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Considering there actually is an online map now that tells you which SF streets are currently covered in human feces and they are having to spend half their street cleaning budget just to deal with all the shit and needles covering their sidewalks? Frankly I'd say whether someone puffing some blueberry ecig is gonna get cancer 20 years from now should be the LEAST of their worries.

Yeah! And sell California too. A hot bed of that extra special breed of democrat corruption.

Here you go: the heart of the great garbage patch on Google Maps. Here's a bunch of photos from Scripps Institute as well. The plastic is about 8 square meters per square kilometer of ocean, being about 0.0008% waste by area, or about 0.0000005% by mass assuming it's all concentrated in the top meter of water.

San Francisco is not the land of "high tech" they'd have you believe.

San Francisco is the land of feces, pollution, open sewers and illiterate white junkies. Images of the REAL San Francisco.

Liar liar factory on fire.

Oh, and for the record: despite all the media hype breathlessly speculating about it without any evidence whatsoever... AP was (obviously) not on in the recent pond crash. "Obviously" because the vehicle was clearly doing far more than 40 in a 35 zone, yet the virtual impossibility of AP being on didn't - as always - stop press speculation. Most of these "Tesla crash" stories turn out to not have involved AP, but while the crashes and insinuation makes the news, the "boring" actuality doesn't; they just stop further coverage of the ones that turn out to be "uninteresting".

Again, I think this is a bad move from Musk on many fronts. But he is right to feel that the press is being irresponsible. Relentless over-coverage of Tesla accidents creates a false impression (that Teslas are dangerous) which runs counter to the actual statistics (that you're 1/4th as likely per unit distance driven to die in a Tesla than in an average car on the road). The media is supposed to create an informed public, not mislead them.

I guess NBC is part of the conservative movement? Or perhaps it's those stalwart conservative professors at Berkeley who make things up... I work a few days each week at Civic Center, and the feces, urine, and needles are quite real.

The second right-wing billionaire plan in three months to gerrymander the entire state of California. But who can blame the right? Gerrymandering is the one thing they know, and can do well. Cracking and packing is a right-wing way of life.

Last time it was an attempt to create two new right-wing states. Both schemes use the same strategy of packing the majority of the population of California into one nearly completely blue state, creating one (or two) slightly red majority states, but with a wealthy deep blue urban center captured at its edge like a hostage to pay the bills.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Dead-and-Still-Voting-177286281.html
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/10/12/gov-jerry-brown-signs-bill-allowing-illegal-aliens-vote/

I'm calling BS on Silicon Valley having a well-developed transit system.

I live in San Jose and work in Palo Alto. Most mornings it takes me exactly one hour from my front door to take a local bus down the street, pick up the express bus to Palo Alto, and another local bus to the front door of my workplace. The afternoon commute is one to two hours long, depending on 280 traffic. Or four hours if a gravel truck spills across all lanes like it did a few months ago.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Gravel-Truck-Overturns-Blocks-Multiuple-Lanes-on-I-280-394043641.html

VTA transit routes (e.g., the transit agency responsible for mess that is silicon valley) have decided that the only viable transit corridors/routes are south san jose to downtown san jose and mountain view to cisco (aka north-sanjose).

That's correct. Homes in the South and jobs in the North determined the transit lines back in the 1980's. VTA was supposed to have a half-dozen East-West light rail lines but those were never built. When San Carlos got shutdown as a street through San Jose State University in the 1990's, the county built the foundations and covered it up with 18 inches of top soil for a future light rail line. The only major East-West line being built is the BART extension from Fremont.

Santa Clara (in the heart of Silicon valley)

Santa Clara (Intel) haven't been the heart of Silicon Valley in decades. It's Menlo Park (Facebook).

[...] (unless those points are walking distance to light-rail or caltrain).

That's why mixed-developments with stores on bottom and four story of apartments on top are sprouting up along the transit lines. If you don't live near a major transit line and don't work near a major transit line, blaming public transit isn't going to fix it. I live near several major transit lines, so I'm an hour away from work in North San Jose, Mountain View or Palo Alto.

This was likely a factor in the decision: the minimum wage is $13/hour and will be $15/hour by 2018.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Minimum-Wage-Jumps-to-13-Per-Hour-in-San-Francisco-385257511.html

When something is more expensive, less of it gets bought. When it costs more to hire people, jobs start to go away.

So you're arguing all of the following?
1) That University of California IT workers actually are making only $13 an hour.
2) That these workers can actually live in San Freakin' Francisco on $13 an hour .
3) That the Indian workers are somehow magically going to be paid LESS than $15 an hour (since the rates are going up and that's your justification, we have use $15 as the rate now).

Good luck with that one.

This was likely a factor in the decision: the minimum wage is $13/hour and will be $15/hour by 2018.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Minimum-Wage-Jumps-to-13-Per-Hour-in-San-Francisco-385257511.html

When something is more expensive, less of it gets bought. When it costs more to hire people, jobs start to go away.

Are you seriously trying to say that your believe that UCSF has IT workers that it is currently paying Please go back to peddling your #fail ec "theory" in the basement. These kinds of choices are made because they seem appealing to administrators and bean counters (who also have ideological BS running through their heads), regardless of whether it makes sense; that is all. (And why do they have those beliefs? Could it be because Econ 101, and probably most MBAs, teach them to look at the world in the manner exemplified by the parent? Could "education" -- used loosely -- be the enemy?)

This was likely a factor in the decision: the minimum wage is $13/hour and will be $15/hour by 2018.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Minimum-Wage-Jumps-to-13-Per-Hour-in-San-Francisco-385257511.html

When something is more expensive, less of it gets bought. When it costs more to hire people, jobs start to go away.

This contract breaks down to 103,000 per year per employee. Why would an extra 4k a year per worker matter? The contractor's overhead profit is certainly more than 4%.

This was likely a factor in the decision: the minimum wage is $13/hour and will be $15/hour by 2018.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Minimum-Wage-Jumps-to-13-Per-Hour-in-San-Francisco-385257511.html

When something is more expensive, less of it gets bought. When it costs more to hire people, jobs start to go away.

First of all, a university receiving public funds is also a public school (especially, if it is entirely State-owned as any branch of University of California is), and it did ban the flag — whether that move was initiated by the monkeys running the zoo or the older officials is secondary in importance.

More importantly, it happened in various actual public high schools too — on the authority of local principals and school districts alike. And the courts support that — for "safety". Evidently, the "batshit crazy" is spreading, while you remain in denial (and sniping at the harmless Evangelicals).

It's bad enough that CalTrans estimates that approximately 1,500 Bay Area drivers a year are filing damage claims against the state, hoping to recoup the money spent on repairs from bad roads

And by that I mean "Bankrupted by corrupt one-party machine politics, deindustrialization, and overly generous union pensions, and where the police can no longer afford to light up streetlights or to investigate any but the most serious crimes.

Tell that to these people

Seven Year Old San Francisco Girl Struck and Killed By Uber Driver; Uber Denies Responsibility http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/...

Boston Uber Driver Charged with indecent Assault and Battery http://www.bostonglobe.com/met...

Off-Duty LA Uber Driver Accused of Sexual Assault http://www.bizjournals.com/los...

Chicago Uber Driver With Felony Conviction Charged With Battery For Allegedly Hitting Passenger http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...

Writer and Activist Reports Being Choked in DC; Uber Denies The Event and Responsibility http://valleywag.gawker.com/ub...

DC Uber Driver Allegedly Assaults Customer for Burping http://www.washingtoncitypaper...

San Francisco Uber Customer Claims Abuse and Assault by Uber Driver (Pando) http://pando.com/2013/11/25/ub...

Passenger Struck In Head With Hammer by UberX Driver http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...

Uber Driver Pulls Gun on Valet in Atlanta http://pando.com/2014/09/08/at...

Uber Driver Punches Passenger in Oklahoma http://newsok.com/oklahoma-cit...

Lyft Driver Attacks Pedestrian in San Francisco http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news...

Lyft Driver Brandishes Knife in Los Angeles http://www.laweekly.com/2013-0...

Uber Customer Sues for $2M over Alleged Driver Stabbing in DC http://dcinno.streetwise.co/20...

DC Uber Driver Allegedly Rapes Customer http://betabeat.com/2013/03/ub...

Uber Driver Charged with Fondling Passenger in Chicago http://valleywag.gawker.com/ub...

DC Uber Driver Arrested for Alleged Rape But Not Charged Despite Strong Evidence http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Another DC Uber Driver Accused of Molesting Uber Rider http://valleywag.gawker.com/an...

Passenger Struck In Head With Hammer by UberX Driver http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...

Uber Driver in India Accused of Rape http://www.bbc.c

Referring to the following article, SAP has done this since April of 2014. My understanding is the program has been successful for both the company and the employees.

I have close friends who have an autistic child, and programs like these give them hope. I admire companies that follow Sun Tzu's philosophy that all people can be useful if you look for their strengths.

This brings me to my curiosity over why Americans keep building houses out of wood in these regions? In California for example much of the earthquake damage seems to be wooden houses although they have noticeably strengthened building codes Californians are still stuck with a whole lot of vulnerable older houses

Structural engineer here. Wooden structures survive earthquakes best because they flex. Contrary to the story of the three little pigs, stone masonry is the worst because it has no lateral strength. They're fine in static loading when all the forces are pointing straight down; but the moment the force vector tilts a bit sideways they collapse. The huge death tolls you hear about from earthquakes in developing countries is almost always from collapsed masonry or concrete structures. Mud huts simply don't have the mass to kill residents, and wood homes survive most earthquakes relatively intact. In the 1933 Long Beach earthquake most of the brick schoolbuildings collapsed. Fortunately the earthquake happened in the evening when the kids were home from school, or it could've been a disaster rivaling the 1906 San Francisco quake. But that's the quake which made California realize brick buildings in earthquake country were just plain stupid. If you drive around Los Angeles or San Francisco and look at the older brick buildings, you'll often see a regular pattern of square metal plates on the outside. These are the end ties for steel rods which retrofitted to masonry buildings. They run through the entire length of the building and connect all four sides together into a rigid box. Without them the walls simply fall over in an earthquake.

Metal would be better, but is much more expensive. And its strength is not needed for static loads in smaller structures. Static loading is the reason skyscrapers are made of metal, not because it's more resistant to earthquakes. Skyscrapers are naturally resistant to earthquakes because their height gives them a much lower natural resonance frequency than most earthquakes, and they just kind of shimmy in place during a quake. The highest-risk structures are about 3 stories tall - that's where your resonance frequency matches that of a typical earthquake. If you look at the buildings which collapsed in the Loma Prieta quake and the Northridge quake, the vast majority were 3 stories. Both were relatively moderate quakes so give you an idea which buildings are the first to collapse, unlike larger quakes which destroy a larger variety of buildings.

In earthquake country like California, the two places I would never live in are masonry buildings, and 3 story tall buildings.

Larry Page: I'd Give Money to Elon Musk Before Charity

Elon Musk in talks with Google to bring driverless tech to Tesla cars

Elon Musk: I’ve known Larry (Page) since before he got venture funding for Google.

Elon Musk: With Jobs Gone, Google Will Win Mobile

They really are buddies. This story is as much about SpaceX as Google.

A local newspaper owner runs ads for prostitutes in his magazine. He also has a site (backpage.com) that has been accused by a local DA of being a conduit for child prostitution. An edit was made last week talking about this.

Page in question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dan_Pulcrano&action=history

Talk page with links to articles backing up the edit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dan_Pulcrano

Reliable sources

        Change.org petition http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-providing-the-means-to-sell-girls-and-boys-for-sex
        http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/22/san-jose-weekly-paper-pressured-to-remove-escort-service-ads
        http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Weekly-Paper-Under-Fire-Over-Adult-Ads.html
        http://meyerweed.blogspot.com/2013/08/san-jose-inside-vs-integrity.html
        http://www.protectsanjose.com/content/sjpoa-presdient-unland-responds-metro-editor

Skeezy.

Do they really have a surplus? http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Does-California-Really-Have-a-Budget-Surplus__Bay-Area.html

Soon it won't matter.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/Facial-Recognition-Technology-in-SF-Bars-Defended-Not-Too-Intrusive-151579195.html

I duckduckgo'd the subject a bit and it appears that Tim Cook has set a mini philanthropy program where if an Apple employee donates something to a non-profit organization, Apple pays the bill. :)

Wallace can continue his business as long as he pays a $1,200 fee, secures state and federal permits, and surrenders a list of his customers to the federal government.

I think it is awesome he is allowed to continue as long as the DEA get their cut and he gives up a list of people to shake down. The reason he is out of business is because, now, his wholesalers will not sell to him.

But since his iodine distributor's been warned not to sell to him, it appears it's game over for the octogenarian inventor.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Meth-Heads-Using-88-Year-Olds-Invention-134345733.html

There's a photo album attached to TFA, and one of the photos shows Woz sitting in a chair with the Segway (conveniently marked "Segway") standing by the wall in the background.

Oh ok, so I guess the Surgeon General saying you should buy Iodide pills as a precaution is baloney and he's nothing but a big conspiracy theorist. The story

...The cellular service providers typically lose money on each phone...

This is total BS. The typical phones have been itemized and priced out. The total cost of components in almost all cases is less than $40 per unit. When they purchase the components in bulk, they get even better prices.

The cheapest handset I have ever purchased was $100, so they still made over 100% profit. To lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your handset, make sure it has the ability to use WiFi (not over cellular as this defeats the purpose). Install WiFi Firewall/Routers at home and at work and use WiFi in those two places, reduce your plan's cellular minutes and use the savings to offset the cost of the phone.

I bet prior to Verizon settling the bill, this parent was wishing they would have bought their son a WiFi enabled phone, Teen's Cell Phone Bill Tops $20,000. WE hear about junk like this every day, every week, every month. A simple solution, when at home, you son/daughter uses WiFi, however your hardware must allow for it, admittedly only the Nokia Nxxx (N800, N900) and Android (at least I think it does) allow for this today.

What really gets me, is the cellular companies could prevent this from ever happening if they wanted to....

Personally I am surprised that someone has not set up a "chat" exchange server, let kids give themselves an account and chat with each other via the server. If they come in via cellular, so be it, however if they come in via ISP (hardwired or WiFi) there would be no charge, so be it. Put up minimal advertising to pay for the service and/or charge a nominal yearly fee.

No need for a monthly fee as text messaging eats up so little bandwidth.

Why?

Three stories from Google News, all dated June 4. There is nothing special about any of them, even the last:

Buffalo man gets 11 years for distributing child porn

Local man convicted for having child porn

Sex Offender Caught with Porn During Registry, Police

Brett Bartlett, 30, had gone to the Livermore police station for his annual sex offender registration.
He was convicted in 2005 in Santa Clara County for having oral sex with a person under 16 years old. That conviction requires him to register as a sex offender.
While Bartlett was in the police station, detectives asked if they could do a search of his vehicle.
Inside the vehicle, detectives found a computer that they say had numerous images of child pornography.

this would all be a lot easier/simpler if we had online electronic voting. you log-in, you place your vote(s), you get your confirmation #, and your virtual ballot is immediately tabulated and the election results updated in real-time. and you can also immediately check to see if your e-ballot was correctly tabulated using your confirmation number. no bureaucratic or logistical delays.

That won't work. If I can find out how I voted, then somebody else can also. It's important that can't happen.

And it still doesn't solve the problem of actually knowing the vote was counted. You know it was saved correctly, but there's nothing stopping the software from disregarding the saved ballot and computing the results some other way.