Sociology Experiment

History professor Jacques Pluss did an incredible sociology experiment by pretending to be a Neo-Nazi for a year. He ended up being fired from his job and more or less ostracize by everyone despite doing nothing other then admitting he had many extreme right wing views. You can read about it in an article on the History News Network. It's fascinating to see how people react to things like this. I've got to tip my hat to the professor for having the guts to follow through with an experiment to this kind of extreme.

enjoy,
Brad

Great Photoshop Contest!

All I can say is wow!

There are some incredible entries in the latest Worth 1000 Photoshop contest. The theme for the photoshop contest is Canvas Earth, which required people to "Use nature and geography as your canvas. (i.e. Make a lake shaped like a teletubbie, or volcanic rock look like a dragon, constellation patterns that seem to look like images, or rock shapes that seem to resemble actual things)."

Enjoy,
Brad

Check Washing

What is "Check Washing" you ask? Until this morning I'd never heard of the term either, but after reading an excellent article written by Sean Patrick Kane I was enlightened to both the process and the best defense against check washing. Check washing is the process of taking a check that has been written, protecting the signature section, washing the ink from the rest of the written part of the check, and then writing in a different name and amount.

In general I'm not worried about things like this, but after reading the article I thought it was worth sharing. While this wasn't what happened to us, we did have our car broken into a few years ago and a blank check stolen, so I know what a pain it can be to go through the process of stopping payment on checks, get new accounts, and deal with everything else related to this sort of crime. In case you don't feel like reading the article, which I really recommend (why else would I have it in my blog), in a nutshell the conclusion is that you should use a "Gel Pen" when you write checks. The ink in a gel pen is different then those found in a standard ball point or felt tip pen, and is pretty much unaffected by the various methods used by check washers.

see ya,
Brad