Geeklog Site

The Facebook IPO

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:10:00 -0600

Do you ever think back and say 'Man I wish I had bought a few shares of that'. I know a guy who invested in Microsoft when it first went public. It wasn't a major investment, but it did make him a millionaire. Using this, you can see that a 4200$ investment in 1986 got you 1.4 million today, not counting dividends (small in comparison). That's a pretty nice 401k. So, I'm 45 years old and have never seriously thought about my later years, as I figure I'll be dead. But, in the event I'm not, it would be nice to have a stash like that available. Facebook is supposed to be having an IPO, rumored to be sometime in May. They already generate a sick amount of money. I've been throwing around the idea of buying a few shares and sitting on them. Most of me balks at this idea. I've always been against the stock market and everything it represents. It controls the economy by doing nothing more that either making people money by a share price going higher, or people shitting their life savings away by companies that go broke or pull an Enron. To boot, Facebook doesn't make software that most of the world needs to use. With all the different 'social media' crap out there, who's to say that within a few years everyone has migrated to the next new big thing?

I'm really curious to see what the opening share price will be to the public. It's probably time to pick up an ETRADE account.

2012 is here - what you should be worried about

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:49:30 -0600

There are two major things happening this year that you should keep your eye on. One, it's the last year of the Mayan calendar, so we're all going to die. Two, it's election year. I'm not sure what scares me more. Dying, or the thought of one of the absolute idiots on the Republican side running for President getting elected before I die. The only two GOP'ers I have any like for at all are Huntsman and Paul, and neither has much of a shot at getting the GOP nod. Because most registered voters are incredibly stupid (that goes for both sides), the GOP is most likely to elect Romney or Perry. Nobody is trying to run against re-electing Obama on the Democratic side. So basically, the American people are pretty fucked either way when it comes to President. But, being that the President's only real powers are to veto shit and start wars, it's really Congress that we have to get on one side. A lot of polls show that people want incumbents out, but they don't want 'their' incumbents out. One way or the other, if we can't get both sides to either 1) be of one party, or 2) start fucking working together (not going to happen with Boehner and Cantor there), not much of real consequence will get done. That might be better then it being ruled by Repub's or Demo's, but at least if one ruled both sides we could at least get a chance to see the circus. I'm more inclined to believe that, no matter how it goes, America is fucked. Taxes have to go up, budgets have to be cut. Companies are going to continue shipping middle class jobs overseas. The rich will continue to get richer, government will bail out companies deemed 'too big to fail'. All the while, people in America keep popping out kids (my wife included - my vote was for abortion - I lost) that are going to have a shitty future to look forward to. The year is starting out bleak. I'm going to have to start keeping score to see who wins 2012. The citizen, or the Mayans.

Delta Airlines and their ridiculous change fees...

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:12:00 -0600

Fucking Delta.. I had a flight booked over 14 days in advance from Memphis to Detroit for Feb 10th in the early AM. On the 8th-9th Northeast Arkansas (and much of the central plains) got hammered by a snow storm, and Delta was giving waivers for those days only. Now, where I live in Podunk, if the weather so much as shows it might snow, schools will close down. The roads rarely get plowed or salted. The shuttle service I use to get to the airport shuts down because their insurance won't cover them if the roads are icy, and told me they would not be able to make the early run to the airport because of road conditions. Having been born and most of my childhood in WI/MN, I scoffed at this. I considered driving myself, but unless you had a 4 wheel drive truck loaded down, you were sliding almost everywhere because of the lack of road support. So, I call Delta on the 9th to change my flight on the 10th to the latest afternoon/evening flight, figuring a little melt off in the morning and I can get to the airport for that flight. SIX HUNDRED PLUS DOLLAR CHANGE FEE!! WHAT THE FUCK! Unfortunately my choice of airlines is limited by company policy, and they paid the change, but still.. fucking highway robbery... I can't even see how it's legal. So now, with my original fare (over 300$), PLUS the change fee, I paid more for the flight than if I had waited until the 9th to book the EXACT SAME FLIGHT (which would have been just over 700$) with one day notice. In the past Delta (who I've been flying for business for the past 5yrs and am Gold Elite this year and have been Silver or better since my first year) charged a nominal 150$ fee, which wasn't too bad but still sickening. Fucking rat bastard Delta.. Southwest can turn a profit w/o change fees and baggage fees, but Delta has to stick it to you at every corner. If I have to fly on my own dime, I'm damn sure driving to Little Rock and using SW if possible.

Ads, Google and Facebook

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:06:39 -0600

There's an article over at ZDnet about how Facebook is pushing advertising on a thing called 'Sponsored Stories' (Don't ask me, I barely use Facebook but for posting pictures of beer and food). I'm sure most of you already see all the ads on Facebook. Same thing with Google. Ads, sponsored links, etc. What amazes me the most is that people actually click on the ads. Really, why would you even want to see ads? They plant cookies on your PC that you don't need and track your usage and habits. They take up space, albeit it very small, on yoru harddirve, clutter up the OS. Worse, they take up bandwidth, making pages load slower. Moreover, with some places going to metered billing, it could actually COST you money to load a web page that has ads on it.

Do yourself a favor. At the very least, use a Host Manager (HostsMan is one of my favorites, but there are plenty of others), or a browser addon that blocks ads, such as AdBlock Plus for Firefox (or find one for your browser of choice).

Now, some sites will tell you blocking the ads is 'bad'. I don't agree. I never asked to see your ads. You have ads to make money for yourself, period. 99.9% of ads are shit and not worth a damn. The companies providing the ads simply want to get a cookie on your PC to track and target you. I never agreed to this. If your site needs to make money, charge a subscription fee to read it. Sell a viable good or service that people will pay for. But don't try to tell me that it's my job to help pay your salary by viewing shitty ads that only benefit you.

When I watch TV (rare), I don't watch the commercials. That's when I'm pissing or dropping a duece, or refreshing my beer. When I listen to the radio (even rarer still), the ads are nothing but brown noise. I have never done anything in response to any ad I have ever seen, unless maybe it's a 2 for 1 coupon for a chicken sandwich at Burger King
that I cut out of the weekend paper ads I get in the mail.
.

Here we go 2011

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:17:09 -0600

A post a day. So that's what I tell myself. Kevin Smith can eat shit, becasue he only cares about those who are in the 'business' that makes his piss poor movies make money. HBO can fuck off because Entourage has only made it so clear that if you know someone, you can be a 'somebody'. My local cable company can kiss my ass. My newly adopted cat is pissing on the bedding. My wife isn't happy about it.

So you think you made a difference yesterday?

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:13:00 -0500

Yesterday was Election Day. Or as the Asians say, and it sounds a lot more fun, Erection Day. This is the day you're supposed to GET THE VOTE OUT and make your puny, insignificant voice and opinion be heard.

I hate to admit it most of the time, but I do have a Facebook page. Mainly I just post pics of food I'm eating and drinking when I'm out. I live in Northeast Arkansas and the food absolutely sucks here, so anytime I'm out of town I like to make a few people drool. Yesterday a lot of people (some are friends, some are friends of friends.. people will friend anyone they can - I have 98 and that's too many) put up their 'I Voted' button, or they wrote some lament about how great this country is and that they get to vote where in some countries they don't get that right. There is all kinds of rhetoric about what happens in places where people don't have the right to vote.

But here in the good 'ol USA, voting makes a difference. Right. Puhleeease.

Voting might have made a difference back in the day when the vote was to divert the stream left, or right. A show of hands voted for it, and it was done. No lobbyists, no bullshit campaign promises that never come through, no millions of dollars spent on the campaign, no backroom deals that added on 47,432 amendments to whatever was being voted on.

Today, voting just means you get to feel like you did something, when in fact, you really don't have any idea what you're voting for, other than what you saw on TV. It's the Oh I'm a Republican so that's how I vote. Or, it's 'yea I believe in what that person stands for' when all they've done is see a campaign commercial. Or it's new laws or amendments being introduced, most of which have a bunch of crap tagged on the backend that most voters never know about.

Then it gets really fun. You voted in Joe Blow because he 'said on the TV' that he was going to lower your taxes and help you make more money. Then, when the votes start happening in Washington, he votes whatever damn way he pleases, not as he promised. And you can't do shit about it. Oh sure, you can vote again next Erection day and vote Joe out of office. Then the next dolt who gets in fucks you even worse.

The government in this country has become one of the most inept and corrupt group of people ever allowed to run something as big as the US. Most of them take advantage of their position, put in pet project amendments to bills, propose some of the most insane and needless laws ever, and doing it all with the blessings of those who voted for them. Why? Because probably 80% of people don't have any idea what the person they voted for is voted on or doing in office. All those new laws and amendments you voted for? See how many of them get turned over or actually do what they were written to do.

Yea, voting sure does make a difference.

I haven't voted in 10yrs, and never will again. But don't think for one second that's going to stop me from having an opinion. You have the right to vote (if you followed proper procedures), but EVERYONE, voter or not, has the right to an opinion. Suck it.

BP's killing of the Gulf of Mexico

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:06:00 -0500

Well, it's been almost 2 months now since the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. 2 months they've been trying to cap the leak. Well, let's be straight, they weren't really trying anything to stop the leak until weeks after the explosion. Today I did a few quick searches trying to identify the actual day they first started to do ANYTHING about the oil leak, and I ran across this. It made perfect sense. I mean, here is a multi billion dollar multi national company, and they can't plug an oil leak? Riiiight.. why would they want to plug it? That's oil there, and that means money. As far as I can remember, the only attempt I can recall that might have actually stopped the oil was 'the top kill' or 'the junk shot', and the article stated 'several days' to get another blowout preventer that would stop the leak. Well, here we are, 20 days later, and nothing. We have them putting 20 billion into escrow, which I can't see as being nearly enough for the damage that has been caused. It's beyond my comprehension to understand how there wasn't a plan in place to cap the well in the event of the blowout preventer failing. They obviously didn't believe in 'worst case scenarios'. According to this timeline, experts were saying less than a week later that it could take months to stop the oil because of the technical challenges. I don't get how they were allowed to drill in the first place without a worst case scenario plan other then letting it leak for months until they figure something out. According to this, they even left off two failsafe devices that could have prevented 99% of this. Why were they even allowed to drill without these in place?

"we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:23:00 -0600

Thank you Nancy Pelosi for letting us know how completely ignorant the American people are.

Here are a bunch of links to the stories and videos.

It's people like her that make the Baby Jesus cry

Password Hacking

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:09:00 -0600

Hacking passwords is as easy as 1-2-3, with a little social engineering. Let's say, you need to call a local tech company to come in to work on one of your PC's. Or, you bring your PC to a local company to have it 'cleaned', or 'fixed up', because it is acting 'weird'. Most people use the most simple of passwords that they can easily remember. The name of your pet, significant dates, etc. Obviously you should be more creative than this. On just about every web browser, there is an option to let that browser remember your password so it doesn't have to be entered every time you visit that site. Most people let that browser remember the password because it's 'convenient'. Here are a few simple rules to help.. 1) Change your passwords regularly, ideally every 90 days or LESS. How often have you heard this but don't do it? If you only have a home PC or laptop, and no one else ever touches it, you're relatively safe. Depending upon your browser habits, you might want to change it daily. If you know me and are reading this, you know what I mean. So, you say, 'I can't remember that many passwords!'. I know, it sucks. If you have a safe, and I mean SAFE, way to write them down, do it. I don't recommend this, yet I do it. As the only place my passwords are 'stored' is on my USB drive, which in reality, is not the safest way either. When you put your USB drive to get them, if the PC is compromised, you could be screwed. I usually write the down on a note piece of paper until I can remember them, usually a few days, and then chuck that piece of paper on my bbq. 2) Windows IE and most browsers can store passwords. When you bring your PC to Best Buy's Geek Squad, they could get access to every password recently entered. Hence, if anyone ever has access to your PC, change them the day you get it back. In worst case scenarios, you won't even have access to your accounts because some schlep who worked on your PC already accessed all your accounts and changed them, but usually that is too obvious. They wait to see that you haven't changed them, and then do their damage. 3) NEVER (unless you completely trust them, which for hired techs should be NEVER) let some tech put a USB thumb drive into your PC (even if they are your BFF, change them!). This is only asking for trouble. They may say, 'Oh but I have to run some programs off my drive to help clean your PC'. Most every program they use is freely available for download on the internet (virus scanner, ad removals, etc). Letting them run a program from a thumb drive is a way of telling them 'run anything you want, even that password retrieval key', and you'll never know. They could even be downloading a password retrieval program from the internet. How can I be safe? Change them as soon as they leave the building is one way. Hopefully they aren't in their car with an aircard and a laptop already accessing your accounts! 4) Make any password you use complex. NEVER use anything that can be construed as a word, date, etc., not even a reverse word combo! Make them upper case, lower case, with numbers, special characters, etc.. 2HA@4$!As, is a good one :) Just hit random keys! That way, no brute force password hack should ever get them. For most, this sounds silly. Why do I have to protect myself? Why? Do you pay your bills online? Order from eBay? Email your friends? One day, you could find out that your account is dry, and every friend you knew got that picture of yourself that you took naked. Hey, I take pictures of myself naked and send them to my girlfriend. She likes that, and I don't mind if anyone sees my fat ass naked. But do I want them accessing my credit info? No fucking way. Base your password changes and security on what is important to you. Always remember.. any data you enter on your PC or send over the internet is never completely safe. Quite frankly, everything you've ever done on your PC can be accessed with the right tools. Scary? Yeah....

The Iraq War, Health Care, and other things

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:18:00 -0500

"Let's face it, the Wright brothers were able to teach themselves. Landing would be the hardest part, but if you weren't too concerned about using the plane again, it could be done" -- Words from a flight instructor interviewed by CNN The 'government' is debating a health care package that could run a trillion dollars over 10 years. This is something they are 'debating', as to whether or not to provide health care for those who can't afford it, and possibly fining those that can but don't get coverage (and people wonder why I don't vote). The Iraq/Afghan wars are approaching a trillion dollars in cost, and it had very little debate. The powers that be (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rummy, etc) blatantly lied to us, and now thousands of soldiers are dead, or wounded for life. So, in essence, the 'government' has no problem lying to us to create a completely useless war and letting people die. Kind of like health care reform, no? The 'government' doesn't care if you die because you can't afford health insurance. The people who 'run' our 'government' are not the smartest, best, brightest, etc.. not anything special at all. They're just salesmen/women. Basically, our country is run by a bunch of used car salesmen with a pitch on a clunker, and that clunker is the US of fucking A. The country is broken, and there will be no fixing it for a long, long time, if ever.