I managed to watch about 15 minutes of the State of the Union address least week before I had to turn it off. I really didn't want to watch it in the first place but convinced myself that I ought to find out what the President thinks the state of the union is.

Alas, 15 minutes was all I could take.

My first clue that we were in deep ka-ka was the inference that somehow the Internet and technology were the cause of our economic crisis. Excuse me? The Internet and technology? You mean - I had it wrong? It wasn't the billions of dollars stolen by financial institutions or the trillions of dollars of the debt the United States owes the Federal Reserve and the International Bank of Settlement or the additional trillions of dollars we just printed out of thin air based on nothing?

Imagine my surprise! If we had just stopped that darn ole Internet back in the 70's everything would be fine!!! (First disco, now this!!!)

Now, I realize this President Barak Obama is in the business of "spinning" things (which basically means lying - great euphemism "spinning") - but really! For someone who's supposed to be very smart, even this is so far away from a "real why" my dead grandmother would notice. (You know - he must have a painfully low opinion of Americans if he thinks he can say something like that and we won't notice).

Next was the President's total conviction that "American Innovation" will come in and save the day. Like the calvary of old, suddenly us small business people are going to come up with the new ideas and technology (whoa - technology? I thought that's what got us into this mess!!) that are going to catapult the United States back to the top of the global economic standings. (Anyone for "King of the Hill"?)

He actually mentioned Edison. Edison, Mr. President? Edison has been dead for 80 years. And there hasn't been an Edison since, well, Edison.

You know what has been passing for American Innovation? Sub-prime mortgages - that's innovation. The boys at Merrill Lynch - more innovation. And OMG let's not forget Enron. Now - there's American Innovation!! Recent American innovation seems to have been mainly concerned with new and exciting ways to "spin" the books!!

I except from all this Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple. Who have truly been innovative and have made billions doing it. And I tell you, it's like I want to say "there is a god!" Because, you know, finally the good guys really made it. There are others of course. But there really need to be more. Lots more.

Anyway, as you can tell, I've been on a bit (bit?) of a rant here but there is a point.

We are not as innovative as we used to be. I think my generation was the last one that was able to get some sort of education in the public school system. Since then it has declined rapidly.

I graduated high school in 1971. We didn't have metal detectors at the entrances. Kids didn't bring guns to school. The idea that someone would go crazy and spray a cafeteria with machine gun bullets was so insane no one would even conceive of it. Yes, there were some drugs around. Yes, there were a couple of folks who would bring a knife to school. But the whole time I was in high school no one died at the hands of their schoolmates; no one was killed on school grounds; no one was hospitalized as a result of a fight; there were no drive by shootings. I think you get the idea.

Interestingly enough, no one had ADD or ADHD. Yes, there were "slow" students and every so often you might hear of dyslexia. But no one (out of all the kids I knew) was on some sort of drug for some sort of learning disability/mental illness.

Now suddenly we have 6 million kids in America on Ritalin to treat ADD or ADHD? What's this all about?? Did we have hidden, unknown learning disabilities and mental illnesses?

I think not. I think we were pretty healthy. I think we were pretty smart. One thing for sure, we could pretty much all read at the high school level when we graduated high school.

And sorry to sort of repeat last week's blog but here's the rub: when you put millions of kids on drugs that monkey around with brain chemistry - things are going to happen. And based on the past 20 years, I think we can now very safely say that they are NOT good things.

Most places in the country, sending your kid to public school is like throwing them to the lions. And not because of the kids. No. Because of the psychs. At some point, your kid can be pulled into an office, asked 10 questions, diagnosed as ADD, ADHD, bipolar, etc, etc, etc and put on a drug.

But really, I'm diverting from the real scene because the ADD, ADHD, etc. scene is just part of what is happening and isn't a real why on education in America. Nope, the sad truth about education in America is that it doesn't educate.

And if you want to get to a real why, here's a real why. Here's the basic that is missing from schools: No one teaches these kids how to study.

Think about this: teachers assume that a child can go home, read 40 pages of material and understand it. This does not happen. In fact, forget about 40 pages, try 5. Unless this person has like a 20,000 word vocabulary, it's impossible.

This is so ridiculous you would think someone would have figured this out a long time ago. (Well, someone did, but not in the educational system).

So if you want a real why - there's a real why. And why aren't kids taught how to study? Well, because the teachers don't know how to study. So, of course, you can't teach something you don't know about.

The result has left us where we are now. Sadly, putting your kid in private school is only a partial solution. They don't know how to study any more than the public school teachers.

I am all for bringing back innovation in America. Wow - think about how fantastic that will be.

But it has to start with overhauling our educational system and getting in the basic of teaching kids how to study. (In fact, all of us could benefit from that. Not just kids).

Fortunately for all of us, someone did figure all this out and you can find out about it at Applied Scholastics International. And if you have kids, I highly recommend that you check this out. It's the difference between freedom and slavery. Real education gives one the freedom to be, do and have whatever they want. And it starts with knowing how to study.

Malcolm

P.S. If the President said something redeeming in the remainder of the State of the Union, my apologies. I did miss it.

Back in 1954 a woman named Adelle Davis wrote a book called "Let's Eat Right To Stay Fit". This book is still in print and I highly recommend it. This was the third book in a series she wrote. In it, she explains things like how diabetes is caused by a vitamin deficiency (B-6 if I recall correctly). In fact, she has a vitamin or nutritional remedy for pretty much any disease.

Now if you read "Let's Eat Right To Stay Fit" you would certainly think that Adelle Davis is some kind of health nut (and perhaps she was). But she was also a Registered Nurse. Every one of her books has a "references" section in the back where she lists the sources of her material. These are, of course, cross-referenced in the text itself with numbers, etc. Now the interesting thing about her references is that they are 95% from medical journals and papers. Yep - that's right - things like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the AMA.

This is a fascinating thing. Because from this you can see that back in the 1950's (at least) there was a lot (and I mean a LOT) of research going on in the medical community on vitamins and nutrition and how they affect disease and our health. And this obviously changed because you know that today the emphasis in medicine is not on vitamins and nutition but drugs. How did this happen? Well, it wasn't an accident.

Without getting into a lot of conspiracy theory garbage, after world War II some very notable and extremely wealthy families invested large amounts of money into drug companies. And it wasn't long before these same folks started donating (or shall we say "investing"?) large amounts of money to medical schools. Because - and this is brilliant - drugs were prescribed by doctors and therefore the more doctors prescribing drugs, the more money one would make. So why not go directly to the source and educate doctors to prescribe drugs? After all, it makes perfect sense and guess what - it worked! By the end of the sixties, doctors were prescribing all sorts of drugs. When the birth control pill came out - OMG!! Jackpot!!! Drug companies couldn't sell enough of these!!

So the emphasis shifted to treating symptoms with a drug rather than handling the disease itself. Now this isn't as terrible as it seems. Really - when you get down to it - when most of us get sick it's either a bacteria or a virus. A bacteria you can fight with an antibiotic. A virus - well, you just have to ride it out. But that didn't stop drug companies from coming up with all sorts of "treatments" for the aches, pains, coughs, sneezes and trouble sleeping at night that go along with your average bacterial infection or virus. Just walk into your local supermarket and stroll down the drug aisle: a cornucopia of remedies at your fingertips!!! (All in inviting, colorful packages!!!)

Despite all this, the drug companies were in the business of selling drugs and the more drugs they could sell, the better, so as the years went on, increasing pressure to prescribe drugs was brought to bear. This has now reached the point where it is completely divorced from illness and actual medical conditions. Don't believe me? Well, here we go. Fasten your seat belt.

You are having headaches, so you go to your doctor. He says, "When did your headaches start?" You say "About two months ago. Aspirin and ibuprofen aren't helping." He says, "Aha! You have brain cancer. We will start you immediately on chemotherapy."

Now if you don't walk out of the doctor's office at this point and go see someone else, you deserve what you are about to get. What's missing??? THE LAB TESTS. Where's the test??? Got cancer? Where's the biopsy? Where's the blood work? Got diabetes? Where's the lab test? Broken leg? Let's see the x-ray!

In every area of medicine there are tests! OMG there are tests. There are probably too many tests involving too many pieces of equipment - but that's a whole other blog. The point is - got a disease? There's a TEST!

Except for one branch of medicine. And - oh boy - do the drug companies LOVE these guys.

You are feeling depressed. You go see the psychiatrist. He says, "When did you start feeling depressed?" You say "I saw a Cymbalta commerical on TV." He says, "Aha! You have bipolar disorder! We will start you immediately on anti-depressants!" And almost every single person says "OK"!

You think I am kidding? I am not. And what I want to know is: WHERE'S THE LAB TEST?

Years ago drug companies were not allowed to advertise on TV. Now they can. And what do they advertise? That depression is a serious medical condition and "may be" caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Now let's wait a minute. No one has proven this and no one can prove it because there is no way to prove it.

That hasn't stopped the prescribing and sales of trillions (yes, trillions!) of dollars of drugs that affect brain chemistry. Do you understand that? These drugs are designed to change your brain chemistry. And they do. But they are changing something that is unknown, unproven and cannot be confirmed with a test.

This, to me, is a recipe for disaster. And it has turned into a disaster.

Sadly it gets worse because a bizarre, symbiotic relationship between the drug companies and the psychiatrists has sprung up with each feeding on the other.

Once they got people to believe that you didn't need a test to prove you had an actual, real, true disease the flood gates were open! All of a sudden, you weren't shy, you had "Social Anxiety Disorder", fighting with youe wife? "Spousal Relationship Disorder", didn't want to go to school? "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder"! OMG does the list go on. And for every one of these disorders? Guess what - there's a drug!! Is there a lab test? Oh my gosh no! But there's a drug.

To really understand this, you have to understand medical billing and insurance companies. I have some experience with this. The first commercial application I wrote for PC's was a medical office billing system. When you go to see your doctor, one or more "procedures" are done. These procedures could be a consultation (the office visit tself), having blood drawn, an EKG, etc. Each procedure has a numeric code. Likewise, when you are diagnosed with something, there is a numeric code. So we have codes for procedures and codes for diagnoses. And you can match them up. For example, if the patient was diagnosed with a cold and had the procedure of putting a cast on his leg - this would not make sense. This is how insurance companies decide whether or not they will pay for a procedure. The procedure code has to be a code that is applicable to the diagnosis code. (Of course, the patient can have multiple procedures and multiple diagnoses).

So - if you want the insurance company to pay for the procedure you just did, all you need is a valid diagnosis code. And here is where the psychiatrists have outdone themselves. You see - they have a book. It's called the DSM. That stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. And in this book are all these made-up diaseases! Like "Social Anxiety Disorder" and "Spousal Relationship Disorder". You think I am kidding? I am not!! Every so often these birds get together and come up with a bunch of new "disorders". It's amazing!! It's incredible!! Who needs germs??? Just make up a disease!!!

And even better - guess what - each of these made-up disorders has a diagnosis code!!! So when you send this diagnosis code to the insurance company with the procedure code for your "consultation" - they pay!!! Doesn't matter that your "consultation" took 5 minutes and doesn't have anything to do with reality! They pay! Why? Because you have a valid diagnosis code and matching procedure code and it's all handled by computer!! You think someone at Blue Cross goes through every claim that goes through there! No way!

Meanwhile millions of Americans are taking these drugs that ARE changing their brain chemistry and we see the outcome in horrifying homicides and suicides.

In fact, it has gotten so bad then even the FDA has said that they have to mention the fact that these drugs can make someone feel homicidal or suicidal. They do this in such a wonderful way - the phrase they used is "suicidal ideation". Ideation??? You think the average bear understands the word "ideation" when it flashes by in a TV commercial?

Let really get the picture here. Your friend is on an anti-depressant. He hasn't felt much like himself since he started taking them. But that's good right? Cause when he felt like himself he was depressed. So now he's different and different must be better, right? (No - not at all - but bear with me). So you say, "How are you?" and he says "I'm feeling a lot beter. In fact, I feel so much better I think I'll kill myself."

Yes! There you go! "My anti-depressant is working so well I think I'll go out and kill a few people and then myself!"

Really you have to ask yourself, are we totally insane here? Psychiatrists would like you to think you are. They will actually tell you that 80% of Americans have a mental illness. Well, I know who has the mental illness and it's not 80% of us.

To make matters even worse (as if you can imagine that), the drug companies have disguised many of these drugs with different names and managed to get them approved for different uses. So when you want to quit smoking or lose weight, you might very well wind up taking one of these gems without even knowing that's what's happening. And then you wonder why you suddenly "don't feel like yourself".

And don't mistake what I am saying. For actual, real medical conditions that are confirmed with lab tests, there are fantastic drugs that really do help people recover from illnesses. But monkeying around with the brain chemistry of millions of Americans just doesn't fit into that category.

Now I am sure that some people will be offended by this blog. And I am sure that some people feel that they have been genuinely helped by anti-depressants and/or other psychiatric drugs. And I assure you that that is not my intent to offend anyone in writing it. But I have seen so many people adversly affected by this that I believe it has crippled us as a society. (Not to mention raising our health insurance costs!) And so it fits into our 2011 blog theme of Life and the Universe.

I wish you the best of health and happiness for real!!

Malcolm

About 10 days ago, another of our iPhone Apps was submitted and accepted in the iPhone App store. It's a game called BrainCube. It's similar to Sudoku but played in a 4x4x4 cube using the letters A-P instead of numbers. A friend of mine was asking about the development process and suggested that it might be a good blog subject. So here we are!

BrainCube was actually conceived and programmed in 12 days. I basically did it in the "dead" time between Christmas and New Year's. I think its original release date in the App store was Jan 6.

In a lot of ways, for developers, the App store is like the California gold rush. There are something like 8 million iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users. If you do the math, you can see that sales to even a small percentage of that group can result in significant income. But - and here's the rub - you have to be able to make the group aware of your App. So it's a lot like what I imagine prospecting was like in California; many show up, not all make it.

The Holy Grail of the App store is to have your App featured with either a marquee presentation or in the "What's Hot", "New and Noteworthy" or "Staff Picks" sections. Because if they do that, you get a huge amount of exposure and ka-boom - you make a lot of money. How Apple selects the Apps to be featured is a bit of a mysterious process. So it's a total gamble as to whether or not your App will be featured and you certainly can't depend on that.

The idea for BrainCube came out of a conversation with my wife. We were talking about the types of Apps that generate the most sales and games are totally at the top of that list. I had never thought about doing a game because I have no interest in shoot 'em ups and there's a lot of technical know-how involved in that sort of animation. But I did some research in the App store and interestingly enough, Sudoku games are one of the top sellers. For some reason I didn't expect that but I thought I could for sure do a puzzle type game,

I happen to like Sudoku and have a Sudoku App on my iPhone. (It's very convenient when my wife is in the fitting room at Macy's and I have some time to kill.)

This got me to thinking about Sudoku-type games and it occurred to me that a three dimensional game played in a cube would be pretty interesting. It might also be unique since it would be hard to play a cube game in the "real world". Unique is always good because there is more of a chance that a unique App will be featured.

I figured that a 3x3x3 cube of 9 squares probably wouldn't be challenging enough but 4x4x4 (64 squares) would probably be plenty challenging.

So back to the App store for more research and according to what I found, there wasn't anything else like it in the App store. This was good. More "unique-ness".

I had already figured out how one would play (and although it is pretty easy to think about how one would play, it turns out it is somewhat difficult to describe how to play). So the next step was to figure out if there were any solutions to this puzzle and if so, how many were there? I wrote a little program to create solutions and found out that there are a LOT. So that was pretty cool.

The obvious next step was to put the App itself together and this, of course, was the bulk of the work. There's a lot that goes into a user interface like this. This is what Apple refers to as an "immersion" App in that the user gets "immersed" in the screen. So color choices are a big thing. The other big thing is use of the touch screen. You can not only detect "taps" but also various gestures like swipes. Part of this interface will detect a right or left swipe and rotate the entire cube so it can be viewed from a different angle. This sort of "eye candy" is what makes Apps more interesting. Especially since the rotations are animated. It's fun just to watch, but it also serves a purpose for the game.

There are, of course, many other required elements: A menu to pick a new game or resume an existing game; difficulty levels and the logic necessary to generate those; a timer to keep track of the time you spend on the game and the best time for each difficulty level; some method for the player to see the solution; and a "How To Play" section. I think you get the idea. All of that took most of the development time. (There's a lot of proprietary stuff in there so forgive me if I skip that).

And then, of course, I had to play it to test the functionality and the difficulty levels. And while the "Easier" level was somewhat easy, "Difficult" is incredibly difficult. So testing did consume some time as games had to actually be played.

Finally the App was ready to be submitted to the App store. There is also a lot to this. You have to write some copy to describe the App. You can include screen shots and obviously selecting screenshots is very important and you have to upload various icons that meet specific size requirements for use in the App store.

Submitting the App to the App store can be a nerve-wracking experience. Once the App is successfully uploaded to Apple it moves through a series of statuses. The first status is "Waiting For Review". This means it is in line to go to a reviewer. The next status is "In Review". In Review is an interesting status as it could be in there anywhere from 8 hours to a week. I've had good luck with "In Review". I don't think I've had an App In Review for more than 2 days. After "In Review" it either comes out as "Ready for Sale" or "Rejected". If it's Ready For Sale it goes right into the App store. If Rejected, you get an email explaining why. (I only got one of those once on the first App I submitted and it was because two of my icons didn't properly match. My misunderstanding of the icon requirements).

BrainCube (amazingly) got submitted about 2:00 in the afternoon and somewhere in the middle of the night went from "Waiting For Review" to "Ready For Sale". I think it was about 11 hours. Very fast.

However - we weren't done yet. A couple of friends downloaded it and the "How to Play" needed a major overhaul. It turned out that what was clear in my mind was hard to describe even with images. This is one of those cases where I knew where I needed to go but not sure how to get others there as well. I think we finally sorted it out and this required the submission of an update - which also amazingly was approved in about 12 hours.

So now BrainCube is in the App store. I know I enjoy playing it and I hope other people do, too. I'm putting a screen shot here so you can see what it looks like.

One thing I will say for sure is that it is tremendous fun to program these Apps!!

Malcolm

So this week we have some pictures for you. First we have a picture of the biggest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC) at CERN. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. A hadron is a particle smaller than an atom. We could get all technical about this but all you really need to know is that a proton is one type of hadron. So here's a picture of the Large Hadron Collider:

Well, OK it's a tube in a tunnel. The tube is actually a ring (17 miles long) and what they do is put protons and anti-protons in the ring (Yes!! Anti-matter!! It's like Star Trek. "Captain!! The engines!!") and accelerate them until they are really close to the speed of light. Then they make the protons and anti-protons collide (hence the word "Collider" in "Large Hadron Colllider") and from this they are going to figure out how the universe was created and the real basic basics of matter and energy. Wow!! Amazing stuff!!

Now next here we have a picture of the bumper cars at Coney Island, New York, also known as the Large Moron Collider or LMC. (That's a joke. Not all people who go in the bumper cars are morons). And like the hadrons, when you accelerate morons and collide them you also find out a lot about the structure of the universe and how it behaves. (Of course, you only have to accelerate the morons to like 2 mph instead of the speed of light which is a really good thing because it takes a huge amount of electricity to accelerate anyone to the speed of light.)

Now, it costs a lot less to build and operate the LMC than the LHC and I find it interesting that you can deduce a lot of the same information by observing the behavior of the particles in each.

For example, when the protons and anti-protons collide in the LHC, a lot of energy is released. The conditions are supposedly close to the conditions at the time of the "Big Bang" (the beginning of the universe) which is to say hot and dense and quite chaotic with particles being thrown outward.

When enough morons collide in the LMC we see also see a lot of energy release and if you can get a large number of morons in the LMC you really will see a hot and dense "Big Bang" with particles being thrown outward. (Whether or not this tells you anything about the nature of the universe is up to you).

I follow a lot of this particle physics stuff because the big goal in physics right now is to come up with one big single model that explains how everthing in the universe is working and I am very curious as to what these guys are going to come up with. There's a lot of math involved (which I cannot do - so my interest is rather high level) and some of this math has something very interesting to say. The math says that just by watching an event, the event is altered. Now - that's fascinating. It means that an observer can never actually be only an observer.

The implications of that are fairly staggering. Imagine that you are somehow involved and are participating in everything you observe. That's a fairly scary concept for most people (and perhaps an excellent reason to stop watching the news).

So here's the deal: The folks at the LHC are doing experiments that could possibly prove the validity of that math. This is what large particle accelerators are for - to prove or disprove the math. Someone (i.e. Einstein) has a theory. They (or someone else) take the theory and do a bunch of math that says it should be a certain way. Then the particle accelerator folks do an experiment (or several hundred) to see if it really is that way.

Now, the only flaw in that whole concept is that here are the LHC folks watching these experiments and if the math is correct, they are influencing the experiments just by watching them. So it makes one wonder how they will prove or disprove the theory. (You can just imagine someone pointing at a picture with particles spraying in all directions and saying "OK Bob - right here - what exactly were you thinking 72 nanoseconds after the collision?").

All kidding aside I am a big fan of the concept that we are intimately connected to and affecting everything around us. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the way it is. And it is certainly better that way than some other way because it means you really do have the power to create terrific things in your life.

I don't think that proving this particular piece of math is the top priority at the LHC. I'm pretty sure they have a list of things that come before that. In fact, way at the top of the list is the search for a particular particle that will explain how all the matter in the universe is held together. But all of this is related and I bet you that if they find this particle it will also somehow contribute to our understanding of our interaction with the universe around us.

On the other hand, if you look hard enough, you can see all this for yourself without taking a trip on the LMC.

Malcolm

Welcome to 2011, planet Earth, in the galaxy we refer to as the Milky Way. Just in case you weren't EXACTLY sure where you were, now you know! And knowing where you are is very important. Look at folks who don't know where they are. You often see them running around in a daze doing these sort of random actions hoping something comes out of it.

As they say in real estate, "location, location, location!!" So make no mistake - THIS IS the place you want to be right now. After all - where else would you be? Not enough gravity on the moon, the air is too thin on Mars and Venus is really icky. Anywhere else and it just plain takes too long to talk to someone. You say hi, wait 45 minutes to several years, and they say hi. So then you say "How are you?" and wait another 45 minutes to several years and they say, "Fine, How are you?", etc, etc, etc. Ouch!

Now just because this IS the place to be doesn't mean we aren't in a pickle. Because we are for sure in many pickles here on earth and not your small gherkins. No - we are in your giant full-sour garlic dills. (When I was a kid we lived near a pickle works. You could go over there and pick the pickles out of barrels. And of course they had a zillion kinds. But the giant full-sour garlic dills were the item. One of those and your breath could wipe someone out for a week!)

Now - when you are in a pickle, the first thing to do is to get (you guessed it!) de-pickle-ated. Which isn't necessarily what we do here on earth. And there's a reason for that.

I talked about this once before when I mentioned that we just don't consider the actual magnitude of what is required to get the job done. I'm mostly talking about engineering although it spills into other fields. This is a very "earth" thing.

Let's take energy as an example. For sure we are running out of fossil fuels. Do we stop using them? No. OK - what are the alternatives? Well, electricity is the thing. And what we know about electricity you could put on the head of a pin. You think I'm kidding? I am not. I studied power distribution systems in college and although that was 30+ years ago the state-of-the-art hasn't improved much. This is why a lightning strike in Kentucky can wipe out the power in half of Ohio. Because the solution hasn't been to fully understand how to control what happens when you get a 30,000 amp surge in a high tension line - the solution has been redundancy. Yep - that's right - one line gets fried, let's make sure there is another one (a backup, if you will) that we can switch to. Which works great until the second line gets fried. So you get an idea of what I mean when I say that we just aren't thinking in the correct order of magnitude.

Right now we have like three ways to generate electricity. Yep - three. Chemical, mechanical and solar cell. (OK - I'm being generous on calling solar cell a third type). Chemical is batteries. Well, you know what happens with batteries - you run out. OK that's a joke - we do have rechargeable batteries now. But aside from that, there are lots of other problems with batteries the biggest of which are that they eventually wear out, they do not store a lot of power and contain chemicals that are fairly toxic. Not a long term solution.

I also include fuel cell in the chemical arena. Fuel cell is great for small scale generation assuming you can get your hands on the hydrogen you need. But (and here we go again) no one has really figured that out. Right now they are getting hydrogen from hydrocarbons (i.e. fossil fuels)!!! Of course, you can split water into hydrogen and oxygen and trap the hydrogen but guess what? That requires electricity!!

Mechanical has been the big method of generating electricty and by that I mean generators. Big generators. And something has to turn the big generators. We see wind coming on line now, which is great, but the two big methods of turning generators are hydro and steam. In hydro, water flows through a turbine, the turbine turns the generator and out comes electricity! It's powered by gravity! It's fantastically great as long as you have Lake Mead available. We probably need more Lake Meads but I won't even get into that because the #1 way on planet earth to make electricity is with steam turbines. Steam turns the turbine which turns the generator and out comes electricity!

Now - in order to get steam, you have to boil water. And this is so typical "planet earth" you really can't stand it. Coal, oil, nuclear - they all do the same thing - boil water to make steam! Do you get that? We are taking nuclear energy and boiling water! That's planet earth!! Split atoms to boil water! What are we THINKING????

We have people right now working on how to boil water with solar energy. You see the problem. Our finest minds are working on new and exciting ways to boil water.

And, on top of that, we have almost no ways to store electricty. Know how we store electricity? We put it in batteries or we pump a huge amount of water (which uses electrity) into a reservoir and then let it out to spin turbines to make more electricity that we aren't storing. The solution to the storage problem has been to ignore it and generate electricity continuously as it is needed. It's fantastically absurd!! The problems that creates are unbelievable. If you really knew what it takes to keep the North American power grid on line you would go out and buy every flashlight you could find. (But you would need batteries).

So again you see what I mean by not thinking in the correct orders of magnitude. And this is just one part of the subject of electricity. Let's hope that someone somewhere has stepped back enough to look at the actual problem of what it is and how do you create it! (Where is Nikolai Tesla when you really need him?)

In the wider scope of things, it's a new year and we need to start coming up with real solutions for our pickles. So let the de-pickle-ation begin! It's up to all of us to start thinking smart and thinking in correct orders of magnitude about a lot of things.

Malcolm

Here we are in the twilight zone between Christmas and New Year. It happens every year. There's an interesting polarization that occurs around this time. One is either frantically busy or completely laid back. It seems like there is no in-between.

If you are in the frantic category, you are VERY busy attempting to make those goals ands targets before the end of the year. And make no mistake - just because Christmas is over, retailers have not stopped selling merchandise. In fact, the upsell opporutnities on returned merchandise are incredible. And - if you don't have one, too bad for you - this is the time you REALLY want to have a private label gift card in place.

If you are in the laid-back category, you are attempting to do as little as possible until (in this case) Monday, January 3. Now - I think that's a terrifically interesting concept. What will actually be different on Monday, January 3 so that you wouldn't do something today that you would do then? I mean - are the physical constants of the universe going to be different? Will there be less gravity so it will be easier to get things done? (Have you considered the idea that there might be more gravity? Wow - you better get busy!!)

I think there is a semi-valid argument that it is more diffcult to get a hold of people. This is due to the fact that the laid-back people are too laid back to answer the phone and the frantic people are too frantic to answer the phone. Which makes things that much harder for the frantic people.

You see the paradoxical nature of the period - hence the Twilight Zone.

Now don't me wrong - I am not opposed to assigning special significance to Dec 31 - Jan 1 as long as we all understand that it is only because there is such widespread agreement on this date. In fact, this whole January 1 thing didn't really start until the mid-1700's. This makes New Year's Eve a very recent holiday compared with the 5500 year written history of man. (In the Jewish calendar, New Year is on the first day of the month of Tishrei. Which in 2010 happened to be on Sept 9.)

But let's go with our standard Gregorian New Year. There are quite a few traditions connected with this holiday not the least of which is the New Year's Resolution. I like the New Years Resolution concept. Of course, we are all constantly deciding what we want the future to be (good or bad) but New Year has become the time that we take stock of where we have been and where we want to go from a broader view. These resolutions are really goals we are setting for the next year.

So while you are setting goals, it's really good to think BIG! In fact, you have to think BIG! You have to think in abundance.

Come next week with the first of the year, the blog will be shifting a bit. I'm not going to limit the blog to the world of Retail. There's a lot more going on around here, so I am going to expand the blog to include the subjects of Life and The Universe. (Not that I won't be touching on Retail).

So we might as well start now with resolutions and abundance.

It is actually difficult to think with the amount of something that is needed to get the job done. This is part of why we always seem to be running out of this and that. Someone figures out how much water a city needs, undertakes a billion dollar tunnel project and before it is even done the population has grown so much even the new tunnel won't supply enough water. And there are other factors like taxes and the stock market. Just when you think you are getting enough take home pay to cover the bills, there's a tax increase and ka-boom - you are out of luck!

So when you are making those resolutions for next year - think with abundance!

My big resolution for the New Year is that we are all flourishing and propering. Yes, ALL of us!! So with that, I wish you a Happy New Year!

Malcolm

These days it's almost impossible to underestimate the importance of filtration.

Filtration has infiltrated almost every aspect of life. Let's just start with basic tap water. I'll bet you have some sort of filter on your kitchen sink and that few (if any) family members drink unfiltered water. (By the way, this is a spectacular retail opportunity! Water! All you have to do is put water in a 1/2 cent plastic jug, label it "drinking water" and as long as it has less than the federally mandated maximum level of rodent parts - you are in business!)

Down here the water is so bad (even with the filter) that we drink bottled water. Harlingen is not known for a world-class recycling program. This is where they burn the sugar cane fields before they harvest them. (Always interesting to go outside when they are burning the cane and you are downwind). This is also where they spray the whole county wholesale out of airplanes to kill mosquitos. Yes! That's right - it rains pesticides!

In fact, the mosquitos were so bad after Hurricane Dolly that we bought special mosquito-proof clothes so we could work outside. They are basically mosquito nets in the form of shirts and pants and effectively filter the mosquitos out of the air.

Then of course there is the Internet search engine - which is really a method of filtering the Internet so only the content you really want reaches your browser. Can you image if you opened the browser and the whole Internet appeared? Yikes!! Good thing for filtration!

And how about phone calls? Used to be that answering the phone was an adventure. Who was on the other end of the line? No filtration at all! Then the answering machine came out and then caller ID! So now you have two ways to filter your phone calls.

Then there's the TV tuner or cable box designed to filter the channel going to the TV. (I'll bet you never realized there was a filter in there!)

Not all filtration is good. How about personal communication? "Too nuch info", "I don't want to hear it", "Talk to the hand". This is not good filtration.

How about the media? I don't think it's possible to get an unfiltered news story in this country (much less the world) anymore. "News" is littered with biased and provocative adjectives, innuendo, and propaganda by re-definition of words. No one reports what actually happened, where it happened and when it happened. Sometimes it seems that every newscast in America is an editorial. (I have a friend that spends long periods of time in England and the view of the same news over there is completely different than here. Not that the news over there is any more accurate, it just points out how much the information feed is distorted by the opinion and bias of the viewpoint. It's an interesting exercise to just look at something and note what you actually see and not what you think you see.)

Now - with all this filtration going on, you can imagine what happens to the average garden variety humanoid when they enter the place where the prices are Always lower. Carumba! No filtration! It's thousands of square feet of unfiltered product! Well, you know, it can just be overwhelming.

I realize they have tried to filter the experience by grouping similar merchandise into specific areas of the store with these signs hanging from the ceiling in the approximate area where the merchandise is supposed to be. But nevertheless, the shopper is immersed in a sea of SKUs. Where's the SCUBA??? (That's the device that filters out the water when you are underwater). Perhaps they should at least give you a snorkel when you enter the store. ("Hi! Welcome to Wal-Mart! Snorkel?")

It's interesting to compare the mega-store with the department store. I suppose that in general the department store has less items than the mega-store (except for Macy's Herald Square), but it is a lot of items no matter how you slice it. But you don't get that "sea of product" feeling when you enter a department store.

Why is that? It's a combination of fixtures and decor. The merchandise tends to be more grouped (which has a lot to do with fixtures) and the decor helps to separate out the different areas. This cuts down on the feeling one has just stepped into an airplane hanger stuffed with bins containing all the parts found in a 747.

In addition (and this may be only me), it sure seems that there is a sense of "franticness" while shopping in the mega-store that I don't experience in the department store. Perhaps it's the shopping carts? You certainly don't see shopping carts in a department store. In fact, come to think of it, this is a VERY interesting point. The department stores are using a shopping cart filter! And the mega-stores are using a carpet filter!!

I think I'm onto something. I'm going to go find some more examples of retail filtration!

Malcolm

We were out on our terrace Sunday morning enjoying some coffee when I realized that it was December 11 and 75 degrees outside. We are renting a townhouse from a friend here that happens to be on a golf course and our terrace looks out over one of the greens and over toward the lake in the middle of everything. It sure didn't seem like December. (And not much shaking on the golf course Sunday morning because, after all, this IS Harlingen and Sunday morning is, well, Sunday morning. Saturday morning you can watch the golf carts maneuvering through the course like tanks on a tank table or those car rides for kids at amusement parks where the cars all follow each other on a track.)

As I said, I grew up in New York, more exactly on Long Island (that's pronounced "lawngiland" - one big word) and I still associate December and the holiday season with snow, although at this point I really don't care for snow.)

One reason I don't care for snow is that I went to college in Schenectady, New York, which is west of Albany in the Mohawk Valley 200 miles north of New York City.

Schenectady is a pretty interesting place (for about an hour). It was settled by the Dutch around 1650. So there's a lot of history there. When I was in college, General Electric had its Large Steam Turbine division in Schnectady. So there were a lot of Italian-American blue collar workers in the turbine plant building large steam turbines. (And man - they were LARGE. They used to ship the various pieces out on railroad cars for asembly at the destination). Right next door in the suburb of Niskayuna (these Indian names are killers, but usually mean something really cool) was the General Electric Research and Development Center. As a result, at that time, Niskayuna had the highest per capita concentration of Masters and PhD level people in the United States. In other words, a real brain bank. Also in Nisakyuna, the Navy had been operating a nuclear submarine training school with an operating reactor for years. So - talk about stratification - you had the descendants of the original Dutch settlers (who mainly owned the banks and the shops), the blue collar turbine folks, the brain banks at GE R&D and the Navy!! (Not to mention the nuclear reactor!)

In the middle of this we have Union College - notable for having the only sixteen-sided building east of the Mississippi. (The Nott Memorial - named for one of the college Presidents, Eliphalet Nott Potter - I kid you nott!) (And who names their kid "Eliphalet"?)

The other thing Schnectady is notable for is the winter. I am sure that Schenectady is not the most brutal winter or climate on the planet. Antarctica beats it hands down. But it is fairly unpleasant. The sky becomes a grey cap sometime in November when it starts snowing. It thaws out around the end of April. In between, the wind comes off the great lakes, dumps a couple hundred feet of snow on Buffalo (now THAT's a brutal winter) and barrels down the Mohawk Valley providing routine wind chill figures of 12 and 17 farenheit.

Surviving a winter in Schenectady requires a special skill set. For example, you do NOT step outside without a coat on Dec 15. You also really need a hat or a hood. Frostbite is a real thing and if you don't understand that, you can lose body parts. You have to learn to drive on snow and ice or you walk (which has its own hazards) or cross-country ski. (One February the street outside our apartment was covered with 2 inches of ice.) The upside is that you could go ice skating on the lakes.

Although I am not now interested in spending another winter in Schenectady, one thing that one could learn from all of that is that it is possible to master an environment and operate despite what I will describe as "continuous unfavorable conditions".

So now we are in Harlingen which is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It's pretty tropical here. So of course we don't have 10 foot snow drifts and wind chill below zero. But we do have hurricanes and it really helps to have a high tolerance for insects and reptiles. When we moved here, we had to learn some new survival skills. Some of our normal operating basis from Sacramento just didn't work here. And our first year we experienced Hurricane Dolly that left us without power for 5 days.

A lot of folks will say that you have to "adapt to the environment". Well, OK, maybe if you call putting on a coat before you go outside on Dec 15 in Schenectady "adapting to the environment". But I don't agree with that. I think the environment ought to adapt to me. Or, put another way, we all ought to be creating the environment we want. And even though you can take that metaphorically, it applies literally. After all, a house is just a way to provide the environment you want despite the conditions occurring at that place on earth right now. (The indoor skiiing facility in Dubai is an interesting example.)

To extend this (again, not metaphorically but literally) you can have environments with "continuous unfavorable conditions" that are completely man-made. Sexual harrassment in the workplace is a great example. No, this is not climate, but is nevertheless an environment. (You know that feeling you sometimes get when you walk into a room and someone is about to give you bad news? This is real stuff.)

I suspect that sailors have a tremendous reality on this. Imagine you are at sea in some freighter when all hell breaks loose with the weather. There is no government to call, no FEMA, no Red Cross, no Salvation Army. There is YOU and your crew. You either master the environment or that's that.

The good news is that we are all capable of mastering our environment in some way, shape or form. I firmly believe that everyone has that capability. Even people you think can't do anything really can do at least one single, simple thing to improve their situation.

And if we all did that, pretty soon we would be masters of the universe!! Wouldn't that be cool?

Malcolm

I have to admit I didn't see it coming. And I should have - because it makes perfect sense. Just when we were all completely conditioned to expect the best deals on EVERYTHING on Black Friday, there it was - Cyber Monday!! Well - after all - why not? Like I said it makes perfect sense. Why actually drive over to the store at 4:00 am Friday (and spend all that money on gas!) when you can buy it on line on Monday for less!! (Of course, it would have been great to know that at 3:00 am on Friday.)

Finding the lowest price has turned into a sort of gambling activity; sort of like the lottery. The customer is never really quite sure that they are really getting the real really best deal out of all of the really best deals.

Even the "lowest price guarantee" doesn't actually help you because (in case you didn't notice) all of these stores carry different brands! So the chances of you finding the same brand at the competing discount store is pretty slim.

Add in iPhone Apps like Red Laser (scans a barcode and finds prices for that item in stores in your vicinity) and the "Finding The Lowest Price" game takes on a whole new dimension. I seriously doubt that anyone has done an analysis of how much it costs to actually find and buy the item at the lowest price. I suspect that after you add in the gas and the time spent going from store to store, you wind up paying more than if you had just bought it at the first place you went to.

Anyway, there are over two weeks yet to go before the BIG day, so I am SURE we can come with a special sale day name for each and every day between now and then. Wait!! Perhaps we can use the 12 days of Christmas!! "Turtle Doves Tuesday", "French Hens Friday", "Swans a Swimming Saturday" - you get the idea. The jewelry stores will love "Gold Rings Sunday"!!! And I am sure that somewhere we can throw in a tent sale ("National Tent Sale Day") because we all know that things are cheaper when they are sold from a tent.

Not to shift gears too much, but if you celebrate Hanukah (as we do by lighting candles), sorry - the game is just about up. Only two days left for Hanukah. (For those who might not know, Hanukah is eight days. When we were kids we got a gift every night. One or two big things and then little stuff).

But this does bring up an interesting point. I grew up in New York and our neighborhood was split pretty much 50/50 Jewish and Roman Catholic. So when you went to the mall this time of year you not only saw tons of Christmas decorations but tons of Hanukah decorations. This is what I grew up with.

Even when I moved to Dallas (which is the Bible Belt for sure) there were Hanukah decorations in all the department stores. It wasn't until I moved to Sacramento that I experienced an interesting effect. My first Hanukah in Sacramento, I realized that I had left a menorah (a 9 candle candelabra that holds the Hanukah candles) in Los Angeles. Rather than drive down and get it (ha) I decided to go and buy a new one. Little did I suspect. First stop was the Macy's home section at the local mall. This is where it gets interesting. I walk into Macy's and I realize I do not see a single Hanukah decoration. Not a one! Hanukah clearly does not exist at this Macy's. I find a sales person and tell her I am looking for a menorah. OK - she has no idea what that is. I tell her it's a candle holder used for celebrating Hanukah. Hanukah? I could have been speaking Martian. Clearly, as far as this girl was concerned, I was a Martian. Hanukah? Not a clue.

To make a long story short, I go to five different places and no menorah. No one knows what I am talking about. It probably would have been faster to go to LA and find the one I left there. However, I did finally find one at a Hallmark store. They had two and I grabbed one of them. (The next year my daughter made a magnificent ceramic menorah with a hand-glazed picture of zebras at a watering hole for me. It's quite spectacular.)

But again, this is another example of the power of retail. An entire religion was omitted from the seasonal decorations. If that's what you grow up with, it gives you the idea that that's all there is. Now when you run into something else (like Hanukah) you see Martians. Wouldn't it be far better to have decorations that represent all the religions celebrating holidays and grow up with that? I think it would definitely promote religious tolerance and we could sure use more of that these days.

In fact, here's a list of religious and ethnic holidays for December. If you celebrate any of these, I hope you have a very happy holiday. If I left anyone out - my sincere apologies.

Hanukah (Jewish)
St. Nicholas Day (Christian)
Hijira (Islam)
Bodhi Day (Buddhist)
Immaculate Conception of Mary (Catholic, Christian)
Our Lady Of Guadalupe (Catholic, Christian)
Ashura (Islam)
Las Posadas (Hispanic Catholic)
Winter Solstice (aka Yule) (Wicca, Pagan, Christian)
Christmas (Christian, Roman Catholic)
Feast of the Holy Family (Catholic, Christian)
Death of Prophet Zarathustra (Zoroastrian)
Kwanzaa (African-American)

Malcolm

One of our compatriots, Don Capman at J.D. Associates, recently wrote a great article in their Retail Source Newsletter (http://www.jdapos.com/newsletters/10Nov/index.html?jmid=419&j=255002088). The article is worth reading, but just to paraphrase Don, he advances the spectacular idea of having retailers seek out and sell items that are Made In America.

This is such a fantastic idea, I felt I had to include it in this week's blog. We really could start an entire "Made In America" retail movement. And we should. For all the right reasons. I think every one of your end-users would get more business by advertising "We Sell Made In America".

Somewhere back there I pointed out that an economy is based on production and Don has come up with a brilliant idea to develop and reward more production in America.

Back in high school and through college I was fascinated by the philospohy of Ayn Rand and pretty much read everything she wrote. I even subscribed to the Ayn Rand Newsletter which was particularly interesting during the 1973 energy crisis. Of course, "Atlas Shrugged" is her masterpiece and may be the greatest novel ever written. (Even if you don't agree with her philosophy, the book is an epic tale of empires, adventure, mystery, romance, science fiction, politics, economics and even some comic relief.)

I've since moved on from Ayn Rand but one area where she hit the nail on the head was production. She pointed out in no uncertain terms that there are people who produce things and people who don't produce things and the civilization depends on the people who do produce things.

Leaving Ayn Rand aside, one can observe an even worse category - people who are dedicated to destroying the people who produce things. This one is particularly hard to confront but nevertheless exists. Thankfully, it's a small percentage of the overall population. However, these trouble makers can make an awful lot of trouble.

I only bring this up because when you are going to start a movement that could bootstrap the economy and save the civilization (OK - perhaps a bit of exaggeration there), these trouble makers are going to surface and a) tell you how it can't be done, b) tell you how it won't work and c) attempt to stop it.

This is what happens to most of the great ideas in this country. Someone - an individual mind you, not a group - comes up with a great idea and the bozos attack it and whittle it down to an unworkable mess. You have to be courageous in the extreme to get anything decent done on a large scale. (Burt Rutan, who has already built a privately owned spaceship and sent it into space, is a terrific example of this.) (No offense to Bozo the Clown.)

I think we completely underestimate our ability to create change. And by "our" I mean ourselves as folks in the retail industry. Retail environments (i.e. stores) have tremendous exposure. Outside of work and home, people are more exposed to stores than anyuthing else. The environment and messages sent by these stores has a tremendous impact on the opinions and attitudes of the shoppers.

Imagine you are just cruising the mall and window shopping and you see 3 or 4 stores with "Made In America" in the window. That communicates. Chances are you are going to think "right - made in America".

So let's not underestimate the power we have in the retail industry.

If you like Don's idea, please pass it on to your end-users. And let's be prepared for the "it can't work", "it won't work" and the "I'm going to stop it".

Malcolm