Yeah, it sucks, but there are other options. Here's one. Start your own ISP. No, I'm not crazy. Here's an excellent example. Here in Lincoln, Neb., a guy with an idea started a company called WideRange Broadband. (standard disclaimer, I have no connection to them other than as a very satisfied customer) They're a wireless ISP. They rent tower space on a few tall radio antenna towers around town, toss some Ubiquity antennas up there, and call it good. Yes, that's over simplifying it, but in the end, I have a little antenna on my roof about the size of my forearm, and I get a solid high speed connection for $30/month. And they're pissing off the local telco (Windstream) and cableCo (TimeWarner) because they can offer as good or better speeds for less money. Yes, there are some line-of-sight issues if you're in an older neighborhood with lots of tall trees, but it's a solid start. Shortly after I cut off TimeWarner, I had one of their people stop by the house trying to get me to resubscribe (at $49/month). I told him who I was using, and he got a nervous look on his face and said "Oh, they're not a real company, that's just someone's hobby" and left. I mentioned that to the WideRange installer a few months later when we bought a house and they were moving my antenna. He chucked and said "Yeah, we hear that a lot."
We cut the cord about a year ago when our Dish subscription was up for renewal. My wife was a little hesitant at first because she watched some primetime shows, but with a combination of Netflix, Hulu Plus and Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" network (hey, don't flame me, we enjoy watching him and there's nothing wrong with that), we ended up saving almost $100 a month. My 8-year-old doesn't care either, he can find whatever he wants on Netflix kids area. I stuck a couple HDTV antennas in the attic as well, so if there is something OTA that I may want to watch like a football game or the evening news, we still can. We've got an AppleTV and a Roku 3, each of which costed, for a one-time purchase, what we were paying monthly to Dish.
I'm with most of the commenters here. We have a small fleet of company cars (5). We recently upgraded them as our existing vehicles, despite being 2008 models, were around 350k miles. Anyway, I evaluated a Ford Focus and hated it. The whole darn thing was a computer, or so it seemed. I want my employees focusing on the ROAD, not the vehicle gadgets. We ended up going with 2013 Honda Civics after my boss got involved because he's friends with the salesman. Even those are very sucky. The menu interfaces are total crap, make no sense, even to the point of feeling counterintuitive. The salesman I worked with kept touting "it's got Bluetooth, bluetooth, bluetooth" until he was practically blue in the face. I told him "Bluetooth whatever. How do I turn off all this shit?" He looked dumbfounded.
I don't need some distracting info graphic to tell me a door is open. If a car is smart enough to tell me a tire is low, tell me WHICH DAMN TIRE. And if I want to turn on the radio, let me turn a little dial in the middle of the front console area, not some generic plus-minus button on a steering wheel that does different things every time I touch it. Otherwise I end up being frustrated with the stupid thing and not focusing on driving safely.
There was blatant bribery where one state was gifted special benefits to purchase a yea vote on the bill.
Evidence beyond reasonable doubt - e.g. conviction in court of law, please. Evidence that your allegations, if true, would have made a difference.
Umm, yes, this is true. It was in Nebraska, the infamous "Cornhusker Kickback." I remember it well, I live here in Nebraska. Sen. Ben Nelson (D) was the crucial 60th vote necessary to pass it through the Senate. He was really, really hearing it from us Nebraskans not to vote for it. Finally Obama came up with a special exemption just for Nebraska having to do with (I think) Medicare funding, where Nebraska wouldn't have to pay for some sort of Medicare expansion. That secured Nelson's vote. That exemption did end up applying to all the states after it came out in the media, but yes, Nelson's vote was basically bought by Obama.
Others were pushed out of congress through scandals which may or may not have been fabricated.
"Something bad may have happened but I have no evidence for it."
The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote.
Sorry, what? Are you claiming that your representatives didn't have the full text of primary legislation available, or that secondary legislation is left to the executive (which is standard for all lawmaking)?
This also is true. OK, TECHNICALLY the full text was available, but for a matter of a few hours. Nancy Pelosi (D) has often been quoted as saying "We need to pass the bill to find out what's in it." The bill was in a near constant state of flux, with the final version only hours old when voted on. It is not humanly possible to read and understand a multi-thousand page document in that amount of time.
The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured.
What do you mean by this? That the legislation was modified until enough people were happy with it? IOW standard legislative process?
Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people.
What do you actually mean by this? Define "kept".
The Senate was kept in session far beyond when they normally would have returned home for Christmas. The Senate vote happened late on Christmas Eve. Normally Senators would have returned home several days earlier, at which time they likely would have started getting a huge earful from constituents.
A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen.
"The opposite party". Way to declare your enjoyment for two-party politics. It was passed. Nobody forced people to vote Democrat, and nobody forced the elected Congresscritters to vote in favour of the bill.
Democrats and Republicans are basically opposites. I can't see how one could argue that.
What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
That video WAS NOT the trigger for anything in the Middle East. The video was on YouTube since June or July. What happened was, plain and simple, a TERRORIST ATTACK by Al Qaeda, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. It has nothing to do with free speech, despite the White House trying to portray it as such, and which they finally, grudgingly admitted.
Depends what you do, sheesh. Not everyone uses a computer the same way you do. I spend a big chunk of my time with spreadsheets and page layout in Adobe InDesign, and a wide monitor is exactly what suits me.
Yeah, I don't like the work intrusion into my personal life all that much either, but like many others here, I'm salaried and it's a requirement of my job to be available. On the flip side, the only phone I have is my employer-provided iPhone, and as such it functions as much as a personal phone as it does a work phone and at no cost to me. A big part of it too, for me, is that because of the expectations outside "normal" work hours, my boss is quite flexible with other things that come up during the normal work day (picking up m son from school, leaving early if I need to for family things, etc.). So I can't complain. Well, I could, but the benefits outweigh the costs.
Wow. I'm honestly quite surprised at what is a fairly high level of vitriol over what people choose to believe or not believe from a religious standpoint. C'mon, people. Can't we just let someone hold their religious beliefs without going out of our way to mock and deride them because you think you know better?
Ponder your cat. It has it's own world, it lives life freely, is fairly intelligent. It can plan, make decisions, etc. And yet it is not remotely possible for that kitty to understand, when you open the cat food can, how that food got there. All kitty understands is that you open the can and the food is simply there. Kitty's mind is not able to comprehend how that cat food came to be created, how it was packaged, labeled, transported, sold, etc. Kitty's brain isn't capable of understanding it. To kitty, it's not even a known unknown, it's an unknown unknown (to use some military/war/intelligence terminology).
Why couldn't us mere humans be the same way? Why couldn't there be a God or similar being whose entire existence completely and totally transcends ours? I realize that *could* open the face-two-mirrors-at-each-other paradox, but lets set that aside for the moment. To put it simply - just because you cannot conclusively prove that a God does not exist DOES NOT mean that God doesn't exist.
I've never understood the media's obsession with using "meteoric" entirely backwards. A meteor is FALLING and BURNING UP. That's not what is happening to Apple.
Mailman is about as simple as they come. I maintain several mailman lists, a bunch of which were for my church. As I was wanting to get away from being the sole volunteer tech guy for a 1,500-member church, I showed a couple secretaries how to manage the lists. That was 2 years ago and I haven't looked back.
I have one of these which I bought about 10 years ago. Back then I think I paid $150, but anyway, they are comfortable, do a very good job of cutting out external sound, and the frequency response is wonderful. Deep but not overpowering bass, all the way up to clear, crisp highs.
I bought them as I was the sound technician for my large church's praise band. Even worshipping in a large, acoustically horrible gym, with these headphones on it was wonderful to hear just the band (or individual instruments depending on how I configured our sound board) regardless of other noise, kids crying, etc.
And oh, can they handle it. 3 watts of power, which is insane for headphones. Playing around with them and our sound board, I could get them past 120dB according to my sound meter, and they just refused to distort at all.
Here in good 'ol Lincoln, Nebraska, we use old fashioned No. 2 pencils and fill in the oval next to the name or ballot item. Until the Florida 2000 debacle, I had no idea there were even any other ways to cast ballots. I still fail to see why our method here shouldn't be the standard nationwide.
Apparently everyone forgot that NASA doesn't exist any longer. It's now MASO - Muslim Aeronautics and Space Outreach. How could we forget that? It's what our Dear Leader decreed after all.
How many of those "poor" people, who allegedly can't afford a box of cereal for their kids, have a fridge full of beer, a couple packs of smokes on the table, Cable TV and buy lotto tickets every week?
Here's the best part about it. NBC is whining like a baby over it. But, where are the ads airing? NBC!!! They could simply stop running them if they wanted, but as long as the checks keep coming, they'll keep running them.
True, but I don't continue to add to it. Yes, I know what was out there is out there for good. And I suppose it could be considered irony in the statement about meeting my wife, however that was several years ago and does not negate my point that aside from that, my life hasn't benefited from spending hours a day on FB.
Seriously? What's the big deal? If you don't like it, don't use Facebook. I don't. I quit several months ago and deleted my account. Same with Twitter after I learned they were giving their entire archive to the Library of Congress.
With FB, I am convinced it's really nothing more than a giant waste of time with little or no real benefit. Yes, I will grant that I met my wonderful wife courtesy of Facebook, but beyond that, I cannot see how my life is any better due to the time I used to spend there.
Not to mention Facebook basically means someone else is hugely profiting from the comings and goings of my daily life. And, quite frankly, I don't trust Mark Zuckerberg with my life any further than I could throw a giant boulder.
No one is forcing you to use Facebook. I don't miss it a bit.
Good points, Doctor. However, I do take issue with your opening comment. Yes, your training resulted in the work being done, but I AM the one paying the bill, and it is MY BODY. Yes, you are doing the work, but only because I am paying you for that service.
It's no different than if I take my car to the shop, list some complaints, and they fix it. I fully expect to be told everything they did, and why, and their diagnosis, so I can keep a record of it. Why? Several reasons. First and foremost, I'm paying the bill and it's my car. And, with that information in hand, I can have the confidence (or lack thereof) that the problem was fixed and why. And I have that information in case I want to do further work myself, or take it to another garage, or have that information with me if I'm traveling and it needs work to show a mechanic somewhere else. Each of these examples is directly applicable to medical records for the same reasons. If I think my doctor screwed up, I can take my records and show them to another doctor. Or if I'm traveling and something bad happens, I can have those records to show a doctor wherever I'm at. Etc. etc. etc.
Granted, I rarely visit the doctor, but I would appreciate having copies of my records. I recently applied for life insurance which included a medical exam/blood work/etc. I was very pleased that my insurance agent gave me sealed copies of those records. It let me see where my various blood levels were at, and I discovered a couple that were a little high. Admittedly, my wife is a nurse so she was able to give me more information on some of the items, but on a few, she just googled for an answer much like I would have. Seems kinda obvious to me. They're MY records. I should have copies, for no extra cost. Heck, there are probably errors in there too that, if I could see my records, I could correct, much like a credit report.
I'm generally not a fan of government intrusion into my life, but I would like to see it mandated that patients have a right to copies of any/all of their medical/dental/vision/etc. records, at no cost.
Slashdot Mirror
So if you like your YouTube you can keep your YouTube?
(Sorry, had to go there)
Yeah, it sucks, but there are other options. Here's one. Start your own ISP. No, I'm not crazy. Here's an excellent example. Here in Lincoln, Neb., a guy with an idea started a company called WideRange Broadband. (standard disclaimer, I have no connection to them other than as a very satisfied customer) They're a wireless ISP. They rent tower space on a few tall radio antenna towers around town, toss some Ubiquity antennas up there, and call it good. Yes, that's over simplifying it, but in the end, I have a little antenna on my roof about the size of my forearm, and I get a solid high speed connection for $30/month. And they're pissing off the local telco (Windstream) and cableCo (TimeWarner) because they can offer as good or better speeds for less money. Yes, there are some line-of-sight issues if you're in an older neighborhood with lots of tall trees, but it's a solid start. Shortly after I cut off TimeWarner, I had one of their people stop by the house trying to get me to resubscribe (at $49/month). I told him who I was using, and he got a nervous look on his face and said "Oh, they're not a real company, that's just someone's hobby" and left. I mentioned that to the WideRange installer a few months later when we bought a house and they were moving my antenna. He chucked and said "Yeah, we hear that a lot."
We cut the cord about a year ago when our Dish subscription was up for renewal. My wife was a little hesitant at first because she watched some primetime shows, but with a combination of Netflix, Hulu Plus and Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" network (hey, don't flame me, we enjoy watching him and there's nothing wrong with that), we ended up saving almost $100 a month. My 8-year-old doesn't care either, he can find whatever he wants on Netflix kids area. I stuck a couple HDTV antennas in the attic as well, so if there is something OTA that I may want to watch like a football game or the evening news, we still can. We've got an AppleTV and a Roku 3, each of which costed, for a one-time purchase, what we were paying monthly to Dish.
I'm with most of the commenters here. We have a small fleet of company cars (5). We recently upgraded them as our existing vehicles, despite being 2008 models, were around 350k miles. Anyway, I evaluated a Ford Focus and hated it. The whole darn thing was a computer, or so it seemed. I want my employees focusing on the ROAD, not the vehicle gadgets. We ended up going with 2013 Honda Civics after my boss got involved because he's friends with the salesman. Even those are very sucky. The menu interfaces are total crap, make no sense, even to the point of feeling counterintuitive. The salesman I worked with kept touting "it's got Bluetooth, bluetooth, bluetooth" until he was practically blue in the face. I told him "Bluetooth whatever. How do I turn off all this shit?" He looked dumbfounded.
I don't need some distracting info graphic to tell me a door is open. If a car is smart enough to tell me a tire is low, tell me WHICH DAMN TIRE. And if I want to turn on the radio, let me turn a little dial in the middle of the front console area, not some generic plus-minus button on a steering wheel that does different things every time I touch it. Otherwise I end up being frustrated with the stupid thing and not focusing on driving safely.
There was blatant bribery where one state was gifted special benefits to purchase a yea vote on the bill.
Evidence beyond reasonable doubt - e.g. conviction in court of law, please. Evidence that your allegations, if true, would have made a difference.
Umm, yes, this is true. It was in Nebraska, the infamous "Cornhusker Kickback." I remember it well, I live here in Nebraska. Sen. Ben Nelson (D) was the crucial 60th vote necessary to pass it through the Senate. He was really, really hearing it from us Nebraskans not to vote for it. Finally Obama came up with a special exemption just for Nebraska having to do with (I think) Medicare funding, where Nebraska wouldn't have to pay for some sort of Medicare expansion. That secured Nelson's vote. That exemption did end up applying to all the states after it came out in the media, but yes, Nelson's vote was basically bought by Obama.
Others were pushed out of congress through scandals which may or may not have been fabricated.
"Something bad may have happened but I have no evidence for it."
The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote.
Sorry, what? Are you claiming that your representatives didn't have the full text of primary legislation available, or that secondary legislation is left to the executive (which is standard for all lawmaking)?
This also is true. OK, TECHNICALLY the full text was available, but for a matter of a few hours. Nancy Pelosi (D) has often been quoted as saying "We need to pass the bill to find out what's in it." The bill was in a near constant state of flux, with the final version only hours old when voted on. It is not humanly possible to read and understand a multi-thousand page document in that amount of time.
The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured.
What do you mean by this? That the legislation was modified until enough people were happy with it? IOW standard legislative process?
Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people.
What do you actually mean by this? Define "kept".
The Senate was kept in session far beyond when they normally would have returned home for Christmas. The Senate vote happened late on Christmas Eve. Normally Senators would have returned home several days earlier, at which time they likely would have started getting a huge earful from constituents.
A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen.
"The opposite party". Way to declare your enjoyment for two-party politics. It was passed. Nobody forced people to vote Democrat, and nobody forced the elected Congresscritters to vote in favour of the bill.
Democrats and Republicans are basically opposites. I can't see how one could argue that.
What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
"HE STARTED IT!" Grow the fuck up.
I'll have to remember that...
Like this one:
http://www.ryobitools.com/catalog/tek4/tek4_drills_drivers/HP53LK
I got one a couple years ago as a Christmas present and it's probably the single most-used tool I have.
That video WAS NOT the trigger for anything in the Middle East. The video was on YouTube since June or July. What happened was, plain and simple, a TERRORIST ATTACK by Al Qaeda, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. It has nothing to do with free speech, despite the White House trying to portray it as such, and which they finally, grudgingly admitted.
Depends what you do, sheesh. Not everyone uses a computer the same way you do. I spend a big chunk of my time with spreadsheets and page layout in Adobe InDesign, and a wide monitor is exactly what suits me.
If you're 70 years old, you're probably not reading Slashdot either. :)
Yeah, I don't like the work intrusion into my personal life all that much either, but like many others here, I'm salaried and it's a requirement of my job to be available. On the flip side, the only phone I have is my employer-provided iPhone, and as such it functions as much as a personal phone as it does a work phone and at no cost to me. A big part of it too, for me, is that because of the expectations outside "normal" work hours, my boss is quite flexible with other things that come up during the normal work day (picking up m son from school, leaving early if I need to for family things, etc.). So I can't complain. Well, I could, but the benefits outweigh the costs.
Wow. I'm honestly quite surprised at what is a fairly high level of vitriol over what people choose to believe or not believe from a religious standpoint. C'mon, people. Can't we just let someone hold their religious beliefs without going out of our way to mock and deride them because you think you know better?
Ponder your cat. It has it's own world, it lives life freely, is fairly intelligent. It can plan, make decisions, etc. And yet it is not remotely possible for that kitty to understand, when you open the cat food can, how that food got there. All kitty understands is that you open the can and the food is simply there. Kitty's mind is not able to comprehend how that cat food came to be created, how it was packaged, labeled, transported, sold, etc. Kitty's brain isn't capable of understanding it. To kitty, it's not even a known unknown, it's an unknown unknown (to use some military/war/intelligence terminology).
Why couldn't us mere humans be the same way? Why couldn't there be a God or similar being whose entire existence completely and totally transcends ours? I realize that *could* open the face-two-mirrors-at-each-other paradox, but lets set that aside for the moment. To put it simply - just because you cannot conclusively prove that a God does not exist DOES NOT mean that God doesn't exist.
Even at 36.7 million FPS, it's still too slow to freeze-frame a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick...
I've never understood the media's obsession with using "meteoric" entirely backwards. A meteor is FALLING and BURNING UP. That's not what is happening to Apple.
'nuf said.
Mailman is about as simple as they come. I maintain several mailman lists, a bunch of which were for my church. As I was wanting to get away from being the sole volunteer tech guy for a 1,500-member church, I showed a couple secretaries how to manage the lists. That was 2 years ago and I haven't looked back.
http://tinyurl.com/6ujmge3
I have one of these which I bought about 10 years ago. Back then I think I paid $150, but anyway, they are comfortable, do a very good job of cutting out external sound, and the frequency response is wonderful. Deep but not overpowering bass, all the way up to clear, crisp highs.
I bought them as I was the sound technician for my large church's praise band. Even worshipping in a large, acoustically horrible gym, with these headphones on it was wonderful to hear just the band (or individual instruments depending on how I configured our sound board) regardless of other noise, kids crying, etc.
And oh, can they handle it. 3 watts of power, which is insane for headphones. Playing around with them and our sound board, I could get them past 120dB according to my sound meter, and they just refused to distort at all.
Here in good 'ol Lincoln, Nebraska, we use old fashioned No. 2 pencils and fill in the oval next to the name or ballot item. Until the Florida 2000 debacle, I had no idea there were even any other ways to cast ballots. I still fail to see why our method here shouldn't be the standard nationwide.
Apparently everyone forgot that NASA doesn't exist any longer. It's now MASO - Muslim Aeronautics and Space Outreach. How could we forget that? It's what our Dear Leader decreed after all.
How many of those "poor" people, who allegedly can't afford a box of cereal for their kids, have a fridge full of beer, a couple packs of smokes on the table, Cable TV and buy lotto tickets every week?
Here's the best part about it. NBC is whining like a baby over it. But, where are the ads airing? NBC!!! They could simply stop running them if they wanted, but as long as the checks keep coming, they'll keep running them.
Hypocrites.
I already did, two weeks ago.
True, but I don't continue to add to it. Yes, I know what was out there is out there for good. And I suppose it could be considered irony in the statement about meeting my wife, however that was several years ago and does not negate my point that aside from that, my life hasn't benefited from spending hours a day on FB.
Seriously? What's the big deal? If you don't like it, don't use Facebook. I don't. I quit several months ago and deleted my account. Same with Twitter after I learned they were giving their entire archive to the Library of Congress.
With FB, I am convinced it's really nothing more than a giant waste of time with little or no real benefit. Yes, I will grant that I met my wonderful wife courtesy of Facebook, but beyond that, I cannot see how my life is any better due to the time I used to spend there.
Not to mention Facebook basically means someone else is hugely profiting from the comings and goings of my daily life. And, quite frankly, I don't trust Mark Zuckerberg with my life any further than I could throw a giant boulder.
No one is forcing you to use Facebook. I don't miss it a bit.
Good points, Doctor. However, I do take issue with your opening comment. Yes, your training resulted in the work being done, but I AM the one paying the bill, and it is MY BODY. Yes, you are doing the work, but only because I am paying you for that service.
It's no different than if I take my car to the shop, list some complaints, and they fix it. I fully expect to be told everything they did, and why, and their diagnosis, so I can keep a record of it. Why? Several reasons. First and foremost, I'm paying the bill and it's my car. And, with that information in hand, I can have the confidence (or lack thereof) that the problem was fixed and why. And I have that information in case I want to do further work myself, or take it to another garage, or have that information with me if I'm traveling and it needs work to show a mechanic somewhere else. Each of these examples is directly applicable to medical records for the same reasons. If I think my doctor screwed up, I can take my records and show them to another doctor. Or if I'm traveling and something bad happens, I can have those records to show a doctor wherever I'm at. Etc. etc. etc.
Granted, I rarely visit the doctor, but I would appreciate having copies of my records. I recently applied for life insurance which included a medical exam/blood work/etc. I was very pleased that my insurance agent gave me sealed copies of those records. It let me see where my various blood levels were at, and I discovered a couple that were a little high. Admittedly, my wife is a nurse so she was able to give me more information on some of the items, but on a few, she just googled for an answer much like I would have. Seems kinda obvious to me. They're MY records. I should have copies, for no extra cost. Heck, there are probably errors in there too that, if I could see my records, I could correct, much like a credit report.
I'm generally not a fan of government intrusion into my life, but I would like to see it mandated that patients have a right to copies of any/all of their medical/dental/vision/etc. records, at no cost.