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| Chicken chow fun with black beans |
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| Apple's 500,000-sq-ft data center in North Carolina. |
Investment in cloud infrastructure has surged since 2015, and the market for data-center equipment is expected to grow at an average annualized rate of roughly 16% this year and next, according to Citigroup Inc.The dollar value of new infrastructure equipment was $142 billion in 2017.
Cloud servers, though, typically have a lifespan of only about three years, according to experts, meaning that some of the earliest equipment already has passed its use-by date.
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| (Per Chronicle) |
while Bay Area home sales were about 5% lower than last year’s second quarter, sales of homes above $3 million surged, bringing them in line with last year’s historical peak.
Peninsula Realtor Ken DeLeon noted that foreign buyers, especially from China, are still active in the $10 million-and-up range. However, their purchases of homes in the $2 million to $4 million range “has tapered off, almost to zero,” The imposition of more stringent capital controls has made it hard for most people to get money out of China, unless you’re “uber wealthy,” DeLeon said. Most Chinese buyers purchasing high-priced homes in the Bay Area are doing it through their companies, he added.
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| The Circumcision (Rubens) |
In the early 20th century, the anti-Semitic and racist German-British philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain argued that while Judaism provided the religious background for Jesus, he “had not a drop of genuinely Jewish blood in his veins.” The Nazis picked up on this thread. As Hitler consolidated power, German theologians insisted that Jesus was not a Jew but an Aryan, descended from Galilean gentiles.Not surprisingly, Jews throughout history have defended themselves by referring to Jesus' origin, without endorsing his teachings.
In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has sought to sever Jesus’ religion from his nationality or ethnicity. In a 2014 Christmas message, Mr. Abbas called Jesus “a Palestinian messenger of love, justice and peace.” This remains a common refrain from anti-Israel activists.
Take the Spanish Rabbi Simon Duran, born in 1361 and known affectionately as “Rashbatz.” Duran’s community suffered intense Christian persecution. In attempting to counter increasingly dangerous Christian threats to Jewish religious observance, Duran and his contemporaries emphasized the Jewishness of Jesus and the apostles. Appealing to passages in Matthew, Luke and the Book of Acts, Duran argued that Jesus and his followers believed the Jewish people should continue to adhere to Jewish practice.After citing other examples, Art Lamm concludes:
When the need arises, Jewish thinkers have not been bashful in accentuating Jesus’ Jewishness—whether in religious, ethnic or national terms. As Jews increasingly come under attack in Europe and elsewhere, they should once more be prepared, if necessary, to assert Jesus the Jew, even as they have no wish to claim Jesus the Christian.While this aspect of Christian-Jewish history is interesting, it's easy to overlook its relevance to outsiders whose groups may find themselves in conflict. The modern defense is to call the attacker a racist, a sexist, a class-ist, or some other variation of "-ist". The idea is to condemn the opponent morally; if it works, the weight of social media and even law enforcement can be brought to bear against the attacker. Name-calling may succeed in beating down opponents, but it doesn't bring them closer.
There’s a newly ascendant breed of white supremacists who often look like–and may in fact be–the clean-cut guy next door.How about a rewrite?
There’s a newly ascendant breed of progressive scolds who often look like–and may in fact be–the well-groomed gal next door.There. Fixed.
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| Being green: I re-use them at home. |
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| (From imgflip) |
The world’s largest coffee chain posted adjusted earnings of 78 cents a share for its fiscal third quarter, a 26% increase compared with a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of 72 cents a share, excluding certain items.FWIW, I think much of Starbucks' growth is due to collecting and analyzing data on its customers. The iPhone app knows my food and drink favorites, the stores I go to most frequently, and the promotions that I respond to. Starbucks also knows how often I do a grab-and-go and how long I linger when I use its WiFi.
Starbucks’s sales of $6.8 billion were up 8%, also beating expectations. Global same-store sales growth of 6% was the strongest in three years. U.S. same-store sales rose 7%. Cold beverages helped drive growth in the afternoon, the company said, a time when Starbucks has struggled to boost sales...
Starbucks also remains focused on expanding its business in China. Net store growth there was 16% during the quarter, bringing the chain’s total to more than 30,000 locations world-wide.
Data collected by Starbucks’s digital programs is helping the company better understand what beverages customers want, said Chief Operating Officer Roz Brewer. “We know a lot more about our customers now,” she said.I agree. I don't think the sippy cups are why the stock has a 30 PE.
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| SBUX has nearly doubled the past year. |
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| Food court coffee: one size, one bean, nearly $10 for 3. |
Summertime,
Where the livin' is stressful,
The traffic is stopping
And the prices are high...
I'll pay bills online, but allowing cash transfers to other banks runs the risk of a damaging hack. As we've stated before,Hi, Stephen. Good news! We've increased the daily and monthly limits for outgoing Inter Institution Transfers. You can now transfer up to $10,000 per day and $15,000 per month, originally $2,000 and $10,000 respectively.
As a reminder, with the Inter Institution Transfers Service, you can make a one-time transfer or set up recurring transfers for free between your Citi® and non-Citi checking, savings, money market and investment accounts. If you'd like to make a transfer today or learn more about Inter Institution Transfers, please visit Citi® Online.
For any account the theft of which would be very painful I have never allowed electronic transfers.
Relations are souring but haven't reached the point where the U.S. will step in:The new face-off in the conflict between the two U.S. allies started July 1 when Japan slapped export restrictions on South Korea, the latest move in a long-running feud between the governments of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Moon Jae-in over World War II history. The new curbs slow shipments of three materials essential for semiconductors and flexible displays, two drivers of Seoul’s export-heavy economy.
South Korean business owners trash
Japanese logos. (Ahn Young-Joon--AP)
Tokyo officials have suggested the moves are justified for national-security reasons, accusing South Korean of not doing enough to ensure Japanese-produced chemicals and equipment can’t be shipped on to help rogue nations build weapons. One of Mr. Abe’s closest aides named North Korea as a possible destination.
Seoul has denied the suggestion. North Korea slammed Japan’s trade policy in a state-media report Thursday. “This is a cunning artifice to justify the unreasonable economic retaliation by disguising it as an ‘issue related to national security,’ ” the North’s state media said of Japan’s export restrictions.
The U.S. has kept relatively quiet on the matter. But on a visit to Seoul on Wednesday, David Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asian affairs, said Washington would “do what it can” to help patch up the frayed relationship between its two allies.From the American vantage point South Korea and Japan's differences are minor compared to their common geopolitical interests. Just like Americans do with ancient grievances, both parties should look past the sins that no one alive is responsible for and move on.
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| (Chronicle table) |
Between May and June, employment in these two counties increased by about 5,000 jobs to 1,188,200. Business and professional services added 4,700 jobs and information grew by 2,200. Most technology-related jobs are in those two sectors. The financial sector grew by 900.If your housing is manageable (a big qualifier) and if you are able to work, then you should be able to find a good job.
“Job growth in the Bay Area remains well ahead of the national average, with San Francisco, the Peninsula, San Jose, and the North Bay growing faster than the East Bay,” Jed Kolko, chief economist with job site Indeed, said in an email. “It’s striking how strong job growth remains in San Francisco and San Jose despite the high cost of living here, as most of the fastest-growing metros in the U.S. are relatively affordable” places in the Sunbelt and Mountain states.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”For the record I've always identified with Martha, who tended to her responsibilities, vs. slacker Mary who ignored Martha and listened to Jesus' speech. A different lesson from the story, however, is that we can easily be distracted by the busy, essentially unimportant things that occupy our time.
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” [NIV Luke 10:38-42]
Nancy Pelosi is Big Mama:The political class of Rome wanted Caesar gone and successfully dispatched him with 23 wounds. But the conspirators themselves came to unhappy ends—Caesar’s base hated them and chased them out of town! Nobody loves an assassin. The only political survivors were Caesar’s designated heir and the leaders who didn’t join the conspiracy.
(Nate Beeler cartoon)
That is the predicament of the 23 contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination who are not named Joe Biden. They want the front-runner gone. But they don’t really want to be the one who does him in. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want you saying he has a lean and hungry look! Amy Klobuchar doesn’t want it said she really is mean. The safe course for them is to let someone else do it, then mourn, with poignant words, the end of an epic 20th-century career.
Like other seasoned pundits and politicians, Peggy Noonan uses logic and math to discount the power of the young lionesses of the Democratic Party.grandma has been observing them [the "Squad"--the four progressive House Democrats Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.) and sees what others see. She doesn’t mind that they’re hot, aggressive and ideological, but they don’t confine their fire to outside the tent. They attack moderates as sellouts, racists, child abusers...
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been destructive to her party’s chances in 2020. She is a one woman Committee to Re-Elect the President. The way I read it now, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been dunked on by a pro and schooled by Big Mama...
in private, Mrs. Pelosi couldn’t be clearer. To her caucus’s progressives at the closed-door meeting Wednesday morning: “Some of you are here to make a beautiful pâté, but we’re making sausage.” “You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK.” On attacks on moderates: “Think twice. Actually, don’t think twice. Think once.”
The example of the modern roundabout is instructive. While the roundabout is easy to picture, its high efficiency in moving more cars along through an intersection is difficult to apprehend unless one has experienced it a few times.It’s called a diverging diamond. To enter the freeway, the cutting-edge interchange requires drivers to veer at a 45-degree angle across the center divide, switching sides with opposing traffic and briefly motoring across as if they are in England.
By being on the left side, they can then glide left onto the highway without a dangerous 90-degree turn across oncoming cars.
Some traffic planners are smitten with the concept and how, in the name of efficiency and safety, it forces opposing traffic to negotiate an X-shaped, signalized crossover before a bridge or underpass. As freeway-bound drivers drift to the left to an on-ramp, those heading through the interchange to the other side of the freeway follow the road back to the right at another crossover.
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| Seafood fried rice and chicken wings |
Sometimes frustrated citizens spend time and money trying to fix the problems themselves. There are encouraging stories like the Bernal Heights staircase to motivate others. However, the ending isn't always happy:The European cities Hemphill visited featured mostly clean sidewalks without needles, poop or heaps of trash. He felt safe working on his laptop in parks or cafes without worrying that someone would snatch the device. The public transportation was efficient and tidy. He didn’t encounter people who seemed clearly out of their minds because of drugs or untreated mental illness.
BART worker's regular duty: pick up syringes (Chron)
There was some graffiti and litter, yes. And a few homeless people begging for spare change. But nothing like San Francisco....
But when he arrived at his South of Market condo on Clara Street, he couldn’t get in his own front door. A man who appeared homeless had dropped his pants to urinate against the entryway. When Hemphill asked him to move, the man shouted “F— off!” and continued using the door as a toilet.
[Hemphill's] alley got a little cleaner and friendlier for a while thanks to the diligence of a neighbor, Brian Egg, who cleaned the sidewalks, watered trees and chatted with other residents while out walking his dog. That was before Egg’s headless body was found last year decomposed in a fish tank. The case is still under investigation.Some readers think the solution is "offering universal health care and a far more robust social safety net" while others opine that it's "higher expectations for decency and civility elsewhere".
The two States, California and Hawaii, where I spend all my time, seem helpless to stem the tide.The readers' solutions sound half-hearted because, even if they work ("universal health care", "civility") they will take years to implement. Meanwhile in the once-beautiful City by the Bay homelessness is rising, residents are fleeing, and high taxes will rise higher.
The solution is always more money, and yet the numbers keep growing. Other States, including those with warm weather, don't seem to have as great a problem. The answers are out there, but they involve single-minded dedication and reliable funding over a long-period of time
I'm not confident that Willie's right about the Squad's power. Non-stop media coverage can change perceptions of influence, and more influence translates into more power in the new world of social media.All the talk about dissension among House Democrats is a bit overblown.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley (NY Post)
There are 235 Democrats in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has only four really rebellious members, “the squad” led by hero-of-the-left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
When I was Assembly speaker I had five rebels on my hands, and they actually organized to try to get rid of me. They didn’t succeed, because when you come right down to it, five people out of 50 ain’t a majority.
I’m sure Pelosi’s four rebels will find that out soon enough.
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| Parking lot directions: puzzling even when not driving. |
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| Security let me through in the morning but stopped me in the evening with this dangerous multi-tool. They wouldn't hold it, so I hid it in and recovered it from the bushes instead of going back to the car six blocks away. |
“I have eight stents in my heart, and I’m going to have a heart attack in the next year or two, and that’ll be it,” he says. “I’m trying to get the music out of my head first.”....the musician says flatly that he is afraid of dying after battling hepatitis C, receiving a liver transplant and now struggling with diabetes, on top of his cardiac issues.The wake-up calls are becoming louder and more frequent. I admire David Crosby for recognizing that there aren't many tomorrows left and acting upon that realization.
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| (Image from Today) |
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| Hallmark movie: lovers come together over the original flag. Hallmark doesn't know right-thinking people are outraged. |
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| Dad with his walker at Ala Moana (2012) |
An estimated 3.6 million Americans a year miss medical appointments due to unreliable transportation, costing the U.S. health-care system roughly $150 billion annually, according to Uber, citing independent studies. The U.S. Government Accountability Office pegged spending on NEMT under Medicare and Medicaid at nearly $3 billion in 2013. As the start of this year, supplemental benefits to Medicare Advantage were broadened to include a range of medical transportation that supports overall wellness and health—even rides to some massage appointments.When we were unavailable to take Mom or Dad to their appointments, we tried hiring companies who specialized in NEMT for the elderly. The results were disappointing; my parents always felt rushed, and drivers didn't seem to be interested in alleviating discomfort. Plus it's costly, because the companies require us to pay for the vehicles to wait around during the appointment.
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| (Justin Sullivan photo via the Chronicle) |
"During a period of exciting discovery or progress there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters," he wrote. "The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done. Perfection, we know, is finality; and finality is death."The cost of Apple's "spaceship" HQ is approximately $5 billion, including contents. While the company had more than enough cash to pay for it, the diversion of management time had to be significant yet was available because, as Parkinson said, "all the important work has been done."
New figures released this week show the tech giant’s circular headquarters in Cupertino was assessed at $3.6 billion by Santa Clara County for property tax purposes. The valuation doesn’t perfectly coincide with its market value — how much it would sell for — but is based off a detailed appraisal of the building, which opened in 2017.The paint has barely dried, and the property is worth 18-28% less than what Apple paid for it. You or I might see a similar drop when we drive a new car off the lot, but, frankly, I expect better from a trillion-dollar tech leader.
If you include computers, furniture and even farm equipment to take care of the property’s trees, the figure rises to $4.17 billion for the fiscal year that ended in June, the assessor’s office said.
Draymond Green was one of the leaders in having the Warriors reject a visit to the Donald Trump White House after the team won the NBA Championship, so I'm sure he has empathy for Reem Assil. In his words[Palestinian-Syrian chef] Reem Assil, who has been praised by publications like The Chronicle and Food and Wine, has played a vital role in sparking Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood as a food destination. One of her signatures at her Arab bakery, Reem’s California, has been the “Draymond Green,” a seasonal vegetable wrap.
Chef Reem Assil (Chronicle photo)
The chef’s decision to stop selling the dish is linked to Green’s 2018 visit to Israel. While there, Green posed for a photo holding a military rifle as though he were a sniper, during a stop at the base of an Israeli Defense Force counter-terrorism unit, the Yamam.
“In order to effect change, you have to stand for something. If you go about it the same way, you do the same things you do if everything is normal, then you won’t effect change.”
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| Same old picture (Fog City Journal graphic) |
Under Prop. 13, both residential and commercial property is reassessed only when it is sold. Otherwise, assessment increases are capped at 2% a year.Your humble blogger will vote against this measure. (I have no dog in this hunt, i.e., no investments other than common stocks in companies that hold California property.)
Many homes change hands every few years, so they’ve been repeatedly reassessed since 1978. Large businesses, however, often remain under the same ownership for a long time. Some California businesses are paying property taxes based on assessments that haven’t changed in 40 years.
Stone cited a 25.9-acre parcel of land in Santa Clara that is owned by Intel. The assessed value of the then-empty property before Prop. 13 passed was $2.9 million, he said. Now the land has buildings on it and is assessed at $23.9 million.
If it were to be reassessed today, Stone estimates, it would be valued at $169 million.
IMHO, seasoned politician Willie Brown is indulging in fanciful escapism because he saw the handwriting on the wall after last week's debates:the pairing of a female former prosecutor with a gay middle American who is both a Rhodes scholar and an Afghanistan war veteran would certainly get the nation’s attention.
(Rhona Wise photo via the Chronicle)
Harris and Buttigieg are new, engaging, energetic and different enough so that the media would eat up their every appearance. Which would be priceless, because if there’s one thing Trump can’t stand, it’s someone else in the limelight.
Then come the debates.
If Harris hits hard, which she most certainly will, Trump’s first instinct would be to hit back even harder.
That could lead to Trump lashing out.
There’s a fine line between hitting back and flipping out, and Trump is fully capable of taking things too far.
He could make Harris out to be the victim rather than the attacker. And in the process make himself look unhinged.
Meanwhile, the level-headed and likable Buttigieg would be hitting the midlands, coming off as the most reasonable person in the race.
The first Democratic debates proved one thing: We still don’t have a candidate who can beat Donald Trump....Trump must have enjoyed every moment and every answer, because he now knows he’s looking at a bunch of potential rivals who are still not ready for prime time.Willie Brown and other political pundits, like their sports counterparts, are experts, but they're calling the Super Bowl winner before the regular season has even started.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson [bold added]The strongest argument for us being in a simulation, probably being in a simulation, is the following: 40 years ago, we had Pong, two rectangles and a dot…That is what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality.
(Photo from glitch news)
If you assume any rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality.
If we are indeed living in a Matrix-like reality, then there are metaphysical implications:put the odds at 50-50 that our entire existence is a program on someone else’s hard drive. “I think the likelihood may be very high,” he said. He noted the gap between human and chimpanzee intelligence, despite the fact that we share more than 98 percent of our DNA. Somewhere out there could be a being whose intelligence is that much greater than our own.
(Photo from Atlanta Magazine)
“We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence,” he said. “If that’s the case, it is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just a creation of some other entity for their entertainment.”
But some were more contemplative, saying the possibility raises some weighty spiritual questions. “If the simulation hypothesis is valid then we open the door to eternal life and resurrection and things that formally have been discussed in the realm of religion,” [Maryland physicist James] Gates suggested. “The reason is quite simple: If we’re programs in the computer, then as long as I have a computer that’s not damaged, I can always re-run the program.”On the bright side, if we are players in a super video-game, then we can go back to the last save point and try again. Maybe next time we won't die so soon or maybe we can correct the poor choices we made. (It's not life after death but a reincarnation.)
And if someone somewhere created our simulation, would that make this entity God? “We in this universe can create simulated worlds and there’s nothing remotely spooky about that,” Chalmers said. “Our creator isn’t especially spooky, it’s just some teenage hacker in the next universe up.”
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| (White House photo via WSJ) |
American strategy these days may best be characterized as something of a random walk.Whenever I enter the rabbit hole of a "conversation" (more like a harangue) about the President, I make an old-school argument: watch what he does, not what he says.
Traveling in Asia and Europe last month, I spoke to U.S. allies and strategic competitors alike about Trumpian foreign policy. They differed on many topics, but the one thing they all agreed on was that we really don’t know what the president is going to do next.
Constructive ambiguity or strategic confusion? Who knows?
Last week, Mr. Trump took further historic steps, literally, toward an utterly improbable detente with North Korea. Last month, he demurred when presented with a limited and justifiable retaliatory strike against Iran for shooting down a U.S. reconnaissance drone over the Gulf because, he said, he was concerned about disproportionate loss of life. While he continues to pursue a trade war with China, he seems, if anything, to be happier when—as at last week’s G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan—he is de-escalating tensions with Xi Jinping.Blustering/threatening, then retreating at the 11th hour, is the Trumpian style. It seems to be working, not spectacularly but better than his predecessors.
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| Local insects. |
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| Alfred, 20, in Fukuoka (1945) |
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| Eli Marozzi sculptures at Old Stadium Park |
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| From 2011: tents in stadium park |
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| The only blue pills I'm taking |
