Tag: commerce

Hey Sony! You gonna get JAILED!

Thanks for installing malicious stealth software on people’s computers when they play CDs.

It would be a terrible shame if someone put one of their CDs into a machine that happened to control some part of the infrastructure here in the U.S. that is responsible for people’s lives, and that machine happened to fail, because then they would be guilty of industrial terrorism. And that would be bad.

If that first link above makes your eyes glaze over, a simpler version of the story can be found at the WFMU blog, where I found the story in the first place.

Don’t buy copy protected CDs. And if you happen to get one, join a class action suit. They need to get spanked hard for rootkitting people’s machines like this.

MacMomMania

I helped my mom buy a new Mac. She’s on a 350 MHz blue G3 right now.

Refurbished Mac Minis from the Apple web site are going for $400 right now, no joke! Good time to get a Mac if you haven’t before because of price.

We got her a Mac Mini, a 23″ flat panel display, Applecare, and an HP color printer/scanner/everything box all for $2,136 with tax, shipped free.

I swear my mom gets more use out of less money than anyone I know in computing. She’s bought a total of three computers since 1994 and still has the same laserprinter we bought that year.

The New Face of Prostitution, 2005

On Myspace:

hey i no you prolly don’t know me, maybe you do, i thought i had a message from you once, anyways i was just lookin up on profiles and thought you were hot. I totally like older guys than me its cool.. I am drinkin so forgive me if i am ramblin but yea, so add me as a friend, or lets chat on my webcam if you want, its free, you can get there from my profile. What is up? You not going out? lets party lol

Annals of Finance: Those Loan Checks in the Mail

You may have seen these things, I get a couple a month. A check arrives in the mail. Sometimes it’s an actual negotiable check, or if not it’s a binding voucher of some kind. It’s for a large sum of money, made out to me. If I cash it, it turns into an unsecured loan. I’ve always been curious why everyone wants to loan me $5000-$8000 without security.

I always shred these, since I don’t need any more debt. But I can imagine getting one of these and saying “Okay, I sure do need five grand right now” and cashing/redeeming the thing.

I looked at the latest one more carefully. The “check” is bilingual; they sent it to me Spanish side out. It’s for $6,000.95 (love the 95 cents). I can redeem it at any HSBC office. I have then taken out a loan for this amount at 29.980% APR. Because we still have some vestiges of government they have to tell me this in bold type, and also tell me my payments, how many payments there will be, and the total finance charges. This is a five year loan with monthly payments of $194.08 and:

The total finance charges are $5,643.85.

So that’s why they’re happy to loan that much.

So ask yourself today: Could I have elm blight?

Eli Lilly & Company were kind enough to put this brochure in my doctor’s office. Actually, what they did was fund the University of Michigan who did it. It has things all over it saying how approved by all doctors it is, etc.

As you’ll see it consists of wan, blurry folk-art people wondering if they might have depression or if their medical problems might be getting worse due to depression. The message is “you quite likely have depression even if you think you don’t”. The best part, I think, is the series of scripts for convincing your doctor that you need treatment.

Faux naive iconography and suspect language behind the cut:

scans

Welcome to Innotech

I love my monster.com job updates, not because I am looking for a job right now, but because of things like this.

I’m glad they don’t just passively reject the transactional staffing industry paradigm. But couldn’t they do so proactively? It’s great that they can handle projects of varied size and scope, too. The companies with the fixed size and scope are awfully weird. And I knew about globalization, but when did the economy become project–based? I thought it was all about shit like steel, and wheat, and oil, and the value of the Euro.

JOIN THE GLOBAL HOME FOR TECHNICAL TALENT

The global home for technical talent, Kineticom partners with progressive companies in the talent-sensitive information and communications technology industries to build effective, flexible workforces.

Our active rejection of the transactional staffing industry paradigm allows us to excel as a consultative partner, delivering premium value to clients on people-critical projects of varying size and scope.

Within a culture of skill building, our contractors trust their Kineticom talent agents with the advancement of their careers, secure in the knowledge and proof that Kineticom develops self-reliant professionals who succeed in the global project-based economy.

Kineticom won a 2005 American Business Award (“Stevie”) for Best Agency, recognizing our leadership in redefining the staffing agency model amid the global shift to a flexible workforce. Our ISO 9000-2001 certification ensures the quality of our business processes and our commitment to client satisfaction. Founded in 2000 with offices in San Diego, Calif., Dallas, Texas and London, U.K., our client list includes: T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint, and Intel.

It’s our spirit, our passion, and our willingness to take risks in pursuit of winning that make us the top technical talent firm. We have a knack for finding and developing talent – it’s what we love and what we do best. If you do too, we invite you to join us.