Theaters had their most profitable year ever last year
<RIAA TALKING POINT>Imagine how much more profitable they'd be if everybody wasn't stealing movies. You realize that people work for the studios right? Those people have CHILDREN. THINK OF THE CHILDREN the next time you are going to steal one of our movies.</RIAA TALKING POINT/>
Obamacare fiscal implications/liberal = Will save us trillions!
WMDs in Iraq/neo-con = We'll find them on every street corner!
Sex education/catholic = Condoms don't prevent AIDS
Gun control/bloomberg = We need tougher gun laws because criminals follow them
How to give a concession speech/howard dean = YEEEEEEAAAAAAH!
Unbiased news/conservative = Fox News
Unbiased news/liberal = MSNBC
Unbiased news = No results round.
For thousands of years this division broke down along gender lines, and the institution that did the lying was religion. Men lived in a world of competition and production, while women were left to consume whatever they were given. Religion told each this was their duty. The institution of marriage, however, has lately broken down in the face of competing systems.
I'm curious as to how you blame religion for this. Certainly the "modern day" monotheistic religions assign specific gender roles but how do you explain the gender imbalance in the societies that predated those religions?
Spock made the decision that he was willing to give up *his* life to save the many. His decision. His life. Not for someone else. Not about someone else's life.
Isn't it a little bit different for Spock than the rest of us by virtue of the fact that he willingly (the Federation doesn't have a draft to the best of my knowledge) joined a military force? If you are a member of any modern day military you can be ordered to give up your life to save your comrades. Starfleet isn't any different. There was an episode of TNG where Troi was going for a promotion and couldn't pass the required test because she wasn't willing to send a crew member to his death to save everybody else.
Then perhaps you shouldn't have signed that contract? There are alternatives if having that freedom of action is important to you.
Also, even though it's been deemed legal, I think the elements of "meeting of the minds" and "undue influence" should be revisited in relation to contract law and cell phone companies. More and more, I believe that there is no equal footing when it comes to these kinds of contracts
How about contracts you can't get out of for six or twelve months?
If you signed such a contract you have no one to blame but yourself. Honor the agreement that you presumably made in good-faith or pay the penalty that you agreed to for breaking the agreement. Seems simple enough to me.
Yup, and pay a $400 early termination fee. Man, that'll really teach Verizon a lesson!
And whose fault is it that you signed a long term contract? Did Verizon hold a gun to your head or something? T-Mobile offers post-paid service without contracts. There's a number of pre-paid options available from all of the major carriers and their MVNOs.
WTF are you talking about? Even if you live in a concrete jungle like Manhattan, solitude is but a few hours away. If you live in a less densely populated area it's probably only a few minutes away. They don't have state and national forests/parks/preserves where you live?
How convenient that you ignored the bit about thorium being a fuel source that we already know how to utilize and which is three times as abundant as uranium. There's also more exotic methods such as seawater extraction that would become economical long before the world ran out of uranium.
He left behind his pregnant wife, and they played some of their last conversation. After the final conversation, the narrator called the guy a hero. I remember that pissing me off even as a kid. How can someone who pointlessly risks his life when he has responsibilities to a wife and child be called a hero?
Am a I heartless bastard if the first thought that crossed my mind was "Damn, he successfully passed on his genes before dying of gross stupidity"? I'd suggest a Darwin award but the idiot managed to reproduce before he kicked the bucket.
Why do you care where they get their information from? Who appointed you to determine what information I can receive in the 30 days preceding an election?
It's insane to allow for-profit corporations to spend their money to influence politics.
It's more insane for the Government to be in the business of determining whose speech I should have access to.
No, I mean to say it leads to complete polarization and nothing but lies being slung around by both sides.
So now it's the lies that bother you? Lying during political campaigns predates this Republic.
Exactly, which is why those with the most money get to speak more often and more loudly than anyone else.
The 1st amendment doesn't have a fairness clause in it. Besides, even if I accept what you are saying it's an argument in favor of Citizens United. I do not have the time or the money to personally lobby my Congressman on the issues that matter to me. That's why I joined the NRA/ACLU/Sierra Club/take-your-pick. I can pool my limited resources with other like minded people and more effectively lobby for my position.
It's insane to allow for-profit corporations to spend their money to influence politics. They aren't people, they don't have the interests or values of people.
They are made up of people and those people should not be muzzled simply because they decided to associate with other like-minded people under the guise of a corporation. You keep repeating this bit about for-profit corporations but gloss over the fact that Citizens United was NOT a for-profit corporation, nor are the many corporations set up for the express purpose of political advocacy.
This is the money quote from the Citizens United opinion:
If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech. If the antidistortion rationale were to be accepted, however, it would permit Government to ban political speech simply because the speaker is an association that has taken on the corporate form.
likely from a 220v source like your dryer and stove use
Not to nitpick but if you are referring to the US and/or Canada it should be 240V, not 220V. The standard residential connection in the US is a split-phase connection where each leg aims for 120V. Cross the two and you get 240V.
A reasonable estimate for the efficiency of an electric car (according to Wikipedia) is about 15kWh/100km; after converting to more usable units, the 600km capacity means the battery holds 324MJ. A 6 minute charge time gives a 900kW transfer rate
900,000 watts eh? That makes me wonder just how practical this would be outside of the lab. You'd need a really high voltage or a really thick cable to transfer that much wattage into an automobile. The American Wire Gauge only goes up to OOOO according to this table. A OOOO conductor is 0.46" thick. Even that insanely heavy cable only goes up to 300 amps. You'd need 3,000 volts to deliver your 900kW on such a cable.
The TFA wasn't linked when I made my comment so I stand corrected on my estimation.
What do you mean they aren't disclosing the actual total amount of the refunds? It's right there in the article that you linked to in your post:
With the action, Verizon Wireless's total costs associated with false data fees reached $77.8 million, one of the largest payouts for false billing in the communications services industry. Verizon said this month that it would refund about 15 million subscribers $52.8 million for those unwanted data charges. Verizon partly attributed the problem to a software glitch in phones.
Instead, they went WAY beyond that, and ruled that a) corporations are equivalent to individual, private citizens
Nothing in the Citizens United ruling cited or relied on corporate personhood. If you think otherwise then I invite you to quote the portion of the ruling that referenced corporate personhood.
They would have had to say something unless they intended to commit fraud by purposefully misreading his meter in the future. Assume the meter started at 0 for the sake of this example:
Month #1: Meter reads 1,000 kWh, customer billed for 1,000 kWh
Month #2: Meter reads 2,000 kWh, customer billed for 1,000 kWh
Month #3: Meter reads 3,000 kWh but meter reader writes down 3,500 kWh by mistake. Customer billed for 1,500 kWh
Month #4: Meter reads 4,000 kWh, meter reader records it correctly this time, customer billed for 500 kWh.
So what should have happened in your mind? They should have eaten the mistake? Something tells me that you wouldn't expect your friend to eat the mistake if the error had been AGAINST him instead of FOR him, so why should the utility be treated any differently?
Slashdot Mirror
Theaters had their most profitable year ever last year
<RIAA TALKING POINT>Imagine how much more profitable they'd be if everybody wasn't stealing movies. You realize that people work for the studios right? Those people have CHILDREN. THINK OF THE CHILDREN the next time you are going to steal one of our movies.</RIAA TALKING POINT/>
Whoosh!
Obamacare fiscal implications /liberal = Will save us trillions!
/neo-con = We'll find them on every street corner!
/catholic = Condoms don't prevent AIDS
/bloomberg = We need tougher gun laws because criminals follow them
/howard dean = YEEEEEEAAAAAAH!
/conservative = Fox News
/liberal = MSNBC
WMDs in Iraq
Sex education
Gun control
How to give a concession speech
Unbiased news
Unbiased news
Unbiased news = No results round.
For thousands of years this division broke down along gender lines, and the institution that did the lying was religion. Men lived in a world of competition and production, while women were left to consume whatever they were given. Religion told each this was their duty. The institution of marriage, however, has lately broken down in the face of competing systems.
I'm curious as to how you blame religion for this. Certainly the "modern day" monotheistic religions assign specific gender roles but how do you explain the gender imbalance in the societies that predated those religions?
Spock made the decision that he was willing to give up *his* life to save the many. His decision. His life. Not for someone else. Not about someone else's life.
Isn't it a little bit different for Spock than the rest of us by virtue of the fact that he willingly (the Federation doesn't have a draft to the best of my knowledge) joined a military force? If you are a member of any modern day military you can be ordered to give up your life to save your comrades. Starfleet isn't any different. There was an episode of TNG where Troi was going for a promotion and couldn't pass the required test because she wasn't willing to send a crew member to his death to save everybody else.
Translation: I can't prove shit but I'm going to accuse them of acting fraudulently anyway.
If you can prove the charges were fraudulent why don't you sue them for your damages?
Oh, that's right, you can't, you just see big scary evil corporation.
this walking away also has a steep cost
Then perhaps you shouldn't have signed that contract? There are alternatives if having that freedom of action is important to you.
Also, even though it's been deemed legal, I think the elements of "meeting of the minds" and "undue influence" should be revisited in relation to contract law and cell phone companies. More and more, I believe that there is no equal footing when it comes to these kinds of contracts
Then don't sign them. See how easy that is?
How about contracts you can't get out of for six or twelve months?
If you signed such a contract you have no one to blame but yourself. Honor the agreement that you presumably made in good-faith or pay the penalty that you agreed to for breaking the agreement. Seems simple enough to me.
Yup, and pay a $400 early termination fee. Man, that'll really teach Verizon a lesson!
And whose fault is it that you signed a long term contract? Did Verizon hold a gun to your head or something? T-Mobile offers post-paid service without contracts. There's a number of pre-paid options available from all of the major carriers and their MVNOs.
And solitude is extinct.
WTF are you talking about? Even if you live in a concrete jungle like Manhattan, solitude is but a few hours away. If you live in a less densely populated area it's probably only a few minutes away. They don't have state and national forests/parks/preserves where you live?
How convenient that you ignored the bit about thorium being a fuel source that we already know how to utilize and which is three times as abundant as uranium. There's also more exotic methods such as seawater extraction that would become economical long before the world ran out of uranium.
He left behind his pregnant wife, and they played some of their last conversation. After the final conversation, the narrator called the guy a hero. I remember that pissing me off even as a kid. How can someone who pointlessly risks his life when he has responsibilities to a wife and child be called a hero?
Am a I heartless bastard if the first thought that crossed my mind was "Damn, he successfully passed on his genes before dying of gross stupidity"? I'd suggest a Darwin award but the idiot managed to reproduce before he kicked the bucket.
"why haven't the people stormed the White House with torches and pitchforks?"
I was planning on storming the White House last week but then I remembered that American Idol was on.
That can't be, he ran on a platform of openness and transparency.
But where do they get their information?
Why do you care where they get their information from? Who appointed you to determine what information I can receive in the 30 days preceding an election?
It's insane to allow for-profit corporations to spend their money to influence politics.
It's more insane for the Government to be in the business of determining whose speech I should have access to.
No, I mean to say it leads to complete polarization and nothing but lies being slung around by both sides.
So now it's the lies that bother you? Lying during political campaigns predates this Republic.
Exactly, which is why those with the most money get to speak more often and more loudly than anyone else.
The 1st amendment doesn't have a fairness clause in it. Besides, even if I accept what you are saying it's an argument in favor of Citizens United. I do not have the time or the money to personally lobby my Congressman on the issues that matter to me. That's why I joined the NRA/ACLU/Sierra Club/take-your-pick. I can pool my limited resources with other like minded people and more effectively lobby for my position.
It's insane to allow for-profit corporations to spend their money to influence politics. They aren't people, they don't have the interests or values of people.
They are made up of people and those people should not be muzzled simply because they decided to associate with other like-minded people under the guise of a corporation. You keep repeating this bit about for-profit corporations but gloss over the fact that Citizens United was NOT a for-profit corporation, nor are the many corporations set up for the express purpose of political advocacy.
This is the money quote from the Citizens United opinion:
If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech. If the antidistortion rationale were to be accepted, however, it would permit Government to ban political speech simply because the speaker is an association that has taken on the corporate form.
Let's be practical. Fossil fuels won't last forever and neither will nuclear.
Got any evidence for the notion that we will run out of fissionable material before the sun goes dark?
likely from a 220v source like your dryer and stove use
Not to nitpick but if you are referring to the US and/or Canada it should be 240V, not 220V. The standard residential connection in the US is a split-phase connection where each leg aims for 120V. Cross the two and you get 240V.
A reasonable estimate for the efficiency of an electric car (according to Wikipedia) is about 15kWh/100km; after converting to more usable units, the 600km capacity means the battery holds 324MJ. A 6 minute charge time gives a 900kW transfer rate
900,000 watts eh? That makes me wonder just how practical this would be outside of the lab. You'd need a really high voltage or a really thick cable to transfer that much wattage into an automobile. The American Wire Gauge only goes up to OOOO according to this table. A OOOO conductor is 0.46" thick. Even that insanely heavy cable only goes up to 300 amps. You'd need 3,000 volts to deliver your 900kW on such a cable.
The TFA wasn't linked when I made my comment so I stand corrected on my estimation.
What do you mean they aren't disclosing the actual total amount of the refunds? It's right there in the article that you linked to in your post:
With the action, Verizon Wireless's total costs associated with false data fees reached $77.8 million, one of the largest payouts for false billing in the communications services industry. Verizon said this month that it would refund about 15 million subscribers $52.8 million for those unwanted data charges. Verizon partly attributed the problem to a software glitch in phones.
Still smell a cover up?
Instead, they went WAY beyond that, and ruled that a) corporations are equivalent to individual, private citizens
Nothing in the Citizens United ruling cited or relied on corporate personhood. If you think otherwise then I invite you to quote the portion of the ruling that referenced corporate personhood.
They would have had to say something unless they intended to commit fraud by purposefully misreading his meter in the future. Assume the meter started at 0 for the sake of this example:
Month #1: Meter reads 1,000 kWh, customer billed for 1,000 kWh
Month #2: Meter reads 2,000 kWh, customer billed for 1,000 kWh
Month #3: Meter reads 3,000 kWh but meter reader writes down 3,500 kWh by mistake. Customer billed for 1,500 kWh
Month #4: Meter reads 4,000 kWh, meter reader records it correctly this time, customer billed for 500 kWh.
So what should have happened in your mind? They should have eaten the mistake? Something tells me that you wouldn't expect your friend to eat the mistake if the error had been AGAINST him instead of FOR him, so why should the utility be treated any differently?
Screw Verizon. I'm with Sprint now and never intend to use Verizon again
You realize that Sprint roams on Verizon's network and you are "using" them every time you step out of Sprint's limited footprint, right?