Posted By RichC on January 23, 2014
Would you like to have an “aha moment” in understanding why and how we attempt to manage our economy?
Then watch this 30 minute YouTube video by Ray Dalio, founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates. If you prefer reading, visit economicprinciples.org and download the research paper … the light bulb will come on, it is that good.
Posted By RichC on January 22, 2014
Although I’m pretty conservative when it comes to investing and stocks, I 
do pay attention to the occasion stock tip when it comes from business people I respect. One fellow I know who attends shareholder meetings and get to know the interworking of companies has taken a substantial position in Hyperdynamics Corporation. I’ve added a few shares, but watched the stock go south as company struggled to get their business, personnel and financials back in order (perhaps growing pains of a small company?). The questionable deal regarding the Guinea Project and DOJ probe last year made holding onto the stock difficult for most, but since my position was already money budgeted for a “long shot,” I ignored the news and excepted it as lost money. It is a high risk/high reward stock like this that I’m learning to take a position with options rather than hold the stock.
Recently though, a few more buyers have picked up shares of $HDY and no matter where I’ve looked for news, it has been scarce. Obviously something has generated interest as volume jumped 5-fold on Tuesday and continued into today. Any rumors or news from those listening? DOJ probe better than expected? News from Tullow or West Africa?
Posted By RichC on January 22, 2014
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This past weekend was “blog cleanup” as I am in the process of optimizing WordPress on my site and updating the plugin that manages Google’s Adsense — at one time I thought they were non-intrusive, but recently have become obnoxious. Unfortunately after tweaking the size and types of ads they seem even worse that before.
I’ve started to blacklist a few (dating and adult gaming sites, toenail fungus, etc), but more continue to show up and clutter the blog. I’m tempted to eliminate Adsense altogether, but for the moment will continue the tweaking process and will remove as many as possible using the “sensitive categories” option. For those willing to put up with this clean up process, “thank you” … and for those offended, perhaps add an “ad-blocker” add-on to your browser before blacklisting MyDesultoryBlog for good.
Posted By RichC on January 21, 2014
It is well into car show season, but I have not been paying all that much attention. There have been a few high profile concepts (that will never get built) and smattering of diesel teases that have peaked my interests. Here’s one from Nissan reported on in the Detroit News and elsewhere regarding the introduction of their full size Titan pickup with the Cummins 5.0-liter turbocharged diesel.
Nissan Motor Co. isn’t ready to say when its V-8 diesel Titan pickup will go on sale in the United States.
Nissan announced in August it would sell a new Titan with a Cummins 5.0-liter V-8 Turbo Diesel. It announced in February it was working to upgrade the truck.
LINK for more
And if that’s not enough teasing … Nissan said they might even bring their smaller Frontier pickup to the U.S. – most likely with the 4-cylinder 187 HP diesel. Nice!
Nissan could add a diesel Frontier as well. “There’s a lot of different technologies that we’re considering for the Frontier. It may be all-gas. It may be diesel. It may be a hybrid. There’s so many things we’re looking at right now,” Diaz said.
It is hard to believe automotive manufacturers have been so slow in bring diesels engines to their smaller light pickups?
Posted By RichC on January 20, 2014
Next step … I thought … would be to plan my work day around a scheduled appointment, but instead I was advised to make the entire day available and that the service guy would call me on Monday morning. Great! [sarcasm] Keep the entire day open! It would be nice if service companies could schedule a least a time slot demonstrating that they are sensitive to a customer’s schedule and time, but no sense bellyaching to the receptionist.
Fast forward after leaving my wife’s finely detailed piece of precision engineering (a joke) outside in the snow, I finally received the morning call at 8:45AM to let me know what time to be available … sometime between 12-4PM … just like the cable company. Come on folks, really? Companies can (and should) do better.
#end rant
Posted By RichC on January 20, 2014
I haven’t heard the term for a while, but “eye candy” came to mind when clicking a recent email newsletter from Porsche. The 911 Targa 4 models are beautiful … wouldn’t mind having one in my garage someday. If you want to see a few more photos, check out the site or download the PDF.
Posted By RichC on January 19, 2014
The much publicized Obamacare, Target and Neiman Marcus security issues are an in-your-face reminder (receive my email from Target last week) that individuals need to be wary and take precautions with their financial, medical and personal identity information. Having been through the nightmare of ID theft back in the 1990s, before companies or banks were paying much attention to their customers information, I can tell you that it is not an easy thing to clean up. What was frustrating to me was that I tracked down the “criminal” and gave the information to the FTC and law enforcement … yet they did not have the tools or 
resources to prosecute. I was “this >||< close” to driving down to Atlanta (where the person lived) and administering personal justice. Deterrent? Nope! Something should have been done.
Six steps to minimize Identity Fraud/Theft and potential financial impact?
* Consider CreditKarma.com if you are looking to see your credit score.
** I couldn’t resist linking the 1976 Boston song Peace of Mind above. 
Posted By RichC on January 18, 2014
Those who spend any amount of time listening to amateur radio hear operators closing their exchanges with a polite and concise “73” … meaning “best regards” … but where did it come from?
From what I’ve read, it goes back to a convention in 1859 where telegraph operators discussed saving “line time” by devising a code that would reduce the number of characters for standard expressions. Twenty years after the the convention, Walter Phillips, created a list of shorthand codes and it became the Phillips Code. The number portion of the codes were called “Wire Signals” and a few remain with us today.
Here’s one of the shorthand abbreviations that I found particularly interesting:
“The terms POTUS and SCOTUS originated in the code and entered common parlance when newsgathering services (in particular the Associated Press) adopted the terminology.”
The numeric code is a small part of the abbreviations outlined in the Phillips Code (developed by telegrapher Walter P. Phillips). Here are the numbers as referenced:
W I R E S I G N A L S
WIRE Preference over everything except 95
1- Wait a moment
2- Important Business
3- What time is it?
4- Where shall I go ahead?
5- Have you business for me?
6- I am ready
7- Are you ready?
8- Close your key; circuit is busy
9- Close your key for priority business (Wire chief, dispatcher, etc)
10- Keep this circuit closed
12- Do you understand?
13- I understand
14- What is the weather?
15- For you and other to copy
17- Lightning here
18- What is the trouble?
19- Form 19 train order
21- Stop for a meal
22- Wire test
23- All copy
24- Repeat this back
25- Busy on another wire
26- Put on ground wire
27- Priority, very important
28- Do you get my writing?
29- Private, deliver in sealed envelope
30- No more (end)
31- Form 31 train order
32- I understand that I am to …
33- Car report (Also, answer is paid for)
34- Message for all officers
35- You may use my signal to answer this
37- Diversion (Also, inform all interested)
39- Important, with priority on thru wire (Also, sleep-car report)
44- Answer promptly by wire
73- Best regards
88- Love and kisses
91- Superintendent’s signal
92- Deliver promptly
93- Vice President and General Manager’s signals
95- President’s signal
134- Who is at the key?
See full Phillip Code at Radions.net
– 30
Posted By RichC on January 17, 2014
A Tech Friday reminder to consider Soluto if you have a slow booting computer and revisit it after upgrading hardware … especially if you are for trying to stretch the “use by date” of an aging computer. Everyone I know love a fast booting computer, although I doubt a Windows machine is ever going to be truly fast, perhaps just less slow?
I installed Soluto back in 2010 and can highly recommend using it in order to tweak the boot of your computer and have been revisiting a few settings now that I have the SSD drive in my 7 year old Gateway notebook. I’d love to say that I’ve been 100% satisfied with the cloning process and the new Kingston 240GB SSD, but all did not go as smooth as I had wished. The intended plan was to plug the new drive into my adapter and begin cloning the entire boot partition with EaseUS. What I realized was that the SSD needed to be “initialized” and no matter what I tried, it would not initialize in order to format. Eventually I installed Windows 7 from CD onto the SSD and THEN had a recognizable drive. After switching drives once again I started EaseUS and began the easy cloning process.
After switching drives once again, the boot began with only a few stumbles and drivers that would not operate correctly. Once updated, the Adobe Creative Suite needed to be reinstalled as 
did Intuit’s QuickBooks. I’m still finding a few start up glitches when it comes to recognizing USB and Bluetooth hardware, but after multiple boots and tweaking the old notebook is finally booting with a usable selection of apps in under 2 minutes … but it still will not hibernate or standby correctly and is left confused if items are unplugged between boots. So the theory I’m going with at this moment is to do a full “shutdown” IF I’m moving the computer and only use standby when remaining unchanged (always open to suggestions). Small problems aside, the SSD drive is definitely faster and would have probably been much better IF I would have done a “clean install” of Windows and manually installed all my software again. The boot is now reasonable and apps definitely start quicker, but the goal was merely to extend the life of my current computer and retain the hodgepodge of software that was installed over many years.
Posted By RichC on January 16, 2014
Completing the thank you circle to my kids for their thoughtful Christmas gifts this year, I’ll post a thank you to Katelyn and Drew for their gift of a Sodasteam m
achine. The thought is that it might be a solution for soft drinks on the boat. Super idea! The small and simple device reduces the number of cans or disposable plastic bottles and doesn’t require any electrical power – a great idea for cruising as disposing of garbage is a big problem.
I’ve been watching the company and posted a Greenberg/Cramer challenge back in 2011 but thought it was still not cost effective. Before Sodastream, I looked into my own home soda machine, but the cost and required maintenance for a small commercial fountain station prevented building one into our kitchen. Cans have been our preferred method for decades and those who know us, know we are addicted to Pepsi products (particularly Brenda and Diet Pepsi). We definitely drink our share of “pop” especially in cans, and found that we have enough aluminum to recycle each year to pay for dinner at our favorite restaurant.
The biggest concern from my perspective is the taste and flavor options. During the holidays we ran through the included six sample flavors. My conclusion was that only two of the Sodastream flavors were passable. I liked the Pink Grapefruit and really enjoyed the Diet Lemon-Lime. Brenda was not happy with the diet-cola. Pricing is going to be another issue along with the inconvenience (at home) of filling a bottle with water, chilling it ahead of time and then carbonating and hand mixing the soda.
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Back to pricing … Target current has Diet Lemon-Lime at $4.99 for a bottle of syrup that will produce 33 12oz cans (.15/can). Add the price (and inconvenience) of carbonators and that adds roughly 13 more cents per 12 ounces at the listed Sodastream carbonator price. This brings the cost to about .28/can or $6.72/case, if I’ve got my numbers and yields correct (FYI: we regularly buy Pepsi or Coke products at $4 to 7/case … and over our lifetime “shop” to buy cans under 20 cents each).
The goal in the end is not to pay the Sodastream price for syrup or for carbonator refills, but to find a way to “home refill” (SodaMod) lower than the $14.99/ 60L carbonator or replace the tank entirely (CO2Doctor). I’m already working on a wholesaler or restaurant that will sell box/cube Pepsi or Coke.
I’m ok with the $4.99 Diet Lemon-Lime and normal $14.99 carbonator refill on the boat so as not having to lug as many cans aboard and store the empties, but wouldn’t mind finding something better that will satisfy Brenda, especially if I’m going to use it everyday at home.
