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Instead of getting rid of the guy, I figured maybe I could nab him online somehow. I tried to keep him going as long as possible, messing with him a bit and trying to get him to click a link in order to get his IP address. After that didn’t work, I called Western Union with my fraudster still on chat, but the fraud department told me they’re “not the police” and there was nothing they could do.

I’ve been an active user of open source software since RedHat 7.3, but this is the first time I’ve open sourced any of my code. Better late than never. Drink it in!

#!/usr/bin/python
# Very simple converter from NatWest Bankline .csv files to
# QIF files for use by (among others) gnucash.
#
# Written by Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@samba.org>, 2007
# Modified by Jason Trost <trostmail@gmail.com>, 2009
#
# Usage python bankline_csv2qif.py < input.csv > output.qif

import csv, sys

lookup_dict = {
    'AMD' : 'Amendments History',
    'BAC' : 'Automated Credit',
    'BOE' : 'Bill of Exchange',
    'EBP' : 'Bill Payment',
    'MGT' : 'Bonds & Guarantees',
    'BAE' : 'Branch Acc Entry',
    'LST' : 'Bulk Entry',
    'CRD' : 'Card Pymnt or Cash',
    'TLR' : 'Card Pymnt or Cash',
    'POS' : 'Point of Sale (Card Transaction)',
    'ATM' : 'Cash Withdrawal',
    'CHP' : 'CHAPS Transfer',
    'CHG' : 'Charges',
    'CHQ' : 'Cheque',
    'CCD' : 'Cheque at Despatch',
    'CAE' : 'Cheque Collection',
    'CCB' : 'Cheque Collection',
    'CND' : 'Cheque Negotiation',
    'BCA' : 'Clean Acceptance',
    'CNA' : 'Clean Cheque Neg',
    'BCR' : 'Clean Reimburse',
    'C/R' : 'Credit',
    'D/R' : 'Debit',
    'D/D' : 'Direct Debit',
    'DIV' : 'Dividend',
    'DCR' : 'Documentary Credit',
    'ECA' : 'eurocheque',
    'ECD' : 'eurocheque',
    'EBP' : 'Electronic Payment',
    'MEC' : 'Export Credits',
    'DFT' : 'Foreign Draft',
    'BGT' : 'Guarantees',
    'MIC' : 'Import Credits',
    'ITM' : 'Incoming CHAPS',
    'IP1' : 'Inland Payments',
    'IP2' : 'Inland Payments',
    'IP3' : 'Inland Payments',
    'IP4' : 'Inland Payments',
    'IP5' : 'Inland Payments',
    'IPB' : 'Inland Payments',
    'INT' : 'Interest',
    'ITL' : 'International Transfer',
    'MIB' : 'Inward Bills',
    'ICP' : 'Inward Ccy Pymt',
    'ISP' : 'Inward Stg Pymt',
    'LST' : 'Supplementary List',
    'LVP' : 'Low Value Payment',
    'MKD' : 'Market Deal',
    'MFD' : 'Maturing Fwd Deal',
    'LON' : 'New Loan',
    'NDC' : 'No Dividend C/foil',
    'BCO' : 'Non Mkt Close Out',
    'NVD' : 'Novated Deal',
    'OTR' : 'OnLine Transaction',
    'MOB' : 'Outward Bills',
    'RTF' : 'Relay Transfer',
    'ADV' : 'Separate Advice',
    'STL' : 'Settlement',
    'S/O' : 'Standing Order',
    'TFP' : 'Trade Finance Product',
    'TFR' : 'Transfer',
    'U/D' : 'Unpaid Direct Debit',
    'SDE' : 'Urgent Euro Tfr',
    '100' : 'MT100',
    '101' : 'MT101',
    '103' : 'MT103',
    '200' : 'MT200',
    '201' : 'MT201',
    '202' : 'MT202',
    '203' : 'MT203'
}

rows = csv.reader(sys.stdin)

header = rows.next()

assert header == ['Sort Code', 'Account Number', 'Account Alias',
                  'Account Short Name', 'Currency', 'Account Type',
                  'BIC', 'Bank Name','Branch Name','Date',
                  'Narrative #1', 'Narrative #2', 'Narrative #3',
                  'Narrative #4', 'Narrative #5', 'Type', 'Debit',
                  'Credit']

print '!Type:Bank\n'

for l in rows:
    print "D%s" % l[9] # date
    if l[16]:
        print 'T%s' % l[16] # amount
    else:
        print 'T%s' % l[17] # amount
    print 'P%s -- %s' % (l[10], l[11]) # Payee field
    print 'M%s ; %s ; %s ; %s ; %s ; %s ; %s' % \
        (l[10], l[11], l[12], l[13], l[14], l[15], \
             lookup_dict.get(l[15], 'No lookup')) # payee / description
    print 'L' #%s' % l[7]
    print '^\n' # end transaction

From: http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/learningcenter/basics/so-you-want-to-become-an-affiliate.php

The easiest way to enter the gambling industry is to become a casino affiliate. A casino affiliate is someone who gets paid a commission for the traffic they send to a casino. As a casino affiliate you can earn 25-60% of a player’s losses. That means, that if you send a casino say, 100 players, who deposit $100 each, (so that’s $10,000 in total)

And they all lose their $100, you get paid anywhere between $25-60% of that $10,000.

Generally the going rate is about 30%. So you would see $3000.

What’s even sweeter is that you continue to earn a percentage of those players’ losses if they continue to play at that casino in the future.

Casino and poker websites continually battle for market share. They tend to have very similar product offerings, and the consumer is left with the option to pick up and leave and get the deposit bonus elsewhere. Giving away 25-60% of your profit to marketing is quite expensive. Because of this high customer acquisition expense, the larger gaming companies like 888.com are releasing gambling white label products to try to capture the long tail of the market.

Airlines are really hurting. Now tickets are doubling as pizza advertisements. The back of my JFK-LHR ticket had offers for free coke from Papa Johns.

I was surprised to read noted economist Michael Boskin’s op-ed in the WSJ and his take on the economy and the election. Basically the article states that Obama will raise taxes and push the US into recession.

1. Some economists think we already are headed for a recession. So it doesn’t seem like a sound conclusion that Obama higher taxes will lead to a recession if the US is already on its way.
2. There seems to be some maxim in popular culture that says low taxes are good and high taxes are bad. The lowest possible tax rate is 0% and the highest is 100%. I don’t think anybody is arguing that they want 0%…100% is equally insane. So, I don’t understand why economists don’t start speaking about the optimum tax rate. Boskin seems to be using supermarket logic. “Obama wants to raises taxes….isn’t that bad blah blah”.
3. Presidents don’t raise or lower taxes. The congress does that.
4. I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize Bill Clinton has having a big government agenda when Bush is the king of big government. In 1998, the US budget was $1.7 trillion. In 2008 the budget is $2.9 trillion. That’s a 70% increase in ten years. The US population increased from circa 270 million to 304 million, a 12% increase. Let’s assume around a 3% inflation adjustment over 10 years which is roughly 35%. So our population increased by 12%, our inflation by 35% and our federal budget by 70%. That’s big government.
5. As a small business owner, paying taxes means you’re doing well. I started a medical software company during college, and the amount of paperwork was astounding. If you want to encourage growth, a reasonable solution is making the regulatory overhead lower, not lowering taxes. Between city, county, state and federal taxes, regulations and licenses it stifles what small businesses want to do most: work on their business, not fill out government forms. Another brilliant idea is Mark Cuban’s proposal to abolish taxes for under 25 person companies.

I was in Gibraltar last week. Here’s a video I made about the funky monkeys: