I'd prefer we create a "Department of Science and Technology". So, so many of our politicians are completely ignorant about technology issues facing our country; cybersecurity is only one of them. Climate change, nuclear power, net neutrality, rare earth metals, space travel, and the opioid crisis are just a few of the many, many science and technology issues that our executive branch needs to weigh in on every day. Having a cabinet level position that advises our president on these important issues would pay dividends.
And then I would take the EPA, FCC, NASA, and the NSF, as well as create a Cybersecurity agency, and make them all managed under DST.
First, for anyone wishing to read the full study, here is the link.
Second, for those claiming the study may be biased, either through the researcher or its funding, I see no evidence of such. The study came from Amy Orben, a researcher at the University of Oxford, and Andrew Przybylski, a research professor at the University of Oxford.
That being said, here's the problem with this study: it used an open data set. In other words, the researchers did not gather and collect the data themselves, but rather looked through and analyzed publicly-accessible statistical data sets. The two data sets used were "Growing up in Ireland", collected in Ireland between August 2011 and March 2012, from students aged 12-14. The other came from "United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics", collected between 2014 and 2015, where the data contained statistics from children ages 8-17, though the study isolated the data to students ages 12-15 to match the other data set. (More thorough description of the data set can be found in the study, page 6-7.)
Now, in statistics, open data sets -can- be useful. When done correctly, the data can be unbiased, as the data collection is separate from its analysis. Researchers can focus more attention on data analysis and conclusion. But, it has some major downfalls. In particular, if a researcher is not disciplined in understanding what the data sets are measuring, and the data measurements don't align with what the research is trying to measure, well, you're comparing apples and oranges. Such is the case here.
So, let's look at the data sets in this study. "Growing up in Ireland" stats were collected in 2011 through 2012. The most glaring problem is the period of time in the data set. The digital universe was very different eight years ago; far fewer percentages of children had smartphones, modern social media website designs didn't exist (in particular, the infinite scroll), and there was less digital-engagement per day. With the other data set, ""United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics", the data set itself is flawed, because it is not randomized. From the study: "The sample was collected by involving all children in households already interviewed by the PSID who descended from either the original families recruited in 1968 or the 1997 new immigrant family sample. Those participants in the child supplement that were selected to receive an in-home visit, were asked to complete two time-use diaries on randomly-assigned days." So, the data sample was collected from families who were already involved in a previous data sample. I don't have the time to look for an explanation as to how this PSID organization recruited families back in 1968, but my hunch says that there's a strong chance there's serious bias in who they recruited for their study. (I'm picturing white middle-class suburbia.) So, limiting your data sample to descendants of a biased sample leads to another biased sample.
And if the data is corrupt, so goes the study.
In fact, I find it so humorous how the study cities multiple studies that go against this studies conclusions. From the study: "Previous research found negative effects when adolescents engage with digital screens 30 minutes (Levenson, Shensa, Sidani, Colditz, & Primack, 2017), 1 hour (Harbard, Allen, Trinder, & Bei, 2016a) and 2 hours (Orzech, Grandner, Roane, & Carskadon, 2016) before bedtime. This could be due to delayed bedtimes (Cain & Gradisar, 2010; Orzech et al., 2016) or difficulties in relaxing after engaging in stimulating technology use (Harbard et al., 2016a)." That much research does indicate a s
Ban paper receipts? No thanks. It's official documentation of the transaction. Allow the status quo? No thanks. Stores are needlessly printing too much paper with information I do not need.
How about we compromise? Let's -reduce- the amount of waste, mandating that consumer receipts contain a maximum amount of information, say a list of purchased items, prices, and quantities, name & contact info of business, and date of transaction? Then only print all the extra QR codes, coupons, promos, etc. if a customer asks for it.
I mean, think about it. We are trying to find a permanent solution to the indefinite storage of nuclear material. So, why are we celebrating a 20-year anniversary? Twenty years going on infinity is still 0% of its supposed lifespan. The fact that we're saying, "Hey, look, guys, we made it twenty years!" doesn't exactly exude confidence about all the years remaining.
Amid a worldwide race for supremacy in artificial intelligence, Stanford University on Monday will unveil a new institute dedicated to using AI to build the best-possible future.
So...does that mean they're building Skynet? Or are they building a Skynet to protect us against Skynet?
The institute highlights the importance of AI being "broadly representative of humanity" across gender, ethnicity, nationality, culture and age.
Oh, they're building a politically-correct Skynet, one that doesn't discriminate against who it decides to kill in its conquest to destroy all humanity. That's cool, that's cool...
Did you even read this study? Or are you some armchair pundit who just threw in your two cents? Because the study cited a previous study that already tried to assess music's impact on mood:
From the study: Ritter and Ferguson showed that a beneficial effect of music on creative task performance was limited to a comparison between a silent condition and a socalled “happy music” condition (Vivaldi's “Four Seasons”). Exposure to “calm music,” “sad music,” and “anxious music” had no impact on creative task performance...The benefit to creative task performance could have been driven by increases in mood and arousal rather than the presence of the music per se.
This study's exact purpose was to assess the relationship between music and creativity, not the relationship between mood and creativity. Because the cited study already analyzed that relationship, there was no need for them to.
It's not the lack of Chinese authoritarianism that's preventing us from making it work. It's our inability to align all our interests and resources to make it happen.
Back in 1956, we passed something called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. In 35 years, we constructed over 48,000 miles of dedicated highway, three times as much Chinese high speed rail in only double the time. How did it all come together? Simple: the threat of war. Eisenhower was inspired by the national highway system of Germany and how it served as vital military infrastructure for them during World War II. Investing in that infrastructure for the homeland would be a strategic military asset in case of invasion. So far, it's yet to be used that way, but it's contributed tremendous returns to our nation's GDP.
The only thing preventing us from making it happen is a lack of will.
Eventually, SpaceX wants to build up the network to take in as many as 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit...
That's fifteen times the number of satellites we currently have in low-Earth orbit. Is anyone else concerned that we may run out of satellite space? Or, alternatively, that every satellite we put up in the atmosphere has a greater likelihood of being struck by a meteor, adding to the minefield of space dust already in LEO?
Interestingly, I just watched Real Engineering's video of SpaceX's StarHopper construction just last night. And I didn't know how incredibly thin the walls of a rocket are, and that they are pressurized to retain rigidity. So, imagine the catastrophic destruction that would occur if one of our launches collided with a satellite, or a space dust minefield?
If only one company is asking for 12,000 low-Earth orbit satellites, what happens when one hundred more make the same request? What happens when Indian, Chinese, and Russian companies make the same request? While I don't know whether we'll ever see anything as bad as that one scene from Wall-E, but it feels like we're inching closer to that reality each day.
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population.
A lot of Westerners wonder why India and China have such large populations. It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent. These river valleys produce the agriculture that feeds and sustains those populations. If the Himalayas suffer, so do they.
But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.
The actual floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN is BS and a tiny part of the process
I disagree. The floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN has nothing to do with the process. It's senators grandstanding to a camera, nothing more. To quote this New Yorker article...
In general, when senators give speeches on the floor, their colleagues aren’t around, and the two or three who might be present aren’t listening...The only people who pay attention to a speech are the Senate stenographers...The Senate chamber is an intimate room where men and women go to talk to themselves for the record.
Deals get cut in offices, legislation gets filtered by committee, votes get gathered by the whips, and nothing gets to the floor for a vote without party leader approval. Generally, the only time senators gather in the chamber is to conduct the vote. Once it's done, they vacate.
Personally, I think this process is one reason why government is so divided today. Our congressional leaders don't work together in the very chamber where they should be conducting business. There's no rapport, no discussion, no construction of trust necessary to build consensus. Since the vote is the only time -left- where they are required to gather together, I'd hate to see voting by proxy be allowed, further distancing one another apart from the process.
It's called cash. It goes with me, so it's perfectly mobile. But it doesn't allow big corp to gather data on my every purchase and use it to their own advantages.
There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.
There is a reason, and it's a damn good one: To regulate supply and stabilize pricing.
Think about it: have you ever had to worry about food, really, really worry about it? A moderate price increase due to increasing oil prices at the turn of the century is the closest our country has ever come to a "food crisis". There has never been a serious food shortage or price inflation for food in the US for as long as I've been alive.
It used to not be that way. You can go back to the 70s, and read about how rapidly fluctuating food prices created quite a political stir, as evidenced by the April 1973 cover of Time Magazine. If you study the data on this page, you can see both how food prices (particularly beef) stabilized after 1980, and how the average worker has seen a steady increase over time in the amount of food that can be purchased with their wages.
That has been the primary purpose of the US Farm Bill: to encourage, subsidize, and regulate the food market, stabilizing pricing and providing ample food supply. Because when there's oversupply, people complain about food going to waste. When there's a lack of supply, people riot and governments collapse. Which would you really prefer?
According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Comcast agreed in November to pay $700,000 in refunds "and cancel debts for more than 20,000 Massachusetts customers" to settle allegations that it used deceptive advertising to promote long-term cable contracts.
I am getting so sick of all these stupid settlements. For once, I just wish that our governments would see these lawsuits through to completion. Stop the settlements, where these corporate crooks get to say things like "Allegations were made...as redress for these grievances, Comcast agrees to..." nonsense. Get a judge to spell it out for them in just six simple letters: GUILTY. Once that's finally established, then we can really dig deep into their coffers and hit them with a financial judgement that has some teeth to it.
I listened to a local farmer talk about it. With industrial farming, you pump the soil full of chemicals, plant your seed, harvest, wash, rinse, repeat. He said it works, but it takes a terrible toil on the soil and surrounding environment.
He's now gone to a sustainable farming model. He said it's completely 100% against what industrial farming is all about. He doesn't till the soil, he uses lots of cover crops, doesn't harvest all of it each year, lets his cattle free-graze his fields, and he makes more money doing it. I've heard people say his beef is the best-tasting in the county. Here's a neat write-up about it.
Another neat benefit he mentioned: He got an 8" rainfall last year, and his fields soaked it all up. All his neighbors had run-off into the river valleys, taking all the chemicals with it, but his fields are full of decomposing tillage that took it all in like a sponge.
But the hospital's master list prices, sometimes called a chargemaster, is also not a complete look
Correct. Because nowhere on the chargemaster is a service that says "colonoscopy". Good luck getting the average American to interpret ICD-10-PCS code descriptions. According to this website, a screening colonoscopy should receive the following three codes:
Z12.11: Encounter for screening for malignant neoplasm of the colon Z80.0: Family history of malignant neoplasm of digestive organs Z86.010: Personal history of colonic polyps
No word for "colonoscopy" that I can see. Furthermore, this doesn't include the anesthetist charge, recovery, the room charge (which is always charged for with surgery, inpatient or outpatient), or the food charge. Other hospitals even throw in itemized charges for IVs, needles, hoses, gowns, laundry, and tissues.
It'd be like shopping for a car, and before you go, you have to look up online the costs for all the individual parts that make up a car. Except most Americans don't know every single nut and bolt, camshaft and wiring assembly, window and panel, that goes into one. And you get to the car lot, ask how much the cost is, and the salesman says, "We have all our costs online." You get your car, you drive it home, and then you get a bill in the mail three months later for five times what it really should cost.
What health care really needs is the sticker price posted right in the window.
I was informed by a security expert at a technology convention that personal data (Name, BD, SSN) of children are some of the most valuable data sought after on the dark web. When adults have their security credentials stolen, they discover the theft rather quickly, and any accounts created with the stolen data are shut down in a matter of weeks, giving the stolen credentials little potential value. But children do not check bank account information, or credit card balances, or credit scores until they become adults. Hackers can use that information to bankroll illegal financial activity for years.
Someone enrolled now in preschool may discover 15 years later when they fill out their FAFSA that they owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid credit card balances and financial loans. San Diego School District will be liable for decades to come.
perhaps the ISPs could take some their -- what do you call them, ah, yes -- enormous profits and use them to build rural infrastructure all on their own
They are. Not to the extent we want them to, but to a certain extent, they are. They just want someone else to foot the bill.
But if they get this way, I guarantee you that they will define "rural" as generously as possible (because they're already writing the rules), to maximize how much of this money they can spend on -existing- customers that they already provide service to. Then, that money they -used- to spend on existing customers, now covered new tax revenues, can be kept as profit.
Kinda like how when states were debating the green-lighting of lotteries, all the politicians promised, "A portion of the profits will be dedicated to education! Think of the children!" Then the moment the lottery was up and running, politicians cut existing educational budgets to offset the increase from the lottery and gave tax breaks to all the big corporations.
As soon as they granted her bail, China, no question. If the US really wanted her, they would have made arrangements to get her immediately after her arrest. Since the US didn't arrange that, then it's safe to say this was designed to be a shot across the bow at China, nothing more. But China clearly got the message. If you are a Chinese national in the United States (or Canada), you are vulnerable.
I found it so funny that they took away her passports. That only works for people who fly commercially. Chartered private planes don't require them. And with her estimated net worth at over $100 million, it won't take anything for her line up a flight direct to Beijing.
The common theme of President Trump throughout his presidency is this: he's a chaotic leader. You cannot question that he is an effective leader -- just look at the success he has at his rallies. I'm not saying you have to like the guy or his methods, but you have to at least acknowledge that he is successful at inspiring people to follow him. And he does it by being chaotic.
And his approach to China is no different. Just as he tells reporters about meeting Russia at the G20 summit ("Maybe I will, maybe I won't."), or about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in Khashoggi's death ("Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't."), Trump is consistently ambiguous and aloof regarding his position with practically anything. What he says to China today can still change tomorrow. There are no guarantees, only promises. And China is as good at keeping their promises as Trump is.
So, while that chaos does give us leverage against China (what little we have), I predict it's still going to get us nowhere in the end. While Trump may momentarily have the upper hand, he has a grievous fault that will work against it: he's narcissistic. It's impossible for him to negotiate for what's good for the United States. He negotiates for himself, aiming for outcomes that give him clout (i.e. USMCA, but don't you dare call it "New NAFTA") and economic gain (i.e. tax cuts). He doesn't give a damn about the soybean farmers and every other working class American suffering while this deal is getting negotiated and worked out. Nor will he care about who benefits or doesn't in the end, so long as he gets his.
Law-enforcement agencies remain heavily reliant on fax for routine operations, such as bail postings and return of public-records requests. Health care, too, runs largely on fax.
You left out higher education.
We're adding an addition to our high school, which includes a new office for the careers counselor. I consulted with the architects on the low-voltage wiring. When we ran it by the counselor for approval, she asked me, "Where's the fax line?" I looked at her dumbfounded, wondering why she couldn't just use scan-to-e-mail, or run to the district office down the hall if necessary. She said, "Student transcripts are all private information. Every student portfolio I sent is by fax. I send at least three a day, with the average fax between eight to ten pages." In the age of secure upload, I couldn't believe it, but she said that only one college she works with regularly uses 100% secure-upload, while everyone else is 100% fax.
I know there are a lot of "elementary rules" when it comes to running a business. "Location, location, location", "law of supply and demand", etc. But one corporations in today's day and age just don't seem to get is this one:
Invest in your employees, and your employees invest in you.
Modern corporations continue to fester this flawed mentality that every employee is just a cog in the machine; if one breaks, replace it with another. But humans aren't machinery. We have this subconscious that interferes with our ability to work at a constant rate of speed and productivity; it requires sleep for one thing, and it distracts our ability to focus continuously due to emotions which interrupt our concentration. Emotions, including feeling jaded by our employer who decided to give all the new employees a raise, but cut veteran employee bonuses and benefits. Or feeling depressed, because your employer is continually threaten to cut your position and move it to another part of the country if you fail to meet your quota. Et cetera, et cetera.
Most employers have forgotten now that when employees feel -valued-, their emotion doesn't impede their production, but rather boosts it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd prefer we create a "Department of Science and Technology". So, so many of our politicians are completely ignorant about technology issues facing our country; cybersecurity is only one of them. Climate change, nuclear power, net neutrality, rare earth metals, space travel, and the opioid crisis are just a few of the many, many science and technology issues that our executive branch needs to weigh in on every day. Having a cabinet level position that advises our president on these important issues would pay dividends.
And then I would take the EPA, FCC, NASA, and the NSF, as well as create a Cybersecurity agency, and make them all managed under DST.
First, for anyone wishing to read the full study, here is the link.
Second, for those claiming the study may be biased, either through the researcher or its funding, I see no evidence of such. The study came from Amy Orben, a researcher at the University of Oxford, and Andrew Przybylski, a research professor at the University of Oxford.
That being said, here's the problem with this study: it used an open data set. In other words, the researchers did not gather and collect the data themselves, but rather looked through and analyzed publicly-accessible statistical data sets. The two data sets used were "Growing up in Ireland", collected in Ireland between August 2011 and March 2012, from students aged 12-14. The other came from "United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics", collected between 2014 and 2015, where the data contained statistics from children ages 8-17, though the study isolated the data to students ages 12-15 to match the other data set. (More thorough description of the data set can be found in the study, page 6-7.)
Now, in statistics, open data sets -can- be useful. When done correctly, the data can be unbiased, as the data collection is separate from its analysis. Researchers can focus more attention on data analysis and conclusion. But, it has some major downfalls. In particular, if a researcher is not disciplined in understanding what the data sets are measuring, and the data measurements don't align with what the research is trying to measure, well, you're comparing apples and oranges. Such is the case here.
So, let's look at the data sets in this study. "Growing up in Ireland" stats were collected in 2011 through 2012. The most glaring problem is the period of time in the data set. The digital universe was very different eight years ago; far fewer percentages of children had smartphones, modern social media website designs didn't exist (in particular, the infinite scroll), and there was less digital-engagement per day. With the other data set, ""United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics", the data set itself is flawed, because it is not randomized. From the study: "The sample was collected by involving all children in households already interviewed by the PSID who descended from either the original families recruited in 1968 or the 1997 new immigrant family sample. Those participants in the child supplement that were selected to receive an in-home visit, were asked to complete two time-use diaries on randomly-assigned days." So, the data sample was collected from families who were already involved in a previous data sample. I don't have the time to look for an explanation as to how this PSID organization recruited families back in 1968, but my hunch says that there's a strong chance there's serious bias in who they recruited for their study. (I'm picturing white middle-class suburbia.) So, limiting your data sample to descendants of a biased sample leads to another biased sample.
And if the data is corrupt, so goes the study.
In fact, I find it so humorous how the study cities multiple studies that go against this studies conclusions. From the study: "Previous
research found negative effects when adolescents engage with digital screens 30 minutes (Levenson, Shensa, Sidani, Colditz, & Primack, 2017), 1 hour (Harbard, Allen, Trinder, & Bei, 2016a) and 2 hours (Orzech, Grandner, Roane, & Carskadon, 2016) before bedtime. This could be due to delayed bedtimes (Cain & Gradisar, 2010; Orzech et al., 2016) or difficulties in relaxing after engaging in stimulating technology use (Harbard et al., 2016a)." That much research does indicate a s
I mean, look how well it worked out for Free-PC!
Ban paper receipts? No thanks. It's official documentation of the transaction.
Allow the status quo? No thanks. Stores are needlessly printing too much paper with information I do not need.
How about we compromise? Let's -reduce- the amount of waste, mandating that consumer receipts contain a maximum amount of information, say a list of purchased items, prices, and quantities, name & contact info of business, and date of transaction? Then only print all the extra QR codes, coupons, promos, etc. if a customer asks for it.
I mean, think about it. We are trying to find a permanent solution to the indefinite storage of nuclear material. So, why are we celebrating a 20-year anniversary? Twenty years going on infinity is still 0% of its supposed lifespan. The fact that we're saying, "Hey, look, guys, we made it twenty years!" doesn't exactly exude confidence about all the years remaining.
Amid a worldwide race for supremacy in artificial intelligence, Stanford University on Monday will unveil a new institute dedicated to using AI to build the best-possible future.
So...does that mean they're building Skynet? Or are they building a Skynet to protect us against Skynet?
The institute highlights the importance of AI being "broadly representative of humanity" across gender, ethnicity, nationality, culture and age.
Oh, they're building a politically-correct Skynet, one that doesn't discriminate against who it decides to kill in its conquest to destroy all humanity. That's cool, that's cool...
Did you even read this study? Or are you some armchair pundit who just threw in your two cents? Because the study cited a previous study that already tried to assess music's impact on mood:
From the study: Ritter and Ferguson showed that a beneficial effect of music on creative task performance was limited to a comparison between a silent condition and a socalled “happy music” condition (Vivaldi's “Four Seasons”). Exposure to “calm music,” “sad music,” and “anxious music” had no impact on creative task performance...The benefit to creative task performance could have been driven by increases in mood and arousal rather than the presence of the music per se.
This study's exact purpose was to assess the relationship between music and creativity, not the relationship between mood and creativity. Because the cited study already analyzed that relationship, there was no need for them to.
He just did.
Spoiler alert: He's not happy about it.
Three words: Interstate Highway System.
It's not the lack of Chinese authoritarianism that's preventing us from making it work. It's our inability to align all our interests and resources to make it happen.
Back in 1956, we passed something called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. In 35 years, we constructed over 48,000 miles of dedicated highway, three times as much Chinese high speed rail in only double the time. How did it all come together? Simple: the threat of war. Eisenhower was inspired by the national highway system of Germany and how it served as vital military infrastructure for them during World War II. Investing in that infrastructure for the homeland would be a strategic military asset in case of invasion. So far, it's yet to be used that way, but it's contributed tremendous returns to our nation's GDP.
The only thing preventing us from making it happen is a lack of will.
Why can China figure out how to construct 18,000 miles of high speed rail, and we can't even figure out how to connect LA to SF?
High speed rail... dark side of the moon... mass production of consumer goods... America is failing repeatedly, with or without Trump.
Eventually, SpaceX wants to build up the network to take in as many as 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit...
That's fifteen times the number of satellites we currently have in low-Earth orbit. Is anyone else concerned that we may run out of satellite space? Or, alternatively, that every satellite we put up in the atmosphere has a greater likelihood of being struck by a meteor, adding to the minefield of space dust already in LEO?
Interestingly, I just watched Real Engineering's video of SpaceX's StarHopper construction just last night. And I didn't know how incredibly thin the walls of a rocket are, and that they are pressurized to retain rigidity. So, imagine the catastrophic destruction that would occur if one of our launches collided with a satellite, or a space dust minefield?
If only one company is asking for 12,000 low-Earth orbit satellites, what happens when one hundred more make the same request? What happens when Indian, Chinese, and Russian companies make the same request? While I don't know whether we'll ever see anything as bad as that one scene from Wall-E, but it feels like we're inching closer to that reality each day.
Their conversion process could be used to convert roughly 90 percent of the world's polypropylene waste each year into fuel.
Then we can put this fuel into our cars and burn, dumping all that carbon into the atmosphere, where it can no longer be any harm to our planet.
Oh wait...
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population.
A lot of Westerners wonder why India and China have such large populations. It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent. These river valleys produce the agriculture that feeds and sustains those populations. If the Himalayas suffer, so do they.
But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.
The actual floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN is BS and a tiny part of the process
I disagree. The floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN has nothing to do with the process. It's senators grandstanding to a camera, nothing more. To quote this New Yorker article...
In general, when senators give speeches on the floor, their colleagues aren’t around, and the two or three who might be present aren’t listening...The only people who pay attention to a speech are the Senate stenographers...The Senate chamber is an intimate room where men and women go to talk to themselves for the record.
Deals get cut in offices, legislation gets filtered by committee, votes get gathered by the whips, and nothing gets to the floor for a vote without party leader approval. Generally, the only time senators gather in the chamber is to conduct the vote. Once it's done, they vacate.
Personally, I think this process is one reason why government is so divided today. Our congressional leaders don't work together in the very chamber where they should be conducting business. There's no rapport, no discussion, no construction of trust necessary to build consensus. Since the vote is the only time -left- where they are required to gather together, I'd hate to see voting by proxy be allowed, further distancing one another apart from the process.
Everyone has a smartphone these days
Speak for yourself. I use a flip phone.
Which Mobile Payment Service Is Best For You?
It's called cash. It goes with me, so it's perfectly mobile. But it doesn't allow big corp to gather data on my every purchase and use it to their own advantages.
There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.
There is a reason, and it's a damn good one: To regulate supply and stabilize pricing.
Think about it: have you ever had to worry about food, really, really worry about it? A moderate price increase due to increasing oil prices at the turn of the century is the closest our country has ever come to a "food crisis". There has never been a serious food shortage or price inflation for food in the US for as long as I've been alive.
It used to not be that way. You can go back to the 70s, and read about how rapidly fluctuating food prices created quite a political stir, as evidenced by the April 1973 cover of Time Magazine. If you study the data on this page, you can see both how food prices (particularly beef) stabilized after 1980, and how the average worker has seen a steady increase over time in the amount of food that can be purchased with their wages.
That has been the primary purpose of the US Farm Bill: to encourage, subsidize, and regulate the food market, stabilizing pricing and providing ample food supply. Because when there's oversupply, people complain about food going to waste. When there's a lack of supply, people riot and governments collapse. Which would you really prefer?
According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Comcast agreed in November to pay $700,000 in refunds "and cancel debts for more than 20,000 Massachusetts customers" to settle allegations that it used deceptive advertising to promote long-term cable contracts.
I am getting so sick of all these stupid settlements. For once, I just wish that our governments would see these lawsuits through to completion. Stop the settlements, where these corporate crooks get to say things like "Allegations were made...as redress for these grievances, Comcast agrees to..." nonsense. Get a judge to spell it out for them in just six simple letters: GUILTY. Once that's finally established, then we can really dig deep into their coffers and hit them with a financial judgement that has some teeth to it.
I listened to a local farmer talk about it. With industrial farming, you pump the soil full of chemicals, plant your seed, harvest, wash, rinse, repeat. He said it works, but it takes a terrible toil on the soil and surrounding environment.
He's now gone to a sustainable farming model. He said it's completely 100% against what industrial farming is all about. He doesn't till the soil, he uses lots of cover crops, doesn't harvest all of it each year, lets his cattle free-graze his fields, and he makes more money doing it. I've heard people say his beef is the best-tasting in the county. Here's a neat write-up about it.
Another neat benefit he mentioned: He got an 8" rainfall last year, and his fields soaked it all up. All his neighbors had run-off into the river valleys, taking all the chemicals with it, but his fields are full of decomposing tillage that took it all in like a sponge.
But the hospital's master list prices, sometimes called a chargemaster, is also not a complete look
Correct. Because nowhere on the chargemaster is a service that says "colonoscopy". Good luck getting the average American to interpret ICD-10-PCS code descriptions. According to this website, a screening colonoscopy should receive the following three codes:
Z12.11: Encounter for screening for malignant neoplasm of the colon
Z80.0: Family history of malignant neoplasm of digestive organs
Z86.010: Personal history of colonic polyps
No word for "colonoscopy" that I can see. Furthermore, this doesn't include the anesthetist charge, recovery, the room charge (which is always charged for with surgery, inpatient or outpatient), or the food charge. Other hospitals even throw in itemized charges for IVs, needles, hoses, gowns, laundry, and tissues.
It'd be like shopping for a car, and before you go, you have to look up online the costs for all the individual parts that make up a car. Except most Americans don't know every single nut and bolt, camshaft and wiring assembly, window and panel, that goes into one. And you get to the car lot, ask how much the cost is, and the salesman says, "We have all our costs online." You get your car, you drive it home, and then you get a bill in the mail three months later for five times what it really should cost.
What health care really needs is the sticker price posted right in the window.
I was informed by a security expert at a technology convention that personal data (Name, BD, SSN) of children are some of the most valuable data sought after on the dark web. When adults have their security credentials stolen, they discover the theft rather quickly, and any accounts created with the stolen data are shut down in a matter of weeks, giving the stolen credentials little potential value. But children do not check bank account information, or credit card balances, or credit scores until they become adults. Hackers can use that information to bankroll illegal financial activity for years.
Someone enrolled now in preschool may discover 15 years later when they fill out their FAFSA that they owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid credit card balances and financial loans. San Diego School District will be liable for decades to come.
perhaps the ISPs could take some their -- what do you call them, ah, yes -- enormous profits and use them to build rural infrastructure all on their own
They are. Not to the extent we want them to, but to a certain extent, they are. They just want someone else to foot the bill.
But if they get this way, I guarantee you that they will define "rural" as generously as possible (because they're already writing the rules), to maximize how much of this money they can spend on -existing- customers that they already provide service to. Then, that money they -used- to spend on existing customers, now covered new tax revenues, can be kept as profit.
Kinda like how when states were debating the green-lighting of lotteries, all the politicians promised, "A portion of the profits will be dedicated to education! Think of the children!" Then the moment the lottery was up and running, politicians cut existing educational budgets to offset the increase from the lottery and gave tax breaks to all the big corporations.
As soon as they granted her bail, China, no question. If the US really wanted her, they would have made arrangements to get her immediately after her arrest. Since the US didn't arrange that, then it's safe to say this was designed to be a shot across the bow at China, nothing more. But China clearly got the message. If you are a Chinese national in the United States (or Canada), you are vulnerable.
I found it so funny that they took away her passports. That only works for people who fly commercially. Chartered private planes don't require them. And with her estimated net worth at over $100 million, it won't take anything for her line up a flight direct to Beijing.
So far, it's just discussion.
The common theme of President Trump throughout his presidency is this: he's a chaotic leader. You cannot question that he is an effective leader -- just look at the success he has at his rallies. I'm not saying you have to like the guy or his methods, but you have to at least acknowledge that he is successful at inspiring people to follow him. And he does it by being chaotic.
And his approach to China is no different. Just as he tells reporters about meeting Russia at the G20 summit ("Maybe I will, maybe I won't."), or about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in Khashoggi's death ("Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't."), Trump is consistently ambiguous and aloof regarding his position with practically anything. What he says to China today can still change tomorrow. There are no guarantees, only promises. And China is as good at keeping their promises as Trump is.
So, while that chaos does give us leverage against China (what little we have), I predict it's still going to get us nowhere in the end. While Trump may momentarily have the upper hand, he has a grievous fault that will work against it: he's narcissistic. It's impossible for him to negotiate for what's good for the United States. He negotiates for himself, aiming for outcomes that give him clout (i.e. USMCA, but don't you dare call it "New NAFTA") and economic gain (i.e. tax cuts). He doesn't give a damn about the soybean farmers and every other working class American suffering while this deal is getting negotiated and worked out. Nor will he care about who benefits or doesn't in the end, so long as he gets his.
Law-enforcement agencies remain heavily reliant on fax for routine operations, such as bail postings and return of public-records requests. Health care, too, runs largely on fax.
You left out higher education.
We're adding an addition to our high school, which includes a new office for the careers counselor. I consulted with the architects on the low-voltage wiring. When we ran it by the counselor for approval, she asked me, "Where's the fax line?" I looked at her dumbfounded, wondering why she couldn't just use scan-to-e-mail, or run to the district office down the hall if necessary. She said, "Student transcripts are all private information. Every student portfolio I sent is by fax. I send at least three a day, with the average fax between eight to ten pages." In the age of secure upload, I couldn't believe it, but she said that only one college she works with regularly uses 100% secure-upload, while everyone else is 100% fax.
I know there are a lot of "elementary rules" when it comes to running a business. "Location, location, location", "law of supply and demand", etc. But one corporations in today's day and age just don't seem to get is this one:
Invest in your employees, and your employees invest in you.
Modern corporations continue to fester this flawed mentality that every employee is just a cog in the machine; if one breaks, replace it with another. But humans aren't machinery. We have this subconscious that interferes with our ability to work at a constant rate of speed and productivity; it requires sleep for one thing, and it distracts our ability to focus continuously due to emotions which interrupt our concentration. Emotions, including feeling jaded by our employer who decided to give all the new employees a raise, but cut veteran employee bonuses and benefits. Or feeling depressed, because your employer is continually threaten to cut your position and move it to another part of the country if you fail to meet your quota. Et cetera, et cetera.
Most employers have forgotten now that when employees feel -valued-, their emotion doesn't impede their production, but rather boosts it.