You don't generally realize how odd the whole situation is until you need dental surgery, and get deep into the confusion of what's covered by dental vs medical insurance.
So true. My wife is having surgery next month to remove a very belated wisdom tooth, and finding an oral surgeon that could bill it to our medical insurance was ridiculous. Ended up having to go with somewhere an hour away, even though there's a surgeon 10 minutes from our house.
The Microsoft "Engineers" on their forums have always been borderline incomprehensible and/or comparable to chatbots dispensing useless pre-baked responses. Who cares if those go away?
Yeah, perhaps I was a bit harsh, but that's basically what I was getting at.
In Blizzard's collective mind, I imagine they don't feel like they've abandoned anything, only improved. Whether it's *actually* an improvement is debatable i'm sure, but their game, their rules.
They don't offer it because basically *nobody* (i'm sure you'll find a few exceptions here to try and prove me wrong) running a game of any real size offers it. That's not how MMO's work
They're not going to run separate servers for every patch level, just to accommodate folks that forgot they signed up for a game that was going to be constantly updated.
Bingo. If there's anything missing from my current economic experience, surely it must be having to check before I buy anything to see what my currency is actually worth today.
I will gladly eat my words if/when Bitcoin ever becomes a serious competitor to current global-scale payment methods, but simply announcing a consortium that hasn't actually accomplished anything yet is waaaaaaay far off from that.
Yep. They're not viable for large-scale use, and probably never will be. Sure seems like a lot of stories here lately though, breathlessly trying to make it sound like they're a big deal.
Exactly. If someone is exploiting this in my house, then it means they already broke in and have complete physical access to my house, screwing around with the Echo and maybe making fradulent Amazon orders or whatever would be the least of my concerns.
My wife & I used the USDA loan program a couple years ago, and bought our first place with 3% down & the seller paying closing costs.
Would we have liked to have 20%? Do we understand why that would be better financially than what we did?
Yes on both counts. But, to us the trade-off was worth escaping the hideously high DC metro area living costs...and things worked out to where the mortgage is literally the same as the rent payment we had paid for 4 years after moving here - and thanks to the low down payment, we still have enough cash stashed away in an emergency fund to pay for an eventual new roof and other large expenses.
I think it's a little of both - I provide tech support to a lot of college students, I see random samples of their writing from abandoned printouts and such...and honestly i'm not sure how a lot of them make it through classes when finishing high school left them barely able to write coherent sentences, they can't handle basic "click X to do Y" computer tasks, etc.
If this is at all representative of people with high school diplomas lately, I kinda can see why employers are heading that way.
It happens - not everyone lives (or wants to live) in California/NY/LA/etc and/or can find a nice high-paying position right away.
Job before this one, I was making ~$29k in sort of a tier 1 + 2 combo help desk position - yeah, the pay sucked by most standards, but it was enough to let me make a move and get established in a nicer area with lower cost of living, so the sacrifice was worth it till I found something better a few years ago.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you think console/PC games aren't "adult enough" either?
Some people like what you don't like, man/woman - not everyone is looking for their entertainment to be SERIOUS BUSINESS/based on something super obscure/etc.
As for your faulty math - $60/month over 6 years is $4320 - but that's if you got a loan for ZERO PERCENT. Even with excellent credit you're looking at 4.5%.
Heh, the last time I had to pay that sort of rate on a car was 9 years ago, when I was not too long out of college with almost no credit history.
Traded that car in a couple of a days ago, got 1.9% with no hassle whatsoever.
Perhaps i'm missing something, but I can see people looking down at their phones every day while i'm driving, just by glancing over for a second or two while they pass by. It's not that hard.
Hey, if you have the option and market available to do that, awesome. But something like 30% of the US doesn't, last I read.
And I bet a lot of the "choice" that the other 70% has is actually between the one cable company or DSL/satellite/dialup at 1/0th the speed or worse.
I'd love to have a real choice personally - even the smallish regional cable company around here is full of profitmongering jerks. But I can't justify going from 25 meg service down to 1-3 meg DSL just to stick it to em in a tiny way.
I also see many non-Prime-eligible items cheaper than the Prime price....but surprise, the cost for (usually much slower) shipping makes up the difference, sometimes down to the penny.
No point in not buying the Prime-eligible stuff if it's the same price but faster.
Yep, so very much this - I see this sort of thing almost every time I go to the nearby Kroger also.
Sure, gotta be the self-checkout's fault that you couldn't scan something right after 4 tries, can't figure out how to use a touchscreen properly, can't read the instructions on the credit card swipe, tried to use expired coupons multiple times, etc...
My "favorite" are the ones that start yelling/cursing at the machines - if you can't use simple technology without starting an argument with an inanimate object and forcing the cashier to handhold you through every step, maybe modern society just isn't your speed.
Because...well, because it's the DC Metro and it's run by horrible people.
The only thing they seem to actually care about is how much money they can make, while pushing things to the absolute limit in terms of customer service and equipment.
I spent 6 years using the system to get back and forth from NoVA to downtown DC every day for work....and if I had to move back there now, I would be driving and paying for parking, absolutely no hesitation, even though it'd probably be at least twice the cost.
Do you feel the same way about all other aircraft, many of whom weigh much more and travel at much higher altitude, with the potential to cause a lot more damage if they fall out of the sky?
Or automobiles, with which you have to trust that a generally unknown driver has: maintained their vehicle properly, knows the traffic laws, actually decides to *follow* the traffic laws, hasn't been drinking, isn't distracted by their cellphone, has decent vision, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't generally realize how odd the whole situation is until you need dental surgery, and get deep into the confusion of what's covered by dental vs medical insurance.
So true. My wife is having surgery next month to remove a very belated wisdom tooth, and finding an oral surgeon that could bill it to our medical insurance was ridiculous. Ended up having to go with somewhere an hour away, even though there's a surgeon 10 minutes from our house.
Exactly.
The Microsoft "Engineers" on their forums have always been borderline incomprehensible and/or comparable to chatbots dispensing useless pre-baked responses. Who cares if those go away?
These days? Better get in line - there's so much stuff that deserves massive public outcry, I doubt this even makes the top 10.
Some news stories, a smattering of angry people say they'll cancel their subscriptions, life goes on and Amazon gets more money.
It sucks, but personally it's still worth it to my household, another $20/year is way below my threshold for going on the warpath.
Yeah, perhaps I was a bit harsh, but that's basically what I was getting at.
In Blizzard's collective mind, I imagine they don't feel like they've abandoned anything, only improved. Whether it's *actually* an improvement is debatable i'm sure, but their game, their rules.
They don't offer it because basically *nobody* (i'm sure you'll find a few exceptions here to try and prove me wrong) running a game of any real size offers it. That's not how MMO's work
They're not going to run separate servers for every patch level, just to accommodate folks that forgot they signed up for a game that was going to be constantly updated.
Probably not. But that still assumes there's a reason everyone would be getting their salaries in Bitcoin in the first place.
Bingo. If there's anything missing from my current economic experience, surely it must be having to check before I buy anything to see what my currency is actually worth today.
Good for them?
I will gladly eat my words if/when Bitcoin ever becomes a serious competitor to current global-scale payment methods, but simply announcing a consortium that hasn't actually accomplished anything yet is waaaaaaay far off from that.
Yep. They're not viable for large-scale use, and probably never will be. Sure seems like a lot of stories here lately though, breathlessly trying to make it sound like they're a big deal.
Exactly. If someone is exploiting this in my house, then it means they already broke in and have complete physical access to my house, screwing around with the Echo and maybe making fradulent Amazon orders or whatever would be the least of my concerns.
None, at least not in the way you're probably thinking, because Google Home & the Amazon Echo can't call 911 directly.
My wife & I used the USDA loan program a couple years ago, and bought our first place with 3% down & the seller paying closing costs.
Would we have liked to have 20%? Do we understand why that would be better financially than what we did?
Yes on both counts. But, to us the trade-off was worth escaping the hideously high DC metro area living costs...and things worked out to where the mortgage is literally the same as the rent payment we had paid for 4 years after moving here - and thanks to the low down payment, we still have enough cash stashed away in an emergency fund to pay for an eventual new roof and other large expenses.
I think it's a little of both - I provide tech support to a lot of college students, I see random samples of their writing from abandoned printouts and such...and honestly i'm not sure how a lot of them make it through classes when finishing high school left them barely able to write coherent sentences, they can't handle basic "click X to do Y" computer tasks, etc.
If this is at all representative of people with high school diplomas lately, I kinda can see why employers are heading that way.
It happens - not everyone lives (or wants to live) in California/NY/LA/etc and/or can find a nice high-paying position right away.
Job before this one, I was making ~$29k in sort of a tier 1 + 2 combo help desk position - yeah, the pay sucked by most standards, but it was enough to let me make a move and get established in a nicer area with lower cost of living, so the sacrifice was worth it till I found something better a few years ago.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you think console/PC games aren't "adult enough" either?
Some people like what you don't like, man/woman - not everyone is looking for their entertainment to be SERIOUS BUSINESS/based on something super obscure/etc.
There's really not much other way to explain it.
Yeah, this is pretty much the only reason I haven't set my house up with solar already.
Hoping that by the time we have to replace our roof, it'll be relatively cheap enough to include in the cost though.
As for your faulty math - $60/month over 6 years is $4320 - but that's if you got a loan for ZERO PERCENT. Even with excellent credit you're looking at 4.5%.
Heh, the last time I had to pay that sort of rate on a car was 9 years ago, when I was not too long out of college with almost no credit history.
Traded that car in a couple of a days ago, got 1.9% with no hassle whatsoever.
Perhaps i'm missing something, but I can see people looking down at their phones every day while i'm driving, just by glancing over for a second or two while they pass by. It's not that hard.
Hey, if you have the option and market available to do that, awesome. But something like 30% of the US doesn't, last I read.
And I bet a lot of the "choice" that the other 70% has is actually between the one cable company or DSL/satellite/dialup at 1/0th the speed or worse.
I'd love to have a real choice personally - even the smallish regional cable company around here is full of profitmongering jerks. But I can't justify going from 25 meg service down to 1-3 meg DSL just to stick it to em in a tiny way.
I also see many non-Prime-eligible items cheaper than the Prime price....but surprise, the cost for (usually much slower) shipping makes up the difference, sometimes down to the penny.
No point in not buying the Prime-eligible stuff if it's the same price but faster.
Yep, so very much this - I see this sort of thing almost every time I go to the nearby Kroger also.
Sure, gotta be the self-checkout's fault that you couldn't scan something right after 4 tries, can't figure out how to use a touchscreen properly, can't read the instructions on the credit card swipe, tried to use expired coupons multiple times, etc...
My "favorite" are the ones that start yelling/cursing at the machines - if you can't use simple technology without starting an argument with an inanimate object and forcing the cashier to handhold you through every step, maybe modern society just isn't your speed.
Because...well, because it's the DC Metro and it's run by horrible people.
The only thing they seem to actually care about is how much money they can make, while pushing things to the absolute limit in terms of customer service and equipment.
I spent 6 years using the system to get back and forth from NoVA to downtown DC every day for work....and if I had to move back there now, I would be driving and paying for parking, absolutely no hesitation, even though it'd probably be at least twice the cost.
See https://twitter.com/unsuckdcme... for many, many examples.
Rubio & Cruz's supporters don't give a damn about examples - they'll believe whatever they're fed.
Normal rationality goes out the window (even more than usual) when Republicans are involved.
So basically you're saying you would plant fake evidence along these lines while searching.
Because I sure as hell haven't done anything like that at work, and i'm willing to bet most other people haven't either.
Do you feel the same way about all other aircraft, many of whom weigh much more and travel at much higher altitude, with the potential to cause a lot more damage if they fall out of the sky?
Or automobiles, with which you have to trust that a generally unknown driver has: maintained their vehicle properly, knows the traffic laws, actually decides to *follow* the traffic laws, hasn't been drinking, isn't distracted by their cellphone, has decent vision, etc.