Facebook was making me dumb

Facebook Fail LogoAs if I don’t have enough stuff in my life to make me dumber, friends and family micro-blogging (aka Facebook) was not helping at all. Therefore, I decided to quit Facebook and you might be wondering why. Well, probably not but bear with me, let’s say you do. I completely skipped the whole MySpace era because I was in college in graduate school so I barely had time to breathe. I had no time to waste online, and the little time I spent on the computer not coding or writing papers was spent checking my email and cleaning up the spam or clicking on the “unsubscribe” link that actually tells spammers that it is a valid email.

Anyways, I would actually read forums where knowledgeable people would gather and discuss topics and most of the time this was productive. There was a certain level of anonymity that encouraged people to be more open and actually ask questions in order to learn something. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to have these kinds of conversations in social networks. This could entirely mean that my “friends” are retards.  Plenty of them are geeks that can’t admit they are wrong and end up trolling. But, they might also just pretend they know something when in fact they are clueless and make it up as they go. The problem arises mostly because access or interest to the thread is limited to your dumb friends.
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A Letter to Congress

My wife decided to send a letter to our local government officials who include Rep. Steven Palazzo, Sen. Thad Cochran, and Sen. Roger Wicker. This was because she was concerned about government defaulting in our debt. I would like to share this letter with you. She writes:

Dear Congressman Palazzo:

My name is Michelle Rios and I reside in Hattiesburg, MS. I am a longtime Mississippi resident with a deep love for our beautiful State.

I am writing you to ask that you help with reaching compromise with members of Congress and President Barack Obama.  Our current situation and lack of resolution regarding the debt ceiling and debt crisis are very worrisome to me and many other Americans. I guess you could say we are part of that “silent majority”. The current political games taking place in Washington by members of both parties are endangering the American people.

Republicans need to find a way to compromise with the President and other Democrats so that we can move forward to a better future. I agree with Republicans that we need to get our fiscal house in order and spend a lot less, but I do not agree with this idea of never adding a new tax or never letting tax breaks expire. Both parties need to look at each other’s points of views, work together and COMPROMISE.

I think extremes do not get us anywhere; we need to find the right balance and keep an open heart and mind. Please do your best to find common ground in Washington and avoid extremist views and positions.
Thank you for your time and considering my request.
Sincerely,

Michelle Rios

************** UPDATE Jul 29, 2011 **************

Sen. Roger Wicker responded after the break:
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Did you know.. why your primary drive is labeled C: ?

If you don’t remember the days we rolled down car windows, watched the Thundercats, or actually had to remember stuff because of lack of smartphones, you might have wondered (or not!) why your main drive on a Windows box is assigned the letter C:. Anyways, I will tell you that the letters A: and B: were usually reserved a decade or two ago for floppy drives and sometimes for removable media such as tape drives. Apple was the first one to release a desktop without it and it is usually credited with the floppy’s demise. However, it would be common to have a 5 1/4 inch A: and a 3 1/2 inch B: drive. Now, this raises the question, why aren’t USB thumbdrives assigned these letters? Hence, they have to fight with optical drives and secondary hard drives for other letters. It is sometimes a guess to figure out which letter my thumbdrive is assigned to (or not!).