Rivalarrival

"Its" has been deprecated.

"It's" follows the rule for contractions with words ending in "s" (is, has) as well as the apostrophe-s rule for possessive forms. As you have demonstrated, the distinction is obvious in context; there is no significant opportunity for confusion.

Keeping the old form does nothing for society other than to inflate the egos of authoritarian English teachers, provide an opportunity for pedantry, confuse spell checkers, and introduce an unneeded exception to the possessive form. Nothing of value is lost by eliminating the old word.

So, "It's" is a homonym: two words spelled and pronounced the same, but carrying different meanings.

I didn't see mayonnaise on either list?

A BMX bike without a rider will roll along happily. We called it "ghost riding" when I was a kid.

The pathetically ginormous “trucks”

Are due to absurd incentives in NHTSA standards, which tighten economy and emission standards more on smaller cars than larger ones. Rather than try to reach the implausible requirements set on small cars, they just lengthen and widen them until the are large enough to qualify for a looser standard.

Correct the perverse incentives, and cars will get smaller again.

Yeah, but you'd fuck Jar Jar, so...

Hybrid hard drive. Basically, a hard drive with a large solid state cache.

Actual shipping would vary depending on location, but sellers are padding the shipping charge so they can display a lower unit price.

There's a little to be said for it, sure.

I use nearlyfreespeech.net for personal hosting. They charge me about 10 cents a day.

Shooters keep shooting for as long as they want unless they are forcibly stopped. Number of deaths are directly correlated with the duration of their attack. The sooner the attack is stopped, the fewer total deaths and injuries.

"Run, Hide, Fight" increases any individual's own survival rate, but paradoxically, "Fight, Hide, Run" increases the survival rate of the entire group, even though it greatly increases risks to the "fighters".

Try it with a paintball, airsoft, or squirt-gun wielding attacker and unarmed defenders. Tell the group that as soon as they know where the attacker is, charge him. If you don't know where he is, hide until you figure it out. If there is no place to hide, run away. Count up the "dead", and it will almost always be substantially lower when the group blitzes the attacker vs. when they try to avoid being killed by the attacker.

It doesn't work that way at all.

Pricing strategy generally calls for optimizing return. They calculated that this company has 342 customers. Each customer adds $28 in costs. The unknown is how many additional customers will choose to buy at a particular price point.

If we halve the price paid by the customer (and add $28 to account for our increased costs) will we at least double our customer base to 684?

If we halve that price again (and add another $28), will we at least double our customer base again, to 1368?

At some point, lowering the price any further will not gain enough customers,, and that is the minimum price we can charge while maintaining our current profits. The article went well beyond that point, contemplating a price point that would provide only 30% of their current profits.

If they lowered their price point to, say, $2700/yr, they would only need to add about 5100 new customers to break even with their $42,222 price. I think they would attract a hell of a lot more than 5100 new customers at that price point, meaning they would be radically increasing their revenue and profits. They are currently earning far less than they could be by demanding so much.

Just to expand your math in a different direction, going from 342 customers to 684 adds $9576 in costs, but cuts the price by 1/2 (plus $28). $21,139.

Going from 684 customers to 1368 adds another $19152. They break even at a $10,598 price point.

From 1368 to 2736 customers adds another $38304 in costs, but reduces the break even price point to $5327.

From 2736 to 5472 customers, another $76608 in costs, and a break even price point of $2685.

They are recouping all their additional costs, and making exactly the same profit charging 5472 people $7/day instead of 342 customers $115/day.

How many of those 1.2 million HIV patients can afford $7/day? If just 1% of them are willing to pay $7 a day, they will more than double their profits.