Archive for Misc
January 30, 2009 at 10:42 PM · Filed under Internet, Misc, Uncategorized
So you’ve decided to buy a house, eh? Good for you! But now, the hard question is who to borrow that money from, which lender? Well not all lenders are created equally; they charge different amounts. Don’t pay attention only to the interest rate, otherwise you can miss out on $1000s in savings.
I’ve attached an Excel spreadsheet w/ formulae that I used to compare
mortgages. Just punch in the value of the house you want to buy, the downpayment you plan to make, and the various fees that your potential lender is going to charge you. You can adjust this to suit
you.
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September 28, 2008 at 10:11 PM · Filed under Misc
With apologies to Southwest’s Spirit magazine, I scanned this article, b/c I just couldn’t find it online. It’s essentially a recipe to help you figure out what resolution(s) you should focus on for the next year. I see it as a much more useful tool – what to do with your life!
February 2, 2008 at 11:23 AM · Filed under Misc
This is really old news, but worth repeating. Studies [see some references below] dating many years back have repeatedly shown that human multitasking results in slower performance, lower productivity, more mistakes and less retained memory about what was done. This doesn’t mean it’s about to stop. In fact, I warrant that we’ve come (gone?) too far. If you’re even remotely technologically ‘hooked in’, think about what you do on a daily basis that can be considered multitasking. Driving while listening to the radio and/or talking on the phone (preferrably with a headset!), watching TV while surfing the Web or checking e-mail, or at work where you’re on the computer, the phone and thinking about the other 2 or 3 tasks that you need to finish ASAP.
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December 10, 2007 at 11:53 PM · Filed under Misc
No one is going to care much about this post once the strike is over or when robots are writing our TV shows, but here goes anyway. Blogger Brent Evans put together a very nice rundown of current shows and how they’ve been/are affected by the writers’ strike. Things are rather messed up. For example, Heroes got re-written so that the 11th episode of the season became the last one instead of the 22nd. Ugh.
You may be wondering how the guy that claims not to watch much TV any more is posting this. Hey, it’s news-y and current, isn’t it? Plus I do watch *some* TV, usually while eating dinner or spacing out. On the plus side, not watching that much TV means I don’t care about most of this list at all. In fact, it means I soon won’t have any reason to watch TV at all!
November 19, 2007 at 12:39 AM · Filed under KJH News, Misc
Ok, the title of this essay should really be more along the lines of “Why Having a Job isn’t Exactly the Best Idea”, but that doesn’t have a nice ring to it like the current title, does it?
For those of you that know me, I recently started a new full-time job after being primarily a contractor/consultant for over 7 years. About 1 week into it, it hit me that I made a terrible decision. Why? Mainly – Time. I hear you asking “what is he talking about?” It’s quite simple really. I was never consistently a full-time employed contractor. Sometimes I was part-time, sometimes, 3/4-time, sometimes even more than 40 hrs/week. While I’m always struggling for time enough to cut deeply into my To Do list, I haven’t been this strapped for that precious commodity in years. Trying to run a side business while working a full-time j-o-b is not easy. I have new-found admiration for all of those so-called ‘overnight successes’ who bootstrapped businesses while working a full-time gig. I simply never realized how important and valuable my time was. To know something academically isn’t the same as experiencing it.
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November 3, 2007 at 2:26 PM · Filed under Internet, KJH News, Misc
Not too long ago, Netbank was shut down by the Feds, and their main banking assets were acquired by ING Direct for a song. I was a loyal Netbank customer for about 10 years, and enjoyed it tremendously. While I became complacent with the (initially good) rates, and stopped looking for better deals, for the most part I got what I needed.
Netbank was probably the first online only banking entity to not only offer above average rates, but also free bill payment. One feature that I didn’t even knew existed when I signed up, but immediately loved, was the ability to write someone a check from within the website and have Netbank print out and mail the check. Free. When I told friends and family about this, they either didn’t believe me and/or were amazed that that existed, more so when I sent them a check!
Lots of banks now offer this feature, but my vague memory tells me that Netbank pioneered this. I’ve started the process of migrating my accounts to ING Direct, as they appear to have what I need for bill payment and have great interest rates, and I don’t really want to spend lots of time researching new banks.
BTW, for those of you wondering how this has affected, the short answer is not at all. My money was FDIC insured, and I think the Netbank site may have been down for less than a day while ING Direct did some tweaking in the background to get it all under their control, but other than that, everything still looks, feels and is the same for me and the rest of the Netbank customers. The only impending thing is that I get the distinct impression that ING is trying to phase out the Netbank services and bring us under their main umbrealla of services. Makes sense for them.
Thanks Netbank. It’s too bad you didn’t manage to stick around and benefit from the fruits of your pioneering work, but I was glad to be along for the ride.
October 1, 2007 at 10:36 AM · Filed under Cool, KJH News, Misc
There I was losing pretty badly at a Scrabble game, and with a last ditch gamble, I pulled it out on the last play of the game!
Click the image above to see the larger size of the game board at the end.
Here’s the post-mortem: 3 tiles left in the bag, I have [RUSHIS, blank] in my rack. Lots of words if I can turn that I into an E, and at least 1 place to play them. So I take a count of the Es on the board and decide to gamble.
I play the I in a 2-letter word, and pull. Got it! Got the E. My worthy opponent plays 3 tiles and empties the bag. I lay down ‘CRUSHES’ on the next turn. Game over right then and there. Yes, I intentionally chose ‘C’ for the blank tile. Hehe.
CRUSHES was worth 86 points, so you can see how far behind I was.
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