I would hope, over time, that people with moderate political views (most Democrats and Republicans) come to the realization that the Ratchet Effect  is the source of their unhappiness with government.

The varied interests that make up the political Right applies as much leverage as possible to society through legislation and other political/legal activity.  The Rachet Effect  predicts that there will be more extreme candidates and legal challenges coming from the Republican party only because a compromise (the crux of politics)  is a ‘win.’

Just like the Democrats, the Republican voters (whomever still bothers to go) get to pick from some ugly choices and get no representation for their vote.

The next step is more difficult regardless of your political affiliation.  What kind of social/political organization breaks the cycle described by the Ratchet Effect?

There are probably others though…

First, it’s true tubulars are better for the dedicated cyclocross racer.  Tubulars provide much lower rotational weight and reliability is improved in some conditions.   You can build lighter tubular wheels for much less money than clinchers too.  But damn they are a whole lotta work.

The article at VeloNews from a writer that claims the physics of riding clinchers are so different from tubulars that the laws of physics are altered.  To which he would reply, “Of course not!  ….”  and then alter his premise to be more specific and conveniently ignore the original ridiculous statement.

1. Somehow, tubulars offer ‘more traction’ in a way that requires clinchers to be knobbied.

This is a Sarah Palin argument.  It is purposely vague as to always be true.     But I’m just being a ‘big bummer’ by you know, collecting boring observable facts about these things.

2. Somehow a deep tread pattern is more important on a clincher.

The writer’s thinking is because one runs clinchers harder than sewups, somehow a deep tread becomes more important.  But there’s a bunch of clincher mountain bike tires/racers/history that says otherwise.  But that’s boring history.  It doesn’t promote the author’s position at all, so it isn’t relevant.

3. ‘If there’s no tread, generally, there’s not much traction.’

So, where does that leave most cross tubulars?  If we’re using the physical world as the reference point this statement is nonsense.  Last time I rode a bike, I was doing it in the physical world, not some logical construct that satisfies this statement.

The physics of bicycling suggests the clincher treads should be just like high-end not-mud tubulars and less like dirt motorcycle tires.  Clinchers are not special in this regard.

Please, don’t fall for his sophmore engineering logic.

Train better, race faster.

Welcome to the actual consequences of unfettered capitalism.  In the best economic situations, an Oligopoly serves the market, in the typical situation Duopoly/Monopoly firms control markets.  This is empirically evident regardless of the scale of observation. (local/regional/national)

People are making check cashing work for them now, so why change what isn’t broken?  Because it will inject more money into the economy.  Look at this presentation about banking in Central California.  The statistics clearly show there are banks, but few use them.

There’s an opportunity in between the commercial banks and the check cashing operations to lower banking costs for people who are employed and cannot afford retail banking.  They get a paper check and head to the check cashing store.   Then these people are getting reamed by check cashing operations.  In this day and age it is the peak of inefficiency.  It’s good Capitalism, at great expense to marginal consumers.

The USPS could offer consumer savings accounts and plain-vanilla debit card/checking services at monthly fees that decrease the more you save.  No credit operations.  They must offer limited services (especially limited access to paper currency) and be eternally forbidden from attempting to add more services beyond the gap between retail banking and check cashing operations.

Why the USPS?  Because they’ve got the bricks and mortar locations all over the country.  They’ve got very complex retail operation experience.  The post offices in my area have friendly, helpful people working in them.  The service is certainly better than the CSR’s Retail giants like Worst Buy and Target employ.

Would the JPMC’s and BofA’s in the U.S. decry this as ‘big government?’  Of course they would.  But they hate competition.  Check cashing operations would see a nominal decrease in customers because a check cashing store’s best customers would not/do not use banks anyway.

The scheme provides more efficiencies and opportunity for low-income people/families.  Low-income earners using the service would have more money to use as they see fit.  No question about it.

The idea will be legitimized when some Ivy League muckity-muck endorses it.

Good riddance.

For those who may not ‘get it’ right away.  Look at coverage from the  stage races  available over at Universal Sports. In most stages, breakaway finishes are orchestrated to the last 200 meters.  (far less than 1% of the entire race day) Two-way radios are critical to planning and executing those finishes.

More broadly speaking, it is very easy to claim that with two-way radios, the bicycle racer is equivalent to a race horse.   The jockey in this metaphor is the Director Sportif.  (DS) I would much rather have the race play out on the road with very limited interaction with the DS and the team thinking on the road.

As a very big fan of bicycle racing, I think it will make the racing *far* more interesting and I applaud the UCI’s decision.  No matter how much the DS’s whine, the UCI needs to stand firm and maintain a complete ban.

Now, if they can get a better handle on the drugs the sport would be perfect.  Oh, and I’d like a pony, $1 million,  and a new remote controlled toy car for Christmas too.

1. The server is off most of the time.  We just don’t use it very often and it doesn’t make sense to keep a dual-core PC running for no reason.
2. Manually update the tv schedule on my MythTV box. The attached script checks the date on a file and compares it to the current day.

mythtv manual schedule update

Attached script needs zap2xml to write the xml file(s).  Be sure to check your tuner id’s in the database and a couple of other adjustments will probably be required to have the script work for you.  But the fiddly bits about dates and MythTV commands are there.

It should be set up to run on login for your mythtv-backend session, and then perhaps as a cron job.

Questions? Leave them in the comments.

mythtv manual schedule update

I discovered that Disk Utility has what appear to be multiple restrictions on creating bootable disk images.  What you can do is burn an .iso image that is already configured to boot.  What you cannot do:

• Create/modify an iso/.cdr image that can boot on a PC.
• Make a disk image that will boot on a Mac.

As a system administrator, this is more Rights management shenanigans on the part of entertainment media distribution’s best customers Apple and Microsoft that prevent me from doing my job.

The competition for worst consumer computer operating system is now a two-horse race.  Let’s dispense with the drama and call it a tie.

In ‘light touch’ capitalism being practiced today, banks  are accustomed to using proprietary operations inside the bank to generate the bulk of their profits.  Mr. Volcker is calling for an end to those practices in this article.

It should be obvious that banking and finance should play a supporting role to economic activity.  It doesn’t when most of Finance’s profits come from inside the institution.  This inward view turns their own retail customers into carrion.  Retail investors don’t generate very attractive returns compared to proprietary operations.

It should be equally obvious that the Obama Administration’s deep and broad ties to the Financial elite make Volcker’s comments stir up counter-arguments of  ‘economic populism’ and other excuses to keep things exactly the way they are.

Still, Volcker’s position on this issue are valid and worthy of careful consideration.   Some ivy-league blogger should get on this story so it gets some play in to a point where Mr. Summers *has* to cede most of his influence to Mr. Volcker’s positions.

It’s actually kind of a corner-case scenario where one really needs the latest and greatest of any package.

I know I’m really pissing into the wind on this one, but leave your desktop distro alone if at all possible.  How about using it to contribute more back to your favorite distro?