Yes, golf balls have changed quite a bit in 20 yrs. Then the best ball was balata cover (natural rubber) over a core with a rubber band wound around it. This ball was "soft" and had lots of spin (which is good for stopping on the green) but not much distance for the average player, and the cover got easily damaged if you topped the ball, leaving a cut all the way through the cover. The cheaper balls were solid rubber centers with an Surlyn cover (ionic containing synthetic polymer) that resisted being damaged by bad hits. They went further for the average player, they had less spin, so did not stop on the green. But they felt like they were very hard when you hit them. TopFlight was a brand, nicknamed Top-Rock because they were so hard. Today no balls are covered in balata, none have rubber band windings (I think). You can get a ball with a soft feel and good spin that still goes far. They are usually many layers from the cover down to the center, each possibly being patented, plus the manufacturing processes to make them. And the dimple design has changed over time, leading to the better aerodynamics, so go further and less off center, again a patentable concept.

I looked him up, he is 69 yrs old, so should be on Medicare. So we all should be discussing what is covered by Medicare. Long term healthcare is not covered (i.e. nursing homes).

I looked up this point. http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/... The ACA banned these limits, unless you have a grandfathered in plan. And I would assume those grandfathered plans ran out before 2016. And there is the ability to put limits on non-essential healthcare.

This use to be the situation, are you sure it still is?. My wife worked in HR at a big company and saw some cases like this. But with the ACA it is our understanding there are no limits. So even insurance by corporations should be covered to no limit. (My wife retired before ACA was passed so no longer has inside information).

I am on the ACA. I had a plan with $6500 deductible. Unfortunately I reached that max, but now everything is 100% covered. Now I paid more per month than $350, and maybe that is why mine has no co-pays after reaching the deductible. I am thinking your parents compared plans and went for the lower amount and risk the co-pay? You should ask them. But one thing people forget is you are paying the "insurers rate". So the $450 blood tests I got, was paid by the insurance at $80. If I had a co-pay it would have been 30% of the $80. So having insurance does benefit you on all these expenses by giving you a big discount on the amount. And F*** the blood testing company for charging some poor person without insurance $450.

The high deductible cheap plans were banned because they excluded "pre-existing conditions". And offered no preventive care treatment for free. I knew people on those plans, $10K deductible. They were pretty young and willing to take the risk. I understand completely. But a goal of the ACA was to get everyone covered (even those with preexisting conditions) and to get people in for preventive care as that is shown to make the entire society healthier.

It "pays" to bash Apple. There are entire funds/people who make a living seeding the news with stories like this, and then they short the stock. Yes all the factories for all the hardware vendors are a difficult life, compared to our standards. But these are good jobs in China. Apple has efforts, maybe meager ones - who is to say, to insist upon better conditions with their suppliers.

Why do the divert the flight over these minor upsets? I assume the flight attendants can distinguish between two people in a minor scuffle and say a terrorist assault on the crew? With locked cockpits the plane is in little danger of being hijacked. One of the flights diverted to an airport in the same state, so not really saving any time. I would argue there is a small increase in the danger by requiring the pilots change their flight plan and land at a (possibly) unknown airport. The diversion inconveniences the rest of the passengers, with no apparent (to me) improvement in safety or solving the situation.

Thanks for posting this link. Like the OP I am interested in getting a telescope but know nothing about them really.

For some reason the furniture and decor of that scene in the space station (white floor, walls and bright red '60s funky furniture) has become popular . The main building at work has been completely redone in this style. Also a new library at UNC. Really awful looking and useless.

I was on the parent tech committee when we rolled out laptops to every kid in 7 to 9 Jr High, which they took home with them each night. All these were concerns that turned out to be nearly non-existent. You set up the program with some extra units to handle issues and keep the kid with computer.

Did not happen to any degree (I don't recall hearing about any but it might have happened). The kids loved the laptops. They "grew up" and treated them as their most precious possession. We did not require them to take out insurance, just replaced from our stock.

Happened very rarely. Couple of LCD screens got banged up (closing lid hard with pencil in the joint was the leading cause). Replaced the unit immediately (kid just exchanged at the repair room). We had a cheap source to replace the LCD (vendor set us up with their repair contractor). So no one paid anything.

Had Mac computers and no virus problems (don't hate me, it was true). We had replacements not loaners so all your data had to be on the server at all times. Any problem with the computer was dealt with by taking in the problem unit and replacing with one from stock. Then offline repairing the turned in unit.

These started out as the units just replaced by a slightly faster model. Everyone in all classes got their computers from the same larger stock. All grades turned in their computers at year end and got a "different" unit the next year. But all the same model and style. For what you do with the laptop the fastest and latest is unnecessary. The plan was to replace them after three years with a new batch.

We had one adult in the exchange room during the day. The best techie student became the person that re-imaged devices (which was the first line of "repair"). And then any true damage was sent out for repair. 900 students with laptops. One person and a volunteer. The only crunch came before the year to image 900 units in a short period of time, but that is where we used adult volunteers and teaching staff in the summer for a week or so.

If anyone is truly interested I can share more details (I would need to look up some of the details, for example the number of extra computers we had in the tech room). Many parents were convinced their child could not be trusted (and many in the community were sure that these juvenile delinquents would immediately steal us blind). But other schools experiences mirrored what we saw. Very low incidents of any problems, these kids really rose to the occasion.

If you read all the Grokaw documentation you see emails from MS execs (including BillG) stating that by allowing Office to have access to these namespace extension it (Office) would have a significant advantage over all other competitive suites (including WP, and the emails may even call out WP by name).