Mark Byron

You Must Be IPOed Again

Interesting day in the stock market. Over the weekend, both Apple and Tesla did stock splits, giving 4 (in Apple's case) or 5 (for Tesla) shares for each share of pre-split stock. The idea is that more small investors can buy shares at a reduced price, increasing the demand for the stock and its overall market value.

It worked a bit too well. Apple's up 4.7% for the day on just that fact and Tesla is up just over 10%. Just two years ago, Elon Musk got into trouble tweeting that he has secured (prematurely, as it turned out) funding to take the stock private at $420/share. Today, the stock is trading at 486.90... after the 5/1 split! That's over $2400 an old share.

Musk is a fan of the wacky tobaccy and 420 somehow became ganja's number. To see Tesla increase in value seven fold since the tweet on not that much good news makes one wonder if Musk isn't the only one on mind-altering drugs. They seem to make good cars, and electric vehicles are the in thing with the  CO₂-phobic set, but there's a lot of faith in Tesla's ability to become the dominant car maker of the 2020s and 2030s.

The 21% jump in price in the last week seems like the kind of run up in price you see in a hot initial public offering, where the stock soars above the price the company agree to sell the stock for to the folks buying the stock from their investment banker. While it's a lot easier to buy odd lots (other than multiples  of 100) than it was 40 years ago, there seems to have been an effect to reopen the stock to people who didn't have $2000 to plunk into a share of Tesla.

A second IPO is a contradiction in terms, but so is being born again. Apple and Tesla seem to have pulled it off today.

Poking the Frog

I don't like teasing. Even if the subject of the abuse "has it coming."

Thus, this Politico piece hits a major schadenfreude chord. A "never Trump" outfit called the Lincoln Project has been doing a doctoral thesis in trolling The Donald, running attack ads... on Fox News...in Washington.... during the evening when Trump's been known to watch. Trump gets PO, tweets unkind things about the LP crew, including a special dose of venom to LP co-founder George Conway, husband of Trump's media advisor Kellyanne (that's going to make for some interesting pillow talk).

The Trump tweetstorms then generate national publicity for the LP attack ads, giving them earned media for the cost of a targeted ad buy in Washington (or Palm Beach or Bedminster if he's weekending there).

The first, fleshly reaction is "Cool. He has it coming. That's clever...cruel, but clever."

However, two wrongs don't make a right. It's cruel. Full stop. Put down the skunky schadenfreude and slowly back away.

We're supposed to love our enemies. Even ones who don't deserve nice treatment. Lord knows Trump shows no mercy on his foes; however, we're not supposed to return serve.

The Future is Now

Interesting news item about the NBA's plans to set up shop at the south end of Disney World and all the gizmos being deployed to minimize the risk of infection.

One of the tools the NBA will use with players is a “smart ring” that players will wear during their time at Disney World. The ring can measure body temperature, respiratory functions and heart rate, which are all things that can signal whether or not someone is sick.  All players and essential staff members will be given the option to participate in health monitoring using the ring. The titanium rings, reportedly made by Oura, are capable of predicting COVID-19 symptoms up to three days in advance with 90% accuracy, according to the company. 

Sounds like something McCoy would deploy on the Enterprise. The computer can tell when you're hot and bothered, which raises some interesting privacy issues while aiding in the player's health.

Players will also be given access to a MagicBand that they will be required to wear at all times, except during workouts and games. The Disney MagicBand will act as a hotel room key and let players check in at security checkpoints and coronavirus screenings. It’s similar to the device of the same name that Disney World guests can use for access to hotels and payments for food and gifts inside the park.

The MagicBands can also help the league with contact tracing. The league is investigating a way to use the bands to know if a player diagnosed with Covid-19 has come into contact with another player.

The first part sounds like the RFID key fobs that I used to use to get into Chemical Bank when I worked their last year. Midland's hospital uses them; I took a friend to get some lab work done, waited outside, and watch a number of hospital staff stick their badge by the door to unlock it.

The contract tracing part has more than a bit of Big Brother in it. Beijing would love that app, to let them know who's hanging out with folks they deem trouble-makers. The application here, to let them know who's been around germ-bags, is benign, but that's a lot of information to play with.

This has been in the news previously in the form of proposed contract tracing apps on smartphones. Do you want your government to know who you're hanging out with? Do you want Apple or Google to know?

Big Brother need not be a government, it can be one of those tech giants. Janis Joplin's backup band was Big Brother and the Holding Company; today, Big Brother is the holding company (Google's parent Alphabet, anyone?). That made such apps undesirable, especially in privacy-sensitive Europe.

Physical distancing is another key area the NBA is focusing on. The league said that to “help promote adherence to physical distancing rules,” all team and league staff will be required to wear a small device on their credential that will serve as an alarm that will set off an audio alert when within six feet of another person for a period longer than five seconds. The memo said the alarm can detect allowable pairs of people, such as teammates, a physician or patient, and it won’t set off the alarm. Players will be given the option to wear this alarm, but it’s not a requirement. 

There's a Saturday Night Live skit or two waiting to be made with that one; it's past my bedtime, so it might have already been done for all I know. Once again, don't give Beijing any ideas.

 

Unholy Toledo

It's often a head-scratcher when you see names of leaders who are atypical for their country. The classic case for me was the former Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori; if he came to the US, he'd be considered Hispanic since he's a native-born Spanish speaker but is of Japanese descent.

Well, welcome to another classic Hispanic name,Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. His dad's of Polish descent, but he was born in Peru and is now the president.

I found out about him via this BBC piece noting how one of his predicessors, Alejandro Toledo, is on the lam from corruption charges back home, and got declared persona non grata by Israel. To top it all off, we have a double Jewish connection; Kucynski's dad was Jewish and so is Toledo's wife.

Just your typical leadership class in South America. 

Talkin' 'Bout Regeneration

The rise of the Iceland Pirate Party was a bit exaggerated. Instead of challenging for the top spot at about 20%, they came in third with 14.5%. The Independence Party, part of the current right-of-center coalition, got 29%, while the Panama Papers-damaged PM's Progressive Party was trimmed down to 11.5%.

There isn't a clear working coalition as of yet. The left has 27, the right has 29 and a new center-right Regeneration party has 7 seats. Regeneration seems to hold the balance of power; they split off from the IP over joining the EU, for the IP is opposed and Regeneration is for joining.

Whether that EU split is enough to get them to join a center-left coalition remains to be seen, but it does appear that the Pirates might well be kept away from the helm; the Left-Greens had a bigger vote share than the Pirates, although they both got 10 seats, so the Lefties would be the default choice to draw a PM from, assuming Regeneration goes left rather than right.

Crowning a Pirate Queen

The German Pirate Party had been doing fairly well earlier in the decade, breaking the 5% threshold for getting into state legislatures, but have been fading a bit in the last year, as immigration issues move to the fore and intellectual property rights became much less of a pressing issue.

However, Iceland is seeing their Pirate Party making the big time. They got 5% of the vote in their last election, but the forced resignation of a right-of-center prime minister for offshore financial holdings prompted a new election on this Saturday. The Pirates are at 20% or so in the polls, neck-and-neck with the right-of-center Independence Party for first place; Iceland has proportional representation, so the vote is somewhat spread out and coalition governments are the norm.

The Pirate Parties primary focus is for the free flow of information shorn of copyright protection; the Pirate Bay file-sharing website is the brainchild of the Swedish PP. Other than that, they are left-libertarian in general, but there's some of the Icelandic Pirates are more libertarian than others.

They've noted a disinterest in being part of a right-of-center coalition involving the current ruling duplex of the Independence and Progressive parties, so some left-of-center coalition seems to be likely. With the Pirates being the largest party outside of that conservative duo, they might have a Pirate PM when the dust settles. 

That begs a little Gilbert and Sullivan, although we'd need to make it a Pirate Queen since Birgitta Jonsdottir is what passes for a leader of the anti-authoritarian party and thus the likely prime minister candidate from the Pirates.

Rally Round the Flagg

For some reason, a scene from The Stand came to mind. The bad-guy faction had set up shop in Las Vegas, and some new arrivals (spies from the good-guy faction in Boulder) ran into a police-officer helping run herd on the Strip, noting that in a post-apocalyptic world, this was an oasis of order. This Wikipedia write-up notes his name as Barry Dorgan-

Although he is an ally of Flagg, Dorgan does so only because he thinks Flagg's world is the only society with a chance of regaining a sense of law and order.

Order is attractive, but it isn't always good, especially when the Big Man in Vegas was a charming but demonic figure. His name was Mr. Flagg, Randall Flagg. The cop mentioned seemed to not be some sort of devil worshiper, but merely looking for order in a disorderly world, and was thus willing to rally around the Flagg regime.

A Vegas guy living in the penthouse of a casino promising law and order, Mr Flagg.  Interesting

White Pentecost for the Yoopers

This is Pentecost Sunday for those of a liturgical bent. I have an old ditty for late-season snow that I trotted out back in 2005-"I'm dreaming of a white Pentecost; Just like the ones in Ishpeming."

That actually happened today, if NOAA is accurate. Ishpeming is in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where the four seasons are June, July, August and Winter. A semi-quick check of Marquette (the nearest NOAA station to Ishpeming) did register light snow in the wee hours of this morning. It might not have been enough to really make things white, but they did have a record 1.1 inches of snow on Saturday.

We're Calling it "deBlasio"

"North Korea claims it could wipe out Manhattan with a hydrogen bomb."

When in Rome, Don't Do as the Classic Romans Did.

Could I see Minutemen reenactors banned from Revolutionary War sites or Civil War reenactors banned from Gettysburg? If they were making a nuisance of themselves, yes. Rudy-era New York banning overly-pushy windshield-washers comes to mind.

That's the best American analogy to this story out of the Eternal City-

Impersonators of soldiers from ancient Rome have been a common sight at the Colosseum, Forum and other major sites, posing for photos in return for cash.

But from Thursday, the Centurions are outlaws - along with bicycle-drawn rickshaw drivers and ticket touts.

City commissioner Francesco Paolo Tronca issued the decree ahead of the Catholic Jubilee year, an important tourist event starting on 8 December.

There's also a possible religious angle here. The centurions could well be case as heavies in the Gospel, being in charge of crucifixions, although one asked Jesus for a healing miracle. I don't see too many people wanting to do an imitation of Peter in Gethsemane (it was a good squad rather than a Roman legion in that passage, but the crazed person might ask for some poetic license) but if the focus of 2016 is Roman Catholic Rome rather than Imperial Rome, the centurions would be spoiling the mood, both thematically and from their pushiness.

It's likely more the pushiness that is at issue here, making it a Rudy-esque move by the city fathers.

One interesting thing that just came to me as I was writing is that they are marking the 50th anniversary of Vatican II with said jubilee. Tridentine mass mavens and other conservatives might not be thrilled with that celebration, especially when Francis has leaned to the left on a number of fronts, although mostly on style than substance; his environment encyclical being one exception, and even that didn't upend core Catholic doctrine as best as this Bapticostal can tell.

 

Not Your Father's Space Elevator

I remember describing the cover of White Heart's Don't Wait for the Movie as showing an "old-fashioned satellite dish."

 

The seeming oxymoron actually fit, as technology had taken us from the ten-footers of the 80s to the modern home dishes that are about two feet wide.

That came to mind as I was reading this CBC piece on a Canadian guy who is proposing an inflatable space elevator.

The patent, which has been granted in the U.K. and the U.S. so far, describes a tower with a space launch platform on top that would initially be built to a height of around 20 kilometres high, but could theoretically be built to more than 200 kilometres high, and reach into low Earth orbit.

It would be made of stacked rings of Kevlar cells inflated with hydrogen or helium to an extremely high pressure. An elevator could ride up the tower, carrying spacecraft, satellites and other goods to be launched into space – along with tourists looking for an extraordinary view.

This is the paragraph that prompted grabbing the YouTube of Maybe Today  to provide the graphics above-

Quine's invention isn't a traditional space elevator, an idea that has been kicking around since the late 19th century. The traditional concept consists of a fine cable with one end attached to weight in space, orbiting the Earth, and the other end tethered to the ground. The cable would be used as a track for attaching "climbers" carrying goods from one end to the other.

This isn't a traditional space elevator, it's a newfangled space elevator.

Silent But Deadly

"Giant Methane Storms On Uranus"

That's One Explanation for ISIS

"Humans and Neandertals likely interbred in Middle East."

A New Renewable Energy Source

"Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals."

Swift's A Modest Proposal satirically wrote about turning Irish kids into a cash crop. They ain't joking here.

Flu Fighters

Since most of the flus come out of Asia, why not name the next one Kung Flu. That way, the WHO and the CDC can practice Kung Flu Fighting.

Watching too Much Sports

Here's a warped montage of Mark 5, using the two things that make Sundays Sunday.

⁹ Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

"Looks like we have at least a two-possession game, folks. The new kid from Nazareth may have to go to a no-huddle offense here."

¹¹ A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹² The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³ He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

"Oh, my. Pork belly futures just jumped on the Chicago Merc, with the experts citing an act of God."

"Yep, Jim, the first recorded case of soo-eee-side. I think the home crowd is getting a bit ticked at that tour-de-force."

¹⁴ Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. ¹⁷ Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

"Mr. Ben El might need a police escort out of the stadium after that one."

Hippy Dippy Weather

What is the difference between this weekend's weather and a stereotypical Boomer? One has highs in the 60s and the other is chillier than it's been mid week.

If you didn't get a earwig from the title, here's where it comes from.

You Might be a Presbyterian Jedi if....

You reply to "May the 4th be with you" with "And also with you."

This is also the 43th anniversary of the Kent State shootings; what the rest of the world calls "Kent State" KSU folks call "May 4th." Strangly, I spent six years as a grad student at KSU in the 90s and had my first office a stone's throw away, but didn't get to the memorial site until seven years after I graduated and Eileen and I were back in the area for a job interview.

No Anarchy at the UK

Interesting story on May Day in Seattle, where immigration reform was the theme of the organized protest during the day. Given Washington state's recent decriminalization of wacky tobaccy, this was cute-

Another [sign] said to heck with weed, “ ... legalize my mom.”

Later, a black-shirted goon squad took the streets; the police had to stop them from taking five-finger discounts at a mall.

The crowd stalled out at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street while people tried to decide which direction to go. One woman said jokingly, “This is the downside of anarchy. We need a leader.” A few men started talking about going over to “mess with the cops.”

Three great oxymorons: jumbo shrimp, veteran suicide bomber and anarchist leader.

I wonder if May Day went peacefully in Lexington. It didn't even make news in the Herald Leader, so there was no anarchy at the University of Kentucky yesterday; at least not at a level worth noting.

Almost a Conservative Dream

Mozambique may become a conservative vacation spot-it's a RINO-free zone.

The 15 threatened animals were shot dead for their horns last month in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which also covers South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They were thought to be the last of an estimated 300 that roamed through the special conservation area when it was established as "the world's greatest animal kingdom" in a treaty signed by the three countries' then presidents in 2002.

Oops; make that a rhino-free zone. It still might be a nice place to visit.

The Crusty, Crusty Month of May

Eileen and one of her seminary pals have a May Day tradition of one of them calling and singing "It's May, It's May, the lusty, lusty, month of May" from Camelot.

However, the title is more fitting for my in-laws living in metro Denver-

It's May 1, but it doesn't look like spring in Denver. Snow moved into the metro area Wednesday morning, after dumping several inches on Larimer County overnight.

Shades of the Yooper joke where the four seasons in the UP are June, July, August and Winter.

Warded Off With a Samurai Night Special

We noted that the disciples were instructed to carry swords in my well-received Would Jesus Pack Heat post. Someone out Utah way (note that since almost all Mormon guys are priests, the church pastor gets the inflated title bishop) took an East Asian spin on that West Asian custom.

A Samurai-wielding Latter Day Saints bishop and others in Millcreek, Utah, came to the aid of a woman who was being attacked and chased by a former co-worker, authorities say.

[Kent] Hendrix was in the shower at approximately 7 a.m. on Tuesday when his teenage son alerted him about a woman's screams for help, ABC 4 in Utah reported. Hendrix, a fourth-degree black belt, put on some clothes — and grabbed the 29-inch steel samurai sword he has owned since he was 17.

Don't tease this guy about his undies. We're lucky Utah didn't pull a page from the UK and think about banning such Samurai Night Specials.

Rolling Stoned

Earth Day falls on Monday... Hairy Potted get a three-day weekend.

Steers' Tower

That's the new HQ for the Chicago Bulls the way Brooklyn has them by the short and curlies this evening.

His Girlfrend is Flo Ressant

Well, if you didn't think commenter Alan was the brightest bulb in the box-think again-"This bulb will be with you so long you might want to name it-this is Alan."

You Did Teach Him Chopsticks

Excuse me while Warren Zevon spins 10000RPM six feet under.

I saw a rugrat with a Chinese menu in his hand

Ridin' through the streets of Lapeer in the rain

He was lookin' for the place called Lee Ho Fooks

Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

How-oooo- Rugrats of Lapeer.

This sounds too much like something out of a sitcom; maybe Stewie making a run for some Moo Shoo Pork.

By the time police arrived to pull over the six-year-old boy, two drivers of other vehicles had already boxed him into a turnaround, said Engster. One reached into the window and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

The boy had taken the keys off the counter at home and told the responding officer that he had never driven before and nobody had taught him how.

"He said he'd never even sat on his dad's lap to steer the car or anything," said Engster.

When police asked the boy why he took the car, he told them he was going to get Chinese food. He had hit a "no left turn" sign on Park and Pine streets near his home and, seeing the damage to the car, decided he needed to head to the dealer to get it repaired.

Smart kid. Not the wisest kid on the planet, but gutsy. Hat tip to Joe Carter for scooping me in my own back-yard.

Gabriel Lanes... Opening for the Season

We're getting our first spring storm front of the year, with wall-to-wall rain for the last 24 hours or so. Louis XV must have died, for we now have le deluge.

The old wives tail is that the sound of thunder is angels bowling. An evening thunderstorm is thus "league night at Gabriel Lanes" in my parlance. Thus, this conversation this morning as a line of thunderstorms headed just north of us.

"Looks like it's open bowling at Gabriel Lanes up in Houghton Lake."

"Isn't a bit early for open bowling?"

"Well, you've got angels coming off the night shift looking for stuff to do."

Which begs for this oldie-

 

 

Chavez Doesn't Want to Be Buried in a Communist Plot

Interesting piece on embalming, both the short-term open-casket version and the Lenin-style long-term version that is being proposed for Caesar Chavez I.

The death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been met with mixed feelings here in the US. But he was adored in his country, at least by those who didn't despise him, so after his death, his vice-president, Nicolas Maduro, stated that his body would be embalmed "like Lenin and Mao Zedong," and displayed for a week.

But how do you display a body for an entire week?

Yes, like one of the great mass murderers of the 20th century; thankfully Chavez didn't have reeducation camps, but he seemed to come close to duplicating the Great Leap Backward

You Can Call Me Halal

Dearborn gets a lot of interesting news stories, given its large Arab population, from in-your-face evangelists making jerks of themselves at Arab festivals to midnight starts of football practice to accomodate Ramadan fasting.

The latest story was from an American staple, McDonalds. They've been making a point of serving halal chicken at their two Dearborn stores (and had a cooking set-up that passed Muslim muster), but occasionally have run out and used garden-variety fowl; that false advertising has set them back $700K when those oversights became public.

No, this isn't creeping sharia, just making folks live up to their advertising

Averages to Zero

On the MP3'er, I have Plus One. On the car thermometer, I had Minus One. My Texas-reared wife was not happy this morning; "inhuman" was the word of choice.