Daniel Greene

Author: Daniel Greene

  • Is Canadian Diamond Traders a Scam?

    I suspect so. Consider what the FBI says about pyramid schemes:

    Pyramid schemes, also referred to as franchise fraud, or chain referral schemes, are marketing and investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product. The real profit is earned, not by the sale of the product, but by the sale of new distributorships. Emphasis on selling franchises rather than the product eventually leads to a point where the supply of potential investors is exhausted and the pyramid collapses. At the heart of each pyramid scheme there is typically a representation that new participants can recoup their original investments by inducing two or more prospects to make the same investment. Promoters fail to tell prospective participants that this is mathematically impossible for everyone to do, since some participants drop out, while others recoup their original investments and then drop out.

    Some Tips to Avoid Pyramid Schemes:

    • Be wary of “opportunities” to invest your money in franchises or investments that require you to bring in subsequent investors to increase your profit or recoup your initial investment.
    • Independently verify the legitimacy of any franchise or investment before you invest.

    —Federal Bureau of Investigation: Common Fraud Schemes

    Related post: Canadian Diamond Traders wants to silence me?

  • Singing Cockeyed Optimist

    Here I am singing one of my favorite songs– a song I live by!

  • Poetic License in Interpreting

    In my search for blog posts about ASL interpreting, I found this interesting post regarding poetry, interpretation in general, and the poetic license visible in ASL interpreting:

    Reading Finnish Rhapsody in particular reminded me of watching a live sign-language interpreter while listening to a live speech. I experienced this while at a convention when one of the ASL interpreters was often more dynamic than the speaker in her communication. I do not know ASL and I was listening to the speaker, however I found that the way in which the interpreter communicated was much clearer on an emotional level. And even though she was obviously quite skilled, I was pretty certain she didn’t interpret the speech word-for-word.

    Even though interpreters are charged with “render[ing] the message faithfully by conveying the content and spirit of what is being communicated,” (RID Code of Professional Conduct Section 2.3), sometimes an ASL interpretation is just more poetic and expressive than the English source message. Sometimes this is because there is an inherent passion in the words that is missing from the speaker’s facial expression and body language.

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  • Love Song for Husband on YouTube

    In commemoration of our two-year wedding anniversary, I published a video of myself singing a song I wrote for Andy last Valentine’s Day. (I put this on YouTube on our anniversary, August 8, but I’m just getting around to blogging about it here now.)

  • Arizona Flickr Gang

    Arizona Wonders Flickrites

    Arizona Flickr Gang
    Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene.

    Andy and I went to Aunt Chilada’s last night for a “meetup” of Flickrites (users of the Flickr photo sharing web service). It was good fun. We met some nice people, and I took some good pictures. I talked with one guy, Garry, about SLR’s and lenses, so I learned some technical stuff too (though I don’t remember all of it). I’m glad I went.