Moving to NYC

My decision has been made and the deal is done. Yesterday I signed a lease for a studio apartment in New York City. Rent is $1695 and I only had to fork out one extra month of security (two months total) due to my bankruptcy on my credit report. Since it was before the middle of the month my lease starts on May 19th.

The place is somewhat "funky", but works for me. It does not have a kitchen sink (only in New York!), but it does have a door onto the rooftop terrace, so it is probably a net good deal for me. It also has plenty of natural lighting, with a window and door (to the roof) on one wall and another window on the opposite wall, so I can get a cross-flow of air as an alternative to using the air conditioning as much as I might need to for a "normal" city apartment. The building is mostly surrounded by taller buildings, so it gets decent shade for much of the day. And since it is facing the interior, street noise is somewhat muted. The floor is linoleum tile, which is fine with me. A lot of NYC apartments have hardwood floors.

It is on the 10th floor of an older building. It does have an elevator, but also has a really nice wide stairway and I like to walk a lot anyway. When I had my apartment in Tudor City I used to walk up eleven floors all of the time.

The manager has a full-time office in the building, which assures better service for issues that might arise. I dealt directly with the manager (with my broker), who makes all of the management and operating decisions, which is much better than a lot of situations, especially for the typical "walk-up" apartment building you find in the city.

I went through a broker, Century 21, so I had to pay a fee of 15% of the annual rent (typical in Manhattan). Ouch. Yeah, that is a lot of money, but it gave me access to an apartment that I might not otherwise have been able to find on my own or as quickly. Total time from initial meeting with the broker to walking away with a signed lease was just under seven hours. I did look at a couple other apartments and a lot of other listings, but I was able to focus my priorities and the initial listing was a great match to begin with. I did find this listing on Craigslist.

I think I was lucky to get this apartment. People were calling while I was sitting in the manager's office filing my application and still calling when I was signing the lease and the manager had the card for someone ready to file an application if I backed out. Finding an apartment in a doorman building in midtown east in Manhattan with a terrace for less than $1700 is quite a good deal.

Electricity is the only utility that I have to pay. The apartment has an electric range, but I don't cook. It has steam heat. It does have an air conditioning unit left by the last tenant which is in so-so condition, so the good news is that the apartment is wired and set up for A/C, but I may have to buy a new window A/C unit depending on what shape the old unit is in, especially in the middle of the summer.

Now I need to decide what to do about telephone and broadband Internet access. Since I need broadband for my work, I may go with cable-based phone service from either Time-Warner or RCN. I do not watch TV, so I do not need normal "cable" access, but the package price may still be a decent deal, especially since traditional phone service is so pricey these days.

I flew to NYC on a one-way ticket. I still haven't decided when to fly back to Bellevue, WA. I need to make some arrangements for window shades and whatever else I may need to do to make the apartment ready for occupancy. One of my priorities for an apartment was to get a "doorman building" so that a lot of services can be arranged even though I am not at the building.

The location is quite decent (for me), in midtown east, on 50th Street just east of Lexington Avenue. That is a block away from Ess-a-Bagel, the best bagel shop in the world.

The really good news is that the most anxiety-provoking part of the move is done. Sure, plenty of the remaining tasks will be annoying and distracting, but manageable and with minimal uncertainty.

-- Jack Krupansky

Moving to NYC?

Last week, Anonymous left a comment on one of my blogs asking:

So - what did you ever decide about the move to NYC?

Good question, but I did not have an immediate answer. The short answer was that I had decided that the first week in May was when I was going to decide both whether to renew my apartment lease in Bellevue, WA and whether and where to move if I did not renew the lease, including whether I would move to NYC.

Unfortunately, I focused on my bill-paying work last Monday and Tuesday and didn't seriously dive back into looking at apartment listings in Craigslist until Wednesday. I had been checking the listings off and on over the past month or so, but was disappointed that prices didn't seem to be falling due to the weak economy. Sure, there are some apartments in the $1450 to $1550 range (or even below $1200 in Harlem), but they are somewhat... depressing. I was considering a couple of apartments in the $1600 to $1650 range in Tudor City, but the ones I knew about were actually rented by the end of the week. I probably could have picked up one of them, but I was not yet comfortable with paying $1600 in rent. When I lived in NYC back in 2004, I was paying $1275 in Tudor City.

So, by the end of the week I still did not have a new place lined up and the deadline for giving notice not to renew my lease (Sunday) was looming.

Friday afternoon I finally bit the bullet and went ahead and gave notice on my current lease. I felt that I had enough options in New York, or that I could move to Washington, D.C. or Atlantic City if New York didn't work out.

One of the reasons I did not get one of those apartments in Tudor City is that with personal bankruptcy only a little more than two years ago, the apartment co-op board might not approve my application. My broker had a call in to the board to find out, but unfortunately a couple of people snapped up the apartments before the board called back. The only other apartments in Tudor City that the broker had were in the $1800 range. I should call the broker back to at least find out what the board's answer was.

This morning I talked to another broker who had a place listed for $1695 that actually sounded fairly decent. I gave him all the details of my financial situation and he said I should be fine as long as I was willing to prepay rent, and that pre-paying maybe six months or even the whole year would sway a fair number of landlords.

So, I went ahead and made the decision to fly to New York City on Monday and meet with the broker on Tuesday morning.

I decided to fly one way since I have no idea how long my search will take and I will want to fly back to Bellevue ASAP to starting sorting through junk and packing.for my move. I will probably ship all my boxes via UPS.

I checked out prices on Priceline but decided to make a reservation directly with Continental since I did not see any non-stop flights that would get me into NYC at a reasonable hour. I booked a flight leaving Seattle at 11:30 a.m. that arrives in Newark a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. for "only" $460, one way. I could have gotten a round trip on Priceline for $500 to $550 (with stops and connections), but I had no idea when to schedule the return and staying an extra night or two in NYC would erase any savings on the flight. And, Priceline was not showing any non-stop flights. I will book a round trip from New York City to Bellevue, WA as soon as I finalize my new apartment. That could take a single day or two or could take an entire week or even longer.

Then I bit another bullet and used Priceline to reserve a hotel in NYC at least for the first couple of nights. I tried to get a place for $250 for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, but had no luck. I checked and it turns out that the rate jumped dramatically from Tuesday to Wednesday. So, I bid again for just Monday and Tuesday nights and did get a place for $250. Unfortunately, Priceline put me in the Wellington Hotel, which it did as well back in November on my last visit. My first night there in November was horrible, with poor heating incredible noise and a rather drab and depressing room that was in desperate need of renovation. Not something worth two and a half stars. A Holiday Inn Express would have been much better. I complained (back in November), but since I had checked in late in the evening they had no other rooms. They did put me in a much better room the second night, but that still did not make up for the disappointing experience of the first night. I tried to call the hotel today to put in a request for a decent room, but they said there was nothing they could do yet since it sometimes takes 24 hours before the Priceline reservation gets into their system. I also called Priceline to complain, but they simply suggested that I go ahead and check in and then call Priceline immediately if there is any problem and then Priceline will directly call the hotel on my behalf. The problem is that since my flight does not arrive in Newark until about 8:00 p.m., even the 8:30 p.m. shuttle bus will not drop me off in New York until about 9:30 p.m., so I will get to the hotel around 10:00 p.m., which almost guarantees that I will get one of the last remaining rooms and make it difficult for even Priceline to fix things up for me. And then, that is kind of late to find a decent restaurant on a Monday evening. I could go to dinner as soon as I get off the bus, but then I would be checking at after 11:00 p.m., which only increases the probability that I will have to hassle with the front desk. I will give the hotel another call tomorrow and see if they can flag me for early check in and somehow verify that my "standard" room is not as defective as the last time I was there.

If I need to stay beyond Wednesday, I may try Priceline again or take the casino bus to Atlantic City and stay down there for a couple of nights. That is a long commute, but it is cheap on the casino bus and a lot cheaper than paying more than $250 in NYC -- as long as I do not dump the savings into a slot machine! And depending on how things are going in NYC, I may also look around for a cheap place to rent in AC as a backup plan. Or, I could even take the bus from AC to DC (Washington, D.C.) and check out some apartments there.

Olympic Trailways runs the CoachUSA bus between Newark Airport and midtown Manhattan. The round trip ticket costs $25 and can be purchased online to avoid hassling with cash and you can get right on the bus. It is nominally a 50 minute ride. They stop at Port Authority, Bryant Park, and Grand Central Terminal.

So, I have my flight, my bus to the city, my hotel for two nights, and my appointment on Tuesday morning with a broker who claims to get "a hundred" new listings every week. I am good to go, so far.

The broker emailed me their "requirements" just to get started. Being self-employed, I need copies of the first two pages of my last two years of income tax returns, a letter on company letterhead from my accountant verifying the income reported on those returns and my forecast income for this year, and a debit card that can charge the last month's rent and one month's rent as deposit since they do not take personal checks or credit cards. And then there might be application fees and credit checks by individual landlords.

AND THEN, brokers in NYC typically charge a 15% fee on rentals. And that is 15% of the annual rent. So, if I manage to rent an apartment for $1750, the broker fee would be... $3,150. Ouch. That's life in the big city. Yes, there are brokers and owners  who do not charge fees, but they are typically managing a single property or small collection of properties, so you would have to bounce around to more owners and brokers to get access to a comparable number of properties. And, in my case, I would have to repeatedly tell my financial story about bankruptcy and part-time self-employment. This broker can figure out which properties to focus on and which to skip. I do want to find a doorman building for security, deliveries, handling mail and package issues, etc. That may add another $100 or $200 to the price for an apartment compared to a non-doorman building. And I would prefer to be in midtown east for convenience, which is a little more pricey.

So, that is where my infamous move to NYC stands. But until I finalize a deal for an actual apartment, I will not have made a final decision.

-- Jack Krupansky

Why does my Wi-Fi have limited or no connectivity?

The built-in Wi-Fi on my Toshiba notebook computer is fairly decent and reliable, but every once in a while I get this little popup message that informs me that I have:

Limited or no connectivity: The connection has limited or no connectivity. You might be unable to access the Internet or some network resources.

The Wi-Fi status shows that I am "Connected" and maybe even that the signal strength is "Good", "Very Good", or even "Excellent" (or maybe simply "Low"), but email and web browsing simply do not work.

I happen to be running Windows XP (still).

Sometimes the problem occurs after my computer has been sitting idle for some time. Sometimes the computer may have gone into suspend mode. Hard to say. Who knows.

Disconnecting and reconnecting my computer to the wireless network does not seem to help.

Turning the Wi-Fi switch on and off does not seem to help.

Powering down and back up may work, but I am always in the middle of doing something and do not want that hassle.

What to do...

Now, I do not know precisely what the technical problem is, but it has something to do with "stale" IP addresses, I think. In any case, the fix or at least the workaround is simple...

Whenever you get that "Limited or no connectivity" message, do the following quick and easy steps:

1. Turn your computer's Wi-Fi switch OFF. This may not be required, but do it just to be sure.
2. Open a Windows Command Prompt window.
3. Enter the following command at the command prompt:
   
   ipconfig/flushdns
   
4. Turn your computer's Wi-Fi switch back ON.
5. Wait a few seconds, and connectivity should be restored, unless there is an actual connectivity problem

If you ever run into this problem, trust me, I can feel your pain.

-- Jack Krupansky

Time to reconsider reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel

Since it now appears that nuclear energy has a very bright future, partially due to the fact that it does not spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cause global warming and climate change), it makes a lot of sense to reconsider our moratorium on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The goal of the moratorium was to deter "proliferation" and development of nuclear weapons programs, but I have always been dubious of that "benefit." Failure of the U.S. to reprocess spent fuel does not appear to have deterred North Korea (and Iran and Syria?) or Pakistan or India in any way. We are simply shooting ourselves in both feet. We need to reconsider reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for two purposes: 1) decrease the cost of producing large quantities of new fuel and 2) dramatically reduce the magnitude of the radioactive "waste" that needs to be stored.

Actual radioactive "waste" in spent nucelar fuel is really only about 3% of the weight of the original fuel. The vast bulk is simply unenriched uranium. There is some residual enriched uranium as well as some plutonium. The remaining 3% or so are the nasty "fission products" that do need to be separated and stored. See: Chemical Processes and Nuclear Reactor Fuel:

Spent fuel from nuclear reactors still contains considerable amounts of ²³⁵ U but now has generated significant ²³⁹Pu.  After 3 years in a reactor, 1,000 lbs. of 3.3-percent-enriched uranium (967 lbs. ²³⁸ U and 33 lbs. ²³⁵U) contain 8 lbs. of ²³⁵U and 8.9 lbs. of plutonium isotopes along with 943 lbs. of ²³⁸U and assorted fission products. Separating the ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu from the other components of spent fuel significantly addresses two major concerns. It greatly reduces the long-lived radioactivity of the residue and it allows purified ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu to be used as reactor fuel. (Courtesy of the Uranium Information Center)

Reasonable safeguards can be put in place to reduce the chance of proliferation even if the risk cannot be reduced to zero.

Given the new anxiety over carbon emissions, nuclear energy is once again a relatively safe and very sane energy choice to be given serious consideration. And given concerns about waste storage, reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is really the only sensible route to go.

-- Jack Krupansky

Time to reconsider reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel

Since it now appears that nuclear energy has a very bright future, partially due to the fact that it does not spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cause global warming and climate change), it makes a lot of sense to reconsider our moratorium on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The goal of the moratorium was to deter "proliferation" and development of nuclear weapons programs, but I have always been dubious of that "benefit." Failure of the U.S. to reprocess spent fuel does not appear to have deterred North Korea (and Iran and Syria?) or Pakistan or India in any way. We are simply shooting ourselves in both feet. We need to reconsider reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for two purposes: 1) decrease the cost of producing large quantities of new fuel and 2) dramatically reduce the magnitude of the radioactive "waste" that needs to be stored.

Actual radioactive "waste" in spent nucelar fuel is really only about 3% of the weight of the original fuel. The vast bulk is simply unenriched uranium. There is some residual enriched uranium as well as some plutonium. The remaining 3% or so are the nasty "fission products" that do need to be separated and stored. See: Chemical Processes and Nuclear Reactor Fuel:

Spent fuel from nuclear reactors still contains considerable amounts of ²³⁵ U but now has generated significant ²³⁹Pu.  After 3 years in a reactor, 1,000 lbs. of 3.3-percent-enriched uranium (967 lbs. ²³⁸ U and 33 lbs. ²³⁵U) contain 8 lbs. of ²³⁵U and 8.9 lbs. of plutonium isotopes along with 943 lbs. of ²³⁸U and assorted fission products. Separating the ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu from the other components of spent fuel significantly addresses two major concerns. It greatly reduces the long-lived radioactivity of the residue and it allows purified ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu to be used as reactor fuel. (Courtesy of the Uranium Information Center)

Reasonable safeguards can be put in place to reduce the chance of proliferation even if the risk cannot be reduced to zero.

Given the new anxiety over carbon emissions, nuclear energy is once again a relatively safe and very sane energy choice to be given serious consideration. And given concerns about waste storage, reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is really the only sensible route to go.

-- Jack Krupansky

Why I never buy a computer from Dell

I have never purchased a computer from Dell (although I did buy my Sony Clie PDA from them.) I have no general animosity towards them, but I seriously object to their sleasy price promotion. Just now I saw a display ad for a $499 notebook PC, but by the time you customize the default configuration to make it reasonably usable for mid-range computing tasks, the price jumped to over $1,400. Well, maybe it really didn't need some of those additions, so maybe the price would only jump to $1,200. Still, that is a very serious gap between promotion and reality.

I go over to ToshibaDirect.com and start at $783 and end up at about the same price. Toshiba used to be even better at giving realistic configurations up front, but competition with Dell has led them to stoop to similar sales tactics, although as not extreme and the starting configuration tends to be much more reasonable.

Toshiba does still do a fair amount of up-front promotion of very reasonable configurations that do not require massive Dell-like customization to make them reasonable. For example, the Satellite A305-S6845 for $1,250. It does not have Ultimate, but does come with 3GB of memory and a 200GB disk.

The key things that push the price up for me is to get to Vista Ultimate and to get a processor that is a reasonable leap forward from my current mid-range Toshiba notebook PC which will be three years old in June.

I am disappointed that disk and screen technology are not significantly better than my current machine.

I am not actually looking to buy a new machine just yet. I would like to spend my money on moving to New York City in a month or two and maybe get at least another six months if not a year out of my current machine.

If you want to know what my computer looks like, see the new movie 88 which is actually set in Seattle. There is a scene where the FBI agent is using his computer. It has a blue ("Peacock Blue") lid that says Toshiba. That's the same as my machine.

-- Jack Krupansky

Genetically modified food

There was an interesting article in the New York Times by Andrew Pollack entitled "In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo" which discusses progress in convincing people to produce and eat foods made using GM (genetically modified) plants. It informs us that:

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

...

Even in Europe, where opposition to what the Europeans call Frankenfoods has been fiercest, some prominent government officials and business executives are calling for faster approvals of imports of genetically modified crops. They are responding in part to complaints from livestock producers, who say they might suffer a critical shortage of feed if imports are not accelerated.

I hate to see people be convinced of an argument by having their arms severely twisted, but it is interesting to see how quickly some false arguments fall apart when reality intrudes into the discussion.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blizzard in Bellevue

I just happened to look out the window of my apartment and notice that there is quite a blizzard coming down right now. Well, back East they would call it a slight flurry, but for here in downtown Bellevue, WA it is really coming down.

Oops... the sun just came back out... and the snow continues to fall. Strangely, it is not that cold, with the weather page saying it is 46 degrees.

Ahhh... this is what the Global Warming and Climate Change people are talking about. It must be that new "warm snow." Or something like that.

-- Jack Krupansky

Ahhh... Now I know what that dome is!

For a number of years, every time I took the took the bus and train between Washington, D.C., and New York I would see this huge colorful building dome off in the distance and wonder what it was. I always made a mental note to look it up when I got off the train, but I would always be overwhelmed by the energy when I arrived in Washington or New York and promptly forget that task. Then, tonight, I was reading about the Pope's visit to Washington in USA TODAY and his visiting the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and I tried to imagine where that shrine might be and it suddenly dawned on me that maybe it was that mysterious dome I would see north of Washington. I did a quick image and map search in Google and sure enough, it in fact was "my" dome. Mystery solved. Personally, I always imagined it was a mosque since it was so brightly colored. So much for first visual impressions.

Even this picture does not do the dome justice:

Or this one:

The full name is Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

I am not religious, but I do find dramatic architectures interesting.

-- Jack Krupansky

Evil biofuel

There has been a lot of chatter about diversion of crops to biofuels causing a global food shortage. An article in the New York Times by Andrew Martin entitled "Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing" chronicles some of the debate. The article concludes by informing us:

But August Schumacher, a former under secretary of agriculture who is a consultant for the Kellogg Foundation, said the criticism of biofuels might be misdirected. Development agencies like the World Bank and many governments did little to support agricultural development in the last two decades, he said.

He noted that many of the upheavals over food prices abroad have concerned rice and wheat, neither of which is used as a biofuel. For both those crops, global demand has soared at the same time that droughts suppressed the output from farms.

The simple fact is that we need biofuels. If that means we need to create incentives to increase agricultural production overall, so be it.

Out of curiosity, I wonder what the presidential candidates have to say about all of this. What change would Barack really make?

Maybe we actually do need some incentives to increase farming and agricultural output in this country, especially if we are producing a product that the world needs and demand is rising.

I'd actually like to see some data on U.S. wheat production.

-- Jack Krupansky

Carbon cap vs. new technology

Finally, somebody is starting to say something semi-sensible on the whole Global Warming and Climate Change front, namely that simply putting a carbon cap and emissions trading market in place is not sufficient to do the trick, but what is really needed is a "major overhaul of energy technology." An article in the New York Times by Andrew Revkin entitled "A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming" tells us:

... with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.

The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, stated the case bluntly in a recent article in Scientific American: "Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people."

What is needed, Mr. Sachs and others say, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which they say will only come about with greatly increased spending by determined governments on what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development. A Manhattan-like Project, so to speak.

The article goes on to tell us:

But Professor Pielke and his co-authors say that a recent rise in emissions -- particularly in fast-growing emerging powers -- points to the need for government to push aggressively for technological advances instead of waiting for the market to force reductions in emissions.

Mr. Sachs pointed to several promising technologies -- capturing and burying carbon dioxide, plug-in hybrid cars and solar-thermal electric plants. "Each will require a combination of factors to succeed: more applied scientific research, important regulatory changes, appropriate infrastructure, public acceptance and early high-cost investments," he said. "A failure on one or more of these points could kill the technologies."

In short, what is needed, he said, is a "major overhaul of energy technology" financed by "large-scale public funding of research, development and demonstration projects."

Although I think there is significant merit to this alternative approach, I do not necessarily agree with it in all aspects. I believe that we should put investment incentives in place, but otherwise governments should sit back and let the private sector do the innovation. Governments can fund academic research efforts and demonstration projects and its own use of energy technologies, but the full-scale implementation should be left to the private sector.

I am also opposed to technical "fixes" such as extracting carbon dioxide from the air and burying it, dumping iron in the ocean to grow algae to remove carbon dioxide, and creating large aerosol clouds in the atmosphere to deter warming. It is much better to "fix" our technology problems than to monkey around with complex atmospheric processes that we still do not completely understand.

-- Jack Krupansky

Is America seriously headed off on the wrong track?

I half agree and half disagree with the poll conclusion given by the New York Times article entitled "81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on Wrong Track". Sure, I am confident that 4 out of 5 Americans are unhappy with a lot of what they hear and see and feel about "the direction of the country", whether it be Iraq, the so-called "War on Terror", the economy, big banks, Wall Street, health care, education, crime, government (too big or too small), etc. OTOH, the idea that there is some general consensus as to what "the" direction or "the" track should be is complete nonsense. There are over 300 million of us Americans and each one of us is entitled to our own personal view of what we think the direction of the country should be. In truth, each of us heads our own direction and the "direction" or "track" of the country is "the sum of all curves", the sum and average of all of our "tracks" and "directions" put together. Maybe what this poll really tells us that that we are all becoming much more self-centered (our selves, our families, our neighborhoods, our peer groups) and less oriented towards the concept of a nation. We see it most emphatically on the far right and far left, where compromise, a time-honored American tradition is now considered a base evil.

One question I wish the Times had asked: Do you personally feel that you know what the right track of the country should be? I'm confident that the number of "Yes!" responses would be quite high. That is the problem. Without a renewed conception of compromise, little progress can be made to get the country onto "the right" track.

Another question I have is the role of the Internet in our current state of affairs. Originally, the thought was that the Internet would help to break down boundaries and facilitate communications, but now it seems that there is a very dark side to both of those "improvements." Enhanced communications is now used as a weapon to attack and destroy your opponents. Sure, boundaries are gone, but only in the sense that online combat between opposing groups is now hand-to-hand.

Somewhere along the way we forgot that "the pen is mightier than the sword", and now we are seeing so many more "pens", whther they be blogs, tabloid editorials, talk radio shows, cable TV shows, or other forms of "New Media" being utilized first and foremost as weapons to beat down and destroy your opponents, rather than being tools for seeking understanding, reconciliation, peace, and harmony.

Sure, maybe America is in fact "on the wrong track", but who provided all these wonderful new tools to help fellow Americans push the country so far off of a common, compromise view of what a "common track" should be?

-- Jack Krupansky

Google movie search does not indicate matinee shows

Now that I have switched from MSN/Live Search to Google as my primary search engine I start to notice little things where Microsoft is in fact better. For example, just today I did a search for "movies in bellevue" and I was astounded that Google does not mark show times that have matinee discount pricing. MSN/Live indicates matinee shows by putting the time in parentheses. How could Google miss something so obvious? Probably because they cater to "The Elite", the kind of people for whom a couple of bucks is total noise and who are more annoyed by cluttering their screens with all those parentheses. You can always count on Microsoft to cater to "The Masses."

Hmmm... I just noticed another problem in Google... it is not showing any movies for the Bellevue Galleria theater! But wait... neither is MSN/Live! What's going on?!?! Oh well... a search for the theater by name and a click on "show times" brings up this message:

Hallett Cinemas would like to thank our Bellevue and Seattle customers!

 

After 2 years of helping people "Escape to the movies," Bellevue Galleria 11 closed its doors on 04/03/08.

Sigh. But at least I am relieved that this was not yet another bug in Google.

I am not surprised that this theater closed. In fact, I am surprised it stayed open so long. At least on a Saturday afternoon I would frequently find only a few people in the theater. The Lincoln Square theater two blocks away is much nicer, but having two theaters guaranteed a wider range of movies being shown.

-- Jack Krupansky

Budgeting for moving to New York City

Since I resigned my job at Microsoft in February, I have been working part-time remotely for a stealth startup on the East Coast from home here in Bellevue, WA since my apartment lease runs through May. Soon I have to decide whether to renew my lease for another year, go month to month for another $300 a month, or move on.

My big interest is to once again live in New York City. Places like Bellevue and Boulder, CO are certainly "nice" if you like the suburban small city lifestyle, but I really enjoy the energy level of Manhattan. Affording life in "The Big City" is a separate question. I have looked at my budget carefully and decided that although it will be tight, I can (barely) swing it. My short-term savings rate will fall to near zero, but I expect to increase my income level gradually over time.

There are two big costs associated with a move to Manhattan: 1) higher apartment rent, and 2) New York State and City income tax. There are plenty of things in Manhattan that are more expensive, but a little budgeting can keep most of the other expenses under control.

On the other hand a big expense is eliminated for me by moving to Manhattan: the cost of budgeting two trips a year to Manhattan. In fact, a big advantage for me living in Manhattan is that I can take trips by train and bus to Boston and Washington, D.C. much more cheaply. Also, I can enjoy life in Manhattan without the need to travel expensively just to get to some place where I can enjoy life more than I can in Manhattan. Sure, I would eventually like to do some world travel, but I am unable to afford that today anyway, so it will have to wait until I (eventually) strike it rich.

I am hoping to get a studio apartment in Manhattan for $1,400 or $1,500, but I may have to pay $1,650. Ouch. But, that included utilities. In fact, if I were to renew my lease here in Bellevue, I will be paying $1,060 once I add in utilities, so the incremental rent is not totally outrageous. In truth, a lot of people will spend a lot more than $590 a month for entertainment and recreation out here in the Seattle area while I simply get a lot of entertainment and recreation for free simply walking around the streets of Manhattan.

I haven't finalized my decision to move back to New York City, but I am almost "there."

Incidentally, I have lived in Manhattan twice before, back in 1994-1997 and 2000-2005.

My next step is to contact my old real estate broker and see what prices and availability are like. I have already been scanning Craigslist for a couple of weeks now, so I know roughly what apartments are going for.

I will probably gravitate back to Tudor City which is in Midtown East, at the east end of 42nd Street across First Avenue from the United Nations, since it is convenient, safe, economical, and has a reasonable level of service.

I will need to budget for a "house hunting" trip, the cost of moving my stuff back East, and a final, one-way trip to Manhattan. I have been thinking about taking the bus or Amtrak train for that final trip. I was originally planning on a trip back to New York City in May or June anyway, so the money I will save by not having to pay for a hotel for 10 days (at $250 to $300 a night) will actually pay for a big chunk of my move.

Other options I have for comparison purposes are moving back to Boulder, CO, to Washington, DC, or to San Francisco. The latter would be interesting, but the simple fact is that as much as I like visiting San Francisco (or Seattle for that matter), I simply really, really enjoy living in Manhattan much better.

The basic downside of moving to Manhattan is that I will be forced to budget myself extremely tightly, but that is probably a good thing in any case. As I said, the nice thing about Manhattan is how much I can enjoy for free.

-- Jack Krupansky

Free Tibet now?

Maybe this is a good candidate for a YouTube presidential debate question: Should we, both as individuals and the U.S. government, be actively promoting the independence of Tibet from China?

In principle, I am in favor of a free and independent Tibet, but what are the ramifications?

Or, maybe we should be promoting the independence of Tibet regardless of the ramifications.

Or, maybe we should be promoting the principle of the independence of Tibet, but not be specific as to the timing of such a move.

And if Tibet is to be granted independence, why not Taiwan? Granted, Taiwan just held an election in which people voted in favor or closer ties with China, but are there lessons from one to be learned from the other?

In particular, is the core issue in Tibet absolute political independence, or political autonomy, in much the same way that Hong Kong operates? Sure, some people much prefer absolute independence, but what do the majority seek?

And ultimately, whatever the solution is to political independence, the immediate question then becomes what the ongoing relations should be with China.

In principle, "a people" should be independent or at least treated as equal to other ethnic groups with no discrimination. The Kurds are another example, with many in Iraq and many in Turkey. Should the Kurds have their own independent country? In principle, I would say yes. Should we as both individuals and the U.S. government be lobbying to permit the creation of a free and independent Kurdish nation? That gets sticky.

My position is that we should focus on making our principles clear but step cautiously about applying them. Maybe phrase it as speak strongly about your principles but go gently with a strong stick.

The most important thing I would say is that we, as the U.S. government, have to be very careful not to get ahead of the situation. A people will seek their freedom when they are ready. There may be false starts and unrealistic expectations well in advance of a legitimate move to independence. We should always be there to aid fledgling nations once they have firmly established their independence, but be careful not to get involve when questions about independence are still unresolved within a sovereign nation. An exception is where a general agreement arises among multiple nations that independence now is an urgent necessity.

Meanwhile, private citizens and non-governmental organizations are free to lobby for the independence of any region, people, or political entity.

-- Jack Krupansky

OPEC is right - there is no shortage of oil

I am no fan of OPEC or any cartel, but they are precisely right when they refuse to increase production and insist that there is plenty of oil available in the market. They are ABSOLUTELY correct in their assessment of the supply of crude oil. Sure, global demand for oil is growing, but certainly not at a pace even a fraction of the pace of recent price rises. In fact, the inventory level of crude oil here in the U.S. is quite healthy. As of Wednesday, the weekly U.S. DOE EIA inventory report says that we have 311.6 MILLION barrels of crude oil sitting in storage tanks waiting for someone to use it. Granted, that is 2.8% below the level a year ago, but is still "in the middle of the average range for this time of year." There is simply no shortage of crude oil. Let me say that again: There is simply no shortage of crude oil.

So, why is the price of oil so high? One word: speculation.

Of course, we have always had speculation. So, what is different this time? One phrase: taking delivery. In the past, speculators simply bought futures contracts, held them for days or weeks or months and then sold them at a profit and "rolled" into a new batch of futures contracts. Because they were buying and selling fairly frequently their net impact on the price level was fairly modest, a mere "tax." But now, hedge funds and proprietary trading desks within financial institutions, among other speculators, are actually taking delivery of oil and other commodities. Now, they do not actually have the physical product delivered to their offices, but simply begin paying for storage of oil in a storage tank or gold in a vault or grain in a storage bin or whatever the appropriate storage may happen to be. The point is that since they are no longer selling the futures contracts there is no opportunity for the upwards price impetus when they purchased the futures contract to cancel out with a sale.

In short, there is plenty of oil sitting in storage that could be sold, but hedge funds and financial institutions and other speculators are intentionally keeping product off the market. Even so, OPEC, et al are still pumping more than enough oil to keep the maket fully supplied, but the ongoing one-way trading of oil futures contracts keeps the NYMEX futures market price of oil artificially higher, much higher than actual demand by true users of oil (refiners, chemical companies, transportation companies.)

To put it another way, OPEC is in fact selling a huge amount of oil, but the one-way nature of futures markets is attaching a price to each barrel of oil or other unit of commodity that is completely out of line with the actual supply and demand for actual use of the commidity.

Not all speculators are engaging in taking delivery, but enough of it is going on to keep this pyramid scheme going. Technically what the big speculators are doing is cornering the market. That can work for a while and even for quite a while, but is a very dangerous game to play. If they do not get out before the full speculative demand is met, they will get stuck with losses so massive that they effectively cannot sell their holdings at any price. That is why OPEC is reluctant to increase supply further, because it will only fuel the speculative bubble and cause even greater risk that the market price for oil will completely collapse once speculators realize that "the bubble has burst."

To be clear, OPEC is doing precisely the right thing: Pumping just enough oil to meet real demand by real users of crude oil.

Another factor influencing supply is that the inventory in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has been rising lately, by 100,000 barrels of oil in the latest week. My suspicion is that the oil companies are pumping oil into the reserve to make room in commercial storage tanks for storage of oil for speculators who have taken delivery.

The bottom line is that "total stocks" of oil and oil products is 0.8% above a year ago and "in the upper half of the average range for this time of year." To say it again: There is no shortage of oil. As far as gasoline, the inventory is 11.2% above a year and and "above the upper limit of the average range." There is no shortage of gasoline.

What I find truly appalling is that not even any of the Democratic presidential candidates are focusing any attention of the massive tsunami of commodities speculation that is continuing to wash over the pocketbooks of middle-class consumers. Let me be clear, the problem is not "big oil companies" or "big bad OPEC", but primarily the self-serving "investment" practices of hedge funds, financial institutions, and other speculators, both large and small. There seems to be very little comprehension among politions of the massive, pervasive, and socially-ruinous qualities of this speculation. Or, when they do know, they have too many deep-pocket contributors who have grown dependent on that speculation.

Finally, it could very well be that profits from this tsunami of commodities speculation might very well be all that keeps Wall Street from complete collapse. That alone may be keeping the regulators at bay, the hope that maybe Wall Street can "profit" its way out of its current financial mess.

To close, I am once again forced to admit that: OPEC is right - there is no shortage of oil and that the causes of high oil prices have to be found elsewhere - namely Wall Street.

-- Jack Krupansky

Hooray for higher oil and gasoline prices

Although higher energy prices are certainly seen as a very dark cloud hovering over the economy, it is a cloud with a very bright silver lining. Higher crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil prices are a very clear economic signal to consumers and businesses everywhere: cut back on your energy consumption.

Conservation and efficiency are our friends. If you as a consumer or business are not taking positive actions to conserve your energy use and to switch to more energy-efficient appliances, vehicles, and other equipment, then you deserve to suffer the consequences. You have no right whasoever to whine or complain about high energy prices. They are a clear economic signal. Pay strict attention to all economic signals.

Strong economic signals, such as dramatically higher energy prices, are just the kind of medicine we need to get us to re-focus our human energy on dramatically improved conservation and efficiency measures.

-- Jack Krupansky

Turning off the alarm clock

Although I like getting up early and getting up with the sun, I had chosen to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:00 a.m. every day of my brief career at Microsoft. Although there is a portion of the year when the sun actually is up before 5:00 a.m. in the Seattle area, much of the year it is dark at that hour, so I cannot depend on the sun. I used my old Sony Clie PDA for its alarm clock feature to assure that I would be awake in time to catch the earliest bus from downtown Bellevue to the West Campus of Microsoft in Redmond at 6:05 a.m. and be at my desk by 6:35 a.m. every weekday. I enjoyed the quiet and getting a lot more work done by the time a lot of people came in at 10:00 a.m. or so.

No more now that I am once again independent.

I am going to revert to my old form and simply rise when I happen to, whether it be due to the sun or construction noise across the street (at 5:30 a.m.?!), or simply that I have gotten enough sleep. In truth, I have frequently woken up by 4:30 a.m., but there is no sane need to punctuate the bliss of the early morning with the shock of an alarm clock.

Actually, I have no idea how my work habits and sleep patterns will evolve, but I do intend to get back to a more natural rhythm that makes sense for me.

Alarm clock be gone!

-- Jack Krupansky

Getting my weekends back

As I transition from full-time employee at The Evil Empire on Monday to working as a part-time independent software development consultant/contractor for a stealth startup on Tuesday, one of the transitions I will have to cope with is the prospect of getting my weekends back as free time. For the past 21 months I have been working 12 to 13 hours a day during the week at The Empire and have been simply too tired to engage in any of my own projects during the week, so my weekends were the only time that I had the time and energy to "work" on any of my own projects such as blogging. Sure, I got in a little relaxation such as watching a movie or two, but I inevitably consumed a fair number of hours on the weekend on activities other than idle relaxation.

Starting Tuesday, I will have plenty of time to pursue my own projects every day during the week, so the odds are that by the weekend I will want to focus much closer to 100% of my weekend time on relaxation, or at least on personal projects that don't feel as much like "work."

Alternatively, I can easily take off an entire day or more during the week for relaxing activities, and shift only a little if any of my work-like activities (e.g., this blog) into the weekend.

Another activity I would like to bring back into my life is to spend a fair number of hours each week simply reading books. Lately I have crammed so much into a seven-day week that I have had zero time to simply take out an hour or two a day for reading books. The closest I come is stopping by the local Barnes & Noble store and leafing through new books for fifteen or twenty minutes.

-- Jack Krupansky

Trip to San Francisco?!

I had been hoping to take a short trip down to San Francisco in recent months and even had a trip budgeted for this month, but my decision to resign from my position at The Evil Empire effective Monday and start some part-time work on Tuesday for a stealth startup essentially eliminates the prospects for a visit to San Francisco for the foreseeable future. Sure, I have plenty of cash on hand and technically can afford the trip, but I really need to transition into a tighter budget mentality to avoid feeling pressure to up my hours just to pay for non-essential expenses.

For now, a visit to San Francisco remains a hope for the indefinite future.

-- Jack Krupansky

Yes, biofuels emit carbon dioxide too!

An article in The New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal entitled "Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat" reminds us that even over-hyped biofuels are not a magic solution to Global Warming and Climate Change. As The Times tells us:

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these "green" fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.

These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.

The destruction of natural ecosystems -- whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America -- not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.

"When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially," said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. "Previously there's been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis."

Oops!

The simple, undeniable fact is that biofuel is still a hydrocarbon and burning of hydrocarbons releases carbon dioxide (and water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas.)

All along, we have been counting on many thousands of square miles of plants to continue absorbing carbon dioxide, but by misguidedly focusing energy on land-intensive biofuels, we are giving up one of our best sinks for excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Further evidence that ill-considered, short-sighted "fixes" for environmental issues is not a very good idea.

In short, biofuels are in fact a good idea, but pursuing them as a land-intensive "crop" is not environmentally sustainable.

Algae-based biofuels are one interesting alternative.

-- Jack Krupansky

Bill Gates and Creative Capitalism

Bill Gates gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in which he talked about the limitations of pure capitalism in addressing the unmet needs of the billions of very poor in the world and his proposal for creative capitalism to use recognition as an additional incentive to supplement raw profit as an incentive for business to address those unmet needs.

It is a fairly simple but powerful proposal.

That said, I am still unsure about the nuances of the concept.

For example, what is the essential role of national governments to provide aid to people in other countries?

Are there lines and if so where might they be between government aid, businesses providing aid, private philanthropy, non-governmental organizations, etc.

Where exactly does sovereign responsibility end and external aid come in?

And when you have disasters such as Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, and now Kenya, where do the lines get drawn?

Yes, the very poor have unmet needs, but when "power" is at stake, the ability of anybody to provide aid becomes quite murky.

All to often, grinding poverty has less to do with money and a lot more to do with politics and raw naked power.

I am confident that business can play a much greater role in addressing the human needs of those at the bottom of the pyramid. For example, Microsoft's Unlimited Potential program really does have a lot of potential to reach a lot further down the pyramid.

That said, I do worry about being careful not to marginalize the efforts of national governments in areas where they might be uniquely positioned to do a better job of offering and delivering aid and other forms of assistance.

-- Jack Krupansky

More Snow in Antarctica

A blog post in The New York Times by John Tierney entitled "More Snow in Antarctica" tells us that the global warming and climate change "trend" still has not reached Antarctica:

There’s new evidence from an Antarctic ice core that the popular image of the melting poles doesn't quite fit reality at the southern one. Elizabeth R. Thomas of the British Antarctic Survey and colleagues report in Geophysical Research Letters that snow accumulation has doubled since 1850 in the western Antarctic peninsula, and that the trend has accelerated in recent decades.

I mention this not to suggest this means the planet is cooling, nor to argue that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is wrong in warning of future warming. Quite the contrary. An increase in snowfall in the Antarctic happens to jibe quite well with the projections in the latest IPCC report: "Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall."

But that consensus projection hasn't gotten as much attention as the dire warnings from some scientists of an imminent meltdown in the Antarctic, so this new evidence from one spot is worth noting.

His blog post goes on to quote from the World Climate Report blog:

Not only is there no evidence of melting at the Gomez site, snow is accumulating there at an amazingly high rate. Clearly, this paper adds to the evidence that suggests that we simply, as of yet, do not have a firm grasp on the climate changes and their drivers that are effecting Antarctica, past, present, or, much less, future.

That gets to the main aspect of the whole global warming and climate change "movement" that really bugs me: the claim that all of it is "beyond debate." Let's encourage scientists to keep doing what they do best and also encourage them to refrain from extravagantly speculating about the future of a system that they as of yet still do not deeply understand. Antarctica is a fairly big piece of the overage climate puzzle, so it shouldn't be ignored.

-- Jack Krupansky

Davos

The World Economic Forum annual meeting, AKA "Davos", is now underway in Davos, Switzerland. You can get a lot of information about the events at the WEF web page. There is a Davos blog "conversation" as well.

Some day I would actually like to attend the forum, but I do not have any realistic expectation of ever being able to do so. The good news is that there is enough media coverage that you can get 20% of the benefit of being there without the hassle of actually having to be there.

One of the new features is that we can actually "participate" by submitting YouTub videos that address "The Davos Question":

What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do
to make the world a better place in 2008?

Some of our videos will be screened at select plenary sessions (January 23-27). World leaders will continue to watch our videos and make responses of their own at the YouTube corner in the Congress Centre.

That's actually rather cool. Alas, I still haven't gotten into this whole video thing.

I would offer the following suggestion for my "one thing":

1. Tone down all the fear-mongering rhetoric, whether it is about terrorism, the environment, the economy, or "the other party" regardless of what your political or social persuasion might be.

-- Jack Krupansky

Moview review: Cloverfield

I had been looking forward to seeing the Sci-Fi action monster movie Cloverfield since I saw the trailer and poster. Part of that is simply because I am a sucker for any movie set in New York City. I was prepared for it to be somewhat lame, but it was better than I expected. As far as I could tell the monster did not have a name ("What is 'that thing'?"), but was finally gargantuan enough to live up to the claim of "attacking" New York City in a credible and fitting manner for a city that is itself a giant monster. King Kong and Godzilla (and those Legend zombies as well) all seemed like simply so many mere tourists in the city, but the Cloverfield monster put all of them together to shame. The quirky YouTube style of filming actually worked fairly well. My only real complaint was that the movie was way too short and maybe too low budget and would have been more of a blockbuster if there had been some traditional cinema wrapped around it to give it a more robust beginning, some scientific interludes, and a better ending. Sounds like an invitation for some YouTube video mashups, or maybe just for a prequel and a sequel. The sound effects were decently creepy and the sound track for the credits was cool. Make sure to stay through the credits and listen carefully for the last few seconds.

In short, I was disappointed by the fact that this was more of a "short feature" than a full-length movie, but otherwise I found it reasonably entertaining.

-- Jack Krupansky

How to spend my rebate

It sounds as if it is almost a done deal that we will all get $800 rebates as part of the anti-recession fiscal stimulus package that is being developed. Some cynics are chattering that we might not see the money until the summer, but I suspect it will be in the March timeframe. Besides, there is no need to wait; simply spend the money using your credit card and then pay it off when the rebate actually arrives.

The bigger question is what to spend it on. My options for what to do with my rebate:

1. Long weekend trip to San Francisco. Maybe even stay at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero for the first time since 1993.
2. Buy one of those cool new Apple iPod Touch devices that has Wi-Fi browsing and now maps, weather, stocks, news, etc. The 16GB version costs $399, so that only covers half of my rebate.
3. Budget for some steak dinners (at about $75 to $85 each) in the coming few months.
4. Pay down some of my back taxes. In other words, take some of the money that the U.S. Treasury will be giving me and give it back to... the U.S. Treasury (IRS).
5. Buy carbon credits so that I can be carbon neutral for a few years.
6. Simply save it. Not very attractive since I already have my rainy day fund fully funded and may not be eligible to contribute more to my retirement accounts this year. Besides, we are supposed to spend this money.
7. None of the above. Something creative. Maybe even socially responsible.

I may simply opt for #1, but I would prefer to go with #7 and come up with something that will add some significant value to my life and maybe even be socially responsible. I could simply go with #5 and then feel that I have been socially responsible.

-- Jack Krupansky

Review: There Will Be Blood

I went ahead yesterday and saw There Will Be Blood, the new movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis. It was in fact better than I was worried it might be, but still not a truly great movie as some of the hype had suggested. Yes, Mr. Day-Lewis' acting was spectacular and as cinema art the film was compelling, but all put together I would not classify it as a "blockbuster" mainstream movie.

All sorts of positive adjectives apply to this movie which qualify it a piece of fine art, but that does not make it a hard-core, mainstream "hit" for general audiences.

As a human interest story, it was rather depressing. Not the sort of movie to raise your spirits and increase your faith in humanity.

As a business historical perspective story, it was enlightening.

As raw cinema, it was visually stunning.

An open question is how this movie would have come off without Mr. Day-Lewis' doing the vast bulk of the heavy lifting.

I am glad that I saw it and would be willing to see it again, especially since it is filled with lots of nuance that can be easy to miss or fail to fully appreciate in a single sitting. In fact, it is the kind of film where you could endlessly dissect (in a positive way) even single scenes.

-- Jack Krupansky

Will There Be Blood?

As I said last week, I had been looking forward to seeing There Will Be Blood, the new movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis, but since it still wasn't being widely shown here in the Bellevue, WA area and I was growing very annoyed with all the hype, I was considering boycotting the movie whenever it does eventually make it to a general release.

Well, now it has finally been widely released and now I can see it locally, but the question remains whether I want to stand on principle and fight all the hype and boycott the movie.

Well, it is only $7.50, so it is not a big deal financially, so I might temporarily set aside my concerns and principles and take a look at it. After all, I did see Michael Moore's movie and Al Gore's pseudo-documentary (and some random documentary having something to do with coffee), so this is not a complete compromise on principle.

But, unless the movie is really, really, really super-fantastic, I do reserve the right to criticize it after the fact. And when I say super-fantastic, I mean even besides the performance of Mr. Day-Lewis.

So, if this movie does not live up to its over-hyped expectations, then I can assure you that There Will Be (the blogging equivalent of) Blood in this space!

I'll probably catch the 1:00 p.m. showing at the Lincoln Square Cinema here in (rainy) downtown Bellevue, WA.

-- Jack Krupansky

Edge question for 2008: What have you changed your mind about? Why?

John Brockman's Edge question for 2008 is now out: What have you changed your mind about? Why?

The Edge Annual Question -- 2008

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?"

165 contributors; 112,600 words

That's right, there are 165 responses to the question.

Just a few of the responses that I have glanced at so far:

• Nassim Taleb (the Black Swan guy): The Irrelevance of "Probability"
• Danny Hillis: Try the Experiment Yourself
• David Gelernter: Users Are Not Reactionary After All
• Kai Krause: Software is merely a Performance Art
• Jaron Lanier: Virtual reality for the treatment of psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder
• Tim O'Reilly: Skeptical of the term "social software"
• Clay Shirky: Compatibility of Religion and Science

Personally, I do not have much of an answer to this question yet, even after reading these few responses. In general, my thinking evolves incrementally over time. I am having trouble recalling very many "Aha!" moments where I had a clear change of mind rather than that I had evolved a somewhat different perspective as I gradually incorporated new information into my thinking. Something to think about. And that is the whole point of Edge questions.

-- Jack Krupansky

There Will Be Fraud

I had been looking forward to seeing There Will Be Blood, the new movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis, but it still isn't widely shown here in the Bellevue, WA area. It is very strange that such an "acclaimed" movie would be "released" in 2007, but not be generally shown even two weekends later. Yes, it is being shown at two theaters in Seattle, but not in any theaters in the suburbs around Seattle, where I live. If it has only "limited release" at the end of the year then it should not be considered to have been released in that year. I consider this a form of fraud. I now suspect that there may be unspecified "problems" with the movie that are preventing a true "general" release and that it is probably in fact grossly overrated. In fact, I am always suspicious of movies that claim "critical acclaim." I am now considering boycotting this movie whenever it does eventually make it to a general release.

-- Jack Krupansky