Peace Thru Victory

Peace Signs

I gave my son a ride to his friend's house this morning, just a couple of blocks away. Saved him five minutes. Boy, I tell you what, kids these days. Sheesh. We won't talk about their parents. When he gets out of the car, by way of saying good bye, he says "peace, man", which got me thinking.

When I was his age, the Vietnam war was in full swing as was the Peace Movement, and we had all the long haired pinko hippies flashing the peace sign.

Not too long before that the "peace sign" meant "V for Victory", and during WWII that meant to keep killing the enemy until they gave up, or they were all dead. So Victory eventually meant peace, but to get there we had war, big time. So I'm wondering how did the sign for war become the sign for peace?

Then there was the song Woodstock with

"And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation"

I think that was the only song I ever heard that ever talked about just what the military industrial complex was doing for our country. Kind of like the swordsmen in Vatel.

Update January 2017 replaced missing image.

Dinner in Zimbabwe

What's that funny German word for enjoying somebody else's misery? Schadenfreude? I'm sorry, I can't help it. I keep waiting for Zimbabwe to implode, but they seem to just keep circling the drain. I found this on this blog.

Update November 2016 replaced missing picture.

Gambling with Venture Capital

I was talking to a guy at DevSIG a week or so ago, and he was lamenting the state of venture capital. He was telling me that the average return on venture capital investments since the year 2000 was about 2%. With those kind of numbers, who is even going to consider putting any money into a new venture?

What you have to realize is that venture capital has more in common with gambling than it does with prudent investing. You know those warnings that come with every advertisement for the lottery? (Maybe you don't, maybe that's an Oregon only thing). Every time an ad comes on for "Power Ball" or "Scratch Its" or whatever, they always close the ad by saying:

“Lottery games are based on chance, should be played for entertainment only and should not be played for investment purposes.”

This is similar to the logic saying that venture capital is not for everybody. And it's true. Venture Capital guys are not looking to make a nice reliable 5 or 10 percent return on their money. They are looking for the next big score: cell phones, iPods, Blackberries. They are willing to gamble millions of dollars on somebody's big idea IF they can imagine it being a tremendous success and earning billions of dollars. If they bet wrong and all their money vanishes occasionally, that's okay, that's the way ball bounces. Maybe the next one will hit it big. So they keep coming back, looking for that one deal in a million that's going to be the breakaway hit of the year.

Every movie is made like this. Someone sells the concept, someone puts up the money (20 million on black to win), a crew goes to work and puts the story on film. Once it's in the can, you sit back and chew your fingernails until the first gross receipt numbers come in. Then it's Champagne (if you backed a winner) or beer (to cry in if you didn't).

3M v. 3M

I got a notice in the mail today from UBS (stock broker):

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
blah, blah, blah

INSULATORS AND ASBESTOS WORKERS ... on Behalf of 3M COMPANY,

Plaintiff,

v.

(A list of 14 people's names)

Defendants,

and

3M COMPANY, a Delaware Corporation,)

Nominal Defendent.

Well, isn't that special? 3M is suing 3M. (begin sarcasm) I'm so glad (end sarcasm). Why are they telling me? Because at one time, under the auspices of my retirement fund, I must have owned some 3M stock. I may still. I don't know. I look at the annual results, and, well, this year they were pretty terrible, but that's another kettle of fish. Let's get back to this important message.

It was only one sheet of paper, printed on both sides, so for a legal document it was pretty short. Near as I can make out the plaintiff (the 3M pension Fund) was objecting to the way executive bonuses were being calculated. Something about taxes. The suit is being dismissed with prejudice (meaning they can't refile the same suit), but the defendents will pay the plaintiff's lawyers $600,000. Well, good, the guys in suits will get enough to cover their green fees for the coming year. Oops, sorry, more sarcasm slipping in.

I am almost tempted to look into this a little more, but it would probably just make me angry, and what could I do about it? I think I'll be better off if I just go fix myself a nice cup of tea and not worry about the guys in suits. What a waste of paper.

You can see all the gory details here (heaven help you)(the url was in the notice):

http://www.3m.com/investor/derivative/settlement

Heinz Ketchup

I had lunch with my friend Jack at CPR (Cornelius Pass Roadhouse) today. The place tries to present something of an old timey feel to it, which may be why they have Heinz Ketchup in glass bottles on the table. I like Heinz Ketchup better than other brands: the taste is more complex. I suspect they have some kind of spices in it. I am not a snob though. I will use whatever ketchup (or catsup) is available, but I prefer Heinz.

Problem with ketchup is getting it out of the jar. Some restaurants dilute their ketchup so it pours out of the jar readily. Others give you the real thing and let you figure out how to get it out. Last time I got a cheeseburger at CPR, the catsup flowed freely. Today it was extra thick and did not want to come out of the jar. I shook, rapped and twisted, but all I got for my efforts were a few drops.

At home we have the upside down plastic squeeze bottle. It works pretty well, and maybe in another generation it will become the standard, but right now it is inherently contrary to normal bottle handling techniques. There was a wide mouth jar where you could use a spoon to get the sauce out, but that is not going to fly in a restaurant. There will always be some slob who will drop something in the ketchup and some other unfortunate who will discover it.

Crest had pushbutton dispensers for toothpaste where the bottom of the bottle rose as the toothpaste was used up. Maybe someone could make something similar for catsup.

The problem with jars that open on the bottom is that it takes two hands. Jars with flip top lids on top only take one hand to open. It's due to the way our hands are attached to our arms. Thumbs are on the inner or upper surface of our hands. Thumbs down requires considerable twisting. Maybe people will adapt to opening top down bottles with one hand without having to invert the bottle.

I couldn't find any pictures of the wide mouthed jar or of the Crest pump. I suppose they predate the internet explosion. I did find this picture of a miniature bottle.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire movie poster

A well told fairy tale. A series of trivia questions just happen to coincide with memorable incidents in a young man's life. The MC pronounces millionaire like millonaire. Orphans trying to survive in slums in India. The girl is a real beauty. The villains are really rotten. They get theirs. The brother who betrays the hero redeems himself. The mass dancing at the end was very cool.

I don't care for the show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". Some people must like the tension, waiting to find out if the contestant will be able to answer the question. I am not that interested. I'm not playing, I'm not going to win anything. It's like waiting for the roulette wheel to stop spinning, except a roulette wheel stops a lot faster. I don't get it. Apparently I am in the minority, given the shows ratings and worldwide popularity.

Update April 2017 replaced missing picture.

Bucket Wheel Excavators

I was cleaning out my email today and I came across a draft that had map coordinates to a couple of bucket wheel excavators in Germany, so I marked them on a Google map. Normally this works pretty well, but this time we got a glitch: the satellite images don't line up. I sent Google a note, we'll see how long it takes them to fix it.

Bucket wheel excavators are large machines used for strip mining coal. I think they use them in Germany because they have soft coal there, and these machines work well. I don't think we use them much in the U.S.

Interesting thing is that if you go to the map view, all these machines are located in one area with no roads. Hmmph. Imagine that. No roads to the excavators. But you can see them from a satellite. They look like little marks at the default zoom setting. The more you zoom in the more you realize how big they are. There are excavators at all of the blue markers on the current version of the satellite map. The red one has very precise coordinates, but there is no excavator there. Maybe there will be if and when the map gets fixed.


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