Scotches to try:
Aberlour
Glenmorangie
Tried:
Lagavulin (16 yrs)
Talisker (10 yrs)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Article: The Youtube solution
Below, an interesting Forbes article on IP, applying past experience with oil rights to predict how media IP will play out on the Internet.
By Daniel Fisher
In his new book, Gridlock Economy, Columbia University Law School Professor Michael Heller paints a scary picture in which property rights--copyrights, patents or individual parcels of land--strangle the economy and stifle innovation.
In Heller's world, new cures for Alzheimer's remain in the lab, films flounder unreleased and even hip-hop albums go unrecorded because it's simply too hard to buy off all the owners who are in a blocking position with their pesky property rights. It's a great theory, but is it true? I studied this problem during a year as a Knight Fellow at Yale Law School several years ago, and came to a different conclusion. In an unruly capitalistic playground like the Internet, the concept of "ownership" will get stretched beyond the breaking point and replaced with rules that allow creative works to be produced at a cost of some royalties going uncollected. Surprisingly, oil led me to this conclusion.
Oil is what economists call a "fugitive resource," a thing, like water or wild game, that migrates where it wants and is difficult to own in any conventional sense. Kind of like a grainy copy of an old episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that somebody posts on YouTube.
Sure, the content belongs to Fox and the songs playing the background are covered by a profusion of ownership claims. But a recent check showed at least 148 clips from WKRP on YouTube, including one with the Beatles hit "Come Together" playing in the background. That song, you might recall, includes a line filched from Chuck Berry's earlier single "You Can't Catch Me."
In other words, somehow the oil leaked out.
That's what usually happens with fugitive resources. Not only are they hard to control, but it's hard to figure out whether they are worth controlling in the first place. This is the problem with oilfields, a subject University of California-Santa Barbara Professor Gary Libecap has been studying since he was teaching at Texas A&M University in the early 1980s.
Oil must be managed properly or it will remain trapped in the ground. Too many wells release the natural pressure in the field, like fizz from a soda can, and it becomes too expensive to pump the oil out. This, economists will tell you, leads to a "tragedy of the commons," where individual owners, acting in their own self interests, destroy the resource.
There is a solution called unitization. This is where somebody--the government, usually--imposes an orderly drilling plan to get the maximum amount of oil out of the ground. Individual owners lose the right to drill, but get paid according to their "fair share" of the reserves. Legal academics call this substituting a property rule for a liability rule. You don't get to name your price, but you do get paid something.
Here's where it gets interesting: What Libecap found is that while most fields are eventually unitized, it often happens late in their lives. Before that, the owners of the common pool fight over their "fair share," with owners in the center holding out for better terms than the people on the periphery. The process slips into chaos when a large number of small landholders are involved, as when the Oklahoma City field was discovered in the late 1920s. The governor had to call in troops to halt the destructive drilling on single-family home lots.
Libecap's insight: When this gridlock occurs, the owners are fighting about information as much as oil. How can you agree to sell something when you don't know its value? It takes more information, or a crisis of some kind, to bring everybody to the table and work out a deal.
A similar process led to ASCAP and BMI, the licensing groups that give bars, restaurants and radio stations access to entire music libraries in exchange for a flat fee. In this case, the music is like a common pool of oil. It has thousands of owners, but those owners recognize that it makes no sense for them to hire lawyers and investigators to walk the streets of New York, listening in doorways to see if they're entitled to a 10-cent royalty for the public performance of their tune.
What does this have to do with YouTube? Columbia's Heller talks about a "tragedy of the anti-commons," where creative works are stifled because nobody can assemble the package of rights that make them possible. WKRP is one of his best examples--the DVD version was stalled for years because producers couldn't secure the rights to all the background music. Yet there it is on YouTube, copyright or no copyright.
Somebody had a grainy VCR copy of the original broadcast, perhaps, transferred it to digital and posted it on the Web. We're in the fighting stage over a vast common pool of ideas, and nobody knows what they're worth with new distribution outlets like YouTube, Facebook and cellular phones. Meanwhile, the oil is leaking out, in the same messy way it was sucked up through hundreds of backyard wells in Oklahoma City in 1931 before the troops marched in.
Henry Smith, my intellectual property law professor at Yale, says the problem boils down to "exclusionary rules" vs. "governance rules." Every first-year law student learns about Blackacre, a mythical estate whose owner has the sole right to decide who can enter and at what price. That's an exclusionary right, and Smith believes society hands these out when the boundaries of ownership are easy to grasp. I own this watch, you don't. If you want it, you have to buy it from me at a price I agree to.
With governance rules, the owner has some rights but gives some away; some of his oil gets sucked up another person's well, or patent royalties go uncollected because a group of manufacturers decided to throw all their patents into a common pool to cut down on the fighting among them. It's a collective system of ownership governed by rules, not exclusive control. Fugitive resources tend to shift toward governance rules, Smith said, because it's so hard to figure out the exact boundaries of the "property" and what it's worth.
Of course, companies that own intellectual property would prefer to extend the Blackacre analogy into cyberspace, barring unauthorized access to their Web sites and controlling every stray bit of intellectual content. Cyberlibertarians would do the opposite and infinitely expand the concept of fair use, or limited exemption to copyright protection.
"My personal view is it should be somewhere in between," said Smith. He compares cyberspace to private land in New England. Hunters have the right to cross property lines in search of game unless the property is clearly marked "no trespassing."
What does this mean for the consumer listening to the Beatles rip off Chuck Berry in the background of a WKRP episode? My guess is the various owners of the intellectual property leaking onto the Internet will admit defeat and form an uber-licensing agency, like ASCAP, that will collect a monthly fee in exchange for nearly universal access to music, movies and other forms of entertainment. Where the value is known--like a heavyweight boxing championship or real-time stock quotes--the content owner will be able to charge consumers on an a la carte basis.
But in many cases, the content will go fugitive and the rules will be simpler: Enjoy it yourself, and it's practically free. Make a business out of it, and you'll probably hear from Fox's lawyers.
By Daniel Fisher
In his new book, Gridlock Economy, Columbia University Law School Professor Michael Heller paints a scary picture in which property rights--copyrights, patents or individual parcels of land--strangle the economy and stifle innovation.
In Heller's world, new cures for Alzheimer's remain in the lab, films flounder unreleased and even hip-hop albums go unrecorded because it's simply too hard to buy off all the owners who are in a blocking position with their pesky property rights. It's a great theory, but is it true? I studied this problem during a year as a Knight Fellow at Yale Law School several years ago, and came to a different conclusion. In an unruly capitalistic playground like the Internet, the concept of "ownership" will get stretched beyond the breaking point and replaced with rules that allow creative works to be produced at a cost of some royalties going uncollected. Surprisingly, oil led me to this conclusion.
Oil is what economists call a "fugitive resource," a thing, like water or wild game, that migrates where it wants and is difficult to own in any conventional sense. Kind of like a grainy copy of an old episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that somebody posts on YouTube.
Sure, the content belongs to Fox and the songs playing the background are covered by a profusion of ownership claims. But a recent check showed at least 148 clips from WKRP on YouTube, including one with the Beatles hit "Come Together" playing in the background. That song, you might recall, includes a line filched from Chuck Berry's earlier single "You Can't Catch Me."
In other words, somehow the oil leaked out.
That's what usually happens with fugitive resources. Not only are they hard to control, but it's hard to figure out whether they are worth controlling in the first place. This is the problem with oilfields, a subject University of California-Santa Barbara Professor Gary Libecap has been studying since he was teaching at Texas A&M University in the early 1980s.
Oil must be managed properly or it will remain trapped in the ground. Too many wells release the natural pressure in the field, like fizz from a soda can, and it becomes too expensive to pump the oil out. This, economists will tell you, leads to a "tragedy of the commons," where individual owners, acting in their own self interests, destroy the resource.
There is a solution called unitization. This is where somebody--the government, usually--imposes an orderly drilling plan to get the maximum amount of oil out of the ground. Individual owners lose the right to drill, but get paid according to their "fair share" of the reserves. Legal academics call this substituting a property rule for a liability rule. You don't get to name your price, but you do get paid something.
Here's where it gets interesting: What Libecap found is that while most fields are eventually unitized, it often happens late in their lives. Before that, the owners of the common pool fight over their "fair share," with owners in the center holding out for better terms than the people on the periphery. The process slips into chaos when a large number of small landholders are involved, as when the Oklahoma City field was discovered in the late 1920s. The governor had to call in troops to halt the destructive drilling on single-family home lots.
Libecap's insight: When this gridlock occurs, the owners are fighting about information as much as oil. How can you agree to sell something when you don't know its value? It takes more information, or a crisis of some kind, to bring everybody to the table and work out a deal.
A similar process led to ASCAP and BMI, the licensing groups that give bars, restaurants and radio stations access to entire music libraries in exchange for a flat fee. In this case, the music is like a common pool of oil. It has thousands of owners, but those owners recognize that it makes no sense for them to hire lawyers and investigators to walk the streets of New York, listening in doorways to see if they're entitled to a 10-cent royalty for the public performance of their tune.
What does this have to do with YouTube? Columbia's Heller talks about a "tragedy of the anti-commons," where creative works are stifled because nobody can assemble the package of rights that make them possible. WKRP is one of his best examples--the DVD version was stalled for years because producers couldn't secure the rights to all the background music. Yet there it is on YouTube, copyright or no copyright.
Somebody had a grainy VCR copy of the original broadcast, perhaps, transferred it to digital and posted it on the Web. We're in the fighting stage over a vast common pool of ideas, and nobody knows what they're worth with new distribution outlets like YouTube, Facebook and cellular phones. Meanwhile, the oil is leaking out, in the same messy way it was sucked up through hundreds of backyard wells in Oklahoma City in 1931 before the troops marched in.
Henry Smith, my intellectual property law professor at Yale, says the problem boils down to "exclusionary rules" vs. "governance rules." Every first-year law student learns about Blackacre, a mythical estate whose owner has the sole right to decide who can enter and at what price. That's an exclusionary right, and Smith believes society hands these out when the boundaries of ownership are easy to grasp. I own this watch, you don't. If you want it, you have to buy it from me at a price I agree to.
With governance rules, the owner has some rights but gives some away; some of his oil gets sucked up another person's well, or patent royalties go uncollected because a group of manufacturers decided to throw all their patents into a common pool to cut down on the fighting among them. It's a collective system of ownership governed by rules, not exclusive control. Fugitive resources tend to shift toward governance rules, Smith said, because it's so hard to figure out the exact boundaries of the "property" and what it's worth.
Of course, companies that own intellectual property would prefer to extend the Blackacre analogy into cyberspace, barring unauthorized access to their Web sites and controlling every stray bit of intellectual content. Cyberlibertarians would do the opposite and infinitely expand the concept of fair use, or limited exemption to copyright protection.
"My personal view is it should be somewhere in between," said Smith. He compares cyberspace to private land in New England. Hunters have the right to cross property lines in search of game unless the property is clearly marked "no trespassing."
What does this mean for the consumer listening to the Beatles rip off Chuck Berry in the background of a WKRP episode? My guess is the various owners of the intellectual property leaking onto the Internet will admit defeat and form an uber-licensing agency, like ASCAP, that will collect a monthly fee in exchange for nearly universal access to music, movies and other forms of entertainment. Where the value is known--like a heavyweight boxing championship or real-time stock quotes--the content owner will be able to charge consumers on an a la carte basis.
But in many cases, the content will go fugitive and the rules will be simpler: Enjoy it yourself, and it's practically free. Make a business out of it, and you'll probably hear from Fox's lawyers.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Murakami musical references
Musical references from Kafka on the Shore (from J Shifty's blog):
- Schubert Piano Sonata in D Major
- Crossroads - Cream
- Heigh - Ho - Andre Rieu
- Mi Chiamano Mimi - Puccini (Maria Callas)
- As Time Goes By - Billie Holiday
- 4th Time Around - Bob Dylan
- (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding
- Corcovado - Getz/Gilberto
- Sexy MF - Prince
- Archduke Trio - Beethoven
- My Favorite Things - John Coltrane
Musical references from The Wind-up Bird Chronicles (anonymous poster on J Shifty's blog):
- Sonice Wind--Calexico
- Speechless--Cibo Matto
- Opening--Philip Glass
- The Gunner's Dream--Pink Floyd
- Looking At The World from The Bottom of a Well--Mike Doughty
- In Our Gun--Gomez
- Waiting for My Real Life to Begin--Colin Hay
- Starting Over--Crystal Method
- Hallo Space Boy--David Bowie
- Pepita--Calexico
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Another reason I study Chinese
Well, it's not high on the list of reasons why, but it makes more sense to others than the joy of staring at the hordes passing by the Starbucks at Wang Fu Jing. The following an excerpt from a transcript (thanks to Whitney) of a Charlie Munger talk at USCL
Makes sense to me.
Another example of not thinking through the consequences of the consequences is the standard reaction in economics to Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage giving benefit on both sides of trade. Ricardo came up with a wonderful, non-obvious explanation that was so powerful that people were charmed with it, and they still are, because it’s a very useful idea. Everybody in economics understands that comparative advantage is a big deal, when one considers first order advantages in trade from the Ricardo effect. But suppose you’ve got a very talented ethnic group, like the Chinese, and they’re very poor and backward, and you’re an advanced nation, and you create free trade with China, and it goes on for a long time.
Now let’s follow and second and third order consequences: You are more prosperous than you would have been if you hadn’t traded with China in terms of average well-being in the United States, right? Ricardo proved it. But which nation is going to be growing faster in economic terms? It’s obviously China. They’re absorbing all the modern technology of the world through this great facilitator in free trade, and, like the Asian Tigers have proved, they will get ahead fast. Look at Hong Kong. Look at Taiwan. Look at early Japan. So, you start in a place where you’ve got a weak nation of backward peasants, a billion and a quarter of them, and in the end they’re going to be a much bigger, stronger nation than you are, maybe even having more and better atomic bombs. Well, Ricardo did not prove that that’s a wonderful outcome for the former leading nation. He didn’t try to determine second order and higher order effects.
If you try and talk like this to an economics professor, and I’ve done this three times, they shrink in horror and offense because they don’t like this kind of talk. It really gums up this nice discipline of theirs, which is so much simpler when you ignore second and third order consequences.
The best answer I ever got on that subject – in three tries – was from George Schultz. He said, “Charlie, the way I figure it is if we stop trading with China, the other advanced nations will do it anyway, and we wouldn’t stop the ascent of China compared to us, and we’d lose the Ricardo-diagnosed advantages of trade,” which is obviously correct. And I said, “Well George, you’ve just invented a new form of the tragedy of the commons. You’re locked in this system and you can’t fix it. You’re going to go to a tragic hell in a handbasket, if going to hell involves being once the great leader of the world and finally going to the shallows in terms of leadership.” And he said, “Charlie, I do not want to think about this.” I think he’s wise. He’s even older than I am, and maybe I should learn from him.
Makes sense to me.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
We saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night (finally) and thought it was very good.
I think the most moving scene was when Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet just broke into the abandoned oceanfront house, the same day they had just met at a beach party. The contrast between their characters manifests itself with Carrey's decision to return to the beach party, "running from his humiliation." At that point the surf is surrounding the house and the rafters are collapsing, indications that this last memory of Winslet are being erased. He begins to share with Winslet that her offhanded comment, "just go," was belittling to him, and that plus his discomfort with illegally entering a stranger's home caused his snap decision to leave. Their final kiss in the scene is made more poignant by his admission that he always regretted his decision to run, and that this last, fading memory would serve as their final goodbye.
I liked the imagery of the Lacuna technicians chasing Jim Carrey's consciousness around as a little dot on a brain scan. It's probably not very accurate as memories are probably big clouds of dots, but consciousness feels like a single dot.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Bezos on quarterly retreats
Watching Bezos interview on Charlie Rose (from Kindle launch on Nov 19, 2007) he talks about his retreat:
Every quarter Bezos takes 2-3 days, completely alone, isolated from family and friends, no phones or interruptions. “With a little bit of isolation, I find I get more creative.” He’ll think, reflect, surf the Internet, see what people are doing, what hobbyists and hackers are doing (things on cutting edge). Then he’ll write several 2-3 page memos – either to himself (wakes up next day and decides they’re worthless) or to others. Once a quarter is the right “Metronome.” Come up with principles, themes, even tactical inventions. Bring back to the office and socialize with broader executive team. At end of process, he’s not sure if he really invented anything or not. Result of having a bunch of smart people, because you get all t heir criticism and suggestions.
This is similar to Bill Gates’s practice of going away occasionally for several weeks, taking a stack of books.
He also mentioned Blue Origin's company theme: "Gradatim Ferociter" (Step by Step, Courageously). Hokey, but it captures the engineering/MIT/Edison ethos.
Every quarter Bezos takes 2-3 days, completely alone, isolated from family and friends, no phones or interruptions. “With a little bit of isolation, I find I get more creative.” He’ll think, reflect, surf the Internet, see what people are doing, what hobbyists and hackers are doing (things on cutting edge). Then he’ll write several 2-3 page memos – either to himself (wakes up next day and decides they’re worthless) or to others. Once a quarter is the right “Metronome.” Come up with principles, themes, even tactical inventions. Bring back to the office and socialize with broader executive team. At end of process, he’s not sure if he really invented anything or not. Result of having a bunch of smart people, because you get all t heir criticism and suggestions.
This is similar to Bill Gates’s practice of going away occasionally for several weeks, taking a stack of books.
He also mentioned Blue Origin's company theme: "Gradatim Ferociter" (Step by Step, Courageously). Hokey, but it captures the engineering/MIT/Edison ethos.
Comments on Scotch from JoeP
here's a somewhat simple way of thinking about scotch. there are blends and there are single malts. blends tend to have a more balanced taste -- that makes them popular and well liked and that is kind of the point of blending. single malts have a more distinctive character and tend to vary regionally. the older, more expensive stuff tends to be more smooth and complex, while younger scotches tend to me more brash and less sophisticated. there is also a trend now towards casking in oak barrels used for sherry, port, and such, making them kind of subltly "flavored." i mostly look down on this trend. anyway, in my simple model, you can further divide single malts into highland malts and Islay malts. the most popular highland malts are the best-selling (in the u.s.) glenlivet, glenfiddich (the two best selling in the us), and macallan. although the older more expensive stuff can be quite tasty, i am a big fan of Islay scotches, which are distilled on an island dominated by peat bogs that conveys a smokey taste. the most popular islay scotches are laphroig and lagavulin. another very nice scotch is talisker, from the isle of sky. kind of in-between islay and highland. if i was getting steve a bottle, keeping in mine my bias towards my own personal tastes, i would get him lagavulin 16 ($65-95) or talisker. you can even find christmas-y gift boxes that come with cute little glasses -- i know i've seen talisker sold in this fashion.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Flowers from Kari in Mexico
Lots of tulips from sweety Kari in Chacala. There were so many I needed to get an extra vase! The Space Needle should be visible in the doors behind the flowers.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Estimating life expectancy
The IRS has published some useful data based on calculations from the dismal science's cousin, actuarial statistics. This data was compiled into a spreadsheet by the website retireearlyhomepage.com. I placed their spreadsheet into a Googledoc spreadsheet here. It's interesting that life expectancy seems to increase when the person in question has a spouse. For Kari and I, our table is as follows:
So each of us has a 50-50 chance of living for another 45.11 years. As a couple, the last survivor of the two of us has a 50-50 chance of living another 51 years.
So each of us has a 50-50 chance of living for another 45.11 years. As a couple, the last survivor of the two of us has a 50-50 chance of living another 51 years.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Back at the ranch...
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Increased data costs to financial websites
In May 2006 NYSE Arca filed a rule change with the SEC to charge per user fees for sites like Yahoo and Google to publish delayed stock price data. The NetCoalition intervened and the SEC agreed to put a stay on the rule change, after a committee in the SEC had approved the change. Supposedly NYSE and Nasdaq proposed in Jan 07 a more reasonable flat fee (WSJ article indicates $100k/month for NYSE) for real-time data feeds.
(for perspective on text below, Yahoo Finance has 15M monthly UU, 14% of total UU in Oct 07. Google Finance was 1.2M, 1% of their total UU. These nunmbers are US only, based on Nielsen)
An excerpt of the SEC's response to the NetCoalition is below. The SEC is still considering this. Given the revised rates from NYSE, it seems reasonable to expect that there will be fees imposed, and that they will likely be flat rate and reasonable.
A more recent article from WSJ via Reuters:
NYSE plans test of real-time Web quotes - WSJ
(for perspective on text below, Yahoo Finance has 15M monthly UU, 14% of total UU in Oct 07. Google Finance was 1.2M, 1% of their total UU. These nunmbers are US only, based on Nielsen)
An excerpt of the SEC's response to the NetCoalition is below. The SEC is still considering this. Given the revised rates from NYSE, it seems reasonable to expect that there will be fees imposed, and that they will likely be flat rate and reasonable.
The proposals made to Internet companies by the now for-profit exchanges have been exorbitant. They have ranged from $75 per unique visitor per month for Nasdaq data to $15 to $30, or $10 or $9 per unique visitor, per month for NYSEArca data to the $1 per unique visitor per month for the NYSE non-professional rate. At $75 per month for the roughly 49 million Americans visiting financial web sites, fees would theoretically run more than $3.6 billion per month, or $44.1 billion annually. (These numbers are, of course, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars already collected annually from the broker-dealer community). If all Internet users of financial pages sought NYSEArca data at the $9 rate, that would still run $441 million a month, $5.3 billion annually. Even the "bargain basement price" of $1 per month for NYSE non-professional data would still render the not-so-Spartan sum of $49 million per month, or $588 million per year. Any and all sums would be, of course, in addition to the actual transaction charges that would be levied on retail investors if they opt to engage in a transaction.
Relatively few of our members' customers are going to purchase market data at $75 per month. It is unclear how many would buy NYSEArca data at $9 per month, but clearly even at $1 per month - where one might expect more user participation - the Commission staff is authorizing a transfer from retail investors to a for-profit monopoly of hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with literally zero showing of any cost basis.
By not submitting any information to provide a factual justification for its proposed fees, NYSEArca prevents the Commission from considering, for example, whether charging Internet companies for access to real-time market data based on the number of users - or "eyeballs" - that visit the site can be justified against the mandate that fees be "fair and reasonable." Given the fact that the ECNs were providing real-time market data to Internet companies at no cost, it seems reasonable that a "flat rate" for access to market data is more appropriate than a "per user" structure that puts the availability of real-time market data out of reach for the vast majority of Internet users.
A more recent article from WSJ via Reuters:
NYSE plans test of real-time Web quotes - WSJ
NEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The New York Stock Exchange plans a pilot
program later this year that could bring real-time stock quotes to Internet
users, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The NYSE Group Inc. (NYX.N: )
unit is expected to file a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission on Friday, the Journal reported.
If the SEC approves the plan, the NYSE will allow Web sites to publish
trade prices with nearly no delay in return for payments of $100,000 a month,
the Journal reported. The test program could be available as early as March,
depending on the SEC's response, the paper said.
Google Inc. (GOOG.O: ) and business news television station CNBC have
said they would offer data for free to their users, the paper said. The NYSE
also has had discussions with other Internet service providers such as Yahoo,
the Journal added. Google is a member of a group called NetCoalition, which has
complained about a lack of real-time stock data offered through services owned
by the NYSE Group and Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. (NDAQ.O: )
Monday, November 26, 2007
看见阎登洪
Pictures from visit to see 阎登洪.
With Jim and Kermit
With Terp
In front of 94th Aero Squadron near College Park
With Jim and Kermit
With Terp
In front of 94th Aero Squadron near College Park
Saturday, October 13, 2007
it is at moments after i have dreamed (e.e. cummings)
I found this on a random blog through stumbleupon. It works for me (stumbleupon and the poem).
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.
- e.e. cummings
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.
- e.e. cummings
How music prefs predict personality...
...or is it the other way around. Anyway, results from a music psychology test at outofservice.com, a collection of psychology self-tests. The music test on there, from a researcher named Jason Rentfrow at the University of Cambridge. Supposedly 90,000 people have taken tests on that site. My results are here. The hope is that this plays into online personalization in a Pandora-esque way.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Salmon Roe
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The end of the cheap credit ride...
Interesting Seattle PI article below. Growth rate profile matches the rate of housing starts (graph from RBC Sep 19, 2007 report from Gerard Cassidy)
Note peak in 2005. It also matches the peak of subprime and alt-a loan home sales.
SeattlePI:Seattle home values hottest in U.S.
Click here for article
Wednesday, September 26, 2007Last updated 7:27 a.m. PT
By AUBREY COHENP-I REPORTER
Seattle-area home appreciation has been the hottest in the nation for 11 months in a row, despite steadily slowing for the past year and a half, according to data released Tuesday.
July's price for a typical home in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties was up 6.9 percent from July 2006 and 0.2 percent from June 2007, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which do not give actual prices.
The August median home price was $439,000 in Seattle and $415,000 in King County, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Both medians figured in condominiums and single-family homes.
While July's annual increase was the smallest for the Seattle area in nearly four years, it was still the largest in July among the 20 metropolitan areas the indices track, just five of which posted an increase.
The story is a bit different for month-to-month appreciation, with nine other areas posting increases and all but one of those exceeding Seattle's percentage change. The 20-city composite index declined 0.4 percent from June and 3.9 percent from July 2006.
"The decline in home prices clearly continued into the summer months," Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, said in a news release accompanying the report.
Detroit was simultaneously worst among the 20 cities for annual price change, with a 9.7 percent decline from July 2006 to July 2007, and first for monthly change, with a 1.3 percent jump from June to July.
Tampa, Fla., had the second-highest annual decline, at 8.8 percent, while Charlotte, N.C., was second to Seattle for increases, at 6 percent. Miami posted the biggest monthly decline, with prices down 1.7 percent, followed by Tampa and New York, which were both down 1 percent.
The drop in the 20-city index was the largest ever for that measure, which goes back to 2000, while the 4.5 percent decline in S&P's 10-city index was the largest for it since July 1991.
S&P Index Committee Chairman David Blitzer said prices might level off nationally by the end of the year.
"Maybe the first stage is steep declines, and we're just about done with those," he said. "The second stage is not much gain, not much loss. The rest of the economy has to catch up to home prices."
Shiller, an economist at Yale University, told lawmakers in a statement last week that the loss of a boom mentality among consumers posed a "significant risk" of a recession within the next year.
Unlike monthly sales statistics, the Standard & Poor's indices try to track the price of typical houses in a market by applying a formula to repeat sales of homes.
They screen sales for distortions, such as foreclosures or sales between family members, and weigh them for such factors as remodeling, neglect and the time between sales.
The Seattle area saw 33 months of double-digit annual appreciation, peaking at 18.5 percent in November and December 2005.
Note peak in 2005. It also matches the peak of subprime and alt-a loan home sales.
SeattlePI:Seattle home values hottest in U.S.
Click here for article
Wednesday, September 26, 2007Last updated 7:27 a.m. PT
By AUBREY COHENP-I REPORTER
Seattle-area home appreciation has been the hottest in the nation for 11 months in a row, despite steadily slowing for the past year and a half, according to data released Tuesday.
July's price for a typical home in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties was up 6.9 percent from July 2006 and 0.2 percent from June 2007, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which do not give actual prices.
The August median home price was $439,000 in Seattle and $415,000 in King County, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Both medians figured in condominiums and single-family homes.
While July's annual increase was the smallest for the Seattle area in nearly four years, it was still the largest in July among the 20 metropolitan areas the indices track, just five of which posted an increase.
The story is a bit different for month-to-month appreciation, with nine other areas posting increases and all but one of those exceeding Seattle's percentage change. The 20-city composite index declined 0.4 percent from June and 3.9 percent from July 2006.
"The decline in home prices clearly continued into the summer months," Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, said in a news release accompanying the report.
Detroit was simultaneously worst among the 20 cities for annual price change, with a 9.7 percent decline from July 2006 to July 2007, and first for monthly change, with a 1.3 percent jump from June to July.
Tampa, Fla., had the second-highest annual decline, at 8.8 percent, while Charlotte, N.C., was second to Seattle for increases, at 6 percent. Miami posted the biggest monthly decline, with prices down 1.7 percent, followed by Tampa and New York, which were both down 1 percent.
The drop in the 20-city index was the largest ever for that measure, which goes back to 2000, while the 4.5 percent decline in S&P's 10-city index was the largest for it since July 1991.
S&P Index Committee Chairman David Blitzer said prices might level off nationally by the end of the year.
"Maybe the first stage is steep declines, and we're just about done with those," he said. "The second stage is not much gain, not much loss. The rest of the economy has to catch up to home prices."
Shiller, an economist at Yale University, told lawmakers in a statement last week that the loss of a boom mentality among consumers posed a "significant risk" of a recession within the next year.
Unlike monthly sales statistics, the Standard & Poor's indices try to track the price of typical houses in a market by applying a formula to repeat sales of homes.
They screen sales for distortions, such as foreclosures or sales between family members, and weigh them for such factors as remodeling, neglect and the time between sales.
The Seattle area saw 33 months of double-digit annual appreciation, peaking at 18.5 percent in November and December 2005.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Dirty king coal
Click here for article.
May 31st 2007
From The Economist print edition
Scrubbing carbon from coal-fired power stations is possible but pricey
THERE are two remarkable things about Sleipner T, a gas rig in the middle of the North Sea owned by Norway's state-owned oil company, Statoil. One is the working conditions. Technicians get around NKr600,000 ($100,000) a year, private rooms with televisions and ensuite bathrooms, and work two weeks out of every six. That is what you get when social democracy meets oil wealth.
The other unusual thing about Sleipner T is that the CO2 which has to be extracted before the gas can be sold does not contribute to global warming. Instead of being pumped into the atmosphere it is reinjected into the ground, 1,000 metres below the seabed. That is what you get when an innovative company meets a carbon tax.
Statoil started capturing and storing its carbon dioxide in 1997, five years after Norway introduced a carbon tax. Nobody paid much attention then, but these days Statoil gets a regular stream of visitors because carbon capture and storage (CCS), also known as carbon sequestration, is widely seen as a possible quick fix for global warming.
It is the abundance, cheapness and dirtiness of coal that makes CCS so appealing. Coal produces 50% of America's electricity, 70% of India's and 80% of China's. It is widely distributed around the globe, which enhances its attractions at a time of concern about energy security. Burning coal is the cheapest way of generating electricity. And coal produces around 40% of the CO2 emissions from energy use.
High gas prices have meant that coal has been enjoying a revival in recent years. In America some 150 new coal-fired power stations are on the drawing board. In China, two 500MW coal-fired power plants are starting up every week, and each year the country's coal-fired power-generating capacity increases by the equivalent of the entire British grid. So anything that offers the prospect of cleaning it up is attracting a great deal of interest.
Standard pulverised-coal (PC) generation can be made a bit cleaner by burning the fuel at higher temperatures. “Ultrasupercritical” generation can cut CO2 emissions by a fifth. But if demand goes on increasing, that is not enough. Hence the interest in CCS.
CCS is being done in three places—at Sleipner; at In Salah in Algeria, where the CO2 removed from gas produced by a joint venture between BP, Statoil and Sonatrach, Algeria's state-owned energy company, is stored in the desert; and at the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan, Canada, where the CO2 produced by a coal gasification plant in North Dakota is piped across the border and used to increase the pressure in a partly depleted oil field. This process, known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR), is in use in 70 oil fields around the world, but at Weyburn, unusually, some of the CO2 remains underground.
Most of the operations involved in CCS are familiar. First, the CO2 must be separated from other gases. At Sleipner, for instance, the CO2 content of the gas that emerges from the oil field is 9%. That has to be reduced to 2%, which is done by passing the gas through amines (nitrogen-based chemicals). Second, the CO2 is moved along in pipelines. That is commonly done in EOR, as is the third stage—injecting it into the ground.
The fourth stage is the least familiar. When CO2 is being used for EOR, it returns to the surface (except at Weyburn). For sequestration, however, the CO2 must be stored underground, probably in depleted oil and gas fields or in porous briny rock. Statoil has been doing this for a decade at Sleipner, and there is no sign of the stuff bubbling up again. Scientists say that within decades or centuries it will dissolve, and within centuries or millennia it will react with elements in the rock and form new minerals. But this part of the process needs more study.
The challenge is to put all those technologies together and deploy them at a reasonable cost, and on a scale that can make some impact on emissions. That will take some doing. If 60% of the 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 that America produces every year from coal-fired power stations were liquefied for storage, it would take up the same amount of space as all the oil the country consumes.
Coal-fired power stations are the likeliest candidates for CCS because they are dirty and numerous. But there is a difficulty with PC plants: they spew out a huge volume of flue gas, of which CO2 is only a small part. Separating it from other gases is expensive. The main alternative is to turn coal into gas before using it to generate electricity. The resulting CO2 and hydrogen are then separated, the hydrogen used to generate electricity and the CO2 stored. A few such integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) plants have been built.
Every which way
Now that power utilities are beginning to accept that they will have to do something about carbon, the big question is what. GE has bought Chevron's IGCC technology. The cost of generating electricity from it, according to GE's Steve Bolze, is 20-25% more than a PC plant, but Mr Bolze believes that, once the cost of separating carbon is taken into account as well, IGCC may be cheaper.
Philippe Joubert, president of power systems at Alstom, which in March announced a joint venture with American Electric Power, America's biggest coal-fired generator, rejects the idea that IGCC is cheaper, even with CCS. “This is clearly not true. We should know. We are in IGCC as well as PC. It's clearly 10% more expensive. All serious academics realise that it is more expensive.” A study by MIT published in March tends to side with Mr Bolze. Generating electricity from an IGCC plant with carbon capture, it maintains, is 35% more expensive than PC without CCS; but PC with CCS is 60% more expensive than PC without.
Plans for IGCC plants are proliferating. In America, at least, that says more about subsidies than about faith in the technology's future. George Bush announced a $2 billion clean-coal initiative in 2002, and the 2005 Energy Policy Act, notorious for its pork content, included $1.6 billion-worth of subsidies for coal gasification.
According to the International Energy Agency, around 15 power plants with CCS are being planned and another seven CCS projects are on the drawing board. Most make economic sense either because of direct subsidy or because of their particular economic circumstances. Statoil and Shell are planning to sequester CO2 from a Statoil power plant on the Norwegian mainland under Shell's Draugen platform. The investment is justified by Norway's carbon tax, currently about €50 per tonne. BP is planning a petroleum-coke-fuelled power plant in California, where electricity is particularly expensive and the petroleum coke for the power plant comes as a by-product of oil refining; the project is a joint venture with Edison International, an electricity company.
One big company that is making a sizeable punt on CCS is Vattenfall, which is building a 30MW plant in Germany. “I'm totally convinced”, says Lars Josefsson, Vattenfall's chief executive, “that the issue of carbon sequestration will change the way we do business in the long term. I believe the companies that realise that soonest will be the winners.”
If CCS is to take off, the rules on CO2 storage need sorting out. The 1996 London protocol on dumping waste at sea was amended earlier this year to allow CCS at sea. But rules on land need attending to, for promoters of CCS worry that it will become as contentious as nuclear waste.
And, as always, there is the problem of cost. At present, academics reckon that it would take a carbon price of around $30 to make sequestration economic—below the peak that the ETS hit briefly in 2006, and way above the $10 safety valve in the only carbon bill in Washington, DC, to mention a figure. But the cost may come down, because that is generally what happens as technologies are commercialised.
Despite the tricky economics, the sheer abundance of coal is an argument for pursuing CCS. And if it can be made to work, it has a certain poetic circularity: the carbon extracted from the earth as fossil fuel shall return unto the earth whence it came.
May 31st 2007
From The Economist print edition
Scrubbing carbon from coal-fired power stations is possible but pricey
THERE are two remarkable things about Sleipner T, a gas rig in the middle of the North Sea owned by Norway's state-owned oil company, Statoil. One is the working conditions. Technicians get around NKr600,000 ($100,000) a year, private rooms with televisions and ensuite bathrooms, and work two weeks out of every six. That is what you get when social democracy meets oil wealth.
The other unusual thing about Sleipner T is that the CO2 which has to be extracted before the gas can be sold does not contribute to global warming. Instead of being pumped into the atmosphere it is reinjected into the ground, 1,000 metres below the seabed. That is what you get when an innovative company meets a carbon tax.
Statoil started capturing and storing its carbon dioxide in 1997, five years after Norway introduced a carbon tax. Nobody paid much attention then, but these days Statoil gets a regular stream of visitors because carbon capture and storage (CCS), also known as carbon sequestration, is widely seen as a possible quick fix for global warming.
It is the abundance, cheapness and dirtiness of coal that makes CCS so appealing. Coal produces 50% of America's electricity, 70% of India's and 80% of China's. It is widely distributed around the globe, which enhances its attractions at a time of concern about energy security. Burning coal is the cheapest way of generating electricity. And coal produces around 40% of the CO2 emissions from energy use.
High gas prices have meant that coal has been enjoying a revival in recent years. In America some 150 new coal-fired power stations are on the drawing board. In China, two 500MW coal-fired power plants are starting up every week, and each year the country's coal-fired power-generating capacity increases by the equivalent of the entire British grid. So anything that offers the prospect of cleaning it up is attracting a great deal of interest.
Standard pulverised-coal (PC) generation can be made a bit cleaner by burning the fuel at higher temperatures. “Ultrasupercritical” generation can cut CO2 emissions by a fifth. But if demand goes on increasing, that is not enough. Hence the interest in CCS.
CCS is being done in three places—at Sleipner; at In Salah in Algeria, where the CO2 removed from gas produced by a joint venture between BP, Statoil and Sonatrach, Algeria's state-owned energy company, is stored in the desert; and at the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan, Canada, where the CO2 produced by a coal gasification plant in North Dakota is piped across the border and used to increase the pressure in a partly depleted oil field. This process, known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR), is in use in 70 oil fields around the world, but at Weyburn, unusually, some of the CO2 remains underground.
Most of the operations involved in CCS are familiar. First, the CO2 must be separated from other gases. At Sleipner, for instance, the CO2 content of the gas that emerges from the oil field is 9%. That has to be reduced to 2%, which is done by passing the gas through amines (nitrogen-based chemicals). Second, the CO2 is moved along in pipelines. That is commonly done in EOR, as is the third stage—injecting it into the ground.
The fourth stage is the least familiar. When CO2 is being used for EOR, it returns to the surface (except at Weyburn). For sequestration, however, the CO2 must be stored underground, probably in depleted oil and gas fields or in porous briny rock. Statoil has been doing this for a decade at Sleipner, and there is no sign of the stuff bubbling up again. Scientists say that within decades or centuries it will dissolve, and within centuries or millennia it will react with elements in the rock and form new minerals. But this part of the process needs more study.
The challenge is to put all those technologies together and deploy them at a reasonable cost, and on a scale that can make some impact on emissions. That will take some doing. If 60% of the 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 that America produces every year from coal-fired power stations were liquefied for storage, it would take up the same amount of space as all the oil the country consumes.
Coal-fired power stations are the likeliest candidates for CCS because they are dirty and numerous. But there is a difficulty with PC plants: they spew out a huge volume of flue gas, of which CO2 is only a small part. Separating it from other gases is expensive. The main alternative is to turn coal into gas before using it to generate electricity. The resulting CO2 and hydrogen are then separated, the hydrogen used to generate electricity and the CO2 stored. A few such integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) plants have been built.
Every which way
Now that power utilities are beginning to accept that they will have to do something about carbon, the big question is what. GE has bought Chevron's IGCC technology. The cost of generating electricity from it, according to GE's Steve Bolze, is 20-25% more than a PC plant, but Mr Bolze believes that, once the cost of separating carbon is taken into account as well, IGCC may be cheaper.
Philippe Joubert, president of power systems at Alstom, which in March announced a joint venture with American Electric Power, America's biggest coal-fired generator, rejects the idea that IGCC is cheaper, even with CCS. “This is clearly not true. We should know. We are in IGCC as well as PC. It's clearly 10% more expensive. All serious academics realise that it is more expensive.” A study by MIT published in March tends to side with Mr Bolze. Generating electricity from an IGCC plant with carbon capture, it maintains, is 35% more expensive than PC without CCS; but PC with CCS is 60% more expensive than PC without.
Plans for IGCC plants are proliferating. In America, at least, that says more about subsidies than about faith in the technology's future. George Bush announced a $2 billion clean-coal initiative in 2002, and the 2005 Energy Policy Act, notorious for its pork content, included $1.6 billion-worth of subsidies for coal gasification.
According to the International Energy Agency, around 15 power plants with CCS are being planned and another seven CCS projects are on the drawing board. Most make economic sense either because of direct subsidy or because of their particular economic circumstances. Statoil and Shell are planning to sequester CO2 from a Statoil power plant on the Norwegian mainland under Shell's Draugen platform. The investment is justified by Norway's carbon tax, currently about €50 per tonne. BP is planning a petroleum-coke-fuelled power plant in California, where electricity is particularly expensive and the petroleum coke for the power plant comes as a by-product of oil refining; the project is a joint venture with Edison International, an electricity company.
One big company that is making a sizeable punt on CCS is Vattenfall, which is building a 30MW plant in Germany. “I'm totally convinced”, says Lars Josefsson, Vattenfall's chief executive, “that the issue of carbon sequestration will change the way we do business in the long term. I believe the companies that realise that soonest will be the winners.”
If CCS is to take off, the rules on CO2 storage need sorting out. The 1996 London protocol on dumping waste at sea was amended earlier this year to allow CCS at sea. But rules on land need attending to, for promoters of CCS worry that it will become as contentious as nuclear waste.
And, as always, there is the problem of cost. At present, academics reckon that it would take a carbon price of around $30 to make sequestration economic—below the peak that the ETS hit briefly in 2006, and way above the $10 safety valve in the only carbon bill in Washington, DC, to mention a figure. But the cost may come down, because that is generally what happens as technologies are commercialised.
Despite the tricky economics, the sheer abundance of coal is an argument for pursuing CCS. And if it can be made to work, it has a certain poetic circularity: the carbon extracted from the earth as fossil fuel shall return unto the earth whence it came.
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