The End of Work

Stay Classy, Central Washington

2008-05-28T09:01:00.001-07:00

In the last game of the season, in the last game of her career, after hitting her first home run ever that puts her team ahead, in the conference finals, Oregon player tears ACL rounding first base. Central Washington players, led by player with most home runs ever, decide to lose the game and the championship by choosing to carry Oregon player around bases to score the run. Yes, I realize this post is not the most grammatically correct, but really, how do you write about such ridiculous class. I teared up like a little girl watching this.

acts_as_taggable_on_steroids NoMethodError: undefined_method

2008-05-27T23:56:00.001-07:00

It's been a little while since I've posted anything. Right now, I'm knee deep (deeper) in getting Uncle Ross up and running. I've spent the better part of a couple of days trying to figure out a problem with the acts_as_taggable_on_steroids plugin. As with a lot of stuff in the Rails world, new stuff isn't always documented.

The plugin by Jonathan Viney has been around a while ~~but I believe Rails 2 may have introduced some subtle changes that affected it~~. I'm only surmising. Regardless, if you've been getting a bunch of undefined_method errors, the problem is could be that your Tag class isn't loading. ~~To fix it, you can explicitly load it in your init.rb file.~~


# acts_as_taggable_on_steroids/lib/init.rb
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/lib/acts_as_taggable'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/lib/tag'

~~There is a high likilihood that there is a better way to do this. I spent a lot of time on the Google looking. If you know how ot solve the problem "properly," I'd sure appreciate it if you'd share.~~

UPDATE: What an awesome community! After struggling for a couple of days I fired Jonathan an email detailing what I thought was a bug. Turns out, the error was on my side. I accidentally defined a Tag model which took precedence over the Tag model in the library.

If you're running into a similar error, check that you haven't defined a Tag class in your application. Thanks Jonathan!

ActionMailer with restful_authentication configuration problems

2008-05-06T20:27:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I ran into a bit of a snag setting up mail to help manage authentication. Pretty basic, "submit your application and we'll send out an email confirmation" kind of stuff.

It appears that initializers override environments. If someone with more rails knowledge cares to comment on this, I'd sure appreciate it. Anyway...

I generated restful_authentication and proceeded to test. When I ran my tests, I immediately received the following helpful error message:

Errno::EADDRNOTAVAIL: Can't assign requested address - connect(2)

When I disabled sending email, my tests passed. Since I want to send out email confirmation, this was less than desirable. Well, a lot of google searching didn't result in a lot of help (why I wrote this post). A little deeper searching of the directory structure revealed the problem.

It turns out that when you generate restful_authentication an initializer called mail.rb gets created in myproject/config/initializers/. With the following contents:


ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
  :address =&gt; "localhost"
}

Initializers are loaded at startup for each environment. So, they override settings in environment.rb (or environment specific environment files). Unless you're using localhost, this is probably going to cause problems. Remove the file, or change the settings, and you should be good to go.

Moving outside of your comfort zone

2008-05-06T09:26:00.001-07:00

Anthony wrote a great post the other day about moving outside your comfort zone. I read an article by James Altucher this morning that follows similar lines. I highly recommend reading both!

Wesley Snipes judgement renews my faith in justice system

2008-05-06T09:08:00.001-07:00

Busy getting ready alpha version of site ready so not a lot of time for blogging. Well, actually, that's not really that true, I've just been neglectful and lazy. However, I could not not comment on the Wesley Snipes tax case. While I disagree with putting someone in jail for tax not paying income tax, I am very happy because it means that, for at least three years, there will be no new Wesley Snipes movies. It's far from perfect, but every once in a while the system works!

The Fortune Five Million

2008-04-28T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how I got there - probably started at Anthony's - but I'm happy I saw David Heinemeier Hansson's presentation at Startup School. A lot of people think this guy is arrogant. He's not, he's Danish. No, I'm not saying Danes are arrogant. I'm saying that they tend to not mince words or worry about political correctness. I think the weather in Denmark might have something to do with their pursuit of efficiency. I identify with their plain spoken (blunt) nature and find a lot of value in what DHH has to say even if he uses naughty words from time to time.

What I like in this presentation is the notion of the Fortune 5,000,000: small businesses of less than 10 people with problems that don't garner much attention because the official definition of small business is any business with less than 1,000 employees. Just think of many real small businesses are facing problems that have, relatively, simple solutions. Compare that to dealing with substantially fewer large-small businesses that face problems with, relatively, less simple solutions. To me, there is no comparison, especially when you start to think how many opportunities exist to serve small businesses across the globe (but that's a conversation for another time). Further, who do you think will appreciate you more when you solve their problem: a 1000 person company or 100 10-person companies? And, you can fire the customers that don't appreciate you! You can't ever fire the 1000 person company.

If you've got some time, I highly recommend watching his presentation.

Welcome back Mr. Prime Minister!

2008-04-14T08:38:00.001-07:00

There is no one politician I adore more than Silvio Berlusconi and it appears that after being run out of office, Italy is taking him back. Whether it's his "Come to Italy for the Hot Secretaries, Stay for Business" foreign investment scheme or his selfless "for the good of the country," cosmetic surgery,

"I have taken one of the choices of modern life. It is a way of showing respect to those who share your life - your family. It is a way of showing respect to those who expect you to represent them on an international and national stage." (Berlisconi on his plastic surgery)

the man just gives and gives (and gives). There isn't a politician alive that doesn't wish they could get away with such a cavalier attitude. He truly is the politicians' politician.

Sweet mix tapes!

2008-04-11T16:17:00.001-07:00

Fett's Vette

2008-04-11T16:03:00.001-07:00

DJ Chris with a YouTube remix...good stuff

English challenges the English too.

2008-04-11T11:16:00.001-07:00

Shawn sent along this little gem: Cabinet for girl who wanted 'Cab, init?'

So That's What They Meant by "There's a way..."

2008-04-11T07:22:00.001-07:00

I thought I exhausted every possible avenue to make my border crossing easier. Had I been more creative, I might have had more success. Next time I guess. Next time.

Cheap, effective way to boost your WiFi signal

2008-04-10T10:27:00.001-07:00

I have a MacBook Pro and it's WiFi reception is pretty weak. Essentially, I have to stand next to the WiFi router and hold one arm up at a 37% angle and shake my left - never the right - leg, to achieve reasonable reception. So, in searching for a solution, I stumbled upon www.freeantennas.com. The site has a bunch of templates designed by an RF engineer, that you can print out, fold, attach to your router antenna and ,viola, your signal is improved. Basically, paper is dense enough to reflect 2.4 GHz radio waves. If you're having trouble with your WiFi, I'd check it out. It definitely improved the strength of the signal from my WiFi router. The price makes it worth trying before opting to buy hardware to boost the signal.

Can the Liberals be any more useless?

2008-04-10T09:31:00.001-07:00

I am by no means a Liberal supporter but a healthy democracy needs a functioning opposition. Dion is utterly useless. I think this quote from James Moore sums up Liberal effectiveness:

"The fact is over the past couple of years ... the Liberals, either through abstentions or ineffectiveness, have helped us pass three budgets, two extensions to the Afghan mission, our crime package, our environment plans and probably tonight [will help] pass our immigration reforms, or be on our way to doing it. So I would like to thank my colleague from Beauséjour on behalf of my constituents for sitting down, so we can stand up for Canadians."

Pathetic.

Generating content for your rails application

2008-04-09T22:13:00.001-07:00

One of the more tedious aspects of building a database driven application is generating sample data to see how your pages look. Benjamin Curtis ported the Perl's Data::Faker. If you're looking for a way to generate sample data for your Rails application, why not give Faker a try?

Rails Functional Testing and session variables

2008-04-08T09:31:00.001-07:00

I use a session variable to help maintain the state of the shopping cart I'm building in rails. I'm sure this is no great revelation to anyone. However, I experienced great difficulty testing this in my functional tests as the variable is instantiated elsewhere. I struggled with this for quite a while before opting for manual assignment using:

@request.session[:cart_id] = fixture.id

I spent a lot of time on the google before coming up with this "solution" so I thought I'd share. I realize that cross controller testing is more suited to integration testing, but this isn't really testing across controllers so much as it is just accessing session information. If you have a better solution, please let me know.

Free is good.

2008-04-04T14:34:00.001-07:00

From Anthony, I read Hank William's post and it reads a little like sour grapes. He laments that because competitors make free offerings, you can't operate a small digital business on the internet. It's not because competitors offer things for free, THE advantage of the internet (digital) technology is that it enables scale with low (zero) marginal cost. To write in overly general terms: that's it. So, if your idea doesn't leverage this notion, then you don't have an internet business.

Hank's romantic notion of "small" businesses misses the mark: small boutique businesses thrive in environments that have much higher marginal costs for scale. There are thousands of boutique businesses taking advantage of the internet to help them sell, but the underlying value they add, doesn't come from the internet. For example, maybe all your friends are procreating and you need to get them the bestest ever pacifier: here's a boutique business that will help you satisfy your need. The business uses the internet to sell, but - ceteris paribus - could just as easily use mail order.

If you're going to offer a product that ultimately shuffles electrons, then your idea better scale. That being said, just because you have to scale doesn't mean you can't scale within a niche market (I hope). There are many, many stories of local beating global.

Finally, if you have a product that competitors are offering for free (truly free) then the offering does not provide value to customers and the business model, regardless of the amount of venture capital, is not sustainable by definition. With the speed at which you can put together a new offering, let the VC's pay for unsustainable business models while you pursue sustainable ones.

Why the Leafs Stink

2008-04-03T11:47:00.001-07:00

To any hockey fan living outside of the center of the universe, there's nothing really new here.

"The fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs are a bad hockey club is the inevitable by-product of the laws of economics. Their mediocrity is a design flaw, and it comes down to this: for any business to thrive, it must be obsessively focused on victory. Success must yield powerful benefits and failure must unleash harsh consequences. In the world's greatest market for pro hockey, that cost/benefit equation doesn't exist. A gusher of wealth, regardless of performance, has begat 40 years of infighting, a culture of laxity, and a refusal to admit the problem. The Leafs are a monopoly business that has been corrupted by its own market power."

Things to Do in Utah Before You Die

2008-04-01T14:54:00.001-07:00

Chris forwarded me another story about yet another skilled Canadian denied entry to the US. If you think about it, denying Canadians is a great strategy for boosting up security statistics. We follow the rule of law. We won't simply jump into the country; no need for a fence. Other than the odd poorly written blog, there's no chance of any meaningful reprisal. We're certainly not going to bring harm and then hide out in a ~~democratic~~ ally's country free from any threat of reprisal. There isn't even a need for warrant-less wiretaps. If the US border guard has any questions, he can probably just call the Canadian at his home and the Canadian will be happy to answer. We're wily like that. Compared to Mexicans, Canadians offer border protection on the cheap.

April Fools at Google

2008-04-01T13:17:00.001-07:00

The Google Wake Up Kit!

"In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters."

Stéphane "Empty Threat" Dion

2008-03-31T20:47:00.001-07:00

The headline sounds bold: Dion blasts Tories' immigration proposals. At first PM Harper must have thought taunting the Liberals was a testement to his politiking. Now, it's not that Harper is good, Dion (and the Liberals) are pretty much useless. The key to making credible threats is that your opposition has to actually think you might follow through. Maybe Dion is bidding his time until Harper dies of old age.

Couldn't have said it better, so I won't.

2008-03-31T12:01:00.001-07:00

Anthony wrote a great post this morning on Seattle entrepreneurs.

Stuff White People Like

2008-03-28T13:19:00.001-07:00

Pretty good satire.

Passion to Serve

2008-03-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

I recently decided to leap into the rabbit hole of entrepreneurship. Fortunately, there is no shortage of other people (lunatics) in Seattle starting up via Albuquerque. Many never jump into the hole because their idea isn't perfect: "I won't succeed because it's been done before." What hasn't been done before? Blockbuster made money renting videos. Dell makes money selling computers. Starbucks sells coffee. Coffee! (yes I know they sell an "experience') None of these businesses succeeded because of a magical invention. They succeeded because the founders saw a need and were driven to meet it. They were passionate to serve their customers and they were willing to work extremely hard to meet the need.

As Anthony wrote today, a lot of people with ideas crazier than yours are making a go of it. The idea is just a first step in meeting the need. It's what happens after the idea that makes the difference. So get in there and stop sitting on the sidelines. If you're passionate about serving someone, there is no one that can beat you. (Except for Microsoft and the beating will be literal.)

Technorati Tags: startup

Perfect is the enemy of good

2008-03-27T19:54:00.001-07:00

As I've drank the agile kool aid, I've come to appreciate the notion of good. Coming from a formal computer science background, I am somewhat obsessive with protecting data and designing the perfect system. With agile, you arrive at the notion that perfect tends to hinder your delivery and (most) clients don't realize value from the perfect design/system. They realize value when they have something moves them closer to overcoming a problem, to which there will never be a perfect solution. Or to put it in a more positive light, there is always going to be a way to improve a design.

Nothing makes you appreciate this more than building a system that is meant to support your business. While I've always appreciated this notion, in theory, actually doing it really drives the point home in practice.

None of this is meant to say that just because you might be following an agile methodology that quality is now the enemy of good too. Some, managers and developers, confuse the notion of "good enough" with "lacking quality." Nothing could be further from the truth. You can't have good without quality. However, your customers will (probably) realize more value with good than with perfect.

Sebastian Horsley versus America

2008-03-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

America remains safe and secure after author and artist Sebastian Horsley was turned away last week. Thankfully, some of the most incisive citizens of the United States are keeping watch.
They also asked him what he was keeping in his hat, to which he replied: “My head.”

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I'm not a "design" person

2008-03-27T10:47:00.001-07:00

I'm a little stuck on an idea so I thought I'd take a break and have a bite to eat.

If you would have told me that after finishing my MBA, while waiting for my green card to be processed, I'd be building a website (business), I'd have punched you in the mouth. You see, I was supposed to have a job doing "business development" for a sustainable, innovative company. The purpose of taking the business development position was so that I could start a company.

Fortunately, upon returning to Seattle, I ran into some lunatics that think that you don't need an MBA to start a business. When I told a recruiter (who specializes in supplying people to startups) that I wanted a job where I could get some "business development" experience, he kind of looked at like me with a quizzical look, "How about developing a business? That might give you some business development experience."

Part of the problem is that I'm Canadian and entrepreneurship is generally beat out of us: "There's a chance, that the business could fail and if it fails, there will be a plague of locusts, so why don't you just get a nice safe job. Leave the risk taking to those gun-totting Yankees" Of course, now the list includes Danes, Aussies, Brits, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, ... Anyhoo, I digress. The other part of the problem is that I have an MBA. There's something about doing your MBA that tends to drive the creativity out of people: "You need to get experience in a startup, to start a startup." I'm sure there's a HBS case study written by an economist and an organizational behaviour professor that articulates the recipe for success. So, you see you can't just see a need and try to meet it. It reminds me of the IBM commercial about consultants: "We don't actually do what we say you should do."

So here I am, at the beginning of a new adventure, writing all the code including god damn html, with no one to blame or wait for. I miss being "the architect" when I got to pontificate about proper design. I miss having others implement my crazy ideas: "that's a detail, I'm more of a big picture guy."

I don't think I've ever been happier about my "job." Really, is there anything better than a great bacon sandwich?

Tommy Tiernan, I get you.

2008-03-27T08:05:00.001-07:00

"It means we're not fucking English, that's what it means."

Keeping US Safe

2008-03-26T09:48:00.001-07:00

Sebastian Horsley was denied entry to the US. Evidently, it's all right for governors, mayors, congressmen, and senators to behave "immorally," it's just not all right if they write about it. Oh well, the country's literate enough. With all the threats to the country, is "authors who write about icky things" really that high of a priority? Right below, educated, professional Canadians married to an American, I guess.

Everyone Makes Mistakes

2008-03-26T06:57:00.001-07:00

Rather than sending helicopter batteries to Taiwan, the Pentagon accidentally shipped four nose cones for Minute Man (nuclear) missiles. These aren't even close to being the same item. I'm not so sure that the government's top men are studying the problem.

Back on the Bike

2008-03-22T15:14:00.001-07:00

Just back from the first ride of the season. Well, it's more like two seasons as I essentially missed all of last summer. Needless to say, things were pretty rusty but now that the first ride is out of the way, it can only get better. Dawn was happy because when I ride, my hair tends to stick out of my helmet much in the same way as it did for the South Park character Eric Cartman in the episode "Up the Down Steroid." I'm sure she's only referring to my hair.

Fascist Italy Called, It Wants Its Moral Hazard Back

2008-03-17T09:06:00.001-07:00

One frustrating thing about market fundamentalists is their complete and utter lack of cognitive dissonance when it comes to open, competitive markets: open markets are critical for a well functioning economy except for the markets they participate in. Growing up in a small, lumber mill town in Canada provided a wonderful first-hand education on market fundamentalism: free trade is important, except when we cannot compete then we're going to impose tariffs on your exports.

In today's Financial Times, Alan "Someone In a Position of Power Really Should Have Done Something" Greenspan, writes that despite the advances in financial modeling, the most important concept to understand is that models will never be perfect and, thus, the best bet to ensure price stability is to have open, competitive markets.

"Thus it is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition."

Of course, this applies to everyone except the markets Archbishop Greenspan was closest too: banks. When they get into trouble, print money.

It's a Classic

2008-03-15T10:17:00.001-07:00

I mean really, explore the space!

Some Inspiration

2008-03-15T09:00:00.001-07:00

After three failures and one small success, they launched Bebo from their living room. On Thursday, the Birches sold Bebo to AOL for $850M. That's not bad, even if it is in US dollars. Yes, I'm forced to write that, I'm Canadian.

"UK-born Mr Birch, 37, and his Californian wife Xochi, 36, will be walking away with the bulk of the $850m in cash that AOL is paying for the business. They hold about 70 per cent of the stock, Balderton Capital has 15.7 per cent and the remainder is held by staff and family members."

I can imagine family dinner conversations won't start with "when is this thing going to pay off?" anymore. Good stuff.

I Can't Draw But I Can Trace

2008-03-15T06:55:00.001-07:00

Saw this on Anthony's blog today. Pretty good.

Embedded Video

The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

2008-03-13T08:27:00.001-07:00

Eric sent me this little gem this morning: The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. Here's but a simple sample:

The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

Obligatory Spitzer Post

2008-03-13T07:53:00.001-07:00

The staff at the Advanced Book Exchange offers up the Hooker Prize: their top-ten list of books on prostitution.

Maple Bacon Lollipops

2008-03-11T10:32:00.001-07:00

Shawn just told me about a company selling Maple Bacon Lollipops. After thinking about how delicious they must be, I just had to find out from what Canadian province or provinces such a gastronomical delight hails. I mean, what country is more known for its bacon and maple syrup? Sadly, we dropped the ball again. C'mon people, it's like losing to the Swiss!

Let the Lawsuits Begin!

2008-03-11T10:10:00.001-07:00

Given it's the litigious nature of the United States and given the sleight of hand nature of many of the SIVs in the subprime mess, I wondered when the lawsuits would start. It seems that the firms most qualified to lead the sue, just happen to earn many, many, so many, billable hours from the investment houses and were not overly anxious to bite the hand that feeds them. Fortunately for lawyers pension funds exist. The lawsuits are not far off.

And now for something completely different

2008-03-11T09:11:00.001-07:00

Eric sent me this list of book titles. I like "Rusty Bedsprings by I.P. Nightly." It's hard to beat the classics.

Both kinds of energy: oil AND gas.

2008-03-10T08:53:00.001-07:00

The joke goes, a guy walks into a Calgary bar and asks the bartender, "What types of music do people here like?" The bartender responds, "Both kinds, country and western."

For as long as I can remember, in spite of having one of the best engineering schools in the world, Alberta has exclusively pursued energy as it relates to oil and gas. When the price of oil is high, like it is now, everything in the province is great. When the price of oil drops, the province grinds to a halt and somehow the federal government is blamed. It's not our fault we didn't invest in research and development dollars into other forms of energy, it's the federal government's fault worldwide commodity markets dropped. This is far from unique to Alberta: BC - timber, Prairies - wheat, Ontario - manufacturing, Maritimes - fish.

During good times, the consensus is "<insert commodity here> will never drop in price and soon we'll all be driving gold cars. Not 'golden cars', cars actually made out of gold." Anyone that disagrees is anti-Canadian. If the argument for change is based on economic fundamentals or science, you "live in an ivory tower" and "need to think less with your brain, more with your gut."

It appears that the federal government might be gearing up to steal all of Alberta's oil once again. However, this time it looks like it's going to be the federal government of the United States. Right now, legislation is moving through the government to put a curb on greenhouse gas emissions. The bill would place limits on importing oil from regions that produce high amounts of greenhouse gases during the extraction process. The bill might as well read "from Alberta."

The Conservatives and Alberta are rightly worried about this. Since the Conservative's political might flows from Alberta and we don't know how to export to anyone other than the Americans, the bill could change the political and economic landscape of the country. Understandably, Canada is lobbying the US congress to reconsider. Given the fact that all three presidential candidates believe in science, the lobbying efforts may fail if they can't convince the current president, who doesn't believe in science, to stop the bill.

There is another, somewhat anti-Canadian, way of overcoming this problem. We could invest in research and development into other forms of energy and explore markets other than the United States. It's more difficult than blaming someone else for your lack of vision, but it could produce more positive outcomes. Of course, this would mean accepting that the government is not responsible for our financial future and that there are more than two kinds of music. A tough sell indeed.

Dancing Makes Detonation Difficult

2008-03-08T16:23:00.001-08:00

Barack Obama received a rare endorsement from a Republican congressman. According to Republican congressman Steve King, if Obama became president the terrorists would be "dancing in the streets." It seems to me that would be an enormous win for US security. Dancing most certainly increases the difficulty of blowing things up. A dancing terrorist is also much easier to spot than a hiding terrorist. It also makes it easier to spot organizations hiring terrorists: must enjoy blowing things up, shooting bullets into the air, dancing.

Secret Society of Super Presenters

2008-03-08T14:06:00.001-08:00

I used to think that the ability to present was something you were born with or that good presenters were members of a secret club that taught them the trick. When I went back to school, I was fortunate enough to be teamed with Mark, the strongest presenter I've ever seen. I've seen some pretty good presenters and, yes, he's that good. I had hoped that during one of our beer and chicken wings strategy sessions that the secret would slip out. Let me tell you, a lot slipped out during these sessions. All of it comedy gold but none of it really for an adult audience and some of it...well, I wish I had an "erase memory" button. But I digress...

Eventually, I decided just to ask and was happy and disappointed with the answer: "practice." Happy because there is no secret club - so he still maintains - and disappointed because it meant that to get good at presenting would require work, no quick fix.

Over at the Presentation Zen blog, Garr recently posted an interview. In it, he also denies the existence of the Secret Society of Super Presenters and repeats the mantra: practice, practice, practice. If you have time, it's got some pretty good advice for improving your presentations.

Help Your Banker: Make Him Reduce the Value of Your Mortgage

2008-03-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

The Financial Times reports that as awareness of the housing iceberg grows - my metaphor is a work in progress - many borrowers decide to walk away. Foreclosures are a especially attractive to borrowers with little equity, such as those that bought into loans with teaser rates (interest only) that recently adjusted to include payments of the principle. Bankers call this Jingle Mail - housing keys are mailed in rather than mortgage payments. Bankers exasperate the problem by selling the foreclosures at significant markdowns; banks don't want to hold non-performing assets. It's estimated that the housing slump, er iceberg, could result in one trillion dollars in losses for banks and their investors.

The banks' enormous problem is a house owner's tremendous opportunity!

Let's say you recently purchased a house and owe the bank $500,000. Let's also suppose that the market experienced a 20% correction, so if you were to sell your house you would get $400,000. So, you're paying a $500K mortgage for a house that's only worth $400K. If you don't have a significant stake (equity) in the house, why should you pay a $100k premium? You shouldn't.

What happens to the bank if you walk away? The bank is stuck with a house that, at best, it can sell for $400K. However, housing markets react to momentum and the momentum is negative: a lot of potential buyers think the $400K house will continue dropping in price, so they wait to make a purchase decision. It's not rational, but neither is thinking that houses will continue to appreciate at 25% per year. So the bank is motivated to drop the price of the house below market value, just to get it off its books. Perhaps by as much as 10%. So your house would be listed somewhere around $360K. The bank also has to pay a real estate agent to sell the house. At 6%, that's roughly $21K. At the end of the day, the bank will only get $340K for your house. They stand to lose nearly $160K if you walk away from your house. This speaks nothing of the money spent on bank employees' time managing the process. Banks are good at selling mortgages, they are terrible at selling houses.

So, back to you. You go to your banker and tell him that since you're such a nice guy/gal you've decided to help him out: if he reduces the value of your mortgage by $100K, you won't walk away from your house. He now has a choice, tell his shareholders that he lost $100K and it was unavoidable or tell his shareholders that he lost $160K and it was completely avoidable.

Of course, this is just a simple "back of the napkin" example. The numbers need tweaking from case to case but the principles are sound. Wall Street made a lot of money from the housing bubble through shady investment vehicles and individual house owners needn't take the fall. In fact, by negotiating a lower mortgage, you're helping the banks by teaching them a valuable lesson about moral hazard. If you don't do it, no one else will. Certainly not the Whitehouse or the Fed.

Blame Canada!

2008-03-07T07:03:00.001-08:00

Allegedly, Hillary Clinton told Canadian officials that she wasn't sincere about her desire to open the NAFTA agreement. The alleged Canadian official then told the Canadian news organization CTV that then reported that it was allegedly Barack Obama who wasn't sincere about opening NAFTA.

"The controversy began after Mr. Brodie allegedly told a group of journalists from CTV News that candidate Hillary Clinton was not serious about earlier suggestions that she would reopen NAFTA if she became president. The network later reported that it was Mr. Obama's campaign that had informed Canadian diplomats not to be overly concerned that he would fundamentally change the deal. The network also reported that Ms. Clinton's officials indirectly tried to deliver the same message, a report the campaign denied the next evening."

I'm confused. If it actually happened and if it was Hillary, how did it become Barack? That is a spectacular bit of campaigning or someone in the Obama campaign really dropped the ball. It reminds me of this Eddie Murphy bit

As expected, some Canadians feel the leak is responsible for Obama's recent losses on March 5th. I can attest to that sentiment. Everywhere I go Americans treat me like a pariah, "Did you know President Gretzky ruined Obama's chances of the presidency?" Silly Americans, Gretzky isn't our president anymore.

It's clear that Canada will decide the outcome of the Democrat's nomination and, likely, the entire US presidential election because a) Americans consume vast amounts of Canadian (foreigner) media and b) the Queen is very, very patient.

Time on my hands

2008-03-06T12:47:00.001-08:00

Stumbled upon this mashup this morning while reading about copyright law and fair use. Kind of clever. I can't imagine how much time it took to edit this together.

"Canadian" Experience

2008-03-04T13:26:00.001-08:00

Great story out of my favourite newspaper today. One of Canada's greatest assets is our ability to integrate immigrants into society without violence and without forcing immigrants to give up their culture. In this respect, we really are a ~~perfect~~ model country. However, we seem to fail when it comes to integrating skilled immigrants.

One of the most bizarre (and frustrating) things I heard at school was foreign students struggling to gain Canadian experience. At first, I thought it was a joke being played on them. Kind of like snipe hunting. Then I thought it must be a Center of the Universe thing. However, I've since come to appreciate that it happens all over the country. Even in Alberta, where a real shortage of labour exists, employers tend to demand Canadian experience.

As a born-and-bred-and-white-bread-buttered Canadian with very limited Canadian work experience, I really struggle to understand what the heck it is. Certainly, there is a tremendous amount of protectionism coming from professional associations. It's completely understandable, the country has far too many skilled doctors and engineers and, as every Canadian knows, nuclear physics works differently in the True North.

But seriously, what is it? Some have charged it's racism, but I don't see it. Certainly racism exists, but I think it's something more ingrained in our culture through years of government (us) sponsored protectionism: an unwillingness to take a chance.

What is Canadian experience? How might we do a better job integrating professionals from other countries?

Marathons are stupid

2008-03-04T09:17:00.001-08:00

I've been really careful during my marathon training not to injure myself. That is until a couple of weeks ago when I rushed the last few miles of a long run. Last week, I had a shorter long run that resulted in me feeling like someone smashed my calves with a baseball bat. I consulted an expert in physiotherapy and took the week off. Saturday, I went for a very short, easy run to test things out. Calves still in no shape to run. For at least the next couple of weeks, I'm relegated to training on my bike with a few water runs thrown in. It's very frustrating because I tried to be so careful.

Despite the setback, there are some great lessons learned through marathon training like, "sometimes things happen beyond your control that you have to adapt to" and "you're probably not an expert in physiotherapy so when you injure yourself find someone that knows what they're talking about, jackass."

Free Culture

2008-03-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

As I dig a little into technology again, I've found some really interesting presentations from Larry Lessig on intellectual property law. It's around an hour long.

Download media

Presentations at TED

2008-03-03T14:56:00.001-08:00

As mentioned previously, I enjoy TED presentations for the presentations. Some of the presenters' styles really resonate with me. One in particular is Larry Lessig, a Stanford law professor and founder of Creative Commons. While this presentation is interesting for its content, I really like it for its aesthetics. In particular, I appreciate how he knows that (1) he's the presentation, not his slide deck, and (2) he doesn't subject his audience to the default background and fonts - harsh white background and unreadable text. Maybe he had a friend recommend some great resources too. Check out this presentation from last year.

Work-a-frolic

2008-03-02T13:22:00.001-08:00

Two reasons I really enjoy watching TED is watching passionate people present and watching passionate people present. I find it inspiring to listen to people who are excited about their work. One of the common threads of all the people at TED is their passion. From marketing to sustainability to engineering, all the speakers are passionate. Richard St. John has a great summary about this and how it tends to lead to success (hint: do what you love and you never have to work again!)

Keeping Lawyers in Check: Choose Friendly II

2008-02-29T15:49:00.001-08:00

A couple of days ago, Anthony wrote about the importance of staying true to your brand. It is amazing how a little sign can hurt your image in the eyes of your customers. Not to be outdone by a little coffee shop, the brain trust that is the Porsche AB legal department decided to threaten legal action against the mayor of London's plan to increase the city's congestion charge.

Let me see if I understand this. The Porsche brand allows owners to view themselves as successful: I've arrived because I have the ability to purchase such a fine automobile. Now the legal department announces to the world that not only can Porsche owners not afford a £25 congestion charge but they don't care about the environment or their communities either. The silly tactic does nothing but damage the brand. Porsche should have kept the lawyers gagged and suggested the congestion charge increase: send the message that Porsche owners are so successful that they can pay more, especially when it comes to today's hottest cause. An increase is inevitable and the price will be £25 or less. Porsche could have come away looking like heroes. Instead, they chose to destroy brand value.

What's next, announce the return of the 924 from the deck of a Japanese ~~whaling~~ science ship?

Peter Forsberg feels my pain, briefly

2008-02-29T14:26:00.001-08:00

What better way to start my blog than with an immigration update? As many of you know, I've been waiting for my green card for the past six months. It's been a tough slog of silly bureaucratic nonsense but fortunately, I am not alone. Just ask terrorist, job stealer Peter Forsberg. I wonder when the presidential candidates threaten to cancel P-1 visas? Much like our hockey skills, a stark difference exists between our respective immigration problems. While Peter will likely have his immigration difficulties resolved this weekend, mine won't be resolved until April 24th. Oh well, for brief moment, Peter Forsberg and I were birds of a feather.