Lazee Rants

I Have a Host of Friends

2018-10-14T16:23:00.001-05:00

Not my friends, just an example ;)

I was scrolling through my Facebook Friends list and came to on conclusion. It is awesome to have this platform to connect with people and share things with.

Like many people, my collection of friends on Facebook run from those I have known for a long time to those who I only know on the Internet. Some people, no matter where they are on this spectrum, I would be lost without.Others, I hardly know. No matter who they are, they are on my list for a reason.

There are scores of people I wish I lived closer to and this is the only way we can stay in touch. No matter where they are, seeing what they post makes me feel close. Doesn't matter if it's just a funny they found on the Web or something that is happening in their lives. I try to keep an open mind and let them be who they are.

Others are more of the fringe group. I want to stay in touch with them even when we don't view things the same way. It is a great place to see what others think and this group of people are the ones that help me stay grounded about the day to day "news' stories and make me think about the other side's opinion on hot button issues. Among these are ones I only know on the Internet, but there are some of those I lump into other categories.

Classmates. These are one of the more puzzling crowd. People I don't remember even giving me the time of day in school are now connected with me on Facebook. We share our parenting war stories, talk about current events, even debate things at times. Yet, it puzzles me as to what happened to make them change their mind about me? Is it just that we all are grown up and have found that the alleged differences we had are stupid? We'll prolly never figure that one out.

Family. I have a lot of relations that are on there. All of them have fun stuff to say and are interested when I share something about my children or how life is treating me. We keep in contact better on social media then we ever did by phone or post. Instead of hearing from them once or twice a year, I can just glance at their page and know how they are doing. This is one of the coolest things about this platform.

Best Friends. I have about five people that I consider my best friends. They are the ones that know my soul and who I really am. They are all on there. Nice to see what they are up to and stay in touch. Miles may separate us, but we are only a screen away. You know who you are if you are reading this, love you all.

What is the point of this post? It is to say that with all the hype about how invasive the platform is, there is so much it has done for us as a global community.. Just remember to keep your profile locked down from the public eye. Only share what you wouldn't mind your boss finding out. And, please, for the love of Pete, don't post things that you will ever regret.
Thank you Facebook for keeping me in touch with the entire circle of friends I have gathered over the years. Try not to use our info too much, we're here because of the ease of community not to be your demographics generator.
See ya on Facebook

An icon will fade from the spotlight in May

2017-01-14T23:48:00.000-06:00

Ringling Bros. Circus to shut down after 146 years

Banning Flavoured E-Liquid.

2014-07-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

I use a personal vaporizer, otherwise known as an electronic cigarette. The liquid I use in it can be acquired in a wide variety of flavours from tobacco reminiscent to one that taste like popular candies. Hell, you can even get some that taste like your favorite cocktail. I personally prefer pipe and cigar flavours.

Now, here's the thing...

The United States Government has been convinced that having flavours such as bubble gum or other candy flavours will entice children into using the product. This is a load of horse pucky. This is the same route they went down to ban analog cigarettes from being flavoured and why you can only get clove tobacco products as cigarillos now.

Here's the reality...

English: The ProVape-1 by ProVape.com - Electronic cigarette/vaporizer mod which holds a larger battery. Shown with a 901 atomizer attached. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. The US Government doesn't think that parents should be accountable for not controlling what their kids do, so they legislate the hell out of anything that should really be in the purview of the parent. If you don't want your kids to vape or smoke, keep that stuff under lock and key in your home. Keep track of what your kids do. For the love of Mike, start being a parent.

2. As far as the kids getting their grubby little hands on the things on their own, that is something that can be controlled at the seller's end. Every brick and mortar vape shop in my city requires that you be 18 (the legal age to buy cigarettes in this jurisdiction) to purchase any of the products that they sell. Most states have amended existing laws or imposed new laws making this the standard requirement. This should be all the regulation needed as far as selling goes.

3. As any parent should know, if your kid wants to get their hands on something that is forbidden to them, they will get it. Cigarets, drugs, alcohol, you name it. If mom, dad, the government, church, or anyone says they shouldn't do something, they most likely will at some point. It is not up to the government to take all temptation our of the way (they can't). It is up to the parent to exercise what it means to be a parent and exact punishment for transgressions against what the parent said the child couldn't do. It is time for parents to get back to parenting and stop looking to the government to step in and regulate the hell out of everything.

One final note: Vaping is not a harmless alternative to smoking. It can only be classified as less harmful. But if it helps people kick the habit of traditional smoking, it's a good thing. And if used as a cessation product (stepping your nicotine down a little at a time) then it shouldn't be regulated to death but endorsed. Some say it is easier to use than gums, patches, or pills. To remain quit of smoking is hard. I once quit for five years, it only took one drag to get me going again. I think if I would have had the option of puffing on a 0 nicotine alternative (herbal cigs don't count, they are nasty), I would have remained quit.

Reddit Exodus

2014-06-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

Reddit Alien for /r/bullcity (Photo credit: booc0mtaco)

It appears that Reddit has really ticked off some of their members by getting rid of the up/down vote system and replacing it with a single option of "love the post". So, what are they doing? Migrating to this excellent, most likely to succeed if it gets help and funding, site.

It looks like an awesome site! Hope they can stay afloat with the flood of new users. If you'd like to check them out, head on over to Whoverse.

Netflix refuses to comply with Verizon’s “cease and desist” demands

2014-06-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Last week, Verizon sent a cease and desist letter to Netflix threatening a lawsuit unless Netflix immediately stops sending notices to customers blaming Verizon for poor quality.
Verizon lags behind Comcast in upgrading direct connections with Netflix. "Failure to provide this information may lead us to pursue legal remedies, and Verizon reserves all rights in that regard," Verizon wrote.
The messages the company is sending to consumers are part of a "test" that's ending next week, but that doesn't mean Netflix's public relations campaign is over, Hyman wrote. "The current transparency test to which your letter relates is scheduled to end June 16 and we are evaluating rolling it out more broadly," he wrote.
Netflix's response did not include the list of customers to whom it has sent the messages or specific justification for each one, as Verizon demanded.
When asked if Netflix is not complying with all of Verizon's demands, a Netflix spokesperson told Ars only that the "letter speaks for itself."

Netflix has integrated its streaming player in many consumer electronics devices including the XBox 360 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The letter criticized Verizon for not joining Netflix's Open Connect peering and caching program, which lets ISPs connect directly to Netflix or bring Netflix storage boxes into their own networks in order to improve quality. "You have chosen not to participate in the Open Connect Program, but instead have allowed your network connection to Netflix to degrade until we agreed to pay for augmented interconnection," Hyman wrote. "We brought the data right to your doorstep...all you had to do was open your door."
While Netflix caved in to Verizon and agreed to pay for a direct connection to its network more than a month ago, it's not paying off for customers yet.
Verizon hasn't established enough links with Netflix to improve quality and promises only that the upgrade will be done by the end of 2014.
In his letter to Verizon, Hyman wrote that Netflix's messages "merely let our customers know that the Verizon network is crowded. We have determined this by examining the difference between the speed at which the Verizon network handles Netflix traffic at peak versus non-peak times."
Verizon's cease and desist letter blamed Netflix for poor quality, saying that "Netflix has chosen to continue sending its traffic over these congested routes."
Hyman responded that it is "Verizon's responsibility to provide its customers with the service it has promised them... It is my understanding that Verizon actually upsells customers to higher speed packages based on improved access to video services, including Netflix. Verizon's unwillingness to augment its access ports to major Internet backbone providers is squarely Verizon's fault... To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour."
A company spokesperson said only, "We look forward to working with Netflix to improve our mutual customers' enjoyment of Netflix."
When asked again if Verizon plans to file the lawsuit that it threatened in its cease and desist letter, the Verizon spokesperson said, "I'm not going to respond."

Netflix refuses to comply with Verizon’s “cease and desist” demands | Ars Technica

Should you be reading the best-selling books?

2014-05-16T02:10:00.001-05:00

books (Photo credit: brody4)

Why you should avoid best-selling books - The Week

Well, last year I made reading a priority and ended up reading 161 books cover-to-cover.

What I learned most from my year of reading surprised me because it wasn't found in any particular bit of knowledge in any of the books I read. The big lesson was a simple heuristic: Avoid most best-selling books. These books are not fertile ground for learning and acquiring knowledge.

You know you want to read. You know you should read. But often, you have no idea what to read.
If you read what everyone else is reading, it's going to feel good.

If you read the best-sellers, by definition, you're reading what everyone else reads. And if you read what everyone else reads, odds are you're going to start to think like everyone else.

Another big problem: A lot of the books on the bestseller list expire quickly. They have a half-life. Spending your time learning this stuff is stepping on the Red Queen treadmill. You'll have to spend more and more of your time and effort just to stay in the same place.

Click the link at the top of this article to read the full story..

Report: One Obamacare Tax Could Cost Up To 286,000 Jobs

2014-05-07T10:36:00.002-05:00

From The Daily Caller

Sarah Hurtubise

Just one of Obamacare’s many taxes could cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next decade, according to an industry report published Tuesday. The National Federation of Independent Business projects that between 152,000 and 286,000 jobs will be lost by 2023 due to Obamacare’s health insurance tax.

ENEMY OF THE ECONOMY (Photo credit: SS&SS)

The National Federation of Independent Business projects that between 152,000 and 286,000 jobs will be lost by 2023 due to Obamacare’s health insurance tax. NFIB, a nonprofit association of business owners, actively supports the repeal of the tax.

The health insurance tax has proved to be one of Obamacare’s more controversial fundraising measures. The tax targets insurance companies, charging each one proportional to their market share — the more health plans sold (Obamacare’s goal, the more insurers are required to pay.

The report found that the tax will cause a spike in the cost of employer-sponsored health coverage, which will lead primarily small businesses to cut jobs. NFIB estimates that 57 percent of the job losses will come from small businesses — firms with under 500 employees, according to the federal Small Business Administration.

The cut in employment would results in a reduction of U.S. real output, or sales, of between $20 billion and $33 billion through 2023.

Obamacare’s health insurance tax “represents a new tax on small business that raises insurance costs for an already struggling Main Street and is contrary to the goals of health care reform,” said NFIB’s Amanda Austin, the director of federal public policy. “Singling out job creators for tax increases makes no sense for our economy, is short-sighted and wrong for our nation’s growth.”

Some states will be disproportionately affected by the projected job losses. California will be hit the hardest, suffering 23,00 jobs lost by 2023 and a lost $4 billion in sales for small businesses, according to the report.

[...]

Read more:

Everything you need to know about Fukushima in 11 minutes

2014-01-05T12:19:00.000-06:00

This is scary as all hell and is something that the entire world needs to be worried about. The Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster is poised to be the worst disaster to hit mankind since the great flood.

Scariest thing I saw in the video, the entire Pacific Ocean may be contaminated in six years. So much for sea food, people.

Lame Stream Media

2014-01-03T11:54:00.002-06:00

Unequal Media (Photo credit: Truthout.org)

There seems to be only three different types of news from big media outlets:

Horrifying Crime
Military Actions
Fluff Pieces

When it comes to crime, the media just can't report enough about it. From the latest mass shooting the high profile criminal cases, they spend hours talking about nothing but crime. And if the crime just happened, expect the next few days to be nothing but expert analysis, theories as to motive, and all sorts of conjecture. And if a suspect is on trial, you can bet they have already been prosecuted in the media. And millions are clued to their televisions just waiting for the next word on the matter.

Wars, more wars, and rumours of wars. From major to minor conflicts, this is another staple of the Big Media diet. I said minor conflicts, but not all of them. If it has little to do with Big Brother's need for resources, you can bet it's not being talked about. Thousands of people dying in backwater countries that no one has ever heard of, yet you are hard pressed to find any info about it in the news.

The all time favorite of mainstream media, fluff pieces. What celebrity is getting a divorce this month, who said something not in line with political correctness, or just who is dating who. Fluff pieces are placed to satisfy the tabloid lovers.

While all this is going on, things are happening that will have a real effect on the world. Bills being passed, treaties being negotiated, impending natural disasters are roiling up. Does lame stream media tell us about it, no! Instead we have to find other sources of news to find out what is really going on in the world. A sad, sorry, state of affairs if you ask me.

For a list of Alternative Media Sites, please click here.

Copyright or Open Content

2013-12-25T05:42:00.000-06:00

English: Cartoon about free culture, intellectual property and Internet Piracy. Found on The Pirate Bay in late February / early March '09. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the biggest battles on the Internet is over copyright. The fight is over intellectual property and who should get paid.
With the advent of the Internet we have a more open society that wants to share everything from what band is currently their must have soundtrack for life, what they are reading and how it is affecting their thoughts, to that awesome episode of the show of the hour that left them speechless. The dirty truth is, most would like to just drop a file to their friends and say, "Hey, you gotta check this out!" To blazes with those who want to be paid for it.
But is this really as scarry of an idea? One author doesn't think so, Cory Doctorow. He gives his works away for, gasp, free. What is amazing about this idea, he is still making money off his books. How does this happen? Well, it appears that people who really like what he is doing are willing to drop him some hard cash even after reading it for free.
Open Content is the way of the future, if companies want to remain Neanderthals, that is up to them. But think about it. If everything were to be copyrighted, where would intellectiual creativity be?

I just gotta know...

2013-05-04T12:42:00.001-05:00

...how the hell you wind up doing something stupid like this?

Scanner: Driver trapped in vehicle hanging off bridge near 14th and Superior roundabout in #LNK
— Lincoln Journal Star (@JournalStarNews) May 4, 2013

Wind power

2013-04-29T01:26:00.002-05:00

Wind Energy (Photo credit: janie.hernandez55)

Alternative energy is the way to go for everyone. Come on, government, get on the wagon!

WTF

2013-03-03T12:58:00.001-06:00

Queen of United Kingdom (as well as Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth realms) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Queen of England is ill, the Pope stepped down, the US Government is in a financial mess (well, that's not really something that has happened recently, that's been around for a while). What the hell is going on? Next thing you know, we'll have dumbo ears on the throne.

Carol of the Bells

2009-12-23T12:28:00.002-06:00

A proposal to classifyhappiness as a psychiatric disorder

2009-12-03T12:28:00.001-06:00

R P Bentall "A proposal to classify

happiness as a psychiatric disorder" JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS

18, 94-98 (1992). The abstract:

It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric

disorder and be included in future editions of the major

diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective

disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant

literature it is shown that happiness is statistically

abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is

associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and

probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central

nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal

remains--that happiness is not negatively valued.

However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically

irrelevant.

mega vs micro or is mega and micro

2009-11-30T07:12:00.001-06:00

clipped from ma.tt

I don't think "mega-blogging" is actually a thing, I just made it up to make the title sound more dramatic. But if mega-blogging were a thing, you would do it with WordPress. Micro-blogging is a thing, ash a lot of people do it with Twitter.

New forms of social media, including micro-blogging, are complementary to blogging.

It's not really a "versus," it's an "and."

Blogging and micro-blogging can co-exist.

If playing World of Warcraft was an exercise, I'd be an Adonis

2009-08-31T12:19:00.001-05:00

Seriously, I spend about 16 hours a week playing this game. Granted, I prolly lose a few pounds when things get intense, but not nearly enough! I should install a stationary bike with a built in desk for some of my gaming, that might help.

Lazee Rants

I Have a Host of Friends

An icon will fade from the spotlight in May

Banning Flavoured E-Liquid.

Related articles (these posts may contain contrary opinions to the article presented above)

Reddit Exodus

Related articles

Netflix refuses to comply with Verizon’s “cease and desist” demands

Related articles

Should you be reading the best-selling books?

Related articles

Report: One Obamacare Tax Could Cost Up To 286,000 Jobs

From The Daily Caller

Sarah Hurtubise

Related articles

Everything you need to know about Fukushima in 11 minutes

Related articles

Lame Stream Media

Related articles

Copyright or Open Content

Related articles

I just gotta know...

Wind power

WTF

Related articles

Carol of the Bells

A proposal to classifyhappiness as a psychiatric disorder

mega vs micro or is mega and micro

If playing World of Warcraft was an exercise, I'd be an Adonis