Land of Oz

Terminator School?

I was wandering through the Detroit News web site and noticed this ad for a career site. Is it just me or does that look like one evil woman? I think she'd give T-X from Terminator 3 a run for its money. Imagine her sitting in front of a bank of monitors watching your every move. And who's that shadowy dude in the background. Gives me the shivers...

Labels: crime, government, religion

U-pay, I-pay

We all pay... It seems that today's government punishes those who try to live right. The government is vomiting money for a wide variety of bailouts and rescues but only for those who've screwed it up. Drive an old gas-guzzler and put in for government money. If you've been driving an efficient car - tough. Revamp the credit card laws to help those in over their head - while those who spend responsibly get stuck paying for those who don't. Mortgage yourself into a deep dark hole for a mcmansion and we'll help; live in an affordable home, and too bad, you don't need any help. I'm not asking for help and I don't mind helping those who really need it, but I also shouldn't be expected to foot the bill (not that we'll ever pay it off) for all those too greedy or stupid to control themselves fiscally. By the way, can you really imagine a trillion dollars of debt? If you spent $1.3 million a day since Christ died, you still wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars! Our government spent that much this year and it's only June.

Labels: government

Susan Boyle

Let me put in my two cents about Susan Boyle. She's gone into some clinic for exhaustion which pretty much covers just about anything from actual physical exhaustion to drug rehab to give my career a boost time outs. The biggest result of this is that so many are now complaining about her being exploited.

Well, jeez, of course she's been exploited. That's the whole purpose behind these reality shows. Take some relative unknown (or all-but-forgotten celeb) and exploit their foibles to the world. These shows are hoping for a train wreck. The more spectacular the fall, the better the show is going to do. If that wasn't the case why show the no-talent disasters at all. Weed them out during off-line auditions and only show the acts that are acceptable. Which would destroy the basics behind all these shows.

To get the full force behind Ms. Boyle, one had to hear her first, then see her after. I actually listened to an .mp3 of her earlier recording before I saw her image. To hear the voice, one thinks of Diana Krall or Kathleen Turner or Demi Moore -- and let's just say that when you do see her, she isn't anything like those. I know it's chauvinistic, but that's the world. Anyway, good luck Ms. Boyle in whatever happens for you.

Labels: celebs

Memories

ScienceDaily: They [Alex Zettl and colleagues]note that William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book, written on vellum in 1086 AD, has survived 900 years. However, the medium used for a digital version of the book, encoded in 1986, failed within 20 years.

This is for those folks (and that seems most) who can't wait to transfer all their memories to RAM, ROM or to some other digital acronym. All those precious family photos and movies that you've patiently put on tape or disk aren't going to be there all that long. In my old house we found newspapers dated from 1918 that were still mostly perfectly readable. Even with a few nail holes and tears where they were creased didn't keep me from reading about the front line in Europe.

On the other hand, I've noticed some of the CDs that I used to archive some college work on only 10 years ago, have failed. There's no holes, they haven't been stored in temperature extremes or in the weather, but have been neatly stored in CD containers in the dark. Granted, they weren't the special archival quality disks available, but then who does use those?

I have regretted the loss of some early computer programs I wrote. A couple of games to be exact. As late as a few years ago, I did have a cassette with one of them. However, how common is a TRS-80 Model 1 with cassette to read them these days. Five and a quarter inch disks are virtually non-existent these days when once they used to be as common as three-and-a-half inch disks - which themselves are becoming quite scarce.

On the other hand, I have a photo of my grandparents wedding (very early 20th century) that is as sharp as the day it was processed. What about your kid's photos on VHS or DVD? Do you think anyone will be able to see them in twenty years?

Labels: computers, tech

FDIC

Last year, DeMotte paid $42,000 into the fund [FDIC]. This year, because of failures in other parts of the country and particularly among national banks, that sum will rise to $500,000 or more.

Here's something you don't hear much about. Who pays for FDIC. If you don't know, FDIC is the insurance that covers your bank account. It used to be up to $100K and now is up to $250K. This is for people whose banks invested stupidly and now are looking at closing. The FDIC will make good on your account.

Mr. Goetz is the president of the DeMotte bank - a plain dull local bank in Indiana. This bank isn't going under. It also isn't paying 15% returns on investments or loaning big bucks to people who don't have a chance in the world of paying those big bucks back. In other words, it's a safe, comfortable place to keep your money to do safe, comfortable things with. It hasn't taken any "TARP" money from the government and it isn't in danger of closing. However, even after all that it is still suffering from the stupidity and mostly, greed, of the mega-banks.

One more reason why I don't like mega-sized businesses. Sure, in a mega bank, you might get a couple of percentage points more interest or in a mega depot, you might save a few percentage points on the cost of a gallon of paint, but there's still a high price to pay. I'd much rather deal with a Mr. Goetz at a local bank or Fred at the local mom and pop hardware store. Sure, I might pay a little more, but not in the long run.

Labels: government, scams

Taser or 9mm

Here in Michigan over the last few weeks two teenagers were killed when police used Tasers on them. Naturally the kid's families are up in arms. However, they need to look at both sides here. All I know from the news is that the police used a Taser on one drunk teenager resisting and one teenager who resisted while being searched and detained after a car and foot chase -- and that's about all the details I know. Both families are talking about lawsuits and police brutality.

Here's my take on the situations. One is that a being teenager doesn't make you a helpless weakling. Even if they don't have a concealed weapon, a teenager is strong enough to do real harm to another person - even an adult policeman. Both the teenagers were resisting which means they were fighting back. The police have to deal with people everyday who plan on doing some harm to the police or the public at large. The policeman's job is to control the situation, not act as jury. There's no way a policeman can tell if the teenager is just having a bad day, or has just come from a Columbine shooting and has a .357 tucked in his waistband - and he shouldn't have to take that chance.

The way I see it, the police have several options. They can let the poor little teenager go and hope he isn't on his way to a massacare. They can wrestle him to the ground and hope he isn't carrying a razor or a needle full of infected blood. They can shoot him with a firearm. In real-life people don't shoot to wound, they shoot to hit. In the heat of a fight, you're lucky to hit the target at all, let alone shooting him in the arm. Or they can do what they did in these cases and use a Taser. In this case the suspects died, but I'm betting there's a lot more folks survive a taser than survive a 9mm in the stomach.

I feel the sorry for the kids, but I'm glad there's cops out there putting it on line for me and my wife. If my wife is getting assaulted in a parking lot I'm hoping there's a cop near by with a Taser or a 9mm and isn't afraid to use either one.

Labels: crime, michigan

The Rich Don't Get It

One article today talked about Vick's (ex-dog fighting quarterback) bankruptcy plan would allow him to keep the first $750,000 of his annual pay. After that, a percentage would go to his creditors based on a sliding scale. Another article talked about some young wife divorcing her old husband for $100 million, stating she can't live on $53,000 a week. And I'm not even going to mention the various CEOs and execs making millions.

They just don't get it. If Vick is truly going bankrupt and can't pay his creditors, why should he still be getting $750,000 before paying his debts. There's a whole lot of folks doing quite well on less than $50,000 a year. If Vick was really repentant, why does he need three-quarters of a million to live on before he pays off his debts. And that silly divorcee? As much as I hate stupid lawsuits and such, in this case I hope the lawyers get it all and both her and her husband end up working at Walmart as greeters.

Next thing you know, some executive will be expecting to be paid a big reward for running his company into the ground -- oops, that's right, it's happening too.

Labels: celebs, crime

Politics as Usual

It's nice to see nothing has changed. I wasn't expecting that much from Obama since Washington D.C. is what it is. It's nice to see that my lack of faith wasn't misguided. The country is throwing our money in huge heaping smelly piles at walls of problems in the hope that something will stick and coverup what's going on.

Some of that money gets to go to the executives who led their companies and our country into the fiscal morass. I'm not sure why a company wants to reward and keep the very people who destroyed it. However, since it's my money (and yours) they're using to pay off these folks, I guess it really is understandable.

I guess we're pulling a few thousand troops out of Iraq and sending dozens of thousands into Afghanistan. I'm hoping we can get some Soviet advisors to help us really mess that up.

I've got a house that I can't sell whose value has dropped down below what I owe on it. I never bought it to get rich, but I didn't expect it to become a millstone. I suppose I need to abandon it to get some of the political pork I keep hearing about. Doing my duty in paying my bills is starting to seem ever more stupid.

And why did the astronauts move out of a big space station into a tiny capsule because there was flying debris in the area. That chunk of space garbage had just as much chance of nailing the Soyuz capsule as it did the station. And what happens next year when we are dependent on the Russians to get folks to and from the station. Can you believe we have to pay the Russians to do space travel that the USofA can't do? Man, does that suck.

Labels: government