Flametoad

It’s time for another random collection of shiny things that caught my eye on the internet!

How about a bird’s eye view?

Did you hear about tadpoles raining from the sky in Japan?

Or, here’s some interesting trivia. On-demand books published now exceed the number of traditionally published books. Even large houses are seeing the value of keeping their back catalogs alive through on-demand printing. It’s a brave new world for the printed word.

The Sky is Falling.

Have you heard of botnets? They are collectives of PCs that have been infected by malware, that turns them into slaves for criminal organizations. In many instances the PC owners don’t even realize that their computer has been turned into a zombie. Modern botnets are constantly updating and next to impossible to stamp out. Yet, recently researchers hijacked control of a botnet away from its criminal owners, and the results are both fascinating and frightening. This is definitely worth a read.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Last week I took my first trip to the West Coast. I had a training and certification exam in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure what to expect, other than temperatures 40 degrees cooler than what we were experiencing in Texas. I knew it was going to be a busy trip, but I thought I’d like to check out Alcatraz and maybe a few other sights. Unfortunately, this ended up not being the trip for sightseeing.

I got to my hotel at around 7 pm the night before my first class, but my body was still telling me that it was 9 pm. Jet lag really hurt on this trip. I awoke at 5 am after a very restless night, and enjoyed what would turn out to be my last few hours of leisure.

The class and exam were for certification in payment card security, which is one of my daytime job functions. By mid-day it was clear that I was in deep. Going into it, I really didn’t know what to expect with the class or exam. I realized that I was in a room with a bunch of people who had been involved in payment security longer than I and had more knowledge. There appeared to be a lot of rote memorization that I hadn’t done leading up to the class, and I was expected to do it on my own. So after nearly 8 hours of instruction, I went to my room and studied for another 3 hours. The next morning I got up at 5 am and immediately started studying until the class began at 9 am. Another 8 hours of instruction, then back to my room for another four hours of memorization. Then Friday morning, up at 4 am (awake at 3, truth be told) for another four hours of studying/memorization right up until the exam.

Fortunately, all that cramming paid off to some degree. I won’t know if I passed the certification for another two weeks, but at least I don’t feel like I embarrassed myself. I feel like I did pretty fair. Between studying my brains out and praying for peace and perspective, I made it through the stress, jet lag, and sleep deprivation without cracking.

Oh, and two hours after the exam I checked out of the hotel and headed back to the airport. My only first hand impression of San Francisco comes from the airport and the hotel. The airport is too small for the amount of foot traffic going through it. It was very crowded. People were lined up in the halls sitting against the walls because there was nowhere to sit. My hotel, Staybridge Suites, was something of a disappointment. It was an older facility, and somewhat frayed around the edges. The mattresses weren’t terribly comfortable and the shower was a sad little thing. All in all, it was a lonely room. What it wasn’t was small. Because these were suites for long-term stay, I had a kitchen, living room, and separate bedroom.

San Francisco seemed like it might have been pretty. I come from a part of Texas that’s green (when we’re not in drought), but relatively flat. It was a nice change of pace to actually see hills and mountains. Maybe one of these days I’ll be back, hopefully for something less stressful and with more time for sightseeing.

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I just wanted to give a shout of thanks to Cym Lowell, for featuring Buried Tales (and Flametoad) on his blog. It was very generous. Be sure to check out Cym’s blog, then check out his novel Riddle of Berlin.

Popularity: 6% [?]

So, you know the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act that the president just signed? The one that’s supposed to give all of us common people relief from the tyranny of the card companies by letting us go longer before we’re charged late fees? The one in which card companies have to give 60 days notice before they raise your rates? What a great thing for consumers! Way to stick it to those greedy banks!

Except…it’s not quite that easy. Card banks aren’t able to apply the cost of riskier transactions onto the people who are making those risky transactions–those with bad credit, who pay late, or who don’t pay at all. That was the idea behind the law. But the card banks aren’t just shrugging their shoulders and giving up. Someone has to cover those risky transactions. Since the card banks can’t make those people pay, they’re starting to look at other places to shift that cost. But how?

Fees

Remember when card banks charged annual fees ranging anywhere from $40-$100 for the privilege of using their card? Market competition has mostly driven those fees away. Look for some banks to start charging annual fees again. But hey, they have to give you 60 days notice before they do it so it’s a victory for consumers, right?

Goodnight, Grace

Here’s one even better. Keep an eye out for this letter from your card companies. Chase, one of my card banks, already sent me notification that in 60 days they’re setting my rates to x%–on all charges from the time of purchase.

Card banks (or at least mine) are eliminating the 30 day grace period cardholders have traditionally been given to pay back purchases without interest. All the Obama administration’s law has done is allow the card banks to shift the costs of all the people who are defaulting on their credit card payments to those of us who faithfully pay off our balances every month on time.

What’s a person to do?

Keep an eye on your mail, and read notices carefully. Don’t be afraid to call up your card bank and cancel your card. Getting screwed with 60 days notice is still getting screwed. Even though I’ll be forgoing the rewards points, I’ll probably be shifting most of my purchases to a debit/check card. Most of all, please tell the government to stop “helping” us. I can’t afford it.

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Back in late May, Mrs. Flametoad and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by taking our first vacation sans-kids. After a lot of deliberation, we settled on Cancun. Our main criteria was that we wanted a vacation in which we didn’t have to “do” anything. It wasn’t a sightseeing trip or an adventure trip. It was a “spend 3 days doing as little as possible” trip. Mrs. Flametoad found an all-inclusive, adults-only resort with pretty good reviews, and we booked the trip.

Flickr Photostream.

Then in the coming weeks and months we started hearing the reports of gang violence down in Mexico. It was an all-out war between the drug cartels and the military. Thousands of troops were activated in border towns to quell the violence. We agonized over whether or not to go, but the violence seemed to mostly be higher north, closer to the border, so we decided to stay the course. Then, of course, H1N1 rears its head. The kids from New York who got the flu caught it while on a trip to Cancun! What to do?

Fortunately, Mrs. Flametoad had enough perspective on the health industry to understand that the scare was largely that– a scare. We again made the decision to stay the course—a decision made slightly easier by our trip insurance that would reimburse most of our expenses up to the time we got on the plane. Here’s where I’ll brag about American Express Travel. I’m glad that we booked our travel through them. Every step of the way was smoothed over for us. Weeks before we left, they mailed us a travel wallet with all our vouchers, hotel information, printed itinerary, and more. We stepped out of the Cancun airport and an American Express had shuttles waiting to take us to our hotel.

The Cancun area was directly hit by a hurricane back in 2005 and you can still see signs of the destruction today. Although the main highway running down the coast was in great shape, large piles of broken cement and debris are still piled on either side. Although I’ve been saying we went to Cancun, our resort was actually closer to Playa del Carmen. After a 30 minute ride in the van, we arrived in paradise.

The moment we stepped out of the van, we were greeted with champaign and cold towels. The entire stay, we were treated like royalty. The Imperial Valentine Maya itself was beautiful. I can’t describe it better than that. The architecture was grand, the grounds were well maintained, and the beach was beautiful. Our room, which was located near the beach, was fantastic. We had several different locations to choose from with regard to dining, and we thoroughly enjoyed every meal.

True to our plan, we never went sightseeing. We split our days between the amazing pool and the amazing beach. The most adventurous we ever got was going snorkeling on the beach one morning.

Basically, it was an incredible vacation. We benefited greatly from the swine flu. We were told that tourist occupancy over the entire region was at 20% while we were there. It’s normally at 80% at that time of year. We practically had the resort to ourselves. We never had to wait on a meal, nor did we ever have a bad spot at the pool. It was definitely one of those experiences that we could never repeat. As much as we loved the resort and loved the entire vacation, if we ever went back we’d only be up for disappointment. We’d never have the place to ourselves like we did that trip. The lowest occupancy they usually see during off season is 40%.

Popularity: 7% [?]