Borbin the 🐱

Plaid - Don't do it.

20 December, 2022


Plaid is a popular financial service that is used to connect to your bank account. Literally, it connects to your bank account.

Example: Coinbase, add a bank account:

Right, "Your data belongs to you".



It asks you for your username and password of your bank. And most users naively enter the username and password of their bank account, allowing Plaid to access and read all your bank transactions and positions. Once you entered your login credentials, it queries all your financial data and store it.

Username and password only belong to one place, and this is your bank login page.



Don't do it.
Yes, exit.




They already sold your data if you used Plaid last year. See the lawsuit for the $58 million settlement: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/fintech-firm-plaid-agrees-58-mln-deal-end-privacy-case-2021-08-06/
Search https://www.reddit.com/ for Plaid to get more insight.

You can request to clear your data using this form:
https://plaid.com/legal/data-protection-request-form/


What you need to do is to manually link your bank account using the routing number and account number, wait 2 business days for the verification test transfer of $0.01 and enter the code in the transaction description (ACH transfer):


Alternatively use the classic wire transfer, but this thing costs about $20 each time you use. It is safe and the best for large sums as it does not have any limitations.


PowerBall Mania

04 November, 2022


The Powerball jackpot is approaching another record of

Five numbers 1..69 + one Powerball number from 1..26 is all you need. Chances are 1 in 292 million according to the website.

69 * 68 * 67 * 66 * 65 * 26 = 35.064.160.560 combinations, but since the order doesn't matter (1,2,3,4,5 = 5,4,3,2,1), the probability is much lower. With a set of 5 numbers, there are 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 possible ways to order the numbers. That is 5! = 120.

The number of possible draws is
35.064.160.560 / 120 = 292.201.338

Rewriting using the factorial expression:
69 * 68 * 67 * 66 * 65 = 69! / 64! = 69! / (69-5)!

Adding the PowerBall with 26 combinations: (69! * 26) / ((69-5)! * 5!) = 292.201.338

Using the binominal coefficient:

The blog doesn't support the markdown math syntax. If, the code for the two math expressions above would be:
$$ \displaystyle {n\choose k}=\frac{n!}{k!(n-k)!} $$
$$ \displaystyle {69\choose 5}*26=\frac{69!}{5!(69-5)!}*26=292.201.338 $$

I have officially purchased 2 tickets to be part of this epic event.


Update

Not only I missed the numbers, everyone else did so too.

Doubled up to continue this epic event.


Update

10 33 41 47 56 10, worth 2 Billion a few days ago.


Nationaler Katzentag 😺

29 October, 2022


National 😺 Day!
And in two days it's πŸŽƒπŸ‘»
Be aware, turns a 🐈 into a πŸˆβ€β¬›


Internationaler Katzentag 😺

08 August, 2022


My cat reminded me today of the International 😺 Day!
Don't forget the extra treats today!
🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈


Katzentreppe

04 August, 2022


My cat asked me for a staircase. After a long design discussion he finally said: "meow"! Project is on!



All parts except the round material were cut from those boards.



The boards were cut in length.



And to thinner size.



The staircase has an angle of 30Β°





With a fixed vise all the holes in the treads were drilled.









One of the wooden rounds broke and and I had to cut one manually. Took longer than expected.



The railing holes are cut with a 30Β° alignment using one of the cut offs as a guide.





Two parts assembly.







Construction finished. Painting!



Customer is happy!



It's his staircase.


Engineering Pi Day

22 July, 2019


It was in one of the first physics courses when the Prof used 22/7 in an equation as an approximation. Within a few steps, he calculated the result on the board, leaving us students astounding about this.

So simple, and yet so close:

22 / 7 = 3,1̅4̅2̅8̅5̅7

πœ‹ = 3,14159265358

22 / 7 - πœ‹ β‰ˆ 0,00126

The math department would not had approved this, but not us engineers!


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