New year coverage for 24 hours

on http://live.twit.tv I am seeing Leo up already doing the Australian new year. TWiT.tv has many good tech programs, there is a large archive of them there.

Happy new year!

Jibjab has a pretty fun collection of year end videos: 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 just watched them all :)

up all night, small dnoations welcome in lte, bit or dogecoin so I can see how this works

I hate it when I have a big day ahead of me and I am so excited that I am up all night before. Tomorrow is filled with driving to the airport for a drop off, than visiting my second favorite office, the first being in Vancouver and looking forward to, what I hope is as good a lunch as last week, after doing a deployment. next I will do some changes to another landscape and drive home for a late night deployment, meanwhile I am getting another wallet installed and it is syncing with network, 235 weeks behind, wow, should have done this long ago.  Anyhow since I converted all my holdings to a Casascius oin, 175N62LZSPXJMXPXJZrRr6PgqKGLdt3N6n is empty so I can't play with it, now I need a way to earn some bitcoin to start playing with it as I won't rip off the hologram from the coin. Feel free to opine what wallet to use or cryptocurrency, LiteCoin sounds interesting to me.
 I also created a wallet at blockchain.info with this address: 14xu7az3NgJLku2KVV3QidCZBnzXRJxn85 next I need to find some coin so I can start experimenting. I have many questions I need to answer, however if I am to give a talk at SCALE12X I got to figure this out soon. I have been reading about http://dogecoin.com/ and it sounds like a joke gone viral so I also setup a https://dogewallet.com
DNPqN9wcTk37HrWgnLebz2FZ7PiXnZ5NDk would be cool to play with these.
 It is late and I better catch up on my zzzzZZZs, like its namesake, this blog is updated when I have too much time on my hands, usually in the middle of the night.
 I willl have to check and see in the next days if anything shows up in these accounts.  I am still trying to catch up on the block chain with bitcoin, 3 weeks to go, it has taken a very long time to sync.

Amiga

"The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodore's marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video. Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like 1985 Amigas.

— Byte Magazine, August 1994"

For those who wax nostalgic over the Amiga, you can run it in your favourite browser now!

History of the Amiga

Market down

Seeing that market is a bit jumpy today, shorts are doing OK finally I read up on sleeping better, while I was trying to find a way to keep warm since someone here doesn't believe in setting the thermostat at a reasonable temperature, rather simply overheating before going to bed, not a great strategy. I might need to find some kind of blanket tent, however that baby toy is a bit expensive. 

Sprint coverage at a better price.

Seems that Virgin Mobile phone will run forever since I am paying $25/month for it, and the service still works.  Who knows I might even be able to pay for it if others sign up with my https://refer.virginmobileusa.com/IYVzqk link.  Not a bad deal. I had to pay $200 for the phone up front, however it pays off over the years. Of course if you sign up and get others to sign up you also get $25/sign up, starting to be multi-level marketing by your customers, VM has gone the way of Amway. However it seems smart to let your customers make a small amount for signing up friends, it is much cheaper then the customer acquisition cost of the larger carriers which is about 170/subscriber.

finally a better router

Frys had a pretty good firmware however the lack up updates was unsettling. Today I installed DD-WRT for the first time on a router, took a few hours of finding documentation and trying several things. I started with http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/FR-300RTR currected the path to a newer release, but couldn't install it with Chrome on Win7, tried with a Mac, still no joy, strange thing the 100% couldn't be accived on the upload, been trying also to correct that wiki, yet I can't login to it. Finally corrected the path to ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2010/07-16-10-r14815/dlink-dir615e1/dir615e1-factory-to-ddwrt-firmware.bin http://192.168.0.1/index.asp and got it running after some configuration I had my devices working but the VoIP was poor so I thought, 3 year old firmware, and found the latest downloaded it installed and it works better then before :) I have my first DD-WRT router, too bad I bought a WiFi repeater already for $60 this works even better if made to do that. And I got it to work, I can, however most times I set it up it doesn't work right, I wonder if there is a better way without the menus.

How to save storage on an eMail system

It just dawned on me that a large email provider like Yahoo, gMail or Outlook could save lots of storage by just having a pointer to the email in the Sent and InBox, so if both are in the same email provider then you only store the message once, further if it has an attachment it could be lots of space savings. But then it gives further thought as to if the 3 major email provider federated operations, then one of them could pull the email out from the sending provider with a pointer, rather than storing it.

If you evolve that concept further, if the sender then deletes the email it would also disappear from the recipients inbox, which would be great for those drunk emails one sends, where you wish you hadn't sent it. Or it could also operate in a way that that can't happen on deletion copy it to the recipient provider.  Of course if you POP or IMAP then I guess you still have a copy either way.

I have been thinking lately about some of the systems we have built over the years with open source components that mostly dictate the behavior of the whole system and you can't innovate as much. Maybe if we wrote more things from scratch we could do interesting things.

Wireless calculator

For a while I have been spending time trying to understand the confusing pricing options for wireless plans, the WSJ made it easy. Seems that for my 2Gig data needs without SMS or Min. T-Mobile wins, although they are missing some of the cheapest options like VirginMobile.com, RepiblicWireless.com or MetroPCS.com. Seems that the best deals, prepaid are just completely missing.

Baby Swims Across Pool

promote yourself

Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success, Dan Schawbel

Dan has a really good grasp of the modern work place and I got to read the book.

hits from

Silikong

I wonder if we could create our own Hong Kong close to Silicon valley by giving some land to the 99% and letting them thrive without taxes to slow them down. Maybe they decide on some new cyber currency to be the money of the land and innovation could thrive. Perhaps it might even be a model for the rest of the country.

Max Pain Theory

Yesterday I learned about the Max Pain Theory which states that the market will move a stock to a closing price on options expiry that will make the most option holders loose money.  I was trying to find a calculator on my trading platform, but no luck however there seem to be a few of them on the internet.

Innovation Speaker Series

Got to see the author of Search Inside Yourself (SIY). This groundbreaking program and course developed at Google and featured in the New York Times develops effective, innovative leaders using science-based mindfulness and emotional intelligence training.

It was interesting, however not enough to pay an extra $800 for the course that follows, however I am intrigued. 

Prepaid Cellular

From time to time I look at some interesting Cellphone Options all pre-paid:

if you are on WiFi most of the time: http://republicwireless.com/ $19/month unlimited everything

Verizon network pre-paid: https://www.pagepluscellular.com but the phones suck, 

cooler phones and the flash them for you: http://www.beigephone.com/

Virgin has some pretty good phones and $35/month unlimited SMS/3G 300Min Voice, but who needs voice when you have SMS? http://www.virginmobileusa.com/

New guy in USA

Yesterday we had a new hire who came from India and I thought that I might as well write down all the URLs I gave him to settle in close to the office: AirBnB.com for fast lodging, uber.com instead of a taxi, SUpost.com to find a bicycle and a home, CraigsList.org might be useful to get things. Then there is Target.com that gives you 10% off on your first purchase and a first credit card. https://www.google.com/voice will get you a telephone number. A cheap home phone line on the internet can be had with a Obi100.

AAPL took a bite out of me

Today I wasn't sleeping well as I had a long position in AAPL right before earnings, I have caught this falling knife before, but I figured 3 times burned, it probably finally found a short term bottom at 500, how bad can it be.  I asked my friend for advice, and he thinks the fundamentals are solid, single digit PE ratio, what could possibly go wrong?  I guess the answer is momentum.  This stock has been falling so fast for since September, it will keep going down since now Apple isn't a growth stock anymore but a value trap, however a company with this much cash and such a great revenue stream must be worth more then 0, so where is it fairly valued?  Someone on FastMoney today put it at $425, seems fair, but do I dare at this point to buy again, wow, not really.  It has to bottom out first, it needs to be hated and remain at these levels for a while to form a base. The descending triangle of the past few weeks, turned out to bearish as it should be. Funny thing is same coworker then has me look at NFLX, up $40, ironic, same amount that AAPL dropped.

If you still want to hear more negativity about a stock that everyone owns and has nowhere to go but down, listen to Jeff Gundlach CEO of DoubleLine who makes many cogent arguments about AAPL on FastMoney. It is funny how in my paper money account I am short AAPL and bought a straddle out of mistake. It is interesting however how you can always find someone after the fact that was right about predicting an event after the fact.  From all the opinions out there, you can choose they guy who had the right one afterwards, however that still doesn't help in predicting the future.

For my own trading I have observed over and over again that when it comes to trading paper money or advising others I do much better then trading real money. I asked for Alberto Verdeja to draw the cartoon above as I really felt bitten by my belief in AAPL and the corroborating friend who I am sure feels my pain, but in the end, even if you don't agree with the market, you can't make money trading if they don't bid up your stock.  It is also a lesson of remembering what you believed in before, I have said that Apple is a sell on strength before, and yet I didn't take the bid towards the end of the day, right before earnings.  It is easier to trade paper money.

The ironic thing is I look at that red trend line that I have extended to the right, it perfectly predicts today's prices.

You can see how it came from the longer term trend since September, we are still on that downward trend.  It all became so clear after listening to FastMoney and looking at the graphs.  Apple is still a sell on strength.

Working at social, I watched the Social Network Friday night, on the last day before the DVD has to go back and it is an interesting movie.  Reminded my of Charles, but when I said that Eric pointed out that he saw his mug shot, really?  How? It turns out that this site lists the pictures in google picture search, so you see this mug of someone you know and of course you click on it to learn more, well it was a violation of being on the roadway, OK, but if I want the full report I have to pay $120, no thanks, but who knows in some cases people might be willing to pay for the convenience of getting this info after giving a CC#, immediate gratification, however I do suspect that this is public information that I might get if I fly to Austin and go the police station, if I really cared to find it.  Maybe I could get it for free, but by that time I will have spent way more then $120 to get it, not that I care, I can only imagine he crossed the street inebriated, but who knows, we don't talk much anymore. A quick call the Charles reveals a pretty boring story. Last day at work, going out on the town, bumping into a person as he is texting, next thing he knows, the cops take him in.

I am not at the MV library and found a pretty cool book: Google Resume which I should have read a long time ago, I might have landed a better job, not that I am complaining, I am in the right place to prepare for a better career at a start-up or established company. I am learning about how to manage large teams and just maybe someday I might even be put in a position to work on one. I do like the people I work with and since we are in a large company that only pays 40h/week I don't have much incentive to work those 50 hour weeks that take so much away from my life, as fun as they may have been at a start-up with all the ideas that could be big, this is more steady income.

After the library we rented a GM SUV of some sort packed in the 3 kids, and 4 adults, drive 250 miles to Sparks NV for sum fun on the snow, the kids are very excited about playing in the snow :) So far it has been fun and pretty good drive, other then a missing address for the meeting point it went pretty well this morning. I had to go relieve myself in the back yard as the homeowner of our meeting point was much later then we were. We made all the way to Loomis before stopped to change drivers.  hour:39 to go, hope to get there soon. This is how long I managed to not use my laptop, dirty little secret is I brought 2 of them, but it is hard not to do so as I am currently transitioning from one to another and I suspect I will have to do some work on Monday, but then again I haven't been taking 2 to the office and I can almost do everything on both of them right now. Going from W7-VMware Ubuntu to Mac, but it only has half the RAM and now VM so it concerns me that I might not be able to do my job right on it.  On the other hand the usability of the Mac is better and I don't need 2 OSs to get it done.

Got into room on the 23rd floor at the JANugget.com with a pretty foggy view this morning of a frost covered Reno below. I was kind of impressed with the CFL in the desk lamp having premanent marker on it saying it was placed there on 11/30/01, 11 years ago, pretty good.  There was no Internet in the rooms so this morning I finally went to the front desk and got an internet access card, which it turns out is included, however the speed is .25Mb, oh well, no streaming I guess. This is after all a vacation that shouldn't consist of Netflix. Yesterday we spent the day at Soda Springs, after waiting in line for 3 hours we got 1 hour of fun in, mind you they were various lines, and the place was crawling with people, don't know why it isn't that cheap or great, but it did have a Planet Kids thing that we went there for and spent $30 to get all 3 in, then the food was of course overpriced, but what are you going to do?  Leave?  So we had some fun in the snow, the 4 year old didn't take well to skiing, but tubing was much more practical, they enjoy that. Odly enough the line for the skies was the longest, I should have let mom take the line and then taken her to the fun, however they way the designed it is by the time you realize this, you can't talk to them as they are stuck in a container, no contact.  I didn't try to text, that would have saved the day, but who know it would take over an hour to get skies.

Finally there is some light in the room, as the hazyness lights up.  however the family doens't wake from my typing yet so I asked Laolao: 你想唤醒西溪？