67F and a bit grey. Never did rain yesterday, here anyway. Got hot and muggy though.
Had several dreams last night that woke me up. One of them was a good subject for today’s post. If only I could remember what it was… I remember it being great đ
WRT education, healthcare, government, or big business, as they grow there is more room for non-productive people. They then use burdensome regulation to keep out leaner newcomers, and ultimately shift the cost of the nonproductive to other payers, like the .gov or taxpayers. It eventually comes down to very few producers supporting a giant pile of unproductive people in makework positions. This is only sustainable as long as money that is unrelated to the core of what the organization does keeps coming in (ie. cheap loans, financial engineering games, subsidies, etc)
With companies, the market and bankruptcy proceedings used to reset the organization to a more productive state. With governments, tax revolts or everyone moving away would do the trick. Our federal .gov has grown without limit, and few can escape it physically. Eventually there will be a tax revolt. Cultural shifts and market forces are unlikely (private industry paying better than .gov, or .gov becoming too uncool for people to enter it.)
Some plants you need to prune to keep them productive, and organizations are much the same.
n
@ray, I’m sorry to hear about your pastor. I had not considered livestreaming a funeral, but it makes sense and hopefully will provide some comfort. Do what you can, your efforts will be appreciated by some, and that’s really all the techs in the business can hope for.
n
Groovy! Two Mondays this week! đ
Foggy and 60F this morning.
I hadn’t either until that coach died. He had coached a couple of local high schools, played in the NFL for the 49’ers. Lot of people had wanted to attend but could not. Someone came up with the idea of live streaming the funeral and I agreed to do stream. The church had just starting using the streaming service.
I was clueless about what to do during the service. Do I show the family? The body in the coffin? Showing the flowers and picture tributes was obvious along with the speakers. It seemed to work and the church and his family received many thanks and words of appreciation for making the service available. The response was more than I thought it would be.
Since that time we have streamed several funerals at the requests of the families. Generally from families that are wide spread across the country or even the world. The streaming allows people that cannot travel for the funeral some measure of closure and participation in the closure.
The church was in the middle of a fund raising to replace the equipment. One family had a son that was killed by CO2 exposure at a local theater. The theater donated $10K to the fund raising and the family donate another $10K from the insurance proceeds. Most families also pay me a small stipend for the doing the work.
Technology is changing the way people attend events.
Re. Mondays, I plead brain fog.
n
Quote of the day.
30Âș and sunny here. Looks to be a good day for just about anything. Unfortunately, I have to work. To pay taxes.
Scratch that. The sun is shining, spring is coming, and I woke up on the right side of the grass today.
I hate cheery people when I’m in a foul mood. But it’s so much better than the alternative.
With companies, the market and bankruptcy proceedings used to reset the organization to a more productive state.
Private equity buying companies out of bankruptcy and loading the organizations with debt changes the equation.
While Payless shoes may not be everyone’s taste, they held enough acceptable school kid brands that there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t make money absent the debt. The same goes for Toys R Us.
Via A.F. Branco, when a picture is worth more than a million words:
https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-bad-to-the-bone/
Would be funny if not that it is a fact of history.
Wow. There is a little sense remaining on the left.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/12/greenpeace-patrick-moore-climate-crisis-fake-news-fake-science/
Of course he’ll be loudly denounced now. Heretic!
@greg, but that goes back to the injection of money outside the line of business, and financial engineering. That wave of LBOs started with a change in regulations on bankers, and the rules allowed them to move all the debt around, sucking the value out of a company and sticking it with the debt.
Other people have put it better than me, but the financial shenanigans allowed the 0.1%ers to transfer wealth from the middle class to themselves. We are in the end state of that strategy now. It will end with either a new feudal society, or pitchforks and bloodshed as the middle gets their own back. Unfortunately, the 0.1%ers put a lot of that wealth into ponzis and other financial scams, and it will just evaporate into thin air when the crash comes. Bitcoin? Mt Gox? The canadian crypto scammer? Stocks??
Gone in a day, as if it never existed.
Unfortunately that wealth was the spent lifeforce of real workers, and now it will disappear.
n
”
Of course heâll be loudly denounced now. Heretic! ”
as was the guy who invented Gaia, who said only nuclear power could save us…
BURN THE WITCH!
n
and it’s gone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGwZVGKG30s
this story exemplifies just how crazy it’s getting.
TL:Didn’t look
Radical feminist posts pictures of cupcakes decorated as vaginas because âI loved that this picture said âevery single one is beautiful and unique and thatâs powerful.â
Even she didn’t consider teh crazy– “Women who donât have vaginas were INCREDIBLY offended by this picture of vagina cupcakes.
And by that, I mean men. Men were offended. Men who think theyâre women.”
And the grovelling apology was quickly forthcoming… “I did not, however, think âbut there are innumerable beautiful, unique and powerful women who donât have a vagina.[â] And I SHOULD have. And for that I am so so sorry.â”
Cleansing fire. Soon.
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/debra-messing-accused-of-transphobia-for-posting-sick-image-of-vgina-cupcakes-on-international-womens-day/
Cleansing fire. Soon.
Get out the BBQ. Time for a reaffirming sausage party.
An example of a streamed funeral that was done about a year ago. This video will soon roll off our streaming service as we only archive for a year. I downloaded the video onto a thumb drive and provided a copy to the family.
My biggest worry when doing such streams is when the family chooses music videos to play. There are issues of copyright that have not been cleared by the family. Hopefully the RIAA thugs don’t come calling.
For the music played during the church the church do have a license through CCLI where the church pays every year based on the average number of people attending. The issue of number of people watching the broadcast, about 5K based on the cable statistics, and streaming, about 100 per service (most not live but deferred) has yet to be answered.
The guy preaching at 18 minutes is the pastor who just passed away and we will be streaming his funeral on Saturday. At 45 minutes is the pastor’s brother and the speaker’s son is the funeral that is being streamed.
Not my favorite job to be doing at the church. I love doing the video ministry, but I really dislike doing funerals.
WRT to useless degrees, my grandson is doing very well in his freshman year in Civil Engineering with a good career opportunity downstream.
WRT to useless degrees, my grandson is doing very well in his freshman year in Civil Engineering with a good career opportunity downstream.
Heh. Reminds me of something. God’s a Civil Engineer. Why? Because only a Civil Engineer would put a recreation area between two waste disposal units.
Unless one waste area is a cupcake.
With companies, the market and bankruptcy proceedings used to reset the organization to a more productive state. With governments, tax revolts or everyone moving away would do the trick. Our federal .gov has grown without limit, and few can escape it physically. Eventually there will be a tax revolt. Cultural shifts and market forces are unlikely (private industry paying better than .gov, or .gov becoming too uncool for people to enter it.)
Actually, things are worse than that. There is no longer a connection between income (taxes) and expenditures of the USA. “CNSNews.com) – The federal government ran a deficit of $215,248,000,000 in the month of February, while taking in $155,623,000,000 in taxes and spending $370,871,000,000, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.”
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/feds-run-215-billion-deficit-february
At some point, foreigners will no longer purchase USA tbills. USA tbills are the premiere safety investment in the world. No matter what, the purchaser feels that they will get their principal back. That feeling may have started going away. And, I am hearing rumors that quantitative easing may be starting up again.
From @Greg yesterday,
Number one son told me tonight that he interviewed at a âknowledgeâ company in Austin about a month ago. During the interview, they all boasted to him about their SJW (social justice warrior) skills. He rejected them because of that. He was really surprised that they even talked to him with his eight years in the Marine Corps.
MacMillan? He should have dropped me an email. I work in that building.
They must pay well. MacMillan has a 6-2 transgendered individual who has great taste in dresses/shoes. A lot of their other employees run around dressed like Xer 60s hippie wannabes â I went to school with a lot of those â so a fashion sense sticks out.
Weâre still looking to fill various positions if he still wants to see something different.
“Group touted by Democrats for ‘bombshell’ Russia report was behind Alabama Senate race tricks”
https://www.foxnews.com/us/cyber-group-touted-by-dems-for-bombshell-russia-report-was-behind-disinformation-efforts-in-alabama-senate-race
“Actresses Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin among dozens charged in college admissions scheme”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Actresses-Felicity-Huffman-Lori-Loughlin-among-13681971.php
“Dozens have been charged in a sweeping admissions bribery case unsealed in federal court.”
“The racketeering conspiracy charges unveiled Tuesday were brought against the coaches at schools including Wake Forest University, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.”
“Authorities say the coaches accepted bribes in exchange for admitting students as athletes, regardless of their ability.”
“Prosecutors say parents paid an admissions consultant $25 million from 2011 through Feb. 2019 to bribe coaches and administrators to label their children as recruited athletes to boost their chances of getting into schools.”
Some people are better than others. Just ask them.
And they are white, mostly, and have to bribe their way in? Preferential treatment to minorities and poor and poorly educated means even the elites have to fight the system…
Of course my first thought when reading that was ‘why didn’t they go the traditional route of endowing a chair, or starting a scholarship, or naming a building?’ unless those things have suffered from inflation too…..
n
Unfortunately that wealth was the spent lifeforce of real workers, and now it will disappear.
The spent lifeforce built real retail distribution channels which will have to be rebuilt and relearned once energy prices start inching upwards again.
The Brown Truck Store is not efficient just convenient.
Of course my first thought when reading that was âwhy didnât they go the traditional route of endowing a chair, or starting a scholarship, or naming a building?â unless those things have suffered from inflation tooâŠ..
No, but those mechanisms with a stigma that the latest generation of snowflakes can’t handle.
Even the people in med school with my wife who bought their way in the old fashioned way had trouble dealing with reality 25 years ago.
$25million buys a LOT of scholarships….
just saying.
n
Ray, sorry to hear about your former pastor. Really quick, but did not appear to be merciful. Better in the next life.
I ordinarily view streaming as old fashioned, because I have to watch in real time. Yours seems different. Great if I can look at it for a limited time in the future, and I will when I have time. Went to that link, but didn’t want to take the time to register right now.
Music videos at a funeral?? Wow, just wow. OFD would probably NOT approve! I’m part Irish, and we reserve the frivolity for the wake đ
Of course the crazy’s been going on for a long time, it’s just that they knew it was crazy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98cE4QCrlk
n
(boy without a winkle)
There are a couple of songs I want played at some sort of service after I pass. Probably not going to be a traditional funeral. I suppose if the video gear was there, they could choose to use a video version of the songs, but I don’t think there are good ones out there for what I want.
n
checked youtube and there aren’t good versions.
edit – well maybe there are
WRT to my grandson studying Civil Engineering and having started USC!!!! last August, I probably did pay the upfront SAT fee. But with A level grade history, I did not, nor would I have, paid for SAT score adjustment.
Well, his sister is now a junior in high school and receiving SAT tutoring. Yes, I am paying in the time phasing context of pretest, not postest! LOL!
OK, the federal income tax calculation for our business kicked my butt. I filed a tax extension and turned it all over to our tax guy from the previous years. Yup, penny wise and pound foolish, that is me.
More evidence that Microsoft won’t be able to simply pull the plug on Windows 7 at the end of the year.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14078/microsoft-brings-dx12-to-windows-7
More evidence that Microsoft wonât be able to simply pull the plug on Windows 7 at the end of the year.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14078/microsoft-brings-dx12-to-windows-7
Gamers are a seriously large group of Windows users and Microsoft caters to them.
The actors involved are not that well off. Naming a building is gonna take tens of millions, assuming they want one. The ivies and the other private schools in this scam all have large endowments that make giving them significant money require stupid big bucks. One of the kids involved, the daughter of Lori Laughlin Giannulli, is big on social media and has two million followers. From a NYT article, via Ann Althouse:
Sounds like her parents wasted their money.
n
The actors involved are not that well off.
Felicity Huffman and William Macy have a metric sh*t ton of cash … or they should thanks to “Desperate Housewives”. Lori Laughlin has “Full House” residuals and a role in the follow up currently airing on Netflix … of course things may change in the near future for her.
It actually doesn’t take much to buy a degree. My wife’s uncle bought one of his kids an MBA at UW for $60k. “Professional Development”.
Again, the only question is whether the kid can live with everyone knowing.
My wife’s cousin doesn’t care. Chinese. He BS-ed his way into one job at a startup only to get walked to the door at lunchtime. Doesn’t matter — the family rackets always provide.
Back from my CPA class tonight. Tour of the 911 call center and dispatch for fire/ems and police. Surprisingly few people involved. Supposedly secret facility but it was clearly labeled on google maps… didn’t get to see the fusion center, or anything cool. Did get to ask questions and observe the call taking and dispatch process.
Next week is Shoot/No Shoot simulator and Psych services…
n
Gamers are a seriously large group of Windows users and Microsoft caters to them.
Windows 7 doesn’t play well with recent Nvidia drivers. This should get real interesting.
Blizzard is pretty much the last man standing as far as selling retail in boxes goes. Everyone else goes through Steam or, increasingly, GOG.
GOG doesn’t copy protect or lock in the users. Blizzard reissued the original Diablo last week through them.
Gamers are a seriously large group of Windows users and Microsoft caters to them.
Windows 7 doesnât play well with recent Nvidia drivers. This should get real interesting.
It is the hardware guys fault. It is always the hardware guys fault. Until a secret patch shows up from Microsoft.