Google seeking feedback on the new Google Calendar look

Give us your feedback on the new Google Calendar Look is a thread created by a Google Employee to get "feedback" on the new Google Calendar look.

You know, the "look" that uses about half of an 11" screen to show a search bar.

My theory is she hates the wasted screen real estate and needs ammunition. So, please help. Post your comments. Don't hold back.

Unless, of course, you don't want to see your calendar items. Maybe they make you feel stressed. In that case, just relax. Don't bother posting.

If you do post, please mention that the "old" look had far too much wasted white space to begin with.

Nature: daily science news and opinion

I used to read the Scientific American science news feed, but periodically I'd tap on an article title only to find it was a subscriber-only link.

So I switched to Nature science news. Only to find they're doing the same thing - mixing public with subscriber-only posts.

So I'm back to reading other science bloggers.

Does this strategy actually work for publishers, or are they paying good money to bad consultants?

American health care costs: dog, man and Rimadyl

The good news is that Kateva's creatinine is back where it should be and her stomach is holding out. The bad news is that, even if all goes well, her feast on a friend's Rimadyl will end up costing over $1,500 for a straightforward 3 day hospital stay.

Please remember this. Rimadyl, an ibuprofen-like drug sold in the US veterinary market, is beef flavored. It's dog candy, just like the yummy children's aspirin that poisoned my childhood peers. We're used to our evil canine cur stealing food, but we misclassified the drugs as ... not food. She had a different classification. (Unfortunately, she's learned to hide food wrappers, so it took us a day to figure out where the Rimadyl went.)

Poisoned medicinal candy precautions are one lesson from Kateva's folly. It's not the only lesson though.

Once upon a time $1,500 would have covered the costs of a similarly routine human hospitalization. Around that time a time a similarly troublesome dog would have received much less care for much less money.

Health care inflation in the US applies to humans, dogs and cats alike.

Which suggests a natural experiment. We know a lot about rising human health care costs in the US. Why not compare those costs to rising costs of companion animal (aka "pet") care? American dogs and men, for example, have similar health care habits and obesity rates. American dogs and men get the same medications for roughly the same costs.

On the other hand, veterinarians are paid substantially less than physicians. Veterinary care has much less regulatory overhead, and is much more efficient. There is minimal marketing, very simple billing, and a largely market based payment system.

Most of all, the care of the aged is very different. A demented incontinent dog gets a brief and painless house call. A demented incontinent human meets a far crueler and more costly fate.

It would be interesting to plot the trajectory of American veterinary and human health care cost inflation. I think the curves would look quite different, largely due to lower end of life costs. I don't know though; there may be surprises. Curiously, I don't think this study has been done.

What killed Intuit's Quicken?

Quicken is dead.

Yes, you can still buy something called "Quicken" for Windows -- though not in the UK where the produce was terminated four years ago. No matter, Quicken is dead. The failure to produce a reasonable product for OS X is just another nail in the coffin.

Intuit itself may well continue. Their share price has done well over the past two years, and the company has moved well beyond their original product line. They may even be earning money (one way or another) from Intuit's Mint.com, a read-only Cloud product with a few *cough* privacy and security issues

It's not just Quicken. Back in the 80s and 90s personal financial software was a hot product niche. At one point Microsoft Money was a serious player, until antitrust concerns and a failed acquisition left it mortally wounded.

So what happened to personal financial software? Why did it become a niche market for vendors like iBank for OS X?

I suspect it was more than one thing. This would be my guess ...

1. The banks stopped cooperating. I've worked for ventures that relied on transaction and interface agreements; it can be hard to keep both parties motivated and the transaction system healthy. Perhaps at some point in the 90s the banks wanted this business for themselves, and saw internet banking as a competitive advantage. Why cooperate with a vendor that put all banks on a more-or-less even footing?
2. The ability to visit web sites and find current investment values was sufficient for a significant fraction of Intuit's customer base.
3. The American middle class fragmented as wealth concentrated in less than 1% of the US population.

The last of these is, of course, the most interesting.

Quicken is not an interesting product for people with millions of dollars to manage. They will largely use professional money managers. Quicken is not an interesting product for people with very limited savings and investments, particularly if the investments are largely concentrated in 401K accounts. The natural market for Quicken was individuals and families with significant financial complexity but not wealth.

Over the past fifteen years that market went away. The saving grace for niche Mac vendors is that, insofar as some remnant of that market still lives, it's now largely using Apple products.

In the end, I think the collapse of the American middle class killed Quicken.

See also:

• Why Wesabe Lost to Mint - Marc Hedlund's blog 2010 - Privacy, financial habits and entertainment. A cautionary tale for those trying to both do good and win.

Roots of the irrational in American politics: pre-dementia and religion

I've written recently about the role of religion in the reasoning of the GOP base. This is an elephant in the room; pundits will discuss the role of American's exceptional fundamentalism in the context of abortion politics, but not in the context of debt politics. The mainstream media is missing an important ingredient in our political paralysis.

There's another elephant out there, and it will grow over the next ten years. The average American voter will become increasingly demented. Demented people rarely vote of course, but most dementia is the end stage of a very long process. Before a voter is disabled, they will lose the ability to process information, recall all but the most recent events, and adjust their beliefs based on evidence. They will, in other words, become less rational.

How big a factor is this?

We can make some estimates by starting with the end-stage state of clinical demential ...

Prevalence of Dementia in the United States: The Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study

... The prevalence of dementia among individuals aged 71 and older was 13.9%, comprising about 3.4 million individuals in the USA in 2002. The corresponding values for AD were 9.7% and 2.4 million individuals. Dementia prevalence increased with age, from 5.0% of those aged 71–79 years to 37.4% of those aged 90 and older...

... The elderly population (those aged 65 years or older) in the USA is expected to double from approximately 35 million today to more than 70 million by 2030...

Of course these numbers are only a start. What we really want are numbers expressed in percentages of voters, and we want the average disease duration from judgment impairment to disability. Personally I suspect that's about 20 years, but the best data I could find was on a relatively rare and aggressive form of early dementia ...

Pre-dementia clinical stages in presenilin 1 E280A... [Lancet Neurol. 2011] - PubMed result

... Pre-dementia cognitive impairment was defined by a score 2 SD away from normal values in objective cognitive tests, and was subdivided as follows: asymptomatic pre-MCI was defined by an absence of memory complaints and no effect on activities of daily living; symptomatic pre-MCI was defined by a score on the subjective memory complaints checklist higher than the mean and no effect on activities of daily living; and MCI was defined by a score on the subjective memory complaints checklist higher than the mean, with no effect on basic activities of daily living and little or no effect on complex daily activities. De

... Median age at onset was 35 years (95% CI 30-36) for asymptomatic pre-MCI, 38 years (37-40) for symptomatic pre-MCI, 44 years (43-45) for MCI, and 49 years (49-50) for dementia. The median age at death was 59 years (95% CI 58-61). The median time of progression from asymptomatic to symptomatic pre-MCI was 4 years (95% CI 2-8), from symptomatic pre-MCI to MCI was 6 years (4-7), from MCI to dementia was 5 years (4-6), and from dementia to death was 10 years (9-12). The cognitive profile was predominantly amnestic and was associated with multiple domains. Affected domains showed variability in initial stages, with some transient recovery in symptomatic pre-MCI followed by continuous decline.

In this disorder asymptomatic pre-MCI started at age 35, and disability (dementia) at age 50. So the aggressive form has a 15 year course. I would expect less aggressive forms have a longer course, so I'll go with 20 years.

So by these very rough guesstimates about 15% of 50 year old voters will be impacted by "asymptomatic pre-MCI", an early form of cognitive disorder that will impact their judgment. That prevalence will go up with age. Since GOP voters are much older than Dem voters, this, like religious fundamentalism, will be concentrated in the GOP base and it will strongly impact GOP politics.

If you don't understand the two factors of religious fundamentalism and pre-dementia cognitive impairment you will have a hard time understanding the future of the GOP.

Jon Udell on G+'s distracting chatter

Jon Udell has been testing G+. He nails it in two words ...

Distracting chatter is useful. But thanks to RSS (remember that?) it’s optional. « Jon Udell

... I came to accept a lot of distracting chatter as the price of discovering things to read. But Google+ seems to be the camel’s-back-breaking straw. The price has gone too high. So I’m rediscovering what made the blog network so thrilling to me a decade ago: unmediated access to people writing for the love of it in their own online spaces. Distracting chatter has its uses. But it’s optional.

G+ reminds Jon, and me, of why feeds aren't dead yet ...

... Last night’s 17-course meal was a selection of recent essays by Gardner Campbell, Brian Dear,Lorianne DiSabato .... Paul Ford, Cliff Gerrish, Ned Gulley, Eugene Eric Kim,Adina Levin, Hugh McGuire, Cameron Neylon, John Quimby, Antonio Rodriguez, Scott Rosenberg, Doc Searls, Ed Vielmetti, and Ethan Zuckerman... [2]

G+ needs to become useful. If iG+ were integrated into Google Reader, so Google Reader Shares became G+ shares, I'd go back to using it. To do that though, Google would have to support topic stream subscription as well as access controls (circles). Likewise, if G+ replaced Blogger Comments I'd definitely use it.

At the moment however, G+ is an inferior version of Facebook (no group/org Pages) without the (shrinking) number of my friends and family who post on FB [1].

[1] My experience of FB is changing. At first friends and family were sharing and it was useful for that. Most have stopped though. On the other hand, "Pages" for clubs and schools and local kid teams are more important. It's moving away from being a social network to a pub/sub group sharing network -- which starts to look like a simplified version of the web with much less anonymity. Rather a lot like late 1980s AOL and CompuServe.
[2] Great list of new names. I'm exploring each of them.

God's Will and the debt limit

Theocratic states are, by definition, not rational. Stalinist Russia, Fascist Germany, Mao's China, Kim's Korea, Revolutionary Iran -- they all believed God or History would preserve them against all odds.

Israel and America aren't theocratic states, but both nations have a strong strain of theocracy. In the US that strain is concentrated in the GOP. A belief that God is on your side can lead to some otherwise inexplicable and irrationally self-destructive behaviors.

I don't think the US will default - but we are rather close to the edge. We need to understand not only how the GOP got to crazy, but why. Why does a significant portion of the GOP believe that America should do this?

For many Republicans it's their version of Mao, Marx and Mohamed. They are American Marketarians, believers in a peculiar 21st century American fusion of Christian fundamentalism, evangelical capitalism, and calvinism. They believe they are doing God's will, that progressive taxation is the greatest sin -- opposing God's will and justice. They believe that God will save America -- if America follows the true course. Even if they don't personally believe that Obama is the anti-christ, they know he is not a Believer.

They can't make a deal, because they'd be denying God.

That's why we're in trouble.

I went to Hogwarts

Many ages after graduation, it occurred to me that I went to Hogwarts.

It went something like this:

• Gryffindor: Page/Fleming
• Hufflepuff: Ruddock
• Ravenclaw: Blacker
• Slyterin; Dabney/Lloyd

It's not exact of course. Even during my tenure Lloyd was changing character, and Dabney wasn't so much evil as geek-goth.

Still, it is remarkable.

Incidentally, in writing this I was surprised to learn that my Corona still exists ...

In the 1980s, Lloyd had two off-campus alleys, one named "The Place" and one named "Corona" (in reference to the corona of the sun as a metaphor for the outer reaches of Lloyd). The Place used to exist on the corner of Michigan Ave and Lura St; it was removed around 1988 and is now a parking lot. Corona used to be on the east side of Holliston Ave; it was removed in 1992 and the location is now the new parking structure. Because of Pasadena preservation laws, both houses were moved to other places in Pasadena. The Corona house was donated to a minister (for free) who restored it at 1792 Newport Ave, Pasadena, CA. The house is no longer owned by the minister, but it still exists.

I had no idea, when I last visited I saw only the parking log.

Checkmate.

The GOP has been playing voter poker with the debt limit. Obama has been playing a different game: Obama Campaign/DNC Raise $86 Million in Second Quarter.

The American voter has a 3 month memory. Tea Party voters in particular remember what they're told to remember.

Donors though, they think ahead. Corporations can see Obama has given them almost everything they could hope for, while the GOP promises global economic ruin.

GOP leaders know this. That's why McConnell caved. There are still moves to be made, but the game is over.

The GOP collapses

McConnell Proposes Giving Obama Authority To Raise Debt Limit Alone. This will be retracted and denied and stuffed down the memory hole.

Doesn't matter though, the GOP has collapsed.

On the bright side, we will probably avoid the greatest failure of American governance since the Civil War. We may avoid turning the Lesser Depression into a Greater Depression.

On the dimmer side, the GOP will survive this. If they had forced the nation into default they might have done themselves in. We desperately need a somewhat sane party to oppose the worst tendencies of my team, we need a replacement for the GOP. Their retreat puts that day off.

Dimmer still, it appears I was right. Seven months ago I assumed that the GOP, in the end, would not risk the wrath of their corporate masters. They know the pre-demented boomers of the Tea Party will forget this affair within months, but corporate paymasters will not forgive economic ruin.

Like Jared Bernstein, I felt we were just now crossing over into panic time. I began to think emergent orporate entities were not as powerful as I'd imagined.

It seems they are.

Ebert on Murdoch and The Guardian

Roger Ebert pays some debts to Murdoch. Debts of vengeance that is.

Murdoch has made many enemies. He was particularly good at making enemies of intelligent and wise people who buy electrons by the gigabyte. Now they will speak.

Ebert also gives due honor to the Guardian, which must be clearing shelf space for its Pulitzer prize.

For my part, I'm adding the Guardian feed to Google Reader. I had it a while ago, but it seemed too leftie even for me. Clearly, I was wrong.

I'm back now.

Criminals lacking competence ... boiler room spoofers

For the last week or so I have been getting mobile calls between 1am and 6am from 408-555-1212. Fortunately my iPhone charges downstairs, so nobody was awoken by the calls.

This is, of course, the directory information number for Silicon Valley. It's traditional to "spoof" this Caller ID when cold calling victims.

But why between 1am and 6am? Where's the money in that?

Today they called at 6pm. Naturally I picked up. There as a longish pause while the dialing device transferred the call to a boiler room operator. Alas, I couldn't make out what she was saying. Her accent was thick (east asian?) and the VOIP call was breaking up. She seemed to be trying to pronounce the names of people I might know (Bob someone?). Perhaps she was trying to read a script about their hospitalizations, etc.

Alas, she gave up very quickly.

This is not a very competent ring of criminals. How do they stay in business?

People you may known on G+ ...

Circles - suggested I know this guy on G+:

Really?

Dyer on Murdoch

Gwynne Dyer, a journalist once blacklisted by convict Conrad Black (Canada's mini-Murdoch), has reviewed Rupert Murdoch's latest set of challenges. He suggests ...

• Murdoch's empire paid for the silence of convicts Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire
• British police were slow to investigate Murdoch's minions because they'd leaked stories for pay. Some officers have a lot to lose. Dyer doesn't point out that some of them may now be powerful.
• James Murdoch was moved from London to New York to escape the British legal system
• Murdoch will use Rebekah Brooks to draw fire until the British government approves News Corps bid for control of British Sky Broadcasting. Then she will be sacrificed.

Dyer doesn't say this won't work. A Michael Wolff story from 9/2010 quotes British politicians who felt Andy Coulson was safe. Murdoch's control of the UK media rivaled Berlusconi's control of Italy and Murdoch's own control of Australia.

Except, Wolff pointed out, the New York Times was involved. The story had gone global.

Even so, perhaps Murdoch would have taken it down, but for the unpredictable outrage of the restless masses -- and for the media he doesn't quite control.

I googled Murdoch's Wall Street Journal for editorials on one of the biggest media stories of the decade. I found a few short articles. The New York Times, not yet a Murdoch property, has much more.

Funny that.

I wonder what Murdoch's Fox News is saying.

It could happen here. It probably has happened here.

Age of miracles - our Kia Sedona doors and Google

Before he was intimidated by AI-can't-hurt Stross [1], Brad DeLong used to say that "the singularity is in our past".

I think Brad was right and Charlie is working for the "transgalactic-AIs-tired-of-waiting-for-a-decent-conversation-from-Sol-3".

For example, how, before the Singularity, could humans have solved this mystery?

Our (cheap) Kia Sedona sliding van doors used to latch open properly. Then, a month or so ago, they'd sometimes slide back, periodically amputating digits. Emily took the van to the dealer and they told her they'd "fixed" it (under warrantee, so no charge). Of course it came back.

Really, it's a pain. Sometimes I have to brace the door with one leg. Today Emily mentioned she was taking the van back to the dealer. Then she took the kids in for DQ. While I waited with Kateva I did a voice search on my iPhone's Google.app. I got this ...

Kia Sedona Doors and Exterior - Car Forums - Edmunds:

... This works fine, unless and until you decide to (2) LOWER EITHER OF THE BACK WINDOWS 'TOO' LOW. It seems there is a point where the window is too low and they've put a safety feature into play and it won't allow you to latch open the door. I found a round red reflector-like sticker on the side of the door (back side) of the driver's side rear. It is the same point at which you can lower the window and still open the door and it latches open....

Yeah, that's it. With the window down the latch doesn't work. With the window completely up it works. It made a good demo when Emily returned with the treats.

Some imagine this is a child safety feature of sorts, but I think they're suffering from cognitive dissonance. My (see update!) best guess is that it's a misguided security feature; pull the door back to let kids out and it slides down crushing them. As you tend to the wounded you notice that the window is down. We bought the car in Minnesota's winter, so we only ran into this when the weather warmed.

Whacky design, but that's not the point. The point is the dealership mechanics were completely clueless. (Must have taken them ages to "fix" it.) Google solved the problem in seconds. I didn't even have to tap type. All I had to do was ask my freakin' phone.

Definitely in our past.

These stories must bore the young. They can't imagine what life was like before the all-seeing G.

[1] Charlie claims he's mostly inciting site traffic to promote Rule 34, I've ordered my copy.

Update 7/10/11: On reflection my original guess doesn't make sense either. Now I think this is a power door safety feature. I suspect a powered door won't open unless the window is shut, to prevent injury to a child's head and neck. Cheapskates like us buy the lower margin non-powered doors, and on this door the interlock can't prevent opening. Instead it only prevents latching. I think, therefore, the latch failure is a bug arising from power door infrastructure that wasn't removed for non-powered doors. This isn't documented because it's a genuine bug, and companies hate to document their bugs - especially when it exposes foolish penny pinching. Kia saved money by not redoing the latch feature to work properly for non-powered doors.