Thinker's Journal

Avoiding double taxation on ESPPs

2012-02-11T08:16:00.001-08:00

Ah, tax season. Every year, it seems like I'm affected by some new little trick or trap. This year it's my company's ESPP—employee stock purchase plan. It's an incentive provided by the employer to induce employees to purchase stock of the company itself. An example ESPP plan might let its employees put up to 10% of each paycheck directly into company stock, bought at a 10% discount.

One interesting aspect of these plans is the complex taxation mechanisms surrounding it. In the specific case that you sell the purchased stock within a year after acquiring it, you might end up being double taxed on some of the money you earn! Here's how:

Bill is an employee of the infamous XYZ Corp. He sets aside 10% of his $4,500 monthly paycheck, or $450, to participate in the company's ESPP. On the day the shares are purchased (e.g., March 31), the stock is trading at a price of $10. After the 10% discount, employees are buying at $9. Bill's $450 goes to purchase 50 shares of XYZ corp. (My, what nice round numbers!)

Here, we must take a brief aside into the Land of Arcane Calculations. For tax purposes, we must compute just how much of a benefit the ESPP gave the employee, or the "bargain element". This is the difference between the fair market value (FMV) of the stocks at purchase (50 * $10 = $500) and the actual price paid for them ($450). For Bill, the bargain element is $50. (This will be important later, like next February.)

All right, so now Bill holds the XYZ shares for six months, during which time XYZ Corp. does great, and the share price skyrockets to $12. (Whoo!) Bills sells his 50 shares at a healthy gain, for $600. All's well, right? (Side note: The IRS argot calls any such sale after less than a year a "disqualifying disposition".)

Early next year, Bill starts receiving his tax reporting forms. First comes the W-2. As per the IRS guidelines, XYZ Corp. monitors the sale of the shares given in its ESPP plan, and it includes the bargain element of the sale (that $50 we computed earlier) as part of his gross income. (If XYZ is like my employer, it's not itemized, either, so Bill will have to be diligent to notice it.)

Next, Bill gets a 1099-B statement from his brokerage. The brokerage reports that since Bill bought 50 shares at $9, then sold them at $12 within a year, he has $150 of short-term gains.

Okay, notice the sneaky double taxation? The bargain element has been included as income on both the W-2 and the brokerage statement. (Also, note that if this is a semi-monthly occurrence, the double-reported income for the year will total $1,200—no small chunk of change.)

After introducing the problem, I won't endeavor to solve it here, as it's already been done excellently by Fairmark.com(*). But if you participate in an ESPP (and if you can, you should), be aware of this little taxation trap.

(*) Short version: alter the basis reported by the brokerage to reflect FMV, then tell the IRS that you did so.

Dancing in the marketplace

2011-11-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

From a book I recently read*:

"It is easier to find employment as a data processor than as a dancer, even though being a dancer offers more venues for self-awareness and self-expression."

I won't dispute either assertion of this sentence, because I think they're both true. However, the author attributes this fact to a failing of society, or possibly a conspiracy to deprive mankind of its innate rights of self-expression. This I refuse to believe.

Instead, this is probably a result of immutable market forces (i.e., supply and demand).

First of all, demand for dancers is not exceptionally high. Even if everyone in the world craved dancing performances—and I have reasonable evidence that this is not the case—one dancer can entertain a whole bunch of people. Because of the ease of scaling here, one ballet theater goes a long way in a community.

Next, the supply of dancers is a bit larger. Why? Because of the very attributes of dancing cited above, viz., that it "offers more venues for self-awareness and self-expression." Honestly, if you could choose data processing for a living, or dancing for the same salary, which would you choose? I think for most folks, the added benefits of dancing would tip the balance.

Market forces have only one way to make up for this imbalance: money. By lowering the employment opportunities and money-making potential of dancers, the market reaches an equilibrium, in which just enough people leave dancing for data-processing jobs because the math doesn't add up.

The people who are left in dancing are generally, therefore, of two kinds:

1. Top-flight professional dancers who can make enough money to make it worth their while. This group is highly competitive, and so members sacrifice their entire lives to maintain their positions. There's just not much room at the top—after all, how many professional dancers does it take to entertain the world? (No, that's not a joke.)

2. Amateur dancers who "follow their hearts" and dance despite the lack of substantial remunerative emoluments. These people also sacrifice, but instead of sacrificing time and energy, they sacrifice money and material comforts.

Unfortunately, many performing arts have this imbalance. To be in the high-earning group, you need to be exceptional. To be in the amateur group, you need a day job.

The internet is disrupting this uneasy balance a little by providing the opportunity to perform to a smaller group and still be heard, but we're still a long way off from an "everyone dancing" utopia.

(* The Art of Effortless Living, by Ingrid Bacci, if you must know; but it wasn't really that great a book. )

I-1183

2011-11-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

Bankrolled by Costco.

Potential fiasco.

A mí me da asco.

Tinnitus and Me

2011-10-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, in the process of getting over a pretty nasty head cold, I experienced some temporary tinnitus: As I lay in bed, I could distinctly hear ringing in my left ear. Since it somewhat impeded my going to sleep, and since I'm curious about auditory matters, I took the time to examine and reflect on the phenomenon.

It turns out that my tinnitus (at least that temporary bout; it's gone as I write this) sounds like a hazy pitch somewhere around F# and G (both seemed to fit within it), accompanied by a more defined, though quick and irregular, 'beeping' at the just-lower E♭. (This last honestly sounded just like a telegraph; if I knew Morse code better, I might have got direct messages from my auditory cortex!)

Interestingly, the American Association of Audiology found that over a 195-patient sample, the average pitch was 4968 Hz, which sounds to me about the same as the E♭ I heard last night. (At A/440 concert pitch and equal temperament, that E♭ should technically be at 4978Hz. However, that discrepancy is probably outside the resolution of my pitch accuracy.)

It was way cool having temporary tinnitus, but I'll go to sleep quicker tonight.

From the annals of history...

2011-10-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Vance Packard's prescient The Pyramid Climbers, published 1964. From page 108:

While executives may enjoy the kudos of high status..., to be successful in today's world, they also must be mindful of their role as goodwill ambassadors for the company. They must bear in mind that if they seem to drift too far from looking like and acting like the common man, radicals may arise, as they did in the thirties, with cries of "Down with the Economic Royalists!"

I think this may indeed be a catalyst for the current grumpiness toward big business, though I'm not quite sure who did the drifting: did company execs' lives (and bonuses) get worse at "acting like the common man", or is it that the "common man" isn't doing as well? Maybe a little of both.

Stratego, Plugged

2011-10-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

This week, I was at the local thrift store when I discovered an old friend: a functional copy of Electronic Stratego! (He was on sale for a buck.) In case you have forgotten how this lovely contraption looks, or if you've never met one, here's a brief sample: (Warning! 80's nostalgia ahead!)

Some of you may be asking, "What is that?!", to which I reply, "It's like Stratego! By Milton Bradley! A classic game of strategy and... um... 'go'? Look it up!"

So, now some of you are probably asking, "Right... so... how's it different than normal Stratego?" Well. Let me tell you how it's different from the vanilla edition.

To start off, the scale is a little different. It's got an 8x10 grid (instead of 10x10), and only 24 pieces (instead of the usual 40).

More importantly, the electronic aspect opens up a lot more functionality. There are three major variations in gameplay that result from having Electronic Stratego instead of "plain-ol'" Stratego:

One: Hidden bombs. The little compartments on either player's side of the board let players place bombs under their pieces, and they activate only when stepped on by enemy players. (Unless your board's malfunctioning, in which case your men might be fair game as well.) One wrong step, and KABLAAM!

Two: Piece identities remain secret. To engage in combat with an enemy piece, you merely push down on the attacking piece and then on the defending piece, and the computer informs you whether you won or not. And that's all it tells you. Did you kill a scout? A marshal? Who knows? It adds a lot of uncertainty to the game. (You don't have to play this way, but it is awesome; and to do this using a normal board, you'd need a third party just to compare pieces during attacks. Good luck finding anyone to volunteer for that.)

Three: Awesome sound effects. From the moment you turn it on, the thing emits a soundtrack worthy of an early Atari game. The interminable "drum roll"-esque sound (audible in the above snippet) accompanies your every move, and snippets of notable songs pepper the play. (The manual falls all over itself calling out each song; when attacking, you'll hear "a few bars of The William Tell Overture" instead of "heart-pumping attack music". Maybe it helped them corner the market of the culturally elite?)

Anyway, if you're in my General neck of the woods soon, Flag me down; I'll Scout out four AA batteries and we can Marshal our forces to engage in Major two-player electronic melee! (It'll be the Bomb!)

Playing Fair in the Free Markets

2011-10-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

I recently bought ink for my fountain pen from a company called Noodler's Ink. This slogan of theirs made me stop and think:

Why is it called "Noodler's"? The ink with the catfish on the label symbolizes a southern sport that attempts to equalize the struggle between man and animal in the quest for a sense of fair play... and thus a fair price.

This bit of corporate PR jibes with their product: the glass bottles are industry standard (therefore cheap) and full to the brim with their high-quality ink, underselling their competitors by a ridiculous margin. They also "refuse" to make profit-heavy ink cartridges because of the ridiculously wasteful aspect of those devices.

Of course, they've gained something in return: my brand allegiance. Next time I need some ink, you can bet I'll be buying from them. In fact, it was such a good value for me that I probably won't even comparison shop. (Bonus: I'm sharing this on my blog, so maybe you'll buy ink there, too!)

Anyway, there's considerable discord as to exactly what "playing fair" means in a free market. (I'll focus specifically on supplier-consumer interaction, instead of competitive relationships among suppliers.) Examples:

Is it "fair play" to cultivate brand allegiance? It warps the free market somewhat and can be said to remove agency from consumers. (Then again, the company paid a fair price for that brand allegiance—right?)

Is it "fair play" to market to our baser needs? Several campaigns (arguably all modern ad blitzes) attempt to bypass consumers' rational minds and access the subconscious directly. This is especially apparent with, say, spray-on deodorant positioning itself to young men as the fast track to sex. Rational economic theory certainly doesn't account for this very well.

I hypothesize that the economic surplus of our consumer-culture market is heavily producer-skewed: Most consumers don't have the time, expertise, or inclination to fully assess the transactions they make (certainly not all the time). However, corporations, since they focus on a subset of products, spend the time and effort necessary to maximize the producer surplus (often via marketing strategies to inflate perceived value on the part of consumers, and via vertical differentiation and other forms of price discrimination). Therefore, most of the economic surplus in the consumer economy ends up in the hands of producers.

Whether corporations are "playing fair" or not, I think they're winning.

Optimistic note: Savvy consumers can negate this by learning to better estimate the value of a transaction to them, and by opting out of advertising where possible. In some situations, it's viable to leave the primary market entirely: Craigslist and other secondary markets are less heavily skewed in this manner.

Corporate amorality

2011-10-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

It's easy to anthropomorphize corporations, and if I met someone who acted like a corporation ("life goal: maximize profits"), they sure would seem greedy! (That goes for *any* corp., not just the successful ones.)

The amoral nature of corporations comes largely from the fact that publicly-traded companies are owned by investors that are removed from the day-to-day tactics of the business; "the shareholders" want higher profits, and if management has to do something unethical to get there, well, the shareholders wanted it.

As a shareholder (there, I said it), I want the companies in which I'm invested to perform well (and pay me the money!). As a citizen, I want the companies in my economy to play fairly with their employees and with the environment.

This amorality is an interesting facet of the corporate world, and makes a good argument for not granting them the legal status of "persons", even though they're conglomerations of actual people. Also germane is the subject of government regulation to enforce ethics on these otherwise amoral creatures.

Amoral corporations interact suboptimally with the moral world, and people (moral creatures) wind up feeling the pain.

(re: @Peter)

"Inky, binky, bottle of ink..."

2011-10-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

I like writing by hand sometimes. Yes, a good keyboard is still about the fastest way for me to write, but sometimes a good pen in hand is just what the doctor ordered. Six months ago, I decided to try something a little different in my writing toolbox: a fountain pen.

I believe in starting small when pursuing a new interest, so I worked to find the cheapest way into the fountain pen world. I settled on Pilot's Varsity pens (amazon), finding a three-pack at my local Staples for seven dollars.

Well, it turned out to be a lot of fun; I like the smooth feel of the writing and the fun of having an old-school fountain pen. But going on buying disposable fountain pens to feed the addiction? I'm not so keen on that idea. And my new fountain pens were running out of ink fast!

So I started looking at buying a more permanent fountain pen. But then I found something that made my (web-browsing) ears perk up: some folks had successfully refilled the "disposable" Varsity with new ink.

I bought a 3-ounce bottle of Noodler's black ink (amazon) and tried it out. It worked! And with the new ink, my writing was smoother than before!

So that's a win. But the money side of things is pretty sweet, too: Each refill of the pen takes about 2 cc's of ink. In my $12, 3 oz bottle of ink, there are 88 cc's, giving a price per refill of 44 cents! (Far cheaper than the $2/pen price of new ones.) Refilling takes only two minutes, including setup and teardown time, and I've refilled only once in the six months I've had the pen.

Plus, having a bottle of ink hanging around is pretty awesome.

Another example of how it makes good financial sense to "go reusable", even if the product is touted as disposable.

On what's worthwhile

2011-10-01T12:31:00.001-07:00

I read a few blogs on personal finance. And I've read more than a few books on the matter. It seems to me that there are two schools of thought in the area: the "maximize net worth" group and the "maximize happiness" group. (To be fair, I think both groups are trying to maximize happiness, but these are the terms that came to mind.)

The great thing about the "maximize net worth group" is that it has one clear objective: maximize net worth! It's really easy (with a few assumptions) to figure out how to make your net worth grow more, and so things are really pretty clear. Writers subscribing to this view have such headlines/chapter titles as "Why not to pre-pay your mortgage" (because projected returns of stocks are greater than mortgage interest rates) and "The order in which to pay back your debts" (start with the highest interest rates first). Also, this group tends to be in agreement with itself.

The second group, the "maximize happiness" folks, take all sorts of paths. Some folks espouse borrowing a little while young, on the grounds that you'll have higher income later and having fun in your youth is priceless. Others argue for living lean and retiring early later in life. This group disagrees on such factors as when you're maximizing happiness (now or later?) and how to measure it (net worth? free time?). The "maximize happiness" group is closer along the lines of the way I think most people actually approach their lives, but due to its personal nature, it suffers from a lack of unity and a lack of universality.

I think both these groups have fuzzy definitions and even fuzzier membership lines; I myself tend to a "do what works for you, but run the numbers" school of thought.

Bonus: links!

Group 1 examples: Ramit Sethi, Consumerism Commentary

Group 2 examples: Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar

Banned Books

2011-09-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

As part of its 2011 Banned Books Week, the American Library Association has posted their list of the Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010. Interesting reading! (The list, not the books; I haven't read them all.)

Censorship, especially for kids, is a pretty complex issue; it seems from the ALA's information that a lot of the challenges occurred in schools, which I can understand (especially in mandatory English curricula). Parents face tough calls on how to best raise their kids, and I plan on talking with my kids' English teachers about their choices in reading lists. Nevertheless, here are my thoughts on the books that I've read:

First, at #3, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: Hasn't that book moved to "classic" status already? Also, I sincerely believe that this book is one of the great predictors of the problems of today's society (see Neil Postman's mind-warping Amusing Ourselves to Death). This one should be a fixture at libraries and has been around since 1931; are we really still fighting it?

Second, at #8, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickled and Dimed; this one is a prime example of "stunt journalism", wherein the author leaves her cushy writing job and takes three different minimum-wage-type jobs around the country, writing up her experiences along the way. I read this book not two months ago, and it was particularly good at showing how just being poor can make life more expensive. (Example: not having cash for an apartment deposit and having to live in a hotel room paid by the week.) Ehrenreich does victimize the poor a little too much for my taste, and her proposed policy changes are a little half-baked, but I think the perspective is a valuable one that many insulated middle-class folks (especially insulated middle-class Christians) would do well to seek out.

I'm glad to see, however, that Fahrenheit 451 isn't on the list; the irony would be too great.

(Honorable mention to The Hunger Games and Twilight; though I haven't read more than snippets of either, I confess I would think twice about giving them to my kids.)

BYU choral auditions coming soon!

2011-08-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

I just saw this YouTube video about BYU's choral auditions, which start 25 Aug. If you are interested, check out the video, especially the last half that shows Sister Hall conducting auditions; that is EXACTLY what they're like! I got all nervous again just watching... :) Also, feel free to pass it along to any interested BYU friends.

In addition to the endorsements in the video, here's my BYU Choirs testimony: It is a singular experience to hold your head high, gratefully accept applause from the audience. and know, deep down, that after pouring your soul into that night, you've given them a world-class performance that is completely worthy of their gratitude and appreciation.

Pass the word along!

Facile Fuel

2011-08-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

Up a hill on a bike, I break into a sweat;

When I get home, I clean out the larder.

Up a hill in a car, it's an easier bet:

I just mash on the gas pedal harder.

"Smarter than the average..."

2011-07-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

It is said (and I'm not sure where this started) that eighty (or seventy) percent of drivers rate themselves as "above average". This phenomenon is often ascribed to "cognitive bias"—that is, that people think they are better than they are. Psychologists explain that cognitive bias allows us to survive in the world which constantly tears down our self-esteem.

But what if that's not the case? Can 80% of drivers rate themselves above average... and be right?

Option 1: Different metrics

My interaction with other drivers shows that different drivers have different ideas of what "good driving" entails. I put myself with a group that equates good driving with courteous driving; that is, good driving doesn't frustrate (or even surprise) any fellow drivers and allows the driving system to function as efficiently as possible. After a really good drive, the driver is relaxed and confident.

A rival group of drivers believes that good driving gets you places as quickly as possible. Other drivers (especially slow ones) are obstacles to be dodged in pursuit of the quickest travel times possible. A good driver is an expert of handling and can fit in the tightest spots in freeway traffic to get there sooner. After a good drive, the driver is there quicker and is proud of his abilities.

Both groups agree that good driving results in fewer accidents. Nevertheless, they approach this goal differently. If you ask either group whether they are above average, they will compare themselves favorably to members of the other group and answer "yes". And are they wrong?

Option 2: Asymmetric distribution

Going back to the original statistic, it is claimed that 80% of drivers claim to be "above average" drivers. But this isn't necessarily even a problem. If 80% claimed to be above median drivers, we would have a problem, but this isn't the case.

Take the mean (average) national income, for instance. In 2004, it was around $60K/yr. However, the median national income was only $44K/yr. That is, 50% of the country made less than $44K, meaning far more than 50% of the country had "below-average" incomes. This makes sense; each year, some people in the United States are making millions of dollars. Since it is impossible to have a negative-million-dollar income to counter those outliers (zero is about as low as an income can go), the distribution is asymmetric, and the average is skewed.

Similarly, if we use a common driving metric of "number of accidents caused per year", some drivers are causing accidents, and may cause several. Those really bad drivers are outliers. But no matter how good a driver you are, you can't get any better than "zero accidents". With so many drivers who are at the premiere level of driving, and with such an asymmetric distribution, I don't think it's unreasonable at all for seventy or even eighty percent of drivers to be "above average".

Book Review: David Harriman's The Logical Leap

2011-03-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

David Harriman makes some bold statements with this one. Yes, the book may seem to be about the history of science ("History and science? Yawn..."), but it's not. It's about the future of science.

The epistemological backdrop of the book unfortunately necessitates the frequent use of such soporifics as "epistemological".

Say what you will about the density of the content, though, Harriman doesn't hide behind it. On the contrary, he makes explicit his beef with the golden calves of contemporary theoretical physics, including quantum mechanics, the big bang, and string theory. And that takes cojones.

Harriman's argument against these theoretical darlings consists of two main thrusts: First, how do we know? Second, what does the knowledge get us?

The first question is one of evidence. Harriman insists that the validity of a theory rests upon the observational evidence used to construct it. Kinetics? Gravity? All based on the observed motion of planets. String theory? Well...

The second question references utility, or effects in the real world. A theory of science should allow us to make predictions about the world we live in; a useful theory allows us to predict things we couldn't predict before.

Elegance and symmetry are all very nice, but who's to say that the world works according to your elegant ideas? Harriman lambasts famous thinkers like Descartes over this issue. While Newton was using prisms and carefully devising experiments to determine the nature of white and colored light, Descartes published his own ideas on color: that the light particles had "spin" that determined their colors. An interesting idea, yes. A useful idea? Not so much.

If you're interested in science and where it's headed, give this a read and weigh the evidence on your own.

Pennies from... heaven?

2011-03-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

All right, I finally wrote a decent-sized story. Despite the fact that I'm posting it on the family blog (since it's in need of some non-baby material), I wanted the credit for writing something substantial, so I'll link to it here. Enjoy!

More thoughts on being "time-poor"

2010-08-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the theme of having too little time, being "time-poor" is actually a pretty vicious trap. People who don't have enough time start, understandably, by trying to free up time. A common method for this is for people to outsource things they don't like to do anyway: housework (to maid services), yardwork (to lawncare services), even food preparation (to restaurants or takeout).

Unfortunately, one thing they often don't consider trimming back could be the biggest gain: their job.

Think about it—eight hours a day away from home. Every day. Honestly, if you need some more time to yourself—major time—switching from a full-time to a part-time work schedule would save you way more time (twenty hours a week!) than avoiding most any amount of housework. Many modern workplaces offer programs affording this kind of an hour cut. Of course, this will also severely impact the amount of money coming into your household. This requires having money from somewhere else—or maybe a lot less need for money.

And this is where the first instinct can be harmful: spending money to outsource work to others means you need more money. This means that trimming back your working hours—and making big gains for time—becomes less and less of an option.

So if you're short on time, instead of outsourcing unpleasant tasks, you might try reacting in a different way: hone some skills to become more self-sufficient, with an eye toward cutting back working hours and gaining more time that way.

p.s. Alternatively, you could remove the reason you have unpleasant tasks in the first place: get a smaller house (less cleaning), move to a condo (no yardwork), or... stop eating? Maybe not so much.

On buying your way out of being "time-poor"

2010-08-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Living in a neighborhood that could be described as "old professional", with plenty of aging white-collar wage-earners in the peak of their earning years, we get an interesting bunch of targeted advertising around our house. One that particularly stuck out to me was a recent maid service's flyer, pitching the slogan, "Life's too short to clean your own house."

Life is short; I'll grant that. Is it too short to clean your own house?

The assumption underlying this kind of slogan (popular in pitching to affluent professionals) is that trading money for time is a good way to get more time. After all, professionals often lament having so little time, and they've got plenty of money; wouldn't it be nice if they could just exchange one for the other?

Looking at the problem superficially, it certainly seems like a real possibility. A high-powered wage earner might earn well in excess of $50/hour, and paying the maid service $75/week may save our professional four whole hours of cleaning. And trading $50 for four hours is paying out under $15/hour, which is a net of $35/hour!

Unfortunately, things aren't that simple.

As a professional starts to look deeper into the issue, a question surfaces: "What am I saving time for?" (Or, for a more prepositionally strict professional, "For what am I saving time?")

Perhaps at the office! However, note that a professional's income is pretty well fixed. He puts in his time at work and gets a certain amount per month in return—spending a couple extra hours at the office yields no additional income (in the short term, at least). So choosing to go to the office with his new found time will actually pan out to something like a $15/hr loss (again, in the short term).

Most professionals, though, are not too keen on spending additional time in the office. Instead, they're looking for extra time to spend with their family. And what better way to find time to spend with the family than by not having to clean the house? Except that the extra time "bought" that way tends to fizzle away just as quickly as the old time did, especially when it's squandered vegging out in front of the television (a pastime that grows to fit the space available). Who wants to pay $15/hr for that?

Bearing in mind my current circumstance as a member of a childless couple, I still think cleaning your house yourself is always the way to go. My reason? Cleaning your own house, or doing other things for yourself, often conjoins nicely with spending "quality time" with your family. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of working together as a family, though at the time I was less than enthusiastic about it. (Sorry, Mom.) Combining your family time with work to be done is a great way to get extra mileage out of your time, and save some money to boot.

Life's too short to pay someone else to clean your house.

Hyperlinks Before the Digital Age

2010-07-12T22:14:00.001-07:00

One of the ways I find new books to take on is to look for references in other books I enjoy. This gives me good leads, especially in the "related books" vein. However, this does contain some inherant biases.

An example: I recently tackled Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is a fun, episodic romp following a young boy's journey through the land of the undead. Most notably, it's modeled somewhat on Rudyard Kiplings The Jungle Book, a debt which the author freely acknowledges in the back.

Anyway, the point is that although Gaiman recommends Kipling, Kipling couldn't very well recommend the not-born-at-the-time Gaiman. In fact, all references (or hyperlinks, in 'net lingo) go backwards in time, for the simple reason that one cannot reference something that hasn't yet been written. (Of course, someone adding a preface to a future publication of Kipling's book could add a Gaiman reference, but that's neither here nor there.)

Following hyperlinks is a great way to find material, but it always points a reader back in time. This does preclude finding the "latest and greatest" books, but it also provides a great way to delve into older books. After all, recent bestsellers are always easy to find—it seems everyone is talking about them. But finding the gems of the past is more difficult, especially if they don't make the latest "100 best books of all time" lists.

References can be a great weapon in your arsenal of book-recommending strategies, especially on the older side.

Brief Book Review: Life, Inc.

2010-06-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

The subtitle of the book is How Life Became a Corporation, and How to Take it Back, a fairly loaded title but a pretty accurate one. The books presents the history of the corporation, tracing all the way back to the Renaissance. Along the way, author Douglas Rushkoff develops ideas about the system and proposes alternatives.

One of the main thrusts of the book is that corporations are not a natural part of the world, but a human creation, with certain biases that, after a while, we have all started to take for granted. Even our centralized system of money is not the only way to do things.

A most interesting idea is made in discussing using two concurrent currency systems, one centralized and one local. He explains that such a system was in place during the Middle Ages, and he points out some reasons why it might not be such a bad idea now.

The other main thrust is that in the age of corporations, we've all started to behave more like them, expending effort to adjust our "bottom line", whether that's measured in net worth or in material consumption. This is even at the expense of relationships or other societal goods that really make us human.

It's an interesting read if you're inclined to read about economics, or about societal issues, but especially if you like to learn about both.

How Do You Choose What To Read?

2010-06-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

As I've started looking for more to read, I've become more conscious of the decision process I use to choose among the options. There are too many books out there for me (or anyone) to read, so I rely on some heuristics in an attempt to filter out the good ones without having read them. Here are some of the things I've realized about how I choose reading material:

I consider more seriously anything referenced positively by a work I enjoy. This might be as simple as a book's mention on a blog I frequent, or a recommendation in a book by an author whose work I respect.

I also will likely read anything recommended to me by someone with similar book tastes to mine. even in the course of a dinner party, I might get to know that a new friend is a reader, and we might swap books. I take care to jot down any suggestions, and usually follow up on those later.

I have a few lists that I consult every once in a while. The list at the end of "How to Read a Book" is one such list---it's full of works that were deemed (by the author) to have intrinsic merit, and to be books that are readable multiple times. It is an interesting way to get suggestions from an informed source.

I will shy away from books that have titles similar to books I have really disliked. A title like "How to Get Rich" really turns me off from reading it, despite recommendations to the contrary.

I tend to switch topics after a while of reading in one vein. After going through a good number of books on personal finance, I have largely decided that I will read other things instead. At the moment, I am leaning toward social commentary and fun reading.

All of these simple rules obviously don't filter out every crummy book written, and I also probably pass on reading books that are in actuality excellent. Nevertheless, they help filter out the sheer volume of books there are to read.

What kinds of tests do you all use to determine which books are worth your while?

Thinking of...

2010-06-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

I believe one of the marks of a good book is that one thinks about it often in the weeks, even months, after reading it. This evidences the sticking power of a good idea—or a good writing style.

For me, a recurrent books is Strunk and White's Elements of Style. This combines both of the above-mentioned attributes, being a good idea about good writing style.javascript:void(0)

For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to get through so much as a chapter of anything without thinking of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach. Maybe it's that the ideas presented are so fundamental to the world in which we live, or maybe his astounding use of language just tickles my fancy, but either way, it keeps coming back to me.

But not all "sticky" books hail from so lofty a class. A Void has stuck in my mind, too, but only owing to its putting my brain into such a condition that on thinking a thought, I find my subconscious dutifully figuring out if this thought contains any of a particular symbol (the fifth in our ABC's, if you must know).

Give me a sticky book any day!

Goal of the month: NetWorker

2010-06-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

At work, I use the Internet. All the time. Above the local network stuff (HR, internal memos, and the like), I am constantly doing research about various items in my work life.

However, the Internet is also quite the distraction. Yes, I can get sucked into Slashdot and lose an hour. But also in more insidious ways. For example, checking my e-mail. It's great to stay on top of things, but nervously checking it every five minutes is not helpful to my work flow. (Yes, I have been known to do this, mostly when expecting confirmation or a reply.)

Anyway, this month my goal is to get more productivity out of my Internet time (or around my Internet time). Specifically, my resolutions come in two forms: a prohibition and several limits.

Prohibition: No idle browsing

That means no clicking onto Slashdot because I'm bored. If I'm bored, there's probably a reason, and the reason is probably that I am avoiding doing something.

This also includes Slickdeals and other deal sites, which can be real time-sinks for me as I peruse the deals and think about them. To help with this tendency, I've created a custom RSS feed (using Yahoo's Pipes) to go through all the deal sites I could find and filter out the mess, to return just the things I'm looking for. It's worked well so far (I've found one or two pertinent things and ignored countless "deals" that wouldn't be deals to me.)

Daily limits

My feed reader: 1x. I use RSS to catch up with my favorite websites, and to put reading material on my Palm for later perusal. However, checking my feed reader more than once a day is wasteful. Indeed, an RSS reader functions as an aggregator, so I don't have to check multiple places for information. What I'm planning now is a similar aggregation, only across time: checking just once a day will still get me all the information.

E-mail: 5x. I will check both my personal and business mail only five times daily, maximum. Tentatively, these five times will be allotted as follows:
* once in the morning, after I arrive to my office
* once just after lunch
* once before leaving work
* two discretionary times
This should free me up to do more work with fewer interruptions.

What to do instead

With all the time freed up by not browsing idly and aggregating tasks across time, what should I do? My focus is going to be on my to-do list. That is, not things that pop into my head on their own, but things that have "made the cut" and are already on my list. This should help me filter out spurious "urgencies" and make room for important things that I might otherwise neglect.

That should leave me room to get my workday (and life) in better shape.

The Other Y

2010-05-28T10:22:00.001-07:00

Okay, on a whim, I was looking up basic information on Yale (mostly to find out its physical location) and found, to my surprise, that their seal contains Hebrew!

As a secondary surprise, this (apparently) says "Urim and Thummim"—how interesting! Note that on the banner below, they've translated it to Latin as "Light and Truth".

Curiouser and curiouser...

(source)

Shiny "new" gadget

2010-05-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

My pocket gadget of choice is a Palm Tungsten T3. It is a model that was introduced in late 2003, but though it's coming up on its seventh birthday, mine still works great. (I haven't had it for all of those seven years—in fact, I bought it in 2008.)

Anyway, Palm T3 owners share one chronic complaint: Palm manufactured the device with some screws in the bottom that tend to worm their way out of their sockets. Though my Palm arrived with all screws in place, they had fallen out after a year or two. The device still functioned properly, but... well, nobody likes a loose bottom.

I found online that several opportunistic entrepreneurs offer replacement screws, and I even found some advice on how to keep them from falling out once they'd been replaced. Unfortunately, these suppliers charged eight to ten dollars for their services, which was a bit more than I was willing to pay for four tiny screws.

Fortunately, we found the local hobby store. When I asked them about finding these tiny screws, they found them right away. And with that, I tightened up my Palm's bottom (a much more pleasant way for a bottom to be). It feels like a new gadget, so I'm treating it like one!

The only difference is that the new screws are a lovely shade of gold:

Hmm, looks rustic!