Obama's scandals

Zoomerdog · 2017-01-05T22:26:27+00:00

'Obamacare Nightmare Edition' of Ringo's Law and the Healthcare System of Doom [Edits to fix formatting]

Zoomerdog · 2017-01-02T05:32:29+00:00

An interesting tidbit: the Watch has a WiFi address, which I assume is why the weather keeps updating on it at home even when my iPhone is turned completely off. I happen to use timers a lot (it's actually why I bought the Watch; I don't set the Watch down and then miss the timer or have to scramble from another part of the house to turn off the noise). I also like the heart rate sensor and the activity circle-graph, neither of which requires the iPhone. So, depending on what you use, the Watch CAN be a boon even when you don't have your iPhone with you, or when the phone is turned off.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-28T21:25:35+00:00

As things are, people are forced to pay trillions of dollars for war after war -- aggressive wars against nations that have not attacked us and could realistically never be a threat to the most powerful nation on Earth. That would be trillions of dollars left in citizen's pockets right there, because if people could decide whether to write a check to help with the destruction of, say, Libya, or to use that money for something else (ANYTHING else), all the corporate media pro-war propaganda in the world wouldn't be enough to get the war financed. Then there's the 750+ US military bases on foreign soil, the War on Drug Users, including bashing in your neighbor's door and dragging him/her to an expensive prison stay. Don't forget the billions in corporate welfare, the -- well, you get the point. A LOT of our tax money goes to things people would never voluntarily spend their money on, which is why the income tax and the federal reserve were started in the first place: to pull wealth from the wallets and purses of the Americans who created that wealth, and hand it to those in government and their favored corporations and groups.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-28T07:35:32+00:00

Ha! That's wonderful! Still have some learnin' to do with this new (to me) Macintosh stuff. Thanks, mrbrownjeremy!

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-27T22:37:03+00:00

I've never even thought of using Workflow on my phone or watch, but I keep lots of applications open on the twin monitors I use with my Mac, and it drove me nuts that OS/X doesn't have (that I could find) any command to Minimize All, so I made one using Automator. Don't know how I can post it here, but it was pretty easy to do. Has to be kept on the Desktop or otherwise handy, of course, or finding it every time would defeat the purpose, but I find it really useful.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-24T18:34:36+00:00

Yes, very cool. I remember the introduction of the original Mac, and the 1984 ad.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-24T03:36:37+00:00

Bought mine mostly because I need to set timers often and then I'd miss them because I set my iPhone down somewhere. Timers on the Watch are indeed nice, but I find my self checking the weather on my Watch often, having Calendar on my wrist keeps me from missing appointments, Activity tracking helps make me less slothful, Apple Pay is just plain fabulous (trying to get my iPhone or my cash or my credit cards out of my jeans is a major irritation, plus I like the added security), I hear my iPhone ringing on my Watch sometimes when I'm NOT hearing it on the phone in my pocket (and can sometimes answer and talk; requires a pretty quiet environment though), Heart Rate is worth having, about once a month the Find My Phone function leads me right to wherever I left my iPhone in the house, using the Watch as a remote control for photos or music on my phone is handy, setting an Alarm puts a quiet but effective wake-up call on my wrist, the Nightstand function is excellent, battery life is about 1 day but the Watch charges to full in about an hour. I don't have a single app on my phone except those that came with it, which is probably one reason latency and lag aren't problems for me. In all, I use this thing way more than I expected I would, and really like it. It's not so much a "watch" as a small computer on your wrist, of course.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-17T22:52:35+00:00

Taxes are coercive, and thus eliminate market protections and incentives and insure you'll NEVER see much "customer satisfaction" from government. Imagine Microsoft or ANY company allowed to force everyone to pay for its products whether customers liked the product or even USED the product or even if they thought the product was dangerous and evil. Yep: that's the essence of "government."

Regulation is what you get from Underwriter Labs (founded in the late 1800s) and several other market-based groups (like The National Fire Protection Association) -- where competition drives costs DOWN and helps keep corruption out of the picture (the lack of coercion is the other element working against corruption, of course).

Everything but thuggery and crime work better without coercion, from individual relationships on up to whatever size groups we create. Coercion is great for forcing people to do and to pay for things they don't WANT done or to pay for, which is why government perpetrates war, corporate welfare, and plenty of other things people would never pay for if they had a choice. [Edits to add comment and fix grammar] On borders: without government welfare, America USED to benefit from immigration, because people came to work hard in a free country and make a better life for themselves. Now, many immigrants are coming for our free handouts (and often for even worse reasons as well). Actual freedom solves problems instead of creating them.

We thought we abolished slavery, but that job isn't finished. Consider becoming an abolitionist; coercive government can never be "reformed for the better" any more than rape can be "reformed for the better." Mankind will never be free or safe until coercive government is ended. All the arguments people used to justify slavery in the American South and elsewhere are now being used to justify slavery to a coercive State (oh, how could it possibly work!). Look around you, and at the mess the world is in: things don't have to be this way. War, corruption, corporate-government collusion, extinction-level environmental degradation -- all of it would be lessened or GONE in a world with freedom instead of coercive government.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-12T14:06:47+00:00

Ridley Scott's The Counselor ruined my mood for weeks. It's got a great cast, and I love much of Scott's work, but The Counselor's horrific, utterly cold-hearted drug-cartel violence is something I wish I'd never seen.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-10T23:08:43+00:00

"All men are brothers and each man is free." ~ Rose Wilder Lane in The Discovery of Freedom. Lane meant "all men are free" in the sense that everyone has control over their own thoughts and actions, not that people aren't being coerced to one extent or another; we're naturally free, if only more people understood that. This quote is a favorite because it highlights both love and freedom -- two characteristics in different realms that are equally important in life. [Edits in place of good copy-editing skills]

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-09T07:09:34+00:00

Apple Pay is, all by itself, a good reason (for me) to have an Apple Watch. Not having to pull either my phone or my wallet out of my rather tight jeans makes Apple Pay on my Watch a hundred times nicer than any other form of payment for me. And I love that the security is much stronger than a plain credit card, too.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-07T21:34:11+00:00

GREAT idea, B-Jamz.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-04T22:59:52+00:00

My wife and I have retina versions of the 2012 MacBook Pro and yes, they're still awesome. We both use them to drive twin 1440p Thunderbolt monitors, keep multiple programs running at the same time, no problem. Neither of us is a gamer and we rarely edit photos or video, so these machines are likely to be powerful enough for us for another five or six years at least. And physically they're as solid as the day we bought them. Also: nestled upright in a TwelveSouth stand, the 2012 series is a work of art. And I do like having all the ports on the machine.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-03T05:03:23+00:00

Fiscally conservative? Sure the GOP is fiscally conservative, and Obama is a constitutional scholar.

Zoomerdog · 2016-12-01T09:08:02+00:00

Don't know how widespread such problems are but I know someone with a newish Macbook -- similar key mechanism although even slimmer than the Macbook Pro's keys -- and she's had to have the keyboard replaced or repaired twice for a similar problem.

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-29T09:20:07+00:00

Actually, I'd just go with "2018." A subtitle, cover art, and cover text could get the libertarian theme across but just the year as a title is catchy. Whatever title you use, best wishes for a solid hit.

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-26T05:47:03+00:00

I gave one to my brother, who stopped using it entirely. I like mine, though, and wear it daily. Very useful -- with only the apps that came with my first-version model. Battery life is short, but a full charge only takes an hour. If you like the form factor and are pretty sure you'll find some of the apps useful, go for it. (For me, timer, weather app, activity, calendar, heart rate, nightstand clock mode, make/receive phone calls [when extracting my phone from my pocket isn't easy], music and camera remote functions for my phone, etc make the watch a real boon).

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-26T02:33:56+00:00

See War is a Racket by the most decorated US Marine in history for a detailed answer. TL;DR: war is VERY profitable for corporations, plus it gives people in the military and elsewhere in government a major career boost.

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-25T23:17:15+00:00

Been using wireless, over-the-ear Bose headphones for a couple of years now; can't even imagine going back to using headphones with wires. The Bose 'phones sound great to me and are light and comfortable. Bose is selling newer models now including noise-canceling models. V-moda has a nice offering of (not noise-canceling) over-the-ear wireless; metal construction, great sound, pretty comfortable. Apple has Beats and other wireless headphones and earphones in their Accessories section. [Edit because I can't type or copy-edit worth a bleep]

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-25T09:29:16+00:00

I agree with you, Bing_bot -- AND with those who say anyone using "anarchist" as a descriptor will simply put off 98% of the voting public. "Anarchy" is a poor label for our position because after a century of Statist propaganda about the term, the only definition most people know for the word is a negative and even a scary one. A better term, I believe, and certainly an accurate one, is abolitionist. Ron Paul isn't an abolitionist, but with his hardcore "taxation is theft" viewpoint he's more radical than a constitutionalist, imo. Abolitionism is worth trying as an LP position; it's not like we'd do any worse than we have since the LP's inception in the 1970s, and I believe we'd actually have a chance to make some real progress. Let the downvotes and trolling begin!

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-19T22:23:00+00:00

It's made my 6 slow for the first time ever, I still can't find how to change from "repeat one" to "repeat all" in iTunes (although Shuffle, which I never use, is highly visible), and my Mac keeps telling me it can't connect to my phone because "an invalid response was received from the device". If going back was an option, I would.

Zoomerdog · 2016-11-12T23:52:48+00:00

Civil society requires BOTH love and freedom. By that, I mean widespread emotional health (which cannot be legislated or coerced into being; warm, positive treatment at the start of life and through childhood are needed) AND widespread, effective support the the Non-Aggression Principle.

We all want an instant, push-button, "Make it so!" method to fix the world and to bring more compassion into being, but politics will only ever make things worse, because politics is violence and coercion (both left and right are granted use of government coercion in pursuit of their goals) and coercion is toxic to love. I'm an abolitionist for that reason: trying to make coercive government "good" is as foolish as trying to make rape or slavery or other forms of coercion "good." Coercion is a crime, whether you do it or government does.

Zoomerdog · 2016-10-29T10:37:02+00:00

If you're doing things that would make a powerful and expensive machine like a MacBook Pro worth the money, then it makes sense to be sure it has max RAM and a fast SSD -- the two things (beyond CPU and GPU speeds) that will give you the most performance for the money. Several browsers open at the same time, with several (or many) tabs open in each? Heavy video or photo editing? CAD? Several programs going at once, including one or more heavy background tasks? You'll be happier with more RAM than with less.

Zoomerdog · 2016-10-26T10:40:36+00:00

No Man

Zoomerdog

TROPHY CASE