Thursday, December 20, 2007
Afrochat.net
It's a decidedly afrocentric/africentric chat. It has some 'old heads' on it. You know, people all wrapped up in their ideology an ready to spew it on everyone. . . wait, that's me!
I just posted something outlining criteria for adulthood, hoping to generate some good responses about the topic, when all-of-a-sudden out of nowhere one guy tries to invalidate everything i say, and another pigeonholes me! Sure, i was wide-open for it because i'm new and ready for a fight, but they don't know just who i am!
I can't begin to tell you just how excited i am. all the chat/groups i was a part of that had this kind of conversation have been long gone. And i'm soo excited to be back in the africentric conversation, even though i'm now ALSO a capitalist.
New outlet for my rantings
It's a decidedly afrocentric/africentric chat. It has some 'old heads' on it. You know, people all wrapped up in their ideology an ready to spew it on everyone. . . wait, that's me!
I just posted something outlining criteria for adulthood, hoping to generate some good responses about the topic, when all-of-a-sudden out of nowhere one guy tries to invalidate everything i say, and another pigeonholes me! Sure, i was wide-open for it because i'm new and ready for a fight, but they don't know just who i am!
I can't begin to tell you just how excited i am. all the chat/groups i was a part of that had this kind of conversation have been long gone. And i'm soo excited to be back in the africentric conversation, even though i'm now ALSO a capitalist.
Monday, December 17, 2007
a lesson in humility
I was at work today and another trainer came in and was turning in his evaluations. Because i teach the MS office, and they want high-quality training, the people that i train fill out either paper-form or web-based evaluations. So, this other trainer has been 'duping' me. He's been talking as if he's a terrible trainer and that he's not that effective. And i've been eating this story up.
So he's turning in his evals and looking through the scores. And as i watched, he was earning nines (why it isn't on a 10 point scale is beyond me) all over the place. Out of about ten evaluations that i went through (under his watchful eye) all of them except one rated him with all nines! The other one was straight eights . .. there's always one, i know. i should've seen that, he's been doing this for about 10 years, he's just new to this company.
So, i walk around like i'm the hottest thing since sliced bread, and i'm not! My scores are good, but i've been doing this for less than a year (my 'anniversary' is the 2nd of january) and my scores are in the 8.36 range ('effective is 8.47). So i've still got a little work to do.
Now, this is against the background of people walking out and telling me that this was a great class, and one student/client comparing me to one of the recent legendary trainers at my compay.
So, i'm going to eat crow and sharpen up on my P's and Q's to become a better trainer. Apparently at national conferences, some of the best trainers get to 'walk the stage' but they've gotta be top notched. I'll be there if i can get my big ego out of the way.
Monday, December 10, 2007
hilarious on books
that "people often wish that they had an office with additional space, so they would have more places to put their books. But they never wish they had an office with additional dimensions, so they would have more ways to arrange their books.
I was giggling at the trolley stop
Sunday, December 09, 2007
The stuff of thought
The premise of his book is that we can see into the functioning of the human mind through language. As a linguist, he is looking at language to tell us about how the mind works and operates. so far it is a very interesting read. Not only do i find him to be an entertaining writer, i like the subject: words (did i mention that for like four months of my life i would go to bed late reading the thesaurus?)
Basically our thoughts are comprised of basic ideas, and words reflect combinations of these ideas.
The difference between 'hit', 'cut' and 'break' are that they do or don't include more elementary concepts like motion, contact, effects etc.
I don't know what the rest of the book is about, but i'm waiting to get to the chapter about metaphors, because Pinker takes to task one of my other favorite authors George Lakoff, who is the 'metaphor man' in the world of linguistics, and more recently in the world of political spin. look him up.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
the dating game divorced
So in "the game" of dating, there is an underlying ethic of man conquers woman. And whatever man conquers the most women 'wins'. But there is a white stripe down the back of that skunk that goes counter, but not many people have been analyzing and talking about. What i'm talking about is the heroism of a faithful man.
Lots of people will agree that people become attractive when they're taken. First and foremost there's someone's stamp of approval that they're worth dealing with. Secondly, there's the 'i want what i can't have' line of thinking. Probably a couple other lines of thinking two. Regardless of how many lines of thinking, there's almost a social movement to destroy relationships. But nobody acknowledges the heroism, bravery, integrity and stick-to-it-ness that it takes to remain faithful during the onslaught (overt and covert) of flirting, propositions and sometimes downright molestations.
So when i say the dating game 'divorced', i mean that i'm distinguishing two ways to win it. One is to have sex with as many people as possible (and of course neither get caught nor infected) and the other way is to enter into a long-term relationship and remain faithful.
The 'problem' is that people don't see these as completely separate games with completely different rule sets. Therefore they oscillate between them, so they'll be 'single and loving it' for a while then switch to 'coupled and loving it' and rotate between the two games. The problem is that marriage isn't explicitly interpreted in terms of a 'winner' being able to be faithful.
The most important thing to note in this line of thinking is that 'winning' at marriage doesn't mean that you marry a faithful partner. Winning at the sex game in marriage means that you stay faithful. And if the other person doesn't cut it, you don't loose, they do.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
healthcare 'rights'
A right, properly interpreted, is a idea that is designed to protect a person from others infringing on a basic human freedom, something that you could do when nobody was around. There is a 'right to bear arms' and a 'right to free speech' because you can do those in isolation. There's no real 'right' to vote, cuz when you're alone you're the dictatorship.
When the founders of this country argued about 'rights' they were aimed at restricting governmental and other people infringing on your ability to do things. You can't assert a 'right to healthcare' because it isn't something that other people can infringe upon.
I doubt that George Lakoff and people in his camp will agree with this, but they will recognize the veracity of my paltry claim.
Besides, healthcare is a scam. Health insurance is a different story. The problem is that we roll them into the same thing. Medical insurance is something that you get to insure yourself against something tragic like catastrophes, like car insurance and home-owners insurance. Healthcare is a service that you buy on a regular basis. It's kinda like getting a car tune-up. Suppose you get tune-ups often, so you would have volume discounting with a healthcare service. However, health insurance and healthcare are packaged together, so the volume discount of preventative tune-ups and medicine isn't very apparent either in pricing or in performance (for both your body and your car).
I would go further into the metaphor, but i figure that's either profound enough or total bs, either way it's an entertaining way to think about it.
So, how to solve the healthcare crisis? The first thing is to split up medical insurance and healthcare service bundling. Do that and you'll start to see some movement.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
If you can't join 'em, beat them
Breaking down that bias has been the task since African slavery in America. So, there's been progress in the last 400 years, but what if we're fighting the wrong fight? Why would you try to integrate, when it would probably be just as easy if not easier to simply create another system?
I don't know why this isn't a push in the larger media. And i know there's a lot of inertia and skepticism. But inertia and skepticism aren't reasons for it not to happen. What needs to be sold is not a simple vision of african-american owned businesses. But a more complex vision that integrates ownership, staffing, employee training, social services, building private and charter schools etc. It is way past time for single-issue causes like jobs, integration, bids for minority companies, and the like.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Seduction, Romance and Love
So this guy asked me "is that book about communications or sociology", i replied that it sat right between them. He replied that he taught a communications, i queried 'technical or rhetorical' and he replied 'rhetorical'. I would have left the conversation at that, then he said that he was creating a course called "seduction, romance and love". I was thoroughly interested by this soundbite. So i asked him to explain a little more.
Now, with people who have these grand ideas, they sometimes aren't tuned in how to refine and communicate them very well. Usually there is a bridge between the soundbite, the news story and the full story. With these people, they've only got soundbite and full story, and you have to ask them lots of questions to get the news story. I did just that. I asked him what he meant. He started telling me that he was going to use the 'classics' like machiavelli and plato. He thought my eyes were going to gloss over with the mention of 'classics', but i came back into the fray when he said 'machiavelli' . . . for the life of me i couldn't figure out how or why Machiavelli would be in the mix.
As the conversation moved on, so did we move toward the courtroom amongst a line of about 30 other offenders. And our conversation got even more intense. Instead of bogging you down with all the details of us trading book names and discussin' sci-fi books, i'll cut to the chase.
After badgering him and trying to fit what he was saying into my own mental-model of the world, i got that he makes a marked distinction between seduction, romance and love. I gathered that he thinks of seduction as a person manipulating someone else for their own gains (hence machiavelli), romance as someone throwing themselves into 'love', and love as an exchange between two people.
Well, an hour or two later, we found out from the prosecutor exactly what our traffic fines would be, and parted ways.
I had never though of that
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
This is a hella-cool site that i happened upon that attempts to categorize divergent kinds of visualization structures.
Monday, July 30, 2007
A comment on reparations
So, i'm going to put in my half-pence of thinking on the topic.
The fundamental question about reparations is whether White people will assume the moral responsibility, not for slavery, but for the four score years between the end of Reconstruction and the passing and enforcement of civil rights legislation. (side note - with the heavy influx of non-white immigrants, that will be a hard sell, and with the heavy influx of migrants in the 1910's and after WWI there is very little broad white 'responsibility' for what happened).
That's a big problem. And the other side of the problem, is that many of the people who deserve reparations don't know who they would actually be responsible for compensating them.
To understand the other point i'm making about reparations, you'd have to come with me on a little paradigm shift. Normally, with the civil rights movement, the aim was integration, being able to live, breathe, eat, drink, shit and work in the same buildings and in the same rooms as whites. For those brave souls who lost their lives and gained their freedom (alive and dead) i am and will be forever grateful. I have no bone to pick with you/them. For you/they addressed what seemed to be the most pressing problem at hand, dignity.
Having said that, and hopefully you get that what i said is way more than lip service, i'd like to add a different dimension to the debate about reparations, or even just black community development.
The problem with the aforementioned strategy of integration was that it focused on the day-to-day immediate concerns of life, safety and health of black folk. What i think really needs to be addressed is the disparity between who owns the businesses versus who works in them. The greatest generator of wealth in this country and any other is the starting and growing of businesses. Many people know this, even before Kiyosaki became famous. So, what i think needs to be addressed in any 'reparations' discussion is not how to integrate inside the businesses, but how to integrate the 'ownership class' (to steal a republican phrase).
Saturday, July 21, 2007
get ready for pain
So get ready for me posting a bit
Friday, June 29, 2007
buck rewild
the lesser of the two is to simply re-input animals and species that were native to a habitat, for instance wolves who were hutned to near extinction and now live in wildlife preserves, but not the wild.
The other kind of rewilding is more radical (hooray) and that is to put megafauna (large animals) in habitats similar to their native habitats. For instance, they want to put African elephants and lions in the great plains. Sounds good to me, mostly because i live nowhere near there!
In a related article, i read about how much bears are necessary in teh ecosystems where they live and hunt salmon. Apparently they eat about 1/10 th of the salmon they catch, and when they do eat, they only eat the most fatty portions (gotta hibernate). So what happens is that they deposit lots of nutrients from the water onto the land. Other animals such as small rats, birds and so on then eat the remains, and then you have the insects and fungi that decompose the body, all contributing to the biomass of that particular area.
Countering the pleiosteine argument is when hunters brought the red fox to the australian outback for hunting. Apparently it got loose and is mauling the 'natural' habitat of the outback. So the counter-argument says that we don't know what kind of consequences a non-native animal would have on a habitat. But that's kinda foolish, because the red fox isn't a predatory nor a large animal, and all the pleiostine advocates are talking about putting in large predatory animals . . . so there.
So in this example what you see is that large animals have dis-proportionally large affect on their environment.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
organic molecules and big mamals
the other article i think was a bit more exicting though.
This article talked about repopulating the planet with large predatory animals. Elephants exert a disproportional amount of influence in their ecosystem because when they knock down trees, all sorts of organisms collect around the felled trees and create local ecosystems. It isn't a matter of size though, otters eat three times their body-weight in kelp, thereby regulating thier ecosystem not through mass but quantities consumed.
So, the argument was that before humans took over the planet in the las 50,000 years there was an abundance of large mamals that regulated the environments of all the different continents. So, the arguemt goes that re-introducing these large mamals would then create a massive beneficial effect on ecosystems that are seemingly in balance, but really out of whack. For instance, deer overpopulation.
I liked it for two reasons. The lesser reason is that they mentioned that fake Safari's get about 7 times the visitorship than national parks, and people go to see the big animals, not the flowers. Therefore, there would be more people going to national forests and parks to see the actually native (or closely related) big animals in their own habitat.
The greater reason is that this isn't just conservation, it's radical conservation. Before now, i haven't seen may articles or thoughts about re-creating the balanced ecosystem, most of the stuff that i've read was about stopping pollution and preventing ecological degradation. So now these 'conservationists' are going on the aggressive, which i applaud. Now there are proposals about how to actually re-balance the ecosystem first, and have humans cope with it instead of how to move humans somewhere and have the ecosystem follow its lead.
[the article was called Restoring America's Big Wild Animals]
google search word: rewilding
Superhero to consult: Captain Planet!
Human Achievement
For instance, i know little about European classical music, so i can't really argue about it. So the book has me wondering if when i listen to European classical music whether i'd agree with the experts. So far i do like bach and mozart, so that has me have a grudging agreement with the 'eurpoean classical music aficianados'. Why grudging? because i'd like to say that they dont' know what they're talking about if i ever heard them say that they can't get into hip-hop.
anyhoo, I wanted to read the book a long time ago but for more retributative reasons (is that a word?). I wanted to see how much of a fool this guy is. This is the same guy that came out with the book The Bell Curve a while back. And amidst all the hype and counter-racism and racism claims and all, i've always wondered about his sampling methods. At least in this book he kinda skirted some of the issue of Eurocentrism by [get this] only counting books by people from different cultures! For instance, to judge the relative merit of English literature, he only included the books of non-english-speaking writers!. So there's a one-up for anyone who's been mentioned across a language barrier.
I'm only a bit through the book, but the prefacing and hedging and explaining before we get down to the get down is rather exciting. And apparently he has lots of explanation of his sampling and statistical methods, which i'm also curious about . . . who cares about facts, i care about how you come to know a fact.
update on google maps
Hooray for google!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
innundation and movie reviews
But. . . when i'm up and running, i'll be posting to these various blogs much more frequently.
###
I saw "the last king of scotland" last night. it took me two nights to watch it. It was a good movie, but i don't know why the man was like that. I think Forest Whitaker got the oscar for the role. So, in the last decade we've had oscars for black people playing a rogue maniacal cop, a poor slut in love with a death row inmate, an unwed mother and a tyrranical African buffoon ruler. And who said there wasn't progress on the big screen?
Q&A: denzel, halle, jennifer and forest for the people who played those roles.
####
i turned thirty this past weekend. Best birthday since the real one.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
side comment on the last thing
I was also thinking that i was "above" J&J because J&J is so recent. My paternal family is traced back to pre 1800's and have been doing substantive things every generation since then. So my attitude toward Jack & Jill, Frats and Sororities is that since they were founded in the early 1900's, that they're a function of new money trying to validate themselves.
Taking that one step further, i wouldn't be surprised that if you looked at the rolls of the Skull-and-Bones (even the early inceptors) or other fraternities and sorrorities, you'll find that they were 'new money' (within two generations) and perhaps created these organizations to validate themselves in the face of the snobbery of older money.
I was talking to my dad a few years back and said that when i get rich i'm going to have a bumper sticker that read "old guard, new money"
he, he, like i'd want to be in J&J! New breeds!
class conscious in NYC
I was in NYC visiting my wonderful girlfriend and we went to a great
That’s where I stepped in . . .
And when things got interesting of course . . .
My big mouth (enter stage left)
So I said to them “I’ve been trying to hold my tongue and not listen, but I want to say something” and they agreed to let me in the conversation (at the same time I could feel my girlfriend roll her eyes towards her cerebellum). Suckers!!! Anyhoo . . .
Friday, May 25, 2007
rehashing
But it doesn't happen with every book. Just good novels.
In a related note, i keep doing the same thing over and over again. I go through files that i've written and created and go over them with a fine-toothed comb to see if there's anything to add or adjust. And i know i won't do it. so why do it? I need some newness inmy life.
And what's with all these short random thoughts, as if this were one of those meaningless blogs? I should think of something deep to say.
Netflix is sooo last year
For instance, if i put Mission Impossible in my Queue, why do they then put the other two mission impossibles and related movies that i've already seen? I would think that they would have a query that would eliminate already rated movies.
Seems simple enough.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
immigrants
I'm actually against amnesty, unless there's some sort of reparations. I do like the republicans saying that immigration should be based on importing people with marketable skills (i.e. hi-tech not high-tech) and not simply by family ties. But what about some kind of dual-citizenship program?
Kidding mostly. i just wanted to post something, i've been kinda quiet lately.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
driving without reality
deep thoughts: by jack handy's nephew
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Obamania & Philly's next mayor?
Great article on Obama. Fantastic article on an even more fascinating man.
I'm just upset that Obama weighed in on the Philly Election behind Chakka Fattah. He's good and all, but i like nutter a helluva lot better. Chakka has it right on attacking the causes of violence, and not just punishing the instances/patterns of it. Why do i like Nutter? Because Nutter isn't scared to do the unpopular stuff for what he thinks is best for philly. But Nutter is foolin himself thinking that searching and frisking "random" people will dent the rate of violence in the city. Knox is a facade, brady's full of himself, and i don't know much about Evans. But then again, all this means nothing because i've never met any of them.
Back to Obama: my favorite paragraph from the article:
"There are three things that Democratic political candidates tend to do when talking with constituents: they display an impressive grasp of the minutiae of their constituents’ problems, particularly money problems; they rouse indignation by explaining how those problems are caused by powerful groups getting rich on the backs of ordinary people; and they present well-worked-out policy proposals that, if passed, would solve the problems and put the powerful groups in their place. Obama seldom does any of these things. He tends to underplay his knowledge, acting less informed than he is. He rarely accuses, preferring to talk about problems in the passive voice, as things that are amiss with us rather than as wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. And the solutions he offers generally sound small and local rather than deep-reaching and systemic."
makes me wanna holla
On the commentary in slashdot, someone observed that the first amendment was to protect people FROM government censorship, not to defend collusion . . . I'm glad someone's watching those who are watching us.
It seems that humans and corporations will try to distort just about anything to rationalize doing something that violates another person . . .
link:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070507-verizon-says-phone-record-disclosure-is-protected-free-speech.html
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
workfare for the whole family
Yo. this is a great idea. Welfare mothers aren't recieving a blank check, they're actually being given money based on how well they're managing their lives:
It's happening in mexican rural areas, with a slow matriculation into the cities, but i think it's a great idea.
To implement something like this in the States would almost be a snap, we have a lot of record keeping in the schools and medical clinics. Setting up the database and tracking of it would be costly, but dollar for dollar this would be a lot better than giving chronic welfare mothers a blank check.
Accountability from the bottom up. Someone call Bill Cosby
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/nyregion/25antipoverty.html?ex=1335153600&en=28bc52f07c895460&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Rating Netflix Movies
I told him that he needs to build in some kind of device to create explicit associations between movies. For instance, i saw the Illusionist and The Prestige. Both wer movies about magicians. However, there's nothing except word of mouth to say that these movies are alike. For all of that, if i searched for "magic", i would have gotten things like Narnia, LOTR and so forth.
He doesn't even have to make the associations himself! He can have people tag movies and create a little device so that people can vote/say "like" or "not like" other movies along certain categories.
When i was ineffectually telling him this, he said i didn't know how powerful the algorhythms were to identify movies i'd like. So if you or anyone else is intereseted in this, here's a link to an article by the head-honcho of netflix explaining their recommendation system, and how they're trying to open-source thier recommendations improvement.
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/130.html
Friday, April 20, 2007
vampires vs. neteru
My new guilty pleasure is vampire novels by L.A. Banks. She writes a damn good series. So far it’s been about battles between Vampires and Neteru (variants of Egyptian dieties). I like it for a couple reasons. First I get to indulge in some ebonics and spirituality at the same time. Also, we’ve heard a lot a bout demons and evils spirits, but this is the first time I’ve read anything about angelic hierarchies and things like that. She has a pantheon for the newmillenium.
Her writing style is defnitely fast-paced when the action is flaring, but i think she gives too much backstory. Actually, it's not too much, it's too much. What i mean by that is that she has lots of sentences where if you cut off the last three words. Just kidding . . . if you cut off the last three words the sentence has more impact. other than that, i'm good.
I haven't read the series in sequence (who does?) and i'm going back to read the first couple novels to get the backstory.
Friday, April 13, 2007
the gauntlet and the dollar
That's good because nobody will steal my idea, bad because i don't know if the idea is worth stealing. Good because i'll actually be putting my ideas 'out there', bad because 'out there' is already filled with a whole lot of other crap. drumroll . . .
the website
wealthscore.googlpages.com
and my money blog:
wealthscore.blogspot.com
ps: apparently i'm on a publishing kick
Second move 2
I secured a venue for the first chess event. It'll be at the Rumbar in center city philadelphia.
Holla at me, throw a dolla at me.
So i've been telling everyone that i can talk to about SecondMove. Everyone thinks its a great idea, and most people are jealous that it isn't for more than Black Men. So most of the non-black men (which includes indians, scicilians, puertoricans and white guys) are jealous. I just might end up throwing a 'smattering' event and call it "your move".
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Wesabe, the sequel
basically i'm working on something that'll help people get a handle on their finances, not in terms of 'absolute' wealth, but in terms of how well they're managing their money according to how much they make.
Second move
the name of the groups is called 'second move'. If you're not a chess afficianado, then you wouldn't know that the black peices move second. So, since we're black men, i'll call it "Second move" it's not rocket science, it's chess (which is much harder . . equations don't fight back!).
it's also going to be a BYOB- bring your own board. silly i know, but great nonetheless. I'm hoping to have it at a places especially where we can drink. hopefully if we get a few regulars, when i pose the use of the spot to the owners, we'll get some kind of volume discount.
so, if you know of any spots in philly owned and/or frequented by black folk, and/or play chess, and/or know a black person who plays chess, drop me a line.
Friday, April 06, 2007
why i'm late
I reply something stupid, that i planned my life that way. Seriously, when i was about 22 i figured i'd be a f#$kup for a couple years and start to get my ish together around 30. So i'm surely and slowly putting my life together, and its coming through very nicely. But it's not that stupid at a deeper glance because i'm actually taking responsibility for my life and having created it that way.
In the same vein, i see how utterly stupid that is. So i'm going to stop it.
Wesabe
Wesabe is one of the coolest programs that i've seen on the web. Basically you upload your bank and credit account information and tag it, and it sorts it into categories so you can track your spending in various categories.
For instance, you can tag your trip to wawa as both food and junkfood, and you'll find out how much you spend on junkfood in a month and over time. you can also see how much you spend with both! I was talking it up with one of my students (i teach people how to use computer applications) and he wondered whether it would add food to junkfood. I said that anyone smart enough to come up with this "applet?" or widget or program probably figured that out . .. but it makes me wonder.
I started emailing one of the head guys about my questions and he's been very responsive, so i think i'll sign up. Imean, already probably eleven million hackers have my and your data, why not give it to the other four rookies?
bdub
Friday, March 16, 2007
300
i didn't like it as much as i thought i would.
I think of 300 as an over-hyped Troy. I didn't like Troy. The only scene worth watching was Brad Pitt (bad choice) yelling at the whole city of Troy for the other guy to come out. White guys flying with spears. Didn't anyone tell white guys that woody harrelson dunking was camera angles and springboards, not the real thing?
You have to realize (well, you don't have to) that this wasn't just any story, it was a comic book adaption. Therefore, though it had a sound story-line, the real grit and substance of the movie was in the presentation of it. For that i give them an A. It was the graphics, scenes, camera angles, picture speeds and backgrounds that set a very different feel for the movie. Almost real different from other war flicks. In other war flicks the sky was dark grey, here it was bad shoeshine brown.
It was a very well-produced movie, but nothing groundbreaking. And perhaps that was the point, to do so much so well, that it seems natural, like Minority Report.
And who's this gerard butler cat? He's good, He's new. hey may even be a breakout But he's no antoine fisher (who has fallen into cinematic history as a one-hit wonder . . what's he doing these days?)!
theBiz
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Truth in Credit Charges
Remember when the FDA mandated nutritional information to go on foods. The food industry gulped, yelled and eventually relented. We need the same thing for credit card companies. I think something like this should be mandated:
Total principal You owe: | Monthly payment | Months to pay off the debt | Total interest to pay |
| Minimum: $XXX.XX | | |
Min + $10 | | | |
Min + $25 | | | |
Min + $50 | | | |
Min + $100 | | |
and that should be placed prominently on any bill that you get that charges interest.
I think that if/when people see this on a monthly basis, they'll get perturbed and start paying down their credit a lot faster.
Sure, just because we have the nutrition information on the sides of boxes hasn't actually decreased the average weight of americans, but at least that information is a step in the right direction.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_go_co/congress_credit_cards;_ylt=Aq3dUdPBvR1lL0ZDk_cBvfKs0NUE
Friday, March 02, 2007
hooray for Microsoft
I'm smitten.
hard
I've been a microsoft fan since mice came out. I used to play around on windows 3.1 and jump off and do some dos stuff in Norton Commander (yeah, i'm old). I actually like microsoft a lot more when i read bill gates biography back in the early-mid nineties (before he was popular as a person, not just a company). As of late, i haven't liked microsoft so much. But now i'm back on board.
This is a bit of a confession from a google lover. I think one of the reasons i love google so much is because of their beautifully functional user interface. I'm spoiled. But now, office 2007 has a beautifully functional user interface. I'm spoiled double.
So in the upcoming wars, do you know who will win? the company that makes their interface beautiful. I've even read a book or two on design of tools (the design of everyday things by Donald Norman) and related things (the existential pleasures of engineering), so i have a sweet spot for design.
I mean, office 2007 is beautiful.
I love the interactivity. It's like web 2.0 for your desktop!
But i'm very wary of vista. Right now i'm in the market for a new laptop, need it to help out on the job. And i don't want vista. Matter of fact, when i get up, i'll go down the hall and ask my tech guy how can i get one. I can't seem to find a laptop with XP anywhere (unless its a refurb on tigerdirect). So i want XP and office 2007.
Anyhoo
office 2007 rocks.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
My mans an' 'em
Anyhoo. He's one of the top ranked fencers in the world. That's saying something because he's the first "American" fencer to be ranked at the top of fencing for a considerable period of time. Humility aside, he's the fencing equivalent to Tiger.
To boot, his sister is a top-ranked fencer also. They're the two black fencers that you saw in i think milk commercials sometime around the olympic games.
He was on my mind 'cuz i talked to my aunt and she siad he's now in bucharest or something like that with my cousin fencing.
Really. . . who goes to bucharest?
her blog is: djshyralc.blogspot.com i haven't read it in about a year, but it was good while it lasted. hopefully she has some updates.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Ultimate Mashup
Imagine that all information can be integrated, customized and at your fingertips. You're walking down the street and you see a coffee shop. You dip in and on your PDA phone you get a short bio/hist of the store, the owner, its workers (with their consent and input of course) and the uses of the building before the cofee shop. Your phone also beeps when you have someone who fits your dating profile or blog profile in the nearby record store.
So then you walk the rest of the way to the library to do research. You're just a fan of book, you like the texture. So when you get there you link into the system that knows your reading style preferences and it recommends an author or two that are a little outside of your reading style, but they have insights that both support your views and/or oppose your views. This is all thanks to a human-led tagging mission to cross-classify books.
But you're just there to read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. So you take that home and ride your car-share segue to the bus so you can go home.
Isn't life grand?
tenth dimension
http://tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php
El Metaphoro for Iraqo
So
My opposition to “positions on the Iraqi occupation/war”
I think that what’s in
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
State of the Union
My dad watched it. No wonder he calls it the 'boob toob'. I'm not sure if he's talking about the people watching it or the people on it. Pops said he watches PBS about 90% of the time. I said i'd get cable (jokingly of course) so he could watch the history and discovery channel. Then he said he'd only watch PBS 80% of the time. Touche (pronounced:Twoshay)
I don't know about politics. Seems like a lot of people positioning and frontin and trying to sound good. And really they're not saying anything. Suits on a street corner.
If i were president, all my cabinet people would have some kind of engineering degree. Why? Because at least you have to think rigorously and precisely about what you're studying. I have a history degree. I took other humanities classes. It's mostly drivel. Someone trying to put a slightly different perspective on the same thing. I get more perspectives on things walking down a street than reading a book.
Let's face it, most people write 75% drivel in any kind of writing class, and you can't BS your way through a calculus function. But if I were president . . . more drivel
What else? . . .
Monday, January 22, 2007
Audiophile, . . . well ipodophiles at least
Itunes, it is what i live and breathe by.
So i got BeaTunes (www.beatunes.com ) . It's a program that finds all the beats per minute of your songs and puts them in itunes. I had thought that was great back when i had a kilo of songs (a thousand songs for you americans). And i've been pining and pouting about not having that at my now 6kilos of songs (six thousand for you slow americans). Enter stage right, with pyrotechnics BeaTunes.
Not only can it do beats per minute (bpm), it also listens to the song to figure out what other songs it sounds like. So you can do moods that cross genres. However, this sounds a little shaky. I like Pandora, and i know they have professional musicians analyzing songs. i'm not sure that this 6mb program approach, much less reach and surpass that. But as we speak the program is going through my whole itunes library, so we'll see after a week or two. I'll create a couple playlists and burn through them to see what this program's got. I'll admit, it's probably one of the first web-based programs [non-box] i think i'll buy.
The disappointing thing is that i have no real home computer. I juggle a couple different computers, so i don't know how to have it analyze my ipod's songs. I think i'll have to bite the bullet and erase all my ratings and playcount. That should put things back on an even basis, cuz John legend is in heavy rotation and has like 26 plays whereas marvin is hovering around 6-7. I wish there was a way to corret that.
But the re-rating isn't so bad. A few months ago i erased all my 3* (3 star) songs cuz my library was getting bohemouth. And i wanted to re-rate all my stars to more align with the netflix rating system: hated it, 2didn't like it, 3 liked it, 4 really liked it, 5 loved it. I had been rating 2's and 3's together and only listened much to 4's and 5's. But that reduces my listening experience. So this'll give me a fresh start.
Visual Artists Unite, or not
What prompted this book? A comic book no less. A few months ago when i was teaching myself to draw, i bought a book "Perspective! for comic book artists" by Scott McCloud. It was great. Most of the time in drawing books you see either a lot of words about a few pictures, or a lot of pictures with few words. So you're either inndated or starved for explanation. With comics as his medium of explanation, he shows you in frame-by-frame/step-by-step how to do everything you wanted with perspective. Then i realized that comics was simply the perfect medium for such instruction (art- and i say that with tongue in cheek).
So i later read his book (got from the Library- freedom ahoy!) "Understanding Comics" which was a tour-de-force (always wanted to write that) about comics as art, not just art's bastard child. He explored the medium, through the medium. For instance, remember how seductive it was in the Sound of Music when they would sing about music using music? Well, its kinda the same thing, only comics and comics, and the thrill is still there. So he examines comics with a depth and breadth i've never thought about. Apparently he does it with a depth and breadth that most comic artists haven't seen, hence the rave reviews.
So i'm on an art kick. So when i was in the bookstore browsing for something that would tweak my interest, I came upon this book "art as expereince". So far his main point is about how art has been abstracted and bastardized from everyday life. And only in the context of everyday life can we really understand art. Point seems cool, but it's a long book and i hope he has some other insightful stuff to say. incidentally this helps round out my philosophical readings, which has been a kick of mine for a while.
Obama for emperor. . .not
Obama for Emperor. . . he hath no clothes, no substance, only that politically seductive smile. The only clean guy in the mudslinging fight. I read his second book. He's playing the role of a referee, which is great and what we 'need'. But how is he going to ref the superbowl when he's new to high-school ball? The book is good. But after the first three chapters there isn't any more substance to be had. Rather the book is about outlining his perspective, not his plan. Think of it as a book about the art, not art itself.
What do i think? Gore for president, Obama as vice pres. This would give Gore another run, with a highly seductive candidate on his heels. And this will also give Obama the necessary experience to know what the big house is like.
Beware, watch out for Gingrich. He'll be late in comin, but he'll be blowin full steam ahead when he throws his hat into the race. His late start will place him in the role as a new/fresh face (cough) in a field of people already being criticized.