Why? Because they'll give me 5 brand new phones with 1 year of service, and they'll pay me for it, year after year!
This year, I ordered 5 Sony Ericsson T610's from Amazon with T-Mobile service. I paid $50 for each phone, and there was $250 in rebates available for each phone. I put them all on a family plan for $80/mo. Then I sold the phones themselves on ebay (I kept the 5 Motorola phones that I got in a similar deal last year).
The math works out like this:
+$250 (5 phones @ $50 ea.)
+$175 (5 x $35 activation fee)
+$960 (12 mo x $80/mo for a family plan w 5 phones)
+$228 (~$19 in taxes/fees per month, x 12)
-$1250 ($250 in rebates per phone, x 5)
-$500 (sell all 5 phones on ebay, make $100 on each)
--------------------
Total: get paid $137.
Plus I get another year of service for 5 phones!
Subsidized crap phones are the only reason why I can even afford a mobile phone.
So far the United States has provided $35 million in aid, a number expected to rise, President Bush said Wednesday from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Japan has contributed $30 million, Australia $27 million. Other nations that have contributed relief are the United Kingdom with $29 million, Germany with $42.7 million, Saudi Arabia with $10 million, China with $2.6 million and France with $136,000.
Damn, God forgot to put a funny bone in that one too.
Re:I find this quote more interesting
on
Linus Interviewed
·
· Score: 1
Anti-GPL arguments tend to boil down to one issue--if the code were truly "free," then you ought to be able to do anything you want with it, including slipping the original authors a deuce and taking the code and making it proprietary.
Actually, the GPL doesn't prohibit this. The original authors are free to license the code under several different licenses if they so choose. The scenario you just pointed out is not only possible, but has actually been done in the past!
What the GPL prohibits is anyone BUT the original authors from making the code proprietary.
Interesting. So in one breath, you state how I should talk to some real engineers who "know these things", because I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about. And in the next breath, you brush off credentials as being unimportant, since clearly only intelligence is required. And for the coupe-de-grace, you again bring up your well-credentialed, yet nameless, friends as being experts who couldn't possibly be wrong on the subject! Flip... Flop... Flip
John Kerry, is that you? Shouldn't you be out campaigning instead of reading Slashdot?
The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day
Yes, because having 3 simultaneously-active volcanoes sputtering out CO2 couldn't possibly have anything to do with a rise in CO2 levels. It must be those pesky humans!
You should ask some physicists, or better yet engineers, about mass and its relation to vehicle safety. Mass is the antithesis of vehicle safety.
And you should know who it is you're talking to before you start making assumptions. For the record, I'm an engineer. An engineer who used to work on designing locomotives. I've discussed it with myself, and I agree that all else being equal, mass adds to the survivability of a vehicle in an accident.
Now, perhaps you would care to present your credentials?
A rudimentary knowledge of physics is no compensation for ignorance of traffic engineering and safety.
I know the argument about better performing cars being safer because they can better avoid an accident. Unfortunately, performance isn't going to matter one bit when it really counts. Take a look at this accident video. If you replace that pickup truck with a Ferrari, it's not going to help you avoid that accident. And those are the types of accidents that kill. Those are the types of accidents when you are going to be thankful that you're surrounded by lots of mass & crumple zones, because performance isn't going to help you one bit.
Bear in mind that "crumple zones" are an industry invention that makes a fender bender a multi-thousand dollar affair...
Feeling rather cynical, are we?
Crumple zones are a safety feature - nothing more. The mere fact that you don't recognize them as such tells me that you are trying to push an agenda.
This has got to be the biggest bunch of B.S. I've ever read. And the moderators who modded the parent post up should be ashamed of themselves for their complete and total lack of understanding of simple physics.
Lighter = safer
Everything else aside, this vehicle is safer because it's lighter...
Everything else aside, the vehicle is LESS SAFE to the occupants because it's lighter. I suppose that makes it more safe to the people in the other vehicle. When two masses hit, the lighter mass undergoes a greater change in velocity. This will be "felt" by the occupants, which means they're going to be injured easier.
Solid cage = safer
Second, this little critter has a solid cage that can withstand the problem I just mentioned - its own mass. Most vehicles will crumple under their own mass at moderate speeds...
All cars have solid cages to protect the passengers. The difference is that the Smart has very little of the car that is not within this cage. Other cars are meant to crumple in an accident. Crumpling reduces the speed at which the rest of the car slows to a stop during a crash. This is so that the occupants of the car do not feel the full "smack" of going from 60mph to 0mph in a hundredth of a second. Decelerating that quickly will severely injure a person. Airbags can help, but regular cars have those as well. Advantage larger car.
The end of both Germany and Japan came through complete and total defeat of not just their militaries, but of their people. When it was all said and done, the war had been so bloody and so horrific, normally very spirited people no longer had the will to fight.
The issues following the war with Iraq are actually eerily similar to those following the end of the European war & the occupation of Germany. Take a look at these newspaper clippings from the New York Times. Every single one of these articles can (and has) been written about Iraq today (with appropriate changes of names & people). German "Werewolf" packs were basically terrorists who fought against occupying Allied & Soviet armies, and continued for several years after the end of the war. They weren't nearly as effective back then, because American retaliation consisted of levelling an entire block of a city to destroy them, civilian casualties be damned. Today, we worry about destroying a single mosque where all the resistance is holed up, because the rest of the population would take offense at us having destroyed the mosque.
There are always going to be people who question the reasons for a war, and how it was fought. It's no different now than it was then.
Slashdot Mirror
This year, I ordered 5 Sony Ericsson T610's from Amazon with T-Mobile service. I paid $50 for each phone, and there was $250 in rebates available for each phone. I put them all on a family plan for $80/mo. Then I sold the phones themselves on ebay (I kept the 5 Motorola phones that I got in a similar deal last year).
The math works out like this:
+$250 (5 phones @ $50 ea.)
+$175 (5 x $35 activation fee)
+$960 (12 mo x $80/mo for a family plan w 5 phones)
+$228 (~$19 in taxes/fees per month, x 12)
-$1250 ($250 in rebates per phone, x 5)
-$500 (sell all 5 phones on ebay, make $100 on each)
--------------------
Total: get paid $137.
Plus I get another year of service for 5 phones! Subsidized crap phones are the only reason why I can even afford a mobile phone.
I glanced at the title quickly, saw "Venezuela Moves Further...", and immediately thought that Venezuela was somehow affected by that earthquake.
Slashdot Effect. Need I say more?
Damn, God forgot to put a funny bone in that one too.
What the GPL prohibits is anyone BUT the original authors from making the code proprietary.
John Kerry, is that you? Shouldn't you be out campaigning instead of reading Slashdot?
Everybody, stop exhaling immediately!
Now, perhaps you would care to present your credentials?
Crumple zones are a safety feature - nothing more. The mere fact that you don't recognize them as such tells me that you are trying to push an agenda.
Upgrading? That's what I call it when I sell my old machine and buy a new one. ;-)
Second, it's much cheaper. Dell makes price mistakes, and they also have huge sales at the end of their fiscal quarter. Makes for some great bargains!
Got Milk?
link
There are always going to be people who question the reasons for a war, and how it was fought. It's no different now than it was then.
More details available here
The sad part is, I wasn't even trolling this time.
The Pop-iPod!
Er... Popeye-pod!
It supports tables! :-)
But hey, it's a free country. Enjoy your new ID! :-)
Wait a minute - no, I never use my slashdot UID number for anything... except to make fun of people with 6-digit UID numbers.
Hey, I have a "2" from the local deli. I'll sell it to you for only $10! :-)