Daughter: Water and Soter rhyme!

Daddy: Are you working on rhyming words?

Daughter: Yes!

Daddy: Ok.  Finds piece of paper.  Can you think of any words that rhyme with ‘Floor?’ Writes ‘Floor’ on paper in big block letters.

Daughter: Whore!

Daddy: Pause…remembers that we’re working on a rhyming lesson not a vocab lesson. That’s right.  Any others?

Daughter: Door!

Daddy: That’s right!  Writes ‘Door’.

Daddy (singing daughter’s current favorite song): I got a feelin’….that tonight’s gonna be a good night…that tonight’s…

Daughter: Be quiet!  I’m trying to go poopie…

Daddy: Oh, ok.

Waits in silence…

Daughter: Poopie comes out of the big hole, and potty comes out of the little hole…

Daddy: Yeah, that’s right!

Daughter: I really, really, really wish I had long bits…then I could go potty standing up…

Daddy: Yeah, that’s pretty cool…

Alice Panda – 4

Originally uploaded by fitzgeraldsteele

We’re huge fans of www.alice.com. Yes, they have great prices on tons of daily household goods, and always free shipping. More importantly, the box provides our toddler with hours of entertainment. We play with it, climb in it, wear it as a hat. When we get bored with that, we tear it down and color and paint on it. When we’re bored with THAT, we recycle the box and a new one comes.

Alice Panda Photo Set (8 pictures).

T came down with a bit of a fever after the football game this weekend. We’ve spent most of the time at home, watching Disney musicals: Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin.

It turns out, Disney musical music lends itself to playing the “Deez Nutz” game.

Discuss.

Sara and I watch the Daily Show on Hulu.  Tuesday’s guest was Austan Goolsbee, chief economist of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Goolsbee made one point that I thought was really interesting, and clearly shows my misunderstanding of macro- vs. microeconomics.  Gooslbee said that earlier this year we were on the verge of “Another Great Depression” and that we NEEDED the Stimulus Package — “when you’re looking in the face of the next Great Depression, that’s NOT the time to tighten the belt.”

One the one hand, I sort of get it.  Left to its own devices, the housing crisis, credit crunch and other economic factors were leading us to a huge Great Depression like problem, so we had to do something to change courses.  On the other hand, I’m not sure I understand how simply spending tons more money really fixes the problem.

Like John Stewart, I can only compare it to my own finances.  If our family was massively in debt, facing creditors, etc.  I couldn’t simply say, “well I’m going to ratchet up my spending to get out of this hole.”  No way, the banks and other creditors would come after me and say “you’d better pay us before you go on your spending spree.”  The only difference might be if I was making some strategic investment, like going to school to drastically increase my earning potential.  Still, that would require me making an arrangement with the creditors…something like “Ok, I’m going to get a new degree, and I’ll be making an extra 20K/year.  So let me do that, and you’ll start to see some of what I owe you in like 2.5 years.”  Hmm…still dubious I’d be able to pull that off.

I think the Obama Administration would argue that the Stimulus/Recovery Act is a means to 1) inject money into the markets in the short term to stimulate economic activity, but more importantly 2) stimulate activity in long-term, strategic investments (energy, environment) so that we can remove the  problems that caused the economic downturn in the first place.

One might argue that the Health Care reform is another long-term, strategic investment in a healthy American workforce that will improve future productivity.  I’m not sure even I  buy that, especially when the Congressional Budget Office says it is not cost effective to invest in widespread preventative care and wellness services.

So, again from my limited economic knowledge and experience, the best we as a country can do is say to our creditors, “we’re working on it, we’re making some changes and we’ll have your money.”  And just hope and pray that they don’t force us to liquidate stuff in order to pay them back.  Not great.  The only saving grace is that in today’s global, networked economy, our creditors want us to buy their stuff, so they have a vested interest in seeing us succeed.

Discuss

Today I got a courtesy call from our brokerage company, who has assigned a new financial advisor to my account.  He asked me about our family’s financial strategies, and if we had anything we’d like him to look into.  I said yes…I currently have some money in a mutual fund that I would be interested in moving to an index fund.  But he balked at that, saying that he is compensated for getting me into front-end loaded mutual funds, and that he is not compensated for getting me into no-load funds (like index funds), so he didn’t want to spend time doing that for me. 

So basically, he doesn’t want to advise me to do things that don’t make him more money.  I questioned him on that.  I said I’ve got financial goals for my family, and you have goals as an adviser that’s paid whenever I make trades, and those two goals don’t always match up.  So when do I call you?  His answer was again, call me when you want me to do something that makes me money. 

His advice doesn’t seem very helpful to me.  One good thing that came up was the fact that our family last did a detailed long-term financial plan in 2002 (so long ago, this blog doesn’t even go back that far!).  That was a newly married Jerry and Sara, living in Santa Fe, with no kids and living off a corporate expense account.  I hardly remember those people.  So it’s probably time to revise the financial plan.  The advisor said he’d be happy to help us with that…for $400. 

This was a pretty disappointing call from this company.  When we first started with them in 2002, we really like our advisor.  She listened to us, and helped us to achieve our goals.  About a year ago, we received a neat little workbook from them that again helped us define our goals and ways to achieve them.  Now this guy comes along, and now what I hear is, “your goals are less important to me than my commission.” 

Well guess what, you’re brokerage is about to lose our business completely.  So what’s THAT going to do to your commission?

In no particular order:

• Random joint pains for no real reason.  Mine is mostly from my shoulder; I get knees and ankles as well.
• I don’t know, and don’t care that I don’t know, what’s the cool current music.
• I’m being marketed to.  Not just internet-targeted, but by the traditional TV/advertising marketing.  Case in point…I think this State Farm commerical with LeBron James is hilarious.  A few minutes after I first saw it, I realized to appreciate this commercial you need to 1) be old enough to know Kid n’ Play (by the way, I’ve seen “Kid” doing stand up comedy – very funny), and 2) you have to know and appreciate current NBA phenom LeBron James.   Adding to that that everyone in the commercial is African-American, and you get that the commercial is target to 30+year old African American males.
  
• I have a 6-disc changer in my Volvo SUV.  All six discs are some form of children’s music.

I wish this were in Iowa City.  I’ve heard good things about BLD in Washington DC.  Someone in Minneapolis needs to go to this and let me know how it is!

baby loves disco – minneapolis

it’s coming (with love) this february when we’ll celebrate our first ever momma-poppa-baby valentines day party. whether your baby is 7 months or 7 years, february 14th is the day for that special date.

My daughter has discovered Sesame Street, both the TV show and on music CDs.  We checked out Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music from the library.  She loves it.  Her current favorite song is Furry Happy Monsters (to the tune of REM’s Shiny Happy People).

Anyway, Sara and I were talking about our Sesame Street music memories.  Mine seemed to be more extensive.  I think because I had the Ernie and Bert Sing Along record when I was young.  As my mom will attest to, I listened to it all the time.

Thanks to the internet, I found a site with all the songs available for free.  I still have lots of the words memorized…why my neurons want to keep those floating around in my head, I have no idea.  It was a fun memory, anyway. 

For those with 2 year olds, may I suggest A Very Simple Dance to Do, with the caveat that you may be doing an action dance over and over again.

 I distinctly remember there was a slow song on that album, Morningtown Ride, that I didn’t like because it was right after a fun and silly dance song.  It totally ruined the mood.  But it was a record — you didn’t have any choice but to listen to the song.  I find it funny that my daughter does not have any concept of that.  Whether its music, video, or whatever information she wants, she will have it instantly.  This may be why it is hard to explain to her that she has to wait 3 hours for her Jello Jigglers to be ready.

christmas2008

Originally uploaded by fitzgeraldsteele

Hope you all are having a great Christmas. We’re having a nice time at home. Nana and Papa Reinertson are coming to visit this weekend, and some rumors that Auntie Savannah is coming down as well!

I have a feeling that Santa will be good to Taly this year.

The New York Times is doing a series of articles exploring the causes of the current financial crisis. I just read this article:

 The Reckoning: White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”

The result was a series of piecemeal policy prescriptions that lagged behind the escalating crisis.

I’m glad that we still have some companies that take the time and effort to support investigative journalism.  Can’t get this kind of reporting from the blogosphere.  Yet, anyway…

GPS, hidden cameras watching over Baby Jesus (AP) by AP: Yahoo! Tech

A GPS device mounted inside the life-size ceramic figurine led sheriff’s deputies to a nearby apartment, where it was found face down on the carpet. An 18-year-old woman was arrested in the theft.

Giving up on old-fashioned padlocks and trust, a number of churches, synagogues, governments and ordinary citizens are turning to technology to protect holiday displays from pranks or prejudice.

This year, we opted out of putting together our 1980’s era artificial Christmas tree from Sara’s parents.  Instead we went to get a real tree.  We went out last night to the Optimist Club of Iowa City’s Christmas tree sale to pick one up.  To be quite honest, I wasn’t totally in the mood for it.  It was after work, and I hadn’t eaten yet, and it was dark and cold and windy, and I was thinking about the big presentation I had to give the next day, yadda yadda yadda. 

We got to the tree sale, quickly picked a tree (a little 5′ Scotch pine).  There were three college girls doing the sales.  Once we picked a tree, they trimmed it and strapped it to the top of the car.  I went to see the man in the trailer to pay. 

As I was leaving the trailer, the man smiled and said, “Thanks, and Merry Christmas,”  That Merry Christmas totally changed my outlook of the whole affair.  Suddenly, it wasn’t about going through the motions and getting this task done so we could get home to eat.  I remembered that the whole thing is about the gift of Jesus’ birth.  And that its supposed to be fun!  And I get to share that fun with my 2 year old daughter (who was huddled in the car with mommy, listening to her new favorite song – Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley…that’s a whole different story).  So I totally changed my attitude about the whole situation. 

We immediately went to a store to buy a tree stand.  Not knowing any better, I got the four-leg small tree stand just like we had when I was a kid.  Turns out, that’s a really sucky tree stand.  We couldn’t get the base of the tree down into the water dish.  I had to go borrow a saw from my neighbor to cut off some of the stump and branches, and we’re still having trouble.  So we’ve gotta do some research to see what’s new and innovative in Christmas tree stand design.  Even with continuing tree stand drama, I’m excited about Christmas, and for Taly at Christmas.  This morning I went and dug out our Christmas boxes from storage, and I can’t wait to decorate the tree (Taly started last night…she found the twine used to tie the tree to the car, and put that on the tree…so she’s in the mood already).

Last night, we watched a bit of Rudolph on TV.  Taly lost interest about 20 minutes into it.  BUT…this morning I pulled out the Rudolph Build-a-bear that Auntie Heather got her last Christmas.  When Taly saw it, her face lit up, and she ran and hugged it, turned on the red nose light and the music a few times.  Then she sat Rudolph on a kitchen table chair next to her.  It was all very adorable.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Those kids at Google are pretty creative, by which I mean that they come up with unique solutions to problems that are useful to lots of people. 

Google Flu Trends

We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

In other words, people search for ‘flu’ when the have the flu.  So Google knows right away when people are getting the flu, as opposed to the CDC, who has to wait for aggregated reports from around the country.

If you look at the data (and you know you want to), there seems to be two peaks to the flu season…one in Dec and one in Feb/March.  Anyone know why this is?  Two strains of flu? 

Last year, our whole family was out with the flu from Christmas to Valentines Day.  Luckily, Sara and I never totally sick at the same time, but T was coughy/runny nosed through the whole thing.  Maybe one day Google will be able to search our bodies for all the germs and filter them out.  =)

Daddy: Dear God, thank you for loving us, and thank you for Jesus, and…

Taly: “Thank you for crocodiles, and bears, and tigers, and birdies, and Ya-Ya (Auntie Heather), and suckers, and noodles, and videos, and Boz…and Boz…and Boz…and Taylin, and Nana, and Mai-lei (Nana’s dog), and Bella (Nana’s other dog), and Trooper (Ya-Ya’s dog)…”

Daddy: Amen!

Sorry Papa and Jack-Jack, you didn’ t make the cut tonight. 

Like many Americans, health care costs and coverage is extremely important to me and my family.  So I tried to listen carefully and critically about both Obama’s health proposal and McCain’s health proposal.  To sum them up very quickly:

• Obama’s plan: If you have a plan you like, you keep it.  If not, you may join the expanded Federal Employee health plan..  Large businesses and wealth taxpayers may pay more in taxes, and may face certain fines if conditions aren’t met.
• McCain’s plan: Families get a $5000 tax credit for health insurance.  They may buy insurance from any company in the country, through deregulation of state laws regarding health care.  Employee benefits paid on my behalf by my employer becomes taxable.

One problem with evaluating the two based on tonights debate is that they clearly rely on different data sources, or different interpretations:  Obama mentioned the average annual cost of a health plan is $12,000, McCain said it was $5,800.  Who’s right?  Who knows.  It helps to find some comparisons and analysis of the two plans.

For what it is worth, the problem I have two problems with McCain’s plan.  They both stem from my previous frustrations in trying to objectively evaluate between different health plan options:  health insurance companies are for-profit corporations, who are out to maximize profit.  That’s fine — all businesses should.  But that means that they’re looking out for their bottom line, and their shareholders,. That may or may not mean they put your best interests first.

First, the McCain plan does not seem to address cost of care — your copays, coinsurance, etc.  It seems to me that, no matter who you believe, that $5k tax credit he proposes will go straight to my provider by cost of coverage (the part that now comes out of your regular paycheck).  Widening competition between providers may, as McCain proposes, lead to lower cost of care.  It may also lead to companies getting the cost of coverage below $5k, but making up for it by more cost of care charges — increasing copays, prescription fees.  This is similar to what the airlines are doing — low ticket price, but they slap on tons of extra fees.

Second, and this is the big one, evaluating and choosing between health plans is hard.  I spend half a day reading documents, calling providers, writing notes, building spreadsheets, and talking with my wife.  I doubt that every American has the time, patience, access to information, analytical ability to do that.  And that was only comparing between 5 employer sponsored health plans, and for a single event — the birth of a child.  The thought of trying to expand that type of decision making to every plan in America, and how they cope with any possible illness or injury that may come along, is mind boggling.  Assuming you can gather all the info from all the providers, and somehow normalize it so that each one is using the same terminology, and put them together in one place, its basically impossible for a person to make any kind of objective judgement on which plans are best for which health scenarios.  Solving this type of optimization problem requires a PhD in Operations Research, and very complicated math and statistics.  My mom, my brothers and sisters, my neighbors, are not going to do that.  They are more likely to go with the first thing that sounds ‘ok,’ or whatever salesperson has the best pitch.

This is kind of like the banking industry.  Thanks to electronic banking, I can choose basically any bank in the country.  Now I can compare those banks on different criteria good savings interest rates, but what about checking rates, debit card fees, overdraw penalties, IRA rates, customer service, proximity to home.  But I then have to make a value judgement on the relative importance of each one of those.  Eek.

Bottom line for me is that McCain plan seems to lead me towards 1) less money in my pocket in the event I get sick, and 2) way more headaches trying to get the best deal.  Under Obama’s plan, likely nothing changes and I continue on with my employer-based coverage.

Birthday cupcakes!

Originally uploaded by wdecora

Thanks to Auntie Wendy for posting tons of pictures of Taly’s Birthday party at Wilson’s Apple Orchard.

You can see many more photos of the party on her Flickr page:

Today I looked at my 401(k) for the first time in a long time (and it has been even longer since I blogged about it).  For 2008 year-to-date, our 401(k) is down 32%!  That stings.  That account is the bulk of our long term savings, so our family net worth took a comparable hit.

But let’s be ‘glass-is-half-full’ kind of people.  As I mentioned on an earlier post, one way you can compare the quality of your investments is how you do compared to the market.  According to Google Finance, the Dow Jones is down 35.3%, and the S&P500 is down 38%, so we’re doing a bit better than the market (yeah, diversification).  Second, I’m still far from retirement, so there is potentially a long time before I would draw from this account.  Finally, the market is a lot cheaper now…some people would argue that this is an excellent time to buy stocks, especially value index funds.  That has been our investing strategy.  Again, over the long term this could turn out ok.

Still, it is not fun to watch value just disappear through no fault of your own.

From August, 2006.

… I imagine that I’ll be able to find one picture of Taylin’s face, and tell it, “this is Taylin.” The software is then smart enough to look through the image itself to find pictures of Taylin’s face, without me having to label the picture.

Google Photo Search « Deez Steeles

It’s kind of fun when you’re predictions turn out to be correct.  Wouldn’t have thought it would be 2 years in the making, though.  See Picasaweb Name Tags.

I direct you to Auntie Wendy’s website for a little video:

Hawkeye Cupcakes

I gather that this federal seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is bad, in the sense that it reveals that the system was weak and unsustainable, and that something drastic needed to be done to ensure that the entire housing/lending market system didn’t collapse all together.

Maybe someone out there could help me understand 1) exactly what would’ve happened if the government hadn’t stepped in, and 2) how this will affect me in my current home, and when we go to refinance or buy a new home when our ARM is set to balloon in 4 years?

economy, homes, fannie mae, freddie mac, government, mortgages

This report from the Iowa State Auditor documents the government’s history of creative accounting to misinform taxpayers, and increasing spending well above revenues.  This quote was particularly telling:

“Under Iowa’s short-term focus, ongoing spending
continually exceeds available ongoing revenues. A
longer-term financial plan is sorely needed to map our
financial future—this one-year focus, “kick the can
down the road” approach, has to stop.”
- D. Vaudt.  Auditor of State

A similar report was released in August.  Kudos to the Iowa audit department for very clearly describing the issues with Iowa’s accounting and budget issues.  Looks like its time to write another letter to…somebody.  =)

Tags: iowa, budget, accounting, audit, state, spending

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Pandora Smirnoff Ad,
originally uploaded by fitzgeraldsteele.

While listening to a Russian composer, Pandoa gives me an ad for (formerly) Russian Vodka. Random sponsor ad or targeted marketing? Either way, I thought that was funny (cause it’s true).

Not that White Grape stuff, though…I had some Honey-infused vodka when I visited the Ukraine…I thought that was spectacular.

We’ve talked about feed-worthiness before.  But how do you figure out if someone is feedworthy?  It’s almost like I unconsciously assign people a feedworthy score.  If they’re above some threshold, they get added to my list of contacts.  So we need some rules for determining someone’s feed-worthiness.

For example, if I have to look you up in my high school yearbook, you’re feed-worthiness score goes down.

Any others?

Tags: socialmedia, feed, worty

We have an Iowa Hawkeye fan CD that mixes Hawkeye Marching Band with audio from famous Hawkeye games (Rob Houghtlin, Sed Shaw, Tavian Banks, Chris Street, etc) with crowd pumping songs (James Brown, Cotton Eye Joe, etc).  Taly likes the crowd pumping songs — she asks for the ‘party song,’ which turns out is 2 Unlimited “Get Ready for This.”  So I played Pandora…”If you like Get Ready for This, you may also like…Whoomp! There it IS, Tootsie Roll, Hip Hop Hooray, The Power (Snap)”

Don’t judge me.  You know you got your Jock Jams CD laying around too!  Don’t daddy hate.

The funny thing is that Amazon is still selling that CD for $18!!!

Oh yeah, you got it, no ifs, ands,no buts about it
And you over there with the long hair
Keep workin that derriere, cause it ain’t hard
Just a brand new dance for the 1991
69 is the place to be, a yo Skee, what we came to see

Cotton candy,sweet and low, let me see your tootsie roll

Sara and I attend two small group bible studies at our church; one where we are the oldest couple (but still near the average age of the group), and one where we are the youngest (by far; we’re probably 20-25 years below the average age).  The older group had a discussion about this opinion piece in the local paper:

We must demonstrate the difference between propaganda and fact. Iowa teachers and school boards need to recognize that “An Inconvenient Truth” is propaganda.

Core curriculum? It’s more like Gore curriculum | press-citizen.com | Iowa City Press Citizen

This opinion piece highlights Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (AIT) as evidence that the Iowa Core Curriculum model indoctrinates students with a particular political viewpoint, and does not encourage free thought or alternate viewpoints.  However, the conversation was about Gore’s documentary (I believe Sara and I were the only one’s who had seen it).  The group in general did not believe that there was a scientific consensus on whether  global climate change is a result of human activity (anthropogenic, to use the fancy term). 

The opinion piece cites a petition purportedly signed by 31,000 American scientists denying anthropogenic climate change, as well as several school districts who have decided that AIT cannot be shown to students without a counter-balancing book or movie.  First, this ‘recent’ petition was originally circulated in 1998, shortly after the Kyoto Protocol.  There was considerably more debate on global warming 10 years ago.  Second, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which drove this Oregon Petition, is not an accredited research institution, has no faculty with peer-reviewed publications in climatology, and its review of climate change was soundly rebuked by the National Academy of Science. 

For the record, the US Global Change Research Program, and the international scientific community have independently concluded that the Earth is warming, that warming is harmful to humans and to nature, and that warming is “very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.  In fact, the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (together with Al Gore) won the Nobel Peace Prize. If the data presented in those reports aren’t enough to convince you that climate change is anthropogenic, the fact that the world’s smartest climatologists agree, and that other smart scientists agree with their work, should have some weight.  The group’s most common argument against human-caused climate change is that global temperatures naturally fluxuate; we don’t know whether fluxuations we’re seeing now are natural or man made.  However, the evidence indicates that global temperatures follow CO₂ concentrations; when there’s naturally lots of carbon dioxide, temps go up, and temps go down when there’s less.  But humans have pumped WAY more CO₂ into the air than has ever been there before, and temperatures are and are likely to continue to follow.

What was particularly troubling to me was that it was so difficult to communicate this current scientific consensus to the group.  I feel like, as the soon-to-be-academic of the group, that part of my job is to help people understand how to evaluate scientific claims.  But I anticipate that going back to the group with some of the analysis we’ve described here will fall on deaf ears.  The National Science Foundation had a report on the low state of American scientific and technological literacy.  And I know its even more difficult for people to accept something that conflicts with their basic worldview. 

I’ll share here the main points from Park’s 2003 article,  The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media (thus bypassing the peer review process by denying other scientists the opportunity to determine the validity of the claim).

2. The discoverer claims that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work. (The mainstream science community may be deemed part of a larger conspiracy that includes industry and government.)
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. The evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

The Oregon Intitute for Science and Medicine work fails points 1, 2, 5, and 6. 

Tags: globalwarming, greenhouse, earth, green, climate change, climate, environment, church, Gore, iowa, school, education, science, literacy, religion

I wish I had all the time in the world to see all the interesting things you are doing. But I don’t have all that time. So I have to choose. I can’t apologize for that.

Like many people, I use several different online tools to help me manage various activities across a number of devices: computers, mobile phones, laptops, etc. I write notes on this blog, post pictures to flickr, keep bookmarks on del.icio.us, read news on Google Reader, keep up with friends on Facebook. Each of these tools generates a feed of my activity on the site, to which people can subscribe and see my latest posts, pictures, bookmarks.

They also allow content from one system to be pulled into another. Indeed, the industry trend is to aggregate these feeds into ‘Lifestreams,’ a single feed that shows all my activities from all these sites. Friendfeed is the prototypical example of this. There’s Sweetcron, if you want your own. Facebook is evolving into this type of system (especially with the latest announcements on Facebook connect, and the new UI). At the core of this trend is the desire to create a single, cohesive portrayal of a person’s activities, instead of the piece mail view on disparate, unconnected sites. Interested parties should search terms such like “social graph, ” and technologies like OpenSocial, Data Portability Initiative. Also, the Flock browser.

As these technologies evolve, this culture of sharing social graph data grows, and social network sites start to play nice with each other, once you ‘friend’ someone on one system, the systems can automatically ‘friend’ that person on any other system that you both use. For example, Facebook might tell you: “You and Wendy are now friends. Wendy also uses del.icio.us, flickr, and Google Reader. Would you like to connect with Wendy on these systems as well?” Similarly with all your friends on all the systems you use, so you’ll be able to look at a single page (aka FriendFeed, or the Facebook home page) and see what everyone is up to.

This is cool, if you care about all the things that person is up to (I do, as a matter of fact, subscribe to Wendy’s feeds on all those sites, because she is a friend, and fellow techno-geek — maybe she can use FriendFeed too, so I only have to subscribe to one feed, *ahem* Update: she also uses FriendFeed).

The problem I see is that there are a whole lot of people I know, have interacted with, and could friend on one or may systems, but I don’t want to have a detailed record of their activities. It is similar to going to a high school reunion. Sure, it is kind of neat to see some people that you haven’t seen in a long time, especially if you were once close acquaintances. But you may or may not want to really re-connect and rekindle that relationship. You say, “hey…great to see you again! What have you been up to since graduation? Three kids and a dog? Great! Ok, see you in 5 years.”

When you get that friend invite from that old acquaintance, you have to decide if they are feed-worthy (not to be confused with whether or not they are sponge-worthy). You have limited time in the day, and a limited number of things to which you can pay attention. Do you want to spend your limited attention budget on reading that person’s latest status update, bookmarks, pictures of their fancy plate at a new restaurant, etc. Some have proposed a limit to the number of people you can maintain a stable social relationship (see Dunbar’s Number: ~150 people). That suggests that connecting with hundreds or thousands of people on various social network sites cannot possibly be worth the time, effort, and attention you might spend on all of them.

I think as social media tools become even more integrated into your work and play, you’ll have to employ some strategies or rules for who you connect with. I typically don’t connect with old acquaintances. I don’t mean to be rude. It is (probably) not that I don’t like you, or don’t want to talk with you. But because my time and attention are valuable to me, I have to be careful how I spend them. If we weren’t that close then, and you’ve dropped off my attention radar, it is difficult for me to see why I should begin to re-allocate time and attention from something to your status updates and fancy food pictures.

Now, it could turn out that having thousands of friends on social network site helps you keep loose ties with people. Like, they’re always on the radar, so keeping up with what they’re doing isn’t as big of a perceived deal as bringing someone back on the radar. And maybe people will get better at maintaining loose ties between people, occasionally reinvesting time in a relationship.

We can talk later about whether or not this is a good thing.

A candid discussion from Ron Paul about the latest bill to bailout lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  When he was running for President, I enjoyed listening to him because he seemed to be very honest and genuine about his concerns for the economy (reminded me a bit of Ross Perot in ‘92). 

If I understand this correctly (and that’s a big if), it would be bad if these two companies went bankrupt, as they currently back over 5T (that’s T as in trillion) in mortgages.  The US Gov’t has offered these two companies an unlimited line of credit to make sure they stay solvent.  Do we have unlimited money to give them?  No, so what the government does is basically print more money in order to cover the difference. 

Paul seems to suggest that we need to suck it up and stop federal bailouts for industries, as it further weakens the dollar, which for you and me means inflation (goods and services cost more, and each dollar buys less), and real, longer term economic hardships. 

This seems to align with other discussions on this blog on short term pain vs. long term viability.

Whatever you think about this issue, I’m glad that Paul takes the time to directly address citizens about House votes, how they may affect the public.  Something like this would be really useful for state and local governments, as well, which really can have much more immediate impact on a person’s life.  You can imagine city council members discussing bond issues, road construction, school reforms, in this type of forum.

Tags: housing, bailout, economy, dollar, inflation, screwed, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac