Category — Technology

The forces of creation put these items of know-how to rest.

Balancing The Tonearm On A Turntable

Although probably considered an obsolete skill by many people, truth is there are still thousands of vinyl enthusiasts around the world that know how to do this. [snip]

Here’s a comprehensive list of expertise necessary to survive the quotidian battles of yesteryear.

We need to notify FEMA that bigger trailers are necessary. Sensitivity toward the professional homeless is part of the cult of victimhood.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp will begin selling a 108-inch LCD television later this year, executives told the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday.

Executives also said at a news conference that Sharp had developed a prototype 65-inch liquid crystal display TV that was just over 1 inch thick and weighed 23 percent less than previous models.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the industry’s largest U.S. trade show.

Britain really is a 21^st century nation. Its education ministers are requiring parents purchase high speed Internet connections for their school age children. Leafing through National Geographic searching for naked women is so old school. Say hello to education in the digital age featuring high speed access to porn videos. You can just sense the momentum being built for education here as IQs start “swelling”.

A depression is nothing more than a recession with sharp teeth. It is a great leveler of socioeconomic classes. Some lose all, all lose some, but those for whom working with hands and/or have a necessary degree, they make the most of a tough situation.
List the skill oriented degrees, such as EE’s, PE’s and ME’s, MD’s, SAE certified mechanics etc., all fall into the category of survivors who work with the hands. Farmers, garbage collectors and janitors belong too. You can name others, I know.

You can figure out who won’t be using their various “studies.”

Talk of Worst Recession Since the 1930s

By DAN DORFMAN
November 12, 2007

After what Los Angeles money manager Arnold Silver called “a brutal three days,” the question is: What now for the market?

A Wall Street superstar this year who runs Balestra Capital Partners, Jim Melcher, says he’s “worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we’ll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product.” [snip]

…the Dow Jones Industrials, spearheaded by widespread declines in financial stocks and fears of more billion-dollar-plus asset write-downs, tumbled more than 677 points, or about 4.5%. The Nasdaq fared worse, skidding about 7%, triggered by across-the-board declines in those fast-stepping technology stocks. [snip]

Mr. Melcher argues that average homeowners will not be able to withstand the kind of recession he sees, given the added burdens of rising energy and food costs, and continued deterioration in the credit markets.

Noting that consumption is already slowing, Mr. Melcher figures sharply rising unemployment is inevitable. Another of his worries is that central banks around the globe, America’s included, are debasing their currencies, which is setting the stage for a new round of higher inflation. Our bear figures the next six to 12 months will be awful for investors as the market goes down “pretty substantially.” His frightening outlook calls for an additional 20% to 30% decline from current levels. A drop of that magnitude would put the Dow down in a range of roughly 9,100 to 10,400.

I’ve yet to find someone else with this black a forecast. Most are calling for a recession starting the first of the year and lasting for 6 to 7 months.

When the Great Depression started, investors lost money and the market dropped because of buying stocks on margin. (I leave it to the reader to see how this works)

Today, most small investors are in mutual funds, which diversify the portfolio and do not allow for margin purchases a strong mitigating factor. This is not to say these funds won’t drop by the same percentages, just that not all stocks in the fund will drop equally. Others will go up contrary to what lefties believe.

I believe the mutual funds and stocks that will take it in the shorts–and longs–are the green and socially responsible issues. It’s somewhat hard being green when one cannot afford it. Ask Kermit.

The individuals who will feel the cold are Aesop’s grasshoppers. Living on the credit card with all the newest toys, the biggest homes with terrible mortgage rates and the smallest saving accounts will prove to be the folly of the “I want it now” boomers through the current crop of spenders.

The low to mid middle class, the ants, who avoided or couldn’t afford the plasma screen TV, will be kept warm by a toasty blanket of schadenfreude.

Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius. [snip]

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.” [snip]

The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users.

Investigators from the F.C.C. and Verizon Wireless visited an upscale restaurant in Maryland over the last year, the restaurant owner said. The owner, who declined to be named, said he bought a powerful jammer for $1,000 because he was tired of his employees focusing on their phones rather than customers. [snip]

Gary, a therapist in Ohio who also declined to give his last name, citing the illegality of the devices, says jamming is necessary to do his job effectively. He runs group therapy sessions for sufferers of eating disorders. In one session, a woman’s confession was rudely interrupted.

“She was talking about sexual abuse,” Gary said. “Someone’s cellphone went off and they carried on a conversation.”

“There’s no etiquette,” he said. “It’s a pandemic.” [snip]

Gary bought his jammer from a Web site based in London called PhoneJammer.com. Victor McCormack, the site’s operator, says he ships roughly 400 jammers a month into the United States, up from 300 a year ago. Orders for holiday gifts, he said, have exceeded 2,000. [snip]

How many times have you wished to give some boor a clandestine electronic finger? Perhaps some airhead strumpet driving her SUV as if she’s sitting in the nail parlor. Or is it the self-important swell on his phone talking  to another deaf buffoon who ruins your dinner?

Well here’s how. Get some!

Governor Patrick is pushing his billion dollar biotechnology initiative. The cornerstone of which is $500 million in capital funds for a Mass Stem Cell Bank. However, a report from the Mass High Technology Council doesn’t list any of the governor’s initiatives as major biotech concerns. In fact, one core policy challenge, the effectiveness of state government, can be addressed in large part without spending a dime.

But the real question here is the wisdom of hitching the state’s wagon to the biotech and pharma industries given potentially devastating macro events like Hillary Care. Socialized medicine will seriously curtail the industry’s growth and profitability. The report even addresses a specific recommendation to oppose drug price controls and drug re-importation, which are key components of any single-payer healthcare program.

Although I applaud efforts to spur job creation, let’s make the state more competitive for all businesses. The governor can start by lowering the corporate tax rate by $1 billion over 10 years and streamlining the state’s regulatory environment. If the state is going to prosper, it needs a diverse business community.

                                            Another Car Post

Let’s get it out of the way.  General Motors!  That should bring the links.

I’m not a car guy anymore.  I’d rather live in a ’78 Chevette than frequent a gearhead discussion board.  I’ve visited some.  When they’re not insulting each other, they’re nattering about skid-plate aerodynamics, timing, lubricants and polished cranks.  

I’m also not a fact checker for this post, either.  If I say General Motors has lost about 40% of its market share in the past thirty years, I think I’m right.  I think Harley Earl started General Motors in the ’20’s, by combining the products of several car companies under one corporate economy.  It included LaSalle (we owned one).  I might be wrong.   I don’t care. 

Now in my seventh decade, I’ve driven hundreds of cars, and been the owner, or relative of the owners, of hundreds more.  I learned to drive in a ‘49 Dodge, with a three-speed column shifter, a flat manhole-cover sized steering wheel, and the engineering sophistication of the ‘90 Volvo 240 that I regrettably owned a generation later.  The Dodge was better than the Volvo (Volvos, I believe, are the tools of a sinister plot by Consumer Reports to Swedenize America).

The theme of this post is obliquely about America, and the lamentable decline of American manufacturing.  Nowhere, to me, is this more evident or emblematic than in the opportunistic and cynical way in which the labor and management stumps at General Motors drove the company off the cliff and then have tried to sell the wrecks in the gorge below as a competitive product.  They’re doing the same thing today.

Today, it seems to me,  GM has belatedly concluded that they have virtually no identifiable market demographic.  Most of their old customer base is dead or disillusioned, and the children of the dead are driving Hondas - which is why they’ve suborned talk-radio personalities to reach the well-educated, income-heavy young Americans who will never buy GM cars anyway.  When your advertising slogan is “Professional Grade Engineering“, you need a new agency.  Slogans are supposed to be the last word; they’re not supposed to elicit questions, like “What were you selling to us before?  Amateur Grade Engineering?

I won’t chronicle GM’s decline inning-by-inning, but the low points are important.  Here’s a patchwork quilt of observations:  I’m convinced of this….GM, finding itself with unmarketable automobiles in the ’70’s,  decided that meaningful change would be slow, so sleights-of-hand were necessary.  De-tune the big engines so they generated less power and used less fuel, make the cars exterior finish look like Japanese and European models, make them lighter with inferior materials, slab sides, slightly-altered 1940’s technology,  and uniform sheet metal that can be used across marques.  The product result was summed up this way, by a Cadillac executive who was asked what the difference was between a Chevy Cavalier and a Cadillac Cimarron.  He said “about four-thousand dollars”.

And they tried silly names.  Like Euro Sport.  It quickly became known as the Urine Spot.  It was a Chevrolet Celebrity model marketed on television as a car that “would take on the imports”.  One was shown being rolled down a C-130 ramp, presumably in Japan,  to a gathering of Japanese engineers.  They looked it over, and were pictured walking away with sweat breaking out on their foreheads.  What they were actually doing was laughing, but they held it until the cameras stopped rolling.  Chevolet Celebrities have vanished from the roads, while old Civics with a quarter million on the clock can be found everywhere.

The naming conventions have not improved.  GM makes, or made, the Avalanche, a name associated with natural disasters, the Equinox, which includes the unfortunate homophonic syllable “Nox”, and they also made the Alero, a name which sounds like a Fandango dancer’s hat, the kind with balls hanging off the brim.   Just what sober Oldsmobile customers like.  They tried all sorts of variations on the Japanese talent for two and three syllable words that sounded like adjectives and superlatives. Recently Chevy produced a bloated retro lump stationwagon to compete with the PT Cruiser, which is now about ten years into an attenuating market.  Nice job, Chevy.  Right on time to fail.

What GM has consistently done is to refuse to make a competitive autombile over time; they did so with some late-model Oldsmobiles, but then cancelled the marque, abandoning 2500 second generation, single-franchise dealers and their loyal customers. Today they’re marketing the Buick Lucerne with a “brushed chrome interior” and comparing it to a Lexus.   Lexus does not market its cars with a “brushed chrome interior” with a comparison to Buick.  Pimps take notice.

A number of fiscal storms are brewing in MA. Let’s start with the health care reform law, which as predicted here, will consume more and more of our tax dollars:

“Clearly, what’s going to have to happen in the long run is more money will have to be injected in the program,” said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped to write the state’s plan. “We don’t have to in the next year or two, but if you look five or 10 years down the road, if this program is going to continue to exist, it’s going to take more money to keep it going.”

Next, we visit the Tip O’Neill Tunnel. Sadly, it’s consuming our tax dollars just like its namesake did as Speaker of the House:

Some 500 leaks at the roof-wall joints in the Tip O’Neill Tunnel have never been sealed by contractors despite widespread knowledge of the problem as far back as 2001, state officials said. Money disputes and infighting among contractors essentially caused work on those fissures to come to a halt more than a year ago. The work was further delayed by the fatal Interstate 90 Seaport connector ceiling collapse.

And if those aren’t big enough albatrosses around taxpayers’ necks, there’s always our governor:

Efforts to repair bridges are included in Gov. Deval Patrick’s $613 million plan to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure. The upgrades are included in Patrick’s $12 billion spending plan that includes funding for higher education facilities, housing and environmental protection.

I doubt that figure includes the cool $1 billion he wants to give the state’s biotech companies. It’s also interesting to note the 2 pieces of the Patrick campaign you don’t hear a lot about anymore—property tax relief and trimming waste from government.

Add it all up and it’s probably time to join the MA refugees who fled to other states.

Of course no one is complaining in the winter, when gas prices drop and gas volume contracts. The same thing happens with propane and kerosene. (Paste the links in to the browser. Some active links go through my password protected account; they would not link here)

ExxonMobil’s Pump Labels Are Clue to ‘Hot Fuel’ Ripoff 1:45p ET August 9, 2007 (PR NewsWire)

Many Mobil and Exxon stations in California have begun posting small signs on each pump, calling it a “Motor Fuel Measurement Notice.” The stickers, warning that the energy content of a gallon of fuel varies with its temperature, acknowledge that consumers are being ripped off, said the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

See photos of the sticker on pump at: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ExxonPump.pd [snip]

Newly introduced legislation in the Senate, by Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, would require gasoline and diesel to be sold adjusted for temperature, giving motorists a fair gallon’s worth of energy for their money. (See information on the legislation at http://mccaskill.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=280530&

“Consumers and lawmakers are increasingly aware that there is a thumb on the scale when they buy gasoline, even though they have no fairer alternative for purchasing it,” said Dugan. “The Senate’s hot fuel bill is a warning to oil companies, refiners and distributors of gasoline that they can either make gasoline sales honest themselves or be forced by the courts or government to do it.”

Gasoline, especially in the summer, expands as its temperature rises. But fuel is sold by volume at a benchmark of 60 degrees, so drivers are paying for “ghost gas,” the lost energy content of a gallon at any temperature above 60 degrees. At other parts of the supply chain, the gasoline is sold temperature- adjusted, meaning slightly more gasoline is provided at higher temperatures.

The year-round temperature of fuel at the pump in California averages 74.5 degrees, and higher in summer. The national average is 64.7 degrees, according to a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. At $3.00 a gallon, and with fuel at 75 degrees, motorists may lose 50 cents or more per thankful to “ghost gas.” (For more information and background on “hot fuel”, see http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=5821)

Exxon said that it would put stickers on its pumps at stations in California and Arizona. A survey of six stations in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, however, found the stickers only at Exxon-owned and franchised stations, not at independently owned but branded Exxon and Mobil stations.

SOURCE Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights

Pots calling the kettles names

At YearlyKos, John Edwards and Barack Obama sought to distinguish themselves from Hillary Clinton by saying they didn’t take money from registered lobbyists, and Clinton was booed for defending herself. (Also: Franke-Ruta.)

I found this curious: after all, Obama and Edwards showed up at the national convention of the lobbying group for the trial lawyers, the former Association of Trial Lawyers of America (who now call themselves the American Association of Justice). There, they gave speeches (as did Clinton, Biden, and Richardson). A look at the largest donors for Obama and especially Edwards shows a disproportionate number of active members of that lobbying group. Indeed, John Edwards’s finance chairman is Fred Baron, the former president of ATLA. If Obama and Edwards want voters to believe that Clinton is influenced by lobbyist money, what should we think about these two candidates’ debts to trial lawyers? Are we to believe that the critical difference is the lobbyist registration papers, at which point money becomes tainted and dirty? Are any reporters going to ask that hard question, or will they let the two candidates demagogue from the high ground as they take millions from the most pernicious special interest group in America?

All the Dem candidates should start wearing flea collars, probably the GOP’ers too. Except Ron Paul, nobody wants him, he can’t get dog bit.

Deval Patrick’s campaign slogan was “Yes we can”, but it wouldn’t kill him to say “No we can’t” every once in a while to a new spending program. The latest “must” have waste of our tax dollars is beach beautification:

Break out the motorized surf rakes and solar-powered trash compactors.

With summer in full swing, Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday the state would do more to make sure shorelines are clean and safe, from relying on improved beach-cleaning technology to hiring new year-round managers.

Long gone are the campaign promises of reforming Beacon Hill and creating efficiencies in state government. Patrick is steadily growing the state payroll just like any cozy Beacon Hill insider would.

But the governor’s willingness to do business as usual is hardly a surprising result. He was the Democratic nominee. Everyone on the Hill endorsed his candidacy. His campaign and inaugural were funded by the usual suspects. Patrick filled administration vacancies with people whose resumes were long on Beacon Hill experience. All the signposts were pointing to business as usual. People who thought otherwise just weren’t paying attention.

Highly efficient fluorescent light bulbs are widely touted as environmentally friendly, but they have created a recycling headache for the Environmental Protection Agency and local governments.

More often than not, their toxic ingredients simply end up in landfills, where the chemicals can leach into soil and water and poison fish and other wildlife.

The bulbs contain mercury and should not be tossed in the trash as are regular light bulbs.

“They’re very efficient, but once they’re used up, they become a ticking toxic time bomb,” said Leonard Robinson, chief deputy director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. “They need to be captured and recycled.” [snip]

Few recycling options

Yet while the technology to recycle the fluorescent bulbs exists and some local governments and businesses offer recycling, the programs aren’t widely available.

“There’s not a lot of options out there for recycling them,” said Joe Dunlop, a program coordinator for the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.

The EPA is also working on the problem.

“Though they’re energy-saving, cost-saving, [they] do contain small amounts of mercury, and for that reason, [they] need a little bit more attention in their disposal,” said Joe Bergstein, a spokesman for the EPA’s New York City regional office.

“It’s kind of a patchy situation out there,” Bergstein told LiveScience. “Some counties are better budgeted to do these kinds of collections and handle these kinds of materials on a much more regular basis than others.”

Potentially poisonous

Mercury is key to making compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) efficient. Electricity sent through the lamp, which contains mercury vapor and an inert gas such as argon, zaps the mercury, setting off a reaction that creates light. [snip]

The silvery substance can be dangerous even in small quantities, though, because it can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and it damages the central nervous system. [snip]

Another option pushed by the enviro-nazis with no thought to the disposal consequences. The law governing this strikes again.

People are not willing to give up short time off during weekends to sit in a recycling center waiting for the privilege to pay disposal fees. Driving to these oft-distant centers uses fuel not normally consumed.

The Politico asked all 100 Senators to explain their position on immigration. Click on the states to see their replies. (Link goes to an interactive map of the US)

“This senator (Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) feels very strongly about the provisions that affect dairy workers and the circumstances of that important industry. I also take a particular interest in the provisions that affect seasonal workers for the many Vermont businesses that require them, and in the needs of our leading high-technology companies.

“As the Statue of Liberty proclaims, America is a country that welcomes the poor and those yearning to breathe free, not just the well-educated and those who already speak English. A temporary worker program with no opportunity to share in the promise of America creates an incentive for overstays and risks creating a new population of undocumented individuals just as we work so hard to bring millions of people out of the shadows of society. I also worry that the temporary worker program included in the bill does not effectively serve the needs of American employers. I hope we are past trying to build fences and walls around America and the American dream.” Leahy supports the DREAM [Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors] Act.

Sen Leahy, the dairy industry can hire from the roll of unemployed and those receiving social services. Since many farmers provide housing for hired hands, this also will reduce the pressure on housing in Vermont while giving those on the dole a reason to exist.

Seasonal workers who pick fruit and vegetables arrive from the Caribbean islands, legally, on work visas, and GO home at the end of the season.

Except to mow the grass, high tech companies are not hiring anyone without education or skills for these positions. If these high tech companies require employees, let us educate our offspring to fill these slots. While in school they can acquire the work ethic by working on farms, mowing lawns and helping old ladies cross the street.

Vermont must start paying wages that reflect job needs, not by supply of cheap illegal workers. If a business cannot make a go of it, close the doors. Start a business that can make it, or work for someone else. That will raise the wages.

Sen. Leahy, American employers will hire from people in this country, and pay commensurate with the job requirements.  Otherwise, let them feel the pinch of falling production and sales.

 Sen. Kennedy’s DREAM Act is just another means of jacking up taxes for schools. Low wage illegals don’t pay income, property and Medicare tax. For every dollar earned, they cost nearly $3.00 in services to the taxpayer. Why would you want to raise your taxes to cover education for people, whose own country will not educate.

Leahy says he’s working for Vermonters; envisioning how he is accomplishing this from this hill in Vermont is exigent.

President Bush is trying to resuscitate the stalled amnesty bill in his weekly radio address. If you read it though, it doesn’t take long to see why the White House is on life support:

I understand the skepticism some members of Congress have regarding certain aspects of this legislation.

Shouldn’t the president be addressing the American people? We’re the ones with the doubts. We’re the people e-mailing, calling, and writing our Congressmen to reject this bill. Address our “skepticism”, Mr. President. You promised to be a Washington outsider, but look like the worst kind of insider who thinks they know more than the people they govern.

So I want to speak to members about some of the concerns I have heard.

Again, the president only addresses the “members” of Congress. It’d be a lot more efficient to just distribute a memo around Capitol Hill. The public has tuned you out, Mr. President. If you’re trying to drum up public support by airing your memo to Senators publicly, don’t waste your time.

I know some of you doubt that the Federal government will make good on the border security and enforcement commitments in this bill. My Administration is determined to learn from the mistakes of the past decades. And that is why we are now committing more resources than ever before to border security, doubling the number of Border Patrol agents, building hundreds of miles of fencing, and employing advanced technology, from infrared sensors to unmanned aerial vehicles.

There’s a shocker—President Bush equates more government spending with progress. Funding has nothing to do with the public’s general distrust of your border gravitas. They distrust you because you turned a blind eye to it for years after 9/11. Throwing a few dollars at the problem isn’t going to regain that trust especially when illegal immigration accelerated under your watch and you had plenty of power to reverse the trend.

The White House has basically given up talking to the American people on this issue. They’re only interested in dealing with their fellow Washington elites because they know it’s the last chance they have. This bill was crafted in secret unless you were La Raza, but now the president is airing his private memos to make us feel included. Sorry, but repeating the same talking points isn’t dialogue.