Monthly Archives: October 2008

Have you ever wondered what the American elections look like from a distance? I barely notice when they have elections in other countries. Do they notice our 2 year campaign for a four year job? Apparently so. Here is Australia’s take on politics in the US.

Image via Wikipedia

Are you one of those people that shows up late for an event… only to discover you are a day early? I have done that more than once.

For me everything seems to take three years longer than I expected. The current economic crash is no exception, but by early 2008 I figured the government would prop up the economy at least until the elections were over, so my guess was that things would go down in October 2009 – especially since I was seeing significant similarities between Obama and Hoover (apparently I am not the only one to see the similarity). The crash came three years late and one year early. Oh well.

So what happened? How could I be so wrong?

First, this crash has been building for nearly 20 years. By the late nineties the economy desperately needed to slow down. Economies need breaks too you know. But, no one wanted it to slow-down and Greenspan “the great juggler” knew the secret to keep it going. Every time Mr. Market dropped another ball, Greenspan caught it and tossed it up in the air. Greenspan was invincible. He could juggle anything, and he kept the economy going years beyond what anyone thought was possible. After a while though, we started to take him for granted. He may not have even known how important he was.

Then Greenspan decided to retire. As smart as Greenspan was, I guess everyone assumed he would be able to pick a good successor, but skill in one area does not guaranty skill in other areas. As a matter of fact, people who are exceptionally strong in one area are typically weak in most other areas.

His choice for successor, Bob Bernanke, proved how qualified he was in his “helicopter speech”. When he was chosen, my jaw hit the floor. I knew at that point we were in big trouble. The mighty Casey had struck out. Greenspan’s legacy destroyed by one choice – the choice of a successor. I am not sure if Bernanke can juggle a normal three ball economy, but he sure wasn’t prepared for the time-bomb Greenspan handed him.

Bernanke and Bush have been putting this off as long as they could but then something happened. Maybe they just dropped a ball. No big surprise there. Clinton made a lot of mistakes, but he managed to come out smelling like roses thanks to Greenspan. Bush really didn’t do much either direction, he just let Greenspan do his job. By the time Bernanke stepped in he was handed two decades of neglect and mistakes. He was handed a time-bomb and all he knew how to do was detonate it early.

So it appears that Bernanke did the only thing he knew how to do. The timing seems really strange to me. I wonder though, if this might be a deliberate deflating of the economy. Here are a few reasons I think it might be:

1. The crash decreased gas prices which is good for incumbants. Lost investments affect a lot fewer people than gas prices, since America is a debt-based society anyway.
2. If McCain wins, getting the crash over now might make things easier for him.
3. or… the Republicans might be deliberatly throwing the race since taking over an economy this bad is going to be political suicide.

I have not studied the political side of this enough to tell whether the early recession was deliberate or not. I am just saying from an economic viewpoint the timing seems really odd. I really am not that interested in American politics, but I am interested in economics.

The other possibility is this was not the real crash. There were some dips in 1928 and early 1929 also. Then everyone said, “Hey, I am glad we got that out of the way, and it was not too bad either.” Then they went on to blow the big bubble. I guess we will see next year (or three years after that).

All that to say that I am pretty good at figuring out what is going to happen but don’t bet on me being right about the timing.

Image via Wikipedia

Are you one of those people that shows up late for an event… only to discover you are a day early? I have done that more than once.

For me everything seems to take three years longer than I expected. The current economic crash is no exception, but by early 2008 I figured the government would prop up the economy at least until the elections were over, so my guess was that things would go down in October 2009 – especially since I was seeing significant similarities between Obama and Hoover (apparently I am not the only one to see the similarity). The crash came three years late and one year early. Oh well.

So what happened? How could I be so wrong?

First, this crash has been building for nearly 20 years. By the late nineties the economy desperately needed to slow down. Economies need breaks too you know. But, no one wanted it to slow-down and Greenspan “the great juggler” knew the secret to keep it going. Every time Mr. Market dropped another ball, Greenspan caught it and tossed it up in the air. Greenspan was invincible. He could juggle anything, and he kept the economy going years beyond what anyone thought was possible. After a while though, we started to take him for granted. He may not have even known how important he was.

Then Greenspan decided to retire. As smart as Greenspan was, I guess everyone assumed he would be able to pick a good successor, but skill in one area does not guaranty skill in other areas. As a matter of fact, people who are exceptionally strong in one area are typically weak in most other areas.

His choice for successor, Bob Bernanke, proved how qualified he was in his “helicopter speech”. When he was chosen, my jaw hit the floor. I knew at that point we were in big trouble. The mighty Casey had struck out. Greenspan’s legacy destroyed by one choice – the choice of a successor. I am not sure if Bernanke can juggle a normal three ball economy, but he sure wasn’t prepared for the time-bomb Greenspan handed him.

Bernanke and Bush have been putting this off as long as they could but then something happened. Maybe they just dropped a ball. No big surprise there. Clinton made a lot of mistakes, but he managed to come out smelling like roses thanks to Greenspan. Bush really didn’t do much either direction, he just let Greenspan do his job. By the time Bernanke stepped in he was handed two decades of neglect and mistakes. He was handed a time-bomb and all he knew how to do was detonate it early.

So it appears that Bernanke did the only thing he knew how to do. The timing seems really strange to me. I wonder though, if this might be a deliberate deflating of the economy. Here are a few reasons I think it might be:

1. The crash decreased gas prices which is good for incumbants. Lost investments affect a lot fewer people than gas prices, since America is a debt-based society anyway.
2. If McCain wins, getting the crash over now might make things easier for him.
3. or… the Republicans might be deliberatly throwing the race since taking over an economy this bad is going to be political suicide.

I have not studied the political side of this enough to tell whether the early recession was deliberate or not. I am just saying from an economic viewpoint the timing seems really odd. I really am not that interested in American politics, but I am interested in economics.

The other possibility is this was not the real crash. There were some dips in 1928 and early 1929 also. Then everyone said, “Hey, I am glad we got that out of the way, and it was not too bad either.” Then they went on to blow the big bubble. I guess we will see next year (or three years after that).

All that to say that I am pretty good at figuring out what is going to happen but don’t bet on me being right about the timing.

Image via CrunchBase

WordPress 2.7 is coming! Usually you think of point releases as just a few new features, but 2.7 is a big deal. If you skipped 2.6 or the three security releases since, I can understand, but you will want 2.7 as soon as it is released. It is currently scheduled for November 10th.

There are a bunch of reasons to upgrade, but I think I can sum it up by saying that 2.7 gives you the option to have exactly the features you want. All of them, and nothing more. So what are the great new features in 2.7? Everything you choose.

There is just one catch. Upgrading.

For anyone who has done this before it is usually no fun at all. Painful really. But that is why I am posting today. I wanted to tell you about a plugin that you can add to your blog that will make upgrading a lot faster, safer and easier. This will actually be a part of 2.7 core functionality, but for the upgrade to 2.7, I highly recommend installing this plugin.

The WordPress Automatic upgrade will take you through each step of the upgrade process. It gives you a one-click option to create backups then puts your blog in maintenance mode, installs files, and finishes the upgrade. You can get it here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/

I know what you are thinking. Installing plugins is painful, too!

Fair enough. WordPress 2.7 is going to fix that for you. It will make finding, installing, and upgrading plugins a matter of a few clicks. If you are wanting to install or test several plugins before 2.7 you can get this functionality early using the “Single Click Plugin Updater WordPress Plugin.” [Update: WordPress 2.7 now has a really cool feature to make adding plugins easy but it does not help you uninstall them, and it does not handle themes. This plugin handles both.]

The Single Click Plugin Updater WordPress Plugin makes installing and upgrading plugins easy. You still have to install this plug-in but after that, all the rest of your plugins and themes will be easy to install or upgrade. This would also make installing the “WordPress Automatic upgrade” easy. Either way you have to install one plug-in the hard way, but if you are doing several start with “Single-Click” and the rest will be easy.

But, we can make it even easier!

This is totally optional and may not be needed with 2.7 but in the mean time I have found it to be great. With just the WP plugin you still have to copy and paste the link. Not bad, but installing can be reduced to a few clicks in Firefox and Flock. To make installing plugins easier install One-Click Installer for WP 1.1.

What plugins do I need?

Now that you have an easy way to install plugins for WordPress, I bet you are wondering what plugins to install. I have a list of my favorites but you may end-up with a different list depending on what you want to do with your WordPress (notice I did not call it a blog because the same software can be used to do so many different things), and when 2.7 comes out my list is going to change. I will be doing a new list of the plugins I think most people will want after testing them in 2.7. For now, here is a link to the site that lists them all: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Make a list of the features you want.

I should have put this at the top, but the most important thing you can do in preparing for 2.7 is to make a list of the features you want. Many of these will now be default options in 2.7. The rest will be easy to install. Finding them could still be time consuming though. Since I am going to be reading about and testing almost all of them anyway, let me help you find the features you want.

Leave a comment or contact me some other way with a list of all the features you are looking for. On November 8th, I will combine your lists and do my research. Then I will do a post telling you how to get all the features you are looking for and how to get rid of all the features you do not want so WorpPress can be as streamlined or powerful as you want.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Among the first states in the United States, Georgia was started by England as a place to export prisoners. The New England states were founded by political/religious exiles that would have gone to jail if they had not left first. New York is filled with crooks, and the southern states were filled with slave owners who are criminals by today’s standards.

Before the World Wars, Germany sent all of it’s political enemies to America. These people were considered criminal by German standards, but were a huge part of America’s Industrial Revolution.

Criminals from other countries, have been the most important force in making America great. First and second generation immigrants have historically been the most productive members of American society.

So why on earth do we limit immigration now?

I hear people say that they do not mind immigration in general. They are just opposed to illegal immigration. Are people really that dense? Immigration is only illegal because we decided to make it that way. If we did not have quotas and such a ridiculously impossible process for immigration, they would not be illegal. To say that you are opposed to illegal immigration is to say to aggree with current law which is to say you are opposed to immigration in general.

Are you worried they will steal all the jobs that you worked so hard to invent? Uhm… were you the one that made (or even owns) the jobs you are complaining about them stealing? If you are the one who “created” those jobs, why don’t you just create a few more. If not, quit complaining and get to work making up a new job.

Are they taking your land and using your resources? How many generations have your ancestors been here? Your ancestors took those resources from someone else. Life happens. Get used to it.

What do you think?

Image via CrunchBase

Pandora has brought a little music back into my life. I never really liked radio because of the ads, and because I never really found a station I liked. I thought cd’s were great when I first heard about them 20 years ago, but they are never handy when I think of them. Another problem with radio was that it would usually be in a different room, and in the car you have stations fading in and out. The main thing was that even the slightest inconvenience would continue the silence since I really did not care that much. I like music, but it is not a priority.

The computer helps some since I almost always have one available. But, then I had the problem of my music being on a different computer than the one I wanted it on. I think life on multiple computers is becoming more common, but take the poll at the end of this post and let’s see. Anyway, Pandora let’s me customize stations for different moods, time of day, company, etc. and listen to them on any computer. And since it is on the web, I can access my favorite songs from any computer.

Lala.com is not free, (did I ever mention that Pandora is?) but it looks like it might be worth the 10 cents per song. It also lets you keep any songs you already have on CD or in iTunes and put them online, which is pretty cool. I do have some songs stored on a computer somewhere. If I can find them I will already have a little library started.

TechCrunch talks more about LaLa. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/20/lala-may-have-just-built-the-next-revolution-in-digital-music/

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

This is a big year for my Mom. Since she is proud of her age, I think it is safe to tell you why. This year her age matches the year she was born.

Hope you have (had) a great birthday, Mom. Btw, let me know when you read this. My guess is sometime around Christmas.

Here are some flowers for your birthday.

Quote of the Week:

News flash: All times are economically uncertain.

- from: Are you sure we’re uncertain?

If you are going to flood a whole city on purpose, why this one?

At least the bell-tower survived.

Twitter:

	lgedeon @giddytab pointed out, I gave advice on getting rid of ice cream headache to someone with a vanilla latte headache. Sounded like i c to me:) about 1 hour ago from web in reply to giddytab
	lgedeon @ianonmac Doing a post on WordPress 2.7 upgrade. A few easy steps make this the easiest upgrade ever. @ me if I forget to send you a link about 2 hours ago from web in reply to ianonmac
	ianonmac I gotta learn how to back up, restore and upgrade WordPress, but not yet as I’m waiting for my domain transfers and WP2.7 to be released. about 3 hours ago from twhirl
	jowyang Just landed in SFO, quickly noticed a change in attitude compared to Japan, as well as larger body sizes. Headed to Texas tomorrow. about 4 hours ago from web
	JoeCascio My darling wife is making my favorite dish tonight.. chicken parmesan. And the bonus is that the chicken was only $1.99/lb! about 4 hours ago from web
	flowerdust Walking around & seeing lots of Christmas stuff going up. Realizing how much our family dynamics have changed this year. Need chocolate. about 5 hours ago from twitterrific
	ShawnKing Whew – turns out, I made the right decision not riding today. Rain coming down sideways here. about 5 hours ago from twhirl
	lgedeon retweet: @PFNikolai 46% of men 18-34 read books each week–more than watch DVDs or movies or even go out drinking http://tinyurl.com/3nxnf5 about 9 hours ago from TwitKit
	lgedeon @socialtrinity sounds way too familiar about 9 hours ago from TwitKit in reply to socialtrinity
	socialtrinity Family is up, time to distribute breakfast, parlay a few sibling fights, and work out today’s schedule–which better include time outside about 10 hours ago from web
	lgedeon UNO is one of the best card games ever. You can still play it with missing cards. 11:46 AM Oct 24th from TwitKit
	lgedeon Commented at http://middlezonemusings.co… 9:33 AM Oct 24th from TwitKit
	simpsonsparadox @lgedeon I want to throw pumpkins around! I’m coming to live at your house! 2:13 PM Oct 23rd from web in reply to lgedeon
	lgedeon We had a pumpkin with such a hard shell we could not cut it, so we dropped it off the deck, 20 feet, onto concrete. It worked! 12:51 PM Oct 23rd from TwitKit
	lgedeon Candice just said her name! (pronounced more like Can-na but still very recongnizable) 11:49 AM Oct 23rd from TwitKit
	newmediajim moderator just acknowldged size/shape of table LOL 11:48 AM Oct 23rd from mobile web
	lgedeon I have been out-geeked again by my wife @giddytab this time on twitter. 10:25 PM Oct 22nd from TwitKit
	lgedeon I have heard that “minds” exist, but I have never seen any evidence. 3:28 PM Oct 22nd from TwitKit
	lgedeon My 2yo says the Joomla symbol looks like baby Billy’s toys – his horsey toys 9:35 AM Oct 22nd from TwitKit
	lgedeon Yep, when it comes to twitter I am a bit on the slow side. I just realized this is the perfect place to link to posts I comment on. 12:22 PM Oct 20th from web

	newmediajim im at a Homeland Security Policy round table, but the table is rectangular 11:10 AM Oct 23rd from mobile web
	roberthruzek @lgedeon Oh, they’re there all right. They’re just in hiding until their evil plan has been formulated and they can take over the world! ;-D 3:30 PM Oct 22nd from twhirl in reply to lgedeon

Image via Wikipedia

This is embarrassing. I cannot believe that fellow Mac users have this much trouble reading!

Actually, if you look at these comments many of the commenters are not native English speakers, so they may not have noticed that I was talking about the Mac version. My guess is that most of them did not read anything other than the word “free”.

I deleted the first two weeks of comments before I thought about the fact that keeping them could have some value. Of course, those who are capable of learning from their example are probably smart enough to not make the same mistake anyway.

I did have one person follow the instructions in the second update, he won a free copy of OpenOffice! I could not bear to tell him that he could have gotten it free anyway, so I sent him a free download link. Click here to see the winning entry.

Have Fun!!

Image by Oberazzi via Flickr

Short answer: Because Seth Godin (the instigator of Squidoo) said not to.

Seth says you should do one thing and do it well. Of course, he was trying to keep his tribe from wandering off and doing other things, but it works the other way too. I am already working on a few other sites and have been meaning to start doing Squidoo too, but now I have a great excuse not to.

Ok, ok…..

So that this post is not a total waste, what one thing do you do well? This is not a rhetorical question. This is a real question where you must type a real answer in the comments.

What is the one thing you do best?

Thank you to everyone that has helped with designing this logo. I am learning a bunch and hopefully my next logo will go a bit faster. I will be making the final call on Saturday, so this is probably the final round. Feel free to go back to earlier rounds to pull ideas. Here are the earlier rounds:

Another round of logo design 2008-10-13

Zhong logo version 4

New Logo for CCC

And here is the final round. You do not have to pick a single favorite. Just use these as examples to talk about ideas you like and dislike.