Steve Hemingway

This post by Ben Laurie on the contribution of 'many eyes' to fixing security bugs makes very interesting reading. MS is a powerful organization, but it seems clear to me that for one more reason, in the long term its prospects are fairly modest. It is now a behemoth, and as everyone knows, behemoths can't write software. For the time being I will continue to use some MS software (particularly Windows) but open source seems to me to be slowly but surely pulling ahead.

It seems to me that software like MS Office, browsers, operating systems databases, web servers are moving towards the regime of market cost pricing. I have been waiting for this for thirty years, and we are not here yet, and we may not quite get there in my lifetime, but the days when DEC could sell a FORTRAN compiler for a VAX for more than five thousand early-eighties pounds are long gone. At the time one could have bought a luxury sports car for that kind of money - there can hardly be a piece of software on the market that costs so much now. Only complete systems like SAP and Oracle Financials cost serious money, and I think this is more about deployment and support than actual software licences.

This is a wonderful welcoming mountainside retreat near to Otavalo, Ecuador. It is a couple of hours from Quito, the capital of Ecuador, but is a million miles away in terms of ambience.

We stayed only one night, so there were many experiences that were on offer that we had to miss. We were however made to feel very welcome by Betty and by her manager, Jorges (spelling?), a Cuban playwright who is a great, friendly guy, but still quite new in the job.

Amazingly I was persuaded to go riding on one of the lovely horses they keep in the centre. There is plenty for everyone to do as you can see from the very complete website. Betty is a very capable and focussed woman and I am sure works very hard behind the scenes to make sure that guests have a great time.

The best thing for me is that there is communal eating, and you are properly introduced to the other guests. There is no choice of food though, so if you are fussy about eating this can be a slight problem. Actually I am sure they would have produced some very plain food, but we forgot to check about this.

The establishment is more than just a tourist facility: see
the page on the Casa Mojanda Foundation.

Jim Pickard wrote this article in last weekend's FT. I quote a chunk from it because the link may require a subscription:

One of Britain's biggest residential landlords is predicting price falls of 20 per cent across the UK housing market amid rising interest rates.

Andreas Panayiotou, chairman of the Ability Group - a private company which has developed about 2,500 flats around London - says the maths on buy-to-let no longer make sense.

"Investors are joining in because people say that residential is great, but they are not experienced enough," he warns.

Investors are pouring money into the buy-to-let market. Landlords took out 171,800 buy-to-let loans in the six months to June, taking the total to 940,000 mortgages, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Mr Panayiotou said that over the long term investors would still make money. But thousands would be squeezed by the widening gap between yields and borrowing costs.

The entrepreneur, seated at a vast boardroom table in crisp white shirt and impeccable suit, has left his days as an amateur boxer in the East End far behind him.

He started out in the family's small launderette business by developing flats above the shops. In 1996 he set up The Ability Group, buying old warehouses and rundown properties around Hackney and converting them into loft apartments.

Not only was Mr Panayiotou in the right location - Hackney was fast being gentrified - but he had the fair winds of the property boom behind him. Banks were stepping up lending and prices were rising.

The business snowballed. Unlike most residential developers who build and sell on, Mr Panayiotou retained most of his properties, creating what he calls a "build-to-let" empire.

Now, however, he says the writing is on the wall in terms of the limited rental returns achievable from the sector. "What's the point of accepting a yield of 3 per cent when you can get 6 per cent in the bank?" he says.

As interest rates have jumped five times in succession, Mr Panayiotou is even more convinced that he is right. "I think everything is over-valued by 20 per cent, things have been getting way out of control. Prices need to drop to bring returns above the cost of funds."

Yields - rents as a proportion of a building's value - have fallen to record lows as a result of rising house prices and stagnant rents. A typical newbuild flat in London may have a gross yield of just 3 to 3.5 per cent, which, after agency fees, voids and repairs, equates to little over 2 per cent.

Many investors accept a monthly loss because it could be outweighed by capital growth. Some experts believe prices will be supported by a UK housing shortage.

Yet Mr Panayiotou believes that plenty of new homes are being built, but they are being bought by investors, not owner-occupiers. "There are blocks across the country where most of the flats have been bought by buy-to-let investors and many are empty," he says.

He predicts that housebuilders will be hit because many investors have put down deposits on "off-plan" flats but will be unable to pay for them given the rise in borrowing costs.
...

Published: August 31 2007

Low yields, high interest rates (especially now LIBOR seems to be decoupled from the Bank of England repo rate) are a killer combination. The demise of the housing market in the UK has been predicted too many times, but I really think that new investment in UK property is crazy. Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that I think China is much more promising. I am currently trying to raise money for a syndicate to invest in some new properties. If you already know me, get in touch and I will send you some documentation.

I am a great fan of our Panasonic SD253 breadmaker. The only thing that has gone wrong with it in the many years we have owned it is that the non-stick coating on the kneading paddle has largely worn off, which results is a golf-ball lump of bread being torn out of the bottom of each loaf we bake.

I was looking around for a replacement paddle, which I discover will set me back at least 15 pounds, when I cam across this review, which I urge you to read. The reviewer is more thorough than I would have believed possible. I was thinking of adding a short review myself, but confronted with this, and because the model is now obsolete, I refrained.

I often write blog entries about economic incentives, and moaning about the failure of government policies that fail to recognised the importance of them, but it is quite clear that not all focussed effort is the result of a slap from the invisible hand.

I am not the only person who is impressed by this piece of Japanese engineering - I just came across this review page where the verdict is confirmed. It is not the case that all bread makers are even nearly equivalent: the previous Breville model that we had was completely useless.

Only 4% of dieters will ever lose weight. This article from the wonderful Spiked gives the grim statistics.

This is really very worrying. Fat people, in general, certainly don't seem to me any stupider, less motivated, or in any way morally inferior to thin people. It is clear that having less food to eat makes you thin. I was struck by the fact that older people in China were universally thin, although there was evidence of increasing podginess amongst a proportion of the youth. How can it be that fat people don't recognise this and act on it? It all seems very odd.

Personally speaking, I am always hungry, and am always helping myself to unhealthy snacks. By sheer (genetic?) luck, I haven't gained any weight in decades. Moreover, I am a slothful, individual with an entirely sedentary job.

Wonderful!

There have been a number of articles recently announcing a drop in the number of divorces, and a drop in the marriage rate (e.g. this UK Legal News story).

I went to a wedding last week. The bride and groom were both from the UK, and intended to live in the UK. But they got married in Cyprus, and have no intention of registering their marriage in the UK. A lot of people seem to want to get married abroad these days. They can guarantee good weather, and a much cheaper venue. By choosing the right location they can save the cost of travelling to their honeymoon. There is a lot going for the decision, as far as the bride and groom are concerned.

I am not sure about the benefits for the guests, particularly the poor, elderly and younger guests. Travelling abroad requires a considerably bigger committment than simply getting up a bit earlier on a Saturday, especially if the wedding is in the school holidays, as this was.

The newlyweds insist that their marriage is fully recognised in British law, but I know that overseas weddings are not always recognised in UK law (particularly immigration law). Also it is certainly not the case that lesbian marriage, recognised in Canada, for example, is equally recognised in UK law.

I am not entirely sure that the law should get involved in a private relationship between two individuals, unless they want it to, but there is certainly a long history of the state being the third party in any marriage contract.

This tool from the Microsoft download center seems pretty cool. It seems to be approx equivalent to SyncBack, which I use. Both are free.

I just wanted to use something to sync my accounts, which are on a USB thumbdrive, with my Vista notebook. My first instinct was to use the Vista Sync Center, which seems to do a reasonable job of keeping a local, synchronised copy of a SMB share. Unfortunately I couldn't get the Sync Center to recognize my thumb drive as a data device (as opposed to an MP3 player or similar) and therefore when I tried to synchronize it, it just kicked off Windows Media Player version 99 to search for and synchronize media files, which was the last thing I wanted.

I get similar problems with Picasa 2 which refuses to stop its bloody media detector, with the result that whenever I plug in the thumb drive, it eagerly scans it for images, coming up with just a few icons and logos. I have told it to disable the media detector, in the obvious place, many times.

I have failed to make any sort of entry for a very long time. I have no real excuse. Some interesting things have happened recently, but the only entry I felt I had time to make was this one. How sad.

I came across this the other day. I was at school with Eric. I vaguely knew (from Friends Reunited) that he was at JLP, but I hadn't realised that he'd spend his whole career there. It seems odd that someone so adventurous as Eric would end up with a stodgy grocer/department store like JLP, especially one that is essentially a cooperative.

Probably I'm being very unfair about John Lewis. In practice we tend to get our groceries from Waitrose, or Ocado, and although we complain about John Lewis WGC to the extent that we intend to buy something that they sell, we tend to use it.

Please feel to contribute your memories of Eric at Howardian, Oxford and later by adding a comment to this entry.

Stop reading now, if you are under 45 years of age.

Rod Allen, the creator of such priceless jingles as "This is luxury you can afford by Cyril Lord", "1001 cleans a big, big carpet for less than half a crown", "Nuts, whole hazelnuts! Cadbury's take 'em and they cover them in chocolate.", "For mash get Smash!" has died.

I can't say I had ever heard of him, but the jingles he produced have stuck with me since my childhood.

I urge you to read the full obituary.

We no longer need to elect the people who will make laws for us. The latest, greatest idea from Gordon Brown is to have Citizens' Juries to make policy. 'Dave' Cameron has decided that the solution is to invite celebrities like Zac Goldsmith to perform essentially the same function. The common theme is that parties no longer stand for any coherent philosophy.

I can understand that this is appealing to the electorate. Politicians have been avoiding ideology for a long time now. Gordon Brown has never recovered from mentioning Post Neoclassical endogenous growth theory in a speech. With good sense the British have always been a nation of anti-intellectuals. Samuel Johnson is celebrated for supposedly demolishing the the solipsism of Bishop Berkeley by kicking a kerbstone.

There is a particular distrust of economics, the science labelled as 'dismal' by Carlyle. Central bankers usually hit the headlines when things go slightly wrong, as when Northern Rock had problems paying its depositors recently. I fact the management of the economy in western countries is exemplary.

My fear is that as politics increasingly becomes a branch of marketing, we will end up being governed by estate agents. This will not be an improvement. Believe me: I'm an estate agent.