I use Open Office but it really isn't all that much like the current version of Word.
This is meaningless. I use Open Office but it really isn't all that much like a kick in the teeth. However what it does do is open and edit documents.
Calc has real issues compared to Excel.
Could you elaborate. Are we talking about functions that less the 1% of users will actually use. I use for Calc for budgeting a lot and have never encountered any issues, some things like multiplying hours I've found easier on Calc as MS Excel keeps changing it to the time format.
For the Price OO is really very good but it isn't Office.
Once again, this isn't really informative. Cold you elaborate.
Also some people don't want to have to "figure it out" they just want to get the job done.
If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked "how do I do this in Excel" I could retire in a few years, If I had another dollar for every time I've googled "Excel [version] how to [perform some function]" I could have retired by 25. You clearly don't realise how much "figuring out" is done with Excel but people just accept it because it's Excel. The only way this point is valid is for the few people who have completely memorised Excel and with those people they have to re-learn it every time MS changes the interface.
Ubuntu is probably the easiest Linux out there, but it's not as easy as Windows 7
Lets not kid ourselves here,
Almost anyone under 40 could run Ubuntu if it came pre-installed. Computers have been around that long, so everyone has the basics down pat. If a person has trouble with a pre-installed Ubuntu instance, they will also have trouble with a pre-installed Windows instance.
The big problem is still hardware support. Yes this is a lot better then it used to be but you still get odd bugs and a few frustrating configurations. Whilst Ubuntu works on almost all my hardware straight out of the box, there are still a few issues. My last issue was months ago with a new media centre PC, I had no sound through HDMI on an integrated Geforce 8200 which I fixed with a conf file I found on a forum, not a solution for the average user. Windows also has small issues like this but has a simpler way of fixing them. If Ubuntu needs to improve anything, it needs to be a simpler way of fixing bad conf files.
And what you call 'psychological lock-in' is just plain old brand recognition.
No, for the most part it's cognitive dissonance. People refuse to allow themselves to believe they've been locked in and taken for a ride. You're a prime example.
Government approved monopolies are the problem... Also get the ISP's out of the business of owning the last mile network
I sense a contradiction.
If the government does not take ownership of the last mile, who does. A private corporation can be bought out by the a client unless the "ebil gubbermint" says no and as you've established, that's bad.
Unlike the parents kneejerk "it's the gubbement" reaction, the problem is the private corporations who pushed for local monopolies and if they were permitted, they would be trading these monopolies between themselves. What the US needs to do is:
1. Establish a common cellular frequency that all telco's must support. GSM 2100 is the worlds most popular freq, I suggest you go with that as more handsets will support it. This will enable people to move between telco's easily. Nothing stops a telco from establishing a network on a different frequency in addition to the common frequency, apart from the cost of doing so.
2. Take control or regulate the wholesale price of the ULL and basic infrastructure (peering, backbone access, DSL multiplexers and telephone exchange access). This will fix the cost of entry and give people a choice of telco even if they don't own equipment in that area.
Follow the money and tell me who pushed for local monopolies in the first place.
Seeking desperately to do anything to deflect public attention from a few typos hyped up by tabloid newspapers,
TFTFY,
You're doing this whole scepticism thing wrong. Just to elaborate how:
Sceptic: I need to see evidence. A does not lead directly to C, show me B.
Denalists: I dont believe in C therefore A must be some kind of conspiracy.
I think it's fairly obvious you fit into the second category as you seem to lack the ability to demonstrate a semi-objective view and evaluate all evidence and the source from which it came.
I think you need to get a grip, you are more interested in pushing your agenda then actually presenting evidence.
is man actually capable of changing the properties of something as huge as planet Earth?
Yes, it is naive, perhaps to the point of retardedness to believe otherwise.
We can destroy 98% of all life on earth within hours, with the push of a button. This event will kick enough debris into the atmosphere to blockout the sun and create an ice age or did you forget we had weapons capable of destroying the earth, a few dozen times over... Sitting in tubes, ready to launch.
We are capable of producing great change, some good and some bad. Never underestimate the ability of humans to make devastating changes, every now and then even for the better.
1.5% over 1,000,000 may not sound like much, until you realise that 1.5% is compounding and that you aren't paying off enough to cover the interest repayments. The same is happening with greenhouse gas emissions. It may not seem like much above that which is produced naturally but it ad's up as we are compounding that amount and the natural systems are not taking care of it at a rate that is greater then our emissions.
In you long winded and utterly useless rant you seemed to have missed something an apprentice electrician could spot.
The problem is Electrical Length. Electrical length dictates what frequencies an antenna can receive and transmit. When you touch a naked antenna you become part of that antenna and change the electrical length. This causes the antenna to pick up the correct frequency as noise or at least very noisy. This is the Iphones problem. As for dealing with noise and EM interference, that is so far beyond electrical length it's not funny. Apple failed basic electrical engineering and you are trying to convince us that other manufactures are having the same problem as Apple, Apple is nowhere near the likes of RIM, Nokia and HTC in dealing with EM interference because they couldn't even manage to grasp that the human hand changes the electrical length of the aerial.
This is very simple science, please stop trying obfuscate it. The problem is with the antenna being external, not with the human hand. Most phones deal with the human hand and lose less then 10% of the signal strength but due to the fact that the hand is not in contact with the aerial (I.E. the aerial is insulated) it does not change the frequencies the aerial receives and transmits. Further more if you even bothered to read some of the links you posted, you'll notice that the closer you get to a tower, the less a hand interferes with a signal (% wise), this is not true with an Iphone.
So please as you so eloquently put it, stop the bullshit.
How the fuck could it be for show? Were they not having a PR problem regarding antennas right now, the inside of this facility would have remained secret.
For crying out loud, this is a giant exercise in hand waving. Did you even read the article, test labs do not look like that, they look like normal labs with specific cellular testing equipment, the tester is normally watching the output of the equipment, not sitting in some giant foam room with a big ring in it. The whole thing looked like Charlie and the Phone Testing Lab.
Apple outsource their entire testing and QA, probably to the same people who manufacture these devices. Even FCC approval was done by someone else.
They haven't managed to build this testing facility in Cupertino in the last two weeks.
Apple has a majority stake in Disney, if anyone can repurpose a room to look like a high tech testing lab to people who don't know what a testing lab looks like, don't you think it would be a company that owns the worlds most well known amusement park? Would this not be cheaper then recalling hundreds of thousands of phones and retooling a production line.f
Apple have once again taken the lead in the tour de farce.
I thought we understood that governments build infrastructure
I'm going to stop you here, because you've made a very good point.
It's the governments job to build infrastructure like roads, rail links, power-lines and even phone lines. Now Whilst I believe the government (state) should maintain ownership of the infrastructure they do not always need to run it.
When the Australian FTTN project (National Broadband Network) is finished, the government will own the lines but the job of providing ISP services will fall into the private sector. So my ISP be it Adam, Internode, iinet or Optarse will take my money and provide me with internet access whilst they pay the fees (to the state) to maintain the infrastructure. This is exactly the same as the current system except iinet is paying fee's to a private corporation who are constantly attempting to raise the wholesale price of leased lines. The Australian government made a huge mistake when privatising Telecom Australia by not separating the sales from the wholesale providers.
An investment in intel won't necessarily stop riots
The best way to do that is not to accumulate enemies. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if US forces hadn't gallivanted off in their ill fated invasion of Iraq. That lost a lot of good will amongst Afghan supporters of the new regime (read, people glad to see the Taliban gone and there used to be a lot of them). When the US invaded Iraq it gave the anti-US factions all the proof they needed that America was just the lasted big empire to invade Afghanistan, rather then the US being a force to help Afghani's which was the story the US had.
A war is won or lost by a careful choice of when and where to fight. Sun Tzu knew this 2000 years ago, William II of normandy demonstrated it in 1066, Eisenhower in 1944 and even Norman Schwarzkopf in 1992. How were important lessons forgotten so completely in 11 years. The US has almost lost Afghanistan, Iraq was never won and never had any hope of being won. The best thing the US can do now is leave Iraq and focus all resources in Afghanistan, this means Intel and Material assets (firing that moron Petreaus would be a great start, get a leader who can think outside the West Point box, we aren't fighting WWII any more).
Almost any Apple tragic. SuperKendall is one and constantly protests that he has no problems what so ever. I'm highly sceptical of such people, everything has flaws and nothing is perfect, even if the flaws are trivial and easily ignored or mitigated they still exist and refusing to acknowledge means you aren't capable of objectivity (ergo not trustworthy).
See also: Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More
This is exactly what's happening. Any electrical engineer could tell you that Apple's antenna problems stem from the holder changing the electrical length of the aerial which causes the phone to interpret the correct frequencies as incorrect frequencies. Most Iphone owners choose to believe that the problem does not exist or is a software issue rather then a fundamental design flaw. Apple owners are displaying cognitive dissonance when it comes to problems with Apple products, a design flaw goes against what they believe about Apple, thus the design flaw is a lie.
I think you're being confused by something -- the name of the phone is "iPhone 4"
Up until it's release it was being called the Iphone 4G by every rumour site, they said it would have WiMax and LTE, be faster the the Evo4G and be available on any US carrier. I think you are convieintly forgetting this point, see "cognitive dissonance" above.
User satisfaction is the only important thing to look at. iPhone 4 users are evidently not prepared to return their phone, even with the flaw (plus all the publicity) and even though the full price is reimbursed.
Wife Satisfaction is the only important thing to look at. Battered wives are evidently not prepared to divorces their abusive husbands, even with regular beatings (plus all the offers of assistance) and even though full freedom will be reimbursed.
In your rush to shower Apple with praise you neglected an important point, many people are locked into Apple financially or psychologically. This presents itself as a massive barrier to just saying, screw it I'll return this piece of junk an buy something that works. Its the same kind of barrier that MS has used so successfully to keep business locked into the wonderful world of Windows. Considering that almost 4 out of every 5 Iphone 4's replaced an earlier model, vendor lock-in has played a huge part in sales (psychological lock-in, AKA Fanboyism is still lock-in).
Let's look at use cases. I am in the (fortunate) position to have an iPhone 3G (my wife's) and a BlackBerry 9000 (mine). The 9000 was chosen based on the keyboard size (over the Bold, etc.).
Silly rabbit, you're comparing horse crap to dog crap. In the end it's still crap.
I bought an Android phone last year and haven't looked back. Even high end WinMo phones are better then BB or Iphones (WinMo quality varies wildly, some WM phones are great, many others are complete crap).
In order to get the virgins, you have to die fighting for Islam. If they offered the prize to anyone who simply followed the religion you'd find no-one is interested in dying now. If the US army just offered free food and board with no risk or responsibility what kind of recruits do you think it would get?
This is very similar to the older Nordic religions in this respect, only those who fell in battle were taken to Valhalla.
On further consideration, who would want to get stuck with 72 women who don't know what they are doing for all eternity? I'd rather have 36 Thai bar girls then 72 virgins.
I started flying in the 1960s, when fares were high and quality was excellent. You want to go cheap, take the Greyhound. In the meantime, I want the service I used to get in those days, which was excellent -- even if it means putting up the fares.
Singapore airlines and Emirates have that kind of service, it's only about $5K for a business class ticket. But then again the economy class service on Singapore is excellent.
Oh, you meant an American airline, sorry mate, your SOL. At least when you travel internationally you'll get a choice of decent carriers, I don't know a single yank who'll take an American carrier out of the states.
It will be just a matter of time before Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, or an upstart comes up with a "Bottom Line Price"
It scares me how many supposedly intelligent/.ers rely on untrustworthy third party suppliers for unbiased and accurate travel information.
I don't trust Flight Centre in Australia to find me the best price, they had a rather public spat with Singapore airlines last year and for about six months all SAL prices mysteriously disappeared from Flight Centre's web site. In my experience travel sites and agents will have a group of partner airlines and will push those airlines over other and often will not display the prices from non partner airlines. Lets take budget travel in Asia from Australia. If you go to Flight Centre they will push JetStar in the budget arena, maybe a mention of Tiger but you can forget any reference to Tiger or V-Australia.
Me on the other hand will go straight to the source, airlines have their own web sites and booking systems. You only get discounts from travel agent's when you book a package deal with accommodation, seeing as in Asia you can often get better rates for cash in most non-chain hotels pre-booking acom is a waste of money (also they tend to be cheaper then chain hotels in the first place) and if I dont like the place, I haven't pre-paid so I can leave whenever I want.
When I travel nowadays I'm increasingly worried that some effect of mine will not pass muster at a security checkpoint. My options would be:
1. Do not take that flight
2. Hand over the item to TSA douchebags
3. Pay extra to check the item
It's enough to discourage me from plane travel.
Outside the US this is not a problem. I could suggest flying from Mexico or South America, Santiago in Chile services Asia and Australasia where as Brazil services Europe and Africa. A bit of a cliché, but if you let the TSA stop you from flying you're letting the Terrorists win (by terrorists, I mean the fear mongering fascists in your own government).
I flew Air Asia a few weeks back, they had signs up everywhere saying that in "2009 they [Air Asia] collected 61 Million RM in excess baggage fees" as well as advertising to pre-book baggage. Air Asia is a low cost carrier so luggage, food et al cost extra (they are also half the price of Malaysian or Singapore Airlines and nearly a third of the cost of QANTAS). I don't know about America but in Australia, Asia and Europe there is a distinction between full service airlines like Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines which do not charge for extras and budget airlines like Air Asia and EasyJet which do but the ticket price on budget airlines is far lower then that of full service airlines.
Because you're buying more of what they're selling. If you went to the hardware and bought lumber, you should expect to pay the same as everyone else for a 2x4.
Because the administrative overhead will be more then the airlines will actually save.
Per KG, per KM we are talking about cents in fuel, (which is the only measurable that can be used for weight) so the difference between a 120 KG man and a 50 KG woman ends up being about $5-10. Big saving there. It will cost more to have this system implemented (new scales need to be installed, staff need to operate them, another line at the airport) and lets not mention the bad press, most people commenting on this will be thinking of the lard arse male, they will not be complaining as much as the 75 KG women who really hate their true weight being known.
Besides this, many of the actual costs are fixed per seat. It costs the same amount per seat to staff the plane, the same amount per seat to maintain the plane, the same amount per seat to land the plane and use airport facilities. These costs do not fluctuate between 50 and 150 KG's. The only time where this should be a consideration is when a person is so large that they cannot safely occupy one seat (thus will need two or not fly) but I believe there is already rules for this in place.
One should be able to protect yourself if you create something new.
The patent and copyright systems were designed so that the original inventor/creator could have the opportunity to make money from their inventions/art without larger, more powerful entities stealing the design/art or forcing you into a predatory deal. Nothing about protecting ideas, even ones you've patented. So, how's that working out for us.
This is why the US patent system is mostly broken and the US copyright system is completely broken. I don't wish to get rid of either but patents need to be fixed in order to be useful and copyright needs to be completely overhauled to perform the task it's meant to. The first things should be the immediate revocation of any patent that has not resulted in a released or developed product in 24 months (kill submarine patents/patent trolls) and the revocation of any patent that is obviously able to be independently recreated by following standards/common sense (I.E a mathematical function, block of code or business method)
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There is no connection.
Steve was holding his Iphone4, so he couldn't establish one. If he had been using a Droid there would be no problem.
This is meaningless. I use Open Office but it really isn't all that much like a kick in the teeth. However what it does do is open and edit documents.
Could you elaborate. Are we talking about functions that less the 1% of users will actually use. I use for Calc for budgeting a lot and have never encountered any issues, some things like multiplying hours I've found easier on Calc as MS Excel keeps changing it to the time format.
Once again, this isn't really informative. Cold you elaborate.
If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked "how do I do this in Excel" I could retire in a few years, If I had another dollar for every time I've googled "Excel [version] how to [perform some function]" I could have retired by 25. You clearly don't realise how much "figuring out" is done with Excel but people just accept it because it's Excel. The only way this point is valid is for the few people who have completely memorised Excel and with those people they have to re-learn it every time MS changes the interface.
Lets not kid ourselves here,
Almost anyone under 40 could run Ubuntu if it came pre-installed. Computers have been around that long, so everyone has the basics down pat. If a person has trouble with a pre-installed Ubuntu instance, they will also have trouble with a pre-installed Windows instance.
The big problem is still hardware support. Yes this is a lot better then it used to be but you still get odd bugs and a few frustrating configurations. Whilst Ubuntu works on almost all my hardware straight out of the box, there are still a few issues. My last issue was months ago with a new media centre PC, I had no sound through HDMI on an integrated Geforce 8200 which I fixed with a conf file I found on a forum, not a solution for the average user. Windows also has small issues like this but has a simpler way of fixing them. If Ubuntu needs to improve anything, it needs to be a simpler way of fixing bad conf files.
Not really. It is as bad as people say.
No, for the most part it's cognitive dissonance. People refuse to allow themselves to believe they've been locked in and taken for a ride. You're a prime example.
I sense a contradiction.
If the government does not take ownership of the last mile, who does. A private corporation can be bought out by the a client unless the "ebil gubbermint" says no and as you've established, that's bad.
Unlike the parents kneejerk "it's the gubbement" reaction, the problem is the private corporations who pushed for local monopolies and if they were permitted, they would be trading these monopolies between themselves. What the US needs to do is:
1. Establish a common cellular frequency that all telco's must support. GSM 2100 is the worlds most popular freq, I suggest you go with that as more handsets will support it. This will enable people to move between telco's easily. Nothing stops a telco from establishing a network on a different frequency in addition to the common frequency, apart from the cost of doing so.
2. Take control or regulate the wholesale price of the ULL and basic infrastructure (peering, backbone access, DSL multiplexers and telephone exchange access). This will fix the cost of entry and give people a choice of telco even if they don't own equipment in that area.
Follow the money and tell me who pushed for local monopolies in the first place.
TFTFY,
You're doing this whole scepticism thing wrong. Just to elaborate how:
Sceptic: I need to see evidence. A does not lead directly to C, show me B.
Denalists: I dont believe in C therefore A must be some kind of conspiracy.
I think it's fairly obvious you fit into the second category as you seem to lack the ability to demonstrate a semi-objective view and evaluate all evidence and the source from which it came.
I think you need to get a grip, you are more interested in pushing your agenda then actually presenting evidence.
Yes, it is naive, perhaps to the point of retardedness to believe otherwise.
We can destroy 98% of all life on earth within hours, with the push of a button. This event will kick enough debris into the atmosphere to blockout the sun and create an ice age or did you forget we had weapons capable of destroying the earth, a few dozen times over... Sitting in tubes, ready to launch.
We are capable of producing great change, some good and some bad. Never underestimate the ability of humans to make devastating changes, every now and then even for the better.
1.5% over 1,000,000 may not sound like much, until you realise that 1.5% is compounding and that you aren't paying off enough to cover the interest repayments. The same is happening with greenhouse gas emissions. It may not seem like much above that which is produced naturally but it ad's up as we are compounding that amount and the natural systems are not taking care of it at a rate that is greater then our emissions.
In you long winded and utterly useless rant you seemed to have missed something an apprentice electrician could spot.
The problem is Electrical Length. Electrical length dictates what frequencies an antenna can receive and transmit. When you touch a naked antenna you become part of that antenna and change the electrical length. This causes the antenna to pick up the correct frequency as noise or at least very noisy. This is the Iphones problem. As for dealing with noise and EM interference, that is so far beyond electrical length it's not funny. Apple failed basic electrical engineering and you are trying to convince us that other manufactures are having the same problem as Apple, Apple is nowhere near the likes of RIM, Nokia and HTC in dealing with EM interference because they couldn't even manage to grasp that the human hand changes the electrical length of the aerial.
This is very simple science, please stop trying obfuscate it. The problem is with the antenna being external, not with the human hand. Most phones deal with the human hand and lose less then 10% of the signal strength but due to the fact that the hand is not in contact with the aerial (I.E. the aerial is insulated) it does not change the frequencies the aerial receives and transmits. Further more if you even bothered to read some of the links you posted, you'll notice that the closer you get to a tower, the less a hand interferes with a signal (% wise), this is not true with an Iphone.
So please as you so eloquently put it, stop the bullshit.
For crying out loud, this is a giant exercise in hand waving. Did you even read the article, test labs do not look like that, they look like normal labs with specific cellular testing equipment, the tester is normally watching the output of the equipment, not sitting in some giant foam room with a big ring in it. The whole thing looked like Charlie and the Phone Testing Lab.
Apple outsource their entire testing and QA, probably to the same people who manufacture these devices. Even FCC approval was done by someone else.
Why would you think that. 27 yr old grand mothers are quite common in Rochdale.
I'm going to stop you here, because you've made a very good point.
It's the governments job to build infrastructure like roads, rail links, power-lines and even phone lines. Now Whilst I believe the government (state) should maintain ownership of the infrastructure they do not always need to run it.
When the Australian FTTN project (National Broadband Network) is finished, the government will own the lines but the job of providing ISP services will fall into the private sector. So my ISP be it Adam, Internode, iinet or Optarse will take my money and provide me with internet access whilst they pay the fees (to the state) to maintain the infrastructure. This is exactly the same as the current system except iinet is paying fee's to a private corporation who are constantly attempting to raise the wholesale price of leased lines. The Australian government made a huge mistake when privatising Telecom Australia by not separating the sales from the wholesale providers.
The best way to do that is not to accumulate enemies. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if US forces hadn't gallivanted off in their ill fated invasion of Iraq. That lost a lot of good will amongst Afghan supporters of the new regime (read, people glad to see the Taliban gone and there used to be a lot of them). When the US invaded Iraq it gave the anti-US factions all the proof they needed that America was just the lasted big empire to invade Afghanistan, rather then the US being a force to help Afghani's which was the story the US had.
A war is won or lost by a careful choice of when and where to fight. Sun Tzu knew this 2000 years ago, William II of normandy demonstrated it in 1066, Eisenhower in 1944 and even Norman Schwarzkopf in 1992. How were important lessons forgotten so completely in 11 years. The US has almost lost Afghanistan, Iraq was never won and never had any hope of being won. The best thing the US can do now is leave Iraq and focus all resources in Afghanistan, this means Intel and Material assets (firing that moron Petreaus would be a great start, get a leader who can think outside the West Point box, we aren't fighting WWII any more).
Almost any Apple tragic. SuperKendall is one and constantly protests that he has no problems what so ever. I'm highly sceptical of such people, everything has flaws and nothing is perfect, even if the flaws are trivial and easily ignored or mitigated they still exist and refusing to acknowledge means you aren't capable of objectivity (ergo not trustworthy).
This is exactly what's happening. Any electrical engineer could tell you that Apple's antenna problems stem from the holder changing the electrical length of the aerial which causes the phone to interpret the correct frequencies as incorrect frequencies. Most Iphone owners choose to believe that the problem does not exist or is a software issue rather then a fundamental design flaw. Apple owners are displaying cognitive dissonance when it comes to problems with Apple products, a design flaw goes against what they believe about Apple, thus the design flaw is a lie.
Up until it's release it was being called the Iphone 4G by every rumour site, they said it would have WiMax and LTE, be faster the the Evo4G and be available on any US carrier. I think you are convieintly forgetting this point, see "cognitive dissonance" above.
Wife Satisfaction is the only important thing to look at. Battered wives are evidently not prepared to divorces their abusive husbands, even with regular beatings (plus all the offers of assistance) and even though full freedom will be reimbursed.
In your rush to shower Apple with praise you neglected an important point, many people are locked into Apple financially or psychologically. This presents itself as a massive barrier to just saying, screw it I'll return this piece of junk an buy something that works. Its the same kind of barrier that MS has used so successfully to keep business locked into the wonderful world of Windows. Considering that almost 4 out of every 5 Iphone 4's replaced an earlier model, vendor lock-in has played a huge part in sales (psychological lock-in, AKA Fanboyism is still lock-in).
Silly rabbit, you're comparing horse crap to dog crap. In the end it's still crap.
I bought an Android phone last year and haven't looked back. Even high end WinMo phones are better then BB or Iphones (WinMo quality varies wildly, some WM phones are great, many others are complete crap).
In order to get the virgins, you have to die fighting for Islam. If they offered the prize to anyone who simply followed the religion you'd find no-one is interested in dying now. If the US army just offered free food and board with no risk or responsibility what kind of recruits do you think it would get?
This is very similar to the older Nordic religions in this respect, only those who fell in battle were taken to Valhalla.
On further consideration, who would want to get stuck with 72 women who don't know what they are doing for all eternity? I'd rather have 36 Thai bar girls then 72 virgins.
Singapore airlines and Emirates have that kind of service, it's only about $5K for a business class ticket. But then again the economy class service on Singapore is excellent.
Oh, you meant an American airline, sorry mate, your SOL. At least when you travel internationally you'll get a choice of decent carriers, I don't know a single yank who'll take an American carrier out of the states.
It scares me how many supposedly intelligent /.ers rely on untrustworthy third party suppliers for unbiased and accurate travel information.
I don't trust Flight Centre in Australia to find me the best price, they had a rather public spat with Singapore airlines last year and for about six months all SAL prices mysteriously disappeared from Flight Centre's web site. In my experience travel sites and agents will have a group of partner airlines and will push those airlines over other and often will not display the prices from non partner airlines. Lets take budget travel in Asia from Australia. If you go to Flight Centre they will push JetStar in the budget arena, maybe a mention of Tiger but you can forget any reference to Tiger or V-Australia.
Me on the other hand will go straight to the source, airlines have their own web sites and booking systems. You only get discounts from travel agent's when you book a package deal with accommodation, seeing as in Asia you can often get better rates for cash in most non-chain hotels pre-booking acom is a waste of money (also they tend to be cheaper then chain hotels in the first place) and if I dont like the place, I haven't pre-paid so I can leave whenever I want.
Outside the US this is not a problem. I could suggest flying from Mexico or South America, Santiago in Chile services Asia and Australasia where as Brazil services Europe and Africa. A bit of a cliché, but if you let the TSA stop you from flying you're letting the Terrorists win (by terrorists, I mean the fear mongering fascists in your own government).
I flew Air Asia a few weeks back, they had signs up everywhere saying that in "2009 they [Air Asia] collected 61 Million RM in excess baggage fees" as well as advertising to pre-book baggage. Air Asia is a low cost carrier so luggage, food et al cost extra (they are also half the price of Malaysian or Singapore Airlines and nearly a third of the cost of QANTAS). I don't know about America but in Australia, Asia and Europe there is a distinction between full service airlines like Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines which do not charge for extras and budget airlines like Air Asia and EasyJet which do but the ticket price on budget airlines is far lower then that of full service airlines.
Because the administrative overhead will be more then the airlines will actually save.
Per KG, per KM we are talking about cents in fuel, (which is the only measurable that can be used for weight) so the difference between a 120 KG man and a 50 KG woman ends up being about $5-10. Big saving there. It will cost more to have this system implemented (new scales need to be installed, staff need to operate them, another line at the airport) and lets not mention the bad press, most people commenting on this will be thinking of the lard arse male, they will not be complaining as much as the 75 KG women who really hate their true weight being known.
Besides this, many of the actual costs are fixed per seat. It costs the same amount per seat to staff the plane, the same amount per seat to maintain the plane, the same amount per seat to land the plane and use airport facilities. These costs do not fluctuate between 50 and 150 KG's. The only time where this should be a consideration is when a person is so large that they cannot safely occupy one seat (thus will need two or not fly) but I believe there is already rules for this in place.
And what did they do with all that time before the damn thing was released?
You know, the time when most companies do this kind of testing and discover these kinds of faults before mass production begins.
The patent and copyright systems were designed so that the original inventor/creator could have the opportunity to make money from their inventions/art without larger, more powerful entities stealing the design/art or forcing you into a predatory deal. Nothing about protecting ideas, even ones you've patented. So, how's that working out for us.
This is why the US patent system is mostly broken and the US copyright system is completely broken. I don't wish to get rid of either but patents need to be fixed in order to be useful and copyright needs to be completely overhauled to perform the task it's meant to. The first things should be the immediate revocation of any patent that has not resulted in a released or developed product in 24 months (kill submarine patents/patent trolls) and the revocation of any patent that is obviously able to be independently recreated by following standards/common sense (I.E a mathematical function, block of code or business method)
After you've done that you'll want to take the next logical step.
Everything you need to know about immigrating to Australia is here.
Is this a submarine patent?
I've never seen any of this displayed in a computer designed by Steve Jobs.
I picture the Gillette future, the sword of tomorrow with have 5 blades for a closer laceration.