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User: tompaulco

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  1. Re:Cold weather on Ford To Offer Fuel-Saving 'Start-Stop' System · · Score: 2

    In all cars I have driven, the "heater" uses the heat generated by the engine and transferred to the radiator fluid. Then there is a radiator across which air is blown to heat the inside of the vehicle. The amount of radiator fluid in the heater core at any one time is not very much. If the engine is not running, the heater will not remain warm for long.
    On the flip side, the Air conditioner compressor is belt driven and will definitely not do anything if the car is not running. On these new cars, will the heater and AC both be completely electric? This would be very inefficient.

  2. Re:Easy on Once-Darling Ethanol Losing Friends In High Places · · Score: 1

    The solution is to move people into the city.
    I see moving people to the city as more of a problem than a solution. The crime rate is higher, pollution is higher, insurance is higher, education is much worse, it is harder to find grocery stores or gas stations and when you find them the prices are much higher. There is a shortage of parking and it is ridiculously high priced. People are stacked in like cordwood into tiny crackerbox houses that cost far too much, and the salaries in the big city aren't high enough to justify the greatly increased cost of living.
    I lived about 40 miles outside of Chicago for about 15 years. The only redeeming factor of the city was that you could go see cultural events like a first run play. However, there was still a drawback in that you had to go in to the city to actually see it.
    Even the far west suburbs were way too crowded. It took an hour to drive 15 miles because of all the people. Of course, there was not much public transportation in the suburbs. There were trains, but it took me an hour an a half to get downtown by train and cost me several hundred a month for parking at the train station, or I could take the bus to get to the train station, which took even longer. Or I could drive downtown, which was the fastest way to get there, but cost $20 a day in parking.
    I much prefer where I live now. An acre plot 7 miles from downtown Oklahoma City. Housing is cheap, a mile equals a minute, and for about half the cost of living in a big city, I have to sacrifice maybe 10% of a big city salary.

  3. Re:Easy on Once-Darling Ethanol Losing Friends In High Places · · Score: 1

    Now, if you want to say that the technology of electric cars is not there yet to make an electric SUV (or a car that does not look like a space pod) possible, I agree with you. Let's hope that the technology will be possible in time.
    They could make an electric car look just like a real car, but if they did that, then how would you know that the car was electric and therefore that the person driving is a much better human being than you are? In order to feed the ego of the electric car buyer they have to make the cars different and so that the rest of us will know that they are making a tremendous sacrifice for the sake of the Earth, they have to also make them ugly.

  4. Re:TSA = Drag on the economy on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 1

    Due to overwhelming (2) requests, here is the video.

  5. Re:Don't compromise ... on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 1

    Don't make this a race issue. I was referring to the people at the top who are making our lives miserable.

  6. Re:TSA = Drag on the economy on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 0

    Maybe we should look at this from a different angle. Sure, security theater does nothing to protect us from terrorists, but it does make (some) people feel more secure. And surely security theater is cheaper than ACTUALLY protecting us from all possible threats. Every time somebody points out another flaw in the current security theater, they have to spend money to shore it up to actually protect us from the threat. Surely it would be cheaper for us to just have cheap smoke and mirrors security with no pat-downs, no ax-searches, no anal probing, and we just stop pointing out all the ways that a terrorist could make it through?

  7. Re:Don't compromise ... on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 2

    Secede? I don't think so. The minority is the problem. The majority don't need to secede. We just need to expunge the bad element.

  8. Re:TSA = Drag on the economy on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 0

    Just down the road from where I work, there is a Christmas display in the front yard of a business on a quite major thoroughfare. There is a Santa getting haslled by TSA agents, and several child manikins dressed only in disheveled skivvys.
    I'm surprised the business owner hasn't been arrested. The sad thing is, he is only exaggerating a little bit.

  9. Re:Confiscation??? on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 2

    The law states that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
    Yes, but in most cases, the law assumes you are guilty. For example, if you are suspected of a violent crime, they will lock you up until your court date, even though they have not proven you guilty. Meanwhile, you might lose your job, your spouse, get raped and any other number of inconveniences and persecutions, and if they find you not guilty, well, the pat on the shoulder on your way out really helps doesn't it?

  10. Re:The List on Top 10 Things You CAN'T Have For Christmas · · Score: 1

    Okay, so what I see here is mostly a bunch of stuff built by companies that specialize in other industries. So I am expected to pay more for someone who builds something that they are not known for building?
    I suppose I would take most of these things if I was given them for free, but only for the resale value.
    I think the only thing almost worthwhile is the private jet with balcony. $12 million is less than the cost of one of those little bitty bend-over-as-you-walk-down-the-aisle regional jets that everybody is flying these days. But I have flown on one of these, and I have to tell you that having 4 smaller engines instead of two larger ones made it a very quiet plane. You can stand up in the aisle, and although nearly the width of a 737, they had 2X2 seating instead of 3X3 and it was quite roomy. I can't afford one of these (nor a decent used car), but as planes go, this is a lot of plane for the money, especially for a private jet layout, those are usually even more expensive.

  11. A more important question... on Is Going To an Elite College Worth the Cost? · · Score: 2

    A more important questions is: why is the cost of a public university, for which every homeowner pays thousands of dollars a year, still half the cost of a private institution which receives no public funding.
    I recall less than 20 years ago going to a stated funded public university with no financial aid, and paying about $1,200 per semester including books. Now, 20 years, later, inflation having slightly less than doubled, my stepson is going to a public university that wants him to pay about $9,000 per semester.
    Incomes and Real Estate taxes have risen, and the percentage that we are taxed for eduction has gone up, yet somehow, the cost of going to a public school has still gone up by more than 7 times. Obviously someone is doing a very poor job with our money and they need to be removed from office.

  12. This shouldn't be a problem on Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers · · Score: 1

    Unless you are looking at big ticket items, this shouldn't matter. The amount you would save on something under maybe $100 would be more than eaten up by the price of gas, the wear and tear on the vehicle and the value of your time.
    And if it was a big ticket item, why would you go to the store first rather than do your research online?

  13. Re:Self Price Match on Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers · · Score: 1

    Me too. Best Buys price on a single stick of 1 GB PC3200 DDRAM is the same price as two sticks of the same from Best Buy Online.

  14. Re:Books on Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers · · Score: 1

    Software is a commodity and doesn't change from place to place. Your example does not say whether the computer is absolutely exactly the same across town, or even if it has identical specs but happens to be a different brand, or perhaps even DOES have different specs.
    If they had asked about a piece of software that was $950 across town, I bet more people would have said they would go across town. Unless there was an option marked "I don't pay that much for software."

  15. Re:Bad Summary on First-Sale Doctrine Lost Overseas · · Score: 1

    I'm confused. Who do you escalate to when the supreme court makes the wrong decision?

  16. Re:Bad Summary on First-Sale Doctrine Lost Overseas · · Score: 1

    This appears to be exactly what happened, and my answer to Omega is "tough titty". They get to arbitrage cheaper labor and material parts, but they don't want to let their retailers do that. As I see it, they have a contract with Costco. If they don't like what Costco does they can cancel their contract. Costco is still perfectly within their right to buy at retail price in another country and legally import them to the United States and sell them. If Omega doesn't like Costco buying the watches in China or wherever, their only recourse is to try to force their Chinese retailers to not sell to Costco, or to cancel their contract with their Chinese retailers. Or they could go another route and buy off some supreme court justices.
    As an individual, this law will likely not directly affect me, but as a small business retailer, I am extremely tired of the heavy-handedness of the manufacturers, and the way that government protects their ability to rape us small retailers. Example: as a salon, we are contractually disallowed from selling our products on the internet. They say this would be "unfair competition". Now, how is being smart enough to develop a web page and a checkout cart unfair? Meanwhile, the same manufacturers allow companies like Amazon to sell the same products on the internet, and of course with their volumes they are able to sell much more cheaply than we can in our brick and mortar. As far as I am concerned, our contract with the manufacturer doesn't prevent us from competing unfairly. Rather, it prevents us from being able to compete fairly.

  17. Re:Bad Summary on First-Sale Doctrine Lost Overseas · · Score: 1

    I agree. I propose they legislate that anyone who seeks to enforce this ruling also must not outsource any of their labor or source any of their parts from cheaper countries.

  18. Re:What's the fuss on America's Cubicles Are Shrinking · · Score: 1

    For a long time I was looking back at my college years as the best job I had. I had an offices that I never measured, but I think it was about 125 square feet. My next job after that I had moved up in rank, but had a smaller office, and had to share it with someone. The next one after that, I had "hoteling", which meant that when I was in town (I was a traveling consultant), I had about a 25 square foot cube, about 18.75 square feet of which was taken up by an L shaped desk. My next several jobs were all the same style cube or worse. Once I just had a desk in a small room with two other people.
    Now, I have finally got back into an office. In fact, today I moved from one office to another in a new space that my company has rented in the same complex. I have a 6th (top) floor view of a nearby lake, and can keep an eye on my car in the parking lot. I think this office is about 125 square feet, same as the one I had while I was working part time and going to college. It took a lot of hard work to get back to where I was in college.
    The cubicles in my company are crap. I did work in them for a short time. They were also the 5X5 variety 3/4 of which is desk, and the rest can comfortably fit either a chair or me, but not both. I am not overweight (much), but I'm tall. I actually had to push my chair out slightly into the aisle, then sit down in it, then wheel myself into the cube. The cubicles I was in were also low walled, so that people sitting next to you could see you without even having to stand up. We have other cubicles that are essentially just a desk with walls on three sides, so basically 2 feet by 5 feet of desk, but I guess you still get to count maybe 3 feet by 5 as your seating area.
    I much prefer my office with a 3X6 desk, a 2X6 credenza, a marker board, and a spare couple of chairs for guests.A door that closes, and I arranged my desk right by the window, so I can look out at the lake.

  19. Re:Causality on America's Cubicles Are Shrinking · · Score: 1

    I find myself less efficient when working at home, but that is for the reason that I don't normally work from home except when I am ill. At work I use two monitors. At home, I have the ability to use two monitors, but when I am sick I don't feel like setting my work laptop up in my home office and hooking up the monitor. Instead, I feel like sitting in bed with my laptop and occasionally dosing off.
    Last year, when the power was off at work for about three days straight I worked from home in my home office with the second monitor hooked up and was every bit as productive as when I am at work. Actually more so, because people weren't coming in and interrupting me with small talk or asking me to do other tasks for them outside of my assigned projects.

  20. This is why I like Jackie Chan movies... on Why Special Effects No Longer Impress · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am much more impressed watching Jackie Chan do nearly superhuman stunts than watching other actors on wires doing actual superhuman stunts. I cannot stand watching martial artists flying hundreds of feet into the air while kicking the crap out of each other or swordfighting. I'd much rather watch Jackie Chan scale a 12 foot fence using only his own power.

  21. Re:Surprise move? on Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    There were no other solution to 'insure people insurance companies will not insure'.
    Why not let the government be the "insurer of last result"? We could still have the insurance companies happily doing their thing, insuring generally healthy people, and the government could be the insurer that has to pick up people who none of the carriers want. Maybe the government would do such a good job that other people would want to be insured by the government (not likely, but that would be awesome).
    When I lived in Wisconsin (do not under any circumstance, ever live in Wisconsin. It is by far the worst state to live in from an economic point of view), I was forced by the state to carry worker's compensation insurance, despite the fact that the only people employed by my company were officers of my company. Also, no insurance company would offer me worker's compensation insurance because I was such a small company and all of the employees were family members and officers of the company. The state was the insurer of last resort. It was ruinously expensive, and the clauses in the insurance documents specifically said that they would not pay out unemployment benefits in my situation, but I still had to pay the premiums. So a government can be an insurer of last resort. This one wasn't very good, and they mostly were only there to legally force you to pay into their fund because they made the laws AND collected the premiums. It's a great contract to be on the other side of than I was.

  22. Re:And a Liberals perspective... on Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    Really? I once looked into buying some catastrophic health insurance. It cost about $100/month, with a $5000 deductible if I remember correctly.
    That is an awesome price. I have a catastrophic health insurance plan, with a limit of $7500 and my premiums the first year were $200/month. Two years later, they have almost doubled. I think it is time to go insurance shopping again.
    Just today I was adding up my life, auto, car and home insurance and discovered that I am paying over 20% of my income on insurance. This is unacceptable. Someone has got to stop the government before they give all of our money to the insurance companies.

  23. Re:Great Job, Republican Judge on Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    Sort of like if they stopped making people buy homeowners insurance burning your house down and losing all your possessions would be forced to become affordable?
    You have just described what insurance is for. A major catastrophe. This is what health insurance should be. Instead, healthcare has become the equivalent to home insurance that covers (at a profit) periodically painting your house,fixing plugged toilets, and other inane things that would be far cheaper without involving the insurance company as a middleman.

  24. Re:Great Job, Republican Judge on Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    My premiums went up big time.
    Same here, over 25%. I had maybe $300 in claims in the last year, and it has been that way for at least 10 years. Also, the insurance company paid none of that $300 because it was all lower than the deductible, and I have no co-pay, no co-insurance. I pay everything out of pocket up to $7500. So I paid the insurance companies thousands of dollars, paid the doctors hundreds of dollars, and now they are raising my rates. I am seriously considering canceling my insurance. What the government has done is unconstitutional and illegal. They essentially just forced everyone in the U.S. to pay more money to the wealthy insurance companies. That is not healthcare reform. Insurance has almost nothing to do with healthcare. Anyone who spends hours on the phone as the go between trying to get the insurance company to pay what they promised to pay to the doctors knows this.

  25. Re:Attempt at justifying religion again? on A Lost Civilization Beneath the Persian Gulf? · · Score: 2

    I figure the opposite. If the guys on the space station say the water is still all up there in space, then the flood myth is wrong.