All this talk of the Democratic party and the GOP.
GOP = Grand Old Party.
What does GOP stand for?
1
Explaining the credit crunch
The New York Times has a fantastic piece explaining how the little subprime mess has ballooned into trouble at some of the nation’s premier banking institutions. Great for those who know a little about the current situation, but probably not detailed enough for those bankers who live in it every day.
Favorite quote:
“The mortgages were then sliced into pieces and bundled into investments, often known as collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.’s (a term that appeared in this newspaper only three times before 2005, but almost every week since last summer).”
Time of Day
Normally I leave work between 6 and 7 every day. Yesterday I left at 5:30, so I could get a run in before the sun set and it became cold.
Time of Day
Normally I leave work between 6 and 7 every day. Yesterday I left at 5:30, so I could get a run in before the sun set and it became cold (I am running the Shamrock Shuffle on March 30).
I caught the bus at around 5:35, and noticed a peculiar thing: it was mostly women. And I do mean mostly – between 2x and 3x as many women as men.
Was it timing? Was it my route? I don’t know.
3D graphics in Excel
Peter Rakos from Gamasutra managed to create a rudimentary 3D graphics engine in Excel.
Look at the video clip below.
“Behind the Bling”
It sure has been a while! Sorry about the month between posts, people. I’ll try to not let that happen again.
A former Professor of mine, Erik Hurst, co-published an interesting paper concluding that:
- Blacks and Hispanics spend 30 percent more than whites on clothing, cars, and jewelry—an amount that averages out to around $2,000 per year per household.
- Blacks and Hispanics are spending less on education and health care and saving less money.
Why?
Signaling: Showing off this bling, in the form of nice clothes, nice cars, and so on shows that you have money and a job, something many members of these socioeconomic groups do not have.
CNN results from Super Tuesday
A week late, I know, but I thought I’d post anyway. Look at these preliminary results I took as a screenshot from CNN.com around 8PM CST. Voter fraud or simply data reporting problem?
eBay’s woes
I found this great article about eBay’s problems on the New York Times website (although it was unfortunately centered around the hypothesis that Amazon should buy eBay), along with this follow-up on Wired.
From the Wired article:
From where we’re sitting, it looks pretty chaotic. eBay’s CEO is out playing politics; one of the highest-ranking executives is publicly trashing the business; and customers are apparently planning a revolt. There are roughly 248 million registered users on eBay — and while not all of them are going to be happy, the company’s listings fell 3 percent during the first nine months of 2007, which indicates that a huge chunk of its customer base is taking its business elsewhere.
I personally have come to hate eBay. After:
- 2 of my 3 attempts to sell an old laptop were foiled (the first time, a Nigerian scammer won my auction; the second time, a Nigerian scammer hacked into the winning bidder’s account and then won my auction)…
- Spending 3 months trying to repeal the fees eBay charged me for these 3 listings…
- And spending many hours trying to just look around their clunky, confusing website to find even slightly relevant information…
I have all but given up on using them. Too bad there are no really valid competitors to put real pressure on eBay.
Unlock your Media
“DRM Free” isn’t just a political statement, it’s a real consumer benefit. These files are compatible with virtually everything, any PC, Windows, Linux or Mac, and virtually any handheld, from iPods and iPhones to Sony PSPs and smartphones of all flavors. Support the Unlocked Media mark!
Santa Bot
This from Marc Andreesen‘s blog:
“Microsoft recently brought into the world an online “Santa bot” —
an interactive chat program for kids. The idea was that you would add
“northpole@live.com” to your kid’s MSN Messenger and your kid could
talk to Santa Clause online. Sounds like fun.
Thanks to The Register, let’s roll the chat room transcript:
User says: Pizza
Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, User?
User says: Maybe you shouldn’t eat so much! You are quite large!
Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, User?
User says: Maybe you shouldn’t eat it?
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
User says: Eat it
Santa says: No thank you. I don’t eat things!
User says: Eat it
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
User says: Eat it
Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else…
I think I need to go take a shower.
Sadly, right after The Register broke the story, Microsoft killed Santa bot.”