Clipmarks | LisPark's clips

How to Do Direct Deposit When You Don't Have a Checking Account

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:35:59 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Now a days, many companies want to pay their employees through direct deposit to save on paper, money, and time. Some companies even require that you get paid through direct deposit and refuse to write checks to employees for time worked. So what do you do when you don't have a checking account to receive your pay by direct deposit? Here are some tips to help you out.

Ask your employer if they will direct deposit to a savings account. Many employers understand that some employees don't have a checking account either due to their own personal desire or because many pay bills much easier online. Some employers, in this case, will direct deposit your pay into a savings account that you have established through a financial institution. If you don't have a savings account, and your employer is willing to direct deposit to this type of account, talk to your local bank for more information on opening a savings account.

Tags: finance, checking account

Hospital Horror Cover Ups: Hospital Records Were Sometimes Falsified to Cover Up Medical Malpractice

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:46:32 GMT

clipped by: LisPark
clipper's remarks: This is totally unacceptable..

Clip Source: medical-malpractice-information.blogspot.com

Last Sunday, NY Daily News posted an article about the cover ups made by three city-run hospitals in New York City about the horrors happened to some of their patients in its care. The three hospitals named are Bellevue Hospital, Woodhull and Jacobi. NY Daily News found out in the said investigation a lot of medical malpractice done by their medical professionals that could have been avoided.

Some staffers at city-run hospitals have practiced a very nonmedical skill — fiction writing.

Doctors, nurses and support staff have made false entries in hospital records to cover up medical screwups, a Daily News investigation found.

Records sometimes lacked crucial data or were missing completely, making a thorough investigation impossible.

Again and again, workers at city-run hospitals faked records to cover up incidents or claimed they couldn't find data when investigators came knocking.

Tags: bellevue hospital, hospital negligence, jacobi hospital, malpractice, medical, medical malpractice, woodhull hospital

Doctors sued by malpractice should "address, apologize", not "deny, defend"

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:08:25 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.journalgazette.net

It’s hard to sue someone you like.

At least, that’s the way Dennis Geisleman sees it. Geisleman is a Fort Wayne attorney who handles injury claims including professional negligence such as medical malpractice.

When bad things happen to patients, a doctor’s empathy and caring go a long way to defuse the situation, he says, and reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit. It’s not so much the saying “sorry” as taking the initiative in addressing the problem.

“It is relational” and it is about the trust a doctor has built with the patient, Geisleman said.

He and another local attorney who handles medical malpractice cases say that kind of approach isn’t standard operating procedure.

The estimated $5.8 billion annual cost of malpractice claims nationwide has drawn scrutiny as President Obama and Congress plot an overhaul of the nation’s $2.4 trillion health care system.

Tags: law, legal, malpractice, medical, doctors, sue

Ron Mueck: Hyper-Realist Sculptor

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:14:54 GMT

clipped by: LisPark
clipper's remarks: "He so nearly captures that extra bit, what we call the soul or spirit, that flame inside that makes us ourselves. He takes one to the very edge of the idea of life, calls into question what it is to be a person, what it is to be human. - Marina Warner."

Clip Source: paintalicious.org

Ron Mueck is an Australian hyper-realist sculptor working in the UK. His incredible sculptures of creepy, grotesque, mottled skin and uncannily gigantic proportional figures have adorned the Millennium Dome as well as Charles Saatchi’s living room for a number of years now. It would be fair to say, Mueck’s one of the leading contemporary artists of today.

His early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s television and films, notably the film “Labyrinth” staring Bowie. Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. This eventually led him to conclude, “photography pretty much destroys the physical presence of the original object”, and so he turned to fine art, in particular, sculpture.

In the early 1990s, still in his advertising days, Mueck was commissioned to make something highly realistic, and was wondering what material would do the trick.

Tags: art, sculpture, sculpting

$4 Billion in Broadband Stimulus Grants Tied to Strict Net Neutrality Rules

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:06:26 GMT

clipped by: LisPark
clipper's remarks: More competition means better service and lower prices...

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Two federal agencies are now ready to hand out $4 billion in grants and loans to help bring broadband to the people and stimulate the economy, but applicants have to promise to play fairly with whatever devices, applications and services users want to use, vice president Joe Biden announced today.

For instance, all applicants have to agree to follow the FCC’s fair internet principles, which require ISPs to let users choose whatever devices and applications they like, without interference from the carrier. The nation’s wireless industry has resisted having those rules apply to them, since it would force them to tear down the walls around their networks. That means letting users bring their own devices to a mobile network, use competing video services on their phones, and use their mobile phones as modems for a laptop without an extra charge.

Tags: internet, broadband

NY Attorney General Fights Child Pornography

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:46:49 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: tgllaw.com

New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo is making big strides in the quest to rid the internet of child pornography, coming down especially hard on internet service providers who allow those materials to be accessed via their networks. In an agreement with the attorney general, AOL, AT&T (the nation’s largest internet provider), Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel will remove access to alt.* newsgroups which have become a breeding ground for child pornography materials.

New York Law Blog

Regardless of how you feel about Cuomo’s efforts or the implementation of his agreements by the ISPs, it’s difficult to interpret the new site as anything more than an effort in self promotion. Its intent is signaled by the entry page, which is entitled "Press Releases" and contains an animation that rotates through four photos of Cuomo announcing the site’s launch. Three of the four sentences in the draft letter to ISPs include Cuomo’s name, and the fourth refers to him by his title.

Tags: child pornography, attorney, law, legal

Pepper Spray-Armed ATM Misfires, Shoots Workers

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:44:01 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.wired.com

A South African bank has outfitted its ATMs with pepper spray to prevent criminals from bombing or tampering with the machines. But the system still has some bugs: One of the machines released its stinging payload on three maintenance workers last week.

Absa Bank, one of South Africa’s largest, installed the spray on 11 machines after someone bombed several of its ATMs last year, according to local news outlet Independent Online. They were installed in a region where authorities say they retrieved 40 skimmers from card machines last year.

If a camera on the machine detects someone tampering with the card slot in an attempt to install a skimming device or explosives, a mechanism installed at the ATM kiosk releases a cloudspray.

Photo: U.S. police officers use pepper spray on a group of protesters during
the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Monday, Aug. 25, 2008. (AP Photo/File, LM Otero)

Tags: security

Wired Science News for Your Neurons Self-Irrigating Desert Plant Discovered

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:40:11 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.wired.com

A desert plant has apparently figured out how to water itself.

Ecologists had been puzzling over the desert rhubarb for years: Instead of the tiny, spiky leaves found on most desert plants, this rare rhubarb boasts lush green leaves up to a meter wide. Now scientists from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel have discovered that ridges in the plant’s giant leaves actually collect water and channel it down to the plant’s root system, harvesting up to 16 times more water than any other plant in the region.

“It is the first example of a self-irrigating plant,” said plant biologist Gidi Ne’eman, a co-author on the paper published in March in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal of ecology. “This is the only case we know, but in other places in the world there might be additional plants that use the same adaptions.”

Tags: science, plants

7 Reasons Nokia Phones Get No Love in U.S.

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:34:06 GMT

clipped by: LisPark
clipper's remarks: Very true!

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Nokia is the worldwide king of cellphones. But don’t tell that to U.S. customers. Nokia’s market share in the United States is on the decline, down to 8 percent last year, from 15 percent two years ago.

“Nokia missed a number of handset trends in the last few years — thin phones, clamshells, touchscreen devices, applications,” says Ross Rubin, an analyst with the NPD Group. “They have been pretty much out of everything.”

And that’s odd, given Nokia’s global dominance. Apple’s iPhone may get talked about more and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices may be must-have executive jewelry, but four in 10 cellphones sold worldwide last year were made by Nokia. Nokia sold 97 million phones in the first quarter of the year, nearly twice that of its closest competitor, Samsung.

But American customers are not finding much to love about Nokia.

Banks must brace for credit card pile-up

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:29:20 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: blogs.reuters.com

NEW YORK, July 7 (Reuters) - Credit card delinquency figures bring to mind the rock classic “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”
    Ever after today’s record report — delinquencies jumped to 6.6 percent of all card debt in the first quarter from 5.52 percent — the peak may still be far off.
    The sunniest forecast in the Obama administration’s stress test suggested that credit card loss rates for banks would climb to between 12 and 17 percent in total over the next two years. This assumed an unemployment rate averaging just 8.4 percent in this year. Based on the gloomier scenario of 8.9 percent joblessness, the two-year write-off climbs to 20 percent.
    As we race past the government’s worst assumptions, the risks mount that consumer distress will plunge the banks back into crisis. Despite recent rising profits, bankers will need to make sure that their seat belts are fully fastened for the turbulence ahead.

Tags: banks, credit card

All time low for child lead poisoning in New York - NYC Health

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:26:11 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: tgllaw.com

A press release put out by NYC Health states that lead poisoning incidents amongst children in New York are at an all time low, falling by 15% last year alone. In 1995 there were nearly 20,000 children diagnosed with lead poisoning, which fell to 1,970 cases in 2007; a 90% decline. The highest concentrations of poisonings originates in Brooklyn and Queens, most likely due to building and houses being older in this area.

New York Law Blog

Nancy Clark, Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Disease Prevention, said that “Lead paint is the primary cause of lead poisoning, and young children are most at risk. To protect your children, look out for peeling lead paint — particularly on doors and windows — and tell your landlord to safely repair any damaged paint. Make sure your child is tested for lead poisoning at ages 1 and 2.” This is vitally important because even small doses can cause severe mental and physical health problems for developing children.

Tags: children, health, lead paint

Tags: law, legal, child poisoning, lead poisoning, poisoning

Zicam claims for loss of smell and taste

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:19:51 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.lawyersandsettlements.com

Zicam Patient Diagnosed with Nerve Damage

Boston, MA: Pam O. used Zicam twice before she experienced reported Zicam side effects. She is now worried that she will never fully recover from the Zicam smell loss, and will suffer without a sense of smell or taste for the rest of her life.

"In April [2009], it felt like I was getting a little tickle in my throat, so I thought I was getting a cold," Pam says. "My understanding was that Zicam was most effective if used at the start of the cold. I had used it in February [2009] without any side effects. This time, I used the nasal pump and squirted each nostril once. It burned a bit at first, but the burn was not devastating. I had felt the burning when I used Zicam before.

Within 2 hours, I had no sense of smell or taste. I sat down for lunch that day and I couldn't taste it. I made a cup of flavored coffee and it thought it tasted very weak.

Tags: zicam, law, legal

Frivilous Law?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:53:40 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: tgllaw.com

New York Law Blog

We can probably file this one under the “huh?” column when it comes to the law, but New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg signed a new law that now makes it illegal for stores to keep their doors open in the summer leaking air conditioning out into the streets. Fines do run in the reletively modest range ($250 for a second offense and $400 for the third), but the law could actually help the city in peak summer months with keeping the power grid in check. WNBC.com has more on the law that is now in effect:

The law was first introduced in the City Council in 2006 but went nowhere. As recently as this Spring, it was seen inside City Hall as a headline grabber with little chance of ever becoming law. But then the increasingly green mayor said he might actually sign such a law and the wheels of lawmaking at the City Council went into high gear.

Tags: law, legal, new york

America, Russia, and a nuclear-free world

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:50:50 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.opendemocracy.net

Behind the modest progress in arms-reduction agreed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev is a larger trend towards a world without nuclear weapons, says Andrew Mack.

The United States president visits Russia on 6-8 July 2009 at a time of some tension but also promise in the relationship between the two former superpower rivals. The areas of tension that Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev face are familiar: missile-defence, the war in Georgia and the post-election crisis in Iran among them. The promise is of cooperation over Afghanistan and, more broadly, on a subject that during the cold-war dominated Washington-Moscow negotiations: nuclear weapons. A modest reduction in the two countries' nuclear arsenals is on the cards, codified in a replacement of the strategic-arms reduction (Start) treaty of December 1991 which expires in December 2009. This might, just possibly, be the first concrete step towards a nuclear-free world.

Tags: politics, america, russia, nuclear, nuclear weapons

Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:38:54 GMT

clipped by: LisPark

Clip Source: www.wired.com

In 1969, the Neiman Marcus catalog offered the first home PC, a stylish stand-up model called the Honeywell Kitchen Computer, priced at $10,600. The picture shows an aproned housewife caressing the machine, with this tag line: "If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute." That image should be on every cubicle in Silicon Valley; it's a testament both to what technologists get right and what they get badly wrong.

To their credit, they understood that Moore's law would bring computing within the reach of regular people. But they had no idea why anyone would want it. Despite countless brainstorming sessions and meetings on the subject, the only application the Honeywell team could think of for a home computer (aside from the perennial checkbook balancing) was recipe card management. So the Kitchen Computer was aimed at housewives and featured integrated counter space.