This one was too fun not to pass along. I love web-based geography games.
This is a Flash game called “StateTris”… it’s Tetris with the 48 continental United States.
The controls took a little getting used to, but I managed to finish the medium level in under 8 minutes. Not a great score, but not bad for a combination of spatial recognition of the states, and a bit of fancy fingerwork for the complicated shapes… 🙂
Try StateTris yourself! Let me know what your score is.
Just one more day until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is out. The original post on the book is still this blog’s most viewed page, and is soaring in page views daily.
I’ve had my pre-order in with Amazon for over three months… and yet I am still considering going down to Borders at midnight on Friday. Yes, it’s a sickness.
The net is full of leaked pages, scanned images, quotes and comments.
Repeat after me:
“I will not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Spoilers…”
🙂
Update (7/21/2007): Still waiting for the mail man with my Amazon order… so … hard … to …. resist … Wikpedia summary …
Update (7/21/2007): Got the special edition in the mail just a half-hour after the last update. About 150 pages into the book …
There was an interesting post yesterday by Don Dodge on the recent financing for Ning.
Marc Andreessen’s Ning raises $44M – Social Network on a Freemium business model
Wow. $44M is a lot of money, and a $214M post-money is a lot for a company at the stage Ning is at financially. Not sure what the end game would be to justify it, unless they either see a multi-billion dollar company on the horizon of 3-5 years, or a quick flip for $500-750M in 2008.
This is one of the areas of Web 2.0, however, that eBay should be a part of. eBay, after all, was built on community. Not just one community, but thousands – coin collectors, auto parts dealers, book sellers.
When I look at Ning, I see a product that eBay should have built – a single profile for a user (much more Web 2.0 savvy and current than the current eBay My World product), and the ability for users to create and join as many groups as they want, with full social networking features. Rather than Google Adwords, the free groups could easily be featuring actually product & item recommendations. The natural search indexing benefits of the groups would be excellent. eBay could build features to help members share searches, classify products, highlight Stores, and make vibrant mini-communities on the eBay/Ning platform.
A couple of years ago, eBay tried to update it’s incredibly dated eBay Forums with the new eBay Groups product. But compare that effort to Ning, and I think you’ll see why I believe that eBay should be courting the Ning team actively. Ironically, the eBay Alumni network is on Ning already.
If the price is too high now, maybe there is a way for eBay to just do a deal to bring Ning functionality to its members, and merge the Ning profile with My World.
Try it out for yourself, and I think you’ll see. The combination of the eBay member base and the functionality of Ning could easily 10x the number of social networks on Ning, and bring the number of users into the tens of millions. The eBay community has always wanted to form social networks… they’ve just lacked modern tools to do so. eBay & Ning could reach a scale together on a time table that wouldn’t be possible independently.
Please note: In the interest of full disclosure, I do have some good friends at Ning. And I do have some good friends at eBay. So, while I’m not a truly disinterested party, I have no financial stake in Ning. I am a current shareholder of eBay.
Don’t say they didn’t warn you!
2007 American Eagle Platinum Proof and Uncirculated Coins Available July 17
From the press release:
Pricing and mintages of the 2007 American Eagle Platinum Proof and Platinum Coins are listed below:
Coin Price
Maximum Mintage
Product Limit
Proof one ounce $1,599.95
16,000
6,000
Proof Half-Ounce $809.95
15,000
5,000
Proof Quarter-Ounce $439.95
15,000
5,000
Proof Tenth-Ounce $229.95
20,000
10,000
Proof Four-Coin Set $2,949.95
N/A
10,000
Uncirculated One Ounce $1,489.95
N/A
N/A
Uncirculated Half-Ounce $759.95
N/A
N/A
Uncirculated Quarter-Ounce $399.95
N/A
N/A
Uncirculated Tenth-Ounce $189.95
N/A
N/A
Uncirculated Four-Coin Set 2,769.95
N/A
N/A
Note: Maximum mintages reflect the total number of individual product options and the coins included in the four-coin sets.
Orders for the platinum proof coins should be submitted early, as mintages are limited. There is no mintage limit for the platinum uncirculated coins. Household limits have not been set for these options. Additionally, the United States Mint reserves the right to limit quantities and may discontinue accepting orders at any time.
Wow. And you thought the First Spouse gold coins were expensive. $3000 for the proof set, and now there is an uncirculated version for collectors as well.
I don’t know what to make of the very low mintage. On the one hand, a low mintage usually means a good solid path to appreciation and rarity. On the other hand, how many people are really collecting the Platinum eagles? There has to be a diminishing return on pricing of coins. It’s the same issue I have with the First Spouse coins… how many people are really going to shell out $16,000 to own the whole set? And how much can it appreciate from there, since that’s just the up front cost?
In any case, don’t whine if you want these coins and you’re not there at 12pm to place your order. It’s as easy as going to:
Happy hunting.
P.S. If you happen to pick up an extra 4-coin proof set, feel free to send it my way.
Just a quick pointer to my new post over on LinkedIn’s blog:
5 Tips on How to Search LinkedIn Like a Pro
For regular readers of my blog, you may find some of the concepts familar, as I used the same approach to help people earlier this year learn how to search eBay like a pro.
In both cases, similar concepts can help you use the search engines much more effectively. And although different sites use different search technology, once you learn these types of tricks with one, it is fairly easy to learn to apply them to another.
LinkedIn is a great search engine for people. Check out this earlier post where I compare LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Google for people search. Something to think about the next time you are looking to learn a little bit more about someone you know (or someone you don’t).
Enjoy, and let me know if you have any particular tips about using LinkedIn search!
Tough choices tonight on the personal finance front.
I recently rolled over my 401k from eBay into an IRA. As a result, I now have the ability to better balance out my retirement portfolio across different asset classes.
In a previous post here, I discussed the launch of the first international REIT index ETF, the SPDR DJ Wilshire International Real Estate ETF (RWX).
Of course, in the months since then, a new fund has launched, provided by WisdomTree, the WisdomTree International Real Estate Fund (DRW).
The question is, which to choose?
Let’s assume first, for the purpose of this article, that we’re not going to debate whether or not now is the time to invest in real estate, international real estate, or whether ETFs are the right vehicle. Another time, another post. For tonight, the question is between these two funds.
Normally, picking ETF funds that track the same index is trivial – go with the one with lower expenses, unless the fund has a history of failing to track the index accurately.
However, when ETFs follow different indeces to track the same asset class, it gets a bit more complicated. In this case, there is a fairly radical difference in the two indeces that form the basis of these two funds.
I found this excellent table outlining the historical performance of the two on this Seeking Alpha post:
The first place anyone starts when comparing ETFs is performance, and here, it’s a mixed bag. For the 10 years ending March 31, 2007, the performance differential for the underlying indexes looks like this.
It’s worth noting that these returns are backtested, and do not reflect fees for the ETFs. But because the two ETFs have similar fees – 0.60% for RWX and 0.58% for DRW – the real-time returns should have been similar.
Mixed… DRW has lagged in the past 5 years, but is significantly higher over 10 years. Of course, this is backtested theory – neither fund existed that long.
In terms of the philosophy of the two funds, the question really outlines how truly you hold to indexing ideals versus value-philosophy in your investing. The SPDR is market-cap weighted, like the S&P 500 or the Wilshire 5000. The biggest percentage of the fund goes to the stock with the highest market cap. The WisdomTree fund is dividend-weighted. The biggest percentage of the fund goes to the stock with the highest dividend.
Personally, I’m normally biased towards simple, market-weighted indeces for the US market. However, deep down, I’m a value investor at heart, and the concept of dividend weighting, particularly in foreign markets where security enforcement may vary, is fairly appealing to me, especially in a dividend-focused asset class like real estate.
As another nod to DRW, the WisdomTree fund has both REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) and REOCs (Real Estate Operating Companies) in it. Not all countries have the REIT structure, which originated in the US. As a result, DRW also has far more stocks (224) in it than RWX (154).
I found a lot of good articles comparing these two:
In the end, I was very close to just splitting my cash between the two funds. That might actually be the right answer if you have sufficient assets. However, I decided that since the real estate market has been anything but value oriented for the past five years, my bias is towards the WisdomTree approach for this asset class.
If you are interested in these funds, I suggest you read all the above material yourself. Post here if you reach a different conclusion – I’m interested to know why.
P.S. In case you are curious, I went with a straight, market-weighted index (Vanguard REIT Index ETF, VNQ) for the US REIT portion of the portfolio.
As usual, 100% rumor, but worth passing on just because the quest for a reasonably priced, HD Tivo is worth the time and the text.
Very inexpensive case, likely due to the fact that this is a demo unit. Hard to believe these would be the final designs. Sounds like some enhancement to the CableCard support, including a multi-stream card slot (on-demand?)
This is a demo unit we have been provided so the actual units they put into retail may differ (they haven’t said one way or another) but for their sake, I certainly hope the actual units look better than this. I personally have a current S3 box at home and can say that this unit is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper looking and is lighter in overall weight (feels substantially so for some reason). Just my first impressions though&mdas;haven’t fired this unit up yet to see what other differences might be. The remote that came with it is also ‘cheap’—is lighter and not as good looking as the original shiny unit that comes with the current S3. As you can see the cable card slots have been moved up front and one slot supports the new m-card while the other supports only the traditional s-card.
From Gizmodo.
Yes, I know Tab is not Diet Coke.
Tab is a drink that I don’t even remember… after all, I was all of 7 years old when Diet Coke came out and crushed Tab into the pavement. Tab was the 70s, Diet Coke was the 80s, and lets be honest, you’d rather have the 80s ten times than the 70s even once. Tab was saccherine, Diet Coke was Nutrasweet. A triumph of technology and taste.
So it’s a little weird, but the truth is that I have a soft spot in my heart for the Tab brand. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s the hot pink can. Maybe it’s the cool pseudo-high-tech, Star Wars font for the logo. Don’t know.
When I heard that Coke was going to revive the brand, I was intrigued. An energy drink made sense to me – why not turn Tab into a low-calorie, high-caffeine brand, like Jolt cola but with style, finesse, and no calories.
I hadn’t seen it anywhere, and I can’t confess to looking that hard. But when I was buying ice for my 4th of July BBQ, I bought a couple at the local Albertsons.
The good news? I liked it. Oh sure, as a guy, you have to get over the pink. The can is hot pink and slender. The drink itself is pink. It might as well be called “Barbie Energy” for the masculinity it eminates. Check out the corporate website… safe to say, it doesn’t speak to me.
But it tastes good. Something like Strawberry/Watermelon. And it has a kick. If you’ve ever tried any of the diet energy drinks, they are absolutely foul. I tried Diet Red Bull at the eBay Leadership conference in December, and I literally almost threw up. But Tab Energy is really drinkable…
Unfortunately, I can read the tea leaves, and my guess is that it isn’t doing well. It’s not stocked in many places, and the price is high. The marketing campaign for it has been terrible – so ultra feminine and pseudo-urban, it feels like they were trying to make it a fashion accessory instead of a drink. Oh well. If Coke can drop Diet Vanilla Coke, the best Diet Coke ever, they can easily lose Tab Energy.
Too bad really, because I could easily see making this my energy drink. Super low calorie, tastes great, good kick. I’d happily give up the Diet Mountain Dew for it, and pay more in the process.
Go try it while you have the chance. 🙂
On Tuesday night, I did something I haven’t done since high school. I stayed up to see a midnight premiere of a movie at Century 16 on Shoreline. In fact, the last time I did this, it was Century 10 on Shoreline, because they hadn’t added on the last 6 theaters yet.
I wasn’t planning on it, but I was offered free tickets by my Mom, a Harry Potter fan, and I couldn’t let her stay up that late and wait out in the cold. So, after arriving at the theater at 10:30pm, and getting into the theater at 11:15pm, watching trailers start at 12:15am, at 12:35am, we began watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Overall rating: B+. It was a good movie, and I’m fairly sure I will watch it several more times when it comes out on cable and DVD.
In fact, the only problem with the movie really is the problem with the last two Harry Potter movies… the books have become so large that there is no reasonable way to capture them in a 2-hour movie. I feel like they keep getting trapped in the middle: too long and with too little context for a viewer who hasn’t read the books, but too short and with too little detail for someone who has.
I really wish they would learn from the Lord of the Rings success, and make an extended 4-hour version of the movie, mini-series length, for DVD. Tens of millions of Harry Potter fans would buy it, and it would be a better movie to stand the test of time 10 or 20 years from now.
In any case, it was worth seeing, and I’m glad I’ve re-read the fifth and sixth books in the series. I’m all fresh and ready for the infamous Book 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due to arrive in less than 10 days.
It has been a long while since I reviewed any high tech device on this blog, but I am so delighted with my new Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ that I had to post about it.
The Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ is one of the new generation of simple, easy-to-setup storage servers available for home and home office use. Although individual hard drives are getting cheaper every day (I regularly see 500GB drives for $99 on NewEgg now), storage of large media files (like video and DVDs) are outstripping even the biggest drives.
The Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ is a really interesting solution. For about $600 you get an shiny, empty case, about the size of two large Harry Potter hardcover books. The case has a plug for power, 3 USB ports, and a single Gigabit ethernet port. The little server has a cute little LCD, hidden behind a mirror, which displays status in plain English. The case has room for up to four SATA hard drives, although it will function with only one if needed. However, the magic really starts when you install multiple drives.
You see, the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ is actually a little genius of a server. It is built to magically turn multiple hard drives into a single, large volume, with professional-class protection from data loss, and the ability to be accessed from anywhere on the network, by any Mac, PC or Unix machine. For techies out there, the device seamless handles RAID 0, 1, 5 and “RAID X” configurations. By default, the machine comes configured for RAID X. More on RAID X in a second.
The Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ offers the amazing feature of data protection. If any one of the hard drives crash, you won’t lose one byte. In fact, you can just pop out the drive, insert a new one, and voila, everything is back to normal. Fantastic for anyone who has dealt with the struggles of trying to back up hundreds of gigabytes of data.
Even better, the “RAID X” virtualization software in the ReadyNAS allows you to start out with as few as two drives, and still have complete data protection. When you run out of space, you can just add a third drive, and voila, more storage!
This data protection costs you in terms of GB… one drive is utilized completely for protection. So if you have just two drives, you only get access to a single drive worth of storage. However, drives are cheap, and losing data isn’t, so these days it is worth.
I have had two major hard drive crashes in the past two years – each one was almost tragic. The first cost me about 5% of my photo library – that may not sound like much, but it meant whole event albums were lost… (sorry, Rebecca, your prom photos are gone). The second cost me about 1/3 of my music library, leading to many hours of re-ripping CDs.
Those events led me to the conclusion that it was worth spending the extra dollars on more robust storage. Now that we have multiple computers in the house, and devices like the AppleTV, it makes more sense than ever to have cheap, reliable, massive network storage.
The Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ has a lot of professional-class features. The OS is on flash, and is thus protected from any drive failure. The LED gives great status, and the device has a lot of file-server configuration tools on it’s web based administration. You can even plug an addition USB drive into the device to automatically backup the ReadyNAS! The NV+ is quieter, and has improved technology for compatibility and speed with Mac OS-based machines. It supports full duplex Gigabit ethernet with large frames, making it as fast as possible for network storage.
I configured my device with 2 750GB Seagate 7200.10 drives, each with 16MB cache. Over my Gigabit network (I’m using a NetGear 8-port 1000/100/10 Switch), I am seeing speeds of about 500MB per minute, but the ReadyNAS hasn’t finished synching yet, so I expect speeds may improve a bit. At this speed, I can do an incremental 1-4GB backup easily in minutes.
The machine is relatively silent, louder than a Tivo though, quieter than a PC. It’s small, and I’ve actually installed it not next to my computer like a hard drive, but on a shelf near my ethernet switch.
When I mount the drive, I see the shares on my PowerMac G5 just like any other server, with 666GB of storage available. (Yes, weird how the 750GB drives come out that way… just an artifact of the fact that hard drive manufacturers continue to label their hard drive sizes incorrectly, pretending that 1 Kilobyte is 1000 bytes instead of 1024.) I paid a lot more for the 750GB drives – about $200 each vs. $100 for the 500GB versions. Still, this gives me room for an additional 1.5 TB of storage over time, and I really think I’m going to need the space. At this point, my backup needs about 300GB, and I have 60GB of photos, 100GB of iTunes music & video, and 400GB of ripped DVDs… and that’s just right now!
Anyway, I love the device, despite the cost. There are cheaper boxes out there, but this server lets me start with the storage I need, and painlessly expand over time. I also considered the Drobo, which is about $200 cheaper, and connects via USB 2.0. The Drobo has an even better trick with storage – it will let you use drives of different sizes! Use 2 500GB drives today, and add 2 1TB drives in a year when those are available. Still, in the end, I wasn’t comfortable with a drive that had to depend on a computer to be used by other machines – I like betting on the future of Gigabit ethernet more than on USB 2.0.
You could always buy a cheap PC, get a RAID 5 card, and try to build this yourself… but when I priced it out, it was hard for me to save much money, and the time & quality of the end result was just not compelling. I was able to install the 2 drives and set up the ReadyNAS in less than 45 minutes. It would have been faster, but I of course insist on tweaking the security and network settings.
Anyway, I can’t say enough good things about the ReadyNAS NV+. It took a bit of work and confidence to get the drives to slide in properly, but it really is a great product.
It sounds so much more official that way… much better than, “My mom posted on the LinkedIn blog today…”
Either version is true – today’s post on the LinkedIn corporate blog is from my mother, Dr. Sharon Nash, Ph.D. After my initial post on the corporate blog, I was surprised at how many people sent in comments about the fact that my mother was on LinkedIn. Since she is a relatively new user to the site, and a professional expert on relationships and people, we thought it would be an interesting user story to tell.
Considering that it is her first blog post ever, I think she did quite well. In fact, I think the bigger dilemma for her was picking the right picture to use. 🙂
The fact that my mother has enjoyed LinkedIn so much that she has recommended it to over 85 (and counting) colleagues and friends is incredibly validating. I spent four years at eBay trying to break her of the typical e-commerce habit, and never succeeded. Not even eBay Express, I’m afraid.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that the opportunity for LinkedIn goes far beyond the site as it stands today. There is a very real human interest in connecting with your trusted colleagues and friends in a professional environment. We have only scratched the surface of the interesting and useful applications for professionals built over this platform. Right now, most software and web applications are still based around a model that assumes that data & information are the basis for getting things done. However, in the real world, most problems are solved by referral and advice from the people that you trust & respect. LinkedIn enables exactly that type of model, and that makes me incredibly optimistic about the future for the site and the platform.
Or if you don’t believe me, ask my Mom. 🙂
One of the great things about working for eBay was the support of the legal team for the creation and filing of patents. Over the course of my four years at eBay, I filed several patent applications, starting with my first in last 2004.
When I was growing up, I used to always hear about the patents filed by my grandfather (in the food business). They were always a symbol of success, intelligence and pride in my family.
What patent is this, you might ask? Well, with great thanks to Google for their new, searchable patent database, I have now for the first time had a chance to read it for myself. It is patent #3108882, dated January 29, 1963, and is titled “Method of Preparing an Edible Fish Product“. To translate from the legalese: it is the method of preparing & packing gefilte fish in glass jars with jelly. Yes, you now know where that came from.
I know there are significant problems with the patent system as it stands today, particularly around software. However, I can’t help feeling proud of the patents that I worked on at eBay, and grateful for their support shepherding them through the legal hurdles.
Patent applications only display on the US Patent Office website 18 months after the application is filed, so right now only two of the applications are showing up. The rest will likely become visible over the next year or so.
Here is the link to my patent applications on the USPTO website. Note the most recent one to show up, for “seller and item filters”, the backbone of the eBay Express website.
Sorry, I know I’m just providing blog-chamber echo here, but I had to post.
I had read a while ago about the video, “Valleyfreude” that was made by Randi Jayne, sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Every article about it highlighted the line:
“F*ck you Yahoo, they’re going IPO”
Given the recent buzz around Facebook, it wasn’t surprising to have this kind of unpredictible tidbit pop up everywhere. However, I was a bit surprised and disappointed to find out that the video has been taken down from most sites.
Valleywag still has it here. Enjoy. It is worth watching. Click it now before it’s gone! 🙂
I was surprised to find out that Mark’s little sister seems to have also created video hits like, “How to Get a Guy in Silicon Valley“.
I’m at a loss for words.
In a bizarre twist, I have been given tickets to the opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Tuesday night, midnight, July 10th.
I don’t think I’ve seen a movie this late since I became a father, but I’m going to try.
I’ll post here a movie review on Wednesday.
Should be fun.
It was announced fairly quietly on Monday, but if you didn’t hear, eBay launched Kijiji in the US this week.
Click here to go to the site, now live in over 200 cities across the country.
It has been interesting to read the reactions and articles on the launch. It seems like the consensus is that while this is a smart move for eBay, as the online classifieds business continues to grow in potential, most people feel like Craigslist has nothing to fear.
Henry Blodget wrote on his blog the following:
Second, Craigslist is run by socialists who appear to have no interest in turning it into a real business. This means Craigslist is likely to be free or near-free in perpetuity. And this, in turn, means that if eBay ever tries to make Kijiji US a real business, the few buyers and sellers who ARE using Kijiji will probably laugh all the way to Craigslist.
Sorry, Henry. Kijiji has been quite successful for eBay outside the US, and that is without ever charging fees for listings except in very specific categories. (Craigslist, for example, does charge to post job listings).
What eBay does have on its hands is a platform that was designed to easily scale, to roll out new categories and cities across the world almost effortlessly, and one that was designed to be profitable. They have iterated on the model in global markets where classifieds are far more competitive with e-commerce than in the US, and they are now bringing those lessons to the US.
The eBay position described here, in this article, sounds about right:
Kijiji, a site eBay has operated overseas for two years, is now available in about 220 cities across the United States, spokesman Hani Durzy, said Tuesday.
“We’re targeting young people and young families looking for bargains locally,” Durzy said. “For now it’s a free service and our focus is on building the user experience…”
“I think Craigslist has been an incredible success but we think there is market for more players,” Durzy said.
Don Dodge seems to think that Craigslist has a secret-sauce, built around not running Classifieds like a business. It’s possible, but it’s also possible that Craig Newmark is quite happy running effectively a large lifestyle business, where he has a lot of influence, plenty of income, and complete control over his dominion.
eBay has challenges here, no doubt. There are network effects around the classifieds business, to be sure. It’s not like Kijiji in the Bay Area is going to be able to displace Craigslist.
However, where some people see strength in Craig Newmark’s resistance to profit-motive, I see a potential weakness.
Theoretically, eBay will push to innovate on the revenue model for classifieds more aggressively than Craigslist. Google innovated on their natural search business, and gave birth to a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s possible that the craigslist team is missing out on significant opportunity, largely because they aren’t interested in anything more than slight profitability.
It’s also likely that eBay will reinvest those dollars into continued enhancement of the Kijiji experience and business. For example, Kijiji will likely launch in far more cities than Craigslist. Since the network effects are local, Kijiji in a new city should have an outstanding chance at blocking others from expanding. eBay will likely also have more dollars to invest into real problems like Trust & Safety around classified ads.
Craiglist has been a phenomenal success, largely because it creates amazing value for its users. One weekend, as an experiment, I posted a Craiglist ad for two oak dressers and a table on Saturday night. I asked for $400, and that the buyers pick up the furniture no later than Sunday night.
By Sunday at 5pm, I had $400 cash in my wallet, and 3 buyers had come to pick up the furniture and take it away. Amazing.
The online classifieds business is for real, and despite the natural worries about cannibalization, it’s good to see eBay moving on this opportunity.
I guess I’m playing devil’s advocate here by saying that Kijiji could be a real business for eBay in the US, and more importantly, it could be real competition for Craigslist if they aren’t on their game. Of course, this will only work for eBay if they aggressively invest their profits from the business back into the business, to keep pushing the bar higher for the online classifieds experience.
Psychohistory 