Pie Index (final)

Well, looks like this is my last entry for Pie Index. I haven't been updating this section of my blog because the price hasn't really changed for quite a while. Then this happened:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Did You Give Up On Bitcoin?

One of the more compelling ideas of Bitcoin is that everyone has a chance to be the Ben Bernanke.  Meaning, everyone has a chance to "print money out of thin air."  The specification of Bitcoin is such that its money supply is "generated" by individuals who run the client on the network in "generate mode."  If you run it long enough, at least for now, you have a chance to produce 50 BTC (BTC is the currency code that stands for Bitcoin).

But if you were attracted to this idea, lately you may have noticed that it has been harder and harder to generate.  The simple fact is, the more people trying to produce, the less of a chance you'll have yourself.  On top of that, there are more people who resort to using their GPUs (graphics card) these days than ever before.  In a matter of months, the opportunity to generate Bitcoins seems to have dried up.

The good news is that there are new opportunities.  If you want to generate, I would like to recommend the Bluish Coder:

http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/

This is the group that picked the Bitcoin Remote Pooled Mining application to collect lower powered machines together so they can have a chance to generate.  If you have Windows or Linux (Mac OS X has limited support if you really dig), you can contribute your own CPU time to the mix and get a cut.  It's not 50 BTC, but it's something.

The amount you generate depends on the speed of your system, how long you participate, and how many other users are in the pool.  Yes, the amount is much smaller, but it's much better than nothing.

Of course, just like the carrot of 50 BTC, there's a chance your efforts will not pay off.  But you never know unless you try.  Since the time this pool was established, it generated 2 blocks, which means it distributed 100 BTC, so far, among all those who participated.  But the more people who participate, the smaller the winnings.

The advantage of pooling in this way is that none of the participants work against each other.  If you have two systems churning away on the official client, they are working against each one another by definition.  But in an alternative system like this, none of the systems in the pool do redundant work.

It is even possible to set up your own private pool with this kind of software, if that's what you want.  That way, if you have multiple computers, they would no longer work against each other.  But if you have only two computers to devote to Bitcoin generating, you may not see any results.

If you liked this post, send me a tip: 1PLoWWLHU27p1c66r9S3wkjRCNcL8AcY8D

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Bitcoin Declines After Rally to Record Prompts Investor Selling

Bitcoin declined after a rally to a record prompted some investors sell and as the strengthening dollar reduced the appeal of the crypto-currency as an alternative asset.

Recent price gains have led to profit-taking by some investors but it has probably not lead to an overall digital cash downtrend.  This is likely temporary profit-taking before the end of the year.  Bitcoin will continue to be favored through next year as a haven.

The dollar rose for a third day against most of its major counterparts on expectations an extension of tax cuts will bolster an economic recovery in the U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years. A report tomorrow is forecast to show U.S. initial jobless claims declined.  Bitcoin typically moves inversely to the greenback.

Bitcoin has jumped 29 percent these last months after governments spent trillions of dollars and kept borrowing costs low to bolster economies hurt by the most severe global recession since World War II.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup #09TEGUCIGALPA645

This one really bugs me for some reason.  It reminds me of the School House Rock spoof video "Pirates and Emperors."

First of all, I think it's interesting that Wikileaks is being lambasted for releasing these cables.  But I do have a question.  Is there a given cable that should have been kept a secret?  Taken as a whole, it's easy to be critical.  But if you look at them one-at-a-time, specifically which cable do Wikileak's critics claim should not have been released?  If you can find one, I'd be willing to evaluate it.  But all collectivists always love to generalize everything (that's a little dry humor, by the way, I realize I just generalized).  The point is, what is so critical to national security?  Please be specific.

I know it would take quite a while to look at them one-at-a-time.  And sometimes the problem isn't readily apparent on both sides.  So I'll agree that not all of these cables are smoking guns if the critics are willing to admit not all of them as a whole represent a breach of national security.

Taking them each carefully, there are some examples of U.S. "Hegemony" demonstrated in specific cables.  In the political game, you can't be against hegemony if you are nationalistic.  So that's simple, I'm not nationalistic.  Do I like the regimes that the U.S. government is monkeying with?  No, not really.  But not liking a regime doesn't mean I want to topple it using a relativistic approach.

I can be against elected national socialistic regimes without undermining them by using relativistic means.  I guess the democratic process is the best in the world until it isn't.  That seems to be the criteria the U.S. government uses.

U.S. "interests" trump everything, apparently.  Why would we support it?

The article below mentions an Oliver Stone documentary at the end called "South of the Border."  It's a bit dry.  It makes the point over and over that the U.S. foreign policy is being used all over South America.  The cable confirms this notion.  Internally, the U.S. has no issue secretly attempting to topple governments it doesn't like.  And while these South American governments are socialist regimes that are totally wrong, it doesn't mean anyone has to police them and "fix" them, at tax payers expense.

Believe me, I think people like Hugo Chavez and his ilk are a desease of South America masquerading as its own cure.  But U.S. involvement is like recommending cancer as a cure for AIDS.

All the U.S. does is make enemies for itself.  It spreads the IMF and the DEA which actually create more problems than they solve.  And this is the democracy that is so wonderful?  Really?

The Oliver Stone documentary also holds out the hope that the Obama Administration would correct the mistakes of past administrations.  It looks like this specific leaked cable proves nothing of the sort.  No administration is willing to leave its neighbors alone.  Yet supposedly the U.S. is hated for its freedom.  But we all suffer the consequences, giving ammunition for our neighbors hate us.

By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." The Embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: "none... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the Embassy said, and their action -- the Embassy described it as an "abduction" and "kidnapping" -- was clearly unconstitutional.

It is inconceivable that any top U.S. official responsible for U.S. policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department's Legal Adviser; and Dan Restrepo, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton.

But despite the fact that the U.S. government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the U.S. did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except "democracy assistance," as required by U.S. law.

Instead, a month after this cable was sent, the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28 -- in particular, "who did what to whom" and the constitutionality of these actions -- were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly "who did what to whom" and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out U.S. law, invented a legal distinction between a "coup" and a "military coup," claiming that the State Department's lawyers had to determine whether a "military coup" took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff.

QUESTION: And so - sorry, just a follow-up. If this is a coup - the State Department considers this a coup, what's the next step? And I mean, there is a legal framework on the U.S. laws dealing with countries that are under coup d'état? I mean, what's holding you guys [back from taking] other measures according [to] the law?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I think what you're referring to, Mr. Davila, is whether or not this is - has been determined to be a military coup. And you're correct that there are provisions in our law that have to be applied if it is determined that this is a military coup. And frankly, our lawyers are looking at that exact question. And when we get the answer to that, you are right, there will be things that - if it is determined that this was a military coup, there will be things that will kick in.

As you know, on the ground, there's a lot of discussion about who did what to whom and what things were constitutional or not, which is why our lawyers are really looking at the event as we understand them in order to come out with the accurate determination.

 

But the July 24 cable shows that this was nonsense. The phrase "military coup" occurs nowhere in the document, a remarkable omission in a cable from the Embassy presenting the Embassy's analysis of the June 28 events, their constitutionality and legality one month after the fact, if that were a crucial distinction in assessing U.S. policy. And indeed, initial press reports on the statements of top U.S. officials in response to the coup made no such distinction, using the descriptions "coup" and "military coup" interchangeably.

Why did the State Department drag its feet, pretending that facts which it knew to be clear-cut were murky? Why didn't the State Department speak publicly after July 24 with the same moral clarity as the July 24 cable from the Embassy in Honduras? Had the State Department shared publicly the Embassy's clear assessment of the June 28 events after July 24, history might have turned out differently, because supporters of the coup in the United States -- including Republican Members of Congress and media talking heads -- continued to dispute basic facts about the coup which the US Embassy in Honduras had reported were not subject to reasonable dispute, and U.S. media reporting on the coup continued to describe these facts as subject to reasonable dispute, long after the Embassy had firmly declared that they were not.

As the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted in an August 2009 report, in the previous 12 months the U.S. had responded to other coups by cutting U.S. aid within days. In these cases -- in Africa -- there was no lengthy deliberation on whether a "coup" was a "military coup."

What was the difference?

A key difference was that Honduras is in Central America, "our backyard," so different rules applied. Top officials in Washington supported the political aims of the coup. They did not nominally support the means of the coup, as far as we know, but they supported its political end: the removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. On the other hand, they were politically constrained not to support the coup openly, since they knew it to be illegal and unconstitutional. Thus, they pursued a "diplomatic compromise," which would "restore constitutional order" while achieving the coup's central political aim: removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. The effect of their efforts at "diplomatic compromise" was to allow the coup to stand, a result that these supporters of the coup's political aims were evidently content with.

Why does this matter now?

First, the constitutional and political crisis in Honduras is ongoing, and the failure of the U.S. to take immediate, decisive action in response to the coup was a significant cause of the ongoing crisis. After nominally opposing the coup, and slowly and fitfully implementing partial sanctions against the coup regime in a way that did not convince the coup regime that the U.S. was serious, the U.S. moved to support elections under the coup regime which were not recognized by the rest of the hemisphere, and today the U.S. is lobbying for the government created by that disputed election to be readmitted to the Organization of American States, in opposition to most of the rest of the hemisphere, despite ongoing, major violations of human rights in Honduras, about which the U.S. is doing essentially nothing.

Second, the relationship of actual U.S. policy -- as opposed to rhetorical pronouncements -- to democracy in the region is very much a live issue from Haiti to Bolivia.

Yesterday there was an election in Haiti. This election was funded by the U.S., despite the fact that major parties were excluded from participation by the government's electoral council, a fact that Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, in addition to NGOs, complained about without result. The Washington Post reports that the election ended with "nearly all the major candidates calling for the results to be tossed out amid 'massive fraud.'": "12 of the 19 candidates on Sunday's ballot appeared together at a raucous afternoon news conference to accuse the government of President Rene Preval of trying to steal the election and install his chosen candidate, Jude Celestin."

Yesterday's election in Haiti had the fingerprints of the U.S. government all over it. It was funded by the U.S. "Security" for the election was purportedly provided by UN troops, paid for by the U.S. And the crucial historical context of the election was the 2004 coup that deposed democratically-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, a coup engineered by the U.S. with years of economic destruction clearly intended to topple the elected government.

Last week, Bolivian President Evo Morales called out the U.S. for its recent history of supporting coups in the region.

AP's treatment of President Morales' remarks was instructive:

Morales also alleged U.S. involvement in coup attempts or political upheaval in Venezuela in 2002, Honduras in 2009 and Ecuador in 2010.

"The empire of the United States won," in Honduras, Morales said, a reference to the allegations of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that the U.S. was behind his ouster.

"The people of the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, we won," Morales continued. "We are three to one with the United States. Let's see what the future brings."

U.S. officials have repeatedly denied involvement in all of those cases and critics of the United States have produced no clear evidence. [my emphasis]

It's certainly true that critics have produced "no clear evidence" of U.S. "involvement" in any of these cases -- if your standard for "clear evidence" of U.S. "involvement" is a US government document that dictated in advance everything that subsequently happened. But this would be like saying that critics have produced "no clear evidence" for the Armenian Genocide because researchers haven't yet found a Turkish Mein Kampf. [Some who dispute that there was an "Armenian Genocide" do actually claim something like this -- "there is no proof of a plan" -- but claims like this are generally not taken seriously by U.S. media -- except when the U.S. government is an author of the crime, and the crime is recent.]

 

In the case of the coup in Venezuela in 2002, we know the following:

- Groups in Venezuela that participated in the coup had been supported financially and politically by the U.S.

- The CIA had advance knowledge of the plans for a coup, and did nothing to warn the Venezuelan government; nor did the US do anything meaningful to try to stop the coup.

- Although the US knew in advance about the plans for a coup, when these events played out, the US tried to claim that there was no coup.

- The US pushed for international recognition of the coup government.

- The International Monetary Fund, which would not take such action without advance approval from the United States, announced its willingness to support the coup government a few hours after the coup took place.

These facts about U.S. government "involvement" in the coup in Venezuela are documented in Oliver Stone's recent movie, South of the Border. This is why it's so important for as many Americans as possible to see this movie: because there are basic facts about the relationship of actual U.S. government policies -- as opposed to rhetoric -- to democracy in Latin America that major U.S. media simply cannot be counted upon to report straight. In order to successfully agitate for meaningful reform of U.S. government policy in Latin America, Americans have to know what the actual policy of the U.S. government has been, something they are unlikely to learn from major U.S. media.

And this is why Just Foreign Policy is urging Americans to organize house parties on December 10 -- Human Rights Day -- to watch South of the Border. You can sign up to host a screening here.

Here is a clip from South of the Border, in which Scott Wilson, formerly foreign editor of the Washington Post, describes the "involvement" of the U.S. in the coup in Venezuela:

And here is a clip from South of the Border in which President Morales talks with Oliver Stone about the role of the media:

Oliver Stone: "Now [Morales] is joining the Hugo ranks, becoming more the 'bad left' in the American media."

President Morales: "The media will always try to criminalize the fight against neoliberalism, colonialism, and imperialism. It's almost normal. The worst enemy I have is the media."

 

South of the Border Clip #2 from Cinema Libre Studio on Vimeo.

 

Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman

via huffingtonpost.com

 

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Private Banking and Other Free Market Myths

It's time to have an adult conversation about private vs. public.  There is no private banking system, at least not on the large scale.  If we had a private banking system, it would be able to go under.  The ability to fail is one of the main criteria that makes something private.  Safety nets obscure this notion.  It blurs this distinction.  If the safety net is big enough and strong enough, it obliterates this distinction.

No organization that is shielded from failure is private.  It can't be.  Failure avoidance is the incentive that makes organizations efficient.

If you could eat ten cheesecakes with no risk, wouldn't you?  I mean no risk at all.  If the cheesecakes were free ... if you knew you wouldn't feel sick later in the short term ... if you knew you wouldn't gain weight in the long term ... if you knew you would have no chance of a coronary in the very long term ... what would stop you from eating ten cheesecakes every day?

Failure and risk are natural checks and balances.  It's the ultimate cost of doing business.

The same is true financially as with the cheesecakes.  There is no credible risk of a large bank going under.  Even if a bank looks like its at risk, it will be absorbed by another.  Assets will be transferred, liabilities will be wiped out.  The executives get their pay.  Their bonus will resume.  Did you know CEO bonuses are higher today than they've ever been, even in the middle of this recession?

 

I don't want to focus on the bonuses.  They are a drop in the bucket.  Focusing on executive bonus is just an indicator, similar to porkbarrel spending, which is also a drop in the bucket.  But if you want to know the health of an institution, take executive bonuses for banks and porkbarrel spending for legislators to extrapolate.  When they're out of whack, the institution is in trouble.

"Too Big To Fail" is just a cute euphemism for nationalization.  The banks have been nationalized long long ago.  You could say it happened in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created.  It took a long time to devalue the currency to this point.  It's just like the frog in luke-warm water.  The frog has been in there a very long time.  It's a very tender frog.

In the real private industry, if you do a bad job, your profits are hit at some point.  You might be able to shield or cloak your losses for a while.  But eventually, reality sets in and you have to deal with the problem.  The more deception used to shield the loss, the more the losses pile up.  And if you can just call your "uncle" to make the losses just disappear, then guess what?  You are no longer in the private industry.  You've been nationalized.  It's that simple.

So what's wrong with nationalization?  Well, the failure guarantee is no longer implicit.  The failure guarantee becomes explicit.  Is there an implicit guarantee for banks anymore?  No.  It's completely explicit.  Therefore, they are a nationalized industry.  There's no need for speculating when nationalization will happen.  It's a done deal.  The implicit guarantee is an indicator that will lead to the explicit guarantee.

Has healthcare been nationalized?  Yes it has.  Is the doctor guaranteed to get paid?  Well, at the moment, the guarantee is just implicit.  If enough of them suffer devastating losses (high malpractice, financial ruin from non-payment, anything you can think of), they will become "Too Important To Fail" (or come up with some other cute euphemism).  So while doctors are still at risk of financial ruin at the moment because the relationship between doctor and government hasn't been completely hammered out in practice, there is no doubt in my mind, if a sudden crisis hits the medical field, government will pull out the safety net.  If the sudden crisis isn't forthcoming, it will be created.  "Never waste a disaster," as they say.

Is this all some big mistake?  Nope, it's by design.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Bitcoin May Rise on Demand for Alternative Currencies, Survey Shows

Bitcoin, which rose to a record this week, may extend its advance on demand for an alternate currencies, a survey found.

Twelve of 18 traders, investors and analysts surveyed that the "crypto-currency" will gain next week. Five forecast lower prices and one was neutral. Bitcoin rose to a record 9.2¢ today by the end of trading on BitcoinMarket.

The dollar yesterday slid to the lowest level against the yen in 15 years and dropped to an eight-month low against the euro on speculation that the Federal Reserve will ease monetary policy more to bolster U.S. growth. The Bank of Japan lowered its main interest rate to “virtually zero” this week.

It is speculated that as long as central banks are willing to be led by the Fed down a never-ending pathway of debasement, bitcoin will continue to rise.

The weekly bitcoin survey that started six months ago has forecast prices accurately in 19 of 33 weeks, or 58 percent of the time.

This week’s survey results: Bullish: 12 Bearish: 5 Neutral: 1

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

The Good Stuff

I am told I am a very negative person and I don't say enough good things about the United States.  Well, part of that is because we so often base our perception of the US as being its government.  But the people are the rulers, thus the elected officials are the servant government.  At least, that's how it should be.  There is also supposed to be a division between a country's private sector and its public sector, otherwise we have state run for-profit initiatives, which is a bad thing (fascism).

So I've decided to look for the good things about American, inside and outside the government.  This is by no means an exhaustive list.  This is more-or-less a grouping of accolades and accomplishments I've singled out for specific reasons.

And remember, all praise is relative opinion.

Warren G. Harding

I was asked who my favorite president was in the last 150 years.  Off the bat, President Warren G. Harding came to mind.  The reason is, when they started to see economic problems, his solution was to invite his buddies over to the White House to play cards and drink booze.

I like that approach.  Doing nothing was a pretty good plan.  True Laissez-faire.

In other words, he did nothing and the economic problems subsided quickly.  But in the process of doing nothing, he also allowed the Federal Reserve System to continue to exist, so that was a Bad Thing.  Not his fault, but not something he saw fit to fix either.

Harry Truman

There had to be another president on my list, so after doing a little more research, I've decided Harry Truman is another favorite.  He did a lot more than nothing.  He got the federal government out of the way of the free market.  He started to restore the gold standard after the war.  He repealed price controls that were put in place for the war.  In other words, he did things that were detrimental to the growth of the Federal Government.  He took his oath seriously.

Any president who puts us back on the gold standard gets a AAA rating in my book.  If Bush had done it even after all of what has happened, even after saying, "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system," I would have given him a AAA rating if he would have at least put us back on the gold standard.  Keep in mind, if Bush did that, the dollar would probably have to be revalued to $40,000 per gold ounce instead of $35 like in Truman's day, but that's a step in the right direction (I just pulled that number out of the air, same place the dollar comes from).

SpaceX

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American space-transportation startup company founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It is developing partially reusable launch vehicles - the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 - and the Dragon series of space capsules.

Source: Wikipedia

The reason this is impressive is that they did this in spite of all the resistance and interference of the government.  But it also illustrates where private industry is technologically.

Chinese Food

Technically, I'm referring to American-Chinese Food, but this 15 minute video sums it all up:

Is America Number One?

Here's an ABC special from late 1999 featuring John Stossel.  It's 40 minutes long and outlines exactly why I'm happy to be here.

Coming To America

So there you have it.  That's the good stuff about America.  I'm sure there's a lot more, but remember, I'm a curmudgeon.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Providing Effective Services

If you were doing business with an organization that made the same mistake fifty times and, try as they might, they were never able to correct the problem, would you continue doing business with them?

Say you want a nice New York style cheesecake for your dear old mother's birthday each year.  Every year, you go to the same bakery, and every year, for fifty years, they fail to print her name on the cake correctly.  And her name is Gurtrude, so maybe you understand it's not the easiest name to get right.  But would you really go back to the same bakery year after year, times fifty?

If this was the only bakery in town, maybe you'd eventually go to the next town, just to see if someone, anyone, can get her name right, just once.

Or maybe you'd attempt to write the happy birthday message yourself.  How hard can it be?  At this point, you might reason that if a bakery can't handle this, what makes anyone think they can produce a tasty cheesecake in the first place?  You might just make your own.

In other words, you have options.  That  fact alone keeps stuff like this from happening fifty times in real life.  After about the third time, the bakery will realize they need to handle the problem because they're losing business because of their own ineptitude.

So this other story didn't take place over the course of fifty years like my illustration.  But a mistake was made fifty times (and cheesecake was involved, although it wasn't part of the ongoing problem).

This should help illustrate two things.

First, monopoly is a bad idea.  If an organization is able to remove choice and alternatives, how can effective pressure be applied to that organization if it has systemic flaws?  The only way to initiate change in such an organization is from the inside.  But the removal of choice and alternatives means internal change has less, if any, motive.

Second, if they can't fix this problem, an honest mistake, what assurance does anyone have to expect other more serious problems to be addressed, especially when they can so easily be hidden by the thin blue line?

NYC cops sorry for pounding couple's door 50 times

NEW YORK (AP) - Cheesecake in hand, the police commissioner personally apologized Friday for the 50 or so mistaken, door-pounding visits that police have made to the home of a bewildered elderly Brooklyn couple in the past eight years.

It seems a glitch in computer records had led them over and over to Walter and Rose Martin's modest home in the Marine Park neighborhood, about 7 miles southeast of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The most recent intrusion came Tuesday, with officers pounding on both the front and back doors, yelling "Police, open up!"

On Thursday, detectives from the NYPD's Identity Theft Squad went to see the Martins again - this time to apologize. "And we wanted to be sure perps weren't using that address for identity theft," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told The Associated Press on Friday.

The detectives told 82-year-old Rose and 83-year-old Walter that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had ordered them to solve the problem, which started eight years ago and was first reported this week in the New York Daily News.

To bring home the sincerity of the NYPD's contrition, Kelly showed up Friday at the Martin's house with a gift: New York cheesecake.

The commissioner rolled into the quiet Brooklyn neighborhood at midday, stopping in front of the Martins' small, neatly kept house, a large American flag fluttering by the front door.

Kelly "went to apologize - and to explain," Browne said. "They expressed appreciation that the police commissioner came and they showed him pictures of their grandchildren."

The snafu started in 2002, when police used the Brooklyn address as part of what Browne called "random material" to test an automated computer system that tracks crime complaints and records of other internal police information. Before that, the work was done manually.

The couple first complained about the harrowing police visits in 2007, when Rose Martin wrote a letter to Kelly. "And we identified the problem then," Browne said. "It was a mistake by the police department."

Police wiped the Martins' address from the system.

Or so they thought, Browne said. Instead, the visits continued, and some computer files bearing the Martins' address stayed in the system.

"We thought all the test data had been purged, but apparently it had not," Browne said. "The Martins' address ended up migrating to various complaint forms and warrant information."

Most of the visits came in 2006 and 2007, he said. After the latest, "We realized we still had a problem and went back and further purged the records," the deputy commissioner conceded.

To make sure it will never happen again, Browne said the address has been flagged with alerts, so if there's any record indicating officers should question the Martins, "they're barred from doing it."

Rose Martin has asked the department to write her an official letter to that effect.

"It seems like too simple a correction for something that has been going on for eight years," she told the New York Daily News, which first reported the story.

"I'm not feeling well today," she told the AP after the commissioner's visit, adding that neither she nor her husband could comment.

But they did their best to carry on their business. Walter Martin left the house briefly to walk the dog, with a young man helping him.

Source: AP

I have attached a podcast short (25 minute) episode from "School Sucks Podcast: The END of Public Education" that explains how government provides services versus how regular people provide services.  The only difference is that this podcast episode uses education to illustrate the business plan.  But it's the same for any government service, including police and public education.

Episode 1: The "Business" Plan by School Sucks Podcast: The End Of Public Education  
Download now or listen on posterous

Episode 1_ The _Business_ Plan.mp3 (17381 KB)

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Pricing Strategies for Consumers of Information Technology

When you buy Internet-based information technology solutions like web hosting or online backups, here's a tip on making sure you're getting the most bang-for-your-buck.

PRO-TIP: Does the Internet-based service you use improve every one to two years?

In general terms, something should have doubled every 18 months to bring down the price.  The hosting company must have upgraded something in that time, doubling their capacity in some way.  That pressure should have translated to more bang-for-your-buck.  If not, then the hosting company is keeping the profit for themselves (which is their choice) and you need to look to their competitor or else you are paying too much and getting nothing in return (which is your choice).

The most notorious offender is your (ISP) Internet Service Provider.  If you pay the same amount every month with no improvement for years, there's a good chance you're being screwed.  But there is a caveat to this.  I'll explain.

There's many ways to measure this "bang-for-buck" unit.  Let's assume it's a web hosting service.  How can a web hosting service improve every one or two years?  Does the hosting service give you more space and/or more bandwidth over that time or are you having to delete content?  Do pages load in a measurably better way or is it getting worse over time?  Does the monthly service fee go down or is it staying the same?  Do they add perks like improved backups or are there no improvements at all?

They don't have to improve all of the above every year, but at least one thing should improve.  And if nothing improves, you should consider getting rid of that over-priced service and switching to some other solution.

I would say the only exception to this rule is if the service offers any kind of unlimited feature that you use.  So a web hosting service that offers unlimited bandwidth might be worth keeping even if nothing else improves over time.  But if you don't use that unlimited feature and you're paying for something you don't need, it's as if there was a limit and you should consider another solution.

Also remember that the 18 months is a rough guess.  You may recognize the 18 months number as that of Moore's Law.  But it is incorrect to assume Moore's Law applies to all aspects information technology.  Moore's Law is very specific to the number of transistors density.  It does not necessarily translate to other aspects of information technology.  It's just a rough estimate.

Bottom line is, if you've been using any Internet-based solutions for two years or more and not a single aspect of that solution has ever changed, nothing is unlimited, and not even the price has dropped, it's time to look for an alternative.  Even if the price stays the same, relative price inflation usually cannot account for any improvement.  Meaning, even if the price has never kept up with the rate of inflation, that doesn't mean you're paying less in real terms because information technology generally outpaces inflation.

Back to what I was saying about ISPs.  Typically, you pay the same, month after month, and you get unlimited bandwidth.  But do you actually need it?  It's rare to find a domestic ISP that actually meters bandwidth.  Typically, your phone company or cable company gives you unlimited bandwidth specifically because it's easier to calculate.  But do you actually use this feature?

I would rather pay an extra $200 a year for going over my bandwidth limit on occasion if the monthly fee is lower.  But those kinds of services are pretty unusual for domestic Internet access.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Let's All Say It Like George Takei (aka Sulu)

"Oh my!"

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Following All Regulations

I cite as a sort of an addendum to a previous article I wrote on the subject, something Samuel Edward Konkin, III (SEK3) wrote:

If all regulations passed in any country you wish to name were completely obeyed, let alone enforced, we would all be dead.

Consider a particularly pathological case in the United States of America.  If you charge a price for your product higher than your competitors, this is taken as evidence under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that you have a monopoly and charges may be brought against you.  The same problem arises if you charge the same; that is considered evidence of a cartel and you and your competitors can all be fined.  Finally, if you charge less than your competitors, you are violating the "Fair Trade" laws in most states and can be arrested and fined.  It is impossible to obey all the regulations.

Source: The Agorist Primer, p. 39

I heard a joke along these lines from a Mises conference.  I'm sorry, I don't remember who originally told it.  The joke goes like this:

There were three soviet prisoners comparing stories about why they were in prison.  The first one said he was in prison because he was late to work.  He was accused of being lazy.  The second said he in prison for the same thing, only it was because he was early to work.  He was accused of being too competitive.  The third prisoner was always on time to work.  He was accused of having an American watch.

It's kind-of sad because these Soviet vs. American jokes are dated and don't make much sense anymore.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

My Great-Uncle Alfred

I have a fictitious great-uncle Alfred.  Everything he says is to be taken with a grain of salt.  He is a huge curmudgeon and ultra-contrarian.  If you tell him the sky is blue, he will tell you it's not really blue because yadda-yadda-yadda.  His reasoning is deeply flawed because he is senile.  But he doesn't know his flaws.  He just knows he's always right.  Most of the time he's not.  But sometimes, he says things that are profound and actually do follow logically.  After all, a stopped clock is right twice a day (unless it's military, then it's only right once a day).

 

A contrarian is a person with a preference for taking a position opposed to that of the majority view prevalent in the group of which they are a part.  Both Alfred and I are contrarians.  But Alfred is a total nut who can't be taken seriously and doesn't care anyway.  I, on the other hand, do care.  I want to be taken seriously and it bothers me to be ignored, unlike Alfred.

 

So if you tell Alfred he is sitting inside a motor vehicle, he will tell you there is no such thing as an "inside" to a motor vehicle.  The concept of "inside" is define in topological terms to him.  In topology, an object cannot have an "inside" if it also has a hole.  Alfred is technically correct from the standpoint of this very specific area of mathematics concerned with spatial properties.  But normal people do not think in those terms.  Alfred doesn't comprehend the normal terms.  He just assumes everybody knows what the heck he's talking about.  He is only interested in being contarian and you're supposed to know that if you're talking to him.  Alfred probably should be confined to a rubber room because although topology is an important area of study within mathematics, it is not something we apply in day-to-day life.  He wouldn't be inside the rubber room anyway, so he'd probably be fine with that situation.

 

I use the idea of Alfred in an attempt to temper my own assumptions.  When I am being contrarian in a dialog or debate (which is 99% of the time, it seems), these days I try to listen to myself as if Alfred is talking.  If this old curmudgeon says things that just sound off-the-wall, maybe they are.  Maybe I need to modify how I express my ideas so that they couldn't be said by Alfred.

 

For instance, if I say I don't trust government, isn't that exactly how Alfred would say it?  So maybe I can word it better.  If I word it in such a way that it is atypical of Alfred but still gets the same point across, my idea will be more convincing.

 

Instead of saying I don't trust the government, maybe I could assert that government doesn't seem to act in the best interest of most people.  That is a more reasonable assertion.  And it's also very atypical of something Alfred would say.

 

Alfred is also very set in his ways.  He learned one way to think about things and applies that way to all new situations.

 

Me: Have you ever heard of a "collar" trade in the stock market?  It's a risk management strategy that combines a covered call and a protective put.

 

Alfred: They're nuts!  That reminds me of portfolio insurance back in the 80's or credit default swaps in the 2000's.  The problem with using these schemes is that if everybody does it, there's not enough liquidity in a crisis to protect everyone's asses when everything unwinds at once.

 

Maybe Alfred is right about that.  But then again, maybe the markets figure out a way to address the lack of liquidity for massive collar trades.  I'm not saying there wouldn't be new problems as result of solving lack of liquidity.  But the specific problem Alfred cites isn't necessarily how it will go down just because that's what happened in the past.

 

Alfred thinks in absolute terms.  He is fine with his totalogy and this makes him frustrating to talk to.  Unfortunately, it is all too easy for me to sound like Alfred.  Even when I go to the trouble of carefully wording my assertions (something I don't always do), other people immediately hear Alfred anyway.

 

Besides, cermudgeons who end up being right only become bigger cermudgeons.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog