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7th grade March 25th
Big test on evolution on Friday April 3rd. It will cover chapter 7, 8-1, and all the activities done in class. Start preparing early. Ms s

Big test on evolution on Friday April 3rd. It will cover chapter 7, 8-1, and all the activities done in class.  Start preparing early. Ms s 

6th grade March 19th
Remember your test on weather is on Monday. The help session will be monday at 8 am. Also due monday are your webquests on hurricanes, tornaodes, and thunderstorms. Remember if you want you can substitute a one page report on...

Remember your test on weather is on Monday. The help session will be monday at 8 am.

Also due monday are your webquests on hurricanes, tornaodes, and thunderstorms.  Remember if you want you can substitute a one page report on each topic for the same credit.

The study guide is on line for the test on monday. Study Ms s

6th March 25th
Big test on the Sun, moon, and Earth on Thursday April 2nd. Start studying your notes and worksheets. Ms s

Big test on the Sun, moon,  and Earth on Thursday April 2nd. Start studying your notes and worksheets. Ms s

7th grade Friday March 27th
Answers to 7-3 directed reading Download LS Directed Reading 7

Answers to 7-3 directed reading

Download LS Directed Reading 7

6th grade March 24th
Website for planets http://nineplanets.org/ (type in the web address) Test yesterday Test next week on sun, moon, and earth

Website for planets

http://nineplanets.org/ (type in the web address)

Test yesterday

Test next week on sun, moon, and earth

7th grade March 26th
Answers for Directed Reading ch 7 lesson 7-1 Download LS Directed Reading 7-1 Answers Give me your total out of 34 so if you miss 2, your score would be 32/34.

Answers for Directed Reading ch 7 lesson 7-1

Download LS Directed Reading 7-1 Answers

Give me your total out of 34 so if you miss 2, your score would be 32/34. 

7th grade March 27th
Answers to 7-2 Directed Reading Download LS Directed Reading 7-2 Answers

Answers to 7-2 Directed Reading

Download LS Directed Reading 7-2 Answers

What is personal space?
What is personal space? How do you define personal space to someone who is culturally unfamiliar with the concept? How do you demand that your personal boundaries be respected? Two days after our wedding, FIL questioned my beliefs on feet-touching. They practice it, of course, and with great gusto. I have grown up believing that it is [...]

An introduction to pure vitriol
I’ve put an end to late night jaunts under the pretex of needing coffee. I’d rather blog. And gleefully. My vitriol, afterall, is all over the web. Today his brother and sister in law called to chat. I was polite. They were polite. It was short because I had to go back to sleep. Later he [...]

Sikh community
Sikh community is my topic for my final online community documentary… CLICK HERE So please comment and have a look

Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser
So excited to try out Google's Chrome. I read the comic book and am interested in trying something new. It has been a long time since someone thought something new about the browser; maybe this is that new thought that allows us to make some bigger breakthroughs in user experience.

Verizon officially debuts RIM BlackBerry Storm



Well, my Christmas wishlist is officially complete. Finally, after years of limited smartphone options from Verizon, the wait is over (or at least until early November). I have been a devoted Verizon customer for many years and their 'network' is what has kept me a customer. The new Storm a.k.a. BlackBerry Thunder seems pretty amazing with it's ClickThrough suspension system that acts like a tactile button. It also boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash. The features continue.

Read the full cnet article here.

The Verizon site also has a good video of first reactions.

Bill Gates Shakes His @ss


So, we have the first results of Microsoft and Crispin Porter + Bogusky's $300,000,000 attempt to make Microsoft hip and cool in response to the rather unflattering image portrayed in Apple and TBWA Chiat Day's wildly popular Mac vs. PC campaign.

The results? Well, there's an appearance by Jerry Seinfield, and a rather laid back Bill Gates, churros, a cheap shoe store, and some mention of the product. The spot ends the camera on Bill Gates shaking it.

The final tagline reads:

Microsoft. The future. Delicious.

Hey, wait a minute, isn't delicious a variety of apple?

Red Door Interactive Announces New Blog: Red Door Buzz
We are happy to announce that after 6 years, the Red Door BizBlog has had a makeover and is now Red Door Buzz, an independently hosted blog featuring insights into Internet Presence Management, Red Door company culture, news and latest client work. Please redirect your subscriptions to http://feeds.feedburner.com/RedDoorBuzz

We look forward to continuing the conversation at Red Door Buzz!

Bill Gates Shakes His @ss: The Week After
So, a week after the Bill and Jerry Microsoft ads air, the ads have been pulled. According to Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw, the end of the Seinfeld ads was planned well in advance, and wasn't coming in response to any criticism of the spots. "All along we said we were having a teaser campaign," he said. "We're getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along."

So here's the follow up: "I'm a PC."



Well, if Crispin Porter Bogusky's media strategy was to make people talk, it worked. People talked about the Jerry and Bill ads.

But usually, teasers relate to the rest of the campaign. "I'm a PC" does have a total different look and feel. And yes, while it's empowering, I kind feel like I've seen it before and it's totally reactive to Apple's PC and Mac campaign. (Though Bill Gates does make a nice cameo while unloading the groceries out of his trunk. I wonder if he was paid the $400 extra daily rate?)

Jerry was paid $10 million to appear in the ads. That's the size of budget for many national accounts. The fact that he was a star ten years ago doesn't really help make Microsolf cutting edge, the whole goal of this campaign.

But the big question is, did the production company use Mac software to create this spot?

Inside The RIAA
A little humor from toothpastefordinner.com

Bill Gates Shakes His @ss: The Week After
So, a week after the Bill and Jerry Microsoft ads air, the ads have been pulled. According to Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw, the end of the Seinfeld ads was planned well in advance, and wasn't coming in response to any criticism of the spots. "All along we said we were having a teaser campaign," he said. "We're getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along."

So here's the follow up: "I'm a PC."



Well, if Crispin Porter Bogusky's media strategy was to make people talk, it worked. People talked about the Jerry and Bill ads.

But usually, teasers relate to the rest of the campaign. "I'm a PC" does have a total different look and feel. And yes, while it's empowering, I kind feel like I've seen it before and it's totally reactive to Apple's PC and Mac campaign. (Though Bill Gates does make a nice cameo while unloading the groceries out of his trunk. I wonder if he was paid the $400 extra daily rate?)

Jerry was paid $10 million to appear in the ads. That's the size of budget for many national accounts. The fact that he was a star ten years ago doesn't really help make Microsolf cutting edge, the whole goal of this campaign.

But the big question is, did the production company use Mac software to create this spot?

Bill Gates Shakes His @ss


So, we have the first results of Microsoft and Crispin Porter + Bogusky's $300,000,000 attempt to make Microsoft hip and cool in response to the rather unflattering image portrayed in Apple and TBWA Chiat Day's wildly popular Mac vs. PC campaign.

The results? Well, there's an appearance by Jerry Seinfield, and a rather laid back Bill Gates, churros, a cheap shoe store, and some mention of the product. The spot ends the camera on Bill Gates shaking it.

The final tagline reads:

Microsoft. The future. Delicious.

Hey, wait a minute, isn't delicious a variety of apple?

Verizon officially debuts RIM BlackBerry Storm



Well, my Christmas wishlist is officially complete. Finally, after years of limited smartphone options from Verizon, the wait is over (or at least until early November). I have been a devoted Verizon customer for many years and their 'network' is what has kept me a customer. The new Storm a.k.a. BlackBerry Thunder seems pretty amazing with it's ClickThrough suspension system that acts like a tactile button. It also boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash. The features continue.

Read the full cnet article here.

The Verizon site also has a good video of first reactions.

The Tethered Generation Creates Worried Managers
Look closely at the kid on the left. Go ahead, click on his pic so you can see the full beauty of that wonderful Mona Lisaesque smile. Good looking 18-year old, isn’t he. Too bad you can’t see his charming...

Look closely at the kid on the left. Go ahead, click on his pic so you can see the full beauty of that wonderful Mona Lisaesque smile. Good looking 18-year old, isn’t he. Too bad you can’t see his charming blue eyes. He must be an old guy now. Yep, it’s a b&w pic, but that’s how they took them in 1969, before the invention of color.

Eighteen is a serious time of life. When I posed for this freshman picture at LSU, my foremost thought was making good enough grades to keep me out of the military draft, and Viet Nam. To everyone born after 1957, which includes 75% of those in today’s workforce, you have no clue. The Viet Nam war and the active military draft ended before Uncle Sam could forcibly escort you to SE Asia. To me, an early Boomer, college education was a life or possible death decision.

Our current generation of 18-year olds, Gen Y, faces little challenge by comparison. There are few societal pressures to force them into developing planning and decision-making skills, one of the necessities of emotional maturity.

Is this merely the opinion of a former cutie-pie 18-year old turned 55-year old fogy? No. It’s fact confirmed by several neurological experts quoted in “The Tethered Generation,” an article in the May 2007 issue of HR Magazine. Since you can’t access the article with out SHRM membership, I’ve included it here for download (Tethered.pdf). 

The more I read about the coming challenges of managing Gen Y, the more I think business is in for trouble.

Transparency: One Answer To Bradult Executives, And Delinquents
Transparency has become a popular term to describe a method to curtail excessive rewards in executive compensation. John Schwarz, in Sunday’s New York Times (Download article.pdf), states that when the topic is executive compensation, the word that naturally springs to...

Transparency has become a popular term to describe a method to curtail excessive rewards in executive compensation. John Schwarz, in Sunday’s New York Times (Download article.pdf), states that when the topic is executive compensation, the word that naturally springs to mind is likely to be something like “egregious,” along with many others that are unsuitable for printing in a family newspaper.

The thought behind transparency is, if a financial agreement or transaction can be readily examined by others, the transaction will likely be kept honest. Schwarz adds,

It’s somehow fitting that officials use a big, foggy word like “transparency” when what they really mean is “not lying” and “not hiding what we’re really doing.”

If transparency means not lying or hiding, then what I was doing 30 years ago to help delinquent youth was what we are only now beginning to apply to the ethics of executive compensation. Some might say fittingly so, because executives who line their pockets with excessive, hidden compensation are no better than juvenile delinquents.

Back in the 1980s, when a delinquent youth was assigned to participate in my camp program, he or she signed a simple four-part contract. The first rule of the contract: stay within sight and sound of the camp group at all times. Transparency, pure and simple.

In my book, I tell the story of Beto, a delinquent who stole breakfast food, Pop-Tarts, from another camper’s backpack. Beto was caught red-handed. He committed his theft in the open and left Pop-Tart crumbs and jelly on his face. Transparency is embarrassing, just ask the bradult executives who’ve been caught with egg on theirs.

I like transparency. It works.

Bradult Gone Wild, Joe Francis, Cries In Court
Boo, hoo. Associated Press news reports describe how Joe Francis, 34, founder of the semi-porn video series Girls Gone Wild, cried in court this week as he was sentenced to 35 days in jail for contempt of court. Contrast this...

Boo, hoo. Associated Press news reports describe how Joe Francis, 34, founder of the semi-porn video series Girls Gone Wild, cried in court this week as he was sentenced to 35 days in jail for contempt of court. Contrast this to the bradult’s behavior as he lashed out at everyone involved in civil lawsuits brought against him for filming partially nude underage women.

Joe Francis, who makes a reported $29 million a year on videos of women found at beach parties and other occasions exposing their breasts for the camera, drew the original contempt charge during negotiations in a lawsuit brought by seven women who were minors when filmed by his production company on a Florida beach in 2003.  Attorneys for the women said Francis lost his temper in settlement negotiations and yelled obscenities at them.

U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Francis to settle the case or go to jail for contempt of court. When settlement negotiations fell through, Francis lashed out at Smoak in the media, calling him a "judge gone wild," and questioning the judge's authority to order him to settle a civil lawsuit.

This isn’t Baby Joe’s only run-in between the law and his bad behavior. The guy has a lengthy track record of juvenile-like misconduct. My congratulations to Judge Smoak, who finally put Francis where he belongs, tears or no tears.

Smoak had ordered Francis to surrender to U.S. Marshals by noon on April 5 and begin serving time on the contempt charge. Francis did not return to Panama City from his Santa Monica, California, home until the morning of April 10, when he was met at the airport by U.S. Marshals and later booked into the Bay County Jail.

Smoak sentenced Francis on Monday for ignoring the contempt order and refusing to surrender when ordered.

So, Joe, go ahead and cry your tears. It’s unfortunate you didn’t get this kind of spanking earlier in our life, say, age 6.

Starting From Scratch
Well, it was finally time to erase the old spam-filled blog database and start from scratch.  I’m 99% sure there weren’t any real blogs from any real live people in there, so the only people that should have been inconvenienced by the reboot would be the spammers and myself.  And the spammers won’t even notice, [...]

Well, it was finally time to erase the old spam-filled blog database and start from scratch.  I’m 99% sure there weren’t any real blogs from any real live people in there, so the only people that should have been inconvenienced by the reboot would be the spammers and myself.  And the spammers won’t even notice, I’m sure.

I didn’t think about saving a copy of the themes directory.  Oops.  I should grab a copy of that from backups while I can.  I lost track of how many themes I had nicely re-edited to work with the site, so that all those spam blogs would look interesting.  Of course, the spammers never thanked me for all that hard work.  Jerks.

UPDATE: Themes have been restored from backups.  Hooray for themes!

Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Inglewood with our Real Home of Genius Award. Incorporating Technology into our Economic and Financial Crisis. Shopping Cart Technology.
We are now in a “bull” market everyone!  A “leaked” Citigroup memo discusses a word that has been foreign in the banking sector for much of 2008.  Profit.  The market enjoyed that even though it is based on the same fantasy of those that believe in elves and other mythical creatures.  At least we enjoyed [...]

We are now in a “bull” market everyone!  A “leaked” Citigroup memo discusses a word that has been foreign in the banking sector for much of 2008.  Profit.  The market enjoyed that even though it is based on the same fantasy of those that believe in elves and other mythical creatures.  At least we enjoyed […]

We are now in a “bull” market everyone!  A “leaked” Citigroup memo discusses a word that has been foreign in the banking sector for much of 2008.  Profit.  The market enjoyed that even though it is based on the same fantasy of those that believe in elves and other mythical creatures.  At least we enjoyed the Lord of the Financial Rings on Tuesday and the market shot up like it was flying on the next NASA rocket.  Next, we have Boom Boom Helicopter Bernanke talking tough about how to solve the market and how we can prevent this mess from ever happening again (as if we are in the clear now).  So today’s rally was based more on technical resistance and mere exhaustion of the market being so incredibly down for 2009:

So it looks like we have support at 666 which of course is interesting to say the least.  The market shot up bouncing off resistance like a basketball.  The Dow was up 5.8%, the S&P 500 up 6.37%, and the Nasdaq shot up 7.07%.  It would be one thing if this bounce was precipitated by good news but it wasn’t.  It was purely a technical bear market rally.  Plus, throwing the book at Bernard Madoff probably helped a bit as a catharsis but there are higher criminals out in the markets operating.  I know the pundits are salivating and we may in fact have a run up for some time but it will not occur because the fundamentals of the economy are sound.  In fact, even after this historic rally the markets are down for 2009 by:

Dow:                     21%

S&P 500:              20%

Nasdaq:               13%

Today’s home is another piece of evidence why the California housing market will not be bottoming out until 2011.  This home is located in Inglewood California [hat tip HG] and includes a new variation of marketing.  The new technique is called shopping cart technology version 2.0.  Why would someone use such a technique?  Think about the psychological implication of this for buyers; there is a deep connection of a shopping cart and buying stuff!  Today we salute you Inglewood with our Real Homes of Genius Award.

Inglewood - Real Estate and Google Come Together

I’m always curious as to why people take pictures like this when they are selling something “worth” hundreds of thousands of dollars.  In other Real Homes of Genius we have seen people leaving trash cans on their lawn as if this was a symbolic gesture or garden gnome.  Yet I had not seen a home with a shopping cart in the real estate ads I have looked through.  There is always a first for everything.

This home is 832 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath.  The ad tells us that this is a “tear down” and that it is being sold “as-is.”  You would think that if you were trying to sell a home like this you would at least remove the shopping cart from the picture but hey, this is California and anything can sell including homes with shopping carts parked on the front lawn.  Or was that the mantra for 2005?

Nothing highlights the decline in prices in Inglewood like this chart:

According to the above chart, the peak reached in Inglewood was $508,000 which is downright nutty.  I went ahead and pulled up the zip code data and the median price for last month was $365,000 which tells us nothing since the sample size is one home being sold.  There is no sales history on the place so the angle here is that this place is being sold for the land.  So what is the asking price?

$250,000

That is right.  $250,000 for an 832 square foot home in Inglewood.  And people think the bottom is here.  We have yet to factor in the ominous wave of Option ARMs and Alt-A loans that’ll be hitting the market in 2009 through 2012.  And thanks to Google Street View technology, we can get an idea of what we are buying here for $250,000:

Now this gives you a much better perspective right?  You can see that this home is situated right next to an alley.  You can also see all the additional amenities that you will get when you buy this place.  Let us get another perspective of the neighborhood:

As you can tell, one side of the street is full of apartments.  So to buy this place to live in would seem extremely expensive.  But let us put on our investor hats and see what we can come up with.  We are told in the ad you can possible build “10 units” but are then told to check with the city so who really knows.  Let us just assume that we will be building four units on the lot.

First, let us do some searching on local area rents:

Okay, we are simply doing a quick check here and it looks like we can build 1 bedroom places and rent them out at approximately $800 per month.  So in total, we will be receiving $3,200 in cash flow simply from the rents assuming we manage the properties ourselves and have them occupied at all times.

But that is only one side of the equation.  You need to remember that given how tight the credit markets are right now, you will need to go in with 30% down for investment properties:

$250,000 x 30% = $75,000 down payment

And this merely gets us the property.  How much to tear down the home?  Also, how much is it going to cost to build each unit?  We are talking hundreds of thousands more.  You think it is hard to get a loan for an investment property?  Try getting a loan for demolishing and building more housing especially in California!

So even on the home alone, you will be carrying a mortgage of $175,000 probably at 7% or higher since it will be an investment property loan.  Let us do the math on this note alone:

PITI:  $1,424

And that is simply the cost to buy the home as is with doing nothing and going down with $75,000.  Try factoring in the building cost and everything else and that $3,200 is gone.  10-units?  If that is the case you are talking about years down the road before you turn a profit.

So instead of listening to those pundits telling you we are at a bottom, just do the math and you’ll realize we are still far away from any bottom at least here in California.

Today we salute you Inglewood with our Real Homes of Genius Award.

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Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Inglewood with our Real Home of Genius Award. Incorporating Technology into our Economic and Financial Crisis. Shopping Cart Technology.

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China to U.S.: Shore up your financial sector, or else
Filed under: China, Politics, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s comments on Friday were blunt and pointed. In effect, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve absolutely must assure China on the safety of its investment in the United States. If we read between the lines, Mr. Wen told the U.S. that it must [...]

Filed under: China, Politics, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s comments on Friday were blunt and pointed. In effect, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve absolutely must assure China on the safety of its investment in the United States. If we read between the lines, Mr. Wen told the U.S. that it must shore up its financial mess and that China will not stand for any more uncertainty in the U.S. banking sector.

The Chinese government is the largest holder of U.S. public debt. Officials in China are becoming increasingly concerned about the sharp increase in U.S. government spending. They worry it will lead to inflation and the collapse of the U.S. dollar.

Continue reading China to U.S.: Shore up your financial sector, or else

China to U.S.: Shore up your financial sector, or else originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comfort Zone Investing: Are these stocks bargains?
Filed under: General Electric (GE), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Bank of America (BAC), Amer Intl Group (AIG), Comfort Zone Investing Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth and Sleep Well at Night. In this weekly column, he’ll offer advice to investors who [...]

Filed under: General Electric (GE), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Bank of America (BAC), Amer Intl Group (AIG), Comfort Zone Investing

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth and Sleep Well at Night. In this weekly column, he’ll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) at $8.75. Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) at $1.40. Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) at $4.75. General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) at $1.90. Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) at $1.75. These numbers don’t seem possible, but they are. If you’re tempted to buy any of them or many other big names (like American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) or Ambac or Beazer Homes (NYSE: BZH)) that seem to be selling for prices never imagined, here’s some advice: Know that you don’t know enough to make an intelligent investment decision.

Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: Are these stocks bargains?

Comfort Zone Investing: Are these stocks bargains? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Modern Banking System is Like a Broken Dam: At 8% Annual Compounded Growth it would take us 11 years to reach the Peak of the S&P 500. Old Ideas and Prophets Falling Hard.
Before reading this article, I would like you to take a deep breath.  Okay?  If you feel like candy bursting out of this broken economic piñata, you are not alone.  Things are dire and virtually every piece of news we read reinforces this premise.  On Wednesday, we had a nice technical rally and you should [...]

Before reading this article, I would like you to take a deep breath.  Okay?  If you feel like candy bursting out of this broken economic piñata, you are not alone.  Things are dire and virtually every piece of news we read reinforces this premise.  On Wednesday, we had a nice technical rally and you should […]

Before reading this article, I would like you to take a deep breath.  Okay?  If you feel like candy bursting out of this broken economic piñata, you are not alone.  Things are dire and virtually every piece of news we read reinforces this premise.  On Wednesday, we had a nice technical rally and you should have seen the glimmer of hope in the eyes of those on the cable financial shows.  We all want a recovery but a recovery based on hard work and getting back to what is financially prudent.  Not the talking heads.  They could care less about the ADP employment report that showed 697,000 jobs lost in the month of February.  All they cared about was whether a handful of gluttonous financial stocks moved one or two points because the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are intravenously pumping capital into the veins of these flailing institutions while allowing the American taxpayer to flounder like a carp yanked out of the stream.

The poorly planned Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of 2008 has been a complete boondoggle.  How have things gone in the stock market since the TARP came about?  Well let us take a look:

Since TARP version 1.0 was signed into law on October 3^rd, 2008 the S&P 500 is down approximately 38%.  Think about this for a bit.  We are talking about 5 months ago and the market has shed nearly 40% of its value.  From the 2007 peak, we are now off by a mind boggling 56.4% putting us back to levels not seen since 1996.  Can you even remember what you were doing back in 1996?  In 1996 here in Santa Monica the civil tiral of O.J. Simpson was beginning.  We are now past the lost decade estimate at least in terms of equities and this puts us in the realm of witnessing our own lost decade similar to Japan.  The unfortunate thing is we followed many of the policies that Japan did with their failed banks yet expected a different result.  People are now claiming that stocks are a bargain.  These people were cheering the market on Wednesday only to get reamed on Thursday after Citigroup went into the penny stock territory and the survivability of GM is now in question.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, the mainstream financial pundits really have very little knowledge regarding economics.  What they are good at is hyperventilating like a hypochrondiac entering a hospital when the market is up or down.

Our Banking System is a Broken Dam

The reason capital injections are failing is rather simple.  Imagine a dam.  A gigantic dam constructed with the best material and concrete found in America.  Initially engineers find out that there is a tiny crack starting to form but choose to ignore it.

“Don’t worry!  This dam is so big a tiny crack will be no problem.”

Yet as time goes by, the crack splits wide open.  The engineers ignore the water pouring out of the system because storm after storm has replenished the supply and the gaping hole is simply replenished by new water coming in.  That is, until the storms stop coming.

Suddenly, the big hole explodes and water is gushing out.  The engineers call upon locals and dip into their water reserves trying to replenish the dam but keep on ignoring the massive damage caused by that tiny crack.  Water is poured in but simply flows out just as quickly.  The hole is now too big to repair.  They never constructed any mechanism or safeguards because they believed no crack would ever occur and even if it did, rain would come.  At this point, all they can do is wait for the water to rush out and construct a better dam for the future.

This I believe is what is happening with our current banking system.  We can keep injecting capital but the gates of financial hell are now open and any money we throw into the system will be burned in a fiery end.  If you need any evidence of this just examine AIG and what a colossal mess that has become.

I’ve constructed a chart showing some of the biggest TARP recipients.  I’ve also included their stock price as of the day when the TARP was signed into law:

What a sigh of relief!  If it weren’t for that wonderfully planned TARP, we might actually need 3 shiny quarters to buy one share of Citigroup but thanks to trillions of taxpayer bailouts, we can with a smile buy one share for one whole dollar!  Just take a look at the above chart carefully.  We have absolutely flushed money away into the broken dam known as our banking system and the plan isn’t to reform the system and root out the corrupt crony capitalist; no, instead our plan is to give these same institutions more money and believe that they will do well.  What an absurdidty!  We are giving banks money so they can then, not give it back to us!

When in the world are we going to see major trials and putting some of these criminals away?  We are starting to see some seeds of this anger boil over with the inquiries into UBS and American tax evaders.  It is estimated that $18 billion is off the books.  These banks including foreign institutions are walking zombies and you can ask Japan how that worked out for them after 8 major stimulus plans and countless capital injections.  It is understandable that many people have forgotten about the Great Depression but there is no excuse for not paying attention to the lessons from Japan.  The hubris on Wall Street is incredible.

If you think things are bad, you’ll know we are starting to reach a bottom when we can construct a book on all the horrible calls made during this bubble collapse.  Let us take a lesson from the Great Depression:

“The autumn of 1931 brought also an outburst of laughter.  When old certainties topple, when old prophets are discredited, one can at least enjoy their downfall.  By this time people had reached the point of laughing at Oh, Yeah, a small book in which were collected the glib prophecies made by bankers and statesmen at the onset of the Depression; of relishing the gossipy irreverence of Washington Merry-Go-Round, which deflated the reputations of dignified statesmen of Washington; of getting belly-laughs from a new magazine, Ballyhoo, whose circulation rocketed to more than a million as it ridiculed everything in business and politics, even the sacred cow of advertising; and of applauding wildly the new musical comedy, “Of Thee I Sing,” which made a farce of the political scene, represented the vice-president of the United States, Alexander Throttlebottom, as getting lost in a sight-seeing party in the White House, represented a presidential candidate as campaigning with Love as his platform, and garbled the favorite business slogan of 1930 into a slogan for newly-weds: “Posterity is just around the corner.”

We may actually be arriving at a point where we can laugh at the absurd hypocrisy of it all and this is highlighted buy the nightly take down of our business “leaders” and so-called expert financial channels:

*Hat-tip Calculated Risk

I ran a quick calculation to see how long it would take the S&P 500 to reach its high of 1,576 from its current 682.55.  Assuming a nice rate of 8% each year (heck, this is close to the Bernard Madoff rate) it would take us 11 years before we see those 2007 highs again!  Do you really see 8% yearly gains for 11 straight years after the trillions we have dumped into bailing out failing banks and poorly managed institutions?  Forget about a lost decade, we are now getting close to having two lost decades.  Now tell me, what will you be doing in 2027?

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The Modern Banking System is Like a Broken Dam: At 8% Annual Compounded Growth it would take us 11 years to reach the Peak of the S&P 500. Old Ideas and Prophets Falling Hard.

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Earnings highlights: Citigroup, Kroger, Staples, J. Crew, National Semiconductor and more
Filed under: Earnings reports, McDonald’s (MCD), Citigroup Inc. (C), Kroger Co (KR), Staples Inc (SPLS), Smithfield Foods (SFD), Texas Instruments (TXN), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) Here are some highlights from this past week’s earnings coverage from BloggingStocks: Aeropostale Inc. (NYSE: ARO) reported strong Q4 numbers as same-store sales increased. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (NYSE: AEO) same-store [...]

Filed under: Earnings reports, McDonald’s (MCD), Citigroup Inc. (C), Kroger Co (KR), Staples Inc (SPLS), Smithfield Foods (SFD), Texas Instruments (TXN), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO)

Here are some highlights from this past week’s earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aeropostale Inc. (NYSE: ARO) reported strong Q4 numbers as same-store sales increased.
• American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (NYSE: AEO) same-store sales fell in Q4 but earnings met expectations.
• ArcSight Inc. (NASDAQ: ARST) continued its growth in Q3 and it forecast continued growth.
• Buckle Inc. (NYSE: BKE) posted a better-than-expected Q4 profit and continued same-store sales growth.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) CEO said in a memo that it earned a profit in the first two months of this quarter.
• Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS) beat Q4 earnings estimates but same-store sales fell.

Continue reading Earnings highlights: Citigroup, Kroger, Staples, J. Crew, National Semiconductor and more

Earnings highlights: Citigroup, Kroger, Staples, J. Crew, National Semiconductor and more originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Accident de La Route
Hi to u all, i do hope that you have heard and read about the accident at Montagne Longue. The article appeared on L’Express of 15th January 2007: However, let me explain something to you: All people in the accident are my neighbours(except for Sabeyroon)… Today(18/01/2007), Firdose-the 19yr Old married woman breath out her last breath at around [...]

Independance Day
As you may all have noticed, we are living in the Independance dream these last days and till 12th March….The concept of “Patrimoine Nationale” arises only prior to the great celebration…. Instead of focusing on the festivities on the 12th March 2007 and the flag raising ceremony at 18hr at Caudan - which is, by the [...]

iPhone prototype caught on video [del.icio.us]

The Internet
The Internet: a never-ending nightmare where the same tortured poem of talking points is read endlessly by a mob of brain-dead zombies, each reciting their favorite line before going in search of fresh flesh to rend, and ultimately signifying nothing, without even any sound or fury. -Andrew Leonard Or not. Some days I’m not sure. [...]

Telegraph Road
…the development of the telegraph and the telephone, which shrunk space and time, blew apart the gentle pace of colonial times. -Derrick de Kerckhove

Globalization
“Globalizing the economy may well be necessary - a continuous metaphor even - for the globalization of our personal psychology through psychotechnologies. The most interesting question here is: how does the individual relate to such a situation?” -Derrick de Kerckhove

Some Comfort
Amanda Marcotte: If anything comforts me in the face of the increasingly agitated fundamentalism in America, it’s that they have no clue how to compete with the pleasures of living available to most of us, pleasures that help assist us in telling them all to fuck off. Quite.  This is an interesting thing about the culture wars [...]

Starvation
People are spiritually starved, and feel, just below the surface, that their culture is strangling them. -Tom the Butcher (via Gene Weingarten)

Mistakes that Money Managers Make
Cameron Hight posts a list of the top mistakes that money managers make: Confidence Bias- only search for information to support your thesis Good Stock Paradox- as expected return decreases, firms up exposure Value Trap- limited downside with no inherent upside Risk/Reward- misconception that greater risk is required for higher returns Dealing with Losers- must analyze losers through process, not [...]

Cameron Hight posts a list of the top mistakes that money managers make:

1. Confidence Bias- only search for information to support your thesis
2. Good Stock Paradox- as expected return decreases, firms up exposure
3. Value Trap- limited downside with no inherent upside
4. Risk/Reward- misconception that greater risk is required for higher returns
5. Dealing with Losers- must analyze losers through process, not results
6. ETF Hedge- improper use of ETFs as a hedge
7. Best Idea- must make your best idea your biggest position
8. Position Overload- better to have less positions with more positive returns

More from Cameron over at the HedgeCo.Net Hedge Fund Blogs

LG Netflix enabled TVs and the convergence of technology
This new TV that LG is coming out with is pretty awesome. I’ve got a computer plugged into my LCD LG screen that I use to stream from both Netflix as well as Hulu, Youtube, Vimeo and other streaming video sources. The other day Mia (6) wanted to watch something on Netflix and I told her to [...]

This new TV that LG is coming out with is pretty awesome.

I’ve got a computer plugged into my LCD LG screen that I use to stream from both Netflix as well as Hulu, Youtube, Vimeo and other streaming video sources.

The other day Mia (6) wanted to watch something on Netflix and I told her to turn the computer on as well as the TV. She turned around and asked “Why do I have to turn on the computer, I already turned on the TV”. This simple question made it clear how irrelevant the computer (as a stand-alone unit) has become to the next generation.

Nuff said - computers are dead

Hello world!
Welcome to Bloxi.jp. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! Welcome to Bloxi.jp. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Working on my first AIG script
for future reference here is where the fun happens: http://help.pbxtra.com/Troubleshooting/FON_Script_Interface#Fon_Script_Interface_Overview

for future reference here is where the fun happens:

http://help.pbxtra.com/Troubleshooting/FON_Script_Interface#Fon_Script_Interface_Overview

Seven habits of effective text editing
I am not sure how I have never read this. Gotta read it…

I am not sure how I have never read this. Gotta read it…

I
Yesterday i had to wait for 3 minutes for my Espresso Truffle, so the barrista gave me a coupon for a free drink! Today I come in and they give me 2 drinks free!!! \o/

Yesterday i had to wait for 3 minutes for my Espresso Truffle, so the barrista gave me a coupon for a free drink!

Today I come in and they give me 2 drinks free!!!

\o/

I’ve made the Whopper Sacrifice :(
I think I’m a friendly guy - but when it comes to free whoppers, no holds are barred! Here’s the list of friends I had to sacrifice for my Whopper. Tish Das: You’re a crazy straight-teethed chick magnet - you enjoy the view from the top of your Manhattan condo - I’m having a whopper! (oh [...]

I think I’m a friendly guy - but when it comes to free whoppers, no holds are barred! Here’s the list of friends I had to sacrifice for my Whopper.

1. Tish Das: You’re a crazy straight-teethed chick magnet - you enjoy the view from the top of your Manhattan condo - I’m having a whopper! (oh BTW, you’re still cool with me crashing at your crib on the 27th right? awesome!)
2. Sunman Returns: Best all-round designer on EARTH - I never thought it would end this way
3. Brett Eigel: What’s up couz? You know what they say - food before family!
4. Cathy: What can I say… tough times
5. Chris Cornutt: The most obsessive PHP blogger ever! I appreciate the years of work you’ve put into PHPDeveloper.org. Maybe we can go out for a burger sometime!
6. Clare Parker: I am sure you understand the lengths that one must go to for an extraordinary deal!!! I was thinking - I might take the day off on Monday the 16th of FEB… do you have anything planned for that long weekend??? Sorry, I would have sent you a fb message, but well… you’re not my friend anymore
7. Davey: Best programmer ever! I don’t need you as a fb friend - your awesomeness transcends social networks! Wouldn’t it be crazy if this meme killed facebook???
8. Dawn Alba: Craziest West Palm Beach Party animal ever… you eat the tomatoes you just got from the green market. I’m going for a whopper!!!
9. Scott Sigler: Now that Contagious is a New York Times best seller - you have no need for your OJs… (and I’m almost done with that site)
10. Stella: Now, that I’ve done it I have realized how short-sighted it was to sacrifice my wife, who cleans up after me, takes care of the kids, not to mention being my best friend and … OMG! the gravity of what I have done is just sinking in … I’ve un-friended the person cooks delicious meals for me every single day for 1 lowly whopper. You’re not going to take this personally? I’m really really sorry!!! We can still be friends right? Can I make up to you by adding you right back??? We can split the Whopper I’ll go on that diet we were talking about yesterday (right after I eat my whopper!) OK?? Good - that was close

Now you too can make the Whopper Sacrifice!

Madoff update
I’m wondering how much influence this blog (which never posts anything of value) has. The last story I linked to (below) got over 600 views. The article I posted yesterday on the hedgeco blog, got only a fraction of those hits. So… here we go again Link to update on Madoff scandal! Madoff & Credit [...]

I’m wondering how much influence this blog (which never posts anything of value) has. The last story I linked to (below) got over 600 views. The article I posted yesterday on the hedgeco blog, got only a fraction of those hits.

So… here we go again

Link to update on Madoff scandal! Madoff & Credit Suisse - how did a major bank lose $925.9 mln? I’m also working on a list of feeder funds that were effected by this debacle. Maybe I’ll post that today

HedgeCo Hedge Fund Blogs
Over at HedgeCo we’ve been blogging for a while, but only today are we making it official with this press release. The most recent post is a great one by Bret Rosenthal that gives a good round up of the Bernard Madoff scam, and how it should have been smelled MILES away. So get over there right [...]

Over at HedgeCo we’ve been blogging for a while, but only today are we making it official with this press release.

The most recent post is a great one by Bret Rosenthal that gives a good round up of the Bernard Madoff scam, and how it should have been smelled MILES away.

So get over there right away and plug the rss into your aggregator!

Blog round up on Thierry de la Villehuchet
Read my round up on the Thierry de la Villehuchet / Madoff mess here.

Read my round up on the Thierry de la Villehuchet / Madoff mess here.

Bye Bye E-Learning: Emergent Learning Paradigm More Important Than Digital Delivery Tools
You always hear educators discuss "rethinking education paradigms". But while it makes perfectly sense to find new ways to engage and connect teachers and learners, what is the right path educators should follow? Jay Cross shares his view in this article. Instead of still focusing on digital delivery tools, emergent learning seems to be the answer. Photo credit: Mopic

Before the World Trade Center attack, the world was more predictable. Knowledge was power. Adaptability has now taken its place. Our requirements have changed.

Adaptability. This is the starting point where educators should begin reconsidering the role of the education system. In a wold where uncertainty seem to be the dominating feeling, it is crucial to get rid of all the pre-packaged theories and approaches in favor of new learning patterns that can adapt to different needs and situations. That\'s why informal learning champion Jay Cross suggests a shift from "old" e-learning paradigms to emergent learning. In his own words:

Emergence is the key characteristic of complex systems. It is the process by which simple entities self-organize to form something more complex. Emergence is also what happened to that "utopian dream" of e-learning on the way to the future.

Here all the details:

Emergent Learning

by Jay Cross

Intro

That future has arrived. Today a healthy percentage of learning in corporations is technology-assisted. At first we thought it was all about content, but context-free courseware failed for lack of human support. Pioneering online communities turned into ghost towns. Then we realized that e-learning is a bundle of capabilities, not a silver bullet. When e-learning technology supplements traditional learning, it usually saves time, money and drudgery. Properly implemented, e-learning is a powerful, cost-effective tool. No longer the "next big thing," e-learning has hit the mainstream.

Adaptability Is the Key

Before the World Trade Center attack, the world was more predictable. Knowledge was power. Adaptability has now taken its place. Our requirements have changed. Corporations and government agencies are on permanent alert. Networks have taken the slack out of the system. Timing is the critical variable. The performance metrics for troops on a plane headed to a new hot spot and for systems engineers countering a new competitive threat are the same: How soon will they be ready to perform. Top-down, command-and-control organizations can no longer keep pace. Flexible hyper-organizations are sprouting up in their place. Teams, in-house functions, outsource providers and customers are linked in fluid, ever-changing value networks. Resilient organizations copy the architecture of the Internet: lots of independent nodes with the ability to route around damage. People farthest from the center sense changes in the environment first, so managers wisely take control by giving control. Bottom-up organizations adjust to change as effortlessly as flocks of turning birds, while old structures are too rigid to change without sustaining damage. This is shaky ground for the traditional training-and-development world. Biologists and complexity theorists have seen it all before.

Adaptive Systems

Businesses are complex adaptive systems. In a complex system, independent pieces join together to form something entirely different and unexpected. The best metaphor for a complex adaptive system is a living thing. Take a complex system apart, and you no longer have a complex system. As Verna Allee writes, "Cut a cow in half and you don\'t have two cows. You have a mess." In their book, "It\'s Alive," management theorists Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer make a compelling case that business entities are living, complex systems. Many nodes-brains-come together to form something new-the corporate body. As my friend David Grebow says, it even has a Corporate IQ and, according to author David Batestone, a Corporate Soul.

E-learning vs Emergent Learning

Emergence is the key characteristic of complex systems. It is the process by which simple entities self-organize to form something more complex. Emergence is also what happened to that "utopian dream" of e-learning on the way to the future. Simple, old e-learning has combined with bottom-up self-organizing systems, network effects and today\'s environment to morph into emergent learning. Emergent learning implies adaptation to the environment, timeliness, flexibility and space for co-creation. It is the future. We haven\'t figured it out yet. Or, from the perspective of complexity science, it hasn\'t figured itself out yet. Why do I suggest abandoning a word like e-learning? A new term refocuses our thinking on the future. We\'ve got to cultivate emergent learning. Emergent learning encourages experiment and innovation; e-learning fosters incrementalism and complacency. Learning has become a core business process. Emergent learning enables us to push beyond the confines of e-learning to explore combinations with informal learning, storytelling, social network analysis, appreciative inquiry, workflow learning, conversation, contextual collaboration, organic KM, simulation, dynamic portals, expert location and blogs. I foresee exciting times ahead.

Originally written by Jay Cross and first published on Chief Learning Officer Magazine on March 1, 2004 as "Emergent Learning".

About the author Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, Web 2.0, and systems thinking. He served as CEO of eLearning Forum for its first five years and has keynoted major conferences in the U.S. and Europe. He is the author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance. Jay Cross currently helps teams apply informal / Web 2.0 learning approaches to foster collaboration and accelerate performance. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School.

Photo credits: Adaptability Is the Key - bornholm Adaptive Systems - ssh E-Learning vs Emergent Learning - Elena Volegzhanina ...

You always hear educators discuss "rethinking education paradigms". But while it makes perfectly sense to find new ways to engage and connect teachers and learners, what is the right path educators should follow? Jay Cross shares his view in this article. Instead of still focusing on digital delivery tools, emergent learning seems to be the answer. Photo credit: Mopic

Before the World Trade Center attack, the world was more predictable. Knowledge was power. Adaptability has now taken its place. Our requirements have changed.

Adaptability. This is the starting point where educators should begin reconsidering the role of the education system. In a wold where uncertainty seem to be the dominating feeling, it is crucial to get rid of all the pre-packaged theories and approaches in favor of new learning patterns that can adapt to different needs and situations. That's why informal learning champion Jay Cross suggests a shift from "old" e-learning paradigms to emergent learning. In his own words:

Emergence is the key characteristic of complex systems. It is the process by which simple entities self-organize to form something more complex. Emergence is also what happened to that "utopian dream" of e-learning on the way to the future.

Here all the details:

Emergent Learning

by Jay Cross

Intro

That future has arrived. Today a healthy percentage of learning in corporations is technology-assisted. At first we thought it was all about content, but context-free courseware failed for lack of human support. Pioneering online communities turned into ghost towns. Then we realized that e-learning is a bundle of capabilities, not a silver bullet. When e-learning technology supplements traditional learning, it usually saves time, money and drudgery. Properly implemented, e-learning is a powerful, cost-effective tool. No longer the "next big thing," e-learning has hit the mainstream.

Adaptability Is the Key

Before the World Trade Center attack, the world was more predictable. Knowledge was power. Adaptability has now taken its place. Our requirements have changed. Corporations and government agencies are on permanent alert. Networks have taken the slack out of the system. Timing is the critical variable. The performance metrics for troops on a plane headed to a new hot spot and for systems engineers countering a new competitive threat are the same: How soon will they be ready to perform. Top-down, command-and-control organizations can no longer keep pace. Flexible hyper-organizations are sprouting up in their place. Teams, in-house functions, outsource providers and customers are linked in fluid, ever-changing value networks. Resilient organizations copy the architecture of the Internet: lots of independent nodes with the ability to route around damage. People farthest from the center sense changes in the environment first, so managers wisely take control by giving control. Bottom-up organizations adjust to change as effortlessly as flocks of turning birds, while old structures are too rigid to change without sustaining damage. This is shaky ground for the traditional training-and-development world. Biologists and complexity theorists have seen it all before.

Adaptive Systems

Businesses are complex adaptive systems. In a complex system, independent pieces join together to form something entirely different and unexpected. The best metaphor for a complex adaptive system is a living thing. Take a complex system apart, and you no longer have a complex system. As Verna Allee writes, "Cut a cow in half and you don't have two cows. You have a mess." In their book, "It's Alive," management theorists Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer make a compelling case that business entities are living, complex systems. Many nodes-brains-come together to form something new-the corporate body. As my friend David Grebow says, it even has a Corporate IQ and, according to author David Batestone, a Corporate Soul.

E-learning vs Emergent Learning

Emergence is the key characteristic of complex systems. It is the process by which simple entities self-organize to form something more complex. Emergence is also what happened to that "utopian dream" of e-learning on the way to the future. Simple, old e-learning has combined with bottom-up self-organizing systems, network effects and today's environment to morph into emergent learning. Emergent learning implies adaptation to the environment, timeliness, flexibility and space for co-creation. It is the future. We haven't figured it out yet. Or, from the perspective of complexity science, it hasn't figured itself out yet. Why do I suggest abandoning a word like e-learning? A new term refocuses our thinking on the future. We've got to cultivate emergent learning. Emergent learning encourages experiment and innovation; e-learning fosters incrementalism and complacency. Learning has become a core business process. Emergent learning enables us to push beyond the confines of e-learning to explore combinations with informal learning, storytelling, social network analysis, appreciative inquiry, workflow learning, conversation, contextual collaboration, organic KM, simulation, dynamic portals, expert location and blogs. I foresee exciting times ahead.

Originally written by Jay Cross and first published on Chief Learning Officer Magazine on March 1, 2004 as "Emergent Learning".

About the author Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, Web 2.0, and systems thinking. He served as CEO of eLearning Forum for its first five years and has keynoted major conferences in the U.S. and Europe. He is the author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance. Jay Cross currently helps teams apply informal / Web 2.0 learning approaches to foster collaboration and accelerate performance. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School.

Photo credits: Adaptability Is the Key - bornholm Adaptive Systems - ssh E-Learning vs Emergent Learning - Elena Volegzhanina

Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Mistakes
Good reminder list to have pinned somewhere in your workstation.

Good reminder list to have pinned somewhere in your workstation.

✓

Why Googlers Quit
By Googlers, I mean Google employees. Normally I don’t like to link to any A-list blogger (they get enough coverage as it is), but this is a good collection of comments from ex-Google employees about why they quit their job. Special mention to the comment that says that TechCrunch got paid by Microsoft for that [...]

By Googlers, I mean Google employees. Normally I don’t like to link to any A-list blogger (they get enough coverage as it is), but this is a good collection of comments from ex-Google employees about why they quit their job. Special mention to the comment that says that TechCrunch got paid by Microsoft for that article.

✓

✓ Rapid Response Twitter Script
I’ve always wanted Twitter to have an easier way to contact people if I’m not following them. Finding them is a pain in itself, so jumping more hoops to send them a message or reply is adding to the custard. Plus, it has been a while since I played around with Greasemonkey, having moved away [...]

I’ve always wanted Twitter to have an easier way to contact people if I’m not following them. Finding them is a pain in itself, so jumping more hoops to send them a message or reply is adding to the custard. Plus, it has been a while since I played around with Greasemonkey, having moved away from Firefox about 3 months back and all. Hence, this is a little community giveaway sort of thing.

RRTS adds a nice little box to all Twitter profiles (including your own for the moment), which you can use to reply to that person immediately. Just install the script (it’ll ask you for your credentials¹), and visit people’s profiles. You’ll see the box, in which you just type the message (forget the ‘@username’ — the script adds that itself), and submit. Presto!

I haven’t tested this too extensively, so expect bugs. You know where to find me.

Further

Rapid Response Twitter Script
All my userscripts

Google Quick Search Box
We didn’t really need this, because we have Spotlight for all our immediate needs. I would have (in some capacity) preferred a Google Search plugin for Spotlight, so that I’m not installing multiple applications that do almost the same thing, but do that one thing different. Of course, this will be a godsend for Tiger [...]

We didn’t really need this, because we have Spotlight for all our immediate needs. I would have (in some capacity) preferred a Google Search plugin for Spotlight, so that I’m not installing multiple applications that do almost the same thing, but do that one thing different. Of course, this will be a godsend for Tiger users, whose Spotlight isn’t as good as Leopard’s.

It does have potential, since it tries to mimic Quicksilver. We’ll see how this actually progresses.

✓

✓ Talk at Wordcamp India 2009
I gave a talk at Wordcamp India ‘09 today, and thought about sharing the presentation with people who showed interest in it, or couldn’t make it. SlideShare was being a pain, but I finally managed to upload the presentation in the native Keynote format. Hope you find it useful. Personal Presence using Wordpress and AIR EDIT: Here’s [...]

I gave a talk at Wordcamp India ‘09 today, and thought about sharing the presentation with people who showed interest in it, or couldn’t make it. SlideShare was being a pain, but I finally managed to upload the presentation in the native Keynote format. Hope you find it useful.

Personal Presence using Wordpress and AIR

EDIT: Here’s a PDF version of the same for download: Talk at Wordcamp India ‘09

Salma Hayek - Hartford Courant
It’s one of the most urgent questions facing men of a certain age today, particularly in Latin American countries, a question that strikes at one’s core values and affirms one’s identity as a soccer-mad, tequila-swigging, red-blooded varon. That >>> Read more ‘Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen’ 7 p.m., Disney Channel If [...]

It’s one of the most urgent questions facing men of a certain age today, particularly in Latin American countries, a question that strikes at one’s core values and affirms one’s identity as a soccer-mad, tequila-swigging, red-blooded varon. That >>> Read more

‘Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen’ 7 p.m., Disney Channel If making mountains out of molehills were a sport, Lola (Lindsay Lohan, right) would have her varsity letter. The temperamental title character of this 2004 comedy faces traumas galore >>> Read more

Sponsored by: index 3

How snakes charm humans - Health 24
When pitching the more eccentric story ideas at Health24, it s necessary to persuade our editor that there s a health angle in there somewhere. Snake handling, a skill I d lately been feeling incomplete without, seemed a cinch as regards >>> [...]

When pitching the more eccentric story ideas at Health24, it s necessary to persuade our editor that there s a health angle in there somewhere. Snake handling, a skill I d lately been feeling incomplete without, seemed a cinch as regards >>> Read more

Sponsored by: how to make every adsense ad on the google netw

Un joli fake pour commencer l'année 2009 : le Macbook Wheel
On est habitué aux Fake sur internet , celui la a très bien performé!

How snakes charm humans - Health 24
When pitching the more eccentric story ideas at Health24, it s necessary to persuade our editor that there s a health angle in there somewhere. Snake handling, a skill I d lately been feeling incomplete without, seemed a cinch as regards >>> [...]

When pitching the more eccentric story ideas at Health24, it s necessary to persuade our editor that there s a health angle in there somewhere. Snake handling, a skill I d lately been feeling incomplete without, seemed a cinch as regards >>> Read more

Anger unites us all. Everyone feels it at some point, be it a mild flicker of irritation for that harmonica-playing jackass in the apartment above you or the intense rage that overcomes you at 2 a.m. when you decide to go up there, bang down the door >>> Read more

It’s one of the most urgent questions facing men of a certain age today, particularly in Latin American countries, a question that strikes at one’s core values and affirms one’s identity as a soccer-mad, tequila-swigging, red-blooded varon. That >>> Read more

VANCOUVER, June 13 /CNW/ - There’s a new celebrity sliding gracefully towards the Red Carpet scene. Meet the fabulous Ms. Ana Conda and her main squeeze, international variety entertainer Michael Harrison. Photos at: http://www.funnyguy.ca/links.htm >>> Read more

Sponsored by: adsense is stupid when

Elevator Pitch
Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner asked, “What’s Your Book About?” on her Rants and Ramblings blog.  The elevator pitch exercise was to help writers to sharpen their verbal skills in the hypothetical scenario.  Her post recieved 120 comments!  Now she is taking the next few days to critique and lend her expertise on the pitches that were submitted. What a [...]

Word Power
Here are some words to reconsider using when writing.  I’ve posted some links to some articles that help writers make better use of their words , creating powerful, strong, efficient, and tight sentences.   Caveat - These words do not ALWAYS need be avoided, but use with caution. was just really very quite perhaps therefore however merely that thus always suddenly obviously anxiously  5 Words You Can Cut Adverbs Be Gone Adjectives and [...]

The Potter’s Hands

Making money from CPM advertising
I never had much experience trying to make money from CPM until I worked on my site for the Beijing Olympics. Basically you just get paid a certain amount every 1000 times your ad is displayed on a website. Rates are pretty low and vary between industries. A quick search on the [...]

I never had much experience trying to make money from CPM until I worked on my site for the Beijing Olympics. Basically you just get paid a certain amount every 1000 times your ad is displayed on a website. Rates are pretty low and vary between industries. A quick search on the internet says the average rate might be around $5. Possibly higher for finance related sites and lower for social networks/celebrity sites.

I have been following Duncan Riley’s latest venture with interest - the Inquisitr and have even contributed a few posts. Duncan used to write for TechCrunch and his articles were often the most interesting and controversial.

The site’s traffic has grown where he will now be spending $750 a month on a managed server. It seems to me to be quite a bit of money, and hosting is typically one lower costs of a web business, with the exception of hosting videos.

I suppose most people would be envious of that level of traffic, but for an entertainment/news site I think it is not unusual. The problem is however, like what I found with the Beijing Olympic site, is that the traffic is not targetted and it is difficult to monetize.

Finance is probably the best paying industry. Travel, what I am trying to focus on, is also good. Entertainment/celebrity type sites are probably the worst industries to be in. Teaching people how to make money from the internet is probably also very lucrative.

If I had to rank the best ways to make money from the internet, they would be:

- selling your own info product
- direct advertising deals with companies
- affiliate programs
- PPC (Adsense)
- CPM (cost per impression)

I am sure that the Inquisitr now is starting to gain some interest in traditional media channels and I am sure there are some Australian companies following with interest. Duncan is able to get a lot of traffic and interest from his stories, something which many traditional news sites fail to do. One simple reason I believe is that most news sites don’t have comment sections, or comments need to be manually approved. People want to have their own say on a story.

So the Inquisitr might be struggling to make money now, if it continues to grow rapidly, I am sure an old media newspaper or magazine, might be quick to snap it up.

Using Google Chrome
My laptop is still going strong after a couple of years, but it is starting to get slower and slower, mainly when starting up. I am reluctant to buy a new one as this one has been so reliable. A reinstall of the Windows would help a lot, but I can’t bothered with [...]

My laptop is still going strong after a couple of years, but it is starting to get slower and slower, mainly when starting up. I am reluctant to buy a new one as this one has been so reliable. A reinstall of the Windows would help a lot, but I can’t bothered with that. I am happy to press the on switch, then just grab a coffee while it loads.

I have been using Firefox mostly, but found that it too can be slow and is a real memory hog. I still have IE6 installed and it loads faster than FF. Google of course have launched their own browser, Google Chrome and when I heard that it is faster than FF, I thought I would give it a try.

When I was having trouble with FF, I disabled all of the add-ons, as useful as they are. Chrome still loaded faster than FF with the extensions disabled. It has some nice features, like showing your most recently viewed sites when you open a new tab and being able to do searches right in the area where you usually type in your URLs. Suggestions are also displayed automatically and sometimes useful.

It does have a couple of glitches which I am sure Google will eventually get right, but overall I am happy with the experience, but I think it will be hard to move loyal users off IE and FF.

5 Bad Habits That Keep You in Debt
It is hard to believe that some people are still shocked when they “discover” how deeply in debt they really are. While accumulating debt can occur much more quickly than the time it takes to pay it off, it rarely occurs overnight. There are some bad money management habits that most people dealing [...]

It is hard to believe that some people are still shocked when they “discover” how deeply in debt they really are. While accumulating debt can occur much more quickly than the time it takes to pay it off, it rarely occurs overnight. There are some bad money management habits that most people dealing with debt will recognize. If you are seeking true financial freedom and relief from debt you need to recognize how you got in so deep in the first place and then formulate a plan to get back on your feet. Here are some common habits that keep people in debt.

* Failing to create and stick to a budget. The word budget is often associated with having a lower income. Here’s the reality of budgeting- it is not just for poor people trying to make ends meet. Everyone needs to have a handle of how much they earn and how much they spend. Poor people just have less wiggle room in their financial planning than middle or upper class households. Unfortunately by not having a household budget you might find yourself coming up short paying bills or having to use credit to pay for expenses that should have been covered elsewhere.

* Playing the transfer game. You might be hard pressed to find many lucrative offers for balance transfers in today’s economy, and if you do think twice before transferring a high interest balance to another card. While a lower interest rate saves you some money, many people use the new card to make new purchase thus acquiring more debt. If you carry balances on a higher interest card, a better option to reduce your debt is to pay off the debt quicker, not bounce it to another card to save a few months in interest charges. If necessary consider picking up a part-time job to put toward paying down balances.

* Ignoring inaccuracies on your credit report. If you are going to take the time to check your credit report you must be willing to take the time to report and correct inaccurate information. Just because you know the information is inaccurate, others viewing your report do not. Information on your credit report affects your credit score, which in turn determines your interest rates on credit cards or loans. Remember in today’s society your credit worthiness not only affects your finances, but also your ability to get a job, rent an apartment, get a cell phone or good rates on car insurance.

* Paying credit cards late. In the technological age in which we live, there really is no reason to have late payments. You can schedule automatic payments to be deducted from your checking account, pay by phone, or online. If you lack the funds to make the minimum payment on time every time you are only prolonging the day when your debt load will become unmanageable, if it isn’t already.

There are endless amounts of resources, programs and information available to anyone struggling with debt. Hard work, discipline and sacrifice are required to pay off your balances and lay the footwork for a debt free life.

WC 513

Trisha Wagner is a freelance writer for DestroyDebt.com, a debt community featuring debt forums. Trisha writes regularly on the topics of getting out of debt and personal finance.

Structuring my new website
I am currently in Thailand taking a little bit of a break, but also spending some time on my new travel website. I am still thinking exactly what I want to do with the site. I decided to use Joomla as the CMS for the site. I was thinking about Drupal at [...]

I am currently in Thailand taking a little bit of a break, but also spending some time on my new travel website. I am still thinking exactly what I want to do with the site.

I decided to use Joomla as the CMS for the site. I was thinking about Drupal at first, but after spending a little bit of time with it, I eventually went back to Joomla. I found it difficult to find good themes for Drupal, like what you can get with Joomla. Drupal is probably more flexible and powerful, but Joomla is a little easier to get a site up and running, in my opinion.

I am using a theme from Joomlart. The theme has an online newspaper look. At first, I couldn’t get anything to work. The documentation for it isn’t great, but once you play around with it for a while, it is not too hard. They have a great support forum, who helped me with a couple of small problems I had.

I want to make user reviews a large part of the site, and Joomla has a great review extension, which I think looks very professional and is fairly easy to set up. I would also like to add property listings later on and again Joomla has some good extensions for this.

I wanted to add a blog to the site and could have done it within Joomla, but you just can’t beat wordpress for this. I imported my old travel site entries into the site and redirected the old site to the new domain. I want to also eventually set up a forum on the site and will probably go with Vbulletin. There are bridges available to link users to Joomla, but to keep it all simple, I might just keep them separate.

I am getting a little bit of traffic now to the site and starting to build links. Travel bloggers are a friendly bunch of people and seem to happily exchange links. I am already ranking for “asia travel guide” which at least is a start.

My goal is to eventually be able to hire some writers to produce content for the site, but that could be a while off yet.

America goes to the polls
I am Australian, but a lot of my income now comes from the United States. Since I don’t live in Australia and most of my internet traffic comes from the U.S. I pay more attention to what is happening there. My income is always down during U.S. holiday periods. From Thanksgiving to [...]

I am Australian, but a lot of my income now comes from the United States. Since I don’t live in Australia and most of my internet traffic comes from the U.S. I pay more attention to what is happening there. My income is always down during U.S. holiday periods. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, my earnings are pretty flat.

Whoever is in power in Australia matters little to me and either political party seems to have people with strong leadership skills. I also watch quite a bit of CNN and BBC news as they are widely available when I travel.

Tomorrow morning we should know the result of the U.S. presidential election. I am hoping for an Obama victory. I think America needs some serious change right now and I think he can bring it. McCain seems to be ok, but my worry is that if he wins, it won’t be much different from having Bush in power. Sarah Palin seems to be a political joke.

I want to see an end to the Iraq war. I think it is partly to blame for the economic crisis. American banks need to be reeled in and tighter lending laws put in place. More money needs to be spent on education and the environment and I hope we can see some big cuts in military spending.

My second hope is that if Obama can win, he can actually bring about the change he has talking about and we can see some action.

What I got out of Twitter – Part II
About a year ago I wrote my first (and probably only) post about Twitter so far, it was based around what I had learned from using the service up to the time of writing. During a conversation I had last week I thought about this post again and decided to look it up again… only [...]

वकाशन रेन्ताल्मौरितिउस फ्रॉम 45 एउरोस पेर निघत अल्बिओं अपार्टमेंट्स फ्लिक Albion, Seaside Flic En Flac with Swimming pool close to the beautiful beach
Book with confidence...Phone or Text Anita (2 direct lines) in Mauritius +230 93 19 727 / +230 45 20 769 (photo on website) who will be pleased to answer your questions, discuss your requirements and arrange your reservation for you. Or, Email llewelynpritchard@blueyonder.co.uk








Self-catering Apartments at Albion, Flic En Flac, S.W. Mauritius, Sleeps 1-6, One, Two or Three Bedrooms, Fully furnished, Well-equipped, Air-Conditioned, with or w/out swimming pool only a few minutes walk from the beautiful beach and coral lagoon(see photos.)

Ideal for a relaxing holiday for all ages.

The apartments are nicely decorated and regularly maintained to a very good standard. A great base from which to explore all the wonderful delights that the island has to offer.

Come to Delicious Mauritius!

From: Apartments in Albion, Flic En Flac either 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms and living, dining, kitchen and bathroom situated in a complex with swimming pool and on-site security guard (see photos).
To: Villas, with or without swimming pool.

RENTAL RATES per apartment /per day/ fully furnished with or w/out swimming pool:

Self-Catering Studio: Sleeps 2: £35/ Euro 45 / Zar 505./ $Usd 65/ $Sgd 95/ $Aud 75/ $Hkd 510/ Jpy 6970/ $Nzd 80/ 1800 Mur;

3 Bedroom Apartments: Sleeps 6: £45-£55.00 / Euro 60-70 / Zar 680-780/ 2400-2800 MUR;

Villa: 4.5 Bedrooms Sleeps 6+: £60/ Euro 75/ ZAR 840/ 3000 MUR or,

Other Accommodation in Flic En Flac may also be available upon request (click below) to suit your needs at a great rental price of per apartment/ per day/ £21.00 / EUR 28.00 / $SGD 60.00 / $AUD 46.00/ $HKD 327.00 / $USD 41.00 / ZAR 310.00 / JPY 4492.00 / $NZD 52.00 / (1200 MUR)


MAKE YOUR BOOKING ENQUIRY HERE FOR AN ALBION APARTMENT:
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/flic-en-flac/47773

AND HERE FOR AN ORCHIDEES APARTMENT, FLIC EN FLAC:
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/flic-en-flac/52835

Or Phone Anita (in photo on website) 00230 93 19 727 / 00230 45 20 769 who will be pleased to answer your questions, discuss your requirements and make your reservation for you.

Or Email llewelynpritchard@blueyonder.co.uk

We are also pleased to bring you a variety of lower cost, carefully selected, comfortable apartments and villas in Mauritius to choose from.

Click here:
http://rentalapartmentsvillasmauritius.wordpress.com/

ACTIVITIES, EXCURSIONS, SIGHTSEEING:
BEACH AND SEA:

beach fishing, boat trips, coral reef, deep sea big game fishing,

http://www.fftourist.com/excursions_deepsea.php?pg=excursions

glass-bottomed boat trips to swim with dolphins, diving, water sports,Blue Safari Submarine; Undersea Walk, Sailing Boat to Isla Mauritia, Catamaran / Parasailing (including lunch, drink & transfer);

LAND-BASED:

Tennis and Horse Riding in Flic En Flac, Golf within 30 mins drive; visiting crater lakes, Coconut island; Chamarel coloured earths; great for walking and cycling holidays, fascinating tropical fauna and flora, National Parks, golf, sega dancing;

http://www.mauritius.net/general_info/culture.php

HONEYMOONS, FOOD AND NIGHTLIFE:

Mauritius and Honeymoons go hand-in-hand!

http://www.mauritius.net/what_to_do/honey.php

Chinese, Creole, European, French, Hindi, Mauritian and Seafood restaurants' culinary delights;

http://www.mauritius.net/general_info/cusine.php

casino and clubs are only a few of the many tastes to try on your multi-cultural, unforgettable holiday experience of a lifetime!

SPOILT FOR CHOICE!


YOU MAY DECIDE TO VISIT:

Grand Bassin, a place of Hindu pilgrimage.

Or,

Pamplemousses Botanical Gardens with Giant Amazonica Water Lillies.

Or,

you may just want to enjoy the sugar cane plantations, sub-tropical forests, stunning sunsets, volcanic mountains or walking with lions!

A Catamaran trip to Ile Aux Cerfs is unmissable!

http://www.mauritius.net/what_to_see/east.php

Or evening cocktails and a BBQ cruise.


THE CHOICE IS YOURS! COME! ENJOY!

TAXI AIRPORT TRANSFER: about £15-£20.00;

CAR RENTAL:

Airport or Flic En Flac collection available;

HIRE A TAXI 1/2 OR WHOLE DAY WITH YOUR OWN DRIVER GUIDE:

Flic En Flac taxi rank near apartment, from about £15.00;

HIRE a SCOOTER or BIKE instead?

HOW TO GET THERE:
Air Mauritius: daily non-stop flights from major cities worldwide. Other major airlines: Air France, Emirates, British Airways, South African Airways, Air Zimbabwe, Condor, Commair, Air Europe, Virgin; Budget airline - Air Seychelles.

NEAREST TRAVEL LINK:

Airport: SSR International Airport, Plaisance: 45 km, approximately 30 minute drive.

USEFUL GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT MAURITIUS:
http://www.mauritius.net/general_info/index.php

GUESTBOOK
At first I thought this was too good to be true but it wasn't!
Brilliant!
Best holiday ever!
Coming again!
Thank you so much Anita's Affordable Apartments. Gail, Cardiff

Will be definitely using Anitas Affordable Apartments again. Thank you! Mr & Mrs Thomas, Wales

We had a brilliant time and it was great value for money. Mr & Mrs Leonard, Teeside

We loved the great variety of things to see and do. For a small island. there really is something for everybody. Feel like we've only touched the surface of the culture, lots more to find out next year! Peter and Jean, London

Must be the closest thing to Paradise on Earth! Fantastic! Thank You! C u soon. Timothy, Birmingham

Other useful addresses:
Mauritius Tourist Promotion Authority
Government of Mauritius
Flic en Flac Tourist Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Air Mauritius
Air France
British Airways
Emirates Airlines
Air Fares Compared

Useful Guide Book: Spectrum Guide to Mauritius Pub. by Camerapix International 1997

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Changing LINKS

Culture and Consumption
Copyright � 2009 Eddy E. Visit the original article at http://www.servingbread.net/2009/02/22/culture-and-consumption.I included the following quote in my sermon this morning: Consumption (of culture), as a posture, is capitulation: letting the culture set the terms, assuming that the culture knows best and that even our deepest longings (for beauty, truth, love) and fears (of loneliness, loss, death) [...]

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Copyright � 2009 Eddy E. Visit the original article at http://www.servingbread.net/2009/02/22/culture-and-consumption.

I included the following quote in my sermon this morning:

Consumption (of culture), as a posture, is capitulation: letting the culture set the terms, assuming that the culture knows best and that even our deepest longings (for beauty, truth, love) and fears (of loneliness, loss, death) have some solution that fits comfortably within our culture’s horizons, if only we can afford to purchase it.

– Andy Crouch, Culture Making

In the book, Crouch identifies four common postures toward culture—critique, consumption, imitation, and condemnation. He convincingly argues that “consumption of culture (though not all consumption is necessarily bad or evil) as a posture is capitulation.” Though there are many good things about culture (pop or otherwise), trusting that the culture has our best intentions in mind is delusional at best, and harmful at worst.

Modern marketing capitalizes on our longings and our fears—selling us what we think we need to meet those needs. Our deepest longings are God-given and our deepest fears are common to all of humanity in all of history. Christian witness is compromised when we pursue solutions for those longings and fears “within our culture’s horizons.” What we simply communicate is that we don’t believe that the God of the universe is able to minister to us in any relevant way.

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I know those guys
Copyright � 2009 Eddy E. Visit the original article at http://www.servingbread.net/2009/02/05/i-know-those-guys.The guy featured was my freshman year roommate Copyright � 2009 Serving Bread. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact [...]

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Copyright � 2009 Eddy E. Visit the original article at http://www.servingbread.net/2009/02/05/i-know-those-guys.

The guy featured was my freshman year roommate

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WSJ Profile of Muriel Siebert, First Woman on NYSE
Muriel Siebert was the first woman to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the namesake behind SieberNet, a discount broker. If you have three minutes, check out this brief profile of her and experiences getting that seat (here’s the full article). The video is just a little taste of her personality, the [...]

Muriel Siebert was the first woman to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the namesake behind SieberNet, a discount broker. If you have three minutes, check out this brief profile of her and experiences getting that seat (here’s the full article).

The video is just a little taste of her personality, the article goes much deeper. Also, personal finance proponents will be interested to read that she also developed a personal finance program back in the day. Definitely worth the watch and read though.

The commentator is none other than Mary Pilon, the blogger behind the Wall Street Journal’s The Wallet blog.

Your Take: How Do You Talk Yourself Out of Purchases?
Ben Popken of The Consumerist shared a tip from Janice on how she talks herself out of purchases: If you find yourself in one of those moods where you just “have to have it”, and end up in the store staring at it, talk to yourself about it. List all the reasons you want it (want, [...]

Ben Popken of The Consumerist shared a tip from Janice on how she talks herself out of purchases:

If you find yourself in one of those moods where you just “have to have it”, and end up in the store staring at it, talk to yourself about it. List all the reasons you want it (want, not need), and all the reasons you don’t want or need it…

How do I talk myself out of purchases? I think of the Big Thing I’m saving for and whether I’d rather have the item right in front of me right now or the Big Thing sooner.

A few years ago, the Big Thing was a house. Do I want to go to the bar and have a few beers with my friends or do I want to be able to buy my house sooner? Do I want to buy a new shirt or buy slightly more house? Do I want to buy a new computer or do I want a house in a better neighborhood? The house always won out.

I think that we will always have a Big Thing to save for. If not a house, then for a wedding. If not for a wedding, then for children. If not for children, then it’s for their education or something else they need. There is always something that qualifies as a Big Thing, something that is far more important than an impulsive purchase and that’s how I save money.

How do you talk yourself out of purchases?

“Chinatown” Buses
After college, my wife took a job in New Jersey and spent a year living is Piscataway, a little town in Middlesex County that is thirty-five miles away from New York City. That put it about two and a half hours away from me, a quaint 180 miles through about every single highway bottleneck and [...]

After college, my wife took a job in New Jersey and spent a year living is Piscataway, a little town in Middlesex County that is thirty-five miles away from New York City. That put it about two and a half hours away from me, a quaint 180 miles through about every single highway bottleneck and toll between Washington D.C. and New York City. I once estimated that the round trip cost of each drive, after fuel and tolls, was easily like $60-70 and we each made this trip nearly every weekend (either me driving up to NJ or her driving down here). So, when put to the decision of whether I’d ever drive home, home being out about mid-way on Long Island, I always chose to fly Southwest from BWI to Islip (MacArthur Airport) and that ticket could be found for only $80 (not anymore though!)

Having that as a baseline, isn’t it amazing that Chinatown buses sell tickets for practically nothing to essentially make that trip? DC/Baltimore to NYC for often less than twenty bucks each way? Some places offer them for less than ten if you take low demand rides (or even $1 if you’re the first ticket!). I’d always known about them but when Megabus started offering free Wi-Fi (reports are that it’s a little slow and depends on how many people are using the bandwidth with you), it really started to catch people’s attention.

The three most popular ones, based on my empirical evidence driving around I-95 and the NJ Turnpike, are:

• Megabus
• ApexBus
• BoltBus

I’m glad that their gaining in popularity because mass transportation is something that needs to be more established in this country. The first thought should always be to try rail or bus, rather than jumping into a car. I always try to find a rail or bus option because I like the flexibility of being able to do something else, rather than just drive.

Has anyone ever taken one and care to share their experiences? I’ve never tried them but they are really tempting given the price (and the trip time isn’t that much longer than driving yourself). My only concern about them is what happens if they break down?

Don’t Bring In Your Lunch
This Devil’s Advocate post attacks one of the of the hallmark money saving ideas for the working professional: bring in your own lunch. The money you save by not buying a $5 - $10 lunch every day amounts to over a thousand dollars a year in savings ($5 x 48 weeks x 5 days = [...]

This Devil’s Advocate post attacks one of the of the hallmark money saving ideas for the working professional: bring in your own lunch. The money you save by not buying a $5 - $10 lunch every day amounts to over a thousand dollars a year in savings ($5 x 48 weeks x 5 days = $1200). It’s hardly bad advice and practically unassailable from a financial standpoint, but there are many reasons why you shouldn’t bring in your lunch every day and eat it at your desk.

Socialize & Network

Lunch is one of the best ways to efficiently spend time socializing with your co-workers without sacrificing any productivity. While you can certainly chat over your morning coffee or tea, nothing beats a solid half hour (or hour or more!) of spirited discussion over some sandwiches. Also, while you’re off-site eating lunch, you and your co-workers can drop your guard a little as there’s a smaller chance one of the big wigs is going to wander on by as you discuss the latest presidential debate or the recent bailout bill failure.

Socializing with your co-workers is crucial in today’s working environment. Your demeanor and how well you get along with other people is just as important as the skills you bring to the table. A really qualified worker isn’t going to get the job if he’s difficult to work with and get along with. By networking with your coworkers, you may find yourself being asked to join teams you otherwise wouldn’t have even heard of.

Get Up & Move Around

Sitting at your computer all day isn’t great for you. Have you ever heard of thrombophlebitis?

Thrombo means “clot.” Phlebitis is inflammation of a vein. Thrombophlebitis (throm-bo-fluh-BI-tis) occurs when a blood clot causes inflammation in one or more of your veins, typically in your legs. On rare occasions, thrombophlebitis (often shortened to phlebitis) can affect veins in your arms.

The affected vein may be near the surface of your skin (superficial thrombophlebitis) or deep within a muscle (deep vein thrombosis, or DVT). A clot in a deep vein increases your risk of serious health problems, including a dislodged clot traveling to your lungs and blocking an artery (pulmonary embolism)

In other words, it’s a blood clot in one of your veins that, when dislodged, could go to your heart and give you a heart attack. It happens when you have a prolonged period of inactivity, such as when you’re sitting on a long airplane flight, and experts advise that you take little walks on the plane so that you don’t develop these things in your legs.

You probably don’t sit on a plane much differently than you do at your desk, huh?

You Need A Break

One of the great lessons I learned at college was that it didn’t matter how much time you spent on a project, it was whether or not you could complete it by the deadline. In learning that lesson, I learned the corollary which was you shouldn’t put long continuous hours on a project because you had diminishing returns. The fifth straight hour you spend on a project is never going to be better than your first and your fifteenth hour is going to be far worse than your fifth. After a certain point, you get better returns by simply taking a break (or a nap) and restarting the clock.

Work is the same exact way. You will be far more effective if you take a mid-day break to chat with your friends than if you work straight through. Heck, you don’t even need to go out to lunch, just take a walk around the office (literally around the building, if you can, not just through the hallways) and mull over the problem in your head. Studies have shown that light physical activity stimulates the mind!

There you have it, three entirely legitimate reasons why bringing in your lunch is a horrible horrible idea. Plus, think of the economy, it needs your lunch money more than you do.

(Photo wwny)

PFBlogger Spotlight: Trent of The Simple Dollar
If you’ve been reading personal finance blogs for any stretch of time, chances are you’ve read Trent Hamm’s work over at The Simple Dollar. Trent bills his site out as “financial talk for the rest of us,” meaning it’s personal finance advice from a regular Joe to the rest of us regular Joes. While much [...]

If you’ve been reading personal finance blogs for any stretch of time, chances are you’ve read Trent Hamm’s work over at The Simple Dollar. Trent bills his site out as “financial talk for the rest of us,” meaning it’s personal finance advice from a regular Joe to the rest of us regular Joes. While much of his personality comes through in his writing, there’s nothing like direct questions and direct answers to really help you understand where someone is coming from.

jim:	Hi Trent, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Trent:	Well, my name is Trent Hamm. I live in rural Iowa with my wife and two young children, aged two and one. We live on the outskirts of a fairly small town. Up until March, I worked for a research organization doing computer programming that supported a large collection of data. Since then, I’ve been writing full time, mostly about personal finance.
jim:	What motivated you to begin blogging and how long have you been doing it?
Trent:	I’ve been a high-volume writer since I was in seventh grade. I’ve kept a journal each day of my life since I was twelve years old with each entry being at least a thousand words, with only a few days missing. It’s really something to read through those old entries now. Because of this desire and ability to write so much, blogging made sense. I’ve attempted blogging in the past, most notably with a parenting blog in 2005, but none of them really clicked. My parenting blog was doing quite well, actually, but I was uncomfortable with some of the direct personal attacks made towards my son, so I decided to stop that blog.

jim:	Do you ever look back and read your entries and marvel at how you’ve changed through the years. I bet a journal entry I wrote when I was 12 would really put things in perspective for me. Just the other day, I found a list of goals my wife made in high school… I framed it and put it on the dresser to remind the both of us what was important for her then.
Trent:	That’s why I enjoy it so much. Several years ago, I digitized the whole thing, so when I sit at my computer, I can access any of the entries I want. Sometimes I get lost in reading that stuff. I actually enjoy reading the earliest stuff the most, because I can see the elements of the adult I was to become starting to form.
jim:	What makes your perspective unique?
Trent:	I think one of the big attractions is that I am very open with my mistakes. I don’t try to present myself as any sort of expert. I mess up with personal finance all the time, and I talk about those mistakes. I think people can identify with the humanity and mistakes of others much more than they can identify with “experts” who just tell people what to do.
jim:	What do you think of experts like Suze Orman, Robert Kiyosaki or Dave Ramsey?
Trent:	I feel indifference to most experts. They’re filling a role - some people want an “expert” to tell them what to do. As long as their advice is reasonable, I don’t mind. I don’t like it, though, when I see advice from an “expert” that I find suspect - for example, I found a lot to object to in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” particularly with his disdain for people who choose to work a nine to five job.
jim:	What are your favorite personal finance books?
Trent:	My favorite of all time is Your Money or Your Life. That was the book that turned things around for me. It’s the most well-rounded explanation of the connection between money and how individuals choose to live their lives that I’ve ever read. My go-to book for investing insight is The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. I also have a very dog-eared copy of The Complete Tightwad Gazette and I’m attempting to collect the old newsletters as well.
jim:	Can you give an example of something you learned from Your Money or Your Life that someone could take with them today and make an impact on their own life?
Trent:	The piece of that book that really shook me up was the idea that most of the unnecessary purchases that I was making had diminishing returns. I would get a lot of enjoyment out of one stop at the coffee shop every once in a while, but when I started doing it every day, I didn’t really enjoy it any more. It went from treat to habit. The baseline behavior in your life - a truly normal day - should be very cheap. Then, when you do extra things, they authentically feel like treats and add a lot of pleasure to your life.
jim:	What’s something no one else in the blogging world knows about you?
Trent:	I’m very involved with politics. I try very, very hard to keep that out of The Simple Dollar, but on rare occasion politics slip in the door. I actually hope to run for the state legislature in Iowa at some point.
jim:	I have seen you mention getting involved in local politics as one of your goals, I’ve considered getting involved in politics in my area as well but just haven’t put forth the effort, what sorts of things are you participating in?
Trent:	I’ve been a member of a local church for a while and recently ran for the church council and was elected, and I intend to run for president of the council in the future. I attend city council meetings and school board meetings and try to make it to community events, and when I do, I talk to people and get to know them. I also volunteer to help out with events. Doing these things over a period of time eventually builds you a reputation in the community, one which can be the basis of a political career.
jim:	What posts on your blog should all visitors read?
Trent:	If you read nothing else, read the five business cards post.
jim:	What’s the biggest financial “mistake” you’ve ever made? (or regret you have)
Trent:	My big mistake was letting lots of little mistakes add up until they became devastating, as I wrote about here - The Road to Financial Armageddon #8: Meltdown. I made a habit out of poor spending choices and avoided planning for the future. Eventually, it caught up to me.
jim:	What’s the best financial decision you’ve ever made?
Trent:	My best decision was to start talking about money with my wife and get her involved with things. We became each other’s cheerleaders, pushing each other to make good financial decisions instead of subtly encouraging each other to spend frivolously. We shared goals and made plans together, instead of wandering in the dark apart..
jim:	What is your favorite personal finance blog and why?
Trent:	It changes all the time. I tend to discover a good blog, get excited about it, read through the archives, follow it faithfully for a while, then eventually move on to another voice. One recent blog I’ve enjoyed doing this with is Frugal Dad.
jim:	What are your favorite non-personal finance blog and why?
Trent:	Seth Godin’s blog - because he is amazingly good at expressing challenging ideas in bite-sized nuggets. 101 Cookbooks - my favorite food blog, and I actually follow more food blogs than personal finance blogs! Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish - my favorite political blog. He’s succinct and has no strong political affiliation - he’s ostensibly a Log Cabin Republican, but often comes off as very centrist.
jim:	What do you hope to accomplish in the next year?
Trent:	I want to be a good father and a good husband. For me, everything else I do is secondary to this. My secondary goals mostly revolve around writing compelling posts - most of my goals involving The Simple Dollar are centered on the feedback I get from readers through comments and email. Basically, the more of that I get, the more of a success I view The Simple Dollar to be.
jim:	If your blog ended today, how would you like people to remember it?
Trent:	I’d be fine if most of my readers forgot about it, actually. My blog only matters in terms of the positive change it’s brought to people’s lives, convincing some people to take that big step to turn their money around. My blog can end, but if that behavior persists, then I actually *did* something.

If you want to read more about Trent, head over to The Simple Dollar, and subscribe to his RSS feed!

Is Your Job At Risk?
Before the last few weeks, I saw most of the talk about a recession as just talk. Experts were trying to get ahead of the curve on calling an economic slowdown through the US economy and we as consumers were eating it up. With short term lending on the fritz (ignore the movement of the [...]

Before the last few weeks, I saw most of the talk about a recession as just talk. Experts were trying to get ahead of the curve on calling an economic slowdown through the US economy and we as consumers were eating it up. With short term lending on the fritz (ignore the movement of the stock market, there’s too much noise in that), companies are truly going to have an economic reason to start cutting back and labor is far easier to reduce than any other asset.

CNN Money just did an article on this very idea, of who is most at risk in a downturn, and they highlighted people who fail to perform, who are relatively overpaid compared to their peers, and those that do not adequately fill a business need.

Based on my limited experience in the workforce, here are the groups that I think are at risk:

Cost Centers

A cost center is a department in an organization that doesn’t product a direct profit. A research and development department is a cost center, the marketing department is a cost center, and the HR department is a cost center. While cost centers are important, cuts often start there because they don’t directly affect the bottom line. If you’re a widget maker and times are getting tough, you might slash your HR department in half because you don’t intend to hire anyone in the next year if things stay rough. You’ll let go of an HR person before you’ll let go of someone working the manufacturing floor because the technician directly contributes to profit when he or she makes a widget.

Low Oversight or Visibility

If you’re working on a project that has very little visibility or has limited oversight, I’d try to find out how important it is to the firm. If management needs to pare away some overhead, are they going to cancel the project you’re working on? If it’s an important project, why is there little oversight over its progress? If it truly is an important project (it’s not uncommon for management to overlook important projects simply due to volume) and you want to help ensure it’ll stick around, try to get more visibility.

Contractors/Temps

If you’re a contractor or temporary employee, I’d be the most wary because “not renewing a contract” is the easiest way to let go of someone without dealing with the legal headaches. It could have nothing to do with your job performance, need, or anything else - it’s simply easier to let go of someone who isn’t a full time employee of a company.

Solution? I don’t know and I don’t know if there is one, the best advice I can give is that you should always, in both good times and bad, have a contingency plan. If you’re a contractor/temp now, you should be pushing to go full-time or have another job lined up. If you’re in a low visibility project, get yourself on a high visibility project. If you’re in a cost center, maybe find a new job at a firm where your specialty isn’t a cost center (accountants to an accounting firm, HR specialists to a head hunting firm). And as always, boost up that emergency fund.

(Photo: bobjagendorf)

My 401(k) Is Losing Money, What To Do?
My 401(k) is hemorrhaging but I’m not freaking out. I’m not freaking out because I’m 28 and years away from retirement. However, several readers have emailed me recently asking me what they should do about their 401(k)’s and IRAs after recent events. Unfortunately, I told them to call up a financial adviser because I don’t [...]

My 401(k) is hemorrhaging but I’m not freaking out. I’m not freaking out because I’m 28 and years away from retirement. However, several readers have emailed me recently asking me what they should do about their 401(k)’s and IRAs after recent events. Unfortunately, I told them to call up a financial adviser because I don’t really have a suitable answer. But this afternoon I spent some time thinking about it and wanted to give a more reasonable response. I tried to put myself in their shoes and say what I would do.

If you’re like me, about forty years away from retirement, the answer is that you should do nothing differently. Make your regular contributions, check your asset allocations, and do something else with your time. A lot can happen in forty years so you shouldn’t do anything rash like liquidate all of your assets. We had a recession in the 80’s, a mere twenty years ago, and since then we’ve seen the longest bull market period in a very long time. Trying to time the market is a fool’s errand and, honestly, your time is better spent enjoying life rather than fretting about your balance sheet.

If you’re slightly closer to retirement, say ten years away, now’s a good time to adjust where your new contributions are going and go towards a more conservative allocation. I wouldn’t liquidate your equity positions but any new money should go towards conservative investments that will lower the amount of volatility you’re exposed to. Check out the1-year chart of the CBOE Volatility Index, an index that tracks the 30-day volatility of the S&P 500 index using a variety of investment vehicles. Note the fact that since August, that index has been going insane. The enemy of a retirement in the near future is volatility. While I wouldn’t sell everything off, I would adjust my contributions to lower the volatility by going with safer investments.

If you’re a year or so away from retirement or in-retirement, hopefully your exposure to equities is limited. Either way, chances are your investment portfolio went down along with everything else. For retirees, I don’t know what the right answer is except that you might want to consider getting some supplemental income to buy more time until the market has an opportunity to somewhat correct itself. I would liquidate enough funds, from equity positions, to make it through the next three to five years and keep the rest as is. But remember, I’m 28, so I would take that advice with a very large grain of salt.

Do you have any better advice?

(Photo: silvaazniv)

The purpose of this blog
I’ve seen an increase in readers to this blog since the fall, and I want to say two things: 1. Welcome! 2.  Here’s why I do this: To be helpful. I try to offer practical, effective, and affordable ideas for small churches (and other sizes, too) that really work.  I’ve tried most of the things I tell you [...]

The Ethics of Reviewing Books
I've just sent out a whole bunch of galleys to reviewers for a book that we're publishing this spring, and it's unpredictable who's going to review it. I always include the big-name reviewers, but I don't have high hopes, given they have limited space to fill with the numerous books they receive. I hope a few will have the courtesy to read the book and write a few words about it, kind or not, so long as the name gets out there.If I ever wanted an insight into how book reviewers operate, I have it today: The National Book Critics Circle has released the results from their ethics poll, with some interesting statistics. An interesting one to me is the status of negative reviews -- should a reviewer withdraw a review if it is unkind to the book? The results are split down the middle: equal parts thought it was ethical and unethical. Back in 1987, however, 74% thought it was unethical to hold back a negative review. So, on the surface we're being nicer, but my guess it has less to do with ethics and more to do with service to the reader -- offering recommendations as opposed to reviews. Movie reviewers still give 1 star, but there's a limited number of movies out at a given time. Readers are stuck with a deluge of potential books at any time, so they (as I know I do) prefer to be given an idea of what's good, as opposed to a list of what to ignore. Most of the other ethics questions have to do with a reviewers personal bias: do they know the author, would they benefit from giving the book a good review, and so on. However, one particular statistic will answer that big question most authors have: did the reviewer really read the whole book? I've seen one review of one of our books that really made me wonder, but according to this survey, reviewers, by and large, say it's unethical to review a book without completing it. View the entire survey results here.

Rules Which Suck The Life Out Of Publishing
There's long been a rule that publishers may not review the books they've published. It makes sense to nearly everyone simply because the publisher is obviously biased in favor of the book; after all, a publisher is the one who has invested in the book and wants to make money in return. But is this really fair?You might think that investment vote speaks enough on its own, but that's like saying a book review that reads , "I like it a lot!" tells a reader anything. Why can't publishers say why they opted to publish the work? Even if you are the cynical type who thinks the answer to "why publish it" is "to make money," what makes the publisher think the book will sell -- and sell enough that they are willing to invest in it? Authors have the opportunity to be interviewed and discuss what motivated or inspired them, so why not publishers?Obviously, reviews done by publishers should clearly be stated as such; I don't believe anyone should hide their connections to a book (or any product). But in a world where it is now acceptable for publishers and authors to pay for book reviews, why isn't it possible to let publishers have their say?One of the primary reasons we became publishers was based on the excitement of reading, of being able to print books we liked therefore making them available for other readers. In the current state of publishing affairs, we are unable to gush with enthusiasm about our books. Our vote to invest is all we are allowed to say (other than press releases which are to be facts only, ma'am.) Here I am, stuck being silent, unable to share my excitement at offering this book to readers. Frankly, that sucks.So does not being able to enjoy talking with authors. I love talking with authors. I love hearing how they came up with that particular idea, what inspires them -- and what happens to them out & about as they live the role of published author. Why I am I forbidden to share these stories?Somewhere along the line publisher pride or any PR has become synonymous with dirty trickery. That may be true for many organizations; but it doesn't have to be. If a publisher clearly states that they are the publishers of the work, doesn't that give readers and possible book buyers the opportunity to think and decide for themselves?(At least it's more honest, in my opinion, than a paid reviewer writing about books.) Consumers buy thousands of items based on a commissioned salesman's pitch -- a person who is paid if and only if we buy from him. We scrutinize what he says, using common sense to look past face value to evaluate if what he says is true. We'll take the advice of others, read reviews, and for larger purchases consult consumer guides before deciding what we want to buy. Are clearly disclosed publisher comments, reviews or author interviews any different than the pitch of a salesman paid on commission? I don't think so.Rules which suck the life out of publishing and the spirit out of reading itself are rules meant to be broken. So I'm going to begin this journey of talking about our own books. I'm going to dish with Ephemera Bound authors and editors. I'm going to enjoy what I do. If I'm lucky, readers are going to share with me too. Is this a bit unorthodox? Yeah. But then Ephemera Bound isn't your typical press. We don't settle for "that's just the way it's done" -- especially if it sucks so much fun out of publishing. Publishing should at least be as much fun as reading which, as any reader will tell you, involves sharing your thoughts about the book. We can accept that. And we hope you can too.

Who Publishes What You Are Reading?
Of the big 6 publishers on the American scene, only one is actually headquartered in New York.

Nothing Much, But Still It's Something
In In How To Make People Buy Books Knopf art director Chip Kidd reveals "the madness behind his method" with three specific covers.None of them appeal to me much -- but then I'm likely not his target market. I found this to be the most interesting part of the article:"I cannot make you buy a book, but I can try to help make you pick it up," he says. "There are so many factors that go into whether somebody buys a book -- the jacket's just one of them."

Diatribes
The “Today” show’s Al Roker said Tuesday on his show’s official blog that it was time for Imus to go. “I, for one, am really tired of the diatribes, the ‘humor’ at others’ expense, the cruelty that passes for ‘funny,’” Roker said.

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