Why?

A Question

2010-07-25T07:23:00.002-05:00

If the NBA didn't have salary ceilings, with what team would Lebron James have signed?

I think it would have been between New York and Cleveland. The idea being Cleveland would have had to give him at least a 10% stake in the team. New York could have paid him $50 million a year and still have made money. I am assuming classic economic theory that he would have ended up where his marginal product was the highest. So rephrasing the question, where would Lebron James' marginal product have been the highest? Would Miami still have been in the mix due to the "no state income tax" factor? What about Dallas and Mark Cuban and Cowboys Stadium and "no state income tax"?

Part of what I am getting at is that this whole Lebron fiasco was caused by salary ceilings. The NBA changed the game to make endorsement money more important than it would be without ceilings. Given the ceiling, it makes sense that Lebron considered his friendships and personal feelings in his (the) decision.

It worries me that more people aren't talking about this perverse effect of ceilings.

Numbers 2141-2142 Why Microsoft (Vista) Sucks

2010-07-22T16:35:00.000-05:00

2141. For the last two months, Vista has told me that my "copy of Windows is not genuine." I have the code off the bottom of the computer. I also have a code on the Vista Ultimate disk. My copy of Windows is genuine. It really is. Notice that my copy of Windows not being genuine has actually made the computer perform better.

2142. Every three or four days, usually in the afternoon, my computer suddenly crashes. Yes this might be a hardware problem. But the fact that it always starts back up fine tells me that it isn't that big of a deal. And the fact that Microsoft cannot pin point the problem for me tells me that they don't have a clue.

I wanted to make this grandiose point about how the Microsoft model of putting products out there before they are stable has infected Google and other companies too. (I also think that this has hit Apple a little bit too, but their track record is so much better.) But the thing is I still use Microsoft and Google products. So I guess I either have to do something about it or shut up.

The NBA And Heat

2010-07-13T16:53:00.002-05:00

The only NBA game I have ever seen was this year when the Spurs played the Heat. I will more than likely never see the Heat play again unless I purchase season tickets.
The Heat will be a great natural experiment in economics, psychology, and sociology. We'll see what happens. I can't wait for the book that will come out about the next three years in Miami.

The Adam Carolla Dilemma

2010-07-10T16:20:00.002-05:00

(This was written Wednesday.)

I sat behind this couple and their son on the plane. The couple was older. You could tell the son was their miracle. He was their life.

He told some joke that was not funny, and they laughed and laughed. They even roped the flight attendant into laughing. It was kind of sad. The kid thought he was funny. But he wasn't even remotely funny. His parents were acting. The flight attendant was acting. The boy was living a lie.

All I could think about was being Adam Carolla's kid. Adam Carolla wouldn't laugh at his unfunny kid. He would have told his kid "that isn't funny." And his kid might grow up to be really damn funny in an effort to please his dad. Or he might not. But the kid would know the difference between funny and unfunny.

The point here is that many kids are instilled with a false sense of confidence. I think this is partially Tiger Woods' problem. People have always looked the other way. They laughed at his unfunny jokes. There is no doubt that Tiger is/was a great golfer, but nobody told him "no" when it came to his personal life. You see some of this in LeBron James too. There is no doubt he is a great player. But it seems nobody has told him: "You're not funny. Pick a damn team and win a championship."

Adam Carolla's son will know the difference between "funny and unfunny." (I actually have no idea if this is true or not. Adam Carolla's son might turn out to be pampered.) But he might also have a ton of insecurities that keep him from his own personal greatness. The ocular block that Pat Jordan talks about is aided by this undying, usually delusional, confidence in oneself. Not knowing the difference between funny and unfunny helps sustain this confidence.

But I worry about the unfunny kid when his classmates and friends tell him how big of a loser he is.

Soccer In HD Or More Discussion Of Things I Know Nothing About

2010-07-03T09:55:00.000-05:00

1. The yellow card rule where you get one in consecutive games and you are out of the next game is stupid.

2. FIFA should adopt the NBA way of being able to review and rescind. This reminds me of my "mandatory review" (number 3 in this post) versus automatic suspension idea.

3. Both Ghana and Uruguay were better than the U.S. The U.S. are not one of the top ten teams in soccer in the world.

Gems I Just Found On The Internet

2010-06-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

Pat Jordan Interview In Two Hour-Long Parts

Here he is on ocular block:

The Game That Is Soccer

2010-06-28T14:14:00.002-05:00

1. The United States is not good in soccer. I watched a number of teams. Besides North Korea, there was no team that the United States was significantly better than. They do not have the strikers who can score goals when they should score goals, much less can score goals on their own. They also do not have a real defensive prescence.

2. I thought that the U.S. would be bigger, faster, and more physical than most teams in the world. They are none of these three things. Against Ghana, they were smaller, slower, and much less physical. I know some of this is due to football and basketball. But I thought it was sad. You take the fourth best wide receiver on Division I-AA football team, and they would have been a top 5 athlete on the U.S. soccer team.

3. The World Cup has shown my pod system for college football could work. But it also showed that ties would be a problem, and no system can be perfect. All I can say is "it could work."

4. My sports career taught me about 50-50 teams, 50-50 games and 50-50 sports. 50-50 teams are mediocre teams. Teams that are average. Teams that would be .500 after 1000 games. I played on a 50-50 team my senior year of high school. (We finished 2 and 8.) I also played on a 50-50 team my freshman year of college. (We finished 5-5.) 50-50 games are games where if the two teams played 1000 times, each team would finish with 500 wins and 500 losses. It is a game between mediocre teams. A game where all you can expect is average. These games can be fun to watch or hard to watch, and usually it would be filled with a number of mistakes. 50-50 sports are sports where most games are 50-50 games with 50-50 teams. Sports where the best teams don't always win, because there are very few "best" teams. I would argue that most professional leagues strive to make their leagues 50-50 sports.

5. World Cup soccer is one of the ultimate 50-50 sports. This explains the U.S team's result with England. England would beat the U.S. 6.5 times out of 10, but World Cup soccer is a 50-50 sport. The U.S. tied and won the 50-50 games with Slovakia and Algeria. (I am hesitant to put Ghana on this list. I thought Ghana was clearly better than the U.S.) The U.S. is clearly a 50-50 team that I cannot get excited about in the near future. Now, Argentina and Germany, and England to a lesser extent, are not 50-50 teams.

6. Argentina and Germany and Brazil and Spain will keep me interested in the World Cup. But without the U.S. team, I will not retain any interest in soccer after the World Cup.

Quick Thoughts On College Football Realignment

2010-06-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

I've always had this idea of Division I football shrinking and going to this 'pod' system. Each of the top 48-60 teams get placed in a six team league. If a team wins their league, they advance. Every team knows at the beginning of the season they have to win their pod. There are no formulas or voters. Win five games and you move forward. Of course, ties will always be a problem, but ties are always a problem.

And in a mixed up sort of way, I think we're closer to that now.*

*I wanted the pods to be determined after a 5-7 game preseason where teams play their rivals and try to make sure they are good enough to be placed in a pod. These games would also be used to keep the pods "fair." I recognize this is a pipe dream and pretty foolish from a practical standpoint. It also brings back in formulas and voters. So maybe these new conferences are even better especially if the Big 12 and Big East finds two more teams.

Love and Fear

2010-06-16T11:04:00.005-05:00

There are two fears that I live with everyday. The first is poverty. There is nothing that scares me more than poverty. I am not really worried about absolute poverty. But I am much more afraid of relative poverty. There is nothing that scares me like not having enough. Not being able to get something I want. I don't want much. But there is no worse feeling than not being able to get something you want.

So you teach yourself either to want what you have or to not want anything. There isn't much difference here. And it creates the second fear: the fear of greatness. Not greatness in being famous or anything like that, but being good. Having people respect you. Basically getting what you want and maybe even a little more.

Now the underlying issue here is work. The work it takes to be good at something is tough, especially when that something is not completely under your control. Most successes in this life are dependent on complex mix of things. Luck exists. Failure exists even with hard work. We have a lot of control of our destinies but we don't have total control over anything.

So I think we all learn that a strategy in life is to lower expectations. Life is difficult when expectations are never met. Of course this realization that expectations won't be met is part of life. Eventually you either stop caring about your failures or forget about them or lower your expectations or something.

This is life, but you can't really live looking at life in this way. You can't live if you're sitting around thinking about poverty and lowering expectation. You can't do it.

"On his right hand Billy tattooed the word love and on his left hand was the word fear
And in which hand he held his fate was never clear
Come Indian summer he took his young lover for his bride
And with his own hands built a great house down by the riverside"

The Adventures Of My Bluetooth Headset

2010-06-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

In no particular order:

Survived night in a gravel $5 parking lot in downtown Richmond.

Fell into peanut butter, stopped working for about two weeks until a technician cleaned the peanut butter out of the microphone.

Fell into a toilet. (I did clean it with alcohol.)

Survived a night in a drainage ditch near my mailbox.

Fell from my ear four inches away from a 10 feet deep drain.

Survived a night at the bus stop.

Wore it in the shower.

Fell into a toilet.

Fell from my ear to the asphalt 1113 times.

Fell into the kitchen sink while washing dishes.

Fell into bathroom sink while brushing teeth.

Fell into bathroom sink while shaving.

Fell into a toilet.

Notice this headset was cheaper when my wife bought it.

Oil Spill

2010-06-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the oil spill. I don't really have any deep thoughts. I just think the whole thing is voyeuristic. I don't necessarily understand the live feed on the internet. I don't think it is helping anything. I know it is the world we live in today. I don't know.

There are bigger issues here. As Adam Carolla pointed out on Monday, we live in a world where people want people to see their sex tapes. I guess people enjoy seeing the oil rushing out in real time.

Some times you have to turn off the news. Some times you have to turn off the internet. I hope the engineers who are determining how to stop the leak aren't paying attention to the live feed and the news.

I don't know.

More Thoughts

2010-05-27T16:50:00.001-05:00

1. I've been working on the ol' resume this morning. It is funny how much crap you can put on a page.

2. I wrote down that I had an idea for a post on the NBA, but I can't remember what it is. I am sure it had something to do with the fact that the Lakers are going to play the Celtics, and this is what the NBA wants. I need to read Donaghy's Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal that Rocked the NBA. (Except it didn't rock the NBA.) Maybe I could make some money.

3. Professional sports' officials are out of control. But the NBA has a real problem when it has to rescind a call, so a player isn't suspended. Why do you have a rule that if you get seven technicals in the playoffs, you are suspended for a game? Just say that after seven technicals, you get a mandatory disciplinary review or something equally meaningless. You can't suspend people in the playoffs for anything except punches. This rescinding a technical is stupid.

4. I don't really think the NBA is fixed. I just think it is nudged and predictably inconsistent.

Some Thoughts

2010-05-24T12:21:00.000-05:00

1. Tell me if this chain of reasoning is normal: Somebody mentions the book of Isaiah. I think Isaiah Rider who also went by J.R. Rider. Who shot J.R.? What does Isaiah say about modern TV?... I am a product of the internet/ADHD/Headline News/Jeopardy/Sportscenter age, but I have to quiet my thought process and make it more linear.

2. I keep coming back to Joe Posnanski writing that his father never got factory block. We all have to spend our life doing/on something. Who knows about the enjoyment of that activity?

3. I watched a little soccer on Saturday. It is hard to watch a game when you don't the two teams playing. I am not a big fan of putting sponsors on jerseys instead of team names. It was just the red versus the blue team. Also, I know it was an important game. The Champions League Final or something. It doesn't help that I have no idea what that means. This is partly FOX's fault too. World Cup soccer will be interesting, but this club stuff just doesn't make sense to me.

Some Thoughts

2010-05-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

1. I don't care about cycling. I don't follow it. I think what Lance Armstrong accomplished was great, but I don't follow it well enough to know how great. I was interested in the Landis Tour de France case because I thought it was interesting from a legal-normative perspective. How did he only fail one test on one day? Wouldn't you expect the steroids-testosterone levels to be out of line in every test during the Tour? In sports, should you be assumed guilty and have to prove your innocence. When should we take away titles and wins? I don't know. (I might have missed something about the case. And it has been a long time ago.) What I am trying to say is that I believed Landis then. And I believe him now also. And I don't care. I think cycling should just admit that it cannot police the sport and say if we can't test for it, then it is fine to do until we do have a test for it. I guess this is my feeling about baseball too. Let's let the past go.

2. I walk into a posh bathroom. It reeks. Somebody has blown it up. Completely destroyed it. I want to turn around. All I can think about is why hasn't there been an invention to relieve this problem. I guess you could do it with perfumes, but I think there has to be some type of fan to suck the gas out of the air. Again I don't know. But there is no worse feeling than walking into a first-class bathroom at a nice place and being hit with a wave of stink.

A Very Good YouTube Video That Seems To Cut Out At The End But It Is Still Good

2010-05-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

900th Post

2010-05-19T11:04:00.000-05:00

My dad was telling me the other night that the recession was (partly) caused by credit cards. His big complaint was interchange fees. He quoted some number ($400 Billion?) of how much money Visa/Mastercard/American Express/Discover make purely on transaction fees. He said these fees were outrageous. That these companies were making money for doing nothing. He recognized some of the advantages of a "cashless" society, but he said you can't have companies making money for doing very little. His basic point was that you can't have a society/economy built on debt, but he was also questioning the value of transaction fees.

There is definitely a negative behavioral issue concerning credit and debt that contributed to where we are today. My generation views debt differently than my dad's generation and whole a lot different than my grandfather's generation. I view debt and the use of credit cards much different than my dad. Some of this has to do with financial education and where I am in my life cycle. But I sympathize (and even listen to Dave Ramsey). I also think that these issues are behavioral in nature and therefore correctable with training and will power.

But his transaction fee theory is more interesting. Economics should teach that there are transaction/opportunity costs for everything. I think that credit cards and "cashless" transactions reduce the costs of purchasing something. My dad disagrees. He thinks they increase costs. He has worked in retail is whole life and he throughly understands transaction fees. I am much more of a consumer/purchaser.

The point here is that the value of credit cards (and transaction fees) is purely subjective. Their value aren't empirical questions. Deciding whether to use or accept credit cards is an individual/company question/decision. Average or statistical answers have absolutely no meaning. None whatsoever.

Life is about facing the consequences of individual decisions. Problems occur when decisions and consequences are separated.

Digging deeper into this decision-consequence dynamic is complex and uncomfortable. This is what politics and the general business of bullshit involves. But I have come to believe that the best strategy is to ignore this general business and face life with the view that: "I, me, myself do control my decisions, and I will face the consequences of these decisions." Yes, there are times when the connections seem suspect, but you have to forget about those times and move forward.

Thursday Night TV

2010-05-14T06:19:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that I think sit-coms are this great format for our attention deficit times. This means I enjoy NBC's Thursday night programming. But I think Parks and Rec and The Office are messing with the format and making me think too much.

They both have these complicated love stories going on that they are teasing for an end-of-season push. But they are making them more complicated than they need to be. Michael Scott is screwing a married woman. This is funny for an episode, maybe two. But meeting the husband and letting the story carry over into a fourth episode is too much. Way too heavy for The Office. Parks and Rec has been developing this relationship between April (the young cute slacker) and the shoe-shine guy (the older [my age] dumb slacker). Last night was time for the relationship to really begin, but they pushed it back an episode or two. The episode itself was a cliff-hanger.

These shows don't need cliff-hangers. Each episode is a 22 minute self-contained laugh-fest. You can only make adultery funny for an 22-44 minutes. After that, it looks way too much like the real world that everyone is trying to avoid by watching these shows. Maybe this is why I enjoy watching re-runs more than day and date shows.

I will say that Community still rocks.

Blog Post

2010-05-12T09:39:00.000-05:00

My dad used to say, "I don't care if you're a janitor as long as you're the best damn janitor you can be." (I think some times the end turned into the best damn janitor in the world or some similar hyperbole.)

This morning a janitor polished the floors. He did the most immaculate job I've ever seen. The floors are shining like never before. It took him hours, but you can see your reflection in the floor. He used the mop and the dry mop (the secret to cleaning any high-traffic floor). He is the best floor polisher I've ever seen.

And my dad has a point.

Questions For The NBA

2010-05-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

1. How did the Atlanta Hawks advance beyond the first round of the playoffs when the Mavericks, Thunder, Trailblazers, and Nuggets did not?

2. When Orlando comes out of the East, will anyone watch the Finals?

3. How can this Cleveland team win the most games during the regular season?

4. Does the answer to 3 show that the NBA should reduce/adjust their regular season?

5. If Lebron truly wants win a championship, how does he go back to Cleveland or to New York?

6. Isn't their a way to organize the playoffs and draft so there would be no tanking and no "saving it for the playoffs?"

7. Why can't the NBA be the first league to go radically different with their playoff structure?

Jason Whitlock's "Why I Write?"

2010-05-07T13:53:00.001-05:00

Here.

I'm attracted 2 original ideas. I want 2 read & say, "damn, I never thought of that or didn't know that." Just me. Others want somthing else12:05 PM May 2nd via web

WhitlockJason

Jason Whitlock

My San Antonio Spurs

2010-05-06T12:03:00.000-05:00

I have never lived in a professional sports city. I guess my closest hometown team is the Redskins.

But now that I am a part-time resident of San Antonio, I like saying "my San Antonio Spurs."

And right as I arrive, they have a just over-the-hill team that plays in the wrong conference.

But I still like saying "my San Antonio Spurs."

For The Record

2010-05-04T09:52:00.000-05:00

1. Saturday, I predicted the Celtics would beat the Cavaliers. I stand by this prediction. It is still Lebron versus the world.

2. The local radio guy was crapping on the NBA playoffs because NBA basketball has turned into an individual sport. Kobe versus Lebron. He blamed Nike and the NBA for deifying Jordan and marketing players instead of teams. I see his point, but I think the great thing about basketball is that it is the most individualistic of the team sports. Lebron can will his team into the 2007 Finals. But Lebron can't win a championship with a non-existent supporting cast. The problem with the NBA playoffs is it is too long. The West Coast games are way too late.

3. Bureaucracies have a hard time with "giving a lot of what costs a little." This is one of their greatest problems. Their rules and procedures get in the way of low-cost things that could improve their constituencys' welfare. Their decisions are consistently based on sustaining the bureaucracy and not low-cost solutions to the problems they face.

Three Things

2010-05-03T15:44:00.000-05:00

1. Here is a good article on the subjective theory of value.

2. One secret of success in life is "giving a lot of what costs a little." Being nice to people can get you places. From a business/product perspective, this thought translates into customer service and understanding sunk costs. From a personal perspective, this thought translates into understanding yourself, your shortcomings, and your desires. Many businesses fail because they overprice products and services that cost them nothing or very little. Many people fail because they won't be themselves. They overprice the ideas and qualities that come naturally to them.

3. If I could capture the feeling that a large cup of coffee after 5-6 hour night of sleep can give a person, then I could put the antidepressant industry out of business.

Sports Thoughts Even Though They Don't Seem Appropriate

2010-04-16T15:15:00.000-05:00

1. I wish Jason Campbell would swallow his pride one more time, and be a backup to McNabb. I would much rather have him than Grossman. With McNabb as a tutor, it might help him, especially when McNabb gets hurt which is a foregone conclusion.

2. I don't trust Jim Haslett, and I am betting that the 'Skins defense is worse than it was last year. I never have liked coaches who imposed their systems on personnel that didn't fit. Haynesworth and McIntosh are talents. A good coach would find a way to keep them happy and motivated.

3. We're ten days into the baseball season. I am still interested. Let's see where I am at next month.

Syrofoam, Sunk Costs, And Alternative Energy

2010-04-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

One time I was living with a retro-hippie sympathizer. He invited a retro-hippie over to our apartment. She criticized my use of Styrofoam plates, cups and bowls. I retorted that the Styrofoam was already made. They were going to be used by someone. I understand general equilibrium effects, and my purchase stimulated demand and hence supply. But the idea was the Styrofoam was made and it was cheaper (at least in my mind) to use than "real" dishes. The negative parts of Styrofoam were sunk costs.

I feel similarly about oil. Part of me thinks that oil is unsustainable. But it is still cheaper. I have never seen a credible analysis that says hybrids are cheaper than traditional compact cars for most people's driving habits. As we stand today, wind and solar just can't do it. Most people now see that ethanol was policy-induced mistake that cost more than it was worth.

So I am going to keep driving my dad's truck and not worry about "our" (inter)dependence on oil or "promoting" alternative energy. The oil in the ground, like death, is just a sunk cost.