News About the News

What is wrong with National Health Care?

2010-03-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

I was looking at the liberal editorial cartoons and they showed the evil hand of higher insurance premiums and that of being in bed with a slovenly elephant I realized they must know how bad the policy is. When someone tells us something bad about ourselves it is human nature is to reply with something just as bad. Our reply does not make our flaw go away or contribute to positive change. The idea is to change the focus to something else unrelated or to make the unrelated appear to be related. Is this bill so corrupt that it has no merits? Even the most vocal supports are indirectly showing the down side.

Has Apple Forgotten the Customer?

2010-02-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

Today there is an article Publishers Short-Sighted in E-Book Price Fight that brings out that additional competition in tablet book readers has raised prices. Apple wants to corner the market by offering larger profits to book publishers. The problem is that the consumer must pay a significant amount for the reader and it is a legitimate question why publishers need more money for a book they are no longer make or support a brink and mortar distribution system to deliver. I guess this is an extension of paying management thousands of times more than the employees or the share holders.

Texas Loves Taxes

2009-11-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

Another election and another land slide vote for higher taxes. First it was sad to see how few cared about the economy and taxes with few voters showing up. This was a constitutional election so there were no officials being elected. I keep thinking people want lower taxes or to at least stay the same. The taxes did look good on the surface such as funding for veterans home loans. Reading the notes on the bill it turns out to be money to bail out bad loans from the banks. We all know the bankers need more money. Every bill was that way. Are we so gullible that give us a lollypop and say it is all good and we vote yes? They should give out lollypops for voting. Why do I even bother reading up on the issues when the majority voting are going to say yes to any tax put on the ballet? Next time someone says they don’t want higher taxes I am going to ask if they really live in Texas. On a side note since few vote my vote counts for myself and all those who don't vote. So if the day ever comes when I am the lone voter taxes will go down.

My Question for Richard Florida

2009-09-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

How do you create sustainable success? I listened to a lecture about creative class consumption this weekend by Richard Florida. His key message was that cities can be successful by having three things; technology (creativity), educated workforce, tolerance. This is along the lines of party cities; cities that attract creative and young people because they are hip and open and thus become prosperous. The problem is that when the party is over people move on. Detroit was a city that had these three components in the 1950’s. With over half the population being minorities they were one of the first places to see minorities move upwards and integrate the neighborhoods. It was an important center of American innovation. Now the medium home is $7500, half the population has left, and unemployment is among the highest in the country. San Francisco, one of his examples, is also past its peak and now in decline. The party goers are trapped in their homes unable to sale them. Perhaps they can learn from New York City. The city has managed to host new parties to replace the old. But it finds itself trying to organize yet another as the party goers of financial industry have passed out. This does not diminish the problem of cities face if they do not have the three components. But neither can they sustain prosperity with them.

If you lie and nobody listens is it still a lie?

2009-09-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

I watched the short video of a heckler at a University speech President Obama gave about health care. The heckler was a copy cat of the liar heckle at the Obama address to Congress. The problem that I saw was that everyone else was yelling their support for Obama and heckling the heckler. This is a problem because nobody was listening and thus failed to realize that Obama was actually telling some whoppers. The Wall Street Journal has cast serious doubt into the health care stories Obama told. Yet he told them again. Come on with all the people with health insurance he could not find one true story? We know University students don’t read the newspaper. But are our students really dumb enough to believe quote? “We are the only country that allows millions of citizens go without health care.” Have they never heard of China, India, Pakistan, Soviet Union, Africa, etc? What happened to the empty promises and double talk that never actually answers the question? Have politicians given up even wanting to appear to tell the truth.

Obama scams consumers and faces trade war with China

2009-09-17T15:31:00.001-07:00

President Obama faces fines from the World Trade Organization for trade dumping and illegal monopolistic pricing for chicken wings. Yes you heard it correctly, chicken wings. Wholesale prices for chicken wings have soared to over $1.55 a pound. This is part of a conspiracy that involves dumping over half the U.S. chicken wings to China for a few cents a pound. The Chinese attempted to ship some of those wings back and Congress and Obama passed a law making it illegal to import American chicken. Yes that is also correct. Not China chicken, import American chicken. China has threatened to block imports. Fortunate for Obama the main stream press has failed to pick up the conspiracy and have incorrectly reported that the issue is about tires. I like chicken wings but if you want American chicken wings for a few cents a pound I have to travel to China.

Nobody knows about Sugar

2009-08-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Ron Winslow and Shirley Wang wrote an article about the American Heart Association recommending less sugar consumption. I expect more from the Wall Street Journal. Wrong picture, if they read the WSJ they would know the country has almost run out of cane sugar, which has not been used in cola or most foods in years. What about mentioning speculation that the biggest and easiest way to immediately combat diabetes and obesity is to eat more sugar? That is to stop consumption of all corn syrup and replace it with sugar. There is the problem of calories in sugar, but most of the other problems have been linked to corn syrup. Plus using sugar has the bonus of raising the price. How much sugar did people fifty years ago consume compared to the corn syrup they use now? They are recommending 130 calories limit of corn syrup a day, but is any amount healthy? Quote “The warning was an unexpected blow for soda makers like Coca-Cola Co.”. With a majority of Coca-Cola sold being diet and a huge expansion into water flavored drinks how was this negative? I think there is a huge misconception that overweight and inactive Americans don’t know better. The authors fell into an old trap of assuming education will solve the problem. If that was true then so many new diets would not become fads. The WSJ writes to an educated audience in their other topics, why not health? On the positive side I have cut my intake of carbs from corn syrup and fatty foods by half this month resulting in a big boost in productivity.

Segway Move Over

2009-08-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

A motor powered unicycle. I tried a unicycle and it was really hard. This looks like fun.

Mental or Physical

2009-08-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

This story really caught my attention. Kara Goucher Leads a U.S. Marathon Revival I remember the one race that I won and it was because I took the lead and just kept digging in to keep it. I never came close to that time again despite applying all the modern techniques of training. Sometimes you just have to go for it all.

Air Ball Ads

2009-06-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

I am noticing that less of the ads targeting me are for things I purchase. There has always been the crazy spam. But the spam filter I use has eliminated all but the spam I get from newsletter and services. These services have a lot of detail on me yet seem to pick services that I would never use. It appears with the downturn personal information has been tossed and let’s send this ad to everyone has replaced it. Even with expensive junk mail those that I would look at have disappeared and what remains are offers I have never responded to nor ever will. I think that some companies may even be crossing the line. I needed to see a larger image of an email in Yahoo and when I clicked on the expand button the ad next to it opened. Maybe I missed the button, but I have clicked that button a few times and I would be surprised if I did. I remembered that in Bing the buttons are only sensitive in the center. I checked and the right side border of the button is not sensitive. It may have always been this way, but I fill sorry for the company that paid for an ad I never looked at. I just looked at it again and code wise it is the border of the overall viewing area that is next to the button, which on the right side ownership has been given to the ad instead of the button. Of course we all know that someone clicking on the edge of the button must have really wanted the ad instead. How stupid of me.

Does the Corporate Environment Kill Creativity?

2009-06-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article today about MySpace Can once-cool MySpace stage a comeback?. Facebook has now passed it in popularity and since being acquired by News Corp. MySpace user base has not grown. The reason is a change in focus of growth to that of revenue. I think the author could be right that by stopping innovation and growth results in the death of a site. And he lists many sites that once flamed bright and are now dead. But none of these sites made money. I think the author is wrong in thinking going back to user growth is the solution. At some point any business is going to fail if it can never make money. I do agree with the author that MySpace needs to continue to innovate. Lose all your users and any revenue model fails.

Wide load

2009-06-09T10:11:00.001-07:00

Airlines require some over-weight passengers to buy two tickets, which if the plane is not full gets reimbursed. These passengers pay this extra rate 3% of the time. Now airlines Wide Passengers Don't Sit Well With Airlines are considering putting in a row of wider seats. However this would mean a 100% chance of paying a higher rate. Could this mean more trying to squeeze into a regular seat?

Why GM lost its CEO and the banks did not

2009-06-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

I heard a great summary of our present financial problems. “President Obama has sold the USA a sub-prime loan with a balloon payment due in the near future.” I watched this video today which goes into detail about the fraud involved The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

How polluted are our oceans?

2009-06-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

In a documentary I watched on PBS about plastic pollution in the Pacific detractors questioned how long did it take to gather the sample and that the footage must show an isolated worst case area. It was easy to think that maybe the scientist had sailed around until he found a really bad heap of trash. Could what we were seeing really continue on for hundreds of miles? The recent plane crash Recovered Debris Not From Missing Jet and resulting find of a oil slick and debris trails which were determined not to be from the plane. A different ocean and really far from land and it appears the scientist was correct. There is trash everywhere. They are now wondering which oil slick is from the plane.

Is there really a General Motors?

2009-06-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

In reading today’s WSJ article Magic Act: Conjuring Up a Profit at GM I wondered if the recent bail out of General Motors by the federal government may have been for a shell or phantom company. General Motors does not make the parts for its cars. Take away those government subsidies for assembling the vehicles and the container ships arrive with fully assembled vehicles. The dealers are separate. The financing arm of GM has been bailed out separately. The investment capitol the company once had has been squandered. What remains is a management group that has shown they don’t know how to manage. They blame government regulations, which we know are not going away. So what was bailed out?

Will Bing Bing?

2009-06-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

I checked out the new Microsoft Search engine today; www.Bing.com. I immediately found a bug and a poor button control. Specifically the search box will not let go of a search so you can go to the links such as news. The buttons on the bottom for page controls light up, but miss clicking on the actual number and nothing happens. So I went to feedback. They do not have feedback. The link takes you to Microsoft which has yet to add Bing as an app. This kind of release calls into question the release of a beta. Will they hang on to customers with the bugs or should they have waited? Maybe the answer is to get an app to the point that a few programmers are free to respond to bugs. Beyond the bugs the search engine looks cool. I also thought Cuil (last big search engine release) looked cool, but it never seemed to return what I was searching for, whereas Bing does. At least I can remember Chandler Bing. I had to Google Cuil to remember how to spell it.

Government Waste Could Destroy the Environment

2009-06-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

An article in the WSJ Before the Trees Disappeared references Easter Island as an example of our future if we do not address global warming. The island tribe deforested the island
View Larger Map and thus ran out of wood for boats and fires. Evidence shows that they continued to produce the statues the island is famous for all the way to the end. During a civil war most of the statues were toppled. Whether as memorials for the chiefs or part of a religious custom, making the statues consumed enormous resources. At some point the islanders must have recognized that resources needed to be reallocated to more productive activities for survival. Was a Jonah born and warned the people. The toppling of the statues could be an indication that the government did not listen to the warnings. Or the islanders could have just been mad and seen them as symbols of the government. The history of these people has been lost and the chiefs who may have thought they were being immortalized have been forgotten. So while the environment may be a serious problem our modern government following the same path of waste in trying to solve the problem may be a larger one.

Eighteenth Century Conservative

2009-04-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

An editorial by Thomas Frank criticizes as childish the refusal of federal funds by the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914757330399021.html It is an interesting editorial in that it uses the 1+1=2 then 2+2 must equal 1 approach. The governor may very well have refused the funds for sensationalism and self promotion. By proving that premise does not prove that accepting the funds would also be a great idea. In the 1700s liberals fought for a shift of power from central authority of a king to that of a middle-man, the states. Accepting the money undoes that effort and moves power back to the federal government. It also spends the money of our children. Of course my and my parent’s generation has done such a good job managing the economy why should we think our kids could do any better? The banking crisis creates an interesting insight into these two generations. Banks got into trouble by shifting too much power to the top and leveraging the balance sheets with bad assets. At the same time we criticize these actions we apply the same method to fix it. When Thomas Frank calls the governor an eighteenth century man is that really a criticism, because it is saying that the governor supports personal freedoms, and the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I admit that king’s support these rights as long as it was the way they think they should be pursued.

Is Earth Hour for real?

2009-03-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

I have seen references several times to an earth hour asking people to dim or turn their lights off for an hour Saturday night. It most definitely dates me. I grew up with my parents telling me to turn the lights off when you leave a room. I still turn appliances such as DVD players off even though I have heard they still use as much electricity. It is things like the refrigerators and the electricity to make the many products we consume that uses a lot of the electricity. Really want to save some electricity Saturday then skip the bottled water for tap water, or wash the dishes by hand. Since aluminum uses massive amounts of electricity you could skip the soda and save several times the electricity from the lights you should already be turning off.

Lean Management

2009-03-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

Some factories are finding it hard to lay off workers since they have become highly skilled and responsible for larger parts of production. It is a result of lean management and just-in-time inventory control. Software has been following the same track. Developers must not only know their area of expertise, but also the specific language and software tools and standards a company uses. Companies must choose if they should produce the product, sort of an on or off. Even when they can reduce staff, they will have to invest time and money to train new employees to restore capacity.

Newsletters

2009-03-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

This weekend I caught up on my reading of financial newsletters and found they all had dire thoughts for this week. Usually their predictions are either extremely general or just a guess. It has been suggested that the credit crisis has lead to a drop in earnings that has fueled the credit crisis that has caused more earnings losses. The same appears to be with forecast. They have joined the herd mentality and also are part of the fuel. So for a brief period they are right and for the next few years they can harp on how they predicted the big downturn. Unfortunately their advice has come too late for investors.

Books

2009-02-24T15:56:00.001-08:00

I went to Fry’s today to look at computer books and the shelves were nearly bare. This creates two problems. Instead of having about a dozen selections for a category there were only one or two. Also the remaining books are the ones nobody wanted. I know that books are increasingly bought online, but I like to browse. I guess a dart throw at the online choices is going to be better than the lone book that nobody wanted. I found what I needed in the discount bin, but even that had slim pickings.

Phones Needed in Stimulus

2009-02-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

The government space agency said they knew about potential collision of the Iridium satellite with the abandoned Russian satellite, but could not contact every satellite owner every time it knew of such an event. Good thing these government scientists do not work in China. Such a dereliction of duty is sometimes punishable by death. By not preventing the collision, the resulting space debris has put the satellites they are supposed to be protecting in grave danger. In this case an ounce of prevention is worth billions. Maybe they needed a phone book or proper training how to use complex modern device called a phone. The response was that they need more money. Hopefully they use it to buy a brain, though a heart also works.

Empty Offices

2009-02-12T08:51:00.001-08:00

There is a sting of beautiful glass sheathed offices in Los Colinas that were full of start-ups. I always thought it would be neat to work in one. Yesterday I noticed everyone is empty. Some of the older buildings have tenants with old company names, but not a single survivor in the new.

Beta Release

2009-02-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

I have released a new version of www.MythicalLogic.com. Nothing much has changed visually, but about 99% of the code is compliant with the XHTML web standard. The standard checker http://validator.w3.org/ is a great way to find missing tags or poor coding. I created a second version that degrades the features so the site can run in Firefox. I was able to get Firefox to run the two best features. You can run the player even when the tab does not have focus and the play list works without Flash. I am excited about starting on some new features this week and have now moved from alpha to beta.

Beetle Problem Solved Overnight

2009-01-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

Did Google News play a joke on reporter Jeff Barnard? Barnard’s story Study: Western forests dying at increasing rate replaced the story about beetles killing those same trees. So without global warming whatever wood product the beetle immigrated on would not have made it through customs? (LA Times actually spun beetles as being caused by warming) Poor Jeff apparently in the rush to meet the deadline failed to read the news. I think it was just bad timing with the auto news feed mechanism. Unfortunately global warming did not kill off the beetles, but it does seem to be affecting reporters.

Release!

2009-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have released the video organizer at MythicalLogic.com. I was checking my logs and the first day I worked on the public release was November 4. Interesting how it corresponds to political events. I remember how hundreds of millions in new taxes on the ballet to host the Super Bowl stirred me up. I guess the overwhelming positive support for new taxes also helped me. I will be working to fix any bugs. I have spotted some that were easy to fix. Sorry about the demise of the family friendly concept. I do block any tagged with explicit content. I came to realize a few weeks ago that on my own I could never support that and many other content ideas. Basically if I were to spend one minute with each video and assume forty hour work weeks, it would take over two months for one pass through.

Firefox Flash Focus Error

2009-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

I spent five hours searching for a solution. I came across the solution early, but did not understand it. The other suggestions did not work. One “expert” debated the word focus, in that it was not specific enough to answer the question. “focus()” is script for which node in the browser the computer will apply its commands. It is also which browser or tab is selected. The solution is the Flash setting wmode. It is used to supply the Flash skin transparency. It has been broken in Firefox for years. Do not supply a wmode setting and problem solved. You get the ugly default buttons. Use it and you get pretty buttons, but do not expect some script like focus() to work. The real problem I see is comments. Hundreds of web pages have developers begging for a solution. The “experts” say things like check the Flash manual. It would be great to point those questions to the page with the solution. But it would take forever to register for those sites.

Clothes are on Sale

2009-01-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

I have read articles this month about major discounts at retailers. Most of my wardrobe is from the eighties, bought at discount stores in the early 90’s. Over the last weeks the knees have ripped out of three pants (becoming cutoffs). The rest of my pants are corduroy, which is almost indestructible other than fading. So I went to find pants and made two surprising discoveries. I found a store almost giving away over a thousand pairs of corduroy pants. I even found the exact brand and make of most resilient pair that I own. If you were a farmer or construction worker and needed durability versus style those pants would be perfect. How could a department store buyer have made the same mistake as when I bought mine? The second surprise is that clothes were discounted to the same prices that I paid in the early 90’s. So I updated my wardrobe. Family has informed me that the clothes I picked went out of style last year. A two decade jump in style is traumatic enough. I miss baggy.

Web Revolution

2009-01-11T11:05:00.001-08:00

I have had a hard time explaining what I have been working on and found a good example. My new development platform is about offering the same finished product, only to development it faster and thus for less money. My next demo is a music video player. Releasing January 30, 2009 MythicalLogic.com. It has similar features and video count (around 20,000) as other sites. My two selling points is that you can view a play list by artist like one of the old players that MTV killed, and you can specify a video not to play, or to play multiple times. It is taking twelve weeks to program the site, most of which has been spent redesigning security to allow the play list to be public. Not sure if the security is better, but it is different than what the platform originally offered. After the site is finished it will take a few hours a month to maintain. Contrast this with Music.com. They have fewer features, but overall similar. They have a good graphic artist, which I wish I had as a skill set. They are currently hiring two developers and one staff person. So they are using several developers to maintain a site that should be part-time work for one developer. What I have found puzzling is that it is almost impossible to sell using fewer developers. I guess web developers can hope this trend holds up until the recession ends.

Natural Interfaces

2009-01-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

I read a review of music web site development at Digital Magazine. The lack of a natural interface for selecting music led to a brainstorm. Not that it will solve that problem, but this interface will be different. Making something from an idea is much like making a movie based on a book. If it works it will be an easy way to expand web sites without changing the web site. I will know in about two weeks.

Businesses Missing Big Picture

2008-12-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

Individual investors are cashing out of the stock market. Some financial advisors think they might not be back for a while. However it may be for more reasons than just poor returns. Today the Wall Street Journal said many companies are exchanging worthless stock options for new options or cash for insiders. So management is robbing what share holders have left. It also means that there is no longer merit pay, options are salary. Salary that is many times more than other countries pay and compensation for doing a poor job. Ultimately the incentive is to create short term gains and not worry about the long term. If management does do a good job they actually penalize themselves. Originally publicly traded stocks had fractional voting power so management would not have to respond to the whim of owners. With funds holding so many shares and insiders giving themselves super voting shares, the individual investor has no say. If investors thought these companies were going to reform and put customers and stock owners before themselves they would be hanging onto stocks. They are voting with the last voting option they have.

Calpers Finds Database Solution

2008-12-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

Calpers, the California state pension fund, has lost a significant amount of money it invested for teachers and state employees. In response to the problem they are building an information system to track real estate investments. Sometimes innovation is a last resort. This can be a good long term addition if they listen to the internal needs and address them. A custom system like this can take years to design and build. Given the money they have and the urgent need they could possibly reduce that down to one or two. It sounds like they are planning to roll something out right away, which sounds scary. The odd thing is that there is a short term solution that if they really need it now they could have it. Microsoft Office with Excel and Access are really powerful tools. Not easy or long term, but while your waiting for the fancy tool they have a history of meeting the need. The problem is that it is easier to buy the pie in the sky solution and then act surprised when it does not work.

Eating on $1 a Day

2008-12-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

A couple has a top news item for only spending $60 for a month between them for food. What planet are they from? It is easy for a couple to live off $60 a month, and is more than most people in the world spend. Fifty pounds of rice cost about $12, and this week I bought ten pounds of potatoes for $2. Of course it was on sale (potatoes not the rice). That leaves $46 for some butter, milk, and bread. ($4 – four sticks, $8 - two gallons, $6 – three loafs whole wheat). This leaves $28 to splurge with. I would suggest sour cream for the potatoes, jelly for toast, lettuce and what ever fruit or vegetable is on sale (in season). Dried beans can also go a long way. The last item I would myself get would be eggs. They have increased considerably in price. But for about $3 you can two dozen. The couple said they bought oatmeal. That is another cheap bulk food.

I checked my bills and for the past year I have spent slightly over a dollar a day for my core food purchases. The food I buy and have to pay non-food tax on push the total much higher. My main splurge is soda. I like it in cans and thus pay a premium. I also occasionally like processed foods or fast food. These taxable foods cost me more than the real foods I buy. So to live under $1 you just have to cut out the luxury of processed and prepared foods. Some of these foods have chemicals that can be addictive. The women talks about being grumpy and low on energy. Thus eating unprocessed foods must be unhealthy. That is someone who has no idea what caffeine is. The man said he lost fifteen pounds which he thought was unhealthy. Looked like he needed to stay on the plan for a few more months, since when is being over weight healthy?

I think the real challenge they were trying to do was live a life eating fast food, preprocessed, pre-prepared, out of season, luxury foods (organic/imported/rare) for a dollar a day. I once saw someone who said it could be done with coupons. Maybe they should check into that.

USA Today Reporters Fail at Math

2008-12-11T22:40:00.000-08:00

USA Today reporters are in desperate need of math skills. They claim North Dakota is the most corrupt state. North Dakota tops analysis of corruption. USA Today reporters claim is based on per capita compared to federal convictions of public officials. I guess because only one of Illinois twenty governors has been convicted this year… It must have twenty governors since it is twenty times more populous. I guess if we go by size of state Rhode Island is the most corrupt. What about cowboy hats? Surfers? Of course if they based it on the count of politicians the reporter could not pick the state. I guess Washington D.C. is safe since it is not a state. The biggest part of the math problem is that North Dakota is probably also the least corrupt state if you compare public officials per capita that are not convicted. So can a state both be the most corrupt and least corrupt. In USA Today it can.

Companies Should No Longer Make Money

2008-12-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

In an article by Antal E. Fekete Red Alert: Gold Backwardation!!! He suggests that gold mining companies should no longer sell gold. The current model used by these companies has led to many being on the edge of collapse. These companies raised money by selling shares which they used to develop mines. They then sold gold into the future to raise capital to mine the gold. Unfortunately inflation has resulted in the price to mine and refine the gold to be higher than the price they sold it. Then when gold futures went over $1000 an ounce many covered these futures and bought gold at above the market price.
If the companies kept the gold and loaned it out to traders they create value for share holders and create a long term inflation proof investment vehicle. Worst case they have to cover the loans and actually sell the gold and distribute the money to share holders. This model is a worst case for management because they can not profit from bonuses on futures sales and create short term gains from long term losses.
It works because money is now just a medium of exchange. In today’s Wall Street Journal wholesale inventories were reported to shrink to $435 billion. So with the bail out money Washington could buy the countries wholesale inventories several times over; more money chasing fewer goods. Companies can no longer count on money holding long term value. Companies must think of value as other than money. So it is what money will buy and not the money itself. A company must consider not just selling a product, but also what they are going to then exchange that money for. I think a lot of companies have seen that as the finish line, which may explain why they have had such a poor record of managing money. Companies need to instead use the money to create value for their customers and shareholders.

Chicago Increases Taxes and Sell out Future

2008-12-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

One of the advantages to customers of big box stores is free parking. The store absorbs the cost of upkeep on the pavement and property tax. For businesses in downtown areas customers pay the parking meter for these costs. This deters some customers, but many in government have forgotten why they were put in. I talked to a business owner in another city who remembered. He said that it was to control congestion and the city originally designated an area two blocks outside the shopping area for free employee parking. Many cities now tax these customers for much more than the parking space. Chicago is raising the hourly rate from 25 cents to one dollar. They are selling the rights to this tax for the next seventy five years to a group funded by Morgan Stanley and using the money to balance the budget. This is a horrible management decision for many reasons. It places a tax burden on a future generation that has no representation and will not benefit from the tax. It unfairly saddles small downtown businesses with a tax that the box store customers do not have to pay. It takes away the ability of the city government to govern. If these businesses start moving to the suburbs or out of the country the city has no way to remove this tax burden. The math to analysis maximum revenue is being ignored which means the real revenue the city could collect is being tossed out. What if free parking with three hour limits doubled sales tax revenue? The city will never know because they are selling the opportunity to help their local businesses with parking. The city will also face a huge problem in two years. They have run away spending and in two years they will not only need to deal with that, but will have eliminated another source of income that will have to be replaced.

So Much for MySpace

2008-12-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last week on a tangent. I learned XML and have expanded the video list to 4000. It will be a few more days before you can see the new library. I have also been watching the Web 2.0 Summit. I was puzzled at why the video “Rupert Murdoch & Chris DeWolfe (Hosted by MySpace)” would not play. Unlike the other Flash videos it was QuickTime and hosted off site. I learned that the IPhone does not play Flash. I assume they do play QuickTime and or the off site server was down. Sometimes requiring special consideration backfires.

Play List

2008-11-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Progress continues on the play list. I abandoned the design the main page uses. The new design runs off a sequential play list number. Last night I was able to use it to connect to an artist list. I am now working on the private view. Adding support for FireFox kept me busy this weekend as I patched the patches. Still a few glitches, but since they are minor I am putting them off. I should have the play list option by next week.

I have seen a proliferation of script errors this year in many major web sites. Does FireFox have anything to do with this? Errors show in an error box instead of at the bottom left corner as in IE thus making them less visible. Though in most cases the errors appear to originate from the ads.

FireFox

2008-11-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

The first play list is up at MythicalLogic.com! I will be working to get the categories and artist lists up today. I downloaded FireFox last night and am going to see if I can make the site compatible. FireFox does not have an equivalent of window.event, which is Microsoft specific. This means it can not listen for events such as selection or copy at the browser level. I am allowing users to select both columns and rows. Which means the event may not be the expected HTML object. This is a major lapse in the design of the internet. Early standard makers looked at the web as a display area for text and not as a future development platform. Given time I should be able to code a solution using script.

Menu System

2008-11-17T11:18:00.000-08:00

Progress continues on the video player. I tweaked the home page font. Thanks for the feedback. I only changed the banner area so far. Arial is crisper than the Verdana I was using. Google is pulling the ads based on the cached web page. So until Google indexes the page the ads will be for web development, for those who can see ads. I also received a banner ad that failed to load. I have a feature that sniffs for Flash lockup and can trigger a reset. That would be a good idea for ads.

The main barrier to adding the public play list is an internal menu. The Input Web Wizard is designed to build and manage single web pages not the same page with varying layouts. I was worried about using the main menu system because of the complexity it added and security. Now there will be a menu that is owned by the page and has simplified functionality. Please keep the feedback coming.

Texas Loves New Taxes

2008-11-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

Arlington Texas residents overwhelming voted to add 140 million in new taxes in the Tuesday presidential election. That works out to $1129.44 per household. The city will add this to the huge windfall from natural gas royalties from the Barnett Shale. I have now solved my question about the large ceramic like bowls being attached to the new Center Street sidewalks. They are planters. With this tax windfall the huge public works effort will continue, which most prominent feature is the Dallas Cowboy stadium to be completed next year. I had wondered if President Obama would be able to get new tax increases. At least in this part of Texas, he should have no problem. Here is a link to the sample ballot, some of the taxes for these new bonds passed by as much as 88%. Unfortunately the one in five that voted against the new taxes includes the group that wants to keep them the same. I now find myself in a very small fiscal minority of those for lower taxes. I guess there is also the group that did not understand the ballot and thus possibly leaving me as a minority of one.

The Death of Blogs

2008-11-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

This month’s Wired Magazine says that blogs are no longer a viable way for individuals to make money. The reason is that many of the top blogs are professionally done by groups. Since the beginning of blogs the top 1% has accounted for about 99% of the revenue. So between professional blogs and the already crowded field of long time blogs, it becomes extremely difficult for an individual to create enough new content or to gain a search ranking to move to the top. Will individual blogs wanting top readership form alliances to compete? I noticed new comments not by immediate family on my last two posts. Welcome! I am going to try a radical addition to my blogs. I am adding music. Work is progressing well and today I finished the display area for my new blog. I am considering whether to mirror my post here. I will be departing from my comments on the news and concentrate on music and improvements to the site. I still have a few hundred more lines of code to write and hope to transition by the end of this month.

Will Social Security go Underwater?

2008-10-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Unlike private pension funds Social Security has no fund. In some ways it is already underwater. Many retirees see Social Security as an entitlement. They paid in so now they should collect. Unfortunately this is far from the truth. These same retirees elected politicians that have already spent the retirement money on a wide range of welfare programs. These liabilities make the problem worse. As money is needed for retirees, it drains money from the other welfare programs. So for every dollar a retiree needs two dollars in taxes must be raised. The proposed solution of double dipping also will not work. Baby boomer want to take the retirement money from their children’s retirement fund, unfortunately this pot has already been tapped. Just like their parents, the next generation has elected to have their retirement fund pay for welfare programs. If baby boomers take this money, workers will no longer derive any benefit from this tax. The baby boomers and my own generation decided to not apply Social Security to retirement. However the youngest generation, now just entering the work force, has began to both want a real retirement fund and wonder why baby boomers should collect twice. This generation does not have the voting power of the baby boomers and so far has endured the double dipping from the chip dip bowl.

Will Calpers go Underwater?

2008-10-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Calpers is the nations largest teachers retirement fund and has made three serious mistakes. They ignored advice to apply five years of windfalls to future liabilities, they increased their future long term liabilities with short term unsustainable gains, and they made reckless real estate investments. Two of the top managers of the fund have left and so far the fund has not been able to replace the captain of the Titanic (CEO). The fund said that the good news is that retirement payouts are less than the payroll receipts so that benefits will not need to be cut. This may make a proposed 4% payroll tax increase appear unnecessary. But the real problem the fund faces is the baby boomer retirement. Eventually the fund will need to pay out more than the taxes it brings in. This means it will be underwater; much like a homeowner who owes more than a house is worth. The fund has known this for decades and thus has been stockpiling a fund to make up the difference. Mismanagement of the fund combined with a weak investment environment comes when there is only a short period of positive cash flow left. The point of baby boomers tipping the balance looked to be ten or fifteen years away. But if teacher positions are cut as school tax revenue decreases and teachers fail to receive pay raises, this reducing revenue from payroll taxes. While teachers may face retirement with only a little over 50% of future short falls being funded they are in a much better position than other workers.

Obama Cola Tax

2008-10-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

As an avid drinker of cola I was disheartened at the proposed Obama cola tax. Obama wants to levy 100 billion a year in carbon tax. While this is mainly an electricity tax, since electricity generation is a major source of emissions, an unexpected consequence is a significant tax on aluminum. This could double or even triple the cost of a can of cola. In states that charge sales tax even more is added as taxes on the taxes are levied. Plastic bottles may become the alternative. Obama plans an additional tax on petroleum products, but less so than aluminum. Aluminum cans have a higher recycle rate than plastic so many states are considering creating or raising their bottle tax to encourage consumers to recycle. Democrats want group cigarettes and cola together as a major source of sin tax.

California to Increase Teacher Retirement Tax

2008-10-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

The one sided view of balance sheets was illustrated today by the management of Calpers, California’s teachers and public employee pension fund. Facing a loss from investments this year they plan to raise the employee tax by 2% to 4%. This will be in addition to the 13% average rate already levied. Many local and state government entities also are considering tax increases and teachers have seen their pay diminished by high food and energy inflation making this payroll tax especially difficult. Calpers increased benefits while it was flush with cash during the past five years. However no consideration is being given to reducing benefits to previous levels. Financial advisors warned four years ago that the financial gains were unsustainable and would not be able to support new long term commitments. They urged the funds managers to use the gains to cover future liabilities, which as of next year the fund will only have 69% of the assets to cover. The funds management rebuffed the advice and squandered the gains. Despite their gross mismanagement there is no move to replace the managers or to reign in rampant spending. The tepid response by voters may make it easier for Democrats to apply a similar increase to Social Security payroll rates nationally.

Union lobbies to reduce benefits for teachers children

2008-10-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

The California teachers union has spent over two million dollars lobbying against prop 8 which would ban homosexual marriages in California. Yahoo News - California And Beyond At first it seems to be an odd issue for the union to spend so much money. The reason is benefits for homosexual partners including health care. While providing homosexual partners generous health benefits supports homosexual teachers, it has the negative effect of reducing the funding available for the children of teachers. As the state faces budget shortfalls also at risk are the direct benefits for teachers. Bearing the brunt of the cost is the growing ranks of teachers without any partner. Single teachers have been the target of tax increases and increasingly bear the result of dilution of benefits as a result of benefits paid to non-teachers. If property tax revenue continues to fall some teachers could lose their jobs as the result of school districts unable to reduce benefits to homosexual partners. The teachers union appears to be ready to sacrifice the majority of their teachers. Even some homosexual teachers who have children could be hurt.

MSNBC gets Punked

2008-10-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27203939/ is a story about the excesses of the children of the rich. However the video is a remake of a College Humor video from two years ago http://www.vimeo.com/173714. Even in the comments people take it serious. I felt bad for the internet illiterate that were not around for the buzz two years. Though welcome to news on the web, I love it too. It has to be the April Fool’s joke of the year if College Humor was not in on writing the article, which I think they were not. For those new to the internet, most articles are people’s opinions and not based on fact. Some articles are fictional and only for entertainment. It did give me a good laugh this morning when I saw it on Google News (entertainment).

Wal-Mart Too Cheap

2008-10-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

My mother encouraged me years ago to keep a journal. I attempted but failed, as I found I could not keep to a routine. I had a roommate in college that worked on his like clock work. He had a beautiful journal that must have cost a fortune with paper that will last hundreds of years. I realized this year that I have been keeping a journal not realizing that I was. In college I used cheap 70 sheet bound notebooks. I bought a huge stack of them a few years ago. I ran out this month. I jot down phone numbers, reminders, addresses, but sometime I also write out ideas and even lines of code. I usually note the date in the right corner and a subject line above the entry. Sometimes weeks go by between entries. My last entry is the name of a church. I looked at their web site and fixed a line of code in their calendar for a friend. If anyone ever looks at my journal years from now I wonder what they will think. Did I attend that church on that date or what? The current notebook, soon to join the pile of notebooks, has drawings of perpetual motion machines and a space elevator. I was trying to remember why specifically not just generally gravity and friction defeat them. I watched an anime and it had this circular space elevator. I have always supported the counter weight idea and high strength cable. So could you wrap a cable around the earth in geocentric orbit and drop a cable from it. I think it would have to be rigid and a counter weight placed on the circle at the opposite side. I went to Wal-Mart and they had notebooks on sale for 5 cents each. Of course they were sold out.

Obama tax increase

2008-10-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal outlined Obama’s tax plan. It showed the tax increases for a couple with two children. If they make $25,000 it will raise the federal rate from 20% to 35%. For most income levels above $25,000 it raises the rate and never lowers it. She asked why the current plan and the Obama plan almost have a zero tax rate if the couple makes $45,000. I pointed out that they can itemize at that point college and child care cost. That is a good point. Why is the tax rate so much higher if the couple makes less money? Obama is going to increase earned income credit and several other benefits for those with incomes below $10,000. What about the working poor? Is he encouraging them to stop working?

T. Boone Pickens Scam

2008-10-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

Despite being on the national do not call list I received a recorded telemarketing call from T. Boone Pickens for the PickensPlan. So I Googled it and put together a pros and cons list. To my surprise it is a major scam. He claims to have signed up a million people. With all the scams during the dot com bust you would think people would not be so easy to fool. So what is wrong with this plan?
1. The web site and plan information has no detail. It is extremely limited in content and that content sticks to frivolous generalities. It is like a television commercial where you ask, “What is this advertising?”
2. It uses an association with a legitimate industry and person to make itself legitimate.
3. If you use Google and search other sites you only come up with reasons this plan will not work. To have so many negatives like the recent California government study and not address them shows T. Boone Pickens already knows it will not work. Where are the “we are going to hire the best scientist and throw a lot of money at it?” Of course we know that has worked for Cancer and AIDS.
4. The PickensPlan has moved negative Google results out of the first pages of results. The PickensPlan is also not open to debate or posts by people who know about Google and can read. This alone waves a huge red flag. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and tried to post some questions and ask about some of the information on other web sites like California’s. Not an option.
5. If this is legitimate why use all the scam approaches? Switch and bait. Everyone is doing it. Bury anything negative. We have all the answers and there are no problems. You will feel good and save the world without doing anything. A celebrity thinks it is good. It is not grass roots but now it is. The government just needs to sign the bill.
6. If the victims do not actually have to pay anything who actually benefits or is hurt? As in many great scams it is at the forefront of the web site. T. Boone Pickens will cash the tax payer check. Of course we will get a few wind generators and some excuse like “We just did not get enough money”. Bill Gates better watch out T. Boone Pickens may knock him out of his Fortune 500 spot.

I could show all the reason why his plan will not work and what changes might make it work. But a scam is a scam. Even if it will work they have no plans to make it work. Once you start addressing the problems and details it loses it glamour. This is one of the big problems with our energy crisis. There is no crisis, just mismanagement by our government, and those driven by greed. I just think the last thing we need to do is give another blank check to a rich guy for an invisible bridge to no where. I deleted my first blog on this as I realized you can’t fight an invisible bridge with facts.

Is Joe Biden a liability for Obama?

2008-10-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

In the vice presidential debate I thought both candidates were playing it safe with their answers. I even thought of writing about the generalities and scripted replies and attempts to be so specific that the other candidate could not reply with a scripted reply. Then they asked the causes of global warming question. Did Biden just read a memorized scripted reply? How could he not think about what he was saying? He replied that global warming is entirely man made. The problem is that of all the scientific evidence available discredits that statement. Since the last ice age the earth has been warming naturally. Then man came along and started adding to that process. There is obviously a huge debate about how much has man added and what impact it is having. That is why the question was asked. His reply either says he knows nothing about global warming or thinks we don’t. He has this incredible chance to add his view to the discussion and instead does the sky is falling answer. He should have stuck to the Palin answer of the government will fix it. I think the Democratic speech writer must have over thought it. "We always say the government will fix it and the Republicans will counter that with the government will fix it, so lets say something crazy and throw them off". Did Dan Quayle get plastic surgery and change his name to Biden?

Vongo Gone

2008-10-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

The subscription based movie service Vongo closed shop tonight. I am watching for the no connect signal and it seems to be holding out for midnight west coast time. The movie selection was somewhat limited, but somehow I never canceled. The user interface was intuitive and the quality of the movies was better than the other internet movie services I have seen. I had some problems during two of the Microsoft updates with Vongo not working afterwards (not because of the updates, but because I choose not to upgrade my viewing computer to IE 7). They were not very responsive to my help request. I posted my problem in this blog and they responded almost immediately, surprised me because only about two people read this blog (Hi Mom). So here are some questions.
Is it west coast or West Coast?
As a developer I have a rough idea of how much Vongo cost to create and this thing has been promoted all over the place (Internet) yet it closing generated almost no buzz. I did a Google search and could find no real information on the behind the scene story. This had a direct impact on millions of people yet gets almost no coverage?
Did they not hold out long enough? I have developed software that would reduce the cost of operating a site like Vongo by at least 90% (excluding content, but looking at the Hulu model content cost was not the problem). So in a year from now are they going to wish they were still around?
Conclusion:
So I make movie days of the first part of this week to finish some titles I had yet to watch and then find out a few minutes ago Netflix will be adding most of the Vongo movies. It is not that I would not have watched them, but the laptop I have connected to the television is at the shop, so I had to use one of my desktop computers and its 17 inch screen.
I am now inspired to finish coding my own movie service. I like the simple easy to user interfaces of sites like Vongo, but I also like lots of features. I saw a show or movie the other day and someone needed a phone and the actor hands back the IPhone saying she needs a real phone. It was funny because if you are not familiar with the interface, and need to make a call immediately, you might have a problem. Apple has shown that give people a simple clean interface that is cool and people will learn to become familiar with it. I doubt I can start with cool, but I do have a lot of ideas for features. So when my video service starts latter this month give me some feedback on how to add cool and still have all the features.

The perfect car storm

2008-09-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

The automobile industry said they think they are close to the bottom of the plummet in automobile sales. However several condition now exist that they were not facing at the beginning of the decade. 1. For the past decade many older cars without emission controls were bought and crushed by the government. This program increased the demand for new cars, but now has run its course. 2. Many white collar jobs have left the country and thus the domestic customers. 3. New cars are a luxury that can be put off if a family needs income to pay for inflationary food and energy cost. 4. A glut of leased and rental cars is hitting the used car market. 5. A glut of lower gas mileage vehicles both new and used is deeply discounted. 6. The most popular cars (Toyota midsized) for the past few years already get good gas mileage. 7. The quality of some cars has improved and they are staying on the road longer. 8. To stay in business domestic automobile manufactures will have to raise prices. 9. Countries like China and India are entering the market. 10. Domestic manufactures management has yet to try to fix the broken model. Since change if implemented incorrectly could hasten bankruptcy.

Advertisers causing errors

2008-08-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that more and more web sites have a JavaScript error alert. I have seen the same error on Wall Street Journal pages. But loading the page again it would go away. So I investigated the error Tuesday. The core code is fine. The ads are causing the errors. When you load the page you get a random ad and thus the error is a random event. There are several possibilities, the most likely is that the Wall Street Journal code and the ad code declare an object with the same name and thus create a conflict. I could fix this problem and distribute a include file. The problem with open source and free software is that I would never be paid for my time (the only means of distribution open to me). Open source works fine when the developer does this work as a hobby or has a job with an employer that would need to build this application anyway. As more and more developers provide their services directly on a job to job base, this will conflict with the open source approach. I think the open source community sees corporate entities such as Microsoft as their main threat. However as the internet changes the traditional model for employment the greatest threat could be their own ranks. Some of these developers rely on the open source code. So it is a multi-front war of change.

Are Airports to Blame for Delays?

2008-08-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

Airlines have suffered a loss of customer satisfaction as more flights are late and more baggage lost. Airlines have had stagnant fair growth and higher fuel cost which has put a financial strain on the industry. This has resulted in employee and service cut backs, which meant airlines are being blamed for late flights. Airports have long poorly managed gates as their goals have changed from efficiency to revenue. New York airport authorities said they would turn planes away if they participated in the new federal gate auction program. So has the revenue focus also infected airports management of air traffic? Airports sell gate space, which means at airports like DFW several gates sit unused while some gates are overused. Airlines pay a high fee for gates and try to get the most out of this investment. Some airlines like American Airlines buy gates and leave them empty to prevent rivals from using them. This has been facilitated by airport authorities that have become rich from ever increasing taxes. Now airport authorities have said they will block federal attempts to reduce flight delays. While these policies may or may not work, it is interesting to see a new entity moving above the federal level.

Taxing the rich has a downside

2008-08-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

With the slow down in the economy and financial crisis California and New York are facing massive tax short falls. Part of the problem is the uneven distribution of tax liability. Wall Street is expected to pay over ten billion less in bonuses this year. Many banks do not have profits to pay taxes on, and real estate values and tax valuations are in free fall. Because the rich pay significantly higher tax rates, they have a much larger impact on the tax base. In response California is trying to increase the tax rates on the rich to make up the difference. When the economy recovers these higher tax rates could lead to huge wind falls for the states. That assumes two things. That the higher rates will not prevent the rich from recovering, and that in the next recovery the money will not flow to business friendly states or countries.

Too much money for transportation infrastructure

2008-07-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

Federal and state governments have announced they are taking measures to increase tax revenue for roads and infrastructure. Bush Calls for New Highway Tolls, More Private Funding of Roads. As drivers have switched to larger vehicles and driven more in the last ten years it has led to wind fall taxes from gasoline and taxes on purchases. Tax revenue is still at record highs but is falling to the highs set two and three years ago. The government did not expect its policy of promoting better gas mileage to work, and thus did not anticipate tax revenue to level. The government blames pork barrel projects and poor management of funds for the poor maintenance of the overall infrastructure. Unfortunately their plan for more money does not include a fix for the system for spending it. So while the government has more money than they need to fix the problem, they don’t, and will never have enough.

Late Adopter

2008-07-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

I wanted to buy a pair of Crocs for camping, but ended up watching the camping supplies and finding shade for the pet during the store run. Their stock plunged by almost half yesterday. I was always the last to hear about something in the office. I have never owned a cell phone, used an ATM, bought a new car, etc. Guess I better hold off on the ATM, since I would not want to plunge financial stocks any lower. I am watching more and more videos online. I passed during the file sharing of music period. I did get hooked on watching music videos on VH1, until two years ago they bungled an attempt to add commercials. Commercials are fine. The site no longer works (features I used, performance). Several companies have announced new video offers. Yesterday it was the NFL. Maybe I am attracted to on-line video because when my television goes dead in a few months that is all I will have. Wonder if I will ever buy a digital converter. Vista allows displaying the monitor on the television screen, assuming you have an S-video connection. Yes I had to upgrade when my Windows 98 machine would no longer run anything.

Wage Fiction

2008-07-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

Wyoming is experiencing an energy boom that has lead to inflationary prices above that of the rest of the country. Workers outside the energy business are seeing their wages squeezed as prices outpace their earnings. Retail and service sector jobs are going unfilled as businesses say raising wages will not help since there are no workers to fill the positions. With unemployment at 25% in the rest of the country among the age group that normally fill these positions, this is fiction. There are plenty of workers that would move into the area if the wages are high enough to pay above room and board. It reminds me of resort areas where housing cost can be higher than the total earnings of service level employees. Ultimately businesses will have to adjust the wages for inflation or make management serve the burgers and clean the bathrooms. At my first job I made minimum wage ($3.35), which I could use to buy 3.75 gallons of gasoline (not adjusted for payroll taxes). Now to buy the same adjusted for inflation a worker would need to make $15 an hour (not adjusted for even higher payroll taxes). So if someone does that same job for the new $6.55 an hour that are making less than half what I made.

Police try to take credit

2008-07-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Automobile fatalities have dropped by 9% nationally since the beginning of the year mirroring the increase in the price of gasoline according to the Wall Street Journal. Police said they issued more speeding and DWI tickets and improved their teen licensing programs. Since 17% of fatal accidents involve speeding the reduction could be related to more tickets. Except as a driver and personal experience, at least 17% of drivers appear to be speeding. If you are absolute (more than 1 mph over limit at any time) then most divers speed sometime during their commute. If only 1% of drivers speed and that resulted in 17% of the fatalities then you might make a difference. I wonder if over 17% speed and thus that group is actually safer? So who stands out? In half of fatal accidents the driver had some alcohol and it happened at night. 62% of the cases happened in a rural area. What stands out to me is the daily commute to work. Most people live in a city and drive to work during the day and do not consume alcohol with breakfast. Most people are still driving to work. Gasoline consumption has dropped. So people have stopped driving at night in a rural area. Another factor not listed in my source, that is as bad as alcohol, is fatigue. In my state it is now a crime, just like a DWI, to fall asleep driving. So it appears drivers are not taking as many long trips far from their homes outside their regular routine. So tickets by police appear to have no positive impact at reducing deaths. To see if they have a negative impact I would need to see the raw data.

Nucor may be looking for new ad agency

2008-07-16T08:52:00.001-07:00

Nucor ran a two page color ad in the Wall Street Journal showing a steel worker hugging a tree. A steel company that cares about the environment is its message. However they overlooked one major detail. The worker is wearing either leather or deer skin gloves, which stand out in the picture. I am sure it was meant to help convey that it is a steel worker, since you can not see the persons face. But if someone is an environmental tree hugger then they also tend to dislike the use of animal skins for clothing. If they are not a tree hugger environmentalist the ad just looks stupid. Then maybe the ad is meant as a joke, which unfortunately is at the expense of Nucor. This looks like the work of a committee.

Another bug in IE Explorer

2008-07-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

A createTextRange call on a HTML select object causes a JavaScript error and crashes part of the browser. I found the problem using IE 6 and have yet to try it on Vista. It does not cause the browser to crash as in “do you want to send this error to Microsoft”. Instead it caused the view source code to stop working. So it must be writing over some of the browsers memory locations. Wonder what else it is breaking. If triggered on purpose could this block users from viewing the source code while allowing all the other options? Another thing is that JavaScript keeps working and does not stop as it normally does with an error. Here is the code: var CellData = ‘’+document.getElementById(eSrcId).value; and is called by a key command on an HTML select element. I must have written that a long time ago because now I use .toString() instead of adding an empty string to force a string data type.

Music

2008-07-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have been busy since my last post working with Flash for the first time. I now have an alpha version of my new video player. Years ago I enjoyed the custom play list offered by VH1. They have gone through several versions in recent years as they have tried to add advertising. A version over a year ago that lasted only a few weeks was visually stunning, but ran really slow. I now have what VH1 needs. I can rapidly add features and have a complex offering of customized customer views, while not being bogged down by the code. Thus I can quickly keep adding features while not affecting legacy code. They have a rich library of content that I need. I am going to attempt to contact them today.

States as Bad as Countrywide

2008-07-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Florida filed a lawsuit against Countrywide for misleading consumers. This is in addition to filings by Illinois and California. Unfortunately for the victims, past lawsuits by states have only been efforts to fill the coffers and ignore the victims. They tend to create new victims, such as the shareholders, which include groups like teachers (retirement investment fund). The only group that will benefits regardless if the states have a valid claim is lawyers. It is too bad victims have lost state governments as a means of justice. In this case the states are protecting the criminals. Some of these loans are for speculative house investments that would benefit if the housing market went up and stick Countrywide and eventually the federal government with losses. Given the states reaction there may be something deeper going on. Are states the real villains and are trying to deflect the focus to Countrywide. Who regulates these loans at the local level and who looked the other way so they could go through?

Autobiography required by Commenters

2008-06-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

I noticed that many Google News stories have gone from having hundreds of comments to one or two. I tried to post a comment on two stories today and find out why. The publications wanted me to register and give my life history (ABC News). I think I even have one of the accounts, but it has been so long I do not remember how to login. Though it appears even using that login was going to require several pages of additional detail (ZDnet). Do users not want to give out this information, spend the time involved in filling them out, or can’t remember hundreds of login profiles? So if you want to be at the top of the comment area now is the time, though you might want to find some software to manage the user ids and passwords.

California loves to pollute

2008-06-27T11:04:00.001-07:00

The new California green initiative seems to be how much pollution they can add to the earth outside California. Perhaps they also have plans for a giant dome to encompass the state. All indications are this green initiative will reduce the standard of living and increase pollution; nothing for something. Since pollution credits become valuable there is more incentive to use them then not to, even if they are not needed. Corporations will control the pollution from hand outs from their political allies. New companies will have to pay previous monopolies to do business, so new companies that have green technology that produce significantly less pollution will be penalized because they are new. As the credits become valuable it will be cost effective to cash them in and move the polluting activities out of the state. Production of things like electricity requires more energy to transmit over distance. So the farther from the source the more pollution required to produce the original amount. Also standards in some states are not as rigid as California meaning more pollution is allowed for the same process. Any new enterprise that produces carbon byproducts is going to be discouraged from locating in California. More energy related services are going to move out of California requiring more energy to transport them to California. Expanding the transportation system is going to create even more industrial activities adding even more pollution. Running all of this is the government, which has a track record of inefficiency and bureaucracy. By locking in technology and a way of doing things they lock out small business and individuals and the ability to adopt new technologies. Maybe California is so vocal in trying to get other states to adopt this because they know otherwise their wealth, jobs, industry, and workers are going to follow the pollution.

Is the CEO of SAP out of touch?

2008-06-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

In an excerpt from a blog printed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday SAP CEO Henning Kagermann sees no threat to current information technology from new online software. However this view is out of date in that the problem with traditional business software is that its strength is also its weakness. Current business enterprise software requires a large investment and is vibrant and balances both a rigid structure with adaptability. This means that for a new technology to compete it must offer a reward in excess of the cost of switching. None of the software on the market offers that. However this new Internet software has led to development of new niche architectures some of which can compete. It is not the content produced by the new offerings, but how it is being produced. In the past it took five or ten years for what is in the lab to make it to the consumer. Current enterprise software faces a major problem in about twenty four months. Perhaps Kagermann does see it coming. SAP works more like a rental store than a retailer. A new architecture means new software and is great for a retailer, like switching from VHS to DVD. But as a rental store SAP must unload their VHS stock. So SAP may be trying to keep the market strong for VHS tapes while internally adjusting to DVD. Google announced this week they are going to offer web statistics. Some think Google acting as both advisor and seller is a conflict of interest. So SAP finds itself in a conflict of interest. Once the new enterprise solutions make it to market the price difference is significant enough to make the old solutions completely obsolete. That window may be months or years, but once it closes it will happen rapidly. Given the statements in the blog maybe the viability of the current information technology is even shorter than it appears.

Greed Killing the Arts

2008-06-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

The Columbus Ohio symphony orchestra has closed it doors. The group posted a $1.3 million deficit last year and failed to balance this years budget of $12 million. The board and artist were at an impasse on cuts. Sounds like too many hands in the cookie jar. With 53 full time musicians on the pay roll the questions is where did all the money go. Even if they each earned 100k a year that is only half the budget. Average pay for professionals is less than 50k as any teacher can attest. Even with all the other cost in running a symphony it sounds like they have too much money. In larger cities budgets are considerably larger, but many of them are also living beyond their means. Columbus could revert to volunteers playing in the park to keep the tradition alive. But to have so much money and not be able to make it work.

Government wants to increase regulation on commodities

2008-06-19T02:11:00.000-07:00

In response to high commodity prices Congress is working on laws to tighten regulations. They believe prices may be caused by speculation and not demand. This plan has two major flaws. Increases in Tax and regulations generally cause a product price to increase. The second problem is future trading. At one time commodity trading was of physical commodities. If the commodity is apples there are so many apples currently on the market. During growing season there are also apples in the trees. These may or may not make it to market and represent future product. The government allowed trading of these future commodities, but had strict limits. Commodity prices during the 90’s and early 00’s stayed low because the government expanded the years futures can be traded and relaxed the trading rules. Some oil companies found themselves trapped in contract for oil at a much lower price then the market. Courts decided this was not fair, and let the oil companies out of these contracts. The result is oil no longer trading for as many future years, reduced supply, and higher price. For commodities like silver there are now more futures trading than physical silver in the world. So the Democrats face the possibility of creating a commodity crash much like the housing market. Only in this crash prices go both up and down. The value of futures declines while the price of physical commodities skyrocket and are in short supply. This is even more complicated by Berkshire Hathaway. Realizing that silver futures are now unrealistic the company bought a billion dollars in physical silver. The government response is a law that limits the amount of physical commodities that can be traded in a single month. China has a trillion dollars and has used some of that money to buy futures for things such as wheat. China is exempt from the government limits. So they are currently first in line.

2008 not 1934

2008-06-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

Our 2007 weather patterns mimicked 1933 with La Nina and record crops in the mid-west. The dry winter did not materialize and we did not see dust storms roll across the mid-west this spring. In fact the wet weather from last year continues, and threatens to reduce crop yields because of too much rain. So the drier year after La Nina may be next year or maybe we just miss it this cycle. What would have happened to corn prices if the weather had actually been bad? A few weeks ago when it roared through five dollars a bushel it seemed high. Yesterday it closed at $7.65.

Same Sex Marriages more Permanent

2008-06-17T05:04:00.001-07:00

California began issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples yesterday. The unions may more permanent than the couples realize. Unlike a real marriage these unions will not be able to use traditional divorce proceedings. Some states such as Vermont require the individuals become residents before divorcing. When they do divorce the law in place is for separating a business partnership and thus more complex. Maybe divorces should be that hard to get too?

China Uses Stupid Defense

2008-06-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

In response to claims they hacked into congressional computers China responded is there any evidence they have such advanced technology? A lot of spam and hacking originates from Russia. So are they claiming Russians are smarter? A lot of famous hacks were by kids and the real deterrent in the US are harsh criminal prosecution. It has been long known that China illegally duplicates movies and software. They have come up with elaborate ways to acquire some movies even before they are released. Based on the seen side of hacking I would say china is more sophisticated in their hacking. But Russia has them beat for volume of scams and spam.

A Wave of Inflation?

2008-06-13T03:05:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal today (June 13, 2008) says that manufacture of heavy and bulky items is returning to the US. The reason is skyrocketing transportation costs. Shipping cost from China to the US has quadrupled since 2000 for a standard shipping container. The cost passed on to products has risen from 3% to 9%. If inflation is confined to fuel prices then this is good news for the job market in the US. However in the 1970’s inflation was not evenly distributed. If this is the case then transportation cost will eventually return to the 3% level. This means a major spike in price. This seems to be confirmed with overseas cost of everything from Starbucks coffee to game boxes. The cost to buy the same product in Europe or Asia is significantly higher than the US. This is blamed on the weak dollar. But eventually overseas prices must come down or prices here go up. Otherwise it will become profitable to take imported goods and export them.

Obama and McCain on Taxes

2008-06-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has an article comparing the two candidates on taxes. McCain would cut the income tax rate. This would benefit high-income taxpayers most. Since the middle and upper class pay more in taxes I think that is obvious. Obama would only cut taxes for the low income household, which means a small cut since they pay little in direct income tax. Both want to increase the tax on single adults. Single adults have been lumped with smokers as easy tax targets. If you marry for tax reasons will you go to jail since the IRS considers actions taken primarily to avoid paying taxes illegal? I think it is funny how the Yahoo article glossed over Obama’s massive tax increases. They fail to mention most of them. Obama plans several energy taxes, which the energy companies have already said will be passed onto the consumer. His other business and investment taxes will either be passed on through higher prices or fewer jobs. Both candidates have no plans to reduce government spending. Obama does not discriminate on his tax increases. He is however vocal about his increases for the middle and upper class while careful to hide the ones for the lower income groups. Congress will ultimately decide which taxes pass, but without any pressure to reduce spending someone will be paying for it sooner or latter.

Too Poor for the Economic Stimulus Check

2008-06-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

According to the IRS I will not be receiving the Economic Stimulus Check because as a small business owner I did not make enough money in 2007. I would think that would be a good reason to get the check. I would be satisfied to receive back the federal income tax I paid last year. That would be significantly more than the stimulus check. I wonder if internet based businesses will be able to survive inside the US. Not only do I pay a greater percentage of my income in taxes than I did before, but I do not get most of the benefits the taxes are used for. I complain, but I can only imagine how businesses that need a physical location must feel. They get hit with a lot of local taxes that I avoid in not having a physical shop.

Are Air Fares Getting Cheaper?

2008-06-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

UAL (United Airlines) announced they are retiring 70 jets because the routes they fly are no longer profitable despite increases in fares. Inflation is a drop in the value of currency. The goods usually cost the same in trade or when using other currencies, though during high inflation not all goods adjust in price at the same rate. Obviously fuel prices have been a leader in the inflation run up. True or not airlines are saying that air fares are not keeping up with inflation. Inflation is mainly caused by extra money printed by the government in substitution of new taxes. With the Iraq, hurricane relief, new social welfare spending, and Home Land Security the government has had plenty of reason to flood the market with dollars. The air lines have been hit with higher fuel prices and new taxes and are not known for good management decisions. The result is a shake up. But are air fares really cheaper when compared to the price of other goods? I checked the price of a flight I have taken several times in the past. The rate has tripled. In the last three years few things I buy have tripled in price. Obviously one route is not a very good analysis of prices. I do believe the airlines claim that fares are a bargain compared to what they will be in the future.

Washing Post Local Site a Flop

2008-06-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

In today’s Wall Street Journal (June 4, 2008) the article “Big Daily’s ‘Hyperlocal’ Flop” is about the Washington Post failing with a local news web site. The problem was the logistics of providing it. In this case an outside team with plenty of experience took it on. So software was not at the heart of its failure. They were not allowed to tie into the resources of the larger paper and failed to find out what the viewers wanted. It sounds like the head of the project was given just enough power to go big on the project, but not enough to make it happen. So the project thought they had resources that they did not. And when they finally realized they were smaller scale than the hype of the project, it was too late.

The Coming Management Shakeup

2008-06-04T03:48:00.000-07:00

This morning I was reading a series of on-line articles based on the May 5, 2008 Wall Street Journal Article “New Breed of Business Gurus Rises”. In Gary Hamel’s (now considered the most influential person in business) new book "The Future of Management" he says; The need for large, expensive & highly trained information technology departments will have disappeared because reliable, robust & highly configurable solutions will be available via the Internet. I came up with my own comparison last week The companies that make DVD players and disks don’t make the content. But right now IT departments produce the medium and the content. I find his insight amazing. Few large technology companies, other than Google, are concentrating on this type of future. This must really be hard for companies like IBM, as they must continue to supply software to IT departments, who do not plan to give up any power. As I write this I am noticing that the last update from Microsoft broke spell check in Word. Good thing I have access to an on-line Yahoo spell checker. Though Yahoo does not recognize the word Google. So as IT loses power who gains it. Given that corporate level management is already overwhelmed I expect those close to production could see more work headed their way and eventually funding and responsibility. This could be a messy transition. For example I wrote this blog in Word even though I now notice that the Google interface has spell check. I wrote an online database application last year, but not until this Spring did I finally find the functionality superior enough to stop using Microsoft Access. I think IT departments will see early adopters leave quickly and they may be surprised to find they do not have a complete following of late adopters.

Y2K for Gas Pumps

2008-06-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

A Wall Street Journal Article says that a company, PMP, is being overwhelmed with business to convert the mechanical dials in old gasoline pumps to allow prices over $4 a gallon. So years ago gasoline pump manufactures did not see it as cost effective to build in that ability. In many ways they were right. Most pumps are now digital. I am reminded of years ago when gasoline prices first breached the dollar mark. Many gasoline stations had to find ways to modify signs that did not go higher than 99 cents. I guess the next problem will be ten dollars a gallon.

Has Vista lost to the Web?

2008-05-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Google thinks so. Google Pushes to Make Browser Applications More Powerful Obviously programs such as Microsoft Office are still much more powerful than anything offered on the web. From a user’s perspective and rival software makers this may sound boastful. But if you look at what is in the pipeline and the closing gap then the day the web becomes the operating system is just a matter of time. There are those that think that the web will hit a wall and has already reach limitation that will prevent it from closing the gap. As an inventor and developer of new technology I am using technology that has already bridged the gap. Architecturally the web has now surpassed the operating system. However two things are holding it back. The internet standards group’s new HTML standard is completely out of sync. Microsoft continues to limit the browser in both functionality and memory. That means functionality that should operate at the machine code level must be run as code. As such it is much slower. One way some companies such as Google are getting around this is to run the functionality on the server. That means you must be on-line to use an application and companies have had trouble convincing customers to pay for the server side service. It will be interesting to see how Google moves server side processing back to the browser. Could we possibly be seeing a Google browser?

What About the Customer?

2008-05-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

The last time I flew was on American Airlines and I watched as passengers jostled each other to claim limited over head storage space. Not trusting airline baggage handling many had carried on as much baggage on as they could. Now American is charging for every bag. I can only imagine what the carry on situation looks like now. Why not just charge more for the ticket and eliminate the fees. Maybe part of the problem is the customer. We will shop for the lowest fair and then give in to paying more for hidden fees. But does that make the customer happy? When I collected my luggage after my flight I found out why so many people tried to hand carry their luggage. I had an old Samsonite bag and the top had been ripped off. This was some feat. The bag had a steel band that supported the shell and the handle was also steel. The remains of the handle were still attached and I was amazed to find how well it was constructed. The bag was twenty or thirty years old and the amount of reinforcing and thickness of the steel meant that an incredible force was applied to the bag to damage it like that. I not sure how newer bags are constructed but the handle was way over engineered. Under normal use it would last hundreds of years, well beyond the life expectancy of the cloth cover. I do appreciate that I did get my bag back. The routing tag was attached to the handle. And someone had reattached the tag to the front of the bag. I image my bag disrupted baggage handling as the steel rivets were destroyed. I pointed out the damage to the baggage claims attendant. He actually laughed. Now that I must buy a new bag I am considering garage sales. Despite the damage to the bag the contents were untouched. I know the old bags are rarely stylish, but I doubt any newer bag using plastic instead of steel could have survived American Airlines that day.

Carbon Credit Tax

2008-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

EU to force US airlines to pay carbon credit tax by 2012. http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/04/post.html European airlines say it is unfair if they are the only ones forced to pay the tax. At least they get to vote or have some say and their citizens use the proceeds. US carriers will find themselves being taxed without representation and with no benefits. Sort of like the British tax on the Americas that led to tea being dumped into Boston harbor.

Teenager Proves Point

2008-03-30T09:23:00.001-07:00

Cops bust 'root beer kegger' Teenagers were suspended from sports for pictures of them drinking from red cups, so one teenager staged a keg party at his home, a keg of root beer. They had fun until the police raided the party. Even once the police confirmed it was root beer they continued to test and harass the kids. Here is the quote of the officer from the story; “It was a tremendous waste of time and manpower, but we still had a job to do, and our officers did it," Joling said. "If one kid had come there, even hadn't drank there, but had come there and had been drinking and had left and crashed and burned, then what would the sentiment be? Why didn't the police check everybody out?" School officials and police officers are only human and it is good that the kids protested peacefully. What is funny is that the teenagers and officers both had the same problem. The teenagers thought the red cup pictures were unfair. True they do not represent proof, but the real question is whether the teenagers were drinking in the pictures, which it appears they were. The police quickly realized it was root bear, but continued to treat it otherwise. Both failed to go past rules and make a judgment call. Rules will only take you so far. Otherwise we would only need the Old Testament.

Early 1860 recording found

2008-03-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Before Edison invented sound recording in 1877 a French typesetter recorded his daughter singing in 1860. It is a good example of the difference in marketing and inventing. It is also of interest that a museum had the recording in its archives. The recording was done on a carbon covered piece of paper. A paper record not unlike modern photocopies. 'Magical' song from 1860 knocks Edison off the chart

Ultimate Metal Detector

2008-03-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

Metal detectors are like exercise equipment and boats. They sound great at the time but rarely get used. While I have bought neither, I have bought a metal detector, the top of the line at the time. I found some interesting trash including a skeleton key and the tip of a plow. It ultimately ended up in the closet. I came across this detector and found the web site very appealing. http://www.minelab.com/consumer/page.php?section=268#1 Unfortunately these are the same claims I heard fifteen years ago and though I found a nugget by panning I never found one with a detector. It is difficult to describe something technical and keep it interesting and easy to read so I include this link as a good example of a sales pitch.

Massive Ice Shelf Collapse

2008-03-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

I find the symmetry amazing. Notice how clean the lines are and how square the blocks. Like how crystals form. National Geographic satellite and a close up from a Sydney newspaper.

Who Pays for Commercial Free

2008-03-24T09:06:00.001-07:00

Sony Retracts Bloatware Removal Fee in response to complaints by customers, though only for business customers who buy more than one computer. Sony was charging $49.99 to remove the trial software. This reveals two important things. If you as a customer raise a fuss you will sometimes get your way. Customers do not like advertising, but do not want to pay for the difference.

Dust Bowl

2008-03-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

In 1933 a cool and wet summer led to a record harvest of corn. In November of 1933 a series of bad dust storms hit. These winds caused massive dust storms that continued until 1940. The result was a mass migration of people and a disruption in agriculture. What was unusual about 1933 is that the wet and cool weather formed over the Midwest and not the South.

In 2007 we have seen the same weather conditions and another record corn harvest. We have seen a number of wind storms this winter. A couple of trees have fallen in my neighborhood and my backyard is littered with small limbs. It is not unusual to have a front pass through and bring some wind at this time of year. But this year they have been more frequent. The biggest wind storm had only a small amount of dust comparable to the smog on hot summer days. Improvements in crop rotation and ground cover have prevented the wind storm from becoming dust storms.

So it will be interesting to see how 2008 agriculture plays out in the Midwest. The dust bowl has been blamed on farming practices. It appears that it was not an act of God, but an act of man.

Gold

2008-03-19T22:12:00.001-07:00

The price of gold stocks plummeted today. One stock I own is down over twenty percent this week. The reason is a smaller than expected interest rate cut by the Fed and rhetoric that the government is concerned with inflation. This caused the largest dollar drop in the price of gold ever. I was reading some of the Wall Street Journals that had piled up. An article from last week said people were selling jewelry since gold had reached $940 an ounce. Now that gold has plunged back to $942 it is cheap. Sure $1030 was really high. But how is the record high price a few days ago now low? What happened to low being is under $400. I guess the same as ever seeing gasoline under $1 a gallon.

How much data is 1 Meg?

2008-03-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

I wanted to know how much data you can store in a database if you have 1 Meg of space. I searched the web and found formulas and how to query the database for memory size. No general estimate. So I built a query and sampled about a hundred tables.

The column count and data types are going to change the memory for a row. I took a small table of twenty rows and one hundred columns with a mix of numbers and Varchar. It took 60k of space, which scales up to 333 rows. But 634 rows in the same table took up 912K. So there must be some base memory.

Approximately 700 rows of a 100 column database table is 1 Meg. A table with just a few columns could be over 1000 rows (Microsoft 2005 SQL Server).

Ad Words

2008-03-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it can be difficult to find what search words to advertise with. SpyFu allows you to see competitors and the ad words they are using. It also has interesting lists of top web sites.

Inflation Held Steady in February

2008-03-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Inflation Held Steady in February is a top story today. I work out of my home and once a month I trek to the grocery store for my monthly supplies. The only two bills that did not go up in February were phone and rent. I do not heat with electricity and I shut lights off when I leave a room as my parents taught. So a record electric bill for this time of year has me worried about the coming summer. At the grocery store I am a creature of habit. I buy the same things and also use my outing to fill the gas tank. My February bill was higher than January on almost everything. Yesterday was a real shocker. I made my monthly run for March and wow. When did gasoline go over three dollars? The dollars on the pump move like the cents once did. My bill at Sam’s was the largest ever and the largest percent increase. So how did the government come up with their number? They excluded all the things that most Americans use everyday, like electricity, gasoline, and food. Whoops they are right, rent and phone costs did not go up, there is no inflation.

Saving Consumating.com

2008-03-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

Consumating originally a dating site that became more like a Myspace.com is shutting down today. I thought about making a bid for it from CNET. Estimates put the user group at 20,000, though some think the active users may be 350. Assume one page view per month per user and multiply that by (0.5/100), which is a conservative click per page view (see previous blog). That comes to a grand total of $75 month ad revenue. Retail for hosting is about $1000 a month. Even if you reduce hosting costs to wholesale and maximize ad clicks five fold you do not break even. Then there is the big cost of a developer. My software for writing software could easily build and support a new Consumating.com, but it lacks a few features. I would have to devote a developer three months to migrating the site and pay something to CNET for their data. The only way to make money is to offer a service. But what service would any of these users want? CNET did not find it and I could not think of anything either.

Carbon credit could be causing global warming

2008-03-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Europe has embraced the trading of carbon credits and the practice is expected to be adopted by other counties such as the United States. It allows government officials to give valuable contracts to pollute to companies they select. When a company does not use all their pollution credits they sell them to a company who can. This assures that all the pollution that the government allows is created. It also allows government officials to give the equivalent of money to companies that support their election. There are many ways to reduce pollution. If fines and regulations are not working how is a system more susceptible to corruption going to work? The same system for carbon credits was applied to tobacco during the depression. It was recently eliminated at great cost and after billions of dollars of subsidies.
Wall Street Journal Carbon Credits
New York Times tobacco subsidies

Is Microsoft .Net better than JBoss SEAM?

2008-03-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Better is subjective and is like the Olympic Pentathlon, where athletes compete in five track and field events. .Net is the Microsoft web development environment and JBoss SEAM is an open-source Java environment. I use another environment which I consider better. One of the most powerful development methods is to use script (JavaScript) and server side processing combined with a generic and powerful server language (C#, ASP, etc.). This is the way Google built Web 2.0 applications until last year. Google abandoned this method and embraced open-source Java. The reason is that writing code is only one event and the above method does not scale well to a large development group. If you have a small development group then you want to win that event. Large development groups must balance events so they win the pentathlon. IT departments see JBoss SEAM as well rounded in promoting standards, communication, and management. .Net programmers are happier programmers (based on blog communities), but Microsoft gave in some on the management and organization to win over developers. So which delivers a better product? I am not sure. IT management and not developers increasingly make the decision on what platform to use. This means platforms like JBoss SEAM are winning adoption. I think that over the next three years that the different aspects of development will become less dependent on each other. Meaning that IT will not need to commit to one platform and instead combine different tools and methods. That means that JBoss SEAM and .Net could both be best.

Barriers to Innovation

2008-03-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

I occasionally see articles for which my research offers a solution. For example yesterday Wired has an article about Boeing’s software development for the Future Combat System having problems. They are trying to manage 95 million lines of code. I developed technology to manage such a system automatically. I have only tested it for a few hundred thousand lines but it never hit the wall. It was a design to allow a single developer to manage deploying a repository and managing terabits of information within minutes for a disaster. Because of its design it actually becomes easier to manage as it gets larger and loses the need for any developers. Trying to contact Boeing was like looking at a high security prison. I was directed to the supplier web page where I needed to apply for a DUNS number, which can take thirty days. I gave up after failing to get over the first fence. I imagine they receive as much junk mail every few minutes as I receive in a life time. We live in a brief moment in technology when a small development group can actually develop broad solutions. But unlike blogs, the one percent of viable technologies does not have Adsense to sort them out from the other 99%.

Earthworms

2008-03-10T10:02:00.001-07:00

Every time it rains here the earthworms commit mass suicide by wiggling onto the sidewalks and street where they dry out. So I wondered how much the earthworms are worth, apparently about $30 a thousand, retail. Several sites advertise with Google Ads, which is surprising with the high cost of Adsense. This may be because of a higher number of actual customers and the potential for repeat customers. Most earthworms appear to be imported and many parts of the US originally did not have earthworms. It is amazing how the internet has allowed market places for these niche markets.

Top One Percent or Bust

2008-03-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

With five billion in ad revenue every three months available to online entrepreneurs it would seem that everyone can make money with a web site. It is the top one percent that makes most of the revenue. They make almost as much as all the sites combined. So if you plan on quitting your job and putting up a web site or writing a blog it better make it to the top one percent.