When was the last time you saw anyone smiling on a plane?
Last time a flew. It was a 2 year old. They're short so the lack of legroom isn't an issue. Of course, the kid started screaming her lungs out right before takeoff because mommy and daddy made her turn off her iPad, but she was smiling before that.
Oh yeah, and don't forget that if you're not flying by yourself you have to multiply that cost by the number of people in your family.
Why is it scummy for airlines to charge extra for better seating?
What's scummy is that they have reduced the "standard" to be so intolerable that it forces people to purchase the premium. If the "standard" was tolerable, but then they charged you extra for something more luxurious, then it wouldn't be scummy. There is a huge difference.
At check-in, United Airlines offers economy seats with much better legroom for a modest upcharge. On a transcontinental flight it's usually around $60 - $70.
But that's per flight, right? So a round trip itinerary with only 1 stop would be $60 x 4 = $240? That's not so modest for many people. Even if it were $60-$70 each way and not each flight, $120 - $140 round trip is not trivial.
If you don't want people stealing your money don't store money online. Don't use credit/debit cards, an online brokerage account, web access to your checking account, etc. If it's out there someone is going to steal it.
Great analogy. Most everyone knows that it's possible for your credit card number to get stolen. Heck, many of us have had our banks cancel our credit card (and send us a new one of course) because it was stolen from some merchant we purchased something from. So, just like using a credit card, if you're going to put nude pictures of yourself on the Internet (or anything on the Internet) then you should know there's a reasonable possibility that it is going to get stolen.
The reasoning is this - if Comcast builds out to the entire city, they're building out to highly profitable areas and to less profitable (or even unprofitable) areas.
Okay, except that's not what Comcast did when they first entered most markets. They built out the highly profitable areas long before they built out into less profitable areas. I mean, wow, in what other industry to you get a government enforced (not just allowed) monopoly without all the pesky regulation that other monopolies (like electricity and water) get?
The suck for Comcast is when that coax cable "runs out" of bandwidth and there's no room to cram yet another HD sports channel on.
The problem here isn't simply that they are unable to deliver unlimited bandwidth. The problem is they charge you for it even though they can't deliver it, and they know they can't deliver it when they sell it to you. The non-fraudulent way to say it would be "$A for the first B GBs, plus $C for every additional GB." Instead, they say, "$A for unlimited."
I say again, I'm not on Comcast's side. I just think that describing Comcast's position in hyperbolic terms (such as "blatant lies") will be self-defeating.
If they use the word "unlimited" and/or say "unlimited Internet for $X" but then put a limit on it or charge you more than $X, then it's a lie. If they say or print it openly, then it is blatant. Therefore, it is a blatant lie.
Obligatory car related analogy: Imagine if a gas station put up a sign that says "Unlimited gasoline for $8!" but then charged $6 for every gallon over 2 gallons. Do you think they'd get away with it?
I don't know if Oregon's suit has merit or not, but that sure sounds like my employer's experience with Oracle.
This is pretty much SOP with any big custom system from a big company. Sure, they'll check off the boxes of the requirements, but it'll never work right until you fork over triple what the original contract was for, for "additional implementation." It's essentially extortion because at that point the organization is so many millions of dollars into it that they're willing to spend millions more to make it functional.
I'm very pleased that Oregon is not succumbing to this extortion and are fighting back. Oracle has claimed in the press that it was because the state added additional requirements midstream, but the problem isn't that they didn't implement those additional requirements, it's that they never delivered a functioning product, thus they did not fulfill a single requirement. Even if "it works" wasn't a specific requirement, it should be implied by the existence of any requirement which in itself requires the system to be functional. I hope Oregon gets back every penny they gave to Oracle, and I hope there's a legal reason they can get some massive penalties too.
Although that sounds vaguely like the premise of some sort of science fiction story
Considering this is the country that put melamine in milk and cadmium in toys, this speaks volumes.
Except in those cases those things were done in violation of the law. The issue was that it wasn't being enforced, not that it was legal. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I want to know both the "official" and the actual reasons. Oddly, the permits that are being denied are for Bt rice and phytase corn, but they continue to support Bt corn, so environment or food safety doesn't seem like it would be an actual reason, although it could be the "official" reason. A more likely scenario is politics and lobbying (or whatever the Chinese version of lobbying is, they probably just call it bribery).
Perhaps if Fusion is the answer, then the question is "What should we be spending money on developing?"
Which makes more sense:
1. Spend a trillion or so dollars (it's been about $400Billion so far, and rising) on the F-35, which won't be viable for a long time but has already been making a few rich people richer. Money comes from taxpayers, and it's the ultra-wealthy who directly benefit from the contracts who get richer. In reality our actual military power is unchanged.
2. Spend that money instead on R&D for fusion (spend a bit of it on battery research too for electric cars/trucks). The US saves $380Billion per year on oil imports. The economy and thus quality of life for everyone improves. The rich still get richer because manufacturing and transportation costs have been reduced. F-16's, F-18's, etc and UAV's continue to give us military superiority.
This is about the software. Did FoxxConn develop the OS for the iPhone? And even we were talking about hardware design, did FoxxConn design it, or are they just manufacturing it? I'm pretty sure they're just manufacturing it. Did Apple come up with any innovations to manufacturing processes that FoxxConn is now copying to make other devices with? I doubt it.
Ironically, the article flames a company for copying Apple's UI. Conversely, and the sort of article we usually see here, if Apple were trying to prevent anybody from copying it there would be a
it was a giant clusterfuck...also, water is wet
Yep. True of any big undertaking when contractors are involved (whether it's government or a large corporation hiring the contractors for a big project). How about this:
-The defense department undertook the development of F-35 and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices...
-[The task] was a complex effort with compressed time frames. To be expedient, DoD issued task orders
-DoD identified major performance issues
-DoD gave a lot more money to Lockheed due to changes such as new requirements and other enhancements...
The difference between healthcare.gov and any other big project is the politicalization of it. On one hand, you have the people who want health insurance so they can get medical care. On the other hand, you have insurance companies that want to keep the old system because they make higher profits. With the F-35 you only have one side...the defense contractors who want to make tons of money.
One would assume that this would be basic common sense.
Not really, from the defense contractor's point of view. If they do have a breach, it is in their best interest to cover it up. Without any rules in place, they are not violating any rules. If there are rules in place, then covering it up would be a violation of those rules, so in some cases it would be in their best interest not to cover it up (risk/reward).
He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet.
