folks here don't realize the rest of the world is not on a 6 month upgrade cycle and 5-6 year old hardware is still perfectly serviceable for the web, skype, etc. None of my current machines are newer than 2005, for example, and while I'm planning on upgrading to a new laptop, it's not because my current hardware is lacking, per se, it's because battery life and the associated tech is so much better. (thinkpad is down to about 2.5 hours of usage, my old vaio is lucky to get 45 minutes, the powerbook is at about 45 minutes, as well).
So, yeah, a 5 year old busted (say, just needs an OS install and maybe a new HD and a RAM upgrade?) Dell for $60? Doesn't sound too unreasonable.
Now, if this was a brand spanking new Macbook Air, yeah, I'd be suspicious.
Yeah, news to me, as well. I'm, *gasp*, even a subscriber. Android and iApp, browser-based interface... it has it's issues, but it's still going strong. And better than Spotify, IMO.
Where else you gonna go to get hands on on a large variety of laptops? I'd rather not go by reviews alone, sometimes you just gotta go handle the damn thing.
Not only that, but they up the price by about $80. Granted, getting the recovery disks (THAT I SHOULD ALREADY BE GETTING) almost makes this worthwhile, but I'm gonna be irritated if I have to uninstall even *more* crap.
I went to BB to look at an HP G4-1117DX and all they had were the ones with this treatment.
No shit. I've got a 5 digit UID and I feel weird when I see lower UIDs these days. Damn, this is me being a n00b all over again. ;)
Good luck, Rob. My advice: Start a rock and roll band and tour the country in the back of a van at least once.
Of course, I was born/raised in Tennessee in Memphis. Perhaps you've heard of the New Madrid faultline? Wussies.
And 640kb RAM is more than anyone will ever need.
Pffffttttt.. 5.8? that's not even worth crawling out of bed for. /so-cal
Passengers don't mean shit.* It's the cargo market that they're going after, ultimately, and with the downturn in the economy, shipments are down. Waaay down. You better believe that if/when the economy turns around American (?) consumers are demanding chinese widgets on the scale of the late 90s, FedEx will have a couple A380s, stat.
*Passengers are the "sexy" market. IBM made a fortune selling non-sexy Thinkpads to business-class workers. The Cargo industry employs more aircraft than any of the passenger airlines. Seriously, ever flown into MEM with FedEx's fleet in? I'm biased, because I worked for FedEx for 10 years and I still bleed a little purple and orange.
The Koreans are extremely good at building container ships these days, and are quite successful at building big ones. They are also building aircraft, satellites, and even rockets, but not on the scale of Boeing. Yet.
Just remember all you "don't worry, we still have the design and innovation here in the US!" types. That shit won't last forever, either. Samsung's design is rapidly eclipsing Sony (yes, they might be "stealing" from Apple, but Sony didn't start out a blank slate, either), Hyundai's Genesis is probably Korea's first "very nice" car... We're in the midst of possibly seeing a shift of technological/industrial lead from Japan to S. Korea, and that's something interesting to observe.
/* It's not like games like this live forever. */
Tell that to Everquest.
I'm sure they have a profitability chart somewhere that shows where the "break even" point is. Falls below that, and it's not worth maintaining anymore. EVE gets by comfortably on around 60k accounts, I believe, and I have no idea who's left in EQ, but they're still cranking out expansions.
I involuntarily gave it up a bit over a year ago when Blizzard finally phased out powerpc macs. My workstation still handles audio and video editing well, and browses the web like a champ, so no reason to upgrade.
I think the shaking's stopped, though.
On the flipside, I actually do more audio/video work now that I don't have WoW to distract me.
It'll be interesting to see how they can handle the Altrix. I imagine if they keep the platform, they will figure out a way to do something like android on the handset, chromebook when in the dock. With the right data plan/carrier, you've got built-in "tethering," as well. Dear Googlerola: Please don't put the fucking phone BEHIND the screen. Perhaps create a "dock" in the spot where most people put a touchpad and use the phone itself as the pointing device, or as a quicklaunch pad, etc.
I really hope this means more "vanilla", quickly upgraded Android phones. This is where most mfgs are dropping the ball and seem to be reliant on customers getting impatient and just buying a new handset.
Meh. The market is fickle. What have you done for me lately? is a common mantra.
Ian over at Dischord would like a word with you..
It's mostly an issue of managing expectations. He runs his label because he doesn't trust anyone else to be fair. He makes deals with his bands that he himself would expect someone to make with him. Everyone usually ends up happy, the label is still going strong after 30? years. Sure, no one is driving around in Porsches, snorting up bazillions of dollars in coke and boozing it up in million dollar mansions, but it's a decent, honest living. It can be done, but put away the notion of "rockstardom." I think a lot of label heads are just jealous/angry at these "loser artists" who get all the publicity and get to go to all the "parties", and thus try to cash in on some of that by fucking everyone else. Who knows?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/
Cool concept, but looks like it had a lot of issues...