Same here in missouri. We had 2 dry summers in a row, then a wet harvest time this year.
Hay prices are up over double last year and last year was up from the previous year. Last year for example I would have been happy to buy $25 a 5x5 round bale. This year if you can find them, they're $90-$100. Small squares 2 years ago were $1.25, this year I happily paid $4.
Check your credit. My second son was born a month early and spent 3 days in the NICU. 3 years later I was getting fresh bills from doctors I couldn't remember. Spent another year arguing with the hospital, the doctors and the facilities people(hospital and floor space and doctors all are different bills!!!!!). After a year they "wrote off the bills" what they actually did was stopped chasing me or accepting my calls, and put a knock on my credit report for the debt. it was another year of fighting those.
If they told you they were crediting the bill and then slammed your credit, that's just more fraud. Probably a felony, but IANAL. Of course, nearly nothing you can do about it except take them to small claims court?
At least in my case it never went to collections or hit my credit report. This was 5 years ago, I guess it's never too late for them to try. Makes me wish I recorded the call when I finally was told they were crediting the bill.
Speaking of craftsman....Sears sold them off a few years ago. They seem to be making a resurgence in Lowe's stores. They're being sold at a slightly lower price point then the Lowe's standard Kobalt brand.
> [Craftsman tools] seem to be making a resurgence in Lowe's stores. They're being sold at a slightly lower price point then the Lowe's standard Kobalt brand.
Is that really a resurgence or just an attempt to profit by burning up the brand's remaining goodwill?
I can't imagine Craftsman tools maintaining their reputation after they've been been positioned as the cheaper alternative to store-brand tools for a while. They must be cutting massive corners to achieve that price-point.
Very much a case of burning the remaining goodwill.
The tools are also sold in Ace hardware stores, and the warranty is absolute garbage (which was one of the main selling points originally). I broke a 1/2" wrench, and needed proof of purchase for a warranty replacement. At this point, Harbor-Freight may be higher quality, but they definitely have better warranty support.
Harbor Freight is one of the only consumer-oriented tool sellers that's constantly and regularly improving their product lines. There are enough stores that it's handy for most, and their warranty returns are really easy.
I'm getting tired of reading all the ill-informed Harbor Freight bashing. Frankly, they're at least at good as most tools in the consumer market at this point.
Oh, and their stuff is vastly higher quality than the mid-century, consumer-oriented, American-made junk that I inherited from my grandfathers. I keep that stuff around just as an example of how "American made" didn't necessarily mean quality.
At Harbor Freight you can buy two of anything for the price of one of the same thing elsewhere. Keep a spare for one the first one breaks down, plus there is always a 20% discount coupon.
Used to be finding a busted up Craftsman tool, like in the gutter and run over a few times, was a windfall. You could walk into any Sears and get a free replacement no questions asked.
Yep, pretty strange to think that Kobalt and Husky are now the solid choice in the big box stores, and Craftsman is a contender for something you might want to use once or twice but not get too bent out of shape if it fails.
Good to meet a fellow hobby farmer in tech! I'm doing the same only I only raise meat animals for my family, some extend family and friends. Around me there's a number of folks that used to be full time cattle farmers(it's middle Missouri we have grass and land. too much rock for crops). Over the last 10-20 years all of the full time farmers, except one, have had to branch out into other stuff. Most took up construction or excavation or some other trade, and run cattle on the weekends/nights. The only full time farmer around raises heritage breed hogs for high end restaurants. Even a friend with ~500 acres of paid off land and 300 head of cattle has had to move to organic cattle in order to keep that part of his life from going too far in the red, and it still barely turns a profit most years.
first up, awesome post! I grew up in much the same way(i'm 35, from lower middle class/upper lower class). If it was at all possible to do it our selves, we did because didn't have much choice.
Today I live on a hobby farm and I still use all the same things I learned back when. i keep a hefty stock pile of "junk" for re-purpose and have rebuilt most of the building, motors, and tools I have.
I've got 2 sons and they both think it's funny watching me fix random stuff with other random stuff. But it's a skill I've watched them pick up. i'm happy knowing they can fix what needs fixed and they're confidence never wavers when they want to build something.
Haha, that's awesome and a hobby farm sounds fantastic. It's great you get to pass on the skills to your two sons. Just know, they might not understand it now, but one day even if they don't verbalize it and especially in the world we are in today, your boys will really be grateful for the knowledge they got from watching / working with you.
This is such a common issue there's an entire architecture pattern developed to solve it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_architecture . No classic ETL, and any number of folks/systems can plug into the messaging system and get all the data.
Oftentimes I try to look for the fairness of the presentation of issues. Bias is unavoidable, and most articles will include some degree of interpretation of the information. NPR, and even far more strongly opinionated publications like the Economist, at least give a generally accurate representation of both sides of an issue. This type of journalism is exceptionally far removed from the Brietbarts and Huffington Posts of the world.
Even the best organizations are reluctant to challenge the narrative expectations of their audience: the audience pays the bills. For example, nearly all economists agree that rent control generates unfair outcomes. Yet, the papers in SF almost never discuss this. Why? Because it would challenge the prevailing expectation of their readers.
As an aside, I'm an enthusiastic reader of the Economist: it seems as if subscriptions are better incentives than clicks for journalists by reducing pressure to generate clickable headlines appealing to baser instincts. Sadly, fewer and fewer publications will survive. BTW - the Washington Post's news content has gotten a lot better under Bezos. I scan it every day now.
> an inclination of temperament or outlook; especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice
And
> systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others
The first one implies falsehood. In that the data itself is prejudiced.
The second one is manipulative of the truth. Which you could argue also makes it false, since you have a falsely representative sample, where you claim not too. Thus you are lying to the reader, because you know things you don't want to tell me, since they would change the outcome, and disprove your prejudice.
So I feel your statement is only true, in that you can claim all samples, even massive ones, are naturally biased, and only an omnipotent creature that would know 100% of all the variables could be unbiased.
But that seems counter productive to me. We're not looking for absolute truth, but statical truthyness.
If an editorial presents all the data the author is aware of. And the author did reasonable due diligence to find most of the data availaible on the matter. Then its a truthful and unbiased editorial. Which allows you to make your own conclusions.
Saying all editorial is biased is dismissive, and it enforces the notion that, you'll never know the truth, thus just keep believing in your prejudice, they're as good as anytjing else. Which is false, statically, your prejudice is less likely to be true.
Editorial selection and emphasis introduce bias, where over a long term, it is hard to determine the truth. This doesn't mean readers should only trust their prejudice as you suggest in your final sentence, but that readers should be aware that they are getting an editorialized version of reality.
Let me give you an example (hopefully avoiding a debate on the topic): are pit pulls more dangerous than other dogs? First to be clear, I have no dog in the race (ha-ha). Local newspapers write stories covering dog attacks, mentioning the dogs were pitbulls. My friend who does pit bull dog rescue points out that papers only cover pitbull attacks, and never attacks by other breeds. By only covering pitbull attacks, editors and writers have biased the general public. At this point, I don't know the truth: are pit bulls more dangerous? Do editors consider writing stories about attacks by other breeds at all?
You really can't imagine the last event reported under either or both of the first two headlines? Lots of high school sophomores have more media savvy than you claim here.
No serious news organization would ever describe the Mueller investigation as a 'partisan attack' in a headline. So this is not an example of 'factually true reporting that nevertheless contains bias'. It would just be plain factually inaccurate reporting.
"Hannity: Mueller's investigators are partisan hacks" [0]
Sure, maybe Fox isn't "serious", and maybe Hannity isn't the most serious "journalist" on Fox. Still, this is a headline published by a news organization. You don't watch them and I don't watch them, but my grandmother watches them five hours a day, and she isn't the only one.
It is hilariously revealing that you object to the second headline rather than the first. Even if subconsciously, you know you've seen that first headline published by your favored media conglomerate.
Hannity isn't a journalist. That's not (merely) a jab at him; it's something he himself has said on multiple occasions. He's a talk-show host; an entertainer. He explicitly does not not believe he's bound by the conduct standards of journalism.
I don't understand your point at all. The headline attributes to Hannity. Yes, Hannity said that, the headline is factually correct. The headline the poster proposed is not and no real news organization, not even the news part of Fox would use it.
The point is simple: Trueness is on a different axis from slant (or perhaps: spin). Something can be neutrally presented and bullshit, or slantedly presented and true.
Ideally, in this four-quadrant space, most news would stick to the true/neutral space, the others to be avoided as hard as possible. We both know that doesn't happen.
Talking smack about quadrants and media savvy highschoolers is certainly simple. Coming up with a relevant example to illustrate your point: that seems surprisingly less simple. The differences between factual and non-factual, direct statement and quote, hyperbole and metaphor: curiously elusive!
There's a very good one given upthread. Same event, all three headlines true, but two are slanted in different directions and one is just a recounting of facts.
Hyperbole and metaphor have no place in headlines.
All three headlines are not true. That's the whole point. It's supposed to be an example of something but gets it completely wrong. As to metaphor and hyperbole, again, there's a big difference between those two things - it's nigh impossible to write anything without using metaphor.
All three statements were written with the intent of describing a meeting between two sets of lawyers. I intentionally inserted baseless assertions and innuendo which can not be independently verified.
How can you independently verify the attacks are partisan? How do we know Trump "shrugged off" the attacks or that Trump is "embroiled in a legal battle". You'd have to ask him and he has every incentive to hide his true feelings!
If you feel my headlines are not good enough then I would encourage you to think creatively and conceive of ways a headline could convey both truth and bias.
You made up some headlines to illustrate some point but they don't, that's all. Maybe you do have a valid point but what you're describing doesn't support it at all.
How can you independently verify the attacks are partisan?
No news organization would describe the thing in that way because it's not factual. So that's an easy one.
If you feel my headlines are not good enough then I would encourage you to think creatively
I'm not inclined to think creatively to make your bad argument better. It's your job to make your argument not bad.
Can you extract the hyperbole from the fact? It's not terribly difficult to see what is evidently true and what is innuendo.
Even if there were no headlines that matched the ones I wrote, my argument would still be valid. I'm arguing that "truth" is insufficient. A plain presentation of evidence is the only way effective way to combat bias. Though, it is not a panacea.
This is not a news headline, it's a piece of analysis (the original reporting it's based on is linked in the body). Although I don't see the hyperbole, let alone innuendo in it at all. Unless you consider the mere use of a metaphor to describe Trump's legal engagements to be some sort of innuendo.
> Although I don't see the hyperbole, let alone innuendo in it at all. Unless you consider the mere use of a metaphor to describe Trump's legal engagements to be some sort of innuendo.
The metaphor you're referring to is more accurately described as hyperbole.
I find it funny how far people will go to intentionally misunderstand one another. We could have a perfectly reasonable conversation on the merits of cold, impersonal, evidence-based discussion and on the roles of metaphor in speech. But instead we have to play this game where you insist on finding some fault in some argument that I never made. Or pretend when you do see faults that they're "mere uses" of colorful language.
So to put this terrible conversation to rest let me make three points:
1. I like NPR and I'm not in any way attacking them. If you're here just to defend your favorite publication -- you can stop.
2. It doesn't matter if the CNN article was a piece of analysis or reporting. It is disseminated to an audience with the intent to be read as news and because it is an official publication from a news source it is (by dictionary definition) news. Since you seem so obsessed by the designation.
3. My original point "'truth' is not sufficient to eliminate bias" has been left uncontested. It is the only thing worth discussing. You have chosen to focus entirely on fictional headlines meant to help you understand the core point. If the headlines confused you -- I'm sorry (in the most meaningless way possible) -- but you need to improve your reading comprehension before you waste someones time with idle criticisms.
I would encourage you to re-read this comment thread. I have tried now on three separate occasions to get you to understand the core point of the conversation.
Maybe you're at the end of this comment thinking to yourself "Well the news industry seems fine right now. I can't find any headlines to support his claims". I would encourage you to consider: blogs, youtube comments, HN threads, casual conversations, and internal dialogue. What I'm saying (truth is not sufficient to eliminate bias) applies to all aspects of human thinking.
I should have never linked that CNN article. I thought an example would help you understand but its clear to me that it only enables people to misunderstand.
You're not discussing this in good faith. You said "those are statements of different facts" when it's clear to anyone who has read a newspaper (you included) that they are different descriptions of the same facts. You have some trivial objection to any example anyone gives, but you have no examples of your own. Enjoy your weekend. Give peace a chance.
(EDIT: TL;DR: NPR consistently represents a more centrist pro market view that in the opinion of many more left leaning people is harmful to the well being of poor and other disadvantaged groups, and to the environment.)
Piling on to what others are saying, NPR may be truthful but they certainly tell their story from a pretty specific viewpoint. I find them to be very centrist and pro establishment. When Obama announced new internet surveillance laws under the guise of internet protection, NPR only really shared the views of the bill’s supporters. The EFF and others claimed the bill was harmful rather than helpful, while NPR on their story of the bill only said “critics claim the bill doesn’t go far enough”. If they only share the viewpoints of a bill’s supporters and misrepresent the views of critics, they’re not really representing the truth in my opinion. Similarly on a day after Bernie Sanders’s largest rally of his campaign at the time, when 10,000 people showed up to support him, NPR spent 8 minutes of the newshour on one of Trump’s tweets and various reactions (where they asked different people their opinions and read tweet responses of others), while only briefly mentioning Sanders by saying he had another couple of rallies (but not discussing or analyzing the scale or potential impacts of his campaign).
So before you congratulate yourself for how great your choice media is, consider the ways in which it falls short in serving the public good.
Agree, NPR is not very biased comparing to others but it is still very biased once a while, I used to listen to NPR each morning in the car, these days I can only listen to classic music radios or audio books. I gave up on finding any true neutral media outlets totally.
If I really need know something, I will read from a few left and right websites to make my own decisions. After a while I now feel Reuters are close to be unbiased, though I'm not 100% sure still.
Hay prices are up over double last year and last year was up from the previous year. Last year for example I would have been happy to buy $25 a 5x5 round bale. This year if you can find them, they're $90-$100. Small squares 2 years ago were $1.25, this year I happily paid $4.