- "The best way to spend your money is to spend it on time, not on stuff." http://su.pr/2tr5iP #
- First bonus by stock options today. Not sure I'm impressed. #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: US border control just walked the train asking "Are you a US citizen?" Native American guy says: "One of the originals" #
- @FARNOOSH My credit score is A measure of my integrity not THE measure. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- I'm listening to a grunge/metal cover of "You are my sunshine" #
- There's something funny about a guy on reality TV whining about how private he is. #LAInk #
Charity is Selfish
I try to give 10% of my income to charity. I don’t succeed every year, but I do try.
I don’t give because I’m generous. I give because I’m selfish.
If you give to charity, you are too.
I’m not talking about people who give to charity strictly for the tax deduction, though that is selfish too. I’m referring specifically to the people who give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
If I give a thousand dollars worth of clothes to a homeless shelter, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I helped people stay warm.
If I send $100 to the Red Cross for whatever terrible disaster happened shortly before I made the donation, it makes me feel good to have contributed to saving those lives.
The put-the-inner-city-kids-on-a-horse thing we do? Makes me happy to get those kids into a positive situation.
Donating blood? Yay, me! I’m saving lives!
While it’s nice to help other people, that’s not the ultimate reason I’m doing it. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself to help other people, particularly people who–for whatever reason–can’t help themselves.
That’s the basis of altruism. It’s not about helping others, it’s about feeling good about helping others.
The truly selfish, the evil dogooders, are the ones who want to raise taxes to give it away as “charity”. They get to feel like they are doing something and helping others while not actually contributing themselves and, at the same time, stealing that warm fuzzy feeling from the people who are providing the money to start with.
Evil.
Charity has to be done at a personal, local level or the benefits to the giver are eliminated while the benefits to the receiver are lessened. Bureaucracy doesn’t create efficiency.
For the record, if it’s taken by force, by tax, it isn’t charity. Charity cannot be forced. Forcing charity is, at best, a fraudulent way for petty politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists to feel they have power over others.
Again, evil.
Insane Incentives
Spring is in the air.
At my son’s school, that means it’s time for the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests. These are the standardized tests created by the No Child Left Behind Act that determine if a school is doing its job in educating children. If too many kids have lousy scores, the school gets put on the “Adequate Yearly Progress” list and will eventually get penalized financially.
That creates a perverted incentive in the school system. The main metric for a publicly-funded school’s success in Minnesota is the MCA. If a school can churn out illiterate trench-diggers, they will get increased funding as long as the test scores are good.
For a full two weeks before this test, the school effectively shut down the education program to prepare for the MCA test. That’s two weeks of studying for a set of standardized tests that focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic. I’m a fan of schools prioritizing the three Rs over other subjects, but that’s not what they did.
They spent two weeks studying testing strategies, not the material contained in the test.
In science class, they covered essential scientific elements like “Answer all of the easy questions first, so you can go back and spend time on the hard ones later.”
Spanish class covered verb usage similar to “When the time is almost out on the test, answer ‘C’ for all of the hard questions you have left, que?”
They weren’t being educated, they were learning the most effective way to solve a test to gain funding for next year.
For 2 weeks.
That’s not reading practice, or reviewing the parts of speech, or covering the necessary math skills. It’s “This is a #2 pencil. This is a circle. Practice until lunch.”
Is this really what NCLB was trying to accomplish? Standardized tests to measure school proficiency should be a surprise. Let’s randomly send in test proctors to take over a school for a day and see what the kids have actually learned.
Choosing an eCommerce Platform to Sell Products Online
According to the U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2011 to 2016, a report conducted by global research and advisory firm Forrester, eCommerce sales in the United States topped $200 billion in 2011. This figure is set to rise by a staggering 62% by 2016, with the resulting $327 billion in annual eCommerce sales accounting for 9% of total retail sales. Spurred by innovative shopping models and online loyalty programs, the eCommerce sales channel is clearly benefiting from the increasing levels of comfort customers are feeling while shopping online. It’s not too late for companies of all sizes to reap the benefits of growth in this area. Assuming a product is ready to sell, the digital landscape boasts several eCommerce platforms and related services that will help companies to sell products online.
eCommerce Platforms: Several Flavors of Opportunity
eBay and Amazon: Ready Made eCommerce Platforms
Online retailers eBay and Amazon offer a quick and easy route for any business to start selling products online. The global reach of these sites means marketers gain immediate access to an audience of millions of potential customers. Despite increasing publicity in respect of the fees charged by the sites, particularly by eBay, a growing number of traders boast a turnover in excess of $1m. If nothing else, these platforms represent a practical opportunity for new companies to get started in online retail.
Shopify: Out-of-the-box Online Retail Stores
To date, over 20,000 business owners are using Shopify to realize the benefits of selling products online. This creative software allows businesses to use their own domain name, includes eCommerce hosting and an integrated shopping cart. It also boasts many online store designs customizable with over 100 ecommerce website templates. Payment for the service is made monthly with different plans available to suit businesses of varying sizes.
Facebook: Move Over Farmville
The phenomenal growth of social media has surprised most Internet users. With Facebook membership expected to exceed 900 million users by the end of 2012, a report from comScore, ‘The Power of Like, ‘ claims that customers are between 40 and 150 times more likely to consume branded content that is visible in their newsfeed than they are to visit a particular business page. Startups like 8th Bridge and Payvment are helping online retailers take advantage of this trend with the provision of innovative eCommerce solutions that encourage users to shop where they socialize.
Wordpress: It’s not just for Bloggers
While it’s true to say that WordPress was initially targeted at bloggers, it is now better described as a competent eCommerce and CMS platform. It’s a perfect option for those businesses who prefer to do things their way. Users can take advantage of free or premium eCommerce website templates and various WordPress plugins that will see their site turn from a basic blog site to a fully functional online retail store in minutes. Although all the potential eCommerce platforms discussed required that due diligence is given to marketing and optimization strategies, a business running its own online store should prioritize these aspects of success.
From Bricks to Clicks
The ‘clicks not bricks’ mentality is set to grow beyond the most idealistic of visions. Savvy business owners will give appropriate consideration to which eCommerce platforms will best suit their needs and that of their business. Many will come to the conclusion that the best solution is a combination of platforms.
This is a guest post.
Resolving Legal Disputes
Dispute resolution has to do with the impartial rectification of conflict between individuals or parties. More specifically it is the utilization and execution of methods that are designed to resolve conflicts. In a case in which there is a dispute between people or groups, often times a third, neutral, party is selected to be an impartial representative for the disputing persons. Although dispute resolution can refer to resolutions both in and out of the court, it mainly applies to disputes that are settled outside of the legal framework of the judicial system.
Two of the most common types of dispute resolution are known as adjudicative and consensual. While adjudicative resolution requires a third party to mediate the outcome, such as a judge or jury, and usually involves some form of litigation, consensual resolution is the attempt to solve the issue between the two disputing parties without involving a third party, although at times a neutral arbitrator will be selected to preside over the case, though they will often be there not so much for authoritative purposes but more as a council to keep things fair. There is also a third upcoming type of dispute resolution, online dispute resolution, or ODR, which has become more popular in recent years with the rise of the internet’s prominence in daily life, but it is mainly the application of traditional consensual resolution practices, only adapted to the online environment.
Many disputes can be solved simply through adherence to the law, however, sometimes issues arise that the legal structure isn’t equipped to handle, and so a third party is chosen to resolve the conflict. These types of conflict fall within the jurisdiction of the law and so will be relegated to the political system for arbitration. Judicial resolutions are conflicts that will be, hopefully, settled by the court. In the United States, this is often the case with dispute resolution. This form of resolution usually involves litigation. This is the use of outside individuals to argue for or against the disputing parties. In a courtroom, the lawyers are the litigators, while the judge and jury listen to the arguments in order to come to their decisions.
Extrajudicial resolution is non-court settlement of conflict. Also known as alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, this is what people are usually referring to when discussing dispute resolution. ADR is usually more efficient, cost effective, and less time consuming than judicial resolutions. Extrajudicial resolution concerns various types of ways to settle conflict. These include arbitration and mediation. In arbitration neutral individuals will listen to both sides of an argument and render a decision based on evidence. Unlike the court systems, this proceeding doesn’t necessarily include a binding agreement with the parties.
Mediation is used in extrajudicial resolution as a way to open a dialogue between conflicting parties. The idea is to use a trained neutral third party in order to come up with unique solutions to solve the issue. A mediator is trained to be both an effective negotiator as well as an excellent communicator. A mediator is like a judge in that they cannot take sides, and they do not give legal advice either. Their decisions are not obligatorily followed, though they tend to be followed since the mediators are trained to make decisions that benefit both parties.
The techniques used in dispute resolution can be used both in and outside of the court room. It is often used by individuals who wish to speed up the process by not having to get into the political system. However, they are useful in many cases where individuals wish to come to the most beneficial agreement for all the parties involved.
Peter Capaldi: The New Dr. Who’s Filmography
If you’re new to Dr. Who, one of the odder concepts in the program is that The Doctor periodically regenerates. This is a lampshade on the reality that the actors playing the lead character don’t want to be saddled with the role
for the entirety of their careers, and it allows an “in-universe” canonical way for the writers and show-runners to allow this change to happen. In fan circles, Matt Smith, the outgoing doctor, was “The Eleventh Doctor” (because he’s the eleventh actor to take on the role) and is going to be replaced, when the series comes on again, with Peter Capaldi, a Scots veteran of several BBC productions.
Capaldi returns to one of the traditions of the program – in casting an actor who’s a bit older — 55 as of 2013 – to play a 900-year-old time traveling alien. His acting career stretches back to 1983, with a role as Danny Oldsen in Local Hero. His early acting career included bit parts in the British underworld-themed dramaedy Minder, and the horror film The Lair of the White Worm, starring Hugh Grant and Amanda Donohoe.His ambitions with film include work behind the camera – he won an Oscar for Live Action Short Film Subjects with Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life in 1995, becoming the only actor to play The Doctor to have an Oscar on his mantel. He has also written films, including Soft Top, Hard Shoulder.Back in front of the camera, his first starring role was as Luke Wakefield, in Mr. Wakefield’s Crusade, where a closeted gay man thinks he’s witnessed a crime. When that series ran its course, he did rolls as a mad mathematician (Psychos), and an angel in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
2005 saw Capaldi’s most famous role, before assuming the mantle of a Time Lord: That of spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the BBC series “The Thick of It,” a role he inhabited through 2012. In that role, he plays a profoundly profane director of communications for the British Government, charged with public relations, cleaning up political gaffes, and ensuring that any dirt about an opposition party member is aired at the most politically advantageous moment. His role was noted for bringing nuance and complexity to a character described as a rabid political hatchetman who didn’t carry grudges – he had them stuffed and mounted on the wall.
Capaldi has previously appeared in Dr. Who as Caecilius in the episode “The Fires of Pompeii,’ which marked the first appearance of Karen Gillan, who went on to play the Doctor’s companion, Amy Pond. Later, he returned to Dr. Who spinoff Torchwood: Children of Earth as John Frobisher, who had a particularly dark turn, killing his own family rather than letting the 456 aliens use them as a human sacrifice.
In the press event where he was announced has having landed the role, Capaldi admitted to having been a fan of the series ever since he was a small boy. For fans of the long running franchise, this promises to be a very enthusiastic incarnation of the Doctor.
