55F and 77%RH here this am, mostly clear. So, cool and damp.
Made some progress last night on the OFD project. I got the eye tracker actually tracking! Took a series of reboots, updates, cable swaps, card insertions and basically a lot of voodoo. The process is absolutely opaque. The error messages are less than useless. “Hmm, we had a problem, you should contact us.” is a typical one.
I did eventually get it to go thru it’s demo, and use it for a few minutes with Optikey. Lots of jitter, so I watched some instructional videos. After that, the eyetracker went into an endless loop “updating firmware.”
More work to do obviously. From the youtube demos, it’s a slick, working, proven solution. Just have to get it working with this lappy and card. I may try it on my desktop to make sure where the issue is later tonight.
I will be out and about most of the day, so talk amongst yourselves…..
n
Thanks for your efforts for OFD on our behalf, Nick!
Nick,
That is a lot of work to go through. Thanks for doing it.
Just figured out my credit union had been paying the wrong interest rate on an IRA CD for the last 10 years. So I went the credit union to get it resolved. First person could not resolve the issue so I asked for a manager. After some explaining by me the manager agreed I was correct, they were incorrect. They used my figures to make up the difference of about $300.00.
I also asked if there were early withdrawal penalties when mandatory distribution kicks in to satisfy the IRS. Nope. No penalties if the withdrawal is required by law. The 4% required by the IRS is calculated on the balance on January 1 of the tax year.
Which makes me wonder how Mr. Lynn is going to withdraw 4% each year of his land property that is in an IRA when he reaches 70.5.
I will be out and about most of the day, so talk amongst yourselves…..
I am driving down to Victoria to take my 79 year old dad to the “Black Panther” movie in a few minutes. Sugar Land to Victoria is actually a nice 120 mile drive once you get out of Fort Bend County (the $1.6 billion widening and conversion of hwy 59 to I-69 that is going from four lanes to 16 lanes -> 14 lanes -> 12 lanes for 30 miles).
Which makes me wonder how Mr. Lynn is going to withdraw 4% each year of his land property that is in an IRA when he reaches 70.5.
Simple. That is not my only IRA. I have $200K in my Fidelity IRA (until the stock market crashes). And, I am 57, turning 58 in a couple of months. Should I reach the age of 70.5 (highly doubtful with my heart condition), I plan to have at least $500K in my Fidelity IRA. IRA distributions are the least of my problems at this point in my life.
Actually, I may distribute that land in my IRA to myself someday after I turn 59.5. Then I can build a business on it (this area needs a stop-n-rob XXXXXXXXX gas station real bad).
I hope you talked all the way through it. Fair’s fair.
Actually, I may distribute that land in my IRA to myself someday after I turn 59.5. Then I can build a business on it (this area needs a stop-n-rob XXXXXXXXX gas station real bad).
In Portland, the hands-down favorite stop-n-rob among the criminal set is Plaid Pantry.
It didn’t seem like a weekend without the Fox news leading with a shooting at a Plaid Pantry in East Portland or Gresham.
Maybe you could get the first Texas franchise.
Think college students are privileged? Nearly a third are hungry and homeless
This is unbelievable, just not in the way the author intended.
(h/t: Drudge)
You are supposed to be poor and struggling in college. The “starving college student” is a whole meme…
During one summer I had a $5/week food budget. That covered a loaf of white bread, hot dogs (generic), store brand mac and cheese and some other little bits and pieces. We bought beer for $5 a case, and yes it was unbranded swill.
We picked up extra money wherever we could, moving Professors’ offices was easy work and paid pretty well. My roommate worked as a male stripper.
During another year, I worked at a White Castle rip off called Coastal Castle. I ate a LOT of sliders. Sometimes during closing, I’d go into the freezer and eat a dozen before they froze. I built a tv shelf and repaired the door for a local bar/deli. They paid me with a tab. One particularly bad week I dug up the coins from the floor vent in my mobile home and went to the wings place for some 10c wings. The guy GAVE ME a bucket that had been ordered but not picked up. That got me thru the week. If we were flush, we’d eat at the Holiday Inn bar, where they had 10c wings and dollar beers. $5 would fill you up. When we weren’t, I ate onion slices on toast sandwiches. I can’t stand the smell of ramen noodles. Baked chicken thighs was a LUXURY.
In grad school, I was eating less than a thousand calories a day. I was starving and could barely keep my eyes open. I only made it for a semester.
At some point I discovered credit cards and went nuts buying food and drinks. Got myself in real trouble but didn’t go hungry after that.
The flip side was working. I was doing pick up gigs, and working for minimum wage for the Uni for a couple hours every day. After I quit the Uni gig, I was working part time, making good money, and doing freelance on the side. I was working more than 40hrs a week and my classes suffered. Why was I working so much to pay for school, when I was doing poorly because of working so much?
Learning the time, money, and interpersonal skills that I did during those years was CRITICAL to my later success. Learning to cook, learning to find work, to work hard and impress people, learning not to let them down, and learning the hard lesson of credit, all led to my successes later. I wouldn’t be who I am without all that.
Fuking kids today.
n
(and I recommend restaurant kitchen work for the low on funds. There is always food in the kitchen.)
The article seemed to be implying the need for the extension of the school lunch (and, in some places, breakfast) programs to the college years–this in the era of $150.00-$250.00 textbooks and tens of of thousands in yearly tuition costs.
Something just doesn’t add up. 🙁
My first school went to a ‘meal card’ with a pre-purchased amount loaded on the card. They discovered that people had excess money at the end of the year, and were selling it at a discount to others who had run out. So they raised prices in the cafeterias to use up more of the pre-paid amount. You didn’t get any extra FOOD, but you used more money.
My second school (and third) I lived off campus and paid for everything myself. I was always almost broke. You COULD work your way thru though. Karl Denninger has run the numbers and shown why that’s not really true anymore. The schools just suck up every dime of alternative funding, while giving less and less to the students. Couple that with kids who shouldn’t be there, who don’t have any money skills (either earning or effectively using), and who were sold a bill of goods. The grant money NEVER covers everything. The school still gets paid no matter what happens to the kid though. If the school keeps them from dropping out for another semester by stringing them along with a food pantry, they school gets PAID. Student goes deeper into debt, has the lost opportunity of gaining work experience, and ultimately ends up a failure, with the proof being that they couldn’t cut it in Uni. Drugs and alcohol don’t help either.
nick
bedtime for bonzo
n
(won’t be long before NO ONE understands that….)
At Vandenberg AFB in the mid ’60s there were a couple of old Warrant Officers and a another couple of Chief Master Sergeants that wore that summer uniform every summer. No one complained officially as it was in the regulations. They didn’t wear it every day but they did were it regularly. You didn’t mess with them.
You didn’t mess with them.
Nope, just like you didn’t mess with E8s or E9s. They generally had enough years under their belts, had enough connections, knew who to contact that you just left them alone. In some ways they had more power and authority than the colonels on the base. The colonels just issued the orders recommended by those guys.
When my friend and I tried the summer shorts uniforms we were just two stripers, fodder for the officers trying to look important, not much higher than pond scum.
I went direct duty assignment and skipped tech school. After a couple of months I got sent to Sheppard AFB for advanced tech school, still had my single stripe. Many times I got mistaken for a pipeline student and would get my knickers ripped until I had a chance to show my orders.
I went into one mess hall to eat lunch. An E7 got up from his table and proceeded to chew me out for being in an unauthorized mess hall. Pipeline students could only use certain mess halls. That clod proceeded to chew me up one side and down the other rather loudly. After a couple of minutes of that the mess sergeant showed up and asked what was the trouble. I showed the mess sergeant my orders at which point the mess sergeant threw the E7 out of the mess hall.
Having to spend three weeks in advanced tech school such encounters were fairly common. I would get stopped walking around base because I was not in a formation. Had to show my orders. I got stopped in base exchange, just about anywhere that some SGT thought I should no be located. Had I known the issues I would have delayed attending the tech school until I had my second stripe.
The others in the tech school all E5, E6 and one E7, some transferring from aircraft maintenance so they could have a skill when they got out of the service. Most of them were incredibly incompetent and I was the most advanced in the class. Only been in the USAF four months and already more competent than the others. It was scary that these other E5s, E6s and the lone E7 were going to be supervising people such as myself.
Re starving college kids: The
spokesweenieassistant dean of students notes that the college needs to do something for the kids. Of course, firing most of the deadweight administration (probably including spokesweenie) and slashing tuition costs is nowhere on the radar.I had it comparatively easy in college, because I was in a work-study program, and the job paid well enough. Tuitions were more reasonable in those days, and I paid my own. My mother paid my dental bills, but (iirc) that was all. My father passed away in my Freshman year, so I declared myself “independent”, which meant reduced tuition. This was a bit of a joke: you had to be independent for two years, then you would get the reduction starting in the third year. So I paid a bit less in my last year.
I went to school in the early-mid ’90s on Uncle’s dime. Well, sort of. GI bill of the day. It covered most of the tuition. I worked 40-60hrs/week in a shop to cover living expenses. I learned the value of credit (negative) during the time AFTER school. Too bad I didn’t learn it earlier. I also learned that I like being on my own.
At the time I went to school, things seemed pretty lean. One guy in the vets’ assistance office to take care of our issues (mainly the paperwork to delay tuition until the GI Bill check came in.) After the first 4 years, I paid my own out of savings, as I took 4.5 years to graduate. (Taking 12-15 credits at a time will delay graduation.)
Now I have a friend who works there on a magazine to promote the school. She serves no purpose other than to promote the school. Staff is 2-3x what it was back then, and instead of being engineering & math, it’s all that and liberal arts to boot. All of the buildings are now air-conditioned, and the ADA has ruined the architecture of some beautiful old buildings. It expands every year, and the quality of the graduates is dropping every year.
Ah – now I’m depressing myself.
The sad state of affairs is that there are too many people with no work ethic (let alone skills) and no feeling of personal responsibility.
I conjecture that many of us on this board can relate to $5 or less a week to live on when at school. Too often, too long my staple was potatoes, bologna, white bread, and 59¢ six pack beer(?). Oh, and don’t forget the ketchup and hot sauce. When I could find cheap eggs I would get them. Picking up extra jobs was a regular occurrence.
When I was in Classroom Nuke Power School in Vallejo CA, one of the instructors (an Officer, Lieutenant Commander,O4) was moving and he asked three of us to help him load and unload a U-Haul. He reminded us that as an Officer he could not “ask”/require an Enlisted person to do personal work for him, so no pressure, but we would get out of a weekend Field Day. Sure. It was a long hard two days of work, but he bought us breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day and when we were done we each got $50 cash and a chit at the local Submariners Bar that was good for a lot of beer and wings. Not just because of the job and “pay”, but that Officer was one of the best I ever met and had the pleasure of associating with. BTW, he was a Mustang so he had the extra credibility of having walked in our shoes.
My first duty assignment was at Langley AFB working for HQ TAC. Lot of high ranking officers would come and go during my time at Langley. I helped moved several generals stuff in and out of their housing. A couple of them paid us nothing, they were jerks. One of those being General Momeyer who was the commander of TAC. Also got official duty (as in assigned detail) mowing his yard where we sat around until 11:00 AM until his wife was out of bed. I disliked him.
The other generals were generally good. They would bring pizza and hamburgers for us to eat, beer to drink (which I did not drink), soda for the others. Most would pay us $50 or better. One general paid everyone $200.00 each which was almost a months pay. There were five of us and we thought we won the lottery.
One general had a party at his house on a Saturday. Myself and one other person got asked if we would like to park cars for the attendees. Would last from 6:00 PM until about 2:00 AM. A long day evening. We agreed and would get a $5.00 tip from the vehicle owners when we retrieved their vehicles so they could go home. I often wonder if the general told the other officers to tip the vehicle handlers. I think I made about $75.00 for the evening.
Doing off duty stuff for many of these officers was considered a job and there was often a waiting list for people wanting to do the jobs. In my case it helped being friends with the person that maintained the list as he was my boss.
@ Ray
I’m sure it’s just me but I’m not sure how to read that.