2013 archive
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
The rich are different from you and me.
The rich get richer, succeed or fail.
You and me, we get rewarded with “miles” we can’t use if we fly.*
The similarity ends there. Johnson, 54, got a compensation package worth 1,795 times the average wage and benefits of a U.S. department store worker when he was hired in November 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gonzales’s hourly wage was $8.30 that year.
More differences at the link.
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*Some conditions, which make those miles worthless, may apply.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, May 2.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
Afterthought:
Today, I set up my girlfriend’s Android phone to communicate with her Windows 7 computer.
I just plug my phone into the USB cable, swipe the notification panel, and select “Disc Drive.”
What an ordeal!
I had to download drivers and software and wait and wait and wait while Windows did its thing. It took the better part of half an hour.
I had forgotten what a unmitigated kludge Windows is.
The IRA Scam 0
I remember when IRA’s were new. They were touted as a financial boon. It was in the time of high interest rates during the Arab fuel embargo. Million-dollar balances when I and my fellow 20-somethings reached retirement age were projected.
If you put aside umpty-ump dollars today, with company matching, you will have umpty-umpty-umpty-umpty-ump dollars when it’s time to retire.
It hasn’t quite turned out that way, has it?
Kavips explains why. A nugget:
Read the rest, in which compound interest meets commissions, and commissions win.
The Friendly Skies 0
I am so glad that I am no longer a “road warrior,” getting on an airplane twice a month to go to some wonderful place like Bismarck, North Dakota, or Monroe, Louisiana, to spend a week in a classroom.
The people were always nice, wherever I went, but getting there by air was miserable.
But not this miserable.
Afterthought:
It wasn’t so bad when I worked for the railroad.
Train travel, unlike air travel, is fun; a business pass meant a sleeper; and I spent many weeks in Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York.
Two of them are among my favorite cities, along with Philadelphia, the city with the biggest inferiority complex in the world. The third one is on the Hudson. The fourth one is no city at all, but a formless, shapeless, centerless sprawl, the Blob in urban guise.
Gardens by the Sea 0
As soon as we left the house, the sun disappeared. Nevertheless, I am going to inflict some of my pictures from yesterday’s outing to the Norfolk Botanical Garden on the inner webs.
Craig Mitchell Smith sets up one of his glass sculptures for this summer’s exhibit.
Endless Warriors 0
It’s always the same crowd beating the drums.
Stray Question 0
Is there now or has there ever been a toll-free number where the menu options haven’t recently changed?
All the News that Fits 0
Like me, Chris Satullo has given up on television news.
I find it annoying, as it rachets between fiction and foolishness.
He is fed up:
Stewart and his staff are brilliant media critics, but I assumed they were giving me a satirically skewed view of how inane cable news has become.
Now, after Boston and West, Texas, and other recent horrors, I regret to report that things on cable have become almost as bad as Stewart says they are.
Read the rest.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes 0
Seen in a nice restaurant during yesterday’s spring fever.
College Daze 0
Ruth Ann Daily is confused.
She seems to think that there was a time when college fraternities and sororities weren’t all about snobbery, drinking pretentiousness, and partying.
Otherness 0
John Cole reports on attending a presentation by Bill Maher:
“There is something different about him that I just can’t put my finger on! What makes him so different from the previous Presidents that would drive them insane? There’s a word they want to use, but just can’t, so they start screaming things like SOCIALIST. Ask them what a socialist is, and they tell you ‘I dunno, but I think they like fried chicken.’”