I believe it’s good to be future oriented, but it is also good to know when to shift to a present orientation and enjoy life for a few hours/days/weeks before getting back to the grind of future orientation.

I also generally agree with the view that the “digital re-writing of minds” is happening, but it won’t characterize itself in society the way that most people think it will.

I always thought what would happen if everybody was given an “encyclopedia chip” in their brains that contained a continuously up-to-date version of Wikipedia, and anybody with this chip can also “update” it by just thinking mentally. I still think society will be committing gross errors based on things they think are “facts” but are really not. One example would be the mistaken impression that a pedophile lurks around every elementary school playground, but when enough people think (or mention) something, it slowly evolves to become “fact” even when it is not.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.

This guy’s valuation exercise is pretty much correct, but the market’s ability to remain irrational is longer than your ability to remain solvent.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.

I’ve played with friends’ Iphones and Blackberries and other phones and thought when it comes to content creation and ability to crank out material on a keyboard that they don’t at all compare to a netbook. The only missing solution that currently impairs me is the internet access – I have to find free wireless hotspots (Starbucks is very reliable for this), but with the introduction of cheap highspeed mobile USB sticks, this problem might be alleviated and worth the $50/mo cost for the service. It might even replace Shaw Cable, which is getting at that price range, although I don’t know what the capacity of an internet USB stick is when doing applications like Bittorrent.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Filed under category Links.

I ask myself whether this could happen over here – the minimal example that we have in Canada of a residential safety net is non-market housing, and the costs of that are a percentage (typically 30%) of income. Such housing is much larger than the 30 square feet (plus common areas) in the capsule hotels.

I am trying to not make a moral judgment whether this is a “good” or “bad” system – instinctively, however, I would think that in the USA, people would revolt before letting this happen to themselves. The Japanese culture appears to be more docile to adverse circumstances.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Filed under category Links.

I will toss out a few random links for the day:

1. R-Squared wrote an entry on what he learned from maintaining his (much more popular than mine) site – taking out the energy and oil-specific content, his points mirror exactly what I experience here in Double Blind. This is especially true for the “Trying to predict which essays will get a lot of hits is futile” – the items that have gotten a lot of attention here I would have never guessed after writing.

One reason why this site is not popular is because I have not given it a specialization – it is a general site that takes my rants and raves of the day. I’ve carved off the financial side and British Columbia politics elsewhere, however.

2. Justin writes a travel blog entry about his 3 night trip in Okinawa. The part about the different types of salts was fascinating to read about, and I am awfully curious with respect to the taste.

3. Alex Tsakumis never holds back his opinions, and I have very much enjoyed his commentaries that he had in the newspapers. Now he is online and reviewed 2009 and has a fairly good summary – some bullet points I’d disagree with him on, but he is a very entertaining read.

A Double Blind post, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Filed under category Links.

One of the reasons why it is so expensive is that people don’t translate dollars into yearly income – if you gave me a stack of money today, I could translate every dollar into an income stream of 10 cents a year with a reasonable amount of risk. So when looking at your typical Greater Vancouver detached home of $749,808, one is actually giving up a future income stream of $74,981/year to purchase that home. Assuming you don’t make any other money, that would be $58,500 after taxes in 2010. If one were to rent a place for half that amount (about $2,400) and continue investing the rest of it at 10%, there is a high degree of probability that you would be up even after factoring in missed capital gains on a home purchase.

A Double Blind post, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Filed under category Finance, Links.

My two cents on the matter is that most people that (unsuccessfully) get in business for themselves get in trouble with capital assets – they tend to be involved in businesses that are capital intensive (e.g. restaurants) and the ability to convert the fixed asset infrastructure into cash flows is not as easy as it seems on paper, as it requires a lot of operational expertise to be able to do so.

A Double Blind post, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.

A Double Blind post, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.

A Double Blind post, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Filed under category Links.