Home › Archive

March, 2009

Slightly redundant

Mon, 2009-03-30 14:11 — Konstantin

I received from my credit card company a monthly statement that noted, "Please do not pay, as of this statement date your account has a credit balance."

This was accompanied by an empty return envelope, to be used for not submitting a payment.

Greyhound tries security theater

Sun, 2009-03-29 23:08 — Konstantin

On the way from New York to Boston today, I encountered something new: the "Greyhound Security" desk. Here's how it works:

  • A few dozen people stand in line of the gate for Greyhound departures to Boston at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There is also a priority boarding line for the same bus, and a line for people who will be getting off at the Newton, MA stop. There are also a dozen or so other Greyhound gates.
  • A cart marked "Greyhound Security," manned by two Greyhound employees in uniform, is rolled up to the side of the main line for Boston.
  • The employees call one person from the line at a time to come to the cart with his or her carry-on bag.
  • The passenger is asked to take out his ticket and empty his pockets into a plastic bin. Then, one guard looks through the carry-on bag with all the dilligence of a Lamont Library attendant, while the other guard waves a hand-held metal detector over the passenger.

What all this is supposed to accomplish is beyond me. The cursory checks wouldn't prevent anyone from hiding something dangerous in his stowed luggage or even in the carry-on. Moreover, passengers not in the main line, or those who are in the main line but don't get checked before the bus starts boarding, are never looked at. I'll leave it to the reader to think of any of dozen ways that someone with bad intentions might bypass the check.

It's security theater, plain and simple.

And I guess that in this economy, it does have a possible benefit: it allows a few "security guards" to have a source of income. Which, of course, is reflected in the higher prices of bus tickets.

Useful tax information for college students

Sun, 2009-03-22 22:56 — Konstantin

Two useful tidbits I discovered while battling with a bunch of tax forms today:

  1. If you are a resident of State A, but made your income in State B as a non-resident, you are not expected to pay double taxes for your earnings (i.e. pay full taxes to both State A and B). Instead, you should file an extra resident credit form in your home state, which will usually let you get a tax credit for the amount you paid to State B.

    This means that for state taxes, you're paying a total of MAX(TaxStateA, TaxStateB), and not (TaxStateA + TaxStateB).

    In New York State, you need to fill out the extra form IT-112-R. However, if you were filing New York's short form IT-150, you'd never even know about this. You'd think that you just have to pay up the double tax. Instead, you have file the long form IT-201, fill out line 41 (Resident credit), and attach IT-112-R to the form.

The "MacBook Wheel" was a parody. The new iPod Shuffle isn't.

Thu, 2009-03-12 00:33 — Konstantin

A couple of months back, The Onion posted a news video announcing a MacBook Wheel.

Thankfully, Apple did not take them up on that suggestion, but today, the company released a product that approaches a similar level of absurdity.

The third-generation iPod Shuffle has just 3 buttons, which have to be used to manage 10 different commands. Want to control it? You'll have to remember whether you need to single-click, double-click, triple-click, or click and hold. And to help you along, the new Shuffle thoughtfully responds with various combinations of a blinking LED and synthesized voice.

It's not complicated at all!

Oh, and the buttons are on the headphone cable, so if your headphones break, or if you'd like to connect the Shuffle to anything else... oops!