Explaining randomness

Once again, let me stress that I did not make this up:

Thanks, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It's nice when a point is made so succintly.

The point, you may ask? Yes, the point. Explaining what is essentially a random phenomenon: the everyday up and down motion of the stock market.

On any given day, all else being equal, the stock market exhibits what is known as a random walk. There are so many people interacting in the market, and they have so many different motivations and points of view, that the cumulative effect is random.

There are obvious exceptions. When the markets re-opened after the September 11 attacks, you could explain the downward movement pretty easily (people are freaked out and selling like crazy). But then you get hooked on "knowing" what caused the market to move the way it did that day, and then you want to explain market movements every day. Once the market went back up, or at least didn't lose much one day, people were "bargain hunting". If the market goes up for a while and then dips, people are "profit taking".

Which is great, except that more often than not there aren't news items that would impact market movement, so you're left explaining randomness.

My advice: stop it. I realize all the people on the news need something to say, but once you guys start blatantly contradicting yourselves likes this, maybe it's time to pull back the reins a bit.

This randomness also underlines why it's so important to be a long term investor. I don't have time to worry day to day about what the goddamn Nikkei average is doing, or whether the European central bank cut interest rates. I just want to know that in 50 years, when I die at work (because retirement is for wusses), my hot ass trophy wife will have something to live off of before she marries an orthodontist.

Apologies in advance to Mrs. Bart, as I don't think she was aware of my octogenarian trophy wife plan. To be fair it only recently came together. Just consider this a reminder to my contemporaries to lock up their granddaughters in about 45 years.

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CofE pulls a Fonzie

Is it possible for an entire religious denomination to jump the shark?

The Church of England is going to find out.

I don't know what's worse: the new prayer itself, or the fact that it has caused web traffic at the CofE's website to spike. What's the conversation that culminates in someone visiting this web site?

"Dear, I've got a bit of a dilemma on my hands."

"What's that, love?"

"I want to pray for the solvency of our financial institutions and easing up of inflationary pressures, because I assume an omniscient deity might not entirely understand how important those issues are to our everyday lives."

"Go ahead and pray, then."

"I'd like to, but I don't want to cock it up." (Blogger's note: I assume that's how British people talk.)

"How's that?"

"I reason I only have one chance at swaying the Almighty, and I want to get it right the first time. If I stutter or wander off-topic he mightn't take me seriously."

"Well, you're in luck, my duck. You recall that we're regular attendees at the Church of England?"

"Too well, I do. Thank God that our beloved Henry VIII brought us out from under the unruly thumb of the Roman Papacy in 1534 AD."

"Yes, that was a close call. At any rate, the same Church of England that Henry VIII established has now provided the very guidance you seek."

"Tell me more!"

"Indeed I shall. Simply visit the moderately holy official website of the Church of England, and you can find the new 'Prayer for the Current Financial Situation.' It's guaranteed to please Our Lord, and has a better than average chance of bringing about the result you desire."

"Outstanding!"

"Yes, but be sure to do it quickly. As the financial situation changes, the exact wording of the prayer may need to be adjusted. Hedge funds alone present such a thorny theological problem that it will take the General Synod some time to determine the most efficient liturgical course of action."

"To Coventry Cathedral!"

So, yeah. I hope you Anglicans are enjoying your crazy-ass Archbishop of Canterbury.

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It's official: MSN still sucks

In a pinch, they say you should write what you know. And I know that MSN sucks.

Observe a recent snapshot of their home page:

What's so bad about it? Look closer:

Hey, bear-mauled girl, why not chic up your bear-mauling-ravaged face? It's only takes like 5 minutes to look sexy!

Poor thing... so squinty and... mauled... having to deal with the ignominy of being on MSN...

Bear-mauled girl deserves better. We all deserve better.

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Democrats, Mormons, and Sci Fi Fans, take note

Orson Scott Card is a Democrat, Mormon, and Sci Fi writer. And he's giving it to the press but good.

I guess it's no secret that the mainstream media are totally in the bag for Barry and the Dems, but when you take in the full sweep of it like this, it can catch you by surprise.

I can't say it any better than Orson, so y'all enjoy.

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Some travel notes

Yes, it's been a while since I posted. I should mention two mitigating factors: First, that I recently began a new position at work, and figured out that I needed to work way longer hours, at least up front; Second, that two weeks ago, I got "the call".

I've determined that there are three kinds of calls you can't ignore: God, Country, and Family. I was thinking of excluding any atheists out there from the God call, but let's be honest - if you're a committed atheist, and a deity decides to say hi, you should probably pay extra attention. At any rate, I got "the call" (although I'm not saying which one), and am now slowly getting readjusted to regular life this week.

I do have some travel notes to share, however. When passing through airport security at 5:30 AM, I came across a TSA officer who was so perky and had such a great attitude that I had to realign my thinking. Before, I was tired and in no damn mood. After this officer said it was good to see me, and thanked me for flying, and hoped to see me again soon, I actually felt good about paying that "security fee" in the cost of my plane ticket. Simply amazing.

When flying back to DFW, I watched 'Get Smart', which was better than I expected. At least the price is right. Then, the pilot episode of 'Gary Unmarried', the new Jay Mohr vehicle, played. I'm a Jay Mohr fan (his book was great) so I had already TiVo'd and watched the pilot. It was fine, but I didn't rate it a must-watch.

At some point during the episode, a little ball bearing of doubt started rattling around in my brain. Something wasn't right. I started to pay more attention to the screen, and quickly figured out what was amiss: the character that, in the 'Gary Unmarried' pilot that I had seen, was played by Ed Begley, Jr., was, in this version of the pilot, being played by comedian Larry Miller. "Wait," I thought, "maybe Begley was only in the pilot, and Larry Miller replaced him in subsequent episodes." I kept watching. No, it was definitely the same pilot episode. Same dialogue, same plot, different actor. I figured there were two possibile explanations:

1. The plane flew into another dimension, Langoliers style; a dimension where Larry Miller got the part instead of Begley. Ideally, everything else was the same in this dimension, but I wouldn't know until later.

2. The pilot was initially filmed with one of the actors, and was later re-shot with the other actor. Further research would be required to figure out which actor was edited out.

It turns out the answer was #2. Which made me very happy, because I was in no mood for dealing with alternate dimensions. And although I like Larry Miller quite a bit (he's a frequent guest on the Adam Carolla show), I think Begley is a better fit for the part.

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Texas Instruments does it again

I previously posted a critique of Texas Instruments' recruiting material. Go ahead, refresh your memory. It's been a few months.

Got it?

Well, they've done it again. Damn them.

I'd like you to know that normally I don't pick up crappy-ass periodicals like 'D Magazine', mostly because they're pieces of crap. However, I was given a free one at a trade show, and made the mistake of leafing through it.

There was horrible thing after horrible thing in there. Ads for law firms in which all of their lawyers look like jackasses. Spreads depicting men's fashions that assume you're down with paying several hundred dollars for a belt. (I swear to Christ I would never hire anyone dressed like any of the people in that feature.)

This is the kind of magazine that has those terrible "Top 40 Under 40" lists. Doctors, lawyers, you name it. Yech.

So I was already in a bad mood when I saw this:

Yet again, T.I., you demonstrate that you are incredibly diverse. Approximately half of your workforce are women, and approximately half are black. Just like in your recruiting material. WE GET IT.

Apparently they laid off their one Asian. I guess Hiro got a better job offer. Admittedly, laying off your one Asian employee is a bold move for a tech company. Maybe they're mavericks like John McCain.

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This band's publicist did not do his job

Mrs. Bart has been kind enough to pick up the Starbucks / iTunes "Pick of the Week" cards for me. Apparently Starbucks Corporate stopped shipping them to the one near my work. Go figure.

Most of the pictures on the cards fall into one of 3 categories:

-Straightforward picture of the singer / band
-Artsy picture of the singer / band that works
-Artsy picture of the singer / band that doesn't work

After getting hold of last week's card, I have decided to add a 4th category:

-Picture of the singer / band that was originally taken for a gay interest magazine

The band in question is Noah and the Whale. The picture in question:

 

Seriously,the first thing I thought when I saw this picture was that this band's publicist simply did not do his job. According to this picture, these guys are officially the gayest people on the planet. Gayer than people who are deliberately trying to appear gay. Even if the genre of this band is "Gay Porn Soundtrack", this picture should be far too gay for them.

I don't know if it's the gay outfits, or the gay facial expressions, or all the man-on-man touching, but this picture is so incredibly gay that it defies description.

Incidentally, their genre, per Wikipedia, is folk rock. If it was pop, or emo, or the aforementioned gay porn soundtrack, I would sort of get it, but still think the picture was over the top. But folk rock? Not buying it. I am officially ordering Noah and the Whale to switch to a gayer genre.

Unless these guys were coked out of their minds, they should have told their publicist / their label's publicist / their photographer / SOMEONE that, hey, even though we're way into dudes, we can't countenance this level of gayness being released to the general public.

It's like that supercollider in Europe that people are trying to shut down because it could create little black holes that eat up the planet. This picture is such ultra-dense gayness that it could create little pockets of gayness throughout the globe that end up (1) making certain cities, towns, and countries far more fabulous than they currently are, and (2) destroying human civilization.

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Bill O'Reilly is the man

I'm getting such a kick out of watching Bill O'Reilly give the business to Barney Frank.

Of course, it's not the first time "Papa Bear" Bill has gone nuts on an openly gay Democrat.

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