The scam that is the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Casino

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On my way back home this summer, I passed through Amsterdam. As always if I had some extra money I would go to the Casino to play a couple of hands of blackjack. This time however I was really shocked at the scam they are now running. I entered and played with 70€. In my last hand I bet 40€ and pushed. I am not the fastest when it comes to math, however I added up and found that I pushed with the dealer with an 18. The dealer still took my chips. I exclaimed “What are you doing?  That is a push!” The dealer told me that a push is a lose here. I was so shocked and wanted to complain.

On my way back to Montreal, I visited and told the manager I wanted to complain. He gave me the whole “yes it’s your right schpeel”. I could tell he was not being genuine. He gave me a mailing address (not an email) to write my complaint to. First off I could not read it, so I just went on the Amsterdam Airport website (which does not even work properly) and emailed them until my complaint was forwarded to the right people. I received this as a reply:

Thanks for giving your information about your visit at our Casino.
We try to inform our customers about the rules in our casino by signs and from the dealers
themselves.

What a pity that your experience with our rules is not the kind we like to see. The specified
BJ rule in our airport casino is official approved by the Dutch gaming commission. All over the
world casinos deal BJ with various rules.
We as Holland Casino purpose to give our players a good feeling when they visit one of our
Casino’s. We are sorry that your experience is different.
We have to tell you that we’ll not remove this rule, but once again we will give instructions
to our dealers and tell them to give our customers the extra information about our rules by
personal information and refer to the signs at the tables.

At least we can’t refund your € 80,00 because gambling is still a persons own responsibility.

With kind regards,
Holland Casino Schiphol Airport

P. Braamzeel
Shiftleader

Now I know that gambling is everyone’s own fault, but what was written in the email is absolute bullshit (pardon my French). They are just trying to justify their ongoing scam, not once was it mentioned to me by the dealer that a push is a lose, and the sign that they claim to have, was on the other side of the table facing outward and was in size 16 font I’m guessing. As they claim different Casinos throughout the world have different rules, which is true, but never have I seen a push as a loose. They clearly want to take advantage of the high volume of people going through the Airport, which is vile in my opinion. It was made clear to me when they said it was the only Casino in Holland with this rule. So this is the reason I’m writing this post is to expose them to the world. Also I’m emailing the link of this post directly to them so they know that they are being exposed.

PS. Below is a blurry picture I got of their front desk with two gaming awards for 2008 and 2009. I really don’t believe those should be there.

Holland Casino Gaming Awards 2008 2009

Carbon City Lights – With Or Without

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Carbon City Lights - With Or Without Album Cover

September 7th, 2010 marks the date of Carbon City Lights debut album release on iTunes. This up-and-coming artist is based in the most culturally diverse city in the world, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His own diversity comes through in this album with influences such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Bob Marley, and other iconic musicians from a wide spectrum of genres. The album is now available on iTunes, and can be purchased by clicking on the album cover or here.

Join Carbon City Lights on the following social networks:

Carbon City Lights Facebook Carbon City Lights Twitter Carbon City Lights Youtube

Don’t forget to watch the first music video from the album!

 

How the iPhone 4 re-upped the ante

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Facetime Screen

When the first iPhone came out, it changed the way the mobile phone industry was operating, all other companies scrambled to put something together that would be worthy to battle the iPhone. While some were successful (Google, maybe Nokia), other where not in my opinion (RIM/Blackberry). When I say that, I am not talking about sales, I am talking about a phone and operating system that are coherent.

Next we can all agree that the next two iPhones were just upgrades that were nothing too special other than at the time they were released (except for the 3G upgrade). So when the iPhone 4 came out, it had a new feature called Facetime. What is Facetime you ask? It is a video calling technology that Apple developed. You might think to yourself, who cares Nokia and Sony Ericsson have that that since around 2005. While that may be true, I’ve had the first Nokia phone that had a front facing camera, as well as many others, yet how many times did I use a video call in those three years? Exactly once (no joke), and I was sitting next to the person I was having the call with. We were just testing out the technology. As Felix Dennis mentions in his book How To Get Rich the key to being successful is not about having a great idea, it’s all about execution, and Apple executes second to none.

One of the really cool things about Facetime is that you don’t even need cellular reception to make a call (which makes video calls free all over the world!). Check out this video below of me giving directions to a friend while in the middle of the woods! We had no reception, yet we had wifi internet. While all other phones in the cabin (blackberries) were out of luck when it came to making phone calls, at least I could call people that have a Facetime device (at that time only the iPhone 4).

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK0DjkU-Pu4

App of the day – Speed Test

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We all use a speed test utility from time to time, to diagnose connectivity problems. I always use speedtest.net. They have had an iPhone app for a while now, but today they updated it to 2.0.1. Along with some tweaks to get it to work better with all iDevices including the iPhone 4, They have revamped the entire interface, making it retina display worthy. Actually I think this is the best looking app so far on the retina display. If you have an iPhone 4 and want to see a great graphical interface, and also want to be able to test your internet connection out, the app is free on the app store.

Speedtest Main Screen

Speedtest Test in Progress

Parallels 6 released

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parallels 6 box

Today I received an email from Nova Development, the developer of my favorite virtualization software Parallels. Today they released version 6 of their software that promises 80 new and improved features. I have purchased the update, and plan on testing out their claims in a review. Let’s see if Parallels 6 is as good an update as 5 was. Hopefully 6 gets rid of the annoying dock icon problems that annoyed the hell out of me in version 5.

Below are the features noted in the email:

Over 80 New and Improved Features Including:
NEW – Take advantage of all your Mac’s power with an all NEW 64-bit engine
ENHANCED – Boot Windows 41% faster than Parallels Desktop 5
ENHANCED – 3D graphics are nearly 40% better than Parallels Desktop 5
ENHANCED – Run even more games and 3D applications with DirectX 9.0c/9Ex and Shader Model 3 support
ENHANCED – Install Windows XP, Vista or 7 in 3 clicks
NEW – Use OS X keyboard shortcuts in Windows applications
ENHANCED – Reduced CPU usage improves notebook battery life
NEW – Includes both Mac and Windows Anti-Virus software from Kaspersky
(90-day subscription)
NEW – Use Spotlight to search for Windows programs
NEW – Immerse yourself in games, music and videos with 5.1 Surround Sound
Plus – 90-day money back guarantee
And much, much more

Photo of the day – HD nail polish

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Hd nail polish

Today I was with my sister and friend in Pharmaprix, when I saw this absurd advertisement for nail polish. I really feel that a lot of products these days are trying to ride along with the HD train, but nail polish? I only have one question, do you need a retina display to see this? This made me lol so hard that I had to snap a photo to share with the internets.

How to get your free iPhone 4 Case/Bumper

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So as we all know apple announced it would give away free iPhone 4 cases/bumpers to help those affected by the antennagate. While I haven’t had any real problem with holding the iPhone 4 using the death grip, it’s still nice to get a free bumper out of it. I choose the black bumper as you can see below. I could not find the app in the Canadian Appstore, so I thought I would share how to get the app.

1.First open this link

2.Click on the View in iTunes button

View in iTunes

3.Click on the Free App button in iTunes. This will download the application to your computer.

Free App button

4.Once the application has downloaded, connect your phone and sync it, make sure you have Sync Apps check mark activated in the Apps tab in your iPhone page inside iTunes.

Sync Apps checkmark

5.Open the application on your iPhone, and click Get Started.

Get Started

6.Login with your iTunes account information.

iTunes Sign in

7.Choose the case you like and click Select. (I picked the bumper FYI)

8.Make sure your address information is up-to-date and click place order, you will then be greeted with this Thank You page. That’s it you should now have a case/bumper on its way to you.

Thank You.