tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39376370338442182092024-03-17T22:58:51.806-04:00Living StingyAct rationally in an irrational world.Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comBlogger5453125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-15604530249139771802024-03-17T15:32:00.001-04:002024-03-17T15:32:25.274-04:00Are Billionaires Really Happy?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHg9A_n2sOi4ES3WiGHF7uolQQGkwzdSh1EWiGlR6MWGyBipG5p3Zx1QYetn0jSSCGp8sJ442VVD2B6QeV6fEnQWxVSRxmQkS3rQc9AguoNvt1f1zIwG26esScN3-irfFHAwtQNoTXMWvJdUEUOvuIfDxXGbfR7nR7oGbkVeXi_mUYSLglbX1IPVESo3M/s1280/smile%20asshole2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHg9A_n2sOi4ES3WiGHF7uolQQGkwzdSh1EWiGlR6MWGyBipG5p3Zx1QYetn0jSSCGp8sJ442VVD2B6QeV6fEnQWxVSRxmQkS3rQc9AguoNvt1f1zIwG26esScN3-irfFHAwtQNoTXMWvJdUEUOvuIfDxXGbfR7nR7oGbkVeXi_mUYSLglbX1IPVESo3M/w400-h225/smile%20asshole2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Legend has it, it took him nearly an hour to "smile" for this photo.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Years ago, I went to a meet-up at a State Park in Virginia for people who owned BMW 2002's - the iconic car that put BMW on the map as the "sport sedan" maker. Of course, today, they are just another overpriced status brand, like Mercedes, selling plastic cars that cost twice as much as a Toyota, but are far less reliable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the meet were two people representing the antipodes of the car hobby. One was a 17-year-old kid who yanked an old 1972 2002ti out of a junkyard and got it running on a budget. No two fenders were the same color, but he had spent hours in their garage at home, putting in a rebuilt engine, and going over every part of the car, fixing this and that, on a budget. It wasn't perfect - far from it - but it was his.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other extreme was a guy with a 1976 "big bumper" car that was immaculately restored by a host of mechanics and bodymen, paid for with his Daddy's money. Yes, it was a nice car, a bit over-restored, but in terms of "hands on" experience, the owner had only driven it a few times - he even had it trailered to the event. He won all the awards - or should I say, his cadre of paid assistants did. But when it came down to "people's favorite" the 17-year-old won, and everyone was crowded around his "beater" BMW, much to the chagrin of the rich dude.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can "win" at life and still lose. People who obsess about being successful and making lots of money are rarely ever happy. I grew up in rich-people places, always on the outside looking in, of course. But the amount of anti-depressants these folks washed down - and their suicide and alcoholism rates, were astounding. Their kids were generally spoiled, depressed, and envious of anyone who was actually happy - which is why rich kids often end up bullying happy people. <i>They want to bring everyone down to their level</i>.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yea, I went to prep school - for nearly a year before they threw me out, sensing I wasn't one of "them." The kids who went there were not mentally well-adjusted, to say the least. It was kind of sad, actually, so see some kid whose Dad showed up once a year in his Rolls-Royce, so unhappy and troubled. I think he would have been happier with a Dad who cared - and drove a Chevy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maybe there is something to this, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/what-worlds-longest-happiness-study-says-about-money-2023-02-06/">some surveys</a> (and <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2018/12/survey-says.html">I detest survey data!</a>) claim that having "enough" money to get by is the apex of happiness. Too little, you are miserable. Too much, you are miserable in luxury. For rich folks, I think, life seems boring and trite - and too easy. It is like playing <i>Monopoly</i> starting out with Boardwalk and Park Place. <i>Why bother playing?</i> There is something very satisfying about reaping the fruits of your labor - and something very shallow about reaping the fruits of others'.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13201007/Computer-expert-accidentally-threw-Bitcoin-fortune-old-hard-drive-says-worth-1-5BILLION-launches-legal-fight-dig-council-landfill.html">A reader sent a link</a> about the ongoing saga of this poor fellow who threw away his hard drive that contained some bitcoins. At the time, they were "worth" pennies, but today, he claims they are worth over a billion. He already spent a ton of money digging up a landfill to find this errant hard drive, to no avail. Now he wants to try again, and the local council has better things to do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><i>How sad</i>. Nothing good ever came of Bitcoin. You never read a story about how it saved someone's life or fed the poor or stopped a war. Quite the opposite - it has been a conduit for arms trading, human trafficking and the drug trade. It made rich people richer, often at the expense of naive middle-class investors who wanted to "get rich." <i>There is a lesson there somewhere.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This is why I don't buy lottery tickets. The $1B ticket would go through the wash and be destroyed. Hell, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2024/02/mr-fixit-and-mr-broke-it.html">I put <i>nails</i> through the wash</a> and nearly destroyed my washing machine. Lottery tickets would be easy prey. People have literally killed themselves over things like this.</div></div><p style="text-align: justify;">I used to buy lottery tickets - maybe 2-3 times a year. Back then, they cost a buck and you might win a million dollars - enough money to live comfortably, if not frugally, for the rest of your life, or augment what you already have. It is not life-destroying money.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But then they raised the ticket prices to $2 and added zillions of games. And the jackpots went up to the hundreds of millions to nearly (and over) a billion dollars. <i>This is life-destroying money</i>. If you won, you'd have to sell your house. Better yet, give it away or bulldoze it, as the new owners will sue you for misrepresentation or something, the first time the toilet backs up and once they realize you are a billionaire.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Everyone you ever knew - and legions of those you never knew - will knock at your door asking for money. You have to change your phone number, your e-mail address, and erase everything you ever posted on the Internet. You'd have to move to an ugly house in a gated community and hire a bodyguard to make sure your children weren't kidnapped. That's life as a billionaire, or even a hundred-millionaire.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And I am not joking about this, either. We got a magazine once, aimed at wealthy people. It was all ads for high-end goods, but a surprising number of ads were for security systems, firearms, security services and even a couple of outfits that sold trained German Shepard's who would cuddle with your children and rip-out the mailman's throat, if he approached the house without warning.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Is that any way to live?</p><div style="text-align: justify;">Elon Musk has done one good thing for humanity - he illustrated how miserable you can be as a rich person. You read his tweets and you realize this guy has a real anger-management problem and is never happy. His family members - parents, children, ex-spouses - either refuse to talk to him or mock him publicly. <i>That says a lot</i> when your own family members are willing to estrange themselves from you, and walk away from a billion-dollar inheritance. <i>How toxic can that be?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maybe being miserable is a prerequisite to being a billionaire? As I noted in an earlier posting, "miserable" and "miser" <a href="https://www.wordreference.com/definition/miser#:~:text=%2Dmiser%2D%2C%20root.,%2C%20miserable%2C%20miserly%2C%20misery.">have the same Latin root</a>. A miser is someone who wants to sit on a hoard of money for its own sake. A thrifty or stingy person, on the other hand, doesn't want to spend money unnecessarily <i>because they don't have a lot of it</i>. And the latter can actually be more "fun" in that playing the game of commerce is more interesting when you have skin in the game. When you find a good bargain, you feel like you've won. On the other hand, a Billionaire simply pays - why bother wasting valuable time haggling over a few bucks?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Happy people have no need for billions. Billionaires have no need to be happy, it seems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ever see a picture of John D. Rockefeller smiling? Me neither! Legend has it, it took him nearly an hour to "smile" for this photo. <i>I just made that up</i>. But it sounds like it could be true. The very, very wealthy got there by exploiting and crushing other people. Rockefeller bought up oil companies and cornered the market in that business. If someone refused to sell to him, he would make an example of them by crushing their business, so that others would comply. He pitched railroads against one another - and against pipelines as well. Carnegie was no different, just in a different business (Steel). And of course, J.P. Morgan, once a part-time resident of our little island, was as miserable as the rest of them, despite (or because of) being the "richest man in the world." Henry Ford? A cranky old antisemite who tried to control the personal lives of his employees. <i>Not a nice man to be around, from all accounts.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are no happy-go-lucky billionaires. Even those with inherited wealth (or maybe especially so) are miserable - compounded by the nagging feeling that they really didn't deserve their wealth. Carnegie, when he retired, set out to give away most of his wealth - something that apparently actually made him happy. He gave some to his relatives, who built white-elephant mansions on Cumberland Island, just South of us. Most are in ruins, one is a hotel. The heirs are still picking over the carcass of that fortune to this very day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Candler heirs (Coca-Cola) live just North of them on Little Cumberland Island and the few I've met are a stuck-up bunch of arrogant ass-hats who seem to think it is beneath them to even talk to one of us plebes. But again, I've seen this all my life - people who inherit wealth are fundamentally insecure, as they realize they really did nothing to warrant the largess they wallow in. Hence why the "Royals" are so miserable and there is such drama about them. If they were stripped of their ill-gotten riches and forced to have jobs, they likely would be better off, emotionally. Imagine Prince William tending bar at a pub or Prince Harry running a chip-shop. <i>Why not? The rest of us have to!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And we are happier for it, believe it or not.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A lot of young people pine for great wealth. Teenage boys put up posters of exotic cars and exotic women on their bedroom walls (which one they masturbate to, is a good question). Young girls dream of a life of luxury and excess. And life always comes up short for both. But the reality of an exotic sports car is that is an uncomfortable pain-in-the-ass to own, and quite frankly, not many are impressed by the ability to write a check.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Houston "cars and coffee" group <a href="https://www.carscoops.com/2024/03/houston-coffee-and-cars-meet-permanently-bans-all-modern-muscle-cars/">recently created a controversy</a> by stating that only older cars are welcome at their event. No late-model Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, or Chargers, thank you! If you look at YouTube videos of dilberts in these cars leaving a "car meet" you can see why. They are driven by young men who are insecure and want to show off, so they floor it to burn out, succumb to lift-throttle oversteer and spin out into a parked car, pedestrian, or both.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A car meet is about cars that people work on and restore and love. It isn't a used car lot for idiots who are making monthly payments on a new car. It takes talent and time to restore an old car and care for it. It takes no talent to sign loan documents on a Dodge and then wreck in before the loan is paid off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And just like with Billionaires, the guy who just spent money isn't really as happy as the guy who struggled to restore an old car on a budget. It is just like the BMW 2002 meet I alluded to above. Talent trumps cash, every time. Well, that, and I can understand why the "Cars and Coffee" people don't want to get sued because some jackalope has to do a fiery burnout while leaving <i>and has no idea how to drive the car he just bought</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We see this all the time in other venues. A "rich guy" buys an expensive yacht and figures that since he paid for it <i>he knows how to drive it</i>. Same is true for Porches - the rich guy who bought a brand-new one, ends up wrecking it. He can write a check for the car, but has no real idea what the car is all about, other than a status symbol. <i>Such was the downfall of BMW.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It doesn't pay to be jealous of the very rich, because, deep down, they are jealous of the real happiness the middle-class actually has. <i>Maybe that is why the very rich have systematically been trying to destroy the middle-class in this country!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No one should be allowed to be happy while they are so miserable!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /></div>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-66368282493322763602024-03-15T16:47:00.003-04:002024-03-15T18:33:35.729-04:00Ragebait: Why Everything You See On the Internet is AI-Generated Fakes<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztOQj-TLyeif7tAJHuoDIu8OrSEsRQ9pfOZ3VYgMN3P3rW6DhGNXTFZECDm873sINlz8yK9vgzZ-CFcBCVvJJ2PXrrTyESDZQImVt_FkQdb4-m7xHWuXIOomi7HhXPEHgg772MjSbbB2wKlQelPY5h4U7dFxZfEh9tw1Xm4ItTrPpdwE2yI6kzez4JKI/s259/fake%20as%20fuck.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztOQj-TLyeif7tAJHuoDIu8OrSEsRQ9pfOZ3VYgMN3P3rW6DhGNXTFZECDm873sINlz8yK9vgzZ-CFcBCVvJJ2PXrrTyESDZQImVt_FkQdb4-m7xHWuXIOomi7HhXPEHgg772MjSbbB2wKlQelPY5h4U7dFxZfEh9tw1Xm4ItTrPpdwE2yI6kzez4JKI/w300-h400/fake%20as%20fuck.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>People click on things that enrage them, which ensures more enraging content.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">When we lived near Ithaca, NY, we saw a lot of green Subarus with bumper stickers saying (among a lot of other things), "<a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/03/one-sided-stories-and-internet.html">If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!</a>" I talked about this before and came to the conclusion that if you are outraged all the time, you are easy pickin's for our commerce culture. While you get outraged over things, you don't actually change them. Meanwhile, they pick your pocket. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is like people complaining about inflation, as they idle their SUV in line at the McDonald's drive-thru. All the facebook postings in the world are not going to change anything <i>until you stop consuming</i>. And <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/business/mcdonalds-inflation-low-income-consumers/index.html">according to some articles</a> (thanks, reader!), this in fact, may finally be happening, as people run out of money and credit.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I digress.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A lot of the <a href="https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/here-lies-the-internet-murdered-by">content of the Internet is AI-generated</a> and you may not realize it. While people debate about the possible impacts of AI on the future, the future quietly arrived (yes, it took me by surprise, too). <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2023/04/could-ai-generate-blog-entry-lets-try.html">I illustrated before</a> how a simple ChatGTP prompt can create a pretty realistic-sounding blog posting (to the uninitiated, anyway) or a <i>very</i> realistic Reddit posting.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And rage-baiting is the name of the game. AITA (Am I The Asshole?) stories about cheating husbands, in-laws ruining weddings, ungrateful children, or narcissistic parents are all designed to get you upset and get you to click. And when you click, your blood pressure goes up and you become anxious. Or maybe you click just to see how stupid the story is. Either way, they get clicks, eyeballs, and "engagement." Reddit is about to "drop" their IPO - no doubt the content will go 100% AI after that.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">AI-created rage bait is more slowly spreading to YouTube. AI videos are still somewhat primitive and easy to spot. No problem, though, as there are a host of "influencers" out there, willing to make fake videos to enrage you. Ever wonder why everyone hates "influencers"? <i>It is by design</i>. It is the old <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-tyranny-of-outrage.html">Howard Stern</a> "You'll never guess what he said today!" outrage. They don't listen because they <i>like him</i>, but because they want to be <i>outraged</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It ain't hard to find an older relative to play the part of "Karen" and go off on camera. In almost every case, you have to wonder why the cameraman is filming in the first place - watching paint dry, perhaps? Or even if "Karen" is real, they never show what happened before the video started. Many of these idiots will actually set out to annoy someone to get a reaction and then film it. We all suffer as a result. It is "Candid Camera" gone off the rails.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">People <i>learn</i> intuitively, what works and what doesn't. When I monetized my blog many years ago (for a whopping $2000 in one year) I learned that anything I wrote about Hillary or Trump was cash in the bank. <i>Major American news outlets have learned the same thing.</i> Controversy sells, whether it is people curious as to what the controversy is all about, or people rooting for one side or another. It doesn't matter either way - a click is a click. So, online "influencers" learn - explicitly or intuitively - that being an asshat to everyone sells clicks and puts money in their pocket. An online "personality" who plays nice, sinks to the bottom of the Internet septic tank. <i>Go controversial or go home</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is akin to how quickly the poor figure out how to benefit from welfare programs. People who barely passed the 8th grade can recite, from memory, United States Code sections dealing with public benefits programs - and tell you all the qualifying criteria and what forms to fill out, where to file them and when to expect your first check or benefits card. <i>When it comes to survival, people learn fast</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, the homeless quickly learn what works and what doesn't, in terms of begging strategies, free handouts, good places to sleep without being disturbed, where to get drugs, and so on and so forth. It amazes me that I can cross a continent and see a homeless guy on each coast with <i>the identically worded sign</i>. A Madison Avenue marketer armed with a dozen focus groups could not do better. People do what they need to do to survive and quickly figure out and share these tips.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">With the Internet, however, it seems this intuitive learning process has discovered a dark side of humanity - that what we will likely click on is stuff that makes us angry, depressed, and anxious. Few, if any, click on the "heartwarming story" or if they do, it is only to leave a snarky comment. Speaking of which, the comments sections on most of these sites are the worst part of it. People leave the most mean-spirited comments, safe behind their wall of Internet anonymity They do not profit from this, other than in terms of attention-getting. And like others listed above, they quickly learn what gets them the most attention - saying the most horrible things.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span>Again, with AI and foreign influencers (which includes our own CIA, which was recently "outed" as running an influence campaign in China - act shocked, I know) the entire process is being bootstrapped literally at the speed of light. Programming a "bot" to prompt ChatGPT (or other AI site) to create rage-bait postings isn't hard to do, and you could literally generate thousands of such postings per hour, drowning out any enlightening comment or indeed, any human-generated content.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is precedent for this, as I noted before. My first experience with the Internet back in the 1980s, was with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup">usenet</a> discussion groups online, which were reached using an ASCII-text terminal interface. It was mostly computer nerds exchanging opinions about which Star Trek character was their favorite or whatever other drivel. Advertisements were frowned upon and shouted down. But over time, they overwhelmed many newsgroups, which essentially shut down as real users fled to private websites and the newsgroup left behind became 100% SPAM.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Moderation (having a human "moderator" monitor all postings) is one option, but is problematic in its own right. Since most of these sites make so little money, there is no way to pay a moderator. As a result, most are volunteers who get tired of the flame wars rather quickly. Keeping up with a firehose of SPAM is nearly impossible, particularly when it is aimed at your group 24 hours a day. Some moderators get a little power-hungry too, and censor or ban users who they simply don't like or have opinions contrary to their own. It is a real mess.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The use of real names (as opposed to made-up user names) was thought to be a panacea and <a href="https://smallbusiness.chron.com/can-make-anonymous-facebook-account-26815.html#:~:text=Facebook%20users%20cannot%20use%20fake,impersonate%20another%20person%20on%20Facebook.">Facebook went this route</a>. Sadly, it turns out that a lot of people have no problem putting their real name to odious or stupid opinions, such as embracing Nazism or promoting flat-earth or anti-vaxxer beliefs. <i>Checkmate, fact-checkers!</i> Of course, in some cases this has resulted in people being "outed" as bigots or racists and thus losing jobs or friends. And this lead to the fictional "cancel culture" nonsense - predicated on the notion that no matter how odious you are, you are <i>entitled</i> to a job, friends, or even a spouse (the latter according to the incel subgroup). <i>Everyone has rights except you and I, it seems.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Again,controversy sells, and oftentimes, what starts out as ragebait or even a joke, ends up being taken seriously by some folks. The whole "incel" thing, for example, I think started as a joke, but people ended up self-identifying with it. Flat-earth, I think, is the same deal - perhaps "chemtrails" as well. The whole "birds aren't real" thing has yet to be taken seriously, but I think that is only because the creators of it have gone out of their way to make it clear they are mocking conspiracy theories with it. But crypto-currency? Probably a joke that went too far. Dogecoin literally started as a joke but now is being hyped by the "richest man in the world."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And grifting falls right in with this. By hyping a "coin" or stock or whatever, online, you can be sure that some idiots will buy it, which in turn will drive up the price which in turn will make you rich, if you bought that stock for cheap (or an option) before you hyped it. <i>This sort of shit used to be illegal,</i> but on the Internet, it is hard to track down anonymous accounts, particularly those from overseas.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The image above was made using an AI program with the prompt, "Show a picture of an African boy with a car he made out of plastic bottles" or something similar. It was posted (and re-posted and shared and forwarded endlessly) along with a heartwarming ChatGPT "story" behind it, lauding the resourcefulness and creativity of this poor African child who made something from nothing. Of course, it never happened. <i> It is all fake</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">People clicked on the story to leave outraged comments about AI-generated content, which in turn, pushed up the click-rates and site engagement. <i>Mission accomplished</i>. And here I am, further raising awareness of it. <i>You can't win at this game - it is rigged</i>. The only real solution is to spend less time online, less time on social media, less time clicking on click-bait links. It is harder to do that than it is to quit an opioid addiction, I think. And hundreds of millions of Americas are hooked - billions, worldwide.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Doom-scrolling the smart phone has replaced the cigarette-break as the number one destroyer of productivity, worldwide. A smoker might take five or ten minutes on a smoke break. An Internet addict can spend hours - a whole workday, in fact - falling down the rabbit-hole.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And try to take away their phones, as we once did in schools. People will howl and likely resort to violence before they give up their electronic drug.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Not before, of course, they make a rage-bait posting about it!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-84850353738957234342024-03-14T12:25:00.001-04:002024-03-14T12:25:30.365-04:00What's Wrong With The Dollar Store? Or Irish Spring Soap? (Leftist Elitism)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQv_18-7rEjgemDqz1BJ18mOluIwghZVLdYzykrkPcOPF9rJ_j7VEqB2Tuy086vbKDfZRahS34mZ6rDqPSpgeF1nyJpjAAFDYfikjBUwCvSAY1x-1IXd4lkVHOyK-c07qcKwT77mePYp9T5-0JD7t0iyY6E0p63DVGu7IYmyfiF-cgv2_zDQUgLQxRme8/s4032/20240313_161816.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQv_18-7rEjgemDqz1BJ18mOluIwghZVLdYzykrkPcOPF9rJ_j7VEqB2Tuy086vbKDfZRahS34mZ6rDqPSpgeF1nyJpjAAFDYfikjBUwCvSAY1x-1IXd4lkVHOyK-c07qcKwT77mePYp9T5-0JD7t0iyY6E0p63DVGu7IYmyfiF-cgv2_zDQUgLQxRme8/s320/20240313_161816.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Irish spring soap is three-for-a-dollar-and-a-quarter. We call it "soap" not "product." But no, it doesn't repel spiders!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I recently <a href="https://www.waow.com/news/wisconsin/all-staff-quit-mineral-point-dollar-general-over-donation-policy-dispute/article_0c079639-3052-53ae-97e5-6d083644ec4a.html">saw a thing online</a> where workers at a Dollar General store all quit at once. They were upset about pay and working conditions, but the straw that broke the camel's back was that the company would not let them donate foods that were near their expiry, or products no longer carried, to local charities. <i>The company insisted these items be put in the dumpster</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here's a hint: If you are the general manager of a Dollar General and are about to throw away bags of food and items that are "still good" - then call the local charity and hint that some stuff is about to be left outside and - wink-wink - it is going to be "thrown away." But I bet they have cameras to discourage this sort of thing.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There are <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/02/waste.html">liability issues with expired foods</a> and when you throw away "perfectly good" merchandise, people take it back and "return" it for cash or store credit. So often, "corporate" insists that these items be smashed or otherwise destroyed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The evil side of me suggests that maybe if these food items are donated to the local food bank then <i>customers would no longer have to buy them</i>, which would crimp sales at Dollar General and thus keep more items on the shelf longer, which means more stuff given to charity. <i>The same people getting free food at the food bank are the same people shopping at Dollar General</i>. They would figure out pretty quickly that free is better than paying. Poor people aren't as dumb as they look!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But kudos to the workers - and manager - of that store for not just quitting over their own self-interest, but because they also wanted to help those less fortunate than themselves. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And that's pretty unfortunate, to be less fortunate than someone working at Dollar General.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There has been a lot of negative press about "Dollar Stores" which in many rural areas are <i>the only stores around</i>. Some items are no real bargains there, although the <i>Dollar Tree</i> has some good bargains, but like anything else, you have to be astute. Dollar General is something I have less experience with - maybe a few visits in my lifetime. But I did find some bargains there, of course.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Note: Dollar Tree famously bought out <i>Family Dollar</i>, which is a shitty version of Dollar General. It turned out to be a huge mistake, as Family Dollar is hemorrhaging cash and bringing down Dollar Tree in the process. <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/13/dollar-tree-store-closings-family-dollar">They are slated to close 1,000 stores</a>, mostly Family Dollar stores (and 30 Trees). As "The Tree" moves to multiple pricing strategies, it makes less sense to have both brands, particularly as they are often in the same shopping plaza or even the same building.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">With all the stuff cheaply made in China, it is possible to do fairly well in this country if you are "poor." In fact, that is a problem with the "made in America" crowd. Stuff "made in America" by union workers is staggeringly expensive. I wrote before about how my Dad - a fairly well-off executive, could not "afford" a Coleman steel-belted cooler ($99) or a Weber kettle ($99) or a color TV ($500) in 1970. Those prices are about the same today, but factoring in inflation since 1970, the first two would be worth $786 today (!!) and the latter $3400. Bear in mind you can get a television <i>far better</i> than the 25" tube TV my Dad eventually bought, for about $200 or less, at Walmart.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So cheap shit from China makes living in America easier. Throw in food stamps, Obamaphone, Section-8 housing, Obamacare, and so forth, and well, a "poor" person in America <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2014/05/are-working-poor-really-poor.html">is doing pretty well by world standards</a>. <i>Or even American standards.</i> Increasing wages or enacting tariffs sound like a great ideas, until you realize it means everything gets <i>a lot </i>more expensive, and you end up running in place, if not falling behind. <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/11/are-we-wealthier-today-than-in-past-yes.html">Look at a photo of a house in the 1950's</a> and see how stark and minimalist it is - it was not just a design theme, but a necessity. Hoarders didn't exist back then as <i>no one could afford to hoard</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I get it. Working at these places sucks. I try to be super-nice to the poor folks on their feet all day, ringing up people's crap. Just doing the job is bad enough, but you see some customers treating the staff like they are slaves. No, Karen, the customer is <i>not</i> always right!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But in the absence of any other retail store, these kind of stores serve a need. I shop at "The Tree" at least a few times a month to get some basic cleaning supplies and other things. I am not too proud to save money!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Others, well, they are elitist. And it should come as no surprise that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4QGOHahiVM">a British guy living in a big city</a>, can afford to look down on us plebes for shopping at Dollar General instead of Whole Foods. By the way, what is it with political comedians from Britain coming over here and telling us what for? I mean, shouldn't they be back home saving their country from Brexit? <i>Or maybe Brexit was why they left</i>. Out of the frying pan and into the fire! <i>Welcome to the United States of Trump, dictator for life.</i> Yes, he promised to do this. Good thing he's old! I wonder who would succeed him? Kim Jong Trump?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, Mr. Oliver confuses Dollar General with The Dollar Store - and they are two entirely different things - or at least <i>were</i>. Dollar General is a mini-market basically, with various price points. Dollar <i>Tree</i> was a store where everything was a dollar. You never heard the words "Price Check!" at Dollar Tree! But now, due to inflation, it is dollar-and-a-quarter tree, and they now sell select items for $5 as well. But there is a difference, and of course, John Oliver would never set foot in either place - but an intern probably did, on his behalf.</p><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the things Mr. Oliver ragged on was "Irish Spring" soap. When I was a kid, this was the bomb. 🎶 "With a bar of Irish Spring in your hand, it's like taking a shower in Ireland!" 🎶 And "Manly, yes! But I like it toooo!" It was the go-to soap back in the 1970s, or should I say, "personal body bar." But as an obsolete brand, it is sold cheaply, three-for-a-buck (and a quarter) along with other soaps as well. In his "parody" video, Oliver suggests that they sell a tiny, tiny bar of soap for a dollar, instead of three for $1.25. Talk about out-of-touch!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then he went on a rant on how much he hates that soap. Well, I am sure he never use <i>soap</i> but instead, <i>product</i>, on his skin - bottles of lotions and ointments and cleaning agents, each costing $29.99 or more, probably far more. He lives in a different world that the rest of us, and talks down to us peasants as to how ignorant we are not to buy designer soaps.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of us don't have a choice. Some of us <i>choose not to consume for the sake of consumption</i>. I've been down that road before. My husband ran a gourmet food store and spent his entire paycheck - and them some - on items they sold. <i>That was with a 40% employee discount. </i>$5 roll of paper towels, anyone? We were "whole paycheck" long before "whole foods" existed. It was stupid and we stopped - because we don't make tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds?) for doing one episode of lame comedy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Little Old Ladies (LoL's) here on the island swear by Irish Spring soap as keeping away spiders. Buy some bars for cheap and throw them around the house and it will smell like spring in Ireland and - no spiders! Well, as the photo above, taken yesterday at the "shed" where we store the trailer clearly shows, the spiders are not deterred, and in fact, built a web from the bar we left there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I take these old bars with me when camping and use them in the communal shower, leaving them behind. It is not a bad soap and I am not too proud to use it, even if it was previously used as spider deterrent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Could I "afford" to spend thousands a year on "product"? Well, we do spend some on some skin cleansers and moisturizers that our dermatologist recommended. CeraVe, for example, and AmLactin, for example, the latter of which seems not to moisturize so much as to burn off the outer layer of dermis. Mark still uses Trader Joe's teatree shampoo, convincing himself that he still has hair on his head. It is a mild delusion that I let him indulge in. No gain in pointing out the obvious.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But getting back to the point, rants against discount stores and cheap soaps come across as elitist and out-of-touch, which is easy to do when you are a highly-paid comedian who never lived in rural America or worked a minimum-wage job. You are making fun of the poor, Mr. Oliver. How is that going to make them align with your political views?<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Or is this the sort of trash-talk that makes the poor vote for Trump? I mean, Trump is out of touch, too, but he doesn't poke fun at poor people, he merely rips them off.</div>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-36452052222246084092024-03-13T06:00:00.056-04:002024-03-13T06:00:00.191-04:00I'm Offended! (Everyone Is!)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0hUWmtk3abTo70vRp0XT4eK7319Z0U_-udjhssqxTP1DFgcqZDt5w_a0KMjc3cRwkpTjRNluc0oykyDnbLPMeSTJHOhSc0zmZW4HTbUJtF4wzhohmYE6IJ_4iLo9qasC_wm5T1LPaegXxI-DOcFTYdoHEFTOK2HA8tDCRb6z7wXfYu91sgPRGn6ygsc/s275/take%20offense%20at%20everything.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0hUWmtk3abTo70vRp0XT4eK7319Z0U_-udjhssqxTP1DFgcqZDt5w_a0KMjc3cRwkpTjRNluc0oykyDnbLPMeSTJHOhSc0zmZW4HTbUJtF4wzhohmYE6IJ_4iLo9qasC_wm5T1LPaegXxI-DOcFTYdoHEFTOK2HA8tDCRb6z7wXfYu91sgPRGn6ygsc/w320-h213/take%20offense%20at%20everything.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Being easily offended by just about everything is the latest status symbol.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Recently, a far-left "literary magazine" that no one ever heard of, <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/1bc13wh/guernica_magazine_has_imploded/">imploded</a> when the entire editorial staff resigned in protest. Why? Well, the same staff approved for publication a rather innocuous article by an Israeli woman about what the terrorist attack by Hamas was like.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, I said <i>terrorist attack</i>. My bad. You are probably offended. Hamas is as sweet and innocent as the Girl Scouts of America. Although, those girls will knee-cap you if you order a case of thin mints and then later refuse to pay up!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The far-left decries censorship, yet the editors of what is now presumably a defunct online "magazine" deleted the "offending" article before they left. By all accounts, the article was hardly incendiary or advocating for retribution or violence. Some said it was actually just boring (I concur). That new-age writing style of meandering toward a topic with, "My grandma always taught me to make sure my shoes were tied....." for 500 words before getting on to an unrelated topic (mea culpa!).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the irony here is layered. First, these "editors" approved the article and are only now resigning because other people have decried the article. Second, by censoring the article, they are engaging in the same sort of literary fascism that Republicans do - it is little more than electronic book-burning. Third, what are they afraid of, <i>ideas?</i> And fourth and most importantly, <i>by destroying their own magazine, they have simply given more fuel to the far-right</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">That's akin to saying you are against Trump, so to protest him, <i>you won't vote at all</i>. Sounds stupid, but<i> people have actually gone this route. Some even promise to vote for Trump in protest!</i> Or are these just trolls from Russia?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the right is just as culpable. Republicans "clutch their pearls" and act all offended when someone calls them out on their gibberish. "How <i>dare you</i>!" they say, "abusing my feelings with facts! I have my own alternative facts <i>and they must be respected!</i>" Meanwhile, the same person will savage his political opponent with the worst language imaginable. But that's OK, because they're "owning the libs!"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Religious types engage in this nonsense all the time. Each religion claims to be the "one true religion" but if you disagree with this (because you believe in a different God) then not only are you a blasphemer (who should be stoned to death) but they are offended by your blasphemy and they must be coddled and nurtured. "There, there, it's going to be OK. We killed the blasphemer just like you wanted!" <i>The real victim here was his feelings.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Pretty much, though, this "I take offense" crap is Police Tape roping off indefensible ideas. When all else fails, resort to Patriotism. If that fails, start weeping and say you are a victim of those mean old bullies who hurt your feelings! <i>Wah!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I say this as someone who was bullied as a kid, and mocked, bullied and abused ever since. Funny thing, though, when I complained to grown-ups, <i>they didn't want to hear about it.</i> Nobody does, it seems. The world is a cruel place sometimes.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Or, maybe not. What I realized was that high school was a scant four years of my life and not the centerpiece of it. <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/07/past-present-and-future-back-to-future.html">As I wrote before</a>, the "bully" in my high school never left our home town and drove his car through the barely frozen ice on the lake and died. Suicide? Drunk? <i>Just plain stoo-pid?</i> Yup, and I have no compunction about mocking him now that he is dead. <i>At least he isn't around to hear it, as I was when he bullied me</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But maybe also I have a strong personality. I am saddened when I read about these youngsters who kill themselves over <i>nothing</i>. "Little Timmy was bullied on Facebook! Every day he would go on Facebook to read all the horrible things people said about him!" <i>Get the fuck off Facebook, Timmy!</i> Get the fuck off Facebook, <i>everyone!</i> And all social media, for that matter - it is like voluntarily going back to high school. <i>Just plain stoo-pid!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Nowhere is this "I'm offended" argument (if you can call it that) is raised more than with regard to this "transgender" thing. Now, transgender people have been around a long time - long before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Wood">Ed Wood</a>, even. And there have been <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-transgender-thing-can-we-talk.html">transsexuals, transvestites, cross-dressers, drag queens</a>, and a host of various combinations of all of the above - and no, they are not all the same thing.</p><div style="text-align: justify;">The issue has been simmering for some time. There was Bruce Jenner who shocked the world by transitioning (an athlete? Who knew, right? /s) Maybe it started raising awareness with the Bradly Manning thing (Oh my! I deadnamed him! That's like being murdered!). Private Manning violated his oath and sold secrets to an online agent who was a pawn of Russia. Manning made themselves into a cause célèbre even after everyone stopped caring. Similarly, we stopped caring about Jenner when "she" came out as an anti-trans Trump Republican who ran someone over. <i>Great poster-children for the trans movement.</i></div><p style="text-align: justify;">But for <i>some reason</i> this has become a "hot button" issue in the last couple of years. And like the "immigration" issue, it is not a organic thing, but an orchestrated action by certain political groups to <i>make this an issue</i>. The far-right wants to paint this as a "battle for the soul of America!" while the Left, stupidly, as always, says, "Well, I guess we have to do the opposite of whatever the Right is doing!"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Maybe it is because treatments are more readily available - and paid for by Obamacare and thus taxpayer's money. <i>Even prisoners in jail are getting these very, very expensive treatments and surgeries</i> - on the logic that they are "life-saving" because people threaten to kill themselves if they don't get them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is taking the "I'm Offended!" rubric to its logical conclusion. And some have done just that. A mentally imbalanced US Serviceman sets himself on fire (fatally) to protest Israel's invasion of the Gaza strip. He was not a Muslim, or Palestinian or even Jewish. A cause from a far-off land was enough for him to self-immolate. His reward? Many hard-line Muslims point out that since he was a non-believer, they hope he goes to Hell - and that he will, since suicide is <i>Haram</i>. Take note, all you would-be suicide bombers! <i>No 22 Virgins for you!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We can't have a discussion about anything without someone being offended. We can't counter bad ideas with good ones, only take offense. With the trans thing, I think there are legitimate topics for debate. Is having trans athletes competing with girls fair? The facts seems to say no. But the only counter-argument seems to be "I'm offended!" Should expensive treatments and surgeries be paid for by the government or private insurance? Or is this elective surgery that should be paid for by the patient? Should children be allowed to have these procedures? <i>discuss</i>. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-transgender-thing-can-we-talk.html">But we can't</a> - because someone claims that <i>raising the issue</i> is "transphobic."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I said it before and I'll say it again, <i>when you drive opinions underground, they will fester and explode</i>. They won't go away, they will just <i>seem to</i>. And we will see this come January of next year, when the "dress rehearsal" of January 6th is repeated, this time, for real. <i>I hope to have moved out of the country by then</i>. Because, quite frankly, the Democrats seem to be doing little else other than crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. <i>As Democrats tend to do.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, the GOP is making hay with these "social issues" and mocking Democrats as "special snowflakes" because they will quit at the drop of a hat if they feel offended. <i>Political Correctness is a handgun that always backfires</i>. Ask Al Franken about that - <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/12/go-bold-or-go-home.html">although he was a bit of a pompous douchebag</a> (and I should know, right?). <i>I am not afraid to laugh at my own ridiculousness.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So this "I'm offended" trend tends to simply divide-and-conquer the opposition, which Republicans need to do as <i>they are, in reality, a minority party</i>. They stay in power through gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the use of social issues to divide the Left and galvanize the Right. And they use Social Media to convince people that <i>these are their own opinions that that came up with organically</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So we see radical leftists arguing Biden is "too old" and threatening to "not vote" or even <i>vote for Trump</i> in protest. <i>No problem, bud! I'll save you a seat on the train to Auschwitz!</i> Once there, you can debate these issues with centrist Democrats, on the way to the gas chamber. And if you think I am being dramatic, <i>this is explicitly what Republicans say they are planning for.</i> But hey, Political Correctness and your "feelings" are far more important. So says the Russian Internet Research Agency. The Chinese Communist Party concurs, Comrade!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I am writing this at a <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-used-to-be-with-it.html">gay campground</a> in Florida. Tonight is <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2022/12/drag-shows.html">drag bingo night</a> and I usually win something, if not just a box of cookies. Drag queens are not usually transgender, although I have met a few. What drag queens have, however, is a <i>sense of humor</i>. Most make jokes about themselves (and everyone else). Particularly if you are a 300-lb drag queen, it is hard to take yourself too seriously. The best thing to do is<i> laugh about yourself</i> and if others laugh at you, <i>laugh even harder</i>. Because bullies only win if you let them think you are offended - they will keep attacking you because your offense is like a salve to their own sense of low-self-esteem. Laughter is the only Kryptonite to bullies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A reader chastises me (I'm Offended!) for making snarky remarks about some "trans" people who, <i>bless their hearts</i>, simply look like men in dresses. Sorry, but I have to call it as I see it. Maybe they feel like a woman inside but everyone else seems to know on the outside (except "straight" Republican men who are readily confused or intrigued). I was at the bar the other night and there was this adorable trans girl at the end of the bar and I just wanted to give her a big hug. <i>How did I know she was trans and not simply a Lesbian or a straight girl?</i> I dunno. You can just tell, I guess. <i>Maybe it was her penis</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, no! I did it again!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Stop being offended and live! Being offended is to be manipulated.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-25682175032862323862024-03-12T06:00:00.015-04:002024-03-12T06:00:00.135-04:00I Don't Understand Wanting Your Ex Back<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8UVNT4wvIGY" width="320" youtube-src-id="8UVNT4wvIGY"></iframe></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Every year, some idiot kills his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend or even their kids, because "she won't take me back!" This is idiotic.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Every so often you read something online or in the paper and realize that there are a lot of people in the world <i>not like us</i> and in fact, so different as to be another species entirely. And of this group are the "pining for the ex to come back" kind of people, who are usually men. I fail to understand this mentality at all.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over the decades, I have dated six women and three men. I ended up spending the last 36 years with the last person I met. The others? Nice folks, for the most part, but for one reason or another it was <i>not meant to be</i> and pining for something that clearly wasn't going to work was pointless. We dated, went "steady" and eventually broke up. Usually it was because we had different goals in life, or one of us had to move away and maintaining a long-distance relationship is difficult. But regardless of the reason, I never sat around whining about how "unfair" it was that "my ex left me" maybe because in my instances, our breakup was mutual, not one-sided.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Tim (not his real name) is a guy I grew up with who, I now realize, had some serious mental health issues. He smoked a <i>lot</i> of pot and dated this girl Samantha, who was sort of an Earth-Goddess Mother to him - mostly Mother, I am afraid. She had it all - a car, a job, and sex. So Tim loved hanging out with her, as he could always borrow her car, borrow some money, and get laid. Why Samantha went along with this for years, I do not know. Maybe she thought that once Tim graduated from college, he would settle down, get a job, and they could raise a family.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sadly, Tim's mental health deteriorated over time. He became obsessed with left-wing politics (sort of a reverse-MAGA for his time) and had trouble getting and keeping a job. Samantha saw the writing on the wall and settled down with a nice man who had a small bakery and they made roly-poly babies together and lived happily ever after.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Tim lost his mind - or what was left of it - at this point. He would bore his friends for hours (between bong hits) about how "unfair" Samantha had been to him. She should take him back! Why is she dating some jerk who owns a bakery? <i>Materialistic bitch!</i> But she should take him back!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">How odd. They tell you how awful their "ex" was and how much they hate their "ex." <i>But why won't she take me back?</i> Cognitive dissonance is strong with this one!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Rather that move on and find someone else - or use this as a moment for introspection and growth - Tim just derailed himself for half-a-decade with this self-pitying nonsense.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As the video above illustrates, this whole "break up" genre has been around a long time. In fact, there is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AffLdombeOk">a song named that</a>. Teenage angst about "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY">breaking up is hard to do</a>" is bookended by "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXtWqmArUU">50 ways to leave your lover</a>." Breaking up isn't some weird anomaly, but something that will happen to you several times in life, particularly when you are young. <i>Get overit.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ann Landers (or was it her sister?) once said, in response to a "broken heart" letter from a teenager, that dating <i>exists</i> to allow you to try out different people and see what works and what doesn't. Maybe lightning will strike and you will marry your "High School Sweetheart" but the odds favor you dating several people before you find someone you want to settle down with. <i>And no, there is not a "perfect mate" for you, waiting in this world</i>. You will have to settle for someone who, oddly enough, has ideas of their own.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sadly, that last sentence is lost on the incel crowd, who, <a href="https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/19285-1-4-men-would-consider-having-sex-robot#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20just%209%25%20of,of%20the%20machine%20is%20crucial.">according to a recent survey</a>, have more interest in buying a sex-bot than in having a real relationship with a real person. <i>And they wonder why they are "involuntary" celibates!</i> Who in their right mind self-identifies with such a group of losers?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But beyond incel stalkers, there are folks who, for some reason, entertain fantasies of getting together with their "ex". And indeed, sometimes it does happen - people break up and then realize they still have feelings for one another and get back together. But that is the exception, not the rule, and it is a better bet to just move on, particularly after you receive that restraining order.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>I just don't get it</i>. Someone says they don't want to be with you, <i>move on</i>. Figure out what went wrong and learn from it. Stop dating people who are not a good match for you. So many men want the "hot girlfriend" but don't think about more mundane relationship baggage. Looks are not everything, in fact, they are nothing really, as everyone loses their "looks" over time, and if you are really in love, well, your spouse is the most beautiful thing in the world, even as you age 40 years or more since you met.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It makes me sad when I read about folks who are unhappy because they pine for an "ex." But then again, they are bringing this unhappiness upon themselves. They are living in a prison cage of their own making - holding the key to their liberty in their hands, yet stubbornly refusing to use it. <i>Hard to feel sorry for people like that.</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-35757700709259883192024-03-11T06:00:00.032-04:002024-03-11T06:00:00.189-04:00Ghost Subscriptions, Revisited<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtCZXq3lKYVsNkkiqjD1I5bkWIeDriAUwnBPlI7Cu_iwSjtPOYiVA41wcqoAmMMVvTRxM8if1PimWYHe-ua8bTFBkRPTj_guIaMB2LxghcQtF_Ofn2VI0Z6cQBIgXio9t6HcWK0u6vth_uX2oGNAPlyOvL87Mn-80zzxsHrB9ypZQibzLafjDlcxjOrM/s1200/for%20just%20a%20penny.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="901" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtCZXq3lKYVsNkkiqjD1I5bkWIeDriAUwnBPlI7Cu_iwSjtPOYiVA41wcqoAmMMVvTRxM8if1PimWYHe-ua8bTFBkRPTj_guIaMB2LxghcQtF_Ofn2VI0Z6cQBIgXio9t6HcWK0u6vth_uX2oGNAPlyOvL87Mn-80zzxsHrB9ypZQibzLafjDlcxjOrM/w300-h400/for%20just%20a%20penny.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>When you don't keep track of your money, you run out of it very quickly.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">"<a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/11/greatest-invention-money.html">Money is the root of all evil!</a>" someone said to me once, misquoting the Bible. Timothy says <i>the love of money</i> is the root of all evil, not money itself. Obsess about money and you will likely be miserable and make others miserable as well. Funny how "miser" and "miserable" have the same root!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But that doesn't mean <i>ignoring money</i> is the answer, either. It is a powerful tool and even a weapon (ask Russia about sanctions!) and can hurt you badly, if handled carelessly. I make the analogy to guns - useful in some cases, dangerous all the time unless handled very, very carefully. When you handle firearms like they did on the <i>Rust</i> set, people die.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">By the way, how did a live round end up on the set? I've read countless articles about this, but none come right out and lay blame for it. The Armorer is shown in one photo with a tray of rounds, one of which is clearly a live round. Others claim that striking guild workers "borrowed" the weapons to go shooting at beer cans in the desert. Whatever the reason, it was sloppy, and when you get sloppy with guns, people get hurt or die.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The same is true with money. Every day, it seems, some fool kills themselves over money - failing to take Timothy's advice about <i>the love of money</i> and at the same time being careless with it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I fell into the careless trap for most of my life. My Dad spent money freely and then freaked out at the end of the month when the bills came due. He had no idea how much he was spending and on what. He thought a wallet full of credit cards (at least 20, I am not kidding! Every store and gas station had their own card) was a sign of success. It was a sign of sloppiness.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When I started my own business, I realized quickly how ignorant I was about money. There were some painful lessons involved. I bought a copy of Quickbooks and took an adult education class on how to use it. We balanced the books every day and accounted for every penny and from then on, there were no more painful lessons.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This isn't to say this is a panacea for all personal or business problems. You can account for every penny and still go bankrupt. The difference is, if you are not sloppy with money you can see the bad things coming and either prepare for them or avoid them entirely. One reason I decided to work from home and be a solo practitioner was that once I put everything on Quickbooks, I realized the people I was hiring were <i>costing me money</i> and not <i>making me more money</i>. So rather than ride that all the way down, I made changes and avoided disaster.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But my personal finances were still in disarray. I was making all the payments so everything was Kosher, right? But an unexpected tax bill put me behind the 8-ball and I realized I had to start <i>treating my life as a business</i> if was to pay off this hefty ($40,000) capital gains bill.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And I realized, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2022/06/why-balancing-your-accounts-daily-is.html">once I started tracking expenses</a>, that I was spending a little in a lot of ways, that added up to a lot of money. There was no one single thing that was tanking my budget, but <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2018/02/death-of-1000-cuts-gym-memberships.html">a death of a thousand cuts</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I had always been suspicious of subscription services, since my first experience with a local cable company back in the 1980s. $30 a month may not seem like a lot, but when you are only making $17,000 a year, it adds up - to $360 a year! Doesn't sound like a lot until you realize it is a big chunk of your disposable income. Those "little things" cumulatively cost a lot - by design. And marketers and business-people know they can sell you an expensive product or service based on a low monthly price, rather than showing you the overall cost. It is why car leasing is so popular - it isn't a good deal, just one than <i>seems</i> attractive.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A reader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/08/spending-accidental-subscriptions-doubled-in-year-uk-citizens-advice">sends me this link</a> to a <i>Guardian</i> article about "accidental" subscriptions - free-trial memberships and such that are easy to sign up for, but nearly impossible to cancel. Online services and gym memberships are two of the biggest offenders. And many people keep paying these fees for months or even years (or in the case of AoL, <i>decades</i>) telling themselves "I'll get around to cancelling that next month! It's only a few dollars!" And that's why they make it so hard to cancel - they know a certain percentage of people will simply give up, at least for the time being.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Others, well, <i>they never notice</i> as they never go online and check their balances or charges and when the credit card bill comes due, they just pay the minimum amount and then forgetaboutit for another 30 days. Usually folks like that end up in bankruptcy court - drained dry by bogus charges, at least in part.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I wrote about these "<a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/05/ghost-subscriptions.html">ghost subscriptions</a>" before - when I saw an ad for an <i>online service</i> that, for a low monthly fee, would monitor your finances for ghost subscriptions and then try to cancel them. A ghost subscription for ghost subscriptions! It is like the MLM bounce-back companies that prey upon disgruntled MLM victims. "Sure that last MLM you signed up for was a con, but this time it's the real deal!" <i>Dumb enough to do it once, why not again?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The easiest way to avoid this problem is just <i>not to sign up in the first place</i>. Almost every subscription these days is predicated on a "free trial period" followed by your credit card being charged. Some are pretty sneaky - putting up a one-click signup box that you can easily click by accident while trying to "X" it out. <i>Funny how that box "jumped" the moment you moved your mouse over it</i>. There are few, if any, of these subscription services that are worth anything. Amazon Prime is worthless - you don't get your packages much faster than normal, and odds are, you are buying too much crap online already.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And no, the latest season of "Mandolorian" isn't worth paying a years' subscription fee for. Maybe one month, but many streaming services are now toying with the idea of forcing subscribers to pay for an entire year, rather than by the month. <i>They hate people like me who sign up for one month and then cancel</i>. So far, they haven't made it hard to cancel. <i>So far</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I should note that <i>so far</i> Disney has been decent about cancelling. I signed up for one month and then a few weeks later, cancelled online. Not only was the process painless, but it kept the subscription active until the end of the original subscription period. Given that Disney is losing money on the Disney+ streaming service, it is only a matter of time before some clever business major persuades them to "improve" their subscription model - right?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I saw online a fellow who said he had a hard time cancelling a service. He got the idea of using a VPN to virtually relocate himself to California, where apparently there is a State law allowing for one-click cancelling (damn Socialists! Always looking out for the little guy! Trump would never do that!). Another was able to "move" his gym membership to California and then cancel it online, rather than being forced to drive 50 miles to his old gym to cancel in person.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And let me drive home that last snarky comment about Trump: <i>Republicans have been doing everything in their power to shut down the consumer protection agency</i>. If you think Trump is out to help "the little guy" you are seriously delusional. Trump is out to support Trump. Full stop.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the other thing to do is challenge the charge on your credit card and ask the credit card company to block all future charges. <i>This may work, it may not</i>. The company might come back with the "membership agreement" showing the charges are "legitimate" and thus should not be reversed. <i>After all, they offered you services to a gym that is now three States away after you moved, right?</i> On the other hand, if a company gets a lot of charge-backs, the credit card companies <i>might</i> stop taking charges from them. Then again, if they have millions in "legitimate" charges, well, money talks.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Another fellow was able to shut down the "retention specialist" by telling them he had moved overseas and no longer needed the gym membership. Retention specialists are on a quota, so there is no point in pumping a dry hole, for them. <i>You shouldn't have to talk to one in the first place, however!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you MUST have a subscription service, think about it carefully and read all the fine print about how to cancel if you don't like it. Mark the cancellation date on your calendar, as our reader suggests. <i>Never take verbal promises by salespeople as being true</i>. Yes, they will lie to your face and tell you it is easy to cancel, when in fact, it requires three lawyers and a certified letter. Never fall for the "free trial" gambit - the "free trial" is a sure sign the service they are offering is shitty and also hard to cancel. <i>If a subscription service is worthwhile, they don't have to snooker people into it with "free trials". </i>The "Free Trial" is pretty much Police Tape marking off a potential crime scene.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Myself, it has been decades, if ever, since I ever had an issue with nonsense like this. I have always avoided subscription services like the plague and have been skeptical of them since, well, when I was a kid and signed up for "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_House">Columbia Record House</a>" - remember that? But even that was easy to cancel with a phone call. And quite frankly, they wanted me gone after I returned almost every record they sent me. They would mail you records, unsolicited, and you had so many days to mail them back or be charged for them - it was a weird business model! 13 records for ten cents! - that was the "free trial" to get you hooked. <i>They hoped you'd paid for the later records at the regular retail price. </i>My 100% return rate convinced them they had nothing to gain by keeping me on as a member.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But heck, I was a teenager back then. I have learned a few things since - I think. And maybe also, I have a deep skepticism for business-people and marketers, perhaps influenced by my parents, who assumed nearly every transaction in life was a potential ripoff.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And you know what? <i>They were pretty much right about that.</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-7553843996692710972024-03-10T12:05:00.001-04:002024-03-10T12:05:49.425-04:00The Failed Promise of Velcro<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRaAENkmZOTdC9bama1_85vN7catwJ6_mvxJtRMMUrgtDq6i4vb9BQuMB6msINSzmKQwvBHxl54FHzd7uhjsXU8yJuAjS1YaE5GzSCWVWnBVKqj99gaxfjtlq47bFOoy7yEI5R3eKdL81xGazGX3HQ46Na53LlSeSEdsinsl_7mQQlodZEK-G1vD_QPWw/s269/velma%20crow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="269" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRaAENkmZOTdC9bama1_85vN7catwJ6_mvxJtRMMUrgtDq6i4vb9BQuMB6msINSzmKQwvBHxl54FHzd7uhjsXU8yJuAjS1YaE5GzSCWVWnBVKqj99gaxfjtlq47bFOoy7yEI5R3eKdL81xGazGX3HQ46Na53LlSeSEdsinsl_7mQQlodZEK-G1vD_QPWw/w400-h278/velma%20crow.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><i>One hailed as a modern marvel of the Space Age, Velcro® or other brand hook-and-loop fastners have turned out to be "meh!"</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I love Velcro, I hate Velcro. But first let's get some housekeeping out of the way. Velcro® is a registered trademark of Velcro Industries, NV for hook-and-loop fasteners. That's the generic name for Velcro - "hook-and-loop fasteners" but few people want to use that mouthful of words. It is like <i>Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages</i>. Band-Aid is a trademark which was perilously close to being found generic, but is being clawed back into the private domain by Johnson & Johnson, who explicitly always use the phrase, <i>Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That's the format: "[Trademark] <i>brand</i> [generic name]" - otherwise you risk the trademark being deemed "generic" and lose your rights. In the early part of the last Century, companies loved it if you used their trademark generically - it helped them define the industry with their brand. So you might band-aid a problem before Xeroxing it, before you weep in you Kleenex. Usually a bad sign your "mark" is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks">heading to the generic graveyard</a> is when people <i>start using it as a verb</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, like most human beings, when I say "velcro" I am referring to any kind of hook-and-loop fastener, not just those from Velcro Industries. And since the Patents have long expired, I suspect the majority of what you and I call "velcro" is made by third parties and branded as such.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What is velcro - or any hook-and-loop fastener? Supposedly, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/velcros-patent-expired-it-was-niche-product-most-people-hadnt-heard-180962701/">the story goes</a>, the inventor was trying to remove burdocks from his dog's fur and realized these burdocks were quite sticky. Under a magnifying glass, he realized that the spines were actually hooked at the end, and thus tended to "catch" on things like fur or fabrics. The breakthrough came when he discovered that plastic spikes, when heated carefully at the end, would fold over and make hooks just like burdocks. All that was needed was a pile fabric to make the "loop" portion. Over time, however, the hooks break off and the pile of loops becomes unwound.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Supposedly, velcro really took off (no pun intended) as part of the space program - used to secure parts of space suits or attach things temporarily. The story I was told was that some smart guy got the brilliant idea of lining the Apollo 1 capsule with the stuff, so that objects used by the astronauts could be stuck to the walls wherever convenient. That way, pens and clipboards and other detritus would be out of the way, yet easy to get at.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Great idea, but in the early days of the American Space program, we used a pure oxygen system at 5 PSI or so, instead of an oxygen-nitrogen mix, like the Soviets used, at 14PSI or thereabouts. The lower pressure of a pure oxygen environment made the pressure vessel that is and was the Apollo capsule, lighter in weight. The problem, of course is that a pure oxygen environment means anything and everything becomes flammable - even metal (remember the experiments in Junior High where the teacher burned steel wool in a pure oxygen test tube? Right, that was cancelled in favor of more football - but I digress).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, once a spark set off the fire in Apollo 1, everything caught fire and having wallpaper made of furry plastic didn't help matters any. I understand they removed the Velcro from later capsules (along with many other changes) and eventually, the US went to a oxygen/nitrogen mix with the Space Shuttle If you wonder why we stopped going to the moon in the 1970s it was because it was <i>not a routine task</i> and in fact highly dangerous. Apollo 1 burned on the pad. Apollo 11 came within seconds of running out of fuel and crashing. Apollo 13 exploded and barely made it back to Earth. I am sure there were other near-misses as well. I think one reason they cancelled the program mid-way (with subsequent rockets built and ready to go) was the realization that we were trying our luck and eventually something horrific would go wrong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But I digress, yet again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first problem with velcro is, <i>how do you attach it?</i> While Velcro is an attachment system, it needs to be attached to something in order to work. In clothing and shoes, it may be sewn in, but my experience has been that, over time, this stitching pulls out and the whole thing is pretty much shot at that point. Other kinds of velcro have adhesive on the back, which is an interesting conundrum as if the velcro has a stronger attachment force than the adhesive, then when you try to pull it apart, the adhesive just comes undone. This is more of a problem for off-brands, such as you find at the dollar store. It is always a good idea, of course, to clean the area where you plan on gluing anything, with isopropyl alcohol, in order to remove any greasy fingerprints that may derail the whole thing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then there is life expectancy. I suppose you could argue that a zipper has the same problem - every time you zip and/or unzip it, you use up one more zippering out of a finite number remaining. Eventually, everything wears out, but some things last longer than others, and hook-and-loop fasteners seems to last the least. But perhaps it is because the market is now flooded with knock-off brands. <i>Perhaps</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Still other types of fasteners are repairable. If your shoelace breaks, you can buy a new one and you are back in business. If the hook-and-loop fastener on your sneaker looses its ability to fasten (the furry part starts to come apart) you have to throw away the sneakers - or try to find replacement velcro and stitch it back together. <i>Good Luck with that!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Buttons fall off, but can be sewn back on. Snaps can be re-snapped. Even zippers can be readily sewn in. Velcro clothing is basically disposable, once the velcro looses its grip. And let's not talk about how both sides of the hook-and-loop fastener tend to accumulate debris, such as pollen pods, dirt, and other detritus, particularly when on shoes. <i>They even attract burdocks, ironically enough!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Again, there is a fine line on the strength of these things. Too weak a grip and your velcro pocket pops open, too tight and you can't get it open without using two hands. And of course, there are different strengths of hook-and-loop fasteners out there, but designers often choose the wrong strength.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Take, for example, my Wal-Mart (or Sam's Club, I forget which) shorts. A huge "cargo pocket" is held shut with a flap and two velcro squares. Problem is, the tear strength they selected is too high, so I need two hands to open this pocket. Worse yet, because of this, on one pair, it is slowly ripping out the threads holding the velcro to the pants (I wonder if the hooks do this?) and eventually the pocket has just this unsecured loose flap.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Velcro in clothing, in my opinion, just doesn't work very well..</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is used a lot in industry. Velcro is used to attach trim panels on some cars, so they can be easily removed for service - and more importantly, more easily attached on the assembly line. I use Velcro for a number of projects - I used it to mount the battery charger for my Lithium-Ion battery golf cart upgrade project. And in the camper, well, they attach all sort of stuff all over the place. <i>You can't hang a picture in a camper with a nail</i>. And yes, we have art in our camper - at least a dozen (small) pieces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In other applications, well, it is less lovely. I've had various canvas items on boats that used hook-and-loop fasteners and, over time, the loops get loopy and the hooks less hooky. In some applications, the old snap works just as well, if not better. And snaps can be readily replaced with a crimping tool and such.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I guess it is like anything else. We are promised a new "miracle" product that will change everything and in reality, it just changes a few things, some for the better, some, well..... <i>meh!</i></div>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-83262109415544342842024-03-07T06:00:00.009-05:002024-03-07T06:00:00.146-05:00$8 Late Fee - Helping or Hurting?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Cg7iUDNnI-dap3Zs5f9AtfaLtv7DUEO50h0RcDRm-klwH10fFDkhl1XtzyO4QgMxAoBlkdKTntpM-cu2FrpXXhyE2nb0k4S8diC3Z2hMjnaCm_t-9LVD5_K-6zMTJOtGAKqDY965kKGKH3GDQ2Xt17s9LwIrZykjGBICLbu7QTowgQxOv24f_XpZODU/s306/better%20late%20than%20never.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="306" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Cg7iUDNnI-dap3Zs5f9AtfaLtv7DUEO50h0RcDRm-klwH10fFDkhl1XtzyO4QgMxAoBlkdKTntpM-cu2FrpXXhyE2nb0k4S8diC3Z2hMjnaCm_t-9LVD5_K-6zMTJOtGAKqDY965kKGKH3GDQ2Xt17s9LwIrZykjGBICLbu7QTowgQxOv24f_XpZODU/s1600/better%20late%20than%20never.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>If consequences for bad behavior are reduced or eliminated, expect more bad behavior.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Recently the Biden administration decided to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/investing/credit-card-late-fees-biden/index.html">cap "late fees" for credit card payments at $8</a>. Will this help the poor, or actually hurt them? <i>And will it likely be overturned by a Trump-appointed conservative Judge?</i> I suspect the latter.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I haven't paid a "late fee" on a credit card in decades, and that's not just because I'm "rich" or something, but rather that I developed financial discipline, out of necessity. Not only that, but with online banking and cell phones, there is really no excuse to not knowing when a payment is due and for how much. I pay my credit card almost daily - and reconcile purchases with my own record using Quickbooks. It took me a long time to learn this - and the banking industry would just assume you never learned it, period.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Back when I was in my 20's, my financial life was a wreck. I would bounce checks to buy beer and pot, be late with credit card payments and pay enormous interest rates on what seemed like an intractable credit card debt. <i>A lot of people live this way their whole lives - </i>I suspect at least half the population.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But like with auto insurance, eventually I got the message after being financially punished again and again. I slowed down, looked carefully at my insurance bills, and my rates went down as a result. Not free, of course, but a lot less than what I was paying in the "risk pool." when I was in my 20's.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Unfair? Maybe. <i>A self-inflicted wound?</i> You bet.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I remember from those times, thinking that an $18 bounce check fee or a $15 credit card late fee was the "cost of doing business" and just ate them - factoring it into my nightmare finances, much as a payday loan victim does with their 300% interest. <i>It was a stupid thing to do</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, since those days, interest rates on credit cards have gone up (even as the prime rate had dropped to historic lows) and late fees and bounce fees have gone up as well. You can really put yourself out of business in a heartbeat by being fiscally irresponsible.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So I wonder, <i>will lowering late fees to $8 help or hurt?</i> And of course, you might initially say, "Of course it will help! The poor will pay less!" <i>Or will they?</i> Because I was willing to "eat" a $15 late fee back in the 1980's if it meant I had $15 more today to buy pot and beer. I wonder if people will be more inclined to be late with credit card payments, seeing $8 as a "trivial" amount and not worth worrying about. It is akin to the "paycheck to paycheck" working slob who is in line at Starbucks every morning (and Chik-fil-A every noon) spending money they don't have on "convenience" foods. "It's only a few dollars - I'll never get rich cutting back on small things like that!" they say.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But over time, a few dollars a day adds up to hundreds of thousands, a few dollars a month adds up to tens of thousands. $8 a month invested at 10% over 30 years is 17 grand. It takes time - and discipline - to accumulate wealth. <i>Is a drive-through coffee or a late fee really worth forgoing real wealth?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Again, when young, these things seem stupid. <i>30 years is nearly forever, and I can play catch-up later on!</i> So do we reward that kind of thinking or punish it? That is the question, I have no concrete answer.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I do know that on a personal level, what disciplined me was discipline, not being "nice." Early on, I recall bouncing a check at the bank and they <i>waived the fee</i> as I was a "good customer" or something like that. They would actually call me to tell me I was overdrawn so I could come in and make a deposit. That simply encouraged me to do that sort of nonsense even more. Eventually, they got fed up and started charging me bounce fees. <i>I was outraged!</i> I was an idiot.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But it motivated me to stop playing fast-and-loose with money. Take away that motivation and you take away fiscal responsibility.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is akin to how some jurisdictions are failing to prosecute "trivial" crimes like shoplifting or turnstile-jumping or even car theft. It doesn't take long for word to get out that it is a free-for-all at local businesses. Just take what you want! They won't prosecute you for the theft! Then the store closes, as they are losing money and "Community Activists" decry the "evil corporation" for creating a "food desert" or whatever. <i>You can't have it both ways</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">People thrive on discipline and when you remove it, a lot of people have no direction or boundaries. "Do your own thing, man!" is fine for a person of intellect and moral values. For others, it is a mere invitation to criminality and wallowing in one's own crapulence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But of course, capping late fees to $8 is a political move, much as the incremental student loan forgiveness actions have been. The Biden administration is under attack from the far-Left, who would rather see a fascist dictatorship <i>and our country destroyed in civil war</i> than to see moderate gains in the progressive agenda. This latest action is an attempt, I think, to pander to that faction - the bouncy-check kids such as I was, back in those halcyon days when all my personal problems were <i>someone else's fault</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, this action is window-dressing to the poor, as it does not address the staggering interest rates on many credit cards. A poor person facing 25% interest rates (or higher) isn't going to dig themselves out of a financial hole by capping late fees to $8. But I suppose it is a start. The staggering interest rates charged by slimy used car dealers (I am being redundant here) and payday loan places almost make the credit card companies look legit.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I said it before, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/snowball-effect.html">the snowball effect</a> works when you are the side of light and goodness. You get the best offers and interest rates and your wealth accumulates. You get on the wrong side and the <i>reverse snowball effect</i> kicks in - with staggering interest rates, late fees, bounce fees, and other bad bargains. Bankruptcy is almost a given at that point.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And this is by design. I noted before that if you borrow from your employee's withholding funds, the IRS will slam you with fines and late fees and interest to the point where you will never dig yourself out of the hole. <i>This is their way of telling you that your business is insolvent and should have closed years ago</i>. Ditto for late fees and interest charges - the idea is to motivate you to stop spending and start getting your shit together - or declare bankruptcy. It makes no sense to some people, particularly business people, that a bank can "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/investing/credit-card-late-fees-biden/index.html">call your loan</a>" and force you out of business. <i>That's the idea - </i>to force you to liquidate while there is still something there to liquidate.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In that regard, an $8 late fee (or any other late fee, bounce charge, interest payment) is usually optional. Once you get into a financial mire, maybe you run out of options. But if you pay your bills on time, well, these fees never kick in. <i>I doubt this latest action will affect me one iota in that regard.</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-1343518303624088022024-03-06T12:32:00.001-05:002024-03-06T12:32:49.817-05:00Video Game Recession?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4tJ51mvFCcfjMVLSNUE1CHD5KZQHlEr63L-n4yhRanabxsnP-Q6QTdAvGNIkwvf74_obOqdzm3uOAXshCd3jg-IZhCLnHlNPav6CnCNnL0ENCAFrnnQyrfE4GmQabJTKKgiewwn9SxsOv0EJp4WaWwUeNuIRLdRVpi4uze2Xe6G0UY1Eh3T1jV0cyLno/s460/The_Day_Before_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="460" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4tJ51mvFCcfjMVLSNUE1CHD5KZQHlEr63L-n4yhRanabxsnP-Q6QTdAvGNIkwvf74_obOqdzm3uOAXshCd3jg-IZhCLnHlNPav6CnCNnL0ENCAFrnnQyrfE4GmQabJTKKgiewwn9SxsOv0EJp4WaWwUeNuIRLdRVpi4uze2Xe6G0UY1Eh3T1jV0cyLno/w400-h188/The_Day_Before_cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Why are video game companies, in addition to other tech firms, laying off people?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In any market, the law of supply-and-demand is king. When people want something, and the supply is limited, prices go up. In response, other suppliers will get into the market with competing products, and supply will be satiated and prices come down.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In theory, this Adam Smith "invisible hand of the marketplace" works well. And in practice, it works <i>pretty</i> well, but tends to overshoot and undershoot like a thermostat with too much hysteresis.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is like the housing market. Prices skyrocket, so builders jump in and overbuild. Pretty soon demand is satiated, but the market keeps going up based on emotional factors. Before long, you have far more supply than demand, and the bubble collapses - temporarily. That is in essence what happened in 2008.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Video games have gone mainstream in the last few years. Even Grandma is playing a first-person-shooter game, it seems. And "gamers" are spending hours a day playing these games, often as part of an addictive habit - which is, of course, by design. It is sad, but there are people out there who are nothing more than a bundle of addictions - vaping while texting about gaming. Is that even living? I guess for many, <i>it gives them something to do</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When any commodity becomes valuable enough, the fraudsters enter the market. And this is even true for video games. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Before">Recently</a>, there was a "game" released with much fanfare. Gamers downloaded the game, paying good money for it, only to realize that the game was unfinished, or really, not even started. I guess the company was hoping to make a quick buck before anyone noticed, much like these "shitcoins" that piggyback off the euphoria surrounding crypto. The company is apparently no more and they have promised to refund buyers - but in reality, if they declared bankruptcy, they wouldn't have to - while still taking home their hefty salaries.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is akin to <a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/did-the-simpsons-predict-glasgow-willy-wonka-disaster-heres-the-truth-696798">the recent "Willy" fiasco</a>, where a promoter used AI to generate posters and a website, promising a "Willy" experience (carefully avoiding the word "Wonka" to avoid messy Trademark issues). Parents showed up with their kids, only to find a dozen tiny set pieces and some bewildered actors who had no idea what a shitshow it was to become. Again, the promoters claim they will refund everyone, but apparently none of the actors hired, or other suppliers, were paid.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And perhaps this is a new business model - use AI to generate convincing game promotions or event promotions, sell tickets and then ske-daddle. <i>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival">Fyre Festival</a> was a dress rehearsal! </i>And I wonder if anyone has yet to receive their "Trump Sneakers" - the $399 price tag was only for a promised later delivery, and yet some have resold these on eBay for thousands. <i>Did anyone actually get the shoes?</i> Like I said, maybe this is the new business model.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I said, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/01/buy-here-pay-here-leasing-used-cars.html">a decade ago in this blog</a>, that Al Gore's prediction that we would move from a "manufacturing economy" to an "information economy" was just the beginning. Eventually we would transition to <i>a fraud-based economy</i>, with every citizen spending every day "working" to defraud their fellow citizens. It would keep people busy and keep money in circulation! It. Just. Might. Work!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But getting back to video games, apparently fraud is becoming an issue, as some insidious folks have put up fake sound-alike "games" online, hoping that a few folks will download their fakes and they can run off with the cash before getting caught. It is a sign of a largely self-regulated industry, to be sure, and also a sign that demand was exceeding supply. Because what the "invisible hand" model fails to account for, is that if demand is high enough, not only will legitimate suppliers pile into the marketplace, but shady operators as well - selling facsimiles of the desired product. <i>I am sure there were con artists selling fake or non-existent <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/12/bubble-deniers.html">tulip bulbs</a> in Holland during that bubble.</i> Hell, they did the same here in the States, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/06/designer-dogs.html">selling non-existent French Bulldogs</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But perhaps demand has been satiated. In recent months, <a href="https://kotaku.com/game-industry-layoffs-how-many-2024-unity-twitch-1851155818">one gaming shop after another has announced layoffs</a> - in addition to the big console makers. Could it be that gamers are being over-saturated with new games? Because in addition to all the new titles are sequels to existing titles. I think "Grand Theft Auto" is up to version XXXIV now. How many versions of the same game can you sell?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And the complaints about newer games are pouring in. Many are finding the game-playing similar or the same as in earlier games or versions, with just the graphics changed. As a result, users get bored with playing the "same old game" in a different wrapper. And like the homebuilders during the 2008 bubble, there is pressure to push out games before they are debugged and finished - which might explain why many of these games seem to feel the same as previous games. If you don't get your game on the market quickly, the market may latch onto a different game as "the next big thing!" particularly when the game is multiplayer and online. Such games are more like social media (in fact, the same thing, with messaging and chat rooms, etc.) and if you don't hit that critical mass quickly, the game fails. <i>No one wants to play a multiplayer online game with no other real players.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It may also just be that the market for video games - like any other market - is finite. In order to be a gamer, you have to have a fairly decent income, a place to play, and a lot of free time on your hands. This excludes middle-aged people who are at their height of their careers. It may include teenagers and living-in-Mom's-basement bounce-back kids, as well as a few young professionals who have income and time on their hands. The stressed 20-something working two or three jobs to pay back their student loans probably doesn't have the time, the money, or the energy to devote to the hobby.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oddly enough, retirees would seem like a perfect market - they have a LOT of time on their hands, enjoy staring at screens all day, and have cash to spare. In fact, you are starting to see a lot of "old timers" getting into video games. I suspect, however, that first-person-shooter games and games of skill might not be as popular, as elderly eyesight and reaction times are not what they once were/ <i>Minecraft, anyone?</i> Still, hard to play if you are nearly legally blind.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Like anything else, these things go in patterns - and eventually the pendulum will swing back. A new generation of users will emerge, along with new games and new gaming devices. Maybe it is Zuckerberg's "Metaverse" or maybe not. The original Nintendo Wii demonstrated that technical sophistication wasn't a perquisite for success in the marketplace. I don't know if you recall, but people were writing the epitaph of Nintendo, as their new console didn't have the graphics capabilities of the Xbox or the Playstation. It turned out that game play engagement was far more important than how many pixels you had. It is why board games still exist today and in fact, are seeing a resurgence, particularly in role-play "fantasy" games.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I think the real answer is, the market is just over-saturated with new games - and not enough players to absorb them all.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-48142419626818935762024-03-03T06:00:00.003-05:002024-03-17T15:42:12.915-04:00Another Too-Good-To-Be-True Craigslist Scam?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6KXgtrHcFxxb5pAiUJ94vf4L3vY_Jqy6lzSbKj1eoazxHe_XWq0ERNmI3IXfIZhzb1XAFwRAESNc2QrugsTpfcMxRVEHGIJWno3_u1G-3M1jsAiyvwPomu5sABagE2n6gRipAmY1DGryVu2KTwctV2nkRNB3fA9SVdjweAb2sGTU2SPpiRZuf056OkU/s912/scam%20bayliner.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="912" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6KXgtrHcFxxb5pAiUJ94vf4L3vY_Jqy6lzSbKj1eoazxHe_XWq0ERNmI3IXfIZhzb1XAFwRAESNc2QrugsTpfcMxRVEHGIJWno3_u1G-3M1jsAiyvwPomu5sABagE2n6gRipAmY1DGryVu2KTwctV2nkRNB3fA9SVdjweAb2sGTU2SPpiRZuf056OkU/w400-h266/scam%20bayliner.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>There are some telltale signs this may be a scam.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">How can you tell if a listing on Craigslist is a scam? At first, things look real and look desirable - too good to be true, in fact. <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/12/genie-effect.html">The evil Genie has shown up again</a>, trying to trick you out of your money.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mark showed me <a href="https://brunswick.craigslist.org/boa/d/brunswick-2008-bayliner-246-discovery/7719148294.html">the listing for the boat above</a> - a "Gayliner" of course, not the greatest boats ever made. We've owned three - a 2155 cruiser, a 2655 cruiser, and a 285 whale that was comfortable, but couldn't get out of its own way. This listing, for a 2008 245 (Bayliner went from four digit model numbers to three) seems intriguing.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But the listing!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">First red flag, <i>the photos</i>. This is a sixteen-year-old boat and the photos show it looking like the day they took delivery. And sadly, even "legitimate" sellers on Craigslist do this - showing the photos of the boat on the day they bought it, not the day they are selling it. Even in storage for 16 years, there is going to be some wear and tear. But none of it showing here. Also <i>not shown</i> are any photos of the engine or interior. Weird, unless of course, the photos were scraped from the Internet.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I did a reverse image search using Google lens, but only found similar photos, not exact matches. Could it be legit?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Next, <i>the description</i>. Claims to have 18 hours on the engine, which is about one hour a year! If so, this boat has been in storage a long, long time. Almost worse, if true, as engines don't like to sit. But hard to believe. They claim 10 hours on <a href="https://www.westerbeke.com/multiportefigasolinegenerators.htm">a Westerbeke generator</a> as well. But this boat is pretty small - a very tight fit for a generator and an odd choice unless it also has built-in A/C which for some reason they do not mention.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The price is low - too low. A quick search of online sales shows asking prices for well-used models of the same year going for $35,000 to $40,000. NADA claims the boat is worth $23,000 in "average" condition. However, as spec'ed with low hours and a generator it should be worth $30,000 or more. This is the real tip-off. <i>Too good to be true</i>!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then there is the weird wording in the description:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">“This vessel is truly a must see! Just 18 Actual hours! Only 10 hours on Westerbeke Gen Set! New ” She is a very solid deep-vee hull with all brass through hull fittings. This model also has lots of free board (deep inside) for safety. This vessel also has a beautiful well built finished hard top</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Free board? Odd thing to harp on. No mention of engine size (there were two gas engines offered and even a diesel) or other options. GPS? Depth finder? What? Brass through-hull fittings? Really? Why are the ones shown in the photos white plastic? (The fact there are so many of them may be a tipoff that the generator is real and there is also A/C). But weird things to say and <i>so little to say</i> when selling something so expensive. Why is the hard top described as "beautiful well built finished" - someone is speaking English as a second language perhaps?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Why is the first line in quotes?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It also sounds like text scraped from a different ad. <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/11/anatomy-of-craigslist-scam.html">I saw this a lot with scam Casita listings</a>, where people would claim their 17' Casita had three slide-outs (physically impossible) and a generator (not shown in the photos). The text was taken from some random listing of a motorhome.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I send them an e-mail and usually the way this works is they don't get back to you for a few days. The reasons for this are many - Nigeria is in a different time zone, for starters. They may want to build up tension by delaying. They may need help with translation. When you do get a reply, it is "Sorry for the delay, but I was [insert lame excuse] which is why I am selling this boat!"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Coming next is a request for Apple gift cards as a "deposit."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I will update this posting shortly to see what happens. But I doubt I will end up with a boat out of the deal.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">UPDATE: I contacted the seller twice with no response. Either it sold or was a scam. I suspect the latter, although I have not seen the same listing elsewhere. Not on Facebook marketplace or on BoatTrader. Whatever the case, it is a weird listing! <i>Why would you have a boat, never use it for nearly two decades, list it only on Craigslist with a weird brief incomplete description and then never answer e-mails?</i> Maybe it is the CIA sending coded messages overseas!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">UPDATE: So it has been a week and no reply to my e-mails and no phone number was provided in the listing. Other, real listings, have a plethora of photos and descriptions of the hardware, not weird text about "free board." I found a similar listing for a Sea Ray deck boat, at a price well below book. Three photos, one of a seat, another of the stern, and another of a suspiciously clean hull (for a 16-year-old boat). The description? "Imagine the fun you'll have in this boat!" Great - can you tell me what engine it has? How about an actual photo of the whole boat?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Scam? Or are people just weird? Or both?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">UPDATE: I searched on the quoted term in the listing and <a href="https://boats-from-usa.com/bayliner/bayliner-246-252452">found this listing online</a> for $33,000 with 200 photos - from 2020. Same boat! So the scammers "scraped" some photos, scraped some text, and then put a ridiculous price on it and listed it on Craigslist. SCAM. Total scam!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-5658426037694631862024-03-02T06:00:00.054-05:002024-03-02T06:00:00.137-05:00Procter & Gamble Sues Facebook Over Use of "Meta" Trademark<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7pvUcod93u_ucslsu6IZOuqxC8xa8kU4u7D5de8jLtjdDKS_T-sAmHDrpV3awgD8vVJmC8HTffUjvhdk86sIshzVPYLjC37IfJa_0Poxjpa_SXiDK1ENy18vme4xVcwMMlGDsR-3_PwhnHc4a0u-j6jqVsskWpZbmXAUByNMMr8eanKfHpQKNMaDC7k/s120/the%20metaverse%20is%20full%20of%20shit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="113" data-original-width="120" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7pvUcod93u_ucslsu6IZOuqxC8xa8kU4u7D5de8jLtjdDKS_T-sAmHDrpV3awgD8vVJmC8HTffUjvhdk86sIshzVPYLjC37IfJa_0Poxjpa_SXiDK1ENy18vme4xVcwMMlGDsR-3_PwhnHc4a0u-j6jqVsskWpZbmXAUByNMMr8eanKfHpQKNMaDC7k/w320-h302/the%20metaverse%20is%20full%20of%20shit.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Turns out, they're both full of it.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">CINCINNATI, OHIO - Consumer products company Proctor and Gamble announced today that they are suing Facebook, Inc., (now "Meta, Inc.") over use of its trademark "Meta" which P&G owns for Metamucil fiber supplements. When asked for comment, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of "Meta" claimed that there was no "likelihood of confusion" between the products offered by the two companies, as one is selling a dietary supplement and the other, an online virtual world.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Attorneys for P&G countered, noting that Meta-mucil is used by people who are "full of shit" and that, quite frankly, includes Mr. Zuckerberg and anyone else in the "Meta-verse."</p><p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>OK, that was lame</i>. But I was thinking lately about pills and supplements. Mark tends to latch on to these after reading something online, which I think can be dangerous. I started taking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopurinol">Allopurinol</a> by prescription, for gout, back when I was in my late 30's, first at 150mg and then 300mg daily. The doctor said I would need to take it for "the rest of my life" although I have not had a gout attack in over a decade. I wonder if I should keep taking it, particularly because of potential side effects.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Nevertheless, it got me in the habit of taking daily medication and my next health crises sealed the deal. Diverticulitis is <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/12/joy-of-pain.html">quite painful</a> - it feels like you are being stabbed in the stomach, unlike gout, which feels like a white-hot nail is being driven through your foot. A friend of mine who has experienced both of those ailments - and went through childbirth - said that diverticulitis was the worst of the three, but then again, they don't give you an epidural for that. Supposedly kidney stones are a fun ride - one I hope to never go on.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So the doctor suggested taking Metamucil to improve fiber in my diet. Actually, changing my diet to get away from red meats and things like sausages and bacon and more toward vegetables would really improve things. But when you are 35, a "meat lover's pizza" seems like a healthy, hearty meal.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of hearts, Mark is paranoid he will have a heart attack, after watching his Mother die from a massive coronary at age 52 (he was 14 at the time). He is convinced that these things "run in the family" and indeed, his brother has high blood pressure and Mark's is slightly elevated. So he got us both taking "Red Rice Yeast" which is supposedly a natural statin. But since that lowers your level of something called "CoQ10" you have to take one of those as well.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So now we are up to four or more pills a day. The Meta-mucil people advertise that their pills will lower cholesterol, if you take up to eight (!!) of them a day. Problem is, if you take the capsule, you have to drink a LOT of water (like 12 ounces for each capsule) to turn it into that muck that we used to actually drink back in the day. If you don't, well, the stuff actually dehydrates you and can cause constipation (how ironic) and bloating and cramps. <a href="https://www.drugs.com/sfx/metamucil-side-effects.html#other-side-effects">Turns out, even fiber has side-effects.</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">By the way, a lot of maladies, including gout and diverticulitis can be triggered by stress. Funny thing, but when I suffered from these illnesses, I was at my peak stress in life - having started my own law practice and having several rental properties to manage. Now that <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2021/09/happiness-versus-contentment.html">I am retired and content</a>, I no longer have these issues.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I just have issues with pills.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mark read that fish oil is good for your heart - all those Japanese eat fish and rarely have heart attacks! So instead of actually <i>eating fish</i>, we instead took fish oil capsules - two more pills every day, and at this point, we both had those little pill trays that old people have, with compartments for each day of the week.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>It kept going.</i> I had rashes and itching (a side-effect of Allopurinol, I just learned) and allergic reactions to pain killers. So the doctor recommended I see an allergy specialist, who, like all allergy specialists, tells me I am allergic to just about everything, but if I start a lifelong series of expensive injections, he might just be able to cure me! <i>I respectfully decline</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We live in a pollen snowstorm half the year - yellow powder that blankets everything. <i>That is the real issue</i> - it makes your eyes itch and your throat sore. So we take a knock-off Zirtec and nasal spray. The doctor recommended taking it <i>daily</i> and I did, and felt loopy. I told the doctor and they recommended a different allergy pill that wouldn't make me so tired. So now we have one pill for daytime and one for night-time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The little compartments in the pill tray are having trouble closing. How about adding some Glucosamine for worn-out knees? (Or just each the shrimp tails?) A multi-vitamin? Vitamin E, or B, or D or A? Each is advertised on the Internets as preventing or curing some malady. <i>Now the pill compartments won't even shut.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And ironically, I am not feeling better, but worse. How did I get on this pill and supplement bandwagon to begin with? Mark still had slightly elevated blood pressure, and the doctor recommended he get a sphygmomanometer which we did (they are remarkably cheap these days). This was followed by a blood pressure watch (not as accurate) and then a prescription to 10 mg of Lisinopril, which immediately lowered his blood pressure by 20 points to a normal range.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of which, it is fascinating to me that such tiny amounts of drugs can do so much. 10mg? It is a pill the size of a pin-head! Yet it acted almost overnight to lower his blood pressure. Pretty amazing when you think about it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over the years, Mark has latched onto other supplements which came and went. Magnesium was added to the mix until our doctor shouted out in alarm - it does make you shit like a cow, though. Others have come and gone and I wonder whether they had any good effects or any effects at all, or were just harmful. <i>The Internet is a shitty source of medical advice.</i> Yet so many people are willing to believe anything on the Internet, provided the "authority" in question has <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2022/11/podcasts.html">a huge microphone and headphones.</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I stopped taking most of these supplements and actually <i>feel better</i>. The Metamucil seemed to aggravate my digestive tract more than helping it. They have ads on the Internet for it - disgusting ads, by the way, which seems to be a trend in online advertising (that and erectile dysfunction ads - what's wrong with "soft serve" anyway?). They hype Metamucil as "cleaning out your bowels" and show a cartoon bolus of mucil rolling its way through the digestive tract, scraping up the 15 pounds of undigested meat from Elvis' colon.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">(By the way, while I have used the trademark "Metamucil" the brand I actually used was Member's Mark from Sam's Club - it costs half as much as the name-brand).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The pill thing can sneak up on you. And granted, many of these pills can literally save your life or prolong it. Supplements? I am less sure. Most authorities note that most of these supplements are over-hyped and unnecessary. Your body may have all of the Vitamin <i>x</i> it needs, and the rest just gets filtered out by your kidneys (like they don't already have enough to do!) and peed out. Most multivitamins fall along the same lines.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I read online the quote, "A healthy man wants a thousand things. A sick man wants only one" - attributed to Confucius. And indeed, that is true, particularly as you get older and your body starts to check out. Joints go stiff, pain levels increase, and even the slightest cold or flu can lie you low - or even kill you. When you are young, you can bounce-back from these things. As you get older, you pine for those halcyon days. And supplements seem like the answer - the siren song of eternal youth. However, I suspect that such is not the case. Supplements might help a bit - <i>or hurt a lot</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One has to be careful!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-35573076558559519862024-03-01T06:00:00.019-05:002024-03-01T12:18:24.133-05:00Fine Art Money Laundering?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPXZwamXJHWPTQplX_zni4fWC-qSSmgwJXUuwxMbjzqRaH8UJfhwDGYSNCNmz3JaHmp77uF3DLgRtNmNH5EF0blPspa7HhqfFaHbqw_4iFQER4paRYgnGUIiCS-IZXCI6_5lKHoRYSUDw2oPLVQ9dre787nLET_cIaMX3zcbmbeRX05gnVFqqplOaf_c/s259/bullshit%20art.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPXZwamXJHWPTQplX_zni4fWC-qSSmgwJXUuwxMbjzqRaH8UJfhwDGYSNCNmz3JaHmp77uF3DLgRtNmNH5EF0blPspa7HhqfFaHbqw_4iFQER4paRYgnGUIiCS-IZXCI6_5lKHoRYSUDw2oPLVQ9dre787nLET_cIaMX3zcbmbeRX05gnVFqqplOaf_c/w400-h300/bullshit%20art.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Could you launder money through fine art auction sales? Maybe.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">On the Internet you see people confidently saying things like such-and-such is "just a money laundering scheme" and everyone seems to nod in agreement. But is it really the case? And if so, how would it work? And what other things are used to launder money?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you have a lot of ill-gotten money, for example, that is not recorded on the books (e.g., taxable income) or you want to transfer a lot of money to some shady people overseas to buy guns, drugs, or human beings, well, you have a problem. Transactions going through the regular banking system are monitored and create a paper trail and get thus end up getting you in trouble with the law.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But suppose you "sold" something to someone for far more than it was worth? Say, for example, you have a painting you bought for $250,000 and you decide to "auction" it. At auction, you have a number of shill bidders and the real buyer - just to make it look legit - and the painting sells for an astounding $2M. The buyer sends you the money, which is now legitimate income to you, and he gets an overpriced painting, which he can then "sell" to some other person in a similar sham transaction.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sounds simple, but I wonder how that would work. After all, Sotheby's or any other legitimate auction house isn't going to accept suitcases full of cash as payment for a priceless painting - or would they? The Brits do seem to stay afloat by handling money for the Saudis and Russians. <i>Every Oligarch has a mansion in London.</i> Probably just a coincidence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://sanctionscanner.com/blog/money-laundering-activities-in-the-art-world-223#:~:text=Art%20money%20laundering%20is%20a,high%20value%20of%20art%20pieces.">This site</a> claims that fine art can be used to launder money, although frankly, I think it is a convoluted way to launder cash. Of course, today, we have crypto-currencies and "NFTs" which some say (including myself) their sole purpose is in money laundering. Bitcoin is useful only for transferring money across national boundaries to buy illegal things without leaving (too much) of a paper trail. NFTs are just "fine art" without the "fine" or the "art" - just the <i>idea of an art object</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, there are more mundane ways to launder cash or transfer money. For example, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/07/if-you-found-million-dollars.html">if you found a million dollars</a>, it would be hard to spend it, unless you owned a cash business like a convenience store or a coin-op car wash or laundromat. You just declare some extra "sales" which is easy to do, particularly in something like a car wash or laundromat. Forensic accountants, however, could trip you up. For example, if your convenience store books show you "sold" 500 cases of beer, but you only ordered 200, the government is going to be curious as to where the other 300 cases came from. <i>You'd have the same problem selling untaxed cigarettes or beer that "fell off the truck" so to speak</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I suppose a laundromat or car wash would be safer, but I presume they could even examine your water bills and determine how many loads of laundry you sold or how many car washes - and if that didn't jibe with the income you are showing, they might claim you are laundering money. But it is a hard case to prove and quite frankly, the IRS only cares that you paid taxes on the laundered money, which was your goal all along, in order to move illegal cash into the "legitimate" banking system.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, of course, many "cash" businesses accept credit cards, making these kind of schemes even harder to pull off. Cash could disappear entirely in the next few decades. Already, the vast majority of $100 US bills in circulation are overseas, used for illegal purposes, for the most part. <i>No wonder our government can get away with printing so much money</i> - most of it is never repatriated!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, proponents of crypto and whatnot argue that "freedom" from banking system regulations is the entire point of the game. But what they are really saying is they want to do illegal shit and get away with it. By the way, the idiots who "invest" in crypto are just a side-effect of the scam - and help "legitimize" the whole thing by presenting an ersatz "reason" for its existence (particularly since crypto has failed to materialize as a useful daily currency, do to its staggering energy costs).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, today, there are easier ways of laundering money than in selling physical works of art. Speaking of which, what constitutes "fine art" is becoming almost laughable these days. A guy puts a vacuum cleaner in a Plexiglas box and sells it for $4.4 million. <i>He didn't even put it there, but told minions to make it for him</i>. Laughing all the way to the bank - or just creating fake "art" for money launderers?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The image above is of a famous "Banksy" piece which sold at auction for $25M. Other "Banksy" pieces, which are just street graffiti, are scraped off the walls (for free) and sold at auction for millions. The ultimate NFT! No real value, but a talisman of money transfer. Banksy acts all progressive and hip, but I wonder if him/her is keen with the idea that their "art" is possibly helping Russian Oligarchs move money around in spite of sanctions.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Funny thing, "Banksy" is in London as well. And maybe the name itself is a play on "Banking" - who knows?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ordinary art made by ordinary people can - and often is - better than these "fine art" pieces, particularly graffiti or vacuum-cleaners-in-a-box. But most artists struggle to make a living at it, and if you calculated the man-hours in even a basic work of art, the artist is likely making less that minimum wage, if in fact, not losing money at it. Most do art for the sake of art, not for a living. Hence the term, "starving artist."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBaliYm4KVgx9G3UGJZh7Jk3ADmTGjRUwEotP7FlliuFYwRKZkwJC3O8oCnw9rWanEqUfFF_rnTNA3G74UctiRw1pV_jg2p7LUPzZazNytlgwQEQFZLUjv30PmKAiUYEXb9Tx9jyGeWHhN33ch918xuQiVozePuWl1w-y3KE1n2SMb_vmpfZ93veB9kQM/s4608/DSCN0462.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBaliYm4KVgx9G3UGJZh7Jk3ADmTGjRUwEotP7FlliuFYwRKZkwJC3O8oCnw9rWanEqUfFF_rnTNA3G74UctiRw1pV_jg2p7LUPzZazNytlgwQEQFZLUjv30PmKAiUYEXb9Tx9jyGeWHhN33ch918xuQiVozePuWl1w-y3KE1n2SMb_vmpfZ93veB9kQM/w400-h300/DSCN0462.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Maybe I can get in on this money-laundering gig - if I can find a buyer for one of Mark's ceramic works that will pay $3.5 Million instead of $350!</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-55270580772481492162024-02-28T18:02:00.006-05:002024-02-29T10:24:37.151-05:00Surge Wages?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHX6i5laHQ1vp3XJEUhHYrcrP-fKqSRBUr4FN5HeR4aYELvJMabTY3KpQD4XN-uH59jElug5lW6WkI8M5in5fpKqHcHXilZHZO9a-5mCyB5sLLXKPb3Ea86FfKUTraERZjLzBNeoMKQgCv46yxWATGNxOTBCHRKTQKQRS4oLK-DZYtUlvV2hxM2P18Nw/s245/sir%20this%20is%20a%20wendys.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="245" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHX6i5laHQ1vp3XJEUhHYrcrP-fKqSRBUr4FN5HeR4aYELvJMabTY3KpQD4XN-uH59jElug5lW6WkI8M5in5fpKqHcHXilZHZO9a-5mCyB5sLLXKPb3Ea86FfKUTraERZjLzBNeoMKQgCv46yxWATGNxOTBCHRKTQKQRS4oLK-DZYtUlvV2hxM2P18Nw/w400-h336/sir%20this%20is%20a%20wendys.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>If fast food workers have to "hump" during the lunch rush, shouldn't they be paid more?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The CEO of Wendy's tried to quell the very bad press they received when they announced they were going to institute "surge pricing" on their electronic menus. They weren't going to <i>raise prices</i> during rush times, no sirree! <i>They are just going to offer lower prices during slack times</i>. And that's an entirely different thing and donchuforgetit!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I am, oddly enough, quite at peace with this, provided of course, that their employee's wages track this "surge" in prices. No doubt, fast-food workers have to work twice as hard between 11:30AM and 1:30PM. <i>So why not pay them twice as much per hour, during busy times?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I mean, fair is fair. Merely charging more money during the lunch rush is just generating windfall profits, with no real benefit to the customers or workers - only shareholders.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But all that being said, I doubt it will happen as the coming recession will force fast-food places to revisit the dollar menu again. We drove by <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-economy-is-great-economy-sucks.html">the Chrysler overflow lot today</a>. Not long ago, weeds were growing through the cracks in the pavement and an actual <i>tree</i> was growing between the beams of a parked car-carrier.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>No more</i>. The place filled up in the last week, first with "Pacifica" minivans, and now with Jeep Grand Cherokees - once a hot seller. <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2019/12/two-drunks-holding-each-other-up.html">This "Banking" lot was full back in 2019</a>. The pandemic cleaned this place out for a couple of years, but in recent months, we have seen sporadic amounts of vehicles on the site - mostly minivans which are slow-sellers in the era of the SUV (and likely good bargains as a result). But now the lot is FULL - and with "hot" SUVs to boot!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Jerking customers around over the price of a cheeseburger may sound like the latest gag in money-making - or the last gasp of an industry that has made record profits in recent years and is struggling to find ways to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Goes_Up_%E2%80%93_The_Problem_With_NFTs">keep the line going up</a>. But the consumer has the last word in things like this, particularly when they finally run out of money (most already have) and credit (most are about to) and are forced to cut back, not out of principle, but sheer necessity.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So good luck with surge pricing and $100,000 pickup trucks. When everyone is broke, who will buy?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">P.S. - drove by the Chik-Fil-A today at 1:00PM and there was ONE CAR in the drive-through. Granted this is at the end of the lunch rush on a Wednesday, but here in the Bible Belt, they usually have two lines at the drive through, 20 cars deep. At the Wendy's? <i>No one at the drive-through and only employee's cars in the lot</i>. We went to <a href="https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-salsa-taqueria-brunswick">our favorite Mexican dive</a> and had two tacos al pastor and two chorizo tacos (both with soft corn tortillas, cilantro, and onions, salsa roja - that's it) and two Dos Equis Amber. Total cost? $15. I left a five-dollar tip. Beats the crap out of American fast food (cheaper, too!) and if it is bad for me, well, I'd rather die eating that that Wendy's shit.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fuck Wendy's!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-17286106958928905582024-02-27T06:00:00.013-05:002024-02-27T06:00:00.137-05:00Free Toasters<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-pDfCqjT-XbKmOlghiM6axPkbYBSYXxebhJRLcP_VdckT8jBqhc08qofpgfNXXbjq-bc9_wfLiToEn_EOm9RdatH2NgXXFW-JlAdh6HWnjdX3N1eAaFDEPFof_EB9qRRB1bF6s2bF92fQRRSdzJA0Uq17-MOvUSIZmjM0J-mh6vyG4RThbjIiXJ_sNm4/s1320/free%20toaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="1320" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-pDfCqjT-XbKmOlghiM6axPkbYBSYXxebhJRLcP_VdckT8jBqhc08qofpgfNXXbjq-bc9_wfLiToEn_EOm9RdatH2NgXXFW-JlAdh6HWnjdX3N1eAaFDEPFof_EB9qRRB1bF6s2bF92fQRRSdzJA0Uq17-MOvUSIZmjM0J-mh6vyG4RThbjIiXJ_sNm4/w400-h225/free%20toaster.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>At one time in this country, your dishes and glassware came from the gas station and your toaster came from the bank. I kid you not.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I mentioned the term "<a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/quotable-quotes.html">free toaster</a>" before and realize now that it is a term that might not resonate with the younger generation. When I was a kid, the local banks would advertise free gifts if you opened a savings or checking account (and deposited a certain amount of money into it). Often, the gift proffered was a toaster. Buying in bulk, the bank got these for cheap, but in an era where everything went through a convoluted distribution chain (and everything was made in America) such "trivial" items were staggeringly expensive. So offering a "free toaster" was a "deal" to your average consumer.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>It didn't end there</i>. In the era of 35 cent gasoline (equivalent of over $3 today), gas stations would have "price wars" - competing against the station across the street for the lowest possible price - often selling at a loss, trying to drive the other guy out of business. Bear in mind this was long before the era of gas station mini-marts selling beer, cigarettes and snack foods. The gas station had little else to sell you to make up for the loss-leader in fuel. One promotion was to offer a free drinking glass or dish after so many gallons were bought. Over time, you could accumulate an entire set of glassware or dishware - my family ate off such things during my whole childhood.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Or they offered "S&H Green Stamps" or competing "Plaid Stamps" which as a kid, I happily pasted into the little paper "book" they gave you. You mailed in so many books and you got..... a free toaster. We ended up with two <a href="https://www.mercari.com/us/shop/proctor-silex-chrome-toasters/">Proctor-Silex toasters</a> this way (we got rid of one in a garage sale after my Dad found a dead mouse, lightly toasted, in it, hence the need for the second one). It was the "cheapest" reward you could get with the stamps at the time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our local IGA grocery store had a dishware promotion as well - you got one dish for every X dollars spent on groceries (and could buy additional dishes to complete the collection). When the gas-station dishes wore out, we moved on to IGA dishes. <i>We were not poor, either, but solidly upper-middle-class</i>. Yet back then, simple things were staggeringly expensive compared to today. My Dad bought his first color TV in 1975 and that 25" RCA Colortrak cost a staggering $500 (about $2800 today!). We were not poor, but the world was a poorer place, at least in terms of consumer goods.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">You see a lot less of this sort of free toaster nonsense these days - people are more fixated on raw cash than on free gifts. Some companies still do this, of course, just to get publicity - like the car dealer who offered a "free" AR-15 with every car purchase. That sort of thing can backfire (no pun intended) of course, as most folks are interested in the best possible price and may not be interested in (or already have) a firearm.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Airline miles - proving to be worthless - are giving way to cash-back bonuses. Of course, that doesn't stop them from trying - offering appliances or meals or concert tickets in place of raw cash. But in nearly every instance, the cash ends up being a better deal, as the "price" (in terms of points) of the toaster is far more than what they charge at Walmart in terms of equivalent cash.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I doubt the era of free toasters will return again anytime soon, thanks to cheap Chinese imports of most consumer products. You can hate on China all you want to, but you and I are the ones buying all this stuff, because quite frankly, the prices are so low and really no one makes these things anymore in America or Europe, other than boutique manufacturers.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/dualit-new-generation-classic-4-slice-toaster/">And who wants a $375 boutique toaster</a>? Famous British Quality, too!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-46789970518244720012024-02-26T12:09:00.002-05:002024-02-26T15:45:43.833-05:00Mint Mobile? No Thanks!<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8pa8pB1ftNorxb1rIpA5mhCG0-P6vzWCTW2utVW-2R0Q4jl5bzy316mucaYGeD8Ncpppuipw9j3_uOgYkhVaOKeluOBduyfduZSHKOL9kHPNjhz_QOzEq5pUvme5cV77w0sBjOnlMgK_shCGpWmUO_-uHqwb3bDsya-RxfU4XfqEZhGdogIdFvZYuoU/s1003/who%20is%20this%20guy%20again.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="1003" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8pa8pB1ftNorxb1rIpA5mhCG0-P6vzWCTW2utVW-2R0Q4jl5bzy316mucaYGeD8Ncpppuipw9j3_uOgYkhVaOKeluOBduyfduZSHKOL9kHPNjhz_QOzEq5pUvme5cV77w0sBjOnlMgK_shCGpWmUO_-uHqwb3bDsya-RxfU4XfqEZhGdogIdFvZYuoU/w400-h245/who%20is%20this%20guy%20again.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Almost everything advertised as a raw deal.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I've been seeing a lot of advertisements for Mint Mobile on the television. They're advertising on every single streaming channel that allows advertising. And the ads are all about the same. This actor guy, Ryan Reynolds (who he?*) appears on screen claiming to have bought Mint Mobile, and he promotes how the cost of the service is only $15 per month with "unlimited" data.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://truthinadvertising.org/articles/mint-mobile/">There are a few misrepresentations here</a>. First of all, Ryan Reynolds doesn't "own" Mint Mobile, nor did he "buy" it, but rather is a part owner (20-25% according to some sources) and as of March of 2023, T-Mobile "bought" the company (pending regulatory approval) and Reynolds will remain on as a "spokesperson."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Second, "unlimited" data is a lie that all telcoms engage in. You get "unlimited" data, but only at normal speeds for the first XX GB of data, then it slows to a crawl, effectively rendering the service unusable. Granted, in this case, the cap is set at a respectable 40GB, but this <i>lie</i> of "unlimited" data needs to be put to rest by <i>all telcoms</i>, period. Reynolds is selling this "Shucks, we're honest folks" nonsense, so "his" company should be the first to start.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Third, well, it ain't $15 a month, except for a brief promotional period, after which it jumps to $30 a month, paid a year in advance. Mint Mobile does have a $15 a month plan ($45 to sign up, $15 a month after that, provided you pay for a full year in advance) but it only has a paltry 5GB of data a month - enough to send and receive texts, but not enough to stream videos every night.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At the same time Reynolds makes this pitch, at the bottom of the screen is a plethora of fine print that is flashed up <i>so quickly you can barely read it in time</i>. In fact <i>you cannot read the entire thing</i> unless you pause the video. Of course, that's not deceptive - right? Putting the real deal in fine print and not letting you have enough time to read it is deception number four. And I'm supposed to trust this guy as some sort of down-to-earth aw-shucks dude who's trying to give us a good deal.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/quotable-quotes.html">Right</a>. <i>Whenever you enter into a business arrangement predicated on a lie, no matter how trivial the lie, expect it to go downhill from there</i>. So down the road, how do you think <strike>Mint Mobile</strike> <u>T-Mobile</u> is going to treat you? And who do you have to blame? <i>They have telegraphed in advance what sort of people they are.</i> Caveat Emptor.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What the fine print says and what he doesn't want to say out loud is that the $15 per month service is just a promotional gimmick that expires within a few months and the price reverts to a regular $30 per month or about what I pay for my AT&T prepaid service. In other words there's no advantage for me to switch to Mint Mobile.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And yes, there's not a lot to like about AT&T and Verizon, although AT&T's prepaid service is pretty upfront about the pricing. They've never tried to pull this scheme on me where they offer some promotional price and then change it to another number later on. Maybe they do that with new customers now, but it wasn't the case when I first signed up with the service when it was called GoPhone.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This got me to thinking about the other ads I've seen on streaming services. And they're all for pretty raw deals or just shitty deals or stuff designed to cater to your fears. There are a huge number of ads for laundry detergents, and apparently a lot of people are afraid that their laundry smells bad. The funny thing about these ads is that a lot of black people appear in them. In fact, hardly any white people appear in them, if any. Are they trying to send the message to black people that their laundry stinks? If so it's kind of racist.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The "great replacement theory" is a load of horseshit, except perhaps in television advertising. While I welcome the representation of minorities in advertising, it seems like they've gone overboard in this regard. Based on the advertisements I see on streaming services you would think that the population of the United States was pretty much evenly divided between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. You would never guess that white people make up 70% of the population based on their representation in internet streaming ads.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Is this another example of so-called "wokeness?" I don't think so. Rather I think it's because marginalized groups are easier to snag with clever advertising. Racial minorities are over-represented in poverty statistics, and poor people tend to spend more money on things like brand-name detergents and status items. Maybe also, they are more likely to be watching "free" streaming services and over-the-air television.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is interesting to watch how people shop in the stores. We go to the Wholesale Club and carefully look at the price of various detergents and <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2016/11/laundry-detergent.html">usually end up buying the store-brand</a> which is the cheapest in terms of price per ounce and price per load.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Others just grab the most expensive name brand off the shelf and throw it in their cart without even looking. It's not like we can't afford to buy the name-brand, just that <i>we choose not to</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And maybe that's why <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/03/are-people-really-useing-tide-detergent.html">the name-brand laundry detergents</a> aren't aimed at us. We're not paranoid about our laundry smelling bad nor do we believe the mythology that a certain brand of detergent cleans better than another one.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In a way, all advertising is predicated on a lie - the lie that one product is superior to another, or that there are scandalously advantageous "deals" available with one company, but not another - as if half the marketplace is paying double for the same service or product, because they are too stupid to listen to television ads.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Streaming ads, of course, get even weirder, particularly on YouTube. Apparently, people are obsessed about their health and by that, I don't mean the ads for "legitimate" prescription drugs, but the wild-eyed screamers who hawk their quack cures which were outlawed back in the early 1900s. The snake-oil salesman is alive and well in modern America. <i>We just call poison a "nutritional supplement" these days</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">FOMO abounds as well - you can have "fun" gambling away your last penny on a sports betting site! Everyone is winning and <i>no one is losing!</i> Or buy "Crypto!" This "Crypto Bro" is willing to share his insider secrets out of the goodness of his heart - for a small fee, of course. Your life's savings, to be exact.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Or maybe you can save "thousands of dollars" on your heating bill (that would be more than an entire season's worth for me!) by heating your home with some sort of "insider secret" that involves an inverted plant pot. WTF? People actually fall for this shit?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The world is full of idiots - look around you.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I guess there are people who look at advertisements as legitimate sources of data. They must think these ads are vetted and approved by the networks or streaming services that host them. Myself, I look at an advertisement like Police Tape - roping off a bad deal with "Warning! Ripoff Ahead!" Because no matter what is advertised on television, odds are, it isn't the great deal they make it out to be.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And today, well, it seems almost all ads are for shitty deals, particularly on the Internet.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">* I guess I am officially old. I Googled his name and read his Wikipedia page and can safely say I have never seen any movie or show he was in. It is all comic-book explosion movies, which are aimed at the prime demographic - young men aged 15-35. <i>That's no longer me</i>.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-22521084962370938232024-02-25T06:00:00.001-05:002024-02-25T06:00:00.213-05:00Rather That Fight Change, Guide It!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MvnXPuJjd_g" width="320" youtube-src-id="MvnXPuJjd_g"></iframe></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Change will happen in the world, whether you like it or not. We can't "go back" to simpler times. The best you can do is to guide change, not fight it.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I saw a posting online that was humorous. "Conservatives are always wrong!" they said, and pointed out how, over the years, Conservatives have been on the wrong side of nearly every issue. I suppose it started in 1776 with the Loyalists. We don't talk about them much, but they thought things were OK the way they were and saw no reason to change by fomenting revolution. <i>They were on the wrong side of history</i>. Like I said, we don't talk about it much, but we put them in internment camps after the war and then shipped them out of the country. <i>Today, we call them Canadians.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oddly enough, conservatives today fashion themselves as "revolutionaries" like back in 1776, claiming that only 3% of the population actually fought in or supported the revolutionary war. But of course, they have it backwards - if anything, Conservatives today are more akin to the Loyalists of 1776, wanting to "go back" to the "good old days" of King and Country.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Civil War was the same deal. Conservatives fought to protect the <i>status quo</i> - slavery. And they lost because they were wrong. Even the revolutionary "forefathers" of our country foresaw that slavery would eventually have to go away - the only question to them was when and how, and in American tradition, merely kicked the can down the road nearly a century to 1865.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Conservatives today try to glorify the Confederacy and "The Lost Cause" - forgetting that the cause was <i>lost</i>. Progressives won, because <i>they were right</i> and<i> slavery was wrong</i>. And no, this is not up for discussion.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Since those days, other issues have come and gone, and in every case, Conservatives have been wrong and always lost. The suffragette movement - getting the right for women to vote - was opposed by Conservatives, but they were wrong and they lost. Jim Crow, Segregation, the KKK - all wrong and the lost (and continue to lose) on all fronts. Conservatives fought the US's entry into both World Wars. They were wrong and lost.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The few wars that Conservatives promoted ended up being disasters. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - we lost in all three cases, even as Conservatives fought to spend yet more money and send more "suckers" (as Trump calls them) to die. <i>And yes, I think we can now safely call Iraq and Afghanistan losses.</i> Iran won in Iraq, and the Taliban won in Afghanistan. And no, it was not Obama's fault, but Bush's.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the few instances where Conservatives have "won" their victory was short-lived. Prohibition, for example, was a victory for the far-Christian right, but ended up as a disaster and was quickly overturned. But hey, Conservatives, <i>thanks for creating the Mafia as a result</i>. You guys really have your heads up your asses.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Desperately fighting change is just stupid, because change always occurs - it is like trying to fight the tides or the winds. We can't "go back" to the "good old days" because it is physically impossible and the "good old days" sucked, frankly, compared to today. <i>Yet today, Conservatives are pining for the days of slavery and 40-year lifespans</i>. Not only are they against equal rights for minorities and women, they are actively campaigning against basic healthcare! Measles? <i>It doesn't exist, right? Just part of a scam perpetrated by the government!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thank you, but I enjoy <i>not having polio</i>. And will continue to do so.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Conservatives were not always so consistently wrong, however. There was a time when being Conservative didn't mean shouting down change entirely, but embracing it, managing it, and <i>guiding it</i>.<i> </i> And in that last regard, this is where Conservatives really fail. By refusing to embrace and guide change, they let it happen willy-nilly with disastrous results.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the last two decades, we have seen the rise of social media and the smart phone - things that have had little positive impact on our society and much negative impact. Yet no one took the helm to manage these things and guide them to a better future. Any attempts at managing these things was met with cries of "government over-reach" and "first amendment rights!" Too late, the GOP is realizing that social media is harmful to children, but their only solution is to ban it outright.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Allowing social media sites to ban hate speech and neo-nazis? <i>Can't have that - that's our voting base!</i> They really have backed themselves into a corner.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Time was, there was a "Liberal" wing of the Republican Party - a philosophy that government <i>did have legitimate functions</i> and that a properly managed government could be efficient and useful to all of the people. <i>Believe it or not, New York State had a Republican governor - Nelson Rockefeller</i> - <i>when I was growing up.</i> Today, the GOP has thrown those sort of folks out of the party in favor of religious "Let's go back to the good old days of stoning" fundamentalists, leaving the Liberal Republicans as stateless individuals.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And no, Nikki Haley isn't really a moderate or liberal Republican. She is just hoping Trump has a massive coronary and she becomes the nominee by default. <i>It is a pretty even-odds bet.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We see change all around us. On our little island, things have changed dramatically in the last few years, as we are no longer "Georgia's Abandoned Island" but instead morphing into an upscale vacation resort. From sleepy retirement community for displaced Yankees, to weekend retreat for wealthy Atlantans, it has changed. <i>Dramatically</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A small group of people, who I call the <i>Coalition to Hate Jekyll Island</i> tried to stop this change, and they failed miserably at it, like most Conservatives do. And by the way, people who fight change often consider themselves "Liberal" or even "Progressive" but the reality is, if you are fighting change, you are, by definition, Conservative, no matter how many "Free Palestine" bumper stickers you have on you Subaru.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Change was going to happen here. We are a State Park and live under the benevolent dictatorship of the "Jekyll Island Authority" who, in real terms, has been quite generous to residents - <i>so far</i>. But the reality is, <i>they own the island, not us</i>, and they can pretty much do at they please with it, and we could not expect the taxpayers of the State of Georgia to subsidize our private retreat (for Yankees, no less!) forever and ever. <i>Something had to give</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So they invested millions - tens of millions - on island improvements, on the premise that more people would come (and they did) and they could at least break even on the deal. I am not sure that has happened just yet, but it is turning around slowly.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Change was inevitable, but the only option presented by the opponents was "no change at all." And when the original company slated to do most of this development <i>went bankrupt in 2008 due to the recession</i>, the anti-change people claimed victory - as if they somehow caused the worldwide recession of that era, just to thwart the redevelopment plans.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But then again, delusional thinking is the hallmark of Conservatives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is like a guy I know who refuses to use the bike path - not because he is one of these Lance Armstrong wanna-bes who rides his $5000 bicycle in the road, but because he says - and I am not kidding about this - that the bicycle path is destroying the environment and by <i>not riding on it</i> as a protest, eventually it will force the Island authorities to tear up the bike path.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dementia's a bitch, ain't it?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But that brings up another point. A lot of old people get more and more Conservative as they get older, which is a natural thing. You set up your life a certain way and <i>change can ruin your plans</i>. You retire on a fixed income and see it wiped out by inflation. You have a computer you like to use and one day you are told none of your programs will work anymore because you machine is "obsolete" and you need to fork over money to "upgrade." <i>No one likes change, it seems, particularly as you get older</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But young people - what's up with that? Well, that is where it gets interesting, as many young people agitate for change, even so-called "Conservatives." A new generation of young Conservatives, mostly male, are pining for the days when "traditional wives" stayed at home, because then women were much easier to control - and their dating prospects seemed greater (or so they thought). They want change - to "go back" to a mythical era that may never have existed. The problem is, once you give people freedom, they tend not to want to give it up. There isn't a lot of support to repeal the 19th Amendment.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sadly, there are a plethora of equally delusional young people who want to "go back" to the "good old days" of Soviet Russia, thinking they will get "guaranteed annual income" and a free rent in a brutalist concrete apartment block. <i>That isn't going to happen, either and those "good old days" were horrific in reality.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A better approach, I think, is to realize that change is inevitable and rather than blindly fight it or pine for non-existent earlier eras, to be part of the force of change and <i>help guide that change</i>, realizing that you are not going to get exactly what you want, every time, but getting something is far better that getting nothing (and pouting about it like a small child).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>So how do you go about directing change?</i> Well, you can vote, or better yet, send money to the political candidate of your choice. Choose the candidate who is proposing the most rational form of change, whether or not it ticks off all the items on your list of demands. But part of this also is realizing that change is inevitable and in some instances, merely railing against it is not only futile, but a waste of your own energy and time and <i>makes you look ridiculous</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Choose your battles wisely. Spend that energy where you can actually help direct change. Don't bother trying to fight things that are inevitable, or worse yet, trying to deny change entirely.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When you look at the world's economic winners and losers, the losers are usually the ones who spend all their energy on "causes" that they never win at - while at the same time, neglecting causes (like their own personal finances) they could easily win at.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-86818360112256847772024-02-23T06:00:00.001-05:002024-02-23T06:00:00.155-05:00The Weibull Curve and Buying New Stuff<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzYACA4pTnwx5dJU67d6GkC0wNL9cH3DzQ-jOPOfrBu2Fhplfq1799DCY_aZpvnjMpIqr28duTvHOR5rNaE8Q7B972Eac6ki6DEDZ3D8EabiZaNt2Bz_biAVh8yCUFDchEnqcGshGrHtBL3fPKlcaYJQ2VNyk9IoMGsZ_G18o8vbsizybPiA032UaVuU/s1600/Robert-Plotkin-2002-Turbo-7-2000x1333.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzYACA4pTnwx5dJU67d6GkC0wNL9cH3DzQ-jOPOfrBu2Fhplfq1799DCY_aZpvnjMpIqr28duTvHOR5rNaE8Q7B972Eac6ki6DEDZ3D8EabiZaNt2Bz_biAVh8yCUFDchEnqcGshGrHtBL3fPKlcaYJQ2VNyk9IoMGsZ_G18o8vbsizybPiA032UaVuU/w400-h266/Robert-Plotkin-2002-Turbo-7-2000x1333.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Eventually, everything has to be replaced.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In response to some previous postings, I got some pushback from some readers who thought I was an idiot for coveting my old computers. So long as they still work, why replace them? But that being said, eventually they will go in the trash - <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/08/bathtub-or-weibull-curve.html">the Weibull curve</a> cannot be denied.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When I was younger, I fell into the mythology that you could keep any piece of equipment forever, such as a car, for example. If you "properly maintained it" and took care of it, there was no reason a car can't last forever! Well, except that over time, you'll spend more money fixing an older car than it is worth. And cars have gotten better over time. My cousin had a 1972 BMW 2002tii and I thought that was a pretty cool car. I was shocked when he sold it and bought a Nissan Maxima back in the 1990s. As he put it, he liked having working air conditioning, power windows and door locks, cruise control leather seats and all the features more modern cars had at the time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The 2002 was a fun car to bomb around it (I had a 1974 model) but not fun in heavy traffic on a hot summer day. It turned into a sweatbox quickly - and the aftermarket A/C left much to be desired. It's OK to move on, after a while.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But there is a matter of timing. If you are constantly jumping from one new product to another, it is a sure way to go broke - just as putting new (or even used) tires on an end-of-life vehicle is a waste of money. A lot of people think nothing of trading in cars or phones or computers every few years, so they can have the "latest and greatest" thing (for status purposes) without ever even familiarizing themselves with the product they traded in. I know more than one person who realized their car had some cool feature only on the way to the dealer to hand over the keys.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The good news is, a lot of technology today does last a lot longer than the "good old days" despite what the old-timers around the cracker-barrel might say. You can keep a car for well over 100,000 miles these days, without breaking a sweat. Sounds pretty benign, but back in the "good old days" most cars went to the junkyard long before that. And smart phones have reached a plateau in terms of features and functionality - there is little point in upgrading to the "latest and greatest" smart phone, other than to impress people you don't know.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But thank God for those trade-in maniacs - they leave behind nearly-new cars and electronics that can be had for half the price new. Our truck had 20,000 miles on it and was two years old when we bought it - largely indistinguishable from brand-new. It has 70K on it now, six years later, and should easily last us another six to ten years, with ordinary care.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We paid $99 for our Galaxy 4 phones and $199 when we upgraded years later to Galaxy 7's. They still work fine, although a few apps are not supported. Today, AT&T crashed and my phone will not register. I think it is either AT&T or my SIM chip, as I tried swapping the SIM chip with two other phones and no joy. But it may be time, in the not-too-distant future, to look for another used phone on eBay.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, there are things we preserve and "keep forever" but even then, they either are entirely rebuilt, or are mere talismans of the objects they once were. Many a collector car becomes a "garage queen" that is rarely driven, as driving the vehicle ruins the "value" and moreover, such vehicles end up being pretty delicate as they age, as many parts are no longer available (NLA) and used parts have a limited usable life. And like my cousin's 2002, well, <i>they just aren't as fun to drive as we thought they were.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So no, I am not advocating the "buy it for life" or "keep it forever" mindset, because things eventually wear out over time - even anvils. And even if they don't wear out, keeping an anvil when you have no use for one isn't being frugal, it is just plain hoarding.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">All that being said, by the time I am ready to replace my old laptops, I probably will be dead or no longer blogging. Some AI program will have taken my place by then!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Brave new world? <i>You know, I'm kind of glad I won't live to see it.</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-69173932260596637962024-02-22T06:00:00.091-05:002024-02-22T06:00:00.155-05:00How FEAR leads to FRAUD<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59aiWIxir5UXBeaZofJqn67xhzE9Dk5uBvqRUIA_EqiWykVNxc3j3paytA29oO47CLKAVxo0BPnFWZIqIH5VY8tdXQPXo_2LXJ1A2AAmtryrS9eRUAdExoxUNaHP71nR5-urZqu_hi-HKGm1K7A022WhFAP5U3K6sgJzU7MBHWaQadocqo_r4FkOVYvo/s768/17084010667643012072123070766626.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59aiWIxir5UXBeaZofJqn67xhzE9Dk5uBvqRUIA_EqiWykVNxc3j3paytA29oO47CLKAVxo0BPnFWZIqIH5VY8tdXQPXo_2LXJ1A2AAmtryrS9eRUAdExoxUNaHP71nR5-urZqu_hi-HKGm1K7A022WhFAP5U3K6sgJzU7MBHWaQadocqo_r4FkOVYvo/s320/17084010667643012072123070766626.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>When you are afraid all the time, you end up getting ripped-off.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I talk a lot about emotional things in this blog, which is supposed to be about finances, sort of. But mental state is very important if you want to get ahead in life. If you resign yourself to the idea you will "never get ahead in life, anyway" and spend all your money on consumer trash instead, it becomes a self-fulfilling promise. If you think it is "clever" to post things on Twitter that you "made coffee at home for a year now, and I'm still not a millionaire!" you never will become one. <i>Take this from someone whose net worth was negative until age 30 or so - but surpassed the seven-figure mark a decade later.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Emotional mindset matters - a lot. In fact, it is everything. People want "secret tips 'n tricks" to getting rich quickly - and there are none. Those who sell them to you (and they <i>sell </i>them) are again, relying on your emotions to cheat you.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And among emotions that work against you, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/10/fear-least-useful-emotion.html">the number one is <i>fear</i></a>. Fear sells useless <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/should-you-buy-extended-warranty.html">extended warranties</a> or loan insurance or "credit protector." People are so afraid of losing what little they have that they insure trivial things, which collectively, keep them down. Fear also leads to fraud as well.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Social Engineering relies a lot on fear. A criminal sends an e-mail to a company employee, telling them that they are the CEO at an important business meeting and need money wired right away to an offshore account to close a deal. The lowly employee wants to curry favor with the boss and is <i>afraid</i> of being fired, so they ignore the red flags (strange lookalike e-mail address, being implored to keep the transaction secret, etc.) and go ahead and wire a million bucks to an offshore bank account.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fear drives these fake IRS or "Grandson in jail" scams. The IRS is going to throw you in jail! (without a trial or without even sending you a letter or auditing your taxes!) - unless you send them five $200 Apple gift cards, because you know, <i>that's how the Federal government is funded, by Apple gift cards!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The "Grandson in jail" scam is the same deal - "Help me, Grandma! I am in Mexican jail in Cancun on a drug charge! I need $20,000 but don't tell anyone or I'll lose my scholarship/job!" And fear motivates people to act - and ignore red flags at the same time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Recently, <a href="https://www.thecut.com/author/charlotte-cowles/">a lady who writes for "The Cut"</a> which I guess is a column from New York magazine, <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html">scammed herself out of fifty grand</a> when some con artist convinced her she was in dire trouble and she needed to take fifty grand <i>out of her savings account</i> and put it in a taped-up cardboard box and hand it to a stranger on the street. It sounds ridiculous because it is, but she let <i>fear</i> blind her to the obvious.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">By the way, this article is only weeks old, but has <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-never-thought-i-was-the-kind-of-person-to-fall-for-a-scam">already spawned its share of online memes</a>. The Internet works fast!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What is sad is that she writes a <i>financial advice</i> column, but her experience should be a clear disqualification from handing out any further advice. You can read the article - go ahead, the link is above - I didn't bother much. And the reason why is she is selling <i>fear </i>as well - a common fear being sold in the media these days. (That, and like <i>New York Times</i> articles, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2019/04/one-sided-stories-yet-again.html">meander all over the place before getting to the point</a> - they think this kind of writing is clever, apparently).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"Think it can't happen to you?" they say, "Well, it happened to me, <i>it can happen to anyone!</i> So watch out, buster, you're one step away from losing your life's savings!"</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Well, maybe not</i>. First of all, since I don't live in New York City, fifty-thousand-dollars is more than mere lunch money to me. I certainly don't keep that in my savings account. If someone threatened me, it would take a week, at least, to raise that kind of cash - I would have to sell off some investments and then transfer the money to my investment account and then transfer it to my bank account and then drive into town (calling ahead, as the local bank doesn't consider fifty grand to be lunch money, either) to get the money. And the local banker who knows me would ask pointed questions as to why I was taking out so much money <i>in cash</i> - or at least the few times I have taken out more than a few grand, they seem curious as to why.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Also, since I used to work for the government and have or had friends who worked for the "three-letter-agencies" as well as the IRS (which is also three letters!) I know that the feds don't rely on mysterious phone calls to get things accomplished. You can accuse the government of a lot of things, but ineptness is probably the only thing that could stick. <i>On a good day, the Federal government would have trouble conspiring to make a pot of coffee, much less engage in some weird scheme.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But most people don't know that. They think the computers at the CIA are like what they say on <i>Mission Impossible</i> where the reality is much less dramatic. And no, no one in the government would ever ask you for cash in a taped-up box. <i>And why would a guy from the CIA be calling you from the FTC main number?</i> Even someone from the FTC would be calling from their own number, not the main number.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, and right,<i> <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-ftc.html">I testified for the FTC</a></i> - they are involved in consumer fraud, not drug deals gone bad South of the border. But people are ignorant and all they know is stuff they watch on television. And what is on television is mostly aimed at women - crime shows, where women are usually the "Special Victims."</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ugh.</i> No wonder she fell for it - our entire society is priming women to be passive victims in life. <i>If you are lucky, you can be the next victim-of-the-week!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So yea, <i>it could happen to you</i>, provided you live in fear that your mechanic is trying to "rip you off" and the Wal-mart slasher is hiding under your minivan, ready to spray you with a "free perfume sample" that will knock you out - only to wake up days later in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney missing. <i>That could happen! I saw it on Facebook!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The media loves this shit. The other "fear" thing they sell - besides the idea that any second now, your identity will be stolen - is that you are mere minutes away from being homeless - and that homelessness is an epidemic affecting millions of people!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The reality is, it is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/15/homelessness-in-america-grew-2023/71926354007/#:~:text=Tens%20of%20thousands%20more%20people,this%20year%2C%20reaching%20653%2C104%20people.">a problem affecting hundreds of thousands of people</a> - less than 1% of the population of the United States. And to get there, you have to be mentally ill, a drug addict, an alcoholic, or some combination of the three. <i>People who don't fall into those categories don't stay homeless for long</i>, because rather than hang out on a street corner with a tattered sign saying "just evicted! five children!" they are working with various government agencies and private ones to find shelter, a job, clothing, food, and so on and so forth. The guy you see living on the streets is there because he is a drug addict or violent and they don't allow that in the shelters. Getting to rock-bottom takes some work, and while many people live "paycheck to paycheck" they often Tweet this on their new iPhone, which they spend 10 hours a day on. <i>There is a connection.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But fear sells - magazine articles in <i>New York </i>magazine, for example. You'll never go broke catering to fear. Watch television "news" sometime (go ahead, I stopped long ago) and you'll see nothing but fear being sold. We're all going to be nuked! Or raped! Or robbed! Or whatever. <i>You never see many things on the news that aren't based on fear</i>, other than <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/06/news-story-types-and-why-news-is.html">the token human interest story</a>, which usually makes us plebes out to be rubes. <i>She's a Swiftie that teaches adorable squirrels how to water-ski!</i> <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=news+squirrels+waterski&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi_h8av_byEAxWvDnkGHWCtDHMQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=news+squirrels+waterski&gs_lp=EgNpbWciF25ld3Mgc3F1aXJyZWxzIHdhdGVyc2tpSLsdUKYSWKYScAB4AJABAJgBlQKgAbMDqgEFMC4xLjG4AQPIAQD4AQGKAgtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ4gGAQ&sclient=img&ei=xDXWZb-VLq-d5OMP4NqymAc&bih=568&biw=1366">Google it sometime - it is depressing.</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In that regard, Trump has been a godsend for the media. One media mo-ghoul recently admitted that Trump was <i>good for business</i> as he <i>generates ratings</i>. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/15/homelessness-in-america-grew-2023/71926354007/#:~:text=Tens%20of%20thousands%20more%20people,this%20year%2C%20reaching%20653%2C104%20people.">"50% of Howard Stern listeners <i>love</i> him and listen for an average of <i>two</i> hours. Most common reason given: they want to see what outrageous thing he will say next! 50% of Howard Stern listeners <i>hate</i> him and listen for an average of <i>three</i> hours. Most common reason given: they want to see what outrageous thing he will say next!</a>" Trump learned a lot from Howard Stern. <i>Thanks, Howard!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I know my own blog readership skyrocketed during the 2016 election whenever I wrote about Trump or Hillary. They want us not to just disagree with the opinions of these characters, but actually <i>hate or fear them</i>. Because fear (and hate, which is related) are powerful emotions, and if you can grab someone by their fear, well, you have then by the balls (or something else that Trump says he grabs all the time but likely never has).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, while we are allowing ourselves to get all riled up over <i>nothing</i> - such as the latest Hunter Biden allegations (which have been admitted to be fabrications by Russian agents) - we end up acting against our own self-interest. The media wants to paint Republicans as a bunch of right-wing religious nuts who want to burn books and kill gay people. And yea, some of those exist - goaded on by Putin's Internet Research Agency. The same media paints all Democrats as sex-changing weirdos who want to indoctrinate your children into Communism. And yea, maybe a few of those nutjobs exist as well, but they don't represent mainstream Democrats anymore than Westboro Baptist Church represents mainstream Christianity.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In sort, <i>we are being scammed and falling for it</i>, much like this lady in New York magazine or whatever. If we believe our neighbors are the enemy and the only solution to our imagined "problems" is violence or covering our pickup truck with stickers, then yea, we have been conned, big-time, out of all of our money. <i>And they used fear to sell it, too</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, the idea that "It could happen to anyone" is indeed true, and this lady being scammed out of fifty grand isn't some outlier but what is happening today, across America, to nearly everyone.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">...or so it seems.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-42281653649447926642024-02-21T11:46:00.001-05:002024-02-21T11:46:43.167-05:00Free Weekly Credit Reports? Yes.<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59s4fup3MZhPeV0V7B9tVNTyQpQnbPzuvAtLvPxaj2-5H6LNO3JAfwUQlkrJ3lCp60R8huB-DdEsaGEzpgfN16y_qdG9qjCC0XvUxnIgFzFgxR03ClpDYhi_liBwLcqD7mWIu8IbjGKwH2liyMGeC9zQEteRBtBttKCm45Ev0bcustWMBucofDV3OILU/s980/weekly%20credit%20report.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="197" data-original-width="980" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59s4fup3MZhPeV0V7B9tVNTyQpQnbPzuvAtLvPxaj2-5H6LNO3JAfwUQlkrJ3lCp60R8huB-DdEsaGEzpgfN16y_qdG9qjCC0XvUxnIgFzFgxR03ClpDYhi_liBwLcqD7mWIu8IbjGKwH2liyMGeC9zQEteRBtBttKCm45Ev0bcustWMBucofDV3OILU/w640-h128/weekly%20credit%20report.png" width="640" /></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>You don't have to wait 12 months to get your credit report - just next week!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I had a reminder on my calendar to download my Transunion credit report. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2016/01/annual-credit-report-space-them-out.html">At the suggestion of a reader</a>, I set up my calendar to remind me three times a year to do this - one for each credit reporting agency. That way, I am alerted to changes in my credit history more often.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the point is moot. My credit reports are all frozen (more on that later) which is something everyone should do. Also, since I am debt-free, I have no real need for credit, other than to "steal the cheese" with some 10% off, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/09/buy-now-pay-later.html">one-year-same-as-cash deal</a> on a new appliance or something (which, as I have noted before, is just a tasty baited mousetrap for the unwary - <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/bear-traps.html">a bear trap</a>, really).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I do it anyway - out of habit mostly. I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I logged on to annualcreditreport.com (the <i>only</i> legit free credit reporting site) and saw a banner indicating that credit reports were now free <i>on a weekly basis.</i> So I tried it and it worked - sort of. The only one that didn't work was Experion, which claimed there was some sort of problem and told me to send a written request. Oddly enough, Experion was the only reporting agency that I had not queried in over 12 months.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Transunion and Equifax both coughed up the goods - after a two-step authentication process. Equifax helpfully provided a "summary" page so I didn't have to scroll through a dozen pages of individual reports from numerous lenders. Transunion provided long form, Experion, like I said, did bubkis.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is an improvement over the old system as you can order your credit report at almost any time, rather than after the one-year anniversary from the last report. It also is illustrative of how the whole industry has changed over time. It was an industry created in my lifetime and for much of that time, the various agencies protected the data like a State Secret.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then, the government stepped in (Boo! Hiss! Gubmnent Bad! - right?) because people were being maligned by inaccurate credit report data and not only did they not have an avenue to correct it, but they <i>weren't even allowed to look at it!</i> I remember those days, when a car salesman would tell me he would "lose his job" if he showed me the ultra-secret credit report with <i>my data on it</i>. Not only that, since the consumer couldn't see their own data, they had no idea if someone was fraudulently using their identity - until it was too late.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So annual credit reports were born. You could see your data, once a year, by mail, if you requested it and paid a small fee - or for free if you were denied credit. It was a hassle, but you could do it. And <i><a href="http://annualcreditreport.com">annualcreditreport.com</a></i> was next, which made the process easier. But of course, "free enterprise" decided to step in and offer "free credit reports!" on the television using catchy jingles and directing people to a site that <i>was totally not free</i>. It took years for that shit to die down.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the credit reporting agencies were not giving up without a fight. Your "<a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/04/credit-scores-that-finally-make-sense.html">credit score</a>" was created using proprietary algorithms and they claimed this as protected Intellectual Property, which, as an IP Attorney, makes my skin crawl - almost as much as HP putting unnecessary chips in their toner cartridges so they can claim <i>copyright</i> protection long after their Patents have expired. <i>Do not buy an HP printer!</i> Once the go-to source for printing, HP has systematically destroyed its own near-monopoly. What a shame for such a storied old company - but I digress.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But of course, others figured out the "algorithm" or should I say - algorithms - as <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/11/perfect-score-maybe-not.html">there are multiple credit scores</a>, depending on whether you are buying a house or a car or getting a credit card. And of course, <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-silliness-of-credit-scores-and-chex.html">banks have their own system of grading customers as well</a>. But regardless, anyone can create their own "score" system and they do. My bank and credit card companies give me "scores" that are not "Fair Issac" (who is anything but fair - right?) but track closely enough - within a few points - that it doesn't really matter.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2020/11/perfect-score-maybe-not.html">how the score is calculated is insane</a>. You pay off a mortgage or car loan or are debt-free and <i>your score may go down</i>. Rack up some debt, and you score may go up! It is indeed a mystery.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But following closely on credit scores was the idea of "locking" your credit report to prevent identity theft. Now, identity theft is a real buzzword these days, or at least it was a few years ago when "journalists" (which is a word that should be pronounced with a silent "j") use alarming headlines to make it seem that we are all one step away from having our identity stolen, and some "criminal" will buy a mansion and a Ferrari and live high on the hog and <i>we will be on the hook to pay for it all for the rest of our lives</i>. I kid you not about these articles - it is only on the last page, in tiny type that they state the obvious - that you are not liable for loans you never took out and banks that recklessly loan money to people without checking their identification are liable instead.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It happens, too. Mark was at a real estate closing and the closing attorney said, "Now, I just need to see your driver's license or other ID and make a copy of it." The husband and wife said, "Oh, we left that in the car!" and went out of the room and never came back. <i>People do try to sell houses they don't own</i> and pocket the cash. Sometimes it actually works, but only if people are unwary.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Two other things were overlooked when selling the over-hyped myth of identity theft. First, the credit industry started calling routine credit card fraud, "identity theft" when years ago it was just called credit card fraud. Someone copies down your credit card number and charges stuff on your card. And again, you are not liable for those charges, so dispute them, cancel the card, and order a new card. <i>Period</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Second, most of the <i>real identity theft</i> that occurs isn't from strangers but friends, family members, or co-workers. Your cousin steals your driver's license and credit card and goes on a shopping spree. They sort of look like you so they get away with it - until you notice. A drug-addicted husband takes out a loan, using his estranged wife as co-signer (forging her signature) as happened to a lawyer friend of mine. It is much easier to steal an "identity" from someone you know, as you don't have to guess their mother's maiden name or the name of their first pet. Bonus points if you look similar in appearance, which can happen with siblings and close relatives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So yea, identity theft is overblown to sell online articles and "credit protector" services. Fear (as we will discuss in my next posting) is a powerful way to get at people's pocketbooks. Fortunately, big bad onerous government once again stepped in and forced credit reporting agencies to offer a "credit lock" service, which originally may have required a small fee to lock and unlock your credit report, but today is mostly free. Once "locked" the notation appears on your credit report, and most legitimate lenders will not loan money to you until you unlock it. And some agencies allow you to unlock it for a set period (days, weeks, months) and then automatically re-lock. This comes in handy if you are shopping for a car or house or whatever, and don't want to deal with locking and re-locking all the time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Should you lock your credit history with all three agencies? I say "YES" - for everyone. It protects you from the worst credit criminal of all - <i>yourself</i>. When you make taking out new credit a royal pain-in-the-ass, well, you tend to do it less. When the chirpy checkout clerk (who gets a commission) at the big-box store offers you 10% off your purchase if you take out a credit card with the company, it is tempting to say "yes" to an onerous loan agreement. If your score is locked and you realize you'll have to go to the score company site, remember your login information, and dick around with unlocking it (and make sure you get the site that the store is using to check credit reports), you are less likely to fall into the trap.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, if clicking YES on a screen is all it takes to take on another credit card DEBT, well, that's how people end up with tens of thousands of dollars in revolving credit at onerous interest rates. Time was, it was seen as a sign of financial success to have a wallet full of credit cards - my Dad used to think so, anyway. Today, it is seen as a sign of financial weakness - of lack of self-control or resolve. Remember how wallets used to have that plastic fold-out deal that was three-feet long, for holding credit cards? <i>They don't sell them no more, do they?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But locking your credit, which is largely free these days, does give one "peace of mind" so to speak, that no one will take out credit in your name, which is more of a hassle than any real risk of you having to pay back a loan you never took out. Of course, this doesn't protect you from ordinary credit card theft - but checking your credit card balance<i> daily</i> and getting notifications via e-mail and text of any new charges - and immediately disputing bogus charges - is a sure-fire way to avoid any problems with credit card theft.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So yea, it is great you can check your credit report on a weekly basis. On the other hand, you shouldn't have to, not if you're checking your bank balance and credit card balance on a weekly basis, instead.</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-69541049133047296752024-02-19T06:00:00.000-05:002024-02-19T19:32:03.940-05:00When Upgrades are Downgrades....<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh24ERocdzSyd5_-XslyPJULH2mAY4tJOlLVrBEpLFw2gtg3XFSfffRWB2SSSpvMgAi-EQCXHCefD06DbhXi8-NdFq7RqvQATX2Kz1cGwXBq9Z_ibKaXyY6BAkOaa-pRgPI0vztpZRtYpOX3eFOyNO96WaMPMQSPP1q6shdSM3CFcqzwDyULDGHuA9jl5o/s978/death%20of%20youtube.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="978" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh24ERocdzSyd5_-XslyPJULH2mAY4tJOlLVrBEpLFw2gtg3XFSfffRWB2SSSpvMgAi-EQCXHCefD06DbhXi8-NdFq7RqvQATX2Kz1cGwXBq9Z_ibKaXyY6BAkOaa-pRgPI0vztpZRtYpOX3eFOyNO96WaMPMQSPP1q6shdSM3CFcqzwDyULDGHuA9jl5o/w400-h228/death%20of%20youtube.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Upgrade your software - so we can better track you and prevent you from ad-blocking!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">NOTE: This is an older posting that I just finished today.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A couple of years ago I decided to experiment with a Chromebook. After all, my old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Satellite_C_series">Toshiba C655</a> laptops were at least a decade old, if not older. They are running Windows 7 Ultimate and have their memory and hard drive space maxed out. I own three of them - I can buy working examples online for under $50 - sometimes far under - and I have a box of spare motherboards, memory sticks, hard drives, and keyboards, - perhaps enough to build a fourth one.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">They work for what I want to do - surf the net, create documents, transfer data. Chrome keeps reminding me that <i>it cannot upgrade itself</i> until I go to Window 10 or higher. <i>Such a shame!</i> Oh me, oh my, what will I ever do? <i>Use old Chrome?</i> The horror of it all.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">(In the smartphone world, they are already forcing upgrades. One of my banking "apps" refuses to run on my Samsung Galaxy 7, and I suspect, over time, other "upgraded" apps will not work, either. I suppose then, I will have to buy another used Galaxy. But that's a few years down the road - we hope! Oddly enough, some people <i>look forward</i> to upgrading their phones, as if losing an entire day's productivity is some kind of treat! Oh, right, <i>status</i> again).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Chromebook proved to be fairly useless to me. It will only run "apps" and many of these apps, such as Quickbooks, require a subscription fee. <i>Ain't doing that</i>. My old copy of Quickbooks Pro 2002 is working perfectly fine, thank you. <i>And my Hudson Hornet still runs like the day it was made</i>. Microsoft Word 2000 is really all you need for word processing - actually far more than anyone really needs, unless you want to format a book or something.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So my hardware and software is "obsolete" - so obsolete in fact that it doesn't detect whether I am running adblock plus or not, and thus does not trigger YouTube's new ad-block blocker which I was introduced to last night - on the chromebook. (UPDATE: YouTube finally caught on to this and seems to show some ads now).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Yes, the Chromebook is running Chrome, which is made by Google who also makes YouTube. And although I thought I told the Chromebook <i>not</i> to update the O/S, I have been getting messages to update the "firmware" and I suspect these were forced onto the Chromebook without my consent - along with upgrades to Chrome itself. Chrome announced that they would be updating their O/S in 2023 to enable detection of ad blocking software. That's when I disabled updates on my Toshibas (redundant, as Chrome now refuses to update, boo-hoo!). But the Chromebook updated somehow, and now YouTube is just a blank screen.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Time was, an update or upgrade was just that. You got a better operating system or version of a program with a bug fixed or a new feature. Or an exploit was plugged to prevent a virus infection. You set your computer to automatically update because <i>that was advantageous</i>. And updates and upgrades didn't happen every night or every other night, but once a month, if that.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, we see updates every time we power up our computer. And we are encouraged to leave our computers on, 24/7, so these updates and upgrades can occur overnight. And the updates and upgrades we get don't help us at all, but are usually include ways to better track our behavior online and suggest things we might want to buy, based on our search history, website use, or even what we type in our e-mails.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is almost better off to just disable updates. Unless you are prone to opening up e-mails from a Nigerian Prince, odds are you aren't at much risk for a virus or hacking. Then again, all the updates in the world cannot withstand social engineering. Two-factor authentication means nothing, if a hacker calls you on the phone and asks you for that six-digit code - after convincing you they are from Microsoft or your Bank or whatever.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I used the Chromebook to stream video as the old television only has Netflix and Hulu as factory apps. The instructions <i>claim</i> you can add "apps" to the TV, but when I try to do this, it bombs out. Easier to use a retired laptop or Chromebook connected through an HDMI connector to the TV and stream video through there. A remote keyboard and mouse makes it possible to surf for programs from <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2019/12/scooter-trash.html">my easy chair</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For the Toshiba, I had to buy a VGA-to-HDMI adapter for $5 on eBay. Is the resolution great? Well, at my age, I can't really tell, and quite frankly, most people can't. I learned long ago, doing Patents on early Bell Atlantic video streaming services, as well as MPEG encoding devices and VGA adapters that screen resolution isn't the end-all of video. The human eye sends signals to the brain which in turn "assembles" an image in the mind. You literally cannot see everything at once, but only what your eye is aimed at and focused on, at a particular given moment. The rest is filled in by the brain with old data, interpolation, or just guesswork. Without this, magicians would be out of business.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So when you watch a football game and they kick the ball, you eye looks at the football, not at the shoes the second cheerleader from the left is wearing. Unless she had really big titties, you probably would not even be aware she was in the frame. And in fact, that is how MPEG and other compression schemes work - concentrating on what is important and using old data to fill in the lesser important parts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So things like 4G are really a waste of bandwidth and I suspect a lot of what is hyped as 4G video is not actually 4G, particularly when older media is broadcast. There is likely a lot of pixel interpolation going on (and geez, there are hundreds of algorithms for that!) and what you are seeing is not literally 4G. But even if it was, well, odds are you don't notice the difference much. If you were doing a frame-by-frame forensic analysis, maybe that level of resolution is helpful. For re-runs of <i>I Dream of Jeanie</i>, not so much.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Bear in mind the old NTSC television was 525 "lines" of video and likely 25 of those were overscan, not to mention vsync and hsync and other embedded data. Our old VGA monitors had a pitiful 640x480 resolution and today are not much better, in real terms. The old Toshibas run at 1366x768, and quite frankly, with my eyesight, that is more than I need.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, one of the old laptops might be dragooned back into YouTube duty and the Chromebook will.... become a doorstop. I suppose I could sell it or something. It really is of no use to me. This whole idea of renting software and storing things in someone's "cloud" server (where it will never, ever be lost!) is alien to me.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And sure, you can call me lazy and outdated and a technophobe and a Luddite.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Maybe there will be a run on old laptops on eBay now. <i>I'm sitting on a goldmine, Jerry!</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-78633002829421673632024-02-18T13:37:00.001-05:002024-02-18T13:42:46.443-05:00What the Hell is Mode S?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKO0YdFRVrsV9lTv8WF8dEUxz2TtFOiM0dXotHtfiYUh6vfO_A83VZfr7MRl_S9gNgD-1RXHm8EF1ftTDdkhUJoI8b2lnuVF7bSjRql-23i_Xm0z5QF3itd2qd7C0N9MtKdHgxpvvx2-BpLZV2GT8quckOHQ6yj3XUoIojDO7p8_xQ_QMT_H4rBBG009g/s250/not%20the%20droids%20you%20are%20looking%20for.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="157" data-original-width="250" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKO0YdFRVrsV9lTv8WF8dEUxz2TtFOiM0dXotHtfiYUh6vfO_A83VZfr7MRl_S9gNgD-1RXHm8EF1ftTDdkhUJoI8b2lnuVF7bSjRql-23i_Xm0z5QF3itd2qd7C0N9MtKdHgxpvvx2-BpLZV2GT8quckOHQ6yj3XUoIojDO7p8_xQ_QMT_H4rBBG009g/w400-h251/not%20the%20droids%20you%20are%20looking%20for.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Microsoft is trying to use cheap Jedi mind tricks on us.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I tried to help my friend with their new computer and we got some things accomplished. The printer (HP, sorry!) is WiFi enabled and it keeps losing its WiFi connection for some reason. But I think we got it logged on for good. If not, a good old USB cable should fix it permanently.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I was able to download their photos from their iPhone to the hard drive. It tried to load them to Microsoft's cloud, but there wasn't enough room - but they helpfully suggested <i>we could buy more room if we wanted to</i>. Gee, thanks. No.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I tried to load Chrome onto the machine. At first, it said, "You don't need Chrome, you already have the best web browser ever made! These aren't the (an)droids you are looking for!" When I tried to install Chrome, it warned me, in a scary voice, that in order to do so, I would have to exit "S mode" so I said, "why not?"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Another scary screen pops up, telling me I will expose my computer to viruses because, you know, the number one Internet browser used by billions of people is some sketchy "app" from who-knows-where (Gina?). It would no doubt say the same thing about Firefox as well.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So I say, "screw that!" and click "continue."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The next page (yes, there are several) then ominously warns me that if I leave "S Mode" then as far as Microsoft as concerned, <i>I am dead to them</i>. No coming back, mister! Tossed out of the house like a gay teen who came out to his MAGA Dad. <i>You'll have to live on the streets now, buster - see how you like that, gayboy!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fine. If it was my computer, I would say, "See ya later, Dad!" to Bill Gates and move on with life. <i>But it wasn't my computer.</i> Besides, their son-in-law is coming over next week and he is more proficient in modern operating systems than I am. <i>Their grandson, aged 10, would be even more adept.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I go back home to my homely black Toshiba laptop, where I can look at the contents of my hard drive simply by typing C:\ DIR</p><p>It is my comfort zone - I have at least a vague idea of what is going on and where my data is stored. It doesn't have that uneasy feel you get with smart phones and netbooks, that somehow your data is lost in the void.<br /></p><div style="text-align: justify;">By the way, my friend had a Mac and it died and they had a two-week wait for an "appointment" at the "Genius Bar." They bought an Acer laptop instead - it cost less than an hour at the "genius bar" and no doubt, the "genius" would have recommended buying a new iMac for two grand. <i>Real genius there!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"They always make me feel like an idiot at the 'Genius' bar!" they said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"That's the idea," I replied. Apple makes it such that - like the old days of IBM mainframes - no one can really know how the damn things work, except the anointed few. And Microsoft is going the same way with Windows 11.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My friend will figure it out over time, and maybe I will, too. But Windows 11 is a whole different beast than older Windows. Everything is hidden from view. It is like a Chromebook - every program is an "app" and it has a very phone-y feeling (in both senses of the word).</div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Now if you'll pardon me, I am going to listen to my old bakelite 78 rpm records on my Gramaphone. No electricity needed!</div><p></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-61034110085690800342024-02-17T17:40:00.010-05:002024-02-17T18:09:19.562-05:00Windows 11 - Ugh!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilwwHvxu9bj9uBuMhqTAMfdLgJngMA0T1y8xxkpC76xDEqCEPs5Y2DuGetI6r4OPn9GOK7U76uvCXg8G5Pv4cG-UX1V4xq7hbdD9WMm6I3Vn8xKKRlrw8-0hhWLpLxELgMaX0P2frTMIibCMHqy3PqGIAWgp_IQ7xbRp655e6ymsL91sw7fI7q7sC2xo8/s425/baby%20baby.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilwwHvxu9bj9uBuMhqTAMfdLgJngMA0T1y8xxkpC76xDEqCEPs5Y2DuGetI6r4OPn9GOK7U76uvCXg8G5Pv4cG-UX1V4xq7hbdD9WMm6I3Vn8xKKRlrw8-0hhWLpLxELgMaX0P2frTMIibCMHqy3PqGIAWgp_IQ7xbRp655e6ymsL91sw7fI7q7sC2xo8/s320/baby%20baby.png" width="226" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>I don't wanna learn a new O/S! I don't wanna! I don't wanna!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A friend of mine just bought a new Windows 11 laptop, which was brave of them, as they are coming from the Apple-world, where everything is spoon-fed to them. They asked me for help with it on the basis that "I know about computers" which was true 30 years ago. My current O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate and I am running Microsoft Office 2000 and Quickbooks Pro 2002. Yes, I am running software that is over two decades old on laptops that are nearly as old, that I assembled from parts laptops bought on eBay for less than fifty bucks.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Yet, they work. <i>You are reading this, right?</i> So they do what I want them to do. I am not a gamer, so I don't need the latest Nvida card or fancy processor. For basic computing needs, not much has changed in the last two decades.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I tried to use my friend's laptop but it was loaded with bloatware and they smartly declined offers for anti-virus add-ons. I showed them how Microsoft Security Essentials worked and really that is all you need for most computing - and it is free (and works even on "unsupported" Windows 7 machines!). But the rest of it was puzzling and annoying. <i> I guess we will learn Windows 11 together</i> Another friend tells me that "legacy" software, such as what I am using, won't run on Windows 11, not even in "Win95 mode" or other legacy modes. I guess I could run a virtual machine to do that, but that sounds like a lot of hassle.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What irked me was that everything was promoted as a subscription model, with your data stored "in the cloud." My friend wanted to run a spreadsheet program and Microsoft helpfully offered a <i>subscription</i> to the program for so many dollars a month. What's worse, when we tried to save a backup copy of the spreadsheet, it wouldn't let us do that - on the hard drive or anywhere else. You get one copy and that's it. Maybe I am doing it wrong - I have a lot to learn about this brave new world.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The personal computer was designed to free us from the tyranny of "Big Blue" IBM and the world of mainframes. Back in the day (1960's and 1970's) mainframe IBM 360 machines were the deal - programmed with punch cards. <i>Yes, I am that old</i>, learning FORTRAN on punchcards on a mainframe. Leave the cards with the "machine operator" they will run it <i>overnight</i> and get the results back to you. It was a primitive time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Michael Crichton - <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2017/05/people-who-went-crazy-michael-crichton.html">who basically lost his mind along the way</a> - wrote about big mainframes going "haywire" in all of his books (even one set in the jungles of Africa!). He wrote about how the "computer rooms" of the era were like hushed churches - with acolytes and priests attending to the almighty machines. Computer rooms (and I assume server rooms today) had "computer room floors" which were elevated about a foot above the real floor. The A/C air handler used this space as a return air duct, so cool, air-conditioned air would be sucked into all the computer cabinets and back to the central station air handler. It was a pretty complicated setup.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Back then, if you wanted a program written, you had to beg the computer Gods for permission - and pay them handsomely. This is why, when I worked at Carrier, my boss was happy that I could write programs for Tektronix graphics systems and Apple II computers (both with X-Y plotters) so we could input data and then plot charts of the performance of chillers and air handlers. Asking the mainframe guys to do this meant waiting months for changes and paying thousands of dollars in development money.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The PC era was just starting - and the IBM-PC which ironically destroyed IBM's monopoly on the computer business, was still a few years away. We made do with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M">CP/M</a> systems (some of which our parent company sold) and even oddball devices like an Olivetti PC, which was little more than a typewriter. The Personal Computer (which was not yet THE PC, as in IBM PC) would liberate us from the tyranny of the mainframe and the almighty programmers.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And for a while, it worked, too.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But eventually, someone got the bright idea of networking computers together. It made sense, to share files and share printers and other devices. And why not have a central "server" to store data on a RAID array? It was an improvement, but also a beginning to the end of the independence of the PC. By the late 1980s, something called "thin client" came along. Why have a fleet of PCs, one on each employee's desk, with expensive hard drives (40 MB, baby!) that were prone to failure, in each one? Make each PC just a motherboard and a floppy to boot from (or better yet, boot from the network) and everyone can store their data on the "server."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In theory, it was a great idea, provided your "computer guy" (the term "IT" was years away) backed up the RAID array onto a tape drive (remember those nightmare devices?). If the server crashed - as happened at one law firm I worked at - no one could get any work done. Well, we could, if you put the essential WordPerfect files and DOS on a high-density floppy and ran the "thin client" off that. <i>The secretaries were pissed-off when I showed them how to do this - it ruined a three-day vacation for them!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thin client was the nose in the camel's tent - or something like that. It took away the independence of the PC and made it dependent. And over the years, companies have tried, again and again, to rein-in these free-ranging PC's and make them docile slaves once more - little more than "dumb terminals" like the VT-50 of yore. Of course, the Internet accelerated this trend. Today there are many devices out there that <i>simply won't work</i> unless connected to the Internet, even for a local print job, for example. The manufacturer wants to control the device, even after they sold it to you. It is kind of a frightening Big Brother kind of deal, quite frankly.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, it is all about "the cloud" and the hard drive is going away in favor of "netbooks" which have limited storage capacities, but use the Internet instead as their hard drive and (hopefully) backup. Once again, "thin client" raises it ugly head - and once again, for what appears to be a good reason, but is also a nefarious purpose. Subscription models are far better revenue generators for software (or even hardware) companies. Back in the day, you might "upgrade" to the latest version of DOS or Windows, because it wasn't all that expensive. The O/S and program makers would provide free updates ("support") over time, to fix glitches and tamp down viruses.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Problem was - and is - these updates cost money to create and distribute. At the same time, users started to decline periodic upgreades, particularly when the latest version of Windows or Apple iOS or Chrome will "brick" an older phone or pad or laptop, which was not designed to accommodate the increased processor demands of a later operating system. I know this personally, when I tried to "upgrade" an older laptop to a later version of Windows and it slowed it down to a crawl.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So the subscription model makes sense - for the software (and hardware) suppliers. We've gone back to the old days of "Big Blue" IBM, where companies paid monthly lease payments on their Hollerith machines, and bought all their punch cards from IBM directly. <i>Woe be to the lessee who was caught using generic punchcards when the IBM rep came around</i>. And IBM was a stickler about those lease fees, too - collecting back payments from Germany after the war for punch card machines used to tabulate murdered Jews. <i>Business is business, right?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The liberty of the PC was that you bought it and owned it, outright. Maybe you might upgrade the hardware over time. Maybe you might buy another program for it. But once you bought these things, you owned them outright and didn't have to pay again and again for them. That was freedom - to do your own thing and run your own machine. And it was pretty inexpensive, too, even in an era where a "nice" computer (640K of memory, 40M of hard drive, SVGA tube monitor) was close to $5000.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, the machines are cheaper, both in real terms and in inflationary ones. PCs are far more powerful and cost pennies when adjusted for inflation. But when you add up the subscription costs, well, maybe it is something of a wash. And it seems with every improvement in hardware comes a corresponding bloat in software, such that programs never seem to run faster than before. A simple ASCII text document took a few kilobytes to store. A WordPerfect (DOS) document maybe a few hundred kilobytes. A blank WORD for Windows document takes a Megabyte or more - or so it seems. And while programs can do so much more than before, the dreaded hourglass (or its bretheren) never seems to go away - entirely.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, it isn't just computer and software makers that are exploiting this new subscription model. BMW made the worst sort of headlines lately by experimenting with offering heated seats as a subscription model (Money saving tip 'n trick: subscribe only in the winter and then cancel in the summer months! /s). This pretty much ensured that I will never own a BMW ever again. They were fun, for a while, and at least the generations that I owned could be worked on, as there were "work-arounds" for proprietary systems. I am not so sure that is the case today.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Hewlett-Packard bears special mention - and yes, my friend bought an HP printer with their new computer. The head of HP has admitted that they want to make printing a subscription service and their printers are designed to brick themselves if you try to install a non-HP cartridge. I've had some of these inkjet printers and written about them before. If you don't print regularly, the cartridges dry up and the machine won't print - even in black-and-white - if even one color cartridge is empty. Those machines were sold cheap or often given away - again, the subscription model. <i>I threw all my inkjet printers away - they are literally worthless</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I have a Canon laser printer that I bought cheaply online. It replaced my two HP-4P laserjets from the 1990s that ran like (and smelled like) diesel engines for decades. Eventually the pinch rollers go bad and they started to jam - such is the fate of all paper-handling devices. The new Canon (now about five or six years old) just loves to print (and scan) and seems quite happy with whatever generic toner cartridge I feed it. I can find cartridges on eBay for cheap. Canon apparently made their money selling the machine, not a subscription. I hear good things about Brother, too, although we have one at the gallery and it has a habit of going into "sleep" mode and slipping into a coma. The operating manual actually has several suggestions about how to wake it, too. <i>It's not a bug, it's a feature!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But getting back to topic, no, I am not being a big crybaby by not wanting to "learn" Windows 11. Rather, I am mourning the end of an era and the loss of something valuable - our independence. I fear that these systems, which remove the user from the functionality of their machines more and more, will somehow make us more slaves to the machine than vice-versa. Windows (and Apple) already put so many layers of abstraction between us and the computer hardware that we have no idea how they work or how to adjust, set, or troubleshoot them. The whole Windows "registry" thing, for example, it a mystery to most people - and best left alone in most cases.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Back in the olden days, I could tell you what every byte was on my (floppy) disc. Even with primitive hard drives, you could list all the programs and data files - with few, if any, "hidden" files on the drive. You had your Config.sys and your Autoexec.bat and if you could control those, you could control the machine. Computer viruses were virtually unheard of. Today? <i>Who knows what the hell is going on in these black boxes?</i> It might as well be magic, and we have little other choice than to dance to their tune - and pay their subscription fees.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, that only applies if you want to use computers. As a retiree, I find the need to use the PC less and less. I print out a few primitive documents in WORD and type nonsense in my blog (which yes, is in the "cloud" although I have periodically backed up copies of it). And yes, the "cloud" has its uses, too. The aforementioned Brother (color) printer is accessible only by WiFi, but I can store files in Google Drive and then download them to the printer (after having set up their convoluted method of linking the printer to my largely unused Google Drive account) and print - without having to lug my laptop there.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of which, that is another interesting aspect of all of this. I find I am more of a Google person these days than a Microsoft one. Sure, I am running Windows and Word, but I use Chrome and Google Calendar and Blogger and YouTube and Google itself (now mostly an advertising site) more often than Microsoft products themselves. Even for things like spreadsheets and word processing, you can use Google's free online version of these programs. And who needs Adobe reader anymore, when you can create PDF files by "printing" from Word (or any other program) and display them in Chrome?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So yea, I already have my head in the "clouds" it seems.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">All that being said, I will try to load the legacy programs to my friend's computer - if it will allow it. I'll be sure to bring my external DVD drive! </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Talk about archaic!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-1629129700631028072024-02-16T17:38:00.006-05:002024-02-16T17:52:44.457-05:00Passive-Aggressive Communication<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrToz6j0z59axuqRt97CLU_WRNHpHadst5pAOIDE89unFAdt1VQpieE-znkjWovWVoZTEKghbsgKLlwNdOY-R8U2DEcZPOBGT7otYr0KQHrIZkOF-sQ0CxX5-19xHx74eZAQyer4w253dErWzQiF64KrqAqUNG7hUiAWjDHKdRd0_FOMnWvu9o4O1QTns/s300/hearing%20aid%20guy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrToz6j0z59axuqRt97CLU_WRNHpHadst5pAOIDE89unFAdt1VQpieE-znkjWovWVoZTEKghbsgKLlwNdOY-R8U2DEcZPOBGT7otYr0KQHrIZkOF-sQ0CxX5-19xHx74eZAQyer4w253dErWzQiF64KrqAqUNG7hUiAWjDHKdRd0_FOMnWvu9o4O1QTns/s1600/hearing%20aid%20guy.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Passive-Aggressive people are annoying.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I see this all the time on Old People Island. Edna is talking with friends and her husband is present. She says, "The important thing is..." and then <span style="font-size: x-small;">her voice fades off. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">quieter and quieter</span>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Her husband replies, "I didn't catch that last part, what did you say?"</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">"I SAID!" </span>she nearly screams, "<span style="font-size: large;">The Important thing is..." </span> and then <span style="font-size: x-small;">her voice fades off. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">quieter and quieter</span>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Husband asks for clarification yet again, and she says, "It doesn't matter!" which is a way of saying <i>he doesn't matter</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then she goes on a five-minute diatribe about how her husband is losing his hearing and how he won't wear his hearing aids and then go through a litany of his other faults and medical issues, including his erectile dysfunction or whatever.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I just want to scream, "Lady! <i>He's sitting right here!</i>" How emasculating to be humiliated in front of friends by your own wife. <i>Love, what's not to like?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I see this all the time - spouses unwilling to repeat what they said (in an almost whisper) but willing to spend ten times the energy in verbally beating up their spouse about it. <i>It takes less time and effort to just repeat what you said, in a clear and consistent voice without this stupid dumbass dropping off at the end of a sentence.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And for all you "soft talkers" out there - FUCK YOU. It's isn't "cute" and it isn't "sexy" - it is just annoying as all get out.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ditto for people who try to talk to you while facing away or even <i>walking away</i>. It is just passive-aggressive nonsense.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And speaking of which, mumbling and muttering things under your breath isn't clever, it is a sign of mental illness - get help! <i>You are talking to yourself!</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, teenagers engage in this sort of nonsense - we all did it as teens. Being powerless in terms of control over their lives and their economic conditions, teens tend to rely on slang to befuddle the older generation and communicate under-the-radar. It is annoying as all get out to older people, of course, who have no interest in learning the latest slang - which will be obsolete in a week or two.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you are a teen and you think this won't happen to you, in ten years time, you'll cringe when you look back at your yearbook and see things like "rizz" under your senior photo. Trust me, you won't be saying that in 2034.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Teenagers, of course, have an excuse. Like I said, they are going through a tough part of life. But they grow up (most do, anyway) and learn to communicate - or at least the successful ones do. Learning to communicate clearly and succinctly isn't easy, but you'll find those that succeed in any profession are the ones that can get their ideas across.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In some professions, you don't have a choice. In Engineering, we can't say, "Make the bridge beams about yea wide and so-so long with bolts about as thick as my thumb!" In the law, we can't ask for a "bad court thingy" as Lionel Hutz tried to do. In medicine, the surgeon can't say to the nurse in the operating theater, "hand me that do-hickey, willya?" Specialized language has evolved in a number of professions, to make communication more succinct and clear.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But in everyday life, the same is true. Dealing with people who are vague and ambiguous - two of the hallmarks or passive-aggression - is just annoying. People like that sometimes succeed by using buzzwords and such, but in the end, they often crash and burn - or the company that hired people like that crashes and burns. <i>Being able to tell the difference between real communication and bullshit is important, for example, in investing</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We see this all the time these days. A new company comes along with a startling new discovery. But they can't tell you how it works, other than to throw around a lot of bullshit words. People who don't understand the difference between bullshit and real technology, invest in bullshit and lose their shirts. Every day, it seems, some high-flying "new tech" company comes crashing to the ground when reality catches up with the bullshit.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Yet people still throw their money at things like bitcoin or Theranos or whatever.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Language is the exchange of symbols - symbols with an agreed-upon meaning. When someone starts throwing around symbols that <i>sound like something important</i> but have no agreed-upon meaning - or worse yet, <i>no meaning at all</i> - then all hell will break loose quite shortly.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is a long way from deaf spouses, but the essential message is the same. Ambiguity is a sign of poor communication, whether it is someone soft-talking at the end of a sentence, or a con-artist throwing around bullshit words to dazzle you out of your last dime. Same shit, different day.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As for the hearing aid thing, I have seen this happen many a time. Dad finally breaks down and gets a hearing aid. He is ecstatic! "I can really hear again!" he says. But a month later, you talk to him and he says "what?" and you realize he doesn't have the hearing aids in. They are uncomfortable and in a crowd can create a cacophony of noise that can be painful. I have talked with someone with a hearing aid and <i>I could hear the squeal of feedback</i> from their ears.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So they stop wearing them. Or they wear them infrequently, which is sort of a cruel trick as you can never tell if they can hear you or not. You say something to the wife and the husband - in the next room - says, "I heard that!" <i>Sneaky bastard!</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-81700310352464294452024-02-14T11:15:00.002-05:002024-02-16T18:04:01.593-05:00Who Wants an Ugly Dog?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-t2i2ZZb47WV38RV6NGPxs6CdKuke5qwlArQz06GQcThHEVqz5IPJItuowzxn_liwbPw3EdLvnAjRxuYgeZjcxI5op-j0M31lA1e2fNDce4cxqvwCI7VPnHDx-nG5J4dlEn9Z8wz_4q6ovYCLVp5lmEjkumbTO9_7aKjFBFm6s3b_wPXlpYI9Z9VXZQ/s1000/the%20one-eyed%20monster.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-t2i2ZZb47WV38RV6NGPxs6CdKuke5qwlArQz06GQcThHEVqz5IPJItuowzxn_liwbPw3EdLvnAjRxuYgeZjcxI5op-j0M31lA1e2fNDce4cxqvwCI7VPnHDx-nG5J4dlEn9Z8wz_4q6ovYCLVp5lmEjkumbTO9_7aKjFBFm6s3b_wPXlpYI9Z9VXZQ/s320/the%20one-eyed%20monster.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Dogs are lovable, but some take more effort to love than others.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I wrote before about my Aunt and Uncle who had a Boston Terrier that we called "The One-Eyed Monster." It wasn't a bad dog, just neglected. My Aunt and Uncle were both chain smokers and chronic alcoholics and my Mother was estranged from them. I went to visit them once, on the sly and we sat outside while they chain-smoked. Their dog had lost an eye somehow (that breed, like so many others, have bulging eyes that are easily damaged).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">(NOTE: I searched online for images of a one-eyed Boston Terrier and found pages of them, including the one above which is not the dog in question, who is long-dead as are Aunt and Uncle. Apparently the bulging eyes can cause problems with eye loss on these types of breeds).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Worse yet, the dog had not been bathed in ages and had a stink to it. He shed, too, and liked to hump your leg. He also had a problem with slobber - drooling down his face and wetting his chin and neck. But what was really fun was that <i>he loved people</i> and wanted to jump up and kiss you, as well as sit in your lap. So I was sitting there in a cloud of cigarette smoke while 'ol stinky kept jumping up on me, giving me slobbering kisses and shedding all over me - as well as drenching me in dog slobber.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Auntie and Uncle had given up on taking care of the dog, giving him occasional kibbles, but never baths or grooming. He was starved for love which is why he jumped up on people. I let him sit in my lap and pretty soon he calmed down and fell asleep. "He never does that with me!" my Aunt said. But then again, she wasn't exactly Mrs. Warmth, either.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What made me remember this was a couple I met at a campground who was complaining about their dog. They had adopted the dog from the pound but <i>didn't like the dog</i>. I couldn't divine why, other than he behaved badly or something. <i>They were thinking of having the dog put down</i>, just because they didn't "like" it and that made me very sad. But it illustrates one problem with pets - people get pets and don't realize they are a 15-20 year commitment and that if they don't "bond" with the pet, they may have a stranger living with them for a decade or more. A stranger who shits on the floor and leaves hair everywhere.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And yet, this seems to be a norm for many people. I see all the time, people who have dogs they never walk, but let out into the yard once in a while - or leave chained-up to an old engine block in the front yard, making a circle with the chain of exposed dirt and dried-up dog turds, as well as an overturned water bowl. A saw plywood dog "house" is their only refuge. <i>Why bother even having a dog?</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sad to say, my parents were the same way. Pets were accessories to own, not animals to love. We had a succession of pets that rarely ever say a vet and died prematurely. I was the only one, it seemed, to ever actually "pet" our dog or brush it. Of course, if you don't groom your dog, it isn't really fun to pet (dogs to acquire a stink which they enjoy). So it becomes a vicious circle - the pet is neglected which leads to matted fur and dog smell, which in turn leads to more neglect.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then you have folks like my Dad, who literally hated pets and had our family cats put down as soon as I left for college (he told Mom they "ran away" - perhaps to join the circus?).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I wrote before about <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/04/pet-trap.html">the pet trap</a> and how expensive pets can be to properly take care of. They can also be problematic for young people who are at a transient stage in their lives. Finding an apartment that allows pets can be daunting! And the long hours young people often work (not to mention socializing) are hard on pets, who easily develop separation anxieties when left alone for extended periods of time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And yet, young people, alone in the world for the first time in their lives, often need pets for companionship. It is a tough nut to crack.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Worse yet are designer dogs, which people acquire as style accessories. The current rage is "French Bulldogs" which are so inbred they can hardly breathe. I've met a lot of folks who have them and they are sure to tell me how much they cost - they are the BMW of dogs, I guess. But they really don't seem to <i>love</i> them, so much as keep them around as a fashion statement. I feel sorry for the dogs more than the owners.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dogs indeed are a funny thing - we've bred them for centuries to have specific characteristics, whether to work for us as guard or hunting dogs or to make them a bizarre looking as possible. <i>How would you explain to an alien being that a teacup Chihuahua and a huge Mastiff are both "dog"?</i> It shows how far we have developed the species from their wolf heritage.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I am not sure what the point of all this is, only that it made me sad to hear these folks talk about killing their dog with about as much emotion as talking about the weather or trading in a used car. The dog was just a thing to them and was just not working out. <i>Maybe that is how people today are in general. </i>People spend so much time online that they don't view their fellow creatures as being real or sentient.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sadly, this is maybe why so many are calling for "Civil War" and other violent nonsense. <i>If other people are just objects, then killing them isn't wrong, is it?</i></p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3937637033844218209.post-16490005186258788582024-02-07T06:00:00.021-05:002024-02-14T10:47:38.185-05:00Mr. Fixit (and Mr. Broke-it!)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjGi2JvRFxJrHwJjDJVoA3y2sTFumrczUTSStu46Nz2K7vHxZINr6EoFipBSq_6ZHbSumbcyooChPTS1IPdBEPkcc2_Zy4P4ZzR87x-d2zysKrauaWkD_FtbBnHEmss43EDshw6jS70kvVFvhhc5rS3T9tgg0VHoKaOo2ziv_QgSMUPkKuDGMcmIO44o/s4032/20240206_225740.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjGi2JvRFxJrHwJjDJVoA3y2sTFumrczUTSStu46Nz2K7vHxZINr6EoFipBSq_6ZHbSumbcyooChPTS1IPdBEPkcc2_Zy4P4ZzR87x-d2zysKrauaWkD_FtbBnHEmss43EDshw6jS70kvVFvhhc5rS3T9tgg0VHoKaOo2ziv_QgSMUPkKuDGMcmIO44o/w400-h300/20240206_225740.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Turns out, washing machines don't like nails going through the pump. Funny, that.</i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mark got some new sleepware on sale at Walmart and decided to wash them first. He put them in our Maytag front-loader and halfway through the cycle, it beeps and gives a dreaded error code - E1 F9.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I look online and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR7KJWTxCuc">find this helpful video</a> on how to clean the pump inlet filter. It ain't hard to do, so I did it. Found nothing but a shiny Roosevelt dime and some bits of debris - not a full-on clog like in the video.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Problem is, the door was locked, so our new clothes are being held hostage. So I plug it back in and play around and it unlocks. Whoo-wee! So I decide to re-start the cycle and it gives a new error code - E1 F9. Is it the pressure sensor? Clogged pressure sensor tube? Bad control board? Oh, and the door is locked again and our laundry held hostage.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Once again, to the Internets and we find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfz_yggIqDU">another helpful video</a> regarding this code. Something is preventing the machine from pumping out water! Bad pump? Clogged filter? Clogged discharge line? I play around with the "diagnostic mode" and find this helpful document on how to enter diagnostic mode as well as how to run the C0 tests. Intersting stuff, but my machine balks at going beyond C0. Then I notice the pump is so hot it burns my hand. And it buzzes instead of pumping.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEini8SWmkN86dZwfpIiXwhjY7t7s9oxYRSZ8AvF35WYiuR9sUnafTaAKusIbwsjz1bSQp-ttfgT3nwAOD2cdiHFQe4bRnc0tk6tpk9_8kdCoy2SdksrFuWS0Yc_QFmEIT-CIa3YhMjru_lo5vgcNH6B0-sW6zVy0QOKVe8obCcdXHVz4vkhfKE8D-gPT8s/s4032/20240206_225808.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEini8SWmkN86dZwfpIiXwhjY7t7s9oxYRSZ8AvF35WYiuR9sUnafTaAKusIbwsjz1bSQp-ttfgT3nwAOD2cdiHFQe4bRnc0tk6tpk9_8kdCoy2SdksrFuWS0Yc_QFmEIT-CIa3YhMjru_lo5vgcNH6B0-sW6zVy0QOKVe8obCcdXHVz4vkhfKE8D-gPT8s/w400-h300/20240206_225808.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Four screws, two plugs and one hose and the whole thing pops out!</i></div><p style="text-align: justify;">Mr. See suggests removing the entire pump assembly as it is held in place with four screws. Once removed, I take it to the workbench and remove six screws holding the impeller and motor assembly to the housing. By the way, this stuff is all plastic and the motor is laughably tiny - with two thin wires feeding it power!. I pull the pump apart and...</p><p style="text-align: justify;">...the tiny nail shown above pops out.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Duh.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A couple of months ago I was on the roof of the studio pressure washing the trim and I found a few trim nails had "popped." So I put a handful in my pocket and replaced them. Later, I put the jeans in the wash and forgot about the nails until it started clanking. In horror, I opened the door and found a few nails in the drum and more under the "seal" by the door. Dodged a bullet there, right?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Well, yea, <i>except for this one nail!</i> It went right through the "filter" (which is more of a coarse screen of 1/4" holes in a plastic dingus). We put the whole thing back together and - knock wood - it works! I put some silicone on the rubber seals and it doesn't appear to be leaking. I put a towel down just in case, I ran it for one cycle - now to reinstall the back cover and put the laundry room back together!</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> An hour or so of my time was all it cost. A service call would be at least $125 to come out, plus $125 and hour, plus parts (and no doubt they would have replaced the entire pump assembly). For a washing machine that cost $900 (with pedestals), spending a few hundred to fix it seems dumb. <i>You might as well buy a new one.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">What was scary is how much of the thing is made of plastic. Now, as an Engineer, I am not anti-plastic. It can work well. But I assumed the water pump was this big metal thing with ten-gauge wires feeding it, not some tiny thing the size of a two decks of cards, with 18 gauge (maybe 20!) feeding it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I suspect this will not be the last time I have to take this apart.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It pays to be handy! <i>Particularly when you are prone to breaking things.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">UPDATE: Some have chastised me for criticizing Whirlpool quality. Far from it! While everything is made of plastic these days, that is not always a bad thing. This washer was very easy to service and the entire pump assembly can be removed with four screws. I feel confident that if I break it again, I can take it apart and fix it. And our KitchenAid (Whirlpool) refrigerator is going strong after 18 years - with <a href="https://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2024/01/appliance-update-flaky-errors.html">a new (used) control board from eBay</a> (that took two minutes to install!). 18 years is three years longer than design life!</p>Robert Platt Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03824462709395057017noreply@blogger.com