Random Ideas, Comments & Thoughts, Sometimes Political, Sometimes Adult… Hope you don't choke.
A Friend sent me a list of these. I thought it would be fun to share them.
Paraprosdokians are phrases or sentences that lead us down the garden path to an unexpected ending.
Some people are like Slinkies … not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.
No… Not Sex… Although come to think of it,
I HAVE done that in the blog too. Strictly for scientific purposes mind you.
What I’m talking about is the fractured English that is becoming all too common everywhere we look these days.
I suppose I’m seeing more of it than usual lately.
I’ve also become aware just how vitally important proof-reading something is. I’m using a computer operating system that “Guesses” at what I meant to type and often changes the word whose spelling I butchered to a completely different word.
Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse… an obvious mis-spelling or a completely incorrect word. The mis-spelling is embarrassing, with a completely incorrect word you look like an idiot.
Here’s an example from a well known job placement agency.
“I have a client who is actively looking to fill a software engineer full time perm position. I look forward to hearing back from you regarding this position. I have implicated the job requirements for this position and requirements.”
I’ll take the misspelling, at least in that case the person reading your prose knows that you knew the correct word to use… you just have all the spelling ability of a hyena in heat.
I’ve been trying to simplify my life.
Not having a job has actually gone a long way toward that simplification. I don’t have to buy gas too often (as opposed to every other day).
What’s ironic is that without realizing it I’ve become a network administrator / computer troubleshooter / general fixit man in my own house.
I have Wifi, here at the house (Who doesn’t these days?) within my computers range are three other WiFi networks all with enough signal strength to be useful.
For years now I’ve been happy to provide WiFi to my next door neighbor. This is more a matter of public service since Verizon won’t install a DSL line to their house.
Recently, I was trying to do a little troubleshooting on the network and had a bit of a panic moment.
There were a lot more devices connected to my network than I thought there should be.
I was sitting here counting the obvious devices like the computers. But that didn’t come close to the numbers I was seeing. I mean I could count 3 computers but I had over 25 devices on the network. So it was a WTF moment.
Then I started really looking at the network and realized many of the connections were innocuous things like my smart phone, the DVRs, my BluRay players, the TV, the iPod, iPad, the godbrats devices, iPod, iPhone, etc.
Most of these devices were pretty static once I accounted for them. But a few came and went and I had no idea what they were or who they belonged to.
Here’s a list;
The thing is, not all the devices are even turned on in this sample.
There are other devices that come & go. I’ve identified everything and the spooky thing is that they’re all legitimate and authorized devices on my network.
This brings up interesting points.
I’m now in a position to need network scanning and maintenance tools.
If I didn’t have my network set up the way I do, which Verizon HATES by the way, I’d not be able to have all the “Normal” devices in my house connected to the internet.
Verizon has, or had a limit. I think the last time I tried to configure my network the way Verizon wanted it… I could have 15 total devices online at any one time. Which means that someone in this list would get booted off the network.
I can understand Verizon having a limit on the number of devices they will allow to be connected directly to their network. What I can’t understand is that Verizon WANTS all the devices connected.
My suspicion is that some bright asshole in marketing fro Verizon was thinking that they could charge the customer per device. Needless to say, that’s not going to work when TVs, BluRay players, gaming consoles, and appliances all are being built to connect to the internet. There’s not enough IP addresses for that unless Verizon goes IPV6.
It’s amazing to me how many devices I’ve connected to my network without really considering the implications. I really didn’t think about how many devices are “Network Aware”. It’s also interesting to think that if the internet is down many of my devices will work in a limited fashion or not at all.
More amazing to me is that I’m doing network administration in my own house.
Many small businesses don’t have as many devices networked as I do.
So I guess all of us will become network administrators….
I wonder if thats a new business niche? Should I bill myself as a Home Network administrator? I wonder if I could get paid what a pool guy gets? With the right remote administration software, I could actually handle things like software updates, and work at keeping systems running at peak efficiency. Hummmmm….
I think a little investigation is in order.
And yep… there it is…
I’m pulled back into the computer / technology world… I suppose if I could do the computer stuff on my own terms, it wouldn’t be bad.
I do enjoy making systems and machines work better.
A Friend sent me a list of these. I thought it would be fun to share them.
Paraprosdokians are phrases or sentences that lead us down the garden path to an unexpected ending.
How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Before my Liberal friends form a lynch mob… I’m playing here… It’s a Joke… Well a half joke…
In truth, I wrote this just to stir the pot. I think that anyone with little effort can spin anything any way they want. This is my attempt at proving that “Facts” are just a matter of spin. I hope you enjoy it.
The banking collapse was in fact caused by Liberal Democrats, not Conservative Republicans.
Lets look at the facts.
Many liberals believe that it’s wrong to deport illegal workers (This is a term that I use to mean inclusively any person who has entered this country illegally. )
That the term illegal workers has come to be synonymous with Illegal hispanic workers is a discussion for another time. I will say this… if a term has come to be redefined as descriptive of a situation, well perhaps you need to ask how that came to be…
Many liberals believe that housing must be equal opportunity no matter what. (I also believe that housing should be equal opportunity, meaning that if you can afford a home or apartment you shouldn’t be denied access to that home or apartment based on race, color, creed, sexuality, or religion.)
Many liberals believe that higher education is a right, not a privilege and as a result have enacted a multitude of affirmative action policies nationwide.
Many of those affirmative action laws, regulations, and policies have been expanded to apply to more than education and now apply in a variety of other aspects of our society including banking.
Having worked in the mortgage banking industry approximately 4 years before the collapse (I got out because I saw it coming) I got to see some things from the inside.
Remember No document loans?
How about reverse amortization loans?
These “products” were a direct result of mortgage lenders complying with affirmative action regulations.
The mortgage bankers I worked for felt that they couldn’t deny a loan application because affirmative action regulations demanded a certain percentage of what was called “B & C” paper be accepted by a bank. Think of it like “Assigned risk in insurance.”
Essentially, these “B & C” designations were loans to people who were far more likely to default than the so called “A” paper loans.
Sadly the “A, B, & C” paper loans shook out along largely racial lines due to underlying aspects of our society.
This meant that someone like myself (A paper) who was employed, had a mortgage, had never been late on a payment, was making more money than I ever had in my life, and who wanted to refinance my house at a lower percentage rate without taking any money out of it, and who provided documentation to all of the above…
Would be scrutinized to a maddening degree and even had to answer questions like “Why has your income increased?“
No Shit! The fact that I was making more money was actually a bone of contention between me and the underwriter. It pissed me off to the point that I told her I’d quit my job if that would make it easier on her then we could average my income over the past decade.
The mortgage lender I was working for at the time did not hold my mortgage… but over lunch one day I asked WTF? of an underwriter I knew well.
His answer was that since I had a history and had provided all kinds of documentation, the underwriters had to do a full process where they, by banking regulations checked everything about the loan they were going to fund.
He went on to say that if I’d gone for a new house instead of a refi, and the loan had been a “Jumbo Loan” I could have gone with a no document loan and been approved within a week.
I still didn’t get it.
My underwriter friend explained, because of equal opportunity lending regulations and HUD rules, and half a dozen other regulations designed to prevent discrimination, the no doc loans had become known as the Housekeeper loans and I’d have qualified easily for one of those.
He’d seen 800,000 loans approved for gardeners in Orange County. After the loan was approved, typically within 120 days the first payment was late.
Then another department in the company we worked for would start calling and asking for payments to be made including late fees.
The late fees were always paid first and the remainder of whatever payment we got was sent to the mortgage holder. This was called “servicing” a loan. It was / is a very profitable enterprise. This is especially true when only a partial payment gets sent to the mortgage holder because the cycle can repeat several times a month on the entire amount that is in arrears. The late fees keep stacking up and the profit for the loan servicer keeps increasing.
It was the interaction of protections for the poor, affirmative action, the lack of proper identification requirements, the right to privacy about where you obtained your income, and other liberal progressive factors that created the no document loan in the first place.
The banking industry simply made all of these regulations profitable!
These loans were given to people who sometimes didn’t understand what they were signing and at other times actually couldn’t write their own names.
Then the loan was packaged up as an investment portfolio that was mandated by law to have a specific % of A, B, & C paper loans. The completed portfolio was sold to a wall street firm.
Back to my original statement…
It was the liberal demands for equality in lending, and housing, their insistence on not deporting illegal workers, the bleeding heart progressive agenda, and complete lack of concern or perhaps the liberal demonization of profit and business, that is in fact responsible for the banking collapse.
By forcing the banking industry to approve a percentage of questionable loans that the banking industry normally wouldn’t have approved, the liberals created the housing bubble. Simultaneously making it far more difficult for honest citizens to carry on with their lives and pursuit of the American Dream.
The evil banking industry was just following orders.