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The quest for 6400x1024

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Well I suppose after meeting my goal of finally setting up a Widescreen gaming rig, it could only be outdone by an even wider view angle. My current setup is three displays at 3840x1024 and the experience (on games that actually support it) transcends any gaming experience I can think of. According to studies, one’s peripheral vision captures greater detail than what is in your center view. I never understood this until playing Modern Warfare 2. Here is an example:

and Dragon Age:

Effects, explosions and the extra ambient landscape all play into having one hell of a good time in any game that support these types of resolutions. There is even a website dedicated to identifying which games run best on these setups http://www.widescreengamingforum.com

So far I’ve only experienced Modern Warfare 2, MS Flightsim X, Dirt 2, and DragonAge at these resolutions, but my thirst grows for more! As too does my desire to upstage my current rig at some point.

So enters the next quest, 5x1 displays at 6400x1024. I’ve got the monitors, but just need to obtain an ATI 5850 or ATI 5870 so I can crossfire and conquer. So if you happen to notice one of these cards just sitting around (chuckle), give me a buzz and I’ll pay for shipping.

Anyway, as a parting note… Enjoy the view from FSX under my current rig:

posted by Travin # 4:26 PM 0 Comments | Add a comment?

Beautiful Grim

Monday, November 23, 2009

A wonderful lady and good friend of mine, "Cat" was diagnosed with breast cancer just under a year ago. She has undergone many treatments and while she is fighting hard, it has been quite a strain on her mentally, physically, and financially. Her dedicated boyfriend, "Daarken" has established a site which will begin selling artwork around February 1st, 2010 to take some burden off of Cat. Any funds remaining will then be donated to a breast cancer related charity to be determined in the coming weeks. Please take a moment to head on over to their website: beautifulgrim.org and bookmark it so you can return early next year. Their artwork promises to be something special and you would be helping out someone in need if you decide to purchase.

posted by Travin # 12:28 PM 0 Comments | Add a comment?

Benifits and Costs of lowering the minimum wage to assist teenage workers

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Just drafted this short analysis for my Economics class this evening. Interesting data...

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A proposal to lower the minimum wage for any group (in this example we focus on teenagers) would certainly be unconstitutional. Regardless of race, ethnic origin or age all workers in the labor force are entitled to be treated equally.

If we ignore this key roadblock, the lowering of minimum wage for any group diminishes the total size of that group’s workforce as the quantity supply diminishes with a price per worker falloff. If the wage was already above the standard market price, this in turn would push the current quantity supplied/demanded toward equilibrium and provide healing to that group’s market. However, according to some groups there is insufficient evidence that the demand for teenage workers justifies the lowering of minimum wage. Many of the reporting processes we rely upon such as the Current Population Survey (CPS) supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Census have under and over estimates as independent studies show the surveys are not always verified (Mellow & Sider, 1983). Because of this, any adjustments to the minimum wage for this group could risk the stability of a market which might already be in equilibrium.

Unemployment among teens

The 2009 August Seasonal CPS report for Employed and unemployed full- and part-time workers generated by the U.S. Bureau of Census indicates that out of a study group of 4,905 teens working or looking for work surveyed between the ages of 16 and 19, an average of 30% are unemployed. This number of unemployed is a substantial increase in the approximate 21% unemployment rate for August 2008 and the 15.7% rate for 2007. In contrast, the same report details that for the national labor market (teens and adults) an average of 8% workers are unemployed or looking for work, 6.7% in 2007, and 5.6% in 2006. Given this data, the unemployment rate for teenagers has increase at a rate almost double that of the national rate. This shows a dangerous trend, establishing that the market for individuals between ages 16 and 19 has become saturated and is forcing a would-be labor pool to wait on the sidelines till change in their labor market occurs.

Supply and Demand analysis

According to the U.S. Bureau of Census, 91% of teenage workers are at or below prevailing Federal minimum wage. Using supply and demand, we can see that there was a 14.3 million surplus of minimum wage workers in 2008. This is represented by the attached chart. Taking these two items into consideration, in order to affect a return to market equilibrium the federal government would need to cut minimum wage by a range of [$1, $1.25] returning it to $4.60 an hour. Based off the law of supply and demand, this would decrease the surplus of workers and increase the overall quantity demand by employers for minimum wage workers. As the surplus is decreased, the total number of unemployed teenagers would also decrease.

Summary
Given this information, the federal government faces a difficult challenge. The surplus of teenage workers is rising at an exponential rate. Minimum wage has also continued an upward trend which incurs a national surplus of workers as well. However, the total percentage of teenage workers within the labor market is roughly 2%. While applying a cut to the national minimum wage would ultimately benefit teenagers, it has a high risk of disastrous effects on the rest of the minimum wage labor pool. The challenge before the current administration is enormous! Should the government apply a different standard for the U.S workforce within the 16 to 19 age bracket, thus going against the constitution? Is this acceptable simply to return ~2% of the labor pool back to the labor market? How important are the roughly 452 thousand teenagers who cannot find a job in the current labor market? These are questions left to a better economist than the rookie writing this analysis.

References

U.S Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2008-2009). Employed and unemployed full- and part-time workers by sex and age, seasonally adjusted Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/web/cpseea6.pdf

U.S Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2008). Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and over by sex, 1970 to date Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat2.pdf

Mellow, W., & Sider H. (1983). Accuracy of response in labor market surveys: evidence and implications. Journal of Labor Economics, 1(4), 331-344.

posted by Travin # 11:47 PM 0 Comments | Add a comment?

Reconnecting

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Reconnected with a good friend today! We havn't spoken in almost 16 years and it was good to share stories. So many happy memories and LOTS of flashbacks! Thanks Penny, I can't wait till we talk again.

posted by Travin # 12:15 PM 1 Comments | Add a comment?

Spam

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Sorry for the spam. A weakness in the Blogger code was exploited this morning and two odd posts made it onto travin.com. I've made some changes so hopefully that will resolve the problem.

posted by Travin # 8:15 AM 0 Comments | Add a comment?

Only now starting to relax

Monday, December 29, 2008

If you haven't been around me lately, then you should know that I've been REALLY stressed. A lot has played into generating that stress such as an increased workload, a new baby, and obviously the troubled economy.

It's funny how stress works. It is certainly useful in keeping focused at times, but too much can really cause one to make mistakes. Fortunatly the ill effects have been small and infrequent, but they still get under my skin when I think back to them.

It is even more interesting in how you go about releasing the stress and the side effects it can have on you. For example, I had a week off a few months back. By the time I had returned to work, I had only started to relax. I also came back to an increased workload and so any released stress was quickly added back. Not to mention, the fact that my time off didn't really help caused me even more stress.

I'm fortunate that I am now nearing a point where I am starting to relax AND still have a whole week to continue relaxing (probably just jinxed myself). It would be nice to retun to work next week, calm and ready to tackle the new year.

At the least, I will have plenty of time to hang out with Olivia...

posted by Travin # 10:45 PM 0 Comments | Add a comment?

Back, safe and sound.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

We have made it home. All is quite, Liv and Georgia are fast asleep.

Me?

I've just finished setting up a method to update both blogs and facebook with one e-mail sent from my Blackberry. Funny enough, doing something like that actually relaxes me. :)

Have a good evening and check back soon for photo's and videos.

posted by Travin # 2:04 AM 1 Comments | Add a comment?