09:07 – That pot of “weak” coffee I made yesterday–weak as in 40 g/L versus the standard 55 to 62 g/L–almost killed me. I ended up drinking half the pot before throwing the rest out, because I was sitting at my keyboard shaking. I figured out why when I checked the caffeine content of various beverages. My normal Coke Classic has about 94 mg/L. Although I didn’t do an assay to get actual concentration, the coffee I made has about 10 times that much.
I’m trying to figure out how to help our friend Kim. She is totally and permanently disabled from a back injury that occurred while she was working for USPS when she lived in NYC. Until a year or two ago, she was getting USPS disability in addition to SS disability. USPS decided she was no longer disabled, and ceased paying her monthly disability, which was most of her income. She’s gone through several appeals, and the other day she got a notice in the mail that USPS had made a final denial of her claim. She called her attorney, who told her that she can file a final appeal, but it’ll cost a lot and he doesn’t hold out much hope for its success. She’d have to pay a filing fee of $500 to start this final appeal, and her attorney’s retainer would be $1,000. That’s just the beginning, however, and he said the cost could really mount up if he has to travel to Washington, DC for the appeal. She’s done everything she can, and USPS has now told her that she has to report to work. In NYC, yet.
I suggested to Kim earlier in the appeals process that she consider just dropping it because she isn’t going to win. Which sucks, because if there’s ever been someone who is disabled, it’s Kim. I even wrote a letter to the judge on her behalf, stating that I’d known Kim since she moved to Winston-Salem in 2001 after 9/11, that I’d seen and talked to her literally thousands of times since then, and that I attested that Kim was in fact physically disabled and unable to do even light physical labor. Others in the neighborhood wrote similar letters on her behalf, but none of them did any good.
So I suggested to Kim that she consider starting an e-Bay/Internet business. I used the example of a woman who apparently makes a living selling full-page ads from old magazines for $10 or more each. I’m going to mention it again, and if she’s interested offer to help Kim do stuff like get a domain name registered, get her domain hosted on my account, set up a PayPal/eBay account, do a storefront, and so on.
No wonder Russians still flee to America.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/11/03/russian-monument-to-steve-jobs-taken-down-after-apple-ceo-cook-says-he-is-gay/
Bad math joke:
http://joegp.com/halfcut/
Worse than most people will notice. See the non-mathematical reflection in the glass…
Speaking of jokes, I did get a laugh out of Kim yesterday with:
Guy and his buddy are hunting in the woods when his buddy grabs his chest and collapses. Guy rushes over and sees that buddy isn’t breathing, so he calls 911 on his cell phone.
Guy: “Me and my buddy were hunting quail in the woods when he collapsed. I think he had a heart attack. I think he’s dead!”
911 Operator: “Calm down, calm down. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
Guy: “Wait one…” and drops cell phone.
The next thing she hears is, “BLAM! BLAM, BLAM, BLAM!” and then the guy picking up the cell phone again.
Guy: “Okay. What now?”
Bob, you said you were trying to figure out how to help Kim, and I came across the video that I’m linking below. I am tempted to conclude that the video is literally incredible. It’s about one guy who tried Diamond Dallas Page’s version of Yoga. Supposedly yoga helped pro wrestler Diamond Dallas Page recover from a back injury and helped some disabled veteran change his life. I am skeptical of anything even remotely connected to professional wrestling. However, I have no better idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448
It’s easy to say “start an Internet business”, but Kim needs something to sell that people want to buy. That is a non-trivial hurdle. Setting up the technical stuff is easy by comparison.
Wow, good catch on the mirror image.
I spoke too soon about the ‘losing my desktop’ disaster curing the Libre Office freeze-ups. Just had a 15 second lockup in LO Writer. Funny thing is that it was okay, but yesterday, an update for the whole LO suite came through. Hmm. I have not been that afraid of Linux updates as I was M$’s, but maybe I should be.
Of course that’s true, and I’ll talk to Kim about that, but it’s obviously something she needs to figure out for herself. I can help her with the stuff that’s easy for me but hard for her, but ultimately she has to be the master of her own destiny.
Bob, about Kim.
You don’t say if she was clerical, mail handler or carrier. She’s not the first one this has happened to.
Most likely, she was either not in the union or did not continue to pay union dues after being disabled. Those are the people that the union, either NRLCA OR NALC, will throw under the bus when trying to negotiate a contract with USPS. Watched it happen with some of my co-workers when I was a rural carrier. Even though one of them kept their dues up, the union only went to bat 3 times before throwing up their hands and saying “We tried. Sorry.”
I’ll even hazard a guess that they denied her disability because she was not reporting regularly to the approved
quackdoctor in NYC. Had 2 RCs in Madison during the 10 years I was there that had that happen to them after they moved to another state and missed appointments at the approved clinic in Alabama. This was even though one of them had gotten approval to transfer to a clinic in their new home state.Main thing is that USPS knows for a fact the most common injuries are back, wrist and rotator cuff and they want to get them off the rolls as a continuing non-productive expense, especially if they are also receiving SSI disability.
One suggestion for her that might or might not work. It won’t cost any money to ask your representative or senator to inquire about the matter in DC. It’s a long shot, but every once in a while it has been known to work.
If she’s at least 55 and has enough time in she might want to look at just filing for USPS retirement. It won’t be as much per month as waiting until 60 or 65, but based on life expectancy, she’ll wind up with more dollars over all by filing early.
Yet another illustration on how while many of us are basically just treading water to stay afloat in this country and this economy, we are one major illness or injury or layoff from near poverty. One of my brothers down in MA has been supporting himself, our sister, and her son for twelve years now and despite working in IT throughout, he’s also been laid off a couple of times and is now looking again because his company is dead set on outsourcing all their tech support roles to overseas, period. Meanwhile he works a second job as a security guard, ’cause he’s struggling to pay the utilities and their back taxes as well. He’s up for an overnight NOC job in Boston and sez “everyone there is working two jobs.” Another brother is only working a p.t. help desk job down there now after 30 years as a UNIX pro and his wife had to go from three days a week to four and then five, with two daughters in college.
Luckily for us our son is doing swell down there and making well over six figures but again, he’s the sole support and they have three kids and are paying more in rent than we are for our mortgage. Luckily again our daughter is at a Canadian university and it costs us one-fifth of what my youngest brother is paying for his two daughters out in Kalifornia. He’s been at the same real estate insurance company for over 20 years and apparently does OK and his wife works p.t. from home and he loathes his job and the people he works with. Also a prostate cancer survivor.
I just need a 2-3-year job window here where we can pay our taxes off (and get a good tax lawyer meantime), fix some stuff at the house, and transition into something else.
The current IT “career” field: what used to be a drone operator is now a “systems” or “network” administrator, and should be highly skilled in an alphabet soup of acronyms. What used to be a sys admin is now an engineer, with the aforementioned skillz PLUS years of advanced experience in each of another couple of dozen acronyms. What was once an engineer is now a de facto rocket scientist with multiple PhDs and none of these gigs is really safe and stable and sound in this economy; you can be dumped in a heartbeat and meanwhile treated like a common medieval serf.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll mention all of them to Kim the next time I see her.
As far as I know, Kim worked in the post office sorting mail. I do know that she hurt her back trying to wheel a 300-pound cart up an incline. And Kim is a small person. I posted pictures of her and Jasmine here:
http://www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/2008/2008-17.html#Mon
As you can see, I’m literally bigger than Kim and Jasmine combined.
I wonder if Kim were to try to fight the judgement if enlisting the support of your local US House member would be of more help than trying to fight through the legal system. Given that the USPS is semi independent of the Federal government it may be pointless.
Also if she decides to fight, you might set up a fundraiser on gofundme.com to raise the $1500. I’m sure Kim would object to that though.
Mind, I know nothing at all about the system Kim is in. What strikes me as really wrong is that the USPS is the one reviewing whether or not they owe disability payments. That review really needs to be handled by an independent organization.
Of course, that’s typical. Just like, if you take the IRS to court, you have to do so in a court run by the IRS, in front of a judge paid by the IRS. Can you say “conflict of interest?” I knew you could… :-/
Our system of justice in this regard is increasingly often like unto the old medieval trials by water and combat, etc. For us Mundanes, that is. Or the later Tudor invention of the Star Chamber.
And yes, we have been experiencing the IRS version of those in recent years, very instructive.
What strikes me as really wrong is that the USPS is the one reviewing whether or not they owe disability payments.
Not exactly true. Here in Alabama, the USPS is allowed to contract with specific doctors to handle workman’s comp claims, but state workman’s comp is in charge. USPS can request periodic reviews, thus the appointments at a specified doctor, even if you have moved out of state.
I suspect they have done this, and it is the state of New York workman’s compensation board that is allowing the USPS to deny the claim, rather than the USPS unilaterally doing so.
Dollars to doughnuts they also figure that if the claimant is well outta state, they don’t have the resources, or would find it difficult, to show up for MD appointments and appeals and suchlike, so they probably have a person or a program that scans addresses and automatically denies stuff; I wouldn’t put it past them for a nanosecond. That is the mentality now.
Just tried again to pay our monthly IRS nut online and it was once again impossible; naturally any delay is an excuse for them to cancel the installment agreement and call in the full amount. So we are forced to send it snail mail and I have notified them twice of our inability to pay online. No response. In any case, the monthly nut is doing nothing to cut the principal, which is, in fact, steadily increasing, thanks to penalties and interest.
Leviathan is bound and determined to bleed us dry and kill the golden goose, apparently. What happens then? When the half of the country paying for the other half simply can’t or won’t pay that freight anymore? Or for the regime’s troops and cops?
But I am reminded once again that many tens of millions of my fellow citizens are wholeheartedly invested in the status quo, and we’d face another civil war if those payments stop.
“As you can see, I’m literally bigger than Kim and Jasmine combined.”
There is no way Kim should have been pushing anything that weighed 300 lbs. anywhere. She’s tiny!
Agreed.
I can push that weight if it’s on wheels but I gotta be careful now. But the mail/package carrier companies are infamous for working their people like old-skool navvies. I’ve known several across USPS, Brown, and FedEx, and they report back-breaking labor in all kinds of weather and darkness conditions with constant micro-managing by supervisors. On the loading docks they stand over you with a clipboard and stopwatch, ’cause you gots to move a package every three seconds. Do that for 8-12 hours (mandatory O.T. during the holidays) on a freezing dock in the wee hours.
I cut those guys every slack I can in traffic or when they deliver stuff here.
Hey OFD, sounds like he heard your preaching. “Election Results: “What’s Going To Change Is Only Who Is Going To Screw You — Not Whether You’ll Get Screwed””
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/election-results-whats-change-screw-youll-screwed/
“But are the Republicans going to be any better than the Democrats? As Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker highlights in the commentary below, with conrol of the House of Representatives they have had a chance to shutdown Obamacare for nearly two years, yet it seems that despite all the rhetoric from the right no one has been willing to actually get anything done.”
“Now be a good serf and find a new stick for your teeth so you don’t bite your tongue off; the old one is dangerously compromised from all the abuse it’s taken over the previous six years.”
“Perhaps the only thing we can hope for is that the velocity at which we are being robbed and our Constitution dismantled will be slower than what’s it’s been over the last six years. But, even that may be pushing it.”
“Two heads. Same snake.”
Cool snake picture.
One or more of my siblings and other correspondents in the email and online have expressed the sentiment that gee whiz, thank goodness gracious we now have the power again, ’cause Obummer and his minions be responsible for everything! And that’s what Obummer and his minions and their supporters said when THEY took over from the Bush regimes. Boy, things gon be swell from now on, yassuh!
Nope.
“The American people have been impoverished under both Parties over the last several decades; arguably since even 1913 when a private organization took control of our currency. What has changed that will make this time different?”
Agreed. Since at least 1913. And then again when Dick Nixon took us off the gold standard. Dick Nixon, the poker-playing card sharp (USN, Pacific).
We were porked much more severely by the Great Eliminator and prior to that by the betrayal at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. But in the United States of Amnesia, the People can only just barely remember that there were Swell Times before Obummer and now they’re coming back AGAIN! Praise the Lord!
When in actual fact, as the linked article sez, the House coulda put the kibosh on a lot of this regime’s capers but deliberately chose not to do so. And the Congressional Repub leadership again talk an awful lot of rot about bipartisanship and continue to act as if they’re actually the party in the minority! What gives here? I mean, WTF, amirite?
Simple answer: it’s all the same party. Elections mean nothing. Voting is a total waste of time. None of my libertarians got elected here. There weren’t any ballot issues to vote for or against. Libertarians have the proverbial snowball’s chance in this country. And way too many serfs like things just as they are: three hots and a cot, the ten hours a day of tee-vee, the smut on the net, fast and frozen processed junk food, the ciggies, and that ever-faithful sixpack of shitty Murkan lager.
We’ll see when the chit gets blasted all over the landscape by the next big fan.
I missed the CMA show last night, but here’s a link to a song performed by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. It’s worth checking out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeDC3dgkdjM
As I always say: I only listen to country music if I’m getting paid to. That actually has happened quite a few times. But I’m sure Slim was glued to the CMA. Where is he lately, anyway?
This event on the political scene is nothing more than the plot changes in a Josh Whedon serial. We’re headed down, but we just had a plot change in who is driving the plane.
Anybody who thinks Republicans are our saviours, is sorely mistaken. A look at the Tea Party voting records, shows they have repeatedly not delivered on their election promises, including the ones not to vote for Obamacare or increased debt limits.
I spent the last 25 years of my parents’ lives trying to show them that their Republican party had been hijacked by hypocritical criminals and science-hating fundies. During their last 5 years, they finally did begin voting Libertarian.
All this roller-coaster ride is doing is making me toss my cookies.
Chuck, what flavor of Linux are you running? I’ve got openSuSE running on one desktop and on my laptop, and neither of them have ever experienced a lockup while using Libre Office.
Mint 17. Never had the problem with Mint 15 (or any problem with 15, really), but there are lots of things that do not work as well in 17 as in 15. However, 15 was about to be abandoned, and 17 was approaching as the new LTS, so when it was released, I moved to it. That was the point when I also made the move to basically abandon WinXP and try to adopt Linux, instead. Which try this time has succeeded with quite acceptable results.
Actually, I started with SuSE, but there was way too much fallout in the developer community from the purchase of SuSE by the Attachmate Group. Initial rumors were that SuSE would change its license, and that would limit developers’ options. So a program I have to be compatible with, the open-source Rivendell radio automation project, moved from SuSE to CentOS, along with a lot of other software developers. Stations are running Rivendell on CentOS (the developer-approved OS) and Ubuntu/Mint, but several had to abandon SuSE because of various dependency departures that have occurred since 2011. (You have to roll your own Rivendell compile with SuSE.) Thus I am pretty much limited to Ubuntu/Mint or CentOS, as it works and there are compiled repositories for both CentOS and Debian and descendants.
Having tried Ubuntu before SuSE, I really cannot stand Ubuntu; it is clunky and amateurish. Looks and acts like a kindergartener designed it. Mint 17 is fine as an everyday XP replacement (except for the LO and Firefox lock-ups), but will not do for my serious audio/video editing. Thus, I have another machine on the way, which will become CentOS, as Debian derivatives (shouldn’t that be descendants?) do not integrate the FFmpeg file conversion utilities, using the broken and abandoned libav instead, and that will not work with either Cinelerra or Ardour in Ubuntu/Mint.
I am too deeply into MInt on the everyday computer to change at present. Lost an entire day with the desktop fiasco on Monday, and it would take longer than that to figure out how to get CentOS installed on the 20gb SSD drive, using the spinning 500gb drive for apps and data. It took 3 days to get that configured using Mint 17, and I sure do not need that kind of time loss at this point. Maybe during the downtime at Xmas. I’m not going anywhere this year (thankfully).
Actually, had it not been so easy (after I found the fix) to get my lost Cinnamon desktop back, and had it been necessary to reinstall from scratch, I would have moved to CentOS then and there. But the fix was less than 5 minutes work, once I found it. A tribute to Linux’ modularity.
For the present, I can stand those lockups, but it really is disappointing that Mint 17 is definitely a step backwards from 15. They acknowledge that they completely redid several parts of 17, but do not acknowledge that those are not as well-done as they were in 15.
Ah, well.
Chuck just for fun I think I would install Open Office to see how it acts. I prefer Libre Office but this is just to debug a little.
Spectacular moon set this morning. Great moonrise this evening. Should be another good one tomorrow morning. The rises are never quite as good as the mountains to the east are 7000′ and 15mi away while the west are only 2000′ and 50 miles away. Along with the dirty air to do a little light scattering it’s a real show.
We’re getting near 40 mph winds here. Flying stuff is slamming into the west side of my house, where the roofline on the house next door makes a perfect airfoil for anything airborne to fly directly into the side of the house. Sounds like I am being attacked by aliens. Every other day is like this; a massive low pressure over Ontario is occasionally brushing the high pressure ridge that is riding over the Ohio Valley and giving us every other day thrills. Car was being blown all over the road on the way home tonight, and I have a 2.5 ton monster of the last of the Roadmasters ever made.
I have thought about trying that OO.o comparison, but I already know that LO is now many steps ahead of OO. That is because of license restrictions, LO can use OO created additions, but OO cannot use LO developments. I really do not think the problem is with LO, as I had no problems in Mint 15.
Great sax and trumpet on this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w09ukTUUhBY
Appropriate lyrics, too. Although it needs a female singing it.
Re: CentOS; once you get going with CentOS, Mr. Chuck, get yerself on their mailing list; it’s a goldmine of info, on all sorts of stuff. You may very much like CentOS 7. Also you may wanna pick up the “CentOS 6 Linux Server Cookbook” by Jonathan Hobson, also chockful of info on doing a build from scratch. We had 6.5 running at my last gig and I barely had to touch it during my crummy six weeks there, where I spent 90% of my time on Winblows help desk crap. I was on it to do MySQL stuff, mainly for user roles and the gun shop guys for the ATF. Had been up and running swell for 100 days with no reboots; conversely the Winblows machines needed reboots every other weekend simply as a matter of course; never mind all the desktops and laptops.
Re: country music: I don’t listen to much of any of it produced after 1975; it’s become schlock rock and pop, and sounds like shit. Gimme old-skool country any day.
From lewrockwell.com early this AM:
“Two-thirds of the people eligible to vote didn’t. Since only 1/3 of the people voted for the regime, shouldn’t it be democratically dissolved? And notice that we have to go to Al Jazzeera to get the truth. The cheerleading State media of the US are silent. (Thanks to Chuck Scharf)”
Fewer fools is always good nooz. Just think: maybe a bit more than 1/6 of the people eligible to vote put the Stupid Half of the War Party back in power.
I have been starting to actually USE Mint 17 KDE, as opposed to just testing things on it. So far, so good; keeping my fingers crossed. Like Chuck W, I am committed, at least for now. I have also resigned myself to always using more than one OS to get everything done. Sigh.
One thing surprised me. I needed to print something earlier today, shocking for a guy who has tried to be paperless for 20 years. Anyway, I plugged in an ancient HP laser printer with a parallel to USB conversion cable that I had bought years ago for just such a time but never used. Turned the printer ON, and started to look for System Settings, when up popped a small window with a picture of my printer, identified with its correct name and model number. It was ready to print, and did so with no further fuss!! I have never expereinced that before, on any OS. I set up my wife’s Mint system a couple of weeks ago, and did have to pick her all-in-one printer from a long list, but it worked right away. Linux seems to have occasional touches of brilliance to offset the headaches. I think I’ll quit for today, before something blows up.
You like other people making your decisions for you Dave?
Chuck wrote:
Bad math joke:
http://joegp.com/halfcut/
It’s a geometric series so yes, it will take forever, but quite soon he’ll have only one hair.
And then half a hair, and then a quarter of a hair, and then …
Poor Kim. Best of luck to her. It’s evil of them to screw her over like that…
Yeah, well, it’s the government’s job to screw people over. What else are they good for? Nothing I can think of.
I like to remind people that there really is no such entity as “government”. What you have is a random collection of people: some well-meaning, some venal, most just getting through the day.
Would you trust some random “Jim” across town to decide on X; give some other random “Sue” the right to fine you for Y? If not, then why in the world would you give these privileges to the government, which is just a middleman that will hand those powers on to Jim and Sue, or some other random individuals you don’t know and have no control over?
Well, as I’ve said, I’ve met quite a few people who were members of the Mafia, the SS, one-percenter motorcycle clubs, and so on, and all of them seemed like pretty nice people. As individuals. I’m sure that a lot of people who belonged to the NKVD and the Inquisition and the Star Chamber and the Gestapo probably loved children and dogs, and helped little old ladies across the street. Doesn’t matter. As someone famously said, power corrupts. Yet another reason I’m an anarchist.
The problem most people have with government is politics. It’s a necessary evil to get anything done. You have to acknowledge that in a representative government that opinions, values, and whatnot vary across the country. As a result, the politicians, elected from those differing districts, are also very different. So, you end up with a group of people that disagree with each other, but cannot get anything done without majority approval. How do you achieve that? Well, you promise, for example, to support so-and-so’s bill to purchase more planes for the USAF and in return they promise to source many of the parts for those planes from your district. It drives us all crazy, but if any of us were suddenly elected to government and wanted to deliver any helpful legislation to the constituents that put us there, then we would all end up doing the very same things we’re complaining about. Because otherwise none of our legislation would ever make it out of committee. Even in a dictatorship you’d have to play politics to keep key people happy so they don’t suddenly decide they’d be better dictators and stage a coup d’etat. This is true of almost every country on Earth since the beginning of civilization.
Now, that doesn’t excuse gross negligence like deficit spending and the like, but I do think it’s important to understand that since 316,000,000 people are never going to unanimously agree on anything that there’s going to have to be compromise (i.e. politics) to get anything done at all.
It also doesn’t help, here in the US, that we’ve become a country that is pretty evenly divided on almost every major issue. Over the last 40 years we’ve elect presidents with only 43% to 58% of the popular vote. This country cannot reach a consensus on much of anything. So there’s a LOT of discord.
Well, I think there are two other factors that contribute to US problems.
The first is education. A solid education in history, including political and governmental principles, in financial concepts, and in other real-world topics – such an education leads to informed voters. There’s little doubt that the current US public education system fails at this.
The other factor is size. A local government is more responsive to its voters. It has to be. In the town where I live, population about 4000, if there’s an issue I’m concerned about I toodle down to the town meeting, where a maximum of maybe 400 other people will be present. The town council is up on stage, answers questions from the audience, and takes a vote. I have a real voice – I can stand up and contradict the damned mayor, and the other voters in the hall will hear my argument.
At a national level, fifty thousand signatures and you can put a proposition up for national vote and force parliament to create or change laws. A small organization can collect that many signatures in a few weeks.
The larger the area governed, the more voters there are, the less chance any single person or even organization has of influencing anything. In a country of 300 million? It’s game over; not even a large, well-funded organization can have much impact. The individual voter? Pissing into the wind… The bureaucracy and the political elite can do as they please. Short of a general uprising, there is nothing to be done.
This is, for me, the biggest argument against the political EU. The common market was fine, but creating a political union will lead inexorably to a completely unaccountable European government. It’s not there yet, but it’s already on the horizon…
“You like other people making your decisions for you Dave?”
As if that doesn’t take place daily, if not hourly, for every one of us here.
And as if we could do anything about it short of revolution and civil war at this point.
Hey, I promise that if you elect me dictator here in the USA, you will love me!
Or else my minions will taser you unendingly in my dungeons.
No! I have dibs on running for dictator in 2016.
You guys can trust me. Honest. I’m incapable of lying.