Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Kirkby Stephen to Keld
We went over the Penines today, up to the nine standards, over the hills, and down into the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The route wound its patient way up a completely unshaded hill, with moorlands over the top, and lots of peat bogs that normally would be really nasty to walk through, but it had been dry for almost a week now so we only had to tip-toe around a few spots here and there.
Yorkshire Dales is beautiful, with yellow buttercups and lovely barns. Again, lots of sheep, but we got to Keld at 4:00pm despite several breaks, and our cell phone didn't work. We resorted to a payphone off the main road to call our Inn for a pickup (we were staying at the Tan Hill Inn, the highest Inn in the entire U.K.), and since that was the only phone box in town they knew exactly where to pick us up.
Lisa got a case of sunburn on her legs where we forgot to apply sunscreen because we had umbrellas up. Sunburn in England! Nobody's going to believe her.
Yorkshire Dales is beautiful, with yellow buttercups and lovely barns. Again, lots of sheep, but we got to Keld at 4:00pm despite several breaks, and our cell phone didn't work. We resorted to a payphone off the main road to call our Inn for a pickup (we were staying at the Tan Hill Inn, the highest Inn in the entire U.K.), and since that was the only phone box in town they knew exactly where to pick us up.
Lisa got a case of sunburn on her legs where we forgot to apply sunscreen because we had umbrellas up. Sunburn in England! Nobody's going to believe her.
Stonethwaite to Grasmere
We woke up still footsore but surprisingly refreshed and ready for another day. A typical English breakfast followed (recommended only for people who are doing hard exercise—the same fare would probably provide a heart-attack for anyone else), and then we were on our way. I discovered that sock-liners made my boots feel too small, so resorted once again to moleskin to reduce contact with the sore part of my ankle (which was still unblistered)
A bridge crossing later, we were on the official trail route again, which passed waterfalls and then started climbing quickly in the beautiful morning light. After a false summit, the path led us through some boggy areas—so far, there’s never been a day here that I hadn’t ended up being grateful for my waterproof hiking boots.
The hike up to the top was uneventful, but the scenery was gorgeous as was the light—the Lake district mountains have a distinctive talent for appearing to be much taller than they have a right to look, despite none of them being higher than Mt. Hamilton in the Bay Area.
The book noted that today had the most accessible of the coast to coast’s high ridge walk, so despite our lingering soreness, we decided to take it. The views were again outstanding, with visibility being good enough for us to see both Grasmere and Windermere lakes.
The descent from Helm Crag, however, was steep beyond belief—the bottoms of my feet were again pulsating by the time we hit the bottom, and it was to our relief that the hotel we’d booked was the first one we encountered in town.
Grasmere was a picture-perfect little town—so small that the nearest Laundromat was a bus-ride away. Fortunately, the bus comes by every 20 minutes or so (at least, that’s what we were told). We wandered around, found dinner, booked dinner at the Jumble House for the next night (yes, things were so crowded we couldn’t have dinner there that night!), and then found the Wordsworths’ graves at the Church of St. Oswald.
A bridge crossing later, we were on the official trail route again, which passed waterfalls and then started climbing quickly in the beautiful morning light. After a false summit, the path led us through some boggy areas—so far, there’s never been a day here that I hadn’t ended up being grateful for my waterproof hiking boots.
The hike up to the top was uneventful, but the scenery was gorgeous as was the light—the Lake district mountains have a distinctive talent for appearing to be much taller than they have a right to look, despite none of them being higher than Mt. Hamilton in the Bay Area.
The book noted that today had the most accessible of the coast to coast’s high ridge walk, so despite our lingering soreness, we decided to take it. The views were again outstanding, with visibility being good enough for us to see both Grasmere and Windermere lakes.
The descent from Helm Crag, however, was steep beyond belief—the bottoms of my feet were again pulsating by the time we hit the bottom, and it was to our relief that the hotel we’d booked was the first one we encountered in town.
Grasmere was a picture-perfect little town—so small that the nearest Laundromat was a bus-ride away. Fortunately, the bus comes by every 20 minutes or so (at least, that’s what we were told). We wandered around, found dinner, booked dinner at the Jumble House for the next night (yes, things were so crowded we couldn’t have dinner there that night!), and then found the Wordsworths’ graves at the Church of St. Oswald.
May 31st: Ennerdale Bridge to Stonethwaite
Unfortunately, Ennerdale View’s hot-tub (its selling point, as far as we were concerned), was turned off, so we couldn’t use it. Their internet connectivity worked just great, however, so we made phone calls back home.
The next morning started with a gorgeous setting and an excellent English breakfast. Then Tony provided the packed lunches, and announced that since he had no driver today, he was unable to provide a lift back to Ennerdale Bridge. This added 1.5 miles of downhill to the walk, so I was unhappy, but there was nothing to do about that at this time.
The walk down to Ennerdale Bridge had to be interrupted a few times for Boot adjustments until I figured out that I should mole skin my heel vertically. We reached Ennerdale Bridge slowly, and then headed for the Lake. The walk there took more than the twenty minutes the book stated, so I knew we were going to be on a leisurely schedule today. The high route was out of the question, given our soreness and Lisa’s objection, since even the Ennerdale lakeside trail was giving us trouble on account of the previous day’s activities.
The lake was beautiful, with the ever changing light giving us new views from the same scene seconds apart, showing us the glorious English country side in all her beauty, homes, squared off fields with their fences, and lush greenery everywhere in sight.
Past the hike, we had a choice between the Bridle track or the “official route”, which was warned to be hot and dull. Given the general coolness we were experiencing, we had no fear of the heat, and after all that excitement yesterday, a little dullness would not be unwelcome. The reality, though, was that the official route was only dull compared to the high route --- the trees alongside the road were beautiful, and the views of the surrounding value in the areas that had been clear cut provided a backdrop that made the dullness fade. Still, our condition made the route slow going. A tailwind provided a little support, but the road was a gentle and relentless uphill, which slowed us down more than it should have.
By the by, we arrived at the Black Sails youth hostel, where we met a woman named Rafael and Richard. They were doing a long hike in the opposite direction, doing all the high ridges that are part of the coast to coast. Rafael was an experienced hiker (no, she did not have brothers named Michaelangelo or Donatello) and pulled out a topo map that showed the way. I would have been better off keeping my counsel and following the book, however, since her directions ultimately confused me. Lisa had tea and potato chips while I had an apple.
After we were done we headed up the hill, which after meandering for a bit, became a steep climb. We took the climb slowly, one step at a time, and soon were in sight of the cairns at the top, which arrived far rapidly than I anticipated. Over the sheep fence, I got confused and saw another cairn off in the distance. The detour to check and make sure it wasn’t the path Rafael described cost us half an hour. Fortunately, there was signal at the top, so I called our Inn to make sure they didn’t give away our beds. Ann, the owner of Knotts View informed us that it was a busy night at the town so we should have dinner before arriving at the Inn.
A dark cloud came in between us and the sun, lending the afternoon a brooding, dark mood. We were both tired and footsore, and our speed was a mile and a half an hour, if that. The trail was inlaid with rocks to prevent erosion, but that made our progress even slower. Surprisingly though, any pain in my ankle was gone --- it was as if 10 hours of walking in those boots finally melded them into my body. Two couples passed us as though we were standing still, and though the dark cloud eventually passed, we only made it down to the Hornister Youth Hostel at 6:00pm. At that point, hungry and worn out, I realized that we would make it to Knotts View only by 9:00pm. Fortunately, a couple had just pulled into the parking lot and finished shooting pictures, so we asked for a ride to Seatoller and they accepted.
Once in the car, they found out that we were staying in Stonethwaite, and made up an excuse that they were going there to eat anyway, and coincidentally happened to pass Knotts View and drop us off. We must have looked a sight when we arrived at Knotts View, since the owner immediately ushered us into our room, told us to take a shower, and then she’d drive us to Rosthwaite at the Scarfell Hotel where we could have a bar dinner.
She could not drive us back because she was expecting more guests (who never did show up), so after dinner we walked the 15 minute walk back in about 25 minutes, aching and with feet throbbing. There was no question that we would sleep well that night.
The next morning started with a gorgeous setting and an excellent English breakfast. Then Tony provided the packed lunches, and announced that since he had no driver today, he was unable to provide a lift back to Ennerdale Bridge. This added 1.5 miles of downhill to the walk, so I was unhappy, but there was nothing to do about that at this time.
The walk down to Ennerdale Bridge had to be interrupted a few times for Boot adjustments until I figured out that I should mole skin my heel vertically. We reached Ennerdale Bridge slowly, and then headed for the Lake. The walk there took more than the twenty minutes the book stated, so I knew we were going to be on a leisurely schedule today. The high route was out of the question, given our soreness and Lisa’s objection, since even the Ennerdale lakeside trail was giving us trouble on account of the previous day’s activities.
The lake was beautiful, with the ever changing light giving us new views from the same scene seconds apart, showing us the glorious English country side in all her beauty, homes, squared off fields with their fences, and lush greenery everywhere in sight.
Past the hike, we had a choice between the Bridle track or the “official route”, which was warned to be hot and dull. Given the general coolness we were experiencing, we had no fear of the heat, and after all that excitement yesterday, a little dullness would not be unwelcome. The reality, though, was that the official route was only dull compared to the high route --- the trees alongside the road were beautiful, and the views of the surrounding value in the areas that had been clear cut provided a backdrop that made the dullness fade. Still, our condition made the route slow going. A tailwind provided a little support, but the road was a gentle and relentless uphill, which slowed us down more than it should have.
By the by, we arrived at the Black Sails youth hostel, where we met a woman named Rafael and Richard. They were doing a long hike in the opposite direction, doing all the high ridges that are part of the coast to coast. Rafael was an experienced hiker (no, she did not have brothers named Michaelangelo or Donatello) and pulled out a topo map that showed the way. I would have been better off keeping my counsel and following the book, however, since her directions ultimately confused me. Lisa had tea and potato chips while I had an apple.
After we were done we headed up the hill, which after meandering for a bit, became a steep climb. We took the climb slowly, one step at a time, and soon were in sight of the cairns at the top, which arrived far rapidly than I anticipated. Over the sheep fence, I got confused and saw another cairn off in the distance. The detour to check and make sure it wasn’t the path Rafael described cost us half an hour. Fortunately, there was signal at the top, so I called our Inn to make sure they didn’t give away our beds. Ann, the owner of Knotts View informed us that it was a busy night at the town so we should have dinner before arriving at the Inn.
A dark cloud came in between us and the sun, lending the afternoon a brooding, dark mood. We were both tired and footsore, and our speed was a mile and a half an hour, if that. The trail was inlaid with rocks to prevent erosion, but that made our progress even slower. Surprisingly though, any pain in my ankle was gone --- it was as if 10 hours of walking in those boots finally melded them into my body. Two couples passed us as though we were standing still, and though the dark cloud eventually passed, we only made it down to the Hornister Youth Hostel at 6:00pm. At that point, hungry and worn out, I realized that we would make it to Knotts View only by 9:00pm. Fortunately, a couple had just pulled into the parking lot and finished shooting pictures, so we asked for a ride to Seatoller and they accepted.
Once in the car, they found out that we were staying in Stonethwaite, and made up an excuse that they were going there to eat anyway, and coincidentally happened to pass Knotts View and drop us off. We must have looked a sight when we arrived at Knotts View, since the owner immediately ushered us into our room, told us to take a shower, and then she’d drive us to Rosthwaite at the Scarfell Hotel where we could have a bar dinner.
She could not drive us back because she was expecting more guests (who never did show up), so after dinner we walked the 15 minute walk back in about 25 minutes, aching and with feet throbbing. There was no question that we would sleep well that night.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Quick Post from Kirby Stephen
We hiked in 14 miles today from Orton, the easiest 14 mile hike we've done so far. We used umbrellas for the second time on the trip --- this time as sunshades, as it's been very sunny, warm and hot. Not at all like the England we've been told to expect. It's pretty but shadeless around here, so it's a good thing we brought umbrellas instead of gore-tex jackets.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Quick post from Orton
Having left the Lakes district yesterday --- what a change in terrain! From killer views with killer climbs (yes, worse than the local Black Mountain), to gentle but desolate Moors, this walk definitely has provided me with views so splendid that I can barely believe that I'm walking across a completely developed first world country.
The weather has been nothing short of amazing. I hope our luck holds out. We even went sailing on Ullswater, hiring a dinghy sailboat for the lake for 2 hours and having a blast despite this being my first time in 5 years since I did any dinghy sailing.
One thing though --- this is definitely a challenging walk. When I set this up, my attitude was, this is England --- how high can the mountains be? They might not be super high, but the trails are strewn with rocks to prevent erosion and this makes the climbs super super tough, and the descent particularly tough on joints. Plus --- the Lakes district doesn't believe in having any signs anywhere, so the navigational challenge makes things super super tough.
But the people are nice (and they speak English!), and we've met more than our share of friendly friendly people who go out of their way to make visitors feel welcome. England is an expensive country, but so far has been well worth the visit. Now... back to our regular foot soaking...
(Still no wireless, so no picture posting for now...)
The weather has been nothing short of amazing. I hope our luck holds out. We even went sailing on Ullswater, hiring a dinghy sailboat for the lake for 2 hours and having a blast despite this being my first time in 5 years since I did any dinghy sailing.
One thing though --- this is definitely a challenging walk. When I set this up, my attitude was, this is England --- how high can the mountains be? They might not be super high, but the trails are strewn with rocks to prevent erosion and this makes the climbs super super tough, and the descent particularly tough on joints. Plus --- the Lakes district doesn't believe in having any signs anywhere, so the navigational challenge makes things super super tough.
But the people are nice (and they speak English!), and we've met more than our share of friendly friendly people who go out of their way to make visitors feel welcome. England is an expensive country, but so far has been well worth the visit. Now... back to our regular foot soaking...
(Still no wireless, so no picture posting for now...)
Monday, May 29, 2006
Scott Burns agrees with me on the new issue of I-bonds
My original analysis seems like it matches up with Burn's.
Day 1: Coast to Coast
Last evening was gorgeous, but we woke up to rainy weather. (Because of jet lag, we woke up at 5:30am, but had gotten about 8 hours of sleep, so it was good) We took off with a little bit of mist in the air, and then the rain started coming down, but our hiking umbrellas came through and were quite good.
Then the sun came out, and bathed the coast in all its glory. It was so beautiful that it took us nearly 4 hours to hike the first 5 miles, we were stopping to shoot so frequently!
Then we cut across pieces of the English country side that were quite beautiful, except a few boggy fields which slowed us down and dirtied our boots. Way finding was more than a little precarious, especially after I discovered that they'd been quite a bit of tree cutting on Dent Fell, and my coast to coast guidebook was just a couple of years out of date. But we did make it through by dead-reckoning and instinct (when in doubt, go up hill), and then were lucky enough to have locals around to ask directions of.
Dinner was at the Ennerdale View B&B, with its gorgeous views. We're quite footsore, however, and Lisa has already gone to bed. (A first for her, beating me to bed!)
Also, the Tomlin Guest House we stayed in the first night was also excellent --- a great value, and such friendly people! Everyone we've met so far has been very friendly, from the airport information person to the taxi driver who detoured out of an errand he was running for his family to take us to our guest house because otherwise we'd have to wait 20 minutes!
Aside from the footsoreness, the muddy spots and the occasional rain, I'm loving this trip so far.
Then the sun came out, and bathed the coast in all its glory. It was so beautiful that it took us nearly 4 hours to hike the first 5 miles, we were stopping to shoot so frequently!
Then we cut across pieces of the English country side that were quite beautiful, except a few boggy fields which slowed us down and dirtied our boots. Way finding was more than a little precarious, especially after I discovered that they'd been quite a bit of tree cutting on Dent Fell, and my coast to coast guidebook was just a couple of years out of date. But we did make it through by dead-reckoning and instinct (when in doubt, go up hill), and then were lucky enough to have locals around to ask directions of.
Dinner was at the Ennerdale View B&B, with its gorgeous views. We're quite footsore, however, and Lisa has already gone to bed. (A first for her, beating me to bed!)
Also, the Tomlin Guest House we stayed in the first night was also excellent --- a great value, and such friendly people! Everyone we've met so far has been very friendly, from the airport information person to the taxi driver who detoured out of an errand he was running for his family to take us to our guest house because otherwise we'd have to wait 20 minutes!
Aside from the footsoreness, the muddy spots and the occasional rain, I'm loving this trip so far.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Going on vacation...
We're finally embarking on our coast to coast walk! I might be on-line sporadically long enough to post pictures and reply to friends, but don't expect heavy posting.
Monday, May 22, 2006
More Mac Woes
My Mac Mini woes are not over. 3 days after receiving my replacement Mac Mini, Mac OS X has started hanging. It works for about 3 minutes after booting up, but after that hangs. Nothing works, so the only solution now is a reinstall of OS X.
This time, I know it's not hardware problem because when I boot into Windows XP, it's solid as a rock. (The Mac hardware test CD works too, and proclaims the hardware solid)
Ah well. If at any time there's a time to do a reinstall, it's 3 days after you get a new machine, before you've done too much to it. I have to say, at this point, I'm really thinking that all the hype about how solid Mac OS X is is simply hype. We'll see how this goes.
This time, I know it's not hardware problem because when I boot into Windows XP, it's solid as a rock. (The Mac hardware test CD works too, and proclaims the hardware solid)
Ah well. If at any time there's a time to do a reinstall, it's 3 days after you get a new machine, before you've done too much to it. I have to say, at this point, I'm really thinking that all the hype about how solid Mac OS X is is simply hype. We'll see how this goes.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Replacement Mac Mini
The replacement Mac Mini showed up, and it is just so slightly difference from the other machine:
- It's much quieter, it doesn't go into "full fan mode" as often as the one that died.
- For some reason, Mac OSX seems to be happy to use a little less memory on this guy.
- There's an annoying bug which refuses to turn off the Mac's internal speakers.
- Palm Desktop causes the whole thing to crash!
- It seems to hang intermittenly. (Don't blame this on Windows XP. Lisa's Acer works just fine, as does my office laptop) There's something wierd going on.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Greg Mankiw agrees with me
From my previous post:
English and Journalism majors are simply too incompetent at complex issues to do a proper job of covering our world today.
Though maybe I should be scared that a Republican Economist agrees with me. Then again, he's agreeing with Brad DeLong as well...
English and Journalism majors are simply too incompetent at complex issues to do a proper job of covering our world today.
Though maybe I should be scared that a Republican Economist agrees with me. Then again, he's agreeing with Brad DeLong as well...
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Scott Burns is Disingenous again...
Compared to the General Fund Deficit, Social Security's impending deficit in 2040 is not a problem. [source] Medicare is in significant trouble, but before things get too bad, we'll simply be forced to have a rational, national healthcare system like all the other industrialized countries (and have better health outcomes to boot, what a tragedy), so that problem is a matter of political will, not an inevitable disaster.
The General Fund deficit, however, will persist as long as Republicans stay evil and as long as they keep winning the three branches of government. The fact that they're not currently popular doesn't mean that they won't resort to other methods of stealing the election.
The General Fund deficit, however, will persist as long as Republicans stay evil and as long as they keep winning the three branches of government. The fact that they're not currently popular doesn't mean that they won't resort to other methods of stealing the election.
Black Mountain Today
It was hot, about 83 degrees. About a mile from the top, I ran into a guy wearing a Coast-To-Coast T-shirt. I mentioned to him and his wife that Lisa & I were going to do the walk in a couple of weeks. They told me they did the trip 7 years ago, and that they were so lucky that they had only one day of rain out of about 16. That's pretty darn good, considering my own Scotland trip about 11 years ago had much more rain than that.
They did mention that the first few days was quite hilly. I asked how bad it was, and they said about 2500'. Why, I said, that's about the same height as Black Mountain! They agreed, and said that if you'd been climbing it all year, it was probably nothing scary.
This is one of the things I love about the Bay Area. No matter where else in the world you go, if someone else tells you how steep or high the mountains are, after you've asked a bit, you'll realize that it's nowhere as steep or as tough as they think it is, since the Bay Area has plenty of steep, tough hills.
They did mention that the first few days was quite hilly. I asked how bad it was, and they said about 2500'. Why, I said, that's about the same height as Black Mountain! They agreed, and said that if you'd been climbing it all year, it was probably nothing scary.
This is one of the things I love about the Bay Area. No matter where else in the world you go, if someone else tells you how steep or high the mountains are, after you've asked a bit, you'll realize that it's nowhere as steep or as tough as they think it is, since the Bay Area has plenty of steep, tough hills.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
The Paradox of Choice
This is a great video, especially since the material is fascinating (unfortunately, the cartoons he shows are copyrighted, so the video omits them, which makes it very annoying when the audience is laughing at a cartoon and you don't get to see it!). Basically, humans have several reactions when confronted with too many choices. One possible reaction is paralysis, which explains why many people don't sign up for 401(k) plans --- they don't know which fund to choose so they end up doing nothing. Another possible reaction is to spend a lot of time going through the choices in an attempt to maxmize satisfaction but in the end being disappointed, since if there are 200 choices and you're less than perfectly happy with your choice then it must be your fault. Finally, the fact that you have so many choices can make you devalue all of them.
This does seem ironic, since choice is an incredibly positive thing. My personal solution is to make a decision appropriately, and then not spend any time reflecting on its goodness or badness other than to learn what I can from it. You can't live life as one regret after another, or you'll have a very sad life. If you question all your past decisions all the time, you're not going to be very productive, either.
Finally, this video also explains why people hire agents: even though many agents are corrupt, have other conflicts of interests, or simply incompetent, for a lot of people, having an agent make the agonizing decision for you eliminates the unhappy feelings they have about making the decision themselves.
This does seem ironic, since choice is an incredibly positive thing. My personal solution is to make a decision appropriately, and then not spend any time reflecting on its goodness or badness other than to learn what I can from it. You can't live life as one regret after another, or you'll have a very sad life. If you question all your past decisions all the time, you're not going to be very productive, either.
Finally, this video also explains why people hire agents: even though many agents are corrupt, have other conflicts of interests, or simply incompetent, for a lot of people, having an agent make the agonizing decision for you eliminates the unhappy feelings they have about making the decision themselves.
An interesting financial question
Someone approached me the other day with an interesting financial quandry. I think I've analyzed it correctly, but it's worth writing down the question and the answer in case one of my readers points out an obvious flaw in my answer.
Q: I have a large amount of U.S. dollars to invest. I currently live and work in the U.S., but as I do not have a green card I do not know how long I would stay in this country or even want to be here. However, there is a significant chance that I might settle here in the long term. What should I do with my investments?
A: If this answer was something that would be resolvable in a year or so I'd just tell you to wait and see. But seeing that you're sitting on a pile of cash that you definitely will want to invest for retirement, I suggest that you build two portfolios: one in your home country and one here in the U.S. Within each portfolio you would perform your asset allocation essentially, each porfolio mirrors the other: the only difference is that one is denominated in U.S. dollars, and the other denominated in Euros.
The reason for the mirror'd accounts is that of paying round-trip costs. Let say you bought European investments in a Vanguard European Index Fund. The problem is that when you need to withdraw, you'll be paying two round-trip conversions, from Euros to U.S. dollars and back again. That's inefficient when you already have a European account and can directly trade a European index. You could also perform balancing between accounts. For instance, hold all US Equity in the American fund, and all European equity in the European account. Hold US Bonds in the American fund, and European bonds in the European account. Split your Asia-Pacific and Emerging market funds between both accounts. This ensures that you never pay round-trip conversions whenever you can help it.
You face some obvious problems: we know that there are low cost, efficient instruments in the U.S. for long term investments, such as the Vanguard Index Funds. I don't know if such instruments exist in Europe. You'll have to do your research and study the funds carefully. For instance, if an efficient International Fund is not available in Europe, you might be better off paying the round trip cost and holding everything in the U.S.
Q: I have a large amount of U.S. dollars to invest. I currently live and work in the U.S., but as I do not have a green card I do not know how long I would stay in this country or even want to be here. However, there is a significant chance that I might settle here in the long term. What should I do with my investments?
A: If this answer was something that would be resolvable in a year or so I'd just tell you to wait and see. But seeing that you're sitting on a pile of cash that you definitely will want to invest for retirement, I suggest that you build two portfolios: one in your home country and one here in the U.S. Within each portfolio you would perform your asset allocation essentially, each porfolio mirrors the other: the only difference is that one is denominated in U.S. dollars, and the other denominated in Euros.
The reason for the mirror'd accounts is that of paying round-trip costs. Let say you bought European investments in a Vanguard European Index Fund. The problem is that when you need to withdraw, you'll be paying two round-trip conversions, from Euros to U.S. dollars and back again. That's inefficient when you already have a European account and can directly trade a European index. You could also perform balancing between accounts. For instance, hold all US Equity in the American fund, and all European equity in the European account. Hold US Bonds in the American fund, and European bonds in the European account. Split your Asia-Pacific and Emerging market funds between both accounts. This ensures that you never pay round-trip conversions whenever you can help it.
You face some obvious problems: we know that there are low cost, efficient instruments in the U.S. for long term investments, such as the Vanguard Index Funds. I don't know if such instruments exist in Europe. You'll have to do your research and study the funds carefully. For instance, if an efficient International Fund is not available in Europe, you might be better off paying the round trip cost and holding everything in the U.S.
Another AppleCare Success Story. NOT!
Despite Apple receiving the dead machine on the 11th, they've told me they will only ship my replacement on the 18th! Is this a company that wants my future custom? Doesn't seem like it to me right now. They're using up half my 30 day free AppleCare support with one DOA.
Book Review: The Four Pillars of Investing
Wlliam Bernstein is the author behind The Efficient Frontier, the website discussing asset allocation and the theory and tools behind it. Bernstein wrote two books on investing, his first being The Intelligent Asset Allocator, a technical discussion of Asset allocation. This is the book, he says, for liberal arts major. (I did get a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, so this book is for me!)
Being a big fan of asset allocation, Bernstein writes:
since you cannot successfully time the market or select individaul stocks, asset allocation should be the major focus of your investment strategy, because it is the only factor affecting your investment risk and return that you can control
This is generally good advice, and his chapters on indexing, market timing, bubbles, and history are really good, and very much worth reading. His actual sample portfolios, however, are excessively complicated. For instance, for a taxable account, he suggests a bond portfolio that looks like this:
For his tax-sheltered example, he goes for something even more complex for the equity portion:
Ultimately, there's a lot of value in keeping your portfolio simple and easy to follow. When you see something that seems really complicated and hard to manage, run away and go for something simpler. I doubt if Bernstein's hypothetical tax-sheltered account would do much worse with:
[Addendum: The reason Bernstein recommends holding the components of the Total International Index is that you get the foreign dividend tax credit, which reduces your overall costs. This is a big enough deal that it's worth considering. I still think there's value in simplicity, however.]
Being a big fan of asset allocation, Bernstein writes:
since you cannot successfully time the market or select individaul stocks, asset allocation should be the major focus of your investment strategy, because it is the only factor affecting your investment risk and return that you can control
This is generally good advice, and his chapters on indexing, market timing, bubbles, and history are really good, and very much worth reading. His actual sample portfolios, however, are excessively complicated. For instance, for a taxable account, he suggests a bond portfolio that looks like this:
- 25% Treasury Ladder
- 25% Vanguard Short-Team Corporate Bond
- 25% Vanguard Limited Term Tax-Exempt
- 25% Vanguard California Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt
For his tax-sheltered example, he goes for something even more complex for the equity portion:
- 20% Vanguard 500 Index
- 25% Vanguard Value Index
- 5% Vanguard Small Cap Index
- 15% Vanguard Small Cap Value Index
- 10% Vanguard REIT Index
- 3% Vanguard Precious Metals
- 5% Vanguard European Stock Index
- 5% Vanguard Pacific Stock Index
- 5% Vanguard Emerging Stock Markets Index
- 7% Vanguard International Value
- Rebalancing between all these portfolio is a chore, and I doubt if most individual investors would enjoy having this many options
- Meeting the minimums alone would require a fairly substantial tax-sheltered portfolio
- Most 401(k) plans won't give you a good enough selection of Vanguard funds to enable you to cover such diversification.
- By having so many small accounts, you ignore the benefit of being able to qualify for Vanguard's Admiral shares, which have a significant reduction in expenses. Such reduction in expenses might cause your ultimate return to be higher than a complex portfolio, also partly because you are more likely to be able to rebalance such a portfolio on a regular basis.
Ultimately, there's a lot of value in keeping your portfolio simple and easy to follow. When you see something that seems really complicated and hard to manage, run away and go for something simpler. I doubt if Bernstein's hypothetical tax-sheltered account would do much worse with:
- 65% Vanguard Total Stock Market Index
- 10% Vanguard REIT Index
- 3% Vanguard Precious Metals
- 22% Vanguard Total International Index
[Addendum: The reason Bernstein recommends holding the components of the Total International Index is that you get the foreign dividend tax credit, which reduces your overall costs. This is a big enough deal that it's worth considering. I still think there's value in simplicity, however.]
Friday, May 12, 2006
Brad DeLong: Immigration is a good thing
Ok, I'm not trying to reopen a debate I had with BuddhaMouse about immigration, but I came across Brad's Morning Coffee series on Google Video, and can't help pointing it out.
The entire series is very much worth watching (each video is only about 5 minutes long, so it's not a big time sink) by the way, and I didn't really become a Google Video fan until this series of videos, along with the Google EngEDU series were posted.
The entire series is very much worth watching (each video is only about 5 minutes long, so it's not a big time sink) by the way, and I didn't really become a Google Video fan until this series of videos, along with the Google EngEDU series were posted.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Lisa's Laptop
We considered Dell, where we had coupons and an employee purchase plan discount. But Dell's site is annoying and irritating, and you can't easily compare prices because they sell different models to different customers, all ending up with the equivalent price. That alone was enough to annoy me into trying different venues.
Fortunately, Buy.com had pretty good deals on the Acer Aspire 5670 series of laptops. After digging around and finding a coupon in my mailbox, we ended up with an after-tax-and-shipping price of $980 for a 1GB machine with a dual-core CPU, a DVD burner, a built-in camera, 100GB of disk space, and a very nice remote (much nicer than the one that comes with the Mac Mini). Sure, it's not as cute as the Mac Mini, but it comes with a very nice screen, an excellent graphics card, and all the same extras for about $100 less than what Apple sells its entry-model machine for. The only advantage the Mac has over the Acer is that the Mac will have 2GB of memory (which is admittedly very expensive right now).
MacOS X is a nice operating system, but I'm pretty sure if I tried really hard I could probably boot Linux on the Acer. I guess we'll see what the reliability is like, but my guess is that the Mac and the Acer will be comparable.
Fortunately, Buy.com had pretty good deals on the Acer Aspire 5670 series of laptops. After digging around and finding a coupon in my mailbox, we ended up with an after-tax-and-shipping price of $980 for a 1GB machine with a dual-core CPU, a DVD burner, a built-in camera, 100GB of disk space, and a very nice remote (much nicer than the one that comes with the Mac Mini). Sure, it's not as cute as the Mac Mini, but it comes with a very nice screen, an excellent graphics card, and all the same extras for about $100 less than what Apple sells its entry-model machine for. The only advantage the Mac has over the Acer is that the Mac will have 2GB of memory (which is admittedly very expensive right now).
MacOS X is a nice operating system, but I'm pretty sure if I tried really hard I could probably boot Linux on the Acer. I guess we'll see what the reliability is like, but my guess is that the Mac and the Acer will be comparable.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
A dead Mac
After speculating about the Macintosh's reliability, my fears are confirmed. My Mac Mini CDROM drive, after a mere week of service, has given up the ghost. To add insult to injury, it took a physical visit to an Apple store and a verification by an Apple Genius before Apple would agree to RMA the product. Even then, they want me to drop off the machine to Fedex before they'll ship me a new one.
By contrast, my brother tells me that Dell would ship me a new machine as soon as they agree to RMA an old machine, so that I'd never be without a computer.
Lisa's 5 year old Dell laptop just recently gave up the ghost (yes, I've been suffering a rash of hardware failures), and after seeing the reliability problems with the Intel Mac Mini, she's decided that her next laptop will also be a Dell.
By contrast, my brother tells me that Dell would ship me a new machine as soon as they agree to RMA an old machine, so that I'd never be without a computer.
Lisa's 5 year old Dell laptop just recently gave up the ghost (yes, I've been suffering a rash of hardware failures), and after seeing the reliability problems with the Intel Mac Mini, she's decided that her next laptop will also be a Dell.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
This new issue of I-bonds might be a good buy
The financial press that mentions I bonds at all (a scant few, admittedly) is complaining that the rates that got reset this month were low at a 2.41% are really low compared with prevailing interest rates of 4.5% or more. What they are ignoring is that the real rate went up from 1% to 1.4%. In the long run, the real rate is what you care about, since the inflation adjusted rate will fluctuated with CPI. This series of I bonds are a really good buy if you believe that inflation is going up in the long run (which I think is a good bet). If I hadn't already loaded up on them this year, I'd be buying more. In fact, this might indeed be motivation for me to go down to the local bank and buy paper I bonds. The rate resets again in October.
There is no such thing as talent
This New York Times article (registration required) says that people who are good at something spend a lot of time practicing and becoming good at it. The conclusion being that when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. There are many interpretations of this, of course, but it accounts for a lot of the difference in performance in Math between Asians and Americans (as seen in how badly American kids do badly when on average). When an Asian kid complains about how hard Math is and how she doesn't like it, her parents are very likely to push her, find a different tutor, anything to make her better. It's not unusual to hear Americans saying "I have no talent for it" instead.
The same thing was described in unlocking the clubhouse, a description of CMU's effort to increase its proportion of female students in Computer Science. In it, there was a section describing how women students from Asia tended to stay in Computer Science rather than the non-Asians. The reason wasn't because the women were mysteriously more talented, it was that they didn't feel that they had a choice --- dropping out would have meant a loss in face or a return to a society they had worked so hard to leave.
So while the general conclusion the New York Times might draw is that you should choose to do what you love, because that way you'll be willing and happy to work hard at it, an Asian parent might, upon seeing these results, conclude that there isn't an excuse for poor results at school --- that simply means you aren't working hard enough. While the former approach might result in happier lives (though I do recall Malcolm Gladwell talking at Google about stellar performers not necessarily leading very happy lives because they're so driven), the latter is what causes Americans to lag behind in Math and Science education. The rest of the world sees in Math and Science an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty, what I'm seeing is that more and more Americans seem to deem Math and Science as a necessary evil, not very highly prized and easily jettisoned whenever it conflicts with religion.
[Thanks to Greg Mankiw for the pointer.]
The same thing was described in unlocking the clubhouse, a description of CMU's effort to increase its proportion of female students in Computer Science. In it, there was a section describing how women students from Asia tended to stay in Computer Science rather than the non-Asians. The reason wasn't because the women were mysteriously more talented, it was that they didn't feel that they had a choice --- dropping out would have meant a loss in face or a return to a society they had worked so hard to leave.
So while the general conclusion the New York Times might draw is that you should choose to do what you love, because that way you'll be willing and happy to work hard at it, an Asian parent might, upon seeing these results, conclude that there isn't an excuse for poor results at school --- that simply means you aren't working hard enough. While the former approach might result in happier lives (though I do recall Malcolm Gladwell talking at Google about stellar performers not necessarily leading very happy lives because they're so driven), the latter is what causes Americans to lag behind in Math and Science education. The rest of the world sees in Math and Science an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty, what I'm seeing is that more and more Americans seem to deem Math and Science as a necessary evil, not very highly prized and easily jettisoned whenever it conflicts with religion.
[Thanks to Greg Mankiw for the pointer.]
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Review: Everything Bad is Good For You
This is a quick read, mostly because the content can really be summarized really quickly: current and new TV shows and video games are becoming more and more complex, with the result that they provide a cognitive load that's surprisingly large and capable of providing intellectual stimulation and teaching problem solving skills that are useful in many other aspects of life.
The possible expense, Johnson points out, is that we've become a frentic, soundbite society that's incapable of pondering long range problems and goals. But that's always been true throughout human history (a read of Collapse will provide sufficient proof of that), so common lamentations about how kids are wasting their time playing video games are largely irrelevant.
One study at the University of Rochester asked subjects to perform a series of quick visual recogniation tests... Regular gamers consistently outperformed non-gamers on all the skills measured by the study... Games were literaly making them perceive the world more clearly... the gaming population turned out to be consistently more social, more confident, and more comfortable solving problems creatively. They also showed no evidence of reduced attention spans compared with non-gamers.
The possible expense, Johnson points out, is that we've become a frentic, soundbite society that's incapable of pondering long range problems and goals. But that's always been true throughout human history (a read of Collapse will provide sufficient proof of that), so common lamentations about how kids are wasting their time playing video games are largely irrelevant.
One study at the University of Rochester asked subjects to perform a series of quick visual recogniation tests... Regular gamers consistently outperformed non-gamers on all the skills measured by the study... Games were literaly making them perceive the world more clearly... the gaming population turned out to be consistently more social, more confident, and more comfortable solving problems creatively. They also showed no evidence of reduced attention spans compared with non-gamers.
Is Mandantory Financial Education A Solution?
Earlier in our conversation, Buddha Mouse suggested that a mandantory program of financial lessons might be implemented in school for most folks.
While I won't oppose such an idea, I think that this will not have as great an effect on poverty as she might hope becaues:
This idea was proposed in Gene Sperling's book , and I think it has a lot of merit. The chances of it happening in our pro-wealthy Republican Congress, Senate, and White House are effectively nil. But the reason I'm pissed at Democrats as well is that not one of the forty-something senators in the Senate have had the guts to even propose something like this. If the Democrats continue not proposing and trying to get through such good ideas, they're going to keep losing elections.
While I won't oppose such an idea, I think that this will not have as great an effect on poverty as she might hope becaues:
- To be able to save, you must have enough money to eat, pay rent, and pay for clothing. If you're making below the national poverty level, it's quite likely that you'll have trouble saving.
- Most people are surprisingly bad investors. Many folks I know either aren't interested in the subject of financial planning (in which case, they'll get Cs or Ds) in the class, or even when they know what the right thing to do is, they're not emotionally capable of doing it. I have a very smart and intelligent friend who can't bring himself to buy I-bonds, because the electronic product is too intangible.
- Financial planning is suprisingly hard! Even people like me take more than an hour to rebalance a relatively simple portfolio. If you're short on time, or don't enjoy it, you're simply not likely to do it.
This idea was proposed in Gene Sperling's book , and I think it has a lot of merit. The chances of it happening in our pro-wealthy Republican Congress, Senate, and White House are effectively nil. But the reason I'm pissed at Democrats as well is that not one of the forty-something senators in the Senate have had the guts to even propose something like this. If the Democrats continue not proposing and trying to get through such good ideas, they're going to keep losing elections.
New Computer
After my last computer died, I bought a Mac Mini. The computer took about a week to get to me: 2 days for the customization (I ordered 2GB of RAM), and another 3 days in shipping, and then 1 day while it got misdirected.
After having it for a few days, here are my first impressions:
1. I thought that 2GB might be overkill. Turns out that this is not true. My typical working set under Mac OS X appears to be about 1.2GB, just enough to cause my machine to swap if I had bought a 1GB machine.
2. A few things aren't as intuitive as you might imagine. For instance, I had to edit a Samba mount to share an external (USB) drive.
3. Mac OS X is a bit of a disk hog. The 80GB that came with the machine are going to go really fast, especially if you intend to dual boot the machine into Windows.
4. If your favorite environment is Emacs, you're going to have to use special instructions for building GNU Emacs v22 for Mac.
5. A few things still feel a bit sluggish. I think the extra special effects contribute to the feel. Things fade in and out instead of just snapping in and out like I'm used to.
6. Having UNIX interface underneath is really really nice.
7. The text edit fields in the web browsers seem really slow. I'm running the Universal Binary version of firefox, so it's got nothing to do with the binary.
8. The machine is much louder than expected. When it's in sleep mode or when not much is happening, it's dead silent. But rip a CD or two, compile Emacs, and the fan kicks up and you can hear it from across the room. Fortunately, like most engineers, I spend most of my time editing text and reading.
9. Despite the much vaunted UI that's not supposed to go wrong, I already managed to screw up the registry equivalent once by installing two versions of Microsoft Office.
10. 2 CPU cores are really nice too. Even when compiling, using web browsers or other apps don't bog down at all.
11. Now I have a more powerful machine at home than I have at work (my work machine is about 3 years old).
I'm still slowly warming up to the UI, so we'll see how I feel a bit later. In particular, I'm going to start running Windows XP (both as a bootcamp'd partition for games, and as a virtualized machine for quicken and possibly photoshop, which isn't going to have a universal binary version for awhile).
After having it for a few days, here are my first impressions:
1. I thought that 2GB might be overkill. Turns out that this is not true. My typical working set under Mac OS X appears to be about 1.2GB, just enough to cause my machine to swap if I had bought a 1GB machine.
2. A few things aren't as intuitive as you might imagine. For instance, I had to edit a Samba mount to share an external (USB) drive.
3. Mac OS X is a bit of a disk hog. The 80GB that came with the machine are going to go really fast, especially if you intend to dual boot the machine into Windows.
4. If your favorite environment is Emacs, you're going to have to use special instructions for building GNU Emacs v22 for Mac.
5. A few things still feel a bit sluggish. I think the extra special effects contribute to the feel. Things fade in and out instead of just snapping in and out like I'm used to.
6. Having UNIX interface underneath is really really nice.
7. The text edit fields in the web browsers seem really slow. I'm running the Universal Binary version of firefox, so it's got nothing to do with the binary.
8. The machine is much louder than expected. When it's in sleep mode or when not much is happening, it's dead silent. But rip a CD or two, compile Emacs, and the fan kicks up and you can hear it from across the room. Fortunately, like most engineers, I spend most of my time editing text and reading.
9. Despite the much vaunted UI that's not supposed to go wrong, I already managed to screw up the registry equivalent once by installing two versions of Microsoft Office.
10. 2 CPU cores are really nice too. Even when compiling, using web browsers or other apps don't bog down at all.
11. Now I have a more powerful machine at home than I have at work (my work machine is about 3 years old).
I'm still slowly warming up to the UI, so we'll see how I feel a bit later. In particular, I'm going to start running Windows XP (both as a bootcamp'd partition for games, and as a virtualized machine for quicken and possibly photoshop, which isn't going to have a universal binary version for awhile).
Thursday, May 04, 2006
It's easier to rig an election than to fool a slot machine
Is it likely that the Republicans rigged the 2004 elections? Probably not. Is it likely that the companies which produced the voting machines (most of which were owned by Republicans) rigged the machines? That's not out of the question. What surprises me is that the press hasn't covered this story at all. But then again, a glance at Delong's blog will convince you that our press corps are know-nothings. English and Journalism majors are simply too incompetent at complex issues to do a proper job of covering our world today.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Saturday, April 29, 2006
My next desktop....
Yes, I've picked the Intel Mac Mini. The runner up was the Lenovo Thinkpad X60s, which is two generations later than my work laptop, which is an X31. The Thinkpad X series have absolutely amazing battery life, fantastic keyboards (much better than the Mac laptop keyboards, which I find detestable),and very good performance and has proven very reliable.
The Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM, however, with a suitable discount (thanks to a good friend who works at Apple), was a good $1000 cheaper than an equivalently tricked out X60s, which only has 1GB of RAM, but a much faster processor, and of course, comes with its own screen. A surprisingly big contributor to the cost is the cost of the MiniDock, since the laptop does not come with a DVI connector, and obviously doesn't have slots so I could install one.
Of course, I've heard horror stories about the Mac's reliability (one of my office mates had a broken Powerbook screen, and another colleague had a bad hard drive soon after he bought a new Powerbook as well), and lack of Intel-native software is a liability (especially stuff like Photoshop, which is the only reason you'd want to trick out a Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM). Fortunately, with Boot Camp, I can turn it into a Windows XP box and run my 5 year old copy of Photoshop 6 (and it'll still run circles around MacBooks or Intel iMacs running MacOS photoshops), as well as any of my old software.
A suitably tricked out Dell, by the way, cost about the same as the Intel Mac Mini, but came with a much larger form factor (and admittedly, more expandability). I've avoided Apple products in the past mostly because of their insanely high cost, but with the iPod and the Mac Mini, they've proven themselves capable of competing with commodity products.
The Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM, however, with a suitable discount (thanks to a good friend who works at Apple), was a good $1000 cheaper than an equivalently tricked out X60s, which only has 1GB of RAM, but a much faster processor, and of course, comes with its own screen. A surprisingly big contributor to the cost is the cost of the MiniDock, since the laptop does not come with a DVI connector, and obviously doesn't have slots so I could install one.
Of course, I've heard horror stories about the Mac's reliability (one of my office mates had a broken Powerbook screen, and another colleague had a bad hard drive soon after he bought a new Powerbook as well), and lack of Intel-native software is a liability (especially stuff like Photoshop, which is the only reason you'd want to trick out a Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM). Fortunately, with Boot Camp, I can turn it into a Windows XP box and run my 5 year old copy of Photoshop 6 (and it'll still run circles around MacBooks or Intel iMacs running MacOS photoshops), as well as any of my old software.
A suitably tricked out Dell, by the way, cost about the same as the Intel Mac Mini, but came with a much larger form factor (and admittedly, more expandability). I've avoided Apple products in the past mostly because of their insanely high cost, but with the iPod and the Mac Mini, they've proven themselves capable of competing with commodity products.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
My Home Computer is Dead
Hard and fast on the heels of last month's data disaster, my home computer today refused to power on. It's about 5 years old (an AMD 1.8GHz machine with 512MB of RAM), so it was about time, but...
If you've been sending me e-mail or otherwise corresponding with me, I might be as fast as you're used to on the response. But I'll use this opportunity to poll my friends: What should I get as a replacement? An Intel Mac Mini (fully loaded, of course) that dual boots Windows XP? Or an IBM Thinkpad X60 laptop? The laptop is much more portable, and I definitely love my X31 which is my work machine, but the Mac Mini has a delicious S-Video out, so I can plug it into my receiver for video playback.
Good thing my old machine was backed up this time...
If you've been sending me e-mail or otherwise corresponding with me, I might be as fast as you're used to on the response. But I'll use this opportunity to poll my friends: What should I get as a replacement? An Intel Mac Mini (fully loaded, of course) that dual boots Windows XP? Or an IBM Thinkpad X60 laptop? The laptop is much more portable, and I definitely love my X31 which is my work machine, but the Mac Mini has a delicious S-Video out, so I can plug it into my receiver for video playback.
Good thing my old machine was backed up this time...
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Marooned in Realtime
This was the book that introduced the Vingian Singularity. Being the kind of writer he is, Vinge manages to side-step the topic and deals with a group of survivors who "bobbled" through the Singularity event (which is described as something way to similar to the "rapture" event in Christian literature) struggling to gather enough of humanity to rebuild a civilization (and hopefully not miss the next singularity).
The story focuses around W.W. Bierson, who was an apparently well accomplished policeman and detective. Bierson was the victim of a stasis attack which caused him to lose his family and most of human civilization. While in stasis, his surviving son writes a series of detective novels starring him, which causes the rest of his compatriots to regard him with awe.
So when a murder of one of the co-founders of the remaining civilization occurs, who else would be called in to investigate but Bierson? However, during this investigation, Bierson uncovers not only the perpetrator of his own stasis, but also a plot to subjugate the remnants of humanity.
The mystery is well-done, with sufficient clues that the reader doesn't feel cheated. The characterization is also very well done, and the motives and people quite believable. I'm not a believer of the Vingian singularity (as previous posts show, and the bobble technology seems really questionable to me, but other than that, the book comes highly recommended.
The apology is for the unrealistically slow rate of technological growth predicted... I show artificial intelligence and inteligence amplification proceeding at what I suspect is a snail's pace...
From the Author's afterword, 1985
The story focuses around W.W. Bierson, who was an apparently well accomplished policeman and detective. Bierson was the victim of a stasis attack which caused him to lose his family and most of human civilization. While in stasis, his surviving son writes a series of detective novels starring him, which causes the rest of his compatriots to regard him with awe.
So when a murder of one of the co-founders of the remaining civilization occurs, who else would be called in to investigate but Bierson? However, during this investigation, Bierson uncovers not only the perpetrator of his own stasis, but also a plot to subjugate the remnants of humanity.
The mystery is well-done, with sufficient clues that the reader doesn't feel cheated. The characterization is also very well done, and the motives and people quite believable. I'm not a believer of the Vingian singularity (as previous posts show, and the bobble technology seems really questionable to me, but other than that, the book comes highly recommended.
The apology is for the unrealistically slow rate of technological growth predicted... I show artificial intelligence and inteligence amplification proceeding at what I suspect is a snail's pace...
From the Author's afterword, 1985
Friday, April 21, 2006
Being ill...
I recovered from a strep infection two weeks ago, but am still coughing, which annoys me to no end and still keeps me from my bike. It's also partly why I haven't been posting much and have actually watched some TV.
The other reason I haven't been posting much is that I've been carrying on a conversation in one of the post pages with BhuddhaMouse, whose questions and comments are well-informed, interesting, and very much worth reading and responding to. Anyone who lists one of her favorite books as Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance clearly has taste! Please feel free to add to that conversation if you have the time to think and write in.
The other reason I haven't been posting much is that I've been carrying on a conversation in one of the post pages with BhuddhaMouse, whose questions and comments are well-informed, interesting, and very much worth reading and responding to. Anyone who lists one of her favorite books as Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance clearly has taste! Please feel free to add to that conversation if you have the time to think and write in.
Review: Metropolitan Transportation Commission
This is a great book, and it's free! Did you know that there were 7 fatal car-bike collisions in Santa Clara County in 2004? Did you know that there were 650 injury crashes there? And that despite there being fewer pedestrain injuries (504), there were 3 times more pedestrain fatalities (21)?
OK, you're a dyed-in-the-wool driver and refuse to walk or ride a bicycle: Did you know that the commuting time from San Mateo to Ellis street in Santa Clara county could be redued by 14 minutes if you car-pooled?
All these statistics and more, including the state of the Bay Area's roads are free, either for download or if you send them e-mail asking for a copy. It's great reading, and worth learning about.
OK, you're a dyed-in-the-wool driver and refuse to walk or ride a bicycle: Did you know that the commuting time from San Mateo to Ellis street in Santa Clara county could be redued by 14 minutes if you car-pooled?
All these statistics and more, including the state of the Bay Area's roads are free, either for download or if you send them e-mail asking for a copy. It's great reading, and worth learning about.
Review: Alan Moore's Writing for Comics
Make no mistake: I'm a big Alan Moore fanboy. I consider him the best comic book writer ever, dead or alive. Better than Neil Gaiman, better than Frank Miller, Warren Ellis, Miyazaki, etc.
This book, which is really an essay on writing, was written by Moore in 1985, back when Moore was still writing The Swamp Thing for DC. His V for Vendetta
was still being serialized, and comics were starting to become respectable again, largely because of his efforts.
It is of no surprise, then, that Moore's words on writing in a few short pages are much more succint, entertaining, and relevant than any of the big books about writing I have read. His dissection of movies versus comics and their relative strengths are cogent and more insightful than Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Moore emphasizes ideas, story-telling, and pacing over plot, but it is very clear early on that he also did far more research and worked harder on world-building than most other writiers did. He was capable of taking an idea, and working through all of its consequences and taking the story to the ultimate end, as in
The Watchmen.
This edition of the book has an afterword by Alan Moore 15 years after he wrote the essay, disparaging it by calling it, "not that bad." It's an entertaining read to see how Moore says his approach has changed in 15 years (and for me at least, it's not always been for the better), and how maturity has made him a better human being, if not a better writer.
My only complaint about this edition is that the art in the book is completely irrelevant to Moore's essay, and it's quite obvious that the illustrator just drew random pictures as opposed to reading Moore's essay to see what might complement his work.
Finally, if you want to be a truly great writer, it is perhaps worth remembering that even in this, it is more important to be a good human being than it is to be a good writer. The artists...writers, painters, musicians...whose voices speak loudest to us across the centuries are those that turned out to have the most profound souls, those who turned out to actually have somtehing to say that was of lasting human value.
This book, which is really an essay on writing, was written by Moore in 1985, back when Moore was still writing The Swamp Thing for DC. His V for Vendetta
was still being serialized, and comics were starting to become respectable again, largely because of his efforts.
It is of no surprise, then, that Moore's words on writing in a few short pages are much more succint, entertaining, and relevant than any of the big books about writing I have read. His dissection of movies versus comics and their relative strengths are cogent and more insightful than Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Moore emphasizes ideas, story-telling, and pacing over plot, but it is very clear early on that he also did far more research and worked harder on world-building than most other writiers did. He was capable of taking an idea, and working through all of its consequences and taking the story to the ultimate end, as in
The Watchmen.
This edition of the book has an afterword by Alan Moore 15 years after he wrote the essay, disparaging it by calling it, "not that bad." It's an entertaining read to see how Moore says his approach has changed in 15 years (and for me at least, it's not always been for the better), and how maturity has made him a better human being, if not a better writer.
My only complaint about this edition is that the art in the book is completely irrelevant to Moore's essay, and it's quite obvious that the illustrator just drew random pictures as opposed to reading Moore's essay to see what might complement his work.
Finally, if you want to be a truly great writer, it is perhaps worth remembering that even in this, it is more important to be a good human being than it is to be a good writer. The artists...writers, painters, musicians...whose voices speak loudest to us across the centuries are those that turned out to have the most profound souls, those who turned out to actually have somtehing to say that was of lasting human value.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Head to Head: Montebell Trekking Umbrella versus Go-Lite Dome Umbrella
It was raining today, so Lisa & I got a chance to test the GoLite Dome Umbrella head-to-head against the Montbell UL Trekking Umbrella in real weather conditions.
The Go-Lite is the heavier of the two (by almost 50%), and does not pack down to a small handy size. However, it is by far the less finicky to shut and open. The design is simple, and the canopy is sufficiently large for one person, though not sufficient for a person with a decently sized backpack --- the backpack will get wet. The canopy material is made of nylon and seems thick enough to be sturdy under normal wear.
The Montbell packs into a little 6 inch stick (about the length of a toothbrush), and hence packs away very nicely (it comes with a tight little stuff sack), but the mechanical construction led me to be really wary, and the ballistic nylon material seems a bit thin. With a bit of practice, however, I found that I could open up the umbrella without undue worries, though stowing is still a bit of a tricky business and required a bit of care.
In practice, the 4 oz weight difference between the umbrellas is not really noticeable, even under heavy rain. The Go-Lite feels a little more solid, but the Montbell held up really well as well. The longer carrying stick of the Go-Lite makes it easy for you to rest the umbrella against your shoulder, but the light weight of the Mont-bell makes vertical carrying over a 3 hour hike a minor problem at worst, but I never did shake my feeling about how fragile the Montbell was.
My conclusion is that for a trip where lightweight is a premium, the Montbell is worth the extra $15 it costs, and for a trip where resupply is potentially a problem, the sturdier Go-Lite will provide better piece of mind. For our Coast-To-Coast walk, Lisa will carry the Go-Lite and I'll carry the Montbell. I'll try to remember to post the results when we come back from the trip.
The Go-Lite is the heavier of the two (by almost 50%), and does not pack down to a small handy size. However, it is by far the less finicky to shut and open. The design is simple, and the canopy is sufficiently large for one person, though not sufficient for a person with a decently sized backpack --- the backpack will get wet. The canopy material is made of nylon and seems thick enough to be sturdy under normal wear.
The Montbell packs into a little 6 inch stick (about the length of a toothbrush), and hence packs away very nicely (it comes with a tight little stuff sack), but the mechanical construction led me to be really wary, and the ballistic nylon material seems a bit thin. With a bit of practice, however, I found that I could open up the umbrella without undue worries, though stowing is still a bit of a tricky business and required a bit of care.
In practice, the 4 oz weight difference between the umbrellas is not really noticeable, even under heavy rain. The Go-Lite feels a little more solid, but the Montbell held up really well as well. The longer carrying stick of the Go-Lite makes it easy for you to rest the umbrella against your shoulder, but the light weight of the Mont-bell makes vertical carrying over a 3 hour hike a minor problem at worst, but I never did shake my feeling about how fragile the Montbell was.
My conclusion is that for a trip where lightweight is a premium, the Montbell is worth the extra $15 it costs, and for a trip where resupply is potentially a problem, the sturdier Go-Lite will provide better piece of mind. For our Coast-To-Coast walk, Lisa will carry the Go-Lite and I'll carry the Montbell. I'll try to remember to post the results when we come back from the trip.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
The Ownership Society is not a good deal
Republicans like to talk a lot about the ownership society, one in which every person is responsiible for his fate and his ultimate outcomes. What most of them really mean is that they think they're smarter than everyone else and won't get hit by bad luck, poor choice of parents, or a lying, cheating CEO who took all the money and ran. What they forget is that we live in a country where most of the folks can barely be trusted to drive like a decent human being, and trusting those sorts of people to make financial decisions is like trusting me to know how to dress for a wedding: the outcome will not be good.
Now, the New York Times has reported a study that shows even top-achieving students in MBA programs cannot be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to allocating money to a selection of index funds! They chose on average, higher fee funds (i.e., got themselves cheated), and were easily fooled by carefully selected data. This is why privatizing social security is a bad idea, and why typical investors do extremely badly in their 401(k) plans, even assuming that they aren't just getting the shaft by their plan administrator.
The rational response, the professors argue, would have been to allocate all the money to the fund with the lowest fees. Yet fewer than 20 percent of either group of students did so. As a result, the hypothetical portfolios built by most of the students paid much higher fees than were necessary: 1.22 percentage points more, on average, among the undergraduates and 1.12 points higher among the M.B.A. students...
...if a sampling of elite students can't separate the wheat from the chaff in assessing mutual fund reports, most investors probably can't do so, either. (All the study participants were high academic achievers who had scored above average on a financial literacy test administered by the professors.)
In the other additional test, another group of 114 students was given a one-page sheet that, instead of reporting returns since inception, specifically compared the funds' fees. Students in this final group did, on average, construct portfolios with lower fees. Nevertheless, even this group came nowhere close to allocating its entire portfolio to the low-cost fund. More than half of these students, in fact, continued to allocate some money to the higher-cost index funds.
WHAT conclusions emerge from all these tests? Over all, the study said, the results do "not inspire optimism about the financial choices made by most households."
Now, the New York Times has reported a study that shows even top-achieving students in MBA programs cannot be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to allocating money to a selection of index funds! They chose on average, higher fee funds (i.e., got themselves cheated), and were easily fooled by carefully selected data. This is why privatizing social security is a bad idea, and why typical investors do extremely badly in their 401(k) plans, even assuming that they aren't just getting the shaft by their plan administrator.
The rational response, the professors argue, would have been to allocate all the money to the fund with the lowest fees. Yet fewer than 20 percent of either group of students did so. As a result, the hypothetical portfolios built by most of the students paid much higher fees than were necessary: 1.22 percentage points more, on average, among the undergraduates and 1.12 points higher among the M.B.A. students...
...if a sampling of elite students can't separate the wheat from the chaff in assessing mutual fund reports, most investors probably can't do so, either. (All the study participants were high academic achievers who had scored above average on a financial literacy test administered by the professors.)
In the other additional test, another group of 114 students was given a one-page sheet that, instead of reporting returns since inception, specifically compared the funds' fees. Students in this final group did, on average, construct portfolios with lower fees. Nevertheless, even this group came nowhere close to allocating its entire portfolio to the low-cost fund. More than half of these students, in fact, continued to allocate some money to the higher-cost index funds.
WHAT conclusions emerge from all these tests? Over all, the study said, the results do "not inspire optimism about the financial choices made by most households."
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Book Review: The Man Who Folded Himself
David Gerrold, of course, wrote one of the most beloved Trek episodes ever: The Trouble with Tribbles. My recent bout of strep throat left me with sufficient time in bed to spend reading various books (and watching way too much TV).
This is a short novel about time travel. The protagonist is given a time-belt which enables him to travel back and forth in time at will, and soon figures out how to get fabulously rich, how to meet himself, and how to change time. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that every time he changes the timestream he hops to a different, alternate version of the universe.
The story ends with the story looping back to itself, which unfortunately, was highly predictable. A quick read, but not recommended. However, as a piece of juvenile fiction, it might very well be fun.
This is a short novel about time travel. The protagonist is given a time-belt which enables him to travel back and forth in time at will, and soon figures out how to get fabulously rich, how to meet himself, and how to change time. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that every time he changes the timestream he hops to a different, alternate version of the universe.
The story ends with the story looping back to itself, which unfortunately, was highly predictable. A quick read, but not recommended. However, as a piece of juvenile fiction, it might very well be fun.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Gladwell on Nassim Taleb
Sanjay pointed me to this article, which is a great read, and a good expose on how Taleb works. Taleb of course, was the guy who wrote Fooled by Randomness, which I reviewed last year. Gladwell's article is even more insightful than Taleb's book.
Empirica has done nothing but lose money since last April. "We cannot blow up, we can only bleed to death," Taleb says, and bleeding to death, absorbing the pain of steady losses, is precisely what human beings are hardwired to avoid. "Say you've got a guy who is long on Russian bonds," Savery says. "He's making money every day. One day, lightning strikes and he loses five times what he made. Still, on three hundred and sixty-four out of three hundred and sixty-five days he was very happily making money. It's much harder to be the other guy, the guy losing money three hundred and sixty-four days out of three hundred and sixty-five, because you start questioning yourself. Am I ever going to make it back? Am I really right? What if it takes ten years? Will I even be sane ten years from now?"
Empirica has done nothing but lose money since last April. "We cannot blow up, we can only bleed to death," Taleb says, and bleeding to death, absorbing the pain of steady losses, is precisely what human beings are hardwired to avoid. "Say you've got a guy who is long on Russian bonds," Savery says. "He's making money every day. One day, lightning strikes and he loses five times what he made. Still, on three hundred and sixty-four out of three hundred and sixty-five days he was very happily making money. It's much harder to be the other guy, the guy losing money three hundred and sixty-four days out of three hundred and sixty-five, because you start questioning yourself. Am I ever going to make it back? Am I really right? What if it takes ten years? Will I even be sane ten years from now?"
Al Gore on the Climate Crisis
Al Gore came to Google yesterday to give his slideshow/movie preview on the climate crisis. I notice that both Vinod Khosla and Gore are now referring to global warming as the Climate Crisis rather than Climate Change, which is accurate. His presentation of the problems facing us is scientifically accurate, according to the work I've done myself. His presentation is impressive and entertaining and I really like it, though apparently less scientifically inclined sources find it devoid of hope. Then again, I'm very much an engineer and think the challenges that climate change presents are things we can do something about.
The problem is convincing the same majority of Americans who believe in intelligent design that the climate crisis is real, and solving it is essential. Getting rich off oil won't do anyone any good if there's no planet left to enjoy. Our science education in this country is so mediocre and our media is so irresponsible about reporting scientific theories that basic facts like evolution are considered controversial.
The problem is convincing the same majority of Americans who believe in intelligent design that the climate crisis is real, and solving it is essential. Getting rich off oil won't do anyone any good if there's no planet left to enjoy. Our science education in this country is so mediocre and our media is so irresponsible about reporting scientific theories that basic facts like evolution are considered controversial.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Movie Review: Howl's Moving Castle
I don't think anyone watches a Miyazaki film without knowing what they're in for: a quirky, unique view of the world, a well-defined message telling you what the film is about, and gorgeous animation.
Howl's Moving Castle definitely delivers on all three, but where does it rank in the pantheon of Miyazaki's movies? While it's much better than the over-bearing Princess Momonoke, and more comprehensible than the enigmatic Spirited Away, it's nowhere close to the top 3 of his great works:
1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2. Kiki's Delivery Service
3. Tonari no Totoro
In terms of the quality of the English translation, it's quite obvious that Cindy & Donald Hewitt aren't Neil Gaiman. The language is stilted and stiff, and lacks the flow and lyricis of Gaiman's adaptation. (Or the Burgess translation of Cyrano de Bergerac)
It's worth watching, but probably worth finding the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Howl's Moving Castle definitely delivers on all three, but where does it rank in the pantheon of Miyazaki's movies? While it's much better than the over-bearing Princess Momonoke, and more comprehensible than the enigmatic Spirited Away, it's nowhere close to the top 3 of his great works:
1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2. Kiki's Delivery Service
3. Tonari no Totoro
In terms of the quality of the English translation, it's quite obvious that Cindy & Donald Hewitt aren't Neil Gaiman. The language is stilted and stiff, and lacks the flow and lyricis of Gaiman's adaptation. (Or the Burgess translation of Cyrano de Bergerac)
It's worth watching, but probably worth finding the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
My Endorsement: John Forester
I endorse John Forester as League of American Bicyclists director for region 6. I know both John Forester and Amanda Eichstaedt (née Jones) quite well. I interviewed Forester in 1992 for my Bike Path and Bike Lanes article, and Amanda Eichstaedt was in my LCI certification class. While I very much like Amanda as a person and she's done great work in the past organizing BikeEd courses here in the Bay Area, there is no doubt in my mind that there is no one as qualified as John Forester to represent the needs of cyclists at the National level.
Forester (yes, he's one of C. S. Forester's sons) wrote the essential cyclists' reference: Effective Cycling, was a previous League president, and developed most of the theory and practice behind vehicular cycling, and fought most of the battles against the highway establishment for cyclist's rights to belong on the road. The fact that Foothill Expressway, Central Expressway, and many of the roads we ride on in the Bay Area today are available to cyclists is due to his work as an advocate for cyclists' rights in the country.
Forester (yes, he's one of C. S. Forester's sons) wrote the essential cyclists' reference: Effective Cycling, was a previous League president, and developed most of the theory and practice behind vehicular cycling, and fought most of the battles against the highway establishment for cyclist's rights to belong on the road. The fact that Foothill Expressway, Central Expressway, and many of the roads we ride on in the Bay Area today are available to cyclists is due to his work as an advocate for cyclists' rights in the country.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Conventional financial planning might be bad for your financial health
Professor Laurence J. Kotilikoff analyzes conventional financial tools and finds them wanting:
Although mathematicians, economists, and engineers are well versed in dynamic programming, the architects of traditional financial planning software are not. Or, if they are, they are constrained by their superiors to keep things simple, which, in this context, means failing to elicit much of the information...
...None of us would go to a doctor for a 60 second checkup. Nor would we elect surgery by meat cleaver over surgery with a scalpel. And any doctor who provided such services would be quickly drummed out of the medical profession. Financial planning, like brain surgery, is an extraordinarily precise business. Small mistakes and the wrong tools can just as easily undermine as improve financial health.
Yet is the fault really with the financial planner? Or is it really with the typical consumer? Very few folks enjoy playing with spreadsheets and doing the tedious work of say, rebalancing your portfolio. It's also amazing how much resistance people have towards managing money --- one engineer I spoke with a few years ago told me that tax planning meant that he was working for money, and that if he just worked hard, the money would come and he wouldn't have to "work for money." So it's not surprising that financial planners give such customers exactly what they want: a painless 60 second questionnaire that doesn't do any one much good.
Ultimately, perhaps it's no coincidence that the best site for financial planning I've seen was done by an engineer. It's very much do-it-yourself, but it has one thing that no other financial planner will give you: research backed by someone who's staking his own retirement on the results!
(Note: a tip of the hat to Scott Burns who pointed me at this study)
Although mathematicians, economists, and engineers are well versed in dynamic programming, the architects of traditional financial planning software are not. Or, if they are, they are constrained by their superiors to keep things simple, which, in this context, means failing to elicit much of the information...
...None of us would go to a doctor for a 60 second checkup. Nor would we elect surgery by meat cleaver over surgery with a scalpel. And any doctor who provided such services would be quickly drummed out of the medical profession. Financial planning, like brain surgery, is an extraordinarily precise business. Small mistakes and the wrong tools can just as easily undermine as improve financial health.
Yet is the fault really with the financial planner? Or is it really with the typical consumer? Very few folks enjoy playing with spreadsheets and doing the tedious work of say, rebalancing your portfolio. It's also amazing how much resistance people have towards managing money --- one engineer I spoke with a few years ago told me that tax planning meant that he was working for money, and that if he just worked hard, the money would come and he wouldn't have to "work for money." So it's not surprising that financial planners give such customers exactly what they want: a painless 60 second questionnaire that doesn't do any one much good.
Ultimately, perhaps it's no coincidence that the best site for financial planning I've seen was done by an engineer. It's very much do-it-yourself, but it has one thing that no other financial planner will give you: research backed by someone who's staking his own retirement on the results!
(Note: a tip of the hat to Scott Burns who pointed me at this study)
The Redwoods on Steep Ravine
This was a fantastic time on Steep Ravine. So much water that the creeks and streams were gushing like jets, and the roar of the water was so loud we couldn't hear each other and had to shout!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
