Month: June 2009

Can You Hear This? The “Mosquito Ring tone” Test

I think it was 2007 when this “high pitched ring tone” craze kicked off – the idea being that older people couldn’t hear high-pitched frequencies, so younger people would put these high-pitched tones on their cell phones and they’d hear when their phone was ringing – or when they got a text message – but their teachers couldn’t. These same high-pitched tones would also be used by some businesses in an attempt to drive off younger people who were loitering in front of their establishments. I listened to one of these tones that I wasn’t supposed to be able to hear at my age, and I heard it just fine. I knew there was a scientific basis for this, but I figured since I could hear the tone my hearing was “perfect” – I’ve always gotten perfect hearing scores when I’ve had my hearing tested. I found a Web site today that shows how wrong I was about being able to hear tones I thought I could!

I cranked up my speakers and clicked on the preview buttons for each tone: I can hear the 16khz tone, but I can’t hear the 17khz tone or anything higher. I’m 34 years old, so the fact that I can hear the “30 and younger” tone means I have slightly better than normal hearing in terms of high-pitched frequencies (according to this scale at least). What about you? Where does your hearing drop off, and how does that relate to your age – are you better or worse than average? And if your hearing is worse than it should be, what band were you a roadie for in the ’80s? 😉

YouTube Annotations…Why Didn’t I Think Of This Sooner?

I’m kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner. You’ve seen me complain about having to answer the same questions over and over again in YouTube videos, and it didn’t occur to me until recently that a partial solution to my problem was right in front of me all along: the ability to annotate my videos! YouTube introduced this feature a while back, and it allows the owner of a video to create text overlay comments in the video – essentially adding information to the video after the video has been shot. I think I can cut down on 80% of the repetitive questions I get if I add annotations to my videos explaining that, no, that netbook doesn’t come with an optical drive. 🙂

To Risk, by William Arthur Ward

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
And the realist adjusts the sails.

By William Arthur Ward

Worst Name for a Tattoo Studio Ever?

Worst Tattoo Studio Name Ever: Prick Room

This is a photo I took in Himeji, Japan, and I thought it was a hilarious name for a tattoo studio. I think I’ll submit it to Fail Blog and see if they like it… 😉

Calgary Herald: “Judge sides with Concrete Equities, makes appointment in dispute with disgruntled investors”

“A judge has sided with Concrete Equities in its application to appoint Ernst and Young as an interim receiver in a dispute with a group of disgruntled investors in five downtown buildings. By doing so, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Barbara Romaine rejected the investors bid, at least temporarily, to have Concrete, a Calgary-based commercial real estate fund, replaced as general partner of the buildings that were placed under receivership earlier this spring. “I had hoped by this decision to enable the receiver to work on getting financial information to the limited partners as quickly as can be done,” said Romaine. The judge left the door open for the limited partners to argue on the issue of whether its choice of a new general partner should be named. That is scheduled for June 24.” – Calgary Herald, June 9th, 2009

Well that’s not good news – I know virtually nothing about the law in this area, but it’s rather curious to me that the judge wouldn’t allow us (the Limited Partners) to change the General Partner (Concrete Equities) to a new General Partner. I was under the impression that was our legal right, but apparently the judge didn’t think so. The judge said that she didn’t think we (the Limited Partners) had enough financial information about the buildings to make an informed decisions. That’s true, we don’t – but that’s solely because Concrete Equities is refusing to turn over the financial information to us. So why not order Concrete Equities to turn over the records and let us go our seperate ways? Concrete Equities doesn’t own these properties, we do. What a mess.

A Status Update From Concrete Equities

Although this isn’t relevant to most readers of this blog, I feel it’s important that I chronicle the events that are happening now with Concrete Equities – because it doesn’t look like anyone else has a blog on which they are doing so. My intention isn’t to turn this into a “Concrete Equities Blog”, but since I have a rather large chunk of money invested with these guys, I think you can understand why this issue is important for me to track.

This morning I received an update from the President of Concrete Equities Inc., via email. If you’re an investor with Concrete Equities, please take the time to read through this discussion thread (UPDATE: it has since been deleted, but Google’s cached version has some of the info) – you’ll learn a great deal about your investment and the status of is. That thread is also where they announce meetings of investors. As for this message from the President of Concrete Equities, it’s hard for me to separate fact from fiction. I think the financials will reveal the truth in time.  This is a long message – the first section is about the Mexico investment, of which we have a unit in Santa Clara, and the remainder of the email is about the Calgary investments (we have the Castleridge investment).

Dear El Golfo (Santa Clara) Investor,

At this time, our firm would like to update you on current developments on this particular project.  El Golfo de Santa Clara region remains viable for future tourist development.  Being the first point of beachfront on the Sea of Cortez along the coastal highway in the state of Sonora it is developing into a great drive-to destination for Americans.  When the project began, the coastal highway was under construction and the international airport was being conceptualized.   Since that time the coastal highway is near completion and the international airport to service El Golfo de Santa Clara and the Puerto Puenasco (Rockypoint) area is well underway.  Also please keep in mind that your investment is a solid, equity based land hold with no mortgage or debt position on your asset. Continue reading A Status Update From Concrete Equities

Lessons From Warren Buffett

I don’t know that much about Warren Buffet, but when my mother-in-law sent me this slide show today, I thought it contained some important concepts worth sharing: in particular, I’m impressed with how Warren Buffet didn’t radically change his lifestyle as he made more and more money. That takes a level of self-control that I find extremely admirable. I’m sure he has his flaws like any of us, but there are some lessons worth learning from this man. I was particularly impressed with the impact he had on Bill Gates, and vice-versa – I know Gates spurred him to donate more to charity.

Warren Buffet
Continue reading Lessons From Warren Buffett

New BabySafe Ball Makes Shaking Your Infant Guilt And Injury Free

One of the things I’m looking forward to as a parent is being able to use all the great new technology out there for being a parent. This is clearly not one of those technologies. 😉

YouTube Comments…I Just Can’t Take it Anymore

I heard this saying once: “There’s no such thing as a stupid question, just inquisitive idiots.” Keep that in mind as you read this. Since I started doing videos on YouTube for my business Web sites two years ago, I’ve made a real effort to respond to every question I can. If someone asks a question, no matter how basic, I’d answer it. Some days I’ve spent a solid 60 minutes answering questions, typically on a Monday after a weekend of posted questions. As my videos have gotten more views (I’m up to over 1.45 million total views, 97% of those on YouTube) the rate of questions have increased. It’s not uncommon for me to answer 30 a day when I put up a new video, and people seem to really appreciate it – I’ve had many people tell me they’re amazed that I answer questions, since many people who create videos won’t do that.

There’s something I’ve noticed however: YouTube is full of “inquisitive idiots”; people who ask questions without spending even one second trying to find the answer for themselves. For every one question I get from someone who has a legitimate question that requires an answer, which I’m happy to answer, I get 30 from the inquisitive idiots – people who ask questions I’ve already answered in the video. Check out the question below that was posted earlier this week:

stupid-comment1

When I read that message in my Inbox, I swear I felt about a million neurons groan and die inside my brain. The combination of txtspk, poor grammar, and the string of questions, several of which are answered in the video, made me want to do anything BUT answer this comment. To this person’s credit, it looks like they actually went to the HP Web site and did some research – most people opt to ask me questions that they can find the answer to themselves: size, weight, price, specifications, etc. I often have all that information in the sidebar of the video, but most people don’t look at that. Continue reading YouTube Comments…I Just Can’t Take it Anymore