I don’t get many telemarketing calls. I’m on every “do not call” list in existence, plus I use a Verizon service that intercepts phone calls from numbers with Caller ID disabled. But this call had a legitimate-looking number and name — “Intel Gateway, 538-6316″ attached to it, and since I write about technology and often get calls from tech firm PR people, I picked up. A heavily-accented voice asked me how I was today. “Marvelous,” I said.
Voice: “I’m (probably fake) (name) from First Federal Financial, and I can help you pay off all your unsecured debt, like credit card bills and medical expenses.”
Me: “Great! Give me your address. I’ll send them all to you and you can pay them.”
Voice: “Do you think I am joking?”
Me: “No, I’m just taking you up on your offer.”
Voice: “I do not have to put up with people like you.” (hangs up)
Well, no, you don’t. And a good way not to put up with people like me is to not call us with unwanted offers in the first place. Sheesh!
PS - I called the number back and got a “this number is no longer in service” recording. Double-sheesh!
I was reading an article in the New York Times (free registration required to read) this morning about how the housing market is crashing not just in the U.S. but all over the world. And I was thinking, “Well, that makes the U.S. look a little less dumb in comparison to everyone else.” But it also means that investors and marketers all over the world have managed to overlook a basic fact about housing economics: If someone in an equivalent job to yours can’t buy in your neighborhood today, your neighborhood is overpriced and due for a “correction.”
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Our local papers tend to run articles about once a month that say housing prices have bottomed out, so you should buy now instead of waiting. This Sarasota Herald-Tribune piece quotes local builder Lee Wetherington, who says his sales prices are 25% lower than in 2005, that building costs are going up, and new homes are a better value than “resale” houses. And no, this article is not an ad, even though it reads like one. It carries the byline of respected Herald-Tribune staffer Stephen Frater, which means it’s a jen-you-wine news-type article even though it consists entirely of quotes from a single, self-serving source.
Local video genius Damen Shaqiri and I made this back in 2004. Totally loopy, an experiment in many ways. I forgot I had the file. What the heck. Maybe you'll get a kick out of it. (The book is totally obsolete, BTW. Desktop Linux has come a *long* way since 2004.
The infamous "throw the laptop into the ocean" scene was shot on Lido Key in Sarasota, FL. Not that it matters. We chose that beach because Mike, a guy who helped us with the production, needed some help putting a boat on a trailer (NOT the video kind) at the nearby Sarasota Sailing Squadron, and it was a convenient place for us to meet.
My wife and I moved to Bradenton’s Village of the Arts in 2004. In mid-2006, after many delays, Debbie opened Debbie’s Art Garage in large part because the City of Bradenton’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA) promised to put in sidewalks and “Village of the Arts” signs on major routes near us, and to generally spiff up our neighborhood. Then the DDA had a change of management, and plans to upgrade our little neighborhood were scrapped, which meant those of us who had invested in property here based on those plans were flat-out screwed.
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Originally published (and made for) Linux.com…
The first one, from the Bradenton Herald, is headlined Medicare in crisis: Doctors poised to drop patients. The second one, from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, is under the headline, For international calls the doctor is in the house — and talks about “concierge medicine” available only to people who can afford to pay a retainer of $1400 or more per year to have a personal physician on call all the time. So we’re looking at better (or at least more service-oriented) doctoring for the rich, and less doctoring for the poor. I’m okay with that. In fact, back in 2004, I wrote a piece about how we can have affordable, universal health care while still giving The Rich all the fancy doctoring they want (and can afford). I think this is a good time to reprint that article, so here it is:
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The vast majority of new housing planned for Manatee County, Florida, is far away from employment centers. Developers have bought up huge tracts of land in rural areas and hope to cover them with $300,000 to $600,000, 3000 to 4000 square foot detached houses that have no shopping or gathering places within walking distance. Most of the other planned (but currently stalled) developments around here are mid-rise and high-rise condominiums — again in the $300,000 and up price range. In an area where the average wage is less than $11 per hour, and gas looks like it’s going to cost $3 per gallon or more (possibly much more) for the rest of our lives, these kinds of developments may not sell well enough to be worth building. Builders and planners need to stop thinking about a housing market “recovery” in the sense of making everything like it was a few years ago, and start thinking about what kind of residential and commercial building will fill our future needs.
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You’d think our local developers and real estate investors would have learned a thing or two from our ongoing real estate market correction, in which the public en masse has decided not to pay $300,000 for $150,000 houses or to cough up $150,000 for repainted $75,000 houses in marginal neighborhoods. But it seems that some of them are still determined to live in a world of unreality and to keep building houses so far away from jobs and shopping that commuting to and from them will be insanely expensive for anyone silly enough to buy a place that requires a two-car lifestyle. And if that’s not bad enough, the rest of us are expected to pay ever-increasing fuel bills to haul the children of sprawl-area residents to and from school by bus. It’s time to say “no” to more suburban sprawl — or at least to make sure far-out developments pay their own way and that the investors who hope to profit from them post bonds large enough to clean up their mess if and when they go broke and leave empty lots and half-built, decaying houses behind them.
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A modern electric-drive hybrid car consists of a series of discrete mechanical systems, The major ones are:
- Electric motors (ideally built into the wheel assemblies)
- Batteries (drive the motors; recharged either when the car is plugged in or from an onboard generator system)
- Onboard generator/battery charger
- Power source for generator (can be gasoline engine, fuel cell, diesel… whatever)
- Computer-based control system (to make everything work smoothly together; also powers lights, turn signals, wipers, and other accessories)
- Brakes (same as in today’s cars)
- Steering (same as in today’s cars)
- Suspension (same as in today’s cars)
- Chassis (hopefully better than in today’s cars)
- Body (hopefully better than in today’s cars)
- Passenger & cargo accomodations (seats, trunk, etc.)
- Amenities (A/C & heat, music players, phones, navigation, etc.)
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