Mark's What The (bleep!)

Monday, August 11, 2014

Important Information Regarding This Blog - We Have Moved!!

We Have Moved!!

11 August 2014

On August 1, 2014, RightTurnMedia2014 has assumed control of the following blogs:

“It’s Not Sam’s Walmart……Anymore”

“RailcrewXpress Facts”

“Mark’s Unsafe At Any Speed”

“It’s Not Sam’s Walmart…..Anymore” will remain on its dedicated blogsite

“RailcrewXpress Facts” has moved and can now be found on the RightTurnMedia2014 Blogsite at: railcrewxpressfact.blogspot.com

“Mark’s Unsafe At Any Speed” has become “Unsafe At Any Speed – Nebraska”, you may find the blog at: unsafeatanyspeednebraska.blogspot.com

“Mark’s What The Bleep!” will be relauched later this year as “The Fremont Conservative”

Material currently hosted on the 470MediaGroup blogsites for “RailcrewXpress Facts” and “Mark’s Unsafe At Any Speed” are in the process of being moved to their new homes on the RTMedia2014’s blogsite.

All 470MediaGroup blogs will be taken down by August 31, 2014.

We encourage you to share this social media post, however, publication without consent for profit is prohibited. Unlike other bloggers, we share information with the world in the efforts to educate our readers, not to make advertising money.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Fremont, Nebraska’s $10 Million Dollar Mistake

10 April 2014

For many years, the leadership of Fremont, Nebraska has been pushing for a viaduct over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF Railway) crossing at West 23rd and Airport Drive.

This viadock would be a annoying site, force some businesses to relocate, drive down property values, and be a total waste of taxpayer, railroad, state, and federal monies.

Why?

During no part of this process has anyone in Fremont’s leadership called together both of the railroads involved, those being BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad to discuss how to better coordinate train movements to minimize or even eliminate blockages of BNSF Railway crossings either north or south of the UPRR Diamond.

While The Fremont Northern Railroad is also involved in this process as their crossing at West 23rd is involved, the Federal Railway Administration shut down the tracks in 2013. Fremont Northern Railroad’s issues will be discussed in a soon to be written article.

Here’s how things work, and where the root of the cause of BNSF Railway crossings being blocked through Fremont occur.

BNSF Railway (BNSF) and Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) operate tracks through Fremont, which for the most part are in different directions, except through the central part of the city.

BNSF Railway’s Sioux City Sub-district is a heavily utilized north – south line starting at Ashland, Nebraska and ending at Dakota City, Nebraska. This line continues northward into Iowa and Minnesota

Union Pacific Railroad’s tracks approach Fremont from the east, via the Blair Sub-district, the southeast via the Omaha Sub-district, and the west via the Columbus Sub-district. The Omaha and Columbus Sub-districts make up a portion of The Union Pacific’s historic Overland Route. All three of these Union Pacific Sub-districts are heavily utilized lines.

Obviously, like highways, both railroads have to intersect somewhere in Fremont.

That intersection (in railroad terms “Diamond”) is just south of Military Road near Morrell.

The UPRR/BNSF Diamond at Fremont - looking north on the BNSF line

photo credit: 470Photography - from UP 844's 50th Anniversary Run November 2010

Here you will find the root of the problem.

This railroad “Diamond” is owned and maintained by The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR), therefore, UPRR has control over all movements over this diamond.

An example of how things play out many times daily.

For our example we will use a southbound BNSF tank train. BNSF’s Sioux City Sub-district is single track with sidings at regular intervals to allow trains operating opposite directions to pass. Sidings exist on the northern side of Fremont (Papa Siding), and south of Fremont (Elk Siding).

Our example southbound train is sitting in the Papa Siding. In order for this train to proceed southward through Fremont, it must get approval from the UPRR dispatcher in Omaha to proceed south and across the diamond. BNSF Train’s Conductor radios the UPRR dispatcher that they are ready to continue and advise the time it will take to travel from the Papa Siding south to the Diamond, usually 8 to 10 minutes. UPRR’s Dispatcher can do one of two things. One is to give them permission to proceed (rarely done), the other is to give the BNSF Train a time when they can arrive at the “Diamond” when it is expected to be clear for their train to cross. For this example, we will say the latter response was received from the UPRR Dispatcher #20 in Omaha, and the BNSF Train was told to be to the “Diamond” in 20 Minutes.

BNSF Conductor then communicates with their dispatcher at BNSF’s Fort Worth Dispatch Center in order to get a track warrant, a document that authorizes the train to proceed into the next block. Track Warrant is issued, and the train begins to proceed southward towards the diamond so they arrive at the given time so as not to cause a blockage of the crossings.

As the BNSF Train approaches the Military Avenue crossing, just shy of the UPRR Diamond, the block signal indicates Red instead of Green, meaning the UPRR Diamond is blocked, or the interlock is fouled, causing a red signal..

BNSF Train must then stop. This action blocks crossings at 16th Street, 23rd Street, and Somers Ave.

More often than not, the train is stopped for a lengthy period of time, and more often than not, the BNSF Dispatcher in Fort Worth, must communicate with his counterpart at UPRR in Omaha, that their train is stopped and blocking crossings. Then the BNSF Dispatcher gets excuses or other gibberish from his UPRR counterpart, and eventually the “Diamond” magically clears and the BNSF train can proceed.

Thus the root of the problem, the UPRR Dispatchers are not being good stewards of the “Diamond”.

It is time to call the not so good stewards of the “Diamond” to the carpet!

During this viaduct dialogue the leadership of Fremont has not ever brought both railroads together to discuss how to better coordinate train movements to minimize or even eliminate blockages of BNSF Railway crossings either north or south of the UPRR Diamond.

It is a very simple solution, one that could save Fremont a very ugly $10 plus Million Dollar viaduct on the western side of the city. This viaduct would only spare only one crossing from ever being blocked, that being West 23rd Street.

But, let’s face it, Fremont’s corrupt leadership would rather waste taxpayers monies and cause further grief for those who live in the northwestern portion of the community, instead of trying an obvious, low, if any cost, solution, first.

After all, the UPRR cannot remove the trains, pull up the tracks, or close their yard office in Fremont if they are called down to the carpet to discuss the better coordination of train movements through town, and get their hands slapped in the process.

This is one case where competitors must work together for a common good.

There is still time to scrap this project, the first step is realizing that Fremont, Nebraska deserves better leadership that can see this solution and try it before wasting over $10 million dollars on yet another ugly viadock.

May is our opportunity.

Will the voters who reaffirmed the immigration ordinance, step up and clean out City Hall, to put an end to the waste of taxpayers money?

Now for the required financial disclosure. This article’s author holds positions, as noted, in both UPRR (direct investment in shares), and BNSF Railway (indirect investment through holding shares of Berkshire Hathaway, whom purchased the BNSF Railway in a cash/share transaction).

470Media encourages you to share this social media post, however, publication without consent for profit is prohibited. Unlike other bloggers, we share information with the world in the efforts to educate our readers, not to make advertising money.

Fremont, Nebraska A Better Place - But There Is Still A Way To Go

Fremont, Nebraska

A Better Place - But There Is Still A Way To Go

10 April 2014

With the final portions of Fremont, Nebraska’s ordinance 5165 now in effect, there are already obvious signs the community is a better place.

Fremont still has a way to go to become “the” community that people want to call home, attract businesses, and jobs.

Our next steps are cleaning out the riffraff in our city’s leadership.

After the special election in February, which drove home that Fremont’s Voters want this ordinance, it came out that Fremont’s leadership, its Mayor, City Council Members and others, were doing questionable (an possibly illegal) things to alter the outcome of this election.

These individuals should immediately step down from their positions and remove themselves from the May election ballot.

Fremont’s Police Chief told residents of a senior center outright lies.

Unacceptable.

Whether he did this under direction of the Mayor & City Council or others, or he did this himself, we do not know. Either way, the integrity of The Fremont Police Department has been severely damaged, and the Police Chief should step down.

Fremont’s Chamber of Commerce leadership, which ran a back room operation calling voters to tell them to repeal the ordinance, should all step down.

Then there are those, the liberal whiners who have exploited this cheap, illegal labor, that continue trying to stir up hatred, all because they cannot take advantage of these individuals any longer.

I have just one thing to say to those liberal whiny cryin babies, sell your businesses, homes, whatever, and pack up, and move to a community that harbors those in our country in violation of our laws. I would recommend Schuyler, or Columbus, or South Sioux City.

If you do not like that option and would like to remain in our community which is attracting new residents who wish to reside in a progressive city that enforces the rule of law, then please shut up and accept what the voters have said, twice over!

Fremont’s Voters have taken a huge step that has been seen around this great nation, to enforce the rule of law with respect to those residing in our great nation in violation of our laws.

Now it is time for the next step, clean out the corrupt leaders in our community that pushed the importation of cheap, illegal laborers that cost others in our community their jobs.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Zynga's FarmVille - It Ain't Fun No More, No More!

Zynga’s FarmVille

It Ain’t Fun No More! No More!

15 March 2014

Four years or so ago, Zynga Games debuted one of the best games of all time, FarmVille.

Four years later, FarmVille ain’t much fun anymore. If a game isn’t fun, players will quit, it won’t make money, and eventually, it will go the way of other Zynga games, gone.

Dear Zynga,

Here is what you can do to improve your game. An improved game will attract more players, and more revenue.

Speed Up the Farmer Avatar – Molasses in sub zero Nebraska weather moves out of the bottle faster than that farmer moves.

Mark’s What the Bleep! ran an experiment on a number of different computers, that have adequate memory (we’ll talk about that later), and different operating systems, from WindowsXP to Vista to Windows 7.

On a 36 X 36 farm which has a total of 1,282 plots, it takes the mister slower than molasses farmer avatar 37 minutes to harvest, another 37 minutes to plow, and another 37 minutes to plant. A total of one hour, fifty-four minutes (1 Hr 54 Min). That’s just one farm!

Yes, Zynga, you might think having this slower than molasses avatar farmer will get players to spend money to upgrade and buy plows, needing fuel, requiring $$$$$. Nope, players will just abandon FarmVille and find another game to play, like Farm Town, their avatar moves at light speed.

Memory Requirements – Let’s now talk memory. FarmVille needs to go on a serious memory diet.

When Farmville is loaded, it can easily hog up to a Gig of your computer’s RAM. Let’s face it, if you have 2GB or less of RAM on your computer, you might as well not even play this game.

Farmville likes to push green and organic things.

Anything sitting resident in your computer’s RAM increases the amount of energy your computer requires. Farmville’s huge memory use means your computer requires more energy. That’s not very green is it?

Number of Farms – The folks at Zynga seem to roll out another farm every 10 to 12 weeks. There is at least 15 of these now, which is overfarmkill! With the slower than molasses avatar, and memory requirement, there is no way for anyone to play all 15 farms.

FarmVille has a history of abandoning farms, like Holiday Acres, as an example, and turning off the points so they cannot be earned anymore.

With 15+ farms, players obviously chose to play on their favorites. Instead of developing new farms, focus on what you have Zynga, and improve them. On the farms you have abandoned, turn the points back on, and while you are at it, lower the costs of expansions on those farms!

Screen Clutter – Along the lines of cleaning up the game, the screen needs to have its clutter removed, period. Players can see the icons on each side, if we want to know what they are, we can click on them and find out.

Farm Clutter – More cleaning up. Newer farm developments have objects plopped in various and annoying places on the farm that require parts to remove them, with a prize of course that for the most part is just junk.

If you should hover over that object an annoying pop up appears that more often that not doesn’t go away.

Along the lines of cleaning up clutter, it would be very easy to make these objects “click to view”, or better yet, allow players to just remove them.

Zynga would like to say that this somehow affects the game play, well, I will say it does affect the game play, especially if your hands are physically challenged.

· Internet Connection – Farmville requires to be constantly hooked up to life support, a/k/a the net. If your net connection or computer hiccups, you get that darn “Whoa Farmer”.

Let’s go back to the 1,252 plots you just clicked to plant, and that “Whoa Farmer” pops up after Mr. Slower Than Molasses Farmer Avatar has only planted 13 of them. You’d probably be quite annoyed, right?

A lot of people are annoyed, annoyed players go elsewhere like Farm Town that do not need to be constantly hooked up to life support, so as you are planting away the game auto saves, so if you have an internet or computer hiccup, no worries.

· Bushel Report – One of the latest annoying game features, the Bushel Report is like almost everything else, in need of going back to the drawing board.

Zynga’s attempt to level the playing field is makes it impossible to get anywhere with crafting, which you must do to at least get some fuel for any combines or other farm vehicles you have.

On a small farm with only a hundred or so plots, the odds of you getting any bushels to craft with, are not too good.

The only way to get any bushels is to buy things with Farm Cash that enhances the bushel harvest count. Farm Cash requires real money, not a very worthwhile investment considering this game’s many problems, and the fact that Zynga shuts down games, like YoVille.

We’ll discuss Farm Cash a little more after our next item.

· Pop Up’s – We can sum this up in one line. FarmVille has more pop ups than a porn site.

Or so we’re told!

Put FarmVille on a pop up diet. Your players will be glad you did.

· Farm Cash – The folks at Zynga in a way to haul in more money on this broken game rolled out an option to pay $10 bucks a month to have the ability to change some of your coins into Farm Cash.

Another fail. If Zynga wants to make some money here, let players exchange a certain number of coins per week or month to Farm Cash. Above and beyond that, charge a reasonable amount like $5.00 per month. That amounts to $60 bucks a year, verses $120. Zynga might be able to attract some, who like the writer, are on a budget. Granted Zynga has to do a lot more before this writer would be willing to sink any money into this game.

· Farm Expansions – Expansions for coins should be available for all sizes. Simple as that. When you have almost $70 million coins and no ability to invest them in expansions, those coins are pretty, worthless.

FarmVille is, or I should say, was, a great game.

It could be great again, with a little work.

Disclosure Notice – Neither the author of this article or 470Media holds an investment position in Zynga Games, or intends to take up a position in this security.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Fremont Ordinance No. 5165 - Vote NO!

9 February 2014

On Tuesday, February 11th, a special election that should not have been called will happen.

This Special Election is to put Fremont, Nebraska’s Ordinance No. 5165, which among other things prohibits renting of properties to those not legally in The United States.

In June 2010, a Special Election was held where 57% of Fremont’s Voters voted for this ordinance after Fremont’s City Council voted down a similar ordinance in 2008.

This ordinance has stood up to every court challenge to date, even in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Fremont’s leadership, including it’s Mayor, who runs a heating and cooling business, and six council members, three of which own and rent properties in the city, and therefore have a clear conflict of interest, opted against the vote of the people to call this coming week’s Special Election. In addition to the cost of this special election, which comes from the taxpayers of Fremont. Plus this council wasted $16,000 in taxpayer’s monies on a study to learn the impacts of Ordinance No. 5165.

Big money is flowing into this Special Election from groups clearly in the left wing. These groups include The Nebraska League of Municipalities, The Nebraska Appleseed Center, and The Nebraska ACLU.

Then there is the big money donations from SAV-RX, a prescription drug firm that has set up shop in almost every “sanctuary city” in Nebraska, and Fremont Beef, which was subject to an ICE Enforcement action in 2010, that netted individuals using stolen identities.

As of the last update Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission of the over $70,000 in donations received by the “repealers”, the two locally based organizations receiving the funds have spent only $12,000. So, where is the rest of this money being spent???

Unfortunately, those for retaining the Ordinance have only received one-tenth of that amount, $7,000 in donations. They have been turned away from advertising on the local radio station KHUB, by what seems to be a sliding advertising scale, where the repealers get preferred rates, and those who are for retaining the Ordinance are told it will cost them at least two times those preferred rates.

Then, there is the leadership of Fremont, which at many levels is corrupt beyond belief.

Fremont’s Mayor calls his Fremont employees into a meeting where he offers them lunch for voting “Yes” to repeal the Ordinance. This is nothing short of rigging the vote.

Three of Fremont’s City Council Members are owners or have interests in properties that are rented in Fremont. They should have excluded themselves from voting for the Special Election. Conflict of Interest.

Fremont’s Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, Ron Tillery, was quoted in an Sunday, February 9th, World Herald article stating that “The Chamber’s position should not be interpreted to mean approval of illegal hiring or harboring of undocumented people”.

So why then is The Fremont Chamber of Commerce running a back room operation with three staffers assigned to calling voters and urging them to vote for repeal of the Ordinance. In attempting to pin this down, we were told the three were working on a “special project”.

The leader of the “repealers” is a substitute staffer in the Fremont Public Schools, is not there a rule that prohibits that type of political activity?

The Fremont Tribune, which is as far from reporting this upcoming Special Election in a fair, balanced manor, is clearly reporting on a far left wing liberal manor.

This publication has violated its own rules limiting editorial submissions on the same subject from the public to once every thirty days. They have published multiple editorials for repeal of the ordinance from the same person.

In addition, The Fremont Tribune has routinely been scouring the comments on Ordinance articles and deleting those comments from individuals for retaining the Ordinance.

As a footnote, just two weeks ago, to view any article on The Fremont Tribune’s (or as we call it here The Fremont Libune) site, you have to answer a “survey”, a clear indication the publication is having financial issues. The Lincoln Yournal (Journal) Star does the same thing, and that publication went bankrupt because no one was buying what they were printing not too long ago.

Here’s a hint Fremont Tribune online viewers, annoying pop-up ads will be coming soon.

Now let us take a look at what these people are trying to support by getting the Ordinance repealed:

An influx of undocumented workers, who can be exploited, paid very little per hour, taken to the cleaners by slumlords for substandard housing. Companies and Landlords have been lining their pockets with this money. These undocumented workers have no recourse if they are hurt on the job, not paid correctly, or get bitten by mice or rats in the homes they rent. If they were to take the employer or landlord to court, all know they would be jailed and deported.

Why should Fremont be for Ordinance No. 5165?

It takes back our community from those leaches who want a cheap labor force they can take advantage of.

It takes back our community from those leaches who want to rent substandard or barely standard housing.

It takes back our community from identity thieves, some of whom were exposed in the 2010 raid on Fremont Beef.

It takes back our community from those who are not registering or insuring automobiles in Dodge County. Remember the tragic accident on the Expressway at Waterloo, Nebraska a little over a year ago where it took the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office nearly a week to identify the four Guatemalan’s (who were not here legally), who had stolen identities?

It does not make Fremont another Sanctuary city. If you want to see what Fremont could become without this ordinance take a short drive to Columbus, Dakota City, Madison, Schuyler, or South Sioux City. Cities that have chosen not to fight the influx of illegals and the issues they bring.

It takes back our community for those not paying for services. If you pay utilities in Fremont, part of that cost is for unrecoverable accounts. As a note, we made an inquiry to the Fremont Department of Utilities for overall information on how much in unrecoverable accounts they currently have. We were given a diplomatic, “we cannot disclose that information until after the February 11th election” in response.

Last but not least, as a community, we are showing those elected officials, we will not stand for their corrupt leadership. Would you trust your keys to one of those heating and air conditioning company technicians? I would not, especially the ones that sell their integrity for a free lunch from their boss.

Post the June 2010 Special Election, Fremont has become the spotlight of the country’s fight for illegal immigration. Fremont is by far a better place post Special Election than it was before.

Do you want Fremont to be seen as just another Washington, ran by corrupt politicians that only care about lining their pockets with cash, while taking advantage of those in our country illegally?

Or would you rather see Fremont as a community that stood on the front lines and fought illegal immigration and won?

Lastly, some say the Ordinance has brought about finger pointing at immigrants, whether legal or not. This happens in every community in The United States. Repeal of the Ordinance will not stop that, it could do the opposite.

On Tuesday, Fremont voters should come out and bury this issue, with more than 57% of the voters against repeal of Ordinance No. 5165.

After that, Fremont voters should begin the process of taking back City Hall, which is full of corrupt-ocrats.