All posts by glyphic

Useful Stuff

Goodbye Skype, Hello Google Voice

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I was ambivalent about the utility of Grand Central when I signed up for my free account last year; I’ve got one phone that I use, and the voicemail in your inbox feature was kinda whatevs.

But then Google announced the relaunch of Grand Central as Google Voice; this was the feature made me super-excited:

Billing and International Calls: Making international calls

To make international calls at very low rates, just dial your Google number, press 2 and call anywhere in the world. You can also make calls directly from the Google Voice website.

Since their prices are Skype-competitive, it means I can finally untether myself from my computer without buying a ridiculous Skype phone and my call quality no longer depends on whatever shitty Internet service I happen to be on (e.g., Time Warner Cable, free city wi-fi).

Now all I need to do is spend the last $2 I have on my Skype account.

Cool Stuff

MySpace Music Remixed

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When MySpace Music relaunched back in September, I was pretty impressed by the depth of the catalog of music they had available. With all the major labels represented in the new venture, there was a lot of music you could go and listen to if you took the time to find it.

Unfortunately the experience was more than a little lacking. There wasn’t a way to search for songs or albums; rather, searching for those things pulled a list of profiles and discography pages that met your search criteria. Listening to the music was also less than optimal; browsing and playback of all the albums offered by the service took place within the player on the profile.

Over the past six months they’ve added more songs, more labels, and more artists. On the front end, they made some significant updates to music search and introduced music and playlist pages. Now you can listen to the full song in search, add it to your playlist, jump straight to the album, or go to the profile. With the publicly browse-able playlists, I’m not just putting together songs for myself, I’m putting it together for the world to enjoy.

It’s still not perfect, by any means, but the fact that I can listen to a bunch of New Wave songs all day makes me happier than I probably deserve.

glyphic’s New Wave playlist

myspace-new-wave-playlist

“Please, please tell me now!”

“I wanna know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m only human… born to make mistakes.”

“I’ve got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 senses working overtime.”

Random

There’s more oil and local gin in Benin City, Nigeria

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I’m pleased to share the news that Dorcas Omokaro has fully repaid her microloan on Kiva. As you may recall, she was my first Kiva microloan, a Nigerian mother of five who sells palm oil and gin. My great hope is that the kids don’t email me in ten years about a vast fortune or with an offer to buy the thing I’m selling on Craigslist. No, they’ll be mixing gin tonics, Pegus, and classic martinis in a bar down the road from their mother’s off-license.

Nora Rosa Rodríguez Rodríguez and Lan Thi Nguyen have now repaid 33% and 67% respectively. Ali just received his funds, so you’ll hear updates about him in the future.

I haven’t picked my next entrepreneur yet. I’m hoping to keep the money widely distributed, so I’ll be looking for another opportunity in Africa, preferably with a funny name to boot. Drop me a comment if you see something interesting.

Poker

Paying your gambling debts

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I talked to my wife before last night’s home game got under way. She had forgotten I was playing poker, so I offered to make her feel better:

Me: I’ll give you half of my winnings.

Her: I want 70%.

Me: How about 51%?

Her: You’re not a nice husband!

Me: Okay, if I make $80 you can have 70%, otherwise just 50.

Her: Ok.

$80 would mean quintupling up, so I figured it was unlikely. Then one of the guys poked his head out and asked if I was okay with doubling the stakes. Oops.

I ended the night with about 4.5x the buyin and texted my wife the results.

Me: On my way. Up 143.50

Her: Thank you!! I will get 100.45 from you!! 😉

The problem with this structure, of course, is that once I triple my buy-in, I’m now playing to either lose a few bucks or make over four and a third times the buy-in. Anything in-between loses me money.

I think I’ll take a page from the IRS and introduce brackets to my next deal.

Useful Stuff

File for unemployment

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This probably sounds pretty obvious to a lot of people, but if you’ve lost your job, file for unemployment benefits as soon as you are no longer working.

I’ve known a few people who’ve lost their jobs and seemed reluctant to file for unemployment benefits. They figure their financial situation is not dire and that they can get by with their savings and severance packages until they land a new gig. I’m not sure if this is a matter of pride, an inability to deal with a highly stressful situation, or pure laziness.

The fact of the matter is that if you’ve had gainful employment, then you’ve been paying for unemployment insurance directly and indirectly, and now’s the time to collect on that insurance. The benefits aren’t much; the maximum in California is $450 a week if you earned an annual salary of $47,000 or higher. But they should take the edge off your unemployed status and give you some breathing room until you find a new job that’s comparable to your old.

Benefits can start the week you are unemployed; you may not get benefits for up to one week, starting from the time you file for unemployment benefits, so you’re best off filing as soon as you can. With almost 1 in 10 workers facing unemployment, processing times can be lengthy. Again, you’re best off filing as soon as you can.

California Employment Development Department – Unemployment