Make Your Money Way More Interest-ing: Put it in a Kiva account

Instead of leaving money sit in a zero interest checking account, why not put it in a Kiva account. Kiva accounts generate loads of interest, of the human kind. Consider this:

I just loaned some money to a woman in Ghana who is seeking to expand her business. She makes rice and stew and sells it by the side of the road to help pay for her children's education. By borrowing money from a community bank she can buy ingredients in bulk and get a better price and thus a better margin. With that margin she can hire another person and double the output and revenue. How interesting is THAT!

When she repays the loan then my money is available to me for withdrawal or I can choose to loan it to someone else. I don't earn financial interest on this money, but it makes my money way more interesting. Consider this:

I opened up a business account with Bank of America about 5 years ago. For the last 8 months there has been about $500 in the account because that business does not do much business these days (these days I have a day job). So each month Bank of America charges me $13.00 simply for operating the account. On an annual basis that's more than 30% interest, just for letting money sit there. They don't even have to send me paper accounts. So now I'm taking half that money and putting it into Kiva (the other half is paying down a credit card balance).

During these tough economic times it's easy to think that we have no spare cash, no extra money. But I bet a lot of people have small amounts of money lying dormant, either earning no interest or actually costing interest in the form of maintenance fees. How much more interesting to lend that money to someone who can put it to work. Your money is relatively safe, is not incurring fees, and is potentially transforming lives.

Go Kiva!

CQM

iPhone Camera Impresses

As I wait to upgrade my iPhone to the newly released 3.0 version of the operating system (over 200 megabytes worth of download) I continue to be impressed with the camera on my iPhone 3G. The other morning I snapped this shot of Layla on our daily walk. Sometimes the effect of using a lower resolution digital camera, such as you get on a mobile phone, is almost 'painterly' in the way resolves complex images into pixels. If you click this image you will get an expanded view, which [IMHO] is still pleasing despite the lack of resolution.

Flying Launch Pad Cruises New Mexico Skies

Couldn't resist blogging this story as it shows progress towards commercial space travel has not been stopped by the recession. Not to get all philosophical and stuff but I think that leaving planet Earth is where evolution is headed.

I'm not saying all Earthlings will relocate to another planet or planets, but some will. And of course, that could make Earth a more accommodating place for those who stay behind. At some point in the future there will be humans looking back, in time and space, saying "Yep, that whole Virgin Galactic thing was a turning point." Kind of like the VIC-20 or TRaSh 80.

Sosa Sucks! The social cost of selfish sport star substance abuse

As yet another big name in baseball gets attached to substance abuse [this time it's some pumped up cheater by the name of Sammy Sosa] I remain stunned by the narrow-minded focus of the media. Sure, some of the better sports writers wrestle with what all this means but most coverage is confined to:

1. The fans (how will they cope with the fall of their idols?)


2. The sport (will people still respect baseball and pay to watch games?)


3. The team (can they win games without the suspended player?)


4. The player (how will it affect his Hall of Fame chances)

I'm tempted to say screw them all, or at least numbers 2 through 4. I'm appalled that nobody seems to care a toss about what this continued abuse of "substances"  means to the people who actually need these substances to stay alive (yes, you can die from adult growth hormone deficiency--see this blog post).

Why doesn't anyone write about how selfish abuse by obscenely overpaid sports-jerks has made Human Growth Hormone (HGH) harder to get for people with medical conditions who legitimately need it to function? How about...

USDA Broadband Discovery Tool

Find what's happening with broadband in your rural community:

USDA Broadband Report Tool

Rural Europeans Duped by "Satellite Broadband"?

Looks like satellite Internet providers in Europe are trying to pass it off as broadband, just like in the US. Sorry guys, Einstein says you can't get latency below 234 milliseconds and you need to deliver 50 milliseconds or less to be broadband.

Top 10 Broadband » News » Satellite broadband 'to boost rural coverage'

Google's Plan for Broadband

"In a filing with the FCC, Google outlined its idea for a National Broadband Plan. Google believes that all American households should have access, by 2012, to at least 5 Mbps upload and download speeds over broadband. The company submitted four proposals to help advance this vision."

Broadband Networking Regulatory News

Avanti UK to Develop New 50Mbps Hercules Broadband Satellite

The US is not the only country where rural Internet users are being starved of broadband. Several companies over in the UK are talking about offering satellite Internet service to rural locations in Britain, possibly lured by the hope of government subsidies for USO [Universal Service Obligation] solutions.

In other words, satellite is being put forward as a way for telcos to say "we offer broadband to everyone" without having to string cable or put up radio towers to all corners of the realm. However, the publication ISPreview has very rightly raised concerns "about the use of satellite services as a USO solution...High hardware/installation costs, uselessly restrictive usage allowances, unreliable speeds and poor latency are chief among those [concerns]."

We agree. In fact we couldn't say it better than this: "To date we've yet to see a satellite broadband service that could negate most of these fears..."

The claimed download speed of the latest Avanti proposal is impressive, but until the latency and bandwidth cap issues are addressed, satellite's a non-starter in our opinion. ISPreview have just completed an interview with Avanti "where some very difficult questions were put to them" and the interview is expected to surface at the start of June.

ISPreview UK

12,000 Reasons Why Church and State Must Stay Separate

12,000 is the number of Catholic church abuse victims in Ireland to whom the Irish government has already paid compensation, even before the latest damning report of systematic beatings and rape revealed last week.

(This Canadian article and this CSN article are just two from hundreds around the world covering this topic. Google News is packed with over 2,000 results on the subject, some of the most gut-wrenching being Letters to the Editor from victims in both England and Ireland.)

12,000 is number of Catholic church abuse victims in Ireland who had to waive their rights to sue the state or church to get that compensation. Well folks, that's what life is like when your country's constitution begins with these words:

"In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred..."

and continues...

"We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ...Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution."

You cannot expect anything other than systematic sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of the citizenry by the clergy when you require all the people who live within your borders to live "under God," and then compound that error by defining god specifically, as in "our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ."

That is not a democracy, that's a theocracy. As such, Ireland gives Jesus Christ's representatives on earth way too much power and influence. It would truly be a miracle if that much power and influence didn't result in boys and girls being raped and beaten by priests on a massive scale while the police and the Department of Educaton just looked the other way.

BTW, I am not making up that "Jesus is our Lord" constitution stuff. Here's a link to the official version of the Irish constitution. Scroll past the amendments to get to the opening lines, bearing in mind that none of the amendments repeal Jesus--who above all people knew he didn't belong there. (Amazingly, there are some Americans who still don't understand why the people who live in the northern part of the island of Ireland don't want to be governed by the Irish constitution.) Go figure!
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Sins of iMission: What Apple omitted from the iPhone

If you've observed the outpouring of joy and wonder--and cash--with which adoring Apple fans have greeted each new iteration of the iPhone, and if you've formed the general impression that the iPhone is the "smartphone" that does everything, think again. Dig a little deeper into the online chatter and you find out, as buyers like me have done, that Apple omitted some serious "basic" features from all the iPhones so far produced.

Topping the "Sins of iMission" is a feature that's almost synonymous with Apple. That's right I'm talking about cut-and-paste. You heard right, there's no way to...