Waking up to Reality

I'm sure this is going to make some folks mad, especially people in certain 'industries', however I just can't seem to contain myself.

How many times have you seen that hogwash on TV about this bank, or that bank, doing you some 'great service'? Did you fall for it 'hook, line, and sinker'? That's a shame if you did. Really a shame. Let me explain why I feel that way.

First off, I use direct deposit to have my salary sent to X Institution. For all accounts and purposes, I am making a loan to X until I'm ready to use those funds. What has X provided me? A safe place to keep my money, a debit card and checks so I can withdraw it to pay my bills or purchase something.

What I have done for them was loan them my entire paycheck to use, until I need it. So during the course of the year I have loaned them, say $30,000 (fictional sum used). What have they done with that money while they had use of it? Made more money by loaning it to someone else. What portion of the interest that they collect is given back to me? Zilch, zip, nada.

Now lets take a nice round figure to represent the number of 'customers' the bank has who are doing the same as me. Say 100,000 (it's just a small bank, okay?) So these 100,000 customers donate on average (just for simplicity's sake) $1,500 a month in X Institution. That is a whopping $150 million dollars each month, or $1.8 billion a year. If I had that kind of money coming in yearly, I'm sure I could make some money on that, take a trip, buy a new home or two, several new cars, etc...and that's just on the interest, not on the principal.

So who's getting the most benefit out of the money we are working for?

Just something else to think about.

Have a spiffy week!

You Tube Videos

I guess You Tube has a way of keeping us on our toes. Seems like a few vids I posted here within the last few months were no longer available, which keeps me coming back if only to make sure content is still available. Then on the other hand, it gives me an excuse to write something like this.... Thanks You Tube!!

Writing, Handwriting Specifically..

I have the awesome duty and responsibility to register voters for the county I live in. I work in the Supervisor of Elections office and do data entry. That means I have to read voter registration applications from all types of people. The ones that get to me the most are the ones from the High School drives we have. This brings me to the main point of this topic.

Handwriting is a form of communication between two or more people. I'm not talking about notes you might take to help jog your own memory, but the things you write with the intention of communicating information to another person. If I were to speak English to a non-English speaking person, there would be no communication between us. Same goes for the person who writes in such a sloppy fashion that you can't make out heads or tails of what he/she is writing.

What ever happened to the class in school where children actually learned to write, be it in block letters or script? Why are our children not being educated in handwriting any more? Why don't the teachers enforce some type of standard, so that children learn the importance of communicating via the written word?

Just my thoughts and opinions, but well worth thinking about.

Have a Jiffy Father's day all you dads out there..

Addictions

Speaking of addictions in the IRC Channel this morning, some of us had the realization that we are all addicted.... to Linux, PCLinuxOS specifically. In describing some of the withdrawal symptoms that might arise if a cure was to be affected, these were some that came up:

Searching for a kernel, or kernel panic!! Where's my kernel ?!?!? I need a kernel fix right now!!!!
Looking for your 'imaginary' friends, Where did Paul and John go?? I haven't seen them and I miss them horribly... I can't find them anywhere.
Keying on an invisible keyboard, staring at an unseen monitor, playing with an invisible mouse.

Can you imagine what the world would be like without Linux? I can't...

Weather

I just happened to be on (actually working with) the computer when I got notification via Firefox that there is severe weather in the area. A tornado seems to be ripping through the northern section of Broward county as I write this and listen on another tab to Weather Bloopers. Here is one I just couldn't resist sharing.. ha ha ha!!!

Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar

Sign the petition

If any one out there is reading this blog, how about going on over to this site and signing the petition. It's all about VIA Technologies making better drivers for Linux Distros...

http://www.petitiononline.com/vialinux/petition.html

Santa's Little Helper

I am learning the ins and outs of building rpms with the team over at www.mypclinuxos.com . It's no less than a great joy when you can actually do something to get your spec file correctly done and have a program build... But... But, so many things to learn and not nearly enough time or brain power to get it all done in one sitting... Then you come back to the project and....and... Shoot! I've forgotten where I was.

I'm currently working on the latest release of Songbird over at www.songbirdnest.com . It's a nifty little open source jukebox, player, etc. Works fine unpacked and right out of the folder on my desktop, so what's the deal here? Why won't it go when I've built an rpm and installed it? Dang, I must have goofed somewhere along the lines... Buaaaaaaaaaaa... chirpbuaaaaaaaaaaa...