Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XX: New loop

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

First a recap on the current parts of the system, starting with the base parts.

  • CPU, mainboard, RAM: AMD FX-8350, ASRock 990FX Extreme6, 8 GB
  • Graphics: PNY GTX 770 4GB (2 in SLI)
  • Power supply: EVGA 1050GS
  • Case: Corsair 750D

And the water cooling system:

  • CPU: Koolance CPU-380A
  • Graphics: Watercool GTX 680
  • Radiators: AlphaCool UT30 — 3x120mm (1) and 2x120mm (2)
  • Pump: Koolance PMP-450 with AlphaCool HF D5 clear acrylic top
  • Reservoir: Phobya Balancer 150 Silver Nickel
  • Tubing: Type L annealed cooper, 1/2″ OD
  • Fittings: PrimoChill revolver, Koolance 90-deg, Swiftech SLI fittings, a few others

A few things about the loop will be changing:

  • CPU block: EK Supremacy EVO Copper Acetal
  • Reservoir: PrimoChill CTR Phase II D5 enabled
  • Voltage regulator block: Koolance MVR-100
  • Northbridge block: Watercool Heatkiller NSB 3.0
  • Southbridge block: Watercool Heatkiller SB 3.0

As mentioned in the previous article, the pump and reservoir will be mounted externally. To get the power through to the power supply, I ordered a power bracket from Amazon. But let’s start off with a little potential “oops”.

Wrong block?

In the list above you’ll see how I ordered the MVR-100 with a 140mm extension plate. Well, the 140mm plate was definitely not necessary, and it seemed the MVR-100 was going to be too large. Now the plate is 100mm long with 92mm between the centers of the mounting holes. In the interim I wondered if this would fit.

The ASRock 990FX Extreme6 mainboard is basically the Fatal1ty 990FX Killer without the upgraded network card — as one person discovered, they actually tape over the Fatal1ty logo with an Extreme6 label before selling it. But this means that finding a picture of either board to use for measurements should give me an idea of what I’d need. And I managed to find a review of the 990FX Killer board in which they removed the heatsinks. Lucky day it’d seem.

And it’s a tough call. Attempts at measurements from the photos show the block being a tight fit. I knew from another online post that the MVR-100 fits the Extreme9 mainboard. But the Extreme9 mainboard also has a longer heatsink based on measurements from images, so I’d expect it to fit. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if it barely covers all of the VRMs. But I have another option: MVR-40 with an 84mm extension plate. But then the question is whether the 84mm plate would be long enough.

Of course I can shortcut this entire discussion by doing something similar to the previously-linked instructions for the Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 board: modify another plate. It wouldn’t be the 140mm plate I bought, because that’d be a little too long and can only be mounted to the MVR-100, which might already be too long. Instead I’d look at getting the MVR-40 and the 107.5mm extension plate, and drill a hole closer to where I’d need it to be so I could properly mount the plate.

Now the 40mm block combined with a nearly 70mm longer cold plate isn’t going to provide the greatest cooling — I’d prefer the 100mm singular block if I can get it to work — but some IC Diamond between them should help things perform a little better, with Liquid Ultra probably being the best for it. So that is the route I decided to go with the order: buying the MVR-40 and adding the 107.5mm plate to it. I needed additional hardline fittings anyway for this — I ordered two sets of four on those just to be sure I had plenty. And the rush order fee for Performance-PCs was a great way to push the order over the $100 threshold for PayPal Credit to defer the interest.

Having both options available will be good when I actually take everything apart. If the MVR-100 fits and can be secured without concern, then I’ll use it. If I can’t get that secured down, then I’ll have little choice but to modify the 107.5mm plate and use it with the MVR-40.

Figuring out the loop

Okay let’s see if I can figure this out. One idea that cropped back up that I touched on during the original build was using acrylic tubing for the graphics cards. And I had purchased the fittings to do it, but decided against it because I didn’t have a proper mitre box. Thankfully Michaels had what I was wanting, and I picked one up, but that was after the build was finished and I never got around to doing it again.

If I leave the graphics cards in parallel, or even if I drop down to serial, I can do this. The issue is the southbridge chip cooler. Basically the way I’m seeing the loop is the southbridge goes to the outflow while the inflow goes to the lower graphics card — the rest just goes from there. The southbridge chip is centered right behind the second 16x PCI-Express slot, meaning the southbridge cooler is actually not an option — I can’t mount it and retain clearance on the second graphics card.

This might actually push me back to the Gigabyte board, as the southbridge on the 990FXA-UD3 isn’t centered behind the 16x slot. I could use the NSB cooler on the southbridge and the SB cooler on the northbridge with that mainboard. That’d just mean setting aside the Extreme6 board to use in a higher-performance server with an FX-8320 or FX-8370E processor in a 3U chassis so I can use an AIO to cool the processor and a spare full-size power supply to run it — which is what I actually planned to do with the Gigabyte board.

It’s a consideration, at least. I moved away from the 990FXA-UD3 due to how it operated when overclocked. But since I have a heartier power supply, I may not have the problems I did previously. And the whole point of going this far is to see how much of an overclock I can get.

If I stick with the Extreme6 board, then the loop is pretty well figured out. The graphics cards will still run in parallel with the inflow and outflow beneath the cards. The inflow would go to bottom, front, then top radiator, to the CPU, voltage regulators, northbridge, graphics cards, then back out.

If I switch the mainboards, then the southbridge would be part of the flow. I could still keep the graphics cards in parallel, but that would complicate things. The inflow would still go to the radiators first, then the CPU. From there I’d probably take it to the northbridge, then the voltage regulators, then the top graphics card. From there it’d go to the southbridge, then second graphics card, then to the outflow.

It sounds complicated, but I don’t think it’s going to be all that bad. There’s another slight complication to changing the mainboards though that might also end up working out in my favor: the MVR-40 and the 107.5mm expansion plate may not be needed. But the voltage regulators on the Gigabyte board would potentially be more difficult to cool without doing something a little custom — likely involving modding the 140mm plate in the fashion similar to the Sabertooth board.

So the question is definitely what I’m going to be doing. I’m leaning toward the Gigabyte board, in large part because I can prepare the board before disassembling everything else. I already have the chipset blocks and the MVR-100 with the 140mm extension plate. The next order with the fittings arrives next week, so we’ll see how things pan out then.

Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XIX: Taking it outside

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

The fan experiment is going fairly well so far. I’ve been keeping an eye on temperatures and basically looking for a sweet spot for dialing everything in. As of when I write this, I have the fans running at about 7.5V as I continue running benchmarks and the like as part of continuing the temperature testing. The pitfall with a lot of temperature and stability testing is that most test the CPU and GPU in isolation rather than together. If you’re overclocking, this won’t give you the most accurate picture of how stable your system will be.

That’s why, as mentioned in a previous chapter of this series, I ran Prime95 and a Bitcoin miner (in benchmark mode) simultaneously — and watched the temperatures climb and felt the copper tubing get noticeably warm to the touch. Alternatively you can run Unigine Heaven or Valley along with Prime95.

But that’s not what this particular article is about.

Changing up the loop a little

Back when I first contemplated Absinthe, I wanted to mount the reservoir externally and have it feed the coolant to the pump through a pass-through fitting. What pushed me away from doing that was the pump. Any method I contemplated would’ve only led to more complication. I didn’t have a way of also mounting the pump externally to allow for what I wanted to build within a price I was willing to pay at the time.

Recently I discovered a pump and reservoir combination unit that would allow what I wanted: PrimoChill’s CTR Phase II reservoir, specifically the one with the D5 mount. The only consideration is that I’ll have to devise a way to get the pump cabling into the case, such as through one of the tubing pass-through holes or a power bracket, along with figuring out how to mount it.

So aside from the obvious “because I can” answer, why am I doing this? This is actually what I wanted to do from the start, but couldn’t figure out how. What reminded me to do this is a rig posted to the JayzTwoCents forum built into the Corsair Air 540. The loop is quite phenomenally built, and given the graphics cards, it didn’t look like there was much choice but to mount the pump and reservoir externally. But the build also used the PrimoChill CTR Phase II D5 reservoir, telling me it was certainly possible and giving me an idea of how it’d look.

About the only complaint I’d have about the reservoir is just simply that they don’t have an attachment for covering the pump — D5s are ugly, so being able to cover it up would’ve been a bonus.

But let’s go further.

The airflow in my system I will readily admit sucks. All intakes but one — a single 120mm fan in the 5¼” drive bays — are obstructed by radiators. Now they’re low fin radiators, so they don’t obstruct airflow that much, but there’s still an obstruction. There’s a single 140mm fan in the rear helping to draw air across the mainboard.

And the VRMs especially need to be kept cool, but the heatsink on them I don’t think is entirely tasked with the job unless I mount a couple small fans over it — a pair of 60mm fans would likely do the job of helping to circulate air over it. I’d thought about water cooling everything else on the mainboard in this build but wasn’t sure if parts were available. Sure there are blocks available for the northbridge and southbridge chips without a problem, but I wasn’t finding anything for the VRMs.

Then I came across two posts.

First one was a reply to me on the Linus Tech Tips forum (which is about as anti-AMD as they seem to come) by a person who used one of Koolance’s universal options to cool the VRMs on his ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 board per instructions found on OCN. For VRM cooling, Koolance has two blocks available: MVR-100 and MVR-40. Along with these, they also have additional heat transfer plates that are used with the MVR-100 or MVR-40 if needed for your specific mainboard. The parts mentioned specifically in the reply were the MVR-100 with the MVR-PLT140 plate, which is a 100mm VRM cooler using a 140mm expansion plate.

Now I’m unsure if I need the 140mm plate for my mainboard, bringing me to the second post: a build in the Corsair 900D using the ASRock 990FX Extreme9, but using only the MVR-100 and not the additional 140mm plate. To be safe I ordered the 140mm plate anyway. It was only $11 extra on the order at Performance-PCs.

Now for the northbridge and southbridge, options are available. In the above-linked article regarding the Sabertooth board, the instructions used the Koolance CHC-122, but it required modification to fit around some of the electrical components on the board. In the reply to me on the forum, the person mentioned they instead opted for the Heatkiller NSB 3.0 for the northbridge due to not being able to find the CHC-122 where he lived. I decided to do the same, though the CHC-122 is available. One of the reasons I went that direction as well is I should not have to mod it to get it to fit.

And for the southbridge, I decided to stay with Heatkiller and go with the SB 3.0 southbridge cooler. The southbridge cooler is a specific block designed so that it’ll be low profile against a PCI-E slot, which should allow for clearance for a graphics card. If there is only one graphics card and no intention of getting a second, then you don’t need the southbridge cooler specifically and can go with a northbridge cooler or the CHC-122. Koolance previously had a southbridge cooler called the CHC-125, but it’s no longer available except in some limited stocks you might be able to find online.

Now the one thing I forgot to order… fittings.

Well I didn’t forget to order them so much as intentionally not order them. There were a few things I needed to figure out — one of which was how many additional fittings I’d need.

New loop configuration

First, a couple shots of the system before I discuss the upcoming changes.

bori1

bori2

bori3

In the last picture, the fan to the right is cooling a dynamic voltage step-down regulator. It’s what I’m using to do the voltage testing mentioned at the start of this article. It’s also the reason the back isn’t on the machine.

The current hardline fitting count is almost two per component, including two on the pump and two on the reservoir. The graphics cards are in parallel, so there’s only one each there. So 14 hardline fittings total currently. With the pump and reservoir combined, I’ll only need two fittings there. But the three additional heatsinks will require six additional fittings. Plus the pass-through bracket will require four additional fittings. And there are 90-degree fittings to consider as well — some of the existing ones will be moved around.

Basically the loop will need to be redesigned as there are going to be major changes to the flow path of the loop to incorporate the additional components while also having to account for relocating the pump and reservoir to outside the case. If I was feeling really daring, I’d see about moving one or both of the 240mm radiators externally — perhaps later.

I already have a few ideas in mind for the flow as well. The pass-through bracket is a Koolance BKT-PCI-G. Right away the intake and outflow is basically decided without any additional guesswork. It’s just a matter of how to run the rest of it.

I’m not sure if I’m going to keep the graphics cards in parallel. I might do as demonstrated in the above linked Air 540 build and split them apart, letting one graphics card receive the inflow and the other graphics card be the last component on the loop before the outflow, or letting the southbridge cooler be the last component. In fact that’s not too bad of an idea — flow going from the inflow to the lower graphics card, through the radiators (bottom, front, then top), to the CPU block, VRMs, northbridge, top graphics card, then southbridge to the outflow.

Alternatively I can go from the northbridge to the southbridge, looping around the length of the first graphics card, which will allow me to take the outlet on the southbridge to the top graphics card, then to the outflow. The memory slots may get in the way of that idea, though. It’ll depend on how I can position the block.

There are three drain ports on β Ori., and that’s not changing. The drain port on the front radiator nearest the case window will be moved, though, likely to the outflow on the external part of the case. The drain design on this loop was made to allow for a drain port in the places where coolant was likely to get trapped trying to drain everything. Saying to have the drain “at the lowest point in the loop” doesn’t make much sense if coolant can get trapped and there isn’t much of a way to get the coolant moving.

The tubing going from the top radiator to the CPU block will be redone to give it a 45-degree bend off the 90-degree bend and eliminate the need for the extension fittings. As it is now, it’s not perfectly straight and may be impacting flow as a result — albeit not by much as the churning in the reservoir tells me it’s not a problem. It just doesn’t exactly look right.

So that’s basically it for now until the new blocks arrive. It’ll be interesting to see what I can do as far as overclocking is concerned after getting the blocks mounted and figuring out what fittings I’m going to need to make this happen.

Driving/Law/Solicitations

Solicitation

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

As much as I advocate for free market capitalism — you know, the ability to enter into whatever transactions you want, so long you’re not… say… hiring a hitman to take out that annoying man known as your mistress’s husband — even I have to admit that it’s tempting to call for restrictions on the things that annoy you. Like a letter I received in the mail this evening. Some context first.

On June 5, 2015, I was involved in an automobile collision. I’m typically not all that great keeping an up to date insurance card in my car for ready demand by an officer. I haven’t been pulled over for any kind of moving violation since 2010, and the last time I was pulled over at all, I wrote an article about it — and I had a proper insurance card at that time.

But when you’re involved in a collision, the police tend to take interest, mainly because someone points it out to them.

So because I didn’t have up to date proof of insurance to produce on demand by the police officer, I got a citation for it. Citations are public record. And apparently there was a law firm in my area keeping watch for new citations:

calbi

Quoting for those who might be using accessibility technologies:

Dear Kenneth Ballard:

According to police records you may have received a violation. If it is a moving violation we may be able to get it reduced to a non-moving no points violation.

I am an experienced criminal defense attorney. I am confident that I can help defend your rights. Please call 816-221-2400 for more information. Payment plans may be available. All major credit cards accepted.

Sincerely,

Robert N. Calbi

Disregard this solicitation if you have already engaged a lawyer in connection with the legal matter referred to in this solicitation. You may wish to consult your lawyer or another lawyer instead of me (us). The exact nature of your legal situation will depend on many facts not known to me (us) at this time. You should understand that the advice and information in this solicitation is general and that your own situation may vary. This statement is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

Yeah. I got solicited by a lawyer. What’s worse is the listed specialties. None of them cover traffic violations: bankruptcy, personal injury, and worker’s comp.

Now in Kansas City, if you don’t have proper proof of insurance, you are likely to get a citation for not actually being insured — the officer has no way of knowing if the insurance card is merely out of date, and they can’t rely on your word. For Kansas City, that’s listed as a violation of ordinance 70-270(A). Pleading it is quite easy: bring proof you had insurance on the date of the offense and just plead “not guilty” when asked about the citation. Here’s the kicker: depending on jurisdiction, this may not get you entirely off the hook.

Last time I had to plead on a “not properly insured” charge — remember how I said I’m terrible about keeping an up to date insurance card with me — the charge got knocked down to a lesser offense of not having proper proof of insurance, which carried a $25 fine. The difference between the last time and this time? The previous ticket was issued for Gladstone, Missouri, not Kansas City, Missouri. For Kansas City, having evidence you were properly insured on the date in question is an absolute defense, nullifying the charge.

So either way that’s my annoyance for the evening. I know that the law firm has no way of knowing if I was actually properly insured based on the citation. But rather than sending out a form letter, how about determining if the violation is actually a moving violation — which not being properly insured is a moving violation — instead of writing “If it is a moving violation” in the solicitation.

That and it also helps when you’re soliciting to assist with a moving violation to actually say that you handle moving violations. After all you don’t call a bankruptcy attorney to talk about a speeding ticket.

But what would I restrict with regard to this letter, if I was up to the task? People can use public records as sources for new leads. After registering a fictitious name with the Missouri Secretary of State back in 2009, I started receiving various solicitations in the mail addressed to that fictitious name.

So yeah, if there was something I could restrict, I’d look into that, finding a way to disallow businesses from using public records for the purposes of soliciting business. But such a measure wouldn’t survive the Courts — a similar measure that was on the books in Rhode Island was struck down in Federal Court.

Debt/Politics

Reply to Lee Siegel regarding student loan default

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 4 Comments

When one person defaults on their debt, it isn’t the end of the financial world. But as we saw in 2008, when a lot of people default on their debt, it can bring down entire industries. When a lot of people defaulted on their mortgages, it created a crisis in the housing market from which we still haven’t recovered — and has led some economists to actually suggest that we need another housing bubble like what predicated the 2008 recession.

So what would happen if a comparable number of people defaulted on their student loans?

Bear in mind that the number of people who defaulted on their mortgages was not a significant percentage of the entire population of outstanding mortgage notes. But it was large enough. And if many do what Lee Siegel has done, chaos just might be the result.

Most do not know how loans and our monetary system work. If they did, they wouldn’t think it conceivable to not pay back their debts unless they just flat out had the inability to do so. Not only do you have a moral duty to pay back your debts, it’s a legal duty as well secured by a contract. So let’s get into what Siegel wrote in his New York Times piece called “Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans“.

His story is not uncommon: taking on massive loans to attend a private college before transferring to a lesser expensive public college closer to home. After college, he was left with massive debt for which repayment is now being demanded.

I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.

While default just means you are no longer paying within the bounds of what is required by the contract, it is clear in the remainder of the article that Siegel just stopped paying altogether. So rather than trying to do what many other writers have done and do his writing on the side while trying to make a living enough to repay his debts, he chose to just not repay his debt.

The one thing rather intriguing about Siegel as well: he’s almost as old as my parents. He’s not some guy in his 20s to early 30s who just decided he’s had enough with his student loans and is refusing to pay them, and his words give the indication he never put a dime toward them.

Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.

And here we start to see the entitlement mentality whose origins is actually when Siegel was in college. These are the trains of thought that included being entitled to a free post-secondary education. And he is exercising that mentality by evading his student loans. He readily admits to being a deadbeat and acknowledges the consequences his default may be having on his credit. Yet I can’t help but find his attitude disgusting.

Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.

We can’t all get what we want, and when we have obligations to fill, sometimes we just need to bite the bullet, acknowledge our standing, and do what is necessary.

In The Simpsons, for example, Homer walked away from his job at the nuclear plant to take a job at a bowling alley. When Marge becomes unexpectedly pregnant with Maggie, Homer at first did what he could to make the bowling alley more profitable so he could get a raise. It didn’t exactly work, so Homer knew what he had to do, even if he didn’t want to do it: he went back to the nuclear plant to see if he could get his job back. And the next 20 years following that episode is history.

Yet Siegel chose to default on his debt because trying to repay it meant taking an employment path he wouldn’t want. He easily could’ve been writing on the side while taking some kind of worthwhile job to repay his debts and trying to at least make some kind of living until writing could be his living. After all, that’s what Stephen King did.

Sure he’s not Stephen King. And neither am I. I highly doubt this blog will lead to a living as a writer — especially since I tend to get a little long winded when I write (no doubt, herein as well). But the question needs to be asked: what if writing never panned out for him? What if he was never able to make it as a writer? Well, for one, I wouldn’t have the subject matter for this article — what a great loss to society that would’ve been — but at the same time, would he have swallowed his pride and found some kind of worthwhile work to pay his debts and support his family?

Or would he have wallowed in the pools of his shattered dreams and lived a mediocre existence trying to figure out why it just didn’t work out while still refusing to pay back his debts because he didn’t get the career he wanted?

Let me guess that you, dear reader, probably think this is a bit of a stretch to be implying. If that is your thought, re-read the above quote and read his entire article if you haven’t yet.

And he spouts off against the economically privileged as well despite living in a pretty well-off part of the country. If Wikipedia is accurate, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey, which has a median income higher than the State median, and a housing value that is significantly greater than the State median. Given that, I really hope his wife is the one who handles the household finances.

When the fateful day comes, and your credit looks like a war zone, don’t be afraid. The reported consequences of having no credit are scare talk, to some extent. The reliably predatory nature of American life guarantees that there will always be somebody to help you, from credit card companies charging stratospheric interest rates to subprime loans for houses and cars. Our economic system ensures that so long as you are willing to sink deeper and deeper into debt, you will keep being enthusiastically invited to play the economic game.

Yes because where there is demand there will be supply. There are many loans that are issued that never should have been — of which the loans this guy took out to go to school are easily on the list. But to call all of American life “predatory” is absurd.

But the “reported consequences” of having no credit or destroyed credit aren’t “scare talk” to any extent. They are very well documented. For instance I’ve paid off many previous debts, including my student loans, yet I was recently viewed as a deadbeat simply because all of the defaulted and charged off debt, all of which is paid off, hasn’t fallen off my credit report yet. The consequences associated with the possibility of obtaining future credit are also very well documented.

Here’s one consequence of that student loan that Siegel may not have considered: the government may put a claim against his estate after death. They could take everything bearing his name and put it on the auction block to recover what they believe they are owed, and can probably produce the promissory notes backing up what they want to do. If the online court system for Essex County, NJ, wasn’t down for maintenance as of when I write this, I’d try to see if there have been any lawsuits against him and any default judgments regarding his defaulted loans.

From here, though, we see that Siegel actually has higher motives in mind in acting self-righteous about his defaults.

I am sharply aware of the strongest objection to my lapse into default. If everyone acted as I did, chaos would result. The entire structure of American higher education would change.

Actually, so long as banks or the government were writing loans that paid for post-secondary education in this country, it wouldn’t change. It wouldn’t have any incentive to do so. What it would do is starve the loan servicers of the money they would need to stay afloat and fund additional loans — not just student loans, mind you. This, in turn, would cause post-secondary education in the United States to basically collapse, as the Federal and various State governments would also be starved of tax dollars from all the people put out of work from the collapse of one segment of the financial sector.

The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.

And the government should get out of the loan business entirely. The only involvement should be through Courts in enforcing contracts — like the contract that Siegel signed in the first place. Certainly the easy availability of funds for post-secondary education has put us in a precarious situation with regard to post-secondary education in the United States. And many have looked to Europe as a means of salvation. Perhaps we can mimic them, provide a free post-secondary education to all students, like Europe? Like the Europe that is currently not far from eating itself alive from the inflation they are experiencing caused by debt crises in EU member nations.

What we really need to do is get away from the “a 4-year degree is absolutely necessary” and ask the question of whether post-secondary education is absolutely necessary. Like what I have done here on this blog, and what Mike Rowe does through his organization.

Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education. There are a lot of people who could learn to live with that, too.

The government, in actuality, shouldn’t be guaranteeing either. Again this shows that Siegel is now speaking to a higher agenda regarding why he defaulted on his student loans. He’s taking his own personal protest and trying to turn it into a national pattern, which will not be good for the economy or the financial sector — regardless of what you think about it, and about the bank, if they sink so does our entire nation, and it won’t be pretty.

And then there’s the message many are starting to believe, one which is being espoused by plenty of people, and implied in Siegel’s article: I don’t have to repay my student loans if I don’t get the career I want. And that is a dangerous message indeed, because it places the burden on loan writers and colleges to not only guarantee an education, but guarantee a future career for the students.

And, again, many students are already believing that is what should be happening.

Life/Science

Homo wifius

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 1 Comment

“And here we are today on the trail of the elusive creature, Homo wifius, also known as the American wife. It’s late in the morning, but it’s still early for the breed of his creature we’ve heard reports could be found in this very house, and that is the Kansas City Christina wife.”

I walk down the hall to the bedroom.

“As you can see, this particular individual has taken up homage under this twisted mass of fabric colloquially known as blankets. Apparently this individual either has issue keeping control of body heat while sleeping, or it just likes sweating out enough to overflow the Great Lakes. Whichever way, I’m sure this isn’t typical of all individuals of the Homo wifius species.”

The cat appears at my feet and meows at me.

“Ah and my trusty cat Lucas is here to help me with this individual. I hear rousing them from their sleep can be quite a dangerous idea indeed. Many who have attempted to rouse Homo wifius from sleep have lived to tell about it, but always mention close encounters with the grips of death in telling their tales. Perhaps Lucas can distract the creature a little as I attempt to rouse it.”

The blankets shift as the alarm goes off. I look down at the cat. “Lucas, will you sacrifice yourself to get my wife out of bed?”

The cat looks to his side a moment, toward my wife, then looks back up at me and gives a single mew, before turning around and walking away. Whoever says housecats don’t understand what we say has never owned a cat.

“Coward.”

* * * * *

I originally wrote this about three years ago and just never published it anywhere, so enjoy. “Lucas” is my cat Charlie, who actually died back in 2013. “Christina” is my wife (not her real name, obviously). Based on actual events.

Democrat platform/Second Amendment

Revisiting racism and guns – liability insurance

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Here’s a question: what ideas have the anti-gun left devised that will not adversely affect the poor and minorities?

One idea that’s floated around a bit is liability insurance. The idea is that since you’re required to carry liability insurance to drive, a gun owner should also be required to carry liability insurance. And if Representative Maloney of New York has her way, that’ll become law — fat chance in the Republican-controlled House, though.

Setting aside the fact that driving is a privilege while gun ownership is a right protected by the Second Amendment, it is an idea that will adversely affect the lesser fortunate. This becomes especially true for those who live in higher-crime areas, as insurance premiums could be higher simply due to location. This, again, will adversely affect the poor and minorities, concentrating the exercise of gun rights in the better-off and white populations.

So, again, I ask: who is racist, gun control proponents or gun rights advocates?

Gun owners are not just white people living in well-off areas. Yet many of the policy ideas seem to think this is their assumption. When you make it more expensive to exercise a right, those who are lesser-off will be less likely to exercise their right. That’s exactly how poll taxes used to work, yet because we’re talking about guns, no one is seeing it the same way.

In short I think that much of the ideas that require financial output on the part of a person to exercise their Second Amendment rights are about disarming blacks and other minorities, since they are the ones most likely to be lesser-off financially and less likely to exercise their Second Amendment rights before considering some of the ideas by Democrats that would only make it more expensive, thus making it more likely that even fewer blacks and minorities will do so.

Debt

Treated like a deadbeat

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

My wife and I had decided that we were going to be moving out at the end of our lease and finding a new place to live. Now any apartment complex is likely to pull your credit report — it’s one of the reasons they charge an application fee. So you should be sure of what is on it. And I know my credit history. I knew my credit history before we went applying.

We whittled our list of properties here in Kansas City down to two: The Ethans off Barry Road, and Oakbrook at Newmark off North Oak Trafficway. We liked The Ethans and originally filed application. Then we toured Oakbrook, liked it more, and backed out of The Ethans to file application. Then the day after Memorial Day we got a phone call saying they were denying our application due to my credit history.

Oakbrook went through a company called RealID to get my credit history, which pulled from TransUnion. The Ethans, however, went through a company called SafeRent, which pulled from Experian. The Ethans also gave us a chance to include an explanation of negative marks on our credit report with our application. They approved us relatively quickly.

There are five (5) charge-offs on my credit report, and one debt buyer listed that bought one of the charge-offs. All are paid off — the last one was paid off in 2013. Experian reports them as paid very plainly. They still report them as charge offs, but they report them as paid.

Experian - paid in full Experian - settlement

TransUnion doesn’t make it so clear. Well they do for the accounts paid in full, but not for the settled accounts.

TransUnion - paid in full TransUnion - settled

The second account listed, the one that was settled for less than full balance, shows a “pay status” of “Charged Off”.

And unless the person pulling the credit report pays attention to the remarks that TransUnion includes with the credit entries — provided TransUnion provided those remarks and the company pulling the report forwarded them — then things look worse than they actually are. The Oakbrook manager kept saying “That’s not what I have on our side” when referring to my assertions that the accounts were paid. The TransUnion report shows in the remarks “PAID IN FULL” where the balance was paid in full, and “SETTLED” where the account was settled. And in the case of the repossession doesn’t have any remark showing the balance is paid off — I’m not planning to correct that, though, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

And if those remarks were with the information that RealID provided to Oakbrook, then the manager was lying to me when he said I’d be approved if I got statements from the creditors showing the charged-off accounts were paid, as he already had the information in front of him showing the accounts were paid or settled.

So TransUnion makes my credit look worse than it actually is. And the Oakbrook manager would not look at the copy of my Experian credit report I had with me when I tried to talk to him. And I’m sure even if I had my TransUnion report with me (I debated on taking it as well but didn’t), it likely still would’ve been ignored: “That’s not what I have on our side”. I don’t know what information they had, and they wouldn’t provide specifics, not to me directly and not in the rejection letter. I really wish he did instead of constantly being so cryptic.

Here’s what makes this all the more disheartening.

Four (4) of the charge offs, including the debt buyer, are estimated to fall off my credit report in July, as in less than two months from when I write this. The other two, one of which is the repossession, fall off in September. Had our lease been expiring later this year instead of at the end of July, my credit report would’ve looked almost as clean as my credit actually is.

Had RealID pulled Experian instead of TransUnion, or the manager considered my Experian report when I brought it in, I probably wouldn’t even be writing this article. Instead I’ve got a money order for the security deposit I need to try to get refunded, and we’re going to be signing another lease at our current apartment complex.

Animals and pets/Children

Flat ears, wide eyes

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I need to find a picture or GIF of a child frightened beyond tears for whenever someone posts pictures of a cat or kitten that is obviously frightened and stressed while calling it “cute” and saying “aww, ain’t this adorable”.

A frightened animal isn’t cute, and every time I see something like that on Facebook or another site, I automatically think that either 1. the person has no clue about feline emotions and how to read them, or 2. the person posting it is a sadistic jackass.

For those of you who fall into category no. 1, a cat with wide eyes and flattened ears is either 1. about to attack a threat or 2. frightened and trying to flatten down.

Perked ears is a sign the cat is stalking and about to pounce — play involving a toy or laser pointer brings this out quite readily. Flat ears means the cat feels threatened or angry, and will probably respond aggressively if the threat gets too close — if the cat is doing this in response to you, that is your indicator to back down. What you might think is cute is actually a warning.

If the cat is not moving, or, worse, is visibly shaking and/or has stopped purring, the animal is frightened or stressed, but still may respond violently to any contact. Kittens will be more likely to respond to a potential threat by flattening down since they really aren’t capable of fighting back — they rely on their mother for their defense.

And those who post pictures of cats or kittens in such postures are either sadistic — since they are frightening a kitten or adult cat for a “cute” picture — or need a lesson in feline body language.

Due process/Second Amendment

Due process and the Second Amendment

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

In his FAQ on violence, question 15, Sam Harris said:

It now seems to me that there are two ways of approaching this [discussion about guns and gun rights] that may, in fact, be irreconcilable.  The first is to consider the ethical and practical case for guns as a means of self-defense… The second approach is to consider society as a whole, emphasizing the statistics on gun violence.

It is a sentiment I have seen myself time and time again. And I am convinced it is more accurate to say that those against the rights of individuals to own and carry a firearm — colloquially called “anti-gunners” — are actually against individual rights in their entirety. This isn’t to say they are against the idea of rights. What they are against is the individual assertion of rights, that rights are instead to be owned and asserted by a collective, not individuals.

They have no problem with (certain) groups of people having firearms — typically only the police and military. They do have a problem with individuals having firearms.

Recently this sentiment came back to me through a YouTube comment section in which another person was arguing for greater restrictions on firearms using the very common assertions we’ve seen time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time…. again. Things like “We just want to make it harder for those intending to do harm to obtain a firearm” and the like.

What’s somewhat unusual is this sentiment: “And with that said, I would gladly give up my ‘right to bare [sic] arms’ if it ment [sic] fewer people to hold me at gun point.” This was at the tail end of a response to me when I said, essentially, that a newer interpretation of the Bill of Rights does not make it de facto wrong, as many anti-gunners argue in light of the fact that the Second Amendment being interpreted to allow for an individual right to bear arms only came about in recent vintage.

But why would you not want to make it harder on that person who will kill? It’s unrealistic to say you can save the world, but if keeping a gun out of the hands of someone who will kill less without one is possible, I am for it.

What this person is again not understanding, or is refusing to understand, is that you cannot restrict firearms to keep them out of the hands of those intending to do harm without removing them first from those who want or need them for self defense. This is why I have said that gun control punishes the innocent more than it protects them. This is why I have said time and again that legislation cannot protect people, especially when you take into consideration the fact that you are not entitled to police protection.

This means that, as the vast majority of people are law-abiding, meaning they won’t circumvent the law to obtain a firearm, gun control leaves those who need a firearm for protection at a complete disadvantage.

Don’t get me wrong, I would certainly like to see it made more difficult for those intending to commit violence. But there are other rights coming into play here. How do you identify those people and take away their right to a firearm without also violating their right to due process? How can you make it more difficult for those intending to commit violence without also making it more difficult on those with a need or desire to defend themselves? In both questions, the answer is quite simple: you cannot.

Due process comes into play here quite well, something few seem to consider. And the fact that, in law, many anti-gunners wish to treat me the same as James Holmes or Adam Lanza is not only categorically unfair, but downright disgusting.

My opponent’s response to this sentiment was quite telling:

I am being realistic. I carry a knife on me at all times, and I can buy a bat for 25 bucks if I need to. In a world where guns have more restrictions, you no longer need to have one for protection. A world with more restrictions on firearms is not an unrealistic one. I am really tired with all this focus on your own freedoms. I am more worried about the safety of the wider population. It’s harder to kill with melee weapons. Period. Even for self defense. Just because you can kill someone in self defense, doesn’t mean you should. Even a scum bag thief has the right to live and be judged in a court of law for their crimes.

First, criminals and outlaws by definition do not obey the law. Restrictions only apply to those willing to obey them until law enforcement can identify and prosecute those who are not obeying the law. And a baseball bat is not a good choice for a defensive weapon. It can be good as a threat, but not as an actual means of defense. Swing from the shoulders and you’ll be clumsy. Swing from the elbow and you won’t have nearly as much force behind it, making it easier to dodge, block, or catch.

But the sentiment that really pissed me off: “I am really tired with all this focus on your own freedoms.”

Tough. Fucking. Shit.

There is one major reason I so adamantly defend individual rights: I must defend them for others to maintain them for myself. There is no way around that, something I have made quite clear. The example I provided to my opponent is similar to what I say to everyone who, in the context of Holmes or Tsarnaev, says the equivalent of “just take ’em out back and shoot ’em and be done with it”:

After all since you’re clearly not worried about my individual rights, you won’t mind being locked up for endless periods of time without trial and without charges being filed. After all the police took you into custody, so they’re certain that you committed the crime, so I’ll believe them so we don’t need to worry about a trial. We’ll just lock you in jail.

What’s that? You have a right to a trial? Well the right to a trial is an individual right. And you don’t seem to care about individual rights, so… Tough. Fucking. Shit.

Our rights are intertwined. Many have said that the Second Amendment is what defends all other Amendments — i.e. the individual right to bear arms is necessary to defending all other rights. This is true only to the extent that our rights are subject to violent threat. Few assert their rights when they’re not being attacked — whether by government or external threats.

At the same time, the right of due process means simply that you cannot be stripped of your liberties without first being adjudicated in a Court. The Sixth Amendment means you have the right to have those accusations heard in a Court while heavily implying a right to be presumed innocent. This means that you cannot lose your right to keep and bear arms without first having been convicted of a felony (pleading guilty or nolo contendre is the legal equivalent of a conviction, as is a dishonorable discharge from the Armed Forces). You can also lose your right to bear arms if you’ve been adjudicated by, quoting ATF form 4473, question 11f, “a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that you are a danger to yourself or to others or are incompetent to manage your own affairs”.

Yet many, again, seem willing to just abrogate due process. They say that we need to severely restrict firearms to protect us from the “next James Holmes”, which, as I’ve asserted before (here, here, and here), has the effect of punishing the innocent.

So to lay the gauntlet, I’ll put out this question: if you’re unwilling to defend my Second Amendment rights, why should I defend your First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendment rights?

Feminism

Anne Wheaton, you’re an idiot

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Anne Wheaton, wife of famous Star Trek alum Wil Wheaton, recently announced that for every hateful tweet coming from “Gamergate”, she’d donate $1 to Feminist Frequency. (Archived version here since it appears she deleted it)

Others soon joined in on it, agreeing to match or multiply what is donated. A phrase comes to mind: A fool and his money are soon parted. Though in this case, it’d be a fool and her money are soon parted.

If you could reduce your opponent’s cash by $1 by merely typing 140 characters or less, how many tweets would you write? Apparently Wheaton found out the hard way as she had to cap her donation at $1,000. That ended quickly. On Facebook, Wil made the comment that Anne is a “BOSS!” Sorry Wil, but if she commits to parting ways with her own cash over hateful tweets, she’s an idiot.

Parting with your own money every time your detractors send a hateful tweet? Yeah that’s really showing your detractors who’s boss. But The Mary Sue was implying that they had somehow tricked “Gamergate” into donating money, as if those within “Gamergate” were the ones actually donating money, not Anne. Talk about misleading all around.

The reason she had to cap her donation is quite simple: her detractors would’ve forced her to drain her bank account keeping her promise. I’ve said before: if you sacrifice your livelihood to make a point, you lose your livelihood but don’t make your point. Anne Wheaton’s willingness to part with her money every time her detractors sent her a nasty tweet was a recipe for disaster. They wouldn’t have cared that the money went to Anita Sarkeesian. They would’ve seen it as a quick way to show Anne Wheaton how stupid she is being.

Let’s put it this way: if she had instead said “For every rape threat Gamergate sends me, I’ll donate $1 to a rape prevention charity”, she would be flooded with rape threats — from both her supporters (through sock-puppet accounts) and her detractors (likely also through sock-puppet accounts). The same would have been if Anita Sarkeesian had tweeted that she’d donate $1 to a domestic violence shelter for every rape and death threat she received through Twitter from “Gamergate”. You would’ve had “Gamergate” detractors making sock-puppet accounts in droves to flood them with threats — virtually none of which would be taken seriously — in order to get more money flowing toward charities they support while making “Gamergate” look worst in the process.

As such, it makes me wonder how many of the nasty tweets, now possibly falsely attributed to “Gamergate”, actually came from her supporters, knowing that another dollar was going to Anita Sarkeesian, “Gamergate” was going to look a little worse, and all it took was a few keystrokes, meaning no actual effort or financial loss on their part. Now “Gamergate” detractors can say “Look at all these nasty tweets Gamergate sent to Anne Wheaton”.

Now let’s not rule out the possibility that nasty tweets did also come from “Gamergate” supporters (possibly also through sock-puppet accounts), simply because they’d know that those tweets would cause Anne to commit to parting with another dollar for each one. An organized campaign could’ve caused her to commit to donating her annual income in a matter of hours.

I wonder how quickly someone managed to alert her to that possibility, since it took her only 5 minutes from commitment to cap. Lesson learned. Hopefully.

Hopefully next time anyone thinking of trying this will put a little more thought into this. I’m guessing her decision was spur of the moment with few actually putting any critical thinking skills behind the idea to see if it was a good idea. I think she learned it isn’t.