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I'm taking a break from doing this.

You may enjoy some of the links on the left.

Stand Up Economist

"Daniel Goldsmith" called me back tonight with the spiel for buying into an IPO on an institutional investment rate.

The IPO deal was for a company called USA Oil And Gas Corp (Nice and generic, huh? Although the company does appear to exist.) and how they were about to be snapped up by Halliburton and be given vast amounts of previously untenable oilfields to extract oil from.

(At least he didn't read out the URL in pseudo-milspeak like he did the company one: "Kilo! India! November! Golf! Sierra! Mike! Echo! Alpha! Delta! Papa! Echo! er, dot com". I was so tempted to come back with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!)

He reckoned that the opening price for the IPO would be USD 1.95, but I could get on board for USD 1.50 and cash in after the IPO.

While explaining the details of the deal, he was really hammering on the "little yeses". This is a sales technique which involves getting the sucker 'valued customer' to agree with you at each incremental step along the way so that they hopefully agree to give you all their money at the end.

I told him I wasn't interested in doing business. He got quite angry at that point and, although he managed to control himself, he started getting quite snappy. He told me that if I didn't get on board now, I'd be sorry in five weeks (the IPO time), and he'd call me back to gloat.

When I mentioned finding negative reviews of KingsmeadPE on the Motley Fool forums and how they appeared to be a Boiler Room, he started up with a cock and bull story about how a disgruntled office junior named Walters was poisoning the good name of the company. At that point, I hung up on him, having better things to do.

So, the guys from KingsmeadPE are following up (from Kingsmeade?) with breathless anticipation of a deal for me.

I got a URL out of them this time (see above), and a quick google search on their company name (kingsmeadpe ) turned up a whole bunch of threads on The Motley Fool about Boiler Room operations.

That's not the kind of profile you expect from a respectable business!

UPDATE: so, about 45 minutes after posting this, this post is #3 on the google search for KingsmeadPE.

Apparently this is the Irish Eurvision entry for this year:

You know, I think My Lovely Horse was better:

Alternate Version:

Yesterday, for various reasons, I attended one of those pre-construction presentations where a property developer tries to convince you to pre-buy a flat in an upcoming development. This development was a Lohas Park, over in Tseung Kwan O.

The brochures actually looked promising: it's an attempt at a pretty green development on the southern spur from the Tseung Kwan O line. Flat sizes range from 650-odd square feet to 1165 sq.ft. These sizes are probably lower-middle to middle-middle class in Hong Kong terms. The 1165 unit was interesting to us as we currently live in 1120sq.ft, which suits us fine.

(Note: HK flat sizes are specified as Gross Floor Area (GFA), which includes an allowance for the common areas, such as the entrance ways, lift lobbies, etc. Generally, they like to claim a utilisation of 75% or so, which means that you're getting 75% of what you paid for. In places with actual competition laws, property developers would have to tell you the actual size. In HK, you put up *AND* shut up.)

Once into the presentation itself (after queueing for more than an hour or two), we were treated to some aspirational video telling us that our new neighbours will all be very attractive Westerners with hobbies like lounging around the pool, shopping, being massaged and having western servants. This seemed a bit out of odds with the crowd actually gathered to view these presentations, but I guess the main point was: "Your neighbours won't really be the obnoxious market stall holders who are elbowing you in the ribs right now, and who smell of durian and don't understand the concept of standing in line."

(The man who smelled like sweaty durian was standing directly behind us and kept saying things like "Why can't I go in front of the gweilo? They never buy anyway, he's just here to look.")

Once past the aspirational videos, we were treated to displays of how glorious the clubhouse, sorry -- Premier Club Spa -- would be, and how wonderful the vaguely Germanic stock photo people would be when shopping. (A HK shopping mall full of blonde hair? Seriously?)

Then, we finally got to see the mockups of the biggest of the potential flats as recreated in a Jordan showroom. Despite the fact that the developer could have made the show flats bigger than reality, despite the fact the the show flats had no internal doors, despite the fact that there were no internal doorways just huge gaping openings, despite the fact that this was all marketing material, the show flats appeared to be far smaller than advertised.

We looked at the largest one first. 1165 square feet. Officially, about the same net size as our current flat. (We have a huge living/dining room, and three fairly large bedrooms, one of which is my office and the kids playroom.) It was tiny. They couldn't even get four bedrooms (as advertised) in the mockup -- they had to make two rooms into one just to *fit* a double bed in the master bedroom, and there was no storage. The two child rooms only worked because they had half of the beds into the bay windows.

In terms of actual usable living room, it looked like less than 600 sq.ft. My cousin's public housing flat in Shek Kip Mei looked more appealing.

The smaller flat, of 900sq.ft. was one of the worst laid out flats I've ever seen.

We came away from the whole travesty with the realisation that, for us to even think about living there, we'd have to buy two flats and knock them into one.

We may still buy a unit there, but purely for investment purposes. We'll continue to live in human sized older units over here on Hong Kong Island, not whatever shoeboxes Li Ka Shing thinks he can convince HongKongers in 400sq.ft. public housing to buy.

I nipped into a local Apple store (Design Group, in IFC Mall) on Sunday, to see if they had the new Time Capsule yet. That's still not out, but they did have one of the new MacBook Air laptops.

It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best made laptop in Apple's lineup. The build quality is astonishing, and the feel of holding the thing in your hand is amazing. The use of tapered edges makes it feel even thinner than it really is. As the screen and keyboard are full size (and almost the same as a MacBook), the thinness of the device is very striking.

Being made of metal, the 3 pound weight (2 pounds lighter than a MacBook) confounds your senses. You expect a plastic MacBook to be light, and it is. But this feels so solid and metallic in your hand and is lighter so you seem to discount its weight completely. It almost feels weightless.

The keyboard feels slightly more solid than the MacBook one, but I think that this is mainly down to the different materials.

Technically, the laptop is far too compromised to be of interest to me. The hard disk is too small, the CPU slightly too slow[1], it has integrated graphics, and the non-expandable RAM is a real concern for power users. But this machine isn't aimed at power users. It's aimed at people who use their laptop for email, writing, photos, web-browsing, etc. Normal stuff. Not running Crysis, making HD movies or Music production.

People are decrying the lack of USB ports and thinking that you'll need a powered hub, but the single USB slot is a high power slot. It must be, as it provides power to the optional SuperDrive. I'm sure it won't be long before there are sleek hubs powered from the +5V line on that with style to match the Air.

It's gorgeous, and it might just redefine the consumer laptop as a device where the technology disappears and you just have a beautiful screen and keyboard. And seemingly no computer.

[1] a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo is about as fast as a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 processor. And probably faster on some tasks, as there are two independent cores rather than the 1.5 cores you get with Hyperthreading. Slow is relative.

Woah, Google is going to buy Skype? This week's This Week in Tech Podcast makes that statement and it sounds pretty interesting, especially in conjunction with the Android mobile phone SDK.

Imagine a world where most phones are wifi-enabled and have VOIP. Instant free phone calls in those places where you have Wifi. Instant Messaging instead of SMS, and email instead of MMS.

Instant death to the Mobile Phone companies, which is also the long-term plan for the iPhone (in my opinion, anyway). That's mobile phone network providers, not Nokia, et al.

I had a phone call yesterday from a company(?) calling themselves Kingsmeade Equity.

They claimed to be a financial services company who would help me invest. The call was very low-pressure - basically a chat about the markets, where they would go, and what did I think. The caller had a English accent (London, I think, although it could've been more northern) calling himself "Daniel Goldsmith" calling from Tokyo.

The thing which worries me is that I can find no trace of the company online. I find it very difficult to believe that you can have a global trading company which doesn't show up in Google. This may just be a spelling thing, but Google normally searches for similarly sounding word. Does anyone know of a "Kingsmeade Equity"?

Also, the amount of backchat I could hear (The caller clearly talking to someone else when he thought I couldn't hear) was odd. Obviously there was someone else listening to the call and commenting ,saying things like "he's saying he's not with us". It seemed a bit unprofessional.

UPDATE: I just love having google juice. This is now the first of the entries on google if you search for kingsmeade equity, and you don't even need quotes. Despite having a Google Page Rank of only 3/10.

UPDATE 27/02/2008: The company appears to be KingsmeadPE.

Perhaps he will move it (move it) later.

It's apparently not possible to forward an SMS from the iPhone. And you obviously can't copy and paste the SMS into an email and forward it that way.

I would like to nominate Donie Cassidy for the stupidest politician of the year award for this moronic proposal: Ireland debates switch to right-hand driving.

If you need to have the latest currency rates on your iPhone, there's a very simple hack to do it. Open the Stocks widget, and add a new stock with the name in following format: <currency_code_1><currency_code_2>=X. See the image for examples.

For HK Stocks, just add the four digit stock code, followed by .HK.

compare and contrast the visual styles of Lawrence Lessig:

With particular emphasis on using written words to reinforce spoken words.

Merlin Mann in his latest post to 5ives, mentions Project Segway as a "terrible fake reality TV show".

If that was to be a show featuring Steve Wozniak trying to build a Segway Polo team from a bunch of innocent bystanders[1], I think that'd be great TV. Certainly better than the the America's Next Top Model drivel we have to put up with.

"Gimme Five!", barks the Woz.

"Er, five what, Mr Woz?"

"Five push- ups, sit-ups or really cool hardware hacks. It's up to you."

[1] Of course your typical Reality Show is composed of people with no social skills and egos *THIS* *BIG* It's also important that those with the least talent for the show's subject matter have the biggest egos.

Over the last year or so, I've shifted my old Pentium III based machinery to Core 2 Duo and AMD64 based systems. (At the moment, the Windows box runs the Core 2 Duo, and the Linux box is AMD64 powered. The MacBook is a Core 2 Duo as well, of course.)

Also, over this time, there has been an increasing awareness of the need for power saving features in modern PCs. Linux has moved to a tickless idle and has worked hard at reducing the wakeups per second, so that the processor has a chance to maintain deeper sleep states for longer.

I presume that WinXP has had a few updates along those lines as well, although they may be in the Cool'n'Quiet (AMD64) or EnhancedSpeedstep (Intel) drivers.

During the hot months, this is great, as I no longer have a pair of space heaters under my desk attempting to cook my feet when idling. I've certainly noticed the difference inpower bills which have been shrinking all year. Mind you, a lot of this was due to my travelling, but I was still using the Linux box remotely, and there are other people in this household.

During winter, this has had the unfortunate side effect of following the ambient temperature more closely and not even keeping my feet warm when I've got the Windows box flat out and gaming!

Winter in Hong Kong is not normally all that cold, but the day-time external temperature has been hovering around 10 °C for the last almost two weeks, which is very cold indeed for Hong Kong. When combined with the complete lack of insulation of your typical flat here, and the generally poor weather sealing of the apartments, if it's 10 °C outside, it's not much different inside.

Facts support minimum wage

I agree with the views of Gary Collings on the minimum wage ("In defence of a fairer society", January 11). He is right to point out that Britain has not been harmed by minimum wage legislation since its introduction in 1999. In my letter ("Proof in the practice", December 7, 2006), I referred to a report in The Economist which said that the law had worked well in Britain and had not harmed the wage earner or the employer.

I also reminded readers that there has been a minimum wage in the US - the stronghold of market freedom - since 1938, and that most market economies in the world had adopted some form of wage protection policy. I also mentioned a research paper by distinguished scholars on the website of the UN Labour Organisation that said there was no historical evidence that wage protection laws caused unemployment. I am frustrated by the nature of the debate on the wage issue in Hong Kong. Opponents of a minimum wage law just avoid dealing with the evidence that such a law does not damage the economy, and merely repeat nonsensical arguments. Some so-called economists even claim it will lead to a reduction in the demand for labour.

Labour demand is affected by many factors independent of wages. The two-way movement of supply and demand can lead to so many different outcomes, which makes it difficult to blame wage levels for unemployment.

The facts speak for themselves, and it is up to those opposed to wage legislation to answer them.

Joseph Ko, Sha Tin

Well said Sir!

There's far too much of the Thatcherite point of view that any regulation of business is inherently anti-business in Hong Kong. Much of this is relentlessly pushing a corporatist agenda, by attempting to absolve large corporations of any social conscience or responsibility and therefore allowing them to operate unfettered.

Major Hong Kong banks have followed the surprise 0.75 percent interest rate cut in the United States, as Asian stock markets rebounded. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority slashed its base rate to 5 percent - the fifth reduction since last September when the US cuts began. HSBC, Bank of China, and Standard Chartered Bank responded by reducing their best lending rates. The Hang Seng Index was the region's main gainer - closing 2,233 higher - or 10.7 percent - at 24,090. It was the biggest points rally for ten years. India and South Korea also recorded large increases in share prices, reversing days of losses and easing fears of a global recession. In Australia, the stock market closed more than 4 percent higher and in Japan shares rose by 2.4 percent.

The market is just going crazy.

The Hong Kong stock market has plunged more than 2,000 points, as investors across Asia dumped shares amid fears of a US recession. The Hang Seng index closed down 2,061 - or 8.7 percent - at 21,757 - the biggest one-day points fall in its history. Mainland stocks took a particularly heavy hit as the Shanghai exchange fell another 7.2 percent. Banks extended their losses on earnings uncertainty in the wake of the US subprime crisis, with Bank of China and HSBC both down more than 8 percent. Japan's Nikkei index nose-dived 5.7 percent.

Visa racism?

I wonder if the relevant authority would care to comment on a situation I consider to be terribly unfair. My brother, an American on holiday in Hong Kong, and myself, also American but a Hong Kong permanent resident, were both charged HK$1,200 for visas to the mainland. Why, as a permanent resident, am I charged the same as a non-resident? Furthermore, why am I not allowed the same privileges as my wife, who is local Chinese? Is it a case of racism? I hope not, but I cannot understand the differences. Hopefully someone can explain what the logic is.

Terry Scott, Sha Tin

Actually, this may be the only interaction you'll ever have with China which doesn't stink of racism.

I paid about the same amount of money for a China visa. Of course, my visa was for three years and multiple entries.

How did I get this? I am not cursed with an American passport, or with citizenship of a country which feels free to invade other countries for little more reason than to channel government money to the military and military suppliers.

China notoriously increases the visa price to reflect the perceived quality of the diplomatic relationship between the country whose passport you hold and China. Plus, they normally figure that they can squeeze the Septic Tanks for some extra moolah, as many of them seem to be making huge amounts of money from China.

Unfair rules

I refer to the letter from Terry Scott ("Visa racism?", January 16) regarding the charges for mainland visas.

Of course this is a case of racism, but Mr Scott may get some satisfaction knowing that at least his children, should they ever apply for similar visas, will be charged the "local" rate as they will be able to hold Hong Kong passports by virtue of their ethnicity.

My children, despite being born in Hong Kong to parents with permanent residency, have no trace of Chinese ethnicity and will therefore forever be deemed foreigners and charged as such.

A. Cable, Cheung Chau

Yet more misinformation.

Ethnically Chinese children don't need Hong Kong passports to qualify for Home Return Permits. My two kids hold both Irish passports and Home Return Permits, but have no Hong Kong Passports.

Nor would they want HK passports - that's little more than a second class citizen passport. It was that under the British rule, and it's even more so now under Chinese rule, as the hair-dye brigade in ZhongNanHai regard anyone who lived under British rule and doesn't completely reject that historical period as a traitor.

Once again, Hong Kong has been named the worlds freest Economy by a gang of right-wing loonies otherwise known as the Heritage Foundation.

I was going to have a rant about it, but Private Beach has done it for me.

I'm sure we'll see the usual suspects like the interchangeable Randroids from the Lion Rock Foundation and the barely comprehensible Simon Patkin creeping out of the woodwork soon to congratulate Hong Kong on comforming to their lunatic fantasies.

OK, Macworld 2008 is starting in a few hours: time to set phasers to squee and enjoy the ride.

Hopefully Apple have updated their bandwidth this year, and I can get a decent stream tomorrow morning between bringing the kids to school and picking them up again. And hopefully, won't get inundated with Keynote spoilers like last year, when the iPhone was plastered across every available surface on the journey into work.

When syncing an iPhone to a Mac with Entourage syncing to iCal enabled, the sync process can take a long time. My solution was to delete Entourage (and the Microsoft Sync file). This has the added benefit of not letting you use Entourage.

If you really need to use Entourage, probably your best bet is to upgrade to the latest version of Office. Or possibly not.

Macworld 2008 is next week, and there's the usual predictions of wonders to emit from the Mothership in Cupertino from the usual suspects (MacRumors, MacWorld, Engadget, etc). Here's my best guess as to what coming along:

• Sub-notebook. I think a MacBook Pro about the size of the current Macbook will be the one here. It may have a smaller display bezel and end up being a 12.4" notebook (and called a 12" MBP), as you could pretty comfortable take half an inch from the sides of the MacBook. Possibly the width of the unit could be reduced to 28.5cm, which is the size of the keyboard 'pit' on the MacBook. Spec wise, this 12.4" would be similar in spec to the existing Black MacBook, with the addition of a dedicated graphics card, but probably 'only' an Nvidia 8400 type, rather than the 8600's of the larger laptops. Possibly it would replace the Black MacBook. This small MBP may or may not have an optical drive.
• An outside option for all the MacBook Pros would be a resolution bump, so that the 12.4" gets 1440x900, the 15.4" gets 1680x1050, and the 17" keeps only the HD display at 1920x1200. That would give the 12.4" a very useful distinction from the Consumer grade MacBooks, and would give a good reason for upgrading, as well as run the pro and office apps better. 1280x800 is a bit too small for Numbers and Final Cut.
• Cosmetically, the MacBook Pros are due a redesign, and I think they'll adopt a variant of the MacBook keyboard (but backlit), magnetic latches, a black bezel around the display (iMac style). Rumours of a super-slim laptop abound, but there's not a great deal of thickness to lose there anyway, as they're already only one inch thick, and could start to lose stiffness if any thinner. LED backlights in all the MacBook Pros, and probably the MacBooks as well, could lead to a thinner lid, so that'll probably happen.
• Mid-Tower: It's the gaping hole in the Apple Lineup, and I doubt it'll get filled. Apple seems to have no trouble insisting that anyone is the market for a desktop Mac just get an iMac.
• iPhone2: maybe a bump in specs, and the announcement of the 3G model for Australia and Asia (read Japan). Rest of Asia ignored as Apple can't or won't get the iTunes store working in China (or HK), citing piracy concerns.
• Cinema Displays: Slightly revised cases to match the slightly darker iMacs, plus an option for built in iSights. Probably a glossy variant as well. Very slight chance of a glossy only version, which would piss off the graphics professionals something awful. LED backlights where possible, although this might not be possible for the 30"
• A real dark horse would be OLED cinema displays, but these are just coming out for TVs, so unlikely to be used for computer displays for a while. Still, that 1 million to 1 contrast ratio would be attractive.
• Apple TV: Movie and TV show rentals from the iTunes store, and possibly a very slight spec bump on the AppleTV to include HD capabilities and 5.1 sound.
• Mac Mini to be ignored and to later get a bump to the current MacBook spec, i.e. Santa Rosa chipset.

Traditionally, there's a "one more thing..." which can be something awesome, or just iPod socks. What I'd like to see is a hand held device, about twice the screen space of the iPhone, which is capable of running some of the iLife apps. Edit your photos on your iDevice with iPhoto, record your band with Garage Band, play your tunes with iTunes. Very possibly, use the built in camera (or external source) to make a video for pushing to YouTube with iMovie. (iDVD and iWeb not supported.)

UPDATE: And of course the iPhone SDK, new firmware and the means of getting software onto the device via iTunes.

As I mentioned previously, I forgot to bring a mouse with me on my travels this trip. This is a relatively minor inconvenience with a MacBook, as it has a large and very nice built in trackpad with two-fingered scrolling and right-clicking, but sometimes you just want a mouse. It's a better pointing tool than the finger on the trackpad is.

So I went out into the city centre of Brisbane today to pick up a cheap mouse. You know, a generic USB mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel, which you can pick up for HKD50 (or maybe HKD 70 for a nice one), but which has an odd Chinese brand name. Not a Logitech (have one at home), Microsoft (have one at home for gaming) or Apple (don't like the mighty mouse).

Could I find one? Nope. Not even in BigW (think WalMart) was there a simple USB mouse for less than AUD 20 (about HKD140 now!), and the prices of the brand-name items was shocking.

The Apple Mighty-Mouse was AUD 99, which is about USD 90. It retails in the US for UDS 69!

I realise that the currently strong AU dollar is bringing prices up, but there just doesn't seem to be the range of cheaper tech stuff available at all!

Tired of bending down to type on your laptop? Make a Laptop Stand!

Take the top from a box of printer paper, remove the front (long) edge and trim the sides to make a wedge. Cut some strips from the front wedge to make a lip and staple it to the lowest edge.

Congrats, you now have a wedge shaped piece of card, er, a high tech, recyclable, earth-conscious, stand for your laptop, which will elevate the screen to a better height for reading from.

The keyboard's going to be at a steeper angle than before, but an external keyboard will work around that.

I wouldn't recommend leaving a laptop on it in an unattended fashion, though - it'll get reasonable hot (depending on your laptop model) and there is a slight risk of FLAMES REACHING THE CEILING, FIRE! PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING! and your laptop being a melted pile of slag in your melted pile of slag office. I take no responsibility for any damage to your laptop, desk, place you put your laptop or anything related to this post. Also, people RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING AIEEEE! are your problem too.