• http://kivanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/letter-from-kiva-about-pilot.html
• http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,3922.0.html

The whole idea of micro loan’s is that the lender and receiver have a more personal relationship. I know I’m borrowing $100 to Mr. Business owner, he fixes motorbikes. Plan’s to repay his loan over 8 months. You also know about your broker. How much volume they’ve been doing, their repayment rate, their default rate, etc. The system is setup to reward due diligence on part of the broker. It motivates the receiver to pay back, because of the personal nature of the loan. Last but not least, you get to decide for yourself if it’s a person/business/idea/broker that you want to support.

The thing everyone has to remember is that if Kiva fails in America, people will just stop loaning to American’s because of the represented risk. No one in their right mind would loan through a broker who didn’t have an acceptable repayment rate and a very low default rate. This applies to all brokers with Kiva, not just the American brokers.

What I think is more amazing about Kiva is that you and spread your risk around. Given the rate of defaults in general, your chances of losing $25 is very low. From what I’ve been able to observe, most default’s get partial payments anyways… so even then your chance of a complete loss of investment is low.

Really, the only criticism I can throw at Kiva is that it’s a 0% return on investment. Really, I figure it’s more like donating to charity, but you get to keep donating the same set of money over and over again. Doing many times the initial value of good with the same money. I’ve already reinvested $65 since I started. With $125 in the pot at the time. That’s 50% ROI if you look at it as charity.

The UPS package was shipped on March 3rd and the air mail package was shipped on March 4th.

The UPS package traveled 2178km and the air mail package traveled 10,240 km.

The UPS package arrived at 9:48AM March 10th and the air mail package arrived at 11:25AM March 10th.

The UPS package cost $59.42 USD and the air mail package cost $35.00 CDN.

Average speed: 13km/h VS 71km/h

Approximate cost over distance and time: $4.58/ km/h VS $0.49 /km/h

• Read a Book
• Learn a new Language
• Walk/jog/run/bike/exercise
• Write Blog/Poetry/Short Stories/Novel/Journal/Etc
• Work on a programming side project
• Relax/Meditate
• Clean up my living space
• Learn to Uni-cycle and various other pointless skills to impress the ladies
• Hang out with friends
• Reflect on the day (could be considered meditation)
• Play music, listen to music, learn a new instrument
• Cook

I made that in about 5 minutes. I’m sure there’s more I could do with my time that I would enjoy. Anyone have suggestions, or their own additions?

1. The air from the vent
2. The warm air from the shower
3. The cold air from the vent

Now this is actually a poor example of what I’m trying to demonstrate, but I’ll give it a go. Our largest organ is skin and can sense two things. Tactile touch and temperature. Two mechanically different things are going on here. We’re attempting to enter the same physical space of an existing object and it is resisting appropriately; and, we’re sensing radiated waves of energy (infra-red and friends) as relative temperature.

Or just consider this, our eyes pick up visible light and our skin picks up thermal energy in the same manner. 6 senses indeed.

Now, lets pretend that we’ve only been around a few thousand years now. God created everything for us on this planet, including the fossils that suggest that there are things older than a few thousand years. Why would he trick us like that?