Showing posts with label free advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free advice. Show all posts

Saturday, October 29, 2016

We MUST Do SOMETHING!

Sometimes, all that matters is that you say you will do something.  Found this out in 2008, running for office.  And wrote about it here, for Learn Liberty Blog.

Of course, things can get a little meta.  As here. 


I understand that "environmentalists" will donate money and contribute outrage even if the non-profits swindling them make empty promises.  But c'mon:  You have to pretend to try.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Mentors and Giants

Chris Alcantara is doing a series of "interviews" he calls "Mentors and Giants."

I am, at best, a mentor.  But Chris was kind enough to post the interview on his blog...

Which is here.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Computer Audio

Loyal reader Gerardo asks,

"If you hadn't made the jump to digital music beyond CDs, how would you go about doing it"?

Let me start by saying that I'm an analog guy. I use a home-made 2 watt vacuum tube amp. I have a record player and hundreds of LPs.

I made the jump to no-CDs by burning all my CDs onto an external hard-drive. Because a lot of music that I like doesn't come in a lossless digital format (i.e. digital downloads are often MP3), I still buy CDs, burn them onto my hard drive and then get rid of them. Until uncompressed downloads are routinely available, I will probably stick to this ritual. If you are OK with MP3s or are willing to limit yourself to music available as either uncompressed CD quality or higher resolution downloads, then you can get away from having any physical items except a hard-drive.

It drives me nuts that LPs are offered for sale with a free MP3 download instead of a FLAC download.

If you are planning to make the jump to computer based audio, the Well-Tempered Computer is an excellent resource and the Computer Audio Asylum is a lively forum. There are places to get hi-rez downloads, like HD Tracks.

You basically have two choices:  (A) Put together your own system with storage, computer, playing software and DAC, or (B) buy an all in one music server device, like the SB touch or the J-River

The "audiophiles" seem to prefer putting their own systems together based on a computer. Mac minis are popular; I use a Macbook and prefer Pure Music for playback software.  I learned a lot about computer audio from this guy.


Friday, May 13, 2011

Bad Spam: These Kids Today...

Spammers used to take a little pride in their work. Make up a story, about a war, a widow, and a desperate last chance to make things right. Some romance, some mystery, knamean?

But now, these kids today simply do not take any pride in their work. Look at this spam I got yesterday: Really? If you are going to send a stupid spam phish to a million people, wouldn't you spend more than 20 seconds writing the thing? I understand spammers are busy, but where's the craftsmanship?

Monday, August 02, 2010

European vacation?

Apparently, Shaq does not want to take a "reasonable" salary to play on a decent NBA team and is threatening to take his immense talents to Europe!

Would a European team pay $10 million for his services? Would he last out the season? Are contracts guaranteed in European leagues? What about pairing up with Starbury in China?

The big money-grubber!



Sunday, July 04, 2010

No Brainer

I was home this morning watching my boy Rafa ruin two sets of underpants (his and Berdych's) when I heard John MacEnroe lamenting that "they have to do something" about the state of the Davis Cup.

Hey John: You know what "they" ought to do with that anachronistic, nationalistic, boring, interminable, no-compensation-paying POS?

SCRAP IT!

No one cares about Davis Cup. No one wants to play Davis Cup. Tennis is in the Olympics for the foreseeable future and that particular anachronistic, nationalistic institution crushes the Davis Cup.

You know what else they ought to scrap?

Any shots of Rafa from the waist down. C'mon, dude. You're better than that!

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Elderly prof ISO a sexy E-reader

People, I need help. usually when I travel I pack a boatload of books that brutally weigh me down. For example, on our trip to Brazil last summer, Mrs. Angus and I brought 12 books.

So I guess that makes me a candidate for an e-reader.

But, the marketplace is pretty confusing to me. Kindle? Kindle DX? iPad? Kindle for iPad? Nook?

Can you guys break it down for me and help me out?

Are there extra costs beyond the machine and the book downloads, like data transfer costs / contracts? How much worse is the iPad screen for reading than the Kindle's? What is battery life like? How rugged are these products?

TIA,

Angus

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

It's the Insolvency, stupid!

Yesterday was the day it seemed that everyone figured out the Greek crisis is not one of liquidity but rather of insolvency.

The situation in Southern Europe now seems more and more like the Latin American debt crisis, and to me, the central lesson of that crisis for the debtor countries was, if you are going to default, sooner is much better than later.

One of the main reasons the LA crisis morphed into the dreaded "lost decade" for the debtor countries was that they kept agreeing to refinance and re-borrow and thus dragged out the crises for years.

Today, capital markets are much larger and more open than they were in the early 80s so I don't think this crisis can be dragged out for years even if the countries involved were dumb enough to want to try.

Somehow though, I don't think that the capital markets are going to get thanked for providing this valuable service!

Friday, March 05, 2010

Good news for people who love bad news

Yes, the economy lost more jobs last month, and yes the unemployment rate is still 9.7%, but in some sense this is what qualifies as "good news" these days. Job losses were predicted to be higher and the unemployment rate was predicted to rise, so this qualifies as a "better than expected" jobs report.

I continue to think that the economy is turning the corner and that we are more likely to get a faster than predicted recovery than we are to get a double dip recession.

I also think that the biggest threat to a robust recovery is not a lack of further government action, but rather the threat of further government action in the form of higher taxes on corporations and entrepreneurs. 
 
 

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Where to put your money, non-Mungowitz edition

Apparently someone asked Mungo this question recently and he didn't like his own answer. Well, no one asked me, but here is what I think:

the BRICs

Asian Tigers

Commodities

Those would be my choices if you have the onions to be bold.

I am not a big fan of US and European equities as a group, US interest rates can only go up, which means bond prices can only go down.

What are your best investment tips?


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Chin Music

From some dude allegedly named Glenn Thrush:

Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is retiring, but he's not the retiring type, ridiculing congressional job creation efforts on "The Early Show."

"If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months," Bayh said.

A senior House Democratic aide:

“It is hard to stomach lectures from Sen. Bayh on Jobs. For most Americans, if they were as unproductive in their jobs as Bayh has been in his, they wouldn’t have the luxury of quitting — they would be fired.


Awesome! Can I get a Kaboom?
 

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Good Books, Bad Books

On the "good" side of the ledger:

"Open" by Andre Agassi. I am not kidding about this. It is really honest, funny, informative and fun. Even if you don't like tennis.

"Born to Run"  by Christopher McDougall. Fascinating story about the Tarahumara, human evolution, and personal growth and discovery. The guy makes a few bizarre statements about the Tarahumara in the beginning (for a more balanced view of them, I recommend "God's Middle Finger), but the book is really attention grabbing and fun. Even if you don't like to run.

On the "bad" side of the ledger:

"The Art of Political Murder" by Francisco Goldman. He somehow manages to take a sensational case in a divided and violent country and make it mind numbingly boring. The first few chapters (as far as I could make it) are just a laundry list of names and times. I skipped ahead a few times and found more of the same so I quit. An infinitely better book, more or less on the same topic is "Senselessness" by Horacio Castellanos Moya, which I can unreservedly recommend.

"The Inheritance of Rome" by Chris Wickham. I am sorry, but Tyler must have been indulging in some of Oklahoma's finest when he recommended this book. All the guy does is (a) contradict himself at least once per page (so thus they were very Roman, but yet they were not Roman) and (b) come up with new names for the Goths. People I have plowed through multiple volumes of Braudel with pleasure, but I couldn't get past page 100 of this.
 
"Inherent Vice" by Thomas Pinchon. Lord, how the mighty have fallen. It's not funny, it's not weird, it's not readable. If you want to read a "hard boiled" novel by a slumming serious author try "Nobody Move" by Denis Johnson instead.


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Helpful advice from your friends at KPC

(1) Guys, when you leave your young son in your truck to go drinking at a strip club, it's not a good idea to forget where you parked when you leave the club at 1:00 in the morning! And if you do, calling the cops to report it stolen is not the recommended move.



INDIANAPOLIS – A man was arrested after police said he left his 5-year-old son in a tractor-trailer while he ducked into an Indianapolis strip club to drink. The 39-year-old was arrested at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday on child neglect and public intoxication charges after calling police to report his truck stolen and his child missing. Police said the man was too drunk to remember where he had parked.

They found the boy inside watching cartoons on a television inside the cab. The keys were in the ignition, and the doors were unlocked.

Police said the suspect put his son in jeopardy by leaving him exposed in a high crime area.

The man was taken to the Marion County jail, where his wife picked up him and the child.

Oh, that reminds me:

(2) Ladies, when your husband leaves your kid stashed in his truck while he hits the strip club and then calls you in the middle of the night to come get them at the police station, it is A-OK to only pick up the kid and leave the husband in the hoosegow!