Slip F-18, Saipan

Click HERE for today's column, which introduces an old "friend" of mine, Travis McGee. McGee, a fictional hero of a series of adventure/mystery novels, would feel right at home in Saipan. And the books would certainly appeal to a lot of folks in the islands who enjoy an independent lifestyle.

Although Saipan's Bestseller books can order the novels (no, they don't carry them as normal stock; yes, they're still in print), I didn't have space to list the titles in my column, but this link (a great site indeed) has the information

The photo here (from Wikipedia) is of the first edition of the first McGee book, The Deep Blue Goodbye, published in 1964. I like the old, retro covers, the modern ones don't have as much character.

Weird germy things

Click HERE for this week's column, which takes a look at one of many creepy-crawlies that can dwell in water.

(Math note: I wrote that a micron is a thousandth of a meter, which is correct, but a more formal definition would be a millionth of a meter. Same thing.)

The photo of the Leptosira bacteria is from Leptospirosis.org.

Partitions: Not just for geeks

Click HERE for this week's column, in which we relish the joys of hard drive partitioning. Hey, it's not just for geeks. Really.

Incidentally, various computer manufacturers call their system recovery features various names. That's why my article says "whatever they call it" to refer to this stuff. If there is a universally accepted generic term for the concept, I don't know what that term is.

Shopkeeper's wisdom

Click HERE to read today's column, which relates a young economist's secret weapon in market research: a smart shopkeeper.

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Other notes:

An alert reader in the mainland requested that I post this link to a map of U.S. unemployment rates. Put your cursor over a state to see its data. Note that the "official" unemployment rate (which notoriously understates actual unemployment) is sometimes about half of the actual rate of unemployment. For example, in South Carolina, the "official" unemployment rate is 11 percent, but the actual rate is (according to the link) 20 percent.

Fantastic plastic

Click HERE to read today's column, where we look at the weirdness in credit card markets, namely, lines of credit getting chopped.

This weirdness started last year, but the year before that, on October 26, 2007, I gave a heads up; here's the piece. So, yeah, uh, "told you so."

About a year later, the headlines started noticing a credit card crunch. Here's a November 14, 2008 piece in the Wall Street Journal's Smart Money. And here's a March 3, 2009 piece from Bloomberg.com.

I know that credit cards aren't as common in Saipan as in the mainland, and there are a lot of folks who are just learning about this realm. For them, a handy link is ClarkHoward.com. Clark Howard sometimes lists the best credit cards (you can do a search for that on his site), which is a useful starting point.

Of tourists and wings

Click HERE for today's column, in which we do some hangar flying and note that China is now producing Airbus airliners. This is an impressive milestone in China's economic development, and the implications for the west Pacific tourism industry are positive indeed.

If today's column interests you, then you can see this link (about the launch of the first Chinese-built A320) and this link (about Boeing's 787 struggles) and this link (about Airbus' latest struggle).

A free six-pack

Click HERE for this week's column, in which I suggest six free programs that are ideal for older computers. Paradoxically enough, good freeware is often better and more efficient than the bloated commercial products out there.

The waters are stirring

Click HERE for today's column, which highlights the Pacific's changing naval scene, including last week's incident off of Subic Bay between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a Chinese submarine.

Broken windows

Here's the link to today's column.

And here's the link to the related police report.

Looking and leaping

Given Saipan’s lousy state of affairs, bailing to the states never looked so good.

Unfortunately, bailing to the states never looked so bad, either; the economy is shedding over a half million private sector jobs per month.

These thoughts are continued in today's column.