Business
What eventually happens to most stamp collections
I was at the post shipping some items when in came a man with a stack of boxes. The boxes were all covered in stamps. Seems what he does is buy large stamp collections on ebay and use them for postage! The reason why this works is people who inherit stamp collections want money not the stamps. Thus when they sell the collection most times they sell at a discount over face value. After a quick review on ebay I realized I could not recreate this scenario for my own shipping needs. Any ideas why students? A look at ebay quickly reveals why. You have to sort through a large number of junky stamp auctions to do this trick. The only way you do this is to be very interested in stamp collecting yourself. It is my guess that this fellow probably sifts through collections and looks for any gems and removes them before using the more ordinary stamps for postage. I would not be surprised if he is selling some of these winnowed collections again on ebay. The size of boxes he ships are large enough that if he is doing this then he is selling large notebooks full of them. Likely more than one book too.
The world is full of arbitrages. Some of them require a genuine interest. I find stamps boring to the extreme.
Economics
Video: Andrew Marrs History of Modern Britain 1945 to 2007
This is more an economic and political history of Britain than anything else. The economic and political epochs of Britain are covered with nothing else talked about. Even cultural events mentioned have strong bearing on economics with an example being a massive party that was the prototype rave. Raves of Read more…
Business
Automattic WordPress business model
Straight from Matt Mullenweg's mouth: We basically make money from our services 4 ways:
1. WP.com upgrades (space, domains, etc) – http://wordpress.com/produ
2. Ads on WP.com, which we show very rarely
3. VIP customers – http://wordpress.com/vip-h
4. Akismet licenses – http://akismet.com/commerc
Life-Hacks
Sandals stink a bit-How do you get teva rubber sandals to stop stinking after you sweat in them? Stopping teva sandals stinking
How do you get teva rubber sandals to stop stinking after you sweat in them.? My Teva sandals smell a little bit. How can I get them to stop kickin? Use my sandal mummification process.
My solution is easier if you have 2 pairs. Get an old shoebox and dump a bunch of Borax in it. Take one pair and and bury them cover them in Borax. Let them rest their for a while. This works pretty well in Arizona where its very dry. The Borax sucks the moisture out and a bit of it diffuses into the sandal material. Borax is antibacterial and you will find your sandals smelling alot better. You can do this on a nightly basis but what works best is to leave them in the borax a week so you do not have to dust them off everyday. Simply pull out the ones that have been mummifying for a week and put your second pair in. Then you always have a stink free pair.
Funny
Deal JuJitsu Carlos Coquet Computer Maverick and the Sale of the Osborn Like XT
In 1992 I bought out a computer school. For the total of 1500 dollars I got -1- a bunch of computer desks, chairs -2- television projection units ( an ancient version of DLP ) -3- washer / dryer -4- a couple of computers -5- god knows what else
This was one of the computers This was my first deal where I was trying to make a buck on my own. So I ended up with all this stuff piled up in the garage and now needed to sell it! One of the more memorable encounters selling this stuff was with Carlos Coquet the Computer Maverick.
Carlos' business card. Colorful character, colorful card He called up and got directions. He was driving from North Scottsdale to Litchfield Park Arizona. It took him about 50 minutes to drive there. I had listed the computer for 120 dollars but he did what everyone tries to do when they buy secondhand…they try to finagle a lower price. Carlos: I am looking at this computer and I think I could not possibly pay more than 80$ for it. Me: Well … I have another guy coming to see it tomorrow night. If he does not buy it then you can come back and buy it. Carlos: Ooohhh the drive here was so long. Alright I will give you the 120. Me: chuckling inside and thinking..there was not another person coming to look at the computer. But finally the endless ripping I had been sustaining as a novice seller had come to an end. I had finally learned a little deal jujitsu.
Sonofa! After receiving the comment below regarding calling the number I googled Carlos and found his website:
http://www.computermaverick.com/
… I still do not exactly know what a computer maverick is but that is 95% of the fun.
UPDATE: As you will see below a couple of people below have reported Carlos has passed away. Some commenters had criticized me for placing his card here with his information. I no longer have any self doubt about this. My heart is warmed by the people who left comments regarding his passing and how they miss him. It's interesting how the really good people can pass through your life very rapidly and leave a trace that in the end increased my humanity. Carlos we miss you.