Author: matthew

I came, I saw, I went shopping. Go Metallica!

What a scam. Appeal to people’s pride and ego, offering them a chance for inclusion in some directory, and then sell the directory back to them. Sorry, I fell for this once with my Model Aviation directory (and boy, it’s pretty, too, but not $140 pretty), and I’m not interested in falling for it again.

Who’s Who directories, other than Marquis, are for suckers. Period.

Dear matthew@barnson.org,

You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2008-2009 “Honors Edition” of the registry.

We are pleased to inform you that on August 9th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate’s current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Who’s Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Who’s Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website by Clicking Here

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson Managing Director

Madison Who’s Who – 3001 Northern Blvd. 2nd fl. Long Island City, NY 11101 Madison Who’s Who is not associated or affiliated with Marquis Who’s Who or any other Who’s Who.

Dear Candidate,

Your response is kindly requested. You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2008-2009 “Honors Edition” of the registry.

We are pleased to inform you that on July 9th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate’s current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Who’s Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Who’s Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website by Clicking Here

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson Managing Director

Dear Candidate,

You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals as well as for inclusion into the upcoming 2008-2009 “Honors Edition” of the registry.

We are pleased to inform you that on August 16th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate’s current position, and usually with information obtained from thoroughly researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Who’s Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Who’s Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website by Clicking Here

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson Managing Director

Dear Candidate,

You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2008-2009 “Honors Edition” of the registry.

We are pleased to inform you that on August 9th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate’s current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Who’s Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Who’s Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website by Clicking Here

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson Managing Director

At this point, I sent the following polite message:

“Please stop emailing me. I have absolutely no interest in being listed in your publication!”

Dear Candidate,

Congratulations! Because of the reference value of your outstanding achievements, on September the 8th, 2008, Who’s Who has selected your biography for inclusion in the forthcoming 2008-09 edition of Who’s Who in the World.

This exciting and unique edition will provide the biographical information of the world’s most accomplished men and women from across all fields of endeavor. It is a testament to your hard work and dedication to success that you have earned a place in the world’s premier biographical resource. You should be proud of your achievements… and you should also realize your inherent potential for growth.

By answering our call for the world’s elite you can be a member of, and have at your fingertips, information which can lead to valuable networking ties with the most accomplished and prestigious men and women on both the global and national levels.

Please click the link below to provide us with your contact information. As we are striving to create an active networking forum for our members, you will be enrolled (after an introductory interview) in our basic program with no cost or obligation to purchase at any time. Please Click Here

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson Managing Director

Matthew Johnson, Managing Director, I have four words for you:

Screw You. Go Away.

I’m keeping my money, thank you very much.

In the news today, scientists discover the monogamy gene.

Scientists “found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.

“Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.”

“…RS3 334’s social effects extend beyond bonding in couples. Earlier this year, the same gene section was shown to affect signalling in people’s amygdalas, linked to trust. Another study found that people with autism, which is characterised by unusual social behaviour, often have multiple copies of RS3 334.”

So if you’re like me and content in a monogamous relationship, maybe you shouldn’t just chalk that up to good communication and compatibility.

You might just have your genes to thank.

Twitter is eating my blogging desire, and my new job (same company, new position) is causing me stress and eating it too.

Will be back soon.

I want to make something perfectly clear.

I have no opinion on abortion.

I’m never going to get an abortion for myself. There’s no need. I’m male. The whole argument has no power for me, because I really don’t care one way or the other which way the laws go. Since abortion is currently legal, if some member of my family ever needs or wants one and approaches me about it, I’ll discuss their ethical questions and then drive them to the clinic if need be. If their religion has particular proscriptions on the practice, I’ll encourage them to explore those prior to taking such an action, since I understand it may have profound impact on both family and ecumenical relationships.

If abortion were made illegal tomorrow, I’d regard that law with similar apathy, and help family members explore legal options if my opinion were ever given any weight on the issue.

But I really don’t care.

I don’t care if you get an abortion. I don’t care if you don’t get an abortion. I don’t care if your mother wants an abortion, or if you wish you were aborted. If you were supposed to be an abortion and it didn’t work out, I’ll chalk that up to serendipity and be grateful that we’re together to talk, while pointedly trying to steer the conversation to one of the myriad issues I really do care about. Like music, Joss Whedon’s latest projects, Brittany (sic) Spears’ latest hairstyle, who makes the best beer in the greater Salt Lake City area, or what I had for lunch today.

As for the last two, lunch was at MacCool’s Public House at The District in Riverton, UT. There I had an excellent — and enormous — chicken pot-pie, a few friend potatoes, and some fine Cherny Bock stout from the Bohemian Brewery, an excellent local brewery in Sandy, Utah. The Cherny Bock stout has a really rich flavor with just a hint of bitter and little aftertaste. On tap, it compares favorably to a nitro-tapped Guinness or perhaps the local Squatter’s Brewery “Captain Bastard’s Oatmeal Stout”, though the CBOS has quite a bit more hoppy finish while tasting smoother in the mouth. I really enjoy all three, depending on the situation, though if the Guinness is not on nitro tap I may choose something a little lighter.

I’m still a newbie at beer comparisons, but I like most of the darker porters and stouts. And if we ever go somewhere and I order a beer that’s new to me, you should come along because if I don’t like it, I won’t finish it and will give the rest to you. If it’s Corona (with or without lime), Coors Light, or Budweiser, you keep it. I’ll go for a soda or water instead. Enjoy.

See? There’s a discussion we can get into, have strong disagreements, and nobody leaves the discussion labeling the other person as anything except perhaps a neophyte or an uncultured, Hefeweizen-hating stout or porter beer snob.

That said, I have no opinion on abortion, and think the current situation is perfectly fine the way it is.

This makes me, according to apparently every right-wing talk radio host and local Republican in Utah, a “liberal”.

Why does that label bug me so much when it clearly doesn’t apply to my moderate, civil-rights-leaning independent-minded Registered Republican outlook?

The other night, I had a dream. In this dream, I was watching a TV show with a line of enormous dominoes made of dense foam, like the type you see in action game-shows where the contestant has to run across the top or else fall into some kind of disturbing substance that has the effect of breaking the fall of the contestant while simultaneously humiliating them.

These dominoes, though, were titanic. Hundreds of people perched on top of them, jumping from one to the next. Some few were several dominoes ahead of the pack, leaping and leaving an unstable but still standing domino behind them. The bulk of people hopped just one step ahead of the toppling dominoes, unstably wobbling atop their current perch, and many fell into the slime with each falling obelisk.

The dominoes each had labels. The fallen included “Deficit Spending”, “Investment Banking”, “Savings & Loans”, “Dot-Com stocks”, “Real-Estate investment”, and “Energy futures”. Yet to fall were many more, but I couldn’t distinguish the label of any given domino until it began to lean under the crushing weight of all the people piling onto it.

In that vein, I just found out some disturbing news regarding the so-called $7500 new-home-buyer “tax credit” as part of the recently-passed Housing Rescue Bill.

From: http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/7500-first-time-homebuyer-tax-credit.html

In addition to the well-known qualifications, such as not having owned a home in the past three years, here are some sobering details regarding this so-called “tax credit”:

• The tax credit is 10% of the home’s sale price with a maximum of $7500.
• You can claim the credit on taxes filed in 2008 or 2009.
• It’s a credit and not a deduction (difference between tax credit and tax deduction).
• “Tax credit” is a misnomer because it’s really a zero percent loan with some qualifications.

I have heard the following pitch on the radio several times: “So now is a great time to go buy a home, because with your $7500 tax credit, you can go get a loan for the $7500, buy the house, and pay off the loan once you get your credit in April.”

On the one hand, I say “great incentive!” because, really, who wouldn’t jump at an interest-free, tax-free, 15-year-term $7500 loan that you can defer for two years? On the other hand, I can’t help but think this is a really bad idea. Ultimately, we taxpayers are footing the bill for these interest-free loans to new home buyers. As a homeowner for the past ten years, that means that I am effectively subsidizing purchases for the first-timers right now.

So now I’m paying Social Security and medical insurance for all the octogenarian baby-boomers as well as subsidizing purchases of new homes by twenty-five-year-old newlyweds when I did it the hard way?

The other day, I decided to hop on my motorcycle and just drive around my new neighborhood to see what was there. I live on the border of two towns: Riverton and Herriman. Riverton is a fairly well-established city, while Herriman was an out-of-the-way town that was considered a small town until the housing boom.

I toured the south side of the city, following signs promoting a contest to win a free house in a new development. There the development stood, home after home, and row-house after row-house, on a beautiful weekday evening. The landscaping was finished throughout, but only one home in five showed signs of being lived in. The empty eyes of upstairs windows with no furnishings and no blinds peered out over the desolation of a housing development mostly finished yet unoccupied. The enormous streets ended in Jersey barriers, the lights unlit, with no traffic.

This is the future of the American housing market for some years to come. Empty bedrooms facing empty streets because of the development frenzy new-home-fever that gripped our nation. I steadfastly believed as early as 2003 that too-easy home ownership — principally zero-down and sub-prime lending, though I called it “loaning money to people who can’t pay it back” — was killing the U.S. real-estate market.

I was told that I was needlessly concerned, because real-estate is such a safe investment. I was told I was too negative, and that the real-estate boom was just a long correction to pent-up housing demand.

The reality is that the housing boom was driven by the domino labeled “low-interest home loans” placed by Alan Greenspan in response to the falling dominoes entitled “dot-com stocks” and “looming recession”. It’s easy to forget because 9-11 happened in the interim, with all of its accompanying dominoes, and took most of our attention for a while.

Some days, I hate being right when everybody thinks I’m wrong.

I have blogged before about the uselessness of Band-Aid solutions for gushing-artery problems. This new-home-buyer loan — fraudulently marketed as a “tax credit” — strikes me as yet another such “solution”. Taxpayer-subsidized bailouts of financial institutions, and now the real-estate industry, do little but forestall the inevitable as the industry topples behind the herd of game-show players who think it’s the next big thing.

Our representatives have elected to shove the bodies of over-burdened taxpayers underneath these falling dominoes to keep them from bottoming out. I do not believe this is a recipe for long-term financial health in our country.

I do believe, however, there are real solutions for some of the problems facing us today, but they may involve allowing the current domino-jumpers to fall with their precarious investments before the economy can recover.

I believe the energy crises can be permanently solved by developing renewable energy solutions — preferably cheap ones — and implementing strong conservation efforts.

I believe the financial-market crises can be permanently solved by implementing stricter oversight that isn’t self-managed (today’s NYSE is run by the same companies it is expected to police, leading to obvious and flagrant corruption with regular abuse of shareholders), and allowing companies with questionable portfolios to fail.

I believe our country’s enormous budget deficits can be overcome through prudent reductions of expenditures, mainly in the areas of overseas policing and entitlement programs.

That said, I do not believe the current real-estate crisis can be solved quickly. Developers over-built and speculators with deep pockets drove up prices by a phenomenal margin. This boom-bust cycle often happens even within a single city, driven by just a few industries, and I do not know an accurate way to gauge future housing demand on such a micro-economic scale. These things correct themselves in time, but that time — as evidenced by some city’s boom-bust cycles that have been in the “bust” phase for decades — may be much longer than a typical person is willing to wait.

Today we see the fruits of herd mentality in action, and barring a baby boom or opening US borders to wider-scale immigration, we’re stuck with a housing surplus for a number of years to come. Of course, loosening immigration restrictions or encouraging more childbirth among the upper-middle-class would bring with it its own set of problems.

The dominoes just keep falling. I wonder what’s next?

(My bet is on “wartime spending”, toppling the twin dominoes of “defense contracts” and “energy stocks”.)

FTC Outlaws Pre-Recorded Telemarketing Campaigns. Many of you may remember my previous rant regarding pre-recorded warranty telemarketing. What I thought was illegal then actually is illegal now, and marketers must have an easy-to-find opt-out method even if you have a prior business relationship by December 2008.

Hooray for common sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/20/olympics2008.china1

China sets aside four “protest zones” in Beijing during the Olympics. To protest, one had to file an application months in advance.

Two women who filed to protest were sentenced to a year’s forced labor in a re-education camp.

Another would-be protester was bustled into an unmarked vehicle by police officers and never heard from again.

A woman who wished to protest the release of her son’s murderer from prison was forced by police to forego finishing the protest application process.

One applicant included a child, and was denied.

Two others did not provide enough information, and were denied.

The remaining protest requests — seventy-seven in total, including these — were “voluntarily” withdrawn by those who filed them.

Fifteen foreigners who attempted to protest during the games were quickly deported by China.

Wang Wei, vice-president of the Beijing organising committee, told reporters they should be “satisfied” with the protest zones.

“The idea of demonstration is that you are hoping to resolve issues, not to demonstrate for the sake of demonstrating. We are pleased that issues have been resolved through dialogue and communication — this is how we do it in Chinese culture.”

All three protest zones, in city parks far from the Olympic venues, are blissfully quiet this morning.

This is, after all, how they do it in Chinese culture.

I have nothing further to say, but the minimum post length of ten words requires me to say something.

This cartoon says it all.

IM conversation with my brother regarding my appearance on Fox13 news flying a model aircraft and being interviewed at the same time:

(01:26:12 PM) matt-msn: I have a hard time talking while flying a squirrely little airplane like the one they asked me to hover for the camera. I hope I didn’t come off like too much of a doofus. (01:26:33 PM) The Mystic Programmer: That’s ALWAYS the problem. (01:26:34 PM) matt-msn: Imagine juggling with one hand while balancing a baseball bat in the other and having someone interview you. (01:26:50 PM) The Mystic Programmer: One of the rules of game demos – you always have one person talking and someone else demo-ing. (01:27:03 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Because you cannot play the game and sound like a non-idiot at the same time. (01:27:05 PM) matt-msn: Heh, NOW you tell me! (01:27:17 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Hey, I have my own interview of me doing that as proof. (01:27:46 PM) matt-msn: Quote of the day! (01:28:12 PM) The Mystic Programmer: I liked the discussion about the Christmas presents. “Uh…. I forgot…” (01:29:10 PM) matt-msn: Archived for all time: my brother said I sounded like an idiot 🙂 (01:30:08 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Nah, but you did sound distracted.

Speaking as a guy who has trouble forming sentences while playing the piano, I have to agree.