Simple Java Event Bus

I've just released some code that has come in handy for quite a few projects I've worked on. It's called the Simple Java Event Bus and is released under the New BSD license. You can download the code here: http://code.google.com/p/simpleeventbus/

An event bus is a useful pattern for decoupling the components of a highly meshed application. Event bus is a substitute for the Observer pattern, useful when too many observers/observables exist to keep a clean design. Components can couple directly to the EventBus instead of to each other, allowing events or messages to be published to the bus. Listeners to the bus will then be notified about the event if they have interest in the event type.

I have used other event bus implementations in live code. However, I have found that the above library to be the most simple to use and to get started quickly with. Hope you can benefit from the code as well.

Credit Card Changes Driving Customers Away

Hooray! We might be winning...

Credit Card Changes Driving Customers Away

Economics in One Lesson

This is one of those links you tuck away and revisit when you need a fresh perspective or a reset of values when things are hazy...

Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine-the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. ...

Economics in One Lesson

So You Want to Learn Japanese

You’ve eaten at a few Japanese restaurants, seen some anime, hosted an exchange student, and had a Japanese girlfriend. And now, somewhere in the back of your tiny brain, you think that Japanese would be a good language to learn…

http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

How Much Student Loan Debt is Too Much?

How much student loan debt is too much? Anything over $0.00 is too much. It's that simple. There is absolutely no reason (and no return on investment) for a student to go high into debt at an expensive school than to stay locally and pay in-state tuition at a state school. The differentiation between the education at the "upper end" schools (which are exponentially more spendy) vs. the traditional state schools is insignificant.

On average, tuition for in-state schools is around $6000 / year (two semesters). That's literally $500 / month. Who can't afford that? Simple budgeting and cash flow affords that education. For $12000 / year, or $1000 / month, a student can stay at the dorms with a meal plan. What's exactly wrong with flipping a burger or delivering a pizza while attending school? How hard exactly is it to earn $1000 / month??

See, the "entitlement" mentality is infecting us, and debt has become the facilitator to these entitlements. It's absolutely criminal that parents are setting up their children for a large debt obligation right at the start of their adult life. Student loans are particularly nasty, since they don't disappear during bankruptcies, etc. How many people do you know in their 30's and 40's still paying off student loan debts? I actually knew this number at one point, but have forgotten, but it's exceptionally high.

My children are going to earn their way through school. I hope to have saved a little up for them, of course, and I hope they get scholarships. But, ultimately I hope they learn the value of hard work, budgeting, and staying off the American crack which we call debt.

The New Urkel

Received this in my inbox... Pretty funny.

The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert A. Bartlett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

(this is the starting section of the whole video, part 1 of 8)