Wednesday, February 28, 2007

CEO pay

I don't have a lot for you today, so I'll provide some food for thought.

Based on an April 2006 Wall Street Journal survey, for 2005 CEO pay was 411 times what the average worker made. If minimum wage had grown at the same pace, it would be worth over $22/hour.

In 1990, CEO pay was 107 times the average worker pay. I think you could argue that performance of companies since 1990 hasn't improved, so why the insane rate of growth for CEO's?

Think about it.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Csangos? What's that?

Glad you asked, I've been meaning to explain this for some time.

In May 2006 I read an article in National Geographic magazine about a small community of people who could be identified with both Romanian (cultural) and Hungarian (language and religion) traits. This group of people is considered a minority population and called the Moldavian Csángós. Mostly neglected by the Catholic Church, suffering from assimilation into Romanian culture, and pretty darn poor.

Considering just over 796 people elected to call themselves Csángós in a 2002 census, I figured I had a pretty good shot at "borrowing" this as an online identity. Estimates put the total number of Csángós somewhere near 60,000. I'm betting many of those don't have an Internet connection.

It served four purposes for me:

  1. It was unique enough that I was given a high probability of capturing this name in many on-line communities.
  2. It provided an endless opportunity to explain where I came up with this funny looking identity.
  3. It provided an educational topic, seriously, have you head of the Csángós before you read this?
  4. Oh, and I think its kind a cool sounding. (Try to say it like this: "Chain - Go")

Monday, February 5, 2007

Welcome

On the left side you'll see the most recent songs I've been listening too. This is updated in pretty close to real time, well at least when I'm listening to music. I'd like to add a similar feed for movies and books I've watched/read. So I've added that to my to-do list.