Grand Unified Theory of Physics

Yesterday I received the three volume, 1727 page, "Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics" by Randell Mills. I successfully replicated Mill's original experiments when I was in grad school at MIT, and have followed his research ever since. It's been fascinating to observe how science progresses at such glacial speeds, especially when the disruptive insights are greatest. For example, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was in the new again today about achieving a new level of energy. What most people don't realize is that the LHC is largely a waste of money. The hypotheses the LHC hopes to test are largely irrelevant in the context of Mill's discoveries. Unlike string theory, which is mostly un-testable math, Mill's theory, which integrates Maxwell's equations with Einstein's field equations (aka relativity), actually gives measurable, testable predictions--and the results have actually worked. No theory can ever be "proven" true, but they can be proven false (see Karl Popper). In Mills' case, there are many testable assertions and the theory has survived testing. The cool part is that the theory opens up whole new possibilities for technology--new energy, new materials, superconductivity, even anti-gravity. Think about the world pre/post electricity--the changes in technology that this will enable will be on a similar scale of magnitude.

Cell Tower Radiation Poisoning of School Children

A substantial body of research suggests that radio frequency (RF) radiation (the kind emitted by cell towers as they provide "signal" to mobile phones) has harmful health effects on humans and animals, even in amounts well below FCC exposure limits. Surprisingly, the FCC standards for RF emissions are based on thermal effect but the case for non thermal hazards from RFs is substantial. Here are a few examples:

A study presented in the peer-reviewed publication of Germany's environmental medicine society found that the risk of newly developing cancer was three times higher among those patients who had lived during past ten years (1994-2004), within a distance of 400m from a cellular transmitter, in comparison to those who had lived further away. The study indicates a 99% confidence interval that the difference observed was not due to a random statistical effect.

An Israeli study published in the peer-reviewed journal The International Journal of Cancer Prevention also showed an association between increased incidence of cancer and living in proximity to a cell-phone transmitter station. In a two year period, there were 4.15 times more cancer cases in the area of proximity to the cell tower than in the entire population. The authors made a point of noting, "The measured level of RF radiation (power density) in the area was low; far below the current guidelines based on the thermal effects of RF exposure. We suggest, therefore, that the current guidelines be re-evaluated."

The Bioinitiative Working Group, a collaboration of neuroscientists and others studying the effects of electromagnetic radiation from a variety of sources, has taken the position that "current standards are inadequate to control against harm from low-intensity, chronic exposures and that an entirely new, biologically-based standard is needed."

The European Union, which deployed GSM cellular technology on a broad basis long before it was deployed in the US, and thus has been able to observe longer exposures on its population, formally adopted a resolution in April 2009 recommending that GSM antennas be kept a safe distance from schools.

Why would a resolution be needed to keep towers out of schools? Because the cell tower companies prey upon schools that have prime locations and need the money. They also take advantage of the lack of finance and legal resources at most schools so they can get an advantageous contract.

Parents in Cupertino, CA successfully fought a proposal to place a tower at Monte Vista High School, as have many other schools and municipalities throughout the U.S. In 2000, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education adopted a resolution opposing the placement of cellular telecommunications towers on or immediately adjacent to school property until appropriate regulatory standards have been adopted. For a list of other municipalities examining this issue, see http://cloutnow.org/localres/ .

However, their success is even more notable since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 explicitly prohibits municipal governing bodies from saying “no” to cell towers based upon health concerns. See page 117 of the Act (Section 704 amendment). Who was the genius legislator who put something like that into law? In reality, it was more likely instituted by the cellular companies through a lobbying process to provide liability coverage, should the truth eventually emerge. I predict the tort cases from cell tower induced cancer will eclipse the tobacco industry’s damages.

Snow Leopard demand

I just bought a new copy of Snow Leopard, the latest Apple operating system. The curious thing, is that there was no line at the store. My office is across the street from Apple's flagship store on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Doors opened at 9am. There were 3 people waiting outside. When I walked in at 9:09 am, I was the only person in the store who was buying a copy.

This might not seem odd, unless you've bee working across the street from the Apple Store for the past six years. I've seen every queue out the door for the iPhone, the new iPhone, the new MacBook, Leopard, etc. Most times, people are camping outside the store a day or two in advance, and by opening time, the line is literally around the block. With the latest iPhone, the line persisted for several DAYS. That's why today's complete lack of a line (demand) struck me as surprising.

"No Short" List--only hurts small individual investors

The new ban on short selling financial stocks has not only broken the integrity of the financial markets, it really only impacts the small, individual investors. If you were a large hedge fund who wanted to short a financial stock, it can still be done by selling short a futures contract on the S&P 500, and simultaneously going long 499 stocks in the index--excluding the stock to be shorted. The net position is a synthetic short on the targeted stock.

Why does this hurt the small, individual investors relative to the big guys? Because the commissions on buying 499 stocks adds up relative to the gain from shorting one stock--if you are right. The bigger funds are likely going to be short more than one stock and they are making much large investments, so the transaction costs are a much lower fraction of the amount invested.

Will Bush Give the Order to Invade Iran?

According a June 13, 2008 document published by the UN Security Council, Iran has restarted the construction of an IR-40 heavy water reactor.  Such a reactor is necessary to generate plutonium.  Making plutonium is necessary for creating a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on one of Iran’s missiles.  (Uranium bombs are big an heavy, plutonium bombs are compact).

 

The week before this report was published, Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. After the meeting, Olmert had the following things to say, “We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat.  I left with a lot less question marks [than I had entered with] regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and America's resoluteness to deal with the problem.  George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term in the White House” …."The Iranian problem requires urgent attention, and I see no reason to delay this just because there will be a new President in the White House seven and a half months from now."

 

One thing worth pointing out, since this is rarely mentioned, is the location of Iran relative to Afghanistan and Iraq—it’s directly between the two countries.  Said another way, Iran is positioned directly between two territories that are fully occupied by the United States armed forces. 

 

What are the chances that the US will have their forces deployed on both sides of Iran again in the next 50 to 100 years if we pull out of the current conflict now?  Now imagine you were running military strategy in the Pentagon.  Changes are you would have a point of view that Iran is a long term threat since they don’t like us and they are strategically located near most of the world’s major oil fields.  You’d then look at the current placement of US armed forces and then checked the polls to see that Obama is highly favored in the election to win based on a promise to pull out the troops.  If you had a strategy to spread democracy in the Middle East and secure US interests (ie oil), and you had Iran thumbing their nose at UN resolutions to stop working on Nuclear weapons, what are the chances you’d recommend a military strike against Iran while Bush is still in power?  How hard is this politically?  Consider the situation in Iraq before we invaded.  In that case, there was no evidence of WMDs and Hussein was even saying that they didn’t have WMDs.  Despite lack of evidence or admission, we invaded anyway.  Contrast that to today, were there is both evidence and self admission of a nuclear program.   

 

For all our sakes, I hope that this scenario is obvious to the leadership in Iran and they would recognize the inevitable logic that they are about to be attacked, and choose a diplomatic solution before it’s too late.

 

 

 

Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Given that I plugged eBay a while back for having Microsoft like economics, I've elicited a lot of feedback from folks. While eBay had the chance to be the next Microsoft, I fear their management will go down in history as killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Instead of executing on international growth and expanding the platform with new innovations, eBay has grown through continued price gouging of their core customers. They have, in fact, behaved like most economists fear a monopolist would.
However, we don't need the government to fix things with anti-trust lawsuits. Free markets are taking care of the problem, as competitors capitalize on the opportunity created when eBay prices at the marginal point of indifference. Had eBay left prices alone, they would never have been exposed to such risks, but greed appears to have gotten the better of wisdom.

CDN Discussion Video

For the past 10 years, a lot of my investing work has been in the area of content delivery networks. It’s cool to see that they are now enabling video distribution over the internet, and even cooler that there’s now a video I can post where I’m talking about this stuff. The link below is taken from the Streaming Media East Conference where we discussed Wall Street's view on the CDN industry.