John Robb's Weblog

Boyd (OSW and RC too) on PEI in September

Chet and Rob are looking for a sign of interest to do a conference in September on PEI, Canada. The main thrust of the unconference is going be on Boyd's thinking and 4GW/OSW etc. A couple of dozen people. Very intense and fast moving.

Both Chet and Rob have also expressed interest in exploring the RC (resilient community). I'd like to do that and I'm going to attend. I have lots of deep, fresh analysis/synthesis to share on the RC that is sure to get all the minds that are interested humming. Personally, the RC may be the most important thing I've ever worked on.

Techsuperpowers A+

Nothing but praise for Techsuperpowers (in Boston) for how easy they made the entire warranty fix to my powerbook. I dropped it off at their Internet cafe (long hours of operation, for easy drop off) in the morning. They called me later to talk through what was wrong. They concurred and sent it to Apple. Three days later it was back with a new screen, new speakers, new smartdrive, and a new powercable. Cost=$0. They even offered to make a second backup of my data for free while it was being fixed in case the drive was wiped by Apple's folks.

Hilarious

Financial Times. Here's a quote for those that think there is excess production out there:

Opec’s president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel and there would be little the cartel could do to help. The comments made by Chakib Khelil, Algeria’s energy minister, came as oil prices hit a historic peak close to $120 a barrel, putting further pressure on global economies.

More from the NYTimes on production (market failure?):

“What is disturbing here is that things seem to get worse, not better,” an analyst at Goldman Sachs, David Greely, said. “These high prices are not attracting meaningful new supplies."

Academic Decathlon

My son and his team easily won the Massachusetts state championships for the academic decathlon (the premiere scholastic competition in the nation for high school students) last month. He's off to the national championship in CA tomorrow (they won seventh place last year). Given his personal performance so far, he's likely to get bronze medals in a couple of the subject areas.

Wow, Singapore = Welfare

Never thought I would see this:

Channel NewsAsia: Singapore's government is distributing cash and food vouchers to its citizens as part of fiscal measures to boost the economy and ease the burden of rising prices.

Downcycling and Garbage mines

Recycling cell phones (this has been around for a while), but the logic will spread.

I've never been a fan of recycling plastics. The idea of chopping up those long polymer chains and destroying their value forever was a big mistake. Better to store them intact until we developed the technology to extract them intact. Of course, that type of logic would require a different approach to garbage. In short, a view that when you build a garbage dump, you are creating gold mine for the future.

Phase IV

Too bad this movie isn't out in DVD yet. One of the best sci-fi movies I've seen. Thomas Scalzo thinks so too.

Hollow States and Foreclosure

Lots of interesting developments as foreclosures gut a community (examples from the WP):

The rate of increase exceeds the capability to police it:
In Prince William, police said real estate agents have been calling stations to ask that officers watch for trespassing at houses they are marketing. The Circuit Court recorded 3,344 foreclosures (a number that includes foreclosures in the city of Manassas and Manassas Park) last year, up from 282 in 2006.

Crime: When foreclosures rise, crime often follows, researchers said. A 2005 study by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Woodstock Institute found that, holding other factors constant, each foreclosure in a 100-house neighborhood corresponded to a 2.4 percent jump in violent crime.

Bandos: ...a 27-year-old woman was arrested by Loudoun County sheriff's deputies after she, her husband and two children moved into a foreclosed house in Ashburn and allegedly tried to use forged documents to convince officers that she was the new owner, officials said.

Vandos owners: "People are angry," Loudoun Sheriff Steve O. Simpson said. "And our deputies who go to these houses to serve evictions find that people have stripped their houses of toilets and stoves and refrigerators." At the Lucketts property, deputies found that the hardwood floors also had been stripped.

TAZ (temporary autonomous zone) development within communities: In Modesto, Calif., police said marijuana is being grown in the yards of vacant houses. In Atlanta, police are compiling lists of vacancies, where drug use, prostitution and squatting are becoming more common, a police spokesman said. In the Tampa area, the Hillsborough County sheriff's office has assigned a detective to specialize in metal theft, a response to a spike in copper tubing, air conditioners and other appliances being stolen from vacant houses.

Pleas to respect the ownership of the banks/servicers/vulture funds, essentially rentiers of all sorts (LOL, good luck with that):

"Is it OK to 'hang out' in a house or building that is vacant . . . ?" the flier asks. "NO," it answers. "Even if no one is living in the house, someone still owns the house/building and you would be committing a crime. . . . Think twice before entering a vacant building

Market-induced Disruption

Rapid market movement in a tightly coupled global economic system can suck a country dry of a commodity (the typical mechanism is push, this is pull). No resource wars (which is a foolish concept), just market-induced disruption:

"Japan, the Philippines, [South] Korea, Taiwan -- they all came in with huge orders, and no matter how high prices go, they keep on buying," said Jeff Voge, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Trade and also an independent trader. Grains have surged so high, he said, that some traders are walking off the floor for weeks at a time, unable to handle the stress. "We have never seen anything like this before," Voge said. "Prices are going up more in one day than they have during entire years in the past. But no matter the price, there always seems to be a buyer. . . . This isn't just any commodity. It is food, and people need to eat."

Vandos and Bandos

Very cool terminology from Calculated Risk. Given the rapidly growing number of abandoned homes, it is inevitable that it would have a substantial social impact. Hence the development of new language to reflect this:

Bandos - squatters in abandoned homes.

Vandos - vandals that damage abandoned homes.