Ipad1: interesting problem

Saturday, November 24, 2012

I have never been happy with the “app store” concept. As usual, immoral, inefficient, and ineffective.

(this is, as readers of my blog will know, my standard meme for gripes. Stuff that’s immoral is always wrong. Ineffective is does it work. Inefficient is it easy and cheap.)

The “app store” concept is;

~ “immoral” in that it transfers control from the “buyer” to the “seller”

~ “ineffective” in that problems are insoluble; support is non-existent

~ “inefficient” in that it doesn’t work flawlessly

My current gripe is the GMAIL icon has disappeared from the front screen, but is running in the background. I get alert messages on new email.

Double clicking start does not show it in the task list.

A hard restart or a soft restart doesn’t recover it.

App store thinks it is installed.

Argh!

I have had problems with app store in the past that were never solved.

Argh squared!!

Loss of control of my device annoys me.

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interesting: Obamacare is NOT about h, hc, or hci; it’s about control

Friday, November 23, 2012

http://personalliberty.com/2012/11/19/obamacares-real-costs/

Obamacare’s Real Costs

November 19, 2012 by Bob Livingston

*** begin quote ***

“The Obama Care Health Care Reform Plan or Health Care For America Plan will cost the average American around $70.”–obamacarefacts.com

First of all, allow me to disabuse you of the notion that Obamacare has anything to do with “health” care. Obamacare is not about health. It’s not about lowering the cost of health insurance. And it’s not about ensuring that everyone is insured.

It is about locking more Americans into the clutches of the Big Pharma/Medical Industrial complex, providing more customers for Big Insurance and confiscating more wealth from individuals and businesses.

The American healthcare system should properly be called “sickcare.” It’s a subtle and esoteric system of population control with prescription drugs issued at the public expense by the drug cartel — the conglomerate of pharmaceutical houses.

They commit population control under the pretense of “healthcare” and make people pay for it. And this medical cartel has no legal liability. It is forced — or at least deceptive — medication. And most doctors don’t have a clue. They write prescriptions based on falsified data and kickbacks — from speaker fees and ghostwriting glowing medical reviews — without regard to whether their patients will benefit.

*** end quote ***

I too am very disillusioned with this whole discussion.

It’s NOT about “Health”, “Healthcare”, or “Healthcare Insurance”. It’s all about “control”.

“Death Panels” was a good two word summary of the Gooferment’s objective.

When we think of the drag that seniors represent in socsec, medicare, and the taxes that they don’t pay, no wonder cigarettes are legal!

The exemplar for this is the (American) Indian Healthcare, wwhere the rule is ‘don’t need anything expensive after June’. Or maybe the VA, “die”!  (Some old vets firmly believe that VA wants to kill them. And, not with kindness.)

If it was about health insurance, then it wouldn’t be tied to your employment.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Voluntary?

Thursday, November 22, 2012

http://ncc-1776.org/tle2012/tle697-20121118-01.html

THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE

Number 697, November 18, 2012

Letters to the Editor

Letter from A.X. Perez

Re: “Making ‘Voluntary’ Service Mandatory—One Step At A Time”, by C. Jeffery Small

*** begin quote ***

I continue to be amazed that people who call Heinlein’s Starship Troopers fascistic for suggesting that honestly voluntary service a condition of voting or holding office

*** end quote ***

What was wrong with that concept?

I always thought that this would filter out the grifters and war mongers!

Remember Heinlein’s idea was not just warriors, but all sorts of dirty dangerous jobs that make one value being part of the body politic.

sigh!

–30–

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POLITICAL: Raise sex; lower civii society

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

http://keywestlou.com/fifty-shades-of-grey

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
Posted on November 18, 2012 by keywestlou

*** begin quote ***

Book review time! I finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey yesterday morning.

The book is a trilogy. The three volumes fast moving. The author is a woman. E. L. James. I specify her sex since from my perspective it is a woman’s book written by a woman.

Fifty Shades is #1 on the New York Times best seller list. It is being read world wide. Book stores keep running out.

Fifty Shades is a love novel. Again, written by a woman for women. Not generally the type of book men read. Too lovey dovey.

My sense is the book is going to raise sex to another level.

*** end quote ***

And, yet for all the development of “technical knowledge”, the civil society has more failings in all of the moral values. Just drive down the road and crazies endanger lives by poor driving technique despite having far better hardware. So to, divorce is rampant, the children are deprived, and the takers far outweigh the makers. Pop star Taylor Swift is uniquely notable because she doesn’t do slut publicly; what she does privately is her own business. Listen to any “comedian” and they’d make a Drill Sargent blush. Manhood has been reduced to a metrosexual homosexual who’s no longer needed. Womanhood has been reduced to whiny trivial want-it-all given to her. A la Sandra Flock who wants her birth control paid for by others. Our pioneer ancestors would be ashamed. Sadly, I don’t know how to fix it. So maybe we just watch it all spin crash and burn like all the empires before us. A lot of folks are going to get hurt along the way. We’ve come a long way from “You are what you produce.” A long long way.

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RANT: Twinkies die; union “wins”

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hostess, the maker of iconic treats like Twinkies, is shuttering its plants and liquidating its 82-year-old business.

A victim of changing consumer tastes, high commodity costs and strained labor relations, Hostess ultimately was brought to its knees by a national strike orchestrated by its second-largest union.

http://online.wsj.com/home-page?mod=djemalertNEWS

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What was the Union’s logic for this?

Now that’s a story worth reading.

Symbiotic parasites don’t kill their hosts usually.

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political: am i just being a grinch?

Monday, November 19, 2012

I was listening over the net to NJ101.5 to get info about Seaside Heights.

The Guv’s wife, Mary Pat, was on touting the Guv’s amd Ms Guv’s charity.

Now I’m sure that she’s a very nice lady, but doesn’t anyone see a “structural problem”.

The government is taking over “charity”.

In the old days, “relief societies” were formed. Fraternal organizations abounded. Churches were virogous.

I remember reading how after the Chicago fire folks were helped with loans and such. There was networking and judgement. The able body were shown were work was available. Loans were provided and paid back. The truly devastated were taken in.

So what I see is that cradle to grave, Mommy Government will take care of all your needs. Daddy Government will hand out welfare checks.

Handouts are not a hand up.

Only by affiliation can people be truly moved out of poverty. They walk out of it by their own efforts with help and guidance of good people helping. Not doing for.

Sorry, but I guess I am the modern embodiment of old Ebenezer!

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RANT: I wonder why?

Monday, November 19, 2012

i just wonder why?

how different am i?

–20–

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MONEY: Imagine that your car insurance was tied to your job?

Sunday, November 18, 2012

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirement-plan-shift-is-creating-a-generation-of-workers-unable-to-retire.html

Retirement Plan Shift Is Creating a Generation of Workers Unable to Retire
CBS MoneyWatchBy Steve Vernon | CBS MoneyWatch – Fri, Nov 9, 2012 3:55 PM EST

*** begin quote ***

We can no longer afford to ignore the long-term consequences of short-term thinking about our retirement programs.

Yahoo! Finance/Thinkstock – We can no longer afford to ignore the long-term consequences of short-term thinking about our retirement programs.

Large U.S. employers continue to eliminate traditional pension plans that pay retired workers a monthly lifetime pension in favor of defined contribution and hybrid plans that offer lump-sum payments at retirement, according to a recent survey HR consulting firm Towers Watson.

Among Fortune 1000 companies, only 11 percent still offer a traditional pension plan to newly hired salaried workers, down from 14 percent in 2011 and continuing a long slide from 90 percent in 1985. Conversely, in 1985 only 10 percent of those companies offered only a defined contribution plan to salaried workers — today that figure stands at 70 percent.

The primary reason for this trend has been financial: Employers don’t want the exposure to unfunded liabilities if capital markets perform poorly. At the same time, until recently employees generally hadn’t expressed a preference for traditional pension plans and, in fact, have largely embraced 401(k) and other defined contribution plans.

But this trend has its consequences in the workplace, as large numbers of baby boomers have 401(k) balances that are inadequate to fund a traditional retirement. To make matters worse, most retiring workers don’t know how to turn their nest eggs into reliable retirement income. Employers also haven’t provided much help by offering retirement income options in their defined contribution plans.

*** end quote ***

Well, the Gooferment has been messing up the economy and distorting the employer – employee relationship since it first ERISA rule attempted to prevent Lockheed from stealing pension benefits from older aerospace engineers. 

They only made the problem worse.

Suppose that they stopped giving their corporate cronies tax breaks that weren’t available to individuals and let individuals fend for themselves for “benefits”, no problem.

Imagine that your car insurance was tied to your job?

It’s just dumb!

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RANT: Voting doesn’t matter; Opting out, aka secession, does

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Jim Gearhardt
NJ 101.5 

Jim:

I own several houses in NJ. (I’m in the process, as are many older retiring new jersey-ites, of transitioning from NJ to NH via VA. Personally I’m being driven out by the high taxes. Most notably the Inheritance Tax.) I knew when the Storms hit that the taxpayer would be paying.

Can I ask you to consider some points?

(1) Were these towns self-insuring? This may have been a decision to save money in the short-term. To spend on other priorities. Why is the taxpayer being punished for a decision that they had no input to?

(2) “No taxation without representation.” What a joke. I have a summer family property in Seaside Heights. How do I vote for lower taxes? Or about anything they decide?

(3) In the recent election, the “takers” won. People love “free” stuff. But what are they going to “take” when those that “make” stop “making”?

Sorry to sound like an old grump. I did HANJ. I did GRIP. I tea partied.

I know you say that “secession was settled by the Civil War and isn’t going to happen” is unthinkable. I would suggest individuals can secede by just not cooperating. Remember Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

“Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.” — movie Gandhi (1983)

Peaceful. Non-violent. Non-cooperation.

Sound familiar?

I have enjoyed your morning rant for many years and now listen from VA via the inet. Thanks for the shore updates. Fight the good fight.

p.s., ½ the folks don’t vote and the ½ that did vote doesn’t make a mandate. And remember if voting made any difference, they would let us do it. “Democracy” is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner. You have demonstrated to me that VOTING in NJ is meaningless.

Fjohn

—-
Ferdinand John Reinke
… a proud Virginian since March, 2012
1641 International Drive #414
Mc Lean VA 22102
(732) 798-0508
http://www.reinke.cc (Personal page)
http://www.reinkefj.com (Professional page)

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RANT: Price “gouging” in a disaster; what nonsense

Friday, November 16, 2012

Two Newark Gas Stations Accused of Price Gouging – Newark, NJ Patch

http://newarknj.patch.com/articles/two-newark-gas-stations-accused-of-price-gouging

——–

What nonsense.

There’s no such thing as “gouging”.

The marketplace always clears willing buyers and sellers.

By allowing “gouging”, the marketplace to sort who really needs gas from who REALLY REALLY needs it.

Plus, the “marketplace” has a memory. If someone “screws” me, when times normalize, then I will NEVER patronize that place again.

Gas in North Jersey should be much more expensive than gas in South Jersey. To satisfy the “extra” demand from New Yorkers, who need it more!

Maybe gas up there would float to 20$/gallon. Then the north jersey people will drive down to Central Jersey. And the price in central Jersey floats up to $10 a gallon.

And Central Jersey ites drive south for their gas.

Also the “greedy” oil companies say “I want to sell my gas for 20$/gallon”. First thing you know there’s more gas in North Jersey than they can sell.

I’m an injineer; not an economist. Them ekkynomists have all sorts of fancy names for it. I call it “common sense”. 

Of course, then we have no need for politicians and bureaucrats to “implement rationing”. Just the King’s “weights and measures” guy. We don’t even need him. The gas station that delivers a short gallon will be found out by the marketplace. Which will administer its own brand of “rough justice”.

(The buyer with his five gallon can sees that the pump says “five” but his can ain’t full. And maybe the buyer will administer some “rough justice”. Joined by everyone waiting behind him. Then, when the cops break up the fight, and non one saw anything, they can arrest the seller for fraud.)

Basically, if the gooferment prevents force or fraud, then it should allow the “invisible hand” of the marketplace to “set” the price. The marketplace will efficiently and relentlessly punish the “gougers”!

–30–

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