For example, take the brand new iPhone 4 that hasn’t even arrived yet.  It’s already crippled.  How?  Verizon has decided not to allow certain features of the phone unless you pay more.

WHAT?!

Let me repeat that.  You pay $200 for a device and you are not allowed to use all of its features, unless you pay MORE money to the carrier.  They are basically hijacking the device you paid for. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if this were a free phone or if my service wasn’t “unlimited”, but surely this raises some really good questions that Verizon has and probably won’t address in a public forum.

For example, take the mobile hotspot function of the iPhone or Droid phones.  Verizon makes you pay extra for the use of this function.  But WHY?  I paid for the phone.  It is a feature of the phone.  I pay for unlimited bandwidth, and any connected devices would be using the phone’s bandwidth.  So, Verizon, what gives?!

Let’s make a quick analogy.  You buy a new car that seats 4.  You fill it up with gas.  You are ready to hit the road.  But your friends can’t enter the car unless you pay more.  Why?  Well, just because.  Makes sense?  Didn’t think so…

If you can offer a logical explanation, I can try to understand and be more civil about this, but until then, @(*^&!!!

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When I first asked myself that question, I thought maybe 200? Those things are so “expensive”, right? 200 seemed reasonable. Well, it turns out that this information is pretty hard to find. Some websites I visited counted 2000, some less, but according to this report by the NOAA, there are currently nearly 4000 active oil rigs that operate at depths of more than 1000m (3,280ft). Now, is it just me or does this number seems ridiculous? 4000? Seriously? How many more could be inactive?  Here’s a good map of oil rigs in the Gulf with a legend.  Nearly 4000 oil rigs in the Gulf, nearly 44,000 miles of pipelines.

I would imagine that flying over the oil rigs at night might be much like flying in to a city.  Those things are so big and they are well lit, I bet.

I can’t find the source for this anywhere at the moment, but I remember reading something about safety standards in the US versus those of European nations.  From what I recall, Europe demands that anyone drilling for oil have a safety shut off valve, which I guess the US does not mandate.  C’mon USA, really?

I’ve read so much over the last few months about the lack of responsibility that oil companies have and I got so angry at that.  It’s good to get angry, right?  I think it would be a bad thing if we read all that stuff and felt indifferent.

This BP spill ordeal has she a light on a few things in my own life.  I do depend on oil for a lot but I’ve been making a much more concerted effort to conserve and use as little as I can.  I ride my bike to work when I can, for one.  I hope you are thinking about what you can do, too.

The results are in the graph below and represent published figures from each university’s website.  Please note that these numbers only represent what they call “Tuition and Fees” and don’t include any room and board, meal plans, book, or anything else.  The sources I used to come up with this graph are listed below as well.

While most of the universities did publish their tuition cost, Northwestern University stood out in that their price was not transparent.  I did a rough estimate for only their tuition for 3 quarters and did not include any other fees, so this number is on the very low end of their spectrum.

Also, note that not all universities had posted their tuition for 2010-2011 yet, so some of them still have the 2009-2010 cost.  The tuition year is show in ()’s.

The most expensive university in the Big Ten is Northwestern University which costs roughly $35,000 for 1 year of education plus all kinds of fees for residents and non-residents alike.

The least expensive university in the Big Ten is Iowa, which costs roughly $7,000 for residents.

The least expensive university in the Big Ten for out-of-town students is Minnesota which costs a little under $22,000 per year.

The sources I used for these figures:

http://admissions.illinois.edu/cost/tuition_freshman.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~iuadmit/cost/tuition.shtml
http://www.uiowa.edu/facts/tuition/index.htm
http://www.finaid.umich.edu/Financial_Aid_Basics/cost.asp
http://admissions.msu.edu/finances/tuition.asp
http://www.irr.umn.edu/tuition/
http://www.northwestern.edu/sfs/tuition/undergrad_tuition.html
http://undergrad.osu.edu/costs.html
http://www.psu.edu/studentaid/costs/est_costs.shtml?reload
http://www.purdue.edu/futureboilermaker/costs/tuitionfees.html
http://www.admissions.wisc.edu/costs.php

While this news is mildly exciting (Android phones ARE a lot cooler than any in Verizon’s current lineup), it brings with it a lot of speculation regarding the ever-elussive Verizon iPhone deal.

The Android phones are very powerful devices with many of the features adorned by the iPhone like touch screen, its own App store, wi-fi, and many more.  Additionally, the Android phones afford the customers with features not available on the iPhone.  The fact that it’s an open source platform allows for a lot of freedom in application development and how people actually use these devices.

Verizon is now on the offensive and AT&T is the underdog in the fight.  Verizon is still seemlingly after the iPhone, though.  It recently took off it’s gloves in an add campaign dubbed “There’s a Map for That” where they claim to offer customers 5x more coverage than AT&T.

Verizon’s deal with Google is a great move forward for the mobile giant.  While it puts questions in the minds of those waiting for better to arrive on Verizon, it should be noted that Verizon is a company that stands to benefit a great deal from having the best phones around – something that Android could help them achieve.