Tag Archives: Clueless

The Worst Investment Advice I’ve Ever Heard

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“In managing your own finances, try to look at the situation as a company would. Don’t starve yourself for working capital, for cash. All that does is increase your default risk, not decrease it. Instead, strike a healthy balance between maintaining a cash cushion and taking on debt.  The unexpected will happen. And when it does, what matters then is not whether your payments are a few points lower. It’s whether your capital reserves will last for two months or two years. The more time you buy yourself to react, the more likely you can land on your feet.  What yields more peace of mind: paying a few bucks less each month or knowing you can weather a storm?”

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/the-worst-investment-advice-ive-ever-heard

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FCC regulates Internet, but can’t build a website with $450m budget

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“FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says budget constraints have forced his agency ‘to operate with an IT infrastructure that would be unacceptable to any well-managed business.’ This is why the FCC website has crashed multiple times when inundated by people trying to submit comments on the commission’s network neutrality plan, Wheeler says.  The comments website relies on a backend system created in 1996. To handle the influx of comments, the FCC extended the deadline and set up an e-mail address that could accept comments into the official record.  And it could get worse, as Congress is fighting over whether to cut the FCC’s budget or approve a requested funding increase.”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/us-agency-that-regulates-internet-service-too-poor-to-build-a-good-website/

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Reporter Baffled After TSA Rejects His D.C. ID, Demands Passport

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“A TSA agent at the Orlando International Airport demanded to see the passport of Justin Gray, a Washington, D.C., correspondent for central Florida’s WFTV news. According to WFTV, the agent was not familiar with the District of Columbia, and therefore could not accept Gray’s D.C. driver’s license as a valid form of ID.  According to a later tweet from Gray, the TSA has responded by showing every Orlando agent a picture of a D.C. license.  Perhaps surprisingly, this wasn’t an isolated incident. In February, a TSA agent in Phoenix delayed a D.C. resident because the traveler couldn’t present a ‘state-issued’ ID.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/tsa-agent-dc-license-passport_n_5588735.html

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US military wants a portable, bullet-resistant wall that fits in a can

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“The group suggested the idea, which is nicknamed Block Access to Deny Entry (BlockADE), in a request for information that was spotted by io9. In short, it asks for a way to ‘construct a barrier without human intervention,’ meaning no touching anything. You just hit a button, or pull a tab and it should expand into a barrier that DARPA says would be ‘orders of magnitude’ in size. That barrier would then need to keep — or at least slow — somebody from getting through it using a saw or other hand tool. Better yet, DARPA suggests it could offer resistance from ballistic devices (like bullets or rockets), be see-through, and be reversible back down to a smaller state if need be.”

http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/21/5829024/darpa-wants-to-make-a-portable-bullet-resistant-wall-that-fits-in-a-can

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Amtrak gets creative, funding ‘psychylustro’ arts project

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“Amtrak has decided it’s going to become a veritable Louvre.  Amtrak’s gameplan involves deftly blending individual donations and foundation grants with money from the National Endowment for the Arts and in-kind contributions of its own (tax-funded, for-profit) services. Funding comes from a variety of sources, several of them public. Not included in the $300,000 price tag are the salaries of the Amtrak engineers who ‘are overseeing the action at every site during the artwork’s installation.’  Further: ‘For the next six months, the Mural Arts Program and the City of Philadelphia’s Graffiti Abatement Team have pledged to maintain ‘psychylustro’ and protect it from defacement.'”

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/a-train-wreck-you-cant-look-away-from

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FBI starts U.S. campaign to deter lasers being aimed at aircraft

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“The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it will pay up to $10,000 for tips leading to arrests of pranksters who point handheld lasers at aircraft, part of a national campaign to crack down on a growing threat known as ‘lasing.’  Officials said what looks like a small beam of light from the lasers on the ground can travel for more than a mile and illuminate a cockpit, temporarily blinding the pilots inside.  The lasers can be no more sophisticated than the pointer lasers available for a few dollars at office supply stores.  Last year, the FBI reported 3,960 laser strikes against aircraft, an average of almost 11 per day, and officials estimate that thousands more cases go unreported each year.”

http://kdal610.com/news/articles/2014/jun/03/fbi-starts-us-campaign-to-deter-lasers-being-aimed-at-aircraft/

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San Francisco voters just voted to make housing less affordable

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“Yesterday, San Francisco voters handily voted in favor of Measure B. That’s a ballot initiative that will make it more difficult to construct tall buildings on the San Francisco waterfront by requiring buildings over a certain size to obtain voter approval via referendum.  Thanks to the miraculous technology of the elevator, it is perfectly possible for lots of people to live and work in a small geographical area via the mechanism of tall buildings. But when tall buildings are banned, space becomes scarcer. And when space is scarce, the tendency is that the richest people around will be the ones who are able to bid for it.”

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5778696/measure-b-san-francisco-will-reduce-affordability

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States Ask Feds for Bigger Budgets to Fix Obamacare Exchanges

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“Few states have embraced the ideas behind the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with more enthusiasm than Maryland and Massachusetts, which adopted many of them years before the passage of the federal law. But the two now find themselves trying to fix their malfunctioning health insurance exchanges and seeking federal approval to spend more money to do so.  When states first applied for what are called Establishment Grants to build their online marketplaces, they had to predict the costs. Going over those costs requires them to resubmit plans to spend money that would have either returned to the federal government or gone to future changes.”

http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-maryland-massachusetts-exchange-repair-plans.html

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French rail company orders 2,000 trains too wide for platforms

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“France’s national rail company SNCF said on Tuesday it had ordered 2,000 trains for an expanded regional network that are too wide for many station platforms, entailing costly repairs.  A spokesman for the RFF national rail operator confirmed the error, first reported by satirical weekly Canard Enchaine in its Wednesday edition.  ‘We discovered the problem a bit late, we recognize that and we accept responsibility on that score,’ Christophe Piednoel told France Info radio.  The RFF only gave the dimensions of platforms built less than 30 years ago, but most of France’s 1,200 platforms were built more than 50 years ago. Repair work has already cost 80 million euros ($110 million).”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101691429

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H.K. issues Vietnam travel warning after mobs torch Chinese factories

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“The Hong Kong government issued an amber travel warning for Vietnam after protesters there vandalised hundreds of foreign-owned factories and torched at least 15 of them.  The riots followed a large protest by workers on Tuesday against China’s recent placement of an oil rig in disputed waters around the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.  The rioting in Binh Duong province followed protests by up to 20,000 workers at industrial parks near Ho Chi Minh City. Smaller groups of men attacked factories they believed were mainland Chinese-run, but many were Taiwanese or South Korean, the provincial government said.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1511834/factories-set-ablaze-during-anti-china-protests-vietnam

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