text:
perhaps this is a quibbling point, but TiVo didn't invent timeshifting. the invention of the VCR was responsible for that. one should learn about history a bit more before attempting to romanticize it unnecessarily.
I'll have you know my mother invented timeshifting way before the VCR was even thought of. Every TIME a commercial came on the TV she would SHIFT herself into the kitchen and make a cuppa.
Oh yeah! Well, my mother invented the creation of time by turning off the TV and demanding that we don't watch so much of that shit.
Now, only if she we're here to keep me off of internet discussion sites. I'd have all that time back.
My mom is The Doctor's mother. So she gave birth to time, sorta.
And she's a time traveler.
And she's bigger than your Dad and can beat him up.
So There.
My mom is The Doctor's mother.
Well my mom is the doctor's mother's mother and father. Its a long story involving time change and gender reassignment.
Surely that depends on what type of "time shifting" you mean. If you're talking about "recording to watch later" then VCRs do it, but "live TV pausing" time-shifts are presumably new to newer technology like the TiVo.
but it's obvious to anyone with knowledge in the arts. Tivo just got to the patent office first with applying this idea to a video stream on a PC, and the PTO in its usual incredibly swift efficiency, granted them patents on obvious technologies.
The idea of reading data while still writing it to disk has been around since... well, the first or second hard drive.
Surely that depends on what type of "time shifting" you mean. If you're talking about "recording to watch later"
Yup. That's what time-shifting has meant since the term was coined.
In the '70s.
With the introduction of the VCR.
Yeah time-shifting is nothing new. It has existed ever since the Sony Umatic VCR released circa 1969. That VCR was too expensive, so Sony went back and created the Betamax (anc JVC copied it to create VHS) in 1975. DVR is not even the first digital recording method - that was miniDV and Digital VHS in the early 1990s. ----- People have been time-shifting for decades. All the DVR did was replace the magnetic tape storage with magnetic disk storage. Nothing revolutionary... it was an evolutionary change.
As for why Tivo is not more popular? Because there are tons of other options. I have a Panasonic ReplayTV that has no subscription fees whatsoever. Ditto my Dish DTVpal which cost $250 flat and no subscription fees. It seemed a no-brainer to buy these DVRs rather than buy a Tivo with a monthly rental.
Perhaps if Tivo eliminated the monthly fee, then they'd takeoff like iPod, but most people simply don't see the need to throw-away money like that. They have to budget their spending, which means they choose options without the fees (like I did).
Perhaps if Tivo eliminated the monthly fee, then they'd takeoff like iPod, but most people simply don't see the need to throw-away money like that. They have to budget their spending, which means they choose options without the fees (like I did).
Yet people have no problems spending $80+/month so they can text and check sports scores on their phones, when 15 years ago nobody ever wanted, let alone needed to do those things.
I always thought the monthly Tivo fee was a bargain. It SAVED me tons of time, automatically recording my favorite shows, even if the time slot changed. Knowing that I could go away for a few days, come home, turn on the TV, and have my shows were there waiting for me is worth a lot more to me than being able to stay connected 24/7.
Yet people have no problems spending $80+/month so they can text and check sports scores on their phones, when 15 years ago nobody ever wanted, let alone needed to do those things.
The $80 is for voice service. No plan charges that much to add on text messaging and basic web access! Even an expensive smart phone data plan is $20 - $30.
Cell phones are a good thing to think about though. Expensive phones took off because you could get them for "free" with a contract and just pay the monthly price. Tivo charges a ridiculous amount for the hardware you get and then $12.95/month in addition!
$12.95 means you need to be providing a substantial service. I can get HBO and Showtime for $12.95/m
Surely that depends on what type of "time shifting" you mean. If you're talking about "recording to watch later" then VCRs do it, but "live TV pausing" time-shifts are presumably new to newer technology like the TiVo.
I've worked with a number of set top box hardware and firmware providers and they call the latter functionality (that is, pausing live TV and then playing it back whilst the programme is still being recorded) "chase play".
The Vcr allowed people to record stuff to hopefully watch at another date.
Tivo brought the ability to timeshift in real time while recording something a vcr cant do.
the amount that can be recorded is also completely different you can decide to record a season of something and a tivo will do it.
Sad thing is that the content providers still won't let us have the freedom we want to choose what and when we view. Luckily there is an alternative usually referred to as bit torrent.
How's that stack up against being a "Toaster Oven Geek"? Or "iPhone Geek"? Or "Honda Civic Geek"? Hell, I'm hungry, I think I'm going to go be a Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly-on-White-Bread-Geek.
To be fair, there's quite a TiVo hacking community. I think these people qualify as TiVo geeks:
- Whoever worked out how to fit an Ethernet card in a Series 1 TiVo
- Whoever worked out which bytes to poke in the encoder chip driver to enable it to record in the undocumented higher res Mode 0, without the distracting offset.
- The authors of TiVoWeb - an open source web interface to TiVo scheduling etc.
- The creators of the cachecard - an ethernet card with some on-board RAM, plus drivers which cause the TiVo to cache its program DB on there, for speed.
>>>should also consider the phonograph and the human memory cortex timeshifters as well.
The term "timeshifting" was invented with the VCR (another popular term was tape-delayed), because it allowed people to make their own schedules, rather than being shackled to the TV Guide. I know with my VCR I almost never watch anything live - it tapes at night and I "timeshift" to the next afternoon when I get home from work.
The photograph was typically called by 1800s observers as "capturing time" because i
I'm pretty sure that "recording device" is not the same thing as "timeshifter". A timeshifter allows you to view a stream of data at a point in time other than what it is also simultaneously chronicling.
It's true that what a DVR does is different than what you could do with a VCR, but what you can do with a VCR is properly called time shifting [wikipedia.org]. In fact, that term became popular during the Betamax case. It was determined that "time shifting" was a legal use of VCRs, and since VCRs had legal uses, they coul
I very seldom record and watch later using my HD Tivo, but do a lot of watching streams and my dvds on my HD Tivo. PyTivo works great to let you send your vob files to the Tivo but I also use Galleon, Streambaby and hme-vlc. Series 1 tivo were great in their time because they were so easily hacked. It seemed like Tivo wanted their users to hack their Tivos because many added and beta tested new features to their Tivos, many of the added features even got incorporated into Tivo. However, as time went on the
Tivo: $250 up-front + $7 / mo CableCard rental + $15 / mo Tivo Subscription fee
Cable: $15 / mo for something that works for most people.
(...and if your Tivo breaks, you get to buy another one.)
With Comcast, the CableCard was free, and I'm paying $4.95 for my CC with FIOS. As for the monthly fees, they're about $8/mo if you pre pay for 3 years. In addition, there's built in access to Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, etc.
As for the Cable-provided set top boxes, yuck. None have the flexibility of what the Tivo can do, including the ability to transfer some shows to your PC. Not much access to anything outside what the Cable provider decides you should have, which is usually the on demand stuff and..uhm..that's it.
My Tivo HD is almost 3 years old and it's working well so far (well enough I'm considering upgrading the internal disk). I'm looking forward to the next box to see what its capabilities are.
As for the Cable-provided set top boxes, yuck. None have the flexibility of what the Tivo can do, including the ability to transfer some shows to your PC. Not much access to anything outside what the Cable provider decides you should have, which is usually the on demand stuff and..uhm..that's it.
I've got one more, which was the final straw for me before I switched to TiVo: the Comcast-provided box had such poor quality Comcast-provided software that it crashed all of the time, wiping out both my existing recordings and all of my schedules. A DVR is really not worth very much if it can only be reliably used to pause live TV.
Same here. Paid $250 for a refurb system that came with a dual tuner card and remote, and vista media center. Spent another $60 for a dedicated 320 GB drive for media center. No rental, no fees, and it's trivial to control with the xbox or copy shows to my mp3 player. That worked for me, but the real reason as I see it, is that they charge a large fee for tv listings.
The cost is the primary reason I don't have a Tivo anymore. When we bumped up to HD, the HD Tivo was something like $800, so we just went with TWC's DVR. I'm on the verge of going back to Tivo, though, because the box from TW is probably about the most useless pile of electronics you can possibly assemble and still legally refer to as a DVR. It sometimes just fails to record, and probably 4 out of 5 times, fast-forwarding or rewinding will desync the audio. Tivo was expensive, but it never had rookie problems like that.
"and probably 4 out of 5 times, fast-forwarding or rewinding will desync the audio"
Sorry to say it, but an HD TiVo might not improve anything there.
Why? Because just like the TW box, the HD TiVos directly record the digital transport stream rather than encode the analog video signal in realtime. The streams themselves are broken from TW, not the playback/recording device. (Some worse than others - TWC's re-feed of CBS in my area is AWFUL. I have to perform a lossless transcode of every CBS recording in
I have a DVR at home built with leftover parts and a $40 tuner card that works just fine. I can also move those files between my laptop and any other computer, so I can take my recorded shows anywhere.
Can you watch those shows on an actual television set without having to use that set as the computer's video display?
> Can you watch those shows on an actual television set without having to use that set as the computer's video display?
Why should it matter? A real Tivo is nothing more than a specialized PC. That is
the essential bit of understanding that you gain from knowing what's actually
going on with the technology (and not being impressed by Tivo's bogus patents).
Tivos even run Linux. I can run Linux myself.
You can now buy a $200 PC with HDTV outputs and dedicated video playback hardware. You
can either make a full
You can get lifetime subscription (The box, not you) for $400, so tack that $400 onto the price of the Tivo and see if it is worth it. As a previous Tivo owner I was given $100 off a new Tivo and as a previous lifetime subscriber I was given $100 off the lifetime sub. Even with that deal it was $700 for my Tivo HD XL. A purchase that to me at least is well well worth it.
As for the monthly fee for the cable card, I was being charged more to rent an HD box from Time Warner, so my cable price went down slig
They used to offer a lifetime subscription, but it was very expensive. I considered getting a TiVo when they were new, but at the time I was paying £5/year to a service that provided TV listing and a nice app for setting alarms and filtering them. It also had a scripting interface, so instead I just popped an ATi All-in-Wonder card into a machine and wrote a (trivial) script to make it record things from the TV card. You could set it to record all programs with a given name, or matching other condi
I bought a ReplayTV (competitor to TiVo, same basic idea) about 6 years ago, and paid $200 for the "lifetime service". Like TiVO, with a ReplayTV, once the listings stop being fed to the machine it cannot record anything - you can't just do time/day based recording. The monthly service was something like $15, so I figured I might as well "prepay" for 14 months of service and get lifetime service that way.
The overall machine cost $400 with the lifetime service, and 6 years and counting and the machine is w
Also, I believe the device stopped working after you stopped paying the monthly fee. What? Why can't it work like an old-school VCR at that point where you have to manually program when it should record?
Because the people making them are greedy bastards. The corporate world wants a monthly fee for everything these days, even when they provide no services. You're far better off building a Myth TV.
I never bought one because of the monthly fee. I would buy one immediately if there was no monthly fee.
My thoughts exactly. I kept waiting for someone to sell a DVR that I could hook up to my cable and record what and when I decided to record without having to pay a monthly fee for it to record things according to when they are scheduled. That's all I want, a DVR that works the way that VCRs work. I tell it what channel and what time to record and it does so. I can understand that there is a market for the service, I'm not it. I suspect that there are a lot of people like me, if they could just buy a DVR tha
Also, I believe the device stopped working after you stopped paying the monthly fee. What? Why can't it work like an old-school VCR at that point where you have to manually program when it should record?
You can do exactly that.
I prefer to pay for the EPG data, so I don't have to look up times, and I get recommendations, season passes etc.
File away with 8-track, betamax and video disks
I had DirecTiVo for a while (DirecTV and TiVo had a joint product) and now I have Dish Network's product. Comparing the two, TiVo is really the much better DVR software. They have features that the others don't (and can't until patents expire in probably 10 more years). One of the ones that I miss is the Suggestions (aka keep my harddrive full) that will record shows during "down" time that match types and styles of shows you already record -- it's great when your normal shows aren't recording because of special events like The Winter Olympics. I never had an issue with shows recording multiple times (only record new, but the satellite picks up locals and shows them on 3 feeds [HD, local channel number, and 8000 channel number] so the DVR records the new episode on all three feeds because it's my highest ranked show). The TiVo interface is easier and better with groupings of shows into folders instead of just a list of everything recorded. All-in-all, the TiVo *IS* the best DVR available.
Other than DirecTiVo, there hasn't really been a single device that allowed you to have satellite and TiVo at the same time. Sure, the newer TiVo's have cablecard support, but it's not easy to get cablecards. The TiVo trying to operate the other box isn't the greatest solution either. Especially when your DVR is capable of recording multiple feeds (mine will record two satellite feeds plus OTA digital). The early TiVo's with analog cable were an easy implementation, but now that cable has gone digital, it's harder to have a TiVo.....but you wind up paying extra for the priviledge and in today's economy, the DVR from the provider is "good enough" that the TiVo becomes and expense that you live without. It's better, but is it "better enough" to justify the extra expense?
I had Dish for a long time. I still like their implementation. I tried Tivo (admittedly for a relatively short period) and currently have AT&Ts horrid u-Verse box that's about to be tossed out the door. I've also had TW's box that I would barely call beta.
The thing I like least about the u-Verse and Tivo boxes are the auto recording features, especially when they bump the "older" recordings I actually cared about (Yes you can "lock" it on some systems). I personally dislike technology that thinks it's s
File away with 8-track, betamax and video disks
Eight tracks don't belong in your list. They were in everybody's cars (except mine, I used cassettes) and most houses for over ten years. And they weren't technically superior, even though they had twice the transport speed of cassette. They had to switch tracks four times per album, and often this would have songs cut off in the middle. The tapes were bulky and unwieldy, and if a tape got "eaten" it was harder to repair than a casette.
People finally realized t
I'm not sure there is any DVR that is better than a Tivo. I say this as someone who has used MythTV, Tivo, and 3 different cable company's DVRs. When it comes right down to it, anyone can use Tivo. The cable company DVR's are not smart enough, MythTV (admittedly a long ass time ago) was hard to use and difficult to setup.
As for faster, a Series 2 Tivo that is upgraded and starts to have a lot of things on the drive can be a bit slot responding to the remote. This is no longer true with my series 3 HD XL. The speed is great no matter if the drive has 300 items recorded.
Cheaper: yes and no. the $700 price tag I paid for my upgrade ($900 for someone without a previous Tivo to get a discount) is the top of the line Tivo with lifetime service. My last Tivo was $300 and $250 for the lifetime subscription (Yes, I got it that long ago). It is still going strong at my brothers house (I sold it to him for $200 to help me pay for my new Tivo). Even ignoring the $200 I got from selling it, I got it August of 2002. 90 months divided by $550 = $6/month. Well under the Cable company price for a DVR. I did upgrade the hard drive in the Tivo with 2 160GB drives part way through it's life. Both were taken out of service from PC upgrades, but figure an average hard drive price of $100 that gets you up to $750, or $8.33/month. I unfortunately do not know how they fare against each other in power usage, so I honestly can't add in the possible differences between those.
In order for my new $700 Tivo to be more economical than the cable company offering (And assuming I will be tossing a 2GB external drive on it to expand it Figure $100 for the drive, $30 for the enclosure I already have that I plan on using and that makes it $830. 55 months to be same price as the cable DVR. Just over 4 and a half years.
It is a gamble that it will last that long, but if I win that gamble it is just savings at that point.
As for looks, I've not seen a DVR interface that is prettier than Tivo. Would love for someone to show me. It really *IS* as good as Tivo fans make it out to be.
>> I wanted to find out why TiVo hasn't been more successful
I'm very happy with my Mythtv box. It does way more than a Tivo does, I can customise it, and it has no monthly fees. (Although I do subscribe to Schedules Direct for listings, but that's only $20 per year ).
I loved my MythTV box too, but switched to TiVo when Comcast started moving digital channels around so often that the listings were always coming out wrong, and when it became clear that the analog channels were going away. At least TiVo with cablecards can follow the changes. Comcast still made it very difficult to get the cards; when I called for an installation they said I had to go to my local office to pick it up, and when I went to my local office they looked at me like I had two heads and said they'v
I love MythTV but, lets be honest, setting it up was a week's worth of intensive nerding...
While its quite friendly in day-to-day use and has really cool features (e.g. MythWeb, multiple front ends...) it all goes a bit pear shaped when it comes to configuration.
Tuning, in particular is a major hassle (thats in the UK with digital terrestrial - your mileage may vary). Partly, of course, that's because it supports so many standards and hardware alternatives.
As long as cable box manufacturers are selling boxes to cable companies, instead of to consumers, I'm not sure how things will get better. I guess this is a difference between the "end-to-end" model of the Internet and other networks such as the cable network.
Everyone I have discussed CableCards with has basically come to the same conclusion: the cable companies wanted it to fail. I think this stems from their desire to keep control out of the hands of consumers; anything that breaks that principle must be marginalized as much as possible. You see the same deal with locked handsets from the mobile phone companies... they take a perfectly decent piece of hardware, flash their shitty branded firmware on it that actually disables features built in to the phone, then try to sell those features back to you (or in my case, don't offer them).
I completely agree. I have a TiVo HD, and continue to use and enjoy it... but the problem is that I still have to deal with my cable company. I had to pester them for 2 months to get a CableCard out of 'em, and they still charge me $4 a month to rent it.
There's just something ridiculous about paying for information delivery, only to be charged even more money to decode the proprietary signal they send to you.
Before the TiVo, we had analog-only cable, and a Philips stand-alone DVR/DVD burner that worked just
That's what you get when your markets aren't competitive, so there's no reason for them to embrace new things. Sky, our big satellite TV operator, started agressively pitching a branded PVR system called "Sky Plus" about five years ago, as a selling point versus the entrenched cable companies. Time passes, the idea's lodged on the public mind, and now PVRs are a ubiquitous option when you sign up for a TV service, mandatory with an HDTV service, whether it's through satellite or cable, and there's a concert
Yeah, that's actually what I started to type in my subject line... "Why are markets in the US so screwed up" etc.
But really, Comcast and Verizon FiOS do offer DVR services now that consumers seem to like. But it's not a competitive market in the sense that you can go buy any DVR you want, like you could with VCRs.
Besides, after using MythTV it's really hard to go back to branded, crappy company-provided DVRs.
Yet, despite being well-loved and despite having been around longer than the Apple iPod, TiVo comes nowhere close to the iPod/iPhone's success. Apple sells more iPod and iPhone products in a single quarter than TiVo has sold in the entire lifetime of the company.
Why are you even comparing TiVo to the iPod. Why should it come close to the iPod/iPhone's success? They aren't competing products...Are you saying that a product is only successful if it sells the same number of units as an iPod or is as popular as an iPhone?
I agree entirely - these are different markets, how is this comparison irrelvant? Were they just slow for today's obligitary daily Iphone mention?
One might as well say that the TiVo doesn't sell as much as Nokia, or Microsoft (both of whom have shipped far more than Apple - indeed, can we have an article on how Apple don't sell as many phones as most other phone companies, or how Macs don't sell as much as Windows PCs? Of course that would be viewed as flamebait...)
Lumping the Iphone with the Ipod also make
rocket surgery
I see the US health care system is in worse shape than I thought.
In South Africa I had digital satelite TV which had about 70 channels. Later they came out with a DVR with time shifting. After moving to the Netherlands I expected a way-better service (being "1st world") and everything. Not so: the UPC digital cable service was pretty much the same and in the same order of price. It also had about the same number of channels but there are many Dutch language channels that I don't watch. Major differences are the prevalence of sub-titles in the Dutch service on all English
The $300 investment plus the monthly fees is way too much. my Time Warner Cable DVR costs $12.95 a month. and i can upgrade anytime a new model hits their inventory every few years.
TIVO didn't have any broadband support for years after it became popular. i had Vonage since 2003 and couldn't get TIVO because supposedly it didn't work.
my Time Warner DVR isn't the greatest and the new software upgrade last year sucks and is slow as molasses, but its still enough to keep me from spending $300 on a TIVO. and my
There were ways to connect the TiVo via broadband back then, they needed to make it supported, but it was as simple as plugging in an Ethernet adapter and putting codes in the dialing prefix.
Expense is another part, it has always been way more expensive to use TiVo than the cable company. TiVo should have focused on cost reduction more, without making it a light service. They probably could have indroduced ads earlier (Your cable company depends on ads) to make it cost competitive, but they were busy tryi
Indeed. It comes across as a rather poor attempt to make the Iphones's sales look good, by comparing them to a produce that's seen as popular, but with smaller sales, yet is in a completely different market.
Let's compare the Tivo to other DVRs. And let's compare the Iphones to other phones - which sells small amounts compared to Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung.
DirectTV just bought out ReplayTV, who makes a decent DVR (or used to). I doubt they'll be snuggling back up with TiVo anytime soon.
Massively broadcasting a show to everyone at a specific time and having a large number of them set up a machine to record that show to watch later is dumb. Hosting the same show on a server and having everyone download it (or stream it) and watch it whenever they feel like makes sense.
TiVo didn't invent the DVR, they were simply the first company with a successful consumer product. And they were successful just because prices had come down so much.
And it's a dying and obsolete product category anyway.
I don't recall a retail product before TiVo's. They had to invent their own filesystem in order to stream video fast enough using the hardware available at the time, so they certainly invested in innovation -- just to be a couple of years ahead of what inevitably would become possible with a normal FS on standard hardware.
My LiteOn PVR has a simple timer for recording like a VCR.
It has user-replaceable parts.
It doesn't require a paid subscription.
LiteOn doesn't sell records of my viewing habits.
It hasn't got a partition allocated for ads.
It doesn't display ad-banners when I pause or fast forward.
It has editing features.
It has a built-in DVD burner.
Yeah, TiVo offers a few neat features, but I'd have to give up a lot of utility and a great deal of privacy to get them. F-k that. My next PVR will be a computer with a Hauppauge tuner.
My UK TiVo still has a little "As recommended by Sky" logo when it boots.
But Sky (Rupert Murdoch's satellite TV service) now has its own DVR.
It *really* annoys me when people coo about how clever their Sky+ is. "I can pause live TV! How awesome is that?", when TiVo had done it for years.
OTOH now you can get cheap DVRs from all kinds of manufacturers, so nobody's all that impressed any more, there's a free market, and that's all for the best.
I still think TiVo has the best UI over all.
The cable co killed tivo with there poor cable card system, SDV (for some time tivo where unable to get SDV channels) the lack of cable VOD, in some systems you where not able to get sports and event ppv on tivo. Also there are long list of people going though cable card hell to get there tivo working as well.
TIVO needs a tru2way box that can go 2way and cable VOD but it needs to something big like 3-4 tuners and hope that the cable co don't hit tru2way users with DVR fees (yes tru2way forces cable co softw
I used to have a Tivo. I had two in fact, including my personal favorite DVR of all-time, the Humax Tivo (to my knowledge, the only stand-alone DVR to date that allows you to burn your recordings to DVD). Tivo had great features, one-of-a-kind abilities (like the aforementioned burning to DVD option), and the best user interface in the DVR business. There were some downsides (a lousy 30 minute recording queue, sluggish menu performance on some of the models, etc.). But for the most part it was *the* superior DVR.
So why did I give it up? Two reasons: digital cable and HD. Tivo lagged way behind my cableco's native DVR on implementing both. Cablecards took a while to come out, and were buggy and a pain in the ass to install. Their HD models were expensive and, again, lagged behind my cableco. And when my cableco went to Switched Digital Video (SDV) even the cablecard stopped working for many of the newer HD channels. It just got tiring having to constantly wrestle with my cableco over my rogue DVR. It was a lot easier for me to just pay the $9 a month and get the cableco's native DVR (which is actually pretty good, though certainly no Tivo). That's probably what the cableco intended all along, I'm sure--but I'm not going to spend a fortune and put up with missing channels just to tell them to go to hell.
Tivo's collapse as DVR leader can basically be traced to one thing: their failure to license their technology to or reach an agreement with the cable companies. Without the official support of the Time-Warners and Comcasts of the world, they've essentially condemned themselves to forever being the outsider in the digital TV world. So they will always lag behind with kludgy solutions like buggy cablecards and hit-or-miss SDV adapters (don't get me started on those things). And, even for a pretty dedicated videophile and TV addict like myself, the native cableco DVR is just too tempting an alternative.
listings for mythTv from SchedulesDirect: $20 PER YEAR
listings for Tivo: $16 PER MONTH.
No reason for guide data for tivo to cost so frakking much. And then there is the idea they think that if you hack your box - YOUR BOX, you bought it - to get listings somewhere else that you are stealing service from them.
No, getting listings from them without paying would be theft of services. Getting your listings from somewhere else is not.
TiVo is run by a bunch of corporate farkwads.
Tivo's monthly fee of about $10 is NOT saved by re-purposing an old computer into a DVR, because the old computer eats almost that much power every month (assuming 40 watts for a tivo and 200 watts for a computer, running 24/7).
Some people are saying "vs $15 for cable" and confusing people... they may mean $15 per month for a cable company DVR. OR, depending on context, they may also mean BASIC cable, which is sometimes given a different name by the cable company so the cable company can name their $50/month package "Basic," and thus sell it to callers who assume "Basic" means "cheapest." Cable companies are regulated and have to offer a service (they don't have to call it "basic") that is just the broadcast stations and local access for a regulated rate, about $15.
Disclaimer: I own 3 Tivos; a Series 2 standalone bought in 2002 that's going strong (albeit soon to be nearly obsoleted by Comcast's digital conversion), and two HD Tivos. It will be a sad day when I have to replace them with POS cable products or some Frankenstein
IMHO, what's hurt Tivo has been a couple of things. One is painfully slow technology refresh.
When I bought my Series 2 in 2002, most digital cable channels (HBO, Encore, etc) offered DD 5.1 audio on most or all programs. The Series 2 had no digital audio interface but even by 2002 standards should have been able to handle digital audio. It wasn't until the release of the Series 3 some 3? 4? years later, which required a CableCard (and thus the delay for CableCard) before digital audio was available.
What should have happened is a new unit (Series 2.5?) issued with digital audio capabilities to bridge that gap. HD would have still been an issue, but HD boxes would downcovert and we could have had digital audio. Other hardware items they should have been more aggressive about include external storage and DVD burning. They had a burner model but it was too little, too late.
Tivo also blew it on "open access" advocacy.
They should have made a lot more noise about CableCard and breaking the cable company digital encoding stranglehold. A much more public advocacy that made it plain that cable companies are really only interested in monopolies and bullshit upcharges for throwaway hardware paid for 10x over by rental fees.
PC integration has also been lame and crippled. Tivo 2 Go should have used TivoDesktop to generate burn-ready DVD ISOs and not required third party software or bullshit copy protection.
I still love my Tivos for what they do with elegance, simplicity and reliability, but wholly agree they just can't really get it together.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -- Oscar Wilde


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So the government doesn't control the media and control us through fear of terrorism? Because it seems to me that they kind of do
we are not more free. we are over regulated, over ruled, over interfered with. period.
you can double-speak it anyway you like. spin spin spin. we are less free then ever here in the US of A.
There is nothing they can't monitor and collect these days, the only thing in our favor is ability to analyze the mountain of raw data they have already.
we are not more free. we are over regulated, over ruled, over interfered with. period.
I think spying on Americans is shitty. Regulating discharge from mining companies or oil drilling companies is completely acceptable.
That's my opinion.
You may disagree.
But where does freedom begin and end.
As for me, business is always wrong because profit makes people eventually do evil. Capitalism makes people spiral to the bottom because of its nature. The excuse of "our bottom line" creates a mentality to destroy the commons and poison people. I have never seen an exception. Please, tell me when the profit motive has helped people over the long term. I would really like to know.
Yes, I am implying that Socialism is better over the long term. Although, it's still not good enough.
Economics is the most backwards 'science" ever - it's more of a religion, isn't it.
As for me, business is always wrong because profit makes people eventually do evil. Capitalism makes people spiral to the bottom because of its nature. The excuse of "our bottom line" creates a mentality to destroy the commons and poison people. I have never seen an exception. Please, tell me when the profit motive has helped people over the long term. I would really like to know.
Money is what keeps me showing up at work five days a week. Now I'd like to think I'm doing something useful there, granted I'm not curing cancer or anything like that but still. Throw me in a "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" communist hellhole I'll do my best to be useless and needy. Or better yet, one of the people in power who decide if other people are useful or have needs. Give me the Star Trek utopia and I'll be the bloody useless guy who spends all his time on the holodeck. Which is why I think all the basic income people are on crack, because there's frankly jobs you wouldn't do if you could live well without doing them.
Money isn't really the cause of anything, it's just the objectification of "What's in it for me?" and honestly, I don't ever see most of my money. They just exist as numbers in a bank somewhere, I can't even wipe my ass with them. They're just easier to use as intermediaries and to gain interest on than buying lifestock and breeding them, forests that produce lumber or whatever else produces "interest". If we weren't using currency we'd still have economics, for example people would look for arbitrage in swapping cows for goats for corn for cows if the exchange rates were off. People would look at the ROI for giving you grain now in return for pork next summer. Maybe they weren't so formal about it, but it still happened long before we started using coins and notes.
Money is what keeps me showing up at work five days a week. Now I'd like to think I'm doing something useful there, granted I'm not curing cancer or anything like that but still. Throw me in a "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" communist hellhole I'll do my best to be useless and needy. Or better yet, one of the people in power who decide if other people are useful or have needs. Give me the Star Trek utopia and I'll be the bloody useless guy who spends all his time on the holodeck. Which is why I think all the basic income people are on crack, because there's frankly jobs you wouldn't do if you could live well without doing them.
Personally, I've always found that work is the thing that *prevents* me from doing things I consider useful. Gimme three or more free days in a row, and suddenly I start writing code and building things and getting stuff done. Stick me in a cubicle for eight hours, I try to do as little as possible for those eight hours, then go home and stare at the TV until it's time to sleep. The more "free time" I have, the busier I become.
Of course, that's a different kind of work. At work I'm writing scripts for performance testing software. At home I'm building a web-based home theater system with a control console that pops up out of my coffee table. Although I do also volunteer for some community groups, and that goes WAY up when I don't have to work a 40 hour week -- from hours per month or year to hours per day. In the past, when I didn't *have* to work, I'd spend *more* than 40 hours a week volunteering for various groups.
As for the drugs and holodeck:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
Never heard of the Rat Park study. That looks fascinating--thanks for the link.
But if you actually managed to take them down, you wouldn't get paid any more.
Sure you would. They would no longer have any influence to prevent it or other adaptations to the labor surplus that don't end up with the entire benefit landing in their pocket.
So you don't want the utopia because you are by your own admission a lazy selfish asshole?
Not a problem. You go ahead and plant your ass firmly on the couch. In a year or two, you'll balloon to 800 pounds and die. Problem solved. The rest of us will be making ourselves useful.
But most of the Basic Income people aim for live 'OKish' without working. To live well, you need to get a job.
Not a problem. You go ahead and plant your ass firmly on the couch. In a year or two, you'll balloon to 800 pounds and die. Problem solved. The rest of us will be making ourselves useful. But most of the Basic Income people aim for live 'OKish' without working. To live well, you need to get a job.
Well, you can't have it both ways, either it frees up that burger flipping minimum wage earner to go on and write his masterpiece or he'll still be stuck there in his minimum wage job while it's really a bailout to those with money to boost it up but not quite rich enough to do it on their own. So I was exaggerating a little bit, but there's so many things to do that are just for personal pleasure, self-realization or as a hobby that does nobody else any good. That guy who'll instead go to the gym seven day
Let's take an example. Say the basic income is set at the current minimum wage. Would you be content with a minimum wage lifestyle (but with lots of free time) or might you want to do something useful to get money for nice camping equipment and a gym membership?
Keep in mind too that employers will no longer be able to make work a drudge like so many do today. They'll have to make jobs either highly rewarding and enjoyable to perform or pay very well. For example, no longer allowing sales to promise the moon
First off though, who is Ramez Naam and why should I care what his opinion is?
Secondly, "freedom" has never been evenly spread in the USofA. So while some of us are less free now, others have seen a net increase in their freedoms.
Anyway, from the summary:
Naam also explains that the technological advances allowing the bulk collection of personal data also provide us with cheap and easy means to fight government overreach.
He might want to look up Snowden and Manning.
You can "fight" but it is more likely that
The internet is an inherently chaotic system with most of the computing power on the edges and very weak central controls. This is by design because it creates a stable, robust network. Individuals (first from universities) swarmed the internet in an explosion of creativity. They were followed by corporations as the net was opened to commercial activity. Government was late to the game and is only now coming to grips with how to use the internet for monitoring citizens.
As individuals moved online, there
If it comes bundled with Firefox, they'll use it.
No they won't. Have ever had google just ban you and not let you search claiming that you are a robot no matter how many captchas you successfully fill out? Thats a regular occurrence on tor. You make tor the default and half your user base will be on chrome before you can say "browser". I'm am all in favor of any and all anonymity/encryption efforts but the general public doesn't care enough to encrypt their email let alone use tor.
You're too late.
How about banning all non-essential collection, storage, or exchange of personally identifiable data without explicit permission from the originating party? ISPs must flush all account-specific information as soon as it's no longer necessary for correct functioning. Google and Amazon can't make horribly inaccurate personalized recommendations unless I opt-in (and opt-in must not be mandatory). etc. etc. etc.
I'm not seeing any loss of functionality for citizens, except what's lost due to lack of surveillan
It's because we have so much freedom that we know enough to be alarmed by how much government intrusion there is.
...if only there was some process we could use by which we could affect change in our government.
Yeah, that *would* be nice.
Unfortunately due to extensive lobbying and the well-understood weaknesses of first-past-the-post voting, in the US we're pretty much limited to picking between Sock Puppet A and Sock Puppet B every couple of years, with potentially independent 3rd-party candidates being unable to compete. They may work for slightly different subsets of powerful special interests, but the evidence is pretty clear that they don't actually listen to their constituency much - just look at the voting
You cant avoid it. You are not in control of it.
TFA is disinformation or ignorance, do not believe the message therein.
You are only as free as they let you be. [youtube.com] The news is not the news. [youtube.com] You are slaves to corporations that farm you. [youtube.com] Your wars are fought to privatize economies. [youtube.com] Since secrets were allowed in government they have been actively against all activism, [wikipedia.org] because activism the only thing that affects change, your votes do not matter, [snagfilms.com] the political system is rigged. [snagfilms.com] Maintaining the social, economic, and political status quo, even against the will of the people, is what "national security" means. [theguardian.com] They don't have to fake disasters, they can craft legislation and posture politically so that when one comes along they can turn a blind eye if need be. Each disaster makes the people more powerless, increasing the wealth gap. This is disaster capitalism, and it is working great even in communist nations.
With unemployment up, you are still spending too much time working: One can not truly fulfill their potential as humans without time to relax, enjoy life, create, and explore new opportunities. Your office jobs are pointless, replaceable either by computers or outsourcing to individuals with less cost of living, and we do so increasingly to ensure no job stability -- nearly everyone is a buggy whip maker one step of progress away from being an "unskilled" homeless person. The labor jobs largely have no unions so their working conditions suffer. In both blue and white collar cases people are given no time to seek new avenues of employ, or even manage their finances (you think bankers hours aren't such for a reason? Information disparity is the source of all evil). With inflation out-pacing pay, money in savings is diminished so that people can not safely leave employ -- The better to entrap and farm you with my dear. If you had a little more time you'd have leverage at your disposal to find better work or keep a plan B so that you can bargain for better pay and working conditions. Each disaster allows the system to ratchet your belts a bit tighter, more reliance, less time to be human. This is why banks are not held accountable, and are rather encouraged to destroy markets. How could anyone benefit from economic disaster and the mayhem it brings? Humans will do whatever it takes to survive, and the unscathed upper echelon will capitalize on this.
What is worse than 1984 is having it worse while fools like the article writer think it's not as bad. Classic ignorance. An example of thought control at its finest. When I became an adult I looked upon your world as though an alien from a distant planet -- I managed to forget all the programming about what "the real world" is, and question everything as a scientist would. The most telling and alarming is your willful resistance to application of the scientific method to governance and worklife. It's fucking disgusting. No engineer or scientist would agree to be ruled thus.
The answer is to modularize and decentralize your production of necessary resources, but no one wants to hear that... Moronic NIMBYs, you deserve what you get for your apathetic ignorance and inaction. The government has codified resistance to sustainable coexistence. That's why farmers can't grow excessive crops, even for personal use, [wikipedia.org] and no city can survive on its own. Hell, school kids aren't even taught basic technologies like how to start a cooking fire, swim, sew, butcher, or bake -- Not survival
The most telling and alarming is your willful resistance to application of the scientific method to governance and worklife.
Maybe it's because you're using the wrong tool for the job? Scientific method works nice when understanding is the highest goal. When instead, it's some other agenda, then it's going to fail hard. And you just mentioned two of the areas where such sufficiently large agenda exist.
"Indeed, the average person on Earth is more free today, in 2014, than he or she would have been in the actual year 1984"
Maybe the average person on Earth is more free today, but the average American is most definitely NOT more free today than they were in 1984. Try to buy a large soda in New York. Try to smoke just about anywhere indoors. Try to board a plane with a pocket knife, or even just a soda. 20 year old adults can serve in the Marines, but can't buy a drink.
So wait - because we haven't yet started losing a lot of obvious freedoms yet we shouldn't be worried about an ever-more-invasive surveillance state? That seems disingenuous. It'd be a pretty stupid tyrant who tipped his hand before he was sure he could squash any opposition, especially if the tyrant in question is an association of powerful individuals who prefer to remain as anonymous as possible. Can you name the 100 most powerful people in the world? I bet you very few of them have ever intentional
Politicians want to be on TV, but if we all agree they sell out then who, exactly, do you suppose they are selling out *to*? The corporations? Okay, but those are ultimately controlled by the stockholders, a few hundred of which collectively have controlling interest in every major corporation on Earth. Could you name those people?
Right now, the Technology we have is changing the world. The thing is, is that there are still large sloths of the US Population that still has a White Supremacist, or Christian Supremacist Medieval of the world we live in. To these people freedom and egalitarian thinking is the enemy. "The other populations" must be kept 'under control' The technology will be abused to whatever means possible to control what are seen as a domestic enemy population to uphold traditions of ancestors, and this can get as fi
We now have two salient facts about our technology:
(a) A constant flow of communication
(b) The ability to monitor it
Someone will do this. It's inevitable that government will want to in order to keep an eye on true threats. Sort of like Echelon, but domestically, as our threats are now domestic more than foreign.
Don't see a lot of talk about the thousands dead in the OVER TEN YEAR long war in the middle east do you?
This is the kind of things the Smothers Brothers said that made the president of the united states call the president of CBS at 3am too tell him to shut them up.
But you can have sex just about anyway you want as long as the partners are of age.
Drugs and religion are fine too.
Just don't bother the powers that be where it really matters to them. If you do that, you'll be unemployed (freedom of speech prot
This is an outright, prima-face lie, based on nothing.
Why is this even on the Slashdot home page? Are we dedicated to spreading liberal and progressive propaganda now?
Logic is the chastity belt of the mind!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Using AC appliances in an off-grid home requires an inverter to convert the PV array and battery bank's DC electricity to the AC electricity needed. When choosing an inverter, one should consider options such as metering, programming flexibility, type of waveform, idle power draw, generator backup, surge capability, and overall power needed by the loads.
Sizing an inverter requires adding up all the power needs of the appliances that will be on simultaneously. Some loads with motors, like a refrigerator's compressor, also require a boost of power to start, called a surge, which is typically two to seven times larger than the appliance's normal operating power needs—continuous power and surge power need to be considered. Choosing an inverter with a higher power rating may be important if loads increase or there may be future system expansion. Inverters also use some energy in standby mode (waiting for any load to run), so choosing an inverter with a low "idle power draw" is important.
AC appliances require a sine wave that alternates between positive and negative voltages 60 times a second. Inverters take DC current and create this AC sine wave with varying degrees of accuracy. Modified square-wave inverters create a rudimentary waveform that can run most appliances but has trouble with more sophisticated electronics, such as dimmers and computers. A true sine wave will run most equipment, especially motor-based, more efficiently—which translates to more useful energy from the system. Thus, many off-grid homeowners choose true sine-wave inverters, which can run all electronic appliances without a problem.
Most home appliances require 120 V to operate. Other loads, like well pumps or some shop tools, require 240 V. In this case, you'll need to choose a single inverter that provides 120/240 V, or use two inverters that each produce 120 V but can be connected (or "stacked") to provide 240 V. Alternatively, a transformer can be used between a 120 V inverter and a 240 V load to step up the voltage when needed.
Off-grid PV systems commonly use a generator for backup. If you'll be using a generator, you'll need an inverter with a large battery charger to change the generator's AC electricity to DC for the batteries, and run any AC loads. Most higher-end inverters offer programming options for interfacing with generators, such as automatic start and stop, pre-set quiet hours, and maximum charge amps. Additionally, metering allows users to see how much charge is going from the generator to the batteries, how much energy is leaving the battery to the loads, and the battery's state of charge.
Battery considerations include the technology type, cost, preferred system voltage, ambient temperature, maintenance requirements, and battery location. Nearly all home battery banks are deep-cycle lead-acid, which can handle being regularly and deeply discharged (up to 80%, but 20% to 50% depth of discharge will significantly increase longevity). For lead-acid, the first decision is whether to use a flooded battery that requires regularly adding distilled water, or a sealed valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery that does not require watering. Sealed batteries are more expensive and have a shorter life than equally sized flooded batteries, but this trade-off can be worth it in cases where the battery maintenance cannot or will not be done.
Modern off-grid battery banks are typically 24 or 48 V, which allows the use of smaller-gauge wire than 12 V systems, which have higher current for the same power level. Choosing a higher-voltage battery also means wiring more batteries in series to increase the voltage, thereby reducing the number of parallel battery strings required for the same energy available. This, in turn, helps reduce imbalances across the battery bank. If there are 12 V loads that need to be powered, a DC-to-DC converter can be used to supply the right voltage.
It is important to keep flooded batteries out of living spaces and all batteries should be protected from unauthorized access—as they contain caustic chemicals and pose shock and burn risk if not handled properly. Choosing a location with moderate temperatures (77˚F is ideal) is critical for battery longevity. For every 18°F increase in temperature the battery experiences, the number of available cycles drops by half. For example, if a battery is rated at 3,600 cycles at 77˚F (or approximately 10 years, at 1 cycle per day), it would then be expected to last 1,800 cycles, or about five years, if installed in a climate of 95˚F. At lower temperatures, a battery will gain lifespan, but its available capacity will decrease.


text:
July 31, 2006
Boomer slackers.
Ever read this book?
What would you do with your time if you didn't have to use it to make money? Assume you'd have to be frugal. It's pretty obvious what I would do...
35 comments:
- Pogo said...
I saw my own dear Dad go through this, starting at age 50. After being laid off from a position he held for a decade (that after 20 years as an industrial engineer in 3 prior firms), he went through a series of jobs, each less lucrative than the one before. Then there was Pops, down from doing deskwork to doing manual labor (carpet cleaning) as hard as any he'd done in college. But he couldn't do it any longer. Then he didn't work at all for 10 years, all the while applying for jobs they didn't give to older men, until his massive heart attack at 65.
So I have mixed feelings about these guys. What have I learned?
1. Sociological studies confirm the obvious: "What happens to a lot of guys who become unmoored from family life, they become unmoored from everything." Very true. But what to do?
2. Older men often lose in the creative destruction of capitalism. But preventing their dismisaal (e.g. France) destroys the economy over time. What to do?
3. A not-small portion of the high-middle-age unemployment comes from men who have been in prison, a virtually unemployable cadre. What to do?
4. Yes, it certainly "raises the question of how they will get by as they age." I think they are counting on the repeated promises of the welfare state, that "they will (not "may") be rescued by the government. Why would they not expect it? What incentive is there to avoid unemployment? what incentive is there to save for old age?
5. A man's self-worth used to be tied to his work. Decades of boomer thought have removed any stigma formerly attached to unemployment. One more reason not to work.
Many questions, no answers. Implicit in the article is a nod to the assumption that it is far better to work, and better to work at any job, no matter how unglamorous. But our culture no longer accepts that rule, it appears. So now what?
- Troy said...
So now I'm suppoting my 3 kids plus these a-holes? The steelworker's wife should kick him out on his ear since he is now officially a freeloader.
I ahve real sympathy for the truly disabled and the same thing happened to my Dad who was downsized from a pretty good job with Burlinton Northern in the 1980s. He's been a slightly lower paid security guard ever since for the same company (not BN, but his current employer) for 20 years. How many of these guys bitch about illegal immigration?
We have reached a sad place when honest work is turned down in favor of the government tit -- and that the government tit pays more than good honest work. I'm not sure what the specific answer is, but loafing and slacking does not seem to be it.
- knoxgirl said...
I graduated from college the first time around with no clue what to do with my not-so-practical education. I spent a few years doing waitering, retail, and clerical work until I forced myself to figure out--well, basically, the answer to Ann's question (except I needed to be able to make money doing it, obviously). Certainly going on disability did not occur to me!
I sure hope that in middle age I won't consider myself ready for retirement... or at the very least, will be still willing to learn a new skill or interest if it becomes necessary.
I know someone this article describes perfectly. Let's just say I think early retirement is *not* necessarily a good thing...
- SteveR said...
Well some people have an unrealistic expectation of what a carrer/employer will do for you. I was lucky to learn, when I was 25, that they will probably let you down repeatedly.
I also don't think too well of those you can work, bailing out with some disability. It devalues the process and is un American to freeload. Some people have real problems and hard luck. They need help. Not some fat ass, who won't do anything. Heck the least they could do is volunteer somewhere.
(gee I'm channeling my father)
- Icepick said...
What would you do with your time if you didn't have to use it to make money?
I think I'd follow the Peter Gibbons Plan: "I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be."
- Noumenon said...
I'm 28 right now and really wrestling with this. I'm near to losing the $12/hr job I took right out of college. That was a lifestyle choice, it's a really nice factory, but it's over. So now I am all demoralized and not looking forward to pounding the pavement. I am looking forward to being out of work. I could be a stay at home uncle for my sister and live on about $14,000 a year, I'd even have health insurance. I could live six years that way.
After one job goes sour it really sucks to look forward to another one with no break at all. I want to take a year or two off, but that's even worse for your earnings, not to mention the upcoming economic bust. These people just don't have the economic fear that I do.
OK, ignoring all of the above, what about video games? That's the main thing that makes me want to quit my job. I could start a new life in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and never miss the world I was unmoored from.
"Older men often lose in the creative destruction of capitalism. But preventing their dismisaal (e.g. France) destroys the economy over time. What to do?"
If you take the article's slant on the statistics at face value, just giving them money and letting them not work doesn't seem to be hurting capitalism any.
Do any of these people see this as partly a moral choice? I mean, a healthy man who works is creating wealth that feeds children and can help the poor. If you imagine yourself in Jamestown or something you can really feel ashamed of yourself. If it wasn't for that, I would live on half my income up till I was forty and then live on the savings and Social Security until I was 70.
- Abraham said...
The knowledge that when I work, I must now carry the burden of all these "disabled" slackers as well as my own needs - well, that makes me less interested in working. This is a dangerous feedback loop. The more people feel as though their work benefits not themselves but undeserved others, the less motivation they have to continue working, and the more demanded of the remaining workers. Shades of Atlas Shrugged.
What's needed, I think, is either renewed stigma against vagrancy, or much more stringent government assistance, or both.
- Jim said...
I am 62, not "ready" for retirement, but the policies of this country are forcing me into it. My employed IT buddies are working overtime and not enjoying a minute of it; many law school classmates would not recommend the law to their enemies, certainly not their kids.
I made the mistake of interviewing recently at a patent law firm; they wanted me to work 2500 billable hours! HaHa. I was thinking of 800 billable hours per year. If I worked what it takes to bill 2500 hours, I would have no time to spend all the millions I'd be making. If I went back to work as a software engineer, I would be in a marginal 60% tax bracket within a couple of months, since I am single and child-free, so I'd soon have to quit for tax reasons. In fact, since I started my professional career at age 24, when I had a net worth of $0, I have never been an employee for more than 18 months, having mostly worked on a short-term contract basis. Because of that, I have almost never been entitled to "benefits," including even a 401K. I have, however, taken an average of 34 weeks (unpaid) vacation per year and see no reason to work more.
I long ago learned to "downshift," which is what these smart guys in the article are doing. If we were to work, we would be subsidizing folks like Troy and her 3 kids, who are firmly attached to the nanny-state tit, living off our tax money that goes to their education and healthcare to the tune of over $30,000 per year. If I could kick baby-making deadbeats like Troy out of the country, I would. Her kids are not needed; we can get potty-trained Latinos without that baggage who like to work! But I'd be happy to work with Troy to eliminate all nanny-state entitlements like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, and public education. I could certainly afford to go back to work if they were eliminated.
These guys in the article could make a good living by buying run-down properties and fixing them up. If they move into that property for 2 years of renovation, they can sell and keep up to $250,000 ($500,000 if married) of capital gains tax-free. Tax-free here means no SS or Medicare taxes and no income or capital gains taxes on the labor they've expended! They can repeat this every two years. This is a wonderful way to get out of the treadmill of supporting nanny-state deadbeats like Troy.
These smart guys would be smarter still if, instead of even thinking about working, they moved to a place like India or Brazil, where life is far better and far cheaper. The equity they have in their houses is worth a fortune in those countries, where receipt of even $1000 monthly Social Security or disability "benefits" puts you in the top 1% of wage earners in those countries. I find it ironic that our nanny-state, after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to send me to school for 24 classroom years, including Physics and Law, now makes it almost impossible for me to consider working in any profession except that of informal architect, general contractor, carpenter, cabinetmaker, bricklayer, electrician or plumber, which I do, and where I keep 100% of every dollar earned by the sweat of my brow. Viva Thoreau!
- Maxine Weiss said...
"I made the mistake of interviewing recently at a patent law firm; they wanted me to work 2500 billable hours! HaHa. I was thinking of 800 billable hours per year"----Jim
It's not just about "billable" hours. Even if you were to meet that quota, you're not out of the woods.
A majority of those billable hours, must be "new business" acquisition.
Rainmaker.......or get out!
....but only after they've used you up, and you've/they've wasted the best years of your life.
Cruel, huh?
Peace, Maxine
- sonicfrog said...
I'd go Squrrel watching :-)
- Balfegor said...
The steelworker's wife should kick him out on his ear since he is now officially a freeloader.
My guess would be that the savings he's drawing down are primarily savings he's accumulated over his working life -- provided he helps out around the house, he's no more a freeloader than a stay-at-home wife would be.
Anyhow, what I found most interesting was that, contra Pogo's suggestion:
A man's self-worth used to be tied to his work.
A lot of the men seem to tie their self-worth directly to the kind of work they are able to do -- the steelworker will decline to take lower-wage jobs which he sees as beneath his dignity, and prefers something like a genteel poverty to degrading minimum wage labour. The convict at the end of the article complains that he can't get a respectable job, beyond washing pots and pans. Clearly, these people do think their self-worth is tied to their jobs.
Of course, if they were willing to start out at the bottom, they could make a decent go of it. In the first wave of Korean immigrants post-Korean War (and probably the Vietnamese refugees after that war), you had immigrants who had grown up in their families' ancient homes, with their servants pulling their clothes onto them every morning, waiting on them hand and foot -- you had people like that coming over to the United States, faced with the indignity of having to do menial work like (as the stereotype goes) dry-cleaning, or operating grocery markets, and so forth. And yet they did it -- insulated from the stigma and the shame, perhaps, by their having removed themselves to this distant land -- and have prospered.
Similarly, many highly educated Russian immigrants (professors, scientists, etc.) took low-paid jobs when they came here to the US. On the other hand, I know of one couple where the wife (formerly a full professor at some state university in the USSR) now teaches high school, and the husband -- similarly educated -- simply has not bothered to learn English (or Spanish) and consequently does not work.
Either way, I am interested in how peoples' pride and self-worth keep them from short-term economic betterment. "Man does not live by bread alone," and all that. And I think that part of what keeps them may be the shame of doing it in their own home communities. You can lose face engaging in low-status work among your fellows. It's different when you're out amongst foreigners and savages -- you're freed of the usual social restraints. Not universally (see, e.g. Indian princes in Europe in the 19th century, certain Muslim communities in Europe today), but in general, I think that's so. That's one reason people find travelling abroad so liberating, no? Certainly you have to obey the local customs, but they're alien customs, and you enjoy a certain distance from them. They're not bred into you.
But I find it somewhat sad that none of these people seem to be plugged into family structures that could support them during these kinds of times. Wasn't that normal in the past, even among the very poor?
- Maxine Weiss said...
Work isn't supposed to be "fun".
That's why it's called work.
There's supposed to be a distinction.
The expectation that some people have that life is one big romp, or should be.
Nothing but fun, laughs, good times
....because you're are ENTITLED.
Where do those expectations come from?
That sense of absolute entitlement...
....the right to "Amuse Ourselves To Dealth"---Neil Postman.
...because if we are not sufficiently amused, there is a problem!
Peace, Maxine
- Finn Kristiansen said...
Jim said...
"...which I do, and where I keep 100% of every dollar earned by the sweat of my brow"
Jim, are you saying you do not in fact pay taxes? Because you, so enlightened, and deserving, do not need the dead weight of paying for the various entitlement programs and ridiculous things like, uhm, public education?
If I have read you right (and I hope not), I trust you will be forgoing social security?
I think you may be right in that shame among one's peers and home community plays a huge part. I once needed to get a job fast, and pumped gas, but made sure I did it third shift, and several towns away. Around the same time my sister had said to me, "Just work at Dunkin Donuts, I would do it if I had no money".
She could not understand my argument that for men and women it's different. She said, "Hey, I worked as a secretary at Grey Advertising and I felt the guys there were looking down on me, but I did it anyway."
I tried to explain to her that generally men don't give a rats ass what a woman does for a living if they think her a decent person and not a complete twit. No so for women. A man's income is very important to women as it is often indicative of other personality traits (like the ability to take on responsibilties).
If I could do anything with my time, I would be living on the Virginia or Maine coast, or maybe Nantucket, writing fiction. Every now and then, when not at the Lobster Shanty, chatting it up with the fishermen over hot coffee, I will visit the local school or hospital to read to people. Everyone will know my name, and several women around town (Gail the librarian, Shirley the waitress at the Shanty, Monique the Christian stripper) will all be in love with me, and bring me homemade loaves of banana bread and look at me longingly. Sometimes fans of my books will sneak up to my quaint white house with the fence, and toss their bras onto the grass with notes in them like, "Marry me, I love you!". Sometimes the president will call to shoot the breeze and ask me how to fix the Middle East, or discusss an ambiguous plot point in one of my books.
- PatCA said...
I know women who do this, too! And who is going to take care of them when they exhaust their savings? Who is going to pay off the second mortage? After they declare bankruptcy it will be the taxpayer, that's who!
People convince themselves that it's their "right" not work in a crummy job. Losing/leaving a job in midlife is dispiriting, true, but why do I have to finance their midlife crisis?
And I don't mind paying for public education because I see a benefit to society for that. I don't see what I get for the medical care, prescriptions, and housing of people who spent all their money and choose not to work (as one woman I know). BTW she spends her time emailing moveon.org emails to everyone about how "we" (not her, she's not a taxpayer) should pay for PBS and senior medication, etc.
If you build it, they will come. Yes, our disability system is generous, so people will utilize it--we now have people immigrating here to collect it.
- MadisonMan said...
If I could do anything with my time, I assume it would be because I'm sitting on a large endowment, and I would spend my time looking for worthy recipients.
I notice that powerball is at $178M -- this althouse post is obviously a sign from God that IF I play this week, I'll win! At odds of 140M to 1 or something, statistically I've won already!
Ann, should I buy your house if I win? The only problem is, except for our neighbor's barking dog, I love my neighborhood!
- Jeff said...
Not mentioned in the article or here is what kind of article would be written about midle-aged women who opted out of work and chose tollive off their husbands or disability. Such an article wouldn't be written, it would be another dog-bites-man story.
No on ewould be calling the women "freeloaders", either. In fact, they would probably be celebrated for unshackling themselves from the male-oriented rat race.
- PatCA said...
Maybe we should have an Althouse pool, and if we win write a new chapter to the study. We are obviously all very skilled time fritterers!
- Pogo said...
Re: "...just giving them money and letting them not work doesn't seem to be hurting capitalism any."
I think you might have meant that the subsidization of healthy laborers unwilling to work isn't harmful. I disagree. In order to pay for freeloaders via disability or other forms of , I have to work longer hours just to stay at the same level I'd been at before someone decided he deserved my money more than did.
('Capitalism isn't 'harmed' by anything ...its processes are either followed or they are not. Society, OTOH, can be harmed.)
If he saves nothing for retirement AND contributes nothing more to SSI now, he causes additional harm to the social compact.
Re: "If it wasn't for that, I would live on half my income up till I was forty and then live on the savings and Social Security until I was 70"
Grreat, except that by the time you reach 70, the average age of death will be well past 80.
Re: "Not mentioned in the article or here is what kind of article would be written about midle-aged women who ..."
I'd have to agree. So who has more freedom, men or women?
- knoxgirl said...
Well some people have an unrealistic expectation of what a carrer/employer will do for you. I was lucky to learn, when I was 25, that they will probably let you down repeatedly.
Indeed... I think some people make the mistake of looking at work romantically, and when their employer disappoints them, they're like "I'm done."
Instead, they should say "take this job and shove it, I'm quitting this popcorn stand, eat my dust!" It sucks when an employer disappoints you, but for god's sake, use it to go on to something better, it's the best revenge! (for lack of a better word.)
"When one door closes, another opens" is a nicer way to put it. I'm totally rambling, sorry...
- Jim said...
Finn Christiansen asked,
"Jim, are you saying you do not in fact pay taxes? Because you, so enlightened, and deserving, do not need the dead weight of paying for the various entitlement programs and ridiculous things like, uhm, public education?
If I have read you right (and I hope not), I trust you will be forgoing social security?"
Yes, I am saying I do not pay ANY taxes on the gains up to $250,000 every two years attributable to my labors to fix up my principal residence for sale. Of course I pay sales taxes and the real killer, property taxes, of which over 50% goes to miseducating the local kids.
Of course, being a guerilla libertarian, I not only take every penny owing me by "entitlement," but I have also learned to game the nanny-state system. If all Americans were to game the system as I have learned to do, thanks to Law School training, we could bring it down in no time.
- David53 said...
"Work isn't supposed to be "fun".
That's why it's called work."
The above statements bother me for several reasons. Most career advisors tell you, more or less, to find something you love to do, make that your career and you will not see your work as just a job.
Some people can do that, most of us can't. For those who don't see their job as more than just work when is the proper time to quit work, is 55 too early? Does it depend solely on your financial condition or do other factors need to be examined also?
My Dad is 83 and a stockbroker, he has outlived all of his clients but he still goes to the office whenever he can. He fell and broke his hip in the Spring and it is literally killing him that he can't go to work everyday. He has more money than he could possibly spend but he has no interests other than work. He tried to retire 10 years ago but he just couldn't do it, he grew up during the depression and he lives to work.
I would retire tomorrow if my wife would let me. I've earned and saved enough so I don't need social security, my wife has a great job and better IRAs than I do, we really don't have any financial concerns. Work for me is just a way to earn money, I would love to read three or four books a day, learn to play the piano, travel, or just raise miniature pinschers. Is it indeed far better to work at something you don't really enjoy, retire, or to work as my Dad does until you die?
- Icepick said...
David53 wrote: "Most career advisors tell you, more or less, to find something you love to do, make that your career and you will not see your work as just a job.
Office Space covered that ground, too.
[Peter, Michael, and Samir around copier]
Peter Gibbons: Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars you're supposed to be an auto mechanic.
Samir: So what did you say?
Peter Gibbons: I never had an answer. I guess that's why I'm working at Initech.
Michael Bolton: No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.
- dmc_in_washington said...
I took 11 months off after college and circled the world on my parent's dime. I saw Southeast Asia and most of the world's surviving Seven Wonders. And you know what? I was bored and restless after six months. Today I'm working in my chosen field and am more satisfied than I ever was at 23. While we all daydream about not having to work, I think indulging your interests -- reading, cooking, whatever -- can quickly grow tiresome without the backdrop of work to treasure them against.
- Maxine Weiss said...
Whatever happened to the Protestant Work Ethic?
I'm not sure where anyone is getting that they have a perfect "right" to 24-hour bliss.
You don't even have a "right" to happiness.
No sir.
You have a right to the "pursuit" of happiness....
.....after you complete your 12 hours of toil in the factories and boiler rooms.
You can do all the pursuing you want, on your own time....
....after you finish the necessities of life, like regular work, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, surfing the net, making comments on the Althouse blog....all day long...
---you know, all the really important tasks that need to be completed...
...and then you simply "pursue" the perfect bliss!
That's how it's done.
Peace, Maxine
- Meade said...
I don't have time to read this entire thread. I have to get back to work to pay for my kid's tuition, the mortgage, and payments on my former wife's Audi. But I remember reading this back when I was sixteen and thinking, 'not a bad idea.' Apparently, as a boomer, I wasn't alone.
- Pogo said...
Work was considered the bane of existence for a thousand years, a curse even, from Genesis ("By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground").
But the miracle of Western European enlightenment was to recognize that work is not a curse at all, but instead allows us to become creators of the world.
On other days, I hate my job, so, go figure. We seem to be a curious mix of a minor deity and Sisyphus. I guess that's why alcohol was invented.
- David53 said...
Workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
Workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
Five o'clock in the mornin'
I'm all ready up and gone
Lord I am so tired
How long can this go on?
Lee Dorsey via DEVO
- Beachcomber said...
For starters, yes, I've read the book. Coming at a time in my life when I was drawn more and more toward a simple (not to be confused with austere) existence, reading "Your Money or Your Life" was one of those "aha" moments when the light bulb really switches on. But the philosophy and approach described in the book don't even remotely resemble the choices and experiences of the indivisuals featured in the article. The book talks about creating sustainable financial independence through questioning consumerism, self-reliance, frugality and low-risk investments. Not scamming the disability system or spending down one's assets or living off someone else's income. And the goal is not to be able to sit at home and do nothing, but rather to have the freedom to do something fulfilling with one's life without having to factor in the need to earn money doing it.
- Troy said...
I'm not sure where to begin with you... I assume you calling me "her" is either a junior-high football coach trick to draw me out... or you don't know your pronouns...whatever.
I'm not on the government tit and your baby-maker crack has a bit of bitter gay "breeder" smack to it. whatever again.
Balfegor... granted the steelworker is living down his bennies. I had a visceral reaction having to pay a dental visit today and reading about some freeloader (or soon to be freeloader) complaining because his job doesn't pay well enough. I don't want to pay for him. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to pay for him. I've been in enough state prisons (just visiting like Monopoly) to be cured of any Thoreauesque civil disobedience ideas on not paying SS or Medicare or income taxes.
It's inidcative of our culture that these men think it's their right to do nothing -- those that cannot afford it I mean. If Mr. Riga (or whatever his name is) wants to live down his equity, then more power to him. I do not want to pay for him when he's old and sick and he's spent all his money.
If, I had all the time in the world I would travel around 6 months out of each year, read and write and .... I'd go crazy.
- Jim said...
Sorry to mess with your sexual identity, but you know the post bylines don't give sex of the poster and in English we get the choice of he-him, she-her and it for the singular pronoun.
I admit that if you home-school or private-school your kids, you are not feeding at the nanny-state educational tit, but you are feeding at the dependent-tax-deduction or childcare tit, or some other of the over 1000 tits that the GAO found federal law provides to those who are married and/or breeders, as opposed to childfree singles.
- Jennifer said...
My father - a corporate lawyer and former JAG - went through this as well. His company downsized and restructured and most of the legal division was out on their collective arse.
He went through a long period where he was drawing down on his savings, etc. He never NEVER took any money from the government, nor would he.
But, there was a real sense of f*ck this. I served my country. I went to school. I worked my tail off. I raised my family. And for what?
Eventually, he had to go to work as a security guard. Of course, he wrote the most ridiculous reports they had ever seen. Now he runs the security department and is quite happy.
I don't think he'll ever go back to being a breakneck speed, long hour, attorney. I mean, I'm positive he won't.
I can empathize with these guys. I will NEVER slave 80 hours a week on the stock market again. I hope we go through a bit of a revolution in this country where people begin to realize how stupid it is to put your heart and soul and all of your energy into a job - no matter how fancy your job is.
As for the first gentleman in the article, he's drawing down his own savings. His life, his choice.
- PatCA said...
"...people begin to realize how stupid it is to put your heart and soul and all of your energy into a job - no matter how fancy your job is."
It's funny how things change. In the 60s everybody fell in love with "career"--especially women, who were taught by feminism that the personal satisfaction of career would make up for the sorrow at a husband and children leaving you. Many boomers woke up at 50 and said, but this job sucks! Even a great job gets tedious after a decade or two.
I hope women your age can achieve the balance that was lacking then.
- 37383938393839383938383 said...
I would build a shrine to Ann Althouse's feet.
- Meade said...
M[a]n ---- Working, [but] Not Wanting Just Any Job
Mr. Coffer rarely curses, but speaking about women, he does. They'll chase down a guy 10 feet in debt over his head, working at some dead-end job, who's got a phone and a car, he said angrily.
Actually, it's probably the lack of plumbing, he was told.
"I love my outhouse," Mr. Coffer said. "It is a little bit of a challenge in January, but I don't linger out there."
- Desconhecido said...
I worked until I was 51 and then I retired. My house was paid for, and I had no debts. I receive a pension and health insurance from my last employer -- benefits that I earned through my labor. My savings and investments (financed during my working years) plus my pension total more than twice what I made during my last year of work, and I am not ashamed to be a member of the permanent leisure class, not one bit.
Yes, I'm no longer working and I contribute nothing to the wealth of our nation -- I live off the fruits of others' labor. If you don't want me to do that, stop borrowing money from me and forbid me from investing in your businesses.


text:
This is my 3rd 66. Bought this last year in June, flew to Seattle, Washington and drove her home. Left Thursday at 8 PM Central Time, Got in Sunday 9 AM Central time, many miles and $460 dollars in gas later.
This vehicle was custom built,in 1999 when it was off frame restored.everything from front to rear is new ,not rebuilt! The truck was chopped 4 and a half inches and channeled 4 inches,the front end went under a total reconstruction with a custom roll pan with a taper in the center all made of steel (not fiberglass).Rain gutter were molded into the body,has a single frenched antenna on the drivers side,door handle and mirrors have been removed and smoothed along with recessed license plate in tailgate,truck also has over louvers punched in hood and tailgate.There are well over 1000 hours of bodywork alone the was labored over for nearly a year ,everyday working on this truck.Truck was painted at Grandpa's Rod & Customs in Pigeon forge,Tenn.Truck has full custom interior,done in wine burlap,with many custom bowtie inlays throughout ,bed and cab interiors match,bed also has custom tool box as well as car cover compartment and a separate compartment for the jack and compressor,bed is covered in 100 percent white Corinthian Leather with an embroidered bowtie in the center with the year of the truck in the bowtie itself,truck has billet covered 350 ci,with auto trans ,headman headers and mufflers.
Have been working on the car ever since. No 1/4 times. 454 CI, 450 HP, TH400 trans with shift kit and 3,000 stall converter. Rear gear appears to be 3.73.
No specifications listed.
PS, 4 Sp.
No factory options listed.
|Points for Wife's Complaint
|Total Votes
|Points for Obsession


text:
And so you have it, The Dark Knight Rises has wrapped its 7 month long, 3 continent wide shoot. It has certainly been an adventure for Christopher Nolan and the cast & crew of the final installment of the Gotham Trilogy. From May in Jodhpur, India to November in New York City, the filming of The Dark Knight Rises has been a widely publicized, massive production. And yet somehow it stayed relatively secretive in the grand scheme of things, especially for those who didn't scour the internet for every cellphone video and photo from the sets.
We covered the important milestones of the production over the span of twelve production updates. We'll summarize those articles, as well as include a batch of the latest and last photos from filming in NYC, here in this final update. If you've managed to hold yourself to a strict standard of spoiler-avoidance, read no more. Although it should be noted that we hold ourselves to a somewhat strict standard, and the things we mention tend to be relatively mild in their spoiler-y-ness. Continue reading


text:
Every football club has its own fans' favourite. Whether it's the captain, the leading goalscorer, or the loyal servant, there's an inevitability that some players are more popular with supporters than others.
An individual's standing can often be gauged by the number of fans that buy and/or wear his printed shirt. And, thanks to a recent study by the Daily Mail, here's a list of the Premier League participants and their three most popular shirt-sellers.
The only clubs that did not want to divulge such information were Chelsea - who declined to comment - and Aston Villa, who revealed that around 70 per cent of their overall sales for 2012/13 can be credited to summer signing Christian Benteke.
Arsenal | Thomas Vermaelen, Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Aston Villa | 70 per cent of shirts sold in the Villa Stores have 'Benteke 20'
Chelsea | Refused to comment
Everton | Steven Pienaar, Marouane Fellaini, Nikica Jelavic.
Fulham | Kerim Frei, Mladen Petric, Brede Hangeland
Liverpool | Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez, Jamie Carragher
Manchester United | Shinji Kagawa, Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney
Manchester City | Sergio Aguero, Mario Balotelli, David Silva
Newcastle | Yohan Cabaye, Papiss Demba Cisse, Ben Arfa
Norwich | Russell Martin, Grant Holt, Jonathan Howson
QPR | Ji-Sung Park, Adel Taarabt, Djibril Cisse
Reading | Pavel Pogrebnyak, Adam Le Fondre, Karacan
Swansea | Michu, Nathan Dyer, Danny Graham
Southampton | Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Jay Rodriguez
Sunderland | James McClean, Stephane Sessegnon, Sebastian Larsson
Stoke City | Peter Crouch, Robert Huth, Ryan Shawcross
Tottenham | Gareth Bale, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Rafael van der Vaart
Wigan | Shaun Maloney, Arouna Kone, Franco Di Santo
West Ham | Kevin Nolan, Mark Noble and James Tomkins
West Brom | Romelu Lukaku, Shane Long, Peter Odemwingie
Do YOU want to write for GiveMeSport? Get started today by signing-up and submitting an article HERE: https://www.givemesport.com/writeforgms


text:
WEST WINDSOR, N.J. - Earlier this year, Andrew Campbell and Will Daly had their hopes of rowing in the 2012 Olympic Games in London crushed when they missed a berth to the team in the lightweight men's double sculls at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta.
That didn't end their year of international rowing efforts, however. Both Campbell (New Canaan, Conn.) and Daly (Vail, Colo.) earned a place on the 2012 World Rowing Senior and Junior World Championship team, just in a different event.
Daly won the lightweight men's pair final at the 2012 Senior Non-Olympic Trials on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J., this morning while Campbell followed in the lightweight men's single sculls.
"It feels great," said Campbell, who finished fourth in the event at the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Slovenia. "Life is about counter-punching and this is me counter-punching. We had a tough go in Lucerne in the double, but you can't let stuff like that stop you. You have to go on with your career and make the best of the situation."
Not far from Campbell when he walked off the recovery dock was Daly, who smiled and gave Campbell a big congratulations. "Obviously we're both supportive of each other," he said.
Daly, a 2008 Olympian who finished 11th in the lightweight four in Beijing, and his partner Greg Flood (Tulsa, Okla.) won their event in a time of 6:45.377 over training center teammates Christian Klein (Herndon, Va.) and Kyle Traub (Eastham, Mass.), who finished second in 6:46.713.
"The double is done, but we're both still training and just trying to find anyway we can to stay competitive and stay on the edge," said Daly. "We've stayed in touch and talked about how the training was going and stuff. It will be good to get back into racing again. It's hard to get back up after losing a qualification regatta, but we're moving forward, just trying to keep going."
This morning's finals wrapped up the combined trials for both the junior and senior teams that will compete August 14-19 at the 2012 World Rowing Senior and Junior Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. In all, seven crews earned a place on the senior team.
In addition to the lightweight men's single and lightweight men's pair, crews were named in the men's pair with coxswain, lightweight women's single, men's and women's lightweight quadruple sculls and lightweight men's eight.
The junior and senior world championship events and trials are combined in an Olympic year to accommodate athletes who compete in boat classes not contested at the Olympic Games.
In the men's pair with coxswain, two USRowing Training Center - Oklahoma City crews went head-to-head in the finals with Justin Stangel (Madison, Wis.), Blaise Didier (San Francisco, Calif.) and coxswain Stephen Young (Tampa, Fla.) defeating the trio of Ryan Shelton (Wrightwood, California), Max Goff (Sun Prairie, Wis.) and coxswain Marcus McElhenney (Lansdowne, Pa.) in a time of 7:08.784 to 7:12.066.
"It was definitely a tough race," said Young. "We had a really good rehearsal on Monday in the race for lanes and ended up not quite as far ahead early on in the race as we wanted to be, and were expecting to be.
"They were sitting on our hip the whole way down the course. It was really until about five-hundred to go where we finally started to break out a little bit and at that point I could relax a little and I knew we were in control and it was our race to win," said Young, who finished fifth in the lightweight men's eight at the 2010 World Rowing Championships.
Also returning to the world stage in the lightweight women's single is Ursula Grobler (Pretoria, South Africa) who defeated Katherine Robinson (Everett, Wash.). Grobler won with a time of 7:50.877. Robinson was second in 8:03.753.
Grobler finished fourth in the event last summer at the world championships in Bled, Slovenia and had attempted a bid for the Olympics in the lightweight women's double. When that did not happen, she refocused her efforts in the single.
"It's been a tough year," said Grobler. "I just had to refocus and a world champion medal is still a great victory. It's not the Olympics, but it is still an achievement and I want to keep going."
In the lightweight women's quad, the composite entry of Potomac Rowing Center, Riverside Boat Club and the USRowing Training Center - Oklahoma City of Hillary Saeger (Dedham, Mass.), Lindsey Hochman (Seattle, Wash.), Michelle Sechser (Folsom, Calif.) and Chelsea Smith (Edina, Minn.) won in a time of 6:54.285 over Vesper Boat Club, which finished second in 7:09.630.
Both Saeger and Hochman were in the boat that took bronze last summer in Slovenia. "I'm ready for another one," said Saeger. "We're looking to move up on the medal stand. We're getting there and figuring out our racing plan and it's coming along fast."
The lightweight men's quad followed and the composite crew from Malta Boat Club and Seattle Rowing Center of Sam Cunningham (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Bob Duff, (Huntingdon Valley, Pa.), Dave Smith (Seattle, Wash.) and Shane Madden (Ambler, Pa.) rowed uncontested and finished in 6:15.898.
This is Madden's fifth national team and he returns to the event after finishing fifth in the event last summer in Slovenia. "It feels pretty good," he said. "But we've got a lot of work to do and it's back to the grindstone come tomorrow."
The final event of the morning, the lightweight men's eight, saw the composite crew from Community Rowing, Inc., and Riverside Boat Club of coxswain Sean Fanning, Phil Grisdela, Anders Corbett, Andrew Hashway, Martin Forde, Nick Dawe, Sean McKenna, Will Robins, and Eric Rhiel win in 5:57.839 over the Vesper Boat Club entry that finished second in 6:02.139.
"I used to be a competitive swimmer and hadn't made it to this level before, so this is a really important event for me," said Robins. "Not necessarily a capstone, but a certainly a milestone in a multisport career."


text:
Dumb Criminal Posts Video Of Dumb Crime After Leaving Hospital Injured From Dumbness
from the book-'em dept
It's been a couple of months, so maybe you thought that there were no more dumb criminals doing dumb things with technology any longer. Well, that was a very silly thought, silly-thought-thinker. You should know by now that nothing will stop the deluge of dumb. This latest is special, however, due to the impressive dedication to stupid by our criminal mastermind. This case is one in which an 18 year old man videotaped himself driving like an idiot on purpose, injured himself to the point of needing an airlift to a hospital, after which he uploaded the video to YouTube -- accurately titling it "Me Driving Like an Idiot"
Robert Charles Kelley IV, 18, driving west, first struck a Toyota sedan with his 1994 Honda on State Road 44 near Jungle Road, around 3:36 p.m. Monday afternoon, police said. He fled the scene of that crash and later would strike three more vehicles that were stopped at a red light at S.R. 44 and Colony Park Road, police said. Two patients from the first crash and one from the second were taken to Bert Fish Medical Center with injuries not considered life-threatening, police said.Police also mentioned that they were planning on arresting Kelley, because of course they are. At the conclusion of his vehicular rampage, Kelley needed help getting himself removed from his now-destroyed Honda and was taken by helicopter to a hospital. Police had thought his injuries were serious, but he was released the next day. That's apparently when the mood struck Kelley to finally upload the video to YouTube further implicating himself. It features, you guessed it, him driving like an idiot with a soundtrack of, you probably also guessed it, irritating techno music.
Markert said Kelley's filming and uploading of the video falls under the "What were you thinking?" category, but of because the evidence it provided police, he added, "We certainly appreciate it."While the original video has since been taken down, you can see clips of it in news reports like the following: