Coding: Where is the Future Taking Us?

Over the last decade or so there has been a tremendous change in how software is developed - at least from my perspective.

A decade ago you had to purchase a package like MSDN or set of books on the Apple programming APIs in order to access the knowledge you would need to write code.

For example, the AFS (Apple File Sysetm) interfaces where complicated - there was both synchronous and asynchronous I/O, various B-tree based operations for directories, and so on.  I remember owning this particular document and studying it intensely to perform even the simplest of file operations.

At that time MSDN was a bit better - a dozen CDs that you loaded into your computer - and there was some kind of web-like interface that allowed you to search through the various documents.

Operating system APIs like Windows and OS 9 changed very little from release to release - and then only by fairly straight forward additions for better/faster/new hardware.

Major changes, like the introduction of Mac OSX took years.  The various Apple shows I recall had whole large sections of trade show booths dedicated just to introducing the new UI.

Production of these documents in those days, like MSDN, were significant efforts - more so for Apple with its printed documentation (there was an electronic versions as well but I recall it being quite tedious to use).

Writing, proof reading, printing, binding, distribution, and so on ensured that the cycle between changes was long.

There were also fewer coders in those days and I think, on average, they had a lot more experience as well.

Today things are very different.  I think that in a way there is a lot of negative impact with the new model which is not totally obvious on first inspection.

Today everything is on the web - everything - source code, examples, MSDN, knowledge bases, APIs, new OS releases - everything.

And from a purely developer perspective this is great - when you need info, say how to open a file with stdio/fopen you just go to the web browser and type "fopen" and the answer appears.  Need example code, type "fopen sample code" and it appears.  Ditto for virtually all .NET and Objective-C-based API operations.

Much of this is supported beyond basic API questions (XML, OS issues, handling complex application issues like color, performance, etc., etc.).  For example both www.codeproject.com and www.stackoverflow.com offer free developer environments where you can ask questions about APIs as well as various technical issues and have other developers help you or provide solutions.

But there are some disadvantages as well.

For one companies like Microsoft and Apple create tools to push API changes out the web automatically I am sure.  The problem is that usually not everything that needs to be updated is.  Apple is notorious for this.  Sample code is outdated, won't compile or doesn't use the latest blessed API functions.

API documents can become "out of sync" with each other - document A describing document B which is outdated, and so on.

Again codeproject and stackoverflow are huge helps in these situations.

Another disadvantage is that this allows APIs and hence OS and other things to change more rapidly.  Instead of months of writing, testing, printing and publishing about iOS 3.1 to 3.2 I basically just push a button and out goes everything to the web.

But there is no longer any "inertia" in the API.  All the old costs, time invested and difficulty in changing things a lot more dicey.  "Do we really need to add this or can we just add a new option to that?"  So things change more rapidly than ever.

And this can make your investment in code obsolete more quickly.

Another issue is what was once the domain of a third-party application, say file compression, is replaced by OS integration.  So the OS is easier to expand over time - adding in convenience for users at the inconvenience of third-party customers.

Easier advancement of the OS APIs creates more backward compatible versions to test.  (In the Wolf household we have iOS devices that are operational going back to version 3.X.)

So far a company like Apple, with its so-to-be-release iPhone 5 all of this baggage is following along behind the train.  The faster the train goes the more baggage is swept up into the backdraft behind the train.

If the train ever starts to slow down the baggage will catch up and wreak havoc.

In the mean time what can a developer do?

For one thing I think you need a domain where mastery gives you technology well outside what the codeproject's and stackoverflow's give away for free.  Many of the comments there say things like "I am writing an app to do X..." where there are thousands of apps already doing X.

So basically you have to do something hard - that no on else is going to likely do anytime soon.

Often combining features in unique was to steer you clear of the me-too developers.

It's also best to use core API functions that have been around a long time rather than iffy ones at the "edge" of the API.

In any case I think that there is a high price for all this - one that we are going to see "come due" in the future.

I am also troubled that none of what I do with iOS, for example, could be done without the internet.

Until recently MSDN still provided disks so if your internet went down you could still work.

No longer.  No internet no programming.  (Though other things I do don't require as much internet and I can review my own code base for example code as well.)

We have become, at least on the programming side, so dependent on the internet that I am quite sure 90% of what is done could not be without the internet.

To me this is also very troubling...

Education, Software and Agile Failure

It started out simply enough.  A problem on a grade school paper:

Put in alphabetical order:

   ___ Grape

   ___ Bread

   ___ Soup

   ___ Apple

So most people would, as the teach expects, do this:

Put in alphabetical order:

   _3_ Grape

   _2_ Bread

   _4_ Soup

   _1_ Apple

Meaning that Apple is first, Bread second, Grape third, and Soup fourth.

How do most people accomplish this?  Usually by scanning the list looking for the "lowest" value first, then the next lowest, and so on marking each as you go.

Is this the only correct answer?

As it turns out no.

You could say:

Put in alphabetical order:

   _4_ Grape

   _2_ Bread

   _1_ Soup

   _3_ Apple

But that's wrong, you might say, how does that work?  For one thing, there's no description of exactly how to put these things in order.

The assumption is that we number each item with its position.  But that's just one option.

In the second option we simply put the number in the first slot of the position of the item that goes in that slot: so first is "Apple" so "4" - the index of Apple goes first, "Bread" is second, so "2" goes on the next line, and so on.

Why write about this?

Well it goes back to the "I Hate Algebra..." post I wrote about a year ago.

Its another example I think of how the US educational system is failing our children.

In particular I find that today school is all about the notion of "conformity."  In this case I am using the first example above.

The real instructions should read "In ascending numerical order, starting with one, mark the ordinal of each entry's final position in an alphabetized list."

But this is not what's stated.

An equivalent version of what's to be done is "Mark from top to bottom the ordinal of the position of each entry in an alphabetized list."

Now without some domain knowledge and instruction how is that we are know which of these two descriptions are the correct one to follow?

Further, if someone views the world differently, via a dyslexia or from their "own perspective" without instruction I argue that its simply impossible to say one or the other model of alphabetizing is wrong.  There is no clear instruction on what to do and the only result that's required is that the list end up in alphabetical order.

But there's more.

There is also the process of arriving at the list.

The first method I described - scanning the list for the lowest item, then the next lowest item and so on is the most inefficient means to sort the items.  The process is called a "bubble sort" and requires us to pass through the list of n items n/2 + 1 times (assuming integer division).

For example, if there are five items I have to go through the list of five once to the find the lowest (I must inspect each entry once).  Now four remain.  So I have to go through four items to find the next lowest, and so on.

So I pass through the list five times, then four times, then three, then two and finally one.

But I can match up the four and one times, and the two and three times for a total of three times through all the entries, or 5 / 2 = 2 + 1 or three times.

There are many sorting algorithms like this that are much faster.

Of course, this assumes that you go through the list linearly - that is, on thing at a time.

But some people's minds may not work that way.  For example, in the movie "Rainman" there is a scene were the protagonist - a man with autism - observes a pile of toothpicks on the floor and blurts out a number.  His brother, a "normal" person, does not grasp that his brother has simply looked at the pile of toothpicks and counted them up instantly (as opposed to, as you or I might, counting them individually).

In the case of "Rainman" presumably the autistic brother's mind works somehow in parallel to convert the view of the toothpicks into a count.

From the perspective of software develop or mathematics its clear that both linear algorithms I describe to alphabetize the list are equivalent because at the end the list is ordered.

But in the context of a classroom or computer program we have to think about what happens next, i.e., how will the list be processed subsequently because {3, 2, 4, 1} and {4, 2, 1, 3} are not equivalent though they can both be interpreted by different algorithms to convert the list to alphabetized forms.

Some children might simply look at a list like this and operate on it to produce an answer.

If the answer does not follow an unwritten set of rules and yields the correct result can it still be wrong?

Yes.

And this is where the notion of teaching begins.

Someone might be quite brilliant but unable to function in the "read world" because the see things differently.

But differently, as I show above, doesn't mean wrong with the specification for what's required is unclear.

So in this case someone would require additional information and perhaps instruction to understand the alternate means of alphabetizing such a list.

There may be even more ways that what I describe to do it, I really don't know.

Another issue is the means of communication.

There's an old riddle:

There a city of liars and a city of truth tellers.  In the city of lies people tell only lies.  In the city of truth they only tell the truth.  There is a fork in the road you are on.  One fork leads to the the city of lies, the other to the city of truth.  A man from one of the two cities, though you don't know which one, stands at the fork.  You are allowed to ask him a single question to determine which road leads to the city of truth.

What question do you ask?

[ SPOILER ]

You ask him to point to "where he lives."  The liar will only point to the city of truth as will the truth teller.

So in the case of alphabetizing you can determine the right order by asking someone to point out the first entry.  Regardless of the algorithm they might use you will get either the right answer ("Apple") or the wrong one.  Similarly they can point out each sequential entry.

By "pointing out" the entry we eliminate the need to use written language and the need to express the algorithm used in the process.

This makes the communication process much simpler.

So the question becomes if someone can produce the right answers by a non-written means but not by a written means are they wrong?

Or is the educational or specification process wrong?

I think that teaching involves two things: 1) understanding what someone sees about a problem, i.e., what do they natively understand and 2) how do they communicate about the problem.

The first item, #1, has do with understanding: do I understand the notion of alphabetizing?  Basically can I put things in order according to some rules.

The second item, #2, is a question of communication.  Certainly a I could understand the notion of ordering things but be unable to communicate effectively about that order.

This is similar to specifications for problems in engineering and software: do I understand what's needs to be done and can I send and receive communications about that effectively?

Often in the software industry the answer is no.  Particularly in the context of the keyhole problem I describe in "Through the Keyhole..."  I might easily delude myself - either as an instructor, or as someone specifying a project, or as a programmer that I understand what's required and I can communicate about it.

Today both education and software development has "gone off the rails" in this regard.

College Debt - Worse than Marrying Young?

Here's an interesting statistic: ComPsych Corp., in Chicago, Illinois, a company that takes support calls from kids wanting advice (18-24) has seen a 10% to 12% increase over last year levels.

The reason: kids are discovering the magnitude of their college loans, parents are less able to help in the difficult economy, there is less financial aid.

These calls are beginning to take an overtone of panic according to this WSJ article.

The kiddies are apparently discovering that "college" might leave them with a five or six digit "amount due" at the end of their academic tenure.

Needless to say, according this study linked in the article, the kiddies are not handling it all that well: drugs, partying, alcohol, stress, misery, depression, anxiety.  And let's not forget that this particular age group is big on anti-depressants.

Sadly this is I think mostly the doing of inept parents.

Come on, saddling a 24 year old kid with a six figure debt?

And this debt is not like a house that has some intrinsic value in and of itself.

I bought my first house when I was about that age - I had three kids at that time.  I was making about $35,000 USD a year and my new house cost $72,000 USD.  We move there from NYC.

I needed a little help from family and friends to make the $12,000 USD down payment required and my mortgage was around $600 USD a month (this was at a time of 18% interest rates).  In order to purchase the house we took a "balloon mortgage" which meant we had to refinance it in three years.

By that time I had already been working for six years and supporting a family for five.  And though this was the "Carter Recession" it was a good job and with the election of Regan things were looking up.

It was a big decision and a lot of debt.  But then again the house was worth the $72,000 USD.

Had we defaulted or failed to refinance we would have been out the payment we had made: some $21,000 or so but the house would have resold.  Further, if necessary Mrs. Wolf could have taken a job as well.

So my downside was basically that in the worst case scenario my payments would have equaled rent if I defaulted because I was able to live in the house the whole time.

So at 24 I had a relatively large amount of financial experience, a house, and a debt - but that debt was offset by an asset - the house.

There are many others like me contrary to what kids today are told.

Today little Jr. might easily have a $72,000 college loan debt at age 24.

But where's his asset?

Apparently its on the top of his shoulders - doped up by anti-depressants because his mind and body cannot comprehend why a 24 year old would be saddled with such a huge debt and at best a crappy job that doesn't begin to make living expenses and pay the interest let alone pay back the principle.

Now if you can add and subtract - or at least have a spouse that can - if have common sense about the value of things and are willing to work at something you can start and own your own business.

Its what I eventually did and there's no reason that you can't do it right out of high school.

When I was in high school people did just that - some even got married.

But instead we let little Jr. party away another four or six years running up $10K in debt each year and then turn him out into a world where, he's been told, his college education will "get him a job."

But can he "keep" that job?

Not if he's been partying for the last six years and the other candidates have been working.

All this is just another aspect of how the deflation of our dollar and the stupidity of handing out fish rather than teaching fishing has destroyed our economy and our society.

As our dollar has diminished we, as a society, have turned to debt to "finance our future" by sending little Jr. to school.

But the information in little Jr.'s head isn't an "asset."  The education he has received is basically old news in terms of industry - just bringing him up to speed so that he can get a job.  Not to the point of being in a better intellectual position than industry - just enough so he can get in.

Is that an asset?

No.

And then there is little Jr. himself.  Can he really make use of that education - doped up on anti-depressants - or too partied out to get up on time - or did little Jr. just get the degree to make mommy and daddy happy?

So if Jr. cannot turn that education into something real in the job market its not an asset either.

I would say that, on average, by the time you are in your fifties there's at least a 50% chance you are working at and making a living at (if you actually work, that is) something different than you did at 25.

So at least half of these "educations" are a waste to begin with.

So the US has a $1 trillion dollar debt backed by nothing - no assets - just empty headed kids that might get jobs and might pay back their college loans.

If little Jr. is too irresponsible to get married at 19 like I did why is he any more responsible by getting involved in a debt he is very unlikely to repay and that will likely, like an ex spouse and children, hobble him for decades to come?

In a marriage, at least if you are old school, you work together for your future - there are two people.  And hopefully far less debt.

Alone after college what can you do but live at home with mommy and daddy...

So which is a worse fate: marrying young or running up $100K in debt youmg?

China's Hegemony: How the Baby Boomers Threw US to the Wolves

Who ever is elected the next President of the United States will likely preside over the lasts years of the United States as the world's number one economy.

While some may cheer the end of US Imperialism there will be a lot of consequences for those of US still living in the US.

The US dollar is the reserve currency of the world and that will become jeopardized as well. For example all oil is traded in dollars today because of this - but what if it became the Chinese Yuan instead?

For a long time we here in the US have shirked our responsibilities as far as our economic future is concerned.  Instead of choosing to remain a strong economic force by creating wealth we have instead chosen to trade for it.

This trading was facilitated by the fact that after World War II we were both a world power and the fastest growing economic force in the world.

But throughout the 1970's and beyond we began to lose our way.

Some would say "found our way" - but on reflection I think that's simply nonsense.  Sure the 1960's brought us many changes with regard to environmentalism and so on.  But they were taken on in the context of the world's largest economy.

I remember from those days the "starving children in Biafra" - the result of a war that left a group of tribesmen attempting to succeed from Nigeria in total disaster.

No one would have expected the Biafrans to launch into a big environmental movement - there were simply other priorities: they were starving, they had no economic horsepower, and so on.

But here in the US things in the late 1960's were quite different.  People had free time and free cash flow to spend on "causes" - like environmentalism and "Earth Day" in 1970. 

This was the result of previous decades of educational and economic development to bring our country to the point where it could do these things.

But from the lat 60's things in the US progressed somewhat differently.

The 60's spawned a generation of those focused on "doing good" for "others."  Now I was born in this generation along with a large number of others but I do not except this philosophy.

The idea became not that "you" (a third party) should lift yourself up by your own boot straps to success but instead we will "create a utopian success" for you to live in. 

My parents grew up during WWII and felt that, before anything, they must create a world for "my generation" that had the promise of a better life than they had.  What did that mean?

To them, many children of immigrants from the early 1900's this mean college, a house, a car, food on the table.  Things they were denied in the depression of the 1930's and as part of the WWII war machine.

So with the US economic engine revving up after WWII it became possible to do this.  To create schools, roads, infrastructure, and so on to allow the "baby boom" to have the denied "better life."

What I saw as a child was that this "better life" became a promise of entitlement.

Entitlement to the riches of the economy.

And the "baby boomers" took this to mean that the economic engine that was producing all of this possibility was "evil" - as described in books like "The Pentagon Papers" - the "military industrial complex" and its destruction of the planet.

And of course there is truth in much of this - but that's not the point.  Everyone sane agrees that you should not be fouling your own nest.

But the "baby boomers" took it on themselves not only to prevent the nest from becoming foul but also to gut the economic process of having the nest, and the tree, and the materials for the nest, and the food to feed the young in the nest as well.

So its one thing to stop the pollution of a river by an irresponsible company and quite another to put that company out of business permanently as a punishment for its past behavior.  Clearly management can be shown how something like this is bad.  But what can it do about past decisions over which it hand no control?

Yet somehow the boomers succeeded in hobbling the US economy by undermining economic productivity.

The same is true for vast swaths of society.  Rather than ensure that equal opportunity was provided equal opportunity was manufactured.  And most often by the state providing goods and services rather than creating an environment for people to help themselves.

Fish were handed out rather than teaching fishing.

The US dollar was inflated over the last forty years by Nixon's unhinging it from the gold standard.

So today our economic engine, which provided all this opportunity for "activism" has been all but destroyed.  In fact, its dismantling has become the very symbol of this "activism."

And those responsible a are now retiring to old age - largely unaware of the debt and destruction they have left behind - both in real economic terms as well as social terms (education, etc.)

The Chinese, on the other hand, are not bounded by these societal elements.

After WWII China was basically an agricultural country of a billion people.  Its leaders, right or wrong, decided to move their country into the future they saw in the west.  So they did and still are.

Unlike here there is no significant underlying generation of "boomers" undermining the economic engine (which is good in terms I will describe below and bad because things like responsible environmentalism are also lost).

A decade ago our US economy was three times the size of the Chinese economy.  Within a few years theirs will be larger.

And not only will be lose our standard of living but we will also lose our ability to be activists.

This is because the economics of our country have provided enough economic success for us to have the leisure time to be activists.

So while little Johnny and Suzy sit in college and learn about the evils of American Imperialism, and environmental irresponsibility other countries like China and Russia, who themselves are the epitome of these same things are simply taking the place of US.

Little Johnny and Suzy have not been taught enough to think for themselves or given the ability to see what is happening under their very noses.  They've also been told that these other countries are "better than US" and so they don't view their actions, such as destroying the environment, to have any meaning in their simple, activism-saturated minds.

So don't worry little Suzy and Johnny - good old Mr. Putin in Russia - he must be our friend, right?

(Yes I know he put Pussy Riot in jail but, well, nobody's perfect...)

In any case Mr. Putin is now busy stockpiling gold.

Why?

Well because, unlike little Suzy and Johnny Mr. Putin sees that the US has fouled its nest - not with pollution and unequal opportunity - but instead by decades of handing out fish instead of teaching its populous to fish.

Mr. Putin realizes that very soon his country won't be beholden to the US because the US currency will no longer be the reserve currency (little Johnny and Suzy don't even know what that means so Putin is safe in this).

And when this happens the US will no longer, for example, to be ensured of even purchasing, for example, foreign oil.  If its priced in yuan and we have no yuan those countries with yuan will get priority treatment ahead of US.

And our funding of activism will dry up as cash goes to keep the electricity on in grandma's apartment building.

So while we were busy creating the activist utopia we forget to think about the end game.

Ooops!

But men like Mr. Putin (he is ex-KGB after all) are smart and think only about the end game.

And look at our leaders today - the Whitehouse, Congress, the Senate.

Do you think anyone there is thinking about the end game?

Or maybe they are only thinking about the next election (six years out at max).

We have squandered our leadership on short term feel good nonsense.  Not that, for example, environmentalism is in and of itself bad, but because we didn't think it through.

Now the Russians and the Chinese will be free to pollute their way to our destruction.

No, I don't think anyone thought this through.

And now here we are - rolling toward the cliff.  This election is only about how quickly we will reach the cliff - nothing more.

Little Johnny and Suzy will never see the cliff coming - thank God for modern liberal education - they've been told nothing about cliffs and so they this is all lost on them.

And good men that run other countries, like Mr. Putin, the ones little Johnny and Suzy think we should be more like, are happily taking the long term "big picture view" and positioning themselves to be in the best position to take the spoils of our failure.

What the iPhone Design Says About Our Culture

Hysteresis - From Wikipedia

So last night I had, of all things, a dream about what the design of iPhone's say about us and our culture.

Now this might seem silly but actually its not.

So let's think about the design.

For one, there's basically no really simple "off" switch.  Yes it can be turned off but that takes a while and its a pain.

So its basically built to be "on" all the time.

Connected.

But connected to what?  Well, WiFi, cell towers (so the FBI can track us apparently), other iPhones, the cloud, your friends and social circle.

Now, being old I already have only a couple of friends.  I have email, I have a cell phone, I even have an iPhone.

And, more importantly I am also "connected" to these same social things.

The difference is I am not connected in "realtime."  So, for example, if I am in the can and I am bored I choose not to text my pals to tell them this.  I don't post to Facebook about pooping, either (and yes, people do post this sort of thing).

My connection to others via a smartphone has a much higher level of hysteresis.  Things have to be "more socially important" than, say, pooping or boredom, to warrant a Facebook post (I do post links blog entries).  If the event is not so important I choose not to post about it.

Basically other than this blog I rarely post anything on Facebook (perhaps that's why the stock is in the tank - people are figuring out that Facebook has little value to anyone other than generating "social noise.")

So the iPhone will alert me to activity on Facebook with a "Notification."

Great... someone is pooping.

Basically this seems to me to be really about having a "zero-length" attention span.  Something is always welcome to interrupt the otherwise unbroken silence.

Except I don't live in silence...

Another iPhone thing is the constant noise, tweeting or chirping related to notifications, texting and the like.

Sounds like a fan is broken, a dog is ill, a robot has constipation.

Now there is a volume knob and you can turn the sound all the way "off" but then you can't tell much and its hard to associate with specific notifications though I think it still vibrates for a cell call.

Now most people I run across with an iPhone have the ringer set to something LOUD.  Though the phone will play any sound as a ring you can only really hear it in a noisy place (bar, street, construction site, car) if you use something like the "old fashioned phone ringer from the 1950's."

Gee, I wonder why the old phones were designed with that particular ring?

I suppose that this is because the iPhone designers spend a lot of time in isolation from others.  No noise save for their phones.  I guess alone and unconnected save for the social connectivity the phone offers.

This tells me the designers are introverted, young and not rock'n'roll musicians because their hearing is still good.

There is also a sort of implied functionality meaning that when social interaction presents itself I must want to partake right then and there, immediately.

"Oh, you're pooping - while I'll drop everything so I can follow your twitter feed."

No one designed in a GTFA button (Go the F*** Away) into this thing.  No, I must always want to hear about all this shit (no pun intended) on a moments notice.

A GTFA button would disconnect me totally from my social network.  I suppose it should have a bypass list for things like a wife or a boss - or maybe a doctor - if I set that up.  But that would be it.  No more bullshit notifications.

Otherwise GTFA.

So one imagines the iPhone designers could not imagine a state of affairs where I wouldn't want to be interrupted...

(I wonder what their love lives are like...?)

No one added a STFU button either (Shut the F*** Up).

I don't need to hear a constant barrage of tweeting, farting and snorting from my iPhone if there is a message or text or email for me (I have dogs to make those noises for me).

Pressing STFU would simply silence all the current annoyances.  Basically acknowledging that I know they are there but I will deal with them later.

So because there is no STFU button on the iPhone I have to believe that the designers are really, really interrupt driven folks.  Dealing with their lives one cell phone interruption by one - in the order they arrive.

"Oh no! Suzy is pooping..." so we drop everything so we can follow along.

Personally once this stream of shit (again, no pun intended) arrives on my phone and I see that its there I don't need a constant barrage of chirping and noise to remind me.

So what does this all mean?

I think it means that by and large the iPhone was designed by self centered childish folks who have little to do other than diddle around with their gadgets.  They must have basically empty lives where this little gadget fills them up with the joy that others are whiling away their lives with unimportant nonsense they fell compelled to share willy-nilly.

And that's fine...

But when you sell tens of millions of these things and I think this starts to significantly influence the buyers to behave in the way the phone wants them to act.

It creates a self fulfilling cultural destiny that mimics the iPhone's design.

So the phone "invites" activity and users oblige - texting while driving, interrupting their love lives, and all the rest.

The iPhone only has one "volume control" but many times I'd like that to apply to a specific thing - but with notifications spewing out everywhere there's no easy way to deal with that.

I'd like it to understand that its not the only thing in at least my life so often it should remain quiet and leave me to my work so I can afford to own it.

I already have to sit at Sunday dinner and watch legions of folks play "Temple Run" instead of having meaning social interaction with anyone including their own children.

Tell me why this is good...?

I think the iPhone would behave a lot differently if real adults with actual things to do had designed it.

How Inflation Ruins What A Dollar Buys...

My mother and her friends are complaining.  Complaining that most of everything they purchase - particularly "things" like household items - are basically junk.

By "junk" I mean they don't last.

Like a "high end" pair of socks I bought for jogging.  Ten years ago I bought the same brand - I got about nine years out of them.  Last year I bought the same brand - and got maybe a year, maybe less.

My mother tells the tale of purchasing an iron.  The idea she thought was that a "steam iron" when filled with water would produce steam to press her clothes.  Great - an idea that's been around for decades - except the steam iron doesn't steam.

She has gone from K-Mart to higher end stores and all the irons are basically the same.

Junk.

As a child my mother was taught to spend money on quality items - buy something good and it will last.  She was born in the depression and this was common thinking.  In fact, its been common thinking right up to the last decade or two.

You saved your pennies to buy something that would last.

The other day a friend of mine was explaining how Sears had to change its return policy because people were buying lawnmowers in the spring and returning them in the fall for a full refund because they "didn't like the job they did."  Probably a ninety-day satisfaction guarantee or something like it.

So the model today is different.

You buy based on one thing only - the "return" policy.

You never intend to keep the "thing" for any period of time.  You simply expect to use it until it breaks and return it for a new one.

With a vast sea of unemployed people out there with nothing better to do with their time its little wonder.

So the industrial parameters for things have changed - changed form building a quality product to building the cheapest product you can that last until a few days beyond the return policy limits.

But that's not the end of the change.

Now return policies are changing as well, like with Sears.

People simply expect that a "big company" like Sears will give them what amounts to a free product to use.

After all, Sears must be "wealthy beyond imagination" so what's a new lawnmower?

People wonder why I buy a MacBook.

Its sooo expensive...!!

No, not when you look at the "total cost of ownership."

I have a relative that's the king of "returns."  But it takes a lot of time to do that - time to research the best warranties, to find the right retailer, to stand around in line or on the customer service phone for an hour while you fight with somebody over a $3 cable.

But my time is worth more than $3/hour.

I'd rather buy a $9 cable that lasts until the need for it is obsolete.  Then, over five years I save five hours of phone time - five hours of my time is worth more than $9.

So while some may wonder why I am buying such an "expensive" cable in fact I am saving money.

In retaliation retails staff the support lines with idiots who speak off of standard scripts:

"How are you doing today Mr. _____."

"I'm so sorry your ____ didn't work as you expected."

Blah blah blah blah...

Sure, this person is in fact really sorry - really sorry that your $10's spend on a whizler or whatever it is could have fed their family for a month.

Its a game of wearing you down. 

Will you put up with the first round or two of stupid suggestions and go away or will you reach the ultimate prize of a supervisor who actually knows and can do something.

Basically its call 1-800-CHINA or 1-800-INDIA if there's any problem.

My poor mother simply cannot deal with this.

And neither can I...

So I search around for quality products and buy them - spending what appears to be a lot of money but which, in actuality over the long haul, is far cheaper they buying junk.

This is tied, of course, to the fact that the US is inflating away the value of a dollar.

As your dollar becomes less valuable you have to purchase less with it in real terms.

But you don't want your customer to "feel bad" that the $1 pair of kids blue jeans you could buy in the 1959 dime store that lasted a generation through three more kids and a load of nieces and nephews costs $15 today (twice the inflation value) and will fall apart after a dozen washings.

This will continue until someone figures out that inflating the US dollar only makes this all worse.

(So don't plan on this changing any time soon...)

Game Changers: "Hover Bikes" and Satellites

There are some interesting stories around concerning "hover bikes."

Basically ducted fan-style motorcycles.

Who knows if these are true or simply hoaxes but for me it seems like a logical place to do regarding transportation.

Most impressive is this video from Areoflex:

There is a link at Wired discussing it.

There is an Australian guy developing one as well in this article.

Now the claim on the Australian version is that a 4-cycle 1100 cc engine does all the heavy lifting - which is not much of an engine in the grand scheme of transportation world wide.

Supposedly the Czech's are building one as well:

More information on this is available here and here.

So is all this a hoax like the birdman video I posted a while back?  Its hard to tell...

But certainly there seems to be nothing impossible or wrong about this - provided the engine is capable enough power-wise and the fans efficient enough.

Like the Segway the idea has merit if it actually works.

So what's the market?

Its hard to say.  In order for a "consumer" to use this kind of device it would have to be stable no matter what.

No one would want this if a semi drove by and blew you off the bridge...

Similarly it would be easy to flip one of these over.

But at least some of these issues would be easily resolved with technology of various sorts.

For that matter - it would be easy to build a pilot-less robotic drone-type device - then by-by UPS, Fedex and USPS delivery man.  No more tires, no more payroll, vastly lower costs all around.

One the other hand it eliminates the need for ground contact via tires - thus eliminating the need for an entire industry.

Certainly it seems reasonable that within a few years this kind of technology could see the light of day in an "industrial" kind of setting, i.e., where no consumers are involved - law enforcement, interdiction, that sort of thing.

However, once at least one working version is out there I see a huge market - replacing the "smart car" for one.

Given a choice between a hove bike and smart car I'd go with the hover bike any day.

A game changer for sure if its real...

Another game changer I see is the effect of wired internet on DirecTV.

I've had DirecTV for many years and even used their satellite internet services before cable wires showed up in my rural neighborhood.

Its an excellent product - but its expensive.

HBO, at least in Nordic countries, is going Netflix (see this).

For that matter so is DirecTV - they now offer various "downloadable" programs.

Mostly this "downloading" and "Netflix" stuff sucks in my mind but its so cheap how can you hold out?

Satellite and cable become the new "Bell Telephone" delivering connectivity between two points - you and some giant server center full of "content."

You subscribe to "services" for cheap and view what you want when you want it.

DirecTV has one advantage in this model for home use in that the download aspect is very fast and doesn't require wires (though it does require a dish).

The "direct connect" model for HBO is how I see it going - HBO is going to be just "out there" and how you get it will be up to you - satellite, wire, wireless.

This will happen to ShowTime and all the rest as well.

Progress?

I doubt it - more like race to the bottom squeezing out all the middlemen between the disk with the movie file on it and you.

Let's hope a big solar flare doesn't come by anytime soon. 

If one does DVD's will become golden more valuable than gold.