I am one of the dwindling number of RSS users. It is interesting that new phones and pads all have their own glitzy aggregators, when the technology really hasn’t changed. It’s about finding the sources you like (for me, including sites I disagree with but are written well).

I started out years ago using Sage, which was a compact Firefox add-in. Then it lost support and someone used the source to create Sage Too. After a time, it lost support and I thought I had a long term solution with Google Reader.

Like several other discontinued Google products, Reader was just about perfect for my needs, and I was very upset when it was discontinued. I especially liked integration of my reading across platforms. I do think that Google would be better served by selling or spinning off products, or even releasing code.

I switched to Feedly, which had an easy transfer from Reader and an interface that could be customized to look like Reader. However, it is increasingly trying to monetize, and feed search being a premium feature became increasingly annoying, especially when a post was better viewed on a computer and I could not find it after seeing it on a phone.

So I tried both Feedspot and InoReader this week. I have decided that InoReader better meets my needs. It has a clean interface and actually made it easy to clean up my feeds, some of which had changed in the past year without Feedly alerting me.

The basic idea with Savings Bonds is that you buy, say, a $500 face bond for $250, and it would be worth the face value in some number of years. Back in the high rates of the early 1980s, this only took 8 years. As interest rates have (artificially) declined, they have changed the rules a lot, always keeping a guarantee of face value, but changing the number of years and also messing with fixed and floating interest rates. The current rules (from 2005) are:

• (very low, e.g., 0.6%) fixed rates for 20 years, with a 3 month interest penalty if redeemed within 5 years
• guaranteed face value at 20 years – a huge jump in value
• floating rates at the full discretion (!?!) of the US Treasury from 20-30 years
• no interest after 30 years

This makes the optimal exercise at exactly 20 years, assuming the US does not default on its debt (markets have priced this at most at a 3% chance). For a 0.6% $500 savings bond, you earn $32 in interest in 19 years and 11 months, then $218 in the last month.

Other than an early cash out in the first five years (the interest penalty on a $500 face 0.6% fixed savings bond is all of 40 cents), another thing to watch is future inflation. Even if the Fed is able to get to a 4% inflation target and not go any higher, that $500 face value bond will only buy you $250 worth of things in 20 years. If inflation is higher, you will lose purchasing power.

Savings bonds were a fantastic investment when the I-class (inflation-indexed) were first issued in 1998. Most demand comes from older individuals for their decedents, and they kept buying the normal, nominal EE series. I-bond rates were enhanced so much that the inflation protection was free.

That was then. Now traditional savings bonds may have tax and gift advantages, but their investment value is only good for a 20 year holding period with low inflation.

I used to be a compulsive newspaper reader (now I’m a compulsive blog reader and podcast listener). I remember a WSJ article for the late 80s that gave me an important insight. It was an article on pension issues that were my primary expertise both then and today. Reading the article, I found myself talking back to the paper, saying things like “that’s wrong!”, “well, not quite”, and “that’s true, but not in that context.” Finishing the article, as an expert, the article was OK, but not on point, and actually wrong on several points. My insight was that I am not an expert in 99+% of the things I read, and experts would likely have similar reactions to these articles. It gave me a healthy skepticism that I hope remains to this day.

When we were homeschooling our kids, we spent a fair amount of time on discernment, which I believe is a critical skill for the information age. A useful unit we used when they were young was “Who’s Renting Your Eyeballs?” on advertising.

I find myself attacking lingering to-do items this time of year. It’s not so much that I am making a New Year’s resolution to stop procrastinating. It’s rather that after 1 week+ of time off, I truly am more relaxed and refreshed — able to knock off some tasks. Hence, I am writing a blog post. Maybe I can get in a few more in 2014 before the inevitable deluge of work dries up this site.

One of the google news headlines today noted that President Obama has some unclaimed funds in Massachusetts.

It got me to thinking that I should check whether Illinois has anything for me. After all forty years is a long time in one place and I had a number of transactions in the state. Also, this is kind of like having Borders or Circuit City gift cards — better look now while the state still has some money.

It turns out I don’t have any unclaimed funds in Illinois (thank you, Dad, for an unusual last name). But I checked in Indiana and found that my late Grandmother had a CD that didn’t end up in the state.

So my parents might get a few thousand dollars.

Came across this today (not sure where) and installed it. The idea is that it any opinion has folks that disagree — http://rbutr.com/ tracks rebuttals. Back when I read the Chicago Tribune every day (over 30 years!) I would save the articles and opinions that changed by own opinion, e.g., on the death penalty. This gives me an online equivalent.

Or so I thought. I get lots of confirmation bias at liberty-based sites, and it seems rbutr doesn’t have any rebuttal. I expect this is because so much “debate” is along left/right lines.

In looking for a decent website name, my first dozen or so were all taken. Most of these were even dead sites, with no purchase price that I could find. I’m not savvy on the registration rules, but maybe this is an unintended consequence of reducing the property rights of owning a domain(?)

In any case, ennotagem is family name that I was happy to find available. It is a sobriquet used by my daughter Margaret. You see, margaret backwards is teragram, which is another word for megatonne, which backwards is ennotagem. By purchasing this site now, I reserve something that she can use for personal or business purposes in a few years.