Monday, July 20, 2009
Goldman Sachs: Pathological Gambler
If your business goes south and I give you a loan of $10,000, for preferred shares in your company. Then, I cover a bet you made with another company for $13,000. You repay the first loan, but I forgive the interest from the preferred shares options, am I made whole in the deal? No, you still owe me the other $13,000. Then why is everyone forgetting about Goldman Sachs' $13 billion AIG reward? The government "made" Goldman take the TARP funds, $10 billion, just like Warren Buffett "made" Goldman Sachs take $4 billion of his hard earned money. Goldman was supposed to give the Treasury preferred shares, but reneged on that deal. They've now repaid the TARP money after we gave them an additional $13 billion through AIG. How has the Treasury and the taxpayer been made whole in this deal? The government is just enabling gamblers to make bigger and riskier bets at taxpayer expense. It's wrong and should be stopped. This is not capitalism in any fair sense of the word. This is enabling a pathological illness in the banking system at best and it's cronyism at the worst. Or we can call it fraud, theft, or some other term that is closer to reality, but the latest Goldman profits are not profits at all.
Labels: enabling an illness
Australian Alerts World to New Jupiter Impact
Anthony Wesley from Canberra, Australia imaged an impact on Jupiter July 19th. According to this blog, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, JPL, has confirmed the impact using an infrared telescope. Congratulations to Anthony on his discovery!
Labels: Jupiter - the comet and asteroid sink
Thursday, July 16, 2009
NASA Has Not Found the Parkes Slow Scan Moon Footage
Just caught a live press briefing by NASA. NASA has paid Lowry Digital a pittance (about $250,000) to restore the best archival TV footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. This is the footage that was converted from the slow scan transmission to broadcast quality. The slow scan camera transmission was something like 10 frames per second normal operation and 5-8 frames in high definition. Broadcast TV was 60 frames per second. NASA had RCA converters in place that filmed the slow scan images and copied them to 60 frames per second. The converters and operator error induced ghosting and other artifacts in the broadcast transmissions. Those artifacts will not be digitized out of the archival digitally remastered footage. There is also an internal reflection within the slow scan camera itself of a LEM leg that will not be digitized out of the restored footage.
During the briefing, Richard Nafzger, the NASA engineer in charge of the project, stated that Parkes was different from the other radio telescope sites. An engineer from APL, the Applied Physics Lab, had his own slow scan converter project. He made two tape recordings of the slow scan transmissions and those two tapes have not been recovered. Parkes had a different contract with NASA as did APL and they were not required to turn over those tapes to NASA for data collection and retention. Stan Lebar, the Westinghouse Electric program manager for the Apollo 11 landing slow scan camera, shared excerpts of a letter from Neil Armstrong emphasizing that he was amazed that the slow scan TV camera even worked on the Moon because it never did in the earthbound preparations. The human race is lucky to have any video evidence at all of the first lunar landing according to the first man on the Moon.
Links:
Press briefing excerpt (BBC)
Best synopsis yet of the briefing by TVTechnology.com
National Public Radio
Restored NASA footage highlights(NASA)
CNN article and video
During the briefing, Richard Nafzger, the NASA engineer in charge of the project, stated that Parkes was different from the other radio telescope sites. An engineer from APL, the Applied Physics Lab, had his own slow scan converter project. He made two tape recordings of the slow scan transmissions and those two tapes have not been recovered. Parkes had a different contract with NASA as did APL and they were not required to turn over those tapes to NASA for data collection and retention. Stan Lebar, the Westinghouse Electric program manager for the Apollo 11 landing slow scan camera, shared excerpts of a letter from Neil Armstrong emphasizing that he was amazed that the slow scan TV camera even worked on the Moon because it never did in the earthbound preparations. The human race is lucky to have any video evidence at all of the first lunar landing according to the first man on the Moon.
Links:
Press briefing excerpt (BBC)
Best synopsis yet of the briefing by TVTechnology.com
National Public Radio
Restored NASA footage highlights(NASA)
CNN article and video
Labels: the preservation of history
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Texas is Cooking Now!
Now we are cooking:
DFW Weather and forecast
Still not quite as hot as Australia last December, but it's not the end of July yet either. My throat and tongue are swollen from allergies due to all of the grasses dying above ground from heat stress.
DFW Weather and forecastStill not quite as hot as Australia last December, but it's not the end of July yet either. My throat and tongue are swollen from allergies due to all of the grasses dying above ground from heat stress.
Labels: Sweltering in Summer
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
When the News isn't the News - Scammers Using Google to Target the Desperate Unemployed
I was emailing a coworker an editorial cartoon via Gmail this morning when a link to this site popped up at the top of my inbox.
Web ad imitating a TV News website
At first sight it looked legitimate. Even I was taken in initially. After all, why would a news site intentionally lie? But, it is not a news web site on closer inspection. Clicking on the News, Sports, Weather, etc. links leads one here. What's worse is that Google is inadvertently promoting these crooks through their Adsense technology. If they'd have designed the site better with more fake links using redirection to other TV news sites even I might have been taken in. (Google gives 453 hits for the phrase "Jobs: Is Working Online from Home the Next Gold Rush?" not counting the two blogger entries.) Here's another one (see the image below). Notice the use of the same picture of the mother and baby. According to this blog entry they are after your phone number. According to Effin Nerds, it's a scam that will part you from $100 of your cash for a $1 product. Or more, if you pay the $102.69 per month charges. Strangely Perfect dug even deeper than Effin Nerds. My coworker, Neil, stated that the perps for the first one were from the Philippines according to the legal disclaimer in the fine print:
Same scam, same headline, same picture of mother and child.
Unfortunately, without Google these guys would be getting nowhere. With Google, they may be millionaires shortly.
The domain info of the first site is:
Domain Name: KLMT3.COM
Registrar: MONIKER
Registrant [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Administrative Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Billing Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Technical Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.TRACKIT202.COM
NS2.TRACKIT202.COM
The physical box is in Pennsylvania:
domain: tsatkin.com
created: 06-Jan-2008
last-changed: 30-Jan-2009
registration-expiration: 06-Jan-2010
nserver: ns57.1and1.com 74.208.2.9
nserver: ns58.1and1.com 74.208.3.8
status: CLIENT-TRANSFER-PROHIBITED
registrant-firstname: Oneandone
registrant-lastname: Private Registration
registrant-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
registrant-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
registrant-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
registrant-pcode: 19087
registrant-state: PA
registrant-city: Chesterbrook
registrant-ccode: US
registrant-phone: +1.8772064254
registrant-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
admin-c-firstname: Oneandone
admin-c-lastname: Private Registration
admin-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
admin-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
admin-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
admin-c-pcode: 19087
admin-c-state: PA
admin-c-city: Chesterbrook
admin-c-ccode: US
admin-c-phone: +1.8772064254
admin-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
tech-c-firstname: Oneandone
tech-c-lastname: Private Registration
tech-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
tech-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
tech-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
tech-c-pcode: 19087
tech-c-state: PA
tech-c-city: Chesterbrook
tech-c-ccode: US
tech-c-phone: +1.8772064254
tech-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
bill-c-firstname: Oneandone
bill-c-lastname: Private Registration
bill-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
bill-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
bill-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
bill-c-pcode: 19087
bill-c-state: PA
bill-c-city: Chesterbrook
bill-c-ccode: US
bill-c-phone: +1.8772064254
bill-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
The domain info of the second site is:
Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/
Domain name: usajobjournalcorp.com
Registrant Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison ()
Fax:
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Administrative Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison (davidallison01@knology.net)
+1.7066609190
Fax: +1.5555555555
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Technical Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison (davidallison01@knology.net)
+1.7066609190
Fax: +1.5555555555
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
NS1.cpvcash.biz
NS2.cpvcash.biz
Creation date: 28 Jun 2009 17:24:32
Expiration date: 28 Jun 2010 17:24:32
The physical location of the second site is in Houston, Texas at The Planet.
The domain info for googlestartupkit.com is:
Domain Name: googlestartupkit.com
Registrar: Name.com LLC
Protected Domain Services Customer ID: NCR-904578
Expiration Date: 2010-04-09 07:27:33
Creation Date: 2009-04-09 07:27:33
Name Servers:
NS1.NAME.COM
NS2.NAME.COM
NS3.NAME.COM
NS4.NAME.COM
REGISTRANT CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
TECHNICAL CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
BILLING CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
Googlestartupkit.com resolves to Google in Mountainview, California. Google doesn't need spammers and scammers to promote its technology. However, protecteddomainservices.com resolves back to Denver, CO. The cashsecretclub.com domain was registered to a Scottsdale, Arizona, proxy. It's likely that all of these companies are fronts (see the Strangely Perfect link and the legalese above).
Web ad imitating a TV News websiteAt first sight it looked legitimate. Even I was taken in initially. After all, why would a news site intentionally lie? But, it is not a news web site on closer inspection. Clicking on the News, Sports, Weather, etc. links leads one here. What's worse is that Google is inadvertently promoting these crooks through their Adsense technology. If they'd have designed the site better with more fake links using redirection to other TV news sites even I might have been taken in. (Google gives 453 hits for the phrase "Jobs: Is Working Online from Home the Next Gold Rush?" not counting the two blogger entries.) Here's another one (see the image below). Notice the use of the same picture of the mother and baby. According to this blog entry they are after your phone number. According to Effin Nerds, it's a scam that will part you from $100 of your cash for a $1 product. Or more, if you pay the $102.69 per month charges. Strangely Perfect dug even deeper than Effin Nerds. My coworker, Neil, stated that the perps for the first one were from the Philippines according to the legal disclaimer in the fine print:
This offering is a contract between you the buyer and our business, the seller. The seller is located in Pasig City, Philippines and by doing business with us you agree that this offering is made from Pasig City, Philippines and shall be governed by the laws of the Philippines...
Same scam, same headline, same picture of mother and child.Unfortunately, without Google these guys would be getting nowhere. With Google, they may be millionaires shortly.
The domain info of the first site is:
Domain Name: KLMT3.COM
Registrar: MONIKER
Registrant [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Administrative Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Billing Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Technical Contact [1930936]:
Moniker Privacy Services KLMT3.COM@domainservice.com
Moniker Privacy Services
20 SW 27th Ave.
Suite 201
Pompano Beach
FL
33069
US
Phone: +1.9549848445
Fax: +1.9549699155
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.TRACKIT202.COM
NS2.TRACKIT202.COM
The physical box is in Pennsylvania:
domain: tsatkin.com
created: 06-Jan-2008
last-changed: 30-Jan-2009
registration-expiration: 06-Jan-2010
nserver: ns57.1and1.com 74.208.2.9
nserver: ns58.1and1.com 74.208.3.8
status: CLIENT-TRANSFER-PROHIBITED
registrant-firstname: Oneandone
registrant-lastname: Private Registration
registrant-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
registrant-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
registrant-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
registrant-pcode: 19087
registrant-state: PA
registrant-city: Chesterbrook
registrant-ccode: US
registrant-phone: +1.8772064254
registrant-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
admin-c-firstname: Oneandone
admin-c-lastname: Private Registration
admin-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
admin-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
admin-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
admin-c-pcode: 19087
admin-c-state: PA
admin-c-city: Chesterbrook
admin-c-ccode: US
admin-c-phone: +1.8772064254
admin-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
tech-c-firstname: Oneandone
tech-c-lastname: Private Registration
tech-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
tech-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
tech-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
tech-c-pcode: 19087
tech-c-state: PA
tech-c-city: Chesterbrook
tech-c-ccode: US
tech-c-phone: +1.8772064254
tech-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
bill-c-firstname: Oneandone
bill-c-lastname: Private Registration
bill-c-organization: 1&1 Internet, Inc. - http://1and1.com/contact
bill-c-street1: 701 Lee Road, Suite 300
bill-c-street2: ATTN: tsatkin.com
bill-c-pcode: 19087
bill-c-state: PA
bill-c-city: Chesterbrook
bill-c-ccode: US
bill-c-phone: +1.8772064254
bill-c-email: proxy1687786@1and1-private-registration.com
The domain info of the second site is:
Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/
Domain name: usajobjournalcorp.com
Registrant Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison ()
Fax:
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Administrative Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison (davidallison01@knology.net)
+1.7066609190
Fax: +1.5555555555
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Technical Contact:
StressFreeRootCanals.com
David Allison (davidallison01@knology.net)
+1.7066609190
Fax: +1.5555555555
5820 Veterans Parkway
Suite 307
Columbus, GA 31904
US
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
NS1.cpvcash.biz
NS2.cpvcash.biz
Creation date: 28 Jun 2009 17:24:32
Expiration date: 28 Jun 2010 17:24:32
The physical location of the second site is in Houston, Texas at The Planet.
The domain info for googlestartupkit.com is:
Domain Name: googlestartupkit.com
Registrar: Name.com LLC
Protected Domain Services Customer ID: NCR-904578
Expiration Date: 2010-04-09 07:27:33
Creation Date: 2009-04-09 07:27:33
Name Servers:
NS1.NAME.COM
NS2.NAME.COM
NS3.NAME.COM
NS4.NAME.COM
REGISTRANT CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
TECHNICAL CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
BILLING CONTACT INFO
Protected Domain Services - Customer ID: NCR-904578
125 Rampart Way
Suite 300
Denver
CO
80230
US
Phone: +1.7202492374
Email Address: googlestartupkit.com@protecteddomainservices.com
Googlestartupkit.com resolves to Google in Mountainview, California. Google doesn't need spammers and scammers to promote its technology. However, protecteddomainservices.com resolves back to Denver, CO. The cashsecretclub.com domain was registered to a Scottsdale, Arizona, proxy. It's likely that all of these companies are fronts (see the Strangely Perfect link and the legalese above).
Labels: online scam
