The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Mark DF:

I'm continually amazed that they can actually sell the idea of "private retirement accounts" as a good thing. At the risk of generalizing, I think most people don't have the first clue about investing. I am fortunate to have a private retirement account. It's funded by a windfall from an old job. It's professionally managed by a major investment institution, which I switched to five years ago. I switched because prior to that the equally major investment institution I was using managed to lose 40% of it. I'm still not back to the level the fund was at over ten years ago. Where would I be if this happened when I was retired and had to live off it? At that point, how much time could I afford to wait for it to bounce back---while I'm drawing down on it? If this were my only retirement option, I would freak out.

I basically use wordprocessing as glorified typing. I like the functionality of cut and paste, font change, etc. I use MS Word simply because it comes loaded and I'm lazy. What I can't stand about it is that it really doesn't have a "reveal codes" function anymore--what is there is basically paragraph marks and tab arrows. I'm thinking more along the lines of the earlier WordPerfect where if your formatting went widgy, you revealed all the codes--and IIRC you really did get all the formating codes--you could actively edit the format coding (almost like in a text editor like Notepad). Any suggestions? I don't need all the bells and whistles.

Aaaahhh! Pascal! The bane of my nascent programming career. What was the evil parameter? The semi? I gave up. I had smart profs, but they weren't very good teachers. I bailed into math, where the other Pascal actually made sense to me.

On the upside, I learned the meaning of infinite loops. That became the shorthand description for dealing with way too many of my bosses.

"If you have people in the field trying to question terrorists, if you do not have clear legal definitions, they themselves will be subject to the whims and the differing interpretations given by foreign courts, foreign judges and foreign tribunals," [White House spokesman Tony] Snow said. "And we don't think that's appropriate."

Here's a clear legal definition for you Mr. Snow: NO TORTURE.

Is that appropriate enough for you, asshole?

#23 Lexica.

Damn. I missed the dinosaur sodomy. Was it left wing or right wing?

Teresa, ditto what everyone here has said...

Whenever I can't decide whether I'm batty or this administration is, I come here. I won't give you the tally of which side wins more often;)

Don't apologize for passion!

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