So Google released their earnings report today. Apparently their profit doubled from last year. Not bad. But investors are still disapointed. What else is new. What is interesting is the last two paragraphs of the news article.

The jitters surrounding Google were exacerbated after the company vowed to fight a Bush administration subpoena demanding one week's worth of search requests as the federal government seeks to revive a law designed to shield children from online pornography.

Google then provoked more angst by launching a new search engine in China that will censor some results to comply with the country's free-speech restrictions.

Can anyone figure out the logic here? So they are willing to piss off our government, since they think that our government will not punish them for refusal, however they are eager to koto to the Chinese government. Sounds like business as usual. It benefits them more to placate the chinese and expand their market share in China, whereas in the US the market is already well established and its unlikely (highly) that our govt will do anything to inhibit google's business practice.

John C Dvorak has more on the 'do no evil' policy of Google.

The Volokh conspiracy has a nice piece on housing markets, including the example of Phoenix, which currently allegedly has a huge surplus of houses, but prices haven't significantly fallen. Housing prices can drop, I suppose. But typical and historically they increase. I think if one did a long view analysis that would be true, but it may decrease for a few years. In Houston, the real estate market crashed in the 90s and up until 2000. At that time I got my condo for a very low price. Since 2000, its doubled in price. That would be very nice if the price was high, but of course it wasn't. Anyway we'll make some money off it. Not much, taken into account improvements and taxes, but enough. In an urban setting, where land is scarce, i would imagine prices would always increase. They are selling new condo units a mile away from 400k. It's a block away from the medical center (location, location, location). Would have been nice to have that property two decades ago! (When the med center was very small). Anyway a house is a home, not an investment. But its nice to at least get your money out of it. (unlike cars, for ex).

Well, i'm sitting around and waiting for my official postdoc appointment to start. Maybe march 1. Maybe mid February. Who knows. I'm not working too much, but enough to order reagents, practice techniques, and do tissue culture and several cloning projects. Basically I am doing alot, but everything takes so long. Today for example, i'll go in for an hour and work on 3 or 4 different projects. Such is life now.

Somebody had the idea of making a contest for the best music created by failing hard drives. This is the winner. It's pretty fun, and short (2 min). Guess you have to experience a crash to appreciate it.

When the humuhumu is no longer the Hawaii state fish? Apparently it only had a 5 year term, and nobody knew. I'm devestated.

Iraqi tribes are attacking Al Qaeda. Iraqi army is becoming increasingly competent. At No End But Victory, just keep scrolling.

A CNN/Money article looks at various services for people who want to sell their stuff on ebay but don't want to do any actual work. I've been selling off my (very old) CD collection, and various computer parts. I think the profit is around $100 so far for three weeks. But most of the items are very low sellers, so i'm lucky if i make $5 or so per item. And they really take it to you with fees. Want to list an item? There's a fee. If the item sells, there is another fee. If the buyer pays by paypal (almost everyone does), there is another fee. And of course there is shipping, if the shipping cost is above what you estimated, you pay the cost. Most people on ebay thus have exoborant shipping fees, that's where they make the actual profit. Anyway, all these fees add up to 10-20% of the item's cost, so on that $5 item, if i make $4 that's normal. Anyway, it's a good way to get rid of stuff you'll never use again, and make space for new stuff. I do like the new features of Ebay, for example you can enter the UPC number of a DVD and Ebay will automatically give you a picture and description of the item.

Then there is this new service: a DVD swapping service called PeerFlix. For $0.99, you can trade a old DVD (call it A) with someone else's DVD (call it B). Good idea and nice and legal. Better than buying the DVD in the store or on Ebay. Of course the usual cavoits apply, for example bogus buyers. It depends on the honor and integrity of the person. The ebay system is revolutionary in that everyone gets rated, so dishonest people are quickly found out. Dunno if this happens with the peerflix system. Of course, this supposes there are things that I want to watch, several times.

Netflix is also hugely popular, for a low monthly fee you can get whatever DVDs you want (up to 3 or so per order), and mail them back when you are done. No late fees. Again, supposes that they have something you want. J & I talked about this, we already watch 2 hours of law and order every week (plus stargate and battlestar galactica). Anyway, more DVDs equals more couch time. Maybe it will be different when we have kids and won't be able to go out too often.

I wrote this letter to the local paper after reading all of these letters/editorials in favor of congressional term-limits.

Dear Chronicle,

I read with interest the multiple letters/editorials
on Thursday (Jan. 26th) regarding term limits.
Everyone was in favor of them to limit corruption.
This is a laudable goal, however the flip side of this
issue has not yet been examined. I think enforcing
term limits will succeed in 'dumbing down' Congress
(if that is not an oxymoron!), because no experienced
congressmen will be left to serve. An analogous body
to congress is that of a university faculty. To get
in, a PhD is required, which can take 10-15 years post
high school education. Then, postdoctoral research is
required, anywhere from 1 to 10 years. Finally, a
dilligent and productive scientist could get a junior
faculty position. Once appointed, almost no one is
fired from their position. If faculty positions had
term limits, what would be the effect of research in
America if, after all this effort, a scientist could
only spend 10 years in a faculty position before their
'term-limit' expires? I do not know if term-limits as
a whole are beneficial to the country or not, but we
should at least examine the consequences.

Robert Dejournett, PhD

The troops are coming home (actually they are rotating on a steady basis), this time to Maine. And a bunch of elderly troop greeters are there to meet them. 80 years old, and going to the airport at 3am to welcome troops home. Thats patriotism. God bless them and the troops.

Reminds me of my mother's cousin (?), Walt. Story here

So 2005 was a bad year. So they raised ticket prices, again. Recently J & I went to the movies, it cost $19.25 for two tickets, and one was a student discount. It cost a further $4.50 for a drink. Yet, previous analyses have shown that movie houses don't make alot on the ticket prices, they make it mostly in concessions (and parking). So Hollywood and theatres bemoan their lost profits, but they produce crappy movies and overcharge for them, and now they have kids walking into the movie every half hour looking for filmers (How many have they caught, nationwide? One? Two? If i wanted to see this movie at home, i'd download something from the internet, its likely to be higher quality).

Anyway, this report has a roundup of the upcoming movies, most of the good stuff is in the summer. Noteworthy: Nothing really related to scifi or fantasy genres, but lots of sequels (of course), such as Xmen3, Pirates of the Carribean 2, Superman. We'll be lucky to have one decent Scifi movie this year.

At the aforementioned movie house, J & I saw Underworld: Evolution. We saw Underworld in theatre and recently on TV, I found it was better on TV than my first impression in theatres. The plot is basically about werewolves and vampires duking it out for supremecy. U: Evolution is a sequal, of course, and is much more violent and less plot driven than Underworld. At the end there was the requisit dismembering of the bad guy, and the audience oohed and ahhed. Anyway, the film was okay, but not spectacular.

here. I'm pretty happy to be here and out of my dissertation lab. Things got a little rough at the end. So i am happy to be in a less stressful environment. I have two other postdocs working on a similiar project, so we are doing some collaborations and cooporation. I enjoy that aspect; i never had anyone work on a simliar project before, in both my MS and PhD labs. I also enjoy the fact that the new lab has a technician, who can make life easier for us bench grunts.

I knew thee well. Unfortunately records are becoming increasing obsolete. I haven't bought a new CD in a year or two. Most CDs I buy are 80s greatist hits from a music club. I'd be interested in getting more music to listen to, but I just don't feel like forking over $20 for a CD which i may never buy. I finally recorded the last of my CDs on to the computer, using Windows Media Player. This is actually a great program. Now i have a huge collection of stuff on the PC, and i can transfer it to my new MP3 player, which can hold about 10,000 songs (guessing, it's 20 gigs). Now i am trying to dump all my old CDs, but with hard times for the music business, i may not have much luck on that.

Or so a New Republic article alleges. I don't have access, but Glenn Reynolds quoted verbatum. Here is an interesting paragraph.

The report illustrates a dramatic and unsolved mystery: At some point in the early '80s, boys' relative academic records and aspirations took a downward turn. So far, no one has come up with a good explanation for this trend, but it's a story that affects millions of boys and their families. And yet, according to LexisNexis, the report was cited by name in only five newspaper and magazine articles. . . . Not only has there been little media attention to this crisis in boys' education, but there has been surprisingly little research. And the conventional wisdom offered up to explain the problem--boys play too many video games and listen to too much hip-hop music--can't explain a gender slide that's affecting not just the United States but much of the developed West.

Emphasis mine. So look at me, i still play video games (somewhat, not all that often), and I managed to get a PhD from a well respected institution. According to this report a bit more than half of all bachelor degrees will go to women, but I'm not sure that's because more women than men are in college. But if the later is true, then why aren't more men going to college? Maybe b/c some of the vocational roles are traditionally filled by men; computer-related (no college degree necessary, as my cousin will attest), or more blue collar stuff such as auto repair. And perhaps people are marrying late, so some kids who got married out of high school and the wife becomes a stay at home, now that's shifted to college or post college. Anyway i don't think this has to do with men being stupid, we're not.

Albeit in a negative fashion; the creator of X-files is suing Fox. But i guess there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Mayor Ray Nagin, of New Orleans, says God is "mad at America" because of it's involvement in Iraq, amoung other things. Of course, he could just admit that he's an incompetent leader, instead of trying to shift blame as usual. I think God is not political, so he wouldn't care about the poltics of America. There are issues of moral equivalency. Is it worth billions of US dollars and thousands of dead Americans to liberate a country of 25 million from a brutal dictator (that we helped prop up in the 80s)? I think the answer is yes. Would we do this for any other country, ie North Korea? Hell no, they have no valuable assets (oil). Anyway if America is to have these debates about what actions are worth doing, we should judge the totality of the action.

Over a rather large translation error. Whoops. . Too bad we can't do the same in the U.S.

This article discusses somewhat the problems modern juries face because they are brought up on CSI and L&O. It's interesting but perhaps not real enough. But the article doesn't go into what is real or not in real law cases. Apparently most homicides have very little forensic evidence, mostly circumstantial. For me, that's pretty worrisome. Unless a guy walks into a crowded bar and shots another person, i'd imagine it'd be hard to find proof of the dead. Anyway I still love L&O, it's my fav. show.

Slowly. This was perhaps one of the best memories of my honeymoon; well let me clear, before I get into trouble. This was, to me, the best tourist thing we did. Now most of what we saw are dead, but not the mammals and other air-breathing critters (penguins, tarpons). But the aquarium will recover; it will take a decade, though.

Shock and horror (satire). In this one case,the US immigration law is seen to be bone-headed. Basically a German boy immigrated to the US when he was 8. He's now 18, and is in jail for visa violations, because his grandmother forgot to fill out paperwork. So, a semester before high school graduation, the US wants to deport him back to Germany. This doesn't make sense.

Truely this is great news, and a miracle. And hopefully it is true!

Update: Ugh, only one of twelve miners was found alive. This is very sad news. Says something about instant news and the importance of getting it right the first time. What was a accident has turned into a emotional rollercoaster for miner's families. Mining is dangerous work. Yet another reason to get a good education.

Update2: The Houston chronicle (and a bunch of other newspapers) got it wrong. Bush said the nation mourns the lose of the miners (at least he didn't get it wrong). There will probably be a long term 'who got it wrong, when' and the lack of PR ability by the mining company. Oh well...

Nice roundup at Foxnews. It's good reporting, personal, but fact driven. Some of the facts reported 'jive' with what I've seen first-hand or seen reported. So this leads confidence that what they are saying is most likely true with minimal spin.

Well it was a quiet new year here in Houston. Very quiet, really. I heard one firework, i guess it's a good thing that our house won't burn down. Unlike in Hawaii, where it's a warzone every year.

I never did get why some people would attend these new years parties for $100 or $200 a pop, spend time w/ people they don't know, and generally get drunk. Shrug. In the new year I am very much looking forward to my postdoc lab.