An Update...

I've been fairly absent lately but I wanted to give everyone a bit of an update. Things have been a little busy. Rife with sickness, work, classes, etc, my story starts the weekend prior to finals week.

Just prior to finals week I contracted some sort of heart attack inducing virus...ok not really. But it certainly felt like it. I'll spare the details (it wasn't that serious anyways), but I suffered for a few days, took my finals barely able to form a complete sentence and lacking any sort of preparation. I passed, but I would have much preferred some study time. The virus I came down with is one known to cause inflammation of the pericardium (the sac surrounding the heart) and according to Wikipedia, is often misdiagnosed as a heart attack in older gentlemen. In essence, I suffered a 3-day heart attack! But like any virus, a few days of rest and I was back on my feet.

In the week just after finals, I started working fulltime at StepChange Group. We've been busy expanding, both in terms of office space and employees--exciting to say the least. First to be set up in the new office was the lounge room: comfy couches, xbox360, and projector, all vital tools for development. I absolutely love the work I'm doing right now. It's fast-paced, exciting, the people are great, and I'm learning a ton every day. I find myself eavesdropping on every conversation hoping to pick up little coding tricks or insight into the business-running logic. It's incredible.

Summer classes have started as well. The only class I needed that was offered this summer is called Algorithms and Complexity, which is turning out to be a laid back class with a very comedic professor. This summer is shaping up to be quite fun.

I'll be back soon with more posts!

The Best of YouTube

Anyone else notice how much absolute garbage is on YouTube?!

Luckily, so did the guys at "Best of YouTube." Just before hanging myself out of boredom, I stumbled upon this terrific site. They search high and low each day for three or four of the best clips and post them on their page. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

www.bestofyoutube.com

Interviewing Alex Spencer, MBA

I recently sat down with Alex Spencer, co-contributor here at 'For Utopian Realists', to pick his brain on everything from Health Care to riding bikes. Enjoy.

Question 1) So, you just got an MBA....what did you specialize in andwas it a worthy pursuit?

"I specialized in Health Care Administration. Short answer is that the education was incredibly useful to me as the health care industry is increasingly complex, which means mangerial decisions cannot be made in a void. My education gave me the objective set of tools a competent administrator needs to posses to keep the wheels turning."

Question 2) What is the main problem with our health care system?

"I believe that the core problem with our health care system is governmental protection of insurance agencies. Basically, we have pseudo-free market system. We need to chose a free-market or public health care system and stop riding the fence."

Question 3) What should our local governement leadership be doingcurrently to fix things?

"From my research into operational cost efficiencies of health care providers that private free market mechanisms would provide the most efficient and best care, although I do believe that insurance companies should no be protected by government issued "reinsurance" and they should also be legally obligated to give coverage regardless of the patient at a legislated cost and baseline coverage level."

Question 4) So enough about health care, how is life in downtown Portland?

"Life in downtown is good, where arguably the best thing is being independent of petroleum prices. Proximity to work and recreation has saved me money, and more importantly time. I gave myself an additional 2 hours a day to live more life... and that my friends is worth more than money."

Question 5) Anything else you want to mention in this interview?

"Everyone has their cause, and if I had to pick one I think it would be research funding and education. America is the sole superpower because of innovation. Innovation is limited by the basic science that is predominantly funded by governments. All of the aerospace technologies that we enjoy today (not just jets but vacuum cleaners, cars, internet, radio, and batteries) were innovations built off of fundamental science funded by the American, British, German, and Russian governments. Since the Cold War, American politics has shifted and our society has lost huge number from the value of our currency, to the number of science/math graduates. As the global society continues to become technological nations that put priority on scientific pursuits will win, just as they did in the past. I implore everyone to recognize that funding science and science education is the foundation for a healthy economy and nation, and to vote for a president that understands and does not fear science, so that we can regain our technical advantage in the global economy."

Question 6 (not really a question) "Thanks for your time, Alex. You are officially my hero." - Evan

Just This Once....Warren Buffet Is Wrong

At the annual Berkshire Hathaway share holders meeting, Tim Ferris-author of the 4-Hour Work Week was able to ask Warren Buffet one question in front of about 10,000 people. Here it is:

“If you were 30 years old and had no dependents but a full-time job that precluded full-time investing, how would you invest your first million dollars, assuming that you can cover 18 months of expenses with other savings? Thank you in advance for being as specific as possible with asset classes and allocation percentage.”

Buffett let out a small laugh and began. “I’d put it all in a low-cost index fund that tracks the S&P 500 and get back to work…”

Click here to read the rest of Ferris' blog.

This is a prime example of making a quotable statement, but not necessarily the correct one. Buffett could have gone into the complex strategies he has employed such as risk arbitrage in mergers and acquistions, which is how he has made all of his money by the way, but people wouldn't have laughed...they would have fallen asleep!

The problem with indexing is that you miss out on compounding. Consistently gaining positive returns of 7% will make your account worth more over time than a portfolio going up 14% and down 7% annually for example. It's technically the same percentage return, however the dollar value of your portfolio would be significantly higher in the first example because it is COMPOUNDED ANNUALLY.

Over the past 10 years, the S&P 500 index has returned an average of 5.1% annually not taking into account 2008. Adjusted for inflation, the real return is diminished even further. Let's keep going with this....Say you sold off your index fund this year....in a non-retirement account you would have to pay taxes on your gains! So to recap, your risk structure was out of control and subject to massive market swings, and after taxes and inflation, you gained about 1%. Wow.

In summary, Indexing is a terrible strategy. Limiting losses and investing in income bearing instruments such as bonds and alternatives is much more efficient. Compounded rate of return is the best statistic to look at as opposed to annual return percentage. Don't get me wrong, stocks should be involved in ones portfolio as well, but only when properly allocated throughout multiple asset classes.

Muxtape update

A couple weeks ago I posted about a great site that's picking up steam, Muxtape, for finding new music or creating your own unique mix. I also mentioned in that post that while they lacked a search feature on the site, there was another site muxseek, I was using to search for songs and artists. Well, Muxseek has recently stopped crawling muxtape, overtime becoming more and more out of date. But a new searcher has popped up to take its place: Muxfind. Muxfind is equally simple and easy to use...and so my search woes are no more.

But I wouldn't write a new post unless I had significantly more to write about than just a new search engine for an obscure website. So my most recent discovery is a way to download tracks off Muxtape using a custom script and an incredibly powerful Firefox add-on called Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey (found here) allows you to add JavaScript code to any website to add features, or subtract features as you see fit. If you didn't like all the banner items on a website you frequent, simply search for and install a script to remove them. Upon loading the page, Firefox will load the page as normal, but then load your custom script and make the necessary changes. One of the classic examples is the myspace login screen which is riddled with junk no one likes to look at. There exist scripts that remove all that stuff leaving you with just a simple login. The page loads normally from myspace's point of view, as you made no changes to their code. But your scripts are executed after the page loads, modifying the page with whatever your scripts you installed. So you can see the power.

In my case, I searched userscripts.org for "muxtape download" and found this simple script. With Greasemonkey already installed in Firefox, I clicked the install button on the right and the script was automatically installed. Upon visiting Muxtape now, every track has a "download me" link appended to it. Simply click the link, name the song, and add .mp3 to the end!

Stay tuned for some more great scripts...I'm keeping my eye open.

Reputation Defender

Young people across the country have been wondering why they didn't get that internship or why they were abruptly let go from their first job. Studies show that the majority of business owners and hiring personnel are scouting out your online profiles and info. Here is where you are incredibly shocked and eloquently remark "NO WAY!" Yes way.

I wonder why this guy didn't get the position he applied for?Visit www.reputationdefender.com to see how you can protect yourself against unwanted online information. Hey, even Barack Obama is doing it! Speaking of Obama, you really should meet him. My apologies to my fellow bloggers, but I couldn't resist.

Lakers Victory

After switching font colors to match the Los Angeles Lakers team colors, the Utopian Realist blog single-handedly vaulted the purple and gold to the win in last nights NBA Finals match up against the Boston Celtics.

We are taking full credit for said victory.

Back in full effect.

My apologies for my lack of blogging over the past few weeks and of course my double apologies for the Vanilla Ice reference in the blog title. UR is here to stay and I will be posting regularly once again. Here are a few updates:

An old family friend of mine has been very active in the start-up community for many years now. His latest venture http://www.coolerplanet.com/ is a site dedicated to connecting folks interested in conserving energy with local Solar Power Resources. It's a fairly simple concept, but has been generating a lot of hype lately. Make sure to check it out!

Also, another good friend of mine has recently opened a Cutter's Point coffee shop in the Tacoma area. I don't know the area too well but he tells me it's right across from the new movie theatre in Gig Harbor off of Pt. Fosdick. I know, I know, you all love to discuss your latest business plan with your best friend while sipping on what should be called a milkshake at Starbucks ( don't forget the Sheryl Crow tunes jamming in the background)....but after you're done, go get some REAL coffee at Cutter's Point...it's much better!

On a personal note, I've just been getting the ball rolling on my CFA studies--Certified Financial Analyst. This designation is a professional degree and will aide me in my portfolio management and investment analysis. It's kind of a series 7 on steroids!

Feel free to write in with suggestions for future articles/topics you would like the three of us to comment on.

Peace.