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Comment Re:Windows 10 isn't done until... (Score 5, Insightful) 377

Ironically Chrome runs just fine for me on Windows 10, however Edge does not. It regularly 'comes up' and then doesn't load correctly. This gives me a useless window that won't connect to sites on the internet. Ever. I open and close it enough it it may eventually open correctly. Chrome? Chrome always opens. Firefox did as well when I had it installed. Opera works fine and all the time as well. No idea why Edge can't work right, but it's the one I won't be using.

Comment Re:License to work (Score 3, Insightful) 639

Your view of farmers and mine seem a bit different. Then again farmers where i live rarely have farm hands... Well a few do, but they aren't immigrants, instead it's typically local teens. Though most of them also probably have ~100 acres of farmland at most in the first place, so maybe the ones you know work on a different scale.

That said, the farmers I knew still were not 'poor'. Farm kids when I went to high school where the ones whose parents bought them brand new cars to drive when they turned 16 and who could go to Florida every year for a few weeks during summer. They were also big supporters of the schools (most notably the sports teams like baseball and football, and their kids usually played on those teams) and made some fairly large donations so school libraries, football fields, and gyms were often named after farmers (at least 20 or so years ago).

I found them to be much like other people: some were kind and generous, some were in between, others were mean and rotten, and lastly were those tightfisted greedy ones. They were however all business people, but that didn't always mean 'greedy and selfish'. It just meant they ran a business and had to take a broader view than most.

Comment Re:License to work (Score 3, Informative) 639

What you don't realize is that tractors are very long term purchases for farmers. Older tractors may go 20, 30, or even 40 years before being replaced. I know a few local farms with tractors older than me. So someone may buy a tractor with no idea how different a newer one is than their old one was. At least in non-physical ways. No, they will hype things like A/C and guidance systems or the raw power of a particular tractor and gloss over the fine print.

On top of this John Deere may have been the tractor brand of choice for 2, 3, or 4 generations of farmers. If your grandfather and father both used John Deere, why would you go elsewhere? Brand loyalty is a strong thing when it can cross generations. Heck I see John Deere mail boxes going down roads, and every county or local fair has John Deere showing off tractors and handing out toys, stickers, booklets, etc. I think someone in my childhood toys my parents still have boxed up you may find toy die cast John Deere tractor models from when I was little and they would take me to the fairs.

Comment Re:License to work (Score 3, Insightful) 639

Living in a small town... I can say your wrong. Though more likely the repo guys would call the local police or state police (the state police act as local police where I live), since the county Sheriff doesn't deal much with anything outside prisoner transport and serving civil papers. And the state police wouldn't really care as they don't really 'live or work' in the community (their office is about 10 miles from the town itself and most actually live in the largest city in the area and commute to work each day).

It may be different in other places, but there are a lot of small farmers still here who aren't part of large agribusiness (though there is a local 'co-op' which has grown to become big agribusiness as well). We even have a John Deere dealership in town (other manufacturers have ones 10-20 miles away), so I see a lot of John Deere equipment in a typical day if I'm out and about.

While I believe John Deere is being stupid, I know the county and state would never go against John Deere since they do a lot of business in my region. It would be more likely to get traction against John Deere if the local agri co-ops had issues with it as they have far more power and money than individual farmers.

Comment My PC... (Score 1) 326

My primary machine is a I5 6600k, 16 GB of DDR4 ram, Asus Z170A mb, Radeon R9 390 gpu, EVGA 850W psu, Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD, 5 sata HDDs, a Blueray/DVD-RW drive... It runs windows 10, because I support windows systems more than anything else. Chrome with Ghostery and Adblock for the browser, though as Edge runs like hot shit on this system (for strange unknown reasons), Opera is my backup. LibreOffice, Notepad++, and google docs as editors depending on what I'm working with.

Comment Re:End government theft and poverty will go away (Score 1) 1145

Not even that, but if the part of the population who couldn't afford products now can... That means more people buying things, more demand for products and services, more jobs required to create these products and services, etc. I've argued for years that the obsession to get 'rid' of the middle class by the rich is ultimately self-defeating as it simply robs them of people to buy the products from the companies they own and run. For years normal inflation has caused them to have less and less to spend, as it has increased faster than wages by several percent.

Heck since this is basically pocket change to the upper part of the economy... I don't see it having any significant increase on inflation (i'd be surprised to see more than half a percent change if we had a federal UBI). While demand for some things would go up, it's mostly in the more 'basic' items. People aren't exactly going to run out and buy a new car on UBI, though if they were borderline before that may become an option now.

Comment Re:"you’re redistributing income upward" (Score 1) 1145

Well the first place to start would be to exempt UBI from taxation. This will be a much larger portion of a persons income the less wealth they have and a much smaller part of the richer persons. Of course since it's paid out from taxation, it also makes sense to not tax it as well. After that even a flat percentage tax wouldn't be a bad thing, since again the less you make the smaller the portion taxed after UBI. While this is combining two different hotly contested concepts, it's a solid way of doing it.

Comment Does he even realize what he's saying? (Score 2) 1145

"He suggests instead focussing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable."

Or in other words, doing the same shitty things we have since before I was born and hope to hell it does something _this time_? Most people that get these benefits have had to jump through so many hoops that they abuse the system. Everyone else is just left to rot and nothing changes. Our 'support systems' have failed. It's change or watch the system fail and possibly bring the whole thing to an end within another couple decades.

No one I personally know is even 'middle class' in the US anymore because that's somewhere over 150k/year last I checked and here in northwestern PA the number of people in that category is crazy small. Poverty in a very real sense is growing year over year and the state in general keeps taking away support for those in the most need while cutting nice fat checks for their own pet projects. Heck, 'obamacare' had minimum levels before it even kicked in and my state did raise their coverage minimums to include people between the federal minimum and theirs. This left hundreds of thousands without coverage and with no means of getting it (the federal site would give the raw rates to us, so even basic plans were over $500/month for people who don't even make $500/month). It has nothing to do with 'political parties' and everything to do with the way politics has come to work in this country.

Comment Re:So just rename it then? (Score 1) 330

How exactly do you expect a rural carrier to deliver mail out the right side window from the left seat? Besides that buying a right hand vehicle in the US is a challenge, with most foreign cars needing to be over 25 years old to even bring into the country. Kits to create a second set of pedals and a wheel exist, but are both expensive and don't include nifty things like turn signals, wiper blade controls, headlights, etc. So most rural carriers are left driving their own vehicles as needed. The exception are carriers who are provided LLVs (long life vehicles) for their routes, though they aren't so great on back roads.

Comment Re:So just rename it then? (Score 1) 330

Taking your hands off the wheel in a normal car doesn't have to mean a crash is imminent... I'm a USPS Rural Carrier who drives a left hand drive car form the right. Among other things this means I drive exclusively with my left hand and certain controls, like turn signals, require me to take my hand off the wheel to hit the control. So on a regular basis during my almost 100 mile daily drive I have no hands on the wheel and I don't hit anything.

Of course I'm not saying this is safe driving. Heck I also can't wear a seatbelt and to finish a 100 mile route delivering mail and packages in a timely fashion I also have to drive over the 'speedlimit' (which is a bit vague on most dirt roads anyways). Though this is actually legal as rural carriers are 'professional' drivers on the same level as EMTs, firefighters, and police.

Comment Re:Popular for the moment (Score 1) 174

While I'm not a big pokemon person, the series and games both came out when I was in high school/college so I missed the original 'craze', I decided to take a look by installing it on my tablet... Only to be told my tablet wasn't supported. So while I've seen pics and gone 'eh', I can't actually see for myself. I'm even less motivated to take a peek now.

Comment Re:Not Everyone is capable of Joining PC Master Ra (Score 3, Informative) 729

Getting 60+ fps on ultra settings in PC gaming doesn't even take that. An fast I5, Radeon R9 390, 16 GB of ram, and an HDD can get you that. I should know that's pretty much my PC. The CPU and Ram are both about $100-150, the GPU is down to around $250 with the coming of the RX480 (which is slightly slower), and even with a good case and power supply the whole thing comes to ~600-700. Price not including monitor since most modern tvs can even be a monitor (all things old are new again).

Comment Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. (Score 1) 142

That works up until someone actually goes and contacts a former employer. I also never wielded the power of a 'CIO' as everything I did as the defacto head of the department was filtered through others... I'd create a budget or proposal for something we'd need and my on paper 'manager' who was the head of the business unit would look it over and forward it on under her name. Though I also directly reported to the CEO, especially if 'something went wrong'. It was in lots of ways a very horrible job with all the responsibility and none of the power or pay to go with it.

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