Students can understand different subjects better than others. They can become different (better or worse) students from one year to another, for instance, because of home(less) and family situation, have friends in this class but not that class, or like the hot teacher but don't like the old, ugly hippy.
But a teacher's performance measured by the results of their students' standardized tests are across a large sample (multiple students per class, multiple classes, multiple years) and should be compared to other teachers similarly situated - in a large school, even within the same school and the same student pool. Each teacher will have some students who are newly homeless that year if the school demographics are such that that happens with any regularity (and if it doesn't, that's only one student out of hundreds that contribute to the teacher's score). I really don't care why a teacher that works for me (as a taxpayer) and is supposed to be teaching their math students isn't accomplishing that (the "why" is for the teacher to figure out with help if needed), I just want it fixed.
This is no different than software development, programmers who are unable to perform the most basic of programming tasks efficiently should find another field of work. A teacher has far more potential to have a destructive impact on a vulnerable individual with no practical alternatives than a programmer does. A bad teacher who fails to teach Algebra I adequately screws their students because the students may have to play catchup the rest of their high school career and perhaps later as well -- a single bad programmer's work should get caught in code review or QA.
I'm curious -- how would you evaluate, for example, high school teachers? Ask the students to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (in schools where academic excellence is not demanded at home or the culture doesn't encourage it, this will result in teachers minimizing student effort in order to get good rankings)? Ask the parents to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (parents often know that much about an individual high school teacher except what they hear through their children - hearsay in other words)? Ask the principal to rank them based on some subjective measure (which often leads to teachers being ranked based on politics and personal bias - and even low level corruption)?
So what you're saying is, those subjects in which there aren't standardized tests are areas where we are competetive. Hmm... sounds like you made the opposite argument here. Feeling and intuition are just as important in "rigorous" fields such as math as in liberal arts. Can you point me to a computer that can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems?
No, can you point me to someone who can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems who couldn't at least "pass" a standardized math test in high school?
I didn't mean to imply that US high school students are competitive in liberal arts - I don't know (and it depends on the scope of "liberal arts"). However, certainly some liberal arts (such as the visual arts) are much harder to "test" students for -- two teachers in the same school may differ substantially on if a particular sketch done by a student is "creative" or just "junk". Also, this thread is not really about liberal arts.
The primary purpose of teaching, for example, Algebra to most students in high school is to help them build a toolkit they can use in future studies - not, usually, in pure math. A student's understanding of Math and Science curriculum at the high school level can be tested by questions that have concrete answers - for example, we are not expecting or teaching high school physics students to surmise, by personal insight and creativity, that there must be an elementary particle that has no one has realized before that "improves" the standard model. There is no reason that some percentage of the questions on the standardized tests should either require creativity or be more quickly solved with creativity. Indeed, I think some of the problems should be of this form.
If you are implying that standardized testing in High Schools is "totally unrelated" to knowledge and skills students are expected to have upon graduation, do you have any examples?
If the tests are testing the wrong thing, the tests should be fixed. Large swaths of core academic areas lend themselves well to standardized testing at the High School level - esp. those that are closely related to math/science. Such testing isn't going to be very good at differentiating between the superstar from the super-superstar, but that's not what they are for and those students will ace the tests anyway and can be exposed to a more challenging and expansive education environment/track that doesn't worry about the standardized tests. If the tests can't be fixed, then it seems obvious that ALL testing should be eliminated even at the classroom level -- if carefully developed, vetted, and tested standardized tests can't effectively measure knowledge and skills, then surely something a random teacher tosses together the night before the weekly test doesn't have a chance.
I think that teachers are a significant part of the problem (somewhere after parents).
The teacher's unions have for many years rejected almost all attempts to reward the objectively successful (rather than the most senior and/or most willing to collect various paper credentials) practitioners of the art while pushing out those that are not successful. They are historically opposed to all standardized student testing - esp. if they are fearful that these results may be used in teacher evaluation. If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.
The standardized testing should be a significant factor in students' grades to discourage students from "punishing" a teacher they don't like by doing poorly on the standardized tests.
I don't find the arguments about how "teaching to tests" is bad very compelling - esp. in Math and Science. If "teaching to the tests" results in different teaching than "teaching to excel in the material", obviously the tests need to be fixed -- they are testing for something other than that which competence is desired in. Sure, there are some subject areas that don't lend themselves to standardized testing (for example, various performing arts), but these don't seem to be the areas that are resulting in American High School graduates being non-competitive.
Annecdotally, in my personal experience most smart and competent people who flee from the teaching field (usually after having entered it somewhat idealistically) would be excellent teachers but end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance, frustrated by lack of support from parents ("My little Susie would never talk back"), and lack of support from administrators ("If there's a problem with classroom discipline it must be the teacher's problem as Susie's mother has assured me she's an angel").
Those million drivers who have figured out how to avoid gas taxes are doing a remarkable job of keeping their trick secret. Or, are you suggesting that there are a million people who drive only alternative fuel powered (electric for example) cars and therefore avoid paying their fair share of road construction and maintenance?
You don't say if this family is in the U.S. legally or not so I would assume they (like many Latina families) are in the U.S. legally.
So, I'm assuming that their actions that someone might consider a "horrible crime" is that they don't have proper business licenses, registrations, or inspections to sell food? Or, perhaps, that they don't collect sales tax (if your area has such a thing)?
If this is the case, they should not be allowed to sell food -- any more than Burger King should be allowed to sell prepared food without proper licenses, registrations, and inspections. Or, any more than Burger King should be able to escape their responsibility to collect sales tax.
If only I could still get it here in the U.S. for that:( Some years ago Trader Joe's had it for $40 (as single malt scotch was losing it's "cool" factor) and I wish I had bought a lot more of it.
I would imagine that in order to protect their jobs, the lawnmowers would actively track down the kids and destroy them - while kids don't eat much grass when they are really young, as adult goats the eat a lot more and represent serious competition.
This was common in older houses in the U.S. - the plumbing didn't include a waste water standpipe for the washer. Now, most new houses in the area I live don't have a laundry sink so, of course, they have a dedicated washer drain standpipe.
We subsidize your "corn for ethanol", you can subsidize our trains. Oh, and we both helped pay for Boston's Big Dig Disaster so we both should feel comfortable taking someone else's money. (Although we expect to spend your money recklessly, we do ask that you spend our money prudently).
Where I live, during "boom times" the parking lots are FULL at many stations by 8AM or so (and some are not free - but that's a lesser issue). Since I tend to keep late hours and there's no practical way to get to the train station efficiently without driving several miles and parking, the train is just not an option.
I've passed up on several jobs for this very reason. The commutes by train would have been tolerable, the commutes by car would not have been. I knew that when/if boom times hit and made train travel impractical again, I would have to move or change jobs.
"The train grossed $49,351,664 in ticket revenue in Fiscal Year 2006, making it Amtrak's highest grossing single train. With total expenses of $62.1 million, it is Amtrak's best-paying long distance train in terms of income in comparison with operating expenses."
We already have a working, proven solution in the United States to make this happen. All we need to do now is expand it.
Seems that a service which, in the best case, loses 26 cents for every dollar of revenue is hardly a "working, proven solution" that will necessarily scale.
Perhaps there are alternate similar solutions that could work, but I think in its current incarnation it is a proven failure. Just in this "best case" scenario, ticket prices need to be increased 26%, expenses reduced by 21% or some combination thereof to make it successful. If increases in ticket prices drive many consumers away, that likely won't work well. If decreases in expenses causes a reduction in service (less scheduled trains, more crowded trains, less maintenance etc.) and therefore drive many consumers away, that likely won't work well either. Perhaps expenses could be reduced without noticeably impacting service (such as more efficient scheduling or replacing workers w/inflated wages with workers willing to work for market rate) but one has to wonder why this hasn't been done already given the desperate fiscal performance of Amtrak for many years.
I'm not too sure what to make of these figures which indicate that Amtrak enjoys the highest "revenue per passenger mile" in 2001 (the last year data for all categories is shown) among several forms of transport.
Air carrier, domestic, scheduled service: 13.2 cents
Class I bus, intercity: 12.9 cents
Commuter rail: 15.1 cents
Intercity/Amtrak: 24.9 cents
Perhaps this is because of unique factors such as people stuck on trains for a long time buy food on the train (resulting in revenue that is counted in the passenger mile) while those traveling by plane buy food in the airport or off site because their travel is shorter? Perhaps this is because of the differences in routes served. Perhaps...
I like the concept of rail and use it where practical. However, I'm doubtful that it's a very attractive economic solution for extensive expansion in the United States.
On a related note, California recently passed "Prop 1A to authorize issuing about $10B in bonds towards funding a $40B high speed rail system. Of course, a couple months after it passed, the rich folks (most of whom, by the way, voted for [PDF] it) in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton were shocked, I say shocked, that it might actually run through their towns above grade and not be silently tunneled underground where they could ignore it.
Most broadband contracts allow either party to terminate service with some notice (typically 30 days) and allows the provider to change service terms/pricing/product with some notice (typically 30 days - allowing you time to cancel service if you don't like the new terms).
Although you don't have an individual written contract with the gas station, "customary business practices in the trade" (or similar terminology depending on the state you are in) plus specific laws are your contract. Obviously gas stations that are open 365.25 days per year, 24 hours per day do change prices and, if they are on a busy turnpike, I suppose they might do it while customers are pumping gas. Although I have no experience with this, I assume that for price increases they change the big signs first, wait a few minutes (so everyone who pulled in to buy gas actually has started pumping it) and then change the pump prices. I assume for price decreases, they reverse the order. I also assume that once you start the pump, the pricing does remain constant as long as the pump is in use. (I know, a lot of assumptions here and I'm may be giving too much credit to gas station operators). With these practices, a consumer following normal practices would never pay more (but may pay less) than the big sign says and your "contract" price is basically good from the time you pull into the station to the time you, behaving normally, have completed filling your tank.
I agree with you - if this bothers you, why should you pay for it? Feel free to discontinue your service at any time.
If you are arguing that broadband pricing and service levels should be regulated by the government (as the lobby industry might like!) or even a government run utility that's a fine argument (both which I shudder to think of - esp. the latter) and, due to the limited competition, might make sense. However, broadband is provided to most people via private enterprise (subject of course to some government regulation as all businesses in the U.S. are to one degree or the other) and that is the context in which this discussion is being had.
BTW, before asking for government regulation, consider that once the government regulates/runs broadband, they are also likely to limit competition to prevent consumers and private industry from "cherry picking". Remember the prices we used to pay for airline tickets, trucking, and long distance telephone calls before deregulation? The reductions in pricing in these areas was relatively sudden and steep when they were opened to competition (the service levels may have dropped in some cases, but this just suggests that government regulators were mandating Ferraris for people who actually wanted Scions).
I'm betting your current "contract" does not say "unlimited amount of data transfer" if you have caps. Maybe your original contract did, but that contract almost certainly has a clause that either of you can terminate that contract with something like 30 days notice (ignoring, perhaps, "one or two year commitment" contracts - but I doubt any contract that new would have promised "unlimited data transfer") and that you were provided with that notice of new contract terms and, by choosing to continue service, you accepted the new contract.
Businesses (esp. public companies with a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders), generally set prices to optimize ROI. Some choose to charge a high price and deliver a high end product while others choose to target a larger, more price conscious, market and deliver a less expensive product with lesser functionality or quality. Sometimes a single company will target multiple markets competing with itself to some extent. Think of Toyota which offers a Toyota Yaris starting at $12K and a Lexus LS Hybrid starting at $106K. This is all the broadband companies are doing with caps and tiers (just as they have done for years via "business" vs. "residential" or varying "max bandwidth" plans) even though all these run over the same wires in many cases.
If, in fact, they put flash ads on the monitoring page, I'd suggest you complain. (Or, FlashBlock if that's easier and works).
Providers can change terms of service - although if they do it while you're under a extended contract without an "exit" clause, you might have a legal case. Just because the gas station at the corner offered gasoline for $1.20 a gallon several years ago doesn't obligate them to do so today and just because your landlord once only charged $1K for a one bedroom unit doesn't mean they have to do it forever. This is just like you being able to select any available broadband provider (or none), gas station (or none), or landlord (or none) once your contractual obligations have been meet.
I regularly hit within 10% of "X" in Mbps - in fact, it's the norm. Obviously I only get this to strong commercial sites - generally using a multi-session download manager. I've got Comcast in an area they did substantial infrastructure upgrades about three years ago, so maybe I'm spoiled. Upload speeds I must admit I'm not as aware of as I rarely upload more than 50 GB a month and usually start that before I call it quits for the night so am not waiting for it.
Interestingly, my "uptime" (I know that's slightly off-topic) for my cable modem is higher than my electricity (although, all I can use is the VOIP phone when the power is off thanks to the battery backup in the cable modem - since I don't have a UPS on my router or desktops).
Although, at the moment, I don't get brownouts, I've lived in places with rolling blackouts and, more consistently, periodic low voltage at high demand time (you can see it in the incandescent lights and with a meter).
The point is, the water pressure does (at least where I've lived) drop at certain times of day due to increased neighborhood usage. However, even at those times, the pressure is "acceptable" even though below the "max". As a result, at some times of day, I can't draw the full amount of water so it takes longer to fill the pool than if the full pressure were available at all times.
(I could pay a higher monthly charge for a larger meter, perhaps a two inch meter, so I could fill the pool more quickly, but I'd still suffer pressure fluctuations.)
First, reread my last paragraph. I think that answers the 64kbps question.
And, for your soup analogy - no, I wouldn't be pissed but I would probably decide it wasn't worth the risk of my ten dollars to take a chance on getting only one can if that seemed to happen very often. On the other hand, if they offered up to ten cans for one dollar, I'd likely take them up on the offer as long as I never got zero cans.
What the ISPs need to do is offer ALL users upgrades immediately to routers that will display their current monthly usage in a simple LED/LCD screen. This would not be hard to do, but it would be costly.
Why not just provide a web site that you can access that shows you near real time usage for your connection and maybe pretty shiny graphs, RSS feeds, and email alerts as desired. Since the GB/month caps are not maintained by the modem, why involve the modem in the display/monitoring of them? Naive users usually install the "ISP Software" anyway and the software could include an access to the monitoring website with cool bent paperclips popping up when the customer is getting close to limits. Besides, I only look at my cable modem and router when things are broken and I'm compelled to crawl around in cat hair infested corners under my desk to find the damned things.
Back in the day when people had landlines, did they think that their "unlimited local calling" allowed them to use the phone while everyone else also was? They probably, if asked, thought so, but in reality if everyone in the city picked up their landline to place a call at 6PM, many (actually, probably most) of them wouldn't have gotten a dial tone.
If your house has 200 AMP service from the electric company, do you think you can draw 200 AMPs at any time? Well, no, not if everyone in your area is also using "their" 200 AMPs at the same time.
What do you suppose would happen if everyone in a town supplied with municipal water turned on all their faucets at the same time. Yep, they would get a dribble compared to what they would get if they just turned it on at a random time.
Virtually all utilities "over subscribe". I'm betting that if you read the medium sized print in your residential cable broadband contract, you will find that they don't guarantee bandwidth. If you want bandwidth guarantees, try business class services.
I'd agree, if the advertised "Up To X Mb Per Second" isn't available much of the day, the advertising would be dishonest, but in my limited experience, most times of the day, ComCast meets their "up to" bandwidth advertising.
Perhaps the 11 who received retention bonuses even though they are no longer with the company fulfilled the requirements of their retention agreement and hence earned the bonus. As far as I know, there is insufficient public information about the bonuses to know if this is the case, but it seems most likely.
For example, their retention agreement signed on December 1, 2007 may have read something like "If the employee continues to provide full time satisfactory service to AIG through November 31, 2008, AIG shall pay a bonus of $X to the employee on or before March 15, 2009." and the employee was laid off on December 1, 2008 having completed all the work they were needed for. (Actually, gory details can, I think, be found here - for example see sections 3.03 through 3.05)
The employee may have turned down lucrative offers from other financial institutions in anticipation of receiving the bonus for not jumping ship. Although the amounts seem high, they might be reasonable. This would depend on the unique skill/knowledge of the individual and its value to AIG. It's possible that some of these people are very knowledgeable people whose skills are actually very much in demand as many financial entities around the world suddenly have to unwind and juggle a situation they hadn't expected so were not staffed for. Note that to be effective, a retention bonus needs to be in the neighborhood of any bonus (immediate signon bonus or over the first year or so) a prospective employer may promise in order to hire the person.
Also, note that most of the work this person did to earn the bonus was done before the September 2008 bailout.
I'm not saying that any of the above is the situation at AIG with these retention bonuses. It's just that we don't know yet so it seems a bit early to condemn with a broad brush based on little knowledge. Just because Washington politicians are bleating about it doesn't mean much -- they are, after all, mostly opportunistic scum sucking bottom feeders.
The ACLU doesn't pretend the second amendment doesn't exist; they are neutral in regard to it
As your own post seems to point out (and as I did a few posts up), they are NOT neutral with regard to Second Amendment. In fact, they openly and specifically state that they disagree with the SCOTUS interpretation in Heller -- which is, I believe, the only SCOTUS precedent that addresses the bogus "collective rights" position that the ACLU takes. Because they take a discredited position to support the claim that "neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue", they are hardly neutral IMHO.
To say that the ACLU is neutral on the Second Amendment is only barely more credible than asserting that an organization that claimed that the Fourth Amendment's protections:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
are referring to a collective right so the police only need warrants to search government property. Would you consider that position "neutral"?
Protection of the Second Amendment is one of the roles the NRA has taken on in recent decades as the rights enumerated in the Second Amendment have become threatened by local, state, and the Federal government. The NRA is historically more focused on training, safety, and promoting firearms awareness and still spends many (I believe the majority) of their resources on those activities (oh, and overpaying their ineffectual and PR challenged CEO).
The much younger (founded about 30 years ago), albeit related, NRA-ILA is more specifically focused on legislative/judicial aspects of gun possession and ownership.
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But a teacher's performance measured by the results of their students' standardized tests are across a large sample (multiple students per class, multiple classes, multiple years) and should be compared to other teachers similarly situated - in a large school, even within the same school and the same student pool. Each teacher will have some students who are newly homeless that year if the school demographics are such that that happens with any regularity (and if it doesn't, that's only one student out of hundreds that contribute to the teacher's score). I really don't care why a teacher that works for me (as a taxpayer) and is supposed to be teaching their math students isn't accomplishing that (the "why" is for the teacher to figure out with help if needed), I just want it fixed.
This is no different than software development, programmers who are unable to perform the most basic of programming tasks efficiently should find another field of work. A teacher has far more potential to have a destructive impact on a vulnerable individual with no practical alternatives than a programmer does. A bad teacher who fails to teach Algebra I adequately screws their students because the students may have to play catchup the rest of their high school career and perhaps later as well -- a single bad programmer's work should get caught in code review or QA.
I'm curious -- how would you evaluate, for example, high school teachers? Ask the students to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (in schools where academic excellence is not demanded at home or the culture doesn't encourage it, this will result in teachers minimizing student effort in order to get good rankings)? Ask the parents to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (parents often know that much about an individual high school teacher except what they hear through their children - hearsay in other words)? Ask the principal to rank them based on some subjective measure (which often leads to teachers being ranked based on politics and personal bias - and even low level corruption)?
So what you're saying is, those subjects in which there aren't standardized tests are areas where we are competetive. Hmm... sounds like you made the opposite argument here. Feeling and intuition are just as important in "rigorous" fields such as math as in liberal arts. Can you point me to a computer that can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems?
No, can you point me to someone who can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems who couldn't at least "pass" a standardized math test in high school?
I didn't mean to imply that US high school students are competitive in liberal arts - I don't know (and it depends on the scope of "liberal arts"). However, certainly some liberal arts (such as the visual arts) are much harder to "test" students for -- two teachers in the same school may differ substantially on if a particular sketch done by a student is "creative" or just "junk". Also, this thread is not really about liberal arts.
The primary purpose of teaching, for example, Algebra to most students in high school is to help them build a toolkit they can use in future studies - not, usually, in pure math. A student's understanding of Math and Science curriculum at the high school level can be tested by questions that have concrete answers - for example, we are not expecting or teaching high school physics students to surmise, by personal insight and creativity, that there must be an elementary particle that has no one has realized before that "improves" the standard model. There is no reason that some percentage of the questions on the standardized tests should either require creativity or be more quickly solved with creativity. Indeed, I think some of the problems should be of this form.
If you are implying that standardized testing in High Schools is "totally unrelated" to knowledge and skills students are expected to have upon graduation, do you have any examples?
If the tests are testing the wrong thing, the tests should be fixed. Large swaths of core academic areas lend themselves well to standardized testing at the High School level - esp. those that are closely related to math/science. Such testing isn't going to be very good at differentiating between the superstar from the super-superstar, but that's not what they are for and those students will ace the tests anyway and can be exposed to a more challenging and expansive education environment/track that doesn't worry about the standardized tests. If the tests can't be fixed, then it seems obvious that ALL testing should be eliminated even at the classroom level -- if carefully developed, vetted, and tested standardized tests can't effectively measure knowledge and skills, then surely something a random teacher tosses together the night before the weekly test doesn't have a chance.
I think that teachers are a significant part of the problem (somewhere after parents).
The teacher's unions have for many years rejected almost all attempts to reward the objectively successful (rather than the most senior and/or most willing to collect various paper credentials) practitioners of the art while pushing out those that are not successful. They are historically opposed to all standardized student testing - esp. if they are fearful that these results may be used in teacher evaluation. If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.
The standardized testing should be a significant factor in students' grades to discourage students from "punishing" a teacher they don't like by doing poorly on the standardized tests.
I don't find the arguments about how "teaching to tests" is bad very compelling - esp. in Math and Science. If "teaching to the tests" results in different teaching than "teaching to excel in the material", obviously the tests need to be fixed -- they are testing for something other than that which competence is desired in. Sure, there are some subject areas that don't lend themselves to standardized testing (for example, various performing arts), but these don't seem to be the areas that are resulting in American High School graduates being non-competitive.
Annecdotally, in my personal experience most smart and competent people who flee from the teaching field (usually after having entered it somewhat idealistically) would be excellent teachers but end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance, frustrated by lack of support from parents ("My little Susie would never talk back"), and lack of support from administrators ("If there's a problem with classroom discipline it must be the teacher's problem as Susie's mother has assured me she's an angel").
Those million drivers who have figured out how to avoid gas taxes are doing a remarkable job of keeping their trick secret. Or, are you suggesting that there are a million people who drive only alternative fuel powered (electric for example) cars and therefore avoid paying their fair share of road construction and maintenance?
You don't say if this family is in the U.S. legally or not so I would assume they (like many Latina families) are in the U.S. legally.
So, I'm assuming that their actions that someone might consider a "horrible crime" is that they don't have proper business licenses, registrations, or inspections to sell food? Or, perhaps, that they don't collect sales tax (if your area has such a thing)?
If this is the case, they should not be allowed to sell food -- any more than Burger King should be allowed to sell prepared food without proper licenses, registrations, and inspections. Or, any more than Burger King should be able to escape their responsibility to collect sales tax.
If only I could still get it here in the U.S. for that :( Some years ago Trader Joe's had it for $40 (as single malt scotch was losing it's "cool" factor) and I wish I had bought a lot more of it.
I would imagine that in order to protect their jobs, the lawnmowers would actively track down the kids and destroy them - while kids don't eat much grass when they are really young, as adult goats the eat a lot more and represent serious competition.
But then to recover your investment, you have to feed the dead Gorillas to the Cows and they get Mad Gorilla disease.
Probably not in Mountain View unless the power is coming from a long way away. Not many coal fired plants in the West.
This was common in older houses in the U.S. - the plumbing didn't include a waste water standpipe for the washer. Now, most new houses in the area I live don't have a laundry sink so, of course, they have a dedicated washer drain standpipe.
We subsidize your "corn for ethanol", you can subsidize our trains. Oh, and we both helped pay for Boston's Big Dig Disaster so we both should feel comfortable taking someone else's money. (Although we expect to spend your money recklessly, we do ask that you spend our money prudently).
Where I live, during "boom times" the parking lots are FULL at many stations by 8AM or so (and some are not free - but that's a lesser issue). Since I tend to keep late hours and there's no practical way to get to the train station efficiently without driving several miles and parking, the train is just not an option.
I've passed up on several jobs for this very reason. The commutes by train would have been tolerable, the commutes by car would not have been. I knew that when/if boom times hit and made train travel impractical again, I would have to move or change jobs.
"The train grossed $49,351,664 in ticket revenue in Fiscal Year 2006, making it Amtrak's highest grossing single train. With total expenses of $62.1 million, it is Amtrak's best-paying long distance train in terms of income in comparison with operating expenses."
We already have a working, proven solution in the United States to make this happen. All we need to do now is expand it.
Seems that a service which, in the best case, loses 26 cents for every dollar of revenue is hardly a "working, proven solution" that will necessarily scale.
Perhaps there are alternate similar solutions that could work, but I think in its current incarnation it is a proven failure. Just in this "best case" scenario, ticket prices need to be increased 26%, expenses reduced by 21% or some combination thereof to make it successful. If increases in ticket prices drive many consumers away, that likely won't work well. If decreases in expenses causes a reduction in service (less scheduled trains, more crowded trains, less maintenance etc.) and therefore drive many consumers away, that likely won't work well either. Perhaps expenses could be reduced without noticeably impacting service (such as more efficient scheduling or replacing workers w/inflated wages with workers willing to work for market rate) but one has to wonder why this hasn't been done already given the desperate fiscal performance of Amtrak for many years.
I'm not too sure what to make of these figures which indicate that Amtrak enjoys the highest "revenue per passenger mile" in 2001 (the last year data for all categories is shown) among several forms of transport.
Perhaps this is because of unique factors such as people stuck on trains for a long time buy food on the train (resulting in revenue that is counted in the passenger mile) while those traveling by plane buy food in the airport or off site because their travel is shorter? Perhaps this is because of the differences in routes served. Perhaps...
I like the concept of rail and use it where practical. However, I'm doubtful that it's a very attractive economic solution for extensive expansion in the United States.
On a related note, California recently passed "Prop 1A to authorize issuing about $10B in bonds towards funding a $40B high speed rail system. Of course, a couple months after it passed, the rich folks (most of whom, by the way, voted for [PDF] it) in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton were shocked, I say shocked, that it might actually run through their towns above grade and not be silently tunneled underground where they could ignore it.
Most broadband contracts allow either party to terminate service with some notice (typically 30 days) and allows the provider to change service terms/pricing/product with some notice (typically 30 days - allowing you time to cancel service if you don't like the new terms).
Although you don't have an individual written contract with the gas station, "customary business practices in the trade" (or similar terminology depending on the state you are in) plus specific laws are your contract. Obviously gas stations that are open 365.25 days per year, 24 hours per day do change prices and, if they are on a busy turnpike, I suppose they might do it while customers are pumping gas. Although I have no experience with this, I assume that for price increases they change the big signs first, wait a few minutes (so everyone who pulled in to buy gas actually has started pumping it) and then change the pump prices. I assume for price decreases, they reverse the order. I also assume that once you start the pump, the pricing does remain constant as long as the pump is in use. (I know, a lot of assumptions here and I'm may be giving too much credit to gas station operators). With these practices, a consumer following normal practices would never pay more (but may pay less) than the big sign says and your "contract" price is basically good from the time you pull into the station to the time you, behaving normally, have completed filling your tank.
I agree with you - if this bothers you, why should you pay for it? Feel free to discontinue your service at any time.
If you are arguing that broadband pricing and service levels should be regulated by the government (as the lobby industry might like!) or even a government run utility that's a fine argument (both which I shudder to think of - esp. the latter) and, due to the limited competition, might make sense. However, broadband is provided to most people via private enterprise (subject of course to some government regulation as all businesses in the U.S. are to one degree or the other) and that is the context in which this discussion is being had.
BTW, before asking for government regulation, consider that once the government regulates/runs broadband, they are also likely to limit competition to prevent consumers and private industry from "cherry picking". Remember the prices we used to pay for airline tickets, trucking, and long distance telephone calls before deregulation? The reductions in pricing in these areas was relatively sudden and steep when they were opened to competition (the service levels may have dropped in some cases, but this just suggests that government regulators were mandating Ferraris for people who actually wanted Scions).
I'm betting your current "contract" does not say "unlimited amount of data transfer" if you have caps. Maybe your original contract did, but that contract almost certainly has a clause that either of you can terminate that contract with something like 30 days notice (ignoring, perhaps, "one or two year commitment" contracts - but I doubt any contract that new would have promised "unlimited data transfer") and that you were provided with that notice of new contract terms and, by choosing to continue service, you accepted the new contract.
Businesses (esp. public companies with a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders), generally set prices to optimize ROI. Some choose to charge a high price and deliver a high end product while others choose to target a larger, more price conscious, market and deliver a less expensive product with lesser functionality or quality. Sometimes a single company will target multiple markets competing with itself to some extent. Think of Toyota which offers a Toyota Yaris starting at $12K and a Lexus LS Hybrid starting at $106K. This is all the broadband companies are doing with caps and tiers (just as they have done for years via "business" vs. "residential" or varying "max bandwidth" plans) even though all these run over the same wires in many cases.
If, in fact, they put flash ads on the monitoring page, I'd suggest you complain. (Or, FlashBlock if that's easier and works).
Providers can change terms of service - although if they do it while you're under a extended contract without an "exit" clause, you might have a legal case. Just because the gas station at the corner offered gasoline for $1.20 a gallon several years ago doesn't obligate them to do so today and just because your landlord once only charged $1K for a one bedroom unit doesn't mean they have to do it forever. This is just like you being able to select any available broadband provider (or none), gas station (or none), or landlord (or none) once your contractual obligations have been meet.
I regularly hit within 10% of "X" in Mbps - in fact, it's the norm. Obviously I only get this to strong commercial sites - generally using a multi-session download manager. I've got Comcast in an area they did substantial infrastructure upgrades about three years ago, so maybe I'm spoiled. Upload speeds I must admit I'm not as aware of as I rarely upload more than 50 GB a month and usually start that before I call it quits for the night so am not waiting for it.
Interestingly, my "uptime" (I know that's slightly off-topic) for my cable modem is higher than my electricity (although, all I can use is the VOIP phone when the power is off thanks to the battery backup in the cable modem - since I don't have a UPS on my router or desktops).
Although, at the moment, I don't get brownouts, I've lived in places with rolling blackouts and, more consistently, periodic low voltage at high demand time (you can see it in the incandescent lights and with a meter).
The point is, the water pressure does (at least where I've lived) drop at certain times of day due to increased neighborhood usage. However, even at those times, the pressure is "acceptable" even though below the "max". As a result, at some times of day, I can't draw the full amount of water so it takes longer to fill the pool than if the full pressure were available at all times.
(I could pay a higher monthly charge for a larger meter, perhaps a two inch meter, so I could fill the pool more quickly, but I'd still suffer pressure fluctuations.)
First, reread my last paragraph. I think that answers the 64kbps question. And, for your soup analogy - no, I wouldn't be pissed but I would probably decide it wasn't worth the risk of my ten dollars to take a chance on getting only one can if that seemed to happen very often. On the other hand, if they offered up to ten cans for one dollar, I'd likely take them up on the offer as long as I never got zero cans.
What the ISPs need to do is offer ALL users upgrades immediately to routers that will display their current monthly usage in a simple LED/LCD screen. This would not be hard to do, but it would be costly.
Why not just provide a web site that you can access that shows you near real time usage for your connection and maybe pretty shiny graphs, RSS feeds, and email alerts as desired. Since the GB/month caps are not maintained by the modem, why involve the modem in the display/monitoring of them? Naive users usually install the "ISP Software" anyway and the software could include an access to the monitoring website with cool bent paperclips popping up when the customer is getting close to limits. Besides, I only look at my cable modem and router when things are broken and I'm compelled to crawl around in cat hair infested corners under my desk to find the damned things.
Back in the day when people had landlines, did they think that their "unlimited local calling" allowed them to use the phone while everyone else also was? They probably, if asked, thought so, but in reality if everyone in the city picked up their landline to place a call at 6PM, many (actually, probably most) of them wouldn't have gotten a dial tone.
If your house has 200 AMP service from the electric company, do you think you can draw 200 AMPs at any time? Well, no, not if everyone in your area is also using "their" 200 AMPs at the same time.
What do you suppose would happen if everyone in a town supplied with municipal water turned on all their faucets at the same time. Yep, they would get a dribble compared to what they would get if they just turned it on at a random time.
Virtually all utilities "over subscribe". I'm betting that if you read the medium sized print in your residential cable broadband contract, you will find that they don't guarantee bandwidth. If you want bandwidth guarantees, try business class services.
I'd agree, if the advertised "Up To X Mb Per Second" isn't available much of the day, the advertising would be dishonest, but in my limited experience, most times of the day, ComCast meets their "up to" bandwidth advertising.
Also might help if lawmakers actually RTFB before voting on it.
Perhaps the 11 who received retention bonuses even though they are no longer with the company fulfilled the requirements of their retention agreement and hence earned the bonus. As far as I know, there is insufficient public information about the bonuses to know if this is the case, but it seems most likely.
For example, their retention agreement signed on December 1, 2007 may have read something like "If the employee continues to provide full time satisfactory service to AIG through November 31, 2008, AIG shall pay a bonus of $X to the employee on or before March 15, 2009." and the employee was laid off on December 1, 2008 having completed all the work they were needed for. (Actually, gory details can, I think, be found here - for example see sections 3.03 through 3.05)
The employee may have turned down lucrative offers from other financial institutions in anticipation of receiving the bonus for not jumping ship. Although the amounts seem high, they might be reasonable. This would depend on the unique skill/knowledge of the individual and its value to AIG. It's possible that some of these people are very knowledgeable people whose skills are actually very much in demand as many financial entities around the world suddenly have to unwind and juggle a situation they hadn't expected so were not staffed for. Note that to be effective, a retention bonus needs to be in the neighborhood of any bonus (immediate signon bonus or over the first year or so) a prospective employer may promise in order to hire the person.
Also, note that most of the work this person did to earn the bonus was done before the September 2008 bailout.
I'm not saying that any of the above is the situation at AIG with these retention bonuses. It's just that we don't know yet so it seems a bit early to condemn with a broad brush based on little knowledge. Just because Washington politicians are bleating about it doesn't mean much -- they are, after all, mostly opportunistic scum sucking bottom feeders.
The ACLU doesn't pretend the second amendment doesn't exist; they are neutral in regard to it
As your own post seems to point out (and as I did a few posts up), they are NOT neutral with regard to Second Amendment. In fact, they openly and specifically state that they disagree with the SCOTUS interpretation in Heller -- which is, I believe, the only SCOTUS precedent that addresses the bogus "collective rights" position that the ACLU takes. Because they take a discredited position to support the claim that "neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue", they are hardly neutral IMHO.
To say that the ACLU is neutral on the Second Amendment is only barely more credible than asserting that an organization that claimed that the Fourth Amendment's protections:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
are referring to a collective right so the police only need warrants to search government property. Would you consider that position "neutral"?
Protection of the Second Amendment is one of the roles the NRA has taken on in recent decades as the rights enumerated in the Second Amendment have become threatened by local, state, and the Federal government. The NRA is historically more focused on training, safety, and promoting firearms awareness and still spends many (I believe the majority) of their resources on those activities (oh, and overpaying their ineffectual and PR challenged CEO).
The much younger (founded about 30 years ago), albeit related, NRA-ILA is more specifically focused on legislative/judicial aspects of gun possession and ownership.