The Soulpass Project

This is part of an email thread that took place last month (starting the night of Bush’s address to the nation regarding the economy), published with permission. Michelle Ranville was the professor for an economics course I took last semester at Old Dominion University. If you happen to go to ODU and need economics credits, I would highly recommend taking her courses.

This is part of the email I sent:

Well, I’m sure you’re aware, and more informed than myself, about the whole economic crisis thing, complete with Presidential address tonight.

We had discussed in class about Bush’s stimulus package being a bad idea, and it made perfect sense about it being a bad idea. Apparently a part of Barack Obama’s idea for a response to the crisis is issuing another stimulus package… I could be wrong about the details of that, but I was curious, if you get a couple minutes at some point, about your thoughts on that… Thanks!

This is her insightful response:

Ah, the economy… Such a poignant topic and one that we are so helpless over at this point — at least as citizens. I saw this $50 billion stimulus package deal that Obama presented. Knowing nothing more about it, I would have to say that it really misses the point. In this situation, this would be equivalent to firing a pellet gun at a charging elephant — no effect whatsoever, and a waste of pellets.

What it boils down to is that during a time of inflation and serious structural problems in the banking and housing sectors, a fiscal stimulus package is not a good fix because it will put upward pressure on prices, but won’t jumpstart the economy because most investors are aware of these other problems and are not incited to start loaning money (and hence creating jobs) because of a little additional consumer spending. Indeed, the 2nd quarter GDP figures reflected this. Consumer spending rose by about (I can’t quite remember the exact figure right now) 6%, but investment spending (businesses) fell by 11%. Remember in class we said that this was the best indicator of economic health? Overall, GDP grew… but the fact that investment spending fell so sharply reflected the fact that the Spring stimulus package was just masking deeper issues. Apparently, the most important of these “issues” is that unregulated investment titans were able to buy up all that risky mortgage debt and convert it into all sorts of fancy investment packages (ask a finance person about this, or read more about it here), and then suddenly people stopped paying their loans. They were not regulated by the Fed and allowed to take more risks than commercial banks (the kind where “we” deposit money), because they did not directly handle individual deposits. This was poor rationale for not regulating them though, because although they didn’t handle “our” money directly, they did do business with commercial banks. For example, they could buy and sell investments to the “Wachovias” and the “Bank of Americas,” thereby entangling the financial institutions that we rely on to loan money (for business investment) in this mess.

Apparently, there are more than $40 trillion dollars in these “credit default swaps” flying around right now (which are basically insurance policies against the bad mortgage debt — the reason for AIG’s bankruptcy is that they were insuring risky debt and the debt went bad). There is not enough collateral to back them. When Johnny can’t pay Susie, Susie can’t pay Bobby, and Bobby can’t pay Timmy… and so on, and so on. $50 billion can’t even scratch this problem. The only thing that is going to fix it is an unprecedented move by the U.S. government (i.e., the bailout) to inject faith back into the economy. The Fed is going to have to promise loans to anyone who needs them to remain solvent. Even if they don’t actually do it, it is the promise that counts to get banks feeling safe enough to start loaning money again. Unfortunately, the Fed not only has to calm domestic investors but also investors all around the world…especially since we will rely largely (if not completely) on foreign entities to loan us the money to pay for this enormous bailout. If they think that we are a poor investment (which seems likely at this point), there wont be any loans to fund it… As you probably know, I am not a fan of large-scale government intervention, but this time, I think it is our only option — and it’s not even a guarantee. To let it continue is sure to lead to a massive recession.

In short, no, a $50 billion stimulus package is not gonna cut it, unfortunately.

UPDATE: I have read some comments on the web which claim it actually does use a heart rate monitor (UPDATE: I don’t think it uses that, they did a brief explanation of it last night) — along with buttons that will raise or lower influence on the graph (that’s actually how it’s done). I have also read that the data came from some kind of focus group in Columbus, Ohio (of undecided voters). Feel free to do your own research, and I will post more information as I get it.

I started typing out an answer in Yahoo! Answers, but decided to make it into a blog post instead:

The question:

“how is the Audience Reaction Meter gauged since there is no talking ar clapping allowed from the crowd during this debate?”

At first I thought it might be a clicker… but, in that case, how could they keep it in such “real” time? That would be very dependent on who clicks on what and how often… Perhaps they had a survey beforehand…

As mentioned in the answer thread, it couldn’t possibly represent clapping or noise level.

I’ll admit, it hardly seems reasonable… but one thing I thought about is some sort of heart rate monitor in addition to an ideology survey…

But in any case, I think that meter was a completely horrible idea!!!

Who gives a [insert your favorite expletive(s)] what the audience thinks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who knows the ratio of democrats/republicans in that studio? Did they account for that sort of thing? I hope so, at least!

Don’t you think that those active lines would have put some sway on the viewer, at least some, as they watched in “real-time” how the pointless “audience” reacted?

It was a horrific and sketchy idea for them to do that. Let me stress that this act was demonstrated on CNN. Once I could not take it anymore, the channel was changed to ABC News. They lacked this “audience response meter,” thankfully.

While watching ABC, though, when a politician made either a blunder or a seemingly epic point, I found myself wondering what the “audience” on CNN might be thinking about this right now! Then I had to remind myself that it really doesn’t MATTER what the audience thinks of this. Furthermore, from where do they even gather this info and what do these lines mean? Does the red line rising on the y-axis mean that more republicans agree with the point that was just made? Needless to say, the channel was kept on ABC News.

On the topic of the debates… Did anyone else find John McCain completely out-of-line tonight? I found him to be extremely condescending to Barack Obama. I respect Obama for, with little more than a smile, putting up with a lot of crap from McCain… granted, the smile was probably out of annoyance, but McCain too showed in his colors tonight just how jealous and bitter he is over the fact that his opponent is leading in the polls.

This took a bit of searching to find — you won’t find it on YouTube aside from photo slideshows and Rickrolls.

The following video is of the match between Taekwondo athletes Angel Matos (Cuba) and Arman Chilmanov (Kazakhstan) during the 2008 Summer Olympics. According to the rules of the World Taekwondo Federation, athletes are allowed a maximum of one minute for a medical time-out (known as Kye-shi). Matos, who was previously in the lead, exceeded the maximum Kye-shi. Matos’ opponent Chilmanov was therefore pronounced the winner of the match. After that call was made, Matos got heated and planted a well-executed axe kick into the face of the referee, Chakir Chelbat. Both Matos and his coach, Leudis Gonzalez, now have a lifetime ban from the Olympic Games. The actual confrontation in the video starts around 2:30. You can read more about the story here.

Ktick - MyVideo

Figured this might be handy to some folks… Just enter in a birthdate (or just any date for that matter, doesn’t necessarily have to be a birthday), and it will give you the number of years that have passed since then! Why use your head when we have computers!?

Month:
JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember

Day:

Year:
(YYYY)

DO IT

UNIMPORTANT NOTE: This script uses the average number of days in a year as part of its calculation. If I hear about that causing any problems I’ll look into another way of doing it, but I think it’s the most reasonable, far more so than using a whole number like 365.

The JavaScript:

function getAgeFromBday() {
  var month = document.getElementById('bdc-month').value;
  var day   = document.getElementById('bdc-day').value;
  var year  = document.getElementById('bdc-year').value;
  var bdate = new Date(year, month, day);

  if (bdate.getDate() != day || bdate.getMonth() != month || bdate.getFullYear() != year) {
    alert('That date appears to be invalid!');
    return false;
  }

  var today = new Date();
  today.setHours(0);
  today.setMinutes(0);
  today.setSeconds(0);

  if (bdate > today) {
    alert('Provided date must fall before today\'s date!');
    return false;
  }

  alert(Math.floor((today - bdate) / 31556952000));
}

The markup:

<p>
  <strong>Month:</strong><br />
  <select name="bdc-month" id="bdc-month">
    <option value="0">January</option>
    <option value="1">February</option>
    <option value="2">March</option>
    <option value="3">April</option>
    <option value="4">May</option>
    <option value="5">June</option>
    <option value="6">July</option>
    <option value="7">August</option>
    <option value="8">September</option>
    <option value="9">October</option>
    <option value="10">November</option>
    <option value="11">December</option>
  </select>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>Day:</strong><br />
  <input name="bdc-day" id="bdc-day" style="width: 15px;" type="text" />
</p>
<p>
  <strong>Year:</strong><br />
  <input name="bdc-year" id="bdc-year" style="width: 30px;" type="text" /> (YYYY)
</p>
<p>
  <button type="submit" onclick="getAgeFromBday()"><strong>DO IT</strong></button>
</p>

See also the PHP function that returns an age from a birthdate.

This video covers only the first technique described; it is the one about which people are generally most curious. I might record some other videos that cover the other ones mentioned — and also some not mentioned — depending on how this one goes and also how motivated I might be feeling to do more.

THE UPDATES KEEP COMING! The toolbar has been updated for RC1, so be sure to grab it from Firefox addons, or the official site.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is out, so this article once again applies. Have at it! I’ll post another update when the toolbar is updated again and works out-of-the-box.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The toolbar has been updated and should now work with Firefox up to beta 4. You can download it from Firefox addons, or the official site. Thanks Davosian for the heads up!

So I recently upgraded to Firefox 3 Beta 3, and am now using it as my primary browser. Major speed increase with version 3! Memory seems to be handled much better! Excellent!

Note: At the time of this writing, you can get Beta 2 from here. I went ahead and got a nightly build, which, at the time of this writing, is beta 3. Regardless of which beta version you choose, know that you are taking a risk as the software is not in its final stages.

If you are a web developer, you probably use Chris Pederick’s impeccable Web Developer toolbar.

It hasn’t yet been updated for beta 3! Why? Probably because it hasn’t been tested enough! If you are like me and are hardly concerned about that, and want your Web Developer toolbar, then you might be interested in knowing how to get it working with beta 3!

The steps:

1. Download the Web Developer toolbar .xpi file from the official site. NOTE: If you are doing this from Firefox, you must right-click and choose “Save Link As…” (otherwise it will attempt to install the extension)
2. Rename web-developer.xpi to web-developer.zip. (XPI files are just ZIP files with different extensions)
3. Open the zip file, extract and open the file named install.rdf.
4. At the time of this writing, the line we are looking for is line 27, and it should look something like this:
   <em:maxVersion>2.0.0.*</em:maxVersion>.
5. Change it to look something like this:
   <em:maxVersion>4.0.0.*</em:maxVersion>.
6. Save the file and add it back to the zip file. Depending on your zip utility, this can usually be accomplished by opening the zip file and dragging the newly saved file back into it (be sure to overwrite the existing install.rdf). Rename the file to once again have an .xpi extension.
7. Open Firefox and drag web-developer.xpi into the browser window. It should then ask you if you want to install the extension, and it should not complain about the FF version!

That’s it! This is working fine for me so far, but don’t come crying to me if your computer blows up…

UPDATE: Thanks Ronnie for pointing out the secure updates issue. I forgot to mention that. Check this comment for direction on getting around that warning. Please let me know if those instructions aren’t clear enough and I’ll update again.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Edit CSS feature (which, to me, is one of the most important) seems to be glitching. It has worked, but doesn’t always. One persistent problem is with closing the Edit CSS dialog once it’s opened — it doesn’t close once it’s opened. So if you have 6 trillion tabs open and you want to edit the CSS on one of the pages… WAIT! Open a new window and then do it… That way once you’re finished, you don’t lose all your tabs.

The Canon PowerShot SX100IS is a good digital camera. A few years ago I had a PowerShot A60 — definitely money well-spent, loved the heck out of it. Unfortunately the construction of the A60 was crap and it ended up breaking, but it was a trooper while it lasted. At one point Canon did put out a CCD Image Sensor Advisory Service Notice, and fixed the problem out of warranty along with fixing a faulty review button! This was free, and it was years out of warranty! So I think that speaks volumes about the company’s customer service.

Back to the PowerShot SX100IS. While it’s not suitable for professional work, it does a fine job at point-and-shoot, and it goes fully manual: The ISO speed, aperture, shutter speed, flash output, white balance, and many other manual controls can be adjusted.

Low-light conditions may prove to be an obstacle with this one. While it is possible to take the ISO speed to 1600, it’s practically pointless. There will so much noise that the picture will likely be useless.

One interesting feature that’s more of a novelty for me is the face recognition. The thing can actually spot people’s faces! While I’ll probably never use this in practice, it’s just neat!

UPDATE: Some reviews on the web say that the SX100 has a really bad video capturing system. I disagree; there is a “low quality” mode that uses a high compression suitable for email. Using that setting your video will be of poor quality. It can do higher resolution and it does a decent job. It is true that you can hear the zoom motor while capturing video. It’s not that loud, and if you’re recording something loud such as a concert, it shouldn’t be a problem. Keep in mind that this is not a digital video camera anyway, it’s a point-and-shoot, and it does a good job with what it’s designed to do.

Tip: I think that the Night Snapshot mode works fairly well indoors with no flash if the room has ample lighting.

Tip #2: “Dragging the shutter.” While in Program (P) mode or Aperture Priority (Av) mode, if you press the Menu button and scroll through the options on the first page, you’ll notice one called “Slow Synchro.” That creates really interesting effects. With the flash open and on in those modes, the shutter will remain open shortly after the flash goes off. In low-light situations this helps to illuminate the subject (through the flash) while also bringing light to the background (through the shutter delay). Camera shake will cause the background to blur significantly.

Are you looking for a free invitation to Moola.com?

CLICK HERE to get your invites!

UPDATE: I got bored of Moola.com. It is so incredibly frustrating. I’m not sure whether or not I can trust it. There are a bunch of calculators out there that tell you the best possible statistical moves. Especially with those, it seems I should have been winning more than I was. I mean not everyone on that site could possibly be a freakin’ Moola master. Maybe it’s rigged! If you use the search a lot, you can rack up some money. Even that almost always lands on a minuscule value. I give up on Moola.com! If you still want to try it, you are more than welcome to have at it!

This was originally a rough cut (I wanted to redo the end part) but has graduated to a final cut because I don’t feel like working on it anymore. Traditional gospel.