Bring the thunder..

I hope PG&E bankrupts every single one of those solar companies.

Some of you might have read that the electricity provider in my State is having a bit of scandal with those fires up North. They filed bankruptcy last week (I think). But there is also something going on with PG&E I haven't seen anyone talk about and I don't know why.

About a week ago I found out that my government officials decided that I was going to pay for solar if I wanted to or not. They have set up a new "solar energy consortium" or something. Which normally I would applaud because I am for choice. I generally feel like if there is a market for it - you go on with your bad self. If people want to pay for solar without incentives, it's your money.

However, I also feel like if something is great enough - you don't have to force me into signing up. That is something I will do on my very own. When you force me to do something it makes me feel like you are lying about something.

I'd been seeing all the notices in the mail, but didn't pay that much attention because I read it was voluntary. So I moved on with my life until a new charge cropped up on my bill from the "Generic City" Community Energy Company.

Turns out "they" were switching everyone unless you called them to opt out.  Mind you I can't even get an email from someone now unless I sign a for real paper consent form which happened recently at a conference. But they were tossing everyone off of PG&E, and you had to call the solar consortium to cancel. Which I did.

So, I go through the opt out process where the guy tells me I have "two" options to opt out. I can opt out right away, or defer my opt out for six months. Which immediately it flips my bitch switch. I was professional with the guy - but I flat out said - "as a customer you are telling me I am going to get penalized for going back to PG&E".

He says - weeeeeeeeel. We don't really know that. To which I said, yeah but you don't NOT know that either. right? Yes, he replies. We don't know what will happen one way or the other he replies.

I chose to top out right away and take the penalty. This apparently makes me a new customer to PG&E so my electricity rates will go up for about six months. I don't care. I'm mad. But I call PG&E back to see what my damage is going to be. Because this company switched me without my consent! PG&E seems to think it's only going to raise my rates about 12 bucks. But WTF?

I don't know if the solar company was trying to scare me into not changing. I mean, 12 bucks sort of gets lost in the noise. At any rate I don't know if this is just my city because even people in my town don't seem to know about it. I had apparently not seen this charge on my last bill. So even I didn't know.

I am really confused on how I feel about this car now.

This past weekend I found out that Fisker was holding a drive event for their new car. Immediately I was like - hell yeah I want to see that car and test drive it. I've been wondering when we would see one of those cars around the Valley.

When I told Mr S. though, he was like - oh.... that is for the Revero,  not the Fisker Emotion. I guess I'd forgotten that they'd sold off the naming rights to Fisker and someone else had bought it. I didn't even realize they were reviving that brand. So I backed out.

Mr S. thought it was an ICE car now. (Internal combustion Engine) But now that I look at their website it's looks to be a gas/electric hybrid. And now I just kinda don't know how I feel about it.

It's super fascinating that they have a test drivable/buyable car, and I haven't seen that for the Emotion. But now that I look at the Fisker site I notice they are branching out into those cube cars. The whole thing is sort of confusing. Because until I see one driving on the street - they are still vaporware to me.

They say it's my birthday.

I guess we haven't reached peak bullshit yet.

L'Oreal is operating a "Tech Incubator". 

I can see that more than half of my audience is like - WHO the eff is L'Oreal!? To that I say - exactly!

You know this is awesome because their videos are filled with vague word salads which mean absolutely nothing. But hey - they are running an incubator Yo! They are hip.

I'd also just like to point out that their "management structure" is very "Silicon Valley" right now. It's like an upside down triangle. A heavy layer of management at the top, and just one or two "engineery" (yes that is a word) people at the bottom.

This is bullshit

Getting any appreciable snow that doesn't melt by the time the sun comes up only happens every five years or so. Getting that to land on a weekend....... nope.

It sucks because Tahoe is CAVED with snow right now. But it might take you 24 hours to get back. Seriously. The last few storms it really took people that long to get back to the Bay Area. One of these ridges I could get to in 30 minutes!

Hopefully now people will stop thinking that we broke the sky.

Tesla rainbow.

I don't know what they do to the glass on Teslas - but it looks pretty cool in the rain.

Morning rainbow.

Look at how many liberals think it's okay to refuse service now ya'll.

It isn't a majority, but I was indoctrinated to believe that was never okay.

I think she should get off on a technicality.

Mr S. likes to send me articles when people get into trouble for speeding. Because he knows I'm just trying to find the boundaries of what will get your arrested.

Which is funny because he was pretty mad when I got my ticket. He thought I didn't take it seriously enough. Believe me - once you get the bill... you will slow your roll for a while - for sure.

So apparently,  driving 115 mph in a 35 mph speed limit zone, while driving in snowy and slushy conditions does get you arrested. But I think that's unfair because she was just doing what the National weather Service advised a couple of days ago. Here.

And I'm just kind of wondering how the ticket goes if you have this license plate. I'm sorry doesn't do shit for you once you get pulled over. As a matter of a fact that whole experience made me feel ugly because that cop didn't give me a break at all. Yes,  not even a "because you are cute" kinda break and not an asshole when pulled over.

You know the end is near when someone asks you if they should bottom fish PG&E.

I was like - NO!

Cammo wrap.

Whenever I am in Santa Clara I like to drive by the Byton Campus. I think if they are going to have a real car, you'd start seeing it around campus. I have driven by probably a dozen times, and nothing. Until today.

It is a very busy small campus. At first I tried taking stalker pictures with zoom, and then I was like - they can't make me get off the sidewalk. So - after I was done today, I went back and just took pictures from the sidewalk. They still had guys watching the car. Eventually I asked if I could take pictures a little closer. This meant stepping on their property. And they were fine with it.

The only thing they said was not to take pictures of the interior. I took a couple of shots thanked them and walked off. But I did wonder what they thought I didn't need to see. I've seen this car at CES and Pebble beach. So I've already seen the inside.

Why so negative?

Source.

This is the chart for pending home sales. Those are all negative numbers. ALL of them. It will be interesting to see the numbers from the shutdown.

Today was very stereotypically "Silicon Valley".

I really have a ton of home projects to get to, but Mr S. got that new 3D phone. So we said screw that - let's go get The Gates of Hell at Stanford!  Imagine photo's kinda of like this, but in 3D.

We decided to stop at the new Shake Shack at the Palo Alto mall. Where we waited in line for about an hour.  Which was kind of funny since our AitrBnb in Vegas was right next to a Shake Shack. We shared a table with a stranger because when you wait in line that long you get to know people a little.

Normally I might not have thought having lunch with a stranger would be something I was into - but it worked today. Also Palo Alto is just one of those places where you feel you can have lunch with any rando and it's not bad.

Then went over to the Campus. See ....this whole story sounds like a stereotype!

Honestly, I can't believe I don't think that phone is stupid because no one without a 3D enabled device can see the pictures. But they have managed to make it "fun enough" for it not to matter that much. Although, not quite fun enough for me to convert my phone too. It's sort of a big phone for girl hands. But fun enough that you swing back around to some of the touristy things.

(Update) -  The interesting thing about the Palo Alto Shake shack -  zero order takers/cashiers. Kiosk only. I'm not even sure how you would give them cash.

So lonely.

I have literally never once driven by the Facebook campus and not seen people taking pictures in front of the Facebook thumb. Oh wait - this would be once. I hope it's not an indication of anything. Said in the most sarcastic way. They have a TON of crap ripped up in Menlo Park. I think they have like five building going up right now. But hey - if you bought ONE share of Facebook in January, you would still have made 19 bucks a share. So....it's not all horrible yet. Sadly.

However if you bought in July, you'd be down about 50 bucks a share.

When no one feels the need to be covert anymore.

I just came from "one of those car things", and I get the distinct impression "they" want to make those cube cars to be like rolling karaoke pods. The whole thing was kinda weird so I'm going to be super vague about it for now.  Plus, I think I need to rewind the whole thing in my head and try to unpack it again. I might even delete this whole post tomorrow and start again.

It just feels like car companies are sort of out of ideas. They don't really know what we want from cars. It's confusing! I don't know why they just won't make them sleeper cars. It makes so much more sense.

Pretty ugly.

I have been seeing houses sit on the market for six months now. Which is consistent with real estate slowing this past summer. Everything seems to be "right priced" currently. But houses sitting that long really starts a negative feedback loop.

When prices were going up like crazy you would sell because you are getting a premium. Now that prices have stabilized, it's going to be very hard to wedge people out from those low interest rates. And when you can sell in 6 days like April of last year, you feel pretty secure. When it is routinely taking months to sell houses - you pull back. I would expect to have your house be on the market for at least three months right now.

I am completely shocked at how much new housing inventory is still on the market in my city. Home builders are going to be butthurt. They have had to lower prices and those places are still siting on the market for six months as well. Then there is this.

California sees its first home sales drop in four years.

Southern California usually leads the way. But what does it matter? We are in a global housing reset. Australia said - screw the prices from the 2008 recession. We are taking these prices back 30 years. It's been going on for months. And I keep wondering if Australia had the internet when we went through our crisis. But that tells you how bad China is and has been before the tariffs.

Canada looks under real stress now. So yeah. I want to say we have a good foundation here in the US because most people are locked into very low interest rates. But people never know when they have it good, and they always overextend themselves. Plus, people are very adverse to pain. They will do anything to avoid it and they do irrational things. So I don't know how this is going to play out honestly.

Conversations with Mr S.

Sometime last week I told Mr S. that I was starting to feel anxious about the economy. He's like - yeah. Who knows what this Brexit thing is going to do.

Me - Screw Europe! We haven't gotten any financial data in weeks. And it's starting to freak me out.

Him - Do we really believe that data anyway? It will be interesting to see how the market reacts when there is no government manipulation.

Which just made me just look and him and smile. Because he is sorta right. No one believes the numbers.

Then last night I was like - You are right, we don't believe that data - but I would like to at least how much I don't trust the data. We are four reports behind. And I would just like to know the range so I can decide what I want to believe or not.

Well, I guess if the National Weather System says so.

It would make getting to Swensons a lot faster. But Ohio Swensons. Not California Swensons.

Smart glasses are not "the next big thing".

Smart Glasses, Neural Computers, Self-Driving Cars: What's "The Next Big Thing" After Smartphones.

I feel like people who write these stories have never really spent much time with these devices.

Mr S. and I actually met back in the day at a company that did VR. So I call this VR2. I talk to as many people as I can about VR or XR. Which is really just a fancy acronym for mixed reality. Because I am always curious if all the problems from the past will be resolved this time around.

For example I when I was at CES - they had a huge booth for the fire department which was giving out technology grants. They need to get all of their equipment to talk to each other. So I was kinda curious since I have seen some pretty amazing HUD concepts. I have always wondered why they were never adopted. You can see one of the videos I did on one back in 2011.



Interestingly when I walked up and started talking to them about what I said above - they pulled out a Magic Leap and offered to let me see their demo. But I was not having any VR/XR stuff at CES. That is how people come back with the flu. And I knew that I had another chance to see it soon. So I declined. I have already tried the Hololens.

What they told me I found super interesting. And it's sort of the same reason why motorcycles can't get their helmet HUDS to take off that well. They can't figure out how to put data in front your eye and not have it interrupt your field of view. To be there when you need it, and not when you don't. How to make it so it's not distracting.

Additionally - there is a not an insignificant amount of people who get motion sickness from these devices. Even really young people report they have to take a break after using them for a full day. It is why 3D glasses failed.

I truly believe these devices will be "a" thing.  Just not "the" thing. Manufacturing for sure will use them. They already wear bulky headgear. But I doubt this will be a mass adoption kind of thing. VR is still less than 1% of all gaming systems sold. For sure there is still a ton of hype. With smart glasses you are competing for the smallest screen on the planet. And you still need to be able to see.

Plus, I just still believe that people hate to wear glasses. I've said it a million times and nothing has happened to make me stop believing that. Sunglasses aside. You don't spend that much time in sunglasses. So people tolerate them.

Lantern festival.

I think it was at the end of the Christmas light crawl that we saw this in the city next to us. I don't think it would have normally been something that we went out of our way for. They'd been advertising it on TV. But, when we drove by, it looked bigger than we thought. We were already light crawled out at that point though. So I put it out of my mind.

Then a couple of days ago Mr. S. randomly said - Hey, do you want to go check out that thing in the city next to us. It's the last week.

I was kinda surprised because this almost isn't in the top ten things I would try to drag him to this time of year. But then it hit me - you want to go take pictures with your phone!

He bust out laughing. Because he did want to go take pictures with his new 3D phone. Sadly you can not see any of those pictures because only people with those phones can see them. But it is sort of like all of these photo's. Only in 3D.

I was the first to try to talk him out of buying that thing, but it has actually turned out to be quite fun. It makes you discover things in a different way. And some of the pictures are pretty fun and cool. You just can't see them. And Red Hydrogen didn't ruin the phone part of being a phone.

But these are my shots in non 3D.

Have you heard about asymmetrical jeans?

I guess that day has finally arrived.

Tesla sinks after cutting 7% of its workforce. Five experts weigh in on what's next.

I know I talk a lot of shit about them, but now that the day is here - it sort of gives me a far away stare.

If Telsa can't make it - all of these other players really have an uphill battle. Tesla would not exist without government support. Period. The new players are going to encounter a very challenging environment indeed. And this whole Valley right now is built around supporting those cars. I just don't even know what the knock on effect is going to be.

The low point of CES. Toilets.

I got to this area of CES and frankly just became incensed. I have been to CES for a lot of years now, and it was the first time I saw them with toilets. This is the kind of thing you see at Dwell. NOT CES.

And furthermore - I have NEVER seen dudes so interested in toilets! A woman would never in a million years walk up to a toilet demo and run their hands over the seat. I could have hung out forever and just gotten hundreds of dudes caressing a toilet seat. That never happens in real life! They don't even spend any time on these things! What do they effing care?

Also, I'm just super bitter about restroom policy these days. Can't I just have a public toilet that hasn't been peed on? If you cared that much about toilets - I wouldn't have a shitty attitude about gender neutral bathrooms!







Also WTF do you need a graph chart usage for? I know these photos are crap, but I was just incensed.

Not much new to report about 3D printing. It's basically just gotten faster.

Send your dumb robot to school.