Saturday, November 14, 2015
Friday, November 13, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
A five-story vending machine for cars just opened in Nashville [feedly]
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A five-story vending machine for cars just opened in Nashville
// The Verge
Buying a car is a hellish process. The reward for spending hours researching the right one is a trip to a local dealership — an experience that assaults the nerves in such a way that it's only rivaled by appointments with the dentist. But what if buying a car was easier than that? What if it was as easy as, say, a vending machine? A few years ago, a company called Carvana followed in the footsteps of companies like CarMax by trying to move the car buying experience completely online. The process of purchasing a car on Carvana's website includes all the steps that normally take place at a dealership: getting approved for and selecting financing, selecting a warranty, and signing the contract. It's a process that, in an interview with The Verge, Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia is quick to point out takes many Carvana customers 20 minutes or less.
This left customers with just one dealership interaction: choosing pickup or delivery. And Garcia says that, more often than not, Carvana customers were choosing pickup — so much so that a subsequent pickup store in Atlanta was a rousing success. Now, though, Carvana is adding some spice to the that experience.
It's coin-operated, of course
"We knew that if [customers] chose to pick up the car we would save some money, and so we could invest that money in giving them a really, really great experience," Garcia says. The result? A five-story, fully-automatic vending machine building for cars just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It's like the automated car delivery experience offered by Volkswagen in Germany, except this one is coin-operated.
"The experience itself is exactly a vending machine experience," Garcia says. "The customer even gets a customized, oversized coin that they drop into a slot." The coin triggers a robotic arm, which goes up and grabs the car that the customer purchased online. When the car comes down, it's transferred to another robot that drives the car down a hallway and parks it in a bay, where the customer receives their purchase. After that, Garcia says, customers can be walked through the features on their car, or even take it for a test drive.
In fact, Garcia says the funds aren't actually transferred until the customer takes the final receipt of the car and drives it off the lot. And even when that happens, Carvana offers a seven-day, "no questions asked" return policy. "We even proactively call them on the sixth day and remind them that their return policy is expiring to ensure that they're happy with the car," Garcia says. He calls the "test-to-own" period "way more useful to a consumer than four right turns around a dealership."
Watch your car moonwalk to you
The bet is that the Carvana vending machine will be expensive up front, but inexpensive going forward. By employing fewer staff, leasing less acreage, and carrying fewer cars, Carvana drastically lowers the overhead. It also allows them to sell cars for up to $2,000 less than most dealerships. Garcia's not sure sure whether the vending machine's customers will be local to Nashville or if they'll travel great distances for the experience — the company is offering $200 towards airfare and "white glove" service from the airport if they do — but he does sound confident that Carvana will eventually open up others around the country.
"I think it's going to be an incredible customer experience," Garcia says. "And I think if we've got the car that they're looking for, and we're selling it for $1,500 to $2,000 less, and we offer a purchase process that takes 20 minutes, and then you get to go to a vending machine and watch your car moonwalk to you? I think people are going to respond to that."
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Would you be shocked to learn what Obamacare is doing to state budgets? [feedly]
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Would you be shocked to learn what Obamacare is doing to state budgets?
// Personal Liberty Digest™
Remember all those Republican governors who held out on joining Obamacare and expanding Medicaid? They claimed no amount of matching federal money could offset the immense state-level costs.
To no one's surprise, it's turning out they were right — more right than even they might have predicted.
Not only would Obamacare, even if it had followed its ideal-scenario sales pitch, have been too expensive for state revenues to offset; it's even worse now that the numbers aren't adding up. Obamacare's projected sign-up rate has gone way off script; and in the Medicaid-expanded states, the subsidized enrollments are crippling.
"New ObamaCare enrollees and costs have exceeded estimates and threaten to swamp budgets," a headline in The Wall Street Journal warns:
The AP says that California expected 800,000 new enrollees after the state's 2013 Medicaid expansion, but wound up with 2.3 million. Enrollment outstripped estimates in New Mexico by 44%, Oregon by 73%, and Washington state by more than 100%.
This has blown holes in state budgets. Illinois once projected that its Medicaid expansion would cost the state $573 million for 2017 through 2020. Yet 200,000 more people have enrolled than were expected, and the state has increased its estimated cost for covering each. The new price tag? About $2 billion, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Enrollment overruns in Kentucky forced officials to more than double the anticipated cost of the state's Medicaid expansion for 2017, the AP reports, to $74 million from $33 million. That figure could rise to $363 million a year by 2021.
In Rhode Island, where one-quarter of the state's population is now on Medicaid, the program consumes roughly 30% of all state spending, the Providence Journal reports. To plug this growing hole, Rhode Island has levied a 3.5% tax on insurance policies sold through the state's ObamaCare exchange.
Rhode Island approved a 2015 budget of $8.67 billion. How much did it spend on Medicaid in 2014? Nearly $2.5 billion. And that was with the federal government's help.
If you live in one of the holdout states, did your newspaper of record blast your governor for declining to sign on with Obamacare? Did you see editorial after editorial ignoring the fiscal crisis that Obamacare promises to state budgets, only to make moral judgments on how deeply your red-state governor hates the poor?
And now that the cat's out of the bag, is that same paper of record vindicating your governor's decision? The federal contribution to state Medicaid funding is a time-released product with an expiration date. And if states are having funding trouble now, when part of the money's still free, just wait until they're floating the entire bill on their own.
The post Would you be shocked to learn what Obamacare is doing to state budgets? appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Food for Freedom
This is the system we are planning on. I know a guy that shut his down because he could not give away the food overages. It occupied a building about 12x20. He was not trying to sell me on it. I was there to look at his solar system and noticed it and asked about it. He didn't even want to talk about it.
http://megadroughtexposed.com/nht_v12/front-ctrl.php?param1=nht_v12&hop=0077491
Monday, November 9, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
Watch This Jetpack Do Strange Things Near Ellis Island [feedly]
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Watch This Jetpack Do Strange Things Near Ellis Island
// Popular Science
JB-9 Jetpack In Flight
Jetpack Aviation
Most jetpacks aren't. The catchy term for personal flying devices includes ducted fans, rockets, engine-powered wing suits, and even hovercraft, but rarely does the device involved actually use jets. Perhaps aware of this incredibly misnamed category, jetpack makers Jetpack Aviation bill their JB-9 device as the "world's only jetpack." Here's what it looks like skirting the Statue of Liberty:
At their site, they describe themselves as Jetpack Purists, noting:
We believe a JetPack should be just that – a jet turbine powered backpack that is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), is extremely light and small and can easily be carried around by the pilot. It should be powerful enough to lift the pilot quickly to thousands of feet above the ground but small enough to fit into the trunk of a car.
The company claims that the JB-9 offers a 10 minute endurance, a top speed over 10 0mph, and a maximum altitude of over 10,000 feet. The device also supposedly has its heritage from a long line of "jet belts," first built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Here's a rocket belt tested for Popular Science in the 2000s:
The team of David Mayman and Nelson Tyler say that between them, they have 70 years of experience in jetpack design. After this design, they want to work on a four engine design, a virtual reality simulator to train jetpack pilots, and an automatically deploying parachute.
Watch it buzz Ellis Island below:
Video of World's only JetPack flies in New York
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Monday, November 2, 2015
100 year old film of Red Baron
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>> The following is a very rare piece of film, 100 years old. It shows Baron Von Richthofen, doing an external prior to a mission, as well as his putting on a flying suit prior to flight in cold weather. If you look close you will notice Hermann Goering.The Baron was shot down on 21 April 1918 by Roy Brown of the Royal Navy Air Services, a prelude of the R.A.F.. The Aussies also claim that one of their machine gunners on the ground shot the Baron down. UK & Aussie Doctors, after the autopsy stated that the fatal bullet was shot from above.The author of this has been very involved as a Director of the Roy Brown Museum in Carleton Place, the home town of Roy. Many letters have been written over the past 3-4 years and finally Roy Brown was inducted into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame on 4 June 2015…To think this film is almost 100 years old! If you're interested in history or aviation, you cannot miss this footage. It was just posted online, and I've never seen anything like it. It's from 1917, and it's an up-close and personal look at the most legendary combat pilot who ever lived, the infamous Red Baron, Manfred Von Richthofen. Watch the extremely rare, extremely old footage and re-live history. ULTRA-RARE footage of the most famous fighter pilot ever.
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>https://youtu.be/XIiuyijwKRs
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Sunday, November 1, 2015
Friday, October 30, 2015
Beware, Microsoft plans to push Windows 10 on even more Windows 7 and 8 systems [feedly]
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Beware, Microsoft plans to push Windows 10 on even more Windows 7 and 8 systems
// gHacks Technology News
Microsoft wants computer systems that run Windows 7 or 8 to be upgraded to Windows 10, there is no doubt about that.
The company projected that more than one billion Windows 10 devices will be running the new operating system in the next couple of years which is an ambitious goal even if you consider that this includes mobile devices and the Xbox.
Windows 7 and 8 users who want to upgrade can do so easily, but those who don't, fight an seemingly endless battle against Windows 10 upgrade patches that prepares their systems for the upgrade.
This led to situations where Windows 10 was already downloaded to a PC despite the user being unaware of it.
Two weeks ago, Microsoft pushed the Windows 10 upgrade forcefully to some systems and stated later that this happened by accident.
A recent post on the official Windows Experience Blog indicates that the accident may soon become reality for millions of Windows 7 and 8 systems.
Microsoft plans to deliver Windows 10 as an optional update "soon in order to make it easier for users to find it.
Optional updates are not installed by default but listed in Windows Update alongside recommended and important updates.
Then early next year, it plans to re-categorize Windows 10 as a recommended update which is a significant change as it will initiate the upgrade process automatically on systems configured to install recommended updates automatically just like important updates.
While users will receive a prompt when that happens, so that they are not surprised that a new operating system has been installed on their device, it may be the safest to disable the automatic installation of recommended updates if you don't want to upgrade to Windows 10 on a computer running an older version of Windows. Microsoft notes that the upgrade can be rolled back in the first 31 days.
It is likely that users will be caught in the cross-fire when the change goes life. For some, it will make it easier to upgrade to Windows 10 there is no doubt about that. But for those users who don't want Windows 10, it may mean that Windows 10 will be downloaded to their system depending on the configured update settings of it.
Considering that the response to Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade accident was everything but positive, it is likely that the reactions this time will be even less so.
Control Windows Update
To verify the current update preferences on Windows 7, do the following:
Tap on the Windows-key.Type Windows Update and hit enter. This should open the Windows Update interface.Select "change settings" on the left side.Uncheck "give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates" under "recommended options".If you want, you may also switch from "install updates automatically (recommended)" to "check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" to be on the safe side.
On Windows 8, you need to do the following instead:
Swipe from the right edge of the screen, click on Settings, then Change PC Settings and finally on Update and recovery.Select "choose how updates get installed".Uncheck "give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates".Optional: Change how updates are delivered under "important updates".
Other Windows 10 upgrade changes
Microsoft announced other changes coming to Windows 10 upgrades. The company's own Media Creation Tool will be upgraded soon to allow the creation of combined 32-bit and 64-bit installation images which administrators can install on any number of "genuine PCs" regardless of whether a previous version of Windows is installed on these devices as a valid Windows license will be accepted during installation.
For non-genuine versions of Windows, Microsoft plans to launch an experiment in the United States first which provides users of these systems with an opportunity to purchase a genuine copy of the operating system directly via Windows Store or by entering an activation code.
Now You: How is Windows Update configured on your system?
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The post Beware, Microsoft plans to push Windows 10 on even more Windows 7 and 8 systems appeared first on gHacks Technology News.
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Thursday, October 29, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
This gun safety bill improves firearm rights [feedly]
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This gun safety bill improves firearm rights
// Personal Liberty Digest™
A Republican lawmaker in the House wants to make it easier for American sportsmen to protect their hearing by eliminating a costly government barrier to suppressor ownership.
Currently, Americans who wish to own a firearm suppressor are required to pass an ATF background check and purchase a $200 tax stamp.
Rep. Matt Salmon's (R-Ariz.) Hearing Protection Act of 2015 would remove suppressors from the list of items restrained by the National Firearms Act and eliminate the need to purchase a tax stamp from the ATF.
The American Suppressor Association explained the importance of Salmon's legislation in the following statement:
Also known as silencers, suppressors are the hearing protection of the 21st century sportsman. Despite common Hollywood-based misconceptions, the laws of physics dictate that no suppressor will ever be able to render gunfire silent. Suppressors are simply mufflers for firearms, which function by trapping the expanding gasses at the muzzle, allowing them to slowly cool in a controlled environment. On average, suppressors reduce the noise of a gunshot by 20 – 35 decibels (dB), roughly the same sound reduction as earplugs or earmuffs. In addition to hearing protection, suppressors also mitigate noise complaints from those who live near shooting ranges and hunting lands.
Unfortunately, suppressors have been federally regulated since the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934. The NFA regulates the transfer and possession of certain types of firearms and devices, including suppressors. Currently, prospective buyers must send in a Form 4 application to the ATF, pay a $200 transfer tax per suppressor, undergo the same background check that is required to purchase a machine gun, and wait months for the ATF to process and approve the paperwork. In stark contrast, many countries in Europe place no regulations on their purchase, possession, or use.
The effort to remove suppressors from National Firearms Act restrictions has also attracted the support of the National Rifle Association.
"Suppressors significantly reduce the chance of hearing loss for anyone who enjoys the shooting sports," said Chris Cox, executive director of NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. "On behalf of the NRA and our 5 million members, I want to thank Rep. Salmon for his leadership on this important bill."
Suppressors are currently legal in 41 U.S. states and can be used for hunting legally in 37.
The post This gun safety bill improves firearm rights appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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