Speed Racer

Watch Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry discuss language:

Total HT to AP at 22Words

Quote heard today from a friend:

“Everyone here brings joy to this office - some when they come and some when they go.”

Seth

Don Boudreaux of GMU and Cafe Hayek has a very nice, concise explanation in this column of the core ideas found in Bryan Caplan’s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter.  Caplan’s book is considered groundbreaking because it upsets the classic public choice perspective on political economy:  that voters are rational but disinterested.  Caplan carefully documents that voters are in fact irrational, as betrayed by four persistent economic biases, and that politicians regularly pander to those biases.  Boudreaux’s primary point, that private decision making is superior to group decision making because poor private decisions are costly, is an important but often overlooked insight.

Steve

I have had several people ask how I created the video demo that was featured in my The Ultimate Budgeting Spreadsheet (free to the first 50 users) post that I did a few days ago.

I used Camtasia Studio which I purchased late last year but had not put to use yet until this week. It is an AMAZINGLY powerful tool. It does Capture (get the video), Editing (which I have not done yet but mean thing like cut crop highlight…), and production (which rolled up the whole thing into a slick flash file.)

It took MANY attempts to get the video to the last form (I wanted it to be less than 5 minutes but I could not include what I wanted in that time frame so I went with the 7 minute version). But once I got the capture that I wanted it took less than 15 minutes to produce and get it onto the website (production includes a sample web page with the proper embed codes for the video.)

Camtasia Studio is not cheap. But for people like me (planning to sell software online) it is well worth the price.

Seth

Why?…pray tell?…aren’t you using RSS to keep track of your favorite blogs. You should be. To learn about RSS and how it can save you time go to the official RSS Day website.

Seth

HT to the Desiring God blog.

The Onion has announced a bold new economic stimulus package. Read more below.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/congress_to_raise_alpacas_to_aid

In this post, Abraham Piper poses this question and comment:

How Important is college?

College shouldn’t be considered a take-it-or-leave-it decision. Nowadays, deciding against college is like deciding to not graduate from high school.

Your thoughts?

I posted this in the comments:

Economists call it human capital formation. (I am looking forward to the day when one of my kids says, “Dad, thanks for investing in my human capital formation”). Economists have noted for years that the return on a college education have been increasing over the past decades despite the fact that the cost of a college education has dramatically outstripped the inflation rate over the same period.

Some readers will point out that money isn’t everything. And of course they are right. Better a Christ-treasuring ditch digger than a worldly physician. But on the whole, in our economy, people find more long term satisfaction from the careers that require post-secondary education. And I think finding pleasure in your work is a very worthwhile, God-glorifying goal.

What I find odd, and slightly disturbing, are several families I know that assume that their sons will attend college(and encourage them to) and assume that their girls will not attend college (and discourage or even forbid them).

Steve

I want to elaborate a little.  The data is very clear on two factors:  college grads have higher earnings potential than non-college grads and they have higher job satisfaction.  According to 2000 census data, college graduates earn about $1,000,000 dollars more over the course of a lifetime. 2006 Census data revealed that  adults with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $54,689 in 2005, while those with a high school diploma earned $29,448. This same phenomenon also explains the growing income disparity between the top and bottom quintiles of income distribution.  The rich are not getting richer because those greedy republicans keep giving them tax cuts but because the return to higher education is growing as our economy transitions away from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy.

Steve

I Love The World

I have created a spreadsheet for use in Microsoft Excel that I am calling the Ultimate Budget Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is a powerful tool for helping you to manage your personal budget.

I have written this to be my first stab at an online business. It will not be free software. For $25.00 a user will get a copy of the spreadsheet and access to my upcoming website that includes a document called A Step-By-Step Guide to living on a budget AND video tutorials on how to use the budgeting spreadsheet.

But this is the good news for you, our loyal readers, I am GIVING away the first 50 copies of the software to first responders to this blog post. All I ask in return is that you link to my upcoming website from your website (if you have one — that could be a blog or a business site ) AND/OR that you write a brief testimonial about the spreadsheet once you have given it a go.

To help you determine if you would be interested in the software I have put together this 7+ minute video on how to use it. Check it out:

If you would like to be included please leave a comment on this post.

Regards

Seth

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution has this article in the NY Times on how liberalized trade could help feed the world’s hungry.

Steve

I remember as a kid being simultaneously fascinated and terrified by the ultra-campy TV series Land of the Lost.  Well its coming to the big screen with Will Ferrell in the lead.  Apparently, the series has had a very successful release to DVD and has a large cult following.  Still, that is a studio pitch I would have liked to have seen.

Steve

Amazingly, it seems that hollywood is determined to turn last years highly popular Iron Man movie trailer into a “full-length motion picture.” For all the details watch the newscast below from the Onion News Network.

HT to the Jolly Blogger.

Seth

My friend David sent me this story on the birth of a set of naturally conceived identical triplets in the UK. The story speculates:

It is thought the odds of naturally conceiving identical triplets could be as high as one in 200 million.

Wow. We are specialler than I realized. And welcome to the world Olivia, Gabriella and Alessia!

Steve

One of the places I work has a large gaggle of geese that annually begets a larger gaggle of goslings. They are gorgeous little things.

Here is a picture:

Aren’t they cute.

Seth