Views by the Bay

Capital Gains

2012-01-28T23:29:00.001-08:00

The lower tax rate on long-term capital gains has entered the national conversation. Last year Warren Buffett called for higher taxes on the "mega-rich."

The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes.....The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 [with the most reported income] was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains.

Mitt Romney's tax returns showed that the bulk of his income is also derived from capital gains, and the argument raged anew. President Obama staked out his position in the State of the Union address:

Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary....But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes....Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule. If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.

The taxation of capital gains raises issues of public policy (e.g., incentives for business investment, differential treatment of capital versus labor) and fairness (e.g., tax-rate progressivity, taxing the same income twice).

The debate isn't helped by the inclusion of payroll taxes, which are a combination of tax, medical insurance, and savings plan, like an IRA or 401(k), for which one receives benefits later. There are even problems if we limit the discussion to the pure Federal income tax, where partisans either through ignorance or willful mischaracterization confuse marginal tax rates with effective rates. For example, a family of four with no itemized deductions would pay Federal Taxes of $10,656 (14.5%) on Adjusted Gross Income of $100,000:

Adjusted Gross Income  $100,000
Standard Deduction      (11,600)
Exemptions  (4x$3,700)  (14,800)

Taxable Income          $73,600

Tax per Tax Tables      $10,656

The family's tax bracket is 25%--the next dollar of income is taxed 25 cents--and its effective rate is 14.5%, lower than Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett excluding payroll taxes.

However this discussion plays out, one thing is certain: it's better to have capital gains than not. My January 6th portfolio is performing extraordinarily well, thanks to Netflix.

One Debate I Found Worthwhile

2012-01-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on the mid-1970's TV series Welcome Back, Kotter, is dead. The mean streets of New York City were already a cliché when the show came out in 1975. (The audience had been primed by such cultural landmarks as the 1961 Oscar-winning film, West Side Story, and 1965's best-selling Up the Down Staircase, about the trials of an inner-city schoolteacher.)

"Kotter" depicted in broad strokes how the lower-class kids of Brooklyn came together under the tutelage of wise schoolteacher Gabe Kotter, played by Gabe Kaplan. Robert Hegyes' Juan Epstein was the "Puerto Rican Jew," a strange-sounding hybrid that is still funny 30 years later. WBK wasn't a top-flight comedy in the class of "All in the Family" or "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", but its ensemble cast was worth a half-hour of our time 35 years ago.

The "debate" from episode 1 is more worthwhile than some of the debates we've been watching lately.

Good Start to the Year

2012-01-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

There were 80 of us in the Jury Assembly Room yesterday morning. 55 names, none of them mine, were called; they shuffled upstairs to be interviewed by the judge. We had to wait another hour to see if the remaining 25 were needed for another case. No, we were dismissed before 11 a.m. Yes, I was willing to do my civic duty but didn't need to, reviving a distant memory of the happy feelings from receiving a high draft number.

This week two of the stocks that I own (and recommended on January 7th) reported much better-than-expected earnings. The share prices of both Apple and Netflix have risen, along with my mood.

The Year of the Dragon has gotten off to a good start. I suppose that it could have been even better had the Niners beaten the Giants and made it to the Super Bowl. But let's be honest--San Francisco over-achieved this year and was not as balanced as New York. Incidentally, the Chinese zodiacal magic evened out at the game: both 49er Kyle Williams, who made the critical fumble, and Giant Jacquian Williams, who caused it, were born in the Year of the Dragon.

He's No Marshmallow

2012-01-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Sta Puft vs Newt: from Huffington Post

During my weaker moments my reptilian brain would like to see Newt Gingrich become President. Newt would take a meat axe, not a scalpel, to our bloated government and strike fear into the hearts of America's enemies!

The main problem is, of course, that he would take a meat axe, not a scalpel, to our bloated government and strike fear into the hearts of America's enemies.

If nothing else, President Gingrich would single-handedly revive the comedy business. Whether because of political sympathy or political correctness, comics have toned down their jokes about government, despite a flood of material in the post-Bush era. I miss the edginess and vicious personal attacks. C'mon guys, root for Newt, your inner Lenny Bruce is dying to get out. © 2012 Stephen Yuen

How to Overpromise and Underdeliver

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

State of the Union, 2/24/09, the promise of 3,500,000 jobs:

Over the next 2 years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs [bold added]. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector: jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.

State of the Union, 1/24/12, the delivery of minus 1,000,000 jobs:

In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs. And we lost another 4 million [bold added] before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these: In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs[bold added].

By the way, how did those solar panels work out?

[Update - 1/26/12: ABC News performs a fact-check of the President's State of the Union Address. (Some Republicans might say that is news in itself, but, as I tell the kids, you can't change the mistakes of the past, just try to do better in the future.) My interpretation of ABC's analysis: every jobs number was under- or over-stated to cast the President's policies in the best possible light.]

How to Underpromise and Overdeliver

2012-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

Apple's earnings per share for the quarter ended December 31, 2011:

Company forecast $ 9.30
Analyst forecast $10.08
Actual results   $13.87

From the NY Times:

“It almost defies words in terms of the strength across all products,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “Everything about it eclipsed even the wildest expectations of analysts."

Mitt Romney's Taxes: Quick Take

2012-01-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

Mitt and Ann Romney have released their tax return for 2010 and a detailed estimate of their 2011 taxes. Here's my 30-minute take on a 200-page document (obviously I might have missed a few items).

Their annual Adjusted Gross Income--approximately $20 million--puts them in the same league as top entertainers and athletes.

The Romneys donate over $3 million per year to charity, well above the Biblical standard of the tithe, and also pay a little over $3 million per year in Federal taxes.

More than half their income is derived from long-term capital gains. Long-term status inures to assets held over one year and is subject to a reduced tax rate, the source of recent political controversy. Whatever one's position on capital gains tax rates, there is much to admire in how the Romneys have arranged their financial affairs.

Because of the one-year-or-more holding period requirement, one may well conclude that the Romneys are not short-term traders and recipients of privileged information, unlike other politicians and their staffs. Furthermore, their investments have not been sure things: the gains in 2010 were partially offset by a $4 million capital-loss carryforward, which means that the Romneys suffered significant losses in previous years.

Nearly all of the gains are pass-throughs from family trusts, and more than half of those amounts are in "blind" trusts over which the beneficiaries have no control. The Romneys will therefore not profit directly from information Mitt may obtain or decisions he may make, except for changes in the tax law under a Romney administration.

In 2010 there was a so-called 83(b) election, which is generally used to afford capital gains treatment to investments in startup companies.

I like that the super-wealthy Romneys: 1) continue to make investments subject to real risk (no crony-capitalism guarantees against loss); 2) wall-off the bulk of their investments from a temptation to use political influence; 3) donate a sizable amount to charity.

I'll likely take a closer look if he becomes the Republican nominee.

Monday Morning Quarterback

2012-01-23T23:00:00.000-08:00

With little experience he was given tremendous responsibility. In the national spotlight he made disastrous decisions at critical junctures. While his teammates tried to bear some of the blame, it was plain to everyone he was in over his head and, really, the ballgame was lost because of him. Those who should have known better were enamored by his enthusiasm, energy, and youth and should never have allowed him such leeway after the first fumble. Maybe they'll all remember this lesson the next time, if there is one.

Kyle Williams' two fumbles cost the 49ers ten points in their 20-17 loss. (CNNSI photo)

Happy New Year

2012-01-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

Per the Associated Press:

The Year of the Dragon begins Monday [today], and the Chinese believe that babies born in this iteration of the 12-year Zodiac cycle are gifted with prodigious quantities of luck and strength. In ancient times the dragon was a symbol reserved for the Chinese emperor, and it is considered to be an extremely auspicious sign.

Chinese couples are freezing and unfreezing ova or undergoing other fertility treatments just so they can have a dragon baby.

"Prodigious quantities of luck and strength"?! I'm a dragon baby...so what happened?

Happy New Year!

Joe Paterno, R.I.P.

2012-01-22T14:54:00.001-08:00

When one-of-a-kind leaders are debilitated by disease or age, it's often said that "we'd rather have 10% of X than 100% of anybody else." Organizations accommodate the long journey into night by delegating many of the leader's routine responsibilities and husbanding his flagging energy for the tasks that make him unique. We've seen this gradual, sad transition occur in organizations as disparate as Apple Computer, the Roman Catholic Church, and Penn State University.

We can see why Penn State left Joe Paterno at the helm of its football program. The Paterno name conferred a broad range of benefits--competing for desirable recruits, higher alumni donations, and more publicity, to name but a few. Evil entered into these happy arrangements, and tragedy resulted.

Child sexual abuse is a horrible crime that destroys lives. You or I, dear reader, would surely have done more than pass along the allegations about one of our subordinates to university officials. But if I were an 80-year-old executive, I'd need a great deal of proof before I blew up an organization that appeared to be running smoothly. (It also may be that Joe Paterno, like many in his generation, did not appreciate the heinousness or prevalence of child sexual abuse.)

The scandal ruined the lives of the young victims, but it also ruined the life of a good and decent man who could not see the evil rising in his midst. R.I.P.

Google - More Questions Than Answers

2012-01-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

After enduring years of volatility I sold my position in Google at $520 last May. (I regretfully concluded that I didn't understand the company's strategy at a fundamental level--not that they were wrong, I just didn't understand it.)

Google then released a test version of Google+, its social-network answer to Facebook, and the stock soared past $650. My second-guessing was magnified when Mad Money maven Jim Cramer touted Google as the only company that was a leading player in all three Internet markets-of-the-future: cloud, social, and mobile (Apple doesn't have a major social-networking presence).

Last week Google released quarterly earnings that fell short of analysts' expectations, and the stock plunged $53.58 to $585.99 on Friday. It may look cheap to some investors, but that price is still substantially higher than the point at which I sold it. More importantly, the past year has not added to my enlightenment. I still don't understand the company, so for the time being I'm not getting back in, despite the delicious lunch Google serves at the shareholders' meeting.

Even after its plunge, GOOG has performed better than the averages since May.

[Update - 1/25/2012: the WSJ publishes more information about the $500 million forfeiture that Google paid to avoid prosecution for aiding the sale of illegal pharmaceuticals. It's not new news, but the questions about GOOG's management can only get louder.]

Biennial Lunch

2012-01-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

I met up with T at the same place, the Sunflower Restaurant, nearly two years after our last get-together. (The Sunflower, BTW, was very crowded at noon on a weekday--quality cuisine, not expensive, highly recommended.)

Not much has changed. T is a part-time consultant and keeps up with developments in the accounting field--he is one of the best accounting technicians I know outside of the Big Four and Norwalk--but his primary focus has been raising his three-year-old daughter while his wife works full-time. T is in the enviable position of knowing that he can find a full-time job if he wants one; few of us are that confident in our own marketability.

T advised on the most expeditious approach to reactivate my CPA; there are relatively inexpensive online accounting courses that will enable me to accumulate the requisite number of continuing education credits by the end of 2012. Certificate reactivation, like physical fitness, will be more a matter of discipline than native ability. Sigh, the flesh is weak.

We couldn't linger too long because T had to pick up his daughter from the sitter. He gave me her picture, after which I understood why he's in no hurry to re-enter the rat race. © 2012 Stephen Yuen

Today

Two years ago

You're Never Too Old To Text

2012-01-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Slightly Out of Context

2012-01-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

The New York Giants will play the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday for the right to go to the Super Bowl.

An unexpected quote from the New York Giants' backup quarterback regarding San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith: "I'm rooting for him."

[Related - Vice President Joe Biden's attempt to rev up a San Francisco crowd on Wednesday: "the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl."]

The Way to a Man's Brain

2012-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

Per the WSJ:

A growing body of research shows the gut affects bodily functions far beyond digestion. Studies have shown intriguing links from the gut's health to bone formation, learning and memory and even conditions including Parkinson's disease.

Scientists have unearthed connections from the gut to the brain that have not heretofore been obvious:

Low serotonin levels in the brain are known to affect mood and sleep. Several common antidepressants work by raising levels of serotonin in the brain. Yet about 95% of the serotonin in the body is made in the gut, not in the brain.

And..

In a study of 23 autistic children and nine typically developing kids, a bacterium unique to the intestines of those with autism called Sutterella was discovered.

To these unscientific eyes the relationship between autism and digestion is a far more promising line of study than the pseudo-science that attributed autism to vaccinations.

The Dutch Goose

2012-01-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

I worked on Sand Hill Road before it became Sand Hill Road, home to the richest venture capitalists on the planet. The Dutch Goose, just down the hill on Alameda de las Pulgas, was one of our favorite lunchtime hangouts. It served juicy burgers and pastrami sandwiches that had to be eaten carefully to avoid getting spots on our ties (yes, children, we wore ties every day 30 years ago).

The Goose had the latest videogames; my proficiency improved to the point that a quarter was all that was needed to play for half an hour on Asteroids, Missile Command, or Donkey Kong. After I took a job in the East Bay, I never returned to the Dutch Goose....until today.

A couple of friends from the old days wanted to talk about a startup idea, and the Dutch Goose was really the only suitable venue for our reunion. I was late because I got lost. Office buildings, shops, and street lights had sprung up around the restaurant. The old dirt parking area was long gone. I was lucky to get a space within half a block.

Past the gate the restaurant had been built out into the outdoor space. The formerly empty patio was now filled with tables. Flat-screen TVs were mounted in each room. A new pool table had been set up outside the lavatories. Despite the modern appurtenances, the heart of the Goose--the weathered wooden tables, the salt- and fat-filled cuisine, the ancient videogames, and the broad selection of beer on tap--remains intact.

We dispensed quickly with the business discussion and reminisced for the next two hours. I tried my hand at Missile Command, scoring 8,000 when I used to break 100,000 regularly. After the second beer, I called it quits. Being aware of one's limits is the only way I'll be around for the next Goose reunion, hopefully less than 30 years from now. © 2012 Stephen Yuen

Reducing Accounting "Shenanigans"

2012-01-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

We can't change human nature, but we can organize ourselves not only to prevent malfeasance but also to make it easier to adhere to ethical standards in situations that aren't black and white. The accounting profession is currently discussing whether to impose term limits on the auditor-client relationship.

The statement of the problem:

Auditors work for the same company for so long that instead of being independent, they end up co-dependent.

The most common objection to term limits:

Rotating audit firms every few years would raise costs, reduce the familiarity of accountants with a company's books and impair the quality of audits.

Given the complexity of modern information systems, there's some truth in the argument against auditors' term limits. However, this is one instance where the greater cost to society may be in the audit failure of a "too-big-to-fail" institution, versus the higher cost of individual audits spread across the universe of public companies.

The WSJ writer also calls for restrictions on the revolving door between audit personnel and their clients. I've witnessed many instances of companies hiring accounting talent from their CPA firms. (I've never seen it done for nefarious purposes; if one works with someone who is likeable and smart, why waste time going through hundreds of resumes and dozens of interviews?)

But if you're going to impose the revolving-door rule on auditors and their clients, create one as well for government employees and lobbying firms. In the latter case the damage to the budget and society has been obvious.

They Call Him Mr. Smith

2012-01-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

Alex Smith has disappointed 49er fans since he was drafted in 2005. High expectations followed him, as they follow all number-one picks. However, the 49ers' won-loss record and Alex Smith's individual performance had never risen above the mediocre through 2010.

Alex Smith really never had a fair shake. He sat out the equivalent of two full seasons due to injury, and because the 49ers constantly turned over their coaching staff, he had to learn a new system every year. But even the most forgiving and optimistic fans---those who hoped that under new coach Jim Harbaugh Alex Smith might lead the Niners to a 9-7 record and first place in a weak division--did not realistically hope for the actual outcome:

I know I didn't. And I also doubt that anyone predicted that Alex Smith would out-duel the great Saints quarterback Drew Brees in the playoffs or that the Niners would be hosting the NFC championship game on January 22, 2012.

At this stage it is no longer sufficient that Mr. Smith not make mistakes. The 49ers will need an outstanding performance from him to extend their season.

$10,000 Portfolio: First-Week Checkpoint

2012-01-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Our portfolio of four stocks is up 4.92% after one week, greatly outperforming the Dow (0.5%) and NASDAQ (1.36%). It's way too early to come to any conclusions--we need at least six months to a year of seasoning--but the results so far can't hurt. Apple seems to be the only disappointment, but I remain confident because of potential good news concerning new products (iPhone 5, iPad 3, and iTV) and unconfirmed reports of high sales volumes in the most recent quarter.

Microsoft Office: Hard to Carry, Hard to Displace

2012-01-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

At work I'm a heavy user of Microsoft's Office suite, particularly Excel. I will use word-processing and presentation programs other than Word and PowerPoint, but some of my Excel workbooks have man-months invested in their design, programming, and data tables. Spreadsheet competitors claim 100% compatibility with Excel, but I have not risked a switch. I would be betting my livelihood on their claims that functions and macros work perfectly on their product.

The iPad is a convenient reading, viewing, and game-playing device. Microsoft Office on the iPad would be welcome because I much prefer carrying the lightweight iPad to heavier laptops.

OnLive has released a cloud-based "full featured" version of Office that will work on the iPad. Per the WSJ's Walt Mossberg:

I found OnLive Desktop to be a notable technical achievement, but it has so many caveats that it's best for folks who absolutely, positively need to use the full, genuine versions of the three big Office productivity programs on their iPads.

Some of the drawbacks are: the user must be connected to the Cloud, the iPad's virtual keypad won't work (nor will an attached mouse), and documents must be transferred directly to or from OnLive, not through other avenues like e-mail.

So we're not there yet. Until Microsoft releases Office for the iPad, I'll continue to schlep around a laptop.

World Unfamiliar

2012-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

The incoming e-mail had the subject line "Bravangelism,"--was it about Brad and Angelina, a new car, or apocalyptic fiction?--so I clicked on it out of curiosity.

The pictures and subject matter were perfectly fine--"G"-rated by Bay Area standards--but I did wince at the attempted contraction of bra and evangelism.

I've been on the Title Nine mailing list ever since I made an online purchase a couple of Christmases ago (no, the purchase wasn't for moi). Their sales pitches are replete with images of athletic, fun-loving, but not model-thin women. It's a window to a world with which I am unfamiliar.

By all reports T9 is a successful, growing business, but "bravangelism"?--get me rewrite!

Desired Demographic

2012-01-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

At 8 a.m. it's standing room only at the Los Altos Starbucks. The tables are crowded with talking, texting, and tweeting teens from the nearby Catholic high school. Their clothes and comportment, plus allowances that permit $4 morning beverages, betray their upper-middle-class status.

At other Starbucks locations that I've frequented the line consists of commuters looking for their morning fix and retirees intending to relax with a paper and coffee in comfy chairs. In Los Altos there are no seat cushions. Customers have to step gingerly over the backpacks strewn across the floor. Despite the discomfort to older customers, most businesses would kill for this demographic.

No Bubble Here

2012-01-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

At Foothill College the parking lot was packed with cars. Despite rising tuition community college in California is more of a bargain than ever. At $24 per unit, a typical Associates certificate, such as Business Administration, with a 90-unit requirement would cost $2,160. (Including other fees raises the total two-year cost to about $2,500.)

Should the student wish to continue on to a four-year degree, seven University of California campuses will guarantee acceptance and accept transfers of credits if the student has a minimum GPA of 2.8 to 3.5, depending on the campus.

Community colleges may lack the luster of four-year institutions, but at least their graduates won't be groaning under a load of debt. Lines of cars and long waiting lists confirm that thousands of students have come to that realization.

Tebow Time

2012-01-08T21:01:00.000-08:00

Tim Tebow does "Tebowing", photo from popdust2.

Tim Tebow--devout Christian, volunteer, role model, and, by the way, the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos--threw an 80-yard touchdown pass in the first play of overtime today to lead his team to a 29-23 win over the favored Pittsburgh Steelers. The suddenness of this play capped an exciting playoff game in which Tim Tebow made other spectacular throws. Respect for the Bronco passing game and for Tim Tebow as a bona fide NFL quarterback is growing. [Update - 1/10: the WSJ shows where the Steeler defense went wrong.]

With signal callers Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady all having MVP-caliber seasons (Green Bay's Rodgers is the favorite), the NFL's biggest story revolves around a former third-string quarterback whose unconventional throwing motion and inexperience with the pro-style passing attack led many to predict that he would never make it in the NFL. But it's his unabashed religiosity that has caused Tim Tebow to become an involuntary lightning rod for America's culture wars. (It only added to the legend that he passed for 316 yards, as in John 3:16, the passage that summarizes the essence of the Christian faith.)

Tim Tebow's one-knee genuflection has inspired imitation from fans who have posted their own poses on the web. Even an NFL player got into the act: earlier this season Detroit Lions defensive back Stephen Tulloch assumed the stance after sacking the Denver quarterback. This weekend the Lions were bounced from the playoffs by the Saints, while the Broncos move on to the next round at New England. There might be a little karma at work, although Tim Tebow wouldn't use that word.

Stephen Tulloch "Tebows" in the Lions' 45-10 shellacking of the Broncos .

How I Would Invest $10,000

2012-01-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

There's a good reason why I don't manage investments for a living--or even manage them gratis for friends and family. If there were losses I would feel guilty, and the stress would keep me up nights. Losses in my own portfolio are disappointing, of course, but would not cause as much mental anquish.

Nevertheless, because people do occasionally ask me for an opinion, here's how I would invest $10,000 in the stock market, assuming at least a two-year investment horizon. And yes, I do own these equities. Herewith the abbreviated reasons why these stocks may show above-average appreciation in the year ahead.

Apple is the second most valuable company in the world behind Exxon-Mobil. Yet, given it's historical and near-term projected earnings growth, Apple is significantly undervalued. The PEG ratio (price-earnings ratio divided by earnings growth rate) is a yardstick that many analysts use. If the ratio is less than one (for example a 20 PE divided by a 20% growth rate), then a stock is usually viewed as underpriced. Apple's PEG is 0.6.

Deere is the world's largest manufacturer of farm equipment. As economies improve, the megatrend of higher food production coupled with population movement away from the farm should raise the demand for Deere products. However, it should be noted that the debt to equity ratio of nearly 4 to 1 ($27 billion versus $7 billion) makes Deere a risky proposition if interest rates rise or its debt has to be rolled over in a period of tight liquidity. Meanwhile, the dividend yield of 2% is a source of comfort.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. engages in the mining of gold, copper, silver, molybdenum, and cobalt. The appreciation in gold we all know about, but, as the second largest producer of copper, FCX is well-positioned to capitalize on a global economic recovery. Analysts have been targeting a share price of at least $50. Don't buy this stock if you think we are still in recession because in that case copper prices and earnings will soften---in fact you should not make new investments in the stock market at all (that's not my opinion, but I've been wrong before).

Buying Netflix is a gamble, not to mince words. Netflix made a number of well-publicized disastrous moves last year in an effort to manage the transition from DVD rental to direct streaming of video entertainment. In the most recent quarter Netflix lost subscribers, and its share price fell from $304.79 to $62.37--nearly 80%--in a few months. Netflix still has downside, especially since owners of content are negotiating much tougher contracts, but I believe it has enormous potential to piggyback on the growth of Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle, and other mobile devices. Besides, at current prices the entire company is valued at $4.5 billion, a relatively inexpensive target for a company looking to acquire 20 million paying customers.

We'll check back in a few months to see how these companies are doing.

Epiphany

2012-01-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

Today, January 6th, Epiphany, marks the official end of the Christmas season. Not too long ago Catholics, Episcopalians, and other Christians observed not only the twelve days of Christmas but also the eight days of Epiphany. ("The Octave of Epiphany" sounds like the title of Dan Brown's next book.) In the Internet age we can barely concentrate twelve minutes, much less eight or twelve days, on any endeavor.

Epiphany is not one of the three major feasts (Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost) of Christianity, but it is sufficiently important that some churches are named after it. Over 30 years ago we were married at one Church of the Epiphany. We attended another for 15 years.

The original meaning of "Epiphany" was religious--the manifestation of the Divine (Jesus) to the Gentiles (Magi)--but it has come to mean the revelation of an essential, not necessarily religious, truth. Like other words where the meaning is subtle and the use is infrequent, it is apt to be cheapened through over-application, as in, "when I heard the politician's speech/saw the movie/heard the song, I had an epiphany." Let's hope that, like a well-crafted tool, "epiphany" is used when the circumstance is exactly right.

The Lord of the Flies Was, Appropriately, a Pig's Head

2012-01-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

...there are no rules. There is also no code of honor, no professional etiquette, no regard for human decency.

"I used to go to a pretty dark place, and there wasn't much that was off limits."

Sometimes, no one can hear you scream.

Where the primal, the id, and the bestial hold sway...the Pile.

In Other Words Don't Worry, Be Happy

2012-01-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

Let us enter the New Year cheerfully. Let us resolve to look on the bright side, to make the best of whatever may befall, to maintain faith that doing the right thing will ultimately bring victory. Let us cultivate sunniness, resist sourness. We can better wrestle with difficulties, obstacles, problems in a spirit of buoyancy than in an abject, morose mood. How much more the radiant mortal gets out of life and puts into life than the downcast, long-faced self-pitying being!
---B. C. Forbes (1937)

It can be refreshing to dip into essays and literature from the pre-World War II era. Although they did go on (and on), writers knew how to turn a phrase, e.g., "spirit of buoyancy", "abject, morose mood." Nowadays we don't have the time or patience to indulge that style, either as readers or writers. More's the pity.

Are We Better Off Than We Were Ten Years Ago?

2012-01-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

Good line:

Ten years ago the USA had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope, and Johnny Cash. Now we have no Jobs, no Hope, and no Cash.

No Worries

2012-01-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

For the past several Christmases I've left a bottle of scotch on the doorstep of an 80+-year-old gentlemen with whom I've done business. His nephew called (I don't know about you, but whenever caller ID reveals a call to be from the relative of an elderly person, I answer with trepidation) to say that J has been having health problems and has been staying in an assisted living facility for several months.

However, the good news is that J. has recovered sufficiently to move back home. He also wanted to thank me for the bottle.

Me: "I guess scotch wasn't a good idea, given his health."

Nephew: "Are you kidding? It's the best gift you could have given him. He and I have already had a taste." Yes, that's the J I've always known.

Comments: 1) It's often surprising (good or bad) how a gift will be received; 2) I hope I live long enough so that I'll enjoy certain activities without caring about their effect on my health.

The Future Will Arrive Soon Enough

2012-01-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

Calendar from timeanddate.com

2012 is a leap year and presidential election year. The year has 53 Sundays, which disadvantages churchgoers who have made weekly, instead of annual or monthly pledges. On the other hand, they'll be getting their money's worth from an extra worship service.

2012 is the last year of the century in which the numbers will line up identically for the time and date, i.e., 12:12 p.m. on 12/12/12. If one believes in the Mayan prediction of doomsday, it could be the last year, ever.

2012 has five months that have five Sundays (in most years there are four). Because we have signed up to serve lunch at the senior center on fifth Sundays, volunteers will be working a little harder this year. Most of them will cheerfully consider it not so much a burden, but an extra opportunity to serve.

The politically passionate eagerly anticipate the start of the election season, while football fanatics can't wait for the playoffs. The future, which often disappoints, will arrive soon enough.

Savor the journey and the anticipation, not the goal itself.

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter" - Keats

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T23:55:00.000-08:00

Just like I did a year ago, I went to the stockbroker's office and executed a partial Roth conversion, deliberately triggering taxable income now in order to lower the tax bill in future years. One assumption behind that move is that investments in the Roth account will grow significantly, at least to such an extent that the conversion will be deemed in retrospect to have been worthwhile. Phrased more simply, I am an optimist.

I had one or two goals---resolutions, if you will---for 2011 that were accomplished, but the rest lay incomplete because of efforts that ranged from the desultory to the earnest college try. Nevertheless, I will put them on the New Year's list and try again.

I remain on speaking terms with loved ones, have reasonably good health, and have enough money to pay the bills. May you be blessed at least as much in the New Year.

Can't iPhone Home

2011-12-29T11:06:00.000-08:00

iPhone users press the Home button throughout the day as they flip between applications. When it stops working, as mine did last week, the problem can be profoundly irritating. (If I wanted to move from making a phone call to, say, the maps application or the calendar, I would have to turn off the phone using the power button, then turn it on again.)

Several websites advised that the culprit was likely buggy software, so I went through the two-hour process of restoring the iPhone to its factory settings, then reloading apps, music, and photos. No luck, Home was still non-functional.

After some detective work, I am 99% sure the problem was the "free" MyATT app that had been installed earlier this month. The app did have some neat features---it analyzed data and voice usage on all four lines, showed when they could be upgraded, and made it easier to pay the bill--but the benefits certainly weren't worth the cost of disabling the Home key. After deleting the MyATT app on both the computer and iPhone, and again performing a Restore, the functionality is back.

I doubt I'll be installing any more apps from AT&T. This experience also confirms the general principle that one should not add programs to one's devices merely because they look cool; the programs should be useful and/or entertaining on at least an occasional basis.

It's Hard to Play Soft

2011-12-25T16:39:00.000-08:00

A ukulele artist takes it down several notches and gifts us with a quiet "Silent Night." Instrumentalists and singers know that it's very difficult to play softly and slowly, when every off-key note, scratch of the bow, or uneven breath is noticeable. Thanks, Jake, and Merry Christmas (from Tim's brother).

Christmas Reverie

2011-12-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

The frost dusts the rooftops on this Christmas morn. I light the furnace and get the newspaper.

In the lagoon there are ducks who haven't gone south---it can't be that cold. Perhaps my sensitivity to low temperatures is a sign of advancing age. I must book another trip to the Islands soon.

But first I need to get ready for church. That, after all, is the Reason we have shopping, cards, caroling, and decorations.

Merry Christmas!

The People's Republic Can't Keep the Lights On

2011-12-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

North Korea at night via Ed Driscoll

They put off basic maintenance, they are distracted by goals having nothing to do with the primary mission, and they appoint bosses because of their political loyalty, not expertise. The lights went off in the People's Republic of North Korea long before their leader died, and the only heads that are rolling are not of those who are responsible but of those who complain. The contrast with the prosperous South is like night and day.

In San Francisco the lights flickered out on Monday at the Steelers-49ers game when much of the nation was watching. The comparison to North Korea may be unfair (and too delicious to pass up), but there is a larger point to be made.

Candlestick at night from EPSN

Candlestick Park is slated for oblivion. The aging power grid and conventional power generators may eventually end up on history's ash heap. But while we still need the old infrastructure it is the height of foolishness to neglect its importance, funnel resources to unproven technologies at its expense, and disparage the people and companies who make it work.

Dreamers who have never heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics think we can beat our nuclear reactors into windmills and solar panels. Even if the self-proclaimed visionaries do know their physics, a basic IRR calculation on a $50 financial calculator should have given them pause. Now the bulbs are dimming all across America.

No product, no jobs, no cars in the Solyndra parking lot, a half billion dollars later.

The Jagged Line of Freedom

2011-12-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

Jeb Bush, former two-term governor of Florida, wants to roll back statism:

In Washington, D.C., rules are going in the opposite direction. They are exploding in reach and complexity. They are created under a cloud of uncertainty, and years after their passage nobody really knows how they will work. [snip]

...we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

Unlike other vocal conservatives, Jeb Bush doesn't attribute sinister motives to big-government advocates. The gigantism of the state may even spring from the well-meaning attempt to protect capitalism's losers. But the cost to innovation and animal spirits has been too high.

Jeb Bush's conservatism with a velvet glove may just be what (and who) Republicans have been searching for. Four years ago the wounds were too raw for yet a third member of the Bush family to be part of the national ticket. In 2012 the circumstances are very different.

Making Lemonade

2011-12-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

The car's in the shop again. I've been taking Sam Trans to Millbrae, then BART-ing to the City. The total cost for the round trip: $8.50 for BART and $4.00 for the bus. That's the ala carte price. Monthly passes can be more economical, but consultancy gigs don't require my presence in San Francisco every day.

The walk home from the bus stop takes me through the shopping center. The outdoor tables at the Middle Eastern pizza restaurant are filled with patrons puffing on hookahs.

During the winter the patio heaters alleviate the chill, and houses across the water have lighting displays.

Car repairs can be inconvenient, but the lengthier commute that is forced upon the traveler can make one notice what's going on in the neighborhood.

Disaff- infected

2011-12-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

The tents have been cleared, and the disaffected, disgruntled, and dyspeptic have left the premises. City sanitation workers are sterilizing the scene.

I don't agree with extreme environmentalists who believe that human beings blight the earth. However, I must admit that the plaza is looking a lot more appealing now that it's been emptied.

Could that have been the plot all along, acting the opposite (trashing the environment) of one's belief in order to provoke a reaction (tighter environmental restrictions) that will further the ultimate goal? That's like saying we should arm drug gangs in the hope that appalling gun violence will result in tighter gun control. No, no one would be that callous.

I'd Rather Be Skating

2011-12-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

On weekdays the rink is mostly empty. Many skaters are walkups renting a pair on impulse--Eastern transplants recapturing joyous moments from their youth, tourists wanting a picture of skating(!) in San Francisco(!), and parents teaching their children what Mommy and Daddy did for fun as kids growing up in Michigan.

A few feet away the mood changes to resentment. Signs proclaim solutions to the economic malaise. The remedies invariably involve taking stuff away from politicians, bankers, and other fat cats who got rich through thievery, not hard work. Well, perhaps some did. Meanwhile, the occupiers sit on real estate next to pricey San Francisco office buildings that are filled with hard-working saps (who are doing well comparatively but, take it from me, are not in the 1%) who pay taxes so that police can protect the squatters, and workers can empty their port-o-potties.

The tents have been up for over a month. I suppose if I chose to sit around in the cold for weeks on end the anger would build in me, too.

Day of Infamy, 70 Years Later

2011-12-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Arizona Memorial in 1995

[The following is an update of my post of three years ago.]

On December 7, 1941 Japanese bombers obliterated the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. My father, a junior at William McKinley High, saw the silver planes flying overhead on that clear Sunday morning. He didn’t realize anything was out of the ordinary until he saw smoke rising from the Ewa (western) side of Oahu. My mother, a middle-schooler at Robert Louis Stevenson Intermediate, was preparing to go to Sunday services downtown.

It was a day that changed everything. Millions of Americans, including Dad and his six brothers, answered the call.

Arizona Gun Turret

While the majority survived the War with life and limbs intact, hundreds of thousands did not, like my wife’s uncle who died somewhere over the Pacific. His body was never found.

Some found the armed services to be to their liking and made it a career, like my uncle who was the best auto mechanic I ever knew. Others, like my father-in-law, seized the opportunity offered by the GI bill and went on to college and jobs that they would never previously have considered.

At the U.S.S. Arizona memorial the names of the fallen are inscribed on the wall. Are we worthy of their sacrifice? Perhaps......if we preserve, protect, and pass on the gifts they have bestowed to us.

O Look, A Squirrel

2011-12-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

My 401(k) has been invested in stocks of industrial companies. As of this morning it was up 4.4% for the year, in line with the performance of the Dow and above the NASDAQ. [Update: the indices were higher by another 0.6% to 1.1% today.] That may sound positive, but it's been a stressful ride.

Portfolios have swung +/- 10% in a few days. Individual stocks can be even more volatile, of course, but it's distracting when sharp ups and downs occur to diversified holdings consisting of more than a dozen stocks and mutual funds and when the daily market gain or loss is a multiple of one's paycheck.

Just yesterday the smart money was moving to euro investments because the Europeans supposedly had their act together much better than the Americans. That orthodoxy turned on a centime. The problems of the European currency now threaten to bring down the global financial system.

My advice for dealing with macro problems: play videogames, read escapist fiction, and watch football. It's better than worrying about problems one can't control.

[Update - 12/7: there's ego satisfaction, but not much else, when a major publication comes out with an article on this subject:

Picking winners during the past few months of uncertainty has proven difficult for most investors -- even the pros. While stocks are up 5% for the year, they've had an unsettling climb. Many investors have fled stocks for bonds, only to find that most bond yields are sinking and most bond fund managers are trailing their benchmarks thanks to bad bets on riskier issues. Even investments that are supposed to zig when the market zags, like oil and gold, have been moving much closer with stocks, making it difficult for investors to figure out the next step.]

Big Red Ball

2011-12-01T17:08:00.000-08:00

Since the Dawn of Man there has been an irresistible urge to run our fingers over large smooth objects.

I paused on my lunch break.

The holiday decorations at the old Southern Pacific building consist of mammoth red and gold balls placed in the middle of the walkway. Not mounted on a pedestal, they demand to be touched. The artist seems to be saying, stop, rouse yourself from your preoccupations, see and feel this colorful, massive object.

It soon will be Christmas, when something colorful and massive came into the world. Did you even stop to notice?

In Order to Get Better, You Must First Look Worse

2011-11-29T22:46:00.000-08:00

The blue beetle has been stripped bare, with not even a gown to protect its dignity. Today I ordered replacement gaskets and moldings from a vendor in Southern California.

Next month I'll shop around for bumper restorers. I'd rather rechrome the German originals than buy replacements made in Brazil or China. Rechroming is expensive due to the skilled labor and powerful chemicals employed. I'm still hoping that this labor of love doesn't turn into a time and money sink, but the signs aren't promising.

Precious Bodily RFIDs

2011-11-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

Our minds have been on food this weekend, but it won't be much longer before "mindful" food will be in our stomach, heart, and precious bodily fluids. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags broadcast detailed information about objects to which they are affixed. The technology is already available--consider medical tracking--to put RFIDs into food.

In the name of food safety, nutrition, and stores management (smart refrigerators would sense when we are running low on eggs) a London engineer has advocated "Nutrismart" tagging. Of course, once we consume these tags, anyone with the right receiving equipment would know what we've eaten, where we've been and when, and other information that perhaps only our doctor knew. And there is no off switch to RFID like the GPS in our cellphone. What could go wrong?

On a restaurant sign of the near-future: "Our food contains no pesticides, herbicides, hormones, or electronic devices."

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

The 23-lb. turkey came out golden brown but ever so slightly overcooked; it took nearly eight hours for the oven thermometer to ping at 165 degrees. (Last year a bird of the same weight reached that temperature at the six-hour mark.) Ladles of gravy easily overcame the dryness, and you don't have to advise me twice.

I hope that you were able to dwell at least for a moment on the good things in your life, dear reader. Whatever your troubles may be, few of us would choose to live in a place and time other than the United States of America at the beginning of the 21st century.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Feature, Not a Bug

2011-11-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

Photo from Forbes

Google continues to improve its mobile operating system at breathtaking speed. Android 4.0 will be installed on the Galaxy Nexus and will use facial recognition as one of the methods to lock/unlock the phone.

However, Google warns users this isn't necessarily the safest method for locking a phone. Case in point: I was able to unlock the phone by holding a photo of my face [bold added] up to its lock screen.

Stranger-thieves are unlikely to have pictures of the phone's owner, but parents and other relatives who don't want to steal the phone but merely peruse its contents may consider such easily bypassable security a feature, not a bug.

Tone It Down Through Sound

2011-11-22T06:46:00.000-08:00

The stars of Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I explain how sound can tone down an R-rated movie to PG-13 (text of interview requires purchase from Entertainment Weekly):

Robert Pattinson: It was really Kristen's fault it was going R-rated. [To Kristen Stewart] Your fancy moves--no one's seen moves like that in a PG-13 movie! [Laughs]The thing about ratings is, it's about noises.

Kristen Stewart: Like if his thrust coincided with my ohhhh--that's not okay.

Pattinson: If a sex scene is rated R, the first thing you do is take out the sounds and put music over it. Same thing if there's a horror scene; you take out the screams.

Taylor Lautner: Or in an action scene, if you're punching someone in the face you take out the sound effect of the fist making contact.

Take out the actual sounds, put in some music, then it's safe for kids. Like political commercials.

The Man Knows Turkeys

2011-11-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

William Shatner makes a timely public service announcement about the dangers of turkey fryers:

Shatner says in real life, he has burned himself, and almost burned his house down, as a result of mishaps stemming from deep-frying turkeys.

In 1989 William Shatner nearly killed off the Star Trek franchise when he wrote, directed, and starred in Star Trek V: the Final Frontier, universally judged to be the worst Star Trek movie ever.

Not All of Us Can

2011-11-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

At last, the winnowing:

" Michael Bloomberg is my hero," Mr. Mills said. "He catapulted us out of all this lethargy. He threw out all the drunks, all the hypocrites, all the liars, all the people who were here for a little bit of fun, and brought us down to the people who are smart enough to get things done and really have something invested in this."

1) If you can't police yourselves, how can you police others?

2) Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is part of the .0001%, "is my hero." No irony there.

I'm Not Listening

2011-11-17T01:58:00.000-08:00

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

There's a lot to be angry about:

1) the banks, both commercial and investment, reaped enormous profits during the go-go years by taking risks that we now know to be reckless;

2) if the bankers had paid up or had gone out of business when the deals went bad, the system would have seemed fairer. But, we, the taxpayers, footed the bill.

3) now that conditions are better, bankers have resumed paying themselves handsomely and congratulating themselves on their smarts.

Reprehensible.

But:

1) The Occupy protesters want to seize the "one-percent's" property because the rich got that way immorally according to the protestors' standards (but not illegally--go get them, I say, if laws have been broken);

2) The abrogation of property rights affects us all. I don't want someone taking away my 401(k) or my house because I meet someone's definition of being rich. "First, they came for the billionaires, then the millionaires, and then they came for me."

3) Filth--if any business operated under those conditions it would have been closed immediately by public health authorities--and violence--rape, murder, assault, robbery, and drug use--are rampant. [Update: here's a list of over 70 incidents - a few are speech "crimes" for which a Tea Partier would be pilloried, but most are actual crimes.] The banks may be bad, but I'll take that world over the one the protestors are offering. People admire, then follow, those who lead admirable lives.

4) Don't youngsters bear any responsibility for the choices they made in their education? In 2011 graduates who majored in computer science, mathematics, and the hard sciences have no lack of job offers in the Bay Area and are well able to service their student loans. Decades ago, in a bad economy, I took courses then a job in the non-fulfilling field of accounting. I had bills to pay. Following my passion when I didn't have any money seemed awfully self-indulgent.

5) If a protestor claims "we got sold out", I sympathize completely if she pays income taxes. But if she doesn't pay anything and the protest is about her government goodies getting cut, then I'm not listening.

Mumbling Through

2011-11-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

We make fun of our leaders for their verbal missteps---George W. Bush's "nukular" and Barack Obama's "corpse-man" come to mind---but don't sneer too loudly or too often. Mockery originates from pride, and we know what pride precedeth.

Speaking of judgment, yesterday was my turn to read the lesson in church. Unfortunately, the lectionary pointed to one of those dreaded Old Testament passages that contained over a dozen Hebrew names. If it were just two or three, I could look them up in one of several Internet pronunciation guides. However, through sheer numbers (another dreaded OT book, BTW) the fourth chapter of Judges overwhelmed this strategy.

The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died. So the LORD sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-ha-goiim. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years.

At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you, `Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.'"

When unsure about pronunciation, I followed the basic rules: 1) speak quickly; 2) slur the long and short vowels so that they can be interpreted either way; 3) sound and look like you know what you're doing.

Knowledge is power, but the appearance of knowledge is almost as good.

Nothing to See Here

2011-11-09T12:52:00.000-08:00

Today's headlines are rife with sex scandals and sex crimes, the prospective collapse of the European currency and European economies, the crashing stock market (the Dow is down 400 points), and the occupation of urban centers by legitimate protestors or violent criminals, depending on one's perspective.

A deceptively sleepy countenance

In our quiet middle-class suburb of 30,000, however, it's another slow news day.

Last night Foster City elected three members to its five-person City Council. The tae kwan do teacher and Olympic medalist got in. Like current and former military men and football players, he radiates toughness. Fiscal and physical discipline, that's the ticket.

By 7:20 it warmed to 41.

Overnight temperatures have fallen to the 30's. After several days of trying to outlast the "temporary" cold spell, I re-lit the pilot light and let the furnace run a couple of hours. Our natural gas consumption has been reduced dramatically because of the tankless water heater installed three years ago. We have much less guilt, and our bills are a lot lower due to the graduated rate schedule, when we raise the thermostat.

A Foster City woman did float to the top of the national news, however briefly.

A Bay Area woman said she lost her sense of taste for more than a week after using a popular alcohol-free mouthwash....The Foster City woman said her sense of taste didn't return to normal until eight days after using [Crest Pro-Health Complete mouth rinse].

Maybe our City Council can look into this.

Shared and Unrushed

2011-11-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

Once in a while it's okay to indulge, especially on one's birthday. I forsook the usual chicken or hamburger and went to the Lobster Shack in search of the Crustacean that I only allow myself once or twice a year. The lobster arrived bright red from the steamer. The dish was served with little adornment: butter and lemon, cole slaw, corn, and a plate of fries on the side.

Whole lobster is one meal that can't be rushed. The shell must be cracked carefully so that one doesn't splatter liquid on the dinner companions who aren't wearing bibs. The flesh must be teased delicately from the carapace. It tastes much better and is easier to dip in whole pieces than in shreds.

It took nearly an hour to clean out the claws, tail, and even some of the less meaty parts of the thorax. My dinner companion, who was done with her lobster roll, started nibbling on the legs. Certain experiences are made more pleasant if they're shared and unrushed.

WWJD

2011-11-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

Screenshot from iBooks "Steve Jobs"

I downloaded the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs and have been making my way slowly through the 927-page electronic document. At the pace of a chapter a day, I won't be done till mid-December.

The juicy bits--tantalizing hints about Apple's future products, Steve Jobs' opinions about powerful and famous people and the advice he gave them--have been well-publicized.

What's intriguing to me are the stories of the people and experiences that shaped him: the adoptive parents who inculcated their values, the birth parents who struggled with culture clashes (his father was Syrian) and economic hardship, the teachers who recognized his talents, the youthful nerds who competed and collaborated with him, and above all the unique confluence of engineering can-doism, risk-seeking capitalists, state-of-the-art science, and social informality that marked the soon-to-be-nicknamed Silicon Valley in the Sixties and Seventies.

More who knew Steve Jobs will undoubtedly write their first-hand accounts in the months ahead. We'll pay attention in the vain hope that we can better understand how Steve Jobs could combine vision and action unlike anyone we have ever known.

Because he was right so often about so many big things, his pronouncements have become revered as the closest thing we have to Scripture in these iconoclastic times. Steve even anticipated this development; he advised Tim Cook to never ask what would Jobs do but "to just do what's right."

Too late for that. Until the moment he left us Steve Jobs continued to see truths to which most of us are blind. "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."

The "Steve Jobs" display does remind one of the 1984 commercial, nicht wahr?

Diocesan Convention

2011-10-27T01:19:00.000-07:00

Friday night mass at Grace Cathedral

It was a beautiful weekend in the Bay Area, and I spent it indoors. Every October members of 108 Episcopal churches in Northern California gather at Grace Cathedral for the Diocesan Convention.

Prayers are said, reports are presented, resolutions are made, and officers are elected. Given all the business that had to be conducted---the Diocese has 162 years of legal and procedural barnacles encrusting its activities---it was remarkable that we completed the agenda within the allotted nine hours.

Bay Area attendance has dwindled to a weekly average of 8,500 Bay Area worshipers. Bishop Marc called for renewal--we dare not call it evangelism!--by telling our story to the community. There is an ingrained reluctance and much Scriptural support against tooting one's horn, but in these cacophonous times one can't be completely silent. The church and church members perform many unpublicized acts of charity; some people in the wider community might be interested in joining the Church if they heard about them.

The spirit of comity pervaded the meeting hall, even during the contentious debate on Israeli settlements. The proposed Resolution called for "divest[ment] from all companies that enable the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to boycott all products manufactured in Israeli settlements." The church would urge other organizations, such as the $236 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), to liquidate investments in such companies, which included names like Boeing, Motorola, Caterpillar, and General Dynamics.

To soften its seeming one-sidedness, the Resolution was amended to acknowledge the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to self-determination, statehood, safety, and security. Nevertheless, the Resolution was defeated, 171-144, in a show of hands. We live in one of the most liberal Dioceses in one of the most liberal Protestant denominations, but this one was too much to swallow. Other resolutions, which pertained to church matters, passed overwhelmingly.

After the convention adjourned, we passed by Occupy SF demonstrators marching along Sixth Street. There are many different ways, over and above mere working and consuming, that people choose to participate in civic society, and some of them were on display on this beautiful weekend in the Bay Area.

Remarkably Prescient

2011-10-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

Siri, Apple's artificial intelligence system for the iPhone 4S, is one of the final building blocks necessary to realization of Apple's vision of computing. The "Knowledge Navigator" video was produced in 1987.

The Year of Bottoming Out

2011-10-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Bishop Marc made his biennial visit last Sunday, and the church was packed. Turnout was impressive, considering that at the same time the 49ers were playing in Detroit in the NFL's game of the week. Perhaps it is true, as the Bishop said afterwards, that the decades'-long decline in Episcopal attendance has been arrested. On the other hand many of us do have TiVo.

Bishop Marc alluded to Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan when he meditated on the "render unto Ceasar" Gospel passage. (I wonder if part of the inspiration came from Monday's tax deadline.) When we are first introduced to the story, we are struck by Jesus' cleverness in evading the questioners' effort to elicit an anti-government answer. But the passage goes deeper than that, said the Bishop. All things come from God, so we are not talking about parallel tax systems to divvy up the boodle (not his words--we in the pews have to use terms that we understand) but the nature of things, of wealth, and of ownership.

After he was done with the homily the Bishop welcomed a group of enthusiastic confirmees as full-fledged members of the Anglican Communion. I surreptitiously checked the football score on the iPhone; after falling behind 10-0 early, the Niners came back to take the lead 12-10 at the half (the final score was San Francisco 25, Detroit 19).

Perhaps this is the year that a lot of things take a turn for the better.

Simplification Isn't Simple

2011-10-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Last year's 46-page return.

Gradually clearing the clutter of our financial affairs, I managed to reduce our 2010 tax return by three pages. (Shrinkage could also have been correlated with less income in some activities.)

Today, October 17th, is the absolute deadline for filing 2010 income tax returns. The only way for us to file on April 15th would be if we were to divest ourselves of some investments whose records for the previous year aren't finalized until August. Getting out would be complicated, not to mention costly, from a tax and legal point of view.

If simplification were simple, more people would do it.

Upside Correction

2011-10-16T02:21:00.000-07:00

Another reason to feel sanguine: after the two-week October rally, market indices and most balanced portfolios have climbed back to even for the year. For Apple investors like yours truly, our joy at being up 30% since December is not unadorned because of the death of the company's great and glorious founder. We await Tuesday's earnings call with both anticipation and trepidation.

The travails of the European Union were the prime reason for stocks' near-collapse over the summer. Last week's signs of cooperation among the major European powers, plus some reassuring noises from U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner, seem to have stabilized markets. We are not out of the (Bretton) woods yet, but the euro's survival seems assured in the short term.

So enjoy the rest of this year. Next year, when the United States elects a President, promises to be exciting and not in a good way.

What a Difference a Year Makes

2011-10-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

The Vaillancourt Fountain is going full blast. Water transforms the skeletal frame, infusing the plaza with life.

On this fall morning only a few tourists stroll by. Seagulls and pigeons abound, waiting for the lunch crowd. Pickings will be slim. Pedestrian traffic has been declining for years. And this is Friday, which has become a half-work-day or working-from-home day at many firms.

Last year around this time the Embarcadero was buzzing with sports fans as the Giants marched through the playoffs. Now it's back to subdued normalcy. Thank goodness---for productivity's sake.

Reason for Optimism

2011-10-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Despite wars, joblessness, and the crumbling of the global financial system, there is reason for optimism:

Lions (5-0) to host 49ers (4-1) in battle for … NFC supremacy?
--Sports headline in the San Jose Mercury News

No one thought that the NFL Game of the Week in mid-October would be the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Detroit Lions. Both teams finished with six wins and ten losses last year, and most experts at the beginning of the season predicted only modest improvement at best. The Niners and Lions exemplify how quickly fortunes can turn for the better (we are sadly familiar with how they can turn in the other direction).

The teams' recent success is of course attributable to their rosters of talented players, but the, er, lion's share of the credit has rightly gone to the coaches. In the Bay Area we read regular reports of how former Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh has instilled expectations of winning into a moribund San Francisco franchise. Detroit coach Jim Schwartz has been equally lauded.

The Great Man of History theory fell out of favor in the 20th century as thinkers became enamored by "-isms" that said individuals don't make much difference. But surely our lives would be poorer if Martin Luther King, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, or Steve Jobs had not lived. And on a much less important stage Jim Schwartz and Jim Harbaugh are showing that the theory lives on.

"Without Steve Jobs, Where's the Excitement Going to Come From?"

2011-10-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

...said a tech reporter on CNN last night.

In my lifetime a businessman's death had never merited the above-the-fold headline in the newspaper. Until this morning.

The passing of Steve Jobs was the lead story in not only the national dead-tree press but also the major TV networks and the most trafficked portals of the World Wide Web. (Here are the Steve Jobs bios from the NYT, the WSJ, and the LAT.)

Most of us who live in the Bay Area never met Steve in person, but we lived in his world. We bought Apple IIs and (sigh) Apple IIIs. Everyone knew someone who worked at Apple; we heard scuttlebutt about great secret stuff in the Cupertino labs. We switched to Excel, just because it came out on the Mac, when everyone else was using 1-2-3 spreadsheets on the PC.

We dreamed big because of Steve. Sure, Hewlett and Packard started up in the garage, but H & P did it in 1939. The two Steves showed that garages still were magic in the '70's. Inspired by their example many Bay Area denizens quit their corporate jobs and tried their luck. Most of us failed the first time out, but having caught the bug and lost the fear, we kept trying until we did make it.

The kids of Apple doffed their ties early, quickly followed by the rest of the Valley. It took a couple of decades for business casual to conquer the final redoubts in San Francisco's financial district. You couldn't tell who was rich or important by the way people dressed, so you had to treat everyone as if they were a millionaire.

When Steve was fired in 1985, he looked like just another guy who had reached his level of incompetence.

After the ministrations of a series of conventional CEO's failed, Steve returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple in 1997 and initiated the most remarkable turnaround in business history.

All is sweetness and light now, but at the time he made some ruthless decisions that tested the loyalty of the Apple faithful. He killed the clone licensing program, thereby accelerating their demise. (A $2,000 Power Computing clone that I had purchased in 1994 was nearly worthless three years later, and $2K was real money back then).

The new iBooks and iMacs looked interesting, but familiar ports were gone, replaced by a newfangled Universal Serial Bus that required us to buy USB printers and other peripheral devices. And where was the built-in floppy disk drive (available only as an external extra)? How were we supposed to move data from computer to computer?

As the vastly larger PC universe adopted Steve's changes, we began to trust his vision. As Steve's judgment proved correct at each major fork in the road, our caution gave way to anticipation, then overwhelming excitement.

Of course we stood in line for the "insanely great" product that Apple was about to release--available on-line or in the Apple store in the next 30 days--but what we were really eager to see was which entire industry was going to be created, upended, or destroyed in the next couple of years.

Steve Jobs has been compared to Edison, Disney, Rockefeller, and post-Industrial Revolution business titans. Perhaps it's not too much of an overstatement to reach further back in history for the apt comparison---Steve Jobs was both visionary Oracle and young Alexander, who died with worlds left to conquer. R.I.P. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

All Creatures Great and Small

2011-10-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Under azure skies priests from our local Episcopal church performed the annual Blessing of the Animals at the Foster City Dog Park. The Feast of St. Francis is celebrated by Catholics and Anglicans around the world to honor the patron saint of animals and the environment. The official date is today, October 4th, but we celebrated the Feast last Sunday, a fortuitous decision given the rains that began Monday.

A steady stream of four-legged creatures came forward. Dogs comprised the overwhelming majority. Young or old, large or small, calm or feisty, sure or unsure...all were welcome, just like their owners, to receive the laying of hands and a short prayer.

Cats were also well represented. As in previous years ladies from the Homeless Cat Network passed out brochures that promoted both the health and reduction of the population of feral cats. HCN's efforts to spay, neuter, feed, and adopt abandoned felines not only protect the cats but also the birds of the Bay.

There were no untoward incidents. Guinea pigs and birds were left alone by larger species. Two-legged animals cooed, stroked, and admired all the four-legged ones who were there. Nearly 800 years after his death, Francis of Assisi may be one saint who would be pleased at the works that have been done in his name.

Hale Nalu

2011-09-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hale - home
Nalu - 1) Disappeared, lost; 2) Waves, surf.

One of the universal childhood experiences in Hawaii---at least when I was growing up---was camping underneath the stars. The mild temperatures and sounds of the ocean compensated for the lack of a mattress, and falling asleep was not difficult.

Not surprisingly, the warm climate also makes some choose homelessness as a rational response to the high cost of living, more than they would in other states:

As in other temperate places — like Santa Monica, Calif. — Hawaii’s climate is a draw to people looking to live outside. “I love it: free rent, free electricity,” said Sherri Watson, 43. “Who wants to stay in a bed-bugged shelter?”

I had a couple of hours to kill between my visit to the downtown government offices and a dinner near the University of Hawaii. Walking east ("Diamond Head" to Honolulu old-timers) along King Street, less than a mile from the Honolulu beaches, is a chastening experience. The sidewalks and roads needed repair, and many of the buildings could have used a coat of paint. But the most disheartening sights were the tents in the park.

One ray of hope is that the Hawaiian unemployment rate of 6% is well below the national average of 9%. Let's hope that the recovery of the tourist trade continues and the tents get folded up.

Along King Street I walked past two parks where the homeless pitch tents.

At King and Kaheka Streets

Honolulu Stadium Park

Suddenly Important

2011-09-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

September 21st has suddenly become an important date in the family scrapbook. My baby brother tied the knot today. Congratulations, Rich and Keli!

Risky Short Position

2011-09-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

One of the drawbacks of getting older is the shrinking of body parts that we want to enlarge and the enlargement of those that we want to shrink. Muscles and neurons waste away, while cute button noses elongate to stalactite proportions. The overall effect is diminution: my old driver's licenses record the fact that I've lost nearly an inch in height over the past 20 years.

And, sadly,

The process accelerates with age, particularly after age 70. In one long-running study of more than 2,000 Baltimore residents, men lost an average of 1.2 inches between ages 30 and 70, and a total of 2 inches by age 80. Women lost an average of 2 inches between 30 and 70 and 3.1 inches total by age 80.

Above-normal height loss is an indicator of poor health.Osteoporosis increases the risk of hip and other bone fractures, and in men there is a correlation, as yet unexplained, between height loss and coronary artery disease. The future, more than ever, belongs to the thin, tall, and young.

Still Waiting

2011-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

My Hawaii State ID card will expire in a few months, five years after I received it. Through no basis other than my incurable optimism I expected the renewal process to take much less time than it took to get the original ID. My expectations were misplaced.

One can fill out the original or renewal form online, but one still has to show up in person, after making an appointment, to take pictures and present documents; filing online will cut the wait time to about 90 minutes. However, this avenue wasn't open to me, since the earliest appointment was in two weeks and I would be traveling in one week. [Aside: this is one of the biggest concerns about government-run health care--the cost is nominally low but everyone would be forced into long queues, though individuals may be willing to pay more to cut down the wait. Rightly or wrongly, people generalize from their experiences at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the Post Office, the airport, or even at the Tax Collector and ask, why would government be more efficient this time?]

It may not look so bad, but there are another 30 people past the door.

I'll spare you the details, dear reader, and just say that I entered the line at 1 p.m. and left with my new ID card at 4:30. In a small sign of progress the ID card won't have to be renewed for eight years. (Watch for my follow-up post in 2019.)

After document inspection, another wait for the photo.

Ah, Chew

2011-09-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Red Fox Casino lavatory sign, Laytonville, California

When you use a word that can be either noun or verb, make sure your meaning is obvious.

The greater grammatical offense may be the use of scare quotes around "Do Not." Scare quotes are meant to convey irony or a meaning opposite from the plain text; they are a distancing mechanism. Somehow I don't think the writer means to be ambiguous.

I'll Take It

2011-09-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

I saw it on TV, like almost everyone else. I shuffled to the kitchen table with my cup of coffee and pushed the remote. The TV was set to Channel 11, NBC. It was 5:45 a.m. The Today Show was on; strange, normally it doesn't start till 7 a.m. on the West Coast.

The camera was fixed on the World Trade Center. Black smoke was pouring out of one of the towers. There were no jump cuts or commercials to distract the unblinking eye. Katie Couric's voice seemed dispassionate as she described how an airplane had crashed into the building. Surely it was a small plane and a horrible accident.

Then the second jet hit, another struck the Pentagon, and the towers fell. Other images are seared into our memories--the Pennsylvania field that became hallowed ground, the throngs who lustily cheered the deaths of thousands, flames and smoke everywhere, the weeping, the exhausted searching and the death of hope.

The fear gripped us for a long time. Not knowing has that effect. Who did it and why, how powerful were they, what's next, what should we do, what can I do?

Everyone--even those who were in charge of our government--can list major mistakes in the past ten years. All the criticisms have at least some plausibility: we waged war against the wrong people, maybe we shouldn't have gone to war at all, we mistreated prisoners, we had intelligence that was grossly wrong, we sacrificed too many of our civil liberties, we didn't pay the cost of the wars, and we are no farther along in being energy independent or securing the safety of Israel.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we will remember the worst of our fears:

1) we would be hit again and perhaps lose a major city; this event coupled with our response, could forever change the character of America;

2) if the attack were biological, we could lose much more than one city;

3) oil supplies would be disrupted, maybe cut off for a long time, and usher in a new Dark Ages;

4) Israel, surrounded by powerful enemies, could be destroyed.

5) A state of war would exist between the West and the Islamic world, which has over a billion people.

Ten years later none of these fears has been realized, yet victory, which we can't even define, seems as distant as it was in 2001.

I'll take it. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

Ala Wai Canal

2011-09-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Kapahulu Ave at 6:15 a.m

The early morning traffic has dropped off a bit since my last visit. Reduced congestion could be due to the slow economy or people taking off the week after Labor Day. Or it could be a mistaken extrapolation from a very limited obsevational sample.

Speaking of global warming, Wednesday night's debate was another attempt by "moderators" to pin the extremist tag on the Republican candidates for President. The candidates unanimously questioned the premises of the global warming crowd, making the Republicans non-scientific Neanderthals or, worse, Bible-thumping fundamentalists.

Fundamentalists of a different stripe say that I can't use incandescent bulbs because of the "settled science" that Edison's glowing invention will melt the ice caps. Reminiscent of the Middle Ages, only a specially trained priesthood can explain to the hoi polloi why a 60-watt tungsten is damaging to the environment while flying to a global warming conference in a corporate jet is completely okay. In a similar vein, the green geniuses at Google say that their data centers, which consume electricity equivalent to 200,000 homes, help the environment because otherwise people would drive to the library to look stuff up. Yes, that's the proper basis of comparison: think of the CO2 I would have emitted by driving to the library to research the Kardashians.

To clear my head I go for a walk along the Ala Wai Canal. This morning the waters were placid. Kayakers were suiting up near the Waikiki library. Homeless men were waking up on the wooden benches. Groups of tourists strolled leisurely, and I accelerated past them at 4 MPH. By the time I got to the intersection of Kapiolani and McCully, traffic was gridlocked. Maybe the economy is improving, after all.

Ala Wai Canal at 6:30 a.m.

Getting Out of Town

2011-09-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Tall Dango by Kaneko

Going on a trip focuses the mind. I finally tended to long-neglected tasks in the home office and the garden. There's still a lot left to be done, but both places are now a little neater.

I saw the doctor last week for a routine physical exam, eight months later than he had advised. Everything was okay, thanks for asking, but I needed to drop a few pounds. You're beginning to sound like a broken record, doc, and could you refill my prescriptions?

At SFO I chuckled like a pre-teen when I saw two eight-foot ceramic sculptures next to the Delta gate. Yes, we who have trouble making a bowl in pottery class can't possibly imagine the difficulty of constructing ceramics larger than a human being, but the artist gave away the show by naming it "Tall Dango," supposedly referring to a round shape like a Japanese dumpling. But we know what he really meant, don't we, Dr. Freud?

The Delta flight to Honolulu was uneventful. A wailing toddler a few rows in front didn't help the atmosphere aboard the crowded 757-300, but the passengers all seemed to take it in stride. There, but for the grace of God, go all of us parents.

The tuna sandwich bought at SFO hadn't been quite enough, and the land of plate lunches was filled with temptation. We headed off to Zippy's for a late night repast. The "Zip pac"--chicken, teriyaki beef, and spam (of course)--was not on doc's list of recommended foods, but that was what his pills were for. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

(Another) Saturday in the Park

2011-09-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Aug 29th: at the bottom of the 7th the score is Astros 1, Giants 1.

Beset by injuries to many of their key players, the San Francisco Giants stumbled into September trailing the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks by six games. This weekend's three-game series against Arizona has the potential to break but not make the season, and Giants followers are filled with trepidation. In a glass-half-full moment of reflection, most fans should realize that we are doubly fortunate to have a contending team in September. There are pleasures to be savored by experiencing baseball in San Francisco, regardless of wins and losses.

The previous February Saturday we spent at AT&T Park we were in shirtsleeves and sunshine while much of the nation was buried in snow. This time a storm named Irene visited her wrath on the Atlantic coast while our Pacific Ocean for the nonce seemed aptly named.

We arrived at 3:30, two-and-a-half hours before the game was to start. Already the lines at each gate were over a mile long. The prospect of getting a bobble head doll of Giant ace pitcher Tim Lincecum seemed problematic.

Meanwhile, away from the lengthy queues was a sidewalk ceremony honoring two retired Giants. Jason Schmidt and Marvin Benard were being added to the Wall of Fame, the 47th and 48th players who either suited up for nine seasons with the San Francisco Giants or played five seasons with at least one All-Star appearance.

The decision wasn't close: the youngster forsook our dwindling chances of getting a Lincecum bobble head in favor of hearing and seeing Jason Schmidt, one of the dominant pitchers in baseball during his Giants tenure from 2001 to 2006. The former ace spoke fondly of his San Francisco memories, and the youngster's day was made when Jason Schmidt autographed the back of his ticket.

View of AT&T Park from the line waiting to get in

It took us 20 minutes to cross the 3rd Street bridge to get to the back of the line. Over an hour later we entered the gate. Lo and behold, there were still bobble heads left, and we were handed two of the precious boxes (it doesn't take much to make us happy).

I said to the youngster that the only way that the day could be better was if the Giants were to win, which they did, 2-1, when a single by Jeff Keppinger drove home Mark DeRosa for the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. The entire day was filled with lagniappes--an autograph, bobble head dolls, and a walk-off win--which when added to the sunny weather and an afternoon spent with friends was a very grand gift to us indeed. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

Je Suis Passé

2011-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

Even if we're not thinking about Apples' remaking of entire industries, the evidence of technological disruption is all around us. Here's an amusing video of French second-graders trying to figure out the uses of ancient artifacts like floppy disks and rotary phones.

Comments: 1) It's been over 20 years since I heard it, but scratching a record with a phonograph needle is still tops when it comes to the most cringe-inducing sounds. 2) Laugh with the youngsters and not at them; how would you fare on a similar test, bucko, with 50-year-old farm tools? 3) Someday I'll bring my Apple III out of storage to astonish the kids with its 256K of RAM.

The King's Speech

2011-08-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

Slowly making my way down the Netflix queue, the arrow finally pointed to the 2011 Best Picture, the King's Speech.

Since my tastes run towards car chases and space aliens that look great in spandex, I shoved the DVD into the player with very low expectations. This was going to be another British literary movie (Sense and Sensibility, Remains of the Day) that the cognoscenti said that I should see for my own good when my time would probably be better spent by washing the car or working on next year's taxes.

Surprise! I enjoyed the movie. Best Actor winner Colin Firth gave a convincing, sympathetic performance as the prince who wanted to hide from the world because of his severe stutter but reluctantly ascended to the throne when his older brother put personal desire before responsibility. Geoffrey Rush as failed-actor-cum-speech-therapist Lionel Logue fights not only the king's disability but multiple social barriers. We root for him to succeed where credentialed doctors and teachers failed.

The rest of the ensemble cast is a who's-who of contemporary British film. The only bit of casting that seemed a little jarring: whenever I saw Timothy Spall, who plays Churchill, the great man of the 20th century, I couldn't help but glimpse Wormtail, the rat-like villain of the Harry Potter movies.

The movie immerses us in the constitutional crisis triggered by Edward VIII's affair with American twice-divorcee Wallis Simpson. American eyes may view Edward's abdication as the apotheosis of romance--a man giving up the throne to marry his love--but most Britons saw it as the epitome of selfishness, a man shirking his duty in the face of the gathering storm over Europe. Both Edward and Mrs. Simpson are portrayed as petty, self-absorbed creatures preoccupied with the privileges of royalty but not its responsibilities. It is, after all, a British film.

Final thoughts: 1) "critically acclaimed" movies need not be boring; 2) the film's fastidious attention to period costumes and sets was crucial because today's audiences can readily detect inauthenticity; 3) too bad they couldn't work in a car chase over the London cobblestones--now that would have been something to see.

Those Who Can't, Call A Contractor

2011-08-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

Brute force + stuck flange = cracked sink

The ancient bathroom faucet continued to drip, no matter how hard I twisted the knob. I consulted with the person in charge of these things. She picked out a nice-looking replacement at Home Depot for $88. I've replaced faucets before. Allowing for contingencies, I estimated that it would take four hours max. It took me four days to complete the project.

The rusty parts gave way to repeated applications of WD-40 and elbow grease. I eventually unscrewed the old hot and cold controls as well as the spout. However, the sink flange, where the stopper goes in, wouldn't budge. No cheap piece of oxidized metal was going to defeat me. I've got tools, I've been working out, I'm college educated, and handyman websites all said that this would be easy. The >snap< when the bottom of the porcelain basin cracked was one of those "Oh, *&#%!" moments that are made worse with the knowledge that there was no one to blame but me.

Everything came out except the rust stains (top).

The person in charge of these things surveyed the damage. "You didn't have to replace the stopper. You could have left the old one in," she said helpfully.

The bathroom sink was undermounted, held up by metal clips and sealant. Replacing an undermount is trickier than a drop-in sink whose weight is supported by the countertop. Again, helpfully: "Maybe you should call Roberto." No, that would be a last resort. If I hired a contractor, the cost could easily sail past $500 for what had been a $100 project.

Worse, I would be conceding defeat not only to family but a manly guy like Roberto, who despite his politeness would have a hard time keeping a straight face when he saw what my wrenches wrought.

Over the next three days I: 1) Removed the old basin; 2) Found a 14" x 17" undermount sink at Lowe's that fit the 13" x 16" opening; 3) Clamped the new sink to a 2x4 for 24 hours so that the silicone would set to the marble; 4) Installed the new fixtures; 5) Cut pipe beneath the counter in order to get the P trap to fit (after several tries the leaks have stopped).

The person in charge of these things said that she was pleased with the result. As for me, I was pleased that it was over.

[Economics note: this episode is an example of household production, where people do their own cleaning, gardening, cooking, repairing, etc. instead of paying someone to do those tasks. Do-it-yourself activities don't show up in GDP statistics and the benefits from them aren't taxed, although they augment net worth just the same as some bucks from one's employer.]

More Concerns About "Googarola"

2011-08-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

After having lowered Google shares from "strong buy" to "buy" last month, the Standard and Poor's equity analyst has further downgraded GOOG from "buy" to "sell".

The morning Mercury News lists possible negatives about Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility:

1) The deal would take longer than expected to close;
2) Motorola's 17,000 patents won't provide much intellectual-property protection for Google's Android software;
3) "An Internet-era software company [29,000 employees] known for launching products and improving them on the fly" will have trouble absorbing an 83-year-old Midwestern hardware company (19,000 employees);
4) Hardware will be a drag on Google margins;
5) Google will be competing with its own handset customers.

If Google falls below $500 I'll be tempted to nibble at a few shares. At least I'll get a nice meal at the shareholders meeting. They'll still have that next year, won't they?

Note: I have no position in Google and won't be taking a position in the next 30 days.

Agog

2011-08-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

Google's $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility has the tech world agog with its size and strategic implications. The main attraction appears to be Motorola's portfolio of patents, rather than the mobile handset business.

Not everyone agrees that the acquisition is a wise move. Example:

Look at Google’s financial results. They reported $8.5 billion in net income this year, and $6.5 billion last year. That’s for all of Google. They’re offering $12.5 billion for Motorola. So Google just spent almost two years of its profits to buy a second-rate phone maker that itself is unprofitable, almost went bankrupt, and is arguably only the third-best maker of Android devices, behind HTC and Samsung.

After meandering downward since January, GOOG's shares took off at the end of June with the announcement of Google Plus, Google's answer to Facebook. The Motorola move resurrects the old doubts for conservative investors like your humble servant. I sold my modest stake a couple of months ago, was thinking of getting back in, but now will hold off.

Body and Soul Together

2011-08-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

28 people were in line when we opened the gate at noon. Rebecca, our CDSP seminarian, blessed the gathering and the meal. We began scooping the chicken and salad. Volunteers from our Episcopal church had prepared over a dozen trays, and it looked like we had too much food. Not to worry. The line grew to 50 in the next half an hour, and the guests kept coming back until the food was gone.

At Sandwiches on Sunday no one is turned away. Most diners are dressed casually, but a few are nattily appointed; they would fit in nicely at Stanford Shopping Center or the shops at Union Square. Some drive to the community center, but most arrive on foot or ride in on bikes.

We distributed the packages as the diners departed. Every Saturday for the past ten years the parishioners of St. Pius Parish assemble eighty (80) brown-bag lunches and store them overnight in the walk-in refrigerator. Marge packs her Toyota with six large boxes on Sunday morning and meets us at the community center.

One gentleman insisted on giving me two dollars. I turned it over to Marge to help defray some of St. Pius' expenses. To my surprise Marge said that she was not a member of St. Pius; she is a Lutheran who likes feeding the hungry and stuck with the program after she had been introduced to it years ago. A Lutheran helping some Episcopalians in an outreach activity run by a Catholic parish--five centuries after the Reformation and Henry VIII's divorce there's still hope that the Body can come together.

The community garden is flourishing.

Just Sad

2011-08-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

Cartoon by Ramirez, 2008

As this humble journal feared, we are in the third year of a four-year train wreck. From February, 2008:

Think the Republicans have made a hash of things? Three words to remind us that those who promise change can make things a lot worse: James Earl Carter.

From July, 2008:

Barack Obama has the thinnest resume of any major candidate for the Presidency during my lifetime. Law professor, community organizer, state senator, and U.S. Senator for less than one term. He's a great speechmaker, but what has he done? To me the bowling episode, minor though it is, exemplifies the risk the country is taking. If I had to choose among Democrats Hillary, Biden, Richardson, Gore, and Obama to be our President, BHO would be dead last.

Nevertheless, it's still a little surprising about how badly it's all turned out. With technology and knowledge advancing at an accelerating pace, advocates of government control over the economy should have done better than the central planners of yester-year.

But it's likely they made things worse. If they had done nothing, the odds are we would be well into a recovery. However, unemployment remains above 9%, housing values continue to fall, and the crashing stock market seems to be foretelling a double-dip recession or at best anemic growth.

The disappointment of the country at large risks being transformed into anger and even contempt. (Witness articles like "Is Obama Smart" in the Wall Street Journal: "I just think the president isn't very bright.")

As for me, I'm just sad.

Somehow Bush is to Blame

2011-08-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

According to Standard & Poor's there are 19 sovereign entities with a triple-A credit rating: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The Obama Administration came into office promising to restore the world's respect for the United States. Now we're less respectable than Liechtenstein.

Over-Rated

2011-08-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

The United States lost its triple-A credit rating today when Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. Treasury debt to AA+.

As it has for every other misfortune in the past two and a half years, the Obama Administration will blame President Bush and Republican policies for this development. Yes, there will be a kernel of truth in that claim, but that argument conveniently ignores the fact that Democrats had overwhelming and filibuster-proof majorities in the House and Senate for the first two years, as well as an uncritical mainstream media (with the exception of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) to cheer it on.

President Obama and the Democrats were hired to fix the problems, not lament their difficulty and pin them on others when they got worse. They can always blame the messenger by tarnishing S&P and the other rating agencies for their securities-grading errors during the past decade. Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch grossly over-rated debt obligations before, and, come to think of it, a Treasury rating of double-A may still be too generous.

Why the Poor Don't Have to Worry About Retirement

2011-08-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

According to economic researchers,

some low-wealth households [are] adequately prepared for retirement because of their reduced survival chances.

No release date yet for "why smokers don't have to worry about retirement."

Another Dunkin' Donuts Public Offering

2011-08-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

From Rockaway, New Jersey:

Police say 29-year-old Melissa Redmond, of nearby Mine Hill, was arrested for selling sex while working late night shifts at the [Dunkin' Donuts] store after soliciting sex from a undercover officer.

Dose of Humility

2011-08-02T03:09:00.000-07:00

Whenever I need a dose of humility and/or amusement, I review old posts from this modest journal. From 2006:

The national debt rests at nearly $5 trillion.... an immense total beyond the comprehension of this humble observer. And it will only increase in the near future because we won’t be raising taxes or making a serious effort to reduce spending.

The national debt was going to go up, but its tripling in five years and the very possible loss of the U.S. Government's AAA rating was beyond the imagination of your humble observer. While I certainly hope the rating downgrade does not occur---from a selfish viewpoint a rise in the Treasury rate will cause prices of all other financial assets (like those in my retirement fund) to decline--at least my modest investment in Treasuries will start looking better. The interest on the $30,000 3-month bill that matures next week won't even pay for a latte at the neighborhood coffee shop.

Maybe next time I'll be able to afford a scone.

Statesmanship

2011-07-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

From a short reflection on Ronald Reagan, this observation applies to political leaders regardless of party:

Having grand goals is easy, if you don’t care much about reaching them. Cutting deals is easy, if you don’t care much about where they take you. Knowing how to accommodate reality, when to give way and when to stand firm, while never deviating from your ultimate purposes, is the stuff of statesmanship.

Strange Times

2011-07-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

"Thirteen wonders" hand

These are strange times. The national conversation this week is about an event that we were taught could never happen--a default by the U.S. Treasury on its obligations.

And last week I won a 13 Wonders limit hand in mah jongg, something that I've never done in over 40 years of playing the game.

At the opening I started with ten of the fourteen tiles necessary to complete the hand. It only took five draws for me to win. "I never thought I'd live to see it"---been saying that quite often lately.

Is the Debt Ceiling Necessary?

2011-07-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Slate surveyed the nine living former Treasury Secretaries about the Federal debt ceiling. Four responded, and, unsurprisingly, the vote was 3 to 1 in favor of eliminating the ceiling altogether. Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, for the majority:

"It is hard to make a rational argument for the debt ceiling as it is now structured," he says. "Basically, the debt ceiling gives the Treasury the authority to borrow money to pay debts we already owe. As you know it doesn't authorize new spending."

From the perspective of a business executive like Mr. O'Neill the ceiling is only an impediment to the efficient operations of the U.S. Government--witness the volatility that the financial markets are going through as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 198.75 points today amidst speculation about the prospect of stopping government checks on August 2nd. (Avoiding a ratings downgrade is a separate, more difficult problem to solve.)

But our system is built not for efficiency but on the principle of checks and balances. It forces the branches of government to reach consensus on weighty matters such as waging war and judicial appointments. When the bodies are controlled by opposite parties, gridlock is frequently the result.

Congress uses the tools afforded by the Constitution to enforce constraints on a President of another party. Rather than cast a vote against the Vietnam war, Congress defunded it in 1973, thereby forcing America's withdrawal in 1975.

The House Republicans through the mechanism of the debt ceiling are attempting to restrict the spending that was approved by previous Congresses. They hold a weak hand because Republicans control only one half of the Legislative branch, and because they have to be mindful that a U.S. debt default next week may have potentially catastrophic effects on the global financial system.

In my humble opinion I think the Federal Reserve in concert with the U.S. Treasury has various tools to keep the money flowing well past the supposed deadline, but they've never been tested and would set a bad precedent for operating without Congressional authorization. As we approach August 2nd and the crisis mounts, however, we may yet see those tools in action.

Expensive Signage

2011-07-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

In the Apple Store product information is now displayed on iPads. Whether the questions concern a $2,000 computer or a sub-$200 music player, the customer obtains answers from a dedicated page on the adjacent iPad. Although the marketing advantages of an interactive display are readily apparent, it is nevertheless a little startling to see a $500 tablet hawking $150 iPods, like painting a Corolla billboard on the side of a Lexus.

Apple has a stellar history of many more marketing hits than misses, so we're not second-guessing this one. After all, the potential iPod customer may enjoy playing with the tablet so much that he walks out with an iPad instead.

Joong from 99 Ranch

2011-07-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

3 for $7.20 at 99 Ranch

Making joong (the Cantonese word for various meats enclosed in sticky rice wrapped in ti leaves, then steamed, aka zongzi in Mandarin) is a time-consuming endeavor. Ingredients such as ti leaves, ham dan (duck eggs), and lup cheong (preserved sausage) are not found in your average American supermarket and, depending on where one lives, may require a special shopping trip to the nearest Chinatown. Even if one lives close to Asian grocery markets, certain ingredients such as the rice and belly pork require over an hour of preparation. It's usually not worth the trouble to cook up a batch from scratch.

When I feel a craving for a plateful of calories, fat, and sodium I head over to 99 Ranch to pick up a package of joong. The Foster City market carries three varieties, Cantonese, Hu Zhou, and Pork with Mushroom, each of which cost the same--three for $7.20.

It wasn't hard to obtain volunteers for a taste test. Consensus conclusions: 1) despite its pale appearance implying minimal soy sauce the "Cantonese tamale" was flavorful, aided by the piece of lup cheong; 2) the Hu Zhou-style joong consisted of just belly pork and rice (which were in the others as well) but had the most bulk; 3)the pork with mushroom version also had egg and peanuts. Group rankings were (1) Cantonese (2) Pork with mushroom (3) Hu Zhou.

L to R: Cantonese tamale, Hu Zhou, Pork with Mushroom

The visitor from Hawaii said that she preferred the 99 Ranch joong to the ones available in Honolulu markets, so she will return with a bag. On my next trip to the Islands, I'll tell her about cousin Rebekah. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

Rebekah's finished product.

An Issue of Increasing Gravity

2011-07-18T01:34:00.000-07:00

One of our acquaintances has been instructed to gain weight as she recuperates from surgery. She's the exception to everyone else we know, including ourselves, who have been told by their doctors to take off a few pounds.

The secret to weight loss may be simple--"Eat less, exercise more"--but that formula is difficult to adhere to over time. The temptations of immediate pleasure and/or sloth often overwhelm distant fitness goals.

Sometimes by trying to do the right thing we can make things worse. Years ago we switched from regular to diet soft drinks.Now there are studies that show, albeit not conclusively, that drinking diet sodas causes obesity.

Eating Chinese food can be beneficial because wok-prepared vegetables and meats are generally lower in fat and calories. However, going out to eat at Chinese restaurants may be worse than McDonald's. Take-out favorites such as General Tso's chicken or fried rice are high in sodium and fat. There's also some evidence that the popular additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) is another reason to avoid Chinese-restaurant food:

The [China Health and Nutrition Survey] found that participants who consumed the most MSG were 28 percent more likely to be overweight compared to those who consumed the least amount of MSG.

It is not entirely clear why higher consumption of MSG is associated with weight gain. However, the authors suspect that over time MSG intake prevents brain cells from responding to leptin. Leptin is a hormone that suppresses appetite and when brain cells no longer respond to it, this may lead to excess energy intake and weight gain.

Scientists keep coming up with more reasons we are fat, reminiscent of the time when they said that just about everything, it seemed, caused cancer. Thus it's not surprising that obesity itself is a leading cause of cancer:

Though scientists don't know why being obese increases cancer risk, they think it may be linked to hormones, according to the AP. Chubbier people produce more hormones, such as estrogen, that help tumors thrive. And big-bellied people have more stomach acid, which can lead to stomach and intestinal cancers.

Some say we’ll die of tumours
Some say of fat
Scientific studies’ rumours
Lean heavily toward tumours
Even if we don’t have rapid cell growth
We are so gluttonous that
To predict longevity we are loathe
We will succumb to fat
Or cancer or both.

(With apologies to Robert Frost.)

What's in a Name

2011-07-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

At one point in my career I made frequent trips to Japan. There I partook of many local foodstuffs but never opened a bottle of Calpis, not only because there were many other excellent drinks to be sampled but also because of the name, which in English sounds like the product of bovine micturation (or worse).

In the American market the bottles have been re-labeled as the more-palatable-sounding Calpico. Yesterday, I finally popped the top. The milky uncarbonated concoction was pleasant-tasting--slightly sweet with no chemical aftertaste. Because it's $2.69 for 1.5 liters and has near-zero nutritional value, it's unlikely I'll be buying it again. I drank about half the bottle and will try the rest with vodka, which makes every drink taste better.

Like and Trust

2011-07-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

Non-violent crooks are caught because they often have to cover up their deeds by spinning ever-more elaborate lies. Performance must be maintained on an upward trajectory. The story is the same whether the topic is school testing, news reporting, or investment returns.

Individuals or organizations who never come back to the pack are vanishingly rare. There are only a few possible explanations for long-term advantage: resources unavailable to anyone else (the Bulls had Michael Jordan, the Saudis have oceans of oil), barriers to competition [patents, government licenses and other prop-ups (or is it props-up?)], and cheating.

Speaking of coming back to the pack, Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal resulted in a tripling of my individual subscriber rate. I had held a multi-year subscription and had gotten used to paying an annual price, with professional discounts, of around $100. After receiving the renewal offer of $325 at the end of last year, I declined. Although I am philosophically closer to the WSJ than the Times or the Chronicle, I didn't think twice about rejecting this extravagant price hike. It's a free country, and, unless we're talking about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I don't have to buy anything.

After months of don't-you-miss-us and don't-you-need-us notices, a promotional offer of $144 for one year came in the mail.

I sent in a check the next day. Why the old-fashioned medium of payment? I don't want the Journal to renew my subscription automatically by charging my credit card at a much higher rate. "Like" and "trust" are not the same thing.

Thursday in the Park

2011-07-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

Mother to calf: "not another idiot with a cellphone camera."

Happy 4th!

2011-07-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

We had a traditional Fourth in Foster City---hot dogs, hamburgers, and fireworks.

Peninsula Jewel

2011-06-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

The Food Court is close to the Lobby and sitting areas.

Over the years we have visited San Francisco and Peninsula hospitals, including Stanford, UCSF, Mills, and California-Pacific. Fortunately, the occasions rarely were for our personal health needs but mainly to call on patients whom we knew. We have no medical training and are ill qualified to pronounce judgment on the quality of health care. That important caveat aside, I have to say that the new Mills-Peninsula Medical Center is the finest-looking facility I have seen.

Open on May 15th on the site of the old Peninsula Hospital, the $618 million hospital boasts state-of-the-art technology throughout. The larger floorplan of the rooms, plus higher-than-average ceilings, imparts a feeling of spaciousness not found in other buildings. I particularly liked the lounge and waiting areas, some with kitchenettes, on each floor. The needs of family members, far from being an afterthought, were built into the design.

The appearance of a campus building may have little to do with the learning that goes on inside; similarly, the looks of this hospital don't necessarily mean that the physicians are sparkling, too. Nevertheless--for what it's worth--our visitors' experience was comfortable, and our patient, after a four-day stay, is well on her way to recovery.

Drought Forestalled

2011-06-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

The rain and cool temperatures brought welcome relief from the summer heat wave. In San Francisco this is shaping up to be one of the wettest Junes ever. For the first year since scientists began keeping records in 1849 there will be more precipitation in June than there was in January. There won't be water rationing this year, so I won't have to make tough choices between lawn, laundry, and lavatory.

Things are looking up--or should I say down--in other areas as well. Slowly, ever slowly, the unemployment rate falls. In San Mateo County the percentage of people looking for work is a still-high 8.1%, but the trend is in the right direction. On Friday I paid $3.599 for a gallon of regular, the lowest it's been this year.

If stocks continue the rebound begun yesterday, that will be icing on the cake.

Better garbage service, too: Recology took the box. Allied Waste wouldn't have.

Flaky Name

2011-06-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

The English language is replete with subtleties that trip up non-native speakers. "Flake" has long had a positive association with food, e.g., corn flakes and flaky crusts, so a Philippine company probably thought that naming its crackers "SkyFlakes" was a brilliant stroke; SkyFlakes have been popular in Asian markets since the 1960's.

Recent usage of "flake" has turned toward negative meanings, however. A flake is an unreliable person; someone who agrees to do something, but never follows through. And flakes, as dandruff commercials tell us, should never be seen on one's shoulder.

Sometimes what's in a name can overwhelm other attributes. That's why SkyFlakes won't be penetrating the American market, no matter how good they taste.

Crack for the Brain

2011-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm glad that smartphones weren't around till I turned 50, else I would never have had a life. Smartphone addiction is caused by what the psychologists call the variable ratio reinforcement schedule:

It's like a slot machine. You check the phone or the Internet, and, in an unpredictable fashion, you might see a new photo of a friend's baby or get a text message. Although it is unpredictable, when you do see something new, it stimulates pleasure centers in the brain.

When the most difficult decision in the morning is not whether to turn on the iPhone but whether to check the iPhone, iPad, or PC (forget the latter, actually, it takes too long to boot up), you know you should check in to rehab. Now if I can just find a facility that has WiFi.....

Answering the Call

2011-06-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

David Brooks says that following one's passion, at least for young graduates, is poor advice:

Very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don't look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer's and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss, and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn't in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don't form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

College teaches us to be open to new experiences and new perspectives. But that kind of openness demands little courage compared to that which is required to answer a call.

If we're lucky, we get opportunities to learn, to make more money, and to increase responsibilities without having to give up the things and people whom we care about. But that happy circumstance is rare. Many hear the call--to teach, to fight, to minister, to lead, to give--but the price is often too steep. From Luke 18:

You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'

"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

In 21st century Silicon Valley young entrepreneurs are treading the middle ground. They haven't (yet) given away their wealth--after all, who would have the nerve to do that before the age of 30--but they do shun its outward and visible signs:

"Things can't bring you happiness," [27-year-old Facebook billionaire Dustin] Moskovitz said. "I have pictured myself owning expensive things and easily came to the conclusion that I would not have a materially more meaningful life because of them."

Aaron Patzer, 30, who sold his company for $170 million, chimed: "Wealth needs a purpose greater than big houses and flashy cars."

It's easy to sound virtuous when one is a whippersnapper with a seven-figure bank account. But it wasn't that long ago that we believed that a $100,000 salary meant that we had made it to the top. $100K per year meant that we could quit striving and turn our attention to that which was really important. But we didn't step off the ladder. We grew accustomed to $100,000, then $200,000 or more.

We didn't answer the call in years past, but thankfully it's not too late. These young people, by their example, are showing us how.