I discovered the big problem in American business today: Executives can make big money by running a company aground. Enough money so that their grandchildren won't have to work.

Greenspan thought companies would self regulate. His mistake was subtle: He assumed that the leadership of the company needed the company to be healthy in order for the executives to prosper. But a new pattern emerged: executives could engage in behavior which could yield a multiple-lifetime supply of wealth by engaging in practices which ultimately destroyed the company.

And that's what happened to the financial sector in the US. And doubtless other companies which yield this particular prize.

I don't know what the common underlying reason is but this is the common symptom - being able to make the Big Score by running a company aground.

It started last summer, when patent trolls started messing with one of the biggest political donors of all time - the National Association of Realtors.

If you take a look at Patrick Leahy's donors, you can see real estate is down the list.

Summary - this issue got before Congress only when the NAR was bitten by it. I don't the issue is dead, not by a long shot. The NAR has deep connections in government and unless they somehow get the issue to go away for them personally, anti-patent troll legislation is likely to come back. Perhaps more quietly next time.

You can walk away for any reason and they can let you go for almost any reason. Being fired/laid off is a bitter pill... but impulse control keeps you out of jail. And it's the other side of being able to walk away at any time.

"Natural Monopolies" are an economic concept. These are industries in which the barriers to entry are so high that new competitors are blocked from entering. Infrastructure is commonly cited - power lines, power stations, the last mile infrastructure. The same goes for most infrastructure - telephone lines, cable lines, oil and gas pipelines, railroads.

So, there's no way to let customers vote with their feet in natural monopolies. There are no competitors. Hence the need for regulation to avoid the problem of monopolies, which is "monopoly pricing."

Say there's a pesky blog that keeps posting pointed, critical commentary at NBC-Comcast or at a cause they support. If you allow prioritizing of data, shockingly, that site's traffic might receive the lowest priority possible, or intermittent blockage. The Internet is the last bastion of the free flow of ideas. That should be protected, strongly. Because if there's an opportunity to abuse the privilege of prioritizing data, in order to increase profit or stifle dissenting voices, it most assuredly will be abused.

Here is an informative 3 minute video highlighting some of the ways to abuse data prioritization.

Also: No maintenance for Excel files other than backing them up, i.e. copying them to thumb drives or DVDs. Access files get corrupted and need to be recovered. Servers have to be rebooted and client-server databases have to be backed up.

I've created a several Access applications, plus several LAMP-based Internet applications. I've interfaced a lot with non-technical people. They don't GET databases. They don't understand normalization or foreign keys or indexes. They don't understand SQL or joins. It's not their area of expertise. They do the actual work of the charity or the company so I'm not in the least bashing them - but they just don't understand databases.

My experience is that after brief training, they'll get spreadsheets. They understand tables very quickly and easily. Explain to them the concept of worksheets. And there's no complexity in opening an Excel file. You just double-click and you are immediately there, looking at the data. Heck, with some thoughtful use of the individual worksheets in an Excel file, you can even get a hint of normalization. Like putting different geographical regions in different worksheets in a single workbook. Having multiple Excel files (workbooks) for different larger groups. People kind of naturally understand that tree-like data structure.

Many people think Access is a toy. But it's still a database and it uses database concepts and SQL. And that is beyond the ken of non-technical types. Spreadsheets are simply much more understandable to them. And ultimately - much more maintainable. And maintainability and understandability is the key here. The charity is going to be here, on the ground, doing their work, long after you've moved back to the States.

There is a fraction of the learning curve with spreadsheets than there is with any relational database, regardless of whether it's a file-based system or a client-server system.

FYI, here are the Excel load limits.

You have big players on either side of this, but the big communication companies have probably donated much more to politicians. AT&T is the 4th largest donor to federal politicians over the period 1989-2012, for example. Also, the big communications companies got their man on the inside as the head of the FCC. These rules could go through, and it'll start driving prices up, but by then, the voting public won't make the connection between any politician and rising prices or worse service. Most people don't understand what net neutrality is.

Net result: Keeps the big donors happy, very little or no voting consequence, especially with responsibility plausibly divided between both parties.

Alas. Those wall calendars were fantastic.

Best wishes in whatever comes next and thanks for the freaky art.

Per the CDC, black hetero females in the US have just about 4 times the new HIV infection rate than white hetero females: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/basics/ataglance.html

More CDC statistics here: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/basics/

Certainly this is a worthwhile course of investigation by the Norwegians, but the relatively high black female HIV prevalence in the US could indicate factors specific to race and not merely location.

It's the universities and teachers who choose what books the students must use. They could:

1) Boycott this publisher.
2) Act indifferently.
3) Enthusiastically join with this publisher.

Follow the money. I'm guessing it will be 2) or 3) above, depending on the deal the publisher strikes with the university.

It's 18 minutes, well worth a viewing.

Everything you wanted to know about money in politics is located at Open Secrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- 2nd Amendment

I imagine back in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, and the country was mostly rural, and the army was mustered from the citizenry, this made perfect sense.

Today, we have standing armies. People are trained to shoot while in the military. You're not relying on people training themselves, or bringing their own weapons. Heck, the average person has a very hard and expensive time getting an automatic weapon, the type used in the military.

However, I think the Supreme Court reads this correctly. The 2nd Amendment says WHY the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Granted, the WHY is not relevant to the situation today, but that's what the 2nd Amendment does pretty clearly say.

Comcast aired a radio commercial in DC Metro this morning saying that the Comcast-TWC merger would guarantee "net neutrality", higher speeds and more Internet for everyone. This tells me most people think that 1) Net neutrality is a good thing and 2) They have no idea what it really means.

Plus, there's a another front on the net neutrality battle - some companies are claiming that net neutrality allows freeloading - using capacity without paying for it. But what's the reality? That everyone pays for usage - my company's fleet of 10 cars pays the same roadway toll per car as another company with a fleet of 10 cars. BUT - the toll road operator has the right to let the other company's cars into the fast lane and shunt my company and the individual to the slow lane if they so desire.

Is that right or wrong? I have not been able to find a clear citation to answer that question. Citations, anyone?