given that they're providing service through wifi, what does that mean?

You can get unlimited talk/text for 25 a month through GoSmart.

For people that don't use the phone much you can get 2000 minutes which are good for a full year from PagePlus at a cost of 80 dollars. Or about 6 dollars a month.

Telefonica offers some really cheap pre paid programs with roll over minutes that can see your actual costs per month around 6 dollars with perhaps more minutes from the roll overs.

T-Mobile offers a prepaid 3 dollars a month program which is the absolute cheapest but you only get 30 minutes a month. Good for people that don't use the phone much and when they do finish the call in under a minute.

In this context, a 30 dollar plan that doesn't even use the cellular network is a joke. Even at 9 dollars it is a joke.

You can't distill complex information down to a single variable. If you could, then you could see everything important in front of you with ONE pixel.

You can't do that. Accept that it is complicated and deal with the complexity. Do not pretend you have magical powers that allow you to boil down very very complex datasets into a single variable.

That is a big issue with the whole AGW debate. One temperature for the whole planet is unreasonable. You need to break the data out and show the regional surface data, show the sat data, show the ocean data... etc. And then looking at everything you can make an assessment. But boiling it all down to one variable is nonsense.

Same thing happened in the economic crash of 2008. The stupid finance companies boiled financial risk down to ONE number.

How did that work out?

You cannot do it. Smarter men then either of us have thought they could have they've failed every time. Don't.

More likely coal companies. Coal is the real competitor to nuclear.

I agree the anti nuclear lobby is composed almost entirely of idiots on a level with Jenny McCarthy's vaccine conspiracies.

maybe when it was just the US vs USSR this might have been almost workable but at this point you really need a different clock for every nuclear power.

And short of that, this stupid clock is meaningless.

The new format is on a harddrive. It is data. Can we be done with these discs? Just period.

What would it cost to put the data on a thumb drive instead of a disc? It doesn't need more space then the movie takes up and it doesn't need to be writable. What would it cost to make a crap thumb drive with the movie on it that wasn't even writable?

Just go with that. We're not going back to the dvd collection days. That's through.

You basically already found the mouse you want. That g60 thing or whatever that had the three buttons on top. Your problem was that they're mapped incorrectly for your tastes.

Okay. Use autohotkey to remap the keys. Problem solved.

Someone beer me.

I don't even think so. If you're on a really tight budget then you are going to run a very lean plan. But even a plan with thousands of minutes a month are less then these unlimited plans. And sure, some people talk on them a lot but others just don't.

I spend very little time on the telephone. My conversations are typically over in about 30 seconds. Not because I'm rushing things but because the message was communicated. And who even needs that when text messages are frequently better anyway?

The real killer though is mobile internet. That is a giant scam in most cases. People don't need it but the ISPs force it down your throat because it justifies absurd service fees.

It is dumb. I haven't had mobile internet for years because I've worked very hard to avoid it. Lately, I've had to not use any of the major providers because they refused to give me a no data plan.

I had sprint previously and my previous plan with them let me have a smart phone and no data plan. I had to talk to corporate to get that deal. But when I replaced that they outright refused to give me a plan without data. Just no - period. Which meant I cancelled my sprint plan and was with a totally different company within a week.

I've got it down to 25 a month with unlimited voice and text... What I'd like is something with not a lot of minutes but a lot of text messages. That is just what I do mostly. Little texts to ask simple questions and no gibbering.

From what I can see, it is the same 5-20 percent of the population every year. I mean, is the study making any attempt to filter for that?

If there are 10 people, and 2 of them get the flu EVERY FUCKING YEAR... could I not say "20 percent of them get the flu every year"...

I mean, sure... but that is just the old man that is in poor health these days and that kid that keeps playing with cow pies.

I don't get the flu. No one in my family gets it.

And from what I can see of the literature, most of the infections are self inflicted because people touch something and then touch their eyes. Don't do that.

... I have a prepaid unlimited plan that I pay about 25 dollars a month for which is about half what most people seem to be paying.

I've seen that you can pay as little as 80 dollars a year for 2000 minutes. Many people don't spend a lot of time on the cell phone and 2000 minutes for a whole year is lots.

If you talk even less then that, tmobile has a plan for 3 dollars a month but you only get 30 minutes a month.

Personally, this is where the whole thing needs to go. Bill me for what I use.

Unlimited plans are nice in theory but they are really just lazy. Yes, I have one right now because I'm too lazy to switch to the 80 dollar a year program. That would just about take care of me. Anyway, anyone paying 50 or more a month for a phone is being silly.

Yes, they're doing their whole mobile internet thing but how worth it is it for most of us? The two things I notice people do on their mobile plans that NEED mobile plans are google maps and website searches. In the case of google maps, get an good offline map program on your smartphone. It is really just as good if not better and it works anywhere. As to web searches... that can suck but free wifi is everywhere. Everywhere I go, there is free wifi. I link to that wifi, visit the website, and then turn off the WiFi radio again. This is not something I would pay 25 dollars a month to get anywhere internet. Who cares.

And yeah, there are some people that that is worth it for but for most people it is not. People are getting murdered on their cellphone bills when we really should just be paying about 25 to 10 to 3 dollars a month for this crap.

Sure. The federal government should be trusted sight unseen in all cases without reservation.

Which is why I email all my passwords to the NSA. They only have my best interests at heart.

The issue is caused by bad hygiene mostly. People always think they have good hygiene. 10000 years ago that meant picking lice out of your family member's heads and eating them.

If you're worried about this then you have bad hygiene. These are contact viruses that mostly infect humans because we tough something and then jam our fingers in our eyes. Shockingly this leads to infection.

I don't get sick because I don't do these things. What is more reasonable? Asking people to be less disgusting and observe some basic hygiene adjustments just like we've done every single time before that has resulted in MASSIVE improvements in public health? Or mandate that everyone get annual flu shots for a disease that is almost never more then a nuisance to any but people with seriously damaged immune systems.

As to the flu killing healthy people? Which flu? The Spanish Flu? The flu actually killing a healthy person is remote. And most of the people that get it, do so through silly behaviors that if modified would protect them from that sort of casual infection.

Wearing shoes has made us largely immune from soil diseases. Chlorinating our water has made us largely immune from water diseases. Air born diseases are pretty rare. We deal with food diseases by cooking our food which kills anything living in it. And what remains is infection by touching things with our fingers and then jamming them in our eyes.

We stop doing that and most of this crap is going to go away.

Give me a shot I can take a couple times in my life and I have no problem with it.

The vaccinations we give babies are great. And the booster shot when people get older is great too.

The yearly flu shots however are not happening for me. So if you're worried about flu pandemics, consider changing hygiene policies so that people stop accidentally infecting themselves by touching bathroom doors and then jamming their fingers in their eyes.

That is your problem. Not the lack of vaccinations.

No, I'll take all the vaccinations that can be given a couple times in your life and are good there after.

I will not be forced to get jabbed with a needle every year just because you have a shitty immune system or because you can't stop touching bathroom doors and then sticking your dirty fingers right in your eye.

If you get sick all the time it means your immune system is shit or you live like a pig.

Pick one.

Neither conclusion obligates the rest of society to create a sterile environment where idiots can't infect themselves by being stupid.

You play in the storm drain and you're going to get sick. This is not my fault.

Then I've never had the flu in my life and neither has anyone in my family. We get the sniffles if anything.

The last time I had illness related sniffles?... maybe 5 years ago for a day. I drank some OJ, chilled out, and was golden the next day.

The only sniffles I get with regularity is the kind when you're in very cold weather. Your nose runs because your body heat is melting the solidified phlegm in your nasal cavities. I get that which is annoying but not the actual illness.