Music

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.