Michael Lewis on the financial implosion

Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, has a gripping article on the financial crisis. Must read.

“We just shorted Merrill Lynch,” Eisman told him.

“Why?” asked Hintz.

“We have a simple thesis,” Eisman explained. “There is going to be a calamity, and whenever there is a calamity, Merrill is there.” When it came time to bankrupt Orange County with bad advice, Merrill was there. When the internet went bust, Merrill was there. Way back in the 1980s, when the first bond trader was let off his leash and lost hundreds of millions of dollars, Merrill was there to take the hit. That was Eisman’s logic—the logic of Wall Street’s pecking order. Goldman Sachs was the big kid who ran the games in this neighborhood. Merrill Lynch was the little fat kid assigned the least pleasant roles, just happy to be a part of things. The game, as Eisman saw it, was Crack the Whip. He assumed Merrill Lynch had taken its assigned place at the end of the chain.

Radioactive Decay Rates tied to Earth-Sun Distance

This is pretty interesting. Some physicists have noticed that radioactive decay rates are not constant, but for some nuclides has a seasonal variation.

From the article:

Another interesting possibility is that terrestrial radioactive nuclei are interacting in a novel way with the neutrino flux Φ_ν emitted from the interior of the Sun. This flux also varies with 1/R², and the resulting seasonal modulation of Φ_ν has been observed by Super-Kamiokande [16, 17]. This possibility is supported by the data we report in Ref. [18] in which we present evidence for the possible detection of a change in the decay rate of ⁵⁴Mn during the solar flare of 13 December 2006.

As noted in Ref. [18], the coincidence in time between
the change in the ⁵⁴Mn counting rate and the solar flare,
along with other observations, is consistent with a mech-
anism based on a change in Φ_ν during the solar flare.

Here's a link to the PDF: http://xxx.lanl.gov/pdf/0808.3283v1

Google's new Privacy Policy

Gee, I wonder how that happened.

Anniversary #9

So this past weekend was our 9th anniversary. To celebrate we had arranged a weekend away with no kids camping out at a hippie music festival up in Laytonville. Unfortunately, the entire state of California was on fire that weekend, and the smoke level was ridiculous.

So, we kept driving up the coast to Arcata, where the smoke was much less noticeable. We were able to get a hotel room right on the plaza, and enjoyed a lovely dinner. Later we hit a bar for some drinks and so Laurie could regale me with tale of her college days.

The next day we went to the farmer's market and got some supplies - a loaf of bread and some olive spread and fruit, and we went for a hike in the Arcata redwood grove. We found a picnic table in the middle of nowhere and sat down and had a lovely picnic.

Later we drove to Trinidad and found a great little place with cabins - the Bishop Pine Lodge. We then had a dinner in Trinidad at the Eatery, which looked like a dive but wasn't. We topped the evening off by snuggling under blankets and watching bad movies on HBO.

We'll have to see if we can do this again before Anniversary #10.

Hours of No Power

We're entering our 36th hour with no electricity in the wake of some pretty good winter storms. We've had days with just as much or even more rain, but it's never been with as much wind as we had. I was watching sizeable redwood trees, with trunks 5 or 6 feet in diameter bend like reeds.

PG&E says they'll have more information for us in about 24 hours, so it could be a few days before we get power back.

I'm not worried, as long as our generator keeps purring along. Hopefully there will be a break in the rain tomorrow so I can change the oil...

We Can Buy It Today, Daddy!

"We can buy it today, Daddy!"

Those excited words came while Sabina and the twins were watching a show. Uh-oh, I thought, I let them see a commercial.

I was right, Sabina had seen an advertisement for Barbie Island Princess, and she was excited because they told her we could buy it today! I explained that we weren't going shopping just then, but perhaps she could ask for it for Christmas. This was a very popular idea, so she instantly started using her newfound ability to write to compose a Christmas gift wish list. She invited input from the twins as well. Here is what they came up with:

Sabina

• Barbie Island Princess movie (Ilind Prisses Moove as she wrote)
  
• Barbie Princess Rapunzel (doll I suppose, need to check if she already has this)
  
• Toy Table and Toy Stove ("that I can cook real food in!")
• More Barbies
  

Calvin

• Car with a Roof - he's got a red remote control convertible, he wants one with a roof.
  
• Firetruck
  
• Toy airplane that comes apart, bigger than the one he already has
  

Mikaela

• toy instrument (drum)
  

All

• Tinkertoys
• Umbrellas
• 3 Candy Canes
• 3 pumpkins
• Christmas Decorations

She finished off with:

I wil lev sum coocees owt. I love you

Welsh Rabbit: Now With Actual Rabbit!

A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.

Brilliant!

Next you'll tell me that Welsh Rabbit must contain actual rabbit, and that Long Island Ice Tea must contain actual tea.