swift comeuppance

thoughts on toyotas

2010-03-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

So, I've owned a number of Toyotas over the years, and loved most of them (okay fine - all of them). I own one now even, and love it. But come on Toyota - it's pretty obvious you've got a major problem associated with your drive by wire system. End of story.

I think the problem is probably going to end up being rather sadly simple - induction of transient signals somewhere in the system that are not captured by the system recorder. In fact induction is probably exactly what it is - cell phones or blue tooth systems (possibly not even from within the car), maybe changing an output or input signal without a normally coupled reference signal to indicate a change of state (so that e.g. a depressed accelerator signal can never be electronically undepressed even if it's been physically undepressed)

I don't actually have a problem with drive by wire if the system is well designed - isolated from RFI, possibly even abandoning the 12V system in favor of higher voltages like aircraft systems or utilizing a carrier frequency rather than a binary voltage differential for drive train signals. Similarly, the inputs and outputs of the vehicle's computer must be able to recognize that an unexpected signal can occur and not react poorly when that occurs.

Toyota's apparent disbelief that such a problem could exist does nothing to make me love my toyota less, it just makes me glad it's pre-drive by wire (and that I didn't buy and TM shares).

I still find it funny

2010-01-12T19:34:00.000-08:00

...to see ed whitacre as CEO of general motors. of course it makes sense as an appointment, familiarity with a large union workforce, proven experience making strategic decisions for giant corporations, significant experience with politicians and regulators, and of course charm, ego and an incredible resolve. Don't forget he did start as a utility lineman back in the day too. What remains unclear however is if his tenure at AT&T (and of course it predecessor and successor companies, through its long and convoluted history) can be measured as a success in terms of long term strategy and, regardless of the answer to that question, he can make a go of GM.

life's a bitch, ain't it, bitch?

2010-01-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

And I do mean bitch, bitch.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/cyclist-sentenced.html

ps - on behalf of myself and everyone else on a bicycle that's been hit on purpose by someone in car: fuck you you bastard.

the matter with kansas

2010-01-04T07:24:00.000-08:00

So I saw Joe Winston, Laura Cohen and their film What's the Matter with Kansas this weekend. Not only was it good to see them but it was a good film - they did a great job letting Kansas tell its story, which is of course hard for morally superior Chicagoans to do. I recommend it as a great example of what a documentary used to be and perhaps is supposed to be: a documentation of something, as opposed to an exhibit in a pleading.

The film, very much in Joe's style, lets the character's tell their stories and was clearly culled from much more material than one eventually sees in the film. What they did particularly well with is focusing on what makes an archetype and why it may not be wise to assume a single facade. Except of course for those characters who are archetypes, and the film has that too, so that we realize that even mono-dimensional characters have their place in the muck.

All of that and a brief but enjoyable visit with Joe and Laura between Q & A sessions at the Lumiere and a chance to meet their new boy (apparently he likes boobs and sleeping so we had a lot in common)

best apron evar

2009-12-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

THANKS MARY!!!

the California housing market

2009-12-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

I found this LA Times piece rather amazing. It contained, in particular this fact that I was astounded by:

"In California, home prices and sales have shown steady improvement in part because foreclosure properties have made up a smaller fraction of the housing for sale in recent months. A report released Thursday by research firm MDA DataQuick showed that the state's median home price in November was up 1.6% over the prior month, at $261,000. Of the previously owned homes sold statewide last month, 40.6% had been foreclosed on during the last year -- the lowest proportion since May 2008, when it was 39.8%, and considerably down from its February peak of 58.8%, DataQuick said."

Yes, for the last year and a half or so basically half of all used houses (which has been most of what's been selling in CA) have been foreclosures. HALF!!!

The point of the article is actually focused on shadow inventory and further downside risks, but it's noteworthy that given the size of the shadow inventory and the fact that most houses being sold are foreclosures that it could have been ALL of the houses had there not been some mechanism to choke that flow. (forgive the hyperbole)

One thing that the article does point to is the incredible softness in the market will persist for some time. Another (considerably more speculative) point is that what we may be seeing now is prices being set by the buy side with the majority of sellers being price takers. This means the market is much more dependent on the temporary tax benefits being given to buyers (recently expanded to expand the potential pool of recipients to those who clearly don't "need" any help but rather could be incented to enter the market out of self interest other than a desire to own a home). Regardless of if the intent of the tax credit was to encourage speculators (of a sort), the distortion on the market is significant. Should we want to avoid a correction I suspect that benefit will have to be extended until the foreclosure glut ends (which may be years given the shadow inventory and the continued decline of the labor market).

Chuck Biscuits RIP

2009-10-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Punk/Metal/Rap drummer Chuck Biscuits died.

Dude played on a lot of great records (Repo Man soundtrack!) and I managed to see him live a few times in the 1980s without realizing (at the time) all of the other stuff he'd done over the years.

but why stop there?

2009-10-16T04:17:00.001-07:00

I am so getting a recorder just to do this

2009-10-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

please note the part with the recorder comes after an intro.

through the fire and the flames baby.

daze like these

2009-09-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

I had one o those days that is just exhausting on so many levels, but truly fulfilling as well.

I have a hard time describing to people from part of my day what I do with the rest of my day and I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

Today I cured and flavored olives, almost moved to a remote island filled with monsters, made tea, tried, nearly failed, but somehow managed to save the world, went to vietnam and nearly took a vietnap, ate hot tomatoes, made shortbread with lemon and almonds, bought some mushrooms named after a crustacean, invited some bike messengers to go diving for underwater snails, drafted a power point presentation on retiring and how hard it is to do, mailed a bicycle across the country, contemplated poetry and the taxman, took out the papers and the trash, got some spending cash, watered some plants in my socks, put on three pairs of shoes, captured snow in an upside down fishbowl, rode two bikes at the same time, formed or at least better formed in a park a breakaway republic, possibly mated with weird sea life, bought purple green beans, offered to marry a friend for a first class stamp because I'm a first class kinda guy, reminisced about and old dirty bastard, and started a fire.

There were other things too, but I either can't write about them here or can't remember them anywhere.

old men from different coasts

2009-09-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

so don fisher and william saffire have both died - these were two men who I struck a balance of respect and disdain for. Both of them don't fit into molds, which I think is admirable, even if I disagreed with a lot that both of them did.

when a fire is contained

2009-09-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

"When a fire is contained, a fuel break had been completed around the fire manually by hand line, and/or mechanically by dozer line. These breaks may also include the use of natural barriers such as rocky outcroppings. When a fire is controlled, it has been extinguished completely, including hot spots. When a fire has been controlled, the fire line is secure enough so that flare-ups within the fire perimeter will not break through the line."

egret soup with a side of schadenfruede

2009-09-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that governmental entities will often get caught in really, really awkward situations where you're not sure if an intellectual word like "capture" or a more emotional "pathos" is the most fitting. The reality is that the politics between branches of government, the law, crisis, the zeitgeist of the moment, relationships with varying levels of substance and history (to say nothing of both substance and history themselves), and of course both intent and idiocy make for some difficult to defend positions.

All of that may or may not directly apply to poor Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission which together got a serious, nearly biblical beatdown from Jedidiah Saul Rakoff of the southern NY district court.

(I will confess that Jedidiah sounded more apt for a biblical beatdown so I added a few letters to Jed).

The opinion is well worth reading and has undoubtedly put not only the SEC and BoA in awkward positions but others as well. Perhaps even my traveling companion from yesterday's IAD-SFO flight who is one young and otherwise charming skateboarding technocrat.

A few things are clear - the SEC is, damn, in a tight spot. BoA does not want to have to go any further with this than they have already - it's not going to be good from a relationship management perspective with the government or from a shareholder lawsuit perspective (these undoubtedly are being furiously drafted as I type). Very much a damned if you do damned if you don't and just damn! for good measure sort of situation.

Of course, all of this is ultimately on Ken Lewis, who seemed to bet that catching the falling blade early wouldn't cost him too many fingers. We'll see if they take his head off for it in the end.

hurry up and buy

2009-09-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

heavy rotation on the yiznu tiznu:

Steely Johnson RIP

2009-09-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

The man behind the Roots Radics mister Steely Johnson died last week.

There were few more accomplished session musicians in the dub world.

I have a goodly number of slabs with his work on them, from standalone Roots Radics stuff to Adrian Sherwood and Dub Syndicate work.

But is there a hit larger than his production on Dawn Penn's "no no no"?

No. No. No.

Represent.

James Marsters - RIP

2009-08-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

creator of the TTY machine.

In a world of smartphones with full keyboards it's sometimes easy to forget how huge of a step forward in accessibility the TTY was. As someone who had a TTY at my desk and used it occasionally for work, they were surprisingly simple and efficient, but they also appeared increasingly anachronistic as SMS like services began to proliferate.

As the 21st century got its legs underneath itself it seemed young TTY users wanted nothing to do with them, preferring the always-on chat-enabling access of portable devices.

It's hard to imagine there being just a few machines early, and still surprising that the numbers are as low as 30,000 as of 2006. I do wonder how many were in use at their peak and when that was.

Also significant was Dr. Marster's development of the California Relay Service, which remains in effect to this day. However probably most important from an impact on a larger segment of society is how his actions as a pioneer in communications played a role in the development of regulatory policies at the state and federal level that forced open access to networks for special devices as manifested in the FCC's 1968 Carterphone decision. The TTY, as an early modem, and eventually the development of TDI as an institution brought to a head the idea of a right to connect one's own device as right to access the network out of need rather than as a business model (as was the Carter phone). In many ways this issue continues to play out on wireless networks and the very smartphones that have been reducing the numbers of TTY devices in use year over year.

I do love watchin the bastards die

2009-08-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

This one ends "now if hank kissinger will finally up and kick it"

Ernest Lefever died. He was a real bastard. I love it when real bastards die.

Like the shoeshine boy for the ruling elite that he was, taking up where Hank Kissinger left off completely and totally having no morals and rationalizing destroying latin america in the name of American process. One of the worst Americans ever.

It's a damn shame there weren't any residual Iberians around to torture him on the way out.

I hope your death was painful you bastard.

oh yeah, I'm not going to retype the first line, but it goes here.

dignitas

2009-07-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

so, I've always been a fan of the CH registered Dignatas organization, and generally been totally disgusted with England ever since I realized what an over the top backwards class oriented backwoods of a parochial wasteland it is (all over a bottle of port mind you). In reading this piece on a couple that, having been happily married for more than half a century, I was rather pleased to see that, regardless of whatever parochial BS the land of blighty can muster, some folks will just be proud that their parents decided to die together on their own terms. Of course with much crying and nothing to hide, which makes sense and is the way it should be.

If they happened to be fans of prokifiev, so much the better.

wha?

2009-07-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

I made it through all but 20 minutes of bastille day without even noticing or even thinking that grubbs is recording somewhere?

sheesh. I musta been busy.

a more fitting name than knave could not be found

2009-07-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

“If I am required to enter a remedy that is ‘consistent with the jury’s findings,’ I cannot order remedy that ‘disregards the jury’s implicit finding’ that Professor Churchill has suffered no actual damages that an award of reinstatement would prospectively remedy,” Judge Naves wrote.

When a plaintiff states remunerative compensation is not his goal and a jury finds in his favor but only for $1, to read sub silentio into the jury's award of "only" $1 that no harm was done exhibits either a paucity of fealty to the rule of law (which I suspect is the case in this situation) or strong desire to be overturned by a higher court rather than taint one's POLITICAL career as a judge in the future.

plastic lawn chairs in times square

2009-06-11T05:56:00.001-07:00

I had no idea of the story behind the lawn chairs, I just liked them.

now, I like them even more.

I love the kitch, I love that they're in the street, I love that they're being used by people who like them, I love that they're a temporary, stopgap measure.

I certainly wouldn't want cheap stuff that needs to be scrapped and replaced permanently, but it is a great idea for a short period of time.

They could probably sell them off for a profit at the end. and should.

I also worry that what they will be replaced with won't offer the same opportunity for abject relaxation that a cheap plastic lawn chair will. you cannot allow youself to collapse on a cafe chair, it's just not possible.

I would really like to see photographer and furniture maker Andy Gregg from Blackstone Bikes (where I briefly volunteered back in the 1990s) or some local (to NY of course) equivalent take this opportunity to make bike furniture for times square to encourage people to see reuse (and cycling) as fun and reasonable.

is there a more disgusting headline

2009-06-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

than "Crews Recovering Bodies From NC Slim Jim Plant"??

The only thing that would have made it nastier would be if they had rats doing it instead of crews.

the sun never sets on the british empire

2009-06-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

and never rises in england.

actually overheard on the Beeb:

DJ 1: "they say there is a place in norway where the sun shines for 14 days in a row"
DJ 2: "you know for some of that time the sun is actually in the sky and never sets"

Now, there was no hint of humor here. some might suggest this is because english humor involves a lot of deadpan, but they had been being "funny" quite a bit through their show.

we've actually been pretty lucky with weather whilst here, which included two nice days out of doors with no rain.

see, economists can be funny

2009-05-31T10:40:00.001-07:00

albeit a bit pathetic at the same time...

this from the obit of nobel laureate Clive Granger:

"Clive William John Granger was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1934. He developed a strong interest in mathematics as a child but ambled into a career in statistics haphazardly. As a grammar school student in 1946, his teacher instructed him and his classmates to stand up one day and announce the careers they wanted.

“I preferred to use mathematics in some practical fashion and thought that meteorology sounded promising,” he wrote in his Nobel biography. “In those days I stuttered somewhat and when my turn came to stand up, I tried to say ‘meteorology’ but found I could not get the word out, so I just said ‘statistics,’ thereby determining my future path.”"

symmetry in industrial design

2009-05-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

heat extraction does not necessarily mean state change.