August 2011

There were 42 posts published in August 2011 (this is page 4 of 5).

LinkedIn quietly sells your info

A new “option” appeared in the accounts of LinkedIn users, providing LinkedIn permission to sell their users’ names and photos in “social media” advertising without asking its users about it first.

Here’s what the option says:

LinkedIn may sometimes pair an advertiser’s message with social content from LinkedIn’s network in order to make the ad more relevant. When LinkedIn members recommend people and services, follow companies, or take other actions, their name/photo may show up in related ads shown to you. Conversely, when you take these actions on LinkedIn, your name/photo may show up in related ads shown to LinkedIn members. By providing social context, we make it easy for our members to learn about products and services that the LinkedIn network is interacting with.
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Checkup

I got a physical this morning; the first one I’ve had in a few years. There are a million other things I’d rather do than get poked and prodded by a doctor so I put it off for as long as I can, but I figured I was now overdue.

I’m pretty darn fit for a 42 year old, it turns out. Blood pressure is an excellent 114/68, pulse 74 (though I took my pulse last week and clocked it at 50, lower than my previous best – ha!). Even my cholesterol is trending very nicely in a healthy direction, with only a slightly elevated LDL.

The one thing I’m looking at is a low white blood cell count and a low platelet level. Outside of my initial visit as a new patient it was the first time the doc quizzed me on my family history. That raised my eyebrows a bit, and later I found that these numbers can sometimes indicate something bigger. My doc didn’t seem overly worried, though. I’m due to get another lab run next month and hopefully these numbers will be back to normal.

On another health note, I reached my target weight today! I set a goal last year to drop back to 170 pounds and this morning I was there. I feel great!

What Happened to Obama’s Passion?

With his failure to collar our country’s financial crooks, Barack Obama missed a big opportunity and let America down. As my friend Chris says, when given a choice between the working folks and Wall Street, Obama runs to the moneyed interests every time.

America needed someone to clean house on Wall Street after the mess the banks made of our economy. I suppose we’ll have to keep waiting.

IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn’t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.

via What Happened to Obama’s Passion? – NYTimes.com.

For your safe room, skip the duct tape

Sealings ... nothing more than sealings.


So my newspaper, the Raleigh News and Observer, had a quickie feature in the Life section giving advice for preparing for a hurricane. Part of the story talked about safe rooms: a sturdy room in your home where you can ride out the storm:

SAFE ROOMS

A safe room is the best protection in a tornado. To build one using Federal Emergency Management Agency specifications, go to www.fema.gov and search “safe room.” Pre-fabricated rooms are available for less than $5,000. The National Storm Shelter Association ( www.nssa.cc) lists verified safe room vendors.

That’s all fine and good. We’ve got a “safe room” designated and the family has met there before during tornado warnings. However, the picture next to the article showed some genius taping the door of his safe room with duct tape. The caption reads: “Keep duct tape handy to seal a ‘safe room.'”
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Cheap thoughts: illumination

Dead CFL bulb


I began labeling my CFL bulbs with the date I put them into service. This one died today after just 18 months of use. Ordinary bulbs last far longer than this! Cheap (possibly counterfeit) electronics are to blame.

So if CFLs aren’t the answer, what is? When will LED bulbs be ready for prime time? Is there a future where we move beyond bulbs entirely? Are self-illuminated walls and ceilings in our future?

Americans saving more, spending less

I read this Associated Press story with interest Tuesday. It announces “troubling signs” for the economy.

WASHINGTON — Americans cut their spending in June for the first time in nearly two years after seeing their incomes grow by the smallest amount in nine months. The latest data offered a troubling sign for an economy that is adding few jobs and barely growing.

So, what are the “troubling signs (emphasis mine)?”

Consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in June, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was the first decline since September 2009.

… and …

Incomes rose 0.1 percent, the smallest gain since September. Many people are also pocketing more of their paychecks. The personal savings rate rose to 5.4 percent of after-tax incomes, the highest level since August 2010.

So if the cloud is the state of our abysmal economy, the silver lining is that Americans are getting their own financial houses in order.

Pandora-ed out?

I was impressed to learn that the Roku’s Pandora channel had been redesigned, allowing one to link it to an existing Pandora account. Now I can get all of my Pandora channels on the Roku, making the Pandora channel much more useful to me. A few nights ago when Travis and I were alone, I cranked up my Intoxica surf-rock channel and we rocked out to that while I was cooking dinner.

Having enjoyed the tuneage from my Roku, yesterday I fired up my Intoxica channel on my laptop. You know what? It didn’t last longer than an hour. I became bored with the music and turned it off.

I think this is one of the flaws with Pandora: you can build a channel so exactly that the music begins to sound the same. It doesn’t take long for me to start wishing for a little more variety. With Pandora, one can box oneself into a corner.

There are some new music services out there now like Spotify, which might fit the bill, but I’m not in the mood right now to have to learn another service all over again (and there’s no free Linux client as of yet). For now I’ll stick with Mondomix and it’s world music stream.

Wrong transaction from your credit card in Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort

Oh nooooooes!

Hey …. wait a minute! I’m pretty sure I was at home on July 26th. Could this be …. perhaps …. a scam?

From: “Reservation Departament”
To: Mark Turner
Subject: Wrong transaction from your credit card in Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:00:33 -0700

Dear Guest!

Transaction: Visa 925136_F2
On July 26th, 2011 Hotel made wrong transaction debiting from your credit card for an overall amount of $1887.
For noncompliance of the service contract this Hotel was divested accreditation in Moverick Company.
For the return of funds please contact your bank and fill information in the attached form. Continue reading →

Sinking sun

Stepping out this morning on my daily dog-walk, I noted that the sun was no longer awake before I was. We’re facing the end of summer and in spite of the mosquitoes and oppressive, record-setting heat the thought makes me a little sad, I have to admit.

It’s been a great summer. We’ve seen the kids through swim meets, T-ball games, soccer games, and sleepovers. We’ve spent many afternoons at the pool and had a wonderful time building our garden and enjoying the bounty it’s provided. We’ve taken trips to see Kelly’s parents and gone on the best-ever camping trip to Grayson Highlands. Soon, we’ll be taking our biggest trip of the summer as we head off for a week on Orcas Island in Washington state.
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Piling on the sugar

One of my pet peeves is the habit food companies have of piling on the sweeteners. Some take the position that anything they sell can be made better with a double-dose of high fructose corn syrup. What results is a society with an obesity epidemic.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Take yogurt, for example. We’ve long been looking to buy a brand with less sweetener added. What we’ve found is it’s harder than you think.

You’d think that by buying brand-name food, or food that touts its health benefits most prominently, you’d be picking the healthiest, right? Wrong. Let’s take a look at three different yogurt brands in our refrigerator right now:
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