A big source of frustration is how makers of electronics try to get away with the damn smallest or thinnest battery they can find. Worse, is the bit with batteries you can't replace, like the iPhone. Would you buy a car with a battery you can't replace? No. So, why would you buy an expensive phone with a sealed-in battery like the iPhone?
What's really bad about smart phones is that you're lucky to get home from work with it "flying on fumes" after you left in the morning with a full charge. That is unacceptable. A lot of people buy a smart phone for the first time not knowing how bad they are on battery only to find out the hard way when it makes a noise that is the "low fuel idiot alarm". What a disappointment for the new user. Yet, people accept it. Why I find this unacceptable is that I refuse to leave a $500 phone sitting out in ANY workplace where anyone can get at it.
I once worked in a place where spiteful people messed with my stuff just out of spite. For example I would use in the break area this one large fan owned by the company. So, an idiot snipped the cord right at its engine housing to be sure I couldn't fix it. If you worked with jerks like this, would you want to leave a smart phone sitting out rigged to a charger? Where a prick could grab it, drop it on the floor, and run it over with a forklift? In short, a smart phone needs to be able to go for a FULL WEEKEND on one charge, with normal use. Yep, from a Friday morning to the following Monday evening before the "low fuel idiot alarm" goes off.
With the iPhone, this with batteries you can't replace, is completely inexcusable. Batteries wear out. Keep the same car battery aboard a car, and sooner or later, the car will fail to start. Would you buy a car with a sealed-in battery? No. It has come to my attention that the Mac Book Air, another Apple product, has a glued-in battery that has a shape that resembles a gerrymandered congressional district. And it's gerrymandered in 3-D while you're at it.
As I type this out, I'm testing out a laptop hooked to a a power supply that can run from a car battery and its input is hooked to a pair of emergency light batteries while I sit in a bar with free wifi. The idea is to get a laptop that keeps going and going and going....
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Wanna make money? Be prepared to gamble...
As a method of making money, working is for subsistence. If you want to make BIG money, you have to gamble on Wall Street. The problem is that under normal conditions you need big bucks to start but not always. Gambling of any type is best done with money you can afford to lose. By only using money you can afford to lose, if you lose your bet it will not cause financial disruption.
There is online gambling to be found, and online trading companies, like ING's sharebuilder.com, TDAmeritrade, etc. Online stock trading is (so far) the only legal online gambling. In the case on online trading, most such sites expect you pump it up with $1,000, but ING is different. You need only $100 or even less, so if you can afford to lose $100, you can get in the game.
Remember when American Airlines filed a Chapter 11? The stock tanked, of course. On a Friday when it was 19 cent a share, I was joking that it's too bad that you can't go to a stock exchange , walk to a window like a horse race track to put a $100 bet in and buy a bunch of shares. But it's almost as good with an online trading company! Note that as you trade, there is a trading fee that is flat rate that is like a "bookie fee".
This type of gambling (betting on Chapter 11's) is a case of very high risk investing, which is why I call it a bet. It's a 50/50 as you might well lose it all, like conventional gambling. But the payout can be good. How about putting in a $76 bet on 100 shares and finding out it climbed to $3.10/share? On a 50/50 bet that is QUITE the return!
What would have been fun would be had I bought 400 shares of AMR at 19 cent a share. I'd have $1200! But quadrupling my money is pretty good on a first try.
There is online gambling to be found, and online trading companies, like ING's sharebuilder.com, TDAmeritrade, etc. Online stock trading is (so far) the only legal online gambling. In the case on online trading, most such sites expect you pump it up with $1,000, but ING is different. You need only $100 or even less, so if you can afford to lose $100, you can get in the game.
Remember when American Airlines filed a Chapter 11? The stock tanked, of course. On a Friday when it was 19 cent a share, I was joking that it's too bad that you can't go to a stock exchange , walk to a window like a horse race track to put a $100 bet in and buy a bunch of shares. But it's almost as good with an online trading company! Note that as you trade, there is a trading fee that is flat rate that is like a "bookie fee".
This type of gambling (betting on Chapter 11's) is a case of very high risk investing, which is why I call it a bet. It's a 50/50 as you might well lose it all, like conventional gambling. But the payout can be good. How about putting in a $76 bet on 100 shares and finding out it climbed to $3.10/share? On a 50/50 bet that is QUITE the return!
What would have been fun would be had I bought 400 shares of AMR at 19 cent a share. I'd have $1200! But quadrupling my money is pretty good on a first try.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
The GOP's "Minority Problem"
The Republicans have a problem. It's demographics. You see, only about 1 out of 4 Hispanics vote Republican, and among African Americans, it's about 1 in 20. Obviously, people with color aren't buying their message. Why? The Republicans think they need a better messenger to deliver their message of Social Darwinism for the poor and socialism for the rich. We who have (even if only seasonally) color "get it" but whites don't.
So, a bunch of Republicans have a meetup at a golf resort that was once a plantation to brainstorm. That's right, a plantation! The dilemma is that if they make any real attempt to sucker in minorities, they alienate their white base. You can't have both.
The conclusion of the meet at the plantation is that they need to recruit minorities to run for office as Republicans. There are some, but the untapped supply is low, kind of like haystack needles. Would this work? Almost certainly not. Well, let them waste time trying it. And I have a suggestion. Can't find minorities? Easy. You MAKE them! The answer as to how is hiding in plain sight, in the form of John Boehner. John Boehner goes and plays golf for 10 days, comes back with half of Obama's color, and scolds the Senate about not working. Kind of reminds me about the pot calling the kettle black. Play enough golf and get a good curly perm, and if needed brown eye tint contact lenses. Voila! Instant minority member! Will real minorities fall for it? Not hardly. They have a few real ones that are correctly seen as the Uncle Tom type, like Clarance Thomas, Allan West, Herman Cain, and Marco Rubio, a "Tio Tomas" type. And don't forget Bobby Jindal.
Until they change their tune, they will have to resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, election rigging, and anything else their evil hearts come up with. But homebrew minorities won't work.
So, a bunch of Republicans have a meetup at a golf resort that was once a plantation to brainstorm. That's right, a plantation! The dilemma is that if they make any real attempt to sucker in minorities, they alienate their white base. You can't have both.
The conclusion of the meet at the plantation is that they need to recruit minorities to run for office as Republicans. There are some, but the untapped supply is low, kind of like haystack needles. Would this work? Almost certainly not. Well, let them waste time trying it. And I have a suggestion. Can't find minorities? Easy. You MAKE them! The answer as to how is hiding in plain sight, in the form of John Boehner. John Boehner goes and plays golf for 10 days, comes back with half of Obama's color, and scolds the Senate about not working. Kind of reminds me about the pot calling the kettle black. Play enough golf and get a good curly perm, and if needed brown eye tint contact lenses. Voila! Instant minority member! Will real minorities fall for it? Not hardly. They have a few real ones that are correctly seen as the Uncle Tom type, like Clarance Thomas, Allan West, Herman Cain, and Marco Rubio, a "Tio Tomas" type. And don't forget Bobby Jindal.
Until they change their tune, they will have to resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, election rigging, and anything else their evil hearts come up with. But homebrew minorities won't work.
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