With the nation still dry-heaving its way through this economic hangover, nothing palliates the soul like the beginning of baseball season. We've already seen a 20 inning game and the first no hitter of the season. Even the Astros have finally won a game. Good times, good times.
If you're not lucky enough to be at the game in your town, I'm lining up some reading and listening, dear Reader, for your spring leisure. These articles are loosely related to each other. First is the news that the government is coming after Goldman Sachs. This gives me a glimmer of hope. However, we'll see if it goes anywhere for a couple reasons: a) most of the high ranking gov't financial officials are from Goldman Sachs, and b) with all the shenanigans that clearly happened, how much of it was actually and more importantly, provably illegal? (sort of begs the question if regulation would even work?) Not sure of the implication of this being a civil vs. a criminal type thing.
This next link was forwarded to me the other day by a friend about a hedge fund that was very active in the creation of the financial mess, though again, it's questionable if they did anything illegal. The first 40 minutes of this mp3 are very interesting. Although it may unfairly imply that Magnetar was the main culprit or main agent that caused this whole thing, it at least explains very clearly how some of the worst aspects of it happened. Though, don't forget that none of this could have happened without the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates far too low or without the implicit backing that the Fed and Treasury have given to Wall Street in the event of past and future failures. In other words, the implication is that if we had regulated Magnetar, we could have prevented this, however, the very people we would supposedly trust to regulate Wall Street not only failed to regulate it or themselves but financially encouraged these types of behavior. But a very well done and informative show.
Finally, and this one may be harder to swallow, but it is some commentary by William Deresiewicz about the disadvantages of an elite education. The reason I offer this for consideration is related to the tight link between the Ivy League and our government financial institutions (e.g., Goldman Sachs and the Federal Researve). Do we not give passes to too many people simply because they are "smart" and went to a top school? Perhaps we would change our perspective if we considered that Harvard may be producing more crooks every year than Harlem.
But back to baseball. At a recent game in Milwaukee, I was dismayed to find the triangle nacho chip had infiltrated Miller Park as well. Is nothing sacred? A couple nice reads about the Boys of Summer. First, is an interesting ranking of the organizations of baseball. Boston and St. Louis top the list, and I'll let you find out for yourselves who is at the bottom. Then, a nice little blog about the latest, greatest pitching prospect in the game, Stephen Strasburg, last year's number one draft pick. This also calls to mind that even if you can't get to a Major League ballpark, there is plenty of good baseball in the minors and independent leagues. In fact, in some ways, they offer a much better baseball experience.
So whether you're more interested in the ivy at Cambridge or the walls of Wrigley, take heart! Spring is taking us into summer, one pitch at a time.
[April 22, Editor's Addition: Here's a link for those interested to a speech given by the same William Deresiewicz about Solitude and Leadership.]
As someone who nearly totally despises Winter and totally loves Spring, March is a difficult time of transition for me. Every year, without fail, I begin to think that Spring in all its glory should be here on March 1. I start pulling out shorts and sandles. I start thinking about going to the pool. I literally start going out to the garden and looking for flowers to bloom. I am 35 years old and I know that March 1 does not bring Spring with it. Yet, I get fooled every year.
I have been thinking about an analogy for what March is like for me and I have found it. For those of you who have ever driven from St. Louis to Denver on Highway 70, you will know what I am talking about. March is Colorado.
When you are driving West on Highway 70 and your destination is Denver, all you can think about from the start of trip is seeing the Rocky Mountains. Your mind can focus on nothing else- Rocky Mountains. I have made the drive at least five times and everytime I watch the mile markers count down as I cross Kansas, knowing that Colorado and the Rockies are only 200 or 150 or 50 or 10 miles away. Every time, my sense of anticipation begins to build that Colorado is just a mile away. Then it arrives- the border and I cross into Colorado and look around and see.... nothing. Nothing at all except the same crap I have been staring at for the approximately 6000 miles it takes to cross Kansas. Eastern Colorado has to be one of the most disappointing places on earth. Flat nothingness- much worse than Kansas and the thing that makes it much worse is that at least in Kansas, you didn't kid yourself that you were close to your destination.
March treats me the same way. I go to bed at night on Feb. 28 thinking, "Thank God that tomorrow is March 1. Spring will be here tommorow." Then, in general, I wake up to a day with a high of 33 degrees and I realize that I have been fooled again. Now March is not all bad by any means, just like Colorado is not all bad. As soon as you hit the Rockies, Colorado is the most beautiful and majestic of states. March is the same. Later March is often glorious and exactly what I have been expecting it to be.
Once I started to think about it more, I realized that the analogy worked well for Kansas as well. Kansas, of course, is February. Gray, dreary, monotonous and it seems to go on forever.
I tried to see if I could come up with any other state/month combos and I only came up with one more. Nevada is December. When you think of either one of those, they are both pretty non-descript places/months dominated completely by one location/date of great celebration and decadence. Feel free to toss in any further month/state combos that you can think of.
Like a bobsled through your brain, news nits comes back with a bumper crop of new years nits. Lots of little happenings in the news these days, from business to politics to technology to women owning giant rodents as pets (doesn't this charming couple, more than a little, look like each other too?). So let's push off, jump in and see if we can count the curves.
In an alarming move, Google has announced they're leaving China. This strikes me as more than just a little odd. Google does anything they want to, and they tend to do it well. What does this say about them? More, what does this say about conditions in China? We know Chinese companies are competing well here (everything we buy is Made In China), but are we competing there?
Well, maybe we can keep inventing stuff for the Chinese to build for us. A professor at North Carolina State University has invented a kind of metal foam that can compress up to 80% of its original size and retain its structural integrity and bounce back.
The Middle East is still a big bag of doorknobs. How would you like to be Israel? Hamas is now floating bombs up to Israeli shores. Of course, this unusual tactic and attack is in response to Mossad "allegedly" killing one of Hamas's top dogs while he was on a trip to Dubai. Dubai police have identified 26 suspects in the poisoning, there's a lot of footage of this on TV, Mossad agents walking around the hotel, dressed in tennis gear and other normal looking clothes. Anyone else find it odd, that Israel is so effective at fighting wars on terror? They send 26 after a guy, we send 100,000? Another thing to ponder is that Israel is surrounded on all sides by people who hate them, and they have never had an airplane hijacked. Before we start doing naked scans in airports of each other, maybe we should ask if there are other ways?
News Nits loves new forms of transportation, when it's economically and technologically feasible. There's a proposal on the table for a 220 mph train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. California seems like an ideal place to build a high speed train, the ultimate trip should run 2 hours and 40 minutes. If they could figure out a way to provide continuous wi fi access, that would change the nature of much of west coast travel. Oddly, a similar measure has been proposed between Madison and Milwaukee, WI. Somehow, that doesn't seem like the right fit, but who knows. It would be cooler and maybe more fitting for WI to build a giant log flume or water slide between the two cities that are only an hour away by car anyway.
I keep waiting for Microsoft to use their considerable fortune and market share to buy the time it will take to redesign their OS from the BIOS up. But they don't. They seem to continually just try to remarket and reposition without any willingness to rebuild. The results of kludging your products ahead can end up with unpredictable results. Window 7 is apparently not only draining batteries but permanently altering their ability to function. I do not even have a theoretical explanation for this (and I am usually willing to hazard a guess about anything!).
Here comes the economics geek in me. In case you are crazy enough to try to follow the economic tax swindles perpetrated by our elected leaders, then this video might be for you. Looks like the "TARP pay backs" we've been hearing about aren't quite the whole truth:
If you've been getting into some of the raw economics behind the thinking of most modern economists (like Paul Krugman), then you've probably heard of John Maynard Keynes and probably never heard of FA Hayek. This video is a fairly clever and funny recap of an historical debate that came to pass between these two rival economists, with two very different ideas about proper ways to think of large economies. Keynes justifies government management of the economy through fiscal and monetary policies on the justification "in the end, we're all dead," meaning, let's get paid today, screw tomorrow. Hayek bases his theories on personal behavior and safe guarding free markets and risk vs. reward. Odder still is that if you choose to major in Economics in college, you still probably won't hear anything about Hayek and the Austrian School of economics. Why? Because Keynes won the day. He was a charming, flamboyant bisexual who out-witted Hayek, the nerdy one, at every turn. And the path of economic history has been set ever since (we're seeing some of the results). Well, here's the vid:
Wall Street is having buyer's remorse. After buying off Obama and teh Democrats, they want their Republicans back! This should be a true sign that the GOP has learned nothing from their recent demise. Is the Boy Scouts on the decline? We sure hope not. I just don't think that Xtreme Skateboarding has really been an adequate substitute for what the Boy Scouts teach.
Is anyone else getting dizzy following the Global Warming-->Global Climate Change-->Global Cooling "debate" going on? What a circus. Where's Bob Richards when you need him? [Editor's Note: News Nits searched high and low for a picture of Bob Richards and came up blank. Any help out there?] Speaking of weather, Sun's demise has finally come in the form of Oracle buying them out. Not many people ever worked on Sun Stations before, but I have and thought they were great machines. The never really evolved, but at least they weren't shoddy. Nevertheless, they have paid out gobs of money to their execs for failing. Still can't figure out how that makes sense.
For those with iPhones, check out these top-10 apps. Some are pretty funny, pretty novel, etc. Speaking of iPhones, rumors are saying the new iPhone 4G is coming out in June, maybe May. That might be my time to upgrade from 5 year old flip phone to the future! But man are these things expensive (along with the plans you need to make them useful). Netflix is considering streaming their service directly to the iPhone (and iPad), which is starting to make me reconsider the expense of cable, which I don't really watch anyway. Bad movies are better than bad TV. As for screen quality, apparently Apple has it right with their LCD beating out the new OLED screens appearing on many Android phones.
The U.S. Military just help to validate a process of Green Power, Inc, that turns trash into fuel. I guess there was some concern this was nothing more than a fancy facade over a simple incinerator, but it seems to be a legitimate technology. Cool.
Roundup: The FBI is getting involved in a case where school administrators spied on students using the little cameras built into the school-issued laptops. Thing is, the kids were at home. Nasty. Here's a concept car/thing/trike that Honda has built, and it just makes me wonder... why? And finally, air travellers at JFK airport in NYC learned a whole new meaning to the bring your kid to work day concept.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -- Alan Turing
Hello everyone. Due to my former blogging partners meetings with investors, I have been asked to fill in for the time being.
The Vancouver Olympics are winding up. I wanted to pass this along last week at the beginning of the Games but I, like a true TLATL shareholder, am just getting around to it now. Partially inspired by today's events. The USA won their first Gold Medal in Four-man Bobsleigh in over 62 Years.
Most of you have probably read this before, but I have had the occasion to forward it a few times of late and thought I would share my trip down memory lane with you, the entire galaxy. It was by far the most complimented of the e-mails I sent out 8 years ago and is kind of relevant to these games, for both tragic and historic reasons.
This e-mail was sent January 2, 2002 from the soon to be Olympic Village in Salt Lake City, where I was working at the time:
Yesterday, as the ball dropped here in Utah (on a 2-hour tape delay), someone echoed the popular sentiment, "Man, I can't believe it is 2002!" I was like, "It's not 2002, If it was 2002 that would mean the Winter Olympics were like less than a mon----OH CRAP!" Yeah if you haven't picked up the notion from the first couple e-mails things are busy and that is what leads me to work to type you this e-mail hear on New Years Day while my scheduling system attempts to schedule the volunteers. Technology rules.
The subject number may seem a little odd two you. Well, let me add two more to the mix. 0, 200. Making any more sense. Probably, if you've spoken with me since Saturday, December 29. You see that was the day when my Olympic dream came true and burst at the same time.
0 is for how many limbs I lost in getting to accomplish my dream, but 200 is how many dollars it cost me.
52.30 was how many seconds it took to accomplish the dream, and 81 MPH is how fast I was going when it was accomplished.
That's right contestants, I went down the bobsled track, or bobsleigh track. For clarification, Bobsleigh is the event and bobsled is the device used. Details I know, but what details they are.
I know $200 is a lot of money to spend for 52 seconds of fun, but the price is high for a couple reasons. One is that there are only two places in the US that have bobsled tracks (Lake Placid and Salt Lake) and only 16 in the entire world. The opportunity to do this extreme sport is very rare. Secondly, is that they do it at night and have fully operational scoreboards, equipment and staff to assist you. The bobsleds are specially designed to hold non-experienced Bobsledders. The brake has been moved from the back to the front and ropes line the inside of the bobsled for us to hold onto. In short, $200 was well worth it.
We arrived at 7:00pm and went directly to Men's Start house at the very top of the hill. I had no idea how steep a track was. I am no altitude expert, but I would say it was at least a 400 ft. drop in altitude from start to finish. We were able to drive all the way up to the top of the track which spectators won't be able to get near during the games. From there we checked in, signed our waivers, and received our pins and lanyards that identified us as participants in the ride-a-long program. We then had a brief introduction of staff and the format for the evening. We did a "draw" to determine who would go down on what sled. I was on sled number three. We then watched a video detailing our instructions for when we got in the the sled. There was some repetition but the information was very specific and thorough. One of the things that they told us is that we would be traveling at a peak speed of 80-82 MPH. The Gold medal winning team in Nagano reached a peak speed of 76 MPH. This track was built for speed. It also helps that its elevation is one of the highest in the world.
Now it was time to venture out to the start house and send the first sled on its way. We were divided up into groups of three for the draw so I was paired with two dudes from San Diego (I went with a friend form the Village but we were split up do to the numbers game). We got fitted into helmets as the first sled was being pushed from the start gate. No, we did not get to push and jump in though I would not have been opposed to it. In case your wondering I needed a XXL helmet. We only had two sleds and two drivers so when one went down, it was brought up by the sled truck then positioned in the starting gate. They assigned us where to sit and I was given the fourth seat. In that seat you sit higher than any of the four but you also get whipped around more, but I was yet to realize that. We sit in the sled and wait for an all-clear from the track. Once that is given, three of the staff gently shove us down the track and we are on our way.
You know how in car commercials they tell you how this car can go from 0-60 in 5.2 seconds. I'd like to know how fast we we went from like 10-70, because before I knew it we were cruising. They told us to try and count all 15 turns. Come on. Now way was that possible. Really before you know it, it was over and it basically put every roller coaster I've ever ridden to shame. We received a card with our time and top speed, along with a Polaroid of the sled and crew. We then got to go to some of the turns and watch other sleds go down. Surprisingly, the railing for spectators to watch are right up against the track leaving you like two feet from the actual ice on the track. And when that sled rumbles by you it was almost as intense as the ride itself.
That was it. My dream has come true, to ride an Olympic bobsled. However, I also realized that bobsledding, is indeed a sport and any faint fantasies I might have had a pursuing this sport are now history. I mean really you push a sled and jump in. These drivers though were built like brickhouses and you need to be to control a sled going that fast. I think most of the ride-a-long dates are booked but this will continue next year and most likely for years to come. So if you're out here, got some spare change and an interest, call Utah Olympic Park and you will be able to take the ride of your life.
Happy New Year.
Tim
The pictures of me, my riding mates and our sled, but they are on my old computer which is boxed up in my storage closet. A real blogger would get that puppy out, extract those jpg's and do this right. I, am not a real blogger anymore.
This link has information on rides should you you find this something that you want to do.
It's cold out there, folks. Not just in The Loop or The Lou. I saw one of TLATL's readers buzz about the temperature in his city...
(Inevitable tangent - do you like Google Buzz? I've stated before that I've intentionally avoided the "social" scene. It may be that I'm missing out on all the fun, but for whatever reason I just don't like my name and info all over the place. But, I understand the draw.
The funny thing is that as a result of the buzz launch, all my friends started following my Shared Items on Google Reader, which is what I've been trying to get everyone to do for years!
But I digress... )
It's so cold that the Mississippi River froze! No kidding. A good friend of mine sent me the link to some great pictures of a frozen Mississippi. I bet you could catch some great driftwood if you were to ice fish on our muddy rio.
And speaking of ice fishing, has anyone ever gone ice fishing? I'm not much for fishing myself, so I can't imagine ice fishing would be much better. But that's just me.
Have you ever had your wife/girlfriend/mother/sister/daughter/another female in the human race complain of a scent, and you have no idea what they're talking about? It's a little embarrassing to admit, I suppose, but I have. Many times.
Sometimes it's a complaint that I smell. Sometimes it's someone else. Or something else. Heck if I know - I can't smell it.
But 60-Second Science has attempted to explain this olfactory oddity: Women smell better than men. That's probably true in many ways, but I find it comforting to know that there's a scientific explanation for my inability to know that I stink.
So to the few women who read this blog, it's not just that we don't care we stink, it's that we don't know we stink, either.
And for the men who read this blog, if there's any doubt in your mind as to whether or not you stink, you probably do.
And if you found the 60-Second Science story amusing, subscribe to their daily podcast! It's quick and informative. I've been enjoying it for a couple years now.
As usual, our punctuality is impeccable. Happy 2010 everyone! By the way, do you say "twenty-ten", "two-thousand ten" or something else? I like twenty-ten myself.
While our title pays homage to two great mid-Western cities from which a lot of our writers and readers hail, our content rarely covers news from our namesake cities. So I thought it would be nice to kick off the year with a review some news coming out of The Lou.
About a month ago, Highway 40 re-opened after a two-year long closing (the first year it was closed from I-170 to Kingshighway, the second year from Ballas to I-170). Although massive traffic delays and economic catastrophes for businesses were predicted by some, the project went about as smoothly as could be expected. I have to admit that I was pretty surprised when a large-scale government infrastructure project actually finished slightly ahead of schedule. From The Lou's KSDK:
MoDOT leaders are calling the project, which involved demolishing and completely rebuilding a 10 mile stretch of Highway 40, a huge success. It was finished three weeks ahead of schedule and $11 million under budget. It is the largest single construction contract in MoDOT's history and cost more than a half-billion dollars.
Dude, MoDOT is making AfghanistanDOT look like a bunch of chumps.
How do you know if someone isn't from the Lou? They refer to the highway as I-64, not Highway 40. They're like, "Yeah, so I was heading down I-64..." and you think to yourself, "I-64? Oh, man. Did he really tell me he's from Indianapolis? 'Cause I just pegged him for Parkway Central. Aw, snap."
Anyway, take a spin on the new central corridor and I'm sure you'll appreciate the job they did. In all seriousness, it's a great improvement.
And while you're out on the roads, check out the billboards. You may see some advertisements for a smoke-free Ballwin or Kirkwood coming near you.
I've long been disappointed in my state for not being as progressive as our eastern neighbors and others, but it appears that the barriers to smoke free public buildings are slowly coming down... or should I say, drifting away. The argument that making Ballwin, for example, smoke-free will cause patrons to flee to neighboring towns, negatively impacting Ballwin restaurants/bars and thus Ballwin tax dollars just doesn't hold water with me. There are enough people nowadays that will actually drive the extra mile (or miles) to a smoke-free establishment.
That said, there will undoubtedly be some bars that will go under if the neighboring towns don't also follow suit. Hopefully the trend continues quickly, or their patrons are loyal enough to smoke outside.
Speaking of outside... it's cold!! Remember that incredibly mild summer we had? Well, we're paying for it now, as predicted by the Farmer's Almanac.
I'm sure everyone is aware of Mark McGwire (finally) admitting to steroid use. The announcement was necessary and long overdue. We've covered McGwire and the era before, and I don't think McGwire's announcement changes the opinion I posited in that post. It's good for baseball that he took this step, and I hope his tenure as the Cards' hitting coach is long and successful. I haven't seen his interviews yet, but read some transcripts. I think McGwire is a good man, and I think he's genuinely remorseful for what he did, but he did seem to be using injuries to excuse his actions just a little... Oh well, it's just a game.
I do recommend you check out Bernie Miklasz's interview with McGwire. Bernie has now been the lead sports writer in St. Louis for 20 years, and I think St. Louis sports fans are lucky to have him here.
Finally, and this one may be harder to swallow, but it is some commentary by William Deresiewicz about the disadvantages of an elite education. The reason I offer this for consideration is related to the tight link between the Ivy League and our government financial institutions (e.g., Goldman Sachs and the Federal Researve). Do we not give passes to too many people simply because they are "smart" and went to a top school? Perhaps we would change our perspective if we considered that Harvard may be producing more crooks every year than Harlem.
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