Credit cards are awesome. If you're not using a credit card for every purchase, you should be. Apart from the free benefits that pass many people by -- like automatically doubling your warranty up to an extra year on almost all purchases (including electronics) and refunds on prior purchases in the event of a price drop (remember the first iPhone?) -- credit cards allow you to earn cashback and other rewards. Of course you won't be able to quit your day job, but free money is free money. As long as you have some self control, you can make the system work for you instead of against you.

This post lays out how I run my credit cards. You should first familiarize yourself with the video clip Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford. To make this work, you must never pay any fees and you must never pay any interest. With that in mind, let's get started.read more »

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I was recently taken to a new low looking through this weekend's newspaper. I am now the shamed owner of a coupon for a product called Potato Finishers.

All-American Potato Finishers ("Great on baked and mashed potatoes!"). This is exactly what America needs. How have we been eating potatoes for all these years without this product? Basically, it is a bag containing cheese sauce, shredded cheese, and bacon bits. It's not like you could buy cheese sauce, shredded cheese, and bacon bits in already-prepared, individual packages and then apply all three items to a potato separately. Moreover, it's not like you could buy a chunk of cheese and shred it yourself, or buy packaged bacon and cook it yourself. The fact that the main ingredient is missing from the product should be your cue to run in the other direction. If that's not enough of a hint, seeing that the widely-publicized coupon allows the "savvy" shopper to "save" $1 on this item, the price should scare off the rest of you; I'd guess $3 - $4.

Perhaps even more disconcerting than the Potato Finishers themselves is the fact that a Google search for "potato finishers" returns eBay auctions for the very coupon to which I earlier referred as the first result. It's not enough that our planet is littered with this coupon in who knows how many newspapers across the country; people are now selling this same coupon for actual money. There are presently 8997 food coupons listed on eBay. You probably had no idea that there is such brisk trade in food coupons happening right under your nose. Is there really a market for mass quantites of useless food coupons? I am also unsettled by the fact that a single product line now merits its own domain registration (thank goodness sargentofinishers.com was available, imagine the horror if terrorists had snatched up the domain and our All-American Potato Finishers couldn't have their own website) and web design efforts. As the nutritional information and even the list of ingredients is conveniently absent from this special website (it's a food product, what else could the website legitimately have?), what does appear on the site is laughable. I'm not sure I'd agree that pictures of fake cheese mixtures on top of various degrees of fried potatoes qualifies as "exciting serving suggestions". Not to be outdone, the hidden nutrition facts are equally bothersome: 1/4 of the small pouch is considered a single serving and has 23% of your daily saturated fat intake and 25% of your daily sodium. Ah, America owes you a vote of thanks, Potato Finishers.

It has never occurred to me that I could call the government if I were to run out of gas.

Alan Peterson, Incident Management team leader for the Utah Department of Transportation, has been assisting drivers who have pushed their fuel tanks too far and run out of gasoline. In 2007 the team gave out about 721 gallons of gasoline to stranded people. This year so far, they have already given out about 524 gallons. [...] Last month, the team helped 150 motorists refuel.

If the end of the year sees double the current amount, that equates to 3 gallons of free gas every day. At the current price of $4.15/gallon, Utahns are [collectively] paying $12.45 every day because of a growing number of idiots (as of last month, we're now up to 5 per day!) who disregard their fuel gauges. Is it really that hard to put gas in a car? Even using the lower 2007 numbers, 721 gallons divided by 52 weeks is 14 gallons/week. Let's hear that again with gusto: The government is handing out a full tank of gas every week! My car doesn't even hold 14 gallons, but I'd still like to know how to submit my name into the drawing.

I feel compelled to write something about the passing of my friend David Heiner. I want to say how his passing pulled at my soul. I want to say how I lied in bed for two days straight, unable to even get up or understand the world anymore. I want to say how it has turned me into a better, more aware person. The fact is, however, that I was not close to David. I can count the number of times I saw him on one hand. I never had the chance -- rather, I never took the chance -- to truly meet and get to know him.

David Heiner is the third David to have altered the course of my life. How many more Davids will I have to endure to escape from my world of deception and lies? I want to scream and cry and stand aside all at once. I want to stab myself to attack the jealousy and laziness within me, yet protect myself from all harm to stand strong forever against the taboos of our social world that I want so badly to correct. I want to run headlong into the fog that is stubbornness and melt it away like the rising sun. I want to stop the flood of fleeting, contradictory emotions. I want to reach out and touch someone and have them hold me tightly against their chest and tell me everything will be alright. I want the insomniatic battle to end and I want to wake up to a new, victorious dawn. I want to tell the truth and I want to be accepted for it.

This time, a David has changed my life for the better. He is my catalyst. It is not because we were so close, but precisely because we were so distant. He has made me realize that there must be countless people that I have let slip through my life; friendships I let pass by. It also has made me aware of the friendships I currently have and how they may be slowly slipping away. I have a handful of great friends who truly care about me -- even though I have not always realized this or treated them with the same level of respect. I am a hypocrit for looking around at my friends and showing anger at how they never call me up or take an interest in my life, yet I, too, sit idly by without reaching out to any of them. I know it will be a gradual process, but I hope to now turn over a new leaf and start to become a better person.

Update 8/26/08: I've improved the compizswitcher script so multiple wrapped applications can run at once (Compiz Fusion will only be reenabled once the all wrapped applications are terminated).

If you use Ubuntu on a computer with an ATI graphics card, you may be disappointed (to say the least) with the video quality. While the quality can be improved by visiting Settings > Preferences > Video > Output Modules and choosing the XVideo output module, this seems to simply switch one problem (blocky picture) for another (flickering).

The problem is that the ATI graphics driver for linux, fglrx, does not get along with Ububtu's 3D desktop effects manager, Compiz Fusion. Both programs fight for control over the display, resuling in flickering as one redraws overtop the other. The "solution" is to use to disable Compiz Fusion while playing videos. You can "wrap" the vlc executable around the following shell script which will automatically disable and re-enable Compiz Fusion as necessary. (The same script can also be wrapped around any other problematic application.)

Run the following code to prepare for the script (one-time only):

sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin compizconfig-settings-manager
sudo touch /usr/local/bin/compizswitcher
sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/bin/compizswitcher

Use your favorite text editor to save the following script as /usr/local/bin/compizswitcher:

#!/bin/bash -u
# quietmint.com Compiz Fusion wrapper script (8/26/08)

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 <command>"
exit 1
fi
ICON="/usr/share/ccsm/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/plugin-showdesktop.svg"
LOCKFILE="/tmp/compizswitcher.lock"

# Disable?
if [ ! -e $LOCKFILE ]; then
echo "[compizswitcher] Disabling Compiz Fusion"
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY metacity --replace 2>/dev/null | cat /dev/null &
notify-send --expire-time=3500 --icon=$ICON "Application Compatibility" \
"Visual effects are temporarily disabled."
else
echo "[compizswitcher] Duplicate instance, Compiz Fusion was already disabled by another process"
fi

echo "$$" >> "$LOCKFILE";
trap unlock INT TERM EXIT

# Run the original command
$@

unlock() {
# Enable?
OTHERS=$(grep -v "^$$$" "$LOCKFILE")
if [ ! -z "$OTHERS" ]; then
echo "$OTHERS" > "$LOCKFILE"
echo "[compizswitcher] Duplicate instance, leaving Compiz Fusion disabled for other processes"
else
rm -f $LOCKFILE
echo "[compizswitcher] Enabling Compiz Fusion"
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY compiz --replace >/dev/null 2>/dev/null &
sleep 2
notify-send --expire-time=3500 --icon=$ICON "Application Compatibility" \
"Visual effects have been re-enabled."
fi
}

After saving the script, run the following commands to create a "wrapper" application for VLC (repeat for other applications, switching "vlc" with the appropriate application name):

sudo mv /usr/bin/vlc /usr/bin/vlc.real
sudo touch /usr/bin/vlc
sudo chmod 777 /usr/bin/vlc
echo 'compizswitcher vlc.real $@' > /usr/bin/vlc

Now you can enjoy high-quality, flicker-free videos without completely sacrificing the aesthetic 3D effects of Compiz Fusion.

While taking the garbage out, I happened to notice the slogan on my box of trash[y] bags: For the protection you need to get things done. I didn't expect something so dirty from a company bragging about keeping America clean.