Internet is becoming more and more polluted with junk-mail, people selling crap, and businesses which don't know their place on the net. They're all trying to make this wonderful place (i.e.: the net) in to hell (i.e.: real world). Internet should be viewed as a place of imagination, creativity, and most of all: fun. Internet is not some really advanced tool for searching for people to rip-off. It's about searching, and finding, things which are useful, helpful, and promote the sharing of ideas. This is what this site is striving to become.

Microsoft joins '$100 laptop' project. I've yet to see them (or anyone) deliver on their dream of $100 for a laptop. They're selling a $100 laptop for $200! Will they ever lower the price? I really don't see it. How about having a ``$1/galon gas station'' (brand name), that sells gas at regular prices?

Eh, World economy on thin ice. Well, we can't have perpetual growth on finite resources---and with population rising, we -will- (this is certain) eventually reach the `top' point from which there can be no growth (without going to other planets, or inventing something that makes us radically more efficient).

Problem with being at the top is there's nowhere else to go except down.

For example, there's no way land could've supported this many people just 200 years ago. But thanks to tractors and new fertilizers we're ok for the next few decades (there's still plenty of land-to-turn-into-farms around the world). Beyond the next few decades, any projections at current population growth look downright scary. Picture 50 billion people on the planet---at current rate, this will happen surprisingly soon---unless there's some economic correction.

What we need now is an invention that will get us beyond the next few decades to the next few centuries (primarily a non-depleting abundant energy source). Without such a breakthrough, we'll likely to see a major `correction' of the population curve within the next century or so. And who knows, maybe it already started :-)

In other news, Black Holes Don't Trap Information Forever. So a continuous picture of the universe is an approximation of a discrete universe? Actually, that sort of makes sense---math is wrong! You draw a circle with pen and paper. Philosophically speaking, you might say ``this is an approximation for an ideal circle''---but what if there's no such thing as an ideal circle? What if your idea of an `ideal circle' is simply an approximation for the reality of a crooked circle you just drew? I guess that's what quantum mechanics actually implies.

- Alex; Fri May 16 07:46:16 EDT 2008
May 16th at wikipedia...

CBS buying CNet in online push. Neat. Wasn't cnet popular at some point in a very distant past?

- Alex; Thu May 15 07:37:07 EDT 2008

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens. Indeed. ``...ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom.'' Couldn't that be said about anything? For example, why wouldn't God create the universe through some huge big bang? Set up the universe in such a `perfect' way that it simply runs on its own (no matter what anyone does, it will still go through its motions, ignoring morality and religious high ground). I mean, if you say `oh, no, that's not it at all', then you're placing a limit on God's creative freedom (how dare you!).

Eh. More great news: Economic `misery' more widespread.

- Alex; Wed May 14 07:40:20 EDT 2008

Eh. JPMorgan CEO: 'The recession just started.' He may actually be right. The weird thing about this `recession' is that very few have felt it yet---I mean, really felt it. So prices got a bit higher, yet most people's lifestyle hasn't changed due to the bad economy (unless you were a realestate agent). While banks may be seriously suffering, most folks are oblivious to any credit issues. Trouble is, these things tend to spread---and slowly. In 1929, the market crashed. Nobody felt the `uh, oh, bad economy' overnight. That went way into 1930s and didn't recover until after WW2 in 1940s. I really hope it doesn't take that long in this case---but from the looks of it, it just doesn't seem likely that everything would fix itself by the `end of the year' as some analysts are hoping; and for the average folks, the bad parts haven't even started.

ie: Inflation is bad, etc., but... wait until deflation hits!

- Alex; Tue May 13 07:17:44 EDT 2008

Savers: Beware of falling interest rates. I'm a bit confused by all the people who suggest buying gold. That's probably the worst investment anyone can make. Heck, realestate is better! In fact, ``investing'' money in any commodity is foolish because of one simple fact: commodities don't do anything! They don't -grow-. Their value is exactly fixed to inflation and public opinion! If you buy 1oz of gold today, it will still be 1oz of gold in 10 years. If you want to protect yourself against a runaway inflation, sure, gold may be it, but then there are much safer places to invest besides gold. The runup in gold prices is equivalent to the runup in oil prices---so why not just buy Oil ETFs instead of Gold? It's the same bullshit investment, where you're -hoping- someone will want your commodity more than you in 5-10 years.

If you want to protect your money from inflation, the safest bet is to buy I-Bonds from US Treasury. With those, long term, you won't lose any money to inflation. You won't make much money either---just like with gold or any other commodity.

So for everyone worried about inflation short term, keep money in bank account, and ride it out. Long term, you should invest in stocks! Stocks -grow-. Literally. If you buy $100 worth of a growing company, it will outpace inflation---that's the definition of `growth' (ie: if the company doesn't grow, it will match inflation---if it under performs inflation, you've chosen poorly, tough luck).

Remember the story about the goose that lays golden eggs? Well, buying gold is like buying those eggs. Buying stocks is like buying that goose---who may or may not be inclined to produce a great many of those golden eggs.

Don't know which stocks to buy? Buy `SPY' (S&P500) and `DIA' (Dow Jones Industrial Average). Most corps in those are huge global corps (you're not just in US market). Also, most of the stocks are highly correlated with the overall market---so unless you have some unusual insight, insider information, or personally know the CEO, buying Indexes is probably the best that an average person (one who doesn't want to spend too much time thinking about such things) can do. Note that some corps -are- effectively indexes, such as BRKA/BRKB.

- Alex; Mon May 12 00:23:56 EDT 2008

How AT&T spilled the Starbucks beans. Indeed. I was really looking forward to having free wifi from starbucks (via the useragent thing from laptop). Now I'll just have to use the good folks from `linksys' to provide free connectivity everywhere.

Why your tax rate is going up. That should spell: It's time for the next revolution---as that seems to be the only thing that cuts government spending.

- Alex; Sun May 11 00:55:59 EDT 2008

NASA Offers $5000 a Month For You to Lie in Bed. Neat!

- Alex; Thu May 8 07:23:20 EDT 2008

Check this out: compare stock movement of ALU vs C. That's Alcatel-Lucent vs Citibank. Interesting, no? I think I should subtract the price of S&P500 for correlations make any sort of sense.

- Alex; Wed May 7 07:31:03 EDT 2008

Yahoo facing shareholder fireworks at July 3 annual meeting. Neat. The brilliant tactician that is Ballmer (eh, eh, chairs!) may have counted on killing Yahoo! one way or the other---either buy our their market share, or kill them from within and swoop in fast enough for google not to realize that it's just google and microsoft now as dominant internet search portals. This is really amusing to watch :-)

Fannie loss wider than forecast. I got this crazy idea that lowering rates, and increasing inflation (making stuff cost more!) isn't exactly the best thing to do for someone who is on the brink of a foreclosure. Long term, sure, it will stealthily help wipe out people's savings (and drive all that money back into circulation), but short term, inflation will cause more (not less) foreclosures---as people struggle to keep up with their mortgage, the rising price of everything, and seemingly constant salary that hasn't kept up with inflation for the last few years.

- Alex; Tue May 6 07:32:29 EDT 2008

Microsoft running out of options. How the heck could a corp with 44-billion dollars cash run out of `options'? What I don't see is why they have to compete in online advertising in the first place? They were never an ad-driven business, why the heck do they insist on wanting to follow in the footsteps of Google? They're an operating system company. Concentrate on that. They're an Office company. Concentrate on that. If they want to copy Google, they should let their employees work 20-50% of their time on -their-own- projects---on an off chance some of them might succeed. Heck, with 40 billion dollars in the bank they could keep this up for a long long while. There's no reason to copy Google. Heck, IBM nor Intel nor a dozen other successful corps aren't copying Google. Ballmer must have a personal grudge against Google---otherwise there's no good business sense for Microsoft to be so obsessed with Google.

- Alex; Mon May 5 20:38:11 EDT 2008

Microsoft withdraws bid for Yahoo. Wow. What is Yahoo! smoking? Their P/E is 61! So someone comes to you and offers you MORE money than you will earn in 61 YEARS (at their current glamorous pace; they're -way- past their prime these days), and they don't take it??? Wow. I think their stock will be back in $15 territory within a few weeks.

- Alex; Sun May 4 00:43:09 EDT 2008

Urgh! Amazon Sues New York State to Void Sales Tax Rules. People already bypass NYS tax for NYS based online stores by shipping things to their friends in NJ! Taxing online transactions is stupid---as they're not using the state's resources (such as roads, police, property, etc.). The business based in the state already pay taxes on their profits. The residents of the state already pay an income tax. What's the big freaking deal with dropping sales tax altogether?

Not only that, but flat sales tax suffers from the same issues as any ``flat tax''. It taxes the poor more than it taxes the rich. For example, ~8.4\% has a lot more utility value for me than for bill gates.

- Alex; Fri May 2 07:49:23 EDT 2008

Fed cut rates again: Greenback up against euro, yen even after central bank cut rates by another quarter of a percentage point. Horay for negative returns, eh? Quite literally, the rate you get at the bank is lower than inflation---so by simply `saving' your money you're losing a few percent per year! On the other hand, buying anything big (investment grade) right now also means you'll be paying inflated prices... rock and a hard place, eh?

Exxon profit soars, but misses forecasts. Let me try to explain why they're not evil (at least not in a financial sense): Every corp has an inventory of things---when they calculate profits, they can choose to use either LIFO or FIFO strategy to calculate profit. So lets say Exxon has 100 galons of oil (eh!) that they bought over the last five years. When they sell you 1 galon, are they selling the one they bought five years ago (and therefore have a huge return on investment, and profit!), or are they selling you the one they just bought a few days ago? My point is that it seems with higher oil prices, the profit on their inventory has `soared'---but they must be replenishing that inventory every day, at current prices. If prices fall in the next few years, they'll need to be taking a loss (ie: inventory costing more than they can sell the it for: since there will be other corps who don't keep as long an inventory and would be willing to sell for less). In other words, long term profits for Exxon don't look good, I'm sure they'll go back to being their `average' performing (or maybe underperforming) corp soon---just a matter of time until their cheap inventory is depleted and they need to show lower profits on the more expensive oil of today (btw, when I say inventory I don't mean physical inventory---likely futures contracts).

This is just too messed up: Seattle's pigeons shot with darts at risk of painful death.

- Alex; Thu May 1 07:37:19 EDT 2008

More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall. Ouch. There are only 2,300 of them left??? From the article: ``Bottom line is, there's too many of them. They've got to be managed. They ran out of pasture. ... They're eating themselves out of house and home.'' Hmm... I know another species that's on the brink of eating itself out of its habitat: humans!

And for those who said ``foreclosures will never happen in NYC'', well, it's coming: Foreclosure Rates On The Rise Across The City.

- Alex; Wed Apr 30 07:33:47 EDT 2008

Where do mathematical objects live? How about, where do probabilities come from? Why is that if I throw a fair coin a billion times, about half of them will be heads... yet there's no way to predict exactly what the next throw will be? So does the probability exist somewhere---that ensures half the coin tosses get heads and the other gets tails, or what? Similar question to the one in the article. Is math just a figment of our imagination?

Rebates might be too little, too late. This whole rebate check idea is rediculous! For those paying taxes, this is moronic. First you pay taxes, then they return a small chunk of change and claim it is their good will. Yeah. Right. Don't take my tax dollars in the first place! For those poor enough to actually get a free ride... well, you're screwed either way (that paycheck to paycheck survival will soon turn to meal to meal survival). For those lucky enough not to get anything (a bit over $75k/year for individuals), well, you're not too lucky yourself---the government takes a rather large bite of your paycheck in any case [not to mention that your $75k has about as much value as $30k did in 1998]---and to top it off, you don't get the meaningless satisfaction of getting $600 back! This rebate will do nothing to help get us out of a recession. Instead of... say putting this $110 billion to start a `national healthcare' program (so that millions of folks wouldn't have to spend $10k a year on health insurance every year---but maybe 5% more in taxes per year). Or they could buy 50 more B2 bombers.

Visa profit jumps 28%. Neat. ``...its profit rose 28% in the first three months of the year as customers charged more to their cards.'' What they don't tell is that profits for credit cards are derived from folks who maintain a balance. The above could be interpreted to mean: 28% more folks couldn't pay off their credit cards, and were forced to keep a balance paying outragious interest rates---that translated into 28% profit jump for Visa.'' Recession? Never!

Finished reading Equity Markets in Action: The Fundamentals of Liquidity, Market Structure & Trading by Robert A. Schwartz. This is so far the best book on how the market operates that I've seen. It is a bit dated: ends ~2004-ish time. There were many developments since that time (particularly with regard to NYSE) that aren't mentioned in the book (just speculated upon), but other than that, the book seems to provide a pretty good overview of how different markets work, the benefits of different market structures, etc., Highly recommend.

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder. Hmm... Hope the file system doesn't get killed because of this.

- Alex; Tue Apr 29 02:04:59 EDT 2008

Snipes gets 3 years in tax case. Woa. ``...been charged with felony conspiracy counts for participating in a scheme that rejects the legal foundation of the tax system.'' Neat! So... is there a legal foundation for the tax system, or does everyone just say there is??? Though Snipes should've realized that it's pointless to fight the government---specially when they can lock you up for not agreeing with them.

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says. Yeah. Right. The universe is only ~6000 years old!

- Alex; Fri Apr 25 01:12:44 EDT 2008

Ok, it seems I'm finally back online. For good this time. Hopefully. Apparently my old cable modem wasn't fully compatible with timewarner's new digital thingies, and was the thing causing all the problems. The cable guy just replaced modem with a new one, and everything suddenly worked perfectly.

- Alex; Sun Apr 20 01:31:40 EDT 2008

ISPs Meddled With Their Customers' Web Traffic, Study Finds. Urgh! When I get back online, I'll have a reason to be outraged.

- Alex; Fri Apr 18 07:53:27 EDT 2008

Urgh! Sorry about the websites for the last few days. My ISP is starting to piss me off. Also SSH is apparently not very redundunt---over a flaky connection, it seems to just pass along the errors (ie: how the heck would a small piece of -end- of the file would get uploaded?). For some reason, I thought it would rather fail the connection completely rather than allow random errors to crop up.

So here's what apparently happened with TimeWarner (my account is with Earthlink, but they get their cable from TimeWarner): two weeks ago, they remotely did a connectivity test to my modem, and said there's a `signal loss issue'. They setup an appointment for a technitian to come by about a week ago. Nobody came. The problem got a bit better (I could browse the web). Now the problem is back---called up TimeWarner, and they tell me -I- canceled the first appointment with a reason of ``changed mind''. What the f*ck? Unless they read this site, they wouldn't know the connection got better for a few days. I was waiting for them!!! In any case, apparently nobody lifted a finger to fix the issue (while initially I thought the problem fixed itself without their visit). Setup another appointment for next week (yah, another week without internet service).

Wrote a persistant upload script: for every file in a directory, continue uploading it until scp returns a 0 return code. Problem is that it only uploaded ~10 small .html files in the last two days: hopefully this news update & uplaod will fix the main page :-)

- Alex; Sat Apr 12 14:04:16 EDT 2008

Played a bit with OpenOffice Draw program, and it's pretty damn neat. I think I like it better than inkscape or dia---would likely primarily use OpenOffice for illustrations (figures, etc.) from now on. The cool thing is that you can embed other objects into your illustrations, such as equations, etc., and it's all seemless (unlike such feature was handled in MS Office; where -some- versions of Office wouldn't display right because they didn't have the full version and didn't include equation editor). In any case, wr0king with openoffice draw proved to be quite easy: export to PDF, and then simply include in LaTeX docs.

Trying out a new upload script.

- Alex; Thu Apr 10 07:42:00 EDT 2008

Economic woes worry stocks. Well, d0h. And last week many were hopeful that we're finally in the recovery model. Ha!

- Alex; Wed Apr 9 07:03:06 EDT 2008