Category Archives: Personal

Investment Advice from Lottery Winners

Commonwealth Magazine continues to be the most well-written, well-investigated publication covering Massachusetts.

An article in the Winter edition described how the state is making extra money when lottery winners take a smaller lump-sum payout rather than the per-year option.  Why would these winners leave money on the table?  “Our players were not doing very well on the open market.”

It’s almost as if she’s suggesting that people who play the lottery are bad at making decisions about money . . . .

On Being Right or Wrong

There’s no doubt that Twitter and Facebook have cut down on my blog output.  I feel like my friends and acquaintances are well aware of what I’m thinking and doing, and the urge to blog is easily overwhelmed by the day-to-day priorities.  I tend to blog only when my thoughts are too long to do justice in Twitter.  Today, the thought is 29 characters too long:

“One of life’s little ironies is that, over the long run, people who are willing to admit they could be wrong turn out to be wrong a lot less often than people who aren’t.”

That’s Nate Silver, demonstrating again that he’s got the best blog on the internet.

Graphing Gay Marriage

Nate Silver put a graph together that shows the progress of gay marriage around the world.  On a meta level, I like the data display – good use of color and stacked data. On a data level,it’s interesting, even down to the step-forward-step-backward details of California.  And on an emotional level, the trend is unignorable, and I love it.  I’m not in a hurry to get married.  But I’m glad I live somewhere where I could.

Running the Boston Marathon for Autism

I know a handful of you read that title and said, “DAN IS GOING RUNNING?”  Don’t worry – I’m not that rash.  I’m just blogging about someone else who is actually doing the running.

My friend Melisa Thorne (former colleague at eRoom) is doing the hard work.  She’s running in the Boston Marathon.  She’s running for the Flutie Foundation for Autism.  She’s collecting donations to support their work for families with autistic children.

I know you all give to charities, and I know you all pick worthy ones.  But it can’t hurt for me to give this one a nudge.  Melisa is a great person, and she’s running for a great cause.  If you haven’t done your charity donations yet, I hope you consider sending a few dollars her way.  You can make a donation at http://www.firstgiving.com/melisathorne.

Here’s Melisa’s latest update:

My training has been going well and I am feeling strong and healthy.  I have 18 miles scheduled for Sunday.  While I’m a little nervous, I’m pleased that it looks like the temperature will be greater than 20 degrees. Finally!  Heck, I may even be able shed a layer or two.  If you’re in the Stoneham area on Sunday morning, honk if you see me.
I wanted to personally thank everyone who has donated to The Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism in support of my run.  It us such a great cause and I am honored to be part of their team.  Because of your generosity, I am halfway to my goal. I still have a little more funds to raise to secure my spot on the team.  If you’re interested or know of anyone interested in supporting my run, there are a few ways to help.
The easiest way, is to make a secure donation online at:
http://www.firstgiving.com/melisathorne
Or a check can be made payable to:
Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation for Autism
[Ask Dan for Melisa’s address to send the check to her]
No amount is too small.  Donations are tax deductible.  And ask your employer if they match!

How Much Do I Care About Amazon and Macmillan?

As I was reading my daily blog circuit, I asked myself, “How much do I care about this Amazon and Macmillan thing, anyway?”  After thinking it over for a while, I decided that I care quite a bit.  Enough for a blog post, even, and everyone knows that if it’s blog worthy, then it is vital.

So what is the Amazon-Macmillan thing, anyway?  The short version is that Macmillan said that it wants to sell its ebook-for-the-Kindle at prices up to $15, and that’s $5 more than Amazon has set the price at.  Amazon’s reaction was to pull all Macmillan ebooks, hardcovers, and softcovers from its store – no sales.  After a couple days Amazon publicly relented, but the store still isn’t back to normal.

First, I’ll give two reasons that I don’t care about.  I don’t care about is the Kindle.  I hate the Kindle’s DRM, and I’m mildly surprised that so many otherwise-astute customers are willing to go along with it.  Why on earth would you “buy” a copy of a book that Amazon can remotely remove from your possession without your consent ?  You can pry my books out of my cold, dead hands is the way I feel about that type of thing.

The second thing I don’t care about is the price increase.  One company is trying to keep prices low so that it can create a huge marketshare useful for future profits.  One company wants to have a higher profit margin on bestselling books.  I couldn’t possibly care less which one wins; they’re both trying to extract money out of me.

Here’s what I do care about: my relationship with Amazon.  I’ve been their customer since 1998.  (I even worked for them for a while in ’98-’99, when they bought PlanetAll.com).  I use them because they’re easy and they have a decent price.  I use them for their recommendations.  I use them to let me know when my favorite authors and bands have new releases.  I use them to complete trilogies and to find the early releases of my new favorite bands.  I order from them so much that I bought Amazon Prime for $79/year, which gives me free shipping.  Think about what my order volume is, given that I would spend more than $79 in shipping!

But I love my John Scalzi.  I love my Charles Stross.  I love my Orson Scott Card, Vernor Vinge and Neal Asher.  And Amazon isn’t giving them to me!  What kind of book store would I go to that wouldn’t sell me these authors?  What kind of recommendation engine would skip these authors who have provided me with so many hours of amusement?  The answer is: not one that I want to spend a lot of time in.

I’m not going so far as to boycott Amazon.  When they have what I want at the right price, I’ll still buy it.  But they’re no longer my go-to vendor.  They’re no longer the place I go to find the new album or the new book that will keep me interested.  I don’t trust them to give me the right answer anymore.  I now know that they’re willing to throw away 1/6 of my bookshelf in order to wield pricing power on a product that I’ll never buy. Amazon broke my trust this weekend, and I’m no longer interested in what they think I’ll find interesting.

I logged in to Amazon tonight and set my Amazon Prime to non-renewal status.  They didn’t ask why.  I guess I know why not: they don’t care about what I want, anyway.

Remembering a Dog

This video made me cry. It’s the story of a man saying goodbye to his dog. Six minutes long, but it only needed two of those minutes to grab me. It took me back to January 2, 2006, when I had to do the same thing with Grizelda. I debated whether I should post this – who wants to be sad, right? We’ve all got enough reasons to be sad already. But I think it’s about love more than it is about being sad – and we all need more reasons to love.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Four Videos

Brilliant, blog-worthy thoughts continue to elude me.  But I still come across some pretty good links, so I might as well share them.  Today is all video.

First off, the melting bunny.  Weighing in at 2:36, it’s easily worth it.  My mother’s emailed comment is quite telling: “Although the net result was the same as my method, I found the actual dropping of the eyeballs quite distressing.”  I leave her personal bunny story to your collective, fervid imagination.

Second off, same source, “Revenge,” a quick 2:38.  I think it’s poorly titled.  To me, that’s a movie about tension and anticipation – I stared, unblinking and terrified that I’d miss the moment of climax.

Third link is a huge change of pace, so you might want to read your email for a minute to cleanse your visual palate.  Seasame Street sends us on a massive drug trip. I remember thinking this was pretty cool as a kid.  Now, I recognize this for what it really was: a 2:43-long advertisement for drug use.

The last link is for all three of my readers who share my love of all things Annie Lennox.  Evidently she handed the keys of her musical castle to DJEarworm, and the result is pretty impressive.  4:34 of Annie Lennox musical genius.