Clowns In My Coffee » Nonsense

On Bankers

adam — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:28:48 +0000

Here’s some unsolicited advice for performing long-distance one-off transactions with financial institutions: if your transaction is at all unusual and requires that documentation of some sort or another be passed around and notarized and suchlike — get the procedure documented. That person you’re talking to on the phone, unless you’re really lucky, doesn’t know that the dark, cold hands of Institutional Policy are poised to strangle any vestiges of trust you have in corporate behavior if you follow the seemingly simple procedure. The bureaucracy always wants a Very Serious Document prepared, and it’s quite easy to blow you off, because what are you but some disembodied, highly compressed voice coming out over a Very Small Speaker?

Of course, if banks weren’t somewhat risk averse, we wouldn’t put our money into them. Know, however, that the risk aversion is about you (the customer) not so much or not at all, and almost entirely about the Organization. And the rules and regulations governing this stuff are Very Complex indeed, and typically aren’t the sorts of things that are known by the type of employee who has to (eurk!) take phone calls from the public. If they knew that, they’d be too busy in meetings deciding what the next set of rules are to take the time to deal with your piddly little problems.

The beauty of this whole setup is that it takes no active or deliberate malice on any individual’s part, and you, dear friend, will have to seek and pay for the advice of a lawyer. Ain’t modern life grand? Philly Joe Remarkable is not the only one looking on in disbelief.

Metadata From Monkeys

adam — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:22:47 +0000

I will help you become the next internet billionaire! I’m giving away the idea!

Here it is:

Have at it, fellow primate!

Why Python and Ruby are Superior Programming Languages

adam — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:46:48 +0000

Sigh.

Semantics are Serious

adam — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 20:38:36 +0000

Quick! Name the necessary conditions for something to be a “toy.” What turns on your answer? Why, money of course.

This is rough terrain. On the one hand, I can see the argument that figurines are generally traded between adults for real adult money, and, if you assume the “toy” designation is significant to the tribunal because the motivation is to give some sort of break for things relating to children, the decision makes a certain amount of sense. On the other hand, there are more subtle ways of playing than flinging things hither and yon, and you don’t need to be a juvenile to be juvenile:

“They want to convey the idea that they are intelligent and so, you know, you have — someone comes in your office and you have this Star Trek mini bell jar [figurine] sitting on your desk and they go, ‘Oh, you’re a Trekkie, I’m a Trekkie too,’ and it conveys a feeling that you are intelligent,” Franklin Mint official John Mark Morton told the CITT during hearings last December.

I don’t think that particular example helps his case, though: if “conveys a feeling that you are intelligent” (err, really?) is a sufficient condition for toyhood, a framed copy of your degree is a toy. I don’t think that’s gonna fly, for some reason. Although it probably would make a bitchen paper airplane …

Here We Are

adam — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 02:13:11 +0000

With our running, and confusion. However, I do see some confusion anyway. So this is my blog. I hope to make it more than vaguely professional, but no part of life aint’ nothing without no fun.