BBC Exposes Facebook Security Flaw

LINK

The Revolution Will Be Twittered

[LINK]

50 Best Cult Books

[LINK]
I liked this list immediately because it started with Vonnegut.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (1957-60)
A Rebours by JK Huysmans (1884)
Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (1991)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (1993)
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (1971)
Chariots of the Gods: Was God An Astronaut? by Erich Von Däniken (1968)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824)
Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health by L Ron Hubbard (1950)
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley (1954)
Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968)
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973)
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter (1979)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (1982)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino (1979)
Iron John: a Book About Men by Robert Bly (1990)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and Russell Munson (1970)
The Magus by John Fowles (1966)
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (1962)
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
No Logo by Naomi Klein (2000)
On The Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (1971)
The Outsider by Colin Wilson (1956)
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (1923)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (1914)
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám tr by Edward FitzGerald (1859)
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922)
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774)
Story of O by Pauline Réage (1954)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)
The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda (1968)
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1883-85)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values by Robert M Pirsig (1974)

Security Apps for Every Operating System

[LINK]

Remove Flouride from Water

LINK

Ways to Remove Fluoride from Water

* Reverse Osmosis Filtration
This is used to purify several types of bottled water (not all), so some bottled waters are unfluoridated. Reverse osmosis systems are generally unaffordable for personal use.

* Activated Alumina Defluoridation Filter
These filters are used in locales where fluorosis is prevalent. They are relatively expensive (lowest price I saw was $30/filter) and require frequent replacement, but do offer an option for home water filtration.

* Distillation Filtration
There are commercially available distillation filters that can be purchased to remove fluoride from water. On a related note: When looking at bottled water, keep in mind that 'distilled water' does not imply that a product is suitable for drinking water and other undesirable impurities may be present.

These Do NOT Remove Fluoride

* Brita, Pur, and most other filters.
Some websites about fluoride removal state otherwise, but I checked the product descriptions on the companies' websites to confirm that fluoride is left in the water.

* Boiling Water
This will concentrate the fluoride rather than reduce it.

* Freezing Water
Freezing water does not affect the concentration of fluoride.

Steps to Reduce Fluoride Exposure

* Don't take fluoride supplements.

* Read labels on bottled beverages.
Unless they are made using distilled or reverse-osmosis water, they are probably made with fluoridated public water.

* Consider using unfluoridated toothpaste.

* Avoid drinking black or red tea.
They come from two different types of plants, but both leaves naturally contain high amounts of fluorine.

* Be wary of tinned fish and canned food items.
Fluoride may be used as a preservative.

* Avoid black or red rock salt or items containing black or red rock salt.

* Avoid using chewing tobacco.

* Avoid long term use of medication that contains fluorine.
Certain antidepressants and medications for osteoporosis contain fluorine.

Washington Watch

(LINK)

"Washingtonwatch.com tracks the bills in Congress, along with estimates about their costs or savings, when available.

To learn more information, comment, or take action, click on a bill."

This is my kind of site.

Esoteric Agenda

You may want to take a break to watch this, it's definitely worth a watch.

Just made $25, Google Stock Screener, TringMe

I posted about RevolutionMoneyExchange earlier and I thought I'd add that they posted $25 in my account today. I'm just waiting for my bank account to be approved (it takes about 3-5 days after signup). Sign up and get $25!

I updated my investment portfolio at Google Finance to reflect the 401k I started with Apple, as well as the stocks I bought in December. There's a new feature called Stock Screener which lets you search for stocks using specific, customizable criteria. Check it out!

(from Google Finance Blog):

"If you haven't used one before, a screener is an advanced search tool that lets you find companies which match a set of criteria. For example, you could search for large companies with a PE ratio less than 20 which pay at least a 5% dividend. Or you could screen for small tech companies with strong 5 year growth. It's entirely up to your investment strategy.

Anytime you make adjustments like setting a value, removing a criteria, or limiting the search to a single exchange, the list of results updates automatically. The search is completely live -- no buttons to press. We also have blue and white histograms so you can see the distribution of all companies for a particular value--for example there are far more companies with a market cap below one billion dollars than above. You can either grab the sliders or type exact values to the set the minimum and maximum for each criteria.

Once you have run a screen that you like, you can bookmark the page or email the link to a friend. Since not all of the criteria may be familiar terms, we've included definitions in the Add Criteria wizard, as well as a help icon next to each line."

One new thing I added to my site called TringMe, which lets you add a voicemail/call feature to your website. It should be fun if you have a microphone on your computer. I don't know how many people I know actually use a Mac, but if you have a Mac made in the last few years you should. Check it out, or click the button to the right that says "Call Jameson." The more people you invite to TringMe the more call credits you get to call phones for free. I believe voicemail is completely free however.

Revolution Money Exchange

A new "Paypal" clone is throwing it's gloves in the ring and they seem to have a good start. It offers free money transfers and $25 at sign up. I just heard about this (my friend told me a week ago) and the $25 offer expires tomorrow so sign up today.

How To Research An Unknown Online Retailer

from Consumerist
So you just spotted that gizmo you've been lusting for at unbeatable price, but the only problem is it's for sale at an online retailer you've never heard of. How do you know if they're trustworthy? Consumerist reader "Gigantic Robotic Penguin" (don't let the name turn you off) has put together a comprehensive guide to evaluating unknown online retailers. Get started snooping, inside...

All these steps add up to a matrix that can either reassure you or make you want to run the other way.

* Do they have a toll free customer service number and published hours of operation?
* Do they take credit cards? It is no guarantee of quality if they do, but it is one step up. I think you should generally avoid any place that only takes Western Union money transfers.
* Do they have a security/hacker prevention or testing certificate?
* Does the checkout process use an encrypted HTTPS page?
* Are the company Privacy and About pages blank, or do they look like they are from a default template for an online shopping cart that was just set up the day before?
* Search Google for the store name and words like "scam" and "customer service." It is not a good thing if all the entries are for people asking if a site is a scam in Yahoo Answers.
* [www.google.com]
[answers.yahoo.com]
[wiki.answers.com]
* Check the Whois to see what the website registration looks like. It is not a good sign if it was just registered last week. It should not look like someone is trying to hide the fact that they are running a business out of their parents basement.
* [www.geektools.com]
* Check the Traceroute to see what network it is running on. It should match the WhoIs info to some extent.
* [www.opus1.com]
* Check if the company has a yellow pages listing and street address. If you have a phone number, a company with a street address is a lot more reassuring. Check the address on Google Maps to see if it is a vacant lot or an address in a housing tract.
* [www.411.com]
* See if the site has a warning listed on McAfee SiteAdvisor.
* [www.siteadvisor.com]
* Check fraud and scam report sites. Some of them also list sites that have allegedly scammed other people.
* [edsbandwagon.com]
[www.fraudbureau.com]
[www.ripoffreport.com]
[www.scambusters.com]
[www.scamclub.com]
[www.cybercrime.gov]
[www.fraud.org]
* Beware of "Online Review" sites. Some are little more than a site for scammers to post fake positive reviews, and the owners to make money on banner ads. Here are some you can trust:
* [www.epinions.com]
[reviews.pricegrabber.com]
[www.bizrate.com]
[www.resellerratings.com]
* BBB online. Lots of places do not have entries because they are small and treat their customers well enough to not get a complaint.
* [search.bbb.org]

What techniques do you use to see if a site is legit? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Barrow. Lend. Prosper(.com)

Prosper.com
A year or two ago I read about the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus who developed a successful micro-lending strategy for developing nations. A few sites sprang up which resembled Ebay or Paypal that enabled average people to lend increments of money to small businesses in developing nations.
I started searching for sites geared toward lending money to "developing families" in the US and I came across Prosper.com. I was just approved 5 minutes ago so I'm setting my profile up now. You can connect with friends and family to "endorse" each other as encouragement to potential lenders to bid on your loan.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Ratemycop.com

ratemycop.com
--Creators of the site say no personal information will be on the site. They gathered officers' names, which are public information, from more than 450 police agencies nationwide. Some listings also have badge numbers along with the officer's names.



Rebecca Costell says, in a statement, that the site helps people rate more than 130,000 officers by rating them on authority, fairness and satisfaction.



She adds, "Our website's purpose is to break the stereotype that people have that cops are all bad by having officers become responsible for their actions."--