Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers.

I don't know about you, but technology has done nothing but STRENGTHEN my position in the world. I'm feeling the strength just typing this -- so strong I'm busting out of this made in America T-Shirt from all the Indian food I just ate. I ain't busting out in all the right places, but still, I'm busting out and that says something.

Personally I think splitting wood with a toothpick to heat maple sap for a little sweet in my cranberries is a bit overrated. Forget sweetened cranberries made from 20 gallons of raw maple sap, I've got a Blackberry, and damn does it make me feel strong. Except when the battery dies and I can't make a call even though it is plugged in. I really hate that. But otherwise. Strength. I feel it.

Tech strength FTW!!!!!!LOL folks LOL.

Volkswagen plans to lower its exposure to the weak dollar by exporting about 125,000 vehicles from North America and Mexico to Europe, people familiar with the company's plans said. By increasing production in locations that use the dollar, VW can reduce the proportion of components and vehicles that are made in regions that use the euro.

I have been wondering when a weak dollar would trickle into increased US exports.

I hope I am wrong, but I think bad times are upon us. Maybe slowing demand will burst the commidity bubble, but we aren't there yet. If oil prices remain constant we will see inflation that is unprecendanted in my adult life. Commodity inflation costs have yet to be passed to consumers, but at somepoint they will be or many firms will be bankrupt.

This also going to sound crazy, but I'm planning on living big in the next few months before the commodity prices catch up. Many things I enjoy in life sushi, beer, fresh fruit, etc are extremely commodity intensive to produce. Right now sushi restaurants haven't raised their prices. I believe I can eat and live well while restaruants and retailers absorb the increased costs. At some point this will run out and they will pass the costs on to me. In the mean time I am eating fresh fruits, vegetables, and sushi like they are going out of style, because they will be. Mark my words, I will not be able to buy toro at these prices next year.

Or my bearishness might mark the top of the oil market. Time will tell.

Few people get rich making equity investments at less than half the rate of return of an average money market fund. I don't know how Sun financed the deal, but if they leveraged it at all, there is a good chance they will be losing money out of the gate with this investment.

Maybe for a company with a rock solid balance sheet and a record of extracting maximum value from their acquisitions, this deal might make some sense. JAVA doesn't meet either of those criteria.

But wait, there's more. If Sun's customers plan to extract an enterprise level of functionality from MySQL, they basically have no option but to use the InnoDB storage engine to underpin the SQL front end. And guess who owns that. That's right, Oracle, the 800 lbs gorilla of the SQL market. The rocket science ain't in the SQL parser. It's in the storage layer, and that didn't come with the $1 billion price tag.

BTW, the J2EE 6 installer blew up on us when we tried to install it on Linux x86_64, and judging by their own news groups, we're not alone. Mr. Schwartz, for a mere $1 million I'll get that working for you, and you'll get your platform back. It's one hell of a deal if you think about it.

Occasionally folks ask me for investing advice. WARNING! I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO TAKE MY ADVICE. But here it is anyway. Go to Vanguard's web site. Figure out what year you will turn 60. Find a fund called Target Retirement Fund N, where N is closest to the year you will turn 60. Buy that fund (hopefully in a tax deferred account) and add to it on a regular basis. Vanguard Target Funds offer an inexpensive mix of U.S. domestic and foreign stocks and bonds by investing passively in multiple broad market indexes. The funds automatically rebalance to favor lower risk investments as you approach retirement age.

I have almost all my personal savings in index funds and fixed income, but I do have a very small part of my portfolio in wild card stocks that I pick myself. I DO THIS FOR FUN AND DO NOT COUNT ON THE MONEY I ACTIVELY INVEST FOR THE SHORT TERM. There is a really good chance I will under perform the Target Retirement fund, and I accept this risk.

So if I happen to mention a stock I'm buying on my twitter, take it for what it is: a long shot bet that I am making to amuse myself.

JWZ crafted a clean exit from software and went on to do something completely different, risky, yet pretty cool, and appears to be successful at it. I think there are stereotypes which box developers into narrow roles, but Jamie's writing on DNA chronicles a deft navigation of club ownership in SF. The skills required for software crossover; no doubt.

Yesterday K and I were at the Treasure Island music festival, and we queued up for the Ferris Wheel directly behind Evan Williams (and no I wasn't following his tweets (although some 3000 people were)). I think it is fair to say that Evan Williams is one of the reasons people know what blogging even is.

Having the social skills of your typical geek, I had one of those moments where I wondered what to do. Should I introduce myself, or just not say anything? I did introduce myself, but the exchange was about as comfortable as you would imagine (not very).

To equate this to the offline world, imagine an author who hasn't gone mainstream, but who's work you admire. If she is queued ahead of you at Starbuck's. What do you say? "I love your new book?" What else is there to say?

And this isn't first time this has happened to me.

This is a new problem of the online social networked world. The long tail of fame creates people, such as Robert Scoble, who many would recognize, but are not famous. And the chances that you'll meet one of these people hanging out in the Mission District is actually pretty high.

I spent so much energy trying to escape the rust belt that I've forgotten some of its virtues, and my last visit in a February snow storm didn't help. It is much more verdant in the summer than I remember. And the weather was pleasant. Although some parts of the local economy seem improved to my eyes, generally Western New York is still an economic black hole. When was the last time you heard of someone moving to Buffalo? Exactly.

I rented a bike and rode some of the lazy country roads and trails that I used to frequent growing up and meet up with a group ride at the local bike shop. The same folks who sold me skis in high school still own and run the shop, and they have done a good job promoting cycling in the area.

The cycling in Western New York is underrated. I dare say the road biking may be better than Northern California if you can live with out the soul crushing climbs. The hills are quaint compared to those in Tahoe and the Bay Area.

I also met up with Kathryn in NYC who was staying with her sister in Park Slope. It was hotter than hell, but still NY feels like a real metropolis compared to SF. My favorite part of NY are the subways. While the condition of the trains is very good these days, some of the infrastructure outside of Manhattan appears to be barely holding together. The subway is intriguingly modern and archaic, and I love zipping around subterraining New York on a network that used to be run by multiple competing companies. It is amazing it works as well as it does. I wish Muni could compare.

We saw a short play about making a TV show about making a play. While I'd call it a post-post-modern or meta-meta play, I think NYers would term it a deconstruction of reality TV. Deconstructing seems a common pastime in NY. As a software developer, I'm more of a constructionist myself which fits these post-post-modern times.

Kathryn left a day before I did, so I decided to take a walking tour of Williamsburg which is the closest approximation to SF's Mission district in NY -- fixies, burritos, and all. Ok I got a bit lost and ended up in some areas that were less than comfortable. This rarely happens to me in SF, and I'm not sure if my sense of the area was valid.

On another meta note, I disabled the comments on my blog. I really hated to do this, but my simple captcha method, which until recently worked flawlessly, is no longer a sufficient deterrent -- the spammers got the best of me.

In a stroke of good luck it turned out to be a good thing because I needed to get up and check the status of some long running processes anyway. But it took me awhile to figure out how to disable the thing (the setting on the home page wasn't working), and was on the verge of killing off my account. Anyways, I'm disconnecting for a while to go home to Jamestown then onto NYC. I'll plug back into the Matrix in a couple weeks.