A Textbook Case
"UCLA admissions estimates that books and supplies will cost each undergraduate student about $1,383 per academic year for 2015-2016.
“A traditional textbook … is usually published by commercial publishers, which means it’s never free, and it’s usually too expensive and they get revised in minimal ways constantly so that students are always being asked to get the new edition even if only a minimal part of it has changed …”
$1,400 a year per student for textbooks. Students have to pay over $5,000 in textbook costs for a 4-year college degree. Students have to pay over $5,000 for college textbooks which, for decades, have promoted an extreme left-wing liberal point of view and indoctrinated students in anti-Americanism.
Welcome to the new America, where a new crop of millions of liberal college students is planted and harvested every 4 years. Put me in a time machine and send me back to the 1950's. Or the 1970's. Send me back to when America was America.
frustration
At this stage of my life (old), my tolerance for frustration is zero. Every little thing becomes a major pain in the ass and I overreact to each and every frustration. Is it just age? Maybe. Or maybe it's that everything in life is no longer simple but is overly complicated. EVERYTHING today is complicated and frustrating.
Getting customer service is frustrating: you often have to jump through hoops, and navigate incomprehensible voice trees, just to get help with something you bought and paid for. "Press 1 for English"? Fuck you!
As for electronic devices, no one over the age of 11 can figure out how to use a cell phone or a computer. And who can get in and drive a new car? No one. Today, you have to take a class in order just to learn how to operate your car. Everything today is way too complicated and way beyond my ability to learn, or do, anything. As a result, on behalf of everyone over the age of 11, I am calling for ALL electronic devices to create devices which operate as if the user is an idiot (which we are). I am calling for all makers of all electronic devices to make the fucking things work by simply verbally telling the device what you want it to do--and it just DOES it! I don't want to know the inner workings of a device. I don't want to learn how to operate it--I just want to tell it to do what I want. Even a car, which used to be a mechanical device, is an electronic device. I don't want to learn how to program my car's computer--I just want to DRIVE it, and maybe play the radio. I just want to be able to tell the radio: "Radio, find me rock & roll" and bing-bang-boom, it's done. "OK, radio, now turn up the volume!"
I do not want to become my own doctor, learn how to be my own auto mechanic, or my own electronic device programmer. I have no interest in doing that, no tolerance for it, and no ability to do ANY of it.
The world has become overly complicated. Let's simplify it! Let's start with electronic devices, electronic devices that listen ... and then do what we tell it to do.
best traffic
From nbclosangeles
"Surprise: Traffic is bad in Los Angeles.
That's the upshot of the fifth annual Traffic Index report released Tuesday by GPS manufacturer TomTom, which found that Los Angeles is the most congested city in the United States, ahead of San Francisco, Honolulu, New York and Seattle.
According to the study, Los Angeles had an overall congestion level of 39 percent in 2014, up from the 2013 level of 36 percent. The average congestion level in the 10 worst cities in the country was 30 percent.
The situation is much worse during rush hour, when Los Angeles' congestion level jumps to 80 percent, also the highest in the nation."
I've lived in L.A. for more than 25 years. Thanks to the L.A. City Council, Los Angeles is #1 in the nation, in poverty and traffic. Thanks for nothing. After more than 25 years of increased local and state government, the only good thing about L.A. is the weather. And me.
1,000 year old remedy
From the BBC
A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said.
Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow's stomach.
They were "astonished" to find it almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.
Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference.
The remedy was found in Bald's Leechbook - an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library.
Anglo-Saxon expert Dr Christina Lee, from the University of Nottingham, translated the recipe for an "eye salve", which includes garlic, onion or leeks, wine and cow bile. They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient.
Wow! People 1,000 years ago used natural remedies to cure diseases and ailments. People 1,000 years ago used natural remedies to cure diseases and ailments that modern medicine, and today's big pharmaceutical companies, can't cure? Welcome to the modern world. Where the progress?
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