http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summarySat, 22 Jul 2006 06:03:09 +0000http://standard.objectdriven.com/Steven Fines15http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/115412844406791451Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:09:00 +00002006-07-28T16:42:42.223-07:00If all you had were model employees, you'd not become a good manager.That's what my director, an excellent manager told me as we left the meeting with HR where we'd decided that, due to recent events, we were going to fire an employee who had been with us for a relatively short period of time. I'm not being sarcastic, My director is excellent at management. He's one of the most reasonable, laid http://standard.objectdriven.com/2006/07/on-management.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/115334929530031207Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:25:00 +00002006-07-19T15:49:34.383-07:00Earlier in my life I used to feel that I'd know what was going on later. It has always been about later. I'm 29 now and have begun to question the whole concept of later. Will I have myself together when I'm 35? 50? Will I ever, as they say, get myself together or am I always going to feel that I'm letting myself down, I could do better, I should do better, I must do better. I've begun to doubt http://standard.objectdriven.com/2006/07/cast-on-corner.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110779920321989791Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:51:00 +00002005-08-14T23:49:03.156-07:00This might be heretical in some circles; I think that it's neccessary for finance staff that work in software development companies to understand how their company develops software. My rationale is that software development methodologies contain fundamental assumptions about the cost of development. These assumptions not only determine the team's flexability but the overall project cost http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/02/finance-staff-should-care-about.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111985381317413333Mon, 27 Jun 2005 06:30:13 +00002005-06-26T23:30:13.213-07:00http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/06/mit-weblog-survey-thanks.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111639743246599506Wed, 18 May 2005 06:23:00 +00002005-05-25T12:17:12.066-07:00In the Personal Journal section of today's Wall Street Journal there are several articles relating to housing and there is a front page article on household debt. Each of these three articles are related in one way or the other... The first article "Lagging behind the wealthy, many use debt to catch up" discusses the widening gap between the rate that real incomes are growing and the increasing http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/05/in-personal-journal-section-of-todays.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111704733421677589Wed, 25 May 2005 18:47:00 +00002005-05-25T12:15:44.786-07:00Even though I have a good friend who runs a doggy day care in Kansas City (Hi Amy!) I still question how it being difficult for owners to get their dogs into a day care program is really front page stuff... maybe it belongs on the front page of the Personal Journal, but on the front page of the main WSJ? It must have been a slow news day. However, there were some other articles that actually http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/05/seeing-this-on-front-page-disturbs-me.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111518804878729942Wed, 04 May 2005 05:58:00 +00002005-05-03T23:27:28.810-07:00One of the things that My wife and I did as we were deciding on how much house we could afford (which is a different argument than how much of a loan we can extract from a bank) was to perform a sensitivity analysis. We built a spreadsheet that contained a pro-forma budget with a variable house payment. We then ranked everything on a Red-Yellow-Green scale. If there was less than a few hundred http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/05/homebuying.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111257894760256660Mon, 04 Apr 2005 01:42:27 +00002005-04-03T18:42:27.603-07:00Today's Personal Journal section of the Wall Street Journal has an article with seven ways to build a better portfolio. These are all common sense suggestions that all investors should heed. WSJ.com - Getting Going http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/04/wsjcom-getting-going.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111014418482031392Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:22:00 +00002005-03-06T13:28:45.076-08:00In class last week we discussed how insurance both mitigates risk and can promote risky behaviors. We were discussing director's and officer's insurance (used to protect members of a company's board). The general statement was that the professor wouldn't take a board seat without being covered by a policy but that it has led to less attentive boards. They don't need to be as watchful, after all, http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/03/insurance.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/111014365375238288Sun, 06 Mar 2005 20:38:00 +00002005-03-06T13:23:21.960-08:00Practicing Financial Planning for Professionals by Sid Mittra et al has got to be one of the most challenging books for me to acquire since I started attending school. The school's bookstore didn't have any copies neither did Amazon, nor Borders, nor Barnes and Noble, nor Alibiris. One of my schoolmates informs me that one of the local porn stores that he contacted (accidentally, right...$200. http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/03/practicing-financial-planning-for.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110782139519028160Tue, 08 Feb 2005 00:05:55 +00002005-02-07T16:09:55.190-08:00That Marsh McLennan are going to be able to write most of the $850Mln settlement off their taxes because it was called restitution and disgorgement and not a proper fine. I think that this sort of thing is a travesty... the business expense writeoff wasn't meant to reimburse corporate criminals (and let's face it, Marsh only paid up because they would have lost much more had they gone to trial, http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/02/it-disturbs-me.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110776407173575529Mon, 07 Feb 2005 09:03:40 +00002005-02-07T00:15:40.580-08:00I often think about blogging; mostly about how I need to update with greater frequency. It's difficult for me to blog. I think it's because I realize how uninteresting I must seem to most people because I prattle on about finance and/or computers. I'd really like to be able to capture some of the conversations that my wife and I have regularly. We're not exactly dumb people and we often have http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/02/i-often-think-about-blogging-mostly.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110478355873924964Mon, 03 Jan 2005 19:56:18 +00002005-01-03T12:19:18.740-08:00I just printed what has to be the single largest sequence diagram I have ever had the distinct displeasure to read... it was 3 B size plotter pages. This begs two questions: 1) why would anyone make a method that large and 2) what use is a sequence diagram when it has to be hung on a wall and considered as if it were a great painting? I am growing more convinced that a sense of elegance is thehttp://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/01/uml-diagrams-how-large-is-too-large.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110456796016965440Sat, 01 Jan 2005 09:17:00 +00002005-01-01T00:26:00.170-08:00Today we arrived back home from the midwest. One of the tasks that I set for myself this weekend was to get my linux machine back in good working order... it had some corrupt filesystems when it was abruptly shutdown due to a power supply fire. I had to boot to a rescue CD so that I could fsck the drives. Once I had done that I decided to emerge and update the portage tree. When I did that I got http://standard.objectdriven.com/2005/01/reluctantly-up-to-date.htmlSteven Fineshttp://www.blogger.com/feeds/2753215/posts/summary/110244832370433640Tue, 07 Dec 2004 18:53:04 +00002004-12-08T11:16:04.240-08:00There are two different articles in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that deal with unethical / illegal behaviour on the part of individual traders1 and improper business arangements between search firms and transfer agents2. In general, news about improper business dealings on Wall Street isn't really but these two were of interest to me. In general, these articles highlight the reality of thehttp://standard.objectdriven.com/2004/12/there-are-two-different-articles-in.htmlSteven Fines