Finance

After 20+ years with Ulster Bank (All hail Henry Hippo), and with countless computer, customer service, overdraft, and credit card problems, I’m jumping ship to Santander on the advice of my friends, colleagues and family. It hasn’t gone so well. Credit Background I’ve been a good boy, when it comes to finance. No loans other than Student No Car No Mortgage No Dependants Reasonable ‘Disposable income’ (even if that income is usually ‘disposed’ in either bars and restaurants or gadgets) Been employed in one form or another since I was 15 A few slip ups on the credit card but always paid back within the next month A few slips over the overdrafts an undergrad, but who didn’t? Currently well out of my overdraft So I called in last week, asked what paperwork I’d need to move my account, was given great assistance and told ‘We’ve got you an appointment next week and we can sort it all out’ ...

So I did a TEDx Belfast, and had loads of fun (as you can probably see). Check out the rest of the playlist here, and I highly recommend fellow Dalriad, Leon McCarron’s talk on adventuring, Tony Gallagher’s discussion of the benefits and future of shared education, and definitely check out two talks that must have been spying on my preparations; Lisa McElherron talking about dissidents, and Charo Lanao-Madden on the power of changing perspectives. Thanks go to Davy and everyone else involved in running this great event! ...

See Part 1 for an introduction to this series. Response to Part 1 Two things came out of my posting of Part 1; I was “strongly encouraged” to have a look at the evidence pack as well as the initial strategy document (unfortunately changing what was intended to be a 3-part break down into more like a 8 part). So I’ll plod on through the rest of the strategy as read and then go through the evidence pack and see what got lost in the wash. ...

Ordered Groceries (Tesco Online), Ordered Case of Wine (Virgin Wines), Planned PhD and Literature Review writing (StackExchange) Read more papers (Mendeley) Managed some Investments (Zopa) As I was walking back from our kitchen in the office, I realised that that ’lift coffee cup, walk to kitchen, make coffee cup, return to desk’ was the most inefficient part of my working day; I can even justify writing this post as vaguely productive as I’m waiting for a download to complete… ...

Inspired by Barry Haughey’s recent facebook post; Dear International Banking Conglomerates and other major employers, I just spent 3 hours of my life writing custom cover letters, answering pointless assessment questions, and entering my ‘skillsets’ on 4 different occasions for an application for one job… Just gimme the bloody job already; you’re big enough and ugly enough to have been able to pick up all that infomation from either a) My extensive and detailed resume, b) my attached university transcript. ...

Why PulseAudio? The Freesound Project Aggregates Creative Commons Licensed Sound Effects [Sound Effects] ONE LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE HOTEL PENNSYLVANIA Venting Frustration Will Only Make Your Anger Worse [Mindhacks] U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff - Bloomberg -_ “So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.” ...

Remember that little economic apocalypse that happened a few years ago? You may remember it as the day your 401(k) dropped a digit or 3; those short sighted (w/b)ankers and middle management that essentially collectively said “You want some money? Sure, go ahead!” to the entire world and didn’t think about where it was coming from, while getting paid sums of money that would make Scrouge McDuck blush. Well, turns out they have been too greedy at home (no suprise). ...

Post something at least once a day on either blog or web-album Stop sleeping in after 10am Drop some savings into the stock market, only take profits out, don’t add anything more Write an actual blog article once a week Find and contribute to an open source project Pull together a real portfolio of work Find more clients for my freelance work Set a timetable and stick to it Well, its a plan at least.

For a man who’s title is currently Baron Mandelson, _of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham, _First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of the Council, educated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and is hotly tipped to become a major part of the Lisbon-Treaty-generated-unelected-cou-detat-european-super-parliment, you’d think the power-addicted, peace-process screwing, ‘shreud loaning’ rat would leave well enough alone. ...