Steve, Mom and I were discussing some claims about hotel keys yesterday. The two main topics:
You should always take your hotel keys with you when you check out and shred them when you get home, because they contain sensitive information like your credit card number and expiration on them, plus your name and address, and it's not even encrypted.
Don't store your hotel key in your pocket with your cell phone--it will erase it.
Well, first off, hotels do not put credit information on the hotel key. The most you'll find at a normal hotel is name, room #, check in and check out dates. This data is encrypted. Places like Disney and casinos will also typically store a unique key that identifies you in their system, in order to authorize charges--but the card is stored in their system, not in your key. The only fraud that can occur with that kind of key is similar to what would happen with a stolen credit card--which is why those resorts tell you to protect those keys like a credit card for the duration of your stay. After you stay, the card is deactivated in their central system and cannot be used for further purchases.
Now, there are a lot of folks out there spreading the rumor about this non-existent data risk. There was a legit blog posting many years ago (at Network World, if I remember correctly), and they claimed they were able to pull credit data off a hotel's keycard. They were challenged to prove this--were unable to--and retracted their claim. However, it's been passed around as a false email warning since then. See the Snopes article for more details.
On to the ability of cell phones to erase hotel key cards. Contrary to what you have probably heard about cell phones, they don't emit radiation like what comes out of active nuclear sources. They emit very low power microwaves. That's it. Microwaves do not have any degaussing properties.
What can screw up cards? Well, first of all--key cards have a *very* thin stripe on them--far thinner than what's on your credit cards. This doesn't take much to screw up--your keys and coins in your pocket are far more likely to screw up the magnetic stripe with physical damage. Think back to science class--one way to demagnetize a material is physically striking it to jostle the heck out of the magnetized ion arrangement. Take a very flimsy stripe of magnetic material and bang a few metal objects into it (keys, coins, maybe even your cell phone, haha) and presto, you've erased your card.
In regards to the cell phone, I've also heard the magnet that is used to produce the vibration is key and that having your cell phone on vibrate and receiving a call, text, etc. will be almost certain death due to the activation of that magnet. Personally, I think simply having a magnet present is the cause, but the things you mentioned as well can cause it.
GJ said about 8 hours later
Magnets aren't generally used, small motors that rotate a weight quickly on a gear do the job of producing vibrations. Motors do emit a magnetic force, but it's likely to be very, very small in this case due to the tiny size of the motor and power consumed in the application, far less of an effect than the physical strike I described above. Magnetic force drops off very very quickly, and this motor is minuscule.
I demonstrated the strike effect for Darcy earlier today with a magnetized screwdriver. Apparently, this was news to her--she thought for sure I was full of crap. :) Woot!
OK Go, the guys behind the treadmill video Here It Goes Again a few years ago, also known for A Million Ways. Their new album is out, and the first video was neat: WTF? but I kinda figured they had something better in store.
So, first came this:
Uh-oh! YouTube won't show their video? WTF? Oh, wait, here it is:
Ah, but never happy to do just one video for a song, here it is again:
And if that wasn't cool enough, each of those videos shown above for that song were done in one take.
Figured I would start a thread so we can all touch base and stay informed about services for Grandpa. Last I talked with mom, it was looking like Sunday being the wake and Monday the funeral.
Marc, if you need a pit stop on the way, mi casa es tu casa. I imagine that Drew and I will head up Saturday morning....
EDIT: wake is 2-5pm Sunday, funeral is 10am Monday. Recommended hotel is the Residence Inn in Parsippany, NJ, see the comments for a link to the hotel registration page.
Thanks, Kristen, since Luddites like me don't use Facebook and wouldn't keep up that way. Anybody with info, post in the comments and Marc or I will add it to the top of this post.
Marc said about 2 hours later
Thanks for the offer Kristen. I'm thinking we might fly, but haven't decided just yet.
Steve said about 5 hours later
I'll be driving over Saturday from Michigan. Eric, if you're not bringing the whole family, you and Gina are welcome to ride along.
Kristen said about 11 hours later
Talked to Dad last night, and it looks like the wake will be from about 2-5 on Sunday and the funeral at 10 on Monday. He apparently is going to do the eulogy, and he is the executor of the will, so he has a LOT on his plate right now.
Marc, if you decide to drive, we could always ride up together. If you decide to fly (or anyone else) we can pick you up from the airport.
Dad said that the Residence Inn in Parsipony (sp?) is likely where people may stay....I haven't looked into it too much yet.
I'm in for one night (Sunday) there. $270 for a 2 bedroom suite, no AAA discount allowed. If you can swing the one bedroom suite, that's $200 (or $170 with AAA). We should arrive close to noon Sunday, and we'll head back Monday afternoon.
Kristen said about 15 hours later
I may stay Sat, sun, and mon and drive back Tues...
wonder if any of us should bunk together in the 2 bed suites...
Marc said about 15 hours later
Kristen: Laura and I may have the same travel days, so it might be best if we come up and drive up with you guys. I was just looking at getting one of the $99 rooms, am I missing something?
GJ said about 17 hours later
You don't have kids. :) A room probably does run $100. I'm getting a 2-bedroom suite, since I have a few and they're getting pretty freakin' big.
GJ said about 17 hours later
The 2 bedroom suites can sleep six, btw...in the end, if you can get a $100 room sleeping two, you're only saving a few bucks with the suite.
Marc said about 17 hours later
Ok, just wanted to confirm we didn't have some rooms reserved or something. Thanks for clarifying. :)
Eric said about 17 hours later
Steve,
We may be bringing Aunt Rena since Uncle Bruce is already there. Gina is in discussions. We're bringing the whole crew, but thanks for the offer.
I think we'll be coming in Saturday and leaving on Tuesday, but we have not firmed that up.
Kristen said about 18 hours later
Marc--that sounds like a great plan. You are welcome to come up Friday night and stay or come up Sat morning, whatever works for you. I saw the $99 rooms too on travelocity. That's a pretty good deal.
Geoff said about 20 hours later
Hey Guys, please don't send flowers. Dad is taking care of flowers from all of us in NJ. Mom wanted me to tell you. Also, the hotel DOES allow pets, so our dogs are coming. Marc and Laura, just an FYI (and GJ too) if you guys want to bring your dogs, you can. There is a non-refundable $100 fee (not per night, one-time) to have your pet stay with you. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
GJ said about 20 hours later
Arrivals now look like this:
Sat: Eric, Kristen, Steve, Geoff, Marc
Sun: GJ
See you all this weekend. Safe travels!
Steve said 1 day later
Anyone need a place to stay? I am getting a one bedroom two room suite for free using my Marriot Rewards points.
Kristen said 1 day later
Oh, and there will be some cookies. Not a lot, but we could not have Baumbachs together without at least a couple.
Eric said 1 day later
Okay, all confirmed now. We are in Saturday evening, probably about 7pm or so. We'll be there until Tuesday morning.
Rena will be going with Anthony, Laura and Mia. I guess we scared her off when she found out the kids were going! Just kidding. I'm sure she wants to spend time with her son and his family.
See everyone then.
Darcy said 1 day later
Great minds Kristen, I was also planning on bringing cookies.
Ruth Ann said 2 days later
I thought I posted a message, but must have screwed it up--I'll try again. Dad and Uncle Bruce were going to check with the Residence Inn to see if they would give us a rate on the rooms, since so many are staying there.
Cookies sound great--I think I still have some from Christmas in the freezer. I don;t think I'll have time to make any--I have had a phone at both ears for the last few days. Looking forward to seeing everyone to pay tribute to an exceptional man! Safe trip all, love, mom
GJ said 2 days later
OK, let us know about that--we booked already, but if you find a better deal we'll cancel and re-reserve!
Kristen said 2 days later
I had a feeling Darcy! LOL
Glad to hear that Anthony and Laura are coming! I think their girl's name is Ava, but I wonder if they call her Mia. See everyone soon...
Eric said 2 days later
No, it's Ava. I was thinking of another friend of mine who's daughter is Mia. Hard for me to keep track!
I get the feeling you'll be exercising this new tag pretty frequently. :)
GJ said about 15 hours later
Yeah, I'm heading into one of those intolerant phases. Batten down the hatches.
Geoff said 2 days later
hahahaha
Eric said 13 days later
This has nothing to do with intolerance. It has much to do with willful or learned ignorance on the part of bible-thumpers. People that can't accept science fact and hold on to their belief system are living life a bit too narrow-minded.
I think this tag could be used WAY to frequently, IMHO!
When did your last intolerant phase stop, by the way? I must have missed it. ;)
GJ said 13 days later
Looks like October 2009 based on my blog postings. But then again, that's like a few hours in Eric time on the blog. :)
That was really awesome! I gotta catch one of those space launches some day.
Steve said about 7 hours later
This is the last year for the Space Shuttle. Parsla and I are going to go to one, probably the July launch (the second to last launch). We'll probably try to do Disney world at the same time. Want to join us?
Marc said about 17 hours later
I'll have to see what my vacation schedule is like (I'm likely going to be using a fair amount for a honeymoon at some point :) ). Maybe we'll join you for the launch though, that would only be a couple days and a nice weekend in Florida. :)
GJ said about 18 hours later
Comment deleted on 2/23/2010 at 10:24AM
Steve said 1 day later
Only worry about going to see a launch....they get delayed, often. So we're planning to arrive in Florida the day before the launch, and spend 5 days at Disney World. If the launch gets delayed a couple days due to weather, we just switch out which days we go to Disney.
Marc said 1 day later
Yea, I assume a late July launch might be the best chances for good weather. Who knows, it rains all the time in Florida. :)
Geoff said 2 days later
Last year for space shuttle launches? What are you telling me we're giving up on space now? lol
GJ said 4 days later
Do read the news once in a while, dear boy.
Geoff said 4 days later
i see the headlines...must have missed it. I hear about Tiger all the time though. Priorities.
Steve said 5 days later
Yea, our wonderful government sees no reason to look beyond our atmosphere to learn more. The shuttle is being replaced with a rocket that will take people into space at a much more reasonable cost, however the government is now canceling a lot of the missions planned for the future, even with that rocket. I kinda wish they'd make NASA private. Doesn't NASA bring in money by sending satellites up into orbit for communications companies? Or have they been doing that as a courtesy?
GJ said 6 days later
No, our government is making a smart decision to stop sending people into space. Robotic craft do far better science, and for far less money. We've wasted an enormous amount of money on the shuttle program, and have very little to show for it. Far from abandoning space, we're just changing how we study it.
Program cancellations have more to do with the gigantic amount of debt we have and the fact the NASA does a piss poor job of educating the public about what they bring to the table. That and the wasteful shuttle program have combined to convince lawmakers to drain NASA's budget.
We do have private versions of NASA...SpaceX is a good example of one.
GJ said 7 days later
That said, there is quite the conversation about this very topic over at Bad Astronomy. Check it out.
Steve said 8 days later
The problem with making NASA private or relying on private companies to take over our space program - what incentive do they have to do space research? Think about it. Private companies are made to make money, and make money soon. Would the hubble space telescope have ever happened if space flight was done privately? Does it make any real money? Nope. How about the Mars rovers? Sure, you'd get some good press out of it, but have they made any discoveries that bring in money? Nope. Space flight is all about learning and exploring our universe. No one is likely to make discoveries anytime soon that will make them money. About the only way to make money in spaceflight is to ferry passengers up there for ridiculous prices - basically just catering to the rich. Space research should be a government run program - or at least, the government should direct and pay for private companies to do the work for them. And I'm not saying the US should go it alone - we should continue to work with Russia, France, Germany, and anyone else that wants in. We're not in a race to the moon. We as humans need and want to learn more about this amazing universe we live in. Look at the pictures from Hubble, and you'll be amazed at just how vast this universe is.
I agree with a lot of the comments from that link - our politicians messed up by not planning far enough in advance for space shuttle replacement or what we should be doing next. I agree with you - NASA has done a piss poor job of making public what they are learning. But there is stuff that we wouldn't have as soon as we have it without NASA. Things like satellite TV, GPS, google maps. We wouldn't be so far advanced in our military capability, with satellites capable of zooming in on the license plates of enemy vehicles on the other side of earth.
Somedays I wish I worked for NASA. Parsla has a couple friends that work for NASA, working on the International Space Station. Her friend Michelle often works mission control, talking with the astronauts and working with them while they are on the ISS. I love hearing their stories.
GJ said 8 days later
What NASA does to service the satellites in orbit can and should be privatized. It's not just the government floating satellites up there these days. There is good money to be made doing that work, and SpaceX recognizes that. So do a few of their competitors.
NASA's original job was to win the space race. Science research was funding wholly by the military push at the time. Without that push, how are we going to justify doing science for science's sake with the incredible deficits we're running under at the federal level? I agree, we should be funding NASA, but we need to be fiscally responsible about it. To that end, manned space travel is illogical. It's prohibitively expensive due to the weight required for passengers and supplies, and for the most part, they can't do any better research than a robot. In many ways, a robot can do better. Best of all--something goes wrong, you lose the probe, not a human.
The other big problem with manned space travel are the huge distances involved. They sent a probe out to Pluto called New Horizons back in January 2006. It will arrive in April 2015. Not what I'd call a job for a human--and that's just traveling to the end of our known solar system. Space is a biiiig place, and we're only going to be able to explore it effectively with probes. The Shuttle, on the other hand, was supposed to be a less expensive alternative to shooting up rockets to deploy satellites and such. So much for that theory...SpaceX will be able to do much of what the Shuttle was responsible for and incur far less cost. I think you'll find the landscape of this part of our economy change drastically over the next twenty years.
Oh, btw, all those advances you mentioned above were military space applications. Take out the military from NASA, and you'd have gotten none of those things--as if NASA would have existed in the first place. We discover this kind of stuff when we pour tons of resources into these projects. I'm sure there's far more to discover, but are we as a nation willing to swallow those costs?
Anyhow, if you really like astronomy, Bad Astronomy isn't such a bad place to haunt, at least for starters. You'll find lots of good stuff there outside of his political postings (he's a big time skeptic too).
Yeah, let it be known that I've let TWO of these kind of shots go in...once while being broadcast on the radio in Utica back in 1985, and the other time some years later in Troy's RPI Fieldhouse (but in fairness, I wasn't playing for a college team at the time and to this day I'm sticking with the claim I was just getting my team psyched up).
In any case, I never did it on TV. Vesa Toskala did, though--just watch! Turn up the volume, too--it's that good.
Ah the long goal. I haven't let one in past the red line, but my best story was a slapshot from the red line, I caught it, my glove came off and the whole thing went into the goal.
Yep, I've instituted a new tag. Check out this article about the college shooting the other day in Alabama. Turns out the shooter had something in common with another shooter from back in 2000...they both played a certain game full of demons, monsters, and all that occult crap. That must be the explanation!
Next, you'll find out she was an avid player of Grand Theft Auto, no? Calling Jack Thompson!
Read the brief article. I have my work cut out for me, as I'm the guy responsible for turning the Sebring into an "animal." Woohoo! I can't wait to see reviews on the package I'm developing, I'm really happy with it so far.
Good to see you staying gainfully employed...good luck!
Steve said 1 day later
We'll see how the car turns out. If good, then I'll hopefully keep my job. If not, I may be the next guy in the unemployment line.
Geoff said 1 day later
Why do they hate this car so much?
Steve said 2 days later
Eh, take the comments for what they are - a bunch of people who've never even driven this car, drive crap box Toyotas that go really fast but don't stop, and eat tofu turkey burgers for lunch every day.
GJ said 2 days later
Please show me a Toyota that goes fast. :) Think you're confusing them with Honda in that department.
They *used* to make a few fast cars. Not so much today.
Steve said 3 days later
Lexus LF-A is pretty fast, but pretty ugly too. The Toyota Solaras I saw today were going 300 mph at the end of the quarter mile (sorry, 1000 feet, not 1/4 mile anymore), but there isn't much Toyota in them other than a sticker on the front of the funny car. I tell you what, I don't think I've ever heard anything louder than a Funny car. Two of them ripping down the track shake the ground like you wouldn't believe. Tomorrow I'll see if the Top Fuel cars are any louder. The Top fuel cars are typically a little faster, but they run the same motors in each.
Steve said 3 days later
Scroll to the bottom of the page for photos of the Dodge Avenger we saw roll over.....at 200 mph.
Yea, the lfa is fast, but it's no twin-turbo supra. :)
Steve said 3 days later
Uh, it will blow away a twin turbo supra, but will cost 10x as much brand new to do so.
GJ said 3 days later
Sorry, Steve, for some reason I was thinking of the Lexus IS-F, not the LF-A (which I wasn't aware of previously). The mid-90s modded supras would smack the IS-F around, but yeah, the LF-A is a supercar and likely eat a Supra for lunch.
Steve said 4 days later
No worry. The LF-A is an overpriced, ugly supercar that hopefully you'll never have the displeasure of seeing. Leave it to Toyota to build a supercar that nobody wants.
GJ said 4 days later
Out in Albany, I see maybe two Ferrari vehicles a year. Other than them and the low-rent Porsches, you don't see much in the way of a fun car.
That said, I found myself toe to toe with a Mercedes AMG something or other last night. Very aggressive factory-spec tires on that thing, I'm guessing based on the rubber that it was a 400+ hp vehicle. He wasn't into jumping off at the light to win the merge race, so I didn't get to see how bad he'd dust me.
Geoff said 4 days later
He'd blow you away (and me too). I believe the coup is like 475hp. Definitely over 400 horses that's for sure. Manuf. spec rated the 0-60 in the low 4's. AMG's are the performance models and they are fast. I sat in one at a dealership when Jim was looking around for a new car. The models all range going up to 500+ I believe.
Though for a quarter of the price, you can pick up that G8 I showed you and blow them away...and probably get better gas mileage to boot :)
GJ said 4 days later
Yeah, I'm sure he would have. But there are many versions of it and they don't all sport 475 horsies. I didn't catch the details, as it was night time and I didn't get much chance to look at it as I pulled up next to it.
But as much as I'd buy that G8, my car is still zooming right along for the moment so I'm staying put. You can pretty much bet that he'll sell car that a day before the tranny drops out of mine.
Geoff said 4 days later
haha probably. I checked the AMG website. The slowest model (sedan) comes at 451. The coup's start at 515hp and work their way up :)
Coup is modestly priced at $140G. The sedan started in the upper 50's.
GJ said 5 days later
yeah, the are way overpriced. :) in any case, I dusted him with my water bottle rocket (I'm sure he was greatly amused, but didn't give chase).
I'm always amazed at the true goodness in people's hearts. The news needs to find more of these stories. I think that as people see more stories like this, they will be inclined to help more.
Geoff said 2 days later
I agree. I thought it was a very inspiring piece for an unfortunate situation.
