10 Thoughts for April 16, 2014 (The Day After)

1. I'm taking this one with a grain of salt, but after talking with T-Mobile's customer service, it appears that with the shift to zero overages, my grandfathered plan means that I'll have unlimited data, 100% unthrottled!  So if accurate, I'll be paying $15 less per month than T-Mobile's comparable unlimited everything...all at LTE speeds!  HOLY COW!!!
2. Here's my LTE speed on T-Mobile at 2:45 in the afternoon in Portland:  36.31Mbps download / 11.50Mbps upload.  (At 4:29 am, it was 36.85Mpbs download / 15.29Mbps upload.) I own a fully unlocked Nexus 5 that can be used as a WiFi hotspot for my other devices.  HOLY COW, unlimited LTE data on all my mobile devices via WiFi, anywhere within T-Mo's LTE coverage!!!
3. I've been sitting on this refurbished Acer C720P Chromebook for a month now.  I thought I'd share it with you, because it's one of the only touch-screen Chromebooks out there, and it's got decent specs under the hood making it worthwhile.  There are just two drawbacks: I know that new Chromebooks with lower power Haswells (good for true, all-day long use) are just on the horizon, and the screen in these Acer Chromebooks are TN, not IPS, which means that you won't have the greatest viewing angles as most tablets these days.
   
4. Don't buy those under-$100 film scanners that save images to an SD card.  You will regret wasting the time to scan your film, only to discover that the quality is so bad that you need to spend an extraordinary amount of time retouching them in Photoshop or equivalent photo software and that they're too low of a resolution to be usable for big prints.  Instead, spend a little more and get a flatbed scanner that can do film.  This Epson Perfection V500 is what I have, and it's an older model now (going back 6 years ago when it was first purchased).  The difference in quality is unmistakable.
5. I've noticed of late, that many items stocked at Amazon (by third-party sellers) have free or cheap shipping that surpasses Amazon's free shipping pricing.  The difference of course is that one doesn't have to meet Amazon's $35 minimum to get those items shipped for free or cheaply.  Why, in just the last 7 days I've already made three separate purchases.
6. It's already happened: Russia's economy has taken a tumble with GDP shrinking 0.5% from the previous quarter.  Along with Russia's recent actions, it's probably safe to say that Russia will officially enter a recession, with a capital flight ($64B flight in first 3 months of 2014) nearing equal to the 1998 Russian currency crisis.
7. If Putin invades sovereign land to turn it Russian, a war will break out and Russia will suffer steep consequences for it.  The only country in denial over this is Russia.  An interesting thing I've observed: Russian inflation has been sitting well above 6.0% for the last two years, and was clocked at 6.9% for last month, this despite slowing GDP, an outflow of capital and a 34% decline in Russia's BoP net-surplus.  Stagnant economy with high inflation...where have I seen that before?  In fact, Russia was facing stagflation fears before the Ukraine crisis.  The current and future expansion of economic sanctions should tilt Russia further into stagflation.  Last month Russia's central bank pushed its key rate up from 5.5% to 7.0%, probably as an acknowledgement that stagflation was a threat.
8. I swear, I will eventually tackle Picketty's tome on 21st century economics and economic disparity.  But the cost and length is pushing me to procrastinate on getting it until Summer or so, when I have more time to casually read.
9. Construction is nearing an end.  I'll take better pictures when it's done.  Until then, enjoy ... some ... photos.
10. That landmark deal with Iran to reduce its capacity of near-nuclear weapons grade in exchange for lowering of sanctions, is working. That's not to say that US-Iran relations are free from friction, but that Israel has less to complain about, when it comes to how the US is dealing with Iran as an existential threat.

PS. Technically it's April 17, but the post started on the 16th and was intended to be finished on the 16th.  But I unexpectedly fell asleep early evening and woke up early morning to complete it.