Dave's Blog

Saturday, April 26, 2003 6:36:36 PM 

I've been looking, and once again I'm optimistic about the stock 
market.  Of course, more business journalists are, too.  I know that 
links to Yahoo! change, but for the sake of argument let's look at 
a comparison of the NASDAQ and the Dow over the last 18-1/2 years.  
This is easier to see when the scale is linear.  The price gains of 
the two were tracking pretty nicely until 1999, when the NASDAQ broke 
away.  Remember the articles about the "new economy," and the belief 
that there were two markets?  2000 changed all that, and the two 
market trends crossed in the other direction near the end of that year.  
Even in the five-year and one-year histories the Dow has outperformed 
the NASDAQ, but we can see that the general marketplace is coming 
back.  Looking at the Dow alone, the five-year trend shows that the 
decline may be over -- as far back as October, 2002.  Those investors 
who have been dollar-cost averaging may see their returns coming in 
right now, as we climb the right side of a bowl.  How far can the 
rebound go?  A look the Dow since 1929 shows us a generally 
exponential curve, as a student of the time-value of money would 
expect.  Even if we're in for a quiet period like the one from 1965 
to 1982, to me it looks like a good time to get on board.  Tinkering 
at BigCharts will show you the Dow and the NASDAQ both recently 
crossed their 200-day moving averages, another signal to get back in.  
Of course, I'm not an authority on the stock market, and your opinion 
may be different from mine.  We each have our own perspective.  

Looking back to the beginning of the month, there was good news for IT 
under a bad headline, "Even lower demand for tech workers predicted," 
in the San Francisco Business Times on April 2nd.  This gloomy 
article, giving the results of an Information Technology Association 
of America survey, concealed and revealed the following gems:  

	There has been a net gain in IT jobs over the past year.  The 
	IT job market grew 3.3% in 2002.  

	The market for database developers grew 6.2% in 2002.  

	Network administration hires were 7.5 times fires in 2002.  

	90% of the fourth-quarter hires were in non-IT companies.  

	55% of the fourth-quarter hires were in technical support.  

	Companies are looking for over 800,000 IT workers this quarter.  

	Today's hottest skills are Java, SQL, C, C++, Oracle, and 
	Windows NT (this information came from Dice, not the ITAA 
	survey).  

Critics will point out the survey method is notoriously unscientific, 
and there are people in the IT business who are bemoaning the lack 
of opportunity.  Perhaps it's time for them to put a stake in the 
ground, hire on, and resume their journey from wherever they find 
themselves today.  

1999 was a long time ago, and the future is now!  


Tuesday, April 08, 2003 12:03:53 AM 

Sunday morning I was at the computer when Daylight Savings Time began.  
A little dialogue pop-up asked me to verify that the clock had 
changed correctly.  Now, for some strange reason, until Sunday night, 
Daylight Savings Time had been a hot button for me.  Here was a 
little computer asking me if it had changed its time correctly, and 
previously my response would have been no.  Daylight Savings Time 
has never seemed like a correct way to change the clock.  On the 
other hand, it has been around for hundreds of years, and it is 
observed by most of the governments on the planet.  So perhaps it 
was time to say "yes," and give up that little pet peeve.  After all, 
what is time?  If we live in the moment, the still of the night is 
indifferent to the numbers in the corner of the computer screen.  
Who cares whether the little crystal counter says it's 2:00 AM or 
3:00 AM?  Just a thousand miles away, the little crystal counters 
are showing a different number.  Yet, it is all the same moment.  

I took a few minutes to circumnavigate the home, find all the 
little crystal counters, and update them.  I missed three or four, 
and I was really impressed with how many little crystal counters I 
have surrounding me.  One of them drives some metal hands on a plaque 
in the kitchen.  It's called a wall clock.  As I moved the hands to 
their new position, they stopped moving.  Well, they "sorta kinda" 
stopped moving.  They twitched rhythmically, but they rested in the 
same position after every twitch.  The counter was still counting, 
but it was too weak to move the metal hands.  Thinking I could 
refresh the contacts or something, I took out the battery and put it 
back in.  The hands still twitched in the same position.  I decided 
that a new battery was in order.  

I didn't know where to find the batteries.  I looked in the closet.  
I looked in the little "miscellaneous" drawer in the kitchen.  I 
looked in a filing cabinet.  No batteries.  Margaret was out for the 
weekend, so I left the clock lying on the counter, without the weak 
battery, without the twitch.  

When Margaret came home I told her about the clock.  Although she 
didn't remember where the batteries were, she moved to them 
intuitively and brought them into the daylight.  She put a fresh 
battery in the clock, and the hands started moving again.  

I realize that sometimes there is a meaning we do not understand, and 
it works for good.  I do not need to understand the meaning of 
Daylight Savings Time, I only need to go with the flow.  Whether or 
not it is a good idea is too trivial for me to devote more energy to 
it.  I also realize that I do not need to do everything myself.  All 
I need to do is ask, and someone will cheerfully assist me.  The 
sooner I ask, the sooner I receive.  I also recognize that sometimes 
when I'm feeling weak, and fiddling with my own energy supply doesn't 
do the job, all I need is to have someone else work on my energy 
supply.  I don't need to do it all myself.  

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