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| 2005/3/20-21 [Transportation/Misc, Transportation/Motorcycle] UID:36774 Activity:moderate |
3/19 You know we hear about car bombs all the time, but SCOOTER BOMB???
This is ridiculous: http://tinyurl.com/437ru (news.yahoo.com)
\_ This is not a story about a scooter bomb, it is a story about
pig-headed Englishmen.
\_ ride bike!
\_ See, we are not the only ones overreacting in a hysterical and
paranoid fashion to imaginary threats! The British share our
delusions, woo hoo!
\_ in the south of Thailand, bombers have been using mopeds
relatively often. it only takes a small amount of high
explosive to blow up a shop or cafe, and a moped is a nice
disguise to get it close and wait for the right noment
to remote detonate by cell-phone. :-(
\_ Is this sort of thing common in Thailand? Why?
\_ Because there are a lot of mopeds in Thailand, and the Muslim
extremists are active in the southern part of the country. |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:36775 Activity:nil |
3/20 I know register globals in PHP are bad, but is there some lazy
programmer advantage to them?
\_ They let you be lazy. But it's really not worth it. Just use
something like my args() function:
http://bushong.net/dave/sw/files/args.php.txt
So just at the top of a script you say:
args('foo', 'bar[]', 'baz!');
And now you've got a string $foo, array $bar, and required
string $baz out of a query string like ?foo=42&bar[]=69&baz=18
--dbushong |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Consumer/Audio] UID:36776 Activity:nil |
3/19 What's a good MP3 tag display/edit program? It needs to support
other languages such as Chinese. Thanks.
\_ Drink Kool-Aid, use iTunes. |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:36777 Activity:low |
3/20 Has anyone bought a refurb laptop? Any bad experience? I'm asking
because I can potentially save ~$500-$700 and it's a lot of money
-poor guy
\_ You're talking about a refurb from the manufacturer or reputable
online store right, not off some random store/guy on eBay?
\_ http://dealtime.com has a LOT of links to refurb companies. One problem
is that they only give you a 90 day warranty instead of the
normal 1-year manufacturer's warranty (i.e. Toshiba notebooks)
\_ I bought a refurb iBook from the online apple store last year.
No problems so far. It comes w/ the full apple care so, it
was a pretty safe bet.
\_ how long is the refurb warranty and does it cover LCD blackdots?
\_ The refurb warranty is the same as the new warranty, 1 yr.
Most warranties do not cover dead pixels unless you have
more than 5 or so. At least on the 12" iBooks, I have never
see a dead pixel.
\_ Refurb Thinkpad X20 from a random vendor off CNET. Worked great,
no issues whatsoever. -John |
| 2005/3/20-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:36778 Activity:very high |
3/20 After not really investing seriously in the past, I'm ready to get
serious about saving both for retirement and buying a house. I have
a pretty good idea what I want to invest in, but no idea how to go
about doing it. Since I mostly want to do exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
I don't care too much about the specific fund offerings of a broker.
I'm looking for a reputable broker with a full-service website, low
fees, and the ability to invest in both domestic and foreign mutual
funds and stocks. What would you guys reccomend or warn me away from?
\_ what's wrong with Etrade?
\_ For retirement, just dump the money into an IRA. Get something like
ING if you want safety. For the rest, I guess you could just go
and buy QQQ for nasdaq and a Vanguard index fund for the S&P.
If you want international there's index funds for various stuff
also. That's bascially all you really need to know about
investing your money. You don't need to really buy any other
mutual fund. You can also buy bonds if you want real safety.
Also, it's somewhat doubtful that you will be able to invest
in a mutual fund that beats an index fund over the long run.
Most of them will lose out on the S&P.
Don't buy individual stock, don't buy precious metals, don't
buy commodities.
\_ what's wrong with precious metal? Gold's beating US dollar like
hell. In fact everything's beating US dollar.
Iraq+war+deficit+Bush=fucked US dollar.
\_ More like Bush->(Spending+Tax Cut+War)->Deficit->F*CKED Dollar
\_ Because buying gold is stupid. You need to take a look at
a historic graph. If you are going to invest seriously
for your retirement, you don't need to invest in knee-jerk
shit like gold or silver. If you are old enough, you'll
remember the silver run-up of the early 80s, or the gold run
up some time after. Precious metals just do not appreciate
at the rate of a good CD over time. Also, if you really
believe that the U.S. economy is going to be fucked long
term, you're better off putting the money into foreign
currency. Again, historically this is very risky.
\_ I think you're off-base talking about "history" and
comparing gold to a CD. Economic realities change, and CDs
are a fairly new instrument, without very much history
behind them. Gold has thousands of years of history,
and it's been a good investment for nearly all of that
time. -tom
\-I doubt that is true. Talking about 100s of
years ago is silly ... you cant compare
today's world to a world without real property
rights, "money" etc. If central banks holding
gold continue to sell [since gold holdings
dont pay interest], that cant be good for the
price of gold. Also while today you can hold
gold "on paper", historically there would
also probably have been a cost associated with
storing gold cheaply. There are many other reasons
comparing 1600 and today doesnt work.
\_ Ah, so "history" starts in 1975. Right. -tom
\- Where did that come from? Gold may have been
a resonable "store of value" but that is
different from an investment.
\_ Bwahahahahaha! Okay, tom, you can go ahead and live
in the medieval ages if you want. In a modern fiat
based economy gold isn't a good investment. What
are you gonna do, propose we invest in railroads or
PG&E? Gimme a break.
Oh, here's a link that will tell you why you shouldn't
invest in gold as a long term investment:
http://www.fool.com/Fribble/1996/Fribble960305.htm
Apparently even the experts believe that buy and
holding gold is not a way to make money. You have
to essentially buy/sell gold to make money. This
is as bad as buying any other commodity.
\_ I'm not saying you should invest in gold, but I
am sure that history says nothing about the value
of CDs vs. gold. Look at the doofus above; he's
claiming on the one hand that "CDs historically
perform better than gold", and then says you have
to discount virtually all of the history because
the world has changed. Here's a hint: The world
can change more. -tom
\_ Gold is a hedge, not an investment itself.
\- maybe you should "invest" in guns as a hedge
against uncertain change.
\_ don't use "long term" too much. try making
money today.
\_ If you don't care about fancy stuff, try scottrade. It's
cheap, and customer service is good, and there are local
branches where you can go in and talk to someone. I used
E*trade, Scottrade and Datek/Ameritrade before. I didn't
like E*trade because it's more expensive, and service is
poor. Scottrade and Ameritrade each have their strong points.
Ameritrade is stronger at mutual fund offerings and after hours
trading, etc., but scottrade has local branches and is also
cheaper.
\_ Your simplest, and arguably best, bet is to invest in a set of
funds that covers as broad a portion of markets/commodities as
possible. Don't forget to invest internationally, and consider
checking out Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) as a way to
invest in Real Estate without losing your shirt. I'd highly
recommend reading Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" to
understand why this strategy is worthwhile: http://csua.org/u/bfx
As a previous poster indicated, an ING savings account is a safe
place to keep your short-term liquid cash flow, but will give you
poor returns overall if it is your only investment vehicle.
Personally, I'm a fan of Vanguard for mutual funds. They don't
fuck over small investors (i.e. they were not indicted in some of
the recent stock/mutual fund accounting scandals that a number of
more institutional oriented firms weere), they have solid
educational resources, and low fees. I've heard good things about
Schwab as well, but can't speak from experience in that regard.
Be sure to max out your IRA every year, I believe the maximum
contribution for 2005 is $4000. Also, since you're young, you
should put your money into a ROTH IRA (as opposed to a Traditional
IRA). With a ROTH IRA, you pay tax on the money you put in now,
but get to withdraw your earnings when you retire tax free (if the
benefit is not immediately obvious, here's a hint: compound
interest grows on an exponential curve, which end of the curve do
you want the gub'mint to take its bite out of?). Finally, try to
put together a down payment and purchase a house sooner than later.
The interest on your mortgage is tax deductible, which can be
really helpful if you're in a typical nerd tax bracket. Also, even
if you move and sell the place, you should get the money you paid
in plus appreciation back out as equity. Compare to rent which
just makes a scary sucking sound as it takes a nasty bite out of
your paycheck each month. -dans
-dans
\_ I'm a starving grad student barely making $15,000 a year and
almost all of it goes to rent and living expenses. What is your
recommendation for me?
\- what makes sense for you depends on your
expectation of future income prospects.
if you are an EE or ChemE from Berkeley,
"deficit spending" or running no surplus
may make more sense than if you are in a
10yr phd program in latin grammar with no
future prospect of reasonable income.
Just avoid credit card debt and dont go hog
wild when you start making real $. --psb
\_ I agree with psb on this. Though,
personally, I'm somewhat risk averse with
respect to any debt, but that's a personal
decision. -dans
\_ 15k??? That SUCKS! What type of program are you in?
--not-so-starving grad student
\_ Well, in theory, as a grad student you're making a
(reasonable, unless you're in the humanities :) bet that your
advanced degree will result in enough of an increase in
earning power to offset the cost of tuition and, more
importantly, the opportunity cost of additional years spent
outside of the work force. I've heard that someone did a
study and found that if you want to optimize your lifetime
earning potential via education then you should get a
Masters, and then start working. I'd like to see the actual
study, but the result seems plausible since a PhD candidate
usually spends at least 4 years longer in school than someone
who leaves with his/her Masters. That said, you could just
keep doing the subsistence thing and count on the extra
earnings your advanced degree will generate, and you'll
probably do okay for yourself. If you *can* find a way to
save some money now (even something little, like $100 a
month), it's really worth it. As I said above, compound
interest grows exponentially, so even a small sum invested
now can pay off nicely in the future. As for where to put
it, that's a no-brainer: ROTH IRA invested in a broad-based
no-load (this is just broker speak for low fees) index fund.
If you're just investing in a single fund, I'd suggest
Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund. If you already
have an account at some other brokerage firm, e.g. Schwab,
they should have something equivalent. Just be wary of high
fees as they can really put a dent in your investments over
time. Both Schwab and Vanguard's fees are quite reasonable.
One caveat to that fund is that it only covers the US market,
but you can expand into foreign markets in the future when
you have more income. What's important is to develop good
saving/investment habits. I've seen a lot of investment
advice that suggests putting aside 10% of your gross
income, for you, that's $1500 which is just a touch above
the $100 a month I suggested above. If you can, set up a
mutual fund account that will automatically deduct $100 from
your bank account at the beginning of each month. It's an
easy way to enforce savings discipline and it lets you take
advantage of something called dollar-cost averaging:
http://csua.org/u/bfy
-dans
\_ if you're a first time home buyer, buying sooner rather than
later is probably not too smart, considering we're probably
in sort of a real estate bubble at the moment.
\_ That's a nice idea, and I agree that we're in a real estate
bubble, but that's been the case for a long time. True, it
has to pop sooner or later, but that could be later, as in
five or ten years from now, and holding one's breath and
preying it pops seems like a bad strategy to me. I've seen
advice that suggests you should buy a residence if you are
going to be living in the same area for at least two years.
I think that's better advice than speculating on a bubble
that we're `probably in sort of'. Just by way of comparison,
New York city is, like San Francisco, in a real estate
bubble. Problem is that a) prices just keep climbing, b)
nobody who owns his/her place in New York is about to leave
the city (unless forced to at gunpoint), so demand outstrips
supply and will continue to do so, perhaps till doomsday.
Ten years ago, you could still buy something cheap in Harlem
because it was perceived to be a slum. Then Bill Clinton
sets up office there, and lots of people flock there, buying
burnt out buildings and either renovating them or tearing
them down to put new ones up. Today you can easily drop $1M
on a place in Harlem, and young white folks think of it as
a nice place to raise their kids. When that kind of
gentrification is fueling your bubble, what will it take to
pop it? -dans
\_ uh oh, someone started a circular, never-ending debate
\_ Depending how much time you want to spend. If you want to spend
minimal time, buy broad based index funds and aim for an 8%
return. If you want a higher average annual return, you need to
spend more time (which has cost), and you may be able to push
your return to 15-20% or higher.
\_ FLPSX has a 60+% return since I switched my 401(k) to it from
FDGFX two years ago. That's 30+%/yr.
\_ You would have gotten a similar performance if you switched
to DVY. Interesting that DVY's chart is so similar to FLPSX's
even though you would think it should look more like FDGFX's
since both are dividend funds. 2003 is an especially good
year though, and 2004 is not bad too, but I am talking about
the long term, so 15-20% is more realistic. I had like a
75% return in 2003, but I started the year with some risky
non-diversified bets on individual stocks (BBY, NVDA, HELE,
etc.) so it should not be used as a gauge. I have been
switching gradually to mutual funds, index funds and close
end funds since end of 2003 cause I don't have time to follow
individual stocks now.
end funds since end of 2003 cause I no longer have time to
follow individual stocks.
\_ Wow. Thanks for all the advice on investing strageties and all but
I'm really asking about brokers. I already know about mutual funds
REITs, ETFs, Roths vs. IRAs, risk/reward tradeoffs, hedging, and all
that. Since I'm young I'm putting most retirement money in high
risk/growth funds and some in foreign emerging markets funds. The
money for a house in a few years is going into a mix of large-cap
funds and some in non-treasury bonds. -op
\_ Vanguard. 'nuff said. -dans
\_ Is their website full-featured, or will I have to get them on
the phone to trade?
\_ I am going to go against the crowd here and recommend that you put
your future down payment in a low or no risk instrument like a
T Bill or Bond or CD. Your retirement money belongs in a Roth IRA
with the most risk you can stand. -ausman
\_ What broker do you like and why? |
| 2005/3/20-21 [Uncategorized] UID:36779 Activity:nil |
3/20 I am a little Chinese.
\_ Time to eat more rice. |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Uncategorized] UID:36780 Activity:nil |
3/20 Has anyone tried Zinio? Does it let you keep magazines forever or do
they expire? Can you print pages or *share* Zinio files? -ok thx
\_ i have magazines that don't seem to expire. it appears they are
printable, though i haven't actually done it. not too sure about
sharing. overall, it's not too bad, though the viewer is pretty
resource intensive. |
| 2005/3/20-21 [Reference/Tax] UID:36781 Activity:moderate |
3/20 I bought a car last year and my dealer took care of filing for
title and registration. I never got an itemization for VLF fees
for tax purposes but I know what the total amount paid was. Is
there a way I can find out what the VLF portion is?
\_ I had the same problem before. Go to DMV site and there's a
number you can call to ask. I'm too lazy to go through it
again now, though. Basically, just call DMV and ask.
\_ Page 66 of the California 540 booklet:
"Vehicle License Fees for Federal Schedule A
On your federal Schedule A, you may deduct the California motor
vehicle license fee listed on your Vehicle Registration Billing
Notice from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The other fees listed
on your billing notice such as registration fee, weight fee, and
county fees are not deductible."
Note: you need to subtract off any VLF Offset listed. --dbushong
\_ Heh, I took the deduction, but it was kinda silly. My car VLF
was $14 and my motorcycle's was $4. -jrleek
\_ I also bought a new car last year. I think you can deduct the sales
tax as well. But I haven't started doing my tax, so I'm not sure.
\_ You can choose between deducting your state sales tax or your
state income tax from your federal return (that's new this year
IIRC). A new car will likely have more sales tax than your state
income tax.
\_ Really? I thought state income tax is around 7-8%. So
unless you make less than the cost of your car, shouldn't
your state income tax be greater than your car sales tax?
Of course I am assuming CA tax, it does benefit if you
are in a no state income tax state.
\_ Yo man, my ride is hella pimpin.
\_ I paid ~$14000 in interest payments on my mortgage last year, so
~$50-$100 for my VLF seemed pointless.
\_ why? $100 would still mean like a $30+ check. Why throw
$30 away? |
| 2005/3/20-21 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:36782 Activity:very high |
3/20 Is recycling household materials like glass and paper a good idea
or is it a waste of time and energy?
\_ I believe for glass it is mainly to keep it out of the landfills.
I don't think it takes that much less energy to remelt glass than
it does to create it originally. Of course, refilling definitely
saves tons of energy. As for paper, recycling that does make a
difference, and the more homogenous the paper is (newsprint for
example) to more the benefit is <-- non-scientific info, just
from reading a few articles here and there on recycling.
\- industrial recycling [like what ford does or some of what has
been mandated in germany] make sense often. these civic programs
are feel good vanity projects.
\_ Except aluminum. Recycling aluminum is quite profitable, and
it tends to subsidize all the crappy curbside materials like
glass, paper and plastic.
\_ As I understand it, recycling metal and plastic makes sense in
that the raw materials have to be dug out of the ground.
Recycling paper is not an energy-efficency issue, but a forest
managment issue.
\- if you want to save resources, try to generate less
trash and conserve power. poor people recycle without
civic programs. e.g. reuse the container your peanut
butter came in.
\_ In Hong Kong about two to three decades ago, when
aluminum cans and 250ml paper packages weren't popular,
the milk and beverage companies charged you a bottle fee
which is redepted when you returned them. Then the
which was redeemed when you returned them. Then the
companies sanitized the bottles and re-used them with
new caps. I think reusing is more efficient than
recycling in terms of energy (and maybe in terms of raw
material too -- I don't know if new material is needed
in glass recycling like in paper recycling.)
\_ Yup. The three R's in the correct order are: Reduce >
Reuse > Recycle. Yet people think recycling is the best
they should do.
\_ I hate people leaving three or four machines powered-on
when they leave work in the evening. No I'm not talking
about machines that run any automatic jobs late night.
\_ Yes! Thank you!
\_ http://www.bfifremont.com/newsletters/2005winter.pdf
"Between September 1994 and June 2004, enthusiastic Fremont
residents recycled over 180,191 tons of recyclables and
227,216 tons of organics." Sounds to me this civic program
has some real impact.
\_ It only has an impact if the "recycled" material is
actually put to use. That more or less means aluminum
cans, glass bottles, and newspaper. -tom
\_ The waste company in my area collects all paper products (newspaper,
cardboards, printer paper, ...), plastics #1 - #7, and all metal
cans in one same collection bin altogether. How on earth do they
separate them afterwards? By hand?
\_ yes, by hand. do you live in oakland? the smaller waste stream
companies hate this because the bottles break and tiny shards
of glass get in the paper and lowers the value of material
they can sell.
\_ I live in Irvine. They do this, too. I've always wondered
about the actual efficiency of their recycling program.
I have a vegan friend who goes to great lengths to sort
and categorize each and every container he goes through, and
then gives them all to the WMOC(Waste Mgmt, Orange County),
and I've wondered if he's just wasting his effort.
-nivra (not pp)
\_ Iraqis just started their own recycling program:
http://csua.org/u/bg0 (Yahoo! News)
\_ See, re-use IS better than recycling! |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:36783 Activity:high |
3/20 I'm an ignorant engineer and I never took an econ/business/political
class. Having that said, if both US and Europe have big
deficits who loans the money and who's gaining? Switzerland?
Japan? In another word, who's the big banker?
\_ Mostly Asian countries, in particuar Japan and China. As I
understand it, China's overall share is growing rapidly. Check out
\- As I understand it, there is a bit of a difference
between what is going on in Japan and China. You can
accumulate dollars because you are selling a lot
of stuff to americans who are paying you in dollars
and that is a different matter from taking "your
own money which is not in dollars" and turning it
into dollars. China is both selling a lot of stuff
to america and gas a pretty narrow exchange rate
snake against the USD, so they need to hold fx
reserve to defend rates, sterilize flows etc.
And in china, i suppose the private/public
distinction is a little more gray ... like
where do the dollar profits of wholly/partially
state owned businesses wind up. india recently
cut the USD %age of its FX reserve by something
like 25%, if memory serves.
\_ For a bunch of commies, China seems to have
a pretty good understanding of economics.
\_ China isn't really communist any more. It's
behavior borders on aggressively capitalist.
The catch is that there's a pretty constant
back and forth between the more modern factions
in the government who talk like communists but
make policy like capitalists and the hardliners
who manage to crack down on the capitalist
advances every couple of years. If this is of
interest to you and you're still a student, I'd
highly recommend taking a class taught by
Carolyn Wakeman, a professor in the Journalism
school who focuses on Media Studies and China.
I forget the title of the class I took from her
(China and the Media?), but it was really
interesting, I learned a great deal, and it
significantly altered my perception and
understanding of modern China. -dans
\_ dict irony
Paul Krugman's editorial column in the New York Times, he talks
about this frequently. -dans
\_ URL please?
\_ http://csua.org/u/bgj
\_ The largest debtholder is Japan. Next is China. Third is Great
Britain. I think that Britain is being largely ignored, but
their economy is doing great and they have shunned the Euro.
I'd almost rather buy Pounds Sterling than Euros as a hedge.
\-If you really want a framework to think about this stuff,
first you should learn a little about the domestic case
[closed economy] and then a toy version of the open economy
[incorporating more nuanced theories of international finance
and trade gets pretty complicated since there are a lot of
not agreed up assumptions and causal relations and equillib
conditions] ... if you are an engineer, you should be able
to follow say the first 5 chapters of something like dornbusch&
fischer. It really is important to have this framework rather
than a random assortment of factoids. An important identity
in the domain of your question is:
Private Sector Public Sector
Saving - Investment = [(GovtSpend + Xfers) - Taxes] - NetExports
This tells us Net Domestic Private Sector Savings is equal to
the Budget Deficit + Trade Surplus.
So this tells us a few things: 1. budget deficits complete
with the private investment sector for savings dollars. 2. you
should not look at bilateral deficits but aggregate flows.
The Aggregate Demand for dollars, which in turn defines the
exchange rate (an exchange rate is a price ... and as we
know price is a function of supply and demand), has a number
of components and is beyond the motd.
of components and is beyond the motd. 3. the us public and private
debt competes with others to suck up international saving ...
i believe the us's demand on world saving is around $4T now.
finally, the motivation for the asian banks [i am not sure
about GB vs SKorean and Taiwan] to keep buying us dollars
is partly self-serving ... to keep the dollar from weakening
more and from interest rate going up and choking off some
consumer borrowing ... but yeah, this cant go on forever.
"who is gaining" is a toughie ... if you work for ibm and you
hold 100 shares of ibm, you arent going to be laughing at
a "chump" with 10,000shares of ibm if the stock tanks. --psb
\- if you want a very detailed breakdown of these various
categories, google("federal reserve", "flow of funds") for
the "Z.1" document. --psb
\_ The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been lending the US Treasury
$100s of B of dollars over the last few years. I know the
official reasoning is that they are doing this to keep the
Yen down, but since Japan already runs huge budget deficits,
there is more going on here than meets the eye.
\_ Er, You dont understand what is going on.
\_ Please enlighten me.
\_ I am pretty cool Bevis, but that is beyond my power.
\_ In other words, you have no idea what you are talking
about. Why not just say that?
\_ I have no idea what I'm talking about.
\_ Too bad, I had hoped that you knew the answer to
something that has been puzzling The Economist
for a long time. |