The world is going to hell in a handbasket, Kaitlyn Mae, something Grandmother loves to say with hands on hips and exasperation in her voice. Below a tidbit from California, where else?
Red Ink Demoralizes
San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 10-4-04 | By Sherry Parmet
When term papers get graded this school year, many students who turn in sloppy work won't be seeing red. An increasingly popular grading theory insists red ink is stressful and demoralizes students, while purple, the preferred color, has a more calming effect. "I never use red to grade papers because it stands out like, 'Oh, here's what you did wrong.' " said Melanie Irvine, a third-grade teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad. "Purple is a more approachable color." Irvine said that in elementary schools, it's unnecessary to point out every error.
Kaitlyn, may your teachers fill your pages with red ink when warranted. Yes, red is a screaming color which is why Grandmother uses the color her own wise self as headline on her Blog. Students have come to associate a page filled with red ink as a problem. WHICH IT IS!
I note the one teacher states that pointing out every error is unnecessary in elementary schools. Far be I to question the wisdom of socialized unionized teachers, but why not? It could be, Nah, but it just could be that if lazy teachers can convince the kind American public that pointing out every error is demoralizing to the student then, TADA, teachers will have LESS work.
Neat, huh?
Credit Card Hysteria
Kaitlyn, Grandmother wishes to take this moment to discuss credit cards and your liability for them. Because once upon a time the congress did something it rarely does. It passed a good law.
By federal law, a credit card user is limited to $50 of the loss if the card issuer is notified within 60 days. There is NO liability if the card issuer is notified immediately.
Period.
Every once in a while someone has to take note of media fostered hysteria and get the truth out there. That someone would be me.
Part of the hysteria comes from the credit card companies themselves with their commercials of innocent consumers who suddenly purchase such as surf boards and diamonds because their card was stolen. Credit card companies want these commercials out there, Kaitlyn, because they WANT consumers to be scared should their credit cards be stolen and used by someone else. The truth is, consumers really aren’t all that affected by the loss of a credit card save the rare idiot that goes beyond 60 days to report such a thing.
Indeed, that very same commercial mentioned has the CREDIT CARD companies ascertaining the odd purchases with the consumer verifying.
Credit card companies suffer the most when a credit card is stolen IF the consumer does the very least expected from him or her. But they don’t want the consumer to know this. So they show scary commercials with a fat middle-aged man speaking in the squeaky woman’s voice who stole his credit card. The vaunted Lifetime network recently showed an entire movie about a woman who had her whole identity stolen. Though it was hyped and promoted as if the nightmare stemmed from having a credit card stolen. The perpetrator did steal the protagonist’s credit card in that movie, Kaitlyn, but she also had plastic surgery to look like her victim and was a nut case in general.
This is not to say that a consumer should take the theft of a credit card willy-nilly. It’s a serious thing and hey, it’s a real hassle to handle all the details. So keeping them safe is generally wise.
Credit card companies make such a trove of money on their 18% usury rates that they willingly assume liability for the loss of one of their cards. Congress made the law to protect us citizens from the often careless way these companies bandy their cards all about. Imagine that. Congress made a law to protect us citizens.
Thus Grandmother gets glazed eyes at such credit card hysteria. Such hysterics promoted by the card issuers themselves that we help them rein in the fraud our frightened innocent selves. And for the record, Grandmother has had various credit and debit cards taken, once by her own naiveté by responding to fraudulent email. Within days, even hours, everything was re-issued and credit bills stopped.
As for possible damage to a credit record, there are plenty of laws to handle this as well. A person has the ability to get their credit record anytime and there is one law that allows a consumer to insert a letter of correction to any bad references.
Knowing your rights, Kaitlyn, is the lesson here.
The Saga of Shift F-5
Grandmother ends this earnest missive, Kaitlyn Mae, by a lesson recently learned.
Which would serve two purposes, sweet Granddaughter. First to prove you’re never too old to learn. Second, to teach you the lesson as learned, of course.
It should be no surprise that Grandmother uses a word processor quite frequently. As such, I often become part and parcel of the program to the extent that I sometimes curse as it corrects my spelling and snort at its correction of my grammar. Okay, it’s been correct a time or two on the grammar thing but not often.
There are many times when composing Blog content such as this that requires a search back through the text for a reference, perhaps the correct spelling of a name carefully pasted elsewhere in the document. I would use “search” and perhaps find what I was looking for. But how to get back to where I was?
Because where I was might not necessarily be the end of the document which would require a simple press of a combination “control” and the “end” key. Thus Grandmother squints her elder eyes and scrolls through the text to find out where she was before leaving for a search.
These actions have often caused such havoc in my composition, Kaitlyn, that I would write entire essays in the wrong spot. Or text would get highlighted and deleted in my frantic search. One time I managed to shut down the entire computer, losing everything, even in other programs.
Up at the top of every Windows program, Kaitlyn, is a word that is always underlined. Underlined words in the world of Microsoft, Kaitlyn, mean the word can be clicked to obtain more information.
Grandmother did, yes she did, clicked on the underlined word “Help”. At the index she asked the help program to find the word “return”. As Grandmother did, you understand, want to “return” to where she had been.
Boom. Just like magic up comes the instructions on how to “return” to an original spot after leaving it.
Word keeps track of the last three locations where you typed or edited text.
· To return to a previous editing location, press SHIFT+F5 until you reach the location you want.
Note You can also use this feature to return to a previous location after saving your document.
Not only can you hit SHIFT+F5 to get back to where you were while editing the document, you can keep hitting SHIFT+F5 and find the last THREE places you were in the document!
AND, get this Kaitlyn, one can open a previously saved document and hit SHIFT+F5 to get back to where they were when the document was saved. Even if it was over a year ago!
I’ve estimated I’ve lost maybe 20/30 hours of my life trying to find out where I was or correcting mistakes because I got it wrong.
All because I didn’t hit that “help” word. Which little exercise took me maybe, 25, maybe 30 seconds.
Live and as always Kaitlyn Mae, Learn.
No comments:
Post a Comment