ldopa.net

A great collection of photos of modern day hobos.

a.k.a. “hold me closer, tiny pancake”

A couple of days after my post about using disposable credit card numbers to avoid fraud, I got a call from Citi Bank saying that my debit card number had been compromised. The call was out of the blue which was weird, but she didn’t ask for any identifying information. She just started listing off charges I had made on my account, asking if they were legit. They all were, and she said they would be deactivating my card anyway and would send me a new one. She wouldn’t tell me why they thought it was at risk, stating that the security department had reason to believe it was the case. She transferred me over to the debit department to get a replacement card sent out, but my cell phone dropped the call while I was on hold. She called me back and told me it would be a long wait before someone would pick up. She offered me a phone number to call instead, and I took it.

I called them, and while I was on hold, I looked over citi.com in search of a listing of that number. I couldn’t find one. When the guy finally answered, he asked for my card number or account number. I pointed out that I really had no idea who he was, and how could he prove he worked for Citi Bank. He agreed, and pointed me to the customer service number listed on the website. I called them back, and everything was legit. How do I know it was legit? The person who answered was in India. Proof positive, buddy. Anyway, they are sending me a card, leaving me without any access to cash or any idea how this got started in the first place.

A few years ago, L-Dopans Jon, Jeff and I went to see the world premiere of the Ballet Mechanique in Lowell Mass. It was a particularly Modern piece of music, interesting and intellectual, and honestly no worse than anything composed by the archvillain of music composers, Karlheinz Stockhausen.

I suspect that these scores aren’t much better in implementation, but they sure are fun to look at.

(Thanks to the eversoawesome Music Thing)

Nifty piece of typographical theater by Jarratt Moody available for viewing here. He tells me he did it in After Effects; I had no idea After Effects was capable of this kind of coolness.

~jeff

Radar Magazine is running a fantastic article on joke stealing, counting down all the usual suspects: Denis Leary stealing from Bill Hicks, Dane Cook stealing from Louis C.K., and Robin Williams stealing from, well, everybody. A fascinating peek inside the always surprisingly unfun world of stand-up comedy.

~jeff

Well, Dubya’s at it again. Whenever given the choice, he’ll opt for corporate warfare over human welfare, and his primary method is to silence all opposition irrespective of its rightness. His certainty is sure indication of his contempt for the truth.

In this case, he wants to eliminate public broadcasting. That’s right, the people who brought you Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and the Electric Company, because they teach people to read, must go. This follows his attack on NASA where the administration changed the mandate of NASA so that it is officially no longer concerned with the health of the Earth. It follows his attack on the US school system — terrible though it is — by slashing funding to the poorest districts.

The Republican goal in this country is to eliminate all thought. If you’re anything but a corporate-funded billionaire, it’s in your interest to stop these people. If you are a corporate-funded billionaire, well, hi there, thanks for reading our blog, and could I have a million dollars? It’s only .05% of what you’ve got and I’ve got some causes I’d like to fund.

Fortunately, there’s something, however small, that we can do. MoveOn is having a petition signing so you can show your disapproval to your congressfolk.

(If this works, maybe NPR could grow a second testicle and give us some punchier news. I’m lucky enough to get some Pacifica Radio programming where I live. If you don’t know what they are, check it out.)

From the informative pop-under ad here, we learn:

• CLAIM: We could save “50% or more” by using Vonage.
• ALSO: We could save “up to 50%” by using Vonage.
• NOTE: 0% is less than 50%.
• THEREFORE: We could literally save any amount whatsoever, or nothing at all, by using Vonage.
• BUT: Even this non-claim of maybe-savings is mitigated by fine print at the bottom.

…the active disdain phone companies have for their customers is palpable and it shines through every single thing they do.

~jeff

I once worked a job where I got to read Naughty by Nature’s concert rider. Oh, the booze they requested; cases and cases and cases of beer and booze, a tall order as they only had the one song anyone was interested in. In 1999, you could ask two questions of a Naughty By Nature show: Have they played “O.P.P.” yet? and Now what are we gonna do? and encompass the entire event. In any case, long story short: they didn’t get the booze.

Iggy Pop, on the other hand, knows what he wants and he knows how to get it — via 18-page, over-the-top parodies of concert riders. It’s unclear after reading this if Iggy expects to get anything at all, but good for him and Jos the roadie (who wrote the document) for going way over the top on this one. And I am so with him regarding the cauliflower. (Via Valleywag)

~jeff

Happy holidays for 2006 — and if you had a crummy 2006, here’s to hoping 2007 will be better. (Clink!) Also, please enjoy the holiday animations my Multimedia students have prepared for their last project of 2006; no matter what faith you follow, you have to give it up for the ‘Shreddin’ Santa’.

~jeff a.k.a. “Mr. Hobbs”

As payback for taking a mild yearlong beating as “the PC” in Apple’s television ads, Apple has worked some sort of backroom publishing deal where they give away sell at a profit John Hodgman’s Book The Areas of My Expertise free via iTunes. I have no idea on what kind of backroom deal it was — for that kind of insight, you’d have to ask a former professional literary agent. Also no news yet if Apple will reward Justin Long with a downloadable season pass for the first two seasons showcasing his exemplary work on “Ed“.

I’ve read the book a while ago, but I listened to the first two hours last night during driving around for a whirlwind Christmas shopping extravaganza. Hodgman performs his work admirably and amiably; the book gains from Hodgman’s personable yet slightly aloof delivery. And it’s free, so seriously, grab it. More unwanted advice: if you’re looking for last minute gift suggestions, I got my dad a Black & Decker Electromate 400, my mom a Brita filter & replacement filters, and my brother a Philips DVD648 DVD/DivX player.

UPDATE: Matthias writes and we are powerless but to take note and obey: the audiobook is no longer a freebie. C’mon, Apple, Kwanzaa is still going strong!

~jeff

To complete the self-disclosure trifecta of foundmagazine.com and postsecret.com, I suggest getmortified.com, which is:

Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, home movies, schoolwork) as shared by their original authors.

…make sure you watch at least a little of “I Hate Drake“; by the end, you’ll probably hate Drake too.

~jeff

Great insults from the past reveal conclusive proof: American culture is getting dumber by the very second. Additional proof: our slang a century ago didn’t make anyone sound like an idiot while using it.

Personally speaking, it’s amazing how much 1920’s lingo I use today. I think it’s the bee’s knees.

~jeff

When I was in school, there were two things that I was told made America the best country in the world: we’d never waged a war on anyone aggressively (which was already easily debatable at the time, but still actually debatable and not a transparent lie) and you couldn’t be imprisoned without the due process of arrest, accusation, speedy trial, and conviction.

We were told that this is because the Constitution of the United States is a flexible but inviolable document subject to representative review and judicial interpretation that stemmed from that due process.

So, let’s take count:

• Unjust, unprovoked, and morally bankrupt war? You betcha.
• Lack of due process? Holy shit.

So, this is designed to get terrorists, right? And does it define what a terrorist is, and how we can make sure that we’ve got one when we do?

Well, we’re not allowed to know.

(posted also to Monkey Do, Monkey See.)

Hey! I took a screen printing class. And one of my first decent designs was a monochromatic rendition of the Ubuntu Linux logo that you can see above.

I think the design came out quite nice; I made myself a couple shirts of various colors — the green/black logo and brown/yellow logo came out the best — and so I was wondering: would anyone be interested in buying one of these? I have a very small economy of scale here, so pricing would have to be at the microbrew level like Panic’s (awesome) t-shirts, like $19 for the shirt, $6 for the s/h. Obviously a portion of each sale would be donated to the Ubuntu project.

So: any interest? If so, comment below or email me; if there’s enough interest I’ll put up an online store.

~jeff