The Major

Blog

  • Penn Jillette is an Atheist

    I think Penn and I think about atheism a bit differently, but this is still a nice article: There Is No God by Penn Jillette

  • EFF volunteering

    Well I was finally able to hear back from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). I will be volunteering for a few hours today. Hopefully things will go well and I can keep at it.

  • Caring for Your Introvert

    Inside the minds of introverts. A very interesting read.

  • Aftermath of the First Live Mix

    I had my first live mix show tonight, broadcast online on FourMajor Radio. As mentioned in a previous post, I will be doing live shows weekly on Wednesdays from 2200-0000 PST.

    Tonight’s show went OK. I had three listeners (Thanks guys!). Most of the mixes between tracks were either bad or OK, with one “good” mix that I really think I nailed. There were a few hiccups. I had one record skip on me, and had to quickly and messily switch over to the other turntable. On another mix, I got caught rushing back to the beginning of the next track . . . and accidently started the next track at the wrong speed! Oops! Also, the program I was using to rip the stream (streamripper) didn’t work. It said I was capturing the stream, but at the end I was left with a 0 byte file. So, unfortunately there will be no podcast this week. And as I mentioned before, I need to get some more records. I simply run out of good tracks to play in the course of two hours.

    I am really having a great time mixing records. I am looking forward to next week’s broadcast. I really hope you all tune in.

  • Top Websites

    Here is a list of websites that I find to be best for these basic purposes. New tools are constantly coming out that are later and greater than what is currently out, so this is simply a current snapshot.

    weather National Weather Service
    maps/directions Google Maps
    reference Wikipedia
    news Google News
    all-in-one homepage Google Personalized Home
    sports Yahoo Sports

    Do you think I am missing something? I generally give higher points to websites that don’t have moving ads and are easy to use.

  • FourMajor Radio Weekly Shows

    As I showed you all in a previous post, I have obtained some turntables, a mixer, and some records. Well, after a little bit of practice mixing, I am still not all that good, but I think I am getting better.

    I am going to broadcast a live show weekly, starting tonight (2005-11-23) on my Internet radio station FourMajor radio. It will be held every Wednesday night from 2200 – 0000 PST. I will mostly be playing drum & bass and trance, but you might just hear some industrial and rap in there as well. I will broadcast at 160kbps, 128kbps, and 64kbps

    I am also going to be recording all of the shows, and making them available via podcast.

    To listen to the live broadcast you will need a mp3-capable audio player program for your computer and a broadband Internet connection. Please visit FourMajor radio for links to the streams.

    To listen to the podcast, you will need to run a “podcast receiver” such as Juice and add my podcast feed (which I will link to later). You do not need a broadband Internet connection to listen in this way.

    Anyway, I hope at least a couple of you tune in each week. I will be going record shopping soon to expand my collection. As for tonight, I will be running through most of my records to fill the two hours.

  • Yay!

    Ah, life is good!

  • The Search Engine Experiment

    A public experiment discovering which of the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, or MSN) really offers the best results. By taking the test you also find out which engine you personally prefer (and it’s a blind test, so prejudice won’t effect the outcome).

    read more | digg story

    Evidently I’m a *gasp* Yahoo guy.

  • Another Letter to Macy’s

    Macy’s doesn’t seem too interested in protecting their customers against fraud, so I’ve written them again and copied the California Office of Privacy Protection. Hopefully we will get some results. The contents of the letter are found below.

    November 18, 2005

    Macy’s Customer Service
    P.O. Box 8067
    Mason, OH 45040

    CC: Office of Privacy Protection
    Department of Consumer Affairs
    400 R Street, Suite 3080
    Sacramento, CA 95814

    Dear Macy’s Customer Service,

    On October 5, 2005, I wrote a letter (a copy of which has been included in this mailing) to Macy’s customer service with a concern about the security of the credit card mailing methods. I have not yet received a reply. I was fairly certain that someone at Macy’s would be interested to know the ease in which fraud could be committed on their customers’ new credit cards.

    Since that time I have received two promotional offers in the mail from Macy’s. I hardly think your sales and offers are more important than your customers’ identity theft concerns.

    Due to the apparent lack of interest in the protection of your customers’ credit card accounts, I have sent a copy of this letter to the California Office of Privacy Protection. I hope that between all of us, we can come up with an acceptable solution.

    Sincerely,
    Stuart Matthews
    2240 Larkin Street
    Apartment 103
    San Francisco, CA 94109

    October 5, 2005

    Macy’s Customer Service
    P.O. Box 8067
    Mason, OH 45040

    To Whom It May Concern –

    I have recently received a Macy’s Visa card in the mail. I have noticed a stunning security problem with the way the card is sent.

    The credit card number, as you know, is shown on the back of the card as well as the front of the card. On the back of the card, it is printed in black ink. The glue used to affix the credit card is placed directly onto this part of the card. When you remove the card from the paper, guess what gets left behind on the paper? That is right – the credit card number, and the three-digit security code. This, in combination with the credit card holder’s name and address, is almost all that is needed to make charges to the card. The only other thing needed is the expiration date. A nefarious individual can quite easily guess this date in a short amount of time. They can either start trying dates starting from one month after the current month, or they can easily apply for a Macy’s card of their own and see what the expiration date is on that, which will be close to the date of the stolen card number.

    Many people throw this piece of paper away unmolested. The only personally-identifiable information they should expect to be on this paper are their name and address. Not everyone will have as good of eyesight as I do to be able to notice the small numbers left behind on the glue. I hope you correct this error quickly and update me with any actions that have been taken to prevent fraud due to this error.

    Sincerely,
    Stuart Matthews
    2240 Larkin Street
    Apartment 103
    San Francisco, CA 94109

  • Letter to Google

    I have written a letter to Google. The letter text is below:

    November 18, 2005

    Google Inc.
    1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
    Mountain View CA 94043

    To Whom It May Concern:

    I would like to start this letter by saying that I really admire your company. I have always thought that many companies require far too many employees to create software that is either not extremely complex, or software that takes entirely too long to complete. Google proves that software can be written quickly and efficiently, and at a high quality. Because of my faith in the company, I am also a shareholder.

    But this was not the point of my letter. Unfortunately I do not often send letters for the sole purpose of praise, although I suppose maybe I should. Rather, I am writing with concerns over how Google makes money.

    By making money solely through advertising, you are giving your users no choice other than to have messages which are often nothing more than misleading half-truths shoved into their faces. I personally take offense to advertising. Advertising by its very nature is likely to be extremely misleading. Advertisers, entirely motivated by capitalism in most cases, will say whatever needs to be said to generate the most profit. This and many other things are what offend me about advertising.

    Having said this, I admit that Google is hardly the most evil corporation in the world. Indeed, I believe that Google has done a lot of good for the world. The reason that I have picked Google, however, to write this letter to, is because of the size of Google and its future potential for growth. Because of Google’s size, I wanted to make it clear that not necessarily everyone is “OK” with advertising. Not everyone accepts a service as “free” when we are being forced to be shown advertising.

    I am not suggesting that Google change its entire business model. To do so would surely be the ruin of the company. What I am suggesting is that the users be given a choice. I am sure you have plenty of data regarding how much money is made on each user per visit, day, click, etc. I suggest that you offer a pay model that would match this revenue. If a user such as me were to sign up for this pay model, I would simply not be shown the ads, yet you would be receiving the same amount of money from me that you would expect from a normal “free” user. You can count on the fact that I would be the first person to sign up for such a service.

    I have attached a recent article that I have written on my blog. You can find the online copy of this article at http://www.fourmajor.com/?p=52. I hope you will think about what I have said in this letter. I do not expect one letter to cause a change in how you do business, but if everyone that felt as I do would write a letter to Google, perhaps you would consider changing how you do business. I would greatly appreciate a reply containing your thoughts in response to my letter.

    Sincerely,
    Stuart Matthews
    2240 Larkin Street
    Apartment 103
    San Francisco, CA 94109
    Google Account name: muhgcee@gmail.com

    ** text of attached article removed from online version of letter. Please click this link to view the online version of the article **