Is It Just Me Or Is Everyone Looking To Hire Talent an Idiot?

This was taken from Los Angeles Craigslist…

Sure this might sound a little surly but hear me out

Cue rant in 3, 2 …..

As you all know the economy is a little tight and we thought that we could come over to craigslist to drum up some business

We are developers and designers who really live and work in Los Angeles not freekin’ New Delhi

We’re also English fluent and some of our guys are really named Jeff, Scooter & Dave not Punjab a.k.a. Jeff, Scooter or Dave

You then get these techno-tards who think LAMP is something you put on your nightstand and just because they have a computer they know stuff

They figure “Hey Nephew Joey spends A LOT of time on the computer let’s have him do our Corporate site”

Sure Joey is just lifting music and watching porn but he must be some kind of freekin’ expert because he spends SO much time online and yet no one has ever checked his browsing history

They offer him like 7 bucks an hour because “that’s more than he’s making now delivering newspapers plus he still lives at home”

Then all too soon they figure out little Joey is a little unreliable.

… Continue Reading

Cutting the Cable

A new year, a new decade, a time to trim the spending.

We have had Time Warner Cable as our cable television, internet and phone for the past few years under the “all the best” plan. According to Time Warner the “all the best” plan is a cheaper alternative to have TV, Internet and Phone service, bundled though them as aposed to having three service providers.

We have 4 tvs two of which are HD, and two are SD we had 3 digital cable boxes and one tv on basic cable. For the internet we have a wireless router, and a gigabit wired LAN. The phone was

digitalphone using the cable network. All of this was costing us about $170 a month.

Now that would not be to horrible if it worked all the time, but there was always issues with our service. During the time we have had Time Warner Cable we have made probably over 10 service calls and had just as many techs out to our house to fix the same issue over and over, weak signal…

Our neighborhood was built in the 1940′s and its aging infrastructure is starting to show its age, the city is constantly working on improving services and ripping the road up replacing sewer, and street lighting. But you rarely see Time Warner Cable upgrading there hardware. … Continue Reading

PayPal’s Major Flaw – Bank Transfers and Bad Design

I shop on eBay about once a month and normally pay with PayPal in the last 6 years making and receiving thousands of transactions, using PayPal I have had a few small issues but nothing that could not be cleared up by a phone call. But my last experience with PayPal will change the way I look at that company, and may influence the ways I purchase online in the future.

On Dec 22 2009 I had purchased a 1.75″ shackles & spacer lift for my jeep cherokee, during checkout I wanted to use a new credit card. So like most people would do I clicked on alternate payment sources, and entered my cards information, and then hit save and submit. Little did I know that once I hit the submit button all hell would break lose…

To my knowledge the transaction worked as planned the next day my credit card showed a pending charge from PayPal, but it was for only $1. At this point I still thought it was working as I see a $1 charge all the time as merchants use that to authorize the card.

About four days later I get an email from my bank that I have been overdrawn and has over $100 in NSF fees, this is when I discovered PayPal made a big mistake. … Continue Reading

The Health Care Public Option: Fear vs. Reality

How "healthy" is our health care in America today?

It’s difficult to understand why the word “socialized medicine” strikes such fear in Americans.  It’s almost a visceral response, negating what most of us know and have heard about other successful plans in other countries that most folks here would brand “socialist”.

Let’s take Canada for instance.  If we look at the numbers, we see that  spending in Canada is projected to reach $160 billion, or 10.6% of GDP, in 2007. This is slightly above the average for OECD countries, and substantially below the 15.2% of GDP taken by up healthcare in the United States.  This should go aways towards quieting some of the accountants amonst us, and should be looked at by congresspersons that are freaking out about “cost”.

Canada’s system is known as a single payer system, where basic services are provided by private doctors (since 2002 they have been allowed to incorporate), with the entire fee paid for by the government at the same rate. Most family doctors receive a fee per visit. These rates are negotiated between the provincial governments and the province’s medical associations, usually on an annual basis. A physician cannot charge a fee for a service that is higher than the negotiated rate — even to patients who are not covered by the publicly funded system — unless the physican opts out of billing the publicly funded system altogether. Pharmaceutical costs are set at a global median by government price controls. Other areas of health care, such as dentistry and optometry, are wholly private.

Considerable attention has been focused on two issues in Canada: wait times and health human resources.

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Cash for Clunkers, a Flawed System.

The Car Allowance Rebate System is a US federal program that helps US citizens to purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel efficient vehicle.

Thousands of Americans are rushing out and trading in their old cars to receive a $3500 or $4500 discount towards the purchase of select new cars. This may sound great at first but there are many hidden facts the majority of the population may not be aware of.

• The program is designed to get old cars up to 25 years old with under 18 MPG off the road and replace them with brand new cars that have a higher MPG rating.
• Depending on the age of the vehicle you will ether qualify for $3500 or $4500 off of the purchase price of the new car.
• The old car must have been owned, registered, and insured for the past year.
• The dealer is required to disable the old cars engine by draining the oil and replacing with a water and silica solution, permanently destroying the engine.
• The old car must the crushed and the engine and drivetrain cannot be sold for parts, this prevents the sale of the car in the United States and elsewhere as a vehicle.

Many of the cars being turned in as “Clunkers” to this program are still perfectly fine and are being turned in just so the owner can get a new car, but because the car is required to be destroyed hundreds maybe even thousands of cars are being destroyed. But is this really the best way to get people to buy new cars? Why go to the effort to destroy perfectly fine cars that may only be 4-5 years old.

Let’s say all the cars that went to the program that were newer then say 1998 were taken into a low income car program, helping get the “real clunkers” off the road.

It could work as follows:

• The total household income is less then a certain level.
• Each household would qualify for only one vehicle trade.
• The traded vehicle must need more then $500 in repairs to qualify.
• The car must be less then 35 years old, but mileage does not matter.
• The car must be owned for the last year but is not required to be registered or smogged.

… Continue Reading

How the U.S. Quality-of-Life Went Down the Shitter

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.” – Edward Bernays

Life in America

Why “Trickle Down” Theory Doesn’t Work

The Republicans love their “trickle down” theory.  This theory, for the uninitiated, can be described as “terms of political rhetoric that refer to the policy of providing tax cuts or other benefits to businesses and rich individuals in the belief that this will indirectly benefit the broad population.”

Interesting idea, but why hasn’t it worked?  The answer is simple; Greed.    The majority of a corporations profits go to the top executives for allocation.  That part works fine.  But then, IT STAYS THERE!  NO WAY DOES IT “TRICKLE DOWN”!

It’s no secret about  the enormous salaries, bonus, and benefit packages received by the top guys and gals in major U.S. corporations.  Ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina comes to mind.  She got a severance package worth about $21.4 million, but stood to get another $21 million after she was forced out by the company.  Nice pay for messing things up royally (consider the logic of such packages: the board hires a CEO, gives them an incredible golden parachute.  If they fail and are thrown out, they get rich.  If they succeed, they get rich.  What a Motivator!).

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Right Wingers: Lose Your Angry God

Christian Conservative Right, would you like to get back in the game? Maybe win a few elections? Have some significant influence over frail humans? Then you need to change your mindset. The recent presidential election shows us that most Americans are tired of fear, intimidation, and most of all, anger. We don’t want it anymore. It is destructive, and ultimately self-defeating. In other words, it is a waste of time, and time is what we are beginning to run out of.

… Continue Reading

CNN.com Daily Top 10 Removal Guide (Uninstall Instructions)

Some people who have received the CNN daily top ten email spam have unknowingly downloaded the trojan get_flash_update.exe file. If you are among these people, your anti malware software may identify the threat as Win32:Trojan-gen (Avast); Trojan.Erotpics (Symantec); TrojanDropper:Win32/Nuwar (Microsoft); BackDoor-DNM (McAfee) and I-Worm/Nuwar.W (AVG).

If the get_flash_update.exe file is downloaded and installed on your computer, it will proceed to download further malware that are set to start on your computer automatically when you reboot. When the whole infection process is complete, you will notice a variety of changes have occurred. The first change you will notice is that your Windows desktop background has been changed to a warning stating that Spyware was detected on your computer. Next, your screen saver will be changed to use SysInternals BlueScreen Screen Saver, which when running, emulates your operating system crashing into a blue screen of death.

… Continue Reading

CNN.com Daily Top 10 – Virus

So today I get this email that appears to come from CNN.com and when I click on a link it takes me to a video player page that looks offical and says that it needs to download a plugin. Well that is a exe that comes with a virus, thankfully i opened this on my Macbook Pro and was uneffected by it. Looking at the address bar it links to ( hieber-ed.de ).

I posted this to serve as a reminder to always check who the email is from before clicking on the links included, even if they are from a reputable source.

A note from one of the users:

The subject lines of these e-mails vary, but some examples
include “CNN Top Ten”, “Beijing Olympic Videos”, and other
subject lines referencing the Olympics. The e-mail prompts readers to
update their “flash player” or software that will allow the viewing
of videos. Please delete these e-mails immediately and refrain from
clicking on anything that asks you to update “flash player” or any
other software. These malicious attempts can result in the download of
what is referred to as malware, which can shut down the functioning of
your computer.

UPDATE: Removal instructions if you are infected with the virus, click here.