Wow. I didn't have it as bad as you, but since your phone company wasn't able to answer the question, I'll tell you what bellsouth told me when I went through 'em line by line.
Well, the gist of it anyway. I no longer use bellsouth, and I don't remember exactly what each item was, but basically it boiled down to things that the government required the phone company to do, like run 911 and allow calls from disconnected phones to 911, as well as some infrastructure things like line maintenace and whatnot.
I couldn't find anything on the list that, although legitimate costs of doing business, shouldn't have simply been called "legitimate cost of doing business" and folded into the advertised rate. I don't get charged for a "meat handling fee" or "farm equipment maintenance" at Subway, so why should the phone company get away with expensing its costs like that? I suppose it's a holdover fom when they were regulated public utilities. I figure, in another few years, they'll have every single cost in the fees column and there will be companies advertising "Zero Dollar" phone service.
"at USD$1.00/episode, the content I *want* would cost less than half my current cable subscription."
Then they'll charge $2.50 an episode.
What I'd like to see, instead of just switching to "a la carte" is another cable company move in that specifically offers it. or your plan. Let the options exist and see what the market moves to. 'cause I'm not positive that a la carte is the best way to go. Would, for example, a SciFi channel or a Discovery-Science channel be able to exist? or would we end up with 4200 clones of Desparate Housewives* offered instead?
*yes I am aware that desparate housewives is itself a clone of another phenominally bad show.
What's this probably? You must not read your phone bill.
Re-read whatever section deals with taxes, fees, the fee-tax, and the tax-fees, then call your phone company and ask them to explain the ones you don't quite understand. Then have them explain the ones you think you do understand. And.. be polite. Whoever's explaining it to you probably doesn't have any authority in the "Hide costs-of-doing-business as government taxes and fees" plan.
Ahh but therein lies the "problem" that's not really a problem per se, but still an interesting challenge:
Deep ocean research, like the space program, is tremendously expensive. (and like the space program, robots have made it significantly cheaper/safer.) And both programs have the problem that the average joe can't really participate beyond monetary support: It takes a very lot of money to support even a few scientists.
Astronomy on the other hand has the benefit of an army of amateur astronomers with varying degrees of professionalism making literaly millions of independant observations, many of which are actually scientifically usefull. On an enthusists budget, telescopes can be purchased/built that exceed the specifications of a few "professional" telescopes, and have been.
Ocean research however has only recreational scuba-diving as its amateur community. Physical limits of the human body prevent amateurs from going very deep, which also limits the area observable to near coasts of some kind. The next step up from scuba is incredibly expensive, and so is restricted to the domain of professional researchers.
The challenge has therefore been laid: bring down the cost of manned submersibles capapable of reaching mid-ocean depths to the point that a particularly dedicated hobbyist could afford to purchase/build one.
It is a difficult challenge. If you could build a submersible out of scrap as easily a shown in "Surface" people'd have been doing it for years now.
in an attempt to control bribery in the form of campaign contributions, only [groups of people sharing a common interest] are banned from saying "Senator Smith opposes/supports [thing we support/oppose] which is [good/bad]"
Bwah? No Your example is flawed. Filters aren't a bad idea, and neither is the vaccine. But if you want to smoke unfiltered cigarettes, (and if for some reason filters had some kind of negligible or even perceived health risk that even partially justified your desire) you should be able to buy unfiltered cigarettes. You don't want to have to worry about it. Take the vaccine. Someone else might have other reasons not to worry about it. don't FORCE them to take the vaccine.
The decision to make a vaccine mandatory shouldn't be based on whether or not teenagers are going to have sex whether we want them to or not. It should be based on the public health risks.
Wait a minute, they have a valid position (but they don't voice it correctly...) Vaccines are serious business. You are injecting something directly into your body. Every vaccine has risks and this one is a vaccine for a disease whose mode of transmission is a fairly deliberate act. Unlike smallpox or polio, there's no public health reason why it should be a required vaccine.
The orbital radius increases because the earth's rotation velocity is greater than the moon's angular velocity. If the moon orbited the earth quickly (say.. at LEO speeds assuming that were possible...) the transfer of angular momentum would go the other way.
Also, a jovian IS significant compared to its star. especially as evidenced by the detectable wobble.
I think many people share my opinion that it's not the actors that make the movie. A good movie will be good even without million dollar actors (maybe even better, since you wouldn't be distracted by "What's Mr. Jackson going to do next" and instead concentrate on the character). And a bad movie will still be bad even with them. But the bad movie will probably still get watched on name recognition.
So if the studio could have made the same amount of money, but saved $100 million on talent, they really should have. At those levels they're not buying talent. They're buying a security blanket. It's the same model the keeps CEO salaries high.
Similarly, I've been very unimpressed by most of the $20 million dollar actors I've seen. I'll believe CG artists have made a computer act like a human before I'll believe these con-artists have stopped acting like machines...
No, that nomenclature is deprecated. SI specifies 10^3 increments between each successive prefix. and scientists pretty much universally use SI to describe measurements of all kinds.
How much of the "approval rating" is due to the fact that inside the beltway, everyone keeps conflating illegal immigration with immigration, and the president is trying to make a compromise between opposing points of view that don't even exist in the rest of the US?
Frankly, whoever brought up this issue was a great help to whoever doesn't like Bush, or at least could be. If the Democrats would be smart enough to threaten impeachment for neglecting his sworn duty as executive to secure the freakin' border. 6,000 extra over a 3,000 mile border? how is that going to make much difference?
Then why are the "majority" of the people supporting it? No matter what accounting you use, there is no way you can claim that the insurgency is the result of a MAJORITY sentiment. For instance, THEIR election turnout puts OURS to shame.
Won't solve the dark count problem, since the noise will come from the lens itself as well as baffles, and the surroundings. Increasing the lens just increases the N, so your S/N doesn't get any better. (really a problem if you're trying to do infrared photography)
I don't think he was commenting on the durability, but the linearity. Since you can't access arbitrary positions on the tape without spooling through all the intervening tape.
Slashdot Mirror
But what do you know? you're just a slashdot drone trying to be witty.
Wow. I didn't have it as bad as you, but since your phone company wasn't able to answer the question, I'll tell you what bellsouth told me when I went through 'em line by line.
Well, the gist of it anyway. I no longer use bellsouth, and I don't remember exactly what each item was, but basically it boiled down to things that the government required the phone company to do, like run 911 and allow calls from disconnected phones to 911, as well as some infrastructure things like line maintenace and whatnot.
I couldn't find anything on the list that, although legitimate costs of doing business, shouldn't have simply been called "legitimate cost of doing business" and folded into the advertised rate. I don't get charged for a "meat handling fee" or "farm equipment maintenance" at Subway, so why should the phone company get away with expensing its costs like that? I suppose it's a holdover fom when they were regulated public utilities. I figure, in another few years, they'll have every single cost in the fees column and there will be companies advertising "Zero Dollar" phone service.
"at USD$1.00/episode, the content I *want* would cost less than half my current cable subscription."
Then they'll charge $2.50 an episode.
What I'd like to see, instead of just switching to "a la carte" is another cable company move in that specifically offers it. or your plan. Let the options exist and see what the market moves to. 'cause I'm not positive that a la carte is the best way to go. Would, for example, a SciFi channel or a Discovery-Science channel be able to exist? or would we end up with 4200 clones of Desparate Housewives* offered instead?
*yes I am aware that desparate housewives is itself a clone of another phenominally bad show.
What's this probably? You must not read your phone bill.
Re-read whatever section deals with taxes, fees, the fee-tax, and the tax-fees, then call your phone company and ask them to explain the ones you don't quite understand. Then have them explain the ones you think you do understand. And.. be polite. Whoever's explaining it to you probably doesn't have any authority in the "Hide costs-of-doing-business as government taxes and fees" plan.
That and the fact that gas is taxed by the gallon rather than by the dollar, and at currently a higher level than sales tax would be.
so you outsource the production of "cheap laptops for the third world" to third-world sweatshops... interesting plan..
Ahh but therein lies the "problem" that's not really a problem per se, but still an interesting challenge:
Deep ocean research, like the space program, is tremendously expensive. (and like the space program, robots have made it significantly cheaper/safer.) And both programs have the problem that the average joe can't really participate beyond monetary support: It takes a very lot of money to support even a few scientists.
Astronomy on the other hand has the benefit of an army of amateur astronomers with varying degrees of professionalism making literaly millions of independant observations, many of which are actually scientifically usefull. On an enthusists budget, telescopes can be purchased/built that exceed the specifications of a few "professional" telescopes, and have been.
Ocean research however has only recreational scuba-diving as its amateur community. Physical limits of the human body prevent amateurs from going very deep, which also limits the area observable to near coasts of some kind. The next step up from scuba is incredibly expensive, and so is restricted to the domain of professional researchers.
The challenge has therefore been laid: bring down the cost of manned submersibles capapable of reaching mid-ocean depths to the point that a particularly dedicated hobbyist could afford to purchase/build one.
It is a difficult challenge. If you could build a submersible out of scrap as easily a shown in "Surface" people'd have been doing it for years now.
in an attempt to control bribery in the form of campaign contributions, only [groups of people sharing a common interest] are banned from saying "Senator Smith opposes/supports [thing we support/oppose] which is [good/bad]"
Bwah? No Your example is flawed. Filters aren't a bad idea, and neither is the vaccine. But if you want to smoke unfiltered cigarettes, (and if for some reason filters had some kind of negligible or even perceived health risk that even partially justified your desire) you should be able to buy unfiltered cigarettes. You don't want to have to worry about it. Take the vaccine. Someone else might have other reasons not to worry about it. don't FORCE them to take the vaccine.
The decision to make a vaccine mandatory shouldn't be based on whether or not teenagers are going to have sex whether we want them to or not. It should be based on the public health risks.
Wait a minute, they have a valid position (but they don't voice it correctly...) Vaccines are serious business. You are injecting something directly into your body. Every vaccine has risks and this one is a vaccine for a disease whose mode of transmission is a fairly deliberate act. Unlike smallpox or polio, there's no public health reason why it should be a required vaccine.
In a group of 23 people, what are the odds that two of them have the same birthday? The answer may surprise you.
The orbital radius increases because the earth's rotation velocity is greater than the moon's angular velocity. If the moon orbited the earth quickly (say.. at LEO speeds assuming that were possible...) the transfer of angular momentum would go the other way.
Also, a jovian IS significant compared to its star. especially as evidenced by the detectable wobble.
I think many people share my opinion that it's not the actors that make the movie. A good movie will be good even without million dollar actors (maybe even better, since you wouldn't be distracted by "What's Mr. Jackson going to do next" and instead concentrate on the character). And a bad movie will still be bad even with them. But the bad movie will probably still get watched on name recognition.
So if the studio could have made the same amount of money, but saved $100 million on talent, they really should have. At those levels they're not buying talent. They're buying a security blanket. It's the same model the keeps CEO salaries high.
Similarly, I've been very unimpressed by most of the $20 million dollar actors I've seen. I'll believe CG artists have made a computer act like a human before I'll believe these con-artists have stopped acting like machines...
It wasn't THAT bad...
Oh. I thought that was intentional.
But does insurance cover the diagnostic B&E?
Seriously though... Is "disgnostician" even an actual medical career path?
No, that nomenclature is deprecated. SI specifies 10^3 increments between each successive prefix. and scientists pretty much universally use SI to describe measurements of all kinds.
How much of the "approval rating" is due to the fact that inside the beltway, everyone keeps conflating illegal immigration with immigration, and the president is trying to make a compromise between opposing points of view that don't even exist in the rest of the US?
Frankly, whoever brought up this issue was a great help to whoever doesn't like Bush, or at least could be. If the Democrats would be smart enough to threaten impeachment for neglecting his sworn duty as executive to secure the freakin' border. 6,000 extra over a 3,000 mile border? how is that going to make much difference?
Then why are the "majority" of the people supporting it? No matter what accounting you use, there is no way you can claim that the insurgency is the result of a MAJORITY sentiment. For instance, THEIR election turnout puts OURS to shame.
One word: Brandishing.
And back on topic...
You don't see them trying to ban Ruby or Python do you? Take that inferior scripting languages!
Ugh. that is one of the worst graphs I have ever seen. A classic case where two charts would've been better than one.
Won't solve the dark count problem, since the noise will come from the lens itself as well as baffles, and the surroundings. Increasing the lens just increases the N, so your S/N doesn't get any better. (really a problem if you're trying to do infrared photography)
Wow, that is funny!
"Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."
Which means, as near as i can figure, the 404-not found page was NOT FOUND! (404)
I don't think he was commenting on the durability, but the linearity. Since you can't access arbitrary positions on the tape without spooling through all the intervening tape.