Bill Gates, a big winner in the game of business, finds out that means nothing in a game of chess.

Magnus the magnificent.

Being the richest guy in the world and a computer magnate doesn't necessarily make you a stellar chess player.

Bill Gates learned this the hard way when newly crowned world chess champion, 23 year old Magnus Carlsen, of Norway, beat him handily, in a mere nine moves — in front of an audience, no less. The speed game took place Wednesday during a popular Norwegian-Swedish talk show hosted by Norwegian TV presenter Fredrik Skavlan.

Gates, whose net worth was estimated this month at $78.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, was even given a slight advantage. He had 2 minutes to make his moves. Carlsen had 30 seconds. Carlsen won the game in 1 minute, 20 seconds.

I'd say Magnus might have a job, if he wants one, in Redmond, Washington.

A Progressive Kristallnacht coming here to America?

   "From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?"

Well, aren't Progressives simply the modern version of the National Socialists?  Understanding that, something like Kristallnacht is probably inevitable sometime soon in Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein's Bay Area utopia.

It started like this....

Go here to read the rest.  It gets much better!

Some images from Central California

A relic

Down in the Flyby post below a commenter asked which ship my dad was on in WWII (The USS Fuller), and that reminded me of this bit of memorabilia that I had stashed away.  I thought I'd post a copy for it's entertainment value, and for posterity, since nothing ever dies once it's posted on the internet.

It's a Christmas card that the War Department had the sailors send home during wartime, probably to lift everyone's morale.  You can see why they sent my dad to the Pacific Theater - his non PC first name!

If I recall correctly, the Fuller was a troop transport, and my dad saw a whole lot of action while onboard, and was very nearly on personal terms with the Kamikaze Zero.

At the beginning of his stint on the Fuller, the captain happened to be an old barnacle left over from WWI, and he had no confidence at all in the newfangled radar that my dad was operating.  On a transit of the Pacific one night, the radar picked up something in their path, and my dad reported it and suggested it could be a mine.  The old salt captain harumffed and ignored it.  The radar noted the object coming closer and closer, dead ahead, and the captain finally posted someone to look out for it.  It did turn out to be a mine, one of those big globes with the detonators poking out all over.  There was a last minute change of course, and the Fuller barely missed it - so close that they were afraid the backwash would suck it in behind and it would detonate against the stern.  After that, the captain had a bit more respect for that modern gadget called radar.

My inner 12 year old thinks this is funny.

Amazing world

Daphnia, commonly known as the water flea, are mostly transparent creatures less than 5 mm in size. One can be seen here playing with a colony of Volvox, a type of green algae.

Image by Dr. Ralf Wagner.

Kate over at Small Dead Animals received this email recently.

Who knows how significant this is, but the market sure hasn't exuded confidence lately, has it?

Good morning Kate-

I don't think you're going to see this anywhere else, so here goes....

With no excess margin left in any trader's account nowadays, the littlest foreign exchange hiccup is blowing up every hedge fund's and Wall street prop desk's most favorite trade, the emerging market swap. Lend the Jap 10 year note, and borrow the Thai 10 year note, at the same time, as an example, and pocket the difference in yield., in a corporate margin account, using borrowed US Treasury bills pledge to borrowed Japanese Yen to finance the larger swap trade. Because of the unidicted status of Jon Corzine, any "smart" trader will leave no uninvested cash at any
brokerage account, knowing that the brokerage firm may use it for its own purposes with little or no recourse. And certainly no access to your cash, for months on end. The margin call comes in when the borrowed security's value falls, in this case a Thai 10yr, compounded with a currency move (Thai Baht) against the borrower, who borrowed in Japanese Yen, which also moves against the borrower, and you have a multicase of margin call, which forces the sale of the whole thing. And actual, realized losses.

Hedge funds will be closed today because of these bets. And the banks? Oh, Jack Lew will be "forced" to bail out some of them out. (see def. "reliable donor class")

Going to get very messy into next week.

Related?  JP Morgan has the largest single on day withdrawal ever from it's gold vault. 

Also related? VIX spikes to three month highs as stocks collapse.

Heading for the weekend, full speed.

Diatom, the Antarctic seas

Cool

Friday Flyby - the Zero

My dad saw plenty of these from the bridge of a U S Navy warship in WWII.  He was a radar operator,  a high tech position in those days.

In fact, he saw a kamakazi crash into the bridge of the ship right in front of his and kill everyone.  He always said that he only survived the war due to that pilot's choice of which ship to crash into.

Francois, Francois, Francois....Tsk, tsk!

  "France’s first lady went on a “rampage,” smashing more than $3 million worth of national treasures at the Élysée Palace, when she learned President François Hollande was sneaking out for trysts with his secret lover, it was reported Thursday.

In her tantrum at the French president’s office, Valérie Trierweiler destroyed a Sèvres vase that belonged to Louis XVI, according to Closer magazine, which first reported his affair with actress Julie Gayet.

“Despite the ordeal of being cheated on, Valérie Trierweiler is ready to forgive the man who has shared her life for 10 years,” the mag said."


       Francois's face when he realized he could "get some" with a starlet half his age.

I told my wife that before this is over, there will be blood.  It will also be fun to watch the two of them when they visit the Obamas, another couple that rumor has it are having their difficulties.

Yet who knows what a shamed and spurned Valerie Trierweiler might do for revenge during their state visit here?  Perhaps she will make a serious pass at Choom Boy, like the Danish chick did, right in front of Hollande and Michelle.  Choom is just about stupid enough to respond inappropriately, at which point all hell breaks loose.  I wonder how fast Michelle, with her superior physicality, can do 3 million in damage to the White House? 

Friday Open Road - with plenty of motorcycles and a green Camaro

Who is fishing for whom?