TECHNOLOGY: Kindle and its ilk too pricy for me

Sunday, July 19, 2009

http://www.macworld.com/article/141620/2009/07/kindle2_pricecut.html?lsrc=rss_main

Kindle 2 price plunge signals e-book reader competition
by Melissa J. Perenson, PC World

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Amazon quietly lowered the price on its Kindle 2 e-book reader Wednesday. That didn’t take long: The Kindle 2 became available only about five months ago. And the price cut is a significant one: Amazon cropped $60 off the top price of its second-generation e-book reader, which now carries a more reasonable price tag of $299.

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I’d suspect that before I leap on any bandwagon it has to be under 100$. (Minimize my buyer’s remorse.) And, I don’t like wht I’ve been reading about the price fixing on Kindle Books. (That is that despite near zero cost, everything is 10$.) Add to that DRM and you have to rebuy if you need to redownload too many times. (Not my idea of a good user experience!) Argh! So, I’m not in the ebook market yet.

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Government isn’t transparent, but you can see right through them

Sunday, July 19, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657655235589119.html

The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign.

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Unable to defend the EPA’s actions, the climate-change crew — , led by anonymous EPA officials — is doing what it does best: trashing Mr. Carlin as a “denier.” He is, we are told, “only” an economist (he in fact holds a degree in physics from CalTech). It wasn’t his “job” to look at this issue (he in fact works in an office tasked with “informing important policy decisions with sound economics and other sciences.”) His study was full of sham science. (The majority of it in fact references peer-reviewed studies.) Where’s Mr. Hansen and his defense of scientific freedom when you really need him?

*** end quote ***

Yeah, I remember in the Eighties that “Global Cooling” was the reason that the government had to control whatever. Now it’s “Global Warming”. Although they have been trying to shift message to “Climate Change”. You really have to be stupid to NOT see that it’s all about CONTROL.

Sigh! Sheeple!!

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Posted by reinkefj

INITIALISMS: PROBLEM

Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/medicalrecords/

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Whether CCHIT should have such power is arguable, said Fred Trotter, co-founder of the Liberty Medical Software Foundation, a group devoted to promoting open-source EHR systems. In a blog post published in June, he described their certification process as “a check-list for a Proprietary, Rigid, Overweight, Bloated, Loaded, Expensive, and Massive (or PROBLEM for short) EHR products.”

*** end quote ***

Great find!

Can apply to most IT infrastructure projects today.

I’d call “o” as over-budget!

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Posted by reinkefj

SOCIALISM: Take the company for the UAW and screw the killed and maimed

Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=8016340&page=2

Bankruptcies Leave GM, Chrysler Defect Victims in the Dust
General Motors and Chrysler Are Rebuilding but Those With Injury, Death Claims May Not Get Their Day in Court
By ALICE GOMSTYN
ABC NEWS Business Unit
July 8, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Asked about consumers’ pending claims against GM and Chrysler, the Obama administration, which has worked closely with the companies on their reorganization plans, reiterated its support for both automakers.

“This was a commercial decision by the company, which we are confident will not interfere with the future viability of GM. While the U.S. Treasury was engaged in this process, GM was responsible for determining the best approach going forward,” an administration official said.

Chrysler’s decisions, meanwhile, were “consistent with conventional bankruptcy practice,” according to the official.

*** end quote ***

I thought the Democrats were the party of the working man.

Silly me!

The White House was up to its elbows in this deal which was a payoff to the UAW and seizing the wealth of honest people.

(The majority of the bondholders were banks who received TARP money. Of course, they voted like the whores to the Government they are. I’d be very circumspect about any bond or any claim made by a politician!)

Screw these little people.

Maybe ABC should ask Obama these questions in his next staged press conference that they get to play act in.

(The mainstream media is just as big a whore for the gooferment as the banks.)

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Posted by reinkefj

GAMBLING: Roulette is fixed

Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/07/17/a-primer-on-roulette-why-are-you-playing-this-game/

A Primer on Roulette: Why Are You Playing This Game?
by Brett & Kate McKay on July 17, 2009

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I am going to explain to you how the game is played, and explain why you can’t win. And if you have any sense, you will never play.

*** end quote ***

Wife does pretty good being a lucky guesser; I, on the other hand, never play.
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Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: Liberal media

Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-liberal-media.html

Friday, July 03, 2009
What liberal media?

*** begin quote ***

I just want to make sure I understand this: These somewhat inconsequential anti-tax rallies — thousands around the country? — get heavy coverage, but heavily attended antiwar rallies and regular vigils get ignored. And we have a liberal media?

*** end quote ***

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MY COMMENT

I wouldn’t characterize them as “inconsequential”. As anecdotal evidence, I have a friend (Yes, I do as surprising as that sounds!) who has never done anything political before. He’s so upset with ALL the politicians that he’s going out to his first political rally ever. A tea party. He’s upset that his children and grandchildren are being stolen from, put in debt unbelievable, and may never be free. That’s “consequential” to me.

And, “liberal media”, of which you are so much a part of, refers to its support of the “big government DEMOCRATIC” agenda. You won’t hear anything of “anti war” now, because it was all a sham to get the BLUE BIG GOVERNMENT candidate elected. Now that it’s Mister Obama’s war, it’s a good one. (The ONLY true anti-war candidate in the race was Ron Paul. You call him a wing nut, but he gave you a plan for ending the war. “Put all our people on the first thing smoking out of country.” And he’d have done just that. Why are we still in NATO?) There are no “principles” involved. We probably haven’t had a principled President since George Washington or Andrew Jackson.

See it’s all a giant scam. Guess you didn’t get the memo. It’s just “say whatever is needed” to get OUR GUY in power. Then we’ll all feather our nest.

So how’s Bush’s “Third Term” working out for you? Goldman Sachs is doing just fine. Was that the “change” you were “hoping” for?

Note: There is no difference between the D’s and R’s. They are two sides of the same coin. (More spending to share!) Co-conspirators in the same crime – robbing the taxpayers of the country and defrauding the rest of the citizens.

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Posted by reinkefj

FUN: Socialism

Friday, July 17, 2009

FROM LUDDITE:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

——————————————–

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

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OBVIOUSLY, an urban legend. No professor gives out F’s any more. Grade inflation!

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2 Comments | FUN, SOCIALISM | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

Friday, July 17, 2009

Shona Holmes- Against Nationalized Health Care Ad

One minute ad about health care. Very powerful stuff.

Send Obama-Care to where we sent Hilary Care. The discard pile.

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: why do we need the USDA?

Friday, July 17, 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE56660K20090707

USDA to oversee school snack food: Senate ag chair
Tue Jul 7, 2009 2:30pm EDT

*** begin quote ***

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Agriculture Department would be given the power to regulate all food sold in schools — including vending machine snacks — when Congress renews child nutrition programs, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said on Tuesday.

Chairman Tom Harkin said he hopes the committee will start work on legislation to reauthorize school lunch programs in October or November, with a goal to conclude the work by the end of the year.

*** end quote ***

http://harkin.senate.gov/c/

*** begin quote ***

The U.S. Agriculture Department would be given the power to regulate all food sold in schools — including vending machine snacks

*** end quote ***

Please tell me that this is a mistake. Where in the Constitution do you find the authority to do this? And, even more importantly, why would you want ot do it? Makes zero sense. So we are going to pay federal bureaucrats to tell state bureaucrats to tell county bureaucrats to tell township bureaucrats to tell school bureaucrats what can go in a vending machine! Are you out of your mind? I think that you can make a case that the USDA should be closed down. Adding to it’s “mission” is absurd.

P.S.: I have a relative that votes in Iowa and I’m copying him on this note.

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I suggest that we all do the same thing.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: OFFICE2000 and version control

Friday, July 17, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Support for Office 2000 at an end

Speaking of Microsoft Office, if you’re still using Office 2000, you might want to consider upgrading. Microsoft ended extended support for the ten year old productivity suite earlier this week. There have been a great many improvements to the Office programs since that version, so it’s probably time for a change anyway.

http://www.vistanews.com/YEZ166/090716-End-of-Office-2000

*** end quote ***

There’s something humorous calling Office2000 “ten years old”. It’s had more patches, fixes, and disasters; I felt on any given day I was dealing with a new monster. And, I never NEVER ever turn on auto updating.

No, Google Apps, isn’t much better.

I don’t have a good solution other than text files and printed copies.

Maybe the Luddite is rubbing off on me.

Argh!

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