COMPUTER COLONICS

There are a few people I trust and believe (but verify periodically) when it comes to the economy. Rick can put this one down as a conservative conspiracy if he likes, but I post this quote in all seriousness. Taleb is someone worth listening to.

“We’re in the middle of a crash.” ~ Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan

I am reading his book. It meanders a little but is loaded with fascinating ponderables.

What is a Black Swan event?

An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict …

… is one way of explaining it, but it’s also about a refusal to recognize the significance of that occurrence and its affect on your life.

Just as an example from my own personal conversations here in S. Fla, I can say that many Cubans thought their exit from the island was temporary. Many cemented family valuables under tiles in the floors of their homes - sure they would return soon to reclaim their wealth and their lives. It’s been - what? Fifty years? Plans have been passed down from family member to family member over generations on who is designated to go when Castro falls and reclaim them ancestral estate. They did not recognize the “Black Swan” for what it was when it appeared and they definitely did not see it coming. People have this odd blind spot when it comes to history in the making. They don’t see the significance of what is happening and can’t project what it means and where it will lead because they base their projections on what they know and believe is true right now.

The world is not a static place and we are not static beings, but for some reason we are trapped mentally in static beliefs. Why is that? It’s weird.

In anycase, if you have not been paying attention here’s a head’s up that most of you won’t believe regardless of what I say.

We.are.in.the.middle of.a.crash.

Just for fun, because I am pretty much demoralized by the news lately and in need of a distraction –

Oh hey!  Big Brother starts soon, doesn’t it?  I can’t wait!  Love that show. 

Where was I?  Revenge.  I received two emails this weekend that were kind of fun and was given permission to share a bit.  The first was a super poke demanding that I get off my ass and get another book published.  Heard that before and I usually resist red fonts, all caps, and people clearly paid by Ann Vremont to specifically harass me.  It read:

Is Revenge.EXE ever coming out? I would really like to read some more from you. I loved Revenge Gifts and have re-read it several times. Hell, I’ll buy a direct e-book if you don’t have a publisher for it.

You can see why I thought it was Ann.  I mean, who else is actually waiting for Envy.exe?  My mom?  So I accused the emailer of being a friend of Ann and it was her response that really got my attention and made the day interesting.

Surprisingly no.
.
I have bought and loaned out several copies of RG and they never come back! My friends loan them to other friends, etc. You are an underground sensation in the hoodoo/magical community in Tx.Well, this week my sister handed me a copy and told me I had to read THIS! It was fantastic! Hated to tell her it was my book to begin with. (Her TBR pile has a room of its own.) No one gets the autographed copy I won from your site.
.
It did get me thinking that I hadn’t heard anything in ages since a brief blurb about .exe on one of your blogs. (POKEPOKEPOKE)

I am an underground sensation in the hoodoo/magical community in Texas. That is … one of the nicest compliments I think I’ve ever gotten. Texas being Texas, I can’t imagine there are more than a handful of hoodoo\magical people there - but I like the fact that

a. They aren’t calling BS on my research and facts in the book

and

b. They are passing it around so it doesn’t end up in a dumpster.

Thank you.

The second email –

But Cindy! You didn’t answer her question about the second book! OMGWTHBBQ - you are NOT dodging this yet again are you? You said you were sending it out.

I didn’t send it - k? Haven’t sent it. Don’t have the rights back from TOR on the first and, quite frankly, the very idea of having to deal with a publisher or editor after the things I’ve seen gives me frick’n nightmares. At some point my desire to entertain someone other than myself will overcome my fear of another publisher\agent fiasco and I will send it - or maybe just self-publish because I am that big of a baby - but not today.

The SECOND email  –

 … was from a friend who clipped an article from a place I lived when Dave and I first got married.

A revenge website with a decidedly darker edge than mine.

There are some very strange people out there.  Just Say’n.

Link

Man. And I’ve just had the lowest opinion of people in Des Moines because of a certain blogger and her relatives and here I get my ass handed to me with an example of one unbelievably amazing resident of that city. Sadly the woman’s husband died, but what a rescue.

“Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.”

~ The Cap and Tax Fiction
Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill

I actuallly watched Waxman at work on C-Span for a few hours and I could not get out of my head the thought that, here is a man from California, a state that will not allow new power plants to be built inside state lines, a state that Enron bent over and treated like a house cat back in the 90’s because of their insane energy policy and taxes - here is a man who freely and openly said in front of god and everyone that he did not read the bill he is pushing through for President Obama and special interest groups. I couldn’t get past the fact that, of all the people in the House of Representatives and the Senate, he is the least qualified to even speak on this bill much less be the man in charge.

I get into it with Eva and Ann on the man caused Global Warming issue frequently and I have not been swayed from my belief that it’s a colossal scam. The scientist who originally theorized it has spoken against what is being done. I believe we should be good stewards of the planet. We should recycle, reduce polution, modernize our energy policies and protect our wild places for future generations. That’s just common sense. But Global Warming cause by human beings is complete bunk and the Cap & Trade bill coming up for a vote tomorrow is a massive power grab by the government, a massive tax hike on every man woman and child in this country, and - if Europe is the future - their Cap & Trade plan realized an increase in greenhouse gasses of over 6% whereas here, with no cap and trade, we actually reduced ours by almost a full percent.

This bill is insane and my Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is planning to vote “Yes”.

It’s 1200 pages long. No one has read the bill. No one has really debated the bill. And tomorrow they are going to shove what the Wall Street Journal calls the most massive tax hike in American history down our throats.

I don’t care what political party you belong to, your energy bill will increase by several hundred dollars year. Your schools will be paying approximately $10k more per year - the cost of a teacher’s assistant? The cost of all goods will have to go up and everyone, poor or not, will see their expenses go up.

Now. I happen to think this is worthy of at least a day of discussion before we go under. Hell I even think it may be worth sending an email off to a Congressman. Ask her why she supports this. Ask her if she has read the entire bill. Enquiring minds would really like to know.

“Before today, the bill ran a little over 1,000 pages. Early this morning, Waxman dropped a 300-page amendment into it.” ~ HotAir.com

Snipers taking out protestors. Heart shots - so this is not random.

The torture of a 17-year-old in Iran
A teenager’s story, with graphic photos, of abuse at the hands of Iran’s religious paramilitaries, the Basij

Oh. It’s AWN baby. Lou Minatti is blogging about a piece in Computer World comparing American IT Grads unfavorably to the drones churning out tech support in India.

From Computerworld,

Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India’s hottest IT services vendors … related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state. The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn’t hiring more people in his state. Vineet’s short answer: because most American college grads are “unemployable.”
…
They’re far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the “boring” details of tech process, methodology, and tools–ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like. … [So] most Americans are just too expensive to train.

Minatti responds ….

I also wonder where the great Indian tech products are. Mr. Nayar, if Indian IT people are so much better, where’s India’s equivalent of the iPod? A Blackberry? A Mac? Was Photoshop created by an Indian company? How about Twitter, or Facebook?

And I agree with this comment totally.

tesla said…
I think Mr. Nayar is completely full of shit.

I have a lot of friends who have lost or are in the process of losing their jobs to India and it has nothing what-so-ever to do with the talent here vs there and everything to do with horrific corporate taxes here and a US government hostile to American business - Bush AND Obama.

I may rant more on this later but I wanted to get the first round up over lunch.

Depp as the Mad Hatter