Category: Musings

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Something I never thought I’d say…

I suppose there are a lot of those things.

In this particular case, it’s I’m happy with how long my computer battery lasts. I’m also somewhat impressed with the iPad battery too.

The computer is insane. I’ll use the thing for days. I’ll be surprised when I get a low battery warning and then think, “Oh Yeah, it’s been a while!” This is very different from the older machines I’ve had. I lived by their power monitors and always carried spare batteries or adapters.

I’m still working on settings on the iPad to minimize its power consumption. My Computer and iPad both use the M2 chip but the iPad is more in line with a day or day and a half of use. I think that’s because there are background applications that wake up or are running on the iPad that aren’t as “busy” on the computer.

I believe I can probably trim more of the iPad background applications out of the background and realize more power savings.

The point is, when I started using laptop computers years ago, a 2 hour battery life was considered good. Now I’m talking about 2 day battery life between charges. I’m using the machine as I normally would, I’m typing blogs, surfing the net, working on stories, (although not fast enough there,) attending video conferences or watching lectures. Through it all, the computer doesn’t seem to care or get winded. I don’t think I’ve heard the fans come on, ever.

For the first time I’ll leave the house with my machines in my brief case and leave the chargers behind.

I suppose this is on my mind because today the computer asked for a bit of power. I plugged it in, and it said okay I’m charging to 80% quickly. (That would have actually gotten me through my typical day with ease.) The computer then switched over to a holding pattern at 80% and will finish charging by about 1:30PM.

This means that the machine has figured out my general habits and is using the charging feature Apple designed to extend battery life. It’s cool. I can override it if I want, or need to, but why? I’d rather have a battery that’s healthy in two or three years (like my iPhone 12 Pro) than force the issue. Besides, I’m using the big monitor in the office. I like this monitor a lot but I like working with the computer on the back deck more.

For the past 24 hours the wind has been kicking up to crazy gusty levels. I don’t feel like sitting out on the deck in all the blowing dust and pollen. Even though the sun is shining and the temps are nice.

It’s been all I could do to keep my sinuses open and the poor dog literally snorted a patch of pollen he thought was a food wrapper (I think). He’s been sneezing 5 or 6 times at a go for the past two days. I laugh at him… Then he saunters down the hall trying to look dignified, until another sneezing fit hits and he sneezes himself into a wall or something. My continuing to laugh gets me a dirty look and he retires to his “Room” where he can be alerted about food but doesn’t have to look at me.

All of which is to say that the amount of pollen in the air is so high that getting it into a keyboard would not be such a good thing. So I don’t need to be sitting outside for my sake, the keyboard’s sake, or the dog’s sake. All of us are quite comfortable inside.

I’ve got the leeward side of the house open for the fresh air but every once in a while the wind will shift just for a minute or two and blow a new batch of yellow joy into the house.

I was originally going to use a photo of my hand but when I looked at the photo I realized that you could easily see all of my fingerprints. Probably not a great idea to broadcast that kind of biometric information across the internet! With a little work I could convert the image into usable prints, so you get the swiffer. If the FBI ever needed non carbon fingerprint dust, I can recommend pine pollen.

I hope you all have a nice Monday. I’m hitting the sinus spray again!

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Well the bitch still succeeded didn’t she?

Rick & Morty, an adult animated show is in the process of recasting one of the show’s creators voice roles.

Justin Roiland was accused earlier this year of felony domestic abuse. Mind you he had not been convicted, but that didn’t stop Adult Swim from pulling him from the show.

Here’s the really shitty part. All the charges were dropped Roiland said at the time the charges were filed, that he believed that a disgruntled Ex-girlfriend was attempting to get revenge by having him cancelled. Well that may be true but the bitch still won.

An Article from UPROXX is located here

This is one of the reasons that I don’t really want to return to work with corporate America. Women have demonstrated time and again that there are completely willing to destroy someone’s career for nothing more than petty vengeance. I’ve witnessed it at the last place I worked.

I’ve also witnessed Male persons of color getting away with sexual harassment of white women. And because the white women weren’t believed when they reported something, they became targets for more and more abuse. So much so that they left the company. It’s in effect sanctioned racism and sexism but no corporation will ever admit this happens. In fact they’d accuse me and the other people who made statements to HR of lying. Corporate America will say, “It doesn’t happen and has never happened!”

But it does and did.

It’s another example of double standards. Roiland is white, and Male. All it takes for him to lose his job is an accusation from a person he once dated.

Males of Color on the other hand are credibly accused by multiple witnesses of groping white women’s breasts and feeling those women’s asses and HR says, “It’s their culture. They meant nothing by it. You just don’t understand.” Then later, officially nothing happened and nothing was done. So much for that vaunted Zero Tolerance policy.

I’d like to have a job. I’d take 2/3 of what I was being paid if I could work from home and not have to deal with corporate politics. I’d join the video conferences and such but I probably wouldn’t speak.

I literally have become suspicious of the motivations of practically anyone in corporate America. There have been way too many times when something I said was misquoted, or taken out of context, or misunderstood and some jackass from some other department decided something had to be done.

There once was a Director of my department who found themselves on a plane at 37,000 feet flying from Florida to California when they discovered that they only had half of a story. Then when they got the rest of the story, realized that I was probably loaded for bear and had my attorney on speed dial.

They were entirely correct!

The problem was a female boss who couldn’t stand that I was dragged into a lot of meetings. She had a real problem that I didn’t answer her instant messages instantly.

I should point out that more often than not her instant messages were, “How’s your day going?” If I answered, “Very Busy.” It led to a third degree, 25 minutes of instant messaging and a 30 minute phone call. God I hate passive aggressive shit! This particular bitch couldn’t count butts in chairs to validate she was in control so she resorted to inane questions that she shouldn’t have been asking if she actually knew what she was doing

I only had a desktop computer. Since the meetings I was attending were not at my desk, but were instead in conference rooms throughout the building, obviously I wasn’t going to be able to answer her silly instant messages instantly. For that matter, most of the conference rooms didn’t have Wifi so a laptop wouldn’t have helped all that much either.

Not to mention that it’s rude to be in a meeting with a Vice President and carrying on a conversation with someone else via instant messaging.

After costing the company 5 to 10 thousand dollars in travel expenses for the director and herself, she was only demoted. She should have lost her job. She didn’t because she was a girl and I was an evil testosterone poisoned male. I still should have sued the shit out of the company because that bitch lied and slandered my name throughout the company.

It’s stuff like this that make men like me super cautious about working for women. I’ve had way too many female bosses.

I guess now the bitches don’t even have to work at the same company you do. All that has to have happened is that you fucked them and broke up with them. How could you decide their so called “golden hole” wasn’t worth the pain or expense necessary to use it?

I hope Rick & Morty survives but if it doesn’t we’ll be able to thank another lying bitch for taking something else enjoyable away from the rest of us.

Amber Heard – I’m looking at your abusive lying ass!

I hope Roiland sues the living shit out of the woman that falsely accused him.

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Credit Scores are Bullshit

Through my bank there is a portal to the Transunion Credit Bureau.

I sometimes look at the score, although it no longer has the meaning to me that it once did.

At one time I worked very hard to have a good rating. Then around 2008 or so, overnight my A+ credit rating simply disappeared.

I didn’t miss a payment, I didn’t open a ton of new credit, in fact I had done nothing.

What happened was a “Correction” because the banks suddenly realized that they had written a shit ton of bad loans and they were covering their asses, begging for money from the taxpayers, and in short screwing everyone by downgrading all of our credit even though there were a ton of people like myself who’d not used our homes like piggy banks and gone on spending sprees.

That day I realized that the whole credit score thing was bogus. Since then I’ve had a “whatever” attitude about it because the banks and the system can fuck us all anytime they want to. The recent bank failures are reminders of that.

This morning I was looking at my accounts, making sure that the bills were scheduled to be paid, and thought, “eh, it’s here and free, let me click on this just to look.”

I did, and my credit score is respectable, it’s not what it once was thanks to that morning in 2008 but it’s okay. At least I’m not obsessing over it like I was back then. As I was looking at the data on the web page, a comment jumped out at me and my brain rebooted.

“Having a low debt balance relative to your available credit signals to lenders you’re more likely to make on-time payments.”

That used to be called a debt ratio, it had nothing to do with on-time payments (they were a factor,) it was a measure of how much you owed versus your income, and real possessions. This was used to determine credit worthiness and your ability to repay the amount that you’d borrowed.

I know in this day and age when college loans are supposed to be paid by the tax payers and no-one is responsible for anything they’ve done, old ideas like repaying the loans you’ve taken out are passé. But there was a time when you could get into real trouble with credit and you only had two choices, get a better paying job, or bankruptcy.

What should signal to lenders you’re more likely to make on-time payments is actually right there on the same web page.

It Looks something like this:

Open Accounts – 5
Total Late Payments – 0
Accounts in Collections – 0
Inquiries (last 2 years) – 0
Age of Credit – 35 Years

Factor this data with the real assets I have, (equity – how much of my home loan I’ve paid off and current value of my home, for example,) plus my income, and a financial person should be able to determine if I’m able to reasonably take on additional debt or NOT.

You also have to factor in the cost of the loan. High interest rates for example can really screw your ability to pay the loan off. For reference see Debt Ceiling!

I learned this over time, the hard way. I wouldn’t take on additional debt right now because I’m a little close to my personal discomfort zone.

The way things are, I wouldn’t get the kind of favorable interest rate I’d want, so taking on additional debt is out of the question. I know this because I have a handle on my finances. The credit bureau isn’t telling me anything new.

Laughably, the bank and credit bureau would still give me a shit ton of credit which would be more likely to push me as an individual into default.

Financial institutions are supposed to be about profit and part of the way they do that is through responsible lending. Ideally a financial institution should be concerned enough about their customers that they take the time to explain why a customer should or shouldn’t take out a loan and that the customer understands the risks.

While foreclosing on real property does make the bank money it’s a pain in the butt. Unsecured credit such as that associated with credit cards is a losing proposition, if the bank allows a customer to over extend themselves.

Why loan someone a bunch of money you’re never going to get back?

That makes no sense unless the banks are inflating their losses then billing the FDIC somehow.

With interest rates increasing the way they have I’m betting there are going to be a lot of bankruptcies in the next few years. I’ve got some credit cards that are suddenly at 18%. I haven’t seen those interest rates since the 1980’s.

There’s a part of me that says pay off the credit cards and close those accounts. Logically you’d think that would be the wisest path because it limits your liability. But doing that would reduce your credit score.

That’s another part of the Scam. They force you to keep accounts open but unused because it inflates the arbitrarily calculated number.

I understand mostly how this works. I understand that the numbers are supposed to equalize us all and allow computers to make approve or deny decisions. I just have no faith in the numbers or how they’re created.

I suppose that why the noise over the debt ceiling makes no sense to me.

I’ve completely lost faith in the credit score system. Credit Scores are bullshit and have been for at least a decade.