This was from our diving classes last weekend. I used my Kodak Playsport and its new base. I think it came out quite well! The nimrod at 0:45 who can't get his BCD set quite right and is flailing around with his butt about to breach is me. Yay!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Car Repair
Had to fix the FredMobile yesterday. It cranked, but it wouldn't start. No spark to the plugs. We narrowed it down to a few things - the distributor, the coil or the camshaft sensor. Fortunately, all three are located in the distributor in the 2001 Nissan Altima. Talk about getting lucky!
Well, it wasn't all luck. I did have some help.
Well, it wasn't all luck. I did have some help.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
In The Future, We'll All Be Extremists
I don't read much out of Real Clear Politics these days. Oh, I look through the list of articles and blog posts every day, but I typically click on one at most. Recently, there have been a spate of articles with titles claiming that the Republicans are extremists or the Taliban or hostage-takers or terrorists or something similar, all because they want to cut spending.
When did it become extremist to suggest that you shouldn't spend more than you earn? In fact, the Republicans are taking a much, much milder position and are only recommending we spend five to six hundred billion dollars per year more than we earn.
That's extremist? That's the Taliban?
I'd suggest people spend a little time reading the Athens News and ekathimerini. Greece didn't have any problem raising their debt ceiling, but in the end, they all became "extremists" in one way or another.
When did it become extremist to suggest that you shouldn't spend more than you earn? In fact, the Republicans are taking a much, much milder position and are only recommending we spend five to six hundred billion dollars per year more than we earn.
That's extremist? That's the Taliban?
I'd suggest people spend a little time reading the Athens News and ekathimerini. Greece didn't have any problem raising their debt ceiling, but in the end, they all became "extremists" in one way or another.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Wacky Headline Of The Day
Forbes: What Were Gandhi's Views On Capitalism?
Geeze, I don't know. What were Audrey Hepburn's views on physics?
It took a while for the members of the Princeton Physics Department to convince me, but I now have faith in their theories about electromagnetics.
Geeze, I don't know. What were Audrey Hepburn's views on physics?
Thursday, July 28, 2011
All Roads Lead To Austerity
Yesterday, Bloomberg contributor Scott Minerd wrote an editorial suggesting that the Euros need to get their act together. It was a pretty standard summary of conventional wisdom and included this bit:
If, up to now, you've lived like this:
"Austerity" as discussed in the press is always in terms of the State. If the State has to cut its spending, everyone wrings their hands and cries out, "Austerity!" Imagine, instead, that the State is given the top spot in the carving up of the economy and is allowed to get the money it wants to spend from wherever it can. If it takes from the rich, then the rich won't be using that money to do what they do now - hire people and invest. Their money doesn't just sit there, it works. Whoever were the recipients of their spending and investments will have less. Austerity!
This is not an accurate representation of what the rich do with their money.
Now let's assume the banks are forced to forgive government debts. If that happens, the banks will have fewer reserves and will have to either cut off new lending or call in existing loans for payment or both in order to maintain proper reserve-lending ratios. Whoever was going to borrow that money and whoever has to pay their loans on demand is going to have less to spend. Austerity!
What the folks who oppose "austerity" are saying is that the State shouldn't reduce spending. The State should be given the first cut off the economy. You should be allowed to keep private property, but only so long as the State is given what it wants before you get to use yours.
There's a name for that.
* - If you decide, as most of the world has tried, to have your central bank simply print money and hand it out so no one has to cut numerical spending, you debase the currency and everyone has less real money to spend. Austerity!
Austerity Doesn’t WorkTo me, this doesn't make any sense at all. Austerity isn't a solution to a problem, it's a consequence of our actions. The math is simple.
In short, the data are proving that without currency devaluation, austerity simply doesn’t work. Crisis in Europe has not been averted; it has only been modestly postponed. Yet policy makers remain committed to the path of waiting and hoping for the best, seemingly oblivious to the need for significant structural reform.
If, up to now, you've lived like this:
Spending1 = Earning + Borrowingand now your creditors won't lend you any more money, you have to live like this:
Spending2 = Earning.This is simplified, but it's close enough. From these equations, it's naturally obvious that
Spending1 > Spending2.That is, what you will be able to spend tomorrow will be less than it is today. That is the very definition of austerity. Someone in the economy is going to have less to spend, whether that be the rich, the middle class, the banks, the government or some other group who can be saddled with the spending cuts*. What Scott and the others who claim "austerity doesn't work" are actually claiming is that the State should have primacy.
"Austerity" as discussed in the press is always in terms of the State. If the State has to cut its spending, everyone wrings their hands and cries out, "Austerity!" Imagine, instead, that the State is given the top spot in the carving up of the economy and is allowed to get the money it wants to spend from wherever it can. If it takes from the rich, then the rich won't be using that money to do what they do now - hire people and invest. Their money doesn't just sit there, it works. Whoever were the recipients of their spending and investments will have less. Austerity!
Now let's assume the banks are forced to forgive government debts. If that happens, the banks will have fewer reserves and will have to either cut off new lending or call in existing loans for payment or both in order to maintain proper reserve-lending ratios. Whoever was going to borrow that money and whoever has to pay their loans on demand is going to have less to spend. Austerity!
What the folks who oppose "austerity" are saying is that the State shouldn't reduce spending. The State should be given the first cut off the economy. You should be allowed to keep private property, but only so long as the State is given what it wants before you get to use yours.
There's a name for that.
* - If you decide, as most of the world has tried, to have your central bank simply print money and hand it out so no one has to cut numerical spending, you debase the currency and everyone has less real money to spend. Austerity!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Had A Great Day On Sunday
I've been trying to help my daughter learn how to become good at the things she wants to do. After listening to Talent is Overrated (highly recommended!), I gave her a small homework assignment.
I pulled a large excerpt out of Jerry Pournelle's essay, How To Get My Job, and had her read that and then rewrite parts of it substituting the things she wants to do for becoming an author. For example, I took the paragraph below and had her rewrite it substituting getting good grades for being an author.
Yesterday, she went up to our local handball courts and did 60 or so reps of the exercises recommended in the video on her own. I know for a fact that if she repeats this process even just 10 times, she'll see a big difference in the way she plays and the game will be more fun. She's bought into the process somewhat and now all we need is a little bit of consistency to get the payoff. God willing, the lesson will stick and I'll have a tool to help her with other things in the future.
Life is good.
I pulled a large excerpt out of Jerry Pournelle's essay, How To Get My Job, and had her read that and then rewrite parts of it substituting the things she wants to do for becoming an author. For example, I took the paragraph below and had her rewrite it substituting getting good grades for being an author.
To be an author, you must first be a writer; and while it's easy to be an author, being a writer is hard work. Surprisingly, it may be only hard work; that is, while some people certainly have more talent for writing than others, everyone has some. The good news is that nearly anyone who wants to badly enough can make some kind of living at writing. The bad news is that wanting to badly enough means being willing to devote the time and work necessary to learn the trade.I did the same for another passage and playing soccer. The lesson seemed to take, so I had her go on to YouTube and find an instructional soccer video that showed how to do one of the things her coach told her she needed to work on. She picked this video.
Yesterday, she went up to our local handball courts and did 60 or so reps of the exercises recommended in the video on her own. I know for a fact that if she repeats this process even just 10 times, she'll see a big difference in the way she plays and the game will be more fun. She's bought into the process somewhat and now all we need is a little bit of consistency to get the payoff. God willing, the lesson will stick and I'll have a tool to help her with other things in the future.
Life is good.
Here We Go!
... joining the Euros in blaming and questioning the ratings agencies.
Who Elected The Ratings Agencies?
S&P, Moody's Irrelevant
I suppose that if I was spending way more than I was taking in and had to borrow to make my debt servicing payments or risk default and bankruptcy, I'd blame the ratings agencies, too. It's all their fault! If it weren't for them, I could go on forever borrowing and borrowing and borrowing! I'll bet they're in league with Goldman Sachs! Curse them all!
Uh huh. That works. And if I'm overweight, it's the fault of the scale.
Shut up, do you hear me? Shut up!
Who Elected The Ratings Agencies?
S&P, Moody's Irrelevant
I suppose that if I was spending way more than I was taking in and had to borrow to make my debt servicing payments or risk default and bankruptcy, I'd blame the ratings agencies, too. It's all their fault! If it weren't for them, I could go on forever borrowing and borrowing and borrowing! I'll bet they're in league with Goldman Sachs! Curse them all!
Uh huh. That works. And if I'm overweight, it's the fault of the scale.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Kung Fu Baby
A good friend and his wife just had a little girl. Their new baby is making some kung fu moves herself, so he turned me on to this video. This isn't his girl, but it's pretty funny stuff. Enjoy!
Say Anything
... Barack and the press will slavishly report it as having some basis in reality.
I've missed a lot of the debt ceiling hoo-hah, but I took a moment to read the President's speech this morning. It turns out we're about to eat rancid food while the weather surprises us, assuming that the trucks carrying the rancid food aren't lost when the bridges they drive over crumble beneath them.
Medical research? We're borrowing to do medical research? Maybe if you didn't hunt down companies that made profits and shoot their management teams as an example to others, you wouldn't need the government to pay for medical research.
The speech is really an odd one. The intellectual foundations are fantasy and the cloud gargoyles built upon them are even stranger. The speech writers must have been allowed to make things up as they went along, knowing that he'd say absolutely anything.
What a weird dude.
If we don't raise taxes, giant chickens will eat us all.
I've missed a lot of the debt ceiling hoo-hah, but I took a moment to read the President's speech this morning. It turns out we're about to eat rancid food while the weather surprises us, assuming that the trucks carrying the rancid food aren't lost when the bridges they drive over crumble beneath them.
We all want a government that lives within its means, but there are still things we need to pay for as a country – things like new roads and bridges; weather satellites and food inspection; services to veterans and medical research.This is sheer idiocy. He's not even trying to make sense any more. His 2010 budget spent $3.4T. If you can't figure out how to keep our dirt roads from washing out for that kind of scratch, you could always just pave them with one dollar bills. As for the satellites, just what in the world does that mean? Are they going to be pulled down from the sky and repo'ed by the Chinese?
Medical research? We're borrowing to do medical research? Maybe if you didn't hunt down companies that made profits and shoot their management teams as an example to others, you wouldn't need the government to pay for medical research.
The speech is really an odd one. The intellectual foundations are fantasy and the cloud gargoyles built upon them are even stranger. The speech writers must have been allowed to make things up as they went along, knowing that he'd say absolutely anything.
What a weird dude.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Bat Ray City
Well, this weekend, my sons and I got scuba certified. Yay! I've been wanting to do this for almost 40 years and now I gone and done it. I'm beat, so this will be short. On our fourth ocean dive, we saw lots of cool critters, but the best part may have been this huge gathering of bat rays we swam over. 100 of them, easy. We got close to some big ones before they got up and flew off. While we didn't have a camera, I found some good YouTube videos of them. It looked something like this:
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Doesn't This Seem Like Changing The Rules In The Middle Of The Game?
Say you're playing Monopoly with Joey, Timmy, Alice and Maria. Timmy's about to go bankrupt. If he does, then he'll take the soda with him when he leaves. We can't allow that! Here, let's change the rules so Timmy's mortgaged properties cost only half as much to get out of hock.
Uh oh! Alice is underwater on most of her properties! If she leaves, Joey will be impossible to live with because he's got a crush on her. Let's give Alice a no-interest loan from the bank!
Maria? Screw her. She's winning.
Megan McArdle sums up the latest (step 15 of a 33-step process* to save the Euro) within which is a paragraph that looks like nothing so much as our Monopoly game above.
Come on, everyone! Europe is having a big party! Everyone's invited!
* - Or is it step 27 of a 46-step process?
Uh oh! Alice is underwater on most of her properties! If she leaves, Joey will be impossible to live with because he's got a crush on her. Let's give Alice a no-interest loan from the bank!
Maria? Screw her. She's winning.
Megan McArdle sums up the latest (step 15 of a 33-step process* to save the Euro) within which is a paragraph that looks like nothing so much as our Monopoly game above.
Basically, both the Greek bonds owned by banks and insurers, and the loans Greece has received from the European stabilization fund, will have their terms extended as far as possible. The ratings agencies are going to call this a selective default (only the ratings of bonds which are part of the private debt swap will be affected), which for reasons that are not clear to me, is supposed to only last a few days before the debt swap actually starts to raise their credit rating. The European Central Bank will waive its rules against accepted defaulted collateral, so hopefully, the Greek banking system will not melt down. The austerity plan will go forward as previously outlined.Well, we're glad that's settled! What do we want on our pizza? Is everyone good with pepperoni?
* - Or is it step 27 of a 46-step process?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Two Separate Worlds
Among other things, every day I read a few political sites and lots of financial ones. Every day, these sites diverge just a little bit more until they now resemble reports from completely different planets.
The financial sites I read, particularly those dealing with the debt crisis, tell you in nauseating detail how wages and spending have gotten out of control over the last few decades, resulting in certain doom for many European countries and Japan as well. Not kind of trouble, not a problem they can navigate with some skill and compromise, but rock-bottom fiscal collapse.
Greece is now paying in the 30's for 2-year loans. The 30's!
Meanwhile, the political pages are full of accusation that the US debt ceiling talks are being held up by crazed radicals who refuse to compromise and allow yet more taxing, borrowing and spending. The Gang of (6? 20?) Whatever compromise from the Senate will cut the deficit by a whopping 3.7 trillion over the next decade. That sounds great until you realize that the projected deficits are currently more than 1 trillion a year, leaving us with an annual deficit of about 700 billion. Go big or go home, boys.
Annual deficits of 700 billion = ruin and catastrophe. You can see it in action all around you and yet those events don't seem to make it into the political pages except as cursory notes.
I don't blame the politicians who are making the speeches. They're doing what they're paid to do - pander and bloviate. I do blame the political press. It's like they have no idea at all why, how or where this is going on:
The financial sites I read, particularly those dealing with the debt crisis, tell you in nauseating detail how wages and spending have gotten out of control over the last few decades, resulting in certain doom for many European countries and Japan as well. Not kind of trouble, not a problem they can navigate with some skill and compromise, but rock-bottom fiscal collapse.
Greece is now paying in the 30's for 2-year loans. The 30's!
Meanwhile, the political pages are full of accusation that the US debt ceiling talks are being held up by crazed radicals who refuse to compromise and allow yet more taxing, borrowing and spending. The Gang of (6? 20?) Whatever compromise from the Senate will cut the deficit by a whopping 3.7 trillion over the next decade. That sounds great until you realize that the projected deficits are currently more than 1 trillion a year, leaving us with an annual deficit of about 700 billion. Go big or go home, boys.
Annual deficits of 700 billion = ruin and catastrophe. You can see it in action all around you and yet those events don't seem to make it into the political pages except as cursory notes.
I don't blame the politicians who are making the speeches. They're doing what they're paid to do - pander and bloviate. I do blame the political press. It's like they have no idea at all why, how or where this is going on:
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
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