Hashemian Blog
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Friday, January 28, 2005
Time to sting the ID thieves
It’s an old trick, but with our fast-paced, digitally connected world, it has become much more than an irritation. I am talking about ID theft, perhaps the fastest growing criminal activity in the US and other parts of the developed world. And it yields millions of victims every year. Some have their credits dented, others lose their shirts. But however the damage, for many it has become as unnerving as having their homes burglarized. And yet somehow it's even worse. Your identity could be stolen and abused years before you find out about it, and to add insult to injury, many of the crooks never see a day in court.
ID theft has become so pervasive and so easy to pull off, that it now threatens the very fabric of our society. Armed with little more than a name and a social security number, criminals are obtaining licenses, bank accounts, jobs, credit cards, and continue their black art with total impunity. When the victim's credit is all but gone, they just move onto the next soul, leaving the victim to clean up the mess. The damage goes well beyond a financial hit. It's a personal assault on one's dignity and good name that is so arduous to recreate. Read this.
We all know that it's high time the society begins to vigorously fight back, but so far only a handful have been charged and the law enforcement agencies have offered little more than advising vigilance to citizens. Not enough. Without deterrents, what would discourage the potential criminals to shun the habit?
Here's an idea. How about sting operations? Law enforcement uses these all the time to snare drug dealers, prostitution rings, organized crime elements, and I'm sure terrorist cells. What if the law enforcement agencies bulked up their anti ID theft personnel, used informants and recruit a few private companies that are proficient at digital tracking and monitoring? What if they set up a block of fake names and social security numbers with proper alert points (perhaps from the credit agencies) to trace illegal activity? And what if they offered rewards for would be tipsters? Of course these steps won't completely eradicate the ID theft problem, but the alternative is to sit idly and let the brazen criminals walk away with our belongings and smear our good names in the process.
<Time to sting the ID thieves>
// posted by rh
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Morbid discounts
A few months ago Costco, the renowned discount bulk chain, announced that they will begin offering caskets on their online store, costco.com.
I had forgotten about the announcement until yesterday, browsing in costco.com, I ran into the casket link. I don't know much about the death business. My wishes are to be cremated and scattered when I move on, so no need to waste money on caskets.
What amazes me is how technology has not only changed the circumstances of our lives, but has also influenced our death. These caskets, ranging from about $1,000 to $5,000 are state-of-the-art. Amenities abound, pillow-topped this and gold-plated that. And to top it off, they are being offered online with discounts to boot. The experience was not unlike shopping for a car.
I'm not sure if death deserves so much lavishness. After all, it is the absence of life that is so cherished by most people. Even if you believe in the next life, what is to be gained from an extravagant funeral? But I suppose if you want to have luxury in death, a discount should make you rest a little easier.
<Morbid discounts>
// posted by rh
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Multi-page Web articles that irritate, and how to side-step them
Sneer all you want but I belong to the destined-for-extinction tribe that use dialup for Internet access. In my position as a Web programmer admitting to such draconian access method is tantamount to subjecting myself to frequent jeers, but I still haven't found a compelling reason to justify shelling out $40 a month for broadband. So the slow connection in my house lives on.
One of my pet peeves with the slow dialup connection is the Web sites that break up a story into multiple pages. As I read the pages, I am forced to click on "Next Page" links to continue reading the story. Web sites may claim that such partitioning is for aesthetic reasons, but I know the real intention is to force the reader to stay on the Web site longer and view more advertising. The extra page impressions they receive as a result of this approach is also of value when they compile their viewership statistics to brag to their next advertiser.
So here's a little trick I use to circumvent their trickery and see the whole story in one shot. The next time you are faced with a multi-page story, look for a "Print" button somewhere on the page. Many Web sites provide this service to their readers so they can print the story in its entirety. Clicking on the "Print" button gives you the whole story in a printer-friendly format, and that also usually means fewer irritating graphics to boot.
Voila. The printer-friendly page loads much faster (a boon to dialup-shackled viewers like myself), and you can view the whole story uninterrupted in one fell swoop.
<Multi-page Web articles that irritate, and how to side-step them>
// posted by rh
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Cassini, Huygens, Titan: one wonders
It's almost inconceivable to look at some of the pictures and sounds of another planet's satellite in our solar system and not to reflect back on ourselves as a race. We owe so much of our progress to so many dedicated scientists and engineers who have dedicated their lives to a better understanding of the universe that we live in.
Humans have walked on the moon, robots are exploring our nearest planetary neighbor, Mars, and now we are getting a glimpse of a heavenly body, Titan, so foreign and so far away that it took the Huygens probe over 7 years just to reach it.
And yet amidst all of these wondrous accomplishments, we are witnesses to archaic beliefs that makes one wonder whether some people ever consider the deeper meaning of these discoveries.
We have just begun to poke our collective head out and gaze at our own solar system, which is a part of the countless systems in our galaxy, which is part of the countless galaxies in our universe. Still the deep-rooted convictions of our past continue to draw a blind over an incontrovertible evidence that we are but an insignificant part of this universe.
It takes zealous thinking, unbounded hubris, and gross ignorance to believe that God chose a parcel of land such as Jerusalem to bless its inhabitants and showcase his prowess. I wonder if the people of Judaic, Moslem, or Christian persuasions would allow themselves to pry open their eyes to reality a little and question whether their claims of rights to this little crust of Earth is an absurd idea incited by centuries of misguided and superstitious beliefs.
<Cassini, Huygens, Titan: one wonders>
// posted by rh
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Arctic jogging
Greenhouse effect notwithstanding, it's downright cold in the American northeast where I live. While most people complain about the chill and wonder how they can go about their daily lives in the arctic temperatures, my concerns are about one thing only: is it safe enough to jog outside?
If you live in a region of our world with brutal winters and you want to empathize with your car as you cold-start the engine in the mornings, I'd suggest a jog outside. It's an interesting experience.
Sometime in my early twenties I acquired the jogging bug and having an addiction-prone personality, I still haven’t been able to shake it. In those days, when I belonged to a gym, I used to jog inside. Then I got married and soon the kids arrived, money and time got tight and the gym was no longer in the picture. But the jogging addiction never left me and soon I discovered the joys and agonies of outside jogging. Rain or shine, snow or wind, oppressive heat or brutal cold, jogging must continue like a religious edict.
So what I do when I feel it's unsafe to jog in the arctic air? I do what every addict does to get his fix. I throw caution to the wind, ignore the inner alarm, and get out there. I know it's wrong, I know I should wait for a more reasonable weather, I know my wife will call me nuts as I walk in the house with icicles stuck to my nose and wheezing as my frozen lungs struggle to dispatch extra oxygen to my aching muscles. But none of those seem to matter when the endorphins have kicked in and I'm feeling just groovy.
So let the nature bring it on. I'll be out there again. For me there is no hope for a cure.
<Arctic jogging>
// posted by rh
Monday, January 17, 2005
Car donation and the tax deduction hypocrisy
In the past few years car donation has become a popular method for many charitable Americans. The reason is obvious; it just makes sense. Charitable organizations squeeze a decent sum out of the donated cars, and the donators get to deduct the retail values of their cars from their tax bills.
It’s been a win-win process, until the government decided that it was losing money on the deal. Many of the donated cars were worth below their reported values, thereby the donators were deducting more than their donated property was worth. And so starting January 2005, the IRS slammed the door shut on the over-estimators. Now people who donate their cars must produce a document from the charitable organization specifying the resale price of the car after the car is sold off. Automobiles with retail values up to $500 are exempt from this rule however.
Now I think keeping the taxpayers honest is just fine. But now let's see how people are assessed for the automobile property taxes. Here's an excerpt from a town in Connecticut:
Connecticut Assessors, utilize the NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) appraisal guide for automobile valuations. We take 70% of the published average retail selling price to calculate the assessment.
In effect here's what the government is telling Joe Citizen: "We'll tax your car based on an arbitrary listing. But if you donate the car, you can only deduct the true value of the car and you must produce supporting documentation."
Don't you just love government racket?
<Car donation and the tax deduction hypocrisy>
// posted by rh
Saturday, January 15, 2005
The fantasy Saturday
For those of us who think weekends are for rest and relaxation, welcome to parenthood. It's a Saturday and by all accounts it should be a day to forget about work and unwind. But I think that's just a myth. Something that we can strive for and fantasize about, but it's way out of reach.
Between swimming classes, food shopping, and multiple play dates I feel like an abused taxi driver. Now that dusk has arrived and I have a few moments to introspect, let's dig into my fantasy files and see what I would have done instead. Let's see:
Wake up at 9. Make that 10.
Read my Hemingway book in bed for a while.
Eat a hearty breakfast. Toast, eggs, and juice will be fine.
Watch some TV. Well, we don't even have a TV, but that a story for another time.
Read a few more pages.
Go out to lunch with the Mrs.
A little siesta in the afternoon.
Surf the Web and some hobby programming if I'm in the mood.
Some more TV.
Dinner.
Watch a movie.
Some more TV until whenever.
Sleep.
Okay, that was pretty boring. It was a hectic day, and I spent most of it in the car bussing the kids to various locations. But seeing them enjoying their day gives a me a warm feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Let's file that fantasy in the lethargy folder and preferably staple it shut for now. More trudging to come tomorrow.
< The fantasy Saturday>
// posted by rh
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Not One Dime Day – If only
I received a forwarded email from a friend today. The original email was purportedly written by Bill Moyer and in summary, it exhorted Americans to completely stop spending money on January 20th, President Bush's inauguration day. The idea is that by closing our wallets, we'll slow the wheels of commerce in this country, and therefore vociferously express our displeasure with the war in Iraq to our attentive government.
Of course it was immediately evident to me that this is a hoax and Bill Moyer, a respected journalist, is unlikely to have written it, but its content made me pause and wonder.
What would happen if people suddenly stopped spending for 24 hours? The outcome may not be the intended one.
Most people won't even do it. Daily life can not be stopped.
Even if people stopped shopping for one day, they'd make up for it in the previous or next days, so the economic damage is somewhat dampened.
But Even if such a thing happened and there is economic damage, the real victims will be at the lower end of society. suppose people stopped buying from Wal-Mart. Do you think the executives there are going to lose their jobs? They just end up laying off a number of low wagers (many of which are single mothers, seniors, handicapped, etc.) to protect their profits.
Of course you may think if enough people are unhappy there will be change. Sadly the fact is that there is no such thing as true democracy and representation. Countries (yes, including the supposed democratic ones) are largely run by a group of rich and powerful people who know how to stifle people's voices and promote their own agenda.
So spend or not, the war will continue until that time the gods of war decide they have had enough.
<Not One Dime Day – If only>
// posted by rh
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Yahoo! Desktop Search impresses
Desktop Search has become all the rage these days, and for a good reason. After people discovered that they can seemingly search the Web faster and more efficiently than the contents of their own PC's, the search companies decided to use some of their search technologies to help users find stuff in their own backyard, i.e. files stored on their own hard drives.
For years the only choice for Windows users to search their local files has been the standard Microsoft Search program which comes bundled with Windows. It does the job,
But it's minimalist, clunky, and painfully slow. Microsoft tried to address the speed issue by marrying the search program with the Index Server (a service that indexes the local files), but while this has boosted the performance of search it is still woefully lacking in utility, features, and robustness.
There has been a need for a better search software for quite a while. Enter the big three search outfits, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN with their own search programs, known as Desktop Search.
Not too long ago I installed Google's Desktop Search and I was initially happy with its performance and flexibility. But Google's program is limited in the file types it could index and the interface is, well, Googlish, as in plain and simple and no frills. Perhaps Google's strength in its Web search simplicity was just too bland for me when it came to searching locally. I soon lost interest and forgot about desktop search, until today when I downloaded the Yahoo's incarnation of the desktop search program, and my reaction so far is, wow!
Available in beta version, this program does an impressive job of indexing the local files as well as Outlook messages. It has the intelligence to recognize over 200 different file formats and it can index everything in its path. The interface looks fresh, functional, and fast. In little time I had it configured to index my entire hard drive and after it was done with its initial scan, I tested it with a number of keywords. Who knew searching could be so much fun? It's blazing fast and the results are presented in a nice format. I am sold. Yahoo's Desktop Search has now replaced Google's program in my program tray and I feel absolutely empowered having such a tool at my beck and call.
You can download Yahoo! Desktop Search for Windows from here.
Read the press release. <Yahoo! Desktop Search impresses>
// posted by rh
Censoring sexy
Recently we heard of a complaint from a parent of a student in my daughter's fourth grade class. It seems that my daughter and a friend had a conversation in which the parent's child was also a participant and the word "sexy" was used. Apparently the parent was appalled that her child was exposed to such a term.
I'm not sure when the word "sexy" became a profanity, but this incident prompted me to think about how the world used to be in my youth. Lest we forget, kids weren't that different. I recalled that a classmate of mine in fourth grade had found a note with an ultra-vulgar word written in reverse. Who was the author? Me. It prompted a large investigation in the school and when I finally admitted guilt, I was almost expelled.
The next year several boys (me included) got into trouble for having Playboy magazines in our possession. It appears that the female classmates had discovered them by accident, and having been offended, promptly reported it to the school officials.
I'm not sure if the usage of the word "sexy" goes quite as far as my offenses, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over this. I don't find it offensive enough to prohibit my children from using that terminology at home.
All I can say is that parents need to get a grip. Like it or not, kids will eventually pick up many colorful words and they will learn them a lot sooner than we expect. It's necessary for them to understand that using obscene language will only harm their own status in the civilized society. But intolerance and harsh treatment will just make them more defiant.
<Censoring sexy>
// posted by rh
Monday, January 10, 2005
Encouraging cheating, fostering creative thinking
Having been disappointed with the lax curriculum of the American public school systems, I have begun to subject my kids to some extra math work at home. Nothing too grueling, but just enough to give them an edge, and perhaps spark some interest in that subject.
The other day, I had my third-grader fill in an entire multiplication table. Multiplication tables might seem draconian in today's computer driven age, but I think any person should at least know the basic one-digit multiplications by heart.
So as I sat her down to fill in the empty boxes of the table, I expected her to do a few and get frustrated fast. Instead, to my surprise, she breezed through the table in a few minutes and proudly called me to make an inspection.
I had no idea that she already knew her multiplications so well, but just before giving her my congratulatory kiss, she confessed the truth. In running the numbers, she had noticed a pattern of sequential number values and kept repeating it without paying attention to the actual digits being multiplied. For example for the "2" row, she would just write in the numbers, adding 2 sequentially, like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and so on.
This certainly wasn't the intended lesson, and she had seemingly cheated the system. But through it, I learned a lesson myself and that is, even for children there are a number of ways of solving a problem. Some solutions are easy, and some are hard. But as long as they are ethical, who am I to label the easy solutions cheating? <Encouraging cheating, fostering creative thinking>
// posted by rh
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Microsoft ups the ante in anti-spyware
It was only a matter of time, but Microsoft's concerted mobilization against hackers has started to pay dividends. Today, that dividend manifested itself in the form of an anti-spyware program, aptly named Microsoft AntiSpyware. The program (currently in its first Beta) is available for free from Microsoft's Web site.
Windows Users have a number of choices to battle spyware today. They come in free and paid flavors from a number of companies and I bet these companies are not so sanguine about this new release from Microsoft.
Installing and configuring the program was a breeze and then I had it run a quick scan. It identified one low-risk program (with a nice summary) and gave me a few options to deal with it. For the time being I configured it to run a deep scan every mid-night and check for new updates. Exiting the program, it silently went into an icon state, nestling itself with the rest of the resident programs in the Tray area.
For me, the Microsoft AntiSpyware program is too new to have a definitive opinion about, but my first impression was a positive one. One more thing, the program also contains a tool to wipe clean many hidden areas that record user's activity and whereabouts, including Internet Explorer history, visited links, and recently opened documents by other program. It's a great tool for a paranoid like me.
You can download Microsoft AntiSpyware from here.
<Microsoft ups the ante in anti-spyware >
// posted by rh
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Not too old to be young
Remember when we were kids we used to swear that we'd never become like our parents. I suppose we spend most of our 20's as conflicted people not certain if we can still afford to act like children while aspiring to become adults. In our 30's we are pretty certain that we have entered the adulthood stage. There's that part of us that still longs to belong to that carefree stage of life where actions have little consequence, yet we know better that things aren't as simple as they used to be.
For those of us fortunate enough to be parents, there is the relief that we can live our childhood vicariously through our children.
As a boy growing up in the 70's, my idols where the likes of Lee Majors (in the role of Steve Austin in the Six Million Dollar Man) and James Garner (Jim Rockford). Now that those characters have been replaced by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for me, I also sometimes long to enjoy more whimsical characters. Let's face it, actors and rock stars are much more fun than the stodgy Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch.
And so when my daughters bought the latest Lindsay Lohan music album and proceeded to listen to it and lip-synch the lyrics repeatedly for hours, I decided to hold judgment and take a listen myself, and you know, it's not that bad. Sure, I still prefer my Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton, but I do indulge in an occasional Linkin Park, Staind, and Green Day too.
I may be too embarrassed to buy an album by Hilary Duff or watch a Lindsay Lohan flick, but kids provide a great excuse to sometimes appreciate the art of the younger generation, while acting annoyed for being subjected to such absurd performances.
<Not too old to be young>
// posted by rh
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