Showing posts with label AAARRRGGGHHH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AAARRRGGGHHH. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

Recurring Annoyances


There are a lot of things that fall under my general heading of "recurring annoyances." One of them is Girl Scout Cookies ... you never realize how many young women sell Girl Scout Cookies until - generally between January and April - you are besieged by wave after wave of earnest young ladies (and their parents, grandparents, and boosters) beseeching you to buy Thin Mints*, Samoas, or whatever.


Another recurring annoyance is the tsunami of televised advertisements for extended auto warranties, which accompany the unending, year-round barrage of robocalls hawking the same thing. Probably the most annoying thing about the robocalls is that each one claims to have made multiple attempts to reach me (true) and that this is my final opportunity to sign up (false). The number of TV ads seems to have declined slightly of late, probably to allow upgrades to the technology of annoyance, but the well-staffed call centers in India and Pakistan are still standing by.


The current recurring annoyance is the proliferation of advertisements for Medicare Part C ("Medicare Advantage") plans that explodes each year between October and December. These are health care plans for senior citizens that cover all the things basic Medicare (Parts A and B) doesn't** ... they run a minimum of six times an hour all day long, often back-to-back, and urge you to call to receive "everything you deserve." Of course, "everything you deserve" is what is covered in Parts A and B ... Parts C and D are "everything you're willing to pay extra for." If you choose one of these plans, be sure it covers eye exams and glasses, because you'll need them to read all the fine print in the ads.


Oh, and lest we forget ... the never-ending landslide of ads targeting anyone who was ever within 500 miles of Camp Lejune between 25 BCE and a future date to be determined later. While many people stationed at this North Carolina Marine Corps base have legitimate reasons to seek compensation for health problems caused by contaminated water, lawyers have flocked from as far away as Outer Mongolia to cash in on the lawsuit bonanza, running numbers of TV ads matched only by those hawking legal remedies for mesothelioma***. And although those ads tell you that "you may be eligible for compensation," so are the lawyers ... and they get paid first****.


I'm not even going to mention the endless annoyance of having to listen to the whiny, grating sound of Der Furor's voice.

What are the things that annoy you? Leave a comment, and let's get annoyed together.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I have to admit that I like Thin Mints, although my waistline does not.

** Well, not all the things ... you need to read the squintingly fine print to sort of know.

*** How about that earnest, grandmotherly lady who pleads with you to "order the free book, and receive so much more," while her serious-looking husband looks on gravely?

**** How else are they going to pay for all that expensive air time? And yachts? And big houses?

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Picking up the Helsinki Pieces


This is the text of a Facebook post I did yesterday, for those of you with whom I'm not connected there ...

As a veteran of more than 40 years of service in the US intelligence community, I am personally and professionally appalled by the comments made in Helsinki by Donald Trump. Instead of accepting and relying on the rock-solid, evidence-based findings of his own intelligence community, Mr Trump refused to call out Putin over Russian interference in the 2016 election. Make no mistake: the president of the United States is willing to accept the demonstrable lies of Vladimir Putin over the men and women who work day and night to protect his country. There is no - NO - excuse for this. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states that treason consists of "... adhering to (the) Enemies (of the United States), giving them Aid and Comfort." Mr Trump's shocking siding with Mr Putin, acceptance of his bald-faced lies, and refusal to put the interests of the United States ahead of his own vanity come perilously close to meeting the Constitutional definition of treason. Don't even try to sugar-coat this or explain why Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt. If ever there were a clear picture of the menace to our nation posed by this man, it was today's ghastly, reality-challenged press conference in Helsinki. Today, I am ashamed of my government and utterly disgusted by anyone who can view Mr Trump's shameful performance as anything but a disaster of historic proportions.

Have a good day. Expect better from your chief executive, but don't hold your breath. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Tax Day, 2018


Today is the last day to file your Federal income tax return for 2017 and render unto Trump what is Trump's. You'd better do it quickly, because the combination of the administration's recent huge tax cut* and its enormous budget, means Uncle Sam needs your largess as soon as possible.

Here are a few cartoons that deal with the sheer, unutterable joy of calculating your taxes ...








Good luck.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Hope you're enjoying the few dollars it got you. Of course, if you're a corporate titan or other part of the 1%, it probably looks better.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

A Thorn by Any Other Name


I hate to keep writing about the gun debate, but I feel an urgent need to weigh in on one particular aspect of it that is driving me up the proverbial wall.

I am, by education, study, and lifelong continuing interest, a linguist. I care about words. Words matter. And they matter a lot in the endless gun debate. I'm not an expert in weapons, but I am an expert of sorts in words, and so I ask ...

For the love of God, all of you, no matter which side of the debate you fall on, stop talking about "assault weapons" or "assault rifles!"

I'm sick of the pro-gun partisans who talk down to me with detailed lectures about the similarities and/or differences between "hunting rifles" and an "assault rifles." I'm sick of people who quibble over the use of the term "assault weapon/rifle" rather than addressing the fundamental issue - which is the suitablity of some types of weapons for killing large numbers of people in a short period of time.

Shut up, all of you! People are dying, and they're dying in large numbers partly because you are busy torturing the language to deflect attention from issues you don't want to face. How about this: instead of the term "assault weapon/rifle," which sidetracks the debate into a uselessly Talmudic linguistic argument, say what you're really talking about: "high-powered semiautomatic rifles with large capacity magazines" or "high-powered semiautomatic rifles with military features or accessories*."

It doesn't solve the problem, but at least it removes one way the discussion can be lost in a morass of dissembling and false equivalencies.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I'm thinking here about things like pistol grips, laser aiming devices, large-capacity magazines, folding or collapsible stocks, bayonet mounts, and barrel shrouds. See a useful discussion of the problem of definition in this article ... which dates to 2013.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Health Care Terms, Defined


Back in June of 2010 I wrote a tongue-in-cheek, satirical post* in which I provided snarky answers to questions about the American system of health care. It's been seven years since then, and so I figured it's time to revisit the topic and help provide clarity to a complex topic. Here are explanations of some of the terms which are often tossed around in the heated debate** over various health care options ...


"Socialized Medicine"

There are several definitions of this controversial term. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as "medical and hospital services for the members of a class or population administered by an organized group (such as a state agency) and paid for from funds obtained usually by assessments, philanthropy, or taxation." The GOP defines it as "a callous and unjustified giveaway by a satanic system that forces rich, healthy people to pay for the care of losers who shouldn't have gotten sick in the first place."

"Prescription Drug Coverage"

There are two definitions of this term. The first is "health insurance or a related plan that helps pay for prescription drugs and medications." The second is "the dense blanket of laws, tax code provisions, confusing legal wording, and conflicting statistics that prevents patients from understanding the cost of prescription drugs and making informed decisions."

"Single-Payer System"

As the name implies, this is a system in which there is only one entity, typically a government agency or private system operating under a government charter, which pays for health care for citizens. Most of the developed world uses this system, which has the advantage of reducing costs by reducing administrative overhead for health care providers. From a conservative or libertarian perspective, it's the equivalent of socialized medicine and must be avoided at all costs because everyone knows that government utterly ruins everything it touches***.

"Death Panel"


--> According to a claim originally made by Sarah Palin and continuing to be believed by the credulous, it's group of faceless government bureaucrats that decides whether specific persons are worthy of receiving health care. A death panel differs from the current health care system only insofar as government bureaucrats, rather than insurance company analysts, make decisions on the provision of health care.
"Obamacare"

A derogatory term applied by conservatives to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health care reform program enacted during the presidency of Barack Obama. The GOP is totally and completely opposed to the ACA and is intent on replacing it with something. Anything. Some day. 

"Co-Pay"

The extra money you pay to your doctor or pharmacist for service after you've already paid your insurance premiums.

"Deductable"

The amount of money you have to pay before your insurance company begins to pay the benefits you're already paying premiums for them to provide.

I hope this helps you understand some of the confusing terminology of health care. My best advice: don't get sick. You can't understand it, and you probably can't afford it.

Have a good day. Eat lots of apples to keep expensive doctors away. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Hard to believe, isn't it?

** "Debate" is defined here as "wild and uninformed shouting and the use of out-of-context anecdotes and statistics to bolster one's position."

*** No wonder it's only lasted 200-plus years.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

A Personal Anecdote About Credit Reporting Agencies


We live in a society that runs on credit. You can't buy a car, a house, furniture, electronics, or pretty much anything expensive unless you can pass a credit check that indicates you're not a deadbeat. A good credit score is a requirement of modern life*, opening all sorts of doors and greasing the financial skids in a society where paying cash for large purchases can arouse the interest of the police and the local DEA office*.

And how does one get a good credit score? Well, of course, by paying ones bills on time, not having a criminal record, and so on. But where does that score come from? Who gives it to you?

There are three major credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, who hoover up all the available information about you, your income, your shopping and payment history, whether you own or rent your home, and pretty much everything else. Using their own proprietary systems, they crunch all those numbers down into a score that tells merchants and service providers whether or not it's safe to bet on your ability to pay for the things you buy.

The problems with this system are manifold, and many of them are coming to light. Equifax, for instance, is in deep kimchi with the government** over the lack of security of their databases, which have been repeatedly plundered by crooks looking to steal the financial and personal information we're required to provide to fuel the credit reporting system. And all of the credit reporting agencies maintain that they - not you - own all the information they hold about you and your life, and can sell it to anyone they choose like any other commodity.

But what if the information they have about you is wrong?

In theory, you can petition the credit reporting agencies to correct erroneous information they have in your record ... in practice, though, getting something changed is neither easy nor are results guaranteed. Here's a personal example ...

One day in the late 1970s, I was reviewing my credit history when I noticed something odd: a Gulf Oil Company credit card I was sure I didn't own. I had applied for and received credit cards from two other gas companies, but I had never gotten one from Gulf. I contacted the credit reporting agency to ask about it, and they said they would remove it from the record if I could prove it wasn't mine. How do I prove a negative, I wanted to know. We'll let you know when we're satisfied, they answered.

Well, I did some digging and made some phone calls and finally figured out what the problem was: there was indeed a Gulf Oil credit card issued - to my father, who has the same name as I, but not the same middle initial. The number on his card matched the number of the card shown on my credit report.

Problem solved, you'd think. Not so.

I notified the credit reporting agency in writing, explaining the error and pointing out that the card in question also showed up on my father's credit report. The agency, however, did not accept my explanation. So my father wrote a letter, too. The agency still maintained the record was accurate and refused to change it.

We went back and forth for nearly a year and I finally gave up. Since I was young and in the first decade of establishing my own credit history, my father's credit was better than my own, and he always paid off that card every month, I figured the heck with it. The Gulf card finally disappeared from my credit history sometime in the mid-1990s.

I tell you this story because I don't trust any of the credit reporting agencies, and neither should you. I realize that they are a necessary evil in a society based on credit, but they lack adult supervision, take no responsibility for the accuracy of the data they hold, and make a lot of money selling the information we we have no choice but to provide them.

Quite a racket, no?

Have a good day. Watch your credit report carefully ... the credit reporting agencies won't.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I remember an ad for a credit card - I think it was BankAmericard (now Visa) back in the days when credit cards were a relatively new thing ... the ad noted how convenient it was to "pay with your good name," as if that were as good as cash on the barrelhead.

** Not to worry, though, with the current administration in power, I'm sure they'll come out all right.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Today's Annoyance: Cash Register Receipts


There's an issue that's been bothering me for a long time that I would like to bring to your attention.

I thought about this most recently when I went yesterday afternoon to the local Big Chain Supermarket to buy one item: a piece of meat for dinner. Amazingly and uncharacteristically enough, I went through the self-service checkout line* with my one item and received a receipt that measured 16-5/8 inches in length. Here's what that super-sized receipt contained:

Documentation of the sale (name and location of the store, store phone numbers, what I bought, price, date, taxes, type of payment, etc) - 7-3/8 inches, 1/2 inch of which told me that I had received "Bonus Buy Savings" for using my "Bonus Card" on the one item I'd bought.

A "Savings Summary" for using my "Bonus Card" - 1/2 inch.

A thank you statement for helping the store raise money for children's cancer research - 1-3/8 inches.

A statement of "Total 2016 Card Savings" - 1-3/8 inches.

A summary of the gas discounts I've earned by using my "Bonus Card" - 2 inches.

The last four digits of my customer number - 1/2 inch.

"Thanks for shopping with us" statement and store URL - 1-3/8 inches.

Trailer with repeated date and time of the sale, number of the sale, and ID of the checkout scanner - 1-3/4 inches.

Total length of receipt: 16-5/8 inches (totals may not be exact because of rounding).

Consider this: if that receipt had simply documented essential information (items purchased, price paid, date, and time), it could have measured about 8-5/8 inches ... half of the original length. How much paper is wasted every day in this one store by printing enormously long register receipts full of information we don't need or care about?

I realize that this may not rank high on the list of things that irritate many Americans. After all, many of our fellow countrymen are busy planning to move to Canada, cheering the diminishment of their freedoms of speech and the press and confirmation of their freedom of armament, or getting drunk on principle. I get that. Nevertheless, it bothers me.

And I probably won't to go to jail because I complained about it, even under the libel laws the new president wants to "open up."

Have a good day. Ask your supermarket how much they pay for all that cash register tape you're paying for.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* And you know how much I love those.

Monday, November 07, 2016

Final Thoughts Before the Election


Tomorrow, people across America will go to the polls to decide which of two flawed candidates will be our next president. If, like me, you're sick of the whole distasteful thing, just skip this post and tomorrow's post and come back in a few days for a return to my usual kvetching about this and that. If, however, you are interested in my final pre-event thoughts on this ugly circus*, read on.

Because I'll be working tomorrow at my local precinct as an election official and am likely to be very busy all day, I voted early ... and with gritted teeth. The candidate for whom I voted was Hillary Clinton, and this is why.

Let me say first of all that, in a more rational political world, I would not have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I would have a choice between two parties fronted by admirable, statesmanlike candidates with honest philosophical differences in their approach to government and a sincere, pragmatic vision for where they would like to take 21st-century America. Sadly, neither party offers such a vision**.

Many people more famous, better-educated, and more intelligent than I have explained in tremendous detail all the reasons Donald Trump is catastrophically unqualified and would be a disastrous choice as president. I'm not going to waste your time reiterating all of them ... I'll just say that anyone who votes for a man like Mr Trump will have to answer for the consequences should he be elected.

Likewise, many famous, better-educated, and more intelligent people have explained in tremendous detail all the reasons Hillary Clinton should not be president. On study and reflection, I find many - if not most - of these reasons to be short-sighted, if not stupid. My main issue with Secretary Clinton is not that she is, either temperamentally or by experience, unqualified to serve as president, but that she displayed staggeringly bad judgement back at the dawn of the home e-mail server controversy. Is she a "congenital liar?" She's a professional politician - it goes with the territory***. Does she belong in jail? Considering that she's never been convicted of anything, no. Benghazi!!! Sure ... let's waste a few million more dollars on more investigations and give Congress another excuse for not doing anything useful.

We are faced with two unappealing choices for president, and two parties that have proven unresponsive to the needs and desires of ordinary Americans who are unable to pay for the Platinum-PlusTM level of representation available to the wealthy and well-connected. A world that used to look to America as a beacon of democracy and common sense is horrified at our epidemic of political and economic foot-shooting.

I voted with gritted teeth for the person I believe is by far the better of two unappealing options, and am not looking forward to the next four years, regardless of who wins.

Have a good day. Vote your conscience and your common sense, but vote. I'll be back after the election.

Bilbo

* I'm reminded of a comment made by a grizzled old lieutenant colonel many years ago when he was forced to march in a change-of-command parade in the broiling sun at Barksdale AFB. Standing behind me in the formation of wing officers that our commander had decreed would lead the parade, the older man grumbled under his breath, "The only difference between this parade and a Shriners' parade is that in a Shriners' parade, the clowns are all smiling."

** You may recall that last month, I brought back a national vision I first proposed back in 2008 - "A prosperous America within secure borders, enjoying peaceful relations with all nations." Wouldn't it have been nice to hear something like that instead of bitter attack ads?

*** How can anyone accuse Hillary Clinton of being a "congenital liar" and not say the same of Donald Trump - a man who not only lies constantly but - when confronted with absolute proof of his lies, simply doubles down and says the same stuff, louder, to cheering crowds?

Thursday, May 26, 2016

American Democracy, 2016


Well, at least Texas showed some rare common sense and didn't elect a complete wacko to the State Board of Education. Perhaps there's hope, but I'm not holding my breath ...


Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for more Great Moments in Editing and Signage. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Good Advice


My latest project is figuring out how to appeal Medicare's decision to make us pay an "income-related monthly adjustment amount (IRMAA)" on top of our Medicare premiums. For some reason known only to the twisted individuals who design programs to inflict the maximum pain on Real People, they have based this adjustment on my "modified adjusted gross income (MAGI)" from two years ago, instead of my greatly reduced income today, when I'm no longer working. I think they use MAGI as a basis for their twisted calculations because it's short for "MAGICIAN," which is the sort of specialist you need to figure it all out.

I'm falling back on this good advice ...


For those of you who don't speak German, it means "Always smile and think positive!" And that picture is just about how positive I look right now.

Have a good day. Winter may not be coming like it is in Westeros, but Medicare is ... and it's equally chilling.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Medical Economics


In the frantic, outraged howling over how the Affordable Care Act (AKA "Obamacare") is destroying the nation, there's a simple issue that gets buried amid the lawsuits and the neverending stream of useless Congressional votes to repeal the law: it represents an attempt, whether one agrees with it or not, to address the serious problem of the cost of health care in this country. I take no position on whether the ACA is good or bad ... nobody will ever agree on that and every side of the argument can marshal vast armies of data, statistics, and apocryphal stories to "prove" that they are correct and everyone else is either a heartless fascist or a dirty commiepinkoratbastard who hates America.

What's lost in the shouting is that this country has the best health care in the world ... but Real People can't afford it.

Allow me to illustrate the point by sharing with you a shocking lesson in medical economics that I learned in the last week.

I have health insurance through my employer with a major HMO (which I will not name here). I have been with this HMO ever since I retired from the Air Force in 1996. On the whole, Agnes and I have been very happy with our care and we have personal physicians we like and trust. It's expensive, but the cost has been bearable and I've always felt we were getting what we paid for.

On January 1st of this year, my employer changed its relationship with our HMO to what's known as a "High Deductible Health Plan," or "HDHP." An HDHP saves the employer money by shifting more of the cost of health care to the employee, who must pay a fairly large amount of money (the "deductible") out of pocket before actually seeing any cost relief; and it supposedly encourages the employee to manage his or her health better by making individual doctor visits and medications much more expensive, thereby discouraging the seeking of treatment until one has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

In December of last year, my doctor prescribed a three-month supply (90 tablets) of a specialized medication for me, for which I paid about $8.00 at the HMO's pharmacy. In early February, after some additional tests, the doctor decided to up my dosage from one to two tablets per day, and told me that when the prescription ran out, he would write a new one for a single tablet with twice the dosage of the medication so that I would only have to take one horse pill per day rather than two. This past Thursday, I went to the HMO pharmacy to pick up the new prescription. I fully expected it to be more expensive, because it was double the strength of the previous one; I went in estimating to pay anywhere from $20-$30 for what had cost me $8.00 two months earlier.

When the pharmacist brought out the new prescription, the cost for 90 tablets was $1275.98 ... an increase of nearly 16 thousand percent from what I had paid just three months earlier. Martin Shkreli would be proud.*

I walked out of the pharmacy without the medication, and with a profound new appreciation of exactly what a high-deductible health plan actually means. I am still trying to figure out how to afford the medication ... and to be fair, my doctor was shocked when I told him about the difference in price, and is working out an alternative approach to my treatment.

So riddle me this, Batman ... what is the point of the world's finest health care system if people cannot afford it? Should medical care follow the usual "charge whatever the market will bear" rules of a capitalist economy, which assume that the price of goods and services will come down to a level that balances the needs of the buyer and the seller? I think that the health care industry is a prime example of why that economic model doesn't work, at least not in all cases.

I don't know what the answer is to making health care affordable for Real People. There are a vast number of moving parts and an equally vast number of stakeholders in the medical care business, all of whom are motivated, in the last analysis, by the need to turn a profit rather than the need to provide affordable care to Real People. Obamacare, whatever its faults, was an attempt to fix it. For all their screaming and bluster, the GOP has yet to offer any comprehensive and workable alternative.

I didn't tell you my story to garner sympathy, but to offer a real-world illustration of the insanity that is our American system of delivering health care. If you have better ideas about how to control costs and deliver quality health care, let your elected reprehensives know. It won't do any good unless accompanied by a large campaign contribution, but you can enjoy the illusion of having tried.


Have a good day. Don't get sick unless you're rich. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Yes, I know that the comparison is not completely accurate, because although it's the same medication, the pills are of a different dosage strength. However, simple math (which clearly does not apply in medical economics) would have suggested that if 90 tablets at a strength of S cost $8.00, 90 tablets of the same medication at a strength of Sx2 might be estimated to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $16. As noted, I was prepared to pay a larger sum of say, $20 to $30 ... but not nearly $1,300.00.

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

One More Pet Peeve ... Maybe the Worst One


In yesterday's post, I talked about three of my pet peeves: telemarketers, rudeness, and single-issue zealots. In an exchange of comments on Facebook, Gonzo Dave suggested robocalls as a pet peeve; when I replied that robocalls deserve an entire post for their own, Dave challenged me to write it, and so ...

For those of you who might possibly be unaware of what they are, robocalls are recorded messages that are automatically dialed from a central location ... think of them as verbal spam. From the point of view of the telemarketer, they're a no-brainer: a low-cost way to pump out high-volume advertising at minimum cost. From the point of view of the political hack, they're wonderful - you record a single message and it can go out to millions of people at once, without the need to spend precious campaign dollars (we all know what short supply they're in) on rooms full of drones to dial numbers and actually interact with Real People.

I loathe telemarketers, but I absolutely despise robocalls. It's gotten to the point at which we won't answer any call that caller ID says is "blocked," "not available," or "out of area." Likewise, we won't pick up a number or name that we don't recognize, and any 800 or 888 number is an automatic reject.

It's also possible for robocallers and telemarketers to spoof your phone ... to make it look as if their call is coming from someone you know, or from an innocuous person or number. I've learned that if I pick up the phone and say "hello," and there is not an immediate reply, I automatically hang up - nine times out of ten it's a robocall, and that little delay is the recording getting ready to play. If you call me and can't identify yourself right away because you have a mouthful of something and I hang up on you, it's nothing personal. Call back after you swallow.

For politicians, robocalls are the ultimate win-win. They don't have to risk being asked embarrassing questions by Real People. They they don't have to worry about anyone noticing that they have no ideas. All they have to do is pump up the jam. All transmit, no receive*. What's not to like?


Robocalls. If they'd been around when Dante was writing about the Inferno, there'd have been another circle of Hell.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Donald Trump doesn't need robocalls, because he's constantly in the transmit mode, anyhow.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Pet Peeves


I've cherry-picked a few topics from various versions of the 30-Day Writing Challenge which I thought I could make interesting enough to share with you, and here's the latest one: "What Are Three of Your Pet Peeves?"

The real challenge is limiting it to only three, since as I've grown older I've found more and more things that irritate me. After considerable thought and introspection, I've come up with these three:

1. Telemarketers. I guess I should be glad that they actually have jobs, but they drive me crazy*. There are three things in particular that get me red in the face:

1a. Telemarketing calls (including charity solicitations) that come in after 8:00 PM. Not everyone goes to bed as early as we do, but common courtesy would tell you not to make an unsolicited call after that time. We often get calls as late as 8:45 PM, which is outrageous.

1b. Any caller who addresses me right off the bat as "William." Yes, it's my name. Yes, it's a good name that I shared with my father. But anyone who is making a cold call and starts off calling me William is, first of all, assuming an undeserved and ungranted familiarity, and second, is obviously someone who does not know enough about me to know that nobody ever calls me by that name. Common courtesy suggests that a solicitation call ought to be polite, starting with something like, "Good evening, this is Joe Blow calling from Blah Blah; may I speak with Mr Bilbo, please?" Unfortunately, the average  telemarketer does not appear to have been instructed in telephone courtesy. When I answer the phone and someone says, "Can I talk to William?", my automatic response is "This is Mr Bilbo speaking, and who is this, please?" This is usually followed by a pregnant pause, which is followed by the traditional recitation of the script, followed by my hanging up the phone.

1c. Any call that begins with "Is William there?" in a booming, commanding voice. Long experience shows that these calls are from the local police benevolent association, and will usually end with a phrase like, "Can we count on you to help out your local police officers?" There are two problems with this one ... first, see 1b above. Second, booming a request for contributions in the commanding voice that police officers and military officers and NCOs are taught to use, even for an otherwise worthy charity, automatically triggers my who-the-hell-are-you-to-talk-to-me-that-way reaction, and guarantees either a polite refusal or a simple hang-up.

2. Rudeness. My parents were the most polite and courteous of people, and tried to pass that attitude on to us. Unfortunately, many people nowadays seem to think that politeness and courtesy aren't necessary, and are even undesirable because they don't build "street cred" or demonstrate a properly aggressive or dominating attitude. These people are idiots. My own evolved philosophy of personal conduct is to be polite and pleasant to everyone until they demonstrate that it's not reciprocated ... at that point, I can be just as much of a jerk as anyone. Well, except perhaps Donald Trump or Kanye West.

3. Single-Issue Crazies. If the only thing you care about is your right to unlimited armament, or your opposition to abortion, or the fundamental wrongness of Obamacare, or whatever, please shut up. The world's problems are not solved by a laser focus on symptoms rather than causes. I've written at least twice (here and here) on the need to address our various problems as parts of an interconnected whole. The analogies I like to use are the old children's song about "the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone/the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone," and the visual image of a partially-inflated balloon that bulges out in different places depending on where and how strongly you squeeze it. One of my long-term projects is a very large chart (growing by the day) that tries to show how all the various problems we have in the world are interconnected ... my grand idea is that by showing this interconnectedness**, we can try to think in terms of solutions that address common causes rather than symptoms. If you're interested in seeing a copy of my work-in-progress, e-mail me with a return e-mail address and I'll send you a copy (pdf or MS-Word doc) for your review and comment.

So, Dear Readers, those are my three pet peeves for today. Do you have one or two to share? Leave a comment so I'll know what not to do when we eventually meet in person.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* According to Agnes, that's not a drive ... it's just a short putt.

** Is this a word? I think I could get about 250 points for it in Scrabble.

Monday, November 03, 2014

Passwords


We all know that the Internet is a wild and wooly place, full of morons who think it's great fun to screw with your data, criminals who want to steal your identity, and spies who work very hard to steal trade and national secrets stored online. How do we protect ourselves?

One way is with the good old, trusty, password. You know: that combination of letters, numbers, and "special characters" that is supposed to keep the bad guys out. If you're lucky.

But let's face it: passwords are a pain in the neck. Ones that are easy to for you to remember are also easy for the virtual douchebags to guess, and ones that are complex and difficult for bad guys to figure out are also impossible for you to remember. And you have to have dozens of them, because the security experts tell you that you should never use the same password for more than one network or website, because if it's compromised it will give the slimeballs access to lots of things you'd rather protect.


At work, I have accounts on five ... five ... different networks. Each network requires a different login and password for access, and once I'm on a given network, most of the websites I need to visit have their own logins and passwords.

And the rules for generating passwords are different on each network and for each website. Some require as few as six characters (upper or lower case letters, numbers, or "special characters"), and some 15 or more. Some will reject a password that contains a word found in the dictionary, or more than three of any sort of character in a row, or a password that duplicates any of your last 25. Some require certain numbers or combinations of characters at certain points within the password (such as two "special characters" within the first five places).

It's enough to drive you crazy. Of course, in my case it's only a short putt, but that's not important now.

Here's a typical set of password generation rules:

"All passwords must contain a minimum of 137 characters and contain at least 28 lower-case letters, 29 upper-case letters, 11 digits (no two the same), 3 special characters, 5 punctuation symbols, 2 Cyrillic characters, four Egyptian hieroglyphs (not including the left-facing hawk or the Eye of Horus, which are reserved), 14 wingdings, 13 hexagons**, 11 imaginary numbers, 18 consonants, 7 dipthongs*, 12 Latin adjectives, 8 Sanskrit nouns, 4 subjunctives, a dangling participle, and the Batman symbol. Your password must not be evenly divisible by 2 or H. Upper and lower case letters must appear in groups of three and be separated by at least three prime numbers or Chinese pictograms. You may not reuse any of your previous 596 passwords, your new password may not contain any words in Old Church Slavonic or High Valyrian, and will be valid for no longer than 30 days. We will begin reminding you to change it three days from now."

And people wonder why my hair is gray and I drool a lot.

I remember the good old days, when "Password" was a fun television game show ...



... and not a way to drive you crazy ...


Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow ... if I can remember my Blogger desktop password.

Bilbo

* In this instance, "hexagon" does not refer to the outcome of a successful exorcism.

** No, this does not refer to extremely revealing bathing suits.


Monday, June 02, 2014

How to Irritate a Curmudgeon


I appear to be the victim of a behavioral paradox. On the one hand, as I get older, I'm getting a little more mellow about some things ... but on the other hand, as I get older there seem to be more things that piss me off more than they used to. Here are a few of the things that get under my skin more and more of late ...

Self-righteous ass clowns*.

People who absolutely believe that theirs is the One True Religion, insist on trying to convert me to it, and tell me that I'm damned for all eternity if I believe any other way.

People in checkout lines who wait until their entire two-cart order has been rung up before realizing that they have to pay for all that stuff ... and then hold up the line while they search for their checkbook, a credit card with a usable balance on it, or loose cash hidden in the bottom of their purses or the depths of their pockets. And who then sift through their purchases, removing things until they get the total bill down to the amount they can afford. And they're probably in the "Ten Items or Less" line, too.

People who take up more than one parking place, particularly when the lot is very crowded. Special recognition goes to people who park over the intersection of four spaces to prevent lesser beings from accidentally touching their prize vehicles.

People who leave one sixty-fourth of an inch of coffee in the bottom of the pot and slink away without making a fresh pot.

Two-faced narcissistic dirtbags who pretend to be everybody's best friend, but treat their families shabbily, see nothing wrong with it, and accuse you of having a problem by pointing it out. Some of you will know who I'm talking about.

People who second-guess me. It's really irritating to hear, "Why did you do that? Why didn't you do this?"

Members of Congress who sit in their lofty committee seats and loudly berate witnesses for their shortcomings (especially while the cameras are rolling), but can't be bothered to do their own jobs (unless kissing the backsides of major campaign contributors is considered part of the job).

Tim Wilson has the right idea (send the children out of the room before you play the video ... really):



Those are a few ways you can irritate this curmudgeon. There are a lot more, but you get the idea. Please don't feel obligated to try any of them out.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Mainly hard-right conservatives who are dead certain that they are the only ones who know exactly what the Founders meant about everything.