Delightful program, another oldie but a goodie is the 'melt' app which melts down all of the ui elements on your screen. I remember, back in the day, setting my display variable to that of my colleagues and surreptitously running melt.
Sure, it goes well with one of the worst rail systems in the world and some of the worst roads in the third world.
Seriously, why is it Washington has such trouble investing in infrastructure. Even with the trillion$ under the current proposed legislation, I'll bet precious few $ make it to airports/rails/roads.
Yes, the whole drop-shipping scam that get-rich-quick types were pushing on instagram had to do with buying merchandise at market price then marking it up for sale on Amazon. Amazon seems to be using many more third-part merchants and pricing, which was originally a great deal on AMZN, has become more of a buyer-beware thing. Amazon is no longer necessarily the best price for merchandise.
All points you make are very true. In addition, aluminum tends to crack as it ages and you'll find aluminum wiring is usually a culprit in electrical fires. In the world of mobile electronics, it's usually looked down upon as the cheapest alternative when compared to real copper conductor used in higher quality automotive wiring.
Elected officials of all stripes and all levels should have the same trading constraints employees of Wall Street banks have:
-30 day lockup on all trades
-DOJ should be listed as interested party on all House/Senate market participants.
Unfortunately, our DOJ has been working on fugazy matters while antitrust laws are ignored and obvious market manipulation offenses by elected officials are of no interes seemingly.
Your anecdote reminds me of my experience in Salt Lake City. When I lived and worked in SLC back during the mid and late 90s, light rail was being proposed, especially with 2002 Olympic Games bearing down. Politicians proposed a simple north-south grid with some east-west connections. Well, the residents were up in arms! How dare you take away our right to driving in heavy traffic on i15. Fast forward 18 years and light rail has been such a huge success in SLC, people have fought for a spur to come to their neighborhood. This is another example of an infrastructure project that was good for all, not just a few profiteering politicians and contractors. Say what you will, but those Mormons know how to manage their municipalities (no offense to people of the LDS Church).
This hits the proverbial nail right on the head. In many towns and cities (of various sizes) across the US, pro-growth agendas are enriching a handful at the expense of residents. Take Metro NY for example, where the latest development craze is market-rate, high-density housing. Gone are the projects building McMansions on an acre or more, as you can pack in hordes of people in thise apartment and condos. Of course, the politicians promise 'affordable' housing as a way to get public approval, but what always happens is a minor number of affordable units are given away in a lottery and the bulk of the project is market rate. Market in Metro NY suburbs is around $3200/mo for a two bedroom. Add to this many developers in this region are experts at getting local and state IDA funding, tax abatements and utility credits, it becomes clear the taxpayers are funding this development. To this post's credit, these projects all require some degree of infrastructure expansion and yes, much of the maintenance of this infrastructure occurs at the detriment of existing infrastructure. Roads, rails, airports,and the electric grid in this region has suffered to the point of being 3rd world or less. Yet, taxes are sky high. Consider a 1500 sq ft, 50 year old home in suburban NJ or NY already has property taxes of $10k-15k in any commutable town/city. And adding insult to injury is the labor costs, which in Metro-NY are among the highest in the world (yes, higher than Singapore).
Metro NY may be an easy target, but like the author of this post, I believe this is happening in many towns and cities across the US. We need to get smart about our growth and take politicians who promise grand infrastructure programs to task. Just look at Trump's Infrastructure Week boon dogle or Biden's now non-existent promise of national high-speed rail. Now these hollow promises would have been growth for the public good, not just the local pols and developers.
Very good point. Even today, MSFT has such control over the hardware world, if you want to run Windows 7 on a Z490 mainboard, you're SOL. The latest mainboards force you to run the latest Windows 10. Fortunately, they all run your favorite OSS os'.
The 'ACA' is not one plan and it certainly does not require health insurance carriers to pay for 'ALL' healthcare expenses after you reach your deductible. Coverage varies by state and by level (ie., gold or platinum). Many plans do not cover out-of-network doctor visits for example. On top of this, you need to get prior approval for every medical procedure because not ALL are covered. In some cases, the insurance company will recommend a different treatment, instead of the prescribed treatment. I speak from experience.
AHCA coverage is superior to what we had before, but it isn't enough. It was drafted with the Health Insurance lobby in the room, so do the arithmetic.
I too am a fiscal conservative and see the merits behind a comprehensive single-payer health care system. Realize the American people are being told that 'socialized' medicine will eliminate choices such as choice of doctor and/or hospital. That was the main reason given by the 'moderate' Democratic Presidential candidates as to why not have universal healthcare. Look more closely and you see why. One of candidate Biden's largest contributors is big health insurance (the other being credit card banks). You saw the same thing with Amy Klobachar for much the same reason. Incidentally, I was oringally against the ObamaCare legislation, but having imagined a country without that option, I now believe it's essential. And it's certainly far from sufficient.
Actually, hospitals do publish prices. Well they do and they don't. As in, good luck finding that price list. The Feds require them to do that so hospitalizations can be indexed for medicare.
Health insurance in the United States' for-profit healthcare complex is a nightmare. Besides the fact the premiums are onerous, it is the health insurance carriers that evaluate if and how much insurance will cover an expenditure, usually after a copay and possibly coinsurance has been paid. To say nothing of ever-growing deductible limits. On top of that, the Trump Administration is working overtime to purge what little insurance benefits are provided via Obamacare (in it's quest to eliminate any legacy of the Obama Administration). Unfortunately, the GOP is woefully short on replacement ideas. One does get the idea--in the true spirit of the Republican Party--the replacement will consist of costly, high-deductible health insurance that will include many exclusions from its coverage.
All this begs the question: quality of life in the US, especially for the middle class, is crashing compared to our friends in other industrialized nations. Why middle class especially? Because the middle class is most likely to have an employer-sponsored plan that has deductibles and exclusions. In fact, most of those carrying employer sponsored health insurance never really know how much of the bill insurance will cover. Poor and indigent people, in many states, can still obtain health care without insurance and many states have funds just for this so the bill is paid by the tax payers in one form or another.
And since the healthcare complex is an aggressive lobby in Washington, this situation is not likely to change. Not under Biden, certainly not under Trump. And to those Democrats who say millions of people who have employer-sponsored health insurance love their coverage and don't want to give it up, I say poppycock! I don't know anyone, outside of public union members, who really like their coverage, employer-furnished or not. Year-to-year premium increases with less coverage over time effects this group more than any other.
Does look like fun, but let's face it, 50 nautical miles is nothing on the water. I guess if you're on a lake the just under 60 mile range is enough to water ski but it's definitely not suited to deep water. And all carbon fiber, must cost a pretty penny. Great idea, hopefully battery technology innovates to give products such as this one a more practical use case.
I started working from home around 2006. My torturous commute was around 4 hours, assuming the train was on time, so working from home was a godsend. Also my kids were young and with my commute, time with them and time for fitness activities was truly compressed. Problem was, managers always acted like they were doing you a favor. My work day would go from 8-10 hours to 12 hours, easy, working from home. But it felt like there was always the suspicion by management I was quaffing down brewskis while watching Oprah.
Fast-forward to 2020 and finally, after 15 or so years, WFH is going mainstream. At least for the duration of the pandemic. The savings in air pollutants, gasoline burned and exhaust emitted, and most of all, time, is huge.
Yes, and after sybperl, DBD::Sybase/DBI became all the rage in the late 90s. The IBM patent is obsceleted at this point, though I still try to see how many lines of code I need to do same thing with perl/sybperl/dbi on other platforms using other languages such scala/mysql.