I think the lack of immediately incoming money (the flippin' contracting place won't pay me until a month after I started) and the realisation that there are some really nice (if not ultra-expensive) items out there I'd like to have, not to mention the fact that time is always ticking away, have led to me being a little bit skittish at the moment. ( Read more... )

Yes, it's 16-09: both square numbers, and when added together also make a square number. Small joys ( Read more... )

There's at least one shoebox apartment for sale in the area for what would buy a full-sized house anywhere else ( Read more... )

Is it just me, or has the number of terrorist activities relating to aircraft been steadily declining since the 1970s, and in fact is now at the lowest point ever since the 1960s, when the first skyjacking occurred ( Read more... )

My Google-fu is weak today ( Read more... )

OK, in a nutshell:

( First, the bad. )

Well, in theory we should find out in about eight hours whether we've got the house ( Read more... )

Skimming through a couple of bookstores' investment sections and giggling to myself (as you do), I saw a cover which I at first thought might have something worthwhile inside.

The general blurb was "I went from zero to 130 properties in 3.5 years!", which on the face of it sounds pretty impressive.

Then I saw the small print. ( OHNOES! )

The quality, or lack thereof, of my voice today meant my manager shifted me off the phones and onto clearing our congested mailbox. Lately, we run nine to ten days behind on answering email. I've ranted long and often about the reasons for this before ( Read more... )

Darn, I've been earwormed by Jonathan Coulton's "Mandelbrot Set" for the past couple of days. And it's not as if the lyrics are even terribly singable. But they do explain the mathematics.

CHORUS
Take a point called Z in the complex plane
Let Z1 be Z squared plus C
And Z2 be Z1-squared-plus-C
And Z3 be Z2-squared-plus-C ( Read more... )