All the fortran programs I wrote as a grad student in Indian Institute of Science, back in 1980s live for ever in that 2400 feet of half-inch tape recorded at 6250 Bytes-per-inch lives digitally for ever. The only good thing about that was that I swiped the blank media from my former employer instead of paying half-a-month salary of a gazetted (civilian equivalent of commissioned) officer to buy the blank tape in the open market. Back in those days, in India, imported items were that expensive.

Then I also have Watfor compiler and ChiWriter in 5.5 inch floppy disks. I have my grad student work at UT in a unix mini tape. I also have some IOmega 100 MB disks. In my basement somewhere I have the backups of my WindowsNT machine in 3.5 inch floppy disks. All of them are digital. All of them are as dead as any corpse buried in a cemetery.

This is Microsoft we are talking about. I am seriously thinking of buying a new desktop because pretty soon I won't be able to buy a new Windows7 machine. Google will keep it in beta forever. Microsoft will slap a new version number of end of life it in 10 years.

... if Klingon and pig latin are supported.

Boston is a geometric paradise compare to Pittsburgh, That's where you go once you die, according to the noted urban planner Bill Waterson.

Almost all the migrator birds would be severely confused if they can not see the stars for extended periods of time. Many of them sense the Earth's magnetic field. But the species that have survived the periodical shifts in Earth's magnetic field and polarity reversals, they must be using celestial navigation. Losing the stars would leave them very confused.

The way the contracts are structured, these companies have so many escape clauses and poinson pills. "If the red light cameras were removed by a future government, the red light camera company should be paid xyz million dollars". It is an outrage officials elected in elections with tiny voter turn out and small margins sign contracts on behalf of the city or county stretching to millions of dollars over the coming decades

City of Chicago sold all its parking meters for a one time payment for the next 99 years. The clauses are so egregious, City can not create new parking spaces, no new parking garages by the city etc etc. And the enforcement is so bloody aggressive.

The city (or the state) nearly sold the Midway airport for peanuts. Luckily the buyer went bankrupt in the last financial crisis.

There is cost of storage, inventory management, liability insurance etc. You think it would cost them 57$ for that? Then there can be nothing that is priced lower than 57$ because the cost of the product is negligible. If some one can make rounds ahead of the garbage truck, pick discarded fridges, TV sets, VCRs and random stuff off the garbage pile, strip them for parts, classify, store and ship for 10$, why does it take Sears 57$?

I would have gladly paid 10$ for that part to Sears. If it manages to keep its storage and inventory management low it would amortize to less than 3$ per part. It could have made a 230% profit margin on that sale. No, it wants 1000% margin on that part. That is why I said cry me a river Sears.

I actually paid 57$ + S&H/. (Long story. Wife involved). I never forgave them for holding me to ransom like that. I am crazy like that.

You know the tiny contact switch that turns the light on in your fridge? Do you know its replacement cost? 57$. I am not joking, the tiny piece of plastic, strategically placed so that it would jostle as you put stuff in or take it out of the fridge, costs some 60$ + shipping and handling. At least for automobiles you can raid the junk yards looking for parts. But there is no fridge junkyard for me to raid.

That profit margin is sure to evaporate. People will scan and print replacement part for a fraction of the price. Sears might actually install a 3D printer in their own store with access to official CAD drawings and sell it. But they will not be able to maintain such high price for such small piece that probably costs 20cents to make for long. So yeah, 3D printing might erode some of these profit margins, and these guys will bitch, moan and yell, "IP fraud, they don't have license from us to replicate these parts". But, if you had not abused your monopoly on the replacement parts and acted nicely, may be I would have been kind. But now, I say, cry me a river Sears.

It was off. Still T-Mobile USA used to connect to Rogers Wireless Canada. They know the issue and reverse the charges. Recently I turned international roaming back on, It is just 25 cents a minute even from India. I have not been to Niagara recently. But, if I do, and if they charge me 25 cents a min, I might let it slide. It is 2$ a minute that ticks me off. 25cents a minute, total of 1$ or 2$, I might not bother to fight them for it.

People install so many apps, and give so many privileges to the apps. So many of them call home and upload connected data, also down load updates. So much of the data usage happens behind the scenes. In android at least there are settings to allow an app to connect to the internet only on wifi. These apps bitch moan and scream, "the app may not work right it it cant connect to the net all the time". But silence them anyway to get some handle on data usage. But even the apps you allow might suddenly download stuff or upload stuff. Some are more honest and nice than the others.

T-mobile plans do not have contracts. One can leave the network anytime. So there is no real hold over the customers. If they have bought a phone on installment plan, you have to pay off the remainder, but otherwise no real hold. So typically t-mobile customer service is very nice.

I have this issue of Rogers Wireless connecting to my phone across the Niagara River and charge me roaming. For some reason T-mobile is not able to stop it. May be they are owned by the same company or what not. So every time I go to Niagara Falls I can expect roaming charges. They have always been prompt in reversing the charges. It is typically 5$ to 15$. Just call, "say I have never been over the border" and the rep would reverse the chargers.

Looks like the poster got some great publicity due to the earlier post about 750$ a minute roaming charge from AT&T. I think it is possible he was very diligent in checking the usage and fees and managed to get the under paid and uninformed phone reps to say things that he managed leverage into another highly visible "10 lies from T-mobile".

Also T-mobile does not have over usage charges. It just throttles the connection speed. Even the throttled speed is 128 kbps which is good enough for google maps turn by turn navigation.

I usually side with the small guy against the corporation all the time. Now I wonder if I am being gamed by this poster.

A sort of natural experiment happened to my investments in the last decade. My 401K was all bond fixed income portfolia, with steady monthly contributions $CA. I had one mutual fund account, 4 all-stock-index funds. Steady monthly investments $CA. My 529 plan was a "age based auto rebalancing" monthly contribution plan $CA. And I had one "actively" managed account, no $CA, market timing, driven my astute analysis of the market conditions and market timed trading done by a brain proved to be in the 99th percentile. What with JEE-AIR(*) 800, GRE (790v, 790a, 800q) and not!

Well, the age based rebalancing 529 plan survived the crisis best, never went below the cost basis, and produced very reliable and steady gains. Averaged over 9% for 2005 to 2014.. The bond 401K net value dipped below the invested money for a brief period, 3 months in 2009 Feb-Apr 6% annualized return over 2005-14. The stock mutual fund went below cost basis most of 2009, but it too came roaring back, 7% annualized same period.

What about the super brain actively managed portfolio? It is the dog. 4% for that period. If you remove the 2% inflation component out, 529 did three times better than active management, even the bond fund was twice as good, the stock fund is 2.5 times better than active investment.

So, folks, the moral of the story is, go for dollar cost averaging, and do regular rebalancing. I was very fortunate I did not have to liquidate any of my portfolio in the middle of the crisis, that is what saved my tail. Not my active investment. Simple brain-dead $CA and the luck of not having to sell anything during the crisis.

You think the purpose of the research is to help FBI find the original numbers? ha! The real purpose is to let an FBI expert witness testify that "FBI forensic labs recovered this A12345 X73464, of the weapon known to be owned by the defendant from this weapon entered into evidence as prosecution exhibit A23".

Brain, is that you? Long time no see, Amigo. --- Pinky.

That is the password for Earth.

You don't know BMW. It would void a warranty if you keep their car in an unapproved or incompatible garage. Only BMW approved soda compatible soda cans are permitted in the drink holders. I would not be surprised if it has a list of approved shoes that are compatible with the damned accelerator pedals.