New Art and a New Blog

I recently redesigned and moved my old RussoGraffix art site to Blogger. From now on I'll be posting all my art releases there, instead of here.

To celebrate the occasion, I have released 6 new CC-BY licensed works for you to use.
Click the images to visit the pages and get the files.

Free Website Banner Graphic: Night Sky
 


Free PSP Vector: Cube of Spheres
 

Free PSP Vectors: Dice
 

Free PSP Vector: Balloons
 


Free Images: Gold Coins
 


Free PSP Vector: 4-Leaf Clovers
 

Web Link Captor: A great new research tool and time saver

Web Link Captor will be a real time saver for any blogger or curator of information that has a large list they need to link to other sites.

It was inspired by my father's Desert Island Jazz Collection...about 700 tracks of what my dad feels is the all-time best of the best that jazz has to offer. Many people have asked him to publish this list on his blog, but the amount of work involved to look up every album and link it to Amazon, with an affiliate ID, is just too much work for him to consider doing.

With Web Link Captor, a task like this will be much faster and easier, with automatic formatting of the output in HTML, bbCode, or Wikipedia markdown, depending on where you want to paste the results.

But it doesn't just link to Amazon. It can link to Wikipedia and a host of other sites. You have full control over everything and can fine tune it to be exactly what you want.

Watch the video and see it in action:

 

 

So, if you have any enormous lists of value that you have hesitated publishing on the web because of the amount of work it would take to manually link each item somewhere that would enhance the list and make it much more interesting and useful, give Web Link Captor a shot.

It won't be officially released until January 1, 2012, but you can request an early fully functional beta version on the forum.

 

Web Link Captor was created by Jesse Reichler (aka mouser) for DonationCoder.com's New Apps for the New Year (NANY 2012) software celebration. Every year the community at DonationCoder holds an event where developers pledge to release a new freeware/donationware application by Jan 1. Most applications are pre-released to give the community time to test and offer feedback, and give the developers a chance to fix bugs, add requested features, and apply some final polishing before the official event date.

Whether you are a developer or just love software, you can be a part of this great community, too. And if you spot a DonationCoder application that you really like, we encourage you to support its development in any way that you can, through donations, testing, feedback, spreading the word, etc.

How to make people want to stop forwarding all those "funny" emails

I used to have a bunch of friends that would forward me emails almost every day containing jokes and other crap. You know the stuff I am talking about. You have probably received a ton of it yourself over the years and know at least one person that is a compulsive forwarder of such crap. I say "used to" because they no longer send me this stuff. They don't want to. They now want to selfishly deprive me (and their other friends) of it, at least in the form of emails.

I have a reputation of building websites and blogs for little or no reason other than to temporarily amuse myself. My friends know this about me.

One day I decided to set up a blog to post all those "funny" emails that friends were sending to me, and then sent each of them a link to it, explaining that I was not going to forward the stuff they were sending to me.

I told them my intention was to make money off it by slapping ads on the blog. I then asked them to double the amount of "funny" emails they were forwarding to me if they could, because I needed more content for my new site. Most of them complied with my request and temporarily increased the number they sent out.

When they started decreasing them, I sent out emails to the slackers and politely informed them that they needed to work harder to amuse me. I started making requests for specific types of forwards. I included links to items on Amazon.com for stuff I wanted, explaining the ad revenues from my site were being put towards obtaining them. I even warned them when they sent me doubles, explaining that they needed to check my blog and send out only new material that was yet unpublished.

I sent out occasional Thank You emails with photos of myself with some "new item" I had just acquired, supposedly paid for with ad revenue earned from their "funny" emails, and encouraging them to keep up the great work. (I actually made very little from the blog, less than $1/month)

Today I receive very few of these email forwards. :-D

What I essentially did was take what some people view to be a fun activity that annoys their friends and turn it into a boring repetitive task in which they receive no pleasure from, view as work, and I receive profit when they do it.

In other words, I exploited them and let them know about it. I took the fun right out of it.

My actions made them think about what they were doing and some even decided the best use of their time would be to set up similar blogs (that nobody reads) instead of forwarding this crap to others. I exploited their selfish nature by making them think I was benefitting from their actions more than they were.

It was a brilliant bit of reverse psychology.

Free Art Download: Like Us (CC-BY)

(shown actual size)

What you get: This image with a transparent background in both PNG and PSP vector formats.

Font used is Cooper Black which you will need to open the PSP vector file.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

What Republicans Do Not Want You To Know About Poverty and Taxes

 

The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, is one of the most violated of all the federal labor laws.

About 15% of all wage earners in the US are earning at or below the minimum wage.

The average full time minimum wage worker earned about $15,000. ($7.25 per hour x 40 hours x 52 weeks = $15,080)

She paid at least 20% of her income in taxes.

Even though it might be true that she had no federal income tax liability, she still had other taxes to pay.

Payroll taxes such as

• Social Security
• Medicare
• Disability
• Unemployment
• State income tax
• sometimes local income tax

She also had additional taxes such as

• sales tax
• excise tax on fuel
• USF surcharges on
  • telephone service
  • natural gas
  • electricity
• property taxes, even if she rents (it would be hidden in the cost of her rent)

Additionally, she pays for her healthcare out of her pocket because minimum wage jobs do not come with healthcare benefits.  She pays a higher price for a doctor's office visit than the insurance companies do. ($75 self pay vs. $35 paid by insurance) If she ever needs to go to the hospital, it could easily cost her over $4500*, even more if she has to be admitted.

She also does not get retirement benefits and is looking at a reduction in her income down to about $600 per month when she is too old to work and begins collecting Social Security, and will be expected to pay a portion of that to receive Medicare benefits. And that is only if there is still a Social Security system by the time she is old enough to collect.

A typical minimum wage worker is not a teenager from a middle-class family flipping burgers for some extra pocket cash to buy CDs, movie tickets, lipstick, nail polish, and video games.

Most minimum wage workers are women, standing on their feet all day working various jobs within the service industry. They are some of the hardest working people in this country.

Many are single mothers with more than one child, and many of those are receiving little or no child support to help offset the costs of raising those children. They also have the additional costs of child care, if they have no family support system capable of providing free care so that they can work.

 

And Republicans think they make too much money and need to have their wages cut, by either reducing or eliminating the minimum wage. They also want to cut or eliminate the social programs that help them to survive. They actually think this will help the poor and lift them out of poverty.

 

* I do not have medical insurance. I pay out of my pocket for all of my medical care. Back in 2006 I passed out in my kitchen, which resulted in a head injury requiring 8 staples to close the wound. I was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital, which resulted in a bill that was just over $3000. This did not include the additional charges for physicians fee, lab work, or the MRI. Those were billed separately and were an additional $1500. My town is one of the small number in this area that provides a free ambulance service to its residents, but if they didn't, the ride would have been an additional $300.

If you don't pay these bills, the hospital may sue you, which could result in garnishment of your wages, which has the potential of knocking a minimum wage worker's pay down to about $150/week until the debt is paid off (with interest, court costs, and lawyers fees). There is also the very real possibility that instead of or in addition to garnishment, the court may seize your bank account (woe to you if you just made a deposit to pay your rent) and/or the local Sherriff may come in, seize and sell off the contents of your home, leaving you with no more than $1000 in personal assets and possessions.

Google Accounts Are Restricted to People Age 18+

It seems a lot of parents are very upset about their children under age 13 having their Google accounts deleted. They seem to think that since Google didn't explicitly ask for an age at the time the account was created, that their young children could have one. It wasn't until Google Plus was launched that they learned differently.

Children are having their Google accounts deleted, Picasa photos, emails to Grandma, school work in Google Docs, and all, for violating the age restriction, when they enter their age when joining the Google Plus social networking service.

The Google Terms of Service clearly states in Section 2.3

2.3    You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

While most websites have a clause in their contract barring use by those under 13 years of age (there is a law restricting that), Google has chosen to word their Terms of Service in such a way that it bars any US resident under the age of 18, because minors under 18 can not legally form a binding contract with anyone.

Let this be a warning not only for those under age 13, but for those age 13-17, as well. Google may delete your account and everything in it, if they find out that you lied about your age by agreeing to their Terms of Service. If you are under 18 and have a Google account, yes, you did lie to get it.

Always read the Terms of Service. If you don't, it could come back to bite you later.

Gardens of Time Game Guide: Speakeasy Blitz

In case you were having trouble locating all 62 items in the game, here is a list of their co-ordinates and a screenshot with a grid to help you find them. They are in letter-number format, so locate the letter on the side, then the number across the top or bottom of the image and where they intersect, you will find the item. Click on the image to open it full size.

Even if you memorize where everything is, it will still be pretty difficult (if not near impossible) to click them all within the 60 seconds they allow you. Best I have been able to get is 43.

Please do not ask where any specific item is in a comment. Look it up in the screenshot. It's all there, mapped out for you.

Good luck!

 

Amythyst ring Q-31 Ankh Q-12 Axe O-2 Banana K-4 Baseball bat Q-14 Bell C-17 Books E-14 Bowl N-15 Bowling pin H-12 Brass trophy N-3 Broom R-6 Buckle E-2 Buddah K-7 Butcher knife M-30 Camera I-20 Cane P-24 Cannon Q-18 Checker board P-7 Cigar N-26 Computer monitor K-28 Cork N-17 Crown B-9 Cue ball M-26 Curtain F-28 Dart G-28 Dart board F-25 Deer mount F-22 Dice O-30 Feather K-18 Fish D-13 Footprints P-22

Gold bars P-10 Hammer K-15 Hat R-23 Heart I-22 Horn N-18 Hourglass P-21 Ladder H-21 Lantern I-25 Lighter P-29 Lock K-31 Mole J-22 Money bag J-19 Monkey L-16 Phantom mask O-19 Piano keys E-9 Pitcher J-24 Playing card M-1 Plug H-31 Scissors P-18 Seahorse F-18 Spoon P-16 Spring G-17 Spyglass K-26 Star H-4 Table lamp H-27 Thermos N-4 Triangle K-21 Wallet R-20 Wheat penny R-3 Wheel L-14 Wrench K-3

I will post other guides like this one, if and when I can find all the items, then find the time to map them.