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Dishonesty

So, our house was robbed while we were on vacation in Utah.  We actually got a call from a friend here a couple days after we flew out informing us of the robbery, but I wanted to come home and assess the situation and have time to mull over all my thoughts and feelings before mentioning it.

First off, I feel really bad for someone who feels so desperate they stoop to breaking someone else's house and stealing their things.  I can't imagine what would make someone feel like they needed to do that.  I can't imagine the desperate need they must have been in.

I also wish that whoever did it would have just been honest with us.  If someone were in need of money (which I must assume, since that's typically the reason for theft), I would have very much preferred that they came to talk to me about their situation rather than destroy and steal my property.  For example, the TV and PS3 were stolen.  For those two items together, I paid not quite a thousand dollars.  The person that stole them may have been able to pawn them for possibly $200 (and I think that's being optimistic).  So that right there is a loss of several hundred dollars.  If they had asked me for the money, I could have given it to them and been able to keep my things.  I think that would be far preferable to what happened.

I find it kind of silly that of all the property damaged and stolen, the thing that I'm most concerned with is the loss of all of my save data on my PS3.  I had several games that I had played for several hours each, and that data's gone with the system.  I can buy a new TV and a new PS3, but I can't really replace the saves (other than by redoing all of my games).  But that's not even a major concern.  I enjoyed my games, but they're not that important to me.  (Incidentally, whoever robbed the house left all the games and movies, which I find kind of silly.)

I am concerned that it was someone that we know.  This bothers me because I like trusting people.  Trusting people is a lot easier than mistrusting people.  Mistrust takes a lot of effort and worry.  Trust doesn't.  If it is someone that I know, I would really rather that they just confess to me that they did it and then I can trust them again.  (Of course, I also have a small glimmer of hope that when they confess, they'll return at least my PS3 so I can keep all my saves.)  I really don't have any desire to press charges against anyone.  I don't want to accuse anyone, and I really don't have any evidence to accuse anyone in specific.  I just want to be able to trust people.  And, if it was someone I know, I'm probably concerned with their situation and how dire it was to push them to theft.  I would be interested in helping them out in any way I could.  That's one of the main reasons why I want them to tell me they did it.

It may very well have been someone that didn't know us at all, but whoever it was was either very incompetent (and I realize that's not uncommon for criminals) or very kind to the two of us.  There was a credit card that I had left lying out in the front room.  They could have easily taken that and spent lots of money on it.  (I've lost my wallet twice and both times it was recovered by someone who decided they wanted to make several purchases in my name.)  We had a box of change which was taken and Conrad's social security card was in it.  They took out the card before they took the box.  I would expect a clumsy robber to simply take the whole box and a clever one to see the card even if it wasn't in the box and realize they could use it to steal Conrad's identity.  So, the fact that they deliberately took the card out of the box is quite puzzling to me.

There are many things about this incident that don't make sense to me, and probably never will.  I'll likely just have to resign myself to accepting that I won't understand it.  The thing that I find most difficult to understand is why people do dishonest things like this.  Why not just be honest and respectful.  I suppose that's one of life's mysteries.

Comments

  1. They intentionally took the social security card out of the box and stole the rest? That is very strange for the precise reasons you gave. And you have reason to believe it is someone you know? That is double horrible.

    Sorry to hear this. I hope somehow this works out well for you and you get your stuff back.

    PS. Please don't tell me they stole Munkres or Dummit & Foote. That's just wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, indeed. Fortunately, I had Munkres with me and Dummit & Foote, along with nearly all of my textbooks is in my office. But, there were three math textbooks in plain sight in the front room and those weren't taken.

      Delete
  2. Speaking of Dummit & Foote you should read this review by someone who bought Dummit & Foote thinking it was a "middle-school algebra" book so they could brush up on their skills to help their kids taking Algebra in Middle school:

    "The first flaw a reader will note is the incredible rate at which the material is presented. Section 0.1 breezes through difficult concepts like functions, sets, and complex numbers. By Chapter 1, my head was spinning after reading statements like, "For n in Z+, Z/nZ is an abelian group under the operation + of addition of residue classes as described in Chapter 0," and, "A subset S of elements of a group G with the property that every element of G can be written as a (finite) product of elements of S and their inverses is called a set of generators of G."

    As we see from these excerpts from the text, Dummit and Foote are disciples of "new math," a doctrine discredited in the 70's. Too often, strange symbols and jargon take the place of clear English prose. Extraneous concepts like "sets"--much less "finite nilpotent groups" or "invariant factor decompositions" or "symmetric multilinear maps"--are merely obstacles to a student's understanding of algebra. Sadly, the authors, holed up in their ivory towers, have not yet learned these vital educational lessons.

    Yet for all the apparent erudition of the authors, the text is full of obvious errors. For example, on page 44, the authors assert that z*a = z + a, an obvious error. On page 97, we find the ludicrous assertion that a^p = a, clearly flase unless p = 1. And on page 329, the text asserts that r(x + N) = rx + N, an obvious typo.

    That the authors could publish such a sloppy text and remain employed at the University of Vermont speaks volumes about the evils of tenure.

    I can only recommend this text to those already secure in their knowledge of Algebra who might derive amusement from the frequent missteps of the authors. "


    Hahahahahahaha!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here is the link: http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.10.14.163749.94.html

      Delete
    2. Wow. That's intense. I can only assume it's a joke from some bored grad student or something. Clearly, it's an educated person, based on the fact that they used uncommon words and nearly impeccable grammar. Also, they read all the way to page 329. I'm sure if they didn't know abstract algebra they wouldn't make it that far.

      But, I agree with you, that is a hilarious review.

      Delete
    3. Well at least you weren't oh darn, move to a better area cheap skate.

      Delete

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