When starting the boil for the distilling, what would be the ideal setting for the burner? I am assuming that a gradual temperature climb at a low setting would be ideal. Is that correct?
Caffeine is mildly addictive, making it one of the world's most widely used drugs. It can cause a number of health problems.
It can prevent your body from absorbing vitamins and minerals.
It can increase the excretion of vitamins and minerals from the body, so you won't get the full benefits of healthy foods.
Caffeine overstimulates the central nervous system, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure.
It has an impact on the body's energy levels: following the initial energy surge, your levels fall due to the lowering of blood sugar.
It can irritate your stomach, and cause headaches and insomnia.
Caffeine has also been associated with a decrease in bone mineral density, increasing the risk of osteoporosis in women
It really depends on where the product reviews are located as to whether I trust them. And no matter what, the more product reviews submitted, the more I can trust the "average" review.
The first place I go to for reviews of products is Amazon.com. Most people are generally honest and are not trying to push their own product (books can be an exception). Other products, like iPhone apps, are a bit more tricky. I don't trust the reviews there until there are at least 150+ reviews posted. There are just too many fake reviews by developers trying to game the system.
Great article! So many people think that mystery shopping is easy money. Ive only been doing it for a little while, but it's hard tedious work and the money is not that great. However, if you can work it into your everyday errands, it can be a nice little bonus.
I use product reviews as one more item in my consumer's toolbox. The reviews come from a variety of sites.
My favorite way to research a product is to look for reviews and recommendations from a site that caters to the people selling what I'm shopping for. This is how I ended up not buying a roof with a membrane--I discovered that this type of product has the highest percentage of lawsuits filed by consumers against the manufacturers and installers.
Thanks for the comments. I can appreciate the first two commenters giving their input on why they may choose to share their wireless networks. I don't live in an area where it is practical, unfortunately, and file sharing has become a problem in our community -- to the point where you can get locked out of your own account due to activity that is not your own. This point in particular (the one that references "smart famlies" )was taken from an quote with a Cisco Systems expert, and the entire quote can be seen in the complete article at Lifescoop. I will make a change to the article to reflect that and so it isn't taken out of context.
As for your comment, Joseph, do you care to share some of your tips? We are always open to hearing additoinal commentary from someone with your type of experience. When putting together the article (remember that the full article with all tips expanded is at Lifescoop's website), we tried to pool together the best tips from a number of experts in the field. Maybe you have some additional training or expertise that would make you a good addition to our piece? We would love to hear it!
I have a couple of zippers that have bit the dust and MEC won't fix them for free. I have to pay shipping plus $30 or $40 for repairs. I was disappointed, to say the least. On the other hand, Columbia does repair their zippers for free, and I happen to have a local store way up in northern Canada that carries Columbia and ships for me.
The old saying goes, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
From what I've seen, the opposite seems to be true for internetland. People love to complain on the internet, and product reviews are sometimes an outlet for someone's irrational rage.
I personally use reviews to gain more info about the details of a product that might not have been covered in the general product description or specs. I try to ignore the illiterate all-caps fury of a reviewer who is probably never satisfied with anything in their life, and I focus only on what's helpful for giving me a better picture of what the product is like.
I'd say the exception to this would be books, which often have many well-written, insightful reviews. But this exception doesn't apply to movies or music, for which trailers and sound clips are always more reliable than some amateur critic's hateful bile.
in a country where Temperatures range from 22 °C to 34 °C (72° to 93 °F) [and i think 22°C is crap. don't know when it was last that] and on average, the relative humidity is around 90% in the morning and 60% in the afternoon, the increase of 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) ought to be significant.
And our ex/leader hails the air conditioner as the one of the greatest inventions - we would probably all be lazing around doing nothing without airconditioning. (tip #6)
i wouldn't say that airconditioning is absolutely necessary for life - here/ for me, but it makes for better quality of life and productivity.
I was going to do a similar post, which I still might do because of this. You're right you can cut back and increase standards of living and come close to parody. But really, I lived in Los Angeles, NYC, Chicago, Kansas City, New Mexico and the DMV Mid-Atlantic area. While I agree with the attitude aspect of changing thinking...... I have to disagree with the premise.
Your $400,000 for a house in Compton, CA plus your auto insurance, state property tax, gas prices is nowhere on earth near what you get for a $107,000 house by a lake in Las Cruces New Mexico. You can stop going to starbucks all you want and buying slurpees California is as twice as expensive across the board, even if you stay in the house and do nothing.
Let's talk rent now.
For 800 bucks per month (rent or mortgage) in Kansas City you can get up and jog across the street and wave to your neighbors who live in Mansions, live in a townhouse complete with Washer Dryer, Convexion oven etc. etc.
In New York, Brooklyn, Queens or Manhattan the same sort of set up is probably between $2,500 to $5,000.
Add your grocery bill and entertainment expenses and you're losing each and everytime. Look out for that post.
If I want to know more about a product, I'll look at product reviews, but I'll look at a lot of them from many different sites. first I'll type in the product name into a search engine, the more pages or results it gets the better, then I open up many different random sites in many different tabs. At each page I'll read the review, getting rid of tabs that contain the Same or eerily similar reviews. Of the ones left I'll check for comments, (comments alone mean that a lot of people have seen the review and sometimes the comments ask the questions I wanted to ask or give answers not found in the review itself.)I pay attention to those comments that had questions or seemed concerned and cross-reference this with the other reviews I've read, This gives me a good idea as to what the cons of the product might be, if there is a fix for said cons, or if I would be fine with the cons.
This is a good concept that needs some further clarification. The "downside" of "you can't touch this money until you retire" is not entirely accurate.
Roth IRAs are accessible in a number of ways prior to retirement. You can withdraw your contributions at any time for any reason. Also, qualified first time home purchases, certain medical expenses, and disability are also acceptable reasons to take early distributions.
Just to be clear, we should also probably define retirement. Just because you decide that you are "retired" does not mean that you can begin distributions from your IRAs. In most cases, you must reach age 59 1/2 to avoid penalty and in the case of the Roth, you must have an account set up for at least five years. There are strategies available under the tax code for early IRA distributions but they must be set up properly to avoid penalty.
All that being said, putting an investment that generates current and unneeded income in a tax sheltered vehicle is often a sound strategy.
I always check out product reviews from multiple sources to get a good overview. I have been pretty happy with them so far, so I think they are mostly reliable.
It depends on how many reviews there are for a product. If a lot of people are saying a this product has a defect then I would believe it to be true. If only one person had a problem I would think that the error was partly to blame on a the user or just dumb luck. For the most part the reviews on products that I buy have been accuate. I don't think there is a fair way to have honest reviews.
"number of brands or agencies pitching sponsored product reviews has remained about the same."
"78% of Mom Bloggers said they rely on general disclosures for product reviews, and 68% disclose the value of giveaways when applicable."
"Half of those surveyed believe that the guidelines seem to single out Mom Bloggers while outlining fewer disclosure guidelines for journalists (68%) or celebrities (82%)."
"Nearly all believe it is ethical for Mom Bloggers to receive samples, giveaways and compensation."
"Mom Bloggers expressed anxiety about vulnerability to IRS audits, with 75% believing that they may be at risk for an audit if they disclose specific dollar amounts of the product value or compensation. Overall, 60% feel anxious about potential tax issues in general."
"15% of Mom Bloggers believe the value of the item impacts the ethical nature of the review."
"In general, Mom Bloggers strike a balance in their posts with 47% posting neutral reviews without negative language."
"72% said that they would send negative critiques to the brand/agency directly before posting a review."
I check out as many sites as I can find online. The more reviews the better, I feel. I search Amazon, yelp, and any other site I can find. I have used consumer reports for large or new purchases(mostly electronics). Recently I purchased four new tires for my car after searching online for about a week. I searched walmart, discount tires, pep boys, and an online auto parts store. Based on reviews Pep Boys won out this time based mostly on reviews and partly due to price.
My wife and I have diligently logged every dollar spent in a Google Docs generated spread sheet for the past 2 years. I'm amazed at the amount of money that we spend and we are pretty frugal.
Put down everything and after 2 or 3 months you will get a good idea of your spending habits. Don't stop recording though, you need to see what the damage is after one year. It really isn't that big of a task either since most of us are at our computers everyday and your Google Docs can be pulled up from any computer as long as you have net access.
I ask a lot of people if they know how much they spend for certain things over a month or a year and they have no idea.
How can you get to a goal if you don't know the roadblocks that are created by yourself and your partner! How can you curb spending when your total monthly expenditures are a mystery!
In all the blogs I have read I don't think I have ever seen anyone stress the importance of an easy (and free) way of tracking daily spending.
Watch those dollars,
Tim
I always look at online reviews when making large purchases. I like to rely on trusted reviewers like Consumer Reports but I also look at customer reviews. I look at them closely though and make sure they include reasons for why they like or dislike a product. Then I look for trends in those same likes & dislikes so I get an overall review rather then just one or two peoples opinion. So far it hasn't failed me!
I always check reviews for big dollar purchases and for restaurants/services. I won't usually trust just one blogger unless it's someone I follow regularly, but places like Yelp for restaurants and C-Net for tech are really helpful, and one can usually see a general theme on an eatery or product.
There are forums online dedicated to just about anything too, which I've found are a good place to get the inside scoop.
I do check online reviews. I also make sure to read the dissatisfied comments also. I find them very valuable to help me make a decision on my purchase. Thanks,
The basis of the article is most definitely not "off base." The focus here is on not having to pay taxes on dividends, and especially on high-dividend paying securities—by holding them in a tax-protected account.
That's a valuable piece of information for would-be investors out there.
I have a few trusted websites: Amazon, C-Net, Rottentomatoes.com. I especially like Amazon because I can read the negative reviews. Those really cut down on my impulse buying!
Blogs can be good sources of information as well; the bloggers give a lot more information than what will fit on Amazon, etc., and they usually disclose if they're being paid to review something.
The sites I trust the least are gaming websites. They pretty much always give games a positive spin, and it's hard to tell if I'd enjoy the actual play.
When starting the boil for the distilling, what would be the ideal setting for the burner? I am assuming that a gradual temperature climb at a low setting would be ideal. Is that correct?
Caffeine is mildly addictive, making it one of the world's most widely used drugs. It can cause a number of health problems.
It can prevent your body from absorbing vitamins and minerals.
It can increase the excretion of vitamins and minerals from the body, so you won't get the full benefits of healthy foods.
Caffeine overstimulates the central nervous system, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure.
It has an impact on the body's energy levels: following the initial energy surge, your levels fall due to the lowering of blood sugar.
It can irritate your stomach, and cause headaches and insomnia.
Caffeine has also been associated with a decrease in bone mineral density, increasing the risk of osteoporosis in women
It really depends on where the product reviews are located as to whether I trust them. And no matter what, the more product reviews submitted, the more I can trust the "average" review.
The first place I go to for reviews of products is Amazon.com. Most people are generally honest and are not trying to push their own product (books can be an exception). Other products, like iPhone apps, are a bit more tricky. I don't trust the reviews there until there are at least 150+ reviews posted. There are just too many fake reviews by developers trying to game the system.
Great article! So many people think that mystery shopping is easy money. Ive only been doing it for a little while, but it's hard tedious work and the money is not that great. However, if you can work it into your everyday errands, it can be a nice little bonus.
I can see the rationale behind regulating bloggers. But in a recent WSJ article the FTC stated that
"FTC wants to focus on people who are being paid to make plugs for products in 'non-traditional contexts' such as tweeting."
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/01/15/ftc-not-sure-how-to-enforce-blogg...
How am I going to fit a disclosure into a Tweet? Why do I have to put disclosures into Facebook, where all my "fans" are opted-in readers?
I use product reviews as one more item in my consumer's toolbox. The reviews come from a variety of sites.
My favorite way to research a product is to look for reviews and recommendations from a site that caters to the people selling what I'm shopping for. This is how I ended up not buying a roof with a membrane--I discovered that this type of product has the highest percentage of lawsuits filed by consumers against the manufacturers and installers.
Thanks for the comments. I can appreciate the first two commenters giving their input on why they may choose to share their wireless networks. I don't live in an area where it is practical, unfortunately, and file sharing has become a problem in our community -- to the point where you can get locked out of your own account due to activity that is not your own. This point in particular (the one that references "smart famlies" )was taken from an quote with a Cisco Systems expert, and the entire quote can be seen in the complete article at Lifescoop. I will make a change to the article to reflect that and so it isn't taken out of context.
As for your comment, Joseph, do you care to share some of your tips? We are always open to hearing additoinal commentary from someone with your type of experience. When putting together the article (remember that the full article with all tips expanded is at Lifescoop's website), we tried to pool together the best tips from a number of experts in the field. Maybe you have some additional training or expertise that would make you a good addition to our piece? We would love to hear it!
Thanks again for your feedback!
Linsey Knerl
I have a couple of zippers that have bit the dust and MEC won't fix them for free. I have to pay shipping plus $30 or $40 for repairs. I was disappointed, to say the least. On the other hand, Columbia does repair their zippers for free, and I happen to have a local store way up in northern Canada that carries Columbia and ships for me.
The old saying goes, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
From what I've seen, the opposite seems to be true for internetland. People love to complain on the internet, and product reviews are sometimes an outlet for someone's irrational rage.
I personally use reviews to gain more info about the details of a product that might not have been covered in the general product description or specs. I try to ignore the illiterate all-caps fury of a reviewer who is probably never satisfied with anything in their life, and I focus only on what's helpful for giving me a better picture of what the product is like.
I'd say the exception to this would be books, which often have many well-written, insightful reviews. But this exception doesn't apply to movies or music, for which trailers and sound clips are always more reliable than some amateur critic's hateful bile.
it was hotter than it was before!
in a country where Temperatures range from 22 °C to 34 °C (72° to 93 °F) [and i think 22°C is crap. don't know when it was last that] and on average, the relative humidity is around 90% in the morning and 60% in the afternoon, the increase of 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) ought to be significant.
And our ex/leader hails the air conditioner as the one of the greatest inventions - we would probably all be lazing around doing nothing without airconditioning. (tip #6)
i wouldn't say that airconditioning is absolutely necessary for life - here/ for me, but it makes for better quality of life and productivity.
I was going to do a similar post, which I still might do because of this. You're right you can cut back and increase standards of living and come close to parody. But really, I lived in Los Angeles, NYC, Chicago, Kansas City, New Mexico and the DMV Mid-Atlantic area. While I agree with the attitude aspect of changing thinking...... I have to disagree with the premise.
Your $400,000 for a house in Compton, CA plus your auto insurance, state property tax, gas prices is nowhere on earth near what you get for a $107,000 house by a lake in Las Cruces New Mexico. You can stop going to starbucks all you want and buying slurpees California is as twice as expensive across the board, even if you stay in the house and do nothing.
Let's talk rent now.
For 800 bucks per month (rent or mortgage) in Kansas City you can get up and jog across the street and wave to your neighbors who live in Mansions, live in a townhouse complete with Washer Dryer, Convexion oven etc. etc.
In New York, Brooklyn, Queens or Manhattan the same sort of set up is probably between $2,500 to $5,000.
Add your grocery bill and entertainment expenses and you're losing each and everytime. Look out for that post.
Jabulani Leffall
Monetary Gadfly, Common Currency
00000 Broke Blvd. Kitchenette #68 & 1/2
Lowcash, CA 90000-0000
If I want to know more about a product, I'll look at product reviews, but I'll look at a lot of them from many different sites. first I'll type in the product name into a search engine, the more pages or results it gets the better, then I open up many different random sites in many different tabs. At each page I'll read the review, getting rid of tabs that contain the Same or eerily similar reviews. Of the ones left I'll check for comments, (comments alone mean that a lot of people have seen the review and sometimes the comments ask the questions I wanted to ask or give answers not found in the review itself.)I pay attention to those comments that had questions or seemed concerned and cross-reference this with the other reviews I've read, This gives me a good idea as to what the cons of the product might be, if there is a fix for said cons, or if I would be fine with the cons.
This is a good concept that needs some further clarification. The "downside" of "you can't touch this money until you retire" is not entirely accurate.
Roth IRAs are accessible in a number of ways prior to retirement. You can withdraw your contributions at any time for any reason. Also, qualified first time home purchases, certain medical expenses, and disability are also acceptable reasons to take early distributions.
Just to be clear, we should also probably define retirement. Just because you decide that you are "retired" does not mean that you can begin distributions from your IRAs. In most cases, you must reach age 59 1/2 to avoid penalty and in the case of the Roth, you must have an account set up for at least five years. There are strategies available under the tax code for early IRA distributions but they must be set up properly to avoid penalty.
All that being said, putting an investment that generates current and unneeded income in a tax sheltered vehicle is often a sound strategy.
I always check out product reviews from multiple sources to get a good overview. I have been pretty happy with them so far, so I think they are mostly reliable.
It depends on how many reviews there are for a product. If a lot of people are saying a this product has a defect then I would believe it to be true. If only one person had a problem I would think that the error was partly to blame on a the user or just dumb luck. For the most part the reviews on products that I buy have been accuate. I don't think there is a fair way to have honest reviews.
Lots of interesting stats from this great article from Sarah Montague of Mom Central Consulting:
I check out as many sites as I can find online. The more reviews the better, I feel. I search Amazon, yelp, and any other site I can find. I have used consumer reports for large or new purchases(mostly electronics). Recently I purchased four new tires for my car after searching online for about a week. I searched walmart, discount tires, pep boys, and an online auto parts store. Based on reviews Pep Boys won out this time based mostly on reviews and partly due to price.
My wife and I have diligently logged every dollar spent in a Google Docs generated spread sheet for the past 2 years. I'm amazed at the amount of money that we spend and we are pretty frugal.
Put down everything and after 2 or 3 months you will get a good idea of your spending habits. Don't stop recording though, you need to see what the damage is after one year. It really isn't that big of a task either since most of us are at our computers everyday and your Google Docs can be pulled up from any computer as long as you have net access.
I ask a lot of people if they know how much they spend for certain things over a month or a year and they have no idea.
How can you get to a goal if you don't know the roadblocks that are created by yourself and your partner! How can you curb spending when your total monthly expenditures are a mystery!
In all the blogs I have read I don't think I have ever seen anyone stress the importance of an easy (and free) way of tracking daily spending.
Watch those dollars,
Tim
I always look at online reviews when making large purchases. I like to rely on trusted reviewers like Consumer Reports but I also look at customer reviews. I look at them closely though and make sure they include reasons for why they like or dislike a product. Then I look for trends in those same likes & dislikes so I get an overall review rather then just one or two peoples opinion. So far it hasn't failed me!
I always check reviews for big dollar purchases and for restaurants/services. I won't usually trust just one blogger unless it's someone I follow regularly, but places like Yelp for restaurants and C-Net for tech are really helpful, and one can usually see a general theme on an eatery or product.
There are forums online dedicated to just about anything too, which I've found are a good place to get the inside scoop.
I do check online reviews. I also make sure to read the dissatisfied comments also. I find them very valuable to help me make a decision on my purchase. Thanks,
If there are reviews - I read them - Always interesting to get some feedback.
If there are reviews - I read them - Always interesting to get some feedback.
The basis of the article is most definitely not "off base." The focus here is on not having to pay taxes on dividends, and especially on high-dividend paying securities—by holding them in a tax-protected account.
That's a valuable piece of information for would-be investors out there.
The Writer's Coin | Follow me on Twitter
I have a few trusted websites: Amazon, C-Net, Rottentomatoes.com. I especially like Amazon because I can read the negative reviews. Those really cut down on my impulse buying!
Blogs can be good sources of information as well; the bloggers give a lot more information than what will fit on Amazon, etc., and they usually disclose if they're being paid to review something.
The sites I trust the least are gaming websites. They pretty much always give games a positive spin, and it's hard to tell if I'd enjoy the actual play.