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I have a Canon A410 camera for more than 4 years now, and I have used it for everything. It is a small silver camera that can fit into most pockets easily. This camera results in me getting unwanted attention. I went to a mall a few weeks ago with that camera to take some pictures. The security guards felt that it was their life duty to not allow me to take pictures without them in the background. After about 20 minutes of me walking around in the mall looking for a good shot of either some object or a store, I was approached by a security guard and was told that “You’re not allowed to take pictures in the mall.” Every day you see dozens of tourists coming to malls and taking pictures to which no one objects. However, if you are not a tourist and have a light-looking silver camera, you probably cannot take a picture.

Last week I went to the same mall with my new Sony A300 DSLR camera. It is a big black camera that gets unwanted attention itself and makes sure that I get almost no attention at all. At the mall, I started taking a few pictures with it. During the course of an hour, I noticed no security guards shadowing me. I walked around for a while to look for some security guards, and as I found them, I took pictures of them and things around them. Interestingly, none of the security guards had any problem with me taking pictures with a black camera. Even the same security guard, who had previously told me that I was not allowed to take pictures in the mall, looked and carried on with his job, as if I was going to publish his photo in a magazine called “The people who keep our malls safe from silver cameras.”

Example 2: Only non-free software is good

We can apply the same small-silver vs. fat-black camera to the idea of using software online. Someone told me last year that anyone who uses free products in web development is not a serious professional in the online field. I do not understand the logic behind such a claim, though I do understand the flawed notions that probably amount to such claims being used: something that is being offered for free is not good enough to be sold, as people will not buy it. Thus, in such a logic, inferior software is given away for free while superior software is sold.

So what happens when a cheaper or a free software is used? For this article, please forget the mass hysteria after being open-source¹. The concept of something you take for free, by paying through time and other actions, and not by paying actual tender cash for it, has not been yet understood correctly by many people. If you upload files to your site server with a free FTP² software, and I upload files to my site server with a paid FTP software, would my site be considered better than yours based on the fact that I paid cash money for that FTP software? It should not, since if you want to judge, you judge based on the end result, which would be the site, and not on the monetary value of the tool being used.

Paying for a tool results in a better perception?

The above mentality is a form of a separation where those that can afford a higher priced item can differentiate themselves than those that cannot or will not buy a higher priced item. In fact, those that do not have more complicated or sophisticated tools and pursue a hobby or some kind of other work, have more passion and sincerity than those that have a hobby that is made simpler, easier and possible only due to a more expensive tool. It should be noted that this stereotype is also applied to the concept of feelings, emotions and relationships on a massive level: maybe I will discuss that in a future thought.

Give an idiot a high tech 8-megapixel camera and tell him or her to go take pictures. Many of pictures, if not all, will come out looking superb in many forms. In contrast, give the same idiot a 1 megapixel or a 3.1 megapixel with no auto-focus or other built in functions and tell him or her to go take pictures. Then see if many or even any of the pictures look cool.

Today someone online asked me to show him pictures from the new camera, since “the canon was just ok not that good.” I thought about it and showed him a few pictures taken a few years ago with my Canon, but I told him they were all from the newer Sony camera. His reaction? He said the pictures definitely looked better than my previous pictures and finally showed my real talent. I am actually thinking of not sharing my pictures directly with such or many people anymore, or to hide the identity of the tools used so that the focus can be on the actual process and the result itself and not just the tool, since it is a waste of time to have a passion for something like drawing and then have people praise you not for the drawing but for the expensive pencil you used. Better to have a secret passion than to expose the passion and listen to people praise it based on things they do not understand and for things that should not be praised.

What do you think?

What is your opinion on this? Does the monetary value of the tools define the worth of an action? What if someone cannot afford a higher priced item and wishes to use a free alternate? What if someone is focusing only on the actual process and maybe the result and not on the tools being used? The tools may very well be the right tools, but does the rightness of a tool depend on its price? Or is it the mentality of the society, that wants attention and differentiation through means other than actual work or intelligence or passion, that depends on the actual monetary cash price of an item to try to show itself as being superior or to show someone else as being inferior?

Thank you for reading about this thought, which was written in a free text editing program and then in a paid text editor program, then edited on a free online software, on a very strange website³, on a $499 operating system, on a $700+ laptop filled with both free software and software that costs more than $5000. And on a table that if I wish to sell one day, would probably require me to pay the buyer some money for him/her to take the table away.

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In my view, setting achievable goals does not seem like a good concept. Following are five of the several different reasons due to which setting achievable goals can be bad.

1. You limit yourself before you start.

   People who think of what they cannot do in their entire life usually look for smaller things they can do to feel better. If you want to simply feel better by faking levels of accomplishments by limiting your boundaries, go ahead. If you think your life should improve or you want to keep on improving the satisfaction of your life, you have to increase some thing, like effort or your targets or even your thinking, in order to expect or get more. Since you set goals usually to achieve something, setting limited goals means you want to achieve something that is easy and limited. Even the simple concept of thinking more about thoughts themselves or something helps.

2. You avoid obstacles.

   Have you ever come across the saying “Look for challenges.” Well, people who look for challenges in life simply because they want to face challenges worry me because such people are very weak: they usually simply want to prove to themselves or others that they are better. How about achieving something through a challenge? I am not sure if “The Challenge Facer” is a goal some people are out to achieve: maybe they are. Similarly, people who keep avoiding obstacles and living a life without obstacles usually end up not doing much.

   Focus on what you want. If there are challenges along the path of what you want, then facing those challenges is more logical, reasonable and ethical than simply going around saying “I’m a challenging person. I look for challenges.” Of course, once you are aiming for something, then you can look for challenges or try your best to avoid them. Now you should realize that your goal itself may be to face challenges in life for some reasons only known you². If such a goal exists, then sure, you can go ahead and look forward to such challenges in my view.

3. Life will not improve for you.

   How can life improve when you only set out to do things which are easily doable based on your existing life? If you want to change life, you have to do things differently to achieve a different result than what you are experiencing at the moment. How can a goal, which requires no change in the essential elements or views in your life, result in your life changing due to that goal?

4. Achievable goals are an excuse to simply have goals.

   Usually, it seems, many achievable goals exist simply because one wants to feel better by having any goal in their mind. Thus, you make plans on what to do in a year simply because making such a plan makes you feel that you are doing something good³. Sure, such a feeling is important also, but you can try to convert those feelings into other things also to see if the new results help you even more.

5. Stereotypical tradition of setting goals will continue.

   This reason usually happens because we see many others around us planning their upcoming year or analyzing their previous years to see what goals they can achieve or have achieved. If you set out to do something about your goal planning simply because people around you set their yearly goals, you may be simply making goal plans in order to fit into the society. You already know where I stand when it comes to doing things simply because the society does and loves them, right?⁴

Set goals regardless of their achievable status

Now you should realize that the very idea, of setting up goals that are easy to achieve or are simply achievable since the beginning, being bad also means that any goals you set are theoretically achievable. Thus, when you set goals, do not think about their achievable status or their achievable future. Think of the process and the actual goal. The more dreamy the goal, the more important it probably should or may be for you, even if that dreamy important goal is one of the dozens of other goals in your mind.

As time passes, you will realize that some goals are being achieved, some goals are failing miserably, while other goals have surpassed your expectations, have slowed down, or something else. That is normal, and that is how life is utilized to achieve something.

What do you think?

Please let me know what you think about the idea of simply having goals instead of achievable goals, or if you have any questions or comments or anything to share, like your own goals from the past or why you had them. Please let me know if the above thought or theory can be a universal law, or if there are exceptions where the above listed traits or other traits of achievable goals can do more good than this thought of mine, or if the idea above can be modified to be more accommodating.

When we have goals, we can work on achieving them. If we fail, we will learn and that feeling and experience becomes part of us, enabling us to hopefully try new and different ways of achieving other goals in the future. Say no to setting goals that are easily achievable on purpose. Focus on setting goals based on what you want your goals to be.

Thank you for reading.

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This series will take you through a maze of different kinds of relationship trends, aimed at people who are dating, engaged, seeing someone, married, sexually involved, interested, trying to learn more about dating or the myth called “a good relationship“, or something similar. Please realize that the tolerance level in different people regarding relationships is different, and thus some people may give up on a relationship the very moment they notice any of the trends listed in this series, while other let-me-keep-trying-hope-is-in-sight people like me, have in the past kept trying to fix things for a long, long time. You decide how much you can tolerate, and then take actions accordingly. Only let people, who know the whole story or most of the story of your relationship, advice you on whether or not you should end or change your relationship.

This guide focuses on both men and women, and is not limited to only a man-to-a-woman relationship. It includes man-to-a-man, woman-to-a-woman, and woman-to-a-man¹ relationships. The post also does not intend to take your side: you may very well be the very cause of the mentioned trends, and your significant other may be the victim. Hopefully if you are the cause, reading this series will help you realize how you may be doing certain things consciously or unconsciously that may be putting your significant other through mental or physical problems that they should not be put through.

What if I am a man and abused?

You are not alone if you are a man whose heart has been broken before². Relax. For stereotypical reasons, societies today expect females to be more emotional and males to be more “manly“, a term that describes the stereotypical things and traits associated with stereotypical males. Women are not the only victims of abuse, and many males do not report abuse or ask their friends about relationships because they feel ashamed. People might say “What kind of a man are you who feels sad about the relationship? Dump her/him and move on! Remember, you da maaaan!” Even last week I heard someone tell his friend: “What kind of a man are you? You can’t even control one chick, and you expect to be successful in life?” Such is the mentality we hold in life when it comes to the role of genders on our planet.

As a male, the first thing you have to realize is that while majority of the people and mentalities, including the ideas in this article that you are reading, may hint at women being more abused than men, acknowledging the problem in your relationship in your own mind and heart is a very good step to take. Who cares what others think? If you cannot tell others that you feel sad about a relationship, that is fine for now: not being able to admit in public or to others that you can have emotions is a problem that can be tackled later. For now, your focus is on the problem in the relationship. You may be stuck with an aggressive female or a stereotypical girl who is not happy when you act non-stereotypically. Apply everything in this series to yourself, even if you come across an example that mentions females instead of males.

Whether it is a girl or a guy that broke your heart or hurt you deeply, and you are still in a relationship with that person, be sure to think only of the relationship and not your gender when it comes to thinking about the question “Should I even be worried about this, or should I just ignore it and try to be more macho?” The day you start realizing how to look at issues without putting gender into the question will be the day you can start realizing why things are happening. Forget what the society expects from you if you think something is harmful for you and harmful for someone else who is innocent: if in your lifetime you can tell your family even once that their decisions or thoughts may go against what you wish, why is it hard for you to let someone as distant as the society know that you wish to live your life based on what you think is right, and not what the society thinks is right for you? This same society is what bound females into the current male-dominated society. Do not allow the society to keep you tied to the same macho-position in this male-dominated world. Even if in the end you want to be a macho, be sure to make that decision based on your own thinking, without any influence from the society.

Please keep in mind that I am slowly working my way towards discussing such things in more detail also: I am starting from one side and working my way up to help both you and myself understand the situation from some principle, and then branching into other areas based on some form of thinking, logic and reasons based on what I consider is ethical or at least better and the right thing. Also remember one of the important rules: you may hate what the other person does or you may even hate the other person, but do not hate the other gender because of what a single person or a group of people does to you.

3 relationship trends that slowly kill the abused heart

Today we will start with 3 things happening in a relationship that should make you realize that ending or changing the relationship may be the answer to such a trend. We will start today from the trends that revolve around simpler physical and mental torture, to more definite tortures related solely to mental and physical attributes in the next parts of the series. Today we cover the trends of you doing all the work in a relationship, to you not being appreciated for what you do in a relationship, to the other person not doing much or anything for you in a relationship. So please sit down, relax, take a deep breath, hold on to those “will-fall-in-real-love-one-day” or “I-am-always-right-since-I-am-the-man/woman” thoughts in your heart, and start reading below.

1. You do all the work to keep the relationship running.

   This one is very simple to grasp, as the title says it all, yet very difficult to be realized. You, in the relationship, do most of the things to keep yourself and the other person happy in life. This point usually affects females, since we still live in a male-dominated world³. Basically, you are responsible for everything important and critical in the relationship. If you do something wrong, the relationship suffers. If the other person does something wrong, the relationship does not suffer.

   Taking the example of a female in a relationship, like a girlfriend or a wife: if she has to cook, take care of children, clean the house, manage things around the house for the male, manage and handle the money, while the husband only brings in money or does things that are good for his own self and does not love the female⁴, chances are that the relationship is one sided and the female is not an equal in the relationship. Such relationships can be seen in majority of the world, where the popular term, house wife, has come into play billions of times in different houses around the world. One partner does all the work and is always left behind or separate, while the other one does no work and is always ahead and in a better position and control.

   The sad thing is, many of such wives are happy with their situation and prefer to be in a household where the man controls their destinies⁵ and the man dictates the major decisions in life, while the major actions are performed by the female. How can you tell someone who knows what is happening and is satisfied with it, to change their life? It is hard, very very hard. You can force them to change or get out, but then you would be imposing your opinion onto their life, which would be the same thing their husbands or significant others do. If a person is happy with abuse or with being led forward by someone else, how can you easily change their life for the sole reason of making it happier? The solution can be either to let such people be happy in their lives, or to make such people go through a lot of interaction with others to be able to slowly create an idea of the depths and extents of other ideas and opinions; I will not go into that, as that can be the topic of another post.

   If you are in a relationship where you do everything and the other person, regardless of their gender, reaps all the benefits, try to figure out why you are in the relationship. Are you in it because you want to do all the work? Are you in it because you like to be told what to do? Are you in it because you are desperate to be with anyone and you do not want to be single? Are you in it because you love the other person so much that you are willing to let them dictate your life? Are you in it because you love the other person for being in control and you feel weak? You decide the answers to the above question, and then decide if you want to end such a relationship.

2. You are rarely appreciated.

   Ever seen a teenager gangster wannabe with low pants, long shirts, and no skill to earn money on his own? You will usually hear such a guy say “I don’t give a damn what others think fool!” Let me tell you something. Such gangster show-off wannabe’s are the most attention-wanting species in your neighborhood, and they care a lot about what others think. That is why they dress in such a manner, rarely apologize, rarely act considerate, and rarely show a human side that does not try to portray itself as being superior to others. Try it yourself: keep looking at such gangsters and they will get irritated, nervous, intimidated and they will end up saying “What the hell you looking at?” So much for them not caring “what others think fool!”

   In a relationship, you should be the opposite of a gangster child. Whether you are a guy or a girl, your relationship is affected greatly by many questions, including the question of whether or not you want the other person to think positively about you and appreciate you. While majority of the females are used to hearing “You look so beautiful” from guys⁶, real people who want real relationships can slowly realize whether or not they are being sincerely appreciated by their significant others. The same way you get bored and even annoyed hearing “Wow you are such a good person” from people who never help you when you need help but they say such things when they need your help, why would you accept a relationship where you are rarely appreciated sincerely?

   A relationship does not only exist to allow two people to avoid suicide⁷, but to live lives together and to sincerely let the other person know that their actions and thoughts are helping the other person, among a few other things. Such appreciation should come naturally and not at times when you are stuck in a situation or when you feel that appreciating the other person will get that person off your back. Still, many relationships exist where one person, usually the female, is rarely appreciated. This happens when there is an assumed mentality that the female is expected to do something.

   Have you ever noticed that stereotypical guys start appreciating more when they are aroused? Have you ever noticed that stereotypical girls start appreciating more when they need attention? All of such appreciation is stereotypical. Where is the real, sincere appreciation that comes even when the appreciation-giver does not need anything in return? When couples have fights, they start appreciating in order to show they should be forgiven. Have you ever seen someone in a relationship appreciate things after everything is over, and after the relationship ends? Of course not. We do not see such appreciation after a relationship ends, because then there is no more sex, money, attention or support. The only time when appreciation could be the most sincere is the time we start ignoring appreciation on purpose. And we wonder why majority of the couples in Northern and Southern Americas end up splitting even after 40+ years of marriage or being together.

   Why should you thank a person who breaks your window while drunk and then fixes it the next day when you catch him? Why should you thank your roommate for turning off the lights at night while you sleep? Why should you thank your neighbor for keeping the volume down at night when you sleep? Why should you thank your boss for paying you, when you do hard work that deserves money as a reward? Why should you thank a cop for not giving you a ticket when he/she does not even stop you? Why should you thank the credit card company for taking your money for the monthly bills? Why should you thank your wife for having children and going through pain that you as a man will rarely go through, when she is having children in a relationship that are not only for herself but for you also? Why should you thank your husband for earning money when he himself agreed to such an arrangement and you agreed to such an agreement also by marrying him?

   If you can realize any difference in the validity in each and every one of the above questions and the related concept of appreciation, you probably have the ability to realize when and why to appreciate someone. The choice is yours whether or not you want to appreciate. The choice and decision is also yours whether or not you wish to be in a relationship where the other person takes for granted what you do for yourself, for the relationships and for the other person.

3. You are not given any significant focus.

   There is a difference between appreciation and focus. Appreciation usually happens when the other person is reacting to your actions, letting you know somehow that he/she is very happy or satisfied and grateful that you are doing something that the other person likes, including the very act of staying in a relationship. Giving focus, on the other hand, can be viewed as the original action. If someone is appreciating you because you cared for them while they were sick, it is usually because you focused part of your life on that sick person. Thus, appreciation is the reaction if you wish to look at it from that view, and focus is the action. You focus on something, and get appreciated in return. We talked about appreciation in the above point. Let us now put our minds on the concept of having your significant other do things for you as part of their focus in life: them doing things without you asking for such things or without you doing things first.

   A lot of relationships have people that give majority of the focus in their life to things outside of the relationship. Again, usually, the victim of such a trend is the female. While many girls and ladies are all right with having money and not caring what their significant others do, majority of the guys end up not caring much about their significant others other than thinking that they are properties that are to be handled. This mentality results in husbands and many boyfriends not focusing on the essential parts of the female’s lives, like things they care about, things that affect their thinking and their mentality. Basically, these are the things that should affect any ethical being, and stereotypical people who constitute the majority fail to notice such ethical views of thinking.

   Think about your relationship as a bond: why are you with the other person when you cannot focus on the important things in their life without them doing something first? You focus on the other person but the other person does not return or give any focus. You do not have to lie from time to time simply to make the other person feel happy: I always told my ex I hated going shopping, yet I went, I complained, I walked around and also sincerely offered honest suggestions about different things. I slowly got used to it and never lied that I had no problems with it. Now here is the funny thing: slowly, when I went shopping for my own clothes, I realized that I had started taking longer times shopping for my own self also, and my ex had started developing an appetite for shopping faster than me. We had basically switched places. When I realized this, I started being more considerate on my own, and my ex realized this too.

   For guys, it is not that they have other focuses of attention other than shopping. That is a myth. Usually, when guys view girls as sexual objects⁸, they end up not respecting a lot of things the girls do. The guys themselves end up faking a lot of things like enjoying shopping or talking about random things or even cooking. This is similar to the extra love you see coming from guys around Valentine’s Day, with guys trying to shower the girl with random gifts as if buying dog food for the dog. And of course, guys expect a lot of intimacy in return since they are doing so much for the girl as part of the original focus⁹. It is very funny for me to see that the very humane and nice things that everyone should do on a normal basis, like showing emotions or doing nice things without expecting something in return, are considered to be weird. It is also funny that doing things sincerely we may not like, but that our significant other may like, while also being honest in our efforts to help the other person, are considered too soft by majority of the people, and usually attributed to being a quality of the sensitive females. And we say we do not live in a male dominated society.

   If your significant other usually lies about showing interest in your life or your significant other does things in order to get something in return like money or sex, your significant other is not doing things that focus on you. People have their own lives, agreed, but relationships are about both maintaining individualism and a shared life at the same time. I have rarely heard of guys who cook something for their girl friends and do not seek something in return. Stereotypical guys will want intimacy or some favor in return. How about cooking something and simply wanting to hear “Food tasted good” in return and nothing else? Maybe I cooked really bad food most of the time, so I longed to hear only “Hmm, wow tastes good, nice job! Next time try adding more salt and that will fix the taste completely“, so I always have tried to focus on fewer or no rewards in relationships other than the mental ones.

Initiating the change to eliminate the above trends

In many situations and areas, you cannot simply end a relationship because of situations like having a child or because of being in a marriage where it is not easy for a female or a male to take a break from an abusive or uncaring relationship unless the other person asks for it first. In such cases, start looking for outside consultation and legal help, but also maintain a very quiet atmosphere¹⁰. See what your options are, how you can try to improve things, how you can try to make the other person realize that they can act differently in some areas of the relationship to make things easier and happier for you.

Remember one thing: anyone who tells you “Never try to change or ask someone in a relationship to change for you: accept people 100% for what they are” are fools and not your friends; such people are those who do not change anything in the world and wish to be dictated around because they are too weak to realize something may be wrong in different things in the universe. Sure, love a person for what he/she already is, but also let them know what to do in order for the relationship to click. Relationship does not happen because you look for a compatible person: relationship happens because you look for a person who is willing to be compatible with you.

Till next time

There you go, my relationship-advice-mastering of a reader. The above 3 points, from personal experience and from observation of other people’s relationships, will hopefully tell you more about the ways some relationships are fatal. Many people expect others to do all the work or majority of the work in a relationship, which will be bad for you, regardless of whether you are the person expecting the work or the person doing the work. Many people also do not realize the efforts their significant others make in order to please them, and instead treat most of the things as being expected, or with a mild and fake show of appreciation. Lastly for this article, and not least for this series, there are many people who never try to take any initiative to do things for you to show any kind of appreciation for anything on a sincere and honest level.

The above trends and situations can let you know whether or not something is happening in the relationship, due to the other person in the relationship, which may make you unhappy being in that relationship. Instead of telling your significant other this very moment “Yo! I read this thing that Bes wrote, and I finally realized that you don’t appreciate me! I’m outta here loser! You can’t control my life!“, you should actually think as to what makes you unhappy or unsatisfied and talk to your significant other about it. If that does not change things or if you have already talked about it, you decide what you would like to do. Remember, in the end, it may always be the hardest for you since you are the one enduring or ending the relationship.

Thank you for reading

Next time, I will talk about relationships that have certain trends related to sex, money and your gender. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or ideas on how some of the above things or trends may be different from what you observe. Also, please let me know via e-mail or through the comments if you wish to find out my views on certain trends that you may have noticed. I have about 13 trends planned out so far: I will be more than satisfied and grateful if I can find more trends that may be hurting people in relationships. Maybe I will come across a trend that has affected me in the past, or I may learn of a new trend that I had not previously thought about or experienced. Also, please let me know if you wish to see this series in a little bit different format that may help you read and understand the series better and in a more organized manner. If you noticed a recurring trend in the above 3 points, here it is again as a summary: one person simply enjoys the relationship due to the efforts of someone else doing all the work and giving all the appreciation and focus.

Till then, thank you for reading, relax, and be happy that you are going to hopefully realize more things about relationships from this series, things you may have thought are too small or important to be analyzed. Figure out what problems you are facing in your relationship and why, bring them up to the attention of the person who is causing such problems, and then decide what you would like to do.

Thank you for reading.

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The following 7 things should be avoided if you are a newcomer to my car and my life. Of course, if you are a friend, I will let you know how such things may be affecting the car, me, my driving habit, or Mars.

1. Opening the car windows without asking

   In some parts of the world, the temperature of the atmosphere inside the car may not change much, regardless of whether or not the car windows are open. In California and many other states, opening the car window can seriously alter the temperature. If it is freezing outside and I have the air conditioner at full or even medium heat, you coming into the car and opening the window immediately will cause the whole project of turning on the heater in my poor car for a long time to heat things up to fail. Similarly, in the scorching heat, opening the car door or the window without thinking first will let out all the cold air, and will take another 5-10 minutes to be recreated at its previous state. If you are wearing a big coat or only a t-shirt, ask and let me know so I can prepare myself too, or maybe I can offer you my extra jacket or somehow stop the car so you can take off your extra jacket.

   One person used to get in my car with his thick jacket and then open the window immediately while the heater was running at fast speed. I would tell him I was freezing and that I can turn down the heater or even turn it off, and he would start telling me that he was feeling hot, and if there was a way to turn up the cold air in the car somehow. He would say all of this while he kept the car window open and kept his thick jacket on. By the time he would close the window, the entire car would be freezing. When it comes to me, just assume there is a reason for everything. If in doubt, ask and think. Getting into a warm car wearing a thick jacket while in the cold weather outside means you may have to endure about a minute or two of the change in temperature and adjustment while you get used to the inside weather. Taking off your jacket instead of making the other person uncomfortable is a very good alternative, and if you cannot take off the jacket easily while sitting down, ask me to stop somewhere or to watch out while you sway your hands all around the place in an effort to take off your own jacket.

2. Spitting out of a moving car

   Spitting out of a car is not only rude for many people, it is also illegal in many areas. And guess who usually gets a ticket or gets into trouble? The driver of the car. If you have to spit for any reason, come up with some alternative or tell me to pull to the side.

   Long time ago a friend of mine was driving and I was a passenger in his car. He tried on a mouth wash while driving, and forgot that he had to spit out the mouth wash after about 30 seconds since the mouth wash would start burning really bad after that. Well, we were on the freeway and he was in pain after about 2 minutes of trying to hold the mouth wash. I laughed, I giggled, and I told him to simply spit it out in some lane where there were no cars since he was in pain. There were no side shoulders that he could not pull over on. He kept the acid in his mouth for about 15 minutes, probably to the point that the pain had turned into something else and he was starting to act weird. He was smiling too, but was in pain at the same time. When the first exit came, he took it and spat the mouthwash out. I asked him if he was ok. He said yes, and said that it would have been mean or bad to spit the acid out in case the “spit” hit some other car.

   Now compare that to a passenger I had in my car who was eating some fast food. He accidentally ate some small dust particle or hair or something, and could feel it on his tongue. He started hissing and spitting with a bit closed mouth, as if to try to get rid of whatever was in his mouth that did not belong there. And he did that while in the car. I had drops of spit all over my dashboard and the gearbox. He did not apologize, he did not care, he did not even joke about it. It was all normal to him. It was normal to me too, but normal as being normally bad.

3. Having the driver pick up unexpected extra passengers

   One of the worst things you can do to a driver giving you a ride is to tell them at the last minute that some of your other friends need a ride too. Whether those extra passengers live near or far is not the focus of this point: keeping the driver in the dark and then making them do extra things is the same as lying, hiding, manipulating or simply not caring. Ask the driver first, and have the extra passenger ask and thank the driver also for doing a favor to someone they are not that close to.

   I have had so many “Oh also go here, we have to pick up my girlfriend/boyfriend boss/friend homie/buddy etc“, it is very interesting. If I charged money for every extra passenger I have given a ride to, I could have made a lot of money that could have gone towards years of gas payments.

4. Not allowing the driver to make his/her own stops

   Not all drivers have to drive only to give you a ride. Some have to do their own things. If someone gives you a ride and they stop somewhere, do not get upset: you should tell the driver in advance uf you have to get somewhere by a certain time, and you should also realize that you may be late since it is someone else’s car.

   I once stopped at a gas station to buy some Kit Kat while giving someone a ride and when I got back, they looked all upset and kept hinting that they do not like making stops while going somewhere. If you have to get somewhere on time or if you have some requirements, you should keep in mind that I have some requirements too. Accommodate the driver into your plans, since apparently the driver has already accommodated you into their life and car by giving you a ride.

5. Giving instant directions

   If you have to tell the driver to make a right, tell them about it a minute or even 20 seconds before the “right” comes up. Telling the driver to make a right when the very intersection he/she has to make a right on is already intersecting the length of car itself, is usually not a good thing for many cars.

   I have people who even say “Right here, oh damn you missed the exit.” Yeah, I missed the exit, not you. Such instant-direction givers cannot even tell me to turn right on time, but they expect me to turn a multi-ton car instantly while other cars go parallel to mine. Tell me in advance or simply say “We have to make a right soon” so I can be ready for your instant orders.

6. Not pitching in for gas

   If you are getting a ride from someone, specially a new person, see if it is costing them a lot to give you a ride. Going on a long drive or going shorter distances regularly consumes gas, and gas is money. It does not matter whether or not gas is cheap: someone is giving you a ride and they are losing/spending money on top of it. See if you can chip in some money, or tell the driver that you do not have money to chip in so that driver can at least realize that you calculated their misery into the equation also.

   I have had people’s friends ask me for rides to faraway places, and on the way when I fill up the car at a gas station, they do not offer anything nor do they care about it. They simply wait in the car to make sure that I get back on the road again as soon as possible.

7. Not knowing the exact directions to where you are going

   Imagine getting in a car and telling someone to take you to a place that you do not know the location about. Unless it’s a major place or you know the nearest intersection, the driver will not know where you are going.

   I have had people get in the car and then tell me to head towards a city, and then when I get close and ask them where to go, they tell me “McDonald’s there, have to meet some people.” There are usually several McDonald’s in each city, so I have to do some searching and hunting while the passenger gets impatient over being late. It is a waste of time and a waste of energy for the driver. If you want a ride, know where you want to go or let the driver know well in advance, before the actual ride, that you do not know the exact directions.

   “I want to get to the Thai restaurant in Berkeley“, Berkeley being a city with dozens of Thai restaurants, is the same as wanting to go to a specific gas station or a restaurant in a city but not knowing the name, type of place of that gas station or restaurant. Have directions ready, or at least do some homework and have something for the driver to go on. If you let the driver know in advance that you want to go somewhere but do not know how to get there, the driver may be nice enough to do the homework for you.

There you go. The above 7 points, combined with Part 1 and Part 2, tell you about the 21 things to avoid or think about when getting a ride from someone you may not know, or me. The reason I said before that these points apply to those people who are not your friends is to show that since you are not someone’s friend, you have to consider these points that may upset, annoy or frustrate the driver or the drivers’ friends in the same car, and among other things, cause the driver to lose time and money. Friends can easily tell friends “What the heck! haha hmmm :p” and thus teach friends how some actions or things may result in more harm than good for the driver.

What is your opinion about this? Have you experience any of these points yourself, either expectedly or unexpectedly, either as a driver, a passenger, or the person doing any of the above things?

Thank you so much for reading. I enjoyed writing this series for you. Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or if you think I can muster up more points and continue this series a bit more.

Thank you again.

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Obligations of a shipping company during shipping delays

For me, keeping both me and the sender in the dark about the reason for the delay is something that should not happen. As a customer, you are assumed to have an obligation to make a payment before the shipping company will take your package. The shipping company itself, however, does not feel obligated to some things it should do for customers or the package. Behold below the 4 obligations that I think shipping companies like FedEx should feel responsible for, when it comes to delayed deliveries:

1. Notify the sender after they make a payment

   Did you notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the delay after the sender pays for the shipment? Simply saying “On route for delivery” for 2 days in a row through the online tracking system tells me nothing. I know it is on route for delivery: that is why I am paying to have the item shipped. What I want to know is what kind of a route is causing the delivery of the package to be delayed, and I want you to tell me immediately, automatically, when any delay happens.

2. Notify the sender before they make the payment

   Did you notify the sender of any possible delays in the shipment of an item before they paid? If the shortage in staff has been going on for “weeks“, as FedEx told the sender’s secretary, would it not have been responsible for FedEx to tell the sender, before they placed the shipping order. The shipping company can say something like “You are sending this item overnight, but we have to tell you that because of the shortage of staff in the area where this package is going, we may not be able to deliver this item faster than the regular post office.”?

3. Refund the wasted money

   Did the shipping company reimburse the sender for the money they paid for an overnight delivery that took 4 days to deliver in reality? Sure, telling the sender that no overnight delivery is 100% confirmed is a good protection idea, but if you know you are not going to have enough staff to deliver items beforehand, how about reimbursing the sender some of the money they could have saved by shipping using a slower shipping method? The sender paid for overnight delivery, and the package got delivered after 4 days. The sender paid money for a service they did not get because the shipping company hid the fact that there could be delays due to staff shortage.

4. Apologize voluntarily and sincerely

   Imagine someone takes your money in order to do something for you, but the thing they actually do is not worth the money you gave to that person. That someone never apologizes to you until you inquire about the situation, to which they say “Oh yeah, the people I knew could not be found, thus the result was not what you expected. You should have expected it since anything can happen. Sorry”

   Would you consider such a reply to be an apology? If you do not think it is sincere or even an apology, why would you accept a similar apology from a shipping company? How many of us are not robots who would love to hear a sincere apology without us asking for it? An apology is not needed because of wanting emotional attention. An apology because you hid information from me so that you could wast my money, time and plans for your own gain. Very few businesses realize that: that is why most businesses simply keep saying sorry without feeling guilty or even knowing how the customer was affected.

Shortage in staff does not always have to amount to the suffering of the customer

The above points are what a shipping company should keep in mind. Simply being short on staff, which can either be signs of an innocent struggle or bad management, does not mean the only one suffering is the customer. In the above case, FedEx got all the money knowing full hand there would be delays, delivered the item late, and did not notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the late delivery. In the end, the winner was FedEx which got more money than what it actually provided in return to the sender and the receiver. In the end, the people who suffered were the direct and indirect customers: the sender who paid for the overnight shipping and the receiver who received the item late.

What do you think?

What do you think? As a customer, do you think a shipping company can do anything differently than what FedEx did above? If you owned or worked for a shipping company, what would you have done in a similar position? Would you have acted the same, or differently?

Oh, before I forget, I went to a FedEx Kinko’s store on Thursday to send a package overnight, and saw around 12 staff workers. 7 were working, while 5 were laughing and talking to each other in different areas. Maybe those 5 should be turned into drivers who can deliver packages in case of “shortage in staff.” The package did get delivered by Friday noon, which was good.

Thank you for reading.

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Yesterday, I was going through my mail and noticed, as usual, a lot of junk mail². I started wondering if there were people out there who deliberately read other people’s junk mail. Sure, junk mail may not be as important in your view as other forms of mail. However, if junk mail comes in the name of someone else, it belongs to that someone else technically, according to mailing standards at least.

Is junk mail therefore the private property of other people, just like private non-commercial letters from friends, family and other people? Is any form of mail the complete private property, in your view, of the person it was addressed to?

Do you read other people’s junk mail?

Even if the original person, in whose name the junk mail came, does not want the junk mail, can you still read and use their junk mail and coupons? Do you think junk mail should be considered the same as any other mail? Or does junk mail that is addressed to other people receive a different treatment from you? Do you read other people’s junk mail? Or do you do something else with it?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. I have to go now and throw out some junk mail that I got today.

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In this series and whenever I say poor, I am referring to someone who will become happy or happier saving a couple of dollars or their local currency every month or every few days. Without such a saving, that person would not be able to afford rent or food or something very basic and essential to survival. If you wish to know a bit more as to what does and does not qualify as being poor, my article titled “5 Reasons You Are Not Poor In 2007” may help. I will be updating my poor guide to a 2008 definition very soon.

The below steps and ideas are not technical steps, nor are they the exact steps that you must take in order to save money by changing your electricity usage habits. All of the below steps have worked for me sometime in the past all the way up till today, though with varying degrees of results. If you are poor and desperately in need of saving money, this can help you get started along with anything else you have in mind. This first part of the series focuses on reducing your electricity bill expenses. As you read along, you may realize that each and everything described here is an extremely simple concept, so simple that you yourself may have thought of it but may have never gotten around to actually thinking about implementing it. I have subdivided different parts so that it can be easier to get the concept also.

Measure your meter first please, if possible

Before you do anything, it would be extremely good if you can go this very moment and take a look at your electric meter. Since you are focusing on your electricity usage, it is a very good idea to look at your electric meter. This meter is usually located at the side of houses, or at the back of the apartment complexes; it has to be located in an easy to find location, yet not right in front of the house all the time, so that the electric company technicians can have easy access to it when needed. Simply walk around your building or unit and you will see it sticking onto some wall, usually facing outside¹.

This is a meter which will have a revolving dial on it that measures the rate of electricity consumption in your very unit; this should be a very thin silver dial, and it will be moving. The faster the dial, the higher the electricity consumption is. Take a look at this dial and take note of any kind of a mark on the dial that you can use to see how many seconds it takes for the dial to rotate one full cycle, meaning the amount of time it takes for that mark to disappear and reappear at the exact same place.

Also, please remember the days and dates that you perform the below steps. Making a note of such dates and days will help later in figuring out whether or not you save electricity consumption in the end.

5 Practical steps to survive with different electricity usage: Unplug things

It would be an amazing thing if you could make a mental note of everything that you pay the electric bill for. This includes all the wall outlets, all things outside your house like outside lights and patio lights, the built-in microwaves which cannot be turned off easily, the electronic heat thermostats, and more. Knowing every available option that can be used to consume your electricity helps in realizing what is using electricity and how.

1. Unplug your hungry-for-electricity kitchen.

   Except your fridge if it has food in it, disconnect everything in your kitchen including your oven, microwave oven, toaster, and any other electronics from the wall outlets when not using them. Simply turning them off will not be sufficient many times. Many things like ovens and microwaves keep consuming electricity even when not in use.

2. Unplug all chargers.

   Disconnect all cell phone, laptop and any other chargers from the wall outlets when not charging or when they have charged completely. Many chargers keep consuming electricity in the form of discharges to the electronics they charge, while others consume electricity in order to show a small light which lets you know that they are connected to a power source. Either way, they keep consuming electricity if plugged into the wall outlet.

3. Make computers, monitors and televisions love the black screen of rest.

   Instead of using screen savers, simply turn off your monitors, computers and TVs whenever not in use and unplug them from the power outlet. Leaving the monitor on during the night still consumes electricity, unless your monitor can turn itself off after some time of inactivity. Why not turn it off directly? Turn off your computer completely at night if possible. If you must watch TV to fall asleep, set it to turn off automatically with a sleep timer. You will need to think how long it usually takes you to fall asleep and program your TV accordingly.

4. Unplug your heaters and A/Cs.

   Turn off and disconnect from the wall outlets all heaters and A/Cs when they are not in use. You will have to depend on your body feelings and not on the thermostat or automatic sensors to keep changing the temperature.

5. Unplug the pluggable house

   Disconnect everything else from the walls in the entire house when not in use, and turn off everything that cannot be disconnected easily. This means that all the wall outlet sockets must be empty unless they have something inside them that you are currently, actively and directly using at that very moment. This applies to air fresheners, night sensor lights, fish tank lights², exhaust fans, empty fridges and freezers, printers, modems, lamps, vacuum cleaners, etc.

   By anything, I mean anything. All the wall outlets of any kind should be completely unused unless something that you absolutely need is turned on fully and working. Everything in the house that cannot be unplugged and that is not being used should be turned off.

The above wall-socket-disconnection steps will overall save you at least about $1 to $4 a month in the United States, and a different amount in other countries.

If such kind of a saving seems to be too low for you to even try it, you are probably not poor or desperate enough, or you are poor and have needs that unfortunately do not allow some of all of the above steps to be taken. Please let me know if that is the case and I will offer suggestions based on your situation.

9 Practical electricity-conservation lifestyle trends:

With practical steps come the philosophy that dictate these steps and vice versa. You need to change your living habits and any habit that involves electricity. The following tricks will help you change your life style so that you will make different electric usage habits a part of your current life. You can start experimenting with these trends immediately. I am using a simple explanation approach throughout this article, if you have not already noticed.

1. Steal electricity from your car

   Use the car charger to charge your electronics in the car. Places like Radio Shack sell a lot of car chargers for different electronics, ranging from laptops to cell phones to mp3 players³. Buying a charger may cost you around $10 to $15, and saving the electricity in your home will save you around $1 to $2 for each thing you charge at your home. Some universal car chargers allow a lot of different things to be charged using the same chargers. If the charger is expensive or over $20, you should figure out whether using the charger at home or other places [described below] will be a better option.

2. Deceive your laptop into giving you electricity

   Use the laptop to charge your electronics. A lot of electronics like newer cell phones and mp3 players come with USB cables for syncing. Majority of these cables also charge your electronic devices while they are syncing. Leave your device connected to the laptop until you see that the battery charge icon on your electronic device is showing a fully charged notification.

3. Create the concept of public electricity at public places

   Use the public libraries or educational and cafe outlets to charge your electronics. Places like many Starbucks will gladly allow you to use their wall outlets in return for you buying their coffee or something else. Buying coffee costs also, so using colleges or public libraries may be a cheaper option.

4. Make daily places that you visit the venue for your daily tasks

   Use your nearby university or college for different stuff. For example, you can not only charge your electronics at public libraries or other places, but you can use microwave ovens at colleges and universities. You can also use the computers at the public libraries and nearby community colleges and universities to browse the internet or do other computer stuff. Many places allow you to print up to a certain amount of pages for free each day, while also allowing you to use their computers as much as you wish. This will save all the electricity that is needed to use your microwave at home for small things or things that can be delayed, and also for many computer and printing related tasks.

5. Start dating only rechargeable and free batteries

   Use rechargeable batteries only and recharge those batteries in your car or the laptop. Many places now sell batteries that you can recharge using a USB plug or a car charger. Buying them will save you money in both battery costs and also in recharging those batteries through your laptop or in your car.

   Stop recharging batteries at your home, if you have rechargeable batteries, and get free batteries. I read an article somewhere a few weeks ago which talked about batteries present in all disposable cameras that you can reuse; I cannot find the link to that article again, unfortunately⁴. You can open up a disposable camera after you are done with it and use the actual batteries inside it for your normal use. You can even ask photo labs to get your or other people’s unwanted disposable camera batteries to you after the photos have been grabbed from them⁵

6. Give your electronics some life support only when they are near their deaths

   Plug in your laptops and cell phones with their chargers into wall outlets only when they are within 20% to 15% of their empty life capacity. This goes for both your own and other wall outlets. Not leaving the laptop and the cell phones connected to the wall outlets all the time saves electricity. Forget the advice that leaving new cell phones connected to their chargers all the time improves battery life by a few percentage points: while that advice is true, your focus here is to save money by saving electricity, and not to prolong the life of the battery, even though that is a noble cause too. Your cell phone battery should easily last you a year or two with regular usage.

7. Fire the fan; hire the window

   Instead of turning on the A/C or even the fan during summer, open each and every window in the house about half way, and make sure nothing obstructs them directly. You can put a small cover or even a notebook for privacy if you wish. Leave all the inside doors open in the house. With air coming in from every room in the house and all the rooms open, the circulating air will create a very nice flow of air in about an hour unless your unit is built or blocked like a stuffed labyrinth. Make sure you close any doors to any rooms that do not have a window, like closets, bathrooms with only ventilators, laundry rooms and more.

   In winter, instead of turning the heater or the A/C with a heater on, close all the windows and the doors of the rooms with windows in them and instead open up the doors to places like your kitchen, your closets and your laundry room. This will rotate the cycle and allow more closed/hot areas to be able to waste the cold air.

8. Build seasonal relationships with your rooms

   Adapt your habits around rooms with the least power consumption. For example, if during summer one of the rooms is the coolest and you are feeling too warm, move your most active activities, like doing your homework or using your laptop, to that room, while making sure that you limit any introduction of new electricity usage into that room. Do the opposite during winter, moving into the hottest room of the house if you are feeling too cold. Leave most doors open during summer, and leave most doors and windows closed during winters.

9. Make your home the backup home

   This is also one of the most practical steps that can also change your life from the day you start doing it: move most of your activities out of your house. Go to the library to study or use your laptop there or charge your phone there. Go to the nearest public garden or something else that may help you relax. Use public computers to do your MySpacing or whatever it is that you do online to stalk others or be stalked. Exercise outside, even in your patio or in the parking lot somewhere early in the morning or late at night if you are shy or want to hide yourself while exercising⁶ If it is summer, go to the library and enjoy the nice cool atmosphere there. If it is the winter, do the same and places like a library or university buildings will be warmer than the outside.

The above brief guide is a practical pointer to some very basic things that can help curb electricity consumption immediately. The batteries step alone will save you around $8 to $25 every year or so, averaging to about $1 to around $2 of savings per month that you get usually every 6 to 9 months, depending on how often you usually buy batteries.

Measure your meter and observe your detailed electric bills

After about 12 hours of following any of the above lifestyle tips, go back out and recheck the electric meter. Measure its speed again using the same exact measurement and compare it to the previous 2 measurements. Has the dial slowed down? While this is not the perfect measurement to see whether or not you are consuming less electricity, the dial itself should hopefully let you know that you have started to save electricity. The next electric bill should reflect that change also.

If you wish and if your electric company allows it, you can request a detailed daily summary bill that will tell you the daily consumption by your apartment or house. That way, you can see how the electric consumption had been for about 20-50 days before you tried the above steps, and how it turned out to be after you tried any of the above steps. If you want to plan even more, you can perform different steps or combination of the above steps every 2 to 3 days and then see the detailed bill to see how big of a drop in electric usage each step or combinatorial step brought for you every 2 to 3 days.

If you pay your electricity bill directly to a landlord of any sort, let that landlord know that you have reduced your electricity consumption and ask them if you could work out a lower electric bill by looking at the bill. If the landlord does not wish to share the bill, have them analyze it to see the drop in the electric consumption.

Thank you for reading. Do you feel the poor electric shock yet?

I hope the above article helps you in even the least form to save some money by changing your habits that revolve around electricity consumption. Remember, being poor is a blessing that can be further changed to become a blessing with money, but wasting money can be one of the biggest curses, specially if you do not have enough money for things that you consider basic and essential to your survival.

What do you think of the above steps or guidelines? Do you think some or all of them could work in most or all situations? Do you have any experience with any of the above? Would you recommend or not recommend anything? Do you have any tips, suggestions or comments of your own? Please let me know what you think.

The next time we continue this series, I will show you the Poor Practical Guide to Surviving Without Much Money by selling stuff that you already have.

Thank you for reading. Long live the poor and the not so poor!

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The Wrong Number Dilemma

When you call and run into the “wrong number” situation, after you hang up, you really do not know which of the 2 possible reasons, from the person dialing the wrong number to the person dialing a number at which a certain person used to live long time ago, are the root of the resulting situation. All you focus on are the two hypnotizing words, “Wrong Number.” These words are hypnotizing because as soon as you hear them, your first instinct as the caller is to hang up as soon as possible.

So what is the dilemma? As the caller, the dilemma is the question that pops up: did I call the wrong number, or did the person who used to be at that number now have a new number, and I did dial the right number? As the receiver, the dilemma is wondering how the other person got that specific number in the first place. Sure, we can simply say or hear the two magic words and hang up the phone, but the issue remains with the phone for a long time. It is as if we do not care or even think of finding out what is going on, and we say “wrong number” to get rid of the other person or to get the clue that we should get lost as soon as possible.

It is one of those situations where majority of the people do not wa