Rich Dad Meme, Housing Crash & Casey

S-curve Methodology
Three-source Sampling Theory

The Indiana Casey Series!
Indiana Casey And The Missing Meme
Indiana Casey And The Shape Of Memes To Come

I feel badly for Casey, but I'm sickened that the real estate hucksters are still chomping at the guy to stave off their own problems. I use Dejanews.com as a datasource because of its longevity. Here's the Rich Dad Poor Dad meme. Its peak is almost coincidental with the start of the housing inventory crash. Casey's market entry is few months past the peak, i.e. he bought in pretty close to the top.

With this much traffic, I should probably add a disclaimer - I own no real estate, I have no RE-related investments (short or long), I sell no ads, I receive no revenue from this site. I left California during the 1990 RE Crash and never went back. ).

Oh, and I'm looking for an IT architect job in the Pacific Northwest!!!
Plus a cute and kinky girlfriend!!!

An Anti-Meme : Casey Serin & IAmFacingForeclosure.com

S-curve Methodology
Three-source Sampling Theory

The Indiana Casey Series!
Indiana Casey And The Search For Rich Dad!
Indiana Casey And The Shape Of Memes To Come

I defined five types of memetic bandwidth. "In denial" bandwidth actively avoids a particular meme. Imagine you're at an elegant party and somebody drops a horse turd on the carpet. Many guests will look the other way and pretend to not notice. That's an "in denial" meme.

We probably can't prove that an "in denial meme" exists but we can generate empirical suspicion.

Let's try IAmFacingForeclosure.com as an example. Time-series graphs from Alexa.com and blogpulse.com imply that IAmFacingForeclosure.com's pageviews have peaked out. Notice the converging series. Each new high and low is converging towards a steady-state traffic level - (my annotations are in red)

Casey and his site show up in my own tool, too (barely) -

But Casey doesn't show up...

in Google's Trends AT ALL. Fascinating. Google is the most widely-used search tool on the Internet, but there's not much searching for "Casey Serin" or "IamFacingForeclosure.com".

What does this mean?

Is there a general aversion here?

We can see through blogpulse.com and dejanews.com that people ARE discussing Casey's plight but rarely search for him in Google. I'd class this as an "in denial" meme, it's the first example which has some level of (admittedly questionable) proof.

Election Speculation

S-curve Methodology
Three-source Sampling Theory

General hyperbole about why the Democrats recaptured the House and seats in the Senate. Was it the "Iraqi War", "the economy" or "price of gasoline"? A friend thought that it was "Iraqi War" but I disagreed, so I ran these memegraphs for my curiosity.

The concensus of all three graphs is "Iraqi war", although the last graph shows "economy" and "Iraqi war" almost even. I discount that, through, because "economy" is broad with a lot of bandwidth.

Compare these graphs from Google Trends, Blogpulse.com and my own Dejanews

The Dead Project

The architect sent me a change to add another parameter to the servlet. He always had a new requirement and we were in the eighteenth month of a nine-month schedule. He'd undermined my protests early on and I had stopped fighting him. No, this project was going to be perfect, zero defects, a monument to his ego. Meanwhile, layoffs were coming up and we'd produced nothing tangible but neither the architect or the manager seemed concerned.

I made the change and the manager came by an hour later to gloat.

"See?! You don't know everything! You missed that!". I pictured him dancing a gig that I wasn't perfect. I never claimed to be to perfect. I had just wanted to ship reasonably good software on time and stay employed, not engage in an ego battle.

The layoffs arrived three months later and he was the first to go. The team went into shock as cubicle after cubicle was emptied. I was the fifth. I had packed my stuff a month ago and I left quickly, happy to be free.

--

I sat in Boise drinking a beer, thinking back on that dead project, the wasted effort and I realized that... I could just hang out here with my parents. I mean, dang, I fought so many meaningless battles trying to establish a career and retirement.

Past a certain point some things become pointless.
I could coast along, drink a beer, flirt with coeds.

I asked the waitress her name. She pointed to a tattoo on her left arm. "Diamond?", I guessed. "No, Star", she said. I asked her about the black widow on her right arm. "That represents my fear of commitment", she said without a trace of humor. She was full-figured but cute, fun to watch with an easy smile and unself-conscious manner. I watched her dance by herself when she was out of sight behind the bar.

This could be okay.

Egotism Interface

The ego interface has many implementations -

Micromanagement
Perfectionism
Paranoia

And my favorite, shyness.

In 1996 I'd accomplished my goals. I had a major, successful project, a wife, a house and a "career track". But it was disrupted the following year by petty bumblers and I spent six years trying fix "my life".

But I just couldn't do it.

I abandoned the house in 2003.
Then the wife in 2005.
I suppose the "career track" is next.

I was focused, obsessed, with fixing my old life but it's not possible now.
I've lost nine years, for starters.
Why did it happen?
Why couldn't I fix it?
Why did so many other things keep happening?

Boise has a Goth night now.
So I'll dressed up in black and go play some pool!

Comedies Of Errors

The Wiccan witches created a fishing website and lured me in. But it backfired in an ironic comedy of errors. The harder they tried to dislodge their catch, the tighter he clung to the hook.

Hilarious.
I'm an all-day sucker... fish!
I doubt if they'll ever see the humor in it.

In retrospect, my marriage was a comedy of errors. We worked at cross-purposes until there wasn't anything left to work for.

The software industry attracts perfectionists.
But you never write perfect software.

The more I tried to recreate former success, the less opportunity I've had.

The more skill and knowledge I've gained, the less I've produced. The five years of 1992-1997 were twice as productive as 2001-2006. Most of 2006 is an empty void or a training ground for billiards, depending on your point of view.

A Ripple

I felt a shudder pass through my surroundings, a wrinkle in the space-time continuum or perhaps an alternative timeline that loaded. I looked around. I'm forty-eight years old, divorced, unemployed, in a college-age club of "different" people, what the hell am I doing?.

I suddenly realized that... most men my age fantasize about what I'm doing.

A cute coed in a red "Stanford" pullover yelled at me, "Get up and dance!"

So I got up and danced.
Two forty-ish men watched with cryptic faces, then another coed gyrated over to me for a few minutes.

Later, at an Irish pub, I got my biggest surprise.
She wanted me.
She was fast.

She caught the glances and acted before I was aware of my own interest. Another waitress yelled towards me, "Hey, what are you doing?". I turned and she was behind me, reading my Defcon t-shirt, secretly appraising me. And she was intrigued.

Wow.
Now I just need a real job.

A Web Of Lies

Computer networks aren't the original virtual devices.
People are.
A boy may think he has a girlfriend...

but you girls know he really has a virtual girl...
the physical girl plus her girlfriends, sisters and mother!

Look closely. This is a diagram of a conspiracy. Information travels around about the boyfriend but he's excluded from knowledge or participation (until the wedding). Depending on the contextual congruity of the women, he might face an incomprehensible range of behavior. Girlfriend may follow Mom's advice on Monday, Sister's advice on Tuesday morning and her own judgement on Tuesday night.

Did I say "might face"?
It's "virtually" guaranteed!

If the boyfriend understands his girlfriend's true nature, it's not so bad. But if he's like most men, he thinks she is a single set of expections, beliefs, fears and aspirations.

I finally figured this out.
An incomprehensible situation now makes partial sense.

Women and men define "facts" and "truth" differently. Apparently "facts" aren't constant for women, they vary with context and immediate need. No one can know Reality, only their perception of it.

An incomprehensible situation makes even more sense.

A Web Of Lies

I've seen so many strange situations in the past few years. Hidden agendas and false assumptions create escalating confusion. The Information Age seems to create ambiguity and confusion instead of clarity and consistency. I thought it was due to increasing debt loads. I thought people were responding financial insecurity with deceit to protect their jobs.

Now I wonder if it's a function of the Information Economy. The true price and cost of information can't be calculated like commodities and manufactured goods and the pricing mechanism of the "free market" doesn't seem to be flushing out inefficiencies.

Perhaps constant misperception and deception are permanent changes to our culture.

Spudly Thoughts

I walked around the BSU campus for couple hours. I'm shocked at how much it's grown. The coeds seem younger than I remember, the average student age was 28 when I graduated.

I drove by our old house and blew a tire when I u-turned into the curb. I walked through the Boise mall afterwards, it was relatively quiet but the interior seemed different, more crowded. It's been almost ten years since my last visit.

I never expected to be back here. But I never expected to live in Vegas, Phoenix or Denver. There's now a PF Chang's downtown. I liked the Central in Kirkland because of the age group. I'm surprised that I'm liking Humping Hanna's for the same reason.

I had a goal, I wanted to build up the College of Technology through Federal R&D software grants, expand on my original grants (1992-1996) but it never came to pass. Walking through the hallways, I wonder if it could have. Maybe it was too ambitious, like me. That project was my biggest accomplishment in life but I wonder if anyone would remember it now.

No, I don't wonder. No one would remember. Perhaps a hazy recollection of "something".

I suppose I'll hike around the campus again, oogle coeds, hang out at Starbucks, play pool until evening and wander through the newer downtown clubs.

Mormons & Goths & Information

A hazard of working with information is that you develop a sense for information streams; when they're misrouted or incomplete or filled with bad data. Eventually even a guy like me transfers that "sense of bad data" into political savvy. I realized this in 1997 and since then I've distilled some basic rules -

"If someone's actions make no sense, then

a) they have information that you lack, or
b) you have information that they lack"

A related concept is The Conspiracy. Conspiracies control information flows so that one party can exploit the ignorance of other parties. And certain environments promote or hinder conspiracies based on information flows.

Where does this all lead? To a personal anecdote from 1997, of course! Why would you retain an employee who sabotaged your technical infrastructure? In my world, this makes no sense. It probably makes no sense in yours, either. So why would it happen?

Politics and conspiracies, that's why.

Two years later, I still couldn't understand what happened, so armed with the Internet and several thousand dollars, I bought credit records, birth records, employment and residence history and other obscure information which revealed that several co-workers and management were Mormon church members, some legal counsel and an investigator were also Mormon, that they were linked in other ways but most importantly, that the Employee Saboteur was Mormon. Not just a Mormon, but an illegimate fifth-generation offspring of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church. Property ownership records implied incest and possible child abuse so I travelled to California to physically verify my suspicions.

Ahhh.
That four months of incomprehensible behavior suddenly made sense to me.

Since then, I've done a few other investigations. There's always a hidden reason for inexplicable behavior. For almost a year I've been in a situation with Seattle's Goth culture. I couldn't make sense of certain behavior. But I had missing information and poor assumptions. About women, specifically.

It makes sense to me now.
Most of it, at least.

I've discovered a couple new things about cults & conspiracies and disappointing realizations about myths which I thought were untrue.

My curiosity is satisfied.
But my heart is sad.

Things To Do

Revise Ideosphere model with granularity ideas

Court system - an attempt to centralize & standardize definitions in a world of decentralized rumor-mongering cults

Schramm Model - update it to show dynamic context and ramifications - PT and BSU info confusions as examples.

Still like to do that concordance measurement of Dawkins if I can figure out an easy way

Pool Time

Off to refine my billiard skills.
God help me.

It's a good thing I lost my retirement chance with BSU. Retirement would probably kill me before cancer or my wife.

Humping Hanna's

Humping Hanna's was the same as I remember from 1996. It even has the same house band.

An oriental man in business clothes studied my billiard skills for a while, then we struck up a game. He kicked my sorry ass 5-1. I was holding my own until he shattered my confidence in Game 3 by running six balls on the break.

Our only words were "nice shot" or "good game".

I spent the rest of Halloween at The Balcony. I'm too old for the crowd but I got some strange vibes. The Captain Morgan Rum girl eyed me, perhaps more in curiosity than lust. A repressed wife sent mixed messages for an hour, her boring husband was oblivious. I spoke briefly with Vanessa, a future knockout.

And for some reason, a gang of bi/lesbian women hung around me all night, laughing, hugging, making out, catching my eye every so often with a touch or comment.

I had no idea what to make of it.

Boise State College of Engineering

I visited the BSU College of Engineering yesterday, walking through the newer buildings, seeing the future that could have been. Staff turnover is surprisingly low after nine years (less than 50%?) and I saw many familiar faces.

No one recognized me.

One professor did a double-take but registered me as "a former student", I think.

My wife may be right; a university career could have been mundane, boring. I may have gotten bored after the ASPEN project. For years, I thought ASPEN was successful because of my work ethic and determination but now I wonder if it was because of my affiliation with the shadowy Mormon cabal within Idaho and Boise State. My wife didn't want that much in life, really. BSU is mostly to blame for her loss but I am, too. I trusted the wrong people to "do the right thing" and the success of ASPEN made me ambitious. Too ambitious.

My Mormon friends don't show up in my site logs yet.
They remain serenely unaware of my return to Boise, Idaho.

Book Meme

Meme Analysis for Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen...

I used the term "amazons" exclusively for all graphs. "Amazon", the company, (without an 's') produces a huge skew and is responsible for about 90% of all entries, regardless of secondary keywords.

Conclusion - Two data sources show a keyword peak in summer of 2006. I predict that sales will ramp up into Christmas and then fall off to new lows in summer 2007, barring some type of marketing gimmick or campaign. (Special disclosure - I occasionally check the Amazon book ranking and its latest behavior prompted this analysis.)