Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Part 1 - Tonight, I flew from Cincy to Charlottesville (not a bad little flight). The plane is of the moderately-sized commuter variety that holds about 50 passengers. My seat was 1 row from the very back near the toilet (yay!). Being seated in such a place, I noticed a strange thing: passengers, who have just gotten on the plane, rushing to use the lav. The activity makes no sense to me. Boarding was far from complete; there was still much time before the door was closed. And from what I witnessed, the restrooms in the concourse we working perfectly. Is it just that much fun to use the airplane’s pisser?

Part 2 - After finally making it to Vienna (more on Murphy trying to impose his law will appear in another post), I observed a rare driving maneuver.

As I was coming to a stop in the left-hand turn lane to wait for oncoming traffic to clear, a the driver of a vehicle to my right on the cross street saw me 3 lanes over and slowing down and no oncoming traffic. With his turn signal on, he turned right on red. He executed his turn quite well.

Then things got weird. After completing his turn, he drove about 10 yards. Then did a U-turn, effectively crossing about 5 lanes, slicing through traffic so that he could then make a very quick right turn. To clarify, he did a right-U-right, which is effectively a straight line and a very stupid, dangerous way to cross an intersection when you don’t have the green.

I almost hit the motherfucker because, in my ignorance, I was looking at the cars coming at me. I barely noticed him because he was, from my perspective, driving sideways.

Did I mention that he had NY tags?

Right now, I’m about halfway through the Black Swan, written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb the same author wrote one of my other favorite books, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.

The combination of reading this book, and recent world events are leading me to become much more contrarian. Translated, that means I’ll probably be more of an asshole in the future, so I’ll just go ahead and apologize now.

In general, I find myself questioning much of the conventional wisdom upon which I have relied in the semi-recent past. I consider that which is founded upon a grain of truth, will become less correct as more people believe.

Among that conventional wisdom is the idea that homes are good investments. Obviously this is proving false for many people at the moment. I suspect many people who are now hurting are the ones who bought into the conventional wisdom (a conventional wisdom sold, in part by President Bush (although I suspect many others from all political spectra did the same)).

I also find myself having less trust in the stock market. Yes it has had a good run for a long time. But you never know when something horrible is going to happen, not just in the market, but in the world or to the country: a president can be assassinated, a military coup can begin, a nuclear accident or natural disaster can happen.

Along the same lines, I put less faith in privatized social security (not that I have more faith in the current system), or whichever plans would let people invest more of their own money. The problem, I think, would be of supply and demand. The supply of good stocks would remain relatively stable while the demand for them and for other stocks would go up greatly. In other words, a lot of people (at the government’s recommendation) would be putting a lot of money into a lot of bad investments.

I’m also less impressed with free markets. It isn’t because they don’t work. It’s because they don’t work as well as advertised. Part of it is overselling by economists. Most of it is because whenever proponents do manage to carve out a free market in bureaucratic mountain, the free market is quickly limited by its surroundings. Electricity markets, of which I know a thing or two, are prime examples. The markets do an exceptional job of pinpointing where investment should be made. The ability, however, to actually make those investments is extremely limited. To build a power plant or transmission lines is a red-tape nightmare that I fortunately do not have to deal with.

As my company recruits and brings in fresh faces, I frequently end up in conversations about how horrible some companies are at hiring. By being slow, indecisive, and just plain rude, they watch the top talent turn their backs for sunnier skies.

We’ve all heard or been a part of the stories. The job-seeker gets one interview and then the cold shoulder. They move on and accept some other job. Months, or maybe a year, later the interviewing company calls back for a second interview. Often this is attributed to the slow moving, federal government.

Apparently, it is not just the federal government. Add BMW to the list of losers. They are way behind. At some point late last year, I registered myself on the BMW careers website. Nothing came of it. By this point last year, I had already accepted my current job. This morning, however, BMW was nice enough to email me to update my status:

Thank you for registering with BMW Careers.

We will inform you of current vacancies as soon as they come up.

No wonder I didn’t hear from them.

Tonight, for perhaps the first time in my life, I managed to properly fold a fitted bed sheet.

Happy happy joy joy.

Day after day, at some point I will return to my desk. Then I’ll see my headphone sitting there and put them on. An hour or two later I’ll finally realize that there’s no music playing.

Of the new energy bill:

The bill requires a massive increase in the production of ethanol for motor fuels, outlining a rampup of ethanol use from the roughly 6 billion gallons this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022. After 2015, the emphasis would be on expanded use of cellulosic ethanol, made from such feedstock as switchgrass and wood chips, with two thirds of the ethanol — 21 billion gallons a year — from such non-corn sources.

However, commercially viable production of cellulosic ethanol has yet to be proven…

Viability means nothing when there’s a government mandate at the foundation.

I hope the heroes in Washington outlaw gravity, next, or maybe friction.

UPDATE [2007-12-19 13:35] And not to oversell it or anything…

“It is a national security issue, it is an economic issue, it is an environmental issue, and therefore a health issue,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “It is an energy issue, and it is an moral issue.”