Linux, finance, rants, politics

Cross posted on The Free Agents, a network for people between jobs.

When I was 8, I got a 14.4 modem and an AOL dialup subscription for my birthday. It was one of the best presents I’ve ever received, and I quickly started exploring all that AOL had to offer. Soon, I started to wonder how web pages actually got on the internet, so I found AOL Personal Publisher and started messing around.

In most cases, 8 year olds don’t have too much to contribute to the world, and I was no exception. I just wanted to create a web page for something, so I settled on one thing that was well known to me and friends — video games. I created AJ’s Code Page (specializing in infinite lives, double damage, god mode, and the like) hosted on the now-defunct members.aol.com, and started trying to figure out how to get users.

In many states, New York included, there is a $0.05 deposit on aluminum cans. The deposit is designed to provide an economic incentive to people so that they recycle their cans instead of just throwing them in the garbage when they’re finished. The program works beautifully; however, like many such programs, the way it works isn’t necessarily the way you’d immediately picture such a system to function. People that buy the cans and pay the extra $0.05 are rarely the people that end up collecting the nickel when they’re done with it — for them, the deposit is just an added tax on cans that they are still going to throw away. Instead, the people that benefit are those who are able to collect cans out of the garbage and off the street and then turn them in for the deposit. The economic incentive turns an otherwise difficult task — collecting and sorting a city’s worth of cans from the garbage — into a task done readily by people that otherwise may have few other work alternatives.

These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. –Clemenza, The Godfather

The recession is undoubtedly a very difficult time for America and the rest of the world. However, during this rough period, its important to realize that things will get better. Here are 7 areas and ideas that will emerge stronger when the economic crisis subsides:

I came across this the other day, and thought it pretty much hit the nail on the head. Published 15 years ago.

(Click to make the image bigger)

More at GoComics | Calvin and Hobbes

Over the last year and a half, I worked as a convertible trader at Merrill Lynch. Last week, I was laid off as part of the headcount reduction initiative for the Bank of America merger. Rather than focus on the termination, I’d rather focus on three key ideas that I learned while employed: devotion to the cause, the value of personal connections, and the importance of constantly learning. Ultimately, these concepts will help me well into my professional career and ensure that the last year and a half was not wasted.

With money coming out of Wall Street and going into science and research, the time has never been better to go into the sciences. The TARP will severely limit Wall Street pay for the next several years while at the same time increasing funding for research and science-related careers.