… now officially allocated (in total) to the United States offensive in the Middle East (specifically Iraq and Afganistan).
From the ap: “The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion.”
wonder what else could have been done with all that cash ..
[costofwar.com]
Monthly Archive for April, 2005
was fooling around with some apache .htaccess stuff last night
now redirecting (direct) to the blog from
/justright
/77
/7
/777
/jeeves
/nosplash
and a few others
(see how many you can guess ;-).)
can’t seem to get the http rewrite rules to work properly , but i’ll figure that out later on
in other news google hit $222 today
very noticeable increase from $186 this monday
quite fortunately i’m sitting on a couple hundred (real) shares
… it tastes good
i’m out …
keep it classy,
!~77percent
keep it classy,
!~77percent
i remember a few weeks ago when senor mitchell scoffed at the idea of doubling our google holding while it was low and thus reducing our avg cost per share (&thereby increasing earning potential).
GOOG is presently at $204 and climbing
had we doubled our google holdings back when the shares were at $186 (as i suggested)
[adding to our existing 300 shares @$193]
our avg.costpershare would have been around $189 on 600 shares ;
we could cash that out for a healthy $9000
compared with our presently respectable earnings from existing GOOG shares of $3300 , seems like it might have been worthwhile
just thought i might mention that …
k well contingency records is going to finally get (very slightly) off the ground , i’ve been spending some time, avoiding the history essay, thinking through all the elements of distribution and came up with some ridiculously innovative (and thus top secret until the launch) ideas for the packaging and distribution of the albums that i’ll be responsible for .. right now that i’ve got all the different channels of distribution lined up , and the manufacturing is completely ready (got quotes and other related costs and prices are looking reasonable enough for a decent release on minimal budget) .. so i’m basically working on upping the pace for content creation (of course without rushing the creative process either of contingency’s talented clients) ; so once that stuff is ready for production, i expect to be at full distribution through all the major inde channels (including cdbaby&amazon, and others) the week after we have manufacturing done with .. of course we have to line up a street team and everything but since only one of contingency’s clients is anywhere near production-ready, that isn’t quite the biggest of issues … but yea contingency is getting itself started up and it’s got everything going for it once the content is ready (and when the content is ready it’ll be quite impressive be sure) ; also the packaging will be so incredibly stunning that people will be quite stunned which is the intention .. of course it’ll also be greatest for noticeability by radio DJs and the like with whom i’ve also been setting things up (for the near future) and things are looking good
in other news i’ve almost certainly decided that the history essay will be on the cuban missile crisis , mostly because i don’t think i have enough time (left) to get into the vastness of very interesting social-aftermath &thesimiliar (see scarface) issues which are inevitable with cuban refugees/etc ; although i would quite enjoy writing about all that, i’m afraid that it wouldn’t work out quickly enough and as a result i’m going to be falling back on the (still interesting) cuban missile crisis which should be relatively ideal because of the accessibility of all sorts of information for that much more specific topic .. but yea definitely not a good thing that i’m still at zeropoint sunday evening , i’m guessing that it’ll be a busy week (although that only means the weekend will be such a relief) , so yea expect minimal blogging
anywaysbutumn
keep it classy,
!~77percent
keep it classy,
!~77percent
IMPACTIST
very cool design shop , did a lot of work for nike but besides that, their reel is very very nice
definitely worth watching sometime
found them through the good people behind jewelboxing .. definitely looking into upping my role as manage for a few small inde bands and start working on distribution and that stuff , because the stuff is out there it’s just not implemented so i could and i suppose i will get around to getting into that .
histessay is presently at zeropoint, not good at all because i’ve also decided to waste some time at the bazaar today , i was going to do some yesterday, but it was saturday so naturally i just ended up not doing it ,so yea i think i’ll try to at least get some of it started tonight, working during the week is going to be a bitch … this weekend though will be very relieving, should be good
going to be a long week though ….
comment if i’m not the only one in this shite ..
there was something else i wanted to mention but i can’t quite remember it
not sure if i mentioned it already, but scientists have concluded that ingredients in chocolate can help reduce the chances of cancer, all the more reason for me to get my 77%stuff going sometime soon
this is a blog , and it’s business as usual so ignoring the SAT bickering, and awaiting further disagreement, we now mention some of the crap that i’ve been meaning to mention in the last couple days that you all might have missed out on .. much more is backlogged on del.icio.us that i most probably will never make it to 77percent
been continuing planning for the 77percent shell operations to actually go into effect .. maybe sometime eventually but probably not overwhelmingly soon
i now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
firstly you should be sure to check out the comics i linked to below all this SAT crap and also the mention of the horribly unfortunate crapiness of the upcoming h2g2 film
another something worth mentioning is the delocator.net .. clever idea well implemented
also failed to mention that IBM has been prototyping with Sanyo a fuel-cell powered secondary power supply for their thinkpad notebook line .. even if it is ridiculously sized, innovation is innovation .. and battery innovation is far behind anyways
a new study supposedly indicates that cell phone use has no link with the occurrence of deadly brain tumors
also first practical commercial-consumer implementation of electronic ink technology which has been in development for years .. should explode sometime last year but well we’ll see where that goes
furthermore, intel has offered $10k for a mint copy of the magazine in which Sir Moore declared that microtransistor density would double every 18 months .. apparently the good author lost his copy some time back.
also an MIT dorm has created an LED powered dance floor (controlled via usb aparently), lookin’ good …
the search for another integrated amplifier to replace the dying but gorgeous wooden pioneer amp (of which the primary (r) stereo amplifier has blown , now working in joint stereo with double load on the (l) amp .. it really does run hot but it’s a gorgeous thing .. thinking of replacing with a ridiculously nice marantz , amazing sound those have, would be quite awesome if i could get a hold of one that’s in good condition).
ummn much more i could mention but i don’t want to bore you too much
lastly, i hold michael solely responsible for the non-existant state of my history essay.
a design shop is just like a inde band in so many aspects
you do your stuff , hope someone notices [i.e be an attention whore until you get what you want], get your first few contracts (if you’re lucky), buildup a small client list and bit of a rep [good or bad, it’s your choice] ..
from there you can depend on the honest/Good™ version of viral marketing commonly referred to as word-of-mouth and things should end up alright
also like being (in) an inde band , it’s best to keep your dayjob if that’s a viable option
.. just in case
or, of course, you can start making your own blend [77.7% but let’s keep that between you and me] of chocolate and let that be your new dream .. can’t go wrong with chocolate.
about the undergrads.
you can do your undergrad somewhere good but cheap [prime example, i hate to say it, would honestly have to be canada] and do your stuff (because you are capable) … then hop over to some place with an extra fancy name like McGill (assuming you haven’t given up on the merits of snow) or better still one of those fun californian universities [UCA/berkely] or an eastcoast place if that’s your kind of thing [might be NYU or MIT] pick up your fancy diploma there , got your backup career lined up and all set up ..
now go for your dream of that which you’ll really enjoy
.. give it all you got ; worst comes to worst , you fall back on statistical analysis at morgan stanley for $222/hr [real market rates] with your econ degree from NYU or UBC /etc
ideal i would thing ..
those design shops i listed were founded as is and have made a name for themselves by doing what they do best
most of the design shops around are like that
generally anything bigger than that, creativity gets squashed by bureaucracy ; precisely why bigger companies tend to spend so much money on external design shops when they could easily afford the capital necessary to run one themselves for significantly less
any big design shops actually tend to subcontract design contracts from clients .. merely acting as a middle man and picking up a healthy commission
surely M$’s in house design crew [used very little nowadays because M$ is trying to up their image with nicer graphics] won’t take someone fresh off the streets of california whose clothes still hold the fresh scent of berkely weed .. of course who in hell would want to work for M$’s in house design crew since all they’re doing is designing the invites for bill gates’ daughter’s birthday party (that honestly is all that they trust their in-house guys with)
they will find some other big company to find them a good quality small company [often as small as a few people working in a close group] who have a nice portfolio and won’t mind working indirectly for the devil himself
all of the real design shops where they actually design stuff and real artists work are usually small teams and in some rare cases, individuals.
firstly anarchy is greatly over-rated
nextly, your SATs is almost irrelevent in the scheme of things , so long as you do an undergrad at a reasonably respected school .. and, most importantly, got your shit down properly while pulling off a good interview ; you can easily do your degree of whatever sort nearly wherever you want
as soon as you’ve got finished your undergrad well, your SATs are as ridiculously worthless as your highschool transcripts .. there’s no doubt that american universities tend to be assholes about this sort of thing for undergrads which is why it is fortunate that they have great respect for undergrads from canadian & british schools (amongst others))
as another matter, i know (as in know, not know of) a whole lot of people who have gotten really far with as little as a high school degree, solid intelligence, some food&shelter and enough charisma to get capital … today venture capitalists are sick of stanford grads who really aren’t keen on what they do [and are actually starting to outsource their work *before* they achieve their vc)
generally if people are capable, interested and convincing enough they’re perfectly able to make things work-out , while things might start out as a struggle if they remain committed (and their project remains non-public) great things can happen , take a look at what’s happened with sites like flickr and what is happening with lastfm
most of the design shops like arlo (arlo-tm.com) proved themselves not with a piece of paper with a fancy name on it but rather with solid work ,, something VCs really like (in the case of arlo, iseefrance.net underthings)
also check out the chocolate factory being run by oralfixations (producing mints) , they haven’t used their degrees for anything since they got them and regret wasting all that time and money on them
4by6.com is another example where the guys behind it regretted wasting time&money with schooling (just so you know, 4by6 does contracted design as well as straightforward printing as you might assume on first glance)
obviously there have been a lot of ideas like these that have failed , but it’s not longer just an issue of luck or chance … only those devoted to an idea can make an idea , the rest die young and rarely happy.
SAT prep courses are lame. the industry is a big exploit designed to take advantage of overambitious give-up-anything-for-the-grade, convinced-the-grade-will-decide-their-lives, (mostly) american high school kids and, of course, their pay-anything-for-the-fancy-harvard-degree parents
when dad heard about the potluck (and related sat-prep-course-marketing) , he said there was no way that they were going to sucker him into a sale pitch with promised free food .. that is part of what i really don’t like about the whole parent organization thing .. ends up being a very powerful marketing tool for any sort of a product targeted at teens , and a very effective one at that because the propaganda tends to be coming from what is a seemingly reliable source [knows what he’s talking about /etc] and is endorsed by “others like us” (the corrupted parents that let/invited the guy in)
his job, and the sole purpose for which he came to that meeting was to convince everyone there that his SAT prep course was as fucking necessary as could be if anyone in the room wanted to (or wanted their kids to) get a degree with a fancy name (costing up to and over $200k, for the undergrad alone) , he was there to sell a product ; let’s not get into how everyone is out to sell something .. this guy was out to sell a service promising a product that would be a wealthy (read:asshole,exploitive) son and/or daughter in years to come
i’m not even mentioning the frank fact of how it increases the already enormous gap between the wealthy and poor as far as education (and thus earning potential) is concerned.. offering the explicit promise increased scores (like kaplan’s money back guarantee) only shows in a very blatant manner the corruption of such standardized tests .. the fact that a wealthy man’s son can take a satprepcourse and kaplan is so sure he will perform better than he would without the course; because this option is in no way available to any teen lacking wealth, it inherently proves that a couple thousand dollars will buy a better score and thus exemplifies the fact that poor people have an inevitable disadvantage on standardized tests.
naturally the courses do nothing to increase the students actual intelligence or wisdom or anything that matters, it just corrupts the supposedly standardized system by further unleveling the already dangerously off-balance ; and of course it also points out in a very clear and almost deliberate manner how incredibly corrupt the system of the american college board.
surprisingly enough, the college board doesn’t do anything to eliminate this that has corrupted their ‘perfectly standardized’ [or perhaps fair&balanced (c)FOXnewsCorp] system of ranking the intelligence of human beings.
sorry if that offended anyone (i’m not saying that it wasn’t meant to). if you want to consume your time and mine in a productive manner arguing it, you’re more than welcome to drop me a note in the comments, a trackback/ping, a link [from your post arguing the point] which will get you one pointing back, and/or directly online/person.
i’m not saying this isn’t how it is [within the confines of the united states] ;
rather i am arguing that it shouldn’t be
kind of thinking about wasting more time with comics and stuff
found a few new ones with pretty good humour
if you’re bored enough you might check out
unfit
pears before swine
and of course
dilbert
in other news, i’ve heard that the hitchiker’s guide film turned out shitty and that’s a real shame
but from what i hear the director&screenwriter managed to butcher douglas adams extraordinary dialog and actually replaced many of his drier (read:better) jokes with lame shitty ones .. horrible shame that this had to happen ,
i’m sure douglas adams is rolling in his grave right now ..
[the review that i’m basing this on]
and it’s rare for reviewers given pre-release tkts/etc to be at least a little forgiving/grateful , i’m glad this guy was honest and it’s good that he managed to provide really solid backup without any spoilers (except, of course in the spoiler review)
also a side note , thought it interesting that the only referer link so far is from someone clicking the follow-through link from the old site
k well just added a referer links thing to the sidebar … thought it was kind of fun
anyways so if anyone links to 77percent and one of their readers follows the link, they get listed in my referals list
anyways the truth is that since no one links to anywhere on 77percent it’s just going to be a shamefully blank list until it starts to piss me off
also fixed up the archives, which i’m sure no one noticed were not working .. well they’re now working
a number of hilarious april fools things happened .. i’m running a little behind on the whole blogging thing .. including of course google’s gulp & infinity+1 storage plan also the hostile takeover of wikipedia by britannica and a few fun products on thinkgeek
a list of them all (with links) exists and if you’re bored enough you might as well check it out for a quick laugh
also some of the best ever april fools jokes, starting naturally with the swiss spagetti harvest is being hosted at the museum of hoaxes
in other news, bullshit history notes are due tomorrow .. and i’ve got to find a topic
and bush cancels the space program
hehe
i should say more but i do actually have to do some crap
