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Republicans Admit Obamacare Might Not Be The End Of The World

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As Obamacare's first enrollment period ends and the law becomes a more established part of U.S. policy, the Republican base appears to be having an epiphany: Maybe it's not the end of the world.

A new Gallup poll found that the number of self-identified GOPers who think the law won't affect them spiked 20 percentage points from a month ago.

Back in late February and early March, 72 percent of Republicans said that Obamacare would make their lives and their family's lives worse in the long run. But just a month later, that figure fell to 51 percent. The percentage who said that the law wouldn't make much difference leapt from 23 percent to 43 percent over the same period.

Adding in Democrats and independents, 43 percent of Americans said that Obamacare wouldn't make much difference for them, 32 percent said it would make things worse and 24 percent said it would make things better.

Those change feelings, particularly among Republicans, didn't translate into more robust support for the law, however. Its approval and disapproval ratings were effectively unchanged from Gallup's last poll: 43 percent approved and 54 percent disapproved.

The poll, conducted from April 7 to 8, surveyed 1,009 U.S. adults. Its margin of error is 4 percentage points.

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aahlvers
3874 days ago
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Dropping Dropbox - what's a replacement?

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I loved Dropbox and Mailbox. I was paying for a 200GB account. But after learning that Iraq war starter, torture promotor, and warrantless wiretapper Condoleezza Rice will be joining Dropbox's Board of Directors I deleted my account (Dropbox doesn't issue refunds, so I lost about $100. They can keep it.). I also deleted the Mailbox app from my phone.

Now I want a Dropbox replacement. Something that offers cloud syncing. The website Drop Dropbox has a few suggestions: Box.com, Microsoft OneDrive, SpiderOak, and Google Drive. I'd like to hear from Boing Boing readers who've had experience with alternatives to Dropbox. Please post your comments in the BBS!






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aahlvers
3874 days ago
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8 public comments
sarcozona
3873 days ago
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Um why would Rice do this?
Epiphyte City
rtreborb
3875 days ago
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Well I still love Dropbox so I don't really care. Will be staying with them as long as the product is solid.
San Antonio, TX
jeterhere
3874 days ago
Box works for me ...
jhamill
3875 days ago
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You would think that having a former Secretary of State on the board would help you but, nope. Because spying is bad.
California
DMack
3875 days ago
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Still gotta ride with SugarSync.
Victoria, BC
rafeco
3875 days ago
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I'm still going to use it to store the GIFs that I post in IRC at work.
ttroxell
3875 days ago
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Condi defended Bush's warrentless wiretaps -- it's beyond me how anyone can trust dropbox with private data.
San Francisco
organelas
3875 days ago
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Puts, sério isso?
Brasil
zippy72
3876 days ago
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I'll be joining him soon no doubt
FourSquare, qv

People Matching Their Bodies to Book Covers

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Corpus Libris 11

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Benjamin Starr

Known in some circles as the most amazing man in the universe, he once saved an entire family of muskrats from a sinking, fire engulfed steamboat while recovering from two broken arms relating to a botched no-chute wingsuit landing in North Korea. When not impressing people with his humbling humility, he can be found freelance writing, finding shiny objects on the internet, enjoying the company of much-appreciated friends and living out his nomadic nature. He is Managing Editor of Visual News. Follow his movements on Twitter:

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aahlvers
3874 days ago
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1 public comment
mgeraci
3875 days ago
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Charming!
Duluth, MN

Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time

jwz
5 Comments and 9 Shares
So that's good news.

A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated. [...]

Ultimately, she transmitted the measles to four other people, according to a recent report in Clinical Infectious Diseases that tracked symptoms in the 88 people with whom "Measles Mary" interacted while she was sick. Surprisingly, two of the secondary patients had been fully vaccinated. And although the other two had no record of receiving the vaccine, they both showed signs of previous measles exposure that should have conferred immunity.

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aahlvers
3874 days ago
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grammargirl
3873 days ago
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Well, this seems horrible.
Brooklyn, NY
JayM
3873 days ago
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Why oh why. There is no need for this. Get vaccinated people. And stop drinking raw milk and all the other folk lore without science and fact backing up your silly decisions. *sigh*
Atlanta, GA
skittone
3873 days ago
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Ugh. No more vaccination exceptions beyond medical exceptions. Part of living in a society is not putting everyone at risk.
satadru
3874 days ago
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So now that protection from the measles vaccine appears to wane over time, all the unvaccinated assholes spreading measles are also now putting you at risk. Welcome to the future, and no you're not getting a jetpack either.
New York, NY
kazriko
3874 days ago
"I came to the future looking for a jetpack, and all I got was this lousy measles t-shirt."
satadru
3874 days ago
Also the measles...
kazriko
3874 days ago
That's a given with a Measles t-shirt. It's kind of like a smallpox blanket.
satadru
3874 days ago
Ah yes, of course. I'm rusty on my "smallpox blanket" similes...

Jeff Knupp: Great Products Seem Obvious in Retrospect

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Note, this page originally appeared on the sandman.io blog.

sandman automatically generates a REST API service and web admin from your existing database without requiring any code!

When you look at the most disruptive technology products of the last few years (or months, decades, etc), you may notice that the products themselves seem "obvious". It's almost impossible to believe that there was a time when a service like didn't exist. Or when to find out what friends and family were doing we had to call them and ask. Or when a centralized place to share videos didn't exist on the Internet.

Dropbox, Facebook, and YouTube all share the same quality: in retrospect, they seem obvious. In fact, some would say that they didn't actually do all that much. Personal profile sites already existed. Wasn't it just a matter of time before someone made them pretty and easy to use? And posting videos on the Internet was never difficult, so it's inevitable that someone would eventually create a centralized place for it.

In a way, it's true. These services took an existing (or "near-existing") technology and productized it. The key, though, is that Dropbox, Facebook, and YouTube fulfilled desires we didn't even know we had. Each of these web giants evoke a "that's it"-style shoulder shrug today, but they noticed opportunities where no-one else did. They grew big by seeing need where it didn't yet exist.

Enter Sandman

Sandman (on GitHub here) often evokes similar reactions when I describe it to people. "That's it?" they wonder aloud. "Doesn't something already exist to do something like that? Surely someone must have already done this. It seems so obvious!". Sandman, which builds a web admin and REST API service on top of your legacy database without requiring any code, seems like such an obvious product that most people assume it already exists. In fact, many people say that they had the same idea, but never followed through.

To be sure, Sandman is no technological marvel. It takes two technologies which are well established, ORMs (Object-Relation Mappers) and code generation, and marries them in a simple, straightforward manner. The result, however, is nothing short of magic.

Your Database, In Your Browser

I love the look on people's face when they first run Sandman. They enter the details of their existing database, hit enter, and bam!, Sandman has opened a browser tab pointed at their new admin site. There in front of them is all of their data, waiting to be manipulated.

For technical managers, other groups within the organization, and even external clients, the ability to add, edit, and delete information buried deep within an enterprise database is unparalleled. Forget about clunky GUI tools that connect to a single database and make you use SQL to add data. Just use your browser to fill a simple form, where most data is already auto-filled for you, to make the change to your data.

"It's stored in a database," is a phrase that probably evokes a shudder from most technology managers and programmers. With Sandman, hearing that something is "stored in a database" is the same as hearing "you access that through a beautiful, easy to use web tool that has been tested by hundreds of people". Sandman really does "free" your data.

Sandman Makes Things REST

When I'm showing Sandman to a developer, I ask them to curl a simple URL after they've connected Sandman. Without fail, their eyes light up when they realize the clunky, over-complicated legacy database (the kind that exists in every enterprise) now has a super-clean REST API.

"Imagine how easily we can run custom reports," they say. "Better yet, we can have Sandman generate them on-the-fly and simply give our users the URL of the results!" Interacting with legacy databases in the enterprise will never be the same.

Rather than having to find and install drivers and write different code for each type of database they connect to, developers can simply program against a single, RESTful service using battle-tested open source libraries. The amount of code that Sandman makes redundant is shocking. Sandman changes the way that developers create services, for the better.

Surely This Already Exists!

By now, some readers are thinking, "Surely this technology already exists! It's so obvious!" It does now. Sandman represents the effort required to marry ORMs with code generation to automatically, with no coding required create a REST API and web-based admin interface. Before Sandman, this "obvious" service really didn't exist. After Sandman, nothing will quite be the same.

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3874 days ago
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How Can I Make My Cubicle More Comfortable and Less Boring?

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How Can I Make My Cubicle More Comfortable and Less Boring?

http://lifehacker.com/5987607/how-can-i-make-my-cubicle-more-comfortable-and-less-boring

Check out the ideas:

Mask the Largest Surfaces: the Walls and Floor

Improve the Lighting and Temperature

Bring in Your Own Furniture

Accessorize

Get Inspiration from Others’ Cubicle Hacks

Who needs a vanilla space with no personality?  What can that possibly say about you?

Stephen

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aahlvers
4265 days ago
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