Water Index

A link on the Yahoo Finance site described the creation of a water index by IBM and Waterfund, LLC.  The index intends to be for water what  the Case-Schiller Index is for housing.

IBM needs no explanation.  Waterfund on the other hand "is developing Software-as-a-Service solutions to measure the financial risk of supplying freshwater. Waterfund is also pioneering the first financial risk management products catered to the needs of the water industry."  Make of that what you will.

The story reminded me that someone I knew had put a great deal of money into a company named Pure Safe Water Systems (PSWS).  He'd had business dealings with the company, was favorably impressed, and expected his investment to provide a comfortable retirement.

From time to time I'd checked on the stock because I've been interested in water for a several decades since a newsletter from my local water service showed that the cost of providing potable water had increase several fold over time.  Most of the increase seemed to come from testing and purification, not from infrastructure costs.

Shortly after that I heard of a bet between two eminent economists concerning the cost of raw material/commodities over time.  The details are fuzzy now, but I think the one who said that commodities actually got cheaper with time bet that the other economist couldn't identify a  number of commodities whose cost would increase over the next several years.

When I heard that, I said I would take that bet with everything I owned and bet on the cost of water.  Potable water is getting scarcer around the world.  Just look at the rising consumption of bottled water over the last few decades.

PSWS which among other things makes portable water purification systems seemed poised to take advantage of the increased number of natural disasters.  Prognostication should be so simple.

The first time I checked the price, the stock was selling for about 25¢ and the person was expecting the price to go to $1 in a few years. 

It was not to be.  There have been some interesting money-making opportunity when the price went from 10¢ to 15¢ and again 6.5¢ to 10¢, but in general, the price has gone down.

My heart sank when I saw the closing price today: 0.0021 0.0002(8.70%).

By any measure whatever money he'd put in was now worth less than 1% of what it had been when he first told me about the company.  (For those who avoid math at all costs, it looks like this:  for every dollar he invested he now has less than a penny)

I Learn Too Much About File Cabinets

Ordered to vacate an office (translation: get all your junk out of the office) I started hauling out all my accumulated shelving and cabinets.

Now I use "my" to indicate stuff the school discarded and I salvaged.  "Discard" means that someone wrote "Discard" or "Trash" on a note and stuck the note on the object and I, always cautious of running afoul of  regulations, would ask the janitor or an administrator if I could have it.

The usual justification for allowing an individual to take an unwanted piece of furniture stems from the fact that the school doesn't have an office of surplus equipment to recover some of the costs.  If furniture is actually discarded the school incurs additional costs assigning workers from Facilities to take a truck to pick up the stuff, bring it to a compactor, and then pay a carter to haul the trash away.  Letting an employee haul it away is far cheaper.

I performed my usual feats of strength and leverage getting the stuff down the school stairs (ramps are for sissies), into and out of a van, up and down my stairs.  That would seem to be end of it, but the fact that I'm writing this tells you otherwise.

My modus operandi for getting file cabinets down the stairs involves removing the draws to reduce the weight, align a pair of long 2x4's to serve as rails, and then with the file cabinet on its back, gradually slide the cabinet down the stairs.

All went well until I had difficulty putting the draws back in.  Three went in with no problem, but the fourth was a real problem.  I though that I might have put them in the wrong position.  (The file cabinet frame can get deformed slightly, but just enough to make it difficult to get the draw in it's original position.)

I tried swapping draws and then something happened.  I pushed too hard or pulled at the wrong angle or something, because I heard little pinging sounds as ball bearings popped out of their races and dropped into the draw below or flew against the side and fell to the floor.

Yes dear friends, I faced the mechanical equivalent of forcing toothpaste back in the tube.  The lighting wasn't good so it was time to find the trouble light and an outlet and a way to hang the trouble light so I could find the bearings.  It took a few minutes of searching to find all but 5 of the 60 missing ball bearings.  I don't have images, but the ball bearings were held in place by very thin lips of metal so it wasn't too difficult to pry up the metal, put the bearings back, and then, carefully bend the races back to hold the bearings.

The next file cabinet I moved used rollers instead of ball bearings.  Even better, the rollers were on a frame which could also be removed to make the file cabinet even lighter. 

The take home message is to be careful when sliding the file cabinet draws.

eBook Shock and Puzzle

As an instructor, I can review books on line at CourseSmart.  The first book I looked at started with a great quote from Einstein and then presented this challenge in the first two paragraphs:

Yes, dear friends, when I looked at the eBook preview of A balanced introduction to computer science by David Reed––2nd ed. the letters 'w', 'v', and 'y' were missing.

Perhaps only the preview lacks the letters, but I was not in the mood to investigate.

The Problem with College for Men

According to Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) on NPR the problem with college education for men is that at that point in life that they're interested in the opposite sex and, best of all, their zits have receded increasing the probability that their interest will be reciprocated.

They also mentioned that they're being investigated for taking performance decreasing drugs.

17 Hollow Way/Voyeur by Invitation

Garage and estate sales fascinate me.  Where else can you paw through or look at such intimate stuff?  (Yeah, yeah, you see it all the time on TV or at the checkout counter.  Or maybe you read a tell all book about the fiery love story between Justin the Heart Throb and Tiffany the Good Girl.  But those are celebrities, public people.  I'm talking about ordinary, or maybe not so ordinary people, but generally those whose names won't be recognized.)

A few weeks ago there was an estate sale on an estate.  Google maps put it I looked it up on the peninsula.  If you look at the map you can get some size of the estate by comparing the size of the house to the size of the grounds.

I didn't catch the name of the people who organized the sale, but they knew how to do chicken right.  Their green signs started 5 miles before the location and were located just beyond the intersections to guide you there.  I made a point of telling them that I appreciated their signage.

If nothing else, the sign on the brick pillar set the tone. 

There really wasn't much there for me.  I got a few (3) books.  The library wasn't large and seemed to have tomes on business success and romantic novels.  His and hers I'd guess.  After making quick work of the books I went looking around.

There was the usual abbreviated history electronics: VCRs, DVD players, and generations of wireless phones.  I didn't find much else of interest.  I never know whether the good stuff had been skimmed already or if the family wasn't interested in high-end cutlery and cookware.  There were several pieces of furniture which appeared extra-ordinary.  (Please take my word for it.  I left the camera in the car.)  There were a number of what appeared to be stuffed eagles.  Wasn't that illegal.

What was interesting was that I didn't have exact change so I had to wait for the guy with the "slicked-back hair".  When he appeared (and his hair didn't looked the way I expected slicked back hair to appear) I couldn't find the bill.  There I was holding 3 books and looking between the books, on the floor, searching my pockets - obviously flustered.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.

I paid. He put the books in a very nice new shopping bag.  Very classy.  I then reprised my fumbling looking for the receipt.  "Is this that you're looking for?" he asked, pointing to the bill sitting in plain sight (and all alone) on the table.

"Yup." 

After I got back to the car I got my camera to take the pictures.  One of the people leaving had one of the birds.  It's OK he said, it's not a real eagle.

I looked up the property on a real estate site.  In brief, 5 bed, 6.5 bath, and $1,799,000.

Parsle, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and My Johnny Was a Shoemaker

I was listening to Pandora when - well it sounded like Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme (actually "Scarborough Fair/Canticle"), but it turned out to be a medley from John Renbourn's "The Lady and the Unicorn" including "Scarborough Fair".

I embarrassed myself.  A mistake like that would have seemed a grievous error when I was younger.  It seemed important to know the provenance of songs when I was in college.  Dealing with folk tunes or the blues gave everyone an opportunity to look foolish.  Riffs and lyrics were stolen/borrowed promiscuously.  Someone could get all agitated to learn that their shining light, authentic blues man had stolen from Lightning Hopkins or Blind Lemon.  (It didn't help that there was a  Johnson and a Blind Lemon Jefferson.)  Most of us seemed to come to an accommodation with the realization that somethings would never be resolved.

I've gotten to the state where I'm grateful to remember that I've heard a song before, and upset that I can't remember where.

My Life Flashed Before Me

Pardon the pun.  I went for a flu shot today. 

Most of the stuff I usually carry with me was still in the plastic bag I'd put them in when I went to the pool the evening before.  I wasn't sure I'd need cash so I transferred the stuff into my pants pockets.

 Not everything it seems. 

When I got back to the car, there, lying on the ground, was my flash drive with a semester's worth of documents.  (Yes, there are copies of the files on the University's network and at home, but still, I'm certain there were stray files which are only on the flash drive.)