It is as big as the death of MJ. The new OS by Google. To be delivered 2010.
Can Google finally unify the Linux camp and beat Apple? I believe they can. For me, OSX is a great OS in the sense that it is robust, usable and yes, pretty. It just doesn't get in the way. But then you can say the same of gmail and blogger. They are great products. They work, they are easy. Pretty? no... but hey, it is web software.
Of course a side of me cannot help but cringe at the thought that this is yet another pet project by Google. You know the kind. It crashes, it doesn't really work and it barely makes sense. You wonder if the project is seriously supported by Google or the pet project of Huan "zig-zag" Tseng, employee 43083.
And yet I hope they will pull it off. This feels different. Real. They have pulled off mail, blogger and docs in a relatively easy way. Android is an interesting project. At Open Remote, it makes all the sense in the world to have an OS that boots instantly in a "dedicated" mode; to us it's a panel. From Open Remote's viewpoint we are eagerly awaiting new panel touch hardware. The Android/Chrome combination throws the gauntlet on the low-end of the market.
A netbook calls for a netbook centric OS that really delivers. Simpler, more robust. There seems to be a faction at Google that is serious about inventing the next generation mass computing platform. I want to believe. Godspeed.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
TF20: Modern Pop
Download.
Time for an indulgence. I have a sweet tooth for Pop. I was a teen in the 80's. There is excellent stuff being done today in the indie dance genre, which is really pop revisited with dance rythm and modern production. There is downright good music in there.
This mix was assembled with relatively new material, most within the year. For throwback there is some 80's raw. This is all originals, made from original, there is almost no production. It did take a long time to work on transitions. I threw in there two originals from the 80's, spot them.
Playlist: French, Yelle, a modern version of an 80's classic. Yelle has been specializing in porting old french pop to modern times. Computer Camp Love, 2009, catchy tune, very modern, funny lyrics. Needy Girl, by Cameo. One of the best tunes this year all around. The bassline is borrowed from the 80's original that is overlaid in the beggining, Rumors... There is another bassline in there that you might recognize. Needy Girl is a fantastic tune. Outstanding pop.
For fun I threw in there Dim-da-da heavily remixed. It segways into a good modern tune called "Remind me", I do that via acid bells for support of the "pompompero".
Many of you may have heard this tune in the Geico commercial of a year ago or so. This is a great tune, instant hit quality. It transitions to Popular Culture. It is one of those rather trippy tracks that can come out of underground indie production. This one is un-even but inspired. The whinny singing is great, "give us popular culture for free!".
It finishes with one of my favorites (08). It is rather theoretical techno "Black Sheep", the last track, Black sheep uses sounds that only acid bells displayed. I do like modern production! This is not pop, just a wicked track!
It was fun to compile this list. It does mean listening to a lot of stuff, but there are many things in the flow that I like. You can randomly listen to 300 tracks and extract a good 30. It is worth it.
Time for an indulgence. I have a sweet tooth for Pop. I was a teen in the 80's. There is excellent stuff being done today in the indie dance genre, which is really pop revisited with dance rythm and modern production. There is downright good music in there.
This mix was assembled with relatively new material, most within the year. For throwback there is some 80's raw. This is all originals, made from original, there is almost no production. It did take a long time to work on transitions. I threw in there two originals from the 80's, spot them.
Playlist: French, Yelle, a modern version of an 80's classic. Yelle has been specializing in porting old french pop to modern times. Computer Camp Love, 2009, catchy tune, very modern, funny lyrics. Needy Girl, by Cameo. One of the best tunes this year all around. The bassline is borrowed from the 80's original that is overlaid in the beggining, Rumors... There is another bassline in there that you might recognize. Needy Girl is a fantastic tune. Outstanding pop.
For fun I threw in there Dim-da-da heavily remixed. It segways into a good modern tune called "Remind me", I do that via acid bells for support of the "pompompero".
Many of you may have heard this tune in the Geico commercial of a year ago or so. This is a great tune, instant hit quality. It transitions to Popular Culture. It is one of those rather trippy tracks that can come out of underground indie production. This one is un-even but inspired. The whinny singing is great, "give us popular culture for free!".
It finishes with one of my favorites (08). It is rather theoretical techno "Black Sheep", the last track, Black sheep uses sounds that only acid bells displayed. I do like modern production! This is not pop, just a wicked track!
It was fun to compile this list. It does mean listening to a lot of stuff, but there are many things in the flow that I like. You can randomly listen to 300 tracks and extract a good 30. It is worth it.
The fallacy of rational expectations
Rational expectations is how most modern economics models agents. In equilibrium, agents will choose the option that optimizes their outcome. This assumes a tremendous intelligence on the part of the human.
It is plain obvious our race does not possess this quality. Our decisions are faulty, made with partial information, based on gut instinct, sometimes just plain dumb.
Think about Ponzi type II investors. The investor speculates that the price of houses will go up, spurring demand for both credit and houses. This sparks a self feeding loop of a credit bubble and a housing bubble. This ponzi scheme is stable in the short term, even highly profitable and can go for awhile and becomes generalized (7 years?).
You will start hearing "real estate ALWAYS goes up" and other stupid things. In retrospect this is a sure sign the Ponzi is about to blow. People can rationally build up expectations that the market will go up based on short term experience and ignore the rational long-term outcome that it will blow up at some point. We blow ourselves up every time with money.
Some models represent agents as Ponzi II speculators. Just for fun I would look for papers where some agents are "dumb or random". Not everyone has a cloud of computers to pick solutions out of a 120 variables universe. Sheesh!
It is plain obvious our race does not possess this quality. Our decisions are faulty, made with partial information, based on gut instinct, sometimes just plain dumb.
Think about Ponzi type II investors. The investor speculates that the price of houses will go up, spurring demand for both credit and houses. This sparks a self feeding loop of a credit bubble and a housing bubble. This ponzi scheme is stable in the short term, even highly profitable and can go for awhile and becomes generalized (7 years?).
You will start hearing "real estate ALWAYS goes up" and other stupid things. In retrospect this is a sure sign the Ponzi is about to blow. People can rationally build up expectations that the market will go up based on short term experience and ignore the rational long-term outcome that it will blow up at some point. We blow ourselves up every time with money.
Some models represent agents as Ponzi II speculators. Just for fun I would look for papers where some agents are "dumb or random". Not everyone has a cloud of computers to pick solutions out of a 120 variables universe. Sheesh!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Oil Glut
Nathalie went to bed one night and told me "I want to invest in oil". Oil was at $32, I believe this was 4-5 mo ago?. I went online to research just how one invests in oil. I read about Contango, ETFs and owning oil tankers. I realized a big part of the cost is the ongoing cost of storage. It seemed complicated and not terribly interesting. I told Nathalie I had no appetite for risk. Today Oil stands at $65.
Via naked capitalism, an article on supply and demand. Basically the short term supply is going to be huge. So downward pressure should increase. The article forecasts oil at $20. Mind you, before the bubble in commodities, I had read an article stating that oil would go from $70 to $50. It was basically right, even understated, considering that oil went to $30 but after having visited $150.
Such volatility in market pricing is mostly the result of the futures market. Any time someone tries to compute spot from futures, there is a lot of guess work going on. Also the futures are susceptible to speculation. A barrel of oil changes hands 27 times before it reaches the consummer. This makes for volatile prices. If one were to look at oil markets would they find the reflection of supply and demand or a swarm of speculators?
An orderly transition of our economies to something else than oil will take a century and at least 3 generations, assuming we make oil last that long. Grand-pa, tell us about the old cars again? What happened to the reserves of oil? Did the markets handle it well or did it degenerate in war? I hope our economies are more resilient and clever than that.
Via naked capitalism, an article on supply and demand. Basically the short term supply is going to be huge. So downward pressure should increase. The article forecasts oil at $20. Mind you, before the bubble in commodities, I had read an article stating that oil would go from $70 to $50. It was basically right, even understated, considering that oil went to $30 but after having visited $150.
Such volatility in market pricing is mostly the result of the futures market. Any time someone tries to compute spot from futures, there is a lot of guess work going on. Also the futures are susceptible to speculation. A barrel of oil changes hands 27 times before it reaches the consummer. This makes for volatile prices. If one were to look at oil markets would they find the reflection of supply and demand or a swarm of speculators?
An orderly transition of our economies to something else than oil will take a century and at least 3 generations, assuming we make oil last that long. Grand-pa, tell us about the old cars again? What happened to the reserves of oil? Did the markets handle it well or did it degenerate in war? I hope our economies are more resilient and clever than that.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Buiter on credit and naked CDS
Excellent article by Willem Buiter, professor of econ at LSE, in the FT. I want to quote a few passages
Those that have been following the for-dummies series will be able to dissect this sentence easily :) It is the monetarist argument in Buiter-speak. He writes well and fluidly but is a bit opaque imo. Financial innovation of MBS and associated CDS did result in a rapid increase of the total monetary volume. Buiter says
In other words liquidity dissapears from these markets. The secondary implodes, you can't sell the stuff, just like you can't resell your house.
Not to toot my own horn, but as Buiter says himself in the article "if you don't toot your own horn, who will?". He lashes out against naked CDS.
Toot!
Toot!
Despite inadequate supervision and regulation, the financial innovation process that started in the final quarter of the 20th century probably improves overall economic performance during normal times. It does, however, increase the likelihood of abnormal times—panics, manias and crashes—occurring, and exacerbates the scope and severity of financial crises.
Those that have been following the for-dummies series will be able to dissect this sentence easily :) It is the monetarist argument in Buiter-speak. He writes well and fluidly but is a bit opaque imo. Financial innovation of MBS and associated CDS did result in a rapid increase of the total monetary volume. Buiter says
When risk is mispriced and misallocated, financial crises and collapses can occur. Financial crashes and associated defaults and bankruptcies are socially costly because they involve a waste of real resources as well as a reshuffling of property rights. When that happens, the aggregate non-diversifiable risk in the economy is not just distributed inefficiently, but its total quantum is increased. Risk that should be diversifiable under orderly market conditions ceases to be so.
In other words liquidity dissapears from these markets. The secondary implodes, you can't sell the stuff, just like you can't resell your house.
Not to toot my own horn, but as Buiter says himself in the article "if you don't toot your own horn, who will?". He lashes out against naked CDS.
Toot!
One of the reasons for my ignorance (widely shared, I may say in my defence) was the pace of financial innovation in instruments and institutions. Most of the new instruments and institutions were motivated purely by regulatory and tax arbitrage, domestic and crossborder. But some it it was genuine. Even those that were genuine and potentially socially useful (interest rate swaps, securitisation, CDS). Even the genuine innovations were, however, often abused and became socially damaging. CDS provide an example. Just as short selling equity is potentially efficiency enhancing but naked short selling is just gambling, so insuring credit default risk is potentially efficiency enhancing when the buyer has an insurable interest and the writer of the CDS is sufficiently capitalised. Current arrangements permit ‘naked’ CDS buying (buying CDS on a security in excess of the face value of your holdings of that security).
Toot!
Toot!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Soccer: Spain 0-USA 2
I like big games. We are looking into going to SA for the world cup next year. To watch Spain win.
And then USA comes along in the cup of confederacies (a warm up to the WC) and wins in semi-finals.
I have seen one of the best defenses in a long time. Mid-field is non-existent, attack is opportunistic and works. Defense in WORLD CLASS.
It reminds me of France in 2008. This is how they defeated Brazil. To be fair, Spain dominated the game in terms of how well they play but it didn't matter. They just couldn't get a single thing through. Well done USA!
And then USA comes along in the cup of confederacies (a warm up to the WC) and wins in semi-finals.
I have seen one of the best defenses in a long time. Mid-field is non-existent, attack is opportunistic and works. Defense in WORLD CLASS.
It reminds me of France in 2008. This is how they defeated Brazil. To be fair, Spain dominated the game in terms of how well they play but it didn't matter. They just couldn't get a single thing through. Well done USA!
Loose monetary policy equals growth
From a bank of Japan official apparently
This is the post I did below, but from the mouth of an official. All that this guys says is true, the downside is that "it is true for awhile", namely until the debt repayments come due or the debt burden is too much. Then the same dynamic kicks in reverse. As a politician, who can resist the above logic? The last sentence can be expanded in "In the end, loosened monetary policy would boost real economic growth, FOR A WHILE, until the cash flow needs are too strong and then the financial system implodes with great consequences for the economy. We are jackasses, wizards of oz that don't know what the fuck we are doing, yet pilot the central bank of one of the major economies". FUCKING CLOWNS!
That is my top of mind thought right now. That no one really understands money. The fact that the statement above, comes from a high placed official who shows an incomplete understanding of monetary history that could have been filled by simple studies of the 1870, 1907 and 1929 financial crises, speaks volumes.
We are cro-magnons when it comes to money. This crisis is easily explained: the human race is RETARDED and STUPID when it comes to money.
We intended first to boost the stock and property markets. Supported by this safety net – rising markets – export-oriented industries were supposed to reshape themselves so they could adapt to a domestic-led economy. This step was supposed to bring about an enormous growth of assets over every economic sector. The wealth effect would in turn touch off personal consumption and residential investment, followed by an increase in investment in plant and equipment. In the end, loosened monetary policy would boost real economic growth.
This is the post I did below, but from the mouth of an official. All that this guys says is true, the downside is that "it is true for awhile", namely until the debt repayments come due or the debt burden is too much. Then the same dynamic kicks in reverse. As a politician, who can resist the above logic? The last sentence can be expanded in "In the end, loosened monetary policy would boost real economic growth, FOR A WHILE, until the cash flow needs are too strong and then the financial system implodes with great consequences for the economy. We are jackasses, wizards of oz that don't know what the fuck we are doing, yet pilot the central bank of one of the major economies". FUCKING CLOWNS!
That is my top of mind thought right now. That no one really understands money. The fact that the statement above, comes from a high placed official who shows an incomplete understanding of monetary history that could have been filled by simple studies of the 1870, 1907 and 1929 financial crises, speaks volumes.
We are cro-magnons when it comes to money. This crisis is easily explained: the human race is RETARDED and STUPID when it comes to money.
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