It's doubly a pain to see the same ones when binge watching.
Those are absolutely the worst. Watching the same preview the second time is almost as bad as when I pull out a years old DVD and have* to sit through ancient trailers before I can start watching the movie. By the third time I see the same preview the same day, it's worse.
*: or use a non-compliant DVD player that allows skipping this shit. Either/or.
This is why I ripped all my movies or purchased digital copies and when I rent a movie I rip it, watch it, and delete it. Typically if I want to watch it again I will buy it but the one thing I'm tired of is some movie for my kids that has a 5-10 minutes of trailers for movies they have watched or don't want to see.
More to the point, I would not pay for Netflix with ads. Netflix is quite reasonably priced at the moment. If they needed to charge more to avoid using ads, I would be okay with that. Of course they could charge sufficiently more that I wouldn't be okay with it, but I don't think they need to. The whole reason I use Netflix instead of TV is that I despise ads. HBO Now's advertising before each GoT episode really pisses me off, and makes me not want to use the service.
I'm with you on this I don't want to have to sit through ads and using HBO where they show an ad for a show which seems to be the same ad each time I watch! I'll switch to Amazon Prime and stop Netflix if they start advertising.
I mentioned this somewhere else but Netflix should have a section that includes trailers if they want people to watch the shows they are producing. Granted I bet just creating high quality content and letting people know at the top of the App will help then it will spread through Facebook and Twitter.
You are forgetting that the companies producing most of these products can easily produce more with either the same resources and shifts or possibly add another shift at a known cost and produce more of the item (Economies of Scale). Either way the factory is being utilized more which lowers the total cost of each unit. Now this could be wrong if the factory is already utilized 100% but typically that is not the case. Heck I bet most companies would prefer more demand and to hire more workers than to have slacking demand due to less people having the ability to buy their products.
Two important things to consider:
1. It will increase prices of products as well, so at the end of the day it's just a cycle where nothing really happens.
2. Do you actually think the same amount of employees will be employed if companies are mandated to pay them more? Many of them will lose jobs.
Minimum wage hikes tend to hurt two parties the most:
1. Small businesses, who are typically operating on rather small margins anyway. Unlike larger businesses, they can't easily move to places with lower minimum wage or offshore jobs.
2. Middle class, because they suffer the increase in costs incurred by minimum wage hikes, but don't benefit at all from it because they're already above the minimum wage.
Minimum wage increases try to tackle a real problem, but do nothing to actually solve it. Minimum wage should be adjusted in accordance with inflation and nothing else.
You are very wrong on both cases. First the market sets the prices and since the market is competitive the business that is making a profit will be forced to keep the same price or risk loosing all their customers. Second the employee costs won't rise that much and you have a better shot at getting more customers if people have extra money to spend.
As far as small businesses they have a chance for more customers and this will be better for them than the small increase in costs. For those in Middle class you are right they might not see anything at first but eventually if you are making close to the minimum wage you can possibly leave to take an easier job to argue for a pay raise after all this is what the employee market has turned to.
Last increasing demand will not cause increased prices of products because most factories can create more products then the market can sell. After all I don't know when the last time I said wow I can't just go to the store and purchase "X" because it is sold out unless you count release days but that is a different story and prices wouldn't increase because of increased wages. Grocery stores might see the opposite where they sell more fresh produce and have less waste which would help the bottom line more than any wage increase would hurt it.
Please. More money does NOT make for better students. The poorest of students have often times been the best of students. Each individual student needs some THING to ignite a hunger for knowledge within him. If/when that hunger is lit, nothing can hold a student back, short of death.
We Americans, despite the economic "hardships" of the past decade, remain among the wealthiest people in history, world wide. We don't starve. We aren't dropping in the streets from diseases. We don't have open warfare in our streets. Barring some violent weather now and then, we almost all go home to find our homes intact every day.
More money in the education system, or even more money in the classroom, will NOT make for better students. History proves that idea to be FALSE.
Our education system is badly flawed, and that flaw can be traced, at least in part, to the idea that more money can "fix" education. We have pampered little children who are distracted by meaningless nonsense. Kim Kardashian? Reality TV? Rock stars? Sports? Oh yeah - drugs. I can understand drug usage by the dirt poor, who live miserable lives. Those who spend all day out scavenging for a little bit of food, and still go to bed hungry - I can forgive them for trying to escape reality. Our little rich kids, with to much time on their hands? Escape from reality? They are LOSERS. And, we have raised them to be LOSERS.
Money isn't the answer.
Kids need to learn morals. Kids need some hardship. Kids need to WORK for the privilege of higher education - and I do NOT MEAN that they should be impoverished for life in exchange for an education. I mean, they should have to WORK for the privilege, instead of being pampered.
Keep the money. Instead, go into the classrooms, and get tough. We've needed a strong dose of tough love in the classrooms for the past 30 years, or more. Crack the whip, and stop treating kids like babies. Just drop pre-school, headstart, kindergarten, and all the rest of that shit.
I started school at age 5, and went straight into first grade. One month after my 18th birthday, I graduated high school. No amount of pre-schooling implemented since 1960 has improved on the final results among high school grads. NOTHING has improved those final results.
All that money has been WASTED.
If you have an old rotten ship, which threatens to sink every time it sails, how can you justify continuing to send it to sea? How can you justify painting it, again and again, and calling it seaworthy?
That is precisely the state of our education system. It is sinking, and we continue to paint it, to make it look pretty.
Cut the funds, and force school administrators to actually EDUCATE children!
I agree schools do not need more money what is really needed is a better curriculum that brings out the students desire to learn with the goal of being prepared for the work force. Right now schools typically have three things they teach to depending on the school. The first is the test which is how students and teachers are graded. The problem is the work force is not a series of tests with 2 hour time limits. The second thing they teach is menial tasks which is really for manufacturing which is disappearing in this country and part of the reason why many say the education system does not work. The third is they teach kids to go to college and while this can be good not every child will go to college so they come out with little ability to get a job.
I disagree with the crack the whip mentality that doesn't work either and will probably end up worse in many respects. Also Pre-K and Kindergarten are very important to develop a love of learning in kids which is really what school at a young age should be about. School should develop a child so they desire knowledge and find ways to learn this is what our kids need. A school needs to be a safe haven for those that crave knowledge and not a place to punish for if you make a mistake.
First off kids that go to Pre-K typically do better in school
Doesn't it say in the Bible that corporations go to heaven? I'm sure it must.
Well I'm sure it does but Corporations are people that never die and if they do they are usually bought out and ripped apart. Granted sometimes that really needs to happen!
This is very true. As someone with a Ford Focus Electric many people keep telling me I made a bad decision because of cheap gas prices. I tell them I enjoy the ride and it is working out fine having no fuel expense and as my company has chargers I fill up for near $0 each month considering I hardly plus in at home. However these people are purchasing large SUVs will complain bitterly when/if gas prices go back up.
Say what you will about Sony but in the 80s and 90s you want a damned good cutting edge piece of gear that will easily last the better part of a decade if not longer? Then YOU BOUGHT SONY
Sony's quality was acceptable enough in the 70's and 80's but had already begun to turn to shit by the time the 90's were underway.
If you wanted very good Japanese electronics, you bought Pioneer or Kenwood. If you wanted damned good, you BOUGHT DENON.:)
I agree with this!! I had a Sony Dual Tape Deck from around 1985 that still worked as of 5 years ago when my Mom gave it away. In 95 I purchased a Sony 5 disk CD changer why because my Dual Tape Deck worked so well. Fast forward 3 months and the CD player doesn't work anymore as it was still under warranty I took it to be repaired. After a week the shop calls me back says they cannot fix it but have contacted Sony and they will refund my purchase. I then purchase another Sony CD player thinking I just got a lemon. This one has broken just after the warranty was up and I had to pay to have it fixed. Needless to say I don't purchase Sony products now because I want to own the best but because I'm settling on something that is affordable or meets my needs.
I've seen this time and time again with companies if you want to stay high end KEEP YOUR PRODUCT QUALITY HIGH!! If you want to lower quality you better lower the price or risk loosing market share rapidly!
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level. Any computer/phone/smart device that connects to my network automatically has ads and trackers blocked. So far, so good. Granted, it's not simple enough for the everyday person to implement. Also, I don't buy any smart TVs because their software is most often crap, you shouldn't have to accept an EULA to use a TV (or a coffee machine, toaster, etc), and they have the capacity to be bricked unlike a regular "dumb" TV. And then there's this eavesdropping and injecting additional ads BS.
I agree but the real problem is that most of the TVs out today are Smart TVs. I just purchased one because I didn't have much of an option. I ended up with a Vizio E series but I really would just like a dumb terminal.
Interesting? Why is this modded interesting? If anything, it should be modded 'funny'.
As there is NO relation between vaccination and Autism, there should be no question about it, because that might some people make believe that there IS some sort of link.
"What are the rental car rates?" would be a just as relevant.
Not sure if you read my post but my reasoning was to show that no link exists between vaccines and autism. We are in agreement that vaccines do not cause autism but I'm hoping that something like this might prove it at least a little bit.
Does Mississippi have more Autistic children than other states with lower vaccination rates? I think that should be looked at so maybe we can show that this is not the cause of Autism.
If vaccinations aren't mandatory for a fairly large proportion of the population, herd immunity is compromised and then not only do you get the poor children of anti-vaccine types getting diseases like measles, but those children who cannot, for health reasons, receive the vaccine, are put at substantial risk.
I'm willing to compromise, however. Don't vaccinate your kids, and they are not allowed in a school, daycare, public park or anywhere else where they may come into contact with other children.
I agree with the schools or any public learning institution. However it would be nearly impossible to ban them everywhere. However I think unless you child cannot be vaccinated if it is shown your child was a carrier and possibly spread a disease that was preventable the parents should be responsible for all financial costs associated with the outbreak. If more people are involved they can all share the cost. So as an example the Disney outbreak in CA all the kids that came down with measles who were not vaccinated by the parents request will be financially liable for all the medical costs for those who are infected if they received a vaccine or spread it to children who could not be immunized.
This will put the financial burden on the parents who choose not to help society and possibly bankrupt them. They could even end up paying millions if a child is disabled because of their choice. In the event of death I would think that they could be brought up on charges of negligent homicide.
This gives everyone a choice but if that choice affects other people you are forced to pay or possibly go to jail. Of course for this to work you would also have to have definitive rules in place on what constitutes a child that cannot get a vaccine.
And don't give Bernie Madoff to try to refute me. He was a sacrifice to ensure that we think the regular Joe Rich Person could go to jail. They can't.
Bernie didn't go to jail because of us he went to jail because he broke the rule of being wealthy which is to not take advantage of wealthy people/companies. In doing so they were upset with him and able to use that to put him in jail. If it wasn't for that he would have been fined and probably be living a wealthy live in Europe!
I never said it was always the officer and I was not assuming that what I said was many videos show where the suspect is already restrained or not fighting back but where the officers are showing full or excessive force. Many videos typically depict that scenario and in these cases whatever happened prior does not matter when a police officer is beating you with a nightstick while you are down on the ground. Police do not get to dole out punishment which it looks like some of this is.
Yes, it goes both ways. Very often the viral videos you see of police brutality does not show what led up to the transgression, so, a portion of the cases may be misrepresented by way of missing context.
This way, everyone has an objective look at the entire encounter. The cameras are a win-win for everyone.
While true many videos do not show the suspects transgressions that still should not be a reason that the police get to go above the and beat someone when they are restrained or not resisting. The problem is that the officer can break the law when really he should be the one upholding it.
You want to curb the problem? Have some high profile prosecutions.
Charge them criminally, kick them off the force, strip them of their pensions, make examples of them. It should be a felony for a police officer to do this, because they wield so much more power in this equation.
If the police aren't going to bother either learning, or following the law... they have no business being police officers. If they can't get it through their heads they have no right to prevent this, then when they do it, bloody well lay charges.
The police are becoming thugs. And if they want to be thugs and criminals, start treating them as such.
And if the "good" cops won't stand up and get rid of the bad cops, they're just as guilty.
None of this circling the blue wall crap, and being on paid suspension. Fire the bastards.
This is exactly the way I feel. While I have not had any issues with the police (and hope to keep it that way) I always worry that they will come for me next because good people did nothing. Right now the system is broken because the Bad cops are doing whatever they want and the Good cops (I know they exist) ignore the corruption in their own ranks.
If you prosecute the Bad cops then the good cops will start to watch them and keep those that might abuse their position instead of cowering in fear because if they do out a bad cop there might be retaliation.
Give both access to their current cable network. Watch service improve and prices drop.
This might work. I live in an area where we only had Comcast and the speeds were 10mbps up and 5mbps down with a price around $55 or $99 with triple play package per month. You never received anything close to those speeds and at certain times the service was unusable. Three years ago Verizon FIOS came to the area and we signed up right away to service of 25mbps up and 15mbps down for less than Comcast was charging $89 per month with the triple play package and less fees. Now our rates have not gone up with Verizon and we have 50mbps up and down with Comcast/Xfinity increasing speeds as well and lowering costs.
Now I know this seems normal that speeds got better over time but I know people that live just over the county line that do not have Verizon and their internet service is much slower and prices are higher to the point where I don't see how they can't say Comcast is abusing the monopoly they have in the market except for the fact they must be paid off to not see it.
I think it should be run like the electric company one owns the wires and maintains them and everyone pays that company for the physical connection that is regulated or run by the government. Then have competition in the boxes that compete for your service.
OK, if that's really how it works, why do American farmers plant so much agribusiness seed? Are they all wrong, and losing money? Because if there's one thing that a farmer will ask when you suggest a change to his growth protocol, is how is it going to make him more money.
Hybrid vigor is a thing, and the only way to maintain said vigor across generations is to grow inbred plants, and then cross them purposefully. This works without GMOs, and is easy to prove.
Again, for your option to be true, hundreds of thousands of farmers in the US are making terrible choices, season after season. 95% of soybeans planted in America come from agribusiness: The seeds people had just can't compete in yield. How do you explain farmer's behavior?
I think part of the reason for that the farmers not using these GMO seeds can't get the equipment necessary to reseed from your existing crop. I saw an interesting documentary on the GMO business and the big thing to do is take anyone who has a machine that can separate the seeds (typically not the farmer) would be sued for using it on a farm that has GMO seeds (where the farmer agreed not to reuse seeds) until they went bankrupt. This forced the farmers on GMO as they couldn't reclaim seeds from current plants. So the market didn't decide the companies decided for them.
Can't we fine them and jail the executives for fraud on not delivering promised product instead? Might put a kick in the pants.
I'm tired of punishments consisting of not paying the corporate robbers any more money but getting to keep all they made so far.
I agree with you it is ridiculous that these Billion dollar companies can take Billions of taxpayer funds and not deliver what they say. Then after all of that they get a huge bonus for ripping us off and making huge profits. These people should be jailed or the company should be forced to pay back all the funds with interest. Doing this will cause changes especially if you hit the shareholders by hitting earnings which should happen.
Have you looked into tresorit? I signed up with them when they first came out and have 50GB of storage and found that it works pretty well and they have an application for android (not sure about apple) and can backup photos automatically.
Honda doesn't go "Oh by the way, you can't use your Civic anymore, since we can't be bothered to support it, but to show how nice we are, we'll provide a toolkit to help you port goods from your trunk to another company's vehicle".
Actually Honda has done this with prior electric vehicles and are doing it with the new Honda Fit EVs that is currently available. They are lease only so they don't have to bother with support later.
You should go visit an organic farm. It is clearly not what you think it is.
This is true although it depends on the organic farm. I can't remember the name of the documentary I watched but basically the "Organic" label has been taken over by big Agriculture with them changing the definition to fit what they need.
Saying this you can still find true Organic farms where they don't use pesticides and care about the soil's longterm health they are just harder to find.
Actually, Amazon claims it was for defensive purposes only.
In that case they only had to publish a blog post to generate prior art. And it would have been a lot cheaper. Or are you suggesting that Amazon don't know how patents work ?
Actually the real problem is the USPTO doesn't seem to know how patents should work anymore. My Father-in-law worked there for years and retired early because he liked to do research and prove patents had prior art. The new guys coming in would approve patents faster without checking for prior art or really checking into the claims. Granted my father-in-law was not a fun guy to work with as he liked invalidating patents with prior art, or not able being able to prove the patent works to the point he is convinced a few of the auto "accidents" he was in were not accidents
I just wish Nissan would ditch the weird styling while they're at it.
This is why Tesla is getting so much public attention: the cars they make look like cars people actually want to drive. Stop making every electric car look like a midget minivan (a miniminivan?) and more people would actually buy them.
This is part of the reason why I ended up with a Ford Focus Electric. My wife liked the fact it looked similar to the regular car rather then some unique shape that made people look at it.
I looked at many EVs before I purchased a Ford Focus Electric. Here are my reasons for going with the Ford:
1) Decent Price (Tesla was too expensive once options are added)
2) Thermal Battery Management (Battery is heated and cooled like the Volt which helps extend the life of the battery)
3) Good Lease Deal (260 per month with nothing down was cheapest of the Leases)
4) Availability (Unlike the Honda Fit EV it was available at the dealer with no waitlist)
5) Seats 5 (The Volt was my favorite but seating 4 was a no go as my family of 4 takes all the seats)
So far I'm very happy with the Focus EV and would recommend them.
However I will mention the shortcomings:
1) Battery range when it is cold drops to around 45 miles when it is really cold (0 degrees F) as the Thermal system kicks in.
2) The Estimated range can jump around a lot while you are driving
3) I can't find a way to set the car to take cabin air and pass it over the windshield. This means it is taking outside air and heating it which is very inefficient.
4) Battery eats into trunk space although I have found this to not be an issue some will.
Now I really feel for EVs to compete the range needs to be over the 100 mile range as it is a psycological barrier just like pricing something at $99.99 rather than $100.
My hope is still for a vehicle like Via is selling a large 3 row SUV that can go first on electric then switch to gas for any trip.
Slashdot Mirror
It's doubly a pain to see the same ones when binge watching.
Those are absolutely the worst. Watching the same preview the second time is almost as bad as when I pull out a years old DVD and have* to sit through ancient trailers before I can start watching the movie. By the third time I see the same preview the same day, it's worse.
*: or use a non-compliant DVD player that allows skipping this shit. Either/or.
This is why I ripped all my movies or purchased digital copies and when I rent a movie I rip it, watch it, and delete it. Typically if I want to watch it again I will buy it but the one thing I'm tired of is some movie for my kids that has a 5-10 minutes of trailers for movies they have watched or don't want to see.
More to the point, I would not pay for Netflix with ads. Netflix is quite reasonably priced at the moment. If they needed to charge more to avoid using ads, I would be okay with that. Of course they could charge sufficiently more that I wouldn't be okay with it, but I don't think they need to. The whole reason I use Netflix instead of TV is that I despise ads. HBO Now's advertising before each GoT episode really pisses me off, and makes me not want to use the service.
I'm with you on this I don't want to have to sit through ads and using HBO where they show an ad for a show which seems to be the same ad each time I watch! I'll switch to Amazon Prime and stop Netflix if they start advertising.
I mentioned this somewhere else but Netflix should have a section that includes trailers if they want people to watch the shows they are producing. Granted I bet just creating high quality content and letting people know at the top of the App will help then it will spread through Facebook and Twitter.
You are forgetting that the companies producing most of these products can easily produce more with either the same resources and shifts or possibly add another shift at a known cost and produce more of the item (Economies of Scale). Either way the factory is being utilized more which lowers the total cost of each unit. Now this could be wrong if the factory is already utilized 100% but typically that is not the case. Heck I bet most companies would prefer more demand and to hire more workers than to have slacking demand due to less people having the ability to buy their products.
Two important things to consider: 1. It will increase prices of products as well, so at the end of the day it's just a cycle where nothing really happens. 2. Do you actually think the same amount of employees will be employed if companies are mandated to pay them more? Many of them will lose jobs. Minimum wage hikes tend to hurt two parties the most: 1. Small businesses, who are typically operating on rather small margins anyway. Unlike larger businesses, they can't easily move to places with lower minimum wage or offshore jobs. 2. Middle class, because they suffer the increase in costs incurred by minimum wage hikes, but don't benefit at all from it because they're already above the minimum wage. Minimum wage increases try to tackle a real problem, but do nothing to actually solve it. Minimum wage should be adjusted in accordance with inflation and nothing else.
You are very wrong on both cases. First the market sets the prices and since the market is competitive the business that is making a profit will be forced to keep the same price or risk loosing all their customers. Second the employee costs won't rise that much and you have a better shot at getting more customers if people have extra money to spend.
As far as small businesses they have a chance for more customers and this will be better for them than the small increase in costs. For those in Middle class you are right they might not see anything at first but eventually if you are making close to the minimum wage you can possibly leave to take an easier job to argue for a pay raise after all this is what the employee market has turned to.
Last increasing demand will not cause increased prices of products because most factories can create more products then the market can sell. After all I don't know when the last time I said wow I can't just go to the store and purchase "X" because it is sold out unless you count release days but that is a different story and prices wouldn't increase because of increased wages. Grocery stores might see the opposite where they sell more fresh produce and have less waste which would help the bottom line more than any wage increase would hurt it.
Please. More money does NOT make for better students. The poorest of students have often times been the best of students. Each individual student needs some THING to ignite a hunger for knowledge within him. If/when that hunger is lit, nothing can hold a student back, short of death.
We Americans, despite the economic "hardships" of the past decade, remain among the wealthiest people in history, world wide. We don't starve. We aren't dropping in the streets from diseases. We don't have open warfare in our streets. Barring some violent weather now and then, we almost all go home to find our homes intact every day.
More money in the education system, or even more money in the classroom, will NOT make for better students. History proves that idea to be FALSE.
Our education system is badly flawed, and that flaw can be traced, at least in part, to the idea that more money can "fix" education. We have pampered little children who are distracted by meaningless nonsense. Kim Kardashian? Reality TV? Rock stars? Sports? Oh yeah - drugs. I can understand drug usage by the dirt poor, who live miserable lives. Those who spend all day out scavenging for a little bit of food, and still go to bed hungry - I can forgive them for trying to escape reality. Our little rich kids, with to much time on their hands? Escape from reality? They are LOSERS. And, we have raised them to be LOSERS.
Money isn't the answer.
Kids need to learn morals. Kids need some hardship. Kids need to WORK for the privilege of higher education - and I do NOT MEAN that they should be impoverished for life in exchange for an education. I mean, they should have to WORK for the privilege, instead of being pampered.
Keep the money. Instead, go into the classrooms, and get tough. We've needed a strong dose of tough love in the classrooms for the past 30 years, or more. Crack the whip, and stop treating kids like babies. Just drop pre-school, headstart, kindergarten, and all the rest of that shit.
I started school at age 5, and went straight into first grade. One month after my 18th birthday, I graduated high school. No amount of pre-schooling implemented since 1960 has improved on the final results among high school grads. NOTHING has improved those final results.
All that money has been WASTED.
If you have an old rotten ship, which threatens to sink every time it sails, how can you justify continuing to send it to sea? How can you justify painting it, again and again, and calling it seaworthy?
That is precisely the state of our education system. It is sinking, and we continue to paint it, to make it look pretty.
Cut the funds, and force school administrators to actually EDUCATE children!
I agree schools do not need more money what is really needed is a better curriculum that brings out the students desire to learn with the goal of being prepared for the work force. Right now schools typically have three things they teach to depending on the school. The first is the test which is how students and teachers are graded. The problem is the work force is not a series of tests with 2 hour time limits. The second thing they teach is menial tasks which is really for manufacturing which is disappearing in this country and part of the reason why many say the education system does not work. The third is they teach kids to go to college and while this can be good not every child will go to college so they come out with little ability to get a job.
I disagree with the crack the whip mentality that doesn't work either and will probably end up worse in many respects. Also Pre-K and Kindergarten are very important to develop a love of learning in kids which is really what school at a young age should be about. School should develop a child so they desire knowledge and find ways to learn this is what our kids need. A school needs to be a safe haven for those that crave knowledge and not a place to punish for if you make a mistake.
First off kids that go to Pre-K typically do better in school
Doesn't it say in the Bible that corporations go to heaven? I'm sure it must.
Well I'm sure it does but Corporations are people that never die and if they do they are usually bought out and ripped apart. Granted sometimes that really needs to happen!
This is very true. As someone with a Ford Focus Electric many people keep telling me I made a bad decision because of cheap gas prices. I tell them I enjoy the ride and it is working out fine having no fuel expense and as my company has chargers I fill up for near $0 each month considering I hardly plus in at home. However these people are purchasing large SUVs will complain bitterly when/if gas prices go back up.
Say what you will about Sony but in the 80s and 90s you want a damned good cutting edge piece of gear that will easily last the better part of a decade if not longer? Then YOU BOUGHT SONY
Sony's quality was acceptable enough in the 70's and 80's but had already begun to turn to shit by the time the 90's were underway.
If you wanted very good Japanese electronics, you bought Pioneer or Kenwood. If you wanted damned good, you BOUGHT DENON. :)
I agree with this!! I had a Sony Dual Tape Deck from around 1985 that still worked as of 5 years ago when my Mom gave it away. In 95 I purchased a Sony 5 disk CD changer why because my Dual Tape Deck worked so well. Fast forward 3 months and the CD player doesn't work anymore as it was still under warranty I took it to be repaired. After a week the shop calls me back says they cannot fix it but have contacted Sony and they will refund my purchase. I then purchase another Sony CD player thinking I just got a lemon. This one has broken just after the warranty was up and I had to pay to have it fixed. Needless to say I don't purchase Sony products now because I want to own the best but because I'm settling on something that is affordable or meets my needs.
I've seen this time and time again with companies if you want to stay high end KEEP YOUR PRODUCT QUALITY HIGH!! If you want to lower quality you better lower the price or risk loosing market share rapidly!
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level. Any computer/phone/smart device that connects to my network automatically has ads and trackers blocked. So far, so good. Granted, it's not simple enough for the everyday person to implement. Also, I don't buy any smart TVs because their software is most often crap, you shouldn't have to accept an EULA to use a TV (or a coffee machine, toaster, etc), and they have the capacity to be bricked unlike a regular "dumb" TV. And then there's this eavesdropping and injecting additional ads BS.
I agree but the real problem is that most of the TVs out today are Smart TVs. I just purchased one because I didn't have much of an option. I ended up with a Vizio E series but I really would just like a dumb terminal.
Interesting? Why is this modded interesting? If anything, it should be modded 'funny'. As there is NO relation between vaccination and Autism, there should be no question about it, because that might some people make believe that there IS some sort of link.
"What are the rental car rates?" would be a just as relevant.
Not sure if you read my post but my reasoning was to show that no link exists between vaccines and autism. We are in agreement that vaccines do not cause autism but I'm hoping that something like this might prove it at least a little bit.
Does Mississippi have more Autistic children than other states with lower vaccination rates? I think that should be looked at so maybe we can show that this is not the cause of Autism.
If vaccinations aren't mandatory for a fairly large proportion of the population, herd immunity is compromised and then not only do you get the poor children of anti-vaccine types getting diseases like measles, but those children who cannot, for health reasons, receive the vaccine, are put at substantial risk.
I'm willing to compromise, however. Don't vaccinate your kids, and they are not allowed in a school, daycare, public park or anywhere else where they may come into contact with other children.
I agree with the schools or any public learning institution. However it would be nearly impossible to ban them everywhere. However I think unless you child cannot be vaccinated if it is shown your child was a carrier and possibly spread a disease that was preventable the parents should be responsible for all financial costs associated with the outbreak. If more people are involved they can all share the cost. So as an example the Disney outbreak in CA all the kids that came down with measles who were not vaccinated by the parents request will be financially liable for all the medical costs for those who are infected if they received a vaccine or spread it to children who could not be immunized.
This will put the financial burden on the parents who choose not to help society and possibly bankrupt them. They could even end up paying millions if a child is disabled because of their choice. In the event of death I would think that they could be brought up on charges of negligent homicide.
This gives everyone a choice but if that choice affects other people you are forced to pay or possibly go to jail. Of course for this to work you would also have to have definitive rules in place on what constitutes a child that cannot get a vaccine.
And don't give Bernie Madoff to try to refute me. He was a sacrifice to ensure that we think the regular Joe Rich Person could go to jail. They can't.
Bernie didn't go to jail because of us he went to jail because he broke the rule of being wealthy which is to not take advantage of wealthy people/companies. In doing so they were upset with him and able to use that to put him in jail. If it wasn't for that he would have been fined and probably be living a wealthy live in Europe!
I never said it was always the officer and I was not assuming that what I said was many videos show where the suspect is already restrained or not fighting back but where the officers are showing full or excessive force. Many videos typically depict that scenario and in these cases whatever happened prior does not matter when a police officer is beating you with a nightstick while you are down on the ground. Police do not get to dole out punishment which it looks like some of this is.
Yes, it goes both ways. Very often the viral videos you see of police brutality does not show what led up to the transgression, so, a portion of the cases may be misrepresented by way of missing context. This way, everyone has an objective look at the entire encounter. The cameras are a win-win for everyone.
While true many videos do not show the suspects transgressions that still should not be a reason that the police get to go above the and beat someone when they are restrained or not resisting. The problem is that the officer can break the law when really he should be the one upholding it.
You want to curb the problem? Have some high profile prosecutions.
Charge them criminally, kick them off the force, strip them of their pensions, make examples of them. It should be a felony for a police officer to do this, because they wield so much more power in this equation.
If the police aren't going to bother either learning, or following the law ... they have no business being police officers. If they can't get it through their heads they have no right to prevent this, then when they do it, bloody well lay charges.
The police are becoming thugs. And if they want to be thugs and criminals, start treating them as such.
And if the "good" cops won't stand up and get rid of the bad cops, they're just as guilty.
None of this circling the blue wall crap, and being on paid suspension. Fire the bastards.
This is exactly the way I feel. While I have not had any issues with the police (and hope to keep it that way) I always worry that they will come for me next because good people did nothing. Right now the system is broken because the Bad cops are doing whatever they want and the Good cops (I know they exist) ignore the corruption in their own ranks.
If you prosecute the Bad cops then the good cops will start to watch them and keep those that might abuse their position instead of cowering in fear because if they do out a bad cop there might be retaliation.
Give both access to their current cable network. Watch service improve and prices drop.
This might work. I live in an area where we only had Comcast and the speeds were 10mbps up and 5mbps down with a price around $55 or $99 with triple play package per month. You never received anything close to those speeds and at certain times the service was unusable. Three years ago Verizon FIOS came to the area and we signed up right away to service of 25mbps up and 15mbps down for less than Comcast was charging $89 per month with the triple play package and less fees. Now our rates have not gone up with Verizon and we have 50mbps up and down with Comcast/Xfinity increasing speeds as well and lowering costs.
Now I know this seems normal that speeds got better over time but I know people that live just over the county line that do not have Verizon and their internet service is much slower and prices are higher to the point where I don't see how they can't say Comcast is abusing the monopoly they have in the market except for the fact they must be paid off to not see it.
I think it should be run like the electric company one owns the wires and maintains them and everyone pays that company for the physical connection that is regulated or run by the government. Then have competition in the boxes that compete for your service.
OK, if that's really how it works, why do American farmers plant so much agribusiness seed? Are they all wrong, and losing money? Because if there's one thing that a farmer will ask when you suggest a change to his growth protocol, is how is it going to make him more money.
Hybrid vigor is a thing, and the only way to maintain said vigor across generations is to grow inbred plants, and then cross them purposefully. This works without GMOs, and is easy to prove.
Again, for your option to be true, hundreds of thousands of farmers in the US are making terrible choices, season after season. 95% of soybeans planted in America come from agribusiness: The seeds people had just can't compete in yield. How do you explain farmer's behavior?
I think part of the reason for that the farmers not using these GMO seeds can't get the equipment necessary to reseed from your existing crop. I saw an interesting documentary on the GMO business and the big thing to do is take anyone who has a machine that can separate the seeds (typically not the farmer) would be sued for using it on a farm that has GMO seeds (where the farmer agreed not to reuse seeds) until they went bankrupt. This forced the farmers on GMO as they couldn't reclaim seeds from current plants. So the market didn't decide the companies decided for them.
Can't we fine them and jail the executives for fraud on not delivering promised product instead? Might put a kick in the pants.
I'm tired of punishments consisting of not paying the corporate robbers any more money but getting to keep all they made so far.
I agree with you it is ridiculous that these Billion dollar companies can take Billions of taxpayer funds and not deliver what they say. Then after all of that they get a huge bonus for ripping us off and making huge profits. These people should be jailed or the company should be forced to pay back all the funds with interest. Doing this will cause changes especially if you hit the shareholders by hitting earnings which should happen.
Have you looked into tresorit? I signed up with them when they first came out and have 50GB of storage and found that it works pretty well and they have an application for android (not sure about apple) and can backup photos automatically.
Honda doesn't go "Oh by the way, you can't use your Civic anymore, since we can't be bothered to support it, but to show how nice we are, we'll provide a toolkit to help you port goods from your trunk to another company's vehicle".
Actually Honda has done this with prior electric vehicles and are doing it with the new Honda Fit EVs that is currently available. They are lease only so they don't have to bother with support later.
You should go visit an organic farm. It is clearly not what you think it is.
This is true although it depends on the organic farm. I can't remember the name of the documentary I watched but basically the "Organic" label has been taken over by big Agriculture with them changing the definition to fit what they need.
Saying this you can still find true Organic farms where they don't use pesticides and care about the soil's longterm health they are just harder to find.
In that case they only had to publish a blog post to generate prior art. And it would have been a lot cheaper. Or are you suggesting that Amazon don't know how patents work ?
Actually the real problem is the USPTO doesn't seem to know how patents should work anymore. My Father-in-law worked there for years and retired early because he liked to do research and prove patents had prior art. The new guys coming in would approve patents faster without checking for prior art or really checking into the claims. Granted my father-in-law was not a fun guy to work with as he liked invalidating patents with prior art, or not able being able to prove the patent works to the point he is convinced a few of the auto "accidents" he was in were not accidents
The summary answers itself:
I just wish Nissan would ditch the weird styling while they're at it.
This is why Tesla is getting so much public attention: the cars they make look like cars people actually want to drive. Stop making every electric car look like a midget minivan (a miniminivan?) and more people would actually buy them.
This is part of the reason why I ended up with a Ford Focus Electric. My wife liked the fact it looked similar to the regular car rather then some unique shape that made people look at it.
I looked at many EVs before I purchased a Ford Focus Electric. Here are my reasons for going with the Ford:
1) Decent Price (Tesla was too expensive once options are added)
2) Thermal Battery Management (Battery is heated and cooled like the Volt which helps extend the life of the battery)
3) Good Lease Deal (260 per month with nothing down was cheapest of the Leases)
4) Availability (Unlike the Honda Fit EV it was available at the dealer with no waitlist)
5) Seats 5 (The Volt was my favorite but seating 4 was a no go as my family of 4 takes all the seats)
So far I'm very happy with the Focus EV and would recommend them.
However I will mention the shortcomings:
1) Battery range when it is cold drops to around 45 miles when it is really cold (0 degrees F) as the Thermal system kicks in.
2) The Estimated range can jump around a lot while you are driving
3) I can't find a way to set the car to take cabin air and pass it over the windshield. This means it is taking outside air and heating it which is very inefficient.
4) Battery eats into trunk space although I have found this to not be an issue some will.
Now I really feel for EVs to compete the range needs to be over the 100 mile range as it is a psycological barrier just like pricing something at $99.99 rather than $100.
My hope is still for a vehicle like Via is selling a large 3 row SUV that can go first on electric then switch to gas for any trip.