"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Five Year Rule? Five years after kids move out, whatever they behind is yours to do with as you will, right?
OK. Just checking. . .
Old, discarded tech; office equipment/supplies; clothing; stuffed toys; bedding; artwork: all on the block, headed for the tip, donated; entering common household use as OURS, now. Whatev’. ‘s’way it goes. . .
Or should I say, “Once more Mediacom sucks dead bunnies”?
So, last week, the two “strongarm tactics” digital decryption devices that Mediacom lies about, calling them “digital tuners” arrived and did not work. The “20 minute” updates they reported requiring never happened, so yesterday, replacement devices arrived (because that’s the only “solution” Mediacom had) and today. . . I get no functionality from them, either.
Oh, they report needing and update and breeze through “updating” and then. . . “We have detected an interruption in your service. . . ”
Mmmk. Disconnected the device from OUR network entirely. Connected it DIRECTLY to Mediacom’s line in–outside, no less.
Same thing. So, not our wiring, not our problem.
Mediacom non-existant, so-called “tech support” tried resetting the device from their end. At their direction, I (once again!) rebooted their lil device. Nothing. Same error report.
Until Mediacom’s encryption *gagamaggot* “service” *gagamaggot* goes into effect July 1, the digital tuners on our TVs will still work (yes, I have a digital-only channel tuned now via the TV’s tuner, so the signal’s fine; it’s just Mediacom’s crappy “tuner” devices and implementation).
It’s definitively all on Mediacom’s end.
One word mis-usage I find trending strongly of late is the misuse of “bring” for “take.” It’s an easy (and extremely useful) distinction to make; simplified: bring HERE; take THERE. When someone uses it to say they will “bring [something somewhere]” (or a close variation) to mean they will TAKE [something somewhere], it’s a pretty clear sign that they aren’t really literate . . . OR have been spending WAY too much time in the company of illiterates and have succumbed to their bad influence.
“My brakes are acting up. I’m going to bring it in tomorrow to find out what’s wrong,” only semi-works IF the speaker is at the mechanic’s at the time of speaking (or is speaking to the mechanic about bringing it to him. Of course, if one were AT the mechanic’s at the time and had bad brakes, it’d be foolish not to leave the car at that time). If one were NOT at the mechanic’s and NOT speaking to him but to a third party, then “bring” is just stupid in that context.
Puzzle out those funny lil squiggles? Maybe. Understand the meaning those funny lil squiggles are intended to convey? Being able to put on paper (or in electronic “ink”) some funny lil squiggles that actually contain meaning with any clarity at all? It’s a crapshoot for college grads nowadays.
Sidebar: given the evidence of swelling illiteracy in our society, it seems obvious that spending billions and billions of dollars to add administration jobs to “education” doesn’t appear to be improving education.
The problem with self-pub? Whole HERDS of 20-something illiterate liberal arts graduates “writing” books for a “readership” of their peers. The sheer depth of their cultural, historical and LITERARY illiteracy (grammar atrocities, word misuse, COMPLETE misunderstanding of background and usage of common expressions, etc., etc.) is mind-boggling. It’s too late to lobotomize them. They’ve already done such a good job on themselves, already.
(Yes, there are a few who actually either know how to use a dictionary and form moderately coherent sentences. . . or else have gone outside their cohort and enlisted the aid of the rare literate proofreader/editor to clean up their glurge.)
Yeh, yeh. Dylan Thomas said it best (though about a different kind of death): “Rage, rage against the dying of the light. . . ” *heh*
I do NOT watch AM TV. . . well, I do not, as a general rule. But. Well, my Wonder Woman is off work today and so morning TV (completely absent anything appropriate for Memorial Day, of course) is on. Blonde Bimbo is attempting to channel her inner 13-year-old “Valley Girl,” complete with the “Listen to me Do I sound stupid or what?” inflections and Robin’s Egg Blue nail polish.
*gagamaggot*
I pointed out the nail polish to my Wonder Woman (school librarian, so look out for the pun). She told me that when she sees girls with blue nail polish she takes their hands and says something like, “Oh, honey, we have to work on your circulation, because your fingers are turning blue!”
*heh*
The Blonde Bimbo Valley Girl on GMA yaks like the circulation problem has caused even deeper problems with her lobotomy. . .
The Chobani commercial where it looks like the guy apparently has a cow for a GF is just weird.
Why do people speak of “reading” a book they listened to via Audible? No, cupcake, you did NOT read that book.
Even if it means just being smart enough to know when to quit.
Example: Moving a piano.
When the right equipment is used and the piano is properly prepared for the move, two (reasonably healthy) guys are all that’s needed, but heaven help folks trying to move a piano w/o the proper equipment and mental “muscle,” because physics surely will not. My last “piano move” 20 years ago: good equipment, me, a 12-y.o. boy and a 14-y.o. girl (both a couple of standard deviations above the mean and able to take direction very well). Moved the piano out and loaded into truck. Arrival at destination? It took me and three inexperienced guys who apparently were not as bright as my two kids to move it in and set it up. ‘S’truth.
Nowadays, I’m smart enough to know that–at my age and physical condition–hiring someone would be better, because despite knowing how to move one, I’m just getting to be too old for the gig. *sigh*
Disclaimer: I strongly dislike the corruption of “meme” to indicate some pithy (and usually plain flat wrong, or at least deceptive) propaganda presented as a graphic-quote.
meme: An element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.
That’s the primary definition, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and–mirabile dictu!–Wikipedia even gets it right in its article on Memetics.
Still, here’s a highly deceptive Internet “meme” *gagamaggot*
Well, the numbers are highly slanted, though the underlying concept is fairly sound. The “time at home vs. time at school” is a false metric. Time under parental instruction/admonition/example vs time under influence by the schools would be a better way to compare things. Time at home/ostensibly under parental influence (admonition/instruction/example) is ~3,000 hours less than depicted, just from time “lost” to normal nightly sleep alone. And time under the influence of school is around 50% more than depicted above (ex: our local school district does NOT have the kids for only 5 hours per day for a state-mandated 180 days/year–or 900 hours; that’s just silly “math”), not even counting school-sponsored extracurricular activities supervised by teaching staff and Summer School (another month-long instructional period that, at least in our local district, is HIGHLY attended) OR the time lost to parental supervision accounted for in busing kids to and from school.
Still, it’s quite obvious to me that parents SHOULD exercise the greatest influence on their children’s upbringing, and when one observes kids in school or other settings, it’s almost always quite easy to tell which parents are really parenting their children.
Just did a lil bit more number crunching, with input from my school librarian Wonder Woman. Yes, not counting extra-curricular school-sponsored activities, bus time, etc., parents do (or should) have a bit more than three times the amount of conscious time influencing their children than schools do, over the course of a year, not nearly nine times, as the quote in the graphic deceptively states. AND, children are (or should be) primarily the parents’ responsibility to raise “in the nurture and admonition” of [parental values]. Unfortunately, parents (and “parents”) DO raise their children to hold their values, pretty much, just by example alone, whether they plan to or not. For many “parents” that means abdicating responsibility. . . for darned near everything.
Of course, I am firmly of the opinion that (conscious) time “under the influence of their own parents” should include a LOT of “free play” for grade/elementary school kids–time when they can explore, invent, and just goof off on their own or with other kids. Many (MANY) young kids (grade/elementary school age and younger) today spend WAY too much time in structured activities, and far, far too little time just being kids. The “influence” exerted by parents who give their kids such time can be that of encouraging responsibility, liberty and creativity, among other virtues (the reader is invited to consider others).
It’s a wide open field, and someone has to fill it: Performance artist whose medium is pi$$ed-off a$$hats.