Time constraints equals higher prices

I think I know why so many things are becoming more expensive these days.

It is the old problem of supply and demand, but the supply in this case is time.

Basically imagine you are running a business that most people use on weekends - only two days per week. And those two days are really hot in demand so that you end up booked up for months in advance on weekends, but comparatively less on weekdays.

In theory the thing to do would be to raise your prices on the weekends so you are charging two prices, one for weekdays and another price for weekends.

Case in point:

CardioTrek.ca is a personal training company and most of their clients want weekend or evening time slots. So much that their weekend slots are prebooked 5 months in advance - but the owner won't raise prices because he believes that would be unfair to new clients - and he thinks prices are already pretty high.

Another possibility would be if you have too many clients and not enough time to serve them all - that would be a good time to raise your prices for any new clients.

Case in point:

Toronto website design company designSEO.ca recently raised their hourly rates for website design work to $30 per hour. The reason? Too many clients. (They could hire more junior website designers but maybe that would be more of a nuisance. I don't know.)

Another possibility is lets says you are semi retired and do consulting work. You enjoy your free time and you don't want to work very often. So you jack your consulting fee up to $100 per hour or $200 per hour. Some ridiculous rate that makes it clear you only work for people willing to pay big bucks.

And there you go, three examples of why prices for services can skyrocket in a hurry due to time constraints.

And the more specialized and skilled the desired service is the higher the prices can go. That is why plumbers charge so much.

Why are modern tvs so slow?

Have you ever noticed how modern TVs are so slow compared to TVs during the 1980s?

I am serious. TVs are now slower than they used to be because now they are digital and have to load a blue screen or some logo nonsense before loading the actual tv guide, list of channels or the channel that was last on before you turned off the tv.

And this is my beef with a lot of technology today... More technology is actually making things slower and more cumbersome.

Examples

ATMs and Credit Cards vs cash.

Downloading tv shows vs VCRs.

Text messaging vs just phoning the person.

Tablets vs pen and paper.

The internet vs the YellowPages and an encyclopedia set.

eReaders vs books.

Downloading a taxi app and figuring out how to use vs just calling a cab.

And the list goes on. Seriously, technology is actually making life more complicated than it needs to be.

Katy Perry on Sesame Street - too much?

Below is the video of Katy Perry with Elmo, a clip that was pulled after complaints from upset parents who felt Katy Perry showed too much skin.

Please note that these are the same kind of parents who complained that Bert and Ernie were homosexuals living together.

As opposed to what the rest of us have been thinking for many years, that Bert and Ernie are either brothers or just friends. Sounds perfectly reasonable right?

Well the fact is you can not make these right wing religious nutjobs happy. Take for example the HIV positive puppet Kami who was introduced in 2002 for the South African version of Sesame Street, known as Takalani Sesame. The character was designed to promote tolerance and understanding in South Africa (which has a huge HIV epidemic), but instead it became a magnet for homophobia in America and a horde of Republican congressmen all "warned" Sesame Street against introducing any gay or HIV positive characters into the American version of the show.

So basically it would not matter how much skin (or how little skin) Katy Perry shows in any clip with Elmo on Sesame Street - the religious nutjobs were always going to get offended anyway. Which is amusing because these same Christians presumably go to church every Sunday and worship a statue of a mostly naked Jesus - who is best described as the zombie son of god.

So mostly naked zombie Jesus is apparently okay, but a little bit of Katy Perry's skin is not. That frankly is hypocritical and sexism.

I can only imagine what they would think if Katy Perry did a version of "Madonna with Child", a very common theme in paintings within Catholicism. They would probably decry her about showing too much skin again - regardless of how much she actually showed. It would not matter how innocent or religious the image was, because Katy Perry is a pop singing sex symbol it would be seen as religious sacrilege.