Gadgets and pricing

Some gadgets are cooler than others. This one, Sony Reader is on the better side of the world. The most shocking thing about electronic book reader is the pricing of the books. You can buy a mass market paperback on amazon.com for 7.99, usually in 4-for-3 discount, so you can get to 6 dollars easily (yeah, that's a half of what you pay in Czech Republic).
Electronically, it costs about $5 or more. That's just crazy. Where is promotional pricing? Where are the printing, storing, selling costs? Why would I buy DRM-protected book for $5, if I get a physical, paper copy for $6?
It looks like another good idea (e-books) will be killed by MBA/big CEO style pricing. A song costs $1, a TV show costs two, and these have negligible printing (etc.) costs. So just sell the books for $1-2 and you will sell them much much more. Because even people who just plan to read the book will buy it.

Driving lessons

I have a driving lessons. I learned how to drive in a car from 80s (Skoda 120L, you probably never heard about it, if you are not from Czechoslovakia). I had a stick, terrible (no boost) breaks, no boost control, no ABS, nothing. It was well preserved car, so it was possible to learn to drive (it was impossible to like it, though). Then I drove my father's car. If you have the choice to do that, never ever even thing about it.
My father's car was the same type, but in much worse shape. He drives it till today despite several (small, but not pleasant) accidents I had in it. After that, I just gave up on learning to drive.
Until I came to California. There is simply NOTHING to see without car here. The public transport is sparse if any, and the distances are such that nobody walks anywhere. Some crazy guys ride a bike (like me or my my local boss ), but if you want to see something (or I better say anything), you just have to drive.
My plan was to borrow a car and learn to drive with, but it was not a great plan, because, well, you need to get out of the parking lot.
But my landlady (she had 2 sons, so she knows how to teach driving) helped me. I started on the parking lot and slowly get to the highway in the night. Slower speeds and generally more thoughtful and experienced drivers helped, too. But the biggest help was the car - Toyota Prius. It is 3-4 years old but feels like new. Smooth, smart, efficient (40Mpg easily).
Today, I passed the ultimate test. I drove to the airport alone, and back, in a pitch black night. So if you want to practice driving, just come to California.

Hutka is an idiot

Jaroslav Hutka is an idiot*

So there is a guy, Czech singer, lets call him Mr. X. This guy was a singer basically whole his life, even during communism. Many of his friends in the entertainment left Czech Republic to live free. He stayed. He could not see them. He could not talk to them. He could not travel (as most of the Czechs at that time) to visit them.
But he got an offer. Go and see them and then tell "us" how they are doing. If it where your cousin asking you to visit your grandma and tell him back how she is doing, you wouldn't hesitate, right? Right.
He probably did hesitate (but who can really now), because it was not his cousin asking but a secret state police. They ask him to report on his friends living abroad. No, no real secrets, just how they live. His friends weren't any important (it terms of military or technology influence). They were just signers like him.
So there he is, 20 years back, facing the choice. Can I see them, talk to them, possibly last time for the rest of our lives, but only if I report what they have for breakfast and where they live. Or not - don't see them, possibly ever.
Oh, wait a second. Maybe the secret police could send these friends friends to gulags or prison or uranium mines, right? Wrong, these friends lived in the West, free and democratic countries and the whole point of this "reporting" back was that the secret police could not get (at a reasonable cost) at them, or even to cause them a significant harm. Definitely not as easily as they could to anybody in the Czechoslovakia, at that time. "Reporting" on people living withing a Czech Republic is, IMHO, much severe thing, because there is a possible immediate harm. Not so reporting on those living in the west.
In an ideal world, one would probably consider this matter hard and it is possible that some people would reject it. Most people would not and it is understandable - you do not cause any harm to them (just to your conscience, possibly). In an ideal world, there would be no secret police, of course, so you would not face this problem anyway. But this is not an ideal world. So Mr.X. made a choice. He went to a visit and reported back.
He probably did not feel good about it (who would?). He even might have regretted it. But he did it and there is no way how to take it back.
OK, 20 years are gone. Those who had left the republic could come back, the democracy is here and even though it sometime sucks, live is good, right?
Not really. Some people found about all this and since this guy is publicly known, they inform the public. No, the guy is not a politician, he is not a judge or policemen (there, cooperating with STB seems OK). He is just a guy who sings and writes his song. If you don't want to listen to him, you don't have to. If you don't like our current president (e.g.) your problem. If you don't like Mr.X's songs, just don't buy his CD. So what's the big deal?
Obviously, some people thing that now is the payback time. This is the time where Mr.Y writes a song about how terrible, terrible Mr.X. is. Why not, right? Who cares that it is 18 years old news? Who cares that Mr.X. did not cause (nor intended to) any harm to anybody? Can everyone be so certain that s/he would do the "morally right" decision (if there is one)? Did we faced that situation/choice? Maybe you did. I did not. Nor did Mr.Y., because he left (or have been made to leave) the republic. If this guy Mr.Y thinks he is better, couldn't he just let go? Forgive?
No, he could not. He probably has a new album out and any news is a good news.
So this makes me wonder. Who is worse? A guy who makes maybe a questionable decision under pressure from the secret police, or a guy who kicks this guys as much as he can, on his free will?
The answer is clear. Mr.Y. actions talk about his moral standards more than anything I could imagine. This would not be a bad thing, if it did not hurt other people.


...is an idiot is a catchy phrase borrowed from a TV show, it is not meant to be particularly offensive.

Thinking out of the box

This expression describes creative thinking, something more then usual. Yet, it is basically an euphemism for just "thinking". We basically call "not thinking" "thinking" and "thinking" is called "thinking out of the box". Sure, nobody wants to hear that s/he is not thinking, even though s/he is not. The usual "thinking" is simply applying traditional (ie. old), well-know methods to solve a problem, that is basically not thinking. Maybe the time when computers will be able to "think" is not far away. The only value of people will then be in "thinking out of the box". It's a pity that it hurts so much, isn't it?

Writers on strike

Writers are on strike. For the first time since 1988 and it looks like it will last. The strike has immediate impact on daily shows, which are based on recent news (like Colbert report. If the strike goes on for long time, it will impact also weekly show, who have some, but rather small, reserves.
The strike is, in some sense, the usual one. Employees of a firm take customers as a hostage in negotiations with the firm for higher pay and what not. But it may also teach the consumers something. It shows that the actors, who are usually VERY well paid are not the important guys. Yes, somebody has to play the roles, but that is similar to the fact that somebody has to write to tell them what to play. And yet the former receive huge wages, occupy front pages of magazines and bother us with their life stories.

Prediction markets?

Prediction markets are a hot topic among economist (good choice, Katka).From "what is it?" to "everybody knows it works" in a couple of years is impressive. The latest prediction market is Predictify and you can, of course, try for free how good you are in predicting things. It's a cool idea, but there are couple of reason why I think (predict;-) it fail.
First, predicting is free. The only thing you actually risk is your reputation, which is not much. Of course, there is a liquidity problem (you need to attract a lot of people, hopefully plenty of those who have an idea what they are actually answering), so this is probably necessary and it is not the main problem.
Other problem is the lack of interesting questions. After a couple of weeks from the take-off, the trivial ones (who will be the next president of the USA) were already asked and often are buried deep in the "trash" of question like "What will be Rotten Tomato Scores of movie X", where X goes through all premiers plan for this fall. Since it is hard to distinguish good (=interesting) and bad (boring) questions, and since there is much more of the latter ones, the relevant question are unlikely to get large audience. It does not help much that by asking (for free) questions you get points for your reputation. It is good for attracting new questions, bad for attracting good ones.
Also, the number of people who can answer is limited to 100 for free question and there is a fixed price for answer in paid questions ($1 per answer). Regardless where these fees end up, you have a bunch of people who play a lottery with your money. They get the tickets for free and these tickets cost YOU dollar a piece.
I don't know what is the best way to fix these problems (or if there is any), so I'm not suggesting any. It is certainly a nice attempt, unfortunately I cannot believe that it will be successful.

Discrimination

The US is the country of discrimination. No, I'm not talking about racial discrimination - I haven't seen any, so I can't really tell. I mean price discrimination.
First, it is everywhere. And it is huge. And it has many levels.
It starts with "club cards". Many shops offer (excessively) high prices, but reduce them significantly for members of their "club". It is usually free and requires your address etc.Even with this card, some discounts apply only if you buy larger quantities (but not always, even when you see 4 for $4 you pay $1 for 1, regardless how much you buy).
Then, there are coupons. There is plenty of them. The discount differs based on how difficult it is to get them. The easiest are available at the stand with the particular food - you just take it. Others come in the mail or with Sunday newspapers. Some of those can be copied or doubled, but those really valuable cannot. Some even impose minimal purchase.
Also, there are hidden offers. Starbucks has "short" coffee that you cannot find on their menu, but you can ask for it. It contains less water but the same amount of coffee as the "tall", but is cheaper. Similarly, Amazon has offer that are almost impossible to find - sometimes offered by other sellers on Amazon marketplace.
There are also mail-in-rebates, which take long time to get the discount, but sometimes it is significant.
Last, but not least, there are various time-limited offers, offering various discounts. One of the most famous is woot.com, the type one day, one offer, where they sell limited quantities for really discounted prices. Except you do not know what they will sell tomorrow and how fast it will be gone.
This is an example of a developed market. There are very rich customers around here, who simply do not care and thus pay high price and poor ones who do. Price discrimination allows one shop to serve both and make nice profit on both.

Tmou - Prahory

As a founding member of the "legendary" team Prahory, I'm happy to see that they finally managed to win also legendary Tmou . I could not play with them this year (and maybe that's why they won), but I'm still happy for them (us?). My dream right now is to win the next year (10th) with them.
Their victory and comments on the Tmou's forum made me wonder how different is an experience of players in team like Prahory, basically always aiming for the victory or at least top 10 (5?) positions and "the rest" of the field, teams that quit in the middle, most of them never finished any game etc. One thing is clear - none of them is "better". Playing for fun makes sense as well as playing for victory.

Cars

There is always medium traffic on the road I take to (and back from) the UCSD. There is also usually heavy traffic on the I-5, 7 lane highway going in the same direction. Now what do you think that happens if they close the I-5 because of the bomb threat?
I'm faster home than people in cars...

Free Food

I always thought that my everyday quest after the ultimate source of free food was specific to my preferences, while in fact, it is specific to my status of a PhD. student. I feel much happier now, knowing I'm not nuts and/or alone. Moreover, there is some chance that one day, it will be over.