The Lost Steersman is Rosemary Kirstein's third book about her fantasy universe which is really set far in the future, after an unknown form of environmental catastrophe has hit the planet.
As with a lot of science fiction, the characters really are wooden. In particular, the protagonist, Rowan, seems all too easily deceived, despite her previous experiences. And after the build up of the past two novels, we're hoping to get some resolution to many of the questions --- what are the wizards, and why did they do what they do? What are the demons? Are they robots? How did the steerswomen get founded.
One of those questions gets answered, but not very well, and and the others --- let's just say that at this point, I feel like Kirstein is dragging this out to be a fifty book series --- the reveals are coming way too slowly for the overall plot to move very fast and for reader satisfaction.
I will probably read the next book in the series, but only by checking it out from the library.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Doubts about Asset Allocation
There's definitely been a recent bunch of articles about the so-called failure of asset allocation. I'm amused and horrified at the same time. My amusement comes from the use of the last 2-3 year's worth of results to argue that the past 70 years or 100 years of studies on asset allocation are invalid. As I've pointed out, financial planning is a multi-decade process! The only reason why equities can perform as well as they do is that once in a while you get a really good buying opportunity, and if you don't rebalanced into that opportunity when the time comes, don't expect your results to be any good!
My horror stems from the idea that this would lead folks to jump off their financial plans. Now this is understandable. It's very easy to say, "I'm willing to tolerate a 50% drop in my equity portfolio" when times are good. It's another to actively rebalance into that same losing portfolio when times are terrible. The last few years have been tests of conviction for those who might have been uncertain about what their risk tolerance is.
In 2007, when William Bernstein visited Google, he made the point that during a financial crisis, all assets correlate to 1. In other words diversification fails you when you need it the most. But that's why you don't put everything in stocks --- even if in a financial crisis, your bond portfolio takes a hit, it's not as big a hit as it is in stocks. And you do want to position yourself for when the correlations are not 1 --- i.e., when the crisis is over. The unfortunate problem is that nobody knows when that is, so the best plan, as always, is to stick to your asset allocation.
My horror stems from the idea that this would lead folks to jump off their financial plans. Now this is understandable. It's very easy to say, "I'm willing to tolerate a 50% drop in my equity portfolio" when times are good. It's another to actively rebalance into that same losing portfolio when times are terrible. The last few years have been tests of conviction for those who might have been uncertain about what their risk tolerance is.
In 2007, when William Bernstein visited Google, he made the point that during a financial crisis, all assets correlate to 1. In other words diversification fails you when you need it the most. But that's why you don't put everything in stocks --- even if in a financial crisis, your bond portfolio takes a hit, it's not as big a hit as it is in stocks. And you do want to position yourself for when the correlations are not 1 --- i.e., when the crisis is over. The unfortunate problem is that nobody knows when that is, so the best plan, as always, is to stick to your asset allocation.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Bicycle Wheels: Loctite or Not
One topic not covered by our lectures on the bicycle wheel is the loctite issue. Many wheelbuilders swear by loc-tite or spoke-prep when building wheels, and it's a question that comes up on a regular basis on cycling forums.
I don't build using loc-tite. If you pay attention to the lectures, you'll see that at one point, I say, There's no such thing as too much lubrication. I emphasize this especially when building with modern rims such as the Velocity Aerohead, which have no eyelets or sockets whatsoever, but also when it comes to the spoke-thread/nipple interface.
To consider why loctite is unnecessary if your wheel is built to the correct tension, consider why a spoke can unscrew itself. The spoke is effective a very long screw under tension. As long as there's tension in the screw, the screw can't unscrew itself! It can only do so when there's no tension. The loss of tension comes from there being a big load on the wheel, which is absorbed by the spokes loosing tension. If the spokes aren't sufficiently tensioned, then the spokes will unscrew themselves, which will lead to the wheel becoming untrue. When the wheel becomes untrue, then, that's your warning that your spokes were insufficiently tensioned, and you should re-tension your wheel.
What happens when you loc-tite the spokes instead, is that the spokes don't unscrew, but they do flex a bit, usually at the elbow (spokes flex even if they are lubricated and unscrew, so it's not a good idea to under-tension wheels, regardless). Eventually, if the elbow flexes enough times, the spokes break and then your wheel really becomes untrue.
So you have a choice: have your wheels go untrue so you notice the problem, or have the spokes break eventually. Now you know why so many professional wheel builders loctite their wheels --- a wheel becoming untrue happens really quickly, but spoke breakage can take many cycles (and a lot of people just don't ride their bikes enough to do that). In general, then, I consider use of loctite/spoke-prep bad practice, and usually used to cover up sloppy wheel building. There might be reasons to justify it, but if you're building wheels for your own use, just use lots of lubricant and none of those "miracle" preparations.
I don't build using loc-tite. If you pay attention to the lectures, you'll see that at one point, I say, There's no such thing as too much lubrication. I emphasize this especially when building with modern rims such as the Velocity Aerohead, which have no eyelets or sockets whatsoever, but also when it comes to the spoke-thread/nipple interface.
To consider why loctite is unnecessary if your wheel is built to the correct tension, consider why a spoke can unscrew itself. The spoke is effective a very long screw under tension. As long as there's tension in the screw, the screw can't unscrew itself! It can only do so when there's no tension. The loss of tension comes from there being a big load on the wheel, which is absorbed by the spokes loosing tension. If the spokes aren't sufficiently tensioned, then the spokes will unscrew themselves, which will lead to the wheel becoming untrue. When the wheel becomes untrue, then, that's your warning that your spokes were insufficiently tensioned, and you should re-tension your wheel.
What happens when you loc-tite the spokes instead, is that the spokes don't unscrew, but they do flex a bit, usually at the elbow (spokes flex even if they are lubricated and unscrew, so it's not a good idea to under-tension wheels, regardless). Eventually, if the elbow flexes enough times, the spokes break and then your wheel really becomes untrue.
So you have a choice: have your wheels go untrue so you notice the problem, or have the spokes break eventually. Now you know why so many professional wheel builders loctite their wheels --- a wheel becoming untrue happens really quickly, but spoke breakage can take many cycles (and a lot of people just don't ride their bikes enough to do that). In general, then, I consider use of loctite/spoke-prep bad practice, and usually used to cover up sloppy wheel building. There might be reasons to justify it, but if you're building wheels for your own use, just use lots of lubricant and none of those "miracle" preparations.
Review: Pushing Ice
Pushing Ice is Alastair Reynold's novel of alien contact. Janus, the moon of Saturn, turns out to be an alien artifact that starts accelerating out of the solar system at an unusually high speed. A mining ship, The Rockhopper turns out to be the only ship capable of intercepting it, and the crew, led by Bella Lind, votes to pursue it.
The first third of the book introduces the ship as well as the folks on board, including engineer Svetlana, who uncovers something sinister about the company who owns the ship and has sent them on this chase.
As the plot unfolds, we see the collision between Bella and Svetlana, first as friends, then as unyielding enemies, and then finally uneasy allies. Nevertheless, the novel never forgets that it's science fiction, with a big emphasis on science --- there's tech galore, time dilation, relativistic effects, as well as nano-technology.
And yes, Alien contact. Not just one, but multiple alien contacts. Unlike the kind of aliens you run into in Star Trek, these are real aliens, with different politics, and interesting objectives. I was in any case quite impressed by the ending.
While not particularly deep, and obviously an early work, Pushing Ice is still recommended as a good airplane novel.
The first third of the book introduces the ship as well as the folks on board, including engineer Svetlana, who uncovers something sinister about the company who owns the ship and has sent them on this chase.
As the plot unfolds, we see the collision between Bella and Svetlana, first as friends, then as unyielding enemies, and then finally uneasy allies. Nevertheless, the novel never forgets that it's science fiction, with a big emphasis on science --- there's tech galore, time dilation, relativistic effects, as well as nano-technology.
And yes, Alien contact. Not just one, but multiple alien contacts. Unlike the kind of aliens you run into in Star Trek, these are real aliens, with different politics, and interesting objectives. I was in any case quite impressed by the ending.
While not particularly deep, and obviously an early work, Pushing Ice is still recommended as a good airplane novel.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Paris 1998
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| Paris 1998 |
This was a tough trip. First, my boss cut down my vacation from 3 weeks to 1, so I had to put off the cycling part till the fall. Secondly, this was my first trip to continental Europe, and it was very rough. I spoke next to no French, I had yet to learn the Lonely Planet isn't all that reliable, and I could not deal with the jet-lag at all. I also had diarrhea on this trip.
And then, in an attempt to escape Paris, we ended up on the TGV to Lyons, where due to the Soccer World Cup, all the hotels were taken, save one. And that was my very first encounter with that delightful life form, the bed-bug!
All in all, it was a good thing that Christina had patience. Or maybe not --- we haven't done a trip together since. :-)
Crater Lake National Park and the Northern California Coast
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| Crater Lake National Park and the Northern California Coast |
In the summer of 1999, my parents and I took a short trip to visit Crater Lake National Park. This was the most disorganized trip that I had ever arranged --- I packed a tent and forgot the tent poles, for instance, and we were forced to buy a cheap $20 tent at a general store late one evening when we discovered that!
On the way back, we took a short visit to some of my favorite sites in the Northern California coast. I had all but forgotten about this trip when my scanning project dug up these slides!
Paragliding off Big Sur: A Photo Essay
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| Paragliding in Big Sur |
Christmas 1999, my family and I decided to visit Big Sur. While driving and walking around, we saw a para-glider enjoying the day. Since I had film to spare, I decided to try to capture the spirit of gliding with the winds.
He self-identified himself years later on one of my earlier on-line photo albums (hopefully Picasa Web outlasts all the ones that didn't), but I lost his contact information. Nevertheless, he was a great subject! (Most of these were shot with my 200mm/2.8L and my EOS-3)
Sailing in the San Juans
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| San Juan Sailing |
During the summer of 1998, Scarlet, Larry Hosken, Lea Widdice and I set off from Anacortes aboard the sailing vessel The Healer for a week long tour of the San Juan Islands. Larry did a fantastic job of capturing my notes and providing his wry observations, but I never did scan those pictures and get them posted.
Well, I'm scanning all these pictures and putting them up now. Sailing isn't as good for photography as hiking, but hey, at least I brought a camera! I've since learned that I prefer warm water sailing.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Cycling is not good for your bones
It appears that there's been a spate of research showing that cycling is not good for your bones. When someone posted this to a cycling mailing list, someone asserted that since the studies were only done on competitive cyclists, it probably wouldn't matter to recreational cyclists.
What kind of people join cycling mailing lists? Enthusiasts. These are folks who are enthusiastic enough to bike to work every day, go on cycling vacations, and bike on weekends, so unfortunately, if that describes you (and it certainly describes me!), you're at risk.
In 2005, just before the Tour of the Alps, Lisa and I got ourselves tested as a precaution. Sure enough, our bone density was T -1.5, which is osteopenia. Osteopenia is not really a disease --- it just means your bone density is below normal, and you're at risk if you don't change course.
So change course we did. After the Tour of the Alps, I cut back on my cycling by about 50%. This meant that one weekend day was devoted to hiking (we tried running --- it was no fun, so we knew we couldn't keep it up). 2006 was devoted to the Coast to Coast walk, and we didn't do as much cycling as we normally did (note that cutting back 50% still meant I was doing 6000 miles a year from commuting and fun rides). I added weight lifting to my exercise regime, forcing myself to spend time in the gym for the first time in my life. I also added calcium supplements to my diet.
In 2007, we got tested and we had gone from T -1.5 to T +1.5. Not only were we in the normal range, we now had stronger than normal bones! The lab technician stared at me when she did the bone scan, and stared at her records again, because she had never seen such a radical change in so short a time! Her comment was, "You changed something didn't you?" My doctor looked at the report and said, "Wow, when I told you to take up hiking, I didn't expect you to walk across England. I don't even have to test you for another 5 years. Keep doing whatever you're doing." (The funniest things about doctors is that they always seem genuinely surprised whenever a patient takes their advice --- I certainly don't pay my doctors just so I can ignore them!) We did do a Vitamin D test though, and it seemed that I had low vitamin D --- my skin's too dark even for Northern Californian sun to give me much vitamin D naturally.
Incidentally, after I posted my results to a cycling forum, someone sent me e-mail with calculations showing that I couldn't possibly have made such a big difference so quickly. When I inquired as to why he was skeptical, he responded that he tried lifting weights and hiking but it made no difference to him. Further probing revealed that he was in his late 50s, and more importantly, had not cut back on his cycling --- he was still doing double centuries. It is very important to realize that if you've been diagnosed as having a problem, you cannot just keep going as though nothing has changed --- you have to cut back on the ultra long rides that are doing the damage!
So if you're one of those enthusiastic cyclists, you need to go get yourself checked so you can do something about it. And it is possible to do something about it. I certainly didn't give up cycling --- and I didn't have to. There are sacrifices --- for instance, my trips can no longer be as tough as the one I did in 2005 --- subsequent trips did not feature as much climbing. I might even have to schedule rest days this year as part of the Tour of Hokkaido, but you know, being able to go for a fun hike and not be sore for 2-3 days afterwards is worth something, and as mentioned before, the Coast to Coast turned out to be a great trip.
What kind of people join cycling mailing lists? Enthusiasts. These are folks who are enthusiastic enough to bike to work every day, go on cycling vacations, and bike on weekends, so unfortunately, if that describes you (and it certainly describes me!), you're at risk.
In 2005, just before the Tour of the Alps, Lisa and I got ourselves tested as a precaution. Sure enough, our bone density was T -1.5, which is osteopenia. Osteopenia is not really a disease --- it just means your bone density is below normal, and you're at risk if you don't change course.
So change course we did. After the Tour of the Alps, I cut back on my cycling by about 50%. This meant that one weekend day was devoted to hiking (we tried running --- it was no fun, so we knew we couldn't keep it up). 2006 was devoted to the Coast to Coast walk, and we didn't do as much cycling as we normally did (note that cutting back 50% still meant I was doing 6000 miles a year from commuting and fun rides). I added weight lifting to my exercise regime, forcing myself to spend time in the gym for the first time in my life. I also added calcium supplements to my diet.
In 2007, we got tested and we had gone from T -1.5 to T +1.5. Not only were we in the normal range, we now had stronger than normal bones! The lab technician stared at me when she did the bone scan, and stared at her records again, because she had never seen such a radical change in so short a time! Her comment was, "You changed something didn't you?" My doctor looked at the report and said, "Wow, when I told you to take up hiking, I didn't expect you to walk across England. I don't even have to test you for another 5 years. Keep doing whatever you're doing." (The funniest things about doctors is that they always seem genuinely surprised whenever a patient takes their advice --- I certainly don't pay my doctors just so I can ignore them!) We did do a Vitamin D test though, and it seemed that I had low vitamin D --- my skin's too dark even for Northern Californian sun to give me much vitamin D naturally.
Incidentally, after I posted my results to a cycling forum, someone sent me e-mail with calculations showing that I couldn't possibly have made such a big difference so quickly. When I inquired as to why he was skeptical, he responded that he tried lifting weights and hiking but it made no difference to him. Further probing revealed that he was in his late 50s, and more importantly, had not cut back on his cycling --- he was still doing double centuries. It is very important to realize that if you've been diagnosed as having a problem, you cannot just keep going as though nothing has changed --- you have to cut back on the ultra long rides that are doing the damage!
So if you're one of those enthusiastic cyclists, you need to go get yourself checked so you can do something about it. And it is possible to do something about it. I certainly didn't give up cycling --- and I didn't have to. There are sacrifices --- for instance, my trips can no longer be as tough as the one I did in 2005 --- subsequent trips did not feature as much climbing. I might even have to schedule rest days this year as part of the Tour of Hokkaido, but you know, being able to go for a fun hike and not be sore for 2-3 days afterwards is worth something, and as mentioned before, the Coast to Coast turned out to be a great trip.
Coast to Coast Pictures (Consolidated)
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| Coast to Coast Consolidated |
After all these years of traveling, hiking and backpacking, I still think that the best long distance walk I've ever done was the 2006 Coast to Coast. Everything came together on that trip: glorious natural beauty, historic and literary locations out of time, physically challenging walks, intellectually challenging route-finding (the coast to coast is not one route, but an infinite number of routes, and to have done it once is merely to have explored one of many possibilities), contrasted with luxurious (compared to a tent) accomodations, hot showers every night, good home made food, and friendly people who speak English.
Lisa and I extol the virtues of this walk to anyone who would listen --- you can do it in 7 days hiking 20 miles a day, or over 30 days hiking 6 miles a day. You might encounter boggy ground and fog and require a GPS to navigate, or you might encounter glorious sunshine and use your umbrellas as sunshade. We did the trip in 17 days, with 2 rest days, and frankly, I wish we'd spent more time.
As a trip done after we converted our point and shoot to digital, we had pictures posted soon after the trip. But I was at that time still carrying an SLR loaded with Fuji Velvia, and those pictures never made it to the web-site. When I scanned these, I consolidated them with all the digital pictures. If you like you can play "which camera took this picture" while viewing the album.
But really, the album is a poor substitute for being there. If you're physically capable and have the time and money (much easier now that the pound is so low), you owe it to yourself to plan and do this trip. I have to thank Scarlet for the idea.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Why the Buying Frenzy?
After years of being bugged by my allergist to move some place with a hardwood floor, and outgrowing our small apartment, I've finally bought a house. (The close is next Friday) When I was shopping around, however, I noticed that there seemed to be a buying frenzy for houses under $700k in the Bay Area.
A year or two ago, David Ziegler wrote a wonderful post about housing as an investment. In it, he noted that the historic price/rent ratio is about 21. A $700k house would have to rent out for $33,333 a year, or $2777 a month to be at this ratio. Not surprisingly enough, that does appear to be the average going rate for a 3 bed/2 bath home in the area at the moment. In other words, for a change, housing in the Silicon Valley area does not appear to be vastly over-valued by historical standards, which partially explains the current feeding frenzy, which I think is pretty inane --- one colleague told me that she had bought a house with cash, but only so she could rent it out --- I think any rationalization of that approach to housing as investment went out the window (to be fair, she was under undue pressure from her parents, which is hard to resist at any age).
Personally, I think that house prices have room to drop --- historically, markets don't just correct to a historical level, they over-correct, which means they drop even further than the historical average (which was just an average). While historically, more than half the de-valuation of the housing market comes from inflation rather than nominal price declines, the state of the economy is such that inflation is unlikely in the near future, so all the decline has to reflected in the price. Since house prices are sticky on the down side, this explains the proliferation of houses sitting on the market longer, followed by "price reduced" signs.
Furthermore, rents will also drop in a recessionary environment, which will tend to bring the price/rent ratio back up. I'll refer interested readers to the very competent blog entry by Calculated Risk.
Given that I believe all this, why am I buying? As David Ziegler points out, I don't view the home as an investment --- it's entirely a consumption expense. I'm moving to a bigger home in a neighborhood that's acceptable, in the hopes that the value of the home to me outweighs the price I pay over the long term. Given this, I bought as little house as I could (studies show that you get used to a nice house, but if your commute is hellish, you'll never get used to that!), and used very little leverage. And if you were to ask me, that's what I would advise you to do as well.
A year or two ago, David Ziegler wrote a wonderful post about housing as an investment. In it, he noted that the historic price/rent ratio is about 21. A $700k house would have to rent out for $33,333 a year, or $2777 a month to be at this ratio. Not surprisingly enough, that does appear to be the average going rate for a 3 bed/2 bath home in the area at the moment. In other words, for a change, housing in the Silicon Valley area does not appear to be vastly over-valued by historical standards, which partially explains the current feeding frenzy, which I think is pretty inane --- one colleague told me that she had bought a house with cash, but only so she could rent it out --- I think any rationalization of that approach to housing as investment went out the window (to be fair, she was under undue pressure from her parents, which is hard to resist at any age).
Personally, I think that house prices have room to drop --- historically, markets don't just correct to a historical level, they over-correct, which means they drop even further than the historical average (which was just an average). While historically, more than half the de-valuation of the housing market comes from inflation rather than nominal price declines, the state of the economy is such that inflation is unlikely in the near future, so all the decline has to reflected in the price. Since house prices are sticky on the down side, this explains the proliferation of houses sitting on the market longer, followed by "price reduced" signs.
Furthermore, rents will also drop in a recessionary environment, which will tend to bring the price/rent ratio back up. I'll refer interested readers to the very competent blog entry by Calculated Risk.
Given that I believe all this, why am I buying? As David Ziegler points out, I don't view the home as an investment --- it's entirely a consumption expense. I'm moving to a bigger home in a neighborhood that's acceptable, in the hopes that the value of the home to me outweighs the price I pay over the long term. Given this, I bought as little house as I could (studies show that you get used to a nice house, but if your commute is hellish, you'll never get used to that!), and used very little leverage. And if you were to ask me, that's what I would advise you to do as well.
Friday, July 03, 2009
When do you need a financial planner?
I haven't written about financial topics in a while. A lot of this is because to some extent, I've written about all that I wanted to about the topic and pretty much stuck to my strategy. When all you do is Asset Allocation, it's really boring stuff and unlike a newspaper columnist, I don't have to repeat myself because I trust that readers know how to search.
I met with Brian recently. If you recall, he collaborated with me on the Concentrated Portfolio Problem way back in 2006. He was lamenting to me that someone he knew well still had done nothing with his highly concentrated portfolio, which obviously was damaging during the recent financial meltdown. He said he's this far from tossing this person to a financial planner, even though it went against his ethos.
At this point I said, Financial Planners basically are a way for you to dis-intermediate your emotions from your investing life. If you're the kind of person who has a hard time investing a large lump sum amount of cash, or if you have a hard time selling company stock, having a financial planner or advisor do it for you is necessary, and it's worth paying someone a fixed fee to do so. (A percentage of assets for someone to baby-sit you and tell you to push the sell button is too much!)
As an example, I knew of folks who could not bring themselves to sell company stock when it was at an all time high, but then also could not bring themselves to hold even when things were at a 4 year low! Folks like that could use a financial advisor. I know other folks who sold at a decent price, but then could not bring themselves to invest over a 4 year period. While cash is king right now, over the long term, inflation eats away an all-cash portfolio. So those people could use a financial advisor to give them a kick in the butt. A friend of mine once could not bring himself to open a Vanguard account without me sitting next to him and telling him what to do, which buttons to push, and what funds to buy. He knew intellectually what to do, but he literally could not do it by himself. This man obviously needed a financial advisor, and I was dumb enough to do it for him for free when I obviously should have charged a percentage of assets (joking!).
Do I have a financial planner? Sort of. I have one that I use to gain access to DFA funds, and I pay him a fixed fee. My condition for using him was that he would just behave like a broker --- take buy and sell orders, and not sell me on anything. Actually, he's been doing a bit more than that, since he's financially sophisticated enough for me to tell him to "sell this fund for tax-loss harvesting, and then buy it back after the wash sale rule no longer applies." Nevertheless, I keep a tight rein on my financial affairs. However, colleagues of mine have used his real financial services and don't seem unhappy.
Nevertheless, I can't endorse him or anyone else, since I haven't really done any serious interviewing of what his capabilities are, and at this point nobody's about to pay my hourly wages to interview anyone that way. (After all, I'm going to pocket the fee regardless of whether or not the guy knows what he's doing or not! And even then there are no guarantees --- there are plenty of smart, knowledgeable crooks --- just visit Wall Street!)
Hence, even if you are intellectually capable of doing your own financial planning (it's no harder than programming C++, I promise!), the last few years have taught me that you might still find a financial planner useful and necessary. Just don't overpay and make sure he's not a crook. How you would go about doing that, I don't know.
I met with Brian recently. If you recall, he collaborated with me on the Concentrated Portfolio Problem way back in 2006. He was lamenting to me that someone he knew well still had done nothing with his highly concentrated portfolio, which obviously was damaging during the recent financial meltdown. He said he's this far from tossing this person to a financial planner, even though it went against his ethos.
At this point I said, Financial Planners basically are a way for you to dis-intermediate your emotions from your investing life. If you're the kind of person who has a hard time investing a large lump sum amount of cash, or if you have a hard time selling company stock, having a financial planner or advisor do it for you is necessary, and it's worth paying someone a fixed fee to do so. (A percentage of assets for someone to baby-sit you and tell you to push the sell button is too much!)
As an example, I knew of folks who could not bring themselves to sell company stock when it was at an all time high, but then also could not bring themselves to hold even when things were at a 4 year low! Folks like that could use a financial advisor. I know other folks who sold at a decent price, but then could not bring themselves to invest over a 4 year period. While cash is king right now, over the long term, inflation eats away an all-cash portfolio. So those people could use a financial advisor to give them a kick in the butt. A friend of mine once could not bring himself to open a Vanguard account without me sitting next to him and telling him what to do, which buttons to push, and what funds to buy. He knew intellectually what to do, but he literally could not do it by himself. This man obviously needed a financial advisor, and I was dumb enough to do it for him for free when I obviously should have charged a percentage of assets (joking!).
Do I have a financial planner? Sort of. I have one that I use to gain access to DFA funds, and I pay him a fixed fee. My condition for using him was that he would just behave like a broker --- take buy and sell orders, and not sell me on anything. Actually, he's been doing a bit more than that, since he's financially sophisticated enough for me to tell him to "sell this fund for tax-loss harvesting, and then buy it back after the wash sale rule no longer applies." Nevertheless, I keep a tight rein on my financial affairs. However, colleagues of mine have used his real financial services and don't seem unhappy.
Nevertheless, I can't endorse him or anyone else, since I haven't really done any serious interviewing of what his capabilities are, and at this point nobody's about to pay my hourly wages to interview anyone that way. (After all, I'm going to pocket the fee regardless of whether or not the guy knows what he's doing or not! And even then there are no guarantees --- there are plenty of smart, knowledgeable crooks --- just visit Wall Street!)
Hence, even if you are intellectually capable of doing your own financial planning (it's no harder than programming C++, I promise!), the last few years have taught me that you might still find a financial planner useful and necessary. Just don't overpay and make sure he's not a crook. How you would go about doing that, I don't know.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Review: Century Rain
Century Rain is Alastair Reynolds' time travel science fiction novel. (Yes, I'm on a Reynolds kick right now) If you want to be a hard science writer, but you want to write a time travel story, what would you do?
Reynolds' answer is to use space travel. Unfortunately, he has to resort to another artifact. Someone somewhere has made a file-system-like snapshot of Earth back in the 1930s, and hidden it behind an astronomical structure where the inhabitants can be blissfully unaware that they're not actually orbiting a star.
In the meantime, the real Earth has turned into a dystopia due to a nano-machine holocaust, and different human factions are now fighting over the ashes of the planet. Verity Auger is an archeologist, digging through the remains of old Paris to recover long lost records. When she makes a mistake and is sent to a tribunal for it, she's offered a chance to redeem herself by exploring the parallel Earth, where a previous archeologist was sent but has gone missing.
In this parallel Earth, a private detective, Floyd, is engaged by a landlord to investigate the death of a tenant that the landlord had become fond of. The two plot lines then converge and we get reveal after reveal of the various machinations that are tying together the real Earth and the parallel one.
As is usual with Reynolds' stories, the characters are wooden, and his attempts at portraying a romance is incredibly unconvincing. The world building is excellent, though it still left unanswered questions in my head --- at the end of the novel, I still felt that Reynolds had dodged a few intriguing questions that would have made the novel better if he had answered them.
All in all, this novel is pretty mediocre Reynolds, but still more than acceptable airplane material. Recommended if you can get it at a cheap price or if you check it out of the library.
Reynolds' answer is to use space travel. Unfortunately, he has to resort to another artifact. Someone somewhere has made a file-system-like snapshot of Earth back in the 1930s, and hidden it behind an astronomical structure where the inhabitants can be blissfully unaware that they're not actually orbiting a star.
In the meantime, the real Earth has turned into a dystopia due to a nano-machine holocaust, and different human factions are now fighting over the ashes of the planet. Verity Auger is an archeologist, digging through the remains of old Paris to recover long lost records. When she makes a mistake and is sent to a tribunal for it, she's offered a chance to redeem herself by exploring the parallel Earth, where a previous archeologist was sent but has gone missing.
In this parallel Earth, a private detective, Floyd, is engaged by a landlord to investigate the death of a tenant that the landlord had become fond of. The two plot lines then converge and we get reveal after reveal of the various machinations that are tying together the real Earth and the parallel one.
As is usual with Reynolds' stories, the characters are wooden, and his attempts at portraying a romance is incredibly unconvincing. The world building is excellent, though it still left unanswered questions in my head --- at the end of the novel, I still felt that Reynolds had dodged a few intriguing questions that would have made the novel better if he had answered them.
All in all, this novel is pretty mediocre Reynolds, but still more than acceptable airplane material. Recommended if you can get it at a cheap price or if you check it out of the library.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Cranks, Bottom Brackets, and Upgrades
Pardo was on my case about my cranks for about a year or so, ever since he built up my custom frame. His reason was that the pedal eyes of the Mavic 631 cranks had a reputation for cracking eventually, and that I didn't inspect the cranks frequently enough to catch any cracks. I resisted it for a year or so, since I was in Germany, and I figured that since those cranks had survived all of my bike trips since 1998, it would be fine.
Well, after I came back from Germany, I discovered a creak in the Phil Wood BB, and there was also a bit of chain rub when I pushed hard while climbing. I had The Bike Doctor look at it, but neither he nor I could get rid of the creak. Furthermore, while he had the cranks off, I felt the Phil Wood BB, and it felt rough to my hands.
After much consultation with Pardo, I settled on the Ultegra SL triple. Pardo thought that the bearings would hold up better than the Phil Woods, and he didn't think the design sucked. In fact, the Shimano Hollowtech cranks are a copy of an old Bullseye design, with an integrated spider and spindle, and a pinch-bolted left crank arm. Shimano had simply adopted it after both Octalink and Octalink II had demonstrable failures in the field and the Bullseye patent had expired. It seemed strange that Shimano bothered to wait for the patent to expire, when skipping the Octalink/Octalink II system might have saved them from those fiascoes, but such is life.
Original Bullseye Crank with Pinch Bolt (See entire gallery)
The most expensive bike shop in the world likes numbers, so we started by putting together a spreadsheet with all the components weighed. We noted a few things: first of all, Shimano's chainrings are now heavier than the same equivalent chainrings from 1992, even though the ones from 1992 were uncut, and had no ramps and pins while the latest and greatest stuff is pre-worn out from all those ramps cut into it! Maybe the steel pins pushed into it added some weight, but still, one would expect such small pins to make little difference to overall weight. Secondly, Shimano's assembly is shoddy. First of all, none of the bolts were installed with any grease in the threads! This is a big no-no. Secondly, for the middle and big chainrings, 4 of the bolts were aluminum and one was steel, indicating that the assembler had reached into the wrong bin for the bolts when assembling the crank.
The old Bullseye design had an axial loading bolt that protruded from the spindle. Shimano improved this by using a recessed bolt so your heel won't strike it. They did, however, make you use a special tool to loosen and tighten it. We guessed that they did so to avoid having folks over-tighten it, which could add too much preload onto the spindle and cause early bearing failure. However, the tool they provided had no way to apply a torque wrench to it, which left us scratching our heads. Pardo's solution was simple and elegant --- he drilled a hole in the middle of the recessed bolt, stuck an allen head onto it and a bolt behind it, and now I can tighten and loosen the pre-load screw, and even apply a torque wrench on it with a hex head. On top of that, I won't have to carry a special tool, since I carry a full complement of Allen keys anyway when I ride!
Modified Ultegra SL center knob (See entire gallery)
The installation went smoothly, and Pardo and I borrowed a torque wrench from Roberto and we proceeded to tune our fingers to how tight the pinch bolts should be. It turns out that while the axial bolt only needs to be finger tight, the pinch bolts needed to be pretty tight, as in, I had to use my entire wrist strength, but it would have been wrong to use body weight on it. Needless to say, we installed the lighter chainrings on the crankset before installing it, with my 24t steel chainring (lighter than Shimano's 30t aluminum chainring), my old 39t and 49t aluminum rings from circa 1993.
Incidentally, when we pulled the Phil Wood BB, once it was out of the retaining rings without any preload on the bearings, the spindle spun smooth as butter. So despite treating the bike as a submersible in the Tour across France last year, and numerous rain rides, the Phil Wood is still good for at least another 15000 miles. So if your Phil Wood feels rough in the retaining rings, maybe it's just the preload. You won't be able to tell without pulling the entire BB. Pardo thinks that the roughness when preloaded could also be due to grit in the seals (entirely possible, given that I treated the bike to some pretty wet weather in France last year)
Enough with the geeky stuff, how does it ride? The answer: it is nothing short of amazing. It was obvious from the design that the result would be stiffer. If you were Miguel Indurain or Mike Samuel (200 pounds) or Roberto Peon (also 200 pounds), you would feel it, but skinny me? (149 pounds) I'm sure I don't put out more than 250 watts on a good day.
My first impression when getting on it was, WOW, this feels STIFF. And not in a bad way. There's absolutely no budging at all, no matter how hard I push. But most importantly, all drivetrain noise went away! No creak, and more importantly, no rubbing of the chain against the front dérailleur! Pardo examined the Mavic 631 crank, and found that the spider, while it covered a huge surface area, was really thin --- this makes a difference because beam stiffness is the square of the cross section, so that explains the increased flexibility. Pardo didn't think I was in danger of cracking the spider before the pedal eye gave way, however. So I was flexing the entire spider, causing the chainrings to move towards and away from the frame on every pedal stroke, and if I was riding hard, that would cause my crank to twist so hard that I could not provide sufficient trim on the front dérailleur to keep the chain from touching the dérailleur!
Mavic Starfish 631 Crank (note the thinness of the spider). Full Gallery
Is there a performance difference? No, not that I can tell. (I rode a familiar road at my standard hard pace, and the speedometer showed no difference) But the entire assembly is about 230 grams lighter, and the noise has gone away, and the bearings will last longer (and when they fail, they'll be easily serviced, unlike the Phil Woods, which you'd have to get a special tool to press the bearings out of). Clearly I shouldn't have resisted this upgrade for so long. Highly recommended!
Anyone want to buy a used, Phil Wood BB + Retaining Rings? Or a Mavic 631 crankset?
P.S. The 2010 Shimano Ultegra cranks have been restyled so that non-Shimano chainrings don't look right when mounted on them, so if you want to avoid that "feature", you better buy up the 2009 Ultegra crankset!
P.P.S. I found out years later that the creak was because of a frame that was cracking!
Well, after I came back from Germany, I discovered a creak in the Phil Wood BB, and there was also a bit of chain rub when I pushed hard while climbing. I had The Bike Doctor look at it, but neither he nor I could get rid of the creak. Furthermore, while he had the cranks off, I felt the Phil Wood BB, and it felt rough to my hands.
After much consultation with Pardo, I settled on the Ultegra SL triple. Pardo thought that the bearings would hold up better than the Phil Woods, and he didn't think the design sucked. In fact, the Shimano Hollowtech cranks are a copy of an old Bullseye design, with an integrated spider and spindle, and a pinch-bolted left crank arm. Shimano had simply adopted it after both Octalink and Octalink II had demonstrable failures in the field and the Bullseye patent had expired. It seemed strange that Shimano bothered to wait for the patent to expire, when skipping the Octalink/Octalink II system might have saved them from those fiascoes, but such is life.
Original Bullseye Crank with Pinch Bolt (See entire gallery)
The most expensive bike shop in the world likes numbers, so we started by putting together a spreadsheet with all the components weighed. We noted a few things: first of all, Shimano's chainrings are now heavier than the same equivalent chainrings from 1992, even though the ones from 1992 were uncut, and had no ramps and pins while the latest and greatest stuff is pre-worn out from all those ramps cut into it! Maybe the steel pins pushed into it added some weight, but still, one would expect such small pins to make little difference to overall weight. Secondly, Shimano's assembly is shoddy. First of all, none of the bolts were installed with any grease in the threads! This is a big no-no. Secondly, for the middle and big chainrings, 4 of the bolts were aluminum and one was steel, indicating that the assembler had reached into the wrong bin for the bolts when assembling the crank.
The old Bullseye design had an axial loading bolt that protruded from the spindle. Shimano improved this by using a recessed bolt so your heel won't strike it. They did, however, make you use a special tool to loosen and tighten it. We guessed that they did so to avoid having folks over-tighten it, which could add too much preload onto the spindle and cause early bearing failure. However, the tool they provided had no way to apply a torque wrench to it, which left us scratching our heads. Pardo's solution was simple and elegant --- he drilled a hole in the middle of the recessed bolt, stuck an allen head onto it and a bolt behind it, and now I can tighten and loosen the pre-load screw, and even apply a torque wrench on it with a hex head. On top of that, I won't have to carry a special tool, since I carry a full complement of Allen keys anyway when I ride!
Modified Ultegra SL center knob (See entire gallery)
The installation went smoothly, and Pardo and I borrowed a torque wrench from Roberto and we proceeded to tune our fingers to how tight the pinch bolts should be. It turns out that while the axial bolt only needs to be finger tight, the pinch bolts needed to be pretty tight, as in, I had to use my entire wrist strength, but it would have been wrong to use body weight on it. Needless to say, we installed the lighter chainrings on the crankset before installing it, with my 24t steel chainring (lighter than Shimano's 30t aluminum chainring), my old 39t and 49t aluminum rings from circa 1993.
Incidentally, when we pulled the Phil Wood BB, once it was out of the retaining rings without any preload on the bearings, the spindle spun smooth as butter. So despite treating the bike as a submersible in the Tour across France last year, and numerous rain rides, the Phil Wood is still good for at least another 15000 miles. So if your Phil Wood feels rough in the retaining rings, maybe it's just the preload. You won't be able to tell without pulling the entire BB. Pardo thinks that the roughness when preloaded could also be due to grit in the seals (entirely possible, given that I treated the bike to some pretty wet weather in France last year)
Enough with the geeky stuff, how does it ride? The answer: it is nothing short of amazing. It was obvious from the design that the result would be stiffer. If you were Miguel Indurain or Mike Samuel (200 pounds) or Roberto Peon (also 200 pounds), you would feel it, but skinny me? (149 pounds) I'm sure I don't put out more than 250 watts on a good day.
My first impression when getting on it was, WOW, this feels STIFF. And not in a bad way. There's absolutely no budging at all, no matter how hard I push. But most importantly, all drivetrain noise went away! No creak, and more importantly, no rubbing of the chain against the front dérailleur! Pardo examined the Mavic 631 crank, and found that the spider, while it covered a huge surface area, was really thin --- this makes a difference because beam stiffness is the square of the cross section, so that explains the increased flexibility. Pardo didn't think I was in danger of cracking the spider before the pedal eye gave way, however. So I was flexing the entire spider, causing the chainrings to move towards and away from the frame on every pedal stroke, and if I was riding hard, that would cause my crank to twist so hard that I could not provide sufficient trim on the front dérailleur to keep the chain from touching the dérailleur!
Mavic Starfish 631 Crank (note the thinness of the spider). Full Gallery
Is there a performance difference? No, not that I can tell. (I rode a familiar road at my standard hard pace, and the speedometer showed no difference) But the entire assembly is about 230 grams lighter, and the noise has gone away, and the bearings will last longer (and when they fail, they'll be easily serviced, unlike the Phil Woods, which you'd have to get a special tool to press the bearings out of). Clearly I shouldn't have resisted this upgrade for so long. Highly recommended!
Anyone want to buy a used, Phil Wood BB + Retaining Rings? Or a Mavic 631 crankset?
P.S. The 2010 Shimano Ultegra cranks have been restyled so that non-Shimano chainrings don't look right when mounted on them, so if you want to avoid that "feature", you better buy up the 2009 Ultegra crankset!
P.P.S. I found out years later that the creak was because of a frame that was cracking!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Review: Zima Blue And Other Stories
Zima Blue and Other Stories is a surprisingly uneven collection of Alastair Reynolds' short stories. As you might expect from Alastair Reynolds, the science in each of the stories is excellent, so it's the execution of the stories that are at question.
The title story, Zima Blue, is haunting --- a story about an artist who seeks his roots, and discovers to his surprise that he is not what he thought he was. Understanding Space and Time is similarly excellent, about the last human in the Universe, and what he chose to do after an unlikely resurrection.
I disliked his two Merlin stories, however, and seeing that they were published in Interzone reminded me that I did not renew my electronic subscription to the magazine for good reason. However, most of the other stories were good enough that I enjoyed reading them. Worth buying at the used prices indicated by the links above, or checking out from the library.
The title story, Zima Blue, is haunting --- a story about an artist who seeks his roots, and discovers to his surprise that he is not what he thought he was. Understanding Space and Time is similarly excellent, about the last human in the Universe, and what he chose to do after an unlikely resurrection.
I disliked his two Merlin stories, however, and seeing that they were published in Interzone reminded me that I did not renew my electronic subscription to the magazine for good reason. However, most of the other stories were good enough that I enjoyed reading them. Worth buying at the used prices indicated by the links above, or checking out from the library.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Review: Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days is two novellas joined together by a tenuous link set in the Revelation Space universe.
The novellas are well-written and a quick read, as you might expect from Alastair Reynolds. The first one, Diamond Dogs, is about an expedition to explore an ancient Mayan Ruin. Oh wait, no, an alien monolith, apparently designed and built to challenge humans by the means of mathematical puzzles. What's interesting about this story is that while it is a typical horror piece, the true horror is in the psychology of the expedition leader.
Turquoise Days explores the Pattern Jugglers and what they are. It is a much weaker piece than Diamond Dogs, but nevertheless does explore an interesting application of the Pattern Juggler by political entities. The characters are a lot weaker, but I'm glad to see Reynolds at least attempting to write his way around what is his traditional weakness.
As quick reads, this novel isn't quite worth the $6 Kindle price in the store, but is definitely worth checking out of the library or reading a borrowed copy. Or perhaps if you have a short domestic flight it would be perfect reading.
The novellas are well-written and a quick read, as you might expect from Alastair Reynolds. The first one, Diamond Dogs, is about an expedition to explore an ancient Mayan Ruin. Oh wait, no, an alien monolith, apparently designed and built to challenge humans by the means of mathematical puzzles. What's interesting about this story is that while it is a typical horror piece, the true horror is in the psychology of the expedition leader.
Turquoise Days explores the Pattern Jugglers and what they are. It is a much weaker piece than Diamond Dogs, but nevertheless does explore an interesting application of the Pattern Juggler by political entities. The characters are a lot weaker, but I'm glad to see Reynolds at least attempting to write his way around what is his traditional weakness.
As quick reads, this novel isn't quite worth the $6 Kindle price in the store, but is definitely worth checking out of the library or reading a borrowed copy. Or perhaps if you have a short domestic flight it would be perfect reading.
Purissima Creek Hike
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| From Bay Area |
This turned out to be a very pretty hike! I was impressed. Shyam and I got started late around 10:00am, but the fog that was around yesterday was mostly burned off, while we still had a cool breeze that made the hike a great pleasure. The views were nice, though it was still a bit hazy, so we didn't get to see that far --- just all the way to half-moon bay, which is rare enough.
Trail conditions were a little muddy near skyline, but past that it became very clean and sweet. The hike had lots of variety, including Redwoods, as well as flowery little paths. Highly recommended.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tour of the Alps 2005 Pictures Redux
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| Tour of the Alps 2005 |
In 2005, Mike, Steve Purcell, and I did a Tour of the Alps, Jobst-style. That was my first foray into digital photography, and it was surprisingly (to my eyes at least) successful. Web-hosting for photography at that time was sadly primitive, though Picasa had a great system for generating HTML and pictures from a photo album. It wasn't until 2006 that Picasa Web Albums launched. The tools for stitching were not as advanced as they are today.
So I reworked the photo album, creating new panoramas, and going through and reselecting pictures all over again. I do enjoy seeing how fast everything is on my new machine as well when doing it a second time!
Review: The Outskirter's Secret
This is book two of Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series, and is out of print but can be bought as part of an omnibus collection.
The story begins slowly, with Rowan and Bel heading towards the location of the guide-star that they knew to have fallen. As readers, we think we know what the guide-stars are, so the first half of the novel goes slowly, exploring outskirters' life, tribes, hazards, food, and all. I was hoping the plot moved on quickly, but it showed no signs of doing so until about halfway through the novel, when suddenly everything happened at once.
Not only did everything happen at once, Kirstein suddenly went into fast forward mode, skipping weeks at a time near the end, and we get an unsatisfying finish, where we've learned enough to be intrigued, but not enough to get a big picture. Clearly, Kirstein's suffering from a sophomore slump of sorts. Hopefully the next novel will be better.
The story begins slowly, with Rowan and Bel heading towards the location of the guide-star that they knew to have fallen. As readers, we think we know what the guide-stars are, so the first half of the novel goes slowly, exploring outskirters' life, tribes, hazards, food, and all. I was hoping the plot moved on quickly, but it showed no signs of doing so until about halfway through the novel, when suddenly everything happened at once.
Not only did everything happen at once, Kirstein suddenly went into fast forward mode, skipping weeks at a time near the end, and we get an unsatisfying finish, where we've learned enough to be intrigued, but not enough to get a big picture. Clearly, Kirstein's suffering from a sophomore slump of sorts. Hopefully the next novel will be better.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
New Zealand 2000: Flying Kiwi
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| New Zealand 2000 |
In February 2000, I went to New Zealand. It wasn't a spur of the moment trip, but I decided to go with Flying Kiwi Expeditions because I'd read about them on Philip Greenspun's Website, and thought they were a match. Well, it was a mistake. It's not that the tour was incompetently run, or that I didn't enjoy meeting the people I met there. It was that the tour tried to do too much, so you got too little cycling, too little hiking, and too much time sitting in a bus.
Nevertheless, I did get a 3 day Routeburn Track hike, which was fabulous, a little bit of cycling, and a number of day hikes that were quite enjoyable. The folks on the trip were also incredibly nice, and I made many contacts that sadly, were never renewed. Nowadays, travelers will just use Facebook to stay connected, and it's definitely a much better way to maintain a contact list than my PDA was --- over a lifetime you accumulate thousands of contacts and have no way of matching faces to names. Even worse, when women get married, they frequently change their names, so searching on Facebook, for instance, doesn't do you any good.
New Zealand is a gorgeous country. Compared to Australia, it's much smaller, but ironically is much more of a microcosm of the world. Traveling through New Zealand, you also get the sense that American vacations are pathetic. 3 weeks is considered a long time by American vacationers, but the Israeli were there for 3 months. The French would visit for a year. The English would be traveling around the world for a year. And the Germans --- I met Charlotte Michel, an 80-year-old grandmother hitch-hiking around New Zealand by herself. I've met many 25-year-old Americans who wouldn't imagine doing that. The spirit of adventure seemed much less rare in New Zealand than in Silicon Valley today.
I never forgot how gorgeously beautiful the country was, and now, looking at these slides again, I'm glad I became a decent photographer before visiting.
One word: if you're thinking of doing a cycling trip in New Zealand, don't. The cycling is OK, but not great. Go there as a hiker, backpacker, kayaker, and mountain biker, and it's a great country. As a road cyclist, it's not really worth your time.
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