Why the sudden resurgence of posts lately? Mostly because I’ve been using the latest beta of Windows Live Writer, and I’ve found it really helps blogging easy. I had tried it out when it first came out, but there were some things that bugged me - like how it made pictures really blurry. Things have improved since then, and there’s also a lot more plugins now on Gallery that make Writer even better.

If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot.

I’m away in Redmond. Avis offered me a Ford Taurus - but I asked for a slightly smaller card for ease of parking. The rep gave me a choice of a Ford Focus or a Hyundai Sonata - I’ve driven a Focus before, it’s fun - but I got the Sonata instead because I haven’t driven it before.

I have the V6 one, and it’s plenty powerful. The interior had a nice clean finish, with a layout that makes sense (unlike many other cars). The audio system was a little lacking, but again, still dramatically better than some of the other cars I’ve rented before. Actually what really impressed me was the trunk - even the lid was very nicely finished on the inside. Oh, it also didn’t seem to have much in the way of torque steer.

If I were considering a Honda Accord/Toyota Camry class car, I’d seriously consider this one. Especially since I discovered that it’s only $19,620 on CarsDirect with a heap of options (cruise control, moonroof, automatic headlights, trip computer, XM radio, power driver seat). Even worse, that’s just a mere $4,300 more than the Focus - which wouldn’t be nearly as nice (and be I4).

So what’s the catch? Anyone?

Personally I can’t buy it. It’s Front Wheel Drive - and FWD really bugs me. Slate has a good piece on “Why Front-Wheel Drive Sucks” - I agree especially about the “center of gravity” part. I’ve actually gotten somewhat car sick driving myself around in FWD cars - especially on the clover-leaf style ramps. On the other hand, the Volvo 240 that my parents had a long time ago, and my current car were much better.

That said apparently, Hyundai is building a RWD coupe. Hmm, I might just have to consider that. Especially if yet another window regulator fails in my car, like it did when I was getting the entry parking ticket at SJC.

Windows Live Folders Beta is live. Some of my friends worked on it. 500 megabytes of storage for you for free. Here’s the project’s blog.

Sign up today and start storing your user generated content (ugc) for your community so that you can have a conversation while you’re preparing your podcast on P2P, Ruby on Rails, iPhone, search engine optimization, and Web 3.0.

Ok, that last line was just to stuff a bunch of buzzwords together. Maybe you can find 500 megs of buzzwords to upload or something.

Last week I noticed that the (let’s call it) Foo process at Microsoft was really inefficient and seemingly out of date. That it had dramatic room for improvement.

I sat down, went through the Foo process, documented everything I thought was wrong with it, stuffed it into a PowerPoint deck, and then sent it off to Lisa Brummel, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources.

I got back a well written e-mail a few hours later, clearly written by Lisa herself. It provided some context of how we got into that state, some of the challenges that will occur in changing the Foo process, and a commitment to have the Foo-related team examine the situation to streamline it.

Though Microsoft is a 70,000+ company, it’s good to know that I can still have access to our execs.

On a completely random note, I think the photo from the corporate website (linked above) would’ve been better had it included Lisa’s famous shorts.

I don’t mean for this to become a real estate blog - there’s plenty enough already, but if there’s one thing that bugs me, it’s the incorrect use of statistics.

Recently I received a well intention e-mail that was a forward from Joe Brown, President of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Silicon Valley~Monterey Bay. A full version of the e-mail can be found here and other real estate websites, but here’s the part that really bugged me:

We are part of an area where jobs are very strong and the ability to buy a house is high.  The housing affordability index is now at 25% for California (up from 14% no so long ago).  This is greatly due to prices decreasing in outlying, less desirable areas of the state.  More particular to our local areas would be folks who are deciding that it is time to invest their fortunes in real estate.  When one gets a roof over his/her head, stability, and a tax write-off, sooner or later one realizes the excellent investment that real estate is.

I’ve bolded the part that I want to discuss. For those of you who aren’t familiar with why housing affordability for first time buyers is important, think of housing like a pyramid: first time buyers have to enter the market, so that people who own can sell their properties, and use that money to buy (presumably upgrade) to a bigger/better property. If the housing affordability index too low, it means that there aren’t enough potential first time buyers, which means the pyramid is endanger. Think of first time buyers as plankton (the graphic at the top btw.)

Ok, so now that we know why this index is important, let’s look at the numbers. It is claimed that affordability in California has gone up from 14% “no [sic] so long ago” to 25% now. Pretty dramatic, huh? This is excellent news right?

Well, let’s take a look at the press releases from where this data is derived:

That’s right - in the two time periods, the assumed downpayments went down, the purchase price went down, and interest rates went down as well. Hence, affordability went up dramatically.

To explain why that is, here’s the verbatim text from the press release for 2006:

The minimum household income needed to purchase a median-priced home at $548,430 in California in December was $134,200, based on an average effective mortgage interest rate of 6.33 percent and assuming a 20 percent downpayment.

…and for 2007:

The minimum household income needed to purchase an entry-level home at $480,670 in California in the first quarter of 2007 was $96,910, based on an adjustable interest rate of 6.3 percent and assuming a 10 percent down payment.

Ah hah. You see, in 2006, it was about purchasing a “median-priced home”, but in 2007, it is now about a “entry-level home”. 

Technically there’s nothing wrong with changing the assumptions. That’s fine. 

But is it really right to make this comparison?

The housing affordability index is now at 25% for California (up from 14% no so long ago).

One of the things that I find interesting, is how amongst people, perception often becomes reality - a sort of truthiness if you will. As a result, I find the story of “Telstar Logicistics”  somewhat amusing:

Telstar Logistics: What Is Telstar Logistics?

In the late 1980s, I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, where I drove a 1974 Dodge Tradesman 200 van. One day, I had an epiphany — if I disguised the van to look like a work vehicle, I’d be able to park in yellow-curb zones without getting parking tickets. After a trip to an art-supply store to buy some vinyl lettering, an ambiguous company name was created, the letters were applied to the sides of the van, and indeed, no tickets were received.

The fake company took on a life of its own. In 1987, I bought a new SUV, which was duly accessorized to look like a fleet vehicle, with yellow stripes on the tailgate, a cryptic vehicle number on the sides, and a police-style spotlight.

 This vehicle served me well throughout the 1990s, and I’m pretty confident that the commercial camouflage did much to help deter theft and vandalism while parked on the gritty streets of San Francisco’s Mission District.

That’s classic. Do enough of the right things, and people will believe who you say you are without question. It reminds me of this classic story about a random guy who ended up directing air traffic for over 2 days at a Coast Guard facility in NY.

It also reminds of the job I had in college. Back then, I was working 10-20 hours a week as a network engineer on campus, inspecting the cable plant, doing basic configurations of switches and hubs. As a result, I would often be carrying around a tool bag with cables spewing out of it, a clipboard, and a commercial grade walkie talkie. The walkie talkie was huge and looked just like this one:

It was the same model that the maintenance people, on campus EMS, and others carried. Especially with this radio, I found that I was able to go ask for access to all sorts of doors (that I needed legitimate access to) without question. In the dorms, some students would look through the peephole after I knocked, see the clipboard and the radio, and just let me in - without asking any questions.

A friend of mine caught onto this, and occasionally in the evenings, he would bust out his clipboard, and declare himself “Lobby Monitor” and ask all the people lounging in the lobby to sign in. And people would comply! (It probably helped that he was pretty tall too.)

I often think about these things when I look into trying to improve the phishing and social hacking problems that have become a common attack vector.

A tough problem to solve.

There’s not much I find watchable on TV. Most of the stuff I do watch tends to be on HBO. Now they have a new series called Flight of the Conchords. I finally got around to watching last week’s episode tonight, and I must say that after the first 4 minutes, I found it was the funniest thing I had seen all year.

Here’s a snippet of a review:

TV Review | Entertainment Weekly

HBO’s new comedy series, Flight of the Conchords, which follows the exploits of ”New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody duo,” is a simple bit of joy. Underacted, underproduced, understated, and underground in tone, Conchords features writer-actors Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement playing dimmer (one hopes) versions of themselves, as they attempt to break into the New York music scene. Bret and Jemaine have self-centered souls, childlike reasoning skills, and songs about diseased monkeys.

Here’s a clip:

It’s on HBO on Sundays, at 10:30pm.

A few people have sent me this link now, so I figured I’d share it with you: Overheard in New York.

Basically, it’s a collection of things overheard in… well… New York. It’s also available in a book form. Being that we live in a car culture (for the most part) here in Silicon Valley, it’s a lot harder to get classic quotes like this one:

Dumb teen: Hey, look at this! It says “Train for jobs in biotch.”
Smarter teen: Fool! That word is biotech. Why you gotta be ignorant all your life?

–1 train

and this one:

Local guy: Man, wake up, you look like you from Wall Street.
Awakened yuppie: Yeah, something like that.
Local guy: Well, you in the hood now! You better get on that [train across the platform] right away! –New Lots Avenue station
Overheard by: Satoru Ogawa

The author of the book and site, S. Morgan Friedman, is someone I knew in high school. Strangely, I only made the connection when I was searching for an inflation calculator, and found that the top result was the website I knew he owned after graduating. I then explored the site, and made the connection.

Have fun!