Pyramid scheme legality

Pyramid schemes are only legal when you can't tell who's going to get screwed at the end. Stocks and money are both pyramid schemes (think about it, who would accept cash today unless they expected to be able to spend it tomorrow), but the end of an individual company or the U.S. stock exchange or the end of the United States is unpredictable, so it's OK.

Driving through the Valley of the Gods, Utah

Utah probably beats out Idaho for most beautiful state in the union (that I've been to ;)

Funding games in the future

Why not let gamers contribute funding directly to game developers? One idea is to have them donate a certain amount and get a copy of the game, if and when it gets finished. Their donation would buy them no rights in the company. This is an ok idea, but it's going to be hard to keep that gamers' interest over 4 years while the game gets made. A better idea would be to sell shares in the game developer, because now that gamer has a stake and is more likely to ensure the developer has enough funding over the 4 years it takes. The problems with this are that SEC regulations are going to be burdensome, so it should have minimal regulation (let the market decide who's a fraud and who's good) and also you don't want the game developer lost in the mix as a penny stock somewhere, you want them listed on a market of only game developers. Maybe something like GSTrUE, but for people who are well suited to evaluate games (gamers).

Gas pricing arbitrage

I want my in-car GPS system to know the price of gas in the vicinity. This won't stop gas stations near to each other from all setting high prices simultaneously, but if you know gas is 20 cents cheaper 10 miles down the road, prices will come down some.

Offset your infidelity

This is clever: (from Marginal Revolution)

Building on the thriving carbon offset industry, an innovative British firm, Cheat Neutral, now offers cheat offsetting:

At Cheatneutral, we believe that we should all try to reduce the amount we cheat on our partners, but we also realise that fidelity isn't always possible.

That's why we help you neutralise your cheating. Your actions are offset by a global network of fidelity, developed by us. By paying Cheatneutral, you're funding monogamy-boosting offset projects - we simply invest the money you give us in monogamous, faithful or just plain single people, to encourage them to stay that way.

Many people have already successfully used Cheat Neutral:

David cheated on his partner of ten years, Sebastian, with a younger man. He described for us what happened:

"Seb was so angry with me, I felt really bad about what I'd done. I came to Cheatneutral to offset the side effects of my cheating, and later on, Seb said the only reason he could forgive me was because I'd offset my cheating with Cheatneutral. Thanks to Cheatneutral, we're still together, I can feel good about my cheating, and I've helped to reduce global cheating as well! If I do cheat on Seb again, I'll definitely be calling Cheatneutral."

Hat tip to David Zetland's new blog Sex, Drugs & Water Utilities.

Switching online savings accounts

HSBC is sending me emails about how they're planting trees if I give them money but I'd rather they just stop dropping the rate on my savings account (now at 4.5% APY). So I moved over the bulk of my savings to everybody's favorite out-of-control subprime lender, Countrywide, for 5.5% (on balances over $10k). Countrywide definitely feels less customer friendly, I agreed to some term saying they could hold all my money for 7 days even after telling them in writing to transfer it. Their privacy policy is a frothy bowl of diarrhea, make sure you call them at 1-866-605-3467 to opt out. (I'm still FDIC insured up to $100K if they fail.)

DC trip highlights

Sitting on the Navy Memorial steps and having a old guy rant to everyone that "It's not physically possible for a vice-president to be this corrupt!" and then turning his attention only on me. It was doubly awkward because I was pretending to read.

Eating Ethiopian food for the first time.

U.S. customs doesn't like it when you try to enter the country when you're single and unemployed with a California license plate, Arizona driver's license and you live in Minnesota. Canadian customs was nicer than my own country even when I tried to enter Canada with a can of mace (accidentally, I forgot I had this with me).

Driving through Canada and listening to angry French rap. Thinking that the Canadian government was subsidizing gas in Canada because the price was about $1.08 and considering moving to Canada because of this (but this was liters, doh!)

The older couple gawking at me on some random sideroad in Canada as I was waking up in my car.

Being amazed at how many police escorts protesters in the Capitol got. I'm glad that I live here and not Myanmar.

Crying at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, even though I never lost anyone in the Vietnam war. (So much respect for Maya Lin for standing tough while they called her gook!)

This overly cute panda and this fine example of the perils of free speech.

Sitting by Kenneth from Kenya on the DC Metro and chatting about their 3 party political system. It seems like there are more people from African countries here compared even to a melting pot like LA.







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