Three Law of Robotics

Isaac Asimov wrote the three laws of Robotics in the early '40s (although the time is vague and Campbell gets some credit too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics). Perhaps you heard about them in the movie I Robot (very loosely based on an Asimov story).

I wrote my first computer program in the late '60s.

I bought my first personal computer in '79.

We have all (at least the windows users) gotten accustomed to the endless parade of security breaches and hot fixes. Not exactly the utopia we dreamed of while watching the Jetsons or perhaps Star Wars. But Microsoft has made it somewhat tolerable by automating the process and allowing you to tailor how much interaction you want in the process.

Of course there is the bad side. How many times do you need to reboot? Do you wonder why they have to issue literally hundreds of fixes? Why do they issue the same fix for three or four different OS versions when they claim to have completely rewritten the code? Do you live in fear that when your computer tries to reboot for the 10th time, it won't restart?

It isn't just Microsoft. My daughter brought a Droid a couple weeks ago. It has automatic updates too. So far she has lost the auto-rotation of the screen. Sometimes. And sometimes the speaker stops working. Earphones still work. But it's not all bad. All you have to do is reboot the phone.

Motorola says they are working on the rotation problem. I have seen lots of complaints about the speaker issue, but no promise of a fix yet.

I got a Blu-Ray player a couple months ago. It's pretty neat. Streams Netflix movies and other cool stuff. But I was kind of weirded out when I powered up and got this screen tonight. I guess I'm glad that technology can help me so much. But really? My movie machine is asking me to download and install hot fixes?

I think it may be time to check myself in to a museum. Just sprinkle some dust on me, stand me in a corner and check back in 100 years.

The bottom bracket

Got the Americano back on Sunday. A $120 later and I have a new bottom bracket.

I haven't ridden it yet, but I wiggled the cranks the same way as I did before when I could feel a bit of play. All the play is gone so hopefully this is worth it. I also feel better that the BB won't fall apart when I'm pedaling to Key West next year. Hate to have the thing break while trying to out run an alligator.

Hopefully the 'click' while pedaling that started all this is also gone. The owner of the LBS said he had tried it out and had heard the click in the same place I had heard it. I don't remember whether he said he rode it after the new BB was installed and heard no click. Hopefully so.

I thought about trying to do this myself. But I would need to buy at least one new tool that I might use but this once in my lifetime. The tools in this Park Tool article on replacing your bottom bracket has a list. I might have everything else but the larger wrench. The tool I definitely have to buy is that Bottom Bracket Tool. And you need one of those for different types of bottom brackets. I'm pretty sure my older Cannondale T700 would use a different tool. I suspect a different tool will be required for the next bike too.

So, in the end I took it down to the Local Bike Shop and talked to Timmy. Maybe I should have just wheeled next door. That's where Timmy lives. Yep my next door neighbor.

AARP - decepticons inc.

I got an email from AARP yesterday. This was just the latest from them talking about health care. As usual, they go on about the myths that people are putting out there and how the all mighty AARP is here to dispel the rumor spewed by the great satan (or astro-turfers to NancyP). In this email, they have you enter a zip code and present you with a list of local newspapers. AARP will send a Letter to the Editor in your name. Below are their points.

Health care reform isn't socialized medicine and will not lead to rationed care. You'll still be able to choose your own doctor and health insurance plan.

Under health care reform, any decisions regarding your health will continue to be made by you, your doctor and your family – not by the government.

We can't afford not to fix health care. If we do nothing now, the cost of health care premiums will double in the next seven years.

Health care reform will strengthen, not hurt, Medicare. For people in Medicare, reform will protect your benefits, ensure you can choose your doctor and strengthen Medicare so it's there for your children and grandchildren

Now how does AARP know all this? It is really interesting how when you quote from HR3200, the proponents tell you how there is no bill, there are many bills, or some such nonsense to indicate how foolish you are. But when they speak, it is with the absolute certainty as you can see above.

What does AARP get out of this? Who knows. What we do know is that the head of AARP donated thousands to the Obama campaign last year. Of course as a citizen, it is his right. However as the head of what is supposed to be an impartial organization, he should show some better sense.

I won't be renewing when my current membership runs out. The small benefits that I get from membership isn't worth my soul.

Congraduations Lance

Armstrong, not that miscreant we have for a congressman.

The guy retires having won an unprecedented 7 tours in a row. Four years later he comes out of retirement as one of the oldest (but I think 2 years off the oldest) in the race and wins third place alongside someone who is about 10 years younger and a guy who was probably still in diapers when Armstrong began his career in the amateur ranks.

You must have an ego to get to this point in the sport. Yet when his teammate Cantadore violated the team orders and took off for his own glory, Armstrong worked with the team that day losing valuable time. Would that have made the difference and gotten him the yellow jersey? Probably not, but he must have been tempted.

Now it appears Astana is dissolving although I haven't heard anything official about that. Armstrong apparently is starting up a new American team backed by Radio Shack while Contadore is rumored to be leaving Astana as well and I think Johan Bruyneel has announced his departure too. I do hope Bruyneel ends up with Radio Shack. He has a great record.

So where does that leave Levi Leipheimer? I sure hope he bolts and goes with Radio Shack too. He is one of my favorites. And what of George Hincapie? I had heard that he was staying at Columbia, but someone has since told me that he is rumored to be maybe leaving too. Levi & George joining in on Radio Shack. That would be terrific. And if they could get Kloden too, they would sure have a contender.

My 4rth of July yellow jersey

My brother, the captain*, and I bike from my house to my sister's house on major summer holidays. We started doing this when she lived in Hightstown and continued with the tradition when she moved in to her current house near the I-295/I-195 intersection in 1995. So I guess we'll heading towards 20 years of beach blanket beers.

Why Boo's house? Well because she has a large deck and a swimming pool. There may be other reasons, but those will do for now.

I expected the usual ride for libation and food on this 4^rth of July. My brother punked out with some lame excuse about his wife breaking her leg so I had to go solo. Instead to swinging by Thomas Sweets in Princeton for a nice ice cream break, I decided to go for broke. I don't know. Maybe I was inspired while watching the beginning of the 2009 Tour de France.

I rode about as hard I am able. Now I'm overweight, closing in on 60, and smoked for almost 50 years (3^rd grade until about a year and a half ago) so I'm not Lance Armstrong in disguise. Or believe me, it is a very good disguise.

Anyway I mashed up the big 8-10^o hill on Great Road and kept on going. I was pooped when I got there, but when I looked at my speedo, WOW. I finally broke the two hour barrier. A new record for the ride. To celebrate, I snap a picture for proof**. Of course I immediately phoned my brother and allowed as how he must be the anchor.

Ok, so I guess there will be no yellow jersey for me, but it was a glorious day in the pedals anyway.

* The captain at our August 2001 family reunion (Boo's house of course)


** My record documenting my sub two hour timing.

Happy Birthday Peachy

Today is Peachy's birthday. Congratulations.

She still has a job in this economy. Congratulations again.

visit her neglected blog at http://lauremdoes.blogspot.com/

Eyes wide open.

One of us doesn't get it.

I'm watching commentators discuss executive pay caps and I am reading a forum where posters are talking about how great it would be if companies were legally banned from outsourcing jobs or taxed for doing so.

Now I assume that the posters believe that the result would be that we would all be employed with nice high paying jobs.

As best I can tell folks, that simply does not work. Well it does not work as long as we are working a basically capitalism framework. Maybe it works in some other; say socialist, economic framework, but not capitalism.

How come?

Because for the exact same product made to the same high quality, who in their right mind is going to buy the more expensive one? Oh, because of service. No deal. I'm talking about the same product, same service, same everything other than price.

So OK, maybe we have the government pass laws to force us to buy American? That doesn't help either. The rest of the world will buy the cheaper product made elsewhere. So they have more money to buy other stuff. Money we now don't have because we bought those government mandated higher priced products. So the rest of the world becomes just a little bit richer compared to us and we become just a little bit poorer.

So how did that buy American law benefit us? Well it did save those jobs, but the reason was that we all contributed to those workers employment by paying higher than market prices.

So you say, "OK, but you assume we're all greedy. What if we are generous and agree to buy our neighbor's product rather than some foreign product?" Unfortunately Virginia, it still doesn't work.

Let's take a very simplistic example. The only products are shoes and shirts. Assuming all the workers produce a single product, workers in CountryA can make 100 shoes per year, but only 50 shirts. Conversely, workers in CountryB can make 100 shirts per year, but only 50 shoes. We all want to just get along so we agree to make our own stuff. So we put 1/2 the workers in each country to work making shoes and 1/2 making shirts. CountryA produces 50 shoes and 25 shirts. CountryB produces 50 shirts and 25 shoes. So the world GDP is 75 shirts + 75 shoes. If we let the workers do what they do best, CountryA produces 100 shoes and CountryB produces 100 shirts. Under this plan the world GDP is now 100 shirts + 100 shoes. The world is simply richer when the products and services are done by the workers who do the job best.

What about the argument that says our national security requires a steel industry or fighter airplane industry? A society may certainly decide that those things are so important that they need the security of keeping that industry at home. The only thing we need to remember is that protecting industries or jobs is no free ride. We have to pay for it. If we are not the most efficient producers of these products, if we artificially subsidize them, we all become a little poorer than we would be otherwise. Maybe that is the right decision. But it is a decision we need to make with our eyes open as well as our hearts.

No More Handshakes

Remember those yesterdays when we used to say "A man's word is his bond"? Or maybe one of those old movies where when hero is asked to sign a contract or agreement and he responds with how his handshake is all that is needed?

Did this ever exist?

I have never seen it. Well maybe I have to some extent.

I did buy my first car for $65. I handed over some cash and I got the state title and keys. This was an 8 year old car with around 110,000 miles on it, no dash lights, no working gas gauge, and a bad transmission. Was that deal the same as our mythological handshake? I guess it was close, but maybe not. The risk to the seller was nil. He got his $65 in cash. My risk was $65. Granted, this was back in the "good old days" when a dollar was a dollar but even then, if the wheels fell off on the way home, the loss of $65 was not going to put my entire life in to a tail-spin. So perhaps my example is but a pale imitation.

When I bought my house or when I bought my first new car, I had long complicated contracts that I did not understand anymore than anyone else.

So fast forward to yesterday. If you believe the media, every single member of the public is simply outraged by the bonus checks for AIG employees.

Well, that is not correct. I am not.

As best I can tell, at least some of these are essentially performance payments for employees who have worked and earned them. Perhaps not all of them. Details are sketchy as our media never wants to provide us with anything more than thin sound bites.

But does that matter?

These bonuses seem to be handed out now because they represent a year's worth of performance. Well that means people made these deals before our impending meltdown was known. Perhaps lots of people should have known, but how many of us knew where we were heading a year ago. It is my understanding that quite a few of the AIG divisions made a profit last year and were well run. That the problem that threatened to topple the company was in one or two specific areas.

Last fall, our government decided to bail out AIG. These bonuses were six months old. Seems like they were not hidden. When the stimulus package was passed, these bonuses were known. How are we sure? Well because they wrote an amendment in to protect them.

My outrage is that our government would dare to rip up a legal contract in response to the drumbeat of public polls. Now if they said to AIG last fall or last month, "listen, you want the money, you renegotiate the contract", I would say "that's fair". That would be the deal. But no, the government comes in after the fact and breaks a deal they were not party to. Breaks a deal that THEY wrote in to the law of the stimulus package.

How will you like it when you next buy a savings bond, wait say seven years for it to mature and then be told that there is a 100% fee to cash it in? Sound fair to you? Well that is exactly what the government is trying to do to AIG.

One day Chris Dodd says he doesn't know how the amendment got there. The very next day he admits that someone in Treasury pressured him to do it. Charlie Rangel says one day that the tax code does not exist to selectively punish individuals and the next day he has some BS reason why doing exactly that is ok. What about the Olympia Snow amendment: "Financial institutions that used "federal bailout" funds to pay employees bonuses in excess of $100,000 will be required to compensate taxpayers under a provision that will be introduced today by U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)." Clearly this situation was known and anticipated. Why did this amendment fail?

Were are our leaders? They certainly are not leading.

President Obama says he has inherited this mess. Oh really? Didn't he vote 'Yes' last fall? Wasn't this his stimulus package? Geithner says he takes responsibility but not the blame. Obama says he takes responsibility but not the blame. Tricky Dick Nixon is that last one I remember saying that. Didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now.

Come on America. Your word is your bond. The honor comes from keeping it. You show your worth when keeping your word is hard, not when it is easy. Let these guys keep their bonus. Figure out where YOU went wrong and fix it.

Oh and while you're at it, President Obama. Senator Dodd. How about giving back those large sums of campaign contributions you got from AIG.

Guilty by Imagination

The truth does not come from your imagination.

It's on the left. It's on the right. I too often get in to discussions, well maybe arguments, about things political. And almost always, my counterpart is just making it all up.

Some examples.

Bush lied.

I have never seen any cojent argument on this other than, "well they didn't find any, did they?".

What is a lie?

Dictionary.com's definition is:

"a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood"

Seems like the definition I grew up with. Intent is of course difficult to prove, but the preponderance of evidence could be telling. So what do we know? Sadam Hussein gassed the Iranians and the Kurds. So he had WMDs at some point. I have seen reports of IEDs that contain chemicals of some sort. So where is the evidence that the president knowingly and purposely lied?

I heard on the radio today a comparison of how the left or maybe it was the white house is out to get Rush Limbaugh. They were compared to the Nixon enemies list. We the audience are asked "What is the difference?" Well the difference is that Nixon did have a list and the right pundits are speculating. Maybe the Obama does have a list, maybe not. I'll perk my ears up when there is some hard evidence.

I was watching one of the cable news channels a week or two ago and listened to how the simtulus bill had all these earmarks. Now I'm one of the few voters who actually have read this thing. Not all of it, but a lot. Probably more than any of the representatives or senators if reports can be believed. I specifically looked for earmarks and couldn't find any. The cable guy was arguing that this or that really amounted to giving money to Nancy Pelosi's mouse. Well I did search for 'mouse' and a couple other possible keyords mentioned at the time.

Hits: none.

So did the commentator tell us what it was? Did he provide any proof? Any link to show what piece of the bill was really going to the mouse? Not a chance.

I recently had an argument in a forum with another poster. This is an anonymous board, but I happen to know the poster. And to be fair, he knows who I am as well. The argument was about unemployment. He claimed that near the end of the senior G Bush term, unemployment was over 10%. Apparently he had lost his job at the time. Well I went to a federal government site and found it simply was not true. So I posted that and asked where he got his numbers from. The response was that well it must have been in New Jersey and he got his numbers from a county employee. So I went to the official New Jersey site and dug up those numbers. Again, unemployment did not come close to double digits. I think I even found the numbers for his county and the results were the same.

I am really tired of arguing with people who make this stuff up. If you are really right, your guy is better than my guy, your policy ideas are better than mine, try arguing based on facts and the truth.

If you are interested, take a look at my unemployment figures. Take another look. See those national debt numbers? So which year did Clinton have a surplus? And if we actually had a surplus, how come the debt goes up and not down?