fancyketchup

Well done. Really, what would it take to get you to re-phrase your comment into something like:

"Forgive me for asking because I don't understand how these situations came to pass in the first place?"

To be honest, I don't think anything would.

Simply stated, I have met too many people (friends, family and coworkers) who tell me well-crafted stories about how they came to be in a car accident, or almost-accident. These stories invariably cast the teller as the victim who could do nothing to prevent the accident (aside from driving more slowly or following at a greater distance). When I later ride with them, I find that they tailgate, speed and roll through stop signs.

Perhaps I was too quick to judge. Maybe you're among the 1% of 'attentive drivers' who actually drive well. I'm just so tired of hearing the excuses of the other 99% that I lumped you in with them.

If you really are that 1%, then I have to say I'm truly am sorry. I hope you are. Because if you aren't, you're probably feeling smug about putting me in my place and will feel justified in driving recklessly in the future.

That's why you don't drive 100 mph, mm away from a line of stopped/stopped cars or next to a crowded street corner.

Your examples are ones of exactly the type of behavior insurance companies are trying to disincentivize. Namely, fail-deadly behavior that puts you in a position where you have to be attentive to avoid a collision when other actors don't do exactly as they should. Your error was putting yourself in that position in the first place.

Negative earnings, maybe? Usually P/E ratios for those companies are reported as N/A, though.

Huh. I haven't ever run into that, and I've been using uber twice a week for more than a year. Maybe it just comes down to which city you're in?

Are U&L still ignoring rules designed to provide access to those with disabilities?

In my city one of the options (besides SUV, black car, etc) is for persons with disabilities. The app seems to have some options to switch between requesting a driver with a wheelchair-compatible car and the city's own paratransit service. I've never used it myself, so I can't comment on the implementation.

Sounds like it does most of what ride-share services do.

Does Flywheel allow you to rate individual drivers/cars (and prevent being matched to creepy drivers or dirty cars on future rides)? I think that's actually one of the biggest value-adds of Uber/Lyft/Sidecar--direct feedback about drivers which tends to retain good drivers and reject bad ones.

Depends on the airport. Some airports are vicious about enforcing Uber bans (and the drivers quickly figure this out), so drivers will call to confirm your location if the pin is near the airport.

On the other hand, most airports have some sort of public transportation heading in a not-airport direction...

I think you're being more than a little unfair.

Part of the problem is that there simply isn't as much money to be made in digital as there was in analog. A digital camera doesn't need film, but film (and film processing) accounted for much of Kodak's profits for many years. So it's not just a simple matter of "make digital cameras instead of analog ones".

Also, remember that Kodak was very big into digital imaging, and was considered the leader in the field of high-end digital cameras. That is, until the Nikon D1 came along around 1999. Even then, Kodak sensors were common among the next few generations of DSLRs.

[...] compared to the exorbitant rates [...] $8-10 shipping and handling for standard shipping [...]

So here's the thing: It actually does cost $8-10 to ship most of the types of things you can buy on Amazon. I don't know what Amazon pays for shipping, but I would be surprised if FedEx/UPS/OnTrac will even look at an Amazon box for less than $3-5 (to say nothing of transporting it).

Amazon Prime is predicated on the idea that you'll make Amazon your default retailer after paying for prime.

Being a customer's default retailer is a powerful position for two reasons. First, many customers don't shop around for the lowest price on each item (they shop for lowest basket price), so your margins don't get squeezed quite as much. Second, you don't need to advertise (as much) to these people, so it reduces your marketing spend.

As loyalty programs go, it's a very clever one.

Because it costs $85 every 5 years? Where does that money go? I don't know, but I bet whomever gets it is politically connected.

I think it gets encoded into your boarding pass.

It does. Three beeps from the little scanner thingy at the ID check means you have Pre. One beep means you don't.

Managed inclusion v2 was ended in September. That's when managed inclusion v3 began[1].

[1] http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/checkpoints-borders-policy-de...

You were part of "managed inclusion" in TSA Pre(check).

Unless you're "randomly" selected by the little light on the secure side of the magnetometer.

Ok, that's fine. It's still within the range I mentioned above. But, I'll just note for the record that you rounded $587k down to $500k, and $840k down to $800k.

But these studies are all flawed because they are based on historical data when 4-year degrees were scarcer. In an era when many graduates can't get a job or end up with one that does not require a degree (i.e. barista) it's obvious that their ROI prospects are grim.

I don't think that's at all obvious. We are rapidly approaching the moment [1] when over half of the U.S. population has some sort of college degree, and already 2/3rds have at least "some college" education.

Applying to a front-line retail job with a Bachelor's degree no longer marks you as desperate and over-qualified. You are assuming that an employer will hire a person with only a high school diploma when she can just as easily hire a person with an associate's or bachelor's for the same wage. That will put downward pressure on wages for those without a college degree.

It may very well be the case that sending "everyone" to college does nothing more than depress the wages of those with only a high school education. However, that is not an argument against the positive ROI of college. Spending $100k to avoid $200k in lost wages is still a positive return.

Finding a job with a B.A. or B.Sc. may be difficult, but finding a job with only a high school diploma is even more so.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

The page I cited actually breaks down lifetime earnings by age (a.k.a. "annual income"). It's true that non-college graduates get an earlier start on savings, but the overall trend is that their annual income starts to decline as they get closer to retirement age (they peak in their mid to late 40's).

You have to assume totally unrealistic investment gains in the first four years to make up for the $500k less total income.

Wait, really?

The incremental lifetime earning from a Bachelor's degree is something like 0.5 to 1.5 million dollars[1]. The cost of attending college could double at least once before the ROI goes negative.

[1] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/colleg...

You can't book an appointment with most of these directly, and not all of them can write prescriptions legally.

So I think that varies from state to state.

[Anecdote warning] When I was in grad school, at least, I was able to directly book appointments at the student health center with PAs, MDs and DOs (perhaps a university-run health center is different, somehow?). I also don't recall ever facing difficulty having a prescription written.

My understanding is that a PAs can't open their own practice, but that several PAs can function more or less independently under the supervision of one MD/DO principal.

I think we need multiple grades of doctor.

Don't we have that already?

Doctor / Physician

Physician Assistant

Nurse Practitioner

Registered Nurse

Nursing Aid / Nurse Assistant

Does the government pay airlines to fly to podunk towns that wouldn't otherwise get service, or something?

In some cases, yes. It's called "Essential Air Service." But that's not the usual reason for B->C having negative apparent cost.

Maybe, but that's a different argument than this thread, which is about copyright.

Lossless upsampling the 44.1 kHz recording to, say 192 kHz is trivial for the reproduction equipment. That the LPF on the reproduction end wants the DAC to run at greater than 44.1 kHz has no bearing on the sampling rate of the distribution format.

What about all the consumer routers than run on MIPS cores?

The two pictures don't have the same vertical scaling, and it's clear that the probe is ahead of the LPF in the signal chain.

Except that you can clearly hear the autopilot disengage before the car swerves to the left. And the swerve doesn't start until it is physically impossible for a collision to happen. And the slope of the road isn't enough to make the car swerve like that. And you can't see the lower half of the steering wheel (where the driver's hands might be). And [...] ad infinitum.

Just a "Youtuber" trolling for clicks.

Aside from the things camperbob identified, this is pretty neat. The tricky parts are getting the pulse generator right (you want a sharp leading edge and flat top, with no ringing) and having an oscilloscope with a flat response well into the GHz range.

One solution to the second challenge is to home-brew a sampling adapter, like this one from 2000[1]. This is a good fit for TDR because of two factors inherent in the TDR process: a) it is repetitive, so the usual drawbacks to "sub-nyquist" sampling don't apply; and b) you have ready access to a pre-trigger, so it is easy to see the leading edge of the signal of interest.

The first challenge requires a lot of cleverness or access to expensive test equipment.

[1] http://electronicdesign.com/boards/1-ghz-sampling-oscillosco...

What financial implications are there, aside from "The IRS wants to make sure you're not leaving just before an anticipated windfall to avoid taxes?"

High-speed gearing is indeed very difficult, but jet engines already typically have two separate, concentric rotating units [...]

Yes, everyone knows that, but the spools are not connected by a set of gears as they are in the P&W's new engine.

Also, as the article mentions, turboprops (essentially jet engines connected to a propeller) already commonly use gearing. I guess you can think of it as a turboprop with a duct.

The new engine is ALSO unlike most installations of turboprop engines in that the fan is driven by the power spool, not a free turbine. The free turbine (in turboprops that have them), which powers the reduction gears for the propeller, runs at a much lower speed than the power turbine.

The only reason people need to rent is because of the requirements to own (down payments, emergency funds to cover your mortgage in tough times so you don't lose your equity)

So, in other words, the landlord is selling a service? In exchange for a monthly fee, you don't have to do any of the crap (down payments, mortgages, property taxes, maintenance) it takes to own a home?

Do you view farmers the same way? If it weren't for the fact that you need to eat to survive, you wouldn't have to buy their product! And what do they do anyway? Just plant some seeds in the ground and wait for them to grow! Those damn leeches!

And if everyone became doctors, who would you call to fix the toilet?