The Evil Overlord List

I first came across the Evil Overlord List (The Top 100 Things I won't do if I Ever Became Became an Evil Overlord) in the late 1990s. But in the last few weeks I've seen it mentioned three times: in a Jim Butcher/Dresden Files book and by two of my favorite bloggers (Steve Bainbridge at Professorbainbridge and Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost). So, I guess that means I should post it on the blog (after all, it is a Monday).

The EOL contains a fairly complete list of caricature mistakes made by villains. A few of my personal favorites are:

• I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat (#11)
  
• One of my advisers will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation (#12)
• I will not turn into a snake. It never helps. (#34)
• And, showing that a good Evil overlord understands the power of incentives: I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again. (#68)
  

If 100 things not to do isn't enough and you want to be the best Evil Overlord possible, there are a couple hundred more here and here.

Friday Link Dump

It's back in the saddle again in the Unknown Household. The Unknown Kids and Unknown Wife are at the beach, and I'm here working on research (ah, to be tenured). Since stuff has been piling up in my feed reader, it's time for a link dump to get rid of all the things I didn't post over my vacation:

Investing
The DK report has a good piece on market timing indicators. I question their usefulness, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The Aleph Blog is fast becoming one of my favorite sites. In this piece, it presents
twenty five ways to reduce investment risk. It also has nice piece explaining the Fed Model and Price-Book/ROE analysis.

Bespoke Investing has been researching patterns in analyst upgrades and downgrades over the last few years.

The NY Times reports on the rising popularity of 130/30 funds.

Here's a macabre but very interesting example of financial engineering - "Death bonds". The actual industry-preferred term is "life settlement backed securities". They are securities backed by the death benefits of life insurance polities. I think they're a good thing.

Academic Research

Keeping up with the Jones also seems to happen in the investing world. The NY Times reports on research by Illinois professors Zoran Ivkovich and Scott Weisbenner. They find that your investment choices are affected by what your neighbors are doing.

How does politics affect the stock market? According to this study by Tomasz Wisniewski titled "Can Political Factors Explain the Behavior of Stock Prices Beyond the Standard Present Value Models?", stocks tend to be overvalued (undervalued) when Democrats (Republicans) hold the Presidency, and high (low) when Presidential approval ratings are high (low). (HT: CXO Advisory Group)


Private Equity and Hedge Funds
In what's probably not a good sign for the PE market, there are increasing numbers of financing deals that are getting postponed or cancelled. TheDeal.com reports.

Marketbeat lets us in on a technique activist investors use to bring more pressure on target firms. They increase their voting power over and above their actual stock holdings levels by using swaps and other derivatives.

Here's a new term (for me at least) - Pier Loans, compliments of Calculated Risk.

Enough for now. Back to work.

More on Screen Recording Software

After a few missteps (and a call to Techsmith's customer support), I manged to get my screen recording software up and running. I usually spend the majority of the first day of class on administrative things - how I grade, how many quizzes, exams, projects, etc...

It's never fun, and it suck a lot of energy out of the first class. But it is important material. So this time, put it all into a short recording, and I'll post it on the web. I'll still hand out the syllabus in class (at the END of the class), but instead of wasting precious class time on what I call "administrivia", and can use it to deliver some real content.

I'm pretty excited about the prospects for this stuff. I can see myself eventually moving a significant portion of my material online, and then using classroom time for the elements that don't lend themselves to web-based learning - like working problems, cases, and classroom discussion. This will also make it very easy to transition my materials to an online setting.

Yes, I am a hopeless nerd. But I'm o.k. with that.

Update: Bob Jensen has one of the best sites I've seen on derivatives-related accounting material. Not surprising, he's also done a few Camtasia videos (links are in the comments section).

Using Screen Recording Software To Make Educational Videos

We survived our vacation - 2500 miles and three cities, each with different groups of friends or family over an 11 day period. I haven't yet gotten entirely back into the swing of things, but at least I've been in the office for a couple of days, gone on a couple of rides (yes, the bike has been tuned up and de-tarred), and gotten a variety of paperworky-type thingies out of the way (like sending off material to the builder of our house for the 1-year follow-up, signing contracts for teaching CFA prep for the coming year, signing up to take CFA level 1 this fall, and so on).

I'll get back to serious work tomorrow, but for the last couple of days I've been researching screen-recording software. These packages allow you to record whatever displays on your computer screen (along with a soundtrack) and convert the recording into a video file. After a bit of research, I settled on Camtasia Studio by TechSmith. It's amazingly easy - I was able to create videos of a powerpoint presentation with a voice over almost immediately.

Off the bat, I can see a couple of good applications for the software:

• There are some topics that are pretty involved and technical but I'd rather not spend a lot of class time on. As one example, I assign a financial analysis project that requires the students to use our trading room software. I usually have to spend the better part of an entire class period working them through how to access the various databases they have available. With this software, I can boot up the software in my office, go through the various menus, and record a voice-over to explain what I'm doing. Then, the students can review the video at their leisure as often as they need to understand the various processes.
• Second, I'd like to record my classes. Since I use Powerpoint in class, I can have the recording software running while I work through my presentation. If I also have a portable microphone on me, I can post a record of my slides and a voice over to the web for students to review as many times as they like. Also, if they miss a day they don't have to ask "Did we cover anything important?" -- they can see for themselves that we didn't.
  
• Finally, in the spring I'll be teaching an advanced Corporate Finance class. Some of the cases I'd like to use assume knowledge that the students might not have the best grasp of. With the recording software, I can quickly put together some quick videos that they can view on their own before they start on the cases. For example, one of the cases requires them to set up an Excel spreadsheet with circular references. This way, I can set up an example with lots of explanation and put it up as a resource.
  

I can eventually see my classes evolving to a model where I put a lot of the basic material up on the web and use classroom time to expand on web material, work problems, and answer questions. It could also make it pretty simple to convert my classes to online versions.

At least that's what I'm thinking now. But I just got the software, so we'll see. On the plus side, there's a 30-day trial version that's fully functional. So, I can work out the bugs before I get the Dean to shell out for it. But even if I pay for it out of pocket, it's cheap - less than $200.

Still On The Road

So far we're 7 days into a 12 day road trip, and it's been pretty good:

• We've been to the Unknown Wife's family reunion in West Virginia (Unknown Son and Unknown Daughter both lost front teeth this week, so we told U.W's relatives it was so they'd fit in better in WV).
• Following the reunion, we drove an additional 600 miles or so further south to visit friends we haven't seen in 4 years. While there, Unknown Wife visited quite a few old friends during the day. Since most of my friends from that time are either academics or work during the day, I spent the days at my alma mater. They were nice enough to give me an empty office to hang out in (thanks, guys), and I got a lot done -- finished edits on one paper (it's now back to my coauthors) and sent another paper out to a journal (it got rejected a month ago, and it just needed a few minor changes). I also saw a number of folks I hadn't seen in person for four years.
  
• Last night, we visited some friends and while the adults hung out, our friends' kids treated ours to a viewing of The Princess Bride. Unknown Son is now quoting Inigo Montoya, and Unknown Daughter keeps mentioning the Rodents of Unusual Size.
• We're now 600 miles back up the East Coast. Tomorrow we drive a few more hours to stay with an old neighbor (Unknown Wife's best friend from that time) and to visit friends from our old church. We'll stay there until Sunday afternoon when we head back home.
  

I may actually post some stuff tomorrow, but we'll see.

Bearing the Sea, Sea Bearing Me

Here's another mass e I'm posting:


Life on a small fishing boat with 2 other guys on the Bering Sea has been good & bad & easy & hard - as expected - all part of the grand adventure.

SEA SICK SEE SAW

We've spent almost the entire past month at sea, with just a few short visits back to Port Moller. Our first 3 days at sea were our Big Baptism into Aleutian fishing. The weather was crazy ragin' with big ocean swells & the salmon were out in droves. Stephan & I, greenhorns we were, got so sea sick we blew chunks & liquids & things in-between, & we lost all desire for food for days. And the nets were packed & we thought we were in hell on earth (or rather at sea) trying to master staying on our feet, much less picking fish & maintaining a boat. Captain Rayburn was worried these first impressions would ruin it for us, cuz the weather & sea aren't usually such thrashers & the fish weren't running so much this time of year. But, masochists we be, Stephan & I were loving it in a weird sorta way - all part of the grand adventure.

Our health & appetites returned (tho Ray sometimes wished not, cuz we were ravenously eating him out of house & home... er boat & cabin.

ETERNAL BEAUTY & FICKLE FORMS

We've been fishing a lot right near the beach. Ray's favorite fishing spot is at Ilnik point, near the massive volcano Wiaminof, north of Pt Moller. Between here & there is an old abandoned Russian church where there used to be a settlement, by a Bear River. And beyond that there's a cape where zillions of walruses hang out, meetin' & maten'.

Yeah, lots of craggy volcanic snowy mountains & glaciers inland (like it forgot winter was over). Today we saw one volcano smoking. Who can describe the beauty here?

I find that beauty is overwhelming & disheartening if I am in the wrong mind - the mind that wants to possess. Then my new Mind realizes beauty is neither created nor destroyed, but eternally goes from one form to another, and only beauty's forms vanish, like flowers! This is when I realize that Heaven is ever at hand. But the greed mind, the mind that wants to possess & capture in picture frames, thinks that the forms are it. So the greed mind grieves when the forms pass. Yeah, we ourselves are all fickle forms, ever passing, ever dying, though our own beauty ever remains, if we but realize it.

STRUGGLES & TRIUMPHS

The hardest part of this has been living under such restriction, especially since I haven't had "gainful" employment & nor a boss for the past 7 years. My life has been under the captain's authority 24-7 - for this is how a boat must run. The first few weeks were really hard for me, like I had reverted to bumbling childhood & adolescence again. And we've gotten little sleep, in shifts at sporadic hours. But the fish are slowing & we it's getting mellower, with us getting used to it, too.

But the 3 of us get a long and work amazingly well together. Part of why this is, I think, is we aren't afraid to tell the other to bug off when they get annoying. And part of it is simply that our chemistry works well together. All 3 personalities are so very different, yet there's something amazingly in common among us - can't put my finger on it.

MARKETING SHARKETING

My other issue has also been the ethics of the whole fishing market industry, as all market industry, encouraging us to take way way more than we need. But, I am thankful that the fishing industry is highly government regulated to be sustainable, & fishing rules are strict - otherwise, if not, I can guarantee all fish would be gone by now. There's good & bad government regulation. But I'll save discussing ethics & fish carnage for later.

Ray says of course I can leave any time (ah the advantages of not getting paid!), but would like me to stay at least till the start of August. I'm game for more, feeling like a real fisherman now. I might decide to delay my flight from Anchorage to Portland & explore mainland Alaska more for a bit. We'll see.

Blessings to all of you from the North

Daniel
aka Suelo

Leaving on Vacation

The Unknown Family is going on the road. We're leaving tomorrow and driving to West Virginia for a family get together, then to Atlanta for a few days, then to Baltimore, and then home. So, between tomorrow and the 22nd, we'll put in some 2500 miles of traveling. I'll try to update a few times, but blogging will be spotty at best (at least one of the places we'll be at has no wireless).

Since I'm not bringing my bike, I put in a longer ride today - my first 25 miler in a couple of years. It went pretty well - I was averaging almost 16 miles an hour over a pretty hilly course until I turned onto a road that was in the process of being paved. Somehow, bike tires don't roll nearly as well with a quarter inch of tar and dirt around them (imagine that). So, it's off to the bike shop for some new tires and a thorough cleaning and tune up (if the tires look like that, I can only imagine what's in the gears). The shop said I'll have my bike back on the 22nd, which works out just fine. But for now, my legs are surely beat.

update: I guess I went harder than I thought - going up stairs is no fun!