September 2007
The Archives
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09.28.07Fanboys driving stock pricesEver wonder how to own a company and your customers? Study Apple. Namely how they can manage to alienate their doubly-valuable customers, those influential early adopters that buy the latest-and-greatest -- full price and all -- then sell the lifestyle around the world and on the Internet, yet still have them buy and buy. Howard Lindzon provides the professional analysis: I would short it fo [sic] a trade, but the way it’s going with Apple, people will go to the store to get their phone fixed and buy 2 laptops. The stock will go up $5 instead of down $5.
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09.28.07Soical Security by age 18Greg Mankiw asks the obvious of Hillary Clinton's campaign proposal for a $5000 bond for every new-born American: How might this be funded? There are only three groups that could be asked to pay for the new entitlement with higher taxes (or lower benefits): the current elderly, those currently of working age, or the same future generations who are getting the new benefit and are slated to pay for existing unfunded entitlements. Which group do you think Senator Clinton has in mind? This is a seriously lame attempt for the lower-class vote. Honestly a horrible idea, would never work, would crash ...
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09.27.07Why companies change product packagingThe obvious reason is to increase sales. The surprising thing is how large the sales jump is for goods such as groceries. Jim Donald, CEO of Starbucks, explains why the company changed the packaging (read: as in printed a different design on the bag) of their whole bean offerings after stagnant sales in 2005: "It just creates awareness that wasn't there before," he said. "we used to say when you changed packaging, particularly private-label packaging, that you'd see a 10 to 15 percent spike just off the packaging change," and the bump would last for about six months. p186, Grande Expectations That ...
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09.26.07Winnie-the-Pooh bearish?I found this metaphor unexpected -- given the book -- but apt none-the-less: By nature, short sellers are an odd lot. Given their investment bent, they tend to see the world as permanently out of whack and in need of adjustment. In a stock market full of Winni-the-Pooh optimists, they are the Eeyores. p112, Grande Expectations
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09.26.07Bringing women downIn the early 1970's American women reported higher levels of happiness than their male counterparts. Today, the relative positions have switched. Why? Recent research provives more proof for the effects of the so-called second shift. Money quote: A big reason that women reported being happier three decades ago — despite far more discrimination — is probably that they had narrower ambitions... Many compared themselves only to other women, rather than to men as well. [Emphasis mine] In other words, women wanted what men had. Namely, it seems, broad competition, visible ceilings, and less personal time; or put simply, ...
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09.24.07xkcd linkbaitI've been a xkcd fan for a while. It's a web comic that typically takes a mathematical- or science- minded slant on humor. Today's comic applies to a more general juvenile audience: Another gem: Well captured sentiments on geek-dating: Seriously though, subscribe or be old fashioned and asynchronous.
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09.17.07NY Times late to the game?I love question at the end of Jason Kottke's mention that paid content is over with at the NY Times. What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. How did that change not happen for the Times when it happened to the entire rest of the web 3-4 years ago?
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09.09.07Why we have those American Idol audition outtakesFrom The Black Swan: We humans are the victims of an asymmetry in the perception of random events. We attribute our successes to our skills, and our failures to external events outside of our control, namely to randomness. We feel responsible for the good stuff, but not for the bad. This causes us to think that we are better than others at whatever we do for a living. Ninety-four percent of Swedes believe their driving skills put them in the top 50 percent of Swedish drivers; 84 percent of Frenchmen feel that their lovemaking abilities put them in the ...
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