Well, if they require it to be their Messiah AND they can travel FTL AND they have super death rays (or simply lots of super bombs that can be dispensed from orbit like cans of Coke), we'll be well and truly screwed (and, for a short time, wishing we'd kept out mouths shut). Their Messiah will require the elimination of our false Messiahs, which, unfortunately, can only be found in our heads.
Don't forget that James Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) was in the White House Press Room for almost a year before being exposed. Are there still other weasels in there?
Even our "top diplomats" have no clue when it comes to tact. You get the feeling that none of them have been to a school for international relations. Or even charm school for that matter.
Never. For them to be sued, you'd have to prove that they were playing a copyrighted tune, which is impossible given the volume level and the fact that everything within the said mile is resonating.
Clearly, this means that I am going to be required to demand periodic payments from the people in my office who are leeching off the sounds emitted by my radio. Either that, or I'm going to have to install plugs in their sonic receptors.
I understand your argument. When there are only a few scalpers, you are correct. However, the laws of supply and demand break down when there's a monopoly. This discussion is all about how, when a scalper gets a large fraction (or all) of the available seats and jacks up the price, he is skewing the price/demand curve and the "rules" are likewise skewed. He's pricing the tickets as if the supply were lower (as in my example) because he has effectively reduced the supply. He doesn't have to or care that he sells all the tickets he bought. All he has to do is be able to 5, 10, or 20x the price and sell a fraction of them. This happens in the real world. Check out one of the other postings about baseball games where swaths of seats are empty because someone has done just this.
It allows someone to corner the market and set up artificial supply and demand where they don't even have to sell all the tickets.
Let's say I can buy most of the public seats to an event, say, 10K seats at $20 each. I'm out $300,000 (add on the TM $10 "processing" fee) which is a lot of money. However, now the market is mine.
If I set the price at $100 (only a 5x markup), I need only sell 3K seats to break even. Depending on the event, I might sell only half my tickets or $100 x 5K for a profit of $200,000. I might not even care if 5,000 seats went unused. Maybe I'd sell them at $30 each at the last minute. If I'm able to sell all the tickets at the inflated price (remember, it's only a 5x markup), I make $700,000. For one event.
This kind of scheme hijacks a band's ability to let their fans see their show at a reasonable price.
How did we get into this mess? We were given a whack in the head about thirty years ago. We got up, dusted ourselves off and carried on as if nothing had happened.
Myself being the parent of a kid in college, I predict that you'd be WAY past "very disturbed" and into oscillating between unbearable grief and the most god-awful wrath you can't even imagine.
If a nebula with near-perfect bilateral symmetry has exotic space-hardened organic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and there's no one around to smell it, does it have an odor?
Mean time between failures is not a hard perdiction of when things will break.
True, but since it supposed to be the average time between failures, it had better be closer to 228 than, say, 5 most of the time or the use of the statistic as a selling point is utterly bogus (some would say fraudulent). It would help to know what the (guesstimated) standard deviation is. The implication of a MTBF of 2x10^6 hours is that it will easily outlast you.
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Well, if they require it to be their Messiah AND they can travel FTL AND they have super death rays (or simply lots of super bombs that can be dispensed from orbit like cans of Coke), we'll be well and truly screwed (and, for a short time, wishing we'd kept out mouths shut). Their Messiah will require the elimination of our false Messiahs, which, unfortunately, can only be found in our heads.
It's probably the placebo effect. Just thinking about this should make your sphincter lock up.
Don't forget that James Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) was in the White House Press Room for almost a year before being exposed. Are there still other weasels in there?
Haven't you heard? The Russians are the bad guys again.
Even our "top diplomats" have no clue when it comes to tact. You get the feeling that none of them have been to a school for international relations. Or even charm school for that matter.
Never. For them to be sued, you'd have to prove that they were playing a copyrighted tune, which is impossible given the volume level and the fact that everything within the said mile is resonating.
Clearly, this means that I am going to be required to demand periodic payments from the people in my office who are leeching off the sounds emitted by my radio. Either that, or I'm going to have to install plugs in their sonic receptors.
I understand your argument. When there are only a few scalpers, you are correct. However, the laws of supply and demand break down when there's a monopoly.
This discussion is all about how, when a scalper gets a large fraction (or all) of the available seats and jacks up the price, he is skewing the price/demand curve and the "rules" are likewise skewed. He's pricing the tickets as if the supply were lower (as in my example) because he has effectively reduced the supply. He doesn't have to or care that he sells all the tickets he bought. All he has to do is be able to 5, 10, or 20x the price and sell a fraction of them. This happens in the real world. Check out one of the other postings about baseball games where swaths of seats are empty because someone has done just this.
It allows someone to corner the market and set up artificial supply and demand where they don't even have to sell all the tickets.
Let's say I can buy most of the public seats to an event, say, 10K seats at $20 each.
I'm out $300,000 (add on the TM $10 "processing" fee) which is a lot of money.
However, now the market is mine.
If I set the price at $100 (only a 5x markup), I need only sell 3K seats to break even. Depending on the event, I might sell only half my tickets or $100 x 5K for a profit of $200,000. I might not even care if 5,000 seats went unused. Maybe I'd sell them at $30 each at the last minute.
If I'm able to sell all the tickets at the inflated price (remember, it's only a 5x markup), I make $700,000. For one event.
This kind of scheme hijacks a band's ability to let their fans see their show at a reasonable price.
Did we take such a big step back?
You must be new here.
Given the numbers involved, they won't even be able to claim that Excel is the reason their demand is so pathetic.
Fall 1973, CU Boulder: Engineering freshmen were required to learn to use a slide rule and most students still used them.
Fall 1974: Slide rules were gone.
Physics professor Al Bartlett scoffed at calculators and used to race calculator-wielding students with his slide rule and kick their butts.
So you're saying that Vista is Microsoft's Coca-Cola II (aka New Coke)?
How cunning!
The glowing coals of Congress are, these day, dead embers, with wisps of ash rising occasionally when they are stepped on.
What's the difference between a dead skunk in the middle of the road and a dead lawyer in the middle of the road?
Skid marks in front of the skunk.
If we open up social networking and make it a community effort, who gets to sell it for millions?!?!?!
*You* can sell it for millions! But remember that once you start raking it in, I'm going to sue you for the cash, because it was my idea!
Have a nice day.
smurf tubing
(cheap plastic conduit)
How did we get into this mess?
We were given a whack in the head about thirty years ago. We got up, dusted ourselves off and carried on as if nothing had happened.
homeland security (what the fuck is that)
Fatherland was taken.
And Motherland, besides being taken, was thought to be too "sissy".
"Hopefully he will take this as a valuable lesson about the value of covering his tracks thoroughly in his daily life."
Bullshit. He and his parents need to file a lawsuit and smack the "authorities" down.
Myself being the parent of a kid in college, I predict that you'd be WAY past "very disturbed" and into oscillating between unbearable grief and the most god-awful wrath you can't even imagine.
If a nebula with near-perfect bilateral symmetry has exotic space-hardened organic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and there's no one around to smell it, does it have an odor?
Mean time between failures is not a hard perdiction of when things will break.
True, but since it supposed to be the average time between failures, it had better be closer to 228 than, say, 5 most of the time or the use of the statistic as a selling point is utterly bogus (some would say fraudulent). It would help to know what the (guesstimated) standard deviation is. The implication of a MTBF of 2x10^6 hours is that it will easily outlast you.
Ugh. More justification to shoot yourself now.
Ever try changing a hard drive of a Macbook Pro?
You'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you just shoot yourself now.