Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
I mentioned before that I am a big fan of volunteer indexing. Family search has has millions of genealogy records free. Yes, free and millions is an understatement. Continue reading “Keep genealogy records free by indexing”
In 1945 Inverness the Scots Gaelic word Sassenach is defined as Englishman or Outlander at worst. I suspect in the Scotland of the early 1700s, a Scot who knew both English and Scots might have considered that Englishman was the worst of those 2 possible meanings.
I mention those 2 periods as the action in Outlander Continue reading “Outlander or Sassenach: book and Starz TV series”
William J. Bernstein is an impressive man. He has an M.D. and Ph.D, practices medicine with a specialty in neurology, and has become a respected investment expert. He is best known for his quarterly journal on asset allocation and portfolio management.
He has written several books for those of us would like to intelligently manage our investments. And he offers personalized services for those with rather large investment portfolios (25 million dollars and up).
Now Dr. William J. Bernstein has offered a free ebook aimed at the young who are interested in saving for retirement. The subtitle really tells you what this book is about – How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly
His plan is a simple one. He has said it is one that can be understood by a child and requires about 15 minutes each year.
Yet he believes it will yield better results than possible with most financial advisors. And quite likely he is right.
The book is also a guide to furthering reading to increase your financial literacy.
Since the key to the plan is deferred gratification, following this plan is not easy. But even if the implementation is only partial you will be better off in the long-term. So if you try and find it too difficult to continue, you are better off.
The book is not very long (estimated at 27 pages). It is very definitely worth anyone’s time. It is written for the younger generation but anyone with an interest in long-term saving and investing will benefit.
And the price is simply amazing. Dr. Bernstein is giving it for free on his website. It is in several formats and easy to download (nothing beyond a click is required). Amazon gives it away for free from time to time but most times it is 99 cents.
You have little-to-nothing to lose and quite a bit to gain so – read this book.
I have written before about being a volunteer indexer for Family Search. Family Search provides a wonderful free resource to the genealogy community by providing free access to many records.
Yesterday I received an email from FamilySearch Indexing. They have reached one billion records indexed and are busy working on the second billion.
If you haven’t joined the effort, please consider being an indexing volunteer for familysearch.org. It is not hard and you can spend as much or as little time as you like. This is a great way to contribute a little bit of time to make it better for all of us in the genealogy community.
I signed up for Gabriel Cohen’s email list and I’m glad I did. For those not familiar with the author, Gabriel Cohen is a writer living in Brooklyn who has written several books about a Brooklyn-based homicide detective.
I have reviewed all 4 to date here.
I have enjoyed them all and I’ve been waiting for the next in the series. So what does this have to do with the list? The author has his own website at http://www.gabrielcohenbooks.com.
And you can sign up for emails there. You don’t get many. This is the first I’ve gotten in a while and it was so good I decided to blog about it.
I was hoping for a notice that a new book was coming and maybe an invitation to be an advanced reader. I think what I got was almost as good, but some might actually say better. Mr. Cohen has written a nonfiction piece for a new website.
I totally enjoyed “A Splash of Red” which is a free read at http://narrative.ly/2012/09/a-splash-of-red/. It starts with the writer looking for an affordable apartment, and quickly progresses to a crime writer living at a crime scene. I say quickly because it is not a very long piece. It is a great story and certainly worth a few minutes of your time.
While there be sure to check out the rest of the Narratively website. It is an interesting web publication of true stories. Did I mention it is free? If you are so inclined you may support the project but the site is free and open to all.
I am kind of new to the Kindle. I got it as a birthday present and have been using it for about 3 weeks now. At first I downloaded lots of free books to see how it works. No matter what eReader you are using lots of free books are available.
Barnes and Noble has free books for the Nook. Amazon has free books for the Kindle. There are multiple sources for free books in a variety of formats. Most tend to be older books which are out of copyright. But sometimes a book just a few years old is released as a free book. Gives those of us who hesitate to buy a book by an unknown author a chance to try for free. I imagine the publisher hopes we will like the author and buy a more current book. This way I found both Chinatown Beat by Henry Chang and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon for free.
And have downloaded and read a couple books I paid for. Right now reading the new John-Abigail Adams book by Joseph Ellis.
I have the least expensive version with Wi-Fi. There are fancier, bigger, and more expensive versions with various options. I have shopped the Amazon Kindle Store from my computer and my sections are downloaded wirelessly to my Kindle using my home wireless router. It is very easy to do. This low-cost option works well if you have wireless at home or access to wireless. If not you can pay a bit more and have 3G connectivity.
If you get a free book via Project Gutenberg or something similar, you can just download it to your computer and copy the file to your Kindle. So far everything seems pretty easy.
I am still thinking about physical books vs Kindle version. It is a very different experience and I see advantages and disadvantages to each. I imagine I’ll have a bit more to say when I’ve used the Kindle a bit more.
I signed up so I could vote to benefit the B+ foundation ( http://www.bepositive.org/ ) for childhood cancer.
Chase Community Giving is giving away lots of money to the winners of a poll on Facebook. I voted to help the Andrew Mcdonough B Positive Foundation ( http://www.bepositive.org/ ) which helps families of children with cancer and funds research to find a cure for these terrible diseases.
Go to their webpage ( http://www.bepositive.org/ ) and click on the Chase Community Giving icon to vote. You will be asked to sign it to your Facebook account (or create a new account if you don’t have one).
Here is your chance to help and it doesn’t cost a penny