On Saving Cash

90 day Netflix hold.

I have a lot of subscription based services tying up my funds; Netflix, E-Music, etc... Often these act to save me money. I used to purchase a few DVDs a month. I haven't bought any in 2008 thanks to Netflix. However, this month I've been much too busy to watch films. Why pay 14 dollars to have a few DVDs sit around unviewed? Netflix will let you pause its service for up to 90 days. I'll save 30 dollars or so. See you in January, DVD player!

A helpful tip from Moneywasting Matt. Don't live like me. Save cash.

Trustocracy

My latest project is Trustocracy, a somewhat more focused blog. It's about tech, politics, society...you know, the small things. I'd appreciate it if you'd mention the site to any policy nerds you think might find it interesting. Thanks.

CNN

I'm glad I don't pay for cable.

I just watched a few purported news clips from CNN.com. How the mighty have fallen. Back in the mid-ninetys, when I was an intelligence analyst, CNN was my informative wallpaper. We kept it on 24/7. Why? Because it kept us informed, the commentary was useful, and there was nothing else like it. Well, Fox News started getting crazy ratings by entertaining instead of informing and CNN sure jumped on that bandwagon (have any of you ever seen an actual bandwagon?).

So tv news is crap, newspapers are useless, and vote weighted sites like Newsvine.com are so overran by the frivolous that finding anything pertinent is an hour long event. Somebody freeze me and wake me up in twenty years when this is all straightened out...or when cars drive themselves. Whichever comes first.

Play This Game

A Flash based time travel puzzle game. What isn't to love?

I love Sarcasm. No, Really I do.

The New York Times has an article on the neurology of sarcasm.

To her surprise, though, the magnetic resonance scans revealed that the part of the brain lost among those who failed to perceive sarcasm was not in the left hemisphere of the brain, which specializes in language and social interactions, but in a part of the right hemisphere previously identified as important only to detecting contextual background changes in visual tests.

It's really cool to know that detecting a change in intent is similar to recognizing foreground/background differences visually. It makes me wonder if highly emotionally and socially intuitive people have a skill that's similar to staring at those odd pictures that turn 3D if you see them right.