I'd recommend checking out this Van building YouTube channel if you're interested in using extruded aluminum for van building. https://youtube.com/c/HumbleRoad
It goes in depth on the topic, as that's the main method he uses.
Does anyone know of other cities / areas using this type of pricing? It sounds like this is pretty new, and I'd be interested in seeing any research / studies on the long term impact of this kind of pricing.
I could see how it is both useful and could have a disproportionate, negative impact on lower social-economic classes.
I-95 in South Florida. Currently it maxes out at $10 but I heard they are increasing it to $20.
Not sure if there has been any research, but yes I have heard on the radio how some people are against the express lanes because it does have a negative impact for those who can't afford it, and it's quite dangerous.[1] The latter might be due to a bad implementation however.
It seems like a positive impact for people who can't afford it here in Northern Virgina. The express lanes didn't take capacity away from the normal lanes, but they do take away some traffic, so in theory people who don't use them should still be better off.
Yeah, that's a substantial difference. If it's purely additive then at worst there's some sort of opportunity cost. If they transform normal lanes into paid lanes then it's a whole different sort of thing.
MnDoT also added it to I-35E northbound out of St. Paul. There's talk about adding it to I-35W northbound out of Minneapolis, too. I think MNPass entirely managed by the state of Minnesota, though, which may help keep the prices down.
IMHO MnDoT has actually been doing a pretty good job over the last 15-20 years at smoothing out traffic flows considerably in the north metro without adding much in the way of metering/tolls. SW Metro traffic flows still suck from what I hear, although to be fair the topography has something to do with that (i.e. HOW many bridges do we need to build over the Minnesota River?)
Austin, Texas has dynamic pricing on TX-1 express lanes.
I think the algorithm there is probably similar to this one and would ratchet up the price if a slow truck/construction/plow created a condition that looked like congestion.
I've heard both ways, that it helped considerably and that it didn't. (Because London doesn't have many through roads and few vehicles were there that didn't have to be?)
It used to be the case that you'd get the phone subsidized by your service plan from Verizon, but not any longer. Verizon and the other major US carriers stopped subsidizing phones in the past few years.
For me the biggest reason I wanted to buy through Verizon was they were offering a promotional $200 trade in value for my Note 4. For some people selling their phone separately would be a better deal though, so even that won't matter.
Not sure if that shows up properly. But in September an iPhone 6 was "worth" $650 as a trade-in. As of yesterday it was still worth $650. Today it seems to be $100 less:
Trade in and get iPhone 7 for $99.99.
Get up to $550 savings.
It's clearly a subsidy because an iPhone 6 isn't worth anywhere near $650 (or even $550) on the open market. Heck, I had an old iPhone 5C lying around that, last month, Verizon gave me $400 credit for toward an iPhone 7.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck ...
The training I have gone through in product management provides a more nuanced approach:
1) Get customer feedback by actually visiting and talking with customers in the environment where they use your app/service. This contextual knowledge should be helpful in getting to a root problem and not just a surface concern.
2) Don't depend on just one customer's feedback. Instead, survey at least a portion of your customer base to find out if this is a common problem or not.
3) Have a clear business growth strategy for which customer segments you are looking to grow, whether that's keeping existing customers, taking competitor's customers, etc and let that further filter which ideas move to the top of your list.
I don't think there are any magic bullets to ensure you get prioritization right every time, but this process might help some.
I enjoy these types of articles because they show a historical, non-digital approach to "hacking" the system. Or put another way, escaping the system that wasn't treating them justly.
But I can appreciate that some who want HN to remain strictly tech focused.
With a market cap of less than $350 million, shouldn't Google just buy them? I realize that they'd pay more than that, and that there might not be enough stock available to get a controlling share, but it would be an interesting strategy if they could pull it off.
It's about $425m as I write this. Yes, Google should probably try to buy them if they can. The people that control VRNG might consider that they'd rather have a billion in cash from the payouts, that they can then push into more patent gains, than to sell right now for, say, $800m.
I think people in that type of position frequently tend to get over-confident after winning, and rather than take one big payday, they keep rolling the dice.
Anyone have suggestions for an alternative? I haven't ever found a product that works as consistently and seamlessly (without having to fight firewall issues).
Edit: I should add that I'm willing to pay for a service, but most of the options I've seen are for enterprise customers, not individuals with a few clients.
I've used Teamviewer a few times, but I found it cumbersome compared to LogMeIn. I'll have to check it out further.
I'm also looking for something that can be used commercially, that doesn't cost a ton. I've looked at both Teamviewer's and LogMeIn's licenses in the past and found them unmanageable for some of my situations.
I currently use LogMeIn to help my grandma with her computer woes. I only log in remotely about once per month, and only for a few minutes - so a pay as you go option would be perfect for me.
I tried copilot - but it failed utterly and miserably on two points:
- DPI. My grandmother's computer has a high DPI setting, so she can read menus/buttons. When connecting from my local computer, copilot just couldn't handle the DPI difference (appearently).
- Windows 8/Metro. When my grandma was stuck in metro, I couldn't connect remotely. Which sort of defeated the purpose of the tool.
Just checked it out. Looks interesting. The pricing structure is still not quite the perfect fit for me, so let me explain.
I've got around 20 clients I have to meet with in person every 6-12 weeks. I'd like to have a client app I can install on each of their computers (PC and Mac) so at any time I can jump on and help them without any prompt (other than possibly a "allow David access, yes or no" option.
It is likely that the real problem is that I'm just not charging enough. With what I current charge my clients, I can't justify $5 / month for a client who generates on average $15-30 in revenue each month (that's average, because I don't meet with them every month).
I like the Copilot Classic pay by the minute pricing, and if my users were more tech savy, that could work well. But they aren't and by the time I get them to connect to a website and get the screenshare running, they'd rather I just setup an appointment to meet with them in person. The Copilot Classic pricing structure though could work well for allowing me to answer any questions that take less than 15-20 minutes remotely and reserve onsite appointments for the bigger issues.
I'll still have to give it a try with a few of my more tech savy clients and see if we can't make it work. Thanks for the suggestion.
Joel is on here. Still pops up, occasionally (that I've noticed).
Many presences have seemingly declined, in the last few years. Interests and competing demands change for everyone; there's also some ongoing speculation that as HN has grown and, for lack of a better term, the signal/noise ratio has declined, those more interested in a focused and concentrated "signal" have lost interest, or patience with the noise.
Also, any individual's participation, even if held at a steady level, is likely to decline in prominence at least somewhat amidst the vastly increased HN traffic.
I can't speak for Joel on this (I don't know him, even remotely). But since the grandparent was speaking about presences more generally.
NoMachine[1] works well for me. Although it won't help with firewall issues. I'm lucky enough that the desktop machine in my office has a public IP. x11vnc[2] is a nice lightweight alternative that basically allows you to use any standard VNC client to connect to an existing X session.
This looks interesting. They make all of their money on enterprise licenses and give out their software for free to end users.
Also, they're about to fix their firewall limitation:
"NoMachine Anywhere is the next piece of the puzzle. NoMachine Anywhere is a free service, which will be available to everyone, enabling people to connect to each other's computer behind routers and firewalls, without the need for knowing their IP address. Initially slated for end 2013, it has been moved to first quarter 2014." -from their website
Unfortunately the pricing plans for LogMeIn and TeamViewer are setup for enterprise customers. I understand it might not be worthwhile for them to deal with smaller customers, but I'd love to find a product for less than $50 per month (preferably $5-25 a month). But I am not an expert on the costs of running the services that LogMeIn or TeamViewer offer, so maybe that's not possible.
Well they do have a live chat on those two pages. Might as well make use of it! Or you could contact their live chat provider and mention the copying. They might care.
Yeah for some reason it's still snowing and below 30 most days.
About the topic though: I'm really excited to see what people come up with... I might even have a few ideas
It goes in depth on the topic, as that's the main method he uses.