While stopping is technically a violation, a reasonable person could be pretty sure they would make it across in some situations but don't. Say you are in heavy traffic and the speed is about 20 MPH. Vehicles are moving through the intersection and you start through but all of a sudden people slam on the brakes in front of you. Maybe someone a few cars up wasn't paying attention and slammed their brakes, causing everyone behind them to slam their brakes. What initially looked like a definite cross is going to land you a ticket due to unexpected stopping in the intersection.
Now here is a personal experience. I was the registered owner on a van that my wife and I drove. Her name wasn't on it since she wasn't available to sign when we purchased it as a used vehicle out of state and we never added her to the title. She was driving the van one day and was stopped at a red light at the front of the lane. The road had 3 lanes plus a turning lane at the light. She was a little distracted (kids probably fighting in the back seat) and she noticed the car in the turning lane move. She let off the brake and quickly hit it again realizing it was the turning lane making a turn on red, not the red light going green. She barely broke the intersection and was not blocking the road in the least (the stop line was fairly far back). I got a ticket in the mail in my name for the violation. Now the cost of the ticket was about $60 if I remember correctly so it was low enough that I wasn't going to miss a couple hours work to fight it. I had no way, outside of appearing in court to fight it, to say it was another driver, in this case my wife, or to argue that no violation was committed since the intersection was never really crossed. Basically the cost is kept low enough to keep a reasonable person from contesting it since their time is more valuable elsewhere. Now since it was my wife, I figured no point in fighting it, but what if it was a neighbor borrowing my vehicle to move some furniture or a kid to college?
The policy at my employer is all software must be authorized before installing on the system. Commercial, free, open, etc... software must all be reviewed for licensing requirements at a minimum and if being deployed on more than an individual desktop, it may also go through a compatibility review.
As for your specific employer, maybe they don't consider Firefox as the primary browser (even if the user chooses to use it that way). For my employer, they have standardized on IE and an older version of Netscape. Some intranet sites actively script against Firefox unfortunately.
Maybe banning IE8 until it is more thoroughly tested. This is typical for any product on a government or corporate network. Until you test for security, usability, and compatibility, you won't let the product on the network and you'll communicate with the users that they aren't to install it (even though most shouldn't have admin rights anyway).
Not in a Ford Aerostar. We did have the 6 cylinder model, but I wouldn't consider it to be a racing vehicle. Now if my wife has been hiding her automotive tuning skills, I may be a bit upset about all those repairs where I was under the vehicle doing the work myself.
My wife and I don't have "assigned" vehicles rather we drive whatever one is at the end of the driveway as we head out. To Maryland though, I was the registered driver for our van and my wife for the car. My wife had the van one day and while stopped at the front of an intersection she was briefly distracted (not sure if kids, radio, phone, or what). She noticed the car to the right of her move and she let off the break and quickly hit the break realizing it was just the turning lane moving. Well she went far enough to trigger a red light camera that proceeded to start the process of mailing a ticket in my name. Given that technically my wife triggered the ticket and fighting it would have cost a days pay for me, I just went ahead and paid the ticket. The price of these tickets are kept at a lower fine than if the police officer were there to encourage people to "just pay it" rather than fight it. Now what would be interesting is fighting this automated ticketing system in the case of a neighbor driving my vehicle. For people with trucks and vans, I'm sure it isn't unusual to have a neighbor/friend ask to use it to take a kid to college, pick up a purchased appliance, help move, etc....
I haven't checked to see if the Horde (which my characters are) has that or a similar achievement. I do know that we have had guild members hit other guild members with snowballs while they are moving past the slimes right after Patchwerk in Nax. The snowball knocks them down and they die when the slow moving slimes hit them. Apparently several guild members aren't too concerned about the consequences (armor repair cost).
Until they add a reason that you should have let him live, you still have no consequences for killing Varimathras. If WoW offered a bit more moral consequences for your actions (maybe an achievement for "protect the innocent" or "nice guy"), maybe we'd see people thinking a little more about their actions. Then again, realizing it is a game, how many would care?
FYI, there are several causes for lazy eye (Amblyopia). In my son's situation, he had a "wiring" problem in that his brain favored one eye over the other. He didn't have the muscular version that is associated with the "wandering" of the eye. My son did go through eye patching for a period of time to force him to use his weak eye.
As for the other comments about blue hair and the laptop perception, I guess I hadn't really looked at it that way. If I would have had the chance in school to use a laptop, I'd have been all for that. I used my home computer (a C64 and the Commodore line printer) for most of my work when the teachers permitted it. I guess the laptop at that time would have weighed more than all my books combined though and the processing power would have been extremely limited (old enough to have taken a typing course that was on an electronic typewriter rather than a computer keyboard).
what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school
Some "special needs" students are permitted to bring in laptops for use at school. My son is on a 504 education plan to help with his ADD and ambliopia. He qualifies to use a laptop or a typing device (Alpha Smart) but refuses to use either (for some reason using a laptop makes him stand out in a negative way but his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one).
Oh, Howard County Maryland is the school system. I haven't heard of any plans to allow laptops in general but they do have special exceptions as I mentioned above.
My daughter has the Wii and about 10 games for it. None of these have a motion that require or even suggest swinging the Wiimote by the strap. Could you list the games that you know of or have that suggest or require swinging the Wiimote?
In the year that we've had the Wii, we've had many kids and several adults (my parents and in-laws included) play on the console. I haven't seen one case of anyone having the Wiimote slip out of their hand.
On another note, I'd rather see a nice class action suit against the XBox360 for disk scratching. This wasn't through any action on my son's part and I'm now sitting with two scratched disk. The MS solution was to contact the game vendors and ask for a replacement disk from them (at a cost of about $20 per disk to me).
Cell phones, as well as many other items, are prohibited for anyone in prison (at least in MD), including the staff that work there. My wife works as a nurse in a detention center and she goes through a screening process like any visitor.
We've had the XBox for just under a year now and up until about 2 weeks ago, no problems. I have two scratched disk because of the console and unfortunately for me, they don't fall in the Microsoft XBox Disk Replacement Plan (does not include Activision CoD and EA Games NFL 2008). I'm in the process of sending it back for repair. The disk on the other hand will not be addressed by Microsoft. Their solution, according to the support technician I spoke with, is to return the game to the point of purchase and ask for a replacement. I don't see how the store or the game vendor is responsible since the console destroyed the disk. Emailing Activision support though did at least get me an opportunity to pay $20 to get a replacement. Gotta love when a vendor stands behind their product.
Two of my son's friends have also had problems with their consoles. One had the RRoD, the other had the same disk scratching problem. The RRoD problem was early on in the XBox 360 release but the scratch problems have been within the last year.
I have four PCs (three desktops, one laptop), one Wii, one XBox 36, and some older consoles (GC and PS2). Out of all the games in my house, we have more for the PC than we do all the consoles combined. This may not be typical of most households but I know my siblings are in a similar situation (one has a console system, the other two don't).
I went to a Catholic grade school (1-8) back in the early 80's. I had taken a Monster Manual into school one day to show to a couple kids that I knew played. When I left for home, the book was missing from my locker. The kids said they didn't take it. I am now wondering if the school administrators took it, soaked it in holy water, and burned it.
I'm a current Maryland resident and I agree that the old system worked just fine. It had just the right amount of tech (scan) and accountability (paper source).
I'm in Howard County Maryland and prior to switching to the electronic voting machines, we used a similar optical mark system. The cards would list the position being voted for and the list of candidates. Each position also list the number of candidates that you could vote for. Each candidate had a broken arrow (pointing to the candidate) that you would complete with the pen. The ballet would be electronically scanned, but at least the paper card would still exist for recount if needed.
Not saying it doesn't happen, but keep in mind the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - Anti bribery Provisions. Given Microsoft's usage in many government agencies, I would expect them to be very cautious in anything that appears to be a bribe.
They adjusted my adjustable rate mortgage so it's now over $800 per month
Was this a surprise to you that the rate would be adjusted? An Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) is exactly that, adjustable, within the terms of the contract (I'm guessing there are limits to adjustment rates and maybe a maximum...never considered an ARM myself because of things like this).
PLUS a bunch of bullshit fees they're tacking on.
Shouldn't the fees have been disclosed in the terms of the loan when you signed for it? When I purchased a house back in the mid-90s (sold late-90s when I relocated for work) I recall seeing all fees listed up front.
You're blaming the victim. The banks knew what they were doing, those of us unskilled in the ways of banking didn't.
I won't try to pretend that I don't make mistakes but you can't really blame the bank entirely. When I went to purchase my home for about $30K in some small city in PA, the bank had said I was authorized up to $48K. From talking with family I knew that based on my income at the time that the $30K house would really be the amount I could afford. The bank on the other hand was including future raises and who knows what else into the equation. Even at $30K, I found it tough to make ends meet (working for a small engineering firm and making less per hour than the convenience store shift manager sort of does that). Do I fault the bank for suggesting I could borrow $48K, yes. Would I have faulted myself for making a poor decision, yes.
As for paying off your debt, consider debt counseling services. They'll help negotiate repayment options with your various creditors. As I said, I struggled with my first house and ran up some credit card debt to make ends meet. I also found myself late on utilities and similar debt. I was able to make reasonable repayments and some of the creditors even helped by lowering the interest rates. My credit was still damaged, but at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
What prompted this city to provide a network? Did they replace an existing network or was this an area that wasn't being served by private industry? If private industry was not providing broadband services, maybe the community became tired of dial up?
"Shouldn't we then get he service for free or next to free (just cost of maintenance?)"
Most government services have a basic fee associated with running the service. I pay a water/sewer fee that probably covers the cost of the service, maintenance, and some amount for expanding the coverage to the more rural areas. The intent of government services isn't to make a profit, just to cover cost.
Funding for universal health care has to come from somewhere. If not new taxes, other programs are going to take a hit. Unless people lobby for continued space exploration, programs like this are easy targets. What many/. folks may find as important may not hold true for those with political influence.
I absolutely hated when my parents sent me out to sell things for the organizations I was involved in. As a parent, I now either donate my time or write a check. Don't ask me to beg my neighbors to give a percentage to my organization and a percentage to some company for an item they probably don't really want. I'd rather take a second job than make my kids into door to door (or relative/friend) sales people. The best way that my son's football program raise money was to have us volunteer our time as parking attendants for an event the county sponsored. The program was paid (not exactly the same wage that I get) and it only involved a small amount of time from. We didn't have to push any items on people and we still made money.
Oh, some advice on fund raiser meetings for any event. After you listen to the presentation for selling the items, ask how much the program is estimating as a return for participating in the program. I was on the board for the football program and fund raising group would have an estimated income based on past fund raisers. If they say the sales will bring approximately $50 per person, simply say you'll cut a check for $50 and that you will not be participating in the fund raiser.
The repetitive killing of a mob does help develop skills that you can use. They won't necessarily be the only skills though. As you said, end game instance mob/boss fights requires a bit of learning that you can't get from solo or even some group questing. Ideally you picked up some of the required skills from instances (hunter feign to wipe aggro for example, mage keeping the scorch buff up, warlocks using the right curses for the fight, various forms of crowd control, etc...).
"The fact that those guys didn't buy or bot their 70s doesn't guarantee they have the brain."
I completely agree that leveling to 70 on your own won't guarantee that you'll be a good player in many instances. My wife's warlock is a perfect example. She is not a hard core gamer and panics when things don't go smoothly in an instance. To fill out a party for Leo in SSC, she initially hated doing it, even though she oddly enough ended up being near the top for damage (which you could read as either our group was bad or she was better than she thought...I'll suggest the latter). I've helped guild members as they approached level 70 and wondered how they made it as far as they did, but they are generally fast to improve if you help them understand their role in instances (tell a mage that they are spamming sheep for their first time in a series of pulls, and they'll be upset that they don't get to do any damage that fight, but at least they begin to learn it is a matter of working together).
"Gimme the possibility to start a char at half the level of my highest char and I wouldn't consider botting. I'm not doing it (don't want the ban hammer), but I can understand why some would."
Personally I wouldn't do it, even with my alts. Now what I wouldn't object to is making request to Blizzard to improve leveling an alt. I don't know that your suggestion would work very (1/2 the level of your main) since you'd need to figure out how to fairly setup gear on the alt (maybe just make your main fund the purchase of level appropriate gear?). Now what I would love to see is modifying the reputation grind. My alt obviously doesn't require the building of wealth as much as my main character so the quest designed with rep/gold rewards end up primarily being rep grinds. Couldn't alts start at "friendly" or "honored" just by association with your main being exalted with a faction?
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While stopping is technically a violation, a reasonable person could be pretty sure they would make it across in some situations but don't. Say you are in heavy traffic and the speed is about 20 MPH. Vehicles are moving through the intersection and you start through but all of a sudden people slam on the brakes in front of you. Maybe someone a few cars up wasn't paying attention and slammed their brakes, causing everyone behind them to slam their brakes. What initially looked like a definite cross is going to land you a ticket due to unexpected stopping in the intersection.
Now here is a personal experience. I was the registered owner on a van that my wife and I drove. Her name wasn't on it since she wasn't available to sign when we purchased it as a used vehicle out of state and we never added her to the title. She was driving the van one day and was stopped at a red light at the front of the lane. The road had 3 lanes plus a turning lane at the light. She was a little distracted (kids probably fighting in the back seat) and she noticed the car in the turning lane move. She let off the brake and quickly hit it again realizing it was the turning lane making a turn on red, not the red light going green. She barely broke the intersection and was not blocking the road in the least (the stop line was fairly far back). I got a ticket in the mail in my name for the violation. Now the cost of the ticket was about $60 if I remember correctly so it was low enough that I wasn't going to miss a couple hours work to fight it. I had no way, outside of appearing in court to fight it, to say it was another driver, in this case my wife, or to argue that no violation was committed since the intersection was never really crossed. Basically the cost is kept low enough to keep a reasonable person from contesting it since their time is more valuable elsewhere. Now since it was my wife, I figured no point in fighting it, but what if it was a neighbor borrowing my vehicle to move some furniture or a kid to college?
The policy at my employer is all software must be authorized before installing on the system. Commercial, free, open, etc... software must all be reviewed for licensing requirements at a minimum and if being deployed on more than an individual desktop, it may also go through a compatibility review.
As for your specific employer, maybe they don't consider Firefox as the primary browser (even if the user chooses to use it that way). For my employer, they have standardized on IE and an older version of Netscape. Some intranet sites actively script against Firefox unfortunately.
Maybe banning IE8 until it is more thoroughly tested. This is typical for any product on a government or corporate network. Until you test for security, usability, and compatibility, you won't let the product on the network and you'll communicate with the users that they aren't to install it (even though most shouldn't have admin rights anyway).
Not in a Ford Aerostar. We did have the 6 cylinder model, but I wouldn't consider it to be a racing vehicle. Now if my wife has been hiding her automotive tuning skills, I may be a bit upset about all those repairs where I was under the vehicle doing the work myself.
My wife and I don't have "assigned" vehicles rather we drive whatever one is at the end of the driveway as we head out. To Maryland though, I was the registered driver for our van and my wife for the car. My wife had the van one day and while stopped at the front of an intersection she was briefly distracted (not sure if kids, radio, phone, or what). She noticed the car to the right of her move and she let off the break and quickly hit the break realizing it was just the turning lane moving. Well she went far enough to trigger a red light camera that proceeded to start the process of mailing a ticket in my name. Given that technically my wife triggered the ticket and fighting it would have cost a days pay for me, I just went ahead and paid the ticket. The price of these tickets are kept at a lower fine than if the police officer were there to encourage people to "just pay it" rather than fight it. Now what would be interesting is fighting this automated ticketing system in the case of a neighbor driving my vehicle. For people with trucks and vans, I'm sure it isn't unusual to have a neighbor/friend ask to use it to take a kid to college, pick up a purchased appliance, help move, etc....
I haven't checked to see if the Horde (which my characters are) has that or a similar achievement. I do know that we have had guild members hit other guild members with snowballs while they are moving past the slimes right after Patchwerk in Nax. The snowball knocks them down and they die when the slow moving slimes hit them. Apparently several guild members aren't too concerned about the consequences (armor repair cost).
Until they add a reason that you should have let him live, you still have no consequences for killing Varimathras. If WoW offered a bit more moral consequences for your actions (maybe an achievement for "protect the innocent" or "nice guy"), maybe we'd see people thinking a little more about their actions. Then again, realizing it is a game, how many would care?
FYI, there are several causes for lazy eye (Amblyopia). In my son's situation, he had a "wiring" problem in that his brain favored one eye over the other. He didn't have the muscular version that is associated with the "wandering" of the eye. My son did go through eye patching for a period of time to force him to use his weak eye.
As for the other comments about blue hair and the laptop perception, I guess I hadn't really looked at it that way. If I would have had the chance in school to use a laptop, I'd have been all for that. I used my home computer (a C64 and the Commodore line printer) for most of my work when the teachers permitted it. I guess the laptop at that time would have weighed more than all my books combined though and the processing power would have been extremely limited (old enough to have taken a typing course that was on an electronic typewriter rather than a computer keyboard).
what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school
Some "special needs" students are permitted to bring in laptops for use at school. My son is on a 504 education plan to help with his ADD and ambliopia. He qualifies to use a laptop or a typing device (Alpha Smart) but refuses to use either (for some reason using a laptop makes him stand out in a negative way but his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one).
Oh, Howard County Maryland is the school system. I haven't heard of any plans to allow laptops in general but they do have special exceptions as I mentioned above.
My daughter has the Wii and about 10 games for it. None of these have a motion that require or even suggest swinging the Wiimote by the strap. Could you list the games that you know of or have that suggest or require swinging the Wiimote?
In the year that we've had the Wii, we've had many kids and several adults (my parents and in-laws included) play on the console. I haven't seen one case of anyone having the Wiimote slip out of their hand.
On another note, I'd rather see a nice class action suit against the XBox360 for disk scratching. This wasn't through any action on my son's part and I'm now sitting with two scratched disk. The MS solution was to contact the game vendors and ask for a replacement disk from them (at a cost of about $20 per disk to me).
Cell phones, as well as many other items, are prohibited for anyone in prison (at least in MD), including the staff that work there. My wife works as a nurse in a detention center and she goes through a screening process like any visitor.
We've had the XBox for just under a year now and up until about 2 weeks ago, no problems. I have two scratched disk because of the console and unfortunately for me, they don't fall in the Microsoft XBox Disk Replacement Plan (does not include Activision CoD and EA Games NFL 2008). I'm in the process of sending it back for repair. The disk on the other hand will not be addressed by Microsoft. Their solution, according to the support technician I spoke with, is to return the game to the point of purchase and ask for a replacement. I don't see how the store or the game vendor is responsible since the console destroyed the disk. Emailing Activision support though did at least get me an opportunity to pay $20 to get a replacement. Gotta love when a vendor stands behind their product.
Two of my son's friends have also had problems with their consoles. One had the RRoD, the other had the same disk scratching problem. The RRoD problem was early on in the XBox 360 release but the scratch problems have been within the last year.
I have four PCs (three desktops, one laptop), one Wii, one XBox 36, and some older consoles (GC and PS2). Out of all the games in my house, we have more for the PC than we do all the consoles combined. This may not be typical of most households but I know my siblings are in a similar situation (one has a console system, the other two don't).
You might be on to something. I know my combination lock changed to 6-6-6. I guess I never put all the signs together before :).
I went to a Catholic grade school (1-8) back in the early 80's. I had taken a Monster Manual into school one day to show to a couple kids that I knew played. When I left for home, the book was missing from my locker. The kids said they didn't take it. I am now wondering if the school administrators took it, soaked it in holy water, and burned it.
Under the Achievement system (think located in World Events) they have a "Vote for Thrall" entry. When you do this, you gain rep with the Horde.
I'm a current Maryland resident and I agree that the old system worked just fine. It had just the right amount of tech (scan) and accountability (paper source).
I'm in Howard County Maryland and prior to switching to the electronic voting machines, we used a similar optical mark system. The cards would list the position being voted for and the list of candidates. Each position also list the number of candidates that you could vote for. Each candidate had a broken arrow (pointing to the candidate) that you would complete with the pen. The ballet would be electronically scanned, but at least the paper card would still exist for recount if needed.
Not saying it doesn't happen, but keep in mind the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - Anti bribery Provisions. Given Microsoft's usage in many government agencies, I would expect them to be very cautious in anything that appears to be a bribe.
They adjusted my adjustable rate mortgage so it's now over $800 per month
Was this a surprise to you that the rate would be adjusted? An Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) is exactly that, adjustable, within the terms of the contract (I'm guessing there are limits to adjustment rates and maybe a maximum...never considered an ARM myself because of things like this).
PLUS a bunch of bullshit fees they're tacking on. Shouldn't the fees have been disclosed in the terms of the loan when you signed for it? When I purchased a house back in the mid-90s (sold late-90s when I relocated for work) I recall seeing all fees listed up front.
You're blaming the victim. The banks knew what they were doing, those of us unskilled in the ways of banking didn't.
I won't try to pretend that I don't make mistakes but you can't really blame the bank entirely. When I went to purchase my home for about $30K in some small city in PA, the bank had said I was authorized up to $48K. From talking with family I knew that based on my income at the time that the $30K house would really be the amount I could afford. The bank on the other hand was including future raises and who knows what else into the equation. Even at $30K, I found it tough to make ends meet (working for a small engineering firm and making less per hour than the convenience store shift manager sort of does that). Do I fault the bank for suggesting I could borrow $48K, yes. Would I have faulted myself for making a poor decision, yes.
As for paying off your debt, consider debt counseling services. They'll help negotiate repayment options with your various creditors. As I said, I struggled with my first house and ran up some credit card debt to make ends meet. I also found myself late on utilities and similar debt. I was able to make reasonable repayments and some of the creditors even helped by lowering the interest rates. My credit was still damaged, but at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
What prompted this city to provide a network? Did they replace an existing network or was this an area that wasn't being served by private industry? If private industry was not providing broadband services, maybe the community became tired of dial up?
"Shouldn't we then get he service for free or next to free (just cost of maintenance?)"
Most government services have a basic fee associated with running the service. I pay a water/sewer fee that probably covers the cost of the service, maintenance, and some amount for expanding the coverage to the more rural areas. The intent of government services isn't to make a profit, just to cover cost.
Funding for universal health care has to come from somewhere. If not new taxes, other programs are going to take a hit. Unless people lobby for continued space exploration, programs like this are easy targets. What many /. folks may find as important may not hold true for those with political influence.
I absolutely hated when my parents sent me out to sell things for the organizations I was involved in. As a parent, I now either donate my time or write a check. Don't ask me to beg my neighbors to give a percentage to my organization and a percentage to some company for an item they probably don't really want. I'd rather take a second job than make my kids into door to door (or relative/friend) sales people. The best way that my son's football program raise money was to have us volunteer our time as parking attendants for an event the county sponsored. The program was paid (not exactly the same wage that I get) and it only involved a small amount of time from. We didn't have to push any items on people and we still made money.
Oh, some advice on fund raiser meetings for any event. After you listen to the presentation for selling the items, ask how much the program is estimating as a return for participating in the program. I was on the board for the football program and fund raising group would have an estimated income based on past fund raisers. If they say the sales will bring approximately $50 per person, simply say you'll cut a check for $50 and that you will not be participating in the fund raiser.
Are you saying you prefer electrical nodes attached to them?
The repetitive killing of a mob does help develop skills that you can use. They won't necessarily be the only skills though. As you said, end game instance mob/boss fights requires a bit of learning that you can't get from solo or even some group questing. Ideally you picked up some of the required skills from instances (hunter feign to wipe aggro for example, mage keeping the scorch buff up, warlocks using the right curses for the fight, various forms of crowd control, etc...).
"The fact that those guys didn't buy or bot their 70s doesn't guarantee they have the brain."
I completely agree that leveling to 70 on your own won't guarantee that you'll be a good player in many instances. My wife's warlock is a perfect example. She is not a hard core gamer and panics when things don't go smoothly in an instance. To fill out a party for Leo in SSC, she initially hated doing it, even though she oddly enough ended up being near the top for damage (which you could read as either our group was bad or she was better than she thought...I'll suggest the latter). I've helped guild members as they approached level 70 and wondered how they made it as far as they did, but they are generally fast to improve if you help them understand their role in instances (tell a mage that they are spamming sheep for their first time in a series of pulls, and they'll be upset that they don't get to do any damage that fight, but at least they begin to learn it is a matter of working together).
"Gimme the possibility to start a char at half the level of my highest char and I wouldn't consider botting. I'm not doing it (don't want the ban hammer), but I can understand why some would."
Personally I wouldn't do it, even with my alts. Now what I wouldn't object to is making request to Blizzard to improve leveling an alt. I don't know that your suggestion would work very (1/2 the level of your main) since you'd need to figure out how to fairly setup gear on the alt (maybe just make your main fund the purchase of level appropriate gear?). Now what I would love to see is modifying the reputation grind. My alt obviously doesn't require the building of wealth as much as my main character so the quest designed with rep/gold rewards end up primarily being rep grinds. Couldn't alts start at "friendly" or "honored" just by association with your main being exalted with a faction?