They have quite a few general energy-related projects, but a major thrust of DoE contractors LANL, LLNL, Sandia and others is maintenance of our nuclear weapon stockpile. Since we're not testing any more, we put a lot of work into making sure our nukes will function as designed.
Ahh..thanks!!
Now that one does make sense...I'd say keep that section.
Talk big, do little, blame others, be popular. If he sticks to this formula, he should coast to reelection in 2020.
Who says Trump *wants* to get re-elected?
He might have the mindset of , damn the torpedoes, I'm going to do what I wish in my 4 years, and then, hell with political currency left over to get elected.
I think that would actually be a nice bit of fresh air....
Just because your guy won on a technicality doesn't mean you have the populous behind you.
I'd hardly call meeting the standards the Constitutional (you know, law of the land) mandated method of choosing a president, a mere "technicality".
If you think that, I'd suggest you start boning up on your old civics classes.
You are a member of your state FIRST, and then a member of the United States second. There is a valid reason it is set up the way it is.....to balance the power of the States and the States' voices for who the president is.
they were selected because they have deep-seated antipathy and aggression towards the very government agencies they're supposed to oversee.
You say that as if it is a bad thing...?
I'd dare say most of the people that voted in the new administration voted precisely for this type of shake up and reconfiguration of the US Federal govt. Departments that are not constitutionally created or mandated have been overstepping their bounds for decades, and we finally have someone that appears to not be afraid of dismantling it...which was one of the mandates he had FROM his voters.
Laws and regulations should come from congress...you know, the ones that are actually beholden to the voters? It should not come from bureaucrats that are not directly (if at all) answerable from the people.
The Office of Government Ethics advised Trump to completely divest from his business empire to avoid conflicts of interest.
I see where you're trying to go here...but to be fair...
There is a BIG difference between ignoring advice, and ignoring/breaking a LAW.
Advice can be heeded or ignored...standing law cannot. And I don't believe we've seen any LAWS passed by congress (hence actually a law) that requires the president to liquidate, etc. for any reason.
And with separation of powers, I'd almost guess...and purely speculation here, that it would take a constitutional amendment to enforce this on the Executive Branch.
The bigger question will be if Congress will give the President this new power. Who knows, but if anything is for sure, it's that there will be massive amount of spin from every direction when it finally hits committee.
I have a bit different slant on your question. And I really do not know my civics well enough, but I was wondering....
Are not these Departments (Energy, Education, EPA, etc)...not merely constructs through Executive Dept. decree?
I don't believe any of these departments are constitutionally created or protected govt. entities. I don't know, but I don't think they are even mandated to be created by law by congress....if they are truly creations of the Executive Branch, to help aid and enforce actual laws by congress, could they not also be destroyed or dissolved by Executive Branch decree?
Again, I don't know the particulars, but from my limited understanding, these departments are wholly created by the Exec. Branch to help that branch enforce laws from Congress...and they are created wholly by Exec. Branch, why could they not be dissolved wholly by the Exec. Branch?
First...what exactly does the "Department of Energy" do for us in the US?
I honestly don't know and will look it up, but if anyone can enlighten me, I'd be interested in a quick read.
That being said...aren't the departments pretty much at the behest of the Exective Branch? Could the new President not just completely disband them with the stroke of a pen? I mean, these are NOT part of congress, etc. They are set up by the Exec. branch to help enact and follow laws from congress, but they really aren't constitutional established or protected government entities are they?
I may be wrong here, but that's my 30K foot level of understanding of these departments.
I'm sure they don't *have* to answer to a president-elect, after all, he's not president yet.
But come a few weeks, he will have that full power...and I'd guess pretty much anyone, even the whole department as an entity could be done away with pretty quickly?
I might advise, if you are a home owner, just get a good sized antenna and put it on the roof, you'll pull in everything OTA. I eventually plan to do that myself.
If you can't put on roof (and I think local laws now can NOT prohibit you from this after the move to digital OTA)...put antenna in attic...you can have it feed all your TVs natively, or to a central TIVO like dVr box like I described and have it stream throughout the house.
Unfair to who? This doesn't make any sense to me at all. Who is being cheated?
While you're not a parent now, should you opt to have children, and you can find a willing partner, you're welcome to take that time off. It's there for when you need it!
Are you saying that you want 20 weeks paid leave... for no reason whatsoever? Because someone who is not you advantaged themselves of that benefit? On what basis? That you think you'll never have children? How would it be decided when that leave was granted? What would you do? Turn in your imaginary future wife's uterus along with your testicles in to HR?
The only thing I can see here is your fear that someone is getting something that you're not. I'm not convinced that that something is paid leave.
Well, one can have oneself fixed pretty readily and easily, so as not to risk kids.
I for one, am getting past the age of even thinking I'd ever want to deal with kids, I do not want to ruin my later years with kids. Most of my friends who have them, have them now getting out of HS and into college or maybe even out of there.
So, people in my age group are starting to free themselves up....and on the times I do date more age appropriate women, their kids usually are about out of the house too....
So, I'm pretty much settled that I DO NOT WANT kids.
So, you should have the option to have that 20 weeks for whatever you want...childbirth, motorcycle tour of the US...etc.
It is not fair that one set of people are offered this PAID BENEFIT, and other are not...that is discrimination, and in this PC day in age, its hard to believe that everyone wouldn't see and jump on this too.
Well, I hope you never find out you can use Kodi and an IPTV package that blows away everything you are doing. Because you'd have to undo all you have done and probably be very sad about how much overspending and overthinking you did.
I have downloaded Kodi on my FireTV, but haven't found much to do with it yet....
A friend of mine had one set up on a Fire Stick...and all it seemed to be good for was a bunch of live TV feeds from Eastern Europe, lots of stuff out of Russia, etc.
I'm not sure what IPTV is, but will look into it.
I didn't spend all THAT much money...but I did want to balance out geeking out myself and my time and want for something not all cobbled together that doesn't work very well or have a nice clean interface. Sound and picture quality are important to me, so what I have so far seems to fit the bill and only cost a few hundred to put together for the whole house.
So, not only do the childless not get the free 20 weeks paid leave/vacation
With a newborn? It's not vacation.
It is *STILL* 20 weeks of Paid Time Off.
What you do with should be your choice...have a newborn or go to Tahiti....Again, it is a paid benefit for some workers and not for others. That is unfair.
they also will likely have to work EXTRA to cover for the breeders
Imagination land? If they're not already overstaffed, they'll hire a temp. If they are overstaffed, I suggest they downsize.
Ok, who's in imagination land now? What company is going to go to all that extra trouble, of hiring temps, or adjusting staffing just for people going on parental leave? Nope, they're gonna target the poor schmucks that are left behind working to take up the slack for the new parents.
those childless folks will be just exact folks that have to work extra hours and pick up the slack for those new parents taking time off
People like you should be happy about that, were that delusion true. After all, some overtime sure beats drinking alone in an empty apartment while trolling Slashdot and wondering why women aren't interested in a cool guy like you.
Well, if I weren't having to work so many LONG fucking hours, to make up for the new parental units taking paid time off that I don't get...I'd not be home nights sleeping, but I'd have time and energy to go out and get laid.
Going out drinking with ladies and getting laid is fun to do....maybe they should give me 20 weeks of paid vacation to pursue my lifestyle CHOICE.
I choose not to have kids, they choose to have them. Why should their lifestyle decision be more important than mine?
I would cut the cord but my only high speed option is the same shitty company that I get cable TV from. And they've priced their options such that cutting the cord doesn't save that much. Oh, and of course then data caps are coming into vogue to ensure that you don't get too excited about those streaming services or have "unlimited" data. Which means you are going to pay them yet again for overages, or more per month to get rid of the caps. And that price will keep going up.
Look into getting a 'business' connection. Most places don't really require you to show much official business documentation....but you can get truly unlimited internet, no caps AND you can run servers if you want.
I have one from Cox cable, have for a couple decades now...$69/mo...decent up/down speeds, works for my needs both with servers and my TV streaming.
I'm actually getting ready in the next couple of days, after I watch the last couple items off the DVR....to cut the cord on ATT Uverse.
This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.
I figured my set up....
For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.
I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.
The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.
I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.
I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...
It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.
The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.
So, this is my living room.
For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.
I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.
The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.
So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.
I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.
So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer
Families are already screwed up because unless you want to live in the middle of nowhere, a two-income household is becoming a requirement.
Well, depends, I guess, on your definition of "middle of nowhere".
IMHO, unless you consider anywhere outside of LA, NYC, SF and other hugely $$$$ places to live, middle of nowhere....there are plenty of places with reasonable cost of living in the US. And you can still live in a decent place, in a safe neighborhood, where children still play outside, and get by on a single income family. Yes, I am talking about a 'real job', not a burger flipper, but I believe that's what we're all discussing here.
No, you won't have the latest toys, not the newest car....and you won't be going out that much, but hey, that's what my parents did. Mom stayed at home with me till I was in about 2nd grade and then gradually began working again, up to full time by the time I was old enough to come home from grade school and stay on my own will they got home from work. No problems.
We cooked at home most all meals, nothing wrong with that, forced us to eat a bit healthier, AND, I was taught from a young age how to cook myself.
Sure, being a parent is tough, it takes sacrifice both personally and fiscally, But this isn't a new thing...parents have been doing this forever till now.
Don't have them, unless you are willing to make those sacrifices. I never wanted to be tied down with the little fiscal boat anchors, so I chose not to have any...I like my time and my disposable income. A choice you make. I could NOT have both, and I chose my path and am happy with it.
If you choose to have kids....you need to take what goes with it and if you have to move to an area with a lower cost of living, then be prepared to do that. Don't expect others to take up the slack for you.
But, what about those that do NOT want to have kids?
Seems unfair and discriminatory against them, in that they don't get this 20 week PAID BENEFIT...?
Not to mention, that often those childless folks will be just exact folks that have to work extra hours and pick up the slack for those new parents taking time off to care for the result of fucking without protection.
So, not only do the childless not get the free 20 weeks paid leave/vacation, they also will likely have to work EXTRA to cover for the breeders, and since they are probably salary, that will not come with any overtime.
In three years, you'd have already spent five or ten million on expensive traveling, expensive high-end cameras you can afford now, and so forth. Then you'd be poor and broke.
No, not really.,
I'm pretty much debt free....
And honestly, I own just about most everything I want for the most part. Sure, I"d buy a new camera or lens here and there, but while pricey they don't break the bank. I buy them now, just make it 1-3 purchases a year.
But if I took home say, $5M in cash....in vested it and made 2.5% interest, that would be $125K a year.
Being debt free, I could easily live comfortable on that the rest of my days.
Actually with me being a bit older these days, it would be more than that annually...and again, I could easily live on that, have my toys and never run out of money or have to work again.
As far as travel, thinking about it....with all the terrorist crap going on in the world, etc....there are PLENTY of place for me to travel in the US that would keep me well entertained, and I'd never even have to ponder leaving the mainland.
I might hit some caribbean spots, but that's about it I think.
No, I'm not one of those that would blow it.
I could live VERY easily on $125K a year in New Orleans and be quite happy the rest of my days and not have to work again if it happened.
Very few people have a job that they really enjoy. So they think "If I had a lot of money I would immediately quit working". But, the truth is, doing nothing all day is actually quite boring
You know, a few years ago, I had about a 7 month gap in between contracting gigs.
My typical day was, wake up, walk the dog....jump on my motorcycle and hit the gym for a couple of hours.
I'd come back home, have some lunch, look for jobs about an hour or so, and then often after showering and dressing, I'd jump on my motorcycle and run around town (living in New Orleans). I spent days seeing the art museums, WW2 museum, all sorts of neat things. I might have left out earlier and met friends for lunch somewhere....
Usually by about 3-4pm, I'd usually meet some friends at one of our MANY fine drinking establishments, for a few...and then come home, etc.
For 7 months, lather, rinse, repeat. I had NO problem finding things to do.
I thought to myself, "Man, if I won the lottery, this would likely be a large part of my life, and hell, if I got tired of this, I could always take a vacation.
Seriously....how could anyone get bored with all the money they ever need, and a bit of imagination?
If I hit the lottery and had enough money where I'd never need to work again, I'd leave work so fast I'd leave skid marks out the door!!
I frankly don't know if I'd even notify them I was leaving I might just never return....
Ok, I'd tell them, I'm not *that* much an ass, but it illustrates my feelings.
I work for one and ONLY ONE reason, to make money to support the style of life I enjoy when not working. Period, cut dried simple.
If I had enough money to never have to work again, I would not. I have PLENTY of things I'd rather be doing with my time. I have lots of hobbies....I'd like to spend time traveling, doing photography, chasing women, etc.
I just don't get it why anyone would still work if they didn't have to.
I've heard of people that for some reason, associate their self identity with their work...and I've actually seen this happen, often to older men who retire and just seem to lose part of themselves. I thought, however that this was mainly the product of older generations.
But my work, and I made a very decent living, is purely mercenary. I don't care about the work, other than doing it of as high quality I can to get paid for it. If the customer is happy, then they pay me and keep me around.That's it. I have no love for my work or vocation.
I'd certainly NOT be doing any of this at all if I didn't have to do it for a living.
I just can't imagine the mindset of someone, that could not find the world entertaining enough, to find things to do if they had their fiscal needs met for a lifestyle they like, and not have to work any more.
And I paid up for amazon prime just for the show, and immediately benefited by getting free shipping and low cost same day delivery for a couple of things I ordered.
That's interesting, I myself, wouldn't ever consider shelling out $99/yr or whatever it is, just for one show to watch.
But I have been an amazon Prime member for many years, likely almost as long as the program has been offered. I like the 2-day shipping, and the Amazon Radio and Prime video offerings and free ebooks, etc they offer are nice perks.
I watch some Amazon Prime videos, but I find their offerings pale in comparison to Netflix, which itself is falling far behind what it used to be.
I order a LOT of stuff from Amazon. Heck, most everything I buy for others for Xmas, will be bought and delivered by Amazon. I find more and more, almost anything I buy is online and most of it is from Amazon, so the Prime part is important for me.
My only hope is, that Amazon doesn't ever open a distribution or other brick and mortar physical presence in my state, and force me to start paying sales tax for purchases from them.
At that point, I'm guessing I'll be buying less and less from Amazon. Convenience is one nice thing, but sales tax free is a BIG one too at this point, especially on large ticket items.
Man...this seems to happen to ALL "cool" companies.
They start out often quite employee centric....sure you work hard, but they give you lots of perks at work, free food drinks, kitchens, parties on and off campus...even keggers....
And then..they get a bit too big, the owners cede management to more managerial types, who count pennies but don't know the worth of a HAPPY EMPLOYEE....and then well, the fun and perks start to disappear, and soon....it is like any other boring job, and those little extras that build team work, or make you feel 'ok' about working a few extra hours to get something out the door, *vanish*.
At that point, unless the pay is insanely good...no real reason to stay or show any type of loyalty whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh..thanks!!
Now that one does make sense...I'd say keep that section.
Who says Trump *wants* to get re-elected?
He might have the mindset of , damn the torpedoes, I'm going to do what I wish in my 4 years, and then, hell with political currency left over to get elected.
I think that would actually be a nice bit of fresh air....
I'd hardly call meeting the standards the Constitutional (you know, law of the land) mandated method of choosing a president, a mere "technicality".
If you think that, I'd suggest you start boning up on your old civics classes.
You are a member of your state FIRST, and then a member of the United States second. There is a valid reason it is set up the way it is.....to balance the power of the States and the States' voices for who the president is.
You say that as if it is a bad thing...?
I'd dare say most of the people that voted in the new administration voted precisely for this type of shake up and reconfiguration of the US Federal govt. Departments that are not constitutionally created or mandated have been overstepping their bounds for decades, and we finally have someone that appears to not be afraid of dismantling it...which was one of the mandates he had FROM his voters.
Laws and regulations should come from congress...you know, the ones that are actually beholden to the voters? It should not come from bureaucrats that are not directly (if at all) answerable from the people.
I see where you're trying to go here...but to be fair...
There is a BIG difference between ignoring advice, and ignoring/breaking a LAW.
Advice can be heeded or ignored...standing law cannot. And I don't believe we've seen any LAWS passed by congress (hence actually a law) that requires the president to liquidate, etc. for any reason.
And with separation of powers, I'd almost guess...and purely speculation here, that it would take a constitutional amendment to enforce this on the Executive Branch.
I have a bit different slant on your question. And I really do not know my civics well enough, but I was wondering....
Are not these Departments (Energy, Education, EPA, etc)...not merely constructs through Executive Dept. decree?
I don't believe any of these departments are constitutionally created or protected govt. entities. I don't know, but I don't think they are even mandated to be created by law by congress....if they are truly creations of the Executive Branch, to help aid and enforce actual laws by congress, could they not also be destroyed or dissolved by Executive Branch decree?
Again, I don't know the particulars, but from my limited understanding, these departments are wholly created by the Exec. Branch to help that branch enforce laws from Congress...and they are created wholly by Exec. Branch, why could they not be dissolved wholly by the Exec. Branch?
I honestly don't know and will look it up, but if anyone can enlighten me, I'd be interested in a quick read.
That being said...aren't the departments pretty much at the behest of the Exective Branch? Could the new President not just completely disband them with the stroke of a pen? I mean, these are NOT part of congress, etc. They are set up by the Exec. branch to help enact and follow laws from congress, but they really aren't constitutional established or protected government entities are they?
I may be wrong here, but that's my 30K foot level of understanding of these departments.
I'm sure they don't *have* to answer to a president-elect, after all, he's not president yet.
But come a few weeks, he will have that full power...and I'd guess pretty much anyone, even the whole department as an entity could be done away with pretty quickly?
You really believe this.....?
Wow...just.....wow.
He shouldn't have to kill their inheritance just because he wants to be president and help the country out by doing some civic duty.
If you can't put on roof (and I think local laws now can NOT prohibit you from this after the move to digital OTA)...put antenna in attic...you can have it feed all your TVs natively, or to a central TIVO like dVr box like I described and have it stream throughout the house.
I actually tried SlingTV first....and found that it didn't have built in DVR, and the channel offerings weren't as good as VUE.
The new ATT DirectTV NOW streaming thing just released is interesting looking...but won't have DVR on it till after we're into 2017.
The nice thing about these is...no contract, if one looks better, change....
Well, one can have oneself fixed pretty readily and easily, so as not to risk kids.
I for one, am getting past the age of even thinking I'd ever want to deal with kids, I do not want to ruin my later years with kids. Most of my friends who have them, have them now getting out of HS and into college or maybe even out of there.
So, people in my age group are starting to free themselves up....and on the times I do date more age appropriate women, their kids usually are about out of the house too....
So, I'm pretty much settled that I DO NOT WANT kids.
So, you should have the option to have that 20 weeks for whatever you want...childbirth, motorcycle tour of the US...etc.
It is not fair that one set of people are offered this PAID BENEFIT, and other are not...that is discrimination, and in this PC day in age, its hard to believe that everyone wouldn't see and jump on this too.
I have downloaded Kodi on my FireTV, but haven't found much to do with it yet....
A friend of mine had one set up on a Fire Stick...and all it seemed to be good for was a bunch of live TV feeds from Eastern Europe, lots of stuff out of Russia, etc.
I'm not sure what IPTV is, but will look into it.
I didn't spend all THAT much money...but I did want to balance out geeking out myself and my time and want for something not all cobbled together that doesn't work very well or have a nice clean interface. Sound and picture quality are important to me, so what I have so far seems to fit the bill and only cost a few hundred to put together for the whole house.
I do have the above, and it was only a few hundred dollars and easy to set up.
I just listed it in case others wanted to jump in, and save them a few steps of research in what works very well for me.
It is *STILL* 20 weeks of Paid Time Off.
What you do with should be your choice...have a newborn or go to Tahiti....Again, it is a paid benefit for some workers and not for others. That is unfair.
Ok, who's in imagination land now? What company is going to go to all that extra trouble, of hiring temps, or adjusting staffing just for people going on parental leave? Nope, they're gonna target the poor schmucks that are left behind working to take up the slack for the new parents.
Well, if I weren't having to work so many LONG fucking hours, to make up for the new parental units taking paid time off that I don't get...I'd not be home nights sleeping, but I'd have time and energy to go out and get laid.
Going out drinking with ladies and getting laid is fun to do....maybe they should give me 20 weeks of paid vacation to pursue my lifestyle CHOICE.
I choose not to have kids, they choose to have them. Why should their lifestyle decision be more important than mine?
Look into getting a 'business' connection. Most places don't really require you to show much official business documentation....but you can get truly unlimited internet, no caps AND you can run servers if you want.
I have one from Cox cable, have for a couple decades now...$69/mo...decent up/down speeds, works for my needs both with servers and my TV streaming.
This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.
I figured my set up....
For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.
I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.
The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.
For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.
I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.
I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...
It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.
The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.
So, this is my living room.
For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.
I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.
The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.
So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.
So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.
I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.
So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer
Well, depends, I guess, on your definition of "middle of nowhere".
IMHO, unless you consider anywhere outside of LA, NYC, SF and other hugely $$$$ places to live, middle of nowhere....there are plenty of places with reasonable cost of living in the US. And you can still live in a decent place, in a safe neighborhood, where children still play outside, and get by on a single income family. Yes, I am talking about a 'real job', not a burger flipper, but I believe that's what we're all discussing here.
No, you won't have the latest toys, not the newest car....and you won't be going out that much, but hey, that's what my parents did. Mom stayed at home with me till I was in about 2nd grade and then gradually began working again, up to full time by the time I was old enough to come home from grade school and stay on my own will they got home from work. No problems.
We cooked at home most all meals, nothing wrong with that, forced us to eat a bit healthier, AND, I was taught from a young age how to cook myself.
Sure, being a parent is tough, it takes sacrifice both personally and fiscally, But this isn't a new thing...parents have been doing this forever till now.
Don't have them, unless you are willing to make those sacrifices. I never wanted to be tied down with the little fiscal boat anchors, so I chose not to have any...I like my time and my disposable income. A choice you make. I could NOT have both, and I chose my path and am happy with it.
If you choose to have kids....you need to take what goes with it and if you have to move to an area with a lower cost of living, then be prepared to do that. Don't expect others to take up the slack for you.
Seems unfair and discriminatory against them, in that they don't get this 20 week PAID BENEFIT...?
Not to mention, that often those childless folks will be just exact folks that have to work extra hours and pick up the slack for those new parents taking time off to care for the result of fucking without protection.
So, not only do the childless not get the free 20 weeks paid leave/vacation, they also will likely have to work EXTRA to cover for the breeders, and since they are probably salary, that will not come with any overtime.
No, not really.,
I'm pretty much debt free....
And honestly, I own just about most everything I want for the most part. Sure, I"d buy a new camera or lens here and there, but while pricey they don't break the bank. I buy them now, just make it 1-3 purchases a year.
But if I took home say, $5M in cash....in vested it and made 2.5% interest, that would be $125K a year.
Being debt free, I could easily live comfortable on that the rest of my days.
Actually with me being a bit older these days, it would be more than that annually...and again, I could easily live on that, have my toys and never run out of money or have to work again.
As far as travel, thinking about it....with all the terrorist crap going on in the world, etc....there are PLENTY of place for me to travel in the US that would keep me well entertained, and I'd never even have to ponder leaving the mainland.
I might hit some caribbean spots, but that's about it I think.
No, I'm not one of those that would blow it.
I could live VERY easily on $125K a year in New Orleans and be quite happy the rest of my days and not have to work again if it happened.
You know, a few years ago, I had about a 7 month gap in between contracting gigs.
My typical day was, wake up, walk the dog....jump on my motorcycle and hit the gym for a couple of hours.
I'd come back home, have some lunch, look for jobs about an hour or so, and then often after showering and dressing, I'd jump on my motorcycle and run around town (living in New Orleans). I spent days seeing the art museums, WW2 museum, all sorts of neat things. I might have left out earlier and met friends for lunch somewhere....
Usually by about 3-4pm, I'd usually meet some friends at one of our MANY fine drinking establishments, for a few...and then come home, etc.
For 7 months, lather, rinse, repeat. I had NO problem finding things to do.
I thought to myself, "Man, if I won the lottery, this would likely be a large part of my life, and hell, if I got tired of this, I could always take a vacation.
Seriously....how could anyone get bored with all the money they ever need, and a bit of imagination?
If I hit the lottery and had enough money where I'd never need to work again, I'd leave work so fast I'd leave skid marks out the door!!
I frankly don't know if I'd even notify them I was leaving I might just never return....
Ok, I'd tell them, I'm not *that* much an ass, but it illustrates my feelings.
I work for one and ONLY ONE reason, to make money to support the style of life I enjoy when not working. Period, cut dried simple.
If I had enough money to never have to work again, I would not. I have PLENTY of things I'd rather be doing with my time. I have lots of hobbies....I'd like to spend time traveling, doing photography, chasing women, etc.
I just don't get it why anyone would still work if they didn't have to.
I've heard of people that for some reason, associate their self identity with their work...and I've actually seen this happen, often to older men who retire and just seem to lose part of themselves. I thought, however that this was mainly the product of older generations.
But my work, and I made a very decent living, is purely mercenary. I don't care about the work, other than doing it of as high quality I can to get paid for it. If the customer is happy, then they pay me and keep me around.That's it. I have no love for my work or vocation.
I'd certainly NOT be doing any of this at all if I didn't have to do it for a living.
I just can't imagine the mindset of someone, that could not find the world entertaining enough, to find things to do if they had their fiscal needs met for a lifestyle they like, and not have to work any more.
That's interesting, I myself, wouldn't ever consider shelling out $99/yr or whatever it is, just for one show to watch.
But I have been an amazon Prime member for many years, likely almost as long as the program has been offered. I like the 2-day shipping, and the Amazon Radio and Prime video offerings and free ebooks, etc they offer are nice perks.
I watch some Amazon Prime videos, but I find their offerings pale in comparison to Netflix, which itself is falling far behind what it used to be.
I order a LOT of stuff from Amazon. Heck, most everything I buy for others for Xmas, will be bought and delivered by Amazon. I find more and more, almost anything I buy is online and most of it is from Amazon, so the Prime part is important for me.
My only hope is, that Amazon doesn't ever open a distribution or other brick and mortar physical presence in my state, and force me to start paying sales tax for purchases from them.
At that point, I'm guessing I'll be buying less and less from Amazon. Convenience is one nice thing, but sales tax free is a BIG one too at this point, especially on large ticket items.
That's nearly 10% savings where I live.
They start out often quite employee centric....sure you work hard, but they give you lots of perks at work, free food drinks, kitchens, parties on and off campus...even keggers....
And then..they get a bit too big, the owners cede management to more managerial types, who count pennies but don't know the worth of a HAPPY EMPLOYEE....and then well, the fun and perks start to disappear, and soon....it is like any other boring job, and those little extras that build team work, or make you feel 'ok' about working a few extra hours to get something out the door, *vanish*.
At that point, unless the pay is insanely good...no real reason to stay or show any type of loyalty whatsoever.
The soul of the company is gone.
Hmm....letting driverless cars go free in a State that seems to have frozen stuff on roads for 3/4 of the year....yeah, *BRILLIANT*.