As part of my struggle with 'how can anyone's time be worth so much?!' I've come the conclusion that taking a transparent per/unit payment on top of a modest base salary is a better option. Especially once you start automating production - effectively the return on your original product starts to scale. Potentially you can even sell up the business side of things and retain the royalty.

I've also thought that would be a good way to get my money back over time as an investor in a business, without having to worry about annual interest rates and %s of profit (or loss). It also simplifies things for the investee, as the return on investment becomes a fixed cost of the product.

Turns out the esteemed Seth Godin has had similar thoughts

It works like this: you have an idea, a fledgling business or a new market to enter. You find an amateur investor (a wealthy dentist, a retired executive) and raise the money to bring it to market. And in return? The investor gets $xx for every unit you sell. From the first one until forever.

No fancy bookkeeping, no board meetings, no worrying about the accounting. Instead, you pay a royalty on income. The rest is up to you.

Of course, this is exactly how the math of book publishing works. The publisher puts up money and keeps 80 or 90 percent of the income. You get the rest.

It could even run on a sliding scale, with early royalties to the investor being lower, or with a buyout once a certain amount was earned back...

I can see that a portfolio of this sort of investment could add up to quite a tidy income stream after a couple of decades.

I can see one problem - IRD would rip large chunks of it since it's probably not eligible for the 'tax already paid' in the same way the way as a more traditional dividend.

(This is also how I'd like Intellectual Property to work - but people always seem to get greedy. Topic for another post.)

~~~
As an aside, no matter what my feed reader is set to Seth's feed only seems to burp out an update about every fortnight (containing every post in the interval). It's weird.

~~~
Edit some hours later - finally noticed the link was broken. Fixed.

Nine reasons why New Zealand is not Australia
This is a substantial essay, not a list of laugh points
(via the Public Address System)

Over at The Art of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau brings the concept of excellence into focus

By the way, making something good is usually about getting a few big things right, but excellence is about refining all of the little things.
...
QUESTION: What are you striving for excellence? What are you happy to leave with just being good?

Well, I strive for excellence in anything I am doing for other people. Things I am doing for myself can stay at being good.

I've just had the pleasant (and paid) opportunity to upgrade an earlier bit of work from 'basic but good' to 'better with touches of excellence'. (Which was sufficient motivation that I did it this evening rather than putting it off until tomorrow).

Of course Chris also notes that

To go from good to excellent is not always necessary. You can do very well in many areas of life just by being good. In fact, I think that the pursuit of perfection can sometimes serve as a form of life avoidance.

which may also be a relevant point for some of us :-/

Kill the Cult of overwork.

Go to a 32 hour working week but keep gross/net annual wages the same.

Expect productivity not to decrease significantly, in fact it might even increase.

(see also the rules of productivity presentation)

Bonus - as more people get hired to cover the hours that everyone else is no longer working in our 24hour world unemployment will take a dive as well (and national productivity will increase).

Buried in a NZ Herald article about TelstraClear testing their own PVR and IPTV service to compete with MySky (no surprises there) is this little gem:

Telstra is touting the T-Hub, a touchscreen device offering regular phone features and internet access, the ability to play music, look at videos and photos and run a household diary.

A residential VOIP offering? Please let it be so. Please let it be soon. Please let it be cheaper than a landline!

The weather at our parents' place did not co-operate much but everyone fitted in the marquee and the ceremony was only 15-20 minutes long (plus some stuffing around releasing butterflies at the end, which would have gone much smoother had they not been all secret squirrel about it).

The dinner at Riccarton Park was very nice and everyone ate a little too much. I may have eaten a little too much, twice. I bailed about 9:30pm but it went on to 1:30am.

This morning's breakfast at the Racecourse Hotel was excellent value for money.
( a pic of my siblings and I, and a better pic somebody else took of the cake )

Now I just have to select 6ish photos for mother to show off at garden club on Tuesday from the 260-odd I took.

~~~
I haven't slept well the past two nights (for reasons unrelated to the wedding), or really for the last week. Today is the first opportunity I've had in ages to catch up - a nap is definitely in order this afternoon.

for a garden wedding. Hopefully it's a bit drier in by the hills, and the precipitation has stopped by 2pm.

I think I have everything I'm supposed to take out with me ... now have I done everything I need to do before I go out?

Creative Space was very quiet tonight - a handful of people.

Creative Space was very loud tonight - a live band was practising in an adjoining room.

May you ever hunt rabbits among tussock and rolling hills.

He might have had another week or two in him, but despite hunger he hasn't been taking solid food and the weight has been dropping off. Yesterday I made the decision, and called the vet this morning.

There have been good days and bad days - yesterday was a bad day, ironically today was a good day as he got up, scoffed some solid food for the first time in a couple of weeks and took a wander outside shortly before we were due to leave. I think it's better that way.

He is buried behind the hedge, in his favourite spot to doze away the summer days / watch the world go by / wait for the human to get home.

( photo )
~~~
Thank you very much to littlel for chauffeuring :)

~~~
There is a significant amount of Royal Canin Renal (kidney diet) catfood - biscuits and sachets - looking for a good home if anyone else has a cat eating that. Also 3 single serve tins of Woolworths/Select catfood (various fishy flavours) and half a 15L bag of kitty litter.

~~~
I'm coping better at this moment than I thought I might be, but I got a lot out of my system yesterday leading up to the point of no return. OTOH I'm running out of planned actions. Gaming has unfortunately been cancelled this evening - I'm open to other distractions.

A drinkies & silly movies while the house was still dressed up.

more kea photos


~~~
Prius stats:
Christchurch to Greymouth (empty) - 4.5L/100km
Back to Chch 2 passengers, luggage - lifted to 4.6L/100km
Less than 1/2 a tank of fuel used according to the guess gauge.

I <3 my car.

~~~
If no other solutions arise I may be doing the trip again next Sunday. It's much quicker with company, there will still be a spare seat there & back :)

I seem to be making an unplanned trip to Greymouth and back tomorrow. One seat (because I am returning with passengers) - anyone want to come along for the ride? (I reserve the right to pick and choose if there are multiple interested parties :D )

A handful of photos from the BBQ

~~~
- have not had much sleep
- have moved furniture & shampooed more carpet
- need to run errands now
- nap later

Looks like I forgot to make the last entry of last year. Here goes.... (we're back tonight)

The very start || This Chapter

<< Prev || Next >>

Returning to the caverns proved fruitless. The giants had removed the bodies of their fallen and fled, carrying what they could. Some young white dragons had been released into the caves to delay us, but these were quickly dealt with. Other finds were some human captives in the kitchens who while grateful to be freed could tell us little, and a giantess of yet another type (Storm?) held captive as some form of hostage or intended concubine for the frost giant king. This last was able to tell us a little about the giants near the volcano, apparently their leader is a cruel despot. In gratitude for her freedom she agreed to escort the humans back to their settlement, as we could not transport them all.

Divinations proving inconclusive the only remaining option is to pull the lever. Our trackers say the frost giants left through the exit beyond it, one may have used it and vanished (teleported). With some reason to expect the environment and denizens on the other side to be hot rather than cold we have again returned to the castle to re-equip.

Moriana has chosen to leave us at this point, embarking on a quest to return dwarven remains found in the giants' trophy chamber to their rightful home.

Admittedly I didn't expect it to be at 7:10pm.

They opened with the assumption that I was making the switch to PowerShop because of the 20% discounted weekend electricity, a notion of which I quickly disabused them. Their counter offer was interesting though - a 20% prompt payment discount (through to April) instead of the usual 10% (effectively a 20% discount on -all- my electricity use + their daily + the levy).

It was enough to make me pause, but not enough to make me change my mind. Better data > extra $5-$15 a month.

Just received a power bill (the monthly, not the termination which I expect sometime in the next month). Over the last month my night-rate use has plummeted by about 500 units (a whopping 70%). This can be attributed to turning off the nightstore heater and the solar really starting to kick in.

What's most interesting though is what it does to the weighted average cost of my electricity - from holding steady at ~17c/unit over the last 12 months (better than the 19c/unit I expect to be getting from PowerShop*) it jumps to 21c/unit.

* my weighted average does not include EC levy and lines charges which are bundled into the PowerShop price so it's not quite apples with apples. I'll run those numbers out of curiousity at some point.

Saturday 21st November,
16 Gladson Ave, Christchurch
marsden.marsden@gmail.com,
027 46 5813 / 942 1585

By popular request of some who couldn't make it to the party and while the house is still dressed up, a Gothic Vampire drinkies.

House open from 7pm, silly movies likely to be showing.

Facebook event link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=177765216935

x-posted the usual

Anyone know any reliable residential VOIP providers based in Christchurch or with a respectable nationwide presence?

2talk.co.nz came to my attention this morning, but while their plans look good I'd have to be a network geek to understand their FAQ section and without that I have no idea what hardware I'd have to purchase (at minimum it looks like a new router or some sort of PABX).

The inability to call 0900 numbers is also a problem, since that's how I make most of my charitable donations.

Ideally of course all I want is a skype phone which accepts multiple accounts (bastards)

Added a scattering from slothphil

Updated Gothic Vampire

PowerShop must be making the push into Christchurch, because they called me this afternoon.

I did not move because of the $50 credit which comes with the 60-day trial, because that's exactly the same as every other electricity retailer has offered me this year (but without the trial period).

I did not move because of the 20% discount on all power used between 7am - 9pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

I did not move because they promise to save me money (impossible to prove, since my use profile has changed with the addition of the solar).

I did not move because I expect it to be cheaper (I've been tracking my weighted spend/unit against the prices on their website for the past 12-18 months, and it invariably comes out equal to their lowest price).

I did not move because they offer an individual rate tailored to my electricity usage and patterns.

I may have moved partly because they're actually doing something with the so-called Smart meters.

I definitely moved because whatever their usage-reporting, it's bound to be light years ahead of what Meridian provide (ie monthly totals, broken down into day/night on your bill if you're on such a plan). Give me that juicy juicy data on my usage patterns, so that I may make better informed decisions about who supplies my electricity in the future.

And they called and made it easy to undertake a shift which I was probably going to make sooner or later.

~~~
Side note: what Meridian could offer to win me back (I expect a call from them in the next couple of days).
- equivalent or better access to my usage data
- assistance layering my house with solar panels and feeding excess juice back into the grid (legal if technically non-trivial, but doesn't gain them anything).