A Second Helping of Deanna's Discoveries

Please indulge me one more round of discoveries. This is the last day of February and I will soon be off posting about the madness that is March, so let me sneak in these discoveries now...

Swaptree
The point of this website is to swap things like books, videos and games. Let's say you have a copy of The Godfather but are willing to give it up if you could finally get your hands on High School Musical. Just sign in (probably under an alias in a case like this) and see what's out there. My friend has used it a few times and has had a good experience so far.


Debit Card Hackers
The furrowed brow foreshadowed my plight as she stared at the credit card scanner.
"Huh. Let me try it again."
I figured it was just some glitch because I'd had that happen before, but then the discovery.
"It says I can't give your card back to you."
What??? The gas station clerk said the machine reported the card as stolen and she'd have to send it back to the company. I felt slightly like a criminal as I walked past the customers waiting impatiently to pay for their Corn Nuts. When I called the bank the next day the guy nonchalantly told me that some hackers had gotten into a payment processing system so there were cards being returned all over the place.
"Would you like me to see if you're on the list?"
Um... yea! I was on the list and he told me a new debit card would be coming to me this week. I am thankful the problem is resolved, but I find it odd that if somebody hacks into my account the gas station will know before me. I received my debit card today and never did get a letter, call or email from the bank explaining to me what happened.

Librivox
The goal is to get all the books in the public domain into an audio format that is available free to everybody. Volunteers read the chapters and then they are all organized into a catalogue. The downside is that some of the volunteers' reading is just... well... annoying. However, each volunteer only reads a couple chapters and most of the readers do a fine job.

Logan Magazine
I came across this magazine as I was browsing different magazines published in Spokane. Here's a good little description from her website: "At 16 years old, Logan sustained a brain injury. Her desire for positive influences for young women with disabilities motivated her to create Logan Magazine with her mom, Laurie." If you know any young girls who have some serious obstacles to overcome, check it out.