time and attendance?

Because someone who offers to show a receipt is inherently lower risk.

In fact, I always offer to show my receipt, because I don't want to have to wait extra time while the fellow checks my bag. As a result, the door guy has NEVER checked my bag at ANY store since I offer to show a receipt.

Accordingly, someone who is actually stealing would seemingly pass under the radar that much more easily if they just offer to show a receipt when they leave.

I'd imagine they're given a certain degree of discretion in their job... e.g.

(1) if you offer to show them your bag contents, they probably won't examine it
(2) if you have a small bag it receives less scrutiny
(3) if you otherwise look to be a mature professional, you'll receive less scrutiny

That may be the choke point, but how is this really any different from voice in the early 90's and earlier?

They did something crazy, which persists to this day --> they charge more for the same minutes in peak versus off-peak.

Why don't we have different buckets of data for different times of the day like with minutes?

I suspect it's because if they started selling data like that, their corporate cash-cow blackberry customers might start to realize how ripped off they are and might even lobby to not pay a special fee just to access an exchange server, etc. The folks who pay those extra fees are, on average, the same folks who use the least data.

I bet the "working with law enforcement part" is not even true

Well, until now I thought that feature among Terrans was useless...

If using more bandwidth costs the cell carriers more money, perhaps they should charge people for using more bandwidth. This is the only industry I've ever heard of where when demand exceeds supply, they simply refuse to increase capacity.

I suspect the hesitance to have prices mimic costs is that fact that the [oligopolistic] carriers don't want to lose money from one of their highest revenue users who incidentally use very little bandwidth -- corporate blackberries. In fact they are designed to be use data minimally for most users, e.g. only text parts of emails are downloaded at first, email is push rather than pull. If the carriers actually had a system which tracked costs, the $5 verizon "feature phone" plan would cost $50 and the $50 BES blackberry account would cost $5 and accordingly substantially screw with their highly precise and profitable price discrimination. Granted, they could have a segmented system where blackberries existed outside of it, but why rock the boat when they're making tons of money and only stand to lose it in this situation.

Keep in mind, all of this price discrimination is made possible by the carriers being able to identify the phone you are using and how you are using it since they only allow their phones on the network generally. GSM has some minimal exceptions to this, but even if you bring your own equipment, they might have a database of its IMEI and charge by that and/or identify that you're accessing an exchange server/skype... Don't get me started on MEID/ESN databases for CDMA, it's even more despotic

Also, more specifically in this context re: 3G on skype, consider that's it's not a data issue per se, but more a money issue for minutes, after all, look into how verizon blackberries handle skype traffic and minutes in the context of high value plans...

My two cents

...it has link customization, i.e. with bit.ly, it will assign me a link but then I can change it to something like "Bourdain1" which is easier to read off the phone and type in then some random, albeit short, alphanumeric characters

too true, hadn't thought of that [apt] interpretation

I'm still waiting to find out the conversion rate for unladen swallows.

I always just use strong tape to remove adhesive glue from surfaces

i.e. I repeatedly apply and reapply a piece of packing tape to any left over adhesive a few times and it removes residue quite easily

You could use a VM, if you really wanted to

Fair enough, I know there's at least some degree of interdependence/reciprocity between the entities (e.g. I live and work in NY yet my BCBS is based in another state (also EST though); all of my bills are, at one point, submitted to the NY BCBS since they are the ones who have the contracts with the local doctors).

In the case of the scrip fulfillment, perhaps that's handled by a PBM who has incompetent/overworked devs (in PST).

I also fully appreciate the essence of "non-profit" in name only. Being a non-profit seems to, at least in organizations where lots of money is involved and there isn't a true humanitarian mission, only yield inefficiency because there's so little transparency and no shareholder incentive -- only an incentive for top management and their lieutenants to individually profit.