The Human Synthesizer

I would not recommend trying this at home.

Daito Manabe stimulates his facial muscles with small electric pulses, synced to music. Danito comments his experiments as following: 'yes. it is painful. but not as much as you think'

Bogle Speaks: On Wall Street Greed and ETFs

I agree with Jack Bogle to a certain extent. ETFs have become a rapid trading vehicle for individuals and institutions, which helps Wall Street create trading profits. However, I do think ETFs, if used properly, can be a great investment tool for the average investor. I am a buy and hold ETF investor. I only intended to sell my shares after I enter retirement as needed to fund the necessities of life and to have some fun traveling.

The Grouch's Favorite Free/Open Source Software Programs

The Grouch is all about open source software. You won't find any Microsoft proprietary code on my computers. In an effort to show others the way to GPL or free software bliss, I've listed my favorite programs.

1. Linux - any Debian derivative will do for me.  My current favorite is Linux Mint 10 because of its elegant look and it takes care of most of the configuration challenges for the user, followed by Ubuntu.  I could get by with Fedora in a pinch, but I don't care for OpenSuse.
2. MythTV - a DVR application.  Used to record TV shows in HD off of the antennae or cable.
3. PS3 Streaming Media Player - used to stream recorded TV shows, ripped movies, and mp3s from the PC through a PS3 onto the TV screen.
4. XBMC - Media Center software.
5. GNUCash - for those who don't want to put their financial info on the web, GNUCash is like MS Money and a sophisticated accounting program rolled into one.
6. Dropbox - file synching with a hard drive in the cloud. 
7. VLC (Video Lan Client) - All purpose multimedia application.
8. Handbrake - DVD ripping.
9. DVD::rip - DVD ripping
10. Arista - DVD ripping, and file encoding.
11. Google Chrome - web browsing.
12. Firefox - web browsing.
13. Opera - web browsing.
14. Google Earth 
15. Transmission - bit torrent
16. Vuze - bit torrent.
17. Open Office - MS Office replacement.
18. Skype - VoIP.
19. Google Voice - VoIP
20. Ekiga - VoIP.
21. Pandora - free music delivery.
22. Filezilla - FTP Client
23. Virtual Box - virtual machine hosting software.
24. Audacity - audio recording and editing.
25. Thunderbird - email client.
26. Pidgin - IM client
27. Eclipse - software IDE
28. GIMP - image manipulation program similar to photoshop
29. Inkscape - vector drawing program and book cover design
30. LaTex - typesetting program I use to format books
31. Texmaker - LaTex editor
32. Lyx - WYSIWYG LaTex editor
33. Scribus - Desktop publishing and book cover design
34. MPlayer - All purpose multimedia application.
35. Calibre - ebook reader.

The Last Feast of the Most Irresponsible Congress in US History

The most irresponsible Congress in the history of the US is staying true to form going out the door on a massive spending binge. How bad is it? The new $1.1 Trillion, 1,924 page budget bill is crammed full of pork, spending an average of $575.13 million per page. It contains over 6,000 earmarks. For those who don't understand earmarks, they are legislative provisions that direct approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that direct specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees. In practice many Congressmen get a percentage of the earmark kicked back into their campaign funds as a donation from those receiving the earmarks. So, in essence, they are an easy way for Congress to fund their own campaigns with taxpayer money, which might explain their reluctant to outlaw the practice.

A list of specific earmarks totaling over 26 million dollars can be found at:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=4866e250-f1e6-476a-bbc0-b7029f627fbf

But the crowning achievement for these bastions of integrity is that no one will be allowed to read the bill before the votes are taken. Why should anyone care what's in the bill as long as it spends the right amount of money? Oh, the joys of being a legal modern-day robber baron!

Yours truly would prefer to see the budget bill kicked into the next Congress, and the government shut down for few weeks, except for essential services (whatever they may be). After all, today's borrowed money become the tax increases of tomorrow.

Update:  After rising to $1.3 Trillion, it looks like this spending bill collapsed under the weight of its own pork in the Senate last night.  We'll see if it rises again from the ashes like the phoenix or it if stays dead.

Party like its 1773

On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history called the Boston Tea Party.

The Tea Party arose from two issues confronting the British Empire in 1773: the financial problems of the British East India Company, and an ongoing dispute about the extent of Parliament's authority, if any, over the British American colonies without seating any elected representation. The North ministry's attempt to resolve these issues produced a showdown that would eventually result in revolution.

Food Justice: I Was Lovin' IT

PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) has produced a provocative new fast-food commercial that draws attention to the link between heart disease deaths and fast-food. This vegan group's ad features a dead man in a morgue holding a hamburger, and implies that McDonald’s was to blame. It ends with the words “I was lovin’ it” (a play on the chain’s “I’m lovin’ it” slogan) and some McDonald’s-like golden arches.

PCRM’s director of nutrition education Susan Levin says they chose McDonald’s specifically because “they epitomize fast food and the permeation of fast food in the country.” The ad will air in the Washington, DC market; PCRM is hoping to run it in other, similarly fast food dense cities soon.

Do you think McDonald's will sue over this ad?

The 12 Days Of Global Warming

Quote of the Day: The UK Daily Telegraph

US Treasuries last week suffered their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The borrowing costs of the government of the world’s largest economy have now risen by a quarter over the past four weeks.

Such a sharp rise in US benchmark market interest rates matters a lot – and it matters way beyond America. The US government is now servicing $13.8 trillion (£8.7 trilion) in declared liabilities – making it, by a long way, the world’s largest debtor. Around $414bn of US taxpayers’ money went on sovereign interest payments last year – around 4.5 times the budget of America’s Department of Education.

Debt service costs have reached such astronomical levels even though, over the past year and more, yields have been kept historically and artificially low by “quantitative easing (QE)” – in other words, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s virtual printing press. Now borrowing costs are 28pc higher than a month ago, with the 10-year Treasury yield reaching 3.33pc last week, an already eye-watering debt service burden can only go up.

Few on this side of the Atlantic should feel smug. The eurozone’s ongoing sovereign debt debacle has pushed up Germany’s borrowing costs by 27pc over the last month – to 3.03pc. The market has judged that if Europe’s Teutonic powerhouse wants the single currency to survive, it will ultimately need to raise wads of cash to absorb the mess caused by other member states’ fiscal incontinence…

...Some say that growing signs of a US economic recovery are positive for stocks, which means money is being diverted out of Treasuries, so lowering their price, which pushes up yields. That’s wishful thinking. Sovereign borrowing costs have just surged in the US – and therefore elsewhere – because a politically-wounded President Obama caved-in and extended the Bush-era tax cuts, combining them with a $120bn payroll tax holiday…

...The market is increasingly alarmed at the rate of increase of the US government’s already massive liabilities. America’s government debt is set to expand by a jaw-dropping 42pc over the next few years, reaching $19.6 trillion by 2015 according to Treasury Department estimates presented (amid very little fanfare) to Congress back in June. Since then, government spending has risen even more. So US debt service costs, like those of many other Western nations, are expanding rapidly in terms of both the volumes of sovereign instruments outstanding, and the yields on each bond.

~ The UK Daily Telegraph