That example works because all of those pricing plans are available to whatever customer wants it.
With AT&T, the bulk plans are only available as grandfathered options.
It would literally be like if the gym announced that starting next week, the only payment plan available was the $10/hour plan, and then they said what a great deal it was for the customers.
Paying for piracy does, in the same way that moonshine funded the mob back during prohibition.
You know what the solution was there though? It wasn't to make alchohol even more regulated - it was to legalize it. Once their funding source is cut off, the mob lost the vast majority of any power it had.
Leave the internet alone and piracy quickly becomes a no-money-involved activity, and as such can't be used to fund a damned thing.
Better than Wal-mart. They just throw it up for the same price as new - often with packaging tape holding together the chopped up clamshell packaging.
It's particularly bad trying to buy a universal remote. Almost ALL of them are opened returns. Idiots buy them not understanding that they have to be programmed. They try them, find out they don't work out of the box (duh), assume its BROKEN, and so they take it back, then get another one, and repeat this cycle a few times.
Personally I don't think a store should legally be able to sell anything that's been opened and returned as a new product.
Sexism is not biological, it's cultural - as you've just illustrated in amazing detail.
I'm not sure I'd agree. Turn on Discovery channel or Animal Planet and look at animal behavior. Many wild animals have a level of male dominance that is pretty extreme - PARTICULARLY among our fellow primates.
I'd argue that not only is sexism not wholly cultural, but the fight against sexism is mostly cultural. That's not a bad thing - indeed what makes or species great is that we're not a slave to simple biological programming. I'm just saying that to say that sexism is "not biological" is on some level wishful thinking.
I don't care how they came to be in the situation, it doesn't matter how that happened, what matters is resolving it, providing the social, housing, and financial support to ensure that every body can call somewhere home.
What the heck do you think a homeless shelter IS?
They provide housing and virtually all jurisdictions have some form of job service functions which helps people find work. There ARE programs out there to help people when they have a stroke of bad luck, but realistically it isn't going to be like staying at the Ritz.
I have to agree. I trudged through the Hobbit and part of Fellowship, but they were dreadful things to read. The STORY is great. It's just not a good telling of that story. He was just way too wrapped up in completely unimportant details for my tastes.
Yeah - I will say that due to my age (about 10-12 at the time) a lot of the BBS discussion didn't hold a lot of appeal at the time. Just not a lot of people in my age bracket on the BBS's back then.
One thing you'll even notice on smaller aircraft is that a lot of times on inspection cracks aren't even fixed. The A&P will basically just find the end of the crack and "drill it". IE,drill a small hole right at the end. This will tend to stop the crack form growing any further.
This is where "common sense" trips a lot of people up. "Common sense" is often dead wrong when it comes to engineering problems. Another aviation example is the Zenith Zodiac aircraft series (these are typically built from kits but some are available pre-built after the sport aircraft stuff was passed). The ailerons on the original design doesn't use traditional piano hinges - they literally just take the aluminum skin from the win and continue it on across to the aileron across the top. Rather than the hinge moving when the aileron moves, the wing skin literally just BENDS back and forth. "Common sense" would tell you that metal just bending back and forth like that would eventually wear out and break like a paper clip. The engineering analysis on the plane shows though that you're unlikely to wear it out within several decades of flight (during which any eventual wear would be long caught in inspection).
Sometimes you just have to trust the people who build the things when they say that it will work.
Most houses take a bit more than 6 weeks to build, and you have to factor in that its not just a single person working for that long - its quite a few. If you're comparing to your single income then to get a comparable exchange you need to add them all up.
Now take into account that its a matter of finance and how much you actually want to put into the house at a time. If I count my total salary, I could afford to buy a house cash with 2 years salary.
Thing is, I can't afford to dedicate 100% of my income towards that purchase (though 100% of those workers income IS coming from the work done to generate it). If you aren't willing to accept the terms of financing then save longer and pay cash for the house, but you don't have any right to complain that people aren't financing your house for free.
I wouldn't mind so much for something like this. There are only a few simulated aircraft I'd like to fly, so if I could get those for cheap then I say no problem - I'll pay the few $$$. Better to let it be focused on the stuff that I actually want to do rather than pay a huge lump sum to get a bunch of stuff I have no interest in.
Basically, the main plane I want is the Piper J3 Cub. Older stuff like a the Taylorcrafts, Luscombes, Aeronca Champ, etc, would all be nice too. Basically the stuff I'd actually want to fly in real life (which I currently can't - I have my PP-ASEL but can't get my medical renewed due to some issues - simulation is a good substitute).
... or as opposed to those who play well made online games that have no subscription and a one off fee like Guild Wars.
Guild Wars hardly was a "one-off" fee. Look at the rate at which they released *PAID* expansions. If you want to keep up with the game you pretty much have to buy multiple expansions annually.
Now, I'll readily admit that that might work out a tad cheaper than the typical $15/month subscription, its a bit naive to claim that the game is completely free to keep playing. They've just shifted their revenue model a bit.
That's the trick here (and with all things): there really is no free lunch. Companies are merely developing psychological tricks to make the customers FEEL like they're spending less, but in reality the company is bringing in MORE money that way, otherwise they wouldn't pursue it.
Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you - its just that personally I'm more comfortable with a $15/month game where everyone is on equal footing versus a game where I can play for free but suck, or spend $100/month or more to stay competitive. I only have time to really play one MMORPG at a time anyways, so its not as if the $15/month for one game at a time is hurting any.
While I can see your sentiment, I think to some degree it may just be a case of seeing the past through rose-colored glasses.
Back in the day the BBS's were great for someone who was first being introduced to anything resembling a networked computer. I had had a computer that I was hacking away on for a few years before I got my first modem, and once I discovered that I was pretty much CONSTANTLY on some BBS or the other. A lot of that time was browsing file archives, or playing games (Legend of the Red Dragon anyone?:)) . It was an exciting time, but it was also very limited compared to what we have today.
Heck one of the major challenges back then was actually finding out what the numbers to the BBS's were. Luckily I eventually found one around here (the Ashley Oaks BBS:)) that kept a running list of all of them in this area. It would call all of them on the list periodically and if they were unreachable for an extended period of time it removed them. It was great.
One thing that hasn't changed vs the internet though was that a lot of the BBS's had an "adult" image section. To a kid in his early teens that had a great appeal to it too:).
Indeed. Last time I was in a McDonalds (and it may be the last time ever) when I asked for no onions on the burger I got a snide "This ain't Burger King - you can't have it yo way." response. At that point I canceled the order and walked off. Thankfully the manager overheard and he already started giving them a talking to before I was out the door, but I had no further interest in doing business with them regardless of any concessions they might make.
I've had the clerk typo the account number on a counter deposit. Wherever it was going, it certainly went through. By pure chance I glanced at the deposit receipt on the way out of the door and the account number was wrong and I was able to have it corrected, but otherwise that money would have been gone.
In what world is waiting till the end of every month so that you can draw interest on your money until you pay off your debts not living on credit? Your buying things now and not paying them off until later. That's the definition of credit. The length of repayment isn't a factor in whether or not something is credit.
Nature will endure. The only reason we are saving species and protecting is to keep our species viable. Otherwise, our flaws will create the right mix to destroy us.
Absolutely - but mankind is PART of nature, not separate from it. Not only that, we are the most awesome force of nature that this planet has ever seen. We achieve our own balance, and can do so at a rate previously unheard of in the natural world.
At this point I truly believe that we've reached an evolutionary pinnacle so great that as long as this planet remains habitable for ANY complex species - mankind will be among them. Heck given enough time even the viability of Earth itself will not be a limitation for us.
The general public has no idea what hashed and salted even means. In layman's terms, that IS encryption. My bet is that they were indeed hash values, NOT actually encrypted passwords, but sometimes you have to dumb-down the press releases a bit.
I've already owned an iPod Touch in the past. The GPS I used a standalone unit at the time and was fine, but having to worry about finding a wi-fi hotspot all the time was specifically what drove me away from it. If you're not in a big city wifi is more often than not not available.
A tablet with a data plan would be a better option, but then those don't exactly drop into your pocket quite as nicely.
I'm not actually sure if I actually need a phone at all. I spend several orders of magnitude more time on my phone doing other stuff (email, listening to podcasts, general web browsing, GPS navigation, etc) then I do actually using it as a phone.
As such, I'd lose the "phone" long before I lost the "smart".
It seems like the patents for most of the popular designs (ie, Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Les Paul) are long out of patent. As a matter of fact the market is largely many companies just copying those three designs with a few other unique things thrown in.
As a matter of fact there's already a large market for building renditions of these (checkout the builders forums over at http://www.tdpri.com/ if your'e interested). Do we really need a new design when the classics are freely buildable?).
No, I actually played each one up through Cataclysm (and was heavy into raiding in original, TBC, and WOTLK - I never did get much into the raiding scene for Cata as I basically just came back and leveled one toon to 85 before I quit). In the end almost none of them stood out. The primary reason I can honestly say was the minimal voice acting. Some voices (and cut scenes) were added in the later expansions, but they remained a minority. The vast majority of all the quests were still a little box that popped up with uninteresting babble.
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That example works because all of those pricing plans are available to whatever customer wants it.
With AT&T, the bulk plans are only available as grandfathered options.
It would literally be like if the gym announced that starting next week, the only payment plan available was the $10/hour plan, and then they said what a great deal it was for the customers.
Paying for piracy does, in the same way that moonshine funded the mob back during prohibition.
You know what the solution was there though? It wasn't to make alchohol even more regulated - it was to legalize it. Once their funding source is cut off, the mob lost the vast majority of any power it had.
Leave the internet alone and piracy quickly becomes a no-money-involved activity, and as such can't be used to fund a damned thing.
He said he used it to send files to people, not "customers". People do have personal uses for services outside of business.
Better than Wal-mart. They just throw it up for the same price as new - often with packaging tape holding together the chopped up clamshell packaging.
It's particularly bad trying to buy a universal remote. Almost ALL of them are opened returns. Idiots buy them not understanding that they have to be programmed. They try them, find out they don't work out of the box (duh), assume its BROKEN, and so they take it back, then get another one, and repeat this cycle a few times.
Personally I don't think a store should legally be able to sell anything that's been opened and returned as a new product.
Sexism is not biological, it's cultural - as you've just illustrated in amazing detail.
I'm not sure I'd agree. Turn on Discovery channel or Animal Planet and look at animal behavior. Many wild animals have a level of male dominance that is pretty extreme - PARTICULARLY among our fellow primates.
I'd argue that not only is sexism not wholly cultural, but the fight against sexism is mostly cultural. That's not a bad thing - indeed what makes or species great is that we're not a slave to simple biological programming. I'm just saying that to say that sexism is "not biological" is on some level wishful thinking.
I don't care how they came to be in the situation, it doesn't matter how that happened, what matters is resolving it, providing the social, housing, and financial support to ensure that every body can call somewhere home.
What the heck do you think a homeless shelter IS?
They provide housing and virtually all jurisdictions have some form of job service functions which helps people find work. There ARE programs out there to help people when they have a stroke of bad luck, but realistically it isn't going to be like staying at the Ritz.
I have to agree. I trudged through the Hobbit and part of Fellowship, but they were dreadful things to read. The STORY is great. It's just not a good telling of that story. He was just way too wrapped up in completely unimportant details for my tastes.
Yeah - I will say that due to my age (about 10-12 at the time) a lot of the BBS discussion didn't hold a lot of appeal at the time. Just not a lot of people in my age bracket on the BBS's back then.
One thing you'll even notice on smaller aircraft is that a lot of times on inspection cracks aren't even fixed. The A&P will basically just find the end of the crack and "drill it". IE,drill a small hole right at the end. This will tend to stop the crack form growing any further.
This is where "common sense" trips a lot of people up. "Common sense" is often dead wrong when it comes to engineering problems. Another aviation example is the Zenith Zodiac aircraft series (these are typically built from kits but some are available pre-built after the sport aircraft stuff was passed). The ailerons on the original design doesn't use traditional piano hinges - they literally just take the aluminum skin from the win and continue it on across to the aileron across the top. Rather than the hinge moving when the aileron moves, the wing skin literally just BENDS back and forth. "Common sense" would tell you that metal just bending back and forth like that would eventually wear out and break like a paper clip. The engineering analysis on the plane shows though that you're unlikely to wear it out within several decades of flight (during which any eventual wear would be long caught in inspection).
Sometimes you just have to trust the people who build the things when they say that it will work.
Or possibly, feta cheese and golf balls.
Most houses take a bit more than 6 weeks to build, and you have to factor in that its not just a single person working for that long - its quite a few. If you're comparing to your single income then to get a comparable exchange you need to add them all up.
Now take into account that its a matter of finance and how much you actually want to put into the house at a time. If I count my total salary, I could afford to buy a house cash with 2 years salary.
Thing is, I can't afford to dedicate 100% of my income towards that purchase (though 100% of those workers income IS coming from the work done to generate it). If you aren't willing to accept the terms of financing then save longer and pay cash for the house, but you don't have any right to complain that people aren't financing your house for free.
I wouldn't mind so much for something like this. There are only a few simulated aircraft I'd like to fly, so if I could get those for cheap then I say no problem - I'll pay the few $$$. Better to let it be focused on the stuff that I actually want to do rather than pay a huge lump sum to get a bunch of stuff I have no interest in.
Basically, the main plane I want is the Piper J3 Cub. Older stuff like a the Taylorcrafts, Luscombes, Aeronca Champ, etc, would all be nice too. Basically the stuff I'd actually want to fly in real life (which I currently can't - I have my PP-ASEL but can't get my medical renewed due to some issues - simulation is a good substitute).
... or as opposed to those who play well made online games that have no subscription and a one off fee like Guild Wars.
Guild Wars hardly was a "one-off" fee. Look at the rate at which they released *PAID* expansions. If you want to keep up with the game you pretty much have to buy multiple expansions annually.
Now, I'll readily admit that that might work out a tad cheaper than the typical $15/month subscription, its a bit naive to claim that the game is completely free to keep playing. They've just shifted their revenue model a bit.
That's the trick here (and with all things): there really is no free lunch. Companies are merely developing psychological tricks to make the customers FEEL like they're spending less, but in reality the company is bringing in MORE money that way, otherwise they wouldn't pursue it.
Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you - its just that personally I'm more comfortable with a $15/month game where everyone is on equal footing versus a game where I can play for free but suck, or spend $100/month or more to stay competitive. I only have time to really play one MMORPG at a time anyways, so its not as if the $15/month for one game at a time is hurting any.
While I can see your sentiment, I think to some degree it may just be a case of seeing the past through rose-colored glasses.
Back in the day the BBS's were great for someone who was first being introduced to anything resembling a networked computer. I had had a computer that I was hacking away on for a few years before I got my first modem, and once I discovered that I was pretty much CONSTANTLY on some BBS or the other. A lot of that time was browsing file archives, or playing games (Legend of the Red Dragon anyone? :)) . It was an exciting time, but it was also very limited compared to what we have today.
Heck one of the major challenges back then was actually finding out what the numbers to the BBS's were. Luckily I eventually found one around here (the Ashley Oaks BBS :)) that kept a running list of all of them in this area. It would call all of them on the list periodically and if they were unreachable for an extended period of time it removed them. It was great.
One thing that hasn't changed vs the internet though was that a lot of the BBS's had an "adult" image section. To a kid in his early teens that had a great appeal to it too :).
Yeah - god forbid that a women doesn't have a problem with that fact that people find her attractive . . .
Far to many people have the attitude "never mind the learning bit, I just want the certificate".
Far "to" many people think that do they? I reckon we all oughta git us some learnin.
Indeed. Last time I was in a McDonalds (and it may be the last time ever) when I asked for no onions on the burger I got a snide "This ain't Burger King - you can't have it yo way." response. At that point I canceled the order and walked off. Thankfully the manager overheard and he already started giving them a talking to before I was out the door, but I had no further interest in doing business with them regardless of any concessions they might make.
I've had the clerk typo the account number on a counter deposit. Wherever it was going, it certainly went through. By pure chance I glanced at the deposit receipt on the way out of the door and the account number was wrong and I was able to have it corrected, but otherwise that money would have been gone.
In what world is waiting till the end of every month so that you can draw interest on your money until you pay off your debts not living on credit? Your buying things now and not paying them off until later. That's the definition of credit. The length of repayment isn't a factor in whether or not something is credit.
Nature will endure. The only reason we are saving species and protecting is to keep our species viable. Otherwise, our flaws will create the right mix to destroy us.
Absolutely - but mankind is PART of nature, not separate from it. Not only that, we are the most awesome force of nature that this planet has ever seen. We achieve our own balance, and can do so at a rate previously unheard of in the natural world.
At this point I truly believe that we've reached an evolutionary pinnacle so great that as long as this planet remains habitable for ANY complex species - mankind will be among them. Heck given enough time even the viability of Earth itself will not be a limitation for us.
The general public has no idea what hashed and salted even means. In layman's terms, that IS encryption. My bet is that they were indeed hash values, NOT actually encrypted passwords, but sometimes you have to dumb-down the press releases a bit.
I've already owned an iPod Touch in the past. The GPS I used a standalone unit at the time and was fine, but having to worry about finding a wi-fi hotspot all the time was specifically what drove me away from it. If you're not in a big city wifi is more often than not not available.
A tablet with a data plan would be a better option, but then those don't exactly drop into your pocket quite as nicely.
I'm not actually sure if I actually need a phone at all. I spend several orders of magnitude more time on my phone doing other stuff (email, listening to podcasts, general web browsing, GPS navigation, etc) then I do actually using it as a phone.
As such, I'd lose the "phone" long before I lost the "smart".
It seems like the patents for most of the popular designs (ie, Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Les Paul) are long out of patent. As a matter of fact the market is largely many companies just copying those three designs with a few other unique things thrown in.
As a matter of fact there's already a large market for building renditions of these (checkout the builders forums over at http://www.tdpri.com/ if your'e interested). Do we really need a new design when the classics are freely buildable?).
No, I actually played each one up through Cataclysm (and was heavy into raiding in original, TBC, and WOTLK - I never did get much into the raiding scene for Cata as I basically just came back and leveled one toon to 85 before I quit). In the end almost none of them stood out. The primary reason I can honestly say was the minimal voice acting. Some voices (and cut scenes) were added in the later expansions, but they remained a minority. The vast majority of all the quests were still a little box that popped up with uninteresting babble.