and clothes, electronics, etc, etc. Fuel is much more expensive (ex: gasoline was about $3.80/gallon in Jan) except at cities on the border which are closer to US prices. On top of that, there is a 16.5% tax included in the price of most consumer goods. Because of that, lots of people used to travel to the US to buy clothes, school supplies, and other items for "back to school" time or Christmas. Given the rise in the USD:MXN exchange rate, that's not as attractive any more especially when factoring the cost of fuel to get there (unless you are also buying a few 55 gallon drums of gasoline to sell when you get back home). Income taxes can be higher too.

Unfortunately, most farmers or anyone else that produces a commodity do not have that much control over what they can sell the product for. Sure if the farmer sells directly to people at markets or any other venue, they can raise the price as they see fit. However, most do not have that option. Given that strawberries are perishable items that can't be stored for long, they don't have as much flexibility as grain farmers who can store the crop and wait for prices to go up. Instead, if growing strawberries is unprofitable, they'll switch to something else like you mentioned. If enough people do that, then the supply goes down and the price will eventually go up if demand doesn't drop too much.

many of those were likely a project that they were going to get to someday when they had time....and that time has yet to arrive.

It depends on how the municipality decided to implement their recycling program. When I got to drop stuff at a recycling point, I have two options: the big dumpster for glass, metal, and plastic, and another big dumpster for paper. I guess they figured if they made people separate it out any further, they wouldn't bother.

Was it at least a good recipe app or cookbook?

It's very sad to read about people who have been duped by these "new age" cancer cures that only reduce the patients' bank account balances, not the tumors. A friend of mine went from the "insulin chemotherapy" method (which sounds credible until one looks into it) provided by a medical clinic to some whacky irradiation device made with PVC pipe and then some shaman in Brazil. But he didn't trust "traditional medicine" and the alternative medicine quacks eagerly took his money (some of which was donated by friends and fans of his music) until he died. :(

Or they don't think that the price is going to be going back up that fast during the duration of their lease or loan and they don't want to pay the extra money for a vehicle that they will not recoup in fuel savings during that same period.

I was very happy to stumble upon that a few weeks ago. I would like it if they did the same with Corner Gas, but I don't know if the people involved with it would want to do more seasons.

If I remember correctly from another story about it, the $2.2 million figure is their current profit, not revenue. If they devoted all of their profit and the savings from the CEO's pay cut to the raises for the other employees, they could give out an average raise of almost $26K. It isn't doable now, which is why they mentioned it's going to be done over the next 2-3 years. Of course the CEO is probably going to be getting more stock based compensation, so he may end up making more money assuming that the stock doesn't tank. The current investors may not like having zero profit, but who knows...they may get more business because of this stunt. I agree that a profit sharing agreement would make more sense.

Well, the HBO Now intro page does state that it's only available in the US and some US territories. So, yes, fans in other countries are still out of luck until all the licensing stuff is worked out.

If they have an Apple device that they can use to watch it. I've been debating whether it is worth it. If I want to watch it on my TV, I'd have to shell out for an HDMI adapter or an Apple TV. Given that there is just a $20 difference, I may end get the latter.

That's funny in that the people that I know who came in with a TN visa are software developers.

IIRC, there isn't a cap on those, but they're limited to citizens of Canada and Mexico.

Yes, please! Every desk in the building at work has a 4ft long fluorescent tube for when one needs light to read manuals, printouts, etc. But in addition to that there are another set of 3 tubes about every six feet in the false ceiling with practically non-existent diffusers. For me, this causes a lot of eye strain due to the glare on the monitors and in some cases, a bare tube being in my line of sight when I'm trying to read something on the screen. At one point, I brought in a baseball cap to wear at my desk so my eyes wouldn't hurt. Given that everyone is reading a screen which is emitting light, there is no reason for all the lights in the ceiling to be on. It's not like anyone is doing needlepoint or surgery here. They could get rid of 2 out of every 3 tubes in each light fixture and still have sufficient light for doing work, meetings, etc. It would save money too. I think I'm more productive after hours for two reasons: 1) no managers or business users are asking me questions and 2) my eyes feel better because I can turn off all the lights in my area.

Apparently that's what South Korea requires and is often cited as one of the reasons why their average home bandwidth is much higher than the US. Of course, a part of that is also getting rid of the situation where Comcast or some other company has a government mandated local monopoly. Then other companies could build their own networks in new housing developments/apartment complexes (or when the local PUC allows for upgrades to existing areas) but be able to provide service on Comcast's lines as well.