Powen Shiah - the space between

NY Times Piece on Steven Chu perpetuates model minority stereotypes

He comes from a family of academic overachievers. His father emigrated from China to study chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and retired as a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. His mother studied economics in China and at M.I.T. One brother, Gilbert, is a professor of medicine and biochemistry at Stanford; the other, Morgan, is a highly regarded intellectual property lawyer in Los Angeles. Dr. Chu once described himself as the academic black sheep of the family.
via nytimes.com

hi, meet your new dorky noble-prize-winning SOOOPERnerd Secretary of Energy who's better at science than with dealing with people-skill stuff like GIGANTIC BUREAUCRACY.

sigh

Resting in the glare off the Institut du monde arabe in Paris

It's been a long day, these planned 12 hours in Paris. It was raining when I arrived, walked to the Marais district from Gare de l'Est (I think that's what it's called), through my 10€ worth of coffee (one cappucino and one café au lait), all the way until I found the viaduc arts / promenade plantée.

 I walked along the Seine; ate a crepe with ham, cheese, and mushrooms; found a boulangerie to grab a pastry at; and by sheet luck turned around to see the institut du monde arabe which I'd been half- heartedly hoping to find.

 Lotta mentioned it as a place with a great view, and it definitely is. That I can now sit in the sun, rest my legs, and blog is just icing on the cake. Geeze, this morning was miserably wet and cold.

 Knock on wood, the autofocus on my camera miraculously started working again. Thank you Paris!

Taxes, retirement, IRAs, and all that stuff that I usually don't write about

I usually don't post personal finance-ish stuff, but this is a pretty good video (about 6 minutes) from Vanguard (I have an account there, though I've not really looked into retirement stuff very intensively). The guy isn't the most engaging speaker but ... you can't have everything.

What struck me is that part of the calculation of Roth IRAs is that it's usually a bet on being in a higher tax bracket when you're in retirement. Considering the amount of money that the US is spending (has spent!) on wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, on Drugs, on Terror), bank bailouts, economic stimulus and in general spending-money-we-don't-have-and-must-borrow-from-the-rest-of-the-world....

Some recent related readings that have struck a chord (all NY Times):

Your taxes are going up

Some Honesty about Taxes

Not that I ever dream of being in one of those higher tax brackets mostly talked about in those two links, but I imagine that in general taxes will rise as the U.S. struggles to pay down (hahahahahaha) the national debt.

So excited to get my Moo business cards that I unpacked them and took pictures!

via flickr.com

I especially liked the little "buzzword bingo" game card that they came with... I wonder if I can get a game started at CeBIT.

About the cards -- Malte helped me with the text placement. I don't have a number in the U.S. yet for work or an address, so I thought it'd be better to leave it blank. Would have been neat to be able to put both on there, but this way I have room to write stuff on it. The backs of the cards are all screenshots of various Jimdo sites.

I just had a flashback moment to the scene in American Psycho (the movie) where they sit around talking and comparing their business cards.

I'm gonna stop now before I go on a chainsaw killing rampage.