ORB – Open Random Bit Generator
September 6, 2007
Here, this is nifty: ORB – Open Random Bit Generator
Category found things
Gaming Credit
August 22, 2007
So, Google is ending their download to own / download to rent program. They had originally chosen to refund everyone’s monies via credit to Google Checkout, Google’s online shopping card/payment system. That didn’t make very many people happy, so Google then went ahead and refund the whole purchases to the credit cards they were used with, and let people keep the Google checkout credits. Basically, a company doing something kinda nifty. That’s not the interesting story here, though.
Here is the interesting story. Basically, a bunch of FatWallet folks were using Google Video in order to make extremely small (pennies, basically) monthly charges in order to keep credit cards with 0% balance transfers going. (These cards required a very minimal monthly use to keep the 0% on transfers, typically $50 worth of charges or two separate charges.)
Well, since Google has refunded these monies and the people made only those single Google-based purchases during some months, they are now getting nailed with huge back finance charges. One person in the thread even mentions having a $62K balance he suddenly has to pay on.
Talk about trying to game the system and getting bit. Wow.
($62K in credit card debt?!? That’s another wow.)
UPDATE: It looks like some of these people are actually pulling out massive cash advances on one card, transferring the balance to this one, then gaming it so they can make interest in a high-yield savings account on the cash advance while paying less than that in interest in the credit card balance. Sounds like this could be a good game, but it sounds a bit risky to me.
UPDATE2: Er… Maybe not. I think most of these folks are just using the balance transfers to pay off other balances. Quotes of triple mortgages, $30K in credit card debt, etc.
BusRadio
July 2, 2007
I’m sure most people my age who went to high school during the years I did remember ChannelOne and the problems with it. (At the time I didn’t quite understand why my band director refused to show it, but now I understand and wholly agree.)
Anyway, what’s next? Where else beyond 15 (or was it 20?) minutes per day of school-mandated television, vending machines, fast food-branded cafeteria foods, and in-school billboards can ads be put? Why, via looping audio on the bus, of course.
From the site:
BusRadio has launched a national radio show that is delivered exclusively to school buses nationwide. This free program is designed specifically to improve bus safety while providing the students with both age appropriate content and an entertaining ride to and from school.
[…]
An independent study, conducted by Edison Media Research, found that overall student behavior improved dramatically with the implementation of BusRadio programming.
Yep, it’s being sold (well, it’s given in exchange for the student’s brainboxes) to schools and bus drivers on the promise of improving behavior through distraction.
Here I was thinking that the directional audio and looping ads for ABC (I believe) in Meijer checkout lines were bad.
STS-117
June 8, 2007
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I can’t think of words to say how important and moving it is to me to see manned spaceflight continue.
Instead I’ll just give you these captures of STS-117 (photo gallery retired) during it’s launch which happened just over 15 minutes ago.
Alaska in 1996
March 27, 2007
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Me with two halibut in 1996.
(Click for more photos…)
Since I got a good bit of work done in the quiet of this morning I decided to finish up something else I’d been slowly working on for the past while: captioning of the re-scanned photos from Alaska in 1996 (photo gallery retired).
Back in 2004 I had scanned these photos using a transparency adapter on a Epson Perfection 3170 PHOTO. This didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, so when I acquired the Nikon Coolscan V ED I decided to rescan these negatives. Well, that’s finally done. (Information about 110 Slide and 35mm Negative Scanning is here.)
They look much nicer now, and I’d now consider them fairly well archived digitally.
If you’d like to look through them, the rest of the images can be found here (photo gallery retired)
Porcupine vs. Doggy
March 15, 2007
Here are two photos of a dog after it tangled with a porcupine. My understanding is that it was okay, but these photos are a bit painful to look at:
· Dog vs. Porcupine #1
· Dog vs. Porcupine #2
(I didn’t embed them for… well… obvious reasons. I didn’t want to upset anyone.)
Giant Animals and Walking On Water
March 11, 2007
So, instead of talking a bunch about what I did saw today while wandering around, I’ll just post photos, because I think they are sort of nifty. Click each one for a bigger (or in some case full-size versions), which is worthwhile for the wide format ones.
Moon’s Milk
January 2, 2007
Halo around the moon.
As
I don’t have a wide enough lens to get the whole halo (the Tokina 12-24 would have been great about now), but I did get a fair bit of it. After seeing the blinding glare of the moon I went to take another photo with something (me?) blocking out the moon, but it was too late and the halo was gone.
So, there you go. Not a great photo, but it’s a halo none the less. I just hope I get to see another 3-4 ring halo like I did one night when I was little. That was amazing.
Light Table + Loupe
November 11, 2006
I really wish I had a small light table and loupe right now. :\
Oh, can anyone recommend a nice, and reasonably priced, light table and loupe? The prices seem to range from $15 to around $90, and beyond temperature controlled lights, I can’t really tell the difference.
HBD-1 Hog Bung Dropper
October 31, 2006
Darn. I was hoping for somewhere around an order of magnitude cheaper. Then I would have purchased one:
Dear Steve:
Thank you for your interest in Jarvis Products.
Net price to you for the HBD-1, part number 4022028 is $ 4,630.00. To ship
UPS ground the charge is $ 15.00 for a total of $ 4,645.00.Please let me know if you require any further information.
Best Regards
Peter Gwyther-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Vigneau [mailto:c0nsumer@nuxx.net]
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 5:33 PM
To: sales@jarvisproducts.com
Subject: Pricing on HBD-1 Hog Bung DropperHello,
Could you please tell me the pricing for one HBD-1 Hog Bung Dropper? I
would need this shipped to zip code 48315, which is in the Metro Detroit
area.Thanks very much...
-Steve Vigneau
c0nsumer@nuxx.net
586-524-1675
For reference: HBD-1 Hog Bung Dropper, under the section Bung Cutting. Demonstration video here.