This year, Wealthfront hosted a fireside chat with Burton Malkiel at the Stanford faculty club. It was my first chance to talk with Malkiel since 2005, and I got to ask him about his opinion of the stock market. He said that while the US stock market is now historically expensive, but the developed markets and European markets are looking cheap, so "this is a good opportunity to do some rebalancing."
Wealthfront also divulged some interesting information: they currently have $450M in assets under management, compared to $90M around this time last year, so their service has gained a lot of traction. Not only are the number of accounts increasing, the average account size has also been increasing. (The first time you see the tax loss harvesting numbers they post to your account, you'll be motivated to shove more money into the account) They currently have 32 employees with 18 engineers, and they expect to have more than half the company be engineers for the foreseeable future.
Malkiel says they've been splitting up the fixed income segment to do things that make sense under the current environment. For instance, AT&T bonds are paying 4% while AT&T stocks are yielding 5% in dividends. It thus makes much more sense to own AT&T stocks rather than bonds. That's an interesting approach, though I would point out that Swensen thinks that corporate bonds are not worth holding.
Someone pointed out that with the new individual stock based tax loss harvesting, they risk accidentally triggering the wash sale rule if they have accounts elsewhere or vest company stock. The answer to the latter is that they allow you to have a blacklist of stocks that they'll never buy or sell on your behalf, and the wash sale triggering based on another advisor trading on your behalf simply means you don't recognize all the tax losses you could otherwise be entitled to. They note that they plan to provide turbo-tax compatible reports, so turbo-tax should be able to reconcile all the buys and sells that they do on your behalf.
One thing that I was very pleased to see was when someone asked whether the resulting decreased cost basis of your holdings wouldn't wash out in the end when you do withdraw the money. Malkiel's response was that he was so old he didn't expect to pay any capital gains at all on his holdings as they will get stepped up upon inheritance. Andy Rachleff also mentioned that "our tax loss harvesting service is not suitable for short term investments." It's a strong statement of where Wealthfront wants to go, and I applaud them for making such a strong statement up front.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Is Sony making a comeback?
Without noticing it, I somehow ended up being a Sony consumer this year. If you asked me about it a few years ago I would have laughed, since Sony seemed so moribound. For instance, Sony had to buy Minolta to get into the camera business, and Minolta was long considered the weakest of the SLR manufacturers. The PS3 launch was well known for being disastrous, especially when compared to the Nintendo Wii. It still hasn't done anything in the smart phones worth buying, and their tablets are pretty sad.
Then this year, I found myself buying a Sony RX-100, which has a well-deserved reputation for being easily the best point and shoot camera you can buy. Despite being a Canon loyalist for as long as I've been a serious photographer, I ended up buying one. I would have expected Canon to have a better answer to the RX-100 by now, but it seems as though they've been caught flat-footed this time.
Then I found myself buying a Playstation Vita on black friday, and it's re-kindled a love of games that I'd thought I'd lost.
Looking around as I visited Costco and the occasional shopping mall, I can't help notice that the PS 4 is pretty much sold out everywhere, while you can saunter into any Microsoft Store or Costco and buy an XBox One. Sony also did something clever with the PS 4, which is to require all new games be PS Vita compatible, doing the kind of integration that Microsoft was famous for.
If Sony keeps executing the way it has been for the last couple of years, the future will be very bright for it indeed. If I were the kind to buy individual stocks, I'd definitely do more research into its financials.
Then this year, I found myself buying a Sony RX-100, which has a well-deserved reputation for being easily the best point and shoot camera you can buy. Despite being a Canon loyalist for as long as I've been a serious photographer, I ended up buying one. I would have expected Canon to have a better answer to the RX-100 by now, but it seems as though they've been caught flat-footed this time.
Then I found myself buying a Playstation Vita on black friday, and it's re-kindled a love of games that I'd thought I'd lost.
Looking around as I visited Costco and the occasional shopping mall, I can't help notice that the PS 4 is pretty much sold out everywhere, while you can saunter into any Microsoft Store or Costco and buy an XBox One. Sony also did something clever with the PS 4, which is to require all new games be PS Vita compatible, doing the kind of integration that Microsoft was famous for.
If Sony keeps executing the way it has been for the last couple of years, the future will be very bright for it indeed. If I were the kind to buy individual stocks, I'd definitely do more research into its financials.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Review: Unaccountable
Unaccountable is Dr. Marty Makary's book about the lack of transparency in medicine. For me, it's an eye opener about how to approach healthcare, surgeon selection, hospital selection, and potential surgery. Here are a few (by no means exhaustive) interesting titbits from the book:
What strikes me over and over again is the importance of culture at hospitals. Makary refers to many prestigious hospitals that nevertheless have poor safety culture (and therefore poor patient outcomes). In keeping with the culture of secrecy in medicine, however, he's not allowed to name them. If you read between the lines, however, you get a good idea of which hospitals he's not recommending. Furthermore, he explains why certain hospitals such as the Mayo clinic are so highly regarded and how they come about having a great safety culture.
At $3.99 at the Kindle store, buy this book and read it. It has the potential to save you and your loved ones a lot of pain. Highly recommended.
- The best hospitals don't pay doctors based on the number of procedures they do, but rather a salary. The incentive based/market based approach breaks down for healthcare because insurance companies pay per procedure, rather than on the basis of patient outcome. As a result of the "Eat What You Kill" model of compensation, many patients get unnecessary and potentially life-threatening procedures rather than minimally invasive surgery.
- If you're told you need major surgery by an older doctor, get a second opinion from a younger one. The younger surgeon might know about newly invented minimally invasive surgery techniques that the older one does not.
- If you're told you need surgery on a major body part for a disease, get second opinions from both experts on the disease as well as experts on the body part. For instance, if you have cancer of the liver, you want an expert on the liver, as well as an expert on cancer of the liver. For instance, many transplant experts would recommend a transplant, while a cancer surgeon would suggest eliminating the tumor through surgery.
- The easiest measure of safety culture is simple. Collect answers from the nurses and doctors of a hospital to the question: "Would you want to be treated at this hospital." This data is actually collected, but isn't published by the government or hospital. Similarly, readmit rates are collected but are not published. This means that it's nearly impossible for a patient to select hospitals on the basis of competency, which is why hospitals compete on the basis of parking lots and advertising.
- Ask for a video of your procedure if possible. Merely knowing that someone else will watch the video improves quality and increases time spent on the procedure.
- Children's hospitals frequently have a more people in fundraising than doctors. That's because fundraising for children's hospitals is so effective that it's a better revenue model than actually treating patients.
What strikes me over and over again is the importance of culture at hospitals. Makary refers to many prestigious hospitals that nevertheless have poor safety culture (and therefore poor patient outcomes). In keeping with the culture of secrecy in medicine, however, he's not allowed to name them. If you read between the lines, however, you get a good idea of which hospitals he's not recommending. Furthermore, he explains why certain hospitals such as the Mayo clinic are so highly regarded and how they come about having a great safety culture.
At $3.99 at the Kindle store, buy this book and read it. It has the potential to save you and your loved ones a lot of pain. Highly recommended.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Reread: The Things They Carried
I first read The Things They Carried right after high school. As a soon to be conscript, the book struck a deep chord in me in a way none of the books that were assigned in school as "literature" ever did. The book was so raw, so filled with reality while acknowledging that some stories cannot be told correctly, no matter how many times the author circles back to his material, that it spoke to me in a way that no mere novel could provide. Over the years, I've given away so many copies of the book that I've lost count, and over several moves, I've never managed to recover any of my personal copies. When the Amazon Matchbook program listed this book for me at $2.99, I jumped on it so that I could have my very own copy, which cannot be given away or lost as long as Amazon stays around.
Many books lose their power over you as you age. The intensity of emotion that I had as a youth has no parallel in me today, but this book brings back those memories in ways that even reading my own writing from 20 years ago cannot. O'Brien brings home the nastiness of being a soldier in South East Asia, where even the weather and climate will bury you despite all the technology at your disposal (though remembering that the war was fought in the 60s, there wasn't actually that much technology).
What strikes me the hardest this time around, however, is the lack of fulfillment you sense in O'Brien throughout the novel. It's palpable in the way he retells the stories over and over again, sometimes from a different angle, sometimes in the same way but in a different context, and other times to make a completely different point. Together, the stories in this book form a mosaic that lets you get at the essence of the truth in O'Brien's past and his trauma, and explains why 20 years later, he is still telling these stories.
One of the big differences between the USA of today and the USA of Vietnam is that since switching to an all-volunteer army, the gulf between the elite and the soldiers who fight on behalf of the country are wider than before. As a result, books like this are more important than ever. I highly recommend this book, but more importantly, if you're a US citizen or green card holder, you need to read this book:
Many books lose their power over you as you age. The intensity of emotion that I had as a youth has no parallel in me today, but this book brings back those memories in ways that even reading my own writing from 20 years ago cannot. O'Brien brings home the nastiness of being a soldier in South East Asia, where even the weather and climate will bury you despite all the technology at your disposal (though remembering that the war was fought in the 60s, there wasn't actually that much technology).
What strikes me the hardest this time around, however, is the lack of fulfillment you sense in O'Brien throughout the novel. It's palpable in the way he retells the stories over and over again, sometimes from a different angle, sometimes in the same way but in a different context, and other times to make a completely different point. Together, the stories in this book form a mosaic that lets you get at the essence of the truth in O'Brien's past and his trauma, and explains why 20 years later, he is still telling these stories.
One of the big differences between the USA of today and the USA of Vietnam is that since switching to an all-volunteer army, the gulf between the elite and the soldiers who fight on behalf of the country are wider than before. As a result, books like this are more important than ever. I highly recommend this book, but more importantly, if you're a US citizen or green card holder, you need to read this book:
‘’If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.’’
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Review: Uncharted - Golden Abyss
If I had any doubts that my purchase of a Playstation Vita would be a waste, Golden Abyss has dispelled them. Despite my having owned a Playstation 3 for several years, I had somehow avoided playing any of the Uncharted games on that console, and now I regret not having done so, especially since Golden Abyss is frequently cited as the weakest of the series.
The gameplay is basically that of a platform shooting game translated into 3D. Nathan Drake, the protagonist, jumps, climbs and bounces around levels as though he was in a Mario game, but rather than jumping on his enemies to dispel them like the plumber, he acquires and uses a variety of weapons and shoots at enemies via cover. There are also several puzzles, none of which are particularly challenging intellectually, but do break up the flow of the game so that it's not a series of action sequences.
The graphics behind this game is gorgeous. There are many times when I'd be traversing a canyon, a cave, or some set piece, and I'd want to stop just to rotate the view and enjoy the scenery. The colors pop, and the scenery is well put together and real.
What blew my mind, however, was how well the game used all the features of the Vita. The most compelling section came when the characters came across a blank piece of paper. You're asked to hold up the paper to a light, and sure enough, when you hold the Vita up against a light bulb, letters appeared on the parchment in a slow reveal. This is a cool use of the rear camera, and gave me a feeling of "wow" that none of the other games I've played on real game consoles have provided. When you're asked to do a charcoal drawing, you actually use your fingers to rub against the touch screen. Very sweet. When you're asked to take a photograph, you can hold your Vita just like a real camera, and control how you snap pictures that way. Not all the interfaces were as smooth as that particular piece. For instance, using the touch screen for hand-to-hand combat felt like a miss compared to using the physical buttons. Using the rear touch sensor for holding and rotating an object didn't feel natural, and neither did using the gyroscope to control a sniper rifle. Fortunately, most of the time you could also use the joysticks (which are a delight to use).
The story is well put together, and it's worth reading Bend Studio's post-mortem on the game to see what tweaks and changes they had to make in order to make the female lead likable to most players. Unfortunately, as with all games of this type, the story usually has you feeling like you're on rails. For instance, there's a scene in the game where Drake is hiding behind a pillar watching one of the villains have a conversation with a lackey. There's no PC in D&D history that wouldn't just take a headshot at the villain there and then and save himself a lot of trouble later. But this being a computer game that's on rails, the game takes control away from you for that scene, which might not be frustrating if you're used to the game doing so, but for me, just jarred me out of the immersion mode that the game otherwise worked so hard to put me into.
The game's difficulty setting on Easy (I didn't use "Very Easy") was perfect for an out-of-touch gamer. I died often, but not so often as to become frustrated, and in general I had a lot of fun.
In any case, playing this game made me immediately go out and download Uncharted 3 to my PS 3 (it's a free game this month on Playstation Plus). I doubt if I'll get through that game as quickly as this one, because having something on the Vita makes it so much easier for me to sneak in 15 minutes of gaming here and there when I have time, rather having to be at home and having to power up the TV the console and taking over the living room.
In any case, Golden Abyss is highly recommended and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth from the Vita just based on this game.
The gameplay is basically that of a platform shooting game translated into 3D. Nathan Drake, the protagonist, jumps, climbs and bounces around levels as though he was in a Mario game, but rather than jumping on his enemies to dispel them like the plumber, he acquires and uses a variety of weapons and shoots at enemies via cover. There are also several puzzles, none of which are particularly challenging intellectually, but do break up the flow of the game so that it's not a series of action sequences.
The graphics behind this game is gorgeous. There are many times when I'd be traversing a canyon, a cave, or some set piece, and I'd want to stop just to rotate the view and enjoy the scenery. The colors pop, and the scenery is well put together and real.
What blew my mind, however, was how well the game used all the features of the Vita. The most compelling section came when the characters came across a blank piece of paper. You're asked to hold up the paper to a light, and sure enough, when you hold the Vita up against a light bulb, letters appeared on the parchment in a slow reveal. This is a cool use of the rear camera, and gave me a feeling of "wow" that none of the other games I've played on real game consoles have provided. When you're asked to do a charcoal drawing, you actually use your fingers to rub against the touch screen. Very sweet. When you're asked to take a photograph, you can hold your Vita just like a real camera, and control how you snap pictures that way. Not all the interfaces were as smooth as that particular piece. For instance, using the touch screen for hand-to-hand combat felt like a miss compared to using the physical buttons. Using the rear touch sensor for holding and rotating an object didn't feel natural, and neither did using the gyroscope to control a sniper rifle. Fortunately, most of the time you could also use the joysticks (which are a delight to use).
The story is well put together, and it's worth reading Bend Studio's post-mortem on the game to see what tweaks and changes they had to make in order to make the female lead likable to most players. Unfortunately, as with all games of this type, the story usually has you feeling like you're on rails. For instance, there's a scene in the game where Drake is hiding behind a pillar watching one of the villains have a conversation with a lackey. There's no PC in D&D history that wouldn't just take a headshot at the villain there and then and save himself a lot of trouble later. But this being a computer game that's on rails, the game takes control away from you for that scene, which might not be frustrating if you're used to the game doing so, but for me, just jarred me out of the immersion mode that the game otherwise worked so hard to put me into.
The game's difficulty setting on Easy (I didn't use "Very Easy") was perfect for an out-of-touch gamer. I died often, but not so often as to become frustrated, and in general I had a lot of fun.
In any case, playing this game made me immediately go out and download Uncharted 3 to my PS 3 (it's a free game this month on Playstation Plus). I doubt if I'll get through that game as quickly as this one, because having something on the Vita makes it so much easier for me to sneak in 15 minutes of gaming here and there when I have time, rather having to be at home and having to power up the TV the console and taking over the living room.
In any case, Golden Abyss is highly recommended and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth from the Vita just based on this game.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
The Only Reason to Buy Individual Stocks
I recently wrote about why I no longer buy individual stocks. I will now detail my one exception to this rule. If I was working at Google, Facebook, or owned large amounts of those stocks that I couldn't or didn't want to divest myself of (very common in the case of RSUs that aren't vested), then this is what you need to do.
For the rest of your portfolio, when you're buying indices, you can custom construct an index such that those individual stocks are left out. While it only makes sense to do this if your portfolio exceeds a certain amount, the net result is that your overall portfolio is better balanced because you don't have to own Google again, for instance, both in the index and in individual holdings.
What's the portfolio level at which this makes sense? At one point, the only solution was Parametric Portfolio Associates, at a minimum of $5M. However, today, Wealthfront has dramatically lowered the entry level to $500,000. Once you've got such a custom index built, as Wealthfront has detailed, you can now do tax-loss harvesting at an individual level, bringing your tax loss harvesting potential up even further. This is a huge incentive for high networth individuals to use Wealthfront, as their fees are substantially lower than Parametric's, for instance. In fact, once you build a custom index, you no longer have to pay Vanguard's management fee, for instance, so Wealthfront's equivalent portfolio costs come close to Vanguard, and the additional tax-loss harvesting delta will tip the edge in Wealthfront's favor.
In How to Interview a Financial Advisor, I explain why most Googlers who were offered the opportunity turned down Parametric's offer. The problem is that if you fire Parametric, now you're stuck with a portfolio of 499 individuals stocks, and now you have to either manage that portfolio yourself, or find someone willing to do it for you. As you can imagine, unless you're about to write your own software to do this, that effectively makes Parametric/Wealthfront a roach motel, where you can always check in, but you can never leave.
When I spoke with Wealthfront about this latest feature, I proposed a solution to this issue. It's very much technically feasible, and I look forward to seeing if Wealthfront will implement it. The nice thing about being a Silicon Valley startup is that they can move forward far faster than the stodgy banks on Wall Street used to big fat margins.
As for myself? I will continue to move more assets over to Wealthfront as they free up elsewhere. The additional bonuses from what they're doing at higher asset levels is just too much even for this DIYer to pass up.
For the rest of your portfolio, when you're buying indices, you can custom construct an index such that those individual stocks are left out. While it only makes sense to do this if your portfolio exceeds a certain amount, the net result is that your overall portfolio is better balanced because you don't have to own Google again, for instance, both in the index and in individual holdings.
What's the portfolio level at which this makes sense? At one point, the only solution was Parametric Portfolio Associates, at a minimum of $5M. However, today, Wealthfront has dramatically lowered the entry level to $500,000. Once you've got such a custom index built, as Wealthfront has detailed, you can now do tax-loss harvesting at an individual level, bringing your tax loss harvesting potential up even further. This is a huge incentive for high networth individuals to use Wealthfront, as their fees are substantially lower than Parametric's, for instance. In fact, once you build a custom index, you no longer have to pay Vanguard's management fee, for instance, so Wealthfront's equivalent portfolio costs come close to Vanguard, and the additional tax-loss harvesting delta will tip the edge in Wealthfront's favor.
In How to Interview a Financial Advisor, I explain why most Googlers who were offered the opportunity turned down Parametric's offer. The problem is that if you fire Parametric, now you're stuck with a portfolio of 499 individuals stocks, and now you have to either manage that portfolio yourself, or find someone willing to do it for you. As you can imagine, unless you're about to write your own software to do this, that effectively makes Parametric/Wealthfront a roach motel, where you can always check in, but you can never leave.
When I spoke with Wealthfront about this latest feature, I proposed a solution to this issue. It's very much technically feasible, and I look forward to seeing if Wealthfront will implement it. The nice thing about being a Silicon Valley startup is that they can move forward far faster than the stodgy banks on Wall Street used to big fat margins.
As for myself? I will continue to move more assets over to Wealthfront as they free up elsewhere. The additional bonuses from what they're doing at higher asset levels is just too much even for this DIYer to pass up.
How to Interview A Financial Advisor now out in paperback
My latest book, How to Interview a Financial Advisor is now out in paperback. For this book, I'm enrolling in the Matchbook program, which means that for $2.99, you can get the digital copy of the book as well as the paperback if you buy the paperback. I loved the Matchbook program, and I was happy to sign up this bookf or it, both as an experiment and also because I feel it's a great way to provide a discount: buy a copy for your friend, and keep a copy for yourself!
Sunday, December 08, 2013
Review: Fables #17 and #18
I was so disappointed with Fables #16 that I didn't bother reading the books at all last year. I finally picked up Inherit the Wind and Cubs in Toyland this year and read them through in a couple of nights. This part of the story involves Snow White and Bigby Wolf's family. They grapple with the loss of the North Wind and the selection of the future god of winds from the young wolflings.
Inherit the Wind is easily one of the weakest volumes in the series thus far. There's a lot of distraction, and the graphic novel tries to set up yet another long-running plotline as part of the side story, leading to the main story suffering from both neglect and no small amount of ennui.
Cubs in Toyland is a much stronger work. We see the fate of two of the Bigby's Scions, as they grapple with being transported to a fantastic new world with a hidden, deadly secret. The problem with the resolution of this story is that while it's shocking, it's impact is mostly on characters we're not invested in, so that dilutes the impact. The story is also a bit derivative, with the newness focused on the world Willingham's created just for this story, and the world is too simple for us to also derive much satisfaction from it.
The volume closes with a final story about Bigby Wolf, which does bring back Willingham's original story telling powers. It's a great short story, and I wish the rest of the work was like it. If not for this last section, I would have said that Willingham should have ended the series with the end of the first arc. Recommended, but only for people who have read the rest of the series. Otherwise, start at the beginning.
Inherit the Wind is easily one of the weakest volumes in the series thus far. There's a lot of distraction, and the graphic novel tries to set up yet another long-running plotline as part of the side story, leading to the main story suffering from both neglect and no small amount of ennui.
Cubs in Toyland is a much stronger work. We see the fate of two of the Bigby's Scions, as they grapple with being transported to a fantastic new world with a hidden, deadly secret. The problem with the resolution of this story is that while it's shocking, it's impact is mostly on characters we're not invested in, so that dilutes the impact. The story is also a bit derivative, with the newness focused on the world Willingham's created just for this story, and the world is too simple for us to also derive much satisfaction from it.
The volume closes with a final story about Bigby Wolf, which does bring back Willingham's original story telling powers. It's a great short story, and I wish the rest of the work was like it. If not for this last section, I would have said that Willingham should have ended the series with the end of the first arc. Recommended, but only for people who have read the rest of the series. Otherwise, start at the beginning.
Friday, December 06, 2013
Review: Amazon Playstation Vita Holiday Bundle
It's not a secret that in recent years, the iPad and other tablets have become the most ubiquitous video game platform. However, the games for the platform are pretty sad. Much of this has to do with the touch interface: there are precious few games that can do it justice. So far, Space Station Frontier and Strikefleet Omega are the only two games that I think use the touch interface for maximum effect and fun game play. Most of the other games are either marred by extensive in-app purchasing business models or just absolutely terrible UI. For instance, The Dark Knight Rises uses a touch-based joystick and it's pathetically unplayable. Even Clash of Heroes, which is a port from the Nintendo DS suffers from playability problems due to the touch interface. One would think that the tower-defense genre would be perfect for the touch interface, but even then, none of the games I've tried come close to Defense Grid.
The net result is that for an immersive experience, I have to play on a PC or game console. Yet both of these are relatively heavyweight operations. For instance, the PS3 lives in the living room, and the gorgeous experience does mean that it takes up everyone's attention while it's on. The PC obviously requires boot up time, and while it provides a nice interface, it's still a little less satisfying than the dedicated game consoles. And the biggest defect is that when on the PC, I feel guilty about doing anything other than working on the next book!
Amazon has an exclusive holiday bundle for the PS Vita bundled with a small memory card and 3 games, so I picked it up. One reason to pick up a PS Vita this year as opposed to waiting for yet another price drop is that next year, the Vita will lose its OLED screen and switch to an LCD screen instead.
After unboxing the unit, I downloaded Uncharted Golden Abyss, and started playing. It's a beautiful experience. The screen disappears from the unit, and the controls are responsive and quick. While not a full-screen movie experience Drake's Deception is on the PS3, it's was for me an incredible hook and motivated me to download Drake's Deception on the living room console after getting started on Golden Abyss. If you're used to tablet games, the games on the PS Vita are a revelation. For one thing, there's no in-app purchasing, in-game advertising, cross-promotions for other products, etc. You paid for the game, you get to play. It's great. And unlike even PS3 games, there's no constant need to download patches, new content, etc. (I was shocked that Drake's Deception after a 40GB download, required another 500MB patch to start) The interface is intuitive, though some are gimmicky (in particular, melee combat using the touch screen is as pathetic as it would be on a tablet).
One of the best deals in gaming is the Playstation Plus membership. If you get in on the holiday deals, this is about $30/year for effectively 2-3 free games every month on all your platforms (PS 3, PS 4 -- currently out of stock online, PS Vita). During the holiday season, Sony's promising a free game a week. For a light gamer, this is more games than you'll use, and is an outstanding deal, even if many of the games would not be to your taste.
The PS Vita can also act as a remote gaming console for your PS3. I tried this on Shadow of the Colossus, and it's an impressive piece of work, streaming audio/video to the Vita from the PS3. There aren't that many games that support PS Vita remote play for the PS 3, but if you do upgrade to the PS 4, the story is that Sony has required that all games on that platform support the Vita.
The best way for me to describe the Vita is that it's like a Kindle for video games. Video games are a lot like books in that the time it takes to finish reading one is substantial, and for adults with children, the only way to consume them is in sips rather than binges. In that sense, an instant-on, always available device that lets you get in a few minutes here and there makes it well worth the entry price. Recommended.
The net result is that for an immersive experience, I have to play on a PC or game console. Yet both of these are relatively heavyweight operations. For instance, the PS3 lives in the living room, and the gorgeous experience does mean that it takes up everyone's attention while it's on. The PC obviously requires boot up time, and while it provides a nice interface, it's still a little less satisfying than the dedicated game consoles. And the biggest defect is that when on the PC, I feel guilty about doing anything other than working on the next book!
Amazon has an exclusive holiday bundle for the PS Vita bundled with a small memory card and 3 games, so I picked it up. One reason to pick up a PS Vita this year as opposed to waiting for yet another price drop is that next year, the Vita will lose its OLED screen and switch to an LCD screen instead.
After unboxing the unit, I downloaded Uncharted Golden Abyss, and started playing. It's a beautiful experience. The screen disappears from the unit, and the controls are responsive and quick. While not a full-screen movie experience Drake's Deception is on the PS3, it's was for me an incredible hook and motivated me to download Drake's Deception on the living room console after getting started on Golden Abyss. If you're used to tablet games, the games on the PS Vita are a revelation. For one thing, there's no in-app purchasing, in-game advertising, cross-promotions for other products, etc. You paid for the game, you get to play. It's great. And unlike even PS3 games, there's no constant need to download patches, new content, etc. (I was shocked that Drake's Deception after a 40GB download, required another 500MB patch to start) The interface is intuitive, though some are gimmicky (in particular, melee combat using the touch screen is as pathetic as it would be on a tablet).
One of the best deals in gaming is the Playstation Plus membership. If you get in on the holiday deals, this is about $30/year for effectively 2-3 free games every month on all your platforms (PS 3, PS 4 -- currently out of stock online, PS Vita). During the holiday season, Sony's promising a free game a week. For a light gamer, this is more games than you'll use, and is an outstanding deal, even if many of the games would not be to your taste.
The PS Vita can also act as a remote gaming console for your PS3. I tried this on Shadow of the Colossus, and it's an impressive piece of work, streaming audio/video to the Vita from the PS3. There aren't that many games that support PS Vita remote play for the PS 3, but if you do upgrade to the PS 4, the story is that Sony has required that all games on that platform support the Vita.
The best way for me to describe the Vita is that it's like a Kindle for video games. Video games are a lot like books in that the time it takes to finish reading one is substantial, and for adults with children, the only way to consume them is in sips rather than binges. In that sense, an instant-on, always available device that lets you get in a few minutes here and there makes it well worth the entry price. Recommended.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Review: MSI Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Graphics Card
The best thing about being a PC owner is that you can actually upgrade your hardware. In the old days, this didn't matter much, because CPUs/motherboards were getting so much faster year after year that within 3 years it was time to retire the old motherboard and buy a whole new machine. In recent years, that has changed.
For instance, for video games, the bottleneck is no longer the CPU. 2009's Intel i920 quad core processors are about half the performance of the latest Haswell machines, but that's still plenty of power to drive any video game. The bottleneck is the GPU. While CPUs have gone faster by only about 100%, GPUs have sped up by about 200% over the same time period. The reason for this is that GPUs are extremely parallel machines, and therefore process improvements from 40nm to 28nm enable that many more parallel computations simply through replication.
A recent sale got me to buy the MSI Radeon 7870. The way you shop for a GPU is to visit Tom Hardware's Graphics Card Performance Hiearchy Chart. They recommend not upgrading if the proposed upgrade is less than 3 levels above your current hardware. Since I'm not as enthusiastic as they are, I waited until the sales generated upgrades 6 tiers above the old Radeon 4850 that came with my machine.
Replacing the hardware was both straightforward and annoying. The straightforward part is ripping the old card out. Some idiot at HP thought he was working at Apple and zip-tied the graphics card to the motherboard, giving me conniptions until I noticed the tiny zip-tie. One snip with a pair of scissors and it was gone. The next level of annoyance came when I realized that the new card came with 2 mini-display port outputs, 1 HDMI output, and 1 DVI output. My old setup depended on 2 DVI outs. OK, no problem, one of my monitors has one of the new-fangled display port inputs. I duly bought a 3m display port cable and plugged in to discover that it didn't work. Then I read the Display Port FAQ and realized that display port is unreliable over 2m cables for high resolution displays. So I returned the display port cable, and bought a mini display port to DVI cable. Note that this only works for lower resolution displays that don't need a dual DVI input, but fortunately, my secondary display was one of those.
So now I can play Arkham City at 1440p with detail level set to "high" and never drop below 30fps. I tried overclocking the GPU, but had one glitch during a game, so I'll hold off on doing that for now. If you don't run high resolution screens like I do, you probably can get 40-50fps without problems, but then you probably wouldn't ever get the urge to upgrade the GPU on your machine, either.
All in all, it was a bit of a hassle but I think the upgrade was worth it. Recommended.
For instance, for video games, the bottleneck is no longer the CPU. 2009's Intel i920 quad core processors are about half the performance of the latest Haswell machines, but that's still plenty of power to drive any video game. The bottleneck is the GPU. While CPUs have gone faster by only about 100%, GPUs have sped up by about 200% over the same time period. The reason for this is that GPUs are extremely parallel machines, and therefore process improvements from 40nm to 28nm enable that many more parallel computations simply through replication.
A recent sale got me to buy the MSI Radeon 7870. The way you shop for a GPU is to visit Tom Hardware's Graphics Card Performance Hiearchy Chart. They recommend not upgrading if the proposed upgrade is less than 3 levels above your current hardware. Since I'm not as enthusiastic as they are, I waited until the sales generated upgrades 6 tiers above the old Radeon 4850 that came with my machine.
Replacing the hardware was both straightforward and annoying. The straightforward part is ripping the old card out. Some idiot at HP thought he was working at Apple and zip-tied the graphics card to the motherboard, giving me conniptions until I noticed the tiny zip-tie. One snip with a pair of scissors and it was gone. The next level of annoyance came when I realized that the new card came with 2 mini-display port outputs, 1 HDMI output, and 1 DVI output. My old setup depended on 2 DVI outs. OK, no problem, one of my monitors has one of the new-fangled display port inputs. I duly bought a 3m display port cable and plugged in to discover that it didn't work. Then I read the Display Port FAQ and realized that display port is unreliable over 2m cables for high resolution displays. So I returned the display port cable, and bought a mini display port to DVI cable. Note that this only works for lower resolution displays that don't need a dual DVI input, but fortunately, my secondary display was one of those.
So now I can play Arkham City at 1440p with detail level set to "high" and never drop below 30fps. I tried overclocking the GPU, but had one glitch during a game, so I'll hold off on doing that for now. If you don't run high resolution screens like I do, you probably can get 40-50fps without problems, but then you probably wouldn't ever get the urge to upgrade the GPU on your machine, either.
All in all, it was a bit of a hassle but I think the upgrade was worth it. Recommended.
First Impressions: Dell Venue 8 Pro
I gave my wife a Dell Venue 8 Pro for her birthday. Last year, she got a Nexus 10, but she found that the 10" form factor led to it not getting used much, and Bowen ended up being the primary user of the device instead. As a result, she asked for a smaller device. While I've been pleased with the Nexus 7, all the indications are that the latest Intel Bay Trail processors run circles around their ARM equivalents, so I took a leap of faith and bought the Dell when it became available for $230. If you shop around on Black Friday I'm sure you can find similar deals for this device.
The best thing about the Dell is that it's a Windows box. That means, for instance, that I can back it up using the Windows Home Server that I use for backing up other PCs. This is a great feature, since the default Nexus/Google tablet backup doesn't seem to back up as much as it ought to. (Switching devices, for instance, usually means a massive reinstall of Amazon stuff)
Unlike Google, Dell doesn't suffer from as much Apple envy. As a result we get a microSD card slot. What this means is that even though I bought a 32GB device, an additional 32GB costs only $18, with the prospect of very cheap upgrades to 64GB and 128GB storage options in the future. This type of future proofing means that the additional $5 premium over the latest generation Nexus 7 is well worth it.
On top of that, the Dell device comes with a full license of Microsoft Office, and can run any of the applications that a regular Windows machine can. That means the contortions I used to get the Nexus 7 into a partially decent photo-editing tool are obsolete: I can just run Lightroom! Or Picasa. None of those have Android equivalents, and it truly is amazing to have them available in this form factor.
The device is fast! After using it as a web-browser during Black Friday to do some online shopping, the Nexus 7 feels slow. What this means is that while buying from Amazon is straightforward on the Nexus 7, any other site (such as Newegg) is agonizing. The Dell, however, feels just like my desktop. Everything behaves like it should, and pages load fast and snappily.
What's more, Windows 8.1 really does make use of all the power of the device. For instance, I wife discovered she could run two "metro" apps side by side. That's a power-user feature, but she found out about it quite naturally by simply playing with the device. And of course, Windows has had multi-user support for ages, so everything works like you expect. For instance, installing Chrome for one user automatically installs it for all users as long as you use administrator privileges to do so.
There are cons to the device: Windows 8.1 is not quite fully adapted to the world of touch devices. So for instance, at times, the on-screen keyboard will block the input field that you're entering into. That's annoying. Unlocking requires typing in a password instead of using gestures or a pin. That's potentially a security hole if you use it on a plane and share the same password as on your regular desktop, which Microsoft encourages because you're supposed to login using your hotmail account.
At 1280x800, the Venue 8 Pro has pretty much the same resolution as last year's Nexus 7, instead of the new 1920x1200 that the Nexus 7 spots. The reality though is that if you need to pop to the desktop for any amount of time, the lower resolution means your fingers aren't as fat. So that's not as big an issue as you might imagine.
And of course, there's not the rich ecosystem of "apps" on the Windows 8 store. But who cares? Since you're running full Windows with a real web-browser, applications like Amazon Instant Video which aren't available on the Google Play store can simply be run on the device like a native PC. Anybody who faults this device for the lack of apps simply doesn't understand that it's a real PC, not a tablet.
All in all, this device is the tablet that Microsoft should have launched last year, instead of foisting Surface RT on us. It's as cheap as an Android tablet, but has much much more functionality. Highly recommended.
The best thing about the Dell is that it's a Windows box. That means, for instance, that I can back it up using the Windows Home Server that I use for backing up other PCs. This is a great feature, since the default Nexus/Google tablet backup doesn't seem to back up as much as it ought to. (Switching devices, for instance, usually means a massive reinstall of Amazon stuff)
Unlike Google, Dell doesn't suffer from as much Apple envy. As a result we get a microSD card slot. What this means is that even though I bought a 32GB device, an additional 32GB costs only $18, with the prospect of very cheap upgrades to 64GB and 128GB storage options in the future. This type of future proofing means that the additional $5 premium over the latest generation Nexus 7 is well worth it.
On top of that, the Dell device comes with a full license of Microsoft Office, and can run any of the applications that a regular Windows machine can. That means the contortions I used to get the Nexus 7 into a partially decent photo-editing tool are obsolete: I can just run Lightroom! Or Picasa. None of those have Android equivalents, and it truly is amazing to have them available in this form factor.
The device is fast! After using it as a web-browser during Black Friday to do some online shopping, the Nexus 7 feels slow. What this means is that while buying from Amazon is straightforward on the Nexus 7, any other site (such as Newegg) is agonizing. The Dell, however, feels just like my desktop. Everything behaves like it should, and pages load fast and snappily.
What's more, Windows 8.1 really does make use of all the power of the device. For instance, I wife discovered she could run two "metro" apps side by side. That's a power-user feature, but she found out about it quite naturally by simply playing with the device. And of course, Windows has had multi-user support for ages, so everything works like you expect. For instance, installing Chrome for one user automatically installs it for all users as long as you use administrator privileges to do so.
There are cons to the device: Windows 8.1 is not quite fully adapted to the world of touch devices. So for instance, at times, the on-screen keyboard will block the input field that you're entering into. That's annoying. Unlocking requires typing in a password instead of using gestures or a pin. That's potentially a security hole if you use it on a plane and share the same password as on your regular desktop, which Microsoft encourages because you're supposed to login using your hotmail account.
At 1280x800, the Venue 8 Pro has pretty much the same resolution as last year's Nexus 7, instead of the new 1920x1200 that the Nexus 7 spots. The reality though is that if you need to pop to the desktop for any amount of time, the lower resolution means your fingers aren't as fat. So that's not as big an issue as you might imagine.
And of course, there's not the rich ecosystem of "apps" on the Windows 8 store. But who cares? Since you're running full Windows with a real web-browser, applications like Amazon Instant Video which aren't available on the Google Play store can simply be run on the device like a native PC. Anybody who faults this device for the lack of apps simply doesn't understand that it's a real PC, not a tablet.
All in all, this device is the tablet that Microsoft should have launched last year, instead of foisting Surface RT on us. It's as cheap as an Android tablet, but has much much more functionality. Highly recommended.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
PSA: 30% off any printed book at Amazon (Expires Dec 1st)
Until December 1st, if you enter the coupon code BOOKDEAL while buying any printed book at Amazon.com, you get 30% off the highest price book. The blatant self-promoter in me obviously wants you to buy any or all of my books, but another high priced item would be The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Amazon says that that collection normally requires a shipping charge but gets free shipping today. There's an upper limit of $10 for the discount, so the $50 collection would still cost you $40.
Note that to qualify, the books must be on paper, rather than in electronic format, so unfortunately, Kindle versions of my book don't qualify for this deal.
Note that to qualify, the books must be on paper, rather than in electronic format, so unfortunately, Kindle versions of my book don't qualify for this deal.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
College Savings
If you're an immigrant like I am, the American college financial aid system looks completely bonkers. Those of us from Asia, which has a more or less egalitarian elementary, middle, and high school education system roll our eyes about the "need-based" financial aid system. Most of Asia runs on merit-based system, because none of the insanity about property-taxed based local schools exist there. The property-tax based school system in the U.S. ensures that the poor remain poor, without much opportunity to qualify for higher education.
That being what it is, if you're a relatively high earner in Silicon Valley, it means that you do have to consider financial planning an essential part of preparing your child for college. Schools like to brag that 50% of their students receive some form of financial aid, which means that the other 50% essentially pay for college out-of-pocket in one form of another. Colleges also frequently include student loans as part of their financial aid packages, and I don't know about you, but I consider loans not "aid", but rather indentured servitude.
The first rule of financial planning for college is to fund your retirement accounts first! This is important because parental assets that are sequestered away in IRAs and 401(k)s cannot be considered in the financial aid planning formulas. Neither are primary residences most of the time. So that means if you're lucky enough to live off a $10M IRA and live in a $5M mansion in Menlo Park, all you have to do is to minimize withdrawals during the years your children are in college and you'll be treated like a trailer-park parent living off social security for the purposes of financial aid. Note that if you were to somehow manage to sequester everything away into your retirement plans and still end up having to spend some money on your child's education from the IRA, IRA withdrawal for paying higher education expenses are not subject to the early withdrawal penalty, though any withdrawal would still be subject to income tax.
The next tax shelter is the 529 account or the ESA. Most Silicon Valley high earners won't qualify for the ESA, but the 529 is available to anyone. The problem with ESAs in any case is that there aren't many low cost options for investing in them. Vanguard, for instance, has discontinued their ESA line of products. My wife writes about some interesting properties of the 529 here. Not only are 529s considered parental assets and therefore aren't as disadvantageous for financial aid purposes as a UGMA/UTMA account in the case where you do qualify for some financial aid. The big feature of the 529 is the tax-free compounding of assets as well as the tax-free withdrawal of gains for the purposes of paying for college education. It's relatively flexible and worth considering.
The final consideration is the UGMA/UTMA custodial account. The advantage here is the the child's investments get taxed at the child's rate. The problem here is that if the child accumulates a lot of assets, that will reduce his or her eligibility for financial aid at a much faster rate than if the assets were accumulated in the parental IRA or 529 accounts. However, if you're confident that your child is not going to qualify for financial aid no matter, then this is a viable strategy for the tax reduction.
Ultimately, of course, none of this matters if your child doesn't want to go to college or ends up being so highly sought after by colleges that they all offer him or her a free ride. In which case you should still fund your retirement accounts first!
That being what it is, if you're a relatively high earner in Silicon Valley, it means that you do have to consider financial planning an essential part of preparing your child for college. Schools like to brag that 50% of their students receive some form of financial aid, which means that the other 50% essentially pay for college out-of-pocket in one form of another. Colleges also frequently include student loans as part of their financial aid packages, and I don't know about you, but I consider loans not "aid", but rather indentured servitude.
The first rule of financial planning for college is to fund your retirement accounts first! This is important because parental assets that are sequestered away in IRAs and 401(k)s cannot be considered in the financial aid planning formulas. Neither are primary residences most of the time. So that means if you're lucky enough to live off a $10M IRA and live in a $5M mansion in Menlo Park, all you have to do is to minimize withdrawals during the years your children are in college and you'll be treated like a trailer-park parent living off social security for the purposes of financial aid. Note that if you were to somehow manage to sequester everything away into your retirement plans and still end up having to spend some money on your child's education from the IRA, IRA withdrawal for paying higher education expenses are not subject to the early withdrawal penalty, though any withdrawal would still be subject to income tax.
The next tax shelter is the 529 account or the ESA. Most Silicon Valley high earners won't qualify for the ESA, but the 529 is available to anyone. The problem with ESAs in any case is that there aren't many low cost options for investing in them. Vanguard, for instance, has discontinued their ESA line of products. My wife writes about some interesting properties of the 529 here. Not only are 529s considered parental assets and therefore aren't as disadvantageous for financial aid purposes as a UGMA/UTMA account in the case where you do qualify for some financial aid. The big feature of the 529 is the tax-free compounding of assets as well as the tax-free withdrawal of gains for the purposes of paying for college education. It's relatively flexible and worth considering.
The final consideration is the UGMA/UTMA custodial account. The advantage here is the the child's investments get taxed at the child's rate. The problem here is that if the child accumulates a lot of assets, that will reduce his or her eligibility for financial aid at a much faster rate than if the assets were accumulated in the parental IRA or 529 accounts. However, if you're confident that your child is not going to qualify for financial aid no matter, then this is a viable strategy for the tax reduction.
Ultimately, of course, none of this matters if your child doesn't want to go to college or ends up being so highly sought after by colleges that they all offer him or her a free ride. In which case you should still fund your retirement accounts first!
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Why I no longer buy individual stocks
Every time I'm tempted to buy an individual stock, I have to remind myself that I shouldn't do so. Now, vast fortunes have been and are being made in individual stocks today, so it's not because you can't make money that way. Similarly, I've bought and sold individual stocks in the past, and even made money doing so, so it's not because I'm not capable of making money that way.
Here's the deal: the overall stock market is a representation of corporate earnings in the USA. Over time, that growth is very much predictable: you can pretty much count on a 3% annual real return. Back when inflation was 3%, that meant 6% a year. You might have heard about the average 10% growth per year, but I believe that's excessively optimistic, and a result of bad math. For instance, if your portfolio dropped by 50% one year and then grew by 30% for the next two years, your portfolio would end up around 84% of where it was at the start of year one. In other words, it takes much more growth to overcome a big down year than simply taking the arithmetic mean of the growth would imply. The entire market is quite capable of doing such big swings, as most of us who've lived through the 2001 and 2007 crashes know.
An individual stock is even more volatile. Yahoo! for instance gave us quite a ride over the last 10 years, and is right now regaining the peaks it achieved in 2005, during the proposed Microsoft buyout. Is this because new CEO Marissa Mayer is going to jazz up the earnings? No, not really. It turns out that Yahoo's Alibaba stake is what's causing Yahoo stock to go up. So taking a bet on Yahoo is like taking a bet in the pre-IPO Alibaba. And in case you do want to bet on Alibaba, you should know that Yahoo's stock has already been bid up because of this!
In any case, I have no idea where Yahoo is going to go, and neither do most folks. Since that's the case, I have no business owning the individual stock. It gets even worse when it comes to stocks that you think you know something about, because that's when it's very easy for you to get caught up with the story you want to build and ignore poor performance. For instance, many techies hate Microsoft, and would want it to fail. Yet there's an argument to be made the Microsoft could be the next Apple. Don't believe that slide deck? Neither do I. Then again, I didn't want to believe that Apple would be the next Apple, since my personal bias is that the world would be better off if Apple didn't exist. (I bought Apple at $9/share and sold it at $50/share after deciding I couldn't trust Steve Jobs)
There is one stock I exempt from this rule, which is Berkshire Hathaway, which I consider to be a mutual fund run by Warren Buffett. During the 2008 crash, I found myself buying in, because the economic environment was one that Warrren Buffett is known to do very well in. I was right. But even then, I have a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with holdings now. Buffett is now very old, and who knows if he will kick the bucket soon, at which point I'll take a loss. So even in this case, I have my doubts as to whether what I did was wise.
The big difference between investing and gambling, therefore, is having a long term plan in place, and sticking to it. That's why despite all these stories about stocks being about to crash 40-55% (which I can believe in), I'm still sticking to my asset allocation. As John Maynard Keynes writes:
I would say that it is from time to time the duty of the serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself.Now this quote isn't relevant because everyone will lose money at some point or another. It's also there to remind yourself that the discipline to stick to your asset allocation is important, and overrides any desire to outsmart the market or yourself. The problem comes if you don't have the discipline, which then behoves you to hire someone else to drive the car while you get drunk.
Book Launched: How to Interview a Financial Advisor
The book has a launch price of $9.99 on the Kindle store or on my web-site. My past books have been larger, and appealed to a narrower audience than this one would, hence the lower price. My hope is that this would prove useful to more people than the usual people who read this blog. The paperback will price at $19.99.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
2014 Book Reviews
Update: Books of the Year 2014 have been selected!
Non Fiction
Fiction
Non Fiction
- Unaccountable
- The Everything Store
- Do You Believe in Magic?
- The Emperor of All Maladies
- Ghost in the Wires
- The Rise of Superman
- Caffeinated
- Aggressive Tax Avoidance for Real Estate Investors
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
- If You Can
- A Troublesome Inheritance
- The Great Inversion
- All Joy and No Fun
- Sailing A Serious Ocean
- A Fighting Chance
- Capital in the 21st Century
- The Flash Boys
Fiction
- Silent Echo
- The Things They Carried
- The Speed of the Dark
- Soy Sauce for Beginners
- NOS4A2
- Circle of Sorcerers
- Super Powereds: Year 1
- Super Powereds: Year 2
- Tunnel Vision
- Locked In
- The Dark Defiles
- The Inquisitor's Apprentice
- The Magician's Land
- Life With A Fire Breathing Girlfriend
Comics
Review: Silent Echo
Silent Echo is J. R. Rain's short mystery novel. The premise is intriguing: our protagonist/detective is retired in a hard way: he's dying from cancer. However, one of his friends comes by and asks him to investigate an old flame's disappearance, which he can't resist, so he comes back for one last case.
The problem with the novel is that Booker does a lot of moping and self-pitying. He's not a very likable person, and the moping doesn't move the plot any further. The other problem is that with the limited mobility and fragility of the Booker, the author can't do very much with him. As a result, the list of prospective murderers are small, and you pretty much know who did it when you realized you're halfway through the book and there's only a handful of characters that have been introduced.
The reveal, when it comes isn't much of one, and I think only die-hard fans of the author would like it. Don't waste your time otherwise.
Disclosure: I got this book free through Kindle First.
The problem with the novel is that Booker does a lot of moping and self-pitying. He's not a very likable person, and the moping doesn't move the plot any further. The other problem is that with the limited mobility and fragility of the Booker, the author can't do very much with him. As a result, the list of prospective murderers are small, and you pretty much know who did it when you realized you're halfway through the book and there's only a handful of characters that have been introduced.
The reveal, when it comes isn't much of one, and I think only die-hard fans of the author would like it. Don't waste your time otherwise.
Disclosure: I got this book free through Kindle First.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Books of the Year 2013
This was an unusually poor year for reading, with family crisis, and other things getting into the way. I only read 51 books this year, which falls just a bit short of a book a week, and none of them were graphic novels.
On the non-fiction side, the winner is clear: The Story of the Human Body is the best non-fiction book I've read all year. It's a rich story, well told, and nearly every page will teach you something new about the origins of humanity and how it came about. It's well worth the money. The biggest impact on my life, however, is Modernist Cuisine at Home. This book has thoroughly changed what I thought was possible at home as far as home cooking is concern, and it continues to change what we eat and how we eat on an almost daily basis. Honorable mentions go to Nate Silver's The Signal and The Noise, as well as The Sports Gene.
On the fiction side, this has been a less than stellar year. The Hydrogen Sonata, for instance, didn't turn out to be a great Culture novel. Ghost Spin was good was a great novel, however, and lived up to my expectations for it. Every Day has a great voice, and is a lot of fun to read, except that the ending sort of ruined it. Even Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance wasn't as good as I remembered it, though it's still a still at the amazing price of $2.99 on Amazon. Don't get me wrong. All of these books are worth reading, and I would recommend them to anyone, but compared to last year's Hugo Winners? This year's batch of novels just aren't up to snuff.
Nevertheless, if there's one novel that stands out, it's Ghost Spin. Don't read it straight off the bat, though. Read Spin State and Spin Control first. The evolution of the characters and the setup of the context is worth it, and Chris Moriarty is one of the most under-rated writers in the business.
On the non-fiction side, the winner is clear: The Story of the Human Body is the best non-fiction book I've read all year. It's a rich story, well told, and nearly every page will teach you something new about the origins of humanity and how it came about. It's well worth the money. The biggest impact on my life, however, is Modernist Cuisine at Home. This book has thoroughly changed what I thought was possible at home as far as home cooking is concern, and it continues to change what we eat and how we eat on an almost daily basis. Honorable mentions go to Nate Silver's The Signal and The Noise, as well as The Sports Gene.
On the fiction side, this has been a less than stellar year. The Hydrogen Sonata, for instance, didn't turn out to be a great Culture novel. Ghost Spin was good was a great novel, however, and lived up to my expectations for it. Every Day has a great voice, and is a lot of fun to read, except that the ending sort of ruined it. Even Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance wasn't as good as I remembered it, though it's still a still at the amazing price of $2.99 on Amazon. Don't get me wrong. All of these books are worth reading, and I would recommend them to anyone, but compared to last year's Hugo Winners? This year's batch of novels just aren't up to snuff.
Nevertheless, if there's one novel that stands out, it's Ghost Spin. Don't read it straight off the bat, though. Read Spin State and Spin Control first. The evolution of the characters and the setup of the context is worth it, and Chris Moriarty is one of the most under-rated writers in the business.
Review: Whirlpool 1.9cu ft Over-The-Range Microwave
My wife was unhappy with a crack in the microwave door, so we decided to replace the microwave with a different model. I'd become increasingly unhappy with the LG products in our house, so we made a point to avoid LG this time. The big feature that drew me to the WHM32L19AS was the big fan: 400CFM!
400CFM is big enough that you can feel the difference when you turn it on. There's less grease on the ceiling from cooking, there's smoke all over the place, and the machine is quite powerful. Reheating food used to take much longer than it does now.
The big downside is the reliability of the machine is suspect. After less than 6 months, it's already been broken. And not a cheap easy broken-ness, but a magnetron breakage. I asked the repair man how much it would have cost to fix it, and the answer was around $300, which meant that it would have been cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it. I asked how long he expected the new magnetron to last, and the answer was: "I've seen them die as quickly as in 6 months to a year." He added that the over-the-range hood microwaves get all the grease that used to be on my ceiling, and that when he pulled our magnetron it was very greasy.
Great. Just great. Why not just seal the darn thing better? My LG lasted much longer and had no problems. Worse, both the installation and repair was incredibly poor service. I'm no longer buying any products from Lowe's.
Not recommended. Next time, I'm just going to get a separate hood and a combi-oven microwave instead.
400CFM is big enough that you can feel the difference when you turn it on. There's less grease on the ceiling from cooking, there's smoke all over the place, and the machine is quite powerful. Reheating food used to take much longer than it does now.
The big downside is the reliability of the machine is suspect. After less than 6 months, it's already been broken. And not a cheap easy broken-ness, but a magnetron breakage. I asked the repair man how much it would have cost to fix it, and the answer was around $300, which meant that it would have been cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it. I asked how long he expected the new magnetron to last, and the answer was: "I've seen them die as quickly as in 6 months to a year." He added that the over-the-range hood microwaves get all the grease that used to be on my ceiling, and that when he pulled our magnetron it was very greasy.
Great. Just great. Why not just seal the darn thing better? My LG lasted much longer and had no problems. Worse, both the installation and repair was incredibly poor service. I'm no longer buying any products from Lowe's.
Not recommended. Next time, I'm just going to get a separate hood and a combi-oven microwave instead.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Review: Dear Mr. Watterson
I watched Dear Mr. Watterson in the hopes of gaining some insight about Calvin and Hobbes, easily one of my favorite strips. Since Bill Watterson's pretty much a recluse, you're not going to see him in this movie. However, you do get to see a lot of other cartoonists, including Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Berkeley Breathed (Opus).
You do get to see the place where Watterson grew up, and if you have good memories of the strip, that's going to be very evocative. You do see some Calvin and Hobbes originals, but unfortunately, the choice of shallow depth of field means you don't actually get to see what the folks in the movie talk about, like the white-out in various panels, etc. The strips, when they are displayed, are shown in MTV-style. Rushed pans, and single focus which basically means you never actually do get to read a strip to remind you in case you haven't gotten every strip ever done memorized.
All in all, the director squeezed a 90 minute picture out of a 30 minute picture. Avoid. Spend your money on the book collections instead.
You do get to see the place where Watterson grew up, and if you have good memories of the strip, that's going to be very evocative. You do see some Calvin and Hobbes originals, but unfortunately, the choice of shallow depth of field means you don't actually get to see what the folks in the movie talk about, like the white-out in various panels, etc. The strips, when they are displayed, are shown in MTV-style. Rushed pans, and single focus which basically means you never actually do get to read a strip to remind you in case you haven't gotten every strip ever done memorized.
All in all, the director squeezed a 90 minute picture out of a 30 minute picture. Avoid. Spend your money on the book collections instead.
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