Monday, November 26, 2007

9 to 5

The following unattributed stat was referenced in a post commentin on Ben Stein's yahoo column about people's inability to actually work:
Studies show that most Americans only contribute 2 solid hours of productivity to their employers during a typical 8-9 hour workday. Email, internet, computer games, phone calls, chatting, work-gossip, and meals are what we really spend our time, attention, and energy on.
I'm not sure I bring that average up.


Who is the dumbest Hero? Suresh? Peter? Maya? Clair? Elle? Other?


A simple fish recipe that's quite good: saute a clove or two of garlic in 1/4 cup of olive oil. Salt & pepper cod (or other white fish) fillets and add to skillet. Cook on one side for 3-4 minutes (a little below medium heat). Flip, and add a good amount of fresh chopped parsley. Fry for another 8-10 minutes and serve with the green "sauce". This was tonight's dinner and it was very tasty.


My verdict on HD DVD: it's nice, but I see the primary value of the player as a very good upconverter--i think i see the difference, meaning it's scaler is better than our TV's. The main thing that hurts the cause is the lack of available media and my disinclination to upgrade the media I have. But, with 10 free movies attached to the A3, it becomes a better deal than pretty much any other upconverter, though there are a couple of trade-offs, namely player startup (it's slow because it's booting an OS) and command response (ie there's a small lag in response time from the remote).


So if you're a market timer investor, at what point do you invest in a banking/financials fund such as Vanguard Financials ETF or PowerShares Banking ETF? The key, of course, would be the discipline to hold for at least 5-7 years. This may run counter to principles of asset allocation, as creating a new position where none existed before demands a better reason for change than simply "oh it's cheap, it can only go up!"


What's a better use of time & money? Simply spending the $40 to renew the subscription to your internet security provider of choice (I'm currently using Zone Alarm), or scavenging around for a new program with mail-in rebates that makes it free, though one can never be sure how one's system will react to the new program?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know what server-time is, but I'm seriously hoping this was posted during work hours from work. If not -- don't bring that weak "I hardly ever work" sauce in here, bub.

From what I know about your spending habits, as well as your affinity for keeping the minimum number of lights on in the house at any given time, I don't see how you could possibly pass on a computer security program that costs a stamp and some rebate-related worrying.

To be fair, of course, I'm just the opposite -- paying needlessly for things just for the sake of "convenience". I chalk up the extra money spent/wasted in lieu of coupons, slick deals, rebates, and cheaper prices -- all of that goes into the nebulous cost of "Jason being Jason". JbJ may cost as much as $300/yr, which I used to get back in poker winnings. But anymore -- "competitive" puzzling just doesn't have the big bucks.

Well, ok, at least not for fourth-place.

Jot said...

So...why are you using Zone Alarm at all?

Assuming you don't have dialup, you should have: Cable modem/dsl modem -> your own router acting as a FW (linksys and netgear are the most common types).

After that, you have AntiVirus (I like F-Prot) and the occasionally spybot scan. Why Zone Alarm, or the worst of the bunch, Norton Systemworks.

I suppose with defense in depth you could use ZA, but heck, if I'm doing that I'm going to install a separate box behind the FW to act as a separate FW and then have a real DMZ, not buy software.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad that I have a Mac. I wonder how long I'll be able to say that though.

Maya is definitely the least intelligent.