INTERESTING: One Of The Smartest Things I Ever Did

Sunday, April 1, 2007

http://www.thomsinger.blogspot.com/

Sunday, April 01, 2007
One Of The Smartest Things I Ever Did

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One of my favorite bloggers is Mike Sigers of The Simplenomics Blog. I discovered a link to a nice post on The Self Help Blog that I think is a great idea. The author encourages bloggers everywhere to write a post titled “One Of The Smartest Things I Ever Did” (you must leave out getting married or having kids, as that is a given for many).

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http://selfhelpdaily.com/one-of-the-smartest-things-i-ever-did-was/

One of the Smartest Things I Ever Did Was…
March 28th, 2007 · 2 Comments

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But I’m even a firmer believer in sharing with others. Whether it’s clothing, money, food, or advice – we should never hold onto anything that could help another person. That’s why I thought of an idea that might be kind of cool. If you have a blog, I propose that you do this: In an upcoming post, write about One of the Smartest Things You Ever Did. Then, encourage your readers to do the same.

***and***

One of the smartest things I ever did was instill a love of reading in my daughters. They have been very, very successful in their studies and they score way above average on any test set in front of them. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that they’ve always been voracious readers.

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This challenge was relatively easy.

In High School, I was open to take a chance. Took it, did well, and it set me in a “rut” / “groove” for the rest of my life.

When I was in Manhattan Prep High School, one of the Christian Brothers from Manhattan College came in towards the end of my junior year and said he was interested in hiring some of us to work in the Manhattan College data center. To qualify, we had to learn something called a “computer language”. He’d teach us for an hour in the morning before class, we’d have to give up our lunch, and a few Saturdays. After 6 weeks of torture, we’d have an exam. He’d hire the top people for his datacenter at the stunning sum of $4 an hour. (It was a long time ago!). We could then have up to forty hours a week assuming we got working papers. (I already had my for my various summer jobs. My Mom thought “idle hands”! And I got to keep HALF of what I earned. I called her share GRAFT! The split was AFTER tax. Any wonder I HATE taxes!) Despite all my peers telling me I was nuts to “give up” all that time, I signed up. (Surprising since I was very subject to peer pressure.) I was motivated by the money! I jumped thru his hoops, and surprise surprise, despite being a smart but mediocre student, I was the top scorer in his test with a 98. I later learned that this was CDC’s Systems Programmming Test, CDC used to decide if they would allow customers to touch their operating system. The Brother had only gotten a 96 on it. (I still think the question I missed was ambiguous. And, told everyone why! NO good.) From there it was like I was in a groove. I made lots of money, met the Engineering Faculty of the College, decided to go Electrical Engineering, and was the Number #2 guru of the computer center. Sophomore Year of College, I met the fellow running the AT&T Treasury datacenter and found out that they were paying $14/hour. So I started to do both. I graduated (surprisingly) with the lowest index 2.0106 [It was the 6 that won!], won the anchor pool (~$400), and had the highest starting salary (AT&T made my a Senior Systems Programmer making 65k PLUS OVERTIME!?!) I was happy. The best time in my life! It set me on a path that I have been following ever since. I wonder how things would have been otherwise?

But clearly, it was one of MY first conscious decisions (i.e., sacrifice time for training that translated to earning power). And, it turned out well? So I’d call it the best decision I ever made.

Thanks for letting me play in your “challenge”.

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2 Comments | INTERESTING | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

WRITING: One of my “pithy” gooferment comments slips into a good resource

Sunday, April 1, 2007

RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 31 March 2007 Volume 24 : Issue 61
ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.61.html>

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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:49:52 PDT
From: “Peter G. Neumann”
Subject: Alaska Government worker formats wrong disks, backups unreadable

A computer technician accidentally wiped out Alaska’s huge data file (and the backup disk) containing nine months worth of information on the annual payout from the state fund (reportedly worth \$38 billion) that pays dividends to Alaskans out of the oil revenues. Seventy people had to work overtime for six weeks to re-enter the lost data from 300 boxes of paper. The error cost the state \$220,000 in overtime and consultants. [Source: CNN, 20 Mar 2007; PGN-ed, with thanks to Lauren Weinstein.]

[F. John Reinke also spotted this one (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17702021/) and commented:

Gooferment IT at its best. Great design and architecture. How come the only two copies of the data were in the same time zone? Where was security that one “custodian” could access both copies? Where was IT Leadership that had processes and procedures that could fail so miserably? An interesting object lesson. In business, there would be terminations for all involved. FJR

PGN]

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Makes my day when I get included in RISKS. Peter is a fussy editor (Sorry, Peter.) And, he rejects or ignores some of my submissions. But every once in a while, I slip one by the “catcher”.

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LIBERTY: A usually apolitical newsletter steps on my “tax” toe. Kabooom!

Sunday, April 1, 2007

http://www.resourceshelf.com

ResourceShelf Newsletter 303

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—–Original Message—–
From: Gary Price
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:50 AM
Subject: ResourceShelf Newsletter 303

ResourceShelf Newsletter
Number 303 March 22, 2007
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Resource of the Week: National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped

By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

National Library Week isn’t until next month (April 15-21), but an
interesting press release from the Library of Congress (LoC) crossed our
radar screen this week describing the extensive services of LoC’s National
Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). We felt that
this outstanding free program — now in its 75th year of operation (who
knew?) deserved some attention. In an era of large-scale government waste,
fraud and abuse, Resource of the Week: National Library Service for the
Blind and Physically Handicapped

By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

National Library Week isn’t until next month (April 15-21), but an
interesting press release from the Library of Congress (LoC) crossed our
radar screen this week describing the extensive services of LoC’s National
Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). We felt that
this outstanding free program — now in its 75th year of operation (who
knew?) deserved some attention. In an era of large-scale government waste,
fraud and abuse, this service is truly an excellent use of your tax
dollars..

{Extraneous Deleted}

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—–Original Message—–
From: r at reinke dot cc
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 12:01 PM
To: Shirl Kennedy
Cc: Gary Price
Subject: RE: ResourceShelf Newsletter 303

> this service is truly an excellent use of your tax dollars.

Dear Ms. Shirl,

At risk of being considered a grinch, hateful, or a loon, permit me to object to an “excellent use”.

Taxes are theft. AND, when you have to use force to fund something, then that to me is the hallmark of a bad idea.

You have to take into account the “hidden costs” view as first expressed by Frederic Bastiat, 1850 http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html and think about what is precluded by this “excellent use”.

Taxes, and their “excellent uses”, are immoral, ineffective, and inefficient.

They are immoral because you are initiating force on another human being.
You have no right, authority, or justification to do that. By benefiting from that force, one becomes complicit it the brutality of it.

They are ineffective because while this may be an “excellent use”, you can’t tell what better “excellent uses” were precluded from being created. When the government gives a “free good”, it is impossible to compete with it. If a service is provided by a marketplace, it is “molded” by competitive pressures. It has to deliver value for what it charges. It is also necessary to attract paying users or it shuts down. When do gooferment programs “close down”? Never.

They are inefficient because you are paying a tremendous overhead. The gooferment makes it impossible to measure precisely how inefficient, but in the USA the federal “handling fee” is guesstimated between 50 and 75%. So, if the Federal Government does something, anything, it is by definition more expensive than if has to be. For example, the Salvation Army has an overhead of about 15% and the 911 Fund (gooferment run) was in the 80% range.

So, let’s talk about the “excellent use” that you cited.

If there was a real need and no gooferment program occupying the “space”, then there would be a business or charity to fulfill that demand. I don’t think, even with the tax load USA-ites are under, they would have any trouble raising funds. Look at the 911 fund, the Tsunami, or Katrina.

Add in the fact, that the gooferment denies us the opportunity to be charitable, and deny us the ability to properly “choose” and supervise our donations.

So, I would urge you to reconsider your cavalier attitude to basically what is “loot”. There are NO “excellent uses” for taxes except refunds to the payers!

IMHO,
fjohn

{Note: Challenge “socialist” thinking at every opportunity. Good people are deluded by the gooferment’s propaganda into thinking that gooferment can do anything that we could not do better, cheaper, or faster if left on our own. The Intelligent Designer gave us brains. Let’s use them. From time immemorial, us weak hairless monkeys have taken over the planet by VOLUNTARY cooperation towards mutual goals. Only recently, have some of use been infected with this mental virus of “socialism”. The meme of “government” has hurt us worse than any other idea in our history. Perhaps, “religion” but that’s another topic for another day.}

1 Comment | LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Here’s a interesting little toy?

Sunday, April 1, 2007

http://www.sowesay.com/

So We Say

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SoWeSay, a company created by two Yahoo alumni, launched the first symbiotic social networking site (www.sowesay.com) that allows users the freedom to create profiles, rate and review anyone they know or encounter online and offline. SoWeSay also gives users a powerful social networking tool “SayWhat?” to gain candid feedback from anyone. SoWeSay is the fun destination to find, share and learn about new individuals directly from the people who know them best.

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Now using my amazing power of negative thinking, I would think this would be a good place to place the “LEAD WEIGHTS” in one’s life. I think their methodology is flawed unless one wants to be incredibly negative about someone. All a bozo will see is negativity.

Correct me if I am wrong?

I don’t think our brains are wired this way. IMHO it only works by pair-wise comparison. For example, even if we accept their dimensions of “Generosity, Intelligence, Likeability, Sense of Humor, and Trustworthiness” — I’d have my own as would you –, how can you rate “likeability” on a sliding scale. I can say that I like X more than Y, or I like X, or I dislike Y, but to slide the “likeability” bar. Nah, I’m no psysicy-ologist just an old injineer who can’t spell them bug wurds. My brain doesn’t work that way

And, to put someone on this site, you really have to know a lot about them.

So imho it’s a good page for the lead weights in your life.

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj