Nepal Airlines has apparently fixed an electrical fault on one of its Boeing 757s by sacrificing two goats… — by Lester Haines, The Register
If that’s true, then there’s a whole bunch of people who will be out of work in the near future, because we all know that airline industry executives are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to cut costs.
I foresee one problem: how will parents explain to their children why there’s a bunch of goats laying around and bleeding all over the tarmac?
I just received the latest changes to my BoA cardholder agreement. The first page – and not part of the agreement – was a summary page intended to provide information on such things as how to minimize fees and finance charges as well as a list of benefits. You know, things like pay your account on time, don’t exceed credit limits, pay in full each month.
Great. That makes sense.
Now the fine print – or, how BoA is working to screw in the most lucrative of ways those of you who don’t pay in full every month. To wit, an APR of 32.24 per cent on unpaid balances. All this and more on legal-size paper that most won’t read.
Loan shark usury has never been more profitable for a legitimate business.
Countrywide Financial Corp. is one of the largest financial institutions in the country – and perhaps institution is no misnomer, given their latest bombshell: they’ll be laying off 12,000 workers.
Here’s their CEO, Angelo Mozilo, in happier times:
Countrywide’s “proprietary technology” would help it meet its goal “to avoid any foreclosure.” Countrywide invariably kept to “prudent underwriting guidelines,” he said, to ensure that its adjustable-rate borrowers could handle the highest interest rates that might kick in during the life of their mortgage. — L.A. Times
Call me cynical, but the words “proprietary technology” and mortgage company used together in the same sentence probably means that they’re lending money to anyone with an ability to breathe. How’s that for proprietary?
Over the last three years, Mozilo has cashed out 425 million in stock options. His “proprietary technology” certainly ensured his success. It’s unfortunate that the former employees are left with all of the “development costs”.
I was an early adopter of Apple products. I started with an Apple and two disk drives back in the 80s. It was a great little machine for its time, and a wonder to use to learn coding. One could even plug in an interface card to access a printer. Then came the Apple III fiasco: a fantastic operating system (SOS, or Sophisticated Operating System) coupled with with a system utilities program with which one could write one’s own device drivers to drive almost anything, collapsed in a frothing sea of acquisition costs and failed motherboards.
Their Lisa, which was the forerunner of the Macintosh, was another disaster, heightened by the release of the Macintosh. The Macintosh pretty much started Apple’s tradition of a closed box – it was based on 124 megs of ram – which remains to this day. It was virtually impossible to upgrade. If you wanted more memory, you had to buy a newer Macintosh.
I abandoned Apple because of the Lisa, and never looked back – until recently, that is. I’ve been considering acquiring an Apple notebook of some sort.
Not any longer.
Since their latest fiasco with the iPhone cash-back flip-flop, I wouldn’t touch anything that company produces with someone else’s money. Their modus operandi continues to be one of buyer beware, and that goes for their iTunes-playing gadgets too. Why would anyone spend money to own music that can’t be shared with any other device? Anti-piracy? Hardly. Anti-owner is more like it.
Welcome to Apple’s world.
When RSS feeds first came out, I got all excited at having a method to stay on top of Things Online. Eventually I discovered that I had subscribed to a lot of links that I didn’t really have a need for. Just how many, I can’t recall, but on a whim one day I dumped them all, and for the life of me now I can’t recall one that I missed.
Well, only a few days ago I thought I’d take a brand spanking new Google reader for a test ride and see how it worked.
Thanks CDC at CafeChatNoir, you really aren’t helping any! 😉 I even bragged in your comments about no longer using a reader. Now I have to take it all back.
I’m still test riding, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
I’ve found another nice little app only 89kb in size, written in assembly language, that will roll up your window until only the title bar is visible. This goes along nicely with Nubs, which I discovered back in May.
Drag a window to one of the monitor sides and Nubs will reduce it to a tabbed sidebar item, keeping the tab, or ‘nub’, visible while working with a fully expanded window. Click on the nub, and the window reappears as you had it.
WinRoll, as stated, rolls the window up and out of the way, leaving the title bar where you’ve placed it. Right-click on the title bar — and voila! — the title bar of the window is the only visible item remaining. Do it again, and it reappears. It’s magic.
Freeware and Open Source.
Get it here: WinRoll
A hoodoo is a rock formation caused by differential erosion, i.e., parts of it are harder/softer than other parts, thus causing the softer parts to erode more quickly. In the Milk River Valley, sandstone hoodoos predominate, having been exposed for 15,000 years or more since the last ice age.
The Blackfeet believed that the Milk River hoodoos were home to powerful spirits. Plentiful game and berries ensured that this area was a seasonal migration stop for both the Blackfeet and Shoshone, as well as perhaps others.
