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Archive for November, 2005
Free Coinstar (8.9% fee waived)
Posted: Sunday 20 November 2005 @ 12:35 am by joecm
Clean out your pants pockets and head down to you local coinstar kiosk. Coinstar is now waiving the 8.9% fee it usally charges when you turn your coins into giftcards instead of cash. With Christmas right around the corner, you should be able to put them to good use. Make sure to check the website to verify that the program is available at the kiosk you use.
Gift Cards are available for:
- Amazon.com
- Starbucks
- Hollywood Video
- Linen’s and Things
And of course if you are feeling charitable, you could always donate your change at one of the kiosks.
Read more about it here: http://www.coinstar.com/us/WebDocs/A1-0-3-1
Badger Badger Badger
Posted: Saturday 19 November 2005 @ 8:24 pm by joecm
Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger
Funny and annoying animation. Send it to your friends, amuse yourself, or tie someone you hate to a chair and let it run for a few hours. Probably an effective torture device as well. Who knew an animation could be so versatile.
Free and Nearly Free Fonts
Posted: Saturday 19 November 2005 @ 4:39 pm by joecm
I have limited ability in design and I freely admit it. So when I do attempt to design a newletter or a website, I depend on people who do have design ability. Adobe and Agfa would like you to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get the fonts you need. I prefer to go to the following sites.
http://www.highfonts.com
http://www.abstractfonts.com/
http://www.acidfonts.com/
You can find thousands of free fonts at these sites. And if you have $10 to spare, AbstractFonts.com will let you download all 2000+ fonts on their site at one time.
Craigslist Missed Connections
Posted: Tuesday 15 November 2005 @ 11:18 pm by joecmRemember that hot girl you smiled at in Starbucks? Does she think of you like you think of her? Read longing posts of hopeful romantics as they hope fate, and a little technology, will bring them together. This site will remind you how precious seizing the moment is and how inaction will cause regret. Good luck to all those missed connections.
A sample:
Like a siren, you robbed me of speech, stole away with my breath, and captured my gaze. It was all I could do to pry myself from your captivating eyes long enough to finish trying to convince the club manager that my Bally’s membership was good there. I’m glad I did, because maybe It means I’ll get to see you again. This time I’ll smile. Will you smile back? I can’t wait to find out…
Visit it here: http://www.craigslist.com/mis/
Things Stressed Women Say at Work
Posted: Tuesday 15 November 2005 @ 11:04 pm by joecm- Okay, okay! I take it back. Unf**ck you.
- You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing.
- Well this day was a total waste of make-up.
- Well, aren’t we a damn ray of sunshine?
- Don’t bother me, I’m living happily ever after.
- Do I look like a people person?
- This isn’t an office. It’s hell with fluorescent lighting.
- I started out with nothing and I still have most of it left.
- Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble wrap is cheap. You choose.
- Why don’t you try practicing random acts of intelligence and senseless acts of self-control?
- I’m not crazy. I’ve been in a very bad mood for years.
- Sarcasm is just one more service I offer.
- Do they ever shut up on your planet?
- I’m not your type. I’m not inflatable.
- Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven’t gone to sleep yet
- Back off!! You’re standing in my aura.
- Don’t worry. I forgot your name too.
- I work 40 hours a week to be this poor.
- Not all men are annoying. Some are dead.
- Wait…I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.
- Chaos, panic and disorder … my work here is done.
- Ambivalent? Well, yes and no.
- You look like shit. Is that the style now?
- Earth is full. Go home.
- Aw, did I step on your poor little itty bitty ego?
- I’m not tense, just terribly, terribly alert.
- You are depriving some village of an idiot.
7th Heaven - No soup for you!
Posted: Tuesday 15 November 2005 @ 10:28 pm by joecm
Advertisers alert, 7th Heaven is now officially for sale. The recently canceled WB family drama is well known for tackling tough topics such as women’s rights in the Middle East, homelessness, and teen pregnancy. But the shows producers have apparently decided to cash in during this final season; introducing a three show arc involving Campbell’s soup.
Plot be damned! Bring on the infomercial!
During one of the episodes, Campbell’s soup was featured in nearly every scene. The Camdens were eating and talking about it constantly. Campbell products found themselves in nearly every shot. The plot of the show revolved around the soup. Ruthie’s sick, better bring her some soup. Dinners on, better have some soup. I need a snack, better have some soup. It is bad enough to know that every product you see on television was put there for a fee, but when the plot is altered to help advertise the product, the quality of the show suffers.
Now they didn’t completely sell out as they were promoting the Labels for Education program, but I think it is clear that they were promoting the soup more.
Get out of my lane!
Posted: Friday 11 November 2005 @ 4:09 pm by joecm
A recent plan in California to allow solo drivers to use the carpool lanes for a fee has made we wonder; what are carpool lanes really for? The name would imply they are designed to get people out of individual cars in order to lower congestion and pollution. But as politicians increasingly get their hands into the use of these lanes, they are taking them places they were never intended to go.
The carpool lane has always been a flawed concept. The rule allowing children, even infants, to count as the second occupant has always seemed a bit odd. How is a parent driving their child around any more helpful to society than a a person with no children driving around? Do we really think the children are going to take their own cars if they aren’t allowed access? It seems to me that we should at minimum restrict the lane to cars with 2 or more driving age people.
Now, a recently enacted California law allows the owners of certain hybrids to apply for a permit to legally drive solo in the carpool lane. While this does promote environmentally friendly cars, it also favors higher income individual and does nothing to improve congestion (except removing these cars from the other lanes). Since carpool lanes, like all other public roads, were paid for by everyone, they should not favor one model car over another – especially a more expensive car.
I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised that the government’s next step is to allow people to “buy” their way into these lanes. Why use them to promote any sort of agenda at all when you can use them to raise revenue? Sure, they will still be free to carpoolers and hybrid drivers, but now they’ll be sharing the road with that new V22 Hummer. What is this saying about the purpose of these lanes?
With all the new uses for these lanes, maybe it is time to ask if they should exist at all. I suppose with more and more cars being added to these lanes with all the different programs, these lanes may go away on their own.
Computers Scanning your License Plate
Posted: Thursday 10 November 2005 @ 11:39 pm by joecm
It seems like something straight out of Enemy of the State, but a British invention designed to fight terrorism has the potential to revolutionize some aspects of law enforcement. Platescan is an Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology that can read in license plate numbers of cars driving up to 110 MPH. It can then run those plates through any number of available databases and flag the operator if something comes up. The speed of the system is also quite impressive. At up to 4 scans per second, the system can process up to 14,400 plates per hour.
The technology is currently in use in California in both Los Angeles and Sacramento. It is mainly being used to catch car thieves, but there are many other possibilities for this system. A network of these cameras could be set up along all the major freeways to help supplement the current Amber Alert System. These same cameras could then also be looking for vehicles involved in crimes and even making sure that insurance and registration are kept up to date.
The system uses a “neural network” technology to recognize the patterns of letters, which the company’s website claims has a distinct advantage over the competition’s OCR solutions. As computer power increases, I wonder if the system might be able to recognize patterns beyond just license plates. It seems far fetched, but it may some day be able to look out for a red Honda Civic with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker. Now that is scary!
UPDATE: The future is now… See what is going on in the UK right now.
Learn more here: http://www.platescan.com