If you ran a casual game company and someone offered to pay $1,300,000,000 for your company, would you not sell out? I would, in a heartbeat. Then I'd start another business and enjoy life without ever worrying about money again. (yes, I know it doesn't all go to one guy, and yes I also know that the heads of the company probably already didn't need more money, but the point still stands, over a BILLION dollars!)

It's not what they are doing, I understand they are about to get ass rammed by the content companies soon. I get that they need to charge more to stay in business, I really do.

My problem is with how they are going about it.

From my email:

"Dear RoTide,

We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.

Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011."

Essentially, hey, we are ending your plan, and oh look at that, the comparable plan is $15.98 and we're going to start billing you at that rate if you do nothing. In other words, almost a bait and switch. "Hey, we see you have a single plan for less than $10. Now we're going to end your plan and charge you for TWO plans at a 60% hike just to give you what you had!" And if I hadn't noticed the email? Or read tech blogs?

I just called their 800 number to formally state my displeasure with the situation, but it auto-hangs up on you due to call volume. You're not even put on hold, just straight up "click".

If they didn't try to charge me more, just told me the truth, and forced me to choose a new plan because the old one would put them out of business? I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, but I'd probably not be trying to call them for the first time ever. This is going to end up with a lot of bad PR.

Frankly, I second this. I didn't get the DVD _and_ streaming for 10/mo just so they can tell me I get to choose one or the other now. The rate hikes begin. How many more years until cable becomes competitive? Maybe that's a little in the realm of hyperbole, but they basically just doubled my bill and the email made it sound like a favor.

I'm hoping NASA stops developing "day to day" vehicles and starts working on next generation technologies. They can do the research while the private industry takes the existing, proven, technology and keeps man flying into orbit. I invision NASA as the R&D arm of the space sector. They can make new and interesting satelites, plan new missions out past orbit, plan habitation on other planets, and plan straight up new tech.

And then a light dusting of snow comes and all the markings are gone!

Oh please no! People have a hard enough time following traffic lights. Red means, "if it's only been red a little while, you're probably still ok to go". Ridiculous.

Honestly, I see most American's having trouble with a normal roundabout, let alone that confusing monstrosity.

Taxes are a fact of life for anyone living in a civilized society.

Taxes are used for the betterment of said society, either through security, communications, transportation, or the helping of it's citizens who are in need (among other things, overly short/simplistic list).

Taxes being used to help those in need of medical help, is a good use, in my opinion. It doesn't make me a slave because I pay taxes that might someday save YOU or the life of someone you care about. That's just misusing the word, slave, to try to give weight to your argument, which apparently needs the help of emotion laden words.

I've been having a lot of similar dreams lately. Mainly, I'm back in high school/college and it's coming up on finals. I step into a classroom with a week to go realizing I've never shown up to that class. You get that futile feeling that it doesn't matter how much you cram, you missed all the course work and have a 0. No hope.

I did just get transferred to a new project at work, maybe it's my fear of not being qualified or whatever that's got my subconscious freaking out.

I'm no aerospace engineer...

But I'm imagining what happens if an engine quits during take-off/landing. In a fixed wing aircraft, you're probably still screwed depending on your altitude, but at least you have a chance at restarting and/or ditching in a field. With something that hovers, you have no more lift once the engine quits, you're just a rock. Heck, not even only during take-off/landing, just during cruise, what do you do?

Helicopters can auto-rotate by storing energy in the main rotor and then "re-engaging" it when you're close to the ground. Basically, you get a one time use pillow. This thing however? How do you safely recover from an engine out?

With multi-engine airplanes, you also have the "option" of at least extending range during a single engine failure. This thing appears to apply thrust upwards to "lift" the aircraft as the wings do on a normal plane. What happens when an engine (think wing) fails on this? Does it just flip out of control (imagining multiple sets of these on a passenger plane applying lift to different areas of the fuselage).?

Per Wikipedia:

"Clayton Morris (born December 31, 1976) is a current co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Fox News Channel and a former co-host of the syndicated The Daily Buzz. In addition to his work at FNC, Morris runs a media consulting company called Action Now Consultant Group. Morris has also appeared as a guest host of CNET's Podcast The 404. Morris co-hosts a weekly podcast with childhood friend, professional wrestler Mike Quackenbush called The Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe. Every Friday Morris hosts Gadgets & Games on Strategy Room on the Fox website."

In other words, a guy who has no credentials except media wanker. And he likes iPads.

Ya, maybe you wouldn't be, but I get distracted. Having a bright screen pop up 3 feet in front of you while someone clicks away typing messages, is VERY distracting. Having people talk on their cell phones is also VERY distracting. But you think it's ok as long as the movie is good enough? Because if it's ohh so good people would never notice something like that? Are you just trying to make excuses for people to use their phones during a movie?

So, it's ok to annoy the other patrons as long as _you_ don't like the movie? You're right, the world does revolve around you.

How do you _know_ it wasn't caused by another outside factor, like Cell Towers, Radar stations, or radio/television towers for instance? Should we ban those anywhere near the flightpath of an airplane because we can't prove those don't cause SOME interference with avionics or another instrument on one of your "few crashes"?

I'm no Apple fan, but damn do people elect stupid people to City Council. That Kris lady or whatever doesn't care about anything besides "Free WiFi" [goto 13:19]. That's what she wants for the city. Screw tax revenue, new residents, etc, etc, no, she wants Apple to give her free WiFi. Again, I don't like Apple, but Steve's response was great, basically, (paraphrased), "We'll give you WiFi when you stop taxing us, since that's what taxes are for, public works projects".