I wonder if these homeless planets are at least locked into position in the Milky Way, or if they are truly wandering around. Could one suddenly show up in our neighborhood and maybe enter our solar system? I can't image that would end well.
I can imagine some people at Google have a smile on their face. As Microsoft tries to get people to move to MS platforms by making Skype MS only, the competitors in that arena will be able to move in and grab the market. I think Google is well positioned to take on that business.
I'm wondering how much of that $8.5 billion price is simply the customer base and not the technology? Does Skype even have any technology (or patents maybe) that couldn't be quickly replicated? Customers can be lost practically overnight, and Microsoft is notorious for dropping support to 'focus' on the Microsoft only components.
Groupon is a good idea, but you have to make a profit for each sale including the coupon. If you don't do that then you shouldn't be doing the promotion. Lost leaders help no one.
You apparently don't own a retail business. Advertising is very expensive and sometimes it's necessary to run a business at a loss in order to get people to notice your business and give it a try. It does help, and can lead to a very profitable business in the long run. Loss leaders can pay off big if done right.
The Catholic church has general absolution masses that substitute for the confessional. You just have to show up, think about your sins, pray, and you're done. No speaking to a priest is required, and he wipes clean everyone's sins at the same time. Is this any different than doing it by iPhone? The priest can just wave his hands once in a while and wipe out the sins of everyone using the app.
Is Verizon advertising a guaranteed bandwidth? I haven't seen one. They're not cutting off service, but throttling it to a lower speed. It's still unlimited.
This is exactly what Telefonica in Spain does and I think it's a good idea. Instead of charging you some huge rate past a certain limit that you may not know you passed, they just reduce the speed. It still works at the slower speed (although streaming video might not work so well), and it only affects those customers that are streaming audio or video very often.
Expedia has been trying hard for several years to become a travel retailer that determines the pricing themselves, and they want travel companies (hotels, airlines, and rental cars) to give them wholesale pricing. Right now, like any travel agent, they get a percentage of the rate that is normally determined by the travel company, but they would like to be able to set whatever rate they think they can get and give the hotel/airline/car company a flat wholesale rate. This would give Expedia a lot of control over rates, and they could make a lot more profit because they could take everything above the negotiated rate, instead of the fixed percentage. Luckily the travel companies see that this model would destroy their own business and have resisted.
Naturally the travel companies would prefer that people book through their own websites, because they don't have to pay the commission, which is typically around 10% of the price.
The election went the way it did because Obama never puts up a fight over anything.
Unfortunately he doesn't realize that fact and thinks it's because he is fighting too much, so expect him to compromise on everything now and cave in to the demands of Republicans. He thinks making them happy will make everyone happy.
A recent study found Bisphenol A in many cash register receipts as well. They found that the BPA is readily transferred to a person's skin and possibly absorbed.
The TSA seems to care more about the appearance of doing something than actual effective security.
I wish they would stop and think about each of their security checks and ask themselves what is it really going to prevent. That careful inspection of your boarding pass before the screening. What does that accomplish? I print it on my computer!!! Do they not realize how absolutely trivial it would be for anyone to put anything they want on it? There is no check with any database to see if you are actually booked on the flight. Would a terrorist not think to put the same name as on their id, fake or not? And that stupid little security stamp they put on it. What does that do? I know they don't check it when you board the plane because I have used different boarding passes for security and boarding.
The other thing is hidden explosives. Can an explosive hidden in the space between a woman's breasts really bring down a plane? Could a bomb sniffing dog find explosives more effectively? If it's weapons they are looking for - what could someone do with a sharp knife or even a gun? They keep the cockpits locked now. Before 9/11 cockpits were wide open during flight. If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting, the pilot can divert to the nearest airport and land. If these things could only end up killing a few people, it's not going to be something a terrorist is going to be too interested in, and it's not worth trying to prevent. They can be just as effective going out in the street and shooting people, and it will be much easier.
It's amazing how much more pleasurable Amtrak is compared to air travel. I love it! But it's only really practical for 300 miles or less. Then it gets a bit long. (high speed trains would help). But the comfort and lack of nonsense security screening makes it really stress free. It's great.
You should at least turn in your ballot. There might be *something* to vote for among all the positions/issues. You don't have to vote for each one. Skip any that don't have a candidate you like. Even if it means you don't vote for anything, at least you are recorded as voting. Then when the results come out the total of votes between all the candidates will be less than the number of people voting, and it becomes more apparent that they weren't liked too well. It won't change who wins, but not voting won't either.
Should we be suspicious when the IBM CEO thinks the U.S. needs a massive IT overhaul? I guess you could say he is qualified to know whether it can be done or not, but it would no doubt steer a lot of money to large IT corporations, such as IBM, that are large enough to handle such a large undertaking.
It is certainly fair to argue that a person earning more money should shoulder a greater burden of government costs, but don't insult my intelligence by trying to make it look like they don't contribute anything.
Did I make it look like they weren't contributing anything? It was simple math and a simple statement. My point is that living on $16k is just a bit more difficult than living on $521k. And if someone pays more, someone else can pay less.
Perhaps you shouldn't simply regurgitate what you hear from D.C. think-tanks.
And perhaps you shouldn't regurgitate what you read from a group trying to defeat the measure. Their own data shows that the people that are paying the highest percentages in taxes are the ones that will benefit the most from this measure and make the tax system more progressive.
To put it another way, if you earn $20k, after taxes you have $16k left to live on. If you earn $537k, after taxes you have $521k to live on. (or about 33x as much as the guy earning $20k).
As far as Federal taxes go, the rates are a bit higher for higher income, but when you take into account deductions, the richer you are, the less you pay in general. Their are billion dollar corporations (and probably individuals) that pay nothing in income tax. In my own personal experience, as my income grows, my tax as a percentage of income has decreased because I can deduct more from my income.
The Republican philosophy is: Give all the money to the rich, and they will take care of everything. It hasn't worked, and never has. We are paying the price for that now.
In Washington state, there is no state income tax, so the state taxes come primarily from sales and property taxes, licensing, and business taxes. Everyone pays for these taxes. The less you make, the higher the percentage of your income goes to taxable items, so the tax burden as a percentage of income is much higher.
And where do you suppose that corporations get their money? [...] Jeff Bezos, in particular, is well renknowned for his funding of new startups.
New companies == more jobs.
Do you know where else they get their money? From customers and lower startup costs. Both of which this law will help. So instead of waiting for Jeff Bezos to give them money, businesses can do it on their own.
The worst political development in American history was that it gradually became ok to just vote other people's money to yourself.
This new law is an attempt to fix that. The richest in the state have already managed a vote for the poorest to support them. The richest in the state currently pay less than 3% in taxes, while the poorest are paying over 17%. This law will make it 12% for the rich, and around 14% for the poor.
Washington has the most regressive tax in the nation. The poorest are paying the majority of the taxes. The poorest pay 17% of their income to taxes, while the richest pay less than 3%. This law will even it out a bit, but the poorest will still be paying more as a percentage than the richest.
The people most likely to put the money back into the economy are the people that need it most. The poorest are most likely to spend whatever money they have at local businesses. The richest people don't need to spend the money, and are very likely to spend it outside the state anyway. Remember, this is a state tax. We want the money to be spent here, to stimulate the state economy. Buying stocks with the money in some foreign company (something the rich might do) does nothing for the state. Buying a beer at the local pub does.
This Republican idea of giving all the money to the rich and they will take care of everything is complete bullshit. It doesn't work.
If the credit card was stolen, then the loss should come out of the credit company's pocket, not Paypal or the Ebay seller.
PayPal doesn't agree. I sold something on EBay, and six months later PayPal charged me for the full amount. They told me the credit card that the buyer used through PayPal was stolen, so I had to pay for it. So I lost the item I sold, plus all the money I received for it, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was no way for me to validate the credit card myself because I was never given the credit card. That was PayPal's job, but I'm the one that lost, not them. PayPal even had the buyer's name, and the comments the buyer made that said they received the item and were completely satisfied. They screwed me over so I deleted my PayPal account and will never use them again.
PayPal should have been responsible because they accepted the credit card. All I accepted was the PayPal payment.
The travel company I work for just deleted Fucking, Austria from their database because they figured it was better not to offend someone than to allow them to travel there. The only way someone would have actually seen the name is if they searched for it, so it seems rather stupid, but I could imagine some complaining that they searched for Fucking and found what they searched for.
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I wonder if these homeless planets are at least locked into position in the Milky Way, or if they are truly wandering around. Could one suddenly show up in our neighborhood and maybe enter our solar system? I can't image that would end well.
I can imagine some people at Google have a smile on their face. As Microsoft tries to get people to move to MS platforms by making Skype MS only, the competitors in that arena will be able to move in and grab the market. I think Google is well positioned to take on that business.
I'm wondering how much of that $8.5 billion price is simply the customer base and not the technology? Does Skype even have any technology (or patents maybe) that couldn't be quickly replicated? Customers can be lost practically overnight, and Microsoft is notorious for dropping support to 'focus' on the Microsoft only components.
Now let's watch Microsoft drive it into oblivion.
Groupon is a good idea, but you have to make a profit for each sale including the coupon. If you don't do that then you shouldn't be doing the promotion. Lost leaders help no one.
You apparently don't own a retail business. Advertising is very expensive and sometimes it's necessary to run a business at a loss in order to get people to notice your business and give it a try. It does help, and can lead to a very profitable business in the long run. Loss leaders can pay off big if done right.
The Catholic church has general absolution masses that substitute for the confessional. You just have to show up, think about your sins, pray, and you're done. No speaking to a priest is required, and he wipes clean everyone's sins at the same time. Is this any different than doing it by iPhone? The priest can just wave his hands once in a while and wipe out the sins of everyone using the app.
Is Verizon advertising a guaranteed bandwidth? I haven't seen one. They're not cutting off service, but throttling it to a lower speed. It's still unlimited. This is exactly what Telefonica in Spain does and I think it's a good idea. Instead of charging you some huge rate past a certain limit that you may not know you passed, they just reduce the speed. It still works at the slower speed (although streaming video might not work so well), and it only affects those customers that are streaming audio or video very often.
Expedia has been trying hard for several years to become a travel retailer that determines the pricing themselves, and they want travel companies (hotels, airlines, and rental cars) to give them wholesale pricing. Right now, like any travel agent, they get a percentage of the rate that is normally determined by the travel company, but they would like to be able to set whatever rate they think they can get and give the hotel/airline/car company a flat wholesale rate. This would give Expedia a lot of control over rates, and they could make a lot more profit because they could take everything above the negotiated rate, instead of the fixed percentage. Luckily the travel companies see that this model would destroy their own business and have resisted.
Naturally the travel companies would prefer that people book through their own websites, because they don't have to pay the commission, which is typically around 10% of the price.
The election went the way it did because Obama never puts up a fight over anything.
Unfortunately he doesn't realize that fact and thinks it's because he is fighting too much, so expect him to compromise on everything now and cave in to the demands of Republicans. He thinks making them happy will make everyone happy.
A recent study found Bisphenol A in many cash register receipts as well. They found that the BPA is readily transferred to a person's skin and possibly absorbed.
The TSA seems to care more about the appearance of doing something than actual effective security.
I wish they would stop and think about each of their security checks and ask themselves what is it really going to prevent. That careful inspection of your boarding pass before the screening. What does that accomplish? I print it on my computer!!! Do they not realize how absolutely trivial it would be for anyone to put anything they want on it? There is no check with any database to see if you are actually booked on the flight. Would a terrorist not think to put the same name as on their id, fake or not? And that stupid little security stamp they put on it. What does that do? I know they don't check it when you board the plane because I have used different boarding passes for security and boarding.
The other thing is hidden explosives. Can an explosive hidden in the space between a woman's breasts really bring down a plane? Could a bomb sniffing dog find explosives more effectively? If it's weapons they are looking for - what could someone do with a sharp knife or even a gun? They keep the cockpits locked now. Before 9/11 cockpits were wide open during flight. If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting, the pilot can divert to the nearest airport and land. If these things could only end up killing a few people, it's not going to be something a terrorist is going to be too interested in, and it's not worth trying to prevent. They can be just as effective going out in the street and shooting people, and it will be much easier.
It's amazing how much more pleasurable Amtrak is compared to air travel. I love it! But it's only really practical for 300 miles or less. Then it gets a bit long. (high speed trains would help). But the comfort and lack of nonsense security screening makes it really stress free. It's great.
And why would there be thrust when the airplane is supposed to be descending (W to E, Honolulu to PHX)?
There was still over an hour of flight time. They can't glide that far.
You should at least turn in your ballot. There might be *something* to vote for among all the positions/issues. You don't have to vote for each one. Skip any that don't have a candidate you like. Even if it means you don't vote for anything, at least you are recorded as voting. Then when the results come out the total of votes between all the candidates will be less than the number of people voting, and it becomes more apparent that they weren't liked too well. It won't change who wins, but not voting won't either.
I wonder if this includes the life-size stonehenge replica in Washington state.
Should we be suspicious when the IBM CEO thinks the U.S. needs a massive IT overhaul? I guess you could say he is qualified to know whether it can be done or not, but it would no doubt steer a lot of money to large IT corporations, such as IBM, that are large enough to handle such a large undertaking.
It is certainly fair to argue that a person earning more money should shoulder a greater burden of government costs, but don't insult my intelligence by trying to make it look like they don't contribute anything.
Did I make it look like they weren't contributing anything? It was simple math and a simple statement. My point is that living on $16k is just a bit more difficult than living on $521k. And if someone pays more, someone else can pay less.
Perhaps you shouldn't simply regurgitate what you hear from D.C. think-tanks.
And perhaps you shouldn't regurgitate what you read from a group trying to defeat the measure. Their own data shows that the people that are paying the highest percentages in taxes are the ones that will benefit the most from this measure and make the tax system more progressive.
To put it another way, if you earn $20k, after taxes you have $16k left to live on. If you earn $537k, after taxes you have $521k to live on. (or about 33x as much as the guy earning $20k).
As far as Federal taxes go, the rates are a bit higher for higher income, but when you take into account deductions, the richer you are, the less you pay in general. Their are billion dollar corporations (and probably individuals) that pay nothing in income tax. In my own personal experience, as my income grows, my tax as a percentage of income has decreased because I can deduct more from my income.
The Republican philosophy is: Give all the money to the rich, and they will take care of everything. It hasn't worked, and never has. We are paying the price for that now.
In Washington state, there is no state income tax, so the state taxes come primarily from sales and property taxes, licensing, and business taxes. Everyone pays for these taxes. The less you make, the higher the percentage of your income goes to taxable items, so the tax burden as a percentage of income is much higher.
And where do you suppose that corporations get their money? [...] Jeff Bezos, in particular, is well renknowned for his funding of new startups.
New companies == more jobs.
Do you know where else they get their money? From customers and lower startup costs. Both of which this law will help. So instead of waiting for Jeff Bezos to give them money, businesses can do it on their own.
The worst political development in American history was that it gradually became ok to just vote other people's money to yourself.
This new law is an attempt to fix that. The richest in the state have already managed a vote for the poorest to support them. The richest in the state currently pay less than 3% in taxes, while the poorest are paying over 17%. This law will make it 12% for the rich, and around 14% for the poor.
Washington has the most regressive tax in the nation. The poorest are paying the majority of the taxes. The poorest pay 17% of their income to taxes, while the richest pay less than 3%. This law will even it out a bit, but the poorest will still be paying more as a percentage than the richest.
The people most likely to put the money back into the economy are the people that need it most. The poorest are most likely to spend whatever money they have at local businesses. The richest people don't need to spend the money, and are very likely to spend it outside the state anyway. Remember, this is a state tax. We want the money to be spent here, to stimulate the state economy. Buying stocks with the money in some foreign company (something the rich might do) does nothing for the state. Buying a beer at the local pub does.
This Republican idea of giving all the money to the rich and they will take care of everything is complete bullshit. It doesn't work.
In Washington state currently, people earning less than $20,000 pay 17.3% in taxes. People earning over $537,000 pay just 2.9%
Even with this law, the richest will be paying less as a percentage of income than the poorest in the state.
This study (pdf) gives the numbers.
If the credit card was stolen, then the loss should come out of the credit company's pocket, not Paypal or the Ebay seller.
PayPal doesn't agree. I sold something on EBay, and six months later PayPal charged me for the full amount. They told me the credit card that the buyer used through PayPal was stolen, so I had to pay for it. So I lost the item I sold, plus all the money I received for it, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was no way for me to validate the credit card myself because I was never given the credit card. That was PayPal's job, but I'm the one that lost, not them. PayPal even had the buyer's name, and the comments the buyer made that said they received the item and were completely satisfied. They screwed me over so I deleted my PayPal account and will never use them again.
PayPal should have been responsible because they accepted the credit card. All I accepted was the PayPal payment.
The travel company I work for just deleted Fucking, Austria from their database because they figured it was better not to offend someone than to allow them to travel there. The only way someone would have actually seen the name is if they searched for it, so it seems rather stupid, but I could imagine some complaining that they searched for Fucking and found what they searched for.