Incursio

My wife and I have never missed a payment on any debt in over 16 years. Not one. A bit over a year ago, we refinanced our home, lowered our rates and paid off some of our other debt. We were conservative - financing less than 80% of the value of our home. We have NEVER taken one of the crazy risky loans. Every mortgage we have had for over 10 years has been a conventional regular old fashioned pay down the principle fixed rate loan. No sub-prime crap, no baloon payments, no 115% of value LOC, no 30-due-in-15 or any other tricky fancy loans. Just normal stuff. This week, we decided to try and take advantage of the low interest rates, and save a couple percent. Additionally there are supposed to be some government benefits for loan companies to help people who are in good standing refinance that we were hoping to utilize. We called to refinance our home, and found out this:

Only 1 million payments of $4000 each!

Today after work I wanted to walk a bit. Since I needed to be at Gabriel Park this evening I figured I would give it a shot. I cheated a little by taking the streetcar down to South Waterfront, and riding the Tram up to OHSU. Which was pretty cool in and of itself, as winds were around 50mph and the car was swinging...

From a recent article in New York Magazine: New York’s streets are getting new ownership. Lane by lane, curb cut by parking space, in steps so scattered and incremental that they hardly get noticed, people on foot are wresting control of the asphalt from those behind the wheel. and the basic unit of urban life: the street. There, lifestyles intersect and city dwellers co-exist with people different from themselves. It’s where we learn toleration, where leisure shares space with urgency, commerce with activism, baby carriages with handcarts. When it is narrowed by garbage or overwhelmed by traffic, then the street reverts to its most primitive use: as a corridor. But a truly public place allows people to move at many different paces, or not to move at all. The article talks about Robert Moses. Who was Robert Moses ? He was an extremely powerful developer and politician for four decades in New York City. BikePortland has an i nteresting article and subsequent discussion about...

I have been involved in many discussions held in many forums about the Portland OHSU Aerial Tram. Now, all controversy aside - one common opinion that I hear frequently concerns me. Often, the Tram will be disregarded as a valuable link in Portland's bike network. To all who would say that the Tram does not provide a valuable connection or link for bicyclists, I would suggest heading down to the base of the Tram and look around. I did.

I don't care how much the "industry" tries to tell you that RFID in things like credit cards, passports, or IDs is OK - it is not. RFID is not (by design) secure, and never will be. The companies and lawyers can lie and lie and lie - and most of the population seems to believe them - but RFID systems can be hacked easily, and are hacked regularly. Don't trust RFID. Here I am linking to another blog post, simply because it is easier than reciting the entire story here... But the credit card companies don't want you to know that RFID is insecure. They badly don't want you to know, so much so they bullied Mythbusters into not airing it in an episode. Mythbusters gagged by credit card companies over RFID episode Now, I know I am just a "dude on the internet" and have no real authority. So if you don't want to believe a couple of bloggers, I suggest you Google around a bit and find out for yourself. Just don't whine when something b...