First, Bitch means a "female dog". I think everyone knows that.
Then as an insult, this was thrown at some unfortunate woman in the long lost past and it stuck. So, for many years, it was a pretty bad insult that might get you a slap in the face if you called someone it openly. If you were bitching about something, then you were really complaining.
And recently, well, it's now something else. There are those that say the word in a jaw dislocating way so that it's now "bee-atch", which I find fairly tiresome. It's taken on a whole S&M subservient slave connotation. It's a word of power, if someone is your bitch, then they do what you tell them to. But between friends, it's seen by some as a conspiratorial term of endearment, like you are a party-animal or something, or perhaps a bit moody.
And on blogs of late I have seen it as replacement, almost, for the word "everyone". It is an exclamation after a word or phrase, to add emphasis. For example, "Gold... bitches!"
I'm over all of it. I think the word has peaked. I'm hoping it will recede into the background as quickly as it's risen to prominence - like "bad" (meaning good) or "whatever" (meaning I don't care). Mind you, if it does this it will probably because it has been replaced by something even more irritating. I don't know what it will be exactly, but my kids like to use "random" instead of bad (meaning bad). That's...er.. fairly random, so whatever, bitches.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Gold - Part 1
Gold.
What do you think of, immediately, when you read that word and think of gold? What image is conjured in your mind?
Is it of an overflowing treasure chest, perhaps recently dug up by a very happy pirate? Or perhaps of Fort Knox, with stacks ceiling high of shiny gold bars? Or maybe of the wealth of royalty and the church - crowns, chalices and crosses?
If you thought of any of these things, or something like it, then you would probably be normal! The interesting thing about all of these images or perceptions of gold are that it's a) Very valuable and b) practically unobtainable by normal people.
Here is the thing though, at this point in time gold is not particularly valuable and is obtainable by anyone. You may think that US$1200/AUD$1400 or so (as of when I write this) is a lot of money. However, it isn't when you think of the wealth of kings or the church, or to look at it in another way, compared to the $ value of debt in the world. If you think of the cost of the average house, you could buy many kilos of gold for this. So, the perception that gold is unobtainable is currently false. I say currently, because it is quite possible that this perception may become reality in the future.
The other interesting thing about how most people view gold is that they do NOT view it as money. Some gold coins are stamped with a dollar value, but that is so low compared to the cost of the metal content nobody in their right mind would trade a coin for paper currency. No, gold is not considered currency. You can not pay your electricity bill with it.
It is worth pointing out that in Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation has destroyed the local currency, gold is a currency. Grains of gold can be used to by groceries. When things go very, very badly wrong with the paper currency, gold can be used. Why would people trust it more than paper? Well, in Zimbabwe's case they simply added more zeros to the paper until it was worthless. Gold can not be wished into existence, it must be mined and this takes effort. It's rarity and lack of manipulated supply is part of it's allure.
While I'm on that line of thought, what makes gold special? Why do people like it, or value it? This is worth trying to understand, as it will have an impact on the value of gold in the future as events play out. As just mentioned, limited supply is one factor. What else? Well, as a member of the Periodic Table of Elements, gold is a fundamental particle, and can not be manufactured. People have tried, for years, and you just can't do it (unless you have something like the LHC, which is not exactly a practical solution).
Gold has some rare physical properties too, that I think are important factors. It does not oxidise, which in practical terms means that it stays shiny forever. This everlasting quality is why it is seen as a store of wealth. Unlike other investments, time does not affect it. A lump of gold given to you when you were born will be the same lump when you are 100 years old. Humans like shiny things, it makes them visually interesting. Don't underestimate this as a factor.
Gold is also a pleasant colour - light yellow. It can be white (more silver content) or pink/red (more copper), but the purer it is, the yellower it gets. Most metals are grey/silvery in colour - so this yellow is a rare thing. Again, this adds to the visual interest, especially in jewellery. This colour looks good against many peoples skin. Without getting into the psychology too much, I think it's easy to see that gold could be used to make oneself more attractive. Again, don't underestimate this as a factor.
Rounding out the interesting properties of gold is it's immense density. What this means is that a small amount is valuable, and transportable. In an emergency, it's about the most valuable thing you can carry with you. Diamonds are, these days, partly ruled out because they are now able to be manufactured so that they are practically indistinguishable from natural flawless diamonds.
So, gold has a lot of things going for it. It this all of the reasons that make it valuable? No, there is one more - rarity. This isn't just limited supply (that governments can't come up with 10x, 100x, 1000x the volume each year), but that it is only found in small volumes in certain places around the world. If every rock in your garden (and everyone elses) was made of gold, it would be worthless. On the contrary, most of us are likely to live out our entire lives and never see a piece of natural gold in nature. You just don't stumble on it on your average walk.
Another plus is that gold has no counter party risk. What this means is that it's not a debt, you do not rely on someone else to "come good on a promise". This is not so of money in a bank (who can close and ... it's gone), or a stock in a company who can go bust. You get the idea. Even cash is a promise by the government to hold it's value and not overspend. The counter party risk example here is again, Zimbabwe.
Because gold has universal and fundamental appeal, it is globally recognised as having value. Paper notes may not be convertible if you flee a country, but gold will be.
In summary then, the positives of gold is eternally shiny, pleasantly yellow, very dense, very rare and has no counter party risk.
What about the negatives?
Well, is it "useful"? While it does have some uses, but it's not overly so. Many of it's uses are simply celebrating it as precious - as in jewellery. I shake my head when I see gold plated TV cables. Compared to other precious metals, I think gold isn't brilliant in this area. Silver has more industrial uses - which is good for it as this means it is "consumed", and it becomes rarer still. Some people have argued that gold is valueable because it does not have any other use. I find this a somewhat weak argument myself, but it does have some merit. The basic idea is that gold has a single purpose - to store wealth - and nothing else.
I am amused when discussing gold, someone invariably says something along the lines of "it's useless - you can't eat gold!". Well, for a start, most people don't eat paper money either. In Australia, it's not even paper - our money is actually plastic (it's more durable than cotton, I believe, and harder to forge). Besides, you can eat gold - it'll pass right through you with no effect whatsoever - and gold flakes are often put on very fancy desserts and foods. So, forget that line of thinking, a wealth store is not meant to be eaten. On saying that, if you are starving, a loaf of bread is vastly more valuable to you than a kilo of gold. In a crisis, if you can't eat, gold will not be what's on your mind.
Some people, mostly of the doomer survivalist type, also come out with arguments that guns and ammo (lead) are more valuable than gold. The line of reasoning is "I will shoot you and take all of your gold!". This brings into question the issue of personal security, and perhaps how to keep your gold safe (ie hide it). If you have wealth, you can buy security, assuming things have not devolved to cave-man like chaos. I think some form of security is a good idea, I'm not opposed to this at all. I also think there is "security in obscurity", stay low under the radar and you will not be a target.
Note too that when I am talking about gold, I am talking about the physical metal in your hand. Not an ETF, or some paper promise of gold which may or may not be there -- that's counter party risk again. I would avoid "paper gold" unless you have a very specific short term investment strategy and understand the risks involved. Paper gold and physical gold are NOT the same thing, despite currently trading at the same price. One day this will change, radically.
Other detractors of gold point to the historical precedent of the US making owning gold illegal, and it being effectively confiscated. I think this is a fair enough concern, on the basis that those in power will change the rules to suit them, no matter how unreasonable. What will happen if this was to transpire is that gold would go underground - to the black market. The price would up a great deal too I suspect, and the governments would have no slice of the action, which is not a desirable outcome for them. I don't see this as likely, but possible. I am generally a law abiding citizen, but I wonder if I felt a law passed such as making gold ownership illegal whether I would abide by it. If the law itself is theft, should you? The other issue with this is that laws change in a country only - and gold ownership is worldwide.
If, say, the US tried to ban gold ownership for it's citizens, the outcome would be a massive revaluation everywhere else. Central banks do not want gold re-valued, I don't think, at least, not yet. Paper money is so much easier to manipulate to their whims, to devalue, to create and distribute as they see fit. Paper money is power if the populace has faith in it. I don't think that they want to give up this power, and are trying to keep a paper based system going for as long as possible. I find it revealing to know that central banks keep tonnes of gold. Why do they do that, do you think? Why too are they net buyers of gold now?
So, sorry if this post is meandering but gold has many facets to consider and ponder over. It touches at the heart of what we consider wealth and money, and these are deep topics once you get going.
Now, in my opinion gold serves one other important function. It is an insurance policy, a hedge (in it's correct usage of the term), against currency collapse. If a percentage of your wealth (how much? good question) is in gold, it can't really be easily destroyed. That sense of protection, particularly in times of financial chaos, are what makes gold valuable. Again, in my opinion, we are headed for a great deal more chaos that we have even seen in the last few years. There are too many charts that have gone parabolic, and compound interest on unpayable and unfathomable amounts are crushing the whole viability of the system itself. History is full of failed currencies, but not full of failed globalized financial systems. Perhaps the closest example is the fall of the Roman Empire, but even this doesn't quite capture where we are today.
The value of gold then, as measured in today's (inflation adjusted) dollars, is highly likely to keep on rising. If even a small proportion of the population loses faith in paper currency and invests in gold then the price will rocket up. It is likely that gold will rightly be seen as only being affordable by kings again, and this makes silver the gentleman's choice. When gold reaches the stratosphere, then silver will start it's major rise as a viable alternative to day to day currency. You might buy a house or land with gold, but your weekly groceries with silver.
While I am on this thought, I think it's funny that in Australia at least, people still call our coins "gold" and "silver" coins. None of our coins contain gold or silver, but they are made to roughly look like they do. This is a psychological trick, a slight of hand. Really, it's all a fake. The US had the real deal with the "silver dollar" but that got killed because again it was too hard to keep up the ruse and it was holding back the currency manipulators. What is a silver dollar worth today?
So, should you own some gold? If so, how much? And how should you buy it, and if it's physical, where should you keep it? Should you pay off debts first? Should you stock up on food, buy land first? What happens if you are effectively broke?
Look, everyone is at a different stage of life and has a different story in terms of wealth. If you have no wealth at all, then any discussion of gold is perhaps moot. It doesn't apply to you. You have no wealth to preserve. If you are currently living hand-to-mouth, that is, pay check to pay check, then you are probably in the same boat. You might be able to save a bit each paycheck and store this in gold or silver, but maybe not. It would be good if you could, really. If you have lot's and lot's of money, or are in a later stage of life and are living off investments, you perhaps have a lot of wealth to be concerned about. The common advice given is to invest in the stock market and interest bearing government bonds. I think this is all well and good, but a percentage of your wealth should be in precious metals, just in case. How much? Well, perhaps as much as it takes for you to feel comfortable that this makes you safe. 10%. 20%. Who knows, something like that. You have to work that out yourself.
As for me, I have some gold, but not a lot. I'd really like to have more. Honestly. A real gift would be a collapse in the gold price right now. I'd double my holdings if it went under $1000 again, or perhaps more. I don't know if it will, but it might. I suspect we are in for wildly volatile times ahead, and these may briefly present great opportunities for those willing to act quickly. What is likely though is that price may fall suddenly but it might be impossible to find supply. Once the gold rush starts in earnest, the currently open door to the man on the street may be slammed shut. I think this is likely, but I don't know when things will unfold. It could happen this year, next year, or 2012. I think it'll happen by then at least, and probably with escalated world tensions if not outright world war. Times they are a-changing.
This was but a scratch of the topic on gold. I'll come back to this subject another time and look at other elements of it. In the mean time, if you are interested in gold as a subject, I recommend reading current and past posts on FOFOA (Friend of Friend of Another, yes, very x-files). Until then, good luck with any gold (and silver) holdings you may have!
What do you think of, immediately, when you read that word and think of gold? What image is conjured in your mind?
Is it of an overflowing treasure chest, perhaps recently dug up by a very happy pirate? Or perhaps of Fort Knox, with stacks ceiling high of shiny gold bars? Or maybe of the wealth of royalty and the church - crowns, chalices and crosses?
If you thought of any of these things, or something like it, then you would probably be normal! The interesting thing about all of these images or perceptions of gold are that it's a) Very valuable and b) practically unobtainable by normal people.
Here is the thing though, at this point in time gold is not particularly valuable and is obtainable by anyone. You may think that US$1200/AUD$1400 or so (as of when I write this) is a lot of money. However, it isn't when you think of the wealth of kings or the church, or to look at it in another way, compared to the $ value of debt in the world. If you think of the cost of the average house, you could buy many kilos of gold for this. So, the perception that gold is unobtainable is currently false. I say currently, because it is quite possible that this perception may become reality in the future.
The other interesting thing about how most people view gold is that they do NOT view it as money. Some gold coins are stamped with a dollar value, but that is so low compared to the cost of the metal content nobody in their right mind would trade a coin for paper currency. No, gold is not considered currency. You can not pay your electricity bill with it.
It is worth pointing out that in Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation has destroyed the local currency, gold is a currency. Grains of gold can be used to by groceries. When things go very, very badly wrong with the paper currency, gold can be used. Why would people trust it more than paper? Well, in Zimbabwe's case they simply added more zeros to the paper until it was worthless. Gold can not be wished into existence, it must be mined and this takes effort. It's rarity and lack of manipulated supply is part of it's allure.
While I'm on that line of thought, what makes gold special? Why do people like it, or value it? This is worth trying to understand, as it will have an impact on the value of gold in the future as events play out. As just mentioned, limited supply is one factor. What else? Well, as a member of the Periodic Table of Elements, gold is a fundamental particle, and can not be manufactured. People have tried, for years, and you just can't do it (unless you have something like the LHC, which is not exactly a practical solution).
Gold has some rare physical properties too, that I think are important factors. It does not oxidise, which in practical terms means that it stays shiny forever. This everlasting quality is why it is seen as a store of wealth. Unlike other investments, time does not affect it. A lump of gold given to you when you were born will be the same lump when you are 100 years old. Humans like shiny things, it makes them visually interesting. Don't underestimate this as a factor.
Gold is also a pleasant colour - light yellow. It can be white (more silver content) or pink/red (more copper), but the purer it is, the yellower it gets. Most metals are grey/silvery in colour - so this yellow is a rare thing. Again, this adds to the visual interest, especially in jewellery. This colour looks good against many peoples skin. Without getting into the psychology too much, I think it's easy to see that gold could be used to make oneself more attractive. Again, don't underestimate this as a factor.
Rounding out the interesting properties of gold is it's immense density. What this means is that a small amount is valuable, and transportable. In an emergency, it's about the most valuable thing you can carry with you. Diamonds are, these days, partly ruled out because they are now able to be manufactured so that they are practically indistinguishable from natural flawless diamonds.
So, gold has a lot of things going for it. It this all of the reasons that make it valuable? No, there is one more - rarity. This isn't just limited supply (that governments can't come up with 10x, 100x, 1000x the volume each year), but that it is only found in small volumes in certain places around the world. If every rock in your garden (and everyone elses) was made of gold, it would be worthless. On the contrary, most of us are likely to live out our entire lives and never see a piece of natural gold in nature. You just don't stumble on it on your average walk.
Another plus is that gold has no counter party risk. What this means is that it's not a debt, you do not rely on someone else to "come good on a promise". This is not so of money in a bank (who can close and ... it's gone), or a stock in a company who can go bust. You get the idea. Even cash is a promise by the government to hold it's value and not overspend. The counter party risk example here is again, Zimbabwe.
Because gold has universal and fundamental appeal, it is globally recognised as having value. Paper notes may not be convertible if you flee a country, but gold will be.
In summary then, the positives of gold is eternally shiny, pleasantly yellow, very dense, very rare and has no counter party risk.
What about the negatives?
Well, is it "useful"? While it does have some uses, but it's not overly so. Many of it's uses are simply celebrating it as precious - as in jewellery. I shake my head when I see gold plated TV cables. Compared to other precious metals, I think gold isn't brilliant in this area. Silver has more industrial uses - which is good for it as this means it is "consumed", and it becomes rarer still. Some people have argued that gold is valueable because it does not have any other use. I find this a somewhat weak argument myself, but it does have some merit. The basic idea is that gold has a single purpose - to store wealth - and nothing else.
I am amused when discussing gold, someone invariably says something along the lines of "it's useless - you can't eat gold!". Well, for a start, most people don't eat paper money either. In Australia, it's not even paper - our money is actually plastic (it's more durable than cotton, I believe, and harder to forge). Besides, you can eat gold - it'll pass right through you with no effect whatsoever - and gold flakes are often put on very fancy desserts and foods. So, forget that line of thinking, a wealth store is not meant to be eaten. On saying that, if you are starving, a loaf of bread is vastly more valuable to you than a kilo of gold. In a crisis, if you can't eat, gold will not be what's on your mind.
Some people, mostly of the doomer survivalist type, also come out with arguments that guns and ammo (lead) are more valuable than gold. The line of reasoning is "I will shoot you and take all of your gold!". This brings into question the issue of personal security, and perhaps how to keep your gold safe (ie hide it). If you have wealth, you can buy security, assuming things have not devolved to cave-man like chaos. I think some form of security is a good idea, I'm not opposed to this at all. I also think there is "security in obscurity", stay low under the radar and you will not be a target.
Note too that when I am talking about gold, I am talking about the physical metal in your hand. Not an ETF, or some paper promise of gold which may or may not be there -- that's counter party risk again. I would avoid "paper gold" unless you have a very specific short term investment strategy and understand the risks involved. Paper gold and physical gold are NOT the same thing, despite currently trading at the same price. One day this will change, radically.
Other detractors of gold point to the historical precedent of the US making owning gold illegal, and it being effectively confiscated. I think this is a fair enough concern, on the basis that those in power will change the rules to suit them, no matter how unreasonable. What will happen if this was to transpire is that gold would go underground - to the black market. The price would up a great deal too I suspect, and the governments would have no slice of the action, which is not a desirable outcome for them. I don't see this as likely, but possible. I am generally a law abiding citizen, but I wonder if I felt a law passed such as making gold ownership illegal whether I would abide by it. If the law itself is theft, should you? The other issue with this is that laws change in a country only - and gold ownership is worldwide.
If, say, the US tried to ban gold ownership for it's citizens, the outcome would be a massive revaluation everywhere else. Central banks do not want gold re-valued, I don't think, at least, not yet. Paper money is so much easier to manipulate to their whims, to devalue, to create and distribute as they see fit. Paper money is power if the populace has faith in it. I don't think that they want to give up this power, and are trying to keep a paper based system going for as long as possible. I find it revealing to know that central banks keep tonnes of gold. Why do they do that, do you think? Why too are they net buyers of gold now?
So, sorry if this post is meandering but gold has many facets to consider and ponder over. It touches at the heart of what we consider wealth and money, and these are deep topics once you get going.
Now, in my opinion gold serves one other important function. It is an insurance policy, a hedge (in it's correct usage of the term), against currency collapse. If a percentage of your wealth (how much? good question) is in gold, it can't really be easily destroyed. That sense of protection, particularly in times of financial chaos, are what makes gold valuable. Again, in my opinion, we are headed for a great deal more chaos that we have even seen in the last few years. There are too many charts that have gone parabolic, and compound interest on unpayable and unfathomable amounts are crushing the whole viability of the system itself. History is full of failed currencies, but not full of failed globalized financial systems. Perhaps the closest example is the fall of the Roman Empire, but even this doesn't quite capture where we are today.
The value of gold then, as measured in today's (inflation adjusted) dollars, is highly likely to keep on rising. If even a small proportion of the population loses faith in paper currency and invests in gold then the price will rocket up. It is likely that gold will rightly be seen as only being affordable by kings again, and this makes silver the gentleman's choice. When gold reaches the stratosphere, then silver will start it's major rise as a viable alternative to day to day currency. You might buy a house or land with gold, but your weekly groceries with silver.
While I am on this thought, I think it's funny that in Australia at least, people still call our coins "gold" and "silver" coins. None of our coins contain gold or silver, but they are made to roughly look like they do. This is a psychological trick, a slight of hand. Really, it's all a fake. The US had the real deal with the "silver dollar" but that got killed because again it was too hard to keep up the ruse and it was holding back the currency manipulators. What is a silver dollar worth today?
So, should you own some gold? If so, how much? And how should you buy it, and if it's physical, where should you keep it? Should you pay off debts first? Should you stock up on food, buy land first? What happens if you are effectively broke?
Look, everyone is at a different stage of life and has a different story in terms of wealth. If you have no wealth at all, then any discussion of gold is perhaps moot. It doesn't apply to you. You have no wealth to preserve. If you are currently living hand-to-mouth, that is, pay check to pay check, then you are probably in the same boat. You might be able to save a bit each paycheck and store this in gold or silver, but maybe not. It would be good if you could, really. If you have lot's and lot's of money, or are in a later stage of life and are living off investments, you perhaps have a lot of wealth to be concerned about. The common advice given is to invest in the stock market and interest bearing government bonds. I think this is all well and good, but a percentage of your wealth should be in precious metals, just in case. How much? Well, perhaps as much as it takes for you to feel comfortable that this makes you safe. 10%. 20%. Who knows, something like that. You have to work that out yourself.
As for me, I have some gold, but not a lot. I'd really like to have more. Honestly. A real gift would be a collapse in the gold price right now. I'd double my holdings if it went under $1000 again, or perhaps more. I don't know if it will, but it might. I suspect we are in for wildly volatile times ahead, and these may briefly present great opportunities for those willing to act quickly. What is likely though is that price may fall suddenly but it might be impossible to find supply. Once the gold rush starts in earnest, the currently open door to the man on the street may be slammed shut. I think this is likely, but I don't know when things will unfold. It could happen this year, next year, or 2012. I think it'll happen by then at least, and probably with escalated world tensions if not outright world war. Times they are a-changing.
This was but a scratch of the topic on gold. I'll come back to this subject another time and look at other elements of it. In the mean time, if you are interested in gold as a subject, I recommend reading current and past posts on FOFOA (Friend of Friend of Another, yes, very x-files). Until then, good luck with any gold (and silver) holdings you may have!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
JIT vs the Death Wobbles
A modern capitalistic society has a number of companies which supply the populace with staple goods. These companies, like all others of significant size, are listed on stock exchanges, and require "shareholder value". This means being as efficient as possible, not wasting money, you understand. Which sounds reasonable, particularly if you own some stock of said company.
There is a problem though. A chain of supermarkets has warehousing costs that they want to keep at a minimum. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of this problem, you end up with the "just in time" philosophy. In essence, it means that they store only enough stock of goods to supply their stores "just in time" for them to run out, and keep a minimum buffer of goods. How skinny is this supply? Well, it is measured in days. Honestly, I work in retail, and I know this for a fact. In Australia, Woolworths (one of the biggest chains) keeps about a week of inventory. Of course, slow moving lines might go for longer (eg blank DVDs), and fast ones (like bread) are almost measured in hours.
You may be struggling to see a problem with this, and I don't blame you so far. Lets look a little further down the supply chain. The companies that supply the supermarkets warehouses work in a similar fashion - just in time - more of less, on aggregate to the entire market. It is not in their interest to be out of stock, but at the same time (and depending on the product) it is also not in their interest to have a large oversupply warehoused as well. It's a balancing act. So anyway, there is perhaps another week or so of supply in the next tier down, perhaps a little more, depending on the product. Could be a few weeks more, but probably not months.
OK, big deal, two+ weeks of stored supply before you reach the manufacturers. What's the point here? Well, the point is what might happen in a crisis. And by that, I mean any crisis, but there are several big ones potentially looming. I'm a bit of a "doomer" and what I have in mind is a currency collapse (Euro, US Dollar you name it), coupled with a stock market collapse. This may lead to a collapse in international trade and banking, even local banking. What happens then?
Well, people panic, and they buy food. And it will all be gone overnight. I mean it, overnight. Because the JIT philosophy works only under normal trade environments. In a panic, the shelves will not be refilled in time, and as soon as they are refilled (which mostly happens at night, by the way) they will be emptied. Even seasonal times, such as Christmas, throw this out of whack, and is a preview of what I am talking about.
I thought about all this today as I happened to go shopping, and at the checkout register I chose the credit card reader was not working - I had to go to another area to have my card processed. But I started thinking about what would happen if all the cards readers were not working. In a banking crisis, this would be the case. Credit would be frozen, and even access to a positive balance would probably be frozen. It would be cash only, and that would be a problem for a lot of people past the first few days. Do you have more than one weeks shopping cash on hand right now?
Assuming you could even pay for the food, the supply of staples is likely to be sold out anyway. There are a lot of lists online that people have compiled showing what is likely to run out first. These lists are not just made up (although some are), but are based on observations during recent crisis times such as Katrina, or during the collapse of the Russian empire. Some things are what you would expect - Fuels, Generators etc. Other things are perhaps a little odd-ball, and may not be front of mind, such as the gloriously politically correct "feminine products". How long can your household go without buying more of these?
What I am trying to get at here, and probably failing dismally, is the link between the JIT and the buffer society has against a panic during crisis. They really are at opposite sides. Now, one could reasonably argue that the times that JIT seriously fails us are "once-in-century", or less often even. The trouble here is that we have had stability since WWII, and that seriously looks like it could end any time to me. It is possible that I am either paranoid or delusional, but it is also possible that I am seeing things just a bit before everyone else. I keep a close eye on international finance and the story is very complicated, but in general we have gone from a lending crisis to a company/banking solvency crisis to a sovereign solvency crisis. There is no next tier up from here, except perhaps a global solvency crisis, and that is where the buck stops. We are well into uncharted waters in this arena. World wars have started on less than the conditions that we currently are under. The level of volatility is likely to rise dramatically in the near future which will cause extreme government policy action.
As a young boy I rode my skateboard down a lot of hills, much to my mothers disdain as this also meant quickly worn out sneakers that I used as brakes. There is a condition on a skateboard which was called by my friends and I - the "death wobbles". This starts out slowly, but the amplitude of the wobble grows despite your efforts to correct it, and culminates in you being thrown off the board at full speed. These events often ended in a minimum of war wound like skin scrapes, and at most broken bones. In the very final moments, when you know for sure you are doomed, your mind seeks in panic a place to fall to as a soft landing, to minimize the certain damage. Heaven in these circumstances is a patch of soft grass. It's also notable how the panic comes late in the game - up until that moment things are "under control" - until they aren't.
The analogy here is that with JIT in place, it's like getting the economic death wobbles and being surrounded by rough tarmac, and having no shoes on. There is just no escaping the damage. Food supply, along with personal security (and liberties), will become the primary concern when this thing gets out of control. The global banking system is in a death wobble right now, with the amplitude of the problems are growing. This is how I see it all anyway....
There is a problem though. A chain of supermarkets has warehousing costs that they want to keep at a minimum. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of this problem, you end up with the "just in time" philosophy. In essence, it means that they store only enough stock of goods to supply their stores "just in time" for them to run out, and keep a minimum buffer of goods. How skinny is this supply? Well, it is measured in days. Honestly, I work in retail, and I know this for a fact. In Australia, Woolworths (one of the biggest chains) keeps about a week of inventory. Of course, slow moving lines might go for longer (eg blank DVDs), and fast ones (like bread) are almost measured in hours.
You may be struggling to see a problem with this, and I don't blame you so far. Lets look a little further down the supply chain. The companies that supply the supermarkets warehouses work in a similar fashion - just in time - more of less, on aggregate to the entire market. It is not in their interest to be out of stock, but at the same time (and depending on the product) it is also not in their interest to have a large oversupply warehoused as well. It's a balancing act. So anyway, there is perhaps another week or so of supply in the next tier down, perhaps a little more, depending on the product. Could be a few weeks more, but probably not months.
OK, big deal, two+ weeks of stored supply before you reach the manufacturers. What's the point here? Well, the point is what might happen in a crisis. And by that, I mean any crisis, but there are several big ones potentially looming. I'm a bit of a "doomer" and what I have in mind is a currency collapse (Euro, US Dollar you name it), coupled with a stock market collapse. This may lead to a collapse in international trade and banking, even local banking. What happens then?
Well, people panic, and they buy food. And it will all be gone overnight. I mean it, overnight. Because the JIT philosophy works only under normal trade environments. In a panic, the shelves will not be refilled in time, and as soon as they are refilled (which mostly happens at night, by the way) they will be emptied. Even seasonal times, such as Christmas, throw this out of whack, and is a preview of what I am talking about.
I thought about all this today as I happened to go shopping, and at the checkout register I chose the credit card reader was not working - I had to go to another area to have my card processed. But I started thinking about what would happen if all the cards readers were not working. In a banking crisis, this would be the case. Credit would be frozen, and even access to a positive balance would probably be frozen. It would be cash only, and that would be a problem for a lot of people past the first few days. Do you have more than one weeks shopping cash on hand right now?
Assuming you could even pay for the food, the supply of staples is likely to be sold out anyway. There are a lot of lists online that people have compiled showing what is likely to run out first. These lists are not just made up (although some are), but are based on observations during recent crisis times such as Katrina, or during the collapse of the Russian empire. Some things are what you would expect - Fuels, Generators etc. Other things are perhaps a little odd-ball, and may not be front of mind, such as the gloriously politically correct "feminine products". How long can your household go without buying more of these?
What I am trying to get at here, and probably failing dismally, is the link between the JIT and the buffer society has against a panic during crisis. They really are at opposite sides. Now, one could reasonably argue that the times that JIT seriously fails us are "once-in-century", or less often even. The trouble here is that we have had stability since WWII, and that seriously looks like it could end any time to me. It is possible that I am either paranoid or delusional, but it is also possible that I am seeing things just a bit before everyone else. I keep a close eye on international finance and the story is very complicated, but in general we have gone from a lending crisis to a company/banking solvency crisis to a sovereign solvency crisis. There is no next tier up from here, except perhaps a global solvency crisis, and that is where the buck stops. We are well into uncharted waters in this arena. World wars have started on less than the conditions that we currently are under. The level of volatility is likely to rise dramatically in the near future which will cause extreme government policy action.
As a young boy I rode my skateboard down a lot of hills, much to my mothers disdain as this also meant quickly worn out sneakers that I used as brakes. There is a condition on a skateboard which was called by my friends and I - the "death wobbles". This starts out slowly, but the amplitude of the wobble grows despite your efforts to correct it, and culminates in you being thrown off the board at full speed. These events often ended in a minimum of war wound like skin scrapes, and at most broken bones. In the very final moments, when you know for sure you are doomed, your mind seeks in panic a place to fall to as a soft landing, to minimize the certain damage. Heaven in these circumstances is a patch of soft grass. It's also notable how the panic comes late in the game - up until that moment things are "under control" - until they aren't.
The analogy here is that with JIT in place, it's like getting the economic death wobbles and being surrounded by rough tarmac, and having no shoes on. There is just no escaping the damage. Food supply, along with personal security (and liberties), will become the primary concern when this thing gets out of control. The global banking system is in a death wobble right now, with the amplitude of the problems are growing. This is how I see it all anyway....
Saturday, May 22, 2010
2013 - Future entry
Well, it's now 2013 and we can finally look back on 2012. What a year. As we all know, it wasn't quite like the movie. No giant meteors. No cosmic intervention, just the average human carry on. Mind you, that can be just as destructive.
I was reminded by the hype and tension for the Y2K. I worked in the computer industry and the fear by some pre-2000 was bordering on irrational. Set the clocks forward and see what happens if you are that worried, I said. Y2K? No real problems. 2012 was similarly supposed to be the end of the world because of some Mayan calendar issue. C'mon. And my tea leaves say Apple is a good buy at the moment, and if you are a Sagittarius born under the year of the Monkey, then you are going to get a pimple on your left butt cheek.
And yet, 2012 sucked bad. Let's face, it wasn't a good year. 2011 wasn't either, and 2010 wasn't much better - near the end of it anyway. It's a wonder how the fan keeps on working with all that shit being thrown at it. I am hopeful that the worldwide misery has peaked, but time will tell on that. The clowns running the show still don't get it, or worse, get it and are actively part of the problem. The human condition seems to excel in suffering.
There are lot's of things people miss now. It's strange to think that just a few years ago anything, and I mean anything, could be purchased for a price. Not that everyone exercised this "right", but the dream that it was there was at least something. Now this dream has well and truly gone and reality is biting down hard for almost everyone. What do you miss most?
For many, despite the lack of a meteor, 2012 was indeed quite like the movie, the outcome was similar. Worse even, as the deaths we have seen were not instant, innocent and painless. Nobody really wants to dwell on what has happened, in case it happens again, or worse, happens to us. I hope it doesn't happen to me or my family, and I hope it doesn't happen to you or yours. Survival, it turns out, is still a very strong instinct in the human species.
Anyway, I wanted to wish you all a happy new year. I hope 13 is not an unlucky number for me or you. Here's to a better year! Drink it if you've got it!
I was reminded by the hype and tension for the Y2K. I worked in the computer industry and the fear by some pre-2000 was bordering on irrational. Set the clocks forward and see what happens if you are that worried, I said. Y2K? No real problems. 2012 was similarly supposed to be the end of the world because of some Mayan calendar issue. C'mon. And my tea leaves say Apple is a good buy at the moment, and if you are a Sagittarius born under the year of the Monkey, then you are going to get a pimple on your left butt cheek.
And yet, 2012 sucked bad. Let's face, it wasn't a good year. 2011 wasn't either, and 2010 wasn't much better - near the end of it anyway. It's a wonder how the fan keeps on working with all that shit being thrown at it. I am hopeful that the worldwide misery has peaked, but time will tell on that. The clowns running the show still don't get it, or worse, get it and are actively part of the problem. The human condition seems to excel in suffering.
There are lot's of things people miss now. It's strange to think that just a few years ago anything, and I mean anything, could be purchased for a price. Not that everyone exercised this "right", but the dream that it was there was at least something. Now this dream has well and truly gone and reality is biting down hard for almost everyone. What do you miss most?
For many, despite the lack of a meteor, 2012 was indeed quite like the movie, the outcome was similar. Worse even, as the deaths we have seen were not instant, innocent and painless. Nobody really wants to dwell on what has happened, in case it happens again, or worse, happens to us. I hope it doesn't happen to me or my family, and I hope it doesn't happen to you or yours. Survival, it turns out, is still a very strong instinct in the human species.
Anyway, I wanted to wish you all a happy new year. I hope 13 is not an unlucky number for me or you. Here's to a better year! Drink it if you've got it!
Kobo eBook Reader rough Review
A "Kobo", for the uninitiated, is an anagram of "Book", and it is an eInk based ebook reader. It cost A$199 from Borders bookstore. We got a black one, for reasons which I will explain in a minute. If you want some photos and thoughts on this device, I suggest a quick read here first before I give my take. Don't worry, I'll wait as long as needed.
Back? Ok. Well, let's start with my conclusion first - what's it like? ..... Good!
A book reader is a one trick pony. It must display text, as readable as possible, in a comfortable package. Taking this criteria, and keeping as many bells and whistles away, the Kobo achieves these simple goals. This also helps keep the price down, I might add, not to get distracted by other features.
I've used computers for decades, but I'd never seen an eInk display before. It looks a little like a very old Mac SE display (told you I have been using them for decades). Although not as many grey scales at 8. This is enough for simple images, but it ain't a portable photo album folks. It can just manage a passable book cover. As for the pixels, they are small enough to make a serif font look decent, and the complete stability of the display adds to its readability. You see, it only refreshes the pixels when it repaints the whole screen, something it does each page turn. This involves a complete black then white write, then the display is drawn black again. Think of an etch-a-scetch and you are not far of the mark. The contrast ratio is not perfect, the background is light grey rather than white, and the text is very dark grey rather than black, but in even semi-decent light it's easy to read without eyestrain. And yes, you need external light as it has no backlighting - something that enables the battery life to be measured in days.
What I also like about this unit is the dimensions - it's small but not too small (about the size of common paperback), and very light. It needs to be light because reading can take a long time, and every tiny gram starts to multiply with each hour. It is lighter than most books, so really it's a plus. It also has a nice "quilted" back, which is really just a textured matte surface, which does feel quite pleasant.
Navigation of pages is done with the 4 way controller on the bottom right of the unit, and it's dead easy to do - your brain does it by itself after a while so there is no taking away from concentrating on the book.
So, are there any negatives? Sure, I can give you a whole bunch. But they are minor gripes really.
Let's talk ergonomics. The first issue is the location of the USB port, which is directly under the 4-way controller at the base/side of the unit. As you are holding this one handed your hand falls on this port and it's uncomfortable compared the rest of the silky back. The controller also has slight bumps on them, like braille, and they surprisingly irritate the surface of the fingers after a l0ng while. If this was my unit, and it's not, it's my wifes, I would get a razor blade and shave them off. I know where to press, they are not needed.
We got the black Kobo, and that was for two main reasons, and one minor one. Firstly, the controller on the white unit is a really bright blue, which is distracting to your eye as you are reading. On the black unit it's a more subtle grey. Secondly, I felt that the white might end up looking grubby after a while of use, and black will hide this. The minor reason is that I just felt it looked better, just simple opinion.
So, in use there is another minor issue - the slow response time. The screen is not like an LCD on a computer, or a TV. You do something and then wait a second or two for it to refresh the screen. And you see the flashing while it does it, it's quite obvious, not subtle at all. I use it as an opportunity to blink, or close my eyes for a second, to give them a split-second break from reading, but that's just my way of dealing with this issue. I am not an overly patient person, and if it was even a fraction of a second longer it would be too slow, but as it is, it is acceptable. Straight reading is ok, but navigation to other pages at random is trickier.
The unit does have expandable memory, which is good because some other readers don't have this (ie Kindle). However, the SD card slot only reads SD cards up to 4GB, and it doesn't come with the spacer (blank plastic) card which keeps the dust out. I had a spare lying around, but c'mon. Oh, and there is not cover or carry case of any kind included, nor can you buy any yet, so you have to be super careful not to damage the unit. Not that it feels flimsy, and the screen has a plastic feel to it, not glass covered, so a slight knock might be ok.
In terms of syncing the unit, and buying books, the experience is fine. It can handle only a few formats, ePub and PDF, but they claim to be "working to improve this". We'll see what the future brings there. I would expect at least support for plain text files, that should be a no brainer.
What is the point of buying such a thing, you may still be wondering? Is it just another totally unnecessary tech toy the world can do without? Well, I sympathize with this sentiment, but counter with a bit of mathematics, and a bit of green ethos sprinkled on top (which may or may not hold water)
So - mathematics? Well, dollars and cents. My wife is a fairly "Constant reader" and churns through a few books a month. These cost somewhere between $20 - $30 each in paperback, and we have groaning bookshelves of them despite her giving them away when she can (to school book fates and the likes). Anyway, in a single years reading, at 2 books a month, she might spend 2x12x25 = $600. It all adds up you know. So, enter the Kobo. It cost $200. And books cost $10-$20, that is, they are often $10 or more cheaper. I think you can see where this is heading. So the year cost of the Kobo, with the purchase price included, is 200+2x12x15 = $560. So it's making money back after a year. If you keep it up, after several years you have made back a sizable sum as you don't have the cost of the Kobo in there.
So - green ethos? Well, ignoring for the minute the environmental cost of manufacturing, shipping the Kobo itself, and possibly the poisons released when it's disposed of at the end of it's life (See why I said "may not hold water"?) - eBooks are better than Paper Books. It's the whole atoms verses electrons thing. You can move electrons - information - about with a lot less effort than atoms - thinly sliced trees with ink (ie books). Books have weight and volume, and manufacture and shipping have costs. Hard for me to measure exactly, but picture a Kobo on one side of the scales, and all those books on the other.
You can carry a decent library with you on a trip with a lot less weight than the real thing. But to me that's balanced by the issue of having to look after the device - battery level and make sure you don't damage/lose it etc. When you finish a paper book, you can pass it onto a friend, if you wish. With any eBook reader there is the issue of DRM (the dreaded Digital Rights Management) and of big brother stopping you from doing anything generous and natural like that. There are free formats, but most of the things you want are probably not free.
You could yack all day about the pros and cons of ebooks versus paper books. In the end, I think they both have their place. eBooks are a bit like a movie rental - for something you are more or less going to consume and not really need afterwards. Paper books are for things of sentimental value, or those with pictures, or something you have a stronger emotional connection to perhaps and you want to really "own" a copy.
Other random gripes are the inability to delete a book from the reading now list (open a book once, and you are reading it pal, like it or not, until you scroll past the last page). Also, in the book store, the 100 free classics don't show up in your bookshelf, which seems counter intuative, and there does not seem to be a way of deleting any of these if you don't want to have them any more. Some people are having poor battery performance (a few days), and the battery level indicator and the charging seem to be somewhat contradictory and confusing. I suspect people are not turning the unit "off" and this has something to do with it, but perhaps that's me, and besides, it should have some sort of auto-off feature. It asks you the time, but yet there is no easy way to find out what the time is. These all feel like version 1.0 issues, and I'm hoping in time they will more or less all go away with software updates. Things like colour, full touchscreen, MP3 playback etc are all overkill in my opinion. I see this as a very different device to an iPad, for example, even though you can read books on an iPad or a computer.
There is a lot of potential for simple refinements in the Kobo. It think a dictionary would be a good one. It may not be possible, but in terms of the eInk screen a selective refresh would be a great improvement (that is, if it only needs to redraw part of the screen, just black/white/redraw that bit rather than full screen). And better grey levels and contrast ratios, faster response etc will all come with the subsequent generations of devices. Wait for them if you want, but I think this device is cheap enough to dip your toes in the water with this technology. It's fun, we are all enjoying reading on it, and anything that encourages reading can't be bad, right? Right?
Back? Ok. Well, let's start with my conclusion first - what's it like? ..... Good!
A book reader is a one trick pony. It must display text, as readable as possible, in a comfortable package. Taking this criteria, and keeping as many bells and whistles away, the Kobo achieves these simple goals. This also helps keep the price down, I might add, not to get distracted by other features.
I've used computers for decades, but I'd never seen an eInk display before. It looks a little like a very old Mac SE display (told you I have been using them for decades). Although not as many grey scales at 8. This is enough for simple images, but it ain't a portable photo album folks. It can just manage a passable book cover. As for the pixels, they are small enough to make a serif font look decent, and the complete stability of the display adds to its readability. You see, it only refreshes the pixels when it repaints the whole screen, something it does each page turn. This involves a complete black then white write, then the display is drawn black again. Think of an etch-a-scetch and you are not far of the mark. The contrast ratio is not perfect, the background is light grey rather than white, and the text is very dark grey rather than black, but in even semi-decent light it's easy to read without eyestrain. And yes, you need external light as it has no backlighting - something that enables the battery life to be measured in days.
What I also like about this unit is the dimensions - it's small but not too small (about the size of common paperback), and very light. It needs to be light because reading can take a long time, and every tiny gram starts to multiply with each hour. It is lighter than most books, so really it's a plus. It also has a nice "quilted" back, which is really just a textured matte surface, which does feel quite pleasant.
Navigation of pages is done with the 4 way controller on the bottom right of the unit, and it's dead easy to do - your brain does it by itself after a while so there is no taking away from concentrating on the book.
So, are there any negatives? Sure, I can give you a whole bunch. But they are minor gripes really.
Let's talk ergonomics. The first issue is the location of the USB port, which is directly under the 4-way controller at the base/side of the unit. As you are holding this one handed your hand falls on this port and it's uncomfortable compared the rest of the silky back. The controller also has slight bumps on them, like braille, and they surprisingly irritate the surface of the fingers after a l0ng while. If this was my unit, and it's not, it's my wifes, I would get a razor blade and shave them off. I know where to press, they are not needed.
We got the black Kobo, and that was for two main reasons, and one minor one. Firstly, the controller on the white unit is a really bright blue, which is distracting to your eye as you are reading. On the black unit it's a more subtle grey. Secondly, I felt that the white might end up looking grubby after a while of use, and black will hide this. The minor reason is that I just felt it looked better, just simple opinion.
So, in use there is another minor issue - the slow response time. The screen is not like an LCD on a computer, or a TV. You do something and then wait a second or two for it to refresh the screen. And you see the flashing while it does it, it's quite obvious, not subtle at all. I use it as an opportunity to blink, or close my eyes for a second, to give them a split-second break from reading, but that's just my way of dealing with this issue. I am not an overly patient person, and if it was even a fraction of a second longer it would be too slow, but as it is, it is acceptable. Straight reading is ok, but navigation to other pages at random is trickier.
The unit does have expandable memory, which is good because some other readers don't have this (ie Kindle). However, the SD card slot only reads SD cards up to 4GB, and it doesn't come with the spacer (blank plastic) card which keeps the dust out. I had a spare lying around, but c'mon. Oh, and there is not cover or carry case of any kind included, nor can you buy any yet, so you have to be super careful not to damage the unit. Not that it feels flimsy, and the screen has a plastic feel to it, not glass covered, so a slight knock might be ok.
In terms of syncing the unit, and buying books, the experience is fine. It can handle only a few formats, ePub and PDF, but they claim to be "working to improve this". We'll see what the future brings there. I would expect at least support for plain text files, that should be a no brainer.
What is the point of buying such a thing, you may still be wondering? Is it just another totally unnecessary tech toy the world can do without? Well, I sympathize with this sentiment, but counter with a bit of mathematics, and a bit of green ethos sprinkled on top (which may or may not hold water)
So - mathematics? Well, dollars and cents. My wife is a fairly "Constant reader" and churns through a few books a month. These cost somewhere between $20 - $30 each in paperback, and we have groaning bookshelves of them despite her giving them away when she can (to school book fates and the likes). Anyway, in a single years reading, at 2 books a month, she might spend 2x12x25 = $600. It all adds up you know. So, enter the Kobo. It cost $200. And books cost $10-$20, that is, they are often $10 or more cheaper. I think you can see where this is heading. So the year cost of the Kobo, with the purchase price included, is 200+2x12x15 = $560. So it's making money back after a year. If you keep it up, after several years you have made back a sizable sum as you don't have the cost of the Kobo in there.
So - green ethos? Well, ignoring for the minute the environmental cost of manufacturing, shipping the Kobo itself, and possibly the poisons released when it's disposed of at the end of it's life (See why I said "may not hold water"?) - eBooks are better than Paper Books. It's the whole atoms verses electrons thing. You can move electrons - information - about with a lot less effort than atoms - thinly sliced trees with ink (ie books). Books have weight and volume, and manufacture and shipping have costs. Hard for me to measure exactly, but picture a Kobo on one side of the scales, and all those books on the other.
You can carry a decent library with you on a trip with a lot less weight than the real thing. But to me that's balanced by the issue of having to look after the device - battery level and make sure you don't damage/lose it etc. When you finish a paper book, you can pass it onto a friend, if you wish. With any eBook reader there is the issue of DRM (the dreaded Digital Rights Management) and of big brother stopping you from doing anything generous and natural like that. There are free formats, but most of the things you want are probably not free.
You could yack all day about the pros and cons of ebooks versus paper books. In the end, I think they both have their place. eBooks are a bit like a movie rental - for something you are more or less going to consume and not really need afterwards. Paper books are for things of sentimental value, or those with pictures, or something you have a stronger emotional connection to perhaps and you want to really "own" a copy.
Other random gripes are the inability to delete a book from the reading now list (open a book once, and you are reading it pal, like it or not, until you scroll past the last page). Also, in the book store, the 100 free classics don't show up in your bookshelf, which seems counter intuative, and there does not seem to be a way of deleting any of these if you don't want to have them any more. Some people are having poor battery performance (a few days), and the battery level indicator and the charging seem to be somewhat contradictory and confusing. I suspect people are not turning the unit "off" and this has something to do with it, but perhaps that's me, and besides, it should have some sort of auto-off feature. It asks you the time, but yet there is no easy way to find out what the time is. These all feel like version 1.0 issues, and I'm hoping in time they will more or less all go away with software updates. Things like colour, full touchscreen, MP3 playback etc are all overkill in my opinion. I see this as a very different device to an iPad, for example, even though you can read books on an iPad or a computer.
There is a lot of potential for simple refinements in the Kobo. It think a dictionary would be a good one. It may not be possible, but in terms of the eInk screen a selective refresh would be a great improvement (that is, if it only needs to redraw part of the screen, just black/white/redraw that bit rather than full screen). And better grey levels and contrast ratios, faster response etc will all come with the subsequent generations of devices. Wait for them if you want, but I think this device is cheap enough to dip your toes in the water with this technology. It's fun, we are all enjoying reading on it, and anything that encourages reading can't be bad, right? Right?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
32bit or 64bit OS?
Ah, for most people, the answer would be a something like "Er, What?". Clearly it shouldn't matter, and I think that is important to keep in mind. Because I think it's getting to the point where this is probably the case.
In the Windows world, we more or less moved over to 32 bit with Windows 95. What is 32 bit anyway? Well, imagine 32 1's or 0's in a row. That's a representation of a number. It's 2 to the power of 32, or 2x2x2x2...x2 (32 times), which = 4 billion or so. Now, there are 8 bits in a byte, and, well, I'll let wiki explain the rest if you are interested. The practical implication of this is that you are limited to 4GB of memory. Which is a lot, right?
Well, no. Not really any more. And certainly not if you want to do anything serious, like a database or virtualization. Even consumer PC's these days, since the hungry-hungry-hippo called Vista was let loose, have come with 2GB ram as a reasonable medium standard. If you have even remotely paid any attention to spec changes over the years you will know that they double every now and then. So we are only one double away from hitting that 4GB limit.
There was a 64 bit version of windows XP. It was very much the bleeding edge. Almost nothing worked on it, and peripherals in particular were the pain point. Getting that printer or scanner, video card etc to work was a real gamble, and most times you got snake-eyes. Vista was actually better, as the 64-bit version was released at launch date, and flagged that hardware vendors had to start producing 64-bit drivers from now on or else. And they have. Of course, the 32/64 bit question was somewhat hidden by the overall horribleness that was Vista. Windows 7 is really just Vista done right, and to be honest, the latest patched version of Vista is actually not too bad. However, it's reputation is permanently tarnished and much like Windows ME will spend it's eternity in History as a dud, a lemon and a turkey.
Well, most sane people, and those cautious in businesses around the world, have largely been hanging on the XP platform waiting to jump over Vista. It has helped that since the Core2 the CPU's have more or less also been "good enough" to keep going for a few years. The GFC has not helped IT budgets much either, so this has also influenced things.
Anywhoo, at my place of work we recently replaced a bunch of XP machines. What did we get? Well, some intel i7 based Dell boxes, with Window 7 and 6GB of RAM. Yours with a 23" LCD and Office for around $1700 Australian - which is a pretty good deal in the current market. Yes, I know Office 2010 is just around the corner. Sometimes these buying opportunity windows open up just briefly and you go for it when you can, even if it's not 100% ideal. I also think of the permanently revolving doors you see at some hotels -- if you wait for it to stop you are waiting forever.
So, perhaps you are wondering, which did we get - the 32 or 64 bit version of Windows 7? Well, the clue should be the 6GB RAM. Are you paying attention? Stay with me here!
So, how have i found the 64 bit experience? On the whole, like the rest of Win7, it's almost flawless. Really, the water is fine, jump right on in. With new hardware, you know the PC itself is going to work. The trick then is any legacy software and hardware. In my environment the biggest bugbear was Access 95 databases we were still using. This was the final push for me to upgrade them all to 2000 format, and I'm glad I did. My previous post goes over this in tragic detail if you are interested in that saga.
The other problems I had were --
In the Windows world, we more or less moved over to 32 bit with Windows 95. What is 32 bit anyway? Well, imagine 32 1's or 0's in a row. That's a representation of a number. It's 2 to the power of 32, or 2x2x2x2...x2 (32 times), which = 4 billion or so. Now, there are 8 bits in a byte, and, well, I'll let wiki explain the rest if you are interested. The practical implication of this is that you are limited to 4GB of memory. Which is a lot, right?
Well, no. Not really any more. And certainly not if you want to do anything serious, like a database or virtualization. Even consumer PC's these days, since the hungry-hungry-hippo called Vista was let loose, have come with 2GB ram as a reasonable medium standard. If you have even remotely paid any attention to spec changes over the years you will know that they double every now and then. So we are only one double away from hitting that 4GB limit.
There was a 64 bit version of windows XP. It was very much the bleeding edge. Almost nothing worked on it, and peripherals in particular were the pain point. Getting that printer or scanner, video card etc to work was a real gamble, and most times you got snake-eyes. Vista was actually better, as the 64-bit version was released at launch date, and flagged that hardware vendors had to start producing 64-bit drivers from now on or else. And they have. Of course, the 32/64 bit question was somewhat hidden by the overall horribleness that was Vista. Windows 7 is really just Vista done right, and to be honest, the latest patched version of Vista is actually not too bad. However, it's reputation is permanently tarnished and much like Windows ME will spend it's eternity in History as a dud, a lemon and a turkey.
Well, most sane people, and those cautious in businesses around the world, have largely been hanging on the XP platform waiting to jump over Vista. It has helped that since the Core2 the CPU's have more or less also been "good enough" to keep going for a few years. The GFC has not helped IT budgets much either, so this has also influenced things.
Anywhoo, at my place of work we recently replaced a bunch of XP machines. What did we get? Well, some intel i7 based Dell boxes, with Window 7 and 6GB of RAM. Yours with a 23" LCD and Office for around $1700 Australian - which is a pretty good deal in the current market. Yes, I know Office 2010 is just around the corner. Sometimes these buying opportunity windows open up just briefly and you go for it when you can, even if it's not 100% ideal. I also think of the permanently revolving doors you see at some hotels -- if you wait for it to stop you are waiting forever.
So, perhaps you are wondering, which did we get - the 32 or 64 bit version of Windows 7? Well, the clue should be the 6GB RAM. Are you paying attention? Stay with me here!
So, how have i found the 64 bit experience? On the whole, like the rest of Win7, it's almost flawless. Really, the water is fine, jump right on in. With new hardware, you know the PC itself is going to work. The trick then is any legacy software and hardware. In my environment the biggest bugbear was Access 95 databases we were still using. This was the final push for me to upgrade them all to 2000 format, and I'm glad I did. My previous post goes over this in tragic detail if you are interested in that saga.
The other problems I had were --
- Installing SQL 2000 client tools. The installer recognised the 64 bit environment and didn't like the idea of putting the 32 bit version on the CD there. Fortunately, I found that you can still install it by running an installer buried a bit on the CD. A google search turned up this solution in under 5 minutes. Yes, and caused by trying to continue to use old software note.
- Printing to our copier at work required downloading a new driver. Printing to an older, less popular and consumer grade printer also provided interesting problems, but I was even able to do this using the Vista driver.
Overall, I have (so far) not had a problem I have not been able to solve. This is as much a testament to Win7 as the 32/64 issue, but I think there has been significant evolution of the software over the years to prepare for this moment.
You may be wondering - will we have to move to a 128bit OS in a few years time? Well, there is that whole "never say never" thing (which is clearly self-contradicting, but that's not what I mean). Remember that each extra bit doubles the number it represents. So a 64 bit number isn't double a 32 bit number, it's 4 billion or so larger. That's a LOT of memory (16 billion GB). Like, probably as much as has been manufactured in the history of mankind, or not even. In one PC. Doesn't seem all that likely, does it? So, I think this is probably safe to say the this is the last of these kinds of changes we will have to make in our lifetimes. I've lived through 8, 16, 32 and now 64 bit OS's. Change is pain, but to be honest, this is the least painful of these transitions I have experienced.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Upgrading from Access 95 to Access 2000 (or greater)
This blog entry will only interest a relatively few people on the planet. If you don't use Microsoft Access 95, then I suggest you stop now. This will not make much sense nor be particularly riveting.
I have used Access 95 at work for about the last decade or so. The main piece of software the company uses was written in it, before I started working there and I have carried on from there. On the whole it is a good piece of software, and I think it speaks well that it can be used for so long. It even has some advantages over more recent versions, primarily the ability to have a single server copy of the front end that everyone uses which can be edited in real-time. It might seem like an afterthought, but it has excellent help that is actually helpful. Contrast this to .NET or Excel help which is generally useless. I think perhaps Access 97 was better than 95, and it shared many of the positives and had some features I like such as intellisense (where it completes the word in code, and also gives you parameters for functions etc). Anyway, it's a moot point as we were stuck with 95.
However, it is also not without it's flaws. The most notable being the limit to a machine with 1GB RAM (usable, which is a point worth noting). It also is quite slow sometimes and has some interesting compatibility issues with SQL server data types and locks. For example, it shows boolean values as 0 or -1, but does not actually work in a query if you compare it to -1, but does if you compare to <>0. It fails to delete data in linked ODBC tables reasonably often, I'm not sure why, but at least it let's you know it didn't work. Mind you, we are using the now-old SQL 2000, so that might have something to do with it.
There are some patches that are mandatory for any Access 95 install, by the way, including a patch to the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) VBA232.dll. The right version is just over 1MB, the wrong one is just under.
Anyway, the deal breaker for us is the RAM issue. 1GB seemed like a massive amount of memory back in good old 1995 when this software was "new", and I believe it still is a lot, but todays machines have and need this and more. Vista was a massive memory hog, which is why at work we stuck with XP, but Windows 7 is a lot more reasonable. Recently we have upgraded a number of desktops at work and they have come with 6GB of RAM and Win 7 Pro 64 bit. This blows poor old Access 95's mind, and it perversely gives the error that that it is out of memory when you try and launch it.
Now, recently I discovered it IS possible to run Access 95 on a machine with over 1GB of RAM. Well, sort of. What you do is limit the machine to only use 1GB (actually, just under), no matter how much RAM is installed. It's certainly easier than physically removing the SIM cards, and it means that you don't have to have the exact SIM configurations installed. To do this you use (in Run type) MSCONFIG and then go to the BOOT.INI, and look at the Advanced Options. In there you can set the max RAM to 1023 MB. This is one MB under 1GB, which as we all know is 1024 and not the dubious marketing 1000 MB. A reboot later and Access 95 will indeed work. The downside of this technique is that the rest of your OS will probably suck badly with this limit. There is a possible relief valve you can use to eek out just a little more performance, if you are determined to go this way, and that is to then increase your virtual memory. This is done in the My Computer (right click), Properties, Advanced, Performance, Virtual Memory. If you set the minimum to 2048, max to 4096 (ie 2-4GB of VM) then things will go.. ok.. probably. When I tried the above to the new 6GB machines, they did indeed work ok. Not as quickly as with the full 6GB, but not too badly. I tried multitasking with 5 or 6 applications (eg Outlook, Word, Excel, Paint, IE, etc) and it all ran. But despite getting this working (and it was somewhat of a revelation to me that this was even possible, I was resigned to the fact that it wasn't), I felt this was a "second best" solution. Really, the time has come to move on from Access 95.
Over the years I have tried to "bulk" upgrade from Access 95. That is, to create a blank database and import the objects from the Access 95 database. I have tried it to 97 and 2000 without success. I can't recall now what exactly went wrong, but after importing a number of objects the whole thing just died - mostly with errors about the code being corrupt or something.
However, on Friday I was able, for the first time, to do this. The machine that did this miracle was my recently rebuilt (due to a hard drive failure) XP box, which has just under 1GB of RAM, and Office 2003 installed, patched to the latest of course. The database being imported into was actually in the older Access 2000 format. The trick was to make sure that the Access 95 database I was importing from could compile first (don't even think about importing it if it doesn't). I imported objects also in a fairly specific order, which may or may not matter. First make sure all the linked tables are there, and any references (I have Excel reference because there is some code that manipulates spreadsheets). I imported the code modules and macros first. Then the queries. Then the forms/reports. Why in this order? Well, these things can rely on each other - and it works best if the thing that is being relied upon is already present. It also allows you to try compiling the database between each step to make sure it all still works.
In our case I need to import three databases into one existing one. The issue of good naming conventions of objects becomes apparent. I have a policy of naming forms, for example, with the prefix "Form A01 - ", showing that it is a form in the database "A", and its number is 01. After the dash is some description of the form. If there is a query used in that form, then the query is called "Form A01 -" too. Reports are "Report A01 - ". Where possible queries are saved and named, so recordsources of forms and objects (eg lists and combo boxes) get saved as named queries. It makes for a lot of queries, but it means they are all visible outside of the form editing. Anyway, one advantage of this system is that when 3 databases are combined the objects are all uniquely named. If they are not, the first duplicate gets a "1" added to the end of it's name, or "2" or "3", depending on how many duplicates there are already. For this reason alone it is also a good convention never to END a named object with a number. The duplicates may or may not be the same of course (think : code fork), which will need to be checked, and if there are hundreds of these it may become an insurmountable problem. Either that or work our where each object is used and rename it, which is a big job again. This needs to be sorted out before the first object is even created, so it's either a problem or it isn't at this stage of the game.
So, was the process perfect? Well, no, not quite. I have only tested certain functions, and most things seem to be working correctly, but there are some oddities. For example, some forms have up to 6 copies of the "file" menu, which is definitely abnormal. These are custom menus, and usually there is just one. I'm not sure what that means at this stage.
[Edit - I worked out what this was caused by. The forms with multiple menus all had subforms, and these subforms had menus set. In access 95, only the parents menus were used but in later version all forms menus were drawn. The fix was therefore simple - remove the menus on the subforms. They were not supposed to be there anyway, it was just from sloppy form copying.]
I seem to recall that there might be issues with the DAO versus ADO view of life - that is, how recordsets are handled in code. I need to check into that pronto as a lot of the important code actually uses this. A re-ordering of references might be all I need to ensure it does what I want, and certainly it has compiled the code, so that's encouraging.
What more is there to say?
Oh, I know. I have had to do some slightly tricky things to emulate the development I had with Access 95. I'm used to editing the server copy and everyone uses that. The problem is that Access 2000 and onward seems to delight in corrupting any multi-user front end. You have to really have a local copy for each user. So how to do this? The solution I came up with is to have a local copy of the front end. When it launches it checks a version number in a table versus a version number which is a constant on the main menu form. If these are different it warns the user that there is an upgrade available. They then press an upgrade button on the form which launches a batch file the quits the app. The batch file pauses for a second (waits for the quit) then copies the server version to the local directory, and then re-launches the database. It all works quite well, apart from the issue that I have different versions of Excel installed around the place (2000, 2003, 2007) and this breaks the references. This is something that needs to be fixed each time - the first time it tried to run code it fails, and drops into debug. Stop the code and deselect the missing reference, and select the right one. Compile and off you go. I have thought of perhaps having three different versions of the master, one for each version of excel, but I can't be assed doing this as I don't have enough users to justify the hassle. If I had hundreds of users I would. Mind you, if I had hundreds of users I don't think I'd be using Access. We do also have a web-based front end, but it's oh-so-much-quicker to develop stuff in Access.
I will be slightly sad to see Access 95 go. It's been a solid workhorse. From 2000 format, I suspect it will be relatively easy to go to 2003 or 2007, but these things have a way of making a liar out of me, so take that with a grain of salt. I'll post here if/when we cross that bridge.
I have used Access 95 at work for about the last decade or so. The main piece of software the company uses was written in it, before I started working there and I have carried on from there. On the whole it is a good piece of software, and I think it speaks well that it can be used for so long. It even has some advantages over more recent versions, primarily the ability to have a single server copy of the front end that everyone uses which can be edited in real-time. It might seem like an afterthought, but it has excellent help that is actually helpful. Contrast this to .NET or Excel help which is generally useless. I think perhaps Access 97 was better than 95, and it shared many of the positives and had some features I like such as intellisense (where it completes the word in code, and also gives you parameters for functions etc). Anyway, it's a moot point as we were stuck with 95.
However, it is also not without it's flaws. The most notable being the limit to a machine with 1GB RAM (usable, which is a point worth noting). It also is quite slow sometimes and has some interesting compatibility issues with SQL server data types and locks. For example, it shows boolean values as 0 or -1, but does not actually work in a query if you compare it to -1, but does if you compare to <>0. It fails to delete data in linked ODBC tables reasonably often, I'm not sure why, but at least it let's you know it didn't work. Mind you, we are using the now-old SQL 2000, so that might have something to do with it.
There are some patches that are mandatory for any Access 95 install, by the way, including a patch to the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) VBA232.dll. The right version is just over 1MB, the wrong one is just under.
Anyway, the deal breaker for us is the RAM issue. 1GB seemed like a massive amount of memory back in good old 1995 when this software was "new", and I believe it still is a lot, but todays machines have and need this and more. Vista was a massive memory hog, which is why at work we stuck with XP, but Windows 7 is a lot more reasonable. Recently we have upgraded a number of desktops at work and they have come with 6GB of RAM and Win 7 Pro 64 bit. This blows poor old Access 95's mind, and it perversely gives the error that that it is out of memory when you try and launch it.
Now, recently I discovered it IS possible to run Access 95 on a machine with over 1GB of RAM. Well, sort of. What you do is limit the machine to only use 1GB (actually, just under), no matter how much RAM is installed. It's certainly easier than physically removing the SIM cards, and it means that you don't have to have the exact SIM configurations installed. To do this you use (in Run type) MSCONFIG and then go to the BOOT.INI, and look at the Advanced Options. In there you can set the max RAM to 1023 MB. This is one MB under 1GB, which as we all know is 1024 and not the dubious marketing 1000 MB. A reboot later and Access 95 will indeed work. The downside of this technique is that the rest of your OS will probably suck badly with this limit. There is a possible relief valve you can use to eek out just a little more performance, if you are determined to go this way, and that is to then increase your virtual memory. This is done in the My Computer (right click), Properties, Advanced, Performance, Virtual Memory. If you set the minimum to 2048, max to 4096 (ie 2-4GB of VM) then things will go.. ok.. probably. When I tried the above to the new 6GB machines, they did indeed work ok. Not as quickly as with the full 6GB, but not too badly. I tried multitasking with 5 or 6 applications (eg Outlook, Word, Excel, Paint, IE, etc) and it all ran. But despite getting this working (and it was somewhat of a revelation to me that this was even possible, I was resigned to the fact that it wasn't), I felt this was a "second best" solution. Really, the time has come to move on from Access 95.
Over the years I have tried to "bulk" upgrade from Access 95. That is, to create a blank database and import the objects from the Access 95 database. I have tried it to 97 and 2000 without success. I can't recall now what exactly went wrong, but after importing a number of objects the whole thing just died - mostly with errors about the code being corrupt or something.
However, on Friday I was able, for the first time, to do this. The machine that did this miracle was my recently rebuilt (due to a hard drive failure) XP box, which has just under 1GB of RAM, and Office 2003 installed, patched to the latest of course. The database being imported into was actually in the older Access 2000 format. The trick was to make sure that the Access 95 database I was importing from could compile first (don't even think about importing it if it doesn't). I imported objects also in a fairly specific order, which may or may not matter. First make sure all the linked tables are there, and any references (I have Excel reference because there is some code that manipulates spreadsheets). I imported the code modules and macros first. Then the queries. Then the forms/reports. Why in this order? Well, these things can rely on each other - and it works best if the thing that is being relied upon is already present. It also allows you to try compiling the database between each step to make sure it all still works.
In our case I need to import three databases into one existing one. The issue of good naming conventions of objects becomes apparent. I have a policy of naming forms, for example, with the prefix "Form A01 - ", showing that it is a form in the database "A", and its number is 01. After the dash is some description of the form. If there is a query used in that form, then the query is called "Form A01 -" too. Reports are "Report A01 - ". Where possible queries are saved and named, so recordsources of forms and objects (eg lists and combo boxes) get saved as named queries. It makes for a lot of queries, but it means they are all visible outside of the form editing. Anyway, one advantage of this system is that when 3 databases are combined the objects are all uniquely named. If they are not, the first duplicate gets a "1" added to the end of it's name, or "2" or "3", depending on how many duplicates there are already. For this reason alone it is also a good convention never to END a named object with a number. The duplicates may or may not be the same of course (think : code fork), which will need to be checked, and if there are hundreds of these it may become an insurmountable problem. Either that or work our where each object is used and rename it, which is a big job again. This needs to be sorted out before the first object is even created, so it's either a problem or it isn't at this stage of the game.
So, was the process perfect? Well, no, not quite. I have only tested certain functions, and most things seem to be working correctly, but there are some oddities. For example, some forms have up to 6 copies of the "file" menu, which is definitely abnormal. These are custom menus, and usually there is just one. I'm not sure what that means at this stage.
[Edit - I worked out what this was caused by. The forms with multiple menus all had subforms, and these subforms had menus set. In access 95, only the parents menus were used but in later version all forms menus were drawn. The fix was therefore simple - remove the menus on the subforms. They were not supposed to be there anyway, it was just from sloppy form copying.]
I seem to recall that there might be issues with the DAO versus ADO view of life - that is, how recordsets are handled in code. I need to check into that pronto as a lot of the important code actually uses this. A re-ordering of references might be all I need to ensure it does what I want, and certainly it has compiled the code, so that's encouraging.
What more is there to say?
Oh, I know. I have had to do some slightly tricky things to emulate the development I had with Access 95. I'm used to editing the server copy and everyone uses that. The problem is that Access 2000 and onward seems to delight in corrupting any multi-user front end. You have to really have a local copy for each user. So how to do this? The solution I came up with is to have a local copy of the front end. When it launches it checks a version number in a table versus a version number which is a constant on the main menu form. If these are different it warns the user that there is an upgrade available. They then press an upgrade button on the form which launches a batch file the quits the app. The batch file pauses for a second (waits for the quit) then copies the server version to the local directory, and then re-launches the database. It all works quite well, apart from the issue that I have different versions of Excel installed around the place (2000, 2003, 2007) and this breaks the references. This is something that needs to be fixed each time - the first time it tried to run code it fails, and drops into debug. Stop the code and deselect the missing reference, and select the right one. Compile and off you go. I have thought of perhaps having three different versions of the master, one for each version of excel, but I can't be assed doing this as I don't have enough users to justify the hassle. If I had hundreds of users I would. Mind you, if I had hundreds of users I don't think I'd be using Access. We do also have a web-based front end, but it's oh-so-much-quicker to develop stuff in Access.
I will be slightly sad to see Access 95 go. It's been a solid workhorse. From 2000 format, I suspect it will be relatively easy to go to 2003 or 2007, but these things have a way of making a liar out of me, so take that with a grain of salt. I'll post here if/when we cross that bridge.
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