This blog is for my buddy Jim.
When I switched my major from business to economics, I had no idea the change it would bring to my life. Perhaps I was naive. I thought economists were a bit more progressive. I thought that economists were legitimate “thinking outside the box” folks. So, when I received a B on a paper about how a sustained rise in energy prices would lead to unchecked inflation because this idea was “completely ridiculous”, I was a bit disheartened. I wrote this paper circa 2003, long before the effects of rising energy prices were felt a couple years ago. But I digress.
Getting back to the gold standard… This caveman style of money fits right up there with having king rule. It is practically the same principle. He with the most gold rules. The gold standard comes from the innate human desire for shiny objects. A piece of shiny yellow metal that has relatively little utility compared with other natural resources, should not dictate the value of a country’s currency.
Now, back in the day (when the world was obsessed with shiny yellow metals), a gold standard would make sense. During those times, it was important. Today, gold has limited economic use. The high price of gold today is merely because of speculation about the USD and belief that the antiquated gold standard has merit.
The reality is that a country with little gold but an abundant supply of other natural resources and production and consumption of goods and services or advancements in science is far more valuable than a country that has tons of gold and little to no production.
Back in the day, kings didn’t have vast computer systems and economic tracking abilities. So, they did things the easy way. I’ve got gold. I’ve procured more gold. I am a better king. Today, we could smart bomb the king and take all his gold. The gold wouldn’t make our currency more valuable, but the smart bomb would.
Economic, political, social, medical, banking, and other infrastructure systems should (and arguably MUST) evolve with technology. Currency values can and should be defined by the value of a country’s output and consumption. Awaiting Jim’s Austrian theory of economics response 
Yesterday was Droid Day. The Verizon stores were not prepared with accessories, so I had to wait to get vital phone accessories like a case and screen protector. I had a little bit of a Twitter rant last night after having to wait 10 minutes to talk to a “sales associate” at the VZ store just to buy the accessories for the Droid I purchased earlier in the day. The worst part is that they VZW guy sold me a privacy protector, not the screen protector.
I figured out how this privacy protector works! It has nothing to do with polarization. In fact, it only blanks your screen side peepers when you are in landscape. The real privacy protection comes from the fact that it makes your touchscreen unusable! The Droid privacy protector nearly makes it impossible to unlock you Droid with the touch and slide feature. I can only imagine what it would do if you set a custom unlock pattern.
Avoid the Droid privacy protector if you actually want to use your Droid!
I’m posting this from my new Droid!
My plan was up with Verizon in March. I wasn’t going to renew. After years of watching everyone else’s phone get better and more social, Verizon had nothing. Couple that with the fact that Verizon is practically useless internationally, and it was time for me to jump ship.
Then the news arrived that VZ had setup a sweet deal for Motorola to develop and Android phone! I could believe it, but I held off on canning my Verizon service. Droid day is here. I’ve switched from hard keys to soft portrait to soft landscape. This phone rocks! I know a lot of people with iPhones. This is a legit contender on a real network. Verizon is vastly superior network than at&t. Now they have a comparable (arguably better) phone!
When it comes to Magento, I feel somewhat bipolar. I am so incredibly frustrated with the fact that Web Services just don’t work with Magento. It’s not like there is some complex issue here. All I’m doing is making a login attempt using a SoapClient in php. Pretty simple, but it just doesn’t work in Magento 1.3.2.4 (latest version at the time of this posting).
I’m not the only person with this problem either. It is clearly a problem for several other people on the various Magento message boards. There are no answers that I can find to this problem at all, and it has now put an integration with an important fulfillment system at risk for my business. Magento just might be migrated away from because of this serious problem.
Hangin out with my Droid on the plane back home to Los Angeles. Just crossed the international date line. There are only 5 hours left for this flight. It’s moments like this that really make me appreciate technology more than ever before.
I can’t help but wonder what traveling across the Pacific was like just 30 years ago, let alone 100. They even have power outlets on the back of the chairs in the plane. I was able to charge my Droid after having used it heavily this morning to Google Talk with my girlfriend.
I really can’t wait to see where technology is 30 years from now. With applications like Layar around today, augmented reality could easily become commonplace. I’m even thinking we could have glasses we wear that have the ability to see what we are looking at and then pull up augmented reality information about what we are looking at. It would be like the barcode app+Layar on steroids.
I can even imagine something where we could have our own augmented reality profiles available with facial recognition. We could look at someone and get their latest blogs, Facebook (or whatever the social network is of the future) profile info/related friends, latest travel info, and whatever someone wants to make public.
For someone like me that would be mostly everything. Some people wouldn’t want to share anything just like they don’t want to now. That’s always good to know and give people the option to not share everything with potential stalkers…
Augmented reality with personal recognition could actually make stalkers a thing of the past. We could have a public creeper database that people could contribute to in realtime. Tag creepers in realtime to help others. Maybe I’m just being ridiculous.
If the mytouch gps works on a plane… http://maps.google.com/maps?q=31.14709,121.7980 that link should be somewhere over the middle of the Pacific. Guess I’ll find out when I am back on the ground.
Mmmm… I have no idea what they just handed me on the plane but it sure tastes good… some sort of tortilla goodness. In fact, I’d say it is the best airline food I’ve ever had!
My Monday started more than 14 hours ago. When my girlfriend (my beautiful, sweet, wonderful girlfriend) picks me up at lax, it will be 3 hours earlier than when I left. I don’t think I will ever complain about a long Monday at work ever again. This Monday is going to he the longest ive ever had.
Now, something interesting about my travels lately is the fact the swine flu is in the news every day. At the airports in China, they have a very educational video with English subtitles talking about h1n1. one of the things in the video is to cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough. Still, I see someone every 30 minutes coughing or sneezing w/o covering his/her nose or mouth… The air circulation in airports isn’t that good. An uncovered sneeze or cough could cause a lot of people grief.
Exchanging currency costs money, but that’s not why I wont be exchanging my hk dollars and rmb back to US dollars. It might sound un-American of me, but I have a good reason. Sure, I’ll be back in a few months, but that’s not why.
It all started wish W. Bush’s horrible spending habits have steadily pushed Down the value of the dollar. Obama is keeping us on the fast track for diminished purchasing values of the dollar. So, if I change back to dollars, not only will I lose the exchange cost, but my dollar will be less rmb in a few months anyway.
I’ve been to four airports in China now. All of them have had international in their English names. However, Shanghai is truly an international airport. There are twice as many international terminals as there are domestic terminals.
Now, speaking of international travel from China. It is very different than the States and Europe. When I fly from the US to China, if I have a connecting flight, I receive both boarding passes when I first check-in. Leaving China is a very different story. My flight back connects in Shanghai, but I was only given the boarding pass from Guangzhou to Shanghai. I had to go get my bag and then goto a transfer hall and get my boarding pass from Shanghai to Los Angeles. I’m sure there is a reason it is done this way, but it is so different than the West. It can be somewhat confusing when you can’t understand most of the signs in the first place.
I must have been Chinese in a past life or something. Two visits to China this year, and both of them I’ve messed up the return back home. Subconsciously I must not want to leave. I think next time I am just going to fly back from Hong Kong. I just can’t seem to make it across the boarder or plan my train rides correctly to airport’s in the mainland.
One thing is certain… I’m learning a whole lot about the different areas of China. One can’t mess up traveling as much as I have and not learn from the mistakes. I guess I’ll find out next time I come here… right now, I just want a pillow.
One of the worst places you can find yourself is in a subway terminal.
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