The Double A Lounge

Pay It Forward - Or Don’t Pay At All

DoubleA — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:38:29 +0000

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!

Economy 101: White House Style

DoubleA — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:22:42 +0000

Everyone expects that the President of our country will have all the magic fixes for what ails our economy. He would certainly like to think so. So would the two contenders for the upcoming election as well. The reality is that whatever they have proposed thus far would only be a drop in the bucket and make little difference. It’s a worldwide problem on a grand scale far beyond our reach to fix as this article shows:

So far, neither of these textbook measures has worked—for reasons that
have less to do with flaws in the design, time, and sizing of the
policies than with global macroeconomic factors far beyond the control
of the Federal Reserve or the White House. As we noted last week,
there’s a good case to be made that the stimulus is essentially being
eaten up by higher gas and food prices—prices that are being driven
higher in large part by a weaker dollar and strong global demand.

The economic stimulus check was nice to get, but it will never even come close to fixing the problem.

The economy today is being buffeted by a popped domestic housing
bubble, which is deflationary; a global demand shock for food and
energy, which is inflationary; and a credit crisis, which
simultaneously inhibits consumer spending and makes capital more
expensive. There’s no effective short-term fix for any of these
problems.

Sounds like stagflation to me. This article about stagflation backs up my case:

Rising prices and rising unemployment are two of the data points
used in attempts to determine whether stagflation is threatening the
economy. While hikes in the cost of food, energy or other individual
items are generally not perceived as signs of stagflation, a
broad-based rise in the cost of goods and services is something to be
concerned about.

Well there must be a solution, right? Maybe so, but this one from years past may offer some insight:

An effective method of addressing stagflation once it occurs is equally elusive. During the 1970s, stagflation persisted in the U.S. despite the government’s
best efforts to contain it. The trend was finally broken when the
Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to the point where borrowing was
impossible for many segments of the economy, and the country fell into
a deep recession.

Problem is that due to the way stagflation is measured, we are no where near that point yet. We are in economic shock, but not considered to be in the throes of stagflation.

Cool Guitar

DoubleA — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:16:26 +0000

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

White and Nerdy

DoubleA — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:21:43 +0000

Classic stuff: choosing between Kirk & Picard, the soldering gun, and the outlet strip as a gift…amongst others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVtbc_XzrI

No Bum Notes

DoubleA — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:09:57 +0000

Just about any music recording from at least the past 10 years has some sort of editing done to it. The most common one is something called Auto-Tune. It essentially auto corrects any pitch deficiencies in music. It can used as a plug-in on software like Pro Tools or as a stand alone unit. Normally this can only be done with a single sound otherwise if there are multiple sounds, all of them could be pitch shifted. All of that is about to change. A company called Celemony Software is creating a new feature of its Melodyne program called Direct Note Access that can change pitch on any part of a sound. If there is a guitar playing, you can change a single note in a chord. Not only could you change the pitch, you could mute a part of it, change the time placement, etc. This video gives a great demonstration of how it works. Here is another article describing it as well.
It’s gotten to the point where you don’t even need to know how to play or sing correctly to make a recording. To me, that’s cheating and always will be. Any sound recording has errors in it. Some are so subtle you would hardly notice. To me, using things like this just dehumanizes the recording. Before long, we will be figuring out how to take humans completely out of the equation. Support real music made by real people whenever possible.

It Pays To Quit

DoubleA — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:45:10 +0000

Many companies will hire people where even if they don’t work out, just allow them to drag along for the ride. Variety of reasons given why they do this. Many are afraid of improper termination lawsuits or perceived discrimination issues. As this article shows, there is one company that decided to take a different approach. If at the end of the initial training period you don’t think it’d a good fit, then they give you a cash payout to quit. Makes me wonder if other companies did the same how much better it would be for them.

Creme That Egg!

DoubleA — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:02:25 +0000

I’m not sure what to file this one under. Maybe I need to create a category for what people do when they have way too much time on their hands. That poor creme egg!

Creme That Egg!

Budget Hero

DoubleA — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:56:15 +0000

I don’t think anybody who pays taxes in this country hasn’t at one time or another wanted to control where those tax dollars go. Well, now is your chance…sort of. It’s a game called Budget Hero and it lets you do just that. I played a few minutes of it and it already said my policies would essentially make the national debt so bad it would essentially bankrupt the country. Make sure you have your sound on.

I’ll Drink To That..Or Maybe Not

DoubleA — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:57:13 +0000

They say you can drink in calories all the calories you need for a day. After all, aren’t even healthy drinks good for you? I would hold that thought after you read this article from Yahoo! Health. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by what I found. I did like mention of that fact that a Mojito is a much healthier option for one of the drinks listed. Plain water is a great drink and can even be flavored with lemons or limes if needed. No calories, little to no sugar, and no fat. That’s worth drinking about!

Goin’ Off The Rails

DoubleA — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:48:59 +0000

I’ve pretty much lived around trains much of my life. In fact, pretty much anywhere I have lived in this area I’ve been within walking distance of train tracks. The railroads in this country are still going strong after all this time. The steam trains of yesteryear have been replaced by their diesel and electric counterparts. One thing that hasn’t changed are derailments. Found an article on Slate where someone asked why trains go off the tracks.
Some answers I knew already but others surprised me. A good read for the rail curious.