Messages

976

Everything Else TWC / Re: General TWC Discussion

« on: August 15, 2011, 06:56:12 PM »

Happy sixth birthday, square TWC logo!

Meh.  My cable box still has the second version of the TWC logo, and I enjoy seeing it there. 

977

General Discussion / Re: The Debt Ceiling Deadline

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:32:31 PM »

Part of the American mentality is stuck several centuries ago, when there was no choice but to do everything yourself if you wanted to survive.  In Europe, especially after WWII, people realized that civilization has progressed enough to allow the government to offer things to people simply because these people are alive, meaning the people no longer have to worry about certain things, like how they'll pay for healthcare or higher education, that Americans have to worry about.  Of course, taxes in Europe are generally much higher than in America, with numbers that would give the average American a hemorrhage, but, having lived in Europe, I personally think it's the better system.  For example, I once found myself needing pretty extensive medical care that I got for free.  My taxes and the taxes of the rest of the population took care of the bill.  I paid nothing out of pocket.  Had I been in the United States at the time, I know I'd be paying off that bill for a long, long, long time.

But the American mentality is that it's WRONG to get something you didn't "earn."  Europeans say you "earn" these things just by being alive, that every human being has entitlements.  American entitlements seem to end at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Good entitlements, but there's so much more that can be done.

978

Questions, Comments, Suggestions / Re: What I'm enjoying here...

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:27:39 PM »

What is strange about my lack of math skills, however, is that I had to take a math placement test in between my freshman and sophomore years at college when I transferred schools.  I somehow, after already not studying math for almost two full years (most of my senior year at high school, and I wasn't required to take one during my freshman year at college, so I didn't), managed to pass that math placement test high enough that the school considered me to have met all of their requirements, meaning I never had to take a single math class again!  To this day I don't know how the heck I did that, and I still remember the fear that went through my head as I had to figure out how to use my calculator again, plus trying to remember what all those funny squiggles on the page were...

I even asked the person who graded it to double-check and make sure it's my test, because I couldn't have scored that high.  She assured me it was my test and my grade.  Granted, I scored only three points higher than the cut-off for never having to take a math class again, but I gladly took it! 

979

Questions, Comments, Suggestions / Re: What I'm enjoying here...

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:24:55 PM »

Actually, I had some of the best teachers in the whole state of Massachusetts.  But they can't teach to a brain that just can't grasp the concept of mathematics.  Numbers have always been pretty much meaningless to me.  Fortunately, I words DO mean something to me, which is why I got my education as a linguist and why I'm able to be a writer. 

980

General Discussion / Re: The Front Porch

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:52:39 AM »

Online its even harder to find it. I don't think its just America either. I have a friend who lives in Italy who wears her country is the worst. Haha! Its all a matter of viewpoint I suppose.

Oh, the abuse of the anonymity of the internet is terrible.  Deaths have resulted.  But what can people do about it, really?  When left to police themselves, people just turn to the lowest common denominator as quickly as possible.  It's terribly sad.  This is the 21st century, and you'd think humanity would have evolved to be better than this by now.  Guess not.  When it comes down to it, humanity as a whole is still really just a bunch of apes who use their increased brainpower for evil rather than for good.

As far as my travels have taken me, the vast majority has been throughout northeastern Europe, and, let me tell you, the worst customers I saw there are equivalent to what I'd call "somewhat nicer than average" customers in America.  There are places where people still know their manners, and that's what really gets me mad when I think about what I have to deal with on a daily basis.  It's not that it's impossible to be nice.  It's that people specifically make the choice to be nasty rather than pleasant, and that makes me so mad I can barely communicate it.

981

Hurricane Central / Re: Tropical Storm Gert

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:48:50 AM »

Very true! We are still just getting into the peak season so it could still get very interesting.

That's how it's happened before - an extremely quiet start to the year suddenly leads to a literal explosion of storms, with everything happening so quickly that it's hard to keep up with it all.

Of course, it's not the number of storms there are, or the severity of fish storms, that really count.  As interesting as it is to track tropical cyclones, we have to remember that they're capable of great death and destruction should they come near land, and, unfortunately, there's not a thing that can be done to prevent it, except to evacuate as many people as possible and hope that they'll have lives to return to when the storm passes.

982

Questions, Comments, Suggestions / Re: What I'm enjoying here...

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:44:40 AM »

Though my math skills are ehh, I still have a passion for weather and meteorology no matter what...so I totally agree with ya there. I'll be treating that as a hobby and share it with awesome friends. ^_^

As early as the 7th grade, my teachers were telling me that I'd really need to improve my math skills if I wanted to take up meteorology as a career.  By the time I got to the 10th grade, they were telling me that it's just a lost cause.  Some people have that skill, and others don't.  Studying like mad can only get you so far, but if a person truly struggles with even simple mathematics all the time, that's how he is, that's how he's always going to be, and so he should look for a different career choice.

I was so bad in math that my 12th grade advanced calculus (how I ever ended up getting put in that class is beyond me) teacher actually bribed me to leave and never return.  By the end of the first quarter (so the last half of October), my grade was 7.  Out of 100.  It was obvious that this was not the class for me.  Because it was already too late to transfer to a different math class, and because I had straight "A"s in everything else, she cut a deal with me.  If I left and never told anyone that I was even occupying valuable space in her classroom, she would give me an extra 60 points so that I could officially withdraw from the class with a passing grade, and that would be the end of it.  I didn't need the credits, actually, so this would be no benefit, but especially no harm, to me.  Of course I accepted, and I spent that hour every day instead puttering around my school's TV studio - and, unlike my math teacher, they were very happy to have me around. 

983

General Discussion / Re: The Front Porch

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:39:50 AM »

It's true.  I hope we won't get into trouble for saying this, but it really is true.  I won't go further, because then I KNOW I'll get into trouble, but...  I'll just close by saying that it's really not so hard to be polite to someone.  In fact, I think a person actually has to go out of his way to be rude, so I really can't understand why that's the way the overwhelming number of people I come into contact with each day are.

An extreme example: I once had a customer come dangerously close to threatening to cause me physical harm because the register rang an item at about 30¢ more than it should have been.  I don't control what the registers do, I don't control the prices, it's an easy fix (and for 30¢ we don't even have to call a manager to fix it for us), but this guy thought I personally was trying to rob him of 30¢ and he didn't waste any time in expressing his opinions about that.  Now, really... is that how he thinks it's appropriate to behave in public?  Really...

984

General Discussion / Re: The Front Porch

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:25:28 AM »

Eric, nothing is off topic on the Porch or the Stove, so you have nothing to fear here.   Furthermore, I completely agree with you.  It's amazing what a little kindness will do for you in our current society.  If all of us were in other countries like Japan, none of these manners would be tolerated at all, and their rules of etiquette are even more strict than ours.

Just yesterday I had a customer from France who was probably the nicest customer I've had in a long, long time.  It really does take just one nice customer to make up for many bad customers, and, after such a positive experience, I was literally elated for the rest of the evening.  In general, foreign customers tend to be enormously more polite than the average American customer.

985

General Discussion / Re: The Front Porch

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:09:36 AM »

I wouldn't say its a new rule really. Personal attacks are not allowed and we will be making sure that the rule is enforced.

Well, no one really knows what the rules are lately as the mod for them hasn't been installed yet.   I always put something out there even if it's not new to reemphasize and clarify things when it becomes an issue, but that's just my own way.

At least there's some civility (or the expectation of it) somewhere in this world!  Years of working retail have taught me that manners just don't exist in this world anymore.  I've had some downright MISERABLE customers, many of whom are miserable just for the sake of being miserable, and especially because they know we sales associates just can't do a darn thing about it but stand there and take their abuse.  And some of that abuse gets ugly, let me tell you - to the point of having to go to court, even, to get it stopped.  And I've even seen with my own eyes how parents teach their kids how to be as rude to us as possible.  Now that's sad - teaching a child how to treat certain people much worse than they'd treat other people.  And why?  All because we work in a store?  Is that what "the customer is always right" means?  It's disgusting, but, sadly, there's not much I can do about it.  But the point of what I'm saying is that this happens not only in stores, but all throughout society, too.  People don't hold doors anymore, excuse themselves after burping or making other unfortunate biological noises, don't say "please" and "thank you," just bump past you on the sidewalk... the list can go on and on.  Do things REALLY have to be like this?  Really?  Why has society let itself get so rude, so lazy with manners, and, most importantly, so inconsiderate when it comes to other people?  At least my parents and my grandparents brought me up right.  I couldn't behave that way in public if my life depended on it.

 

986

Questions, Comments, Suggestions / What I'm enjoying here...

« on: August 15, 2011, 02:03:54 AM »

While conversations about TWC are certainly interesting, and give this forum a purpose, what I'm finding most interesting of all are the discussions about weather itself.  Of course, we're in the middle of hurricane season, and hurricanes have always been a passion of mine.  In fact, they're what got me interested in meteorology in the first place, starting with Gilbert in 1988 and becoming rock-solid with Hugo in 1989.  (I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again, but I still think TWC's documentary on Hugo, "Force Four," is probably the best documentary TWC has ever made.)  If it weren't for my total lack of math skills, I certainly would have become a meteorologist.  Even though I'll never become a professional, the weather still remains a serious passion of mine.

Anyway, thanks for many very interesting discussions.  Yes, we get a bit kvetchy at times, and, yes, we often wander into the realm of the bizarre, but it's all interesting reading, nonetheless. 

987

Hurricane Central / Re: Tropical Storm Gert

« on: August 15, 2011, 01:53:47 AM »

Seems to be the year for tropical storms

It's interesting (though not unheard of) that, so far this year, and we're already in the middle of August, none of the seven tropical storms have become hurricanes, and, in fact, there have been no depressions that haven't become tropical storms.

Of course, you can't judge a book by its cover, just as you can't judge a season in progress by the storms that have (or haven't) formed so far.  Look at 1992.  Andrew formed on August 16th, a very late start to the season as far as named storms, was the only major hurricane, was one of only two named storms (the only hurricane) to make landfall in the U.S., and yet it was quite a nightmarish storm.

988

IntelliStar 2 Discussion / Re: IntelliStar 2 Beta Launch

« on: August 15, 2011, 01:50:15 AM »

i never understood this concept of people having the nerve to say "oh I have something to say, but I can't tell"

I know why, but my lips are sealed.

989

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: WOW! Cable is Going Digital

« on: August 14, 2011, 11:51:51 PM »

More like the cable headend, because some Comcast areas have more QAM channels than others.

That's true.  I remember back in the 1990s that my town, and the couple of neighboring towns on the same headend, had far fewer channels than all of the other communities in northeastern Massachusetts served by whatever the pre-Comcast was back then.  There was a group of 20 extended cable channels that it literally took YEARS for us to get, even though everyone else had them.  These channels were showing up on our programming guides, even, but we just kept waiting and waiting and waiting...

990

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: WOW! Cable is Going Digital

« on: August 14, 2011, 03:22:00 PM »

On the other hand, Bright House here in Florida allows access to all of the basic and expanded SD cable channels AND the HD broadcast channels if you plug your TV directly into the wall.

It just depends on the cable company.

I remember the pre-Comcast days (all the way back to Continental Cablevision), when the cable company was supposedly the first (or among the first) in the country to scramble ALL channels, requiring a cable box for any cable reception at all.  Obviously, this was the company's way to make some extra money through cable box rentals.  A court decision later overturned that, however, requiring at least basic cable without a box.  Now with digital cable here, the "at least basic cable without a box" has been changed into letting customers have a certain number of digital converter boxes for free.