Christmas

After bailing on our planned expedition to Omaha at the Iowa border, we had a very relaxing Christmas day. We went in the early afternoon to catch the first showing of Black Swan, which was incredibly intense. I understand why some reviewers accuse Natalie Portman's acting of being passive, but the visuals combined with the music kept us both on the edges of our seats.

We went back that evening to see The Fighter, which was a good movie, but not a surprise, since you rather expect things to go the way they do. The sisters had to be the best part of the film, sitting on the couch, complaining and organising trouble...

This has to be the first Christmas in years we haven't been up to our ears in family members. I don't expect to set a precedent, but it was a welcome change.

Grades

For anyone who found this and is concerned, I managed to get a 4.0 this (Fall 2010) semester at UIC. In the words of the internet:

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
Unknown

So now I am dying to see what it can feel like when I'm in over my head. Registered for 16 credits again, and informally auditing another 3 credit course. So I should be set with Intro to Adv Math, Linear Algebra I, Macroeconomics, Programming Tools, Intro to Probability, and Financial Mathematics. That's 2 graduate level courses and 4 undergrad. Hope it all goes as well this time

.

Project Euler

I just advanced to level one on Project Euler, after solving the 25 easiest problems. (Actually, 1-23, 25, and 48).

I'm pretty happy about that, and will be calling it a day right now. I need time to digest these amazing bit-field sieves, where membership is binary. That is way faster than my naive listing of all members and their values...

Latest Readings

Shame on me for stumbling on something wonderful. I sure am a sucker for koans. (I'm especially a fan of ones where Sussman is the apprentice). But these are fine, too:
Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors

Who's your friend?

Anyone who supposes that Facebook's users are its customer has got the business model precisely backwards. Users pay nothing, because we aren't customers, but product. The customers are the advertisers to whom Facebook sells the information users hand over, knowingly or not.

You may think that your Facebook friends care what you're up to, but they'd drop you like a stone if it cost them money to learn you had just become imaginary mayor of an imaginary town, or even that you had just had a row with your mother and slammed the phone down. The only people to whom that information is worth even a fraction of a penny are those who want to take advantage of it to sell you something you don't need – except, that is for your real friends, but imaginary ones are so much more reassuring.

Guardian original article.

Full Page Preview

Google Support Forum

I have to say I'm glad I found this. And I'm sad that it's come down to blocking google. This was a major headache as I often scroll through the results using the keys, and each time a new page pops open on the right, which certainly wasn't expected, and nowhere is there a button in search options to disable this. I understand google is under some pressure to be friendly and helpful, but really, a clean simple interface is good for the world, and was google's biggest success. I might have had to find an alternate search site if this was not fixable.

Score one for ad block plus.


urbanrocker
Level 2
11/17/10
The only thing I can suggest is a solution that unfortunately only works for Firefox users however it does in fact work like a charm.

If you have Firefox, you'll need to install the "AdBlock Plus" add-on as well as the ABP 'Element Hiding Helper' extension companion. Once installed, restart and search for anything on google (i.e. "bonsai trees"), then go to the ABP icon in the upper right corner of FF. Click "select an element to hide" and hover over any result on the page or click the magnifying glass icon, a red box will show up over the icon; click it and voila! It's good riddance to this godawful page preview.

Alternatively you can press ctrl+shift+k, hover over a search result until the preview shows up, click on the preview until the red box shows up over the entire thing, click it and all subsequent previews are gone for good.

Thanksgiving Shopping

I know everyone wants to go shopping the day after thanksgiving, but sometimes you need to buy drinks on the way to dinner. I poked aimlessly around Binny's website for some time before I found a great hint at Gaper's Block and found out they'll be open until 4PM. Wonderful. Then I realized this was from 2006, and now I'm still digging...

Cafe Hoang

This afternoon Beth and I were pretty hungry, and we were already south of downtown, so we made our way to Cermak and stopped in for a late lunch at Cafe Hoang (just east of the Archer intersection in Chinatown). First, it's been a long time since we got spring rolls that were perfect. These had thin, sticky wrappers, a long piece of pork, shrimp in the center, and stuffed with basil leaf and vermicelli. Couldn't have asked for it better. Then we order the vietnamese pancake (Banh Xeo), which was a little crispier than the last time we enjoyed this. Served with a plate of lettuce, basil, cucumber and carrot slivers. This was again a huge relief. At this time, we should have just stopped and paid, but we'd already ordered plates. Beth had a vermicelli and chicken bowl, and I ordered a spicy beef stir fry.

This was a great meal! The service was very solicitous. The restaurant was quiet (it was after 2PM when we arrived) and it all kept coming on schedule. For about $7-10 per item, this was a good deal. I think I won't be going to Argyle again when I want some Vietnamese food.

Halsted and Roosevelt

It's a good idea to come to a complete stop before turning right on red. Only day I drove in two months.

-- TICKET INFORMATION --

Ticket Number Violation Description License Plate State Issue Date Ticket Amount
7003031XXX Red light violation XXXXXXX IL 10/27/2010 $100
Grand Total $100

Funny Stuff in comp.lang.c

Date: Mon, Nov 8 2010 1:13 pm
From: MartinBroadhurst


On Nov 8, 7:43 pm, "Jon" wrote:
>
> >>>>> Just because you found other incorrect usages of the term doesn't
> >>>>> make it correct. A "concrete" class in C++ is one who's object
> >>>>> instances behave like built-in types. Such a class must include
> >>>>> the following special member functions: a default constructor, a
> >>>>> copy constructor, a copy-assignment operator, a destructor.
>

Jon, you're so wrong that people who are merely massively in error
look to you for consolation.
You're so wrong that the people of the planet Wrong have rung to say
that they don't know you.
You're so wrong that somewhere in Paris, there is an aluminium
simulacrum of you; it is the SI unit of being wrong.

Martin

Halloween

Well, I haven't got a costume or any plans. I am not too concerned about this. We have a few gummy snacks should some small person make his way up the stairs to our door. I don't expect he will (I think there is only one child in our building--most of my neighbors prefer dogs).

In other news, I have three exams this coming week, in Comp Sci, Stat, and Diff Eqs. I hope to do well.

Still on the cusp of playing with lisp enough to make a meaningful program. Learned just a small amount of SQL last weekend. We'll see when I can make use of that.

Math woes

So I had an exam yesterday in Differential equations. My biggest difficulty, it seems, now that I think I remember calculus, is knowing what I just have to leave alone. I had a problem that started well enough, y' = e^(x^2/2)(x+xy)/y. This solves pretty easily to y - log(y+1) = e^(x^2) + C. I wish I hadn't believed it would be a good idea to try to solve for y. Although wolfram suggests the answer lies in something called a lambert product-log function, it's a horrible solution, and can't be expected to pop into the head of an undergraduate math student (esp. not before complex analysis). So the good news is that I got all the parts on the page. The bad news is I didn't put them all next to each other, circle, and move on. The other 5 problems were either really easy or I did them all wrong.

Apple Holler

Went up to Wisconsin this morning to have a trip through the apple orchard. It was windy and chilly, so we were glad we dressed appropriately. Unfortunately, only the jonathan and golden delicious were really harvestable, so we mostly walked through rows of barren trees. We had a fun time regardless.


Cristin with our bag of fresh fruit.


There was a pig race at noon, 4 little porkers running to get their dinners.



This little guy can probably get through the fence if he really wants to.

Today

I woke up a little late today. Beth went with me to school, so I was only 15 minutes late for my 9AM class.
It was really hot last night. Around 11PM we gave up and turned on the air conditioning. It was super hard to sleep lying in pools of our own sweat. Maybe that's why I didn't get up at 7AM.

I had a much better time on my math quiz than I had last week. I'm pretty sure I got the answers right, and quickly (which makes me feel good, I never enjoyed spending a lot of time on a test.) I compared notes with someone who finished right when I had, and we had identical answers and both had high levels of confidence.

I almost solved the wrong problem (again!), and originally produced an answer for 2.0 instead of 0.2, if you weren't there, it's tough to explain, but the answer for 2 was 7, while the answer for .2 was about 5/4.

We had JB Alberto's tonight (a little friday night ritual for us), and went to see the Town (Ben Affleck) at the 400. Buzz came over and rubbed my faux pas at Anne's house in one more time. Fun for everyone.

Tonight

Going to try to get into a free concert at the Art Institute tonight. Mexican music for cello and piano... we'll see how it goes. We hope to sup at the Bennigan's on Michigan first.

This went really well. I had a good time at the concert, and didn't add an unwelcome horn section after dining on the french onion soup. The concert was free, a little under 90 minutes, and very interesting. I hadn't heard of any of these people. I think I may look into Blas Galindo more in the future. Some of the musicianship was really interesting, and Beth wanted to get a little closer to the cello to see the music happening. We had a great view of the pianist.

We tried to hang out in the little garden just south of the art institute entrance, but they wanted to lock up and chased us out (their definition of dusk is a little different than ours.)

Bennigan's should never be a destination, only a speed bump along the way. It really isn't that great. I understand why they went under. I bet if I bought more beer it might be less distressing.

Funny things happened

Well, I went to see the play. Beth had to sit with the designer to review notes. One of the actors was injured during the first half, and didn't reappear, since he'd gone to the hospital. It looks like his bloody nose was just the noticeable part, and they think he's got a concussion. So it was cast change during intermission, and an apologetic director explaining what had happened. Previews can be the most fun.

All the fighting is taking a realistic toll on the fine clothes everyone wears. One of the blood capsules went off before a man was injured, but he had plenty left to make the bloody death more real after the false start.

Found a parking spot just across the tracks. Things went well!

Progress

Well, I have started chatting to a few people on a regular basis, and a few have at least introduced themselves. My homework is no problem, and differential equations is a rocky harbor to moor in. I hope that the less manipulative algebra classes will be of a different tenor. The calculus instructors seem to be a bit abrasive.

Going to a preview of Romeo and Juliet tonight, then hoping to catch a concert tomorrow night at the art museum.

The barber on campus is competitive with the shops in the neighborhood, and it uses my two hour lunch a little better than I could do myself.

Today

Okay, turned in my statistics homework. I took a quiz in Diff Eqns, which was a relief how easily it went. I wasn't as pleased at how little trouble I had with it as I was at how much quicker than most of the people I was finished. I always feel like the professor is trying to scare people away in the lectures, so I was pretty happy to turn in a good piece of easy work to at least justify my space in the class.

I think I was the only person who typed the stat homework, and I may be the only person using R instead of excel... it seems an entire generation has grown up thinking TI makes the only calculators, and courses include hints on how to use them. I don't know maple or TI calculators, so a lot of the hints in the classes about how to use computers are lost on me. Of course, I know enough C to solve my problems the hard way...

Catchup

I started school last week. So far, so good. We'll see how I feel in a few months.

I am attending UIC M-F 9AM-4PM. If you are in the Greektown/Little Italy areas around lunch, please give me a call, I could use a little excursion now and then.

I realized that I am a big violator of Comcast's TOS regarding data use. If they decide to punish me for exceeding their 250GB monthly allowance, I will probably give AT&T or RCN a call (since their policy is to disable internet for abusers). Seeding Free Content is apparently not something they want their 'home' users to be able to do.

I picked up basic LaTeX the other day while trying to type my homework for statistics (Couldn't figure out how to embed nice looking Sigma's into a document, figured now was as good a time as any to learn a necessary typesetting skill). I am certain there are countless style violations, my main concern was putting it all on paper efficiently.

I am learning R as I go. The catalog for the Stat course implies that SAS or SPSS would be used, but since there is no lab component, it's a free for all on software. If you have a lot of time on your hands, use a pen; if you like office, use excel; and if you are a guy like me, use R. It is good enough for my brother in law, Chris, so it can't be all wrong.

My second lab of CS was fruitless. Basically still learning to effectively type and transfer files. Copying code snippets isn't what I had expected at this point. I expect things to move a little faster in the future.

Econ is going well, until I realized that there are many people more mathematically illiterate than I. The instructor put a derivative on the board today, and a lengthy argument about how something could vary at a point came up. I bet the 17th century was full of some heated discussions about the meaning of the differential, just like this. Some people don't have an I believe button to block out the impossible notion of an infinitesimal change. I breath deeply and think they may be right. But if you allow for it, see how many problems you can answer!

Best Robots.txt file?

http://github.com/bentruyman/fiveoclocksong/raw/master/robots.txt

For The Win

I'd like to thank Cory Doctorow for continuing to give away inspiring and thoughtful content. I chewed through this in two days, and will likely be buying someone a copy in the future. Fast, light, and bewildering.

Planning to Go

My manager called yesterday to ask me to reconsider. He of course
hoped I would have thought about the benefits of staying a few more
years. I've thought about it, and these are the general trends I'm
concerned with.

The company has introduced a new platform and has been shipping it to
customers over the last year. The system is scalable, modular, and
everything you could design into a system of it's type. Unfortunately,
the continued maintenance of this is a problem. We have moved past the
point of shipping a product than can be simply replaced, and the end
user ability to reconfigure added parts or replacements is limited (by
design). This will increase the amount of time service personnel are
tasked with maintaining and upgrading existing systems. I see why this
makes sense from a business perspective, as it makes service contracts
much more attractive to the end user.

As the service engineer, I foresee more weekend and night work as
upgrades to customer sites are performed without interfering with
their business. A growing number of these sites have disparate and non
transferrable security background checks, and maintaining these will
be a logistical issue dropped onto the shoulders of field personnel.

Given the slow growth in commercial construction, more focus will be
placed on existing systems as an avenue for revenue growth. These are
typically much more involved both in planning and execution. The days
of 2 hour solutions are gone, as projects on that level are sourced to
third party contracts.

The potential for personal growth in the company, both in increased
salary and more involved roles in product development, are confined to
positions requiring relocation to the east coast headquarters. I am
very happy where I am, but I understand I have arrived in a static
position.

Additionally, now that my plans are set in motion, and I've registered
and received a green light to move ahead, the thought of staying where
I am is so personally unrewarding that I can't imagine it. I'm sure
there could have been some salary negotiation or accomodation to keep
me where I am, but I'm on track for a better life, and my wife and I
look forward to my staying home every night for the next few years.

Basically, I'm excited about what the future holds, and am curious to
see what I am capable of.

--
Sent from my mobile device

What are kids coming to?

Happy Slap

I thought Sack Tap was a bad enough one. Some boys in Britain just pleaded guilty to manslaughter after recording beating an old man to death. Nothing more fun that using a cell phone to collect evidence for the police.

The New Face Of Apple

 

 

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The New Face Of Apple

via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan by Andrew Sullivan on 6/14/10

The iPad has the instincts of the Pentagon.

Apple - IPad - United States - IPhone - Search

 

 

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NorthSide Federal Credit Union

 

from http://www.newsweek.com/2008/11/14/a-risk-worth-taking.html :

Ethical subprime lenders are now expanding beyond mortgages. Ed Jacob, manager and CEO of Chicago's North Side Community Federal Credit Union, was alarmed to learn that many of his 2,700 members, most of whom have less than $100 in their accounts, were relying on the "second-tier financial-service marketplace": check-cashing outlets and payday lenders, which charge exorbitant fees. So he rolled out a Payday Alternative Loan (PAL), $500 for six months at 16.5 percent. The delinquency rate on the more than 5,000 PALs extended thus far is 2.5 percent. "For payday lenders, it's a success if customers keep taking out loans. To me, it's a success if they don't have to anymore," Jacob says. He believes such loans can build a credit history and help "move people to better products for them and us—auto loans and, eventually, mortgage loans."

 

I was looking at NorthSide's webpage, and suddenly realize I was looking at a picture of Anna from Inspiration Cafe and her son (saw her once when we got cubs tickets delivered to our door.) Although I appreciate the convenience of Chase I really feel like I could be doing something better with my money. Always felt like credit unions were a more ethical (if less convenient) place to keep money. It's refreshing to see people taking positive steps to break the stupid cycle of poverty in so many lives.

Feature Request

Am I the only person who thinks integration between latitude and gmail
would be a good thing? You see your friend is around, and you can
touch their pushpin to contact them, start a phone call, etc.

Maybe there's a smug android user confused why this doesn't just work
on blackberry... Maybe there's a google feature request crawler
already starting to implement this.

(Anyone google world cup and see the Gooooooooooal yet?)

--
Sent from my mobile device

Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club

 

 

Sent to you by Dan via Google Reader:

 

 

Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club

via Balkinization by Guest Blogger on 6/8/10

Christina Mulligan

The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox's Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it's surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned. But it does, and week after week, those zany Glee kids rack up the potential to pay higher and higher fines.

In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna's Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna's original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue's camcorder: up to $300,000). And let's not forget the glee club's many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a "preparation of a derivative work" of the original two songs' compositions – an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.

The absence of any mention of copyright law in Glee illustrates a painful tension in American culture. While copyright holders assert that copyright violators are "stealing" their "property," people everywhere are remixing and recreating artistic works for the very same reasons the Glee kids do — to learn about themselves, to become better musicians, to build relationships with friends, and to pay homage to the artists who came before them. Glee's protagonists — and the writers who created them — see so little wrong with this behavior that the word 'copyright' is never even uttered.

You might be tempted to assume that this tension isn't a big deal because copyright holders won't go after creative kids or amateurs. But they do: In the 1990s, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) asked members of the American Camping Association, including Girl Scout troops,to pay royalties for singing copyrighted songs at camp. In 2004, the Beatles' copyright holders tried to prevent the release of The Grey Album – a mash-up of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album — and only gave up after massive civil disobedience resulted in the album's widespread distribution. Copyright holders even routinely demand that YouTube remove videos of kids dancing to popular music. While few copyright cases go to trial, copyright holders like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) don't hesitate to seek stratospheric damage awards when they do, as in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset filesharing case.

These worlds don't match. Both Glee and the RIAA can't be right. It's hard to imagine glee club coach Will Schuester giving his students a tough speech on how they can't do mash-ups anymore because of copyright law (but if he did, it might make people rethink the law). Instead, copyright violations are rewarded in Glee — after Sue's Physical video goes viral, Olivia Newton-John contacts Sue so they can film a new, improved video together.

So what should you do in real life if you and your friends, inspired by Glee, want to make a mash-up, or a new music video for a popular song? Should you just leave this creativity to the professionals, or should you become dirty, rotten copyright violators?

Current law favors copyright holders. But morally, there's nothing wrong with singing your heart out. Remixing isn't stealing, and copyright isn't property. Copyright is a privilege — actually six specific privileges — granted by the government. Back in 1834, the Supreme Court decided in Wheaton v. Peters that copyrights weren't "property" in the traditional sense of the word, but rather entitlements the government chose to create for instrumental reasons. The scope and nature of copyright protection are policy choices — choices that have grown to favor the interests of established, rent-seeking businesses instead of the public in general.

The Constitution allows Congress to pass copyright laws to "promote the progress of science" — a word often used in the 18^th century to mean "knowledge". The stated purpose of the original 1790 copyright statute was to encourage learning. So you tell me — what promotes knowledge and learning: letting people rearrange music and learn to use a video camera, or threatening new artists with $150,000 fines?

Defenders of modern copyright law will argue Congress has struck "the right balance" between copyright holders' interests and the public good. They'll suggest the current law is an appropriate compromise among interest groups. But by claiming the law strikes "the right balance," what they're really saying is that the Glee kids deserve to be on the losing side of a lawsuit. Does that sound like the right balance to you?

Christina Mulligan is a visiting fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. You can reach her by e-mail at cmulligan at gmail.com

 

 

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Orientation today

Well, orientation went pretty well. My biggest complaint wasn't the
company, but the lunch. They did not offer coffee. In fact, since it
was summer, a lot of the coffee shops were shuttered. I made it
through, met with an advisor, confirmed my registration, and checked
my progress. Apparently some things dropped down and I moved from
Junior to Sophomore (57.5 credits). I think that will only affect me
for the next four months. So my schedule stands, mostly 9-3 or 9-4 5
days a week. It's odd to say a full load sounds like a vacation, but
it really does.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Kobo eReader

Well, I must not be the only one willing to put down 150 bucks to see what this can do. According to Borders website, the kobo is sold out for it's initial June shipment. They are preordering for July 2nd.

Firstly, I am glad I don't have to try and find this at Chapters, and secondly, I am glad that it's generating interest faster than they can make them.

Everything I have seen indicates that as far as gadgets go, it is a single purpose machine, and I expect it to be good at it's only function. It's also by far the cheapest on the market, and comes unbundled from internet access and a monthly data plan. I can always harvest the news with Calibre and load it daily if that's what the internet was for.

UIC Fall 2010

Tentatively I am scheduled for the following courses this fall, any of which may change at orientation next week:

STAT 381 Applied Statistical Methods I M W F 09:00 AM 09:50 AM
LALS 127 Latin American Music (Lecture) M W F 10:00 AM 10:50 AM
MCS 260 Intro To Computer Science (Lecture) M W F 01:00 PM 01:50 PM
MATH 220 Differential Equations I (Lecture) M W F 03:00 PM 03:50 PM

ECON 220 Microeconomics (Lecture-Discussion) T R 09:30 AM 10:45 AM
MCS 260 Intro To Computer Science (Labratory-Discussion)T 01:00 PM 02:50 PM
MATH 220 Differential Equations I R 01:00 PM 01:50 PM

Superstition

I always hate when the 13th floor is missing. It's so common, I was
surprised the other day to be in an elevator that had one.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Just donated

Man am I ever slow to heed the clarion. Made a donation to MSF to assist them however they need it. I think they sent me a map once or twice with a request in the past. I just hope they don't pile on address labels. Can't use any more address labels, charity people. Two years supply sitting in the drawer.

Offline Book "Lending" Costs US Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

 

 

Sent to you by Dan via Google Reader:

 

 

Offline Book "Lending" Costs US Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

via Slashdot by Soulskill on 1/19/10

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a tongue-in-cheek blog post which puts publisher worries about ebook piracy into perspective: "Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that 'publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy' comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were 'loaned' last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. ... From what we've been able to piece together, the book 'lending' takes place in 'libraries.' On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a 'card.' But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

 

 

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Spoke with Chase again

Well that was unpleasant. I really didn't enjoy having to call them again, and I didn't get a conclusive answer from the nice man on the phone. Apparently Chases outbound robocall number has multiple departments behind it, and there's no way to determine which center the calls originated from...

Besides my frustration that asking to have the number removed resulted in about a two week reprieve, I was equally nonplussed by his inability to prevent further calls.

Chase

Chase started the robocalls again. I guess the request to stop calling me didn't register loudly enough.

Sadly, as long as I have an existing account with them, the FTC won't consider it an unsolicited call. And as long as there isn't a closer branch in my neighborhood, the convenience outweighs the nuisance of answering a robocall.

I just wish they weren't so creepy when you call them back.

Line of Credit

Every time I think Navy Federal has nothing to offer me, I find another way that they can make my life better. I just opened a $2500 line of credit with them (unsecured at 14.9%). I don't intend to use it, but it should make my types of credit accounts improve, since I control my borrowing rather tightly. Another interesting product Navy Federal offers is a credit line secured by CD's (share certificates). Interest rate is the CD apr +2%, since it is secured, and the term can be up to 5 years. If you need to borrow your own money (short term need to access the money you have locked up in a certificate), this is a startlingly clear way to do it. If they had a branch closer than Waukegan, that would be better still.

Some day in the distant future, I may even borrow money for a car. I don't really want to, so that day will have to be in the distant future.

I would gladly have opened this at whatever usurious rates Chase suggested if they would only offer. Sadly, they do not.

(side note, why does spell check think of Milwaukee, Waukesha, Pewaukee, but not know about Waukegan?)