Category: Uncategorized

I’m constantly amazed at how technology keeps improving and things keep getting easier. I’m reminded of this tonight by the RSS feeds of all of the sites I keep track of on the net. It used to be that I would have to go to each one of them to see what was new. That may not sound like much, but keep in mind that I am both an internet geek and an information junkie. I have lots of sites to keep track of. With the latest version of Safari from Apple, I can simply subscribe to the RSS feeds and it will tell me when there has been an update! This has cut 20 or 30 minutes a night from my web time, and that’s a good thing. I am posting this entry from a program called Xjournal. Not only do I not need to log onto Livejournal to post, it will automatically tell me when one of my friends has posted as well! The technology that made new things possible is now being automated and I can spend my time doing something else…
This reminds me of a book I’m reading called “The Earth is Flat” (thanks dad). It is a fairly thorough explanation of the rise and causes of outsourcing. One of the biggest causes is the digitization of data and the automated processing of it. It is trivial to send the data to India these days, so it is in greater and greater quantities. Tax returns, radiology readings, news wire operation, and of course programming are all done overseas now. The upside for them is obvious, they get hired to do work, and they do it well. Our benefit is multi-layered. We of course get less expensive labor, but we also get more time. Accountants that used to be bogged down with the minutia of tax codes can now spend more time with clients in planning and organizational meetings. Yup, technology is a wonderful thing, I highly recommend the book, it’s been very good so far and I am learning lots.

Isaac

There was a great op-ed piece in the Washington Post about WalMart today. Many many people complain about how walmart reduces wages. It isn’t clear how this can be done, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they’re right (for a rebuttal of this, see this post). The figures the writer of the article state the the yearly loss of wages is between 4 and 5 BILLION dollars a year. That’s a lot of dough, but it isn’t the whole story. It is estimated that people shopping at walmart save 50 billion a year on food alone by shopping there, it could be as much as 5 times that amount when you factor in all of the other stuff they sell. That is what you call helping poor people…
The beauty of this is that it is all done voluntarily, no one is forced to work or shop at a walmart. Walmart’s suppliers are free to sell or not to sell to them, and the people that work for those suppliers have the same freedom. The net result is that there are a lot of people employed (and this shows that what they earn is better than their alternatives) and a lot of people save money. For a synopsis of the article, check out the always informative cafe Hayek. Isaac

     I got sick and tired of looking at the same 15 or 20 pictures that been rotated randomly for my wallpaper on the computer. I don’t have that many of my pictures digitized, and besides, how long can you look at your own stuff? So I went on a downloading binge… I concentrated on music folks. My favorites so far are a picture of Glenn Gould crouching on the floor of a studio behind a bunch of mic stands, an amazing shot of Thurston Moore in concert, and a shot of the minutemen. Hmm, I just realized that they are all in B&W… There’s also a bunch of Kim Gordon, Bob Dylan, Kathleen Hannah, Jacqueline Dupre, Mudhoney (who could forget the cover of Superfuzz Big Muff?), and other assorted idols in my music pantheon… I’ve also added some “tube porn”, really beautiful shots of vacuum tubes… yes I am a geek, leave me alone! I am now filled with delight as my wallpaper changes each 5 minutes, sometimes it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

I have also downloaded a bunch of pictures of Louise Brooks, one of the few, if only actresses I have ever dreamed of…

Isaac

     I got involved in an online discussion about how digital has taken over the photo marketplace. This was on an analog discussion board, so some people were looking for someone to “blame”. This particular guy was claiming that it was a plot by greedy salespeople and manufacturers to make more money. I think we can all see how silly that is, the salespeople and manufacturers are indeed making money, but only because consumers are demanding those goods. Many people fail to apply the same logic to other companies. The same rules apply whether we are talking about cameras, oil, food, etc. Companies are ALWAYS trying to make as much money as they can. Some times are better than others, but it is up to them to figure out how to make money with the current demands of consumers. The consumption is worth more than the price of the good, otherwise the transaction wouldn’t have taken place. It’s a win win situation, even when the price is high. The corperation gets revenue and the consumer gets something they value more than the money they paid. It’s one of the primary misunderstandings involving trade, trade is always mutially beneficial, otherwise it doesn’t happen. Trade is always good wheather it’s between two people, a corperation and a person, or between countries, it is always mutually beneficial. We should worry more about the trade that is not allowed to happen…

     It was a nice thanksgiving at mom’s. Didn’t do much, but that’s fine with me:-) Ate lots of food and I got lots of leftovers since mom and Rick were going to hae another thanksgiving dinner today. Nathan gave me a great idea. I asked how hard it would be to make a pot pie, he suggested that I make a shepard’s pie instead. I did that today and thanksgiving leftovers have never tasted so good… I consider it a plus anytime I can cook something new and it turns out OK. I figure most of the turkey will be gone by tomorrw, that’ll give me the perfect excuse to use the pesto that Butler sent up with me… MMMMMMM. 

I just heard “She Bop” in Korean… I hope that the lyrics are about the same, but who knows… Anyway, I thought that was funny since I hadn’t heard that at all in several years. I’m heading down to my mother’s tonight for my second thanksgiving. It’ll be cool to see my brother twice in one week! Everyone have a great thanksgiving!

Isaac

I’m going down to dad’s and Butler’s tomorrow and will be back on monday. We’re going to have an early thanksgiving since Coleman (Butler’s daughter) is down from NYC. This means I’ll actually have two thanksgiving dinners this year. Usually I have to alternate between the parents, it’ll be good to see both for thanksgiving dinners this year:-) 

     I’m always reading or finding something to occupy my thoughts with, so when I gave up looking for my latest book (American Jesus… It’s a great book and I have no freaking clue what happened to it. I hope it reappears one day…) I picked up another. This guy presents a type of “practical psychology” in his book. Yes, I know how weird that sounds, but I think he has a lot of good things to say. One of the more important things is the idea that all of our psychological problems that aren’t chemical related are caused by passivity. Being passive about stresses is what causes all sorts of anxiety and depression in us. His antidote is to stop being passive and start making decisions so that our internal “autopilot” doesn’t get us into trouble. I have quite an intimate relationship with passivity, so I really honed in on this and tried to think about how I could apply it to some of my problems. 

     I love checking out the stats from my website. I get to see where people are from and how they found my website. I am proud to say that the most commen google search that results in a hit on my site is no longer “fainting sheep” but “demand curves slope downwards”. I get a real kick when something random happens, today a guy from Peru hit my site by looking for “The Breakup Song Greg Khin”. How great is that?! A guy in Peru, looking for Greg Khin, found my site. I love the internet:-)

     Just cleared another $1800 bucks on stuff I hadn’t used in a long time. This was the last of the big stuff, now I’ve got a bunch of little things, odds and ends left over. This latest set will go mostly towards Egypt, but it will also allow me to buy things for people for Christmas:-)