My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 26, 2018

We watched the premiere David Letterman series on Netflix with President Barack Obama the other night and both Brenda and I were impressed with the likeability our previous president exhibited – reminiscent of why he was elected in 2008 (Letterman, not so much).

Obama was baited numerous times by David Letterman to weigh in negatively on President Trump, but didn’t bite. He remains likeable as a person and even as a president … although his political philosophy and policies differ from most of us who prefer lower taxes and a small and less intrusive federal government. Where I definitely differed from David Letterman (and there were many areas) in his interview comments, was when he closed with "I’ve always respected the office of the president, but you were the only person I respected as president" [paraphrased]. Hm? Am I alone in seeing the "good" in all who have served as POTUS even when I disagree with their political philosophy and decisions in challenging times? To me, those who have served as president ALL patriotically desire to protect, defend and keep the United States a great country and "personally" are caring and compassionate people.

Category: Entertainment, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: interview, letterman, netflix, obama, opinion, president, united states

Posted By RichC on January 25, 2018

Throwback Thursday #TBT photos usually have to do with oneself or at least something from our own lifetime. I’m archiving a unique photo of this great American leader (the first known of him in 1840), as I wanted to save it to my blog.

Most of us study our US Presidents in school, but usually know “this,” our 16th president, differently – with a beard and a little older.

    How do you remember our “penny” president?

Category: Archive, Education, History, Photos, TBT, Tidbits | 2 Comments »
Tags: History, interesting, lincoln, Photos, president, TBT

Posted By RichC on January 24, 2018

As GE stock continues getting battered (although a 4.48% bounce back today), quite a few investors have been waiting for the bad news to end and new management direction to bring this huge ship back on course. (I’ve been buying, and selling) It is likely be too soon to expect things to change, but General Electric has some outstanding talent and a lot of excess waste/fat to start trimming. Their line up of products are to be admired, the economic conditions sound and with the right hand on the helm (John Flannery) should be able to run profitably again. Winning back shareholders and institutional investors may take some time, but writing them off is premature — just my gut call.

Today was a mixed day for investors, especially as the Trump administration announced tariffs on solar panels and washing machines from overseas. This could be a slippery slope, but understandable when trade has not been reciprocal. I’m hoping this is a one-off, warning shot … and will quickly be resolved by those country who continue to encourage and permit unfair trade practices.

All eyes on General Electric’s 4th quarter reporting before Wednesday’s open.

Can it possibly get any worse for General Electric Co.? Investors will find out when the struggling industrial conglomerate reports fourth-quarter results before Wednesday’s open.

The last quarterly report, was a big surprise for investors, as GE missed earnings expectations for the first time in 10 quarters, but the stock erased an early loss to end higher on the day of the report for the first time in eight quarters. Read more about how GE’s profit miss and the stock’s bounce was a shock.

However, the stock’s strength proved very short lived, as it fell for the next nine sessions—the longest losing streak in eight years. The outlook for the shares got even uglier after new Chief Executive John Flannery unveiled the company’s transformation plan in mid-November, with the stock taking a particular hit a shockingly large loss for its legacy insurance business was revealed.

LINK

Category: Business, Financial | 1 Comment »
Tags: finance, ge, general electric, investing, stock, tariff, trading

Posted By RichC on January 23, 2018

One wonders as to the legal responsibility of auto companies when "making a best effort" to correct the airbag issues in their customers’ cars? Are manufacturers held liable when using parts from their suppliers? 

Here’s a comparison: I took our 2006 Honda Pilot in a couple years ago after they notified me about the Takata Airbag Recall in cars they built. The correction by Honda was relatively quick and fixed with a minimum of hassles as soon as I received my recall postcard.

Currently it is believed that defects in “batwing” shaped wafers of Takata inflators allows moisture to infiltrate over time. This moisture modifies the chemical structure of the propellants. As a result the, propellants ignite too fast, causing the overreaction that ruptures the airbags and propels shrapnel into vehicle occupants. LINK

In contrast, BMW has been far less efficient in doing the same for my 2010 BMW X5 35d and suspect they knew of the problem but were not forced to implement a recall notice at the same time other car manufacturer did? Hence, I received my recall postcard in 2017 and called to schedule the airbag replacement. BMW of Cincinnati North took my call to schedule the replacement, but notified me that the parts required "were not in stock" and that "they would let me know when they were available" … that was several months ago. Yesterday I received an email from them requesting

I called 513-802-9444 as requested and "Ask for the Recall Department" in order to schedule my appointment.  I was told there were  2 recalls (driver and passenger airbags) but they only had parts for the passenger airbag – the reason for the new email contact. I relayed my point of calling several months ago and that I was waiting for the recall parts; they indicated "those parts are unavailable." I asked for clarification … "not available now at the dealership or not available to BMW in order to fix my vehicle?" She assured me that when they became available I would receive a call letting me know.

My question and concern is "How long does a manufacturer have to correct this problem and is BMW alone in "sluggishly" supplying the appropriate parts to their dealers for recalls? Where is the urgency or are they not being held liable for injury … therefore not really expediting the process in getting older vehicles fixed? This could come back to bite them.

EDIT An additional Question: How does BMW fix airbags after a collision if the "parts are not available?"

Category: Automotive, BMW, Financial, Health | 1 Comment »
Tags: airbag, BMW, cincinnati, consumer, honda, industry, legal, ohio, recall, takata

Posted By RichC on January 22, 2018

This content is restricted.

Category: Personal, Photos, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: ani gif, annalyn, drew, katelyn, video, weather

Posted By RichC on January 22, 2018

After contemplating the purchase of Larry P Arinn‘s Churchill’s Trial at full price since it was published, but having too many unfinished books on my Kindle and reading table, the $1.99 price was exactly what I needed to download. I’m looking forward to the scholarly writing of Dr. Arinn as he delves into the trials that faced one of the most influential leaders in the 20th century. When I think of "statesmanship," I think of Winston Churchill and his challenges not only in dealing with the politics of his own country, but how he dealt with leaders on the international stage. 

Category: Books, History | No Comments »
Tags: book, hillsdale, History, larry arinn, winston churchill

Posted By RichC on January 21, 2018

This weekend gave us a “nail-biter and a blowout,” as one writer put it. The Super Bowl will be February 4, 2018 and will be “a rematch of a game we saw less than 15 years ago: Eagles vs. Patriots.” I can’t say I’m really looking forward to it as I don’t care for either team.

The Eagles vs. Patriots – CBSSports.com

Patriots 24 – Jaguars 20 F

Eagles 38 – Vikings 7 F

Category: Sports | No Comments »
Tags: eagles, football, jaguars, nfl, patriots, playoffs, superbowl, vikings

Posted By RichC on January 21, 2018

We are dealing with a government shutdown once again. Our ineffective elected politicians in Washington DC can’t figure out how to work together in a way to even keep the federal government doors open for business … let alone do the actual work to improve the country without making someone suffer (those depending on a regular government check).

The way I see it is that the party in minority, Democrats, think they have found a way to slow the Trump administration’s progress by tying something additional they want to the short term funding bill – in this budget bill’s case it is an immigration issue called DACA that can easily be debated at another time, although without the clout of shutting down the government.

Consider that several previous shutdowns were blamed on Republicans, when they were in the minority, it will be interesting to see if Democrats face the same firestorm for doing the same? If memory serves correctly, previous shutdowns had more to do with excessive spending and too few budget cuts, which are fairly closely tied to monetary budgeting. This shutdown has little to do with monetary budgeting as only four fiscally conservative senators (Rs) opposed the continuing resolution and voted ‘no’ due to the excessive deficit spending. Although the Republicans are in the majority, they still need a 60 senators marging to keep paychecks flowing to federal workers (the House passed it).

So … I’m a little bit more peeved than usual because the debate does not seem to be over the actual budget, deficits or debt or even the programs that are currently funded. In this shutdown, both Republicans and Democrats seem to support existing social programs like the highlighted CHIP program (liberals favor), and the hefty national defense (conservatives tend to favor). Instead … the argument seems to be coming from Democrats, especially the senate leadership, that they need to leverage the passing of the continuing resolution in order to gain something that has little to do with funding the government. One would think the mainstream media and public would at least point this out?

Category: Financial, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: budget, daca, democrats, government, immigration, Republicans, shutdown, spending, Washington DC

Posted By RichC on January 20, 2018

Probably should have been posted as a New Year’s resolution, but this works for ALL and at ALL times in life and career.

Category: Advice, Business, Human Interest, Social Media, Tidbits | 2 Comments »
Tags: 10 things, career, employee, employment, growth, hiring, personality, self, talent

Posted By RichC on January 19, 2018

Besides my personally server and fading Raspberry Pi server projects (just too small), I been using several different companies to host Internet connected servers for Consolidated Printing and Publishing’s customers – traditional servers and virtual Droplets. Having used a variety of dedicated servers and virtual shared machines over the years since first getting into archiving digitally for customers and webhosting in the 1990s, I’ve seen good and I’ve seen really lousy.

A current favorite is DigitalOcean. Their "Droplet" options are near perfect for most Linux projects; they are inexpensive, reliable and can be "spun up" quickly for each customer or a testing environment. The longer I use them, the more comfortable I am with scalable cloud computing. About the only thing I dislike is managing (and paying for) backups and "snapshots." The latter I use the most.

Recently they upgraded performance and pricing to bring them inline with the lowest cost players in the business … although I haven’t looked into Vultr or Linode since a few dollars a month isn’t hardly worth switching (who knows, I might give them a try next project though?)

For now, all seems to be working with my old school servers and using Digital Ocean for virtual machines and attached SSD volumes. MyDesultoryBlog running on WordPress occasionally stresses the smaller processor and memory, so with the new pricing I’ve added some additional memory and some SSD storage, plus use a DO Volume for some extra storage, Amazon Web Services (AWS) for streaming video and my company’s myarchive.us server for most photos.

Perhaps in 2018 I’ll give MongoDB and Digital Ocean’s Spaces a try for my stalled Quickdex.com project? If you are interesting in anything I can do for you, send me a message.

Category: Blogs, Business, Computer, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: amazon s3, aws, digital ocean, godaddy, hostnine, linode, tech friday, techfriday, tucows, vultr