Symmetry At The Evergreen State Fair

We strolled through pig pens and lamb shearing and cow milking but today's Muse was the "1919" quasi-historical display of symmetrical and asymmetrical quilts. The symmetrical had predictable patterns but the asymmetrical were amateurish and ill-conceived, jarring to the eye. Few of either were innovative.

It's hard to do asymmetry right.

Symmetry creates predictability, predictability minimizes transaction costs. Entropy drives systems to the configuration of lowest transaction cost unless there are counterbalancing forces.

Asymmetry extends functionality. Depending on environment and capability, functionality is subject to marginal benefit at a fixed (or rising) cost. The human hand has five fingers because the marginal cost of that fifth finger was less than its added functionality.

The human body is study in symmetry and asymmetry. Symmetry is the order of the day - two hands, two feet, two eyes, two legs, two lungs. But asymetry occurs at points of marginal tradeoff. Two eyes give depth perception but two noses do not. Two ears determine direction but two tongues can not.

It's hard to do asymmetry right, to find the breakpoint of marginal cost versus benefit.

Symmetry and standardization minimize transaction costs but are they the same thing? Semantic vagarity perhaps. Is symmetry the noun and standardization the verb? X and Y axis. Object and process. Concrete versus vector? The Cairngorm framework has ModelLocator and AppController; view and navigation; two dimensions which model the world and differentiate independent of each other.

Jimmy Rodgers

Interesting interview with Jimmy Rodgers, who predicted in 2005 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "$10 stocks"

"[Bernanke] still thinks he knows what he's doing"

"We had two central banks that disappeared for whatever reason. This one's going to disappear, too"

"America had such a magnificent and gigantic position of dominance that deterioration will take time. You know, you don't just change that in a decade or two. It takes a lot of hard work by a lot of incompetent people to change the situation."

Toast.

It's only been in the past few weeks since FNM and FRE melted down that I've seen signs of comprehension in my fellow Americans.

Success X 3

From another project -

"This is a huge success brought about by XXX, Broward, XXX and XXX's research, evaluation, demonstration and presentation of how Flex, LiveCycle and the Cairngorm architecture can be used... they will be invited back to show... application design work to the XXX development staff."

I most definitely have my adrenalin rush back.

Success X 2

From a project -

"[regarding] the common architectural framework... includes the use of Oracle for databases, Java for applications... the latest common tool set is the use of Adobe's Flex and the Cairngorm framework"

"[this is a result of] our initiative to push for adoption with the Architecture team thru Broward as well as quickly build development capacity offshore"

Yeah, baby.

Why

Why would you never talk to me?

Why did you slander me so? That anger isn't mine, I do not own it. I rarely do. I reminisced about my experiments as J and I ate dinner and she asked when and why I started them. I couldn't say. They weren't clearly experiments even in my own mind until the late eighties.

Beck's anger is his own and my friends at No Treason finally reaped The Whirlwind of their game. I rifled through LinkedIn.com for an hour, an unexpected confirmation that free markets don't work as advertised. Information can be manipulated at a cost. Isn't that the essence of corruption? When you happen upon a MySpace profile with 15,000 friends, what does it mean?

I watched your real friends drop from MySpace top eight one by one, replaced by pleasing plastic icons of dubious value. I understand why, though. We reach for things. It's only later that we question their value and our motives. That is, if we're lucky. I'm comforted that marriage was an inevitable mistake.

Is your hair gone again? Almost certainly. I coast from Renton to West Seattle, the sex is great, my purity score is down to 50 and we get along well. We met at a crossroad of life, formed a mutual partnership and neither of us promises where it will go. It's pleasant.

Still, I wish I could meet more women who interest me.
There are so few.
Most of them live imprisoned by their fears and beliefs, even at this age.

Success is fickle, a friend again for now. Odds are good now that I'll accomplish what I began this year. But the divorce still drags on, so typical of her, so pointless. My hair is thinner, my health still questionable and no definitive trend. Yours, however, is more predictable and a few silent tears fell as I drove home.

I wonder so many things. The easy path is egotism, the assumption that everyone else is wrong. They often are in absolute terms. But most live relative lives so the difference is small. And the same path can change temperament as it's walked. Correct at first, then wrong, oops now correct again towards the end.

Likewise, at this moment I was right to leave Phoenix. They hired him into a director position with an associates degree and little experience. What manner of corruption was it? I don't know, I only know that I recognized that smell from my Idaho days and moved on. Mormon conspiracy again or something like it. The label isn't important, unlike that listing of MySpace friends. A confirmation of suspicion years after the event. I wasn't angry, only dispppointed and unsurprised.

I hope you're well.
But I doubt it.

Justice is fleeting. Perhaps that's why we pursue it on occasion. But the deception on LinkedIn can't feed my faith. Dishonest money creates dishonest people.

Take care.

State Change

It's increasingly likely that we've entered a major state change. The upward credit cycle which began in 1982 was fueled by falling interest rates, partly possible by abandonment of the gold standard in the early 1970s. The cycle probably ended in 2001 although Greenspan coaxed an odd transition during 2003-2007 via the greatest housing bubble in U.S. history.

Most Americans have no idea what a reverse cycle looks like, when interest rates rise every year. when housing prices stagnate for years, when cash is increasingly better than credit. I expect the next few years will be quite unpleasant for many folks. Honesty may come back into vogue, a shock to those don't even realize their own dishonesty.

---

Apparently her cancer came back. I hope she makes it but I doubt that she will; a second trip through NeutronWorld is bad medicine with poor odds.

wow

wow... Just wow

Flex rocks

IPhone X

Posted from my iPhone

Amazing ecosystem built up already.
Voice dialing, GPS, learning languages, e-books.

iPhone

It's official, I finally sold out.

I bought my first Apple product, an iPhone. If I can secure some tether software I'll probably cancel my Verizon broadband card, although I like Verizon far more than AT&T.

San Juan Islands

Failure

I deleted all my personal ads and social networking accounts except for LinkedIn.com.
I dropped my ItsJustLunch subscription, too.
I haven't used my Events&Adventures membership for over 18 months now.

"These are not the droids I want..."

Many, perhaps most, Americans don't believe that a systemic financial failure is possible here. Today the FDIC shut down two more local banks and at current debt & leverage levels, a systemic failure is not only possible but probable. Fannie Mae lost 90% of its value for a reason. The odds are good of a full-blown panic by the end of the year.

Success

In today's email for one of my projects, I'm one of the Senior Technical Architects...

"Today I had the best experience in a Steering team meeting I've
ever, and I mean ever, have had.

I really felt like I saw the light at the end of the tunnel very
clearly today. Wanted to share my experience with all of you."

Batter Up!

And it's Washington Mutual up to bat for the Team Insolvency!

A takedown of WaMu essentially wipes out the FDIC, IndyMac already knocked out about 1/3rd of their reserves. The reality is that the FNM and FRE bailout is probably in the $250-500 billion range and the total possible losses in real estate are in the $5 trillion range, give or take a trillion or two.

We're probably not too far off from a declaration of "national emergency".

It's Started

When Weimar Germany caved in to The Great Depression, its culture shifted towards a denial and conformity which brought Hitler to power. In "The Great Reckoning", James Davidson warns that the United States will likely enter a similar period.

I believe it has begun.

In the past few months, I've been banned from three online boards for sarcastic commentary which was un-exceptional in earlier days. When people lose control of their lives, they often seek control of something else; anything else. The American workplace has been damaged for many years but I'm seeing an acceleration in groupthink and conformity and fewer people mention the emperor's new clothes. Steeped in silent desperation, the under-employed run around with their hair on fire. To not join in their frantic panic is to invite suspicion.

These post-Crash years might be a primer for the future and we may enter a period of pure madness as US culture seeks to maintain popular delusions. History has already judged us.... I never thought I would see such blatant corruption as when the SEC announced its new stock-shorting rules. How do they maintain a pretense of credibility?

That torture was a topic of debate was a signal to The Coherent.

I don't believe that I will live long enough to see the United States recover.

Rollover

In the 1981 movie, Rollover, the movie draws to a close as the Arab nations begin withdrawing all their savings from the United States, precipitating a financial crisis.

Well, friends.
This week we've experienced the rollover moment.

As of today, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are essentially bankrupt, their stocks down 42% and 46% this morning alone, total losses now in the 90% range. I expect that they, along with several other large banks, will effectively be nationalized. This in itself should cause a considerable run on the US dollar.

Stick a fork in the US, baby, because it's done.
Golden, crispy brown.