Big Deep Questions: What’s the weirdest thing you ever bought or sold on eBay?
Tell us all about it. And if you’re able and inclined to send a picture of it, please do: steve [at] dailymole [dot] com.
Crowdsourcing: Have you run up against the rising cost of veterinarian bills?
As of last year, per the NYT, veterinary bills were rising at a rate of 9 percent a year–or about three times the general rate of inflation. With the higher bills has come a more lavish menu of services for house pets. According to one site pimping pet insurance:
- Routine procedures, such as treating a broken leg, can cost $2,000 - $5,000.
- Surgically removing ingested items such as rocks, sticks or toys can cost $1,000 - $3,000.
- Treatment for cancer in dogs and cats can easily cost $2,000 - $10,000 or more, depending on the severity and type of cancer. Unfortunately, studies show that nearly 60% of dogs who are more than six years old will get some form of cancer, and cancer is currently the leading cause of death in dogs over the age of 10.
And about the increasing popularity of pet health insurance: Consumer Reports thinks it’s a “dog”; AOL Money agrees, and adds some tips for saving $$; MSN Money offers some useful background and links.
Our question: Have you ever found yourself up against vet bills you couldn’t afford–but also couldn’t bear not to incur?
Consumer crowdsource thread: Is your Comcast digital cable getting slower?
A question for the local Comcast digital cable customers out there: Have you noticed the service getting slower and balkier in the past month or two? I’ve talked with a handful of people who’ve been having the same troubles I am, which include excruciatingly slow menu-surfing and more bugs when I try to record things to DVR–the future-recording commands failing to “take” on the first try, the screen blanking for a moment or freezing altogether when I try to start recording something in real-time.
Is this happening system-wide, and if so, why? I spent a while trolling online forums for insights, but there are so many Comcast complaint boards, and so many complaints, that it was hard to find anything recent on problems of speed/bandwidth.
Minneapolis wi-fi service so far: a gentleman’s C-
Site member Geoff Garton writes: Boy was I eager to be the first one on my block to sign up for US Internet’s Wifi service. Boy am I starting to feel dumb. I selectively tuned out those voices of reason trying to explain that residential wifi was going to be a tricky proposition; that wifi is an inherently dodgy technology; that it’d be wise to sit back and watch how Minneapolis Wifi shakes out before subscribing. Well I’d been tethered to the dial-up for about ten years and I just couldn’t wait a minute longer.
A little over a month into my two-year contract (yeah, I was really excited), I’m giving the service a C-. My first week of service: several hours of access followed by 5 days of no service. “Node is down” was the daily explanation. Node went back “up” at some point and service resumed, but service of a distinctly intermittent nature. I probably get bounced, on average, twice an hour. Which is especially lovely after composing a long, important email that didn’t get saved.
Speeds are another issue. I’m paying for “up to 3 Mb/s” download speeds. I understand the “up to” qualifier, but my average speedtest.net download speed is around 1.5 Mb/s. I’ve recently heard that the “up to 3 Mb/s” is actually calculated as the sum of download and upload speeds, e.g., if max upload is 1 Mb/s, your “up to” download speed is actually only 2 Mb/s. I’ve yet to have this “officially” confirmed, but it came from a USI employee, and this is not what the sales and pricing information says.
The techs have all been courteous, patient, and well-intentioned, but I don’t think they have the tools to make wifi a dependable residential broadband option. Not now anyway. So, my experience in a nutshell: wifi is less dependable than dial-up, not a heck of a lot faster, and about three times as expensive. If the system was not ready to go live, it shouldn’t have been marketed as such. If the technology is inherently less dependable then other internet connections, this should be explained and subscription rates should reflect that fact. It seems to me a free “beta-testing” period should have been implemented citywide so that consumers could experience the technology first hand while USI worked on the kinks and managed expectations.
All that said, I’d love to see the service be successful, for the benefit of all concerned parties. I hope USI can come through with some fixes or they’re going to see some very disappointing subscription rates.
Almost four months on, how has your iPhone experience been?
The iPhone’s release on June 29 was followed by a cascade of horror stories about AT&T network troubles.
So our question for all you early-adopters is, what have you thought of your iPhone since then–as telephone and as gadget?
