Paul Graham

In case you didn’t know, Paul Graham came up with the plan for dealing with spam. He also likes to write about Lisp, hackers and start-up companies because he’s a lisp hacker who started a company.

I once wrote an email to Paul Graham about an idea for dealing with spam. Tara and I share Thunderbird as our email program, and when I wrote the email, I forgot to change the sender from Tara (the default) to me. The next day, Tara asked me who Paul Graham was. I told her and asked her why she asked. “Well, he sent me this email out of the blue.”

Tara enjoys teasing me about this. Whenever I mention Paul Graham she says, “Oh Paul? Yeah we email each other.” It’s particularly ironic since Tara has little interest in most of what he writes. However, his latest article was an exception. Paul Graham writes about where much of the mainstream news comes from. Tara was as fascinated by it as I was, so I commend it to your reading.

Posted by Jeremy on April 27, 2005. 3 Comments.

The Banana Cycle

I’ve noticed that banana availability in the Stein family kitchen has a cyclical nature. I believe it has to do with the weekly grocery shopping schedule versus the time it takes bananas to ripen.

Week 1:
Monday: Purchase one bunch of bananas. (6-8 in a bunch)
Thursday: Bananas are finally ripe. Begin eating one per day.

Week 2:
Monday: There are still 1-3 bananas remaining. Buy no more bananas.
Wednesday: Begin suffering from banana-withdrawal.

Week 3:
Monday: Remembering banana-shortage, purchase 2 bunches of bananas.
Thursday: Bananas are finally ripe. Begin eating one per day.

Week 4:
Monday: There are still 7-11 bananas remaining. Buy no more bananas.
Thursday: Bananas are over-ripe. Eat extra bananas. Make banana bread.

Week 5:
Monday: Sick of eating bananas and banana bread. Buy no bananas.

And the cycle repeats.

Posted by Jeremy on April 21, 2005. 4 Comments.

Sending Money to Japan

I would like to send some money to someone in Japan. US dollars would probably be about as annoying to them as Canadian dollars are to me. So, I’d like to send the money in yen. You’d think this would be simple.

Well, I could walk into the local bank, ask to buy some yen. If I’m lucky, they’d have yen on hand and I’d pay a small premium over the exchange rate. I can’t believe it’s really that dangerous, but everyone tells me not to send cash through the mail. OK, I won’t.

How about a check drawn on a Japanese bank? Well, I don’t live near a Japanese bank. Some banks offer the ability to buy money orders in other currencies, but I don’t live near one of them either.

OK, how about Western Union? Their technology became obsolete in the late 19th century, but they’re still around selling the transfer of money. Hand money to an agent at one Western union and they tell another Western union (via telegraph?) near the receiver to have the money ready. I tried to set up a transaction with them online. They would have charged me $15, but I gave up when it appeared that my Japanese friend would have to pick the money up in Missouri. I guess that must be their closest office to Japan.

I realize there are convenient ways to transfer money from one virtual account to another (PayPal, E-Gold, etc.), but I’d really like my friend to receive something easy to accept. Cash would be ideal, but a check would also be OK.

Does anyone have a good solution to this problem?

Posted by Jeremy on April 20, 2005. 33 Comments.