OTOH, people are responsible for any stuff whatsoever that falls out of their vehicle and hits yours, despite the fact that a few trucks try to disclaim responsibility for that.
Absolutely they are - One of the Seattle newspapers regularly ran a column where people could ask questions about traffic management in the city, like "Is this safe at such and such street, seems like you need to stick into an oncoming lane to make a turn?" etc, and one question was about this very issue. You can't disclaim responsibility for falling objects from your vehicle, be they gravel, or dropping a fridge. NOR can you mandate (as a lot of trucks in WA do), "Stay back 200'". Only the DOT can do that.
However, as the article noted, your big issue would be showing in a civil trial (i.e. balance of probabilities) that it was a stone,/from that truck/ that chipped your windshield, and that there was no visible or invisible damage pre-existing that might have weakened the structural integrity of your glass.
The Dell Studio PCs are close t a mac mini but they cast as much or more than a Mini.
Pardon, what? Mac mini, 2.0GHz C2D, 2GB, 320GB, $799. Dell Studio Hybrid, 2.1GHz, 4GB, 320GB, $799. Oh, and the Dell actually slips with a keyboard, mouse, and other little non-essential trinkets.
Yup, a commodity PC with bluetooth std, low power components, display brightness controlled by OS, working power management, extremely quiet, ah I give up, most of you lack the ability to differentiate any two computers from any manufacturer, and will never try.
Bluetooth standard? Because choosing "Bluetooth option" for $20 at order time is a travesty against the aesthetic, right? Mind you, I'm yet to see a consumer laptop under $700 in the last year or so that doesn't have it as standard. "Low power components"? As compared to, what? The MBP's CPU uses less power because it is in a MBP chassis, not a Dell? Or maybe the mystical magical LCD/LED display does? Display brightness controlled by OS? Haha. Unplug any laptop running Vista. What happens? The display dims. But wait, you said that doesn't happen. I'm confused. Working power management? Right. So my laptop doesn't spin down the hard drive when it's not being used. Nor does it scale back the CPU when appropriate, nor does it dim the display. And don't even start me on closing the lid, it doesn't go into standby mode either, I must be imagining that too. Extremely quiet? Cite?
Give up indeed, you're as blinded as you like to believe others are.
Seriously, having moved from Australia to the US, I look at things like the Lincoln Navigator. WTF? TWELVE MPG. Over 2 metres wide, 80 inches. Nearly 5.5 metres long, 207 inches. A 30+ gallon tank that costs at today's rates approximately US$100+ to fill. Think about that, $100 to move 350 miles. Probably unsurprising, since the thing weighs the best part of THREE TONS. And for what, it's not actually like it's any use off the road with around 8" road clearance. It's not even really built to tow anything, under four tons towing capacity, barely enough to tow a car, let alone a caravan. No, its primary design seems tailored to, rightly or wrongly "making a soccer mom feel like she's capable of squashing anything on the road that might threaten her children"
Check out the "Review Sequence" option (or something similar), but I assure you, you can control the sequence of actions applied to an activity.
As an aside, what the hell is fucking broken with your system that the cable box needs to be on before the TV? Do you have to switch everything off, too, when you go from watching a DVD back to TV? Even HDMI/HDCP shouldn't cause that.
No internet connection? Yeah, because people who are setting up multi-component home entertainment systems rarely have access to the internet. It says right there on the box "online constantly updated device database" - what did you think online meant? That you'd get another book that'd require you to try 185 different codes for "Samsung TV" until it found the one that you used? (Admittedly, I wished the Harmony software could run locally rather than (what appears to be) an ActiveX component in an embedded browser, but still.
Lowest common demoninator? Features like being able to adjust the delay between multiple commands to make adjusting the volume be a breeze (not adjusting 1dB every 1 second), etc, but yet not skipping forward 30 channels/pages because you held Channel Up/Pg Up for more than a fraction of a moment?
I love how it's an "adequate for morons" system though you can't see the simple menu options under 'review activity' that show you in detail what steps the remote is going to take, along with an Up/Down button to rearrange the sequence.
Everything works just fine on my system, controlling a Yamaha HTR, Samsung LCD, a four port A/V SPDIF/HDMI switcher, a Roku Soundbridge, a Dish Network DVR, a Grundig DVD player and a Toshiba HD DVD player, a Media Center PC and an Xbox 360, and my father in law's system with rear projection screen, laser disc, hd cable, X10 lighting.
But hey, I guess it must suck because something in your setup is so broken that the TV won't turn to a channel without a pre-existing input signal.
Your universal remote sucks then. My sub $100 Logitech Harmony will happily change between surround modes on my Yamaha receiver, and program my DVR. Out of the box it has presets for all that stuff off the Device menu, supports aliasing buttons to key sequences, you name it.
And it answers your last point: it guides you through questions, and in the end you're given a "Watch TV" button that means, "Turn On: Television, DVR, Receiver, AV Switch. Turn TV to HDMI1, Turn Receiver to "AV Switch", Turn AV Switch to "HD SAT"." I then hit "Listen to Soundbridge" and it understands what devices are on and what state they are in, and says "Turn Off TV, Turn off AV Switch, Turn Receiver to SPDIF1. Turn Soundbridge On"
There are ways, too, to "extend" the Harmony to deal with RF remote signals, too. Also nice. I love my Harmony, my wife loves it, and we bought her father one, who had all the toys but none of the know how (think rear projection 1080p TV, HD satellite, Blu-Ray, hooked up with RCA audio and composite video...)
When the iPhone was released it is much slimmer and sleeker then the other smart phones out there.
Oh come on. It was a few millimeters slimmer than my Nokia, and 50% in surface area. How typical to focus on that one dimension and say "hey, it's much easier to carry around than any other smartphone". Nicely disingenuous.
Gah, on the graphics card, I do apologize, and I don't know why I got Intel in my head, not Nvidia. Stupid me, my mistake. That being said, even the 9600 doesn't compare to a Quadro card, though it does negate my point somewhat, performance-wise.
Not only do they have that stupid fucking oval plug (no joke) which you can ONLY get from HP, it costs $90.
Cause it's not like Apple charges $80 for exactly the same thing, and also doesn't offer a replacement just for the cable, and is ONLY available from Apple, right?
Now for large business, there are 2, the Dell Precision M6400 with a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 17" UltraSharp(TM) WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB LED Display, 4.0GB, DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM, and 320GB Hard Drive, 7200RPM with Windows XP (which is being End of Lifed) cost $3,168. The MacBook Pro with the same configuration is $2800.
$3,148. But that's not my quibble. For all the Apple faithful scream about these things, they're just as bad.
Are you honestly comparing the MBP's 9400/9600 Intel graphics with a discrete Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M with 512mb dedicated VRAM? Nice spin on the "it comes with an EOL'ed OS" - yes, it does. Or you can have the current OS for, gasp, $0. Wow. The Dell also comes with the anti-glare screen, a $50 option on the Mac. It also comes with a long-life 9 cell battery by default. So we have a $290 difference. I'd be willing to bet, fairly comfortably, that the difference between the Intel graphics and the Quadro FX easily covered that difference, not to mention the extended battery.
So, don't pretend that those machines were "the same configuration".
And by handing them $10 every time you do that transaction over the phone that you could have done on the internet, you realize you're rewarding the broken behavior, right? I'm sure they're crying to sleep over your dissatisfaction with online banking that drives you to the telephone...
No, if you read one of the very first comments, there's a very clear memorandum of understanding that states that organisations to whom child pornography is reported are exempt from prosecution for the possession of those images for the purpose of investigation.
The fact that the Home Office spokesperson didn't know his arse from his elbow is neither here nor there.
Yup. What a non-story. The Home Office spokesperson was ill-informed and vague, definitely, but the MOU is pretty clear:
# The police service relies on the support and cooperation of service providers and others involved in working with computers and electronic communications services and systems.
Those working in this field deserve clarification of the agreed approach between ACPO and CPS in relation to possible legal consequences of investigative actions
# Individuals or organisations who accidentally discover criminal activity or to whom such activity is reported require protection from the risk of prosecution where, in order to report
it, they make a copy.
Gee, I wonder if the IWF qualifies as an "organisation to whom such activity is reported"
It;s not Apple's fault, it's a federal law. They've been over this EVERY TIME with the iPod Touch (and with the Macs that post-release added Wireless N support).
No. It's bullshit. I bought a Nokia N95 outright from Nokia in the US. About 2 months later, they pushed a major firmware update that included major software functionality "and enabled access to the accelerometer hardware in the phone".
Hardware that was in the phone. Previously unavailable. Now available.
Exactly. It's a crock. According to a lawyer working for our company (and we deal in healthcare products, insurance, and data-management, so it's fairly safe to assume a working knowledge of SOX), at the very worst this could be avoided by a product description that was "blah blah blah and ongoing software updates". Ergo, you're purchasing that, and voila.
But as you said, everything from my Samsung LCD TV to the firmware of my BIOS, to Nokia (note, Nokia, not AT&T) publishing software updates, even -major- updates, like "enabling accelerometer" for free (remind you of the "activate the Wireless N hardware" charge?) have all been free.
No, I won't. And pointing to a student's (and not even a law or accounting student) blog that quotes not a single source for his claim doesn't make me want to, either.
This was mentioned by Jobs I believe at tone of Apple's media blitzes last year.
OMG. Seriously? The level of defensiveness by the fanboys here is astonishing. "OMG! Steve says he wishes he didn't have to charge us anything for this, but he said the accountants MADE him! He wishes it could be free and come with a free turtleneck! But it can't! It's the law! Steve wouldn't tell us if it wasn't the case!"
Eh, "he was going the speed limit", so he says. Hint, if speed limit is 30, your friend is doing 35, and the cars speeding by him are doing 45, you're all still speeding, and your friend's ticket shouldn't be dropped because he was "speeding less", or because the other plates aren't visible.
It does make it more difficult to prove conclusively that the camera picked *his* car, not any others, but given the increased use of laser rather than radar, I wouldn't necessarily place great stock in that, either.
If your insurance premium seems high, it's most likely because of insurance fraud, not because they don't have enough customers.
Auto insurance perhaps. Not health (not that you were implying this, necessarily.
Case in point. I cancelled my health insurance yesterday. My wife and I, non smokers, in our 20s, were paying $430/month for our $0 deductible, $30 co-pay health insurance. Towards the end of last year, we were sent a letter saying that this plan was no longer being offered, though we were able to stay on it, but if we changed off it, we couldn't return.
Gasp. Shock. Horror. Not two days later, there was another letter, telling us that despite us having no non-routine claims (and I know the premium is not individually calculated), our insurance premium for the same product would be $520/month, "due to the rising cost of health care" - right, health care costs rose TWENTY PER CENT last year alone, I'm sure. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that you were trying to discontinue the plan, but couldn't non-renew people.
Annoyed by this, we checked several health insurance comparison sites. It turns out that as of 2008, there is NOT A SINGLE POLICY available from any insurance provider in Washington, Idaho or Oregon that offers $0 deductible. I'm not even talking at 'reasonable prices'. You can go to a plan that is $1,200 a month and still have a $3,000 family deductible (let's look at that, for two people, the assumption is that you are going to be getting $15,000 of medical care a year, every year... hmm).
There was another problem - regularly we'd get bills from providers asking us for the difference in billing, after our co-pay, and after insurance. Odd. We selected you because you are a "Preferred Provider". Now if I look at my contract here, and I quote, "Preferred providers are those in-network providers who have agreed with us to not bill more than the allowed amount for a service. As a result, you will never be billed more than the allowed amount". And yet every one of these bills was preceeded by an EOB from the insurer, "BILLED CHARGES EXCEED ALLOWABLE AMOUNT". Calls to the insurer were blown off with statements along the lines of "oh, that's the amount they'll bill us. Any amount beyond that is categorized as co-insurance, and you pick up that bill". You could quote the contract til you were blue in the face (and trust me, I/know/ what co-insurance is. Guess what my day-to-day job is? WRITING THE BILLING SOFTWARE that insurance companies use to manage insurance policies, billing, and provider payments. So don't try to baffle me with bullshit about "how the maximum billed amount is the maximum billed amount, but an excess charge can then be added, which we will classify as co-insurance", that ain't how it works).
So we decided to look at other options. FSAs, etc.
I call the insurance provider, to cancel. "Why are you canceling?" I explained the 20% rate hike for no increase in service, and I explained "routinely being billed over and above the maximum allowed bill on service lines (see previous paras, the agent initially played dumb about 'what do you mean by service line?') despite using preferred providers". How much retention effort, "informed awareness" was given? Zero. *type in reason* "Okay, you're canceled." (Of course what really happened is "I see from our screen that you're on a plan that we were trying to get rid of, and though we couldn't kick you off it, we COULD and DID up your premium by the maximum allowed by law, and you could bet that we'd keep doing that every review cycle until you REALLY GOT THE HINT that you were meant to change plans, and lo and behold, you have, so why are we going to try to convince you otherwise").
You're modded funny, but this kind of thing happens. In Seattle, man sees elderly woman crossing street slowly, runs into road to push her out of path of oncoming car. Car crashes into property as a result of/its/ efforts to try to avoid same accident. Along comes Policeman Plod, observes, and amongst other thing, figures he'll make quota easier if he books the guy who pushed the woman to safety for jaywalking.
In Melbourne, peak hour, cars backed up at intersection, cars waiting to turn right (from center lane, etc, they drive "on the wrong side of the road"). Along comes an ambulance, stuck behind this car, lights are all red due to ambulance being able to control signals. Car driver does the intelligent thing - since it is safe to do so, because there's no other traffic, he executes his right turn, and immediately pulls to the side of the road to let the ambulance by. Cue police car watching on other side of intersection, that immediately flips on its lights, shoots across and tickets driver for running a red light. Driver, asks out of curiosity, what his options were. "Should I have just sat there? Would you then have booked me for obstructing an emergency vehicle?" Officer shrugs. Amidst general uproar, the police decide to keep the ticket. The driver goes to court. Due to the statutes, the judge is not empowered to quash the offense, but rips into the police prosecutor and officer involved. Nonetheless, the man is fined, plus court costs. On the flip side, the ambulance service donates half the money for the man's costs, and the family of the person who the ambulance was en route to do the same.
The other angle here is that the high profile gadgets like the iPod attract people who would steal them from you and some warranties cover accidental damage and theft. Personally I see people with white earplugs in the street and know they have an iPod. To me as a Linux / FOSS user that'd be a mark of shame as well as an invitation to get mugged and robbed.
No thanks, I'll stick to my personal property insurance for insuring against theft, rather than buying a warranty which has the cost of a theft insurance policy built in.
Your argument seems a good one (if a little unethical, although to be fair, you're not advocating damaging the camera...) - until you realize that, say with Canon, the consumer bodies (400, 450, XTi, XS, etc) are typically only rated for a 20,000 exposure shutter lifetime, so this works. But your 1Ds MkIII is rated to over 100,000, if not quarter of a million. I'm also surprised that Canon would "allow" Geek Squad to repair their pro bodies (with weather sealing, etc) - although they probably don't, per se, but as long as BB is happy to keep on 'repairing/replacing', it's a non-issue. But I'd be thoroughly unsurprised if you took your 1Ds to a Canon repair center and they nixed you on a warranty repair because the fat thumbs of your average Geek Squader (even the ones in the service center) had been inside it.
Do note, too, though, that while the "mid range" 5D Mk II is the same price at both Best Buy and BH Photo, $2,700, the 1Ds Mk III is available at BH for $6,999, but BB wants an extra $1,000.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely they are - One of the Seattle newspapers regularly ran a column where people could ask questions about traffic management in the city, like "Is this safe at such and such street, seems like you need to stick into an oncoming lane to make a turn?" etc, and one question was about this very issue. You can't disclaim responsibility for falling objects from your vehicle, be they gravel, or dropping a fridge. NOR can you mandate (as a lot of trucks in WA do), "Stay back 200'". Only the DOT can do that.
However, as the article noted, your big issue would be showing in a civil trial (i.e. balance of probabilities) that it was a stone, /from that truck/ that chipped your windshield, and that there was no visible or invisible damage pre-existing that might have weakened the structural integrity of your glass.
Pardon, what? Mac mini, 2.0GHz C2D, 2GB, 320GB, $799. Dell Studio Hybrid, 2.1GHz, 4GB, 320GB, $799. Oh, and the Dell actually slips with a keyboard, mouse, and other little non-essential trinkets.
Bluetooth standard? Because choosing "Bluetooth option" for $20 at order time is a travesty against the aesthetic, right? Mind you, I'm yet to see a consumer laptop under $700 in the last year or so that doesn't have it as standard. "Low power components"? As compared to, what? The MBP's CPU uses less power because it is in a MBP chassis, not a Dell? Or maybe the mystical magical LCD/LED display does? Display brightness controlled by OS? Haha. Unplug any laptop running Vista. What happens? The display dims. But wait, you said that doesn't happen. I'm confused. Working power management? Right. So my laptop doesn't spin down the hard drive when it's not being used. Nor does it scale back the CPU when appropriate, nor does it dim the display. And don't even start me on closing the lid, it doesn't go into standby mode either, I must be imagining that too. Extremely quiet? Cite?
Give up indeed, you're as blinded as you like to believe others are.
Seriously, having moved from Australia to the US, I look at things like the Lincoln Navigator. WTF? TWELVE MPG. Over 2 metres wide, 80 inches. Nearly 5.5 metres long, 207 inches. A 30+ gallon tank that costs at today's rates approximately US$100+ to fill. Think about that, $100 to move 350 miles. Probably unsurprising, since the thing weighs the best part of THREE TONS. And for what, it's not actually like it's any use off the road with around 8" road clearance. It's not even really built to tow anything, under four tons towing capacity, barely enough to tow a car, let alone a caravan. No, its primary design seems tailored to, rightly or wrongly "making a soccer mom feel like she's capable of squashing anything on the road that might threaten her children"
As an aside, what the hell is fucking broken with your system that the cable box needs to be on before the TV? Do you have to switch everything off, too, when you go from watching a DVD back to TV? Even HDMI/HDCP shouldn't cause that.
No internet connection? Yeah, because people who are setting up multi-component home entertainment systems rarely have access to the internet. It says right there on the box "online constantly updated device database" - what did you think online meant? That you'd get another book that'd require you to try 185 different codes for "Samsung TV" until it found the one that you used? (Admittedly, I wished the Harmony software could run locally rather than (what appears to be) an ActiveX component in an embedded browser, but still.
Lowest common demoninator? Features like being able to adjust the delay between multiple commands to make adjusting the volume be a breeze (not adjusting 1dB every 1 second), etc, but yet not skipping forward 30 channels/pages because you held Channel Up/Pg Up for more than a fraction of a moment?
I love how it's an "adequate for morons" system though you can't see the simple menu options under 'review activity' that show you in detail what steps the remote is going to take, along with an Up/Down button to rearrange the sequence.
Everything works just fine on my system, controlling a Yamaha HTR, Samsung LCD, a four port A/V SPDIF/HDMI switcher, a Roku Soundbridge, a Dish Network DVR, a Grundig DVD player and a Toshiba HD DVD player, a Media Center PC and an Xbox 360, and my father in law's system with rear projection screen, laser disc, hd cable, X10 lighting.
But hey, I guess it must suck because something in your setup is so broken that the TV won't turn to a channel without a pre-existing input signal.
And it answers your last point: it guides you through questions, and in the end you're given a "Watch TV" button that means, "Turn On: Television, DVR, Receiver, AV Switch. Turn TV to HDMI1, Turn Receiver to "AV Switch", Turn AV Switch to "HD SAT"." I then hit "Listen to Soundbridge" and it understands what devices are on and what state they are in, and says "Turn Off TV, Turn off AV Switch, Turn Receiver to SPDIF1. Turn Soundbridge On"
There are ways, too, to "extend" the Harmony to deal with RF remote signals, too. Also nice. I love my Harmony, my wife loves it, and we bought her father one, who had all the toys but none of the know how (think rear projection 1080p TV, HD satellite, Blu-Ray, hooked up with RCA audio and composite video...)
Oh come on. It was a few millimeters slimmer than my Nokia, and 50% in surface area. How typical to focus on that one dimension and say "hey, it's much easier to carry around than any other smartphone". Nicely disingenuous.
Gasp. You mean Apple Insider might not hold back on lambasting a competitor to the iPhone? Really? Shit, who'd have thought it.
Dell has, for all their failings, come a long way, design/style-wise from where they were a few years back. This is a good thing.
Gah, on the graphics card, I do apologize, and I don't know why I got Intel in my head, not Nvidia. Stupid me, my mistake. That being said, even the 9600 doesn't compare to a Quadro card, though it does negate my point somewhat, performance-wise.
Cause it's not like Apple charges $80 for exactly the same thing, and also doesn't offer a replacement just for the cable, and is ONLY available from Apple, right?
Aww shit, oops.
$3,148. But that's not my quibble. For all the Apple faithful scream about these things, they're just as bad.
Are you honestly comparing the MBP's 9400/9600 Intel graphics with a discrete Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M with 512mb dedicated VRAM? Nice spin on the "it comes with an EOL'ed OS" - yes, it does. Or you can have the current OS for, gasp, $0. Wow. The Dell also comes with the anti-glare screen, a $50 option on the Mac. It also comes with a long-life 9 cell battery by default. So we have a $290 difference. I'd be willing to bet, fairly comfortably, that the difference between the Intel graphics and the Quadro FX easily covered that difference, not to mention the extended battery.
So, don't pretend that those machines were "the same configuration".
And by handing them $10 every time you do that transaction over the phone that you could have done on the internet, you realize you're rewarding the broken behavior, right? I'm sure they're crying to sleep over your dissatisfaction with online banking that drives you to the telephone ...
Ask T-mobile nicely. I've been in a similar situation, and they brought me back for pretty much no fees at all. "Glad to have you back with us!"
The fact that the Home Office spokesperson didn't know his arse from his elbow is neither here nor there.
Gee, I wonder if the IWF qualifies as an "organisation to whom such activity is reported"
Yawn.
No. It's bullshit. I bought a Nokia N95 outright from Nokia in the US. About 2 months later, they pushed a major firmware update that included major software functionality "and enabled access to the accelerometer hardware in the phone".
Hardware that was in the phone. Previously unavailable. Now available.
Charge? None.
Apple is just spinning it to justify things.
But as you said, everything from my Samsung LCD TV to the firmware of my BIOS, to Nokia (note, Nokia, not AT&T) publishing software updates, even -major- updates, like "enabling accelerometer" for free (remind you of the "activate the Wireless N hardware" charge?) have all been free.
No, I won't. And pointing to a student's (and not even a law or accounting student) blog that quotes not a single source for his claim doesn't make me want to, either.
OMG. Seriously? The level of defensiveness by the fanboys here is astonishing. "OMG! Steve says he wishes he didn't have to charge us anything for this, but he said the accountants MADE him! He wishes it could be free and come with a free turtleneck! But it can't! It's the law! Steve wouldn't tell us if it wasn't the case!"
It does make it more difficult to prove conclusively that the camera picked *his* car, not any others, but given the increased use of laser rather than radar, I wouldn't necessarily place great stock in that, either.
Auto insurance perhaps. Not health (not that you were implying this, necessarily.
Case in point. I cancelled my health insurance yesterday. My wife and I, non smokers, in our 20s, were paying $430/month for our $0 deductible, $30 co-pay health insurance. Towards the end of last year, we were sent a letter saying that this plan was no longer being offered, though we were able to stay on it, but if we changed off it, we couldn't return.
Gasp. Shock. Horror. Not two days later, there was another letter, telling us that despite us having no non-routine claims (and I know the premium is not individually calculated), our insurance premium for the same product would be $520/month, "due to the rising cost of health care" - right, health care costs rose TWENTY PER CENT last year alone, I'm sure. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that you were trying to discontinue the plan, but couldn't non-renew people.
Annoyed by this, we checked several health insurance comparison sites. It turns out that as of 2008, there is NOT A SINGLE POLICY available from any insurance provider in Washington, Idaho or Oregon that offers $0 deductible. I'm not even talking at 'reasonable prices'. You can go to a plan that is $1,200 a month and still have a $3,000 family deductible (let's look at that, for two people, the assumption is that you are going to be getting $15,000 of medical care a year, every year... hmm).
There was another problem - regularly we'd get bills from providers asking us for the difference in billing, after our co-pay, and after insurance. Odd. We selected you because you are a "Preferred Provider". Now if I look at my contract here, and I quote, "Preferred providers are those in-network providers who have agreed with us to not bill more than the allowed amount for a service. As a result, you will never be billed more than the allowed amount". And yet every one of these bills was preceeded by an EOB from the insurer, "BILLED CHARGES EXCEED ALLOWABLE AMOUNT". Calls to the insurer were blown off with statements along the lines of "oh, that's the amount they'll bill us. Any amount beyond that is categorized as co-insurance, and you pick up that bill". You could quote the contract til you were blue in the face (and trust me, I /know/ what co-insurance is. Guess what my day-to-day job is? WRITING THE BILLING SOFTWARE that insurance companies use to manage insurance policies, billing, and provider payments. So don't try to baffle me with bullshit about "how the maximum billed amount is the maximum billed amount, but an excess charge can then be added, which we will classify as co-insurance", that ain't how it works).
So we decided to look at other options. FSAs, etc.
I call the insurance provider, to cancel. "Why are you canceling?" I explained the 20% rate hike for no increase in service, and I explained "routinely being billed over and above the maximum allowed bill on service lines (see previous paras, the agent initially played dumb about 'what do you mean by service line?') despite using preferred providers". How much retention effort, "informed awareness" was given? Zero. *type in reason* "Okay, you're canceled." (Of course what really happened is "I see from our screen that you're on a plan that we were trying to get rid of, and though we couldn't kick you off it, we COULD and DID up your premium by the maximum allowed by law, and you could bet that we'd keep doing that every review cycle until you REALLY GOT THE HINT that you were meant to change plans, and lo and behold, you have, so why are we going to try to convince you otherwise").
In Melbourne, peak hour, cars backed up at intersection, cars waiting to turn right (from center lane, etc, they drive "on the wrong side of the road"). Along comes an ambulance, stuck behind this car, lights are all red due to ambulance being able to control signals. Car driver does the intelligent thing - since it is safe to do so, because there's no other traffic, he executes his right turn, and immediately pulls to the side of the road to let the ambulance by. Cue police car watching on other side of intersection, that immediately flips on its lights, shoots across and tickets driver for running a red light. Driver, asks out of curiosity, what his options were. "Should I have just sat there? Would you then have booked me for obstructing an emergency vehicle?" Officer shrugs. Amidst general uproar, the police decide to keep the ticket. The driver goes to court. Due to the statutes, the judge is not empowered to quash the offense, but rips into the police prosecutor and officer involved. Nonetheless, the man is fined, plus court costs. On the flip side, the ambulance service donates half the money for the man's costs, and the family of the person who the ambulance was en route to do the same.
What a fun world it is.
No thanks, I'll stick to my personal property insurance for insuring against theft, rather than buying a warranty which has the cost of a theft insurance policy built in.
Do note, too, though, that while the "mid range" 5D Mk II is the same price at both Best Buy and BH Photo, $2,700, the 1Ds Mk III is available at BH for $6,999, but BB wants an extra $1,000.