I was in a small, regional Tesco (UK market chain) just the other day, and there were plenty of flavours of Oreos there. Perhaps not quite so many as I might find in the US, but certainly more than just plain vanilla.
On the other hand, I don't much like the other flavours, so plain is just fine with me.
I mentally read it 'plus plus variable', but I'm thinking 'increment variable'. This is similar to how I will mentally sound out the letters 'ICBM', but I'll be thinking 'weapon' or 'missile'. It's also somewhat similar to when I see the words 'Federal Communications Commission' written out, I mentally reformat that to 'FCC', then mentally associate that with a larger gestalt knowledge of what they do.
The nomenclature of how one sounds out what one reads doesn't necessarily equate to how the next layer down in the thought process is representing the concepts.
Sounds like going back to the days of infrared communications on phones. I'm not sure how this is better or worse than QR codes, except perhaps that you can cram more data into the stream.
I think it's even worse when they're disallowing physical media. I specifically purchased a game for my son (Portal) so that when he was finished playing it, I could uninstall it from his computer and install it on mine so I could play. But, even though it was purchased at a store (Wal-Mart, Target, something like that), and it came on a physical disc, uninstalling it from his computer is not enough. It's already been registered and locked to his Steam account, and after several communications with Valve, they refuse to disassociate it from his account.
If it was just a download, then I could sort of, kind of see the restriction. But purchasing a physical object, like a book or a DVD or a CD-ROM, should allow one to disassociate the application from one account and sell it on to the next person to associate with their account.
As a matter of fact, I did first see the word "patents". It's a shame, too, as I was just getting ready to be all indignant and such.
Not that I'd put it past something like the RIAA to try and claim 28 patents on the recording disk attached to the Pioneer spacecraft and sue NASA for their p2p (that's planet-to-planet) file sharing.
Because it was easy for the example. But you're right, $25.96 from 5% is certainly better than the $5.19 from 1%. Even my bank has a simplistic 3% money market that acts just like a bank account (for all intents and purposes).
If $25 doesn't matter that much to you, please write me a cheque for this amount.
Oh, it matters to me. It matters a great deal. It's just that I'm willing to pay $26 over the course of a year in order to not stress about whether or not I'll have to pay the government. It also makes my taxes a little easier to work out, and it takes less planning. The extra hour or two it would require to be more accurate in my taxes and plan things out properly is worth more to me than that $26.
I've heard that argument about the interest you earn by investing versus the interest the government fails to pay when it delivers your refund. That's all well and good, but have you ever bothered to work out how much money that actually is?
Let's start out by assuming you have a "typical" job that does the usual withholding and mails you a W-2. Now, let's say you have things set up so that you receive $1,000 in a refund. How much money did you lose because you didn't invest it?
Well, you didn't have that $1,000 all at once. You would have accumulated it over the last year. That means you really only received $38.46 every two weeks. Now, let's go ahead and drop that into a standard savings account that gets 1% interest per year (sure, you could probably do a little better if you work hard enough, but let's leave it here for now). Let's also do that for the other $38.46 we get the other paydays of the year.
That means that the interest on that first deposit will receive the full 1% for the year, which comes out to $0.38. The next deposit will receive only twenty-five twenty-sixth of that interest payment. The next one after that only twenty-four twenty-sixth, and so on. Adding all of that up and doing the math means that you will have something like $5.19 extra at the end of the year.
Wow! What a sum! What could you possibly buy with that amount of cash? "Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order, please?"
Of course, this doesn't take into account compound interest, but that's not going to make that big a difference on such a small sum.
So, how much is your peace of mind worth? When it comes to tax season, do you want to have to pay the government money, or do you want to get a little back? Larger amounts of refund make for larger amounts of missed interest. The question becomes one of balancing your desire to make a payment versus how much you're willing to part with so that you don't need to do that.
Depending upon the age of the child, you might want to consider the Snap Circuits line of electronics learning kits. I got the 500-in-one Pro version for my seven-year-old (now nine), and it worked out quite well.
The thing comes as a flat clear plastic board with little nubs on it, like Lego. Then there are a number of flat snap-on pieces with various electronics components on them. Included are just about anything you could imagine, up to and including some specialized DSP chips to help the kids experiment with weird sounds.
The booklet(s) that come with the kit are quite detailed. They go over how to build a circuit, and encourage the child to try and figure out what's going to happen before they actually put the pieces together. Then it goes on to describe what's happening in good simple language.
It's hard to gauge exactly how much my son has learned from this set, but I think he's got some of the basic ideas down, and it should help a bit when he gets older and starts dealing with more of the real thing. I highly recommend it for the younger children, not least of which for the party-colored pieces and ease of assembly and disassembly.
Games like Wii Sports continue to be fun. My family absolutely loves coming together for a spot of bowling or golf on the Wii, not to mention turning into monkeys and doing some party games together.
And I'll say this much: my 68-year-old mother doesn't usually like computer games other than various card- or tile-based solitaires. She loves getting together with her grandchildren and playing with them on the Wii. The controller is intuitive enough for her that she can actually get the hang of using it and have fun.
At the moment, there may not be quite so many kill-anything-that-moves, complicated button-pushing games, but that too will change eventually. At the moment, the Wii is doing quite a bit to bring more people into the idea of gaming and socializing at the same time.
What was the last XBox or PLAYSTATION game you played where four people could all get together in the same room, laughing and playing together simultaneously? It's invigorating and a very welcome alternative to sitting alone in a room while communicating with others only via text or voice.
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I was in a small, regional Tesco (UK market chain) just the other day, and there were plenty of flavours of Oreos there. Perhaps not quite so many as I might find in the US, but certainly more than just plain vanilla.
On the other hand, I don't much like the other flavours, so plain is just fine with me.
I mentally read it 'plus plus variable', but I'm thinking 'increment variable'. This is similar to how I will mentally sound out the letters 'ICBM', but I'll be thinking 'weapon' or 'missile'. It's also somewhat similar to when I see the words 'Federal Communications Commission' written out, I mentally reformat that to 'FCC', then mentally associate that with a larger gestalt knowledge of what they do.
The nomenclature of how one sounds out what one reads doesn't necessarily equate to how the next layer down in the thought process is representing the concepts.
Sounds like going back to the days of infrared communications on phones. I'm not sure how this is better or worse than QR codes, except perhaps that you can cram more data into the stream.
I think it's even worse when they're disallowing physical media. I specifically purchased a game for my son (Portal) so that when he was finished playing it, I could uninstall it from his computer and install it on mine so I could play. But, even though it was purchased at a store (Wal-Mart, Target, something like that), and it came on a physical disc, uninstalling it from his computer is not enough. It's already been registered and locked to his Steam account, and after several communications with Valve, they refuse to disassociate it from his account.
If it was just a download, then I could sort of, kind of see the restriction. But purchasing a physical object, like a book or a DVD or a CD-ROM, should allow one to disassociate the application from one account and sell it on to the next person to associate with their account.
I'd bet $100 that the US and others have done it before.
How about $6,000,000? "Steve Austin, a man barely alive..."
As a matter of fact, I did first see the word "patents". It's a shame, too, as I was just getting ready to be all indignant and such.
Not that I'd put it past something like the RIAA to try and claim 28 patents on the recording disk attached to the Pioneer spacecraft and sue NASA for their p2p (that's planet-to-planet) file sharing.
MeI think I'll see if I can find a way to own 31415926535897932384626433832795. Then I just dare any of you to draw a circle.
MeI don't know why you're using 1%.
Because it was easy for the example. But you're right, $25.96 from 5% is certainly better than the $5.19 from 1%. Even my bank has a simplistic 3% money market that acts just like a bank account (for all intents and purposes).
If $25 doesn't matter that much to you, please write me a cheque for this amount.
Oh, it matters to me. It matters a great deal. It's just that I'm willing to pay $26 over the course of a year in order to not stress about whether or not I'll have to pay the government. It also makes my taxes a little easier to work out, and it takes less planning. The extra hour or two it would require to be more accurate in my taxes and plan things out properly is worth more to me than that $26.
MeI've heard that argument about the interest you earn by investing versus the interest the government fails to pay when it delivers your refund. That's all well and good, but have you ever bothered to work out how much money that actually is?
Let's start out by assuming you have a "typical" job that does the usual withholding and mails you a W-2. Now, let's say you have things set up so that you receive $1,000 in a refund. How much money did you lose because you didn't invest it?
Well, you didn't have that $1,000 all at once. You would have accumulated it over the last year. That means you really only received $38.46 every two weeks. Now, let's go ahead and drop that into a standard savings account that gets 1% interest per year (sure, you could probably do a little better if you work hard enough, but let's leave it here for now). Let's also do that for the other $38.46 we get the other paydays of the year.
That means that the interest on that first deposit will receive the full 1% for the year, which comes out to $0.38. The next deposit will receive only twenty-five twenty-sixth of that interest payment. The next one after that only twenty-four twenty-sixth, and so on. Adding all of that up and doing the math means that you will have something like $5.19 extra at the end of the year.
Wow! What a sum! What could you possibly buy with that amount of cash? "Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order, please?"
Of course, this doesn't take into account compound interest, but that's not going to make that big a difference on such a small sum.
So, how much is your peace of mind worth? When it comes to tax season, do you want to have to pay the government money, or do you want to get a little back? Larger amounts of refund make for larger amounts of missed interest. The question becomes one of balancing your desire to make a payment versus how much you're willing to part with so that you don't need to do that.
MeDepending upon the age of the child, you might want to consider the Snap Circuits line of electronics learning kits. I got the 500-in-one Pro version for my seven-year-old (now nine), and it worked out quite well.
The thing comes as a flat clear plastic board with little nubs on it, like Lego. Then there are a number of flat snap-on pieces with various electronics components on them. Included are just about anything you could imagine, up to and including some specialized DSP chips to help the kids experiment with weird sounds.
The booklet(s) that come with the kit are quite detailed. They go over how to build a circuit, and encourage the child to try and figure out what's going to happen before they actually put the pieces together. Then it goes on to describe what's happening in good simple language.
It's hard to gauge exactly how much my son has learned from this set, but I think he's got some of the basic ideas down, and it should help a bit when he gets older and starts dealing with more of the real thing. I highly recommend it for the younger children, not least of which for the party-colored pieces and ease of assembly and disassembly.
Games like Wii Sports continue to be fun. My family absolutely loves coming together for a spot of bowling or golf on the Wii, not to mention turning into monkeys and doing some party games together.
And I'll say this much: my 68-year-old mother doesn't usually like computer games other than various card- or tile-based solitaires. She loves getting together with her grandchildren and playing with them on the Wii. The controller is intuitive enough for her that she can actually get the hang of using it and have fun.
At the moment, there may not be quite so many kill-anything-that-moves, complicated button-pushing games, but that too will change eventually. At the moment, the Wii is doing quite a bit to bring more people into the idea of gaming and socializing at the same time.
What was the last XBox or PLAYSTATION game you played where four people could all get together in the same room, laughing and playing together simultaneously? It's invigorating and a very welcome alternative to sitting alone in a room while communicating with others only via text or voice.