Do you need to vent about things COVID-19?

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

29 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I read that ultra-conservatives (especially the evangelicals that maintain so much control today in the US) actually KNOW they are in the minority, and so fear the vote of the masses. So it's much to their advantage to have as few people as possible vote, and anger their base with tactics of division (anger being the great motivator) to get out and do so.

This is exactly it. They don't want everyone to have easy access to voting because they know the more people who are able to vote, the more likely that it will end their reign. This is why Trump is pushing all this unsubstantiated nonsense about voter fraud that finally (finally!) pushed Twitter into taking a minimal amount of action. 

For those who haven't followed what Twitter did, there was merely a little link attached to two (out of a bazillion) of Trump's tweets leading to very mild explanations of why what he was saying regarding "MAIL VOTE = FRAUD" was unsubstantiated. He was in no way censored, nor were his lies deleted, despite his tantrums about "censorship". 

[Gatogateau]

11 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

This is exactly it. They don't want everyone to have easy access to voting because they know the more people who are able to vote, the more likely that it will end their reign. This is why Trump is pushing all this unsubstantiated nonsense about voter fraud that finally (finally!) pushed Twitter into taking a minimal amount of action. 

For those who haven't followed what Twitter did, there was merely a little link attached to two (out of a bazillion) of Trump's tweets leading to very mild explanations of why what he was saying regarding "MAIL VOTE = FRAUD" was unsubstantiated. He was in no way censored, nor were his lies deleted, despite his tantrums about "censorship". 

This is also why Trump is against voting by computer.

(and this relates to things like covid because covid is still going to be around after the next election and we need some real leadership. or something. I didn't have coffee this morning and it is afternoon already... which is a peeve...which is another thread)

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

7 minutes ago, Gatogateau said:

This is also why Trump is against voting by computer.

(and this relates to things like covid because covid is still going to be around after the next election and we need some real leadership. or something. I didn't have coffee this morning and it is afternoon already... which is a peeve...which is another thread)

This actually does relate to Covid because the reason Trump is kicking up so much drama about Twitter right now is that he doesn't want to talk about the USA hitting the 100,000 mark in deaths from the virus. (Twitter kind of handed him that one by choosing to finally say something about his tweets right now.)

[Gatogateau]

It honestly feels like *everything* is related to covid anymore.

[Ceka Cianci]

Ok, here is a story that just happened today with a friend of mine that I just got off the phone with..

She had been out of work since march..

Like a lot of people that were filing their unemployment, it left a lot of people confused..

She went and filed back in march and had an agent call her asking for a certain amount of pay stubs.. The agent told her she had to have them in by the end of the day or it would mess up her claim..

Well, back then I was helping her with getting her claim made..We tracked down her stubs because she was a temp and a lot of the temp services use cards..so that took half the day right there..

Anyways, we got those and sent those in.. I thought we were done and she was all good..

She never called me or anything, let alone I never called her this whole time either..just  being busy with our own lives.. I'm thinking she's all good and well when i left..

She ended up calling me this morning asking if she would be able to file again, because things were getting so tight and it wasn't looking like work is going to start back up soon..

 

I said,what do you mean file again? You should still have more than enough of a claim to be set for a good bit more..

She said,that claim never went through..

I said, Sure it did, all you had to do was send in the stubs and you were good to go..

She told me they sent her an appeal letter saying she could appeal the results and that she had only so much time to appeal..

 

I said, No no no! Don't tell me this whole time you haven't been doing a weekly certification. You have haven't you?

She said no, I kept waiting for a response from that one lady and she never responded so I thought I was  refused..

 

I was like OMG!

OK girl,here is what you have to do..

Log into your account on their web site and I'm gonna walk you through..

She said OK..

So she logs in and I tell her to go to her dashboard and down to the left look for weekly certification..

She goes in reads off the questions to me and I tell her yes or not to each one..

I say, ok now click next and see what it say's to you up at the top..

 

She clicked next and up at the top it said, You should expect to be paid for this week..

Would you like to exit your weekly certification, or would you like to continue..

I told her to click continue..

She was already getting excited thinking  she is getting paid for the past week..

She clicked continue and it asked her if she would like to certify for the week of March 6th or something like that..I forget the date..

it kind of puzzled her for a minute..Then she said to me, It's wanting me to certify for way back in march..

I said ,yes it is and it will ask you when you are done with that ,if you want to certify for the following week also..

What's going to happen is ,they are going to have you certify for all the weeks you didn't do a weekly certification and then send it all to you at one time..

I think she broke her phone when I told her that..

She is ecstatic and so happy and crying right now..It took a good bit to finally get off the phone with her..

 

I just wish I knew sooner that she didn't really do anything this whole time, just thinking she wasn't getting  her benefits..

I'm still kind of in awe and feeling like a Zombie myself right now.. It's making me want to double check on other people I helped get their benefits going..

I sure would hate to find out there are others out there living on such a thin thread over a misunderstanding because of the site being so confusing..

I feel Terrible  but also ,so happy for her at the same time..

 

What a morning, I tell you..

I'm just so happy for her ..

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

Just now, Gatogateau said:

It honestly feels like *everything* is related to covid anymore.

Well, it more or less is, at least tangentially. The virus and measures to control it have affected pretty much everything we do, from working, to socializing, to feeding ourselves, to getting medical care to.... I'm having a hard time right now thinking of something in my life that this has NOT touched. When my little cat passed away (three weeks ago today), we had to hand her over to the vet's staff in their parking lot, and then sit and wait in the car for a call from the vet to tell us that they couldn't save her. I guess that is MY vent about Covid-19, that at the end of her life, we could not even be with her.  

[Beth Macbain]

3 minutes ago, Gatogateau said:

This is also why Trump is against voting by computer.

(and this relates to things like covid because covid is still going to be around after the next election and we need some real leadership. or something. I didn't have coffee this morning and it is afternoon already... which is a peeve...which is another thread)

I love voting. I mean, I really love voting - the whole experience of getting my sample ballot the night before, researching every candidate for every office from president to school board members, going to the polling place, checking in with the sweet little old ladies, getting my ballot and going into my little private box with my little golf pencil and carefully filling in all the little circles. Even though I always vote straight Democrat, I won't just fill in that one little circle. I go through each one making my choices. Handing in my ballot and feeding it through the machine, getting my sticker or bracelet (I save them all) and being thanked by the sweet little old man at the door. 

I love everything about the entire experience and election days are the only days I really feel like an adult because I AM VOTING. Forget Christmas, Halloween, Easter - election days are my holidays. 

As soon as the polls close, I've got my computer, iPad, and phone (I don't own a TV) all streaming a different news station and spend the entire night watching the results coming in.  

I have sent in for my absentee ballot this year and doing that has been the worst part of this damn pandemic for me on a strictly personal basis. I'll still be voting, but it just won't be the same. 

I do get to make my choice, though, for the person who will be opposing the truly most evil man in America (Trump is 2nd) Mitch McConnell, so that'll be fun.

[Gatogateau]

7 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ok, here is a story that just happened today with a friend of mine that I just got off the phone with..

 

:::snipped good/bad story:::

 

What a morning, I tell you..

I'm just so happy for her ..

Over the last ten years or so I have had every job end with: owner retiring so the business closed, lay off, company deciding after the 90 day probation that they didn't need that job after all, desperate awful temp work, outsourcing, that full time position being change to PT... AND this has been in three different states! So yeah, the nightmares of the noobies to the system(s). Thank goodness your friend had access to you! I was shaking my head reading this because what happened to her is so easy to imagine. Certain sectors of the political sphere want to make it out that the safety nets in the USA are so rigged that they can be easily abused. Ha! They are so rigged to be easily misunderstood! I'm not stupid and have a college education and yet, I still found myself reading through govt legalese mumbo jumbo and having to reread, and reread, and scratch my head, and look things up on Google. Every time that happened I wondered about the poor (literally and figuratively) souls who maybe are not quite bright, have limited reading skills, don't have access to computers, and so on. That's not just for UE, but all of the safety nets in place. I'm now on SSDI and well, that is no exception.

[MirandaBowers]

13 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

What a morning, I tell you..

I'm just so happy for her ..

I am so glad she had a good friend like you to help talk her through it. I have watched too many people get confused by the system and not receive the help that they need. Not to mention what a nightmare it is for them to even talk to a live person after going through the loops of being on hold forever.

[kiramanell]

4 hours ago, Dano Seale said:

Yeah it's ok Fairre, wasn't pointing fingers at you or anything. 
 

There are many things about the US that baffles me....none more so than that!

 

Why?! No one votes for our King, either. (And no, not going to post too obvious Monthy Python vid link here). Nor does anyone vote for our Prime-Minister, for that matter.... Or his Ministers even. Arrghhh! 😊

[kali Wylder]

4 hours ago, Dano Seale said:

Yeah it's ok Fairre, wasn't pointing fingers at you or anything. 
 

There are many things about the US that baffles me....none more so than that!

well, the people in the electoral college are supposed to vote the way the people in the state voted; you get a different electoral college dependent on the vote the rest of us proles voted in. With some variations, some states have a winner take all rule and others get a percentage of electoral voters equal to the percent of them that voted that way.  It's a terrible antiquated system and I don't know why we still abide by it.  It reduces all are created equal to some are more equal than others.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Gatogateau said:

Over the last ten years or so I have had every job end with: owner retiring so the business closed, lay off, company deciding after the 90 day probation that they didn't need that job after all, desperate awful temp work, outsourcing, that full time position being change to PT... AND this has been in three different states! So yeah, the nightmares of the noobies to the system(s). Thank goodness your friend had access to you! I was shaking my head reading this because what happened to her is so easy to imagine. Certain sectors of the political sphere want to make it out that the safety nets in the USA are so rigged that they can be easily abused. Ha! They are so rigged to be easily misunderstood! I'm not stupid and have a college education and yet, I still found myself reading through govt legalese mumbo jumbo and having to reread, and reread, and scratch my head, and look things up on Google. Every time that happened I wondered about the poor (literally and figuratively) souls who maybe are not quite bright, have limited reading skills, don't have access to computers, and so on. That's not just for UE, but all of the safety nets in place. I'm now on SSDI and well, that is no exception.

It is a real hair puller.. I've heard so many times people not thinking they were getting it and just stopping there..

When i went back to work last week..  I said to one of the guys at work, How are you liking that money? It's kind of nice getting paid more to do nothing than work isn't it? Jokingly I said it..

 

He said, all i got was a card and there was nothing on it.. I never got any money..

I said ,WHAT?! I said the company filed for you, your money is there..Didn't you do your weekly certifications..

He said he couldn't figure out how to get his user name and password.

I was like, OMG! \o/

So I told him to come to the office in the morning and we'd get him all sorted out..

He had like $6,100.00 coming to him.. Boy was he happy..hehehehe

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Gatogateau said:

This is also why Trump is against voting by computer.

I don't have any problem with mail in voting, but I am very much against voting by computer.   There are way too many companies that have difficulty with security.  I work with computer security and know how hard it is.  The Russians were able to hack the DNC and leak emails.  Hell, even the IRS has been hacked. 

Thus I most definitely do not trust that our government can reliable build a non-hackable system. 

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Beth Macbain said:

I love voting. I mean, I really love voting - the whole experience of getting my sample ballot the night before, researching every candidate for every office from president to school board members, going to the polling place, checking in with the sweet little old ladies, getting my ballot and going into my little private box with my little golf pencil and carefully filling in all the little circles. Even though I always vote straight Democrat, I won't just fill in that one little circle. I go through each one making my choices. Handing in my ballot and feeding it through the machine, getting my sticker or bracelet (I save them all) and being thanked by the sweet little old man at the door. 

I love everything about the entire experience and election days are the only days I really feel like an adult because I AM VOTING. Forget Christmas, Halloween, Easter - election days are my holidays. 

As soon as the polls close, I've got my computer, iPad, and phone (I don't own a TV) all streaming a different news station and spend the entire night watching the results coming in.  

I have sent in for my absentee ballot this year and doing that has been the worst part of this damn pandemic for me on a strictly personal basis. I'll still be voting, but it just won't be the same. 

I do get to make my choice, though, for the person who will be opposing the truly most evil man in America (Trump is 2nd) Mitch McConnell, so that'll be fun.

With me, I always felt nervous but I felt a bit hopeful to in that a change was going to happen.  That is my experience.  I was a selective voter.  State issues (propositions) were more my focused concern...things I really thought I and we could do something about.   However, there are things that I don't believe should be in the hands of voters, i.e. gay marriage.  I believe gay marriage is a Supreme Court decision, not a people decision.  And, there are a few others but really neither here nor there as may just be a personal opinion regarding taxes or something I wasn't in favor of.  

But, your post touched and made me remember going to the polls with my Mom when I first became a voter at 18.  My Mom and I were very close.  She was straight Democrat too.  Me, I have been registered only as a Democrat but will only vote occasionally now for reasons involving health and  a long recovery, I kind of opted out for a while.

But, your story here and I can see how much it means to you, and then these issues regarding "rigged" elections it just makes me mad because there is no proof there are rigged elections, it's just more stuff to stir the pot and agitate us like we are meaningless whomever is doing that.  It's like saying you are really powerless and get lost kind of all the while there is no proof whatsoever anything was rigged.   This rigged issue has been a powder keg for me though, upsetting my emotions.  I've hated it.

Edited May 28, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Gatogateau]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I don't have any problem with mail in voting, but I am very much against voting by computer.   There are way too many companies that have difficulty with security.  I work with computer security and know how hard it is.  The Russians were able to hack the DNC and leak emails.  Hell, even the IRS has been hacked. 

Thus I most definitely do not trust that our government can reliable build a non-hackable system. 

I understand that. I hope we get to a point where we can vote by computer though, not exclusively because that would be a class system too. Plus, who would want to deny Beth her "I voted!" sticker?  I don't think Trump's motivation has anything to do with security though because I doubt if he has that level of understanding. I think his antipathy towards it is simply the more voters the less likely it is for him to get re-elected.

[Beth Macbain]

7 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

But, your post touched and made me remember going to the polls with my Mom when I first became a voter at 18.

And this reminds me of taking my father to vote in his next-to-last election before he passed. 

He was 87 years old and had broken his hip and had surgery. The bruising on his body from that fall and that surgery were unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. He could stand up, but couldn't walk more than a step or two. He hated the wheelchair, though, and the damn thing really wouldn't fit in my car. There is absolutely no way in hell he was going to skip voting, though. 

He had a walker... one of those with the wheels and the little seat you can put down and sit on with a basket underneath it so he decided we'd take that, and I could just push him. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I also wasn't going to deny him his right to vote. The broken hip came after it was too late to get an absentee ballot. 

I'd been taking him to vote for years so I knew his polling place - and this part is absolutely my fault - he told me he'd received a notice that his polling place had changed, but my dumb ass didn't believe him so I took him to his usual polling place, got him out of the car, wheeled that damn walker up a rickety ramp to get into an old church with super narrow doors that weren't really wide enough to get the walker through, and up to check in. Yep, he was right - his location had changed. I felt like a bag of dirt. Had to wheel him back to the car, get him in, drive to the correct place, get him out again, into another building, then back in the car after voting and back to his apartment.

He was in so much pain. SO MUCH PAIN. His hip surgery had only been two weeks before and he had just barely begun to heal. 

So when I hear about people who don't bother voting, it infuriates me. If my sweet old 87 year old papa with a broken hip and horrifying pain could get out and vote, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone else not to.

The next election was his final one, and we did do an absentee ballot for him then - he took great pleasure in voting for a woman to be president and not that... well, I can't say on the forums what my dad called Trump, but it wasn't nice, and I'm glad that he and my mom are both gone now so they didn't have to live through this insanity. 

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Gatogateau said:

It honestly feels like *everything* is related to covid anymore.

COVFEFE !

[Qie Niangao]

37 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I don't have any problem with mail in voting, but I am very much against voting by computer.   There are way too many companies that have difficulty with security.  I work with computer security and know how hard it is.  The Russians were able to hack the DNC and leak emails.  Hell, even the IRS has been hacked. 

Thus I most definitely do not trust that our government can reliable build a non-hackable system. 

Agreed. Ten years ago I would have said to trust the computer security experts to know what they're doing. I guess in a way I'm still saying that: computer security experts are a pretty skeptical bunch these days, and justifiably so.

At least for the next few elections, votes need to come with a real, physical, dead tree paper trail.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Qie Niangao
electiosn

[Qie Niangao]

16 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

So when I hear about people who don't bother voting, it infuriates me. If my sweet old 87 year old papa with a broken hip and horrifying pain could get out and vote, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone else not to.

Not only your papa: those old timers are going to vote. As I get older, I too take the franchise more seriously, maybe because it feels like it's the least I can do. I mean, they're not going to draft me.

Thing is, many older voters (unlike your papa) drift dramatically to the right as they age -- and they're going to vote. It's a constant battle to get younger voters to realize that the fate of the republic depends on them getting off their collective asses and pulling some levers to balance against the most reliable voting demographic, who generally do not have GenZ's interests foremost in our minds, even if we mean well.

[FairreLilette]

25 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Agreed. Ten years ago I would have said to trust the computer security experts to know what they're doing. I guess in a way I'm still saying that: computer security experts are a pretty skeptical bunch these days, and justifiably so.

At least for the next few elections, votes need to come with a real, physical, dead tree paper trail.

Just a question from me a non-computer-geek, will cloud software make internet security any stronger?  Or, could it stay relatively the same, and/or be worse?

It is kind of COVID-19 question because I am using online purchasing now more than I ever have in my entire life.  Makes me a little nervous at times, but I'm mostly cool with it, mostly.   

Edited May 28, 2020 by FairreLilette

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Just a question from me a non-computer-geek, will cloud software make internet security any stronger?  Or, could it stay relatively the same, and/or be worse?

Most of the time, cloud software is worse.

[Beth Macbain]

5 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Thing is, many older voters (unlike your papa) drift dramatically to the right as they age -- and they're going to vote.

Dad did exactly the opposite. He was even a republican city council member in our tiny town when he was younger. The older he got, the more he leaned left. He had a liberal wife, and 8 liberal kids, and I guess we finally rubbed off on him. Actually, I know we did through a him watching the things we (and our friends) were going through and concern for our futures. 

[Beth Macbain]

4 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Most of the time, cloud software is worse.

See: The Fappening

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, FairreLilette said:

Just a question from me a non-computer-geek, will cloud software make internet security any stronger?  Or, could it stay relatively the same, and/or be worse?

No.

For a start, the cloud is just a fancy way of saying 'online servers', the biggest potential difference (but this isn't a given) from when servers were just called servers, is the servers now are more virtual boxes that can be hosted anywhere rather than being tied to a specific lump of actual real hardware. Running virtual servers is potentially less secure vs running one server on one real computer (where it was 100% impossible to peek at the memory contents of a neighboring physical server).

The cloud, like most buzz word based IT trends, is seriously over-hyped and offers almost nothing tangible to end users. IT managers do have an easier life now .. because it makes the management of actual physical data-centers someone else's problem. It does not magically solve anything or make servers better or more fun.

Case in point, Second Life in the cloud .. really means SL not running in LL's own datacenter anymore. It may work out cheaper for LL, it may provide better inter server connectivity, or region hosting to be local to it's owner  (with worse connectivity). It will not make SL run faster or lag less - the CDN (spreading SL textures to servers all over the world) was the big low hanging fruit and we've had that for years.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

Just now, FairreLilette said:

Just a question from me a non-computer-geek, will cloud software make internet security any stronger?  Or, could it stay relatively the same, and/or be worse?

It is kind of COVID-19 question because I am using online now more than I ever have in my entire life.  Makes me a little nervous at times, but I'm mostly cool with it, mostly.   

As much as we're admonished never to think this way, I'm a great believer in "security by obscurity" -- specifically the digital equivalent of "urban camouflage". If what's out there doesn't appear worth stealing, chances are nobody is going to steal it. Putting it in the cloud means it might get swept up with stuff that is worth stealing, but unless there's a reason, nobody is likely to even notice it's there. So I never worry about what I put on Google Drive, simply because I don't have anything worth worrying about.

Votes are different from random cloud content. There is and always has been a huge incentive to manipulate large quantities of individual votes, and the cloud puts them together in those large quantities. In that way they're like credit card numbers: it's very worth stealing millions of them at one go. So, although the cloud improves the payback for investments in improved security (amortized over lots of targets), it also multiplies the value of those targets.

It's kinda like terror threats: It only takes one undefended vulnerability to offset all the ones that were successfully defended.