Maybe they're plebes, in which case they're damned lucky they got to have a computer in their rooms at all. They're not even allowed to have a television or a radio, and any found by upper classmen will be confiscated.
"Your Internet telephone conversations may soon be tapped by the government."
Note the lack of the phrase "without a warrant" in this sentence. The RFC talks about "lawful intercept," which means they'd need a warrant before they're allowed to do it legally.
You don't say "without a warrant." The RFC doesn't say "without a warrant." You think maybe we can save our kneejerk reactions for somethingmoreworthy?
They "survive" because in many ways Pudding Workshop operates with a Microsoft philosophy. Every year or so they release a whole new rule system totally incompatible with the previous version, requiring players to buy both new rulesets and new minis to go along with it, each of which include a hefty price tag.
And they get away with it mostly for the same reasons Microsoft does. Whenever you think of minis, you think WH40K and that's about it. You don't see much competition against them partly because of Pudding Workshop's business tactics of telling stores "Don't sell competing products or we'll open our own store right next to yours. Oh, and you can't play any WH40K games in your store unless all the players have nothing but the latest line of WH40K minis and rules."
You don't see legal action taken because, come on, who are you going to find that both cares and has the money to hire lawyers about it?
"1) Some catalogs weigh MUCH more than 4 ounces, such as Ikea"
That's what "Bound Printed Matter" is for. Again, one of the links I provided in the original post.
"I'm sure they do crazy things like sending double copies to people if it puts them over the line."
Specifically disallowed by postal regulations.
"But the idea that, on average, sending an additional piece of mail saves them money makes no sense."
How do you get "on average" from "may actually be?"
"But it's a good straw man argument, so you might as well stick with it."
Says the guy responding to his only "defensable" (ignoring your hypocrisy) position out of a half-dozen or so. Way to sieze the moral high ground there.
"Go to a store and find the cheapest catalog-sized book. Bet it costs about $6, figure $3 cost to the retailer, so the actual printing process is probably on the order of a dollar or two."
But a "catalog-sized book" is not a catalog, it is a book. A catalog uses thinner, cheaper paper (note that a "catalog-sized book" doesn't have as many pages as a catalog), cheaper inks, and a cheaper binding method than even your average paperback. Everything is done on the cheap because they print so many of them and because there's no reason to build them to last more than a few months tops.
"As far as the cost of sending it, it is NOT cheaper to send a catalog than it is to send a letter."
You know, I provided links in the original post to the pricing schemes of Standard Mail, Periodical Mail and Bound Printed Matter. Was clicking on them too difficult for you?
"It costs per ounce,"
You're thinking First Class. Presorted mail is generally charged per piece and per pound of total mailing (ie. the weight of all of the pieces together).
Also, the more you are able to presort your mail, the cheaper your rate. However, you need to meet minimum mailing requirements to get the cheaper rates. For example, an entire automation tray of letters going to the same 5-digit ZIP code costs $0.190 each. If I can't fill that tray, they'll have to be put into a tray of letters going to the same 3-digit zone (first three digits of ZIP), and they'll cost $0.203 each.
"If there is too much mail, they'll hold the catalog for a later date."
Which is one of the reasons why they charge less to mail them.
"I don't know how much it actually costs to send a catlog, but you clearly have no clue."
I mailed out over 11,000 letters in October of 2002. How about you?
"The cost to send the catalog for may be 1/20 or 1/100 the cost per page than to send & print a letter, but it's more expensive to send a whole catalog than it is to send a letter."
Standard Mail letter, basic presort: $0.268 Periodical Mail (4 oz. catalog), basic presort: $0.42125
Of course, who's going to respond to that letter unless you include a Business Reply Mail (BRM) card for them to respond on? They're certainly not going to pay for that postage themselves, whether they want your catalog or not.
Standard Mail letter, basic presort: $0.268 First Class card postage: $0.23 Basic BRM per-piece fee: $0.60* Total: $1.098
Heck, it's cheaper to send them two catalogs!
*(BRM is so "expensive" because you only pay for the postage of the ones you get back, as opposed to paying for stamps for cards that may or may not get mailed to you. Even if you ignore the BRM fee, though, it's still more expensive to send letter + postcard postage than a catalog.)
"And trying to argue that one particular piece of junk mail you've subscribed someone to will lower their cost shows a fundamental mis-understanding of math concepts."
How's this for a math concept: step function. You have to have enough pieces to fill an entire tray or sack (depending on what you're mailing) to reach that lower postage rate. Because of this, when you're near the minimum requirement of the next-cheaper rate class, it is cheaper to add a few more addresses to get to the lower rate. And I can guarantee you that the catalog publishers have step pricing as well.
Which is cheaper: 150 letters at $0.248 each, or 140 letters at $0.268 each?
"Companies now deduct $2 or more from bills if you choose all-electronic."
They do this to help offset the fees you pay your bank to use an electronic payment service.
Bills must be mailed at First Class rates. They don't get cheaper than $0.352 each.
It's not the $0.352 stamp that worries them, it's the $20.00 bounced check fee they may have to deal with.
You're forgetting the option of simply delivering a little yellow postcard from the local post office saying "We can't deliver it all, come pick it up."
At any rate, the cost of delivering the mail is paid for by the postage (imagine that!). Even if you pre-sort the mail as finely as you can (in the order the delivery person drives past the addresses, no less) and bring it to the destination post office yourself (or through a third party), you still have to pay postage for the simple act of delivering the articles.
"the companies that are sending these items are directly bearing the cost of your DoS."
Costs passed on to the consumer.
"Sure, Sears can probably afford to send out one more letter, but catalogs are more expensive to print and mail."
No, they're cheaper. Instead of sending at Standard Mail rates, they're either mailed at Periodicals or Bound Printerd Matter. And the printing is also cheaper because there's no envelope stuffing or card folding involved. And the lighter-stock paper is cheaper.
"All these companies are getting screwed out of real money"
Measured in cents or franctions of cents per recipient. And depending on how much they're shipping and where, it may actually be cheaper for them to add in a few extra addresses to bump the mailing into the next rate (we're not talking bandwidth here). The more mail they have going to a three, five or nine-digit ZIP code, the finer level of presortation they can do and the cheaper the postage for everything in that particular sack of mail.
And don't forget these mailers are interested in addresses whether you're really interested or not. If you're not giving them Ralsky's address, rest assured that they're probably interested in buying his address from his bank, credit card company, car dealer, etc. The whole philosophy of bulk mail is that you're sending this information to people who may not know they're interested in something the mailer is selling.
The worst money loss comes from paying $0.37 + fee for the Business Reply Mail card you send in. If you feel guilty, don't use the BRM card and pay for the postage yourself. (Just putting a stamp on a BRM card/envelope doesn't work unless you remember to cover/obscure the "Business Reply Mail" box above the address, the five vertical bars to the left of the "stamp" area, and all those horizontal bars along the right-hand side.)
Or you could just not buy anything from any of the catalogs and they'll get the message that way. They won't keep on paying postage for the catalog if they can't recoup their money.
"There is absolutely no way for a person to prevent against this right now."
However, the recipient doesn't have to pay for any of it. It's a nuisance, but nothing like paying for bandwidth consumed by a DoS.
"The analog solution from the electronic world would be for the publishers send them an confirmation letter or something asking whether they really subscribed."
It's cheaper for them to just send out the magazine in that month's shipment. Sending out "Are you really sure?" postcards would require a different class of mail ("standard" as opposed to "periodicals") sent in a separate mailing (two smaller pre-sort batches instead of one big one). And that doesn't include the cost of a Business Reply Mail account.
"Why does the USPS need to get it's act together?"
Because they're facing stiffer competition in the international arena. The USPS legal monopoly is only on the domestic delivery of letter-class mail. If your letter is going out of the country, there's no need for the USPS to ever touch it. There is nothing preventing foreign mail carriers from setting up shop in the states (and some already have).
Many European countries have (for better or worse) privatized their mailing industry, and already mail delivery for most of the continent has been consolidated to less than a half-dozen companies (and that number is shrinking, much like radio station ownership in the US). While the USPS is big and powerful (last I heard, the USPS delivered half the world's letters), it's currently a dinosaur that may find itself driven under by increased competition.
(Whether or not they can fix this through internal reorginzation or if it will require an act of Congress allowing them to compete more in the international arena is debatable.)
There's also competition in moving domestic parcels (FedEx, UPS, Airborne, etc.) but the USPS seems to be holding its own in that market.
"The modern day approach is to consistently undermine social services and education,"
You do realize that, by complaining about the "lack" of resources the feds spend on education, social services, etc, you yourself helping the federal government gain more power also, right? What else could you possibly be doing by trying to get the federal government to take over state roles?
"the primary job of government is to serve the people,"
No, the primary job of government is to earn votes. How they decide to do that is their business, which may or may not involve "serving the people." Simply convincing the voters that you are serving them works just as well.
To vote in a primary (at least in most states), you have to join that particular political party. And requiring voters to join either the Democratic or Republican Party (or any party, for that matter) is just as bad as requiring them to join the Communist Party in my book.
Personally, I prefer the way things are handled here in Louisiana. Everybody who wants to put their name on the ballot does so, irreguardless of party. If nobody gets a majority, a run-off between the two big vote earners happens a month later. No primaries, no requirement for party membership or sponsorship.
The idea was that the electors met in their respective states (as opposed to having them all get together in one place) to debate who to vote for. Meeting separately was supposed to prevent them from organizing themselves into voting blocs along party lines. They'd usually pick somebody that was popular in the region (so long as one of the two people they voted for wasn't from that particular state), and unless there was somebody with national appeal (ie. Washington), nobody was expected to always get the majority of votes in 13 different groups of people. The House would then decide between the people that got electoral votes.
Political parties got around this by nominating electors who had already decided on who to vote for. Instead of trying to figure out how to win through thirteen (now fifty) separate debates, they eliminated the debates entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
Please press "OK" to have Outlook Express send a standard astroturf boilerplate protest e-mail to the DoJ on your behalf.
Maybe they're plebes, in which case they're damned lucky they got to have a computer in their rooms at all. They're not even allowed to have a television or a radio, and any found by upper classmen will be confiscated.
No! God no! I don't want to use a browser named after the dreaded Trans-Camaro!
Christ... now I have visions of the Moz dinosaur sitting up on cinder blocks... Damn you!
Why can't these poor, misbegotten souls can't turn away from such violence and understand that Dodge is the One True Vehicle is beyond me... :)
"Your Internet telephone conversations may soon be tapped by the government."
Note the lack of the phrase "without a warrant" in this sentence. The RFC talks about "lawful intercept," which means they'd need a warrant before they're allowed to do it legally.
You don't say "without a warrant." The RFC doesn't say "without a warrant." You think maybe we can save our kneejerk reactions for something more worthy?
I've got a brick I can sell you for $499.95 plus tax.
"About the Mozilla naming thing...you can't pick a much less original name than Thunderbird..."
That may be why they're calling it Firebird.
Sheesh, confusing a Ford with a GM... People have been lynched for less...
"yup, and not clicking them will be considered an act of terrorism."
I'm blocking pop-ups through Mozilla and my hosts file has doubleclick pointing to the 127 subnet. I can hear the black helicopters coming now...
They "survive" because in many ways Pudding Workshop operates with a Microsoft philosophy. Every year or so they release a whole new rule system totally incompatible with the previous version, requiring players to buy both new rulesets and new minis to go along with it, each of which include a hefty price tag.
And they get away with it mostly for the same reasons Microsoft does. Whenever you think of minis, you think WH40K and that's about it. You don't see much competition against them partly because of Pudding Workshop's business tactics of telling stores "Don't sell competing products or we'll open our own store right next to yours. Oh, and you can't play any WH40K games in your store unless all the players have nothing but the latest line of WH40K minis and rules."
You don't see legal action taken because, come on, who are you going to find that both cares and has the money to hire lawyers about it?
"1) Some catalogs weigh MUCH more than 4 ounces, such as Ikea"
That's what "Bound Printed Matter" is for. Again, one of the links I provided in the original post.
"I'm sure they do crazy things like sending double copies to people if it puts them over the line."
Specifically disallowed by postal regulations.
"But the idea that, on average, sending an additional piece of mail saves them money makes no sense."
How do you get "on average" from "may actually be?"
"But it's a good straw man argument, so you might as well stick with it."
Says the guy responding to his only "defensable" (ignoring your hypocrisy) position out of a half-dozen or so. Way to sieze the moral high ground there.
For all you data miners out there, the USPS verified address is:
Alan Murray Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr
West Bloomfield, MI 48322-2663
That's on carrier route C 061, delivery point 47 in Oakland County.
But a "catalog-sized book" is not a catalog, it is a book. A catalog uses thinner, cheaper paper (note that a "catalog-sized book" doesn't have as many pages as a catalog), cheaper inks, and a cheaper binding method than even your average paperback. Everything is done on the cheap because they print so many of them and because there's no reason to build them to last more than a few months tops.
"As far as the cost of sending it, it is NOT cheaper to send a catalog than it is to send a letter."
You know, I provided links in the original post to the pricing schemes of Standard Mail, Periodical Mail and Bound Printed Matter. Was clicking on them too difficult for you?
"It costs per ounce,"
You're thinking First Class. Presorted mail is generally charged per piece and per pound of total mailing (ie. the weight of all of the pieces together).
Also, the more you are able to presort your mail, the cheaper your rate. However, you need to meet minimum mailing requirements to get the cheaper rates. For example, an entire automation tray of letters going to the same 5-digit ZIP code costs $0.190 each. If I can't fill that tray, they'll have to be put into a tray of letters going to the same 3-digit zone (first three digits of ZIP), and they'll cost $0.203 each.
"If there is too much mail, they'll hold the catalog for a later date."
Which is one of the reasons why they charge less to mail them.
"I don't know how much it actually costs to send a catlog, but you clearly have no clue."
I mailed out over 11,000 letters in October of 2002. How about you?
"The cost to send the catalog for may be 1/20 or 1/100 the cost per page than to send & print a letter, but it's more expensive to send a whole catalog than it is to send a letter."
Standard Mail letter, basic presort: $0.268
Periodical Mail (4 oz. catalog), basic presort: $0.42125
Of course, who's going to respond to that letter unless you include a Business Reply Mail (BRM) card for them to respond on? They're certainly not going to pay for that postage themselves, whether they want your catalog or not.
Standard Mail letter, basic presort: $0.268
First Class card postage: $0.23
Basic BRM per-piece fee: $0.60*
Total: $1.098
Heck, it's cheaper to send them two catalogs!
*(BRM is so "expensive" because you only pay for the postage of the ones you get back, as opposed to paying for stamps for cards that may or may not get mailed to you. Even if you ignore the BRM fee, though, it's still more expensive to send letter + postcard postage than a catalog.)
"And trying to argue that one particular piece of junk mail you've subscribed someone to will lower their cost shows a fundamental mis-understanding of math concepts."
How's this for a math concept: step function. You have to have enough pieces to fill an entire tray or sack (depending on what you're mailing) to reach that lower postage rate. Because of this, when you're near the minimum requirement of the next-cheaper rate class, it is cheaper to add a few more addresses to get to the lower rate. And I can guarantee you that the catalog publishers have step pricing as well.
Which is cheaper: 150 letters at $0.248 each, or 140 letters at $0.268 each?
"Companies now deduct $2 or more from bills if you choose all-electronic."
"The short of it is, by requesting hundreds o
"For, it is better to be mute and thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
Words to live by, hm? You know, you really should read what you're linking to before pointing to it.
Explain to me how Puerto Rico isn't part of the US.
I'd say spammers. AOL at least gave us Mozilla. That, and you never see anybody on Slashdot cheering a movie made by spammers.
If this were "eye for an eye," all that mail Ralsky would be getting would be delivered postage due.
You're forgetting the option of simply delivering a little yellow postcard from the local post office saying "We can't deliver it all, come pick it up."
At any rate, the cost of delivering the mail is paid for by the postage (imagine that!). Even if you pre-sort the mail as finely as you can (in the order the delivery person drives past the addresses, no less) and bring it to the destination post office yourself (or through a third party), you still have to pay postage for the simple act of delivering the articles.
"the companies that are sending these items are directly bearing the cost of your DoS."
Costs passed on to the consumer.
"Sure, Sears can probably afford to send out one more letter, but catalogs are more expensive to print and mail."
No, they're cheaper. Instead of sending at Standard Mail rates, they're either mailed at Periodicals or Bound Printerd Matter. And the printing is also cheaper because there's no envelope stuffing or card folding involved. And the lighter-stock paper is cheaper.
"All these companies are getting screwed out of real money"
Measured in cents or franctions of cents per recipient. And depending on how much they're shipping and where, it may actually be cheaper for them to add in a few extra addresses to bump the mailing into the next rate (we're not talking bandwidth here). The more mail they have going to a three, five or nine-digit ZIP code, the finer level of presortation they can do and the cheaper the postage for everything in that particular sack of mail.
And don't forget these mailers are interested in addresses whether you're really interested or not. If you're not giving them Ralsky's address, rest assured that they're probably interested in buying his address from his bank, credit card company, car dealer, etc. The whole philosophy of bulk mail is that you're sending this information to people who may not know they're interested in something the mailer is selling.
The worst money loss comes from paying $0.37 + fee for the Business Reply Mail card you send in. If you feel guilty, don't use the BRM card and pay for the postage yourself. (Just putting a stamp on a BRM card/envelope doesn't work unless you remember to cover/obscure the "Business Reply Mail" box above the address, the five vertical bars to the left of the "stamp" area, and all those horizontal bars along the right-hand side.)
Or you could just not buy anything from any of the catalogs and they'll get the message that way. They won't keep on paying postage for the catalog if they can't recoup their money.
Rule #1: Never mess with the Treasury Department.
Rule #2: Never forget rule number 1.
Remember that the IRS is in the same department as ATF and the Secret Service.
"There is absolutely no way for a person to prevent against this right now."
However, the recipient doesn't have to pay for any of it. It's a nuisance, but nothing like paying for bandwidth consumed by a DoS.
"The analog solution from the electronic world would be for the publishers send them an confirmation letter or something asking whether they really subscribed."
It's cheaper for them to just send out the magazine in that month's shipment. Sending out "Are you really sure?" postcards would require a different class of mail ("standard" as opposed to "periodicals") sent in a separate mailing (two smaller pre-sort batches instead of one big one). And that doesn't include the cost of a Business Reply Mail account.
Because they're facing stiffer competition in the international arena. The USPS legal monopoly is only on the domestic delivery of letter-class mail. If your letter is going out of the country, there's no need for the USPS to ever touch it. There is nothing preventing foreign mail carriers from setting up shop in the states (and some already have).
Many European countries have (for better or worse) privatized their mailing industry, and already mail delivery for most of the continent has been consolidated to less than a half-dozen companies (and that number is shrinking, much like radio station ownership in the US). While the USPS is big and powerful (last I heard, the USPS delivered half the world's letters), it's currently a dinosaur that may find itself driven under by increased competition.(Whether or not they can fix this through internal reorginzation or if it will require an act of Congress allowing them to compete more in the international arena is debatable.)
There's also competition in moving domestic parcels (FedEx, UPS, Airborne, etc.) but the USPS seems to be holding its own in that market.
"The modern day approach is to consistently undermine social services and education,"
You do realize that, by complaining about the "lack" of resources the feds spend on education, social services, etc, you yourself helping the federal government gain more power also, right? What else could you possibly be doing by trying to get the federal government to take over state roles?
"the primary job of government is to serve the people,"
No, the primary job of government is to earn votes. How they decide to do that is their business, which may or may not involve "serving the people." Simply convincing the voters that you are serving them works just as well.
To vote in a primary (at least in most states), you have to join that particular political party. And requiring voters to join either the Democratic or Republican Party (or any party, for that matter) is just as bad as requiring them to join the Communist Party in my book.
Personally, I prefer the way things are handled here in Louisiana. Everybody who wants to put their name on the ballot does so, irreguardless of party. If nobody gets a majority, a run-off between the two big vote earners happens a month later. No primaries, no requirement for party membership or sponsorship.
Aside from Federalist 68, there's The Electoral College For Europeans by Michael Gilson De Lemos and A Dissertation on the Electoral College by John Reilly. There may be other sources I got this from that I can't remember right now.
The idea was that the electors met in their respective states (as opposed to having them all get together in one place) to debate who to vote for. Meeting separately was supposed to prevent them from organizing themselves into voting blocs along party lines. They'd usually pick somebody that was popular in the region (so long as one of the two people they voted for wasn't from that particular state), and unless there was somebody with national appeal (ie. Washington), nobody was expected to always get the majority of votes in 13 different groups of people. The House would then decide between the people that got electoral votes.
Political parties got around this by nominating electors who had already decided on who to vote for. Instead of trying to figure out how to win through thirteen (now fifty) separate debates, they eliminated the debates entirely.