Free Republic

A few months ago I got online to pay on a new account I have at U.S. Bank.  I pay a certain amount every  month, like everyone does on installment loans.  U.S. Bank has a full-featured consumer website; I mean it’s got all the bells and whistles.  That’s what you’d expect from a bank with $19.6 billion in revenue (2013); the fifth largest bank in America, with assets of $353 billion.  U.S. Bank is bigger than American Express, SunTrust, and ScottTrade, combined. So I was surprised when I only saw the option to pay online, a single payment at a...

If you want a reason to opt out of school, you’re not alone. And Angad Daryani might just be the inspiration you were looking for. Daryani, a 16-year-old Mumbaiker, quit school in the 9th grade, frustrated by rote learning. Soon after, he built India’s first 3D printer (and possibly the world’s cheapest 3D printer). In 2013, he developed an “eye-pad” for the blind with MIT. When he was younger, he set up a miniature solar-powered boat and created an automatic watering system for garden plants. He has a longer list of hobbies that you can see here. He calls himself...

The national engineering accreditation agency requires that curricula provide students with some exposure to ethics. My department decided to fulfill this requirement by teaching our own, in-house ethics course, and it’s my turn to teach it. I’m taking the theme of ethical decisions the students may need to address as future engineers, engineering managers, tech entrepreneurs and so on. As you can see from the course reading list, I’ve chosen age discrimination as one of the topics. This generated an especially lively class discussion, including on a couple of points that I believe are new to the tech age discrimination...

MUSIC | U2 pans for wisdom in Songs of Innocence “There is only one thing … worse than being talked about,” says a character in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, “and that is not being talked about.” The Irish rockers U2 and their partners at Apple tested that idea by placing free copies of U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence (Island), in the accounts of iTunes subscribers on Sept. 9—a date, coincidentally, that also marked the 124th birthday of Colonel Harland Sanders and the 48th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

French designers alter 3D printer to let you ink yourself 3D printing technology has now followed the curve of most emerging inventions. What starts as a prototype gets picked up by the industries the idea most impacts, then by corollary industries, then by the art and hobbyist crowd. This month, Paris design studio Appropriate Audiences made that final step by hacking a 3D printer and turning it into a tattoo gun. The printing device itself, called Tatoue, affixes a tattoo gun on rails to a square metal frame. The frame and gun can move on three axes so the tattooing...

Dianne Feinstein - Candidate for U.S. President, Republican ... projects.wsj.com › Races › California The Wall Street Journal Latest election news on Dianne Feinstein's campaign for the 2012 presidential race. Candidate bio, position on issues, polls, debate results, endorsements and ...

Good evening, I've been reading up on alternatives to contract cells. Does anyone use Page Plus Cellular? If so, any comments/recommendations? If you haven't, any recommendations? I've read about Ting and Republic Wireless, but there's no coverage in our area. Thanks, TJI

Walking the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show last week, I kept thinking of that line from Jaws, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” All the Internet-connected, data-hungry gadgets that are coming to market sent a strikingly clear message: we’re going to need faster broadband networks. Making sure the U.S. has super-fast, high-capacity, ubiquitous broadband networks delivering speeds measured in gigabits, not megabits isn’t just a matter of consumer convenience, as important as that is. It’s essential to economic growth, job creation and U.S. competitiveness. In our 21st century economy, innovation leadership is necessary for economic leadership. Our broadband...

Democrats have been salivating for some time with their desire to control internet political speech The desire to kill political speech on the internet is nothing new, when it comes to the liberal left progressive Democrats. Their goal is not to win in the arena of ideas, but to eliminate any voice that dares to speak out against them in the arena of ideas. In the battle to silence dissent online, an attack is being launched by the FEC (Federal Elections Commission). Regardless of Congress, regardless of the First Amendment which tells the Federal Government to keep its hands off...

The owners of the website Ebola.Com have scored a big payday with the outbreak of the epidemic, selling the domain for more than USD 200,000 in cash and stock. The deal highlights the rewards and risk of industry trading and speculating in domain names that see high interest following news events. According to a securities filing, the buyer was a Russian-registered firm called Weed Growth Fund, previously known as Ovation Research. The October 20 filing said the price was USD 50,000 cash and 19,192 shares of Cannabis Sativa worth close to USD 170,000, which promotes medical uses for marijuana. The...

If you want it, Craigslist probably has it. I enjoy scanning the various items for sale, others’ trash becoming still others’ treasures. But, this morning, I ran across this ad, just blew me away … Anybody need a kidney? Healthy Kidney/Young White Male – $25000 (MS)

Apparently, the usual sober and fraught political commentary that often accompanies episodes of physical violence directed toward women disappears when the subject of that violence is a Palin. The political press had a hearty chuckle at the expense of the Palins when it first broke that the former first family of Alaska was involved in an alcohol-fueled brawl. The “thrilla in Wasilla,” some called it. One might, however, have expected the laughter to die down after local police released audio of Bristol Palin who described through hysterical tears how she had been assaulted, dragged through the grass, and robbed. It...

I use Outlook 2003. I have just ended my subscription to Compuserve. I have my CS mail account loaded to my PC via Outlook. I tried to cancel/remove the CS account in Outlook and it will not let me delete/cancel the account. If I try to cancel or change the cs account, Outlook freezes and I have to use task manager to get out of it. When I try to send/receive mail through Outlook, Outlook freezes again and I have to use task manager to close it, also. Can someone tell me how to delete this account? Thanks.

A man in Britain has been convicted for his fantasies. Robul Hoque, 39, was found guilty of downloading "prohibited images" of cartoon girls, some in school uniforms, doing dirty deeds. The fact that these manga drawings are available on legitimate sites did not sway the judge. Nor did the fact that—oh yeah—there were no actual humans in the pictures. No humans. So how old, exactly, is a cartoon? Is the cartoon 7, or 9, or just shy of 18? Trick question: A cartoon doesn't have an age, because a cartoon is never born. The life meter never started ticking. If...

Good day. I downloaded the new and improved OS, OS X Yosemite. At first blush, there are some features I miss about Mavericks, but I need to waste.....I mean, spend more time with Yosemite. It's too early to say "yay" or "nay", or perhaps the conclusion won't be so black and white, unless you're a "I HATE! all things Apple...including those snobby Mac Users", of course. What say you about OS X Yosemite? Any pointers/advice/recommendations by you techies out there?

Question: How does a grassroots Republican rancher fight an establishment Leftist incumbent swimming in limousine liberal money? Answer: With a grassroots campaign and by leveraging new mobile app technology. Jeff Byrd, a Republican running for New Mexico's 3rd congressional district (U.S. House) against one of the most liberal Democratic incumbents in the House, Rep. Ben Ray Luján, got a bit of help from a small tech firm located in Albuquerque.The Albuquerque-based tech firm microIT Infrastructure, LLC, released of a free mobile app for the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and iTouch platforms in support of Jeff. The app can be download in...

Dressing up like Wolverine or Cersei Lannister is probably more fun than scouring the classifieds for menial jobs. Imagine you're a college graduate stuck in a perpetually lousy economy. That's a problem Japanese twenty-somethings have faced for more than 20 years. Two decades of stagnation after the collapse of the 1980s real-estate and stock bubbles — combined with labor laws making it tough to fire older workers — have relegated vast numbers of Japanese young adults to low-paying, temporary contract jobs. Many find themselves living with their parents well into their twenties and beyond, unmarried and childless. Then again, they...

From Greenpeace’s “Save the Arctic” page. COPENHAGEN — Danish toy maker Lego said Thursday it won’t renew a deal allowing Shell to hand out Lego sets at its gas stations in some 30 countries, following a viral campaign protesting Arctic drilling. Environmental activists Greenpeace launched in July a video showing an Arctic landscape with a Shell drilling platform made of Lego bricks covered in oil. Lego CEO Joergen Vig Knudstorp said the protest “may have created misunderstandings among our stakeholders,” adding the company didn’t want to be embroiled in the environmental campaign. The world’s largest toy maker “should never...

That didn’t take long. Mere weeks into the U.S. Ebola scare, and liberal media personalities are already playing the race card. Would a ban on travel from countries struggling to contain Ebola actually work? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn’t matter, apparently. The real problem with the travel ban is that it’s obviously racist:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)MSNBC’s Toure Neblett called the idea of a travel ban “immoral.” If you’re unfamiliar w/ Neblett, you’re not alone. His programming appears on MSNBC, which not very many people watch. But since Neblett has dabbled in 9/11 Trutherism, he’s clearly the best person to ask about the...

I’ve had my fill of the pleas for money that have been filling up my email in-box, and that’s saying something – as a lawyer, I usually have a great respect for people demanding money. This is bipartisan insanity – both sides are going nuts. I’m getting stuff that’s clearly not meant for me. Just take a look at what came in earlier today – I think somebody mad at my conservative Twitter musings put me on a list for Democrat millennials. I’m just not sure the Democrats truly get know their target demographic: From: Joe Biden Subject: Bro, I...