What's good Downies? Just checking in and updating ya'll. Where to start?

1) My externship is almost done. Been working 40+ hours on location, and I haven't learned anything I didn't already know. FML right? Still getting paid so I'm not tripping!

2) I cancelled my wow acct. Yep, priorities. I'm not broke but 15 x 12 is 180 a year I can use elsewhere. It didn't hurt at all.

3) Working 2.5 jobs atm! Line Cook, Apartment Representative (I host open houses at vacant apartments and try to get them rented) and Amatuer Poker player at a local casino. Laugh all you want at the last bit but I am up 385 in 1 week.

SO, ever since I've been away from wow I've been doing some thinking. Should I go back? Will I ever get time todo so? What's left for me really? I'm still undecided. I've always been super hardcore and even if I were to come back, I wouldn't be able to do what I'd like. Simply isn't enough time in the day. So dunno yadidimean?

My family is pretty tight knit, even my relatives in Italy. When i first went over, my Aunt told me something I will hold near and dear to me. 'We don't say goodbye in our family, we say see you soon."

See you soon Downies

im back to playing again :D school isnt hard having all easy classes and have mroe time than i thought id have

i can raid full days
tues,thurs,friday,saturday (unless soccer game), and sunday (unless soccer game)

monday and wed i ahve soccer practice from 6-7:30
 

As some of you know, I'm a Drupal developer/themer/consultant. Drupal is the content management framework that runs this website. It's incredibly powerful with features limited only to our imaginations.

Now, like the car mechanic whose own car is crap, Downfallguild.org has been pretty neglected. I'm reaching out to you guys for some ideas.

First, something we have in the works: Downfall is about to get a "Raids" section of the site that not only gives us a heads up display about every raid we have, but shows members of that raid, upcoming scheduled raids, raid leaders, latest boss kills and mascot images.  People starting up 10-man raids will be able to start up their own groups, with their own areas to discuss their raid issues.This ties into the our upcoming "character" system that allows us to associate our toons with our site accounts. A little bit of this can be seen here: /wowarmory

Now, what I'd like to see from you guys: Ideas. Heavy site users like Saedo, Kwondre, Knoppix and others, I'd like some input about what you guys would LIKE to do on the site. Blogs and forums are fine, but could we do more? A better tracker by chance?Have you guys seen featuers on another site that you'd like to see emulated here?

I'd like you all start here: http://drupal.org/project/modules?filters=drupal_core:87&solrsort=sort_title%20asc.  That's a list of all the modules available to Drupal that are compatible with our version. Do you see any modules that stand out as being badass and something that would benefit our guild/raids/new-site-users?

Please no "I want ice cream sprinkled with diamonds and a pony" posts, only legitimate input. Thanks for your help. Let me know if you have any questions about Drupal!

So today in physics class we we're talking about how much it costs to get into space. My physics is also the school's astronomy teacher so we were discussing alternate ways of orbit. Anyways, I forgot the actual amount of money it costs per gram to get into space but it was a lot.

A few hours I find this article... it says that 2 MIT students managed to get pictures of space for a grand total of $148.

Materials: Weather balloon filled with helium. Digital camera. Foam ice chest full of beer (beer kept on ground). And a pre-paid cell-phone with GPS.

The MIT students used another college's weather tracker to find still winds which would keep the balloon within the state. They then attached the foam ice chest to the weather balloon. They taped the digital camera to the bottom, and put the GPS phone inside.

They used open-source firmware to hack the camera so it would take one picture every 5 seconds (used an 8gig mem card). To keep the camera and phone from freezing, they used instant hand warmers.

Finally they followed the GPS signal on the phone and retrieved the 18 mile high pictures later.

This is a cheap enough project for a fucking elementary school... why doesn't NASA think of this shit?

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students...?

Heres a little chart I found to help understand the height, they went 30 kilometers in the air: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmosphere_layers-en.svg

If most of your savings are in a high-yield savings account or (even worse) under your mattress...you're not preserving your hard earned cash...you're losing it.

Consider this...

The current yield on an ING Direct savings account is 1.98%. The long-term inflation rate in the United States is just north of 2%. That means, every year (at this rate) you are losing 0.02% of your purchasing power. And that's BEFORE taxes.

Assuming a 35% interest income tax rate, your effective after-tax yield on that ING Direct savings account is 1.29%, which means your losing about $0.71 per year on every $100 you put in that savings account.

There are alternatives, but before I mention them...keep this is mind: 

There is no such thing as free money. Any profit requires SOME amount of risk

Now, I work with stocks on a day to day basis, and I'm not advocating it to those that are at all risk averse. No one knows where the hell the market is going these days - even if stocks are generally a good long-term investment.

However, you can effectively save without taking excessive risk.

Municpal Bonds are typically unpopular investment vehicles in normal economic times because

A) people don't understand what they are

B) people don't make money selling them to you

and C) they seem relatively unsexy

Basically, when you buy a "muni" you are assuming the debt obligations of the state or city that is offering that debt. They use your money for public services, utilities, infrastructure building etc etc.

What is the risk? That city or state goes bankrupt and is unable to pay its obligations.

How often has that happened? Wel...besides California, no muni has come close in this current economic crisis (I believe). And even California's IOU's are being backed by private institutions.

So...taking the New York muni for example, NYF is a municipal bond ETF. It is currently yielding 4% or so. But here's the kicker. Muni bonds CAN be triple-tax-advantaged, meaning exempt from taxation at the city-state-federal level.

SOOO, to find a 4% after-tax yield, you would need to find an investment or savings account that yields somewhere around 7%...good luck.

For all you people stuffing your mattresses with cash...I think the statistical probability of your house getting burglarized is greater than the chance of a major municipality going bankrupt.

SOOOOO...if you are relatively risk averse, but are looking to NOT lose money to the gods of inflation and taxation...look into muni bonds....there's my RL tip of the week.

So on another community I'm active in a thread involved into a discussion about water cooled systems, and other ways to cool the system. (someone's PC overheated and the thread evolved from there)

Anyways, someone brought this up and I've never heard of it before. Its a computer submerged in mineral oil. It looks badass for one... But I guess (according to the second youtube link in a minute) its not really that much cooler, but it is ultra quite. Let me know if you know anything about there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOe6F1rZKQ