Still diving down, some pundits expect this to continue for the next few months. Yet most see a long-term uptrend, and view this as a correction at best.
So the way to buy in is to wait for the price to pierce some moving average to the upside, right?
Along with GLD, suggestions include silver weaton and great panther.
Also, gold mining stocks, which have been punished this year, could payout big.
Lots of hype at:
http://www.theaureport.com/
Some claim the silver/gold ratio should be 16:1 (currently it is ~40:1),
there is roughly 16 times more silver in the ground than gold, thus the silver price will eventually reach one-sixteenth the price of gold.
which implies silver is currently undervalued by 2/3rds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_as_an_investment
Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (IVN:TSX; IVN:NYSE)
Hunter Bay Minerals Plc (HBY:TSX.V)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Platz-- German pre-fab homes
Gorgeous design, efficient, and all the info is in german.
http://platz.de/auctores/scs/imc
http://platz.de/auctores/scs/imc
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Euro-- they don't want a resolution
An eye-opening article by Jeff Miller
The Euro crisis will not be solved any time soon. Why not? Because politicians live off of crisis.
The EU cannot create wars (unlike certain other countries), so they do this instead, giving them the excuse to push through policies which would otherwise be impossible.
I should probably spend some time on Miller's blog...
The Euro crisis will not be solved any time soon. Why not? Because politicians live off of crisis.
The EU cannot create wars (unlike certain other countries), so they do this instead, giving them the excuse to push through policies which would otherwise be impossible.
I should probably spend some time on Miller's blog...
Monday, December 19, 2011
Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment
Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment
Wanted to grow her own food, in a NY city apartment. Started window gardens, which use hydroponics. She can grow a salad a week.
Hydroponic technology is rapidly being patened away from us. Her website is an open-source collaboration of designs and technologies, an effort to keep hydroponics in the public domain.
She calls it R&DIY, instead of R&D.
Wanted to grow her own food, in a NY city apartment. Started window gardens, which use hydroponics. She can grow a salad a week.
Hydroponic technology is rapidly being patened away from us. Her website is an open-source collaboration of designs and technologies, an effort to keep hydroponics in the public domain.
She calls it R&DIY, instead of R&D.
Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration
Luis von Ahn
The guy who came up with capchas. His next idea was to use them to digitally scan books. When you have two words, one is known to the computer and the other is the scan. Average the scan word over 10 respondants to get the "correct" interpretation.
His next project: Duolingo. You learn a language for "free", and in the mean time translate the internet. The key is to average user interpretations to arrive at a correcdt translation.
The guy who came up with capchas. His next idea was to use them to digitally scan books. When you have two words, one is known to the computer and the other is the scan. Average the scan word over 10 respondants to get the "correct" interpretation.
His next project: Duolingo. You learn a language for "free", and in the mean time translate the internet. The key is to average user interpretations to arrive at a correcdt translation.
Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born
Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born
No surprizes here. The mother passes tons of information on the environment to her unborn fetus, which then adopts to it.
I post this in support of my theory that birthplace has huge determinants in one's comfort zone, a comfort zone I have been living outside of for many too many years. Poor badger
No surprizes here. The mother passes tons of information on the environment to her unborn fetus, which then adopts to it.
I post this in support of my theory that birthplace has huge determinants in one's comfort zone, a comfort zone I have been living outside of for many too many years. Poor badger
Sunday, December 18, 2011
My winter king
This is a poem by Astrid, about a snow leopard.
Come here my winter king.
Your breath makes the bells ring
One look from your eyes and I'm in love
Come now, I'll leave my glove
I can stroke your soft winter fur
your jet black spots, and hear lovely purr.
Come here my winter king.
Come here my winter king.
Your breath makes the bells ring
One look from your eyes and I'm in love
Come now, I'll leave my glove
I can stroke your soft winter fur
your jet black spots, and hear lovely purr.
Come here my winter king.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Molecular Clocks and the puzzle of RNA virus origins --Holmes 2003
Journal of Virology
Dr. Holmes investigates why phylogenetic dating of viral speciation implies that the major RNA virusus originated not more than 50,000 years ago, yet their hosts speciated many millions of years in the past.
One problem is the rate of replication, which is roughly 10^-3 subs/site/year (21), which further implies the average distance between any two sequences is limited to 500 years (since after 1000 years, every position will have mutated). Better to look at non-synonymous sites, assume the rate is 10^-5, and put the divergence at 50K years ago. Voiala.
So, do virus change their mutation rate? Is it because once adopted to their host species, they don't drift very much? No. Adoptation does not give RNA a repair mechanism, and mutation at synonymous sites doesn't slow down.
Perhaps different parts of the genome mutate at different speeds? Likely:
Helpful to use a (skewed) gamma distribution to allow the rate to vary along the chromosone.
Dr. Holmes investigates why phylogenetic dating of viral speciation implies that the major RNA virusus originated not more than 50,000 years ago, yet their hosts speciated many millions of years in the past.
One problem is the rate of replication, which is roughly 10^-3 subs/site/year (21), which further implies the average distance between any two sequences is limited to 500 years (since after 1000 years, every position will have mutated). Better to look at non-synonymous sites, assume the rate is 10^-5, and put the divergence at 50K years ago. Voiala.
So, do virus change their mutation rate? Is it because once adopted to their host species, they don't drift very much? No. Adoptation does not give RNA a repair mechanism, and mutation at synonymous sites doesn't slow down.
Perhaps different parts of the genome mutate at different speeds? Likely:
An important evolutionary by-product of these high mutation rates is a cap on genome size; genomes larger than ∼15 kb are rarely produced because of the “error threshold,” the generation of a prohibitive number of deleterious mutations (11). Since viral genome sizes are limited, sequence regions will encode multiple functions and individual mutations will often have pleiotropic effects, such as those influencing both cell tropism and immune evasion (1). This, in turn, may mean that there are relatively few evolutionary pathways that can be followed by RNA viruses; otherwise, at least one key function will be disrupted, so that mutations preferentially accumulate at that small proportion of sites that are free to vary. Supportive evidence for such a model is the frequency with which convergent evolution is observed for RNA viruses (4, 7, 13), as expected if only a limited number of evolutionary pathways are viable, and the evidence that RNA (37) and protein secondary structure (22) can act as constraints against sequence change.
Helpful to use a (skewed) gamma distribution to allow the rate to vary along the chromosone.
low α values (i.e., <1) mean that the sequence alignment is composed of both very quickly and very slowly evolving sites, and this appears to be true in most cases.
the three groups of flaviviruses, the mean d at these sites, corrected for multiple substitutions but without a gamma distribution, is ∼0.25 and is similar to the nonsynonymous distance estimated previously. The maximum likelihood estimate for the shape parameter of the gamma distribution for these data is highly skewed (α = 0.34). As expected, evolutionary distances increase if they are now estimated using this gamma model (mean d = 0.43), although not sufficiently to make a major difference to estimated divergence times, which only increase to a little over 20,000 years (again assuming a rate of 10−5 substitutions/site/year). However, more dramatic results are obtained if an even more skewed gamma distribution is used. If α = 0.1, then d increases to 2.3, so that maximum divergence times will be in the region of 100,000 years ago
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Pox
Smallpox like all pox virus has its origin in African rodents. Camel pox is the closest extant variant.
Falciparum malaria was originally a bird parasite. see refs 12 &13.
Ar see also ref 21
rank-aware clustering
By Julia Stoyanovich at U Penn
Example application: results from a search for dates on yahoo!singles
Often a correlation between ranking funciton & selection criteria results in tremendous homogineity in the top results.
Note that the correlations may be localized: age & education correlate up to age 30, while age & income correlate up to age 50.
BARAC Bottom-up Algorirthm for Rank Aware Clustering
an elaboration of subspace clutering (review: Parsons SIGKDD 2006)
One cannot always use i.e. PCA to reduce dimensions, as one cluster might occupy dims a&b while a second is in b&c. Subspace clustering solves this.
Three steps to algo:
Interval dominance If Theta percent (Theta in 0.5 to 1) of the top N results in the join of interval 1 and 2 are also in the top N of interval 1, then 1 dominates 2. (top(I_1,N)) intersect (top(I_1 + I_2,N))/N > Theta
Ranked subspace A subspace is a collection of intervals. Compare the top N values in the subspace to the top N values of the intervals-- we are not looking for density of points, but for density of winning points.
Want at least Q items from each interval, where Q can be the M ranks or sum of ranking score (in case the score the rank is based on has high variance)
Example application: results from a search for dates on yahoo!singles
Often a correlation between ranking funciton & selection criteria results in tremendous homogineity in the top results.
Note that the correlations may be localized: age & education correlate up to age 30, while age & income correlate up to age 50.
BARAC Bottom-up Algorirthm for Rank Aware Clustering
an elaboration of subspace clutering (review: Parsons SIGKDD 2006)
One cannot always use i.e. PCA to reduce dimensions, as one cluster might occupy dims a&b while a second is in b&c. Subspace clustering solves this.
Three steps to algo:
- Build grid Split each dimension into intervals, rank all items in that interval. Runs in ~ linear time
- Merge intervals For each neighboring set of intervals, merge them unless one dominates the other. ~ constant time. Only for dimensions with an ordering (?)
- Join dimensions Build K-dimensional clusters from (K-1)-dim clusters, using a quality score derived from the rankings. ~ exponential time, but in practice polinomial and manageable.
Interval dominance If Theta percent (Theta in 0.5 to 1) of the top N results in the join of interval 1 and 2 are also in the top N of interval 1, then 1 dominates 2. (top(I_1,N)) intersect (top(I_1 + I_2,N))/N > Theta
Ranked subspace A subspace is a collection of intervals. Compare the top N values in the subspace to the top N values of the intervals-- we are not looking for density of points, but for density of winning points.
Want at least Q items from each interval, where Q can be the M ranks or sum of ranking score (in case the score the rank is based on has high variance)
Trigger control/dry fire training
From Grey's Guns
We want to train our unconcious mind. Answer: visualization.
With your eyes closed:
Visualize a sight picture on your chosen target in your mind while simultaneously pressing through on the trigger. Feel the trigger, how it might creep and wiggle under finger pressure. Try to get as close to dropping the hammer as you can, and hold it as you watch those imagined sights. You should ignore the target if your mind wants to stick one down there for you to look at instead.
Watch the sights in your mind’s eye and you’ll see them dip, jerk and do all sorts of things. Feel the recoil and blink, perhaps. That’s great! Let your visualized shooting session seem as real as possible without too much conscious direction. Just allow yourself to come back to the sights, focus on the front blade, align them and press.
Be focused on the process of operating the trigger, and learn to press through without tension, convulsive grasping of the hand, jerking or other funny stuff in response to the appearance of aligned sights in your mind.
Then, go the the range. You must allow your subconscious to do it for you, since that’s what that last two weeks of intense repetition was for. Trust me, you’ve learned it. To actually DO it, you just occupy the ego with something safe it can do to help, rather than letting it take over in a doomed effort to make it happen and be the star of the show “now that it counts.”
So, give the ego a job: let it watch the sights, aligned in the notch just as you’ve visualized. If you visualize the pistol firing when the sights appear aligned on the target, that’s what will happen. You have only to step (your ego) out of the way and watch that front sight.
You also need to have equal faith in your ability to call each shot, and know where it went based on what the sights were doing as they lifted off the target during recoil.
Calling shots at speed means using information from the sights to determine whether the previous shot hit or missed. There’s two ways to shoot: One is reactively, in which the sight picture is read on some conscious level and coordinated with a more or less sub-conscious action of trigger pull. That’s the “watch your front sight” school, and it works…sort of. The other is proactively, in which the sight picture is recalled on a lower-conscious level as verification that the subconscious saw what it needed to see when it broke the previous shot, while the subconscious is busy making the present one. This relates to the mode of observation that Enos and others describe. The conscious mind tends to linger in the just-past, not the present. If you ever wondered why some top shooters could do the things they do, this paragraph is really the whole enchilada.
We want to train our unconcious mind. Answer: visualization.
With your eyes closed:
Visualize a sight picture on your chosen target in your mind while simultaneously pressing through on the trigger. Feel the trigger, how it might creep and wiggle under finger pressure. Try to get as close to dropping the hammer as you can, and hold it as you watch those imagined sights. You should ignore the target if your mind wants to stick one down there for you to look at instead.
Watch the sights in your mind’s eye and you’ll see them dip, jerk and do all sorts of things. Feel the recoil and blink, perhaps. That’s great! Let your visualized shooting session seem as real as possible without too much conscious direction. Just allow yourself to come back to the sights, focus on the front blade, align them and press.
Be focused on the process of operating the trigger, and learn to press through without tension, convulsive grasping of the hand, jerking or other funny stuff in response to the appearance of aligned sights in your mind.
Then, go the the range. You must allow your subconscious to do it for you, since that’s what that last two weeks of intense repetition was for. Trust me, you’ve learned it. To actually DO it, you just occupy the ego with something safe it can do to help, rather than letting it take over in a doomed effort to make it happen and be the star of the show “now that it counts.”
So, give the ego a job: let it watch the sights, aligned in the notch just as you’ve visualized. If you visualize the pistol firing when the sights appear aligned on the target, that’s what will happen. You have only to step (your ego) out of the way and watch that front sight.
You also need to have equal faith in your ability to call each shot, and know where it went based on what the sights were doing as they lifted off the target during recoil.
Calling shots at speed means using information from the sights to determine whether the previous shot hit or missed. There’s two ways to shoot: One is reactively, in which the sight picture is read on some conscious level and coordinated with a more or less sub-conscious action of trigger pull. That’s the “watch your front sight” school, and it works…sort of. The other is proactively, in which the sight picture is recalled on a lower-conscious level as verification that the subconscious saw what it needed to see when it broke the previous shot, while the subconscious is busy making the present one. This relates to the mode of observation that Enos and others describe. The conscious mind tends to linger in the just-past, not the present. If you ever wondered why some top shooters could do the things they do, this paragraph is really the whole enchilada.
Fast first shot with a DA
Unsorted clippings
Start from what is normally called the ready position. This is the point in the draw where the hands come together, just off center to the strong side at the upper part of your abdomen. At this point the pistol should be pointed at the target and the trigger finger is still off the trigger. From this point forward is where you start to gain speed with the double action first shot.
Drive the pistol directly to the target. Imagine there is a laser coming out of the barrel. As the pistol starts to move forward you should be able to pick up the position of the muzzle in your peripheral vision. As soon as you can see that the muzzle is on target, start pulling the trigger. This is where the speed of the first shot comes from. As the pistol goes out, the trigger comes back. Now it becomes a timing issue. As the pistol goes forward and comes up to your line of sight, you are trying to pull the trigger so that the hammer falls just as you clean up the sight picture. The last one to two inches of the presentation the sights should be almost perfect so if the shot breaks a little early you’re still going to hit the target.
Start from what is normally called the ready position. This is the point in the draw where the hands come together, just off center to the strong side at the upper part of your abdomen. At this point the pistol should be pointed at the target and the trigger finger is still off the trigger. From this point forward is where you start to gain speed with the double action first shot.
Drive the pistol directly to the target. Imagine there is a laser coming out of the barrel. As the pistol starts to move forward you should be able to pick up the position of the muzzle in your peripheral vision. As soon as you can see that the muzzle is on target, start pulling the trigger. This is where the speed of the first shot comes from. As the pistol goes out, the trigger comes back. Now it becomes a timing issue. As the pistol goes forward and comes up to your line of sight, you are trying to pull the trigger so that the hammer falls just as you clean up the sight picture. The last one to two inches of the presentation the sights should be almost perfect so if the shot breaks a little early you’re still going to hit the target.
Monday, December 12, 2011
what to buy??
CWS has a few interesting points, like stryker making a major raise to its dividend and oracle still being cheap in their minds.
Also found this list of the 1% of stocks which more than doubled last year:
http://ivanhoff.com/2011/12/08/1-of-all-liquid-stocks-doubled-ytd/
Also found this list of the 1% of stocks which more than doubled last year:
http://ivanhoff.com/2011/12/08/1-of-all-liquid-stocks-doubled-ytd/
R programming books
- A Little Book of R for Multivariate Analysis pdf
- A Little Book of R for Biomedical Statistics pdf
- A Little Book of R for Time Series pdf
Avril Coghlan, a lecturer at University College Cork in Ireland, has written and made available for free three books ideal for students or practitioners new to R who want to use it for multivariate analysis, time series analysis or biomedical statistics. Each book begins with practical advice for installing and using R in general, before diving into their specialized topics:
* A Little Book of R for Multivariate Analysis (pdf, 49 pages) is a simple introduction to multivariate analysis using the R statistics software. It covers topics such as reading and plotting multivariate data, principal components analysis, and linear discriminant analysis.
* A Little Book of R for Biomedical Statistics (pdf, 33 pages) is a simple introduction to biomedical statistics using the R statistics software, with sections on relative risks and odds ratios, dose-response analysis, clinical trial design and meta-analysis.
* A Little Book of R for Time Series (pdf, 71 pages) is a simple introduction to time series analysis using the R statistics software (have you spotted the pattern yet?). It includes instruction on how to read and plot time series, time series decomposition, forecasting, and ARIMA models.
All three books are free to use, share and remix under a Creative Commons license, and are available from Dr Coghlan's home page linked below.
Dr Avril Coghlan: avrilomics
History of computers link
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/06/science/20111206-technology-timeline.html
Sent to me by Kaustubh Patil. Nice timeline of computer science, with popup facts.
Sent to me by Kaustubh Patil. Nice timeline of computer science, with popup facts.
Brian Eno biography
A Brian Eno biography from the BBC. What a life!
He created modern music. The Bowie Berlin trilogy. The Talking Heads, U2. Coldplay. And still pushing the frontier.
http://www.archive.org/details/BrianEno-HitsClassicsAndTracks
He created modern music. The Bowie Berlin trilogy. The Talking Heads, U2. Coldplay. And still pushing the frontier.
http://www.archive.org/details/BrianEno-HitsClassicsAndTracks
Sunday, December 11, 2011
History of International Currencies Christopher Weber
C. Weber writes an investment newsletter, lives in Monaco so apparently makes a good living off of it. I got ahold of a pdf called Historyofmoneycompleter.pdf. The following are my notes on his opinions. When I think it important enough to disagree, I will do so in italics.
The Mayans were in their golden age from 250-800 AD, the Dark Ages in Europe. We do not know what they used for money.
World currencies can utterly lose value, and fairly rapidly. The idea of the dollar losing its reserve currency status was laughable 3 years ago.
Money must
The fall of Rome lead to the rise of Byzantium. Along with many other things, Constantine introduced the gold Solidus, 65 grains. The idea of stable currency (which had not existed for some 500 years) remained alive. He also saw that debt had ruined the Romans, so outlawed interest. This coin lasted over 750 years.
Next in line was the Islamic Dinar, again at 65 grains of gold. It lasted 450 years.
Islamic world domination ended when they introduced paper money.
The Mayans were in their golden age from 250-800 AD, the Dark Ages in Europe. We do not know what they used for money.
World currencies can utterly lose value, and fairly rapidly. The idea of the dollar losing its reserve currency status was laughable 3 years ago.
Money must
- have accepted value
- be durable
- bedivisible
- consistent quality (even after division)
- convenient
a condition of depression and despair to which the modern world ... can present no parallel ... Everywhere land was falling to waste untilled, empty, gaunt, the water courses dried and the poplar sere and yellow ... the slaves running away and revolting, the hired managers ... hastening to line their pockets ... and the patrician owners hiding their gold and silver and jewelry against the day of inevitable collapseWe should also here note the role of disease, which drastically reduced populations. Horrid times indeed.
The fall of Rome lead to the rise of Byzantium. Along with many other things, Constantine introduced the gold Solidus, 65 grains. The idea of stable currency (which had not existed for some 500 years) remained alive. He also saw that debt had ruined the Romans, so outlawed interest. This coin lasted over 750 years.
Next in line was the Islamic Dinar, again at 65 grains of gold. It lasted 450 years.
Islamic world domination ended when they introduced paper money.
Friday, December 9, 2011
science rap
Baba Brinkman
Profiled in Wired for pioneering "science rap." Rap 'songs' which teach i.e. evolution, designed for classroom use ?? WTF-- this goes so far beyond un-cool. If you want to be a cool science teacher, blow things up, don't play bad music vids from a music form whose cred is as old as you.
Then I started thinking. It can't be worse than 'christian rock'. So why not 'science rock' or whatever?
Profiled in Wired for pioneering "science rap." Rap 'songs' which teach i.e. evolution, designed for classroom use ?? WTF-- this goes so far beyond un-cool. If you want to be a cool science teacher, blow things up, don't play bad music vids from a music form whose cred is as old as you.
Then I started thinking. It can't be worse than 'christian rock'. So why not 'science rock' or whatever?
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas
By Ted Goebel, Science, 14 March 2008
A similar article featured on a recent podcast. Don't want to look it up right now.
Goebel writes that
The human skeletal evidence across the Americas shows that the NEw World was populated by Homo Sapiens. Although the crania of htese early people look different from modern Native Americans, modern and ancient DNA studies show that they were genetically related. The earliest inhabitants of hte Americas hailed form south Siberia (Between the Altai Mountains and Amur Valley).
Current molecular evidence implies that members of a single population (of less than 5000 individuals) left Siberia and headed east to the Americas approximately 16.6 ka.
Humans colonized the Americas around 15 ka, immediately after deglaciation o fthe Pacific coastal corridor. The first Americans used boats, and the coastal corridor would have been the likely route of passage since the interior corridor appears to have remained closed for at least another 1000 years.
A similar article featured on a recent podcast. Don't want to look it up right now.
Goebel writes that
The human skeletal evidence across the Americas shows that the NEw World was populated by Homo Sapiens. Although the crania of htese early people look different from modern Native Americans, modern and ancient DNA studies show that they were genetically related. The earliest inhabitants of hte Americas hailed form south Siberia (Between the Altai Mountains and Amur Valley).
Current molecular evidence implies that members of a single population (of less than 5000 individuals) left Siberia and headed east to the Americas approximately 16.6 ka.
Humans colonized the Americas around 15 ka, immediately after deglaciation o fthe Pacific coastal corridor. The first Americans used boats, and the coastal corridor would have been the likely route of passage since the interior corridor appears to have remained closed for at least another 1000 years.
Kilowatt/hour currency
Dear Mike,
I appreciated your enthusiasm for the idea of a currency based on the kilowatt/hour standard. Nor was I surprised by your concern that the currency's "value" would be reduced if the underlying commodity, here electricity, became more abundant.
Snarky reply: The US Dollar is currently backed by the full faith and trust of the US Government. That commodity seems to be decreasing. Does this mean that the dollar is worth more now than it was in 1971?
Wonky reply: are you looking to create a "store of value" or a "medium of exchange"? Which monetary function to optimize?
+glenn
I appreciated your enthusiasm for the idea of a currency based on the kilowatt/hour standard. Nor was I surprised by your concern that the currency's "value" would be reduced if the underlying commodity, here electricity, became more abundant.
Snarky reply: The US Dollar is currently backed by the full faith and trust of the US Government. That commodity seems to be decreasing. Does this mean that the dollar is worth more now than it was in 1971?
Wonky reply: are you looking to create a "store of value" or a "medium of exchange"? Which monetary function to optimize?
+glenn
"Capital is not a free gift of God or of nature. It is the outcome of a provident restriction of consumption on the part of man. It is created and increased by saving and maintained by the abstention from dissaving."
-Ludwig Von Mises
Owning shares is a crime
A guest post from Michael Lawyer:
A corporation is legally owned by its shareholders, who may at the exercise of their will do anything with it up to an including killing it. Furthermore they are entitled to all profits of the corporations labor.
Corporations under current jurisprudence are people.
You own the labor of and determine the fate - up to death - of people. That is slavery.
To be a shareholder is to be a slaveholder.
Slavery is unconstitutional. Therefore, as long as corporations have the rights of people, to be a shareholder is unconstitutional.
A corporation is legally owned by its shareholders, who may at the exercise of their will do anything with it up to an including killing it. Furthermore they are entitled to all profits of the corporations labor.
Corporations under current jurisprudence are people.
You own the labor of and determine the fate - up to death - of people. That is slavery.
To be a shareholder is to be a slaveholder.
Slavery is unconstitutional. Therefore, as long as corporations have the rights of people, to be a shareholder is unconstitutional.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
haboob
haboob is an arabic word for an intense dust storm. They can be created by the collapse of a thunderstorm, a 100 kilometer long wall of sand reaching several kilometers into the sky, and can leave up to a foot of sand on everything in their path.
This one hit Phoenix on Tuesday, 6 July 2011. Mike Olbinski made a great video of it.
The Phoenix Haboob of July 6th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.
Globalization, land use, and the invasion of the West Nile Virus (Kilpatrick, 2011)
Review article in Science, 21 October
WNV endemic in Africa, childhood disease (>80% of people over 15 having antibodies), considered nearly asymptotic & once even studied as an anti-cancer therapy.
WNV was first observed in the Americas in 1999, in New York City. In four years it was on the west coast, and after 10 years it had reached deep into South America. It had also (by 2002) changed 3 nucleotides/1 amino acid to increase transmission efficiency in C. pipiens and C. tarsalis mosquitos. In the US, 1.8 million people have been infected, 360,000 illnesses (20%), 12852 encephalitis (0.7%), and 1308 deaths (0.0007%). Big cost in blood donor screening. Given a US population of 250 million, these numbers do not seem alarming.
The disease is much worse in birds. Regional-scale population declines >50% have been reported in corvids, chickadees, titmice, wrens, and thrushes.
Robins (the bird, a species of thrush) are a preferred food source for mosquitos. The dominant WNV vectors are the mosquito species C. pipiens, C. restuans, and C. tarsalis. Some 30-80% of their feedings are on robins, though robins make up only 1-20% of the studied avian communities.
Robins do exceptionally well in human altered landscapes. Populations have doubled over the last 25 years (or is this because we stopped using DDT?? What were robin populations 100 years ago?)
WNV has chosen the "kill them fast" reproductive strategy. Sick animals are more vulnerable to mosquito bites, and increased virema increases the odds that a bite will infect the mosquito. In the (non-anthropod) host, death does not reduce transmission probabilities, as time to recovery and time to death are both 4-6 days.
Mosquitos hitchike on airplanes.
WNV- flavirivus
WNV endemic in Africa, childhood disease (>80% of people over 15 having antibodies), considered nearly asymptotic & once even studied as an anti-cancer therapy.
WNV was first observed in the Americas in 1999, in New York City. In four years it was on the west coast, and after 10 years it had reached deep into South America. It had also (by 2002) changed 3 nucleotides/1 amino acid to increase transmission efficiency in C. pipiens and C. tarsalis mosquitos. In the US, 1.8 million people have been infected, 360,000 illnesses (20%), 12852 encephalitis (0.7%), and 1308 deaths (0.0007%). Big cost in blood donor screening. Given a US population of 250 million, these numbers do not seem alarming.
The disease is much worse in birds. Regional-scale population declines >50% have been reported in corvids, chickadees, titmice, wrens, and thrushes.
Robins (the bird, a species of thrush) are a preferred food source for mosquitos. The dominant WNV vectors are the mosquito species C. pipiens, C. restuans, and C. tarsalis. Some 30-80% of their feedings are on robins, though robins make up only 1-20% of the studied avian communities.
Robins do exceptionally well in human altered landscapes. Populations have doubled over the last 25 years (or is this because we stopped using DDT?? What were robin populations 100 years ago?)
WNV has chosen the "kill them fast" reproductive strategy. Sick animals are more vulnerable to mosquito bites, and increased virema increases the odds that a bite will infect the mosquito. In the (non-anthropod) host, death does not reduce transmission probabilities, as time to recovery and time to death are both 4-6 days.
Mosquitos hitchike on airplanes.
WNV- flavirivus
Green Bay Packers
I am now the proud owner of a NFL football team. Which just happens to be 12-0 for the season!!
Go Packers!
Previous stock sales took place in 1923, ’35, ’50 and ’97. Prior to Tuesday morning, the organization had approximately 112,000 shareholders holding around 4,750,000 shares of stock.
Go Packers!
Previous stock sales took place in 1923, ’35, ’50 and ’97. Prior to Tuesday morning, the organization had approximately 112,000 shareholders holding around 4,750,000 shares of stock.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
mobile computing/status symbols
I've had my Galaxy for many months now, and I still don't quite get all the hype. Yes, it grants some convenience, but the interface is so awkward compared to a desktop computer. It takes "computer frustration" to an all new deeper level.
Is it only me who sees "smartphones" as a mark of poverty, not wealth? When a smartphone becomes the common idea of what a computer is, huh.
My brother Mike and I were talking about comptures and children, his being under 5. The touch-screen is what lets them use the device. So what is this, you want a computer interface designed to operate at the level of a preschooler? WTF?
Is it only me who sees "smartphones" as a mark of poverty, not wealth? When a smartphone becomes the common idea of what a computer is, huh.
My brother Mike and I were talking about comptures and children, his being under 5. The touch-screen is what lets them use the device. So what is this, you want a computer interface designed to operate at the level of a preschooler? WTF?
Sunday, December 4, 2011
self publish & taxes
Clipped verbatim from
http://www.mywritingblog.com/2011/03/how-non-us-authors-on-amazon-and.html
who claims to have done the same from
Ali Cooper
http://www.alicooper.net/
If you are a UK citizen, paying (or required to if you earn enough) UK tax, you should not be paying US tax. There is a tax treaty between the countries agreeing this. However, the IRS will automatically deduct 30% of your earnings until you have gone through all their form-filling requirements.
Having completed most of this process myself, this is my guide to what you will need to do. Smashwords are very clued up about it and put links to all the downloadable forms you will need on their site. I'll summarise this, and add a few bits that apply specifically to UK authors.
Three-Stage Process
There are three things you need to complete in order to avoid US tax. And you need to do them in this order.
1. Obtain a letter from a withholding agent (i.e. someone who's paying you, Amazon or Smashwords) saying that they are paying you.
2. Submit this letter along with ID and a form to the IRS.
3. When you receive your ITIN from the IRS, fill in another form and submit it to Amazon, etc.
ALSO
4. If any of your earnings were withheld in previous tax years (that's Jan-Dec in the US) you can claim back the tax for three years from the IRS.
Stage One
The IRS require a signed letter, written on paper, from someone in the US who is paying you, before they will process your application for an ITIN (individual tax identification number). The statement you get with a cheque from Amazon, which clearly states they are paying you and how much, is not enough.
Smashwords are very clued up and helpful about this. Amazon, unfortunately, are not. As soon as you earn $10 from Smashwords, they will provide the necessary letter - click a button to request. I would suggest that if you are earning and being taxed by the IRS, the sooner you get the tax process started, the better. I would advise any new author, even if you aren't selling much (or anything) through Smashwords, it might be worth buying enough copies of your own book through them (you'll get most of it back as royalty anyway) in order to request that letter now.
Stage Two
When you have a letter stating you are being paid by a US company, you can apply for an ITIN. You will need to fill in form W-7. This, and the copious instructions for filling it in, can be downloaded from the IRS website. Smashwords provides the links, but do a Google check just to make sure you have the most up-to-date form. You can fill it in on your computer, then print it off and sign it. Reason for submitting form should be a, and h, and alongside h you should write 'exception 1d royalties'. The treaty article number is 12 [for the UK, I assume - Nick].
You now need ID, preferably a passport. It's possible that a driving license would be accepted, but check first. The US Embassy in London are very helpful and will answer questions by email. They say they also offer phone support, but I've not known them answer!
When you have your letter from Smashwords, completed W-7 and passport(s), you have three options.
1. Get your passport copied and signed by a notary (cost approx £50 - £100) and send with form and letter to the IRS in the US.
2. Go in person to the US embassy in London (check their website for opening times).
3. Send your documents, including passport, to the US embassy in London (cost approx £5 for special delivery).
I went for option 3 and am glad I did for several reasons. Many people get something wrong first time and have to redo it - not good if you've sent everything to the US. The embassy will check everything for you and return your passport by special delivery within a couple of days. They then forward your application to the US and will follow it up for you if it takes too long, etc.
Stage Three
Eventually you will receive a letter from the IRS with your ITIN. You now need to download form W-8BEN and instructions from the IRS. As usual, Smashwords have the links for this. They also suggest that you enter the user name and/or email you use with them in the 'reference number' section of the form. You will need to fill in the form, including your ITIN, and print a copy for each company paying you, e.g. Smashwords, Amazon. Obviously, the reference details for each one may be different. You then need to sign and post a physical copy to each company.
Once the forms have been received and processed, any tax withheld by each company for this tax year should be automatically reimbursed by them. Any tax withheld for previous tax years will have already been sent to IRS and you will need to claim it back from them yourself.
http://www.mywritingblog.com/2011/03/how-non-us-authors-on-amazon-and.html
who claims to have done the same from
Ali Cooper
http://www.alicooper.net/
If you are a UK citizen, paying (or required to if you earn enough) UK tax, you should not be paying US tax. There is a tax treaty between the countries agreeing this. However, the IRS will automatically deduct 30% of your earnings until you have gone through all their form-filling requirements.
Having completed most of this process myself, this is my guide to what you will need to do. Smashwords are very clued up about it and put links to all the downloadable forms you will need on their site. I'll summarise this, and add a few bits that apply specifically to UK authors.
Three-Stage Process
There are three things you need to complete in order to avoid US tax. And you need to do them in this order.
1. Obtain a letter from a withholding agent (i.e. someone who's paying you, Amazon or Smashwords) saying that they are paying you.
2. Submit this letter along with ID and a form to the IRS.
3. When you receive your ITIN from the IRS, fill in another form and submit it to Amazon, etc.
ALSO
4. If any of your earnings were withheld in previous tax years (that's Jan-Dec in the US) you can claim back the tax for three years from the IRS.
Stage One
The IRS require a signed letter, written on paper, from someone in the US who is paying you, before they will process your application for an ITIN (individual tax identification number). The statement you get with a cheque from Amazon, which clearly states they are paying you and how much, is not enough.
Smashwords are very clued up and helpful about this. Amazon, unfortunately, are not. As soon as you earn $10 from Smashwords, they will provide the necessary letter - click a button to request. I would suggest that if you are earning and being taxed by the IRS, the sooner you get the tax process started, the better. I would advise any new author, even if you aren't selling much (or anything) through Smashwords, it might be worth buying enough copies of your own book through them (you'll get most of it back as royalty anyway) in order to request that letter now.
Stage Two
When you have a letter stating you are being paid by a US company, you can apply for an ITIN. You will need to fill in form W-7. This, and the copious instructions for filling it in, can be downloaded from the IRS website. Smashwords provides the links, but do a Google check just to make sure you have the most up-to-date form. You can fill it in on your computer, then print it off and sign it. Reason for submitting form should be a, and h, and alongside h you should write 'exception 1d royalties'. The treaty article number is 12 [for the UK, I assume - Nick].
You now need ID, preferably a passport. It's possible that a driving license would be accepted, but check first. The US Embassy in London are very helpful and will answer questions by email. They say they also offer phone support, but I've not known them answer!
When you have your letter from Smashwords, completed W-7 and passport(s), you have three options.
1. Get your passport copied and signed by a notary (cost approx £50 - £100) and send with form and letter to the IRS in the US.
2. Go in person to the US embassy in London (check their website for opening times).
3. Send your documents, including passport, to the US embassy in London (cost approx £5 for special delivery).
I went for option 3 and am glad I did for several reasons. Many people get something wrong first time and have to redo it - not good if you've sent everything to the US. The embassy will check everything for you and return your passport by special delivery within a couple of days. They then forward your application to the US and will follow it up for you if it takes too long, etc.
Stage Three
Eventually you will receive a letter from the IRS with your ITIN. You now need to download form W-8BEN and instructions from the IRS. As usual, Smashwords have the links for this. They also suggest that you enter the user name and/or email you use with them in the 'reference number' section of the form. You will need to fill in the form, including your ITIN, and print a copy for each company paying you, e.g. Smashwords, Amazon. Obviously, the reference details for each one may be different. You then need to sign and post a physical copy to each company.
Once the forms have been received and processed, any tax withheld by each company for this tax year should be automatically reimbursed by them. Any tax withheld for previous tax years will have already been sent to IRS and you will need to claim it back from them yourself.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
My first arabic spam email!!
Subject: لديك فاز £ 1000000، 00 ، BAT الترويجي
Body:
اسم...
البلد..
<< end message >>
Pretty cool!
Body:
اسم...
البلد..
<< end message >>
Pretty cool!
Electricity based currency
Who needs a gold standard? Let's price everything in kilowatt/hours. Electricity is something we all depend on. When the third industrial revolution really kicks off and each house generates its own power, then owning land again becomes a source of income.
Will the currency devalue as thongs become more energy efficient, or as energy becomes easier to produce/cheaper? Look buddy, if you want me to take that line seriously, tell me what you think of dollars or fiat currency as a store of value m
Evidence for a bimodal distribution in human communication
By ye Wu et all, PNAS, 2010. Sorry, lost the direct link.
Human actions (disease spread, resource alloc, ) are often modelled using a Poission distribution (expected number of events during a time interval T, given exponential distribution for waiting times). But this assumption is not fit by the data for i.e. email. Rather, we see bursts of activity followed by long periods of inaction.
Is this because most models do not incorporate both individuals and interactions??
The authors distinguish between initiated and responsive actions, with Poission distribution for the initiation of communication bursts and power-law distribution of messages within a burst (determined in part by priority queuing) They analyze SMS communication.
Human actions (disease spread, resource alloc, ) are often modelled using a Poission distribution (expected number of events during a time interval T, given exponential distribution for waiting times). But this assumption is not fit by the data for i.e. email. Rather, we see bursts of activity followed by long periods of inaction.
Is this because most models do not incorporate both individuals and interactions??
The authors distinguish between initiated and responsive actions, with Poission distribution for the initiation of communication bursts and power-law distribution of messages within a burst (determined in part by priority queuing) They analyze SMS communication.
Rejoiners
That's a great point, it would be worth an hour's lecture in itself, which I am sure you could give.
Dave Birch "The Future of Money" 24 Nov 2011
Wow! I really like this guy! strong command of history, no self-promotion, not a polished presenter, lots of good ancidotes.
Another great talk from the RSA.
Some examples from English history:
Tally sticks (as a way of tracking future tax liabilities) introducing marketable Government debt. Lasted 500 years AFTER the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. Ended when the government decided to burn them all. The resulting fire burned down the Houses of Parliment on 16 October 1834.
Problems with bad coinage -- too many types, too much counterfeit, clipping, etc. This was at the start of the age of Enlightenment, so with great faith in Science to solve the problem, expert advice was requested. Newton's solution got the nod, promoting him to the head of the Royal Mint (1696). Also lead to a gold standard
Wampum belts in the colonies. Contracts were made in pounds, which were nominally on a gold standard. But since neither pounds nor gold existed in quantity in the colonies, at the time of contract fullfillment the bill was settled with other items. Beaver fur, wampum belts; all of which put the indians in an interesting position as bankers, since they would accept almost limitless amounts of wampum.
So what is the future? Mobile phones, which can resolve complex barter chains, and can allow everyone to both send and receive transactions. Or via complicated FX chains (managed via centralized preference lists, to make management simple), allowing payment in Sterling, Gold, BA Miles, Tesco Clubcard points, ...
Return to private currencies. A brand can offer a currency. This should include consumer protection, as consumer protection adds to the value.
Why deposit "euros" in a pension scheme. What you really want is say kilowatt/hours.
Another great talk from the RSA.
Some examples from English history:
Tally sticks (as a way of tracking future tax liabilities) introducing marketable Government debt. Lasted 500 years AFTER the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. Ended when the government decided to burn them all. The resulting fire burned down the Houses of Parliment on 16 October 1834.
Problems with bad coinage -- too many types, too much counterfeit, clipping, etc. This was at the start of the age of Enlightenment, so with great faith in Science to solve the problem, expert advice was requested. Newton's solution got the nod, promoting him to the head of the Royal Mint (1696). Also lead to a gold standard
Wampum belts in the colonies. Contracts were made in pounds, which were nominally on a gold standard. But since neither pounds nor gold existed in quantity in the colonies, at the time of contract fullfillment the bill was settled with other items. Beaver fur, wampum belts; all of which put the indians in an interesting position as bankers, since they would accept almost limitless amounts of wampum.
So what is the future? Mobile phones, which can resolve complex barter chains, and can allow everyone to both send and receive transactions. Or via complicated FX chains (managed via centralized preference lists, to make management simple), allowing payment in Sterling, Gold, BA Miles, Tesco Clubcard points, ...
Return to private currencies. A brand can offer a currency. This should include consumer protection, as consumer protection adds to the value.
Why deposit "euros" in a pension scheme. What you really want is say kilowatt/hours.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
gun quotes
Lady to guy with open carry: "why do you have a gun? Are you expecting trouble?"
Guy: "No, maam, if I was expecting trouble I would have brought my shotgun."
"I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy"
“Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.”
“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.” --Robert A. Heinlein, supporting character, Claude Mordan to protagonist,
Hamilton Felix, in “Beyond This Horizon,” copyright 1942, Street Publications
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud
Guy: "No, maam, if I was expecting trouble I would have brought my shotgun."
"I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy"
“Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.”
“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.” --Robert A. Heinlein, supporting character, Claude Mordan to protagonist,
Hamilton Felix, in “Beyond This Horizon,” copyright 1942, Street Publications
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Clauset (2009) "Power law distributions in empirical data"
He has some nice tables showing real-world data.
Abstract:
Power-law distributions occur in many situations of scientific interest and have significant consequences for our understanding of natural and man-made phenomena. Unfortunately, the detection and characterization of power laws is complicated by the large fluctuations that occur in the tail of the distribution—the part of the distribution representing large but rare events—and by the difficulty of identifying the range over which power-law behavior holds. Commonly used methods for analyzing power-law data, such as least-squares fitting, can produce substantially inaccurate estimates of parameters for power-law distributions, and even in cases where such methods return accurate answers they are still unsatisfactory because they give no indication of whether the data obey a power law at all. Here we present a principled statistical framework for discerning and quantifying power-law behavior in empirical data. Our approach combines maximum-likelihood fitting methods with goodness-of-fit tests based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) statistic and likelihood ratios. We evaluate the effectiveness of the approach with tests on synthetic data and give critical comparisons to previous approaches. We also apply the proposed methods to twenty-four real-world data sets from a range of different disciplines, each of which has been conjectured to follow a power-law distribution. In some cases we find these conjectures to be consistent with the data, while in others the power law is ruled out.
Abstract:
Power-law distributions occur in many situations of scientific interest and have significant consequences for our understanding of natural and man-made phenomena. Unfortunately, the detection and characterization of power laws is complicated by the large fluctuations that occur in the tail of the distribution—the part of the distribution representing large but rare events—and by the difficulty of identifying the range over which power-law behavior holds. Commonly used methods for analyzing power-law data, such as least-squares fitting, can produce substantially inaccurate estimates of parameters for power-law distributions, and even in cases where such methods return accurate answers they are still unsatisfactory because they give no indication of whether the data obey a power law at all. Here we present a principled statistical framework for discerning and quantifying power-law behavior in empirical data. Our approach combines maximum-likelihood fitting methods with goodness-of-fit tests based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) statistic and likelihood ratios. We evaluate the effectiveness of the approach with tests on synthetic data and give critical comparisons to previous approaches. We also apply the proposed methods to twenty-four real-world data sets from a range of different disciplines, each of which has been conjectured to follow a power-law distribution. In some cases we find these conjectures to be consistent with the data, while in others the power law is ruled out.
time evolving Dirichlet processes
From a follow-up read from "I'll have what she's having", a paper by Bently called "Evolving social influence in large populations".
He presents a number of applications of preferential attachment in sociology. He then presents a model which is essentiallly a Dirichlet process/Chinese restaurant scenario, with the twist that:
a fixed number of people enter at each step (not just one)
Table choice is based on people who have sat at that table in the last m rounds; thus the process has limited memory (and may no longer be exchangeable!!).
He makes analogy to the neurtral drift aspect of evolution, and comments that evolutionary models are inherently dynamic.
His model:
N initial population
n enter the restaurant at each time-step
mu agent chooses a new table
1-mu agent chooses an existing table, with probability proportional to # at the table
So, can I tie this idea into the quasispecies as memory concept?
He presents a number of applications of preferential attachment in sociology. He then presents a model which is essentiallly a Dirichlet process/Chinese restaurant scenario, with the twist that:
a fixed number of people enter at each step (not just one)
Table choice is based on people who have sat at that table in the last m rounds; thus the process has limited memory (and may no longer be exchangeable!!).
He makes analogy to the neurtral drift aspect of evolution, and comments that evolutionary models are inherently dynamic.
His model:
N initial population
n enter the restaurant at each time-step
mu agent chooses a new table
1-mu agent chooses an existing table, with probability proportional to # at the table
So, can I tie this idea into the quasispecies as memory concept?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Jeremy Rifkin-- the third industrial revolution
At the RSA
He begins with the grim picture. 2 events
The cultural shift. Socialism/capitalism is dead. Now the divide is top-down, opaque vs open source, transparent, distributed.
He begins with the grim picture. 2 events
- Oil at $147/barrel. This was June, 2011. He calls it the earthquake, the financial collapse several months later was only an aftershock. Our economy is based on oil. Transport, food, energy, clothes, pharmacuticals. And according to the conservative industry estimates, peak oil was in 2006. When oil hits ~150, the economy shuts down. He predicts a continuing 4 year cycle: economy stops, oil price drops, economy re-starts, oil rises until at 150 it shuts everything down again.
- Copenhagen. No agreement on climate change. Yet the median estimate is +3 degrees in the next 50 years, which will radically change weather patterns (each 1 degree change allows the atmosphere to hold 7% more water)
- Renewable, small-scale energy generation (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass).
- Buildings as power plants. Build the power generation into the archetecture.
- Hydrogen storage tech. Hydrogen fuel cells can transform energy much more efficiently than anything else known (add electricty to water, and you get hydrogen + ox. Burn the hydrogen + ox, and you get almost the full amount back as heat).
- Smart power grid. Use off the shelf internet tech (routers etc) to make the power grid a distributed resource
- Electric transport (cars/trucks/trains/shipping).
The cultural shift. Socialism/capitalism is dead. Now the divide is top-down, opaque vs open source, transparent, distributed.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
investment idea
Just want to remember it, by no means advising it. With the world slipping into recession, a transportation stock seems like a very risky bet. But this one has some merit, and I may want to look into it more.
Box Ships (NYSE: TEU ) .
The company was spun off from Paragon Shipping (NYSE: PRGN ) back in April via an IPO. After a few vessel acquisitions, Box Ships now operates a fleet of seven containerships that transport goods across the globe. Containerships carry some 90% of the world's dry cargo, and Box's fleet is among the youngest, with an average age of just 39 months.
It focuses on medium-size ships (from sub-Panamax to post-Panamax), since there's a lack of supply in that space coming online in future years. The company's strategy is to sign its ships to medium-length charters in order to capture rising containership rates. Currently, the fleet is chartered out for an average of 30 months, so there's some cash flow stability in the business. And for 2012, the company already has 93% of revenue days secured.
Stormy seas
Charter rates have been rough over the last six months or so, with rates being sliced in half and well below their 10-year average. But what matters for Box is what happens when it comes time to charter two vessels -- two that produce the lowest revenue -- whose contracts expire in August 2012. Management expects rates to pick up in early 2012, as supply comes into more balance with demand.
In fact, conditions look good in the containership market longer term, with demand expected to outstrip supply until at least 2015. That should be good news for shipping rates.
Don't get this market confused with dry bulk shippers, where oversupply has crippled the industry. There, shippers such Dry Ships (Nasdaq: DRYS ) , Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX ) , and Frontline (NYSE: FRO ) have been hurting for several years, and once-generous dividends have dried up faster than a California raisin in Death Valley. Navios Maritime (NYSE: NM ) is one of the few that has managed to maintain a dividend somewhere close to its payout of a few years ago. In contrast, the containership market looks much stronger.
The dividend
In its most recent quarter, the company earned $0.32 per share, a number that should be fairly stable given its chartered ships. So its dividend of $0.30 per share is high for a normal company, but it's not outrageous for a shipper. Because growth capital expenditure is so high for shippers, it's necessary to raise capital via debt or equity offerings anyway, so it can make sense to pay out all profits to shareholders. The company has promised a $0.30 dividend for the fourth quarter, too.
With the downturn in charter rates, the company is looking for opportunities to acquire other vessels at attractive prices. On the conference call, CEO Michael Bodouroglou promised that Box would look for only accretive acquisitions that could boost the dividend. With the company's moderate leverage (for a shipper) of 52% of net debt/total capitalization, it should be able to issue more debt and not dilute equity holders.
With a contracted fleet of ships, we should have some confidence in the company maintaining its high payout.
An expected yield of 6%-8% would be in line with some of its larger peers such as Costamare and Seaspan, meaning the stock might gain somewhere between 46% and 95% from its current price.
Risks
As with any investment, there are risks to Box. Paragon still owns about 21% of the company from the spinoff IPO, and the CEO owns 18% of Paragon and 11% of Box as well. Bodouroglou is also the CEO of Paragon. Also of concern is that Bodouroglou owns the management company to which Box Ships pays a management fee based on daily charter rates. Yes, it's a cozy relationship that bears some watching to see if management is self-dealing.
Another threat to the company is the fragile world economy. Container shipping has been on a decades-long upswing, but as we saw in 2008-2009, a global economic decline could really hurt the industry. And any type of supply buildout like we've seen among dry bulk shippers would wreak havoc on charter rates.
Box Ships (NYSE: TEU ) .
The company was spun off from Paragon Shipping (NYSE: PRGN ) back in April via an IPO. After a few vessel acquisitions, Box Ships now operates a fleet of seven containerships that transport goods across the globe. Containerships carry some 90% of the world's dry cargo, and Box's fleet is among the youngest, with an average age of just 39 months.
It focuses on medium-size ships (from sub-Panamax to post-Panamax), since there's a lack of supply in that space coming online in future years. The company's strategy is to sign its ships to medium-length charters in order to capture rising containership rates. Currently, the fleet is chartered out for an average of 30 months, so there's some cash flow stability in the business. And for 2012, the company already has 93% of revenue days secured.
Stormy seas
Charter rates have been rough over the last six months or so, with rates being sliced in half and well below their 10-year average. But what matters for Box is what happens when it comes time to charter two vessels -- two that produce the lowest revenue -- whose contracts expire in August 2012. Management expects rates to pick up in early 2012, as supply comes into more balance with demand.
In fact, conditions look good in the containership market longer term, with demand expected to outstrip supply until at least 2015. That should be good news for shipping rates.
Don't get this market confused with dry bulk shippers, where oversupply has crippled the industry. There, shippers such Dry Ships (Nasdaq: DRYS ) , Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX ) , and Frontline (NYSE: FRO ) have been hurting for several years, and once-generous dividends have dried up faster than a California raisin in Death Valley. Navios Maritime (NYSE: NM ) is one of the few that has managed to maintain a dividend somewhere close to its payout of a few years ago. In contrast, the containership market looks much stronger.
The dividend
In its most recent quarter, the company earned $0.32 per share, a number that should be fairly stable given its chartered ships. So its dividend of $0.30 per share is high for a normal company, but it's not outrageous for a shipper. Because growth capital expenditure is so high for shippers, it's necessary to raise capital via debt or equity offerings anyway, so it can make sense to pay out all profits to shareholders. The company has promised a $0.30 dividend for the fourth quarter, too.
With the downturn in charter rates, the company is looking for opportunities to acquire other vessels at attractive prices. On the conference call, CEO Michael Bodouroglou promised that Box would look for only accretive acquisitions that could boost the dividend. With the company's moderate leverage (for a shipper) of 52% of net debt/total capitalization, it should be able to issue more debt and not dilute equity holders.
With a contracted fleet of ships, we should have some confidence in the company maintaining its high payout.
An expected yield of 6%-8% would be in line with some of its larger peers such as Costamare and Seaspan, meaning the stock might gain somewhere between 46% and 95% from its current price.
Risks
As with any investment, there are risks to Box. Paragon still owns about 21% of the company from the spinoff IPO, and the CEO owns 18% of Paragon and 11% of Box as well. Bodouroglou is also the CEO of Paragon. Also of concern is that Bodouroglou owns the management company to which Box Ships pays a management fee based on daily charter rates. Yes, it's a cozy relationship that bears some watching to see if management is self-dealing.
Another threat to the company is the fragile world economy. Container shipping has been on a decades-long upswing, but as we saw in 2008-2009, a global economic decline could really hurt the industry. And any type of supply buildout like we've seen among dry bulk shippers would wreak havoc on charter rates.
Friday, November 25, 2011
FDR’s Message to Congress, April 13, 1933.
From the American Presidency Project
To the Congress:
As further and urgently necessary step in the program to promote economic recovery, I ask the Congress for legislation to protect small home owners from foreclosure and to relieve them of a portion of the burden of excessive interest and principal payments incurred during the period of higher values and higher earning power.
Implicit in the legislation which I am suggesting to you is a declaration of national policy. This policy is that the broad interests of the Nation require that special safeguards should be thrown around home ownership as a guarantee of social and economic stability, and that to protect home owners from inequitable enforced liquidation in a time of general distress is a proper concern of the Government.
The legislation I propose follows the general lines of the farm mortgage refinancing bill. The terms are such as to impose the least possible charge upon the National Treasury consistent with the objects sought. It provides machinery through which existing mortgage debts on small homes may be adjusted to a sound basis of values without injustice to investors, at substantially lower interest rates and with provision for postponing both interest and principal payments in cases of extreme need. The resources to be made available through a bond issue to be guaranteed as to interest only by the Treasury, will, it is thought, be sufficient to meet the needs of those to whom other methods of financing are not available. At the same time the plan of settlement will provide a standard which should put an end to present uncertain and chaotic conditions that create fear and despair among both home owners and investors.
Legislation of this character is a subject that demands our most earnest, thoughtful and prompt consideration.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Major market move??
This guy predicts that the market will blow in 2012. But he doesn't know if this means huge gains or huge loss.
So he suggests the following:
You're looking to capture a move from the average all the way out to an extreme
Set up a daily chart overlayed with two sets of Bollinger Bands - one with with a setting of 200, 3 (a 200-day simple moving average with bands 3-standard deviations above and below it) and the other with a setting of 200, 2.3.
On a day when price crosses and closes above the 200-day moving average, buy an ETF which tracks your chosen index higher.
Realize a portion (eg. 10-15%) of your gains each time price pierces the upper Bollinger Band at 2.3 standard deviations. Otherwise,
Sell your entire position if price moves back below the low of the day you bought. Occasionally raise the stop to just below a resistance point (a level to which prices fell, found support, then reversed back up and closed higher than the prior high. Position your stop order just underneath the low of that move.)
So he suggests the following:
You're looking to capture a move from the average all the way out to an extreme
Set up a daily chart overlayed with two sets of Bollinger Bands - one with with a setting of 200, 3 (a 200-day simple moving average with bands 3-standard deviations above and below it) and the other with a setting of 200, 2.3.
On a day when price crosses and closes above the 200-day moving average, buy an ETF which tracks your chosen index higher.
Realize a portion (eg. 10-15%) of your gains each time price pierces the upper Bollinger Band at 2.3 standard deviations. Otherwise,
Sell your entire position if price moves back below the low of the day you bought. Occasionally raise the stop to just below a resistance point (a level to which prices fell, found support, then reversed back up and closed higher than the prior high. Position your stop order just underneath the low of that move.)
I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping social behaviour-- Mark Earls
Mark Earls and Alex Bentley at the RSA 2011, promoting their new book.
Central thesis: as social animals, humans are predisposed to copy others.
They map human decision making using a 2-by. The axes are "number of options" and "who/how we copy". Given that this 2-by is the core tennant of their idea, I find it odd that it is damn difficult to find an image of this map.
Of course I did find it, buried in a research paper published by Prof. Bentley ("Quality vs mere popularity: a conceptual map for understanding human behavior", Mind and Society 2011)
Boring figure, x axis on wrong margin, and no data plotted.
The four corners are:
Timeline evolution popularity of items in the quadrants:
Camilla Power points out some serious flaws with the book
The authors respond to the last criticism by saying that true, that is the corner of the map the book focuses on, but only because that is the kind of data they study. The map should apply to all decisions.
But they miss Ms. Power's point. If indeed they mostly apply their model to the SE corner, then she is right, that is what the model examines. And at this corner, the profound impact of the book applies mostly to marketing people. It does not suggest how to create the large-scale social changes the authors wish it to. To smoke or not smoke is a classic Northern question, as the choices are binary with strongly discernable outcomes.
Central thesis: as social animals, humans are predisposed to copy others.
They map human decision making using a 2-by. The axes are "number of options" and "who/how we copy". Given that this 2-by is the core tennant of their idea, I find it odd that it is damn difficult to find an image of this map.
Of course I did find it, buried in a research paper published by Prof. Bentley ("Quality vs mere popularity: a conceptual map for understanding human behavior", Mind and Society 2011)
The four corners are:
- NW: classical rational actor. Assumes a discernable (and predictable) difference between the options. Popular choices are high quality/high payout.
- NE: Copy the leader/expert. Copy if better. He relates it to Watts' 2002 innovators, early adopters, and late majority model.
- SW: Overwhelming choice with little/no difference between outcomes--275 different types of breakfast cereal??
- SE: Copy the crowd. Power law distribution of outcomes, with the winner a matter of luck.
Timeline evolution popularity of items in the quadrants:
- NW: r-curve of adoptation. Rapid growth in popularity of the "better" option.
- NE: a slightly smoother adoptation curve, since the quality of an item is partially based on how many others have chosen it
- SW: no trend, distribution is uniformly random
- SE: Best predictor of popularity is current distribution. He links it to a previous paper of his, "Evolving social influence in large populations" Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2010
Camilla Power points out some serious flaws with the book
[the book is] a random scatter of cases and anecdotes ... [which] makes the reader feel equally random: scatterbrained, as if you've been doing idle searches on Google or browsing Wikipedia all day. The kind of theoretical coherence found in the elegant, simple propositions of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene or Amotz and Avishag Zahavi's The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle is not evident.and views the model as applying mostly to
low-cost decisions on tree-like algorithms that matter little to the decision-maker
The authors respond to the last criticism by saying that true, that is the corner of the map the book focuses on, but only because that is the kind of data they study. The map should apply to all decisions.
But they miss Ms. Power's point. If indeed they mostly apply their model to the SE corner, then she is right, that is what the model examines. And at this corner, the profound impact of the book applies mostly to marketing people. It does not suggest how to create the large-scale social changes the authors wish it to. To smoke or not smoke is a classic Northern question, as the choices are binary with strongly discernable outcomes.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Emotional compas
Darn, I do not at the moment recall where I clipped this from. My apologies to the originator!
Helping you to navigate emotionally. Plot your mood along the 8 dimensions.
Helping you to navigate emotionally. Plot your mood along the 8 dimensions.
The power of why
Small children love to have things explained to them. Why, Dad? or How does a nuclear aircraft carrier work, Dad?
This need to make sense of the world, or rather, for the world to make sense, is deeply rooted in the human psyche.
In earlier times, the answers might have come in terms of myth and legend. Myth-based models of reality, however, soon run into problems of consistency. Since these are well known even to the tellers of the myth, it is not always easy to convey the explanations with conviction. One resorts to 'God's superior wisdom,' or 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' These are all variants of the greatest explanation of all time, which is 'fuck it, lets go get a beer.'
The power of explanations is that they give us control, or at least its illusion. Those who can master the explanation are given great status. These are the experts.
One hundred years ago, religion in Western culture faced a crisis. Thanks to the Enlightenment, science and reason now offered explanations which actually worked. Explanations which allowed miracles. Only very few people really understood electricity, but the ability to telegraph a message across a country was understood by all and appreciated by most. Those who could explain electricity, or who could harness its power, became wealthy and were given titles (Lord Kelvin, I'm talking about you). Disease also fell. Pathogenic organisms could be positively identified. Disease was no longer some whim of the gods, but rather an understandable, if not stoppable process.
This put the Church in a serious bind. It cannot surrender all power of explanation to Science without ceasing to exist. It is not just a question of relevance, it is one of survival.
The Bible warned of this. Man was removed from the garden for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While the Bible also encourages people to use their reason (one has only to look at the great intellectual successes of the Jewish people), we are not to use reason to determine everything. God viciously protects His domain.
And so today we see a rise of religious fundamentalism, coupled with a conflict between religious belief and science. Religion has said "Choose one or the other".
This need to make sense of the world, or rather, for the world to make sense, is deeply rooted in the human psyche.
In earlier times, the answers might have come in terms of myth and legend. Myth-based models of reality, however, soon run into problems of consistency. Since these are well known even to the tellers of the myth, it is not always easy to convey the explanations with conviction. One resorts to 'God's superior wisdom,' or 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' These are all variants of the greatest explanation of all time, which is 'fuck it, lets go get a beer.'
The power of explanations is that they give us control, or at least its illusion. Those who can master the explanation are given great status. These are the experts.
One hundred years ago, religion in Western culture faced a crisis. Thanks to the Enlightenment, science and reason now offered explanations which actually worked. Explanations which allowed miracles. Only very few people really understood electricity, but the ability to telegraph a message across a country was understood by all and appreciated by most. Those who could explain electricity, or who could harness its power, became wealthy and were given titles (Lord Kelvin, I'm talking about you). Disease also fell. Pathogenic organisms could be positively identified. Disease was no longer some whim of the gods, but rather an understandable, if not stoppable process.
This put the Church in a serious bind. It cannot surrender all power of explanation to Science without ceasing to exist. It is not just a question of relevance, it is one of survival.
The Bible warned of this. Man was removed from the garden for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While the Bible also encourages people to use their reason (one has only to look at the great intellectual successes of the Jewish people), we are not to use reason to determine everything. God viciously protects His domain.
And so today we see a rise of religious fundamentalism, coupled with a conflict between religious belief and science. Religion has said "Choose one or the other".
war on drug madness part ???
From the AP:
Mike once commented that the only reason why illicit drugs were not legal was that it is difficult for companies to comercialize them. You can't patent/copyright cocaine. Perscription meds to the rescue!
The United States is facing an epidemic of lethal overdoses from prescription painkillers, which have tripled in the past decade and now account for more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. (AP)
Mike once commented that the only reason why illicit drugs were not legal was that it is difficult for companies to comercialize them. You can't patent/copyright cocaine. Perscription meds to the rescue!
taxes
From Bloomberg:
The rate at which the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income actually paid federal income taxes --their so-called effective tax rate -- fell to about 18 percent in 2008 from almost 30 percent in 1995, IRS data show. That’s the tip of the iceberg, since much of their wealth never converts into income on a tax return. ... Billionaires who derive the bulk of their wealth from stock appreciation are using strategies that reap hundreds of millions of dollars from those valuable shares in ways the IRS often doesn’t classify as taxable income, securities filings and tax court records show.
Connecting the dots, Loss of morality
In regard to two recent posts, (how the Republicans lost it by replacing political thought with media populatiry and a rant on how the US has degenerated into a police state)
I have not (yet) gone off on the topic of lack of procecution of any bankers for their huge frauds, or the mortgage forclosure without due process, etc.
These are symptomatic of a lack of morality. Which brings us to this quote from the NYT, from "How China can defeat America"
The author, Yan Xuetong, studied ancient Chinese political theory, from the golden age of such theory-- pre Qin China, when China was a collection of small countries fighting for advantage.
All the schools of politcal thought converged on one insight:
The author further suggests that China replace money worship with traditional morality.
Yan Xuetong, the author of Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, is a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University.
Oh, America! I tried to teach my son something this weekend, that anything worth doing is hard, requires effort. Morality is hard. Running on sound bites, quick black-and-white judgements and litmus tests, that is not morality. Morality requires deep thinking, considering the other side of the question. Validating the other person's perspective. Thinking is HARD
Maybe we don't do it so well because 20 PERCENT OF THE ADULT POPULATION IS ON PRESCRIPTION MIND-ALTERING DRUGS
I have not (yet) gone off on the topic of lack of procecution of any bankers for their huge frauds, or the mortgage forclosure without due process, etc.
These are symptomatic of a lack of morality. Which brings us to this quote from the NYT, from "How China can defeat America"
The author, Yan Xuetong, studied ancient Chinese political theory, from the golden age of such theory-- pre Qin China, when China was a collection of small countries fighting for advantage.
All the schools of politcal thought converged on one insight:
The key to international influence was political power, and the central attribute of political power was morally informed leadership.
The author further suggests that China replace money worship with traditional morality.
Yan Xuetong, the author of Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, is a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University.
Oh, America! I tried to teach my son something this weekend, that anything worth doing is hard, requires effort. Morality is hard. Running on sound bites, quick black-and-white judgements and litmus tests, that is not morality. Morality requires deep thinking, considering the other side of the question. Validating the other person's perspective. Thinking is HARD
Maybe we don't do it so well because 20 PERCENT OF THE ADULT POPULATION IS ON PRESCRIPTION MIND-ALTERING DRUGS
Police state
I clipped this photo from The Atlantic.
That is pepper spray the cop is using. A chemical weapon. On people exercising their first amendment rights. How can any true American see this and not feel outrage?
As the Atlantic article points out, this is not a rouge cop. Rather, it is the nature of policing in the US. And this is why I say the US has become a police state.
This is not the country my family has lived in, fought for, built up, from the 1600s on both my mother's and father's side. This is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. Where do I see liberty and justice for all?
More people in jail than the evil of Soviet Russia which my grandfather so proudly fought against, as a admiral in our Navy, and most of them in jail for the crime of being poor and minority.
20:1 sentencing disparity between those who plea bargin instead of requiring their guilt to be proven in a court of law, as our Constitution demands it must-- does this create an incentive to plea bargin? you bet it does, especially when a) that is what their public defender tells them is their only option. In fact, some 95% of felony cases are settled with a plea bargin.
Monday, November 21, 2011
What is wrong with the repulicans
By David Frum, a GOP heavyweight thinker.
His thesis is that the party surrendered its leadership to the media.
He also shows how this media creates a fantasy world of false information.
His thesis is that the party surrendered its leadership to the media.
Extremism and conflict make for bad politics but great TV. Over the past two decades, conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment. An industry has grown up to serve that segment—and its stars have become the true thought leaders of the conservative world. The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so that they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly. As journalism, not so much. As a tool of political mobilization, it [incites] followers to the point at which they force leaders into confrontations where everybody loses.
He also shows how this media creates a fantasy world of false information.
The problem with capitalism (global ??)
Wired magazine has an article on changes in the perfume industry. A number of traditional ingredients have been prohibited as they may cause mild allergy in the occasional individual. Most of these ingredients are of natural origin, i.e. oak musk.
The industry has a self-regulating agency, the IFRA, (it has little to no government regulation), they decided on these restrictions. Their reasoning:
In other words, the point is to make money, not great perfumes. Evil.
The industry has a self-regulating agency, the IFRA, (it has little to no government regulation), they decided on these restrictions. Their reasoning:
We can't do otherwise. If we can't demonstrate a safe usage level, it's not in our best interest to allow that material to continue to be used in a product.Since each fragrance is destined to move from perfume to lotion, to soap, and any suggestion that it might not be suitable for all people means that a product might not reach its full global market and the profit that come along with it.
In other words, the point is to make money, not great perfumes. Evil.
Richard Rhode's 12 rules for trading
Clipped from Ritholtz
note to self: Based on the list, learning to count is also difficult
The rules are simple. Sticking to them is what’s difficult.
note to self: Based on the list, learning to count is also difficult
- The first and most important rule is – in bull markets, one is supposed to be long. This may sound obvious, but how many of us have sold the first rally in every bull market, saying that the market has moved too far, too fast. I have before, and I suspect I’ll do it again at some point in the future. Thus, we’ve not enjoyed the profits that should have accrued to us for our initial bullish outlook, but have actually lost money while being short. In a bull market, one can only be long or on the sidelines. Remember, not having a position is a position.
- Buy that which is showing strength – sell that which is showing weakness. The public continues to buy when prices have fallen. The professional buys because prices have rallied. This difference may not sound logical, but buying strength works. The rule of survival is not to “buy low, sell high”, but to “buy higher and sell higher”. Furthermore, when comparing various stocks within a group, buy only the strongest and sell the weakest.
- When putting on a trade, enter it as if it has the potential to be the biggest trade of the year. Don’t enter a trade until it has been well thought out, a campaign has been devised for adding to the trade, and contingency plans set for exiting the trade.
- On minor corrections against the major trend, add to trades. In bull markets, add to the trade on minor corrections back into support levels. In bear markets, add on corrections into resistance. Use the 33-50% corrections level of the previous movement or the proper moving average as a first point in which to add.
- Be patient. If a trade is missed, wait for a correction to occur before putting the trade on.
- Be patient. Once a trade is put on, allow it time to develop and give it time to create the profits you expected.
- Be patient. The old adage that “you never go broke taking a profit” is maybe the most worthless piece of advice ever given. Taking small profits is the surest way to ultimate loss I can think of, for small profits are never allowed to develop into enormous profits. The real money in trading is made from the one, two or three large trades that develop each year. You must develop the ability to patiently stay with winning trades to allow them to develop into that sort of trade.
- Be patient. Once a trade is put on, give it time to work; give it time to insulate itself from random noise; give it time for others to see the merit of what you saw earlier than they.
- Be impatient. As always, small loses and quick losses are the best losses. It is not the loss of money that is important. Rather, it is the mental capital that is used up when you sit with a losing trade that is important.
- Never, ever under any condition, add to a losing trade, or “average” into a position. If you are buying, then each new buy price must be higher than the previous buy price. If you are selling, then each new selling price must be lower. This rule is to be adhered to without question.
- Do more of what is working for you, and less of what’s not. Each day, look at the various positions you are holding, and try to add to the trade that has the most profit while subtracting from that trade that is either unprofitable or is showing the smallest profit. This is the basis of the old adage, “let your profits run.”
- Don’t trade until the technicals and the fundamentals both agree. This rule makes pure technicians cringe. I don’t care! I will not trade until I am sure that the simple technical rules I follow, and my fundamental analysis, are running in tandem. Then I can act with authority, and with certainty, and patiently sit tight.
- When sharp losses in equity are experienced, take time off. Close all trades and stop trading for several days. The mind can play games with itself following sharp, quick losses. The urge “to get the money back” is extreme, and should not be given in to.
- When trading well, trade somewhat larger. We all experience those incredible periods of time when all of our trades are profitable. When that happens, trade aggressively and trade larger. We must make our proverbial “hay” when the sun does shine.
- When adding to a trade, add only 1/4 to 1/2 as much as currently held. That is, if you are holding 400 shares of a stock, at the next point at which to add, add no more than 100 or 200 shares. That moves the average price of your holdings less than half of the distance moved, thus allowing you to sit through 50% corrections without touching your average price.
- Think like a guerrilla warrior. We wish to fight on the side of the market that is winning, not wasting our time and capital on futile efforts to gain fame by buying the lows or selling the highs of some market movement. Our duty is to earn profits by fighting alongside the winning forces. If neither side is winning, then we don’t need to fight at all.
- Markets form their tops in violence; markets form their lows in quiet conditions.
- The final 10% of the time of a bull run will usually encompass 50% or more of the price movement. Thus, the first 50% of the price movement will take 90% of the time and will require the most backing and filling and will be far more difficult to trade than the last 50%.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
stock markets vs private equity
Interesting perspecitve clipped from here.
Brett Arends, Marketwatch
Private equity consistently beats the market, by an order of magnitude.
Brett Arends, Marketwatch
if Amalgamated Widgets is currently trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $50 a share, but under the right management, and with the right strategy, it should really be worth $100 a share, you would expect the public markets to get it there. You would expect stockholders would get the upside at least into the $90 to $100 range. You would not expect, in an “efficient” market, for AW to drift around at $50 or so, maybe for years, before being taken over by a private-equity firm for $60 … and then sold back to the stock market five years later at $120.
Private equity consistently beats the market, by an order of magnitude.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Cognitive Dissidents
New word, thanks to Barry Ritholz
A cognitive dissident is a person who refuses to change their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.
A cognitive dissident is a person who refuses to change their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.
someone who has a fervent belief based not on evidence or reason or data or logic. Do not waste your time convincing them the earth is not flat; their cognitive facilities simply will not allow them to recognize the world is round.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Brian Eno on bizarre instruments
From the telegraph
Brian Eno talks about technology and music.
Hypothesis. Advances in technology allows new kinds of instruments, which bring about new kinds of music.
example- iron casting allowed stronger piano frames, and thus the creation of the piano forte, or condert grand, in the mid 1800s. The piano forte could hold its own against a full orchestra, and music was changed.
Best cool instrument: Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium (1906). The first truely portable electronic instrument. It weighed 200 tons, and was transported by rail. The only amplifier which had been invented was the telephone receiver.
Thaddeus would pull into town, announce his concert, and plug his instrument into the town's central telephone exchange. To listen, you took your phone off the hook.
And a bit from Brian's bio: He made his great breakthroughs by playing the VCS3, an early synth. Since no-one knew how to play it, no-one could tell him he had bad technique.
And a wonky comment from the forum:
Brian Eno talks about technology and music.
Hypothesis. Advances in technology allows new kinds of instruments, which bring about new kinds of music.
example- iron casting allowed stronger piano frames, and thus the creation of the piano forte, or condert grand, in the mid 1800s. The piano forte could hold its own against a full orchestra, and music was changed.
Best cool instrument: Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium (1906). The first truely portable electronic instrument. It weighed 200 tons, and was transported by rail. The only amplifier which had been invented was the telephone receiver.
Thaddeus would pull into town, announce his concert, and plug his instrument into the town's central telephone exchange. To listen, you took your phone off the hook.
And a bit from Brian's bio: He made his great breakthroughs by playing the VCS3, an early synth. Since no-one knew how to play it, no-one could tell him he had bad technique.
And a wonky comment from the forum:
Eno as the first person to create an electronic instrument out of a group of human beings - U2.-- from the person who claims to have been the one who demo'd the VCS3 to Brian.
Leonard Cohen day
The youtube playlist is my soundtrack.
Highlights
Hallelluja (of course)
A thousand kisses deep
Tower of Song
Avalanche
Who by fire
ok, so the whole thing rocks!
Javier Mas.
Highlights
Hallelluja (of course)
A thousand kisses deep
Tower of Song
Avalanche
Who by fire
ok, so the whole thing rocks!
Javier Mas.
Luxembourg- McNugget
Today's amazing fact.
Background: The Chicken McNugget (introduced 1979) was the brainchild of Rene Arend, the first Executive Chef at McDonalds.
Amazing fact: Arend is from Luxembourg.
Aaaand I am wondering-- is he related to the Arend of bakery and chocolate glory?
source info
Background: The Chicken McNugget (introduced 1979) was the brainchild of Rene Arend, the first Executive Chef at McDonalds.
Amazing fact: Arend is from Luxembourg.
Aaaand I am wondering-- is he related to the Arend of bakery and chocolate glory?
source info
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains
Daniel Wolpert
My goodness, this guy get carried away. He is in principle right, the brain exists to move the body. This idea had been in serious scientific circulation since at least the 1930s, but each generation seems to forget it. See, for example Rhythms of the Brain by Gyorgy Buzsaki. Or better, give a listen.
Mr. Wolpert's problem is he tries to explain EVERYTHING from this point of view. No, sorry.
I sometimes wish I had not moved away from brain science. The bit which I have yet to see discussed in all of this "the brain is for movement" stuff is the role of the cerebellum. I believe it is critical to just about everything, but most people dismiss it.
My goodness, this guy get carried away. He is in principle right, the brain exists to move the body. This idea had been in serious scientific circulation since at least the 1930s, but each generation seems to forget it. See, for example Rhythms of the Brain by Gyorgy Buzsaki. Or better, give a listen.
Mr. Wolpert's problem is he tries to explain EVERYTHING from this point of view. No, sorry.
I sometimes wish I had not moved away from brain science. The bit which I have yet to see discussed in all of this "the brain is for movement" stuff is the role of the cerebellum. I believe it is critical to just about everything, but most people dismiss it.
Ironic Research
From Micheal Lewis's article on Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)
The review highlighted a big difference between Micheal and my thinking. Michael is explaining an experiment which illustrated a point of theory, and I am tracking right along with the theory. It is about using a rigged roulette wheel to test the anchoring affect.
The summary:
System 1 (fast thinking) is the mental state in which you probably drive a car or buy groceries. It relies heavily on intuition and is amazingly capable of misleading and also of being misled. The slow-thinking System 2 is the mental state that understands how System 1 might be misled and steps in to try to prevent it from happening. The most important quality of System 2 is that it is lazy; the most important quality of System 1 is that it can’t be turned off.
And as Bill James wrote (to Kahnerman, in 1985, quoted in the same article),
I commented on this tendency yesterday.
The review highlighted a big difference between Micheal and my thinking. Michael is explaining an experiment which illustrated a point of theory, and I am tracking right along with the theory. It is about using a rigged roulette wheel to test the anchoring affect.
Kahneman knows how interesting all of this is. What he doesn’t seem to notice is the natural question that springs into the mind of the lay reader: Who rigs up a wheel of fortune to show how people can be deceived by a number?So I guess I am not a lay reader!
The summary:
System 1 (fast thinking) is the mental state in which you probably drive a car or buy groceries. It relies heavily on intuition and is amazingly capable of misleading and also of being misled. The slow-thinking System 2 is the mental state that understands how System 1 might be misled and steps in to try to prevent it from happening. The most important quality of System 2 is that it is lazy; the most important quality of System 1 is that it can’t be turned off.
And as Bill James wrote (to Kahnerman, in 1985, quoted in the same article),
Baseball men, living from day to day in the clutch of carefully metered chance occurrences, have developed an entire bestiary of imagined causes to tie together and thus make sense of patterns that are in truth entirely accidental,” James wrote. “They have an entire vocabulary of completely imaginary concepts used to tie together chance groupings. It includes ‘momentum,’ ‘confidence,’ ‘seeing the ball well,’ ‘slumps,’ ‘guts,’ ‘clutch ability,’ being ‘hot’ and ‘cold,’ ‘not being aggressive’ and my all time favorite the ‘intangibles.’ By such concepts, the baseball man gains a feeling of control over a universe that swings him up and down and tosses him from side to side like a yoyo in a high wind.
I commented on this tendency yesterday.
Ageing: Forever young?
Ageing: Forever young?
When a cell ages, it damages its neighbors. So if you kill all the 'old' cells, you reduce this damage and, while you do not extend lifetimes, you do keep fitness until the end of your days, at least if you are a special lab mouse in a particular experiment.
Old cells are those which have reached the Hayflick limit (the upper bound on the number of times a cell can multiply, and is about 60 times in humans).
Rats, can't find my earlier post discussing that mortality is foundational to morality and spirituality. Social obligations and fear of death.
When a cell ages, it damages its neighbors. So if you kill all the 'old' cells, you reduce this damage and, while you do not extend lifetimes, you do keep fitness until the end of your days, at least if you are a special lab mouse in a particular experiment.
Old cells are those which have reached the Hayflick limit (the upper bound on the number of times a cell can multiply, and is about 60 times in humans).
Rats, can't find my earlier post discussing that mortality is foundational to morality and spirituality. Social obligations and fear of death.
Viking navigation: Sunstruck
Viking navigation
Reporting on an article by Guy Ropars in Proc R Soc, postulating that the magic stone referenced in the sagas, which could point to the sun even on cloudy days, was icelandic spar.
Got that? Good, let's get to the boat.
Reporting on an article by Guy Ropars in Proc R Soc, postulating that the magic stone referenced in the sagas, which could point to the sun even on cloudy days, was icelandic spar.
Iceland spar is a form of calcite that splits light into two beams. If the light is polarised, there is only one way to orient the crystal to produce beams of equal intensity. Find this orientation by looking through the crystal at the sky at a time when you can see the sun, mark the sun’s direction on the crystal, and your mark will always point towards the sun when you match the beams from even a tiny patch of blue in an otherwise overcast sky. Dr Ropars’s experiments suggest the method is accurate to within 5°.
Got that? Good, let's get to the boat.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Getting sick
A friend of mine was ill recently. He wrote
His opinion on disease is not uncommon. It is an echo of many thousands of years of human thought and tradition. Recall that the germ theory of disease, and even the contagion theory are relatively recent, and were all rather contentious at the time. The best explination, the best way to make sense of apparently random weakening and/or death is ill favor from the gods. This could be because the gods are whimsical, or it could be that one has displeased them, or failed to live up to their standards. Alternately, it could even be that the disease is God's way of bringing his faithful home, i.e. the Koran's statement that he who dies from disease is a martyr, or the tolerance, even embracing, of death from disease while on pilgrimage.
Right. So people are "the explaining animal," always looking for sense and meaning in a world which is in fact dominated by chance. That does not make the explination correct or true. And in this case, it is false false false.
Yes, a healthy body, good diet, fresh air, exercise, regular sex, all of that does contribute to a stronger immune system better able to ward off pathogens. But if this was enough, then European diseases would not have killed 90 FUCKING PERCENT of the population of the Americas. The natives ate only organic food, worked out all the time, didn't breath industrial pollutants, and, ok, so I don't know how often they got laid, but they pretty much lived the way the health gurus tell us we should. And they died in the millions from smallpox, measles, influenza.
We can beat these diseases. In fact, many of them have been beat, or are on their knees. But some are still with us. If we want to get rid of the little bastards, then it helps to put the blame on the right place. And we do want to get rid of them.
I believe that this type of disease, i.e. the common cold and similar afflictions are expressions of weakness and fundamentally psychosomatic...implying that illness was an expression of moral failure. I should add that this friend is really, really strong. He integrates strength of character, strength of morals, and strength of body.
His opinion on disease is not uncommon. It is an echo of many thousands of years of human thought and tradition. Recall that the germ theory of disease, and even the contagion theory are relatively recent, and were all rather contentious at the time. The best explination, the best way to make sense of apparently random weakening and/or death is ill favor from the gods. This could be because the gods are whimsical, or it could be that one has displeased them, or failed to live up to their standards. Alternately, it could even be that the disease is God's way of bringing his faithful home, i.e. the Koran's statement that he who dies from disease is a martyr, or the tolerance, even embracing, of death from disease while on pilgrimage.
Right. So people are "the explaining animal," always looking for sense and meaning in a world which is in fact dominated by chance. That does not make the explination correct or true. And in this case, it is false false false.
Yes, a healthy body, good diet, fresh air, exercise, regular sex, all of that does contribute to a stronger immune system better able to ward off pathogens. But if this was enough, then European diseases would not have killed 90 FUCKING PERCENT of the population of the Americas. The natives ate only organic food, worked out all the time, didn't breath industrial pollutants, and, ok, so I don't know how often they got laid, but they pretty much lived the way the health gurus tell us we should. And they died in the millions from smallpox, measles, influenza.
We can beat these diseases. In fact, many of them have been beat, or are on their knees. But some are still with us. If we want to get rid of the little bastards, then it helps to put the blame on the right place. And we do want to get rid of them.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A whistleblower you haven't heard
A whistleblower you haven't heard
The guy started whistling around the house at age 4, because his dad whistled. Now he is the world champion. An amazing talent, and a joy to listen to!
The guy started whistling around the house at age 4, because his dad whistled. Now he is the world champion. An amazing talent, and a joy to listen to!
Christopher McDougall: Are we born to run?
Christopher McDougall
So you need to ask?
He imagines the origins of humanity as a hunting pack which uses its ability to sweat to run its prey to exhaustion and death. Running thus promotes both compassion and competition, good health, and community spirit.
Now I like to run, and wish I made the time to do more of it. But what I really like is to pick up heavy things. My legs feel soooo goood squatting 100+ kilos. I dream of deadlifting 200 kg, that is going to be so fantastic! Maybe I got too much of the neanderthal gene, who knows.
And why do people look in awe at men who are strong. I mean really strong. Guys who are great runners just don't inspire the same sense of awe in others, not unless you know. Running skill doesn't radiate in the same way.
Still, a talk worth watching
So you need to ask?
He imagines the origins of humanity as a hunting pack which uses its ability to sweat to run its prey to exhaustion and death. Running thus promotes both compassion and competition, good health, and community spirit.
Now I like to run, and wish I made the time to do more of it. But what I really like is to pick up heavy things. My legs feel soooo goood squatting 100+ kilos. I dream of deadlifting 200 kg, that is going to be so fantastic! Maybe I got too much of the neanderthal gene, who knows.
And why do people look in awe at men who are strong. I mean really strong. Guys who are great runners just don't inspire the same sense of awe in others, not unless you know. Running skill doesn't radiate in the same way.
Still, a talk worth watching
Friday, November 4, 2011
Drug resistance
Rolf Muller (spelling!!) uses bacteria to produce compounds which inhibit/destroy tuburculosis bacteria. But of course resistance develops.
So, an interesting question: The ones producing the compound have resistance, otherwise they would suicide. The resistance which evolves in the target bugs, does it evolve the same mechanism as the producers use?
Is the resistance capacity built in the genome but turned off in the wild type? Or does it develop a 'new' capacity?
So, an interesting question: The ones producing the compound have resistance, otherwise they would suicide. The resistance which evolves in the target bugs, does it evolve the same mechanism as the producers use?
Is the resistance capacity built in the genome but turned off in the wild type? Or does it develop a 'new' capacity?
Collaborative consumption revisited
Another TED talk on this subject, by a truly aweful speaker. But two good quotes:
and
with the last quote ties into earlier comments on Marx and fetishism.
Better stuff, easily shared
and
The brand is the voice, the product is the souvineer
with the last quote ties into earlier comments on Marx and fetishism.
The three H's
Great design should have
Head (it should be thoughtful)
Heart (it should have meaning and passion)
Hand (it must be well executed)
Head (it should be thoughtful)
Heart (it should have meaning and passion)
Hand (it must be well executed)
Octopus
My favourite marine animal, except that I am fascinated by all the other ones. Clippings come from Deep Intellect, by Sy Montgomery (Orion Magazine)
Octopus intelligence evolved when they abandoned their shell, enabling novel hunting and sheltering strategies.
Contrast with human intelligence, which is supposed to be driven by social needs.
He also offers a great description of the beasts:
"No alien is so startlingly strange. ... an animal whose eight arms are covered with thousands of suckers that taste as well as feel; a mollusk with a beak like a parrot and venom like a snake and a tongue covered with teeth; a creature who can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink"
He later mentions that they can see (at least colors) with their skin
Morgan Spurlock: The greatest TED Talk ever sold
Morgan Spurlock
This guy is great fun! The talk is on the making of his movie on product placement/branding-- the one where he had companies pay to have their products placed in a documentary about product placement.
Embrace you fear-- that could be his credo, and the lesson from the film. The people who bought in saw huge returns. The *big name* companies all turned him down. Too risky, not enough "control". I also got the feeling (he shows some of his presentations) that they viewed him with total contempt, as if his very existance was an insult to their sanctity.
This guy is great fun! The talk is on the making of his movie on product placement/branding-- the one where he had companies pay to have their products placed in a documentary about product placement.
Embrace you fear-- that could be his credo, and the lesson from the film. The people who bought in saw huge returns. The *big name* companies all turned him down. Too risky, not enough "control". I also got the feeling (he shows some of his presentations) that they viewed him with total contempt, as if his very existance was an insult to their sanctity.
Bruce Aylward: How we'll stop polio for good
Bruce Aylward
A great man, with a great quest. We do have the little bastard on the run, and I agree, we MUST finish it off.
Polio took my father's brother at age 16.
A great man, with a great quest. We do have the little bastard on the run, and I agree, we MUST finish it off.
Polio took my father's brother at age 16.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Mencken quote
To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.
from Wikiquote page on
H L Mencken. 1920
from Wikiquote page on
H L Mencken. 1920
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Bill Ford: A future beyond traffic gridlock
Bill Ford
Good talk, but he does have a bad vocal tick
Good talk, but he does have a bad vocal tick
Will smart, networked cars save us?
Fords original vision was to give everyone personal mobility. Pre car, most people lived their entire life in a 25 mile radius circle.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Entrepenurial science
The grand vision:
Understand viral evolution, both inter and intra host, so we can stop the bastards.
How do I fill in the details?
What do I bring?
Napolean had the art of artillery, thomas had machine learning. And me?
What do I see, which is currently not in the world yet should be?
Theory of contagion- done
Vaccines- done
Antibiotics- done
Vector control- done
Mathematical epidemiology- done
Emergence of resistance- done
Quasi species- done
Genetics (geno to pheno)- done
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Resistance pathways
We know virus develop resistance to drugs. The interesting cases are when resistance depends on combinations of mutations; mutational pathways.
The concept pathway implies an order. Is there one?
fitness landscapse or seascape?
survival of the fittest or the flattest?
colonizer/competitor dynamics?
What is a reference sequence? Does this define the virus???
Possible titles "Tracing evolutionary pathways through seascapes and bottlenecks"
hmmm-- ship in a bottle, early mariners, exploring, setting up trade outposts???
The concept pathway implies an order. Is there one?
fitness landscapse or seascape?
survival of the fittest or the flattest?
colonizer/competitor dynamics?
What is a reference sequence? Does this define the virus???
Possible titles "Tracing evolutionary pathways through seascapes and bottlenecks"
hmmm-- ship in a bottle, early mariners, exploring, setting up trade outposts???
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
How to do high-impact work
What question do people want answered?
Need to be early or first, find/define an emerging subject.
HIV was a field before Thomas, but not statistical learning and HIV.
Protein docking was a field before Thomas, but not with flexible protein structures.
What is mine?
Thomas suggests integrative model stretching from cell to population
Need to be early or first, find/define an emerging subject.
HIV was a field before Thomas, but not statistical learning and HIV.
Protein docking was a field before Thomas, but not with flexible protein structures.
What is mine?
Thomas suggests integrative model stretching from cell to population
rates of HIV evolution
Prabhav suggested comparing rates of viral evolution within patients to those within a transmission cluster.
We could measure/compare rates of adoptation to treatment to rates of adoptation to a new host.
The confound is that we identify the transmission clusters via genetic distance. It would be easier if we had a known transmission chain.
Alternately, EuResist does have ~6000 cases with two samples taken under one treatment. We could compare rates here with rates after a treatment change.
We could measure/compare rates of adoptation to treatment to rates of adoptation to a new host.
The confound is that we identify the transmission clusters via genetic distance. It would be easier if we had a known transmission chain.
Alternately, EuResist does have ~6000 cases with two samples taken under one treatment. We could compare rates here with rates after a treatment change.
Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China
Yang Lan
The Oprah of China.
This talk opened my eyes to the currents flowing in modern China. China faces the same social unrest as we see everywhere in the world today. Dissaffected youth, aware that the system is set up to exploit them, and angry about it.
The Oprah of China.
This talk opened my eyes to the currents flowing in modern China. China faces the same social unrest as we see everywhere in the world today. Dissaffected youth, aware that the system is set up to exploit them, and angry about it.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies
Richard Wilkinson
Stuff we knew before, pulled together into a coherent presentation.
Differences in measures of social well-being (almost ALL such measures) in Western democracies show zero correlation with national GDP. Within each country, however, they show incredibly strong correlation with household income.
Stuff we knew before, pulled together into a coherent presentation.
Differences in measures of social well-being (almost ALL such measures) in Western democracies show zero correlation with national GDP. Within each country, however, they show incredibly strong correlation with household income.
Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid
Justin Hall-Tipping
He presents some of the possibilities offered by carbon nanotubes.
A window which can lighten or darken, in response to a 2V current running for a few microseconds.
Solar power generation.
The idea that each house generates its own electricity this way, and can beam it to its neighbors (as light).
Infrared glasses
He presents some of the possibilities offered by carbon nanotubes.
A window which can lighten or darken, in response to a 2V current running for a few microseconds.
Solar power generation.
The idea that each house generates its own electricity this way, and can beam it to its neighbors (as light).
Infrared glasses
NGS review/ Beerenwinkel
Ultra-deep sequencing for the analysis of viral populations
Beerenwinkel and Zagordi,
Curr Opin Virol 2011:1
Very general. Presents the process and challenges. Lists major software for haplotype identificaiton, but does not provide a comprehensive review of their capacities and differences.
filed under beerenwinkel_cov_2011.pdf
Beerenwinkel and Zagordi,
Curr Opin Virol 2011:1
Very general. Presents the process and challenges. Lists major software for haplotype identificaiton, but does not provide a comprehensive review of their capacities and differences.
filed under beerenwinkel_cov_2011.pdf
competition-colonization dynamics
Competition-colonization dynamics
An ecology approach to quasispecies dynamics and virulence evolution in RNA viruses
Samuel Ojosnegros, Niko Beerenwinkel, and Esteban Domingo
Not the first or best paper on the subject, just the one I read today. A single viral clone, raised in a pure cell culture, evolved into two differnt subpopulations. The phenotypes of the two clades clearly displayed either the competitor (less fit, less virulent, but interfered with replication of the other type) or the colonization (more fit, more virulent) strategy.
stored as ojosnegros2011.pdf
An ecology approach to quasispecies dynamics and virulence evolution in RNA viruses
Samuel Ojosnegros, Niko Beerenwinkel, and Esteban Domingo
Not the first or best paper on the subject, just the one I read today. A single viral clone, raised in a pure cell culture, evolved into two differnt subpopulations. The phenotypes of the two clades clearly displayed either the competitor (less fit, less virulent, but interfered with replication of the other type) or the colonization (more fit, more virulent) strategy.
stored as ojosnegros2011.pdf
Sunday, October 23, 2011
re: thirteen observations
In reply to thirteen observations
Uncle Stan gives several stories illustrating bureaucratic bloat in the US and its human costs. He is more supportive of the Tea Party, because of their goal to get rid of some of this regulation.
Glenn –
As you speculated from your distant perch that Americans don’t seem to be very happy these days, I began to speculate on the reasons why such an impression might be conveyed abroad. As previously stated, I cannot judge the mindset of our country as a whole (where there appears to be massive indifference to many issues that excite the press), but I can relate a couple of recent incidents with which I am very familiar, and which seem symptomatic of others’ frustrations that I read or hear about.
Several years ago, in response to requests for shovel-ready stimulus projects, Baldwin County (where I am located) submitted a grant request for funds to create transit hubs at key points throughout our county (which is many times the geographic size of Luxembourg). It was a relatively modest request for $1.8 million, which in time was approved. However, before the money could be spent, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) wished to have answered a battery of questions. The County Commission responded. The FTA replied to that with more questions. There ensued a bureaucratic ping-pong game that finally tired out the Commission, which determined the game not worth the candle and then sent the money back. The effect was to prolong the eventual creation of a transit infrastructure with potential for substantial economic development and job creation. It will come about, in the fullness of time, by other means, but at a much slower pace. Meanwhile, the incident created a few new Republican voters. Similar situations elsewhere may account for the slow pace of “stimulus” spending, although a few billion has gone down the drain in failed “green energy” efforts.
My wife, Beth, as you know, is an audiologist (She also qualifies for Intertel, an organization for those with IQs in the upper one percentile). She has practiced that profession with a high and broad degree of skill and success for several decades. A few years back her professional society decided to upgrade the profession’s image by converting its largely MS/MA, mostly female membership to AuD. That, of course, required an expensive return to campus to attain the necessary certification and elevated doctoral designation. Existing practitioners were grandfathered (grandmothered?) in legitimacy, and Beth determined that she was of an age that cost and inconvenience could never be amortized within the remaining span of her career—so fugettaboutit. For awhile this was no problem. She was even appointed by our Governor to a three year term on the state licensing board for audiologists and speech pathologists, where she diligently served with distinction, but not with pay. She came to notice of the VA, which offered her contract (non-Civil Service) work in evaluation of hearing disabilities. She was happy to accept, and submitted the paperwork. It took about eight months of back and forth communication, and more paper, before she was taken on board, part-time. After 18 months she was laid off. There were enough younger, more prestigious, and less knowledgeable AuDs to replace her—although the VA continues to send her $0 payroll statements.
Soldering on, Beth managed to gain some short stints at a Pensacola general and a children’s hospital, as well as with a local hearing aids dealer. But the rules began to change. Now it was required that she obtain a registry number as a Medicare provider. Otherwise, she could not be hired, even to substitute. This entailed a 42 page application, signed off on by an established AuD or MD, as sponsor. No problem, except that long after submission she had not heard a word. She re-did and resubmitted her application—certified mail, signature required (and obtained). Still no response. She wrote to our congressman. He enquired and finally the authorities wrote back that they knew nothing about her. At their suggestion, she tried again. Eventually, several days ago, she and her sponsor each received a several page letter stating that she had submitted an incorrect form (the code designation of which was not among those requested or that she prepared), and was therefore not to be granted the precious number at this time. Meanwhile, she has no work, has a pending offer (one day per week) with another local hearing aids dealer, and must muster her forces to create another application from scratch. Does she find this situation irritating? You bet she does.
The foregoing stories are not atypical. I hear similar stories from others. How does such an atmosphere come about? The short answer is bureaucratic bloat. Within the Federal Civil Service the surest route to promotion is to be overburdened with paper and in need of more assistants. I saw this, myself, as my naval career progressed. People supervised is a key ingredient to pay grade evaluation. Clearly, the more complex, detailed, and pettifogging the paper processing chain can be made, the more people are needed to keep it in operation. The Civil Service has kept this basic principle in place for many, many years. It got worse in the early 60s when JFK, inspired by Wisconsin’s ground-breaking example, issued an executive order authorizing support for Federal employee unionization, at a time when any GS-3 or 4 secretary made far more in salary and bennies than her average civilian counterpart, and had no fear in this life of losing her job. LBJ saluted the idea, and had it made into law. Is it any wonder that career Federal employees (and DC area residents, in general) overwhelmingly vote a straight Democrat ticket, election after election? And what was the percentage of NEW Federal employees added to the rolls after January 2009? Why do you suppose that happened?
While the Hatch Act precludes any sort of open campaigning by Civil Service or military members, the Civil Service unions pour enormous funding into Democrat campaigns. (Military folk may not join unions, and predominantly vote Republican, these days. DoD civilian employees, however, remain in the Democrat camp). It does not matter who sits in the White House or the Congress. Most public policy originates within the administration, and arises from the creative minds of Civil Service staffers who clearly understand the cultural rules that affect their careers. The more they can promote for themselves to do, the better. Appointed officials of either party at the top levels have little time to consider the details, only the broad scope briefed to them on actions that require their endorsement. The result is ever increasing complexity, as the Federal administration grows and grows, and effective decision-making slows and slows. (It ought to be noted that Congress has no Civil Service. It operates on the old-fashioned spoils system, and seems to take pretty good care of itself). Is it any wonder that the Administration makes so much fuss over job security for teachers and first responders at state levels? These constituents carry great emotional appeal and belong to the same unions—an endless source of political allies.
We hear a lot of talk about job creation as a first priority. It’s more of a first talking point, unless government jobs are the subject. Like cancer, the current system has no easy cure. Cancer, however, whether biological or political, eventually kills. We see this throughout Europe today. But why should Americans be unhappy?
Your own pursuits seem to be really interesting. Keep at them. Love, Uncle Stan
Uncle Stan gives several stories illustrating bureaucratic bloat in the US and its human costs. He is more supportive of the Tea Party, because of their goal to get rid of some of this regulation.
Glenn –
As you speculated from your distant perch that Americans don’t seem to be very happy these days, I began to speculate on the reasons why such an impression might be conveyed abroad. As previously stated, I cannot judge the mindset of our country as a whole (where there appears to be massive indifference to many issues that excite the press), but I can relate a couple of recent incidents with which I am very familiar, and which seem symptomatic of others’ frustrations that I read or hear about.
Several years ago, in response to requests for shovel-ready stimulus projects, Baldwin County (where I am located) submitted a grant request for funds to create transit hubs at key points throughout our county (which is many times the geographic size of Luxembourg). It was a relatively modest request for $1.8 million, which in time was approved. However, before the money could be spent, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) wished to have answered a battery of questions. The County Commission responded. The FTA replied to that with more questions. There ensued a bureaucratic ping-pong game that finally tired out the Commission, which determined the game not worth the candle and then sent the money back. The effect was to prolong the eventual creation of a transit infrastructure with potential for substantial economic development and job creation. It will come about, in the fullness of time, by other means, but at a much slower pace. Meanwhile, the incident created a few new Republican voters. Similar situations elsewhere may account for the slow pace of “stimulus” spending, although a few billion has gone down the drain in failed “green energy” efforts.
My wife, Beth, as you know, is an audiologist (She also qualifies for Intertel, an organization for those with IQs in the upper one percentile). She has practiced that profession with a high and broad degree of skill and success for several decades. A few years back her professional society decided to upgrade the profession’s image by converting its largely MS/MA, mostly female membership to AuD. That, of course, required an expensive return to campus to attain the necessary certification and elevated doctoral designation. Existing practitioners were grandfathered (grandmothered?) in legitimacy, and Beth determined that she was of an age that cost and inconvenience could never be amortized within the remaining span of her career—so fugettaboutit. For awhile this was no problem. She was even appointed by our Governor to a three year term on the state licensing board for audiologists and speech pathologists, where she diligently served with distinction, but not with pay. She came to notice of the VA, which offered her contract (non-Civil Service) work in evaluation of hearing disabilities. She was happy to accept, and submitted the paperwork. It took about eight months of back and forth communication, and more paper, before she was taken on board, part-time. After 18 months she was laid off. There were enough younger, more prestigious, and less knowledgeable AuDs to replace her—although the VA continues to send her $0 payroll statements.
Soldering on, Beth managed to gain some short stints at a Pensacola general and a children’s hospital, as well as with a local hearing aids dealer. But the rules began to change. Now it was required that she obtain a registry number as a Medicare provider. Otherwise, she could not be hired, even to substitute. This entailed a 42 page application, signed off on by an established AuD or MD, as sponsor. No problem, except that long after submission she had not heard a word. She re-did and resubmitted her application—certified mail, signature required (and obtained). Still no response. She wrote to our congressman. He enquired and finally the authorities wrote back that they knew nothing about her. At their suggestion, she tried again. Eventually, several days ago, she and her sponsor each received a several page letter stating that she had submitted an incorrect form (the code designation of which was not among those requested or that she prepared), and was therefore not to be granted the precious number at this time. Meanwhile, she has no work, has a pending offer (one day per week) with another local hearing aids dealer, and must muster her forces to create another application from scratch. Does she find this situation irritating? You bet she does.
The foregoing stories are not atypical. I hear similar stories from others. How does such an atmosphere come about? The short answer is bureaucratic bloat. Within the Federal Civil Service the surest route to promotion is to be overburdened with paper and in need of more assistants. I saw this, myself, as my naval career progressed. People supervised is a key ingredient to pay grade evaluation. Clearly, the more complex, detailed, and pettifogging the paper processing chain can be made, the more people are needed to keep it in operation. The Civil Service has kept this basic principle in place for many, many years. It got worse in the early 60s when JFK, inspired by Wisconsin’s ground-breaking example, issued an executive order authorizing support for Federal employee unionization, at a time when any GS-3 or 4 secretary made far more in salary and bennies than her average civilian counterpart, and had no fear in this life of losing her job. LBJ saluted the idea, and had it made into law. Is it any wonder that career Federal employees (and DC area residents, in general) overwhelmingly vote a straight Democrat ticket, election after election? And what was the percentage of NEW Federal employees added to the rolls after January 2009? Why do you suppose that happened?
While the Hatch Act precludes any sort of open campaigning by Civil Service or military members, the Civil Service unions pour enormous funding into Democrat campaigns. (Military folk may not join unions, and predominantly vote Republican, these days. DoD civilian employees, however, remain in the Democrat camp). It does not matter who sits in the White House or the Congress. Most public policy originates within the administration, and arises from the creative minds of Civil Service staffers who clearly understand the cultural rules that affect their careers. The more they can promote for themselves to do, the better. Appointed officials of either party at the top levels have little time to consider the details, only the broad scope briefed to them on actions that require their endorsement. The result is ever increasing complexity, as the Federal administration grows and grows, and effective decision-making slows and slows. (It ought to be noted that Congress has no Civil Service. It operates on the old-fashioned spoils system, and seems to take pretty good care of itself). Is it any wonder that the Administration makes so much fuss over job security for teachers and first responders at state levels? These constituents carry great emotional appeal and belong to the same unions—an endless source of political allies.
We hear a lot of talk about job creation as a first priority. It’s more of a first talking point, unless government jobs are the subject. Like cancer, the current system has no easy cure. Cancer, however, whether biological or political, eventually kills. We see this throughout Europe today. But why should Americans be unhappy?
Your own pursuits seem to be really interesting. Keep at them. Love, Uncle Stan
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