Category: General

What a horrible piece of work Laura Burkett of Pawtucket is. She’s whining about getting a parking ticket for violating a parking ban law. Then she says she doesn’t want the city to enforce speed limits around schools, WTF!

Burkett said she thought the $50 “robo tickets” for tickets in school zones, where someone is ticketed for going 31 mph in a 20-mph zone, were bad enough.

https://www.valleybreeze.com/news/pawtucket-business-owner-after-parking-fine-enough-with-the-money-grabs/article_b5ea506a-c9d1-11ee-bd74-db715c021304.html

Seriously of all the places you don’t want people flagrantly violating the speed limits it’s school zones. It’s very likely the system lets you get away with 25 or 26 MPH in school zone, but she wants to drive 11 MPH above the limit, what a horrible person, I bet she cheats on her taxes and violates many other laws too.

Thankfully the judge slapped her down in court. I think the city of Pawtucket will be far better off if she moves to a town that is willing to let well off white business woman ignore the laws everyone else has to follow.

I don’t really need any more reasons to hate BCBS of MA, after all they were the first insurance company to mislead me back in the 70s. The few times since then that I’ve been forced to use them, (in the USA almost nobody gets a choice, it’s forced on us by employers who often choose low cost) they’ve always been far worse than all other providers for me.

Just got a notice that an incompetent claims administration company named NASCO that BCBS entrusted to handle sensitive customer data has let it get loose to criminals.

So the worst health insurance has let an incompetent claims administration company named NASCO mishandle my personal private info and all they offer is oops, here’s free Experian monitoring that is useless to me (I already have free super Experian monitoring because that incompetent credit rating company mishandled my info a couple years ago).

When I retire soon it will be great to dump BCBS for the rest of my life.

Here are the simple most basic rules of civility that my parents taught me. Throughout my over 60 years of existence these rules have proven themselves to be essential for a happy family group.

For groups of five or more family members:

• Be polite
• Be respectful
• Keep your mental issues out (they should be discussed in smaller groups or even better with an appropriate certified and licensed mental health professional)
• No trolling (pushing people’s buttons in a mean way)

For groups larger than ten or more family members add:

• No political discussions
• No religious discussions

Any person who can not agree to these rules is not welcome to be part of my family group.

Frankly this is just a tiny subset of what are often called common decency. Most of the other common decency and politeness rules were also imposed by my parents.

For groups of four or less family members the rules can be whatever the group desires. If they all want to fight and scream that’s their business.

If someone transgresses the rules all they need do to come back into the group is apologize for being impolite and promise to try to never do it again.

Even after years apart if the former family member is now willing to apologize for being impolite and promise to try to never do it again, they will be welcomed back.

EE Times Headline: Automotive Industry Looks Beyond EVs for Decarbonization

A more accurate headline: Chevron, Ferrari & McLaren are looking at alternatives to batteries.

I suppose other fossil fuel companies and super car manufacturers are doing the same. However listening to those super car companies about anything related to climate change is like paying attention to the flea on its back instead of the lion that is pouncing on you. And listening to fossil fuel companies who are the overwhelming cause of the global climate crisis is like listening to the advice of an abusive partner.

Always remember, if humanity had never dug up fossil fuels and released their carbon we would not have this climate crisis now, period.

Tom the Dancing Bug explains the new CNN staring someone who looks and acts like Jake Tapper.

I’m down to mostly only being able to only stomach Jon & Abby’s’ “Inside Politics” shows

Nicole Gasparro said she is a retailer from East Providence, and she also worked, as a youngster, for her father’s business in Massachusetts, where empty containers were accepted in exchange for deposits. She said the situation was terrible: dregs in unwashed bottles created a stench and drew bugs, ants, and flies. People would get into fistfights trying to claim unattended bottles. She even saw bottles used as weapons. The store had to call police frequently. Customers had to do their shopping surrounded by the smell of rotting trash.“It was terrifying to employees,” Gasparro said. “Nobody wants to work in those conditions.”

Bottle Bill Debate Returns to Rhode Island – ecoRI News

Wow, I’ve been in so many stores in Massachusetts since a decade before the bottle came here and not once have I experienced anything remotely like that. Hopefully her incompetent family went bankrupt and closed it down.

Back when Twitter first appeared on the net I’d only been blogging for half a year and I just couldn’t see the point in micro-blogging. Other than quick links or short jokes, I could see nothing worthwhile in texting to a global audience with a 140 character limit. When they doubled the post size in 2017 I thought it’s closer to a useful limit but not close enough for me to bother with.

Over the years it became very clear to me that Twitter was really just a place for the various left, right and center outrage brigades to organize and whine about things regardless of the facts. I also saw it was the most effective vehicle for spreading misinformation ever to appear on the net. This was do to its reach by being the favorite place for celebrities, journalists, and those who uncritically regurgitate their knee jerk, facts/reality be damned, outrage of the day.

With the recent renewed interest in micro-blogging via Mastodon on the Fediverse I thought I’d finally give it a try. I was pretty sure I could squeeze a few useful thoughts or tips in the 512 character limit.

At first it went well, I helped out a young blind man who wanted to get into electronics via Arduino. I provided reality based facts to counter some common tech myths, got a couple interesting leads on subjects of interest, and enjoyed quite a few jokes and cat pictures.

Then the proverbial shit hit the fan. An outrage brigade of conspiracy theory nuts and all police are evil bigots started ruining my experience. They flooded the feeds with their anti-reality whining. After 6 hours or so things started to show signs of improvement due to some reality based thinkers chiming in to counter the craziest of the outrage brigades.

This morning things got worse because now the outrage brigades were being encouraged by journalists like Jeff Jarvis and tech celebrities like Simon Phipps and Padre SJ. While they did not go along with the bigoted stereotype (AFAIK), they started whining because an organization did not coddle the conspiracy nuts and bigots, then horror of horrors blocked them. I could have sworn that was promoted as one of the big benefits of the Fediverse over Twitter, easy blocking of other people to improve your own experience.

I called it quits and deleted my account because the signal to noise ratio fell below a useful level even with me spending too much time muting or unfollowing all the bigots, conspiracy promoters, and pro-coddling people.