we have an limit of $1,000 (apiece) for our cats. - Jason Kaneshiro
We've never really had a limit. Our Akita, Mungo got a very agressive form of cancer. We spent about 1,300 to get it removed and treated. We had the option of chemotherapy for him but it wasn't guaranteed and cost almost 1500 each treatment. We couldn't do it. The tumor came back, and we spent a bit more on some treatments. Eventually we had to let him go when the [second] tumor began to eat through his skin. That was one of the hardest things we ever had to do. My Molly has been a family member for 10 years and she recently developed arthritis in her hips. That was only about $500 to take care of. She takes regular supplements now. My Pit Bull was probably the cheapest. He just did regular vet visits and got neutered. He was a healthy boy. - Candace Holly
yeah we had to put down a diabetic, blind dog, and a very old cat with breathing problems. Very hard, but both had already lived long lives. if a pet is suffering and with expensive treatements, just extending life is kind of hard to justify. - Jason Kaneshiro
We spent $1000 on a MRI for our 8 year-old chihuahua when he started having seizures. Found out he has a cyst in his brain which could be removed for another $6000 (minimum). We decided not to do it... too risky and too expensive. Nine months later, he's doing fine on medications, but we know it's only a matter of time. All the recent advances in veterinary medicine make these decisions much more difficult than they used to be. - Daniel Zilber
Between 3 surgeries to remove benign tumors in her belly because we didn't know if they were cancerous (which developed because we didn't have her neutered when she was a puppy, so our fault she had to suffer...) and many ear infections, we've spent at least $4K on our shihtzu in the last 5 years (out of the 9.5 she's been around). - Lindsay Donaghe
I'm impressed by all of your generosity. Right now our two twin cats are very low maintenance (three years old) - Jason Kaneshiro
I have loved pets beyond measure (so much so that I'm actually kind of glad I didn't have kids until after one cat was gone) but anything over a total cat replacement cost is more than we'd spend. I'm +1 on Jason... spending money for unnatural prolonging of life in a pet to me is cruel because they don't understand and can't decide for themselves. - Cyndy
I bet most of us just take this question case by case. The best insurance against honking vet bills is being observant and keeping up with the routine stuff, but there just aren't any guarantees. - Chris Baskind
+1 Chris - and get your pet spayed or neutered ASAP when you get a new one. That one thing will make them much healthier, happier, and easier to get along with (no hormones). - Lindsay Donaghe
Quite a bit. They're part of my family (2 cats). Spent upwards of $1000 on the cat before that, 18 years old. Did ultrasound and one surgery - it helped him get some extra time in the San Diego air. He died when I went up for a job interview at Petstore.com. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. - AJ Kohn
We spent about $2500 on our dog. Cataracts. Glaucoma. Diabetes. Hypothyroidism. Aortic Stenosis. We loved her so much for the 11 years we had her. - Elliott Ng
Jason, you gotta get out of the Valley, dude. - Cyndy
@Cyndy top secret just for you, we're working on it. - Jason Kaneshiro
"Outside the valley" is a pretty big designation and no guarantee of house values safety. I guesstimate ours has lost at least $45K (probably more) worth of value since we bought it almost a year ago. And we thought we were getting a decent good deal at the time. So much for getting any equity in the next 5+ years. - Lindsay Donaghe
If you want stable (and incredibly affordable) real estate prices, come to Rochester NY... No real estate bubble here. - Jason Carreira
Sorry Lindsay.... I'm trying to wrap my head around owning a home that COULD lose $45K in a year. :) The housing here is the one reason we've never been able to leave... it's impossible for us to buy housing ANYWHERE else because selling our house wouldn't give us enough money. - Cyndy
BUT getting back to the original question.... - Jason Kaneshiro
Both candidates have proposed tax cuts to stimulate consumption. But trickle-down economics isn't going to make everyone a winner. We need to invest in education big time so that people can compete in the global economy. We Americans are going to get pwned by everyone else out there who are aware of the hypercompetitive nature of globalization. Time to suit up and play the game! - Elliott Ng
Exceptional post because it provides rationale for embargoes and when you would use them, and some situational if-then advice that helps one figure out what to do if things don't go exactly as planned.
Twitter: @elliottng - Elliott Ng via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Exceptional post because it provides rationale for embargoes and when you would use them, and some situational if-then advice that helps one figure out what to do if things don't go exactly as planned.
Twitter: @elliottng - Elliott Ng via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Laughs are one thing, stupidity is another. - drew olanoff
They would be the first people to go into a PC hissyfit if she was a democrat. - Jay Tannenbaum
Exactly, Jay. I am a Dem, and I am irritated at how it is acceptable for Dems to make comments about her appearance. I may disagree with most of what she believes in, but judging a women on appearance is wrong no matter what her beliefs may be. This goes for Cindy McCain, too. - Michelle Martinez
After sputtering this morning the media is going to go after her hard -- every stereotype in the book (she does happen to look a little like Geena Davis, which won't help). What people don't seem to understand is that conservatives just love her and it will galvanize the right even more. - Jay Tannenbaum
+3. Lets give ourselves another 12 hours of juvenile humor. Then lets shelf the VPILF meme. Although I think @FakeSarahPalin has some legs. Err..u know what i mean. - Elliott Ng
To license it as one user or for exclusive rights? - Adam Helweh
Don't really have a need for a custom Wordpress theme done by someone.I am able to customize most stock Wordpress Themes to suit my needs. - Michael Tefft
For a professional theme for a business site I'd pay at least $500 - $1000 - Glenn Slaven
Take a look at demo.rockettheme.com - Joomla template club, but they offer cool templates with tons of personalization easily implemented. So, tweak a free WP theme and add a one code line change so downloaders can pick from several 'looks' without hacking away themselves. ? - Cheryl Allin
Variations of free templates is a plus on both sides - you save time and they save money. :) - Cheryl Allin
are we referring to full design and writing of the wordpress template? Then I'd say around € 1000 is the maximum for me. I am currently looking for a service who can built me a wordpress template based on my own photoshop design. any ideas how much I should spent on that? - Marcel van der Laan
Good stuff Steven - reminds me of that discussion we had a while back about the early adopter crowd drifting further and further away from the mainstream. - Frederic
The Passionates, for the most part, are unfortunately not objective because The Passion is their bread and butter. But those who want more than a niche will pay attention to how the other 98% use the internet. - Logical Extremes
The "passionates" thing struck me as a bit dissonant, too. Scoble is right: this technology isn't user friendly enough to have wide appeal -- yet. But it's the start of smart browsers. And I *do* think you'll see mom and pop happily swimming in that pool someday soon. - Chris Baskind
I'm with Scoble on this. He's just saying that Ubiquity is not for everyone and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's on the same vein as Jeff Atwood's two types of programmers post. http://www.codinghorror.com/bl... - Alan Le
And I don't agree that the internet is grouped into passionates and nons, unless he means those who are passionate about web technology and those who aren't. Just about everyone is passionate about something. We just aren't all passionate about the same things that Robert or Dave or whoever is passionate about. - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
I just left a comment on the blog that just might choke a hippo. - Mark Dykeman
@Mark .. it was a great comment ... I'll be getting around to replying to all of them shortly as I just finished posting tonight's Discussion Point. - Steven Hodson
youre ok steven. I think early adopters are overrated. For example if you were a home theater early adopter you'd have bought an HD-DVD and a LCD for 10,000 that are now obsolete or a big waste of money. More and more I see the wisdom of being a "fashionably late early adopter"... let the early adopters waste their time / money, kick back and reap the benefits of their work. - Jason Kaneshiro
great post...many people use tech as a tool to help them achieve things in what they ARE passionate about. - Elliott Ng
Good one Steven. Scoble does bring some seriously interesting stuff to his stream. Blocked him once a long (long) time ago. It was a mistake. Noisy? I'm starting to think I'm noisy. Maybe it's a disease :) Love the new blog look. Keep it up - Charlie Anzman
@Jason - I like the idea of the "fashionably late early adopter" - it's cheaper! - Mark Dykeman
@Jason, I totally agree. I consider myself to be one of those and appreciate the time I save by learning from those who get there a few minutes before me. - Kate
Shameless begging for your linklove so Google knows that we are making a legit move to UpTake.com from Kango.com. The chart above is a great case study from Wendy Piersall's move from eMomsAtHome.com to Sparkplugging.com. Now UpTake is in the "When I Didn't Sleep" zone....YIKES. - Elliott Ng via Bookmarklet
I don't trust US media anymore to report the whole story, and of course the Chinese media is controlled and biased. Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera did a great job with the Sichuan Earthquake and the team has done a fantastic job with Olympics coverage as well. - Elliott Ng via Bookmarklet
Gmail's a 'miss' because it doesn't yet surpass Y!Mail and Hotmail in market share? MacOS must be a miss as well... - Kevin Fox
Sorry to make an obvious point, but Google doesn't seem to do well with "community" building applications. Just search. Do search companies have a hard time with social apps for some reason? - Elliott Ng
Google Calendar could become a "miss" because it only offers simple ICS and basic CALDAV. However there is literally zero social functionality for events. I would rather post events on Eventful (though ugly) and let it auto-export to Upcoming and Google Calendar (ics) - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl
I guess from a strict numbers comparison, then (in the case of gmail) Google might have missed. But seriously, the other two mail services don't come close. So from my tweeny perspective, Google has swung and hit. Same with the other Google Services I use. I guess that's why I use them. - Stu Andrews via twhirl
Lame article. We don't expect Google to be Midas. We expect them to innovate, take risks, and occasionally fail on the way to creating great new products. - Ozan Onay
Its not only comm building that Google does not seem to be on cutting edge. Even its core, Search engine, was innovative, simple and worked better that the rest at the time of its inception. Currently, it is still prefered by many and has a stable growth of usage and following, but its one-time advantage (back in 1998), based on page indexing, is not any more competitive. The reason why Google still dominates in the West is its excellent branding and simplicity of search engine. - Hayk Hakobyan
I find it sad that they've reached that pinnacle where it's time to knock them down. I want to believe in Larry and Sergei & am thankful they have power. - timedalkat
Stupid article. While I am a not a cheerleader, I think they have done just fine. I really couldn't care if Less people use Gmail than YahooMail - GMail is so much better. Suprised they never mentioned Dodgeball or Jaiku. - PC Easy via twhirl
Hayk: The Google advantage for me is not "page indexing" but "CACHING". When pages change/go off-line, Google has an old copy. I didn't like Google any better than HotBot for actual searching. - Mitchell Tsai
Comments on orkut in the US press really highlight US-centricity. Makes me wonder how much else about the rest of the world is grossly mis-reported. - Moishe Lettvin
I have no interest in the virtual world market. Still trying to get a handle on the real world. - Ernie Oporto
Mitchell, Doc Searls had recently posted a blog http://bit.ly/TSsfl about which, Yahoo Search or Google Search, is better. He thinks Yahoo does a better job. - Hayk Hakobyan
One thing you've got to admire about GOOGLE...they keep on trying. They haven't become complacent with just being #1 for search. - Jonathan (Vacation Boy)
Chinese netizens using the meme "Surrender Liu" which sounds exactly the same as Liu Xiang's name (which means "Flying Liu"), to spread discussions that Chinese propaganda authorities are trying to make disappear online. - Elliott Ng via Bookmarklet
Interesting commentary by my friend Xiaodi Zhang on the nature of Chinese nationalism/patriotism as exhibited by Liu Xiang and the reactions. - Elliott Ng via Bookmarklet
Elliott, this is a great piece and one that really hits home as an American. I find myself less and less emotionally invested in our Olympians, simply because they seem more interested in personal gain than the greater spirit of the Games as they were intended. It's why I love Kerrie Walsh... 107 matches in a row that she's won, and she is always gracious, always excited to win, and always self-deprecating, looking to improve. Compare her to the track and field competitors... most of the runners are cocky.. - Cyndy
...self-indulgent, and petulant when things don't go their way. I cry at Hallmark commercials, yet fail to be moved by most of the coverage here. Except for the girl who won gold in discus, a sport the U.S. hasn't won in over 70 years. She was excited, she spoke of representing her country, and she was geeked to meet Mary Lou Retton, who she'd idolized growing up watching the Olympics herself. The U.S. needs a lot more of that and a lot less Kobe Bryant. - Cyndy
Thanks Cindy. I thought the swimmers were pretty classy, like Dara Torres. Liked your comment on Twitter - classy "mom" act! - Elliott Ng
There are some, and yes, Dara Torres is one of them. I think a lot of it has to do with youth vs. experience... a good correlary to the Web 2.0 world, no? - Cyndy