While in Perdido Eric bought this book on the first day it came out and finished it the following day. Then David read it in two days and I was able to start it, but then had to buy a copy myself when I got home so I could finish it.
Month: July 2005
Dots on Soda Cans
At Perdido, Kelly pointed out that there are colored dots on the bottom of soda cans. Different cans have different colors. I checked all the cans and they all had a dot of some color on the bottom. Even cans from the same 12-pack will have different colors. I thought there had to be a reason, but didn’t know what it might be. I did a search on Google and had the answer in minutes:
http://www.nordson.com/Businesses/Container/Products/containerinkdot.htm
In a factory there might be several machines printing the cans and each machine prints a different color dot on the bottom of the can. This way, if there is a problem they will know which machine to shut down while the other machines continue working.
Happy Birthday Blogmaster!
Retirement Savings
In April of 1992, as a still fairly new employee at the DOT, I started contributing to the state version of a 401k: a deferred compensation plan. I started pretty small and put my money in Fidelity Magellan. This was my first exposure to investing in the stock market. I have been contributing ever since, slow and steady. By January of 2000 I calculated that my savings had doubled in value and I had more in gains than I had invested. But by September 2002 that gain had been completely wiped out and my savings were worth *less* than what I had put into the account.
The amount of my contributions varied over time so it was hard to calculate an average rate of return to see how I was doing. I finally figured out a way by guessing an interest rate and applying that to every quarterly balance in my spreadsheet. If the total of all those quarters of interest and my contributions adds up to what I actually have in the account, then that’s my number, otherwise I just guess higher or lower until I zero in.
My original estimate when calculating the hundreds of thousands I would have saved up by retirement was 7% which reflects the historic stock market return of 10% minus 3% for the historic inflation rate. I have been investing now for 13 lucky years. And I finally have the answer for the average annual rate of return during that entire period: 1.75%.
Sparklers
While watching Avondale’s excellent fireworks with Mom (down from 16 people) last night I saw some kids playing with sparklers. For years sparklers were the only fireworks you could buy legally in Georgia and we got to play with them when we were kids. But I got hurt worse and more often from sparklers than any kind of firework I can think of. Sparklers consist of a flaming hot wire spewing sparks that kids wave around while burning each others retinas out. Meanwhile with regular fireworks everyone knows the rules: light fuse and get away. What could be simpler than that?