RTFM

[Read This Fine Material] from Joshua Hoblitt

Coinstar

2007-07-21 by jhoblitt | 0 comments

I finally decided to clean out the drawer in my desk that I’d been dumping the contents of my pockets into every days for the better part of 3 years. Mass had built up in the drawer to the point that I was concerned about it’s structural integrity. Not to mention the fact that there were some many receipts pill ed up in the draw that I could close it anymore. So I decided to draw out one the Coinstar machine’s at the local super market (Star Market). I’ve known about these machines for awhile but always turned my nose up at the 8% cut they extract. Then I found out you can could get the full face value of your cold hard cash back as an Amazon gift certificate.

Number Counted:
Dollars 0
Half-Dollars 0
Quarters 370
Dimes 199
Nickels 125
Pennies 805
Amt Inserted: $126.70

Plus some EU and what must be Japanese money that the machine graciously returned to me.

Avis – are you !@#$%^& kidding?

2007-07-09 by jhoblitt | 0 comments

From: Avis <avis@rent.avis.com>
Reply-To: Avis <avis.9zhb9c.54982@rent.avis.com>
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:37:18 -0400
To: [snip]
Subject: Avis Requests Your Permission

*************************************************
Avis
*************************************************

Dear Joshua Hoblitt,

To view your message from Avis please click below:

http://rent.avis.com/[snip]

*************************************************

Your privacy is important to us. Read our Privacy Statement.
http://rent.avis.com/[snip]
We recognize that you have unsubscribed from receiving
promotional emails from Avis. This is being sent as a
one-time message to reconfirm your email preference.
This is not a promotional offer. If you do not respond,
we will assume you want to maintain your unsubscribed status.

To change your email address, please click here.
http://rent.avis.com/[snip]

Avis | 6 Sylvan Way | Parsippany, NJ 07054

[[ORFVVU-RNLCG-V1EQAN-M]]

Google Checkout’s Possible Killer Feature

2007-04-04 by jhoblitt | 0 comments

I just used Google Checkout for the first time and I discovered what has the potential to be a killer feature. It gives you the option of keeping your e-mail address private from the vendor your making the purchase with. From Google Checkout’s help:

Does Google share my email address with sellers?

If you’d like, Google will keep your email address confidential.

Each time you purchase something with Google Checkout, you can decide whether you’d like to keep your email address confidential. During checkout, you can select to keep your email address private. If you select to keep your email address private, Google will forward all emails from the seller to the address listed in your account, without actually sharing your real email address with the seller.

What I’d like to know is if there is some means of stopping the mail forwarding, especially if the event that the vendor decides to start spamming you.

Faraday Cage in a Bottle

2007-03-25 by jhoblitt | 0 comments

As reported on tech.blorge.com, a company by the name of EM-Sec Technologies has announced an RF blocking paint. There are some ruff specs on the material in this PDF. The company is marketing this material for “security purposes” but according to the specs this stuff should be pretty effective at interfering with most common cellular frequencies. Wouldn’t it be great to have Faraday Caged movie theatres?