What Fluffy Said

How to eliminate duplicate Outlook tasks when you have both gmail IMAP and Exchange accounts

2010-10-16T02:06:00.004-04:00

Gmail IMAP in Microsoft Outlook 2007 is great, except for the fact that starred or flagged emails are duplicated two or three times in the task list and to-do list. If you only use gmail the solution is to add a filter criteria such as "In Folder" is (exactly) "All Mail" but this hides any flagged Exchange emails and Outlook tasks.

The solution is to create a custom SQL filter with the compund logic that can't be achieved using the "Advanced" filter dialog. The logic that works for me is "Email Account is empty OR (Email Account contains "gmail" AND In Folder is (exactly) "All Mail"). Here's how you do it:

Right click on the a blank part of the task list or to-do list and click Filter.
Click the SQL tab and check "Edit these criteria directly..."
Open an new text file with Notepad
Copy the contents of the SQL criteria box and paste into Notepad. Save this file as "original_task_filter.txt" so you can restore the default filter by pasting it back if this custom filter doesn't work well for you.
Overwrite the existing criteria completely with the text below:
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040" IS NULL AND "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x10910040" IS NULL AND ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062008-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/8580001f" IS NULL OR ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062008-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/8580001f" LIKE '%gmail%' AND "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0e05001f" = 'All Mail')))
Click OK.
Repeat these steps for any other task lists or to-do lists that show duplicate gmail tasks. You should only have to back the original criteria up once.

Confessions of a bad blogger

2010-09-20T11:26:00.003-04:00

An old post of mine was linked by Tyler Cowen yesterday, which I consider an honor. I regret that what is being briefly showcased is a dormant, stale blog.

I thought I could blog but it turns out that I am only motivated to post when I have something original to say about something I consider important, and that doesn't happen very often. When I try to post on personal matters or current events the results are usually embarrassing and I lose interest. I considered taking the blog down.

The link from Marginal Revolution makes me glad I didn't. I guess this blog won't ever be timely. Thanks for reading anyway.

Mortgage interest deduction in the news again

2010-06-10T17:45:00.003-04:00

I wrote previously but imperfectly on the mortgage interest deduction here. I'll restate my arguments in favor of the mortgage interest deduction (MID) below, hopefully omitting the stupid parts this time.

Instapundit links to this article in The Hill:

Although Congress last year rejected the White House’s proposed cut to the amount wealthier taxpayers can deduct for home mortgage interest payments, the administration included it again in its 2010 budget — saying it could save $208 billion over the next decade.

"Save" $208 billion. Isn't that clever. Not "raise." Not "increase tax receipts by." Save whom?

I find the framing of the eliminationist argument to be dishonest. Continuing to not tax what has never been taxed "costs" the government billions. Eliminate deductions for a few forms of personal interest and what remains deductible becomes a "subsidy."

Michael Kinsley says he was against the mortgage interest deduction before he was for it:

How can you recognize a tax subsidy? You look to its ostensible purpose. There are deductions and credits in the tax code that are intended to make taxes fairer, and then there are deductions and credits that are intended to promote some other public purpose. The second category are tax subsidies. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

But Kinsley can tell. (It's a subsidy.) And yet, when Grandpa Kinsley was filling out his 1913 Form 1040, there was line 2 of General Deductions, "All interest paid within the year on personal indebtedness of taxpayer." The ostensible purpose here is likely to prevent the double taxation of interest. The fact that the MID now takes on a special apparent social purpose is a function of its having survived the 1986 destruction of this reasonable principle where auto loans and credit cards did not.

Regarding imputed rent, I don't think I can do better than I wrote last time:

The benefit that homeowners receive is called imputed rent. This is the rent they would have paid to rent their own place if they didn't own it, or would have received if they rented it to someone else. Rental income is taxable to a landlord, but this imputed income is not taxable to a homeowner. Unfair? Landlords can also deduct maintenance, depreciation, salaries, etc. Homeowners cannot. If the imputed rent should be taxable, then the expense—both real and imputed—of maintaining the home should be deductible. A more equitable basis for taxing homeowners would be a tax on imputed rental profit. In nearly every case this will be much less than the MID. There could even be an imputed loss. It's a difficult value to estimate, and might easily be gamed.

Finally, I still find absurd the argument that the MID is regressive because 50% of the mortgaged don't itemize. The ordinary components of the itemized deduction are mortgage interest, property, state and local taxes, and margin interest. The standard deduction is a somewhat generous minimum estimate of these same components, is it not? Generous because about half of mortgage holders find it exceeds their own interst and tax expenses. Generous because it is offered even to those with no mortgage interest and property tax expenses, like renters. Why should renters get this special deduction for expenses they don't even have? Why is the tax code subsidizing renters?

I kid. But seriously, those who write in favor of eliminating the MID usually end with some phrase like "never gonna happen." Hopefully they're at least right about that.

In vino spucatum tauri

2009-11-16T15:30:00.003-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Hodgson told me that when he started playing with the data he "noticed that the probability that a wine which won a gold medal in one competition would win nothing in others was high." The medals seemed to be spread around at random, with each wine having about a 9% chance of winning a gold medal in any given competition.

Felix dies natalis

2009-11-10T23:58:00.003-05:00

What do Don Adams, Robert Bork, Jon Corzine, David Dinkins, and Leon Spinks all have in common?

That's right, they're all former U.S. Marines. Happy 234th and thanks to all Marines past and present.

The first mea culpa comes in

2009-11-09T23:25:00.004-05:00

Emma Thompson. Much sooner than I predicted.

Bernie goes all in

2009-10-28T10:37:00.003-04:00

Bernard-Henri Lévy, in The Huffington Post:

I hardly know Roman Polanski. But I know that all those who, from close and from afar, join in this lynching will soon wake up, horrified by what they have done, ashamed.

Sounds like something I wrote, only exactly the opposite. I'm ashamed to share the same rhetorical style as this loathsome sac de douche.

The Dark Crystal

2009-10-12T02:10:00.003-04:00

"Directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz? Uh oh."

"What, Daddy?"

"Nothing, sweetie. I think it's starting now...as soon as the narrator stops talking." Does he stop talking?

Later:

"Daddy, wake up! Stop snoring!"

"Sorry, sweetie. Didn't the narrator already tell us all this stuff?"

"Are those birds or frogs?"

"I think they're called Skeksis. Or Mystics." Funny that they chose a made up bullshit name for one race and a plain English name for the other. That's...

"Daddy, wake up! Where is he going now?"

"His 'master' told him to go see some lady who lives up a hill to get all the secrets he knows but can't say because he's about to die." And because it makes the movie 30 minutes longer...

"Daddy! Will you WAKE UP!"

"Sorry, sweetie. I'm not enjoying this movie very much."

"Well, I'm really enjoying it. I want some chocolate."

"No."

Later:

"Come on!" Jesus H. Christ! Will you put the shard into the fucking crystal already? Why don't you just stand there until every monster in the goddamn cave sees you! Don't muppets know how to hide? Is this the lamest antihero in history? Oh, you dropped the shard. Of course. Has there ever been a crystal that wasn't in a rotunda with a special hole in the ceiling where the sun will hit it in just the right spot at just the right time?

"Daddy, I'm not enjoying this movie any more."

"That's OK, sweetie. It'll be over soon."

In praise of Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-07T09:53:00.002-04:00

Bruce Springsteen was never a favorite of mine. I didn't grow up in New Jersey, and I was never much for ballads, or balladeers for that matter. I liked some of his songs—mostly the ones everyone likes—and I recognized he was a major songwriting talent. That's all history now. After seeing him in concert for the first time last week, I've changed my whole view of the man.

The difference between the live E Street Band and the radio version is staggering. A jazzy, jamming vibe courses through every song, improving the character of even the most pop-like of the repertoire. Springsteen really surprised me with his guitar playing. I'd always thought of him as a singer with an acoustic guitar almost as a prop, but when the time comes for a Telecaster solo the guy absolutely wails.

It's almost impossible to believe the man is 60. Toned and muscular, he dives onto the raised and willing arms of the crowd and is passed around for several minutes. The action is captured in close-up on the large screens flanking the stage, and for the spectators and Bruce himself it's literally "suspense." The band performs just one song from the latest album and there's no curmudgeonly griping—I'm looking at you, Robert Plant—about giving the fans the 35 year-old red meat they came for.

Throughout the night, fans all around me appear to be having an almost religious experience. I don't follow along, but I do feel Springsteen's charisma for the first time and begin to understand. An adorable girl holds up a sign that reads, "13th birthday dance???" Bruce pulls her up, and she's ready for her moment. He copies her moves and the crowd roars its approval. My first thought comes from a well-tempered depraved sense of humor; Unlike Roman Polanski, Bruce Springsteen knows how to make a 13 year-old girl's night. But as a father to a girl, I also find this the most emotional moment of the night. I want to be my daughter's Bruce Springsteen, but more importantly I want her to be like that girl, ready for her close-up in front of 50,000 people. I feel hopeful; my eyes well up. That's something more than entertainment.

Poor, poor Polanski

2009-09-30T09:45:00.004-04:00

In my mind's eye, I see Roman Polanski shackled and flown to California, where he is sentenced to 2 years in prison (the normal sentence) for the crime he pleaded guilty to. While serving that sentence he is tried for the additional charges of escape or failure to appear under any outstanding bench warrant. Also while serving his sentence, any appeal he wishes to make about any possible judicial misconduct is heard, in accordance with California law. Justice is served.

In reflection after this bitter defeat, the brilliant minds of Bernard-Henri Lévy, Salman Rushdie, et al, are shocked into silence. Over the course of these two fantasized years, they come to see clearly the crimes they have committed: gross hypocrisy and intellectual fraud. One by one, their mea culpas are issued. Having stepped in Polanski's ancient tar pit, they cannot come away unstained.

But then, the daydream ends and I remember we're living in the real world.

One sentence TV reviews

2009-09-27T14:01:00.005-04:00

Black Gold—Non-stop boorishness in a place where a "$60,000 drill bit" is more valuable than a man's dignity.
Locked Up Abroad—Scared straight for drug mules.
The Universe—Planetary destruction porn.
Police Women of Broward County—Not even these four beauties can make up for the ugliness of the War on Drugs.
the forgotten—Forgettable.

Health insurance: score one for CDHPs

2009-09-20T09:35:00.009-04:00

In my last post I revealed my cost for small group family HMO insurance in New York and the absurd growth rate of that cost. A 13% compounded annual rate of increase defies reason. I have found an attractive workaround in the form of a consumer-directed EPO plan with a competitor. This new insurance comes with a high family deductible of $5,950 a year, but there is no co-insurance, no co-pay, no lifetime limit. Most importantly, the deductible plus premiums is $6,600 less than the 2010 HMO rate. Even in the worst-case scenario where I have to spend the entire deductible every year, I am still spending $550 a month less, for better insurance.

I don't really need more evidence than that (and the previous post) to show my old HMO didn't want my business, but I decided to dig a little into the financials of the parent company, WellPoint. WellPoint insures 35 million people in a 50/50 mix of self-funded and fully insured plans. As the chart below illustrates, not only are small group premiums 1.8x the average, but they're increasing exponentially while the overall growth rate of operating revenues* per member decreases.

Are small group health care expenses really twice as much per member as large groups, or are small groups and individuals subsidizing large groups just like first class mail subsidizes bulk mail? Since small group rates are approved by New York's Department of Insurance, I can only conclude that the state government is part of the problem. Small groups (and individuals) are getting screwed. Consumer-directed plans are part of the solution. I would like to see high deductible plans offered to a single national pool so insurance costs for individuals and employees of small companies are the same as those for large companies. Not single payer; single pool.

*Before 2004, when WellPoint was still known as Anthem, the company used to provide a figure called "self-funded premium equivalents" to facilitate comparisons of revenues to insurers with a different fraction of self-funded customers. Although WellPoint has stopped providing this figure, I think a good estimate of adjusted revenues for WellPoint is 1.43x reported operating revenues.

Health insurance: two charts

2009-09-10T12:28:00.006-04:00

I'm getting the sense that this particular health insurer doesn't want my business.

Lifelong health insurance: The details

2009-09-05T17:43:00.007-04:00

The first lifelong health insurance post is here. I recommend you read it before continuing.

In my first post on lifelong health insurance (LHI) I didn't offer many details. LHI is not a fully worked-out idea, but I'd like it to be, even if ultimately it must be rejected. If the idea interests you I hope you'll contribute some comments. Here is the basic concept:

First and foremost, single pool instead of single payer. A single nationwide pool means that we don't have separate insurance markets for large employers and individuals. We don't have "community rating." Insurers design coverage and states cannot add mandates. States and consumer watchdog groups can of course review and rate offers. Insurers can only base pricing on a single piece of information, which I'll call age at first premium. Buying in to LHI at age 50 should cost more than at age 20.

There are no uninsurables. If there is a single pool with no exclusions then the pre-existing condition is not a meaningful concept. If you offer LHI you must have an offer price for all comers of any age. This price would factor in the likelihood that the buyer is purchasing only after learning of an expensive health condition. The only grounds for recission would be lying about your age. This nearly gets us guaranteed access, but obviously for people starting out over a certain age an LHI policy would be cost-prohibitive. This might not be such a bad thing. If the pricing can work out right it could incentivize more young and healthy people—the ones who opt out of conventional health insurance today—to buy LHI early.

LHI is high-deductible. How high? The upper bound might be a level sustainable by the median wage-earner without forcing them from the middle class. Diminishing returns come into play; the premiums for a deductible of $10,000 probably won't differ much from those for a deductible of $5,000. The lower bound, I think, should be a value which a majority of the pool does not exceed in a given year. 2006 values from the Census suggest $2,500. I don't believe the feasibility of LHI is sensitive to deductible. Employers that traditionally provide first-dollar health benefits could self-insure for the deductibles or make HSA contributions.

How much insurance do we need? Alemayehu and Warner (2004) determined per capita lifetime expenditure at birth is approximately $320,000, and that includes nursing home expenses. (I will leave that component in for now, since I think it's a great thing to insure or save for. An apples-to-apples comparison to other health insurance plans would have to remove it.) 80 percent of lifetime expenditure is experienced after age 40, and half of it is spent after age 65. This gives you some idea of the distribution and how beneficial it can be to start saving/insuring young.

In a very rough calculation, let's assume a typical lifetime scenario involves negligible claims before age 50 (nearly all years' expenses do not exceed the deductible). From 50 on expenses exceed $2,500 every year and LHI claims average $7,500. Our typical lifespan is 80 years. These are conservative numbers. The present value at age 50 of those claims is $115,000, assuming a 5% yield. The present value at birth is $10,000 and at age 21 it's $28,000.

Let's have our typical individual purchase an LHI plan at age 21 and finance it over a 40 year career at 8%. This is $200 a month in level payments. Remember that this covers all expected claims including nursing home care. Obviously there are ways to make payments even lower for say, ages 21 to 25, in recognition of low entry level salaries. Note that the insurer enjoys a 3% spread. Also note that this is lifetime expenditure. This individual will not need Medicare.

There are some problems of course. A period of high inflation or fiscal mismanagement could be devastating. Factoring in normal inflation turns an optimistic $200 a month into a severe $400 a month. (Still a good deal if you include long-term care.) Another problem is consumer dissatisfaction. If 20 years in you have a dispute with your insurer, can you walk? Can another firm buy out your contract? This is essential. Lifetime medical expenses are not normally distributed. The likelihood of a $1,000,000 bill is greater than that of a $0 bill. I don't know how fat the tail is. Moral hazard and fraud are reduced by high deductibles but not eliminated, especially within hospitals and nursing homes. Expensive tort insurance is still a factor.

Despite these problems I think this is an encouraging start. The LHI concept is worthy of further exploration.

Long live the mortgage interest deduction

2009-08-31T22:15:00.006-04:00

[UPDATE 8 March 2010]: I got some things wrong in this post, mainly ignoring the time value of money in my "appeal to finance." It's only "twice the tax" if the owner's opportunity cost is zero. If the owner can consistently earn a return greater than his mortgage rate then financing actually results in less taxes than paying cash. When I eventually write a better post about the MID I'll link to this one, which I'll leave here unedited as a monument to my carelessness.

The Congressional Budget Office puts out a depressing publication called Budget Options. This year, option 7 (page 187) is "Reduce the Mortgage Interest Deduction or Replace It with a Tax Credit." What a terrible idea.

People that oppose the mortgage interest deduction (MID) like to call it a "subsidy" to homeowners. They claim it encourages society to invest too much capital in housing and not enough in growth sectors. They say it's not fair to renters. They decry inequity to homeowners with lower incomes who don't itemize deductions. They are wrong.

The term "subsidy" implies unfairness. Some special group is getting over on the rest of us. It's easy to show that the MID is no such thing. First, an appeal to history. When the income tax was first established, all interest was exempt for both businesses and individuals, and that is how things should have stayed. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 removed the deduction for credit card interest and other forms of personal interest. When you start out with full exemption for all and Congress strips some away, is what remains really a subsidy?

Not sold yet? How about an appeal to finance. Assume there is no MID and consider two individuals, Richie Rich and Mark Middleclass. Richie buys a $500,000 house with cash. He's paid tax on $500,000. Mark doesn't have that kind of cash so he puts $100,000 down for his similar house and borrows $400,000 at 6% for 30 years. He'll pay tax on $963,000. Mark will pay nearly twice the tax for the same house because he financed it. Is that fair? Should we force Richie to finance his house too and eliminate that "subsidy?" Should we prevent Mark from buying a house until he saves $500,000?. Maybe we could just let Mark deduct his interest expense.

The kind of people who think they can somehow know that 38 percent of net private domestic investment is too much investment in owner occupied housing and desire to fix it with the Tax Code are the same kind of people who think it's not a problem that the Tax Code is 7,500 pages long. They consider the MID a distortion, a source of economic inefficiency. It would be better in their view if more capital went to their preferred economic sectors. But we can finance the purchase of stocks and bonds by buying on margin, and we can deduct margin interest expense. So the only thing that's distorted is the superegos of these people.

The benefit that homeowners receive is called imputed rent. This is the rent they would have paid to rent their own place if they didn't own it, or would have received if they rented it to someone else. Rental income is taxable to a landlord, but this imputed income is not taxable to a homeowner. Unfair? Landlords can also deduct maintenance, depreciation, salaries, etc. Homeowners cannot. If the imputed rent should be taxable, then the expense—both real and imputed—of maintaining the home should be deductible. A more equitable basis for taxing homeowners would be a tax on imputed rental profit. In nearly every case this will be much less than the MID. There could even be an imputed loss. It's a difficult value to estimate, and might easily be gamed. If I can deduct my labor to caulk the tub and cut the grass, I can claim just enough labor to cancel my imputed rent. How do you audit that? In any case, eliminating the MID would cost homeowners a lot more than the present slight tax advantage over landlords.

Renters benefit from the MID because their landlords have lower costs. The portion of rent you pay to your landlord in excess of his costs is his profit. If you don't want to pay profit to a landlord, buy a home or find a non-profit landlord. Don't whine about the MID, because you receive it indirectly.

It's true that nearly half of homeowners with mortgages don't itemize and therefore don't receive the MID. Can we presume that they don't itemize because the standard deduction is greater than the total itemized deductions? These homeowners aren't losing the MID, they are opting instead for an even greater benefit. Say you go to the store and they offer you 5% off or 10% off, your choice. After you choose 10% do you have a right to complain because you didn't also get the 5%? How ridiculous arguments like this get into CBO publications amazes me.

Dirty Little Billy is on Netflix

2009-08-29T16:40:00.003-04:00

If you want to watch Dirty Little Billy and you subscribe to Netflix you can find it there in streaming format.

Bargain DIY books

2009-08-28T15:41:00.006-04:00

I think Taunton Press puts out some great DIY books. Amazon has a few of them in their Bargain Books section at very low prices. I'd be surprised if they don't go fast.

Goldhill on healthcare

2009-08-23T16:17:00.006-04:00

The Atlantic has a great article on health care by David Goldhill that marshals many important facts and makes many great points. I think it could have been edited better (i.e. shorter), and I don't agree with all of the policy prescriptions. I don't think government can Constitutionally "force" people to purchase health insurance. They can probably tax the hell out of us if we don't, however. But Goldhill makes clear the many ways our health care markets are horribly distorted and the very negative--and for Goldhill, very personal--consequences. A worthwhile read.

The dream that frightened me awake

2009-08-21T03:47:00.004-04:00

Hollywood, please make this movie. I'll sell the idea cheap.

I was in a lovely yard, admiring an oak, when suddenly a great bough cleaved off and fell to the ground. The branch became dust, revealing that most of its mass was actually insects, now swarming angrily above. I turned to run and they chased me en masse. I fell and was soon encrusted. As they devoured me I realized I was the first person in the world to discover that man-eating space termites were inside our trees.

"Lifelong" health insurance

2009-08-17T03:01:00.009-04:00

I'm pretty disgusted with the rhetoric and behavior on both sides of the healthcare "debate" but I don't want to get into the politics. I believe the path we are on will take a bad system and make it worse, but I don't pretend to have all the answers. In this post and hopefully others I'm going to share the few ideas I do have.

If you had an enormous income you could self-insure for almost any risk. Insurance is a valuable product because normal people face risks that vastly exceed their income and experience losses before they could ever save enough to cover them. Now consider the amazingly under-considered stupidity of the product that is health insurance.

Health insurance covers the first dollar of expense, after the co-pay. This is like insuring your car against needing new brakes. A business that would charge you a monthly fee and then pay for your brake job is a finance company, not an insurance company. You are purchasing your routine healthcare on a layaway plan. Layaway plans are apparently making a comeback now. Sheer idiocy. Would you rather make regular deposits in your savings account and benefit from the interest, or give the money to the appliance store or your insurance company and let them keep the interest? First-dollar health insurance makes all non-emergent healthcare more expensive. Installment-plan health ~~insurance~~finance is a crappy product for people with no savings discipline. Why do you put up with it? Because in most cases you aren't the one paying.

We are all going to die, and most of us will run up big medical bills before we do. This is the crux of the "costs problem." For many of us, a majority of the medical services we consume in our lifetimes will occur near the end of our lives. It's not nice to think about, but this is known from the moment we are born. It's an expected major expense. The amount needed is uncertain but we can define a range. And we have up to 70 years on average to save for it. Start early enough and compound interest greatly reduces the lifetime cost of providing for our old age. Do the insurance companies do that? Only life insurance and pension companies do that sort of thing. Health insurance is short-term. Aetna's asset to revenue ratio is 1:1. Met Life's is 10:1.

So let's assume for a moment that we are a nation of mostly responsible people. We set aside short-term money for routine healthcare and we sock away money for the inevitable expenses we will face as we get older, trying for the safest return in excess of inflation we can get. We buy insurance against the risk that our medical expenses will exceed some considerable fraction of our income or savings in any given year. What I've described sounds suspiciously like a high-deductible health insurance plan combined with a health savings account. Consumer-driven healthcare is a great idea--as long you live in a state without onerous insurance mandates--but can we make it even better?

What if our health insurance companies were run more like life insurance companies? What if you chose a "lifelong" high-deductible insurance plan at a young age and a portion of your premium was saved for your inevitable year or years of large claims? I think the risk of loss to the insurer would be greatly reduced. I hope to explore this question further in future posts.

Where Eagles dare

2009-08-13T22:23:00.004-04:00

The Philadelpha Eagles have signed Michael Vick. Great. Red meat for the Sunday morning moralizing blowhards--both pro-Vick and con. I'm calling the over-under on Eagles game commentary being completely unbearable at 3 games. CBS's Inside the NFL and Fox NFL Sunday is at 4 weeks for completely unbearable, 16 weeks for nearly completely unbearable.

Heinz responds

2009-08-12T13:51:00.004-04:00

H.J. Heinz Co. has responded to my inquiry.

On the labels with the 'Grown Not Made*" statement -- the asterisk relates to the following information on the back label: *sun ripened tomatoes -- that's why every tomato in every bottle of Heinz Ketchup is grown from Heinz Seeds.

Commenter royce's dinghy had it exactly right.

Dirty Little Billy

2009-08-11T03:26:00.006-04:00

Why didn't I know about this movie before? It's a gritty 70s western without 70s kitsch. This account of the early years of Billy the Kid is about as accurate as a Chinese torque wrench, but I don't care. It could have been a play; most of the scenes involve just three actors and I enjoyed the performances, and the jolt of an ending. Also, how cool is this poster:

Michael J. Pollard, who plays Billy, came up with the title for Traffic's "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys," which makes him pretty damn cool. Seeing Dick Van Patten playing a john in comic relief brings us perhaps to the edge of cool. The guy who wrote the book "Eight is Enough" was head of a clandestine operations division in the CIA. He bribed journalists all over the world to put the CIA's slant on the news. I think we're solidly in not cool territory here. Later, naturally, he hosted CNN's Crossfire. His wife bore him eight children and still found time to screw Robert McNamara and Nelson Rockefeller. But then she had to write a book about it. I'm seeing a sort of yin and yang of cool and not cool here.

That's my review of Dirty Little Billy. Not available on DVD, unfortunately.

My Lazlo Toth moment

2009-08-09T17:06:00.008-04:00

Dear H.J. Heinz Co.:

Congratulations on redesigning the Heinz ketchup label after 110 years. I have a couple of questions about it. The front label bears your new slogan, "Grown not Made*." What's the asterisk for? I looked all over the bottle and couldn't find a footnote.

On the back label you attribute Heinz's great ketchup to the "*sun-ripened tomatoes." I can't find a footnote for that one either! Sometimes I use asterisks to censor words. For example, "What's with all these d*mn asterisks?" I'd love to know.

Sincerely,
What Fluffy Said

[Update: Heinz responds.]

Pseudoimprovement: independent observation

2009-08-08T18:54:00.004-04:00

The first psuedoimprovement post is here.

We returned to Toys 'R' Us today, to settle for the aforementioned "Puppy Love" bicycle, deemed unanimously to be the least offensive design. A mother and her pre-teen son were looking at bicycle helmets. I overheard their conversation, which went something like this:

"Mom, I wish it didn't have this on it."

"Yeah, everyone puts their logo on things now."

Exactly. This was not a let me browse, maybe I'll buy a shirt if I like it pair of individuals. They wanted a bike helmet and it was the superficial aspects of the selection that put them off. I was alongside, in the middle of my own sour experience as I contemplated a choice between Disney helmet and Barbie helmet when I spotted one off to the side with an unobtrusive flower design. Sold. I didn't stick around to see if the boy settled on a helmet.

Maybe the problem is with this particular store, or with products and aparrel for young children. After all, if you go to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy a spatula or a holder for your toilet brush, they have like 10 different kinds, and you're not stuck choosing between just the Emeril Lagasse version and the Rachel Ray version.

Besides formalizing and probably restating the hypothesis I'd like to find an example outside of Toys 'R' Us. To be continued...

Financial advice: stay diversified

2009-08-07T01:53:00.003-04:00

Cucumber salad v2.0

2009-08-05T18:19:00.006-04:00

Developing recipes is better than developing software. I promise to only share them if they really taste good.

1 long European cucumber
1 small fennel bulb
1/2 small red onion
1/3 cup white vinegar
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. kosher salt
2 tbsp. chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp. chopped fennel leaves
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. celery seed

Peel the cucumber. Core and trim the fennel and chop some of the leaves. Slice the cucumber, fennel, and onion approximately 1/16" thick (get out the mandoline). Place all in a container with a tight-fitting lid.

Mix the vinegar, sugar, salt, dill, fennel leaves, black pepper, and celery seed in a small bowl. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the mixture to the salad, seal the lid, and shake well. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or longer.

Microsoft connectness

2009-08-04T14:59:00.004-04:00

I use Microsoft Visual Studio a lot. When I encounter a bug I dutifully check Microsoft Connect to see if it's been reported, and if it hasn't I make an effort to provide the best bug report I can. I'm a giving, generous, modest person. But lately I can't help but feel that the Microsoft connection is one-way. They are 0 for 3 with me. I'm considering adopting a hostile attitude towards Microsoft, unpopular as that stance may be. I said I was giving, generous, redundant, and modest, but am I reasonable? I put it to you:

XML hell

My first issue was straightforward. Hard to identify, but easy to report. Microsoft.NET applications have their configuration stored in a file in a format called extended markup language (XML). One of the few nice things about XML is it's either valid or it isn't. It's like a contract. Follow the rules and your configuration will parse and your application will maybe start. The rules say that whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines) is optional.

<setting><value>MSFT sucks</value></setting>

is as good as

<setting>
   <value>MSFT sucks</value>
</setting>

Long story short, I found a case where the latter works and the former causes you and your client to both question your sanity. After scratching my head raw I handed the bug to Microsoft on a silver platter. If you're in the software game you'll know that superficially, this looks like an easy bug to fix. It's also an easy bug to work around [now that I figured it out], which is probably why a year later the good people at Connect said it "didn't meet the criteria" for fixing. It wasn't important enough.

I can see that. I really do understand. Microsoft has a very large business to run, and I'm just one man. They create more bugs in an hour than I have in my whole career; important, deadly serious bugs, etc, etc. But let's be fair. They also probably fix more bugs than I ever will. Just not this one. Reasonable? Good. Let's move on.

Drag & Don't

When you use an integrated development environment (IDE) all day it's nice to be able to drag a perfectly valid XML file that blows up your application and drop it onto the the editor window instead of File->Open... So nice that I did it all the time, for about a decade. Then Vista came along. Vista is so secure that you need to enter your password just to enter your password, and I for one am grateful. Now, only its browser leaves you as vulnerable to infection as a Plum Island lab rat. The rest of the OS is locked down tighter than...Plum Island.

Visual Studio 2008 is not ready for Vista, and Visual Studio 2005 was really not ready for Vista. If you run Visual Studio as anyone but Administrator you will have problems. It tells you right up front with a big dialog, "Run me as Administrator or else." And don't try to hand 'tudio any of this "Administrators Group" jive. VS only deals with The Boss.

Now, besides the awesomeness of partially transparent window frames, Vista also brings us protection against the possibility of malevolent gremlins dragging terrible things from your Member of Machine Administrators Group desktop and dropping them onto your Machine Administrator IDE window while you aren't looking. In other words, you can't drag & drop onto Visual Studio, as someone reported to Connect in Bug 420374. Microsoft's response?

To get around this you’ll need to avoid running Visual Studio as Administrator. It really comes down to needing the same security permissions.

I'm going to call this Catch-42. It wasn't my bug, but I opened a second one to tell them how dumb their handling of the first was. Guess what! They can't fix it. But if I keep a half-broken 2nd instance of VS open and drag files onto that window but do my real work in the first window, I should be OK. Reasonable?

20 and out

That's what disgruntled cops say and what Visual Studio does if you select more than 20 files to add to a project. It stops at 20. I reported it. I applied service packs and reported failure again. Microsoft's response? "Closed(Fixed):"

I just tried this with VS 2010 and it appears to be fixed. You can expect to see the fix in the Beta 2 release of VS 2010.

"Oh, sorry the wipers don't work on your 2008 Camaro. Don't worry, we fixed them on the 2010 prototype." That's right, if a bug is (apparently) missing from the beta version of the next major release, then it's fixed in the current production version of the product. Close the bug.

Reasonable?

Pseudoimprovement continued

2009-08-03T11:54:00.008-04:00

The first pseudoimprovement hypothesis post is here.

I solicited the opinion of a famous econoblogger, one I respect and admire, who read the hypothesis and raised the very good question of why suppliers would not raise prices to capture consumer surplus instead of making pseudoimprovements. I have some thoughts, the primary ones being that I was possibly premature in invoking consumer surplus as a factor, and that I implied intent on the part of suppliers when I didn't mean to. Other possibilities:

1. Manufacturers deploy the excessive product variation because they have relationships with many specialized retailers and not necessarily because of any knowledge of or intent to capture consumer surplus. It not clear that manufacturers always ask a higher price for pseudoimproved variants of their products. Plain Uno may cost the same as or more than Spongebob Uno in bulk.

2. Somewhere along the supply chain the unimproved product becomes disfavored. If consumers are presented with the choice and actively favor the improved good it is by definition not a pseudoimprovement--except to the vocal minority of old-fashioned Uno buyers. The unimproved good is squelched somewhere between manufacturer and consumer.

3. Retailers like Toys 'R' Us want to allocate just two slots to a product so they buy the girlie princess version and the boyish race car version, and there's no room left for the version that doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes. There's no reasoning based on price or sales comparisons.

4. There's a reason my examples involve co-branding; that's what I'm really talking about--with a negative bias--and pseudoimprovement is bunk. Marketing trials and studies unknown to my ignorant self have shown that consumers actively prefer co-branded crap.

I currently believe that 1 and 2 are likely; 3 is possible, and 4 is...I'm not sure. Another fictional example. Let's say I want an new iPod but when I go to the store all they have left is the U2 signature version and I'm not enough of a U2 fan to want that marking on my iPod, even at the same price. I leave to try another store. The pseudoimprovement reduced the value of the good below what I was willing to pay.

Now imagine that the only iPod left is a New York Mets version and I root for the Mets. I'd actually prefer the plain white iPod and I'm afraid I may have regrets later about buying a blue and orange iPod, but because I like the Mets more than U2 I decide to buy the iPod anyway and save myself the hassle of driving around to other stores. It's still a pseudoimprovement but it now falls on the other side of some indifference line and a sale is made.

Boiling this down, P is a pseudoimproved version of U; they are identical except in a narrow subjective sense. I was willing to purchase P even though I preferred U. I was willing to pay X for U, but I paid X for P even though I valued P less. I was willing to pay X for P + S, where -S is the remaining effort to obtain U. I think what that says is that an economic surplus (S) was born, but it went to the producer and not to the consumer. I'm probably wrong. I really need to get a text on microeconomics.

The pseudoimprovement hypothesis

2009-08-02T11:17:00.009-04:00

One thing that will become plain if this blog survives is that I am not an economist. The vast holes in my knowledge of the field cannot be completely spackled over with genuine interest and good intentions. I know enough to have an opinion; imagine that. With this background it would be wise to make posts on topics with an economics component that are short on argument and long on observation and maybe hypothesis. I'll try to stick to that. Someday perhaps one of the great econobloggers will notice this post and start a good argument.

I have noticed a marketplace phenomenon. It may already be well-known, just not by me, so I'm not sure what to call it. I hope I'm not embarrassing myself because this whole idea is on page 7 of some book I should know about. For now, let's call it the Pseudoimprovement Hypothesis.

Postulate: Modern marketing practice commends the perpetual improvement of goods in an attempt to better differentiate them or marginally increase profitability. Sometimes the improvement claimed is intangible to the consumer.

Definition: Pseudoimprovement is a subjective term indicating a product or marketing innovation that does not cause a consumer to prefer it over the unimproved product.

Hypothesis: If a good is associated with a consumer surplus, pseudoimprovement can be used by manufacturers and retailers to capture a small amount of consumer surplus by not offering the consumer a choice between the pseudoimproved good and the unimproved good. In other words, we will pay extra for zero benefit or even slight harm if (a) we have no choice and (b) the extra amount does not exceed what we were willing to pay anyway for the beneficial part of the product. The result of this that the unimproved versions of goods become scarce even if they are preferred.

To illustrate with a fictional example, imagine if General Mills went beyond putting Tiger Woods on the Wheaties box and started shaping the cereal flakes like little golf bags or perhaps Mr. Woods himself in mid-swing. At the retailer there is one shelf slot for Wheaties and this new innovation in flakes occupies it. Fortunately for our example, the cereal tastes the same and shoppers are almost completely indifferent about its shape. General Mills perceives the new campaign as a success, and while you might have chosen the original flake had both been on the shelf, you aren't put out or harmed by the substitution. The flake shape is a benign pseudoimprovement.

Can you be put out or even harmed by pseudoimprovement? Here's a real world example. I swung by Toys 'R' Us to pick up the card game "Uno" to play with my young daughter. Apparently, in the decades since I last played Uno it has been much improved. There's Pixar's "Cars" Uno, Sponge Bob Uno, and so on. You know what Toys 'R' Us didn't have on the shelf? Plain old classic Uno. Reluctant to leave empty-handed, I went for the Sponge Bob Uno. It turns out that Mattel has gone beyond simply putting Patrick and Gary and so forth on the face of the cards, they have added special rules--something called "jellyfishing"--and cards to the game. I didn't want the co-branding but accepted it. I also didn't want the task of learning the special rules and figuring out how to ignore them. This is a pseudoimprovement that puts me out. (Slightly. I'm not frivolous.)

According to Wikipedia there are now several dozen variants of Uno. Obviously Toys 'R' Us can't or shouldn't stock them all, but what role does the retailer play in promoting pseudoimprovement? I could go on all day about Toys 'R' Us. My daughter needs a new bike. It's been a while since I shopped for bicycles but apparently the Extreme Makeover people and the whole roster of HGTV have been around. Girls' bicycles are garish, co-branded, overdecorated disasters with impracticalities such as white tires and flower-shaped pedals. Every bike looks like it's covered with sugar glaze. Brainless themes like "puppy love," or "princess" are decaled all over the frame. In the good old days you could get a blue or green or pink bike and if you wanted to put a tennis ball in the spokes and airbrush the Van Halen logo on the frame or put G.I. Joe stickers all over it that was your business. Now you have to choose among various co-brands, each leaving little room for kids to place their own individual stamp. It's like being in Monty Python's cheese shop; they don't carry Cheddar.

While classic Uno is available on Amazon, as far as I can tell it may no longer be possible to buy a no-frills kids' bike. This is what worries me about the pseudoimprovement hypothesis, if true. Can it become impossible to get what you want because you are only offered products which are marred or damaged by a whole lot of what you don't want?

[Update: I've had a second look at the hypothesis here.]

Dumbest reason ever for starting a blog

2009-08-02T01:50:00.001-04:00

I liked the name. I had resisted blogging for so long. "What fluffy said" captures my present attitude so concisely that I couldn't let it pass. I can't imagine anyone will have found this post. If you have, please come back in a week for some more substantive content. Thanks Radley--and Patterico--for my new favorite phrase.