If Apple charges 30%, to keep revenue the same for Amazon and publishers, the cost per book must be raised by almost 43%
If a book is priced at $9.99, to make up for Apple's 30% charge, you must raise the price to $14.27 -- an almost 43% increase. (If you take 30% off of that $14.27, you'll get the original $9.99 price.)
Here's a simple formula you can use to calculate a new book price, making up for Apples tax:
NewPrice = OldPrice * (100/(100-AppleTax))
You should have covered this material in elementary school.
I propose that they measure the 90 percentile of data usage of an iphone in rest and don't bill for that amount.
So you propose that they give away service for free? Should they also do the same for all of the devices they offer? Wouldn't this encourage manufacturers to add even more background data gobbling features?
So in this case, they simply don't bill for the first 3Mb, thereby avoiding a class action lawsuit. Easy, isn't it?
So they give away their service to potentially avoid completely baseless legal action? Here's a better idea: They charge for the services they provide and defend themselves against bullshit lawsuits.
Oh, that's right! That's exactly what they're planning to do.
I wonder how they stay in business... You know, with all that charging their customers for services they provide.
AT&T can predict the overhead, because they and Apple know what's running on the phone when you shut every app off.
If you concentrate really hard, I'll bet that even you can figure out why this is wrong.
That test with the no-app phone, by the attornies, shows the problem quite well.
That "test" demonstrates nothing of the sort. Given the information we have, I don't see how you can claim that it shows *anything* at all.
Additionally, the lawyers are not claiming that background data use is a "problem". They're claiming that AT&T is charging users for data that was not transmitted.
The consulting firm said it received data charges from 35 data transactions over 10 days, totaling about 2.3 MB.
The only question left is "Did those transactions actually occur?"
If there were indeed 35 data transactions totaling 2.3mb, then this lawsuit is a joke. If some of those transactions didn't happen, then the lawsuit is justified.
If the user is not interacting with the phone at all, and the user is getting billed purely because of data that the phone is using in the background (not due to user interaction) AT&T should be aware of this.
So... how do you propose that AT&T distinguish user-initiated data from other data?
this phone will generate X bytes of data every N minutes even without user interaction
Oh, I see. You're under the impression that this "background" data is some constant amount. Can you think of no reason that this would be variable?
the fact is the user isn't generating it and so they shouldn't be billed for it.
The user pays for data sent and received. If their phone does 'background' things on the users behalf, why should they get a break? Why force the rest of us to pick up the tab for your data usage because you don't think you should pay for services you use?
Here's an idea: If you have a problem with paying for "background" data, how about you trade your toy phone for a phone that *doesn't* use tons of data in the background?
When this happened with those Windows 7 phones we blamed the *phone*, not the carrier. I guess you apply different standards to Apple. Heaven forbid there could be any problem with the sacred iPhone.
A hypothesis does not become a theory when you provide evidence in it's favour. A hypothesis is a specific prediction
Hey, someone who actually knows what a hypothesis is!
I've been trying to work out set of short definitions for "theory" and "hypothesis" that make the distinction clear. I'd be interested in any suggestions you have for improving my current 'working' set:
Hypothesis: A testable prediction Theory: A predictive model
So... One insane Nazi and the non-treatment/disclosure of a venereal disease is "too much science"?
The first has nothing to do with science. The second was merely questionably unethical as the patients were likely to go on unaware and untreated anyhow.
This, in your mind, is the same as the continual slaughter of millions of people for believing in the wrong fairy tale?
Let's look at the opposite side of things. Runaway science has brought us artificial fertilizer and modern farming techniques (feeding billions), modern medicine (saving billions), electricity, computers, cars, airplanes, world-wide communication networks, sent man into space and landed us on the moon. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Runaway religion has... well, it helps some idiots feel better about being sick or poor.
Yep, it is a load of bunk. I grew up shying away from religion and studying my science courses. In my mid twenties I would have argued against the existence of God. I was so cold and logical that I would have made Spock look emotional.
After raising two children, losing my wife ten years ago, and looking forward to my 58th birthday next month, I do believe in a higher power.
I've found that many religious people (Christians, at least) will often lie about their past in an effort to produce a better testimony. It's really weird. It's like the 'lower' they were before 'finding Jesus' the better their status among their peers.
Nothing else makes sense.
Assuming that you're story is true, in what why does an invisible wish-granting sky-wizard make ANY sense? If that's too cynical for you, could you at least explain what version of the God belief you hold and how, after a lifetime of scientific study, you came to this conclusion?
Do you know why you exist?
If you want the meaning of life, try this one on for size: The purpose of life is to strive to improve the lives of those around you, and if possible, those who will come after you. In short, to make life better for everyone.
To that end, science has done more in the last century to improve the human condition than religion has for the past 3000 years.
Did the gene wait years before activating? Or did I just take years to learn what life is all about?
It's possible that your fear of death or dealing with the loss of your wife has lead you to accept a comfortable delusion rather than face reality. It's really sad. I feel bad for you.
That being said, eBook prices are still unreasonable, and they ARE competing with a lot of compelling free material.
And yet they're selling remarkably well. It seems the market has decided that the convenience is worth both the cost of the initial investment and the regular "print" cost for the books.
I would guess, given the numbers, that a sizable portion of the book market doesn't care about owning a physical book; they're more interested in just reading the text.
It's also possible that a large number of readers find the physical book 'inconvenient' after they've read it -- if they don't want to just toss it in the bin, how do they get rid of it? (I'm not one of these, but the used book market and the annual library book sales seem to indicate that lots of people don't want to keep their old books around.)
In any case, ebooks are selling well at their current price-point, and earning publishers millions in the process.
Something has to give - and I think many people will be using their readers primarily for Gutenberg until (paperback-equivalent) prices drop into a saner, 4-6 dollar range.
Again, the numbers tell a different story. Prices won't drop unless there's more profit to be made by increasing sales by lowering the price. I don't see this happening, as to half the cost means they'd need to sell more than twice as many books. I don't think we've got that many people willing to plunk-down $130 for a reader who would balk at paying $8, but happily pay $4, for an ebook to read on the thing.
As for Project Gutenberg, they don't exactly have a selection that's terribly compelling for the majority of readers. Nor do I think a sizable portion of the market has even heard of PG. The additional complexity of getting the books on to their device keeps PG books completely inaccessible for non-technical readers.
My wife and I are both big readers and consider physical books to be, metaphorically, sacred. I never would have considered even reading an ebook, let alone buying one. My attitude completely changed after I tried out a Kindle 3. Now that we both own e-readers (a Kindle 3 and a Sony PRS-350) not only do we read more books, we purchase more as well.
My over-burdened bookshelves are grateful; now we only buy a physical copy of a book if it's something we decide we want to keep.
I'm not sure what value it brings besides putting the books in front of you and the professors who used to be in the field in front of you.
That you don't see the value doesn't mean that it's without value.
a) you have a degree or b) you're in the education field.
The answer is c) all of the above.
That's my whole point you fool! You don't need to go to school to get an education!
That wasn't my point, you fool!
While it's true that you don't need to got to school to get an education, it certainly helps. (If for no other reason than you don't know what you don't know.)
With few exceptions, the autodidact tends to lack both breadth and depth in their education. This is partly due to the difficulty in assessing ones own competence -- if any attempt at self-assessment is made at all.
They also tend to have difficulty communicating, both verbal and written, 'soft skills' that formal study helps to develop.
School is where you memorize facts!
School is NOT where you memorize facts. I highly recommend that you take a look at Bloom's Taxonomy. It may very well change your perspective.
This same graduate who is now telling you why their college prof said certain things can't be done, as the non-educated employee is already more than halfway done writing the code to do what you asked for.
So... what happens three weeks later when the uneducated employee discovers that his code still doesn't work?
The educated employee explains to him why the problem is non-computable, of course. That's when the uneducated employee goes off to explain to his supervisor why he wasted three-weeks of the company's time.
See if you went to college, you would learn things like how to use a comma in a sentence. What the difference between "higher" and "hire" is, and what the difference between "passed" and "past"
He should have learned all of those things in elementary school.
Perhaps he's just not competent enough for college; even DeVry rejects illiterate applicants.
Getting a degree could also mean you're overly conformist and likely to lack a lot of creativity. You probably lack a strong leadership personality and shy away from individual excellence.
Which is why all of our leaders, from politicians to captains of industry, are uneducated...
I highly recommend that you get an education. You could clearly benefit.
I've gotten significantly more value (job-wise) from a $2500 training course on a popular-but-hard-to-find-experts web analytics system than I did spending ten times that on college. (I attended 4 years, but don't have a degree.)
Sounds to me like you made VERY poor use of your time.
You only get out of your education what you put in. I'm willing to bet that you made much better use of that $2500 course than you would have in an equivalent course while in college.
I learned more doing that then any schooling would've ever taught.
As far as you know.
Today's college is expensive babysitting.
How would you know?
Sure, some people can manage to slide through college without getting much of an education, but that's typically their fault, not that of the institution.
Had you been properly educated, you would know that your approach isn't necessarily the best approach just because it worked out well for you.
Consequently, the poster is correct. If the current version number were rounded instead of truncated, the next version would indeed have a lower number than the previous version. This is why the poster (correctly) pointed out that rounding would have been a mistake.
This is a neat discussion. You can guess someones opinion with surprising accuracy based only on their user id.
A senior developer should not only be able to pickup a new language very quickly, but also write more competent code than a recent college grad who has used the language in class for the last 3 years.
If your senior developers don't meet this criteria, you probably should have sent them packing years ago.
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If not, Amazon can just price 30% higher in the Apple Store.
That is not how percentages work. Amazon would need to price things 43% higher to make up for the 30% loss.
You're new to this whole math thing aren't you?
If Apple charges 30%, to keep revenue the same for Amazon and publishers, the cost per book must be raised by almost 43%
If a book is priced at $9.99, to make up for Apple's 30% charge, you must raise the price to $14.27 -- an almost 43% increase. (If you take 30% off of that $14.27, you'll get the original $9.99 price.)
Here's a simple formula you can use to calculate a new book price, making up for Apples tax:
NewPrice = OldPrice * (100/(100-AppleTax))
You should have covered this material in elementary school.
I propose that they measure the 90 percentile of data usage of an iphone in rest and don't bill for that amount.
So you propose that they give away service for free? Should they also do the same for all of the devices they offer? Wouldn't this encourage manufacturers to add even more background data gobbling features?
So in this case, they simply don't bill for the first 3Mb, thereby avoiding a class action lawsuit. Easy, isn't it?
So they give away their service to potentially avoid completely baseless legal action? Here's a better idea: They charge for the services they provide and defend themselves against bullshit lawsuits.
Oh, that's right! That's exactly what they're planning to do.
I wonder how they stay in business... You know, with all that charging their customers for services they provide.
AT&T can predict the overhead, because they and Apple know what's running on the phone when you shut every app off.
If you concentrate really hard, I'll bet that even you can figure out why this is wrong.
That test with the no-app phone, by the attornies, shows the problem quite well.
That "test" demonstrates nothing of the sort. Given the information we have, I don't see how you can claim that it shows *anything* at all.
Additionally, the lawyers are not claiming that background data use is a "problem". They're claiming that AT&T is charging users for data that was not transmitted.
The consulting firm said it received data charges from 35 data transactions over 10 days, totaling about 2.3 MB.
The only question left is "Did those transactions actually occur?"
If there were indeed 35 data transactions totaling 2.3mb, then this lawsuit is a joke. If some of those transactions didn't happen, then the lawsuit is justified.
If the user is not interacting with the phone at all, and the user is getting billed purely because of data that the phone is using in the background (not due to user interaction) AT&T should be aware of this.
So... how do you propose that AT&T distinguish user-initiated data from other data?
this phone will generate X bytes of data every N minutes even without user interaction
Oh, I see. You're under the impression that this "background" data is some constant amount. Can you think of no reason that this would be variable?
the fact is the user isn't generating it and so they shouldn't be billed for it.
The user pays for data sent and received. If their phone does 'background' things on the users behalf, why should they get a break? Why force the rest of us to pick up the tab for your data usage because you don't think you should pay for services you use?
Here's an idea: If you have a problem with paying for "background" data, how about you trade your toy phone for a phone that *doesn't* use tons of data in the background?
When this happened with those Windows 7 phones we blamed the *phone*, not the carrier. I guess you apply different standards to Apple. Heaven forbid there could be any problem with the sacred iPhone.
A hypothesis does not become a theory when you provide evidence in it's favour. A hypothesis is a specific prediction
Hey, someone who actually knows what a hypothesis is!
I've been trying to work out set of short definitions for "theory" and "hypothesis" that make the distinction clear. I'd be interested in any suggestions you have for improving my current 'working' set:
Hypothesis: A testable prediction
Theory: A predictive model
So... One insane Nazi and the non-treatment/disclosure of a venereal disease is "too much science"?
The first has nothing to do with science. The second was merely questionably unethical as the patients were likely to go on unaware and untreated anyhow.
This, in your mind, is the same as the continual slaughter of millions of people for believing in the wrong fairy tale?
Let's look at the opposite side of things. Runaway science has brought us artificial fertilizer and modern farming techniques (feeding billions), modern medicine (saving billions), electricity, computers, cars, airplanes, world-wide communication networks, sent man into space and landed us on the moon. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Runaway religion has ... well, it helps some idiots feel better about being sick or poor.
Yep, it is a load of bunk. I grew up shying away from religion and studying my science courses. In my mid twenties I would have argued against the existence of God. I was so cold and logical that I would have made Spock look emotional.
After raising two children, losing my wife ten years ago, and looking forward to my 58th birthday next month, I do believe in a higher power.
I've found that many religious people (Christians, at least) will often lie about their past in an effort to produce a better testimony. It's really weird. It's like the 'lower' they were before 'finding Jesus' the better their status among their peers.
Nothing else makes sense.
Assuming that you're story is true, in what why does an invisible wish-granting sky-wizard make ANY sense? If that's too cynical for you, could you at least explain what version of the God belief you hold and how, after a lifetime of scientific study, you came to this conclusion?
Do you know why you exist?
If you want the meaning of life, try this one on for size: The purpose of life is to strive to improve the lives of those around you, and if possible, those who will come after you. In short, to make life better for everyone.
To that end, science has done more in the last century to improve the human condition than religion has for the past 3000 years.
Did the gene wait years before activating?
Or did I just take years to learn what life is all about?
It's possible that your fear of death or dealing with the loss of your wife has lead you to accept a comfortable delusion rather than face reality. It's really sad. I feel bad for you.
That being said, eBook prices are still unreasonable, and they ARE competing with a lot of compelling free material.
And yet they're selling remarkably well. It seems the market has decided that the convenience is worth both the cost of the initial investment and the regular "print" cost for the books.
I would guess, given the numbers, that a sizable portion of the book market doesn't care about owning a physical book; they're more interested in just reading the text.
It's also possible that a large number of readers find the physical book 'inconvenient' after they've read it -- if they don't want to just toss it in the bin, how do they get rid of it? (I'm not one of these, but the used book market and the annual library book sales seem to indicate that lots of people don't want to keep their old books around.)
In any case, ebooks are selling well at their current price-point, and earning publishers millions in the process.
Something has to give - and I think many people will be using their readers primarily for Gutenberg until (paperback-equivalent) prices drop into a saner, 4-6 dollar range.
Again, the numbers tell a different story. Prices won't drop unless there's more profit to be made by increasing sales by lowering the price. I don't see this happening, as to half the cost means they'd need to sell more than twice as many books. I don't think we've got that many people willing to plunk-down $130 for a reader who would balk at paying $8, but happily pay $4, for an ebook to read on the thing.
As for Project Gutenberg, they don't exactly have a selection that's terribly compelling for the majority of readers. Nor do I think a sizable portion of the market has even heard of PG. The additional complexity of getting the books on to their device keeps PG books completely inaccessible for non-technical readers.
My wife and I are both big readers and consider physical books to be, metaphorically, sacred. I never would have considered even reading an ebook, let alone buying one. My attitude completely changed after I tried out a Kindle 3. Now that we both own e-readers (a Kindle 3 and a Sony PRS-350) not only do we read more books, we purchase more as well.
My over-burdened bookshelves are grateful; now we only buy a physical copy of a book if it's something we decide we want to keep.
I'm not sure what value it brings besides putting the books in front of you and the professors who used to be in the field in front of you.
That you don't see the value doesn't mean that it's without value.
a) you have a degree or b) you're in the education field.
The answer is c) all of the above.
That's my whole point you fool! You don't need to go to school to get an education!
That wasn't my point, you fool!
While it's true that you don't need to got to school to get an education, it certainly helps. (If for no other reason than you don't know what you don't know.)
With few exceptions, the autodidact tends to lack both breadth and depth in their education. This is partly due to the difficulty in assessing ones own competence -- if any attempt at self-assessment is made at all.
They also tend to have difficulty communicating, both verbal and written, 'soft skills' that formal study helps to develop.
School is where you memorize facts!
School is NOT where you memorize facts. I highly recommend that you take a look at Bloom's Taxonomy. It may very well change your perspective.
Fact: You have no idea what a fact is.
Fact: College isn't trade-school.
Fact: You have no experience with higher education and are thus unqualified to make statements about is operation, quality, or efficiency.
Fact: You don't know what it means to be educated. (Here's a hint: it doesn't mean "memorized some facts")
Of course, you're free to continue believing whatever nonsense you want. It means that I'm less likely to encounter you in a professional setting.
This same graduate who is now telling you why their college prof said certain things can't be done, as the non-educated employee is already more than halfway done writing the code to do what you asked for.
So... what happens three weeks later when the uneducated employee discovers that his code still doesn't work?
The educated employee explains to him why the problem is non-computable, of course. That's when the uneducated employee goes off to explain to his supervisor why he wasted three-weeks of the company's time.
See if you went to college, you would learn things like how to use a comma in a sentence. What the difference between "higher" and "hire" is, and what the difference between "passed" and "past"
He should have learned all of those things in elementary school.
Perhaps he's just not competent enough for college; even DeVry rejects illiterate applicants.
Didn't I just say that? I may not have a degree, but I know how to read.
If you were literate, you'd have understood my point.
The smartest people I know don't have a college degree.
It sounds like you know a lot of idiots.
Here's a tip: The local dive bar is not representative of the general population.
Getting a degree could also mean you're overly conformist and likely to lack a lot of creativity. You probably lack a strong leadership personality and shy away from individual excellence.
Which is why all of our leaders, from politicians to captains of industry, are uneducated...
I highly recommend that you get an education. You could clearly benefit.
I've gotten significantly more value (job-wise) from a $2500 training course on a popular-but-hard-to-find-experts web analytics system than I did spending ten times that on college. (I attended 4 years, but don't have a degree.)
Sounds to me like you made VERY poor use of your time.
You only get out of your education what you put in. I'm willing to bet that you made much better use of that $2500 course than you would have in an equivalent course while in college.
Don't blame higher education for your mistakes.
if you compare equal jobs you will see that usually the person lacking the degree is higher paid.
Intersting. Can you point me to the studies that shows this to be the case?
I don't know if there have been any studies to prove that.
Oh, I see. You just made all of this up to support your preconceptions.
I'm going to guess you're one of those people without an education.
I learned more doing that then any schooling would've ever taught.
As far as you know.
Today's college is expensive babysitting.
How would you know?
Sure, some people can manage to slide through college without getting much of an education, but that's typically their fault, not that of the institution.
Had you been properly educated, you would know that your approach isn't necessarily the best approach just because it worked out well for you.
You fail math forever.
3.1415927 is indeed greater than 3.14159265
Consequently, the poster is correct. If the current version number were rounded instead of truncated, the next version would indeed have a lower number than the previous version. This is why the poster (correctly) pointed out that rounding would have been a mistake.
I've been telling people for years, if you want to keep an image, you must have prints made.
Keeping data around for any significant length of time is hard and takes continual effort.
Keeping photos around, on the other hand, is so easy your great-grandmother could do it. It's as simple as forgetting about "that box in the closet".
So delete all the blurry, pointless, and redundant images and have the remaining 500mb printed up.
In 10 years or so, you'll be glad that you did.
even if they are good on paper they might be crap in practice.
No way! That young hot-shot probably spent like 5 years earning a 4-year MIS degree from a local community college.
Surely his expertise is beyond par, worth at least twice that of a seasoned and experienced developer.
I'll never understand how highly intelligent people make such a horrible mistake.
You're working under the mistaken impression that the poster is highly intelligent, just because you happen to agree with his opinion.
This is a neat discussion. You can guess someones opinion with surprising accuracy based only on their user id.
A senior developer should not only be able to pickup a new language very quickly, but also write more competent code than a recent college grad who has used the language in class for the last 3 years.
If your senior developers don't meet this criteria, you probably should have sent them packing years ago.