Friday, February 07, 2003

Radio tweak: editor size. From the helpful folks at thought?horizon comes this useful tweak: We have just added a useful tip on how to modify the size of the editor window used to write posts.  The short depth of 9 lines makes longer posts difficult.  The basic steps are: Open the Radio Userland console Open Root.root tables Navigate to user.radio.prefs.browserBasedEditorSize Set whatever value you like and return to your home page. You can read more in our Radio How-To.  Look under Tricks and Tips, Look and Feel. [thought?horizon] [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog] 5:37:20 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

I Love New York. I Love New York The saga continues ... Jackson's better ... I dodged the "sick mom" bullet by drinking lots of tea and getting to bed early ... Jackson's cozy and well cared for over at his dad's ... and I grabbed an early shuttle with my boss, Eric to New York this morning. Hey Eric, shall I tell everyone what we talked about on the way down -- fascinating conversation about Supply Chain Management, wow! Sometimes I forget how much I love New York. The first park I played in was Central Park. The first street we lived on here when I was about 6 months old was 60th. We had a whole 4 floors of a town house between Park and Madison my parents rented and when it became available for $60K, my dad figured it was way too expensive. My sisters and I rode up and down in the dumbwaiter that ran from the kitchen in the basement up to the dining room on the second floor. Spooky little wooden box on a rope, now that I think of it. We moved to Riverdale -- a half hour out of the city on the Hudson when I was about 5 and I went to P.S. 81 for kindergarten through 3rd grade then off to Connecticut. After college, I was back to NYC for grad school at Columbia University and lived up by 116th Street. I met and married my husband here when he had a "to die for" 5th floor walk up apartment at 14th and 2nd -- rent controlled and only $325 a month -- and that was in the 90's. I love skating at Rockefeller Center. I love taking the Staten Island Ferry on a hot summer day. I love the Chrysler Building. I love Wall Street. I love West End Avenue. I love the arch by NYU. I love Sabrett's hot dogs. The city is home to me, the hustle, the bustle, the handsome men in their business suits, the gorgeous women in killer snobby fashions striding up Madison Avenue. Very seductive stuff. Headed off to lunch at one of my all time favorite places -- The Oyster Bar in Grand Central -- gotta get a bowl of that oyster stew with the 4 cups of cream and 245 grams of fat! Oh Baby! Oh, and did I mention -- it's my birthday. More later. [Halley's Comment] 5:27:01 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Gulf War II: This time it's for the economy. Dollars, Euros and Oil. Excellent article by Ciln Nunan: "Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq". It seems to have disappeared from the site, so I'll include it at the bottom as well. Fascinating explanation of some major economic mechanisms involving dollars and euros and oil. A very big reason that the United States is such an economically and militarily dominating country is apparently that U.S. dollar is the de facto world reserve currency. Lots of things are counted in dollars and some goods are only sold for dolars. That means that foreign governments and corporations and banks are keeping large dollar reserves. That essentially amounts to a huge loan the rest of the world is giving to the United States, which will subsidize the U.S. economy. In order to acquire those dollars, the rest of the world has to provide goods and services for those dollars. That allows the U.S. to have a huge import/export imbalance. Last November, 48% more imports than exports. It would be untennable for any other country to run such a deficit.Next major point is that one of the reasons everybody has to have dollars is that the OPEC oil producting countries only accept dollars for oil. Well, not all of them. The only one that does something different is Iraq, which only accepts Euros for their oil, since 2000. And Iran is considering it as well. And the thing is that it might just as well be Euros that everybody used as a reserve currency. It would apparently be a better choice in many ways, because the European economies are more balanced, and the OPEC countries would end up getting more value for their oil. So, now, what would happen if Euros became the only choice for buying oil? Most likely the U.S. economy would plunge, because it would no longer be subsidized in that manner. And EU would probably be quite happy being subsidized in its place. Anybody thinks all this might have something to do with the great urgency to take over Iraq? And why would Britain support it? more > [Ming the Mechanic] Well now... isn't this interesting.  I found it worth reading the whole article to get a clearer understanding of the economics (not a subject I have a strong grasp on). If the economic beans make five then this is by far the most credible rationale I've heard for America & Britain going to war with Iraq.  Presumably an American puppet state in Iraq would swiftly switch back to the mighty $$ for oil deals.  Also with a large US presence next door Iran might think twice about undermining the US economy. From my perspective I would like to see the UK join the Euro.  Presumably at that point we'd join France and Germany in opposing the war.  Doubtless we would claim more honourable "pacificsm" related reasons than just not caring about the US economy any more. However what this does show is that Bush has his eye squarely on the domestic economy.  He realises that, if Opec drops the dollar, the US is probably boned. Here is my summary of the article: The dollar is the de facto world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately two thirds of all official exchange reserves. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars. But the more dollars there are circulating outside the US, or invested by foreign owners in American assets, the more the rest of the world has had to provide the US with goods and services in exchange for these dollars. The dollars cost the US next to nothing to produce, so the fact that the world uses the currency in this way means that the US is importing vast quantities of goods and services virtually for free. Since so many foreign-owned dollars are not spent on American goods and services, the US is able to run a huge trade deficit year after year without apparently any major economic consequences. One of the stated economic objectives, and perhaps the primary objective, when setting up the euro was to turn it into a reserve currency to challenge the dollar so that Europe too could get something for nothing. Not only would they lose a large part of their annual subsidy of effectively free goods and services, but countries switching to euro reserves from dollar reserves would bring down the value of the US currency. Imports would start to cost Americans a lot more and as increasing numbers of those holding dollars began to spend them, the US would have to start paying its debts by supplying in goods and services to foreign countries, thus reducing American living standards. There is though one major obstacle to this happening: oil. Oil is not just by far the most important commodity traded internationally, it is the lifeblood of all modern industrialised economies. If on the other hand OPEC were to decide to accept euros only for its oil (assuming for a moment it were allowed to make this decision), then American economic dominance would be over. Not only would Europe not need as many dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro assets (Japan is the major subsidiser of the US because it holds so many dollar investments). The conversion from trade deficit to trade surplus would have to be achieved at a time when its property and stock market prices were collapsing and its domestic supplies of oil and gas were contracting. There is little doubt that this was a deliberate attempt by Saddam to strike back at the US, but in economic terms it has also turned out to have been a huge success: at the time of Iraq's conversion the euro was worth around 83 US cents but it is now worth over $1.05. As oil production is now in decline in most oil producing countries, the importance of the remaining large oil producers, particularly those of the Middle East, is going to grow and grow in years to come.   [Curiouser and curiouser!] 11:25:34 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

The Sean Connery Principle. Don't get me wrong, I like watching Sean Connery on the big screen. However, his name generally is not one of the first one's to pop up when I am thinking of great actors. Connery has an extensive filmography and this, in part, accounts for my perception. He has been in some memorable films and he has also been in some less-than-memorable films. I once heard Connery say that he takes a workman's attitude toward acting. He looks at it as a job he is paid to do and each job is an opportunity. Thus, he rarely, if ever, turns down a movie based on its artistic merits. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that attitude, but it does have the effect of diluting his perceived contributions to film. I bring this up because it points out a key difference between corporate software developers and external consultants. [Hey, somebody has to stick up for corporate software developers every once in a while]. The primary motivation for a consultant is to look at a project as a job opportunity, a chance to make money. A good consultant is going to offer feedback on a poorly conceived project, but if there is any chance of success they are going to offer constructive feedback that makes the project a success for both the client and the consultant. That is, they are going to try to create more jobs out of it. A corporate software developer, on the other hand, is truly a partner in the business. Their profit sharing, their performance evaulation, their reputation, and even their honor are riding on the success of the project. If they feel the project is not going to provide an adequate return on the company's investment, they are generally going to be very quick to say so. It is not exactly like turning down a film, but the principle is similar. Their success is directly tied to the success of the enterprise. This attitude can anger internal business clients. They perceive that the IT community is quashing their dream or protecting IT turf. In reality, IT is just trying to help the business continue making good business decisions by providing feedback from their area of expertise. And isn't that exactly what we are all supposed to do in this enlightened age of empowerment? [On The Mark] 11:09:44 AM    trackback []     Articulate []