septiembre 23, 2004

Sold for $15,000

Jeremy Wright of Ensight.com has sold his blog for $15,000, including an upfront sale fee and monthly compensation for his continued blogging on business and tech.

Fortunately, Jeremy has good uses he can put the money towards:
But it is enough to pay off my student loans and to take my wife on our honeymoon, as we never really got one when we got married 4.5 years ago. So, for our 5th anniversary we're going somewhere nice, thanks to the sale of Ensight. That's it.
Congrats to Jeremy.

As BusinessPundit notes, Jeremy could be considered a blogrepreneur.

Perhaps the big question is how much is Instapundit worth?

septiembre 22, 2004

Makeup

Will Baude writes:
To be sure, I can hardly complain about the presence of lipstick that I don't notice.
That, of course, is by and large the key to successful makeup: a girl frequently looks best when it appears she isn't wearing any.

Like Will, I'm not a fan of girls who wear too much makeup. All the concealer and foundation isn't going to change your features, but some girls seem to think it will. Unlike Will, I do think there is a place for makeup.

There are some girls who have pretty eyes, but somehow these eyes are lost in their facial features. The right eyeshadow -- properly applied -- can help highlight and complement some pairs of eyes.

Makeup be an effective form of signaling. A girl who is noticably not wearing any makeup is putting out a certain vibe that she isn't interested in her appearance. That can lead potential suitors to assume that she is not interested in their biddings. So, if she's noticably not wearing any makeup, then she's not playing by the rules of society.

And by not playing by the rules, a girl holds herself back from certain opportunities. I certainly can't cite any studies, but I'm willing to wager that the average professional woman who noticably never wears makeup is handicapping her career. Because she's not playing by "the rules," she's probably more likely to be attributed negative characteristics, suchas standoffish and cold.

Browser wars: Google's army mustering for battle?

According to the New York Post, Google has hired a bunch of people from Microsoft and other tech companies who have worked on programs like Internet Explorer, Java, etc. It also includes this nugget:
Last month, Google hosted Mozilla Developer Day on its campus, a gathering of programmers that work together to build sequels to the re-named Netscape browser. Mozilla, which is "open source" and available to anyone, could be shaped to Google's specifications and be embedded with Google search, Gmail free e-mail and other Google applications.


And in fact, on April 26, 2004, Google registered gbrowser.com.

It makes sense, too. Microsoft is said to be developing their own search engine. If the next version of Windows sets IE7's homepage to be the new Microsoft search, then Google could be in trouble. So, from Google's standpoint, why not take the battle to Microsoft's home turf? Or at least Google can posture like they're going to compete, in an attempt to scare Microsoft away. (This seems unlikely to work. Microsoft doesn't scare easily.)

And of course, I've used Google for awhile, but I'm beginning to ponder a switch to Yahoo or MSN. They're both returning better results than Google lately.

One fly in the ointment: there's apparently already a gbrowser, who might have claim to the trademark.

The story that never ends

Where will Major League Baseball move the Montreal Expos? Apparently the new frontrunner is a DC site on the SE part of town.

Lots of politicians have been pushing very hard for a Capital metro area team, and they don't seem to care about where. There's also other locations under consideration by MLB (Las Vegas, Norfolk, Portland, Ore., and Monterrey, Mexico), but they seem to like the DC area as a first choice, even though Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos is deadset against a DC team.

Initially DC looked like the frontrunner, then that fell through. DC City Council doesn't seem to support the project strongly. According the article, 4 are for, 3 against, and 4 undecided. That's better than previous numbers I've seen.

Arlington and Alexandria were frontrunners at one time, but no longer. Residents didn't want the traffic hassle.

Until very recently, a site over by the Dulles Airport in Loudon County (a bit further out, and not as much of a competition for Angelos' Orioles)

Professional protesters?

Right now, there's only a headline to this article (no story): SOS hires people to protest Lowe's.

You can now hire protesters? I wonder what the market is like for that.

Austin based Schlotsky's to try and come back

Schlotzsky's was once an Austin institution, but now is looking to sell or get an investor to get out of bankruptcy.

septiembre 21, 2004

Microsoft sharing code?

Rather unusual for Microsoft to share its source code, I think:
Microsoft Corp. announced this week it is making the programming code for its Office 2003 software suite available to government agencies around the globe, a move partly aimed at allowing them to inspect the product for flaws and security problems.

Though Microsoft usually guards such software coding tightly, the step is an extension of an initiative the company began in January 2003 giving about 60 governments access to the inner workings of the Windows operating system. This is the first time the software giant has shared the source code for Office, which includes the Word text processing, Excel spreadsheet, and PowerPoint presentation programs.
Apparently Microsoft has shared some source code before. I'm surprised that this source code hasn't found its way onto the Internet. Or maybe it has, I suppose I don't follow this stuff that closely.

septiembre 20, 2004

Uhoh and thanks

Thanks to Jeremy for the link, although I didn't know I sound jaded.

Maybe I need to work on my tone...I'm too young to be jaded.

Social security change is needed

Reuters:
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last month issued one of his sharpest warnings yet that [Social Security and Medicare] face a severe long-term financial crunch and need reform.
Yes. Would the government please stop giving away so much of my money to my grandparents?

The World War II generation rocked. They fought fascism and communism, and ultimately beat both. But now these programs are now 40% of the federal budget, and still rising.

My generation will have a hard time being prosperous if we keep voting away our money to senior citizens.

septiembre 18, 2004

More Apprentice blogging -- Bradford

Firing the top performer is dumb, and it seemed to me (see below post) that Bradford was the top performer.

What'd he do? Oh, just led his team to victory in the first week, and then appeared to be the best seller on the streets. Sales ability is important.

Also, he played to win. What's with the girls not dressing attractively? It's pretty much a given that a girls team should beat a boys team in street selling. As Bradford pointed out, guys will buy anything from a hot girl. Everyone knows this; men are very visually oriented. The girls have a huge advantage here. But they chose not to use it, because they didn't want to sell themselves.

I don't have alot of patience for this idea, and I fault all the girls. Putting on a skirt and a halter top (Bradford's suggested wardrobe, according to Ivana I believe) is not selling sex, as the girls suggested. You dress more scantily than that when you're at the beach. No, it's using your attractiveness to win the game. That's not selling sex.

I play to win. I don't think there's any value in losing. I believe in acting ethically in competitions, but I'm very competitive. I hate to lose. And so if I were Bradford I probably would have been more upset that the girls chose to give away one of their greatest advantages. Why bother playing if you're not going to try to win?

Apprentice blogging

Donald Trump annoys me. So much so that I try not to watch the Apprentice. But I admit that Burnette is good at making storylines, and so I ended up watching the latest episode of the Apprentice that my girlfriend tivo'd.

This episode underscored for me why I don't like Trump. He's a jerk, arrogant and self-centered. His first loyalty is always to himself. Honestly, it surprises me that someone who apparently values others and relationships as low as he does has been so successful.

I'd already read Jeremy's post on this episode, so I already knew the outcome, but could hardly believe it. In fact, that may be why I ended up watching the whole thing, because I had to know how it evolved this way.

Look, I don't think I would have done what Bradford did -- waive my exemption not to be fired -- but I think he could have defended himself better. I think you can make a case that Bradford was trying to promote himself as someone who doesn't want to win on a technicality. He wants to win on his own merits, which so far were substantial**. So, because there was such a miniscule chance of his being fired, he was willing to take that chance in order to build an image now of someone who gets results and doesn't want to win on technicalities. That could potentially pay off in the long run, and this is technically a winner-take-all game.

In effect it isn't a winner-take-all game though, because of the tv coverage. There's certainly value in having the potential to create a brand out of your self (such as Troy or even Omarosa), so if I were playing the game I'd try hard to make it to the end, but winning wouldn't really concern me. After all, I don't want to work for Trump. That's the last thing in the world I would want.

Trump has written that he is very risk-adverse (mildly ironic for a casino owner), so perhaps he doesn't like this.

I think Bradford could have and should have defended himself better, but I think it is divorced from reality for Trump to say that Bradford's action was a major mistake. It's a game, Donald, and as long as he can assume you won't turn on him for taking a risk, then I think it's an acceptable risk.

So who knows, maybe I'll end up watching more episodes intermittently like I did last year. I think I ended up watching four episodes, including the finale. But I hate supporting Trump in any way.

More Browser Wars

My last post was laughing at the Browser wars, as I saw that Internet Explorer had about 99% of my visits. However, apparently there are competitors growing their market share. Businessweek writes:
When was the last time you heard about the browser wars? Well, they're back. The reason: For the first time in more than seven years, Microsoft (MSFT ) is losing Web browser market share. And it's not just a blip. According to Web analytics company WebSideStory, Microsoft's share of browser users who visited top e-commerce and corporate sites shrank from 95.6% in June to 93.7% in September. And people using browsers made by the Mozilla open-source software group grew from 3.5% to 5.2%.
Apparently some commenters to the previous post are big fans of Firefox.

septiembre 17, 2004

Browser Wars

The Browser Wars really were long ago, weren't they?

I have several websites from long ago. I checked their stats tonight. Both did not register a single hit from Netscape. There was some Opera and other browsers, but no Netscape. And 99% of the hits were Internet Explorer.

Microsoft seems to be a well run company, don't they? Perhaps I'll write more about this later.

Kathy Ireland

I love Kathy Ireland. Okay, slight hyperbole.

But she's obviously done a wonderful job of creating a brand as a model and adapting it to her clothing line. Kudos.

More on NextWave

A few weeks ago, I linked to an article about how NextWave had "arbitraged government policies for billions."

If you read the article, essentially NextWave found a loophole in an FCC auction that allowed them to bid $4.8 billion with just a $500 million down payment for the rights to certain wireless airwaves. NextWave won the auction and then went into bankruptcy. Because of the US Bankruptcy code, NextWave could keep the rights without paying for them. (There was a court battle in there, and at one point the FCC re-auctioned off NextWave's licenses for $15.8 billion. However, the Supreme Court ruled that bankruptcy law took precedence over communications law, and the re-auction was invalidated.) Just recently, the FCC gave up and settled with Nextwave by giving them $3 billion worth of licenses.

Well when I read the story, I thought it was interesting. Legal, but on a technicality and a bit shady. However, a few days ago I picked up a book called "The Money Men: the real story of fundraising's influence on political power in America" written in 2000 by Jeff Birnbaum. Here's a passage about NextWave:
...one provision pushed by the FCC in a gigantic budget bill a few years ago. The provision would have stripped NextWave Telecom of New York City, then in bankruptcy proceedings, of one billion dollars' worth of federally auctioned digital wireless-telephone licenses. [Fred] Graefe [a bigshot Democratic lobbyist], who represented NextWave Telecom, was alerted to this potential catastrophe while he was on a golf course. He left the links to contact some of the friends he had made over the years via fundraising.

He telephoned Tom Daschle and Bob Kerrey. He also reached White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles; Graefe had been a loyal Democratic solicitor for years and was well known to top Democrats such as these. All three men intervened at the eleventh hour on Graefe's behalf, and, with the additional intervention of other lobbyists from the GOP side, the offending provision was crossed out by hand mere moments before the bill went to the printer.
Anyway, I thought this was an interesting followup to my earlier posts.

Tom Daschle claims to be a "prairie populist," but to me this is special interest politics at its worst. Basically Tom Daschle trusted this lobbyist because Graefe had raised alot of money for him (when an article suggests that a lobbyist is close to a Senator, that means the lobbyist raises money for him). Graefe also gave $2000 to Daschle in each of the last two election cycles and has donated regularly to Daschle over the last decade.

So because of a lobbyist request, Daschle stripped the budget bill of a provision relating to NextWave. This cost the federal government somewhere between $3 billion and $15 billion, depending on how you look at it. Either figure is probably more than South Dakota pays in income tax each year.

Could Daschle have believed that he was doing the right thing? Well, he could have, but I think an honest assessment of NextWave's situation makes clear that NextWave was exploiting an FCC loophole for billions.

UPDATE: In 2002, South Dakota paid $1.67 billion in personal income taxes, and an additional $0.37 billion in corporate income taxes.