Short version: We have a new car. The first dealer didn't get it when promised, got it two days later, but I backed out of the deal.  I ended up getting very close to the same model for a bit less, from another dealer.  The car is now here and we are happy.
( Longer version... )

But, after all that, we have a new car, and I feel like it was a success, if a somewhat qualified one.  I feel happy that I have my car and that D2 will get the commission.  I feel badly for D1, but I don't feel too badly because they will make a tidy profit on our trade-in.

Update: It's been another month since my previous post on this. I am still keeping very low carbs, eating foods that I like, and haven't felt hungry.

( Read more... )

TL;DR Powerpoint version:

• I have been on the LCHF plan for 4 weeks
• LCHF means "Low Carb High Fat"
• So far, lost 3 lbs. per week
• Haven't felt hungry at all

( Read more about my first four weeks on the LCHF path )

We have all heard of this "marketplace of ideas" but, where actually is it?

Sure, it sounds funny when you put it like that, but I'm being quite serious here. I think there should be a website (or app, maybe) where people can express ideas, vote on the ideas they agree with, and rate how strongly they feel about them.

Then, people could find other ideas, and rate them too, and explore the links, maybe even view ideas that seem to conflict with those they feel strongly about. Perhaps we could even draw connections and vote for the best related/supporting ideas.

The media does a pretty terrible job of this, because it focuses on the new and sensational rather than the more important areas that are not drama sources. For example, homicide and terrorism get way, way more coverage than suicide and heart disease.

Politics is mostly a side show. We send our representatives to the capital to duke it out over made-up issues, which we feel strongly about when we hear of them, but which aren't the most important things in our lives. But, our chosen champions get distracted and then fail to address the most important, most jugular issues.

The only place I've seen that comes close is Wikipedia, which has developed into a tool for building consensus, but it seems to result in bland articles with the depth of feeling and relative importance of things kind of stripped out, or at least muted. Wikipedia can say "Some believe X while others believe Y" but it's not a meaningful discussion of why people disagree.

Is someone, somewhere, already building the marketplace of ideas for this century? The Internet has been around a while, and I can find a hundred types of porn, but I can't find even one place that I can reasonably discuss why our roads are crumbling and our schools are the worst they have been in a hundred years, and what can/should be done about it?

I spent some time looking at ideas on the Contract for the American Dream site. There are a lot of good ideas there... and some others that are not so great.

The site breaks down into four sections. It's not immediately obvious once you get to the Rate Ideas page that you are in one of four lists... so if you start seeing similar ideas and not much that's new or interesting, go back to the home page and choose a different section to read and rate.

Here are some of the ideas and my reactions to them.

In the "Good Jobs" section:

Put people to work fixing infrastructure. Government jobs are jobs! -- I like this one because our infrastructure *is* failing. Roads, public buildings, schools, whatever. Bring back the WPA.

Fund more green jobs. -- Kickstart the green economy.

Stop outsourcing. -- I didn't care for these much, because it represents "us vs. them" thinking. I don't agree that outsourcing is necessarily bad. Sounds to me like a form of protectionism. Now, if we could make sure that workers *everywhere* earn a fair wage, maybe there would be less incentive to send jobs overseas. Even if outsourcing is bad, it's sort of beside the point... Jobs will get created by building stuff here (like roads) or providing services here (like decent health care or installing solar panels).

Crack down on illegal immigrants -- I don't care for this one as much either, not because it's a bad idea, but because it misses the point. If someone is here illegally, and working, someone else is paying for it, by buying the cheap food they pick or buying the houses built for less, or working in buildings cleaned by them. Pay a decent living wage to everyone, and then maybe US citizens will actually want that job, and companies that hire 100% legally won't be at such a disadvantage to their competitors. Illegal workers are not the problem... the problem is that we don't want to pay the true cost of our stuff.

In the "We all pay our fair share" section:

Tax the rich more, not less. -- I'm with this one 100%. Who wouldn't sell their left arm to be in the top US tax bracket, even if that meant 50% or even 60% tax rate? That's in the "nice problem to have" category. If you're rich, you're fortunate, and you should pay more. Equal is not fair, in this case. Also, there's a great video of milionares saying "Come on! Tax me more! Please!"

Simplified tax. -- Another great idea. Get rid of loopholes and shelters and crap. Tax income, tax luxury items, and do it consistently.

Flat tax -- This one gets a lot of play, but I don't think people have thought it through carefully. "Flat tax" means everyone pays the same percentage. A flat tax is not progressive at all. Progressive taxes are much more fair.

Sales tax instead of income tax. -- Nope, in fact I go the other way on this one... sales taxes are regressive, which is even worse than flat tax. Once you get to "comfortable" level, you will not spend much more on goods and services whether you make 60k/year or 600k. Sales tax is regressive. Tax luxuries but don't tax basic essentials.

In the "Strong communities" section

Better rail and public transport -- I like this because public transportation is very green, and because subsidizing public transportation gives the benefit to poorest Americans who need it most.

Single payer health care -- I like this one because health care should be a right, and everyone should get the same care, not separate-but-unequal like we have today. It doesn't have to be government owned and operated... check out the French system for example.

In the "Working Democracy" section

Don't let corporations speak louder than people. -- I'm totally with this one. At least, if corporations want to exert political influence, they should be taxed the same rate as real people, too.

Campaign finance reform -- I don't really like "public financing of campaigns" but so far I haven't seen any better ideas for campaign finance reform. Make contributions to candidates or issues 100% transparent; no more hiding political influence behind a shell organization that doesn't disclose its sources.

Stop privatization of basic services. -- I think when Republicans and Libertarians call for "Small Government" it is actually code for "Ration basic services based on who can pay". If you like the idea of small government, you probably are wealthy enough not to need the safety net.

Proportional representation and Instant runoff voting -- both are ideas that would give third parties a fighting chance. Other countries (with newer versions of Democracy) have 10% of representative seats given to the party that got 10% of the vote.

This is interesting... this must be a new feature that was added some time recently and I didn't or communities based on their tags. For example if you modify me you get the screen that would normally show "Add to groups" and "Select colors" and now it has a "Read entries by tags" section.

This looks like it should work great for opting in/out of certain entries, and probably much cleaner than the old "Hey I made a filter for ______ entries that are {TMI, boring, only interesting to people in my xxx group, whatever}". Now all you have to do is add the tag, which you may already be doing anyway.

This would not work for cases where you actually want to hide entries from some people, because it's under the reader's control and not a privacy-type feature. At the same time, it means that if someone screens out certain entries from their friends page, they can still click through to your normal journal to see what they missed.

Most of you already know that our cat Bunny had cancer for a year and a half or so. Today, we decided it was Time. His appetite has dropped off markedly this week and it seemed clear that he was going to soon get worse, and not better.

I am thankful that we had a long time to pamper him and I am pretty sure he wasn't suffering. But, it is still awful and we are still very sad.

I'm sorry for your loss, my friend.

Yahoo is looking to fill a bunch of positions right now, including front-end dev, back-end dev, and sysadmin/tools dev. These three descriptions are devs of various types. Feel free to pass along the descriptions. People can apply via careers.yahoo.com or send resumes to me (or other Yahoo folks if you already know one) -- no reason not to do both.

Search Front End ( PHP and JS coder )
Search Platform( Java/C/C++ coder )
Web Search( perl/php/c++/java coder )

For those that play World of Warcraft (and some similar games) the idea of "realms" or "which server do you play on" is so much a part of the system, that we don't often stop to question it. Choosing a realm is just part of the normal character creation/startup process, and we just sort of accept that we can only interact with other players that happened to choose the same realm. If we want to play with our RL friends, we have to make sure when we start up a new character that we choose the same realm as our friends, otherwise we can't form a group with them or chat with them while playing.( Read more... )