Monthly Archives: November 2006

Ruling the Commons

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I read this marvelous book, Privatopia, about Common Interest Developments, or CIDs, some time back. CIDs go by various names, condo associations, gated communities, etc. They are a form of government that lie in the vast gray zone between real government and purely private ownership; i.e. where the club goods hang out. One of the stories he tells is how there are a handful of constituencies at the table: developers, community managers, owners, service providers (lawyers, landscapers, agents), local governments, etc. That as time has passed the community managers have come to dominate the governance of the communities. They are little kings, and what they care most about is keeping a lid on things. I was reminded of that story when reading this newspaper article about:

DENVER, Colorado (AP) — A homeowners’ association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan…

…Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association

… Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn’t say anything.

Kearns fired all five committee members.

Kearns has since backed down, but the point stands… little kings.

Oh look! The author of that book has a blog.

Trait Transference

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Consider this statement: “Alice says that Bob is lazy.” Is it better to summarize this as: “…Bob is lazy” or “Alice … is lazy”? The 2nd is very often better. Speakers mentions traits which reveal their own traits. What you say reveals your internal dialog.

So it’s with great amusement that I stumbled upon this paper. Trait Transference: Communicators take on the Qualities They Describe in Others. This paper makes a very similar argument, but the other way around. It argues that the dialog about others lays down the patterns that become the behaviors you yourself take on.

Who knows? Hard to run that controlled experiment! It’s a chicken and egg problem.

In either case, say nice things about other people – it will make you, or possible indicate you already are, a nicer person.

Meanwhile let me just say that you are very sexy!

Self Interested Politics

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While it is a fascinating political science question exactly how the Democratic Congress should deploy their resources over the comming months, here is an idea that’s close to my own trade.

One of the first things I’d like to see would be hearings on the Hill about Japan and Korea and Finland and who knows what other countries being 10 times as fast in broadband as the U.S., with far more uptake. Who? How fast? How did they do it? What of that can the U.S. apply? What advantages does the U.S. have that those countries don’t?

Great idea John!

update:

If you’re looking for the future of telecom, don’t search within the US telecom industry. It’s not hidden here anywhere. I’ve looked. –via Martin

Yield Curve

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Through history there has been many ideas about of how to value the future. I particularly love one of these ideas that the interest paid on borrowed money is the compensation you pay the lender for his pain in forgoing the pleasures that money could have purchased him.

In any case modern financial market have numerous schemes to allow you to price a bushel of corn or money at some point in the future. If you borrow money, for example, you pay interest. Interestingly if you borrow money for a year v.s. ten years you don’t pay the same interest rate. Sometimes you pay more sometimes you pay less. If we plot these various interest rates we get what’s known as the yield curve.

There is a very cool applet showing the yield curve for the last few decades in this magazine article.

The shape of the yield curve is a market signal about what people think the economy is going to do next. Short term rates go up when there is lots of demand for cash, i.e. their are lots options for investing your cash that will bear fruit quickly; i.e. the economy is hot. If at the same time the market collectively senses that economy is going to cool down, i.e. there aren’t good long term investments to be made, then the near term cost of money should be higher than the long term cost. That’s the case right now.

Presumably this means that investors have their attention focused on short range opportunities v.s. long range ones. When they look at longer range investment opportunities the see uncertainty and so they put their time into activities that can be wrapped up in a short, presumably more predictable, time frame.

The yield curve is the market signal that tells us what the investor class is thinking about the future; with the consumer spending and confidence tells us what they are thinking. The market signals says that we live in an uncertain world. Who knew?!?

No-knead Bread

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The New York Times has brought all the food blogs into sync with an article posted last Wednesday for a no-knead bread. It’s been fun reading various news groups, mailing lists, forums, and blogs as they take the recipe out for a spin. It’s a fun technique.

I think the most amusing posting though was the one pointing out that the New York Times wrote a very similar technique, giving credit to the same baker and bakery back in 2004.

Jim Lahey, who owns Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan, recommends placing an enamel-covered cast-iron pot and lid in the oven at 500 degees for an hour (creating plenty of ambient heat), then lowering the dough into the pot on a parchment sling and covering it. — Proper Tools for a Perfect Loaf by Kay Rentschler, New York Time 25 May 2004

Though in that version the bread is dropped into the iron pot on a sheet of parchment. Which strikes me as a better approach; since the dough is so wet it’s almost impossible to keep it from soaking into the towel you rest it on for the second rise.