Monday, April 27, 2009

March of 100 Li begins again

Well, good news on two fronts. I've had quite a few happy dreams lately. Spending the day with a good friend, exploring a new city, and settling back into school. The other good news that I got was that I was asked to work overtime. That's a good sign. Company is clearly doing well enough to up production a bit. I wonder how long my body will last doing several overtime shifts. Hopefully things will be ok.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

No Update

It's sad that I don't really feel I have the energy to update my blog right now. Haven't calculated my usual month end numbers. I'm contemplating doing a pie graph of where my money goes, but I suppose that only works after I do my tax return so that I know how much actually went toward taxes. It'll be interesting when it is eventually done though.
Oh, and 63 days down, and I should get some rest before I face day 64.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Picking A Computer to Last A Decade

Ten years is a long time for a computer these days. I think most of them get replaced every two to three years or more. I'm wondering if I can pick one that I'll be happy with for ten years or more. This question is largely prompted by the slow death of my computer monitor and the rise of the netbook. Apparently, they pack about as much processing power as my current desktop computer, and I'd probably have to say that I want faster sometimes. Granted, they have a lot more ram than I do on my desktop and probably better video too. Without a good idea of just what limits my computer's performance, it's hard to say.
Most of the time though, I'm just humming away on my current laptop, which is a 12 year old Pentium MMX running at 166MHz with 64MB of ram. I've owned it for 7 years and it's still going strong. I don't particularly want to replace it, but again, more speed would be nice and there's a fan that grinds in there. Fortunately, that fan only powers up when it gets hot and if the noises are any indication, I'm not a particularly heavy user.
Anyway, I've heard good rumors about the new atom, and arm's possible entry into the market. Also, I hear windows 7 is supposed to be less of a resource hog than Vista or XP. Maybe when I finally get around to it, I can find something that I'll be happy with for a decade or so that'll also hold me down when my monitor finally does break.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Too much vs too little

Before I was in a situation with little to nothing to do. Now I'm busy. Largely due to taxes. I'm not sure which I like better. At least when there was little to do, I could brainstorm about things I'd like to do. Long story short, can't wait for this to be over, and can't wait to get back to the zoo.
60 days down.

Friday, April 10, 2009

On Risk

I listen to a lot of audio about finance, one of the books got me thinking about risk. It specifically questioned a few definitions of risk, being an entrepreneur vs having one source of income. Risk is really the probability of an event multiplied by the severity of the consequences. Whether you're employed, self employed or unemployed, diversity helps. Working three jobs in the name of security is probably a stupid thing to do no matter how you cut it, but we can buy diversity through investments. Why we should has been demonstrated a number of times by people such as the former employees of Enron, Lehman brothers, and other collapsed companies. As a Canadian, I don't know much about the 401K system in the USA, but I'm told that employers exert some influence over the investment choices that people can make within the plan. I think that's largely to blame for that.
Anyway, back on topic, what are the risks for me? Well, I could get struck by a meteorite, lightening or more realistically, a car. That would be very bad for me. The first one, I really can't do anything about but the probability is so remote there really isn't a point in thinking about it. Avoiding large metal objects in lightening storms and looking both ways before crossing the street, sure that's simple enough. Then there's food poisoning, store foods properly and not for too long. All of this while very important is not really exciting discussion. As was discussed in the book I was listening to though, job loss, that's something that is somewhat exciting to talk about.
What causes job loss? Some of the causes are entirely up to you and entirely preventable, like the people who get fired for not showing up, showing up intoxicated, or act like a jerk. Other causes are hard to defend against, like if you were an Enron or Lehman Brother's employee and got swept away when the company collapsed. From what I've observed at my current job, job security happens in three stages.
The first stage is to be a learner. If you're going around learning about your job, your company and your co-workers and their job responsibilities, you're going to stick around. While learning is ongoing, the amount of time you spend learning drops significantly quickly.
The second stage is to be a doer. Show off your new skills and stay active. When the ax falls, it's going to be the less productive employees that go first.
The third stage is seems to be the one that people fail to transition to most often, becoming a teacher. Being the only one who can do your job isn't necessarily the key to job security. If you can get everyone capable of doing your job, you've clearly demonstrated a skill that others don't have, you can train employees. This typically also gets you a raise.
As for the other side of the coin, minimizing the severity of the consequences of loosing your job. You should probably keep a resume up to date, beyond that I wouldn't regularly browse job sites. Maybe keep a list of resources that you can use to look for work, but 20 minutes of looking will probably find enough to keep you busy for a while. Oh yeah, and having enough money to keep you afloat helps.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Well, Rest In Peace

Somehow there's death alerts seem to have an annoying tendency to be prone to false alarms. However, I still mark the passing of a good friend today. There were all sorts of other things I'd have rather commented on, but this pretty much demands a moment. Oddly, after the news has settled in, I don't really feel a sense of loss. I'm just happy that for a while, my life was enriched.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Peer Lending Thoughts

I saw an article that made me wonder about all the hype about peer lending that went on a while back. Apparently it has still yet to happen in Canada. I wonder when it'll materialize. I also wonder what will be deemed an acceptable interest rate for the highest credit score people. RioCan recently issued $180M of debt at 8.33%. I'm thinking that the average person is probably a higher default risk. Will people with good credit take 10%, 12% or more? I can hardly wait to see.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

strange dreams this time

Well, that was a strange mix of dreams. I forgot the first one, but I was superman for a while, it was shortly after I had moved out and I was dropping by the old place for one more night. Then I spotted and evil plot and sprung into action, after confronting the villain, I was me again and superman was rescuing me. Someone asked about the chances of there being more aliens on earth and all manner of strange creatures started popping in. After making it out, I woke up
Next set, I forget how it starts, though there was a love interest with someone at a fast food joint. We were hanging out at her place and my relatives kept dropping by. It turns out they knew her and she was a family friend that I didn't know about. Oh, before that I was going to school, there was something to do with stargate technology there, a major space battle with an alternate reality intruder. There was a lot of military training going on in the area after and a big tank technology demo. Then the love story somehow starts.