Fuck FICO

Monday, April 30th, 2007 | Daily life, Rants | 2 Comments

I’ve been in the market for a new car for a while. I’ve finally limited my choices down to a few and am on the brink of a purchase. To get an idea of what kind of negotiation power I’ll have I checked my credit score. That shit dropped like a rock.

I first checked my score when I was 19 or so and actually had just over 700 which was fantastic for my age. I checked it a third time a few years ago and it was 680 which isn’t terrible but didn’t improve. I looked at my report last week and I was down to 580! What the fuck?

Everyone knows paying your bills on time helps your credit but did you know paying off your car or canceling your credit cards actually hurt your credit? From all the research I’ve done it comes down to the credit agencies wanting people with substantial potential debt but no real debt.

Having $50,000 in credit cards with $4,000 in debt is far better than my $12,000 worth of credit cards and $0 balance on them all. Also only owing a few grand on your $20,000 auto loan is much better than my paid off car loan. I also fucked up in removing 2 credit cards because I thought I had too many. BIG mistake! I should have kept them and not touched em’.

Additionally, I had a cell phone bill I forgot about several years ago that I just stopped paying. I only owed them 260 bucks and wrote them a check the other day. I hope that helps some.

Hopefully this shouldn’t give me a horrible interest rate and the bank will take other things into consideration for a loan like all the other on time payments and my decent salary.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Politicians suck

Saturday, April 28th, 2007 | Rants | No Comments

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Obligatory VTech shooting post

Friday, April 27th, 2007 | News, Rants | 3 Comments

I just had to post something about this incident. All the news networks are blaming the shooting on all sorts of things but there isn’t a clear reason why this happened. He speaks of having his blood spilled and being forced into a corner but never really mentions who he is speaking about. Watch the video below and see if it makes any sense to you.

I don’t understand this guy at all. If you’re going to take your life and many others why not give a clear reason? If you’re going to do something that attracts this much attention it needs to be utilized to its full potential.

If I ever get 15 minutes of fame you can bet I would shout out the URL for my blog hoping for ad clicks (hint hint) or if I was a victim in a shooting I’d let some idiot ghost write a book with my name on the cover and collect the cash. Why didn’t this guy clearly record his ideas so that his message would be delivered to millions of homes?

Only questions, no answers.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Piss is gross

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 | Daily life, Rants | 3 Comments

I suppose this only applies to guys but have you ever taken a piss and thought you were done and after everything is wrapped up a couple of drops come out? I fuckin’ hate that.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Scared sheep

Monday, April 23rd, 2007 | News, Rants | 2 Comments

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This is why I hate the news. It’s sensationalism to its core. Here’s their business model in a nutshell. Create headlines to scare you into watching their news lineup and make you feel like you need to keep tuning it to stay safe. They just want your eyeballs on the screen so they can charge a high premium for advertisements to keep pretty anchor people swimming in six figure salaries.

The video on lock bumping is old but it’s the same shit over and over. They find a story to scare you, bring up the safety of your family, and then put on some experts to add to their validity.

What the video doesn’t tell you is that bump keys only work if the attacker knows the type of lock you have. A bump key needs to be crafted for the type of lock to be bumped. Someone could carry a bunch of keys around with them but this is unlikely. Windows are just as breakable as they have always been and many people leave doors/windows unlocked making lock picking or bumping pointless.

There are two types of attacks, targeted and opportunistic. With a targeted attack there isn’t much you can do unless you want to turn your home into a prison. If someone really wants to get in they will take their time and find a way. Opportunistic thieves will just look for easy targets with doors unlocked, signs of a family vacation, etc.

The majority of thieves are opportunistic and are just looking for a quick buck to pay back a debt or fund their drug habit. They won’t pick your lock; they will break a window, steal what they can and run. The attacker that targets a home will probably not be robbing you unless you make good money and have lots of valuable items.

In the end, this “news” video was just to scare people into staying tuned into their program so they can sell your eyeballs.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Silence is golden

Saturday, April 21st, 2007 | Interesting | 3 Comments

A man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Act is if

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 | Daily life, Interesting | 1 Comment

After four years of high school I learned one thing of any significant importance. A teacher once told me to “act as if” and even then I knew how true this was as I do know. The phrase rings true in many aspects of life. Sometimes pride needs to be set aside and humility even if false should be shown.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 | Books, Daily life | 3 Comments

I recently picked up a Einstein: His Life and Universe after seeing it on the Daily Show. I’m not much for biographies but Einstein is such an interesting guy and the book was so well written that I had to buy it. It’s fun to go beyond the physics and read about his life and how his surroundings shaped him to become the man that he was.

The book is filled with interesting quotes. Some of them profound and inspiring while others just funny. When his younger sister was born his parents told him she would be like a toy to play with and his reaction when he saw her was “Where’s the wheels?”.

I also enjoyed drawing parallels of his life to mine. Of course I’m nowhere near the genius that he was but we seem to have a lot in common. He was an introvert and had issues keeping girlfriends due to his being wrapped up in his work and we both seem to have the same philosophy on religion and education. He too was a very independent person and often avoided the herb mentality.

I would recommend checking this book out. It seems daunting with its 551 pages but it’s a fast read. I’ve only had it for 2 days but am already on page 205. And the price was right at just $25 at Barnes and Noble.

Popularity: 22% [?]

The ubiquitous fat American

Monday, April 16th, 2007 | Rants | 1 Comment

Of course everyone’s heard of the whole “American epidemic” of overweight people. I find it funny that while so many are obsessed with nutrition and health things aren’t getting any better.

I feel that part of the problem lies in the fact that lots of “healthy” products aren’t very healthy at all. I just went food shopping this morning and I had to search pretty hard to find bread without corn syrup. Corn syrup! The same shit they make soda with. They even put corn syrup in hot dogs and healthy cereals!

This is a much bigger issue than something like soda or McDonald’s because we know they are shit and keep our consumption to a minimum but when people see “light” or “fat free” they feel it’s OK to indulge. I’ve even seen light apple juice. How can this be better? The real apple juice has just juice but the lighter juice has over 12 ingredients some of which I can’t pronounce.

The biggest blow to Americans is the high price of better food. I can buy a shit load of junk for the cost of a decent meal. If you want the organic or light version of something you generally have to pay a premium. I’m no conspiracy theorist but I can’t help but feel that corporate America wants us to stay overweight.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The classics

Monday, April 16th, 2007 | Books, Daily life | 1 Comment

I usually do all my reading at Barnes & Noble and buy my books from Amazon.com but I browsed a store in town called Half Priced Books and picked up some cool classics. Some I’ve read long ago and others I’ve missed along the way.

I re-read Old Man and the Sea which I also liked and am reading David Copperfield for the first time. Although I bought these beforehand, a quote from Einstein sparked my interest even more.

Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best the books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely nearsighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous

He’s got a great point. I find that reading things I wouldn’t normally read (tech magazines, articles, and manuals) stimulate me much more.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Drawing a blank for a title

Sunday, April 15th, 2007 | News, Rants | 3 Comments

I wish I went to college and became a scientist. They seem to get to do lots of cool shit like spend 700 million to prove a theory which was just about proven with equations here on the ground.

Einstein theorized that space and time bend and the universe is like fabric and objects like the planets and stars lay on this fabric causing a bend. To prove this NASA spent 700 million to check it out.

Big fucking deal. We pretty much knew this and it was already accepted with just about every physicist except for the crazy crackpots whom garner no respect anyway. We could have done a lot more with 700 million in my opinion. I’m all for science and research but wouldn’t you be pissed if someone spend a good deal of cash on proving gravity?

Read article here

Popularity: 18% [?]

The Pope’s whip

Sunday, April 15th, 2007 | News, Rants | No Comments

Who the fuck pays 200 grand for 1999 VW Golf? Some asshole tried pawning one off on Ebay because it used to be owned by the Pope and the highest bid was $204,000! The truly sad thing is that the auction ended with no winner since the reserve wasn’t met.

If you were a true Christian shouldn’t you donate that money to someone who could use it instead of having some novelty car? If I were the Pope I would step in to stop this ridiculousness.

Read article here

Popularity: 17% [?]

:(

Saturday, April 14th, 2007 | Interesting | 1 Comment

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Snort acid!

Friday, April 13th, 2007 | Funny, Linux | 1 Comment

I’m installing snort for a new server that I’m installing and heard about a tool called acid that works with snort so when I googled this I entered ’snort acid’. Surprisingly the first result was exactly the page I wanted. I suppose most people don’t actually snort acid but it was kinda funny. On the second page I did see a funny title “How To: Snort with Acid from Source”.

Popularity: 23% [?]

It’s a new life

Thursday, April 12th, 2007 | Daily life | No Comments

After getting kicked out of my apartment and getting fired a month ago I’m finally just about settled. I still don’t have a table yet and some things need to be straightened up but everything is coming along nicely. I like my new big office with the extra bathroom so I don’t have to go far :). I really like the fact that it came with a washer and dryer so I don’t have to get quarters anymore.

What I need now is to put up some shelving for the books and DVDs and pick up a table and new bed. Oh and maybe some stools for the bar. All in all things didn’t work out too badly.

Popularity: 12% [?]

MacBook lovin’

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 | Daily life | No Comments

I am enjoying my MacBook more and more. At first I bought it for the hardware and planned on running Linux on it but I keep finding more and more applications I like on the Mac.

I’ve been looking for a really good note taking application for a while and finally found what I was looking for in something called Mori. It’s database driven which makes saving really easy and can easily export to text or HTML. The application allows for scripting and plugins so the features are just about limitless.

Another application that I’ve grown fond of is Parallels. I currently run two versions of Linux and Windows XP in Parallels on my MacBook and have them at my beck and call whenever I need them. I mostly use the Linux images for testing and installed the Windows one to update my Blackberry and have since needed it for testing Frontpage for a customer.

The next gem is a program called TextMate. It’s like VIM but graphics based. It supports macros, syntax highlighting, foldable code blocks, tabs, and a shit load more. It was worth the cash I dropped on it.

Popularity: 10% [?]

How Iraq has changed me

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 | Daily life | 3 Comments

I try to pretend that it didn’t but Iraq has indeed changed me. Before being deployed to Iraq I wasn’t the person I am today. At the moment I find myself tired way too often. To be honest I find it hard to believe how much I’ve done being as tired as I am all the time. It’s probably all the caffeine I now consume to counter the lack of sleep. Being tired and having insomnia are pretty much caused from my newly acquired anxious personality. All too often I find myself fretting about nothing and being kept awake as a result.

Another byproduct of the anxiety is the obnoxiousness. I’m typically a pretty quite person but I get loud and silly when I feel stressed. I didn’t notice it at first but after a while I began to see a pattern that whenever I acted like an idiot I felt pressure. When in a relaxed atmosphere I barely say a word. It’s interesting how the body reacts to the mind and vice versa. All of these issues either began in Iraq or became more pronounced as a result.

I forgot lots of the things I did over the course of 17 months but I can remember the first night clearly. We slept in a building we took over in cots wearing full gear with our weapons on top of us. The ground shook every 30 minutes and I really though the tin roof was going to come down a few times. I wasn’t scared but more annoyed, hot, and tired. I remember feeling that it didn’t “feel real”.

When we prepared for the entry of Iraq in Kuwait I thought “this doesn’t feel real yet but I’m sure it will soon”. But that feeling never came. For some reason it always felt like I was in the third person just tagging along. The first week there was a pretty big car bomb on a bridge a few blocks away. We had two Chevy Suburbans with jamming equipment so we went to assist and prevent any other bombs from going off by jamming the signals and the place was pretty fuckin’ gory. We helped clean things up by placing body parts in bins and trying to look at them and match them up which was almost impossible. Strangely this still didn’t feel real.

I can only remember one time that I was actually scared in the year and a half there. We were driving on a routine trip and the Humvee in front of us got slammed by a Bradley (like a tank). When we pulled over the passenger wasn’t moving and neither was the gunner. The driver broke is leg but ran around to assist the passenger. They pulled the gunner out and he was OK except for his knee. The passenger was sliced up pretty bad in several places and broke a rifle in half with his body which has got to be a lot of force. Anyway everyone ended up living and being relatively OK although the passenger was flown back home. I was more scared at that moment then any other time during my deployment.

It sucks that I’ve got a few issues now but I’m glad that I am able to notice and focus on putting myself in relaxing situations.

Popularity: 9% [?]