Save one of these:
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Friday, July 30, 2010
Refinance
Peoples.com offered a refinance for 3.875% (w/ 2pts) on a 20 year loan. Now would be a good time for everyone to jump on this bandwagon. Wells Fargo was almost as good. Do it, if you can. Rates are down across the board. You'll save a holy pantload either in overall interest or in monthly payments. At least think about it?
Save one of these:
Or a million of these:
Or half as many of these:
But don't even think about these.
They're not even worth the paper they're printed on.
Save one of these:
Facebook lost my data - so what?
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| This is creepy. |
- Change your name and information. Your friends know you are "Vlad the Imposter", living in Pennsylvania and no one else needs to know. If they know you, then you can be found. Otherwise, who the hell cares? Make up stuff for the fields. My personal religion, apparently, is Viking and I am a Scot. If all your information is an inside joke, then your future is a little more secure. None of the "About Me" fields needs to be filled out. Anyone who knows you already knows it. Anyone who doesn't doesn't need to.
- Set every privacy rating to "friends only" ... not "friends of friends." That way, you control who sees it by controlling who your friends are, instead of handing that power to friends who "friend" everyone in sight.
- Starting "un-friending" people, beginning with any teachers in this building. Teachers can have a class page or something but there is no valid reason for teachers and students to be "friends." A whole bunch of kids at my school were "friends" with the assistant principal -- WTF? That ended quickly when that same AP busted some "friends" for photos which the kids say weren't what she thought they were. Week-long suspensions, lost trust, bad feelings, anger at the school were the start.
- I am a mandatory reporter. I explain that at the beginning of school. Information seen on Facebook is included.
- Facebook is a data business, fueled by your data. Why are you giving away everything for no return? Do you realize how easy it is for stupid people in power to ruin your life, or at the least make it miserable for a while?
- Make a second account for the public and keep it clean, professional and basically friendless. That's the one that people at work can see. The other one? No comment.
- Make a third account, just for the hell of it. Invent a person and give him one, too. Don't attack or slander anyone with it, though.
But I'm not in college and I have to play by different rules. Grownup rules. I live in a world where everything you say and post "can and will be held against you" and will probably be misinterpreted to my detriment.
Everything my friends say (even if it nothing to do with me) will be used against me as well. I don't want my friends (outside of school) to be writing things on my wall that my students can read. My friends don't have the same understanding of 'Things That Will Get You Fired' (h/t Richie!) and I don't expect them to vet their posts accordingly. Why should students be able to read that my friends are planning a whiskey-soaked bash prior to going off to war?
Remember the teacher who got fired for attending a bachlorette party at which someone she had no control over did something stupid? Remember the college professor who was reprimanded for appearing in a post-championship celebratory photo - holding a beer? Everyone was. It was a celebration. Only the female professor got the reprimand. She's fighting, of course, but who wants that hassle?
In the other direction, I don't want my students (or their parents) to know things about some of my friends either -- too many "guilt by association" things happen when parents get information.
Kids deserve the same privacy because they are still feeling out their world. Kids brag and bullshit and should be able to continue to do so online without repercussion.
Educcrats tend to forget the grain of salt.
Thinking like a Teacher?
How to tell if you think like a teacher? Read this article on Redskins player Albert Haynesworth then come back here.
Okay. If you're not a teacher, you're probably thinking, "What a dope. Haynesworth should have known better. You just don't mess with the Shanahan. It's all Haynesworth's fault for getting himself into this and it's all on his shoulders for getting himself out of the doghouse and into the position as starter that everyone knows he can do, if he gets his act straight."
If you're a teacher, you were probably thinking, "I wish I could get away with something analogous. The admin response? It would 'obviously' be the teacher's fault that he didn't do the work necessary to succeed. The teacher should be fired - not up to standards."
Oh well.
reposted here, in case it's gone from there by the time you see this:
Redskins’ Haynesworth crossed the wrong guy
Les Carpenter, Les Carpenter, Yahoo! Sports
ASHBURN, Va. – If Albert Haynesworth(notes) believed he could spend seven months challenging the icy will of Redskins coach Mike Shanahan then expect to be forgiven, he learned the futility of that hope halfway through a fitness test he would not pass on Thursday afternoon.
Few men in the NFL can carry a grudge like Shanahan, who harbors resentment behind a forced smile. Valued assistants and longtime colleagues tell of their relationships with the coach in hushed whispers. Some have begged not to be interviewed. They value the coach’s knowledge, admire his obsession for detail. But they also fear him. Even long after they have stopped working with him their words quiver when his name is raised. Some say they fear they might say the wrong thing. They don’t want to cross him.
He is a man who does not forget.
And after Haynesworth used the winter, spring and half the summer to defy Shanahan, refusing to attend his minicamps and OTAs and conditioning sessions because he didn’t want to be a part of Shanahan’s new 3-4 defense, he finally came back to the Redskins this week. Whatever leverage he had was exhausted, his attempts to embarrass his new coach into dealing him had failed. He had no choice but to return to practice.
With one caveat.
“There’s a conditioning test he’ll go through,” Shanahan said on Wednesday, the day before camp started. This was a Shanahan invention, officially administered to Haynesworth because he missed a percentage of the offseason workouts, unofficially because he tried to embarrass Shanahan.
Haynesworth should have understood right then he would not pass the test. Despite Shanahan’s insistence it was a “basic” fitness exam, the test was made to fail.
Shanahan refused to reveal the details of the test but it involved lots and lots of running in temperatures that pushed through the 90s in a sticky, swampy muck. Haynesworth, who supposedly shed 40 pounds in the offseason working out with a personal trainer, had no chance.
So he was banished to a solo workout on a treadmill on Thursday as the rest of the team practiced outside. Later, after practice was over and the fans were heading toward their cars, he was dragged out for a scramble around trash cans on a far-off field. When he was done he was forced to jog a gauntlet of fans, past the media and back into the safety of the locker room.
Predictably, he did not speak to anyone during his walk of shame.
There is a long list of former players and bosses who have endured Shanahan’s wrath, including Raiders owner Al Davis, who fired him, and once-acclaimed receiver Ashley Lelie, who never played well for him in Denver. Then there was one-time Broncos guard Montrae Holland, who rewarded Shanahan for a contract extension by showing up 20 pounds overweight at the start of training camp in 2008.
Like Haynesworth, he was quickly banished from practice, forced through a cocktail of punishments including the treadmill, elliptical machine and stairmaster. When he was done, he had to run outside just like Haynesworth. After a few days he was allowed to return to only one of the team’s two daily practices. A starter the previous season, Holland could only play for the scout team during that workout. Later in the day, he was forced to run alone on an empty field.
His exile lasted two weeks. He lost his job and not long after he was traded to the Cowboys.
Late Thursday afternoon, Shanahan seemed to revel in his revenge over Haynesworth. He smiled as he stepped onto an interview stage.
“I bet I can anticipate the first question,” he said.
When that first question was, of course, about Haynesworth, he laughed.
Haynesworth will have to take the test again on Friday, he said. And if he doesn’t pass it – a likely possibility given Thursday’s result – he’ll be shipped off to the treadmill once more.
“It may take two or three days or it might take a week,” Shanahan said.
In the days before he returned to the Redskins, Haynesworth had softened his stance against the team, texting with some of the coaches, trying to catch up on the nuances of a new defense installed in the spring. He expressed a willingness to work and the sense among the assistant coaches was one of optimism.
Jim Haslett, the defensive coordinator, smiled this week as he described a defense designed to take advantage of Haynesworth’s pass-rushing skills, even though his basic position – nose tackle – is one that doesn’t yield the big sack numbers Haynesworth craved. The plan, Haslett said, was to move Haynesworth between nose tackle and defensive end – sometimes even outside linebacker – frequently during games.
“I think he’s really going to like the scheme, I really do,” Haslett said. “There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of movement.”
Only for seven months Haynesworth wouldn’t listen. As a defensive tackle in a 4-3 scheme he didn’t want to give up the dominance he once enjoyed at the position while with the Tennessee Titans to play a scheme that didn’t seem built for him. When Shanahan arrived, insisting on playing the 3-4, Haynesworth tuned out.
On Thursday he paid the price for his petulance. The coaches say they are excited about nose tackle Maake Kemoeatu, signed in the offseason after missing last year with a heel injury. If healthy he can fill the middle. The idea was Haynesworth could play outside. After receiving $32 million of the $100 million contract he signed before last season, he infuriated most of Washington by appearing out of shape. Shanahan could have provided him a new start.
Yet when asked to adhere to his new coach’s plan for him, Haynesworth refused, choosing to scorch the earth.
And so on Thursday he ran.
And ran.
And ran.
And became just another man who challenged Mike Shanahan and lost.
Okay. If you're not a teacher, you're probably thinking, "What a dope. Haynesworth should have known better. You just don't mess with the Shanahan. It's all Haynesworth's fault for getting himself into this and it's all on his shoulders for getting himself out of the doghouse and into the position as starter that everyone knows he can do, if he gets his act straight."
If you're a teacher, you were probably thinking, "I wish I could get away with something analogous. The admin response? It would 'obviously' be the teacher's fault that he didn't do the work necessary to succeed. The teacher should be fired - not up to standards."
Oh well.
reposted here, in case it's gone from there by the time you see this:
Redskins’ Haynesworth crossed the wrong guy
Les Carpenter, Les Carpenter, Yahoo! Sports
ASHBURN, Va. – If Albert Haynesworth(notes) believed he could spend seven months challenging the icy will of Redskins coach Mike Shanahan then expect to be forgiven, he learned the futility of that hope halfway through a fitness test he would not pass on Thursday afternoon.
Few men in the NFL can carry a grudge like Shanahan, who harbors resentment behind a forced smile. Valued assistants and longtime colleagues tell of their relationships with the coach in hushed whispers. Some have begged not to be interviewed. They value the coach’s knowledge, admire his obsession for detail. But they also fear him. Even long after they have stopped working with him their words quiver when his name is raised. Some say they fear they might say the wrong thing. They don’t want to cross him.
He is a man who does not forget.
And after Haynesworth used the winter, spring and half the summer to defy Shanahan, refusing to attend his minicamps and OTAs and conditioning sessions because he didn’t want to be a part of Shanahan’s new 3-4 defense, he finally came back to the Redskins this week. Whatever leverage he had was exhausted, his attempts to embarrass his new coach into dealing him had failed. He had no choice but to return to practice.
With one caveat.
“There’s a conditioning test he’ll go through,” Shanahan said on Wednesday, the day before camp started. This was a Shanahan invention, officially administered to Haynesworth because he missed a percentage of the offseason workouts, unofficially because he tried to embarrass Shanahan.
Haynesworth should have understood right then he would not pass the test. Despite Shanahan’s insistence it was a “basic” fitness exam, the test was made to fail.
Shanahan refused to reveal the details of the test but it involved lots and lots of running in temperatures that pushed through the 90s in a sticky, swampy muck. Haynesworth, who supposedly shed 40 pounds in the offseason working out with a personal trainer, had no chance.
So he was banished to a solo workout on a treadmill on Thursday as the rest of the team practiced outside. Later, after practice was over and the fans were heading toward their cars, he was dragged out for a scramble around trash cans on a far-off field. When he was done he was forced to jog a gauntlet of fans, past the media and back into the safety of the locker room.
Predictably, he did not speak to anyone during his walk of shame.
There is a long list of former players and bosses who have endured Shanahan’s wrath, including Raiders owner Al Davis, who fired him, and once-acclaimed receiver Ashley Lelie, who never played well for him in Denver. Then there was one-time Broncos guard Montrae Holland, who rewarded Shanahan for a contract extension by showing up 20 pounds overweight at the start of training camp in 2008.
Like Haynesworth, he was quickly banished from practice, forced through a cocktail of punishments including the treadmill, elliptical machine and stairmaster. When he was done, he had to run outside just like Haynesworth. After a few days he was allowed to return to only one of the team’s two daily practices. A starter the previous season, Holland could only play for the scout team during that workout. Later in the day, he was forced to run alone on an empty field.
His exile lasted two weeks. He lost his job and not long after he was traded to the Cowboys.
Late Thursday afternoon, Shanahan seemed to revel in his revenge over Haynesworth. He smiled as he stepped onto an interview stage.
“I bet I can anticipate the first question,” he said.
When that first question was, of course, about Haynesworth, he laughed.
Haynesworth will have to take the test again on Friday, he said. And if he doesn’t pass it – a likely possibility given Thursday’s result – he’ll be shipped off to the treadmill once more.
“It may take two or three days or it might take a week,” Shanahan said.
In the days before he returned to the Redskins, Haynesworth had softened his stance against the team, texting with some of the coaches, trying to catch up on the nuances of a new defense installed in the spring. He expressed a willingness to work and the sense among the assistant coaches was one of optimism.
Jim Haslett, the defensive coordinator, smiled this week as he described a defense designed to take advantage of Haynesworth’s pass-rushing skills, even though his basic position – nose tackle – is one that doesn’t yield the big sack numbers Haynesworth craved. The plan, Haslett said, was to move Haynesworth between nose tackle and defensive end – sometimes even outside linebacker – frequently during games.
“I think he’s really going to like the scheme, I really do,” Haslett said. “There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of movement.”
Only for seven months Haynesworth wouldn’t listen. As a defensive tackle in a 4-3 scheme he didn’t want to give up the dominance he once enjoyed at the position while with the Tennessee Titans to play a scheme that didn’t seem built for him. When Shanahan arrived, insisting on playing the 3-4, Haynesworth tuned out.
On Thursday he paid the price for his petulance. The coaches say they are excited about nose tackle Maake Kemoeatu, signed in the offseason after missing last year with a heel injury. If healthy he can fill the middle. The idea was Haynesworth could play outside. After receiving $32 million of the $100 million contract he signed before last season, he infuriated most of Washington by appearing out of shape. Shanahan could have provided him a new start.
Yet when asked to adhere to his new coach’s plan for him, Haynesworth refused, choosing to scorch the earth.
And so on Thursday he ran.
And ran.
And ran.
And became just another man who challenged Mike Shanahan and lost.
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