Land of Oz

SECRET, PRIVATE?

In the past I've wondered about people who answer so-called "anonymous" surveys, especially about illegal activities. You know the kind, those that are reported like, "42% of teenagers used illegal drugs," or "14% of males between 33 and 42 report shooting at least one neighbor." OK, maybe the last one is a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean. Here's a line from a Time article:

"[Randall Walsh and his colleagues]...compared confidential Census figures from 1990 and 2000 from 15,040 neighborhoods, with an average of about 4,000 residents each, in 64 metropolitan areas, such as Phoenix, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Columbus, New York, Atlanta and San Diego.

Note my bolded phrase. Makes you kind of wonder how someone can compare confidential information doesn't it? According to my Merriam-Webster dictionary, confidential means "SECRET, PRIVATE" (and yes, it's capitalized that way in the dictionary). I wonder which part of secret and private Mr. Walsh and friends define differently than the rest of us (us meaning non-governmental types - we all know the government cares less).

Labels: freedom, government

Huh?

Americans today are often accused of not knowing what is going on with not only the world, but in the USofA. ?This screenshot (June 23, about 1700ET) is from Reuters, which to my knowledge is a pretty reputable news agency. Assuming you meet Jill at the coffee pot, which of these do you start off your informed conversation with

spam - revisited

I've been getting my usual several hundred spams a day across various accounts. Some of the stuff I wonder about is why some email accounts I have get hundreds of spams a day and others get 1 or 2 a month. I have one rather odd domain that I don't use at all that gets several hundred spams a day. That account deletes them at once.

Another thing I wonder about is why some spammers don't even take the effort to correctly configure their spam machines. I get many emails with something like $NAME or $$MAIL_ADDRESS in the subject which obviously is a missnamed variable.

And then there's the ones that are spelled with all the correctness of a high school shop class dropout. I'm guessing a lot of the misspellings are an effort to circumvent the spam filters, but I think those kinds of things play right into a filter. Not to mention the numbers as letters versions, as in s33 the m4n 1n th3 m00n. I am somewhat intrigued by a batch this month that have a subject similar to You're pretty stupid . At least they're a bit more honest than most.

Please people, quit responding to these idiots. If people would just quit sending in money to Indian drug stores, Nigerian banks and Hong Kong software stores, they'd eventually quit sending out the email.

Labels: computers, gripes, scams

Marketing

If I said I had a nest of mice in the backyard, most folks would probably be telling me to get an exterminator. And how many folks would spend their own money to put out food for rats?

So why is it when I tell people I finally spotted a chipmunk in the backyard, everyone thinks it's cute. And the fact that I put cobs of corn out there for the squirrels is at worst, seen as a bit over indulgent.

But really, what's the difference between rats, squirrels, chipmunks and mice? I'll tell you what it is. chipmunks and squirrels are actually mice and rats with marketing by Apple.

Labels: apple, misc

Savings?

What happened to saving money? Lately it's gotten to be almost a lost cause. I keep hearing that a strong economy needs invested money and the way money gets available for investment is by the people saving money. My understanding, admittedly simple-minded, is that you put money into a bank account, the bank uses that money to make more money and you get a little extra money back. If you want to be a little more risky, you can invest in stocks and bonds and hopefully get more money back under basically the same mechanism.

The main difference is that in a bank, you could count on getting 4-5% back with very little risk. In bonds, you could get 8-10% or in exceptional cases hundreds of percent back, but with a correspondingly higher risk that you could also lose it all.

My experience with stocks has sucked. I was hired into a dotcom several years ago and one of the bennies was stock options. I invested for a few months until I finally realized that the market stock prices were consistently lower than my stock option price - much lower. Eventually, our company, like so many other dotcoms, went bankrupt. And essentially, all stocks become worth zilch, nada, zip. All the peon investors, and we had some young employees, who having bought into the "invest in your company fable" had invested heavily in the company. And ended up with nothing (zilch, nada, zip) - which still pisses me off. And my 401(k) lost a few grand just in the last couple of months. Retirement money that I'll need that I'll never see again.

My bank account isn't doing any better. Lately, every month sees a decrease in interest paid, and of course a corresponding increase in prices paid. Now I'll be lucky to get half of what I've invested into my house. And honestly, if I get half, I'll also be happy about it. The one bright spot is our small cars are now worth a bit more because everyone is getting worried about gas mileage. (On the one hand, while I do get a little bit of a vicious thrill when I watch some Neanderthal drive his oversized super-magnum, hyperhorsed 4X4 past a gas station with $4.29 on its price sign, I would've liked to have the option to get one of them myself as a hobby vehicle.)

Anyway, it seems like nowadays, you can put your money into some savings and watch that savings evaporate or buy stuff today before the price goes up tomorrow. And economists wonder why Americans don't save.

Labels: government, gripes

Stupid Politics

I just read where the USofA is balking at delivering some weapons worth several billions to Taiwan, because Taiwan is talking with China. This is the same Taiwan, by the way, that the USofA won't recognize as a country because the USofA is afraid of pissing off China. The same China that keeps tossing reporters and human rights advocates in jail. Maybe the USofA figures that countries that jail significant percentages of their population have to stick together.

Labels: government

Ethics

Gosh, another scandal strikes the Obama campaign. It seems one of his staffers did naughty things with a mortgage company. Gee - willickers, who would've guessed. Have you noticed that a lot of people, not just politicians by the way, find a lot things just fine to do, until they get caught doing it?

Obama seems to have no problem dropping anyone who comes up negative once that person is outed. He thought it was perfectly fine to go to a church for twenty years, but all of sudden dropped it as being wrong. Just like the guy somewhat earlier who just happened to get Obama a good deal on a house and connected lot back in Chicago - not that any political shenanigans go on in Chicago.

Governor Spitzer's another dude who while passing legislation against hookers was using them. And what about that wide stance dude from the Northwest? Oops, I'll bet he doesn't support much legislation against shorter stall walls.

Non political ethics...
Which are sucking as well. Yes, I understand that people are paying more and making less and I'm one of those. But! Why on earth are people stealing everything now? I just read where farmers are getting ripped off big time by diesel fuel chiefs. And those goddamn metal thieves are running rampant. This past week they've stolen crosses, flower pots and medals from graveyards. Not to mention a roof from a mausoleum.

Around here, they're cutting catalytic converters off cars parked in apartment complexes, air conditioners from offices, and copper water pipe right out of the walls of houses. A new hotel going up near here had 22 flat screen TVs stolen to the tune of $24,000.

And then there's the real idiots who do armed robbery of 7/11s and dollar stores. If you're going to risk going to jail, at least do something worth the time - $50 at a 7/11 isn't one of them. And I'll bet these robbers would be the first to gripe after being tased by a policeman. And in this case, I much prefer a cop using a .45 to put one of these guys down than bothering with a taser. By the way, does it cost more to tase a guy or shoot them?

Labels: crime, government, michigan

Apple Magic

Here's just one more example of the Apple marketing magic at work. How many companies are you aware of can take something like their web site being down and change it into a plus. Not only a plus, but something that is greatly anticipated by hordes of fans. Most online places do stuff like this at zero-darkthirty when few visitors would be expected to visit. But not Apple, they do it prime time.

Last week, Amazon went down for a couple of hours and the news was not complimentary. And how often does Amazon add something new and cool to their web site? Apple does it and everyone is on pins and needles to see what locked down, Apple only gadget, Steve is going to release next.

Even OS releases are the same. When Microsoft releases an OS update, everyone complains that Microsoft has to fix yet another stupid OS glitch. Apple releases an OS update and everyone is, ooh, way cool, another OS X tweak! And after all the bitching about Vista not handling everything XP (or for that matter, Windows 95 and 3.1) did why does no one ever comment that when Apple goes from 10.4.11 to 10.5.1, much the same happens? But because it's leopards and tigers and bears instead of XP and Vista, no one really bitches much.

Whatever else you might say about Apple products (like that stupid one-button mouse), the marketing of them is absolutely brilliant. And as an aside, my $9.95 Logitech optical mouse is way-so much better to use than the $49.95 Mighty mouse.

Labels: apple