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MacBook Pro Upgrade with Hitachi 500GB Hard Drive
After I purchased Dora the Explorer, Season One from the iTunes Store, I discovered that it was also time to upgrade the hard drive inside the MacBook Pro. With only 4GB free, I decided that I should not wait any longer. There were only so many file that I could delete without regret. So, I…
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Melamine Contaminated Chinese Food Products
Each day, government officials worldwide are announcing that more and more Chinese food products contain melamine. The good news is that someone is testing all the products, obvious or not, for melamine contamination. The Voice of America reported that latest products recalled include Koala brand chestnut and chocolate flavored cookies, Nabisco Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches…
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Private Mortgage Insurance
Something just doesn’t make sense. Even if a bank extended an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) to a borrower with imperfect credit and required less than 20 percent down, isn’t the bank “protected” by private mortgage insurance if the borrower defaults? According to the Federal Reserve Bank, PMI is extra insurance that lenders require from most homebuyers…
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Real Estate Bubble
Back in 2001, a person told me that the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market was appreciating too quickly. With thoughts of the dot.com stock deflation fresh in mind, he told me that he had sold his house to lock-in his gains and will be buying a new house once the real estate bubble…
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Don’t Follow the White Rabbit
A few days ago, I spotted this post: Tainted Milk in China; No Threat in US. However, that headline is not entirely accurate. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a Health Information Advisory that “there is no known threat of contamination of infant formula manufactured by companies that have met the requirements to sell…
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No Need to Panic
The financial meltdown on Wall Street “is like deja vu all over again,” to misquote Yogi Berra. Somehow, these once in a lifetime or once in a century financial crises keep occurring, well before the century has run out. With 1999-2000 still fresh in mind, we all have some frame of reference for understanding how…
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Beijing Olympics Goodwill Goes Poof
I think all the goodwill generated by the Beijing Olympics has just disappeared. China’s Dairy Woes Widen. Wall Street Journal. China Milk Scandal Widens as Melamine Found in Yogurt. Bloomberg.
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Melamine Contamination in Infant Milk Powder
Last year, Caroline Smith Dewaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees and stated, “We see the pet food recall as a warning sign for the government that they need to do more to protect the food supply. It could easily happen to an ingredient used in…
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Emperor Pu-Yi Severance Agreement
I love Google’s news archive search. I just discovered a New York Times article from February 13, 1912 announcing that Emperor Pu-Yi had abdicated from the throne. The interesting part, at least for me, was the terms of the abdication. Specifically, the Republicans pledged that “[t]he Emperor shall receive an annual grant of 4,000,000 taels…
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Google Chrome Has Stopped Working
I’ve been using Chrome, Google’s opening act in the browser market. However, I haven’t abandoned my beloved Mac. Instead, I’m running Chrome inside of VMware Fusion and am loving it. The browser is surprisingly responsive, despite my less than optimal configuration. It hasn’t crashed on me yet, but a Google Chrome has stopped working window…