Comments on: Farrago: Water, Chrome, Money and Ass

By: ChinaMatt

ChinaMatt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:49:09 +0000

Personal finances is a pain in the ass. I too need to make more money. Unfortunately, I’m going to be spending more on a new little project that won’t reap the financial rewards that I need.

As for Chrome, I’m not a fan yet. Since downloading it, I’ve noticed Firefox opens slower than before. Also, Chrome doesn’t work well when posting photos on blogspot…kinda odd since it’s owned by Google.

By: stuart

stuart — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:04:40 +0000

Will VPN or Gladder access anything? How do they differ? I tried an alternative to Tor previously (u/surf)and didn’t find it so effective.

I’m a bit of a technophobe, but I appreciate that some of these applications work in a slightly different way. I live with Tor’s dawdling because nothing else seems to work.

As for investments, Ryan, I strongly recommend that you wait for a casino to open in Suzhou and hit the tables. Alternatively, buy the books mentioned above.

By: Matt Schiavenza

Matt Schiavenza — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:37:57 +0000

Haha, like the note about personal finances. I’m going on 28 and am just leaving the piggy bank phase.

Used to be a Tor user as well until I discovered Gladder. Tor will proxy anything but man…its slowness was killing me. Gladder also only proxies sites that need it, rather than any site you want to look at.

By: Marty

Marty — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:07:36 +0000

Hi Ryan,
I 2nd (or third) the nomination for “Intelligent Investor” (pro-Value Investing). Also “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” (pro-Index Fund) and if you are feeling really brave “Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. No specific investing advice in the last one, but Smith writes in a beautiful style and it’s truly amazing how much of what he said 200 years ago about micro and macro economics is still true.

I hate to give any specific advice, but here are two general pieces of advice.
1) Never take action after reading one book or source. Read at least two or more, because they are almost guaranteed to disagree with each other a bit.

2) Famous last words “This time (place…) is different”. About 15 months ago I tried cautioning some of my Chinese friends that the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges seemed overpriced. The response was always “Chinese markets are different.” None of those people want to discuss their stock market experiences any more – they just cringe.

BTW, I talked with you a while back about getting an e-bike. I did end up buying an e-bike back in the US (seemed like less hassle). I got something off the web from a California-based company that just slaps their name on a Chinese vendor’s bike.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:54:14 +0000

@Chris L: Will take a look for it – you guys are filling up my reading list!

@維特利: Empowerment should be a major part of any charity’s long-term goals – of course – but, ummm, using some rather simple logic here: if they could build their own wells, would there be a need for a charity to go and build them? I mean, this isn’t something they just discovered they needed – it’s water.

Additionally, I’m quite certain that Africans will be digging the wells – the part they weren’t able to do was raising the 1.5 million bucks for the gear to build the wells.

Sometimes it doesn’t come down to foreigners helping poor, sad natives. Sometimes it’s just people helping people. No “us” and “them”… just “us”.

By: 維特利

維特利 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:50:44 +0000

I am not buying the point of view that just to dig wells Africans need foreigner. Can’t they do it themselves?

Recently in Canadian newspaper they wrote an article about one Canadian carpenter who went to Afganistan to help build schools and was killed there. I am wondering, can’t Afgani build schools themselves? Maybe they should be being taught carpenter skills or well digging skills instead of being provided with finished infrastucture.

By: Chris L

Chris L — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:58:42 +0000

I would suggest reading “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them” by Thomas Gilovich.
Also, despite making Google Chrome my primary browser, the lack of Delicious integration is a minor frustration for me as well.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:20:06 +0000

@Jeremy: Cheers m8. Will definitely check out those books. You’re the second person to recommend “The Intelligent Investor” so I’ll be putting that on the top of my reading.

@Klortho: Great advice regarding passwords. I’ve never brought my computer anywhere to get it fixed, so it’s not something I’ve ever given much thought to – but people should, DEFINITELY should. Just ask Edison Chen about snooping repairmen.

And cheers for that VPN link – will see if I can add anything to your “knol”.

By: Klortho

Klortho — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:25:27 +0000

Oh, I forgot the comments I was going to make originally: Chrome is a non-starter for me until they get a master password feature. It looks like they have some other security flaws as well, but the lack of a master password feature is a serious disappointment. People need to be more aware of this kind of security hole. A lot of people, even fairly tech-savvy ones, whether out of laziness or whatever, when they take their computer in to a shop to have it repaired, would leave themselves wide open to exploitation unless their Internet passwords are secure. I recently started using Password Safe, which is nice, but not as convenient as having the browser remembering the passwords. But I'm not willing to use that feature unless it's protected with a master password. As expats in China, I'd suggest you be doubly paranoid.

By: Klortho

Klortho — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:12:54 +0000

The VPN you're thinking of is Hotspot Shield, introduced in this post by Rick on Lost Laowai, including a fancy video introduction. I started a knol on circumventing the Great Firewall, with some other tips and tricks. Any suggestions / participation in working on that knol would be great.