Category: Observations Page 23 of 90

Hindi Song

On June 2, 2016

I wasn’t planning to post a follow-up to India Calling. And yes, they’re still calling. I’ve lost count of how many thousands of times they’ve called us in the past week. But it averages 4,200 calls from 6pm to 7am. And probably about the same during out working hours.

Most of the calls are still silence, or people conversing in the background. More of them are button presses or a recording that we’ve been placed on hold.

But every now and again, there is a truly amazing call. And this call is one such call.

To set the stage, I answered the call and started singing My Hero by the Foo Fighters. Because when you receive hundreds of calls per hour, the only thing you can do is have some fun with them.

And I got the singing Hindi song in response. Here is below in its full glory. I can’t explain why he sang it to me, or why he sang at all. But here it is.

India Calling

By Carl

On May 27, 2016

In Observations

For the past three days, callers from India have called our help desk almost non-stop. When I arrived this morning, my co-worker’s telephone read 1324 missed calls since 6pm yesterday. For the first two hours of work this morning, we had racked up another 250 calls.

They finally slowed down around 3:30pm. After 1631 missed calls and another couple dozen calls we answered and hung up or had fun with them. My phone only logs the last 100 calls received and that only goes back 2 hours. It has been a long few days of constantly ringing phones.

Their goal is to get into our voicemail system. Though I’m not sure to what end. Most of the calls are silence, or the caller presses buttons, presumably to access the system. I keep telling them I’m a human and don’t understand Morse Code but they never respond. Rarely, we’ll get a person on the line who will speak to us. I got as far as being offered $1,015 for “the access code.”

So I decided to give him a long string of numbers. Since I’m not sure what access code he wanted, I tried my best to deliver an access code. So if this was your access code, I’m sorry. It’s now in the hands of the Indian Scammers™.

I recorded some snippets of our conversations and musical concertos recorded with my friends from across the sea. I hope you enjoy them and have a peaceful weekend.

Minimalism Film

By Carl

On May 4, 2016

In Observations

I am very excited to the the Minimalism Film tonight with my wife. I’m glad I saw the news early (thanks for the ever-marvelous and Sir Appearing in this Film Patrick Rhone. I don’t know if I had any questions to ask, but I’ve always benefited from listening to the other’s questions.

Before our documentary hits theaters on May 24, 2016, Joshua and Ryan will visit a bunch of cities to premiere the film in front of a live audience. At each event they will give a brief talk, and then show the documentary in its entirety. After the film they will record a live version of “Ask The Minimalists” for their podcast.

Kids today…

By Carl

On April 22, 2016

In Observations

…make some great art!

After dinner earlier this week, my wife saw some art work in display from local schools in the mall where we ate. We had a few minutes before closing so we went to check out what the kids were up to.

8-bit art

There was some really cool artwork. There are some insanely talented young artists in the area. And it’s good to see their work being displayed in public. I can only imagine how exciting it is to go to the mall with your parents and see your painting or project hanging there.

We saw a ton of work from local Elementary and Middle schools. Each school or class had work based on a theme. For the younger kids, it was a book or certain style. I remember seeing a whole wall of giraffes after a book the kids read. They were a lot of fun.

Low Poly art

The older kids had some breath-taking paintings and some low-poly art, a personal favorite of mine. There was one artist in particular whose portrait of Marilyn Manson was astounding. This girl has a future ahead of her.

We used our 15 minutes before mall security ushered us towards the door. There was so much more to see since there are so many schools in our county. This is always weird to me, since I grew up in a county with two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school.

Narwhal

Seeing more than a dozen displays from elementary aged was exciting for the depth and variety of artwork on display. The same goes for the middle-schoolers. There were so many things I never knew existed when I was their age. So many art styles made possible by computers and techniques I didn’t learn about until years later.

I’m happy to see such a rich art education in the local schools. There are some great art teachers in the area and they’re doing good work.

North Carolina moves to embrace money-exempt status

By Carl

On April 5, 2016

In Observations

North Carolina decided to rush through a bill removing rights from LGBT citizens. It also decided to make sure no cities could adopt anti-discrimination rules and limited the minimum wage, just for good measure.

Say What?

From Ars Technica:

The law in question is known as HB2. In addition to the restroom policy, the measure also blocks lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from enjoying anti-discrimination protections, and it forbids local North Carolina governments from adopting anti-discrimination and living wage rules to counter the state law.

I feel sorry for the citizens of the state who don’t support this measure and who are losing money and jobs because of it.

Official Government Travel Bans

Mayors of Washington DC, Atlanta, Seattle, and Boston have all banned official travel to the state.

New York and Connecticut have banned official travel there as well.

And that’s not all.

Lost Money and Jobs

Charlotte has also lost 400 skilled jobs when PayPal cancelled expansion plans in light of the new law.

“The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture. As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte,” Dan Schulman, the PayPal president and CEO.

Braeburn Pharmaceuticals is pulling their 52 new jobs and #20 million investment int he state.

Fox, Miramax and The Weinstein Company are looking to move or cancel productions in North Carolina. Turner Broadcasting is also threatening to move filming out of the state.

Taking Sides

The Charlotte Observer has a running list of who is For and Against the HB2 law.

There are apparently many more who support the bill but:

Due to vocal threats and bullying from the LGBT community, some business owners feared for the well-being of their business and families. For this reason, some preferred to remain anonymous by name, however, here is a list of timestamped signees with industry indication for those who have signed on, thus far, showing the incredibly large outpouring of support for the passage of HB2 on the North Carolina business community.

From [Facebook page of the North Carolina Values Coalition](North Carolina Values Coalition).

I’m sorry they feel bullied from the same group of people they’re looking to discriminate against. Maybe if they were nicer, they wouldn’t feel so bullied. If you take my rights away, I would be inclined to bully you too.

Jesus reminds followers to love one another no matter what.

Bathroom Safety

But now that North Carolina has made restrooms safe for women from transgendered people. Or did they?

[Statistics Show Exactly How Many Times Trans People Have Attacked You in Bathrooms)(http://mic.com/articles/114066/statistics-show-exactly-how-many-times-trans-people-have-attacked-you-in-bathrooms#.mUe6L2Wo2)

Big fat zero: Spokespeople from the Transgender Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union told Mic that no statistical evidence of violence exists to warrant this legislation. Vincent Villano, the director of communications for the National Center for Transgender Equality, told Mic in an email that there isn’t any firm data to corroborate these lawmakers’ claims, and that NCTE has “not heard of a single instance of a transgender person harassing a non-transgender person in a public restroom. Those who claim otherwise have no evidence that this is true and use this notion to prey on the public’s stereotypes and fears about transgender people.”

But transgender people face harassment simply trying to heed the call of nature.

The survey, published in the Journal of Public Management and Social Policy, found that 70 percent of responders have been denied entrance, were harassed or assaulted when attempting to use a public restroom of their identifying gender.

I’m glad North Carolina has kept their religious freedom and their bathrooms safe from trans attackers that don’t exist. I hope states who make these laws continue to suffer the backlash of more progressive companies, governments and people. They’re entitled to their views and beliefs. But they’re also entitled to the results of them.

If you’d like to feel even safer, I have a rock that’s guaranteed to keep tigers away.