Four vacation security tips

My employer's weekly newsletter posted a set of five tips for people planning to vacation abroad. Four of these are are good advice for everybody, not just employees, so here they are. I've made some minor modifications the text to reflect the fact that some referenced resources are not available to the entire world, but the spirit of the content is unchanged.

Dork Tower for 6/28/2013: It's Like Free

Yeah, this is about right...

FixYa: Smartphone reliability

Back in February, FixYa (a product-support web site) published a summary of smartphone reliability issues, summarized by manufacturer. The results should come as no surprise to anyone who has used several different brands:

1. Apple - 3.47
2. Samsung - 1.21
3. Nokia - 0.68
4. Motorola - 0.13

A higher score is better. Score calculated by taking manufacturer problem impressions divided by sample problem impressions (impression ratio), normalizing market share amongst competitors for comparison (sample market share, combined total is 100%), and dividing sample market share by impression ratio. Market share data courtesy of Statcounter.org.

And that about wraps it up for Paypal

Over 10 years ago, I gave up in frustration over eBay's capricious bureaucratic decisions. And now Paypal has decided to screw me over in the exact same way. So now I'm rid of them too. And any other web site that is associated with them.

And good riddance. Read on to hear the entire (rambling, but hopefully coherent) story why.

Dork Tower: May 22, 2013: Gaming Clubs

But more seriously, Matt (in the strip) is right. I find that the most fun I have with video games are the classic arcade games that I play today using the MAME emulator. Thanks to limited hardware and lack of prior art, the game developers were forced to come up with all kinds of original ideas and make them look good using relatively simple graphics.

Babylon 5: 20th Anniversary Visual Celebration Premium Bo

Ooh! Shiny!

Expensive at $134 + shipping, but it's $88 for pre-orders and for the first 7 days after the release (which is June 24th).

I think I may have to have this....

Review: Dream Gear PS3 Move Quad Dock Pro

At home, we just got a set of PS3 Move controllers (motion and navigation.) Combined with our three existing Dual Shock controllers, that's too many devices to comfortably charge with USB cables from the PS3 console. And Reepi (the cat) can't resist chewing on wires.

To solve this problem, we got two of these Quad Dock Pro chargers. Using them, I can move all of the charging devices out of the living room and out of the cat's reach.

Read my full review on E-Pinions

Windows 7's time machine

Amazing! I somehow managed to modify this file several years before I created it. Viva la Windows!

Tucson man injured in stunt gone wrong

h/t News Of The Weird

Just when you thought people couldn't get any dumber:

Tucson man injured in stunt gone wrong

A man ran himself over early Thursday in a stunt gone awry.

Safe Havens: May 4, 2013

Transcript

Professor:	Next semester we're switching to a new edition of this textbook.
Samantha:	What? They put out a new edition just last year! Now the students won't get a decent price for a resale! What did the publisher change???
Professor:	Comma on page 54.

Sadly, this is how it often goes. It's a racket. Publishers make meaningless changes simply in order to force students to buy new books instead of used ones.

The good teachers are aware of this and will allow students to use the previous edition. Most teachers, however, aren't that good.