2010-07-05
Phase Two of the Van Buren Experiment recently got going, and I'm back to loading my pockets with dollar coins. I've written about the purpose of the Experiment before, so I won't rehash that. The base point is that dollar bills suck, and need to come out of circulation. While replacing our (self +2) personal paper dollars with dollar coins is fine, it isn't very large-scale. There must be some other way I can influence currency usage....Of course I have an idea.
In fact, this idea of mine will aid our nation on two fronts: first by pulling out paper dollars (Bad Ones) from circulation, while at the same time reducing inflation. The benefits of the former are well-known (in some circles). And inflation, as we are all aware, is a tool that the government uses to advantage when debtors (including itself). Inflation disadvantages those of us who currently hold dollars, as their value continues to be eroded over time. This invisible tax must be stopped.
Thus I present to you my plan to combat both evils. For each paper dollar mailed to me, I shall return to the sender one Inflation-Reduction Coupon. So I'll be taking out a spendable piece of paper and replacing it with a nonspendable piece of paper.
Questions?
Q: What can I get by holding an Inflation-Reduction Coupon?Trust me, this is for the good of the republic.
A: ... paper cuts?Q: Nothing else?
A: It's a token of your commitment to the cause.Q: What will you do with all the dollars you get?
A: They will be put in a box.Q: And then?
A: I will guard them, as Keeper of the Bad Ones.Q: That's it?
A: As long as they're kept in the box, they're out of circulation. Unfortunately, I can't burn them, as it's illegal to knowingly destroy or mutilate US currency. However, if a large enough quantity is acquired ($100k), I may personally export the whole stock to Timaru, where they can be destroyed outside of Uncle Sam's purview.Q: And after 100,000 people send you free cash, you're not just going to take the money and run?
A: Not at all. As stated before, the money shall stay in the box, until it reaches a certain amount. The money shall not be used for my personal gain. Once 100k is reached, I pledge to -- at my own personal peril -- escort the box to it's final demise. Naturally I'll need to spend a little to make the long journey, but I promise to hire the smallest possible luxury hovercraft available.
First seigniorage, then franking
2010-06-01
Sometime around May every year, I get hit confluence of expirations. Lease renewal. Renter's insurance renewal. Car insurance renewal.So it's hard not to reflect on things this time of year. It's also hard (for me) not to look forward, and realize that May-June would be a really good time to shake things up. It'd be pretty easy to cut and run. Since I don't have a mortgage tying me down, the closest things I have to an anchor are these annual contracts. So for a short period of time each year (right now), I could walk away from them all without penalty, and do something that's been on my list.
But that year is not this year.
Doesn't mean big life changes can't happen though. It's not necessary to move to another continent to do something big. For instance, I've decided to change my date of birth. Went right on down to the courthouse and got a judge to take care of it for me. My new date of birth is Novembuary 10.
Also, my driver's license now says that I'm an Organ Consumer.
...and it says "best if used by" instead of "expires"
2010-02-16
Over thirty billion dollars. That's how much money Apple has stated they have in current assets. Thirty billion. For reference, other tech companies such as HP, IBM, and Cisco also have tens of billions in cash. The difference is, Apple carries no debt; that $30B is free and clear.So I wonder, what are they going to do with all that money?
Things companies use "extra" money for:
- Make acquisitions
- Pay a dividend
- Buy back stock
But to be realistic, Steve's gonna need to find a much larger island if it's meant to be home to 35,000 Apple employees, plus hordes of pilgrims. Trouble is, big islands are hard to come by. Even if you're willing to pay big bucks, the most expensive options aren't that large. No Taiwans are up for sale. However, there is an alternative to scaling up, and that's scaling out: the Appletopia Archipelago. I direct your attention to Greece...
Greece is in a bind: lots of debt and a displeased public unwilling to cope with higher taxes, service cuts, and lower state wages. As a member of the Eurozone, it's possible that Greece will be bailed out by the other members. But that option isn't so popular with people in the other member states, particularly Germany, where the majority do not support financial assistance for Greece. If Greece gets stonewalled on this, there's a chance they'll get the boot from the Eurozone and go back to the drachma. With their monetary independence, they'll be able to devalue their currency to promote investment in the country. The cheap drachma will be beneficial to holders of stronger currencies, such as the US dollar. Who do we know with a lot of dollars... ah right, Apple. Apple: cash in-hand and in the island-buying market. Greece has about 1400 islands, and Apple could afford to pay over $20M for each. Compare that number to the going prices on the island real estate websites. And those prices don't take into affect the cheapness of the drachma. This is starting to look like a real possibility, innit? Just picture Steve Jobs as Poseidon, with a trident. The Apple2009-12-20
Current slogans of the major cell carriers:AT&T: We've got the biggest 3G network!
Verizon: We've got the fastest 3G network!
Sprint: We've got the first 4G network!
T-Mobile: Wein ist gorknoggerflankkensptiengupershigne von der wigglat!
Just ask Cathrine Zeta Jones
2009-09-09
Turns out that Democrats don't want death panels. The Republicans were criticizing them for this, so apparently they don't want them either. I ask: where's the support for death panels, and why don't they speak up?Thought it was about time I weigh in on this health care debate.
But I'm not going to explicitly give an opinion, but instead, a numbered list of things to consider. Here goes:
- It's all FDR's Fault - Ever wonder where our messed-up system came from? From watching Dr. Quinn and Deadwood we all know that back in the day, someone in town -- who was always named "Doc" -- would make house calls in exchange for a fee or gold or pot roast or whatever. Nowadays we travel to a doctor's office where maybe we pay some of the fee and a form gets mailed out to some organization (company or government) where they will pay a fraction of what the doctor bills them for. And some people don't have a place to have their forms sent to, so when they get sick they go to the emergency room where they're treated at the expense of people who can pay. So complicated. What happened to Doc and the pot roast?
During World War II, unemployment had fallen below 1 million. To keep inflation at bay, FDR thought it would be wise to implement wage controls. This may have helped, but corporations needed to attract workers. They couldn't do it with higher paychecks, so they expanded the compensation package to include health insurance. After this, some of the population became uninsured, and was disadvantaged because of it. Before this, almost everyone was uninsured, and it was a more equal, free market.
- The over-65 population doesn't want national health care - It's a wrong to say that the US doesn't have a public health care system. It does.... and it's called Medicare. Old people (and some others) have it. If everyone gets to use the health care system, then the biggest users of the system -- the 65+ folks -- might have a harder time getting appointments. I kind of see their point. Not that they should be more entitled to healthier than anyone else, but I have yet to hear proponents of full health care coverage ask the question...
- Where are the extra doctors coming from? - One of the reasons health care costs are high is because the AMA (yes, the organization that violated the Sherman Antitrust Act) does its best to constrain the supply of doctors. In other words, there's a monopoly on health care professionals. They support limits on med school class size under the guise of producing the best doctors, but constricting the supply increases salaries. And high professionals are more eager to pay into the organization that keeps their salary high through constricted supply, just like any union. But the tight supply hurts patients.
In Cuba, they have an oversupply of doctors. In fact, the doctors can't make enough money doctoring, so they often take up another profession instead. But I'll save my post on lifting the embargo for another day.
- People under-appreciate the gift of a known deathdate - Let's say you have an untreatable ailment, soul cancer. There's no known cure. You have 6 months to live.
Isn't that great?
I think so. You could be so carefree.... quit your job, spend all your money, do lots of drugs, travel without the worry of returning, eat anything you wanted... whatever. Most of the time, death comes unexpectedly. Perhaps death won't come by lightning strike or sudden heart attack, but even if you're simply old, you could start feeling deathly at 79 but stick around until you're 82. I'd probably wake up every morning wondering, "Am I dead yet?". It's preferable to know your time is running short, so you can say your goodbyes and wrap things up instead of letting the years drag on in a decrepit state, longing for the comfort of the grave.
Back to the soul cancer thing. Let's say "not curable" means "really expensive". Maybe treatment takes more than all of the money you've got. Do you go into debt trying to pay for the cure, only to continue life under a pile of debt with soul cancer still lingering?
I'm not saying everyone should not seek a cure, but I think people don't appreciate the option of not being treated. Back in the old days, it seems like (now, this is based strictly on TV and movies) death was just more accepted. Modern America seems to be more "clingy" grasping for any medical procedure that might make a difference. And doctors have to give it to them, lest they get hit with...
- Medical Malpractice Lawsuits - Rooted in the new American tradition of suing yourself to a better life, medical malpractice costs physicians (an in turn, those who pay them) big bucks. If the doctor doesn't order every possible blood test and the patient really did have TOWM flu, and dies, that doc is getting suited by the family. If a surgery isn't successful, good chance of a suit. Physicians need to blanket themselves in malpractice insurance if they wish to practice. And when settlements are big and the number of people treated are many, that's some pricey insurance.
- Some of the 45M uninsured Americans are ok with it - Probably not most, but some. There is not a horde of 45M Americans sick and dying for lack of insurance. Some are just young people who like their chances. I, for one, would not pay for standard health insurance for myself. And because of this...
- Not requiring everyone to have health insurance increases rates - Think of what would happen if only bad drivers got car insurance.
- Health insurance isn't treated as insurance - People use it as a club membership. Health care can be abstractly described in units (HCUs). Maybe an HCU consists of 30 minutes of a doctor's time, plus examination room space for that half hour, some equipment, blood work processing, whatever. The point is there is a finite number of HCUs, and they're getting spent on runny noses when they could be better spent elsewhere. But the insured can use the doctor's office like the gym, just stop by whenever they feel like it. This is not to say preventative care isn't worthwhile. Seeking preventative care will usually save HCUs (since they won't need to be spent later down the road). Unfortunately....
- Insurers don't treat their members as investments - at least some of them. Getting regular teeth cleaning will likely reduce the need for fillings in the future. And insurers want to pay out the least amount possible, so they'll keep paying for regular cleanings. But for patients in their 50s, the incentive starts to disappear, as members migrate to Medicare. From the insurer's perspective, it's best to not pay for the cleanings any more, and let Medicare foot the bill in a few years.
- The current system isn't a good example of a free market system - If a town only had one doctor and lots of patients, it wouldn't be a very free market, would it? The doctor would command pricing power since the people only have access to one doctor. Many local markets across the US have a dominant health insurer. Having to go through a single middleman to gain access to health care isn't much different than the one doctor scenario. Further, most people get their insurance from their employer; this limits choice (as people would "need" to job hop) and choice is a core component of the free market.
Because of this, the current argument of what we have now vs. universal health care isn't defined correctly: 1) we haven't had a real free market for many, many years 2) the Obama plan isn't really universal care, which I consider to be a single-payer (Canada-style) system.
- I don't want to pay for smokers and fat people - Universal health care evokes images of going to the hospital to get fixed up, without having to worry about payment or filling out forms. Or maybe a scene with someone going to the nearest doctor's office without worrying if she's "in-network" or not. But what I think about when someone says "universal health care" is smokers and fat people.... time bombs just waiting to go off. Because of bad decisions or lack of will, Smoking Man is going to be chugging tons of HCUs that could instead be used to prevent future health problems for dozens of people. I haven't heard of a solution to address this.
- We're going to need death panels - Insurance won't cover all procedures. To be at all sane, the government, acting as an insurance agent, will also have to make choices. Say I have a rare ailment (soul cancer again?). There is one specialist in Istanbul who can perform an experimental surgery with a 20% success rate, at the cost of $1M. Should the government pay for this? I wouldn't expect it to. Similarly, if an 80 yr old person requires intensive treatment for the rest of his life -- perhaps 5 additional years -- I think the government may balk at paying for it. It goes back to point #11, the HCU chugging problem. Either the tough decision has to be made, or #3 needs to be solved. And I'm not optimistic about the latter.
2009-05-25
On my own tonight. Roaming the streets of the El Raval district of Barcelona. My first destination, a restaurant, was closed. Restaurants here have uneven hours: closed two days of the week, open only for lunch, short hours on Fridays, etc. My backup destination, next door, didn't really seem suitable for dinner.So I started to wander.
LP had another recommendation that was not too expensive, and was open for sure. But it was some distance from my starting point. El Raval is not touristy like Barri Gothic, where the sights are, nor for being vacant like La Zona Alta, where our hotel is. It's not a total slum, but if you're looking for low rent, this is the place.
The streets are stone, narrow, and are often too small to be marked on my map. It reminded me of Cuzco, minus the hills. Naturally, I missed a few lefts and skipped a few rights along the way to La Bibiloteca and my walk turned into a tour. I happened upon a street game to cricket, a Spaniard wearing a Phillies cap (!), a singing quintet of winos, a statue of a giant cat, and some homeless people. As I walked by the mobile phone store Cell Red, I became aware that my surroundings were changing, notably the hooker's shoe landing on my thigh. After returning it (I'm such a gentleman) I dodged the second lady of easy virtue, but there was no getting around the third. She latched on tight, and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She also wouldn't accept any of my excuses and gestures. At "no español" she paused, then replied, "lessgofuck", which made me laugh. By the time we reached the end of the street, I threw down the hammer: "no dinero". And she waved goodbye.
Finally, I got to La Biblioteca. After two hours of walking, eschewing touristy eateries near parks and town squares I was prepared to eat some real Catalan food. Yet what do I find inside? A bunch of friggin' Americans. Arguing over the merits of Goldmember.
But hey, there's pigeon on the menu!
Serisously, the cat was like, 9ft. tall
2009-05-16
For the past few years -- particularly around here -- gay marriage has been a hot topic. I am against state-sanctioned gay marriage. In fact, I'm against all government-sanctioned marriage. Back in the day, marriage was an agreement between a man and a woman resulting in the transfer of the woman to the man's family. The couple could have their marriage recorded at the church, if they chose. Eventually, the Church hijacked the whole thing, and marriages were required to be performed before a priest. After all it was a sacrament, and at the time, everyone was Catholic (or would soon be "persuaded" to become one). The clergy were inserting themselves into the ceremony to keep tabs on the flock (and to get invited to the receptions). The Protestants, not being down with Catholic councils, conferences, conclaves, congresses, or convocations, pitched the marriage-granting powers over to the state to handle. Religion wasn't yet separate from the state at this time though (Church of England) but eventually would be. And that pretty much brings us to today, where a man and a woman can marry in the eyes of the state, and also, separately be married according to their religion.But.... why?
Running through that brief history above, you can see that marriage started almost informally, with recognition of neighbors, but is now a state-controlled union with all sorts of legal streamers attached to it. It's the state's job to take care of legal issues, sure. But why must of host of legal consequences be packaged up into marriage? For instance, I have designated that upon my death, my group life insurance benefit will go to a specific nonprofit organization. However, if I marry, this benefit then goes to my wife. I would need to resubmit a form -- with my wife's consent -- to get things back into the state they are today. Why is such a thing change simply because I marry? I though it was about fidelity and love.... and now death benefits?
My view is this: I think we have enough lawyers and government offices in existence that anyone should be able grant whatever rights are ordinarily associated with a marriage, to any other person/people they desire. Today, "marriage" means a lifelong commitment to someone else, with the someone else getting a whole bunch of legal claims in the process. The commitment should be between the two people on a personal level, and all that legal entitlement stuff should be up to the person who is directly affected to grant in any way to any amount of people. Maybe your kids get your life insurance benefits and you give your brother guardianship rights over medical issues.
I guess you could call it marriage debundling.
Quit hasslin' me!
2009-01-04
There are some words that just sound different than what they are. Phonetically, one meaning triggers in my brain that's different than the actual definition. For instance, "tardy". Nice and short; quick to say. Does it mean "early"? Nope, just the opposite. It's supposed to be a negative word. Switch it up a little and it becomes "tawdry", which is easily recognizable as a negative word.Here's another one: "druthers". Am I the only person who thinks that "druthers" should be synonymous with "pants"? Picture: some trailer park, around 4pm on a Sunday:
Wife: Horace! Git yer druthers on, we got comp'ny!If not directly synonymous with pants, at least a type of pants.
And synapses are suspenders that you can use with druthers.
Give me enough time and I'll redo the whole dictionary
2008-12-02
The UK Post Office has a new campaign this holiday season: it's urging people to donate foreign currency that's sitting around at home. According to this article, there is an estimated £510M of the stuff in the UK alone. Foreign coins don't do much good to their holders -- can't spend them locally -- but would do a lot of good for a charity. A half-billion pound windfall; that would be something big.Something similar happens in the NYC area, the Common Cents/Penny Harvest people use school urchins to collect millions of pennies for charity every year. Same idea as above: non-circulating currency doesn't help anyone.
So out of curiosity, I decided to add up how much foreign currency I have around. It's inevitable that I'll bring some of it back after traveling. Also, when selling t-shirts, sometimes people would mail me currency from abroad as payment (I have an accept-all policy, since I plan to eventually travel everywhere). I have each currency in an individual envelope, held together with a binder clip. Let's add it up:
| Currency | Amt. | = USD |
|---|---|---|
| Euro | 32.58 | 45.36 |
| Czech Koruna | 8.5 | 0.45 |
| Canadian Dollar | 15.56 | 12.76 |
| Nuevo Sol | 263.20 | 84.73 |
| Total | 143.30 |
I'll note that the amount of CZK is so low because Dave and I decided to gamble away most of what we had left on our last day in Prague. Dan refused, so we knew there was enough currency between the three of us if we needed it.
Anyway, I at least have a lot more foreign currency than I was aware. How about you?
How many hellers will you give me for 3 centimos?
2008-11-03
Chicken or beef?It's election week, but it feels more like sitting in coach than anything else. There is the illusion of a choice, but in the end, we're still getting airline food.
Yeah, I'm glad to know that Dubya will be out soon. Obama will be president. But consider: which former presidency will Obama's presidency most closely resemble? Yeah, Dubya's. He'll start things off with a stimulus package, tax cut, and increase in military budget. Over the couse of his term, we'll see more nuke and coal power plants, US-fueled killing of Palestinians, and the continuation of corporate welfare. And of course, it's unlikely that he'll go back on his stance on FISA and telecom immunity.
Now go back and sub "McCain" for "Obama" in the previous paragraph. Same story.
Turning from current issues, there are several election process problems that will doubless go unfixed: closed debates, the electoral college, and rediculous ballot access hurdles. Not fixing these will impede us from electing someone who will deal with the above issues. It seems like every other developed country (and some not-so-developed!) is running a new version of democracy, and we're still at 1.0.
So pick: chicken or beef? There may be some additional choices if you have special dietary needs (5 in NY, 2 in PA), but between the two majors, I'm unsatisfied.
The only way to waste your vote, is to vote.
2008-07-17
"Follow the blue line," said the man at the gate. I had just exited the Museo Rafael Larco Herrera, a museum full of many, many pots and clay Inca men figurines with giant wangs.
So I followed the blue line. And followed it. And followed it. I finally arrived at another museum, this one focusing on the archological and anthropological past of Peru. And yeah, there were more pots there too. Also a small display on the importance of the potato. I was happy to see that.
I like the blue line idea; it's a great way for the government to get tourists to hit two museums instead of just one. And it's a convenient way to find your way somewhere, once I figured out that the line did indeed lead somewhere.
The Austrian I had met yesterday had given me her admission ticket to see the mummies; she wasn't planning on returning to Lima Cento, and I was. So I was headed to see that museum, for the second day in a row. On my way, I stopped to take some pictures in one of the plazas.
That's when I was intercepted.
A Peruvian man approached me and asked where I was from... he was a little surprised that I was American, and said I could have passed for someone fom Lima ("not Peru; only Lima"). But he was glad I spoke English, and asked to practice (this also happened yesteday while I was walking around with the Austrian). I obliged, and he showed me a colonial house, a church, and the skull of his favorite saint. Always good to see a skull once in a while. Our conversation was very much like something out of a foreign language class: what type of music do you like? what do you do on the weekends? do you have any brothers or sisters? what is your job?
He then asked if I was going to Machu Picchu. I told him I was, but hadn't arranged transporation yet. He offered (almost demanded) to take me to a ticket vendor, assuring me that it would be cheaper than buying at the airport. So we went. The ticket office was a storefront with two desks inside. For a one-way trip, they quoted me $115. This sounded about right to me, and was much better than the quote of a US deal site I had checked earlier ($400). I handed the dude some cash, and he disappeared. For like an hour. Diego saw that I was getting iritated, and asked me how we do airline tickets in the States. I told him that we pay with a credit card and print them out at home. He said he thinks that Peru needs more technology. Damn straight!
The guy finally returned (it was now dinnertime), clutching a half-sheet dot-matrix printout. "This is my ticket?" I asked. Diego looked it over and told me that everything was alright. It was around this point that I started to wonder if I had booked myself on a Poultry Express turboprop. Or was I just being ignorant about how things are done in other parts of the world? I headed back to my hotel to do some research; it turns out that Star Peru is a fine airline, they fly real jets, and $115 is an acceptable price for a ticket.
Anyway, I never did get to see those mummies.
Llama count: 0
2008-07-16
A small pitcher of yellow something is sitting on my table. Well, our table... I was seated across from a guy who doesn't seem like he wants me there. I noticed when I was ushered in that everyone had one of these pitchers on their table; no water. I asked the waitress what it was; she said, "agua y...<other stuff>". Tastes kind of lemony and sweet, but a warm beverage isn't quite what I wanted. My order of bistec y papas fritas should be here soon. There's a Coke coming with that.The waitress smiles at me as she passes, seeing that I'm writing in a notebook. Maybe she thinks I'm writing for an American travel magazine. Alternatively, she might suffer from facial muscle spams that force her to smile as she walks. I'm pretty sure those are the only two possibilities; bases covered.
I arrived in Lima last night. At around 12:30a, I cleared customs and emerged into a waiting throng of people shouting and holding signs. Usually at the airport, you'd see a handful of drivers waiting around, but this was more of an Nsync fanclub welcoming committe. Luckily for me, Augusto positioned himself well, and I spotted him quickly and we got out of there.
Augusto said he couldn't speak much English, but we were able to have a conversation as we rode back to the hotel. The hotel (like most of the tourist hotels) was in Miaflores, the district which Augusto calls "Lima's greatest victory", since it most closely replicates America. It was dark, so I couldn't assess that at the moment. Augusto dropped me at the hotel.
Can you tell that I like typing "Augusto"?
My room was smallish, with a TV, desk, A/C, and a bathroom with one towel. The window showed some neighboring rooftops. You can see in the pic (top of the grey and top of the yellow) some black metal tanks. As far as I can tell, their solar-heated water containers. Judging from the lack of water pressure in my shower, I think the hotel might be using one too.
After lunch, I went to check out the mummies, at the place where my cab driver dropped me off. But the gates were chained up and people were protesting. From the materials someone handed to me, it seems like it was university teachers upset with the president not keeping his promises (similar). So chains, a bunch of riot police on standby, and no mummies for Chris.
But also waiting at the chained gate was a girl, who also wanted to see the mummies, and spoke English. So it worked out.
Walking along, we were soon chased down by some Peruvian teenagers, wanting to interview us for a school project. They were in an English class and needed to interview English speakers. We obliged, but it was hard to answer their questions about what we thought of Peru, since each of us had been their only one day. But the students were pleased; since we counted as 2 interviews (they needed 3). By now, a classroom full of Peruvian kids know that I'm a dumb American who is visiting Peru for Machu Picchu and the papas fritas.
The Austrian and I split a cab back to Miaflores, and I eventually got some dinner.... that part is unimportant. Then I played some Time Crisis. Also unimportant. What IS important is that I happened to have some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted. At about 11, on my way back to my hotel, I decided to stop into this restaurant for a single dip cone. I asked the owner to give me her favorite flavor and paid. Five steps out the door I discovered how great it really was. I had a love afair with it all the way back to my hotel. And I have NO IDEA what it is. The texture was different too; not so much ice-y creamy, more like cookie dough. It wasn't fruity, and didn't have chunks of chocolate or nuts or anything. It's a mystery. I shall do some recon later.
"Too many cars horning their horns!"
2008-05-06
Roomba has been acting up again.I got home and walked in my back door, and there he was, waiting. It was kind of eerie:
Me: Roomba, what are you doing? I didn't put you there.I had started Roomba in the bathroom. He usually does the bathroom alone, then calls for me to move him out so he can do the rest of the apartment. But this time he didn't need human intervention.
Roomba: Bee-bee-beep!
Me: Shutup. Back in your pen!
There was a similar incident last week (I didn't blog about it, so as not to cause a panic), where he attempted to enter the bathroom on his own. He made it in, but got stuck. Not this time. Seems his abilities are improving.
This is how it starts...
2008-04-14
Came across this the other day:
"By the 1990s that talent, the knack for Want Creation, for appealing to the desire of people to buy things they don't need in some hope of proving they Are Someone, had begun to eclipse all other talents/knacks involved in propelling the modern American economy."It was from an article on American Apparel, but I think it's a pretty true sentence that can stand by itself. I've posted previously about Need Inflation, and hey, maybe it has something to do with the increase in people who have jobs creating wants, and then trying to morph wants into needs. Am I blaming "them" for the problem? Of course not; I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility. But I can see a link between Want Creation and Need Inflation.
Be aware.
2008-03-27
During my first-round interview for Morgan Stanley, one of the questions the interviewer asked was, "How many piano tuners are there in New York?"The first part of "passing" this question is not to freeze. Realize that the question is more about how you answer than the answer itself. Wrong answer is, "I don't know".
My correct answer started with a clarification ("New York City, right?) to get more data and buy some time. After that I started rolling with a series of linked assumptions until I got to a number that sounded pretty good.
Why do I bring this up? Because there have been many times since then where "I don't know" seems right, but "pretty good" got me a lot farther with only a little extra work.
tuners = (9000000 * .01 * 1) / 4 / (5 * 52 - 7)
2008-02-29
For me, one of the joys in life is a long hot shower. As a kid, I was often accused of taking showers that were "too long" by the rest of my family. A shower that is too long is the equivalent of saying that the water heater is too small. This is one of the reasons I shower at night: no complaints and lots of hot water. At Marist, I could shower for hours and no one would care, 'cause it was 1:30am.Here at the apartment, the water can get pretty hot. Turned all the way to "H", it pretty much just comes out as steam from the showerhead. I like to keep it one notch below that. It's still pretty hot. When it's on, the bottom of the shower curtain is actually blown aside as the cool air from outside the shower rushes in to displace the rising steamy air. After about 25 minutes or so, the air gets really steamy, and it becomes difficult to breathe. Then I think to myself, "What if all this water vapor in my lungs suddenly condensed? Would I drown? Could I be setting myself up for pneumonia? Am I TAKING MY LIFE INTO MY HANDS ON A NIGHTLY BASIS?"
But then I figure, hey, I drink my orange juice every morning. I'll be ok.
Did you know that Danica McKellar wrote a math book last year? That's pretty cool. I always like to find out when an actor has some brains. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's kind of hot. Ordinary actor? Wouldn't talk to them in public. Danica McKellar? Fo' sho'. I'd be like, "Hey Danica, lemme show you a little something about binomials raised to the power of hotness."
No I wouldn't.
"Thank GOD he stopped talking about mortgages"
2008-02-22
As soon as I submitted my last post on buying vs. renting, I knew that the following post was going to discuss things left out and other assumptions made but not stated. And I even got some help with this one, from current renters and homeowners. Here we go:Revisions/refinements:
- I had mentioned that the $40k used for downpayment on the house could be invested, but I didn't include this in my calculations. At the bond rate, $40k would compound to nearly $160k over 30 years. With the stock ETF it would be $340k.
- You can deduct property taxes levied by the city, county, and state from your income taxes.
- I forgot to include some taxes: county, town, library, and fire. These are all individually much smaller than the school property tax, but still significant (a few thousand per year). For the 18936 house, they are about $1k/yr (no fire or library taxes there).
- The way I figured the tax deductions isn't entirely correct. While the numbers are right and you do deduct them, when comparing against an apartment rental, only the amount over the standard deduction matters. Look at it this way, you always get the standard deduction, if you rent or own a house or whatever. Only if you can deduct an amount above that do the deductions become a factor. So for a married couple filing jointly in 2007, your total deductions minus $10700 would be your mortgage advantage over renting.
- I didn't account for laundry. When renting, it's assumed that you pay per load of laundry at a laundromat, whereas many homeowners have their own washer and dryer. For use of machine, electricity, and water, I spend $7 per month to wash clothes. Washing machines cost around $700, so it would pay for itself in about 8 years, excluding electricity, water, and repair.
- There was a question on why the mortgage interest tax deduction seemed low. This is because I use the interest deduction from year 15 so I could get the median deduction amount over a 30-year period. Mortgage interest payments decline over time, so using the year 1 amount would be misleading, since you'd never be able to deduct an amount that high again. A better table would show all 30 years with a side-by-side comparison.
- I didn't fill in the costs for appliance replacement, snow removal, etc. That's what the "?"s are for!
- I neglected to mention that if the savings are held in a Roth account, the gains are not subject to tax. Therefore the transaction cost would only be the trading commission.
- The $500k tax-free profit from selling a home is the amount for married couples; single people get half that
- I had said that not having a garage is hard on your car. It was pointed out to me that driving on NY's salty roads will cause more wear in the form of rust than having it sit outside in a lot. This may be true, but I didn't put a dollar figure on the wear since it's hard to quantify. Car wear is just something to consider.
- I had used the average American heating bill when factoring in the cost of heat. Someone pointed out that this might be higher in NY than in other parts of the country. I couldn't find any specific numbers for Dutchess county, but in the northeastern US (Philly, Boston, NYC, Buffalo), annual costs range from $1100-1600.
- Owning a house gives you more of a change to pursue alternative energy methods, be it burning wood or installing solar panels on the roof.
- If you are going to have kids or want to play the drums, an apartment is less of an option for you.
- I had stated that going from an apartment to a house is a lifestyle upgrade, since it's difficult to find any 650 sq. ft. houses. It was suggested that I could compensate for this in terms of space and money by renting part of the house to a roommate. This is a good idea, but would introduce landlord factors, such as vacancy rate, late payments, and crackheads.
- The expense ratio of the stock index ETF would not change
- The mortgage would never be refinanced
- All costs rise equally with inflation
- The house would not be physically harmed by an uninsured event (flood, etc.)
- Reassessment of the home property doesn't doesn't drastically affect taxes owed on it (ie: property taxes are only impacted by inflation)
- The US Federal Government doesn't default
Also, as far as researching cost of living and things, City-Data.com has a crap ton of information on housing and taxes and, well, everything really. Did you know that 1% of housing units in Dutchess County lack complete plumbing facilities? Or that 4.3% of residents speak other Indo-European language at home in Montgomery County? Strewth!
Once you say an "H", it's just hanging there, pouting, like a prostitute on a streetlamp
2008-02-15
After moving off campus, I became very aware of my personal budget. College is kind of funny in that housing is paid per-semester (a few months). Food budget is kind of a mishmash of groceries, school food, not eating, and mooching. Working and living on-campus, the car didn't get much use. And so on. But being on my own, it became very clear how much it costs to exist.The rule of thumb is that your housing cost should be no more than 1/3 your monthly income. Rent is my biggest expense, and does clock in at the expected rate (28%). But what do I get for paying rent? I pay it every month, but the only benefit I get from it is the right to stick around? Seems like a waste.
The feasible alternative to paying rent is paying off a mortgage (and living in the house that goes with it). When you make mortgage payments, part of each payment goes back to you in the form of equity, until you make the last payment and the house is all yours. On the surface, this seems like a better deal, since I would eventually get something for making these monthly payments. But is a blanket statement such as, "mortgage payments are better than rent payments" really true?
Pull out your other hand; we have another rule of thumb: "if you live in the same area for 3/5/7 years, you'd be better off buying a house than paying rent." Someone put a little thought into this rule, factoring in that the amount of home appreciation over a few years would likely be canceled out by the fee (4-7%) that the Realtor takes at the time of sale. And if there isn't any value in it for you, might as well just rent. But is even this always a true statement? 3-7 years, is that true for everyone in every housing market?
No more thumbs; I'm gonna figure this out. The only way to tell if one decision is "worth it" over another decision is to compare the price of the two with the benefits of the two. Let's do it:
| Yearly Payments | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | Rent | |
| Roof, 4 walls | 11760 | 11340 |
| Insurance | 550 | 100 |
| Int. Deduction | (1852) | - |
| Equity Gained | (4476) | - |
| Property Taxes | 6400 | - |
| Heat | 977 | - |
| Water | 200 | - |
| Sewer Rental | 600 | - |
| Trash pickup | 360 | - |
| Electricity | >960 | $960 |
| Lawn care | ? | - |
| Snow/leaf removal | ? | - |
| Appliances | ? | - |
| Repairs | ? | - |
| Furnace/HVAC | ? | - |
| Roofing | ? | - |
| Driveway upkeep | ? | - |
| Siding/exterior paint | ? | - |
| Other taxes? | ? | - |
| Total | >$17,146 | $11,440 |
Things not factored in:
- apt: wear on cars not kept in a garage
- house: having a well and septic tank instead of city water and sewer
- house: any non-maintenance home improvements
- apt: the freedom of moving out quickly
- house: the freedom to modify the structure
Ok, so it looks like owning a home costs a bit under $6k more than an apartment for a year. Between the two, all costs are sunk with the exception of the principal portion of the mortgage payment, which was taken into account. There are three more items to consider when comparing the two over time: inflation, home value appreciation, and return on savings.
Inflation: one of the benefits of having a mortgage is having your monthly housing costs fixed for a long period of time. That is, the monthly payment is not affected by inflation, so in real terms, the monthly cost is reduced over time, saving you money. We can use a calculator to figure out how inflation affects things. I used the numbers above, 3.5% for the inflation rate, 25% tax bracket, 0% for both home appreciation and return on savings (we'll cover this later), and 2% for annual rent increases (my increase this year was only 1%). Over 30 years, I'd save about $50k by renting over owning a home.
Home value appreciation: people often call their home their biggest investment. As equity increases, a home becomes a bigger and bigger store of value. Add to that home value appreciation, and you should end up being able to sell your house for more than you paid. Since 1890, home values have doubled in real terms. Interestingly enough, the same statement is true from 1945 (the Great Depression was a bitch). Using another calculator, we find that between 1945 and 2007, the compound annual growth rate for home prices is 1.12%. If you add that to the inflation rate, that's 4.62%.
Special note: home prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. Following the trend line (where home prices "should" be) instead of using current prices, the price increase of a home would be only 25% higher in real terms over the past 62 years; not 100%. This would result in a compound annual growth rate of .36%, or 3.86% factoring in inflation. If you think home prices will fall back in line with the historical trend, use this number instead of the one above.
Alright, so let's say that houses appreciate at 4.62% annually. If we throw this back into the calculator, we find that owning a home would save us about $165k over 30 years. Home value appreciation sure helps, huh?
Return on savings: We have found that the sunk costs of maintaining a home (upkeep, taxes, interest) are higher than renting an apartment by about $6k, at least for the first year. Where does that money go? And what about the $40k that was used as the down payment on the house? And closing costs on the mortgage? That money can be invested. Paying off a mortgage forces you to save, since a portion of each payment is returned to you in the form of home equity. But if you have the willpower to save on your own, you can make use of the cash not spent on sunk home costs and invest it. Let's say you're ultra conservative and invest in US Treasury I-bonds. They have a maximum life of 30 years (convenient!). Their rate varies over time; you get a fixed rate when you buy (currently 1.2%) which is added to the current inflation rate. We'll assume 3.5% again for inflation, and use 4.7% as the before tax return rate on our savings. Our calculator now tells us buying a home would result in about $14,600 in savings over 30 years.
What about other investments? Let's go with a low-cost S&P500 index fund. This is a relatively stable, diversified investment. From 1950 (close enough to 1945), the compound annual growth rate of the S&P was 7.47%. We'll assume this trend continues, and use this as our rate of return on savings. But first we'll adjust that down to 7.4% to account for the expense ratio of the fund. The calculator now tells us that renting would save us $72k over 30 years.
Special note: "value" of either a home or investment owned is not the same as the dollar value you would get upon selling, as it does not factor in transaction costs or taxes. For US treasury bonds, you will need to pay federal taxes on interest earned, although you are exempt from state and local taxes. For stocks, the tax rate varies based on income. Currently, capital gains on a home are not taxed up to $500k. However, the transaction fees for selling a house are much higher compared to other investments; 6% Realtor commission plus home inspection and other fees, compared to no transaction cost for government bonds, $30 roundtrip for stocks.
Alright, so what do we know? It looks like if you are smart with your money, you will make out better renting as opposed to buying. In Poughkeepsie, NY that is. It was a bit unfair to run these numbers for a house in NY state, since everything is comparatively expensive. Let's do a quick rerun of the numbers for the same house in 18936:
| Yearly Payments | |
|---|---|
| Mortgage | |
| Roof, 4 walls | 11760 |
| Insurance | 640 |
| Int. Deduction | (1852) |
| Equity Gained | (4476) |
| Property Taxes | 4000 |
| Heat | 977 |
| Water | 64 |
| Sewer Rental | 304 |
| Trash pickup | 360 |
| Total | $11,777 |
In conclusion, we find that the whole process is very complex. I don't like to trust a rule of thumb when dealing with so much money. Treating a mortgage payment like a rent payment isn't apples-to-apples. Think of all the things to be considered: mortgage rate, inflation, return on savings, home appreciation, insurance, heating, water, sewer, trash collection, snow and leaf removal, taxes, roofing, HVAC, driveway upkeep, appliances, repairs, freedom to move, freedom to alter, liquidity, Realtors. When you're buying a house, you're not replacing an apartment; you're getting a lifestyle upgrade. There aren't many 1-bedroom houses on the market first of all, and secondly much less is taken care of for you as a homeowner. While moving from campus to an apartment was an eye opening experience, the fact of the matter is that even as a renter a lot of costs are shielded from you. This exercise shows how much stuff really needs to be taken care of in order to live in the Average American Home.
I went to the Apartment Depot; just a whole buncha people standin' around saying, "I don't have to fix shit"
2008-02-02
I was eating baby carrots this week, and have made a startling discovery: the SIZE OF THE CARROTS IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE SIZE OF THE BAG they come in. Seriously. When I was young and ignorant (last week), I had just assumed that all baby carrots are, you know, baby carrots. That is to say, baby-carrot sized. Turns out that they come in different sizes! And here I thought I was getting way more carrots by buying the bigger bag. Looks like ya slipped one by, Green Giant!I'm ready for winter to be over. Right now is the precise worst time of the year (ie: any time during February), and I want out. It's not even particularly cold, and the grass isn't full of stale snow. Is it the dreariness that gets me? Doesn't help, but I think it has more to do with my need to hibernate. I should be in a cave right now, fulfilling my mammillian duty. You ever start taking a nap after lunch and wake up just in time for dinner? Isn't that the best? That's what I want, 'cept it'll be lunch on 12/30 and dinner on 3/15. Bit more of a spread.
2008-01-17
I infultrated the Dutchess County Obama campaign office tonight. It was their grand opening. Since I've been doing research on the candidates, I thought I should check it out. And if there was a time to do it, the grand opening was that time.I managed to sneak in undetected, using an alias on the sign-in sheet. The volunteers manning the door were obviously novices, as they didn't even frisk me. I could have smuggled in some Clinton campaing buttons or blackmail materials. But I'm not that kind of guy.
The place was small, but what I had expected. Watching the fouth season of The West Wing prepares me for all of this. It was a rather crowded place; shoulder-to-shoulder. Pretty much everyone there was either a man or a woman, between the ages of .7 and 200. I milled around, seeing what the Obama supporters had done to turn some empty office space into a campaign headquarters. There were buttons and bumper stickers for sale, magic marker posters on the wall, and photos of Obama. In the back, there was an older black man banging on a keyboard next to a table of doughnut holes. The other side of the room had another table; this one hosted the "Issues" poster, consisting of printouts highlighted with green marker. I used my miniature camera disguised as a cantaloupe to photograph the materials. I'll be faxing the photos to the other candidates very soon.
I left after the organizers gave their speeches (and begged for volunteer canvasers). My opinion didn't really change; I'd still like to see a McCain/Obama ticket. But it was interesting to see what type of people are Obama supporters.
In related news, I took a quiz on 2008 presidential candidates. The format isn't bad: you pick your favorite (not cited) responses to 25 campaign questions, and then weight that issue according to its importance to you. At the end you are told which candidate is right for you. I got Fred Thompson and John Edwards, both unexpected. I honestly wouldn't be able to say more than a single fact about either of them. Guess I should go look 'em up.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others
2008-01-11
Why are we sending our money overseas? We have our own problems to deal with here.This is a question that has arisen when describing Kiva. So I'll answer it.
- It's easy to get credit here - here in the developed world, financial institutions are falling over themseleves to give us credit. Just about anyone would be able to start a small business with no more than a credit card. I have an available credit line or tens of thousands of dollars. The rate would be 10%, but someone with home equity could secure even lower rates. You want instant credit in the developing world? Try 20% interest per day. That makes 10% monthly interest on a credit card seem almost charitable.
- LC/$ - the Lives Changed per Dollar rate is higher abroad, due to currency exchange (yes, even still). $200 can startup a business in Cambodia.
- Everyone diserves one chance - no one should have to live in poverty, but it's saddest those who have never known anything besides. The majority of people here in the States were given some sort of chance duriving their lives; let's distribute the chances until everyone gets at least one. Seconds and thirds will come around eventually.
- It's empowering - in many of the countries where Kiva has field partners, women have a limited set of rights. Capitalism allows them to grow on their own, without relying on a husband. Independence promotes societal growth and democracy.
Don't blow it
2007-12-30
There isn't a whole lot to do in prison. There's even less to do in solitary confinement. In prison you risk being attacked by butt raiders, but solitary can break your head. It's borderline torture being locked alone in a room for 23 hours. So rather than wait, I like to think now about what I would do to get through it.This is one of those things you should be prepared for, the same reason you have a spare tire in your car or how you install a bathroom in your house before you have to pee.
I theorize that people with small minds crack the soonest. Those who have a lot to think about make it the longest. So that's the first thing: have a lot for the mind to work on. First, I'd start a routine. This doesn't have much to do with the mind, but it chews up time do I need to spend less time thinkin'. It doesn't matter how little I'd have to work with in my cell, I'd make up a routine. Pace 300 times, 40 jumping jacks, trace the wall up and down in one inch segments. The I'd go to work. In my mind, I'd be constructing something, like a house. I'd take 8 hours per day to do that, plank by plank, nail by nail. After I was done with work, I'd have "free time". It's important to not treat all the time as free time. Gotta keep it structured: routine, work, free time. With my free time, I'd philosiphize, sing all the songs of all my CDs (alphabetically, in track order), come up with a lot of stories, and recite entire plays, movies, and TV shows.
Yeah, I'm ready for this. In fact, I may be an ideal candidate for solitary confinement. Can't wait to get to prison. Straight to solitary (unless the place is something like this).
It's kinda like that Creed song
2007-12-24
I was watching the news tonight, and they had a story on the Cardinal visiting a local jail to say Christmas mass. The reporter covering the story interviewed both inmates and the Cardinal, referring to the inmates as "criminals". The Cardinal consistently referred to them as "prisoners".I wonder if anyone else noticed.
The Cardinal, naturally, quoted the Bible. Something about Jesus... and that got me to thinking: when will Jesus pick up a new nickname? He was gathering them at a pretty good clip back in the day: King of Kings, Holy of Holies, Son of God, Lamb of God, King of Kings, Bread of Life, Prince of Peace, etc. I found a list of suggestions, but I don't think any of them are official. This is probably because they break tradition by not using "of".
I'm open to suggestions.
Behold the power of cheese
2007-10-29
Went to the dentist today and got a clean bill of health. Well, my moutherly parts anyway. Everyone else in my family is getting hit with oral surgery this year; a winner is me.I celebrated with a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles.
It's Monday, so I stopped by the lunch meat counter after work. Sure enough, a black guy was on staff at that time. This isn't out-of-the-ordinary; in fact, because my grocery trips are so regular, we kind of both expect to see each other on Mondays. A quarter pound of capicola is the first thing I order, just to let him know everything's goin' ok. But eventually it comes time to order cheese, I just hate shouting "half pound, white American!" over the counter to a black guy. I feel like White Power Bill ("Whi Pa'r!").
Maybe I should just switch to orange cheese.
I know I've been slow to post for the past few months. It's not that posts don't exist -- they do -- they're just not done. I'll backpost as time allows. This is why I'll never be a real blogger: I'm up-to-date three months late. If I were smart, I'd write posts from the future, and then I'd never be behind.
Standin' in line, for government cheese....
2007-10-06
Caught a guy at the supermarket today finishing the self checkout process who "forgot" he had a case of ginger ale under his cart. I called him on it. He sheepishly did the "whoops, forgot" palm-to-forhead motion, then proceeded to scan the case. But the register wouldn't take it: "Please wait for a store representative..."Vigilante Justice.
People sometimes ask me, "If you weren't a computer programmer, what would you be?" I think that its pretty clear that if I could no longer depend on my training in IT, I'd have to rely on my vigilante skills. Beating up bullies 15 years my junior, intercepting college applications from kids whose parents wrote their essay, starting a pirate tv/radio station to inform the public of the dangers of HFCS and gingivitis, replacing the golden master for Windows Vista with a copy of Ubuntu, popping popcorn for everyone at the movie theatre, collecting taxes in flesh from people who are cheating the system, cooking flesh burgers for people who are being cheated by the system, stealing tires from the SUVs of the world and making a giant inukshuks, and removing all those advertizements from public telephone poles. That sort of thing.
Basically I get to run around and do whatever I want, claiming it's for good.
They'd call me The Fixxer.
I don't feel tardy
2007-08-26
I hadn't realize there was a wikipedia article about this.If someone had come up to me and said, "You have a Philadelphia accent", I'd probably deny it as, "There's no such thing." But then in reading the description on the wiki page, it became quite clear that this is a very real thing.
My speech exhibits most of those points, although there are differences between the way I speak and the way my grandparents do. This likely has to do with my other set of grandparents not being from Philly. Especially notable is the "big" one; that doesn't apply to me. But "winda"? Yeah. "Wooder"? Used to. "Yo"? Fo' sho' (been criticized for that one).
This, combined with mumbling, is by I am misunderstood when speaking. People noticed that I became more articulate after spending that summer in California, but I count my ability to continue to speak and understand the Philadelphia accent as an asset. Not to mention southeastern PA vocabulary (dippy ekks anyone?).
I shore du wanna goata Itlee
2007-07-10
I think it all started after that DirecWay commercial started getting on my nerves. This was back in like 2005. You probably don't remember it, but it was played a lot on Comedy Central. I must have seen it several hundred times. It was the one with the red-haired woman selling satellite Internet service, and "all you need is a clear view of the southern sky". But it was the commercial's closing line that got me thinking: because you deserve it.That's when I started thinking about this trend of deserving/needing/indulgence/entitlement that has seemed to have been growing. I'm calling it "need inflation".
There has been more than just monetary inflation over the years, and I don't know that everyone realizes it. Large soft drinks, cruise ships, breasts... all of them have increased in average size over the years. On the more abstract side, so has "need". Human needs used to be a simple set of consumables: food and water. To exist on the biological level, get these two things inside you. If you have successfully delayed death for a bit of time, your needs have been met.
A while later, "shelter" (which may be interpreted as clothing) was added to the list of human needs. It doesn't help the body continue its cellular function, but shelter does enable humans to live outside of shaded temperate areas. So some people needed it; Norsemen maybe. But I think it's with this addition of a third, not-necessary-in-all-cases need that we hit the slopes.
Now we all need lots of things. Electricity. Cars. Cell phones. Bank accounts. Computers. Sex. Haircuts. Indoor plumbing. And everything on a grocery list.
Go on, try to remember not needing anything from that list above. They're really all wants. But if the repo man was coming to take away your car would you contend "I want my car" or "I need my car"? I'm thinking it's the former. And, "I need a haircut" is more likely to be heard than "I want a haircut". Again, need. In the case of many 14 year old metal fans, it's more likely to be a mother saying "you need a haircut", but that's really just her projecting her want, convincing the kid that it's his need. Mothers, eh.
"I have neeeeds!" cries a girlfriend. Ya don't, they're wants. Things you want badly perhaps, but it doesn't matter how badly you want something it doesn't transform into a need.
"Need anything at the store?" You might have some food in this list, but still not really a need. That grocery list is really just a list of preferences, and needs aren't something you can give preference to. If you answer that question with specific foodstuffs, you are expressing a want, not a need.
On top of the mountain of needs, we have things we deserve, our entitlement to indulge. Vacations. Spa treatments. Leather seats. And of course satellite Internet too. It's around this summit that it hits the pissing-me-off point. I can at least calmly handle a word having it's definition stretched out to encompass something else. But now it's resulted in what was once vaulting into luxury to be a mere step up just over there, so close I might was well be there. And midstride the phrase, "I'm doing this for myself" slips out as a weak rationalization.
We deserve satellite Internet why exactly? Because we watch TV? Because we didn't change the channel during the commercial? Maybe it pisses me off because satellite Internet service isn't that great. The only thing worse than convincing people they do deserve a luxury is convincing them they deserve something as expensive -- but not as good -- as one.
A recent WSJ article blames everything on Mr. Rogers. I happened to like the guy, but I see the author's point. And I thought it should be mentioned here.
My point is, people seem to have forgotten that the world owes them nothing. That's not to sound cruel -- I believe it is everyone's duty to ensure everyone else fulfills the two most basic needs -- but there should be no expectation of anything further. No iPod? Too bad! Fast food joint out of ketchup? Too bad! No cell service? Too bad! No air conditioning? Too bad! If I were go give a speech to a college graduating class, it would be: "You are in debt to the world society, for taking more than your fair share. You should spend the rest of your life paying off that debt, realizing how much you do have, realizing what you don't have, and having CELESTIAL RADIATION RAIN DOWN upon you as you're hit with the STARK CONCLUSION that your category 1 fills so many other people's category 2. And any time you move stuff from your category 2 to category 1, 1 gets bigger and 2 stays the same. Deal with it."
This post wasn't funny at all
2007-06-10
All has not been quiet here at stake.First: NEW CURTAINS! Have you noticed? Redesigning stake has long been on my todo list. The old style was put up temporarily when I first did this site. And we all know how temporary tends to become permanent... like with the Constitution. Or green Apple Jacks.
Second: I've backposted a bunch of entries from the past few months, plus some from the Germany trip and Prague (yes, really). More are on the way. In the course of adding those, I've broken past 200 posts, or over 100 printed pages, spanning three and a half years. I wonder how much of it I'd actually keep if I decided to edit all the crap out.
I saw a 2-year old kid today wearing a shirt that read, "I'm the most eligible bachelor".
A donkey, a donkey, my kingdom for a donkey.
2007-06-06
When I first moved into my apartment I didn't have a TV to bring with me. Instead of buying one right away, I thought I would see how I could get along without one. It's been a year now, and still no TV. You know what? Not only did I survive, I'm glad I don't have one. I can't imagine all the things I wouldn't have done if I had an idiot box as a distraction. I mean, I don't like the list of things I haven't gotten done as it is, and it would only be longer otherwise.Along with being TV-free, there comes a perception change. It becomes apparent how much other people's lives are tied to it. I don't think this has anything to do with the TV itself; I perceive the same thing with cell phones or WoW, two technologies not a part of my life. But not with broadband Internet. This is presumably because I'm a broadband addict. Everything got very different once I had it. It's interesting how adding or removing something from your life makes you recognize it more in the world around you.
You can twist perception; reality won't budge
2007-05-17
While pulling the sheets off my bed today, I noticed that the seam of my pillow is tearing! My first instinct was to stitch it up or get a new pillow, but THEN I considered how cool it would be to bury some secret documents inside. I have the seam, now I just need some secret documents.I think this would be an awesome format for a blog. Mine especially. Unfortunately I lack the talent to do so. Also, it was someone's thesis project, so getting regular posts up would be problematic.
Horses never bet on people
2007-05-10
For the first time in my life, I found myself inside The Gap. I had a gift card. From Christmas. In order to vanquish such a beast as the gift card, it must be debited til death, when it becomes nothing but a piece of plastic. That is why I was at the Gap.In and out was the plan. To my suprise, I found a suitable pair of pants. Good style, thick fabric, deep pockets..... dear God, a button fly.
The button fly is much like the horse-drawn carriage: Amish people were manufactured to keep them quarantined from the rest of society. Yes, the button fly need not be extinct, but it should remain under the watchful eye of a small few, the same way smallpox is kept around for observation.
The problem with the button fly is that it can hinder response time in the event of an emergency. What if you need to get out of your pants, pronto? If you're all buttoned up, you can't; you're hopeless. Better pray that someone's packing the jaws of life, because you'll be dead (or whatever) before you'll be droppin' trou. In times of danger, the button fly makes life difficult.
And that is why zippers came about. Too many deaths related to the button fly. In fact, the childish taunt, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" used to be, "My Lord, Charlie's become a pillar of flames because he couldn't get his pants off fast enough!" This was in the days of yore before the zipper (also a time when pants caught on fire a lot). But with the zipper now widely available, pants can be kicked off to burn on their own.
Anyway, I escaped from The Gap with a pair of shorts. They have a button fly too.
If you can't beat 'em...... BURN 'EM, BABY!
2007-04-24
It calls me through the window. Coke. Coke Zero. Fanta. Fanta, dontchawanna, wanna Fanta, dontchawanna....I blame Ívan for singing this throughout the summer of 2005 at the EB Almaden lab. I can no longer read the word "Fanta" and not have the song start automatically.
Fanta, Fanta, dontchawanna, wanna Fanta, dontchawanna....
Fanta isn't even my favorite orange soda. Their other flavors are ok, but they don't win when it comes to orange. Regardless that's the flavor that's stocked around here and it's what I'm drinking right now.
I'm sitting on a bench by a tree, drinking this Fanta, surrounded by schoolkids. It must be a field trip or something. There's an old church nearby (surprise!), and a teacher looks to be rounding them up.
I arrived in Frankfurt yesterday via a few train connections. After checking into the hotel and showering, I started exploring the area. There are a handful of skyscrapers (which is a lot for a German city), an old town area, and a waterfront lined with museums.
I skipped lunch and got a pretzel and weisswurst for dinner.
An ad for a comedy show at the English Theatre caught my eye. Opening night for an sketch/improv show imported from Amsterdam. Add to that reasonable ticket prices, and it sounds like fun to me.
So I went to go pick up a ticket from the box office this morning. Only the free city map I had picked up led me to a strip club instead of where I wanted to be the English Theatre. I checked all the surrounding blocks looking for the place, but to no avail. The red dot on the map was WAY off. One of the tourist maps posted around the city got me there though.
I crossed the bridge to see what was happening on the other side of the river. Answer: construction. Aside from that, there only places of interest seemed to be the museums: film, architecture, and a bunch of art ones. Figuring that the film one would be about a bunch of movies and directors that I'd never heard of, I opted to pop into the architecture museum. The two guys in there said it was closed for a while. So it was back over to the popular side of the river to check out the archaeological museum.
My dream job as a kid was to be an archaeologist. I was really into dinosaurs, but archeology has a broader scope than palaeontology. In addition to getting to dig up old stuff, you get the added bonus of finding buried treasure: be it Egyptian, pirate, or Inca. That's why I chose the archeology museum over the others.
At the front desk I found out that only the special exhibit has English descriptions. This was fine by me, as it allowed me to make up the other stuff as I went through.
The special exhibit was a reconstruction of a pre-Viking era Scandinavian warship from an underwater find in Denmark. The ship was reconstructed using the same tools, techniques, and materials available at the time of construction of the original vessel. The design itself was cool: it would make use of either one or two rudders, which were controlled from the middle of the boat. With a crew of about 20, it could cover 50 nautical miles per day carrying half a ton of cargo. Not bad for longtimeago BC.
Exiting the museum, I wandered back toward the heart of the city. After more than a week in Germany, I still had not had a kebap (or kebab), so I sought a kebap haus for lunch. This was not a difficult task. The kebap, according to Viktor, "is like the German version of an American hamburger, only Turkish." The Turks, being the latest wave of immigrants to Germany, brought with them their food, along with their desire for work. It turns out that the kebap was a bit hit in Germany, and most kebap packing plants and selling stations are manned by Turks. So in the process of immigrating to find work, the Turks found a huge market for a product they were skilled in making. If you think about it, there didn't even need to be a demand for unskilled workers in Germany, their own immigration created the market: the market for kebaps.
I took my kebap to go, and am now sitting at a fountain in the shadow of the Deutsche Bank skyscrapers. The sun is in my face, and cool mist is on my back. It's nice. The fountain is situated between a park and some building that must be important; people keep taking pictures of it (I'm ending up in a lot of pictures). In fact, a pair of girls just told me that they'd be taking a picture of it, and wanted to know if it was ok if I were in it. That was nice of them. I of course told them no, that being photographed is against my religion, and I wished not to have my soul captured in their camera. They looked confused. Must've been a language problem.
Asian people are funny. I first noticed them in force at Heidelberg Castle, and they seem to be invading Frankfurt as well. And they don't bring wimpy cameras; lots of paparazzi-sized lenses. The people are funny in the way they get their picture taken. They just kind of stand in front of the attraction and wait, hands by their side, no smile. No hand gestures or goofy poses. They're just making a record to show that they were there.
A lot of sentence fragments
2007-04-22
Mr. Whang is standing in the doorway, hands out at his sides, giving the "where is everybody?" expression. The candles are lit at his "Japanisch-Chinesich-Koreanish" restaurant, but no one is sitting. I wonder how diligent Mr. Whang was in his market research before opening up shop in a southeastern German tourist area. Across the street, I'm sitting outside at yet another German restaurant, awaiting my "ham over grey bread with two eggs on top".The sun set behind the cathedral. Across the street next to the Asian restaurant is a fancy-lookin' store, selling things from silver candlesticks to decorated plates.
A guy just rode by on a bike with a cigar in his mouth. Didn't his mother ever tell him not to do that?
I left Tyrel at the tram stop a few hours ago. We departed Strasbourg this morning; Heidelberg is an overnight stop for me, but only a day stop for him. I would have made it a two-day stop, if I had another day. But I don't, so it isn't.
This place has a real castle. It's not exactly what I think of when I hear "castle", but it's much closer to it than the few I've seen before. It's huge. We spent a few hours walking the courtyard and checking out the Pharmacy Museum. Unfortunately, only the guided tours were allowed inside the castle. Also unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. But it's a reason to come back.
There are too many Americans here. Even my server is (called me "dude" earlier). This restaurant is too close to the attractions I guess. At the biergarten for lunch today -- which wasn't really close to anything -- the girl waiting tables didn't speak any English. That's what I'm looking for after traveling 5000 miles. If I wanted foreign food from someone speaking American English, I'd go to EPCOT. It's not that the food is bad or the server is mean, it's just that I prefer more than just a change of scenery. I like the immersion. I like getting menus I can't read. I like struggling to share information with someone struggling to understand it, while we both have big dumb smiles on our faces. I like not knowing exactly what I ordered (I apparently ordered some sheep cheese for lunch). I like having strangers sit down at my table and ignore me (it's a central European thing). And I like being in a crowd and having no idea what other people are talking about. That last one is important. All the conversations are just sound swirling around me, so I assume that everyone is having highly intelligent conversation. I know it's not, but the world seems a lot better when I think of it that way. If I overheard people talking about what his brother-in-law said to her mother the night of their 15th wedding anniversary, it would kind of ruin the atmosphere for me.
I'm heading over to Mr. Whang's to see what he's offering for dessert.
Everyone has colleagues here
2007-01-20
Recently, I received some British pounds in my Paypal account. I've had lots of payments from the UK before, but -- at least for payments through Damnation -- the currency is automatically converted. This payment wasn't through the site though, so I now have 2 Paypal balances: one in USD, the other in GBP.There's a "Manage Currency" link that allows me to convert either of by balances into any one (or more than one) of 16 world currencies. The reason I find this interesting because you can play the currency game from within your Paypal account. Currency trading is a well-known sucker's game, based on fluctuations of different currency. Because the exchange rate between USD and GBP is independent of the exchange rate between CAD and GBP, you can take advantage of this by holding cash in a faster-appreciating currency. Now while currency trading is a sucker's game (seen those Forex ads all over the place?), there is something to be said for keeping some cash in an alternate currency, for long-term investment diversification purposes. Currency only has value as long as the sponsoring government has "faith and full credit". If they lose this, then assets denominated in that currency (say, bonds) hit the skids as well (remeber the rubel in 1998?). I keep 25% of my IRA in an AUD ETF for this reason.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting. If you are going to hold currency using your Paypal account note that they update their rates twice daily (don't know the specific time), charge 2.5% over the retail rate, and won't give you interest.
hand: an instrument commonly worn at the end of an arm
2007-01-19
I think indoor hammocks could be big. These seem to be pretty big right now, and I think indoor hammocks are next. The sumos are a throwback to the beanbags of the '70s, and a cool indoor hammock would be a throwback to Gillian's Island.A recent issue of BusinessWeek, as usual, had the Welch's business advice column. The question this week was something along the lines of "do you believe in all this talk about global warming?" I liked their (somewhat unexepected) answer. I'll break some copyright laws and post it here:
"...what do we believe? You sensed right -- we simply don't know. But that doesn't mean we would recommend companies do nothing. Just the opposite. In fact, we believe that, whether the impact of global warming ends up being mild or severe, companies have to adopt a "here it comes" mind-set and mount a well-reasoned plan. Any other response would be bad business. Our reason is hardly original. It's the same as Pascal's Wager. Back in 1670, basically using game theory, the French philosopher argued that it was a better bet to believe in God because the expected value of believing is always greater than the expected value of not believing. The same goes for global warming. If you accept it as reality, adapting your strategy and practices, your plants will use less energy and emit fewer effluents. Your packaging will be more biodegradble, and your new products will be able to capture any markets created by severe weather effects. Yes, global warming may not be as damaging as some predict, and you might have invested more than you needed, but it's just as Pascal said: Given all the possible outcomes, the upside of being read and prepared for a "fearsome event" surely beats the alternative."The expected value of believing is always greater than the expected value of not believing. Interesting theory. Not sure I totally agree with it (my belief in unicorns has gained me absolutely nothing), but I think it works in this case. What do you do with a drunken sailor?
2007-01-16
I happened to need some milk today, and was nearby Stop and Shop. Now as some of you may know, I've been a loyal PriceChopper shopper ever since the Midnight S&S Incident of 2005, where I was denied entry.But I just needed some milk.
Nothing has changed there really. The prices are still higher and the product placement is still questionable (let's see, we'll put the tomato sauce over here, and all the other tomato products at the opposite sie of the opposite end of the aisle). Truth be told, they did have the Bertolli CF&F in the freezer section. I've staked about this before, and about how it was nowhere to be found after the last spinach scare.
The only problem I have with PriceChopper is that they seem to think it is acceptable to carry alternating sizes of shell in the Barilla section of the pasta aisle. Every time I go, I never know if there will be small, medium, or large shells. Despite what current legistlaion is on the books, I do NOT WELCOME such unnecessary turnover in pasta-size selection. Medium shells: they please everyone. Stick with those, Chopper.
That's all I have to say about supermarkets for this week.
Entropy isn't what it used to be
2007-01-11
After four years, two months, and 12 days, I've finally decided to buy stake.tk. I've been using it for free until now, and today I feel like less of a moocher.As you can see, the site hasn't been redesigned yet. Oh well.
I swear it's coming, and will have pretty curtains
2007-01-01
There may not have been an update in a while, but that doesn't mean I'll let New Year's go by without a complaining. Unfortunately I don't have a long rant ready to go. I spent a the evening in good company, with the Eagles' second stringers pulling a W, and was driving home at quarter-to-midnight. So I didn't have time to think up something as profound as last year's post. But I do have this conversational snippet from the day:
Me: ... besides, I don't even like New Year's.
Her: But it only happens once a year!
Me: Every day only happens once a year.
And it's the truth.
Monogamy means having as few wives as possible
2006-12-17
Earlier today, I had trouble finding my car in a parking lot. I spotted a silver Hyundai, but it had a scrape on the front bumper; my car only has a scrape on the rear bumper. But there was also a red fez on the passenger's seat....So yes, it was my car, rendered COMPLETELY UNRECOGNIZABLE due to the some UNKNOWN INCIDENT while I left it TEMPORARILY UNATTENDED. Now I don't necessarily care care about cosmetic damage to the car (Hyundais don't impress the ladies, scraped or non), but if ANYONE is going to leave a scrape on my car, it had BETTER be ME.
Good news for prog rock in 2007: Rush's new album is apparently ahead of schedule, and Time Machine is not yet dead, and will be releasing the third part of the Eymerich Trilogy soon as well. The Time Machine news is very welcome, since I did infact think they were dead. And new Rush sooner is good too, since that means more possibility of a summer tour, and summer tours are better than winter tours.
In thinking about where I'll travel next, internationally, going to see Time Machine in concert has crossed my mind. It's quite plain that they'll never come to the US, so I'll have to go to them. And considering they had been MIA for about a year, I had better do it after their next album if I do it at all. This could be a last opportunity.
YouTube is great because I can get my decades-old bagpipe fix from that forgotten 90s song.
I love you like the day we never met
2006-12-14
In light of today's announcement by the Treasury, it seems that it is now illegal to melt down pennies and nickles in order to take advantage of the recent spike in metals prices (copper, zinc, nickel). Now I would assume that this has always been the case, but it still got me thinking. Obviously, if the current price of nickel is higher than the face value, there is a money-makin' scheme to be had. And you know I'm all about concocting money-makin' schemes.I'm a schemer.
I'm also a law-abiding citizen. How how do I plan to profit from melting down coinage? The answer is quite simple, and I'm kind of surprised I hadn't thunk of it before: we use CANADIAN PENNIES.
Now I figure that Canada probably has a similar law to the one in the United States, but I'm outside their jurisdiction. And I don't think they'll detect me anyway, since I won't be importing lots of pennies from the Great White North. Americans hate Canadian pennies; I know that every time one ends up in my pocket, red streaks of rage burn across my face. It's the pain of being gypped out of a True American Penny, and instead being left with one of slightly lesser value, with a maple leaf. But no longer, since I now have a scheme. And I'll be able to get lots of pennies since people hate them so much.
According to Wikipedia, pre-2000 minted Canadian pennies are almost entirely zinc and copper, with pre-1997 ones being mostly copper (even better). The penny is 2.53g. Currrent copper prices are running at about $3/lb. Now I have a 1962 Canadian penny here; at current metals market price, it's worth 1.67 US cents, although at the exchange rate it's worth more like eight tenths of a US cent.. That's right folks, you can get at or near double face value.
A $0.008 profit may not seem like much, but let's multiply!
number of Canadian pennies x $0.008 x amount people hate Canadian pennies = lots o' moneyAnd there you have it: another great get-rich-slow scheme from stake. I'm currently accepting donations; Canadian coinage preferred.
It's shiny. And jangly.
2006-12-11
In an effort to increase the liklihood of waking up on-time, I place my alarm clock on the far side of the nightstand and place myself way on the other side of the bed. This way when the alarm goes off, I actually have to get up to turn it off. The system has been working beautifully.Except on Thursday. On Thursday I confused the sounding alarm clock for an alien real estate communication device.
What's an alien real estate communication device? I have no idea.
So you see how this can be a problem. This confused morning haze of mine could cause serious problems for me, and the rest of civilization.
Friday I went to the dentist to get a cavity filled (supposedly). I'm always suspicious about cavity fillings. Why? Because the dentist is the one that decides I have a cavity, and the first step of the cavity-filling process is to drill the tooth, thus creating a cavity if there wasn't one there already. I'm thinking that they looked at my dental insurance and saw that there was still money remaining for 2006, so they needed to drain it. And they did. And now, with silver on my tooth, I'll never know if I actually had a cavity on my upper 4 or just a victim of year-end profit padding.
You're not going to Adam and belEve this
2006-12-03
I'm not a great speller. Grammar and punctuation, yes, but not spelling. I sometimes notice a misspelling, but usually won't say anything about it.But there is one word. There is a word that does not exist, but appears as regularly as if it did. And this week, even the Financial Times used it. That non-word is "noone".
"Noone" is not a word.
"Noon" is a word, "no" is a word, and "one" is a word. Lorna Doone is a cookie. But not "noone".
Hope that's settled, permanently.
An astute reader pointed out that I failed to mention that I went to see Evil Dead the Musical. I did.
The two Wrights didn't make it wrong
2006-11-13
Since last post I've:
- Seen Queensryche for the third time in three years
- Presented the digital picture frame at MHVLUG
- Halfway built a frame for the above presentation
- Sold off Elmo
- Put in an order for a to-be-announced Damnation product
- Represented Marist IT Class of 2006 at Marist's CS open house
- Avoided playing games at Gaming Day
- Caught up on my BusinessWeek backlog; I now have a The Economist backlog
- Sold a few more Kiva wristbands; invested in more Kiva businesses
- Watched Out of the Past
- Started posting to another blog
- Used the cereal coupon. No more came forth from the coupon printer. I am victorious.
I'm a big fan of Chicken Florentine & Farfalle. Nay, a HUGE fan. It is by far one of the finest meals that has ever touched my tounge. It comes frozen in a bag and takes 10 minutes to cook. Imagine that.
Anyway, it's abscence was noted at PriceChopper the other week. My supply had be depleated, went to buy more, but was shocked to find that it was not at the top of the Bertolli pile in the freezer section. I eventually found a bag, burried at the bottom. Suppose it has something to do with the spinach scare, but I was not deterred.
Stil, I knew the day may come that Bertolli CF&F would become extinct. So I set out to recreate it by my own means.
It didn't go very well.
Not having the package available for reference at the time, I tossed a half pound of pasta, half a block of spinach, half a jar of alfredo sauce, and half a can of chicken in a pot and cooked it up. It was very much not like Bertolli's. I don't think it was even close. Not a bad meal, but far from orgasmic.
Studying the packaging now, I see there are some key terms that may assist me in my next go-around: "Parmesan", "Grilled", "luscious", "granulated onion", "carrageenan", and "joy". Seems I missed quite a few things.
Baby, I don't care.
2006-10-22
I checked my credit score the other week. The results:
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729
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It's a pretty good score, but the highest is 850. I'm not even on the high score table! If I were, they'd have asked me to enter my initials. They didn't. I guess I'm going to have to apply for lots more credit cards and get a mortgage.
I used a coupon a few weeks ago: Save $1 on 3 boxes of General Mills cereals. So I used it, and the coupon printer at the register printed off another: $1.50/4 boxes. Used that the last time I was at the Chopper, and I'm now holding a $2/5 boxes coupon. Bring it on Price Chopper, I'll see your 5 boxes. Care to raise the stakes to 6? BRING IT.
Sitting at my desk the other day, I started thinking about dentists and optometrists. I came to the realization that all of my dental appointments have been during the day, forever. And my eye appointments tend to be in the evening. And when looking into dentists and optometrists, it seems to be a trend: dentists' offices close at 5pm. I detect DEVIOUS and MISCHIEVOUS activity abounds.
Doctors have a lot of student loans and high malpractice insurance bills, so they don't make a ton of money their first few years of practicing. So the question is: how are dentists getting away with working less hours? They must be supplementing their income somehow. A little something extra to cover the bills.
Drugs and looting.
Drugs follow bling, and dentists have lots of bling. Dentists have so much bling that they occasionally leave some in people's mouths! And looting is obviously done while patients are drugged up. I suggest you arm your pockets with mousetraps the next time you go in for an appointment.
Home Depot sells Victor mousetaps at 2/$1
2006-09-26
I don't think that people realize the ramifications of this ruling.Let's talk economics: $32,000 for 10 fondles; that's $3,200 per fondle. By ordering that $3,200 is not "the proper financial value of the compensation", the judge is creating a price ceiling for the breast fondling market. For those of you who didn't take macro econ 101, you can use Wikipedia as your crutch. Aside from the fact that someone in the judical system is imposing economic limits (not really their area), we have to consider what a price ceiling on breast fondling means.
Governments institute price ceilings when they feel that it is in the public's best interest to limit the maximum price of a good or service; that the consumer is being harmed by being forced to pay the market price. The US government put a ceiling in place last year with on price of cow's milk. Now I haven't done any research on the market price of fondling (hey, it's not like I'm a Finish judge), but assuming that $3,200 per lies somewhere in the realm of the market -- and that price is now restricted -- the judge's decision may very well result in an unnatural increase in demand for fondling. Take for example this Finish guy. Now he was willing to pay $32,000 for ten fondles, but now with a price ceiling in place, women are being forced to provide this, uh, consumer good, at a cheaper price. And that means that demand may increase, since $32,000 will buy him some amount greater than 10 under these new market conditions.
Now the question at hand is: is demand to breast fondle elastic or inelastic? Assuming it's inelastic (people consume the same amount, regardless of the price), everything is ok. But if it's elastic, there is going to be an excess demand. And that could spell trouble for the suppliers.
Unfortunately, the government always wins. Unionizing (trying to regulate supply) won't help. Assuming that the price will be at the ceiling with the current demand level, reducing supply will only decrease fondling revenue. So there's only one option. This industry is going to have to move away from the free market and into a black market. Yes, that's correct, no more door-to-door selling. No more catalouges, or infomercials, or telemarketing. Sexual favors for cash are now going to be restricted to the realm of back alleys and sketchy hotels. Who'd have thunk such a thing would ever happen?
I should write fake econ textbooks
2006-09-24
I finally got around to watching Good Night, and Good Luck. I was planning on liking it, and I did.You can read the synopsis on your own; no need to rehash that here. Short version: it's about Murrow's takedown of McCarthy in the 50's.
The film ends with Murrow (the newscaster) being told by an exec that stupid TV wins over anything thought-provoking. And so began the deterioration of television news, half a century ago.
Which makes me wonder, where is our news going to come from? We can write-off TV right away (sorry Katie). Newspapers have good news coverage; even the CBS guys in the movie went straight for the papers. But the newspaper business model is deteriorating. Look at these numbers. It's not sustainable. I know I don't subscribe to a paper, but I do read Google News daily. But this is just a compilation of the online version of the world's newspapers. And online revenues aren't displacing lost newsprint revenue 1-for-1.
So what does that leave, bloggers? Can we trust bloggers? Blog-delivered news sounds like a great idea: lots of news being "reported" by a vast array of micro-experts with near-instantaneous speed. Bloggers get paid from Google AdWords revenues. But that's the problem: internet ads don't differentiate between good and bad blogs. Whereas accuracy problems in the NY Times might cause and advertiser to question their contract with the paper, no such thing happens online. You can slap ads on anything, and get click throughs, even if the content is just entertaining instead of newsworthy.
Let's just hope BBC radio sticks around. They don't need to bring in profits like commercial news organizations, and their budget is actually increasing.
I did end up seeing Scanner, and I liked it; very true to the text. The animation was distracting during a few sequences, but overall I think the format is good for PKD's work (not-so-good for Schwab ads).
And finally, in the stake Learn Something! corner we have Georgy Malenkov, one-time leader of the Soviet Union. Opposer of nuclear proliferation and supporter of private-sector goods (well, the Commnunist equivalent), this man got the boot and was soon forgotten. Sadder than his short term as premier is the remainder of his life: manager of a power plant. And his death was ignored by Soviet officials. Ouch. C'mon guys, not even a headstone?
For next class, everyone memorize a poem
2006-09-17
I have a new get-rich-slow scheme.Gold.
After an uncompromisable argument between myself and a disagreeable hard drive, I took the wire cutters to it, pulling-teeth style. To get some anger out, as well as to make an example of it.
Partway through, I had ended up with a little pile of gold pins. Gold, the stuff that sells for $575/oz. Hmmm.
China has been getting rich off of this for years. In fact, that's how they got enough money to build the Great Wall. They financed that with few million discarded 4KB hard drives back in BC.
So the plan is, over time (it is a get-rich-slow scheme), I will amass enough gold to do something fun with:
- Stamp out gold coins emblazoned with my own image
- Form gold nuggets and hike around Alaska like a prospector (I'm going to need one of those floppy brown hats for this)
- Sell it all to dentists
I've been having a strange problem recently. It's a problem with my Double Mint. I think it has something to do with moisture. See, when I try to pull a stick out of its wrapper, it refuses, staying stuck in the wrapper and being all.... well, gummy. But it should not be gummy! It should be dry and easily transportable from its temporary aluminum home to my mouth. And this problem even happens after cracking open a new pack; nothing to do with age. I have no idea while I'm being plagued with this just now.
^That right there isn't so bad. The bad part is that I can no longer offer a piece of gum to someone, since I know how much of a problem the unwrapperfication process is.
Passerby: "Oh, Double Mint. Can I have a piece?"
Me: "No, it's too gummy."
And that's about as far as I can go. I can't do any more explaination more than that, lest they go on thinking I have OVERLY MOIST PANTS, as that would be their most likely conclusion. I am of the opinion that people are VERY JUDGEMENTAL when it comes to courtesey gum afflicted with ailments. I know I am.
Looks like Scanner is playing down at South Hills. I'll have to go see that this week.
Feeling sorry that you treat me unkind?
2006-09-05
Hi.It's over.
Well, most of it anyway. The shirts are still going out, but the mayhem has stopped. It's like comparing Niagra Falls with a water fountain.
Thanks to everyone (not Matt Stone) who came out for Snakes INVASION: NYC and Po-town. It was a blast, and the only time I've ever seen the same movie twice within 24 hours. There will be a Snakes INVASION: Po-town part deux, once (if) it hits the dollar theatre.
In other news....
- I got a coffee table, and I don't even drink coffee. I don't know how I get away with this stuff.
- August happened
- Lake Baikal is still the biggest lake in the world
one and one and one is three
2006-07-09
So, how about these monthly updates?My days now mostly consist of work and shirts. It's busy. Things should let up by fall though, I think.
Work is good. I don't like waking up in the morning, but I don't dread going into work. I already knew some people in the department, so I feel pretty much at home there. Actually it's.... fun. I also haven't done any real work. There can't be a corelation between the two, right?
I've had a couple of ideas for stories this past week. Haven't written any of them down, but showertime has been productive. The car and myself are now registered in NY. The license was easy, the car not so much. The DMV would not process me because my middle initial on my insurance card was a "T" instead of a "J". Some typist obviously made an error, right? No, it was unacceptable. So after a call to the insurance company, I went back and got through. Then on my way back to the car with my registration paper, it started to rain. A gust of wind took the paper from my hands. I had to get it back, it took me so long to obtain it in the first place. So there I was, chasing a scrap of paper down Main Street, in traffic, in the rain. I was able to retrieve it, and the text is still legible. But the gods were against me on this one. I tried to open an IRA account with my bank a few weeks ago, but it was disabled because Equifax (those people who know stuff about you) returned with an address mismatch on my residential address. To rectify the situation, I need to show a government-issued photo ID with my residential address on it. Driver's license? PO Box. Passport? No address. Voter's reg card? No picture. So.... we'll see on that. I went into The City to see BSS play a benefit concert. It was kind of a last-minte decision on my part; I tend not to go see bands that I don't know very well (I want to be a real fan, y'know), but this is the only time BSS is going to be on the US east coast this summer. Plus it was a benefit concert. So I had to go. It was a Thursday night, and I had to cut out of work a bit early to catch the train to get there on time. Arrived 10 minutes before they went on. Perfect. It was outdoors at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. There were maybe 1-2k people there; I was able to get right up front without any trouble. The set mostly consisted of stuff from their latest album, which is good, since that's the one I'm familiar with. They did my favorites: Shoreline, Fire Eye'd Boy, and Hotel. BSS is an indie rock band, and I'm not really into indie rock. I don't have anything against it, it's just that I'd never heard it and said, "I want more." Indie rock concerts also aren't like metal concerts; this was the first concert I had ever been to that everyone wasn't wearing black and shouting the lyrics. I came back with my voice intact. Oh yeah, and the week before work I did my Roadtrip to Nowhere. I wrote some Stake entries along the way; I'll back post those. Yeah, just like I did with my Prague entries (-: I've been thinking that if the format of this site changed, I might post more updates. I've talked about a redesign to fix the looks before, but I think a functional reworking might be more important. I have some ideas. ...when I have time. I don't have time. I need somebody to shove2006-06-05
I'm not yet dead.Let's just do the whole month in a bunch of bullets:
- Moved in
- Graduated
- Moved out
- DSL, phone up
- Got desk, bed, bookcase
- Ange's grad party
- Home for Memorial day weekend
- Picked up couch(es) at Ikea on return trip(s)
- Bill's grad party
And today, this. And that's just great.
Anyone know what the piece of land is between Poland and Lithuania? Have a look. Yup, it's a little piece of Russia. I hadn't noticed it before when researching eastern Europe. But it's there now. Well it looks like I have one more place to visit. It's just like going to Prussia, only it's called Kaliningrad Oblast. Unfortunately -- unlike Prague -- I get the feeling that Kaliningrad is a place where they realllly don't speak English. But they might have Cappy.
Names change, faces stay the same
2006-05-08
Do you know how cool it would be to sponsor a little league baseball team? Way cool. It's a strange form of advertizing, and it's been going on for quite a while now. Imagine a bunch of little kids running around with "DAMNATION" on their backs. Don't think it would happen? I do. If 20 kids will play ball with "Al's Extermination" above their numbers, then they'll certianly play with "DAMNATION". In other news, I'm currently fueled by a new hate for all things college. Maybe it has something to do with the eight different colleges we wardrove for our capping project. That's eight times more college than I can usually handle. Campuses, statistics, and charts. Blah. All I know is, there's nothing I can do about it. I've thought about just skipping finals and skipping out of here.... but to where? My lease doesn't start until the 15th. Which is too bad, because I feel that putting together furniture with an alan wrench is just what I need.Don't ever trust
2006-05-03
Today was our last System Design class. Made me think back to all the fun times we had (ha!) in SysAnal and SysDes over the past year. Right about this time last semester, FruityPants and I were sitting in the LinLab, trying to start/finish GR4 (our final assignment). F-to-th'-P was saying, as he has a habit of, "Okay, now we've GOT to get this done." And I was saying, as I have a habit of saying, "Dude, you have to use InnoDB; MyISAM won't work."And then it hit me.
"Don't 'Innod'B' and 'My-izzm' sound like rapper names?"
F-to-th'-P kind of shrugged it off, and kept working. I got to work writing our first rap.On the lab tables, there are those plastic circles that snap into the holes of the desk where the keyboard and mouse cables run. I had been playing with one, and noticed the manufacturer's name on the underside: "D. Mockett".
Kinda sounds like "da market".
So here we go:
Goin' to da mawket to make a sammichIt's the kind of thing you're allowed to sing where there isn't anyone else in the Linux Lab. It's also the kind of thing you should only sing once.
hoo-ahhh..... hoo-ahhh... << lost verse > >
hoo-ahhh..... hoo-ahhh... bread!
.....check it!
poak!
.....check it!
bread!
.....check it! SAMMICH SAMMICH SAMMICH
Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Xerox never comes up with anything original.
2006-04-21
Amanda.Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. -- Daniel Dennett
2006-03-29
An entire month without a post. Has this happened before? I think not. "Juggling" is a very good term for describing how I'm handling workload right now. So much stuff. 1 working process, 8 waiting, 1 zombie. Shirts are temporarily taking over my life. I've been to Prague and back. Gaming for Hope. Job. Other job. Family stuff. Fun?Good news is that I _did_ write posts over the course of my Prague adventure. Those will be backposted when I pull them off my laptop. Maybe even soonish.
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh
2006-03-15
Prague Castle was the destination for today.To get there, we took the tram into the city (crossing the river) then hopped on a tram to take us to the castle (crossing the river back). Unfortunately, there was a broken down tram blocking the track, resulting in everthing getting all backed up. So we walked the rest of the way. On the bright side, this allowed us to see cool things we would have otherwise missed. It was a bit of a hike though, but the view from up there is pretty good.
It's not what I think of then I think "castle" though. Prague castle is a collection of buildings erected within a period of a few hundred years, surrounded by a wall. No drawbridge. No moat. No turrets.
St. Vitus is the most impressive of the buildings. It's huge, has a crypt, and features lots of stained glass. I must've taken 30 pictures of stained glass in the place. Aside from the cathedral, there's a chapel, the throneroom, and some other buildings. Golden Row is a line of small stores that provide a medieval shopping experience, featuring swords and things. There was also a very long hallway featuring armor that may or may not have been used by various nobelmen.
So while Prague Castle was at the top of the list of things we wanted to do in Prague, it didn't turn out the be the best thing. Which is actually good; I like it when unplanned events take the cake.
After coming down from the castle area, we checked out Charles Bridge, another must-see tourist spot. It's a walking bridge that connects center city Prague with the castle area; you can imagine horses and wagons crossing it to approach the castle. But now it's just tourists and souvenier sellers. And lots of statues, mostly of saints.
Wandering around after that, we stumbed upon the Icelandic restaurant which I had looked up while still stateside. This was a lucky find since I had forgotten to jot down the address. It's a higher end place than Dan, Dave, and myself usually go to, but well within our budget. We sat at a high, nicely-polished table in the window facing the street. They were playing "Brickhouse" over the stereo system. I can only assume that Lionel Richie is considered to be a musical hero in Iceland.
36-24-36, what a winning hand
2006-03-14
Let's see if I can do better than just bullets today.Finding our rhythm, we had our free breakfast at the hotel and then made our way to the tram to take us into center city. Through our sporadic exploring, we came across Old Town Square. It's a pretty touristy area. Wenceslaus square has touristy parts too, but real working people are also there. In Old Town, the people working are just there for the tourists.
In the area, there's the astrological clock, which chimes every hour. The door above the face open up and little statues of saints rotate through, while a skeleton dude (Death) who rings the bell. At the top of the hour, all the tourists gather around to watch the clock and have their pockets picked.
Next to the church where the clock is installed, there's an area of street vendors selling all kinds of things, including bells (you too can be just like Death!) and hot wine.
I remember reading somewhere that the Czech Republic has good pizza, so we decided to try an Italian place nearby. It was pretty good. But you know what? We have pretty good pizza here in the States too.
What we don't have is Coke with real sugar. It's the only drink I've been ordering, and will continue to do so for the week. It goes down smooth, the taste is so crisp, and it leaves your lips sticky. It's very unlike drinking carbonated corn syrup.
After seeing a poster for it yesterday, we paid to get inside the Museum of Communism today. Compared to the National Museum, it costs significantly more, is significantly smaller, and is all around designed as a tourist trap. But we didn't really care. A couple of rooms full of Commie stuff from East Germany is good enough for us. They did have one room devoted to Jan Palach, a young man who burned himself alive in protest of Soviet occupation. At the end of the video they were running, there was a song, "Dekuji." The word was repeated over and over. Now I will never forget how to say "thank you" in Czech.
"Go to the symphony" was one of the things on my list of things to do in Prague. One of the city's orchestral groups was doing a gig (do orchestras have gigs?) at some church, so we went to obtain tickets. DoS, 5th row, $10: not too bad. We hiked around and had dinner before the show. It started snowing. We got hot chocolate. Accidentally came across the Charles Bridge (good to know for later this week).
Eventually 7:30 rolled around, and we filed into the church. Unfortunately, the lady working there wouldn't let me take pictures beforehand, and they locked the doors right after the show, so I couldn't get a shot afterward either. But the performance was nice. They had a special guest, a clarinetist. He showed up about halfway through, and was playing in front of the other orchestra members. The first-chair violinist looked pissed. There he was, just going to town on his licorice stick. Looked like he was having fun. The first violin? Not a bit. Then someone from the audience gave the clarinetist a bouquet, which he then presented to the first violin. She was not amused.
I don't need no steenkin' flowers
2006-03-13
Bullets from today:
- breakfast
- tram line
- Wenceslaus square
- harasser #1 ("BUY SOMETHING!")
- national muesum
- lunch
- walk - power adapter
- east
- metro
- walk
- statue of Kafka
- finally find right church as night falls
- dinner ("Tommy", "yes please")
- tram home
- no long distance
2006-03-12
"Good morning, we will soon begin serving breakfast."It's 12:07 am EST, and we're somewhere over the western coast of Scotland. Thanks to Matt, Metro North, our feet, LIRR, AirTrain, and AZ flight 605, we are in our present position in a flying metal bird, ready to fall out of the sky. Out my window is the 100' wing of this plane, with a massive jet engine mounted under it. To my right is a nice old couple. Dan is directly across from me, at the starbord window, with The Bedouks of Hazard immediately infront of him. There's some frost on the window; it's -60F outside. In the distance you can see the saphire glow of the atmosphere. In here we have some nice flouresent lighting.
No suprise, but I've been busy, busy, busy lately. But it's spring break now, and I have time to post, and interesting things to post about. Or will soon.
We've been on-board for about five and half hours now. So far I've had dinner, watched everything on the "comedy channel", and enjoyed The Corpse Bride. It finished that just in time, as the cabin lights went out. I tried sleeping, but, eh. I wasn't really tired, so that might have had something to do with it. But closing my eyes and putting on some MP3s was nice. Got through a few CDs worth.
What else can I say. The plane is a bin 'un. All of the written materials are in Italian and English, along with the announcements (although they sometimes forget about we English speakers). There are LCD displays in the backs of all the seats. There's DC power in the armrest, but it's not the standard auto 12 volt, so I'm confined to battery power. The flight attendants are nice, but I rarely have a problem with them. Apparently there has been turbulance almost this whole flight, but I haven't noticed much. We're up 38000 ft, how much turbulance can there be?
Typing for typing's sake
2006-03-12
And it's 12:07 am (again, but now Central Europe time), and we're at our hotel unpacking. Well, I'm unpacking anyway (more on that later). The past 18 hours have not been productive traveling-wise (read: bad distance-moved-to-time ratio). We landed in Milan just fine, waited through a huge line for screening, only to find out that our connection to Prague had been canceled. I asked an Alitalia worker about it who responded, "I can tell you naahhzing. Go over there."So we went over there, waited through line, and finally got to a different Alitalia employee who told me, "Your flight has been canceled because you're going to Prague." (That's a reason?)
The flight had been canceled for some reason, but we had automatically been booked on the 15:00 flight out (was supposed to be 9:00). Unfortunate, but not so bad. So we hunkered down and I paid for a few bottles of Slam (an orange soda) and WiFi access. I hate having to pay for wireless access, but it proved to be a good purchase. I found out via Wunderground that the reason our connection being canceled was due to snow (although the weather in Milan was perfectly sunny and clear). Understandable, not the airline's fault. Not much else to do online though. Fired off a few emails (the Bedoukamom required status updates). Couldn't do any IMing, since everyone was asleep back at home. Oh yeah, and the power adapter I had brought smoked out on it's first use, so I was running low on battery.
So we waited. A lot. All of us were desperately in need of sleep, but that wasn't working out so well. Coat-over-the-head kind of helped, but I never fell fast asleep. Dan tried to force the floor to provide him comfort.
With all of our coats on our heads, Alitalia decided it was a good idea to call us over the PA system. And what did we find out at the customer service counter? Yes, our 15:00 was canceled. We had the option of taking the evening flight (20:00) or waiting until morning. We decided that "three's the charm" and picked up boarding passes for 20:00. Time for some more waiting. Rumor had it that taxi rides into the city were 100euro minimum, so that was out. Had to get used to Terminal B and it's crazy window shutters instead.
Paid 8€ for a microwave dinner, then $7 for a slice of pizza (the pizzeria took USD). Needless to say we were rather fed up with MXP's prices of things. On the plus side, Harry Potter was there, in plastic form. I don't know why.
At 21:00 our flight took off. Half a day spend waiting in Terminal B (with short field trips to Terminal A) of MXP. A nicely furnished airport, but we're not looking forward to stopping there again, if even for an hour.
The connecting flight was almost absurdly short; about 1:20 (not even an entire issue of Wired's worth of time). Ruzyne airport is nice. It's fairly new, with new construction on top of that. And yes, there was snow. We could see why the flight had been delayed; only one runway was open.
Baggage claim got two strikes, as neither Dan nor Dave's bags appeared. It was kind of a kick in the head when you're already down. I got mine though, and pocketed my Swiss Army knife ASAP (it's a habit). Next we got some Czech krona to pay for the taxi. Taxi service was a half hour wait. One finally came. The driver took us to the general area, informed us that Prague has "great beer and cheap women", but admitted that he did not know exactly where the hotel was (although he did point out the tram stop, which is helpful). Luckily, I noticed the Comfort Inn sign and he pulled right up to the door. Dave made a lifelong enemy by denying the cabbie an 80 cent tip. Got our room key just fine. The room does have three beds, sort of. No one I've talked to has heard of a hotel room with three beds, so I was skeptical when I was able to book a room with three. There are two identical beds, and one bed-couch thing. But the two bed's "mattresses" don't count for much anyway, so they're all pretty much equal.
The tub in the bathroom is very high; you need to throw your leg over about 25" to get in it. The room actually has 3 interior doors, all of which use a key that we were not supplied with (that's right, no lock on the toilet door). No toiletries provided in the bathroom except hand soap and toilet paper. The TV is a made-in-CZ "Tesla" brand, and has 7 or so channels, with CNN in English (and sometimes Eurosport too). So for the price (< $50/night) it's good, but this would not be considered a Comfort inn in the States.
And we all smelled terrible
2006-02-23
Let's start off with something I've been waiting to say for a long time: I got a camera. I kind of think of this as "getting a new camera", but the one I was using wasn't mine to begin with, and I have to hand if off soon anyway. So the time was right to purchase one myself. And the trip that's coming up was kind of a catalyst.It's a PowerShot G3: 4MP, 4x zoom, and a lens that's larger than a fingernail. It's a significant improvement from the S200 I had been using. It was at the top of Canon's prosumer line back in the day, and it's good enough for me now. I really have to find out how it works. I've been taking some okay pictures with it in AUTO mode, but what do the other modes do? What's this button for? Are higher numbers for this thing better? I need to find out.
So that's good. What else is there, bad? Yup.
System Design: it's not over yet. The semester is only at midterms, so I kind of expected that this class wouldn't be over yet. Still wish it was.
My weekends are disappearing. They were already gone in the sense that I didn't enjoy them, but now I have my calendar marked for all weekends in the near future, so if I wanted to plan something, I couldn't. Not a bad thing I guess -- nothing I've penciled in recently is something I'm dreading -- but I just don't like the constraints.
Looking in at what's going on, nothing is really bad with me, I just don't like this feeling that I've been having. There's been a lot of context switching lately, and I don't like that. I like to commit time to things when I feel like doing them, and giving people the time they want from me as well. It's like scattering some seed at a flock of pigeons: you throw a lot out there, you don't know where it all went, and everyone wants more.
I'd just be happy to take some pictures.
A new A Scanner Darly trailer is out. It's longer (and I think better) than the first one. You can get it from Apple.
"This is the best shit since sliced bread; let's go home and have some spaghetti"
2006-02-20
I'm real busy with homework right now, but I JUST remembered what made me want to go to Prague in the first place. When I tell people I'm going there on spring break, they always ask, "What made you think to go there?" Honestly, until this very minute, I couldn't remember. I knew I had been looking at some awesome photographs online during freshman year but... how did I even know Prague existed? How did I even know how to spell it?Mission Impossible. That's it. I recall being fascinated with a city described like it was in that book. It's in the movie too, right at the start, when Ethan's in the restaurant. But it's the image painted inside my head that is what drove me to look into it in the first place.
How can you see inside your head?
2006-02-08
So I'm gone for like a month, then post something out of the blue about pineapple juice. "What gives," you say, "hasn't anything else been going on?" It certainly has been going on. So much so that I have not had time to post. And it's at that point now where I could just forget it and move on, but I'll give a brief rundown of January:- Labor Economics - I did this course during winter break, although it did spill into the first week of the semester, ruining that. It was a good experience though, made me really feel like a student. I was spending days in the library and doing homework at night. By the end, I had pretty much read the whole book. And the final really wasn't hard because Labor Econ was the only thing (well, the only academic thing) on my mind. Got an A-.
- Snakes shirts - have sold, and still am selling a lot of them. A special edition black one is coming out this week
- Mad Money - I took a trip down to Englewood Cliffs to watch a live taping of CNBC's Mad Money ("Main Event IV"). Damnation's Lightning Round shirt arrived the day before, so I wore that and made sure to get it on camera. So I can now officially sell the shirt as "As Seen on TV". It was really fun to see how the show goes. Cramer really is "like he is" all the time. And yes, he is prompted while he's doing his commentary pieces. I was in line for the Lightning Round, but the people before me weren't fast enough, so I didn't get to talk to him on-air. He did however make sure to talk to everyone individually after the show and take pictures or whatever. I got him to sign my shirt and gave him one as well.
- The Semester - School started. It actually seems like a kind of minor thing with all the other things going on. Classes are ok; I've had most of these professors before. Still getting adjusted to (read: "currently failing") the online course; it's just so hard to remember it exists. Robotics is fun and is a great way to end the week (on a Thursday). Capping isn't quite so dumb as I thought it would be. Ok, it is dumb, but interesting. System Design...
- System Design Project - so Russ thought it would be a GREAT idea if the class worked on a real system design project instead of making up fictional ones. We've got this project with IBM to design a document review system to replace the one they're currently using. I'm the assistant project manager (not by choice) and have to go to weekly meetings on Mondays at 9am. And because I'm a manager, by grade is determined on the success of the project, not my performance. Sweet deal right? My grade depends on everyone else's work. I don't get paid, and I can't fire them if they're doing a bad job. Naturally, I felt that this whole thing was a set-up for disappointment. But once I found out the project, I'm fairly confident that it's small enough that it can be handled. Still though, my time commitment for System Design has doubled or tripled; uncool.
- Avenue Q - saw it last weekend, finally. Carolyn, you were right, this is a musical that I like. Sure, it did follow the Regular Musical Plot (have I posted on that before?), but at least it was funny. And not just dialogue; songs too. In fact, the songs were the funniest parts. I had heard the best of them before, but it was still good. Everyone liked it. Next up: Splamalot: A Lonely Crusade (that's my own personal subtitle).
- Doughnuts - I ate two today. They were good. Mmmm.
- MCCS Budget - I allocated for $1800, got less then half. I'm thinking I should beg, but I don't know how well that's going to turn out. One of the items that got zeroed was a new camera. I thought it would be nice for the incoming treasurer to have something better than the 4-year old 2MP model we have now. Also, I wanted to try out a new camera as I'll have to be actually buying one for myself pretty soon (plus I'd be able to take it to Prague). So now that I don't get the benefit of a test run, I'm just going to buy one the way normal people do: on eBay, used and cheap(er). Maybe once I get it I'll actually update the Pic of the Week.
- Prague - we're still going.
- Jobs - I've been getting requests from companies to do job interviews with them, and it's kind of depressing. The interview process is kind of exciting, at least I think it is. But being already hired, I don't want to waste their time. I mean, I'm sure I'll get laid off somewhere down the road and get to do interviews again, but I have the feeling that the gotta-get-a-job-to-pay-the-mortgage-and-support-the-family job interview won't be as fun as the nothing-to-lose interview.
- EB Jobs - the San Jose EB team is getting hired! Imagine that. So far we've got a bunch (5?) going to IBM, one to Google, one to Amazon, one to Oracle, and two to the Vole. No one's coming to IBM Po-town though.
- MOL Update - I finally put up some new forum software on MaristOnline. Decided to just forget about moving all the topics over and just migrated the user accounts. Nothing bad has happened, and people seem to like it. Just need to integrate it into the site more. I'll get to that in about..... 3 months.
I thought about what it would be like to have a kid today. That was weird.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair
2006-02-02
I just got off the phone with Roberto over at Dole Juices. He picked up right away, no waiting on hold. Excellent customer service those DJ people have.So I asked him The Question of All Questions, seeking to find the answer I have been searching for these past two weeks: "Why doesn't canned pineapple juice have pulp?"
Roberto acted like it was a completely normal question. Not a smidge of hesitation or "umm"ing. Obviously he's considered this question before as well. Roberto and I are an aweful lot alike.
While he admitted he did not know the exact answer to The Question, he gave what I consider to be a very good guess: not all fruit pulp has the same consistency. Whereas orange pulp may have the ideal size, texture, and bouyancy, pineapple pulp may not. I then pushed Roberto into divulging one of Dole's most closely guarded secrets: Dole lemonade doesn't contain lemon pulp; they acutally add grapefruit pulp. I'm coining this activity "cross-pulpination". I'm okay with this, but the public needs to know.
Or maybe the public just needs to read the ingredients label
2006-01-03
It's this time of year that it's so nice to watch some old movies. I prefer to watch TCM a bit after midnight, after the twelve o'clock picture has already begun. That way I don't know the title of the movie, and I have to figure things out before the end. Plus, they only show the best old movies, they're often in B&W, and there aren't any commercials.Here's what I've watched over break:
So there you have it. I'm pretty easy on old movies. Movies and music seem to get better with age; I tolerate their minor flaws much better for some reason. Maybe it's just because only the good stuff sticks around long enough to be remembered.
- Best Years of Our Lives - I caught this on halfway through at an interesting point. A couple of guys were sitting at a lunch counter talking about WWII, and one goes off in this conspiracy idea. I thought this was pretty revolutionary (to criticize the the government and all, especially for a 1946 film), so I kept watching. Turns out that this was the "wrong" viewpoint, and the guy eventually got punched in the face. But the guy with hooks for hands made up for it a little. The problem with him was, evertime he said "Fred", I pictued him as Barney Rubble. He had the same voice, and was shorter than the central character (Fred). I liked Fred. The film was bounching along, and then ended with a wedding. That was dumb.
- Falling In Love - De Niro and Meryl Streep in a rather recent (1980s) movie that was the complete opposite of the previous one I watched. Basically, two people fall in love. Except their both already in married relationships. I liked it for the parts where there wasn't any dialog, and you just fill in what you think is going on inside the actor's head. I started watching it partway through, and finally conceded within the final half hour that this movie really didn't have anything to do with the mob. Still worth my time though.
- Shop Around the Corner - A Jimmy Stewart movie -- great. I saw the very end about this time last year, and had no idea what was going on. It's about a guy (JS) who works in a shop and falls in love with this penpal. Only it turns out that he already knows his penpal in person and doesn't realize it. The characters of the cast are a bit varied, and one guy tries to commit suicide, so it's not your standard 1940s love story (a good thing). And I must say, I enjoy old-fashioned bantering between a guy and a girl. And 1940s hairstyles should make a comeback.
- Fitzwilly - Dick Van Dyke in a funny kind of story. He plays a servant trying to keep an old woman's estate together. You see, she enjoys donating to various charities; the problem is that she's flat broke and doesn't know it. So Fitzwilly (DVD) keeps the whole operation going through various schemes. Until a love interest changes things...
- A Christmas Carol - I watch A Christmas Carol every year, but this one is different from the one I usually watch. And I can't say it's better. It's nice to have a different perspective, but not at the cost of leaving out my favorite line from the whole thing. Even if Fred's wife was a total babe (she really was; check it out for yourself next time it's on).
- Alphie - This one won awards and things I think, but I didn't really like it? I'm not sure. It was different; the main character was pretty much a certified asshole; it was British; and the CA talked directly to the camera at times. So it had some things going for it. I think at the end he was supposed to end up a changed man. He was, a bit. But not like Ebeneezer was at the end of his movie. Alfie could use some lessons.
My girlfriend's girlfriend looks like you
2005-12-24
As it happens every year, CNBC has a new look. While I might not think so, I guess it's understandable that at least some people grow tired of how things are, especially the crew of the shows. So they spruce up the graphics and change the theame music.But this time I like it less. I can usually..... usually adjust to new theame music. But this year's graphics update is my least favorite so far. First of all, they moved the Indices Box (you know, that blue rectangle on the bottom right with "Dow", "NASDAQ"...) to the top of the screen as a new bar. So now there's two bars across the bottom and one up top. Fine. I guess it's easier this way for directors and advertisers, since they don't have to account for a little chunk missing from the bottom right of every shot.
Speaking of bars, the two ticker bars now show the FULL NAME of each company, along with the ticker symbol, current price, price change, and indicator. I do not like this at all. This means that you get to see something like 4x fewer quotes per minute. This about it: instead of just "X", they now have "United States Steel (X)". If you want to see that latest quote for US Steel, then you'd know it's ticker symbol is X. The rest of us don't need a lesson in ticker symbols we don't want/need to know. The whole thing is just less efficient.
Everything has to flash now. When text changes, a white light blip has to go over it. Like some sort of "future display". Oh, and it has to make a "schweeee" sound while it does it. Also very futuristic. And distracting.
Not done with the bars yet: ON TOP OF the bottom bars now often resides a segment of another bar: the CNBC Alert bar. It appears whenever there's a news alert, and has the blinky feature mentioned above. Blinky? You bet.
But the most important part of CNBC is the stuff going on between all the bars. That's pretty much unchanged. The graphs are now "3D" and continuously rotate. And the end point on the line graph now has a halo. I don't know why.
The commentators have stayed pretty much the same. The big change is that Squawk is now being hosted by Joe Kernen, Rebecca Quick, and Carl Quintanilla (where's he been?). It's a good move, so as long as Mark Haines is somewhere in the mix (he's in a new segment called Squawk on the Street). Not that it really matters, since I'm not awake that early anyway.
How Scroogish of me to talk about finanial news on Christmas Eve. Humbug!
And everyone throughout the world forever saved
2005-12-18
Dream last night: I'm sitting at a glass patio table covered in fine china. Every square inch, filled. I'm slouched in a chair and wearing a black jacket. Then from above comes this big stone; looks like hematite. It's about 8" long, with a diameter of 5". It's not a meteorite, it just came from somewhere above; maybe ceiling-level of the room. Anyway, it came crashing down, breaking china along the way, probably cracking the table too. Then before it hit the ground it severed my foot.Now the creepy thing is not that I was seriously injured, but what I was injured by. The stone is very familiar to me, as it was marked by a distinctive cleft. I just don't know where it's from, that's what's weird.
And how could a smooth stone sever a foot anyway?
Before I forget it all, a dream from last week: I submitted a comedy screenplay to Horatio Sanz. He gave me a 73 on it. I was not happy. And I don't know why I cared about his opinion.
I had another dream last night too. I remembered it after something in the newspaper this morning pulled the memory from wherever memories about dreams go. But I forget it now. Which is too bad, 'cause it was at least as good as the first. Maybe I'll pull the paper out of the recyclables. I remember exactly where the memory trigger was.
Lies from below belong to yesterday
2005-12-17
Likening the countries of the world to guests at a Christmas party, the United States is the one who brings such copious amounts of chips and salsa, that no one ever tries El Salvador's bean dip.
^And that is how I finished my EconDev final, railing against US farm policy. I don't think Drebert will like my analogy -- and I don't think she'll like my final paper either -- but I also don't think I care.
I had this little book as a kid; it was a short story about a boy named Pierre who responded, "I don't care" to everything. At the end of the story, he was eaten by a lion.
He didn't care.
So the semester is over. Finals are over. I'm sure they did nothing but drop my grade in all classes. DC? You bet.
I've stopped shipping shirts for the time being. People are still ordering. I don't know why.
There's about a week between now and Christmas, and I don't think I'm going to like it. Just this one day seemed kind of long. We're usually released around December 21st, which means that I'm barely home before visiting relatives and preparations are taking place. But I suppose I ought to enjoy this while I can; won't be getting a break like this again for a long while.
This whole entry has been rather blah, but everything is actually much better than I made it sound. The current time of year is dampening the mood.
Not a chance, fancypants!
2005-12-01
I'm not a jealous person. But there were two two points within the past week that I was hit with the, "Gah, that coulda been me" feeling.Found this last night. I applied for the same position, am at least as qualified as she, I admire Google, I don't wear most corporate brands, AND I HAVE A SHIRT! But I did not mention that I had a shirt when I applied. That was the kicker. I believe I was wearing the shirt as I was typing up my specially-created HTML format resume for Google. Apparently shirt-wearing does not rub off on code writing.
The other this hack. Guess who had that idea 8 months ago? Yup. Although my idea was a bit more advanced (prolly more than I could handle), the end result is the same. If I put a Gumstix in an Intellivision controller will that be as cool? No. Well, maybe.
I have so much work for the next two weeks. That's all I'm going to say about that.
I've decided that I should relese a box set. Musicians do it all the time, and they sell millions of them. But the sets aren't unique; everyone gets the same bunch of CDs. Totally lame. Each box set I release is going to be different. I'm gonna personally fill each one with random crap. Here's a short list of the types of things I'm including:
- bottle caps
- used thumbtacks
- air guitar, or air bass
- wrappers from individually-packaged mints
- that little bit of unsticky part at the begining of a roll of tape
- expired concert tickets
- capital letters
- pencils w/ sharpened erasers
- fortunes
- ball bearings
- coupons
- cash (instant rebate)
- pictures of people you don't know
- SIMMs
- water vapor
- Mexican jumping beans
- an origami turtle
- some textbooks
- musical greeting cards
- salt and pepper
- chromium
- secret recipes
- a collectible mug
- a meter of CAT-5
- some original lyrics
- an ugly figurine
- golf tees
- those pills that disolve to reveal those little sponge dinosaurs
- something illegal
- a hunk of wood
- a hunk of beef
- Sharpies
- a poster of a band you don't like
- a request
- marbles
- Double-Mint
- rage
- .7mm lead refils
- some barcodes
- a Ringpop of questionable origin
- tricks of the trade
- the Hardy Boys Casefiles
- lemon
- fuzzy dice (D6, D5, D20)
- drinking straws
- something organic that Caesar wore on his head
- tiny boxes
- tally counters
- batteries
- a giraffe
And on top of all that, each box is going to be special; different dimensions, different material, different everything. It'll be a terror for retailers to stock.
This was a good post
2005-11-19
Last night I was in the military or something. And I had to buy a lot of cars, which I was looking to get a discount on. That's all I remember from that dream.Things have happened since my last update... saw Jeff Sachs speak at Columbia two weeks ago... say EBers (and almost Garth Brooks) in NYC this past week... PMILF finally came out... it's getting cold outside... I'm not going to Mexico... I am going to Prague... and this site really needs to be redesigned.
That last part is actually done, at least in my head. But I don't know when I'll get around to it. I mean, I can't even perform regular updates, y'know?
And why do egg noodles come in bags instead of boxes?
There ought to be a law
2005-11-02
Just came back from DN, spent a long time poorly doing an assignment that was due two days ago. Walked back in the rain wearing my ugly jacket. But I didn't decapitate myself while shaving tonight, so that's a win for the home team.Senioritis is upon me. But I don't get the usual strain. It's true: I really don't want to go to class anymore, I have little motivation for work, etc. But my senioritis is a transitional sort of thing.... the way I view people changes (or maybe more accurately, reverts).... it also doesn't help that winter is setting in. It's really time to hibernate.
I've finally decided that I like Scenes from a Memory. It's taken a while, and I'm certainly not the DT fan I "should" be, but it's good. Songs stuck in my head in fact; hasn't happened in a while.
I had a crazy dream a few nights back. First part: I aquired a rather large mouse named Coil. We got along instantly, although he would scurry off when I'd let him go. He'd always catch up with me later, wherever I ended up, as if he were telepathic. He'd be there, sleeping upside down on the arm of a chair or something. Coil was cool.
Second part: I'm traveling to Prague with my dad and Mike. The area is vast with few buildings; the area between is paved. There is a distinct Asian feel to it; nothing like the pictures. Our mode of transportation is this rollercoaster/levitating platform that's inside a hotel/research facility. Although it's contained within this building, there are layovers involved. Mike gets lost along the way, which sucks, since I'm his roommate and he has the keycard. There's a bidet in the bathroom. Then after I board the transporation thing again, we're outside. My seat swoops down low to the ground, and there before me is Sting, from The Police. I grab a quick handshake before my seat is jolted back up again. After deboarding, I see Sting again in an alleyway with an arch over it. Turns out he's looking for some blue wine. We come upon a street vendor claiming he has the stuff, but it turns out he only has French blue wine, which Sting says is crap.
And that was all. Maybe I'll go back tonight and get some more information.
Could be eating French toast sticks with my feet right now
2005-10-22
What can I say. Monkey Steals the Peach did indeed come in this week. It looks fantastic; a very unusual color. All of the XLs are gone, along with all the Snakes shirts. And it seems like the whole world wants an XL.Alpacas were seen last weekend. They smell like farm animals but are Romeo soft. They also cost around $20k. I'll get one..... later. The World's Largest Kaleidoscope and a corn maze followed. And lemon meringue pie.
I'm reading an interesting book right now. Not many people have heard of economic hitmen (I hadn't) but they're being used to further the United States' Capitalist Empire. The book is the story of one man's life, and his part in building an empire, so it's a quick read, since it's in first person. The book also covers some "forgotten" history, such as the US invasion of Panama.
Next time: boxing up problems.
Snakes on Cobain
2005-10-09
Saturday was mostly a failure. The alpaca trip was canceled due to rain, the backup plan didn't happen, our basement flooded, and both cocounuts I bought turned out to bad.The weekend wasn't bad though. We invented a new game (Silent Hunter) and I came up with lots more shirt ideas. Probably enough for six months or so if I have a regular release schedule. That said, Snakes on a Plane came out even better than I could have hoped, and has coincientally sold out. The only place I posted that link was on themaxx -- a members-only site -- but through the magic of the interweb, it spread all over the place. 1500+ visits that day. A site called preshrunk helped out a lot. Another interesting referrer was wiki.amazon.com. Perhaps some Amazon folk are keeping tabs on the SoaP movement?
So yeah, this Snakes on a Plane thing is really taking off. There's now a blog, a song, and another shirt. Borderline getting out of hand, but that's how the web works.
Monkey Steals the Peach is due in this week.
Eels on the bus
2005-09-30
Sometimes stake falls to the wayside when I've other web work to do. Believe it or not I do have my limits to the amount of time that I spend online, and if my back starts to hurt enough, I'm not gonna suffer just to update here.That being said, here's an update:
There's another Zorro movie coming out. Antonio is coming back as de la Vega, and CZJ as the missis. This is good news. I really like Zorro, and was disappointed when a follow up to Mask didn't surface. After six years, it looks like we have one. I'm glad they got Antonio and CJZ back together before they got old. Trailer. Kind of looks like this will be the last of Zorro. Always looks like it's going to be the last of Zorro.
Update on Apocalyptica: they are still awesome.
I'm doing shirts now. PMILF isn't getting printed (yet), but Snakes on a Plane is. We'll see how that one turns out (in both quality and demand), and then go from there.
And I really should have more to say.
Z
2005-09-15
Apocalyptica concert: incredible. Can't believe it was only $20. I liked every song, which is saying a lot, since I don't know their material at all. Their set was split about 50/50 between original songs and Metallica covers. I love Metallica, but I really wanted to hear more of the original stuff. It was very, very good. And cellos don't seem to distort as badly as guitars too when aplified over the concert speakers. That's a plus.I have a new t-shirt design. A lot of people seem to think it's funny, so I'd like to get a batch printed up.... but no one wants to pay for a shirt (yet). The problem is I need to order at least 4 dozen of them minimum to be printed, and I can't afford to be out several hundred bucks. All I really want is just one shirt for me to wear, but well..... yeah. It's just an idea.
Scoffing at the wise
2005-09-10
The semster is well on it's way. Well on it's way. Maybe even farther along than it should be. I'm sitting in the dark listening to Time Machine; isn't it a bit early for that?Slings were constructed this weekend. Parachute cord was not readily available, so I went the braided route and braided up some slings out of mason line. It's not as easy to estimate length with this method, since you don't know how long it'll be until after it's done (the interleaving reduces length). But it's fun. Sling #0 pretty much works, but a longer one is needed for more distance. Marist is a great place to sling, with the riverfront being ideal, with lots of projectiles available.
I came across DeadMalls.com today, and let me tell you DM is the place if you want to read about failed commercial projects. The best laid plans go bust. It's nice to know someone is keeping a record of shopping complexes in dire straits; it's more than Herodotus ever did. Dork.
Lots of concerts coming up, first of which is Apocalyptica this Tuesday. I have no idea what to expect from a metal concert with cellos, but you can be sure that I'll report back when I find out.
A new game was invented today, tentatively named Cupball. Catch and throw a soccerball using plastic cups. That's all. No rules for this one.... but not all games need rules to be fun.
2005-09-06
Knocked down the first week without any problems. The PC is up and running again, and Time Machine is pounding away on a new set of speakers as I type. My credit card balance is also being pounded away, but that happens at the start of every fall semester.Over the summer, I'd somehow managed to get myself double-booked for the 6:30 Thursday night timeslot. It seemed so simple at the time, but now that it's here, I'm kind of like, "Huh. This might be tricky." The prof changed for one of the classes, and that threw off the plans I had made in my head. He's a good guy, and I think it will be a good class, but the problem is that I wasn't looking for a good class, I was looking for an easy class. Well then, I guess I'll just have to learn something.
What else to report... job wise I'm back at Marist IT; declined that FDR-NFS grant for this semester; got an email from Morgan Stanley for me to ignore; sent my resume to Google for them to ignore.
While at PriceChopper last week, I came upon some bottles of Moxie, two of which I promptly picked up. I'd never seen Moxie for sale anywhere before, and this was a suprise. I'd sworn off purchasing cases of Dew this time around, but the thought that I'd even have the opportunity to have Moxie never even crossed my mind. I'd all gone from the house now, and after forcing a few people to try it, I still don't have any friends who actually like the stuff. The reviews were: "I would drink this if I were dying", "This tastes like an old Jewish man", and the ringing review, "This is better than diet.". So, better than expected.
Stop singing IWtBU
2005-08-30
We made it back to PA. And now I'm back in Po-town. Two capacitors on my motherboard popped, and my speakers crapped out two days after that incident. Replacements are on the way.It's good to be back and settled. I was sitting right here, just like this, less than four months ago, and now I'm back. And I'll not have to relocate for quite a while, which is a welcome feeling. I can leave my stuff and not have to worry about packing it back up for some time. Right; good.
Dan broke the mop already.
Don't be flying planes into the medical observatory
2005-08-22
I'm in Indiana. Today Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois got checked off the itinerary. Illinois was our stopping point, but we were good on time (and didn't pass through any time zone changes) so we pushed through to the next state. Never even set foot in Lincoln Land, and that's some kind of achievement; at least that's what we're calling it.Dinner tonight was the buffet at the hotel restaurant. The mac&cheese was ok, but kind of tasted like feet.
Tommorow I'll be back in PA. It'll be nice, being able to enjoy 3 of about a month of days that I'll be spending there this year. We're only about 700 miles away -- 100 less than we covered today -- but with traffic it would take a significant amount of extra time.
Let's kill some birds
2005-08-21
I'm in Nebraska. Lexington to be exact. Nebraska isn't so great. Wyoming is more interesting than previously thought; "interesting" == hills. So the first half of today was better than the latter.A sign entering Wyoming referred to "Cattle Women".
There really isn't more to say.
Let's kill some bugs
2005-08-20
I'm in Utah. There's salt all over the place, and it smells like Mormans. We made good time for day 1, better than predicted in fact.The last week of work was fast/difficult/consulsive. It was tough saying goodbye to people. EB was a very unique experience: living, working, and playing with the same group of people; even more so than with people at college (to an extent). The bonds that grow within just a few short months is amazing. I didn't really post enough about it this summer, but it would be difficult to describe the experience accurately. But there were simply just a lot of cool people. We'll be keeping in contact though, and there might be a reunion in the future. Also, I got an offer from the LTC this week. More on that some other time.
Tomorrow: Wyoming and beyond.
Let's kill some bugs
2005-08-13
The Career Fair started off nice and early at 8AM. It was my own doing, scheduling an interview that early. I rolled out of bed at 7:53, but actually made it over there on-time, all suited up. The interviews wrapped up by lunchtime, with 6 being the final count, with 1 offer. Good overall; the interviewers were not very intense. Actually, I asked most of the questions.We EBers then parted ways; DC and myself headed to Po-town, with me to rejoin the rest in NYC the following day. Which is what I'm doing now -- heading south from Po-town into Grand Central.
I feel happy, I feel happy...
2005-08-12
Expo went well. We flew into JFK on Tuesday night (JetBlue: thumbs up), and moved on to IBM's CHQ campus in Armonk on Wednesday. Expo started at 8 AM (5 AM PST), with my team presenting first. Almaden, Austin, Ottowa, Toronto, and Raleigh presented. Our site preformed flawlessly, and I'm very glad never to have to recite our pitch again.Presentations ran up until lunch, after which was a meetup with hiring managers to set up interviews for the following day (Friday). And then came 3 hours of demoing. Much too long, but we got through it. Not too many passersby were interested; we only attracted a targeted audience, people who found us via the Expo programme. This was good in that the people who asked for a demo were genuinely interested, but it was lame in that we didn't get a lot of foot traffic.
Dinner followed the demos. The interns were assigned randomly to tables with top execs. Not the most senior of execs, but pretty high up there. At my table was Ron Adkins, who heads up Development for Systems and Technology Group. Of the nearly $6B budget IBM allots for R&D each year, STG gets about half. I made sure to site next to him and asked lots of questions. We talked about his career, Power, and the new game consoles that IBM has developed chips for. Ron has received some of the next gen consoles to test out, which is a nice perk, especially for his kids. The last question asked of him was about failures during his career; one was an environmentally-friendly PC, and the other was this laptop that used a butterfly keyboard. Yes, the 701! I almost jumped out of my well-fitting, nicely-pressed pinstripe pants. This was the guy who put the beloved Thinkpad 701 into production. He's also the one that pulled the plug. I've talked about my compy 486 before, one of my favorite pieces of technology, which I've since replaced with a faster model. But now I finally had my chance to find out why the butterfly keyboard was never included in later models.
It was technically sound, comfortable to use, and had a sturdy construction (mine is 10 years old and functions perfectly). I don't buy the reason for pulling production on the screen being too small. Ron said it was a failure, since it only sold 10K units. It was ahead of its time perhaps. Was it a mistake to cease production after producing just two models? I think so. The butterfly keyboard was the trademark feature of the 701, but I think other characteristics hurt sales. For instance, there wasn't a removable drive (floppy or CD) due to its size. And at $5K, corporate customers would be looking for more features over compactness. A Japanese computer company could've pulled it off. But with the Thinkpad being the laptop of corporate America in the '90s, it wasn't meant to be.
Your soul's gonna burn, in a lake of fiiiiiire
2005-08-07
Last Friday: sailing on the bay. The seas were rough that night, at least for the first half of the trip. Naturally, most of us wanted to stand right up on the deck. Standing in itself was a challenging exercise, but I never fell down (did display some hidden dance moves though). My jeans got soaked, since I had a nack for standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. The wind was cold, the fog rolled in, and it was great. pics.I took some time to talk to Capt. Jim up on the bridge:
"What does this lever do?"
"Why do you have to keep yanking those ropes?"
"Can I press the 'scuttle the ship' button?"
Saturday was a trip to wine country; Healdsburg specifically. Checked out 4 wineries, took some pics. The ride to and fro necessitated a drive on the Golden Gate Bridge. Since it was the day after we sailed under the GGB, that was kind of cool.
Rev 3:20