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Inspired by , [^], but taking a totally different path. Assumes you found a worthy organization.
My view of the 'blessings' of giving charity is pretty simple: There is no greater blessing one could hope for than to never miss the money.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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The truth behind charity is that for "most" charities, up to half of the donated money goes to overhead and cost of running the charity and the rest actually goes to the intended target, which can be considerably less than what you thought you were donating.
Always try to donate to charities with low overhead and well documented $$ to target streams.
What Percentage of Donations Go to Charity | LoveToKnow[^]
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I already do St Jude Hospital.
Similarly, the Shrine Hospitals. A few others.
"Nechama[^]" - they were there after Sandy - gutted my house for me.
They're everywhere.
Assorted others.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Thanks for link on "Nechama". I will have to look into that.
My wife and I contribute to St. Jude Hospital as well as the Ronald McDonald House Charities: Ronald McDonald House Charities[^] consistently, among others that we are not so consistent on.
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I'm as cynical as they get. With that in mind:
Even if it's operated as a low-overhead charity: In the case of an organization like the Ronald McDonald House...remember that they represent a huge multinational corporation, and running a charity like this is a huge tax deductible.
How much more income taxes would they be paying to the various governments if they weren't running the charity?
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Actually, unless they changed their operational procedures, it's a different type of scam from the point of view of calling it after the burger/slave labor chain. Like a few other giants, they rely on low paid part time labor to avoid giving benefits, vacations, etc.
McD's puts up the money to acquire the houses and puts their name on them - but after that they don't invest a penny - just get credit for the good that's done.
My daughter and her friends learned this first hand - they were going to cook for the residents - which required they supply the food and everything else. From there they learned the full story. They still did the donation of time and material - but were very disappointed in the exploitation of the donations of others to give a good image to McD.
So - toss a coin. Are they good because they help families or bad because they give McD credit where it's not due? Most people don't know how these places operate and the good press goes not to the donors (local business and individuals) but to the corporate predator.
Unless, of course, things have changed . . .
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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No surprise there.
And just to compare and contrast...MS and Bill Gates haters are quick to criticize the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation essentially existing just to provide Microsoft with some tax relief. Everything I've ever read on the topic however indicates that while it might benefit Bill himself (personally) financially, Microsoft doesn't have any direct tie to the organization--yet MS is known to have broken donation records to various non-profit organizations, none of which fall under the B&MG foundation umbrella.
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recent trip my rental car got upgraded to a new (well last year model) mazda,
I'm not travelling a lot, mostly suburban so usually hire a small compact.
anyway this upgraded car had all the fancy stuff, engine stops at the lights, bluetooth to the phone blah blah blah, ... nothing I'm going to bother learning how to use for a few days getting around.
One thing I've noticed in new mid size cars is the windows getting smaller, particularly rear windows.
And it does make a difference, sure it's got a rear view camera but I'm an old fart, when I back up I turn my head down the middle and use the side mirrors.
what a load of crap, can't see sh*t out the back, boot too high, rear side windows tiny and also too high with the fattest rear posts going around.
tried the camera, lined up the projected box ended up crooked and 3 feet away from where I thought I was (because still didn't show right down, camera mounted too high too).
Front view wasn't that great either, rather then sloping bonnet it was flat with rounded just before the end (or front). Seat up as high as possible still couldn't see the tarmac closer than felt like 30 feet in front of the car. Couldn't judge where the front bumper was.
thanks for the upgrade but next time no thanks.
When did new cars (supposed to be safer) get such crap visibility?
Message Signature
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lopatir wrote: When did new cars (supposed to be safer) get such crap visibility?
Have you checked if you had a birds view ? Usually the option is given with cars having a small rear window.
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I think it's two things:
1) Marketing department putting form miles ahead of function (Ford are spectacular at doing this: tiny rear windows, controls a normal sized driver can't reach easily, controls hidden behind the steering wheel, controls labelled on the back rather than the front, ... but it all looks good until you have to use 'em)
2) Marketing ploy to make you buy the rear view camera option ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Bought a new vehicle 2 weeks ago, same model as I had before, but all the controls became smaller and more difficult to operate, probably to fit the distracting and unnecessary entertainment/rear camera display. But it is one of the few new vehicles left that has a CD player! yes, that was the first question I posed to the sales person. But the mirror types and placements made visibility pretty good. As far as the front end you get used to that pretty quick.
signed,
Unabashed CD listener
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Give it a few years. Windows will become unnecessary altogether since the car will be driving you to whatever destination you want to go, so they'll be taken away and you can instead focus on your phone for the duration of the trip just like you should, slave.
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dandy72 wrote: Windows will become unnecessary altogether since the car will be driving you to whatever destination you want to go,
That will make it tough for those driving down random roads in Vermont to drink in the granduer of fall foliage.
But I never wave bye bye
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Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just here to repeat what the "great visionaries" are reporting...
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dandy72 wrote: Windows will become unnecessary
Depending on who you listen to in this forum, Windows has been unnecessary for years already... 
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I agree. I was subjected to driving a Jeep Compass all last week. It was dreadful.
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Quote: When did new cars (supposed to be safer) get such crap visibility?
Gradually since more than 20 years.
Ironically it's claimed to be for safety. The higher waist makes them safer for side impacts. The rear windows follows the design.
Personally I dislike the thick A-pillars more. But they are necessary for front impact protection.
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lopatir wrote: I'm an old fart, when I back up I turn my head down the middle and use the side mirrors.
I wish I could still turn my head that far to see out the back window, stiff necked old coot seems to apply to me. I love my reversing camera.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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It seems that Florian is scheduled to present AngleSharp on day 3 of the DotNetConf. This is starting today and runs for three days of online content.
AngleSharp is an amazing library for parse my and manipulating HTML/CSS DOMs that we use here at CodeProject. I’m looking foreword to learn what I’m doing wrong, and what tricks I can use.
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
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Already suspected you were an angler (the hat on your avatar gives you away) 
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Please help me out- I'm looking for a small module that was probably intended to be used with some microcontroller or single board computer.
The module had a plug for an USB memory stick and a simple 8 bit parallel interface on the other side. Any 8 bit processor could easily access this parallel interface (as an I/O port for example) and get access to the memory stick. The neat part was that this was not a low lwvel interface. Instead of reading or writing raw sectors, the processor could request or write files and the chip on the module would handle the stick's file system. It did not even cost very much and is effectively all the hard disk a small 8 bit computer could ever hope for.
The problem is that I can't remember what the module was called and searching brought exactly 0.0 results up to now. Can someone point me in the right direction?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Not really. It's more like USB to parallel, with built in access to the USB stick's file system.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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