Teddy Bloggie Blog Blogging

Anyone who thinks a $500 rebate check from the government is able to stimulate the economy should also consider the effect of a switch to Digital TV, right? If each family on average spends $500 on digital TV equipment and every business involved in video production has to switch over to HD equipment -- does that stimulate the economy? Some broke blokes will get the DTV converter box for $20 w/coupon (like me -- for now), and some people are buying giant LCDs to hang in every room in the house. It's a liquid crystal arms race! Surely, some of the money would have gone into savings, deferred as a safety net in these volatile times, or gone for susie and jonny's Christmas presents (substituted for other current spending) if not for the DTV switch over, but I would think there's still a very large net positive effect on consumer spending. You wouldn't buy a TV instead of making mortgage payments, would you? And how many people will buy auxiliary goods like blue-ray players and order cable to complement the splashy new displays?

Beyond the economic impact, might DTV bump us to a better cooperative equilibrium with the government? When Sandy's and my TV, which couldn't get a single clear station with rabbit ears, turned noise free and clear with the Zenith DTV converter box, even Grinches in the room uttered the phrase: This is change I can believe in! Ring up some goodwill for the new administration (even though they had no part in coordinating the change). I can't remember the last time a government agency did anything with such immediate positive visible impact.

The bottom line is that in these tough economic times the timing of the DTV switch over is fantastic from both a macro-economic stimulus and government/public trust and coordination point of view.

Winners: tv watchers, cable/sat operators, flat screen installers, content owners, electronic manufacturers and sales, electronic recyclers.

Losers: Video firms struggling with upgrading equipment because of the capital expense or credit constraints. Other manufacturers (toys, other electronics during the holidays) or services that see a slight substitution away from their products and services.

Going extinct: People who like to stand on one leg while holding the rabbit ears to get a better picture.

Update (thanks Shen):

Via Calculated Risk

From Bloomberg: Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Haven Demand Surges (hat tip Justin)

Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time ... The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in 2001.

My guess is the banks are parking the TARP money in short term treasuries - and that has pushed the yield to zero. The flight to treasuries is across all durations: the Ten year is now yielding 2.67% and the thirty year treasury just over 3.0%.

When rich people can't stuff millions and billions under a mattress because even their mattresses aren't big enough, and are willing pay .005 percent for the government to do it for them something new is happening. And we need a new word to describe it. I think we should call it a "mattress constraint yield".

Not very. Right now, liquidity preference and risk aversion is at my lifetime high so it makes sense that everybody wants to park their money in the safest, most liquid place they can think of. Treasuries and T-bonds are sold at a discount, meaning the U.S. government agrees to pay out $100,000 in 3 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc. People bid for them, say, $99,000. So the $1,000 would be what they earn on the Treasury bill or bond, or 1/99=1.01%. Recently the U.S. government have people bidding $100,000 for a promise to pay $100,000 and sometimes a little more than $100,000 for a negative nominal return (not even counting inflation -- real returns would be even more negative if inflation is positive).

But:

The oil-producing countries and China have parked hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasuries, bonds, etc. The former are reeling from oil prices tanking and China is experiencing a fall in exports for the first time in probably 3 decades. Both of these countries might start selling treasuries to keep their own economies from falling into a serious recession. With the U.S. government selling Treasuries to pay for its own stimulus plan and bailouts and a healthy sell-off by the Saudis and Chinese, the prices should drop. As prices begin to drop, the speculators in Treasuries will get out too, increasing the rate of Treasuries' descent. This descent will probably be accompanied by the a relative devaluation of the U.S. dollar versus Euro, Yen, RMB.

Miami Fever via Design You Trust
Photography site of Miami night life, subjects are mostly girls and fast, expensive cars. Contrasty photo candy.

Bonus photo of swaddled cats at Design You Trust:

Thinking about Miami Fever reminded me of one of the best sites for street photography:
The Sartorialist

http://www.walkscore.com/

Rates the walkability of your neighborhood. I scored a 53.

According to Boston.com
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html
Among them, this one of lightning during a volcano eruption in Chile.

Browsing craigslist today I almost bought the SB-400 flash for my Nikon, but the gentleman on the phone said his son just became the owner of a new D90 and so he was giving it to him instead of selling it. Disappointed that I wouldn't have a new flash to play with, I was inspired to make a ghetto bounce and diffuser for my Nikon D40x's built-in flash today. Inspiration came from the Smelfen and the Finnbounce found here. I also thought about buying a Gary Fong Puffer, but I wanted to see how well a DIY product would work. Warning: the following is only advisable if you eat cereal at night and watch TV from an old fashion CRT -- it's not the most glamorous setup for your DSLR. If you do this, your photo subjects might be smiling because you're taking their picture or laughing because you have a large cereal box and wax paper contraption in their face.

The basic idea is to use the built-in flash on digital SLR cameras to better effect by bouncing the light on to a surrounding surface (low ceiling or adjacent wall) or diffuse the light so that indoor flash photography wouldn't give such harsh lighting. If you buy a flash, you can point it up for the same (but even better) result. I also don't see why this freight-train-hobo procedure wouldn't work on point-and-shoot cameras with some slight changes.

The bounce card worked best and is what I would use as long as there's a ceiling or wall near:
Here's what I made using a 3"x5" card and some tin foil. Takes five minutes. Some of these shots are taken with my iphone so apologies for the poor quality.
The basic shape:

How it looks on the camera (slide cardboard stem into the hotshoe):

My first diffuser was made with 3"x5" card and a double layer of wax paper:

It works but not that well. The bigger it is the more diffuse the light would be and so I made a larger one out of a cereal box. I used a Cocao Pebbles box without loss of generalization. Cut the hole on the bottom like so:

Cut a large rectangle out and glue/tape wax paper to the resulting hole, add some tin foil to the back (why not?), and you get this:

Here's what it looks like on the camera:

I'll upload some before and after shots later...

Ok, here are some shots of me, not intending to make different faces, but soon to be replaced by a more interesting subject.

Here's the built-in flash (that face is mad at the harsh light):

With cereal box diffuser (slightly softer shadows and warmer colors):

With 3"x5" bounce card (almost no shadows -- and tada! I almost look pleasant):