Posted by Travis Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:49:20 GMT
Michael Lewis wrote this excellent article on the collapse of wall street investment banks.
I think its a level headed view of how bad things really are (they are bad), and what happened as we got there. It was written from the perspective of someone who actually saw it coming (and made a great deal of money betting on it).
Posted by Travis Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:52:59 GMT
My house was built in 1908. That means that when the rice cooker turns on, the television turns off, and the dog gets shocked. Normally that’s pretty cool since it gets the dog outside when we are cooking dinner.
Unfortunately, I’ve recently upgraded our television and I’ve started to wonder if it will clash with our electrical system’s personality. My solution is a voltage regulator. My computer has one and its worked great for two years (after a series if blown power supplies). This time around I’m thinking of an APC BR1500LCD but I want to be sure this can handle voltage dips without engaging the battery (its a rather loud click). Naturally, product information was too vague and amazon reviews focused on blowhard analysis of sound system “bloom” and “emptyness”. That was useless so I went to google blog search.
When I searched for “br1500lcd” all I got was a bunch of cheesy retailers. I was stunned and a bit confused. I felt like it was 1999 and I just got a search result back from Yahoo or Alta Vista. Anyway, I just didn’t have the energy to page through twenty pages of crappy web retailers and I just bought the UPS.
Hopefully it will work out OK, and perhaps someday Google will fix blog search.
Posted by Travis Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:02:48 GMT
This is a short film created with Canon’s newest SLR camera. (yes, it does stills too… but imagine filming with the selection of lenses you get with an SLR.)
I can’t wait to see what amateurs do with this thing.
High def version is here. Yes, the camera films in 1080p.
Posted by Travis Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:35:15 GMT
This is a great summary. Today its bad, hopefully after yesterday it will stop getting worse.
Oh, the first politician to claim yesterday’s bill didn’t work because we’re in a recession gets a virtual bag of steaming dog poo on their front doorstep.
Posted by Travis Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:50:52 GMT
Do you want to know if the economic crisis is getting better or worse? I recommend you watch the TED spread. The stock market noisy, but this is a good representation of how much cash in euros and dollars is fleeing toward treasuries. In other words, this is a good judge of how scared people with lots of money are.
Posted by Travis Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:29:18 GMT
I’d love great ideas like this. The technology exists, but its a completely new application.
Posted by Travis Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:41:54 GMT
I was sent this by someone today.
When we get swept up by the rhetoric of either side in a political debate, we are resigning our responsibility to vote. We vote for someone nonexistent, or vote against someone nonexistent. This rhetoric is not debate, or argument, or even logic. It is simply meant to appeal to your emotions so you suspend reason, and do what the writer/speaker wants you to do. The writer does not respect her readers, she feels she can manipulate them. If you fall for it, you are a pawn.
Think about the tactics lawyers use. A defense lawyer tries to appeal to your pity and your guilt so you’ll ignore the damning evidence and set his client free. A prosecutor appeals to your anger so you’ll overlook the testimony of a key witness. Both are done not in defense of what is right, but in the interest of advocacy.
In politics, advocates focus on something objectionable and generally unpopular and rant about it. They scream how horrible it is, and inexcusable it could possibly be to even recognize the existence of said candidate. In this case, Do you hear what she is saying? She is saying “Stop listening. Stop learning. Stop Thinking.”
If you cannot argue both sides of an argument to the satisfaction of those that disagree with you, then you should shut your mouth and start listening. And if you’re listening to someone like that, stop.
I really believe that this is the first election in my lifetime where both candidates would be good for this country. They have deep philosophical differences and each have their advantages and disadvantages. Lets not dismiss either candidate through emotion. Lets figure out what characteristics and issues matter to us and vote based on those.
Posted by Travis Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:24:06 GMT
Its hurricane season, are you or someone you know in the path of a storm? Stormpulse is a pretty cool site that gives you the important information about current winds, path, etc. Oh, and there are no idiotic reporters standing in the wind yelling useless information into a mic.
Posted by Travis Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:42:01 GMT
More here: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/
Posted by Travis Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:59:05 GMT
As we enter another recession the college kids running around like idiots indignantly complaining about their raising tuition. Lots will be said and reported, but in the end K-12 schools and transportation will be deemed a higher priority and Tuitions will increase… again.
I’ve proposed quite a few solutions to the problem in the past. Everything centers around the fact that the majority of state college costs are subsidized by the state.
My numbers are a bit rough, but if you look at out-of-state tuition and compare it to in-state tuition, you can see how much the state pays per student.
Its been a while but the numbers are something like this per year: Community college: Instate: $720 out of state: $4500 State College: Instate: $4500 Out of state: $15225
Before financial aid, this comes out to $3700 in subsidies for each community college student and $10,725 for state college students. (The numbers are even bigger for University of California students, but you get my drift).
Previous proposals I’ve made include:
Removal of subsidies for non-vocational, non-major classes. (IE: wine tasting, art, and acting classes for 35 year old single people looking for a date).
Subsidize classes less, and allocate a subset of the saved money toward financial assistance (Thus students that can afford to pay more, do).
Stop providing remedial classes in 4-year colleges and only offer these classes in community college. (UC already does this, but state schools are teaching basic math & writing and reading classes at the $10k per year subsidy level).
Today I propose a fourth solution:
We’ve all been to college and we’ve seen the kids that only care about partying or screwing around. They often muck around for 2-3 years before dropping out and getting a job at daddy’s construction company. If they do graduate, they receive degrees in majors that don’t require any real effort. These kids are using subsidies that should be allocated to people that actually give a damn about getting an education. Additionally, they devalue college degrees in general.
Over 50% of people now go to college after high school. Obviously the days of free college in California are over, but either we need to make it more difficult (and preserve he value of a college degree), or find the money to subsidize those that really shouldn’t be there.
I don’t quite understand why Arnold doesn’t just speak the truth… but thats probably why I’m not in politics.
