Back in college I made a speech about America’s obsession with race and why we aren’t allowed to simply identify ourselves as American. The details of the speech escape me, but I feel the same now as I did then. Fill out a form with a question about ethnic origin and you’ll probably be presented with the following options (taken from the CDC):
- White
- Black or African American
- Latino
- Asian
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
- American Indian or Alaska Native
The CDC has a reason to want to know ethnic background, but what about employment applications or practically every other form we have to fill out. The definition of each group is a little strange too. White is defined as everyone originating from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. This must be a double standard developed by bureaucrats in a politically correct stupor that allows “whites” to be identified by their skin color, but everyone else is off limits (Black is acceptable since it is tied to cultural identity). Why can’t we just combine those last four groups into “Brown”? Would that be any less racist than pigeonholing someone as white?
My skin happens to be white, but I don’t trace my origins to Europe. That identification ended when my ancestors came to America. I’m not even sure who my ancestors were that came over here or where they came from (The Blarg knows though). The only country and origin I identify with is America.
This ultimately comes down to recognizing that American itself is a valid race/ethnicity. Wasn’t America suppose to be a huge melting pot of race, ethnicity and culture? Wouldn’t the product of that mixture be a new, unique American ethnicity that its participants could identify with? My skin might be white, but I’m an American damnit and don’t try to label me any other way.
Tagged with: ethnicity, government, rant, skin color
Posted under: Political Stuff
Tags have become a big part of Wordpress. Back in the day we had categories and that’s it. A user could search the site for keywords, but categorizing a post couldn’t be accomplished without a ton of categories. Recently I added a bunch of categories, reassigned my posts into them and ended up with a lot of categories with only a few posts in them. I had been resisting the movement towards tagging and wanted to hold onto my categories. In WP 2.5 tags have been integrated into the core and it is clear there is a role for tagging.
The main issue I was having with categories is that I was using them to say what a post is about. For example, if I had a post about our wedding, it went in the Wedding category. But once our wedding was over I had like 10 posts sitting in a category that would never be added to. With tags I can place those posts into “Life Stuff” and tag it with wedding. The category becomes a general bucket and the tags describe exactly what the post is about.
I’ve made some theme changes and added a list of tags on each post. I went back through all my posts, recategorized them into my core categories and added tags. Now I have 8 categories and over 100 tags which will be much easier to manage and will keep me from trying to stuff my posts into overly specific categories.
Tagged with: blogging, categories, tagging, wordpress
Posted under: Geek Stuff
These albums are either new/newer releases or are just new to me. I’ve been listening to these albums quite a bit recently and highly recommend Vampire Weekend, it’s becoming one of my all time favorites.
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Paramore - Riot!
The New Pornographers - Challengers
The Fratellis - Costello Music
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Presidents of the United States - These Are the Good Times People
These have all been added to my favorite albums playlist and I have no problem listening to them multiple times. That’s a big indication of a good album to me; if I can enjoy the whole thing without getting bored and skipping songs then it is a keeper. If you are adverse to profanity I think track 2, “Oxford Comma”, on Vampire Weekend drops the f-bomb a couple times, but everything else above should be pretty clean. Have you discovered any good tunes lately?
Note: I’m becoming a fan of Amazon’s MP3 downloads (high quality, DRM-free and well priced) and if you want to buy any of the albums (download or CD) use these links and I’ll get a small commission.
Tagged with: albums, bands, music, rock
Posted under: Entertainment Stuff
I despise PayPal because monopolies are bad for the consumer. PayPal has become the defacto method of sending money across the Internet and paying for eBay auctions. I just sold an extra CPU on eBay for $60 and PayPal took their $2 cut (don’t get me started on the $5.41 eBay got). Google Checkout was suppose to be a big PayPal competitor for retail sales, but peer to peer transactions are stuck using PayPal. There might be a viable contender in town now.
Revolution Money Exchange is part of Revolution, LLC, founded by AOL co-founder Steve Case. The board of directors is filled with former CEOs: David Pottruck from Charles Schwab; David Golden from JP Morgan; Franklin Raines from Fannie Mae; and Russell Hogg from MasterCard International. This definetely isn’t some homegrown Web 2.0 project coming out of some guy’s garage.
Here are some of the differences between Revolution Money Exchange and Paypal:
- No fees for receiving and sending funds
- Only checking accounts are used, cutting credit cards out of the picture is what reduces the costs so drastically
- No business services or eBay integration
- Simple interface, PayPal has become a nightmare to use
Sending money person to person is Money Exchange’s focus and it shows in the account creation process which is very straightforward. They’ve got a $25 sign up bonus going on until May 15th so I thought I would try it out. If I don’t end up using it then I got some free money. If you sign up for the $25 bonus through the link below I’ll get a $10 and then you can refer people.
Give it a try; it would make transactions like going in on a gift together or selling things on Craigslist a lot easier. There is some real potential here and I hope it starts growing in popularity.
Tagged with: paypal, personal finance
Posted under: Money Stuff
The IRS is actually ahead of schedule and will be sending checks or direct depositing the stimulus money pretty soon. Don’t Mess With Taxes has the full schedule available. It will be interesting to see what people actually do with the money. I don’t expect it to do much even if a significant portion of people just spend it on consumer items. I doubt that will happen and good amount of the money will go to paying off debt and day to day expenses. Our check is probably going straight into savings where it will stay for the foreseeable future. Anybody have plans for their rebate check?
Tagged with: rebate, stimulus, taxes
Posted under: Money Stuff
I’ve been blabbing on about finances for a little bit now and up to this point I haven’t been very aggressive about saving for retirement. Saving for retirement is good and dandy, but right now is the most important time for us to put away money (if you are wondering why see this post on compound interest). Both of us have a little money in SIMPLE IRAs, I pay 5% into LACERA (county pension) and get 3% matched going into a 457(b). Not enough to meet our goals, but definitely better than 0%.
For over a year now I’ve been talking about starting a Roth IRA and never did. With April 15th just a few days away, I went ahead and started a Roth IRA at Vanguard. What’s important about April 15th besides taxes being due? It’s the last day to make IRA contributions for 2007. I maxed out my 2007 contributions which leaves me another year to work towards maxing out my 2008 contributions.
My entire investment strategy revolves around starting young and investing for the long term (30 years). I also wanted a strategy that would require very little effort on my part. I knew index funds were the way to go, but there are ton out there and needed to narrow it down. I was also taking asset allocation and fees into consideration.
After some research I found Vanguard’s Target Retirement Funds. They are funds of funds and include indexes of US and international markets along with bonds. The 2045 Retirement Fund has an asset allocation of about 90% stocks and 10% bonds right now and will gradually reverse those numbers as 2045 grows closer. Since I’m starting young I’m comfortable with an aggressive allocation and the automatic reallocation will save me time down the road. The expense ratio is a low .25% which can really impact savings over the long term.
Opening the account was really easy and everything is done online. Funds were transferred straight out of my checking account and I avoided a $20 annual maintenance fee by opting for paperless statements. I also like the fact that Vanguard is client-owned and is there to serve the investor, not outside shareholders. You’ll never see TV ads for Vanguard since that’s money coming out of their investors pockets. With $1.3 trillion in holdings they must be doing something right.
My strategy will probably evolve as our income and tax situation change, but the essential idea is to put away a steady amount over the years in tax advantaged accounts and let compound interest do its job.
Tagged with: investment, personal finance, retirement
Posted under: Money Stuff
I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed about the mainstream media’s coverage of housing and the economy. Someone coined the term “credit crunch” and it gets regurgitated in every single story that happens to mention the economy. The problem is the lack of credit isn’t the cause of our current economic woes, it is just merely a side effect of a larger issue at hand in our society. The real cause of this recession can be summed up in another cute, alliterative phrase: debt deluge.
At no other point in history have we been in more debt. We just keep piling it on. Loose mortgage practices over the past couple years made it easier for people, who normally wouldn’t qualify to take on more debt, to bury themselves up to their ears. Unsurprisingly, people can’t handle the payments on the debt that they’ve acquired. Instead of blaming homeowners, borrowers, lenders, brokers, banks, realtors and everyone else involved in pumping up the housing bubble, the media points a finger to the lack of credit.
At this point everyone is being dishonest to try and deflect blame and responsibility for the situation our economy finds itself in. Homeowners should have known better about jumping head first into a steaming pile of debt. Lenders knew giving inflated, risky mortgages to people, who only a couple years ago would have been laughed out of the bank, was wrong. The government turned a blind eye to their regulatory role since taxes kept rolling in. Realtors had no qualms about selling houses at prices customers couldn’t afford because they got their cut and washed their hands of the transaction. The media won’t admit their “house flipping” shows helped contribute to the mess.
Debt is the root of our problem and it will take some serious purging to heal the damage that has been inflicted. Jobs in financial services and construction are going to be hit hard. People are going to lose their homes and ruin their credit history. Home prices will adjust to a point dictated by increased supply and lower demand. Government has to adjust spending or increase taxes. The next time you hear a reporter or politican read “credit crunch” off the teleprompter just replace it with debt deluge.
Tagged with: personal finance, spending, taxes
Posted under: Money Stuff
Every once in a while I catch myself wanting to buy some particular item for no good reason. A while back it was Star Wars books. I felt I needed the entire 9 book Rogue Squadron series and other books to fill in gaps in my collection. I read through the Rogue Squadron series and now those books are sitting on the shelf with little hope of being read again. I’m probably going to put them up on eBay and get some money out of them. The heart of the problem is why did I even have to buy them in the first place when the library probably had them for free.
I guess owning the books brought me some sort of satisfaction. This satisfaction wears off quickly once the usefulness of an item has been fully realized and then you’re left with “stuff”. I read the books and know I’ll never read them again, but I’m still reluctant to part with them. Maybe we all have a pack rat inside of us telling us to hold onto stuff.
I think my urge to collect comes from a young age where advertisements encouraged us to be good little consumers and spend money on anything and everything. Anyone remember pogs? They were just cardboard circles, but I had to collect the stupid things. I think they’re out in my parent’s garage now taking up space. Some items might have real collectible value, but my pogs are probably worth a cent or two each.
Anyone else have stuff that’s ripe for listing on eBay or Craigslist?
Tagged with: collecting, junk, stuff
Posted under: Life Stuff
You might have noticed links look different on my site. I had them styled without an underline for a long time and I realized I need to practice what I preach. Some usability issues came up at work recently and articles I read made me reevaluate my own site. The most glaring usability infraction were my link styles. I had removed the underline and bolded links because it looked good. Bold text is normally used to add emphasis, but I changed that to represent links to other content. When it comes to usability, changing an accepted and widely understood standard is simply unforgivable. End users might not pick up on things like this, but it can impact their experience in a very negative way.
Tagged with: internet, usability, wordpress
Posted under: Geek Stuff
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