Home Buyer Tax Credit Sufficient?

The Treasury announced this tax credit yesterday, which is an attempt to get the housing market moving again; a fundamentally good idea, since the crash of the housing market is the source of our current problems.

So, is this particular proposal a good idea? It seems like it falls short to me, unless details have been omitted.

First of all, there appears to be no detail on which homes it applies to, and we don't want to stimulate new housing, we need to clear existing homes.

There is a limit on who can use it: only first-time buyers, which limits the number of people who can take advantage. Perhaps this is to ensure that homes don't simply go right back on the market after the buyer gets the tax credit, meaning the government would be paying them to flip the home, rather than permanently taking the excess inventory off the market. I'm always suspicious of bias against wealth, but I'm unsure in this particular case.

A flat rate means that higher-priced homes are relatively less attractive, yet those homes represent the greatest risk to those selling them, and the greatest market value, and should be an equal part of the program.

The flat rate is also small. Assuming a $200,000 house, this is amounts to only 4% discount for the buyer. Are we saying the housing market is overpriced by only 4 percent? That seems unlikely.

In at least some regards, they should have listened to those who have weathered the market best, and know it best, such as John Allison, who recommended a 10% tax credit on purchases of existing homes (advance to page 5, "Housing Must Be Addressed").

John Allison Ayn Rand Center Lecture

John Allison's Ayn Rand Center lecture The Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Cures is now on the Center's web site.

Wow. It is a lot of information packed into 86 minutes, and some of the more technical financial stuff is over my head. However it's all good, and helps to clarify what has been going on immensely.

It's nice to hear an expert in the field who is also a capitalist. When was the last time you heard a bank executive talk philosophy? :)

It's also interesting to hear about the practical implementation of good ideas in a business context. I like to think I do that in my work as an individual, but BB&T does so for an entire company, via their core business policies based on sound principles. No wonder they've weathered the recent crisis better than other banks!

Excellent!

Gotta Find Me Some Wind Farm Action

Overheard on a chair lift while skiing (I paraphrase):

I want to get on a wind farm project. Can you get me on a wind farm project?

Ugh. Lots of federal money is flowing into alternative (i.e. unprofitable) energy production, and doubtless many will flock to the government trough. On the one hand, it's "our" money, so why shouldn't we? But then again, I'd feel complicit in the looting if I did.

Parry Peak 2.0

Here's another shot of Parry Peak from Mary Jane mountain at Winter Park. I didn't notice how tall some of the pine trees on this trail were until I got the pictures back home. I like the monumental feel they give the photo, and the lone skier provides scale.

The needles of some trees in the photo are rust-colored because of the pine beetles that have been sweeping through Colorado's Front Range.

This image is derived from the raw format images created using CHDK. You can see in the blue of the sky, for example, that there is relatively little image degradation (i.e. blockiness) from JPEG compression because the image was saved by the camera in uncompressed form.

Creating Jobs Out Of Sunlight

Last night on CSPAN, I got to see Joe Biden (and perhaps Barack Obama, I didn't stick around) crowing about how the newly passed "stimulus" bill will create jobs in Colorado. Also partying was the jocular CEO of local company Namasté Solar, now flush with federal money to create those jobs.

I knew "namasté" was a greeting, but I also see from my Interweb search that it means "I bow to you". Very appropriate.

We didn't hear speeches by those from whom the money was taken, or those who will not have jobs because it was taken, or those who will lose out to inflation or have to re-pay the debt we are incurring by passing an ill-conceived redistribution-of-wealth bill.

Still no word on how we are going to expunge the damage done by the credit over-expansion from our economy, so we can begin the recovery.

Individual rights, anyone?

Adding Features To Canon Digicams

I recently discovered CHDK, or the Canon Hackers Development Kit. It is a set of files you load on your SD card that can augment a Canon compact camera's feature set, including RAW file support, live histogram, custom scripts, and extended shooting controls such as different shutter speeds, aperture control, motion detection, stop-motion photography, etc. (the exact features depend on the software build and camera model). Here are some pretty amazing high-speed photos of water drops taken with hacked Canon cameras.

Because the software is simply loaded into memory, running the software -- in itself -- does not affect the camera warranty, because it makes no permanent changes; it unloads when the camera is powered off. It is possible that by performing some action that is beyond the camera's capabilities, you might damage it, and that would not be covered. You should review the FAQ for more information on risks as well as some statements from Canon support on this topic.

I can now shoot 10-bit camera RAW files (in addition to the usual JPEGs), which affords greater flexibility and control of images because there is more information to work with, and it is less altered by the camera's digital processor.

A nice difference I am seeing is the lack of JPEG compression artifacts, because RAW images are not compressed. By default, my SD1100 will only save in JPG format, and although the quality is excellent, you can see some information loss if you look closely. The 10 MB RAW files are uncompressed, and can be saved in any format you wish after importing them. Of course the native JPG also has some nice edge sharpening and noise reduction, so if you want to duplicate that, you'll need to do it manually with the RAW format.

Another difference is you can manipulate the color and value in the images to a greater extent without loss of data; more shadows can be recovered, highlights can be darkened, etc.

CHDK adds a nice live histogram, which displays during shooting and tells you if your highlights or shadows are outside the range that can be recorded by the camera, so you can easily avoid over- and underexposure. My model already has a similar histogram which displays after the photo is taken, but not before.

My photo processing now involves a couple of additional steps. I have RAW turned on, which causes the camera to save a camera raw CRW file, in addition to the usual JPG. To load the images, I connect the camera to my computer as usual, and CameraWindow copies both files to my laptop (ZoomBrowser cannot display the CRW, but that's OK, I just want the files copied from the camera). Then come the 2 new steps:

1. The first new step is I run dng4ps2 to convert the CRW to a DNG (digital negative format), another type of raw format. The only reason I peform this step is to capture the EXIF data; dng4ps2 copies the EXIF data from the JPG file to the DNG. For whatever reason, CHDK does not store EXIF data in its raw files. The DNG created by dng4ps also results in slightly different color than the original CRW, but it's close enough that I can easily tweak it.
2. I then open the DNG in a "developing" application called Raw Therapee -- a very nice program -- in which I can tweak the image and save it to various standard formats such as JPG and TIF.

From then on, the workflow is the same as usual. I look forward to shooting lossless-format images in the mountains this year.

Jon Stewart Is No Philosopher

I really need to post some pictures of happy puppies soon, to break this critical streak I'm on ;)

Via my brother, here is Jon Stewart taking Bill O'Reilly to task for criticizing paparazzi, then turning around and having his reporter hound people for news:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

M'kay. The fact that O'Reilly would put these things back-to-back seemingly unaware of the contrast is amusing. However, there's a bit of difference between aggressively taking pictures for nosy tabloids, and pressing someone for information for your news story, however annoying you may be in doing so.

If The Daily Show is looking for a contradictory object of ridicule, how about the following terrible ideas:

• That we should risk the entire U.S. economy so that those who can't really buy homes can pretend they can, or
• That we can somehow create jobs out of thin air when by doing that, we are faring comparatively worse elsewhere in the economy, or
• That we can stimulate the economy into recovery by shifting money from voluntary (private, profit-driven) uses to involuntary, coerced (public, unprofitable) uses, or
• That we should prop up failed businesses to somehow create successful businesses, or
• That people are too stupid to make buying decisions, yet some other people are smart enough to make decisions for them?

And on and on.

In other words: the aims of the intrusive government that Stewart and others on The Left would wish upon us. Their laughter rings hollow, when they advocate such ridiculous and destructive nonsense.

Now... where are those puppy photos?

A Spectacle Of Contradiction

This afternoon I watched a bit of Treasury Secretary Geithner's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on the revamped economic rescue "plan".

It was painful watching Geithner lay out the "plan" (if you can call it that), because I could see him struggle intellectually, trying to somehow shoehorn many contradictory purposes into one impossible package. He was trying to project an air of confidence, but it seemed like his brain was being twisted into a pretzel, as he played the mixed economy shell game: trying to hide the gun under the second shell, which both enables the plan yet prevents its success.

For example:

• Our government claims to want to help us escape the recession, yet it promotes failure (bailouts) and denies success (antitrust).
• Our government claims to want recovery, but they won't allow businesses to fail or be re-organized, which keeps the bad money in the system.
• Our government claims to want to "create jobs", but that can only be done by taking money from somewhere else (by taxation or inflation), because that is what the government does.

You cannot have prosperity, which stems from thinking, by means of brute force, which overrules thought (redistributing wealth).

You cannot claim to employ causality to repair the economy, when you deny causality by ignoring it or preventing it from having its effect (propping up failed businesses).

Either way, we won't be having our recovery cake and eating it too. More of us may need a low-carb food stamp diet before this is over.

Please Oppose The Stimulus

I sent this email to my senators (the title of this post was my email subject line):

I am writing to ask you to oppose the stimulus bill on the grounds that it will harm, not help, our economic recovery.

Spending more federal money will only have the effect of taking it out of the hands of private individuals, thus lessening private investment based on profitability and growth, and delaying the recovery. What we need instead is measures that will free up private entities to take actions necessary for recovery, such as:

• Tax cuts for individuals, to lessen the financial burden and allow them to make choices based on their own needs.
• Tax cuts for business, to lessen their financial burden and allow them to make investments that profit them and will fuel the economy.
• Leverage current low prices to get the markets moving. For example, by offering a tax credit on home purchases, as suggested by BB&T's former CEO John Allison.
• Work to break down barriers to mergers and acquisitions, to allow solvent companies to absorb failed companies as quickly as possible.
• Work on breaking down any barriers to interstate and international trade to open new opportunities.
• Most important, declare a moratorium on economic interventions and corporate welfare, which will end the waiting game for handouts and the erosion of economic value while companies wait to be "saved".

Here is a page with contact information for U.S. Senators.

Vina Requingua Puerto Viejo Cabernet 2006

I'm a fan of wines from Chile and Argentina. At least for the time being, they tend to be good values for the money, with a lot of nice flavor for the dollar. To some extent, for me those countries are to wine what Sumatra is to coffee; I tend to particularly enjoy the products those regions produce.

This wine is a good example. It's a very full-bodied and flavorful red, with lots of interesting notes that develop on the palette. It's a lot of wine for the $8-$10 you are likely to pay for it. I liken to it to a ripe summer strawberry, without the tartness. Very good.

New Mexico South Of Raton

The sky itself often becomes the subject of my photographs out west, simply because growing up in the midwest, I had too many trees around me to really see the sky, escept for puffy clouds above in the summer. But out here, the sky is big and has a presence of its own. It has a "weight" above you.

A couple of days earlier, I had driven through this area at dusk and stopped at one of the few gas stations. The sky was startlingly clear and devoid of detail: no clouds, no vapor trails, no stars yet.. nothing. Looking west at the perfectly uniform glow of the sunset, my eyes played tricks on me, seeing faint patterns where there were none, the background noise of my senses seemingly filling in where no outside stimulus existed.

Oddly enough, contrary to the total rural isolation suggested by this photo, directly behind me was the entrance to the NRA's Whittington Center, which the web site describes as "the most comprehensive shooting facility in America today". Who knew? Watch out, Wile E. Coyote!

I was disappointed I didn't see a road runner this trip. Maybe next time :)

Our $780B Bad Investment

I guess I should be thankful the Dow did not close below 8,000 again. However, contrary to the movement of markets today, the stimulus bill's likely passage is not a good thing.

Taking money that could have been used by private investors for profitable ventures and forcibly investing it according to government plan helps nothing.

Less than nothing: it will delay the recovery, and create even more disappointment when the recovery does not happen as hoped.

It's going to tie up capital in less profitable ventures like wind farms, rather than in things like the remaining profitable portions of failing businesses, which is what we need for recovery. We need acquisition and liquidation, not futzing around with green technologies.

Of course... I am omitting one good thing: At least there will be temporary certainty about government handouts. You either will or won't get one, and so it's time to get on with business. Until the next round of handouts, that is ("The last stimulus didn't quite do the trick [no idea why] so we need another, or else the economy may go into a tailspin. We can't just sit here and do nothing, the American people will not tolerate it! Aaaaaaaaaaah!").

The whole thing makes me ill. I need to invent a strong mixed drink called A Bailout for such occasions. Perhaps something with Baileys in it...

Update: text edits to indicate a high probability of passage, rather than actual passage, of the bill

Letter On Economic Measures

I wrote this in response to a letter I received from Congressman Ed Perlmutter, on measures taken by The House on the economy. They were all in the wrong direction.

I just got your letter communicating efforts to repair the ailing US economy. While I appreciate all conscientious efforts in this regard, actions that override market decisions will only serve to further prolong the recession. For example:

• By ensuring access to credit for small businesses and farms, it is necessarily denied to others, namely those who are deemed more profitable and credit-worthy by those offering the loans.
• We don't want companies in Chapter 11 to have access to funding, we want them to be acquired by companies that are not in Chapter 11.
• We don't want the auto industry to have priority for loans, we want loans to go to recipients who are deemed most profitable by those offering the loans.

Going against market-driven profitability will erode economic value and delay recovery, by tying up valuable capital in businesses that have proven less able to effectively use it.

The best thing the government can do is to free up markets and allow more successful businesses to prevail:

• Most important, declare a moratorium on economic interventions and bailouts, which will end the waiting game for handouts and the erosion of economic value by companies waiting to be “saved”.
• Leverage current low prices to get the markets moving. Bargains help to get commerce flowing again; make use of low housing prices, for example, by offering a tax credit on home purchases, as suggested by BB&T's former CEO John Allison.
• Do everything possible to ensure that more successful companies are able to acquire the remaining good parts of failed ones.

(Note: corrected a typo related to singular vs. plural, after the fact)

Organic Attachment Device

I somehow picked up a burr in my clothing on a recent run, and at first I thought it was broken glass or a needle. From the photo, you can see why. Ouch!

Mac Browser Slow Load Solution

My Safari and FireFox page loads on Mac OS were very slow, until I added my DSL provider's DNS servers in the Network control panel. You can find these by looking in your modem's admin web page, or if necessary by calling your provider. Then, go to the Apple Menu and "System Preferences..." > "Network", and enter the DNS server addresses, separated by commas if there is more than one. By default, my home router address was being used. Page loads have gone from interminable to very fast. Yahoo!

I have also read that keeping your web cache small and/or clean can help.

My Apple XP Laptop - Upgrade

After several weeks, all is well with the Apple MacBook Pro, after having installed a larger hard drive (320GB) and maxed out the RAM (4GB). Both Mac OS and Windows XP Professional 32-bit installed and run perfectly, with one minor keyboard backlighting driver issue noted below. I use this laptop as my full-time Windows system, with occasional forays into Mac OS.

Contrary to what I read about other MacBook Pro models, replacement of RAM and hard drives are OK to perform yourself with this model (MB470LL/A -- 15" MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz), and instructions can be found in the user manual. It's easy if you have the right tools (a size T6 Torx wrench and a very fine screwdriver, such as one for eyeglasses). As it states, your new RAM and hard drive will not be covered under warranty by Apple, and any damage caused by your install also will not be covered, but I imagine that's pretty standard when doing your own hardware installation. I certainly accepted that risk.

RAM - I purchased the 4GB RAM upgrade from Crucial.com, selecting the correct chips for my model number by using their online tools. Apple's Boot Camp and hardware only supports 32-bit versions of Windows XP, and 32-bit versions have a 4GB total addressing limit, which means they do not use the entire installed amount of 4GB RAM for user memory and your Windows OS will report ~3GB as being installed. This is a 32-bit Windows limitation. The entire 4GB still shows up on the Mac side.

Hard Drive - I purchased the hard drive from Newegg.com, and I have had a positive experience with them also. I attempted to find the exact same model hard drive that Apple uses for its 320 GB 7200 RPM upgrade (I did not save the model number), but could not find it for sale. Instead, I found a drive with the same specs except the SATA interface was twice as fast (Hitachi HTS723232L9A360 SATA 3GB/s). It works fine with the "slower" SATA 1.5GB/s adapter in the MacBook Pro, and I doubt any real-world application comes close to the 1.5GB/s transfer rate anyway.

I saved $95 over Apple's price doing the upgrades myself. Between the extra shipping time and the loss of warranty, it may have been a wash, but I have more cash in hand.

Mac OS - My installation was done using Mac OS 10.5.6 with Boot Camp 2.1 (version 2.1 is necessary if you want to install XP SP3).

Windows OS - I used Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit version. Again, 64-bit versions of XP are not supported as outlined here and here. 64-bit versions of Vista are supported on my laptop model, but since I was attempting a Windows installation on non-standard hardware, I wanted the most tested, compatible OS version. According to Apple, you must install using a full Windows version, not the upgrade; i.e., you cannot use Windows XP (pre-SP2 version) and then upgrade to SP2, or install Windows 2000 and then upgrade to XP SP2.

Disk Partitions - You can use NTFS volumes of any size for your Windows partition and still write to the volume from Mac OS, provided you install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G for Mac OS X. The issue here is that there are some restrictions on the Windows file system type and size imposed by Mac OS and the Windows install CD. By default, Mac OS can only write to FAT drives, which means when you boot to Mac OS, you can see NTFS partitions, but can't copy files to them (they are read-only). Additionally, the Windows install CD will only "see" FAT partitions of 32GB or less, so you can't create FAT volumes > 32GB and install the OS on them. However, MacFUSE and NTFS-3G for Mac OS X come to the rescue and allow you to write from Mac OS to NTFS volumes. The one drawback is that the Boot Camp control panel under Mac OS will not see the Windows boot disk after you install MacFUSE, which means you cannot select it as the default boot volume from the Mac side. However, you can still select it by holding the Option key during start up, or by selecting it as the start up volume using the Boot Camp control panel in Windows.

My Installation Steps

IMPORTANT: This is not meant to be a substitute for official installation instructions from Apple, but simply notes from my experience.

• Install the RAM and the hard drive as per Apple's instructions.
• Boot the laptop and insert the Mac OS DVD.
• Install Mac OS. IMPORTANT: Use the entire hard drive for the Mac OS partition; do not reserve space for the Windows install at this time. You create the Windows partition later by re-partitioning the Mac OS drive, using part of the existing Mac partition. If you reserve the space now by leaving some of the disk empty, it will be invisible to the Boot Camp installer later.
• Once the Mac OS install is done, download all Apple software updates (in the Apple menu).
• Run Boot Camp Assistant from the Utilities folder, and follow the instructions exactly. I elected to use half the disk for each OS, i.e. ~149GB each. IMPORTANT: Do not stop in the middle or change any disk partitions on your own, other than as instructed or allowed by the software.
• Boot with the Windows XP CD and do the installation. IMPORTANT: You must select the BOOTCAMP partition for the XP install. I formatted as NTFS using the full 149GB. I did a full format (not "quick"), so I can't comment on whether "quick" works. If you get an "NTDLR missing" blue screen error at any point, simply start over in Mac OS with the Boot Camp control panel. To boot to Mac OS, start up while holding the Option key and select the Mac startup disk. To eject a CD at any point when the OS is unavailable, reboot the laptop and press and hold the trackpad or the left mouse button until the CD ejects.
• Once Windows XP is running, insert the Mac OS CD and run the Boot Camp installer. This will install the Apple hardware drivers for Windows and the Boot Camp control panel.
• Install Windows XP SP3 and all updates.
• Install MacFUSE.
• Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X, which uses MacFUSE to allow Mac OS to write to your NTFS volumes.

There is one minor hardware issue, which is that there is no way to turn keyboard backlighting totally off on the Windows side. I submitted this issue to Apple via apple.com/feedback

External Monitor - There are differences in the way Windows and Mac OS handle an external monitor. To paraphrase Microsoft support, these are "expected behaviors" rather than bugs. I tried 2 cases:

• Use external monitor only - This is my normal working mode. Windows handles this fine using the NVIDIA control panel under "nView Display Settings" > "Single display". Mac OS wants to always have the laptop LCD handle some of the desktop space, and you cannot turn this off.
• Use external as primary, and laptop as secondary display for extended desktop - Mac OS handles this perfectly. Windows uses XP's DualView for this, which will only allow the laptop display to be the "primary" display (#1 in the Display control panel), not the external monitor. The drawback is that application windows and message dialogs appear by default on the primary display, along with tool bars and icons. You can drag things manually to the external display desktop, but new windows will still pop up on the LCD because it is the primary display. The NVIDIA control panel has the nView Desktop Manager, which affords some additional control over windows, and allows you to move many things over to the external display easily (such as icons, tool bars, and some windows). However, I found that some dialogs still popped up on the laptop LCD, and when I saved files to the Desktop, the icons were created on the LCD desktop space, instead of the external display's desktop. Unfortunate, but not a huge deal for me, since I don't use two displays much.

Parry Peak From Winter Park, CO

This view is familiar to anyone who has skied at Mary Jane. Parry Peak seems to present its best face when viewed directly from the ski slopes. The view changes all day long, a more dramatic high-altitude version of Monet's haystacks.