Day: August 31, 2007

MONEY: college versus retirement

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

From a radio show by <what was that dude’s name>
about college versus retirement

***Begin Quote***

The host made an excellent case that parents should worry about their retirement more than their children college.

Retirement is paid for upfront. Assuming your retire at age 65, you must have all your “savings for retirement” completed at that point.

College for children can be paid over the child’s lifetime. Potentially 45 years to spread it out over. Student loans at low rates of interest allow this to happen.

Your estate can be used to pay off student loans. Student loans can not be used for your retirement.

College’s ROI is over valued. There are cheaper ways to get a college education. Specifically, community colleges. Specifically, get a job where the employer pays. Specifically, the GI bill. (Note, imho, that could cost you a child. Too expensive.) Specifically, testing to get required courses waived.

***End Quote***

Convinced me!

Especially the ROI. Get a degree in basket weaving for $160k? To earn no more than a high school grad? And some jobs don’t require a degree — sales for instance.

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TECH SERVICE: BLOGLINESBETA missing a feature from the old version

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FROM: Bloglines Customer Service

*** begin quote ***

Thank you for contacting us. Please refer to the discussion thread below for our response. If you need further assistance with this issue, please reply to this message describing the issue in more detail.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

—
Subject
Web Form: [Suggestions]

Discussion Thread
Response (C.D.) 08/31/2007 08:12 PM
Hello,

Your suggestion is much appreciated, and we have forwarded your note to the Bloglines Beta team.

Over the years we have modified our site based on feedback like yours and from other Blogliners. Look for changes in the upcoming weeks and months, as we continue to build-out Bloglines Beta. We welcome your thoughts about Bloglines.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

—

Customer 08/30/2007 02:41 PM

Old Bloglines allows me to “keep as new”. So if I am whizzing thru and see something that I’d like to spend more time on I just check it. Beta Bloglines doesn’t do that. Or, I don’t see it. And, it doesn’t honor the oldblogline’s setting. This was the reason I move from Google to Bloglines. Hate to have to move again.

*** end quote ***

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Sigh! Why bother?

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POLITICAL USA: Go Ron Paul

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

August 27, 2007

Many political pundits from the mainstream media dismissed Ron Paul’s campaign for president from the day it started. However, when support for Dr. Paul came alive via the Internet, those so-called experts had to acknowledge (reluctantly for most of them) that there is support for Ron Paul. But then, they tried to dismiss that support as little more than an Internet craze that could not translate into “real support on the ground.”

Well, we know what they either don’t know or don’t want to admit: Americans from every state and every walk of life are supporting Ron Paul’s message of freedom, peace and prosperity.

As straw polls from around the nation are showing, more Americans by the day are deciding they want Ron Paul to be our next president.

Your donation will help us sustain this national momentum as we organize across America. See the straw poll results for yourself and then make a donation. You can now use PayPal to keep our momentum going.

List of Straw Poll Results
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/straw-poll-results/

Thank you!

Kent Snyder
Chairman, Ron Paul 2008

Categories USA

RANT: “repeal” bad laws … … in the jury box!

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http://sendtherightmessage.com/images/stamp_out_prohibition

1932 photo 0

 

Ohhh, they meant alcohol! Everyone knows that there is no similarity between alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition. No gangs killing innocent people. No infringements of our rights. No loading the jails with non-violent offenders.

Guess we’ll have to respond in the jury box.

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TECHNOLOGY: from the Ebenezer Scrooge School of Overseer Management

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Network World’s Security Strategies Newsletter, 08/30/07
Ethical decision-making: Identifying the ethical issue
By Mark Gibbs

***Begin Quote***

Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that an employee, Bob, has signed an appropriate-use agreement with his employer and that he’s not supposed to use his company computer for non-work-related Web surfing.

*** end quote ***

It’s all too black and white. Cut and dried. Either or. The real world is much more gray!

If the employee we are talking about is an hourly employee — the IT equivalent of a burger flipper — then the case presented makes some amount of sense. But, I am hard pressed why they have a fully functional browser, and expensive hardware.

I think the more interesting case is when you apply this to what I will classify as “knowledge workers”. They present a tougher case in what’s acceptable use. Proper leadership would know when the people were being productive and then trying to micro mange what people do by AUPs — which never work — would be unnecessary.

While we are talking about following rules, the rule maker’s hands are not always that clean. Sometimes there are different AUPs for the AUP-makers. AND, then we have many organizations, who want knowledge workers to provide off hour support from home without compensation, wanting to enforce an AUP. Seems like the rules are used when they are convenient.

Bottom line: Everyone must tread very carefully. And, keep notes on what is “current practice”. They’ll be useful when you negotiate your severance or can be used as evidence at your trial. AUPs are another gotcha from the Ebenezer Scrooge School of Overseer Management!

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INTERESTING: Sir! No Sir!

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http://www.sirnosir.com/home_about_film.html

***Begin Quote***

This is why David Zeiger decided he had to make a documentary about the antiwar movement that we’ve been taught to forget: the antiwar movement that organised itself in barracks, on aircraft carriers, in country, at listening posts, in the line for mess hall. His film is called Sir! No Sir! and in this viewer’s opinion it’s one of the best documentaries of recent years.

***End Quote***

I guess I led a sheltered life. In my USAF time 70-73, I never saw any such resistance.

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INTERESTING: Which was this young lady?

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http://execunet.blogspot.com/2007/08/miss-teen-usa-miss-south-carolina-power.html

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Miss Teen USA, Miss South Carolina, & The Power of the Web

Dave Opton over at Execunet opined on the young lady’s flub. And, he was nice enough to allow my comment to post.

Upon reflection, either this young lady was amazingly dumb or amazingly smart. She may have had her fifteen minutes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_minutes_of_fame Or, she may have out Paris Hiltoned the latest vamp of the idle rich kids.

I don’t know.

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JOBSEARCH: Monster did NOT do enough

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FROM A MONSTER EMAIL

***Begin Quote***

Dear Valued Monster Customer,

Protecting the job seekers who use our website is a top priority, and we value the trust you place in Monster. Regrettably, opportunistic criminals are increasingly using the Internet for illegitimate purposes. As is the case with many companies that maintain large databases of information, Monster is from time to time subject to attempts to illegally extract information from its database.

As you may be aware, the Monster resume database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with resumes posted on Monster sites. Monster responded to this specific incident by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally, and shut down a rogue server that was hosting these records.

The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster’s database has been the target of criminal activity. Due to the significant amount of uncertainty in determining which individual job seekers may have been impacted, Monster felt that it was in your best interest to take the precautionary steps of reaching out to you and all Monster job seekers regarding this issue. Monster believes illegally downloaded contact information may be used to lure job seekers into opening a “phishing” email that attempts to acquire financial information or lure job seekers into fraudulent financial transactions. This has been the case in similar attacks on other websites.

We want to inform you about preventive measures you can take to protect yourself from online fraud. While no company can completely prevent unauthorized access to data, we believe that by reaching out to job seekers like you, the Company can help users better defend themselves against those who have attacked Monster as well as other databases.

We are committed to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with all of our job seekers about Internet security and the steps Monster is taking to protect its job seekers. The Company has placed a security alert on Monster sites offering information to educate you about online fraud. This information can be found at http://help.monster.com/besafe/. We have also included information on Internet safety and examples of fraudulent “phishing” emails at the bottom of this letter.

Monster has launched a series of initiatives to enhance and to protect the information you have entrusted to us. Some of these steps are being immediately implemented, while others will be put into place as appropriate.

We believe these actions are the responsible steps to protect the trust you place in Monster. We are also working with Monster’s hundreds of thousands of employer customers to ensure a safe and effective online job search. We will continue to share information with you about the enhancements we are making as we serve as your online career resource partner. We invite you to keep reading to learn more about how to use the Internet safely.

Sincerely,
Sal Iannuzzi
Chairman and CEO
Monster Worldwide

***End Quote***

Sorry, I don’t think that Monster did NOT do enough both before and after the horse and the barn!

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LINUX: Well, the die is cast!

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placed my order for a Linux laptop. I’ve begun to separate myself from the Microsoft Death Star and join the Linux revolution. I’m returning to my roots as an injineer, unix nerd, and “falling knife” catcher. Good bye, Bill! No more winrot! No more verbose network conversation as all the workstations in my home lan try to elect a domain controller. No more treadmill of fatter operating systems needing bigger hardware.

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