Sep 29
And then there were none… a street intersection in Qingdao, China notorious for its ridiculous cluster of 19 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras is suddenly, inexplicably, thankfully free from Big Brother’s prying eyes.
Sep 29
The interest in home farming, or urban farming, has been spreading across the country. In New York City rooftops are becoming gardens, chicken coops — and even the home of thriving bee hives. The bees gather nectar from blossoms and plants around the city and transform it into liquid gold with their alchemy. You can try some of this precious product with this Manhattan Rooftop Honey Flight.
Sep 29
PT Anderson’s new movie Inherent Vice looks like it’s going to be oodles of fun to watch. The first official trailer is absolutely fantastic and also, absolutely wall the off, shitbat zany. There is so much weird and so much hilariousness and so much awesome that I can’t wait to watch it in theaters.
Sep 29
Pinch Back at Bank Fees
Posted in: UncategorizedWhat little things do you do to pinch pennies and avoid unnecessary spending? Perhaps you take the bus instead of a cab. Or perhaps you walk instead of taking the bus! Do you bring your lunch to work instead of buying it? Do you avoid pricey coffee shops and the lattes they offer in favor of the maybe free, or certainly less expensive, cup at the office?
Everyone has a penny pinching pet peeve, and you’re invited to add some comments at the end of this column. But whether you’re a millionaire who insists on flying coach instead of first class, or whether you cut the end off the toothpaste tube to get the last drop of product, you probably have your own ways of saving money.
One of the most obvious everyday money hacks is your use of the ATM and your checking account. If you pay attention to the costs, you can save a small fortune in fees and charges – money that could go into savings or paying down your debt. So you get a double benefit from your actions, not only saving money but using those savings to improve your finances.
ATM Fees
Would you walk around the block to get to your own bank’s ATM – even if it is raining? If you’re willing to take a few extra steps or drive a few blocks out of the way, you could save a small fortune on a regular basis. The combination of fees charged by both your own bank and the ATM owner, really add up.
A new survey by Bankrate.com says that last year banks raked in around $32 billion in overdraft fees and around $8 billion in ATM fees! Avoiding those fees is easy — if you’re paying attention. And lately, those fees are too large to ignore.
The Bankrate survey says the average fee for using an out-of -network ATM is now $4.35 per transaction! That charge has increased every year, growing 5 percent over the past year, and up 23 percent over the past five years.
If you live in Phoenix, you’re paying the nation’s highest average fee – $4.96 per out-of-network transaction – followed closely by Denver, San Diego, Houston, and Milwaukee, which each average more than $4.65. But every institution in the Bankrate survey charges non-customers for usage, with the most common fee being $3.00.
This kind of fee is money down the drain. And you can easily avoid it. If you find yourself making too many out-of-network transactions you might even consider switching your checking account to an institution that has more ATMs in more convenient locations.
And never make a cash withdrawal for just a few dollars if you have to pay a fee. Remember, this is a “flat fee” – not a percentage of your withdrawal. So, if you simply must get cash, make it a significant amount. It still costs you money out of pocket but it’s a far smaller percentage of the withdrawal! That’s a small consolation.
Overdraft Fees
The second easily avoidable fee is the overdraft fee – something that banks count on for their profits! The Bankrate survey reports that the average overdraft fee set a new record high for the 16th consecutive year: It is now $32.74 for each overdraft!
Not being able to subtract your balances is no longer an excuse for overdrafting – as you can easily go online to check your balance before paying a bill, or ask for a balance at the ATM before making a withdrawal. If you have automatic bill payment, you need to keep enough money in your balance to avoid those fees.
Having an “overdraft” line of credit at the bank is not really the answer. Yes, they’ll extend that privilege – but at a cost. There is likely to be a fee of at least $15 per transaction for dipping into the overdraft, which is then put on a credit card account that charges very high interest rates if you don’t pay it off immediately.
Checking Account Fees
The third category of unnecessary fees is the monthly fee for your checking account. Most are easily avoided if you opt for direct deposit of your paycheck or keep a minimum balance required by the terms of the account or if you have other accounts with the bank, such as an IRA CD.
There are two types of checking accounts, with different fee structures. Those that don’t pay interest on the balances, have an average monthly service fee of $5.26, according to Bankrate.
But interest-bearing accounts average monthly service fees of $14.76. Since interest paid on balances is so low, you might want to switch to a non-interest checking account. (The average minimum balance required to avoid fees on an interest-bearing account is $6,211 in the Bankrate survey.)
You can easily avoid paying for checking. Many financial institutions still offer free checking – and the competition is getting crowded now that Wal-Mart plans to offer this type of product. So it pays to check around for the best checking deal.
Better to Pay Attention, than to Pay Fees
Paying a lot of small fees adds up to big profits for banks — and big costs for you. They make your money disappear as quickly as a grande non-fat latte. And you don’t even get a moment’s pleasure from the money spent!
To search for the lowest-cost bank products, the most ATMs, the best credit cards, just go to www.Bankrate.com and check out the alternatives.
The banks think you’ll keep paying them — without paying attention. We can prove them wrong. That’s the Savage Truth.
Sep 29
Jawbone UP app for HealthKit is duplicate effort, but still great
Posted in: Uncategorized
Apple’s HealthKit is a unique platform that lets apps speak to one another, using it as a backbone. What happens when that data overlaps existing app info, though? Recently, Jawbone introduced a version of their UP app that integrates with HealthKit. The app doesn’t require a band, but what if you have one already, and use their other app? Jawbone’s … Continue reading
Sep 29
Netflix is getting the sequel to 'Crouching Tiger' the same day it hits theaters
Posted in: Today's Chili
Netflix’s tight relationship with The Weinstein Company has scored another win. The two revealed tonight that next year when the sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon arrives in theaters, it will also be available streaming on Netflix at the same…
Sep 29
Prisoners are forgotten people. Locked away, they are totally out of sight, and even more out of mind.
Yet prisoners are among society’s most vulnerable populations. Like children, they are completely dependent on others for everything from food to clothing to medical care. But unlike children, who are mostly cared for by parents who have their best interests at heart, prisoners are overseen by prison guards. This makes them even more vulnerable: Prisoners rely completely on prison guards for everything, and if they are being abused by those guards they are not in a position to tell anyone, not a single person — not a teacher or a church member or any other members of the community — because prisoners don’t live in the community. They live behind steel, locked doors. Which is why violence against prisoners by prison guards is such a terrible abuse of power.
To be clear, the thought of a prison guard abusing a prisoner does not sadden most of us the way that child abuse does. This is because most of us assume that the prisoner is a fundamentally bad person who deserves whatever is coming to him. But bear in mind that most prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent offenses — a notion that should impact anyone’s idea of the “bad” prisoner. And even those who have committed violent offenses don’t deserve to be brutalized.
Allegations of horrific and widespread abuse of Florida prisoners — a story broken recently in a series of articles by the Miami Herald — serve to remind us that we cannot, and should not, forget about prisoners. Take, for example, Darren Rainey and Randall Jordan-Aparo, who purportedly died in unthinkably cruel ways at the hands of their guards.
According to reports, in 2012, Darren Rainey, a mentally ill man serving a two-year prison sentence for a non-violent crime of cocaine possession, defecated in his cell and refused to clean it up. In response, guards allegedly forced Rainey to stand in a tiny shower cell under scalding hot water for almost two hours. Fellow inmates reported that Rainey screamed in agony until his skin literally separated from his body. Rainey was found lifeless in the shower stall — apparently boiled to death at the hands of his guards.
In 2010, Randall Jordan-Aparo was serving a two-year prison term for the non-violent crime of check forgery. While serving his sentence, Jordan-Aparo had a flare-up of a rare blood disorder. After Jordan-Aparo’s desperate pleas for proper medical treatment annoyed the guards, they sprayed lethal doses of mustard-colored gas into his tiny cell. Jordan-Aparo was found dead, a Bible under his shoulder, his face next to the bottom of the locked prison cell door, as if searching for a last gasp of air. The cause of death was listed as an infection related to the blood disorder, with no mention of the strange orange residue coating his body.
The deaths of Rainey and Jordan-Aparo are horrific.
In recent weeks, and seemingly in response to Florida media reports about their deaths, Florida Secretary of the Department of Corrections Michael Crews dismissed 32 guards who were accused of criminal misconduct or wrongdoing stemming from inmate deaths at four different prisons throughout the state. In doing so, the Florida Department of Corrections has perhaps taken a first, small step in addressing the allegations of violence and cruelty exhibited within the prison walls throughout the state. But for every death, for every act of vicious abuse, there were likely scores of guards, medical personnel, and prison administrators — maybe even senior prison administrators — who actively participated or tacitly acquiesced in the murderous, abusive behavior.
It does not bode well for correctional overhaul in Florida that Mr. Crews has handed over the investigation of 85 non-natural prison inmate deaths to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the same agency that closed its investigation on Jordan-Aparo’s death without any findings of wrongdoing. FDLE was already investigating nine additional mysterious inmate deaths.
Nor does it bode well that upon learning of the 32 dismissals, officials from the Florida Correctional Union called the firings a “massacre.”
There seems to have been a massacre in Florida’s prisons, all right. But it’s most certainly not the firings.
It will take genuine leadership, a major housecleaning, and correctional union cooperation to overcome what appears to be an ingrained and devastating culture of abuse in Florida’s prison.
It is often said that the measure of a civilized society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. We need to care about and remember our prisoners, many of whom are poor people of color serving relatively short prison sentences for non-violent offenses. The consequences of forgetting, as demonstrated in Florida, are deadly.
Sep 29
Last year we reviewed Parrot’s Zik headphones, a pair of touch-activated Bluetooth cans that have now been updated with a slimmer, lighter frame. Though not available yet, the company has shown them off, and you needn’t worry: all the best features are still there, and then some. The newest headphones are dubbed the Parrot Zik 2.0, and with them comes … Continue reading
Sep 29
Lately, Amazon’s been doing whatever it can to get you to sign up for Amazon Prime, which we’ve long said is one of the best tech deals around . If you still needed an excuse to sign up, here’s a very good one: Amazon’s new original series Transparent, which I happily binge-watched all weekend.
Sep 29
With my steaks, I prefer the unbeatable seasoning one-two punch of salt and pepper. And well, maybe some garlic if I’m feeling frisky. I just like the taste of red meat too much. But around the world? You’ll get steaks seasoned and marinated with orange peel, lime zest, soy sauce, shrimp paste, sugar and much more.
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