Global and Mobile

Yarg, kind of a tongue twister…but this is actually pretty cool.  I’ve been wanting to buy a nice HD camcorder for about a year now.  Mostly just because I think it’d be fun, but I’ve also been researching possible ways to make money with it online and I came accross some interesting websites.  No, not porn.  Good guess though.  There are actually quite a few video sites that offer revenue sharing to independent producers.  Basically they get their videos from users like you. They make money from advertising revenue, and you get a cut of it based on how many people watch your videos.

I had found MetaCafe quite a while ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I stumbled on another one called Revver. Well I just found this Comparison of Video Services on Wikipedia that tells which sites offer revenue sharing. I don’t know how updated, or complete, it is, but it looks like a great place to start. I hadn’t even heard of half of these sites before. Making videos sounds like a fun way to make money online so I think I’ll be ordering that camera pretty soon.

If anyone is interested, the Canon HV30 is a great camera for an affordable price. It’s been on top of the ratings list at CamcorderInfo.com for a while now. I just found it at NewEgg.com for like $650 brand new. Pretty sweet. It shoots in HD and uses miniDV tapes.

I’m sitting in the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago using the Boingo wifi service, so I thought I’d make a quick post.  I posted about a couple of global wifi plans a while back and Boingo was one of them.  Seeing as I have 6 hours to kill before my flight, I opted for the day pass($6.95 for 24 hours).  I have to say the connection is really fast.  Probably faster than my connection at home.  If speeds like this are common for Boingo hotspots then I wouldn’t have any trouble trading via them, but I have a feeling that Chicago has significantly better communications infrastructure than many other parts of the world.

I found an interesting Google Earth mashup for anyone who sails. It shows reports of piracy from around the world. I’m sure there are far more cases than these, but it’s good to see where the most dangerous areas are.

Piracy Attacks Map

Glad I wasn’t long any stocks today…The House needs to get their shit together.  The Dow dropped 778 points today.  A new record.

In addition to trading, I’ve been thinking about playing poker online to support my travels.  I’ve read that if you stick to the games for the least amount of cash you can do pretty well because they generally have a lot more inexperienced players who make bad decisions.  By playing multiple tables you can still make a decent income. Basically you play by the odds and use some basic strategy.  I haven’t really tried this out yet because I’m still studying the game and writing some probability software, but the other day I came across the blog of someone who’s actually doing this to fund his traveling. The blog is called The Perpetual Traveller. It looks like he’s also running a site called The Poker Prof, which looks like it’s got a lot of useful information. Anyways, check these sites out if you’re interested in poker as an online income. I’ve also been reading a book called The Theory of Poker, by David Sklansky. This is a great book written by a professional player. I like it because the author has a very pragmatic approach to the game, and he writes in a very straight forward style. Check it out.

Ok, well I’ve been reconsidering my choice of Thailand.  I’ve wanted to check out South America for some time, especially Argentina and Brazil, and I’m starting to think Buenos Aires might be a better location.

• Buenos Aires (and a few other spots in Argentina) has a 3G network which might be better for trading than relying on local wi-fi
• The cost of living might not be as low as Thailand (especially considering the rate of inflation), but it’s still very affordable
• There are beaches within traveling distance.  If all else fails I could take a trip to Brazil.
• The time zone isn’t far off from that of the US.  In the past I’ve mostly traded forex, but lately I’ve been dealving into stocks.  Unless I want to stick with after hours trading(which I don’t) I’ll need to be awake during market hours.  It’d actually be pretty nice because the NYSE doesn’t open until 10:30AM Buenos Aires time.  I could sleep in.
• There is reportedly lots of good food to be had.
• It looks like an interesting place to explore.

This is still up in the air really.  I’m pretty much split down the middle on the location choice.  If I was just going to go backpacking it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  Hell, I could just flip a coin and go to the other place later.  The fact that I want to be able to work online makes things more difficult.  I think I’m going to have to head over to the Working Nomad forum and get some more input.

Way back in February I set a goal to be mobile by June 1, 2009, and it looks like I’m right on track.  That’s only about 8 months away now!  I’ve also decided on an initial destination(as long as I don’t change my mind yet again).  Thailand looks to be the best place for me to start out.  My basic criteria were:

• Availability of wi-fi
• Nice beaches
• Good, cheap food
• Low cost of living
• Interesting culture
• Interesting place to explore

The only thing I’m concerned about is Thailand supposedly having slow internet speeds.  I’m considering signing up for that Boingo global wi-fi service that I posted about recently, so I’m going to do some research and see if the speeds for their connections are any better than the typical hotspot in Thailand.  I don’t mind paying $39 a month for access to high speed internet if that’s all that stands between me and being able to work from anywhere.

So that’s it for now.  The plan is to take off sometime after the spring semester, which ends in the middle of May.

One of the things I’ve been a little worried about when it comes to this whole mobile lifestyle thing is being able to find fast, reliable internet connections to work from.  Since I trade this is even more important than if I was just building web pages.  I rely on streaming information to make decisions so this is really a deal breaker for the whole thing.  I started looking around to see if I could just pay for some kind of mobile, world-wide internet plan or something.  What I found is that several companies have made partnerships with wi-fi hotspots around the world to provide essentially that.  It’s not quite the roaming, world-wide 7G network that we’ll hopefully get someday, but it’s a pretty good solution for now.  After reading over several companies’ websites, it looks like the best two options for a working nomad are Boingo and iPass.  They both offer global plans that give access to over 100,000 hotspots around the world for a flat monthly rate.  I looked around to see if there is any kind of catch on how many minutes you can use per month, but didn’t see anything.  The iPass site says they offer “unlimited* useage”, but I couldn’t find an explanation for the ‘*’ anywhere on the page.  I’m going to email each company directly and ask them about this to make sure.  I require internet access for pretty much every aspect of my work, and I imagine this might be the case for a few others out there too, so I’ll report back when I get an answer.

So which one’s better?  Hard to say, and it probably depends on the customer.  For one, their prices are about the same.  Boingo’s service is about $40 per month, with iPass’s at about $45.  They both claim to have over 100,000 hotspots available, but neither provides a specific count(I imagine they’re growing steadily) .  There’s some overlap too, for example both services provide access to wi-fi at Starbucks locations.  Boingo offers Barnes and Noble, whereas iPass offers Borders.  What it probably comes down to is thinking about the places you’re likely to use the service most often and comparing the locations provided by each service.  I kinda like the Boingo site better because I like their hotspot map better and it’s cheaper by $5.  It also seemed like they had more cafe type places, which appeals to me because I don’t want to sit in a restaurant or hotel lobby for hours.  I didn’t do a thorough check though so maybe I just happened to notice them more here.  Anyways, here’s the links:

• Boingo

• iPass

Something for the traders..

“The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must posses a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher – in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.”

– John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946]

About half a year ago I went to my local Barnes and Noble and started going through all the Lonely Planet guidebooks. I wanted to make a list of travel costs for all the places I was interested in visiting. A couple things to keep in mind:

• These are budget costs for a shoe string traveler, thus they represent the low end of the spectrum.
• These prices are taken from Lonely Planet guides that were in publication half a year ago. Some of them had been in publication for a few years. Inflation has hit some of these places pretty hard in the last few years(such as Argentina) so these prices should probably be considered a rock bottom base from which to start.
• Lonely Planet just published new additions of their guides to Brazil and Argentina, so I updated those prices accordingly. I was still be cautious with those prices due to inflation, especially for Argentina.
• Prices in big cities are going to be higher of course.

Prices are per day, and in US dollars (unless otherwise stated).