LPGroup.org

Research show that Reseach doesn't matter

2010-01-28T12:26:00.000-06:00

Ok, I didn't do any real "research" on this topic but it has always bothered me. Why is it that when any number of completely unbiased institutions around the world come to some concrete conclusion after years and years of painstaking research and testing, some people just don't care. They can be utterly unchanged in their opinion on a subject even though they have been proven wrong by numerous research and development groups.

You can Google Research on Research and get a lot of results about how to do research properly and how to get involved in research but nobody seems to care about how many people around the world simply do not care what research presents to us.

My in-laws for example are dead certain that a programmable thermostat doesn't save any energy at all. They know that it just takes more power to "bring the house back up to that temperature" so you really don't save any money (or energy for that matter). It wouldn't matter what I did to convince them otherwise. I could hire a team of HVAC people to come to their house and show models and slide shows of how climate control systems work and they would remain unconvinced. They would be just as certain, if not MORE SO, than before. It would all be some kind of scheme to get them to buy something that they didn't need or save energy that doesn't need saving.

A recent article in USA Today shows how same sex couples can be just as effective at raising kids as a couple consisting of both sexes. Do you think this is really going to change the minds of people opposing same sex marriages? Are these people really going to sit back and say "Hey, maybe after all theses years... they are right."?

I'm not saying we should stop all research and give up our causes. I'm just wondering how we can present these things to people in a way that seems less threatening. In a way that will make people listen. In a way people can learn, without realizing they are learning, I guess.

Removing News Corps. Feeds

2009-11-10T12:55:00.000-06:00

Well, it looks like I can start removing all my News Corps. Feeds. I know my little blog won't mean much. I'd sure like to see all the News Corps. links drop off the Internet. That might wake this guy up. Maybe all of the bloggers that work for this guy can talk some sense into him.

Here's a link to the papers run by News Corp. Feel free to start dropping their feeds as well.

Time to celebrate -- Murdoch to hide his crap: "

For someone as successful as he's been, Rupert Murdoch sure has no clue what the internet is all about.

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google's search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

In recent months, Murdoch his lieutenants have stepped up their war of words with Google, accusing it of "kleptomania" and acting as a "parasite" for including News Corp content in its Google News pages. But asked why News Corp executives had not chosen to simply remove their websites entirely from Google's search indexes – a simple technical operation – Murdoch said just such a move was on the cards.

'I think we will, but that's when we start charging,' he said. 'We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story - but if you're not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form.'

The 78-year-old mogul's assertion, however, is not actually correct: users who click through to screened WSJ.com articles from Google searches are usually offered the full text of the story without any subscription block. It is only users who find their way to the story through the Wall Street Journal's website who are told they must subscribe before they can read further.

Murdoch also wants to legally challenge the doctrine of Fair Use. Please, please do!

Murdoch added that he did not agree with the idea that search engines fell under 'fair use' rules - an argument many aggregator websites use as part of their legal justification for reproducing excerpts of news stories online.

'There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether... but we'll take that slowly.'

Of course, Murdoch will never challenge Fair Use. Media organizations live in fear of a clear judicial affirmation of Fair Use. It would make it harder for them to threaten people who engage in accepted Fair Use practices.

Still, it's amazing how little Murdoch knows about how his products interact with the internet -- that one can get full stories off of WSJ if you just know how, or that Google News doesn't actually do anything except provide a headline, part of the first sentence and a link to the source material. He actually thinks Google news is a 'parasite' for linking to his products!

The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories - they just take them," he said. "That's Google, that's Microsoft, that's Ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it free all the time, and I think we've been asleep."

That level of ignorance of the medium is breathtaking.

With luck, Murdoch will also order Fox News to pull their stuff off Google News and enact a paywall to keep those freeloading communist conservatives from reading the material for free. It'd be the fair and balanced things to do. And I, for one, can't wait.

Gmail outages could turn off enterprises

2009-09-07T13:41:00.003-05:00

Must have been a slow news day over at Macworld. Are you telling me that if something is unreliable people tend to not rely on it? That's frickin' genius. I HATE captain obvious headlines.

Gmail outages could turn off enterprises. Repeated outages of Google's Gmail online e-mail system could discourage enterprise customers from using it.

Use BCC to Cut Down on Reply Spam [Email Overload]

2009-08-20T11:29:00.001-05:00

No Shit! Just don't hesitate to inform people of this when you are included on mass emails with pages of people on the CC line.

Use BCC to Cut Down on Reply Spam [Email Overload]

PC World runs down three lessons they've learned about containing the email beast, and at least one of them is worth contemplating for your next multi-recipient email. In short, BCC isn't just a privacy tool, but a reply-all killer.

Thomas, a federal government worker, uses BCC more often than not when addressing multiple recipients. In most cases, nobody cares who else is addressed on the message, and in almost every case, it prevents over-eager reply senders from hitting everybody with needless retorts.

Use them for messages with many addressees and that will cut down on all the 'Me too' responses from people who stupidly hit the 'reply all' button before sending their worthless e-mail. One person hits reply all, another 29 send a message about the mistake, and you suddenly have 212 messages when only one was necessary.

Basic, for sure, but it's a good refresher, or a small hack if you weren't already using BCC to your advantage. The same article, though, agrees with our own advice on BCC disasters—don't blind carbon copy anyone who you want to remain truly hidden, because their reply could hit anyone you've carbon-copied in a "non-blind" way. So if you're aggravated by email waste but nervous about an office faux pas, BCC everyone who deserves to have a copy, and keep everyone else out of it.

Study: Most Twitter posts 'babble'

2009-08-14T15:13:00.001-05:00

If you read the article you'll see that they used 6 categories. One of them actually being "pointless babble". If you ask me, 5 of the 6 are actually pointless. Only 1 of them (news) would be worth reading. So, while 40% might be "pointless babble", I'd say 90% would be just pointless.

A study reveals that more than 40 percent of Twitter's tweets are 'Pointless Babble.' So what were we expecting? Why should self-published content to be different than, for instance, conversation?

New Brackets

2009-03-19T15:44:00.001-05:00

New Brackets are out there... Looks like a three-way-tie so far.

March Madness 2009 LPGroup Brackets

Accepting Donations

2008-12-29T11:05:00.001-06:00

I have created a PayPal button to allow for donations to the LPGroup.

Links to watch for rates...

2008-10-21T17:04:00.002-05:00

10 year treasury rates

Mortgage Current Coupons Fnma

Countrywide rates (Hometownlawrence.com)

Team Loats cleans up

2008-04-08T09:20:00.001-05:00

Looks like "Team Loats" cleaned up on the bracket this year taking both first and second place. Julie's final score tiebreaker was only 4 point off too. I think this deserves an honorary title.

CSBSports page.

LPGroup acquires JiggletheCable.org

2008-04-01T09:15:00.001-05:00

In a stunning announcement earlier this morning the LPGroup has revealed that it will go into the "cable jiggling" business. An undisclosed amount of cash was offered for the entire North American operations of JiggletheCable.org. More on this story as it develops.

I tell you the man is brilliant!

2008-02-28T11:45:00.001-06:00

Bush: We're in a slowdown

(CNN) -- President Bush on Thursday said he does not think the country is headed into a recession, but admitted it is in a "slowdown."

President Bush is calling on Congress to take action on some key legislation. When asked if he was concerned about the economy having an effect on Republican John McCain's presidential campaign, Bush said, "I'm concerned about the economy because I'm concerned about working Americans, concerned about people who want to put money on the table and save for their kids' education."

"We've acted robustly and now it's time to see if this program will really work," he said, referring to the economic stimulus bill he recently signed into law.

The government hopes the measure, which will send most Americans tax rebate checks by May, will either prevent a recession or make one relatively brief.

The package also includes tax breaks for equipment purchases by businesses, as well as payments to disabled veterans and some senior citizens.

When asked what advice he would give to the average person facing the prospect of gas prices hitting $4 per gallon, Bush stopped the reporter and said, "What did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gas?"

"That's interesting. I hadn't heard that," he said at the Thursday news conference.

Bush said Congress must make tax cuts permanent because of "economic uncertainty."

Bush also urged Congress to vote on an update to the terrorist surveillance bill, which allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on foreigners without a warrant.

A temporary update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expired more than a week ago.

"The law expired, the threat to America didn't expire," the president told reporters.

Bush has been pressing Congress to pass a permanent update, arguing that its delayed passage hurts national security.

The Senate passed a bill, but members of the House have taken issue with a provision in the Senate version that grants retroactive immunity from prosecution for telecommunications companies that assisted the government in its surveillance program.

Critics said the program violated the law, and phone and Internet companies face as many as 40 lawsuits related to their participation. The House has balked at passing the immunity measure.

Bush defended telecommunications companies that helped U.S. officials monitor terrorist communications, saying it is "patently unfair" for the companies to be sued by opponents of the program.

"You can't expect phone companies to participate if they feel like they're going to be sued," he said.

The program is critical to national security, he said.

"It's in our interest because we want to know who's calling who," Bush said.

Democrats have said that the existing 1978 law gives the government all the authority it needs to carry out surveillance and that passage of the final bill can wait until the House and Senate reconcile their differences.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill would allow U.S. intelligence to tap into phone and Internet traffic overseas without obtaining a judge's warrant, even if the calls were routed through communications centers in the United States.

The president also repeated his objection to sitting down with leaders of countries such as Iran and Cuba, nations accused of abusing human rights and stifling democracy.

The move has been an issue between Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

"It is extremely counterproductive, sends chilling messages to our allies. ... It would be a mistake," Bush said. "Having your picture taken with someone like Raul (Castro) lends the status of our country to him." Castro, brother of Fidel, is the new president of Cuba.

Bush said he intends to meet with China's president during a trip to Beijing to see the summer Olympic Games, which begin in August.

The Bush administration has accused China, a major U.S. trade partner, of human rights abuses. Bush didn't elaborate on what issues he might bring up.

When asked if Obama's recent comments about Iraq were "naive," the president was quick to shoot down the question.

"I believe Sen. Obama better stay focused on his campaign with Sen. Clinton, neither of whom has secured their party's nomination yet," he said, adding that the Republican nomination has not been decided either.

The president, who recently returned from a trip to Africa, also asked lawmakers to pass a bill that reauthorizes his emergency plan of AIDS relief. He urged the American people to be "generous and compassionate" in supporting programs to treat AIDS, and said he's pleased that a House committee has passed a bill reauthorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR.

The plan has provided $15 billion since the president unveiled it in 2003. The new House proposal would greatly increase that amount.

During negotiations, House leaders reached an agreement with Bush on Wednesday to temper abstinence messages in promoting the program. The Senate is crafting its own proposal.

The president said Congress must act to approve the full funding requested for U.S. troops in Iraq.

"It seems that no matter what happens in Iraq, opponents of the war have one answer: retreat," Bush said.

"When things were going badly in Iraq a year ago, they called for withdrawal. Then we changed our strategy, launched the surge, and turned the situation around."

Bush praised the success of the surge of American troops, saying it has decreased violence, including American casualties.

The president ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 to help pacify Baghdad and the surrounding provinces.

Republicans Block FISA Talks

2008-02-24T12:59:00.001-06:00

Republicans Block FISA Talks

Posted by Hugh D'Andrade

FISA legislation is stalled in the House. After walking out of meetings last week, House Republicans refused on Thursday to meet with congressional Democrats to discuss hammering out differences between the Senate and House bills. The message from the Republicans is clear: Absolutely no compromise, especially on the crucial question of retroactive immunity for telecoms.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer accused the Republicans of playing politics, and wondered whether they expect the House to simply rubberstamp the Senate bill:

...The decision to not participate, coupled with their vote against an extension of their bill - the Protect America Act - only serves to reinforce the perception that Republicans prefer to have a political issue rather than a strong new FISA bill in place as quickly as possible. Certainly Republicans do not really believe that the role of the House is to simply rubberstamp whatever bills the Senate passes.

In a press conference, the President made clear who was giving those marching orders to the rank-and-file in the House:

How do you compromise on something like granting liability for a telecommunications company? You can't. If we do not give liability protection to those who are helping us, they won't help us. And if they don't help us, there will be no program. And if there's no program, America is more vulnerable.

...See, what the American people must understand is that without help from the phone companies, there is no program. And these companies are going to be subject to multi-billion dollar lawsuits by trial lawyers, plaintiffs' attorneys. And it's going to drive them away from helping us -- unless they get liability protection -- prospective and retroactive.

Republican attempts to scuttle compromise on FISA may take other forms than simply refusing to discuss it. TechDirt reports that they may try a procedural maneuver called a discharge petition. If they can gather enough support for a re-named version of the bill, they can skip the debate and force a vote on the House floor -- effectively making an end run around the majority leadership.

Since discharge petitions are seen as a direct affront to leadership's control of the agenda, legislators are generally extremely reticent about signing them: The last time one was used successfully was in 2002, when it forced a vote on Shays-Meehan, the House version of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law. Some members even have blanket policies against signing such petitions. And since they require a simple majority to become effective, Republicans would need to win over many of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats who have urged Pelosi to move forward with the Senate's version of the FISA bill. And even those willing to break with Pelosi on this issue may have qualms about slapping her in the face quite so overtly.

The House should stand firm, and insist on its version of FISA reform, the imperfect but far superior RESTORE Act, which does not include immunity for telecom lawbreakers. Call or email your representative ONE MORE TIME to urge them to hold the line!

[Permalink]

Healthcare issue solved!

2008-02-21T22:56:00.001-06:00

You want a solution to the health care problem? Here it is... Stop letting the drug companies fleece the public with a scam that has been around for ages. The last paragraph says it best.

Prilosec now costs about $30 a month. Nexium costs about $200.

If anyone doubts the influence of drug company ads on patients and physicians — consider all those wasted billions of dollars for a pill that sells for more than six times as much as another drug that does the same thing, made by the same company.

The minute we let the drug companies advertise directly to the public we took a nose-dive down the slippery slope.

Blogger Hosting

2008-02-21T22:38:00.000-06:00

The LPGroup is now hosted by Blogger.