The Double A Lounge

Your credit profile is one of those things that everyone has but few fully understand. One thing everyone can understand is that it could be used by someone else for their own benefit. Well, don’t we have things to protect us against such things from happening? We do…sort of. There are ways of locking down your credit report or thwarting credit offers. Since identity theft is now a bigger problem, that means that someone is going to get the idea of turning that into some sort of service that makes people feel safer about it. Enter LifeLock, a company that does just that. They advertise pretty heavily now as evidenced by this video. They aren’t the only ones that do this, but they claim that they can watch over your credit and assist you with repairing if something goes wrong for as little as $10/month. Sounds like a great deal, right? Well, the old saying holds true - if it sound too good to be true, etc. In this case, I suspect it could be a case where people would use this service out of some unfounded fears and misconceptions.

As this article from Wired shows, what would seem to be good for consumers is already being lobbied against by credit bureaus and financial institutions.

This service pisses off the credit bureaus and their financial
customers. The reason lenders don’t routinely verify your identity
before issuing you credit is that it takes time, costs money and is one
more hurdle between you and another credit card. (Buy, buy, buy - it’s
the American way.) So in the eyes of credit bureaus, LifeLock’s
customers are inferior goods; selling their data isn’t as valuable.
LifeLock also opts its customers out of pre-approved credit card
offers, further making them less valuable in the eyes of credit bureaus.

So LifeLock essentially does something for you that you could do yourself. You would need to contact the major credit bureaus every 90 days to have a fraud alert put on your credit report. It’s already been clearly established that the last thing the credit bureaus want is something imposed on them that makes your credit report less valuable to financial institutions.

In reality, forcing lenders to verify identity before issuing credit is exactly the sort of thing we need to do
to fight identity theft. Basically, there are two ways to deal with
identity theft: Make personal information harder to steal, and make
stolen personal information harder to use. We all know the former
doesn’t work, so that leaves the latter. If Congress wanted to solve
the problem for real, one of the things it would do is make fraud
alerts permanent for everybody. But the credit industry’s lobbyists
would never allow that.

So because people who benefit from our credit info would lose money, we have to always be watching over our backs or pay the $120 per year to LifeLock or someone similar.

I have only one thing to say about that - no deal!

The Moog synthesizers changed the music world forever. Although the original analog units are no longer being made, they are still highly sought after due to their unique and rich sound. The Moog Music company went out of existence then came back for another run with a lot of new products. Now they’ve made a guitar, but this is no ordinary guitar.
Normally with any guitar, you can only sustain the sound on it for a limited amount of time. The simple fact is that when strings vibrate, the vibration eventually stops. Now there have always been various tricks used to prolong the sustain ability of a guitar such as using feedback or reverb units, MIDI, etc. What makes the Moog guitar so unique is that it has infinite sustain that is produced purely by the strings themselves - no MIDI or other electronic tricks. Has something to do with the metallurgy of the strings themselves and the pickups used. Not only can it sustain, but it allows a mute mode and even sports various various to coax additional harmonics from it or even blend various effects. Watch the video below for more about it.

Introducing The Moog Guitar

Shown Above: A brewmaster showing a bucket full of hops in pellet form used in brewing beer.

Now I know we have a real food supply crisis in the world when beer starts being affected. Apparently it is becoming increasing difficult for beer breweries to acquire hops which is a critical ingredient in most of the beer we drink. Some quotes from this article in Wired are quite revealing:

Gortemiller isn’t acting on a spurt of creativity. He’s coping with a
worldwide shortage of hops — the spice of beer. The dry cones of a
particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its
flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop
supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United
States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily
discerned by serious imbibers.

This is another quote that is very eye opening:

“When hops were $2 a pound, compared to $20 or $30 a pound now, it
didn’t matter. We’d throw them into the boil at various times,”
Gortemiller says. “That was an inaccurate way of doing things. We’re
modifying recipes and using about 20 percent less hops.”

It’s not just hops either - it’s even affecting barley supplies:

He’s paying more for barley, though — the price has jumped because of
a drought in Australia, flooding in Europe and a trend that has farmers
worldwide switching to corn to produce biofuels.

Some breweries put into place long term contracts to buy hops and barley well into the future. They pretty much get first pick so they won’t be affected as much. There are special hop varieties that may not even be available in the years to come. So what could all this mean? Some will need to change the formula upon which their beer is made. You could start seeing a bigger push towards varieties that use much less hops. There are some varieties out there already but they usually take a very small chunk of the overall beer market. More farmers are turning away from growing less profitable crops like hops and more profitable crops like corn which is now being used for biofuels. The beer will be more expensive and could taste quite different than what we are used to. Anyone for a cold one?

Every so often, you run into one of those opinion articles that really is spot on. If you’ve ever done any reading on technology trends, then you are no stranger to a man named John Dvorak. He’s been writing articles about technology trends since the 1980’s so he knows a thing or two about the economy and it’s affects on that sector. He writes a regular column called John Dvorak’s Second Opinion for a site called MarketWatch. I’ve always liked his columns since they provide some interesting insights into the inner workings of the tech sector. His latest column talks about the public’s eroding trust in financial institutions. To quote one of the paragraphs:

It turns out that we are looking at nothing more than pigs at the feed
trough gorging on easy money while pretending to be the public’s friend
and protector. This situation is seriously damaging the economy and
threatening the future of the economic system.

That probably sums it up as good as any. It’s all having a ripple effect. High gas prices, runaway food prices, high rates of mortgage foreclosures, failing businesses…need I go on? What makes this article stand out for me is that it doesn’t try to micro analyze individual factors. Instead it takes on the broad picture and identifies the root cause of the problem. Don’t see that much anymore in articles like these.
Unfortunately, he does make another point worth noting:

The whole scene is as bleak as it could be, but because of a declining
public interest and perhaps a general stupefaction of the public,
nothing is done about it. It’s a population of sheep being fleeced over
and over with hardly a complaint.

Many people simply don’t care and won’t do anything about it. Unless people stand up, speak up, and take action it will keep happening. If someone is fleecing you with fees, then stop using the service. If everyone did that simple action, it would go a long way to sending a message.

I urge you to check out his current column. It won’t cost you anything but time.

I think just about everyone has played the board game Monopoly at some point in their lives.  I found this article that details how a special version was made during World War II to help prisoners of war escape.  It was easy enough to sneak in and proved invaluable for planning an escape from a POW camp.  I don’t think I will think of the game the same way again next time I play it with the kids.

If you’ve ever studied the history of the Roman empire, you start noticing some clear reasons why the empire fragmented apart.  I found this article about an interview with David M. Walker who is the Comptroller General of the U.S.  He heads up the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) which is essentially the investigative arm of the legislative branch of our government.

He makes some very interesting points about how our current fiscal policies could cause an explosion of debt.  He also makes mention of how the entire country’s physical infrastructure is in dire need of upgrading and cited the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis as a wake up call.

Ever tell someone to go fly a kite?  If you ever do, make sure send them a link to this page about how to make a kite.  What I like about this one is that it uses something as simple as one of the plastic bags you would get from a grocery store.  Similar bargains have also been found in the local dollar stores.  My oldest daughter had a kite from the dollar store that flew wonderfully despite taking a lot of abuse in the process.