Retard of the Day: Dave Young (Warren Ohio)

Posted in Uncategorized on November 29th, 2009 by Shnugi – Be the first to comment

“I’m a hard-core conservative Republican guy — I found that appalling (food stamp abuse),” said Dave Young, a member of the county (Warren, Ohio) board of commissioners.
“As soon as people figure out they can vote representatives in to give them benefits, that’s the end of democracy,” Young said. -Columbus Dispatch (November 29, 2009)

No, David Young, I think that’s the beginning of democracy. What do you think the founding fathers were doing when then ceded from Great Britain? They wanted to put in place laws that benefited them instead of benefiting the King.

Bleak Employment Outlook, Unemployment for Young Adults (20-24) Grows 41%

Posted in Rant on November 8th, 2009 by Shnugi – Be the first to comment

Written: 11/7/09

I’ve been thinking a lot about my employment outlook lately, so I dug into the Bureau of Labor Statistics to see how others in my age group were fairing. I don’t think that anyone thinks that job market its that great especially towards recent graduates, but these stats highlight the bleak economic landscape that those graduating in 2010 will face.

Shocking Statistics:

  • Only 37% of young adults (20-24) have full time employment (35 hours + per week), which is down from 53% in year 2000. Only 60% of adults (20-24) are employed (part time or fulltime), which is in stark contrast to the 53% of full time employment nearly 10 years earlier. This demonstrates the deterioration of the abilities of college graduates and young adults as a whole to support themselves and possibly their new families. You can see the effects of this underemployment in MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant, where the older boy friends are unable to earn enough to support their newly formed families on blue collar wages.
  • 40% of the young adults (20-24) are not working (unemployed or not seeking employment), this is up from 27% in year 2000. Again, this shows that this age group is no longer able to support itself on the economic conditions that exist today. There hasn’t been a huge cultural shift, since 2000, so the lack of employment is due to the scarce opportunities afforded to this age group.
  • 36% of people between the ages of (20-24) were in college in 2008, up from 31.5% in 2000. No job? Stay in college.
  • 41% more people (20-24) were unemployed in October 2009, than October 2008.

Unemployment rate of 20-24 year olds from 2009-2000 (taken in October of each month)

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

15.6%

10.6%

8.5%

8.4%

8.3%

9.7%

9.8%

10.0%

9.1%

6.7%

As you can see from the table, unemployment has basically doubled since 2007.

From October 2007 to October 2008, the total number of unemployed 20-24 year olds increased 26%. The following year (2008-2009) unemployment grew 41% for the same age group. The total population in that age group stayed aout the same each year. This shows the rapid collapse of economic opporunities for young Americans. The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t have any information on how people of different educational backgrounds are faring, but I’d wager a guess people with college degrees aren’t faring that much better than the uneducated.

This is an 100% stacked bar graph to show the changes in the labor participation composition of the total population. The orange represents people that are not working at all, these people could be discouraged workers (people that have been beaten down by the labor market and aren’t bothering to do anything), people that work under the table, people that do unrecorded and uncompensated work (housewives and househusbands), college students who don’t work, and people that don’t do anything (which I would think is a very small faction). The other three cateogries should be pretty self explanatory, unemployed means that they’re seeking work but don’t have any, part time means they work less than 35 hours a week, full time means they work 35 or more hours each week. With the 100% bar graph, it’s important to keep in mind that no person is double counted, since for example you can’t be full time employed and unemployed at the same time.

The drop in labor participation (the orange part) rates represents workers that are no longer trying to find work in this economy and people who have made other lifestyle choices. For people in the ages 20-24, I don’t think there are a lot that have settled down into nuclear families, so I don’t think that the drop can be attributed to an increase of stay at home partners. One glaring number is that percentage of full time employed young adults dropped well below 50% for the first time in 2008 and continued to fall through 2009.

Feel free to run the numbers yourself. I got all my stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census website. It was pretty easy to grab the tables and run them through excel.

 

Labor Statistics of Americans 20-24,not seasonally adjusted (in thousands)

 

Total Pop*

Full Time*

Part Time*

Unemployed*

In College**

Oct, 1986

19416

10765

2968

1537

4510

Oct, 1987

18789

10427

3041

1216

4648

Oct, 1988

18288

10256

2939

1145

4745

Oct, 1989

17901

9905

2838

1148

4738

Oct, 1990

18920

10153

3154

1312

4945

Oct, 1991

19027

9408

3511

1570

5243

Oct, 1992

18803

9156

3597

1502

5450

Oct, 1993

18582

9292

3524

1335

5267

Oct, 1994

18314

9206

3685

1173

5678

Oct, 1995

17709

8771

3439

1182

5438

Oct, 1996

17298

8684

3517

1090

5458

Oct, 1997

17470

8749

3596

1057

5842

Oct, 1998

17665

9252

3444

907

5653

Oct, 1999

18060

9547

3391

990

5740

Oct, 2000

18492

9914

3568

903

5852

Oct, 2001

19029

9672

3597

1258

6152

Oct, 2002

19522

9573

3737

1415

6452

Oct, 2003

19872

9375

4063

1413

6853

Oct, 2004

20247

9638

4196

1440

6926

Oct, 2005

20295

9789

4204

1240

7107

Oct, 2006

20270

9985

3890

1246

6841

Oct, 2007

20440

9799

4016

1266

7086

Oct, 2008

20459

9142

4375

1591

7340

Oct, 2009

20608

7724

4661

2243

  

*From the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/cps/

**From the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey taken in October http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html

 

Labor Statistics of Americans 20-24,not seasonally adjusted (in thousands) shows how many people are in the 20-24 age group (in thousands), how many of those people are employed full time, employed part time, unemployed, and in college. Keep in mind that people in college can be employed full time, employed part time or unemployed. It’s important to note that the population of this age cohort hasn’t changed much over the 23 time span, so you can estimate the percent changes just by comparing year to year changes in the total number of people in each category.

Side note: I’d bet that in 1986, fewer people in college worked. But that might just be my perspective coming from a state university where most people don’t have families that can completely support them.

 

Year to Year Change in Labor Stats for 20-24

 

Total Pop

Full Time

Part Time

Unemployed

In College

1986

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

1987

-3.23%

-3.14%

2.46%

-20.88%

3.06%

1988

-2.67%

-1.64%

-3.35%

-5.84%

2.09%

1989

-2.12%

-3.42%

-3.44%

0.26%

-0.15%

1990

5.69%

2.50%

11.13%

14.29%

4.37%

1991

0.57%

-7.34%

11.32%

19.66%

6.03%

1992

-1.18%

-2.68%

2.45%

-4.33%

3.95%

1993

-1.18%

1.49%

-2.03%

-11.12%

-3.36%

1994

-1.44%

-0.93%

4.57%

-12.13%

7.80%

1995

-3.30%

-4.73%

-6.68%

0.77%

-4.23%

1996

-2.32%

-0.99%

2.27%

-7.78%

0.37%

1997

0.99%

0.75%

2.25%

-3.03%

7.04%

1998

1.12%

5.75%

-4.23%

-14.19%

-3.24%

1999

2.24%

3.19%

-1.54%

9.15%

1.54%

2000

2.39%

3.84%

5.22%

-8.79%

1.95%

2001

2.90%

-2.44%

0.81%

39.31%

5.13%

2002

2.59%

-1.02%

3.89%

12.48%

4.88%

2003

1.79%

-2.07%

8.72%

-0.14%

6.22%

2004

1.89%

2.81%

3.27%

1.91%

1.07%

2005

0.24%

1.57%

0.19%

-13.89%

2.61%

2006

-0.12%

2.00%

-7.47%

0.48%

-3.74%

2007

0.84%

-1.86%

3.24%

1.61%

3.58%

2008

0.09%

-6.70%

8.94%

25.67%

3.58%

2009

0.73%

-15.51%

6.54%

40.98%

  

Year to Year Change in Labor Stats for 20-24 table shows the changes from year to year in terms of percent. So in 2008 there were 25.67% more unemployed people than in 2007.

 

Economic Activity of 20-24 Year Olds (1986-2009)

 

Employed (Part time + Full Time)

Not Working (Unemployed + Not Actively Searching for Work)

In College

Employed Full time

1986

70.73%

29.27%

23.23%

55.44%

1987

71.68%

28.32%

24.74%

55.50%

1988

72.15%

27.85%

25.95%

56.08%

1989

71.19%

28.81%

26.47%

55.33%

1990

70.33%

29.67%

26.14%

53.66%

1991

67.90%

32.10%

27.56%

49.45%

1992

67.82%

32.18%

28.98%

48.69%

1993

68.97%

31.03%

28.34%

50.01%

1994

70.39%

29.61%

31.00%

50.27%

1995

68.95%

31.05%

30.71%

49.53%

1996

70.53%

29.47%

31.55%

50.20%

1997

70.66%

29.34%

33.44%

50.08%

1998

71.87%

28.13%

32.00%

52.37%

1999

71.64%

28.36%

31.78%

52.86%

2000

72.91%

27.09%

31.65%

53.61%

2001

69.73%

30.27%

32.33%

50.83%

2002

68.18%

31.82%

33.05%

49.04%

2003

67.62%

32.38%

34.49%

47.18%

2004

68.33%

31.67%

34.21%

47.60%

2005

68.95%

31.05%

35.02%

48.23%

2006

68.45%

31.55%

33.75%

49.26%

2007

67.59%

32.41%

34.67%

47.94%

2008

66.07%

33.93%

35.88%

44.68%

2009

60.10%

39.90%

NA

37.48%

Economic Activity of 20-24 Year Olds (1986-2009) table shows the percentage of the population in each year at October that was in college, had any kind of employment, wasn’t working, or was full time employed. Look at the Employed vs not Working columns together, since each year’s Employed % + Not Working % should add up to 100%. The in college percent is there just so that you can compare the changes, since people in college can also be employed or not employed. I included a breakdown of the employment column to show the % that is full time employed, because I thought it was interesting that the percent of the population in college might exceed the percent of the population employed fulltime in 2009. The numbers aren’t out, but when the economy’s bad more people go to college, so I think that it’s plausible that the two will equal each other soon. The percent of people in college would only have to grow 4.4% from 2008 to equal the percent of the 20-24 year old population working full time. That’s not to say that people in college aren’t also working full time, but it’s an interesting statistic to look at over time.

V: Pilot, Episode 1

Posted in TV/Music/Movies on November 5th, 2009 by Shnugi – Be the first to comment

Quick Info

Characters:

Humans in V

Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell): “Juliet from Lost” A counter-terrorism agent for the FBI. She is probably a future leader of the human resistance, after surviving the raid in the warehouse. Her work interferes with her relationship with her son Tyler.

Tyler Evans (Logan Huffman): “Juliet’s Son” Erica’s only child. He has an absent father and a mother that is always working. After becoming enamored by Lisa, the V Youth leader, he forges Erica’s signature and joins the Visitor Ambassador Program. Future traitor; may become the baby daddy to a Human-Lizard hybrid.

Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch): “Hot Priest” Doesn’t trust the V’s, but doesn’t seem to want to get into the fray. How long will he continue to be a priest?

Chad Decker (Scott Wolf): “The Reporter” Focused on advancing his career. He doesn’t totally trust the V’s after being coerced into giving Anna a soft interview. Will probably connect with the resistance, may become Anna’s sex slave in the process.

Valerie Holt (Lourdes Benedicto): “Ryan’s Fiancée” Lizard?

Georgie Sutton (David Richmond-Peck): “The Resistance Leader” Crazy and paranoid; this man will have to save humanity.

The Visitors (Lizards)

Anna (Morena Baccarin): “Leader of the Visitors” The charmingly vicious leader of the V fleet. Just wait till she eats your face.

Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut): “The Lizard dressed up as a Black Guy with a Fiancée” A spy sent by the V’s. He has deserted their cause and want to live a mainstream life with his future wife Valerie.

Lisa (Laura Vandervoot): “Youth Leader in Sexy Jumpsuit” Gives Tyler the look. Future V/Human babies on the way?

Dale Maddox (Alan Tudyk): “Alpha from Dollhouse” A Visitor spy working as a counter-terrorism agent in the FBI. Presumably dead, but I don’t know how easy these V’s die. The originals could take a pretty heavy beating before passing on.

Factions:

The Visitors (Lizards): Lisa, Dale, Anna

Visitor Worshipers (Humans): Tyler Evans, Older Priest

Rebels (Lizards + Humans): Erica, Ryan, Jack

Predictions:

  • Lots and lots of interspecial hooking up with a couple hybrid babies, like Battlestar Galactica.
  • Anna’s face get’s ripped off during an interview with Chad.
  • Tyler Evans betrays Erica
  • Erica uses Tyler to get to the V’s
  • Valerie turns out to be a V spy keeping tabs on Ryan
  • One of the motherships gets blown up and the resistance is hunted down
  • Erica and Priest hook up, that or the Priest is gay

Project Runway 6 on Lifetime

Posted in TV/Music/Movies on October 31st, 2009 by Shnugi – Be the first to comment

I am so glad that Logan finally got booted. I swear the only reason that he was kept on the show was because he’s the cute ’straight’ boy. It’s too bad that every time he opened his mouth to say something edgy he sounded like a 4 year old; like when he said his grandmother had better taste than Gordana. I like how he wears shiny pants to every single elimination challenge as if he wants the judges to stare at his shiny silver crotch instead of his work.

Side note: It has been a little annoying that one trick ponies don’t get called out this season (remember Rami?) because the judges rotate so often.

SocialSafe fails to save anything of note

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized on October 31st, 2009 by Shnugi – Be the first to comment

Review of SocialSafe: 11/1/09

Version of Social Safe being reviewed: 1.2.395

I was really excited when I read about SocialSafe for Facebook. I thought it would be an amazing way to capture my Facebook and save it for when I’m old and forgetful. Unfortunately, it seems that SocialSafe can’t seem to get it right.  I really hope they aren’t going to try to expand and make versions for Myspace or Twitter until they can get Facebook right.  I’m extremely disapointed in the results of a program that claims to be past beta.  If the people at iBundle and 1minus1 had been more truthful about how Social Safe is a work in progress, I wouldn’t have been this rough on them.

socialsafe-interface

Pros of SocialSafe:

  • Swanky user interface
  • Documents when people become your facebook friends or defriend you.
  • Downloads all the photos that you uploaded to facebook.  If you ever loose the originals (like if your hard drive dies, or someone steals your computer), SocialSafe can get them for you. SocialSafe can only download the images you uploaded, so you won’t be able to download any of your friend’s pictures that you’re tagged in. However, I suggest that you save your money and download FacePAD (Facebook Photo Album Downloader). FacePAD is a free add-on to Firefox that will let you download all the pictures that you’re tagged in, your friends, albums, and your own pictures. Beat that SocialSafe.

Cons of Social Safe:

  • It only saved 11 of my status updates (8 from October 2009, and 3 from September 2007), which is ridiculous failure considering that I probably have over 100 status from the past 3 years of having Facebook. I didn’t think that SocialSafe was a beta program, but it seems like they have major issues to work out.
  • It saved 0 of my wall posts, even though I gave SocialSafe additional permissions to download them. Uhh… guys, I think that’s something that should work right out of the box.
  • It doesn’t save other people’s pictures that you’re tagged in. It will only download pictures that I originally uploaded, which is pretty useless since I have the originals. Why would I want low resolution copies?
  • It doesn’t download notes, which should be something pretty basic.
  • It doesn’t save any of your friends information. This seems like it should be a given. I’m not going to remember who the heck half these people are in 4 years, so it might be nice to at least see what network they’re in. Calling the programmers at SocialSafe… I don’t actually talk to 75% of my Facebook ‘Friends,’ so I really need to have something remember them by instead of a little tiny thumbnail.
  • The user interface needs some works. It looks sweet, but seriously it’s barely usable. I’m sorry, but I thought of Transformers when I saw the column of chevrons on the download screen.

Don’t spend $2.99 on a product that isn’t finished. Social Safe might be worth it someday, but not today. Save your money now that I know I wasted my $3 on this piece of crap.  Don’t be fooled by their British accents!

EDIT: Here’s the email I got in response to my complaint, with my commentary (11/8/09):

Thanks for your e-mail.

Unfortunately the Facebook API only allows the backing up of the last 100 Status Updates. [Shnugi: The sales pitch didn't mention that limitation] That said, it is unclear why the application downloaded only 11 of your Status Updates (8 from October 2009 and 3 from September 2007).  We would like to investigate this further and would be grateful if you could send us your log file [Shnugi: I sent it, but I'm not expecting them to do anything about it.]. Details on where this can be found are below.

In addition to the restriction on the number of Status Updates, the API only
allows the downloading of a limited range of data.  Although SocialSafe does
not currently make use of the full range of data available through the API,
we do intend adding further functionality through a series of application
updates and these updates will be free to existing users.  Product
enhancements will include the backing-up of inbox messages, notes, links and
even Facebook Fan Pages. [Shnugi: Kay thanx for telling me this AFTER I spend my money]

Tagged Photos too will be downloadable in the future but, compliant with
Facebook’s rules, will need the explicit permission of the photo’s owner.
We did launch with that functionality but without explicit permission.
However, communication from Facebook highlighted the risks to our API access
through non-compliance and so we have had to suspend our Tagged Photo
download functionality pending further application development. [Shnugi: Someone got burned by Facebook, maybe you should emphasize your strict limitations.  I saw nothing about it on the FAQ. I sure would've appreciated it]

You can keep a track of our progress via http://socialsafe.uservoic e.com, by
becoming a fan of our Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/ socialsafeapp
or following our blog www.socialsaf e.net/blog. [Shnugi: No links for you!, Like I'm going to be a fan of this crap.]

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,


George Moore
Customer & Technical Support

Here are some screenshots of SocialSafe:

Never Using Real Player again

Posted in Anything on August 20th, 2007 by admin – Comments Off

My friggin account was deleted, so you know I can’t play the files I freaking bought.

OpenOffice library to add dictionaries

Posted in Linux on April 26th, 2007 by admin – Comments Off

usr\lib\openoffice\share\dict\ooo

buy new cmos battery cr2032

go to fter hours at 10

Children’s Charitable Foundation

Posted in Thoughts on August 31st, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

I am appalled at what constitutes a charity these days. A few days ago, I recieved a phone call from the Children’s Charitable Foundation, and I will admit I was taken in by the pleas of the caller, who spoke of sick children getting their last wishes fulfilled; in fact, I thought it was the Make-A-Wish Foundation calling. But no, I was mistaken this was the Children’s Charitable Foundation. Nevertheless, I said I would pledge $25 to their cause, which, at the time, seemed very worthy.
Well, today I got the mail and found their donation form. As soon as I looked at it, I knew something was up. Everything about their pamphlet just screamed “10 minute Frontpage job.” Now, I’m not one to judge based on looks a lone, so I decided to do a little investigating. I had heard stories of many a charity that only spent around a quarter of their revenue on programs, but I never would have expected what I found out next.
A simple web search of “Children’s Charitable Foundation” was enough to yield a link to Give.org, which is the BBB for charities. The page lambasts the CCF being unaccountable. In fact, it failed to meet half of the standards for accountability. Now that’s bad and all, but what really got me riled up was the percentage of donated money that they actually use for the children.
CCF spends… 6% of it’s funds on helping the children. No I didn’t miss a zero, 6% on the dot. Now to put it all in perspective, they raked in $1.1 million in donations and gave out $60 thousand. Umm, that seems a little out of whack. Just a little.
For god’s sake, I know people that tithe at least 10% of their total income, and this charity can’t even match that. Sickening.
So what are they doing with all their money? Fundraising. Apparently cold calls, like the one they sent me, cost money; in fact, they spent 88% of their funds on fundrasing. Pathetic.

If CCF ever calls me up again begging for money, I’ll give them a piece of my mind.

Keyboard not responding with KDE

Posted in Linux on August 28th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

Try disabling “slow keys,” if it's enabled. I don't know how or why it got enabled, but it doesn't help.

Go to K > System Settings > Regional & Accessibility (near the top) > Accessibility > Keyboard Filters > Uncheck “Use slow keys”

Broke a hard drive

Posted in Computer on August 24th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

In my attempt to upgrade my measly 10gb hard drive in one of our computers. I broke the replacement drive, which is no big deal since it was only a 60 gb 4 year old Maxtor; I think it pooped out either when I erased it or when I was a little rough on it taking it out and putting it back in. Oh well, next time I'll know what I'm doing, and I'll have a spare to practice on.

In perspective

Posted in Computer on August 14th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

P4 Northwood 2.4 ghz: 57.8 watts
Geode NX 1750 1.4 ghz: 14 watts

Intergrated Video: 5-10 watts
Radeon 9600xt: 22 watts

2 sticks of RAM: 20 watts

Hard drive 20 watts

Fan 3 watts

CD-rom/rw: 20 watts
DVD-rw/rom: 25 watts

Motherboard: 25 watts

Wireless: 5-10 watts
Wired 5

So 140 watts peak! + 75 watts
VS 240+ watts peak + 70 watts (100 volts x .7 amps)

Ubuntu crashes with some Multisession DVDs

Posted in Linux on August 12th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

Yea so apparently my multisession DVDs in ISO 9960 + Joliet are worthless with Ubuntu, since the system will crash, yes crash, if I insert them and automount. So far, I've tested plain old ISO 9960 and Ubuntu seems to support multisession well, except it doesn't support file names longer than 8 characters long. :(

To get VLC to play WMV3 under Linux

Posted in Linux on August 12th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

Install the latest nightly build, and you should be good to go. :)

http://nightlies.videolan.org/

WMV still doesn't work after w32codecs

Posted in Linux on August 10th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

Still can't get WMV's to play even after installing w32codecs, and you're running Ubuntu, with Gnome? Well, for me, all I needed to do next was install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll . :)

I couldn't change screen resolutions

Posted in Linux on August 8th, 2006 by admin – Comments Off

… in Ubuntu, so I found out that my drivers were all screwy, in the Xorg.conf (/etc/x11/Xorg.conf). All I had to do was change the line:
Driver: “vesa”
To:
Driver: “sis”
Note: “sis” should be whatever drivers your intergrated graphics chip or video card uses, usually you just need to specifiy the brand, but check to make sure.

This also fixed my issues with DVD playback. It used to skip and studder like no other, but now it's actually quite nice, considering it's intergrated graphics.