More Catch Up, sans condiments.

Where am I?

Kampung Santubong (yeah, all I can think of is "Holy Water Pip" too), North Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.

At the base of the Damai Pennisula and Mount Santubong.  


Why? 

I was tired of being in Kuching.  I like the place but needed something even slower.  Fewer tourists more locals.  Kuching just had 10,000 visitors last weekend for the Tuak festival*.

I wanted out of the city.  It was just getting stressfull.  Noise; yet, not noisy...?

Too many choices; not enough variety.  The "tyranny of choice" strikes again.** 

(Damn, footnotes kill me.  If I had more energy and intelligence I would be better at this.  (Subjunctive!))


I wanted a change.  To the smaller.  To the "local."  And, yet, I am still bougie - I know I need A/C.  So, I found a place that for $70 includes breakfast and dinner.  And is on the shore.  There should be a breeze here.  And, there is.

Hopped out of town.  RM 53 for a 40 minute drive.  Chatty fun driver.  Worth all of it.


What's Happened Here?

Not much. 

Yesterday
Got here at 1500.  Checked in; sat poolside; got a redder neck; read; had 'potato cake' style hash browns and ruined my appetite***; ate a wonderful chicken curry until full; watched some amazing sail boats and blathered on. 

Today
Failed to get my leather on - via either shaving or wearing suntan lotion.  Burned my shoulders not just neck.  Read; walked; had samosas; napped; showered; smiled.

Maybe more later.  Especially if today's AC37 races are mooted (maybe the Italians can't sail...it was a helluva "BANG!!!" yesterday.)

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* Ok, siggggghhh, Tuak is Sarawakian rice wine.  It is not Hauk.  It is not Tuah.  It's TUAK.  It's not sex, it's booze.

** From '97 until '02 I set cable TV prices.  I assure you that CATV is an extraordinary value.  The greedy bastards are the content guys: Max, ESPN, et al.  The economics favor them, pipes are just pipe and now they are wireless. 

Charles F. Dolan, a very smart man who started HBO and CableVision Systems (NYC area CATV), had an answer why once could not just by HBO or ESPN.  Even if one had the bandwidth, unbundling and offering every service a la carte would result in the "tyranny of choice."  Don't believe me? 

Notice the fact that it still isn't economically feasible in a streaming environment?  Notice that ESPN+ still costs an arm and leg?  Notice the consumer confusion.   Chuck had foresight and a conscience.  His successor had only the former.

The economics of voice telephony and CATV are fascinating.  Especially in the transition to a wireless world.  Know what are very very very similar?  Airline economics.  Shipping economics.  Trucking economics.  Online economics.  Hotel and rental car economics.  'Networks' are 'networks'.  See the wind here? Scale and network economics are windy.  At micro and macro levels both.

Every generation re-learns this.  Just like thinking they were they were the first gen to discover sex, drugs, and radical/rebellious music.

Leave a comment if you'd like a long-winded post about 'em.  It describes everything from Ali Baba (e-commerce) to Zanzibar (spice trade.)  I am not joking.  The first team of a generation to understand the marginal versus the average wins the money.  For that network.  Then we invent a new type with another generation with science.

Science is another story....