Cranial Soup

World's Largest Afghan: A Dream or a Nightmare?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:03:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I wondered if there was a Guinness world record for the largest crocheted afghan. Then I wondered how long I'd have to crochet to break it if there was one. And if there wasn't, how large an afghan would be if I just kept crocheting the same one for a year, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 years.

Then it dawned on me how heavy something like that would be after 30 years of crocheting*. I'd need an extra insurance policy, much like those that own water beds in apartment buildings are required to have, if they are even allowed to own one.

Then I thought about how large it would be and how much space it would take up. Imagine an entire room stuffed full of crocheted yarn, till you can't cram any more in there.

And just how would we get it out of the apartment for the Guinness people to measure it? Who would be able to lift an afghan made from over 1.5 short tons of yarn and carry it down the stairs, even with help?

And the cost of making it? I can't afford that!

And the biggest question of all, how the heck would I be able to even crochet something that big, if I can't lift it to turn it as I am making it? (I was working on a round afghan at the moment that I was thinking about all of this)

So, yeah, screw it.

I don't want to be the world record holder that badly. :-D

*In case you want to do the math yourself, I can realistically expect to be able to crochet about 2 lbs of yarn per week, if I had a constant supply of that much yarn to work with.

Why What Ann Romney Thinks and Says Is Relevant

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 23:46:00 +0000

I posted this link on a social network, and an interesting discussion spawned, involving the idea that what Ann Romney thinks and says is irrelevant, because she isn't the one running for President, her husband Mitt is.

While on the surface that idea might seem logical, in reality, it isn't.

No married President comes alone to the White House. What their spouse thinks and believes is relevant when it is their spouse that they will be sleeping next to, talking to, getting advice from, while behind closed doors.

A marriage is still a marriage, and I think most of us married people, who know just how much influence we have on our spouses, know why what Ann Romney thinks, does matter.

Would anyone be willing to deny that Hillary ever had an influence on Bill Clinton during his Presidency? If you'd say yes about her, but not the spouse of any other President, why?

I guess in the case of Ann and Mitt Romney it would come down to and depend on who is influencing who, wouldn't it? And we have no real way of knowing that. Maybe her comparison of military service to missionary work is hers and hers alone, and she has no influence on how her husband views military service or anything else. Or maybe she does. Or maybe that is her husband's views and he has influenced her.

And this isn't really about her views on just this one topic. It's about everything that Mitt stands for, thinks, and does. It's also about the spouse of every married President, past, present, and future.

Some questions for all the married people out there, anyone that has ever been married in the past, in a close relationship, or grew up in a two parent household (in this case, answer the questions based on your observations of the behaviors of your parents) ...

Did you ever come home and discuss your job with your spouse?
Did they ever discuss theirs with you?
Did either of you ever give the other any sort of advice?
Ever listen to that advice?
Ever act on it?
Did discussions with them on any topic, work or non-work related, ever lead to you changing your point of view on anything?

I think what I am asking is if you had a normal marriage based on teamwork that spilled outside the bedroom?

Because the only way one wouldn't understand the relevance of what Ann thinks and says, is if they didn't, and the concept was unheard of to them.

And I don't believe that for a moment. Every marriage contains a certain amount of teamwork and influencing of each other.

(and yes, this was all rhetorical, I am not trying to pry into anyone's personal business, so don't answer...just think about it.)

Why We Need to Tax the Hell Out of the Wealthy

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Trickle down economics doesn't work. Every Republican President since Ronald Reagan has tried to boost the economy by cutting taxes on the wealthy, only to drive the country into a recession. Check for yourself. Cross reference the list of US Presidents with the list of recessions in the US and see where the economy was at the end of each Republican Presidency since Ronald Reagan.

So, if cutting taxes on the wealthy doesn't create more jobs and a stronger economy, what will?

How about trickle UP economics? Would that work?

Poor people do not take money out of the economy because they spend everything they get. They don't have enough to save or hoard. All of their money goes right back into the economy. Social programs that put more money in the pockets of the poor, put more in our economy.

The middle class, that can afford to save some, do take some of the money out of the economy, but only temporarily. The money they put away for retirement gets spent when they reach retirement age, back into the economy. And if there is anything left over, it goes to their heirs, who will spend it soon after getting it...right back into the economy.

The wealthy, their money keeps growing out of control. They can't spend it fast enough. It is not possible for them to spend the wealth they have accumulated within their own lifetime. They pass it on to their children, who can't spend it all during their lifetime either, so it gets passed on, and on, and on, growing and growing with each generation. And every one of those dollars is not part of our economy any more, can't be unless it gets spent, which will never happen unless it is forced to be spent.

And that is one of the purposes of taxes. High taxes on the rich keep the nations money supply moving around as part of our economy, instead of pooling in huge masses at the top and removed from the economy.

Keep the money moving and everyone keeps working. Take it out of the economy and people stop working.

This is why we used to be a prosperous nation when we taxed the wealthy more heavily and spent more on social programs for the poor, and why our prosperity went out the window when trickle down economics took over and we started punishing the poor. It doesn't trickle down because it can't.

Taking some of that money from the top and putting it at the bottom, in other words giving it to the poor, is the fastest way to jumpstart the economy. Taking from the top and giving to the bottom, where it then goes right into the hands of the middle class as soon as the poor spend it, then right back to the wealthy, where you take it again and give to the bottom again -- lather, rinse, repeat -- strong economy. The money keeps moving.

I said it when Bush was handing out stimulus money to the middle class, who then used it to pay down credit card debt instead of spending it on goods, which sent that money right to the top, taken right back out of our economy; that the best use of that money would probably have been to hand every poor person in the US a gift card and double their food stamps for a month. That would have worked so much better. They would have bought more of what they need to survive, not just hand it over to the wealthy and have nothing to show for it.

I consider wealth to be anything left over after taxes, after paying for all your necessities, food, housing, utilities, medicine, etc. Wealth is what you have left over to do with as you please, especially the money you can afford to save.

The poor don't have that, the middle class saves some for later, the wealthy save for never, because they have too much to ever be able to spend in their lifetime.

This leads to them becoming reckless with their money, investing becomes a game to which the goal isn't really making money to have more to spend. It's making money for the sake of making money, at whatever cost, in order to win a numbers game that win or lose has no effect on their lives. But these risky behaviors do have an effect on the entire economy, which this last recession was the result.

Now before you jump all over me and say that it isn't right to take from the wealthy who earned it and give it to the poor who haven't worked for it, that it's somehow unfair, understand this: it's not really a matter of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, it's more taking from the stagnant pool before it grows into toxic cesspool and investing it where it will do the most good, for all.

It's not good for any of us to have so many people living in poverty, to have the middle class slip into poverty themselves. It is not good to have high crime rates because the poor can't find jobs or lack the skills needed to earn a living. Investing in them is investing in all of us. Teach them some skills, like building and fixing roads, then fund the road repairs, then set them loose to do the job. The result will be that we will all have smooth roads to drive on, including the wealthy, and the poor that built those roads will have the money they need to buy the basic necessities of life...and they will have earned it. It's not a hand out; it's a hand up. Things like this will raise the quality of life for everyone.

President Clinton helped boost the economy through Welfare reform, which poured money into job training programs to get people off of Welfare and into jobs, and not low paying McJobs, either...real jobs. He handed over a prosperous country on the right track to George Bush, who then proceeded to undo everything good that was done, in favor of more tax cuts for the wealthy, more deregulation (which triggered more reckless investing), and more unpaid for wars.

Investing in job training for the poor and unemployed, and funding projects for those newly trained people to work on, is one of the things that helped our country come out of the Great Depression of the 1930's. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal invested in our infrastructure and gave jobs to some of the poorest people in our country. That infrastructure is still used today, but is aging and in bad need of repairs. Why not help fix our economy by repairing that infrastructure, and even modernizing it?

This idea that war is good for the economy has to stop, too. All it can hope to do is decrease the demand for jobs by decreasing the population that is left to need jobs. And the more recent wars the US has been involved in, didn't even do that. It just racked up more debt for the whole nation, making the problem even worse.

Use the environment as a good example of how it should work. Consider the oceans to be the wealthy and the mountain tops to be the poor, and the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds to be the middle class. Unless enough evaporation takes place, mostly from the oceans, no heavy snows will fall on the mountain tops, no snow means nothing to melt and feed the rivers, nothing in the rivers to flow to lakes and ponds, nothing to flow back to the ocean. It has to keep moving and at a rate to sustain it, or it all dries up and turns to desert, surrounded by ocean.

Trickle down economics doesn't work unless you flip it over and put the poor at the mountain tops and tax the heck out of the rich's ocean to feed the whole system. Let it trickle from the poor back to the wealthy, creating prosperity as it moves along.

If you don't, then it all ends up in the hands of the rich, nothing in the hands of the poor and middle class, and then even the rich won't make any more money. Then the entire economy completely collapses because the money stopped moving, there is nowhere for it to move to. And when that happens, even the rich will starve because their money will be worthless when there is nothing more to invest in.

Yes, that might seem a bit far fetched. We will most likely never get to that point, but how much closer do we need to get to it? How much worse does our economy have to get before this trickle down lie goes away? How much worse does it have to get before we force the wealthy to invest where it is the most needed, through taxes, and not on reckless Wall Street games? How many more have to fall from the middle class into poverty? How much worse does the life of the poor have to become before we change direction, before we all get it and flip it over so the cash can flow freely again?

I don't want to punish the wealthy. I want them to keep earning, keep enjoying the lifestyle they have. I want them all to be happy, today and tomorrow. The only way to do it is to tax them more.

It worked before and it can work again. We can level the playing field a little, invest in the lowest classes of this country, put them to work, and make the American dream a reality, once more.

(Some crowd-sourced links provided by Bryan Fuselier, Jason Nichols, and Michael Cohen)

Would you donate something like this to your local food pantry to feed the needy?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:39:00 +0000

Do you consider this food? Real food?

A local food pantry that used to give out real food now gives these packs out to the people that they serve. They have been doing this for about 4 months. Included in the pack is 1 package containing a Slim Jim-like beef stick and a small cheese stick, 1 extra individually wrapped cheese stick, 1 single serving of apple sauce, 1 single serving of sunflower seeds, 1 single 4 oz. serving of juice, 1 single serving of mini animal grahams. Lots of fat, sodium, and carbs in that little box, This same food pantry also gives out single servings of cereal in little bowls with tear off paper lids, and single serving 8 oz. juicebox size containers of milk.

It doesn't matter what the family size, everyone gets the same amount of packs....4. And you get 3 bowls of cereal, and 1 box of milk. You can only get food from this food pantry once a month.

These packs are produced by ES Foods.The company claims they were designed to be snack packs for after school programs. Or lunches for schools without cooking facilities (they make packs with sandwiches in them). And they were not designed with adults in mind.

This food pantry used to give out bags of real food, stuff you could feed a family with for more than a day...bags of rice, boxes of pasta, cans of tomato sauce, quart size pouches of powdered milk, full size boxes of cereal, cans of tuna, bags of dried beans, cans of baked beans, cans of vegetables, boxes of macaroni & cheese, cans of beef & gravy, jars of peanut butter and jelly. You used to walk out of there with 2 large paper bags of groceries, packed full. Then suddenly this, in one little plastic bag.

Now this is a big deal to me for the following reasons:

I am one of the people that rely on this food pantry for food. Don't get me wrong, I am not being ungrateful or looking a gift horse in the mouth.
What bothers me about this is that most people I know would not consider the packs they give out to be real food. Most parents would not send their kid to school with Lunchables because they are unhealthy, over priced, and do not contain very much food. While these convenience packs they are giving away are not Lunchables, they are pretty much equal to them.
What they are giving is 3 breakfasts, 4 lunches (maybe), screw you for dinner. What if you have a family of five, 2 parents and 3 kids? Or 1 parent with 4 kids? What they used to give out fed my family of three, for days...breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What they gave out was much healthier food, with lots of stuff we all could eat.

I opened up the 4 packs and divided them up among the family members, according to what each person could consume. My hubby is a diabetic, so he can't have the juice, apple sauce, or cookies. He also doesn't have teeth, so he can't have the sunflower seeds. I have gall bladder issues, so I can't have anything too fatty, which means I can't have the cheese, meat, or sunflower seeds. I also don't like sugary drinks, so I can't have the juice. Daughter is a vegetarian, so can't have the beef sticks. So I ended up with all the applesauce and cookies, daughter ended up with all the juice and sunflower seeds, and hubby got all the beef and cheese sticks. Now the big question: What is for dinner? That was a question I used to be able to answer after visiting this food pantry.

This particular food pantry is serviced by Feeding America (aka Second Harvest). This is the organization where you can donate money at the cash register of the supermarket, when you do your food shopping. This organization discourages people from making food donations. They claim food donations are bad because they never get enough of the right items and too many useless items. They claim that money is better. They claim they can get more food, better food, for your money than you can because they buy in bulk and know what they need. If you donate to this organization, this is what they are now buying with your money. Is this what you'd buy? Can you do better than this? Could you buy better food, more food?

Other food pantries in my area are run by churches, serviced by food donations from parishioners. They give out real food, normal food, food that answers the question, what's for dinner? You get 2 bags of real groceries, and you can go twice a month. Two of them even gives out stuff like 10 lb bags of frozen chicken legs, fresh eggs, fresh produce, frozen fish, venison roasts, loaves of fresh Italian bread, hams and turkeys for holidays. They don't get any help from any of the large regional food banks and they are serving their community much better. One of them has a couple of community cookouts during the summer, where they invite the needy to a nice barbeque and provide some fun social interaction with the community...food, music, games for the kids. They will even come and get some of the shut-ins, with parishioners providing transportation. If they can do stuff like this, why can't Feeding America provide even a fraction of what they do? What the hell happened to make such a sudden drastic change in the amount of brains behind this organization?

Maybe, just maybe, Feeding America needs new management, people that really care and use their brains to provide real food with the money they are entrusted. Maybe that would better serve the hungry, and do right by the donors that support the organization, spending their money more wisely.

I used to support this organization with cash donations, back when things were much better and I could afford it. I used to encourage other people to donate to them, too. I even did so on this blog. I won't any more, not till they show some evidence of having more than 2 brain cells running things.

I am suggesting everyone follow my original advice for donating to a local food pantry:

Your local food pantry will need your help, more than ever, during this time of economic crisis. If you can spare anything at all, please consider making regular donations of food to the one closest to you. A little bit can go a long way and help a lot of people get by this winter, and beyond.
These are the kinds of items they would always be in need of:

spaghetti and other pasta products

spaghetti sauce (preferably with vegetables or meat)

canned meats (like tuna or chicken)

shelf stable milk that doesn't need refrigeration (something like Parmalat)

canned and dried beans

peanut butter & jelly

hot &cold cereals

pancake mix & syrup (get the "complete" kind that doesn't require eggs)

rice

canned fruits and vegetables

soups and stews (stuff with lots of meat & vegetables)

Just think healthy & nutritious, and don't give anything that you wouldn't eat. This is not an invitation to clean out your pantry of all your unwanted crap. They don't want your dust covered cans of gourmet liver paté and jars of pickled baby corn, that neither you nor your dog would eat.

If you are giving anything that requires something else to make it a complete meal, be sure to buy the other item to go with it, such as is the case with stuff like pasta & sauce, pancake mix & syrup, peanut butter & jelly, and cereal & milk.

When in doubt, contact your local food pantry and ask what they need most, or if they are willing to accept an item you may want to provide, before you make your purchase.

Probably about the easiest way you could do this, is to just pick up at least one extra non-perishable meal each week, when you do your shopping for your family. Then drop off the food you bought at your local pantry, on your way home.

If you are having trouble locating a local food pantry near your home, pick up your phone and call churches in your neighborhood. Many of them serve their community by running a food pantry.

Most do not require the people they serve to be a member of their church or even hold any religious beliefs, at all. And they don't use it as an opportunity to preach their flavor of religion to the people they serve, either. So if you are an atheist/agnostic, this shouldn't be an issue for you. Don't let it stand in the way. (Who cares why churches help, as long as they help and do it fairly.)

The Truth About the So-called "Obama Phone"

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 06:14:00 +0000

There is a story that right-wing nut jobs are circulating around that says that President Obama gave all black people a free cell phone, paid for with taxpayer money. It is based on a video of a black woman's claims that she got a free cell phone, so she is voting for Obama.

The problem with this story is that it just isn't true about the phones. The woman in the video is wrong about where those phones came from. And the right-wingers are wrong about how they are paid for.

So, what is the truth?

You know that extra charge on your phone bill that is marked "Federal Universal Service Fee", "Universal Service Fund" or "USF"? How long have you been paying that? Since before Obama became President? Do you know what that charge is for and who it goes to?

You have been paying into this fund since 1997. It is not a tax. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated that all landline and cell phone service providers pay a portion of their profits into the Universal Service Fund to help ensure Universal Access to communications services to all citizens living within the US. Your greedy phone service provider chose to pass the cost of this along to you instead of paying it themselves.

Do you know how it is spent?

Up until 2008, it was spent mainly on subsidizing phone companies that service rural areas. That's right, it was used to bribe phone companies to keep providing affordable phone service to those that live in remote parts of the US. Without the bribes, the phone companies threatened to either jack up the rates to rural areas, making it impossible for anyone living in those areas to afford a phone, or they would just not provide any service at all. They say providing service to those areas is too expensive and not very profitable.

It was also spent to help provide communication and internet services to qualifying schools, hospitals, and libraries. Thanks to the Universal Service Fund, doctors at rural hospitals could now provide better care for their patients with video conferencing that could put them in touch with specialists at larger, more distant hospitals. People without computers could access the internet at their local library. And more technology in the classroom is always a good thing, especially in poorer school districts.

In 2008, under the Bush administration, they began using the fund to do more to help the poor obtain phone service that they might not otherwise be able to afford. That's what Universal Access means. It means everyone has access. This is done in 1 of 2 ways, depending on the person's situation.

In urban areas, which usually have good cell phone reception, a prepaid cell phone is given to a poor person. This is a cheap Tracfone, worth about $20 at most. The recipient of this phone is given between 60 and 250 prepaid minutes every month, depending on which state they live in. It has a maximum monthly value of about $10. They have to reapply every year and prove they are still poor and still need help obtaining phone service. If they run out of minutes, they have to buy one of those Tracfone prepaid cards with their own money or wait till the beginning of the following month when they get more free minutes.

Most people that get a free phone receive a Motorola C139. It has no deluxe features. They are NOT given iPhones or any type of smart phone, nor are they given any type of deluxe "dumb phone" with features like camera, media player, or a full QWERTY keyboard. They are not provided with a data plan. They are not even given unlimited text messaging. They can not access the internet from their phone like you probably can do with yours. It's the cheapest, crappiest, most basic cell phone and service available. Are you still jealous? Would you trade in your current cell phone and service for this? Would you even trade in your current landline service for this?

Think about the average length of one of your phone calls. How long would 60 minutes last you? Think about how many text messages you send and receive every month. In some states, a person with one of these free phones can send and receive at most, 120 messages, provided they don't use any of their minutes for talking. And yes, they get charged for receiving messages, as well as sending. As far as voice calls, have you ever been put on hold? Being put on hold can very easily eat up all the free minutes given under this plan. In my state, if you apply for unemployment by phone, you can expect to be placed on hold for over 4 hours. You don't even get enough minutes under this plan, in any state, to cover that.

In areas without good cell phone reception or in certain cases like where the recipient might be disabled and/or require special phone equipment, poor people can receive up to a $10 credit on their phone bill, paid directly to the phone company, to make it cheaper for them to have landline phone service. This credit doesn't cover the entire cost of having basic phone service. The recipient would still end up having to pay something, and they would still have to provide their own equipment. Prior to the Bush administration, this was the only option that was available to the poor, to help cover the costs of phone service, and was available to all poor people, regardless of whether they lived in a rural or urban area.

You can not receive benefits under both plans. You can have either a cell phone or a landline credit, but not both. It is limited to one per household, and only to the head of the household. There is no family plan, you have to share the one cell phone (or landline) with all family members.

The federal government would prefer to give all low income households a cell phone instead of a credit on a landline, because providing cell phones actually goes farther towards ensuring Universal Access. Unfortunately, that isn't always possible and landline service is sometimes the only option. And sometimes, a family is so poor that even with a credit, they still can't afford landline service. This is another reason why they would prefer to give cell phones, when possible.

Why would the government help provide phone service to poor people?

Because these days, phone service is a necessity. We are not living in 1900. If you do not think it is a necessity, then I challenge you to give up both your landline and cell phone for six full months and rely only on pay phones whenever you want to make or receive a call. I bet some of you won't make it through one full day.

Or you can just do the following:

Imagine what your life would be like if you were too poor to afford a phone.

Imagine you or a family member, perhaps your child, being injured badly enough that someone would need to call for an ambulance. Or perhaps your or a neighbor's house is on fire, or maybe there is an intruder in your home. How are you going to call for help if you don't have a phone?

Imagine your child is at school and gets sick. How is the school nurse going to call you to tell you to come and get your child?

Imagine you are looking for a job. How likely will it be that you will be hired if you leave the phone number box blank, on an application?

What if you already have a job and you need to call in sick? Or perhaps someone else called in sick and your employer wants to call and ask you if you can fill in on your day off? Since you are poor, you could really use the extra money but since you don't have a phone, your employer will call someone else.

What if you are homeless and it is not possible for you to have landline service (not that you could afford it, any way)? Does that mean a phone is any less of a necessity to you? When was the last time you saw a pay phone? How about a working one? How about one that allows incoming calls?

Where did the idea for this free phone come from?

And as far as this being an "Obama phone", the woman in the video was mistaken. Like I stated earlier, this program began in 2008, under the Bush administration, so maybe technically it is a "Bush phone". But the idea of providing low-income individuals with subsidized phone service originated in the Reagan administration. So maybe it's a "Reagan Phone". But then again, all of that evolved from ideas about universal access from as far back as the Wilson administration, so maybe it's really a "Wilson Phone".

And it is not given to all black people. Race has nothing to do with it. In fact, most of the poor people in this country that are receiving free or subsidized phone service, are white. Many are disabled. And many of them are elderly, having worked their entire lives for minimum wage and are now trying to live off a $600/month Social Security check. And you have to prove yearly, that you are too poor to afford phone service without help. So, black people that make too much money, don't get to have a free cell phone, just like whites that make too much money can't have one.

And there are a whole lot of people receiving subsidized phone service indirectly through the Universal Service Fund that are not even poor, but would be if they had to pay the proposed rates for rural phone service that the phone companies would like to charge.

Universal Service Fund at Wikipedia
Telecommunications Act of 1996 at Wikipedia
FactCheck.org debunks the "Obama Phone" in 2009
ThinkProgress.org debunks the "Obama Phone" 2012
Motorola C139 at Wikipedia
Motorola C139 specs and features
SafeLink Wireless FAQ

Be sure to share this post with any right-wing nut jobs that you know, that are in need of an education. I'll be more than happy to set them straight.

What clueless moron would suggest that the ER is a suitable substitute for regular healthcare?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Mitt Romney thinks emergency rooms provide sufficient healthcare for the uninsured. He doesn't think they have any need for more than that. At least that's what he said in a "60 Minutes" interview, on Sunday night.

Emergency room care is neither free nor affordable, nor is it a replacement for normal healthcare. Emergency rooms are for emergencies, not routine regular care.

Over-crowded emergency rooms, full of non-emergencies, reduce the level of care for everyone by shortening the amount of time that a doctor can spend on any individual patient, for both the insured and uninsured alike. Forcing the poor to rely on emergency rooms for all of their healthcare needs puts a strain on services intended for and designed to meet the needs for the treatment of acute emergencies only.

And there is an awful lot that emergency rooms just will not do.

Emergency rooms do not provide routine wellness checkups to catch and treat potential issues before they become major life threatening problems.

You will never get a cancer diagnosis or treatment from an ER, even with insurance. The most an ER will do for someone with cancer and no insurance is hook them up to a ventilator when they reach the end stage and can no longer breathe for themselves, and they might not even do that. The ER does not give out chemo, does not schedule you for surgery to remove a tumor before it spreads to the rest of your body. The ER will not help you fight cancer. If you have to rely on an ER for your cancer treatment, you will lose, cancer will win, and you will die.

Treatment for gallstones in an ER for someone with no insurance is to hook them up to an IV for about 12 hours and then discharge them with the advice to "eat a low fat diet", without spending any more than about 10 seconds to explain what that really means. Treatment for someone with insurance is removal of the stones, or gall bladder.

Walk into an ER in an urban area and complain of pain. Unless you are bleeding or have broken bones, there is a good chance that hospital personnel will assume that you are a drug addict looking for a free fix. Whatever is causing your pain will not be taken seriously and you will be discharged with instructions to go see your primary care physician.

A diabetic can not receive testing supplies nor medication for the daily treatment of his condition from an ER. The only people that get treatment for diabetes in an ER is when they are brought in because their blood sugar is either dangerously high or low, which triggers something else happening (like them passing out). They will also not receive regular screenings for nerve damage in their feet and hands, which can lead to the need for amputation. They will not be given vision screenings to help prevent blindness.

Someone with asthma will receive emergency treatment from an ER to stop an attack, but will not receive any treatment to prevent future attacks. Each attack will cost the tax payers in excess of $3000 if the patient can't pay, while an inhaler to prevent attacks would in many cases only cost the tax payers around $10 per month.

Emergency rooms do not dispense prescription eyeglasses or hearing aids. Nor will they straighten your child's crooked teeth with braces, fill cavities, or remove tartar build up.

Emergency rooms do not prescribe or dispense birth control, except for some hospitals that will dispense a "morning after" pill to a rape victim.

Emergency rooms do not provide routine prenatal care to ensure that your baby has the best chance of being born healthy.

Emergency rooms do not provide daycare for Alzheimer's patients. They won't watch your mom for you every day so that you can go to work.

Emergency rooms do not provide mental health services to anyone that is not an immediate threat to themselves or others. And for those that are, the care stops as soon as they are out of danger, not when they are ready to face life on their own without help.

Even Mitt Romney's example of a person having a heart attack not being refused treatment in an ER is flawed. If that person had a primary care physician and access to prescription drugs, he might not have had a life threatening heart attack in the first place.

What Mitt Romney meant to say to every uninsured person in America was that he doesn't care if they die.

Telling uninsured people to use the ER for their main source of healthcare is only a step above telling them to go to the library and look up their symptoms on WebMD, and then treat their health issues themselves with whatever they can get without a prescription. In the end, regardless of whether they go to an emergency room or not, that is pretty much what they will be doing most of the time, any way.

Boost Your Klout Score by Playing Facebook Games

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 03:41:00 +0000

Be careful about how much trust you put into a Klout score, because certain Facebook users with too much time on their hands, that do nothing but play games all day, could potentially beat the Klout scores of some of the most influential people on the internet.

Based on this, the following information could potentially allow you (or anyone else) to game the system and increase your Klout score without doing much to influence anyone....time wasting activity of 0 merit.

No, I didn't deliberately do anything black hat to boost mine, it just happened to work out that way and I didn't even notice the boost until Gail Gardner from Growmap pointed it out to me, on Twitter. After taking a closer look at my stats, I realized exactly what had happened and why.

Before I go any further, I need to state that I do not place any merit on Klout scores because I know they are crap, can be gamed, and do not fully reflect anyone's true influence or reach on the internet, or even on the short list of social networks that Klout supports.

That said, here is how I accidentally managed to boost my Klout score...

I am an avid daily player of three Facebook games. I have lists of Facebook friends that play those same games, and I post bonuses and achievements to my wall, visible only to the list that plays the same game. This keeps my wall clear of game activity, allowing only my real posts to show to everyone else. I also hide all posts made by others to my wall, so only I can see them. Nobody wants to visit someone's profile and see nothing but game posts or have to sort through game posts to get to the real stuff.

Most of my comments and likes on my posts are on those game posts that YOU can not see, because you are not on any of my game lists.

Other players mark a bonus as claimed by liking the post...and they also use auto-collector apps to claim bonuses, which advertise themselves as comments to your game bonus posts. (it's a thanks message and an announcement that the bonus was auto-collected by whatever app they are using)

When you connect Klout to your Facebook account, it sees EVERYTHING...not just your public posts, or posts visible to all friends/friends of friends. It sees your HIDDEN posts to various lists, too. And it factors that activity into your score.

So, to increase your Klout score through the roof...

1. Play Facebook games (at least a few of them that are supported by an auto-collector).
2. For each game that you play, have at least 50 friends that also play (you can find them from the game's fan page).
3. Set permissions for all posts to your wall by other people to "only me" so others will not see people posting game crap to your wall.
4. Create lists of game players and configure the game's permissions in Facebook's privacy settings for posting visibility to show game posts you make to your wall only to that game's list.
5. Play the games often and freely post every bonus you get to your wall so your gamer friends can collect them, like, and auto-comment on them.

Short list of Klout boosting games (the ones I play):

Monster World
The Sims Social
SimCity Social

I am sure there are plenty of others, but I don't play them. You could probably get a good list of games to try from the list of games this Facebook app supports: Game Feed Bonuses Collector

Are you violating copyright if you forward an email?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 01:58:00 +0000

This article got me thinking about copyright law and email communications.

Current US copyright law grants the copyright holder the exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution.

It also does not require registering the creative work in order to be protected. Protection is granted at the time of creation.

In other words, if I open Notepad and pour my heart out about the events of the day, and save the file to my hard drive, it's protected under copyright law.

Now, if I copy and paste that to an email and send it to someone, am I relinquishing my exclusive rights to reproduction and distribution? Does the recipient really have the legal right to print it out (reproduction) or forward it to someone else (reproduction AND distribution) without my permission?

And taking that a step further, does anyone have the legal right to print out a copyrighted web page? Could that also be considered a violation of copyright through reproduction?

But thinking about the old case of VCRs and the right of people to record programs from TV for personal use falling under Fair Use, I guess it depends on the purpose of reproduction. You have the right to record television programs for personal use, but you do not have the right to distribute those reproductions to anyone else.

So, as long as you print for personal use, emails or web pages, I guess the same Fair Use rule would apply. But that still leaves the issue of forwarding emails to others...redistribution. That's not for your own personal use. Could it be considered a violation of copyright?

What I learned from a job interview at an Aldi supermarket and why I will never shop there

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:37:00 +0000

Just got back from a job interview today. A supermarket cashier job at Aldi, where the starting pay rate is $12/hr. I had 3 strikes against me before I walked into the place. This store is just as, or more evil than Walmart. Here are some of the requirements...

All cashiers must be available to work between the hours of 6am and 11pm, 7 days a week.

This is a strike against me because I rely on public transportation. Because of the distance I would have to travel, it is a 1.5-2 hour ride, requiring me to take 2 different buses to get there. I would have to catch the first bus at 4am, when that bus isn't even running yet. The 2nd bus I would have to catch doesn't even start running till 6am. I would be late for work by the time I stepped on it.

And even if I could get there at that time, if there is a possibility I would be scheduled to work till 11pm, that would mean I would be a female waiting for a bus, alone in a rough neighborhood known for it's gang activity, after midnight. I would be an easy target for a mugging and/or rape. I would have to be nuts to put myself in that situation.

All cashiers must be capable of spending long hours on their feet doing very fast paced physical work, capable of lifting 45lb boxes.

This is the other 2 strikes against me. When you walk into an Aldi supermarket and see that their cashiers sit on their butts in chairs while they are ringing up your groceries, it is very misleading. They do not sit there all day doing that.

They also do all the stock work, all the heavy stock work, involving a lot of heavy lifting. Aldi does not hire a stocking crew like other supermarkets. They don't hire anyone except cashiers and they make their cashiers do EVERYTHING.

And they run with a skeleton crew, with the least amount of people possible per shift. They work their cashiers to death. Burn them out, throw them away, hire more to replace them.

I only applied for the job because the cashiers were sitting and I thought that their cashiers were just cashiers. I have problems with my feet and can't spend long hours standing without causing myself a great deal of physical pain that would require a long recovery time. I can take a sit down job where the most standing I'd do would be on my commute back and forth to work. Perhaps when I was younger I could have handled the heavy lifting part of it, but not at my age. I'd probably throw my back out on the first day.

So unless you can spend 8 hours a day on your feet, running around like a chicken with your head cut off, lifting heavy boxes, this job is not for you.

They also prefer their cashiers to have extensive retail experience and managerial or supervisory experience, preferably in retail. (this one wasn't a strike against me.)

And unlike other supermarkets, they are non-union. I do not believe the supermarket cashiers union would ever allow their members to be treated this way.

So, now you know how Aldi keeps their prices low, and why they pay their cashiers $4.50/hr over the minimum wage, to start. The manager even admitted that this is the reason for their low prices. I wonder how many of the cashiers they hire even last the 3 months required to start receiving benefits, without their bodies falling apart.

Now, my husband took the trip there with me, since I did not think I'd ever be able to find the place on my own. He is much more familiar with the bus routes and that area than I am. Before we left the place, he insisted on buying a bag of pork rinds, because they were so cheap and he didn't have any more at home. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to get into an argument with him, but I will never shop in one of their stores. I wouldn't feel right about it. Not until they are unionized. Those cashiers need it.

To be perfectly honest, I think if you are working in an Aldi store and making less than $20/hr, you are probably being cheated.

Facebook Offers Incredible Targeted Spamming Opportunity to Spammers

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 08:57:00 +0000

Recently, as reported on Gizmodo, Facebook rolled out a new feature by issuing every one of their users an email address, whether they wanted it or not, and then made it the default email address on their profiles. Many Facebook users are upset by this and are running to their profiles to hide this new email address from view.

I am really amazed that I seem to be the only one that sees this for what the spammers will see it as: an incredible opportunity to send out tons of highly targeted spam emails, tailored to the recipient's product preferences.

Imagine you have a website that sells cheap counterfeit goods and you want the maximum return on your spamming campaign. For each fake product you sell on your site, visit the official fan page of the real product. For each post on their wall, scrape the profile URLs for every like and comment that appears there. Toss out all duplicates. Extract the usernames from the URLs. Attach "@facebook.com" to the end of them. Send your targeted emails to the lovers of the actual products, offering them incredible deals on the products they love. Repeat with another of your fake products until you have covered your entire inventory.

There will probably soon be tools to automate the process to make it so easy to exploit Facebook's new email system in this manner.

You see, before the @facebook.com email address was an option and you could opt out. Now it is not. Facebook gave it to you whether you wanted it or not, planned to use it or not. And they don't allow you to choose one that differs from the name in your profile URL. And hiding the email address from your profile doesn't delete it from existence, doesn't stop anyone from using it to send you maill. This new unwanted email address only helps the spammers to be more effective in their spamming.

Sophos officials seem to agree, but they think it will simply result in a flood of product, phishing scams and malware spam, and they are probably right. What they seem to miss is how highly targeted the spam will become.

New Art and a New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:25:00 +0000

I recently redesigned and moved my old RussoGraffix art site to Blogger. From now on I'll be posting all my art releases there, instead of here.

To celebrate the occasion, I have released 6 new CC-BY licensed works for you to use.
Click the images to visit the pages and get the files.

Free Website Banner Graphic: Night Sky

Free PSP Vector: Cube of Spheres

Free PSP Vectors: Dice

Free PSP Vector: Balloons

Free Images: Gold Coins

Free PSP Vector: 4-Leaf Clovers

Web Link Captor: A great new research tool and time saver

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Web Link Captor will be a real time saver for any blogger or curator of information that has a large list they need to link to other sites.

It was inspired by my father's Desert Island Jazz Collection...about 700 tracks of what my dad feels is the all-time best of the best that jazz has to offer. Many people have asked him to publish this list on his blog, but the amount of work involved to look up every album and link it to Amazon, with an affiliate ID, is just too much work for him to consider doing.

With Web Link Captor, a task like this will be much faster and easier, with automatic formatting of the output in HTML, bbCode, or Wikipedia markdown, depending on where you want to paste the results.

But it doesn't just link to Amazon. It can link to Wikipedia and a host of other sites. You have full control over everything and can fine tune it to be exactly what you want.

Watch the video and see it in action:

So, if you have any enormous lists of value that you have hesitated publishing on the web because of the amount of work it would take to manually link each item somewhere that would enhance the list and make it much more interesting and useful, give Web Link Captor a shot.

It won't be officially released until January 1, 2012, but you can request an early fully functional beta version on the forum.

Web Link Captor was created by Jesse Reichler (aka mouser) for DonationCoder.com's New Apps for the New Year (NANY 2012) software celebration. Every year the community at DonationCoder holds an event where developers pledge to release a new freeware/donationware application by Jan 1. Most applications are pre-released to give the community time to test and offer feedback, and give the developers a chance to fix bugs, add requested features, and apply some final polishing before the official event date.

Whether you are a developer or just love software, you can be a part of this great community, too. And if you spot a DonationCoder application that you really like, we encourage you to support its development in any way that you can, through donations, testing, feedback, spreading the word, etc.

How to make people want to stop forwarding all those "funny" emails

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:13:00 +0000

I used to have a bunch of friends that would forward me emails almost every day containing jokes and other crap. You know the stuff I am talking about. You have probably received a ton of it yourself over the years and know at least one person that is a compulsive forwarder of such crap. I say "used to" because they no longer send me this stuff. They don't want to. They now want to selfishly deprive me (and their other friends) of it, at least in the form of emails.

I have a reputation of building websites and blogs for little or no reason other than to temporarily amuse myself. My friends know this about me.

One day I decided to set up a blog to post all those "funny" emails that friends were sending to me, and then sent each of them a link to it, explaining that I was not going to forward the stuff they were sending to me.

I told them my intention was to make money off it by slapping ads on the blog. I then asked them to double the amount of "funny" emails they were forwarding to me if they could, because I needed more content for my new site. Most of them complied with my request and temporarily increased the number they sent out.

When they started decreasing them, I sent out emails to the slackers and politely informed them that they needed to work harder to amuse me. I started making requests for specific types of forwards. I included links to items on Amazon.com for stuff I wanted, explaining the ad revenues from my site were being put towards obtaining them. I even warned them when they sent me doubles, explaining that they needed to check my blog and send out only new material that was yet unpublished.

I sent out occasional Thank You emails with photos of myself with some "new item" I had just acquired, supposedly paid for with ad revenue earned from their "funny" emails, and encouraging them to keep up the great work. (I actually made very little from the blog, less than $1/month)

Today I receive very few of these email forwards. :-D

What I essentially did was take what some people view to be a fun activity that annoys their friends and turn it into a boring repetitive task in which they receive no pleasure from, view as work, and I receive profit when they do it.

In other words, I exploited them and let them know about it. I took the fun right out of it.

My actions made them think about what they were doing and some even decided the best use of their time would be to set up similar blogs (that nobody reads) instead of forwarding this crap to others. I exploited their selfish nature by making them think I was benefitting from their actions more than they were.

It was a brilliant bit of reverse psychology.

Free Art Download: Like Us (CC-BY)

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:56:00 +0000

(shown actual size)

What you get: This image with a transparent background in both PNG and PSP vector formats.

Font used is Cooper Black which you will need to open the PSP vector file.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

What Republicans Do Not Want You To Know About Poverty and Taxes

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:12:00 +0000

The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, is one of the most violated of all the federal labor laws.

About 15% of all wage earners in the US are earning at or below the minimum wage.

The average full time minimum wage worker earned about $15,000. ($7.25 per hour x 40 hours x 52 weeks = $15,080)

She paid at least 20% of her income in taxes.

Even though it might be true that she had no federal income tax liability, she still had other taxes to pay.

Payroll taxes such as

Social Security
Medicare
Disability
Unemployment
State income tax
sometimes local income tax

She also had additional taxes such as

sales tax
excise tax on fuel
USF surcharges on
- telephone service
- natural gas
- electricity
property taxes, even if she rents (it would be hidden in the cost of her rent)

Additionally, she pays for her healthcare out of her pocket because minimum wage jobs do not come with healthcare benefits. She pays a higher price for a doctor's office visit than the insurance companies do. ($75 self pay vs. $35 paid by insurance) If she ever needs to go to the hospital, it could easily cost her over $4500*, even more if she has to be admitted.

She also does not get retirement benefits and is looking at a reduction in her income down to about $600 per month when she is too old to work and begins collecting Social Security, and will be expected to pay a portion of that to receive Medicare benefits. And that is only if there is still a Social Security system by the time she is old enough to collect.

A typical minimum wage worker is not a teenager from a middle-class family flipping burgers for some extra pocket cash to buy CDs, movie tickets, lipstick, nail polish, and video games.

Most minimum wage workers are women, standing on their feet all day working various jobs within the service industry. They are some of the hardest working people in this country.

Many are single mothers with more than one child, and many of those are receiving little or no child support to help offset the costs of raising those children. They also have the additional costs of child care, if they have no family support system capable of providing free care so that they can work.

And Republicans think they make too much money and need to have their wages cut, by either reducing or eliminating the minimum wage. They also want to cut or eliminate the social programs that help them to survive. They actually think this will help the poor and lift them out of poverty.

* I do not have medical insurance. I pay out of my pocket for all of my medical care. Back in 2006 I passed out in my kitchen, which resulted in a head injury requiring 8 staples to close the wound. I was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital, which resulted in a bill that was just over $3000. This did not include the additional charges for physicians fee, lab work, or the MRI. Those were billed separately and were an additional $1500. My town is one of the small number in this area that provides a free ambulance service to its residents, but if they didn't, the ride would have been an additional $300.

If you don't pay these bills, the hospital may sue you, which could result in garnishment of your wages, which has the potential of knocking a minimum wage worker's pay down to about $150/week until the debt is paid off (with interest, court costs, and lawyers fees). There is also the very real possibility that instead of or in addition to garnishment, the court may seize your bank account (woe to you if you just made a deposit to pay your rent) and/or the local Sherriff may come in, seize and sell off the contents of your home, leaving you with no more than $1000 in personal assets and possessions.

Google Accounts Are Restricted to People Age 18+

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:56:00 +0000

It seems a lot of parents are very upset about their children under age 13 having their Google accounts deleted. They seem to think that since Google didn't explicitly ask for an age at the time the account was created, that their young children could have one. It wasn't until Google Plus was launched that they learned differently.

Children are having their Google accounts deleted, Picasa photos, emails to Grandma, school work in Google Docs, and all, for violating the age restriction, when they enter their age when joining the Google Plus social networking service.

The Google Terms of Service clearly states in Section 2.3

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

While most websites have a clause in their contract barring use by those under 13 years of age (there is a law restricting that), Google has chosen to word their Terms of Service in such a way that it bars any US resident under the age of 18, because minors under 18 can not legally form a binding contract with anyone.

Let this be a warning not only for those under age 13, but for those age 13-17, as well. Google may delete your account and everything in it, if they find out that you lied about your age by agreeing to their Terms of Service. If you are under 18 and have a Google account, yes, you did lie to get it.

Always read the Terms of Service. If you don't, it could come back to bite you later.

Gardens of Time Game Guide: Speakeasy Blitz

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:46:00 +0000

In case you were having trouble locating all 62 items in the game, here is a list of their co-ordinates and a screenshot with a grid to help you find them. They are in letter-number format, so locate the letter on the side, then the number across the top or bottom of the image and where they intersect, you will find the item. Click on the image to open it full size.

Even if you memorize where everything is, it will still be pretty difficult (if not near impossible) to click them all within the 60 seconds they allow you. Best I have been able to get is 43.

Please do not ask where any specific item is in a comment. Look it up in the screenshot. It's all there, mapped out for you.

Good luck!

Amythyst ring Q-31
Ankh Q-12
Axe O-2
Banana K-4
Baseball bat Q-14
Bell C-17
Books E-14
Bowl N-15
Bowling pin H-12
Brass trophy N-3
Broom R-6
Buckle E-2
Buddah K-7
Butcher knife M-30
Camera I-20
Cane P-24
Cannon Q-18
Checker board P-7
Cigar N-26
Computer monitor K-28
Cork N-17
Crown B-9
Cue ball M-26
Curtain F-28
Dart G-28
Dart board F-25
Deer mount F-22
Dice O-30
Feather K-18
Fish D-13
Footprints P-22

Gold bars P-10
Hammer K-15
Hat R-23
Heart I-22
Horn N-18
Hourglass P-21
Ladder H-21
Lantern I-25
Lighter P-29
Lock K-31
Mole J-22
Money bag J-19
Monkey L-16
Phantom mask O-19
Piano keys E-9
Pitcher J-24
Playing card M-1
Plug H-31
Scissors P-18
Seahorse F-18
Spoon P-16
Spring G-17
Spyglass K-26
Star H-4
Table lamp H-27
Thermos N-4
Triangle K-21
Wallet R-20
Wheat penny R-3
Wheel L-14
Wrench K-3

I will post other guides like this one, if and when I can find all the items, then find the time to map them.

You'd be amazed at the things you can fix with a toaster oven...

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 05:48:00 +0000

This is a guest post by a friend of mine that wishes to remain anonymous. His only desire is that this information is shared with the public and that more people can put it to use.

I just baked BlackBerry Cobbler (a BB 9630). It came out perfect.

The phone took a dive into a sink full of water while its owner was doing dishes, and went unnoticed until the sink was drained. It was deader than a door nail when I received it.

I took it apart, rinsed it as clean as I could with tap water, and then with 97% rubbing alcohol. I let that evaporate and then placed the printed circuit boards in the toaster oven, on top of strategically-placed screwdriver bits so-as to space the board off the aluminum foil lining the oven tray. Then I set the oven for 180 F for about 20 minutes. I did not toast the battery in the oven for safety reasons.

Just a tip.

Also I have baked laptop wifi and video cards, desktop pci cards, laptop motherboards, desktop motherboards and xbox consoles with the red ring of death (the larger items in a full size oven). Quite literally, if it's toasted anyhow, what does one have to lose other than 20 minutes? Sometimes items need their solder to be reflown, and this wet-phone-drying/toaster oven reflow soldering method honestly has saved both myself and those around me a ton of cash. Reflowing solder should be done at 230 F or so for about 20 minutes.

Plastic bits on the board? Plugs? Wires? No worries! Heck, part of the BlackBerry cobbler I baked tonight (the 9630, that is) was more than 60% plastic, and I didn't even bother removing the camera before baking it. I kept the temp about 180 F since a solder reflow was not required, but if a reflow might benefit the item I do not hesitate to turn it up to 230 F.

Never leave the oven unattended, not even for a moment, just in case plastic bits start to disfigure - but they shouldn't, as plastic typically melts at a higher temperature point than solder.

Don't bake the outer shell of the phone though - bare boards only.

Never bake a battery unless it is soldered onto the board, in which case go for a higher blast of heat for a shorter period (say, broil for 7 minutes).

Next time your phone hits the sink (one of my older BlackBerry phones took a 20 minute trip into the clothes washing machine) or your laptop video or wifi card dies (these are prone to overheating due to poor cooling, sometimes they can flex some, breaking solder joints in the process, and can benefit from a reflow), etc, pop the circuit board into the oven for a little bit. What's the worst that can happen? I've fixed newer HP laser printers I was literally given because they didn't work, simply by reflowing their main boards. $75 a pop at yard sales is a nice profit for me simply having put my toaster oven to work.

When you're done, do not budge the toaster oven until it has been off for at least 20 minutes. It would suck major donkey scholng to bump a board with molten solder and have an IC with a 500+ solder ball grid array slide just enough to short circuit things even worse than they were, when some patience to let the boards cool down adequately could have had the item fixed.

In this day and age, when things seem so disposable and inexpensive, so much waste gets created and is disposed of. It's a shame if that little toaster goes under-utilized and our broken disposable electronics aren't even considered for repair.

It should be noted I do not cook, thus my toaster oven is solely dedicated to the task of baking printed circuit boards. Tin and lead vapors/molecules in or on my food doesn't appeal much to me. Then again I prefer fast food, so...

Give it a baking in the toaster oven before you toss it, you may be pleasantly surprised at how perfect things come out. And you'll learn how stuff is assembled and disassembled in the process!

And for those of you that would like to use this information but need an inexpensive toaster oven, I found this one for you on Amazon:

The Two Best April Fool's Pranks

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:58:00 +0000

One I did to someone else, the other was done to me...

One year, many years ago, the start of Daylight Savings Time began on April 1st. Before going to bed, my husband and I went through the house changing all the clocks. I waited for him to fall asleep and I pushed them all ahead an extra hour. He woke up that Sunday morning and rushed off to work, without ever realizing what I had done till he arrived at work and went to change the big clock on the wall.

Now what made this one of the best pranks ever is how for 3 days of every year, whenever Daylight Savings Time begins or ends, and on April 1, my husband goes into a time panic, thinking I am going to prank him like that again. He becomes such a wreck and I just laugh. I never have to prank him again. That one time was good enough to affect him for the rest of his life.

Now the one that got me wasn't really a prank at all. When I was back in high school, I received a phone call very early in the morning on April 1, from someone that was trying to tell me that school was canceled because of snow. Even though I was half asleep, I was quite aware of the date, and wished her a Happy April Fool's Day before I hung up. I ended up getting ready for school and going downstairs to leave, opening the front door to a vision of about 2 feet of snow. Yeah, the joke was on me, that phone call was for real.

Creepy Service Wants Everyone That Can See Your License Plate to Be Able to Send You Unsolicited Text Messages

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:31:00 +0000

Bump.com hopes that this video entices you to sign up for their service, tying your cell phone number to your vehicle's license plate. Please don't be stupid enough to fall for it.

First of all, if you see a baby left alone in a car, you should call the police...not send a text message to the parent guilty of child neglect that is putting that baby's life in danger.

And sending a text to the jerk in front of you to give him a piece of your mind for his bad driving is a really BAD idea. It just encourages road rage, which can have deadly consequences.

Reporting a break-in in progress to the owner of a vehicle instead of snapping a photo of the criminal & calling the police, can result in the possible injury or death of the owner of that vehicle if they should come running out and confront the criminal. You do not know if they are armed and dangerous.

And marketing? That's not marketing...that's spamming. It won't take long before you decide to change your phone number and/or plates, if this crap becomes popular. You'll have to, to get any kind of peace. It won't take very long for someone to start collecting license plate numbers and selling them to the highest bidder. The potential for abuse here is seriously high...worse than email because a license plate number is a whole lot easier to get than an email address.

If you want everyone in the world to be able to send you any kind of message they please, whenever they want, including some of the most vulgar filth imaginable, then just put your cell phone number on a bumper sticker and/or wear it on a T-shirt...or perhaps write it on the wall of a public bathroom. (no, I don't think you'd really want to do that, but using BUMP is just about the same thing.)

Finally, as Gail Gardner from Growmap pointed out, this service conditions people to spy on their neighbors and complete strangers, eroding both our privacy and freedom.

A Recipe for Profit

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:23:00 +0000

What Exactly is a Business Model?

The short and simple answer is that a business model is a recipe.

Just like a recipe for anything else, it's a list of ingredients and detailed step by step instructions on how to go from ingredients to final results.

If it were a recipe for lasagna, it would be a list of everything that goes into the lasagna (noodles, cheese, sauce, etc.) and step by step instructions on how to turn those ingredients into lasagna. It doesn't leave anything out or leave you guessing about what or how much you need. It's well planned out. You'll know what you need to acquire before you start, what equipment is necessary, and a general idea of how long it will take and how much it will make. If you follow it to the letter, you will make a lasagna.

In the case of a business model, it's all those things you need and how to combine them into the result, which is profit.

Now, how do you determine what ingredients and equipment you need and how to turn them step-by-step into profit? Vivek Wadhwa wrote a great article that will give you a lot to think about as you decide that for yourself and formulate your own profit recipe for your business.

Free Art Download: Bat (CC-BY)

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:57:00 +0000

What you get:

This image in PNG format.
An additional image without the background (transparent) in both PSP vector and PNG formats.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Chop These Up and Have Some Fun (CC-BY)

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Here are a bunch of desktop wallpapers that I made way back when I thought 800x600 was the standard. Since desktop resolutions are much higher today, they really aren't suitable for that purpose any more.

I have decided to re-release them under a Creative Commons Attribution license, and let everyone have some fun chopping them up and turning them into new art. Just give credit by linking back here, anywhere that you display them or works created with them.

Click thumbnails for full size images.

A full year’s worth of blog post ideas

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:27:00 +0000

I got this brilliant idea from Chris Whitely a few years ago. You can literally buy 365 fantastic niche-specific blog post ideas, in a single pack. All you have to do is tear off the top page and write about whatever it says, each & every day. Don’t copy them word for word, just use them as your springboard to get you started.

And if you know a blogger that is struggling with ideas for what to write about, it would make the perfect holiday gift. Just be sure to point out that it’s a blog-post-idea-a-day pack, because it might not be that obvious to them to use it for that purpose.

To make it easier for you, I dug up these from amazon.com. If you have a blog related to any of these topics or want to start one, these will be perfect for you.

Yes, they are affiliate links and Amazon will throw me a few cents if you buy through my links, but it won't cost you any more than if you had just gone to the site and found the calendars on your own. And if none of these calendars interest you or you don't like the prices, you are free to look elsewhere.

The Single Most Important Book I Was Ever Exposed To

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:56:00 +0000

When I was a kid, Ed Emberley's Make a World was a library book that my younger sister and I monopolized. One of us would check it out, and keep it for as long as possible, renewing it for the maximum number of times allowed. Then the other would grab it before the librarian could put it back on the shelf, and repeat the process.

We did this for years. I am really surprised my parents never bought us a copy, but to their credit, they remembered this and bought my daughter a copy when she was about 5 years old.

Ed Emberley teaches that if you can draw a few basic shapes (circle, square, triangle, lines, dots, and a few numbers and letters), you can draw anything that you can imagine. From building a heart shape from two circles and a triangle to more complicated things like castles, dragons, and even the Canadian flag, Ed shows how easy it really is.

But it's not "just a drawing book"...it's a whole lot more. It's a child's first technical how-to manual. It sets them on the right path for acquiring the skills needed to self-educate.

Image by Austin Kleon via Flickr

It's really good for teaching kids how to follow step-by-step instructions, especially ones that contain no text...a skill that will come in handy later in life if they have to build IKEA furniture.

It also teaches a valuable life skill by changing how you look at the world. It teaches that anything in life that seems too complicated and hard to do, is made much easier when you analyze it and break it down into much simpler parts. The earlier in life a child learns this, the more doors will be open to them, and the list of possibilities greatly increased.

It's not enough to tell a child that they can accomplish anything in life that they set their mind to. They need to be taught how, and this book is a great place to start.

Purchasing this book through my Amazon affiliate link will not increase your price and is a great way to show your appreciation to me for introducing you to this book.