{"id":28023,"date":"2014-09-30T09:35:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=28023"},"modified":"2014-09-30T09:35:13","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:35:13","slug":"the-drumbeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=28023","title":{"rendered":"The drumbeats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The police are getting wearable cameras. I suspect I’m too late for this boomlet. There are two public company makers:<\/p>\n

\"TASROneYear\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DGLYTwoYears\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You can read more about them in a Motley Fool<\/em> piece. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Harry’s brilliant mortgage idea. <\/strong>Here’s an idea that went awry. Interest rates are low. The fed wants me to borrow. I figured I could a get mortgage for a little over 3%. I could invest the money and make double that. Hence go for the mortgage. (I didn’t need the mortgage to buy the place. I already owned it.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bad idea. Getting a mortgage these days is a total<\/strong> nightmare. It’s weeks and weeks and weeks of nonsense. It’s unending requests for more stupid paperwork. Appraisals are slow. The bank takes its sweet time to do anything. And in the middle of it, the loan officer goes on vacation — without telling me, the supplicant (that’s another word for applicant).<\/p>\n

In short, don’t do it. Sorry for the bad advice.<\/p>\n

Signaling Post-Snowden Era, New iPhone Locks Out N.S.A. <\/strong>It’s always hard for me to write about privacy. If I promote ways to protect the privacy of your communications from hackers, et al, it seems I’m promoting a life of crime.\u00a0 And lumping the NSA and the FBI in with Russian hackers may be excessive. However, you must read a New York Times piece extolling the privacy virtues of the iPhone 6. Way down the bottom of the piece, it warns against something I’ve warned about also — your files in the cloud are not <\/strong>secure from prying eyes. But they are safe on the iPhone 6 and 6 PLUS. Before you post anything to iCloud or Dropbox of whoever, think “Does it really matter if my competitors, the FBI, the NSA, the IRS sees the contents?” If it does, stick with other backup and sharing techniques. Like my favorite Acorn drives. See right hand column. You can read the Times piece here.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Why I canceled Netflix.<\/strong><\/span> They never have the movie I want to watch. Amazon Prime seems to be better. If it’s a new movie, Amazon will often have it and charge me a few bucks. That’s better than Netflix which doesn’t have it, despite my monthly $7.95 subscription. Netflix needs to change their subscription model.<\/p>\n

Europe’s Anti-Semitism Comes Out of the Shadows.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span> Europe is increasingly anti-semitic, this time driven by the Muslim radicalization . European jews are leaving for Israel. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Venezuela’s Crackdown on Opposition.<\/strong> <\/span>A short explanation on how the present government is destroying their wonderful country. Inflation is now an amazing 60% a year. Click here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Most Notorious Travel Scams and How to Avoid Them. <\/span><\/strong>From Eagle Creek, the luggage maker. Click here.<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish medical humor<\/span><\/strong>
\nDoctor Bloom, who was known for miraculous cures for arthritis, had a waiting-room full of people when a little old lady, completely bent over in half, shuffled in slowly, leaning on her cane. When her turn came, she went into the doctor’s office, and emerged within half an hour walking completely erect, with her head held high and a big smile.<\/p>\n

A woman in the waiting room who had seen all this said, “It’s a miracle! You walked in bent in half and now you’re walking erect. A true miracle. What did that doctor do?”<\/p>\n

She answered, “Miracle, shmiracle. . . he gave me a longer cane.”<\/p>\n

Totally tasteless Muslim humor
\n<\/strong><\/span>Two Muslim mothers are sitting in the cafe chatting over a pint of goat’s milk. The older of the two moms pulls out her bag and starts flipping through photos and reminiscing.<\/p>\n

“This is my oldest son, Mohamed. He would be 24 now.”<\/p>\n

The other mom replies, “I remember him as a baby.”<\/p>\n

Mom says, “He’s a martyr now.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, so sad, my dear.”<\/p>\n

Mom flips to another photo. “And this is my second son, Kali. He would be 21.”<\/p>\n

The other mom replies, “Oh I remember him. He had such curly hair when he was born.”<\/p>\n

Mom sighs, “He’s a martyr, too.”<\/p>\n

“Oh gracious me,” says the second mother.<\/p>\n

“And this is my third son, my beautiful Ahmed. He would be 18,” Mom whispers.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” says her friend enthusiastically, “I remember when he first started school.”<\/p>\n

“He’s a martyr also,” Mom says, with tears in her eyes.<\/p>\n

After a pause and a deep sigh, the second Muslim mother looks wistfully at the photos and says:<\/p>\n

“They blow up so fast these days?”<\/p>\n

\"HarryNewton\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton who can hear the drumbeat to full-out war. “We can’t beat ISIS by bombing them,…” say the hawks in Washington. Then what… Time to buy more defense stocks. It’s sick when sicknesses — like police brutality and war in the Middle East — turn our innocent brains towards which stocks will benefit?<\/p>\n