I am very interested to see where this story goes: Adam Savage of Mythbusters, while speaking at a conference, revealed that the producers considered doing a show revealing the flaws of the RFID tags in credit cards. Apparently the lawyers got Discovery to back down from even producing the show. Credit card companies don’t want you to know how flawed and insecure the embedded RFID tags really are. Anybody can read them with readily available equipment. Some of the issues are presented at RSA Laboratories.
August 31, 2008
Mythbusters Gagged by Credit Card Companies
August 21, 2008
Salary Exposure
The Times has a piece on disclosure of salaries and the good points and bad points. More interesting than the article is a referenced site called Glassdoor.com where one could disclose their salary in exchange for information about other people’s salaries. The site has the obvious issue that the salaries are self-reported. There are also clearly some issues about salary vs. bonus compensation.
August 19, 2008
RCN Forums
I should mention that there is a good forum on RCN (as well as other internet service providers and cable providers) at Broadband Reports.
RCN Rates
RCN has raised their rates yet again, with only the most meager increases in service over the last year. I really like the HD channels that they added in the last year, but it’s not enough to justify the $24/month increase in charges that just appeared on my bill. RCN has just about the worst on-demand service I’ve seen. It’s very poor picture quality, not HD, the interface is dodgy, and the selections are few. I realized I’ve been suffering the poor value for far too long and decided to cancel my cable service.
I should have known that it would be a real pain to cancel; RCN’s customer service has declined significantly since I first signed on with them. I spent an hour on the phone to cancel. On the upside, my monthly bill is going to decrease more than $100. I was surprised that they made no effort either to retain me or to determine why I was cancelling the service. Perhaps they are focusing on the telecom side of the business?
Anyway, I’m going to see if I can live without the cable for a little while. I’m open to suggestions on other services (internet or traditional) that I could use to get my TV fix once in a while.
August 6, 2008
Jason Fortuny Sued
It seems that Mr. Fortuny will be getting some more publicity, this time of the unwanted variety. 10 Zen Monkey’s reports that Jason Fortuny is being sued by one of the victims of his “Craig’s List Experiment.”
Fortuny is as always unrepentant:
I’m sure there are dozens of rfjason-haters cheering right now. Are you excited? Are you? Huh, are you? Are you, are you? Yeah? You’re excited? You want me rub your tummy? Ohhhh, you’re such a sweet hater. Yes you are. Yes you are!
Feel the hate Jason. You probably will win the case, but I hope it wastes a lot of your time and money, just as it should.
August 5, 2008
Where are the fat men?
I rarely see a truly fat man running for exercise. It occurs to me that either:
- Fat men don’t run
- Men who run aren’t fat
Clearly more fat men should run.
August 4, 2008
Kim’s Closing
The UWS loses its (only?) decent record store in September when’s Kim’s closes.
August 1, 2008
Times outside scoop on trolls
The New York Times is unusually tardy in how late to the game it is on the story of Internet Trolls. Predictably enough the author of the article got trolled himself by an Internet con artist going by the handle “Weev.”
Calling trolling a growing phenomenon is pretty stupid as just about any half-educated loser with a keyboard has probably engaged in some amount of trolling at this point. Furthermore, the author misses the point about trolls entirely by giving them a mouthpiece in a major newpaper. Here’s a hint: they do it for the attention, not the ‘lulz,’ and you fed the trolls. Internet sociopath and famewhore Jason Fortuny does not need any more exposure than he’s already got. Fortuny’s “motivation” is that of a stunted, maladjusted adolescent lashing out at an unfair world by creating grief for everybody around him. More on his pathetic background is avialable at “The Secret Life of Jason Fortuny.”
Unemployment by the Numbers
Stated unemployment is now up to 5.7% seasonally adjusted. The straight figure without adjustment is 6.0%. Neither of these are good signs for the economy. But it’s always interesting to delve below into the figures and see how difference populations are affected. They never report the stark figures for Black Male unemployment which for ages 20 and over is up to 10% that’s an increase of 2.4 percentage points year over year (seasonally adjusted.)
Education has a huge impact on unemployment. For those with less than a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is 8.4%. Compare that with the rate for those with a Bachelor’s degree which is at 2.4% right now. These spreads in percentage points are typical; There’s a lot to be said for finishing college.
U-6 is also an intesting indicator defined as:
Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.
In other words, people who are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work. That’s up to 10.3% this month from 9.9%.
Plenty of other stuff in there. The BLS’ release for July, 2008 can be found at this url.