something without use or value; rubbish; trash; worthless stuff. nonsense; twaddle: His usual conversation is pure trumpery. Archaic. worthless finery.
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Trumpery | Definition of Trumpery at Dictionary.com

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/trumpery

Picture a large ventilator pump with let’s say
the capacity of 10 ventilators with the possibility
for each “branch” to have pressure controls and
oxygen controls...
If they can split ventilators, why not build multi-ventilators?
It shouldn’t be so hard to design.
It might even save some money and materials.

Steep diamond price drops on the March 20 Rapaport Price List have caused widespread anger in the trade—leading publisher Martin Rapaport (pictured) to suspend the list’s publication until May.

Last Thursday’s price list was a “sea of bold”—its method of indicating a price change. The price cuts hit almost every diamond category, with the drops ranging from 5% to 9% on both rounds and fancies. The average drop was generally estimated at 7%.

“Please note, in our 42-year history we have never suspended the price list,” he said in a statement announcing the vote. “This is an extraordinary step we are taking as an act of solidarity with the trade.”

https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/rapaport-suspend-price-list-furor/

**This is not good. During the Great Depression, DeBeers stashed a lot of diamonds in
milk cans to wait out the crisis and preserve prices.
This is unheard of as the article says, and there is backlash from the jewelers.

Source: CNBC


*snip*

“We can confirm that one employee from our Zurich office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms,” a Google spokesperson confirmed to CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa. “We have taken — and will continue to take — all necessary precautionary measures, following the advice of public health officials, as we prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”


The case, which was sent out to employees in a notification email, was first reported by Business Insider.
Companies across the globe are enforcing measures to stop potential spread of the flu-like COVID-19. Amazon, which has about 800,000 employees, has started restricting all nonessential employee travel in the U.S. and has restricted all travel to China “until further notice.”

Several major tech companies have also pulled out from attending or cancelled conferences scheduled through May. Earlier this month, organizers of the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest trade show for the mobile phone industry, canceled the Barcelona, Spain-based event just two weeks before it was supposed to occur. Facebook canceled its San Francisco-based Global Marketing Summit, which was to expected draw 4,000 people in early March, “out of an abundance of caution.” Facebook, Sony and Amazon also pulled out of March’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

This story is developing.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/google-employee-diagnosed-with-coronavirus.html

My son sent this to me, and I'm STILL laughing.

Source: NBC

A security breach at a purveyor of virtual currency Bitcoins (BTC) has resulted in the loss of very real dollars totaling around $250,000. Bitfloor, a major banking and exchange service for Bitcoins, may be facing shutdown after nearly their entire inventory was stolen.

Bitcoins are an experimental currency used mainly for online transactions. The total number of BTC is limited and new ones can only be "mined" very slowly. The value of a Bitcoin has fluctuated wildly in the three years since the currency was established, from as little as a few pennies to over $30. At today's valuation (around $10 each), the estimated 24,000 BTC stolen from Bitfloor equate to about $250,000.

The founder of Bitfloor, Roman Shtylman, announced the security breach on BitcoinTalk, a forum dedicated to discussion of the currency:

Last night, a few of our servers were compromised. As a result, the attacker gained accesses to an unencrypted backup of the wallet keys (the actual keys live in an encrypted area). Using these keys they were able to transfer the coins. This attack took the vast majority of the coins BitFloor was holding on hand. As a result, I have paused all exchange operations.



Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/250-000-worth-bitcoins-stolen-net-heist-980871

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I was going to put this in the Romney tax hack thread but there were a lot of posts (90).
This is additional information, not necessarily connected.... or is it?

You used to have a good job paying 22.50 an hour ($900/week),but you went out and got two $9/hour jobs.

******************
The two $9/hour jobs are still not $22.50, Mitwit. it's $4.50 LESS/hour.

One $9/hour job (assuming an 8 hour day, 5 days a week) pays $360 per week

And how many hours a day can you work a day? 16?
What would both $9 jobs pay you in an 80 hour week? $720
and you'd be $180 short of what you used to make .... about $774 per month short. (using a month as 4.3 weeks)
And you're working 80 hours a week. Nice life, there. ( )
Yeah, that's how the repubes run a country.
Keep the workers under control with 80 hour work weeks and paying them less than half what they used to make.

$774/ month is a huge loss for the average working guy! And then you want to repeal Obamacare too? Nice final touch.

This is not a world I want to see.

Mitwit earns about $384,615/month. He praises the thought that the working guy should go get the two $9/hour jobs.