Winnipeg has its good and bad (which I will blog about in some future post), but one thing Winnipeg definitely has is character. Now character can be polite way of saying something is ugly, but Winnipeg’s isolation and ridiculous climate creates a visual landscape that is both stunning and repulsive at the same time.

I found a website that captures the visual imagery of Winnipeg called Winnipeg Love Hate. Check it out.

Based on my experience with Socialism, Green Politics, and Anti-ideology thinking, I have arrived at a conclusion that the problem with politics, political philosophy, and philosophy in general is that humans fail to understand human nature.

Absurd isn’t it? To be human and yet not understand what human nature is…

Yet, that is exactly what I think is the problem. Let me illustrate:

I have argued for quite some time that ideology is a human disease that creates wars and immense human suffering. Yet, ideology is just the dogma of political philosophy, which in turn is just a world view that claims to understand what human nature and life is.

All political and general philosophies are about understanding what our human nature is. General philosophy will be about our relationship with the world, purpose of life, etc. but it is political philosophy that deals with social relationships and the use of power within society including how to manage the economy and the government’s role in the lives of its citizens. Since governments and economies are fundamentally tools that represent parts of our humanity, political philosophies that focus on economics still make fundamental assumptions about human nature.

So, it is all about understanding what our Human Nature is, or as inspired by a past U.S.A. Presidential campaign, “Its Our Human Nature, Stupid”.

Now I am going to argue that the reason why all political philosophies are inherently limited and ultimately very dangerous is because they have limited and inhuman understandings of human nature. You will see that their definition of Human Nature is so distorted with blind, stupid ideology, it is little surprise we have the problems we see in the world today.

The largest political philosophies/ideologies can be generally summarized to believe the following about human nature.

• The Socialists and Communists believe that humans deserve equality of economic outcomes. Nature (human and mother nature) can be improved upon and perfected. It is natural for humans to share and be egalitarian. The weakness of Socialist and Communist thought is that they do not recognize humanity’s inherent inequality and the freedom to allow gifted elites to evolve the species.
• Libertarians and Anarchists believe that humans deserve equality of opportunity and freedom from coercion. Human nature can be improved upon if a person chooses it and people need to be given the opportunity to figure out their own way of happiness. The weakness of Libertarian and Anarchists thought is that they do not recognize that many people require authority in their lives and believe in Utopian societies where consequences do not exist.
• Welfare Liberals believe that humans deserve protection and opportunity to be contented. They do not believe in the free market, but tolerate it because it allows them to fund their government programs.  Human nature is perfectible when society provides everything that is needed. The weakness of Welfare Liberal thought is that they want to provide a perfect world where imperfect outcomes is natural.
• Conservatives believe that humans need to be ruled so that society can function. They believe that society functions best when the elites of society are properly ruling. Human nature is imperfect, but the best (through birth, connections, knowledge, or something else) will rise above the masses to be an example for the rest. The weakness of Conservative thinking is that it creates institutional thinking and thereby weakens society.
• Fascists and Nationalists believe that humans are tools to be used for the needs of the nation. They believe that human nature is only perfect if it serves the nation, otherwise it will degenerate into selfish and aimless behaviors. The weakness of Fascist and Nationalist thought is that it falls prey to xenophobia and racism.
• Populists believe that humans (‘the people’) need to be consulted with matters that affect them. Human nature is presumed for everyone who one of the folk and you continue to possess this human nature so long as you remain part of the group. The weakness of Populist thought is that it falls prey to mob mentality and tends to be reactionary.
• Humanists believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution. Because humans are able to think, create technology, and communicate with advances symbols, the natural world and the universe is its oyster. The weakness of Humanist thinking is that it tends to be materialistic, expansionist, and insular.
• Greens believe that humans need to live in balance with the natural world. They want human society to be smaller, more peaceful, and egalitarian so that humanity can be happier. The weakness of Green thinking is that it falls prey to employing scare tactics, self-extinction, and scarcity thinking.

Can you see how each of the political philosophies has a rigid understanding of Human Nature? It is one thing, and one thing only, not being allowed to change. Political philosophy and its bulldog, ideology, tell us only they they understand human nature and there are no other interpretations. Sounds just like most religions.

So, what exactly is Human Nature? It is generally described as “the psychological and social qualities that characterize humankind, especially in contrast with other living things.”  While this definition is accurate, it is far too vague and does not list the qualities that makes up human nature.

Based on my own insights and a brief peruse of the internet, I think Human Nature possesses at least the following qualities:

• It is complex, and is made up of multiple factors.
• One of the most overt factors was all share is that we are physical beings that depends on our physical environment to survive.
• It is dynamic, possessing the ability to change and evolve.  See blog post ‘Are Most People Good?’. This is direct contrast with those philosophies that see human nature as being inherently good or evil.
• It possesses the ability to self-regulate, initiate action, but also be influenced by its environment. The question of Free Will vs Determinism or Nature vs Nurture is a needless distraction. See blog post ‘A Continuum of Human Nature’. We possess the ability to make choices, but also appear to generally prefer to have choices made for us.
• It is prone to solidifying and measuring things. This is done in an effort to exert control over its environment. We tend to spend lots of energy understanding and organizing our environment using symbols and technology. We create mental constructions and memes that encompass concepts such as Self, Human Nature, and Life. (This blog post is an example of this manifestation)
• It experiences a wide range of sensations, emotions, and thoughts which are intensely felt but rarely understood.
• Is is governed by what appears to be dilemma inducing laws such of Supply vs Demand, Freedom vs Safety, Time vs Money, Happy vs Right, Justice vs Peace, Familiarity vs Contempt, Mastery vs Ease.
• It resorts to past behaviors that worked, even if the problem and solution has changed.
• It possesses expectations and desires that are always changing and rarely satisfied.
• Is is easily led and suggestible where broken windows and littering can lead to increased vice and crime (as taken from the Economist article Can the Can).
• It has immense capacity for inflicting, experiencing, and tolerating suffering.
• It learns by making mistakes before getting it right.

I do not believe this is an exhaustive list of qualities, but is just a starting point. But what is listed provides a stark contrast to the political philosophies I listed above. It is now little wonder to me why I find those political philosophies to be inadequate.

Yet, I once too believed that ideology was the solution. And even when I realized that ideology is the problem, I did not understand the subtlety of the matter. I was wrong when I wrote in my 2005 resignation letter to the Green Party that the personal is more important that policies. While the the essential spirit of the letter still resonates for me, I now understand that the continued understanding of human nature is the solution.

And so, I continue to wait for a political philosophy that fully recognizes the potential and scope of Human Nature, instead of limiting it. I wait for a new political philosophy that tries to understand and support Human Nature. One that is prepared to ask questions, receive answers, and then ask more questions. It needs to be always open to learning.

With such a political philosophy we can finally become free of the dehumanizing yoke of ideology.

One of the things I appreciate about iTunes is the fields you can use to add extra tags to your songs.

As we discussed earlier most people use Genre as their default sorting system, but that is just tapping the surface of what you could get out of your music collection. If you have an extensive library, it would be worth your while to ‘polish’ these song tags so that you can create some great play-lists. Here are some essential tags you might want to consider using:

• Date – Should be the date of the song’s release, not the date of the album release. This is especially important when it comes to greatest hit compilations. Having the correct date allows you to listen to an artist’s evolution as a musician.
• Location – I put this in the Grouping header. I put the city, state/province, and country that the artists/band was born/formed in. Having a location can allow me to listen to bands from California or from Scotland.
• Other Info such as Member of XXX Band – I put this in the Comments header. When I do a search for the Police, I will also see my albums by Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland. Again, it allows me to listen to an artist evolve as a musician.

Do you see what this creates? It becomes possible to sort music in a new way. You can create a play-list of your Australian Rock Bands from the 1980s. You will see new trends develop and your music will become more interesting.

Where do you find this information? My favorite site for this kind of information is AllMusic.com. Check it out.

Okay, we have imported, rated, and ran statistics on iTunes. But as your library gets bigger, it becomes more and more difficult to find artists and songs. Thankfully, iTunes uses the Music Genre as its basic sorting system which makes it easier to find the style of music you want to listen to.

Default Music Genres include: Classical, R&B, Rock, Jazz, etc. These are fine if you have 40-50 artists from diverse musical backgrounds, but what happens if you listen primarily to one genre of music? What do you do if you are a serious collector and listener of music and are frustrated with the standard labels? What do you do when you have over 100 artists and 10,000 songs? This blog post is meant to address that challenge.

To start with there are have been three approaches to what a Music Genre is:

1) People Ignore It. Some people say that Musical Genres are too presumptuous of a field to use. They are indignant that the label  ‘pigeon holes’ artists unfairly. That is partially true. Led Zeppelin is considered to be the earliest hard rock/metal band even though they played some folk inspired music. Are they British-Blues? Hard Rock? Something else? Some people will give up and just ignore the use of Music Genres which is to lose out on the benefits of having a proper sorting system. The fact is that Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd have more in common with each other than Louis Armstrong means that these similarities and differences should not be ignored. A label such as Music Genre is a tool, an imperfect one, but a necessary one to help you enjoy your music.

2) People Simplify It. For example, there has been past (failed) attempts to create a unified Genre Tree. The hope is that by finding the links between the different Music Genres we would then decide how to label a particular artist. Its a noble goal, but one that will never work because it operates on the mistaken assumption that Music Genres are linear things. It is the conventional wisdom that the Blues created Jazz which created R&B which created Rock & Roll which created Rock. Its nice and tidy, but makes a fundamental error of judgment.

While Artists and Music Genres do influence each other, this does not mean that one creates the other. Music Genres are very dynamic. We will find Artists influencing each other almost immediately. It happens too fast to say that there is a single lineage that all music comes from.  Instead, it seems more reasonable to think of Musical Genres as evolving alongside each other. This kind of thinking is what we find in Convergent Evolution, where species can evolve similar traits despite not being directly related as we see with the appearance of wings amongst birds and bats. We see the same thing in Music Genres with Traditional, Art, and Popular music forms all developing  independently in each nation. There is no evidence that a single nation gave all of the music traditions to the rest of the world.

3) People Confuse It. Some people think that a Music Genre is the same thing as the mood of the music. They believe that Chill Music is a Music Genre. Sorry, but it isn’t. Its a style that can be found across multiple Genres such as Jazz, Pop, Rock,  and Electronica. ‘Break-up songs’ and ‘Love songs’ are also not Genres. While mood or song intent is important, it is not the same as a Music Genre. That will be a topic for a future blog post.

Another pet peeve of mine is when Genres are labeled with biased terms like “Classic Rock” or “Contemporary Pop”. Who decides if something is classic or not? The word ‘contemporary’ is just as problematic. When Bing Crosby performed in the 1930s it was considered to be contemporary at that time. Yet now we call it Classic Pop making the term ‘Conteporary’ too relative to be helpful. Labels should be accurate and objective enough that they stand for something.

So what is proper way to work with Music Genres? Let’s start with a definition I came up with: “A Musical Genre is a combination of historical and social conditions that dynamically influences a collective musical interpretation of the world.”

My point is to stop thinking of Music Genre as a static, catch-all term to slot artists and bands into. Its an error I originally made as I started working with the concept of Music Genre. I have since discovered that instead we should think of Music Genre as a world view shared by a collective of artists. It is about how they make sense of what is happening around them. For example, the African American experience in the American South show at least two different ways of understanding life though music. The first was Gospel music and the second was the Blues. One was religious and the other was secular and each provided different interpretations about how life was treating them. The same can be same of Rock music in the late 1960s, where we see artists interpret life in different ways through heavy metal (Black Sabbath), power-pop (The Who), and progressive rock (Pink Floyd). All were British bands, but with very different ways of looking at and interpreting life.

Music Genres are dynamic. They are born and die, and sometimes are reborn. New ones are being created all of the time because life and society is dynamic and always changing. So, what should you label your genres? Whatever you want. Its your collection, but allow me to to suggest a Music Genre system based on the excellent resource at AllMusic.com:

List of AllMusic.com’s Music Genres

AllMusic.com not only possesses an extensive list of Genres, but also breaks them down into descriptive Sub-Genres. I use the Sub-Genres to create my own Music Genre labels for iTunes. Instead of iTunes standard labels of “Rock” or “Alternative and Punk”, I adopted  labels such as: “Rock: Mainstream”, “Rock: Punk”, “Rock: Metal”, etc.  Jazz music would  have labels like “Jazz: Dixie”, “Jazz: Swing”, “Jazz: Big Band”, etc. The Sub-Genres becomes a way to capture distinct eras of a Music Genre. My early 1960s British bands would be labeled “Rock: British Invasion”; while my 1970s bands that looked like hippies and preached peace would be my “Rock: Folk” bands.

Since I personally have very few Jazz or Blues artists, I don’t have any Sub-Genres for those artists. The dynamic is that the more artists of a particular Music Genre I collect, the more Sub-Genres I will need to better organize them. As soon as I start collecting 20+ artists of a particular Music Genre, I will employ Sub-Genres labels as a way to better organize my music library. Listening to more artists expands my musical tastes and knowledge which is captured in a more diverse list of Music Genres in iTunes.

Finally, there is no right way to label your music in iTunes. Its flexibility allows you to create as many different labels you want, but to be useful, your system should have just enough detail to allow you to find what is the same and what is different between your artists and songs. The purpose of iTunes’s Music Genre is one of utility, not about being right.

…

Middle of the Muddle: A Poem About Mid-Life

by Christopher Billows

…

I have learned,

that facts and theory,

found in degrees and libraries,

do not grow or touch our psyche.

…

I have met many,

the brilliant and the dull,

and the rich and the poor,

and found happiness being the pursuit of all.

…

I have worked for years,

seen the capable abhorred,

found leaders be the first to hide,

and watched justice be ignored.

…

I pursued self-actualization,

and have always been stung,

that the pursuit of the perfect,

is the cause of all wrong.

…

I have loved and adored,

witnessed another’s death,

fathered and seen birth,

and now ponder the drama of a final breath.

…

What will the new year bring for me at BilLOGs? Well, I think my posting frequency will remain about one post every week or two. (There were 54 posts in 2009; 81 in 2008). I need to spend more time reading other people’s blogs and commenting, but have been too busy.

The positive behind that busyness is that my business (note how they are similar words) had some nice developments at the end of 2009.

My company Promaginy has been assisting partner Complex Games with marketing of their two iPhone titles and is helping with the marketing launch of two, possibly three titles in 2010. It will be a crucible of a year for Complex Games and Promaginy. I also need to do some asset divesting for Copia Enterprises. I bit off more than I could chew and in order to maximize my time and focus I will look to amalgamate my two companies to reduce duplication.

I anticipate that my blogging will become even more introspective since I am reaching mid-age (40 years old) in 2010. Appropriately I was recently introduced by a friend to the theories of Carl Jung which really resonates with me. Although Jung did not describe midlife crisis as it is popularly conceived of, the midlife integration of thinking, sensation, feeling, and intuition that he describes has me questioning my life and goals to date and into the future. Gone are the happy-go-lucky-days of youth.

To your happiness. CB

The game is called Cyber Circuit and more information can be found here and here.

Congratulations to Complex Games on announcing the release of their second game.

This next post is not as much a lesson as a confessional. Did you know you can combine music and statistics? iTunes has so many labels and tags that can be added to your music and the database that it is possible to evaluate this music with statistics. (Whatever that can be labeled can be measured and whatever that can be measured can be tracked with statistics).

I am a huge statistical geek (an obscure soccer league, political elections, band ratings, etc) so the idea of analyzing the music I listen to in new ways is like combining peanut butter and chocolate.

First of all here is the best page with links to great software that can help analyze your iTunes library. It is located at TuneQuest. Check it out…

I have tried two different programs. The most polished one is called SuperAnalzyer and it is pretty super. It creates some wonderful statistics and graphs.

SuperAnalzyer PDF Document

The other program is not listed on that page but is courtesy of a fabulous little script written by Scott Yanff.

iTunes Statistics Text Document

Now these statistics were taken late December 26, 2009 of my personal library. It is a snapshot of a year of iTunes use and listening. I was using iTunes before December 27, 2008 but it was on that date I decided to make a concerted effort to begin organizing my entire music collection after that date. I began reimporting everything with a deeper bit-rate and deleted my old, original collection. I did not use iTunes to listen to music, instead using it to create MP3 CDs to listen to at work and in the car. That all changed July 21, 2009 when I purchase an 8GB iPod Touch. Now I started using it to not only listen to music but to track my listening habits. A new OCD habit was formed and geekdom attained. 

I am listening to and then rating music in the same order I imported it. It is not a reflection of a particular bias. I love the New Wave stuff of the 1970s and 1980s but I imported that stuff much later and it is in my queue to listen to and rate. What is great about this method is that I am (re)discovering some great artists and songs. Creating new favorite lists of songs, albums, and artists is a brand new way to enjoy and appreciate music.

I am thinking that I will make it an annual ritual to do a statistical update of my listening habits with these two programs. It will be interesting to see how my musical tastes evolve.

I am not going to provide a book review, except summarize it by saying it is an entertaining memoir from a person from my generational cohort (so that means its full of Piss and Vinegar) who talks about his devotion to the Alternative Rock scene. What Sellers does in his Appendix that had my geek-senses all aflutter is create an elaborate, pretentious, but all so tasty combination of math and music fandom.

With John’s permission, I am pleased to make my own contribution to his formula by enshrining it in an Excel speadsheet. Now you too can see how your favorite artists align (or don’t) with John’s passion for the abrasive world of Alternative Rock. I would hope that John’s formula could become a template for others to tweak and create their own formulas.

Check it out…

John Sellars Formula

I am releasing for free ( hey, you get what you pay for ) my first album of Electronica music. I originally composed this music for a computer game that I had in development between 2004 and 2007, but that game has now been shelved and the music was good enough to still be shared.

So without further ado…

DJ Crsb is pleased to release his debut album called “Never Mind The Billogs Here’s Chris Billows”.

Yes, corny is what I aim for, but you will find the music not reflecting that tone. I might not be taking myself too seriously as far as the album name and sleeve is concerned, but I did work pretty diligently on this stuff and am proud of it.

Check it out and Merry Christmas to you.

Presents

(1) Standoff 2:31

(2) Duel 1:54

(3) Rising 1:51

(4) Chalk Shock 2:06

(5) Crystal Lullaby 2:12

(6) Fairy Tale Down 2:53

(7) It’s Never Too Late To Rewind 2:46

(8) Soft Space Scrap 3:11

The game is called Skipping Stones and more information can be found here and here.

The guys at Complex Games are very talented and determined. I have no doubt that they will succeed.

Congratulations to Complex Games on announcing the release of their first game.

But is all generosity the same? Is giving to a charity that buys books for disadvantaged children as beneficial as giving to a charity that prevents children from becoming disadvantaged? What about charities that protect our environment or those that promote particular religious perspectives?

The problems of modern society is overwhelming and the charitable response is just as confusing. While I commend people to give to a cause they believe in, I also think that some things are not as high a priority as others. A blogger named “Gates” posted a bold and insightful blog that helped me develop a rationale method on prioritizing which charities I should give to.

For example, I will be excluding charitable organizations from most of my future donations based on the following criteria:

1) Charities that have high administration and fund-raising expenses. What’s the point giving to a charity if a large portion of your donation is not even reaching the people the charity is intending to service? Unfortunately, there is no clearing house for information on Management Expense Ratios for Canadian charities, but there is one called the Charity Navigator which does a good job of providing reviews on U.S. based charities. A brief review of some Canadian charties indicates that MERs run between 5%-8%.

2) Charities that have goals that are unrealistic, which puts them at the risk to becoming little more than institutions that do little good. A group like Make Poverty History possesses a laudable but unattainable goal to fix global poverty. How are they going to do what the United Nations and national governments are not already doing? I am fine with interest groups promoting their perspective, but they should not be allowed to be charities. Poverty is a political issue and not about charity.

The goals must be attainable since in my way of thinking most charities should be in the business to put itself out of business. It should only exist to meet an attainable goal and once done so, then be dissolved.

3) Organizations that partially duplicate what the taxpayer is already funding. There are a multitude of member-based disease societies such as the MS Society, MD Society, etc. whose members receive most of their medical and physical care by our taxpayer funded health system. Same thing with Literacy and Poverty organizations whose targeted populations are mostly supported through the education and welfare systems funded by taxes. Our tax dollars are already a form of charity, the biggest problem being the huge MER that comes with government run programs, but that’s content for another post.

4) Charities that promote ‘civil society’ like Historical and Art societies. I would happily support an Arts Council or a Museum if I knew that the other concerns I have about our society was addressed. As long as there are people living in deplorable circumstances (the old bread vs circuses debate), my donations to these types of charities will be minimal or nil.

So who does this leave to give to? Well, this is my short list:

• Organizations that help reduce abject poverty (such as UNESCO)
• Organizations that are provide societal harm-reduction (such MADD or John Howard Society)
• Organizations that help animals and natural ecosystems (Top Environmental Organizations)
• Organizations that help people to help themselves (such as Kiva or FINCA or United Way)

If the purpose of generosity is to help fellow persons, then the giver needs to think how best to help others. While any form of generosity is good, the benefit is less if those dollars are given blindly. Hopefully, this post will prompt you think about where to place your generosity and dollars to maximum affect, since it is not possible to both be everywhere and be effective.

Once you begin importing all of your music, what do you do next? Rate them! iTunes has a robust 5 star rating system that allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Since rating music is considered to be a personal matter, there are some who think that it does not matter how these ratings are arrived at. Personally I believe in having some standards or rules when it comes to deciding how to rate music. Here are some suggested standards:

1) Don’t confuse bad music as being the same as music you don’t like. Good and bad is pretty relative (though not completely) when it comes to music. Strive to be objective about what you are rating for. Is  it about how the music makes you feel? Do you like the instrumentals? The lyrics? Is it what the artist stands for? The production values?

2) Rate only music that you honestly can appreciate. If you don’t like Rap music, then don’t rate it until you have given it an honest try and can appreciate what it trying to do. I think its an form of intellectual dishonesty to rate something you don’t understand. The challenge is to blend personal opinion with some kind of objective criteria.

3) Don’t be lazy and rate everything 5 Stars or 3 Stars or whatever. Yep, I’m judgmental. Giving every song 5 stars is making the rating function useless and why even don’t bother using it?

4) You will likely rate different kinds of musical moods or themes more favorably than others. It is normal to have a natural bias. I personally have a low tolerance for sappy love songs from the 50’s. I find they are just too syrupy for me. Instead, I am attracted to artists who have a dark, ironic, and melancholy sound. According to my 5 star rating system, if the song is competently delivered, even if it is a theme / mood that I do not like then I will rate it the minimum of 2 Stars. Objectively the song is competent and fine, but it simply does not appeal to me.

5) You should listen a few times before rating the music. I have found myself changing some of my ratings higher or lower because I hear the song differently the next time I hear them. I tend to listen to the CDs three to four times, before importing it into iTunes. Once in iTunes, I then will listen to it a few more times before rating it. It is rigorous, but somebody has to too it.

6) The purpose of rating music is to help you find out more about what you like. Its a process of discovery. Music is a fantastic thing that always offers something new as long as you are looking for it. A diligent rating system will organically and even magically create a personal stream of favorite artists / moods / and genres. Its almost like a form of self-discovery.

It takes work to do this, but if there is one quality that I possess, it is an almost obsessive need to complete things. Its a bit of my OCD coming out . And like anything that requires effort, the rewards reflect the energy you put into it. The question is what does a 1 Star song mean in contrast to a 3 Star song? I have created a rating system for iTunes that is a variation on the BilLOGs Rating System:

1 Star = A song better not released. To get labeled the same as a steaming pile is ironically not done from an emotional perspective, but from an attempted objective perspective. 1 Star songs are those cursed with terrible sound, usually due to poor production choices and/or technical problems. It signifies an amateur effort which should rarely happen in professionally released music. Another way of thinking about this: I listened to it and don’t want to ever hear it again since the poor production or recording issues gets in the way of enjoying the music.

2 Stars = A song that is okay/fine but does not appeal to me. This is where music genres that I might not fully appreciate or enjoy would go. A 2 Star rating is not an indication of bad music, but just a genre/theme that does not do much for me. This is where aesthetics or taste comes in in contrast to the 1 Star rating. Another way of thinking about this:  I listened to it and would consider listening to it again if I was bored and had nothing else to listen to (which is highly unlikely).

3 Stars = A song that I liked and appeals to me. This is music that I would consider to be good music (from a personal perspective). These songs will be in a genre / mood / theme that resonates with me. Another way of thinking about this: I listened to it and would want to hear it about once a month, would hum along, and consider it to capture a particular mood.

4 Stars = A song that I am really fond of and have become attached to. This is music I would consider to be great music that best represents a particular artist or genre. Another way of thinking about this: I listened to it and would want to hear it again every week. This song would get me humming and moving along to it. It would be the best example of a particular mood or theme.

5 Stars = A song that I love. This is music that spans genres and generations. It is the best example of music. The stuff that reaches into my gut, gives me goosebumps, makes my hair stand on end, puts me into convulsions… alright I am exaggerating but you get the idea Another way of  thinking about this is: I can listen to this song multiple times in a row, every hour, and every day. This is the best of music that cuts across time and place for me. It is not defined by a mood, but instead defines a mood.

Since I have publicly disclosed my love affair with iTunes, I thought I would share some the my lessons in love.

The first lesson I learnt in importing one’s music library into iTunes is: Do it right from the beginning. (Not really helpful eh?)

What I mean by “right”, is that you should import all of your songs off the entire CD, and do it at the top end of the bit-rate range.

The first mistake I made is that when I started doing the importing about two years ago, I was anxious about running out of hard drive space. I would try to pick the top five songs off every CD. When I started importing my CDs, I would listen to them, identify which tracks that I wanted to import into iTunes, write those down, do the import, and finally place the CD in storage. It became a headache in having to debate when a song made the cut or didn’t.

Well, I eventually learned that a song that I might have not liked when I first heard it, might be worth re-listening to when prompted by an article or recommendation. Now I had to go dig the CD out of storage and then insert it, find the track, etc. It would be so much easier to go to iTunes and load the track to play instantly.

The second mistake I made is that I was importing at a lower or shallower bit-rate. I started with 128 and later moved up to 160 bit. I then decided that it would be best to do the most optimized bit-rate of space and sound. My settings are: 192kbps / VBR-on, Highest-on 44.100 kHz, Smart-on, Filter-on

I am now re-ripping a bunch of CDs because I was too cheap to begin with.

And I am keeping to MP3 format and not using the Apples AAP format mostly for legacy purposes. I still burn MP3 CDs for use in my car and various CD players. Even though I am sure in five to ten years, MP3 CDs will not be required, the MP3 format is just too ubiquitous to be usurped by the next generation of digital music.

I have loved music for as long as I can remember. Playing music on records (I still remember my first record player and albums when I was six), then to cassettes, and then CDs. But it was the combination of music and computers that opened up new possibilities to think about music.

Combining music with computers in the form of MP3 files was a revelation for me, but I struggled with finding a program that would do everything I wanted. I tried everything except iTunes since I wrongly believed that I needed an iPod to use it and that it would not play or catalog my MP3 files, just the ones purchased off the iTunes store. So about two years ago, I decided to see what everyone was raving about, I downloaded version 7 and immediately fell in love.

What charmed me was that my most wanted features at that time were being provided:

• iTunes provided a clean and attractive interface that controls the folders of the MP3 files. Unlike many other control freaks out there, I don’t care what the file or folder is named, I just care that the files are there and easily found.
• iTunes allowed me to create MP3 CDs with customizable and dynamic playlists. If I wanted a Punk CD, I just create a dynamic smart-playlist that sorts out Punk bands in the Genre heading and its all there.
• These playlists can be also ordered in any fashion I see fit. If I want to create a customized playlist that focuses on year, genre, and mood, I can easily do this. I do not need to follow the default folder system that many other MP3 list makers do.
• iTunes usually tags compilation / greatest hit albums with the songs individual dates which was really important to me. I don’t care what year a compilation comes out, I care when a song is released.

So now for the past 10 months I have been importing every one of my CDs into iTunes. So far I am up to 10,000 songs being imported and there are many more to go. iTunes not only satisfied me when it first came out, but continues to be improved and is up to version 9.

And Apple sure knows how to market. Not only did they provide a superior free product, but the software’s appeal eventually lured me to a recent purchase of an iPod Touch about two months ago which I love.

I have been manipulated into marriage with Apple through an affair with iTunes. And I could’nt be happier being had.

What if you could own a ticket that would allow you to purchase a company if it did well? Would it not be kind of like having insurance policy that you could exercise if the conditions were right?

Film or theatrical producers often buy the right – but not the obligation – to dramatize a specific book or script. That is what a stock option is.

A stock option is the right to buy (call option) or sell (put option) a specific number of shares of a company, at a certain price, by a specified date.

They add a delay effect to the normal direct purchasing and selling of companies. This delay if used wisely, can give you added advantages as an investor. Because of this, Options are very sophisticated financial instruments and should only be done once you have a working understanding of the stock market.

Options Help Limits Losses

Consider this for a moment; two men invest in the same stock. One man invests $10,000 and he hopes the stock will rise. The best outcome could be that the stock doubles and the downside is that it goes bankrupt.  He could make 100% profits or lose 100%.  He either gains $10,000 or loses $10,000 or anything in-between.

The other man invests in the same stock but with proper options. He only risks $1,000 because the options allow him to purchase rights to stocks without having to outright purchase all of them. With these options, if the stock doubles, they will be worth 10 times what he bought it for.  His upside is 1,000% gain or $10,000 while his downside is only $1,000 or anything in-between.

Two men invest in the same stock.  Both have the same upside potential while one of the men has 10 times the risk. Now this was just to illustrate that high profit does not have to mean unacceptable risk, thanks to Options.

Leveraging with Options

Lets say you have the opportunity to purchase an option on IBM. It would be written something like:

APPL Oct 100 Call at $2.00.

This is a call option. The company associated with it is Apple Computers, trading as APPL on the stock exchange. The strike price is $100. If you own this option, you can decide to buy Apple stock at $100 per share, even if it should be trading at $90 or $110 per share.

The cost to buy this option is $2.00 which is multiplied by the number of shares which is in multiples of 100. This means the lowest amount you could spend would be $200 (100 shares x $2.00) plus your broker commissions.

Each option has an expiry date, in our example, it would be the one month away. If you do nothing and your option expires, you lose your $200 (plus commissions). This may seem like a loss, but it would be better to lose $200 instead of being forced to purchase 100 shares of Apple at $100 or $10,000 only to find that it is now trading at $90 per share. This would result in an automatic unrealized loss of $1,000 and you now have tied up $10,000 of you capital into a stock waiting for it to go up.

Options can also be shorted just like stocks can be shorted. If you believe that a stock will go down in price, but don’t want to pony up the total investment, you can buy an option with a strike price being lower than what it is currently trading at.

It gets complicated, and requires a leap of understanding, but as you can see, if understood and used wisely, stock options can help you immensely in your investment strategy.

Christopher Billows is the publisher of In The Money, the Stock Options Trading Course, a 60 page eBook. Hundreds of people have found the eBook giving them the investing edge they need to keep ahead of inflation and taxes. For more information and to purchase the eBook go to www.mandalainvesting.com.

Every good investor knows that he should set aside some of his portfolio for long-term, lower-risk investments.  The other portion can be used for medium to higher-risk investments depending on your financial circumstances and other life factors.

Allocate Wisely

A good rule of thumb to follow is:  Allocate 50% of your portfolio for the long-term, lower risk category no matter how great a speculative short term pick may appear.

This will take discipline, but on more than one occasion it will probably save you in no small way.

Most of the systems and strategies you find on the Internet are high-risk, high-gain where you can be wiped out in a single transaction.

Take a risk! I do, but only with a certain percent of my funds. You should do the same.

So let’s say for example that you choose to invest in long-term, lower-risk stocks with 50% of your portfolio.

Let’s start by defining what a good long-term stock is. Some will call them large-cap stocks, other’s call them Blue Chip stocks.

Blue Chips will be the common stock of a nationally known company that has a long record of profit growth, dividend payments, and a reputation for quality management, products, and services. Some examples would be International Business Machines, General Electric, and DuPont. They are relatively high priced and have moderate dividend yields.

There is no true master list of Blue Chip stocks. That is because the definition of what is and isn’t a blue chip stock varies greatly. Essentially though, its a consistent top performing stock.

Look to such indexes as Dow Jones Industrial Averages and Standard and Poor’s 100 Averages to see such lists.

The problem is that you may invest in long-term, lower-risk stocks that stagnate for years on end.  Yet, even such stocks have their ups and downs and the profit you see (or don’t see) can be exacerbated by current market conditions.

Your entry time could be poor and you may have to wait years to see a break-even point on such a stock.

You still need a proven strategy with so-called “stable” investment stocks.

Buy and Sell Wisely

To get the most gain out of the stocks you buy and help to minimize your risk, you need to employ one of the tools used by professionals, which is Technical Analysis. You will use some Technical analysis to help you determine the price to buy in and the price to sell. Technical analysis is merely putting a stock through a mathematical formula.

When you employ this tool properly, you can get many times the profit you currently get or others get with the old ‘buy and hold’ strategy.

Each technical indicator is made to tell you something slightly different.  Some will tell you the momentum of a stock, its trend strength, volatility limits, how much its diverging from previous price patterns.

Some of these indicators, while good, are for short-term action.  Others are more geared for long-term action.  So just because someone swears by an indicator, it doesn’t mean that its the right indicator for you in a certain application.

The indicator that we have become familiar with is called the Stochastic oscillator. This indicator is a momentum indicator that is based on closing prices of a stock that doesn’t take into account wild daily fluctuations.  It bases the current close against previous closes to indicate buying pressure or selling pressure.

Simple use of this indicator can make you lose money quick should you not understand how to properly use it. If you have ever traded using momentum indicators, you know that many false signals can be created. Whipsaws or false movements that quickly reverse in the indicator create further problems. The more people try to compensate for the weaknesses in the indicator, the worse it seems to get.

That is until development of the K-39 Theory, also called the Last Stochastic Theory. This theory will guide you in how to ignore those false signals and take advantage of the built-in momentum of the stock.

This way you can find ways to trade the best Blue Chip stocks and know when are the better times to buy and sell. You will then have the bluest of the blue chips thanks to this method.

Christopher Billows is the publisher of In The Money, the Stock Options Trading Course, a 60 page eBook. Hundreds of people have found the eBook giving them the investing edge they need to keep ahead of inflation and taxes. For more information and to purchase the eBook go to www.mandalainvesting.com.

It’s a cruel joke. I worked for hundreds of hours on my publication, Polls, Parties, and Power: Distortion and Wasted Votes in Canada’s Election 1980-2000. I was convinced that people would see “the facts” and naturally gravitate to adopt Proportional Representation. Now, I have come to admit that voting reform does not matter. What I thought was important, is important no more.

But that does not mean I am discounting my efforts. I am proud of my publication and my early efforts in the voting reform movement. I learned so much from doing it and would like to share the culmination of my efforts with you.

Check it out…

Polls, Parties, and Power: Waste and Distortion
in Canada’s Elections 1980-2000

Published 2002
312 Pages ~ Format: PDF ~ Size: 4.86MB
Download it by right-clicking and selecting ‘Save As’.

An interesting (and personally changing) result in the May 12 Referendum held in BC. The proposal to switch the existing system (First-Past-the-Post) to the single transferable vote electoral system (BC-STV) proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform was defeated.

The results were 38.82% in favor of switching, which was far away from 60% they needed. They did not even come close to reaching the second referendum requirement, capturing only 7 of the 51 required ridings.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is a part of me that is disappointed with the outcome. I was involved in the Voting Reform movement back in its beginnings in 1995. I believed that by changing the way our leaders are elected, that we would change the outcome, which would lead to better government.

That idealism has been steadily eroded over the years to the point I am now distrusting of political parties, ideological purity, and democracy. I remain interested in politics, but more from the perspective of leadership and how that leadership is developed.

This will be a huge blow to Fair Vote Canada, as the result demonstrates the complete lack of political and democratic imagination possessed by BC voters. I would have to conclude that British Columbians (and Canadians) don’t really care about how our politicians are elected.

And maybe they are right. Maybe the voting system does not matter since they believe that stupid politicians will continue to be elected under the new voting system. Perhaps STV or any PR system will provide a more transparant outcome, but will not provide the leadership and integrity that we need. It comes back to the idea of Garbage In Garbage Out – crappy politicians will simply translate into a more accurate but still crappy government with Proportional Representation and STV.

K – Keep invested

I – Invest in stocks

S – Self-direct your investments

S – Small investments possess an advantage

K – Keep invested and don’t become discouraged

There are lots of people who enter the stock market, get burned, drop out, and then hand their finances over to a broker or mutual fund seller. That is the wrong thing to do. Losing money in the stock market is all a part of learning how to invest.

I have lost thousands on bad investments but I have also made more thousands on good investments. I still come out ahead because the good investments are that much better and I have invested wisely. The worst thing I could do is become discouraged and drop out of the market.

Investing is like any skill. It takes practice and knowledge to master. You need to keep investing and learning. The trick is to start small and increase your investments as your mastery develops.

Consistent contributions are critical especially if you are depositing into a retirement account. Every contribution will help reduce your taxes payable and all of your gains are allowed to grow tax-free.

I – Invest in stocks and instruments related to stocks

The best place to park your money is in stocks. There are thousands to choose from but for long term planning it is best to pick sold big capital stocks that are the basis of your long term plan.

You can invest in mutual funds but be prepared to get poorer results. Diversification is taken to the negative extreme in these financial instruments and the fund has to overcome its own hefty management fees before it can even turn a profit for you. You can find better results by investing in a few sold companies and in Exchange Traded Funds.

Stocks come in five basic varieties. You want to avoid the last one and invest in the others depending on your investing philosophy.

a) Blue-Chip Stock – Solid companies whose steady profits allow it to pays out dividends. These should make up a majority of your stock portfolio.

b) Growth Stock – Typically technology or biotechnology companies that grow and expand. Rarely do they pay out dividends because they plow their profits back into the expansion.

c) Value Stocks – Companies that the market has undervalued. The market is not always rational and sometimes these companies make great buy-out opportunities for other firms.

d) Mad Money Stocks – Very speculative stocks that are not making any profits but have a product you believe in. Depending on your investing constitution, set aside 0-10% of your portfolio for some speculative fun.

e) The Dregs – Companies that are losing money, revenue, and leadership. Avoid these unless you are interested in betting against their decline in what is called ‘shorting’.

Some investment firms will value stocks by the size of the company in stock value. That is useful to tell you how big a company is, but it would be like valuing the denomination of dollar bills – a $100 is always worth more that a $20 bill – so what? Two companies might trade for $100 but in actual fact the worth of the company behind the stock price is like a $100 bill in US money and a $100 bill in Mexican money. They are not worth the same amount.

General Motors is one of the largest publicly traded companies but should not be considered a blue-chip. GM has had declining revenues, has debt problems, and faces very stiff competition from the Asian automakers.

S – Self-directed accounts ensures lower trading costs and control

Get a self-directed/discount brokerage account. Do not go with a stock broker if you have every intention of taking control of your financial future.

This allows you to both save money and act in contrarian ways when the rest of the market is panicking. It is possible to double your money on stocks that everyone has given up on. The fact is most investors operate on fear and emotion. You can win in the stock market if you are one of those people who blink last.

S – Smallness can be an advantage in the investing world

Not having millions of dollars is an advantage you can leverage to your benefit. Large institutional investors like pension plans and mutual funds cannot enter the market without hurting some of their investments. You on the other hand, can purchase stocks at great prices without driving up the price. You can also get out of a stock investment without worrying about driving down the price.

Having millions of dollars to invest has its own set of headaches, one you likely want to experience, but until then, you should take advantage of your smaller size as an investor. Nimbleness has distinct advantages in the stock market. Enjoy it while you are still small.

There you have it: the KISS principle for the investing world. Hopefully, you will be inspired to take control over your investments with these principles.

Christopher Billows is the publisher of In The Money, the Stock Options Trading Course, a 60 page eBook. Hundreds of people have found the eBook giving them the investing edge they need to keep ahead of inflation and taxes. For more information and to purchase the eBook go to www.mandalainvesting.com.

My own experience in working with people and with meditation is that emotions are essential components of our being. Those who advocate sterile logic and academic intelligence fall into the trap of ignoring emotions and thus disabling their understanding of what makes people human.

I would say it is like Oscar Wilde’s quote that the cynic knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Replace the term ‘cost’ with ‘measurement’ and we can see why emotions are ignored since they impossible to measure. But because emotions are not measurable we cannot ignore them. Doing so is at our own peril.

Check it out…

www.EmotionalCompetency.com

Sure sounds like socialism. It is a socialist ideal to have people have all their needs met with minimal effort on their own part. Only within socialism are people allowed to make poor choices and still get away with it, because after-all the larger community will take care of you.

Yet what we are witnessing is not socialism in its pure form. What we are seeing is a kind of socialism known as State Capitalism. This is where governments in the US, UK, and other places prop up their banks and financial institutions. This ends up saving and rewarding many of the same people who created the credit crisis. Yet, just like in the video, the state stood aside and allowed this to happen and even contributed to it by keeping interest rates too low. The state has to step in because it helped create the crisis in an indirect fashion.

We may have the structure of free enterprise, but the attitude behind all of this is completely socialist. Its all about getting something for minimal effort. The various governments want to see the business world succeed since this contributes to increased wealth and taxes. The problem is that many states lost sight of their purpose and became too cozy with business success.

Yet governments are quick to find a scapegoat and it appears that Libertarians are being targeted as the cause behind the problem. Stephen Harper said as much in a recent speech which has raised the ire of some libertarians.  Harper was quoted in the Canadian Press as saying “The libertarian says, ‘Let individuals exercise full freedom and take full responsibility for their actions.’ The problem with this notion is that people who act irresponsibly in the name of freedom are almost never willing to take responsibility for their actions.”

Is Libertarianism discredited by the Credit Crisis? Perhaps. I have grown to believe in free markets, but must admit that the Crisis has challenged some of my convictions. It has demonstrated that unfettered freedom to the greedy and short-sighted brings ruin to all of us.

Maybe greater freedom needs to be reserved only for the competent and mature. Maybe it needs to be reserved for those willing to take responsibility for their actions and not to those who use idealistic/ideological notions of “freedom” to justify their behavior.

How Many Social Workers Does It Take To Change a Lightbulb?

• The light bulb doesn’t need changing, it’s the system that needs to change.
• None. Social Workers never change anything.
• None. They empower it to change itself.
• None. The light bulb is not burnt out, it’s just differently lit.
• None. They set up a team to write a paper on coping with darkness.

Unfortunately for the most part we have been sold a product that does what it says but does not deliver what you need.

Yes, mutual funds do invest in the stock market.

Yes, mutual funds do diversify the risk over hundreds of stocks but…

No, most mutual funds do not give you the returns you need.

Diversify and Die?

Mutual Funds will give you built in diversification. Some of them invest in entire stock market indexes, others invest into a combination of stocks and bonds, and some invest into other company mutual funds (which are called Fund of Funds, yikes!).

Diversification of your investment money is important. You should never put all of your money into one company. Because you have no control over how that company does or how other investors react to the company’s news, it is best to hedge your dollars by spreading the risk around.

Yet it is possible to over-diversify. Because mutual funds have so much money to invest, they struggle with finding good companies to buy. To keep to the rules of diversifying the portfolio, they cannot invest usually more than 5% of their assets in one single company. This results in lots of dollars being invested into companies you would never consider.

Mutual Funds have to buy lots of mediocre or bad companies because they need to diversify and do something with the billions of dollars they have. It gives the fund shareholders the impression that their money is being invested and the fund managers gladly charge you a healthy management fee.

Active Management is an Expense

Professional management of millions of dollars does not come cheap for most mutual funds. You can expect to pay 2% up to 8% for some specialized funds. These means that if you make 5% return, you would have actually have earned 8% if the Management Fee is 3%. That means that the Mutual Fund has to earn 3% before they can even pay you.

Dollar Cost Averaging is not a benefit if you are getting poor returns. Believe me, I invested consistently for fifteen years directly into various mutual funds. I bought over $125,000 in mutual funds with the biggest dealer and ended up with an averaged return of a criminal 2.05% a year!

It makes far more sense to contribute to a money market fund where there are no fluctuations and then use that fund to make your investment purchases.

Mutual funds do have the advantage of providing liquidity. You can sell and have your cash within a couple of days. But the question is begged why are you pulling out? Investment money is money you should not need right away.

Mediocrity is the Name of the Fund

The sad fact about Mutual Funds is that most them rarely beat the market. It is estimated that only 1.3% of American Mutual Funds will beat the S&P 500. Mutual Funds are investment products and should not be seen as a complete investing solution.

Mutual Funds that get 20% returns in one year have a poor chance of duplicating their results. Companies do a better job of providing consistent performance compared to MFs. If you buy a mutual fund that did well you have a greater chance of it doing poorly the following year.

But just like the stock market where most of them are not worth investing into, the same thing exists in the mutual fund industry. There does exist a small segment that does capture decent, but not market-beating returns. If you want to delegate some of your investment dollars to the responsibility of another, then mutual funds are the way to go. But when doing so, you need to lower your expectations.

The Best Solution: Take Control

If you want diversity protection, low management expenses, and equivalent to market results get Exchange Traded Funds. They should make up a decent portion of your portfolio. You can only get those by opening up a brokerage account.

But while you are opening up a brokerage account and doing dome research into Exchange Traded Funds, you might as well look into investing into stocks. It is only in the stock market where you can get market beating returns and stay way ahead of inflation and taxes.

Stop accepting the pale imitation of stock market returns through the veil of mutual funds. Invest directly and take control.

Christopher Billows is the publisher of In The Money, the Stock Options Trading Course, a 60 page eBook. Hundreds of people have found the eBook giving them the investing edge they need to keep ahead of inflation and taxes. For more information and to purchase the eBook go to www.mandalainvesting.com.

Given my past anti-ideology posts, I am curious to see whether having two non-party-ideology candidates makes any difference in the tone of the election campaign and whether they will be more effective than the trained seals that most party MPs and MLAs become.

I will be supporting Geoff Currier as my candidate because from what I understand, he refuses to take an ideological position on any issues, but evaluate each according to his best judgment. Sounds refreshing to me. In addition, he is a fiscal conservative which aligns with my values of keeping government as small as possible.

Good luck Geoff!