Most of the non-bottom-of-the-barrel airlines offer this, for United at least it's called economy plus.
I've flown US->Brazil 6 times in the last year. I've kept an eye open for business class at an affordable price each time, but the difference tends to be $1400 vs $6000 (sometimes 8). Economy plus is an extra ~$115 each way, and gets you 'up to' 5" extra legroom. As an added bonus, you generally get to board early, so the overhead bins will be nice and empty.
Still, I feel your pain. Try to shop around and see if you can find a similar-priced flight on an airline with this option. For me at least, the difference between having that metal bar from the top of the magazine rack (WHY do you need to put a damn metal bar in there! my knees protest verily!) and suffering for days, vs paying the extra $115 or so and getting room to shift my legs freely, is making flying tolerable again.
One of my favorites was the time when, after getting through security in Zurich on a flight to the US (and mind you, having my ovomaltine crunchy cream (think nutella consistency), a gift for my wife, confiscated; because it's a "liquid"!), being able to buy cask-strength whisky and lighters *in the same shop*, dozens of feet from the gate to my plane.
...(also, yes spellcheck, whisky is the right spelling of that word, considering my heritage).
...your first point may be valid (but really? *this* is what the laws spend time protecting?)... but your second point is handled already by the GP's HS math teacher reference. Or, your own post, which points out that in order to break the average speed >= speed limit rule, your speed must either always equal the speed limit, or have exceeded it at some point.
Indeed, re-purposed weapons-grade material is a great source of enriched uranium. In general it's enriched *way* beyond what's needed to run a plant, so can in fact be diluted before being used.
The uranium market declined significantly through the 1980s and 1990s because of the end of the Cold War arms race as well as a cessation in construction of new nuclear plants. Disarmament of nuclear-weapons stockpiles added surplus weapons-grade uranium to the market, which led to a price drop as low as $7 a pound. Much of the fuel currently powering U.S. reactors, for instance, was originally intended for warheads atop Soviet ballistic missiles.
...the fun part is that, for a while, this led to mining/processing companies not actually supplying the amounts needed per year. As the flow of HEU from established stockpiles was slowing down, this led the market price to spike - I'm still kicking myself for not investing in uranium-linked financial instruments (for some silly reason they don't just let people buy uranium hexafluoride like many other commodities;-) ) over the last few decades. Note that recently, due to less-than-expected new reactor building, and a ramp-up in mining/processing, the price has stabilized a bit, but for a while there was a small fortune to be made if you read the supply/demands right.
So their 15-20% share would drop to ~ 2-5% costing them 10+% of their viewers. Look at that number...
I did, and unless I'm off today I think you miscalculated. If they had a 15% share, and dropped to 5%, that's a 66.6% loss; if they went from 20% to 2% that's a 90% loss.
Ding ding. I couldn't possibly drive to work. My VP used to, it cost him ~$350/mo for a parking space nearby our office. That's double my monthly train ticket.
I do also consume 5 cups/day of coffee (K-cups, not terribly cheap), with fresh milk. I don't bring my own batteries to work to power my computer. I flush probably 5 toilets/day without paying for the water. I'm typing this post on a computer I didn't pay for...
I'm not saying that taxing services/benefits/freebies/comps/whatever isn't legitimate, but I'd like to see a strict formal definition before deciding whether it's rational.
Ding ding ding. Well, I can't conclude that the danger is effectively nil, but it's definitely not something they're very worried about.
I fly very often. Most of the times the reminder to turn off the devices will come just before takeoff, and basic compliance checks even for the devices which the attendants saw out and being used tend not to be done. Often you could ignore the request and not have it asked again, since they'll finish their run up the aisle, then prepare for takeoff.
A few times, I've fallen asleep before takeoff (a good special power for a consultant to have) with the bright red light on my noise-cancelling headphones (connected to my phone for music) beaming towards the aisle, and not been awoken by the crew to turn it off. At least twice, my computer has refused to properly standby/hibernate before takeoff, so effectively was still running the whole time in my backpack. As you mention, this was never checked, nor questioned.
Not sure where you're going here with your primate in a cage example. There's no real reason why a primate could knowingly be in a situation where they'd like to gather data on their Xing habits over time, to estimate an upper bound for how many X's they may commit in light of a potential (and now (over)-estimated) punishment.
Let's turn this around. I like the idea of micro-transaction pay-per-read articles. I tend to read ~0-100/day. I'd like to know, roughly, what the most is I'd spend in a month *if I were paying honestly for value I received*. Note the "honestly" and "most" there.
If, in playing with these free buttons, I read an article I like, why do you seem to assume that I'd hit "0" (well you know what I mean) or "1" in that case? I THOUGHT THE ARTICLE WAS GOOD. Here's a fake $.03. Yes, I realize this didn't cost me anything, but now I have a record of one article I would have read, which (were I being honest that day) would have cost me $.03. If I didn't like the article? *Then* they get 0.
Not all information needs to meet 100% rigorous data-quality-real-world standards to be useful. With a month of this tool, I can determine whether I'd be ballparking $5 or $50 **in a world where this existed, and I was being honest with myself**. That's it. It doesn't tell *you* anything about me, and it doesn't necessarily tell the system designer anything about my "real world" payments. But it sure does tell me about me.
TL,DR: This is an easier way to estimate a ceiling amount for how much you may spend in such a system than recording your month's browsing in an excel workbook would have been.
The thing is, you didn't *mention* it, you made an unverified probabilistic claim. Directly.
Your use of the word "probably" implies that *the most likely cause of death among people in England 2700 years ago was anti-semite persecution*. Logically following from here, if that's the most likely cause of death (which would qualify your "probably"), then a fairly large percent of 2700-year-back Yorkshire population would have had to be Jewish.
That's news to me.
Perhaps, just perhaps, people were modding you a Troll not because they believe Jews weren't persecuted... but more for the fact that you're making blanket, untrue statements, then following these up with ad-hominem attacks for anyone who doesn't chime in in agreement or downmods your terrible math.
Yep - same reason I couldn't drink black tea for 5 years - a cup of black tea was the beverage I had at my desk *as I was starting to feel a bit nauseous* from a norovirus my wife'd picked up a few days earlier. I never finished it, and ended up having to take the train home soon after.
Around 4 years in, I could start making my tea/coffees at less than 30% milk-by-volume again.
I still can't drink them black, even diluted with water to half-strength.
Caveat: I work in data/risk management software in the financial sector. Also, I'm feeling a bit under-the-weather today, so sorry if this is less than coherent or comes off rambly.
When the GP says "give", I think they're aware that there are conditions built into that giving - I'd have a hard time believing they think bank loans are essentially gifts. But from the sound of your response, it seems you're against even this conditional-lending definition of 'give'...
So, following your logic... loans should be given to startup companies by institutions who *aren't* concerned about making a profit from the deal? Just wondering... why would anyone *with* money lend it to me (for the business I hope to start some day) if they had nothing to gain? Where should I go for capital?
If someone's willing to let me use their money now, on the hopes (which they share with me) that in the future, my business will thrive and I'll be able to pay them back with a bit on the side - I'll be happy for the deal! But there's the thing - do we really only want investors in ideas that "sound good" to someone at the bank, and which some lender personally can get behind (how would I find such a person for *my* business)? Realistically, a bank shouldn't care about me, nor my business - an investment system where the lenders line-item your expenditures and approve purchase-by-purchase aligned with my stated business plan would be a nightmare - our current system allows for banks to ignore the nitty-gritty details of my operations, assessing their risk by evaluating the market as a whole, my industry within it, my corporation within my industry, any past books we may have, potential collateral, etc... then charging me a spread above their costs to *get* the money they want to lend me. Perhaps if the government would just start lending directly to the people (at no interest as you seem to want?) we could have a functional world without interest-gatherers (and no inflation, too)... but for all sorts of reasons I don't see that going anywhere.
If I take their money, only to realize later that I'm unable to pay them back... well, we have courts for that to try to get them back at least what they gave me, but generally they'll go for the amount *I agreed to give them back*, regardless of whether I have that in liquid assets. I'd really rather not lose my house over it, but again - were they not able to take my assets as remuneration, you can bet your ass they'd either be out of the game (and not lending to just about anyone), or raising rates to account for all the non-payback.
So, parent poster; If you've got enough in the bank to cover the economy out of goodwill - please get to work. I'll call you first when I need $200k for brewing equipment, farm implements, and a robotics lab, and a commercial kitchen (yeah, my dream company will be that awesome). Thankfully, from the sound of things, you seem to think it's best not to charge interest, so you'll have the best rates around and will get all the business.
No, I don't think most financial institutions are well run, accurately measure risk, properly analyze any of the points I mentioned previously (or realize that their simplified models leave out lots of important real-world information - but that's another hours-long rant). *But* I think it's very clear that without some incentives (eg: a spread on every loan, and some gov't protection from too many people defaulting at once (asset seizure laws + trustworthy insurance + etc...)), nobody with money would have any reason to lend - only to spend. Trickle-down doesn't work well enough to make that a place I'd like to live.
It's worth noting that, during these times, there were indeed human-induced changes on a global scale rippling across the earth. Hint: there weren't fields of barley, wheat, olives, hops (etc) nor flocks of aurochs, swine, poultry (etc) sitting around 100,000 years ago, but by 3,000 BC these were becoming widespread. Even cities of 10,000 require fairly large-scale support networks, especially when dealing with the manufacture/farming (in-)efficiencies of those times. The clearing of land and changing use patterns have much larger effects than some of us would like to bother considering.
No, I'm not saying this is what caused the warming(s) you speak of, just noting that there are other human actions which can contribute to large-scale weather and (over a long-term enough outlook, if sustained) climate changes.
In DS9, during the Dominion war against the Federation, there's a sub-plot involving changelings having invaded Starfleet Command (actually, I think the Klingon and definitely the Cardassian leadership as well). For a time, it became standard practice to blood-test anyone involved in any important decision making, though hazily I remember this applying more to ships officers than the entire population. There were also later sub-plots about a rogue department (Section 30something) "within" Starfleet basically running unchecked hit-squads and the like.
Twitter mentions of Windows Email.
loudtwitter.com/windows_email/
Ask Slashdot: Spoof an Email Bounce With Windows?: An anonymous reader writes "One cool feature I used on KMail... http://t.co/KCUQMA9a. http://twitter./ com/...;-)
Note that Discovery Channel is not owned by ESPN, ABC, Disney, or any other third party. It's owned by Discovery, Inc. - full stop. National Geographic Channel, likewise, is not owned by any third party. It's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Geographic Society.
Right about Discovery, wrong about Nat Geo.
Last I checked, it was owned by News Corp... (well, most of it anyway)
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me marry a person of the same gender against my will, why do I care what you do?
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me watch the Star Wars remakes with revised "shoots first" order, and bonus lumbering beasts, why do I care if other people do?
For many people out there, probably the ones who have the strongest views on "what marraige should be", there's a fear of change and a reluctance to embrace new ideas. Sure, some of these people may not even disagree with the ideas that strongly (though some definitely will), but if nothing else may embrace the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. I know plenty of Star Wars geeks who to this day will get upset when you mention the changes made in the 90's re-releases, even though they have no effect on their lives other than changing something which was important to them.
The biggest difference, of course, is that both versions of Star Wars can co-exist, whereas with "redefinitions" of marraige, it's an either-or situation. If anything this will cement the opposition even further.
It's OK for different people to have different viewpoints - there's no empirical "right" or "wrong" on this issue.
As for the rest of your points though, I'd have to say I agree... someone who secretly enjoys the original Star Wars series but will only speak out against the re-releases when they think nobody will know they're doing it clearly is either afraid to embrace their opinion publicly (for whatever reason - it's not my place to decide why someone did something), or didn't hold the position that strongly to begin with.
"Why don't we give this vaccine to ten creeps on death row, throw them a few hookers and see what happens".
We would have the answer so much quicker and in the end, if the vaccine turns out to be effective, we'll save so many more (important - yes, I said it) lives.
You act as if Verizon is staffed by happiness fairies.
I love FIOS. Don't know how I lived without it. Doesn't change the fact that Verizon's customer service has *literally* made my wife cry. On 3 separate occasions. I guarantee you she's spent over 8 hours on the phone with them. At this point, there must be a flag on our account, because as soon as an otherwise snippy rep pulls up our account information, they start treating her incredibly nicely, and sometimes just go ahead and ask if they can transfer her to their manager.
Incompetent doesn't even begin to describe the FIOS customer service reps we've had to deal with.
Because if they do this, you need to pay for a return trip as well.
Granted, I realize you can use a 1-way normal airline ticket for this, but after arriving at your destination (sans luggage) incredibly quickly, would you really want to take a 22 hour flight back home? As a ride, this might be worth the price for many people; but I doubt many of them would be willing to pay it twice just to get home.
Regardless, just give it some time, and I'm sure both services will be offered. The first airplanes didn't have things like "seats" and "enclosed cockpits" until there was a demand for them. Every idea has to start somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
I've flown US->Brazil 6 times in the last year. I've kept an eye open for business class at an affordable price each time, but the difference tends to be $1400 vs $6000 (sometimes 8). Economy plus is an extra ~$115 each way, and gets you 'up to' 5" extra legroom. As an added bonus, you generally get to board early, so the overhead bins will be nice and empty.
Still, I feel your pain. Try to shop around and see if you can find a similar-priced flight on an airline with this option. For me at least, the difference between having that metal bar from the top of the magazine rack (WHY do you need to put a damn metal bar in there! my knees protest verily!) and suffering for days, vs paying the extra $115 or so and getting room to shift my legs freely, is making flying tolerable again.
Best of luck.
If you need an in-depth lesson (sans actual math), I recommend the first few lectures from http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/Courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1413 .
http://www.cfr.org/energy/global-uranium-supply-demand/p14705
The uranium market declined significantly through the 1980s and 1990s because of the end of the Cold War arms race as well as a cessation in construction of new nuclear plants. Disarmament of nuclear-weapons stockpiles added surplus weapons-grade uranium to the market, which led to a price drop as low as $7 a pound. Much of the fuel currently powering U.S. reactors, for instance, was originally intended for warheads atop Soviet ballistic missiles.
So their 15-20% share would drop to ~ 2-5% costing them 10+% of their viewers. Look at that number...
I did, and unless I'm off today I think you miscalculated. If they had a 15% share, and dropped to 5%, that's a 66.6% loss; if they went from 20% to 2% that's a 90% loss.
ask anyone who works in Manhattan.
Ding ding. I couldn't possibly drive to work. My VP used to, it cost him ~$350/mo for a parking space nearby our office. That's double my monthly train ticket.
I do also consume 5 cups/day of coffee (K-cups, not terribly cheap), with fresh milk. I don't bring my own batteries to work to power my computer. I flush probably 5 toilets/day without paying for the water. I'm typing this post on a computer I didn't pay for...
I'm not saying that taxing services/benefits/freebies/comps/whatever isn't legitimate, but I'd like to see a strict formal definition before deciding whether it's rational.
I fly very often. Most of the times the reminder to turn off the devices will come just before takeoff, and basic compliance checks even for the devices which the attendants saw out and being used tend not to be done. Often you could ignore the request and not have it asked again, since they'll finish their run up the aisle, then prepare for takeoff.
A few times, I've fallen asleep before takeoff (a good special power for a consultant to have) with the bright red light on my noise-cancelling headphones (connected to my phone for music) beaming towards the aisle, and not been awoken by the crew to turn it off. At least twice, my computer has refused to properly standby/hibernate before takeoff, so effectively was still running the whole time in my backpack. As you mention, this was never checked, nor questioned.
Let's turn this around. I like the idea of micro-transaction pay-per-read articles. I tend to read ~0-100/day. I'd like to know, roughly, what the most is I'd spend in a month *if I were paying honestly for value I received*. Note the "honestly" and "most" there.
If, in playing with these free buttons, I read an article I like, why do you seem to assume that I'd hit "0" (well you know what I mean) or "1" in that case? I THOUGHT THE ARTICLE WAS GOOD. Here's a fake $.03. Yes, I realize this didn't cost me anything, but now I have a record of one article I would have read, which (were I being honest that day) would have cost me $.03. If I didn't like the article? *Then* they get 0.
Not all information needs to meet 100% rigorous data-quality-real-world standards to be useful. With a month of this tool, I can determine whether I'd be ballparking $5 or $50 **in a world where this existed, and I was being honest with myself**. That's it. It doesn't tell *you* anything about me, and it doesn't necessarily tell the system designer anything about my "real world" payments. But it sure does tell me about me.
TL,DR: This is an easier way to estimate a ceiling amount for how much you may spend in such a system than recording your month's browsing in an excel workbook would have been.
I'd imagine the fact that it has a detectable odor implies that the flavor cannot be indefinitely maintained...
The thing is, you didn't *mention* it, you made an unverified probabilistic claim. Directly.
Your use of the word "probably" implies that *the most likely cause of death among people in England 2700 years ago was anti-semite persecution*. Logically following from here, if that's the most likely cause of death (which would qualify your "probably"), then a fairly large percent of 2700-year-back Yorkshire population would have had to be Jewish.
That's news to me.
Perhaps, just perhaps, people were modding you a Troll not because they believe Jews weren't persecuted... but more for the fact that you're making blanket, untrue statements, then following these up with ad-hominem attacks for anyone who doesn't chime in in agreement or downmods your terrible math.
When I was 8 years old, it would never even occur to me to swallow these magnets. It would be as self-defeating as swallowing my own LEGO pieces.
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=swallow+lego&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest
~1.37 million results, sadly - Google suggested this at the top of the list once I'd typed "Swallow le"
Lesson: people will always manage to do "stupid" things. And there are lots of people.
Yep - same reason I couldn't drink black tea for 5 years - a cup of black tea was the beverage I had at my desk *as I was starting to feel a bit nauseous* from a norovirus my wife'd picked up a few days earlier. I never finished it, and ended up having to take the train home soon after. Around 4 years in, I could start making my tea/coffees at less than 30% milk-by-volume again. I still can't drink them black, even diluted with water to half-strength.
Caveat: I work in data/risk management software in the financial sector. Also, I'm feeling a bit under-the-weather today, so sorry if this is less than coherent or comes off rambly.
When the GP says "give", I think they're aware that there are conditions built into that giving - I'd have a hard time believing they think bank loans are essentially gifts. But from the sound of your response, it seems you're against even this conditional-lending definition of 'give'...
So, following your logic... loans should be given to startup companies by institutions who *aren't* concerned about making a profit from the deal? Just wondering... why would anyone *with* money lend it to me (for the business I hope to start some day) if they had nothing to gain? Where should I go for capital?
If someone's willing to let me use their money now, on the hopes (which they share with me) that in the future, my business will thrive and I'll be able to pay them back with a bit on the side - I'll be happy for the deal! But there's the thing - do we really only want investors in ideas that "sound good" to someone at the bank, and which some lender personally can get behind (how would I find such a person for *my* business)? Realistically, a bank shouldn't care about me, nor my business - an investment system where the lenders line-item your expenditures and approve purchase-by-purchase aligned with my stated business plan would be a nightmare - our current system allows for banks to ignore the nitty-gritty details of my operations, assessing their risk by evaluating the market as a whole, my industry within it, my corporation within my industry, any past books we may have, potential collateral, etc... then charging me a spread above their costs to *get* the money they want to lend me. Perhaps if the government would just start lending directly to the people (at no interest as you seem to want?) we could have a functional world without interest-gatherers (and no inflation, too)... but for all sorts of reasons I don't see that going anywhere.
If I take their money, only to realize later that I'm unable to pay them back... well, we have courts for that to try to get them back at least what they gave me, but generally they'll go for the amount *I agreed to give them back*, regardless of whether I have that in liquid assets. I'd really rather not lose my house over it, but again - were they not able to take my assets as remuneration, you can bet your ass they'd either be out of the game (and not lending to just about anyone), or raising rates to account for all the non-payback.
So, parent poster; If you've got enough in the bank to cover the economy out of goodwill - please get to work. I'll call you first when I need $200k for brewing equipment, farm implements, and a robotics lab, and a commercial kitchen (yeah, my dream company will be that awesome). Thankfully, from the sound of things, you seem to think it's best not to charge interest, so you'll have the best rates around and will get all the business.
No, I don't think most financial institutions are well run, accurately measure risk, properly analyze any of the points I mentioned previously (or realize that their simplified models leave out lots of important real-world information - but that's another hours-long rant). *But* I think it's very clear that without some incentives (eg: a spread on every loan, and some gov't protection from too many people defaulting at once (asset seizure laws + trustworthy insurance + etc...)), nobody with money would have any reason to lend - only to spend. Trickle-down doesn't work well enough to make that a place I'd like to live.
It's worth noting that, during these times, there were indeed human-induced changes on a global scale rippling across the earth. Hint: there weren't fields of barley, wheat, olives, hops (etc) nor flocks of aurochs, swine, poultry (etc) sitting around 100,000 years ago, but by 3,000 BC these were becoming widespread. Even cities of 10,000 require fairly large-scale support networks, especially when dealing with the manufacture/farming (in-)efficiencies of those times. The clearing of land and changing use patterns have much larger effects than some of us would like to bother considering.
No, I'm not saying this is what caused the warming(s) you speak of, just noting that there are other human actions which can contribute to large-scale weather and (over a long-term enough outlook, if sustained) climate changes.
In DS9, during the Dominion war against the Federation, there's a sub-plot involving changelings having invaded Starfleet Command (actually, I think the Klingon and definitely the Cardassian leadership as well). For a time, it became standard practice to blood-test anyone involved in any important decision making, though hazily I remember this applying more to ships officers than the entire population. There were also later sub-plots about a rogue department (Section 30something) "within" Starfleet basically running unchecked hit-squads and the like.
As for the coups, in looking this up, I happily stumbled across a wikipedia article that recaps it better than I can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_revolutions_and_coups#Star_Trek
Not for me!
... http://t.co/KCUQMA9a. http://twitter./ com/ ... ;-)
=======
Twitter mentions of Windows Email. loudtwitter.com/windows_email/ Ask Slashdot: Spoof an Email Bounce With Windows?: An anonymous reader writes "One cool feature I used on KMail
Note that Discovery Channel is not owned by ESPN, ABC, Disney, or any other third party. It's owned by Discovery, Inc. - full stop. National Geographic Channel, likewise, is not owned by any third party. It's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Geographic Society.
Right about Discovery, wrong about Nat Geo.
Last I checked, it was owned by News Corp... (well, most of it anyway)
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/ (Somewhat dated)
http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=newscorp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel
Brawndo's got what ethernets crave
And, in a few more years (once Cadmium's controlled), childrens toys from China...
They need to think about taking these people and placing them deep in a glacier or something, then maybe you have a chance of lasting for a while.
You really think there are going to be glaciers around in the distant future? ;-)
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me watch the Star Wars remakes with revised "shoots first" order, and bonus lumbering beasts, why do I care if other people do?
For many people out there, probably the ones who have the strongest views on "what marraige should be", there's a fear of change and a reluctance to embrace new ideas. Sure, some of these people may not even disagree with the ideas that strongly (though some definitely will), but if nothing else may embrace the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. I know plenty of Star Wars geeks who to this day will get upset when you mention the changes made in the 90's re-releases, even though they have no effect on their lives other than changing something which was important to them.
The biggest difference, of course, is that both versions of Star Wars can co-exist, whereas with "redefinitions" of marraige, it's an either-or situation. If anything this will cement the opposition even further.
It's OK for different people to have different viewpoints - there's no empirical "right" or "wrong" on this issue.
As for the rest of your points though, I'd have to say I agree... someone who secretly enjoys the original Star Wars series but will only speak out against the re-releases when they think nobody will know they're doing it clearly is either afraid to embrace their opinion publicly (for whatever reason - it's not my place to decide why someone did something), or didn't hold the position that strongly to begin with.
"Why don't we give this vaccine to ten creeps on death row, throw them a few hookers and see what happens". We would have the answer so much quicker and in the end, if the vaccine turns out to be effective, we'll save so many more (important - yes, I said it) lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates#United_States
...just sayin'...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_France#Overseas
Abandoned some (many, even), but not all.
Here's a nice large pic showing relative positions and sizes, just FYI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:France-Constituent-Lands.png
You act as if Verizon is staffed by happiness fairies.
I love FIOS. Don't know how I lived without it. Doesn't change the fact that Verizon's customer service has *literally* made my wife cry. On 3 separate occasions. I guarantee you she's spent over 8 hours on the phone with them. At this point, there must be a flag on our account, because as soon as an otherwise snippy rep pulls up our account information, they start treating her incredibly nicely, and sometimes just go ahead and ask if they can transfer her to their manager.
Incompetent doesn't even begin to describe the FIOS customer service reps we've had to deal with.
Because if they do this, you need to pay for a return trip as well.
Granted, I realize you can use a 1-way normal airline ticket for this, but after arriving at your destination (sans luggage) incredibly quickly, would you really want to take a 22 hour flight back home? As a ride, this might be worth the price for many people; but I doubt many of them would be willing to pay it twice just to get home.
Regardless, just give it some time, and I'm sure both services will be offered. The first airplanes didn't have things like "seats" and "enclosed cockpits" until there was a demand for them. Every idea has to start somewhere.