Market Up a Little/Excess Cash

The announcer on NPR this morning said that the market was up "a little". The market was up over 200 points!

It makes me wonder yet again what the bleep is happening in this world. With unemployment somewhere near 10% (and higher among Blacks), the service economy in the toilet, and parents and student anxious about returning to school, why is the market up?

Wall Street pundits repeat the mantra, "Wall Street is not Main Street" often enough to explain why the price of a stock going up when a large company announces yet another huge round of layoff. The company has just reduced expenses why shouldn't the profits increase?

I stumbled over a description of Benjamin Graham forcing Northern Pipeline Company to distribute its "excess cash" to shareholders in 1927. The idea of excess cash is interesting for several reason, one of which is how one decides what excess is. 

 At one time in the mythological economic past the stakeholders involved the company, the stockholders, the employees, and communities. If one imagines communities where most of the jobs were dependent on a local employer you get the idea. The owner and his family had to face employees in the town.  There was responsibility and face and pride involved.

Change that to a board in a far off city who feel beholden only to shareholders and the difference becomes in focus to the detriment of the workers.

Why should employees feel a loyalty to a company whose only loyalty is to the faceless group who bought their stock?

Algorithmic Failure

Anyone who's been on the web recognizes that something is being tracked, otherwise why do the same ads for that thing keep showing up on different web sites? 

In my case I usually see ads for watches.  I often click on watch ads and announcements to see if there's something interesting.  Watch mechanisms fascinate me.  Just recently I noted that some new watches don't have crown guards.  

That there are watch rental web sites is fascinating.  I read a piece where a journalists felt he got an exclusive interview because the person spotted an expensive (rental) watch and deduced that the journalist was someone important/influential enough to warrant more consideration.

With that said about watches I wear one I got for $1 at a tag sale (and $10 more getting the battery replaced).  It tells time and suits me just fine. This is what it should look like, except that some of the bezel paint has flaked off mine.  (I probably could have bought one new for the same cost, but hey, I didn't know that then and I needed a watch.)

 So after that diversion about watches, what should show up as an ad on a comic site but an eBay ad for an "Advanced Aquaduck, Duck Puller Tool, Stainless Steel Tip, One Piece Shaft" a steal at a little over $50

and a "23 pcs Cup Type Aluminium Oil Filter Wrench Removal Socket Remover Tool Set Kit" for under $40.

Why?

My guess is that I was on eBay looking for something like the snow mobile boots I remembered from years ago.  Did that mark me as a man's man who needed tools?  

Perhaps you can boost your ego by searching for condominiums costing more than $2M.  My curiosity  about the cost of used Maserati resulted in those ads to popping up for several weeks.  (One of my students said, yeah, the price is reasonable, but the maintenance will kill you.  I take his word for it.)

Should we be annoyed or flattered if an algorithm is literally targeting us with ads suitable for a higher socio-economic class?  Forget about crows feet, varicose veins, and other signs of aging, Viking Cruise ads appearing in your feed signal that it's time to update your will.

.

Mad Rush

Setting for a long session of grading and responding to students end-of-semeseter anguish, I turned to Philip Glass's performance of "Mad Rush" in Montreal (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q0G0-9E5SE).  In the comments echo_delta wrote: "Somebody's soul is invisible, but sometimes you can hear it.", a phrase I hope to remember. 

For some though,  you  can feel it.

On Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom  $11 billion accounting fraud in 2002) being released from prison for medical reasons Snarky Jackhole posted: "'Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.' - Terry Goodkind" on finance.yahoo.com.

He's probably suffering, but the judge, Valerie E. Caproni, said she'd explain her reasoning later.  For those who saw their 401K's wiped out, their future stolen, there was no mercy.  He served 13 years of a 25 year sentence.

People will be watching to see if he miraculously recovers.

Palin Divorce

I was struck by this line in the  Washington Examiner story:'"It's not over': Sarah Palin says she is fighting to repair her marriage ":
"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she learned her husband, Todd, wanted a divorce in an email from his lawyer and that the two are seeking counseling."  (www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/its-not-over-sarah-palin-says-she-is-fighting-to-repair-her-marriage)

My first thought was, "What a gutless jerk!"  What, he wasn't man enough to tell her face to face?  (I stare in fascination that I even write "man enough".)  My second and subsequent thoughts were still "What a gutless jerk."  

There are many reasons to avoid Sarah Palin, so I can't blame her husband, former First Dude of Alaska, for wanting to get away/come to his senses, but her husband didn't have the simple courtesy to do it himself.  

What am I missing?  Was this executive type behavior: delegating authority so he could attend to the important business at hand like, driving a snowmobile , playing cards with the gang, or shooting wolves?  Or, wait!!  Maybe it hurt more to hear from his lawyer rather than him directly?.  Yeah, sorry, Todd is too busy binging on Queer Eye reruns.

We'll have to wait for the divorce.  

Barneys New York is Closing

Here's the NY times article describing the sale of the brand name: Barneys is Being Sold for Parts (www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/business/media/barneys-bankruptcy-authentic-brands.html).

Over the years, when I would hear the name or see an ad for Barneys I would remark, "The only reason I'd go to Barneys is to pass a bad check."

Many years ago I went to Barneys to buy a suit.  I was young (and stupid -and as Mark Twain remarked, I repeat myself) and wore sneakers.  Anyone interested in selling would have pointed out that one should wear the same foot ware when trying on a suit as one would wear with the suit so the suit could be properly fitted.  A good salesman might take a chance on suggesting that I should buy shoes and then the suit.  I didn't emit a master-of-the-universe vibe, but maybe I was a rock band's tour manager looking to go legit with cash to burn.   If Barneys had loaner shoes, but those weren't offered.

I felt that they actually sneered at my ignorance.  Fine enough.  I've suffered worse insults with a shrug.  What really made me mad was the way the salesmen treated the Japanese customers.

The Japanese economy at the time seemed poised to dominate the world.  The salesmen, most out of hearing of their Japanese customers, but well within mine, made insulting remarks about them.  While I can no longer quote what was said, the image of one salesman playing with a very young child as the mother stood near by has stayed with me all these years.

I presume the mother knew no English or had a will of steel because she didn't show any response as the salesman's smile as he played with the kid contrasted with his insults.

When the store was renovated to great acclaim I considered a visit, but never got around to it.  With the announcement that it was closing the Internet satisfied my curiosity.  An open sculpted look by the look of things, but not worth a personal look.

May Barney Pressman rest in piece.  The arrogant poseurs who worked there can rot in hell.  The rest will stand out from the rests of the unemployed with their bespoke suits.

My Lost Weekend

This was written over a month ago after the midterm exam in my computer drawing class but I didn't get around to editing it until just now about six months later..

This past weekend will be my Lost Weekend.

Film and literary historians will recognize the reference to the 1944 novel by Charles R. Jackson and the Academy Award winning movie of the same name made the following year.  In my case, the central problem obliterating all else in my case was 3 classes worth of midterms, not alcoholism.  At this point in my life, the trauma is in grading, not taking midterms.

As with the protagonist in the reference, the problem is my own character flaw: I want to be perceived as grading fairly.  Grading correct answers is easy: students get full credit and I'm on to the next answer.  Incorrect answers requires much more time.  For the course involving AutoCAD, I annotate each incorrect drawing  (incorrect or missing dimensions, lines not meeting correctly, or other technical errors), save a screen shot of the student work, and post that image to the grade book in the course web site to leave a clear record for the student and myself.

It takes a loooong time.

There was a particular problem on the final which could be an easy two minute job if you knew the trick.  The trick was covered in class, described in the book we use, and to make things even fairer, I posted a video online with the midterm so there should be no doubt how the drawing should be structured.  After all the midterms were submitted online I asked who in the class had watched the video.  Nobody.  Sigh.

So dispiriting.

Some  drawings had kinks where curved lines met where supposed to join seamless. Did the students not see the problem? 

(I fantasize about adapting Jack London's comment that after he's completed a piece he looks at it.   If it's good he sends it out.  If it isn't he sends it out.  (A web search couldn't find a reference to this quote.  A Jack London scholar/devotee couldn't place it either.)  Maybe, in those courses which there are written assignments I can just hand out slightly lower grades based on the quantity of buzzwords and wait for the students to complain.)

Welcoming Samara/International Living

The subject line gave me a start because of the obvious association with the preface to the famous  John O'Hara novel, "Appointment in Samarra".  The names are different, but close enough for me.

The email from International Living magazine described the marvelous expat life of a Canadian couple among the welcoming local Costa Ricans.  Ever cynical I couldn't shake the city's name association.

(For those who forgot the forward, here's the brief version of the brief story: a servant in Bagdad is startled by Death staring at him in the market place.  Frightened, the servant begs his master to let him flee to Samarra where Death won't be able to find him.  Later, the master accosts Death in the market and asks why Death frightened his servant.  Death replies that, contrary to what the servant said, it was he, Death who was startled be cause "I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.")

The tale is neatly told and always gets knowing approval the first time someone hears it.  I see fleeing the northern climes to a sunny retirement only to suffer some brutal misfortune in an otherwise delightful clime.

Although I enjoy reading "Internal Living" email, most of the activities that the expats enjoy shopping, golf, snorkeling, fishing, happy hour, are things which have minimal appeal.  I keep looking for description of broadband access and internet connectivity.

What am I ignoring?  One day someone will point out that life is meant to be enjoyed. 

Ooops.

Devil's Staircase in MATLAB

I can't recall how I stumbled over the description of the Devil's Staircase, but it sounded like an interesting programming problem.  Although I recognized the name, math ability has deteriorated to the point that references to Cantor Sets made no sense until I stumbled over pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Summer2009/Whieldon/Math_Explorers_Club%3A__Lesson_Links/Entries/2009/7/31_Lesson_3%3A__The_Devils_Staircase_%26_Other_Uncountable_Problems.html
 and the illustration below:

It took an embarrassing long time to get the coding correct.  I was reminded once again of truism I first heard from Roy Mendelson: The first step to solving a problem is the correct statement of the problem.

It took me a while because I was distracted by a seductively sneaky solution to the problem using MATLAB's array math. If the steps below the middle step could be calculated, all the steps after the middle step could be calculated in one swell foop by adding the value of the end point of the middle step to the array of steps between 0 and the lower x-value of the middle step.

It took me a while to find the appropriate quote from Knuth: "The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." (From Computer Programming as an Art, p. 671, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth)

It was only after I'd solved the problem myself that an online search found a recursive solution (m2matlabdb.ma.tum.de/download.jsp?MC_ID=5&SC_ID=13&MP_ID=104) which provides not only a plot of the staircase, but the Cantor set as well.

(I avoid recursion because 1) I'm not good at it (why not admit it here), 2) recursion generally uses more memory than looping, and, lastly, I suspect that the repetitive function calls is slower.)

From a quick look at the recursive code I like mine even better because the recursive code starts with a conditional check to see how many steps are requested whereas mine will take any step.  (To be frank, however, the recursive code does the mandatory parameter checking.  Mine assumes that the user will not pass an invalid number of steps, e.g., 0 or a negative number, or pass a string or other pathalogical value.)

The recursive code creates the middle step and then if more steps are required generates the left and right side of the Devil's Staircase.  The code involves a lot of multiplication of array values.  My early assembler experience always made me avoid multiplication and array values.  I wish I could blame a cruel instructor for beating into using pointers and addition, but I did it to myself.  As MATLAB doesn't have pointers (yeah, I know, arrays are really pointers) I had to use arrays also.  You can see from the code that calculating a new vector value required two or three multiplications, depending on how you count.  (I'm guessing that the multiplication by 0.5 is accomplished by shifting the bits to the right rather than actually multiplying by 0.5

xr(stufe)=.5*((1-e)*xr(stufe+1)+(1+e)*xl(stufe+1));
yr(stufe)=.5*(yr(stufe+1)+yl(stufe+1));

My MATLAB solution is far from inspired, but much shorter than the recursive method.  The code generates the two member vector (0 and 1) and calls the genXValues function to generate the new values by using every other value in the current vector.  Here's the heart of it:

It' not pretty but it works.

Hey A Custom Error!

Anyone out there get this message on outlook?  I was trying to log in and an unknown error occurred. I'm sure alarm bells must be ringing in Redmond as they scramble to track this down.

Wine & Spirits

Passing a store advertising Wine and Spirits I wondered what wine goes with the ghost of Christmas past?

Would a Merlot go with the specter of a woman spurned by her lover? 

What should be paired with an incubus?

Fintech, Adoption & 23% Interest

Always on the lookout for material for my classes, the headline of Hannah Levitt's article in the Wall Street Journal (July 3, 2018) caught my eye:

Personal Loans Surge to a Record High

The article was about fintech, newer players on the consumer lending scene.  Established entities like Goldman Sachs have entered the market along with startups.  What got me though was the lead:

"Heather Turner and her husband needed a few thousand dollars to jump-start the adoption of a teenager from Ukraine.

"The Turners, of Lewiston, Maine, needed a speedy loan and didn’t want to borrow against their house or car. Heather Turner said LendingClub arranged a 3-year loan for less than $10,000 last October at an interest rate around 23 percent -- similar to that of a credit card. Most notably, the loan is unsecured."

TWENTY-THREE bleeping percent!

A whole load of unanswerable questions popped into my mind, not the least of which was the 23%.  Doesn't that border on usury?  What was the need for speed?  What was the time pressure on adoption?  Was the kid on sale?  If the Ukrainian government was set to impose restrictions that fact wasn't in the article.

I understand the compassionate urge, but going into debt?  I didn't have the nerve to try to contact them to find out why, but then there's the internet and a gofundme page to supply the answers.

So Old News

It takes me a long time to get around to reading stuff, and a little longer to actually doing something.  Here's the latest example: An article in the November 18, 2015 WSJ with the headline "Mallinckrodt: Infant Drug, Gown Up Problem".

(I have a soft spot in my heart for Mallinckrodt because I still have their 60 year old notepads with yellow grid lines.  My dad drew cyclic organic compounds on them andI thought they were cool.  Also, I like pronouncing their name.)

The article concerned the drug Synacthen and Mallinckrodt's decision to raise the price of the drug 2,000%, a move which put it on the same footing as all the other bad boys in Pharma who wanted to show that without competition they could stick it to the patients.  The explanation/excuse was that the drug had been sold at a loss and the new price would insure that the company could continue to produce the drug.

The fact that the drug was approved to treat infantile spasms triggered a dim memory of drugs which were approved for one use, but were used for others.

A web search (just now) found a Washington Post article dated January 18, 2017 "Maker of $34,000-a-vial drug to pay $100 million for allegedly preventing competition".  If the revenues from that drug brought in $1 billion in 2015, a penalty of 10% of gross sales might not be too tough to handle.  The charge was that the drug, H.P. Acthar Gel, which once sold for $40 a vial, was acquired by Questcor Pharmaceuticals in 2001.  Questcor raised the prices and was acquired by Mallinckrodt.  When a rival company, Novartis, planned to market Synacthen, a potential competitor to Acthar, Mallinckrodt bought the rights, thereby eliminating a competitor.

There's nothing as comforting as a story which reinforces my believe in the venality behind much of big business.  And I say this knowing that my own financial security is dependent on companies making money, often by sticking it to those who are powerless to resist..

"If it costs you your peace, it's too expensive."

An email from International Living (internationalliving.com), a newsletter for expats and expat wannabes contained this quote from Bobby Blanchard who seems happily living simply in Puerto Vallarta: "If it costs you your peace, it's too expensive."

Blanchard and his significant other are getting by on $1,000/month.  I don't know what they aren't doing, but it falls in line with a thought which has been rattling around in my mind for a while: what do you really need? 

For those of us who do not play golf access to a golf course is immaterial.  The though of not being able to play golf would cause others to see their whole life to flash before their eyes.  As I read the messages from International Living I find myself thinking, "Not for me".  Their correspondents enjoy the local shopping (Nfm), the cheap happy hours (Nfm), the inexpensive local wine (Nfm), beer (Nfm), etc.

Sigh.

I'm looking for something, but I haven't seen it described yet.

"Quarts" Countertops Through Angie's List

Sigh.

A recent kitchen remodeling offering from Angie's provided another example of a failing educational system or a desperate need for enhancing grammar/spellchecking software utilities.  High end kitchens may use granite or quartz, but "quarts"?

A perfunctory web search to see if a recent kitchen upgrade trend had escaped my notice produced only links to quartz countertops.  So someone can't spell, or  someone doesn't give a rip, or there is a vast right-wing/left-wing/radical religious/other-to-be-named-later) conspiracy at work.

The reviews may be trustworthy, but the proof-reading is not.

CNN carried a video of Senator John McCain telling the host, Jake Tapper, "Every life has to end one way or another." adding a quote whose author he thought it was a playwright, "I always knew that no one could live forever, but I thought there might be one exception."

Well, what is the Internet for?  It was probably William Saroyan: "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case."

I wonder if Saroyan's most famous book, "The Human Comedy" is still read in grade schools?  From what I remember many writers felt that Saroyan was unfairly neglected compared to other writers of his era, e.g. Hemingway or Faulkner..

I was reading a a copy of "Hollywood" by Garson Kanin, fished  from one of the piles of books with which my house is decorated when I came across a section about Marshall Nielan in a chapter devoted to "The Great Profile", John Barrymore.

I don't believe I'd ever heard the Nielan's name before, but was intrigued as Kanin described Nielan's Bits of Life as the funniest film he'd ever seen.  So it was quick to IMDB with this depressing result:

Toilets

"So," he said, "How's your day been?"

It's not quite a rhetorical question, but I paused before I answered: "This will give you an idea:  I've been looking at toilets for the last hour and a half."

Backstory: I was preparing a lesson on using dynamic blocks in AutoCAD modeled after an online tutorial which used toilets.  (Dynamic blocks can be thought of as a stack of objects with only the top object being visible.)

The tutorial used several types of toilets which the narrator implied were available, but the installation of AutoCAD I used had one suitable toilet block.  To get more, I downloaded a ZIP file of toilet drawings from Kohler.

To make the lesson easier for the class I looked for toilets with shapes different enough to be easily distinguishable.  This probably will not come as a surprise to anyone who's renovated a bathroom, but aside from color, a lot of toilets look very much alike.  so as I was plowing through hundreds of drawings it struck me that I must be looking at a duplicate.  Sure enough the drawing I just looked like looked like another one I'd seen about a minute before.  I did an A-B comparison to see if there was a difference.  Here's the video:

There's a small difference in the diameter of the bolt holes for the seat.

I imagine that someone needed the larger/smaller bolt holes to accommodate the demands of feng shui.  ("Oh no! It's all wrong!   The smaller holes will ruin everything for the toilets pointing north.)  What may be more depressing is that there must be people whose job depends on not only knowing the difference between models of toilets, but remembering the tagline for each.  Of course there must be toilets which "reflect your good taste", but are there toilets which make a bathroom happier or more inviting?

Barbara Allen/Barbry Ellen/Tecumseh Valley

I was listening to Meg Baird Sing "Barbry Ellen" (about 3½ minutes into the link below) when I was struck by the similarity of her version with Townes Van Zandt's "Tecumseh Valley". Her treatment of "Sweet William on his death bed lay
For love of Barbara Allen.
reminds me of Tecumseh Valley's
"The name she gave was Caroline
Daughter of a miner"
I'll pester one of the music instructors when school is back in session to see if I'm close.

Second Worst Interview on NPR

Michel Martin's interview with former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was the second worst interview I've heard in the 31 years I've been listening to NPR.  (The worst interview was Daniel Zwerdling's interview with Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture.)

Martin should have asked Gonzales how it was that he could recall events now when he couldn't even remember if he was wearing underwear when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee 9 years ago.  At the hearing Gonzales said ""I cannot recall..." or "I don't recall" over 70 times.

Absolutely appalling.