I think the biggest reason we have this crisis, is our changed attitude to economics. Many would point out creed as an important factor, and I agree. I think greed had a lot to do with our shift in attitude. In our pursuit for luxury goods, wellness and big travels, we accepted it is okay to owe a lot of money to other. Loan became something we lived with, not something we tried to get rid of. 

Actually, if you think about it. We are accumulating debt and not wealth. One could argue that most of your borrowed money are invested in for example in the houses we live in. Every thing is relative, and I will come back to this. To sustain this type of living, we have to pump up some more value in the values we already have now. The new inflated value, can now used as guaranties for more loans. A tool to do this, are making our money less valuable, also known as inflation. The ideal inflation are around 2% per year, meaning what you paid 100 for today, ought to cost 102 in one year.

To put a connection in all this, I’ll make a swift example. You have a house which you buy for 100.000, where 100% is loaned. To make it simple, we only pays the interest of the loan, it is very common today. If we only takes the standard inflation (which is 2%) in account, the house will after 10 years cost: 1.02^10 * 100.000 = 122.000. You will be able to raise you debt to 122.000 with the new value in the house as guarantee.

That was a very ideal example, but not far from the reality. The last ingredients are hype, trends and expectations. A good hype could push the price of the house up, because people are willing to overbid. Here is a bit of a paradox in my opinion, let’s say you live on a road with 10 similar houses, each has a value of 100.000. Each owner has bought the house on the same conditions as the previous example. It is a very popular neighborhood, and 2 house owner on the road sells their houses for 130.000. Now you can use this an argument to convince the bank to lend you 30.000 more. You are lending the money on the expectations of being able to sell the house for 30.000 than the current value.

In my opinion hype, trends and expectations, only creates imaginary values. What if you lend the 30.000 more, and you only can find a buyer, who will buy your house for 105.000. You will owe 130.000 but only have values for 105.000, which means you are technical insolvent. Which is of coarse only a problem if you decides or are forced to sell the house.

After a little economics primer in value inflation , we have to see if the  government growth packets are going to work. For our economic system can work, we must spend money. If we don’t spend money, we are starting a spiral. If companies don’t sell enough, they fire people. The fired people spend less money, so companies sell even less, so they have fire people and so on. When we runs out of money, we are lending, until we hits the wall, like we have done with this crisis.

The governments growth packet are for, but not only, kick starting the economy. It works primarily by repairing and building and public buildings and roads. Thereby workers are employed and can afford to buy things, thereby keeping other companies busy, which means they have more workers, which uses more money, which keeps even more companies busy, and so on. Well, it sounds like a good solution, but it appears that the market is saturated. We apparently have bought all things we needed under the good times. So if we don’t buy, we are not purring water on the economic mill.

But there is also another problem, the governments don’t have the money for the growth packages, so they have to lend them. But speaking of imaginary values, governments are lending on their reputation. In my opinion it is debt on debt on debt, but it can’t continue, not even for countries. I think we are postponing the problems. I think the road we are heading, with stopping all holes with new debt is wrong. I believe we have to bite the sour apple and pay what we owes and build wealth, to avoid even harder times. That is by the way healthy economics;-).

Either to fix this/these 100% usage issues, I use Task Manager.  Selecting the Processes tab I can see which process uses most computer time. Well, here is one catch, Windows 7(and Vista) hides System processes, so  the button Show processes from All users must be pressed. System processes which uses to much CPU are not shown by default, which can give a distorted image, when all processes shows 0 under CPU, and CPU Usage are 100%.

A healthy idle system should show System idle process as the must time consuming process, but in my case it was svchost.exe. This was expected but annoying, because ProcessExplorer represents a group of services, but it doesn’t tell me wich. Pressing the Services tab in the Task Manager, shows me all the services it could be. The best way to find the sick service, is to use ProcessExplorer, which is a super a task manager from Microsoft. You can get it free here at Microsoft’s tech page:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Opening ProcessExplorer, you can see all your processes running. Now find the svchost.exe which uses the most CPU time, and hold the mouse pointer over the text: svchost.exe. Now ProcessExplorer tells you what services it runs, and often it runs more than one. I my 2 issue cases it was my upnphost service which was the sinner. My solution to the problem was to press the Windows button in the bottom left corner, right click on computer and select manage. Then select Services and Applications and then Services. Then find UPnP Device Host (or what your sick service is called), right click press STOP, watch the CPU usage drop, press START.

Good Debugging

This not a post about maybe unskilled business people, but about luck versus skills. Even thou I’m not a sports fan, I once in a while hear or read about coaches getting fired because their teams loses to much. Team sports are a lot about skills, but there is still a luck factor, or else would the best team always win and the weakest team always lose, and that is not the case. Lets take a top team, who wins like 90% percent of their matches, and they runs into a losing strike because of random bad luck, the coach is most likely to get fired no matter if he is highly skilled or not.

A good example could a student at the examination, pulling a question which covering the only area she/he knows about from the whole course. The student Now appears highly skilled because of luck. The opposite situation is of course possible width a highly skilled student, who polls a question she/he hadn’t have time to read up on.

Best example are the poker players. It is mathematical proved a bad poker player can run with profit for a good amount of time, like wise a good poker player can play correct and loose for a good amount of time to. In gambling theory luck a also called standard deviation, just for the record.

A good reading on the topic is The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, and a specially good read on the poker and gambling topic is Gambling Theory and other topics by Mason Malmuth.  

The missing UMD drive is the biggest issue I believe. I would be very sad if I had to buy my old games again, because I bought a PSP go when my current PSP broke. I would either try to get another PSP device with UMD drive or give up the PSP. I think Sony has been arrogant when it comes to the UMD drive, and not listen to the majority of the PSP audience who wanted the UMD drive to stay. The counter action are retailers who boycotts the PSP go, because they will otherwise lose a lucrative secondhand game market. Furthermore I have just read the sale of the PSP3000 are increasing, after the launch of the PSP go, so people apparently prefers the models with UMD drives.

I believe Sony’s big plan with removing the UMD drive, was to start selling games through their internet shop, a concept similar to iTunes. It is also a good idea, but I think they took a wrong approach. Instead of from one day to another forcing people to use their shop for buying games , they should have nice and easily making people used using it. Sony has wasted a lot of time and opportunities here, because they have had their web shop for some years now, but it have been so unattractive that I don’t feel like visiting it now, even thou I think it is better after the PSP go launch. Now Sony are beginning to start promoting something they have had 2 generations of PSP to promote, that is embarrassing.

My issues with the price is actually combined the lack of new features, it is way to expensive, a price is to close to a PS3, but that is another story. It is true, the PSP go have better screen, microphone and double working memory, but it is something which is less likely to improve my gaming experience compared to my PSP2000. I mean, it is sold as a handheld gaming console, not as a mobile multimedia computer. Okay, it is cool you can use the microphone for Skype, but then again, why not use your cellular phone? which properly also can Skype? And let’s face it, it is to big as a MP3 player. The PSP is good at 2 things, games and movies, and I don’t believe that PSP go gives more pleasure than PSP3000, which justifies 25% higher price.

Where does PSP go, go from here? I haven’t made my opinion yet. Searching the Internet and reading articles, I have learned that Sony claims that PSP go sales are rising with PSP3000. I’m at the same time reading statements from retailers, who are claiming that PSP go sales are bad. I have decided to wait a couple of month to make an opinion of where PSP go is heading. An indicator could be the rumors of a new PSP4000 with UMD drive under development.

I believe that our climate research is only in the beginning, and we still have a lot to learn. I also base my believes and assumptions on what has been written about the climate in the general news. I believe that the climate is going a way, and always had. Research have shown that the earth have had different climates over the many millions of years it has existed. Some hash, other quite, some cold and some warm. Wrapping it up, the climate has gone through different phases, and will continue to, until end of time.

For many many years, we have had a climate which was in our view stable, and it fitted us because we did what humans are best at… we adapted us to the climate. I believe supported by strong evidences of changing climate, we are standing on the edge to a new climate phase  . Mankind are blamed for the climate changes, but sometimes I can’t  help myself thinking, that the change was coming no matter what, but we have only accelerated process.

Well, I do think we should care about nature and climate, and we should do what we can to stop polluting it. I also think, that the climate conference in Copenhagen is a good thing, and I can see that there is four kind of goals they can agree on: To do nothing, To deaccelerate the climate changes, To halt the climate changes or to reverse the climate changes.

I guess most people including me, can agree on doing the first, is unacceptable. In my imagination, I guess the second choice is the most right, because it should bring the climate back to the original process. Third and fourth option makes me speculate. I can imagine, if we tries to halt or reverse a process which nature have planned, maybe we could up with serious consequences to.

I think that our biggest problem with the climate changes are we can’t understand the consequences, because we don’t have enough research. I can understand why we will hang on the climate we have, because it is the most comfy. Climate changes will also have serious consequences for a lot of people, actually it is estimated that 100 million will be affected hard. We have all the reasons to keep our climate as it is now, but is it wise? I think there is a chance that interfering with a nature process, could have likewise serious consequences, of which I don’t know. We have seen many interferences with nature gone wrong like  crabs in Norway, rabbits in Australia and flowers in Africa, so many thing can go wrong. My vote is differently on deaccelerating the process, and the do what we do best… adapting.

Before we dig deeper, I don’t won’t you to make a mistake as I did. When looking through pandemics mostley all was called plagues, so I took for granted that plague was an old word for pandemic. Actually plague is the name for the disease which spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. This time the Pandemic is a flu, which is a virus.

We first have see what a pandemic is. The word comes from the greek word pan-demos, meaning all-people. There is three conditions, which must been fulfilled to call a disease for pandemic. WHO has defined them as:

• emergence of a disease new to a population
• agents infect humans, causing serious illness
• agents spread easily and sustainably among humans

Besides that, a disease must be infectious, and seasonal flu don’t count. actually, we are living  with 2 pandemics, the other one is HIV, and as far as I understand the pandemic is HIV, and not AIDS. A maybe-to-become-pandemic is the bird flu, it is on WHO watch lists. If you look at the conditions, it doesn’t say that the disease has to kill a high number of people.

Now we are back at the killing. Last I checked The Swine flu had killed least 5300 people world-wide. You might argue that is a high number, and I certainly don’t want to be one of them. My argument is, that is a low number for a flu. Looking at the seasonal flu, it is killing an average of 36.000 in the US alone. Swine flu is described as a very mild disease, and now you a properly wondering, why all the fuzz? I think, we have to look at the endangered groups which is hitted very hard of this disease. It is the people(young as old) with: Asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, who are pregnant or have a weakened immune system. Even healthy people can die of secondary infections caused by The Swine flu. At least 3 of the mentioned, cloud be classified as lifestyle disease in the western world. A really great number of people are suffering from life style diseases, right now. But the most noticeable is that is people in all ages, and not just old people.

Why worry? We can rely on our savior Tamiflu or can we?

Well, looking up Tamiflu, you will find out it is a double-edged sword. It can’t cure you, if your flu has already broke out, only shorten the length of the disease period. It is hard to say if it really shortens the period because it is now uncommon to see resistant flu viruses. It can properly avoid you are getting infected, but reading about the possible side-effects, I would always chose a week in bed with a flu. These includes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headache… but isn’t this stuff going to make me feel better? Further more there is suspicion of dangerous psychological, neuropsychiatric side effects including self harm. Well, you got rid of the flu, but you arm is now missing, because you couldn’t resist the urge to sawing it of, great. I believe that Tamiflu is the last option.

Is it time to panic?

No! I believe it is too early to panic. I believe that WHO classification has something to do, with we can’t see into to the future and see what the consequences are. So it is better to be safe than sorry. Also what is slighty mention is, for this virus your age is no problem, it is more a question of your body condition, which is new and can really get out of hands. The virus right now seems for me, not that aggressive, but it could mutate and turn for worse, but it has not happened yet. So why not wait with the worrying to the time is right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseltamivir

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

When that is settled, I have looked on the specs for the new little  machine, and it is little. Well, first I thought it was more or less the same as the other versions of the PSP, when you have a look at the insides, but it is not. And the again, it still has the mips processor running between 1 and 333 MHz, depending on the workload. So it is NOT faster than the other versions of the PSP. A big different which I knew in advance, was the 16 gig bytes of internal storage memory. Storage which is going to be used to downloaded games from Sony’s internet game store, I’m coming back to this. Another a hidden big difference is the 64 mb of work memory which is twice as the other versions. This means that maybe in the further, there is going to be games, which is not able to run on the other versions.

Looking at it, you will note very fast that the design is different from the others. The controls is hiding on a slide, behind the screen, and the screen in smaller compared to the former PSP. I can’t cover all the news and features, and it would be useless compared to my point. But when that is said, let’s have the biggest news: the UMD drive is removed, and that is maybe going to a big issue for Sony, and why is that?

Well, because, to get new games, you have to buy and download them through Sony’s internet game shop. A concept known from Apple and the Ipod, and which at first sounds good for the users. But it is bad news for the stores, selling the PSP console. When removing the UMD, Sony is also removing the physical game market. Stores selling PSP consoles, are making the most money on selling the games compared to the console, and I have heard stores refusing to sell PSP gos, because the major advantages by selling PSP’s are going to disappear. This means that Sony is going to have trouble distributing the PSP.

Looking at the price, the poor PSP go is standing more bad. Close to €300 euros, and that is much, it is more expensive than iPod Touch, and is to close to the price of the PS3.

To go or not to go, that is the question?

But not for me. I think the missing UMD drive is a major issue. I have around 7 UMD games which all I like, and I feel it is a really big problem, I can put them into a PSP go, if my PSP2000 should broke. There is really no performance improvements, so I’m really not getting an advantage to replace my PSP2000. Should my PSP broke, a PSP go is so expensive, I would chose to live without PSP. I’m not using my PSP that much so it is defend-able to pay full price for new games, so I buys them used, but that marked is going to be removed by Sony. So Sony, I’m afraid it is a no go.

Hasbro Offers Optimism as Profit Rises 8.8%

Well, what is so interesting about this? First of all, Hasbro is together with Mattel the biggest players on the Toy and Game market. These 2 companies are indicators for how good their market is going, and apparently it is going very good. Now I was curios, has this something to with fired employees. Many companies comes out with good Q3 earnings reports, because they have saved a lot money, on firing employees. After checking google I couldn’t find any thing about Hasbro firing many employees due to the financial crisis. Reading through the article I could se the growth was due to selling of products. Even Mattel was expected a good Q3.

Now to the funny thought, I got while reading the headline, or I think it was funny. The thought was:

What if the growth also was due, to kids who was cutting down on playing computer games, and starting using board games and play toys?

I think that hope and optimism goes along, and that would give “optimism” in the headline another dimension. I could further more support my thought, by reading an article from Bloomberg, telling that game consoles and computer games, are declining hard. But my point in all this is, I hope someday kids would cut down on television and computer gaming, and go out to be challenged in the real would. I believe it would be the most healthy for them.

Well, but as we all know, it has nothing to with that. I just likes to make these thought experiments:-)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574482862071098976.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aA8lr55heKxw

Before we talk about wax, let’s have to look at, what we are waxing. The bottom of the snowboard which you slide on are made of P-tex. Looking up P-tex we can see the real name is Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). Besides from being having proberties making it usable in bullet profs vests, it also has some properties, which makes it perfect for snowboard and skies. Among them are very low coefficient of friction and self-lubrication. Actually it is smooth as teflon, but why is it so important to wax, when it is so smooth?

P-tex has the ability to oxide which also makes it rougher, and it has a tendency to suck up things like water and dirt which also makes it rougher. So it is partly protection, so it is also a good idea to apply a thick layer of wax on the end of day, the last day, of the season. In that way the board is protected from oxidizing, until the day the season starts again. P-tex also contain fibers, which has lower friction, when they lays in order. Applying wax and removing it straightens the fibers.

In my own personal experience, are heat-waxing better than rub-on waxing. With heat waxing, the wax melts and runs deep in within the fibers. With Rub-on wax you rubs the wax on and uses a brick of cork to heat the wax by friction. There is also wax on spray, I have never tried, so I can’t really say anything about it. Heating wax also comes temperature specific wax, all temperature  and racing wax.

Searching discussion forums through the net, I have discovered that many people have the same view as me. There is no big difference between temperatur specific wax, all temperature or racing wax, for the recreational snowboarder. I believe that you have to be a top racing boarder, riding to speed, to really feel the difference. At our lower speed, the difference is very marginal. The most in important part is that the wax goes deep in the fiber, any hot-wax does it.

Good Season;-)

I have noticed that every time, there have been some kind of scandal, a Flash game always pops up the day after, to make fun of it. In my view this means, that flash is very fast for creating small games, which was half of my prerequisites. At the moment and I’m strong in the following programming languages C/C++, C#, Java and the usual markup languages, but Flash uses the so-called ActionScript, which means I have to educate myself. I like something new, so that is not a problem, the biggest problem about Flash, is getting started.

Adobe Flash is very expensive, there is a 30 day trail version which is downloadable from their website. But I didn’t know if I was going to use for 2 days or I had to change something in the game after 30 days. The price on Adobe Flash did not match my expectations of costs in this favor. Flash is an open format, so it is legal for other people to create Flash editors, but they of course also costs money, but a lot less. The problem with these programs, are I can’t see if they supported Flash version 10. My properly biggest problem with Flash, was I had trouble finding a good “get started” source on the internet. I concluded I wanted something else, or else I had to turn the favor down.

I did find my solution at my new friend Microsoft, and their “new” Flash killer called Silverlight. Why do I think, Silverlight is better? Well, first of all the tools are supported by Microsoft and is free, second Silverlight is build on the .NET platform, meaning if you can program C# and XML, you are as good a Silverlight programmer right away. No further programming education needed. Compared to what I wanted, if you think in terms of costs time and money, I got exactly what I wanted.

Silverlight is not all perfect, I have to mention. Silverlight have gone from a beta version to version 3 over a extremely short time, and it still have has it issues. You still have to use a little time getting to know the XML part and how it works. I have used around 6-7 hours working with Silverlight for the first time today, and ended up with a small primitive game, where a ball is shooting other balls. Most of the time were used on google, searching for answers while learning. I guess an experienced programmer would have been able, to the same game in less than 2 hours. The greatest was it only took less than 200 lines of programming.

I think Adobe Flash has a tough rival on the marked now. It is tough because it costs much less, and even people, who has never heard about Silverlight, are able to program applications for it. Thou it could be interesting to learn Flash, I have to wait, to it can compete with Silverlight on the price, or else I can afford it.