Month: November 2007

time to fill the tank?

The weakness of the dollar is one reason why oil prices are so high, as cartel members seek to compensate for their lower earnings. This means a further drop in the dollar is likely to be accompanied by a rise in oil prices.

Stop sniggering, you car-free types . . .

The weakness of the dollar is one reason why oil prices are so high, as cartel members seek to compensate for their lower earnings. This means a further drop in the dollar is likely to be accompanied by a rise in oil prices. [From Oil leaders’ private debate televised by mistake | World | The Observer]

Is there ever an upside to dealing with a cartel for a necessity like your prime source of energy? Aren’t you glad the grown-up Daddy party has been in charge for the past 6 years?

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[update Nov 19] I did fill up this afternoon and the customer before me dropped US$98 on a fillup. Mine are over US$40 (only a 14 gallon tank). I can’t imagine spending US$100 on a tank of gas.

by the numbers

According to 2006 figures, U.S. war spending came out to $3,749 per Iraqi — almost as much as the per capita income of Egypt. That staggering sum hasn’t bought a lot of leadership from Iraq, or much of a democratic model for its Arab neighbors.

Rafe quotes Tyler Cowen:

According to 2006 figures, U.S. war spending came out to $3,749 per Iraqi — almost as much as the per capita income of Egypt. That staggering sum hasn’t bought a lot of leadership from Iraq, or much of a democratic model for its Arab neighbors. [From The cost of the war in Iraq]

*boggle*

Take two, make a simple mirrored RAID, and that’s an amazing amount of backup space…. (I still recall buying a 20 Mb replacement drive for a Macintosh SE (SCSI, of course) for $400.

Picture 4.jpg

1 Tb? The mind reels. Take two, make a simple mirrored RAID, and that’s an amazing amount of backup space. Hook these up to one of those NAS devices as well . . . .

(I still recall buying a 20 Mb replacement drive for a Macintosh SE (SCSI, of course) for $400. And it was not a 7200 RPM drive. True, that 20 years ago, but still . . . )

business plans

As we worked through the mess — no updates had been applied since April and the built-in firewall was turned off — it was suggested that there a lot of people in similar straits. At some point it was determined that the time zone issues were the result of a dead battery, so the battery was replaced, but installed backwards, so the clock never kept time between daily reboots.

A long computer cleanup session, incomplete as it is, yielded a possible business idea. The friend I was helping (he’s over 80) has a Windows PC with the usual encrustations of cruft and malware. AdAware found 213 things it felt didn’t like, and I would expect a lot more performance from a 2 GHz CPU. And of course backups are filed under good intentions, desired but undone. So it’s well and truly gummed up.

As we worked through the mess — no updates had been applied since April and the built-in firewall was turned off — it was suggested that there a lot of people in similar straits. At some point it was determined that the time zone issues were the result of a dead battery, so the battery was replaced, but installed backwards, so the clock never kept time between daily reboots. Entropy, the overwhelming amounts of crap applied when these machines are built, and Windows’ inconsistent user interface all conspire against even younger more supple minds: an octogenarian is at a disadvantage. If someone were to stop by regularly and a. decruft and otherwise clean up a system, and b. take a backup, either leaving it there or taking it offsite (or both), it could be a useful service.

The hard parts are knowing what to charge (by hour, flat rate, or a combination) and how to make a case for the service. I suspect a lot of folks could use it, but would they mistake this is a chance to get free training/instruction/application installs?

The backups could be burned to disk or if the details could be worked out, copied offsite programmatically. A big swath of disk at DreamHost or somewhere wouldn’t cost all that much. Yes, there are services like Mozy but people just don’t want to bother. Even making a simple backup — copy a folder to the CD and burn it — was foiled by the software’s inability to use multiple discs. Tell someone they need to figure out how to fit their backups into a 667 Mb container and they’ll just throw up their hands and say ‘to hell with it.’

This could be just the thing for a person of limited free time and a large but not infinite store of patience. Suggestions?

Unintended consequences

When my daughter (5 or 6 at the time) had a really deep chest cough that was giving a lot of trouble, we dropped the scrip but he found that he didn’t have the right ingredients. By looking at the scrip he knew it was important, so he called on his own to find a pharmacy that had the stuff and transferred the prescription to them.

Question: What would you get if the pharmacy business all of a sudden had to charge the same price everywhere for an item?

Answer: Better service. The current Medicare Part D system will require just that.

Tonight I saw a Walgreen’s ad on the TV and if it is to be believed, the only differentiator of significance between pharmacies will become the service they offer.

A very interesting unintended consequence of forcing them to standardize prices.

[From Unintended consequences]

I have the opportunity to use mail-order pharmacies for Rx meds we use here, but I don’t. My local pharmacy has my business for life, or as long as their head pharmacist is there. When my daughter (5 or 6 at the time) had a really deep chest cough that was giving a lot of trouble, we dropped off the scrip but he found that he didn’t have the right ingredients. By looking at the scrip he knew it was important, so he called on his own to find a pharmacy that had the stuff and transferred the prescription to them. He called me to tell me where it was waiting without being worried about the loss of the sale.

That’s service.

incompetence or stupidity?

Certainly $204,000 isn’t chump change (no idea how close it is to the median which is more informative), but it’s completely irrelevant to the question of whether the studios should be able to take their work and put it on the internet for free.

…The issue is that an industry that continually claims to be losing money on every project somehow books millions in revenue and rips off the creators of their content as often as they can.

This is beyond stupid, I think.

On my CNBC teevee screen:

WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR?

4,434 Hollywood guild writers worked full-time last year.

Average salary: $204,000

Many earned $1 million or more

Certainly $204,000 isn’t chump change (no idea how close it is to the median which is more informative), but it’s completely irrelevant to the question of whether the studios should be able to take their work and put it on the internet for free.

But more to the point, the majority of guild members don’t work full time.

[From Spot The Bouncing Bullshit]

So let’s apply the same metric to our politicians when next they take one of their raises, shall we? The issue is that an industry that continually claims to be losing money on every project somehow books millions in revenue and rips off the creators of their content as often as they can.

Friday Random 10+1

The Playboy Mansion / U2 / Pop Wake Up / XTC / The Big Express So…. / Reckoning Across The Antheap / XTC / Oranges & Lemons Nightingale / Roxy Music / Siren That Day Is Done / Elvis Costello / The Very Best Of Elvis Costello (Disc 2) Train Running Low On Soul Coal / XTC / The Big Express A Song From Under The Floorboards / Magazine / Rays And Hail 1978-1981 And I Fell Back Alone / World Party / Goodbye Jumbo Big Kick, Plain Scrap!

The Playboy Mansion / U2 / Pop
Wake Up / XTC / The Big Express
So. Central Rain / R.E.M. / Reckoning
Across The Antheap / XTC / Oranges & Lemons
Nightingale / Roxy Music / Siren
That Day Is Done / Elvis Costello / The Very Best Of Elvis Costello (Disc 2)
Train Running Low On Soul Coal / XTC / The Big Express
A Song From Under The Floorboards / Magazine / Rays And Hail 1978-1981
And I Fell Back Alone / World Party / Goodbye Jumbo
Big Kick, Plain Scrap! / Nick Lowe / Labour of Lust
Bitter Sweet / Roxy Music / Country Life

as seen here