Paul Jay's Ponderings

Not sure why, but lately my brain feels like a useless gellified globule. Go figure. So my creativity has bottomed out until something can get it going again. Could be related to the way I'm virtually anonymous and invisible when it comes to job prospects. Nobody's paying attention, so things just goes on by mostly unseen.

I suppose if the weather was nicer, this would be a good time to go hiking. Either that or see about dusting the cobwebs off the bicycle in the garage. Maybe I'll video some footage of the Amstutz, might try some compositing work later using that... Oh wait, need new batteries for the camera first. Oh wait, need money for new batteries. Oh wait, need a job for money. Bleh.

Labels: bored, can't win, finding work sucks

Somehow privacymatters got dad's new credit number after getting rid of the old one. I figure it's one or more of these three things:

1. Tracking cookie on mom's computer: these things store passwords and other data associated with various sites. Maybe the turd burglars have a way of skimming cookies whenever one of their ads is on a page and from the cookies they can gleam for new data.
2. One of the places she buys from online such as Red Hats or QVC is sharing their data with the bastards running the privacymatters racket.
3. Our banking co-op is stupid, and someone there is sharing data which they should not. Especially when the party getting the data is the one which is specifically blocked. (But perhaps they need the extensive list of all the associate companys which should be blocked from putting any fraudulent bills on the acct.

It's almost tempting to figure out where the head of the operation is. (Running all the free-credit, anti-phishing, and a slew other fraudulent services scams.) Last I heard the central office was in Tenessee, even though their sub-outfits are spread along the eastern and southern states. I'd like to find and identify the bastard personally, and share his data on whereabouts, what he looks like, etc. I bet there are many many people who would like to get their hands on the fellow if the law still fails to do its job.

Got the DAZ3D thing signed up for, going to try my hand at selling a few models. As much as I like making freebie stuff, I'd also like to recoup a bit by having pay-for models. So look for my shopping cart model to show up soon, since that one's going to be my first try at this. Don't worry about the price, it shouldn't be much more expensive than a fast-food meal provided I have any say.

Labels: .obj, 3D model, DAZ3D, item, who knows what?

Huh... All this hype about Sony's Blue Ray beating Toshiba's HD-DVD, and you come along saying they're outdated NOW? Yes. I can say that honestly.

Why?
Have you paid attention to USB sticks? A.K.A. flash drives? Seems that every two months the ones in the store are cheaper, and not only that - but with double the memory of two months ago. Guess what else? There are already USB sticks with 64GB of storage capacity. That rivals the storage density of a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD. If the pricing and capacity trends continue they'll be fairly cheap and exceed the capability of current disc based media. Other advantages of such solid state devices is they're compact, resist most types of damage mechanisms that would ruin an optical disk, and they aren't burdened with much in the way of proprietary nonsense (too many active competitors in this particular market). Only thing needed is a set top player that could easily read and play movies from a USB stick (or actually build it into a TV line). All it would take is someone like Samsung, Panasonic, or LG to step up and make such a thing, and Sony would get blindsided with "WTF?" such that it'd look like "epic fail" to be told of in internet lore for untold ages.

Just thought I'd say something while it's still fresh.

Labels: Blue-Ray, epic fail, HD-DVD, technological bungling, USB FTW, video

Seems my mom has got suckered by a place that has stuff about anti-phishing and also provides a "free credit report" on their website. She went there after seeing a banner ad at who knows where. (Because she follows every stupid link her friends send her, she's old and gullible like that.) Apparently what privacymatters.com doesn't tell you is that they use the number you give for the free credit report to run up a half dozen different spurious charges on your acct. (They're all Connecticut based, wait - what business is out of Connecticut along with the other random charges? Yeah, thought so!) Sounds pretty much like a scam itself, doesn't it? Just thought I'd pass the word.

-----quick edit-----
Did some googling. Apparently my mom wasn't the only one to get hit by this scam. Being that the message dates to 2006, I wonder how many other victims there are.

Labels: free credit, phish, privacymatters, scam