Sudden Disruption


Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Rotate Your Second Display

Originally posted 04-24-13:



It’s because of the movies.





And it's one that actually fits your work.

Friday, November 04, 2016

The Emergence of Man

First posted 08-03-12

As a boy I was impressed with "2001 A Space Odyssey".  The idea that a spark from space vaulted man beyond the other primates seemed plausible. And it got me thinking.

How different ARE we from the other primates?  And when did this difference occur?

These questions lead me to, "The Naked Ape", by Desmond Morris. He defined a few differences, but far more similarities.  So I kept looking.

Over the years I've kept track of the various discoveries looking for the significant differences between us and our cousins.  It's time to document them.

Let's start at the first primate and work our way forward:

Tiny Chinese Archicebus fossil is oldest primate yet found

Walking and Running

When I was a child, walking erect was the gold standard of humanity.  And it's true, we're better on two feet chasing down game than all others, but only by degree.  Bonobos showed that walking erect is no big deal:

Walking Upright

But that's not running.  About three million years ago a significant change occurred.  Humans became marathon runners and developed some new hunting scripts largely stolen from wolves, which begs the question, who ultimately domesticated whom?



Food has also been an area of study to define differentiation, but which species jumped what line, and when?

Human ancestors changed diet 3.5 million years ago


Another thing that set us apart was thought to be tool use, but this test also fell as chimps and other species have now demonstrated.

04-14-15 World's oldest stone tools discovered in Kenya 

Tool-making and Meat-eating Began 3.5 Million Years Ago?

Tool-Making 3 Million Years Ago?

Tool-making 1.4 Million Years Ago?

Ancient Stone Tools Hint at the Real Paleo Diet 126,000 to 781,000 Years Ago
700-year-old Stone Tools - Used by Monkeys

The spear which was developed about 500,000 years ago is also a clear example of tool use.  So far we've seen no other species accomplish this trick, though a weapon may become a possible learned behavior for some other primates as other tools have been.  Is it just a matter of time?

When Did Humans Begin Hurling Spears?  - 90,000 Years Ago?

Australian researchers say they’ve found the world’s oldest hatchet

Monkey or Man?

11-04-16 49,000 Year Old Human Settlement in Australia


In response, the transfer of culture became the new human benchmark, but the ability to transfer new knowledge from one generation to another has also been demonstrated by chimps...


Then there was self-awareness, which was disproved in spite of Darwin's original mirror observations:

Mirror Test

And a nice test of abstract thinking is meta-cognition:

Chimps: Ability to 'Think About Thinking' Not Limited to Humans

And have episodic memory:

Chimpanzees and orangutans remember distant past events

How about 500,000 year-old art?  But which species made it? :

Art on the half-shell

176,000 year old ritual?

Bruniquel Cave


Next to fall was language.  The chimp Washoe laid that one to rest in the 1960s.  And then there's Koko the gorilla who recognizes 1000 signs vocabulary and 2000 spoken words.  She has an IQ of about 80. Also bonobos have gesture language plus now respond to spoken language with keyboard feedback. It may be simple, but it's language. And even more languages are being discovered:

Prairie dogs' language decoded by scientists


The most literally obvious and vivid tool of man has been fire.  The control of fire allowed our gut to decrease in length by about a yard as we began to cook our food and digestion improved.  Human resistance to air pollution also emerged over the last million years, an indication that we lived with fire during that time.

Control of fire wasn't just tool use, it was the most exquisite form of tool use.  The trick was getting close enough to use the flame but not get burned, and then of course, not letting the fire go out.  How many thousands of our ancestors played with fire before we learn to pass on these two tricks?  And was this the brain and thumbs at work?  Fire was the turning point.

We know of no other primate who developed independent use of fire, (thought some Bonobos have now been trained to do so with a lighter, and even use water to put it out).  Man's sustained use of fire is estimated to have begun sometime between 1.5 million and 400,000 years ago:

Who Mastered Fire?

Were Early Humans Cooking Their Food a Million Years Ago?

Still, isn't the difference between us and other primates simply a matter of DEGREE in thinking and manipulating our environment?  Scripts and tools are certainly learned and used effectively by other species.  But our fore-brains allowed for abstraction, delayed gratification and far more complex simulations as demonstrated by the wide range of different human behaviors.  So is our main difference from other primates the complexity of behaviors created by individualism and hyper-specialization?

Out of Africa

Whatever makes us different was probably well established by 60,000 (or 100,000?) years ago, as that's when humans became successful enough to spread from Africa to the rest of the world.  Was it a combination of language, hunting methods, tools, spears, and fire?  Or was it some kind of proto-agriculture for which we've yet to find evidence?

Blombos Cave contained scratches on ocher objects from 75,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Or 100,000 Years Ago?

Music, Art and Property?

Border Cave takes some level of symbolic culture and the ownership of property back to 44,000 years.  The Venus of Fels Cave in Germany is clearly art from 35,000 years ago.

Border Cave

Could "owning things" be that line between us and chimps?  This is one of the ideas put forth in Sex at Dawn.  Maybe Christopher Ryan is on to something.  Will this mystery lead us back to ourselves?  In any case, ten to fifty thousand years ago was an exciting time for man.

Archaeologists Unearth 35,000 Year Old Musical Instrument

World's Oldest Portrait - Symbolic Abstraction 26,000 Years Ago

Not all hunter-gatherers moved around.  How could they have carried all these pots?

What 15,000 Years Of Cooking Fish Tells Us About Humanity


The key to real civilization seems to be the domestication of plants and animals - agriculture.  It's often described in terms of specialization and our ability to withhold gratification until the resource matures (wheat, cows or eggs into chickens).

This may be the key to domestication 14,000 years ago:

We Didn't Domesticate Dogs.  They Domesticated Us.

How hunting with wolves helped humans outsmart the Neanderthals.

Another line blurred:

Baboons Kidnap and Raise Feral Dogs as Pets

Even the line of first settlements are moving backward and becoming blurred.  In school I was taught civilization started about 5,000 years ago.  Then it was 7,000 years.  Then 10,000.  And now:

The Wheel

02-19-16 The wheel is certainly a definitive test of humanity.  Well, at least so far:


Except for digging holes, and a few other minor exceptions, no other species builds shelter:

Oldest house in Britain discovered to be 11,500 years old
Stone Building in Russia

12,000 Year-Old Gobekli Tepe

Gobekli Tepe Update 04-04-15

(Wiki says Gobekli Tepe is only dated to 9559 projecting to 11,000 years old) That's still some impressive stone work which must have taken a few thousand years to develop.  20,000 years seems like a more safe number for now.  We just need to find more sites and map progress, but we're definitely blurring back into our ancestors.  When exactly did we become "human"?

As a side note, dogs have been with us for about 14,000 years according to bone evidence.

And here is an even broader overview taking evolution into our culture - a lot of good ideas here:
This next post strays a bit far from the origins of man, but contains so many useful observation about humanity:

State of the Species - Charles C. Mann

Maybe the missing mechanism is EPIgenitics working with genetics. It's an example of how evolution can go well beyond sexual preference:


Here is a fun idea about how the n-grams of our cultural evolution is reflected in our language:

Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries  12-12-12

World's Oldest Wooden Water Wells Discovered From About 5000 Years Ago  12-24-12

Is a long childhood the key difference?  Maybe:

Why Are We the Last Apes Standing?

Believe it or not, this was published long after I published this post (which like primates is still evolving). Mark Changizi seems to agree that we differ only by degree ("quantitatively so, not qualitatively"). Interesting post.  I need to get his books on my list:

Bursting the Bubble of Human Intelligence  04-09-13

It seems this puzzle is filling in literally day by day.  Stay tuned for more updates.

It appears we must guard against cultural imperialism in our acquisition of knowledge. And does human behavior vary to try all possible combinations in the same way a species replicates to fill the physical range of it's environment?

Monday, September 26, 2016

GeoOrbital Quick Change Electric Bike


Weird music, but cool video and product:

GeoOrbital Video

GeoOrbital Quick Change Electric Bike

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Electra Meccanica Solo - A New Standard in Personal Transportation?


I guess we'll be finding out in the next few months:

Electra Meccanica

TopSpeed's Review

The Significance of the Samsung Note

First posted 3-15-12:




We now have the Samsung Galaxy Note as it's latest example, but is it too cool or simple too big?  I'll start with a comparison of my Droid which is what I know best.  The Samsung Note has:

100% more screen area.
50% taller
67% wider
250% more pixels
255% faster clock
80% more battery
60% more pixels in its camera
Plus a front camera
4G surfing and movies
4 times the RAM
16 times the ROM
Effective pen interface





Throw all of that right out the window.



Samsung Galaxy Note review: The smartphone that ‘Samsunged’ Samsung


One more - PC World's review:












And that's how I know I'm authentic geek: I don't understand why it looks weird to hold a Samsung Note up to your head.  Why does it matter?  It's what it DOES that counts.  I for one believe it's the ultimate geek-cred to side with function over fashion.  And who's says Bill Hewlett wouldn't have looked cool talking on his new calculator, if only there had been a cell towers around.

Who wants to bet the next iPhone is not bigger?


And then it will be cool.

Email your wager.


04-05-12 Samsung's Galaxy Note is a freak hit



Interesting survey about size:

10-14-13 Upgraded to the Samsung Note 3 as it's brighter, lighter, faster with longer battery life and better camera.  Also, the power button is no longer directly across from the volume buttons so both are inadvertently hit less often.  I'm not crazy about the hard Home button which also powers up when not asked for, but I'll reserve judgement until I get a few more miles.  Overall the device is a delight because of display, performance and battery.  More later.

02-12-14 Four months use and this is the best mobile device I've ever owned, mostly because of display quality, speed and batter life.  And the apps keep getting better.

09-24-14 Ultimate Vindication



Battery tech is also much improved (apparently, to the point of failure 09-22-16).  And with wireless charging a standard feature, it charges faster, easier and last longer. Another plus for the Note 7.








Tuesday, September 06, 2016

Burning Man 2016

Theme: Da Vinci’s Workshop

Temple: David Best
Man: Vitruvian

Art: Awesome Blossom

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The Next Economic Bubble Will Be a Zen Bubble

04-23-14 - I've been collecting data for this post since 2010.  Considering recent prices for art, it's past time to post:

11-09-15 Modigliani's "Nu Couche" recently sold for $170.4 million

Economic bubbles

Economic bubbles are fascinating specifically because they have little to do with economics, and everything to do with human behavior. In other words, little to do with logic, and everything to do with intuition.

Goods and services have a fundamental value reflected in how the thing contributes to our calories or shelter. Yes, there's more to life than than being fed and dry, but values become more abstract and subjective once security, health and aesthetics become factors.  And things get REALLY crazy when human vanity, greed and speculation are brought to bear.  These last factors are the source of economic bubbles.

Bubbles are driven by the "Greater Fool Theory" in which the value of something will increase with each transfer as long as there is another a greater fool.  Well, until there isn't.  The guy holding title when the music stops is the loser.  That's when everyone realizes the price of the last transaction was absurd. In other words, there were no more greater fools. After that, the object in question's "value" will drop dramatically and its market go quiet for decades.  Whomever is left holding the bag will have to wait until "the thing" comes back in fashion.  If ever.  There are lots of fools in history, but no one ever talks about their transactions, especially the fools themselves.

Even though the lesson of economic bubbles has been presented many times and in vivid detail, the lesson never seems to take. Or maybe I should say, there always seems to be a greater fool.  In the interest of those thinking about becoming a fool and chasing the next bubble, I'll present some historical examples of the phenomenon, their characteristics, and why it's ill-advised to get involved.  Finally, for those still interested, I'll present my candidate for the next bubble, and why.  Maybe you can get in (and out) early. Let's review some of the more famous bubbles to understand how they expanded, collapsed, and their ultimate impact upon our economy.

 Tulip Mania

The genesis of bubble behavior almost certainly goes back to ownership of property itself.  There are likely examples lost to history, but one of the earliest and most vivid major economic bubbles was Tulip Mania.

Strange as it may seem, it was literally the selling of future contracts for, of all things, tulip bulbs. Don't let this humble flower fail to impress you. The demand was amazing, and provides an example of human behavior run a muck with a thing called fashion.  For a flower.

 In February of 1637 there were examples of single tulip bulbs selling for the current equivalent of ten years salary for a craftsman - for EACH bulb!  This was certainly in the hundreds of thousands of today's dollars. Yep. One flower bulb, a decoration for the table.  The key was that each bulb was unique in color and pattern.  These bulbs could be farmed, and their contracts traded.  Even though many similar families were bred, uniqueness is well, unique.  And unique allows for amazing rationalization, or shall we say irrationalization?

Some of the stories are amazing.  In one case, a workman mistakenly assumed a valuable tulip bulb on the kitchen table of his employer was a common onion.  He sliced it up for his sandwich, (appreciating it for its aesthetic flavor, and fundamental value in calories). When discovered, he was sent to debtor's prison for his error.  There are many other examples of how these crazy tulip prices destroyed people's lives. Mania is a good description for the love of these flowers and the strange market it created.

Though this bubble was narrow (a small part of national wealth), it was extremely deep (10,000 multiple). Though narrow, the dramatic multiple significantly increased the asset value of the Bank of Amsterdam for a time.  After the bubble popped, negative effects were felt for years.  In less than 90 days from the peak price, a tulip bulb was only worth, well, a tulip bulb.  It could be argued that the workman was the most rational person in that economy.  A couple of smaller tulip bubbles in other areas happened later, but the value of tulips has never again approached that peak anywhere in the world.

South Seas Bubble

You'd think Tulip Mania would be chapter one in every business book for centuries, but less than 80 years later everyone seems to have forgotten the lesson. The South Seas Bubble had almost nothing to do with the South Seas. Instead its major asset was literally HALF of England's debt. The hopeful trade with South America allowed for the instruments of speculation (contract shares), and much of the government was complicit in promoting the investment.  Soon, people were borrowing to speculate.  The shares increased ten-fold before they popped. This bubble was both wide (half the national debt) and fairly deep (ten times any possible fundamental value).  When the price collapsed, the resulting debt depressed the economy of England for years.

The First Tech Bubble

Let's move to modern times. The first tech bubble has many good examples, but one I know well - they were a competitor.  In 1982 Fortune Systems was building a 68000-based micro-computer system.  They raised $110 million in a public offering at a half a billion dollar evaluation. Yes, these numbers are modest compared to today, but in 1982 this was the 7th largest IPO in U.S. history, and 500 million was a lot for a new company with no profits that had shipped fewer than 200 units, most of which were having problems. Of course the investment was lost when the product didn't pan out. This "little" bubble popped.  There were other early public tech offerings but except for a few like Apple Computer, they shared the same fate.  This shows bubbles don't have to be big to be crazy. This was a modest bubble at the time, but it provided a taste of what was soon to come.

Tokyo Real Estate Bubble

Japanese real estate prices started rising dramatically in 1986 and were highest in Tokyo's Ginza district in 1989.  Choice properties were fetching over 30 million yen per square meter ($20,000 per square foot!). Prices were only marginally less in other large business districts of Tokyo.  Literally HALF of the WORLD's real estate value was in one relatively small island called Japan.

By 1990 the party was over.  In 2004, prime "A" property in Tokyo's financial districts had slumped to less than 1 percent of its peak, and Tokyo's residential homes were less than a tenth of their peak, but still managed to be listed as the most expensive in the world, only being surpassed in the late 2000s by Moscow and other cities creating their own bubbles. The Tokyo bubble was both wide and deep.  Tens of TRILLIONS of dollars worth of "asset value" were wiped out with the combined collapse of the Tokyo real estate and dependent stock markets. Only 18 years later in 2007 had property prices begun to rise, before falling again in late 2008 due to the global downturn.  Japan has not yet recovered.  It's now been decades.

The Internet Leads the Second Tech Bubble

On the day Netscape went public I gave a talk explaining how there was NO reason to value a company with NO revenue and NO profits at almost 4 BILLION dollars.  As it turns out, this too was just a taste of what is common today.  By the time the internet bubble crashed in the spring of 2000 it had created an estimated 6.2 TRILLION dollars in value, 90% of which disappeared within weeks. Even though mostly limited to only a segment of technology, this bubble was widely subscribed.  It's impact was felt for years. 

U.S. Housing Bubble

As money shuffle out of the internet, I began wondering where it would go next.  I watched in disbelief as house prices doubled (or in some cases tripled) in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. At the peak, lotteries were held for the RIGHT to buy new residential construction.  By 2006, some high-end properties were being sold for up to $700 a square foot at nearby Lake Tahoe, which was far beyond its value in materials.  The difference was (ir)rationalized by location, but even in Reno some places sold for over $500 a square foot.  And Reno is on the edge of a vast desert whose value approaches zero.

I don't need to go on about the housing bubble.  Everyone else already has.  I'll just note that it represented "assets" of around 10 TRILLION dollars and seems to have triggered a collapse of a credit bubble on Wall Street of even greater magnitude in late 2008.  This housing / credit bubble was also devastating to main street, which continues to be affected six years later.

Chinese Real Estate and Debt Bubble

What may come to be known as the Chinese bubble is similar to what happened in the west but may be far larger when evaluated in retrospect, once good data is available.  In the United States, approximately five million "extra" housing units were constructed during the early part of this century.  China has built between 70 and ONE HUNDRED MILLION housing units in a similar time-frame.  Now, China has a lot more people and many of them need houses, but there was a disconnect in market forces for of this construction.  Most of these units are executive homes and do not match the need nor demand from the market. Mitigating these glorious ghost cities will be far more difficult than foreclosing and reselling the American homes.  If you own anything in China, sell.  Which brings us to the point of this post.  Where will all the fools go next?

05-05-14 - "Forget it, Jake; it's Chinatown" - more signs of cracks in China:

Zombies once destroyed Japan’s economy—now they’re infecting China’s

11-19-14 - Prices have tripled to over $2600 per square foot in Hong Kong since 2003

The Next Bubble...

Now that bubbles are understood, we'll never again get caught.  Right?  Not necessarily. In Wikipedia on Bubbles it's noted that bubbles are generally identified in retrospect, much like bull and bear markets. Bubbles sneak up on people. As a matter of fact, people (and their human behavior) seem to be their secret sauce.

Is a fool someone who pays more for a thing than its fundamental value? Or is a fool someone who doesn't manage to sell the thing to a greater fool before the music stops? As the price increases well beyond fundamental value, at what instant does one become a fool? Where do the lines get drawn? In retrospect it's easy. Seeing that line while it is happening is more of a challenge.

The truth is, ALL investors are fools to one degree or another. It's just a matter of how long we feed the bubble, and how it eventually deflates. It's all depends on where you get in, and where you get out. That's where the human behaviors of greed, denial and fear come in.

So what will be the next bubble?

Real estate? Not in our life-time.  Population growth is finally flattening out and may even head down in a couple of decades.  In any case, China will be the final nail for real estate bubbles.  The upturn in the U.S. real estate last year was just a dead cat bounce.  It will abate soon, and mark the beginning of a long flat market for residential real estate in America, and around the world, with a few exceptions.

Stocks? Nope.  Like real estate, the current bull market is just a return to normal after the crash. There's already stock bubble talk, which will likely dampen the drive upward in time.

Gold Bubble?  Nope.  It's too obvious to do more than double unless we have major civil disruption. Also, since it has virtually no fundamental value, it could be argued that gold is always in a bubble.  By degrees.

The next significant bubble will be none of the above.  The next bubble will be in collectibles, and it's already well underway.

... will be a Zen Bubble

Let's start with contemporary paintings.  According to Businessweek, auction sales of postwar contemporary art has gone from a few million dollars in 1988 to nearly $8 billion dollars in 2014. And most of those gains have been since 2003.  In another article, Businessweek notes, "There has been a 434% increase in value of the top 50 contemporary and postwar artists since 2003".  A record high of $142 million has been set for "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" who only died in 2002.  Usually artists have to be dead for MUCH longer to fetch such absurd prices.

A total of almost $66 BILLION of fine art was sold in 2013.  That's only ONE year of ONE segment of collectibles. There's also fine wine, cars, books, stamps, money and too many other obscure segments to be named, which is the real point.  With tulips, it was only tulips.  With web start-ups, it was only web start-ups.  In collectibles, there are at least a million places for fake value to hide, many of them unique.  This bubble has truffles at $100K per pound, a figurine for $5 million and a puppy (!) for $1.5 million.  Did you even realize people collected truffles? I didn't.  And a puppy dies.

The point is, the prices for art (and cars, and wine, and etc.) reflect far more than typical aesthetic value. These prices are dominated by speculation.  This is clearly a bubble, no matter how you wish to (ir)rationalize it. Or more precisely, these are bubblets as each of these segments lives in its own world of "investors" who generally ignore the other segments.  There is no limit to their (ir)rationalized value.  This segmentation is what will make this bubble so different from the ones that have come before. This bubble is not a bubble at all.  It's more like foam rising off the euphoria of too much champagne.  And as foam, it will play out in a far different way than the typical bubble.

This collectibles bubble is both wide, deep and insidious.  Worse than its absurd dollar value is its stealth. The types of collectibles are almost infinite, since virtually anything ever created by man or nature can be collected..  Many unique items are literally in a class of one.  If it has value to anyone, it has value to a speculator. And if it has value to a speculator, its price will ultimately be driven far beyond it's fundamental or aesthetic value.

Like other bubbles, the price of any unique item or the whole segment will increase right up until it doesn't. If you dig deep, you'll find many examples of bubblets collapsing, but most investors don't even notice unless they own something in the segment, or that particular item.  When each price collapses, these collectors lick their wounds in silence.  Who wants to brag about a loss?

Its stealth nature will be the hallmark of this bubble.  This collapsing foam of bubblets will not make any major news, well unless a big segment such as fine art collapses in general.  But that's less likely because each piece can be effectively (ir)rationalized then hidden away, which will be another aspect of this bubble - the absence of liquidity. Pieces will ultimately be hard to sell, and will therefore go back in the closet.  We may even see a time when collectible sales drop off, and the items simply used as collateral for loans, which may drive yet another credit bubble.  In any case, this Zen bubble may go on for decades.  Or longer.

Since a unique item can have a theoretically infinite value, expect some wild examples.  Here are a few I've "collected" over the last several years.  Most are just headlines or links.  You'll have to Google for details.

The next questions is, "when will we see the first BILLION dollar transaction for something with no fundamental value?"

I suspect it'll be sooner than you think:


10-23-14 Apple I Price Update - $905,000!

$330K for 2.87 lbs of rare white truffle!

05-23-11 A Rolex wristwatch made in 1942 sold for a record $1.16 million at Christie's!

$194K for a 38 inch toy boat once owned by Malcolm Forbes!

$302,500 for Andy Warhol print of Mao Zedong - TEN TIMES the estimate!

1923 Leica 0-series becomes world's most expensive camera, fetches $1.89 million at auction!

Marilyn Monroe's Seven Year Itch dress, which went under the hammer at auction on Saturday, is a record breaker.  The iconic white dress fetched $5.5 million!

A Stradivarius built in 1721, which once belonged to Lord Byron's granddaughter, sold online for $15.9 million!

06-27-2011 - A Jean-Michel Basquiat self-portrait sold for $3.3 million, five times more than in 2003!

World's oldest running car fetches $4.6 million at auction

10-24-11 - Gerhard Richter's 1982 painting Kerze (Candle) fetched $16.6 million at a Christie's sale, an auction record for the artist, who says the price is "as absurd as the banking crisis".

12-03-11 - Why IS Art So Damned Expensive?

11-07-11 -Queen Victoria's bloomers sold for $15K, three times estimate.  Skid marks included for free.

Rare 1787 Gold Coin Sells for $7.4 Million

11-14-11 - Roy Lichtenstein's 1961 painting, I Can See the Whole Room!... and There's Nobody in It! sold for $43 million

11-30-11 - A set of eight scrolls of lotus flowers PAINTED THIS YEAR by Chinese artist Cui Ruzhuo sold for $16 million!

01-16-12 - The ultimate inflation: A 1793 copper one-cent coin sold for $1.38 million at Heritage Auctions, an increase in value of more than a hundred million times.

02-19-12 - The 1889 van Gogh Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy formerly owned by Elizabeth Taylor sold for $16 million.

02-20-12 - The 1963 Francis Bacon "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" sold for $33 million.

04-09-12 - A Ruyao bowl that dates from 1086 to 1106 sold for $26.7 million at Sotheby's, a record

05-01-12 - This year paintings by Warhol and Munch are expected to sell for more than $50 million each. WRONG!

05-04-12 - Munch's "The Scream" went for $119.9 million dollars, more than twice estimates. Warhol's Elvis only brought $37 million, for an average of $78.5 million, 57% over estimates.

Why did this Mini sell for over $65,000?

05-08-12 - A teacup Lady Gaga used last year in Japan sold for $75,000.  What's next, used toilet tissue?

05-09-12 The $412 check that DC Comics gve artist Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938 to buy the right to the Superman character fetched $160,000 at an online auction.

05-11-12 A blue flannel New York Yankees baseball cap worn by Babe Ruth in the 1930 is on the block, estimated to be worth $400,000.

05-15-12 Mark Rothko's fiery 1961 canvas, Orange, Red, Yellow fetched a record $86.9 million after a $45 million estimate.

07-07-12 Joan Miro's 1927 Peinture fetched $37 million at Southeby's

08-20-12 Cover art for issue 328 of The Amazing Spider-Man sold for $657,250, a record for comic book art.

09-01-12 and setting new records in each category:

Cezanne's painting "The Card Players" for $250 million
Superman's first edition went for $2.16 million.
The first map of the United States for $1.5 million
A live Red Tibetan Mastiff puppy for $1.5 million
Audubon 1st edition bird book $11.5 million

10-18-12 - The two guns taken off Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow sold for a total of $504,000.  I wonder if they could have appreciated the irony.

10-22-12 - Two 1941 Sun Yat-sen stamps sold for $709,000

11-19-12 - The 1951 drip painting Number 4 by Jackson Pollock sold for $40,400,000 at Sotheby's.

Indian weddings have become a bubble and are an excellent example of bizarre human fashion.  The wedding industry in India is now growing at 25% per year.  India is now consuming 30% of the world's gold production, and half of it goes for Indian weddings.  The estimates for 2012 wedding costs in India are about $40 billion, and this is in a country with a per capita GDP of only $4000. Could this gold be considered a collectible?

1988 Jeff Koons sculpture of Buster Keaton on a horse - sold for $5 million 12-17-12

2013 It's not exactly collectable, but perhaps ephemeral gastronomic art? A record price for a single tuna of $1.8 million was paid for one 490 pound fish.


  03-20-13 - A blood-stained sock worn by Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling in the 2004 World Series fetched $92,613 at auction.

04-06-2013 A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $2.1 million

$38 Million for a car?

1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider sells for incredible $27.5 million

07-01-13 An untitled 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for $29 million at Christie's

09-04-13 A vintage Ferrari Spyder convertible sold for 28 million in the same week that a diamond and a yacht went for about same amount.  Is $30 million a special price point?

10-14-13 Sotheby's sets new record prices in China with $30,800,000 for a diamond, $30,500,000 million for a bronze Buddha and $23,300,000 for Zeng Fanzhi's, "The Last Supper", the highest price ever for a contemporary Asian artist.

11-18-13 The car that won the 1954 Formula 1 world championship, a Mercedes-Benz W196R coupe became the most expensive car ever sold at $30 million.

04-30-2014 "In 2013, one blue-fin tuna was auctioned off for $1.7 million..."  I hope they froze some of it.

05-01-14 Even sales of early scraps of an artist's work have exceeded a million dollars:


04-25-14 A collector paid $2 million for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", a record for lyrics.

05-15-14 I'm not sure if unique houses qualify as collectible, but it's hard to imagine any other reason to pay this much and it would certainly break the billion dollar absurd threshold I mentioned above :

The Most Expensive Homes in the World

And one more from the age of opulence:

This Absurd Mansion Features Star Trek-Themed Rooms And Could Be Yours For $35 Million

And what's up with Popeye?

Steve Wynn paid $28 million for Jeff Koons sculpture of Popeye.
Andy Warhol's Popeye is appraised at $50 million.
Roy Lichtenstein's Popeye is appraised at $47 million.
It makes one want to open a can of spinach and draw some cartoons.

Why are so many people paying so much money for art?

"Owning collectibles offers one major advantage – one that I think drives 90% of the demand for collectibles: It's a great way to protect your wealth from the IRS. People know that when they die, the IRS won't have any idea what is hanging up on their walls or hiding in their vaults. So they hide money in these trophies to give to their children to avoid estate taxes. Mind you, I'm not passing judgment on these actions, nor am I recommending them… I just believe that's why a lot of demand for collectibles exists.

Collectibles are also easily transferable across borders. You can take a Picasso on a private jet and move $100 million offshore. And no one even knows you have it.

When you buy collectibles, you're betting on the irresponsibility of the government and the wickedness of the tax system… If the government gets more irresponsible and the tax system gets more heinous, you'll probably do well. And I think that's a good bet. But you should understand that's what you're betting on."

04-29-14 - The above observation is an excellent example of how tax policy can distort markets.  It's also an excellent reason to collect, and a reasonable rationalization.

07-09-14 Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" sold for $54 million.

09-04-14 A copy of the first Superman Comic which originally went for ten cents sold for $3.2 million yielding a multiple of 32 million times it's original value.

09-07-14 A 1962 250 GTO Ferrari sold for $38 million and is lifting prices for all sports cars of the era - a nano-bubble of its own?

09-18-14 - Hyundai spending $10B for 20 acres turns land into a collector's item for the first time. This is in the price range of the Tokyo bubble of 1989.  They could have done a lot better in the Nevada desert like Tesla just did - a THOUSAND acres for FREE.  Even Tesla's 370 acres in the BAY AREA, some of the more expensive land on Earth only cost them $42M - and it had a 5.5 million square foot working factory on it! Has Hyundai been bit with bidding fever in the process of taking the site away from Samsung?  Did this bidding war turn this plot into a collector's item?


From the above link: "A Francis Bacon triptych set an auction record for any artwork, at $142.4 million. Jeff Koons’s sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange), at $58.4 million, set a high mark for a living artist. An Andy Warhol picture of a Coca-Cola bottle sold for $57.3 million, pushing the overall take that night to $692 million, at the time the biggest single sale of art ever."

"The final price for Apocalypse Now, including the buyer’s premium paid to Christie’s: $26.4 million. It had appreciated roughly 350,000 percent in 25 years."


01-19-15 - $100 Million New York Apartment

5-5-15 A Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $1.3 million

5-12-15 Picasso's Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger, "Version O" sold for $179 million, a record.

05-13-15 A Mark Rothko painting sold for $46.5 million at a Sotheby's 

06-08-15 Hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen is the secret buyer of the world’s most expensive sculpture, Alberto Giacometti’s “Man Pointing,” for $141.3 million at Christie’s.

06-20-15 A Hermes Birkin purse sold for $222,000.

11-11-15 Cohen's Warhol `Mao' Portrait Fetches $47.5 Million at Sotheby's

11-11-15 Titanic cracker sells for $23k

11-30-15 $173k paid for a Michael Jordan jersey

12-17-15 A letter signed by Mao Zedong sells for $918,000

02-05-16 1937 Mercedes 540K sets Arizona record at $9.9 million

02-16-16 Delaware license plate #14 sold for $325K as an investment. Here there was no magic art involved at all, just a magic number.

02-28-16 The most paid for a Basquiat was set in 2013 when $48.8 million was paid for Dustheads:

05-08-16 Or for nearly the same price, you can get a 12 carat blue diamond ($48.5 million).  Tough call.

06-01-16 An auction yielded $1.3 million dollars for the Winchester rifle owned by the Army captain who captured Geronimo.

07-29-16 Perhaps much of the art world is not what it seems:

Miles Mathis on Laundered Art

08-01-16 Richard Mille fountain pen sells for $100,000, just the normal retail price.

08-01-16 $300k for a new Birkin handbag. When does something become collectable?

08-20-16 Very first Shelby Cobra sells for $13.75 million, a new record for an American car

08-24-16 1955 Jaguar D-Type that won Le Mans sets $21.78 million record price at auction

10-03-16 $600k for a new Cartier watch - is this an attempt to create collectables because  a 1982 Nautilus watch solf $909k last year?

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

CES: Motorized unicycle, anyone?

Originally posted on 01-16-12:


They say it's easier to ride than it looks, which is good because it looks difficult; until they make it look easy.  Still, I wonder how comfortable it is after an hour of standing in such a rigid fashion?

It's right out of the Jetsons, and at only $1495 and $2295!

Cool videos:


08-16-2016 Another Review and Update

Another one:

Ryno Bike

Tuesday, August 02, 2016

Who is Gary Johnson?

The 3rd Party Candidate - A Documentary

First posted in 2012:

Now more valid than ever:

From our pay-stubs, to our soft drinks, to our light-bulbs, to our bedrooms, to our toilets, the government is demanding more and more control of our lives.  When will we finally say enough is enough? When will we reach our "John Galt" moment?  When will we take our government back?

Last November Gary Johnson set a record for the Libertarian Party at one percent of the vote.  He might have gotten far more except that most of America had no idea there WAS a viable third choice.  Indeed, most of America agrees with more of his actual policies than any other candidate.  Gary WILL make an excellent president and help move government back away from our door:

So how do we help gain awareness for Gary Johnson over the NEXT four years?  I have an idea.

In Atlas Shrugged, "Who is John Gault?", was a rhetorical question reflecting the futility of the system.  The question was asked over and over by the hopeless, but it also became hope itself for those who KNEW John Galt.

A similar question needs to be asked again, but not in fiction this time.  If every time we see injustice in big government we reply with this question, maybe the nation will come to realize there IS an alternative.

If you agree, each time you see a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Blog post describing government taking away your freedom, simply leave this comment:

"Who is Gary Johnson?"

At first these comments may annoy and confuse people, since anyone can Google the answer.  And many will.  That's important:

The Battle for Freedom NEVER Ends

Wikipedia - Gary Johnson

But for the rest of us, it'll be a way of reminding others how critical we believe our freedoms are.

And in time the question itself will take on a life and meaning of it's own.

So... will YOU ask a simple question for freedom?

Who IS Gary Johnson?

Keep asking until we get some answers.

03-26-2016 Libertarian candidate gains in polls

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Friday, June 10, 2016

Burning Man Buys Fly Geyser with 3799 Extra Acres

This will be a link page for everything that follows this new and dramatic development:

Burning Man Buys Fly Rance

Fly Ranch

Friday, April 15, 2016

Very cool minimal transportation - a fully enclosed electric / pedal car:

The Amazing Bike-Car Invention

Friday, March 25, 2016

Wheela - A New Standard in Minimal Transportation

Wheela - A New Standard in Minimal Transportation - push or electric, 6 to 9 lbs, $300 to $600.  Be the first one on your block to Wheela:

Monday, March 07, 2016


First posted on 8-7-2013:

"Absolutely" sets a new standard for "most abused word".  

My granddaughter Leah searching for absolutes

Turn on any interview show.  Within seconds you'll hear the word, "Absolutely!" Even worse, it will probably be the response to some relatively complex issue that doesn't even approach any absolute condition.

Why is "Absolutely!" such a common answer?  Is there really that much certainly in our world?  Nope.  It's the result of lazy thinking.

"Absolutely" is being applied to things that are not only NOT absolute, often they are not even probable. Consider the source. Who is the spokesman?  Politician? Anyone else with a bias?  See what I mean?  Ironically, the very opposite of their "absolute" assertion is often the case.  Strangely enough, the more emphatic the claim, the less likely it is to be true.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and "there is absolutely no sex of any kind" 
- President Bill Clinton, 1998 from public statement and deposition

This onslaught of "absolutely!" is an excellent opportunity for some critical thinking.  Consider possible exceptions to the assertions as they are being stated.  Under what condition might the statement NOT be true?  See what I mean?

Years ago I had a close friend who, when I'd make some brash statement would say, "As opposed to?", then follow it with possible exceptions.  She was very good at this, and it became a game we played.  So I stole her trick. It's great mind candy, and quickly begs an even more important question - is ANYthing absolute?


Seriously, isn't "absolutely" simply an idea?  A creation of the human mind?  Is it not our aspiration to see things all one way, or all the other?  Isn't "absolutely" merely a bad case of polar thinking?

"Absolutely" doesn't really exist.  Seeking the truth is best approached asymptotically, leaving the end-point for the weaker mind.  It's like "unsinkable", "unstoppable" or "immovable", each an admirable goal, but not achievable in the real world. "Unsinkable" didn't even complete its first voyage.

So is NOTHING absolutely true?  Nope.  Well, not likely.

THIS statement MAY be the ONLY absolute.

I can imagine everyone now bringing to mind their favorite absolutes - God, love, mathematics, gravity. I could go on and on, and so can you.  So let's start with the most popular:


Many of you think me an atheist, but you'd be wrong.  I'm at best (or worst) an agnostic.  And I have doubts about that.  But I DO hold that each of us should be given the tolerance to explore as we wish.  And that's the key - we need to keep an opened mind.

God is not only an over-loaded word (many meanings), it's also one of the most over-loaded concepts we have in all the various aspects of human culture.  Unfortunately, the truth of God does not have a very good track record, under any religion.  

Compare the "truths" of  God, Jesus Christ, Buddha and Mohammad as documented.  They can't ALL be right.  To be candid, I think Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus Christ may have been a pretty impressive guys, but you wouldn't know it from all the contradictions and contemporary interpretations.   To be fair, let's take each one separately.  They still get interpreted in many different ways by different "believers".  Again, even for any one religion, they can't ALL be right.  And if any of these doctrines were absolutely true, why would there ever be need for change?  And yet they DO change from time to time. 

Let me get specific about the absolute aspect of God, not religion. Is our existence (or its illusion for some), proof of God?  Hardly. Our "existence" is demonstratively discoverable, and aspects of it are changing day by day.  Make a statement about existence, and a thousand others will provide counterpoints.  And that's WITHOUT questioning perception and relativity.  I could go on and on, but everyone else already has.
Keep an opened mind.  Even about God.


So, what about love?  It's so pure and simple, it MUST be absolute. Unfortunately, love too is a highly over-loaded word, concept and feeling. Love goes mystic as an experience, but all you have to do is ingest some MDMA to produce it's subjective conviction.  This clearly demonstrates our experience of love is at the very least, part of a chemical feedback loop in human behavior. And the conviction you feel on your wedding day?  Give it seven years. Again, love's track record is no better than God's.  Actually, it's quite a bit worse.


Ahh... mathematics - it's perfection itself.  Hardly.  Math is only a game we play in our struggle to understand the world. Mathematics is a creation of the human mind, and simply a tool for science.  If you look closely, the "truth" of mathematics flows from its usefulness in the observations we've made, or else is some form of identity - wholly disconnected from reality, which again makes it simply an abstraction of thought, which is more of an illusion than an absolute.



But gravity you say!  That's never fails us!

Don't be silly.  Of course it has.  Along with all the other "laws" of science.  All you have to do it go into orbit.  OK, that's not fair.  The subjective experience of gravity just takes on a different form in orbit.  But seriously.  Ever heard of the 30 years that shook physics? 

In the late nineteenth century it was thought that all science had been discovered, there were just a few refinements to be made. There was even talk of shutting down the patent office. And then along came Einstein.  That's when all hell broke loose (not related to God).  

Suffice it to say, we have more organized doubt in science now, than in any time in history.  And that's healthy. And that's the point. Any student entering the field of science today who does not have an opened mind is a fool.  If he "believes" in math, if he "believes" in science, he is likely to be worse than useless in his endeavor. He may actually distract us from approaching the truth with his questionable conviction.

Like mathematics, scientific absolutes are an illusion of the human mind.  Instead of discovering absolutes, science is how we claw our way forward in thinking.  Just don't hold too tightly to your conclusions, while you reach for the next hand-hold.  You'll find it easier to grasp.

Useful Generalization

So the next time you hear someone exclaim, "Absolutely!", let your mind wander to all the exceptions.  Then realize the person making the statement needs a lesson in critical thinking. Help them out. Explain that their conclusion may only be a useful generalization.

If you have any other "absolutes", please comment below.  I'll do what I can to help you test them.

Who knows, maybe you'll find one.  

But I doubt it.

Perhaps the best statement on the topic: 


Another similar conclusion:

"I'm not absolutely sure of anything" - Richard Feynman in 1981 from this interview:

Richard Feynman on Religion, Science, the Search for Truth; Our Willingness to Live with Doubt

Half the "Facts" You Know Are Probably Wrong

"Settled" Science?

There are NO Absolutes. There is NO Absolute Truth!

03-07-06 Everything Is Crumbling

John Oliver: Scientific Studies