Marketing, and it's been amazingly successful at that.
There are all sorts of suckers who will line up for a hydrogen car, but nobody wants a natural gas one.
Hydrogen is a HORRIBLE idea for vehicle use for dozens of different reasons, but marketing has successfully convinced the politicians, much of the general population, and apparently some slashdotters, that it's a good plan.
The bigger issue is that "bar" is not a unit of measurement for radio signals! I could make that bar display show anything for any level of signal and it would be just as accurate. Some phones have 3 bars total, others have 5, each bar can mean any number of things.
The problem isn't that "no one is doing the research", usually there is a TON of research, the problem is that people are so set in their ways that they DON'T CARE what the research says because they've already made up their mind.
The real timeline has been: 2009 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite some research to the contrary) 2017 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite a fair amount of research to the contrary) 2025 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite massive amounts of research to the contrary)
There's a ton of research on this subject, it pretty much all agrees that there's no cancer risk here. but every so often someone publishes bad science that can't be reproduced, that shows otherwise, and a few people cling to that bad science with "see! I told you so!"
I visit the grocery store 1-2 times a month, that saves me a ton of time vs visiting a restaurant 3 times a day. So I save time, AND money.
3 times a week at a restaurant saves you ZERO time on grocery shopping as you're obviously shopping for the other 18 meals a week (plus other necessities for the home such as toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc etc) So changing your quantities enough to cover the other 3 meals makes no difference in time.
As for what your time is worth. Your time is worth only what others are willing to pay for it, and after work hours, that's usually zero.
As for making coffee, making it at home takes under a minute of active time (the time spend brewing is time you're doing something else usually) However "picking it up on your way to work" takes a bare minimum of 5 minutes, likely closer to 10-15. Remember to count right from the time you deviate from your normal driving, until you're back driving the most direct route and at full speed.
He's a little too no-frills for my liking generally, but the overall sentiment is correct.
I thought about it, and I could probably have retired years ago, but I decided that wasn't the lifestyle I would want. It's all about balance, and that is a different place for everyone. And waste is also in the eyes of the beholder.
There's nothing wrong with indulging yourself. You just have to realize that when you spend money on one thing, it means you won't be able to spend it on something else, and that includes all the small things that add up to big things. I decided I'd rather work a few more years, but drive a nice car, live in a nice house, and take some nice vacations. Fully realizing that I could have chosen to retire earlier, but not have the car, house, or vacations. I also chose to work a bit longer to know that in retirement I'll also be able to stay in my nice house, buy other nice cars, and take other nice vacations. I could also probably save more money by moving to another city with lower housing costs, but my family and friends are here and I'd rather stay here.
It's all about balancing your priorities.
The issue most people have is that they don't do the exercise of balancing those priorities, and often ignore small purchases thinking they don't matter, when in fact we know that those small purchases add up to real money over time, and over number of little indulgences. If you're thinking about it, and decide that really is your priority, than who am I to say otherwise? But if you haven't thought about it, then I feel quite justified in saying that you're making foolish decisions.
The only "evening prep" is that I shower at night instead of in the morning (I sleep so much better when I'm clean!), so if you shower in the morning you'll probably have to add about 10 minutes or so. Sometimes I lay out clothes the night before, but that's somewhat hit-or-miss.
But basically: - Alarm goes off, simultaneously the light on a timer comes on in my daughter's room. - Go to the washroom - Come out of the washroom to see a smiling 2 year old staring up at me at the door (priceless!) - Help my daughter use the potty (She can almost do this herself now, but not quite) - Tell my daughter to pick out her clothes, and get myself dressed while she's doing so. - Correct my daughter's clothing choices, argue which one of us is right, usually give up and let her wear what she wanted the first time, help her get dressed. - Eat breakfast while making lunch to take to work - While my daughter continues to eat her breakfast I go back upstairs and shave and brush my hair (she's a lot slower to eat breakfast than I am) - Convince my daughter that it's not time to play with her toys in the basement, and that we need to leave (usually get out of this without a temper-tantrum) - Get my coat and boots on while she picks her coat and boots (tell her that it's too cold out for the one she invariably picks) - Argue about which one of us will put her jacket on her, watch her being unable to do so, finally be allowed to help. - Walk out the door, try to convince her to walk to the car, give up and pick her up and carry her.
Now my meals tend to be fairly simple, I usually just go with cereal or eggs and toast, leaving fancier breakfasts for the weekend, Lunch likewise tends to be some form of sandwich, usually meat, cheese, lettuce, onions, mayo (though occasionally I'll bring leftovers from a previous supper).
The Democratic Party could be talking about the profound injustices of the Republican tax bill, or Trump's incompetent response to the North Korean missile launches. But instead they are focusing on federal regulatory policies for the sale of tiny toy monkeys.
And this is why neither party has any right to govern... They are both horribly incompetent and focusing on all the wrong things.
But are you "out and about", or are you simply moving from home (where coffee is cheap) to work (where coffee may also be cheap, or even free) but stopping in between to get coffee? If it's the latter, then maybe you DO have another option.
That's true. But the same goes both ways. Don't complain back to me that you don't have money just because you're spending it on frivolous things.
I far too often hear people saying that they're poor and can barely afford rent and are in debt up to their eyeballs, and that somebody needs to DO SOMETHING about it to help them. But then you find out that those same people are often buying $2.50 coffees, and eating lunch out every day. Don't complain to me about your life choices.
This is the issue with the economy. It relies on people being bad with money. The economy would do horribly if the majority of people did what's best for themselves.
That said, people ARE poor because they spend little bits of money here and there. Budgeting IS a real issue with a huge percentage of people. Now I'm not saying that budgeting alone will make a poor person rich, but it will make almost anyone richer than they otherwise would be, and by a surprisingly large amount.
Kevin O'Leary isn't saying that if you stop buying coffee each day you'll end up like him. You won't. But if you have that mindset you'll probably find that instead of living paycheque to paycheque you're suddenly quite comfortable on the same income.
I have friends who earn twice as much as I do, but are penniless and have no more to show for it, they're no happier than I am for all their little spending on small items, but they are jealous of the larger purchases I've been able to make by saving up.
It's about priorities. "you can't take it with you when you die" remains true to this day.
The question is, does that coffee, or that beer, or whatever it is, really add happiness to your life? If you're doing it every single day, there's a good chance it doesn't (especially the coffee as it doesn't tend to be much of a social occasion, the beer at the pub might be with your friends and you tend to stay around longer to enjoy that time). That same money can however be saved up to be worth a lot more on something that may really contribute to your overall happiness. For the OP here the priority was a vacation. Others may prefer to spend it on a car, or on a home theatre system, or whatever. The point is in prioritizing your spending so that you get the most happiness out of the money that you have.
People all too often dismiss small purchases as not having much effect on their overall finances, but nothing can be further from the truth. Every dollar adds up, and a mindset that ignores small purchases tends to ignore more than just a single cup of coffee, and it quickly makes the difference between constant financial stress, and being comfortable with what you have.
It's not about never buying anything you don't need. It's about prioritizing those things. Buy the things that actually make you happy, but for most people the routine things like the cup of coffee don't actually make them much happier, but the same amount of money, if saved up for even just a little while would.
Which would make you happier, buying a cup of coffee out every day (instead of making it at home) vs a meal in a nice restaurant every 2 weeks? or save up even longer and buy yourself a computer in a year, or an overseas vacation in a decade, or a nice car in retirement. It's all the same amount of money.
The thing with these daily purchases is that they very quickly become routines that don't really make you happy anyway because it's just the thing you do every day. A treat you give yourself on occasion is always far more meaningful than a daily routine, and by saving up the small bits can really add up to big things.
Now saving $250 a day won't get you to $300 million, but the mindset of prioritizing all your purchases, including the small ones, will definitely take you from living paycheque-to-paycheque to living comfortably on the same income.
Which just shows you've missed the point entirely. It's actually not about the coffee, it's about priorities. People who say "it's only $2.50" or even who add it up for a year and say "it's only $850", are likely doing the exact same thing with more small purchases as well, how many "only $2.50" items before you get to actual numbers that you do care about?
The Coffee is just an indicator of a mind-set. Every dollar you don't spend helps you. They all add up.
I'm not saying don't spend money on things that make you happy, just think about it first. Which will make you happier, $2.50 every day on a cup of coffee? or $850 once a year on a slightly bigger purchase? or $10,000 once a decade on an even bigger purchase? or $50,000 extra in retirement? Multiply this times all the little "treats" you give yourself and you can likely find some much bigger numbers than just the coffee too.
I never drank coffee, but I did used to buy lunch out every work day. I realized I could save over $200 a month by packing a lunch from home. I still eat out on occasion, but it's not the routine any more. I'm no less happy during the work day as eating out wasn't a special treat, but just a routine occurence, but I can use that $200 on all sorts of other things that I know will actually contribute to my happiness. And that mindset flows through everything I spend money on. Thinking that way has allowed me to pay off my mortgage when I was 30, take several nice vacations overseas, buy a fancy car, and still be well set up for my future retirement, all on an income half of what some of my friends make who are still living paycheque to paycheque with no more to show for it. Now when I do eat out it's not just a daily occurrence any more, and that makes it a bit more special, so it does actually contribute to my happiness.
Yes, and no. For you or me, that's correct, however Kevin O'Leary is self-employed, he works whatever hours he feels like. If he could be doing something more productive than making coffee, then he is definitely making exactly that choice.
And it's not just wealthy people like Kevin O'Leary that that applies too, it applies to pretty much anyone who is self employed. They make the choices as to what hours they work, and that directly affects the amount of money they make.
The lesson here though overall isn't about the time (that's just really to counter the people who pretend that driving and waiting in line is more convenient than making coffee at home, an incredibly easy process). The real lesson here isn't even about the coffee. Kevin's lesson here is about priorities, and it's a good one (don't get me wrong, Kevin's a big jerk, and I disagree with many things he says, but in this particular case he's right).
Many people dismiss small purchases as not impacting their financial well being, but everything adds up. Sure a cup of coffee is unlikely to bankrupt you, nor will getting one on your work every day. But it's the attitude that goes along with that, an attitude that doesn't pay too much attention to the little purchases, and often doesn't understand where all the money goes. The coffee also often ends up being a pastry too, and that same person is more likely to eat out for lunch every day instead of packing a lunch at home. They may be more likely to order take-out for dinner too. All of these things add up to hundreds of dollars a month.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying not to get a coffee, or not to eat out, I'm just saying prioritize. Eating out on occasion is a nice treat, doing it as a routine gets boring pretty quickly and often doesn't give you that same amount of satisfaction, and then you look at the money you can save every month and think about what you could do with that.
I have friends who earn twice as much money as I do, but who think I'm rich and that they're poor. It's just about what they do with their money vs what I do with mine.
If it only saves you $4, then it's either an incredibly cheap breakfast, or you way over-estimate the cost it would take to make your own.
As for saving 20 minutes, I'd question that too, because from the time my alarm clock goes off, until I walk out the door is only 30 minutes total, and that includes eating breakfast, and getting a 2 year old ready, fed, and out the door too.
I'm pretty certain you're also underestimating the time it takes to order, get your breakfast, and eat it at the drive-through.
First a bit of pedantry. Connectors are assemblies typically consisting of a housing, some sort of contact and sometimes some locks or seals. Gold plating goes on the contact portion of the assembly, typically a terminal or insulation displacement contact. So saying "gold plated connector" is a bit of a non-sequitur although I understand what you mean.
So you understood what he meant, I understood what he meant, everyone understood what he meant, he used common language terms that everyone uses, and yet you criticized him for it? This is what makes dealing with some specialists (like yourself) so much harder than it has any need to be. If a reasonable person can understand what the average person needs, then you should be able to just interpret it and not need the dick waving contest of trying to prove that you know more than he does.
When you are talking about gold plating a contact the price difference between a gold plated version and a tin or bronze or copper version typically is close to an order of magnitude. If I use a contact that would cost $0.01 in a tin version, the gold plate version will typically cost $0.07-0.10 each. Basically move the decimal point. Now this might be a relatively small cost in the overall cost of the cable assembly but it definitely isn't cheap on a component cost basis.
As the average person buys the entire assembly, and not just a contact, the relevant comparison is the price of the entire assembly, not the price of the component. So "isn't all that expensive" is completely accurate.
99.99% of the time that gold plated contacts are specified they are a complete waste of money that provides zero marginal utility to the customer. There are applications where gold is the proper material but these applications are uncommon. The vast majority of the time gold is used it is purely for marketing value to unaware consumers. It works fine but its an unnecessary extra cost most of the time.
This is the one place you're completely correct. Gold plating is a waste of time in the vast majority of scenarios. But marketers run the world, so you rarely get the best item for the job, instead you get the item that marketing has decided you will want, your own requirements or opinions are irrelevant.
You wouldn’t, but that’s sorta like asking why we bother adding lanes to highways when they already have enough lanes to cover today’s needs. We add them because we need to be ready to handle tomorrow’s needs.
What strange place is this that you live in?
Where I live the roads are slowly being upgraded to handle the traffic from 20 years ago, instead of the traffic from 50 years ago. Nobody is talking about upgrading them to accommodate CURRENT traffic, let alone FUTURE traffic! (and if you find a place that is capable of handling current traffic, you can guarantee that they will implement "traffic calming" measures and either reduce the number of lanes of traffic, reduce the speed of traffic, or implement additional curves, no turn signs, etc.
Then make it an increasing timer with each attempt, rather than a wipe after X attempts. It will quickly result in the same thing for a stolen phone, but will give you a chance to save your phone before your 2 year old wipes all your data.
Real computer, as in one that doesn't require Silverlight. The reason you've had no problem lately is that lately they switched to no longer requiring Silverlight.
And now that the website works without Silverlight, there's no longer any reason to use Edge, so there's no longer any reason to have Wine on my system.
The problem is that this still involves agreeing to a Microsoft EULA and all its overreach. The point isn't "how can I run Windows?" It's "how can I avoid running Windows?"
And the only reason you had any need for IQ edge was because their online platform ran Silverlight for who knows what reason. Silverlight?!?! There's no getting THAT to work on Linux!
Luckily the online platform now works on real computers and I haven't used IQ edge since.
I also wouldn't call IQ edge a full "success". About every 3rd time you open the app it will fail to run because you need to update it first (I've never seen any app that needed so frequent updates, especially with no noticable changes ever) , and while on Windows you can basically click the update button on the popup, wait a minute, and be running the new version, on Linux under wine you have to manually go to their website, find and download the update manually, unzip it, manually copy the files in to the correct locations, and then relaunch the app.
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What possible advantage does hydrogen offer?
Marketing, and it's been amazingly successful at that.
There are all sorts of suckers who will line up for a hydrogen car, but nobody wants a natural gas one.
Hydrogen is a HORRIBLE idea for vehicle use for dozens of different reasons, but marketing has successfully convinced the politicians, much of the general population, and apparently some slashdotters, that it's a good plan.
The bigger issue is that "bar" is not a unit of measurement for radio signals! I could make that bar display show anything for any level of signal and it would be just as accurate. Some phones have 3 bars total, others have 5, each bar can mean any number of things.
The problem isn't that "no one is doing the research", usually there is a TON of research, the problem is that people are so set in their ways that they DON'T CARE what the research says because they've already made up their mind.
The real timeline has been:
2009 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite some research to the contrary)
2017 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite a fair amount of research to the contrary)
2025 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite massive amounts of research to the contrary)
There's a ton of research on this subject, it pretty much all agrees that there's no cancer risk here. but every so often someone publishes bad science that can't be reproduced, that shows otherwise, and a few people cling to that bad science with "see! I told you so!"
Shower at night, why would you want to sleep covered in the day's grime?
If it takes you more than 5 minutes to get dressed, you're doing something wrong!
I visit the grocery store 1-2 times a month, that saves me a ton of time vs visiting a restaurant 3 times a day. So I save time, AND money.
3 times a week at a restaurant saves you ZERO time on grocery shopping as you're obviously shopping for the other 18 meals a week (plus other necessities for the home such as toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc etc) So changing your quantities enough to cover the other 3 meals makes no difference in time.
As for what your time is worth. Your time is worth only what others are willing to pay for it, and after work hours, that's usually zero.
As for making coffee, making it at home takes under a minute of active time (the time spend brewing is time you're doing something else usually) However "picking it up on your way to work" takes a bare minimum of 5 minutes, likely closer to 10-15. Remember to count right from the time you deviate from your normal driving, until you're back driving the most direct route and at full speed.
He's a little too no-frills for my liking generally, but the overall sentiment is correct.
I thought about it, and I could probably have retired years ago, but I decided that wasn't the lifestyle I would want. It's all about balance, and that is a different place for everyone. And waste is also in the eyes of the beholder.
There's nothing wrong with indulging yourself. You just have to realize that when you spend money on one thing, it means you won't be able to spend it on something else, and that includes all the small things that add up to big things. I decided I'd rather work a few more years, but drive a nice car, live in a nice house, and take some nice vacations. Fully realizing that I could have chosen to retire earlier, but not have the car, house, or vacations. I also chose to work a bit longer to know that in retirement I'll also be able to stay in my nice house, buy other nice cars, and take other nice vacations. I could also probably save more money by moving to another city with lower housing costs, but my family and friends are here and I'd rather stay here.
It's all about balancing your priorities.
The issue most people have is that they don't do the exercise of balancing those priorities, and often ignore small purchases thinking they don't matter, when in fact we know that those small purchases add up to real money over time, and over number of little indulgences. If you're thinking about it, and decide that really is your priority, than who am I to say otherwise? But if you haven't thought about it, then I feel quite justified in saying that you're making foolish decisions.
The only "evening prep" is that I shower at night instead of in the morning (I sleep so much better when I'm clean!), so if you shower in the morning you'll probably have to add about 10 minutes or so. Sometimes I lay out clothes the night before, but that's somewhat hit-or-miss.
But basically:
- Alarm goes off, simultaneously the light on a timer comes on in my daughter's room.
- Go to the washroom
- Come out of the washroom to see a smiling 2 year old staring up at me at the door (priceless!)
- Help my daughter use the potty (She can almost do this herself now, but not quite)
- Tell my daughter to pick out her clothes, and get myself dressed while she's doing so.
- Correct my daughter's clothing choices, argue which one of us is right, usually give up and let her wear what she wanted the first time, help her get dressed.
- Eat breakfast while making lunch to take to work
- While my daughter continues to eat her breakfast I go back upstairs and shave and brush my hair (she's a lot slower to eat breakfast than I am)
- Convince my daughter that it's not time to play with her toys in the basement, and that we need to leave (usually get out of this without a temper-tantrum)
- Get my coat and boots on while she picks her coat and boots (tell her that it's too cold out for the one she invariably picks)
- Argue about which one of us will put her jacket on her, watch her being unable to do so, finally be allowed to help.
- Walk out the door, try to convince her to walk to the car, give up and pick her up and carry her.
Now my meals tend to be fairly simple, I usually just go with cereal or eggs and toast, leaving fancier breakfasts for the weekend, Lunch likewise tends to be some form of sandwich, usually meat, cheese, lettuce, onions, mayo (though occasionally I'll bring leftovers from a previous supper).
The Democratic Party could be talking about the profound injustices of the Republican tax bill, or Trump's incompetent response to the North Korean missile launches. But instead they are focusing on federal regulatory policies for the sale of tiny toy monkeys.
And this is why neither party has any right to govern... They are both horribly incompetent and focusing on all the wrong things.
But are you "out and about", or are you simply moving from home (where coffee is cheap) to work (where coffee may also be cheap, or even free) but stopping in between to get coffee? If it's the latter, then maybe you DO have another option.
That's true. But the same goes both ways. Don't complain back to me that you don't have money just because you're spending it on frivolous things.
I far too often hear people saying that they're poor and can barely afford rent and are in debt up to their eyeballs, and that somebody needs to DO SOMETHING about it to help them. But then you find out that those same people are often buying $2.50 coffees, and eating lunch out every day. Don't complain to me about your life choices.
This is the issue with the economy. It relies on people being bad with money. The economy would do horribly if the majority of people did what's best for themselves.
That said, people ARE poor because they spend little bits of money here and there. Budgeting IS a real issue with a huge percentage of people. Now I'm not saying that budgeting alone will make a poor person rich, but it will make almost anyone richer than they otherwise would be, and by a surprisingly large amount.
Kevin O'Leary isn't saying that if you stop buying coffee each day you'll end up like him. You won't. But if you have that mindset you'll probably find that instead of living paycheque to paycheque you're suddenly quite comfortable on the same income.
I have friends who earn twice as much as I do, but are penniless and have no more to show for it, they're no happier than I am for all their little spending on small items, but they are jealous of the larger purchases I've been able to make by saving up.
It's about priorities. "you can't take it with you when you die" remains true to this day.
The question is, does that coffee, or that beer, or whatever it is, really add happiness to your life? If you're doing it every single day, there's a good chance it doesn't (especially the coffee as it doesn't tend to be much of a social occasion, the beer at the pub might be with your friends and you tend to stay around longer to enjoy that time).
That same money can however be saved up to be worth a lot more on something that may really contribute to your overall happiness. For the OP here the priority was a vacation. Others may prefer to spend it on a car, or on a home theatre system, or whatever. The point is in prioritizing your spending so that you get the most happiness out of the money that you have.
People all too often dismiss small purchases as not having much effect on their overall finances, but nothing can be further from the truth. Every dollar adds up, and a mindset that ignores small purchases tends to ignore more than just a single cup of coffee, and it quickly makes the difference between constant financial stress, and being comfortable with what you have.
It's not about never buying anything you don't need. It's about prioritizing those things. Buy the things that actually make you happy, but for most people the routine things like the cup of coffee don't actually make them much happier, but the same amount of money, if saved up for even just a little while would.
Which would make you happier, buying a cup of coffee out every day (instead of making it at home) vs a meal in a nice restaurant every 2 weeks? or save up even longer and buy yourself a computer in a year, or an overseas vacation in a decade, or a nice car in retirement. It's all the same amount of money.
The thing with these daily purchases is that they very quickly become routines that don't really make you happy anyway because it's just the thing you do every day. A treat you give yourself on occasion is always far more meaningful than a daily routine, and by saving up the small bits can really add up to big things.
Now saving $250 a day won't get you to $300 million, but the mindset of prioritizing all your purchases, including the small ones, will definitely take you from living paycheque-to-paycheque to living comfortably on the same income.
Which just shows you've missed the point entirely. It's actually not about the coffee, it's about priorities. People who say "it's only $2.50" or even who add it up for a year and say "it's only $850", are likely doing the exact same thing with more small purchases as well, how many "only $2.50" items before you get to actual numbers that you do care about?
The Coffee is just an indicator of a mind-set. Every dollar you don't spend helps you. They all add up.
I'm not saying don't spend money on things that make you happy, just think about it first. Which will make you happier, $2.50 every day on a cup of coffee? or $850 once a year on a slightly bigger purchase? or $10,000 once a decade on an even bigger purchase? or $50,000 extra in retirement? Multiply this times all the little "treats" you give yourself and you can likely find some much bigger numbers than just the coffee too.
I never drank coffee, but I did used to buy lunch out every work day. I realized I could save over $200 a month by packing a lunch from home. I still eat out on occasion, but it's not the routine any more. I'm no less happy during the work day as eating out wasn't a special treat, but just a routine occurence, but I can use that $200 on all sorts of other things that I know will actually contribute to my happiness. And that mindset flows through everything I spend money on. Thinking that way has allowed me to pay off my mortgage when I was 30, take several nice vacations overseas, buy a fancy car, and still be well set up for my future retirement, all on an income half of what some of my friends make who are still living paycheque to paycheque with no more to show for it. Now when I do eat out it's not just a daily occurrence any more, and that makes it a bit more special, so it does actually contribute to my happiness.
Yes, and no. For you or me, that's correct, however Kevin O'Leary is self-employed, he works whatever hours he feels like. If he could be doing something more productive than making coffee, then he is definitely making exactly that choice.
And it's not just wealthy people like Kevin O'Leary that that applies too, it applies to pretty much anyone who is self employed. They make the choices as to what hours they work, and that directly affects the amount of money they make.
The lesson here though overall isn't about the time (that's just really to counter the people who pretend that driving and waiting in line is more convenient than making coffee at home, an incredibly easy process). The real lesson here isn't even about the coffee. Kevin's lesson here is about priorities, and it's a good one (don't get me wrong, Kevin's a big jerk, and I disagree with many things he says, but in this particular case he's right).
Many people dismiss small purchases as not impacting their financial well being, but everything adds up. Sure a cup of coffee is unlikely to bankrupt you, nor will getting one on your work every day. But it's the attitude that goes along with that, an attitude that doesn't pay too much attention to the little purchases, and often doesn't understand where all the money goes. The coffee also often ends up being a pastry too, and that same person is more likely to eat out for lunch every day instead of packing a lunch at home. They may be more likely to order take-out for dinner too. All of these things add up to hundreds of dollars a month.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying not to get a coffee, or not to eat out, I'm just saying prioritize. Eating out on occasion is a nice treat, doing it as a routine gets boring pretty quickly and often doesn't give you that same amount of satisfaction, and then you look at the money you can save every month and think about what you could do with that.
I have friends who earn twice as much money as I do, but who think I'm rich and that they're poor. It's just about what they do with their money vs what I do with mine.
If it only saves you $4, then it's either an incredibly cheap breakfast, or you way over-estimate the cost it would take to make your own.
As for saving 20 minutes, I'd question that too, because from the time my alarm clock goes off, until I walk out the door is only 30 minutes total, and that includes eating breakfast, and getting a 2 year old ready, fed, and out the door too.
I'm pretty certain you're also underestimating the time it takes to order, get your breakfast, and eat it at the drive-through.
I just looked on amazon, you can get a coffee grinder as cheap as $6 and a coffee press as cheap as $5. This is hardly a major capital investment.
If you like syrups and creams, those are pretty cheap too.
First a bit of pedantry. Connectors are assemblies typically consisting of a housing, some sort of contact and sometimes some locks or seals. Gold plating goes on the contact portion of the assembly, typically a terminal or insulation displacement contact. So saying "gold plated connector" is a bit of a non-sequitur although I understand what you mean.
So you understood what he meant, I understood what he meant, everyone understood what he meant, he used common language terms that everyone uses, and yet you criticized him for it? This is what makes dealing with some specialists (like yourself) so much harder than it has any need to be. If a reasonable person can understand what the average person needs, then you should be able to just interpret it and not need the dick waving contest of trying to prove that you know more than he does.
When you are talking about gold plating a contact the price difference between a gold plated version and a tin or bronze or copper version typically is close to an order of magnitude. If I use a contact that would cost $0.01 in a tin version, the gold plate version will typically cost $0.07-0.10 each. Basically move the decimal point. Now this might be a relatively small cost in the overall cost of the cable assembly but it definitely isn't cheap on a component cost basis.
As the average person buys the entire assembly, and not just a contact, the relevant comparison is the price of the entire assembly, not the price of the component. So "isn't all that expensive" is completely accurate.
99.99% of the time that gold plated contacts are specified they are a complete waste of money that provides zero marginal utility to the customer. There are applications where gold is the proper material but these applications are uncommon. The vast majority of the time gold is used it is purely for marketing value to unaware consumers. It works fine but its an unnecessary extra cost most of the time.
This is the one place you're completely correct. Gold plating is a waste of time in the vast majority of scenarios. But marketers run the world, so you rarely get the best item for the job, instead you get the item that marketing has decided you will want, your own requirements or opinions are irrelevant.
You wouldn’t, but that’s sorta like asking why we bother adding lanes to highways when they already have enough lanes to cover today’s needs. We add them because we need to be ready to handle tomorrow’s needs.
What strange place is this that you live in?
Where I live the roads are slowly being upgraded to handle the traffic from 20 years ago, instead of the traffic from 50 years ago. Nobody is talking about upgrading them to accommodate CURRENT traffic, let alone FUTURE traffic! (and if you find a place that is capable of handling current traffic, you can guarantee that they will implement "traffic calming" measures and either reduce the number of lanes of traffic, reduce the speed of traffic, or implement additional curves, no turn signs, etc.
Then make it an increasing timer with each attempt, rather than a wipe after X attempts.
It will quickly result in the same thing for a stolen phone, but will give you a chance to save your phone before your 2 year old wipes all your data.
Real computer, as in one that doesn't require Silverlight.
The reason you've had no problem lately is that lately they switched to no longer requiring Silverlight.
And now that the website works without Silverlight, there's no longer any reason to use Edge, so there's no longer any reason to have Wine on my system.
The problem is that this still involves agreeing to a Microsoft EULA and all its overreach.
The point isn't "how can I run Windows?" It's "how can I avoid running Windows?"
And the only reason you had any need for IQ edge was because their online platform ran Silverlight for who knows what reason. Silverlight?!?! There's no getting THAT to work on Linux!
Luckily the online platform now works on real computers and I haven't used IQ edge since.
I also wouldn't call IQ edge a full "success". About every 3rd time you open the app it will fail to run because you need to update it first (I've never seen any app that needed so frequent updates, especially with no noticable changes ever) , and while on Windows you can basically click the update button on the popup, wait a minute, and be running the new version, on Linux under wine you have to manually go to their website, find and download the update manually, unzip it, manually copy the files in to the correct locations, and then relaunch the app.