National ID card? When was the last time you have had to show some your SS card? I know they can be easily forged these days but why bother. You just need to rattle off the digits when asked.
These days I look at voting between the two major US parties as a choice between being punched in the nose or kicked in the groin. Which is "better"?...
I understand and generally agree with your points. Carry a balance book? I haven't kept a paper check register since about 1984. I keep track of everything in Quicken. I have a budget for my credit card spending that is a scheduled transaction that pops into my checking account. I enter the amounts from my receipts when I get home. The credit card account in Quicken then works its way down from my budgeted amount towards 0. That is how much money I have left to spend that month. If an emergency comes up, I may have to adjust the budget amount to use a little of the cushion that I keep in my checking account.
The worst case I've had happen in a few years is that I had to wait to pay my credit card until my next paycheck. I normally write the check that day. It's not worth trying to time it until the last minute. Also, I don't do the online bill paying due to similar security concerns. I don't like the idea of someone hacking into my checking account online and sending money all over the place.
I have an iPod and I plan on getting a Z5 because I want access to music from a subscription service at work and the gym. I enjoy my iPod and love the ease of use of it and iTunes. To be honest it gets old having the same stuff on there. I have a Rhapsody account and enjoy finding new music and old music that I don't own.
I recently bought a Sansa M250 player. I grabbed 300 songs from my Rhapsody to Go account. They were mostly older songs that I had never owned, with a mix of some that I had owned on vinyl years ago and some that I had on yet unripped CDs. Even if I excluded the stuff I had on CD, I would have had to spend about $250 at iTMS to get that much music. Yes, I don't own it, but I don't care. I would expect to try 40 or 50 new songs a month. With a fixed price, I am free to try out related music. It doesn't cost me anything extra. If I don't like it, I delete it.
I returned the Sansa due to a combination of its pitiful playlist support after seeing the announcement of the Z5. The Z5 is in no way an iPod killer. If I could have my wishes, my iPod would work with a subscription service. Since it doesn't I am in the market for a good player to work with Rhapsody to Go.
How not? Four players with Ace, 10 in their pocket, and King, Queen, and Jack on the table, thats four royal flushes with a single deck in Texas Hold'em
In the situation you described you could get 4 straights. In order to get 4 royal flushes you would need to get a KQJ of each suit on the table. That would be tough in Texas Hold'em as there are only 5 community cards (not 12).
If you're serious about tournament poker, buy harrington's books, and read both of them... volume 2 is NLHE tournament gold.
Thanks for the reminder about volume 2. I happened to read volume 1 before playing in my first B&M tourney and won it. There was obviously some luck involved but just having reviewed the situations in the book definitely helped me out.
Wow, it is tougher out there than I thought. I graduated with honors with an EE degree in '88 and started at $30K. My school loans for 4 years were probably what your friend has for 1 year.
"There are obviously lots of players that don't support MP3, iPod being one of them."
Hmmm, I bet that's news to Steve Jobs. From Apple's website:
"Designed to give you the best portable digital music experience ever, the iPod delivers the highest sound quality from input to output. iPod supports the most popular audio formats -- including MP3 (up to 320 kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR) and WAV -- giving you access to a wide range of audio file types. And iPod is the only portable digital music player that supports the AAC format used by the iTunes Music Store for Mac and Windows. AAC features CD-quality audio in smaller file sizes than MP3, so that even more songs fit on your iPod."
I was a huge fan of Emusic when it was unlimited. I understand why that business model couldn't last, but I don't like the subscription model with limits.
I would have stuck around had they just switched to a $0.25 per song, or at least let you carry over unused songs from one month to the next. I used to "binge" download from Emusic. I wouldn't grab anything for 6 to 8 weeks, then I would download 10 - 15 CDs.
Be careful about bits vs. bytes. The 128 kpbs stream is in bits per second, where the 30 GB cap is in bytes. The limit would kick in at 520 hours, not 64. So, someone would reach the cap at day 22 if they listened to streaming Internet radio 24 hours a day (8 times the 3 hours you mentioned).
I agree with you that the caps suck.
Frontier just started offering unlimited long distance for $15 for their "choices" customers.
For $80 per month + taxes ($94 or so total) I get phone service with all the bells & whistles (including distinctive ringing for 2 numbers), unlimited long distance, and ADSL (3 Mbps down / 384 kbps up). I'm very happy with their service too.
I hated Sprint, I couldn't get a signal at work after recently switching offices (not near outside wall anymore). I also could barely get a signal at our new house. We had been waiting until my wife's contract was up. She also wanted to wait so she could keep her number.
We couldn't wait anymore. Our first child is due next week and I needed a cell phone that could work at the office. We switched to Verizon. With mobile to mobile and shared minutes, we get order of magnitude better service, and more minutes for the same cost.
We gave up our good numbers. Since only friends & family had them, it wasn't too bad.
I had been looking at using Vonage. Just yesterday, I heard an ad from our local phone company Frontier offering unlimited long distance for $15/month if you have their "Choices" plan.
Since I currently have that plan, I added the flat rate long distance today. I get all the bells and whistles (voice mail, caller ID, distinctive ring, call forwarding, etc., unlimited long distance, DSL-max (3 Mbps down, 384 kpbs up)) for $80 plus taxes and fees. I can look at it as $40/month for DSL and $40/month for local & long distance service with all the bells and whistles.
While this does not include wireless as apparently Verizon does, I am happy with the bundled package. My wife can now talk to her friends and family as much as she wants without worrying about running up a bill or running out of prime time minutes on her cellular plan.
Create multiple online aliases tied to different email addresses. Log on, browse, put in shopping cart to see price. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sign on with your "real" alias to purchase. Note different price. Complain.
This of course could be stopped by the merchants requiring a credit card to create an alias (vs. just needing one at purchase time).
I setup my parents' PC into two partitions of equal size. I believe it was a 60 GB drive (which is about 50 GB more than they'll ever use). I bought them a copy of Drive Image and once in awhile when I am over they I run it. I backup the main partition to the other partition and chunk the backup into CD size chunks. I copy the backups to 5 CD-Rs and bring the backups home with me. In case of HD meltdown I'd be able to install a new one and restore Windows and everything else to exactly how it was when I made the backup.
For day to day I setup a batch file to copy all their important data (i.e. email and some work documents) to a CD-RW using Nero's packet writing software.
So far it works well. I've successfully restored a similar setup on my old machine when my HD died.
Yes, that would give them the position of my cell phone. If I am going somewhere I don't want people knowing about, I leave my cell phone at home. This is obviously easier to do with a cell phone than an implanted chip.
Also, if you have Sprint PCS like I do you don't have much to worry about in many places. I can't get a good enough signal to use the phone in many places, so I really doubt they know where I am.:)
You underestimate their ability to fuck up clients. The PVCS Version Manager 7.0 Java Swing client app is 10 times worse (both speed and usability) than the 6.0 win32 client. No one on our team will use the 7.0 client.
I know, I know, we need to migrate to CVS or something else.
I know I am in the minority, but my cell phone is off over 95% of the time. My main use is to call long distance (charges included in my base plan).
Occasionally I will have it on when I am out and expecting a call from my wife. She sometimes complains about not being able to get hold of me. It works.
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Yeah, but would you want to run XP a 300 MHz Pentium II and 128 MB RAM??? I believe those system requirements were a little too minimal...
National ID card? When was the last time you have had to show some your SS card? I know they can be easily forged these days but why bother. You just need to rattle off the digits when asked.
These days I look at voting between the two major US parties as a choice between being punched in the nose or kicked in the groin. Which is "better"?...
What else do you expect from "Zonk"....
I understand and generally agree with your points. Carry a balance book? I haven't kept a paper check register since about 1984. I keep track of everything in Quicken. I have a budget for my credit card spending that is a scheduled transaction that pops into my checking account. I enter the amounts from my receipts when I get home. The credit card account in Quicken then works its way down from my budgeted amount towards 0. That is how much money I have left to spend that month. If an emergency comes up, I may have to adjust the budget amount to use a little of the cushion that I keep in my checking account.
The worst case I've had happen in a few years is that I had to wait to pay my credit card until my next paycheck. I normally write the check that day. It's not worth trying to time it until the last minute. Also, I don't do the online bill paying due to similar security concerns. I don't like the idea of someone hacking into my checking account online and sending money all over the place.
I have an iPod and I plan on getting a Z5 because I want access to music from a subscription service at work and the gym. I enjoy my iPod and love the ease of use of it and iTunes. To be honest it gets old having the same stuff on there. I have a Rhapsody account and enjoy finding new music and old music that I don't own.
I recently bought a Sansa M250 player. I grabbed 300 songs from my Rhapsody to Go account. They were mostly older songs that I had never owned, with a mix of some that I had owned on vinyl years ago and some that I had on yet unripped CDs. Even if I excluded the stuff I had on CD, I would have had to spend about $250 at iTMS to get that much music. Yes, I don't own it, but I don't care. I would expect to try 40 or 50 new songs a month. With a fixed price, I am free to try out related music. It doesn't cost me anything extra. If I don't like it, I delete it.
I returned the Sansa due to a combination of its pitiful playlist support after seeing the announcement of the Z5. The Z5 is in no way an iPod killer. If I could have my wishes, my iPod would work with a subscription service. Since it doesn't I am in the market for a good player to work with Rhapsody to Go.
I tried beer on Frosted Flakes once in college when I was out of milk.
Not good.....
Just make sure you do this in private and that no one hears you. Otherwise you owe money to ASCAP / Kiss' label for performing their song... :)
How not? Four players with Ace, 10 in their pocket, and King, Queen, and Jack on the table, thats four royal flushes with a single deck in Texas Hold'em
In the situation you described you could get 4 straights. In order to get 4 royal flushes you would need to get a KQJ of each suit on the table. That would be tough in Texas Hold'em as there are only 5 community cards (not 12).
If you're serious about tournament poker, buy harrington's books, and read both of them... volume 2 is NLHE tournament gold.
Thanks for the reminder about volume 2. I happened to read volume 1 before playing in my first B&M tourney and won it. There was obviously some luck involved but just having reviewed the situations in the book definitely helped me out.
Wow, it is tougher out there than I thought. I graduated with honors with an EE degree in '88 and started at $30K. My school loans for 4 years were probably what your friend has for 1 year.
"There are obviously lots of players that don't support MP3, iPod being one of them."
Hmmm, I bet that's news to Steve Jobs. From Apple's website:
"Designed to give you the best portable digital music experience ever, the iPod delivers the highest sound quality from input to output. iPod supports the most popular audio formats -- including MP3 (up to 320 kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR) and WAV -- giving you access to a wide range of audio file types. And iPod is the only portable digital music player that supports the AAC format used by the iTunes Music Store for Mac and Windows. AAC features CD-quality audio in smaller file sizes than MP3, so that even more songs fit on your iPod."
I was a huge fan of Emusic when it was unlimited. I understand why that business model couldn't last, but I don't like the subscription model with limits.
I would have stuck around had they just switched to a $0.25 per song, or at least let you carry over unused songs from one month to the next. I used to "binge" download from Emusic. I wouldn't grab anything for 6 to 8 weeks, then I would download 10 - 15 CDs.
Be careful about bits vs. bytes. The 128 kpbs stream is in bits per second, where the 30 GB cap is in bytes. The limit would kick in at 520 hours, not 64. So, someone would reach the cap at day 22 if they listened to streaming Internet radio 24 hours a day (8 times the 3 hours you mentioned). I agree with you that the caps suck.
"it is not a good bussiness practice to see your customers as criminals and treat them like that." Too bad the RIAA hasn't figured that one out yet...
Frontier just started offering unlimited long distance for $15 for their "choices" customers.
For $80 per month + taxes ($94 or so total) I get phone service with all the bells & whistles (including distinctive ringing for 2 numbers), unlimited long distance, and ADSL (3 Mbps down / 384 kbps up). I'm very happy with their service too.
I hated Sprint, I couldn't get a signal at work after recently switching offices (not near outside wall anymore). I also could barely get a signal at our new house. We had been waiting until my wife's contract was up. She also wanted to wait so she could keep her number. We couldn't wait anymore. Our first child is due next week and I needed a cell phone that could work at the office. We switched to Verizon. With mobile to mobile and shared minutes, we get order of magnitude better service, and more minutes for the same cost. We gave up our good numbers. Since only friends & family had them, it wasn't too bad.
There is something backwards, your division. The price points are:
$9.99 for 40 tracks = ~$0.25 per track
$14.99 for 65 tracks = ~$0.23 per track
$50 for 300 tracks = ~$0.167 per track
I had been looking at using Vonage. Just yesterday, I heard an ad from our local phone company Frontier offering unlimited long distance for $15/month if you have their "Choices" plan.
Since I currently have that plan, I added the flat rate long distance today. I get all the bells and whistles (voice mail, caller ID, distinctive ring, call forwarding, etc., unlimited long distance, DSL-max (3 Mbps down, 384 kpbs up)) for $80 plus taxes and fees. I can look at it as $40/month for DSL and $40/month for local & long distance service with all the bells and whistles.
While this does not include wireless as apparently Verizon does, I am happy with the bundled package. My wife can now talk to her friends and family as much as she wants without worrying about running up a bill or running out of prime time minutes on her cellular plan.
Create multiple online aliases tied to different email addresses. Log on, browse, put in shopping cart to see price. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sign on with your "real" alias to purchase. Note different price. Complain.
This of course could be stopped by the merchants requiring a credit card to create an alias (vs. just needing one at purchase time).
I setup my parents' PC into two partitions of equal size. I believe it was a 60 GB drive (which is about 50 GB more than they'll ever use). I bought them a copy of Drive Image and once in awhile when I am over they I run it. I backup the main partition to the other partition and chunk the backup into CD size chunks. I copy the backups to 5 CD-Rs and bring the backups home with me. In case of HD meltdown I'd be able to install a new one and restore Windows and everything else to exactly how it was when I made the backup.
For day to day I setup a batch file to copy all their important data (i.e. email and some work documents) to a CD-RW using Nero's packet writing software.
So far it works well. I've successfully restored a similar setup on my old machine when my HD died.
Yes, that would give them the position of my cell phone. If I am going somewhere I don't want people knowing about, I leave my cell phone at home. This is obviously easier to do with a cell phone than an implanted chip.
:)
Also, if you have Sprint PCS like I do you don't have much to worry about in many places. I can't get a good enough signal to use the phone in many places, so I really doubt they know where I am.
You underestimate their ability to fuck up clients. The PVCS Version Manager 7.0 Java Swing client app is 10 times worse (both speed and usability) than the 6.0 win32 client. No one on our team will use the 7.0 client.
I know, I know, we need to migrate to CVS or something else.
I know I am in the minority, but my cell phone is off over 95% of the time. My main use is to call long distance (charges included in my base plan).
Occasionally I will have it on when I am out and expecting a call from my wife. She sometimes complains about not being able to get hold of me. It works.
I just signed up myself and love it. They have a great jazz selection.
One minor gripe is the quality of the 128 kbps MP3s. I can't tell the difference in the car (wind noise) or at the computer, so its not too bad.
I would pay $20 a month for 192 kbps VBR MP3s and $25 a month for lossless.