Random Rants 76: Argh! Augh! Ahhh!

[Cutlass]

Here's a small rant: I often wonder if the rich people are trying to push public opinion to shift more of a burden on individuals I'll take two examples, here: Welfare fraud and plastic bags.

Welfare fraud: People are often up in roars about people "milking" off of welfare and/or disability benefits, despite the actual amount of fraud being very tiny (no exact numbers, sorry). Meanwhile, big corporations often receive lots and lots and lots of money from the government, enough to make the amount of money going into welfare look like peanuts. Then they say "oh, but the companies are making jobs," but many many times the jobs aren't very good ones, or they go away after a few years.

Plastic bags & straws: There's a lot of waste and pollution from the corporations, too. Getting rid of plastic bags is a good thing (straws not so much because of accessibility), but why aren't we also going after the industry too? There's a lot of unnecessary plastic packaging, but I don't hear much about them trying to ban that.

The welfare fraud accusations is several things: First, rich people thinking that they are being robbed by the poor. Second, racism, as they make a point of blaming most welfare fraud on people of color. Third, is an effort to make the middle class and the poor both poorer, so that the rich people have more.

The pollution thing is just corruption. They get bought off politicians to give them favorable treatment.

 

[Cutlass]

A few apartments ago, the landlord kept complaining at us for excessive power consumption (utilities were included), even though I had previously confirmed with a meter thingy that it was the old fridge included with the unit. Then they broke into the apartment when we weren't home and turned off my computer.

EDIT: The meter thingy I think was a Kill-A-Watt. My mother was able to borrow it somewhere but asked me to check.

Refrigerators are almost always the biggest electricity users in a home. Old one more so.

 

[Arakhor]

A fridge will use 1 unit of electricity every 24 hours, according to my Year 8 Science class. Hot air dryers, microwaves and many other things will use that amount in minutes.

 

[MaryKB]

Yeap some landlords are like that, your landlord is looking for a cheap quick fix
All the large appliance service companies charge you, a fee if you dont give them the repair job to do

I had landlord delay repairing broken bathroom tiling, for nearly a year it kept getting worse as more tiles broke off, got quotations for repairs and everything, didnt do anything until water started leaking into the unit below
Cost them a lot more because they didnt repair it straight away.

Also sometimes you can fall victim to certain types of mind tricks with financials, and you'll see people somehow think five payments of $100 is less than one payment of $400, because each time she thinks "It's only $100!" but gets scared by a single large amount. That's why you see companies offer "easy payment plans", and car dealerships want to talk to you about monthly payments instead of your total price, to make you feel like you're paying less than you really are.

I fall victim too, even though I'm aware. That's why I keep spending $100 a time on shoes and clothes several times a week lol.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

And then proceeded to gripe about the investment. If it offers good return, why is there this endless tirade about the debt incurred in making said investment?

Because the situation isn't moral.
Because this is one of those instances where we've gone off the rail incrementally and now it's a massive problem we have just begun to even acknowledge is a problem.
Because even if it's a good investment, there are much better investments that young people could make with that money - like children.
Because unlike all other investments, you can't discharge this debt when things go belly up.
Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Because whinging and moaning sustains me?

Is that even legal?! Payments have to be able to be applied to the principal!

This is a good point. I had no idea that it may not be legal which is exactly how corporations get away with stuff like this. The CFPB was meant to stop this kind of stuff - and they're the ones who sued Navient to begin with - but Trump has tried to zero its budget out and appointed a do-nothing to run it.

Here's a small rant: I often wonder if the rich people are trying to push public opinion to shift more of a burden on individuals I'll take two examples, here: Welfare fraud and plastic bags.

Welfare fraud: People are often up in roars about people "milking" off of welfare and/or disability benefits, despite the actual amount of fraud being very tiny (no exact numbers, sorry). Meanwhile, big corporations often receive lots and lots and lots of money from the government, enough to make the amount of money going into welfare look like peanuts. Then they say "oh, but the companies are making jobs," but many many times the jobs aren't very good ones, or they go away after a few years.

Plastic bags & straws: There's a lot of waste and pollution from the corporations, too. Getting rid of plastic bags is a good thing (straws not so much because of accessibility), but why aren't we also going after the industry too? There's a lot of unnecessary plastic packaging, but I don't hear much about them trying to ban that.

Here they passed a series of convoluted ballot initiatives that in effect means everyone has to pay 10 cents per plastic bag at grocery stores and that money goes to the corporation. It makes no sense and wasn't supposed to be this way but their were 4 ballot initiatives on this topic in 2016 and the matrix of passed versus failed of the initiatives wound up creating this situation.

Unless I'm wrong - @Timsup2nothin, do you know how that all panned out?

 

[Synobun]

Windows's latest update took over two hours and a half. It wanted to add several "features" that universally allow Microsoft to track you. Shockingly, I answered "no" to all of the generous offerings.

My taskbar buttons are ginormous now and I see no way in its display settings to change this unless I want to make them tiny. I'd really rather just have them be normal-sized again, but I suppose that's no longer an option.

Besides that, it purged all of my saved system passwords so I had to go scrounging for my network passwords.

The screen started flickering. Cause? The update deleted my display driver.

I'm sure I'll find other things it saw fit to destroy as the day goes by.

Every single time Windows updates it's just a complete disaster.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The screen started flickering. Cause? The update deleted my display driver.

On my old Windows XP computer, Windows Update kept installing the wrong video drivers, so I'd have to go into safe mode to reinstall them every time. When I got the third-party Omega drivers this stopped happening, thankfully.

 

[Synobun]

Steam wouldn't let me buy a game for someone so I went to another store to do it. Their gifting policy is to just give the key to the person.

Too bad they didn't even give me a key.

 

[Synobun]

Steam wouldn't let me buy a game for someone so I went to another store to do it. Their gifting policy is to just give the key to the person.

Too bad they didn't even give me a key.

Turns out they don't give you a key if it's a pre-order unless it's through Steam.

It's okay, though, my refund will be processed in 7 to 10 business days.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Should someone make a thread about plastic waste? There's a lot of talking about it here.

I've just asked the moderators to split the discussion off into a new thread. It could be awhile before they get around to it.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: The plastic recycling conversation has been moved here.

 

[cardgame]

Windows's latest update took over two hours and a half. It wanted to add several "features" that universally allow Microsoft to track you. Shockingly, I answered "no" to all of the generous offerings.

My taskbar buttons are ginormous now and I see no way in its display settings to change this unless I want to make them tiny. I'd really rather just have them be normal-sized again, but I suppose that's no longer an option.

Besides that, it purged all of my saved system passwords so I had to go scrounging for my network passwords.

The screen started flickering. Cause? The update deleted my display driver.

I'm sure I'll find other things it saw fit to destroy as the day goes by.

Every single time Windows updates it's just a complete disaster.

As I've said once before Windows 10 is malware

 

[rah]

Our company is in the first testing phase to move from 7 to 10, oh joy.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Our company is in the first testing phase to move from 7 to 10, oh joy.

Testing? The bottom line is, if you can avoid it, don't do it. Eventually there will be no way to avoid it, but until that day comes every objective test is going to come up "NO!!!!!!!"

 

[rah]

The decision has been made. My team is responsible for testing different analytical software like SAS, SPSS, and a few others for desktop and servers.
I already know it generally works but we see some what you would call "quirks" some thing to do while I make it to retirement. I'm sure I'll be gone before we experience world wide role out. We still have some version earlier than 7 in a few godforsaken places.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Our company is in the first testing phase to move from 7 to 10, oh joy.

What @Timsup2nothin said. Stay with 7 as long as they support it. That should be a year or two more.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I think support for Windows 7 ends next year, unless you're on extended-support.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because the situation isn't moral.
Because this is one of those instances where we've gone off the rail incrementally and now it's a massive problem we have just begun to even acknowledge is a problem.
Because even if it's a good investment, there are much better investments that young people could make with that money - like children.
Because unlike all other investments, you can't discharge this debt when things go belly up.
Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Because whinging and moaning sustains me?

Notice that I was responding to someone who had just said what a great return on investment there was, and pretty well implied that anyone who didn't get a degree was just wrong headed. I do appreciate the whining and moaning though, because it is always entertaining.

Children are free, by the way, no matter what the current crop of "life advisors" tell you. Unless you are just unbearably rich, when you have kids you will feel dirt poor. But you won't feel any more dirt poor than parents who really are dirt poor, and they frequently manage to raise kids just fine...oftentimes better than the more 'advantaged.' I have plenty of friends who landed with parents who were much less financially blessed than mine were, and most of them find it truly remarkable how poorly I was raised. My kids generation has many similar stories.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The ROI on education is mostly driven by initiative and perseverance of the person who was educated.

 

[Synobun]

Our company is in the first testing phase to move from 7 to 10, oh joy.

There's enterprise software that can create a custom ROM of a Windows 10 installation that has everything ripped out of it. I don't have the name off-hand but I can ask my sys admin friend for it if your company would be interested?