Another good identity theft provention link:
Identity Theft Resource Center
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Monthly Archives: December 2003
Books: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Books: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando DeSoto
This book details why capitalism has not worked in many countries outside the west and what can be done to remedy that. According to DeSoto, it basically comes down to property rights, understanding the constructs behind property, and developing systems for buying and selling property and entitling those that own it.
the book is extremely compelling — though its 228 pages could probably be distilled to 22 pages in a succinct essay. Even with that, the book is a fast read and essential to understanding the financial conditions of the third world.
Summation: read this book.
Federal Trade Commission – Your National Resource for ID Theft
Good link for people worried about ID theft:
Federal Trade Commission – Your National Resource for ID Theft
How are social networks sites doing?
Alexa gives us a quick barometer of the where the social networks sites are in the relation to the rest of the web.
As of December 10, 2003, we see:
Consumer-Oriented Social Networks:
Craigslist – 114 (ranking of overall trafficked site on the Internet)
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=craigslist.orgEmode/Tickle — 149
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=emode.comFriendster — 157
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=friendster.comHotOrNot — 381
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=hotornot.comTribe — 7,216
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=tribe.net
Business-Oriented Social Networks:
Plaxo — 3,087
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=plaxo.comSpoke — 25,190
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=spoke.comGoodContacts — 45,810
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=goodcontacts.comZeroDegrees — 92,122
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=zerodegrees.comLinkedIn — 146,747
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=linkedin.com
Overall — this is a really impressive showing …. by contrast, Summation is over 1,000,000 — so we are not even on the map:(
I’m very surprised Spoke has more traffic than GoodContacts — which has been around for a very long time.
Being Single in Big Cities
things are getting worse for single women. this is an interesting blurb put out by the Economist:
Bowling alone
New York has more single people than any other state, with most of them living in the city, according to a report released in October by the US Census Bureau. The city’s five boroughs boast some 2.4m people who have never walked down the aisle. And the New York metropolitan area ranks fifth in the country for its number of young singles with degrees. San Francisco has lured the most young college graduates.
The report, Marital Status: 2000, also finds that half of the state’s adult population is either widowed, divorced or has never been married. But there are only 79 single men for every 100 unmarried women. For better odds, bachelorettes should look to Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb, where unmarried men outnumber unmarried women 118 to 100.
Why it’s time to rein in ICANN | Sonia Arrison
Sonia Arrison, one of the Internet’s foremost thinkers, writes an article in CNET on Why it’s time to rein in ICANN
Cumulative effects of soccer heading are not fully known
For those of us that regularly play soccer — this article was forwarded to me by sometimes teammate (but sometimes adversary) Jeff Belkora:
Books: Leading With Laughter
Books: Leading With Laughter by Malcolm Kushner is a compilation of jokes made by presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41.
it is an instructive book on tape that gives one a sense of the power of humor.
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
If you haven’t yet seen the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, check it out. this one chronicles BridgePath from its inception through 2002.
Others:
* Old Summations
* Ye older versions of the Internet Herald (a web zine i used to run back in 1996)
this site … actually … is pretty scarry ….
Barry Nalebuff and Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small
I had an opportunity to meet Barry Nalebuff at a conference last weekend. Besides being the co-author of Co-Opetition (one of my favorite books), he runs a site called Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small.
the WhyNot site is an open-source idea mart for new ideas. Some examples:
Two way horn
Why not make all car horns just as loud inside the car as they are outside? This would quickly eliminate 99% of all unnecessary honking and improve just about everybody’s quality of life. This is one I can’t take credit for, as it was my friend’s idea. But I think it is one that bears repeating.— dug4000, Dec 2 2003
News ticker during commercials
Some cable news stations have a news ticker going across the bottom of the screen at all times. This is a brilliant idea, since it gives people a reason to look at the screen even if they find the current news item to be boring. For some reason though, they don’t show the news ticker during commercials. If anything, people are more likely to look away from the screen or change the channel during the commercials. They would retain more viewers during their commercials (which would be great for their advertising rates) if they not only show the ticker during commercials, but actually increase the number of items on the ticker then, so that some bits of news will only be shown on the ticker during commercial breaks.— Curious Cat, Nov 27 2003
it is full of really interesting and ideas that make you want to ask “Why Not?”
Books: Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
Mark Bowden does it again. In Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, he captures all points of view — from the Army Ranger to the White House to the Somali civilian, to the warlord.
Like his book Killing Pablo, Bowden tells a complex story in an absolutely riveting manner. I listened to this book on tape and it was the same very talented reader as the guy who did Killing Pablo.
I highly recommend this book.
SBC lacks customer service
My DSL service was down on Tuesday night, Nov 25. i tried to see if it was my local machine but i determined that it was SBC’s error and i called SBC.
first, i was on hold for exactly 49 minutes! when you are on hold with SBC, they only tell you that you are on hold for “more than 5 minutes”. well, every few minutes i get a message telling me that it will be “over 5 minutes” until someone talks to me.
then, i finally get a customer service person. i ask him if the internet is down in my area. he says no. i said — “are you sure?” he said, “i have not heard anything.” i said “can you check?” but then he disregarded my questions and proceeded to ask me to reboot my machine a bunch of times and reboot the DSL modem (all of which, i explained, i did in that 49 minutes while i was on hold).
i finally convince him that it is not my machine but it is SBC. then … he finally checks the Internet service … and … to his surprise … the Internet is down in my area … and … of course, he had no idea when it will be up again (turned out is was down for many hours).
this makes me want to shop around for a different DSL provider.
suggestion for SBC:
if the Internet is going down and you know about it, inform your customers so that they can plan something else non-internet related
if it goes down unexpectedly, you should inform customer service immediately. instead of me being on hold for 49 minutes and then dealing with a disbelieving customer service agent for another 14 minutes, all one has to do is recognize my number when i call and play a message “we recognize your phone number and we have determined that the Internet is down for you and we estimate it will be back up at 11:30 pm Pacific Time.” that … would solve everything …
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2006 update:
i’m encouraging people to rate AT&T / SBC on Rapleaf.
rate AT&T at:
http://www.rapleaf.com/profile/Z7HlwtOO
this rates “support@sbcglobal.net”
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