I'm not sure if it's still in use or not, but the way the album sales chart was calculated 10 years or so was through a service called Soundscan. The way it worked (in a nutshell) is that certain stores would submit their sales numbers to Soundscan, and then Soundscan would run those numbers through an algorithm to "calculate" the sales from other, non-Soundscan stores. I have no idea how accurate these numbers were.

There was a case I know of where one label (a larger independent label) got wind of which stores were the Soundscan stores. This was tricky information, because one album sold in these stores "represented" many more albums sold from the other stores, baed on that algorithm. So this label would send bands and artists on tour, and focus all of their in-story appearances on these Soundscan stores. This, of course, led to more sales in those stores, which tended to inflate the label's sales numbers for less effort than honest sales would have taken.

It was just my name, with the "from" address being some other address I didn't recognize. He assumed it was me because it was my real name.

I believe it goes something like this:

1. charge customers for caller ID on incoming calls.
2. charge customers for the ability to hide their ID on outgoing calls.
3. charge customers for the ability to "see" hidden ID's on incoming calls.
4. go to number 2. rinse and repeat.

That's kind of my point. You are correct; roll cages or airbags are going to help. But in the process of figuring out something ENTIRELY NEW that is a viable safety measure, commuter car traffic can become safer.

In order for a 1,000 mph car to be approved for driving/testing by a human, i would imagine the funding agencies would require all kinds of safety gear. if, through the development of new safety tech brings us some new breakthrough that scales down/back and makes 80 mph crashes much safer, isn't that a worthwhile pursuit?

Does this mean that @SadMarsRover will be able to get his instagram on again?

Yup, mostly. Usually it's only something i notice either with brand new releases that a label/distro is pushing, or older collectible records that are 15-20 years old, and someone is selling/trying to collect the whole "set". There are a few releases I've gone after or even own in all the variants, but for the most part, once i own ONE release of a record, that's enough for me to say i own it and i don't feel the need to grab all the others. Usually my threshold is when i find one idon't have and it's super cheap, i'll pick it up.

I wonder if other genres do the same? I do dabble in a few others, but don't recall seeing like hip hop or electronica singles or LP's doing the same thing. Curious observation.

Closest I've ever come is picking up an audiophile magazine at a bookstore, in which there was a review of a 1 meter RCA cable that cost $5,000. That's more than I've ever spent on audio equipment in my life, combined. I don't like being a collector. I just enjoy collecting the records.

Altho i'm loathe to use the word/admit it, i collect vinyl records. i tend to focus on a specific sub-genre of one that's not uber popular, so the records i'm really after and willing to spend more than list price on usually don't go for too much. Many of my peers are into collecting every variation of a record that's pressed on multiple colors of vinyl. (ie, a label will press 1000 of a particular band's album. 500 of these will be on black vinyl, 250 on red, 200 on green, and 50 on clear vinyl.) My collector nerd friends would then seek out all 4 versions. Indeed, a lot of labels even offer a pre-sale package featuring all 4 variants, particular for these guys.

In addition to a completist mentality behind wanting to own every variant of a record, there is also a demand (ranging from "mildly interested" to "i will mortgage the house to get this") for "test pressings" of records. These are just like what they sound. There are usually fewer than 20 of these made per release. Often less than 10 or even 5. Plain white labels or possibly a boilerplate label with "artist, song title, label" info handwritten onto the labels. No printed cover. A few go to the label, some to the band, for listening to and final proofing before the "go ahead and make us 1000 copies" order is put in. It's very rare that there is a change to an album once the test pressings have been created and they are almost NEVER available for sale to the general public. I've mostly only seen them for sale after the album comes out, strictly as collector items.

The $50k asking price may be ridonkulous, but the demand for this one-off game makes perfect sense to me in light of what i've seen people get stupid over in the vinyl world.

I've taught bike mechanics to adults and to kids, and have always challenged every class with "anything you can carry by car, you can carry by bike." So far, no one has come up with anything that breaks that scenario.

One surprising benefit I found when I started commuting by bike was that i planned my outings much more thoroughly even when I opting to drive the car. The commute being 12 miles one way, turning around halfway to go back and get something I had forgotten wasn't usually an option. So, I got good at becoming efficient at planning where I was going, how to get there, and what other outings I could piggyback on that were around the same area at the same time. After having driven to work/grocery store/etc for decades, it was a nice refreshing brain muscle to realize had been neglected.

You could run (presumably, at least some of) your errands on a bicycle.

Long before 9/11, i went with a friend and his father to pick up a family member of his at the airport. This was back when anyone--not just ticketed passengers--could go through security, all the way to the gate. my friend's dad was carrying a messenger bag type satchel that he got at a military surplus store. For some reason, it triggered some alarm or the other, or maybe he was just picked randomly, but the bag he had was putting off a chemical signature of TNT explosives, and he was given the option to leave the bag in his car, or not enter the secure area. All because of some residue from who knows what back when the bag was being used in the military.

Good point. My father, who's been stationed around the world in various hostile climates over the course of his military-related job, has always suggested "doing as the locals do." figure out what the indigenous people of any location or climate do, and emulate them. they've likely been doing whatever they do to cool off/heat up/dry out for hundreds or thousands of years, and had much more time to figure out how to deal with the extreme climate than us.

Same goes for other living condition issues like how to light up an area after the sun goes down (when running electricity isn't feasible/worth it), etc.