Outsourcing

There is an excellent and very interesting look into the outsourcing:

If backward time travel is also somehow possible, maybe firms in the future will choose to outsource some of their operations to the past, locating their manufacturing and other services in lower-wage time periods. This opens the possibility of transtemporal gains from trade... assuming, of course, that governments don’t implement effective trade barriers.

That's from blog Anglophilia via Marginal Revolution

So our ancestors (and may be us too) are going to fight for the work to be outsourced from our the future. We will be seeing billboards on the highways about which era is the best and cost effective for the outsourcing.

Also if we can transport goods from the past...if the earth is warmer can we export ice and rebuild the Arctic?

It would be lots of fun.

Recently read:

Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut.

This one deals with Vietnam war. The main character is Vietnam war veteran and now a professor at college.

Another awesome work.

According to Amazon reviewer: "My hands-down favorite. Vonnegut is in rare form here. Beware: Vonnegut is addictive, like heroin or cocaine..."

Well said.

Quotes from the book:

He told me to cheer up, that 1,000,000,000 Chinese were about to throw off the yoke of Communism. After they did that he said, they would all want automobiles and tires and gasoline and so forth.
....

Can you imagine what 1,000,000,000 Chinese in automobiles would do to each other and what's left of the atmosphere?
[Page 174, Hardcover edition]

And this:

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to to maintenance.

And the worst flaw is that we're just plain dumb. Admit it!
[Page 225, hardcover ed]

Recently read:

God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

Another classic work by Vonnegut.

It's all relative

Worst fiscal year for Sensex?

The Sensex closed at 14,809.49 points at the end of today's trading, which saw an intra-day loss of 1,022 points. This represents a gain of 13.3 per cent over its level at the end of last fiscal ended March, 2007.

And oil tumbles?

Oil fell by $7 a barrel after soaring to a new record of $111.80 on the Nymex exchange in New York. Oil products, such as heating oil and petrol, also lost ground, following the crude price – which lost 6 per cent of its value in only a few hours of trading - lower.

In both cases the prices/points went way up (really way up) in last few years. A tumble from $111.80 to $104 is not really a tumble. Less than $50 is tumble...or even $75.

Things point to another bad day for stocks

International markets opened on Monday with more than 4% points.

And when the US markets open tomorrow it has to worry about: Bear Sterns deal, Oil price at $111+, falling $ value and the panic.

No end in sight…

…for the credit crisis. In the latest of the bad news, JP Morgan to by Bear Sterns for $2 a share which totals to just $236 mil. Friday it closed at $30 which already lost 48% for the day. And it’s 52 week high is $159. That’s a loss of $157 in less than 12 months.

Crane Collapse and the Southwest Airlines

Crane collapse and Southwest Airlines are in the news.

So what’s common between the two?

Both will prompt for additional security measures from government. Adding complexity to the future developments. The companies could have avoided this disaster but when you start penny pinch that’s exactly what happens.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Even after 40 years this movie is still the best sci-fi ever made and can easily compete with any new movies.

This is an interesting:

Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL’s name immediately preceded those of IBM.

War and Oil

There is a nice article on Washington Post:

In the absence of Iraqi supplies, prices have soared three-and-a-half-fold since the U.S. invasion on March 20, 2003. (Last week, they shattered all previous records, even after adjusting for inflation.) The profits of the five biggest Western oil companies have jumped from $40 billion to $121 billion over the same period. While the United States has rid itself of Saddam Hussein and whatever threat he might have posed, oil revenues have filled the treasuries of petro-autocrats in Iran, Venezuela and Russia, emboldening those regimes and complicating U.S. diplomacy in new ways.

American consumers are paying for this turmoil at the pump. If the overthrow of Hussein was supposed to be a silver bullet for the American consumer, it turned out to be one that ricocheted and tore a hole through his wallet.

…….

In a sense, though, all Americans are part of that conspiracy. We have built a society that is profligate with its energy and relies on petroleum that happens to be pooled under some unstable or unfriendly regimes. We have frittered away energy resources with little regard for the strategic consequences. And now it's hard and expensive to change our ways.

Recently read:

Slaughterhouse-five or The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another classic. Highly recommended.

The time-traveling protagonist is a WWII nobody, witness the horrible destruction on Dresden. Aliens and of course Kilgore Trout is there, who is writing away his sci-fis which no one seems to read.

Vonnegut calls the Bombing of the Dresden is the worst and had the casualties more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. He also compares the fire bombing of Tokyo

From Wikipedia:

Kurt Vonnegut was a combat infantryman in the US 106th Infantry Division. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and sent to an underground POW camp in Dresden, where he witnessed the bombing and cleanup efforts first-hand. His novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is based on his experiences.

Daylight Saving Time

DST (Daylight saving time ) falls on this weekend in US. Since the so called “Energy Policy Act of 2005”

But “Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy?” The research says no. HT: Marginal Revolution.

And in Time out of Mind:

Studies have shown the alarming extent of the problem: office workers are
no longer able to stay focused on one specific task for more than about three
minutes, which means a great loss of productivity. The misguided notion that
time is money actually costs us money.

And it costs us time. People in industrial nations lose more years from
disability and premature death due to stress-related illnesses like heart
disease and depression than from other ailments. In scrambling to use time to
the hilt, we wind up with less of it.

Get drunk without alcohol?

In a series of studies in the 1970s and ’80s, psychologists at the University of Washington put more than 300 students into a study room outfitted like a bar with mirrors, music and a stretch of polished pine. The researchers served alcoholic drinks, most often icy vodka tonics, to some of the students and nonalcoholic ones, usually icy tonic water, to others. The drinks looked and tasted the same, and the students typically drank five in an hour or two.
The studies found that people who thought they were drinking alcohol behaved exactly as aggressively, or as affectionately, or as merrily as they expected to when
drunk. “No significant difference between those who got alcohol and those who
didn’t,” Alan Marlatt, the senior author, said. “Their behavior was totally
determined by their expectations of how they would behave.”

More here.

Quote

The Texas primary results were much closer. The white male vote, which keeps shifting, was split. I’m beginning to suspect that the white males have realized that they’re either going to be accused of racism or sexism and have therefore made a secret pact to take turns.

Here is the full article

Recently Read

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another classic. It's my third Vonnegut. Like in Galapagos the humanity is in the verge of extinction. Lots of wit, smart and very easy to read.