Guides through the Cell Phone Jungle, part two: Clay Shirky

I just had a lovely two hours with Clay Shirky's latest book:

The Chinese cell phone company Xiaomi ("Show-me" is the pronunciation) has produced a modified version of Android and a strategy that's produced a startup worth $45 billion in 5 years.

Shirky's writing is a pleasure, hilarious in spots and insightful always:

If you want a two-slide comparison of the difference between the local U.S. and Chinese economies, you could do worse than comparing in-flight catalogs ... On U.S. airlines, the ridiculous SkyMall, recently bankrupted by the FAA's decision to let people keep playing games on their phones as they land, was a glimpse into a market where everyone who could board an airplane already had everything they needed. So what did SkyMall invite Americans to dream about? An outdoor chaise lounge, for dogs. A mirrored door-mounted jewelry armoire. A spatula with an LED flashlight in the handle. SkyMall was shopping for a culture whose middle class thinks, "hmm, I could use a Tetris lamp, and maybe some rechargeable heated slippers." China's daydreams are different. Here's what's on sale in Chinese in-flight shopping magazines: rice cooker, baby thermometer, skillet, vacuum cleaner, iron, paring knife, umbrella. It's like Sears and Roebuck with QR codes. This is shopping for a culture whose middle class thinks, "hmm, I think I need a set of spoons, and maybe a toaster oven."

Five stars. I have to go back and read the rest of Shirky, immediately.

Guides through the cell phone jungle: first, Cricket

I recently had an experience with a local cell phone retailer that, as I was leaving the store, started to describe as "pleasant." But that wasn't quite right ... it was more like having a competent guide through a snake-filled jungle!

The retailer was Cricket Wireless:

They have an unusual business plan that contains (as far as I can tell) three legs:

• Sell phones at cost by buying in bulk ... but locked to Cricket, not unlocked
• Have knowledgeable staff in their retail stores that can help with technical/commercial issues (more about this below)
• Hold the hands of nontechnical cash users who (apparently) constitute a significant part of their business
• Advertise prices including taxes and fees so they're a smidge cheaper than the competition

I have for a while been using Straight Talk (WalMart) Wireless for my phone and for my stepson's. The stepson's old phone failed and I found advertised on Craigslist a late-model unlocked Samsung Grand Supreme ... but it wasn't unlocked. It was locked to Cricket.

Oh well ... I got on Cricket's website and tried to do the online process to switch the number from Straight Talk ... the order went through but I got an email the next day saying "sorry we couldn't get this work so here's your money back." Annoying, but much less annoying than alternatives I've encountered from other cell providers ...

I took the phone into the Cricket store in Kent, Washington and was guided by Anna, who had previous experience getting service transferred away from Straight Talk. She and I worked together to find the several bits of information to make Straight Talk's clunky number-porting process work and after an hour, it finally did.

One thing they insisted on is the SIM card number of the phone being ported away, and I didn't have that with me as this was a new (used) phone. I finally dug this out of the Straight Talk website as they wouldn't tell me where to find this:

It turns out the Serial Number in the table above is the SIM card number we were looking for; this image is actually more legible than it appears on Google Chrome (the only browser I tried) as the grid lines between fields did not show up and there was just a small space between the two fields.

Cricket runs on the AT&T network; as soon as my Lovely Wife's T-mobile non-contract iPhone payment is over with I'm going to take both of our phones to Anna at Cricket to get them switched.

How to Retire Comfortably on $150K

Basically:

• Put $50K into a weekly options trade that earns 3-5% per week
• Do some other less risky trading with the other $100K (or not!)
• Add your social security check ($1.5K/month?)
• Total is perhaps $9.5K/month ... you could live on this, I hope?

I'm going to put this into a book with the details on how to do this while minimizing the risk of loss (I learned this the hard way trading options the past 6+ years).

I also want to run a case study with one or more persons/couples with these characteristics:

• Has $150K liquid assets (can be IRA or not -- Roth IRA is best ...) that can go into this
• Collects social security (optional -- you can do this without social security, just settle for less monthly income or put more up risk capital: $200K with $70K in options trade)
• willing to try this for one year (every week)
• you need to know something about options trading if you're going to do this yourself,  but I can provide resources to help you learn the basics if you want to do this

Contact me mark -at- pythonsoftwarewa.com if interested.

Computerized election theft a reality?

I recently read a book making some disturbing claims about our election systems:

Points the author makes:

• Exit polls no longer are as accurate as they once were. Why?
• If you don't have a system where humans are observably counting ballots in public, various tricks can be played
• Even optical scan systems are vulnerable (just set the target to -100 and the opponent to +100 on startup and the machine balances)
• "Social issues" have tilted left recently (legal marijuana, gay marriage) but elections somehow still go to Republicans

The author is an admitted 'democrat/left-winger' but makes the point that if results were skewed toward the Democrats the way they've been skewed toward the Republicans since 2000 there would be no end of screaming ... and of course there isn't!

I found it annoyingly plausible ... the author calls for auditing of election results which seems to be all we can hope for.

What do you think?

Can't understand your (insert your opposite political number here) neighbor?

In 2004 I was having lunch with this computer programmer I've known for 30+ years now and I was going on and on about George W. Bush and how we had to get him out of office in that fall's election ... and this guy let me go on a bit and then said "of course you know we support him for reelection" ...

My jaw dropped. But! This guy is a rather conservative Christian, and Bush spoke to that segment of the populace and even though I couldn't see it I couldn't deny that this guy was intelligent and reasonable in other respects ...

I later read a book that made some sense of this:

It gives a possible origin for political divisions, even within the same family. I heartily recommend it to any {Tea Party Trump supporter,Bernie Sanders Bigot} who's trying to understand the other side.

I later came upon a previous book of his that was very compelling also:

Reviews of this book are here. I enjoyed it immensely and read in pretty much one sitting; his way of stringing together classroom anecdotes and the discussion of ancient wisdom was a kick.

Most recently there's an Atlantic Monthly article by Haidt and a colleague on the overdoing of "disturbing speech" suppression in colleges ... well worth a read.

Home fuel cell: finally almost here?

A Maryland company called Redox Power is readying a 25KW fuel cell:

They're focusing first on multi-thousand-unit ordering customers and I guess will get to us homeowners next.

I'll let you know when I have one!

The easy way to avoid debit card fees

I have my main checking account with BECU and mainly use their ATMs and other fee-free ATMs in their affiliated CO-OP Network.

Mostly this works to avoid fees, but occasionally ... My lovely wife and I were headed to a movie in North Bend, where I thought I could quickly track down a fee-free ATM. Not so! The movie was about to a start, so I wound up paying a $3.50 ATM fee to Bank of America. Harrumph.

I had previously received a debit card and checkbook issued by my brokerage, T.D. Ameritrade, but I hadn't been using either. I started carrying the debit card, since they reimburse me for ATM fees, and started using it now and then when I don't go right by a BECU ATM.

This is very satisfying .. I'm no longer stuck hunting for an ATM at short notice trying to avoid those fees.

Schwab also does this with its debit card, and I know there are other remote banks and brokerages that do too. Get one of these for yourself today and stop paying ATM fees!