What’s with the extraneous shower curtains?
Posted Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 by Dave Moyer
ATTENTION HALF OF YOUTUBE: Just because iJustine recently showed you how to add cute little sidebars in place of black letterboxes on the sides of videos filmed with non-widescreen cameras (in her case an iSight), like this:
…it does not mean that you should add these sidebars on top of your videos when you already have widescreen footage.
Unfortunately, this is a practice I have seen a lot of lately, even to the point where some people have posted entire videos asking their viewers if they would prefer to have these sidebars on the side, or to have widescreen video with nothing covered up instead.
Evidently, these people do not understand the fact that the purpose of these bars is to make the empty black space sucking the chi out of the rest of a video a little less empty and black. That’s all they are there for. If there’s something to see on the sides that you have filmed in widescreen that is not empty and black, I would like to please see it.
Dear YouTubers, what you are doing is the equivalent of adding a shower curtain over a shower that already has a glass door. That glass door is already there. Though shower curtains are nice and pretty when there is nothing else to shield water from splashing all over your bathroom, if you have a glass door, that works even better. That’s why it’s there. And adding a shower curtain over it is just going to make it annoying to get in and out of your shower.
Please stop it with the extraneous shower curtains. And also with the unnecessary sidebars. Thanks. (Oh yeah, and Justine? No worries. We all still love you.)
I won nothing, and neither will you! (Sorry)
Posted Monday, July 20th, 2009 by Dave Moyer
I got yet another phishing email today, from THE MR ARTHUR ALGANZO. He has an email address hosted at hotmail.com, and the subject was “Confirmation Ticket Number:X-3007333284″.
The message dictated to me that, first of all, “this is not a spam or contains virus”, simply a notification from “free lottery INTERNATIONAL”. I read on to find…
Your electronic email address emerged as one of the Free Lotto Daily Jackpot on-line winning email sweepstakes program held on the 20th of July,2009 in Amsterdam The Netherlands., hence your email address attached to a cash award of €1,000,000.00 (One Million Euro Only).
The message, (sent from THE MR ARTHUR ALGANZO) was signed
Kind Regards,
Mrs. Elizabeth Den Bach,
Promotions Coordinator,
Now, for those of you who are unaware (and if you’re unaware I fear for you), this was a phishing email. It was not real. Ever. However, when I sarcastically Twittered about the message:
GUYS! I won 1,000,000 euros in a lottery in the Netherlands! It says so in an email from THE MR ARTHUR ALGANZO! Woo!
I got ten responses. Two were sarcastically acknowledging it being a scam and laughing at my insightful wit, one was angry yelling at me that it was fake, and the other seven were inquiring about whether or not I entered, wondering how much money that was in US dollars, and congratulating me on what I thought was an obviously fake lottery jackpot.
It’s those last seven people I’m concerned about.
You see, if these people were to get one of these emails, I find it highly likely that they would respond in an attempt to collect their millions, giving away all sorts of bank, credit card, and other highly personal information, and become broke identity fraud victims. To these people: This was not real. If you did not enter a lottery in a strange European country you will not win a lottery in a strange European country. Also, no lottery will email you with a form attached to collect these winnings. Thank you.
Then again, maybe we should let these people drown in phishing scams so we can weed them out. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with them when they’re blabbering in line in front of me at Starbucks. Just saying.
Blog Overhaul
Posted Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 by Dave Moyer
Look around you… see anything different? If not, go wash your eyes out with a suspicious liquid and put some glasses on, because my blog is all new! Since my last major revamp in 2008, I’ve been periodically tweaking colors and fonts and graphics, but this is the next major iteration of the site.
The design of the site has pretty much been overhauled. (I kept the skyline in the backround, though it is a different one. I knew you all liked that.) New colors, new headers, a much simpler layout and a much prettier blog in general.
I’ve also pretty much completely reorganized things. You’ll notice that I’ve cut out a lot of the clutter in the navigation and the sidebar and added a bit more about me and what I do (see those cool little widgets over there?).
Keep checking back for more of my ramblings and info on where I am and what I’m doing. I’ll be here, and thanks for all your support!
Free Slurpee Day!
Posted Saturday, July 11th, 2009 by Dave Moyer
It’s 7/11… aka FREE Slurpee day at 711! I went down to my local store to celebrate… (This video was retweeted by a bunch of 7-11 stores. That made me laugh.)
