December 2nd 2008
The Future for Home Prices
The WSJ has a good article on real estate prices and includes three gems that show how Americans make bad decisions when investing:
Archive for the 'Our Life' Category
December 1st 2008
Apple on The Simpsons
“Who dares question the boss we fired 10 years ago and then brought back?!?”:
December 1st 2008
A Microsoft Veteran Embraces Open Source
John Markoff writes about an ex-Microsoft employee who has written a book about open source, what most Microsoft employees consider more evil than Satan, why it’s the future of software and why Microsoft is “toast”. That’s hardly news.
Ultimately, he left because he was bored: “The amount I learned in my 11th year was much less than what I had learned in my first year, and the stock had become stagnant.”
It took him 11 years to get bored. I’m impressed… I was bored after two.
My three cents on open source and free (as in free beer and freedom) software….
1¢: Low-level software (operating systems, developer tools and even word processors) will become commoditized. Those are three things Microsoft makes a ton of money on right now, but in the end, they will be commodities and businesses will be built on top of them, businesses that sell them will be obsolete.
2¢: Open Source makes sense in a capitalist system in that it’s cheaper for corporations to use and even maintain open source software than it is to pay one vendor millions or tens of millions of dollars for something they have no control over and can’t provide you with a competitive advantage. Rather than pay Microsoft $10 million/year for Windows licenses, a Fortune 500 corporation can pay $500K/year three developers to maintain Linux, knowing that all the other Fortune 500 companies are doing the same. They’ll get a better product, a better response time to fixing bugs and very likely lower their maintenance costs because the inner workings aren’t a secret. Once the network effect takes hold around on Linux, if it already hasn’t, a company selling an operating system is on the decline.
3¢: Proprietary software companies can survive if they make a better and easier-to-use product. But the rule of “good enough” is hard to compete against. Windows is not better or easier-to-use than a Mac, but it’s “good enough”. Linux is better (faster, more reliable) but not easier-to-use than Windows… but eventually it will be good enough.
November 28th 2008
Black Friday
The NYT writes about the annual Black Friday insanity:
A 34-year-old Wal-Mart employee was killed, the police said, after being knocked down and trampled by a wave of shoppers who broke down the doors of the store at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. Several other shoppers were hurt, including a 28-year-old pregnant woman who was taken to the hospital, police said, after the stampede occurred just after 5 a.m.
In lighter news, there’s plenty of stupid people:
“I’ve been doing this for 17 years; this year, it feels smaller,” said Tracey Darwish, 37, who was waiting in line at the Wal-Mart in Columbus to buy Madden ‘09, the football video game for PlayStation 2, for $39, marked down from $59. Ms. Darwish said that in the past she would “spend thousands of dollars on Black Friday” — even withdrawing money from her retirement account.
She waited in line for Wal-Mart to open to buy Madden ‘09 for $39. Yet anyone can go to Amazon and buy it for $39.99. But even dumber, she takes money out of her retirement account to buy Christmas gifts. What an idiot.
This woman is “cutting back” by buying an electronic corkscrew, because when times are tough and you’re unemployed, opening a bottle of wine can be unbearable with the non-electronic corkscrews:
Rosemary O’Brien, 55, of Newport, R.I., glanced over the selection of silver-wrapped electronic corkscrews at Bloomingdale’s, retailing for $39.99. She said that she was trying to cut back after her business, Freedom Yachts, recently closed.
And she’s betting on not having to pay the bill:
“I am paying a lot with credit cards, and I’m hoping the banks go out of business and I won’t have to pay them back,” Ms. O’Brien said.
In other words, she’s hoping that all banks go out of business, not just her bank. And Americans wonder why they’re all in debt and can’t get ahead.
November 27th 2008
Thanksgiving 2008
We had a quiet Thanksgiving, just the four (that’s still weird to say) of us. I watched all three blow-out football games and tried to keep Havana and Hudson from bothering Gay in the kitchen.
We sampled several beers that I’ve received from a beer-of-the-month club my brother gave me for Christmas last year and found a couple good ones — Gay liked the Saranac Caramel Porter and I liked the Shipyard Prelude Special Ale.
November 25th 2008
Hudson at 3 months
Today Hudson is 3 months old. He’s still a much easier baby than Havana was. He’s quiet and rarely cries (just like his dad). He can roll over when put down on his tummy and is patient as Havana pokes, prods and hugs him. He even sleeps through the night, i.e., 5 hours, on occasion which is much earlier than I remember Havana sleeping through the night.
November 19th 2008
Dogfish Head in The New Yorker
The New Yorker has an article on craft beer, specifically on Dogfish Head:
“I looked around and saw three breweries basically ruling the United States,” he told me. All but one per cent of the beer sold in the U.S. was still made by Miller, Coors, and Anheuser-Busch, along with mid-sized and foreign breweries such as Pabst and Heineken. And while craft breweries made wonderful beer, they were mostly focussed on classic German and British styles, such as pale ale and Pilsner. Calagione had something else in mind. “I’d read a copy of Michael Jackson’s ‘World Guide to Beer,’ and I thought, Holy shit! There are people out there making beer with fruit! There are Scottish ales made with heather flowers! Maybe I can make a living making beer that isn’t like anything else.” It was an opportunity to play David to the beer industry’s Goliaths, he says. “It was the same kind of thing that got me kicked out of prep school.”
November 18th 2008
Republican party: ship of fools
The Economist on why the Republican party lost. Their lack of ideas:
The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.
November 18th 2008
Anheuser-Busch is foreign beer
It’s official, InBev has completed its acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. America now makes only the best beers in the world. Of the top 50 breweries in America, here are my favorites and their ranking in size:
1 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA
2 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA
7 Deschutes Brewery, Inc. Bend OR
9 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR
13 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA
20 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA
21 Rogue Ales / Oregon Brewing Newport OR
25 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE
28 The Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA
44 Anderson Valley Brewing Co. Boonville CA
46 North Coast Brewing Co. Inc. Fort Bragg CA
