Re:Math Error in Article Post
on
AOL's $299 PC
·
· Score: 1
Email me and I'll send you the info...
Math Error in Article Post
on
AOL's $299 PC
·
· Score: 4, Informative
You cannot consider the entire cost of AOL access to be "interest" in this interesting calculation. You must consider that you are receiving something of value in addition to just the computer. THe way to calculate the effective financing rate is to take the difference between the cost of AOL and the cost of another equivalent access service, say, Earthlink, which I believe is $15/mo or so...
So, (12*(23.90-15))+299 = $405.80...
Ok, so let's see what I can buy that system for.
I just purchased two small machines, Athlon 1900+, 256MB Ram, 40GB Hard disks, with integrated I/O and everything for $280 each delivered. A 17" monitor can be had for about $100 and a cheap-ass Lexmark printer is about $50. What's that come out to? $430? and it's a MUCH MUCH MUCH faster machine...
So the bottom line is that this deal is marginal at best, and with AOL's buying power, it's probably very profitable in the end. They can probably put that machine together for about $200-250.
I've been with Sprint since December of 1999. I've always been given outstanding customer service when I have called, and have never once had any problems with them. They even gave me an unpublished rate plan that is far better than any of the ones they offer for sale (after I told them I was switching to another carrier). They've always been courteous to me on the phone and have always taken care of requests in a timely manner.
Perhaps you have a low CRM score with them... (they give their customers an internal value score based on their plan, how long they've been with sprint, timeliness of payment, net profit, and a host of other factors)...
Good point (although I never complained about the abbreviation for 'crystal'). That and given that the cell towers are probably far from the tracks, the radial velocity is even less... so this probably isn't a big deal... I'm sure it would still manifest itself in a statistically measurable increase in BER, however.... just not a very significant one.
I wonder if moving that fast causes problems with train-land wi-fi and cell networks due to the doppler effect? Imagine you're screaming toward a cell tower at 167 m/s (600 km/h) - that's a doppler shift of 500Hz at 900MHz, which I imagine could cause some problems.
Actually, the only things keeping the US from getting such high speed rail are regulations and liability. Acela was crippled by too many far-overreaching safety regulations and fear of litigation, oh, and ridiculous union labor costs.
Also, the faster the train goes, the more accurate the spacing between the rails has to be. At 600kph (holy shit that's fast!), I imagine the rails would have to have less than a few millimeters of error - something that is very difficult to achieve, and I for one wouldn't trust union labor to be able to achieve that.
Now, speaking of straight shots, these high-speed rails would be great in the plains states... Imagine making it from St. Louis to Phoenix in a couple of hours, on the ground!
Because if you read the user agreement, you must agree only to use the O/S provided by Dell, and if you do not agree, you must return the software AND the hardware to Dell.
Using a dell without the O/S they provide on it is contrary to Dell's terms of sale, and end user licensing agreement...
>> Short of kneecapping spyware and virii writers (same thing in my book) it will just get worse.
As long as there is money to be made in viruses, viruses will be written. McAfee and Norton make tons of money on their anti-virus products. Even if you did go around and get all of the virus authors, I'm sure viruses would still show up, even if these same companies had to contract out virus creation to Bangalore.. .
But, see, you don't actually OWN any of the software on your computer. You only have LICENSE to use it! Use of the O/S is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the User Agreement that you agreed to by pressing the power button for the first time, even though you must turn the computer on in order to read the very same agreement.
>> First, a class action is prosecuted by, and in the name of , an actual member of the class
Of course, and I am sure there are numerous artists that would be happy to sign on as plaintiffs. Any lawyer can file a class action suit as long as they have willing participants. If that lawyer happens to work for the RIAA, so what?
>> The "class" of "recording artists whose music has been downloaded on Kazaa" is not a real class -- it's too diffuse, and the damages are too differentiated from "class" member to member.
This is the case with most class action lawsuits. Take, for example, the case of Mitsubishi Wheels. Some people have been injured, and other have not even had their wheels bend, but they are still both members of the class, and there is a wide variety in between. The class of recording artists who have suffered damages due to P2P networks is actually very specific, even though the actual value of damage might vary from artist to artist.
>> That simply won't fly in any court in this country
Come on, you know as well as I do that just about anything will fly in a court in this country. You are correct that the defendant in this case is another class. However, just because it has the virtue of never having been attempted does not mean that it is impossible. I also contend that the "defendant class" would consist of people who are known to have shared copyrighted works on a peer-to-peer network. Not "all individuals who have downloaded music" or least of all "all members of Kazaa."
>> certain members of the "defendant class", for example, would have absolutely no liability to certain members of the "plaintiff class."
Just like Mitsubishi has absolutely no liability to me (right now), since I have not suffered any damages from their "defective" wheels. But, I am still a member of the class and will realize compensation (in the form of a new set of wheels), whether I want to or not, if the case is decided in favor of the plaintiff class.
That's okay, I just filed a Patent Application on "Method for profit on intangible music by legal proxy" that covers the method I described in my original post. If they try to file a class action, I'll sue their pants off.
>> the original entity bringing the suit has to show cause
"Your Honor, it is not reasonable to assume that people who download music are downloading only music created by RIAA artists..." --Check
>> and that other people have been harmed in the same way
"Therefore, under the previous argument, it _is_ reasonable to conjecture that other artists, even those not affiliated with the RIAA, are suffering financial harm at the hands of the downloaders...." --Check
>> Why are you asking me about this, and not a lower court or the one in Detroit?
"Your Honor, there are downloaders in every state in the Union, and therefore it is clear that the federal courts have proper jurisdiction for these proceedings. It would furthermore be impractical and inpracticable to pursue injuctive relief in lower courts as the legal burden would be too great and too widespread"
ergo:
>> Class actions are ostensibly intended to streamline the court system
Exactly....
You know, I said before that this is only theory, but the more I look at this, the more possible it seems... scary shit...
The RIAA can sue on behalf of anyone they want to provided that person had not issued a decree that the RIAA may not do so.
Anyone can sue anyone else on behalf of any third party - take a class action, for example. Someone sue's an alleged negligent automobile manufacturer on behalf of everyone who owns one, and it is up to the individual owners to "opt out" of the lawsuit to avoid losing their rights to obtain their own suit.
THEORETICALLY SPEAKING, The RIAA can sue all downloaders in a class action on behalf of all artists, and then those artists, even though they are not members of the RIAA, would have to "opt out" of the lawsuit. The RIAA could potentially grab damage rights away from thousands of non-affiliated artists, without their knowledge or consent, and steal all of _that_ money, too.
All they are required to do is put an ad in a paper of reasonable market coverage in the area in which the principal plaintiff has their principal place of business, which means one ad in the LA paper that 99.99% of artists would not see. After the opt-out deadline, the RIAA would then own the damage rights that previously belonged to all of those artists. Again, THEORETICALLY SPEAKING.
In any case, do you think that artists are seeing a damn dime of all this settlement money? It's all going to the lawyers and RIAA executives.
Shorting a stock is very risky business. There is no limit to the amount of money you can lose when shorting a stock, however, there IS a limited amount of money you can gain. Think about that before you short the stock. Remember, there are 300,000,000 people in the US, of which about 280,000,000 are completely stupid and are willing to put their money into SCO.
I am not a financial advisor and nothing herein shall be construed as advice, an offer, contract, or any other type of useful information.
SCO will have to produce reasonable proof that they are being immediately harmed by Google in order to get a preliminary injunction. Since they're unwilling to provide any evidence whatsoever, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that they will be granted any injuction at all. If anything, Google may be able to get a summary judgement in their favor if SCO refuses to produce evidence that they own ANY software that Google uses..
Of course, this is logical and reasonable, and nothing logical or reasonable has happened in a US courtroom in a very long time...
1) M$ Tries to buy Google to increase market share for IIS 2) Google tells M$ where to shove it 3) M$ gets pissed off and sicks their little lapdog, SCO, on Google 4) ??? 5) Profit!
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Email me and I'll send you the info...
You cannot consider the entire cost of AOL access to be "interest" in this interesting calculation. You must consider that you are receiving something of value in addition to just the computer. THe way to calculate the effective financing rate is to take the difference between the cost of AOL and the cost of another equivalent access service, say, Earthlink, which I believe is $15/mo or so...
So, (12*(23.90-15))+299 = $405.80...
Ok, so let's see what I can buy that system for.
I just purchased two small machines, Athlon 1900+, 256MB Ram, 40GB Hard disks, with integrated I/O and everything for $280 each delivered. A 17" monitor can be had for about $100 and a cheap-ass Lexmark printer is about $50. What's that come out to? $430? and it's a MUCH MUCH MUCH faster machine...
So the bottom line is that this deal is marginal at best, and with AOL's buying power, it's probably very profitable in the end. They can probably put that machine together for about $200-250.
>> Linux to work around the patent, this would break compatibility with industry standards
The plan, of course, is for FAT to no longer be the industry standard.
I've been with Sprint since December of 1999. I've always been given outstanding customer service when I have called, and have never once had any problems with them. They even gave me an unpublished rate plan that is far better than any of the ones they offer for sale (after I told them I was switching to another carrier). They've always been courteous to me on the phone and have always taken care of requests in a timely manner.
Perhaps you have a low CRM score with them... (they give their customers an internal value score based on their plan, how long they've been with sprint, timeliness of payment, net profit, and a host of other factors)...
It increased my bill... that's all.. forcing me to pay for YET ANOTHER service that I do not need and do not use.
Perhaps you didn't pick up the sarcasm in my post...
Good point (although I never complained about the abbreviation for 'crystal'). That and given that the cell towers are probably far from the tracks, the radial velocity is even less... so this probably isn't a big deal... I'm sure it would still manifest itself in a statistically measurable increase in BER, however.... just not a very significant one.
I wonder if moving that fast causes problems with train-land wi-fi and cell networks due to the doppler effect? Imagine you're screaming toward a cell tower at 167 m/s (600 km/h) - that's a doppler shift of 500Hz at 900MHz, which I imagine could cause some problems.
It's expending 8 times as much energy to go twice as fast... which is even more amazing..
Actually, the only things keeping the US from getting such high speed rail are regulations and liability. Acela was crippled by too many far-overreaching safety regulations and fear of litigation, oh, and ridiculous union labor costs.
Also, the faster the train goes, the more accurate the spacing between the rails has to be. At 600kph (holy shit that's fast!), I imagine the rails would have to have less than a few millimeters of error - something that is very difficult to achieve, and I for one wouldn't trust union labor to be able to achieve that.
Now, speaking of straight shots, these high-speed rails would be great in the plains states... Imagine making it from St. Louis to Phoenix in a couple of hours, on the ground!
>> How is this Dell's fault again? Seriously...
Because if you read the user agreement, you must agree only to use the O/S provided by Dell, and if you do not agree, you must return the software AND the hardware to Dell.
Using a dell without the O/S they provide on it is contrary to Dell's terms of sale, and end user licensing agreement...
>> Short of kneecapping spyware and virii writers (same thing in my book) it will just get worse.
As long as there is money to be made in viruses, viruses will be written. McAfee and Norton make tons of money on their anti-virus products. Even if you did go around and get all of the virus authors, I'm sure viruses would still show up, even if these same companies had to contract out virus creation to Bangalore.. .
But, see, you don't actually OWN any of the software on your computer. You only have LICENSE to use it! Use of the O/S is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the User Agreement that you agreed to by pressing the power button for the first time, even though you must turn the computer on in order to read the very same agreement.
Software is in a sad state...
>> First, a class action is prosecuted by, and in the name of , an actual member of the class
Of course, and I am sure there are numerous artists that would be happy to sign on as plaintiffs. Any lawyer can file a class action suit as long as they have willing participants. If that lawyer happens to work for the RIAA, so what?
>> The "class" of "recording artists whose music has been downloaded on Kazaa" is not a real class -- it's too diffuse, and the damages are too differentiated from "class" member to member.
This is the case with most class action lawsuits. Take, for example, the case of Mitsubishi Wheels. Some people have been injured, and other have not even had their wheels bend, but they are still both members of the class, and there is a wide variety in between. The class of recording artists who have suffered damages due to P2P networks is actually very specific, even though the actual value of damage might vary from artist to artist.
>> That simply won't fly in any court in this country
Come on, you know as well as I do that just about anything will fly in a court in this country. You are correct that the defendant in this case is another class. However, just because it has the virtue of never having been attempted does not mean that it is impossible. I also contend that the "defendant class" would consist of people who are known to have shared copyrighted works on a peer-to-peer network. Not "all individuals who have downloaded music" or least of all "all members of Kazaa."
>> certain members of the "defendant class", for example, would have absolutely no liability to certain members of the "plaintiff class."
Just like Mitsubishi has absolutely no liability to me (right now), since I have not suffered any damages from their "defective" wheels. But, I am still a member of the class and will realize compensation (in the form of a new set of wheels), whether I want to or not, if the case is decided in favor of the plaintiff class.
>> Class actions are a limited exception to this rule, and one the RIAA cannot take advantage of.
Why not?
>> Then why, in the subpoenas, do the RIAA lawyers state "I affirm, under penalty of perjury, that I am authorized to act on behalf of $label"?
Because it is not a class action lawsuit (yet)...
That's okay, I just filed a Patent Application on "Method for profit on intangible music by legal proxy" that covers the method I described in my original post. If they try to file a class action, I'll sue their pants off.
>> the original entity bringing the suit has to show cause
"Your Honor, it is not reasonable to assume that people who download music are downloading only music created by RIAA artists..." --Check
>> and that other people have been harmed in the same way
"Therefore, under the previous argument, it _is_ reasonable to conjecture that other artists, even those not affiliated with the RIAA, are suffering financial harm at the hands of the downloaders...." --Check
>> Why are you asking me about this, and not a lower court or the one in Detroit?
"Your Honor, there are downloaders in every state in the Union, and therefore it is clear that the federal courts have proper jurisdiction for these proceedings. It would furthermore be impractical and inpracticable to pursue injuctive relief in lower courts as the legal burden would be too great and too widespread"
ergo:
>> Class actions are ostensibly intended to streamline the court system
Exactly....
You know, I said before that this is only theory, but the more I look at this, the more possible it seems... scary shit...
The RIAA can sue on behalf of anyone they want to provided that person had not issued a decree that the RIAA may not do so.
Anyone can sue anyone else on behalf of any third party - take a class action, for example. Someone sue's an alleged negligent automobile manufacturer on behalf of everyone who owns one, and it is up to the individual owners to "opt out" of the lawsuit to avoid losing their rights to obtain their own suit.
THEORETICALLY SPEAKING, The RIAA can sue all downloaders in a class action on behalf of all artists, and then those artists, even though they are not members of the RIAA, would have to "opt out" of the lawsuit. The RIAA could potentially grab damage rights away from thousands of non-affiliated artists, without their knowledge or consent, and steal all of _that_ money, too.
All they are required to do is put an ad in a paper of reasonable market coverage in the area in which the principal plaintiff has their principal place of business, which means one ad in the LA paper that 99.99% of artists would not see. After the opt-out deadline, the RIAA would then own the damage rights that previously belonged to all of those artists. Again, THEORETICALLY SPEAKING.
In any case, do you think that artists are seeing a damn dime of all this settlement money? It's all going to the lawyers and RIAA executives.
Their agreement with the feds is irrelevant, because the feds have no intent to enforce it.
Shorting a stock is very risky business. There is no limit to the amount of money you can lose when shorting a stock, however, there IS a limited amount of money you can gain. Think about that before you short the stock. Remember, there are 300,000,000 people in the US, of which about 280,000,000 are completely stupid and are willing to put their money into SCO.
I am not a financial advisor and nothing herein shall be construed as advice, an offer, contract, or any other type of useful information.
SCO will have to produce reasonable proof that they are being immediately harmed by Google in order to get a preliminary injunction. Since they're unwilling to provide any evidence whatsoever, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that they will be granted any injuction at all. If anything, Google may be able to get a summary judgement in their favor if SCO refuses to produce evidence that they own ANY software that Google uses..
Of course, this is logical and reasonable, and nothing logical or reasonable has happened in a US courtroom in a very long time...
Hitler also denied that Germany had any aggressive aspirations against the rest of Europe.... that is, until the morning they invaded Poland...
1) M$ Tries to buy Google to increase market share for IIS
2) Google tells M$ where to shove it
3) M$ gets pissed off and sicks their little lapdog, SCO, on Google
4) ???
5) Profit!
The government will have to kill me. There's no way I'm going to allow anyone to electronically tag me.