And Now For the News...

[Giant Communist Robot]

I can always be reached.

...and this is my complaint.

[Haggis@wk]

Verizon reigns supreme in the Haggis household. Landline is important for the same reason as Jamie's; client calls because of the clarity a landline provides.

TV and Internet access is Verizon's fiber optic FiOS. I can't imagine what the next advance will be in that line (7500baud landline, DSL, cable, and now fiber optic) but fiber optic is pretty amazing and the only restriction on speed is the quality of the computers, certainly not the speed itself.

We hook into Netflix and other broadband service providers is via a Roku and I'll never have HBO again

My smart phone (android) is Verizon and the MRHYN still has an older Verizon flip phone. I've offered her a smart phone but she contends the current phone is already smarter than her, thank you very much, and she doesn't need a smarter one. I see her point, she never has figured how to use the camera in the phone.

[Shapley]

Our landline doesn't provide clarity. Our main lines have old copper wire apparenlty installed in the 1960s, and we're told it's 'not in the budget' to update our area for the near future. Farmers, homeowners, utility workers, and natural forces have broken the lines so many times they are now little better than a hodge-podge of hastily-made splices and repairs from one end of our rural county to the other. Many homeowners in our area have long since abandoned their land-lines in favour of the more reliable cell service, but we stubbornly cling to our land line, even though it seems to have become domain solely of telemarketers and political fundraisers.

Anybody who actually knows us calls us on the cell phone.

[Haggis@wk]

Well, our landline is also fiber optic so the clarity is amazing.

[dai bread]

One of the drivers for fibre optics here is the constant theft of copper wire, which is valuable as scrap metal.

[Trumpetmaster]

My niece hates AT&T. She couldn't unlock her smartphone when she moved here and had to buy another one.

and their support staff.... sux.......

I loaded a new OS last year on the phone... it crashed in the middle of the process....
they had me reload original specs on the phone. I LOST EVERYTHING .......................................

The apps are nice but the quality of their voice network is POOR.
I used to work there.... nuff said.....

As soon as our contracts for the iPhone are up... we are switching back to Verizon Wireless.
It seems to me from all the carriers... they have the best voice quality. IMHO....

[Shapley]

I don't own a smart phone. I have a bulky phone that is designed to be shockproof, waterproof, crushproof, etc.. It also has a full keyboard, which I find handy. However, because of its bulky design, the sound quality stinks. I have to constantly shift the phone from mouth to ear when talking in order to hear and be heard, since it is not possible to hold the phone in a manner in which the speaker and the microphone are both in the optimal position at the same time. I was apparently not smart enough to test that before buying the phone, as it never occurred to me that it would be a problem.

In some ways it reminds me of those old Army-issued walkie-talkies, though it's not quite that bulky.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

...we are switching back to Verizon Wireless.
It seems to me from all the carriers... they have the best voice quality. IMHO....

And they have service along I-70 through Utah, and on I-40 through Arizona and New Mexico, and on I-10 through New Mexico. I count on my cell phone and AAA card when I'm travelling, and that "No Signal" icon my former carrier had on the phone seriously disturbed me, when I was on the dranglefabbing INTERSTATE!!!

Shapley, I used to use a headset when the phones were bigger and less convenient than they are now. Would that work with your ruggedized phone? Would probably improve the sound quality, plus saving you the kinks in the neck.

[Shapley]

Shapley, I used to use a headset when the phones were bigger and less convenient than they are now. Would that work with your ruggedized phone? Would probably improve the sound quality, plus saving you the kinks in the neck.

It probably would. It has a phone jack. For my part, I wouldn't care much, since I text more than I call on it, and use the phone at work more than the cell phone. I'm usually chained to the desk, so the old, clunky desk phone is convenient.

[Haggis@wk]

Bloomberg Strikes Again: NYC Bans Food Donations To The Homeless

Bloomberg blocks food donations for homeless due to … salt and fat content


You might die cold and hungry on the streets of New York, my friends, but at least you won’t have to worry about high salt intake.

Unfortunately this is happening in Texas as well. I purchase soft drinks, both sugary and diet as a mystery shopper. When I tried to donate them to a local food bank they refused to take them so I took them to the local fire department, they didn't have any problems accepting them!!

[Trumpetmaster]

...we are switching back to Verizon Wireless.
It seems to me from all the carriers... they have the best voice quality. IMHO....

And they have service along I-70 through Utah, and on I-40 through Arizona and New Mexico, and on I-10 through New Mexico. I count on my cell phone and AAA card when I'm travelling, and that "No Signal" icon my former carrier had on the phone seriously disturbed me, when I was on the dranglefabbing INTERSTATE!!!

Shapley, I used to use a headset when the phones were bigger and less convenient than they are now. Would that work with your ruggedized phone? Would probably improve the sound quality, plus saving you the kinks in the neck.

Remember the commercials... Can you hear me now?

[jamiebk]

Now I know why we called that red "kool-aid" stuff we drank at Boy Scout Camp, "Bug Juice"
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2 ... -bugs?lite

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Now I know why we called that red "kool-aid" stuff we drank at Boy Scout Camp, "Bug Juice"...

I don't get the problem. The red uses all-natural, organic bugs. I wonder if the "purple" uses real squished sea-snails, or if it's a real chemistry experiment.

The PETA people need to explore the whole natural-dye subject. It impacts some of my pet hobbies, and I really like the hand-dyed yarns and fabrics I find in the "all-natural" corners of the crafty shops. There are all kinds of things that color wool and silk and cotton, and few of them would appeal to those PETA people. Bugs. Weeds. Snails. Octopi and squids.

***As my mind wanders, I wonder: do the PETA folks defend the natural right of cats to eat mice, or of wolves to hunt deer? Or do they try to talk wolves into becoming vegan? (Which I'd pay to see...) Is meat from a dead animal intrinsically morally wrong, or is it wrong only if humans are doing the eating? And if carnivores have a right to eat the meat of their prey, why don't human omnivores have a natural right to eat our natural prey? Do the PETAs discriminate only against their own species?***

[jamiebk]

All good and valid points Selma. The only problem is that Peta people are not rational

[jamiebk]

heh: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostersh ... 8092.story

By Thomas H. Maugh II
April 20, 2012, 8:35 a.m.
Eating meat helped early humans reproduce, spread around the globe

If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday.

When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. That provided a distinct competitive advantage for early humans when limited resources and a small population made it difficult for them to thrive. "Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened," said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. "This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution."

Women generally do not have a second child until they have finished breast-feeding their first. Humans typically suckle their children for a little over two years, a relatively short time compared with their maximum 120-year lifespan. Female chimpanzees, in contrast, suckle their young for four to five years out of their maximum lifespan of only 60 years. Chimp populations are thus much smaller than human populations.

Previous researchers have speculated that the short breast-feeding period is based on cultural norms. But Psouni and her colleagues looked at a variety of species and concluded that mothers of any species stop suckling when the child's brain reaches a certain developmental stage and that this stage is reached earlier for carnivores, who have a higher quality diet.

The team reported in the journal PLoS One that they studied 67 mammalian species, including humans, apes, mice and killer whales. They concluded that there is a direct correlation between the amount of meat consumed in the diet and how early weaning occurs. Thus chimps, with their four-to-five-year suckling period, are among the longest for mammalian species primarily because their diet consists largely of nuts and berries.

"We like to think that culture makes us different as a species," Psouni said. "But when it comes to breast-feeding and weaning, no social or cultural explanations are needed; for our species as a whole, it is a question of simple biology."

She notes, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not eat.

LATimesScience@gmail.com

[Haggis@wk]

As the ruling class gets nervous:

Congressman Proposes Amendment to Strip Most Newspapers, Churches, Nonprofits, and Other Corporations of All Constitutional Rights.

I think I’ll propose my own amendment, which will involve tar and feathers.

[jamiebk]

Backlash against the ridiculous 2010 ruling by SCOTUS upholding the rights of corporations to make political expenditures under the First Amendment.

[Haggis@wk]

Backlash against the ridiculous 2010 ruling by SCOTUS upholding the rights of corporations to make political expenditures under the First Amendment.

Justice Kennedy's majority opinion found that the BCRA §203 prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

The majority wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

I agree.

[jamiebk]

A company isn't a "person"...it is a collective and should be treated as such

[Shapley]

Backlash against the ridiculous 2010 ruling by SCOTUS upholding the rights of corporations to make political expenditures under the First Amendment.

Since we impose corporate taxes and our nation was founded, in part, on the concept of 'No Taxation Without Representation', it is only reasonable that corporations should be able to involve themselves in the political process.

The concept of 'shut up and send the money' was a big part of King George's problem...