Ice cream in Kauai

go sharks!
go Habs!

The kick-ass team that built playscript posted on code.zynga.com …

http://code.zynga.com/2013/04/playscript-a-compiler-and-runtime-for-a-cross-platform-world/

You can read a lot more about it there.

In many discussions about being a great engineer the focus is on how fast you write code, or build a system not the ability to pick the right thing to build.

This blog eloquently describes that the problem of picking what to not build is the key to productivity.

http://www.yosefk.com/blog/10x-more-selective.html

Love this:

But how fair things are is beside the point. After all, it’s not like 10x the perceived productivity is very likely to give you 10x the compensation. So there’s not a whole lot of reasons to “cheat” and appear more productive than you are. The main reason to be productive is because there’s fire raging up one’s arse, more than any tangible benefit.

The point I do want to make is, to get more done, you don’t need to succeed more quickly (although that helps) as much as you need to fail less often. And not all failures are due to lack of knowledge or skill; most of them are due to quitting before something is actually usable – or due to there being few chances for it to be used in the first place.

So I believe, having authored a lot of code that went down the toilet, that you don’t get productive by working as much as by not working– not on stuff that is likely to get thrown away.

Apparently the sequestration has resulted in a drop in global spending on arms.
http://world.time.com/2013/04/14/u-s-defense-cuts-leads-to-first-drop-in-global-arms-spending-in-15-years

But we shouldn’t worry too much about that:

One of Sipri’s most notable findings is that “in 2012, the U.S. share of world military spending went below 40% for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union” 24 years ago. Yet that still means that the U.S. accounts for four-tenths of all global military spending—and it is 69% higher than it was in 2001. “The U.S. is still a vast, vast military power,” Burton told TIME. “The others are playing catch up.”

http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2011/10/29/another-eurozone-country-bites-the-dust.html

“The bulk of the problems stem from the archaic Ottoman land law still in existence in Cyprus which allows these dubious practices,” writes the Cyprus Property Action Group. Insufficient industry regulation and lacking enforcement of consumer protection laws also play a role.

The scheme works this way: A developer takes out a mortgage on the land but hides it from foreign buyers. The bank retains the title deed as collateral. When the developer sells the property, the buyers’ lawyer, who is in cahoots with the developer, doesn’t perform a title search and doesn’t “discover” the original mortgage. Buyers, assuming that their part of the property is free an clear, either pay cash or take out a mortgage. The developer pockets the money instead of paying off the original mortgage. The bank goes along because it can collect interest on one or two mortgages. But it retains the title deed as collateral for the original mortgage, and the buyer never sees it.

Amazing, really.

There are some pretty huge storms hitting the beach in Kamari, Santorini

Here are some of the pictures my family sent me.

These are right next to the church Agios Nikolaos

And these are further down the beach.

Nicholas and the trains

The bank of Japan has decided to fight deflation. After all of these years, a populist came to power who was determined to help the little people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/global/japan-initiates-a-bold-bid-to-end-years-of-falling-prices.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In a deflationary environment the owners of assets (money), benefit and the people without assets lose out.

When you hear people screaming about inflation pay very close attention to their wallet sizes.

If you don’t believe me, just go watch Downton Abbey. The aristocracy in England benefited from an amazing deflationary asset: Land. No new land was being created, and more people were being born, which meant that existing land holdings increased in value. Because the land holdings were concentrated into a few hands because of a rigorous enforcement of primogeniture no new land entered the market. As a result land increased in value and the owners of it became increasingly wealthy.

Net effect? The wealthier you were, the wealthier you became without doing anything. The aristocracy was so wealthy they were able to have 10’s of servants for a very small family. And their wealth translated into power that they were able to wield.

What broke their power? Why it was the introduction of an inflationary asset, you know something that increased as a result of people taking actions … Printed money and fractional reserve banking. That inflationary asset created people with new wealth and power that destroyed that aristocracy.

Why do people love the gold standard? Because people who have gold become wealthier just by holding onto their gold. If you look back into American history the populists had a saying about gold…Here’s the quote from William Bryant Jennings:

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

If you believe that we should create new business and new growth then moderate inflation is not a bad thing. Yes it sucks to have to keep creating wealth, it sucks when asset bubbles form because of excess credit, but a freely flowing currency enables new business and new growth and new opportunities. If you believe that you should live off of your existing assets and not work, then moderate inflation is a terrible thing.

For the well off this is a choice. For everyone else it’s a weird universe they don’t understand.

I never thought the revolution would begin in Japan. There is hope for this world, yet.