Dvorak News Blog

7 out of 10 clunkers traded in on US-built cars

By Eideard Friday August 7, 2009

Click on the picture to see where they’re made

Congress has passed a $2 billion extension of the popular “cash for clunkers” program, clearing the legislation for President Barack Obama’s signature. The Senate passed the extension Thursday evening. The House approved the measure last week.

Lawmakers made sure to keep the popular program alive before heading home for a monthlong vacation.

Acting with unusual haste, the Senate readied a $2 billion fill-up Thursday night for “cash for clunkers,” the economy-boosting program that caught the fancy of car buyers and instantly increased sales for an auto industry long mired in recession.

Supporters of the program hailed its effect on the auto industry — which had its best month in nearly a year in July — as well as its claimed environmental benefits.

“The reality is this is a program that has been working. Consumers believe it’s working. Small business people believe it’s working. People who make steel and aluminum and advertisers … and everyone who’s involved in the larger economic impact of the auto industry believe it is working,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

The legislation had its share of critics, though, most of them Republicans.

The average replacement car gets almost 10mpg better than the clunker it replaced. All but one were compact and medium-size cars – and the trade-ins were almost all SUV’s and trucks.

Guys, Are You Going On A Date Tonight? Want To Know If You’ll Have Sex?

By Uncle Dave Friday August 7, 2009

12 Comments

Click pic to embiggen and learn your fate

DU dating tip of the day: Don’t let your woman see this. If she does, no matter what the chart says, the answer is no.

Another Recession Effect — The Baby Un-boom

By Uncle Dave Friday August 7, 2009

32 Comments

Did you know that the cost of not using birth control has risen to $221K? There’s even an on-line calculator to determine the cost of raising jr.

For the first time since the decade began, Americans are having fewer babies, and some experts are blaming the economy.

“It’s the recession,” said Andrew Hacker, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “Children are the most expensive item in every family’s budget, especially given all the gear kids expect today. So it’s a good place to cut back when you’re uncertain about the future.”

In 2007, the number of births in the United States broke a 50-year-old record high, set during the baby boom. But last year, births began to decline nationwide, by nearly 2 percent, according to provisional figures released last week.

Those figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, indicate that births declined in all but 10 states in 2008 (most of them in a Northern belt where the recession was generally less severe) compared with the year before. Over all, 4,247,000 births were recorded in 2008, 68,000 fewer than the year before.
[…]
Early figures for 2009 appear to confirm the correlation with the recession. As more families were feeling the effects of layoffs and economic uncertainty, births decreased even faster.
[…]
“That’s what happened in the Great Depression,” Professor Coontz said, “and although in some periods since then, we have sometimes seen women decide to have a baby if they get laid off, that decision is usually only made if the husband is working and his job seems secure.

No Agenda Netcast #119 – Now On Cage Match

By KD Martin Thursday August 6, 2009

8 Comments

Click image to go to No Agenda.

John and Adam discuss the news of the day from an international perspective

Queue / cue / Q the closing credits — We hope you enjoy the show!

No Agenda Archive

Running time: approx. 90 mins.

Psycho “Radio Host” Minister Preaching about Nuke Under Washington DC

By John C Dvorak Thursday August 6, 2009

41 Comments

New Wine Ministry — This guy, who apparently only shows up on two stations, is spewing this pitch 24/7 on the net. If he knows all this then he should be arrested immediately and grilled. This should bring everyone’s attention to the growing “New Wine Ministries,” a Pentecostal spin-off.

Americans will be roaming through the streets. The Lord has shown this writer that America will be known as a NATION OF REFUGEES. People will be roaming to and fro from one city to another seeking shelter and rest. The Lord said what we saw in New Orleans after the hurricane called Katrina hit, will become a national reality. Just as those people fled from their destroyed city to other cities, so shall it be in the days ahead. Because of the several nuclear detonations, natural disasters and other terrorist related incidents in major cities across America on the same day, millions will be wandering from sea to shinning sea looking for a place of safety and rest.

Found by Bruce Lee.

Wikipedia Reveals Answers to Rorschach Test

By McCullough Thursday August 6, 2009

29 Comments

Rorschach_blot_01

Scientific American — The current digital motto “information wants to be free” is creating many unanticipated consequences. Here’s a recent one concerning psychology.

Last month a Canadian physician posted to Wikipedia all 10 inkblots of the Rorschach test. After all, the images were made publicly available more than 30 years ago. The test, perhaps surprisingly given its controversial history, is still used to decipher various psychoses. A person’s interpretation of the inkblot can lead to a conclusion of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality.

But along with the inkblots came captions posted by an Italian Wikipedia editor listing the most popular answers to what people see in the cryptic symmetrical images (for example, moths, various sea creatures, beastly skin.) And we all know that having the answers before a test renders it futile. A debate has erupted with Wiki editors removing, and then quickly replacing, the images.

So Wikimedia administrators are currently restricting edits to the page until disputes are settled. For now though, the frozen page reveals all inkblots and answers.

I see Jesus fighting a giant chicken… does that make me crazy? What do you see? Remember, no cheating.

Sales Up Up Up!

By John C Dvorak Thursday August 6, 2009

11 Comments

John Quincy Adams is a Twitterer? Yes!
Nasty Memory leak in Windows 7 RTM. Yikes!
Microprocessor sales are up.
Adobe to kill low-end Photoshop. A shame.
MSFT Bing making hay with fake pharmacies.
New camera does all the work for you.
Forrester says e-reader hinges on women.
Confirmed: Office.com now an MSFT property.
Free Wi-Fi wanes.
Controversy over who saved Apple. What??
Shows sponsored by squarespace.com code word: TECH. Over the weekend use Avis. Go to Avis.com/tech5

click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

Twitter Crippled by Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack

By hhopper Thursday August 6, 2009

13 Comments

Twitter was inaccessible for several hours on Thursday morning, followed by a period of slowness and sporadic time-outs (and more outright downtime). The company is blaming an “ongoing” denial-of-service attack but has not said anything further. Facebook has also confirmed that it was targeted by a DoS attack that rendered some of its features slow or non-functional.

“We are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly,” Twitter’s staff posted at 6:43 a.m. PDT on the service’s status blog.

Then, around 7:49 a.m. PT, the company posted, “We are defending against a denial-of-service attack and will update status again shortly.”

Around 8:15 a.m., the status blog post was updated with “The site is back up, but we are continuing to defend against and recover from this attack.”

Twitter is pretty unstable to begin with. I wouldn’t think it would take much to overload it.

The PA. Gym Killer, In His Own Words

By Uncle Dave Thursday August 6, 2009

128 Comments

You can read some of Sodini’s diary entries. You have to wonder, given our culture, how many more like him are out there, future killers or not.

The sexually frustrated killer who gunned down three women in a Pennsylvania health club, then committed suicide, blogged his preparations, with the final chilling entry announcing the “big day.”

George Sodini burst into the LA Fitness Gym in Bridgeville, near Pittsburgh, late on Tuesday and sprayed 36 bullets into a Latin dance class, hitting 12 people. On the eve of the killings, he wrote: “Took off today, Monday, and tomorrow to practice my routine and make sure it is well polished…. Tomorrow is the big day.”
[…]
The blog, which Supt. Moffatt said was being treated as genuine and was quickly pulled off the Internet, reveals the sinister, often banal mind of a man crippled by sexual frustration, anger at women, and depression.

It listed his date of death, Aug. 4, 2009, and his status of “never married” and ended with the words “Death Lives.”

A picture of Mr. Sodini, 48, attached to the blog shows a lean, white male with slightly greying hair and wearing a smart blue shirt.

The police chief said the blog clearly showed “the hatred in him” and computer sleuths were looking into whether anyone saw the blog and if so, why they failed to report it.

Rupert Murdoch plans to charge for the Web, sue everyone!

By Eideard Thursday August 6, 2009

33 Comments

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Stung by a collapse in advertising revenue as the recession shredded Fleet Street’s traditional business model, Murdoch has declared that the era of a free-for-all in online news was over.

“Quality journalism is not cheap,” said Murdoch. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”

What does “quality journalism” have to do with Murdoch’s tabloids?

The Australian-born press and television baron was speaking as his News Corporation holding company slumped to a $3.4 billion net loss for the financial year to June, hit by huge writedowns in the value of its assets, restructuring charges and a dive in commercial revenue…

At present, only the Wall Street Journal charges a fee for online access and until recently, received wisdom in the publishing industry was that readers would not pay to read newspapers on the internet…

He accepted that there could be a need for furious litigation to prevent stories and photographs being copied elsewhere: “We’ll be asserting our copyright at every point…”

The group’s television division, including its Fox stations in the US and Star networks in Asia, saw profits fall from $1.12bn to $174m.

His plan to sue everyone should deliver about as much of a return as it did for the RIAA.

Saddam’s Palaces Opulent? Ha! You Haven’t Seen The Dallas Cowboys’ New Stadium!

By Uncle Dave Thursday August 6, 2009

42 Comments

You almost need to be a millionaire just to sit in the cheap seats. Guess they gotta pay for all this somehow.

I saw the definition of American excess, and it was simultaneously magnificent and borderline disgusting in its lavishness.

If you’re looking for Memorial Stadium-style character and old-school charm, you won’t find it at Cowboys Stadium. If you’re looking for a complex constructed for the video age — note the 160-by-72-foot video board hanging from the roof — check out Jerry’s joint.
[…]
You almost have to see it to believe it. There are carpeted hallways throughout the arena. Padded leather seats in sections other than suites. An 18,000-square-foot gift shop. Cowboyrita drinks for 14 bucks a pop. A total of 3,000 Sony high-definition televisions throughout the arena, with plans to add 2,000 more before the 2011 Super Bowl.

Tuesday’s tour took our group into a suite that can be leased for $800,000 a year — which doesn’t include the price of game or event tickets but does offer a large pizza for $90 (no toppings), 12-packs of domestic beer for $66 apiece and a four-pack of Red Bull for $22, among other ridiculously priced items.

At least it didn’t need a government bailout to finish. It didn’t, did it?

How You’re Getting Screwed In The Stock Market

By Uncle Dave Thursday August 6, 2009

36 Comments

This article is about five reasons the stock market may go down this fall. The first point demonstrates how the average guy can’t compete there anymore and why your 401K or IRA is screwed.

1) High Frequency Trading Programs account for 70% of market volume

High Frequency Trading Programs (HFTP) collect a ¼ of a penny rebate for every transaction they make. They’re not interested in making a gains from a trade, just collecting the rebate.

Let’s say an institutional investor has put in an order to buy 15,000 shares of XYZ company between $10.00 and $10.07. The institution’s buy program is designed to make this order without pushing up the stock price, so it buys the shares in chunks of 100 or so (often it also advertises to the index how many shares are left in the order).

First it buys 100 shares at $10.00. That order clears, so the program buys another 200 shares at $10.01. That clears, so the program buys another 500 shares at $10.03. At this point an HFTP will have recognized that an institutional investor is putting in a large staggered order.

The HFTP then begins front-running the institutional investor. So the HFTP puts in an order for 100 shares at $10.04. The broker who was selling shares to the institutional investor would obviously rather sell at a higher price (even if it’s just a penny). So the broker sells his shares to the HFTP at $10.04. The HFTP then turns around and sells its shares to the institutional investor for $10.04 (which was the institution’s next price anyway).

In this way, the trading program makes ½ a penny (one ¼ for buying from the broker and another ¼ for selling to the institution) AND makes the institutional trader pay a penny more on the shares.

And this kind of nonsense now comprises 70% OF ALL MARKET TRANSACTIONS. Put another way, the market is now no longer moving based on REAL orders, it’s moving based on a bunch of HFTPs gaming each other and REAL orders to earn fractions of a penny.

Fox News Host Losing An Argument With A Democrat? Time For Breaking News About…

By Uncle Dave Wednesday August 5, 2009

75 Comments

How exactly does a self-respecting conservative watch Fox News and not be disgusted by the way the network functions?

Internet Addict Beaten to Death at Rehab Center — by Staff!

By John C Dvorak Wednesday August 5, 2009

10 Comments

Google buys video compression company.
Apple censors dictionary.
Win7 “Showstopper” bug crops up. Uh, oh!
Microsoft now sees Linux as a desktop threat.
NFL bans Twitter.
MSFT gets 400 Yahoo employees. Yahoo gets money.
Cisco profits slip.
Toshiba does 64GB SD memory.
Acer expands in consumer electronics.
Chinese teen beaten to death by staff at rehab center in China.
Shows sponsored by squarespace.com code word: TECH.

click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

Have your hump with or without gravy?

By Eideard Wednesday August 5, 2009

23 Comments

Business owners and environmentalists in Australia are promoting camels as a source of meat to battle an explosion of the country’s camel population.

The Daily Telegraph (Britain) said Tuesday that environmentalists support the stance of business owners like Garry Dann, whose slaughterhouse in Australia’s Northern Territory has added camel meat to its production line.

“I know blokes who all their lives have meat for breakfast, lunch and tea, and they wouldn’t know the difference between camel meat and beef,” Dann said.

“Camels can handle Australia’s dry conditions and they are a good source of low cholesterol protein,” he added.

The camel population in Australia has already exceeded more than a million and is expected to double in size every eight to 10 years.

OTOH, there’s at least one American Talking Head who has her shorts all in a bunch over camelcide.