This goes out to all the folks that read NRO and DailyKos for their daily news. Partisanship is bad, let’s not get sucked into websites that specialize in it.
I’ve been telling friends for awhile now that I think physical media for movies is dead, seems the recent numbers from DVD/Blu-Ray sales back that up. I don’t think its a temporary recession drop either, its permanent as services like iTunes, Amazon VOD, Netflix streaming, etc. make people wonder what the point is in having tons of plastic discs all over their house.
I’m trying out Disqus for comments on the blog, for one main reason, I just didn’t feel like implementing comments myself. I am somewhat wary of services that seem integral to a blog, like where the comments are, which is why I’ve been leery of using services like this for some time.
What happens if Disqus runs out of VC and goes belly-up? I’ve seen this with a few other web services, and no one using it is very happy when it occurs. On the other hand, I did find some irony in the fact that one of the features Disqus pitches users is, “Don’t lose your comments if the blog disappears”.
On the other hand, I really appreciate the capabilities a central service-based comment system brings. I’ve inadvertently used it on other blogs, and was very pleasantly surprised to get updates and actually be able to keep up on what was happening on the blogs I commented on.
Are other people worried about using services by new companies or am I just overly paranoid?
I’d almost feel better about it if I could pay five bucks a year or something, as I’d at least have some better reassurance that the company is actually making money like I do with Flickr. Or maybe it’d be nice if companies that are profitable to say so, though it occurs to me that even that isn’t a guarantee, as someone could come along and buy them up, then decide to terminate their functionality (like that one site that people used and were pissed about when Six Apart bought them and shut it down, but for some reason I can’t remember the name of it at all).
I’ve been working on some Javascript to enhance the TextArea elements on the PylonsHQ Snippets section, and have noticed that… well, TextArea’s suck.
The hack I’ve seen is to use one of the newer features of browsers, the editable or ‘design’ attribute’s for div elements I believe. This lets one build a very snazzy amount of features, such as syntax highlighting, code completion, etc., but I don’t think I needed to go that far.
I only have one main design goal, this TextArea is for the user to enter RestructuredText so it’d be awesome if the TextArea acted in a way that made rst a bit nicer. The obvious two things that came to mind:
I’ve actually gotten some Javascript, hobbled together from various parts of the net, along with an ‘enter’ key handler I wrote myself on bitbucket.
Course, it’d also be nice to have a button or key combo, that will indent/unindent a selection in the TextArea as well.
Anyone else have any Javascript they’ve hobbled together in the past to make TextArea a little nicer for restructured text?
Via :
From The Omnivore’s Deilemma by Michael Pollan:
And then of course there’s the corn itself, which if corn could form an opinion would surely marvel at the absurdity of it all — and at its great good fortune.
I don’t usually do the meme thing, but I happened to have a book on my desk so it took so little effort… only one chapter to go!
Amazingly enough, despite all the hoop-la of how the bailout will pass, on Monday, it failed. It was quite entertaining to me to see a bill that everyone seemed so sure would pass, to just go and fail.
In the meantime I’ve found more than a few interesting links that only go to re-inforce my prior thoughts on the bailout.
The vagueness I noted in some sections of the bailout was quite intentional.
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Ouch, well that sure is reassuring.
How’d they do? Pretty dang good. They made sure no pesky regulations would affect their golden parachutes, or reduce their paychecks, and they expanded the definition of what assets could be bought to extend beyond just mortgage related securities, to any troubled asset. If some bank has a laundry list of dumb investments that aren’t paying off well, they’re as eligible as anything else if the Treasury considers them at risk of failing (though even what kind of ‘risk of failing’ is required before the Treasury buys such assets seems vague).
Isn’t the point of the free market to let companies that do stupid stuff fail from it?
The NY Times also mentions that many of the financial institutions want to manage the assets that are bought as well, and get paid for it of course, which would generate them a very hefty profit as well.
I haven’t seen a lot in the mainstream media about the huge list of economists (over 165 and counting) who oppose the bailout, which is curious.
So far, this countries track record of hastily passing massive and far reaching pieces of legislation based on hysteria hasn’t worked out too well. It has resulted in a war and all sorts of legislation that is still having ill effects on basic liberties and freedoms. The revised bill which includes more bits to appeal to Republicans doesn’t seem any better, and is still co-written by the financial industry eager to get some more free money.
Ron Paul has some good thoughts on why the bailout is a bad idea, and Michael Moore has an amusing write-up of how to save the banks with plenty of good facts and of a few questionable ones (but overall a good read). I particularly like his #2 point for paying for the bailout.
I disagree with Michael Moore though, mainly because I think Ron Paul and the economists have the right point. Investors should not be subsidized. Investors making risky bets, should take their losses. They clearly want to keep the profit, let them keep the loss as well.
Regardless, I hope the new version doesn’t get passed as well, though given how disappointing the politicians have been for me and the fact that the general public got creeped out watching the investors having a fire-sale means that the financial industry will likely be able to get the new bill passed. Nothing like some hysteria in the stock market to help some legislation creep through.
Ugh.
Update: A rather interesting look at the distribution of wealth in America, figure 5 showing the difference increasing.
Update 2: I should note that the new bailout bill that has had tastier pork tossed in, increased in size by $110 billion, and in size from the 101 page version I read, to a new 451 page bill.
That pretty much negates the odds of most people having enough time to read it, and who knows what other tidbits got buried in it.
With the upcoming expected passage of the bailout, I noticed that the draft text was online so I decided to take a look. There’s some thoughtful provisions that the first bailout plan was lacking, such as an attempt to prevent financial institutions from making an actual profit with plenty of loopholes so they don’t look terribly effective.
Consider this first attempt to prevent the companies helped, from actually getting a little ‘too much help’:
PREVENTINGUNJUSTENRICHMENT.—In making purchases under the authority of this Act, the Secretary shall take such steps as may be necessary to prevent un-just enrichment of financial institutions participating in a program established under this section, including by preventing the sale of a troubled asset to the Secretary at a higher price than what the seller paid to purchase the asset. This subsection does not apply to troubled assets acquired in a merger or acquisition, or a purchase of assets from a financial institution in conservatorship or receivership, or that has initiated bankruptcy proceedings under title 11, United States Code.
So the Treasury Secretary can’t buy up troubled assets for more than the seller bought them at (who knows how little they’re really worth), unless the assets were acquired in a merger or acquisition. Now, just think about how massive that loophole is… given how many of these financial institutions have been buying each other up. I really hope they don’t pay anywhere near full price for these assets, as they’ve dropped in value significantly since they were issued… and this attempt to stop them from overpaying for them seems rather half-hearted.
Unlike the original bill the Treasury wanted, this one sets up a oversight board responsible for reviewing the actions of the Secretary and ensuring there’s compliance with the rest of the act. The oversight board then has to report back to the Congressional Oversight Panel (they sure do love panels and boards). Reports covering purchases and justifications need to be sent to the Congressional Oversight Panel everytime the Treasury uses $50 billion dollars.
Not too shabby on oversight…. I wonder if the report will be put online so the people can see where their money is going?
A decent chunk of the bill includes provisions attempting to keep people in their homes, rather than foreclosing. This makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, as the more foreclosures that occur, more and more bailouts will be needed.
One of these bits allows for loan modifications of the mortgage:
(2) MODIFICATIONS.—In the case of a residential mortgage loan, modifications made under paragraph (1) may include: A) reduction in interest rates; B) reduction of loan principal; and C) other similar modifications.
I was actually surprised that lawmakers would do anything to offend the executives at these companies, who shell out so much money to lobbyists that inevitably comes back to the lawmakers, so I’m eying this section with skepticism as I’m sure there’s more than a few loopholes.
The standards required under this subsection shall be effective for the duration of the period that the Secretary holds an equity or debt position in the financial institution.
I’m curious how easy it is for the Treasury to buy troubled assets, and try and get out of a position that qualifies in this case…
Ah, and here’s one rather interesting limitation of the executive compensation, apparently it has nothing to do with how many millions the executive makes, but merely the top 5 executives for a company:
(3) DEFINITION.—For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘senior executive officer’’ means an individual who is one of the top 5 executives of a public company, whose compensated is required to be disclosed pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and any regulations issued thereunder, and non-public company counterparts.
I really don’t understand why they stopped at the top 5. How about restricting any executive (VP, Senior VP, Partner, etc) from getting those crazy incentives? Why not put a cap on everyone in the company on payment, the fairly reasonable one that they can’t make more than the top paid US Govt official (currently the President, at $400k/yr)?
The good news is that it does reign in some of the crazy executive perks to an extent, like the golden parachutes, and millions of bonuses. CNN reported that in the past few years, executive compensation has gone up 20%, while earnings for the companies went up 3%. Odd how the rest of the employee’s don’t see 20% raises….
The limits are also a little odd, it says that while the Treasury holds assets of the company, they will be in effect:
(A) limits on compensation that exclude incentives for executive officers of a financial institution to take unnecessary and excessive risks that threaten the value of the financial institution during the period that the Secretary holds an equity or debt position in the financial institution;
That’s great and all…. but I’m having trouble finding anywhere defining what these limits actually are.
Ah ha, a mere 39 pages in, a bit more on transparency. The Secretary has to make available to the public, in electronic form, full descriptions, amounts, and pricing of assets that are being bought, within 2 business days of the purchase.
If only the executive branch was a bit more transparent…. :)
The first chunk of money the Treasury gets to spend, is $250 billion. Later, when its running low supposedly, the President can send a written certification to the Congress that it needs more, and the limit on outstanding money can be raised to $350 billion outstanding. After that, the Pres can write in again, and the amount can be raised to a limit of $700 billion outstanding. So in effect, its a $700 billion bail-out built without any actual data as to whether thats what it will take.
The remaining 30 pages is mainly details on which positions shall oversee who, how often, who’s part of them, etc. Nothing terribly exciting stands out here, nor did I find any explanation of exactly what limits on executive compensation are being applied. Was it just golden parachutes and bonuses?
CNN took a look, and apparently came to a similar conclusion in their reading that the companies aren’t allowed to write new ‘golden parachutes’ for their top 5 executives…. but the current contracts which may include golden parachutes are just dandy.
They also indicate that the companies will not be able to deduct the salary they pay to executives above $500k. Errr, “deduct the salary”? Not sure what that means, hopefully it means that they’re capped at $500k, but its hard to tell.
Overall, I’m still not happy with it. Nor are all these folks, who happen to be economists. There’s some good points in that letter as well:
In addition to the moral hazard inherent in the proposal, the plan makes it difficult to move resources to more highly valued uses. Successful firms that may have been in a position to acquire troubled firms would no longer have a market advantage allowing them to do so; instead, entities that were struggling would now be shored up and competing on equal footing with their more efficient competitors.
This bail out bill is definitely better than the prior one, but I think its still a waste of my taxpayer money. There’s zero guarantee it will work, zero guarantee the money will ever come back, and zero guarantee this will be the last bail-out of this magnitude we come across. While the bill has some measures to try and decrease foreclosures, most in the housing industry still believe the worst is yet to come
“We’ve been saying that the foreclosure trend has not yet peaked,” said Doug Robinson, a spokesman for the foreclosure prevention organization NeighborWorks America. “Before it was a subprime problem,” he said. “Now, it’s everybody’s problem.”
Ouch. So this bail-out only helps a few companies deal with the current problem. I really don’t want to know what will the Treasury ask the taxpayer to do next to stop the companies that hold the upcoming foreclosures from going bankrupt.
I’ve had an iPhone for about a month now, quite loving it. Today I decided to add some custom ringtones to it, so I went into iTunes and clicked the button to sync ringtones…
Really? They couldn’t find any way to add a few ringtones without removing (erasing) all the music I already dragged over? Really???
So many random musings and theories on Google App Engine, I won’t bother musing about it myself, except to mention that Ian Bicking put together instructions for running Pylons on it. These also work fine for using the latest Pylons 0.9.7 beta.
I got Beaker, the session and caching WSGI middleware that Pylons uses, running fine on Google now, using Google Datastore as the backend. Diving into the Datastore docs to get a grip on what’s the best way to implement it shed some light on the transition any developer thinking about writing data-backed apps for GAE (Google App Engine) will need to tackle.
Some notes on terminology, Google has Entities, Kinds, and Properties. These correspond roughly to Rows, Tables, and Columns in RDBMS-speak. Kinds can also be called classes, because in the Python API, you create a class and inherit from the appropriate datastore class. Entities may also be referred to as instances, since performing a query returns a list of objects (instances).
First, regarding sessions. Beaker will now let a Pylons app use normal sessions on GAE, the real question is, should you?
The Google User API makes it trivial to get currently logged in user, and the datastore comes with a property type for a ‘table’ that is specifically made for a Google user account reference. So with just one short command, you can have an entity from the Datastore that corresponds to a given user, ie:
userpref = UserPrefs.all().filter('user =', users.get_current_user()).get()
The Datastore is blindingly fast for reads and queries, so there’s a compelling reason to ignore sessions altogether and just fetch the appropriate preferences or what-have-you. This leaves people with the normal reason for wanting more, ie, a session, “But wait, I want to stash other little things with the user when they run around my app!”. Not a problem.
Google’s Datastore has an Expando class for entities that lets you dynamically add properties of various types. It’s like having a RDBMS where you can just add columns to each row, on the fly. The dynamic_properties() entity method makes it easy upon pulling an object, to see what dynamic properties were already assigned.
As far as I’m concerned, this pretty much mitigates the need for a session system. If you didn’t want to require user login, you could always make a little session ID yourself, and keep that on the UserPrefs table as a separate property, then query on that.
Going slowly through all the Datastore docs and especially reading some of the performance information people were drumming up on the GAE mail list brought up a number of issues with how people with RDBMS backgrounds approached Datastore. Many of the table layouts I saw pasted on the mail list were clearly written for how an RDBMS works, with sometimes significant work required to adapt it to deal with Datastore.
A little background might help understand this difference. Google Datastore is implemented on top of BigTable, which is described briefly in the paper as a “sparse, distributed, persistent multi-demensional sorted map”. One of the other descriptions I heard in a talk on data storage techniques at FOO Camp from a Google developer was, “think of a BigTable table as a spreadsheet, except with pretty much as many columns as you want”.
This brings about a fairly big shift in thinking for the developer who grew up on an RDBMS. The fairly normalized organization of data written without regard to massively distributed data stores suddenly becomes a rather big problem. Consider a few of the ‘limitations’ of Datastore that will jump right out at you:
Then of course, a few of the new things that might leave you scratching your head, quite happy, or both:
(There’s probably a bunch more as well, these were some of the obvious ones that jumped out at me)
The end result of this, is that the standard way a developer writes out the table schema for a RDBMS should be dumped almost entirely when considering an app using Google Datastore. Storing data and using Google Datastore isn’t difficult, but it is a pretty hefty paradigm shift, especially if you’ve never left RDBMS-land. This is not a trivial change to make in approaching your data.
I rather enjoyed working with these new ways of tackling data, and the possibilities opened by the ways it lets me store and refer to data in many ways goes beyond the traditional RDBMS. In the short term though, I doubt I’ll be making any GAE app’s until there’s an alternative implementation thats production ready… I just can’t handle the lock-in.
And of course, please note any corrections or inaccuracies in the comments.
Rails, and Ruby in general has had Capistrano for awhile now to help with the task of deployment and automating builds for servers, and even clusters of servers. Where is something like this for Python?
Now, before people note that I could easily use Capistrano for my Python project, I should note that it is rather annoying having to install yet another language. On the other hand, given that I will likely only need to install it on my development machine (which running OSX already has Ruby… and gems), it doesn’t seem too horrible to just use Capistrano and be done with it.
However, Capistrano doesn’t quite manage the Python egg’s, and the task isn’t exactly trivial. zc.buildout, which I previously ranted about due to odd docs does the management pretty well. It even results in a rather consistent build experience no matter where it occurs. Two commands, and boom, the app is ready to go.
Unfortunately, life isn’t quite that easy. When something does go wrong with buildout, trying to track it down can be exceptionally hairy. Having a tool so ‘magical’ as I’ve heard some describe it, carries its own penalties when things fail. Buildout also fails to automate the task of deploying the app itself to the other machine, which is still a manual process. It does manage egg’s rather well, though it does some very odd mangling of sys.path to accomplish this in every script.
I don’t need something as full featured as Capistrano, but I’d love to see something that has no more requirements than I’m already depending on (Python), that can handle the task of easily automating deployment of a Python application – including ensuring all the proper versions of the eggs I want are used – on a remote *nix machine. I recall seeing a post (I think by Jeff Rush) awhile back, on a system just like this that he unfortunately never released. Vellum also looks like it could be hacked further to do this task…
Is there some build/deployment tool that is just Python that I’ve missed? Something that will let me setup a script for some commands on how to deploy my app on another server and setup (hopefully in a virtualenv) the webapp so its ready-to-run (and optionally restart it/migrate the db/etc :)?
