I don't know the details of the hack; whether it was the result of incompetence or just a 'shit happens' situation. But as long as humans are involved, I doubt there will ever be a usable commercial network that can't be hacked. I agree with giving T-Mob credit for their response.
OTOH, I wonder how Experian, a company that has every consumer by the balls, can stay in business after the kind of breach that they had.
I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals.... In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.
Funny, for someone who supposedly doesn't accept high levels of data collection, you seem to mock anyone else who actually cares.
I'm not mocking 'anyone who actually cares', only you. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.
You said "your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual". And my response is I don't accept these data collection policies. Business as usual or otherwise. I also don't accept that this is the only way to deal with unethical activities. The general public cares more about Kanye and Kim than it does this. Most of them don't even know what CALEA is. Or FISA. Or what an NSL is. And then you make the assumption that the only way government surveillance can be reformed is through things like the Manning/Snowden activities. The whole premise of my original post is that the NSA knows Snowden has nothing that will last more than a news cycle and won't be particularly damaging. But they're willing to wring their hands and ask Congress for more money to secure and compartmentalize their data.
They provided information to the public without any specific intent to collaborate with enemies.
Neither actually provided information to the 'public'. Snowden was the closest with the article in the Guardian. Then he proceeded to contact the Chinese government followed by the Russian government. While those governments aren't 'enemies', they aren't exactly friendly either. How will you feel if the classified information that he gave China encourages them to further escalate tensions in the East China Sea? You understand how treaties set the stage for WWI and WWII. What happens if China shoots down a Japanese plane in this new Defense Zone? Or maybe they send fighters to redirect our B52s to one of their bases. Manning gave information to Wikileaks, an organization whose leader had expressed a public agenda to damage the US government. Both Wikileaks and Snowden used 'unreleased' information to attempt to coerce a specific behavior. Not exactly 'releasing to the public'.
The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.
We have different definitions of oppression. I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. I also don't accept TSA security as anything beyond Security Theatre. I knew that when all the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies got moved under the DHS umbrella that there would be a LOT of data gathering. And no one is capable of coordinating sufficient oversight for an organization that large. Bradley Manning's leaks have been long enough ago that some of the prophecies of doom should have happened. I don't recall anything significantly newsworthy. I don't expect any from Snowden's either. In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.
As far as Manning and Snowden;
A man is only as good as his word.
Both men voluntarily swore an oath to the United States. Both men voluntarily violated that oath. They could have found other ways to address their concerns that didn't involve collaborating with people who have sworn an oath to attack the United States. They chose not to because the other path was difficult. They are not heroes, and I have no sympathy for any of the misfortunes that have come from their lack of principals. You can choose to worship them as heroes, but I won't.
I'm inclined to believe that they just did, unless there's evidence proving otherwise.
Yeah, and that kind of thinking said Saddam Hussein had WMD. BTW, unless it's illegal, I don't care about the sexual preferences of my congress persons.
Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies? The revelation that the NSA has tapped Angela Merkel's cell has turned into a "who hasn't" as 4 other countries have been implicated as well. And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals". Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.
Copyright needs to take into account the type of property being protected. Copyrights should expire at a point where the work is still useful to the public, otherwise it is allowing individuals to take from the public domain and perverting the purpose of copyrights. Does it make sense for software copyrights to have the same duration as movies and books? Patents are only 20 years. As a software developer, my opinion is that 10 or 15 years would be sufficient for software copyright.
As it currently stands, copyright on books and movies will likely never expire in the US. 25 years should be sufficient for their creators to earn a healthy profit. But as long as money talks in Washington we will never see an expiration of copyrights from early 20th century.
Also understand that Slashdot is a diverse community. I personally don't agree with anything that you think 'Slashdot' believes. And I've been here through the discussions of Hurt Locker lawsuits and the Sony rootkits.
If they really wanted to be fair, they'd charge every person hooked to the grid for their share of the fixed costs, PLUS the variable cost of how many kilowatt-hours they use. But in many places this is not currently legal.
Really, because my gas, electric, water, and sewer bills all have a 'customer charge'. The minimum usage on my gas service was $27 a month. I didn't want to pay that to heat water in the summer so I went all electric. My minimum electric is $20 prior to usage. My water utility's minimum is $18 a month, and sewer is $12. Those amounts include customer charge, a fixed portion of the franchise fee (it also has a variable amount), and various taxes and surcharges.
The question is; do customers with grid-tied solar systems increase costs for the utilities. The utilities have to install newer meters to support net metering. But with smart meter legislation and grants, it's questionable how much of that you can attribute to solar. Since the billing process uses whatever the meter shows, there is no additional billing costs unless a customer provides more power than they use. And renewable energy can cause problems balancing the grid due to their variable nature, requiring generating facilities that can change output quickly. But with utilities preferring natural gas plants right now, that's kind of hard to pass off on solar either.
Personally I am mostly OK with this. The next morning when you see the huge line of cars left behind because the drivers were drunk justifies it to me.
I used to be ok with the DUI checkpoints since I rarely drink and never before driving. But then one Friday night about 11pm I ran into one on a interstate highway crossing from Kansas to Missouri. Traffic suddenly went from 70+mph to a dead stop, 3 lanes into 1. It took 2 hours to go 3 miles. You couldn't (legally) turn around and go back to the last exit. I personally had been up since 6am so by the time I got home I may not have been a safe driver, due to my 1 hour drive turning into a 3 hour drive. I have never seen so much extreme road rage like was caused by those frustrated drivers. And when I did finally get to the checkpoint the police had possibly finally realized they created a dangerous situation and were flagging everyone through.
I had always given them the benefit of the doubt that the checkpoints were coordinated by intelligent, competent people. I no longer feel that is the case. I now fully support the people who believe random checkpoints are a violation of the US constitution's 4th amendment. BTW, here they use a breathalyzer and it is 100% voluntary, but if you don't 'volunteer', they can take your driver's license.
but the only "problem" with Obamacare is that it doesn't have PUBLIC OPTION
I would have said that the problem is that it isn't single payer. We should have just expanded Medicare to cover everyone. But then we'd have spent all this time watching Republicans doing their Gollum impression crying about their "Precious" (money).
Funny note: cyanogenmod doesn't even come with Google Play.
Now I really want to find some time to get cyanogenmod on my gTab. I'm getting so tired of seeing the constant update of Google apps, and the 20 flavors of Google Play. Even Microsoft saves their updates to one push per month.
Cars and trucks generally get driven enough that's not a problem but recreational vehicles may go months -- or occasionally, years -- between uses. I had to spend $600 on a complete carburetor rebuild for my boat last year because it had sat unused for two years and the ethanol had really screwed up the carb.
Prior to having ethanol in the gasoline, I had to rebuild the carbs and remove and clean the gas tank on my motorcycle because I let it set for 10 months and didn't drain the gas. Even with stabilizers, gas doesn't keep well for long periods of time. Ethanol can be a problem to fuel systems over a long period of time, but letting your boat sit unused for 2 years would have been just as likely to have problems on 'pure' gasoline.
As far as getting gas without ethanol, at many stations if you buy premium it has no ethanol. Check with your local station. HyVee actually advertises on their pumps that their premium doesn't have alcohol. I buy premium for my lawn equipment and small engines because I had a lot of trouble with gaskets drying out due to alcohol. On the other hand, my truck has been running 10% ethanol for nearly 12 years with no fuel system problems at all. And before you throw out ethanol entirely, consider what it has replaced. Ethanol has replaced MTBE as an oxygenate in gasoline, and MTBE replaced lead. If you get rid of it, what will you replace it with?
Revealed: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is top executive at firm that that built disastrous Obamacare website after being awarded no-bid $93m contract
That is deceptive. A quick google search tells me Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton in 1981, and Toni Townes-Whitley graduated in 1985. Taken that by itself there wouldn't appear to be anything to indicate they were 'classmates', or even that they had ever met.
They are also both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni, but still no indication that they knew each other. I have no idea how many members that organization has.
And the article you post appears contradictory:
Earlier this month, Washington Examiner reported the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid handed CGI Obamacare account without putting the contract out to competitive tender.
It has since been revealed four companies submitted bids, but only CGI was considered for the $93 million Healthcare.gov contract.
It wasn't put out for competitive bids, but somehow they received 4?
the whole 'Obamacare rollout has been awful' is such a misreported story...making a comparison to a rollout of a similar program from the other party helps frame the issue properly
Take all the politics out of it and tell me if the project is in serious trouble. The federal website has cost ~$175 million and supports 36 states. Total signups are 27,000 during the first month. The 14 states that created their own sites have signed up 79,000. That's an awful lot of money to support less than 1000 unique transactions per day.
I suppose there is always the possibility that the opposition is running a clandestine DDOS, but the information coming out of various investigations is that they created a Rube Goldberg system and nobody wanted to hear that it wasn't going to work. I don't necessarily hold Sebelius responsible for the website's failure, I doubt she was involved other than having her underlings giving her rosy "we'll get it done" reports. But there is definitely a management problem with regards to contractor oversight.
I have found some very smart folks that refuse to let go and feel there is a need to do everything manually. I have also found smart folks that just want things easy to do so they can get back to doing what they want to do. Tinkerers vs non-tinkerers.
It's a matter of choosing what we want to tinker with. I have two raspberry Pis for pending projects, and itching to grab a BeagleBone. And I'm planning to build a VM host server so I can tinker with HA SQL servers. I also prefer to do all my own auto repairs and DIY jobs around the house. What I don't have interest in is tinkering with is rebuilding my tablet if this bricks it (gTab 2 doesn't appear to be supported yet anyway), and I'm on call 24x7 so I'm not very adventurous with my cell. With a full time+ job I need to be selective on how I commit my time.
The US card has neither a chip nor contactless capabilities AFAIK - it's a plain old magnetic strip. I would have serious issues actually trying to use that card back home (or in most other countries), as plenty of places simply won't take a swipe anymore.
Chips and contactless cards have been available in the US for a long time. They just aren't universal. I had an Amex Blue card nearly 15 years ago that had a chip in it. And in 2005 they launched a contactless card. Discover also had an oddly shaped card a few years ago that was contactless. I don't think the chipped cards gained acceptance because retailers didn't want to change their readers, and I don't know if Visa or Mastercard ever made any effort to get chipped cards on the market. I wouldn't be surprised if contactless cards aren't widespread simply because they are contactless. I have seen quite a few chains install the contactless readers. But if I have to choose over a reader where I swipe my own card, or a contactless reader where I have no idea what the true range is, I'm going to choose to swipe.
As far as Square's business model, you're focusing on the wrong part of the device. They are about giving small businesses the ability accept and process credit cards. They offer a mag reader because that is the most common device in the market that they are targeting. When they want to enter other markets they will simply create a new device that works through their current protocol. The card reader is a small part of their service, and I don't know why they would be limited to a single technology.
My last card was like that. I just assumed it was because they printed it on-demand at the branch office, rather than having it mailed from their credit card processor. I don't know if that's an improvement in security. It still has a mag stripe on the back, and now anyone with an ID card printer ($800 with a quick google search) and a stripe encoder ($200 on Amazon) can make cards.
I was there getting my card replaced because someone hacked Harbor Freight and stole the track 2 info from cards. (CC#, expiration, CVV) It was an odd experience because the person ahead of me was also getting a card replaced due to fraudulent charges at the exact same Home Depot in New York state. (we live in the mid-west)
A 100-year phase out of Medicare similar to the phase-out Ron Paul has proposed for Social Security.
One thing you should understand about plans to eliminate Social Security. It is NOT about saving money, or putting control of your retirement future back into your hands. It's about politicians understanding that all those IOUs they have been putting in the Social Security Trust for decades are worthless. Now that Social Security payouts are surpassing receipts, it needs those funds that were set aside for generations. But the money isn't there, leaving Congress three methods for resolving the problem; raise taxes to cover deficit spending and repaying Social Security, cut spending (biggest target is military), or dismantle Social Security and run away from the repayment responsibilities like a thief in the night.
Social Security and Medicare are paid by specified payroll taxes, not from the general fund. When Ron Paul shows you a graph of Federal spending that includes those 'entitlements'* and says "look at percentage of the budget the federal government gives away in entitlements", he is being disingenuous because taking away those agencies does not make the money available to the general fund. If Social Security and Medicare were eliminated they would also have to either eliminate the payroll taxes or pass a law to reallocate them. Oh, and you better add a room to your house, because for most people it would mean that your parents are going to be moving in once they can no longer earn a living wage.
* Entitlements is now a pejorative even though what you get paid from Social Security is dependent on what you paid in.
True capitalism only exists in theory. True capitalism would be a market without consumer protections. Capitalism operates under the belief that if a seller sells a bad product, buyers will switch to another seller, causing the first seller to either improve their product or go out of business. Do we want health and food inspectors, or do we just wait until people get sick and then let the market put the farm or restaurant out of business? While I believe stupidity should be painful, do we want cars without NHTSA and EPA regulations? The invisible hand is a fairy tale.
I just paid $3.17 last night, just 5% over your $3 target so I'd say we're getting close.
I doubt the recent drop in gasoline prices is related to our increased oil production. They have ramped up over 3 years, yet gas prices have only dropped over the last couple of weeks. I suspect gas prices are dropping due to: moving from summer fuel mixtures, drop in demand since the new school year has started, and drop in demand due to the Gov't shutdown. The number to watch right now is the price of diesel. If it starts a similar drop it will be an indicator that the economy is cooling off and we could be sliding back towards recession. With the gov't shutdown trickling into the private sector through gov't suppliers, it could be a real concern. Gasoline prices would continue to drop, and that might seem like a good thing, until employers move from furloughs to layoffs.
BTW, the market price of oil hasn't been dropping because despite the US reducing demand and producing more, worldwide demand continues to rise. China and India are huge markets and have a long way to go to reach parities with 1st world economies. Just wait until their consumers demand products and services on the same the level as US and Europe. Those 2 countries have approximately 1/3 of the world's population.
Someone says "there is even a tax on employees" with or without health insurance, and he's called a liar. I point out that FICA is indeed a tax on having employees (and on employees themselves), and I'm irrelevant or misleading?
Since we're being all pedantic, FICA isn't a tax on 'having employees'. It's a tax on 'paying W-2 employees'.
And you are both wrong on FICA. FICA is Social Security. There is a separate Medicare tax. Both are payroll taxes.
And wouldn't it have been nice if health care reform had actually focused on this, instead of all the other crap and handouts to big businesses that Obama did.
It would be nice if health care reform could have been passed on it's own merits without having to bribe politicians for their vote by incorporating handouts for their supporters. It would also be nice if supporting a good idea by an opposing party wasn't considered selling out. That isn't the congress that we have. Looked at apolitically, we'd probably have a single payer system that covered "maintenance" and emergency type treatments with private coverage for catastrophic illnesses.
Looking at the situation pragmatically, giving the public access to checkups and common disease treatment is a societal good. It keeps them active members of society and reduces preventable diseases. For emergency treatments, as a society we have already chosen to treat and stabilize anyone who shows up in an emergency room. But instead of spreading the cost across the entire population we force those that actually pay for hospital services to shoulder the burden of those who don't.
I now have a DSLR, but it doesn't work nearly as well as my old Pentax.
I had a Canon AE-1 in the 80s and use a Nikon D5100 now. My experience has been the opposite of yours. I get many more excellent photos now. Primarily because taking the pictures is essentially free. I can get about 500 shots on a 16g SD card (Jpeg and Raw), so I take a lot more. If some of them don't work out, I delete them and move on. I do a lot of wildlife photography and you don't get time to set up. If I was still shooting film I'd be spending a lot more $$ and getting far fewer photos.
I shoot with a 5100, and I'm very happy with it. But I don't think it's what 'most people' are going to be looking for. Many people are happy with the odd size photos they get from their camera phones. I haven't been through all the specs, but for a casual shooter the Nikon Coolpix L820 looks like a good alternative at $193 (Amazon).
I don't know how well the video on either of these would work for your requirements though. With the 5200 I expect light would be a problem unless you are up front. I shoot exclusively outdoors with my 5100 and it's Nikkor 55-300 (f4.5-5.6) lens, and I'm surprised how often it wants flash.
Maybe I also don't relate to video, I currently just have no interest in it. I have a 4 year old camcorder that has been used once.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know the details of the hack; whether it was the result of incompetence or just a 'shit happens' situation. But as long as humans are involved, I doubt there will ever be a usable commercial network that can't be hacked. I agree with giving T-Mob credit for their response.
OTOH, I wonder how Experian, a company that has every consumer by the balls, can stay in business after the kind of breach that they had.
I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. ... In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.
Funny, for someone who supposedly doesn't accept high levels of data collection, you seem to mock anyone else who actually cares.
I'm not mocking 'anyone who actually cares', only you. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.
You said "your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual". And my response is I don't accept these data collection policies. Business as usual or otherwise. I also don't accept that this is the only way to deal with unethical activities. The general public cares more about Kanye and Kim than it does this. Most of them don't even know what CALEA is. Or FISA. Or what an NSL is. And then you make the assumption that the only way government surveillance can be reformed is through things like the Manning/Snowden activities. The whole premise of my original post is that the NSA knows Snowden has nothing that will last more than a news cycle and won't be particularly damaging. But they're willing to wring their hands and ask Congress for more money to secure and compartmentalize their data.
They provided information to the public without any specific intent to collaborate with enemies.
Neither actually provided information to the 'public'. Snowden was the closest with the article in the Guardian. Then he proceeded to contact the Chinese government followed by the Russian government. While those governments aren't 'enemies', they aren't exactly friendly either. How will you feel if the classified information that he gave China encourages them to further escalate tensions in the East China Sea? You understand how treaties set the stage for WWI and WWII. What happens if China shoots down a Japanese plane in this new Defense Zone? Or maybe they send fighters to redirect our B52s to one of their bases. Manning gave information to Wikileaks, an organization whose leader had expressed a public agenda to damage the US government. Both Wikileaks and Snowden used 'unreleased' information to attempt to coerce a specific behavior. Not exactly 'releasing to the public'.
The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.
We have different definitions of oppression. I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. I also don't accept TSA security as anything beyond Security Theatre. I knew that when all the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies got moved under the DHS umbrella that there would be a LOT of data gathering. And no one is capable of coordinating sufficient oversight for an organization that large. Bradley Manning's leaks have been long enough ago that some of the prophecies of doom should have happened. I don't recall anything significantly newsworthy. I don't expect any from Snowden's either. In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.
As far as Manning and Snowden;
A man is only as good as his word.
Both men voluntarily swore an oath to the United States. Both men voluntarily violated that oath. They could have found other ways to address their concerns that didn't involve collaborating with people who have sworn an oath to attack the United States. They chose not to because the other path was difficult. They are not heroes, and I have no sympathy for any of the misfortunes that have come from their lack of principals. You can choose to worship them as heroes, but I won't.
I'm inclined to believe that they just did, unless there's evidence proving otherwise.
Yeah, and that kind of thinking said Saddam Hussein had WMD. BTW, unless it's illegal, I don't care about the sexual preferences of my congress persons.
Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies? The revelation that the NSA has tapped Angela Merkel's cell has turned into a "who hasn't" as 4 other countries have been implicated as well. And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals". Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.
Copyright needs to take into account the type of property being protected. Copyrights should expire at a point where the work is still useful to the public, otherwise it is allowing individuals to take from the public domain and perverting the purpose of copyrights. Does it make sense for software copyrights to have the same duration as movies and books? Patents are only 20 years. As a software developer, my opinion is that 10 or 15 years would be sufficient for software copyright.
As it currently stands, copyright on books and movies will likely never expire in the US. 25 years should be sufficient for their creators to earn a healthy profit. But as long as money talks in Washington we will never see an expiration of copyrights from early 20th century.
Also understand that Slashdot is a diverse community. I personally don't agree with anything that you think 'Slashdot' believes. And I've been here through the discussions of Hurt Locker lawsuits and the Sony rootkits.
If they really wanted to be fair, they'd charge every person hooked to the grid for their share of the fixed costs, PLUS the variable cost of how many kilowatt-hours they use. But in many places this is not currently legal.
Really, because my gas, electric, water, and sewer bills all have a 'customer charge'. The minimum usage on my gas service was $27 a month. I didn't want to pay that to heat water in the summer so I went all electric. My minimum electric is $20 prior to usage. My water utility's minimum is $18 a month, and sewer is $12. Those amounts include customer charge, a fixed portion of the franchise fee (it also has a variable amount), and various taxes and surcharges.
The question is; do customers with grid-tied solar systems increase costs for the utilities. The utilities have to install newer meters to support net metering. But with smart meter legislation and grants, it's questionable how much of that you can attribute to solar. Since the billing process uses whatever the meter shows, there is no additional billing costs unless a customer provides more power than they use. And renewable energy can cause problems balancing the grid due to their variable nature, requiring generating facilities that can change output quickly. But with utilities preferring natural gas plants right now, that's kind of hard to pass off on solar either.
Come on! 10 bucks for some spit!
$10 will get you 6 minutes. But I bill on a 4 hour minimum.
Personally I am mostly OK with this. The next morning when you see the huge line of cars left behind because the drivers were drunk justifies it to me.
I used to be ok with the DUI checkpoints since I rarely drink and never before driving. But then one Friday night about 11pm I ran into one on a interstate highway crossing from Kansas to Missouri. Traffic suddenly went from 70+mph to a dead stop, 3 lanes into 1. It took 2 hours to go 3 miles. You couldn't (legally) turn around and go back to the last exit. I personally had been up since 6am so by the time I got home I may not have been a safe driver, due to my 1 hour drive turning into a 3 hour drive. I have never seen so much extreme road rage like was caused by those frustrated drivers. And when I did finally get to the checkpoint the police had possibly finally realized they created a dangerous situation and were flagging everyone through.
I had always given them the benefit of the doubt that the checkpoints were coordinated by intelligent, competent people. I no longer feel that is the case. I now fully support the people who believe random checkpoints are a violation of the US constitution's 4th amendment. BTW, here they use a breathalyzer and it is 100% voluntary, but if you don't 'volunteer', they can take your driver's license.
but the only "problem" with Obamacare is that it doesn't have PUBLIC OPTION
I would have said that the problem is that it isn't single payer. We should have just expanded Medicare to cover everyone. But then we'd have spent all this time watching Republicans doing their Gollum impression crying about their "Precious" (money).
Funny note: cyanogenmod doesn't even come with Google Play.
Now I really want to find some time to get cyanogenmod on my gTab. I'm getting so tired of seeing the constant update of Google apps, and the 20 flavors of Google Play. Even Microsoft saves their updates to one push per month.
Cars and trucks generally get driven enough that's not a problem but recreational vehicles may go months -- or occasionally, years -- between uses. I had to spend $600 on a complete carburetor rebuild for my boat last year because it had sat unused for two years and the ethanol had really screwed up the carb.
Prior to having ethanol in the gasoline, I had to rebuild the carbs and remove and clean the gas tank on my motorcycle because I let it set for 10 months and didn't drain the gas. Even with stabilizers, gas doesn't keep well for long periods of time. Ethanol can be a problem to fuel systems over a long period of time, but letting your boat sit unused for 2 years would have been just as likely to have problems on 'pure' gasoline.
As far as getting gas without ethanol, at many stations if you buy premium it has no ethanol. Check with your local station. HyVee actually advertises on their pumps that their premium doesn't have alcohol. I buy premium for my lawn equipment and small engines because I had a lot of trouble with gaskets drying out due to alcohol. On the other hand, my truck has been running 10% ethanol for nearly 12 years with no fuel system problems at all. And before you throw out ethanol entirely, consider what it has replaced. Ethanol has replaced MTBE as an oxygenate in gasoline, and MTBE replaced lead. If you get rid of it, what will you replace it with?
BTW, $600 to rebuild a carb, you got screwed.
Revealed: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is top executive at firm that that built disastrous Obamacare website after being awarded no-bid $93m contract
That is deceptive. A quick google search tells me Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton in 1981, and Toni Townes-Whitley graduated in 1985. Taken that by itself there wouldn't appear to be anything to indicate they were 'classmates', or even that they had ever met.
They are also both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni, but still no indication that they knew each other. I have no idea how many members that organization has.
And the article you post appears contradictory:
Earlier this month, Washington Examiner reported the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid handed CGI Obamacare account without putting the contract out to competitive tender.
It has since been revealed four companies submitted bids, but only CGI was considered for the $93 million Healthcare.gov contract.
It wasn't put out for competitive bids, but somehow they received 4?
the whole 'Obamacare rollout has been awful' is such a misreported story...making a comparison to a rollout of a similar program from the other party helps frame the issue properly
Take all the politics out of it and tell me if the project is in serious trouble. The federal website has cost ~$175 million and supports 36 states. Total signups are 27,000 during the first month. The 14 states that created their own sites have signed up 79,000. That's an awful lot of money to support less than 1000 unique transactions per day.
I suppose there is always the possibility that the opposition is running a clandestine DDOS, but the information coming out of various investigations is that they created a Rube Goldberg system and nobody wanted to hear that it wasn't going to work. I don't necessarily hold Sebelius responsible for the website's failure, I doubt she was involved other than having her underlings giving her rosy "we'll get it done" reports. But there is definitely a management problem with regards to contractor oversight.
Whether the data they have is subpenoable I don't know.
Any information that a company collects on it's customers can be subpoenaed.
I have found some very smart folks that refuse to let go and feel there is a need to do everything manually. I have also found smart folks that just want things easy to do so they can get back to doing what they want to do. Tinkerers vs non-tinkerers.
It's a matter of choosing what we want to tinker with. I have two raspberry Pis for pending projects, and itching to grab a BeagleBone. And I'm planning to build a VM host server so I can tinker with HA SQL servers. I also prefer to do all my own auto repairs and DIY jobs around the house. What I don't have interest in is tinkering with is rebuilding my tablet if this bricks it (gTab 2 doesn't appear to be supported yet anyway), and I'm on call 24x7 so I'm not very adventurous with my cell. With a full time+ job I need to be selective on how I commit my time.
The US card has neither a chip nor contactless capabilities AFAIK - it's a plain old magnetic strip. I would have serious issues actually trying to use that card back home (or in most other countries), as plenty of places simply won't take a swipe anymore.
Chips and contactless cards have been available in the US for a long time. They just aren't universal. I had an Amex Blue card nearly 15 years ago that had a chip in it. And in 2005 they launched a contactless card. Discover also had an oddly shaped card a few years ago that was contactless. I don't think the chipped cards gained acceptance because retailers didn't want to change their readers, and I don't know if Visa or Mastercard ever made any effort to get chipped cards on the market. I wouldn't be surprised if contactless cards aren't widespread simply because they are contactless. I have seen quite a few chains install the contactless readers. But if I have to choose over a reader where I swipe my own card, or a contactless reader where I have no idea what the true range is, I'm going to choose to swipe.
As far as Square's business model, you're focusing on the wrong part of the device. They are about giving small businesses the ability accept and process credit cards. They offer a mag reader because that is the most common device in the market that they are targeting. When they want to enter other markets they will simply create a new device that works through their current protocol. The card reader is a small part of their service, and I don't know why they would be limited to a single technology.
My last card was like that. I just assumed it was because they printed it on-demand at the branch office, rather than having it mailed from their credit card processor. I don't know if that's an improvement in security. It still has a mag stripe on the back, and now anyone with an ID card printer ($800 with a quick google search) and a stripe encoder ($200 on Amazon) can make cards.
I was there getting my card replaced because someone hacked Harbor Freight and stole the track 2 info from cards. (CC#, expiration, CVV) It was an odd experience because the person ahead of me was also getting a card replaced due to fraudulent charges at the exact same Home Depot in New York state. (we live in the mid-west)
A 100-year phase out of Medicare similar to the phase-out Ron Paul has proposed for Social Security.
One thing you should understand about plans to eliminate Social Security. It is NOT about saving money, or putting control of your retirement future back into your hands. It's about politicians understanding that all those IOUs they have been putting in the Social Security Trust for decades are worthless. Now that Social Security payouts are surpassing receipts, it needs those funds that were set aside for generations. But the money isn't there, leaving Congress three methods for resolving the problem; raise taxes to cover deficit spending and repaying Social Security, cut spending (biggest target is military), or dismantle Social Security and run away from the repayment responsibilities like a thief in the night.
Social Security and Medicare are paid by specified payroll taxes, not from the general fund. When Ron Paul shows you a graph of Federal spending that includes those 'entitlements'* and says "look at percentage of the budget the federal government gives away in entitlements", he is being disingenuous because taking away those agencies does not make the money available to the general fund. If Social Security and Medicare were eliminated they would also have to either eliminate the payroll taxes or pass a law to reallocate them. Oh, and you better add a room to your house, because for most people it would mean that your parents are going to be moving in once they can no longer earn a living wage.
* Entitlements is now a pejorative even though what you get paid from Social Security is dependent on what you paid in.
True capitalism only exists in theory. True capitalism would be a market without consumer protections. Capitalism operates under the belief that if a seller sells a bad product, buyers will switch to another seller, causing the first seller to either improve their product or go out of business. Do we want health and food inspectors, or do we just wait until people get sick and then let the market put the farm or restaurant out of business? While I believe stupidity should be painful, do we want cars without NHTSA and EPA regulations? The invisible hand is a fairy tale.
I just paid $3.17 last night, just 5% over your $3 target so I'd say we're getting close.
I doubt the recent drop in gasoline prices is related to our increased oil production. They have ramped up over 3 years, yet gas prices have only dropped over the last couple of weeks. I suspect gas prices are dropping due to: moving from summer fuel mixtures, drop in demand since the new school year has started, and drop in demand due to the Gov't shutdown. The number to watch right now is the price of diesel. If it starts a similar drop it will be an indicator that the economy is cooling off and we could be sliding back towards recession. With the gov't shutdown trickling into the private sector through gov't suppliers, it could be a real concern. Gasoline prices would continue to drop, and that might seem like a good thing, until employers move from furloughs to layoffs.
BTW, the market price of oil hasn't been dropping because despite the US reducing demand and producing more, worldwide demand continues to rise. China and India are huge markets and have a long way to go to reach parities with 1st world economies. Just wait until their consumers demand products and services on the same the level as US and Europe. Those 2 countries have approximately 1/3 of the world's population.
Someone says "there is even a tax on employees" with or without health insurance, and he's called a liar. I point out that FICA is indeed a tax on having employees (and on employees themselves), and I'm irrelevant or misleading?
Since we're being all pedantic, FICA isn't a tax on 'having employees'. It's a tax on 'paying W-2 employees'.
And you are both wrong on FICA. FICA is Social Security. There is a separate Medicare tax. Both are payroll taxes.
And wouldn't it have been nice if health care reform had actually focused on this, instead of all the other crap and handouts to big businesses that Obama did.
It would be nice if health care reform could have been passed on it's own merits without having to bribe politicians for their vote by incorporating handouts for their supporters. It would also be nice if supporting a good idea by an opposing party wasn't considered selling out. That isn't the congress that we have. Looked at apolitically, we'd probably have a single payer system that covered "maintenance" and emergency type treatments with private coverage for catastrophic illnesses.
Looking at the situation pragmatically, giving the public access to checkups and common disease treatment is a societal good. It keeps them active members of society and reduces preventable diseases. For emergency treatments, as a society we have already chosen to treat and stabilize anyone who shows up in an emergency room. But instead of spreading the cost across the entire population we force those that actually pay for hospital services to shoulder the burden of those who don't.
I now have a DSLR, but it doesn't work nearly as well as my old Pentax.
I had a Canon AE-1 in the 80s and use a Nikon D5100 now. My experience has been the opposite of yours. I get many more excellent photos now. Primarily because taking the pictures is essentially free. I can get about 500 shots on a 16g SD card (Jpeg and Raw), so I take a lot more. If some of them don't work out, I delete them and move on. I do a lot of wildlife photography and you don't get time to set up. If I was still shooting film I'd be spending a lot more $$ and getting far fewer photos.
I shoot with a 5100, and I'm very happy with it. But I don't think it's what 'most people' are going to be looking for. Many people are happy with the odd size photos they get from their camera phones. I haven't been through all the specs, but for a casual shooter the Nikon Coolpix L820 looks like a good alternative at $193 (Amazon).
I don't know how well the video on either of these would work for your requirements though. With the 5200 I expect light would be a problem unless you are up front. I shoot exclusively outdoors with my 5100 and it's Nikkor 55-300 (f4.5-5.6) lens, and I'm surprised how often it wants flash.
Maybe I also don't relate to video, I currently just have no interest in it. I have a 4 year old camcorder that has been used once.