Please match the following items (1 from column B and one from column A.) The result will describe my day thus far.
ANSWER: A-B; C-D.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Buh-bye Facebook
It's been six months since I parted with Facebook. I still have a profile there, and I can still access messages through my Messenger app, but I don't read anything except messages, and I don't post anything.
Except for when I'm thinking about the cute pictures of babies I'm missing and the invitation to someone's Turducken party I don't have yet, I don't miss it.
A forum poster from way back in the 80s, at graduate school (my school being on the Internet before most) , I still find it a little strange that I hate Facebook so much. In graduate school, I met all my friends online through "forums", or what we called "conferences." If you wanted to read what was new in the conference, you signed on and scrolled down a list of topics and there was some kind of symbol or alert that let you know which topics had been added to. If you wanted to read that topic, you opened it and could read all the posts on that topic. Then you had a choice with each post you read: Answer (or something like that); Pass; and Forget. I thought the Forget command was essential to the whole deal. If you "Forgot" something you would never see it again unless you actively did something to "un" forget it. (Kind of like the "hide" prompt oon Facebook).
Years later I began participating in the Amazon Reviewers forum and met some incredibly good friends there.
So why do I hate Facebook so much? Let me count the ways.
Except for when I'm thinking about the cute pictures of babies I'm missing and the invitation to someone's Turducken party I don't have yet, I don't miss it.
A forum poster from way back in the 80s, at graduate school (my school being on the Internet before most) , I still find it a little strange that I hate Facebook so much. In graduate school, I met all my friends online through "forums", or what we called "conferences." If you wanted to read what was new in the conference, you signed on and scrolled down a list of topics and there was some kind of symbol or alert that let you know which topics had been added to. If you wanted to read that topic, you opened it and could read all the posts on that topic. Then you had a choice with each post you read: Answer (or something like that); Pass; and Forget. I thought the Forget command was essential to the whole deal. If you "Forgot" something you would never see it again unless you actively did something to "un" forget it. (Kind of like the "hide" prompt oon Facebook).
Years later I began participating in the Amazon Reviewers forum and met some incredibly good friends there.
So why do I hate Facebook so much? Let me count the ways.
Crazy Bernie!
Everytime I hear someone call Bernie Sanders "Crazy Bernie" I remember those '70s and '80s appliance commercials where the owner or local manager is admitting to being certifiable because of the sales he's offering. "Everyone says to me 'That's CRAZY!' But that's what I am, so that's what I'm doing!"
I guess it fits pretty well. Picture a warehouse with boxes labelled, "Tuition", "Health Care", "Humongous unemployment benefits", "Vacations", "Big Paychecks for Inexperienced Workers", etc. There's Bernie standing in front! "They say I'm CRAZY to do this! Well, I AM! That's why I'm giving this all up for FREE! Be sure to vote for Crazy Bernie to get free tuition!"
Of course, in the case of Crazy Joe's or Crazy George's appliances, the producers of the commercial (and most people who watched it) knew that nothing George or Joe was giving up was going to get into the hands of consumers free or even "at wholesale", or without someone either making a profit or eating the cost and passing on to consumers later. Bernie's followers seem to really believe that their free stuff will really be free. They won't see--at least until tax time; and maybe not even then if they're not paying attention, that somehow or another, they will pay. If not with income taxes, with increased taxes elsewhere. The idea that Bill Gates and Billary (who love to remind us that taxes should be for THEM, the ROYALTY, and not for the LITTLE PEOPLE) are going to pay for it all is nonsense. (And why should they anyway? And if they want to why don't they just send you a check for your tuition so they don't take my money?)
In Bernie's case the only promise he will be able to keep if he gets his way is illustrated in a popular twitter meme these days: You'll get 52 weeks of free vacation, when your employer is bankrupted after paying for all your other "free stuff".
I guess it fits pretty well. Picture a warehouse with boxes labelled, "Tuition", "Health Care", "Humongous unemployment benefits", "Vacations", "Big Paychecks for Inexperienced Workers", etc. There's Bernie standing in front! "They say I'm CRAZY to do this! Well, I AM! That's why I'm giving this all up for FREE! Be sure to vote for Crazy Bernie to get free tuition!"
Of course, in the case of Crazy Joe's or Crazy George's appliances, the producers of the commercial (and most people who watched it) knew that nothing George or Joe was giving up was going to get into the hands of consumers free or even "at wholesale", or without someone either making a profit or eating the cost and passing on to consumers later. Bernie's followers seem to really believe that their free stuff will really be free. They won't see--at least until tax time; and maybe not even then if they're not paying attention, that somehow or another, they will pay. If not with income taxes, with increased taxes elsewhere. The idea that Bill Gates and Billary (who love to remind us that taxes should be for THEM, the ROYALTY, and not for the LITTLE PEOPLE) are going to pay for it all is nonsense. (And why should they anyway? And if they want to why don't they just send you a check for your tuition so they don't take my money?)
In Bernie's case the only promise he will be able to keep if he gets his way is illustrated in a popular twitter meme these days: You'll get 52 weeks of free vacation, when your employer is bankrupted after paying for all your other "free stuff".
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