I thought Aetna was on the brink..

Oh well. As to apple toys, if I want them I'll buy them. I actually have a few. No strings attached from insurers.

As to an insurer wanting all this info on my bodily functions... fuck off. You want it, you'll get it during a normal doctor's visit, which is just a very few times a year.

I despair for the future. If people don't vociferously deny Aetna this information, then the slope will be greased and look something like this: \

If enough gullibles drill out their iphone 7s, maybe Apple will consider putting the goddamned thing back in next time around.

Ham radio spans the globe, not just the US.

And when the shit seriously hits the fan, the grid goes down in some 3rd-world country, it's the ham radio guys that move the news in and out. They can even tcp over it.

When the Zombie Apocalypse comes - in whatever form it may be - it'll be *our* hams moving info.

I bet you that sign actually mean something back in the 40's, 50's, 60's and maybe the first half of the 70's. Before the Dark Times. Before the Age of MBA and Accountants making decisions.

Big Sugar destroyed Puerto Rico, it just took about 80 years for people to notice. They don't teach this in school, kiddies. I had to hear this from the few genuine Jibaros that still lived in the town where my best friend lived.

What the US sugar industry did to Puerto Rico

Impressionistic version of the people who really made Domino into what it is today. El Jibaro Boriqua. Mountain people, very humble, exeedingly hard-working, and I bet none of today's "urban jibaros" have ever swung a machete for 14 hours chopping sugarcane for Domino. They wear the hat and the scarf, I call it a disgrace. They didn't earn it.

Because I heard the old Jibaros around town talk about this, I buy Dixie sugar, not Domino and have been doing so for as long as I have been buying my own groceries. And more and more I wonder if I should start hitting the local farmer's market instead of the big supermarkets.

I've got really bad long-distance vision, so I'm not quite sure if you're flying the sarcasm flag.. but just in case you aren't..

Yes. Free market in action. And the The People doesn't have the kind of cash it takes to really play in that market.

We have no quick and sure way to influence the actions of those who govern us. We can't throw sackfuls of cash at them. Elections are too infrequent and the the lag on this big ship is terrible.

Why ask why?

Barney was your babysitter, right? Tsk tsk, shoulda watched Animaniacs instead.

This is how the system works. Now it's up to us to break it.

[company] or [industry] will liberally shower money on schools, politicians and scientists so they can spread the word of how wonderful their [thing] is.

Break it. Break the goddamned system.

Demand to know where the money for "studies" come from. Then act accordingly.

Demand campaign reform that actually has fangs to bite with.

Does it incense me that Big Sugar has been doing this? Nah. I'm not surprised in the least. This is exactly how America operates. Oh and don't get me started on the corn people, with their HFCS in our drinks and ethanol poisoning our gasoline!

What I am incensed about is the absolute reluctance to question things. The People simply accept what is told to them in schools, churches and media. Ask. Fucking. Why. Every time.

Or, you know, keep doing the same idiotic thing we've been doing for the past 200+ years. It works sooooooo well.. for the rich.

I am not a professor of anytighing -- but --

What that means is "We ran out of ideas and suckers - er, I mean - customers - and had to buy our next generation of printers from someone else to turn a quick buck. Y'know, because we fired all our competent engineers eons ago to make a quick buck which we then squandered away."

"security" was thrown in because it's a current buzzword.

Select Amazon as the seller, not a 3rd party. Chances of getting a fake with Amazon as a seller is much less than a 3rd party.

Not willing to put in the effort to do that? Then you deserve your Soppy Walkingman.

...followed by this thought: "Has it really been 50 years? Have I become this old?"

It has, and I have.

I first saw Star Trek TOS in black and white, in Caracas, dubbed into Spanish. This must've been around 1973 or 74. Later on I got to see most of TOS in color and in English. Read a lot of the novels, watched all the films, saw all of Next Generation.. and then I lost interest.

What Trek taught me? IDIC, which I have to remind myself of -- I am prone to dislike diversity, then I remember IDIC. That little show taught me logic is not an inflexible thing, there must be wiggle room for the human element. At times I have been known to try to completely shut down all emotion and try a twisted version of logic. That didn't end well for me.

Above all, Trek, to me, is a bit like Beethoven's music: No matter how rough the beginning and middle acts are, the last act ends with hope, or a least a bad joke or lame pun. Some times, hope is all one has left.

That little show which lasted only three seasons because the network didn't know how to measure its popularity in a relevant way sure Lived Long and Prospered...

Here's hoping my 5S lasts three more years. I refuse to buy any phone without a 3.5mm jack.

Are these bluetooth airPods abomination going survive a 4 hour call? The phone does, but I doubt tiny little powered buds will.

Good thing they still make the SE (the four-inch phone). Everything else in their catalog is just bleh to me.

Way to fuck it up, Apple!

During the 747 development, it was found that the wings would oscillate up and down and with a twisting motion, a condition which if allowed to continue and amplify would destroy the airplane.

Some engineers wanted to redo the whole wing.

Sutter's solution was to permanently twist the wing from root to wingtip. It worked, and took much less cash and time than a redesign. Google for "Sutter Twist"

When the 747-8 was designed with the 787-inspired wing, the same problem showed up again. This time, it was cured in the software.

Funny, I saw a documentary on the building of the original 747 just a few days before he died. I knew he was the project manager but didn't know he cured the wing issue with such a simple fix.

That's the NSA pinging their way-off-shore backup facility..

In the first 20 years, it went like this:

125
250
330
365

What that meant was displacement of each cylinder in CC. So a 250 was in reality a 3 liter engine. Then they had MM, TR, GTO tacked on after the number. The names and numbers didn't even appear on the cars. It's just what people called them.

Then in the 70's things got weird. a 512BB is a five liter flat 12.
A 512 TR is a 512BB hit repeatedly with an Ugly Stick.

A 308 is a 3 liter V8. A 288? 2.8 liter turbo v8. (they got that motor from Lancia when Lancia pulled out of F1)

F40? THeir 40th anniversary car, with the 288 engine, F50? That'd be thier 50th anniversary car, V12. Enzo? It was the F60. La Ferrari? That's the 70th anniversary car.

Now? Who knows! F12 means what? Front twelve? A 458 means what? Does FF start for Fast as Fuck? (it's a 4 wheel drive shooting brake).

Those Italians, no consistency! ;o)

Which one would I pick? 365 GTB/4. Daytonna with four cams. Or an F12, it's spiritual successor.