Social Security Numbering System Is Vulnerable to Fraud, Researchers Say - NYTimes.com

"The accuracy of the prediction system increased for smaller states and for people born after 1988. The accuracy was higher for those born in the late 1980s and after because of rules that led increasingly to the assignment of Social Security numbers at birth. The researchers, for example, reported that they needed 10 or fewer tries to predict all nine digits for 1 out of 20 Social Security numbers assigned in Delaware in 1996."

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There's a fine line between altruism and pretentiousness on Wikipedia

I agree that...

  • weasel words need to be eliminated from articles Wikipedia.
  • factual information needs references.
  • Wikipedia should not be an open commercial for corporations to plug themselves as they see fit.

However, the deletion of articles just because they are written in a commercial style is disappointing.  Surely, a marketing brochure is a good start for describing a company.  If claims are over-inflated, then challenge those claims specifically.  If the style is too commercial, adjust it.  Articles should not just be deleted because no one sees fit to fix the style of the writing, and those who pretend to know what information is relevant to Wikipedia probably place too much important on their own understanding of the world.

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Monster sent me a VAX job posting

I knew there was a reason that I had those e-mails filtered out to a separate folder...

Among the primary responsibilities:

  • Participate and assist CUSTOMER with the various VAX elimination projects
  • Identify cost-out opportunities within the VAX/Alpha/VMS space
Skills required:
  • Detailed knowledge of VAX architecture
  • Detailed knowledge of Alpha architecture
  • Detailed knowledge of the OpenVMS Operating System
  • Detailed knowledge of various languages including, but not limited to C, COBOL, Fortran and Pascal

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That's my boy

(download)

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I wish I had had my camera

...right about here on the map:


View Larger Map

20 cases of tubes with 4" shells... I'd imagine 500 tubes in all... stacked next to the garbage can (obviously they didn't fit). All of Carbine Ln and the later cross-street, Caven Ave, was lined with the end caps of fireworks and the pink wrappers of firecrackers. As I ran along the street, there was a strong smell of sulfur in the air.

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You know you're a parent when...

  • you didn't get any sleep the night before, but you still go into work the next day because it's "more relaxing."
  • you pick up disgusting objects and throw them away without blinking.
  • you can detect a dirty diaper at 50 ft.
  • "Bizarre Foods" doesn't phase you because you've seen more disgusting things go in a child's mouth.
  • For the automatic coffee makers, the appropriate order is:  Coffee filter first, then ground coffee, then start the coffee maker.
  • That hot water tap on the industrial strength coffee makers is an effective way to wake up.  Not a pleasant one, but still an effective one.
  • you go out with your spouse and come home completely exhausted by 10pm.
...I'll be posting the final list to the You Might Be... Humor Lists blog

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Baby blue eyes

Img_1998

10 1/2 months old, walking like crazy.


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My new goal: Make my Gmail account usable again.

I started about 10 minutes ago with 10,000 conversations and between 1000 MB and 1050 MB of e-mail in my Gmail account.

I'm currently down to 6881 conversations and 939 MB in my Gmail account.  Time to take a break for the kids' bedtimes, but from now on, I'll be taking an aggressive approach to subscriptions.  If I skip over an e-mail update, I will now be immediately unsubscribing.  I'm not getting reasonably important e-mails at the moment.

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How much is my time worth for you to market to me?

Okay, I'm not even in product development or in an executive-level position, so I should theoretically have a low cost of entry for rewards based e-mail marketing.

Background:
When I signed up for BonusMail (ten years ago?)  The reward system was a flat rate cost-per-click model, with variable reward cost-per-action layer:  An ad would come in your e-mail.  You received 5 cents for clicking on the ad and maybe 10 cents to $20 dollars for following through on some action.  The "actions" could be as simple as signing up for additional opt-in e-mails to as complicated as signing up and getting approved for the NextCard Visa card ($20 reward--you'll notice that NextCard went under long before the latest crisis).

BonusMail got bought by MyPoints, which is now part of United Online, which owns FTD, Juno, NetZero, and Classmates.com.  Along the way, the 5 cent reward was converted to a "points" system--a nice, easy way to obscure the reward amount being received.  The new reward was 10 points per click.  Then, there was rescaling of the "points" accumulated, and an adjustment of the reward down to 5 points per click.

In the meantime, I signed up for the MyPoints rewards card which was operated by the now defunct Washington Mutual bank.  At 1 point per dollar spent + double rewards for purchases through MyPoints, the points racked up considerably quicker than through the e-mail clicking.

What's the point system worth today? 
Points are redeemable for gift cards through various merchants, and vary depending on the merchant.  Merchants with higher markups require fewer points per dollar, etc., so for the most "efficient" point redemption example through the lowest markup merchant, let's look at Wal-Mart:

  • $50 gift card
  • 7500 points
  • 150 points per dollar or 3 1/3 cents per click (5 points)

What's my time worth?
Since I'm not a targeted expert, I wouldn't expect to be compensated as a seasoned professional for my time.  However, I also consider any compensation for activities outside of my day job as being paid at an "overtime rate."  (In other words, divide the the hourly compensation by 1.5 for comparison purposes.)

Assuming that I waste an average of 30 seconds blowing through these messages, I'm receiving the equivalent of $4/hour compensation for my work.  I'd imagine that the service wage worker probably clears more than that per hour--there's no need to even consider that I'm killing my "overtime" hours.

Could I have gained anything from that time?

I still play addictive online games, etc...  but I refuse to buy a gaming console.  I do not wish to commit money to something that will likely eat up free time being non-productive.  I get on Facebook to maintain the friends and family network.  I get on Twitter to engage in conversations and to get quick knowledge via the Twitterized blog feeds.

I may not have gained anything in that time wasted, but there was definitely an opportunity cost in terms of time.  I may have delayed the completion of my Master's thesis by 3 years because I broke my concentration too often with such wastes of time--at my retirement, that may be a 7-figure mistake.

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