Uh, no. My family are "farmers". Soybean prices dipped but have recovered to the price prior to the China trade issue. Many farmers just silo'd the soybeans until later in the year and sold them then. Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/2531/soybean-prices-historical-chart-data
The right to repair issue IS a big deal to farmers, but, just like everything that comes out of most politicians, it is likely to be a broken campaign promise. However, I do welcome the attention brought to the issue, even if apparently it isn't getting a mention on the MSM.
The crazy part is that cards cost money for a merchant to process - 3 to 5% of the transaction many times... I suspect in most cases it is actually cheaper for them to accept cash, potentially unless they are dealing with many smaller transactions.
For every person like you, there are 30 people counting pennies out of their change purse. Delay at swipe terminals is usually the point of sale terminal being worn out in my experience as well. With that said, I still support a cash option, even if most of the time I will use my card - I want the freedom to use cash, even if I rarely use it.
I thought the same thing too, but, Wayback is in UTC, apparently it shows it for the 21st. I'm guessing whoever made the video made the same mistake (if it was accidental.)
I'm no Trump supporter, but, I like to validate what's in the news. The Wayback machine indicates a link for Obama's SOTU address on google very clearly: https://web.archive.org/web/20160112215716/http://www.google.com/
However, there isn't a link for Trump's in 2018, although Google says there was? https://web.archive.org/web/20180130213644/https://www.google.com/
Did I get the dates wrong or something? Little weird it doesn't show up there... Does anyone have similar proof?
CFPB is a joke from my personal experiences and it seems like a waste of money from my perspective. Name some positive things they have done that weren't already going to happen due to existing class action lawsuits at the time.
The issue isn't "tomatoes", most of the agricultural water use in California is for nuts, not tomatoes. This is important because (most) nuts travel quite well and can be packaged for transport easier, so costs to import are quite a bit less than other crops. This is also ignoring the fact that if California keeps doing what it is doing, they will be forced to stop anyway due to cost/depth of groundwater due to depletion.
So yes, please stop using as much water for crops such as nuts, and instead grow them somewhere else that gets more rainfall to support them.
Exclusive franchise agreements are illegal, however, many cities have terms that are so restrictive to other companies that it makes it effectively exclusive by providing a huge barrier to entry. See: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgak38/the-fcc-cant-help-cities-trapped-by-predatory-internet-deals-with-big-telecom
Net Neutrality as it was written is pointless and is anything but what it should be. I really wish people would realize that - it doesn't fix the problem and makes it seem like the issue is private companies running amok, instead of the real issue being seen: there is extremely little competition in the last mile, especially in rural areas. This has to do with what others mentioned - access to poles, monopolies from both cities and large multi-tenant units, etc. This isn't about traffic prioritization, it's about lack of competition due to regulations/laws/case law.
Further, the law itself did absolutely nothing in making sure that companies can't effectively "prioritize" traffic anyway, see #1 below.
1. Only artificially limiting bandwidth via rate shaping, etc is covered by the old law. Technical "limitations" are not. You can't require an ISP to setup more peering points, increase transit, etc. ISP's use transit (generic traffic) and peering (sending traffic to a specific company.) Most major companies like to peer since it is generally far, far cheaper than paying for transit. If Comcast is peering with Netflix and only has a 100 mbps connection to them, but the actual bandwidth required from Netflix should be more like 1000 mbps without causing slowdowns, they can simply not facilitate increasing that. It costs money (to Comcast and Netflix) to increase that bandwidth between each other, so who pays for it, especially if that utilization is heavily one-sided? Same scenario will happen, but, a different "cause".
2. Having something labeled "Net neutrality" does not make it so. The only reason people haven't left the incumbent carriers in droves is because they have no other choice in many areas. You remove the barriers to competition and it will fix this situation without having the federal government needing to pass pointless laws.
3. Net Neutrality was passed in 2015, how many years prior did the internet exist and the world did end...
I reject "net neutrality" on a federal level, as it does NOTHING to fix the underlying issues. It's a straw man! The underlying issue is that there isn't enough competition in the ISP space to give people a valid choice, and there isn't enough "information" on what is actually happening behind the scenes (throttling, etc) for people to make an informed choice anyway. An ISP will simply not get as much transit/peering/etc related to certain traffic than others to effectively "throttle" it, even if they aren't directly doing so. Also, as more "cord cutters" are being made, prices will go higher... with no other choices while everyone complains that a commercial company isn't charging them a lower price on a government granted monopoly.
Most localities grant monopolies to the incumbent carrier, and make it difficult or impossible for new players to enter the market. My preferred solution is to make it easier for new carriers to enter the market by not allowing monopolies to be granted. However, one size doesn't fit all. There are many small towns of a few thousand people that would have never gotten internet service without that type of agreement. It takes millions of dollars to build out a network to service a small town like that in many cases, and if there is any competition the carrier wouldn't be able to recoup their cost (so they won't build it out in the first place.) Another option is municipal internet, or, as other people have pointed out having the city/town own the 'wires' and lease them to other areas. However, both of those options may not be appropriate for all areas due to the overhead of providing either of those services.
My point here is, stop trying to "fix" the problems on a federal level. Your solution in Iowa may not be appropriate for my area in Massachusetts, but, most people seem to think it is.. and more importantly, stop focusing on "net neutrality" (which as implemented is not what you think it is in many cases) instead of the actual issues!
To me at least, it's pretty obvious... Most people prefer to buy clothes in-store, whereas they will buy most other things online. When they go to return a toaster they bought on Amazon to Kohls, they might buy a shirt at the Kohls. Additionally, people will likely do exactly what they do now at Kohls - buy the "loss-leaders" as you mention, but, also buy their overpriced items as well. Overall, smart move at Kohls assuming my anecdotal experience is right that most (many?) people prefer to buy clothes in store.
I find it interesting that many people here are complaining that Google and other telecoms are only focusing on high income "cherry picked" areas to provide Internet. It costs a ton of money to run fiber, what do they expect? If you want it run to everyone it really should be municipal...
However, either way..
Speaking from personal experience, even if you offer broadband internet access for a regular price of $19.95 to poorer apartment complexes you will only get a few subscribers. It is very counter-intuitive, since you would expect to get a large number of subscribers.
I was involved in a local ISP that was doing exactly this over a long period of time marketed to a large number of different apartment complexes with residents across the economic spectrum. At first it was heavily marketed to lower income areas since the initial thought was that they were being ignored by the bigger companies. However, after an extremely low response, the only ones we got more than a few subscribers from were the ones with middle class or higher residents on average (and we got many, many subscribers from those higher income complexes.)
After further research, many of hose poorer households either only had internet through their phones (I'm assuming for cost reasons) or, would just pay a much higher price to the cable company for internet access since they already had cable television. As a side note, many of the poorer households that had internet through the cable company were paying hundreds of dollars for their TV service, but, were struggling in other areas.
Based on my experience, if google or anyone tried to roll out fiber to the home to everyone and focused on poorer neighborhoods they would fail before they started.
Wow. Lots of armchair quarterbacks who have no real concept of what it is to run an ISP from a business (and quite a few comments have no idea on the technical side either.)
I used to be involved in a smaller ISP. Costs are already working against them when competing against larger providers due to the peering arrangements, etc...
Just to list a few things as to why this is a "good" thing, as otherwise it just hastens the demise of the small ISP:
#1 Enterprise level billing systems for internet providers cost a lot of money. The more regulations/rules/requirements the system has, the (likely) more expensive it will need to be. In my past experience we "rolled our own", but, this isn't feasible for most in the arena for many reasons and in hindsight it was a bad idea for liability reasons.
#2 99% of users would save money on a metered plan if fairly priced. 1% of users use 99% of the bandwidth. However, most people would rather have an "unlimited" plan, even if more expensive because they have no real concept of what bandwidth and usage are and how to control that.
#3 Smaller ISP's are unlikely to have peering points at places like MAE East, etc and far more likely to have to purchase their bandwidth from a larger backbone provider. This means that the "cost" for bandwidth is far, far more for a local ISP. It also means they have to oversubscribe more than a larger provider to pay the bills. EVERYONE oversubscribes bandwidth sold vs. what they have, it is just different levels.The economics don't work for smaller internet providers in reselling bandwidth if the oversubscribing rate isn't above a certain percentage.
#4 the 1% of users that use excessive bandwidth can be easily mitigated by rate-shaping certain types of traffic to a lower "speed", or any number of ways that don't impact 99% of the users.
The proper way to handle this is to remove net neutrality, make it so that local cities, etc can't grant a monopoly to certain companies when running cables so anyone can do so (probably cities, which is best esp. if they resell the raw transport.)
Depends on the jurisdiction. Some major cities that are understaffed you literally have to wait for weeks for an inspection which is very literally why many people don't pull permits in those areas. Generally happens in poor cities with one or two building inspectors for 100,000 people.
Love the generalizations on both sides of the issue. In short, it's possible (as long as you don't have young children.)
Living with relatives and/or roommates, smart financial decisions (picking where you go to college, what degree you get, what food you eat, etc.) along with student loans allow people below the poverty line to go to college from a financial perspective. Depending on the circumstances, you may have to take the first two years at a community college, but, it is more than feasible. I know, from personal experience.
The issue is, it is "hard". You (potentially) have to sacrifice things like going out, having cable TV, some of your privacy, and eating out for long periods of time. However, for many people it isn't nearly as bad, especially if they have assistance from relatives (living at home, free food, etc.) In my case I didn't have that luxury, but, many do.
The debate shouldn't be whether or not it is possible, but, it should instead be: * Is it realistic for most people to do that? People tend to take the path of least resistance and it is pointless (from a general perspective) to say "you should do XYZ", if only a small percentage do. Most will see it as too overwhelming and not even try.
* Do we as a society think it is "right" and "just" for someone to have to go through that in order to obtain a better life for themselves, or should society as a whole pay for some or all of it.
My personal opinion is based on my observations is that it really is cultural. Most people either get discouraged (don't think they can do it/get overwhelmed) after starting, or don't start at all.
If you have young children, it is a different story though.. My opinion is, just give free day-care, ensure community colleges and state colleges have a reasonable tuition, then lead by example. Make sure people know it IS possible, and offer some type of support system through the colleges to set people up with roommates, etc.
You're assuming most people would take the extra step of asking for a replacement ballot. In a situation where it is the same amount of effort to vote for candidate A vs. B (anonymous voting) people will are more likely to vote for who they wish. This is in contrast to a situation where their boss expects a selfie, and in order for that person to "vote their conscience" and get a replacement ballot requires extra effort (regardless of how small), most people won't take that minor step. The average person tends to gravitate towards the option with the least amount of effort and they also tend to not wish to "cause a stir".
Also, more than likely from a social media standpoint the only reason "ballot selfies" would work in getting people to support your candidate is because few other people do them now. Once it becomes the "norm" it won't matter anyway. Once it is the "norm", simply posting that you voted for a candidate will have the same impact.
This is one of those issues that "seems" like a good idea at first, but, has some negative implications.
My wife worked as a fundraising coordinator and worked with different vendors to sell (or give away) gift cards to people. Since we share a car, there have been many times that I was driving around with a box of gift cards (100? 200? something like that) in the trunk, etc. I expect this situation happens quite a bit since many vendors work with fundraising coordinators to sell gift cards, etc to raise money for their causes.
If I got stopped for speeding, having the cards be confiscated (so they could later be scanned), with potentially myself being potentially being "held" for 72 hours while that is being done by an outside agency isn't exactly something that I should have to think about. In my case, there would be nothing wrong - however, it would be a serious inconvenience! I should be able to carry large amounts of cash, gift cards, etc without getting interrogated, as there can be legitimate reasons to do so (although, most people aren't likely to do so!)
Realistically, this situation wouldn't happen to someone that didn't have other issues (the people in the article had an outstanding warrant, which made it far more likely those cards weren't legitimate in the LEO's eyes), but that isn't the point. Warrantless searches in my mind should only be for "emergency" situations where there is a clear and present danger (someone locked in a trunk, clear smell of decaying human flesh, etc.)
This is also ignoring the fact that the way the gift cards are designed should be changed to prevent issues like this and the POS system should alert the store so they can call the authorities when people try to use the "stolen" cards.
Frequently property managers get $X for every sign-up they refer to the provider. I provided wireless internet years ago, and this was somewhat common for larger complexes in Massachusetts. Additionally, many property managers/landlords are wary of having anyone new offer services, because realistically it is a lot less "risk" to say no in most cases than to say "yes" and have someone destroy your wiring closet, put a phone tap in, etc.
Remember, in most states there is no license for providing internet service and outside of major cities most broadband is provided under resold infrastructure from the telephone company. Meaning, that other than wireless internet, most of the time the actual installer that needs access to a wiring closet (which is the only time this is even an issue) is going to be from the "local telephone company" anyway. Outside of major cities, this "kickback" issue is mainly a problem for smaller telecoms and wireless internet providers that are less likely to be known to the property managers.
I'm undecided on the premise of a "basic income", I can see the positives and negatives..
However, the study/pilot is flawed, since the participants know that the program will stop within 6 months to a year. That means if they quit their jobs they will just have to find a new one in a year (which likely will be difficult for many families), or at the very least they would spend/save their money differently. Few people will live off the basic income itself and stop working due to "laziness", simply because it is unclear of when the money would stop.
For the study to be representative of what would happen in reality, it would need to be for a longer period of time (so participants get comfortable thinking it won't go away), and there couldn't be an "end date" (or the end date would be hidden from the participants.) Lots of ethical issues with a study conducted that way, but, doing the study in the way they are is worse than otherwise as it will be misleading.
Further, I seriously doubt that the "randomly selected families" will be representative of the population as a whole. Most people would think that "basic income" is a scam if approached out of the blue, and the ones that are likely to take part (either by responding to something out of the blue, or by volunteering to take part without being contacted first) are going to skew the study.
First, I want to be clear that I am pro-vaccination.
Any vaccine has a certain number of people that are permanently injured by that vaccine (that's why there is a vaccine injury fund in the US), but, the overall number of people it saves (including immune compromised individuals) outweighs that very, very small risk that you could be hurt or killed by that vaccine.
However: Certain specific vaccines likely killed more people than they saved because the threat of the illness was overestimated (deaths due to specific outbreaks of certain flu strains vs. deaths/injuries due to the vaccine.) Other vaccines have had safety issues with certain batches and were recalled after injuring/killing various people.
Again, it's very, very rare. But that brings me to my next point: I see no reason to not vaccinate myself and my children. I support herd immunity, and that it helps the greater good. However, I want the choice to be able to vaccinate as there could be a case where I don't feel a particular vaccine is safe. Simply being told to "trust" someone else that something is safe and being forced to have something put into my body and my children's body is not OK. Certain jobs or institutions can mandate vaccinations before being part of them - that's my choice for using them. However, there is a big difference between making a conscious decision to do something vs. being told you must do it.
When you're told that you must put something in your body, no matter if it is for the "greater good", then you are not truly free. Mandating general vaccination is tyranny.
Not to mention it, once the precedent is set, what is to stop mandatory gene therapy, genetic modification techniques, etc to "prevent" potential problems? Just because you approve of the situation today for mandatory vaccinations, would you be OK with how things are tomorrow? What if there are unintended consequences?
The only way to solve the "anti-vaxxer" problem is by education, so I don't disagree with having people attending a science class before opting out, but, I don't think it will resolve the issues. The problem is greater than one science class can resolve.
Castro is still alive. I think maybe you mean Stalin.
Anyway, it goes both ways. Many would argue that people who were born at the beginning of the 20th century were harder working, didn't believe they were "entitled" to various benefits and supported many of the ideals that this generation has forgotten.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, no. My family are "farmers". Soybean prices dipped but have recovered to the price prior to the China trade issue. Many farmers just silo'd the soybeans until later in the year and sold them then.
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/2531/soybean-prices-historical-chart-data
The right to repair issue IS a big deal to farmers, but, just like everything that comes out of most politicians, it is likely to be a broken campaign promise. However, I do welcome the attention brought to the issue, even if apparently it isn't getting a mention on the MSM.
Which cruise line was it?
The crazy part is that cards cost money for a merchant to process - 3 to 5% of the transaction many times... I suspect in most cases it is actually cheaper for them to accept cash, potentially unless they are dealing with many smaller transactions.
For every person like you, there are 30 people counting pennies out of their change purse. Delay at swipe terminals is usually the point of sale terminal being worn out in my experience as well. With that said, I still support a cash option, even if most of the time I will use my card - I want the freedom to use cash, even if I rarely use it.
I thought the same thing too, but, Wayback is in UTC, apparently it shows it for the 21st. I'm guessing whoever made the video made the same mistake (if it was accidental.)
I'm no Trump supporter, but, I like to validate what's in the news. The Wayback machine indicates a link for Obama's SOTU address on google very clearly:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160112215716/http://www.google.com/
However, there isn't a link for Trump's in 2018, although Google says there was?
https://web.archive.org/web/20180130213644/https://www.google.com/
Did I get the dates wrong or something? Little weird it doesn't show up there... Does anyone have similar proof?
CFPB is a joke from my personal experiences and it seems like a waste of money from my perspective. Name some positive things they have done that weren't already going to happen due to existing class action lawsuits at the time.
The issue isn't "tomatoes", most of the agricultural water use in California is for nuts, not tomatoes. This is important because (most) nuts travel quite well and can be packaged for transport easier, so costs to import are quite a bit less than other crops. This is also ignoring the fact that if California keeps doing what it is doing, they will be forced to stop anyway due to cost/depth of groundwater due to depletion.
So yes, please stop using as much water for crops such as nuts, and instead grow them somewhere else that gets more rainfall to support them.
Exclusive franchise agreements are illegal, however, many cities have terms that are so restrictive to other companies that it makes it effectively exclusive by providing a huge barrier to entry. See:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgak38/the-fcc-cant-help-cities-trapped-by-predatory-internet-deals-with-big-telecom
Net Neutrality as it was written is pointless and is anything but what it should be. I really wish people would realize that - it doesn't fix the problem and makes it seem like the issue is private companies running amok, instead of the real issue being seen: there is extremely little competition in the last mile, especially in rural areas. This has to do with what others mentioned - access to poles, monopolies from both cities and large multi-tenant units, etc. This isn't about traffic prioritization, it's about lack of competition due to regulations/laws/case law.
Further, the law itself did absolutely nothing in making sure that companies can't effectively "prioritize" traffic anyway, see #1 below.
1. Only artificially limiting bandwidth via rate shaping, etc is covered by the old law. Technical "limitations" are not. You can't require an ISP to setup more peering points, increase transit, etc. ISP's use transit (generic traffic) and peering (sending traffic to a specific company.) Most major companies like to peer since it is generally far, far cheaper than paying for transit. If Comcast is peering with Netflix and only has a 100 mbps connection to them, but the actual bandwidth required from Netflix should be more like 1000 mbps without causing slowdowns, they can simply not facilitate increasing that. It costs money (to Comcast and Netflix) to increase that bandwidth between each other, so who pays for it, especially if that utilization is heavily one-sided? Same scenario will happen, but, a different "cause".
2. Having something labeled "Net neutrality" does not make it so. The only reason people haven't left the incumbent carriers in droves is because they have no other choice in many areas. You remove the barriers to competition and it will fix this situation without having the federal government needing to pass pointless laws.
3. Net Neutrality was passed in 2015, how many years prior did the internet exist and the world did end...
I reject "net neutrality" on a federal level, as it does NOTHING to fix the underlying issues. It's a straw man! The underlying issue is that there isn't enough competition in the ISP space to give people a valid choice, and there isn't enough "information" on what is actually happening behind the scenes (throttling, etc) for people to make an informed choice anyway. An ISP will simply not get as much transit/peering/etc related to certain traffic than others to effectively "throttle" it, even if they aren't directly doing so. Also, as more "cord cutters" are being made, prices will go higher... with no other choices while everyone complains that a commercial company isn't charging them a lower price on a government granted monopoly.
Most localities grant monopolies to the incumbent carrier, and make it difficult or impossible for new players to enter the market. My preferred solution is to make it easier for new carriers to enter the market by not allowing monopolies to be granted. However, one size doesn't fit all. There are many small towns of a few thousand people that would have never gotten internet service without that type of agreement. It takes millions of dollars to build out a network to service a small town like that in many cases, and if there is any competition the carrier wouldn't be able to recoup their cost (so they won't build it out in the first place.) Another option is municipal internet, or, as other people have pointed out having the city/town own the 'wires' and lease them to other areas. However, both of those options may not be appropriate for all areas due to the overhead of providing either of those services.
My point here is, stop trying to "fix" the problems on a federal level. Your solution in Iowa may not be appropriate for my area in Massachusetts, but, most people seem to think it is.. and more importantly, stop focusing on "net neutrality" (which as implemented is not what you think it is in many cases) instead of the actual issues!
To me at least, it's pretty obvious... Most people prefer to buy clothes in-store, whereas they will buy most other things online. When they go to return a toaster they bought on Amazon to Kohls, they might buy a shirt at the Kohls. Additionally, people will likely do exactly what they do now at Kohls - buy the "loss-leaders" as you mention, but, also buy their overpriced items as well. Overall, smart move at Kohls assuming my anecdotal experience is right that most (many?) people prefer to buy clothes in store.
I find it interesting that many people here are complaining that Google and other telecoms are only focusing on high income "cherry picked" areas to provide Internet. It costs a ton of money to run fiber, what do they expect? If you want it run to everyone it really should be municipal...
However, either way..
Speaking from personal experience, even if you offer broadband internet access for a regular price of $19.95 to poorer apartment complexes you will only get a few subscribers. It is very counter-intuitive, since you would expect to get a large number of subscribers.
I was involved in a local ISP that was doing exactly this over a long period of time marketed to a large number of different apartment complexes with residents across the economic spectrum. At first it was heavily marketed to lower income areas since the initial thought was that they were being ignored by the bigger companies. However, after an extremely low response, the only ones we got more than a few subscribers from were the ones with middle class or higher residents on average (and we got many, many subscribers from those higher income complexes.)
After further research, many of hose poorer households either only had internet through their phones (I'm assuming for cost reasons) or, would just pay a much higher price to the cable company for internet access since they already had cable television. As a side note, many of the poorer households that had internet through the cable company were paying hundreds of dollars for their TV service, but, were struggling in other areas.
Based on my experience, if google or anyone tried to roll out fiber to the home to everyone and focused on poorer neighborhoods they would fail before they started.
Wow. Lots of armchair quarterbacks who have no real concept of what it is to run an ISP from a business (and quite a few comments have no idea on the technical side either.)
I used to be involved in a smaller ISP. Costs are already working against them when competing against larger providers due to the peering arrangements, etc...
Just to list a few things as to why this is a "good" thing, as otherwise it just hastens the demise of the small ISP:
#1 Enterprise level billing systems for internet providers cost a lot of money. The more regulations/rules/requirements the system has, the (likely) more expensive it will need to be. In my past experience we "rolled our own", but, this isn't feasible for most in the arena for many reasons and in hindsight it was a bad idea for liability reasons.
#2 99% of users would save money on a metered plan if fairly priced. 1% of users use 99% of the bandwidth. However, most people would rather have an "unlimited" plan, even if more expensive because they have no real concept of what bandwidth and usage are and how to control that.
#3 Smaller ISP's are unlikely to have peering points at places like MAE East, etc and far more likely to have to purchase their bandwidth from a larger backbone provider. This means that the "cost" for bandwidth is far, far more for a local ISP. It also means they have to oversubscribe more than a larger provider to pay the bills. EVERYONE oversubscribes bandwidth sold vs. what they have, it is just different levels.The economics don't work for smaller internet providers in reselling bandwidth if the oversubscribing rate isn't above a certain percentage.
#4 the 1% of users that use excessive bandwidth can be easily mitigated by rate-shaping certain types of traffic to a lower "speed", or any number of ways that don't impact 99% of the users.
The proper way to handle this is to remove net neutrality, make it so that local cities, etc can't grant a monopoly to certain companies when running cables so anyone can do so (probably cities, which is best esp. if they resell the raw transport.)
Depends on the jurisdiction. Some major cities that are understaffed you literally have to wait for weeks for an inspection which is very literally why many people don't pull permits in those areas. Generally happens in poor cities with one or two building inspectors for 100,000 people.
Love the generalizations on both sides of the issue. In short, it's possible (as long as you don't have young children.)
Living with relatives and/or roommates, smart financial decisions (picking where you go to college, what degree you get, what food you eat, etc.) along with student loans allow people below the poverty line to go to college from a financial perspective. Depending on the circumstances, you may have to take the first two years at a community college, but, it is more than feasible. I know, from personal experience.
The issue is, it is "hard". You (potentially) have to sacrifice things like going out, having cable TV, some of your privacy, and eating out for long periods of time. However, for many people it isn't nearly as bad, especially if they have assistance from relatives (living at home, free food, etc.) In my case I didn't have that luxury, but, many do.
The debate shouldn't be whether or not it is possible, but, it should instead be:
* Is it realistic for most people to do that? People tend to take the path of least resistance and it is pointless (from a general perspective) to say "you should do XYZ", if only a small percentage do. Most will see it as too overwhelming and not even try.
* Do we as a society think it is "right" and "just" for someone to have to go through that in order to obtain a better life for themselves, or should society as a whole pay for some or all of it.
My personal opinion is based on my observations is that it really is cultural. Most people either get discouraged (don't think they can do it/get overwhelmed) after starting, or don't start at all.
If you have young children, it is a different story though.. My opinion is, just give free day-care, ensure community colleges and state colleges have a reasonable tuition, then lead by example. Make sure people know it IS possible, and offer some type of support system through the colleges to set people up with roommates, etc.
You're assuming most people would take the extra step of asking for a replacement ballot. In a situation where it is the same amount of effort to vote for candidate A vs. B (anonymous voting) people will are more likely to vote for who they wish. This is in contrast to a situation where their boss expects a selfie, and in order for that person to "vote their conscience" and get a replacement ballot requires extra effort (regardless of how small), most people won't take that minor step. The average person tends to gravitate towards the option with the least amount of effort and they also tend to not wish to "cause a stir".
Also, more than likely from a social media standpoint the only reason "ballot selfies" would work in getting people to support your candidate is because few other people do them now. Once it becomes the "norm" it won't matter anyway. Once it is the "norm", simply posting that you voted for a candidate will have the same impact.
This is one of those issues that "seems" like a good idea at first, but, has some negative implications.
My wife worked as a fundraising coordinator and worked with different vendors to sell (or give away) gift cards to people. Since we share a car, there have been many times that I was driving around with a box of gift cards (100? 200? something like that) in the trunk, etc. I expect this situation happens quite a bit since many vendors work with fundraising coordinators to sell gift cards, etc to raise money for their causes.
If I got stopped for speeding, having the cards be confiscated (so they could later be scanned), with potentially myself being potentially being "held" for 72 hours while that is being done by an outside agency isn't exactly something that I should have to think about. In my case, there would be nothing wrong - however, it would be a serious inconvenience! I should be able to carry large amounts of cash, gift cards, etc without getting interrogated, as there can be legitimate reasons to do so (although, most people aren't likely to do so!)
Realistically, this situation wouldn't happen to someone that didn't have other issues (the people in the article had an outstanding warrant, which made it far more likely those cards weren't legitimate in the LEO's eyes), but that isn't the point. Warrantless searches in my mind should only be for "emergency" situations where there is a clear and present danger (someone locked in a trunk, clear smell of decaying human flesh, etc.)
This is also ignoring the fact that the way the gift cards are designed should be changed to prevent issues like this and the POS system should alert the store so they can call the authorities when people try to use the "stolen" cards.
Serious question:
How did the HOA know about the antenna (in order to force it being taken down) if no one could see it?
That's 129.2F if you're interested.
Frequently property managers get $X for every sign-up they refer to the provider. I provided wireless internet years ago, and this was somewhat common for larger complexes in Massachusetts. Additionally, many property managers/landlords are wary of having anyone new offer services, because realistically it is a lot less "risk" to say no in most cases than to say "yes" and have someone destroy your wiring closet, put a phone tap in, etc.
Remember, in most states there is no license for providing internet service and outside of major cities most broadband is provided under resold infrastructure from the telephone company. Meaning, that other than wireless internet, most of the time the actual installer that needs access to a wiring closet (which is the only time this is even an issue) is going to be from the "local telephone company" anyway. Outside of major cities, this "kickback" issue is mainly a problem for smaller telecoms and wireless internet providers that are less likely to be known to the property managers.
I'm undecided on the premise of a "basic income", I can see the positives and negatives..
However, the study/pilot is flawed, since the participants know that the program will stop within 6 months to a year. That means if they quit their jobs they will just have to find a new one in a year (which likely will be difficult for many families), or at the very least they would spend/save their money differently. Few people will live off the basic income itself and stop working due to "laziness", simply because it is unclear of when the money would stop.
For the study to be representative of what would happen in reality, it would need to be for a longer period of time (so participants get comfortable thinking it won't go away), and there couldn't be an "end date" (or the end date would be hidden from the participants.) Lots of ethical issues with a study conducted that way, but, doing the study in the way they are is worse than otherwise as it will be misleading.
Further, I seriously doubt that the "randomly selected families" will be representative of the population as a whole. Most people would think that "basic income" is a scam if approached out of the blue, and the ones that are likely to take part (either by responding to something out of the blue, or by volunteering to take part without being contacted first) are going to skew the study.
First, I want to be clear that I am pro-vaccination.
Any vaccine has a certain number of people that are permanently injured by that vaccine (that's why there is a vaccine injury fund in the US), but, the overall number of people it saves (including immune compromised individuals) outweighs that very, very small risk that you could be hurt or killed by that vaccine.
However:
Certain specific vaccines likely killed more people than they saved because the threat of the illness was overestimated (deaths due to specific outbreaks of certain flu strains vs. deaths/injuries due to the vaccine.)
Other vaccines have had safety issues with certain batches and were recalled after injuring/killing various people.
Again, it's very, very rare. But that brings me to my next point:
I see no reason to not vaccinate myself and my children. I support herd immunity, and that it helps the greater good. However, I want the choice to be able to vaccinate as there could be a case where I don't feel a particular vaccine is safe. Simply being told to "trust" someone else that something is safe and being forced to have something put into my body and my children's body is not OK. Certain jobs or institutions can mandate vaccinations before being part of them - that's my choice for using them. However, there is a big difference between making a conscious decision to do something vs. being told you must do it.
When you're told that you must put something in your body, no matter if it is for the "greater good", then you are not truly free. Mandating general vaccination is tyranny.
Not to mention it, once the precedent is set, what is to stop mandatory gene therapy, genetic modification techniques, etc to "prevent" potential problems? Just because you approve of the situation today for mandatory vaccinations, would you be OK with how things are tomorrow? What if there are unintended consequences?
The only way to solve the "anti-vaxxer" problem is by education, so I don't disagree with having people attending a science class before opting out, but, I don't think it will resolve the issues. The problem is greater than one science class can resolve.
Castro is still alive. I think maybe you mean Stalin.
Anyway, it goes both ways. Many would argue that people who were born at the beginning of the 20th century were harder working, didn't believe they were "entitled" to various benefits and supported many of the ideals that this generation has forgotten.
It already is. Simply call your mobile carrier and they black-list the IMEI.