Obama's digging in deeper on a bad argument in support of Larry Summers.

I don't think President Obama's getting it.  After all, if your own party doesn't like one of your potential choices, but you're nonetheless keeping that person on the table of options, isn't that a sign that you're being pig-headed?

Today he vociferously supported Larry Summers behind a closed-door meeting with Democrats.  He called Summers the "Rock of Gibraltar" when it came to the discussion over the stimulus.

But the problem is:

• Summers was the person who nixed the larger stimulus figure that was first proposed by Christina Romer, because he felt that it was DOA in Congress.  So instead, what did we get?  Less than half of what Romer proposed, or as I like to call it: Crap.
• He's done this before: supporting the repeal of Glass-Steagall; he still has no regrets, by the way.
• And he was also on the wrong side of regulating derivatives -- you know, the stuff that was at the center of the largest bubble explosion, since The Great Depression.
• Dude got kicked out of the presidential suite at Harvard, not just because people didn't like his managerial style, but because of $1B in losses resulting from screwed up investment decisions. 

Do you really want the next Fed Chairperson to be the Rock of Gibraltar...on the Titanic?

"Captain, we are headed towards a giant iceberg!"

"Nonsense!  Maintain course and increase speed!"

It's not that I think Summers will suddenly change course and stop QE and raise rates -- he's still a dovish guy, after all.  But I think he's going to eventually fuck up badly (yet again).

Even more on Chromecasting.

So after playing around a bit with Chromecast, here are some additional notes:

• Since you can cast any Chrome browser tab and because you can drag and drop supported media file types into Chrome browser and have them play / show up, you can also stream to your TV:
• local MP3 and certain other audio formats, though not .OGG and .FLAC.  Of course you don't really need to worry about this when you have your music online in Google Play Music.
• images (supported file types, only, of course).
• Speaking of images, you can also cast that tab with Flickr, Dropbox, etc. and look at a curated folder of images.  I'm thinking it'd make for awesomely large presentations.
• You can also, therefore, stare at your digital magazines, viewed within Chrome on your computer, on your TV screen, with some caveats (below).
• When you stream music via Google Play app, it moves the title / progress bar and any cover art around the TV screen so as to not burn in any images; the same goes for the Chromecast home screen as it waits for you to cast something to your TV.

There are some improvements needed, however:

• As I've previously mentioned, drag-and-drop video content results in a tiny lag between audio and video, of about 1/2 a second -- something that should be correctable with firmware updates -- but it's not that bad.  It's an ever-moving target as sometimes there is zero lag and other times it's a half-second delay that looks funny.
• Text rendering is terrible, so casting a Chrome browser tab is not very useful if the intention in blowing up the size of a web page / digital magazine is to read the text.
• Sometimes you can't play one music file, then skip over to another music file within the Google Play Music in Android, without having some hiccups along the way.  The easiest way to resolve this is to disconnect and reconnect to Chromecast.  Of course if you stream just playlists, you'll never run into this issue.
• Curiously, you might not see the Chromecast button in your Android apps, until after you've opened and closed them at least once.  I've noticed this in the Music and YouTube apps.
• I'd really like to be able to cast from within the Google Play Books and Magazine apps (and have text rendered properly), because then I'd be able to have a reference book open on the TV while I worked on my laptop.

I plan on putting off activating my free Netflix streaming codes until late-September / early-October: My DVD queue jumped up to above 40 discs, with another 12 saved videos about to be released, and the plan was to eventually move to 1-disc-at-a-time while adding streaming after I had gotten down to about 10 DVDs.  Almost there.

All in all, an extremely awesome device for $35, and because it's Google and the platform is open with an SDK, it'll only get better.  This is going to be awesome!

I'm Chromecasting! (Updated)

The box arrived this afternoon, and I had a tiny hiccup -- non-transmitting SSID WiFi / password setup -- that actually didn't require me to do anything but to hit the 'cancel' button, leading to the device automatically connecting.  The hardest part was my self-doubt on whether I remembered my WiFi password correctly, then searching to find a piece of paper that I had thought I had written it down on, only to realize that I still haven't written it down, but then realizing that I need to login to my router using direct (CAT5 cable) to my netbook.  In the end, all was for naught because I did have my password correct, and I just needed to hit the 'cancel' button in the setup at the right time.  :P

So here's my deal: my TV has a powered USB port, so I just had to connect the mini-USB-to-USB cord to that, and I didn't have to connect it to the power strip.  As soon as it was attached, the LED turned on and I set up my Chromecast via my laptop.  After adding the Chromecast extension to Chrome on m laptop, I was ready to go.

So, first thing I did was to stream Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon via Youtube, the movie that came with my Nexus 7 last year.  It's streaming at 720p and looks awesome...better than DVD!

People, this is awesome!

---

Update:

Some interesting things to note:

• By tab-casting Chrome tabs, you can watch free Hulu (or any website with streaming video) on the big screen, but the audio is split second off from the video; not as bad as old Kung-Fu movies, but it is noticeable.  Watching it on the laptop and on the TV screen, it's obvious now that there is a 2-second buffer in the video.  I suspect this will eventually get fixed via some future firmware update.
• Yes, you can watch your entire library of ripped videos (mine are wrapped in .mp4 / .mkv), by simply dragging and dropping it into a Chrome tab, then casting that tab.  It also employs the 2-second buffer.  The video is a bit jaggy if you run it at 720p, so I run it at 480p, but it looks really good -- that probably has a lot to do with my TV being plasma.  For what it's worth, my digital video content sits on a network attached hard drive.
• Tab-casting Google Play Music works well, which isn't a big surprise, since it's just audio.  But the point is, that my audio library is about 3/4 ripped and uploaded into Google Play Music, so now I can easily stream it to my Harmon Kardon receiver and Polk Audio bookshelf speakers, and it sounds great!
• After installing the Chromecast app onto my smartphone and tablet, I can cast music from Google Play Music, directly to my TV / receiver / bookshelf speakers from either device, from anywhere I'm at.  This is the easiest method to get music going, and oh, did I mention it's freaking awesome?!?!

Without reservation, I can say that this is exactly what I had wanted. :D

Did Justice Scalia just disqualify himself as a judge?

Via New Yorker's Andy Borowitz, SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia just offered to school Pope Francis in how to pass judgment on gay people. 

"If he’s having trouble judging homosexuals, well, then I’m his man; I have over a quarter century of professional experience. 

Once he spends a few weeks watching the master at work, I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it. 

I wasn't great at judging homosexuals my first year in the job, either, but now I can do it without thinking."

Firstly, Scalia has just explained to us that he already has a judicial bias against gay people; he didn't say that he understands gay people, but that he knows how to judge them.  Secondly, he's telling us that he's been prejudicially biased against gay people for 25 years.  Thirdly, he inflated himself above that of the Pope by challenging the Pope's abilities, which is an apostasy of Catholic catechism, as explained by V-II:

"[The Pope's] definitions, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly held irreformable, for they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, an assistance promised to him in blessed Peter."

Pope Francis did not say that gay sex was morally right; he said that he is insufficient to God, to judge the conscience of gay people.  Scalia's retort is to put aside such humility and dispositively judge gay people solely to his personal moral construct, and nothing else (I know God's will, therefore I am perfect in judgement of gay people).

Furthermore, while he's obviously being sarcastic, the fact that he willingly made his contempt for the Pope public, shows that he has elevated himself above the Pope.  That he refers to himself as "master" is instructive in this regard, as Scalia professes to be Alpha.

Antonin Scalia, through his own actions and ego, has committed apostasy and violated the oath of his office, in one fell swoop.  Good enough reasons to impeach him, don't you think?  Too bad though, that the House of Representatives -- where impeachment trials are carried out -- is controlled by a crowd that is partial towards this apostate.

When people overlook ugly because of the nameplate.

I keep looking at the BMW i3, and all I see is 100% pure ugly.  Every trick in the book has been employed to try to make a fat, bulging vehicle look smaller and high-tech, but all I see is an extra-wide butt trying to squeeze in a two-sizes-too-small pair of mom jeans.  Yet, somehow this fugly is going to production.

i3: the extra wide butt in the too-small mom jeans

It's not as though BMW doesn't have in-house talent. Just look at that Mini Vision concept.

Mini Vision: so beautiful, it's embarrassed to sit next to an i3.

You know what the i3 reminds me of?

Pontiac Aztek: the mother of the i3?

Apple Insider proves itself a fanboi site.

Apple Insider thought it'd put up a speculative post, suggesting that Google was abandoning Android.  Only problem is, the first thing they pointed to, was how Chromecast's innards was mostly Android, not Chrome OS, while stripped of Dalvik and Bionic.

Silly.

If you're abandoning Android, why put Android inside Chromecast?  Stripping Dalvik / Bionic should be fairly obvious: it's not a full-blown Android device meant to run full-blown apps by itself.  If it could do that, it'd be an Ouya, or Android on a stick.

Why then, didn't they put full blown Android on a stick?  Because their intention wasn't to bring another Android on a stick.  They were trying to find the answer of how to connect TVs / AV to the internet.  They tried it with a set top box / built-in Google TV, then they halfheartedly tried again with Nexus Q.

Personally, I think AI is upset and jealous that Chromecast is apparently a giant hit -- it's completely sold out everywhere, unless of course you don't mind paying triple or more, on eBay.  Why else push the topic of Chromecast to the top of your article and disproving your own point (about Google walking away from Android) in the first few paragraphs?

They also pointed to a perceived slowdown of Android releases, to show that Google wasn't as interested in supporting Android.

Dumb.

Firstly, AI doesn't seem to pay attention to Google IO.  At Google IO 2011, Google said that it had reached an agreement in principle with manufacturers to speed up updates to end-users, with an 18-month support window for updates -- a promise by manufacturers to update phone OSes for 18 months after they release new hardware.  At Google IO 2012, they released a Platform Development Kit to help speed those updates from manufacturers to end-users.  That's not a sign of walking away from a platform, but a sign that Google is looking to boost the fortunes of Android.

Secondly, Android manufacturers have complained about the speed of OS updates, and thus Google has (apparently) responded by delaying KLP / 5.0, even as it updated the OS last week with API 18 / Android 4.3.  Hardly a case of Google losing interest in Android.

It's all just a load of FUD.  And that's what you'd expect from a fanboi site dedicated towards spreading Apple propaganda.

What's wrong with Huma Abedin?

Absolutely nothing.

Quit picking on her; it's her decision, not yours.

Wall Street wants Yellen as next top Fed.

Via CNBC, a small poll of 40 Wall Street insiders, feel that President Obama will (70%) and should (50%) pick Janet Yellen to be the next Fed Chairperson.  Makes sense, really, because she's the current Vice Chair.

Here's where it gets interesting.  Yellen is a lot like Ben Bernanke, and was instrumental in the design of the QE program.  That makes her a dove, whereas Larry Summers has recently come out downplaying QE's effects, making him more hawkish than Yellen.

So look at the order of preference by those Wall Street insiders:

Janet Yellen	50.0%
Ben Bernanke	12.5%
John Taylor	12.5%
Glenn Hubbard	7.5%
Roger Ferguson	5.0%
Larry Summers	2.5%
Martin Feldstein	2.5%
Paul Volcker	2.5%
Steve Liesman	2.5%
Don't know/unsure	2.5%

There are a couple of very hawkish economists (Taylor and Hubbard) and a hawkish dove (Summers) behind Yellen and Ben Bernanke.  The first observation is that Wall Street would prefer a more hawkish stance, but that it prefers stability over all else...even if it means forcing Ben Bernanke to stay on, against his will.

Another observation is that Wall Street just really doesn't like Larry Summers, even if he's in the top-2 list of candidates and Obama's likely favorite.

After having read about and watched Frontline's coverage of Summers (and the Rubin gang) dismissive of the warnings against dismantling Glass-Steagall, I can't say that I disagree with the anti-Summers.  When you're on the wrong side of an argument that results in the near-collapse of the economy, you shouldn't get a second chance to screw up: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

The House's NSA defunding vote failed. (updated)

This is more of a note to myself.

Yesterday, the US House voted on an amendment to a defense budget bill, that would have specifically stopped the NSA from blanket collections of meta data of Americans in the United States.  Now, you would think that many Democrats would stick with the President on this and vote 'no', and that Libertarian-leaning (conservative Republicans) would lean against the NSA and vote 'yes' on it.  That's not how it ended up.  A majority of Democrats voted to stop the NSA, while a majority of Republicans voted to support the NSA.

Here's how Oregon's representatives voted:

Yes (to stop the NSA):

• Suzanne Bonamici (D)
• Earl Blumenauer (D)
• Peter DeFazio (D)
• Kurt Schrader (D)

No:

• Greg Walden (R)

Of course, I have been writing about my opposition of the NSA's blanket surveillance on Americans from the beginning, and I'm a huge fan of Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.  All I have to say on this: I'm extremely proud that we have such fine representatives (save Greg Walden, of course) in Oregon.

Brings tear to my eyes, really.

---

Update: Maplight / Wired Magazine found a relationship between those who voted to block the NSA and those who voted to support the NSA: MONEY.

So the message is, if a lawmaker gets lots of money from the military and intelligence industry, they're more interested in defending that money than defending your civil freedoms.

Greg Walden -- $37,500
Suzanne Bonamici -- $15,750
Kurt Schrader -- $13,500
Earl Blumenauer -- $7,000
Peter DeFazio -- $6,000

Boom: I bought Chromecast (updated).

Just half an hour ago, Google introduced Chromecast, and, following the end of their live streaming broadcast, it showed up in the Google Play Store.  So naturally, I bought it on the spot (Order date: Jul 24, 2013 10:30:37 AM PDT); didn't even need to think twice, and here's why:

• Stream your Google Play Music to your HiFi AV wirelessly, using any laptop, iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets (yikes, no Windows Phone or Blackberry!) as your remote control.
• Stream Netflix videos (you get 3 free months of free streaming!)
• Stream YouTube videos.
• Steam photos from your browser.
• It's an HDMI dongle, powered via USB...no confusion on cords.

The way I see it, Chromecast is better than what the Nexus Q was supposed to be, and for a substantially lower price than the Q.  I couldn't resist, and jumped on it.

SPECS:
Output -- HDMI, CEC compatible
Max. Output Video Resolution -- 1080p
Dimensions -- 72(L) x 35(W) x 12(H) mm
Weight -- 34g
Wireless -- 2.4 GHz WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Power -- USB (Power adapter included)
Supported Operating Systems
Android 2.3 and higher
iOS® 6 and higher
Windows® 7 and higher
Mac OS® 10.7 and higher
Chrome OS (Chromebook Pixel, additional Chromebooks coming soon).

---

Update: Google's promo of 3 free months of streaming Netflix ended quickly. Apparently the Chromecast device is so popular, they simply ran out of promo codes. We know this: Google sold at least 250K devices in just one day.

In fact, they're backordered everywhere with shipping now a full month out.  On Amazon, people are reselling their own devices for double the price and up, even as Amazon is out of stock.

This is just crazy at how popular Chromecast is, and obviously Google wasn't prepared for the wave of orders.  At $35, it beats the price of getting a streaming video box.  I'm just glad I got my order in, just a half hour after Chromecast became available.

The smartphone war in five charts.

Following the last few weeks of earnings reports and today's earnings release from Apple, it's obvious that not having a fresh iPhone model has hurt Apple.  Adding information from Google's own releases of daily activations, there's not much hope that Apple can regain smart phone market share.  I give you chart #1.

Last week, Nokia released its earnings report, showing that as its Symbian sales ended, its Windows Phone sales continued to increase at a fairly steady rate for three straight quarters.  Nokia seems to have some hope, right?  I give you chart #2.

The problem is, their smart phone sales pales in comparison to just two years ago, and they're not making money.  I give you charts #3, #4.

So, if you look closely, Nokia sold 7.4M phones in the last quarter.  Reportedly responsible for 80% of all Windows Phone sales.  Extrapolated, that means that only 9.25M Windows Phones were sold in the last quarter.  Take into account Blackberry's last quarterly report of 6.8M smart phone sales, and I give you chart #5.

Any rational person could tell you that Google has conquered mobile, insofar as smart phone platforms go.  But the problem for Google is, that they've got this great market share, yet their earnings growth in mobile advert doesn't seem to match -- they've not yet figured out how to capitalize on mobile.  Not that anyone else has figured out how to capitalize on mobile via advertising, but this is (advertising) their bread and butter.

Beware of digital magazine subscription price increases.

I happened to be searching magazines on Google Play -- still no Juxtapoz or Metropolis -- and discovered that my subscription to Popular Mechanics was set to automatically double when my renewal came up in November.  From $9.99 to $19.99, that's crazy, but it's actually the uniform digital subscription price no matter where you get it from, Amazon, Zinio, B&N or Google Play.

But here's where it just blows my mind: The digital price is substantially higher ($19.99 / 1 year) compared to the lowest print subscription price via Amazon ($12.00 / 2 years).  If you go directly through Popular Mechanics' website, the 2-year price for print subscription is the same price ($20) as the single-year digital ($19.99).

A quick check shows that all of Hearst's magazines have gone up in price.  Nuts.  It turns out, this change happened without so much of an uproar against the increases.  And they're not the only ones doing so.

"Digital pricing gives magazine companies a tool to begin training consumers to pay more for content, and some of these new prices have even made their way into print. Condé Nast has raised prices significantly on the print edition of Wired since it launched its digital edition in 2011, while Hearst has been testing new print-subscription pricing that may do away with ultracheap promotional offers."

Well, that's just half the story.  What we're talking about is digital subs pricing jacked up.

"Might the price go higher? Early data says it could. A magazine’s price isn’t among the top reasons readers buy — or don’t. As Hearst interacts with consumers and reads app reviews, it sees that customer satisfaction with the product is by far the key driver in gaining and keeping subscribers."

You know what?  Screw that BS. I'm going to drop any digital magazine if the price goes up above the print subscription rate.

Firstly, digital means you don't need to take back unsold copies.  Secondly, it also means that you don't have to worry about mismatched orders to demand.  Thirdly digital means that you can cut the cost of printing contracts.  Fourthly, ad rates are based on the number of subscribers, and ads account for the vast majority of income, not subs, so it behooves publishers to increase subscribers -- digital or print -- to maximize their ad rate potential.

If the total cost of a single print issue is $1, your digital cost shouldn't be exceptionally higher, if at all greater.

"Pricing strategies vary, with some titles offering the same rate regardless of print or digital subscriptions.  This is a smart strategy to increase their margins as digital is less expensive to produce and distribute. Further, it’s much easier to acquire readers globally given all the platforms out there: Apple’s newsstand, Flipboard and many others."

Come November, I'm dropping Popular Mechanics.

(Yet another) Logical failure of John Boehner.

"We should not be judged on how many new laws we create...We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal." -- John Boehner

No.  The last time I checked, Congress' raison d'etre wasn't to cut laws; I mean really, that's idiotic, because carried out to an extreme end we would be a lawless nation.

Congress should be judged by whether or not they've carried out the will of the People:

• 88% in Gallup's June 13 - July 5, 2013 poll favor a path to legal citizenship to those currently in the US illegally, yet John Boehner and Republican House members remain a major obstacle to immigration reform.
• Just 33% in ABC / WaPo poll supported the SCOTUS decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, but House Republicans refuse to modify the VRA to fix parts that were struck down.
• Pollingreport shows that in all polls, more people support gay marriage than those who oppose it, but House Republicans continue to condemn the SCOTUS ruling and remain adamant that marriage can only be defined narrowly.
• This past March, an AP-GfK poll showed that 53% of Americans believe that not lifting the debt ceiling would be disastrous for the economy, this of course, after seeing what happened the last time we went through a debt ceiling showdown in 2011.  Yet rumblings from Republicans -- such as Ted Cruz -- show that they're gearing up for another debt ceiling showdown, willing to leave the debt ceiling in place.
• In two months since the sequester cuts began, ABC / WaPo polls show an increase of 12 percentage points in the number of people who believe that the cuts are personally hurting them.  Yet Republicans are looking for more cuts.

But hey, why do the will of the People, right?

Detroit's bankruptcy: A cross-examination.

How odd, to read that the Governor of Michigan believes that Detroit's bankruptcy filing is the "right answer".  No, it isn't.  Bankruptcy means that the city is breaking its promises to certain people, because it could not come to an agreement.

On the one hand conservatives who pushed through tougher personal bankruptcy rules insist that personal responsibility is required; on the other hand Governor Snyder and other Republicans are pushing blame for Detroit's situation onto Democrats (who'd previously been in charge of Detroit's management), but then alleviate themselves of the mess by pushing Detroit through bankruptcy.  In other words, it's all about political responsibility.

Then there's this issue of whether or not the US government (or Michigan) should help bailout Detroit.  I have news for people: This union of states has, for most of US history, meant that we redistribute funds to those who need it.  Without it, there would be no point to being the United States; we'd be the 50 +/- nations of North America.

I'm not saying that the US take on all of Detroit's liabilities.  To the contrary, I think every stakeholder should take a haircut, including pensioners and bond holders.  What this Republican governor is saying however, is that he's perfectly fine with pensioners taking on most of the debt (residents and corporations within Detroit bear the rest of liabilities), while bond holders get back 100% of their money.

Don't fret over SIM vulnerability...unless you have an older dumb phone.

Talk about a lot of hype for nothing.  News reports have been spreading quickly about how possibly 750M mobile phones may be vulnerable to a simple, 2-minute hack that only requires sending a certain type of SMS to a mobile phone.  According to the researcher, about 1/4 of phones using the older DES encryption technique via a phone's SIM card, are ultimately vulnerable.

The backward calculation means that there are about 3B phones out there still using DES SIMs.  Sounds like a lot of phones, but late last year, there were about 6B mobile phones in usage around the world.  With 3G phones (and newer), you wouldn't have DES in your SIM card.  Earlier this year, smart phone shipments surpassed feature / dumb phones.  If you were to buy a new feature / dumb phone, it'd be designed to operate on 3G.  In order to be vulnerable to this hack, you'd have to own a relatively older mobile phone that didn't utilize a SIM card used for 3G / 4G.

Don't worry, be happy!

That doesn't mean your phone isn't vulnerable to other hacks yet to be discovered, but at least in this case, you can stop worrying.

The prodigal son and illegal immigration.

I was listening to -- yikes -- Johnathan Karl interview Senator Ted Cruz, and I couldn't help but notice the parallels of the parable of the prodigal son and the intransigence of conservatives who insist that illegal immigrants shouldn't have any path towards citizenship.

He said to his father in reply, "Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. 

But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf." 

He said to him, "My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. 

But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found."

 Immigrants, legally or illegally here, are here because they want to be here.  Ted Cruz -- a legal immigrant --- is upset that these other folks hadn't played by the rules that his family did, and therefore do not deserve the rewards of US citizenship.

These men and women who work hard for very little money -- often under the table -- are the kind of people you want in America.  As Emma Lazarus wrote:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

She didn't write, "Give me your acceptable masses, among the smartest and brightest, the well-educated and the richest."  But that's our current immigration policy.

The Fields photos (early morning)

Aside from overnight campers, the active senior walking group, the outdoor yoga, the children playing, the adults throwing frisbees, the dogs sniffing each other, the picnickers and the sun-gatherers, there's actually some nice landscaping full of textures.

To reiterate a point I've often made: My GS-II phone's camera takes macro photos, so that's what I use the most these days.

And like that, we have our first camper in the Pearl's The Fields.

Well that didn't take long.  We have our first overnight residents.  Hope they keep their areas clean and clear -- walking under the encampments under the I405 is a minefield of trash, urine and food these days.

McDonald's insults minimum wage earners.

Via ThinkProgress, it's simply amazing at the indecency of McDonald's publication showing how its workers could live off minimum wage, if only they learn how to budget.  First off, I can absolutely state that it is entirely possible to live at the federal minimum wage rate, but you have to sacrifice a lot of things, and you're out of luck if you live in a big metro region.

If you look at their numbers, some things might be overstated in the monthly expenses portion, but it severely understates the health insurance budget.  Even if you base future healthcare costs on Obamacare, your out of pocket costs with $24,720 in gross income, is $141 / month for the Silver level, which is still above the $20 monthly allowance provided by McDonald's sample budget.

Still, McDonald's budget is worth scrutinizing further than what even ThinkProgress did.

Assume:
52 weeks a year of work
$7.25 federal minimum wage

$1105 + $955 = $2060 / month  (your total income from two part-time jobs)
$2060 x 12 = $24,720 / year

$24,720 / 52 / $7.25 = 65.6 hours a week of work.

However, there is one glaring problem: This does not take into account any taxes, federal or local.  So this is how it breaks down:

Assume:
Total wages / year = $24,720
Standard deduction = $9,750
2012 federal marginal tax rates: 10% first $8,700; 15% $8,700 - $35,350
2012 average combined local tax rate across the US (excluding DC, based on conservative Tax Foundation): 6.33%

$24,720 - $9750 = $14970 taxable income
= $1,811 annual federal tax based on 2012 tables

$24,720 - $1,811 = $22,909
6.33% x $22,909 = $21,459 total leftover income.
$21,459 / 12 months = $1,788 monthly net income.

$1,788 - $1,260 (see monthly expenses in chart) = $528 monthly spending money.
$528 / 30 days a month = $17.60 a day.

McDonald's expects minimum wage workers to work 65.6 hours a week and pay for meals AND clothing AND entertainment AND vehicle registration fees AND auto repair deductibles AND parking fees AND medical copays AND driver's license renewal fees AND furnishings for $17.60 a day.

And because you're working 65.6 hours a week, you don't have any time to go to college, so they don't even bother adding educational fees into their sample budget.  Apparently the other message from McDonald's is, that you're not allowed to have children if you're earning minimum wage.  No pets either.

Those McDonald's corporate folks seem sadly and hilariously detached from reality, don't you think?

Could someone ask corporate how much per diem they offer to their traveling white collar employees?

Watch wild Alaska bears live.

I'm (temporarily) enjoying watching live video feeds via Explore.org of Grizzly Bears (Grrrizzle, Grrrrizzle, Grrrizzle!) hanging out in the river, looking for salmon. (Yum!)

By the way, there are also Panda cams and a bunch on O'ahu to watch the surf and surfers, too, if you're not up when the bears are up.

The Riffles Alaska cam (Katmai National Park)

Brooks Falls Alaska cam (Katmai National Park)

Fukushima: Don't eat those veggies and fruits!

I never finished a blog post on the second anniversary of the Fukushima meltdown, mostly because there was just too much data for me to pore through and write a full exposition on why people who minimize the effects are lying to themselves.  It came down to the false belief that measured radiation was much lower than expected.  Why was it false?  Because it is impossible to track and find all of the contamination that is above safe levels, and if Greenpeace could find a handful of excessively radioactive sites, there were probably thousands more out there, spread all about.

Today, there is confirmation of this basic truth.  I give you mutant life (see here for more).

Trayvon Martin: A case of failed tactics. (Updated twice)

The prosecutors in the George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin case made a terrible tactical decision to pursue the case by presenting a contrasting interpretation of facts, and letting jurors decide which one made more sense.  The problem with this: Criminal trials require reasonable doubt, not a preponderance of evidence.

If you are presented with two possible scenarios and are told to discern the truth between the two, even if you think the prosecutor's case is more likely, the fact that there is some possibility to the defense's case, makes it impossible to rule in favor of the prosecutor.  If it was a civil lawsuit, the plaintiff's side would win; in a criminal case, the defense wins.  The Martin family settled months ago, so there will be no trial.

The prosecutor surely didn't plan it exactly this way.  They probably planned to question Zimmerman's truthfulness directly.  But the defense never brought him to the stand to testify, and instead used videos from his interviews with police, as a means to present the Zimmerman scenario, then extracted testimony from witnesses and police officers to support the possibility that the Zimmerman scenario could have occurred.  The prosecution could only question the likelihood of the Zimmerman scenario by attacking the quality of interpretation of witnesses and officers.

Instead of chasing Murder 2, the prosecution should have solely pursued Manslaughter:

Florida Statute 782.11 Unnecessary killing to prevent unlawful act.—Whoever shall unnecessarily kill another, either while resisting an attempt by such other person to commit any felony, or to do any other unlawful act, or after such attempt shall have failed, shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter, a felony of the second degree.

Yes, they put manslaughter on the table for the jury to consider, but that was after the fact when they realized they might not get a Murder 2 conviction.  The prosecutor's case was aligned to present Murder 2, when the case they had was Manslaughter all along.

Zimmerman pursued Martin in his vehicle.  He got out of his vehicle and followed him over several minutes -- he was out of breath in the audio recording with 911.  In his mind, he was pursuing someone who was in the middle of committing an illegal act, even though he wasn't exactly sure what the illegal act was.  He brought his gun with him in pursuit of Martin.  He discharged it, when involved with a confrontation with Martin.

If Zimmerman hadn't pursued Martin on foot, he wouldn't have been placed in the situation where he killed Martin.  That is an unnecessary kill, of Zimmerman's own making.

But you see, the prosecution never focused on this narrative.  They failed to achieve a conviction because they seized on the incorrect theory that Martin was murdered out of malice.

Now there's talk about pursuing federal civil rights prosecution.  The problem still remains however, that there are two sides of equivalent interpretations of the facts -- that balance hasn't changed beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Update: I forgot to address Florida Statute 776.013, aka "Stand Your Ground".  Zimmerman's narrative was based on his ability to defend himself.  However, if 776.013 applied to all people who purposely moved their "ground" to pursue suspected criminals, by invoking 776.013, it would fully invalidate 782.11 100% and give complete protection to vigilantes.

I cannot believe, and it would be an improper assumption, that the Florida legislature meant to completely invalidate 782.11 by creating an overwhelming conflict between two laws.  If their intention was to invalidate 782.11, they would have simply repealed that law.

I also cannot believe that the Florida legislature meant to legalize vigilantism.

But again, the prosecution never bothered to attack this conflict head on because, well...they were stuck on trying to prove Murder 2.  So like I said, it was a terrible tactical move by prosecutors.  If they had pursued Zimmerman on 782.11, they could have appealed the jury's decision based on conflict of intrajurisdictional laws.  With an acquittal of Murder 2, prosecutors have no basis to appeal the jury's decision.

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Second Update:

This makes a lot of sense. The prosecutors may have deliberately botched the trial.  I had wondered about why they waited a full day to claw back portions of an officer's testimony.  Once something is spoken in a court room, no matter what a judge says, the thought is already placed in the back of your mind.

$0.24 rise in gas prices in one week.

Huh, talk about lucking out.  Exactly one week ago, I filled up my gas tank that was down to about 1/4 tank, at $3.619.  Today, the same gas station's price -- typically the lowest around the area -- is up $0.24 a gallon at $3.859.

In the great scheme of things, this is small potatoes.  Still, amusing enough.

Oh yeah, the next gen Androids will kill the competition.

Via Engadget, Moto X is coming!  Just watch this Rogers Wireless (Canada) video and drool.  Note that it is being released in August, and is on an exclusive release schedule, so most carriers might not have it for a month or two.  I'd expect Verizon to get it in the US first, of course.

Having already seen what's in iOS7, the next iPhone doesn't stand a chance.  Moto is back.

Installed an SSD on my laptop. (updated)

One of the big benefits of my 17" laptop from Dell, is that it has space for two internal drives.  Without moving the existing drive in and out, I can simply add one into the open bay, then edit the BIOS to push the second drive into a higher boot position than the original drive.

For the better part of a year or so, I'd been planning on buying an SSD and installing it.  On Tuesday I jumped on a one-day Rakuten special: $150 for a 256GB SanDisk Ultra+ SATA III SSD.  That was $0.59 / GB, which is slightly lower than most every discount I had seen up to this point.  Friday, it arrived, and I started the process late last night.

Equipment / software list:

• Backup external drive (for content on original drive that isn't going to go onto the SSD.
• Cloning software that can automatically realign partitions (see: EaseUS Todo Backup Free).
• Firmware updates for SSD from the manufacturer's website.
• Thumb drive for SSD firmware.

More or less, I just followed this Lifehacker post on it, with a few tweaks:

• Instead of backing up data and defragging the existing hard drive first, I actually slimmed down my existing drive by moving data that wasn't going to be stored on the SSD, onto the external drive.  (By the way, you probably already know that you should limit the data stored on your SSD, because the more stuff on it, the less wear-leveling your SSD will be able to perform, and therefore your SSD will have a shorter lifespan.)  Then I defragged the hard drive.  The reason being, that there's going to be a lot of fragmentation after you move stuff off the hard drive.  Of course, W7 automatically sets up weekly defrag sessions, so we're not talking a whole lot of jumbled sectors to begin with.
• I added a step of updating the SSD firmware, which necessitated either a CD or thumb drive (bootable).  Why, after all, shouldn't one verify and update the firmware?
• Speaking of software, SanDisk happens to have an SSD utility to make updating firmware and checking the status of your SSD very easy, so I downloaded that, installed it, and ran it.
• When you insert a brand new drive, you almost always need to assign it a new volume / map it, using the Computer Management / Disk Management application in Windows.  If the drive shows up in the BIOS listing but not in your Windows computer screen, it's because the drive hasn't been mapped.  And, if you try to use the cloning software, it won't show up, either.

So anyway, it's hour 12 and I'm moving back my data to my hard drive.  In-between I was watching episodes of House.

Some post-installation notes:

• Very important reminder: NEVER defrag an SSD.  When you install an SSD, Windows will turn off the automatically scheduled weekly defragging.  Each portion of data storage (a block) on the SSD can only be written-to, a limited number of times (though you can read it unlimited number of times).  If you defrag, you'll rapidly wear down your SSD, causing it to become a read-only drive in a shorter period of time.  Nice for a permanent archive, but otherwise useless.
• Also, turn off Superfetch and Prefetch.  Again, when you install an SSD, Windows should automatically turn these off for the SSD, so you shouldn't have to worry about it, if you're using W7 or W8.  Read the MSDN entry on this.
• I've also disabled file indexing on my SSD (right-click on the drive and go to properties).  FWIW, you should read this and decide what you feel safe doing, to further optimize your SSD.
• As expected, a big boost in start up times.  WEI shows 7.9 for the drive -- the highest rating.  Oh, and my laptop came with AHCI already enabled -- something that is also critical, but probably already enabled if you have a newer computer.
• Having read many horror stories on the internet (including product reviews) of early (re: premature) failures of SSDs, I'm probably going to clone my SSD on an external (portable, not self-powered) drive.  That way, if things go bad, it won't be too much of a hassle to get up and running again -- just change the BIOS to boot to external drive, then buy a new drive and clone the external drive.  Again, having a laptop with two drives is a huge bonus.
• Finally, of course, I never before used hibernate; I use sleep mode.  There are a few horror stories of BSOD / failure of SSDs from putting a computer to sleep / hibernate with an SSD as your boot drive.  With the super-fast boot up speed of an SSD, sleep mode is almost moot.  On my desktop I don't let my computer ever go to sleep, and the power button turns the computer off.  With my laptop, I think the difference is about 5 seconds.  I've switched the power settings so that instead of going to sleep, if I leave it alone, it'll just shut off the screen, but if I press the button or close the screen it'll turn off.  I'll have to see if this'll work for me, but I think this will be my preference.

Whew.

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Update: Here's the speed test scores.  Note that they're not the fastest, but they more or less come close to the advertised speed for sequential read (530 MB/s) / write (445 MB/s).

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Stop the Apple corporate profit subsidies!

In order for carriers to sell iPhones, they have to sign purchase agreements that place onto them guaranteed minimum annual purchases over multiple years.  If a carrier cannot sell enough units, they are thus stuck with excess inventory, and resort to offering these iPhones for free.  Those excessive subsidies mean that the rest of us -- people who buy Androids, Blackberries, Windows Phones and regular dumb phones -- are stuck with higher prices by way of weaker subsidies and higher prices for minutes / texts / data.

Now, news comes from Moffett Research, suggesting that Verizon may be way in over their heads on their 2013 contract with Apple, possibly losing $12B ~ $14B this year, if Apple does not have a blockbuster, new iPhone.  Recent Kantar data might be a little misleading, but if you track their monthly reports, it's clear that, while the iPhone 5 dramatically increased Apple's market share in the US in the first month of its release, since then it's been an equally dramatic downhill slide, with Android regaining market share.

It is very plausible that, if Apple executes poorly, Verizon will be deep in the hole (and perhaps many others).  Obviously Verizon cannot pass all of that loss onto non-iPhone subscribers, else they will flee to other carriers, but it demonstrates why I've been against these sorts of contracts, especially on my carrier (T-Mobile).

As I previously mentioned, iOS 7 is not impressive at all, considering most of the new features are basically copied ideas from Android, going back at least since Ice Cream Sandwich, well over a year ago.  And to add insult to injury, by the time iOS 7 comes out, the next iteration of Android (4.3) will already be out and we will have had our Moto X with Google's $500M ad campaign to sell it.  So, the pressure is on.

Microsoft caught cheating on browser test?

Interesting little tidbit popped up today on my radar screen: Microsoft showed off IE 11 last week using a JavaScript benchmark of its own making -- Lawn Mark -- and was outed for possible cheating by using a snippet of JS code that only IE supports.  As if to prove this, a Chromium engineer edited the code, and now all four browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox and Opera -- sorry Safari, but I don't have you installed on my computer) have comparable speeds -- lo and behold however, Chrome comes out on top.

Well of course, I had to go run through some standard benchmarks, then to top if off, add Google's own Octane benchmark to prove a point about Microsoft's shenanigans, and how the only way to score browsers is by independent sites.

HTML5Test results:

• 473 points -- Chrome 28.0.1500.71 / Windows 7
• 404 points -- Opera 12.16 / Windows 7
• 395 points -- Firefox 22.0 / Windows 7
• 320 points -- IE 10.0.9200.16635 / Windows 7

SunSpider 1.0 JavaScript benchmark results:

• 126 ms -- IE 10.0.9200.16635 / Windows 7
• 183 ms -- Chrome 28.0.1500.71 / Windows 7
• 191 ms -- Firefox 22.0 / Windows 7
• 220 ms -- Opera 12.16 / Windows 7

Browsermark benchmark results:

• 5492 -- Chrome 28.0.1500.71 / Windows 7
• 3353 -- Firefox 22.0 / Windows 7
• 2629 -- Opera 12.16 / Windows 7
• 2553 -- IE 10.0.9200.16635 / Windows 7

Octane* (JavaScript) benchmark results:

• 15352 -- Chrome 28.0.1500.71 / Windows 7
• 13083 -- Firefox 22.0 / Windows 7
• 5625 -- IE 10.0.9200.16635 / Windows 7
• 5372 -- Opera 12.16 / Windows 7

Bottom line is, Chrome really is the best browser out there.

*-- Octane was written by Google to benchmark Chrome with JavaScript.  Alone, it might not tell you enough about how well a browser works.

And then it was Shed Week.

A few days ago, I noticed tufts of downy fluff, scattered about.  So today, we tackled it head on.  It's not the end; rather, we're just at the start of Shed Season, but this was officially Shed Week, wherein we try in vain to get ahead of the hair, only to get covered in fur.

Favorite chart of the day.

This is very interesting.  Via Paul Krugman's blog, a BLS study of the demographics of unemployment insurance recipients.  While Krugman's blog is about the disconnect between GOP agenda and its largest voting bloc (White Americans), I spotted something else altogether worth paying attention to.

A look at Chart 11 in the study reveals that, 61% of those who received unemployment insurance were White (non-Hispanic) Americans, while just 58% of all unemployed Americans were White (non-Hispanic).  This does not mean that there are more White Americans claiming unemployment insurance than are unemployed.  It means that a lot of Non-White Americans who are unemployed, do not claim unemployment insurance, either because they exhausted their benefits, they weren't qualified to receive benefits, or they chose not to make a claim.

If the data was reversed -- specifically that non-White Americans made up a larger percentage of UI recipients than that of Americans who were unemployed -- you can bet that people would be pointing to this as proof that non-Whites were lazy and / or abusing the social insurance system.  It wouldn't be the proper conclusion, but nonetheless I am quite certain that this would be the narrative that conservative groups would be putting out.

So why is this my favorite chart of the day?  Because it is a non-starter for conservatives looking for proof that they're being jilted by the government.

New smart phone dilemma.

The last couple of months or so, my battery's charge has been draining quickly.  This is just a natural thing as your phone gets past its first year and the battery has gone through several hundred discharge / charge cycles.  To rectify the problem, I've limited the apps allowed to run in the background.

I'd been thinking about buying external battery / recharge devices.  But then it seemed kind of silly to carry around an external battery to charge an internal one, when the internal one had lost significant capacity to recharge in the first place -- a waste of electrons and money.  So, the other day I added this GS-II extra battery and external charger pack to my Amazon cart.

But now it just sits there while I contemplate my dilemma:

• Buy a new smart phone (Nexus 4) now, running Android 4.2.2, or...
• Buy just one extra battery and wait for the next Android 4.3 Nexus phone, or...
• Buy the dual extra battery and external charger pack and wait for Android 5.0 phone.

I've pretty much made up my mind that I'd prefer to get a Nexus phone (not a Google Play edition phone) as opposed to a phone via a carrier.  The reasons are:

• The Nexus 4's price is cheap, and hopefully future Nexus phones are in the same price range;
• I'd like to have my updates on the day they're available, not six months down the line;
• Those updates aren't limited to 18 +/- months as they are via carriers;
• I hate the bloatware added on by the carriers.

And of course, I realize that this is yet another reason why I do not want the iPhone: USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY!  Well, you can replace your own iPhone battery, but it's not so simple as popping off the back and pulling out the battery, plus you take on warranty risks when you do so.

Anyway, I'm leaning towards getting the dual battery and external charger pack. It's got 4.5 stars and everyone seems to love it, probably because it has more power (2200 mAh to 1850 mAh) so it'll last a lot longer than the OEM battery.  I love my GS-II phone, and it remains blemish-free, in perfect condition as the day I bought it.  I could hold onto it for another 1 1/2 years and it'd still be in solid condition, even if badly dated.

Google Databoards.

Interesting new tool: Google Databoards.  It's a new, free service that allows you to look up research info that Google has already compiled, and collect them in order to create your own Databoard for a presentation -- here's mine on smart phone usage and demographics in the United States.

Right now, it's somewhat limited, but if expanded, would represent a big savings in time searching for these data points and creating infographics.  Though surely a lot of people will be upset that their market -- the infographics and research departments -- have been trumped.

My Nexus 7 screen cracked.

I was lying on the ground and rolled to my side when I heard a crunch, and pulled out my Nexus 7 tablet from my shorts pocket.  The screen was ruined with a pebble-sized hole and cracks going across the screen.

First thought: Panic!

Second thought: Oh wait, I now have a reason to buy another tablet, this time, with the next generation Tegra 4!
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And then I woke up from my nap and realized that it was all just a dream.

Crazy real, though, because I immediately pulled out my tablet, just to make sure.

THIS is why we use Chrome, and not IE.

Via Krebs, just look at this chart at a particular exploit pack that is sold underground.  Read the article at the bottom, and you'll find out that some folks have stopped trying to find exploits in Chrome.

Yeah, exactly.  Stop using IE.

Via Krebs

Look! No Chrome!

Death Stars explode, and someone saw it.

Or at least, that's the story I'm going with.

Via Discovery News, a series (4) of short (a few milliseconds each) but massive (= sun's energy emitted in 300K years) radio signal bursts were recorded (between Feb 2011 and Jan 2012).

Real scientists seem to think it's due to a previously undetected phenomenon, but I'm sticking to the exploding Death Stars theory.

:D

BLS June employment numbers: Aha, this is why QE might end soon!

A very solid jobs report.  According to the BLS, job growth was fairly strong in June, even though the unemployment rate remained at 7.6% (due to more people entering the labor force, up 177K in June).  But what makes this report amazing are the updated revisions.

BLS employment estimate

Month	1st Est	2nd Est	Final Est
April 2013	165	149	199
May 2013	175	195
June 2013	195

And, I don't think it requires repeating but cuts in federal employment continues to drag total employment figures (as well as GDP) -- 5,000 fewer federal jobs in June -- as the total federal workforce accounts for less than 2.3% of total non-farm payrolls.

Federal jobs and percentage of fed jobs to total non-farm

Still, job growth has been fairly consistent, at a level that won't overheat the economy, but at the same time, prolongs the pain for many millions of Americans.

It's understandable why the Feds may be taking QE off the table later this year, if you look at the trajectory we're currently under, in terms of job growth.

If we continue to have this level of growth, by Winter of this year, in less than four years we will have matched trough-to-peak jobs created in the final five years of President George W Bush.  In other words, we will have created jobs at a faster rate than under President Bush.  Now, the only problem is that we lost million of jobs, so we won't surpass total employment under Bush, until 2014, and it'll still represent a higher unemployment rate, by virtue of more people entering the workforce and the way the unemployment rate is calculated.

Still, it's encouraging that the economy is growing faster than under George Bush, don't you think?

By the way, a reminder: When the economy's outlook is solid, bond yields will increase; when more people are working, more taxes are being paid, which will lower the deficit quickly.

Getting around the growing newspaper paywalls.

For better or worse, many traditional newspapers are erecting porous paywalls that limit the number of free articles that may be read online.  There are two basic ways to get around them (from most cumbersome to easiest), but with all work-arounds, there are consequences and encumbrances.

Cookies
Delete and block cookies from each specific site that erects porous paywalls, then block third-party cookies.  By deleting and blocking cookies from specific sites, you'll never be able to log in and leave comments.

By universally blocking third-party cookies, you're no longer tracked by anyone and you won't have access to single-sign-in functionality for many apps and sites.  This is the most difficult means to get around porous paywalls.

Javascript
By default, I block all javascript, for safety reasons.  This means that I have to individually enable javascript to run on each website.  If you block all javascript, all you need to do is eliminate the exception for the websites with porous paywalls.  If you do not block all javascript, then all you need to do is to add an exception that blocks all javascript on those websites with porous paywalls.

By blocking javascript, you won't be able to watch embedded videos or use the comment sections, or any other function that was built with javascript.  The side-benefit however, is that ads are blocked.  This is easier to deal with, than blocking third-party cookies.

Going Private
By far the easiest method, open any website with porous paywalls, with a private browser.  In Firefox this means using Private Browsing; in Chrome you're using Incognito; in IE you would use InPrivate Browsing; in Opera you would open a Private Tab; Safari you'd select Private Browsing.

Now, since these porous paywalls limit you to a number of free articles, when you do hit the limit, you must reset the session cookie by closing then reopening your private browser.  This however, makes this method the easiest to use.

Now, there might be some who believe that these methods violate the DMCA, but they do not.  These methods take advantage of a DMCA exception that allows you to circumvent protections that would otherwise allow someone to track personally-identifiable information.  The functions used in Javascript are used to verify your ID; cookies obviously allow you to be tracked by name and IP.

(i) Protection of Personally Identifying Information. -
(1) Circumvention permitted. - Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), it is not a violation of that subsection for a person to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, if -
(A) the technological measure, or the work it protects, contains the capability of collecting or disseminating personally identifying information reflecting the online activities of a natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected;