Prometheus Links + Commentary

I watched Prometheus over the weekend, and came home with mixed feelings.

The good: Beautiful, gorgeous visuals, good actors, some frightening scenes, works as a thriller.
The bad: Writing is clunky, plot doesn't make sense.
The stupid: Everyone is stupid. Literally. As someone in the hello, tailor blog comments: "Nobody talks to each other except to info-dump, and worse, nobody follows their job descriptions (geologists can't follow their own maps, security leaves their weapons at home, scientists don't perform tests, captains can't keep track of their crew, doctors don't care that a woman is running around in bloody underwear with her intestines hanging out, etc.). If the characters don't care about things, why should we?"

To me, there's a lot of fun in dissecting media, but this has been done much better elsewhere, so I'll just point to them here. Warning: I spoil everything, and I don't hide it. If you want to read someone who hides spoilers, you'll have to go somewhere else.

• The Fashion Harbinger critiques Prometheus on plot and costuming. 
• Interview with Sir Ridley Scott on the Prometheus and Alien universe. Movies.com: You throw religion and spirituality into the equation for Prometheus, though, and it almost acts as a hand grenade. We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered? RS: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him. 
• Penny Arcade's comic. 
• Prometheus Pre-prequel. (YouTube)
• Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About. Long, long, long analysis of the various symbolic imagery in Prometheus. What you have to understand: it makes no statement on whether the film itself is good or bad - it's mainly just analyzing the symbolic imagery and how often it comes up. That's it. 

Toasty Loves...Shutterfly

Seriously, I do. I've been using Shutterfly to print my pictures ever since they've been around. They provide gorgeous pictures and photo products, and as I discovered this week, they have excellent customer service.

In the first incident, I tried to log onto my account a few times, but for some reason I couldn't get on. I changed my password several times, but was still unable to access my account. Fortunately, Shutterfly actually has a customer service number that is really easy to find, and the customer service representative walked me through the entire process of fixing the issue. When he was unable to help me out, he told me that he would personally walk over to the tech people and that I'd receive a note shortly from one of them confirming that they had fixed and reset my account. Which they did.

In the second instance, I ordered pictures, and when they came, the envelope had been opened and taped back shut. All my pictures were in there, but the fact that the envelope came opened disturbed me. I sent an email to Shutterfly's customer service, and was surprised the next day to receive an email saying that they were really sorry and they would make sure to find a way to make sure it didn't happen again. By the way, they would also send me replacement pictures for free.

I've used Shutterfly to print photos, make birthday cards, and photo books. I love their unlimited storage, and I love that I am able to maximize various discounts to get pictures at awesome prices.

My only issues stem from their interface - I think they could stand to be less complex, and more accessible to the average user.

The Legacy of Rodney King

Rodney King passed away a few days ago. An ordinary, flawed man who became the symbol of something much greater than himself also couldn't escape his legacy. After he was beaten, he continued to be a flawed man, struggling with addictions and other demons. But he seemed to have made peace with the incident that defined him for over twenty years.

I wondered - has anything really changed in the past twenty years?

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American male, is dead. It took almost two months for his murderer to be arrested.
Oscar Grant, an African-American male, was shot dead by a BART cop who claimed he mistook his gun for a taser. Even with video evidence, Johanne Mehserle was only convicted of involuntary manslaughter for which he was only sentenced for two years, in which he received "double credit" for time already served. And now he is trying to appeal his conviction because he actually wants to return to police work.
Kendrec McDade, an African-American teenager, was shot dead by cops in Pasadena, who believed he participated in an armed robbery. McDade was unarmed. He had no gang ties, nor did he have any criminal records.

It seems to have become more fatal.

Links + Commentary

• What Facebook Knows - To read later. 
• China is sending its first female astronaut into space. 
• Second patient at Cedars-Sinai denied transplant because of medical marijuana use.
• Prometheus and the fannish mindset: Plotholes aren't everything. The Fashion Harbinger may just be my new favorite blogger. In this post she gets at why nitpickiness when it comes to the stuff we want to love isn't real criticism. 
• Late-term abortion forced by corrupt Chinese officials. What's unusual about this incident was that it was photographed, and made public.
• The Mommy Fight Site. Explores an anonymous online parenting forum for the DC area. Fascinating for its viciousness and class hate that comes out with the protection of anonymity. I have half-formed thoughts about anonymity, moderated anonymity, pseudonymity, and the myth of using real names to protect and hold people responsible for their actions. There's no such thing. 

Links + Commentary

• Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures' Foods? Fascinating conversation between Francis Lam and Eddie Huang on food and cultural appropriation. Honestly, the title of the piece is misleading. Lots of food for thought.
• Home Sweet Home - Eddie Huang's followup on his personal blog. 
• New "Anne of Green Gables" TV series in development. The producers will be working with the Montgomery estate; however, they are planning on updating it for the modern era. I'm not sure how that would even work. 
• Tank Man, Tiananmen Square photo, uncropped. Much more powerful than the original that was published.
• Nearly 1 out of 10 people killed in Los Angeles died at the hands of Los Angeles cops. Unacceptable.
• 22 Pixar rules for storytelling. 
• What travel guides tell foreign visitors to the U.S.
• Tiananmen political prisoner Li Wangyang found dead. Officially it was suicide, but it looks suspicious.
• Exiled former student leader Chai Ling stirs up controversy when she says that she has forgiven the Chinese government for the Tiananmen massacre because of her Christian religion. 

Legend Of The Condor Heroes 1983 TVB Series Re-watch

I'm excited. I just received my DVDs of the 1983 TVB version of the Legend Of The Condor Heroes to arrive. Part one of Jin Yong/Louis Cha's famous Condor Heroes trilogy, it follows the story and adventures of simple-minded Guo Jing and his partner-in-crime Huang Rong. While the sequel, Return Of The Condor Heroes, is much more popular, I think the first part is actually better story-wise.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the martial arts heroes genre, and spent hours watching tapes of young heroes and heroines fighting off evil and navigating the martial arts world of ancient China, which seemed to exist separately from the actual Chinese government of the era.

The best thing about the Condor Heroes are the characters. It's your basic coming-of-age story, but what makes the story so special is Huang Rong, the love interest. When you meet her, she's impulsive, petty, but also ruthless and smart, complementing Guo Jing's simple-mindedness and innocence. She's one of my all-time favorite characters, ever.

I'll be watching this again, and writing down my impressions as an adult. It'll be interesting to compare my childhood impressions with my adult outlook. One caveat: I do not have any screen capture software, so most of my posts will be heavy on the text.

Style Saint - Fantasy Wedding Stylebook

I met the CEO of StyleSaint the other day, and decided to check the site out. I'm still playing with the site, but here's a stylebook I created with StyleSaint. The theme is "Fantasy Wedding", and I was toying with the idea of re-doing my wedding in a dreamland.

Punchcard App Pays Out

So far, I have received 3 physical checks from the Punchcard app. The premise of the app is very simple: when you purchase something from a store, take a snapshot of the receipt with your phone, and "punch" in the store. When you have "punched" a store 10 times, you'll receive a check for the average of your purchase amounts up to $30. Supposedly merchants have other deals that they can also give you once you've hit the 10th punch, but I've only ever received checks.

I like that it's very simple to use. There's not a huge learning curve, and it's free. It's available for both Android and iOS. The one nice thing about it, is that there's not really a limit to the type of places where you can "punch" in. According to TechCrunch, "it just switched on loyalty programs for millions of locations across the U.S., even if they didn’t ask for it.

“We’re looking at this as seeding the market, essentially,” explains Punchcard CEO and serial entrepreneur Andy Steuer of why the company has seemingly put the cart before the horse. In other words, usage and rewards first, paying customers (i.e., businesses signing up) second."

There are some oddities in it - the way Punchcard pulls up locations for you to punch in, is powered by Foursquare, and this can result in some weirdness. For example, one of the locations near my house is "Taco Man". Who, or what is Taco Man? I have no idea.

There is a tab for Offers, that presumes to give you local deals similar to what Google Offers, or Groupon, or Living Social does. However, every time I've tried to click on a deal, it fails to actually take me to the offer. It's not like many of those offers are very appealing anyway, so I don't use it.

One thing to remember about this app is that you have to snap a picture of your receipt at the point of purchase. This has been an issue for me when I've used the app because the GPS/Foursquare function is inconsistent, and for certain locations, it wouldn't show me the stores that I was standing right next to. I think this is a bug that got fixed in the latest update, but I need to test it.

You can only "punch" the same location once a day, but you can "punch" your receipt, if you forgot on the day of, up to five days later. This is great, as long as you are right next to your location. I've found it useful because the grocery store is right down the street from me.

There's another downside: your punches have expiration dates. For example, if you punch into a Ralph's store, you'll need to collect 10 punches by a certain date and it will re-set. Usually the date is several months from when you've punched in - however, I had a ludicrous situation once, where I punched into the Los Angeles Zoo on Memorial Day. The expiration date was for June 27, which was less than a month away. How could the app realistically expect me to show up to the zoo 10 times before the month was out?

Although, how could I not love an app that sends me cash? The app is not altogether altruistic. It's also a solution for small business owners. Punchcard also launched "Punchcard for Business", which lets businesses analyze the data collected from the punched receipts, and push out special offers directly to loyal clients. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Genuine Apologies

Let's face it - apologies are a dime a dozen, but most of them are insincere and self-serving. So when real people with power face their faults with thoughtfulness, it's worth highlighting:

• Jason Alexander writes an apology for calling cricket a "gay sport": So, I can only apologize and I do. In comedy, timing is everything. And when a group of people are still fighting so hard for understanding, acceptance, dignity and essential rights – the time for some kinds of laughs has not yet come. I hope my realization brings some comfort.
• Mark Cuban apologizes for making a homophobic joke: I guess what I am doing is admitting that at some level I am prejudiced and that I recognize that I am .  There are a lot of things in my life that I need to improve at. This is one of them. Sometimes I make stupid throw away comments that I quickly realize are wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. It was a mistake and I realized it. I learned from it.

Links + Comments

• Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi's Twitter, full of links and pics to space goodness.
• US astronaut Ron Garan's Twitter. He's also on Google+.
• US astronaut Don Pettit's Twitter. He's also on Google+.
• NASA's Google+ page.
• The world's worst password requirements list. (I sympathize with this list.)
• 10 unusual uses for discarded eggshells. (Practical.)
• Food trucks make it to Paris. (I like the description of Parisians trying to eat tacos with a knife and fork.)
• Solar plumes.
• Apparently charter schools can kick your kid out when you complain that they're being racist to your kid.

Stealing The Show: Black Widow

• Hello, tailor analysis of Black Widow and Hawkeye's costumes: "But the reality is that there's no point during The Avengers when her looks are even commented on, and nor does she get any tiresome "feminine wiles" scenes. Most complaints or creepy sexist commentary on Black Widow's costume/body/character say far more about the commenter than about Johansson's performance itself."
• The Superhero Men Don't See: Evidence: "Overall, 24 of the 40 reviews mention Natasha/BW/SJ only in passing, in a single sentence; 3 others do not mention her at all. But look at Point 1 of the objective facts: Johansson probably has the second largest part in the movie, including at least *8* two-person scenes (if you include the Russians). Not mentioning her or not giving the impression that she's a major character maybe should qualify *all* those reviewers for the "420" designation, or at least for a couple of tokes."
• Scarlett Johannson in a Gorilla Suit: The Superhero Mundanes Don't See: "And in particular, it's usually a safe bet that if there's only one woman with a major role in a male-focused action movie, she'll be the stock sex symbol. So I think the Top Critics saw Scarlett Johansson as Natasha, tagged her as "the girl who's pretty but doesn't do much, you know, like Megan Fox", and then felt free to ignore her as they tried to keep track of what was going on (the basketball game, as it were) in a maximally distracting environment. When it came time to write their review, they looked at the list of actors, said, "hmm, what did Scarlett Johansson do?" and all that came back was the tag -- they never realized her character was the gorilla."
• The Avengers Brings Superhero Movies to Another Level: "Black Widow, given a personal stake in the fight when Loki brainwashes Hawkeye, tells the villain who wants to know if she’s in love with him, “Love is for children. I owe a debt,” and leaves it at that. Her refusal to clarify leaves room for Loki to speculate, and ultimately to reveal more than he intended. All sorts of skill sets matter in a conflict this big and complex. And without making her a victim or a lesser member of the team, Black Widow’s reactions are a regular reminder that superheroics and space invaders have real impact beyond the financial support of the Cinematic Demolition Industrial Complex."
• Black Widow Spins Web Around the Avengers: "To which I can only say—exactly! And: isn’t this remarkable? Two parallel realities! Men who see nobody at all and women who see the next Faith (without the crazy, I mean). Don’t tell Disney, or they’ll be marketing the film as 4-D."

Links + Comments

• Honor student Diana Tran's contempt order thrown out. According to this article, the dad is "very much in the picture", while the mother is not. Previous articles have indicated that Tran is working two jobs to support an older brother and a baby sister, and that she's living with one of her employers. Questions I have: why isn't the older brother supporting the younger ones? Where are her relatives? 
• Readlists - A place for you to bundle web pages into an ebook and send to your ebook reader of choice.
• Immigration records for Asian Americans are being made available for the public. 

How To Get Around Media Paywalls

Recently, newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have instituted paywalls. These paywalls allow you to access their news sites a certain number of times per month, after which you are prompted to pay for subscriptions to access their online materials. Supposedly there are other benefits if you subscribe, but if you're like me and you're unlikely to subscribe either offline or on, there's a quick solution if you want to read more than your allotted amount per month:

Just use your browser's private browsing mode. 


It's as simple as that.

Everything You Never Needed To Know About Steve Jobs

This is a compilation of links about Steve Jobs. This post will be updated whenever I have new information about Steve Jobs that is relevant or interesting.

• Steve Jobs' FBI file.
• Steve Jobs visits the University of Lund (.mov file)
• Steve Jobs speech in 1980.(YouTube)
• John Sculley on Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs: Ghostbuster (Video)
• Steve Jobs at the pearly gates of heaven (Satirical comic by Matt Bors)
• Steve Jobs' favorite books and bands
• Steve Jobs' Stanford University commencement speech on June 12, 2005
• 1944 - Apple's internal marketing video dated 1984, with Steve Jobs as FDR (YouTube)
• Michael Markman's backstory on the 1944 video
• Steve Jobs wanted to be Willy Wonka but prevented by California laws (Excerpt from Ken Segall's Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success)
• The Mouse That Didn't Roar (Excerpt from Ken Segall's Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success)
• The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes (Interviews recovered by Brent Schlender)
• Highlights from Brent Schlender's taped interviews with Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs on the payoff of a great employee (audio clip)
• Steve Jobs on how running a company is like running a marathon (audio clip)
• iCEO (Steve Jobs as doll)
• First Mac designer Jerry Manock remembers Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs almost named the iMac the MacMan (Excerpt from Ken Segall's Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success)
• Steve Jobs and NeXT documentary (YouTube)
• Steve Jobs brainstorms with the NeXT team (Various YouTube)
• slomacuser (YouTube channel)
• Supreme Court of Assholedom: The People vs Steve Jobs (Matt Taibbi article)
• The Tweaker: The Real Genius of Steve Jobs (Malcolm Gladwell review/analysis of Walter Isaacson biography)
• Shortest, pithiest review of Walter Isaacson biography. 
• Mona Simpson's eulogy for Steve Jobs
• What Kind of Buddhist Was Steve Jobs, Really? (Steve Silberman criticizes Isaacson's portrayal of Jobs' Buddhist practices and mentors.)
• Steve Jobs Grew Up in a Modernist Home (Eichler, to be specific.)
• Telling Steve's Story (Walter Isaacson describes the behind-the-scenes of gathering material for the Jobs biography.)
• Steve Jobs on creativity (Quote from Wired interview in February 1995)
• A celebration of Steve's life (Apple, Cupertino 10/19/2011) (YouTube) (Stream on Apple's site.)
• 60 Minutes interview with Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs
• How Steve Jobs Influenced Google's Restructuring 
• Steve Jobs by Diana Walker office (Image)
• Making the iBio for Apple's Genius (NYTimes book review by Janet Maslin)
• NPR's 1996 interview with Steve Jobs
• A conversation with Woz (Interview with Steve Wozniak)
• The 10 Commandments of Steve (Infographic)
• The Best Steve Jobs Stories (Gizmodo compilation)
• Steve Jobs prepping for an early TV appearance (YouTube)
• My iXperiences with Steve Jobs (Esther Dyson describes her experience working with Steve Jobs.)

Adventures In Greening The Mail

I finally decided to work on getting rid of junk mail. The piles upon piles of paper to be weeded through and shredded got to be too much. I started last year.

• Unsubscribed from former favorite catalogs: Ann Taylor Loft, Uncommon Goods, etc.
• Unsubscribed from credit card offers/checks on Chase and Discover. Went to settings via Chase website; used the live chat function on Discover to request that checks stop being sent to me.
• Removed self from Pennysavers mailing list. You can use this link to unsubscribe from their mailing list. At the time I did this, the following applied: "You must affirm that you are the head of the household and at least 18 years of age. It takes at least 4-6 weeks to cancel and the suppression from their mailing list is only valid for 1 year high household mobility rate of people changing residences in California and Florida." So far, we haven't been getting the Pennysavers ads. 
• Removed self from Valpak coupons. Use this link to unsubscribe. 
• Called and/or emailed to have people removed from mailing lists who no longer live at our address. Includes: Abercrombie & Kent, CAFAM, USC Alumni Association, etc. 
• Used PaperKarma app to unsubscribe from unwanted mailings. It's very easy - snap a picture of the mailing address you want to be unsubscribed from, and they'll send a request on your behalf. Currently the app is free and is available on iOS, Android, and Windows phones. You can only unsubscribe from mail that is directly addressed to you, so I also installed the app on my husband's phone, and I also unsubscribe him from stuff when I see it addressed to him. 

I found it hilarious that Pennysavers links to this "fact sheet" that says that efforts to reduce junk mail are misguided and will cost people jobs. One, if I never use the information that's sent to me, it's a waste of my time to have to sift through it. Two, if it costs people jobs, then maybe the industry should work out a different solution than annoying people with trash. 

I am now working on getting my husband to go paperless with his statements. It's...slow-going, to say the least. 

My New Favorite App: Pocket

I originally downloaded Read It Later, which has now become Pocket, several months earlier, but I hadn't really figured out how to use it. Now that it's been rebranded, I took another look, and I love what I see.

I use Google Reader as my primary mode of web consumption, so what ends up happening is that I bookmark a lot of stuff to "read later". But then I never do.

Pocket's great, because I have the bookmarklet installed on all my browsers, and in my phone. I would love for it to be integrated with the Kindle, but it's only available for the Kindle Fire. What's great is that I can use the app on my phone for offline reading, which means less drainage on my phone. It also strips useless ads from the articles, and formats them for ideal viewing, which means that reading articles is a pleasure, instead of a headache.

I used it to pick and bookmark articles from the following collections:

• Byliner's 101 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories
• The Paris Review Interviews 

You can also import content from your Delicious or Instapaper account. I haven't really explored all you can do with it yet, like tagging or favoriting, but I'm content with just having a place to read stuff I meant to and had forgotten about.

How To Perfect The Art Of Immigrant Shopping

I learned how to shop for groceries from my parents. Because of the way they were raised, and how they had to save while we were young, they've adapted to American shopping habits with a decidedly Chinese outlook. If you do what they do, you'll save yourself a lot of money. It takes some dedicated effort, though. Here's what you can do to be like them:

• Grow your own garden. In China, my parents were farmers who grew plants and raised animals. Here, they couldn't raise animals, so they grew plants instead. They grew green onions, tomatoes, zucchinis, various melons and fruits. Free food. 
• Shop all the grocery stores that are within the vicinity of your home. If there's a Safeway and an Albertson's within 3 blocks of you, shop at both of them. Some items will be cheaper at the Safeway and others will be cheaper at Albertson's. Go to both to take advantage of the cost-differences.
• Get loyalty cards for every store possible. These cards allow you to maximize your savings. 
• Get an extra fridge. The reason you need an extra fridge is to store all the extra food you can't use up immediately with all the great deals. Sometimes stores will run deals that you can only take advantage of if you only buy 10 of them. So stock up and store. 
• American grocery stores will not have everything you need for a well-stocked pantry. Go also to your local ethnic grocers to take advantage of even fresher and cheaper produce, and to find items you can't get anywhere else for cheaper, like deli meats at Super King, or tofu at 99 Ranch.
• Walk through your neighborhood and pick in-season fruit off your neighbors' trees. You're not stealing; you're just making sure the food isn't going to waste.

Wednesday Links

• Chinese artist Ai Wei-wei puts himself under web surveillance to mark the one-year anniversary of his arrest.
• EvernoteforDummies public notebook. Note to self: bit.ly links are case-sensitive.
• Guide to killing off Foursquare and Facebook data-sharing.

How To Make The Most Out Of Checkpoints - The App That Pays You Back

(Edited to add: This guide is now outdated. Read this post for the latest info on how to earn points on the Checkpoints app.)

Checkpoints is known as the "app that pays you back". You go into any number of stores, check in, and scan items with your phone's camera to collect points and coins. You can use the coins to play two games within the app to win points. Once you've collected enough points, you can redeem them for rewards like gift certificates and iPads. This app is free for both Androids and iPhones.

I've been using the Checkpoints app for almost half a year now, and I've really grown attached to it. It is also working its magic on me: I'll make excuses to go into stores if I see items I can scan for coins and points, and I'll buy products that seem interesting to me that I hadn't been aware of before. I'm working my way up towards an iPad, so I've got a ways to go.

How to Earn Points & Coins:

• Scan items in stores: Go visit your local grocery store or big box store, and check the app to see if there are any items you can scan. Most items are ten points and offer a coin each. There are some items that offer more points, such as the P&G items, which are fifteen points each. Occasionally, there'll be a special promotion, and you can gain twenty-five points from scanning those items. 
• Check into locations:  You get two points for simply checking into a single location. There are some locations that have a star next to their name, and you'll get ten points for checking into those locations. 
• Scan at Home: This is a very new feature. You provide Checkpoints with your home location information, and each week, Checkpoints asks you what you have in your pantry, fridge, or cupboards. You scan your favorite cookies, brand of coffee, etc. If Checkpoints doesn't have a record of it, you'll be asked to take a picture of the item and submit it for review. Scanning items at home doesn't give you any points, but it does give you a coin for each item. If you've moved, you can change your location, but you can only change your location once every 90 days.
• Toolbar:You can download the Checkpoints toolbar for your browser (works with IE9 and Firefox) and every time you do a search in the toolbar, which is powered by Yahoo!, you earn a point. When you buy stuff online in certain sites, such as Macy's or Shutterfly, you can earn extra points for every dollar you spend. You can see all Checkpoints retailers here, along with the number of points you can earn per dollar spent.
• Social sharing: You can earn bonus points for every friend you refer by signing up with your bonus code, which you can obtain by logging into your phone. You can share your code wherever, including Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow Checkpoints on Facebook and Twitter, and answer their weekly questions for bonus coins. When you answer the questions, don't forget to include your Checkpoints ID so they know who to credit.

Things You Should Know:

• You don't have to scan the exact product listed. For example, if you're asked to scan "Newman's Popcorn", you can actually find and scan "Newman's Pasta Sauce", and you'll still earn the points and coin. 
• Sometimes retailers cover up the bar code with their own stickers. In these cases, the bar code scanner for Checkpoints won't be able to recognize the item. 
• Checkpoints also offers local deals within the app itself - just check the Deals tab to find discounts at restaurants and stores in your area. 
• If you're checked into one store, and you want to move onto the next, you have to wait two minutes.
• If you're checked into a store like Target, which offers a huge variety of items, you might see that some of the items listed in another store, like CVS, are also available at Target. If you're close enough to the other store, you can stay in Target and scan those other items. You'll also get points for getting checked into the other store.
• You can't scan an item more than once for the day. 
• When scanning @Home items, the bar code scanner won't be able to read single items that you've purchased in bulk from a store like Costco. Instead, you have to scan the original wrapping over all the items in order to get validated. 
• When performing searches via the Checkpoints toolbar, some of your searches may not qualify for points, because it's obvious you're not doing an organic search, or if you've searched for the same thing within a short timeframe.

Wishlist:

• Checkpoints is terrible at reading items that may have truncated bar codes. 
• Checkpoints drains your phone battery pretty fast because it relies on the GPS on your phone; if there was a way to make the app less draining, I'd love to see it.
• Would love to have a way to eliminate the tutorial start screen. Maybe have an option like Punchcard does.
• It's happened several times that I've scanned the exact item that's pictured on the list, but won't scan. I've sent feedback occasionally when this happens, but I never get confirmation if or when that's fixed.  
• I would like to see the games give out more variety of points. For the slot machine game, it seems like you can only win 20 or 50 points, and that's not as fun. Maybe you could win 15, or 75, or a 100 points. 
•  I don't like Checkpoints' practice of sending you your password in plain text, and I'd rather see a password hint or something along those lines offered. 
• When buying items online to earn Checkpoints, the points don't show up for a few days. I would like an option to have confirmation of the points earned sent to me.
• I would like an easier way to review the points I've accumulated.

 Where to Follow Checkpoints:

• Checkpoints
• Checkpoints Facebook
• Checkpoints Twitter
• Checkpoints Pinterest
• Checkpoints Google+

Disclaimer: The President of Checkpoints, Todd Dipaola is a friend of mine. Other than letting me know about the app, he has nothing to do with my activities.

Note: My bonus code is cheekyang, and if you sign up for Checkpoints with this code, I can get bonus points. (You cannot post this code on the Android Market in the reviews, or your account could be closed.)

Sunday Links

• Details interview with Jason Statham: "So much of this industry is buried in bullshit. You're pretending to be something onscreen, fine. But it's also the way it plays out here, every day. Yeah, we love you, can't wait to put you in a movie. It's fahking bullshit. Not to be entirely negative, mind you, because there's so much talent here, so many people that are righteous. But believe me, there's so much that ain't, and you see that coming in so thick. I did it for a living. I see it before it enters the room. And usually I know just to point my compass elsewhere." Via MetaFilter.
• Arab writers discuss the Arab uprisings, one year later. Mourud Barghouti: "Revolution might be seen as a total failure and a sad event. But a revolution is not an event. Revolution is a process – a lengthy, laborious and demanding one."
• Shark cartilage may contain a neurotoxin linked to Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease. Via Boing Boing. (I should tell my parents.)
• 500 new fairytales discovered in Germany.