Anachostic

Balancing On A Fence

Posted by anachostic on November 30, 2015 No comments

One of the bigger time-sucks in my life is the image sharing community, imgur. Recently, there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the method in which imgur handles advertisements. I honestly can’t remember what it was like before the latest implementation, which I guess is a pretty good endorsement for “the old way.” But the new way is certainly ruffling a lot of feathers.

Imgur has chosen to go the route of “Native Advertisements” in which ads look like normal content. It’s a dangerous game because it risks having your users feel deceived once they realize they were just fed an advertisement and didn’t realize it. Imgur has worked harder to make ads more identifiable while at the same time, tried to make the ad look more like regular content. It’s not working out too well.

I understand the need for advertisements from all three sides of the fence: the seller, the advertising host, and the consumer. Each party has priorities that can hinder the effectiveness of advertising. Understanding these needs and balancing them can make advertising better for everyone. Come to think of it, there are actually only two sides of the fence: seller and consumer. The host is the fence.

The seller has a product or service that they need to sell in order to stay in business. With the assumption that the business is legitimate and their intentions are noble – that they really believe in their offering – there shouldn’t be any problem with seeing their advertising and hearing their sales pitch. The problem is, the product may not be applicable for everyone, like selling cattle fencing to a wall street banker. But – and this is a valid argument for the seller – that banker may know a rancher and may comment to them that they saw an interesting product recently. That’s what ads are supposed to do, inform.

Now, the seller can be blinded by this natural benefit and may insist on everyone seeing their ads as many times as possible, because people have naturally short memories (“I saw this thing; no idea who made it or what it was called…”). This results in fatigue and resentment for the consumer.

The advertising host has a bunch of potential consumers to whom advertisements can be shown. In return, the host gets paid by the seller. This helps pay the bills so the host can continue business. The host has competing objectives: to keep the consumers happy and to keep the sellers happy. Being in this position is not easy because pleasing one too much will upset the other.

The consumer, when visiting a host, gets served ads from a seller. If they are shown too many ads or unusable ads, they will rebel against the host and maybe the seller. I do believe that if an ad is relevant and presented in the correct manner, the consumer will not be offended. If the ad can’t inform or educate, at least it should entertain. Later ads on Imgur, from Old Spice and Ebay proved this to be true.

So, with the early uprising at imgur about ineffective advertisements, I thought I’d spend a few brain cycles on how I would implement an advertising mechanism into a website. The primary thing I would want to ensure is that my users had a level of control without being able to completely eliminate advertisement. That’s the balance every advertising host must maintain.

I came up with the following design. It’s greatly simplified to just illustrate some talking points.

The Campaigns and CampaignPosts are structures for ads and a means to group them. For example, on imgur, there were ads for the upcoming movie Ted 2 (which were universally hated). I’ve seen at least 3 different ads. So the Campaign would be “Ted 2 Movie” and there would be 3 or more CampaignPosts under it.

Now, how does the user have control over this? There are two ways: at the post level and at the campaign level. When an ad is shown, the ImpressionCount of the UserCampaignPosts is incremented. Imgur has voting arrows, so the downvote arrow would operate like my hypothetical website’s “Do not show again” button. This would set a negative rating for the CampaignPost and it would not be shown to the user again.

The great part of this design is the advertising dashboard for the user to allow them to disable entire campaigns. Why would you let a user do that? Well, there are some things that people are opposed to on principle and it is futile to convince them otherwise. In fact, displaying more ads to them would hurt your cause. Just think of pro-life/pro-choice ads, or anything political, or Mac/PC.

On this advertising dashboard, a user would see all the active campaigns for the website and could opt out of them. The CampaignPosts within each Campaign would not be shown to that user anymore. Sounds really simple. But! An advertiser has paid for these ads to be seen and as the host, you need to show them. If it was just as easy as unchecking all the checkboxes, no one (who was registered on the website) would ever see any ads.

So, in order to opt out of a Campaign, all of the CampaignPosts need to have an ImpressionCount greater than zero. That means a user has to see every ad for a campaign at least once. Is that fair? I think it is. I envision it being similar to this conversation:

Seller: “Eat at Joes, please.”
Consumer: “No.”
Seller: “Joe’s has good food.”
Consumer: “I do not eat at Joe’s and never will.”
Seller: “Ok, just hear me out and I won’t bug you anymore.”
Consumer: “Fine, go ahead.”
Seller: “Joe’s has healthy lunch options.”
Seller: “Joe’s is open late on weekends for after-party recharging.”
Seller: “Joe’s is also active in the community, sponsoring children’s sports programs.”
Seller: “That’s all I got. Thanks for listening.”
Consumer: “Still not convinced. No thank you.”

The seller gets all the views and the consumer, even if they just pass over them and don’t pay attention, still gave an effort. So to mimic that sort of offer to opt out of future ads by viewing all current ads in one batch, that same functionality would be in the dashboard – to view all ads for a campaign. And they would remain there just in case a consumer had a partial memory of one and wanted to get more info for someone else. But, once all the current ads are shown, the option to opt out would be enabled. Once the Campaign is opted-out, future ads won’t be shown.

If you’re thinking ahead or you’ve got a scheming mindset like I do, you might wonder why a seller wouldn’t just launch a bunch of campaigns with one ad each, so consumers would constantly have to visit the dashboard to opt out of each campaign. That onus is on the host and it’s managed very easily – via cost. Campaigns should cost more to start up, but adding more ads to an existing campaign is more cost-effective. Or maybe it’s a sliding scale that the more active campaigns you have going, the more it costs. In that way, the host protects its users and can balance risk vs. reward.

The host also gets the benefit of an incentive for people to register for the website. Registering would give a user the ability to manage the advertisements. Non-logged-in users would get ads from all active campaigns.

In this case, everyone compromises and everyone gets some benefits. The seller can’t spam the consumers if they choose to opt out, but they do get the opportunity to “speak their piece” in its entirety at least once. The host may not get as much money (if they are paid per impression), but they will have a happier user base. The consumer has the opportunity to control what ads they want to see, but in order to block a campaign, they have to see all the ads in it first.

It’s not all bad for the consumer. I can imagine there could be some compelling ads, or some from a company they respect that the consumer may choose to keep active. The host’s logic needs to be dynamic enough to not show the same ads over and over and to possibly reduce the number of ads to the most engaged users. Maybe try to hit a target number of impressions per week per user. Once a user is nearing that number, back off on the ads.

A lot of times, I find that my ideas are too altruistic and give people the benefit of the doubt too much. Fortunately, my default is not to be jaded and cynical, despite the number of posts in the Rant category. The problem with dealing with people is that compromise is always a last resort. So this idea would probably never be accepted because no one wins.

But It Was The Right Thing To Do

Posted by anachostic on November 15, 2015 No comments

I’m sorry, Kaitlynn.

Your ATM card is dead. You left it in the Publix parking lot tonight. There were no other cars around, so I couldn’t try and find you. I had a thought to turn it in at the customer service counter and see if you would call and say you left your card there. Instead, I called your bank.

Bank of America. What a great bank. In their phone queue, they ask for my (your) account number. I enter it from the card. They ask for the last four of your SSN. Hell, I don’t know. I said 0000. I was wrong. So they start to blow me off (a machine, saying eff off - wonderful) and I say “operator” (that’s supposedly a trick to get to a human). Sorry, their customer service center is closed and no one can help me (or you). Instead of getting pissed off and hanging up, I got pissed off and listened to the rest of their message. I could report a stolen or lost card by saying “lost card”. Bingo!

The lady handling the situation was pleasant. She said she would deactivate your card right away. I said that deactivating a card could result in a huge hassle. Can’t you call the person and tell them their card will be waiting at the Publix service desk? Nope. Who knows who’s seen and copied the information on that card already before I found it. Fair enough. Goodbye, ATM card. Goodbye, scheduled online payments. Goodbye, electronic means of buying cigarettes (my assumption). Oh, and they’re not going to call you either and say your card was found. They’ll just wait for you to notice it’s gone and report it missing. Seriously, that’s what they said.

So, I’m sorry. But you should be happy it ended like this instead of the alternative. Also, you need to sign your card before using it. It says right on it: “Not valid unless signed.”

Happy holidays.

Hopefully I Remember When I’m Senile

Posted by anachostic on November 11, 2015 No comments

After reading: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4825

I’m actually not sure how to present this idea because in today’s hyper-sensitive world community of “activists”, anything can be construed as evil, manipulative, or exploitive. So, I guess I will have to say that this is my idea for myself, but if anyone else thinks it’s a good idea and can run with it while dodging whatever arrows are fired by the SJW’s, have at it.

So the premise of the article is that there is an unbelievable amount of data that needs archived into some non-degradable, digital format for preservation. I’m certainly not opposed to it, despite whatever posts I’ve made about “anchors”, “baggage”, “simplification” and so on. And it’s something that I would like to help with, but right now, I am in a generally busy part of my life. This is a very labor-intensive task, and it has a degree of drudgery. Maybe 20 years ago, I would have been able to devote large chunks of time to the cause, and maybe in 20 years I will have that opportunity again, when I am retired.

That’s when it hit me. There are a lot of people out there that are… hmm, have to be sensitive about this… underutilized. Those people could find a purpose by contributing/donating labor to the archival project. In the spirit of my previous post, they could do archival work. Maybe (hopefully) they might find the work fulfilling and be driven by the same purpose. Then they could be archivists. For many of the people in the demographic I am envisioning, the archival process could also be a nostalgic endeavor. This could be a potential source for metadata in the archives.

It’s a pretty well-known fact that people who end up in retirement homes fade away quicker because they lose a sense of purpose, the knowing that you are needed and the feeling that your contributions have value. So, what if archival stations were set up in some retirement homes? Give some of the residents training on use of the equipment, let them know the benefits their efforts are providing and let them do as much as they wish to do?

The hardware is certainly not a problem. Hardware is cheap now. It’s the labor that is expensive, unless that labor is donated. I hope I can remember to do what I can when I am too old to contribute in the fast lane of technology. Just get me off the highway and into the rest area with a bunch of data for slow processing and I’ll do what I can.

Do What You Love, Because What You Love Needs You

Posted by anachostic on November 10, 2015 No comments

In my line of work, which is software development, there are two distinct types of people. There are programmers and there are people who “do programming”. You can probably relate that to your job, too, especially if you are in the former group for your field. Some people are the field, and others are in the field.

If you define yourself by what you do, meaning you take pride in your work, you constantly learn the latest of what is going on in your profession, and you strive to push your profession further and be –if not notable – at least respected in your field, than you are your field. That means you say “I am an X.”

If you go to work to accomplish your tasks and mentally clock out at the end of the day to live your life, if you don’t have any interest in learning or studying what you do at work outside of work, then you are simply in your field. Then you would say “I do X.” Even if you work late or come in on weekends. That just means you’re a good employee. Then you would say, “I work at X doing Y.”

The people that “do” and not “are” should be reconsidering what they do. Not only are they doing themselves a disservice because they lack the passion for their activity, but they are doing a disservice to the profession they are occupying.

In my line of work, there are plenty of people who are mediocre programmers. And they get paid quite well and can do some good things for a company. But they can’t do great things for the company. And sometimes they can do bad things by not doing great things. Think of security. If you have a good programmer at a company and a great hacker who wants to attack that company, well, you know how that’s going to end up.

In any profession, do the people in the field bring down or hold back the ones who are the field? Imagine going to the hospital and being worked on by not “a doctor” but instead someone who “does surgery.” And what about those people who actually identify themselves this way unknowingly? “I do house painting” vs. “I am a house painter.” “This is what I do” vs. “This is what I am.” It’s a big difference.

I feel I need to point out that skill and competency don’t play into this at all. There’s the sarcastic, mocking statement, “I’m an artist!”, but despite skill level, the person that makes a statement like that has passion and will do the best that they currently can. More importantly, they will constantly try to get better. They push forward out of desire where others get pulled forward out of necessity.

There’s an endless number of professions out there and the one that you really want to do really wants you to do it. They don’t want the clock-in/clock-out workers. They want champions and leaders. If everyone did what they loved, everyone would benefit.

Door-To-Door Windshield Replacement

Posted by anachostic on November 5, 2015 No comments

Yup, that’s right. I had two people in my neighborhood going door to door telling people they would replace their windshield for free by submitting claims to their insurance. Oh, this is right up my alley. First, a story from my past.

Somewhere around 5 years ago, when I had my Acura, I had a small crack develop on my windshield. Here where I live, there’s some deal that insurance companies have to fix cracked windshields for free. So, I call my insurance company and say I need my windshield fixed because there is a crack. They say no problem and send a company out for the repair.

The repair company looks at my car and calls me outside. They say I need to replace my windshield. The Acura is at least 8 years old and has like 150k miles on it. I say, you can patch that, the technology will handle this. They say they’ll check it again and I go back inside. They call me back and say that I need my windshield replaced. I tell them I want a second opinion and I’ll call my insurance company again. They weren’t happy, but what could they do?

I call the insurance company and explain to them that I felt they were being ripped off by the company they sent first and I wanted someone who would come out and patch my windshield. They obliged me and when I went out to meet the new repair people, I went to show them the small crack I wanted patched. The crack wasn’t small anymore. The previous company had pressed on the crack and expanded it before I dismissed them. I was furious.

Despite that, the new company was able to patch the larger crack and it never grew for as long as I had the car. So you can say I am a fan of patching whenever possible.

Jump forward to today and I have this hyper dude telling me that yeah, I have some chips in my windshield and they can replace it for free just by getting my insurance information. I start my objection by saying I am a fan of patching, not replacing. He makes some claim that if you have more than 6 chips (and he’s sure there’s at least that many), your insurance will recommend you replace. I think that’s bullshit, so I just say that replacement is unnecessary.

He says that I don’t pay for anything. The insurance company pays for it. I hold up my finger like the educated man I am and reply, “Ah, but I do. The cost of replacements is reflected in everyone’s insurance cost.” Deftly countering that argument he says, “You realize you’ve paid for this many times over already, right?” So I don’t have to pay for this but I’ve already paid for it many times over. This guy is an uber-salesman. I just shrug and say, “Hey, I’m just doing my part to keep costs down for everyone.”

I explained to him my glass has already been replaced once and I like the one I have because it’s a little more tinted than the factory glass. Somehow he still thinks he has a sale, so he says he can put a tint strip along the top. That’s fucking ugly. He throws out another option. No. Not interested. So that starts a whole new argument about how this isn’t the right windshield for my car. What? Then he says the manufacturer of my glass isn’t that good of quality. He will guarantee his glass with a lifetime warranty. Eye-roll.

So I educate him that the car is 5 years old, has been through a flood, is on its second engine, has 190k miles, and just got repaired from a rear-end accident. The windshield is really the least of my concerns. At this point he is laughing at me. Not the kind of laugh that I’m out-arguing him, but more of a mocking laugh. Fuck this guy.

He shakes my hand and thanks me for my time. I decided to give him an honest offer that I would call them if I did choose to have my windshield replaced. I asked for a business card.

“I don’t have any cards. All I have are invoices. Invoices for people who are getting windshield replacements.” Well then. You can go fuck yourself and your fly-by-night scam business. Boy, I wish I paid more attention when he talked about his company so I could report them for fraud.

30 Days of Gratitude For Being Awesome

Posted by anachostic on November 2, 2015 No comments

Thanks to Thanksgiving and thanks to social media, we have a ritual each year where everyone tries to show off to all their friends how grateful they are for what they have in their life. I can’t help but think this supposed show of humility is nothing more than a mask for narcissism. To that end, I decided to list a bunch of things I’m grateful for. Things that show I’m better than you, more fortunate than you, more deserving than you, and yet, more thankful than you. Let’s start.

November 1st is a Sunday. I don’t have to work on weekends because I have a white-collar job and get paid really well for it. So, I’m grateful my job is awesome.
Monday the 2nd. I don’t have any kids that I have to get ready for school or deal with any of their whining or “I’m tired” bullshit. Thank god for that.
Tuesday. Hey, Tie Tuesday! I’ve got a great selection of ties to choose from. I don’t have to wear the same old ties over and over. I’m thankful I found these ties on sale, probably paying a lot less than a bunch of people did for the same tie.
Wednesday. Like just about any day, I eat out for lunch. Most people have to bring in their lunches and usually stay in the building. I get to leave for a while. I am very fortunate.
Thursday and the weekend is coming quickly. Since I don’t have a lot of obligations, my weekend can be pretty much whatever I want it to be. It’s good to have options like that.
Friday now and the weekend is here. I think I’ll give the car a wash and wax so I can turn some heads when I’m driving top-down around the beaches this weekend. My car isn’t new anymore, but it’s still an uncommon car and gets attention. It’s been a good car to me.
On Saturday I spend some time cleaning the pool and spa. I don’t get a lot of use out of them, but they are an attractive feature of the house when they are taken care of.
Sunday again. I think today is going to be a sleep/eat/nap/eat/sleep/eat/sleep day. Yeah, I can do that. Got to be thankful for days like that.
Monday, back at work. Had some code issues, but I solved them quickly because I really know what I’m doing. I’m thankful that my mind is well-tuned to solving coding problems.
Another Tuesday. Hey, Thai Tuesday! I have my choice of Thai places to eat at because the area I work in is great with food. I’m fortunate for that.
Wednesday, my cat greeted me at the door, like usual. She’s a pretty cool cat, with the best qualities of a dog and yet still a cat. I’ve always had great cats for pets. I’m pretty lucky there.
Thursday, I was at work and a got a compliment on the mouse pad I use. Sounds odd, but the mouse pad is really nice. Thick, stitched, oiled leather. It wasn’t cheap, but it’s going to last forever and look great doing it. I’m glad I found it and had the opportunity and funds to buy it.
Friday. Another weekend is here and another chance to spend time with my awesome girlfriend. You want to talk about being grateful, you need to have a good relationship to understand it.
Saturday out at the premium outlets. It’s one thing to window shop and imagine what you would do with that kind of stuff. It’s quite another to know you could buy it if you really wanted it. It’s even yet another to know when the value is worth the price (it rarely is). I’m grateful I have the knowledge of all three.
Sunday at the beach. Yeah, it’s November and I’m roasting at the beach. 10 years ago, I would not have had this opportunity. I have to be grateful of the direction my career has taken me.
Monday, I spend a bit of time reviewing my retirement accounts. I may fret and worry that I’m not saving enough to meet my goals, but really, what are goals? You have no idea you’ve reached them when you get there because your goals have stretched. So I am grateful that I have anything in savings for retirement. So many people don’t have anything and that’s sad.
Another Tuesday at work and I have the opportunity to explain some interesting code with coworkers. Being able to share knowledge and make everyone’s skill a little better is a great reward. It’s good to have that ability.
Wednesday, hump-day, a day out at lunch with co-workers commiserating and having good food. It’s good to not be a loner all the time.
Thursday is a day all to myself. It’s good to be able to be alone when you want to be.
Friday I ride my motorcycle into work. I should be grateful I haven’t had any accidents on my bike. And I should be grateful the bike still runs with as neglectful I am of it.
Saturday, I review my upcoming bills. Everything is well under control and can be paid. I’m grateful I have both control of my spending and a job that affords me to spend what I want.
Sunday again… One more week of awesomeness/gratitude/narcissism. I spend a little time playing keyboards. I’m not a rock star, but I play good enough to please myself. Since I write all my own stuff, that must count for something. It’s a great talent to have.
Monday at work, I’m listening to co-workers discuss the subtle nuances of the comedy of Family Guy and the skill of their Fantasy Football picks. I’m pretty thankful I couldn’t participate in either of those discussions.
Tuesday, I leave work early for an appointment. It’s no big deal because my job doesn’t micro-manage your time. They know it’ll come back to them some day when I have to work late to fix a critical issue. That flexibility is pretty nice and I’m grateful for it.
Wednesday, I’m making plans with the girlfriend to have a great holiday. We’ve had a lot to be thankful for together.
Thursday – Thanksgiving. I am grateful that although my cooking is limited to soup, grilled cheese, burgers, and spaghetti, I can still crock-pot a turkey and it’s fairly edible. And my cat is grateful for that, too.
Friday (black), It’s good that I know back roads to avoid the shopping clusterfucks. I’m not taking the day off, but a lot of people will, so it will be a very light work day. That’s great, too.
Saturday I go looking through some of my bills and I see that I have a lot of rewards racked up for my credit cards, like $300 worth. I’ll probably let them grow because I don’t have a pressing need for them yet. That’s something to be glad about.
Sunday, chilling with the girlfriend and realizing how good life has been to me. It’s not perfect, but the good definitely outweighs the bad. You can do some people-watching and overhear a lot of misery in the world.
Monday, Grateful this post is over and grateful I don’t have any social media that I would have to do this kind of crap for real and wonder whether I has being too vapid or too self-centered or too insulting.

Disclaimer: Some or most items may have been altered or exaggerated for effect.

I Guess It Was My Turn.

Posted by anachostic on September 15, 2015 No comments

The last couple days have been pretty hard for me. Not difficult, just hard. I’ve been having a hard time getting along with the human race, specifically on the roadways. My outlook changed last Saturday when I was driving home on the interstate, cruising along with the other cars and I glance in my rear view mirror and see someone right on my ass. I mean, right there.

“Surely they realize how close they are and how unsafe that is. They’ll slow down now.” is the thought I had in my mind when the impact occurred. Everything in the car went flying. drinks spilled, shifter thrown into neutral, GF screaming. Even though we were surrounded by cars, it’s surprising how quickly openings appear when cars collide. I was able to quickly get over to the right hand median. But my assailant didn’t. Nor did he have any intention of doing anything of the sort.

Still in shock, I hadn’t realized yet that the car was in neutral, so trying to take chase of the other car was delayed by a few precious seconds while I wondered why the car wouldn’t move. Did I take so much damage that my tires were pinned? Nope. I got back in drive and took off in pursuit.

Unfortunately, traffic worked hard against me, blocking me in lane after lane. And I was disadvantaged because I’m clearly not as reckless as the one who hit me. My hopes of catching the assaulter fell quickly. One of the cars I caught up to and tried to get around started gesturing at me. They kept pointing to the right hand side of the road even though we were in the left lane. Eventually, we both pulled off to the left side.

I immediately went and looked at my damaged bumper. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. The other people got out of their car and explained that the car I wanted just got off on the exit we just passed together. Well, that’s lost. But, they said they got the plate number, so hooray! We traded info in case I needed a witness (tip: highway patrol and insurance really want a witness).

So, to speed the story up a bit, the police were unable to find a matching car with that plate number. I have to pay my insurance deductible because no one can find the hit-and-run bastard. But, I’m grateful things didn’t turn out much worse. Getting hit at 75mph, I could have swerved, flipped, gotten t-boned, hit a pole, and maybe even taken out other cars (and who would then be responsible for that?!). Things aren’t that bad.

But they are. I had been slowly getting more and more frustrated by the behavior of other drivers on the highway. Insanely unsafe driving with no regard for others. I’ve recently had to keep my composure when delayed by accidents. It takes a lot for me to not get to the accident site and yell out the window, “You motherfuckers! Do you see what you’ve done?!”

When I see a car coming up behind me now, my first thought is, “Are you going to hit me, too? Why don’t you?” Every time I see someone weave through traffic, I think, “Are you going to run away? Do you even know what risk you’re taking? Do you even fucking care?” I know the answer. They don’t. I used to not let that worry me, because these self-centered assholes never affected me. But now they have, and I want to wage war.

Right now, I’m debating on buying a dash cam. I feel I need to document this insanity. I’m also giving thought to creating a website exposing these ridiculous drivers. I will probably need to get some council to determine if such a thing is legal, and I really hope it is. To have a searchable database of license plates with user-submitted video proof of the owner’s dangerous driving habits, that may make a difference.

And if it doesn’t, or if such a thing can’t be done, well, I guess I just have to suck it up and pay the deductible. The assholes win again.

The Simple Life

Posted by anachostic on August 25, 2015 No comments

Today, I got thinking about a business model that just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me. At my workplace, once a week, we have a food truck come by. It’s not really a food truck, it’s a hot dog stand. You can get a couple of hot dogs, chips, and drink for $5. Not a bad deal, but I didn’t like the flavor of their hot dogs, so I go elsewhere.

Anyway, my mind is trying to figure out how these guys survive. My office isn’t huge; it can’t have more than 100 people in it. And I can’t imagine that many people eat hot dogs every week. So assuming 30 people getting food, that’s $150 a day. That’s gross income. Take out daily expenses like: vehicle gas, cooking gas, cooler ice, food cost, taxes, and cleaning supplies; and less frequent expenses like: insurance (doubtful), advertising/marketing, and cooking equipment, and what would you be left with? And there’s two guys running it, so divide whatever profit is left in half.

Now assuming that maybe they can get by on whatever they are bringing in. What’s the end game? They can only be at place at one time, so they can’t increase sales. The only way to do that is to go to a place that has more customers. There’s no decent economies of scale because a second location requires double of just about everything. Bulk purchases of supplies wouldn’t help all that much.

As far as entrepreneurial businesses go, this one is definitely in the “I love what I do” category.

And So It Grows

Posted by anachostic on August 24, 2015 No comments

Lately, I’ve been looking and dreaming about getting a true stereo audio system like what I used to have. A bit of research showed me that dedicated stereo systems aren’t dead, they’re just brands I am unfamiliar with. So, I’ve been spending lots of time reading and thinking and drooling over the idea of having a listening space.

And my CD purchases keep going. Completing my collection of the MCA Master Series wasn’t the end of my music collecting. Even though I’m not into modern music, there still remains a wealth of older music available for me to purchase. There are benefits to this. First, the music is cheap, because it’s old and used. Second, there is a chance of getting a collectable for cheap. A collectable CD? Worth more than a drink coaster? You’d be surprised. Especially in the era of music I purchase, there are a couple specific things to be on the watch for in order to get a CD that has collector value.

The thing to know is that when CDs first came out, in the mid-1980’s, the primary goal was to get as many titles available for sale as possible. In order to do that, record companies made glass masters of CDs straight from the master tapes used to create records of that time. Later on, when there was more available time, the record companies would remaster those original master tapes. The remastering process would include different EQ and effects, sometimes an improvement, sometimes not, but always different than the original.

Knowing that, when I say that there is an audience that insists on having the pure, original sound (defined as being the LP version), and that CDs that contain that sound are limited to early, early pressings, you can easily see the scarcity-to-value premise. Yes, the original pressings of CDs are more prized by audiophiles. That’s not to say they are always superior. As engineers’ mastering and remastering skills became better, CDs got better sounding, with better stereo separation and more dynamic range, but the “purity” of the original sound is still prized.

There’s a couple of simple clues to finding a first-run CD, and naturally, there’s a ton of subtleties that I can’t get into. But, if you want to get one of these CDs, you need to be looking for an album recorded pre-1990, and manufactured in either Japan or West Germany. One sure clue that you are getting a first-run CD is that the case spine is frosted smooth, instead of ribbed. Another sign, and one that raises the CD’s collectability, is if the CD is printed with a “target” design. Search for Target CD if you want to know more about these.

Yesterday, The GF and I made an impromptu stop at a local CD store. I was hoping to pick up an Ultradisc or two (Ultradiscs are gold-plattered CDs with highly-reputed remastering and are very desirable). Not finding any, I bought a couple of CDs by The Cars. $3 and $5 – not bad at all.

We stopped at Sonic and I took a closer look at my purchases. One CD I was immediately disappointed in myself with. It wasn’t a retail CD; it was a CD Club pressing. These are easily identified and I should have passed on it. Slightly depressed, I opened up the other CD and was shocked to see a target CD inside. I quickly closed the case and checked the case edge. It was frosted. I just got a target CD for $5, which would be sold by a knowledgeable seller for $15-$20. Mood immediately elevated.

I had discounted the thought of ever getting any rare CDs from my local CD shops, because I assumed these guys knew what they were selling. They should have identified that disc just as I had and sold it on the Internet for 3x what they sold it to me. But, since I had recently bought an Ultradisc for $22 (valued online at $45-$50) and now finding a target CD for $5, this gives me hope for finding other collector’s items.

A Comparison Of Credit Card Sites

Posted by anachostic on August 5, 2015 No comments

Recently, I got a call from Capital One’s Fraud Department, which I always take immediately. They told me my card was compromised and they would be sending me a new one right away. Then they asked a bunch of questions, and that was that.

First off, I stayed on guard the entire call. You need to always be aware that someone could be spoofing your bank to get information from you. However, the call was legit and the operator asked me for nothing suspicious and only asked me to confirm recent purchases. So, I had to start using other credit cards while my primary card was being replaced. Right now, I don’t think it was a fraud issue on my card. I think it was an excuse for them to issue me a new card with the new embedded chip.

But anyway, the point of this post is that after using Capital One exclusively for so long, I had a chance to see how my other cards compared. There’s nothing to the actual use of the card – they’re all the same. The difference I was interested in was the web sites. And there was a big difference.

I used three other cards in this time period. The branding of the card is probably as significant as who it was issued by, since the web site contains that branding and could be completely different code bases. So the cards I used were: Bank of America’s Elite Rewards VISA, Barclays’ Choice Privileges VISA, and Citibank’s Sears MasterCard.

The Sears MasterCard is my oldest card (from 2001) and actually was converted from my former Sears store card, which was actually my very first credit card. It doesn’t get a whole lot of use, and they know it. My credit line on that card has been chopped down to a pretty low limit.

The site itself is managed by AccountOnline.com, and I have no idea how it is operated. The transactions must be processed in batches because I checked yesterday and there was nothing. I checked today and I have activity between 7/31/15 and 8/3/15. There doesn’t appear to be a way to see pending transactions, which would make sense if the transactions were refreshed on a schedule. They do provide a way to download transactions to common financial applications, but you can only download a full statement or the current activity – no date ranges.

The Sears card is a rewards card, and the site does allow you to view your rewards balance and provides a link to searschoicerewards.com where you can spend your points. I had all of 150 points and the cheapest gift card I could get was $20 for 2,500 points. I guess I won’t.

A good sign of a website’s age is their minimum system requirements. In this case, you need at least IE 4.0, Firefox 1.0, Safari, the IE browser in AOL, and Chrome must fall under “Other”. They use security questions and the password complexity is 6 chars min, including 2 numbers and 1 letter. You can use spaces, but only one consecutively. You can set alerts on balances and payments, but not on transactions.

The Elite Rewards VISA (since 2009) is a newer card, so it would make sense that it has a newer website. It also has the same style of transaction downloading as Sears, where you can download current activity or a past statement’s worth. BoA doesn’t support downloading in Money OFX format, so you have to use Quicken. I don’t see any obvious display of pending transactions, but I think they do display them. BoA has a nice clear link to notify them if you will be travelling with the card, to prevent declined transactions from suspected fraud. Capital One has that as well, but it is tucked away off the main screen.

The site uses SiteKey, an image that supposedly ensures you are on the correct website. They’re getting rid of that feature soon, they say. I was never a believer in whatever security it provided; pretty sure it was just a cookie. BoA has a two-factor authorization called SafePass for transfer transactions. They also use security questions. The site’s password (which they term “passcode”) has a complexity of 8-20 characters, 1 letter and 1 number, and allows some special characters. You can set alerts on balances, payments, and transactions. I set mine up to email me on any charges over $1. That’s something I have set up on Capital One and one of the reasons I doubt there was fraud on my card, because I got no unexpected notifications.

Choice Privileges VISA (from 2013) is my newest card, so you’d expect it to have the newest website. Well, as these cards get newer, the websites have more flashy features, and the Choice VISA is right there with them. They allow downloads for Quicken and CSV only and download by date range. Pending transactions are easily accessible on another tab in the list.

The site uses a SiteImage and security phrase like BoA. Password complexity is 8-30 characters, must have 3 of: uppercase, lowercase, numbers, or special characters. The last 5 passwords can’t be reused. Security questions are also used. BoA and Choice won’t show you what the current security questions are, which I guess is a good thing. You can set alerts on balances, payments, and transactions. Again, I set my transaction notifications here as well.

So in summary, my newer cards are just as good as my Capital One services. But to Capital One’s credit, their card is my second-oldest card (2003) and yet they have continued updating their website to be just as secure and functional as my newest card, unlike my Sears Citibank card. After the big meltdown in 2008 where card companies were closing accounts left and right, I lost a few accounts. One was another Citi card and I seem to remember the website was more fully featured than my Sears card is.

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