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Episode-2325- Listener Feedback for 11-13-18 — 12 Comments

  1. In our school distract the kids are “given” a Chromebook when they start elementary school.  At 6th grade they are allowed to take them home but not before the Parents pay $20 a year for an “insurance” plan to cover any damages.  You pay $20 every year till they graduate high school, and there’s a $150 deductible on all repairs.

    So yet again the government schools tell you one thing  but if you add it up the parents are paying for these Chromebooks.

    Which by the way they don’t get to keep when they graduate, nor can the do anything creative on since they are locked  down pretty hard.  No outside programs can be installed, the browsers are heavily limited on searches.  The whole 9 yards.

    As far the kids having WiFi at home.  I know a guy who works for our school district in the tech department.  He said it would be fairly cheap for the schools to put WiFi boxes on the outside of every school and blanket the city with WiFi.  However, they aren’t allowed since there is a law that states schools can’t compete with local businesses.

    • So that is 120 total plus 150 when anything doesn’t work which is likely not the kids fault, as computers have problems. Since you can buy a brand new awesome cromebook for 200 bucks I find this typical statist bullshit. Bet they are paying about 500 a piece for them on the back side to a friends company too. And replacing them say ever 3-4 years with zero trade value. Statist gonna state, that’s what they do.

  2. On the subject of Kosher labeling:

    It is a lot more complex than if it doesn’t contain pork its Kosher.

    If a product has a Kosher symbol it has also been supervised by a “Mashgiach”

    mashgiach (Hebrew: ??????, lit. “supervisor”; pl. ????????, mashgichim) is a Jew who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment.

    So a company wishing to certify their product as Kosher must employ a Mashgiach.  For example, a company may produce 500 items with only 423 of them being Kosher.  It could be an additive such as rennet  which is used to make some cheeses making the cheese un-Kosher because of the milk and meat prohibition.  It could be that a certain product uses pig gelatin rather than fish gelatin again making it un-Kosher, etc.

    When it comes to meat, it is an entire different story.  Not all meat is considered Kosher even if it is from an animal which would normally be Kosher.  For instance a cow is a Kosher animal (defined by split hooves and chewing of cud), however only certain parts of the cow are considered Kosher.  This is due to a story from the Bible about Jacob fighting with an Angel and his leg is hurt so those keeping Kosher don’t eat the hind quarters of a cow (no Filet or Serloin).

    But Kosher goes even farther with animal slaughter.  As Jack mentioned it must be killer in a certain way (no smack in the head with a piston, only a slit throat).  But even more, it must be unblemished at the start.  Here is where we could find some benefit in the quality of the meat.  A butcher finding that the meat is blemished in any way even after Kosher slaughter must not use that COW.  They can not cut out the blemish and continue which is common practice in butchery.  If a cow is found to have been sick, have a cancerous growth, been bruised and so on, the animal is no longer Kosher.  Hence the need for the Mashgiach, who certifies the meat as Kosher even is all of the other steps are followed he has the last determination.

    Also about the hunting and Kosher.  An animal killed by any means besides a slit throat is not Kosher.  There are Kosher deer farms and Kosher Bison is plentiful but it can not be hunted in the traditional sense.

    Furthermore even chicken and other fowl have rules for making it Kosher.  It can not be dipped in scalding water to remove feathers.  They must be plucked by hand, not machine.

    So is it better for you?  I don’t know.  But not allowing for blemished or sick animals to end up on your plate could be seen as a nice bonus.

     

  3. Aquaponics in a Greenhouse Central KY.

    Coldest outside temp this yr so far has been 19*.
    Coldest temp inside greenhouse has been 39*.
    I have been maintaining my greenhouse now for 2 winters.
    I have 1 OBC tote, 2 Drain and Fill, and 2 Raft beds (about 400 gallons of water). I have black garden hose attached to the inside of my south facing roof to help heat my water. On a sunny day, it will take 60* water to 75*. So to eliminate that drastic temp change on my fish, I have a 1000w electric bucket heater on a timer for nights. It has now allowed me to maintain a 70-75* range.

    I have plastic corrugated roof (3/4 of the way). My North wall is sealed and insulated. The west wall is sealed and insulated. The East and south walls are solar bubble wrap on the outside of 2×4 framing and i just completed adding the solar bubble wrap on the inside east/south walls and on the inside of the roof. The solar bubble wrap is R4 rating. When the temp is going below 20* I have a series of 1/2 pvc pipes to support a layer of plastic over the plants/grow beds inside the greenhouse. Last year I needed this “extra greenhouse” for 3 weeks during the coldest time.

    I currently have 70 tilapia (I have a breeding pair if any1 would like me to ship some tilapia to them) and 11 bluegill in the system. Swiss chard I am giving away. Broccoli, cauliflower, yellow peppers, sweet potatos, romain, buttercrunch lettuce, herbs (rosemary, basil, thyme, lemon mint). In my wicking bed are garlic, carrots, beets, turmeric.

    I can post pictures is interested or find me on facebook- Eddie Carter.

    • I would like to see your setup. I am in MD and have been thinking of trying to do a simple test setup of an aquaponics system to see if I can make it work here.

  4. Where proffit is concerned could you ever trust anyone (much less a corporate business) to dispose of a carcass and incurr the financial loss themselves, just because they found the meat to be below standard, tumured, sick etc.

    Packaging does not refuse ink.

  5. I can’t take credit for stamping bills, people have done that for years. Likewise local currency is well established in many places. Im just saying we can combine them.

    At the end of the show, you had a guy who wants to topple the government (who among us hasn’t thought about that and smiled, lol) . This may be a tool toward that objective, though mostly symbolically.

    My background educationally, and until recently, vocationally, is malware analysis. To make a computer virus, you need to understand how the system works and exploit properties of that system to change its function. You also need to do it discreetly to avoid security policies that safeguard against these actions, and you need to keep a low overhead so the infection can spread rapidly.

    That is exactly what I’m proposing with the stamped bills. Your injecting something into the money to alter the way it functions. You’re keeping the low overhead (cost of expansion) to increase its spread. You’re subverting the security safeguards (the law) by piggybacking on a trusted system, just as a virus would.

    As for what you want to make the money do… That could be anything at all. I used the example of promoting a local business, but that’s not really the point. The objective there was to localize the currency. What if the objective was to incentivize holding it, or to incentivize exchange as fast as possible, or to de-localize it? You can use the technique to alter any function of money.

    My angle on this… This is low-tech crypto-currency. It’s not new and scary, it doesn’t have the stink of boom to bust, and it builds on existing trust in the tangible dollar. It familiarizes people with the concept of programmable money, which is what crypto-currency really is. It’s a way of onboarding people with a new economic system, absent the hyperbole and bullshit. You can hijack those bills, backed only by the promise of someone else’s debt, and inject tangible value into it, in a decentralized manner. Tracking the serial numbers in a spreadsheet is not a far leap from a block chain. They’re both ledger systems that track currency transactions. Your grandparents can get a discount on a cup of coffee using a dollar bill like a coupon, two concepts they’re already familiar with, and be actively (albeit unwittingly) participating in a crypto-economy.

    Like a virus, any successful implementation will spread and evolve. The evolution here leads to crypto-currency. It starts with someone printing a UPC code on the bills so they can scan them at the register to apply the discount. And that point of sale system updates their ledger, or a shared ledger, which in turn analyzes transactions and models the flow of the money for more advanced capitalization on trends. Iterative advancements will arise where success is achieved, but it doesn’t need to start with that level of sophistication, that will only come into play when there is a profit motive to do so.

    And if this system was adopted by a hundred local economies, I would expect some to flat-out fail, many to achieve only mild success, but maybe one or two groups get it right, and their models inform subsequent attempts, improving success over time.

    Let’s look at the presently unrealistic “big picture”. When a lot of value is held in reserve, the economy is stable but slow. Conversely, the economy is effecient only when money moves rapidly from one party to another. There’s a constant balancing act between stability and effeciency, which presently the Fed manages by setting interest rates (I know, that’s a crude and lazy textbook definition, lol). Could an idea like this be used to take that power back, while using the Fed’s own currency? Probably. There are systems like custodial and delegate Sub-valuing which could incentivize people spend or hold money relative to the overall trend in money supply, which means that balance is maintained without adjusting interest rates, or any centralized control. You can do that with crypto-currency, but not physical money… So hybridized them. That’s something the people need to do because it undermines the existence of the federal reserve, they won’t do it. And even that is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crypto economies. But we have to take the first small steps toward that.

    I like this idea because I’m still waiting for the crypto revolution. And the defining moment in any revolution is when ink hits paper… The declaration of independence, the Magna Carta, The Gutenberg Bible, countless manifestos and treatises… A stamp on a dollar bill can be as powerful as any of those.

    And its poetic justice, infecting their currency with our own simple economic virus which overwrites its value with a value we control… Every bill a viral host spreading further and further… A zombie dollar… This is the zombie apocalypse we’ve all been wanting.

    But that’s in a distant whimsical future… For now, just see if it works to bring in local customers who spend at least a buck. It couldn’t hurt.

    • Joseph you said, “I can’t take credit for stamping bills, people have done that for years. Likewise local currency is well established in many places. Im just saying we can combine them.”

      Look man that is like saying,

      I can’t take credit for chocolate and peanut butter, people have been eating both for years. Likewise putting two foods together is well established in many places. Im just saying we can combine peanut butter and chocolate into a small cup similar to a tiny cupcake and put them in packages and even freeze them.

  6. Regarding the Vietnam Memorial, I remember the controversy. The design was criticized quite a bit. As I recall, it was called “a gash” across the landscape. Initially, it was a portable memorial, but once it was made permanent, attitudes changed significantly and favorably. I’m not sure why attitudes changed. Maybe when it became obvious that relatives and friends of the deceased gained emotional comfort from the memorial, the critics shut their mouths.

    Alex Shrugged

  7.  
    Regarding kashrut (kosher) questions. You did a good job, Jack, but I’ll cover a few of the questions anyway because there is potential for misunderstanding.

    I am a kosher-practicing, shomer Shabbat, Orthodox Jew.
     
    Bottom line… certifying something as kosher is a lot like trying to define what a permaculture-grown-and-certified food item is. A lot of people claim to be permaculture experts and some of them are. Some of them are mistaken, but it’s an honest mistake. Others have a definition of permaculture that makes no sense to me, but makes sense to them. How you define the standard defines which people will trust you. The same is true of kosher standards. I trust certain people or organizations to have the correct definition, so I look for their kosher symbol (like a trademark) and avoid others I do not know or trust.

    Do all kosher food items require a kosher symbol? No. Fresh fruits and vegetables are kosher. Raw grains, rice and oats are kosher. Salt, spices and such are kosher, but once any significant processing (like cooking) is done to food, a kosher certification is required because there are a million ways to goof this up.

    Regarding milk…

    U.S. federal food requirements for inspection and labeling of milk are stricter than kosher standards. Thus I would trust milk in the USA. Cheese is a different story. Special care must be taken with cheese products. (I’m being vague because it is a big subject.)

    Regarding meat…

    According to the Bible, non-Jews are required to kill an animal cleanly before eating. You cannot eat it while it is still alive. Nor can you let it suffer. See Genesis 9:4.

    Jews have more requirements. We are restricted to certain types of birds: chicken, quail, turkey, duck, but no hawks, no emu, no ostrich. Fish must have scales, so no catfish, no oysters. Other animals must have split hooves and chew their cud such as cow, goat, sheep, deer, but no horses, no pigs. Also, you must not mix meat and milk together… not even for your dog.

    Why? The Bible doesn’t say why. You will find windy arguments telling you why one must be kosher, but those are assumptions. As in the military, if the commander says to do it that way then you do it that way. A non-com might provide a reason, and he might be right, but he really doesn’t know because the commander didn’t share his reasoning with anyone.

    Yet, producing kosher products seems more complex than what I described above. The complexity stems from a disagreement amongst Jews as to what the exact requirements are for kosher slaughter, and what can render a kosher product non-kosher when exposed to a non-kosher product. The point is that there is a standard, and certain organizations certify that a product meets those standards whether something is certified kosher, organic, non-GMO or what have you. Nothing mysterious about it.

    Are kosher products of higher quality?

    Usually, but not for the reason you might suspect. A company expects to get some value back from certification either in a larger customer base or a perception of higher quality. Since most companies don’t bother certifying low-quality food, the perception is that kosher food is of higher quality. This is a coincidence. Nothing about kosher certification makes the food better.

    Does kosher certification add to the cost of food?

    Somewhat, but since it is usually applied only to higher quality foods that already demand a premium, the cost has a minimal effect. It is also a second pair of eyes on your food products. That is worth something to some people. The symbol seems to increase sales whether people are kosher or not.

    Is kosher slaughter humane?

    Yes it is. Some people disagree, but those people would disagree with any process that ends up with a dead animal to be eaten.

    Kosher slaughter is the same process when a homesteader slaughters a chicken with a knife. (Not twisting it’s head off, please!) I’m glad Jack brought up the problem with slaughtering a cow since kosher people who worry about how a cow is slaughtered have no problem slaughtering their own chickens. It is easier to meet those standards. However, the way Jack slaughters quail would not qualify as kosher slaughter.

    Cows, goats and deer have additional standards to meet. Their lungs must be (generally) unblemished. Some would say entirely unblemished. Those people are following a “glatt kosher” standard… which seems to been the modern standard.

    Is rabbit kosher?

    No. It looks as if it chews its cud, but it does not have split hooves.

    What about hunting deer? Can I shoot a deer and have it be kosher?

    No. Deer, cows, goats, sheep must be slaughtered with a sharp knife. With special permission from a rabbi, I could hunt a deer and shoot it since “hunting season” is actually herd management so that the animals will suffer less from starvation during the winter. However, if I shot a deer, I would donate the carcass to feed the poor, or give it to a non-Jewish neighbor.

    Non-Jews can hunt deer to their heart’s delight. No need for permission, but the animal would not be considered kosher.
     
    In ancient times, wild deer could be netted and then slaughtered with a knife, but this is no longer allowed. Only domesticated deer can be slaughtered and be considered kosher.

    Are there any legal issues with kosher certification.

    Yes. Libel laws require me NEVER to say that an item is NOT kosher. I can only say what is kosher, or what I would eat. I might say (and have said in the past) that I would not eat at a certain establishment even though it claimed to be kosher. That doesn’t mean it isn’t kosher. It only means I’d have to be on death’s door before I’d… well… never mind. 🙂

    If you are dying, or in a SURVIVAL SITUATION where your life is at risk (meaning if I don’t do something right-the-F-now, I’m going to lose a limb) then the rules no longer apply. When the situation normalizes then the rules resume.

    You shall therefore keep My statutes, and Mine ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live by them.” –Lev. 18:5.

    This is interpreted to mean “Live by the commandments. Don’t die by them.”

    I am glad to answer questions or to clarify.

    Alex Shrugged

  8. One correction: only fish with fins and scales are kosher. Thus catfish, sharks, whales and dolphins are not kosher. Swordfish is a matter of controversy for some people. I will not eat swordfish.

    Finally, the book I use to decide what is kosher and what is not is… “Is It Kosher? Encyclopedia of Kosher Foods Facts and Fallacies” by Rabbi E. Eidlitz.” ISBN: 0-87306-606-5.

    I have benefited from (and I am associated with) the web site “Kosher Nexus”.

    http://koshernexus.org/

    Alex Shrugged