Category: General

I’ve always wondered what goes into a bag of carrots…

I wonder how much it would cost to build a wireless network to cover all the lower 48 of the United States.

One thing that strikes me as kind of odd is why don’t more tv networks offer their content online? It seems with Google and Facebook’s large databases you could easily find the best targeted advertising for advertisers. Would I rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads that might not reach my intended audience or targeted advertising that targets the viewers interests and location so much better? It makes so much more sense to host more content online and just have ads.

Trying this from my phone.

Nothing but bots on AIM these days. I always get a few of these and sometimes I can’t tell if they’re robots or not. Rest of the chat conversation after the break.

Continue reading “Robot Love”

This is the second time I’ve gone out to find a book that seems interesting and have been disappointed in the digital copy pricing. The book is the Cryptonomicon. It is: $8.90 for a paperback from the store, free shipping from the web. $10.99 for the digital copy for my Nook. $1.99 + shipping used. This pricing scheme does not make any sense. How can a book that takes time and resources to print, store in a warehouse, and ship cost more than a digital copy that costs practically nothing to reprint, store, or ship? The only shipping cost is maybe $0.01 for bandwidth. And this is how print media plans to stay in business. By gouging their customers to want to stick with the hardcopies vs. the digital copies that cost nothing to reproduce.

I think its about time for me to try my hand at the art of Bonsai. Every time I trim the plants or trees in my yard I feel the need to work on something indoors that is similar and can be rewarding, my mind keeps going to bonsai. Today it occurred to me while I was cutting my Pomegranate tree that I should grab some soil and a clipping and see what I can do. The worst that will happen is that I’ll kill a defenseless tree, the best would be to pick up a hobby that I can do in my spare time. It also seems to be something that will get my mind off of all the things running through my head, a sort of meditation. And who couldn’t use more of that? Plus I’ll probably be able to keep the plants indoors, I don’t have any indoor plants and they should help with keeping the air fresh.

Image taken from: http://www.alloutdoorpatiofurniture.com/…

I just read this nice article by Matt Taibbi on Wallstreet, the SEC, and the Justice Department, link here. Looks like the game is rigged, still. And there ain’t a damn thing anyone can do about it. The Rich keep getting richer and everyone else gets screwed. Here’s a nice snippet from the article that describes the enforcement at the SEC:

“So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It’s not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they’re sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let’s not even make them say they’re sorry. That’s too mean; let’s just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don’t make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don’t ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What’s next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?”

— from Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?, Rolling Stone, March 3, 2011

It makes my blood boil, all of this. Its too unbelievable, but it happens and there is nothing that seems can be done about it. We don’t have the money or the jurisdiction to go after these people ourselves. It looks like you really just have to ignore all the corruption and play ball, hoping you get a lucky break.

Bank of America has signed me up for paperless billing for my mortgage. They don’t seem to offer any clue on my statement on how to keep getting paper statements.

They also made it so if I pay through their website up until the 9th it’s free of charge. From the 9th-15th it costs $6 to make an electronic payment. This is the first mortgage processor, I’ve had 3 so far, that has done this. It is the only bill I pay that has a fee if I make a payment from their website the day before it’s due.

I recently went through another refinance to get a lower rate on my loan to 4.75% from 5.625% to save $200/month. I went through my loan broker and was able to not have to fill out 100 forms with mundane details they verify later, which for me begs the question why don’t they just look it up to begin with as I’m sure they get deals from the right places. Anyway, I guess that’d be a GOOD bank that would just take some info from you instead of asking how much you make, the address of where you work, how many pets you have, what your favorite place to eat is, what color is your hair, and other useful information. Because there are no GOOD banks I go through a loan broker who fills out most of these forms for me and applies, or whatever it is that she does, to get me a loan. In any event I’m now with Bank of America Home Loans, which isn’t exactly the good bank I’d like to support.