Competitive Excel

The competitors take the stage in Las Vegas (WSJ)

Back in my day I was pretty good at building Excel spreadsheets. But I would never have come close to qualifying for the World Excel Championships, held December 7-9 in Las Vegas:

the omnipresent office spreadsheet software has spawned ranks of data geeks who see Excel as a sport. And here they were at the biggest table of them all: the Microsoft Excel World Championship, held at the HyperX Arena Las Vegas in the Luxor Hotel & Casino. (One floor down from a show by the comedian Carrot Top.)

...the thrills were off the charts at the main tournament, where rivals battled for the Excel championship over three 30-minute sessions that included both high drama and hexadecimals. Watching the action unfold on a giant screen, the live audience screamed cheers of encouragement and surprise and marveled at the rich data types, tables, monster functions, and the dreaded #ref error flashing before them.

Those who, er, excel at competitive Excel are able to identify classes of problems quickly (financial, statistical, dataset searching, etc.), select the functions (built-in algorithms like IRR and COVAR) that might be useful, and put together lines of calculation that produce the answers.

The above approach to spreadsheet building is frankly, anathema to accountants and many financial analysts. In real-world finance we have to build auditable spreadsheets that are reviewable by others. This means organizing linked spreadsheets so that one has the data inputs, others the calculations, and still others the reports. It also helps to write "notes" about what is going on in particular cells.

In Excel tournaments, where the object is to solve the problem in 30 minutes and there is no need, say, to have a work colleague run the calculations in the modeler's absence, many of these design techniques can be ignored.

That said, there is always a need for genius programmers that can get Excel to solve problems that seemed beyond the software's capabiities. At these tournaments it's nice they're finally getting some recognition.

You Can Lead Californians to Wastewater, But You Can't Make Them Drink

(Image from San Diego Pollution Trackers)

Headline: California poised to allow ‘toilet to tap’ projects, in landmark water rule [bold added]

California water regulators are poised to approve long-awaited rules that will allow local water agencies to convert sewage — such as what drains from toilets and showers — directly into drinking water.

In what is probably an understatement

Acceptance among ordinary people who would drink the water remains a concern; [Kirsten] Struve estimates that one-third of the public is not keen on the concept. However, water experts believe that Californians are increasingly open to the concept — in part due to water scarcity struggles statewide.

Your humble blogger thinks that water "experts" are too optimistic that the public will drink treated wastewater. Many Californians don't even drink tap water now. According to a UC-Berkeley paper

The majority of Californians have access to safe surface water. Yet, 70% of Californians drink bottled water at least monthly (Lucas 2003). Over 35% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is consumed in California and one third of Californians use such water as a primary source of drinking water (Allen 1994).

If this were a plot by the bottled water companies to increase their sales, it's genius.

Just Desserts

(Note: since this blog serves to instruct, it should be noted that the correct English phrase is just deserts.)

Today was the annual bake sale at the church. In recent years, with an eye toward elevated blood sugar readings, I had simply given a ten-spot to the ladies (no, the men never brought anything) and went home empty handed. Today I gave in to temptation and filled a small brown bag with sweetmeats.

I also had a piece of pie and coffee and sat down with the aforementioned ladies to discuss the goings-on at the parish. Decades ago I disdained people who went to church for the gossip and food during coffee hour. Lo and behold, I have become them.

This time I paid twenty bucks. It was worth every penny.

Don't Get Stuck in the Money Room

Juan Amaya and Prop Movie Money product (WSJ)

There's nothing like the sense of excitement at the sight and feel of paper money, especially when one had so little of it in childhood. But enough about me.

One way to de-sensitize the emotional reaction to cash is to immerse oneself in it. It's unnecessary to have access to the real thing for the "treatment" to work, because fake money will do.

There is a space in the Atlanta office of RJR Props that workers call the money room.

Along one wall, about 20 feet of shelves hold a buffet of prop money, in stacks, bundles, cubes, rolls and other arrangements.

When outsiders enter the money room, they usually burst out laughing, said Rich “RJ” Rappaport, the company’s president. “It creates a very deep emotional reaction from everyone,” he said. “Well, except me. I’m ruined.”

“You’ve been around hundreds of millions of dollars in fake money,” he explained, “so it just completely loses its sense of wonder.”

Rappaport says that being more aware of money’s effect could put you in a better mindset for thinking about its place in your life.

He feels rich because he has a spouse, children, a house, a car and food. “To me, that’s everything,” he said. Meanwhile, it seems to him like many other people are, in a sense, stuck in the money room, marveling at the stacks.

It's easy for oldsters who are done with the making-it phase of their lives to advise younger, struggling folks that money isn't that important. To be perfectly honest, my younger self would have listened with half an ear. Just don't think it's all important. Don't get stuck in the money room.

No, Thank You (Notes)

Christmas is the season of shopping, gift-wrapping, mailing, and spending, not to mention traditional activities like church-going, caroling, tree-trimming, and card-writing. The "chore" that is among the last on the list is composing thank-you notes, which are going "the way of the horse and buggy":

Writing a thank-you note requires keeping track of who needs thanking, crafting a message that strikes the right tone, thoughtful but succinct, neither florid nor terse. To say nothing of hunting down a mailing address, buying the cards and getting the stamps.

The obligations stack up particularly high at certain life stages: 20 notes to all the kiddies who attended Ethan’s fourth birthday, holiday gifts, newborn presents.

Even Lizzie Post, etiquette maven and great-great-granddaughter of manners arbiter Emily Post, thinks that while a handwritten note can convey special effort, a texted thank you is OK in most situations. Especially within groups of friends or peers, the thank-you text has become standard and accepted, she says.

A texted thank-you? Say it ain't so, Lizzie Post. What would your great-great-grandmother say?

To be perfectly honest, there are members of our extended family that don't bother with any kind of acknowledgment--text message, phone call, voicemail, email, or otherwise.

After a couple of years of no response, we have stopped sending gifts to them. It may be a win-win: less holiday shopping for us and not receiving a present that is desired by them.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to write thank-you notes for people that send me stuff because I wouldn't feel right if I didn't do it. Yes, I'm a prisoner of my upbringing.

82 Years Later

Last May the WSJ featured Lou Conter, 102, the last survivor of the USS Arizona, which was sunk on December 7, 1941:

The USS Arizona’s bombing was the deadliest of the attacks that day, killing 1,117 people. It accounted for nearly half of the 2,403 who died during Pearl Harbor. Conter was one of the 334 people assigned to the USS Arizona who survived.

He became the last known survivor in April, after his former crewmate Ken Potts died at 102 years old.

The warship’s ammunition storage exploded during the bombings. The USS Arizona was so badly damaged that it was left to sink instead of being repaired. Its ruins are still underwater and viewable from the USS Arizona Memorial, which was built to hover over the warship.

Conter helped pull crewmates out of the burning ship.

“As we guided these men to safety, more often than not, their burned skin would come off on our hands,” Conter wrote in his 2021 book, “The Lou Conter Story.”

Gun turret: the rest of the Arizona lies beneath

He often wondered why he made it out of the USS Arizona alive.

“God didn’t want you to go that time,” he said he told himself. “There’s a lot more for you to do for the country.”

..He got his pilot wings in November 1942, he said, and was part of a team that flew Black Cat aircraft overnight doing bomb runs in the South Pacific. He said he was shot down twice, once in September 1943 and a second time three months later. Both times, he used a lifeboat to get to shore.

After World War II ended, he said he returned to California and signed up for the reserves. In the early 1950s, he served again in the Korean War...

He is now on a new mission: Go back to Pearl Harbor this December.

It has been about four years since Conter has been to the annual remembrance. His doctor had forbidden him from taking the nine hours of flights from his home in Grass Valley, Calif., to Hawaii.

“I’d like to go once more,” Conter said.

According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, Lou Conter was one of five Pearl Harbor survivors who showed up at today's ceremony. Thank you for your service, Mr. Conter, and safe travels.

Radio Shack: the "Unsung Hero" of the Personal Computing Revolution

A $4.01 Apple Computer check written by Steve Jobs to Radio Shack in 1976 is being auctioned for at least $30,000.

The check is made out on an Apple Computer Company account opened at a Wells Fargo branch in Los Altos.

Listed is Apple’s first official address at 770 Welch Rd., Ste. 154, Palo Alto — “the location of an answering service and mail drop that they used while still operating out of the famous Jobs family garage,” the webpage says.

RR Auction, a Boston-based specialist in Jobs and Apple memorabilia, calls Radio Shack an “unsung hero” of the personal computing revolution and notes that co-founder Steve Wozniak would spend hours roaming the aisles of the store.

Comments:
1) Steve Jobs must have been a careful business manager to write a check, thereby documenting a $4.01 expense.
2) Palo Alto, in fact the entire Peninsula, used to have area code 415, the same as San Francisco and Marin County. It was reassigned to 650 in 1997.
3) Can you tell from his writing that Steve Jobs is left-handed?
4) Radio Shack, which employed several of my relatives in Hawaii and California, was indeed historically important to the history of Silicon Valley, as hardware geeks like Steve Wozniak prowled its aisles for parts hoping to build the next big thing.

EDD: The Gift (to Fraudsters) That Keeps on Giving

EDD offices have been closed to the public
since the Oxnard shootings in 1993.

Since COVID payments began, losses from Employment Development Department (EDD) fraud range between $20 billion (EDD) to $32.6 billion (analyst estimate). This Chronicle headline seems to name the culprit:

California EDD lets go of Bank of America for unemployment payments, will soon start direct deposits

I am a customer of Bank of America and have no love for it. In fact, I'm seriously considering moving three accounts because of the bank's high fee schedule and minimum-balance requirements.

In this case, however, Bank of America is getting the short end of the public-relations stick. It was caught between the rock of getting payments out quickly and the hard place of screening for fraud. [bold added]

California’s Employment Development Department has selected a new contractor to pay unemployment and other benefits starting Feb. 15. The new vendor, Money Network, replaces Bank of America, which drew criticism during the pandemic for sometimes blocking payments to legitimate recipients...

A class-action lawsuit says BofA left the door open for unemployment benefit accounts to be hijacked by criminals. Then, the lawsuit said, BofA would freeze accounts, leaving victims unable to access past or future benefits, even with a replacement card.

The upshot is that B of A has been trying to get of this contract for years, not that EDD is "letting go" of the bank.

BoA had made it crystal clear that it no longer wished to administer California benefits, but under the terms of its contract with EDD, the state had the “sole option” to renew its contract with EDD for two-year periods, which it chose to do, both in June 2021 and June 2023. “We have advised the state that we would like to exit this business as soon as possible,” BoA said in summer 2021.

The new service provider, Money Network, will, like B of A, put "recipients’ benefits on prepaid debit cards" and "offer direct deposits to laid-off workers’ bank accounts." There's no mention about improved audit controls.

$40 billion in cumulative fraud is within reach, if we haven't gotten there already.

Peering Through the Fog

Different priorities now: a banker, lawyer, CPA, and financier
walked into a bar and compared notes on health, not money.

Lately I've been accepting more invitations to go to reunions, whether they're related to family, work, school, or eleemosynary institutions.

Although lethargy is growing with age, a stronger counterweight is the desire to avoid regret. Seize the opportunity to meet up with old friends because one never knows when it will be the last time.

And so it was that I fought the rush-hour traffic through San Francisco and peered through the fog on the Golden Gate Bridge for a dinner with former work colleagues in Sausalito.

The four of us quickly caught up, then turned our attention to gossiping about former acquaintances, which is another reason to attend these gatherings. Generally it's better to talk about others than to be talked about.

After two hours--three hours after sunset--our energy flagged (two bottles of chardonnay also helped). We resolved to meet up again after the New Year. I wasn't 100% sure it will happen, but it's nice to look forward to.

Hopeful Beginning

Today was the first Sunday of Advent, which is the beginning of the Liturgical Year. It was also a beginning for the Episcopal Diocese of California, which elected a new bishop yesterday.

Born in Texas, Bishop-elect [Austin K.] Rios calls Rome, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, and Louisiana home. He is of Mexican-American heritage on his father’s side and of Scotch and English descent on his mother’s side. Bishop-elect Rios is the first Latino elected bishop in the Diocese of California. He learned to speak Spanish and Italian as an adult and is fluent in both languages.

Rios currently lives in Rome, Italy, where he serves as rector of St Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church, a multilingual and multicultural community that hosts an outreach center for refugees. Pending the required consent from the wider Episcopal Church, the bishop-elect will be ordained and consecrated on Saturday, May 4, 2024, and will serve as bishop coadjutor with Bishop Marc Handley Andrus until July 2024, when Bishop Andrus will retire. At that time, Rios will succeed Andrus as bishop diocesan.

We have stated our dissatisfaction with retiring Bishop Andrus' leadership of the Diocese. Here's hoping that Bishop-elect Rios will focus on the needs of his flock rather than the platform of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Talking about Elon's Talking, Again

On Wednesday afternoon I flipped to CNBC to watch Fast Money and Mad Money, the shows that recap the stock market activity for the day. Instead of the expected fare there was Elon Musk being interviewed by Andrew Sorkin, a reporter for NBC/CNBC/MSNBC. I could not look away.



The most widely remarked-upon section of the 93-minute interview occurred when Elon Musk told advertisers who pulled their ads from X (formerly Twitter) to "go f--- yourself," uncensored on live TV.

The expletive was Elon's reaction to alleged anti-Semitism on a Musk tweet and the alleged placement of corporate advertisements next to pro-Nazi statements on X. He is suing those who made those (fraudulent, he says) accusations and heaping opprobrium on advertisers who believe them. I don't want to get into the merits of the claims themselves except to say that, for the moment, I give Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt that neither he nor X are anti-Semitic.

Speaking of the F-word, some of my former business associates said to me decades ago that their goal in life was to amass "F-you" money, that is, a nest egg sufficient enough not to fear telling off an employer before walking out the door. As we noted four months ago, Elon Musk's total investment in X represents 10-15% of his net worth. Losing that amount will hurt him, but not enough to silence him. When we're talking about F-you money, that's what we're talking about.

For the Young but not the Old

Coca-Cola got the top overall score (WSJ)

The WSJ ranks the best companies "to get promoted quickly or avoid being underpaid." One of the criteria is the willingness of employers to hire and promote workers who don't have a college degree.

To focus on workers who benefit most from upward mobility, the analysis only included data for occupations in which at least 30% of workers nationally lack a college degree, based on Labor Department data. That allowed the analysis of career trajectories of, for example, retail store managers, customer-service representatives and web developers, but not lawyers or software engineers.

In my humble opinion there has never been a better time to be a hard-working young person who doesn't have the education credentials that used to be so admired when I entered the work force.

As for me, a retired oldster who is not interested in long-term career advancement, I am looking for companies who will overpay me and are expanding too fast. They'll probably lay me off in a year or two and give me a severance package.

Hopefully the WSJ is researching that.

Less Bad--Don't Call it Better--Than Before

Unusual sight this week: no tents at Larkin & Eddy (Chron)

San Francisco cleaned up its streets for the Dreamforce conference in September and APEC in November. How quickly would homeless encampments come back? The consensus seems to be not quickly and not as extensively.

So far, the diminished homeless presence in and around what was the cordoned-off APEC zone in the South of Market area appears to be holding. Even in the Tenderloin, street conditions seemed to be a bit better than usual on a recent morning, though some local leaders said they were seeing signs that the pre-APEC status quo is returning to their neighborhood, which has long struggled to address open-air drug markets and homelessness.

...the areas radiating from the edges of the zone, particularly in the Tenderloin past Market Street and SoMa west of Fifth Street, seemed to only moderately be back to pre-APEC levels.

There were fewer tents than normal except at perennial cluster points such as Willow Street and along parts of Ellis and Eddy streets. Unhoused people throughout the Tenderloin and SoMa said city street cleaning and police patrols were maintaining what they thought was stepped-up pressure in the past month.

Plaudits to Mayor Breed and the City for making San Francisco less dystopian. However, long-lasting solutions won't be effected if the homeless and their advocates continue to hold this viewpoint: [bold added]

“I’ve already had a couple of ambassador types tell me to move and I tell them to get lost,” Billy Saccorccio, 41, said as he panhandled on Powell Street in front of the Walgreens near the cable car turnaround at 10:30 a.m. “I get it — they want us gone. They need things clear for the tourists. Do I want to live like this? F—, no. You want us gone, give us somewhere to live, bro.”

Henry Kissinger (1923-2023)

Henry Kissinger dated glamorous
celebrities like Jill St. John (NY Post)

When there were only three channels on TV, when every city had two newspapers, when print magazines (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, Life, Look, etc.) each had millions of subscribers, Henry Kissinger headlined all of them. He was the rock star of the Nixon Administration long before "rock star" became a term of approbation in fields other than music.

Henry Kissinger's Harvard professorship lent an aura of intellectual respectability to Nixon's foreign policy, defusing some of the critics' attacks. His "shuttle diplomacy" brokered the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, peace between Israel and Egypt during the Yom Kippur war, and the historic opening of ties with Mao Tse-Tung's China.

It only added to his stature when he dated some of the most glamorous women in the world.

Henry Kissinger has his detractors from the left (bombing of Cambodia) and the right (detente with the Soviet Union). Nevertheless, it is clear that much of today's geopolitical landscape is the result of actions he took 50 years ago. R.I.P.

The Advantage of Being a Night Owl

The nocturnal sturgeon survived, while the
dinosaurs did not (NYNHP image)

Evolutionary biologists, by using computer modeling, genetics, and datasets that weren't available until recently, theorize that nocturnal behavior helped species avoid extinction.

Researchers already knew that many nocturnal mammals survived the mass extinction that followed an asteroid strike 66 million years ago, whereas the dinosaurs, which were largely diurnal, did not (except for birds). The new study extends that pattern to other catastrophes and other species, including aquatic ones.

But how did researchers know that species that lived millions of years ago were nocturnal (fossils provide very little information)?

Maxwell Shafer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Toronto, and his colleagues at the University of Basel focused on living fish, which represent half of all vertebrates. They combed the literature to determine the day-night behaviors of almost 4000 bony fish species and 135 cartilaginous ones, such as sharks, and plotted these behaviors on a fish tree of life. Then they carried out many computer simulations of possible day-night activity patterns in the ancestors of modern fish, until they came across the one that best reproduced the day-night patterns of today’s species.

The nocturnal "advantage" may also apply to mammals:

Previous studies had suggested early mammals were nocturnal to avoid dinosaurs. After those predators disappeared, mammals switched to being active during the day. Amphibians and other land vertebrates also tended to be nocturnal throughout much of their evolution, according to other studies, but more and more have become diurnal. Shafer’s team proposes that for all vertebrates, nocturnality was a survival advantage during catastrophes.

Our family is a mixture of night owls and early birds. It's comforting to know that some of us have an improved shot at surviving an extinction-level event.