Category: Modern problems

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Laundry Day Blues

One of the difficulties of apartment living…

Aside from being able to hear your neighbor fart! is that if you want to wash clothes you’ve got two choices, maybe three.

I’ve lived here for almost 2 months and I have yet to be able to actually do laundry here at the complex. Literally all of the washing machines and dryers are in use all the time.

I’ve been humping my clothes back to my house in the mountains. I’ve got big tumble machines and a whole house water softening system up there so stuff comes out clean and soft without much need for fabric softeners.

Down here, the water is hard and all the machines are top loaders.

Why has this become an issue?

Because the company has finally told me what my schedule is going to be, and in order for me to transition to the new schedule I’m going to be working at least 8 consecutive days.

SOOOO I really need to do laundry.

I could find a laundrymat, or a cleaners and have them wash my clothes, and it might come to either of those two options.

I can’t really blame the complex, It’s full of really old people. The may be my age but they’re OLD in mind and spirit. I’m an old soul but I don’t consider myself old!

These folks think old and when it comes to things like shared washers and dryers they think nothing of putting 3 small items in each washer.

So much for efficiency!

Anyhoo I’ll try again later perhaps when the next door neighbors start their nightly scream fest. I’ll be awake then anyway.

I can’t imagine what they’re going to think when I have sex here.

Muhahahaha

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OK this is too funny not to share

And I’m even tweeting it because it’s indicative of the weird PC world that we live in today.

I’m searching for apartments in the San Diego area.

I was on a web site, that asked me to “Check availability” by sending contact information and sending a short note to the complex.

My note read:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with assigned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.
Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your assistance.
Regards

What actually showed up and was quoted back to me in a reply from the apartment complex was:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with a**igned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.

Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your a**istance.
Regards
Do you see it?
 
There is some kind of filter that scanned the text and triggered on the ASS portion of the words. In order to protect the sensitive eyes of someone who might be offended by the first three letters of a word it changed the “SS” to “**”
 
This is an example of a couple of things in our society today.
 
HYPERSENSITIVITY and poor Quality Assurance.
 
There is no reason that the filter software couldn’t have examined the whole character group and compared it against a list of allowed words.
 
It’s called a Whitelist. (No Racist intent there.)
 
The white list would include:
 
Assistance
Assurance
Assigned
Assuage
.
.
.
 
and any other legitimate words from multiple language dictionaries that began with ass-
 
OR, and this might be the easier solution.
 
Use a Blacklist (Again no racist intent)
As an aside isn’t it amazing how common terms must now be explained lest someone be offended that you’re using a term that might be misinterpreted by a relatively small yet vocal group of people.
The Blacklist would simply have all the bad words you wanted to edit from the message. Typically, the blacklist is much shorter and therefore a much faster search and compare.
 
Ass
Asshole
Asshat
Dumbass
Asinine
Assfuck
Assfucker
Asswipe
Asslick
Asslicker
Assbite
Assgrab
Assgrabber
Asskiss
Asskisser
Asskick
Assmunch
 
The programming process is straightforward.  If the first 3 characters is ass, branch to compare with words in the blacklist. If there’s a match, then edit the naughty bits. If there’s no match then leave the text alone and pass the message untouched.
 
The really funny thing is that if you see A**HOLE you know it means asshole. If you see the “N” word, you know what that really means so honestly what’s the point?
 
If your company had to impose filters to protect your staff from offensive language, maybe you need to have a look at why people are sending your staff offensive messages in the first place.
 
Ahh PC what would we do if we weren’t bound by your brownshirt insanity?  
 
Oh yeah, we could have a sense of humor.
 
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Getting ready to purge a lot of crap

Purge

Over 500 contacts – Several hundred of which are people I met, have forgotten, headhunters who are largely forgettable and useless, or folks that I simply haven’t heard from in years. 

Reduction 300 contacts

Online presence across a ton of web sites – Sites for job search over the past 4 years. I have to log on and manually delete every one of those accounts and that’s going to take a lot of time. I’m thinking I might try to automate the process.

Estimated reduction 500 sites

Social media accounts shared across other sites – I don’t really want the social media and sure as heck don’t want the data being shared.

Reduction 4 

So despite some articles that suggest people that drop off the internet are anti-social and possibly even dangerous. I’m going to do just that.

Well, I’m addicted to the internet… So I’m not dropping completely off the net, I’m just going to significantly reduce my footprint. It’s time, actually well past time.

I’ll still be blogging.

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The Precious!

Apple march event invitation 800home thumb800

Apple is making new product announcements today!

Bright shiny more powerful machines. Whoo hooo!

I’ll be taking time off from the incessant job search to see what new covetable things Apple will release on the world.

Comey fbi

I was thinking, in one of my more insane moments, that Apple could offer two versions of IOS and let the public decide the outcome of Apple’s fight with the FBI. One version would be secured as the OS is today, and the GovIOS version would be one where the government held the encryption keys

If the majority of the people installed GovIOS then Apple could focus their security research on GovIOS and move on. Somehow, I think that people who installed GovIOS would be in the infinitesimal minority. 

I’d also love to see James Comey’s face when the press asked if he’d installed GovIOS on his personal iPhone.

IPhone lineup

Apple is supposed to be releasing a new iPhone and a new tablet today.

The new phone is rumored to be about the same size as the iPhone5s. But it’s supposed to have features of the iPhone 6s. I’m hoping that Apple manages to just put the iPhone 6s into the iPhone 5s size. 

Some of the rumors have suggested that Apple is going to cheapen the smaller phone by limiting options. I of course, ask why? I genuinely like the size of my iPhone5s. it fits in my hand and my pocket comfortably.  If I could have the memory, NFC (for Apple Pay), improved cellular radio, WiFi and camera of the iPhone 6s in the 5s size, I’d pay for it. I’m not sure I’d pay the $849 Apple is charging for the iPhone 6s (Because of the screen size differences) but I could see myself really weighing the options. Maybe $749 for 128GB in a phone the size of the iPhone5s?

Nonetheless, I’m curious about the new iPhone and depending on the price / features and the outcome of the pending legislation in California regarding encrypted phones and the outcome of the FBI v. Apple case, I may wait for the iPhone 7s or buy an iPhone SE or have to go with a 6s.

If the Idiots in Sacramento have their way, no encrypted cellphone will be sold in California after Jan 1, 2017.  I swear, if lawmakers keep on fooling around, Apple will relocate to Ireland.  At the same time, the idiots will manage to kill the retail cellular market in the state.

I’m sure that Nevada and Arizona will appreciate the boon to tourism and business. I can see weekend planning sounding like, “Oh, lets take a quick run up to Las Vegas for the weekend while we’re there we can buy new phones!”

IPad lineup

I’m interested in the new iPad as well. I’ve got an iPad Mini that I really like. But it’s getting tired, I’ve been intrigued by the iPad Air for its size and weight. So I’m curious about the update to the iPad line. I could get very excited about an iPad Mini that included features from the iPad Pro. The pencil for example? But depending on size and weight, the new iPad might tempt me long before Apple rolls a Mini with “Pro” features.

I don’t have the cash for any of this. But planning to update my machines is an expression of hope / faith that I will find a new job and I’ll have the cash in the future.

Misty Forest

The alternative is to hike into a forest with my tent, and go off-grid in a seriously old school way. I’m a very out of practice hunter, an OK angler, and tend to do ok without people.

Oddly enough, that has some appeal. 

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Still here

Another one of those dry spells.

Everything I’ve written has been a steaming pile of poo.

Rather than bore you with the details…

This guy has more brain power than I do at the moment.

Homer brain