Forget the watch.

When I saw this prototype I was sure I'd seen this company before. It took me a while to figure it out, but I saw them last year with a e-ink proto. I thought it was interesting, but sometimes you can't make a story out of something. Plus, e-ink  - I can't believe they still exist. A few years ago I thought this is where the market would go. But, every time I see them now it looks like they are barely holding on. Flexible displays have gotten so much better, now e-ink is limited. We like color!

Anyway, while the footprint was much larger - it was a working proto. (technically both were working) And you could actually read Google maps. Which I think that is sort of ridiculous on a watch. While it's much larger, I'm not sure it's so large that people wouldn't wear it. You can find a lot more pictures here. Company home here.

Curved enough for you?

How else are you going to get yours 65 inch TV into your tiny house after all.

For the love of transparent displays.

For the past three years (solidly), every single time I have walked up to a transparent display I've asked the following question - Is this projected? Until yesterday the answer has always been yes. Which always made the sad trombone sound in my head. I was super excited about this technology a long time ago, but I just don't believe in projection. For some reason it never catches on. It' doesn't mean it won't. I've just yet to see it.

So when I walked up to this thing I naturally thought I'd get the same answer. They'd just found a slimmer way to hide a projector. And projectors *are* getting super tiny these days. But to my shock, this time the answer was no. I asked it like 5 times. Apparently the OLED's allow this to happen. The box at the back is just normal display electronics.

For being transparent the colors were remarkably rich. And the reflection was surprisingly minimal. In the last picture if you look hard you can barely see my image under the word vista.

So.... excitement back on I guess.

Not your grandfathers pinball.

Do you think kids in the future will have the same nostalgia about playing pinball on a curved monitor as we do about real pin ball? Or old stand up games? I mean, I've been dragged kicking and screaming into touch screens. I liked the old tactile qwerty cell phone keyboards in the early days. But I've adjusted. Still I thought this was a pretty clever use of a curved monitor.

I didn't know much about this company before today. I guess they make touch screens. Here is their home site.

I think doing woodworking is like being in a bad relationship.

The wood expects me to be perfect, but the wood has a ton of flaws.

Maker Fair 2016

Team Zachees @ Maker fair.

I don't even know how many people are watching America's Greatest Makers. I do because I go to a lot of trade shows and conferences. I see how hard it is to make products people will buy.  I'm not convinced this is a better way to find ideas. I don't even think it makes for great TV.

Anyway, one of the contestants was at Maker Fair on Sunday. His squad made it super hard to get shots.

The interesting thing about maker fair this year.

Every year maker fair is a little different. The maker movement catches on with certain groups and they form kind of a yearly theme. Steam punk had a year for example. You get the idea.

This years theme? Corporate. I noticed it almost as soon as I walked in. Every player in the Valley had at least a tiny booth. There were tons of booths that will "help you take your product to market".

When I saw someone with a Raytheon shirt walking around you could tell this place was full of scouts. You could see Intel scouts walking around. I kept asking Mr S. if it seemed super corporate to him. It's kinda the opposite of what Maker Fair started as.

When we got to this booth though - I knew my instincts were right. The whole show this year felt a little like Intels' shark tank show. Which honestly makes me feel a little depressed for the Valley. It makes me feel like we are out of ideas for right now. Understand I see a ton of vapor ware, so I think Intel is using a lot of resources for one or two possible unicorns. They are trying to buy themselves out of death. It's great kids are being exposed to this - but this might not pay off for a decade. The harsh reality is there are only a few Steve Jobs in the world. I mean, it seems like there are a million incubators in the Valley right now. Incubating a product is not the problem. Finding something people will truely buy is something more of a unicorn.

Conductive ink on Telsa @ Makefair2016

I have only seen this paint on a motorcycle fuel tank before. So I was pretty excited to see this today.

I don't know how this whole Tesla thing is going to work out, but Elon has transformed the Valley in a lot of ways. I think he will go in the history books honestly.

At least it's something.

At my rental I have an island that has a wood top that needs to be replaced. The funny thing is when I stuck it in about seven years ago, this wood trend wasn't as popular. Now ikea stocks this stuff which is amazing because the island is a very uncommon size. I did have to lop two feet off, and I'm putting some poly on it so it weathers better.



This is wet, and I'm going to have to knock it down and put a second coat on. It will dry not shiny.  I should have spent a little more time sanding, but I don't think you can see all the places until you get one coat of poly on it. But then, I'm a little impatient for woodworking. Wood has it's own rules and it doesn't care if you want to take short cuts. It'll make you work twice as hard if you don't obey.

Sweet sun rays of death went crazy.

Mirrors blamed for fire at world's largest solar plant.

Who knew mirrors started fires? Said in the most sarcastic way.

"PRIMM, Nev. (AP) — A small fire shut down a generating tower Thursday at the world's largest solar power plant, leaving the sprawling facility on the California-Nevada border operating at only a third of its capacity, authorities said."

Here are my images from the last time I drove past it on the way to Vegas.

So it's come to this.

I've been talking about how crazy it's starting to be to find buildable land in the Bay Area for a little while now. It's really starting to get super crazy now. Okay..... this is the back story.

My favorite dive burrito place used to be right down the road from what is now Google. I used to work in the buildings that Google now owns when I first started my career. That burrito place was where everyone went. It was a dive back then, but as the years went by, even I started to be a little amazed the health department wasn't shutting them down. It wasn't the food, the food was always consistent. It was the building had really started to go into severe disrepair. The ceiling looked like it would fall down and was stained. They obviously had a roof problem. If you hadn't already been going there for a long time, your first visit would make you nervous kind of thing.

About two years ago one Saturday Mr S. and I strolled up and they were razing the building. Luckily we found out they had only moved to another spot in Mountain View. We didn't really think of that spot until today. End of back story.

Tonight I needed Mr S's help to haul something home, so we decided to have burgers in Mountain View, and on the way back to the freeway - Mr S. drove by the spot that used to be my old dive burrito place.

And wouldn't you know it... they put effing condos up there. Now let me tell you. This plot of land was basically the size of two 7/11's.  The new condos', I think, were three stories tall. My mind exploded so I'm not sure. But still. I'd be very shocked if it was even 20 units.

This is going to get very interesting from here. Said in the most sarcastic way.

Zero Hedge doesn't know what it's talking about.

"The Peak Is Behind Us" - Silicon Valley Real Estate Bubble Has Now Also Burst.

Echo bubble chasers are going to be in a world of hurt. Mark my words.

It's super risky to talk about a market you know nothing about. Which is exactly was Zero Hedge did today.

First he clumps together Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Atherton houses selling more slowly. I'm not sure why he didn't include Los Gatos. Maybe he doesn't know about Los Gatos. But anyway, these are the most expensive markets in the Valley.

Having said that - these markets make up an extremely small portion of Silicon Valley Real Estate. And Zero Hedge was trying to prop up his theory the bubble has bust because houses are sitting on the market in these cities 5 days more.  Causing these houses to sit on the market for 16 days! I would dance on a chair if I knew my million dollar house (that I don't own) would only sit on the market for 16 days. Shit, any house sitting on the market for only 16 days is a thrill!

16 days people! Oh for shits sakes I rolled my eyes when I read this. I guess it's always a bit of a pet peeve of mine that everyone thinks Palo Alto is all of Silicon Valley. There must be 20 cities that make up silicon Valley. The markets he talks about make up like 4.

"In Palo Alto, home to many Google and Facebook executives, homes costing more than $5 million were on the market for a median of 16 days in April, up from 11 days in the same month in 2015, and up from 10 days in April 2014. While that figure is low relative to the 67 day median time across the U.S., it's a significant increase from recent years."

He goes onto hyperventilate about the recent layoffs of companies like Yahoo. Frankly I didn't go through all the companies he listed - but a lot of those companies have been dying stars for quite a while now. They are almost meaningless at this point.

Then, the most laughable portion of his article:

"With the continued global slowdown, and the likes of Yahoo having to continue to take measures to increase shareholder value, the situation in Silicon Valley will only continue to deteriorate, and it is only a matter of time before we start to learn of developer bankruptcies, similar to those starting to occur in Manhattan and elsewhere."

I honestly can't figure out which "developer" bankruptcies he's talking about. Because Silicon Valley for the most part isn't building luxury properties right now. Silicon Valley isn't New York.

Developers are lucky if they can find a spare dead car lot to build on. And the amount of units being built is astonishingly small. You can imagine how may condos go on an old car lot. Right? Even if it's a triple decker. This is precisely why there is going to be such a problem soon.

I'm not worried about the million dollar market. If I start seeing the low end market crack, then maybe I will change my mind. And I see absolutely no evidence of that happening.  The "luxury" market is minuscule in comparison to the rest of the market.

Also when real estate starts to get super expensive in the Valley, urban sprawl starts to really ramp up. Everyone here expects to spend about an hour in traffic commuting to work. So cities an hour out are showing a lot of growth.

Are the next few months going to be shitty? Probably. No one is going IPO, and tech valuations are being crushed. But this housing thing is really starting to bear down on us now. In my grandparent's generation this Valley was nothing but orchards. In one generation we have what we have now. People are not going to stop having babies.

This ugly chart will show you why the Fed has to raise rates.

Source.

This is the chart for mortgage applications for the past few months. Most people would look at this chart and freak the hell out. It looks seriously ugly.

When I look at this chart I see nothing but inflation looming hard. Yes kids, I am no longer in the deflation camp. You see, this chart looks this way not because people don't want to buy houses. This chart looks this way because there are almost no houses to buy. There is no amount of low rates now that will fix this chart.

People keep expecting an echo housing bubble, but I can assure you - whats happening in the rental market will make this seriously unlikely. The rental market is so tight that cities all over the Bay Area are talking about rent controls. It's sort of alarming to see, because I've lived in a rent controlled building and know the real world consequences of that.

Builders are having such a hard time finding land to build on, that yesterday I noticed in the city next to me they were building condos on an old car lot. This is the second time I have seen this. They did it on a plot in my city. I don't know what they are going to do when they run out of car lots that were taken out early in the recession.

All I know is that when I read about the housing market now, almost all of the articles talk about shortages. In the next year I predict people are going to start hyperventilating about it in a serious way. And if this economy starts to move at all - this is going to be crazy.

Houses or condos can be built quickly. Finding the land....... not as much. I've always looked at land as dead money. You could wait a decade to move it. In the past two years has been amazing for people who owned vacant land. In the whole time I've lived in the Valley I've never seen it like this.

This whole Bernie "thing" should concern me more - but if this is what it takes to get rid of Hillary...

Right now the whole thing is entertaining me. But I'm sure I will freak out at some point.

Excuses, excuses.

When I get stressed I sort of shut down. Most women like to talk and talk, but I'm more like a dude when it comes to stress. I deal with it at my own pace.

I had to fire my property manager and put the place under new management.  It's always super stressful when I get to see my place again. My property manager was also my renter. So there is that.

Then I have about two weeks to fix or upgrade anything I can. This all contributes to less blogging time. And there is barely anything interesting to blog about in this whole process anyway.

This could have changed Silicon Valley forever.

When I grew up, all of the old people would talk about how this Valley was covered in orchards. They were very nostalgic about it. I always assumed this was mostly cherries, because this area used to be huge in cherry orchards.

So when I moved into my house I decided I was going to plant a cherry tree. I love them more than anything else. I've only known one person in my whole life that had a cherry tree.  Lemons/limes/ and oranges are like air itself. Everyone has one.

After three years of having that tree, I started really appreciating technology buying up all this land. Cherry trees are like the pandas of the tree world. This whole area would be impoverished if we had to rely on cherries for our economy.

Then maybe three years ago I put in an apple tree. You also don't see really anyone with these around here either. So I didn't expect much. I thought they mostly liked more Northern climates. It was mostly to block the neighbors. I honestly thought it would fail. It isn't in an area that even gets water. It's in the worst place in my yard. Not like that pampered cherry tree.

Last year it started busting out apples. In the most intense drought in human history. Am I overstating that? I really started to wonder if we were going to make it thought.

So - the above picture is my cherry tree now. And my apple tree is already busting out apples. Seriously - if they would have just chosen a different crop Silicon Valley might have looked totally different.

Phone accessories.

This keyboard/controller is for the Samsung platform. It's from Mad Catz.com.

I thought it was pretty clever because I don't remember seeing plug in keyboards for phones. This one does double duty as a game controller.

I can't stop thinking about these.

I tried one of these a couple of weeks ago in Half moon Bay. They go about 17 mph and are battery powered.

The only problem is I'm functionally shy, and I don't like drawing a lot of attention to myself. But they are so fun! shy/fun. shy/fun. I can't pick.

Trikke home page.

I can't wait for the moment that uppity liberals figure out some of the racist, sexist, knuckle dragging troglodyte  "Trump voter" is coming from from inside their own house.  I'm going to laugh until I cry.

Don't listen to this guy.

Source.

Fed doesn’t get it about global excess supply, winning forecaster says.

"The Federal Reserve is blowing it because it thinks the economy could be overheating, but the real problem is excess supply and deflationary pressure, says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist for Mizuho Securities USA and the winner of the Forecaster of the Month contest for April."

The article goes on to say:

"“We should be immunizing the nation against deflation,” Ricchiuto said. But, instead, the Fed still seems to be living in the 1970s, worried that the unemployment rate will go too low and that the economy will overheat. That’s why the Fed “blew it in December” when it raised interest rates."

This guy is totally wrong. We are almost through the deflationary pressure and I will tell you why. The above chart is a 5 year chart. Somewhere around the summer of 2014 (where the big black arrow is) it began to click for me that if the weak dollar caused inflation - the strong dollar would cause deflation.

This happens because oil is traded in dollars. When our dollar is strong it makes it so other countries have to put more of their resources into buying oil. This obviously puts downward pressure on their economies causing less demand because they are spending more money on oil. You with me?

Over the summer of 2014 the Fed was insisting they were going to raise rates. This caused the dollar to strengthen even more causing more pain for the developing world. (i.e. less demand)The Fed couldn't say they weren't raising rates. They had no choice. Or reveal they were liars all along.

Now we are at a stage where the dollar could strengthen a little more. And other currencies could weaken a little more. But a 25 cent move in the dollar is probably unlikely. That is really pretty big. (I can't even believe I have to know this crap.) Things would have to get very dire in other countries for this to happen. Things also probably wont get much worse in the US because we have basically been floating along the stall line for the whole year. Something very very bad would need to happen. And a simple recession I doubt will cut it.

We are closer to the end of deflation People, than the beginning. The Fed absolutely should raise rates again. Even though it is a little alarming to see rates down in the 3.39% rage again today.

Knock knock knocking on inflation's door

I doubt after this year you will ever hear me talk about deflation again. It takes a very special set of circumstance to cause deflation. Generally it is a very rare occurrence in history, and really just goes against the way humans really behave. In my opinion we are slightly hard wired for inflation.

First, new people are born every day. And those people only know the prices of the things they grew up with. It's going to take them 20 years to care about inflation because the price they know is the price they know.

Second, people desire expensive things. They "like" cheap things, but can you really say anyone "desires" them? There are tons of things people could buy much more cheaply, but don't because the item is a status symbol. These are not my rules. They are stupid human rules. I don't make them up. I only observe them. I'm sure hard core economists will freak out about my comments. There are the way things work in textbooks, and then there is the way things work in reality because of stupid human rules.

To recap. Inflation is too much money chasing too few products and services. Apply it quite literally and you'll be able to figure out the relationship with inflation/deflation more easily. Up until this year we haven't triggered the "too few products and services" part of inflation. I feel fairly certain we have crossed that point - and how! I think there is starting to be very little slack in the economy.

One of the many reasons I feel this way is because the are some really alarming things happening in the housing sector. I know people keep thinking we are going to have a second housing bubble, but I think that is fantasy. Giving your house up was almost a fad at one point. I doubt I will ever see that again. Honestly, the only reason I didn't give up my place is because of the way I grew up. When you grow up poor, Owning a house is a huge deal. I think I've spent my entire life trying to figure out how to get one - and then through the recession trying to figure out how to keep one.

Anyway. When I look through the listings in my city all of a sudden I think about half of the listings are million dollar listings. I have never seen this before. Some might see this as validation the bubble is bursting. What I see is very little at the low end. Scratch that. There is NO low end market at all. It doesn't exist anymore. Both starter houses I've owned are now at 90% of the value of the house I own now. Which is unbelievable. And no - my house is not a million dollar house. But my starter places started out at half the price of the place I own now. They are now so close in price that I might have been better off if I had never moved from my starter place.

All I know is that building has never been depressed for this long. A few months ago builders came out and said that housing will permanently be more expensive to build. Over they past two years they have snapped up all the cheap land. There is almost no vacant land parcels in my downtown at all. I see it in city after city all over the Valley.

When this administration is gone, this housing thing is going to be like a wildfire. There has never been a more coercive government in my lifetime. There is no way to predict how it will turn out. I hope not in pitchforks.

I'm the human equivalent to this.

I'm sick. So, this was basically me getting out of bed this morning.

I start rumors.

About a year ago this warehouse space started spouting from the edge of town. Mr S. and I have been watching it pretty closely because it is a shit-ton of space. I would say all the warehouses take up as much space as our municipal airport. It's easily 100's of thousands of square feet. We've been dying to know what was going to go in there. It's gonna take a lot of jobs to staff those warehouses, and those people are going to need some place to live.

Yesterday it was announced that Tesla is expanding to my city. And I highly suspect these warehouses are a part of that. The only thing that doesn't make me 100% sure is that they are being painted with the Tesla colors. But it takes a very big player to need this much pace. And Elon needs a lot of space right now. I suspect these are part warehouses.

I guess the gentrification of Stockton is going to start more quickly than I thought. This is going to be a boon to all the surrounding cities. Even all the way to Stockton.



I've shit on Tesla forever. I don't think they would survive without subsidies and that still pisses me off honestly. I don't like the government picking and choosing winners. Having said that - I hope he makes it. For sure he is going to die trying.  Elon will go down in the history books as having changed the world.

I saw him speak a couple of years into the recession. I was two houses under water. But he was two companies on the verge of bankruptcy. And it really just gave me an odd strength. I felt if this guy could suck it up - I could suck it up. Elon is on a whole nuther level of scrappy. And I just hope he makes it even though I still have my doubts.





This is only one of the finished buildings. I think there are about 5 that are this size. They have tons of bay doors on the other side for shipping.

Thank goodness Kasich dropped out. All he did was stoke my craving for Swensons burgers. Usually I can keep it under wraps, but whenever I'm in Ohio - I have to go to Swensons.

Sometimes they get a visit before family does. Just say'in.

Computers see me as a clown for their amusement.

Yeah. That's right. A rare photo of me on the blog. This was a face recognition program. I'm not sure why they were doing it that way. But at least computers find me fairly symmetrical.

Things that go bump in the night.

The dollar is the weakest it's been all year. Yet oil inventories are a mere 1000 barrels from an all time high. We are barely drawing at all.

Normally a weak dollar makes oil prices rise and inflation start to stir. But there is just so much inventory. They are going to have to start setting refineries on fire I guess. Or have some unexpected maintenance.

Who knows what will happen in this broken feedback loop.

Dogs are clowns for our amusement.

Chained dragon.