Y2/D324...

Feb. 3rd, 2022 09:42 pm
shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Taking tomorrow off as already reported - due to predicted icy weather. The temperatures start in the 50s then jump to the 30s and 20s. It's supposed to rain, then immediately switch to ice with up to ten inch thickness of ice being reported in some areas. I walk and take the subway - trying to do that in ice, with rain, and snow, and sleet - during a pandemic - is not my idea of fun.

Mother told my brother that I'd chosen to take a vacation day as opposed to venturing into the office - and he wholeheartedly approved, he had read the weather forecast too.

I think my writing is slightly off tonight. Brain fog. I need a break. Work stress + pandemic + prolonged isolation (well if you can call living in a huge city, and in apartment complex with 77 units, taking mass transportation or walking with others on the sidewalks all the time...isolation) = brain fog.

I may binge-watch The Expanse. I got into over the weekend, and it unlike other things is not frustrating me at the moment.

***

Niece informed me that everything but the bus, the tube and flights to Europe is wickedly expensive. She was able to get a flight to Portugal for 50 pounds (not dollars as previously reported), which is far cheaper than either rail or uber or taxi. Tube is 2.50 and bus is cheap.

***

Mother is worried about her left knee - which is bone on bone, the cartilage eaten away by arthritis. It hurts. But she doesn't want to deal with the ordeal of knee surgery - takes 6 weeks of recovery time, and once again with the home health care aids who are in increasingly short supply.
Poor mother - she's 79 years of age, and her body is breaking down on her. Also she's alone now - for the most part, because father has Alzheimer's and is in the Long Term Care Facility. Today he was back in time leading a Great Books Discussion. My father trained Great Books Discussion Leaders and Facilitators when I was born. Then he got a job writing training manual for a consultant firm, which merged with another consulting firm, and he was promoted to consultant...eventually he became a partner in that firm and ran the Midwest, and then for a bit ran the offices in Australia. Prior to all of that? He did post graduate work in history, and worked in the travel industry, and drove buses over the summer's in Glacier National Park. Also? He got to go to school on the GI Bill - so entered college as a veteran.

Mother tells me that I'm a lot like my father - good at redefining myself, adapting to new situations quickly, and teaching myself new skills. Also, I tend to talk myself down instead of up. Basically I'll tell everyone that I suck at something, only to turn around and excel at it. One former boss once told me to stop telling everyone I sucked at math. He decided I had a math phobia. Mainly because he watched me sit in a room with a bunch of mathematicians attempting to figure out why a royalty calculation database system was not working. The individual who'd been in the position prior to myself - did calculation after calcuation for months and could not figure it out. I figured it out in about an hour. They were leaving out part of the calculation. It was a video game royalty calculation database. It calculated how much was to be paid to channel distributors (for distributing the games) and 1st/2nd and 3rd party video game developers. There was only one third party video game developer - and they left them out of the calculations. The consultant who taught algebra on the side was writing it all up on the board. And...

Me: So why is the 3rd party developer over there? Aren't they in the system?
Consultant: No.
Me: So their formula hasn't been inserted?
Consultant: Nope.
Me: Well that's why it isn't adding up. You left one out.

He stared at me, then stared at the board. Did some quick calculations, and took off. My boss at the time, grinned at me.

The other problem was that they had salesmen running the show - from Israel, no less, worse, former military guys (although I learned later, everyone from Israel has served in the military). One of the owners was allegedly a mathematical genius - who came up with a royalty of "infinity" for a deal with a distributor. I looked at the equation and explained to the consultant and my boss that it would not work in the database - it threw all the other numbers off, also you can't calculate infinity - it's not mathematically possible or it is, but not in a royalty distribution system. (I think he was a frustrated astrophysicist or parallel string theorist - those guys play around with infinity formulas, which yes, work in that context, but not for video game royalties distributed to various entities. I'm not entirely certain a lot of math is logical, because I've met a lot of illogical engineers and mathematicians in my life time.)

I remember the CFO bringing me into his office one day and asking me - how the company was making any money and if they were in fact making money. I looked at him, and at his calculations, and wondered why he was asking me and not the Controller. But I answered truthfully - "I've no clue. They have royalty formulas in there in which they are giving their distributors 80% and taking back a penny, and that's most of them."

Curious to see if they are still alive. Mother asked me a while back if they were. They distributed and developed and channeled video games targeted at women. So mainly puzzle games. I played a lot of them in my spare time - out of pure boredom. When I didn't have work to do, I played their video games - which you were allowed to do, actually. I got bored of that eventually. The auditors used to come by and ask me where contracts were or if I could provide them with a copy of the contract backing up that formula.

Me: There isn't one.
Auditor (with very thick Israeli accent): But how do you have formula?
Me: They sent it to me via email.
Auditor: So where is contract?
Me: It doesn't exist - well it's verbal, so I guess you could say it technically exists. Also they wrote on a napkin..
Auditor: So you have the contract?
Me: No, they lost the napkin.
Auditor: But you should have the contract.
Me: I completely agree with you, but alas, no.

A week later

Auditor: Where is contract?
Me: Still don't have it. Look, you can keep asking and the answer is going to be the same.
Auditor: Shouldn't you have it?
Me: I've asked, and they don't produce. Not a lot I can do. Maybe you should ask them?

This went on for months.

Auditor: Contract?
Me: How many times do I have to tell you that it doesn't exist? They can't produce it? Asking me for a contract allegedly done two years before I arrived, that doesn't exist, is not going to magically produce the contract.
Auditor: So where is contract?
Me: Don't have it. Come back next month and we can do this again.

Then I was laid off - along with about fifty percent of the administrative/financial staff. It was an interesting group. The Finance Department was overworked and underpaid. They worked until midnight, came in at 10 Am, and took two hour lunches - often dragging me with them. Actually they always drug me with them. The group was lead by a sweetheart of a guy from Southern China. The Finance Department was a mix of Chinese, Ukranian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Columbian, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern Immigrants. We did lunch together - and since we were located on one of the top floors of One Penn Plaza - we'd take off to Little Korea, China Town, and Japan Town for lunch - it was a quick subway ride or walk away. I learned a lot about each of the ethnic cultures while there, and a ton about various food choices. I was gluten-intolerant - so Asian cuisine worked well. My favorite was the all-you-can eat sushi and Japanese buffet restaurant. I don't remember where it was - but it was amazing. Also by far the best sushi in the city. I think there were only ten non-Asians in the place - and they were all in our group. There's another great place that my pal, Alice Chiu had taken me too, back in the day. We've lost touch - she had a kid, moved to Long Island, and life sent us our separate ways. Happens a lot in this nutty city of over 8 million.

Anyhow, that was my experience working for a dot.com. Everyone should try it, or not. Early 00s. Over 14 years ago. In 2007. Yippee Ki Aye.

[Ah, found out what happened to it - like all the other companies I've worked for in my lifetime it was acquired by another company. I'm beginning to wonder if I've worked for an organization or company that wasn't bought out, merged or transformed either while I was working for it or shortly thereafter? And they all do the same dumb things. ]

***

COVID & Other News..

* Australia, the government says, is ready to “live with the virus” after nearly 95 percent of adults there have been vaccinated. But many people don’t feel ready.

When the state of South Australia announced it was ending intensive contact tracing, a Facebook group formed so residents could do their own. The prime minister declared lockdowns a thing of the past, but then so many residents of Australia’s two biggest cities stayed inside during an Omicron spike that it was labeled a “shadow lockdown.”

Even as borders opened for the first time since March 2020, the nation mostly stayed put.

Sweden said it, too, would lift most Covid restrictions next week, joining a growing list of European nations.


While the US...sigh...

* At the Beijing Games, the issue of what participants can and cannot say looms larger than at any Olympics in years.

Athletes have found themselves caught between activists urging them to use their celebrity to speak out and the rules of the International Olympic Committee, which restrict what they can say and where. China’s Communist Party has also warned that athletes are subject not only to Olympic rules, but also to Chinese law.

Ahead of the opening ceremony tomorrow, the U.S. women’s hockey team was dealt a blow when one of its strongest players, Brianna Decker, suffered a serious injury on the ice. The coronavirus continues to jeopardize medal hopes. The total number of cases among athletes and team officials is now 287.


*

The new superyacht commissioned by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is so large that an iconic bridge in the Netherlands, where the ship is being built, may have to be dismantled so it can go out to sea.

The authorities in Rotterdam initially said they had agreed to the removal and reassembly this summer of part of the bridge, known locally as “De Hef,” with all costs to be covered by the shipbuilder. But now they say no decision has been made. [This was all over Twitter - and triggered folks. I honestly don't care. Bestos is an idiot, and so is the shipbuilder. Do it somewhere else or build a smaller boat.]

Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has gone to comparatively lesser lengths to keep his travels aboard his private jet off Twitter. A college student said Musk offered him $5,000 to take down a bot-driven account that monitors public information about the movement of his private, or not-so-private, jet. [I'd have asked for Musk for $5M to take it down.]

**

I think my UU Zoom Bible Study Group gave up or just took me off the email list, one or the other - since I've not heard a peep out of them for a bit. Don't care. Lost interest. It last two years, so that's saying something, I suppose.

I dropped out multiple times - mainly because I hate Zoom. But I also dropped out prior to Zoom. So there's that.

***

Ending with a picture..

Date: 2022-02-04 02:13 pm (UTC)
cactuswatcher: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cactuswatcher
The storm reached all the way to us in Arizona. We got a little snow in the mountains the other night, but only sprinkles in the night in the valleys. Then Thursday morning when the moisture had passed, we had a hard freeze and the lowest temps in several years.

I been watching the storm predictions since Monday and saw that band of predicted ice move East in the animations. Yes, staying home, is good in an ice storm. I hope your electricity stays on! I never minded snow that much in St. Louis, but when the ice hit, it meant not getting to work or going anywhere else for a few days.

Yeah, 50 pounds still sounds cheap these days for a flight. There is an Irish YouTuber who has been living part of the time in Spain during all this, I presume, because it's cheaper than Ireland.

The bridge: it sounds like the old joke. You build a boat in the garage and then realize when you are done that it's too big to fit through the garage door. Had Bezos never heard that joke, or like Trump is so rich he thinks he can get away with anything? The bot, I heard somewhere that the kid counteroffered $50K, and got it. Might be just a rumor.

Date: 2022-02-04 07:54 pm (UTC)
yourlibrarian: Buffy on the phone (BUF-WorkingGirl: eyesthatslay)
From: [personal profile] yourlibrarian
My work history had company failures rather than buyouts (though there were some after I left). But given our local bank landscape, acquisitions have been widespread in the 2000s and 2010s.

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