I have had a similar experience, although I have never had to sign anything before getting the quote. We have had too many bad experiences with sales people. In general we have a few rules. First, we call you. If you knock on my door unsolicited, looking for any work, you will be sent away. Second, if you show up at the estimate with power point, or a long dog and pony show, your bid will more than likely be thrown out. Finally, offers that expire when the sales person leaves are thrown out. I hate when you won't stand by your quote long enough for competitive bids. These rules have usually guided us to solid work, for a reasonable price, without any haggling.
I am not sure how is age is worth noting at all. He isn't the youngest person to ever testify before a Congressional committee, and he has been a public figure for quite some time, so should be used to public speaking, and being the center of attention. Younger people have argued cases before the Supreme Court, a far more demanding task, requiring that you actually know something about the subject matter. He is merely getting a crash course in deflecting questions, something you can probably pick up by watching Meet the Press for about 30 minutes.
How they make that happen doesn't matter if the total is lower.
I suppose that is my core question, how does the non-repairability affect the total cost of ownership? For many years now electronics have been getting tougher to repair, but they have also been getting cheaper. Are we beginning to see a tipping point? Replacing a $300 tablet isn't a huge burden for an individual, but I worry that doesn't scale well for a school district. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
We bought iPad Minis for my kids when they are turning 5 and 6. Upon opening, we put them into Otter Boxes, to mitigate spills and drops. In the three almsot four years we owned them, they have been used nearly every day, we have replaced the covers once, and they have endured many catastrophes. We go through more headphones and charging cables since they tend to hold and crimp the cables too much. I will concede that these are prized possessions, and are generally well cared for. That said, I think they can be made to stand up to quite a bit of abuse, for not a lot of extra money.
I feel like this misses that point that they are not repairable, be it by the school or the vendor. You are no longer buying a support/repair contract, but a warranty/replacement contract. In your experience, do you think you would be able to get an affordable plan for a K-8 setting? I know in our district the long term maintenance costs are weighted more heavily than the initial purchase cost.
The dynamic range of the human eye is much better than most cameras. It is difficult to say exactly how much more time the driver would have had though. I suppose we will never know in this case as the Uber operator was negligent, barely monitoring the road. It will be interesting to learn what the LIDAR saw and/or why the car did not react. I also wonder why the camera doesn't have a night mode.
These are not simple issues you are talking about. It is easy to say we'll just have a public vote on gun control. Getting people to read and understand the details is an entirely other matter. How would individuals offer alternatives? What happens when the bill needs to repeal parts of other legislation. I am not saying that our current representatives do this well, but opening this process up to the masses will create far more problems than it creates.
You make a good point, but I think it is more just laziness. They need a headline to grab attention, then move on to the next story. The best example are stories about "the latest study on X". They summarize the first two sentences of the abstract, embellish that with another 45 seconds of banter, then go to commercial. Heck, last night I watch the news, where they talked about how many snow days the local schools have used. They went on wondering how schools were going to make up the time, indicating they they didn't know. 5 minutes on the school website would have cleared that up, but I can only assume they were just too lazy to do the work.
There must be plenty of examples/precedents from other industries. Plumbers and electricians come to mind. I could imagine many small contractors don't get paid if there are no jobs to work. The larger companies probably have enough work to put folks on a salary (or some other minimum pay) since they can guarantee enough work every day. Construction and landscaping companies use a lot of day labor because the amount of day-to-day work varies greatly.
Perhaps instead of trying to work out an hourly rate, a monthly or annual rate would be more helpful for comparison.
The operator may not even need to drive, just instruct the computer on the safest path. If a cow walks onto a country road, the remote operator can see that the shoulder is wide enough, and update the route.
The more rural roads may be a problem, but this is just a first step. So driving across country is out, but a semi-autonomous ride from Washington DC to Boston could be within reach of current tech.
If we set aside the security considerations, I wonder if this offers a reasonable compromise. Until a car can be made fully autonomous, they could run on auto pilot until the computer encounters a problematic situation. For example, it approaches a construction zone on the highway. The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, navigates the obstacle, then returns control to the computer. I wonder if this is what companies like Uber and Lyft are working toward?
I think the Game of Thrones TV series is suffering the same problem as the books. There is a lot of material, and a lot of characters. It is very difficult to tell such a complex story, allowing the reader/watcher to connect the dots. I applaud the epic nature of the story, but think they need to drop a bunch of the subplots.
Shows like the Walking Dead have to fit into a very specific box due to legacy broadcasting paradigms. The network orders a specific number of shows and expects them to fit neatly into a 30 or 60 minute time slot. You might only have enough story for 12 episodes, but you have to make 20. And too bad that you don't have time to show that epic fight scene, or long character speech. You can't go over 44 minutes divided into 4 acts for commercial breaks.
The Netflix model allows the show producer to write the exact number of episodes it takes to tell the story. Episode lengths can vary, to allow the writers the opportunity to tell a proper story, while keeping the length manageable to the viewer. Given what I have seen with most Netflix and HBO series, they probably start with target of 10 one hour episodes per season, and adjust as they map it all out.
Except you are going to need the support of most of those people to get anything done. You are not throwing the party for yourself, but the thousands of people who worked for you for more than a year to get you elected. Sure many of theme are super wealthy people who did nothing except donate money, but many are rank and file employees and volunteers of the campaign. So while I appreciate your sentiment, and might even applaud a decision like this, you will be leaving out many folks who do deserve a thank you celebration.
Good point, but your average criminal does not always weigh the consequences of getting caught, and often think they have the system beat. The evening news is filled with examples of stupid criminals robbing convenience stores for the $500 in the register. The cases of jackpotting that I have heard about are usually coordinated enterprises, with folks recruiting (blackmailing?) the inside man, and multiple people hitting the machines for small amounts over a short period of time. Like a lot of criminal gangs, the folks at the bottom are expendable, and often desperate. So for a one time payout, it might not be worth it, but if you can figure out how to scale it up, and be the man at the top with "clean hands", it is a reasonable risk to take.
There is a whole lot of "it depends" here. The malware could be installed and lie in wait for weeks or months. Long enough that it is no longer clear which ATM tech installed the malware. A little Googling suggests that most ATM's are capable of holding up to $200k, but with the average amount stocked in the machine being around $35k. Enough for a decent payday, even with multiple conspirators. The article suggest this hasn't been done in the US until very recently, and they are targeting specific models, so I suspect that the internal controls that banks use to monitor employees is pretty good.
Suppose a couple hires a wedding photographer. Then during the event the photographer either verbally, or otherwise shows nothing but contempt for the couple. Perhaps the bride is fussy. Perhaps the flower girl won't stand still. Who cares. Would you not think that is in poor taste on the part of the photographer to mouth off in any way?
They couldn't care less about your damaged car or who was at fault for damaging your car or your hurt neck.
Property damage, bodily injury, and fault are (usually) civil claims. The police have no need to investigate an accident if there is no serious bodily injury or crimes committed. In fact, there are many times where an officer may write a ticket to one party, but the other driver is found at fault for the accident (in whole or part). For example, a driver may run a red light when another driver collides them. The police will write a ticket for failing to stop, but if it can be shown that the other driver had time to react, and entered the intersection before it was safe to do so then he could be found liable for the accident. I don't think we want the police investigating every fender-bender, when all that is really at stake is who has to pay the bill.
I don't see how bottom up is far too expensive or complicated for large national corporations (with deep pockets) but is going to help some small grassroots effort to build another internet. As far as I can tell, the large companies can keep the local municipalities in line by threatening not to move into the area.
This article suggests that only about 3% of gas stations in the US are owned by big oil companies, I couldn't find world-wide stats. I do understand your larger point however. The local gas station model is doomed. While some will survive as electric fast charge locations, most street corner stations will disappear as people convert.
The oil companies don't have much of a stake in the retail side of the gas station business. As I understand, most gas stations are small independent operations. They have a retail store to make up for their small margin on the gas.
I would argue that if academia is completing for labor with industry in a particular area of study, then has advanced the technology enough to get out of the market. It is time to move on to some other area of research.
It is both. By signing, you acknowledge the transaction, and the retailer verifies that your are the rightful owner of the account by comparing the signatures. There are indeed better ways to do this.
Slashdot Mirror
Pales in comparison to Frank's 2000" TV. I heard he got the last one in stock.
I have had a similar experience, although I have never had to sign anything before getting the quote. We have had too many bad experiences with sales people. In general we have a few rules. First, we call you. If you knock on my door unsolicited, looking for any work, you will be sent away. Second, if you show up at the estimate with power point, or a long dog and pony show, your bid will more than likely be thrown out. Finally, offers that expire when the sales person leaves are thrown out. I hate when you won't stand by your quote long enough for competitive bids. These rules have usually guided us to solid work, for a reasonable price, without any haggling.
I am not sure how is age is worth noting at all. He isn't the youngest person to ever testify before a Congressional committee, and he has been a public figure for quite some time, so should be used to public speaking, and being the center of attention. Younger people have argued cases before the Supreme Court, a far more demanding task, requiring that you actually know something about the subject matter. He is merely getting a crash course in deflecting questions, something you can probably pick up by watching Meet the Press for about 30 minutes.
How they make that happen doesn't matter if the total is lower.
I suppose that is my core question, how does the non-repairability affect the total cost of ownership? For many years now electronics have been getting tougher to repair, but they have also been getting cheaper. Are we beginning to see a tipping point? Replacing a $300 tablet isn't a huge burden for an individual, but I worry that doesn't scale well for a school district. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
We bought iPad Minis for my kids when they are turning 5 and 6. Upon opening, we put them into Otter Boxes, to mitigate spills and drops. In the three almsot four years we owned them, they have been used nearly every day, we have replaced the covers once, and they have endured many catastrophes. We go through more headphones and charging cables since they tend to hold and crimp the cables too much. I will concede that these are prized possessions, and are generally well cared for. That said, I think they can be made to stand up to quite a bit of abuse, for not a lot of extra money.
I feel like this misses that point that they are not repairable, be it by the school or the vendor. You are no longer buying a support/repair contract, but a warranty/replacement contract. In your experience, do you think you would be able to get an affordable plan for a K-8 setting? I know in our district the long term maintenance costs are weighted more heavily than the initial purchase cost.
The dynamic range of the human eye is much better than most cameras. It is difficult to say exactly how much more time the driver would have had though. I suppose we will never know in this case as the Uber operator was negligent, barely monitoring the road. It will be interesting to learn what the LIDAR saw and/or why the car did not react. I also wonder why the camera doesn't have a night mode.
These are not simple issues you are talking about. It is easy to say we'll just have a public vote on gun control. Getting people to read and understand the details is an entirely other matter. How would individuals offer alternatives? What happens when the bill needs to repeal parts of other legislation. I am not saying that our current representatives do this well, but opening this process up to the masses will create far more problems than it creates.
You make a good point, but I think it is more just laziness. They need a headline to grab attention, then move on to the next story. The best example are stories about "the latest study on X". They summarize the first two sentences of the abstract, embellish that with another 45 seconds of banter, then go to commercial. Heck, last night I watch the news, where they talked about how many snow days the local schools have used. They went on wondering how schools were going to make up the time, indicating they they didn't know. 5 minutes on the school website would have cleared that up, but I can only assume they were just too lazy to do the work.
There must be plenty of examples/precedents from other industries. Plumbers and electricians come to mind. I could imagine many small contractors don't get paid if there are no jobs to work. The larger companies probably have enough work to put folks on a salary (or some other minimum pay) since they can guarantee enough work every day. Construction and landscaping companies use a lot of day labor because the amount of day-to-day work varies greatly.
Perhaps instead of trying to work out an hourly rate, a monthly or annual rate would be more helpful for comparison.
The operator may not even need to drive, just instruct the computer on the safest path. If a cow walks onto a country road, the remote operator can see that the shoulder is wide enough, and update the route.
The more rural roads may be a problem, but this is just a first step. So driving across country is out, but a semi-autonomous ride from Washington DC to Boston could be within reach of current tech.
If we set aside the security considerations, I wonder if this offers a reasonable compromise. Until a car can be made fully autonomous, they could run on auto pilot until the computer encounters a problematic situation. For example, it approaches a construction zone on the highway. The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, navigates the obstacle, then returns control to the computer. I wonder if this is what companies like Uber and Lyft are working toward?
I think the Game of Thrones TV series is suffering the same problem as the books. There is a lot of material, and a lot of characters. It is very difficult to tell such a complex story, allowing the reader/watcher to connect the dots. I applaud the epic nature of the story, but think they need to drop a bunch of the subplots.
Shows like the Walking Dead have to fit into a very specific box due to legacy broadcasting paradigms. The network orders a specific number of shows and expects them to fit neatly into a 30 or 60 minute time slot. You might only have enough story for 12 episodes, but you have to make 20. And too bad that you don't have time to show that epic fight scene, or long character speech. You can't go over 44 minutes divided into 4 acts for commercial breaks.
The Netflix model allows the show producer to write the exact number of episodes it takes to tell the story. Episode lengths can vary, to allow the writers the opportunity to tell a proper story, while keeping the length manageable to the viewer. Given what I have seen with most Netflix and HBO series, they probably start with target of 10 one hour episodes per season, and adjust as they map it all out.
Except you are going to need the support of most of those people to get anything done. You are not throwing the party for yourself, but the thousands of people who worked for you for more than a year to get you elected. Sure many of theme are super wealthy people who did nothing except donate money, but many are rank and file employees and volunteers of the campaign. So while I appreciate your sentiment, and might even applaud a decision like this, you will be leaving out many folks who do deserve a thank you celebration.
Good point, but your average criminal does not always weigh the consequences of getting caught, and often think they have the system beat. The evening news is filled with examples of stupid criminals robbing convenience stores for the $500 in the register. The cases of jackpotting that I have heard about are usually coordinated enterprises, with folks recruiting (blackmailing?) the inside man, and multiple people hitting the machines for small amounts over a short period of time. Like a lot of criminal gangs, the folks at the bottom are expendable, and often desperate. So for a one time payout, it might not be worth it, but if you can figure out how to scale it up, and be the man at the top with "clean hands", it is a reasonable risk to take.
There is a whole lot of "it depends" here. The malware could be installed and lie in wait for weeks or months. Long enough that it is no longer clear which ATM tech installed the malware. A little Googling suggests that most ATM's are capable of holding up to $200k, but with the average amount stocked in the machine being around $35k. Enough for a decent payday, even with multiple conspirators. The article suggest this hasn't been done in the US until very recently, and they are targeting specific models, so I suspect that the internal controls that banks use to monitor employees is pretty good.
Suppose a couple hires a wedding photographer. Then during the event the photographer either verbally, or otherwise shows nothing but contempt for the couple. Perhaps the bride is fussy. Perhaps the flower girl won't stand still. Who cares. Would you not think that is in poor taste on the part of the photographer to mouth off in any way?
They couldn't care less about your damaged car or who was at fault for damaging your car or your hurt neck.
Property damage, bodily injury, and fault are (usually) civil claims. The police have no need to investigate an accident if there is no serious bodily injury or crimes committed. In fact, there are many times where an officer may write a ticket to one party, but the other driver is found at fault for the accident (in whole or part). For example, a driver may run a red light when another driver collides them. The police will write a ticket for failing to stop, but if it can be shown that the other driver had time to react, and entered the intersection before it was safe to do so then he could be found liable for the accident. I don't think we want the police investigating every fender-bender, when all that is really at stake is who has to pay the bill.
I don't see how bottom up is far too expensive or complicated for large national corporations (with deep pockets) but is going to help some small grassroots effort to build another internet. As far as I can tell, the large companies can keep the local municipalities in line by threatening not to move into the area.
This article suggests that only about 3% of gas stations in the US are owned by big oil companies, I couldn't find world-wide stats. I do understand your larger point however. The local gas station model is doomed. While some will survive as electric fast charge locations, most street corner stations will disappear as people convert.
The oil companies don't have much of a stake in the retail side of the gas station business. As I understand, most gas stations are small independent operations. They have a retail store to make up for their small margin on the gas.
Shut up, or the profit on all those home flipping shows are going to start looking far less impressive.
I would argue that if academia is completing for labor with industry in a particular area of study, then has advanced the technology enough to get out of the market. It is time to move on to some other area of research.
It is both. By signing, you acknowledge the transaction, and the retailer verifies that your are the rightful owner of the account by comparing the signatures. There are indeed better ways to do this.