Paid off my last student loan today

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Was it worth it? Probably not.

I actually had 1,100 left, and I was setup to make payments for another year at $184 a pop. I paid them off early because Sallie Mae's website is SO FUCKING HORRIBLE.

The loans were taken in my father's name. So I had to input his social security number AND his birthday just to log in. Sallie Mae is another one of those sites that really have no idea why some sites need passwords. I don't... fucking.... care if someone breaks into my student loan account. All you can do is make a payment. My password was literally "fuckyousallie". Go ahead and compromise it, I don't give a shit.

But they wanted a SS#, a date of birth and then a password and they must have changed the UI in their site 5 times in the 3 years they had my loan. (Some company sold it to Sallie Mae after the housing bubble popped.)

What a fucking terrible fucking site. I really wish computer programmers had the balls to tell their managers that they don't need "two-factor" authentication just because the manager read about it in a magazine, if it is impossible to do anything at a given site but hand over money. Fucking idiots.

[pinback]

Every post just seethes with hatred anymore.

I guess we'll give it another shot in 2014.

[Flack]

Sallie Mae is another one of those sites that really have no idea why some sites need passwords. I don't... fucking.... care if someone breaks into my student loan account. All you can do is make a payment. My password was literally "fuckyousallie". Go ahead and compromise it, I don't give a shit.

Several years ago my wife put a secret code word on our bank account that has to be spoken to the teller before you can do anything with it, including deposit money. This isn't a pin number that you punch in with a keyboard. This is me, every time I used to go through the drive-thru to deposit my check, having to whisper a code word through a speaker system like I'm some kind of KGB spy. Oh, and the password was "flounder" so everytime I went to deposit my paycheck, I had to say, "pssst, flounder". It was the most ri-damn-diculous thing ever.

[CO]

Oh, and the password was "flounder" so everytime I went to deposit my paycheck, I had to say, "pssst, flounder". It was the most ri-damn-diculous thing ever.

Flounder? Was your wife a fan of Animal House or something?

[CO]

[Flack]

I do think we had just seen Animal House when she picked that password.

[Tdarcos]

Several years ago my wife put a secret code word on our bank account that has to be spoken to the teller before you can do anything with it, including deposit money.

Are you sure? Typically anyone can deposit money into an account if they know the number. What it usually means is that they won't tell you the balance without the password, but being able to deposit money should never be restricted. That makes no sense.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

MY LOANS

[Flack]

Several years ago my wife put a secret code word on our bank account that has to be spoken to the teller before you can do anything with it, including deposit money.

Are you sure?

I have spent the past several days trying to come up with the proper response to this question.

"Are you sure?"

At the most basic level, and without being overly pragmatic, is it truly possible to be sure of anything? I mean, at the most obvious plane, there's no way you can truly be sure who typed these words. Any number of people with administrative rights could have (and did. -Ed) edited my words. My user name and password are cached on at least four computers; all it would take is a single person to gain access to any of the four to post here as me. Anyone gaining access to my password file could also post as me. And, seeing how outdated this version of PHPBB is, I'm guessing hacking the userbase wouldn't require particularly "l33t" skills. Statistically speaking, it's much more possible that the message you are receiving is not the message I sent -- if'n it was me who sent one at all.

On a more existencial level however, I suppose it is fair to ask, is anyone sure of anything? How am I sure I am me, and you are you? And, how are you sure you are you? Are you sure you're awake? Are you sure you're alive? Are you sure I'm alive? Are you sure you're alive? Are you sure this isn't all just some weird simulation in your mind like the Matrix? Are you sure you're not dreaming, right now?

Are you sure?

Often what we know, or at least what we think we know, isn't what it seems. For example, did you know there's an entire forum here at JC dedicated to talking about you? It's where the rest of us go to discuss your endless barrage of Wikipedia citations and music/movie quotations.



Of course, no such area really exists. To get that screen shot I installed a parallel version of PHPBB, spent a week downloading all the graphics and style templates from JC and then set up my own web server and installed a completely parallel installation of this web forum and then added one additional message area for the sole purpose of taking that screen shot. Of course only a crazy person would do that. Then again, are you sure I'm not crazy, Paul?

Are you sure?

About ten years ago, I drove through the drive-thru lane of my bank and attempted to deposit my paycheck. When I attempted to do that, the teller informed me that my wife had put a passcode on my account and that I could not deposit any money into the account without that passcode.

Now, am I sure that I was really talking to a bank teller? No I am not. I was talking to a voice through a speaker. Perhaps I was speaking to a janitor inside the bank, playing a mean trick on me. Perhaps at that very moment a bank robbery was in progress and one of the robbers was holding a gun to the bank teller's head and told her to tell me something untrue in order to get me to leave. Maybe, just maybe, the planets aligned in such a way that the exact frequency the bank's drive-thru system used got crossed with the frequencies used in an alternate universe, and somehow I ended up talking to a bank teller in that same alternate universe who gave me incorrect information. Maybe the teller simply lied to me. I cannot be sure that any of those things did not happen.

I am also not sure that I have not been the victim of a post hypnotic suggestion. I don't remember ever having been hypnotized, but if the person or persons who hypnotized me also programmed me to forget that ever happened, then it would make sense. I don't think this happened, but I can't be sure it didn't. You can't be sure it didn't, either.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the only thing I'm sure of is that I'm not sure of anything. Oh, except that there's an area here where we all talk about you. That, I'm sure of.

[pinback]

The next Don Rogers show will just be me reading the above post over and over and over until the hour is up.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yep. That's a.... Man.

Welp.

Huh.

I do hope Tdarcos tells us if he played Wizardry or not, but other than that, I'll leave the keys under the doormat. We're done here. This is the equivalent of Ray Lewis's last game being a game where he wins the Super Bowl and during the post-game interview, kills another two dudes on the field. Except that Flack won this bbs and killed us all.

[AArdvark]

That was very well done.

[Tdarcos]

Several years ago my wife put a secret code word on our bank account that has to be spoken to the teller before you can do anything with it, including deposit money.

Are you sure?

I have spent the past several days trying to come up with the proper response to this question.

You should be ashamed of yourself. With everyone criticizing me for being prolix, all you had to say was, "I tried to deposit my check once and the bank refused to accept it, saying my wife had put a password on the account. Yeah I'm sure."

I just said it because it seemed strange. Well, maybe the restriction only applies to check deposits because your bank charges you if a check you deposit bounces. But refusing to accept a cash deposit would also seem strange. And I wonder, what would they do for bank-by-mail? My <s>bank</s> credit union is about 5 miles away, if I get a check and it's not near the beginning of the month when I am not going to the bank, I'll mail the check to the bank, signed for deposit only. Then again, my account isn't locked. I guess they'd mail the check back saying the account is locked if you didn't include a note with the password.

[Tdarcos]

Are you sure?

At the most basic level, and without being overly pragmatic, is it truly possible to be sure of anything?

"How can I be sure, in a world that's constantly changing?" - The Rascals

There are things we can be certain of, utterly sure. You exist. If you did not exist, you wouldn't see this question. I, or some part of your brain that is simulating me, also exists. Even if you were the only thing in the universe and the world around you were a simulation, and even if that simulation were being generated by another part of your brain, the thing generating that simulation would exist. Same thing, if it did not exist, you wouldn't see this response. And there are other things of which we can be utterly certain and sure.

I'll quote myself from a book I wrote:

Dr. Sign: George, is it possible to live without taking risks? I mean, without taking any risk at all.
George: No.
Dr. Sign: Why?
George: Because almost everything we do has some danger to it, even if it's a small one.
Dr. Sign: Exactly. Every time you get up, there is a risk that termites have eaten holes in the floor and it's no longer strong enough to hold you, or you might slip in the bathtub, or that you might get hit by a car crossing the street, or your deodorant might be too strong and give you a bad rash for a while.
· For most things we do, there is a tiny, infinitesimal risk of death or injury. For some things, the risk is higher. The range of risks run from the chance of dying from a heart attack, due to strain caused as a direct result of moving your arm, while brushing your teeth, being nil, all the way to stepping into an operating blast furnace, the risk of death being certainty.

Those examples I gave are things of which we can be sure. You will never have a heart attack simply from brushing your teeth and you will never survive stepping into an operating blast furnace.

[Tdarcos]

On a more existencial level however, I suppose it is fair to ask, is anyone sure of anything? How am I sure I am me, and you are you? And, how are you sure you are you? Are you sure you're awake? Are you sure you're alive? Are you sure I'm alive? Are you sure you're alive? Are you sure this isn't all just some weird simulation in your mind like the Matrix? Are you sure you're not dreaming, right now?

I more-or-less partially answered this question. Whether or not you believe this world is real, or whether you want to make claims about the world being synthetic, there are a number of conditions you must concede are real and are certain, that is, that you are sure of them, or the question is academic and the discussion is pointless.

First, we must agree we use language and communicate; otherwise the whole discussion is irrelevant and the person who makes such a claim can do only one thing: shut up making any claims of anything and die.

Second, you must agree that you exist, and that you are alive as part and parcel of that very existence. If you don't exist and are not alive this whole conversation is pointless.

Third. you must agree and concede that you are communicating with something else. You do not have to concede that it is someone else, it could very well be that I am actually a part of your own brain pretending to be someone else. Or that you could be something my brain is pretending is the universe around me.

So while you do not have to concede anything about the universe around you, even if it's simulated by a part of your brain, you have to concede either that the part of you that is separately creating the simulation around you exists, or that you must concede that your brain is not simulating the world around you and that this world as it appears to you exists instead.

[Tdarcos]

Often what we know, or at least what we think we know, isn't what it seems. For example, did you know there's an entire forum here at JC dedicated to talking about you? It's where the rest of us go to discuss your endless barrage of Wikipedia citations and music/movie quotations.



Of course, no such area really exists. To get that screen shot I installed a parallel version of PHPBB, spent a week downloading all the graphics and style templates from JC and then set up my own web server and installed a completely parallel installation of this web forum and then added one additional message area for the sole purpose of taking that screen shot. Of course only a crazy person would do that. Then again, are you sure I'm not crazy, Paul?

Are you sure?

"Well we're never gonna survive unless, we get a little... crazy..." - Seal

You might be anal retentive if you went to all that effort to simulate an image for one message. A whole week for a 30-second joke? "Crazy" implies not compliant with reality. Taking a whole week to set up a weak (no pun intended) joke would be a waste of time and effort for someone who supposedly has a bit of intelligence. It would not, in and of itself, provide an indicator of mental illness.

I'm also going to shave you with Occam's Razor, in that I think it is more likely you took a copy of the Forum Index page from "View Source", edited it to add the fake forum, imported a screen shot into Windows Paint, then cut the shot. Taking about, oh, 15 minutes.

But we really know you're crazy, and we want to have Pinback killed, there are two forums that Jonsey hasn't told you or Pinback about.



Are you sure they don't exist?

[AArdvark]

Flack, I bet you knew this was gonna happen.


THE
VERY PREDICTABLE
AARDVARK

[pinback]

Four posts in a row! Each of which broke all of the previously set-forth rules. I'll leave it to the system operator to decide how to deal with this. Although if I were to offer a suggestion, it would be:

JONSEY.











SPLIT THAT SHIT!!!

[pinback]

There are things we can be certain of, utterly sure. You exist. If you did not exist, you wouldn't see this question. I, or some part of your brain that is simulating me, also exists.

I've already proven both of these absurd assertions to be incorrect in a previous post.

Get off it.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Screenshot JC is now officially better than real world JC!