SunFyre...words from a seated position

A few years ago, an honest Virginia man reported a bank error that resulted in an extra $1.8 million dollars in his bank account -- not once, but three times. Where did all of that money come from? Perhaps they have now found the source. This week, a Georgia man was notified that he had a negative balance of $211 trillion at his Wachovia bank account. His debt makes the national debt, which is only slightly over $9 trillion, seem like small potatoes. Luckily for him, Wachovia reports that the balance was caused by an isolated banking error, and that he was not liable for any charges related to the negative balance. In this case, the error was that his account number was entered in place of his balance. Like the $218 trillion phone bill we saw in 2006, why are errors of this magnitude not caught by some sort of bounds checking algorithm in the bank's software? Furthermore, if an error this size gets through all of the checks and balances, then what other, less noticeable errors are falling through the cracks every day? Source: Techdirt

My Two Cents: (or should be, My 2 Billion Cents) I think there is more stupidness here than somebody accidentally entering an account number instead of a balance. Why do we need 15 digit account numbers? If every man woman and child in the world did their banking at Wachovia Bank there are enough account numbers for each of us well over 16 million bank accounts. I thought about going and claiming my share of them. I would find one of those "free" checking accounts with no minimum balances and say "I'd like to open 16.67 million bank accounts with one penny each, please." Unfortunately, demonstrating stupidness would cost me nearly $167,000. I only have 12 bucks in my wallet.

While it's excessive, I understand that Wachovia Bank probably does this for security purposes. But stupidness doesn't stop at the door of the bank.

Years ago I remember Andy Rooney on 60 minutes talking about ZIP codes. It was when they first expanded from five digit to nine digit ZIP codes. The ZIP+4 system creates the potential for one billion unique zip codes. That's about 3 1/2 zip codes for every person in America. It's about nine zip codes for every house or apartment in America. There are only 10 billion combinations of Social Security numbers, and Social Security numbers stay with you after you are dead. If Americans ran out of Social Security numbers, you would still only have to share your zip code with 10 other people and chances are that none of them would be dead. If people decided that cemeteries at their own zip codes, you would probably never have to share.

The Canadians have it right... fewer digits, but letters and numbers are included. They only have to remember six digits that have 2,176,782,336 potential combinations. The CIA factbook lists the population of Canada at 33,390,141 as of July 2007. (The fact that the CIA believes it knows the population of Canada down to the individual but they incorrectly believed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction is a little scary, but that's a topic for another day.) So anyhow 2,176,782,336 divided by 33,390,141 means that every Canadian is entitled to slightly over 65.19 ZIP codes. If Canadians cut back to only five digits, everyone could only have two. That would make them less stupid than Americans, but that probably won't happen.

In fairness... I'm stupid. I have a total of six different e-mail addresses.

Have the stupid day.

source: Techdirt

Labels: Canada, ID-10T errors, Techdirt

"On this International Day of Disabled Persons, I stand with the roughly six hundred million people around the world, including fifty-four million Americans, who experience some form of disability. I share their vision of an inclusive and just world that is free of unnecessary barriers, stereotypes, and discrimination. Policies must be developed, attitudes must be shaped, and buildings and organizations must be designed to ensure that everyone has a chance to get the education they need, fulfill their potential, and live independently as full citizens in their communities. And every nation has a special responsibility to look after those who can't live on their own - because every human being deserves to live with dignity and respect.

The United States should lead the world to achieve this vision. But seventeen years after Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act, leading other nations to pass similar laws, our leadership has faded. As president, I will restore America's leadership. I will make the United States a signatory to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - the first human rights treaty approved by the UN in the 21st century and a critical step toward respecting the rights of people with disabilities worldwide. And I will urge the U.S. Senate to swiftly ratify the Convention.

Next week, I will lay out a detailed agenda for reforming American society to break down the barriers that exclude Americans with disabilities. We need to build an America where those with disabilities have the same opportunities as everybody else. That is my goal, and I will accept nothing less."

My Two Cents: I'm a Republican, but i do like Barack Obama. His comments actually didn't say much, but at least he had comments.

There are huge number of people classified as disabled in America. While not all disabled people are created equal, the reality is that approximately 2% of Americans need help with one or more activities of daily living. The number he quoted was 54 million. However, the number of people with traditional physical disabilities (blindness, hearing impaired, ambulatory impairment, etc.) is closer to 9 million.

The unemployment rate among working age people with disabilities is approximately 67%. People with disabilities have the highest unemployment rate of any group. People with disabilities also have the highest underemployment rate, which represents the number of people working jobs below their level of education or working jobs below standard pay rates, in the United States.

People with disabilities don't arrive on the national agenda very often. A huge victory for us was when George Bush Sr. signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, but nearly 20 years later very little has actually happened to improve the lives of people with disabilities. We are still prevented from traveling easily. We are still under and unemployed. We still face physical and attitudinal barriers. The only significant difference is that now these problems are legislated.

Here's why people with disabilities should be on Mr. Obama's agenda, as well as on the agenda of every candidate running for the Presidency.

Disabled people have the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

Eighteen years after the Americans with Disability Act was passed Greyhound has yet to retrofit a single bus. It is still very difficult for a wheelchair user to travel by bus or airplane. Amtrak, a heavily federally subsidized program, is the only truly accessible mode of transportation and the number of cities service by Amtrak has shrunk dramatically since 1990.

Americans get upset when they hear about teenagers and children working in sweat shops for a dollar an hour. However, America has its own sweatshops. The difference is the sweatshops are filled with mentally disabled workers who manufacture parts for electronics companies, stuff envelopes for marketing companies and a variety of other tasks. These workers are paid piecemeal, and a typical hourly rate for these workers is $1-$2 per hour. Furthermore, these programs are subsidized by federal and state monies. The reason these workers are paid so low is not that they can't work as fast as a non-mentally disabled worker, they are simply doing jobs that it's cheaper to hire labor than purchase machinery to do the same work. The sweatshops exist in virtually every community, look in your phone book under sheltered workshops.

A confidential survey of human resource executives was asked if they've changed their hiring practices after the Americans with Disabilities Act came into effect. Personnel offices are actually less likely to hire someone with a disability today because they know that it's more difficult to fire someone who isn't working out. These hiring practices are easy to justify because many people with severe disabilities don't have strong a work history. Rather than giving an individual or break and allowing them to prove themselves, they are erring on the side of caution and not hiring them in the first place.

Most people with disabilities cannot purchase life insurance, and many cannot purchase health insurance. Because of this, people with disabilities frequently will avoid going to work because they are eligible for Medicaid or Medicare. The risk of losing health insurance and personal care attendants is far scarier than losing their cash income from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).

Medicare provides a subsidy for people with disabilities to have "paratransit" to medical appointments. This handy door-to-door service is available nationwide and paid for 100%. Unfortunately, paratransit has actually damaged the transportation system for people with disabilities. If you are not going to a medical appointment is very difficult to schedule paratransit, and it is very expensive. While a typical taxi service charged six dollars to travel from my home to my office, the paratransit service which was the only accessible service in my community charges $38. Rather than subsidizing on a per trip basis, Medicare would have been better off subsidizing installation of ramps and lifts in taxi services.

Since the Americans with Disabilities Act came into effect the number of Americans classified as disabled has risen from approximately 9 million to as high as 60 million by some estimates. The reason for this increase is not that people are more disabled, it's that the classification of Americans with disabilities has been broadened dramatically. Having a disability no longer requires that you need assistance with activities of daily life. Today a disabilities classified based on the degree of prejudice you experience in your life. If you experience prejudice outside of skin color, creed, ethnicity or gender, you are probably disabled.

Today most federal forms allow you to decline to answer questions about race. Regardless of your skin color you do not have to classify yourself as African-American, etc. However, you are not allowed to de-classify yourself as disabled. An individual with AIDS who is perfectly healthy is still considered disabled because of the potential for prejudice. Simply identifying the potential for prejudice sometimes can exacerbate prejudice.

As America ages, even if the classification of people with disabilities is not broadened, we can expect the number of people with disabilities to grow.

People with disabilities have a nickname for the rest of you. We call them TABs or TABbies. This acronym stands for Temporarily Able-Bodied. The reality is that any person in America can become disabled. You're very unlikely to become black, become Hispanic, become Muslim or become a woman involuntarily. Your likelihood of becoming disabled in one form or another before the age of 75 is about one in six. Your likelihood of becoming disabled if you live to be 75 years old is about two thirds.

I haven't done the research yet, but I'd like to see where the rest of the candidates stand on improving life for people with disabilities in America. I encourage you to write to candidates, as well as your currently elected officials and indicate to them that this is an important issue that needs to be near the top of mind.

Mr. Obama is correct about one thing. America needs to reassert itself as the clear leader for people with disabilities. In 1990 when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed not only was a groundbreaking in terms of the effect in America, but it became a benchmark for other countries as well.

Today many other societies have far surpassed America in terms of integrating people with disabilities and to society in a way that's very dignified. India for example has subsidies for people with disabilities that are paid to employers. These subsidies help employers who hire disabled people if the disabled individual is not as productive as the average worker. This actually creates an incentive for Indian companies to hire the disabled, because during the learning curve phase of their employment when they are naturally less productive, part of their salary is subsidized. As a disabled person becomes more productive, the subsidy is reduced, but ultimately the employer has gained a strong employee. Public transportation in Great Britain is some of the best in the world for people with disabilities. While they have a long ways to go, simply because the country is a thousand years old, it's still easier to travel in Great Britain that it is across most county lines in the United States.

I'll be anxious to hear what Mr. Obama has to say next week. If he says something that impresses me, it may even cause me to vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate for the first time since I started voting.

Coincidentally, I registered to vote and paid my first taxes the year before the Americans with Disabilities Act came to pass.

Labels: 2008 elections, Americans with Disabilities Act, Barack Obama, disabled people

A lot of people say that the Christmas Season drives them crazy. If this is you, here's a version of The 12 Days of Christmas you will appreciate. I guess it could be aptly called The 12 Therapeutic Days of Christmas.

Labels: Christmas, holidays, humor, mental health, videos

Today is International Day of the Disabled. You didn't even send me a card did you! I mean come on... I write about my fantastically fabulous life from the point of view of being in a wheelchair... words from a seated position. I spent hours each month working on this blog and you don't even have the common courtesy to send me a card!

Okay, first I never heard of International Day of the Disabled until today. Plus, I'm not quite sure how a day becomes international. Did every country in the world actually have a vote and declare that this is an international day of something? It took decades to agree that having a hundred different currencies in Europe was a dumb idea. We can't get countries to agree to throw away nuclear bombs or even that global warming exists. Killing whales and dolphins is still a good idea in much of the world. So how in the heck did we get every country to agree to have an International Day of the Disabled.

I think it's another Hallmark marketing ploy, kind of like Grandparents Day and Sweetest Day. Just because it's a marketing ploy doesn't mean you don't owe me a card!

Do they have cards that say Happy Belated International Day of the Disabled? You better hope so.

In your defense, I would never willingly give up my home address. Also, I haven't checked the mailbox today so it's possible that every one of my readers actually did send me a card. I think I heard a mail truck sputtering and struggling to get up the hill in front of my house, that's probably a good sign.

Anyhow, Happy Gimp Day!

Labels: disabled people, humor

Today, a company called Skyonic announced a novel new system, Skymine, which uses the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks to make baking soda. According to Skyonic CEO Joe David Jones, the system will be powered by waste heat from factories, and will produce food-grade baking soda.

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